A Message to the Obese - It's all your fault!

There is no let-up at the moment in the criticisms that are being thrown at overweight people. They have been blamed for increasing the demands on the Health Services, on encroaching on the personal space of others in aircraft, and now according to the latest report, are even responsible for global warming, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Read the article from the BBC here

Age Discrimination - 10 Top Tips to stay out of trouble

Since the advent of Employment Equality laws, the subject of age discrimination has become more concerning to interviewers, line managers and HR teams, fearful of stepping over the line of acceptable questioning and straight into a tribunal. We publish a guide on how to stay on the right side of that thin line - read Guy Guinan's article here:

Time Management - 10 Common Failings

Ever wanted to be better at time management? There are many books and courses out there to help you home your productivity and enable you to be more productive.

If you are one of those who don't have the time to go on a course or read a book, help is at hand. Ian McKenzie posts his thoughts on how we fall down in this area, along with helpful suggestions on eliminating these failings. Read it here.

Crisis management when YOU are the crisis

It is not only the rich and famous who have to fear the skeletons in their closet. For most of us our own dramas may never make the front page of the newspapers, but in our own circles they could be deeply damaging. Crisis management expert Eric Dezenhall gives some suggestions on how to handle such a personal crisis in this interesting article.

Read Eric's article in APP here:

docleaf Briefs

We have previously commended Jet Blue CEO on their crisis response, so it will be interesting to see how they manage this one.... A New York man who says he was denied a seat on a five-hour JetBlue flight and was instead told to "hang out" in the plane's bathroom has sued the airline for $2 million, saying he suffered "extreme humiliation."

When Gokhan Mutlu arrived to check in for a JetBlue flight from San Diego to New York in February he was told the flight was full, according to the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court. But Mutlu was allowed to board after a JetBlue flight attendant agreed to give up her seat and travel in an airline employee "jump seat." It was not clear in the lawsuit whether the flight attendant was working.

However 90 minutes into the flight, the pilot told Mutlu the flight attendant was uncomfortable and he would have to give up his seat and "hang out" in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight, the lawsuit said. The pilot "became angry at (Mutlu's) reluctance" and said Mutlu "should be grateful for being onboard," the lawsuit said. When Mutlu volunteered to sit in the "jump seat," he was told it was reserved for airline personnel.

At one point, the airplane experienced turbulence and Mutlu sat on the toilet seat without a seat belt, causing him "tremendous fear," the lawsuit said.

JetBlue was not immediately available for comment. (Reuters)

And finally.... A Vietnamese man in Norway lost around 35,000 dollars after he was led to believe that mixing the cash with a special liquid would double its value, Norwegian media reported Saturday.(AFP)

The victim of the con, who was not identified, was reportedly told by the Frenchman to leave a mixture of real cash with blank bills to marinate in a special liquid overnight, and the next morning he would have double the amount of cash at his disposal.

But when he showed up the next morning to collect his prize, both the cash and the suspected con-artist, whose name was not revealed, had disappeared.

"He has given a statement that leads us to believe that he really believed this was possible. But we are of course having a hard time understanding how someone could actually believe such a tall tale," said police officer Ragnar Ingberg.