Tag Archives: relationship

This can go a long way

Posted on December 14, 2022 by Robert Basil

This semester I asked a student of mine who’s in my university’s HR program whether human resources professionals needed to actually like people. (I wish I remember why I asked!) She told me nobody had ever asked her that question … Continue reading →

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Job-seekers need their “weaker ties”

Posted on September 16, 2022 by Robert Basil

This is a really interesting study that fortifies an important intuition: A team of researchers from Stanford, MIT, Harvard, and LinkedIn recently conducted the largest experimental study to date on the impact of digital job sites on the labor market … Continue reading →

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Better

Posted on April 15, 2022 by Robert Basil

When I finally consented, two decades ago, to using the necessary phrase “passive aggressive,” I felt awful, and beaten, like I had fallen off the wagon. But I am clean again! A dear friend employed the phrase defensive envenomater this … Continue reading →

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A tonic

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Robert Basil

This is from a marvellous interview with Fran Lebowitz that’s in the New Yorker: I want to switch topics and ask you a bit about Toni Morrison. Everyone felt the loss of her, but largely as a literary icon or … Continue reading →

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The Hobo Ethical Code

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Robert Basil

This is beautiful. From Open Culture: 1. Decide your own life; don’t let another person run or rule you. 2. When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times. 3. Don’t take … Continue reading →

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Where are the experts on *who we are*, in the social sciences, or in the arts, … anywhere?

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Robert Basil

Over at Research as a Second Language: Writing, Representation, and the Crisis of Social Science, Danish writer Thomas Basbøll does not view this question as an academic one. Neither would he give “both” as his answer. In his stirring dissection of the United … Continue reading →

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Brainstorming

Posted on July 29, 2016 by Robert Basil

Even when participants are not being paid by the hour, meetings are costly: Notwithstanding smart-phones, no one around the table is really doing something else, at least not with an undivided focus. A poorly planned or run meeting wastes everybody’s time, … Continue reading →

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What would be on *your* “shadow CV”?

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Robert Basil

Regarding Devoney Looser’s ‘Chronicle of Higher Education’ article “Me and My Shadow CV: What would my vita look like if it recorded not just the success of my professional life but also the many, many rejections?” my friend Jonathan Mayhew … Continue reading →

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Nifty little animated lesson: The Psychology of Blame

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Robert Basil
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Communicate for Free

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Robert Basil

I had always found eHarmony Inc.‘s advertisements vaguely disconcerting: too optimistic about romance, and too confident about its vaunted heuristic (the “Relationship Questionnaire”!). An advertisement currently in frequent rotation on television promises viewers that “You can start communicating for free today” – … Continue reading →

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