Free Republic

In a cramped city like Tokyo, where owning a pet is a luxury and most apartments have strict no-pets policies, it’s hard for cat lovers to spend quality time with their favorite animals. In response, cat cafés have cropped up all over the city, where people get to sip delicious beverages while petting a purring kitty. But even that doesn’t come close to having a cat in your own home, because the time spent with the furry creatures is quite limited. That’s why a Japanese company has come up with a great idea to get its employees to interact with...

No schedules. No mandatory meetings. Inside Best Buy's radical reshaping of the workplace --- At most companies, going AWOL during daylight hours would be grounds for a pink slip. Not at Best Buy. The nation's leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical--if risky--experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for "results-only work environment," seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours. Hence workers pulling into the company's amenity-packed headquarters at 2...

Shearman & Sterling sees things differently. Last month, the law firm filed a trespass and breach of contract action in San Francisco Superior Court involving an e-mail sent to a staff manager’s Shearman.com account. The communication forwarded a post about the manager from Craigslist.org, an online community billboard. The writing, since removed, was posted on the site’s "rants and raves" section. Filed as a "Jane Doe" action, the lawsuit alleges the sender is a current or recent Shearman employee who was under contract to use the firm’s computers only for legitimate business purposes. "The e-mail was hateful and racist, and...

<p>While the Other Woman (or Man) is usually cast as the villain of divorce in our culture, a Swedish study finds the workplace, the environment where many Americans spend most of their weekday waking hours, can play a destructive role.</p>