Results for “those new service sector jobs” 170 found
Those new service sector jobs
In North America the modern undertaker’s job is increasingly one of event-planning, says Sherri Tovell, an undertaker in Windsor, Canada. Among the requirements at her recent funerals have been a tiki hut, margaritas, karaoke and pizza delivery. Some people want to hire an officiant to lead a “life celebration”, others to shoot ashes into the skies with fireworks. Old-fashioned undertakers are hard put to find their place in such antics. Another trend—known as “direct cremation”—has no role for them at all.
Besides having to offer more diverse services, the trade also faces increased competition in its products. Its roots are in carpentry. “You’d buy an expensive casket and the funeral would be included in the price,” remembers Dan Isard, a funeral consultant in Phoenix, Arizona. The unwritten agreement was that the dead would be treated with dignity and that families would not ask if there was an alternative to the $1,000 or $2,000 coffin, or whether embalming was really needed. The business has something in common with prostitution, reflects Dominic Akyel of the University of Cologne. It is legal (as prostitution is in some places) but taboo, “and certainly not to be discussed or haggled over”.
The undertaker used to be able to rely on a steady stream of customers who asked few questions and of whom he (and it was usually a he) would ask few in return. Protestant or Catholic? Open coffin or closed? And, in some parts of the world, burial or cremation? A new generation of customers, though, no longer unthinkingly hands over its dead to the nearest funeral director. They are looking elsewhere, be it to a new breed of undertaker, to hotel chains that “do” funerals, or—for their coffin or urn—to Amazon or Walmart.
Here is more from The Economist, interesting throughout
Sorority rush consultants those new service sector jobs
Grant, a former Auburn University sorority girl, founded Rushbiddies in 2009 after helping see her own daughter through a successful recruitment week at Auburn. She now works with girls, and usually also their moms, in private consultations in person or over the phone (prices start at $100 for a 90 minute session) and through group workshops, covering everything from what to wear to what to say. She’ll also suggest who to ask for recommendations and how to get in if your GPA is under 3.0—essentially preparing girls for every scenario, question, dress code requirement, and trap that will come up.
That is by Alyssa Giacobbe.
Those new service sector jobs
Plastic surgeons who give you Vulcan and elfin-like ears:
Of course, looking naturally elflike is not everyone’s goal. Luis Padron, 25, who owns a cosplay business in Argentina, said he has spent over $35,000 in surgeries and procedures including skin lightening, nose surgery and hair removal for his sylvan shape-shifting. His look has been influenced by Katherine Cardona, a contemporary illustrator specializing in fairies, and Sakimichan, a gender-bending fantasy digital artist.
Padron plans to change his eye color to violet using an intraocular implant procedure in New Delhi (not approved by the Food and Drug Administration) because “it is the color of magic, fantasy, dreams and imagination,” he said. The idea is on point, elfishly speaking, when you consider that Bloom, who wore blue contact lenses in the Tolkien film, once described elves as “incredible angelic spirits who create and appreciate great beauty.”
To complete his elflike transformation, Padron is planning a heart-shaped hairline implant and PRP scalp injections in Beverly Hills, California, because “elves have long hair,” he said. He is also planning more plastic surgery in South Korea, including Adam’s apple reduction, jaw reshaping and limb lengthening, and plans to finish his look with ear pointing surgery, which he calls “the cherry on top.”
Waiting time for ear pointing, however, is over a year, and over 40 percent of elf-ear wishers don’t have the right cartilage to perform the modification, Von Cyborg said. Black was one of the lucky ones.
Here is the full story. Should this be subsidized or taxed?
Restaurant matching markets in everything those new service sector jobs use my ethnic dining guide instead
This very nice article covers “…a line of people wrapped around the block outside a newly opened restaurant”:
…Surkus, an emerging app that allowed the restaurant to quickly manufacture its ideal crowd and pay the people to stand in place like extras on a movie set. They’ve even been hand-picked by a casting agent of sorts, an algorithmic one that selects each person according to age, location, style and Facebook “likes.”
They may look excited, but that could also be part of the production. Acting disengaged while they idle in line could tarnish their “reputation score,” an identifier that influences whether they’ll be “cast” again. Nobody is forcing the participants to stay, of course, but if they leave, they won’t be paid — their movements are being tracked with geolocation.
Here is the WaPo Peter Holley piece, interesting throughout. Note that women are often paid more than men, and comedians are starting to use it to fill seats in the nightclub.
Intimacy directors: those new service sector jobs
…the theater and film industry are beginning to recognize the need for “intimacy directors,” people who specialize in choreographing onstage intimacy.
