Race day drinks? Don’t mix with work… Tattoos [good ones] for kids… Google’s mobile phone entry not what was expected

• Race day drinks? Don’t mix with work
• Tattoos [good ones] for kids
• Google’s mobile phone entry not what was expected

Do your staff get p!ssed at Cup Day lunch? Or more often?

Will your staff be popping a bottle of bubbly to celebrate the Melbourne Cup today? It’s harmless fun, no doubt, but what do you do if you have an employee with a serious drinking problem?

About 80% of heavy drinkers are employed either full-time or part-time in the United States, and it is likely that a similar proportion are here. CareerJounal.com recommends that rather than firing an employee due to alcohol or substance abuse, or ignoring the issue, alcoholism-treatment experts say the best plan is for managers to treat the issue as a job-performance problem.

You’re not qualified to diagnose the problem, so you shouldn’t. And approaching the issue as a performance problem avoids getting into a tricky discrimination situation.

Act quickly, but make it a progressive response. Start with a warning and lead up to more severe consequences and eventually, termination, if the problems aren’t corrected.

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Tattoos for kids

It may not sound like it, but this is actually a handy trend for parents, not rebellious teens. Springwise reports that a new company with the rather clever name of Tottoos is making a business out of producing temporary tattoos that parents or schools can use to attach important information to kids in a difficult to remove way.

The tattoos come with what ever text is needed, from ‘If I am lost, please call X,’ or ‘I’m a student at X school,’ to ‘I’m allergic to peanuts.’ Very handy if you have a little one with a propensity to wander off when he or she shouldn’t.

The tattoos last for at least 12 hours and are made from safe, non-allergenic materials. Basic packages begin at $US14.95 for 15 tattoos, with bulk buying options for schools.

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Google says no to gPhone

All the rumours about Google getting ready to make an entry into the mobile phone market with its own handset appear to have come to nought – or at least, to something other than people expected.

According to Wired , what Google has produced is a Linux-style open-source operating system for mobile phones, to be known as Android.

Google says that next week it will launch early access software development kits to provide developers with the necessaries to create applications for the Android platform. No doubt Google hopes its open-source mobile platform will produce results similar to Facebook’s earlier this year – a massive surge in creative and innovative application production by third parties.

In effect, this will put Google into direct competition with the likes of Microsoft and PalmOS in the mobile phone operating system game.

The advantage for Google? Getting a foot in the door of the massive rapidly expanding mobile technology software game, no doubt with an eye to finding ways to serve ads or other such revenue-generating measures down the track.

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