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Cut Tariffs, Reignite Work: How Removing Trade Barricades Would Quickly Restore Jobs

By
Emma Vaughn
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0

Cut Tariffs, Reignite Work: How Removing Trade Barricades Would Quickly Restore Jobs

It is tempting to think of labor market recovery as a slow trudge—policy by policy, training program by training program, waiting for demand to trickle back. But there is a faster highway out of stagnation: removing the layer of protectionist tariffs that has been driving up costs, hollowing out supply chains, and strangling hiring in trade‑exposed industries. A decisive legal removal of those tariffs, whether through a Supreme Court ruling or prompt legislative action, would not only clear uncertainty; it would immediately lower input costs and create room for employers to rehire at scale.

The human stakes behind the headline numbers

Walk into a factory town and the statistics become faces: workers laid off because a parts supplier shifted production overseas after prices spiked; small plants that could have bid on a contract but lost it to cheaper inputs; service jobs evaporating as families tighten belts. Manufacturing, construction, and other trade‑sensitive sectors often act as labor market multipliers—each factory job supports several positions in logistics, retail, and local services. When tariffs raise costs and invite retaliatory measures, the ripple is felt far beyond the shipping docks.

For communities that built their livelihoods on supply chains, tariffs can be the match that ignites decline: input costs jump, margins thin, investment stalls, and hiring freezes follow. The result is not just fewer paychecks but diminished demand—fewer lunches out, fewer school supplies purchased, fewer small business customers. Restoring jobs in these communities requires a lever that operates across the entire cost structure, not just targeted retraining or incentives. Removing tariffs is such a lever.

How tariffs transmit to job losses

  • Higher production costs: Tariffs act like a tax on imported inputs. Domestic firms using such inputs face immediate higher costs, which they either absorb, cutting investment and hiring, or pass on, reducing demand for their final goods.
  • Supply chain disruption: Tariffs encourage rerouting, reshoring, or delays as firms search for tariff‑free suppliers. Transition costs are real and often destroy jobs in the short term.
  • Retaliation and export losses: Targeted countries often respond with their own tariffs, reducing exports from industries that had been hiring to meet global demand.
  • Uncertainty and postponed investment: When trade policy becomes unpredictable, firms defer capital expenditures and hiring until the rules of the game stabilize.

Why legal removal of tariffs is uniquely powerful—and swift

A court decision that invalidates or restricts tariff authority would have an immediate, economywide effect. Unlike legislation that requires negotiation and phased implementation, a judicial ruling takes effect quickly and removes uncertainty overnight. Markets respond fast: input prices would fall as importers stop factoring tariffs into purchase decisions; contracts would be renegotiated; procurement strategies would shift back to cost efficiency rather than tariff avoidance.

Reduced input costs translate rapidly into hiring potential. For manufacturers operating on thin margins, even a modest drop in the price of steel, aluminum, electronic components, or chemicals can free funds for overtime, rehiring, or renewing stalled investments. For distributors and retailers, lower wholesale prices can justify expanding inventories and staff. The acceleration is not theoretical—businesses plan around cost structures, and when those structures change decisively, staffing plans adjust in short order.

Where job gains would be felt first

Not all sectors would recover at the same pace. The most immediate rebounds would likely appear in:

  • Manufacturing: Machinery, electronics, and parts producers who rely on cross‑border inputs would be first in line to hire as margins improve.
  • Construction and building materials: Lower costs for metals and specialty inputs would spur projects and restore demand for skilled trades.
  • Logistics and distribution: Reduced trade frictions normalize freight flows and warehousing demand.
  • Small and medium enterprises: Suppliers and subcontractors that were squeezed out or deferred projects can reenter the market.

Beyond the immediate uptick: the multiplier effect

Job recovery is not a one‑for‑one relationship with policy change. When manufacturers hire, their workers spend locally—restaurants, childcare, healthcare, repairs—fueling secondary hiring that broadens the recovery. Economists often use multipliers to capture this dynamic: a single manufacturing job can generate more than one additional job in the local economy. Removing tariffs restores not just direct employment but the local demand that sustains communities.

Addressing the counterarguments

There are reasonable concerns. Opponents warn about surges in imports harming nascent domestic industries and argue for targeted protection. Those points deserve attention. But the choice need not be binary. The objective must be to optimize for jobs and economic vitality while preserving capacity for national security and core industries. Targeted, transparent measures—narrow exemptions, temporary safeguards, coupled with clear criteria—can address legitimate vulnerabilities without imposing economywide costs that suppress hiring.

Another concern is political: trade policy is a lever of negotiation. But when tariffs function as blunt instruments that raise consumer costs and deter hiring, their net social payoff is questionable. Replacing broad, permanent tariffs with smarter, temporary, and narrowly tailored tools preserves negotiating power without the drag on employment.

A plan to convert tariff rollback into durable job growth

Getting back to full employment requires more than the legal removal of tariffs. It requires a policy package that amplifies the immediate gains and shares them widely:

  1. Immediate relief: Remove tariffs to lower input costs and restore procurement plans. Pair this with short‑term tax credits or subsidized wage support for rehiring in severely impacted counties.
  2. Rapid retooling funding: Support factories in updating equipment to compete on quality and speed, not price alone. Investment incentives should be tied to rehiring and upskilling commitments.
  3. Targeted training: Expand apprenticeship and transition programs in trade‑exposed regions to connect newly available jobs with qualified workers.
  4. Supply chain resilience: Encourage diversification of suppliers through grants and public–private partnerships, reducing the future shock from single‑country exposure without imposing tariffs on all imports.
  5. Trade diplomacy: Use negotiation and reciprocal agreements to protect strategic interests while relying on market mechanisms to foster competitive industries.

What communities can do now

Local leaders and businesses should prepare to seize the moment. Economic development offices can map which employers would expand with reduced input costs, update procurement policies, and connect displaced workers with rehiring pipelines. Chambers of commerce and community colleges can pre‑position training slots and capitalize on employer demand when it returns.

For workers, clarity matters. Rapid public communication from policymakers about potential tariff changes, anticipated timelines, and available support programs will reduce the paralysis of uncertainty and speed the matching of labor to jobs as they reappear.

Conclusion: speed and scale matter

Recovering a slumping job market is not only about the destination but about how quickly and equitably we arrive. Removing broad tariffs is not a panacea, but it is a powerful accelerator: it cuts costs deeply, reduces uncertainty immediately, and creates room for employers to hire. Combined with targeted investments in skills and resilience, it can turn a fragile, jobless recovery into a broad, sustained upturn.

In the months after a legal rollback, expect to see renewed bidding for contracts, reopened factory shifts, and a tangible rebound in community commerce. Those are not abstractions—they are the pathways by which paychecks return to kitchen tables, schools regain enrollment, and towns begin to hum again. If the goal is to revive work quickly and at scale, clearing the tariff fog should be the first act.

From Side Gigs to Skyline Sales: The Work Ethic Behind Ryan Serhant’s Rise

By
Jonah Hill
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0

From Side Gigs to Skyline Sales: The Work Ethic Behind Ryan Serhant’s Rise

In cities where ambition and opportunity collide, stories of meteoric success are often more myth than map. The truth is usually slower, messier, and built on incremental bets that compound over years. Ryan Serhant’s path from odd jobs to multimillion-dollar listings is one of those incremental, improbable accumulations — a case study in how relentless experimentation, disciplined networking, and a willingness to embrace small hustles can produce outsized results.

The unglamorous first act

It is easy to look at a high-gloss listing and assume the journey began with one big break. It rarely does. Before his name became synonymous with luxury listings, the early chapters were practical and opportunistic. Hand modeling gigs, acting roles, and a patchwork of freelance work were not detours; they were capital-raising strategies. For many in the modern workforce, those first gigs do more than pay rent — they buy time, give freedom to learn a trade, and seed relationships that matter later.

What matters in these beginnings is intentionality. The odd jobs serve a purpose beyond income when they are paired with a plan: learn a market, practice sales craft, and invest any extra hours into pipeline building. That discipline — treating temporary work as a funding tool rather than an identity — is a recurring motif in entrepreneurial careers.

Networking that looks like work

Networking is often packaged as charming cocktail conversations and exchanged business cards. In practice it can be far more grind-oriented: persistent follow-ups, hosting modest events, helping others make introductions, and showing up to a hundred conversations with no immediate payoff. The underlying pattern is simple: relationship equity compounds in the same way financial capital does, but on a longer timeline and with higher volatility.

For Serhant, the network built in those early years became a currency. Agents, clients, stylists, contractors, and even competitors all formed a lattice of opportunities. Instead of asking what his network could do for him in the moment, he invested in making connections useful and memorable. That ethos — creating value first — matters in any profession where reputation is a primary asset.

