A look at...
The Year's Weirdest News
By Chuck Shepherd
Here is my list...of the most disturbing yet underreported
stories of the year.
LAWS OF IRONY ARE STRICTLY ENFORCED: Just after
publication of his book "Disciplined Minds" in May,
Jeff Schmidt was fired after 19 years as a staff writer for
Physics Today magazine. In his book, Schmidt argued that a
hierarchical organization's structure almost guarantees that its
workers cannot devote their full energy to the job; he was
terminated after a supervisor learned that in his forward to the
book, he playfully wrote that he had completed it partly on
"stolen time" -- that is, during office hours. His
employers said his dismissal was not related to what he wrote in
the book.
-- Chronicle of Higher Education, June 9, 2000
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