From the outside, it looks like a generational standoff.
Baby boomers are retiring earlier than expected, frustrated by workplace change, technology shifts, and growing tension with younger colleagues. At the same time, Gen Z talks openly about quitting jobs that feel misaligned or draining. Many leaders interpret this as a clash of values. Older workers cannot adapt. Younger workers lack commitment. The data tells a more complicated story.
New research from Clari and Salesloft, conducted in partnership with Workplace Intelligence, surveyed 2,000 U.S. sellers and sales leaders across industries. The study found that 19% of baby boomers are planning to retire early because they are tired of dealing with Gen Z at work. At the same time, 28% of Gen Z respondents said they are actively searching for a role where they will not have to interact with baby boomers as much.
The cost of that friction is not abstract. The research estimates that generational conflict is costing organizations roughly $56 billion each year in lost productivity, driven by miscommunication, burnout, and uneven adoption of new technologies like AI.
On its own, that data suggests a workplace pulling itself apart.
But another study complicates the narrative. Research from Southeastern Oklahoma State University, based on a survey of 1,000 employees, found that 71% of Gen Z workers are staying in a job or career longer than they want simply because they do not know how to leave. Nearly half say they are actively transitioning toward something new, while 68% report that their employer has no idea they are planning a change.
Taken together, these findings reveal something leaders often miss.
Baby boomers are leaving because they can. Gen Z is staying because they do not know how not to.
This is not a motivation problem. It is a clarity problem.
A shifting environment
For many boomers, the workplace they are navigating today barely resembles the one they mastered. AI tools, shifting communication norms, and changing definitions of productivity have disrupted identities built on decades of experience and institutional knowledge. When those changes arrive without context or support, frustration grows. Early retirement becomes less about age and more about opting out of an environment that no longer feels coherent.
Gen Z is facing the opposite challenge. They entered a workforce defined by constant change, but very little guidance. Career paths are opaque. Loyalty feels risky. Advice is often abstract. While they are often labeled as eager to quit, the reality is that many are stuck in roles they have already outgrown, unsure how to move on without harming their future.
AI has intensified this divide rather than resolving it. For example, the same Clari and Salesloft research found that 39% of Gen Z would rather be managed by AI than by a baby boomer, while 25% of boomers say they would prefer working with AI over a Gen Z colleague. This preference is less about technology being superior and more about predictability. In environments where expectations feel unclear or inconsistent, AI can appear easier to work with than people.
The leadership factor
That is where leadership enters the equation.
Engaged empathy is not about lowering standards or avoiding difficult conversations. It is about understanding how different generations experience the same systems and responding with clear, actionable communication. Without that effort, organizations allow frustration to turn into disengagement.
For Gen Z, engaged empathy shows up as explicit career navigation. Not platitudes about growth, but concrete conversations about skills, timelines, and options. Many young employees are not afraid of hard work. They are afraid of making irreversible mistakes in a system that rarely explains the rules.
For baby boomers, engaged empathy means recognizing that resistance to new tools is often rooted in identity, not stubbornness. When experience feels discounted rather than translated, trust erodes. Leaders who intentionally connect new technologies to existing strengths reduce defensiveness and preserve institutional wisdom. However, none of this works without clarity.
High-performing organizations do not assume alignment across generations. They create it. They explain what success looks like now, how it is measured, and how employees at different stages can contribute and grow. They introduce AI as a shared resource rather than a silent evaluator.
Boomers retiring early and Gen Z wanting to quit are not signs that work is fundamentally broken. They are signals that employees are responding rationally to unclear systems and inconsistent leadership.
The solution is not fewer generations in the workplace. It is leaders willing to practice engaged empathy and communicate clearly enough that fewer people feel the need to escape in the first place.
Last year was a brutal one for layoffs, with large cuts coming from Amazon, UPS, Microsoft and Verizon. And as things get rolling for 2026, it’s looking like this year won’t be any less uncertain for workers.
This week has seen a slew of sizable job cuts from a wide variety of companies. As of Thursday morning, more than 61,650 positions have been eliminated.
The actual number is likely a fair bit higher as many of the companies announcing layoffssuch as Shopify, Expedia, and Vimeodid not release the number of jobs that were impacted.
Dow Inc. was the most recent well-known company to announce cuts. On Thursday, the chemical maker said it would do away with 4,500 positions as part of a streamlining operation it calls “Transform to Outperform.”
The company says it plans to rely more on artificial intelligence and automation in the months ahead. Those layoffs represented approximately 12% of the company’s workforce.
Dow was hardly alone this week, though. The staff trimmings are occurring at tech and tech-adjacent companies around the world and are adding up fast. Here are some other notable reductions in staff that have been announced this week.
Pinterest
On Monday, social media platform Pinterest filed a notification with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it was planning “a reduction in force that is expected to affect less than 15% of the Companys workforce.”
With an estimated workforce of 5,200 people, that puts the layoffs between 700 and 800. The company said it plans to utilize AI to fill many of those roles.
Nike
The footwear giant confirmed plans to lay off 775 employees in the U.S., the third year in a row that it has cut jobs. Nike said it would rely on automation to handle the duties of those workers.
United Parcel Service (UPS)
During an earnings call with analysts on Tuesday, Brian Dykes, chief financial officer of UPS, revealed plans to reduce operational hours at the delivery giant by 25 million, which will result in 30,000 workers losing their jobs.
