Few events have sparked so much conversation in this country on workplace issues like the bizarre story of Steven Slater and his strange meltdown at work. He’s now a celebrity with legions of Facebook fans and constant coverage on cable news, but his story does raise serious questions about workplace conditions, stress on the job and losing control under pressure.

The Seattle Times has a story about how flight attendants get most of the brunt of customer anger over things like baggage fees and other stresses of flying.

Forbes discusses how to avoid have a Steven Slater incident in your own organization.

Ohio.com has a story explaining how to resist the urge to have a Steven Slater moment.

Yes, the whole incident has been a circus, but we’re seeing some thoughtful analysis and advice coming out of what is becoming a teachable moment.

This is a great trend. With easy high-speed Internet access and improved technology, more people can work anywhere they like, and many of them are choosing to work at the beach.

While you’re Dilberting away in your cubicle, there are people taking conference calls in board shorts and flip-flops. While you’re saving your two weeks of vacation to hit the sand, they’re getting paid to be there. There are people—even respectable people—who have somehow turned a folding chair into a place of work.

Aided by technology, pioneers are now converting the beach into a fully functional office. People who work from the beach in non-hotel, non-burger-stand, non-pot-dealer capacities are still rare enough that no agency tracks the phenomenon. Brooks Brothers does not yet make a three-piece bathing suit; Herman Miller doesn’t sell an Aeron chaise.

It’s not like these beach workers are slackers; they just don’t like being controlled. It’s the same reason why we TiVo shows or e-mail and text more than call. When you can work from wherever you want to be—especially if it’s the place where everyone wants to be—work isn’t so bad.

It helps to be self-employed.

Yes, it definitely helps to be self-employed. It’s frankly one of the best reasons to take control of your career and start your own business from home . . . or the beach.

That said, this option is open to everyone who is willing to take more control of their career. Sure, you may not be able to do it all the time, but you’d be surprised how often you can escape the office if you begin to train your boss.

This is one of the arguments popularized by Tim Ferris. Check out his site at 4-Hour Workweek for ways to do this. In a nutshell, they key is showing your boss over time that you can spend days away from the office and still be just as productive. Once you establish this, it won’t matter whether you do this from your home or from an exotic beach. He doesn’t have to know and he shouldn’t care if he does.

It’s getting tough out there. Employers are realizing that the old ways of screening out job candidates, particularly candidates for executive positions, are insufficient in today’s competitive world. Employers are employing much more thorough tactics, such as psychological scrutiny and rigorous simulations. Some are calling it “extreme hiring.”

It’s Andrew Noon’s first day on the job, and already he has had to discipline a worker, thwart a departmental turf war, cajole two recalcitrant employees, convince an irate customer not to cancel a contract and present his strategic plan for the next three years to the company’s chief executive, complete with flip charts. But the boss, the employees and the customers are actors. The company is fictitious. The office space is an assessment center outside Pittsburgh. At least three trained observers are listening to Noon’s every voice mail, reading his every e-mail and watching his every move. The whole exercise is a simulation designed to determine his readiness for the executive suite at Mutual of Omaha.

To prepare, Noon, 35, spent the weeks leading up to his assessment poring over reams of fictitious financials and memorizing fake org charts, employee bios, product descriptions, company histories and global sales breakdowns. He also took three personality tests, each consisting of 200 to 300 questions designed to uncover his levels of sociability, creativity and ambition and to identify any “derailers”–talent-management-speak for the dark side.

Psychological scrutiny and rigorous simulations are fast becoming a requisite part of the interview process. Gone are the days when a clutch golf swing or well-schmoozed dinner might score you a spot in the C-suite. The downturn has shed a decidedly unflattering light on subjective hiring practices. Even the standard application-interview-résumé-and-reference-check formula has come under fire for being too soft and unreliable.

In many ways this makes sense, but it would make even more sense if the results are compared to feedback given by that candidates former co-workers and superiors.

Is the life of an entrepreneur for everyone? Probably not, as it can be rather demanding and it’s hard to imagine living that life unless you have a passion for business or for the service or product you choose.