They are practitioners who use concrete guidelines and techniques, such as the “four pillars” of intimacy direction, according to Alicia Rodis, a member of Intimacy Directors International.
Consent: Get the performers’ permission — including concrete boundaries and out of bounds body parts, and do it before you start.
Communication: Keep talking throughout the process. What’s working, what’s not, who’s touching who and how and do they feel safe.
Choreography: Performers wouldn’t spontaneously add an extra pirouette to a dance number or an extra kick to a fight scene. Don’t add an ass grab or extra kissing.
Context: Just because you kiss someone in one scene doesn’t mean you can kiss them in another scene without communicating about adjusting the choreography and seeking consent to do so. Just because someone is topless with you on stage, it doesn’t mean they won’t mind being topless around you offstage, or in another scene onstage.
To explore the ideas of intimacy and safety on stage in a variety of situations, LEO spoke with Rodis, as well as Tony Prince, a local director; and Sarah Flanagan, a Louisville-based fight director.
And:
Rodis, the New York intimacy director, started as a fight director, and that led to her new focus. She shared one experience from that evolution.
“There was one show I was working on where there was a woman who slapped the man and then kissed him. So I was brought in for the slap.”
She ended up working on the slap and the kiss. For that kiss, she used her stage combat skills. That included asking standard questions like where do the actors touch each other, and new questions like how long does the kiss last?
Here is the full story, via Catherine Rampell.
Those new service sector jobs, private tutor edition
Education services bring in £17.5bn a year to the UK economy, but what is driving the demand for a British education and why are some parents willing to spend thousands of pounds to secure a “super tutor” for their child?
“It was on the plane over I realised I’d made a mistake,” a 25-year-old private tutor tells me.
He was flying to New York to spend the summer helping to prepare a 12-year-old boy for the Common Entrance exam – a test taken by children applying to private secondary schools.
The boy’s mother had insisted he sat next to the boy so he could spend the flight time teaching him.
He did an hour and then given they were spending the next three weeks together, decided to take a nap.
The next thing he knew, he was being woken up by the mother standing over him, shouting “You think this is some kind of holiday?”.
And here is the economic background:
The Londoner uses the job’s flexibility to fund his real passion of film production and acting. He is unwilling to be named in this article in case it jeopardises future jobs.
Yet he says the money easily makes up for the occasional difficulties. He charges anywhere from £40 to £90 an hour in the UK, although the agencies he is hired through take a 25% to 50% cut of this.
When he takes an overseas job, the fees are much higher to compensate for the fact that he can’t do any other work. Typically he earns between £800 and £1,500 a week.
In three years as a tutor he’s worked in India, Indonesia and Costa Rica, as well as the US.
Here is the full BBC story, interesting throughout, average is over as they say.
Those new service sector jobs average is over spelling bee tutor edition
In the world of competitive spellers, Sylvie Lamontagne is known as a juggernaut. She placed fourth in last year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee, and ninth in 2015. Last summer, she traveled to California and won the Spelling Bee of China’s North America Spelling Champion Challenge, a contest for kids in the United States and China.
Now that the 14-year-old from Denver is no longer eligible to compete in this week’s National Spelling Bee at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Maryland — which is televised on ESPN and often turns kids like Sylvie into momentary celebrities — she’s focusing on a new vocation: spelling bee coach.
Sylvie’s rate? $200 an hour.
Hiring coaches isn’t new. But bee aficionados say a recent surge in competition, and a tightening of rules meant to limit co-champions, has spawned a demand for younger coaches such as Sylvie: high-schoolers or college kids, months or just a few years into their bee retirement, who can pass along fresh intelligence on words to memorize and how to decode bizarre words based on their language of origin.
That is from Ian Shapira at WaPo.
Back markets in everything those new service sector jobs
Tim Steiner has an elaborate tattoo on his back that was designed by a famous artist and sold to a German art collector. When Steiner dies his skin will be framed – until then he spends his life sitting in galleries with his shirt off.
“The work of art is on my back, I’m just the guy carrying it around,” says the 40-year-old former tattoo parlour manager from Zurich.
A decade ago, his then girlfriend met a Belgian artist called Wim Delvoye, who’d become well known for his controversial work tattooing pigs.
Delvoye told her he was looking for someone to agree to be a human canvas for a new work and asked if she knew anyone who might be interested.
…The work, entitled TIM, sold for 150,000 euros (£130,000) to German art collector Rik Reinking in 2008, with Steiner receiving one third of the sum.
“My skin belongs to Rik Reinking now,” he says. “My back is the canvas, I am the temporary frame.”
