Category: HA

Stupid Management Tricks – The Vanishing Fourth Floor | Los Angeles Times

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When They Hit the Ceiling, These Execs Just Move to the Next Floor

June 21, 1999|ROY RIVENBURG
Quadrophobia Bureau: We’ve heard of buildings where the elevators don’t list a 13th floor. Now there seems to be a jinx on the fourth floor, as well. At the corporate headquarters of Hunt-Wesson Foods in Fullerton, for example, the entire fourth floor mysteriously vanished over Memorial Day weekend.

Apparently, company bigwigs decided that changing the number of the floor–which houses all the executive suites–would stop employees from referring to management as “the fourth floor” (as in “You won’t believe what the fourth floor did today” or “Naturally, the layoffs don’t affect the fourth floor”).

So presto, they turned it into the fifth floor. The elevators now stop at 1, 2, 3 and . . . 5, all room numbers on the floor no longer begin with a “4” and corporate directories were reprinted to eliminate any trace of the number that dare not speak its name.

We wanted to ask Hunt-Wesson if it also plans to refer to the Fourth of July as July 5, but we were told that the company’s lone spokeswoman was on the road (perhaps in her new five-wheel-drive sport utility vehicle) and unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile, employees have begun referring to management as “the fifth floor,” and the Beatles are now known as the Fab Five.

Lydia was a contractor of Hunt Wesson when this occurred.  She and her friend ran to the renumbered building.  ‘GTFO’, said Lydia’s friend as they read the numbers in the elevator: ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, 5′.  – Ed

Skylodge Adventure Suites Suspended 400 Feet Above Ground | Designboom

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Hanging from a sheer cliff face in Peru’s sacred valley of Cuzco, three transparent capsules have been installed, providing accommodation for particularly intrepid guests. To reach the sleeping pods, lodgers must first climb 400 feet (122 meters), or hike an challenging trail using ziplines before enjoying the impressive views of the mystical valley.‬ ‪

Clinging to the rock face, the natura vive skylodge is composed of three capsules measuring 24 feet in length and 8 feet in height and width. each unit is handcrafted from aerospace aluminum and weather resistant polycarbonate, and comes complete with four beds, a dinning area and a private bathroom — separated from the bedroom by an insulated wall.

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Missing comma gets grammar nerd out of parking ticket | Mashable

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The Associated Press reports that Andrea Cammelleri received a parking citation for leaving her pickup truck parked in an area for longer than 24 hours. According to a law in the village of West Jefferson, vehicles cannot be parked longer than 24 hours, including a “motor vehicle camper.”

Cammerelli argued that her truck does not fit that description because of the missing comma between “vehicle” and “camper”.

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Why Do Americans and Brits Have Different Accents? | Live Science

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In 1776, whether you were declaring America independent from the crown or swearing your loyalty to King George III, your pronunciation would have been much the same. At that time, American and British accents hadn’t yet diverged. What’s surprising, though, is that Hollywood costume dramas get it all wrong: The Patriots and the Redcoats spoke with accents that were much closer to the contemporary American accent than to the Queen’s English.

It is the standard British accent that has drastically changed in the past two centuries, while the typical American accent has changed only subtly.

Traditional English, whether spoken in the British Isles or the American colonies, was largely “rhotic.” Rhotic speakers pronounce the “R” sound in such words as “hard” and “winter,” while non-rhotic speakers do not. Today, however, non-rhotic speech is common throughout most of Britain. For example, most modern Brits would tell you it’s been a “hahd wintuh.”

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Google and Red Robin Made a Terminator Banner Ad That’s Cool | Adweek

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Banner ads are pretty much the bane of every digital consumer’s existence. So, it’s no small measure that Red Robin just launched—through a partnership with Google—an interactive display campaign that could actually turn sci-fi fans into patrons of the fast-casual burger chain.

The brand worked with Google and its digital agency, Vitro, to create immersive video promos for Red Robin’s Terminator Genisys campaign, which also includes TV spots and signage in the company’s restaurants. The ads let viewers see Red Robin pitchwoman “Melanie” as a Terminator character would. They can use their smartphones to add another digital layer to the experience or watch on their desktops for a simpler view.

Check out the demo below to better understand the marketer’s take on Terminator:

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Cats Do Control Humans, Study Finds | Live Science

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If you’ve ever wondered who’s in control, you or your cat, a new studypoints to the obvious. It’s your cat.

Household cats exercise this control with a certain type of urgent-sounding, high-pitched meow, according to the findings.

This meow is actually a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry. While people usually think of cat purring as a sign of happiness, some cats make this purr-cry sound when they want to be fed. The study showed that humans find these mixed calls annoying and difficult to ignore.

“The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response,” said Karen McComb of the University of Sussex. “Solicitation purring is probably more acceptable to humans than overt meowing, which is likely to get cats ejected from the bedroom.”

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American Regional Dialects, Expressions | Business Insider

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downloadAmerican English dialects and pronunciation have been a point of interest from coast to coast among linguists for years.

In 1999, the Harvard Dialect Survey, a research project conducted by Professor Bert Vaux, used a series of questions, to collect information about what terms, word pairs and sounds are used in different parts of North America.  Some of the words highlighted in the survey inspired the “Regional Dialect Meme” videos, where people from around the country taped their pronunciation versions of words and sayings.

The data from the Harvard study was eventually brought to life by PhD student, Joshua Katz, through a series of interactive dialect maps, which went viral.

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5 things you didn’t know about the Pez dispenser | CNN Money

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There’s no mistaking the tilted heads that dispense pastel colored candy stacked in a narrow column.

Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Hello Kitty have graced Pez dispenser heads and recently Anna and Elsa from the movie “Frozen” have also joined the line-up. Next year, expect to see the ‘Batman vs Superman’ movie characters making an appearance. Also expect new flavors like banana.

Pez was originally invented in Austria in 1927, but the company’s only factory and headquarters are located in Orange, CT. It is owned by the Haas family who are descended from the inventor of the candy, Eduard Has III.

Here are 5 things you might not have known about Pez:

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3,000 Goldfish! Dumped Aquarium Pets Multiply in Lake | Live Science

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They multiply like … fish! Apparently, a handful of goldfish dumped into a lake in Boulder, Colorado, just three years ago have reproduced and now number in the thousands.

The explosion of these exotic fish, which are not native to anywhere in North America, has biologists worried and trying to figure out options for the animals’ removal.

“Based on their size, it looks like they’re 3-year-olds, which were probably produced from a small handful of fish that were illegally introduced into the lake,” Ben Swigle, a fish biologist at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), told Live Science.

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