Word: menials
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...politics are a factor, then the maids are doomed. They have few backers in a society where there is little respect for menial labor. "Folding my shirts is not strenuous work," says Joseph Law, spokesperson and founder of the Hong Kong Employers of Overseas Domestic Helpers Association. "A lot of hours of their day are spent doing things like ironing and shopping. That isn't exactly taxing." A retired civil servant, Law is lobbying for the maids to receive a 15% pay cut on the grounds that their home currencies are devalued and Hong Kong's economy is weak...
...panelists took questions from the audience. One Kennedy School student asked what advice the mayors had for students, as opposed to just new mayors. Savage stressed the importance of “self-starting” and said “don’t consider any opportunity too menial...
...Karkhla plain is a stark portrait of Afghanistan's plight: one of the world's poorest and most battle-scarred people, plagued by superpower struggles and their own tribal and ethnic feuds, reduced to fleeing to neighboring countries to do menial work for a beggar's wage. Afghans are on their knees, and only international aid can help them back to their feet. "There is nothing in Afghanistan," says Ibrahim Khan Shinwari, Farras' father, who brought his family from the village of Battan in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province two years ago to make bricks for the GI Brick Co., owned...
...you’ve ever worked in a corporate setting, done menial office work or even spent time in front of a computer in a cubicle, then you must see Office Space. The social commentary isn’t that trenchant, and the themes are rather flippant, but the movie is truly notable for its caricatures and its satire of the generic American workplace. The monotony of working a 9-to-5 job alongside eccentric people in a bland, quasi-corporate environment is increasingly becoming a universal theme for the babies of the Baby Boomers...
...what amazes me most about my job is the backdrop for these menial tasks and the context in which they’re placed. Making copies in general sounds horrible, but making copies of a press release for a major press conference on a significant piece of legislation is oddly enjoyable. Calling random people and getting contact information sounds dull, but calling random famous people like Willie Mays and Paul Newman in order to update the Senator’s personal black book is not so bad. Catching the bus in the morning sucks at first, but driving up Pennsylvania...