The cuts come as the company winds down its long-standing partnership with Amazon.
The Home Depot
The Home Depot confirmed plans Wednesday to lay off 800 workers, including 150 at its Atlanta headquarters.
“Were simplifying our corporate operations to better support our stores and our customers,” a spokesperson for the home improvement retail chain told Fast Company. “These changes include a reduction in roles associated with our store support center . . . This was a difficult decision, and were focused on doing the right thing and supporting associates who were impacted.”
Amazon
Just months after laying off 14,000 workers last fall, Amazon on Wednesday said it was eliminating another 16,000 jobs. And the company did not rule out additional cuts in the months to come (though it said none were currently planned).
“Some of you might ask if this is the beginning of a new rhythm where we announce broad reductions every few months,” wrote Beth Galetti, senior vice president of people experience and technology at Amazon. “Thats not our plan. But just as we always have, every team will continue to evaluate the ownership, speed, and capacity to invent for customers, and make adjustments as appropriate.”
Other companies laying off workers
Beyond the cuts this week, January has also seen notable workforce reductions from Autodesk (1,000 workers), Ericsson (1,600 employees), Meta Platforms (1,500 people), and ASML (1,700 staffers), according to job cut tracking sites Layoffs.fyi and trueup.
Savings and productivity gains that come with AI and automation will almost certainly be pointed at by companies that lay off workers as layoffs in 2026 continue, but several businesses that have decided to become AI-first workplaces have come to regret the move.
Two years ago, Klarna Group instituted a hiring freeze as it embraced the notion that AI could do the work of hundreds of employees. Last May, however, it reversed course, saying it might have been too ambitious with its AI goals.
Meanwhile, language learning platform Duolingo saw its push to embrace AI attacked on social media. Shares of Duolingo are down more than 61% over the last 12 months.
Its Friday afternoon. Your inbox looks like a battleground, your calendar is a collage of back-to-back calls, and the strategic plan you built last quarter already feels outdated. Youve spent the week reacting, extinguishing fires, and juggling unexpected demands you didnt plan for. Youve been busy, but not necessarily productive. Youve managed the chaos, but you havent had space to lead through it.
This is the trap many leaders find themselves in today. Our attention is consumed by the urgent, leaving almost no cognitive room for the deep thinking, creativity, and strategic foresight that leadership requires. Working harder isnt the answer. Neither is downloading yet another tool.
Under time pressure and limited mental bandwidth, leaders tend to fall back on fast, intuitive shortcuts that erode decision quality in complex situations. What leaders need is a simple operating system reset: a weekly practice that converts disruption into insight and momentum.
From Extinguishing Fires to Using Their Heat
In nature, fire isnt only destructive; its regenerative. Giant sequoias, for example, rely on the heat of a forest fire to release their seeds. Flames clear the underbrush, enrich the soil, and make way for new growth.
High-performing leaders work the same way. Instead of viewing disruption as something to resist, they learn to harness its heat. They recognize that crises, customer surprises, shifting priorities, and unexpected wins all contain valuable signals about how the world is changing and where opportunity sits. Some fast-moving organizations have formalized reflection into their operating rhythms. For example, Spotifys engineering teams have publicly described the use of agile retrospectives to turn surprises into learning.
Taking time for a short weekly reset can help leaders capture those signals. Set aside 18 minutes at the end of each week to pause, asking yourself three deceptively simple questions and sitting with each for six minutes.
1. What must I clear away?
Every ecosystem needs deadwood cleared before new things can grow. Your work is no different.
Look back at your week and ask yourself:
What assumption I held on Monday was proven wrong by Friday?
What meeting, process, or habit is creating drag instead of value?
Which zombie project is still consuming time or budget despite having no strategic future?
The goal here is subtraction. Leaders tend to underestimate how much cognitive clutter weighs them down. Clearing it ruthlessly creates room for better decisions and more ambitious ideas.
2. What did this weeks disruption teach me?
Once the underbrush is cleared, you can see what nutrients remain. Disruption is information. Your job is to extract meaning from it.
This is benefit-finding: the discipline of intentionally looking for insight in unexpected places.
Consider:
What surprising customer comment, employee concern, or performance issue taught me something important?
Where did our team get an unexpected win, and what were the conditions that enabled it?
What new skill, workaround, or capability emerged that might be worth formalizing?
This step shifts you from reacting to events to learning from them in real time. It builds future intelligence, the ability to read signals and adapt ahead of the curve.
3. What is one bold move I can take?
Reflection without movement creates stagnation. Regeneration requires action.
Choose one consequential decision, not a long list:
What is the single conversation that will unlock progress next week?
What experiment is worth running?
What important decision have I been avoiding that I will now make?
Choosing just one forces focus. It ensures you enter Monday intentionally. Its a shift from managing the week to shaping it.
Lead the Future, One Week at a Time
Taking a weekly reset isnt a productivity hack; its a leadership discipline that helps you step above the noise and recalibrate your direction.
In an era defined by constant change, the leaders who thrive arent the ones who avoid disruption. Theyre the ones who know how to convert it into insight, energy, and action. They learn to use disruptions to leap forward.
