In the right context, food is a welcomed fragrance. Who doesn’t love the scent of smoked meats, cookies or even the factory-furbished stench of a fast food bag filled with an amuse bouche of trans fat? Point is, the smell of food can be mesmerizing. Unless you’ve ever...
Despite recent catastrophes, we live in an era of unprecedented airplane safety. “There are a range of estimates out there, but based on its analysis of U.S. Census data, it puts the odds of dying as a plane passenger at 1 in 205,552,” reports SBS News. “That compares...
As an old, washed-up rockstar drunkenly hissing into the microphone might say: This one’s for the fans. Recently, Mark, an apparently devout reader, wrote to us on Facebook asking for some advice on how to deal with a leaky coworker: “How can I contact Andrew Fiouzi? I have...
Nothing screams, “Take me, I’m yours,” quite like a newly replenished office supply closet. Or the freshly stocked snack cabinet, spilling over with every energy bar flavor you didn’t even realize existed. For reasons that have everything to do with the fact that they’re free and that no...
I am, herein, seeking justice for my five-year-old self, who underwent military-grade table etiquette boot camp under the supervision of my loving but sometimes despotic father, a man who insisted that family dinners were a prime opportunity to teach his kids about class. I was young, impressionable and...
If there was a Big Pharma equivalent for grilling, they’d probably have you believe that grill marks are essential to the flavor of a prime USDA steak. After all, every advertisement you’ve ever seen about grilling lingers upon crosshatched grill marks. And it makes sense, right? Those...
For many people, the most uncomfortable part about flying isn’t the cramped legs, the overpriced booze or the screeching devil-child kicking the back of your seat for nine hours: It’s the constipation. But what is it about getting on a plane that causes the rectal equivalent of...
Maybe you’ve just witnessed your manager on page 58 of their online search results for a new water bottle. Maybe you’ve noticed that your boss casually takes lunch every day from 11 to 3, only returning for your daily check-in meeting (during which they click over to...
Running 50 marathons in 50 days; running across America in 42 days: There are some feats of endurance running that make your jaw drop. But would these stories have the same impact if the same distances were run on a treadmill? Probably not (unless it was made...
The concept of the average schmoe working from home first found a footing in reality in 1979, well before Slack invaded our lives. Writing in The Atlantic a few years back, Jerry Useem explained that the initial reasoning for allowing some employees to do this was simply...
This is how I tell someone that their fly is unzipped: “Hey man, are you afraid of heights? No? Well, your fly is.” It’s childish and dumb, but it’s my way of treating the otherwise awkward exchange between myself and another man (it’s usually, if not always,...
Congratulations, cog! You’ve just been ostensibly gifted with every corporate minnow’s dream: You get to work from home and decide which hours you want to work and which hours you don’t. You’re your own boss now! Lol, just kidding, everything is terrible, including this seemingly pleasant new...
