A guy sticks his head into a barber shop and asks, “How long before I can get a haircut?”

The barber looks around the shop and says, “About 2 hours.” The guy leaves.

A few days later the same guy sticks his head in the door and asks, “How long before I can get a haircut?”

The barber looks around at the shop full of customers and says, “About 3 hours.” The guy leaves.

A week later the same guy sticks his head in the shop and asks, “How long before I can get a haircut?”

The barber looks around the shop and says, “About an hour and half.”

The guy leaves. The barber looks over at a friend in the shop and says, “Hey, Bill, follow that guy and see where he goes. He keeps asking how long he has to wait for a haircut, but then doesn’t come back.”
The new firm, still unnamed, will sell services in benefits, payroll, recruitment and other areas. Towers Perrin will provide consulting services to clients of the new firm, the companies said. EDS has been trying to expand from its roots as an IT-outsourcer _ running other companies’ computers _ into so-called business process outsourcing, in which it runs functions such as pThis article is accessible for the time being, I regret to say, only to those with access to Westlaw. While an increasing number of articles by legal scholars are available for free on the internet, some still remain beyond reach, hidden behind password-protected gateways–in my view unfortunate. An abstract of the article is available at the Social Science Research Network.

posted by Diane Levin @ 5:24 PM 1 comments
Upcoming ADR events in New England: Workshops, trainings, and a conference

Summer ADR events in New EnglandAlthough summer is a time when we New Englanders like to kick back and enjoy the natural attractions for which our region is known, there are plenty of events coming up that may lure ADR practitioners from the beach or the hiking trail. In no particular order they are:

* UMass/Boston Graduate Programs in Dispute Resolution will be holding a series of professional workshops during June 2007. Among them will be “Meeting and Process Facilitation: A Workshop for Group Leaders and Process Managers”, on June 8; “Do No Harm: Guidelines for Intervention in International ConflictInstructor”, on June 11-12; “Online Dispute Resolution: The State of the Art” on June 13 (taught by my friend Colin Rule, who is a gifted and knowledgeable speaker); and “Collaboration in the Clinical Setting” on June 21. For more information, including workshop times, instructors, and registration, visit the UMass/Boston Graduate Programs in Dispute Resolution web site.

* The Association for Conflict Resolution’s New England Chapter is holding its Annual Regional Conference on May 31, 2007, at the Boston University Corporate Education Center in Tyngsboro, Massachusetts. This year’s theme is “Justice: Conversations for the ADR Community”. Leading that conversation is internationally known dispute resolution scholar and practitioner, Lela Love, professor of law and director of the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Professor Love will also be teaching a full-day Advanced Training on Friday, June 1, 2007, addressing “Keeping Justice in Mediation”. Conference workshops include “Let’s Work This Out: ADR in Environmental Enforcement & Workplace Conflicts”, “Exit Strategies: When and How to End a Process Well”, and “ADR in the 21st Century: Easy Tech Tools to Manage and Market Your Practice” (led by me and ADR tech guru Tammy Lenski). For registration and other information, visit the Conference page at NE-ACR’s web site.ayroll, benefits, finance and accounting for clients.

Bryan Doyle, the leader of Lincolnshire, Ill.-based Hewitt’s outsourcing business, said he wasn’t surprised that EDS would strike a deal with Towers to expand in business-process outsourcing, or BPO. “We see HR BPO as an attractive market,” he said. “We know the IT outsourcers are interested because of the growth potential.”

# posted by OffshoreXperts.com : 12:57 AM 0 comments
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Employees Can Benefit From Outsourcing
Computerworld reports a company’s move to outsourcing can sometimes strike fear in employees who see their jobs as endangered, if done right workers may find that the process provides them with an opportunity to advance their careers and hone their skills, according to the findings of a poll out this week.

“There is a lot of confusion surrounding outsourcing, when in fact people often improve their positions and get to work for a specialist operation,” said LogicaCMG management consultant Paul Dunn.

“Outsourcing is often confused with offshoring, Dunn said, which involves moving jobs to lower-cost markets such as India, while outsourcing involves a company’s decision to move a particular operation or function out-of-house. When companies outsource, European regulations stipulate that affected employees retain the same conditions they had in their previous positions.”
It can’t be denied that the United States’ strategy of fighting terrorism has only exacerbated the situation. Not only has its cowboy rhetoric managed to alienate the European powers, countries which have experience fighting terrorism, it has fueled anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. I don’t think I need to expand on the consequences. The French were kicked out of Algeria after employing the same methods, so it would be wise to heed their advice.

Source: Yahoo News

Tags: France, Terrorism, USA, America, Terrorist, Europe, Muslim

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The Chomsky-Dershowitz Affair

September 6, 2006 @ 5:23 pm - Filed under Moran

I just came across this interesting exchange between Alan Dershowitz and Noam Chomsky. The exchange was started with a column written by Dershowitz, challenging a letter co-signed by Chomsky on the recent Israel-Lebanon crisis.

Chomsky is circulating a letter which he got two naïve Nobel Prize winners–the playwright Harold Pinter and the poet José Saramago–to sign.

It is vintage Chomsky, beginning with its first sentences: “The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish pres.” Chomsky typically cites obscure news reports in languages no one can read. This time it’s “the Turkish Press.” The problem with Chomsky’s assertion is that a five minute Google News check reveals that the incident he points to was widely reported by the English language press, including The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, BBC, Reuters, and the Associated Press. (Lie number one).
A little while later, Bill comes back into the shop, laughing hysterically. The barber asks, “Bill, where did he go when he left here?”

Bill looks up, tears in his eyes and says, “Your house!”

Technorati Tags: barbershop joke
Jun 1, 2007 at 9:19 am CST | From: Office Jokes | No Comments
Poker Sensei Launched

If you’re looking for some poker related humor, you may want to check out the newly launched Poker Sensei. Yeah, ok, so it’s one of my sites, but hopefully you’ll still find it enjoyable and a great diversion from boring office work.

The site is basically an over-the-top poker humor blog covering poker news, strategies, and an “Ask Sensei” section where people can ask the all knowing Poker Sensei question on anything related to poker. Of course, the “Ask Sensei” section will also be populated with fun made-up questions for everybody to laugh at and enjoy so that there’s always something new to read.

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