This discipline becomes even more important in a world shaped by accelerating AI adoption, geopolitical volatility, climate-driven shocks, and continual shifts in customer expectations, as highlighted in recent global risk assessments from the World Economic Forum. Leaders who thrive build regenerative capacity, the ability to clear noise, extract meaning, and act decisively through practices like the weekly reflection tool. Research on adaptive leadership consistently shows that learning-oriented organizations are better at turning change into innovation. This 18-minute ritual is how you start. By clearing space, extracting meaning, and choosing one bold move each week, you reclaim your agency in a world that constantly pulls you into reaction.
Disruption isnt going away. But with the right rhythm, you can stop being managed by it and start using it as fuel for your next breakthrough.
Last Saturday, more than six million people held their breath as Alex Honnold took his first step up Taipei 101. The Free Solo climber, who went on to ascend Taiwans tallest building without the safety of a rope and harness, drew crowds all around the building, as well as on Netflix, where the ascent was live-streamed as part of a show called Skyscraper Live.
Some of these people had likely already watched Honnold scale the 3,000-foot rock wall of Yosemites El Capitan. But for many, the climber’s ascent up a man-made structure was likely an introduction to an altogether different kind of climbing: not on the face of a cliff, but the side of a building.
This type of sport is called buildering (from bouldering, to climb boulders) and it has been happening for more than a century.
Taipei 101 [Photo: Eagan Hsu/Unsplash]
From rock to concrete
For decades, the ultimate challenge for climbers was nature itself. Modern rock climbing took shape in the late 19th century, when alpinists ventured beyond traditional mountaineering and onto steeper, more technical cliffs. By the mid-20th century, climbers embraced free climbing, meaning they relied on their hands and feet to move upward while using ropes only as a safety backup in case of a fall. Then, in the ’70s and ’80s, free-soloists like John Bachar pushed the sport to its extreme, stripping away the rope entirely and turning every move into a high-stakes commitment.
Now, buildings are the next challenge, says 70-year-old American climber Dan Goodwin, who has climbed a dozen buildings, including the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, and Millenium Tower in San Francisco.
Today, more than half of the worlds population lives in cities, and the majority of climbers train in gyms. They get out of the gym and what are they looking at? High rises, says Goodwin. But climbing a building isnt the same as climbing the face of a mountain. With rock climbing, every move is different, but climbing a building calls for repetition, which Goodwin says attacks the muscle. Hips cramp, shoulders start to burn: It gets real quick, and I want to start educating people about how dangerous it is.
Dan Goodwin climbs Simon Bolivar Tower in Caracas, Venezuela, before a large crowd for television company Venevision. February, 1982. [Photo: Private Collection]
A brief history of buildering
The thought of scaling the face of a building may send the average person into a tizzy, but people have been climbing buildings for almost as long as there have been buildings to climb.
The earliest documented example dates back to 1901, when British alpinist Geoffrey Winthrop-Young anonymously published The Roof-Climbers Guide to Trinity College, mapping the architecture of the campus as a series of climbing routes. Some decades later, human flies like George Polley and Harry Gardiner scaled buildings in cities like New York City and Boston.
Dan Goodwin climbing the CN Tower in Toronto, 1986. [Photo: David Cooper/Toronto Star/ Getty Images]
By the 1980s and 90s, buildering had entered mainstream with televised (not live) ascents by SpiderDan Goodwin, and French climber Alain Robert, who went on to scale the Empire State Building, with no rope, and the Burj Khalifa with a safety rope and harness. (While Roberts was the first to ascend Taipei 101, Honnold was the first to do it rope-free.)
Over the course of those years, buildings have changed drastically. According to Youngs original guide, buildings with good holds featured recessed window frames, narrow chimneys, and continuous parapetsarchitectural quirks that made climbing easier.
With the advent of steel and concrete construction, many of these features disappeared in favor of sleek glass curtain walls, and climbing buildings became so much harder that some climbers have resorted to aids like suction cups and sky hookssmall devices that help climbers hang off tiny edgesto scale smooth facades.
Goodwin was one of those climbers. In 1981, he climbed Chicagos Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower) using suction cups and sky hooks. As climbers, we would prefer relying on our physical strength than on a suction cup, he told me. I almost died because of my suction cups.
But architecture dictates everything, as Goodwin put it, and the tower had no suitable hand or foot holds. Plus, the climber had recently been issued a challenge he had to rise to.
In 1980, a fire engulfed the MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas and killed 85 people after smoke spread rapidly through the building. Goodwin was deeply affected by the fire, and as he watched firefighters struggle to reach people trapped on upper floors, he argued that climbers could be trained to scale skyscrapers during emergencies. When a local fire marshal dismissed the idea and challenged him to climb a building himself, Goodwin took it literallyand went on to climb the Sears Tower, then the tallest building in the world. That conversation changed my life, he says.
Goodwin, whose memoir, Untethered, is set to come out in the spring, went on to climb over a dozen buildings around the world, including the CN Tower in Toronto, which he climbed in 1986twice in the same dayusing only his hands and feet. The hardest climbs, he said, were those with slick glass that called for suction cups. The easiest were buildings with clearly defined features.
Taipei 101, with its stacked, bamboo-like segments and decorative dragon heads, fits into the latter category. So many beautiful handhold features, he says.
Alex Honnold on top of Taipei 101. January, 2026.
