Say you’re hired for a new job. At the end of a four-week training period, your new boss offers you a big bonus to quit right then. Would you stay on the job, or take the money and run?

TwitterZappos employees interact on Twitter.

Think of it as an employer’s test for whether you’ve come on board for the money or for love of the job.

That’s the strategy online shoe-retail giant Zappos is using to cultivate a more committed customer service staff. Zappos, which has banked on strong customer service to grow its business, offers all of its new call center employees $1,000 to walk away after training. Apparently, new hires turn down the buyout offer 90 percent of the time.

Youre Hired: Now Quit - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

Earlier this year an article appeared in The Washington Post by Joe Brancatelli called How to Complain: Ten tips for getting just compensation when things go awry on the road. While Mr. Brancatelli didn’t single out Delta from the rest of the travel pack, I’m sure it was guilt by association when he said that travel providers are “spectacularly inept at service recovery.”

I work in Delta Customer Care and wanted to give you the behind-the-scenes take on his 10 tips as they pertain to how we handle our passengers concerns at Delta. Below is a deeper look at each of the areas he mentions in his article (please bear with me, this will be a long post):

Nice list, but lets face it: just getting the Indian call workers you face at Delta customer service for normal customers to understand basic English is hard enough that this list isn't going to be very effective.

Delta Air Lines Blog | Ten Tips for Resolving a Travel Complaint

Not sure if you want to apply to OPENdeals? No problem. You can still get an industry standard PDF one-pager for free. Print it out and hand it to investors or email it to your Angel contacts.

It looks like this:

The Angelsoft Blog � Free: Create an industry standard one-pager for your company

The global surge in food and energy prices is being driven primarily by fundamental market conditions, rather than an investment bubble, say the majority of economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.

Bubble Isn't Big Factor in Inflation - WSJ.com

The predominant view is currently biased to commodities as an investment hedge against inflation...

Unfortunately, this thinking is a self-fulfilling prophecy which ultimately may feed into a negative economic cycle where legitimate commercials are squeezed out of business thereby reducing supply, protectionism gains traction, trade breaks down, hoarding ensues, riots occur and wars erupt over access.

This may sound alarmist, but industry insiders are not buying into the one-size fits all answer that emerging economies are the primary factor driving up prices from the demand side, reinforced by supply-side shocks and peak production fears. In a slowing global economy hit by a major credit crisis and reeling from a falling dollar, it is likely that money flows seeking safe haven in hard assets is the key driver of recent volatility.....

naked capitalism: There is an Oil Bubble

DONGGUAN, CHINA -- Liu Keli couldn't tell you much about South Carolina, not even where it is in the United States. It's as obscure to him as his home region, Shanxi province, is to most Americans.

But Liu is investing $10 million in the Palmetto State, building a printing-plate factory that will open this fall and hire 120 workers. His main aim is to tap the large American market, but when his finance staff penciled out the costs, he was stunned to learn how they compared with those in China.

Liu spent about $500,000 for seven acres in Spartanburg -- less than one-fourth what it would cost to buy the same amount of land in Dongguan, a city in southeast China where he runs three plants. U.S. electricity rates are about 75% lower, and in South Carolina, Liu doesn't have to put up with frequent blackouts.

About the only major thing that's more expensive in Spartanburg is labor. Liu is looking to offer $12 to $13 an hour there, versus about $2 an hour in Dongguan, not including room and board. But Liu expects to offset some of the higher labor costs with a payroll tax credit of $1,500 per employee from South Carolina.

"I was surprised," said the 63-year-old president of Shanxi Yuncheng Plate-Making Group. "The gap's not as large as I thought."

The world is flat?

Chinese firms bargain hunting in U.S. - Los Angeles Times

The decline of places like Windy Ridge and Franklin Reserve is usually attributed to the subprime-mortgage crisis, with its wave of foreclosures. And the crisis has indeed catalyzed or intensified social problems in many communities. But the story of vacant suburban homes and declining suburban neighborhoods did not begin with the crisis, and will not end with it. A structural change is under way in the housing market—a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes. And its effects will be felt more strongly, and more broadly, as the years pass. Its ultimate impact on the suburbs, and the cities, will be profound.

The Next Slum? - THE END OF SUBURBIA

SkyMiles Award Mileage Chart

Award mileage listed below is based on the lowest possible mileage for round-trip or one way Award Travel on Delta or our airline partners between the Continental US, Alaska, or Canada and specified regions around the world.

Awards not originating or terminating in the Continental US, Alaska, or Canada often require more mileage. To determine exact mileage required for your award ticket, please visit our SkyMiles Award Calendar.

SkyMiles Award Mileage Chart

After an anti-Delta tirade, there is some good info about the two programs.

InsideFlyer.com: Merger Madness - Delta/NW and what it means for Frequent Fliers

In 2007, DME Holdings LLC joined forces with JMsolutions, a JM Family Enterprises, Inc., company to create DMEautomotive LLC.

Aligning the automotive division of DME with the JMsolutions suite of innovative technology products and services combines intuitive sales and service marketing programs, robust inventory, and customer management tools never before offered under one umbrella.

The result? The three-suite family of SMX™ sales and service marketing solutions by DMEautomotive, the AAX™ inventory management, and CMX™ customer management suites by JMsolutions. Together the three suites take dealers from purchase, to service, torepurchase with seamless, integrated communication and ease.

At DMEautomotive, our focus is on the combination of multiple channels for the most effective, personalized relationship marketing available. By using a multi-channel, blended communication approach, you reach the right customer, at the right time, through the right medium—and it’s done consistently.

While all of these channels are very powerful on their own, combined they are infinitely more effective used as part of an integrated relationship marketing campaign.

DMEautomotive - Premier Provider of Multi-Channel Variable Communications - DMEautomotive - Premier Provider of Multi-Channel Variable Communications