Results tagged “jobs”

We need some writers! We're looking for people with specific interests or obsessions they'd like to focus on. If you're not familiar with how the -Ists work: the pay is in exposure and experience. We're interested in people who know how to to blog and can write two or three posts per week. Of particular appeal are people who follow local music, local sports, or local politics. Send expressions of interest, any questions, and three writing samples/links to editor (at) seattlest.com.

Even with ties to people in high places, the Seattle Police Department was deee-nied, while 30 other Washington agencies were awarded a combined total of $18,543,197 to cover the cost of hiring/rehiring 71 officers over the next three years--benefits included.

• Seattle Bubble has some fairly depressing graphs of job losses in the region. Why, graphs, why?
• MyBallard has info on the 10,000 or so people prepared to invade Greenwood tomorrow for the 50th Annual Greenwood Seafair Parade, including links showing which streets are closed.

The Examiner reported yesterday that Google is purging their Seattle and Kirkland offices. "A source said the layoffs are coordinated in a fashion to avoid showing up on the radar of governmental, business, and media reporting agencies," writes Steve Speigel. "In other words, the layoffs are below the threshold of the various state and federal rules to avoid being identified and therefore having to pay large severances."

Clearly, unemployment is the new black these days, as Washington's unemployment rate crept up to 9.2 percent in March. The nearly one-percent increase from February came from the 20,000 jobs lost and lack of growth in the state's major industries, making this the first time Washington surpassed the 8.5 national unemployment rate. There is hope--we aren't in the double digits and job seekers can make the best of it with Seattle Job Social, a new schmoozing (and boozing) alternative job resource. Obviously, we prefer the glass-half-full attitude.

The School Board voted last night to approve proposed changes to school start times. In the fall, elementary schools will begin class at 9:30 a.m. and K-8, junior high, and high schools will begin at 8:15 a.m. We've heard from usually reliable sources both that kids learn better in the mornings and that mornings are bad for learning, so since that one's apparently still up in the air, we'll whine about what an ill thought-through decision this is with regards to working parents.

• Jobs are difficult to find, but not so scarce that P-I staffers aren't feeling free to turn down Hearst's online operations job offers. "Bottom line: An online-only P-I is not a done deal. At least not yet," says Publicola's Sandeep Kaushik.
• Southlake reports on a man shot in the butt, and Queen Anne View has a kickass firefighter who won a stair-climbing competition.
• Over at Schmudget (caution: policy wonkstrosity ahead), they're talking about sub-prime lending in Washington state all week long. Today, their angle has to do with the depressing racial disparity in the mortgage market. Best of all, the post includes an infographic!

Microsoft giveth, and Microsoft taketh away. The company overpaid severance to some laid off employees last month, and now wants its money back. It makes us want to scream, "No take backsies!" But how can you stay mad at Microsoft when they're offering free training for jobs that involve Microsoft products. Look into it. You can't spend your life aimlessly wandering the mall, especially now that Southcenter is cutting its hours.

Keep going. The bottom is near. The real estate market has finally bottomed out says one agent. UW is cutting 600-800 jobs And they weren't bottom-heavy to begin with. Some of those people might consider opening an SBC franchise. We love how they put a little chocolate bar on each mocha.

Every now and then, Seattlest gets an email from Idealist.org letting us know if there are any jobs available in the nonprofit sector for people who can write (the answer is generally no, but we hold out hope). Today, the Idealist email introduced us to a single job opening: Executive Director at the Richard Hugo House. We figured it was newsworthy, so we went on a little investigative mission through the internet tubes to see if there's any gossip on the matter and discovered only that, indeed, Hugo House is in need of a new director. It's been three years since former director Lyall Bush replaced Frances McCue, and we understand Executive Directors at arts organizations rarely stick around for decades. So, have at it, aspiring Exec. Direcs!

The need to develop alternative energy is one of the incoming Obama administration's talking points. Here in Washington, alternative energy looks a lot like huge wind farms east of the mountains; according to the Tacoma News Tribune, the state's wind farms are currently producing enough electricity to power two Seattles.

TechFlash has a post today titled "Is Classmates.com Cutting Back?" based on what they're "hearing." What we're hearing is that a hiring freeze has been lifted (Exhibit A--look for jobs in Renton). And NWCN reports that Classmates.com is making money hand over mortarboard. (If that makes sense. We're just trying to keep it light, people. Mortarboard, it's fun.) So that's what we know. What do you hear?