The next era of buildering
Perhaps these complications are the reason why, after more than 100 years of existence, the sport today remains dominated by just a few big namesfrom legacy figures like Robert and Goodwin, to younger climbers like the 26-year-old George King, who famously climbed The Shard in 2019 before base jumping off the top, and Honnold, whose career focused on rock climbing before he took on Taipei 101.
British skyscraper climber George King as he leaves HM Prison Pentonville in north London on January, 2020, on his release from imprisonment after free-climbing the London skyscraper, The Shard. [Photo: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images]
Today, the buildering community remains small. In fact, according to Andy Day, a climber and photographer who wrote a paper on buildering in 2017, to call it a community would be generous. Its a more niche, sub-cultural level of interest, he says, noting interest has largely ebbed and flowed over the years.
The discipline required to do what someone like Alain Roberts or Alex Honnold do is just so unique that its not going to happen very often, he told me, adding, with a laugh, that there are enough well-equipped gyms serving hot coffee to keep climbers satisfied.
But “SpiderDan” believes Honnolds live-streamed climb might usher in a new era for urban climbers. I know every climber is going to be walking through cities now and looking at what buildings they could climb, he says.
Honnoldwho kicked off his ascent with a casual nod to the camera and ended it 91 minutes later with a low-key sick!made his climb look like a walk in the park. But Goodwin knows urban climbers need the same regulations as rock climbers, so he is now working on a separate book in the hopes of making urban climbing safer.
We need to come up with standards, and ethics, and rules that govern future generations, he says, because you think youre the only ones right now, but I know other people climbing buildings, and in the next year or two, I wouldnt be surprised if we see fifty to 100 ascents.
Today, thousands of Americans are participating in a general strike. The instructions are simple: no work, no school, no shopping. The aim is ambitiousto pressure the Trump administration to remove ICE from local communities.
The strike is a response to the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota. In the days since, calls for a nationwide shutdown have spread rapidly across social media, shared by activists, nonprofits, and everyday people urging a halt to economic activity. Celebrities including Pedro Pascal, Edward Norton, and Jamie Lee Curtis have amplified the message to their followers.
Some businessesmostly small, independent oneshave heeded the call. Clothing label Misha and Puff, olive oil maker Brightland, and underwear brand Oddobody have all closed for the day, forgoing revenue as a form of protest. “The only thing the Trump administration responds to is the market,” says Polly Rodriguez, founder of the sexual wellness company Unbound Babes, who has shuttered her business for the day. “Our goal is to raise awareness today, link people to other resources, and gather donations for organizations on the ground in Minnesota.”
[Screenshot: The General Strike US]
The Organizers Behind This Strike
Although the strike has been organized in a decentralized way, with no single leader at the helm, many participants have turned to the website and Instagram account of The General Strike US, which offer guidance about organizing a general strike. Eliza Blum, a longtime labor organizer, built the site in 2022, alongside other activists.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a founder,” she says. “We’re very much a non-hierarchical, decentralized network.”
Through her work with Fight for $15, the campaign for a $15 minimum wage, Blum saw firsthand how strikes forced companies and policymakers to pay attention. As the Trump administration pursued what she viewed as increasingly authoritarian policies, she began to see labor as a central tool of resistance.
“When Roe v. Wade was overturned, I hit a personal breaking point,” she tells me. “Protesting in the streets, holding signs, calling our representativesit wasn’t enough. We live in an extremely capitalist society where our greatest weapon is our labor. If working people stopped working, we could shut down the country until our demands were met.”
Other prominent voices have echoed that view. “What does a national civic uprising look like?” Robert Reich, a U.C. Berkeley law professor, wrote in his Substack last April. “It may look like a general strikea strike in which tens of millions of Americans refuse to work, refuse to buy, refuse to engage in anything other than a mass demonstration against the regime.”
The General Strike website calls for people to sign a “strike card,” pledging their participation in future actions. The long-term goal, Blum says, is to secure commitments from 3.5% of the U.S. populationroughly 10.5 million people. The figure comes from research by political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, which suggests that when 3.5% of a population engages in sustained protest, authoritarian governments are likely to collapse.
So far, about 435,730 people have signed the pledge. Once the number reaches 10.5 million, organizers plan to coordinate a nationwide strike. In the meantime, Blum argues that smaller, recurring actions are essential for building momentum.
Reich agrees. “[It will take more than] just one general strike, but a repeating general strike,” he writes. “A strike whose numbers continue to grow and whose outrage, resistance, and solidarity continue to spread across the land.”
Last Friday, hundreds of Minnesota businesses closed as a show of opposition to ICE. For Blum, this was an important turning point. She saw local unions come together with community organizers to work collectively. This local strike had an impact, making headlines in the New York Times and the BBC. “It was the first time, since I’ve been doing this that I saw a general strike actually happen,” she says.
Crowds marching from Scotland to London during the General Strike, 1926. [Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images]
The History of General Strikes
The term general strike is most closely associated with events in Britain in 1926, when trade unions organized coal miners to walk off the job after mine owners slashed wages and lengthened working hours. Workers across other industriesincluding transportation, printing, and manufacturingjoined in solidarity, bringing large parts of the country to a standstill.
The government quickly intervened, framing the strike as a threat not just to employers, but to the nation itself. Union leaders soon found themselves in direct confrontation with the state, and after nine days, they called off the strike.
