Back in 1985, Margaret Wong saw potential in China’s booming economy and took her Sacramento-based lighting company, McWong International Inc., overseas.

Even a half-hearted glance at the headlines would suggest that these are hardly the glory days for the nation’s law schools.

I’ve long believed that just about the worst way to begin a workweek is scheduling an in-office staff meeting. Employees start dreading it by mid-day Sunday. The gatherings usually get off to a late start, drag on and are deemed worthless by most participants.

Enter the breakfast meeting.

Instead of sitting down to watch White Christmas or another streaming movie or TV show, Netflix online video users huddled around their television on Christmas Eve were greeted with an unfortunate message: the online content was unavailable.

On a drizzly afternoon in downtown Sacramento, Drewski’s Hot Rod Kitchen is hard to miss. 

A few years ago, Troy Underwood noticed a problem with one of his accountants. The man’s work performance and personal appearance had deteriorated, he talked constantly on the phone with his children and agonized about his domestic life. 

The king stood over the toilet. The reluctant owner of that famous belly, that bowlful of jelly, lifted the overarching fold with two hands, exhaled, concentrated and waited for the stream to bolt from its alcove. No luck. Seconds passed, and a soreness grew in his knees.

A week after graduating with a bachelor’s in accounting, I showed up to my new job at a Big Five accounting firm with the best JC Penney suit my signing bonus could buy. It was the middle of the dot-com boom, and although the term business casual was starting to surface, no one could give a straight answer on its definition.

By most accounts, today’s workforce is more productive than ever, suggesting that technologies meant to help us do more in less time are working.

It is 2 p.m. on a Friday, and a techno beat pulses through speakers resting above two cubicles. On a desk are four pizzas, three bags of bread sticks and an opened liter of Mountain Dew.