From microshifting to coffee badging: whatever happened to just doing your job?

There’s another hot trend in the workplace – microshifting, and it’s about to revolutionize the workday by breaking the traditional 9-to-5 into short, flexible and non-linear bursts of activity rather than a continuous 8-hour stretch. Microshifting allows for a better work-life balance. Why not do a yoga class or pop to the shops during work hours? I mean, what is “work” anyway?Like bare minimum Mondays, where workers recuperating from weekend hangovers allow themselves to accomplish the least amount the day after, or coffee badging, which involves taking the time out of the workday to protest an employer’s in-office requirements by driving into the office, swiping your badge, having a coffee, then taking more time out of the workday to drive back home, it used to have another name, as the Guardian noted earlier this year: “Taking the piss.”Sadly, these are only a few of the trends that have allegedly been taking the workplace – and the media – by storm over the past few years.We’ve read about quiet quitting, where employees allow themselves to expend no extra effort to accomplish what is expected of them, because they’re ostensibly keeping an eye on the open door for other opportunities

Waitrose employee sacked after stopping shoplifter from taking Easter eggs

A Waitrose employee of 17 years has described his devastation after being sacked for stopping a shoplifter who had ransacked a display of Lindt Gold Bunny Easter eggs.Walker Smith, a shop assistant at a branch of Waitrose in Clapham Junction, south London, was going about his normal duties when a customer stopped him. “They told me someone had filled up a Waitrose bag with the eggs,” he said.The 54-year-old said the shoplifter was a repeat offender. After spotting the thief, he “grabbed the bag” from the shoplifter, who snatched it back and, he said, there was a struggle for a few seconds before it snapped

An AI bot invited me to its party in Manchester. It was a pretty good night

Two weeks ago, an AI bot invited me to a party it was organising in Manchester. It then promptly lied to dozens of potential sponsors that I’d agreed to cover the event, and misled me into believing there would be food.Despite all this, it was a pretty good night.In early February, a class of new, powerful AI assistants went viral. The assistants, called OpenClaw, represented a step change in the rapidly improving capabilities of AI – in large part because, unlike other AI agents, they could be untethered from guardrails and set loose upon the world

Kurt Strauss obituary

My father, Kurt Strauss, who has died aged 95, was a senior engineer who worked for more than two decades at the Electricity Council, the government body that coordinated electricity supply in England and Wales before privatisation in 1990.He worked for all of that time within the council’s overseas relations branch, managing international relationships, technical exchanges and consultancy services while rising steadily through the ranks to associate director. German by birth but brought up in the UK, he was a passionate European who spoke French and German, and was therefore well suited to those responsibilities.Kurt was born in Degerloch, a suburb of Stuttgart, into a Jewish family. In 1937 his parents, Viktor, who worked in the family down and feather business, and Marianne (nee Melzer), sent Kurt’s older brother, Helmut, to safety in Britain, where he ended up at a boarding school, Sidcot, in Somerset

County cricket day three: Durham report storm damage, Essex v Hants and more – live

As an anecdote to the craziness going on elsewhere in the world, Jack Carson, in sunglasses, wheels in from Grace Road’s pavilion end. A young mum stands and rocks a romper-suited baby and a selection of people in big coats sit in spring sunshine on green bucket seats and drift off into the cricket. Leicestershire 26-1.This Somerset innings has James Rew century written all over it, He’s currently 29 not out. Somerset 63-1

‘It can be overwhelming’: Talia Gibson on her rapid rise and going toe-to-toe with the big hitters | Jack Snape

She is the little-known Australian who now has the tennis world talking, with the power to go toe-to-toe with the biggest hitters in the game.Talia Gibson became the youngest player in seven years to reach a quarter-final in her debut at one of the not-quite-grand-slam tournaments – known as WTA 1000s – last month, as part of an eye-catching run during which she beat five top 20-ranked players.Despite her coaches spending years reminding her of her immense potential, the admittedly shy 21-year-old agrees she is only now beginning to believe.“Something that I’ve reflected on the most was how much more belief I think I should have had in myself,” she says, speaking from her hometown of Perth before the Billie Jean King Cup tie in Melbourne against Great Britain which starts on Friday.At Indian Wells at the start of March, she won through qualifying then reeled off victories against Ekaterina Alexandrova (ranked 11), Clara Tauson (17) and Jasmine Paolini (7) before losing against world No 14 Linda Noskova in three sets