A behind-the-scenes look at the firm behind WordPress.com and the unique work culture that contributes to its phenomenal success 50 million websites, or twenty percent of the entire web, use WordPress software. The force behind WordPress.com is a convention-defying company called Automattic, Inc., whose 120 employees work from anywhere in the world they wish, barely use email, and launch improvements to their products dozens of times a day. With a fraction of the resources of Google, Amazon, or Facebook, they have a similar impact on the future of the Internet. How is this possible? What's different about how they work, and what can other companies learn from their methods? To find out, former Microsoft veteran Scott Berkun worked as a manager at WordPress.com, leading a team of young programmers developing new ideas. The Year Without Pants shares the secrets of WordPress.com's phenomenal success from the inside. Berkun's story reveals insights on creativity, productivity, and leadership from the kind of workplace that might be in everyone's future. Offers a fast-paced and entertaining insider's account of how an amazing, powerful organization achieves impressive results Includes vital lessons about work culture and managing creativity Written by author and popular blogger Scott Berkun (scottberkun.com) The Year Without Pants shares what every organization can learn from the world-changing ideas for the future of work at the heart of Automattic's success.

As COVID-19 swept across the globe with merciless force, it was working people who kept the world from falling apart. Deemed "essential" by a system that has shown just how much it needs our labor but has no concern for our lives, workers sacrificed--and many were sacrificed--to keep us fed, to keep our shelves stocked, to keep our hospitals and transit running, to care for our loved ones, and so much more. But when we look back at this particular moment, when we try to write these days into history for ourselves and for future generations, whose voices will go on the record? Whose stories will be remembered? In late 2020 and early 2021, at what was then the height of the pandemic, Maximillian Alvarez conducted a series of intimate interviews with workers of all stripes, from all around the US--from Kyle, a sheet metal worker in Kentucky; to Mx. Pucks, a burlesque performer and producer in Seattle; to Nick, a gravedigger in New Jersey. As he does in his widely celebrated podcast, Working People, Alvarez spoke with them about their lives, their work, and their experiences living through a year when the world itself seemed to break apart. Those conversations, documented in these pages, are at times meandering, sometimes funny or philosophical, occasionally punctured by pain so deep that it hurts to read them. Filled with stories of struggle and strength, fear and loss, love and rage, The Work of Living is a deeply human history of one of the defining events of the 21st century told by the people who lived it.

Every so often a book comes along that captures the attention of the hard working entrepreneur (for more than ten minutes) and literally changes the paradigm of how they view their business. Within these pages you will experience Scott Fritz's entrepreneurial journey first hand, as he shares with you the business tools, action focused exercises and mindset philosophy that allowed him to achieve The 40 Hour Work YEAR. From the start up years with no pay, through the challenges and thrills of growing a multi-million dollar company and positioning it for sale, Scott shares his vast business experience using a matter of fact, TAKE ACTION NOW approach. Whether you are in the early stages of start-up, experiencing hyper growth, or ready to head for the big money exit, The 40 Hour Work YEAR will give you the perspective needed to create the business success and personal freedom you desire!

You've worked hard, lived carefully, and saved diligently. You've reached major milestones and accumulated more assets than you dreamed possible, and yet you hesitate. ""Can I retire?"" This book will help answer that question by showing you.... The tools you need to live a secure and independent retirement, without worrying about money What you must know before leaving a career behind How much it will cost you to live in retirement, and how to manage your cash flow The current choices for retirement health care, including lesser-known but effective options The threat from inflation: two secrets that politicians and bankers will never admit A realistic assessment of the impact that income taxes will have on your retirement Social Security's role in your retirement: when you should claim and how much it's worth to you How to construct and manage an investment portfolio for income and growth in retirement About immediate annuities and why you need multiple sources of retirement income The key variables and unknowns in your retirement withdrawal equation Reviews of the best retirement calculators, and tips for how to use them accurately Beyond the simplistic 4% Rule to the latest research on safe withdrawal rates Realistic bracketing of your retirement savings needs, without over caution or overconfidence The history of economic cycles and the related asset classes for optimal retirement security A survey of strategies plus original research for how to orchestrate your retirement distributions A practical "retirement fuel gauge" alerting you to problems while you still have time to act Backup plans: the "lifeboat strategies" for ensuring you'll never be without essential income The 6 crucial questions to answer before you can retire The one, simple, powerful, non-financial reason that you can and should retire earlier than later

The Year's Work in Showgirls Studies is a fan culture volume that deconstructs how and why Showgirls, a 1995 drama with a female lead bent on becoming a famous performer in Las Vegas, became a much-contested cult film despite being a critical failure when it released. The collection orchestrates a conversation between scholarly essay work and archival documentation offering a magnificent representation of the array of responses generated by the film, its makers, its promoters, and its audience. A multifaceted approach to the film, its popularity, and its social relevance results in a new text for understanding normative social hierarchies of sexuality, race, and gender. The Year's Work in Showgirls Studies engages with the figurative and actual place of sex work and feminized affective labor in our society.

“Playful and (un)deadly serious . . . chew[s] through a near-exhaustive array of films, television, literature, culture, music and even cocktails.”—Times Literary Supplement They have stalked the horizons of our culture, wreaked havoc on moribund concepts of dead and not dead, threatened our sense of identity, and endangered our personal safety. Now zombies have emerged from the lurking shadows of society’s fringes to wander the sacred halls of the academy, feasting on tender minds and hurling rot across our intellectual landscape. It is time to unite in common cause, to shore up defenses, firm up critical and analytical resources, and fortify crumbling lines of inquiry. Responding to this call, Brain Workers from the Zombie Research Center poke and prod the rotting corpus of zombie culture trying to make sense of cult classics and the unstoppable growth of new and even more disturbing work. They exhume “zombie theory” and decaying historical documents from America, Europe, and the Caribbean in order to unearth the zombie world and arm readers with the brain tools necessary for everyday survival. Readers will see that zombie culture today “lives” in shapes as mutable as a zombie horde—and is often just as violent. “An intelligent and highly engaging collection that will appeal to legions of zombie fans, to students in the humanities, and to scholars working in fields that have already been affected by or are now preparing for the zombie apocalypse. It blends entertaining, illuminating, and accessible readings of zombies and zombie culture with unique interventions made from authoritative positions of expertise.”—Julian Murphet, author of Faulkner’s Media Romance