Betting on New York, strategically

A career choice is often a location choice. Betting on a market like New York is not a naive leap but a deliberate alignment of skills, timing, and appetite for competition. High-density, high-transparency markets accelerate learning: you see more transactions, more price discovery, and more feedback loops. That intensity can burn people out, but it also accelerates skill acquisition for those who can absorb and adapt.

Choosing such a market requires humility — an acceptance that you will be small for a while — and audacity: the willingness to compete against established players. It is a trade-off that many professionals wrestle with: the safety of a slower market versus the steep learning curve and opportunity density of a major center.

Crafting a brand out of everything

Long before social platforms normalized personal branding, success in sales-intensive fields depended on being memorable for the right reasons. The ability to tell a story about properties, and to position oneself as someone who could move those properties, is as much marketing as it is service. For people starting out, the lesson is practical: every interaction is content, and every quality interaction can be multiplied into reputation capital.

Branding here is not about crafting illusions; it is about consistency. Consistency of voice, of follow-through, and of aesthetic signals that communicate competence. Over time, those signals compound into a recognizable presence. For the modern worker, investing in clear communication — both in person and online — is a lever that pays dividends beyond immediate transactions.

Systems over heroics

When careers scale, heroics fail. One-off deals close because of late-night effort or person-to-person favor, but scaling a practice requires systems. Building a team, documenting processes, and creating repeatable marketing plays are the transition points between being a producer and being a business owner.

That transition is perilous. It demands patience to tolerate short-term inefficiencies and discipline to maintain quality as volume increases. For professionals with growth goals, learning to codify knowledge and delegate effectively is the difference between plateauing and breaking through.

Failure as curriculum

There is a myth that people who reach the top avoid failure. In reality, they treat failure as data. Missed deals, lost clients, and campaigns that underperform are not primarily emotional setbacks but information about what to change next. Adopting an experimental mindset — where hypotheses are tested in market-sized increments — turns failure into a curriculum for improvement.

This mindset is particularly useful in volatile industries. When conditions shift, the capacity to learn quickly and iterate is more valuable than static knowledge. For workers, embracing small-scale failures as lessons accelerates competence and reduces the fear that can paralyze risk-taking.

Lessons for the wider Work community

  • Treat side income as strategic capital. Temporary gigs can fund a pivot, buy runway, and subsidize skill development.
  • Invest in relationships as a long-game asset. Practical, consistent help yields exponential returns over years.
  • Choose your market intentionally. Aggressive markets teach fast, but only if you can endure the grind.
  • Build repeatable processes early. Systems unlock scale and protect quality as you grow.
  • Make failure legible. Extract lessons, test new approaches, and iterate quickly.

Why hustle stories matter now

We are in an era where traditional career trajectories are fragmenting. Portfolios of gigs, hybrid roles, and public personal brands are the norm rather than the exception. Stories of people who turned disparate pieces of work into coherent careers show a viable path forward: not through a single defining break but through cumulative, intentional effort.

They also remind us that visibility often arrives after decades of invisible work. The visible finish line — a headline listing, a TV appearance, or a viral post — is rarely the true start of success. It is a byproduct of years of disciplined, sometimes mundane, labor.

Final reflection

Ryan Serhant’s arc, like many modern career narratives, is not prescriptive but instructive. It shows that resourcefulness matters as much as raw talent: funding your ambition with side work, networking as a daily habit, and choosing a market that matches your appetite for growth are choices any professional can make. The more important takeaway for the Work community is the rhythm — the steady accumulation of small, deliberate actions that create leverage over time.

For anyone navigating a career pivot or building a business from scratch, the playbook is clear: find ways to fund the runway, show up to the relationships that compound, and treat each failure as a lesson worth keeping. Fame and high-value outcomes may glitter, but they are usually the polished surface of a long process of craft and tenacity.

Built for the Backline: 5 Ryobi Tools Rewriting On-the-Job Ergonomics

By
Dylan Hunt
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0

Built for the Backline: 5 Ryobi Tools Rewriting On-the-Job Ergonomics

Workplaces are changing faster than many procurement lists. Schedules are tighter, crews are leaner, and the workforce is aging — all forces that make musculoskeletal strain a central concern for employers and employees alike. In response, toolmakers are not just chasing power; they are redesigning form and function to protect bodies that do the work.

This is a look at five Ryobi tool categories where ergonomic design is no longer an afterthought. Each selection focuses on reducing back strain and fatigue over long shifts by rethinking weight distribution, reach, vibration, and control. The goal is practical: keep people on the job longer, healthier, and more productive.

Why ergonomics matters for work

Back injuries and chronic strain are among the most costly, persistent problems for industries that rely on manual labor. They increase absenteeism, slow production, and drive up insurance and hiring costs. When a tool is lighter, better balanced, or extends reach safely, it changes the physics of work: fewer stoops, less awkward lifting, and less repetitive load on the spine. That translates to measurable benefits at scale — from grounds crews to construction sites to municipal maintenance teams.

How Ryobi approaches the problem

Ryobi’s approach mirrors a trend in modern design: integrate battery technology, motor efficiency, and simple mechanical innovations to reduce the physical toll on the user. The result is tools that feel different in the hand, on the shoulder, or underfoot. They don’t just get the job done; they alter how the job is done.

Five Ryobi solutions built to save your back

Below are five tool categories where Ryobi’s design choices meaningfully reduce back strain and cumulative fatigue. Each entry highlights the ergonomic features and the practical consequences for an on-the-job day.

1. Telescoping pole tools (trimmers, hedge trimmers, pole saws)

What changes: Telescoping shafts, lightweight composite materials, and low-kickback cutting heads.

Why it helps: Telescoping pole tools allow workers to keep both feet on the ground while reaching high branches or the upper reaches of a hedge. That decreases the need for ladders or awkward bends, directly reducing fall risk and lumbar loading. A longer, adjustable shaft tuned for balance keeps the tool’s center of mass close to the operator’s core, minimizing torque that would otherwise stress the lower back during repetitive motion.

On the job: Landscapers can finish tall hedges and prune trees from ground level; municipal crews can clear overgrown sidewalks without frequent climbing. The telescoping feature also lets one worker adapt a single tool for varied crew members, cutting down on equipment swaps and unnatural postures.

2. Backpack blower systems with balanced battery placement

What changes: Purpose-built harnesses, low-profile battery packs installed at the hips or back, and anti-vibration mounts.

Why it helps: Handheld blowers can force operators into sustained forward-leaning poses while carrying a heavy battery in one hand. A backpack blower redistributes load onto the hips and shoulders, shifting weight to body regions designed for load-bearing. When Ryobi positions batteries close to the user’s center of gravity and pairs that with ergonomic straps, the blower becomes less of a torque generator for the spine and more of a controlled tool for sweeping tasks.

On the job: Cleanup tasks that used to be two-person jobs or require rotations become manageable for one worker for longer intervals. Cushioning and vents in the harness reduce hot spots and allow crews to maintain posture without compensating in ways that lead to back pain.

3. Compact, self-propelled mowers designed for balance

What changes: Self-propel systems, balanced battery housings, and adjustable handle heights with ergonomic grips.

Why it helps: Pushing modern mowers is different from battling a gas-powered unit’s inertia. Self-propulsion cuts the effort required to move the machine across varied terrain; when the battery and drivetrain are centered low in the chassis, it reduces the need for constant corrective force from the operator’s torso. Adjustable handles accommodate different heights so operators don’t stoop or hyperextend, both of which stress the lumbar spine.

On the job: Grounds crews covering large properties experience less cumulative fatigue. When a mower feels predictable and easy to guide, workers are less likely to adopt compensatory postures that cause long-term problems.

4. Low-vibration, brushless power heads and cutting tools

What changes: Brushless motors that run smoother and cooler, anti-vibration mounts, and softer grip materials.

Why it helps: Vibration is an often-overlooked contributor to fatigue. It forces constant micro-adjustments through the hands, arms, shoulders, and ultimately the back. Brushless motors reduce vibration and increase efficiency, so operators spend less energy fighting tremor and more on controlled movement. Soft-touch grips and isolation mounts break the transmission path so the spine absorbs less repeated shock.

On the job: Tasks that once felt punishing after hours — cutting, trimming, drilling — become manageable for longer stretches. Reduced vibration also diminishes the onset of compensatory tension in the shoulders and lower back.

5. Modular wheeled carts and powered material-haulers

What changes: Battery-powered carts or wheelbarrow-style haulers, low center-of-gravity cargo beds, and simple attachment interfaces.

Why it helps: Lifting and carrying heavy loads are primary drivers of back injury. A wheeled, powered hauler shifts that load into rolling resistance instead of human torque. When Ryobi’s designs focus on compact turning radii and low decks, they reduce awkward lifts and unnatural bending angles during loading and unloading.

On the job: Crew workflows change — a single operator can move mulches, tools, and debris between sites without repeated heavy lifts. That efficiency not only preserves backs but speeds job cycles and reduces the need for overtime and personnel churn.

