This week I’ve begun what will be a two-week experiment testing a standing desk in my office.

What prompted this experiment were all the reports about how spending too much time sitting in a desk chair at work can actually take years off your life.

The American Cancer Society conducted a study and found:

“It’s not just how much physical activity you get, but how much time you spend sitting that can affect your risk of death. Researchers say time spent sitting was independently associated with total mortality, regardless of physical activity level.”

This freaked me out a bit because I can sit as much as 10 hours a day sometimes when I’ve got lots of work.

I called Dr. Alpa Patel, the author of the report, to find out if I’m headed for an early grave and she didn’t say no.

Here’s a video of my first day with my new friend, the KI standing desk (Did you know Donald Rumsfeld had a standing desk?:

My intern Julia Nollen and I will be chronicling my progress in blog posts and videos, and also looking at whether it’s realistic for typical office working stiffs to stand all day. We’ll also be looking at whether it’s realistic to expect employers to pony up the big bucks for these desks when most are reluctant to even make new hires.

OK, I got my vital signs–

Blood pressure: 128/70. This is on the high side for my but my friend Debbie the doctor said it was high because I wouldn’t shut up when she was taking my blood pressure.

Heart rate: 92. Again high for me but my friend and neighbor Vicki the nurse said it was probably high because I was running around before she came over to take it. I took it again via an app my hubby got me for my phone and it was 80.

Weight: 141. Not on the high side. I’m typically in the 138 to 142 range.

I will take these all again at the end of the two-week standing experiment to see if it made a difference.

Carly Fiorina, a candidate for Senate in California, doesn’t have to worry about taking time off for being sick because her years of service at Hewlett Packard left her a very rich woman. She was hospitalized Tuesday for an infection related to breast cancer surgery and is expected to return today to the campaign trail.

Kara Jorud, pictured here with her daughter, had worked at craft giant Michaels in Florida. But when she had a double mastectomy and tried to take some time off to recuperate she was fired as a result.

I share these stories with you to make a point about why it makes sense for people like Fiorina not to want “burdensome” regulations on employers that do things like provide paid time off and health care. (She got a $21 million severance package.) But people like Jorud want such government mandates to make sure they aren’t thrown aside like yesterday’s garbage.

This is not a Republican or Democratic point I’m trying to make. Few in either party have done a lot to support moves to provide paid time off to workers who need it to care for themselves or their family members. (more…)

By Julia Nollen

At just 3.5 x 2 inches in size, a proper business card functions as a pint-sized professional billboard for showcasing your skills.

But in this digital age do college kids need them, or are they just relics from our parents’ generation? (more…)

By Eve Tahmincioglu and Mikala Jamison

In the world of shock-and-shrill TV news you can come out swinging against an employer who fired you. For the rest of us in the real world, not so much.

Juan Williams, a former NPR analyst, was fired after he made remarks about Muslims, and he’s been engaged in a public campaign to show how wrong and biased his former employer was for giving him the boot.

I don’t blame him. The way they fired him, after a decade with NPR, was pretty crummy. An NPR vice president fired Williams over the phone, and then went on to disparage him publicly.

And I don’t blame anyone else when they’re pink-slipped in such cowardly ways.

Here’s a tweet I came across this morning by a woman who seems pretty angry at her former employer for letting her go:

I GOT MY LETTER FROM UNEMPLOYMENT!!!! I’m ELIGIBLE! I wonder how my balls taste in my old bosses mouth?

This is serious stuff, and her name and photo are attached to this tweet. Maybe not the kind of stuff you want a prospective employer to find when they Google you, huh?

People do crazy things when you treat them badly.

Turns out there are many “bad” ways to fire people, and William’s phone firing might not even be the worst. (more…)

Lately, becoming an entrepreneur is sold as something that’s easier than going to the bathroom.

There are endless stories about moms bringing in millions after creating a new baby product that makes everyone’s life better. Or the kid in grammar school who can retire on the cash she’s bringing in from her lemonade stand.

This makes it seem like it’s a sure thing for so many people desperate to find work and whose employment prospects aren’t looking that great.

Just today, the National Association for Business Economics survey reported that most employers weren’t planning on hiring anytime soon.

Well, entrepreneurship could be an option in the crummy job market, but it’s definitely not for most people. (more…)

Dressing like a terrorist this Halloween season is probably not going to get you a promotion.

In fact, costumes that are in poor taste might even get you in career hot water if you wear one to an office party or Halloween bash where you might see some of your not-so-close coworkers or managers. And your actions could even get others in trouble. (more…)

There’s a growing backlash against credit history background checks in the hiring process.

At the head of the movement is Jacqueline Berrien, the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. According to labor experts I’ve been talking to in the months since she got the top post at the government agency in April, she doesn’t much like credit checks and has the practice in her crosshairs.

Yesterday, at a hearing to discuss the practice, she made her opinion pretty clear:

“High unemployment has forced an increasing number of people to enter or re-enter the job market. As a result, an ever increasing number of job applicants and workers are being exposed to employment screening tools, such as credit checks, that could unfairly exclude them from job opportunities.”

While checking an applicant’s financial history was standard practice when it came to jobs in banking, for example, hiring managers in many industries now see credit checks as a way to find out more about the people they are considering hiring. The issue for many worker advocates is the practice hits minorities and the jobless more than others and that’s not fair. (more…)

UPDATE BELOW

There’s a bit of confusion in this country when it comes to religion and the secular world. A great example was on display yesterday when Senate hopeful Christine O’Donnell admitted she was ignorant about one key constitutional principle, the separation of church and state.

Everyone has been laughing at her, and probably with good reason. But she may not be the only dummy.

I have a question for you all:

Can you require that a job applicant be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Wiccan or a Hare Krishna before you consider them for a job?

I know what most of you are probably thinking. Such a requirement is religious discrimination. Well, turns out this happens often and it’s not always illegal. (more…)

Now that the euphoria over the rescue of 33 Chilean miners is subsiding a bit, it’s a good time to look at whether things ever change or stay the same after such tragedies.

NPR did a great piece yesterday on the miners highlighting the safety risks that still exist among that nation’s poorly regulated mining industry:

Mining made Chile and 170,000 work its mines. It’s tough, dirty, dangerous work. And until recently, those miners were invisible.

But are they truly visible now, and will their plight lead to real change? Sadly, I’m not optimistic.

Does anyone remember the 29 miners who died at the Massey mine in West Virgina last spring? Those men weren’t as lucky, and it turns out it meant little to the management of the mine. (more…)

I’m at a bar in Logan Airport in Boston and the bartender just gave me a Bloody Mary and said: “Here you go beautiful.”

If only he knew how loaded that statement is to me right about now.

I just left a women’s empowerment conference at the Harvard Kennedy School and my brain is over flowing with information about how gender equity is in the crapper globally.

OK, maybe I’m overstating things a bit. There was a lot of information at the two-day conference about how women were gaining a bit of parity in government, business, and the world at large, but overall the news was pretty crummy.

One of the speakers at the “Closing the Gender Gap Conference” was so pissed off she went off on how she’s sick of waiting for change when it comes to women gaining power. (more…)