Funny Business at the Treasury
July 17th, 2009 | Procurement Treasury Workplace | Posted by Elise Castelli
The Treasury Department’s Bureau of Public Debt is looking for a contractor to run a couple of three-hour discussions on “Humor in the Workplace.”
According to this FedBizOpps notice, which topped the Drudge Report today, the programs will “discuss the power of humor in the workplace, the close relationship between humor and stress, and why humor is one of the most important ways that we communicate in business and office life.”
The requirements:
Participants shall experience demonstrations of cartoons being created on the spot. The contractor shall have the ability to create cartoons on the spot about BPD jobs. The presenter shall refrain from using any foul language during the presentation. This is a business environment and we need the presenter to address a business audience.
At the end of the day the bureau wants its workers to learn the following:
• Understand the importance and power of humor in the workplace in a responsible manner
• How to use talents in a creative way that adds humor to everyday experiences
• Alleviate stress in home and the office
• Know how and why humor is important to communication
• Improve work-place relationships
• Prevent burn-out
While every workplace could probably use a little humor, one has to wonder whether the right way of going about it is a cheerless training session paid for by taxpayers.
Update: Treasury has canceled it’s search for workplace humor following a congressional inquiry into the item on Drudge. Guess FedLine wasn’t the only one wondering why taxpayers should pay to make Treasury laugh.
Tags: bureau of public debt, FedBizOpps, Friday Fun, humor in the workplace
Hey kids! It’s a 9/11 coloring book!
May 1st, 2009 | Homeland Security | Posted by Stephen Losey
The Smoking Gun reports that FEMA pulled a children’s coloring book from its Web site earlier this week after it drew criticism for including images of the World Trade Center attacks. The coloring book, “A Scary Thing Happened,” was intended to teach children about disasters and the emotional turmoil they cause. But some felt that showing the smoldering Twin Towers might be going too far.
“Oh gosh, that was on the front of a coloring book?” Kim Pressley-Herrick, founder of Coloring Away Pain, told Fox News. Pressley-Herrick’s company produces coloring books intended to help children deal with traumatic events. “As a parent, I don’t think children need to see that. There are ways of delivering messages to children on their level without being graphic.”
But with some of these drawings, you have to read between the lines to find out what FEMA’s really trying to warn you about. Hidden subtext after the jump:
Tags: FEMA, Friday Fun
Friday Fun: Life on Mars?
January 16th, 2009 | NASA | Posted by Elise Castelli
A NASA image of methane, not martians, on Mars.
No, little green men have not been found on Mars and residents of West Windsor Township, N.J. have nothing to fear. But a team of NASA scientists have discovered something that could prove there is life on the red planet: methane.
The gas is a byproduct of biological and geological activity. On Earth, much of the methane in Earth’s atmosphere is released by organisms as they digest food. But geological processes, such iron oxidation, also release the gas.
NASA observations of the Martian atmosphere over the last several years have shown that methane is being continually released into the air there, but the scientists have not been able to determine the cause.
Here is what NASA’s Michael Mumma, the lead author of an upcoming paper on the findings, had to say:
Right now, we do not have enough information to tell whether biology or geology — or both — is producing the methane on Mars…But it does tell us the planet is still alive, at least in a geologic sense. It is as if Mars is challenging us, saying, ‘hey, find out what this means.’
Tags: Friday Fun, Mars
Chertoff speaks to…the Onion?
December 26th, 2008 | Homeland Security | Posted by Stephen Losey
We at Federal Times had an enlightening editorial board meeting at our offices earlier this month with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, which resulted in several interesting stories. But the crack staff at the Onion appears to have scooped us on the real story:
How did we miss this story?
Tags: Friday Fun, Michael Chertoff, The Onion
Friday Fun Facts: Happy Holidays!
December 19th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Posted by Elise Castelli
Hanukkah starts Sunday and Christmas and Kwanzaa are about a week away. To get you in the holiday mood, we bring you a special winter holiday edition of Friday Fun Facts. Today’s fun facts come to us courtesy of the Census Bureau, or as I like to call it, the Fun Fact Bureau.
- The Postal Service will deliver more than 20 billion pieces of mail throughout the season.
- Last year holiday shoppers spent $30.5 billion on gifts.
- Christmas tree farmers sold $493 million worth of pine trees last year; $114 million worth were sold in Oregon alone.
- Approximately $1.3 billion worth of candles were shipped to stores in the U.S. in 2002, many of which were lit during Hanukkah and Kwanzaa celebrations.
- Approximately $475 million worth of bubbly was shipped to U.S. wine sellers in 2002.
Bonus: There are many festively named cities and towns in the U.S. including Santa Claus, Ind.; Santa Claus, Ga.; Noel, Mo.; Rudolph, Wis., Dasher, Ga.; Snowflake, Ariz.; Holly Springs, Miss.; Mount Holly, N.C.; and Champaign, Ill.
