Not dressed for the job

Applying for a job and competing with an ever increasing pool of candidates is an arduous task, let alone the consideration of all of the other subject matter that could potentially factor in.  We all know that personal and professional connections help a great deal when searching for a job, but what about the instances where you are a complete stranger to someone and have to convince them that you are the right fit?  Getting past the paper resume stage is hard enough, but then comes the face to face meetings and interviews.  An individual has to prove that they are compatible with the company culture, create a good personal connection with the person interviewing them, and then just hope that they did enough to stand out against all the other applicants while not doing anything to jeopardize their prospective status.  What happens when you do everything right and still get an undesirable result?  Such seems to be the case for Samantha Elauf, who claims she got denied from a job at Abercrombie & Fitch for wearing a religious black headscarf (Hijab) as an exhibition of her Muslim Religion.

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Travel trouble

In what was originally thought to be a harmless prank while traveling abroad, four Westerners have been accused of causing an earthquake in Malaysia last week. The claim comes from Sabah Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Pairin Kitingan. Mr. Kitingan hails from a near by community that holds the damaged mountain in particularly high esteem. The locals view the mountain as a final resting place for the dead. The lascivious actions of the foreigners were regarded as extremely disrespectful. The earthquake, with a magnitude of 5.9 claimed the life of 18 climbers. It has also damaged a beloved near by rock formation known as “Donkey’s Ears.”

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Marathon, not a sprint

With the ever growing popularity of Marathons and half marathons in recent times, the debate over the categorization of whether workers of these events are considered volunteers or employees has also hit the ground running.  In recent news, a federal judge in Missouri ruled against the “Competitor Group Inc” request to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that their use of volunteer workers violated federal labor laws.  A St. Louis University law professor named Yvette Joy Liebesman was a volunteer worker at one of their races, and has stated that she was deceived into believing her participation was to benefit non-profit charities rather than a for profit private equity firm.  In their attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed, “Competitor Group Inc” purported that their marathons represented recreational activities in conjunction with charities that would also benefit from these races being held.  Arguments made by “CGI” were not persuasive enough to dismiss these charges, as the federal judge rules there was sufficient cause to move forward with these claims.

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