food preparation and service (includes fast food): $8.71/hour

dishwashers: $8.81/hour

cashiers: $9.15/hour

hosts and hostesses: $9.23/hour

amusement park attendants: $9.57/hour

movie ushers and ticket takers: $9.43/hour

farm workers: $9.51/hour

personal and home care workers: $9.75/hour

[msnbc]

in addition to the age problem, the report noted that the company overworks and underpays their employees, “two dozen facilities that were paying their people less than the minimum required wage and another 57 that were cheating workers out of legally required benefits — things like sick time and maternity leave. Some factories even cut workers’ wages for “disciplinary purposes.”

maybe that’s why it’s hard to type on the keyboard. it’s made by people with little hands.

• all 58 of the netflix warehouse locations are kept secret, employees are required to sign a confidentiality agreement that they will not reveal the location
• one of the reasons the locations are kept secret is the fear of people stopping by the warehouse to drop of the dvd
• it doesn’t matter what time you put your dvd in the mail, a van picks up from the post office box at 3am and drops off 5pm once a day
• actual humans inspect and clean each dvd, going through at least 650 dvds per hour with a total of 60,000 per day at the chicago warehouse
• customer put all kinds of crap in the sleeve, pictures, complaints, etc
• after 65 minutes of sorting, the sorters do some organized stretching!
• after the human inspect, a machine sorts and inserts the dvd into envelope by zip code.  then off it goes back to the post office

photo courtsey of amarand agasi

• actor kal penn who played a recurring role in the tv show house and starred in several films including harold & kumar go to white castle will be the new white house liaison to the asian and art communities.

• after an eight month recount battle, al franken will be sworn in as the new democratic senator for minnesota today. one of the original writers for the popular saturday night live, franken left and returned to the show several times either as a performer or a writer.

here’s a snapshot by industry.  the largest green bar, btw, is for citigroup. 

in her interview with ann curry (who apparently is a fav of jolie’s) suleman explains that she plans to support her kids after she finishes her master’s program and gets a job. she says that she has a hard time asking for help but it seems she’s getting use to it. front and center on her new website is an address and phone number for those who want to send donations.

angelina – you’ve got some catching up to do…

if you know gupta, you’d know that in addition to being a practicing neurosurgeon, he’s chief medical correspondent for cnn contributing regular health news to the morning program and anchoring a half hour show weekly. oh and he did that planet in peril thing too. outside of cnn he’s just as busy. he’s also a contributor for cbs evening news with katie couric and 60 minutes, serves as a diplomat for the american board of neurosurgery and is a board member of the lance armstrong livestrong foundation. and before i forget, he’s also a best selling author. and he’s got two kids and another on the way. (and he has a dog.)

let’s hope this all works out cause the man needs some rest.

before we get to the list, here’s some interesting facts about the US cabinet:

• like high school – there’s an inner circle. the “big four” hold the most important positions within the cabinet (the sec. of state, sec. of the treasury, sec. of defense and the attorney general). sec. of homeland security has started to muscle in the past few years and it might not be long before they’re known as the “big five”
• unlike high school – you can’t sit with your friends. cabinet members are seated according to their order of precedence during meetings. this also deters note passing.
• you probably didn’t know – all cabinet members are in the line of succession to become president. because of this, there’s always a “designated survivor” who is held at a undisclosed location while the rest of the cabinet, the president and the vp meet or attend ceremonies.

you might recognize some of these names as many are bush and clinton cronies:

photo by derrickb