Small businesses in the US increased payrolls by 53,000 jobs in September 2007, according to the new Small Business Report from Automatic Data Processing Inc. A related study shows an increased number of jobs as well as higer wages paid by small businesses.

Small businesses are defined as having fewer than 50 employees. The majority of new private sector jobs were created in this segment. Services added 56,000 jobs while 3000 manufacturing jobs were lost.

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Unbelievable video of Chinese workers not only working inside a stamping press but actually within the stamping die. I am sure many western companies get accused of unsafe work practices but nothing would come close to the this.

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Well it’s time to take a break and have some fun at work. Put on your headphones, make sure the boss isn’t around your office, get a spreadsheet open that you quickly flip back to and then go to Ten Funniest Work Videos.

They are work safe, nothing naughty and will help keep a good attitude but don’t be surprised if you don’t see yourself, your boss and your co-workers. Have some fun at work!

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SalaryMap.com has a broad appeal to many in the web community. Initially, it was noticed by techie types as it was featured on Google Maps Mania and was mentioned on various webmaster forums. As time rolled own a wider audience Googled their way to the site and contributed their salary information which helped others find the site.

So who is coming to SalaryMap.com? Well we don’t know who they are but we do know what search terms or keywords got them here from the big search engines. There were over 29,000 keywords type into the search engines that resulted in visits to this site. Below are the top 25 keywords for the first half of 2007.

The results might surprise you. It turns out that variations of pediatrian salary ranked number one, seven, and eleven. A number of medical technician roles like radiologist and sonographer ranked highly along with a number of entertainment types like talent agent and DJ showed.

There’s an interesting article on www.rismedia.com that summarizes a study by salary.com. The study collected employee estimates of their wasted time on the job. A portion was personal like errands, phone calls, and surfing www.salarymap.com …I mean the Internet. A similar portion was waste due to others like correcting co-workers work, handling office politics, and responding to emails. Reasons given for slacking included not having enough work, having too much work, boredom, and lack of challenge. It was noted that twenty somethings wasted 2.1 hours per day while those in their 40’s wasted 1.4 hour per day. Let’s hear for the hard working middle agers!.

Writing your resume can be a tough thing. It can be difficult to get started, what to mention, hard to decide what to emphasis, and hard to trigger the interviewer to find your resume and invite you for an interview.

Here’s something to keep in mind. They are from the video below.

1. There is no perfect resume - Get the basic down with out stressing out.
2. You can have more than one resume - Be flexible.
3. Have an objective - What you want, be specific.
4. State what you did - Use action verbs.
5. Do research = No boilerplate resumes, taylor resume to the industry or company.
6. Stay relatvent -� Focus resume on your objective.
7. Be specific - Get reader to focus on what matters.
8. Be organized to the point - Focus on what you offer and your objectives.
9. Don’t be a job hopper - Show career path and reasons for changes.
10. Be yourself - Resume starts a conversation, have it be about the true you.

Video link

� You would think since they are “servant” and since many do “government work”, public sector employees would make less than their private sector counter parts. Based on an� Orange County Register opinion piece, it appears that the opposite is true. Here’s a few highlights:

“There are dueling statistics on public-sector vs. private-sector salaries, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics gives public employees (over the entire range of job categories) a 25-percent premium. Looking solely at federal workers, the Cato Institute explains that those in the government sector earn 56 percentmore in salary alone than those in the private sector. Public sector employees also have more days off, shorter work days, better health care benefits and so forth.”

“In Orange County, the public employee pension tab tops $2 billion – something made far worse after the Board of Supervisors in 2004 passed a retroactive pension spike that allows county workers to retire with a guaranteed pension equaling 81 percent of their pay after 30 years of service. Public safety workers in Orange County can retire with 100 percent of their final pay at age 53.”

� I guess I should have taken a job at the DMV 20 years ago and retired in place.

Inflation as we traditionally know it has been low for years. Inflation of titles has been moving ahead on a much healthier clip. Titles like engineering student or co-op have been replaced with a title reserved for medical school graduates: interns. IT Technicians have gained titles like Senior Infrastructure Engineer or Enterprise Architect without the degrees or credentials of a Professional Engineer or Architect.

A side effect of the title inflation as been pay expectation inflation. The attitude is pay me what my title is worth not pay� me what my job responsibilities deserve. The Chicago Tribune has a nice article describing how these inflated titles alter the self worth of employees.

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A few years back, I noticed some politician stating they dedicated their life to public service or how they loved being a public servant. I started thinking about service and servants and what came to mind was someone waiting tables, attending to my needs on flights, driving buses, working at shelters, not well paid politicians who have staffs, servants, and who do little� beyond spending taxes dollars and postioning themselves for the� next election.

� I look to my town and see people donating time to the city’s “Walk for(or against)� {some cause (or problem)}”. I see elderly donating time� working� at the library or tutoring� students. I see city council people raising/spending tens� of thousands� to get elected to and work many hours in their role for a few hundred bucks. Beyond that it gets ridiculous as we have a city manager that makes well into the six figures to manage the maintenance of a relatively trouble free town.

I am a bit taken a back now by the amount of pay I see the head of the Smithsonian makes and the greed he had to take even more. I would think that would be a position that could be filled with much lower compensation due to its nobel standing and I would think that they hire someone that wouldn’t be charging the government over a million bucks for having some co-workers over.

Here’s a bit on the story from the Vancouver Sun:�

Lawrence Small, 65, who became secretary of the Smithsonian in 2000, will earn $915,698 this year in total compensation, more than double his starting salary. He has also received more than $1 million over the past seven years for making his house available for official functions, the confidential audit by the Smithsonian inspector general and an independent firm showed.�

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