Design features that matter across the lineup

  • Balanced battery placement: low and central battery mounts reduce rotational forces on the body.
  • Adjustable ergonomics: telescoping shafts and multi-position handles let users set a neutral posture.
  • Brushless motors and vibration control: smoother operation equals less micro-fatigue.
  • Lightweight materials: composites and engineered plastics cut weight without compromising durability.
  • Harness and mounting systems: intentional load transfer into hips and shoulders rather than hands and lower back.

Beyond the tool: policy, training, and procurement

Ergonomic tools change possibilities, but they are most effective when combined with sensible policies. Job rotation, breaks timed to reduce repetitive strain, and basic training in posture and load handling amplify the benefits of better design. Procurement should prioritize total cost of ownership — lower injury rates, less downtime, and higher retention often justify the slightly higher up-front cost of ergonomic equipment.

For workplace leaders, this is not just a safety decision; it is a strategic one. Investments that reduce musculoskeletal injuries translate into tangible savings in workers’ comp, reduced turnover, and improved pace of work. They also signal a workplace culture that values human capital — a powerful message in tight labor markets.

What adoption looks like in practice

Early adopters among maintenance departments and small contractors report a pattern: the first weeks with ergonomic tools show faster task completion and fewer mid-shift absences. Over months, crews report less soreness and fewer ad-hoc staffing shifts. That creates continuity and institutional knowledge — a crew that can finish the job and do so tomorrow, and the next month.

There is also an equity dimension. Tools that are adjustable and less punishing on the body open opportunities for more diverse labor pools, including older workers and those with different strength profiles. That expands the potential workforce without sacrificing output.

Closing: design as a form of care

Workplace design is often discussed in terms of efficiency and throughput. But when power tools are reimagined around the spine they serve, design becomes a form of care. The five Ryobi categories outlined here demonstrate a simple principle: when machines respect human limits, productivity and wellbeing improve together.

For the work news community, the lesson is practical and urgent. Ergonomic tools are not a luxury. They are an essential part of a resilient, modern operation. Adopting them is a small change with outsized returns — fewer injuries, steadier crews, and a healthier bottom line. The future of work is not only about smarter software; it is about smarter tools that keep people standing strong long after the shift ends.

Work Reinvented: How the OnePlus Pad Go 2 Challenges the iPad for the Modern Office

By
Sophia Kane
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Work Reinvented: How the OnePlus Pad Go 2 Challenges the iPad for the Modern Office

In an era when the lines between office, home and remote workspace blur into one continuous workflow, the tools we choose matter more than ever. Tablets are no longer just consumption devices; they have become central to how teams write, review, present and iterate. The OnePlus Pad Go 2 arrives at a moment when organizations are rethinking mobility, cost and flexibility — and it does so with a bold proposition: deliver iPad-like productivity for a fraction of the friction.

More than a cheaper alternative: a new vector for workplace choice

Too often, device conversations settle into brand loyalty: a reflexive preference for the ecosystem you already use. But for managers building device fleets and for professionals seeking real utility, that loyalty must be earned by fit. The OnePlus Pad Go 2 does not merely undercut the iPad on price; it reimagines how a tablet can fit into workplace practices that prize openness and flexibility.

At its core, the Pad Go 2 is an argument for choice: choice of operating system, choice of form factor and ultimately choice of workflows. It leans into Android’s strengths — customization, deep Google integration, a diversity of hardware — while pushing toward the one thing corporate buyers care about most: real productivity.

What it brings to the desk

For professionals, productivity is the sum of several parts: display clarity, input options, app support, battery life, and the ability for devices to play well with enterprise infrastructure. The OnePlus Pad Go 2 checks many of these boxes.

  • Readable, usable display: A spacious screen gives room to compose emails, draft documents and hold video calls without feeling cramped. The display’s color and sharpness are tuned for extended reading and close collaboration.
  • Comfortable portability: It balances screen size and weight so the device slides between bag, meeting room and couch without complaint — a crucial trait for hybrid schedules.
  • Fluid input options: With solid touch responsiveness and support for keyboard accessories, the Pad Go 2 can shift from sketchpad to typing station. For quick annotations, the stylus support is responsive enough to replace paper in many workflows.
  • Battery life that lasts the day: Whether you are hopping between meetings or working on long flights, the Pad Go 2 is built to keep pace with a typical workday, minimizing interruptions.

Where it stands relative to the iPad

The simplest way to think about the Pad Go 2 vs. an iPad is that the former is a more flexible, cost-conscious path to a comparable productivity experience. But the comparison is nuanced.

On one hand, the iPad benefits from an app ecosystem meticulously optimized for tablet use. Apps like Pages, Numbers, Keynote and many professional creative tools feel native to the iPad’s environment. The iPad’s accessory ecosystem — keyboards, trackpads, and styluses — also enjoys a maturity that makes it a predictable choice for some workplaces.

On the other hand, the Pad Go 2 offers an open environment where standard productivity tools — Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Zoom — run smoothly and where Android’s flexibility allows firms to customize the platform for specific needs. For organizations that prioritize integration with Google Cloud, Android device management, or that want hardware variety across departments, the Pad Go 2 is compelling.

Productivity in practice

How does this play out day to day? Imagine three typical work scenarios:

  1. The Road Warrior: A salesperson creates and presents slides, annotates contracts on the fly, and signs documents. The Pad Go 2’s lightness and strong battery mean fewer interruptions when traveling. With cloud-synced apps, files are always available and editable.
  2. The Hybrid Designer: A designer sketches concepts in the morning, opens a collaborative board at noon, and reviews iterations in the afternoon. The stylus responsiveness and a capable display make the Pad Go 2 a fine sketching tool; paired with cloud-based creative suites, the device keeps handoff friction low.
  3. The IT-Managed Fleet: An IT admin deploys hundreds of units for field teams. Android’s device management tools enable granular control, and the cost-per-unit allows procurement to put better hardware into more hands within budget constraints.

Trade-offs to consider

No device is perfect, and the Pad Go 2 asks teams to accept a few compromises in exchange for its advantages.

  • App optimization: While major productivity apps run well, not every niche app is optimized for tablet UIs on Android the way it often is on iPadOS. Teams relying on specialized tablet tools should validate those apps on the device before large-scale adoption.
  • Accessory maturity: The iPad’s keyboard and stylus accessory market is broader and, at times, more seamless in integration. The Pad Go 2’s accessory landscape is growing but may require additional testing to match workflow expectations.
  • Updates and long-term support: Device longevity is influenced by software update cadence. Organizations should assess OnePlus’ update policy and incorporate that into lifecycle planning to avoid unexpected maintenance or security gaps.
  • Camera and audio: While adequate for video conferencing, the Pad Go 2 may not match top-tier tablets in microphone array sophistication or camera fidelity — considerations for roles that depend on broadcast-quality video.

Security, manageability and enterprise fit

For workplaces, hardware is only as useful as its security and manageability. Android has matured into an enterprise-ready platform: mobile device management (MDM) tools support remote provisioning, policy enforcement and application whitelisting. The OnePlus Pad Go 2 fits within that ecosystem and is well suited to environments that already use Google Workspace or Android endpoints.

Beyond MDM, the device supports secure sign-in methods and encrypted storage. IT leaders should integrate the Pad Go 2 into their existing endpoint protection strategies and treat it like any other corporate asset: inventory it, enforce patching policies, and use containerization where necessary for separating corporate and personal data.

Economics and total cost of ownership

Price is rarely the only metric, but it is a powerful one. The Pad Go 2’s aggressive pricing can change procurement equations: the ability to equip more staff with capable devices without doubling costs can improve productivity across teams. But TCO should include support costs, the expense of additional accessories, and the projected lifespan tied to software updates.

Where the Pad Go 2 shines for the Work news community

The Pad Go 2 is particularly interesting to the Work news audience because it represents a pragmatic middle path: not a box-ticking substitute for an iPad, nor a novelty device. For journalists, editors and remote production teams who value mobility, ease of note-taking, fast cloud access and a lean hardware profile, it is a device that aligns with modern newsroom workflows. It is also a strategic option for organizations rebalancing budgets toward more devices without sacrificing core productivity.

Practical recommendations for teams considering the Pad Go 2

  • Run pilot programs: Deploy a cohort of devices in representative roles (field, editorial, ops) to surface real-world issues before full-scale rollout.
  • Validate critical apps: Confirm that publishing, VPN, collaboration and any bespoke tools perform reliably on the tablet.
  • Plan accessory procurement: Budget for keyboards, cases and styluses in deployment plans so users have a ready-to-work experience out of the box.
  • Define update policies: Ensure IT teams have clarity on OS updates and security patching cadence for lifecycle planning.

A balanced future

The OnePlus Pad Go 2 is part of a larger conversation about how workplaces adapt to hybrid schedules and distributed teams. It shows that Android tablets can move beyond casual consumption and into serious productivity roles. There are trade-offs — particularly around app maturity and accessory ecosystems — but those are often addressable through careful deployment and workflow adjustments.