The Seattle Times reports that JP Morgan will lay off as many as 3,000 WaMu employees in the Seattle area, cutting the local WaMu workforce to just under a third of its former glory. Layoffs begin this week, and by December 1--in the thick of the holiday shopping season--all of the decisions will have been made about who stays and who goes. This doesn't come as a surprise, but the numbers are breathtaking and the impact on our local economy will be significant. From the Times article: "'It's pretty dire for Seattle,' said one former high-ranking executive." Brace yourselves--it's looking like a cold, lean winter ahead.

Linda Derschang, of Linda's Tavern and King's Hardware fame, is joining forces with Ericka Burke of the Volunteer Park Cafe to bring you the newest "quintessential neighborhood hangout" on Capitol Hill...and according to this post on Craigslist, the duo is now hiring for a variety of positions for the cafe! The so-called Oddfellows Cafe and Bar, to be located at 10th and Pine and opening in early December, "will be serving Stumptown coffee, homemade baked goods, breakfast, lunch & dinner," as well as "beer, wine & cocktails." We'll reserve judgment about the food itself until we've had a chance to check it out, but we'd put money on this cafe as the next hip place to be employed. Thanks to Seattlest tipster Sarah! (And h/t to CHS, which we just saw posted about this earlier today.)

see more crazy cat pics

Seattlest thinks our city is lucky to count Grist as a native child. It's a helluva publication that always gets at the, um, grist of the matter. They use humor wisely and since, as we noted yesterday, we're a tree-hugging hippy, we love what they stand for.

We were going to send this to our cousin, but then we remembered how bad he looked at our antler party.

As ChrisB of Three Imaginary Girls points out, losing your job sucks. Losing a job that meant a lot to you sucks more. And losing all that during the holidays? Well that just blows a goat.

"They should take off their left socks."

It's safe to assume that Sharon Jones is cooler than you. The current queen of neo-funk/soul grew up in Macon, Georgia and Brooklyn, singing in church before ending up doing session work in the '70s as the anonymous vocals on dance and disco records. Without a solo contract of her own, she left the industry and took odd jobs like corrections officer at Rikers Island and Wells Fargo armored car guard.

While we're finding you writerly folk some jobs, why don't some of you look into the Puget Sound Business Journal: they've got two staff openings: the banking, residential real estate and economy beat and sports, retailing and marketing and media.

Enough. It's Bacon Salt Backlash time. Seattlest got in our car to drive home last night and Bacon Salt came on the radio. We opened up the newspaper yesterday and Bacon Salt. Bacon Salt, Bacon Salt, Bacon Salt.

It's Seattle Shakespeare Company's version of the wandering prince Pericles on Friday night for MvB, followed Saturday night by Britain's accordion-driven, Brechtian street opera trio with neo-castrati Martyn Jacques, the Tiger Lilies at the Moore, ladies and gentlemen.

This company pissed us off with their graffiti-esque chalk attack advertising recently in Downtown Seattle, but as far as we know not much came of it. Well, an anti guerrilla advertising site was created, but to our knowledge the city of Seattle didn't hold the company responsible for all their visual litter.

It’s been hard for us to admit this, greenie that we are, but a vote for Prop. 1 is in order, at least from this Seattlest's perspective.

Front-page screamer in the P-I today: School crimes under wraps.

Somehow, in between day jobs, practices, live shows, and recording their second album Beehive Sessions (produced by the Posies' Jon Auer), everybody's favorite performance group/art collective/pop band "Awesome" has found the time to put together a new theater extravaganza for all ages. And though it's kid-tested mother-approved, there's still scads of local talent involved: Here's What Happened is directed by WET's Jennifer Zeyl and has a different guest narrator each night--actor Charles Leggett, Almost Live! and Seattle Channel's Nancy Guppy, and man about town Sean Nelson.

Jim Moore of the P-I reports this shocking news today: The Wazzu Cougars have passed the UW Huskies in apparel sales, according to a company that keeps track of such things.

Londonist are starting to think their city is getting just a little bit too expensive, when even Christian Slater can't afford to go out there. And there's no escaping, as local singer Lily Allen discovered when she was barred entry to the US. The British mapping agency caused further bad karma, by blocking a 3-D representation of London in Google Earth. But the smiles returned to Londonist's faces as they interviewed Baroness von Reichardt, who has completely covered her house in mosaic tiles.

We've been trying to keep abreast of the latest strike news via the networks as well as our singular Canadian television channel down here but both the quantity and quality of coverage has been most unsatisfying. So we took matters into our own hands. (Confidential to Metroblogging Vancouver: If you don't provide any sort of contact address, we cannot reach you for guest/expert commentary.) We contacted The Vancouverite because we believe in their attractive tag line --"Hyper-Caffeinated Snarky News & Opinion". More importantly, following The Onion's precedent, we assign greater cultural credentials to sites employing the definite article. Here's what Editor Jackson reported about the strike: