Just one day before the Judds were set to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, and just 18 days after the mother-daughter country duo had announced their farewell tour, the band’s Naomi Judd has died at age 76.

Wynonna Judd and her sister, actress Ashley Judd, announced Naomi’s the shocking news Saturday in a statement that read: “Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness. We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory.” The statement did not provide any other details about their mother’s passing.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/country-legend-naomi-judd-dead-at-age-76-211909698.html

I've loved the pandemic, because I find constantly dealing with other people fairly stressful. My social obligations have fallen to only seeing close friends; work functions are non-existent, meetings are rare, the parties I've been to are very limited in number of people... But I'm fairly strongly introverted.

I think extroverted people have had a hard time coping. There have been a bunch of lead singers who have committed suicide during the pandemic, for instance. In part, because many extroverts have never really had to develop coping skills - American society is geared towards extroverted people. Compare it to a society like, say, Finland where it's expected that you won't interact with strangers at all.

It's part of what's behind the push to get people back into offices; productivity can be up, but many management types need people there, the work itself doesn't actually matter.

I thought about that ...
I figured it was because these places have leases they have to pay anyway ...
(or can't sublet because other places are at home too) ...

As far as lead singers go, Curt would have prayed for these days ...
haha ...

From a business perspective, it would really make more sense to turn off as much of the office as you can (lights, turn the thermostats up, etc.), ride out the lease, and downsize office space as soon as you can. The current lease is a sunk cost and a place you can cut costs in the future.

If you force people back into the office, then you've created a situation where you have to keep wasting money on exorbitant leases to accommodate that work force.

I think the other biggest reason for forcing people back into the office is just the nature of bureaucracy. Most layers of management don't produce anything at all. If people aren't in the office, then the useless nature of their positions becomes apparent: they aren't controlling the flow of information as easily, they're not micromanaging people's time, they're not holding pointless meetings, etc. David Graeber wrote the book "Bullshit Jobs" which postulated that half of all societal work is completely unnecessary. The lack of people in the office just makes it clear that all of these taskmaster/leadership jobs are really just bullshit as he postulated.

I can agree with that ...
In the company I work for there's so much upper management that they step on themselves and make the dumbest decisions ....

It's completely unnecessary to have these people in a any way ...
... and it's why I completely ignore each and every one of them every chance I get
(It's almost like they've never even been out in the field before ... Hmmmm) ,,,

I just started working on getting my PMP certification, since people seem to like that sort of thing on resumes.

Reading through the standard, it's honestly pretty stupid. Most of it is obvious, the rest of it is just to do reporting so upper levels of management have something to look at (since most of those people are financial-types and have no fucking idea how anything they're "managing" works). And of course you slap a bunch of jargon on everything, because no one likes to use plain language.

It's how I felt about reading through syllabuses for MBAs - what a bunch of useless bullshit.

I might get that cert too ....
you know of a good place to grab it?

And I remember most of my education having a lot of useless bullshit (some even outdated to useless) ...

But, "management" is a bunch of people not knowing what's up, or just bean-counters ...
Either way, the ones that roll out company-wise major changes without a "pilot program" are the worst ...
That's the norm with the company I work for (unfortunately) ...

The cheapest way to do it is through the Project Management Institute:

Take their course:
https://www.pmi.org/shop/p-/elearning/project-management-basics---an-official-pmi-online-course/16125

Get the CAPM :
https://www.pmi.org/certifications/certified-associate-capm

Get the PMP:
https://www.pmi.org/certifications/project-management-pmp

I was looking at various MBA and project management certificates. This is by far the cheapest way to do it.

Thanks for that info; I'm looking in on it ...

But check this out ...

How to Get Your PMP
Earning your PMP Certification is a commitment, and that's why it is valuable. Do you have real-world project management experience that's led to success? Great—you’ve finished the hardest part. Before you apply, make sure you meet of the following sets of PMP Certification requirements:

A four-year degree
36 months leading projects
35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM® Certification
— OR —

A high school diploma or an associate’s degree (or global equivalent)
60 months leading projects
35 hours of project management education/training or CAPM® Certification

Quite a jump there ....

Yeah, the time leading projects is a big jump.

For getting a professional engineering license, the education/work requirements are:
1. 4 year ABET-certified degree + 4 years work experience
2. 4 year ABET-certified degree + MS or PhD + 3 years work experience
3. 4 year non-ABET-certified degree + 8 years work experience
4. 12 years work experience

The experience requirements get pretty steep, though with engineering the emphasis on education makes more sense because you are doing pretty intense engineering work throughout college.

Have a college degree really shouldn't be a thing for PMP. There is very little relevant education to management, in my opinion.

Right, people learn their jobs, trades, or professions, yet, only learn to function within them, not to help them (help it) function ...