“It was a total failure,” says Jonathan Schneer, a British historian whose book, Nine Days in May: The General Strike of 1926 comes out this summer. (Disclosure: Schneer is my father-in-law.) “The coal miners were ultimately left isolated and forced to work under even worse conditions.”
Schneer notes that while todays general strike draws inspiration from the events of 1926, there are also crucial differencesmost notably the level of coordination involved. In England at the time, between a third and half of all workers were unionized, and labor leaders were able to mobilize a significant share of the population. It took enormous organization to pull something like that off, Schneer says.
Nearly a century later, the landscape has shifted. Todays action is being organized largely online, at a moment when labor unions are far weaker than they were in early-20th-century Britain. The United States also has a much larger and more geographically dispersed population. What remains constant, however, is the central role of capitalism in everyday lifeand the idea that halting economic activity can still be a powerful way to command the governments attention. When enough people participate, Schneer argues, the signal is impossible to ignore.
The Demands
For Blum, the fact that the strike isn’t centrally organized is one of its strengths. Like other activist groups that emerged during Trumps second termincluding Indivisibleshe believes organizing works best at the local level, allowing communities to respond to their own conditions. Her role, she says, is less about directing the movement than equipping others with the tools to organize within their own networks.
That decentralized structure also means there is no single, unified set of demands. The General Strike US website lists a wide range of causes worth striking for, from universal healthcare to voting rights. For now, however, participants appear to be coalescing around a more immediate goal: removing ICE from local communities. On social media, posts frequently express solidarity with protesters in Minnesota and call for the abolition of ICE altogether.
While organizers encourage people to stay home from work and school, the most accessible form of participation is refusing to spend money. A number of small businesses have chosen to close for the day in solidarity, though no major corporations have followed suit.
I am very disappointed in the lack of reaction from companies that are far more powerful and influential than we are, says Melody Serafino, founder of the communications agency No.29, which also shuttered operations. Let me be clear: posting on Instagram and shutting down our business for a day is not brave. Real courage is being exemplified by the people on the ground who are putting their lives at risk.
For Blum, however, this moment is just the beginning. She sees the current action as the first in what she hopes will be a series of escalating strikesand says it is already producing results. In recent days, tens of thousands of people have signed strike cards through her website. There is still a long road ahead to reaching the 3.5% threshold of the U.S. population, but the numbers, she says, are rising steadily.
Movements that reach that level of participation never fail to bring about radical change, Blum says. But it takes time.
Snow has returned to the Philadelphia region, and along with it, the white residues on streets and sidewalks that result from the overapplication of deicers such as sodium chloride, or rock salt, as well as more modern salt alternatives.
As an environmental scientist who studies water pollution, I know that much of the excess salt flows into storm drains and ultimately into area streams and rivers.
For example, a citizen science stream monitoring campaign led by the Stroud Water Research Center in Chester County (about 40 miles west of Philadelphia) found that chloride concentrations in southeastern Pennsylvania streams remained higher than levels recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency not only after winter snowfalls but also in many cases during some summer monthsshowing salt persists in watersheds year-round.
Once there, it can have a profound impact on fish and other aquatic life. This includes a decrease in the abundance of macroinvertebrates, which are small organisms that form the base of many freshwater food webs, and reductions in growth and reproduction in fish.
Increased salt concentrations can also degrade and pollute the local water supply. Working with other researchers at Villanova University, I have measured spikes in sodium levels in Philadelphia region tap water during and immediately after snow melts. These spikes can pose a health risk to people on low-sodium diets.
What local governments can do
In recent years, many state and local governments nationwide have adopted best management practicessuch as roadway brining, more efficient salt spreaders, and improved storm forecastingto limit damage from salt to infrastructure, including roads and bridges.
Roadway brining works by applying a salt solution, or brine, that contains about 23% sodium chloride by weight prior to a storm. Unlike road salt, brines adhere to all pavement and can prevent ice from sticking to the roadway during the storm. This potentially reduces the need for subsequent road salt applications.
The environmental benefits of these best practices, when properly administered, are promising. The Maryland State Highway Administration reduced its total salt usage on roadways by almost 50% by using multiple best practices.
The extent to which these strategies will continue to reduce the salt burden on roads and, by extension, improve the water quality of streams elsewhere will largely depend on political will and corresponding economic investments.
Yet, roads are not the only source of salt to our streams. Recent studies have suggested that the cumulative amount of salt applied to other impervious surfaces in a watershed, such as parking lots, driveways, and sidewalks, can exceed that applied to roads.
For example, one survey of private contractors suggests their application rate can be up to 10 times higher than that of transportation departments.
I do not know of any studies that have been able to determine a household application rate.
How to salt at home
To better understand how individuals or households deice their properties, and what they know about the environmental impacts of deicing, I collaborated with a team of environmental scientists and psychologists at Villanova University and the local conservation-focused nonprofit Lower Merion Conservancy.
In winter 2024-2025, the Lower Merion Conservancy disseminated a survey in a social media campaign that received more than 300 responses from residents in southeastern Pennsylvania. We are completing the analysis to determine a household application rate, but some of our initial findings provide a starting point for engaging households on how to limit the environmental impact of deicers.
