Women/minorities
I was one of those teenagers who had really bad acne growing up, and I tried everything to clear my skin up.
I even swore off chocolate and Kalamata olives for 2 years but it really didn’t make much of a difference.
When I hit my twenties a friend of mine treated me to a facial for my birthday and I was in shock how much it helped my skin problem. I vowed to get lots of facials so I to could become one of the lucky clear-skinned humans. That is until I found out how much my really nice friend ponyed up for the facial.
It was nearly $100 for a half-hour treatment at some fancy schmancy Manhattan salon. Being a poor journalist at the time, I figured it would be the last time I’d make it to a facial spa.
But what if there were drop-in facial shops that offered cut rates on facials? (Look at all the cheap manicures you can get on almost every street corner today.)
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| Ivan Hunter / Getty Images |
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Ha! Made ya look.
I’m not trying to anger all of you out there, but when it comes to business, men want to be in control, while women are the nurturers and consensus builders.
Isn’t that what’s drummed into our heads day in and day out!
Yet another survey points to just this phenomenon among entrepreneurs.
“Small business owners want to control their destiny,” says Sastry Rachakonda, director of Discover's business credit card, which polled 1000 small business owners with five employees or less in its monthly Discover Small Business Watch is a monthly survey. “However, men and women do this in different ways. For men, it is about being in control and being their own bosses, while for women, it is about having more flexibility with their time.”
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It took the federal government almost seven years to finally submit a proposed rule that would help women-owned small businesses get a level playing field when it came to the federal contracting procurement process.
Some argue -- most notably the sponsor of the original bill in 2000 -- the new rule doesn’t go far enough to help women business owners.
Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez (D-N.Y.), the chairwoman House Committee on Small Business, sponsored the “Equity in Contracting for Women Act of 2000” that created the Women’s Procurement Program as a way to give women some needed traction when it came to competing for government jobs.
But the program never passed go, mainly because the federal government spent years reviewing and assessing how the plan would be implemented.
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The tragic story of a kind man who used a portable toilet one day in a park and ended up paralyzed inspired nearly 90 small business owners to embark on one charitable mission.
For six weeks, plumbers, roofers, and painters, just to name a few, worked hard at transforming Pedro Toala’s home into an accessible dream house. This former bus driver was the victim of what was deemed a prank, when a bunch of kids tipped over the portable toilet he was using in Wilmington, Delaware.
His story got lots of press attention locally, and many were moved when he forgave the men who ended up breaking his spine.
How were so many busy small business owners able to join forces and do something good for Toala?
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A friend of mine told me that her boss invited her and a bunch of other employees to his house for a holiday party.
It was a nice gesture, until she found out she had to cook something for the soiree. If any of the invitees were at a loss on what to bring, the boss gave them a food assignment.
Have we all lost our minds?
I like potluck as much as the next guy, but don’t your workers do enough for you during the year? Why the heck would you assign them yet more work when they’re supposed to be letting down their hair and relaxing?
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Can an ugly entrepreneur be successful?
Not according to women entrepreneurs. At least that’s the findings of a recent study of female business owners.
It’s like we’re living in the 1950s. Women dolling themselves up to in order to get society’s approval.
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| David James / NewLine |
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Talk to me people. How do you jibe work and family? Sometimes I want to pull my hair out.
When you work for yourself you can’t just pass along an assignment to a coworker or have a manager lend you a hand. You can’t even put off work. Well, you can, BUT YOU WON’T GET PAID!
This past week, with a ton of work bearing down on me, I almost lost it when my son came home with a note from the teacher.
I understand having to help your child with schoolwork and projects, but this week I got a homework assignment from my kid’s kindergarten teacher. I’m not kidding.
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| Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images |
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All the undocumented workers and their employers in the U.S. can breath a collective sigh of relief.
Turns out “no match” is a “no go” at least for now.
Last week, a federal judge put the temporary kibosh on
a new Department of Homeland Security rule that would have cracked down on businesses that hired illegal-immigrant workers.
In an unusual twist, labor and business leaders got together to fight the rule and ended up getting their way for now with the granting of an injunction nationwide.
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There’s nothing like a successful 16-year-old entrepreneur to make you feel bad about yourself.
We need to somehow bottle the chutzpah Cassandra Saba from Chandler, Ariz., has right now.
She started a designer jewelry business at age 11 and now spends six hours a day, after she finishes homework, making custom jewelry. She’s even gotten about 50 orders so far from her Web site.
“I have a goal -- to be a famous jewelry designer,” she says matter-of-factly.
Hopefully she will go on to become the Bill Gates of the jewelry world. But there are forces working against her. For some reason many of us women seem to lose our ambition mojo as we enter adulthood.
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I get lots of e-mails from readers asking me about work-at-home offers that come to them via snail mail and e-mail, and my gut reaction is always: “Trash them.”
They promise you riches, and all you have to do is work a few hours every week from home.
Does this sound plausible to you? Come on.
We’ve all heard the saying, “too good to be true.” But alas, people keep pursuing false hopes.
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