Even before the opening ceremonies, the Olympics produced one of those special moments that only the Olympics can give us.One of the best men’s soccer teams in Europe, Portugal, was defeated 4-2 by Iraq, a team that had to play on practice fields offered by places like Japan and Germany rather than at home because … well, you know why.These were players who had to be flown to Greece by the Australian Air Force, but arrived...

Last week’s column described the seven deadly workplace sins for managers, so now we can truly try to beat the subject to death with the seven deadly sins for the rest of us. (Next week: The seven deadly sins for aardvarks.) Here goes:— Come up with trite ideas. Oh, wait. That’s not one of the sins; it’s just a note from my editor about last week’s column. Sorry. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming:— D...

The latest ESPN gimmick to celebrate its 25th anniversary is to team up five old personalities with current ones on a weeklong series of SportsCenters.People like Craig Kilborn and Greg Gumbel are back for one night each this week, but viewers won’t see the best possible reunion: Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann.Before Olbermann left ESPN in 1997, he and “tag team partner” Patrick were the best and most distinctive pairing S...

If you aren’t able to succeed, it’s easy to round up the usual blame suspects: office politics, a nasty boss, lazy subordinates — virtually anyone except yourself. But if you’re discovering that success is harder to find than Sasquatch, consider whether you might be the career saboteur.Today’s and next week’s columns will look at the Seven Deadly Workplace Sins, one of those contrived lists that journalists love to put toge...

Two actors from “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” were temporarily fired recently because CBS officials believed they were holding out for more money.Wisdom eventually triumphed, and Jorja Fox and George Eads are returning to the show — but reportedly without any pay raises. Eads said he wasn’t really staging a holdout, but had simply overslept.Uh, OK.In any case, employees can learn a lot by contrasting what happened to the...

When you want a raise, talk isn’t cheap - but your employer might be. How can you land yourself a better package, whether you're getting hired or nudging your boss for a raise? Try these steps: Do your homework. How much do others get paid for similar work? Some people are perfectly comfortable talking about their salaries and benefits. If you are, find others like you. If you’re not, do your research through labor unio...

Singer Linda Ronstadt got banned from Las Vegas’ Aladdin casino recently after dedicating a song to Michael Moore, the controversial filmmaker behind “Fahrenheit 9/11,” a film critical of President Bush.Media reports say that when Ronstadt dedicated an encore performance of “Desperado” to Moore, about one-quarter of the 4,500 audience members walked out, with some spilling drinks, tearing down posters and demanding refunds....

The conventional wisdom is that the United States is bound to have a labor shortage by 2010 or so. As more Baby Boomers retire, the thinking goes, there simply will not be enough bodies to replace them. Job hunters will find the pickings even easier than they did four years ago, when the economy was going full speed and you could land a job even if you didn’t know how to spell IQ.Don’t bet on it.The August issue of Fast Com...

As it televised the British Open golf tournament over the weekend, ABC reported that one legal sports gambling place in Britain had taken in 6 million pounds of wagers. But no one bet on Todd Hamilton, the eventual champion.Before the tournament, Hamilton would have appeared to be a sucker bet. The 38-year-old had struggled since college to try to join the U.S. pro tour, finally making it last year on his eighth try. He had...

Many workplace advice books have good intentions, but they don’t deliver the right kind of information to help you succeed. Even ones that offer decent theories often lack the step-by-step advice you need to put those theories into practice.There have been lots of books that describe the need to discuss difficult topics at work, for example, but the most helpful one I’ve seen has to be Stephen Pollan and Mark Levine’s “Life...