Word: belling
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Whether they're fair or not, bell curve-like rating systems--which many employees now call rank and yank--have spread in recent years to some 20% of U.S. companies, and the trend is growing. They're particularly handy during periods of economic slowdown like the present one, when employees tend to cling to their jobs rather than retire or change positions. That lowers the normal rate of departures through attrition--which can run as high as 20% of a corporate work force when people feel like job hopping--just when companies are seeking to cut their costs to satisfy...
...workers, since some groups can be much more productive than others. Even the bottom dwellers in a strong outfit may contribute more to a company than the top people in a weak one. Moreover, statistical rankings have little meaning within groups that are too small to generate a valid bell curve. If you have a group of five people, Jensen notes, "you have to take those five and put them into a larger pool" and compare all the workers to one another...
Climbing with Erik isn't that different from climbing with a sighted mountaineer. You wear a bell on your pack, and he follows the sound, scuttling along using his custom-made climbing poles to feel his way along the trail. His climbing partners shout out helpful descriptions: "Death fall 2 ft. to your right!" "Emergency helicopter-evacuation pad to your left!" He is fast, often running up the back of less experienced climbers. His partners all have scars from being jabbed by Erik's climbing poles when they slowed down...
...that altitude, Erik could rely on no one but himself. His teammates would have to guide him, to keep ringing the bell and making sure Erik stayed on the trail, but they would be primarily concerned about their own survival in some of the worst conditions on earth. Ironically, Erik had some advantages as they closed in on the peak. For one thing, at that altitude all the climbers wore goggles and oxygen masks, restricting their vision so severely that they could not see their own feet--a condition Erik was used to. Also, the final push for the summit...
...cart last month. Hoerler, who takes a women's multivitamin and a calcium chew, still feels she doesn't eat as healthfully as she should. "But there's a feeling," she says, "that if you eat a cereal like this in the morning, it balances out the Taco Bell you eat for dinner...