Executioner's song

On This American Life: "Host Ira Glass talks with a veteran Human Resources administrator about what it's like to fire people, and why it helps if you don't actually use the word 'fire.' "

(Click here to listen.)

Bright future

Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own

Alex Andon, 24, a graduate of Duke University in biology, was laid off from a biotech company last May. For months he sought new work. Then, frustrated with the hunt, he turned to jellyfish.

In an apartment he shares here with six roommates, Mr. Andon started a business in September building jellyfish aquariums, capitalizing on new technology that helps the fragile creatures survive in captivity.

“I keep getting stung,” he said.

—NYT

Who would you throw overboard?

From Driftwood Singers Presents:

They’re laying off a shit load of humans at the work place. We’re all meditating on our dispensability. It’s like corporate zen. People are playing the game of trying to figure out who will go first – pairs of peers congregate outside (the water cooler’s no longer safe, and, plus, they’ve stopped providing us with coffee, so there’s less of a reason to be there), whispering, some teary-eyed, some giddy from the whole facing-the-firing-squad-concentrates-the-mind effect. It’s like the opposite of fantasy sports leagues. Nightmare employment league. Who would you throw overboard? The rodent-like mind takes over, and the gnawing and clawing survival instinct starts to do shameful things. But I’m trying not to feast on carrion comfort. Like G. M. Hopkins says, “my chaff might fly.” It’s all in the wind.

(Click for original post and two songs.)

Suddenly this spring

Ed's piece "The Sudden Sharp Memory," about Robert Cormier's novel I Am the Cheese, will appear in Burn This Book (Harper Studio), edited by Toni Morrison, this May. Contributors include Paul Auster, Russell Banks, Nadine Gordimer, John Updike, and others.