Hi! I’m Peter, CEO of Kickresume, and these career-related stories caught my attention this month — and might catch yours too.

Ever heard of the Triangle fire in New York City?

It’s the very reason why your HR fusses so much over safety protocols.

Rewind to March, 25th, 1911.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire

Max Blanck and Isaac Harris run Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City's Asch Building.

The space, spanning three floors, is far from a dream workplace. Employees work long hours in cramped conditions for low pay, earning $7 to $12 a week ($226 to $388 a week today).

And everything gets even worse one day.

On a Saturday afternoon, a fire breaks out in a scrap bin on the 8th floor. 

Workers, mostly young immigrant Jewish and Italian women, can’t get out. The door is locked. The fire escape is so narrow that evacuating everyone would have taken several hours even in ideal conditions. 

The disaster leads to a heartbreaking loss of 146 lives.

From bystander to labor law crusader

Witnessing the horror firsthand as a bystander is Frances Perkins who decides to take a stand. 

She becomes a key figure in persuading the New York legislatures to enact a law limiting the working hours of women and children to a maximum of 54 hours per week. 

As the Secretary of Labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt (and America's first female cabinet member), Perkins is instrumental in writing the Social Security Act.

Workplace safety standards being born

The incident spurs the establishment of the Factory Investigating Commission, leading to groundbreaking safety regulations.

It also paves the way for the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor.

Fire safety in factories improves: better path marking signage, fireproofing, and access to fire extinguishers. Notably, the Sullivan-Hoey Fire Prevention Law mandates factory owners to install sprinkler systems.

The 1911 changed also your 9-to-5

Flash forward to today. The echoes of the Triangle fire are all around our cubicles. 

That emergency exit sign? Those regular fire drills that make you miss important calls? The very concept of “worker's rights”?

You guessed it – the legacy of the Triangle tragedy.

So maybe next time the HR starts nagging us about safety protocols, we'll cut them some slack, huh?

They’re not just being a buzzkill.

They’re keeping the ghost of the Triangle fire at bay.

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Random piece of career advice that actually works

Your resume header is more than just your name and contact details. 

It’s the section right at the top of your resume, which is graphically separated from the main content of the resume.

As the first of the resume sections, it's usually referred to as the contact information section (rather than "resume header").

In your resume header, you should include key information like:

Want to dive deeper? Check out our article, Resume Header: What to Include, What to Skip, & How to Format It.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end.

Since no great scroller should go unrewarded, here’s a 20% discount code for Kickresume Premium.

Catch you later!