One key finding is that only 7% of respondents reported being aware of municipal ordinances regarding deicer use on residential sidewalks.
Of those who applied deicers to their property, 55% indicated they were unsure whether they used them in a way that would reduce environmental harm.
About 80% of all respondents indicated interest in learning more about the environmental impacts of road salt.
Based on these survey results, here are several actionable steps that homeowners can take to reduce their deicer use.
1. Check your local municipal ordinance.
Most municipalities in the greater Philadelphia area do not require deicer use but instead require clearing a walkable pathin most cases, 3 feet widefree of snow and ice within a certain time frame after a storm event ends.
For example, the city of Philadelphia requires this to be done within six hours, the borough of Narberth within 12 hours and Lower Merion and Haverford townships within 24 hours.
Narberth and Lower Merion specify which abrasivessuch as sand, ashes, and sawdustor deicers, like rock salt, can be used if ice persists.
2. Use rock salt and other deicers judiciously.
The recommended amount from conservation organizations is one 12-ounce coffee mug of deicer for every 10 sidewalk squares. Keep in mind that pet-friendly deicers are not necessarily environmentally friendly. Many of these deicers contain magnesium chloride, which is harmful to plants and aquatic life.
Deicers coupled with dyes might be a good choice to visually prevent over-application. They can also temporarily reduce concretes surface reflectivity, thereby increasing its warming effect and enabling melting.
inally, its important to know that many deicers become ineffective at or below certain temperatures. Rock salt/sodium chloride loses its effectiveness at 15 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 9 Celsius), magnesium chloride at 5 F (minus 15 C) and calcium chloride at minus 20 F (minus 29 C). If temperatures are expected to fall below those numbers, it might make sense to skip the salt.
3. Sweep up after.
We have all seen rock salt on sidewalks for days on end, especially when a storm never materializes. If the next storm brings rain, this leftover salt will form a concentrated brine solution that will wash down the nearest storm drain and into a local waterway.
Leftover salt can be swept up and reapplied after the next storm event, saving money and supplies.
Read more of our stories about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.
Steven Goldsmith is an associate professor of environmental science at Villanova University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
You probably know filmmaker and actor Taika Waititi from directing work like the Marvel movie Thor: Ragnarok or the Oscar award-winning film Jojo Rabbit. What you might not know is that hes also the creative mind behind multiple Old Spice ads, a bout of early 2010s PSAs for his home country of New Zealand, and some of the most iconic Super Bowl commercials of all time.
From the early days of his career, between directing short films and appearing in acting gigs, Waititi has kept up a consistent cadence of ad work, ranging from spots for local names like the New Zealand Transport Agency to bigger brands like Samsung. Even as his Hollywood work has expanded, ad work remains a consistent part of his creative churn.
In 2025, Waititi directed three different spots for the Super Bowl. This year, hes returning to Americas biggest game with a new spot for Pepsi. Waititi says he keeps coming back to the Super Bowl for the same reason hes done ad work for decades: it keeps his creative muscles firing.
Selfishly, Ive used the world of making commercials as my filmmaking gym, he says.
Inside Pepsi’s new Super Bowl spot
Waititis 2026 return to the Super Bowl comes via a Pepsi spot titled The Choice, set to Queens I Want to Break Free. The ad carries on Pepsis long tradition of lightheartedly bashing its main rival, Coca-Cola, by signaling the superiority of its colas taste. This time, Pepsi turned to one of Coca-Colas most iconic symbols as the star of its new Cola War spot: the Coca-Cola polar bear.
I feel like I’ve been watching the [Cola Wars] all my life, and so it was pretty fun just to take part in that and because it’s an iconic relationship that they’ve got, Waititi says. He adds that the spots bear-centric storyline was already established before he joined the project, and that my main job when it comes to these things is just to help solidify the tone, carry that through, and make sure that it’s fun and watchable.
The bear has appeared in Coca-Colas advertising as far back as 1922, including in some of its most beloved Christmas ads. In The Choice, hes faced with the reality that he actually prefers Pepsi over Coke after conducting a blind taste-test of the two sodas. The realization drives him to his therapist (played by Waititi himself), before he ultimately breaks free from Coca-Cola and enjoys a Pepsi in, weirdly enough, a parody of the viral Coldplay kiss cam moment from last summer.
Why ads are Taika Waititi’s creative gym
Before Waititi ever became a household name, many of his clever, absurdist spots had already cemented themselves in the canon of advertising acclaim. Along the way, those projects were quietly shaping his creative voice and informing his larger projects.
In 2008, Waititi directed a series of ads for Pot Noodle, including one surrealist spot called Moussaka Rap, a loosely Eminem-inspired song about the Greek casserole. In 2011, he tackled another rap video for Sour Patch Kids and an underwater ballad for Cadbury. His first big break in the ad worldand one of his most recognizable spots to this daywas NBCs 2012 Super Bowl bash Brotherhood of Man, which featured talent from on-air shows at the time like The Office and Parks and Recreation (as well as a now cringe-inducing cameo from The Apprentices Donald Trump), and which had such a fraught production that its inspired entire think pieces.
What I remember about that was just how fun it was to visit all of these different TV shows and work with all of these people, Waititi says, adding with a laugh, Let’s not talk about everyone that I worked on that with.
