View time: 2 min 15
Level : Advanced
Month: January 2023
Unicorn Sports Tech Company Imposes $1,200 Fine for Disturbing Coworkers on Vacation
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Advanced
By Bobby Kania
The founders of Indian unicorn startup Dream Sports have a revolutionary vacation policy.
First reported by CNBC, the company’s unusual approach to employee morale has the business world reeling.
No, it’s not unlimited vacation days or a company-paid trip. Instead, the company removes the vacationing employee from its systems for an entire week and fines anyone who attempts to interrupt their holiday $1,200, allowing employees to fully “unplug.” No email, Slack, phone calls, etc.
The co-founders say the policy “has been effective so far.” The 1-week separation helps employees to stay disconnected and have an uninterrupted holiday. Employees come back refreshed from their week’s vacation, and the founders know if the company depends too much on one person for making decisions or is missing critical process documentation. Continue reading
Spotify latest tech name to cut jobs, axes 6% of workforce
Read time : 2 mins
Level : Intermediate
By KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer
LONDON (AP) — Music streaming service Spotify said Monday it’s cutting 6% of its global workforce, or about 600 jobs, becoming yet another tech company forced to rethink its pandemic-era expansion as the economic outlook weakens.
CEO Daniel Ek announced the restructuring in a message to employees that was also posted online.
As part of the revamp involving a management reshuffle, “and to bring our costs more in line, we’ve made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce our number of employees,” Ek wrote.
Big tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google announced tens of thousands of job cuts this month as the economic boom that the industry rode during the COVID-19 pandemic waned. Continue reading
Is tipping out of control? Many consumers say yes
View time : 1 min 50
Level : Intermediate
The AP Interview: Debt standoff risks ‘calamity’
View time: 3 min 07
Level : Advanced
Obnoxiously loud car? A traffic camera might be listening
Read time : 4 mins
Level : Advanced
By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — After the relative quiet of the pandemic, New York City has come roaring back. Just listen: Jackhammers. Honking cars and trucks. Rumbling subway trains. Sirens. Shouting.
Over the years, there have been numerous efforts to quiet the cacophony. One of the latest: traffic cameras equipped with sound meters capable of identifying souped-up cars and motorbikes emitting an illegal amount of street noise.
At least 71 drivers have gotten tickets so far for violating noise rules during a yearlong pilot program of the system. The city’s Department of Environmental Protection now has plans to expand the use of the roadside sound meters.
“Vehicles with illegally modified mufflers and tailpipes that emit extremely loud noise have been a growing problem in recent years,” said City Council member Erik Bottcher, who heralded the arrival of the radars to his district to help reduce “obnoxious” noise. Continue reading
New grocery store has items made from plastic bags
View time : 1 min 43
Level : Intermediate
As Davos opens, Oxfam urges windfall tax on food companies
Read time : 4 mins
Level : Intermediate
By KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer
LONDON (AP) — Food companies making big profits as inflation has surged should face windfall taxes to help cut global inequality, anti-poverty group Oxfam said Monday as the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting gets underway.
That’s one of the ideas in a report by Oxfam International, which has sought for a decade to highlight inequality at the conclave of political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.
The report, which aims to provoke discussions on panels featuring corporate and government leaders this week, said the world has been beset with simultaneous crises, including climate change, the surging cost of living, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, yet the world’s richest have gotten richer and corporate profits are surging.
Over the past two years, the world’s super-rich 1% have gained nearly twice as much wealth as the remaining 99% combined, Oxfam said. Meanwhile, at least 1.7 billion workers live in countries where inflation is outpacing their wage growth, even as billionaire fortunes are rising by $2.7 billion a day. Continue reading
Giant sculpture celebrates love between Martin Luther King and wife
View time: 2 min 06
Level : Advanced
As elites arrive in Davos, conspiracy theories thrive online
Read time : 4 mins
Level : Advanced
By SOPHIA TULP Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — When some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential figures gathered at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting last year, sessions on climate change drew high-level discussions on topics such as carbon financing and sustainable food systems.
But an entirely different narrative played out on the internet, where social media users claimed leaders wanted to force the population to eat insects instead of meat in the name of saving the environment.
The annual event in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos, which opens Monday, has increasingly become a target of bizarre claims from a growing chorus of commentators who believe the forum involves a group of elites manipulating global events for their own benefit. Experts say what was once a conspiracy theory found in the internet’s underbelly has now hit the mainstream. Continue reading