For organizations and professionals deciding what to put into backpacks and meeting rooms, the Pad Go 2 ought to be more than an option: it should be tested, compared and, for many, chosen. It offers a path to equip people with capable, flexible tools without forcing a binary choice between price and performance. In the evolving architecture of modern work, that kind of flexibility is not a luxury; it’s a requirement.

As workplaces continue to rethink mobility, the OnePlus Pad Go 2 is a reminder that innovation often comes from offering smarter choices rather than more expensive ones. For those building the future of work, the question is no longer which tablet is best in theory, but which device best aligns with real, everyday needs.

From Modest Stewardship to Market-Level Pay: Greg Abel’s $25M Leap and What It Means for Work

By
Bella Hayes
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0

From Modest Stewardship to Market-Level Pay: Greg Abel’s $25M Leap and What It Means for Work

How a $25 million pay packet at Berkshire Hathaway recasts leadership expectations, spotlights broad executive-pay trends, and refocuses the conversation about governance, talent and long-term value.

The leap

When Berkshire Hathaway’s long-anticipated succession became reality, one quieter development began to reverberate through the markets and the halls of corporate America: Greg Abel’s compensation package. A sum that approaches $25 million in a single year is more than a headline. It is a symbolic signal — a definitive move that places the company’s new steward squarely in the league of high-compensation S&P 500 CEOs, and it reframes how investors, boards, and employees think about leadership, continuity and reward.

The change is particularly striking when it is compared to Warren Buffett’s famously modest approach to pay. For decades Buffett accepted a comparatively small salary — long in the six figures — and relied on the gains of concentrated stock ownership and an economy of scale in reputation to keep his incentives aligned with shareholders. Abel’s package is not a repudiation of that stewardship; it is an acknowledgment of market realities and the evolving calculus that boards now use to secure top operational talent.

Why the number matters

A headline figure like $25 million does several jobs at once. It signals that Berkshire is willing to play by modern compensation rules. It acknowledges that run-rate pay for active CEOs — especially those leading conglomerates with sprawling portfolios — has moved substantially higher in recent decades. And it sends a message beyond the C-suite: that the benchmark for what constitutes fair, competitive leadership compensation now exists in a different neighborhood than it did under Buffett’s stewardship.

But beyond signal, the figure also invites questions about purpose. Is this pay primarily retention? Is it incentivization tied to measurable performance? Is it alignment with shareholder outcomes? The answers matter because how compensation is structured determines whether it shapes the right behaviors: long-term capital allocation, prudent risk-taking, and preservation of corporate culture — or casual short-termism and headline chasing.

Pay structure and governance: the levers that create outcomes

Compensation is never just a number. It is a set of instruments: base salary, cash bonuses, stock awards, long-term incentive plans, performance hurdles, and vesting schedules. In the modern S&P 500 playbook, equity-linked awards dominate headline totals because they both preserve cash and create the perception of alignment. But the devil is in the design:

  • Performance metrics: Whether pay is linked to absolute stock returns, total shareholder return relative to peers, or operational metrics (revenue growth, margins, free cash flow) determines the behavior it will encourage.
  • Vesting horizons: Multi-year cliffs and long-term holding requirements better encourage stewardship than short-term annual cycles.
  • Clawbacks and recoupment provisions: These offer boards a safety valve when pay has been awarded based on metrics later revealed as unreliable or achieved through imprudent risk.
  • Relative benchmarking: Relying on peer groups to set compensation can anchor pay to an industry median — helpful for competitiveness, but it can also ratchet compensation upward over time if not carefully curated.

Sound governance is the instrument that binds these levers to company purpose. Compensation committees, board oversight, transparent disclosure, and engaged shareholders are the institutional guardrails. When they function well, high pay can be a tool for attracting transformative leaders who create outsized value; when they fail, it can fuel misaligned incentives, erode trust and compound inequality.

The broader trend: why CEO pay has climbed

Several secular forces have driven executive compensation upward across the S&P 500:

  • Market competition for top managerial talent: As companies become more complex and global, the premium for leaders with proven operating chops has risen.
  • Shift to equity-based compensation: To conserve cash and align incentives, boards rely on stock grants that, when tallied, produce large headline numbers.
  • Proxy practices and benchmarking: Peer-group benchmarking and proxy advisory influence can create a ratcheting effect, pushing pay higher over time.
  • Investor tolerance tied to performance: As long as returns justify pay, large packages are more palatable to the market.

But these forces also create tension. Higher pay packages increase scrutiny from employees, customers, and the public. They magnify the CEO’s role as a steward of corporate values. And they shift the conversation from mere compensation mechanics to the social contract between a company and its stakeholders.

Implications for workers and the workplace

For the broader workforce, the rise of CEO pay is not merely academic. It feeds into how organizations attract and retain talent, how they design career ladders, and how they communicate value to employees. A few considerations:

  • Perception of fairness: When top pay soars while median wages stagnate, employees can become disillusioned. Transparent links between executive pay and workforce outcomes — investment in skills, pay parity, and job stability — help preserve morale.
  • Talent mobility: High CEO compensation reflects a tight market for senior leadership. That competition can drive investment in middle-management development and succession planning to reduce reliance on external hires.
  • Cultural sustainability: Pay signals values. If a company wants long-termism and prudence, compensation design must reward those traits, not only short-term stock spikes.

Shareholders, accountability and the public spotlight

Shareholders are increasingly assertive in weighing in on pay. Proxy votes, activist campaigns and public scrutiny have improved transparency and encouraged more rigorous linkage of pay to performance. Yet, accountability is uneven: institutional investors may tolerate large packages when the math of returns looks sound, while public perception may still hinge on narratives of fairness and stewardship.

As corporate compensation becomes more public, boards must articulate a coherent story: why this package is necessary, how it aligns with long-term strategy, and how it preserves the company’s fiduciary commitments. Those narratives are themselves a governance tool — clarity breeds trust.

Between tradition and modernity: Berkshire’s transition as a case study

Berkshire Hathaway’s culture was built on the particular charisma and restraint of one leader. Moving to a new generation required reconciling that legacy with marketplace realities. Greg Abel’s pay marks the balancing act: honoring the company’s long-term, value-centric ethos while ensuring the board has the tools to secure and reward an active, accountable manager in a competitive market.

This is not an anomaly so much as a structural pivot. Companies with storied founders often find that their compensation models must evolve to reflect succession, scale and competitive pressures. The test is whether the new model remains faithful to the company’s core—capital discipline, rational allocation, and long-term thinking — while accepting the contemporary demands of the corporate talent market.

Practical takeaways for companies thinking about leadership pay

Boards and leaders should consider a few pragmatic principles when designing or approving large packages:

  1. Align: Make the nexus between pay and measurable, long-term company outcomes explicit.
  2. Time-horizon: Favor multi-year vesting and holding requirements to emphasize stewardship over short-term gains.
  3. Transparency: Clearly explain structure and rationale to investors, employees and the public to reduce uncertainty and misinterpretation.
  4. Balance: Use a mix of cash and equity that fits the company’s capital needs and investor expectations.
  5. Link to workforce health: Show how executive incentives relate to broader employee investment, including training, pay fairness and job quality.

Conclusion: leadership pay as a mirror

Greg Abel’s $25 million compensation package — and the conversations it sparks — is less about a number and more about how modern corporations define stewardship. Pay levels reflect market forces, but pay design reveals priorities. When a board awards a large package, it is making a bet on strategy, culture and the kind of leadership it believes will create value over decades, not quarters.

For the broader workforce and for those who follow the arc of corporate governance, the moment is instructive. It invites a renewed focus on alignment: between leaders and owners, between incentives and outcomes, and between the life of a company and the people it serves. Done well, thoughtful compensation can be a lever for resilience, innovation and shared success. Done poorly, it can be a distraction from the very stewardship it seeks to ensure.

In the end, the test will be what comes after the headline — the track record Abel and Berkshire build, the clarity of the company’s communication, and whether compensation practices across the market evolve to reward real, measurable value that benefits investors, workers and the broader economy.

After the Shutter: How GameStop’s Plan to Close 400+ U.S. Stores Will Reshape Work

By
Dylan Hunt
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0

After the Shutter: How GameStop’s Plan to Close 400+ U.S. Stores Will Reshape Work

News that GameStop reportedly plans to close more than 400 U.S. locations arrives as another seismic note in a long chorus of retail contractions. The immediate image is familiar: liquidation signs, clearance racks, and teams of employees preparing final displays. But the real story is quieter and longer running. This is not just about empty storefronts. It is about the labor that animated those storefronts, the communities that relied on them, and the strategic choices that will determine how work gets organized in retail’s next chapter.

Retail in transition: reasons behind the move

The forces nudging a network of stores toward closure are varied, and they reveal the structural pressures reshaping retail employment.