Waititi took a hiatus from the big game to produce iconic spots like Air New Zealand’s 2014 Lord of the Rings-inspired “The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made, featuring Elijah Wood; and a 2018 series of heavy hitters for Old Spice. By the time he returned to directing for the Super Bowl in 2025, Waititi was both an Oscar and Grammy winner. His spots last yeara heartstring-pulling ad for Lay’s, two shorts for Homes.com featuring Morgan Freeman, and a brain-rottingly ridiculous ad for Mountain Dew starring humanoid sealswere all met with a hearty dose of acclaim.
For Waititi, ad direction isnt just a side gig; its a tool thats shaped his career. In the periods between filming larger projects, he uses commercials to test new jokes, try out character ideas, experiment with VFX, and work on new camera and lighting techniques. If he feels like theyre really good, he says, he can use them in a film at some point down the road.
It’s fun to play with the creative space, and it’s not as risky for me when I’m making commercials, Wititi says. It’s just kind of a play space, reallya nice big sandpit.
The moment I rise in the morning, I check my phone. Bad habit, to be sure. But I know Im not the only one. There is a message from an editor marked urgent, there is an email from the school reminding me its parent-visit morning, and a text from a fellow soccer mom making sure I remembered the time change for Sundays tournament. (I hadnt). The day had barely started, and I already felt hopelessly behind.
This is the reality for working parents everywhere. On any given day, we have many jobs: employee, caregiver, chauffeur, chef, boo-boo healerand each has its own inbox. Once upon a time, we believed technology would make our lives easier. Instead, it taught us how to be reachable at all hours of the day.
We are desperate for time hacks. So naturally, parents are wondering if AI can help, or whether its just another thing demanding our attention.
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How AI Can Actually Help
AI helps by taking care of the boring, time-sucking stuff that clutters your brain. In other words, that invisible labor that never lets up. For example, school emails that go on and on when all you really need to know is the date of the field trip and what the kids need to wear. AI can summarize them in seconds and pull out the important parts.
It can also help us write polite notes to teachers, coaches, or HR without seeming defensive. It can turn your parent-teacher conference notes into an actionable plan.
At home, the help is small but impactful. Weekly meal plans with grocery lists, recipes based on whats already in your pantry, family calendars that catch conflicts you would have missed.
At work, AI can summarize meetings you were half paying attention to, draft versions of presentations, and help organize your day so things dont hit you all at once.
And it does this in less time than it takes to pour a cup of coffee.
Moments That Feel Like Magic
AI can change your life in practical ways. For example:
Turn this voice note into a packing list.
Rewrite this PTO request that expresses the urgency without sounding apologetic.
Summarize the 25 Slack messages I missed while I was at the pediatrician.
Simplifying these tasks is one less thing crowding your mind.
How AI Makes Things Worse
Some tools require so much setup and maintenance that they become another thing to do. Others add notifications instead of reducing them. Many raise privacy concerns, especially if they include your childrens data.
And there is the danger of us becoming too reliant on these tools. It should make our lives easier, but we still need to be able to do these things for ourselves just in case our sci-fi nightmare comes true and an electromagnetic pulse wipes out technology.
Then there is the economics of it all. AI isnt free, and paywalls could widen inequalities among parents.
Efficiency vs. Relief
Parents dont just need to be more efficient; they need to feel supported. We are expected to be completely available for our employer and a fully present parent. AI can relieve that tension a little bit if used wisely.
How to Get Started
Start with one pain point, not your entire life.
Choose the tools that reduce notifications instead of creating them.
Be careful about what data you share.
If a helpful tool creates more work, then it isnt helpful.
The Real Test
Parents arent asking AI to raise their kids or run their livesat least not entirely. We are asking it to carry the parts that dont require humanity. So if AI can give us fewer tabs to keep open (either on our screens or in our heads), it might actually live up to its promise. It wont make us superhuman, but it can make the day-to-day a little less punishing.
Seven AI Apps That Make Parents Lives Easier
To get started, here are some AI apps to try:1. ChatGPT
Think of it like a very fast assistant who never rolls their eyes. Use it to summarize long school emails, draft texts to teachers or coaches, and plan dinner. It can also turn a rambling voice memo into a to-do list.
2. Ohai.ai
If you find yourself saying “Wait, when was this due?” several times a week, you might need this. It scans emails, documents, and screenshots, pulls out dates and tasks, then adds them to your calendar so fewer things slip through the cracks.
3. Goldee
You can use Goldee to organize emails, schedules, and random information that gets lost in the class group chat.
4. AI meal-planning tools (like Ollie)
These tools are for parents who are sick and tired of figuring out whats for dinner. Ollie can suggest meals, create grocery lists, and even work with whats already in your fridge.
5. Reclaim.ai
This scheduling assistant automatically finds the best times in your calendar for work, family, and breaks.
6. Cozi (with AI features)
This one helps flag schedule conflicts to keep everyone in the family on the same page.
7. AI-powered email tools (Gmail, Outlook)
Use these to summarize long email threads, suggests replies, and pull up the messages that matter most.
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Back on February 6th, 2017, a teenaged Sabrina Carpenter tweeted, Is there a way to look attractive while eating Pringles asking for a friend.
