Jimmy is an automotive mechanic, but helost his job a few months ago. He has good heart, but always feared applyingfor a new job.

One day, he gathered up all his strengthand decided to attend a job interview. His appointment was at 10 am and it wasalready 8:30. While waiting for a bus to the office where he was supposed to beinterviewed, he saw an elderly man wildly kicking the tyre(轮胎） of hiscar. Obviously there was something wrong with the car. Jimmy immediately wentup to lend him a hand. When Jimmy finished working on the car, the old manasked him how much he should pay for the service. Jimmy said there was no needto pay him; he just helped someone in need, and he had to rush for aninterview. Then the old man said, “Well, I could take you to the office foryour interview. It's the least I could do. Please. I insist.” Jimmy agreed.

    Upon arrival, Jimmy found a long line ofapplications waiting to be interviewed. Jimmy still had some grease on himafter the car repair, but he did not have much time to wash it off or have achange of shirt. One by one, the applicants left the interviewer's office withdisappointed look on their faces. Finally his name was called. The interviewerwas sitting on a large chair facing the office window. Rocking the chair backand forth, he asked, “Do you really need to be interviewed?” Jimmy's heartsank. “With the way I look now, how could I possibly pass this interview?” hethought to himself.

    Then the interviewer turned the chairand to Jimmy's surprise, it was the old man he helped earlier in the morning.It turned out he was the General Manager of the company.

  “Sorry I had to keep you waiting, but Iwas pretty sure I made the right decision to have you as part of our workforcebefore you even stepped into the office. I just know you'd be a trustworthyworker. Congratulations!” Jimmy sat down and they shared a cup of well-deservedcoffee as he landed himself a new job.

How Super Are Supermarkets?

    Buying e week's groceries is tiring. You want to get it over and done with quickly, so you head for the nearest supermarket, you find everything you need under one roof, and you feel glad that those days of going in and out of different shops in the high street are over. Supermarkets seem to be a big plus. There is a downside, though.

    In the UK 90% of all the food people consume is bought at 5 different supermarket chains. This makes these companies extremely powerful, which lets them use their huge buying power to squeeze small suppliers to get the best deal. Milk is a good example. Supermarkets like to use things like milk, which is the top of almost everyone's shopping list to attract customers. To offer the lowest price possible to the consumer, the supermarkets force dairy farmers to sell milk at less than the cost of production. Supermarkets guarantee their good profits while farmers are left struggling to make ends meet, and the taxpayer pays to support the system without even knowing it.

    It would be nice if local grocers supported local agriculture. But for the big supermarkets this just doesn't make sense. Supermarkets don't want little farmers thinking they can decide prices. So supermarkets have started a global search for the cheapest possible agricultural produce. In many supermarkets it is difficult to find anything which is produced locally.

    UK farmers used to grow a lot of apples. Not anymore. In 1999 36% of apples were imported. By 2015 the figure had risen to 80% and the domestic production of apples had fallen by two thirds. The consumer might just be happy to get a reasonably priced meal made up of foods from Thailand, Spain, Italy and Zambia, but we should also bear in mind the Influence on local producers.

    Then there's packaging. Supermarkets like everything to be packed and wrapped so it can be piled neatly on shelves. Supermarkets produce nearly 10 million tons of waste packaging in the UK every year, of which less 5%is recycled. Some supermarkets make sure that large recycling bins are obvious in their car parks, showing that they are environment-friendly. But that is just an image.

    When a new supermarket is planned there are claims about the number of new jobs that will be created. Unfortunately, the number of jobs lost in the area is larger than the number of new positions in the supermarket. On average each new supermarket leads to the loss of 276 jobs.

    However, the modern world is all about shopping, and the freedom to buy whatever you what, so it would be impossible to stop people shopping at some particular kind of shop. But some measures do need to be taken when small suppliers lose profits, local producers suffer, sea levels rise and jobs are lost, anyway, we can't just care about a free car park and special offers.

    Last week, we talked about the conflict(冲突) between sleepy teenagers and early morning classes. Many people commented(评论) on our website.

For example, Damla Ece in Turkey wrote: I agree with the idea of starting lessons later so teenagers can feel better in the morning. But sleeping more than seven hours can be wasting time for students.

    Tran in Vietnam disagreed: I think teenagers, on average, need eight to ten hours of sleep every day. It's useless to try to force them to concentrate while they can't concentrate.

    Afshin Heydari from Iran wrote: schools should start early to avoid heavy traffic later in the morning.

    And Suze from Jordan wrote: When I was a teenager, I enjoyed taking my courses as early as possible. That way I could find a long time in the day to do my own activities.

    But Azra from Kyrgyzstan said: the reason why schools start early here is a lack of classrooms.

    And Joruji in Japan wrote: When I was a teenager, I used to get up before six to go to school, which was far from home, and I don't remember having problems. I think nowadays the Internet, TV games and cell phones make teens go to sleep later.