  • Digital distribution has moved an enormous slice of product consumption online. For a store whose inventory includes digital keys and media that can be downloaded instantly, the marginal value of a physical branch has declined.

  • Consumer habits and foot traffic patterns changed during and after the pandemic. Some behaviors have reverted, but others—buying digitally, scheduling fewer shopping trips, favoring clicks over in-person browsing—have not.

  • Rising costs for labor and real estate make small, underperforming stores less tenable. Lease negotiations, inflexible mall contracts, and rising minimum wages create hard arithmetic for companies balancing margins and presence.

  • Companies are sharpening their omnichannel strategies. That often means concentrating resources into fewer, higher-performing physical locations and redeploying capital to e-commerce, fulfillment, and digital customer experiences.

What this means for the people who work in stores

When a corporation announces a large round of closures, headlines focus on numbers. For workers, the dimensions are personal: livelihoods, identity, stability, and community ties.

Hourly employees face the most immediate disruption. Expect a patchwork of outcomes: transfers to nearby locations, offers of other positions inside the company, negotiated separations, or layoffs. Store managers contend with dual burdens: supporting team members while executing closure logistics and attempting to preserve inventory value.

Closures also unmask disparities in worker preparedness. Some employees have strong resumes, robust networks, and access to retraining. Others do not. For many, the store is not just a job but a node of social capital—an everyday routine that connects them to customers, local hobby communities, and informal networks. Losing that has ripple effects beyond the paycheck.

Immediate steps that matter

During any wave of closures, how the company handles transition defines much of the human impact. Thoughtful notification timelines, clear information about benefits and transfers, and practical support make a real difference.

  • Transparent communication helps workers plan. Notice periods and clear timelines reduce the shock and permit people to apply for new roles or access benefits.

  • Clarity about severance, accrued pay, and remaining benefits is essential. For employees, understanding the financial gap they face is a prerequisite to making next-step decisions.

  • Active redeployment efforts—internal job fairs, priority consideration for openings in other units, and assistance navigating transfer logistics—can preserve livelihoods and institutional knowledge.

Policy and community responses

Closures are not purely corporate affairs. Local governments, workforce boards, and nonprofits are part of the ecosystem that will determine how quickly affected workers land in new roles.

For municipalities, vacant retail spaces drain tax revenue and attract blight if not repurposed. Proactive strategies—fast-tracking permits for adaptive reuse, offering incentives to local entrepreneurs, and partnering with workforce training providers—can blunt the economic pain and catalyze reinvention.

The rise of different retail blueprints

What replaces dozens of midmarket stores matters. Across retail, we are seeing a few durable patterns emerge.

  • Smaller, curated stores: Retailers are testing compact formats that emphasize discovery and experience rather than large inventories.

  • Flagship experiences: A smaller number of larger, destination stores can host events, demonstrations, and communities in ways a typical neighborhood branch did not.

  • Micro-fulfillment centers: Reallocating space from consumer-facing to logistics-facing uses enables faster delivery and reduces last-mile costs.

  • Partnership-driven spaces: Brands are experimenting with shared real estate, pop-ups, and hybrid storefronts that incorporate service, repair, and community programming.

Opportunities within the upheaval

Change brings disruption, but it also opens possibilities. For workers, for companies, and for local economies, closures can catalyze reinvention.

For employees, skills developed in retail—inventory management, customer service, point-of-sale troubleshooting, merchandising—are portable. These competencies can lead to roles in logistics, procurement, customer success, field operations, or digital support. Retail work is also a practical training ground for entrepreneurship; a shuttered storefront can become a new shop, studio, or community venue in a revitalized local economy.

For companies, reallocating resources from underperforming stores can free capital to invest in employee training, better pay where it counts, and new technologies that reduce mundane work and elevate human roles toward higher-value interactions.

What managers and HR professionals should consider now

Those responsible for leading teams through closures can make choices that preserve dignity and sustain futures.

  • Prioritize timely and humane communication. Deliver news in person when possible and provide written follow-up that summarizes options and next steps.

  • Offer practical transition resources. This could include resume clinics, time during work hours to interview, connections to local job fairs, and clear instructions for accessing unemployment and benefits.

  • Invest in upskilling pathways. Not every displaced worker will want or need a long retraining program. Short, targeted courses in logistics, customer success tools, or digital sales platforms can accelerate reemployment.

  • Protect mental health. Job loss is a form of disruption with psychological consequences. Counseling resources and peer support networks matter.

What employees can do

Facing a closure is inherently stressful, but there are concrete moves workers can take to improve outcomes.

  • Ask for clarity. Request written summaries of severance, transfer options, and any hiring preferences the company may offer.

  • Update your work story. Build a concise narrative that links your retail experience to the roles you want next—focus on measurable achievements and customer-facing outcomes.

  • Network intentionally. Connect with co-workers, local retailers, and community organizations. Many re-employment opportunities circulate through informal channels.

  • Explore retraining that aligns with market demand. Short courses in tech-enabled customer service, basic supply chain operations, or digital content can be high-impact.

Bigger picture: what this means for work overall

Individual store closures are micro-events inside a macro shift in how companies think about the relationship between physical presence and labor. Businesses are rebalancing investments between property and people, between in-person service and digital engagement. That rebalancing will have long-term consequences:

  • Job quality debates will intensify. Companies that retrench from high-cost locations may face pressure to invest in fewer, better jobs rather than many precarious ones.

  • New roles may outnumber old ones. Increased investment in logistics, digital operations, and consumer experience design could create different kinds of openings.

  • Local labor markets will need to be more adaptive. Workforce development systems that can move quickly will be valuable.

Conclusion: endings that can teach

Store closures are painful, and they matter. They are markers of economic change and tests of social infrastructure. The way corporations, municipalities, and communities respond will shape local economies for years to come.

But there is an alternative narrative to loss alone: one of transition and reinvention. When companies concentrate storefronts, they also create room to invest differently. When workers lose one site of employment, they gain the impetus to retrain, to pivot, or to start something new. When a mall vacancy opens, it offers space for community uses that may have greater social value than a national chain ever delivered.

The immediate task is humane and practical: communicate clearly, support displaced workers, and repurpose space with intention. The longer task is strategic: envision a retail system that rewards higher-quality roles, that equips workers with portable skills, and that connects physical spaces to community needs rather than only to consumption.

GameStop’s reported plan to close hundreds of stores is a headline. The deeper story will be what those closures reveal about the future of work, and how people and places respond. In the best scenarios, endings like this are not only about loss. They are also prompts for redesigning work to be more resilient, more flexible, and more human-centered.

Beyond the Freeze: How Job Seekers Can Create Momentum in a Hiring Recession

By
Bella Hayes
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Beyond the Freeze: How Job Seekers Can Create Momentum in a Hiring Recession

Economists say the job market has flattened into a hiring recession. For many, that phrase translates into stalled job postings, prolonged interview cycles, and fewer immediate openings. The result is anxiety, frustration, and a sense that luck — not skill — determines who lands a role. But a hiring slowdown is also a clarifying moment. When volume drops, signals matter more. Employers who do hire are looking for clearer proof of future impact, not just resumes that list responsibilities.

Reframe the problem: signal over noise

When hiring is brisk, resumes and referrals can be enough to open doors. In a slow market, those same inputs become background noise. The winning strategy is to reduce uncertainty for the employer: make it obvious what you will do on day one, how you will measure success in three months, and why that matters to the business.

That shift — from declaring competence to demonstrating likely impact — is the core of differentiation. It changes the job search from a list of credentials to a campaign of discoverable, verifiable value.

Build a portfolio of proof

Portfolios aren’t just for designers. A compact collection of short, tangible artifacts does more than a paragraph on a resume. Examples:

  • Case studies: One- to two-page summaries that state a clear challenge, the steps taken, measurable outcomes, and what you learned.
  • Mini-projects: A two-week prototype, analysis, or process map tailored to a company or industry you target. Treat it like a job audition — short, specific, and shareable.
  • Public work: Articles, slide decks, code snippets, dashboards, or campaign results you can link to. Public signals reduce friction for hiring teams vetting candidates.

These pieces give interviewers something concrete to discuss and allow them to see how you think. When possible, quantify outcomes: revenue lift, time saved, conversion improvements, or other KPIs.

Tell a sharper story

A resume that lists tasks won’t stand out. A narrative that connects a few strategic wins to how you’ll tackle the company’s current challenges will. Craft a concise pitch that answers three questions:

  • What problem have you repeatedly solved? (Not duties, but outcomes.)
  • What approach did you use? (Process, habit, frameworks.)
  • What measurable difference did it make? (Numbers or observable change.)

Use this story in cover letters, cold outreach, and early interviews. It’s not about embellishing — it’s about clarity. Hiring leaders make decisions when they can easily map your past wins to their current needs.