The next question involves whether you can learn to be an entrepreneur. Some people may want to do it, but they really aren’t prepared to make a successful go of it.

The subject of entrepreneurship is becoming very popular at business schools as this notion is being tested.

Twenty years ago teaching people how to start their own businesses was a sideshow at B-schools, of scant interest to future consultants and Wall Streeters. Today entrepreneurship education is everywhere. More than two-thirds of U.S. colleges and universities — well over 2,000, up from 200 in the 1970s — are teaching it, and they offer it to all comers: social workers, farmers, and even musicians. The field is thriving, but have we figured out yet the best way to teach this stuff? If not, are we at least getting better at it? And can you even teach someone to be an entrepreneur?

This makes perfect sense, as many entrepreneurs have a passion for their product but have little experience running a business, while many business professionals can’t grasp some of the risk assessments that entrepreneurs make every day. It’s amazing how spending your own money focuses the mind!

What’s taught in these courses?

By developing in students the proper attitude toward risk, for instance. Entrepreneurship isn’t about the love of living on the edge; that’s pure myth. “You’re all about de-risking your idea,” says Fairbrothers. He means one, identifying, unblinkingly, what could go wrong; and two, taking whatever steps necessary to slash the odds that it will. You do that by relentless learning — about your market, your customers, your competitors, and if you’re truly new at this, about the nuts and bolts of business.

If you take a close look at this proposition, you would thing that every business student should be required to take a course in entrepreneurship. Understanding risk is critical to any endeavor, and this notion should be drilled into every person in your organization, whether you’re simply a manager or an entrepreneur.

You also need to be thinking about the best ways to save money while your business gets off the ground. Moneysavingguide.com can help you brainstorm some ideas to keep your costs under control.

Forbes has several articles asking tough questions about the job market in California. The sad truth is that California is losing jobs to other states and other countries, as the high tax burden and cost of living makes it difficult for employers to commit to the state.

Now, you have to take into account the agenda at Forbes. While the business magazine is excellent, the ideological bent is very clear. The publication favors free markets and loathes taxes. While you would expect that from most business writers and publications, Forbes sometimes takes that to an extreme.

That said, they often make compelling arguments when presenting cases where business development is hindered by taxes and regulation, and California has become the poster-child for many of these problems.

In one provocative article, a Forbes writer argues that California is becoming more like France.

A friend of mine who is a successful venture capitalist shared a depressing observation over dinner recently: “California is like France,” he said. “I try not to hire here, and I certainly would not launch a company here. But the wine is good.”

*******

Listen up Sacramento, your tax base is moving elsewhere.

“California has competition,” says Mehta. This is starting to show. A report recently released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows Silicon Valley lagging. Tech employment fell nearly 17% between 2001 and 2008, while nationally those types of jobs grew 4%. Silicon Valley’s 11.8% unemployment level is higher than the nation’s.

“It’s a combination of taxes and talent,” says Mehta. “Taxes and expenses here are high, and we can get the talent or move it elsewhere. This wasn’t the case 10 years ago.”

Another article details how employers like McAfee are moving employees outside the state.

The dysfunctional nature of California politics is now catching up to the state. Meanwhile, other states are seizing the opportunity with incentives and other aggressive tactics to brings in jobs. Will California wake up?

Anyone can be an armchair entrepreneur these days. You can run so many aspects of your business through the Internet.

One area that makes a ton of sense is online printing. Remember the old days when you had to schlep back and forth to suppliers like printers, or wait for proofs to arrive in the mail? Even recently many people used places like Kinko’s for simple stuff like their business cards.

Now, you can do everything online, from laying out your printed product to seeing the final proof. With many vendors you can do the whole thing without needing to speak with a single person, though that is always an option as well.

One exercise you should do right away is to list all of the vendors you worked with in the last year. In each case, see if there’s an online alternative. I’ll bet you’ll be able to replace many of them with cheaper alternatives.