    Thirty-year-old Kika in Spain said: In my opinion, young people are very lazy.

    But Dennis Jin disagreed: For high school students in China, we must reach the classroom at 6:20 in the morning and be back home usually at 10:00 in the evening. Then we'll have some extra schoolwork to do. Can you imagine how long we could sleep every day?

    Teenagers are not the only ones who suffer. Kathy in Canada wrote: My daughter likes complaining about everything in the morning, and I know that this is from lack of sleep. I wish schools should change their start time to 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning.

    And Naima Star in Libya wrote: Getting up so early in the morning and leaving the warm bed is so difficult, especially in the cold weather. It reminds me of that old song: "It's nice to get up in the morning, but it's nicer to stay in bed."

    Pappadavada, a popular restaurant in Kochi, India, is urging customers and the community to put their leftover food in a fridge located outside of the restaurant for the hungry to take.

    People who are in need of a meal are encouraged to take from the fridge at any time, for any reason. Minu Pauline, who runs Pappadavada, has nicknamed the fridge, which was placed there on March 23 and is shaded by a neighboring tree, "tree of goodness".

    The fridge is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and stays unlocked. Pauline asks that people write the date they left the food, so those who take know how long it's been there. But most food doesn't stay in the fridge for long. In spite of a huge response from the community and plenty of donations, the fridge needs to be brought more in to replace in time. Pauling herself adds around 75% to 80% of food from Pappadavada a day in the fridge.

    The idea to put a fridge on the street came to Pauline late on night when she saw a lady searching in a dustbin for food. She was especially saddened because that particular night, her restaurant had made a ton of food that they could have easily given the woman, instead of her searching for it. She felt like she contributed to waste, and avoiding waste is what Pauline pays her attention to.

    "The only thing I want to say no is that people are actually buying food and putting it in the fridge. But I'd rather people put their food they bought but aren't going to eat in the fridge instead of the dustbin," she said.

    As free as they make us, mobile phones still need to stay close to a power source. Soon that may change with "green" power.

    Three Chilean students got the idea for a plant-powered device(装置) to charge their cellphones, while sitting in their school's outdoor courtyard during a break from exams, with dead mobile phones. Then, one of them had an "aha" moment.

    “It occurred to Camila to say about plants,” said inventor Evelyn Aravena. “'Why don't you have a socket, if there are so many plants? 'After that, we thought, 'why don't they have a charging outlet? Because there are so many plants and living things that have the potential to produce energy, why not?'”

    Their invention—a small biological circuit called E-Kaia—uses the energy plants to produce during photosynthesis(光合作用). A plant uses only a small part of that energy and the rest goes into the soil, and that's where the E-Kaia collects it. The device plugs into the ground and then into your phone.

    "It's the most amazing project I've ever seen in my life, plain and simple. They brought this original model, and it worked — and that's when it all changed, at least from my personal point of view and I began to support them." said Mauricio Cifuentes.

    The device solved two problems for the engineering students — they needed an idea for a class project, and an outlet to plug in their phones.

    "Looking for a place to charge the notebook, which had no power, and the mobile phones, we weren't able to find anything because all the other students were in the same state of madness trying to find a place to charge their devices," said Aravena.

    But plants are everywhere, and the bio－circuit makes the best of their excess(过多的) power.

    The E-Kaia doesn't carry much charge but it's powerful enough to completely recharge a mobile phone in less than two hours.

    The student inventors have applied for patents on their technology, and expect the E-Kaia to go on sale in December 2016.

    When French students go to school, they have to leave one of their most prized possessions at home — their smartphones. French lawmakers passed a law on July 31, 2018, banning students 15 and under from bringing smartphones and tablets to school, or at least requiring they be turned off at school. Officials in support of the new rule described the policy as a way to protect children from addictive habits and to safeguard the sanctity of the classroom.

    "We know there is a phenomenon of screen addiction," education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said. "Our main role is to protect students. It is a fundamental role of education, and this law allows it."

    The law, however, makes exceptions for educational use, after-school activities and for students with disabilities. French high schools can choose to force a less-strict ban on Internet- connected devices.

    Even before the new policy was voted in, French law carried out in 2010 prohibited students from using their phones while class was in session. But during the 2017 French presidential election, Emmanuel Macron promised to force a school ban on phones entirely.

    This isn't the first French law designed to beat back the influences of digital technology in everyday life. In 2017 the government passed a law requiring French companies to draft rules that limited work emails and work-related technology outside the office. Referred to as the "right to disconnect," French officials said the law aimed to reduce job-related stress and prevent employee burnout.

    "Employees physically leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain attached by a kind of electronic tie," said Benoît Hamon, former French education minister. "The texts, the messages, the emails: they control the life of the individual to the point where he or she eventually breaks down."