Network with intent, not breadth

Quantity networking—sending dozens of generic messages—yields low return. Intentional networking creates value for both sides. Approaches that work:

  • Targeted outreach: Identify people in roles or companies whose problems you can speak to. Offer a concise idea or observation that shows preparation and offers immediate value.
  • Micro-contributions: Share a short research note, a relevant connection, or a tidy list of resources when you reach out. People remember those who help them accomplish something.
  • Follow-up with purpose: After conversations, send a one-paragraph recap with next steps, or a small deliverable that demonstrates momentum.

When hiring slows, insiders who are willing to advocate will prefer candidates who already feel like collaborators, not strangers.

Embrace short-term and experimental work

Contract, freelance, and project-based roles can be bridges to full-time work — and they build evidence. In a hiring recession, companies often prefer low-risk engagements. That patience can be an advantage: a short contract that delivers results often converts to full-time offers because it eliminates doubt.

Think of these stints as high-leverage experiments. They let you test new industries, demonstrate adaptability, and expand your network with lower barriers to entry.

Optimize for discovery: make it easy to find you

Applying blindly into portals is less effective in a slow market. Make yourself discoverable in ways that reduce evaluation friction:

  • Curate a concise portfolio page that leads with impact, not biography.
  • Use summaries across platforms that mirror your core narrative and include 1–2 sample artifacts.
  • Keep your online presence consistent: recruiters and hiring managers look for quick corroboration.

Visibility isn’t vanity — it’s a hiring signal. When teams do invest time in a candidate, they pick those who make vetting straightforward.

Adopt a data-driven job search

Treat your search like a product. Track activity and outcomes so you can invest where yield is highest:

  • Measure channels: Which applications, messages, or events generate the highest response rates?
  • A/B test materials: Try two versions of a resume or outreach note and compare replies.
  • Monitor conversion: How many conversations lead to interviews, and interviews to offers?

With clear metrics you stop relying on hope. You see what works and can scale it while pruning low-return activities.

Master the mini-proposal

One of the most persuasive moves in a slow market is to present a compact plan for your first 90 days. A mini-proposal should include:

  • The problem you would prioritize.
  • Early activities and deliverables (30/60/90 day milestones).
  • How you will measure success.

Deliver a one-page version in interviews and a slightly expanded version for hiring managers. The mini-proposal communicates readiness and reduces the mental switching cost of hiring someone new.

Invest in transferable depth, not unfocused breadth

Upskilling is valuable, but not all learning moves the needle equally. In tight markets, depth in a few high-impact areas tends to beat surface-level knowledge of many tools. Build a T-shaped profile: deep expertise in a productive niche plus broad literacy in adjacent domains. That makes you adaptable and immediately useful.

Negotiate for optionality

In a hiring recession, salary may be more rigid, but the conversation doesn’t end there. Negotiate for things that increase career optionality: specific project ownership, a defined review at six months, budget for training, or a clear path to the role you want. These terms convert a constrained offer into a strategic move.

Guard your energy and time

An extended search can erode motivation. Structure your days to preserve clarity and momentum:

  • Block time for high-leverage activities: portfolio work, targeted outreach, and learning.
  • Limit low-yield tasks: mindless applications often create optimism but little return.
  • Protect rhythm: sleep, movement, and short creative work sessions sustain performance.

This is not about relentless hustle. It’s about allocating scarce psychological resources where they produce measurable returns.

Think in networks and ecosystems, not single roles

Hiring moves through relationships and timing. Cultivate ecosystems of possibility: alumni groups, industry communities, and cross-disciplinary cohorts. Contribute to those spaces. People hire those they know, like, and trust — especially when they are being cautious.

Patience powered by proactive choice

A hiring recession narrows the funnel. The instinct to apply to everything is understandable, but the better posture is selective agency. Choose a handful of companies and problems you can meaningfully influence, then focus your energy on creating signals that reduce uncertainty for those teams.

When markets tighten, there’s an opportunity to stand out not by shouting louder but by being clearer. Signal what you will deliver, prove it in small, public ways, and cultivate relationships that can vouch for your work. Slow hiring punishes ambiguity and rewards precision. That change favors the prepared.

Final thought

A hiring recession is less a verdict on your worth than a recalibration of how organizations make decisions. The answer isn’t to chase every opening; it’s to become a candidate who makes hiring teams feel certain. Clarity, proof, and intentional connection are the currency of that certainty. When you invest in them, you turn a slow market into an advantage.

Patchwork Pay: How Gen Z Is Turning Debt Into a New Labor Economy

By
Emma Vaughn
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0

Patchwork Pay: How Gen Z Is Turning Debt Into a New Labor Economy

There was a time when careers looked like clean highways: college, a steady job, promotions on a predictable timeline, a mortgage in middle age. That picture is fraying. For a generation that came of age amid financial shocks, ballooning housing costs, and promises that wages would catch up, the old map no longer fits. Into that breach steps a new economic improvisation—disillusionomics—a pragmatic, sometimes messy, often creative reworking of how work, debt and daily survival intersect.

What disillusionomics looks like

Disillusionomics is less a manifesto and more a set of practices. It is the deliberate assembly of income from disparate sources to replace brittle career assumptions. It can look like a retail day job, freelance design gigs on nights and weekends, a small online shop selling vintage clothing, occasional tutoring, and a few hundred dollars a month from a subscription fan base. It looks like renting a room to offset rent, monetizing a hobby through a niche newsletter, or flipping goods on a marketplace to make student loan payments less punishing.

These patchworks share a logic: diversify risk, monetize what you already know or own, and let multiple small revenue streams combine into a living. The tactics are diverse—creator monetization, gig platforms, microconsulting, digital products, asset rental, arbitrage, and offering modularized services—but the aim is the same: build income that can withstand layoffs, stagnant raises, and rising living costs.

Why disillusionomics grew

The rise of this approach is not accidental. Several durable pressures pushed Gen Z toward it:

  • Debt as a baseline condition: Student loans, credit card burdens, and early-career borrowing make steady cash flow a necessity rather than a luxury.
  • Stalled career ladders: Entry jobs may be abundant, but upward mobility has become less predictable, and promotions no longer guarantee security.
  • Economic shocks and uncertainty: Recessions and sectoral volatility taught a generation that single-employer dependency can be perilous.
  • Digital platforms and low-cost tools: It is now possible to test businesses, publish work, and sell services to a global audience from a phone.
  • Changing values: Many young people prefer autonomy, portfolio careers, and a sense of control over the shape of their work life—even when those choices arise from necessity rather than luxury.

Archetypes of the new workforce

Patterns emerge across thousands of individual decisions. They form recognizable archetypes:

  • The Patchworker: Maintains a baseline job for benefits or stability while stacking multiple gigs to cover rent and loan payments.
  • The Creator-Operator: Builds an audience, then converts attention into commerce—patronage, branded goods, paid subscriptions, or workshops.
  • The Micro-Entrepreneur: Runs a small, tightly focused business—resale, handmade goods, or specialized services—designed to scale with tools rather than staff.
  • The Portfolio Worker: Trades full-time employment for a mix of freelance projects and retained clients, calibrating hours to income needs and personal bandwidth.

Everyday tactics that add up

Disillusionomics is practical: it turns small advantages into monthly margin. Common tactics include:

  • Skill stacking: Combining adjacent skills—writing + social media + basic design—to offer higher-value packages than each skill would command alone.
  • Productization of services: Converting irregular consulting time into clear, repeatable products or packages that are easy to sell and scale.
  • Micro-savings through sharing economies: Renting unused space or tools, or leveraging ride and delivery platforms to fill income gaps at predictable times.
  • Leveraging platforms to reach niche customers: Niche newsletters, specialized marketplaces, and social media communities make direct-to-customer commerce feasible at low cost.
  • Intentional frugality married to revenue innovation: Reducing consumption in targeted ways (like cooking instead of eating out) and using freed funds to invest in small businesses or content creation.

The cultural logic: agency in the face of broken promises

At the heart of disillusionomics is a psychology: if institutions—schools, employers, the housing market—failed to deliver the social contract, the individual should cobble her own contract. That sentiment can feel brittle and isolating, but it also fuels creativity and autonomy. Young workers are reframing debt not only as a financial burden but as a prompt to invent alternatives to traditional employment. The result is a labor culture that prizes hustle, adaptability, and entrepreneurial thinking.

Structural implications for work

This emergent economy is remaking employer-employee relationships and pushing at institutional norms:

  • Benefits fragmentation: As more people split work across platforms and gigs, the old bundling of wages and benefits weakens. Health care, retirement, and paid leave become patchwork needs rather than employer guarantees.
  • Redefined talent value: Employers who once valued tenure now must adapt to workers who expect flexibility, side income allowances, and project-based engagement.
  • New bargaining patterns: The leverage of workers who can monetize outside opportunities reshapes negotiations—some professionals trade wage increases for flexibility, while others maintain full-time roles for stability.
  • Pressure on social safety nets: Policymakers and institutions face pressure to rethink benefits delivery when employment is diffuse and income is pooled from many sources.