As part of the deal, when Steiner dies his back is to be skinned, and the skin framed permanently, taking up a place in Reinking’s personal art collection.
“Gruesome is relative,” Steiner says to those who find the idea macabre.
Here is the full story, via the always excellent Tim Harford, author of the new and excellent book Messy.
Those new service sector jobs, supply and demand Spanish ham slicing edition
The 55-year-old is regarded as the world’s best ham slicer in the world, and he charges accordingly for his services – a reported $4,000 to slice a leg of ham.
Floren, as he likes to be called, has sliced ham for a number of celebrities, including President Barack Obama, Robert De Niro, or David Beckham, and for his majesty King Juan Carlos of Spain. He has performed his jamon-slicing art at the Oscars, Hollywood private parties and at casinos in Las Vegas and Macau. Throughout the year, he follows the Formula 1 circuit, cutting ham for VIPs in the paddocks and lounges of the top racing teams.
Slicing machines are apparently out of the question, as far as jamon enthusiasts are concerned, as heat generated by the friction can alter the taste of the ham and melt the fat, thus ruining the whole experience. But while professional ham slicers are present at any decent cocktail party or event in Spain, they usually make around $250 per ham leg. That’s not nearly enough for them to make a living, which is why most of them have multiple jobs. Florencio Sanchidrián, on the other hand, charges around $4,000 for cutting a leg of ham, a process that takes him around an hour and a half to complete.
And this:
“I think it is quite wrong for a ham cutter speak English,” he says.
Here is the full story, and for the pointer I thank the estimable Chug.
China professional bridesmaid markets in everything those new service sector jobs
Against this backdrop, it has become a huge ask to invite someone to be a bridesmaid, and many only agree to act as one reluctantly. Consequently, brides are hiring professional bridesmaids.
Professional bridesmaids have become a routine option for wedding packages, currently offered by more than 50 wedding-planning firms in China. A professional bridesmaid would be required to act as the make-up artist, to drink alcohol, and to fend off rude guests on behalf of the bride, among many other tasks. They are required to perform what the sociologist Arlie Hochschild termed “emotional labor”: faking smiles, engineering a joyous atmosphere, and taking part in traditional stunts that are otherwise considered too vulgar for many.
Depending on the level of “difficulty” of the services they provide, a professional bridesmaid is paid between 200 yuan (around £22) and 800 yuan (around £90) per wedding. Many professional bridesmaids work on weekends, in addition to their routine weekday jobs, in order to generate extra income.
Here is the full story from Yang Hu, much more detail at the link.
Those new service sector jobs, anti-drone falconer edition the drone wars have begun
It was said before that wedding that there would be ‘White House-level security,’ and there was an anti-drone falconer on the property.
The headline of the story is:
Art scion, 46, marries billionaire’s daughter, 23, in $5million French Riviera fete with ‘White House-level security’ and guests including Heidi Klum, the Olsen twins, Princess Bea and groomsman Owen Wilson
And do note:
The wedding took place at the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc in Antibes, France
For the pointer I thank Neville Andrew Mehra.
Those new service sector jobs, installment #1437, Cambodian fortune teller edition
Why stick with that NGO when global markets beckon?:
In the northwest corner of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Keng Kang market, a new stall is creating a buzz among shoppers.
Its occupant is a 28-year-old former U.S. Peace Corps volunteer who offers tarot-card readings in Khmer. And customers say her predictions are on point.
With strings of fake leaves hanging from the ceiling, colorful paper butterflies affixed to one wall, and a sign that reads “Mantis Magic,” the booth—which has been open for two weeks—stands out from the neighboring hairdressers and food stalls.
“I didn’t have a job, I needed something to do and I wanted to help people through my spiritual work. I was getting messages to do this, so I just followed my gut,” said Eileen, who speaks conversational Khmer and asked to be identified only by her first name so that her mother in the U.S. would not find out about her new trade.
Originally from New York, Eileen said she graduated from West Virginia University with degrees in gender studies and criminal investigations before relocating to Cambodia nearly five years ago with the Peace Corps.
After spending two years writing grant proposals for a local NGO while pursuing a master’s degree in development at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, she grew restless and earlier this year decided to pursue a passion for mysticism she had cultivated since the age of 10.
A Cambodian friend helped her lease the market stall two weeks ago, Eileen said. She said she had met with unexpected financial success, earning about $450 since opening while charging 10,000 riel (about $2.50) per session.
Here is the full story, by Maria Paulo Brito and Ouch Sony, it has other interesting points, and for the pointer I thank Dustin Palmer.
