Making a complicated drink in the time it takes a pour a cup of coffee. Handling increasingly intricate orders from customers who want their drink to reflect their personality. Dealing with those same consumers before they've had their morning caffeine fix.

Dismiss Starbucks (SBUX), Peet's, Tully's and Caribou baristas as "coffee pourers" if it makes you feel better, but all of the above makes their job one of the trickiest in the food service industry and separates the great ones from those just getting by.

 

Pfizer (PFE) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), two of the largest drug companies, are spending less money trying to woo doctors to prescribe their products, another sign of the tough times facing big pharma.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the two companies reduced by double digits their spending on dinners and other events where doctors give speeches to their peers touting the efficacy of the companies' drugs. The paper notes that Pfizer alone cut spending on meals by 40%.

Critics have long argued that these payments result in more expensive drugs being prescribed that may be less effective than cheaper alternatives, which means they also drive up costs borne by taxpayers. Drug companies have countered that the payments are needed to compensate doctors for their time to learn about new medications. 

Are you dreading the April 15 tax deadline? You're not alone: A national survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted earlier this month, says more than half of Americans have a negative reaction to doing their income taxes. More surprising, however, is the one-third who said they either like (29%) or downright love (5%) doing their taxes.

The study also offers an interesting glimpse at American taxpayers, in terms of their income levels, political affiliations and moral compasses.

Let's start with the majority of Americans, for whom grumbling over taxes is an annual pastime. When asked why they dislike or hate doing their taxes, most of those surveyed cited the time needed and the hassle of getting the necessary paperwork together. Just over 30% say it's complicated, and they fear making mistakes.

 

Democrats and Republicans, who agree on very little anymore, are united in their belief that the top rate for U.S. business taxes needs to come down. Whether this will spur efforts to reform the tax code as Congress debates President Obama's proposed $3.7 trillion federal budget remains to be seen.

U.S. corporations pay a marginal tax rate of 35%, the highest in the world, and that puts the country at a competitive disadvantage, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others. Obama advocates slashing it to 28%.

The big problem with the marginal tax rate figure is that it can be misleading. As Fortune's Allan Sloan recently noted, the stated rate "has more holes than Swiss cheese," thanks to a plethora of loopholes. 

Boy, has it been a busy month for mammary-minded American consumers.

First, Hooters started toning down its image to appeal to more women. Then the wings-and-tight-shir​ts restaurant chain slid away from that stance after being sued by a waitress who claims she was fired for not wearing a wig over a surgical scar.

Then, Texas-based Bikinis Sports Bar and Grill trademarked the term "breastaurant" after similarly themed establishments like the Tilted Kilt, Mugs N Jugs and Twin Peaks considered that descriptor too vulgar for their blushingly modest tastes.

Now, Star Shine NYC is bringing tank tops and tiny shorts to Manhattan's financial district in the shoe-polishing world's answer to a bikini car wash.

 

Still feeling down about the economy? Well, buck up, little camper: At least you're not being foreclosed upon anymore.

The folks at housing information service RealtyTrac told CNNMoney that foreclosure filings -- including notices of default, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions -- fell 23% during the first quarter from a year earlier. That's the lowest level since the second quarter of 2007.

To provide a small example of the decline in foreclosures, banks repossessed just under 44,000 homes last month. In September 2010, there were more than 100,000 repossessions. Even RealtyTrac now forecasts that "normal" foreclosure rates could return by late this year.

So, what's behind this trend?

 

While the economy shows signs of gaining strength, another segment of the U.S. is growing even faster: the number of workers going on disability insurance. 

 

More than 8.8 million disabled workers received payments from the government in January, a sixfold increase since 1970, when 1.5 million disabled workers received assistance, according to the Congressional Budget Office. 

 

That trend has picked up in recent years, with the disability rolls surging by 24% since 2007, when the recession began, according to data from the Social Security Administration and the CBO. 

 

The pickpocketing problem at the Louvre museum is so bad that the staff is revolting. The museum closed Wednesday after 200 security officers went on strike to protest the crime wave.

Pickpocketing at popular tourist destinations is nothing new -- just ask Disney (DIS) -- but the problem has grown much worse at the Louvre over the past 18 months. There are now roving gangs of pickpockets, many of them children, and they are getting increasingly violent.

Here's how they do it: