Phone calls from your alma mater. Direct mail appeals featuring swoon-worthy puppies. Requests to buy Girl Scout cookies as you’re leaving the grocery store. We’re exposed to more fundraising pleas than ever before, so what is it that persuades us to feel philanthropic and reach into our wallets?

Take a slice out of life! Apparently it’s National Pepperoni Pizza Day. With that, here’s a Dad Joke for you: What did the boss say to his pizza during their meeting? There’s mushroom for improvement.

After you finish laughing uncontrollably, take a few minutes to enjoy some of the best HR, leadership, and policy management articles we found over the past couple weeks.

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Article of the Week: Who knew being happy could be so hard? Most of us are on a constant quest for happiness, and compassion just might be the guiding force that gets us there (look for the ✦ below).

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word “liking”? In the age of social media, your brain might have jumped to clicking on a thumbs-up or a heart. But liking dates back much earlier than Facebook and Twitter.

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Envision you’re cruising down the highway, and a new song comes on the radio; it has a great beat and you enjoy the singer’s voice. A few days later, you hear the song and notice a lyric that really hits home, so you feel a connection – a similarity. By the fourth or fifth listen, you’re singing along with the chorus in your head because it’s familiar. It has now achieved Oooh-I-like-this-song! status.

Friday Fun Fact: Did you know that, 24 years ago today, Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken, Jr. played in his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking a 56-year-old record? Yes, that means you’re 24 years older than you were then.

Like Cal’s 431 home runs, we hope we knock it out of the park with some of the best HR, leadership, and policy management articles we found over the past couple weeks.

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Article of the Week: Remember how we included original content in a previous Bugle and said we were too humble to make it the Article of the Week? This time we’re not. The featured article reminds us that sometimes we’ve got to give before we get (look for the ✦ below).