And, via Kaushal Desai, here is a 16-year-old British girl who earned £48,000 helping Chinese parents name their babies.
Those new service sector jobs, installment #1437
“The definition of an anchor has changed,” said Stephen Lebovitz, the chief executive of mall owner CBL & Associates Properties Inc. “Cheesecake Factory does as much business as Sears used to do.”
That is from Suzanne Kapner at the WSJ, on the decline of traditional anchor stores. Yet not all of the new service sector jobs will be there forever:
“Right now we’re doing a couple hundred videos a day,” he said. “We think we need to be doing 2,000 videos a day.”
Mr. Ferro’s comments added to mounting confusion over his embattled company’s sudden rebranding. How could a newspaper publisher create nearly three-quarters of a million videos a year?
But as jarring as Tronc’s goals may sound, the company’s plan is far from novel. In pursuit of more lucrative video advertising and success on dominant social platforms like Facebook, a growing number of publishers have turned to technology that promises to streamline video production, sometimes to the point of near-full automation.
That is John Herrman from the NYT. File under Marginal Revolution Robot University. And if you are wondering how it works, here is a snippet:
The two services’ automation features work in similar ways. They analyze, and may summarize, text, be it a script or a traditional news article, and then automatically find photographs and video clips to go with it. The services typically get the videos and images from sources like The Associated Press and Getty Images.
Additionally, the tools offer the option to quickly put large animated captions over the videos, in a format that has become popular on Facebook, where videos begin playing automatically and are often watched with the sound off. Each can also supply, through a third party, on-demand human narration; Wibbitz offers computerized voice-overs as well.
What does this say about the media sector more generally?
Trump’s butler, those new service sector jobs bugler markets in everything
“You’re a Hispanic and you’re in here trimming the trees and everything, and a guy walks up and hands you a hundred dollars,” Mr. Senecal [the butler] said. “And they love him, not for that, they just love him.”
That is the report issued by Trump’s butler, who just loves him. There is this:
Mr. Senecal knows how to stroke his ego and lift his spirits, like the time years ago he received an urgent warning from Mr. Trump’s soon-to-land plane that the mogul was in a sour mood. Mr. Senecal quickly hired a bugler to play “Hail to the Chief” as Mr. Trump stepped out of his limousine to enter Mar-a-Lago [the home].
And this:
More recently, Mar-a-Lago has set off controversy in the Republican primary, as Mr. Trump has been criticized by rivals for hiring employees from abroad to staff the club rather than relying on the local work force.
“There are a lot of Romanians, there’s a lot of South Africans, we have one Irishman,” Mr. Senecal said of the staff, before echoing Mr. Trump’s defense that locals shunned the short-term seasonal work. But he also added of the foreigners: “They’re so good. They are so professional. These local people,” he trailed off, making a disapproving face.
The Jason Horowitz NYT article is interesting throughout.
Markets in everything those new service sector jobs
Sosa is a gynecological teaching associate, and she holds one of modern medicine’s most awkward jobs, using her body to guide med students through some of its most delicate, dreaded exams. Every week, she lies back for dozens of the next medical generation’s first pelvic and breast screenings, steering gloved fingers through the mysteries of her own anatomy and relaying the in-depth feedback they’ll need out in the wild.
She is not, in the traditional sense, a medical professional herself: A 31-year-old theater actor, she has also worked recent jobs at a bakery and Barnes & Noble. Yet what she lacks in faculty prestige, she and her compatriots — including a squad of male urological teaching associates, who teach genital and prostate exams — make up for in humor, candor and endurance. For nervous students, she is like an enthusiastic surgical dummy, awake through the operation and cheering them on…
In New York and Los Angeles, the simulated patients are often actors; here, in eastern Virginia, they are part-time or former professors, baristas, retail workers and house spouses, all contract workers paid by the session, and not extraordinarily so. Gliva-McConvey, the program director, said wages were confidential but added, “All I can say is, we don’t pay them enough.”
Vocabulary becomes hugely important to avoiding clumsy wording. Teachers are taught to neutralize sexual language — it’s a “table,” not a “bed”; a “drape,” not a “sheet” — and cut back on awkward phrases: Say “footrests” instead of the too-equestrian “stirrups”; “lots of pressure” instead of “this is going to hurt.” Students aren’t supposed to “grab,” “stick in” or “pull out” anything, though in the moment, instructor Kelene Williams said with a laugh, “sometimes neutral doesn’t come out.”
The article is…unsettling…throughout, kudos to Drew Harwell, and I thank M. for the pointer.