Tags: Census Bureau, Christmas, Friday Fun, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa
Monday Fun: Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!
December 15th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Posted by Elise Castelli
Did anyone catch NPR’s news quiz Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me this weekend? Because it was [bleeping] awesome. And not just because Carl Kasell did the best reading of the Rod Blagojevich tapes I’ve heard to date.
But because CIA Director Michael Hayden was the guest for “Not My Job,” the portion of the show where they ask famous people obscure questions to win a listener the privilege of having Carl Kasell’s smooth voice on the listener’s answering machine.
After telling some funny spy stories, Hayden was tested on his knowledge of obscure breakfast cereal.
So how did the director of central intelligence do? Listen for yourself here. Simply click on “Not My Job.”
Bonus: To hear Kasell’s dramatic reading of the Blagojevich transcripts click on “Who’s Carl This Time?” It’s [bleeping] golden.
Tags: CIA, Friday Fun, Michael Hayden, NPR
Friday fun link: That’s What She Said
December 12th, 2008 | HR Management | Posted by Stephen Losey
Don't be like this guy.
Anyone with a human resources background — or even a lick of common sense — will cringe as often as laugh at the boneheaded management tactics depicted on NBC’s The Office. But if you want to find out what HR people really think of Michael Scott’s … um … unique leadership style, check out the blog That’s What She Said.
Every Friday, a former HR professional analyzes the management sins from the previous night’s episode and tabulates how much the fictional Dunder Mifflin paper company might have to pay if a fed-up employee filed a lawsuit. For example, the entry for the episode “Did I Stutter?” estimates Stanley — the office’s only black salesman — could net $450,000 after Michael asked him to record an “urban” message and then pretended to fire him.
It’s a great read, and often insightful. Some of the blog’s advice — like ”I don’t recommend secretly marrying a coworker against her will,” or “Don’t plant weed (or Caprese salad) in an employee’s desk and call the cops on him” – falls under the category of common sense.
But there’s often some useful advice, like this discussion about how even a harmless-seeming joke about homosexuality can lead to trouble, or this post about how small incidents can, over time, create a hostile work environment. (Which, of course, is the only way to describe Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch.)
Hat tip to my colleague Tim Kauffman, who first showed me this blog last year.
Tags: Friday Fun, human resources, The Office
Friday Fun Fact: This Day in History
December 5th, 2008 | Regulation Uncategorized | Posted by Elise Castelli
Exactly 75 years ago today, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, which lifted the national prohibition on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol for consumption, was ratified.
Tags: 21st Amendment, Constitution, Friday Fun
Wednesday is the New Friday Fun Facts: Thanksgiving Edition
November 26th, 2008 | Uncategorized | Posted by Elise Castelli
Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Let’s talk turkey shall we?
How about 271 million turkeys for starters? That’s the number of turkeys that were raised in the U.S. since last Turkey Day, according to the Census Bureau, the keeper of all fun facts. According to Census the average American consumes 13.3 pounds annually.
Here’s what else Census has to say about other Thanksgiving eats:
- The U.S. cranberry industry produced 689 million pounds of cranberries this year, up 5 percent from last year. And surprise, Wisconsin, not Massachusetts, leads the nation in cranberry production.
- Approximately 1.8 million pounds of sweet potatoes were harvested in 2007. (Bonus: Per capita sweet potato consumption is 4.6 pounds).
- A total of 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkins were produced for all those pies we’ll be consuming.
- And finally: 769,760 tons of green beans were harvested this year, perfect for those casseroles.
Bonus fun fact: TSA says you can bring your pumpkin (or other flavor)Â pie as a carry on for your holiday flights, provided you agree to put it through the x-ray machine. Apparently pie is neither liquid nor gel, just 100 percent solid yummy goodness.
Tags: Census Bureau, Friday Fun, Thanksgiving
Friday Fun Facts: We are not alone
November 14th, 2008 | NASA | Posted by Elise Castelli
The proof is out there…thanks to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Hubble took the first picture of a planet outside our solar system orbiting a star called Fomalhaut, NASA has announced.
Hubble astronomer Paul Kalas, of the University of California at Berkley, and his team have been studying debris around the star since 2001. Obervations taken 21 months apart show that there is an object moving around that star the way Earth moves around the sun.
An actual image from Hubble showing the planet orbiting its star.
To celebrate this federally supported discovery, we give you the following facts, courtesy of NASA:
- The planet called Fomalhaut b is located 25 light-years away from us in the costellation Piscis Australis.
- Scientists estimate the planet is three times the mass of Jupiter
- The planet is 10.7 billion miles from the star, 10 times the distance between Saturn and our sun.
- The planet takes 872 years to make a complete orbit around the star.
Photo credit: NASA. For a larger image click here. For addtional media click here.
Tags: Friday Fun, space