Is there a way to look attractive while eating Pringles asking for a friend— Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) February 6, 2017
Now, nine years later, the pop star is doing exactly thatin the brands Super Bowl ad campaign. Created by agency BBDO New York, the teaser shows Carpenter treating her Pringles like a flower bouquet, plucking chips while saying, He loves me, he loves me not . . .
For Pringles, the spot represents the perfect formula for celebrity partnership. Our partner talent has to be a genuine brand fan! says Sarah Reinecke, senior vice president of Mars Snackings salty portfolio and brand, which oversees Pringles. Sabrina is the biggest thing in culture right now and is a fan of Pringles, so having the opportunity to work with her and engage her fan base in all the fun we have planned for the big game is an exciting partnership that hits all the right factors for us.
Pringles’ celebrity strategy
Pringles is no stranger to the celebrity Super Bowl ad game. The brand tapped Meghan Trainor in 2023, Chris Pratt in 2024, and last year, a seemingly random collection of stars like James Harden, Adam Brody, and Nick Offerman. But Reinecke says the brand’s strategy isnt some game of big name roulette.
Each partnership has sharpened our approach, she says. Weve learned that the most effective talent isnt just recognizableit has to authentically align with both the audience and the brands voice.” Reinecke points to Carpenter as an example of this. “She connects deeply with Gen Z while naturally embodying the self-aware, unhinged internet humor that defines how the brand shows up today,” Reinecke says. “The partnership has really embodied a shared sense of play, which we hope ultimately makes it resonate with our fans.
Beyond the Game
Given the level of investment required to just get a spot in the game, most brands now extend Super Bowl-related work to run long before and after the final whistle. For Pringles, that means tying its work with Carpenter into an existing campaign that launched last fall to resurrect its 90s ad slogan Once You Pop.
Pringles Super Bowl teaser was one of the first to drop back on January 14th. Reinecke says that they knew partnering with someone like Carpenter would spark a ton of conversation, so the goal was to capitalize early and often in order to allow the brand to be at the center of the conversation for as long as possible.
That level of conversation and enthusiasm is a key metric for the brand. Of course, we would be lying if we said we didnt care about ROI and metrics, says Reinecke. Its incredibly important for us to measure success across both the marketing funnel and the impact on business. But while reach is important, what may be even more important is how much people care. So, we track everything from awareness, consideration, sentiment and purchase intent, and our impact to go beyond where a snack brand is expected to show up.
Celebrity Q&A
There are three key questions every marketer should ask themselves before deciding whether to use celebrity talent and who to choose for a Super Bowl ad, according to Reinecke:
Does the partnership feel authentic to the brand and relevant to the audience youre going after? The face of the campaign on one of the largest stages in brand marketing of the year is a crucial piece, according to Reinecke.
How will this ad positively impact the business? For us, the Big Game is the biggest snacking occasion of the year, so having a presence directly ties back to business objectives, she says.
Does the partnership have the potential to expand beyond the game? While the move to social media as a newsfeed grows, think about how the partnership and creative could extend to the small screen, and relevant ways to tap into the narrative your brand builds with your partner beyond game day, Reinecke adds.
How much would you pay for a gray fleece? Yes, the type thats ubiquitous in corporate cubicles and business-casual work conferences across America.
What if it had the Miu Miu logo stitched on the left chest? If you said $2,500, youd be on the money.
Miu Mius $2,500 fleece sweatshirt, specifically in gray, has been trending online in recent months, spotted on celebs and featured in dozens of videos across social media platforms. You might think it looks like any other gray fleece. And youd be right. Yet the Miu Miu version has inspired dupes and influenced people to unearth 4imprint jackets from their dads closet or old thrift finds to participate in the trend.
For more than a decade, banks, investment firms, and tech companies have co-branded corporate logos on gray fleece vests for their workforces. Worn by everyone from interns to executives, this look, dubbed the Midtown uniform in major cities like New York, has become as ubiquitous in workplaces as the sad desk salad.
As my boyfriend was leaving for work this morning he put on the fleece that his company gave him, New York City-based influencer Danielle Carolan said in a recent TikTok while wearing the Miu Miu version. I was like, oh my god, this is literally like a fleece your tech company would give you.
Still, in influencer circles the Miu Miu fleeceto be uttered with the same reverence as Andy Sachss coveted Chanel boots in The Devil Wears Pradahas become a cultural shorthand. The Miu Miu fleece is a wearable argument about how taste, comfort, and status work now, according to a recent Substack post from Dot Dot Dot. In simple terms: the ability to look relaxed without looking irrelevant.
And for the $2,500 price tag surely theres something fashion normies must be missing to justify the cost? Something about the garment construction or fabric composition, perhaps. No. Its really just a gray fleece made of 80% polyester and 20% recycled polyester.
Some have suggested its a social experiment. Or is it a sign of the times?
Coinciding with the RTO push, fashion houses have been tapping into the workplace discourse, taking inspiration from the office in runway collections and ad campaigns.
Throughout 2025, designer brands like Prada and Miu Miu and more affordable high-street retailers like Uniqlo and Aritzia put their own spin on workwear fashion as companies ushered employees back in the office. That interest in corporate style has continued in 2026, with views on #OfficeOutfits up 811% over the past week, according to Vogue Business.
From power dressing to business casual, corp-core is in vogueeven if the Miu Miu fleece is worn predominantly by influencers on their way to Pilates and brunch.
