It happens all the time in New York City. You're churning away in your new cubicle, and then, with one fervent IM from a buddy, you discover that you work with a child of the rich, famous or rich and famous. It could be almost anyone! For instance, if you toil at the AOLington HuffPost, perhaps you are sitting near some dude named Theo, who is the son of Steven Spielberg. This exchange, which did not happen, is definitely how you should handle that situation best. READ MORE

Hey, David Brooks wrote a column about me! I am one of the 20% of American men of "prime" working age who does not have a job. And apparently we are destroying America by not "getting up and going to work." Oh yes: "In 1954, about 96 percent of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today that number is around 80 percent. One-fifth of all men in their prime working ages are not getting up and going to work." READ MORE

According to The 1938 Almanac for New Yorkers, excerpted below: 110 years ago tomorrow, hazing was outlawed at West Point! And also this week in 1919, 35,000 dressmakers in New York City went on strike for, among other things, a 44-hour workweek. Later that year, the National Association of Ladies' Hatters went on strike as well. 1919 was a big year for striking! See also: the Seattle General Strike, the Boston Police Strike, the New York Harbour Strike and the Actor's Equity Strike that shut down Broadway. In 1919, the women of the New England Telephone Company shut down New England's telephone service for five days. Women were also instrumental in the Winnipeg General Strike in May. Overall, in New York City, one in four workers went on strike. More than 4.1 million people in the country were involved in just nine of the largest strikes—and there were more than 3000 labor strikes in the course of 1919.

One thing that happens is that you stop speaking altogether. One Thursday afternoon, shifting between various gchats—all with friends bored in their cubicles at offices across the city—I realized that I hadn’t said a word out loud in close to 18 hours. So I said "test" out loud. For a split second, before the word came out, I was actually worried about whether or not I was still able to speak. After I found that I could, I then worried about the fact that I had been legitimately worried about this. READ MORE

A friend of mine recently graduated with a degree in public relations, minor in journalism. It was a pragmatic concentration balance on its face: one of these fields represented at least a modicum of investment toward gainful employment, the other did not. In a different time, my friend, we’ll call her Fiona, may have given herself over to the romantic notion of the well-traveled journalist, marrying her wanderlust and literary inclinations to a desire to do something in the interest of the public good. But she believed in realism and clear-eyed ambition. Cautious that the budgets to buoy any latent journalistic aspirations had gone the way of the dodo, she chose PR—a field that promised both a creative environment and corporate stability. READ MORE

Remember that “I Love Lucy” episode where Lucy and Ethel take jobs in the chocolate factory and the conveyor belt starts pumping out candy faster than they can pack it in the wrappers so they start stuffing their faces and cleavage with the excess, cowering from the intimidating factory matron? That’s kind of what it’s like to work for Demand Media, as I found out during a brief, ill-fated stint as a freelance copy editor at the 17th largest web property in the U.S. this summer. READ MORE