Word: totem
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...they know nothing about. And it's a servant job. People assume that because you're serving them, you're beneath them. If you're in a service capacity, you must be lower on the totem pole in terms of brains...
...Western and Northern European countries began to adopt certain favorable social policies. There is universal health insurance in most of these societies - that, of course, makes a difference in health care. You can also consider income inequality in America, since people who are at the low end of the totem pole have considerable adversity making ends meet. I suspect the difference [in height between Americans and Europeans] is due to both diet and health care...
...getting paid for it. I think a lot of people take it for granted that the volunteer firefighters that came to their house were not actually paid at all. It's the thing I've always said about firefighters: they're the last guys on the totem pole...
...collaboration between U.S. and Dutch researchers, finds that if people feel powerful in their roles, they may be less likely to make on-the-job errors - like administering the wrong medication to a patient. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the study suggests that people at the bottom of the workplace totem pole don't end up there for lack of ability, but rather that being low and powerless in a hierarchy leads to more mistakes. It's a finding that surprised even the study's authors. "I'll be totally honest. When we started this research," says Adam Galinsky...
...muddling passerby will accidentally wander into the swing’s ambit and, after a tussle of shouts, duck for safety. Sometimes the swing will make rubber-to-skull contact, and an uncomfortable and embarrassed student will bowl over onto the grass. In the true fashion of a totem, though, the gentle swinging will stir deep memories in all of us—memories of childhoods real or imagined, individual and collective apparitions of an idyllic pastoral existence...