Naturally, there are times when personal relationships matter, along with reliability and quality. That said, you might be shocked by the price and convenience savings available, so at least you’ll have a point of reference for future negotiations.

If you have a small business, the thought of giving some of your employees a credit card for expenses can be terrifying. Sure, they may be trustworthy, but it becomes something you have to monitor, and sometimes the problem can get out of hand and you don’t catch it for months.

One solution would be to use prepaid credit cards for your employees. This way, you don’t have to worry about them exceeding the limit on the card, and it forces you to monitor the situation and pay attention to expenses.

In this economy, you need to use every tool at your disposal to monitor costs. Having your employees fill out reports isn’t enough, as you’re often too busy to look over them closely. With this system you can minimize mistakes.

HP has unveiled its first multi-touch tablet for business users with the HP EliteBook 2740 p. The laptop, which is convertible into a tablet, weighs only 3.8 pounds and has two optional displays. You can either choose a 12.1 inch diagonal 1280×800 LED display or an outdoor view display for use in natural light with low reflection and high contrast.

HP’s tablet is equipped with an Intel Core i7 or i5 processor and optional vPro management technology. It also offers Intel HD integrated graphics, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, up to 320GB of hard drive space or up to 160GB of solid state drive storage, and an external DVD burner as an option.

The 2740p also incorporates a 2MP web camera, microphone, stereo speakers, a keyboard that is resistant to spills, two pointing devices (touchpad and pointstick), 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, the optional HP un2420 EV-DO/HSPA mobile broadband module, Ethernet LAN, a 56k modem, three USB ports, ExpressCard and Secure Digital slots, Firewire and a VGA port.

HP confirms that the EliteBook meets the military standards for (MIL-STD 810G) vibration, dust, humidity, altitude and temperatures. The optional HP 2740 Ultra-Slim Expansion Base can be used as a dock for the notebook to connect with peripherals without needing to plug and unplug. This expansion base includes a DVD+/-RW drive, and an eSATA port, allowing for connection to an external RAID array, HDD and optical drives.

Since battery life is important for business users, you can opt for a six cell Li-ion prismatic battery with a battery life of five hours. You can combine this battery with a HP 2700 Ultra-Slim Battery and the total battery life will increase to 11 hours.

HP EliteBook 2740p, which runs on Windows 7.0, should be available in the US next month at a starting price of $1599. Want to get deals on the price? Look out for HP coupon codes.

While the pace of job losses has declined dramatically, we haven’t turned the corner yet.

The job market remained in a deep funk in December, according to a government report Friday showing that employers view the economic recovery as too weak and too fragile to begin hiring again on any large scale.

The pace of layoffs has slowed sharply in recent months, but businesses still cut 85,000 net jobs in December, the Labor Department said. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 10 percent, but economists suspect this is only because hundreds of thousands of frustrated workers stopped looking for jobs.

The key is that the trend in is the right direction. The recovery is going to be a little choppy, but hopefully the trend continues in the right direction. If you’re unemployed, the key is to continue being persistent. Don’t give up!

If you’re a small business owner or a manager in a larger company, this is the question you should be asking yourself. Many of us had to make tough decisions at the beginning of the recession, and now with a possible recovery on the horizon we need to re-examine those decisions.

It may not feel like it yet in your town or in your industry, but there are indications that things are getting better. After a year or more of hunkering down, it is probably a good time to consider what the recession has done to your business and your industry. At some point, whether now or in a few months, business owners are going to have to switch from playing defense to playing offense.

For many of us, hiring freezes, layoffs, salary reductions and furloughs have helped us survive, but they have probably caused collateral damage to the psyche and bank accounts of our employees. Most of them went along with the program because they understood and because they had few options. But those options are coming. More companies are going to start to hire again. This should mean several things to business owners.

I suspect that many entrepreneurs have figured this out already. You have to be nimble in business, and making quick adjustments is critical to success.

This also bodes well for anyone looking for a job. Circle back to the leads you followed six or even three months ago and see if their situation has changed. You might find opportunities where they didn’t exist before as more companies start to play offense again.