Risks and limits

Disillusionomics is resourceful, but it is not a cure-all. It carries real risks:

  • Burnout and precariousness: Managing multiple income sources can fragment time and attention, eroding the stability that steady jobs once provided.
  • Inequality of access: Not everyone can leverage the gig economy or has the social capital to build an audience. Those without broadband, marketable skills, or a safety net can be left behind.
  • Benefit erosion: When employers deprioritize benefits because labor is more fluid, many workers lose protections that previously matched full-time employment.
  • Uncertain long-term security: Patching income streams may cover rent and loans today, but retirement, health crises, and long-term savings are harder to plan for without institutional support.

How some are making it sustainable

Not all patchworking is frantic improvisation. Some practitioners use deliberate strategies to align immediate income with longer-term resilience:

  • Converting side income into durable assets—intellectual property, products, or recurring subscriptions—that compound over time instead of requiring constant hours.
  • Prioritizing predictable revenue first: Keeping a baseline of reliable clients or a steady part-time job before layering volatile projects.
  • Automating and delegating: Outsourcing repetitive tasks or using tools to scale output so time can be invested in higher-value work.
  • Community risk pooling: Forming cooperatives, shared resources, or local networks that provide backstops when any one stream falters.

What employers and institutions can learn

The rise of disillusionomics is also a clear signal to organizations that the workforce has changed. Responses that could bridge individual initiative and institutional responsibility include:

  • Creating flexible roles with clear deliverables, where partial remote or project-based engagement does not automatically exclude access to benefits.
  • Recognizing external entrepreneurship as an asset: Many side projects build skills useful to employers—community building, digital marketing, product development—and could be encouraged rather than policed.
  • Repacking compensation: Offering portable benefits, stipends for continuous learning, or income-smoothing programs can help retain talent who otherwise leave for flexibility.

The cultural shift in consumption

Disillusionomics also reshapes how young people spend. When income is networked and variable, consumption becomes intentional—repair over replace, renting over buying, subscription curation over impulse shopping. Financial signaling is subtler: ownership is sometimes traded for access, and conspicuous consumption is often replaced by investments in skill-building or platform growth.

Looking ahead

Will disillusionomics scale into something more stable, or will it ossify into a long-term condition of precarious labor? The answer will depend on a mix of policy choices, platform governance, employer adaptation, and cultural norms. What feels certain is that this form of economic ingenuity will continue to influence how work is defined and how wages and benefits are delivered.

A closing note on agency

There is a paradox in disillusionomics: it is both an act of resignation and a practice of agency. It acknowledges that systems failed to deliver for a generation, and then it chooses action over waiting. That action is not purely heroic—many of its choices are survival techniques—but it is creative, adaptive, and sometimes revolutionary in small increments. For readers in the work community—managers, colleagues, policymakers, and fellow workers—the challenge is twofold: to acknowledge why young workers choose patchworks, and to reimagine institutions so that the ingenuity of a generation does not become a substitute for social protections.

Disillusionomics will not erase debt or instantaneously restore economic parity. But it is reshaping the contours of labor: making careers less linear, work less employer-bound, and financial life more modular. That shift is messy, uneven, and full of trade-offs. It is also, at its best, a durable lesson in adaptability—an insistence that when old promises break, people will invent new ways to keep going.

Work Resilience in Focus: theCUBE Live from RSAC 2026 — A Playbook for Security, Risk and Continuity

By
Sophia Kane
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Work Resilience in Focus: theCUBE Live from RSAC 2026

At RSAC 2026, the conversation has shifted from a narrow technical checklist to a broader, urgent question for every organization that powers modern work: can we keep the lights on when the unexpected happens? theCUBE arrives with an analyst-driven lens and a promise to translate live conversations and in-depth interviews into pragmatic guidance for the Work community — the leaders and teams responsible for security, risk, human continuity and the daily operations that make business possible.

Why RSAC 2026 Matters to People Who Run Work

Enterprises today face a complex collision of threats and dependencies. Cyberattacks arrive as supply chains are woven across continents, hybrid and remote work models scatter endpoints outside traditional perimeters, and regulatory expectations demand faster detection and more accountable recovery. For the Work community — HR, operations, finance, legal, facilities, and technology — that means resilience is not just an IT project. It is a cross-functional capability that protects revenue, reputation, employee safety and trust.

At this year’s conference, sessions, panels, and one-on-one interviews are centered on translating risk into live operational choices: when to accept risk, when to invest in redundancy, how to measure readiness, and how to keep people productive during incidents. theCUBE’s coverage will surface those decisions in real time, turning conference dialogue into usable insight.

What theCUBE’s Analyst-Driven Coverage Will Spotlight

  • Resilience frameworks made actionable: Not just the theory, but the trade-offs and investments leaders are making now — what works, what fails, and the indicators that signal meaningful progress.
  • Operational continuity across functions: How organizations stitch together IT recovery, HR crisis response, legal and communications, and vendor coordination into a single, practiced plan.
  • Human-centered resilience: The role of people and culture, from tabletop exercises to decision authority, and how frontline staff are enabled to act under pressure.
  • Supply chain and third-party risk: New techniques for measuring resilience in partner ecosystems, and how to bake contractual and technical protections into procurement and vendor management.
  • Technology patterns and limits: Where automation and AI help, where they create new failure modes, and how to design systems that fail safely.
  • Regulation, insurance and financial levers: Practical insight on compliance playbooks, incident disclosure expectations, and how insurers are recalibrating coverage for resilience investments.

The New Playbook: Four Practical Pillars of Resilience

Across conversations at RSAC 2026, a clearer playbook emerges — not a silver-bullet solution, but a set of practical pillars that leaders can apply across organizations.

  1. Prepare and reduce blast radius

    Know your crown jewels and make them harder to disrupt. Inventory is no longer a once-a-year exercise. Dynamic mapping of critical assets, dependency graphs, and scenarios that account for both technical and human failure are essential. Reducing blast radius means partitioning privileges, segmenting networks, and embedding simple compensating controls for when automation fails.

  2. Detect with intent

    Detection must be tuned to business impact. Move beyond signature hunting to behavioral baselines that are informed by the functions that keep work going. Analysts on theCUBE stream will highlight how teams prioritize alerts, allocate scarce response capacity, and correlate signals across IT, HR and physical security to obtain a single truth during an incident.

  3. Respond decisively

    Response is a choreography of decisions. Clear escalation paths, pre-authorized playbooks, and empowered cross-functional roles shorten downtime. Practice is the multiplier here: realistic exercises expose gaps in communications, handoffs, and tooling that tabletop conversations often miss.

  4. Recover and learn

    Recovery is not simply restoring systems, it is restoring value. Recovery objectives should be measured in business outcomes, not just technical uptime. Post-incident reviews must feed budgets and roadmaps so that each event reduces future exposure.

From Strategy to the Factory Floor of Work

Many organizations have stability on paper but brittle reality in practice. theCUBE’s interviews will bring forward leaders and analysts discussing the small but consequential shifts that close that gap: empowering teams with decision rights, simplifying incident communications templates, ensuring alternate access to payroll and HR systems, and pre-staging recovery artifacts for the most critical services.

Concrete examples matter. Consider an organization that separated payroll and HR identity services onto segregated recovery paths after a ransomware event erased key systems. That single architectural change turned a single-point-of-failure into a managed incident with minimal employee impact. These are the kinds of stories theCUBE will uncover and put in context for the Work community.

People, Policy and Procurement: The Real Continuity Work

Resilience is often mistaken for a purely technical problem. In reality, policy and procurement decisions are where resilience gets made or broken. Contract clauses that require continuity testing, SLAs that align incentives for recovery time, and policies that empower non-technical teams to act during an incident are all levers that reduce mean time to recovery.

On the ground, that translates into routines: scheduled cross-functional recovery drills, supplier audits that include cyber and operational readiness, and simple decision playbooks for HR and communications to protect employee trust. Expect theCUBE’s coverage to highlight how these governance mechanics are changing procurement conversations and capital plans.

Technology, but Not Technology Alone

AI, orchestration, immutable infrastructure and cloud replication are central to modern resilience strategies. But technology amplifies existing strengths and weaknesses. Automation can accelerate recovery if an organization has clean inventories, tested recovery procedures and governance for automated actions. Without those, automation can multiply mistakes at scale.

theCUBE’s analyst-driven approach will sift through which technologies are maturity accelerants and which are complexity traps. Attendees and interviewees will share hard lessons: the costs of unvalidated backup strategies, the subtle dependencies that nullify failover plans, and the small investments that create outsized resilience dividends.

Measuring Resilience: What to Track

Metrics reframe resilience from a fuzzily-defined aspiration into operational priorities. Useful measures go beyond mean time to detect or recover and include:

  • Time to restore critical business processes, not just systems
  • Percentage of suppliers with tested recovery plans
  • Frequency and realism of cross-functional exercises
  • Employee-facing service availability during incidents
  • Decision latency for escalations and approvals

These metrics inform budgets, hiring, and the cadence of exercises. Coverage at RSAC 2026 will showcase teams using such measures to re-prioritize work and demonstrate impact to boards and regulators.

