Temps - whether they just make copies, or install entire server networks - are paid hourly. They are usually not salaried positions, where working "40 hours" means working roughly between 39.5 hrs - 40.5 hours.

So to the company which hires the temps, 10 minutes a day = 50 minutes a week. That's nearly 4 hours a month of wage expenses the employer is losing because SleepyHead is not filling out his timesheets accurately.

Also, the LW does not indicate that he works later to make up for the time...or any willingness to do so. Such an act, while graciously, is probably viewed by the LW as caving in to all the "upright" people at his job...at least some of whom *gasp!* care about the work they are performing.

Many labs - private, academic, government - around the country and world are working to improve the energy efficiency of current 3rd-generation solar cells.

I think we need a one-time capital investment blowout - both by private (Gates & Buffett) captains of industry and by Congress - to implement a bold solar plan in the US Desert SouthWest.

Imagine - a billion dollars might get us solar panels all across sun-drenched Death Valley, etc....if we can pay for restructuring of the utility grids, enough Terawatts might be generated to give electricity to so many homes, factories, dams etc. in CA, NV, AZ and so on.

That first bold investment step is the issue, though...maybe we should start playing the Powerball? =)

I would really just like people to be able to live and enjoy life more and I do think people are being pushed too hard and that there is going to be a natural reaction to that."

Because having to sit in a temperature-controlled office in an ergonomic chair getting paid relatively filthy amounts of money (from a global perspective) to type on a computer (and, ummm, probably do some e-shopping on Amazon & friend emailing when the Boss is not looking....yup, the white-collar American employee is being pushed too hard.

Wah, wah, wah. I'm originally from a Third World banana republic - where grade school kids get more done on family farms, fishing boats etc. before 8 am than American workers get done all day.

Look, you hate the corporate world? Leave it. Go play your guitar or paint your canvas on a street corner - it's a free country.

But please, all of you, quit your bitching. No one held a gun to your head and said go work in an office.

And don't worry - there are a lot of industrious immigrants - from India, China, Eastern Europe etc. - who will gladly take your positions and their comfortable salaries in exchange for having to wake up before 11 am.

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Oh, and rosedead?

Who exactly gets to define what is "meaningful" work? You? The Committee for Hip Artsy Thoreau-approved jobs?

The world needs sewage workers. That's right, the world needs people who spend their productive time handling human shit.

The world needs garbage disposers....and it needs people to crunch and check bank numbers...and weld machine parts together...

In the happy happy joy joy world of the Unique Flowers (thanks, Chuck Palahniuk - you badass of brutal realists), we all earn living wages for doing only cool stuff, like beig a doctor or teacher or working at that indie vinyl shop in Uptown and spending your days talking about Tom Waits & Radiohead.

In real life, we need to eat...and a warm, safe place to sleep.

Maybe I'm bitter about past unemployment experiences, but the fact that the LW is shitting away his temp opportunity - while not simply resigning so that someone less whiny...sorry, I mean less "unique and special a flower"...can benefit from it, is fucking unconscionable.

Here's hoping all his apologists and would-be enablers on this thread taste long-term joblessness and its consequences at some point in their lives...I wonder what tune they will sing then about the eeeeeeevil, soul-castratin', etc etc corporate world.

So a $ billion only approx. = grid for 70, 000 homes?

Well, here's hoping economies of scale might eventually start helping out with solar cell fabrication, etc.

Akon was hot/hip/relevant, sure - back in 2006. =)

As for what is 'hot' now? I myself have no idea, being an old fogey pushin' 30. I think some boy band called the Jonas Brothers and some punk posers calling themselves Vampire Weekend are supposedly hot right now.

Good? Of course not. But hot, apparently.

I watched the Packers-Vikings game while washing & folding my clothes at the local laundromat; I live in Sioux Falls, which fancies itself as a Mini-Minneapolis and thus bleeds Vikings purple...which makes it not a fun town for a cheeshead like me...but I was definitely happy about the outcome, and about Rodger's first full game leading the offense.

And yet...I did also furtively keep track of the Jets-Dolphins score on Sunday - and I admittedly was pleased (relieved?) that Brett and his new gang pulled out the win.

****************

Ah well - at least da Jets are in the AFC. Yet while a Jets-Packers Superbowl is highly unlikely, from a brutal reality standpoint, just the mere possibility leaves me unsettled...what's a Pack fan and a #4 idolizer 2 do?

Seriously, people - the outrage displayed by my fellow liberals on this letter thread feeds into the stereotype of the Left being comprised on nilly-willy pansies who get offended by the slightest thing.

Michael Savage, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh smear progressive politicians and their supporters constantly and to a much worse extent than Gary's article.

And I would not doubt it if Freepers were passing around photoshopped pics of Obama as a house slave / Mr. Sambo minstrel show caricature within their circle for shits & giggles...

So please, everyone - unbunch your panties and allow yourself to have a laugh at the necon Jeebus fundie who judges other people for their choices...but lets her preggers teen daughter off the hook.