Jon Osborne's Blog

Repeating: good advice

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (Chicago, if you must know) my manager at the time told me that when I left a phone message I should always repeat my phone number twice, and slowly, at the end of the message. That was good advice.

I cannot tell you, because I have not counted precisely, how many times I have received messages at the end of which the caller rushes through their phone... More

1347: the year contingent labor was born?

In 1347, plague swept across Europe, killing somewhere between a third to a half of the population.  In its wake, it left a labor shortage of unprecedented proportion.

Landlords still had plenty of land, but now they had to compete with each other for labor.  Wages went through the roof, the terms of employment gradually began to liberalize and then the unthinkable happened: "In... More