Leadership Imperatives for the Work Community

Resilience isn’t a checkbox for risk teams; it’s a leadership agenda. That means:

  • Investing in cross-functional practice and authority so decisions get made under pressure.
  • Watching for technical debt that increases recovery time more than it reduces day-to-day costs.
  • Accepting that redundancy and simplicity are often better allies than the latest point solution.
  • Prioritizing scenarios that directly impact people and revenue rather than chasing perfect protection across all assets.

What to Expect from theCUBE Live Coverage

theCUBE will bring forward analyst-driven sessions and one-on-one conversations that do more than report headlines. Coverage will:

  • Translate conference themes into checklists and decision questions for the Work community.
  • Highlight case studies and tactical changes organizations are implementing now.
  • Track signals across vendors, insurers and regulators that change the economics of resilience.
  • Unpack the human and process interventions that move the needle faster than capital outlays alone.

A Call to Action for the Work Community

RSAC 2026 is a moment to convert urgency into practice. Listen to the live coverage, but return to your organization with a narrow focus: pick the one or two resilience levers that will reduce the most risk to your people and your revenue. Run a realistic drill, validate your vendor recovery claims, and profile the decisions that will be needed in the first 24 hours of a major incident.

Resilience is not an endpoint. It is a continuous discipline that blends preparation, communication and a willingness to learn. theCUBE’s analyst-driven reporting will illuminate the path — but the work of building continuity happens in the teams who show up, decide, and execute when the pressure mounts.

Closing

For those who keep work running, RSAC 2026 is not just another conference. It is a gathering of practice, a staging ground for the ideas and playbooks that will define how organizations absorb shocks in the years ahead. Follow theCUBE’s live coverage to turn conference insights into a practical roadmap for security, risk management, and operational continuity. The future of work depends less on avoiding disruption than on the capacity to endure and recover with purpose.

Move the Screen, Move the Mind: How Vertical Monitors in Windows 11 Are Rewiring Workflows

By
Bella Hayes
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0

Move the Screen, Move the Mind: How Vertical Monitors in Windows 11 Are Rewiring Workflows

At a glance, rotating a monitor 90 degrees looks like a small change. The promise, however, is not novelty — it’s a practical rethinking of how we arrange information and attention. In offices, hybrid workspaces and home setups alike, a simple vertical monitor configuration in Windows 11 can reduce scrolling, compress context switches and reshape workflows for people who read, write, code or monitor streams of continuous information.

Why a vertical monitor works

Our screens are where attention lives. The horizontal landscape is inherited from television and cinema; it favors wide, cinematic experiences. But many knowledge tasks are vertical by nature: documents, email threads, social or messaging timelines, code files, legal briefs and long spreadsheets often extend top-to-bottom. Turning a monitor to portrait aligns display geometry with the shape of the content.

  • More lines, less scrolling. A vertical monitor can show significantly more lines of text than a same-size landscape display. Less scrolling equals fewer interruptions to the reading flow and fewer micro-decisions about where to click next.
  • Fewer context switches. When a message thread, code file or article sits mostly on one screen, you don’t have to switch windows or mentally reorient to find what you were reading.
  • Improved multitasking. Pair a vertical monitor with a landscape primary screen: use the portrait for longitudinal content (email, references, logs) and the landscape for active work (spreadsheets, apps, video calls).
  • Simpler monitoring. Dashboards, telemetry feeds and chat walls are easier to scan in portrait because the vertical format presents more sequential entries at once.

Who benefits most

Not every role will see the same gains, but the vertical configuration is especially effective for people whose daily flow includes long documents, long lists or rapidly updating information streams:

  • Writers, editors and researchers who move through drafts and sources.
  • Software developers reading or editing many lines of code and logs.
  • Product managers and analysts who cross-reference documentation and dashboards.
  • Customer support and operations staff monitoring message queues and incident logs.

Creative workflows that rely on wide timelines — video editors, designers working in large canvases — will likely prefer landscape. The point isn’t that portrait is universally better; it’s that a thoughtful combination of orientations can serve modern hybrid work better than a single, static layout.

How to set up a vertical monitor in Windows 11

Windows 11 makes the software side straightforward. Combine these software settings with a monitor that supports VESA or a stand that allows rotation, and you’re set.

  1. Physically rotate your monitor. If using a VESA arm or a built-in pivot stand, turn the display into portrait mode. If the stand doesn’t pivot, detach and reattach using a rotating mount or rotate the whole monitor housing if designed to do so.
  2. Open Settings → System → Display.
  3. Identify the monitor you rotated by selecting it in the display diagram.
  4. Under “Scale & layout,” find “Display orientation.” Choose “Portrait” (or “Portrait (flipped)” if the monitor is upside-down).
  5. Confirm and adjust scale and resolution so text is crisp and readable. If text looks tiny, increase the scaling percentage; if elements feel large, reduce it slightly.
  6. Arrange your displays in the same relative positions shown in the diagram so the mouse moves naturally between screens.

Tip: If your graphics drivers expose hotkeys, they can rotate the screen quickly. Driver hotkeys vary by vendor and are optional. When in doubt, use the Settings route above to avoid surprises.

Make Windows 11 features work for vertical space

Windows 11 includes tools that play nicely with portrait displays:

  • Snap layouts. Use snap layouts (hover the maximize button or use Windows + Z) to arrange multiple narrow vertical windows without crowding the screen.
  • Virtual desktops. Keep focused tasks on a dedicated virtual desktop and move background lists or logs to the portrait monitor.
  • Focus assist. Turn on Focus Assist for your main screen while leaving notifications visible on the vertical monitor—this way interruptions are visible but not intrusive.

Small configuration choices that make a big difference

Certain details matter when making portrait work well:

  • Native resolution. Run the monitor at its native resolution whenever possible. Portrait orientation retains pixel density, which keeps text sharp.
  • Scaling parity. If your primary and portrait monitors have different DPIs, set appropriate scaling so UI elements appear proportionate when you move windows between screens.
  • Color and contrast. If you review documents or images, calibrate color and brightness. Many monitors remember color profiles per orientation; check your monitor’s on-screen menu if things look off after rotation.
  • Ergonomics. Position the top edge of the portrait screen at or slightly below eye level and center it in your line of sight for minimal neck strain.

Workflow recipes to try

Below are practical setups you can experiment with depending on your role:

  • The reader/writer. Put source material, reference tabs and notes on the portrait display. Write on the landscape screen to keep source and output visible at once.
  • The developer. Keep an open file or log on the portrait monitor; use the main horizontal monitor for the IDE, browser and debugging tools.
  • The analyst. Use portrait for dashboards or long result sets and landscape for pivot tables, visualizations and exploratory work.
  • The communications manager. Threaded conversations, comment streams and editorial calendars live well on portrait, while content creation tools occupy the wide screen.

Common friction points and how to fix them

Every change in a workstation introduces friction. The following are common complaints and simple fixes:

  • Text appears too small. Increase scaling in Settings → System → Display.
  • Applications don’t respect portrait layout. Update the app or try a different client; some older apps were built with fixed aspect ratios in mind.
  • Mouse movement feels awkward. Re-draw your display arrangement in Settings so physical and virtual positions match. Also, slow mouse speed slightly until it feels natural.
  • Video content looks odd. Portrait is not optimal for most video work — use it for supplementary tasks and switch to landscape for playback.

Measure whether it’s worth it

To judge the real benefit for your work, run a two-week experiment. Track a handful of metrics before and during the trial: number of context switches per hour, scrolling events per document (many browsers/extensions can show scroll behavior), time spent searching for open windows and subjective measures like perceived focus and fatigue. Even small improvements in micro-tasks add up: reducing five short interruptions a day can reclaim meaningful minutes of deep work.

Beyond hardware: reshaping attention

Rotating a screen does more than change pixels; it subtly reshapes attention. It signals a different mode — one that privileges depth over breadth, sequence over spectacle. For many knowledge workers, that’s the kind of nudge that translates into better work rhythms.

Windows 11’s evolving layout tools make combining portrait and landscape simpler than ever. The real work happens when you pair the arrangement with deliberate habits: designating a monitor for reading versus doing, aligning notification policies, and committing to a testing period that quantifies the outcome.

Final thought

Rearranging a desk can feel like rearranging a life: at first, the change is external; then it becomes cognitive. Rotating a monitor is one of those low-friction, high-clarity adjustments that invites a more intentional way of working. Try it for two weeks, measure, and let the screens tell you whether the vertical view is a tool for distraction or a conduit for deeper focus.

When a small ergonomic tweak can reduce friction across dozens of micro-decisions in a day, it’s worth rotating the hardware — and your expectations — to see how much more productive the workday can be.

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