Good luck retaining employees now: We hear Google has ended a perk that provided free "runners" to handle basic chores like cooking, cleaning and errands.

Aspiring astronauts: run, don't walk, to sign up for NASA's vague new scheme to blast you off to Mars, never to return. Don't worry—they're doing it on the cheap!

5,057 janitors have PhD's, doctorates, and professional degrees says the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which estimates 17 million Americans have college degrees they don't need for their jobs. They have great opinions about Chekhov's oeuvre, though. [via]

Minneapolis employees of the sandwich chain Jimmy John's are currently trying to unionize, which the New York Times calls "one of the few efforts to organize fast-food workers in American history." Is such a thing even possible?

After eyeing a reporter's Dell laptop, Apple CEO Steve Jobs taunted him and other writers covering today's Apple event, saying, "Look at all those fat notebooks." The razzing worked: Forbes' Brian Caulfield now calls the MacBook Air healthier for reporters.

In the past week, we've brought you two installments of real (horror) stories from real Wal-Mart employees. Today, our third and final installment: bloody applesauce, child porn, post-concussion drug-testing, health code violations, and employees who are very, very angry.

In your maverick Monday media column: conflict scandal at Reuters, J-school is worthless, media reporter play their roles, E&P cans its editors, and smart stories make the most money online, allegedly.

In honor of Wal-Mart's plan to infiltrate NYC, last week we brought you real tales of Wal-Mart life from real Wal-Mart employees. Today, even more: heartbreaking horror stories, awful customers, inside tricks, and tips for you, the unfortunate Wal-Mart shoppers.

Wal-Mart is planning its entry into America's last remaining Wal-Mart-free areas. (Hello, NYC!). Yesterday, we asked Wal-Mart workers to send us their experiences working there. Several did. Tales of puddles of blood, homophobic managers, and "mean assholes" below.

Today we looked at Wal-Mart's continuing march toward New York. Many commenters were up in arms, talking about socioeconomics and environmental blah blah and all that other NPR stupid stuff. But one of you saw the true good of Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is talking up its plans to build dozens and dozens of (relatively) small grocery stores, as a way to establish a beachhead in areas where it hasn't been able to enter. Like New York City. What will that mean?

In your gobsmacked Wednesday media column: a shining golden possibility for hundreds of media jobs, Richard Johnson scoots from Page Six, Current TV has a Bold New Plan, and Glenn Beck lives.

In 1958, future Gonzo journalism king Hunter S. Thompson was just a lowly 21-year-old magazine intern in Manhattan. (Like you!) He sent an unsolicited letter to the editor of the Vancouver Sun, asking for a job. Cocky little bastard.

The unemployment rate held steady at 9.6% last month, while the economy added 64,000 private sector jobs and cut 160,000 public sector jobs. This was "far worse" than economists had been predicting, but it sounds about right.

Apple's PR staff would be well advised to reach out more to bloggers, or even blog on their own. So the mysterious overture Apple made to a TechCrunch editor at a Cupertino, California brewhouse could be a big positive step.

Haitian non-president Wyclef is now a "visiting fellow" in Brown University's Department of Africana Studies.

TV columnist Michael Ausiello is leaving EW to start his own site. This memo is going out to EW staffers:

Self-described "100% gay" skydiving instructor Donald Zarda was fired from his job after a woman (to whom Zarda was strapped, during a tandem skydive) complained he sexually harassed her, somehow, while skydiving. Thought I had a joke, but no.

Michael Wolff, the Vanity Fair media columnist and Newser founder best known for just saying whatever the fuck he thinks will get a rise out of anyone, is the new editorial director of Adweek, Brandweek, and Mediaweek. Uh. Why?

There's a tradition among journalists of doing everything possible to discourage aspiring journalists from entering the field. One paper took it a step further with this ad for a reporter that only focuses on the worst parts of the job.