The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

luidilovins:

spreezpz:

spreezpz:

Therapists are just…. Common sense filters

Me: yeah so I just don’t have the energy to get up and make myself a sandwich or wait for something to cook so I just. Don’t

Her: why don’t you just eat the sandwich components without putting them together

Me:

Her: you can just eat a handful of cheese and some sandwich meat. You don’t have to make a sandwich.

Me:

Me: what

You dont have to make the sandwitch

Pete Buttigieg made a very strong case for Americans learning how to pronounce his weirdass train wreck of a name this weekend. In a CNN town hall broadcast Sunday from Austin's South By Southwest, Buttigieg came across as genuine and assured, dare we even say "presidential," although that adjective has taken a beating in recent years. This one appearance seems pretty certain to boost his support, taking him from a novelty (the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, thinks he can be president?) to one of the contenders who might go well past the first couple primary states. Dude's scary smart -- like a whole bunch of the other 2020 candidates, too. We want to see him talk economics with Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris!

Here's a video of the whole town hall, for however long CNN's lawyers allow it to stay up:

CNN Town Hall with Pete Buttigieg [FULL] 3/10/2019 | CNN BREAKING NEWS Today Mar 10, 2019 www.youtube.com

CNN anchor Jake Tapper started the conversation off with the vital question: How do you pronounce "Buttigieg"? And just look at how sweetly that also normalized the homosexual agenda, yay!

Buttigieg really won us over with his answer to a question about universal health care: "I think anyone in politics who lets the words 'Medicare for All' escape their lips also has a responsibility to explain how we get there" -- which he then went on to suggest, at least in draft form. He'd like to see a transition from Obamacare to "Medicare for All Who Want It," by putting a buy-in to Medicare on the exchanges as a public option, to get people used to the idea.

Then Buttigieg went into some nerdy detail about how Medicare can be made more efficient, noting that our costs of bureaucracy to patient care is awful compared to other countries. He didn't specify what "unglamorous technical work" he'd tackle, apart from using automation to streamline the authorization process for care -- but it sure sounded like he had to hold himself back from outlining a 12-point plan right there.

Buttigieg said his own father's recent death from cancer illustrates why there has to be universally available care:

The decisions we made only had to be about what was medically right for Dad and what was right for our family. We didn't have to think about whether our family would be financially ruined, because of Medicare. And I want that kind of security, that kind of freedom, frankly, to be available to every American.

On a question about how his candidacy may be important to LGBTQ folks, Buttigieg said, "I think the whole point of politics is everyday life," as illustrated by his marriage -- he noted it was only possible because of a single vote in the SCOTUS. More concretely, he called for a federal "Equality Act" to ensure equal laws for everyone, and said the current administration is just awful on equality:

For a transgender teen to get the signal from the White House that the highest officials in the land can't tell the difference between her and a predator, and make it harder for her to go to the bathroom, shows you just how out of whack the climate is in our country right now.

An audience member asked about that Pence guy: Is Indiana like Mike Pence, or is Indiana Pete Buttigieg? "Please don't judge my state by our former governor," he replied -- a good laugh line. Buttigieg had some empathy for how difficult it must be for some conservatives to adjust to gay people being treated like people, though that's no excuse to discriminate by insisting your religion requires you to discriminate.

Asked if Pence would be actually better or worse than Trump, Buttigieg said he didn't like THAT choice, no thanks, But then he got serious about Pence:

Buttigieg said he at least used to think Pence was sincere, if completely wrongheaded, about his rightwing religious beliefs, but then how could Pence even "get on board with this presidency?" For Buttigieg, Christianity is about "protecting the stranger, the prisoner, the poor person, and that idea of welcome. That's what I get in the Gospel when I'm in church." And sure, Pence's faith is a lot more based in "rectitude" and conservative strictures on sexuality.

But even if you buy into that, how could he allow himself to become the cheerleader of the porn star presidency? Is it that he stopped believing in Scripture when he started believing Donald Trump? I don't know.

As for his youth and inexperience, Buttigieg -- at 37, just two years older than the minimum constitutional age for the job -- freely acknowledged he's not a Old. But then, nobody is actually "ready" to become president, and Buttigieg said he has some advantages, too, being a young whippersnapper and all.

It allows me to communicate to the country a vision of what the country is going to look like in 2054 — that's the year I'll get to the current age of the current president. It's not like it's an achievement on my part, it's just the math.

When a candidate is actually likely to live that long, then that brings a very personal perspective to issues like climate change, which isn't just an abstract threat to be faced by one's kids or grandkids, he said:

We don't have the luxury of treating climate change like somebody else's problem. We're going to pay the bills for the unaffordable tax cuts for billionaires [...] and statistically, we run the risk of being the first generation in American history to actually be worse off economically than our parents if nothing is done to change the trajectory of this economy. To me, that's not just a concern for our generation, it's a concern that calls on us to build an alliance among generations...

As a middle-aged boomer fart, we wholly support that perspective.

All in all, it was a hell of a good performance from a guy who's clearly very, very comfortable in the town hall format. We aren't sure we want this young pup to be president, but we for darn sure want to see him go farther in the process. We like his ideas and may even subscribe to his newsletter.

[Indianapolis Star / CNN]

Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. That's it. Just send money.

How often would you like to donate?

Last month, I wrote about Colin Morris’ flow diagrams that show how people most frequently misspell difficult words. The crew over at The Pudding turned this into an interactive feature where you can test your spelling of the names of celebrities like football player & activist Colin K., actor & comedian Zach G., and musician Alanis M. As you type, you get a flow diagram of your letter choices compared to everyone else’s. Here’s my diagram for Zach G., which only 15% of people got correct (with the correct spelling blocked out):

I only got 8 right…how did you do?

justasfuckingalien:

noodroid:

tigerlilyx:

glita:

oh

my

god

Cat heaven

THIS IS WHAT I ASPIRE TO HAVE MY HOUSE TO BE.

Future house

requested by blasquezza

A reader writes:

I know you’ve answered lots of questions about declining requests to donate money in the workplace, but I’m in a slightly different predicament. One of my coworkers graciously started a fundraising campaign on my behalf, and I don’t want the money.

About 10 days ago, my two-year-old dog got extremely sick out of the blue and required two emergency surgeries that cost $5,000. The last week and a half has been extremely difficult, between the stress of not knowing if she’ll survive, to providing her round-the-clock care. She’s recovering well but may require additional surgery. If that’s the case, I’ll likely put her down because, as much as I love her and struggle to think of her not being in my life, I don’t have that kind of money and don’t know if I want to put her through more of this.

Unfortunately, all this has spilled over into my work life because she fell ill during a video conference, and I’ve had to cancel several work trips to stay home and care for her. Coworkers have been very kind about checking in on us, and one knows that my dog might not pull through. This morning, I woke up to an email from an online fundraising site saying a campaign had been started on my behalf, and asking me if I’d like to accept or decline the offer. Almost $2,000 has already been raised by coworkers, contractors, and clients! I am incredibly grateful and touched by this. Never would I have thought anyone would have cared so much to try to raise money for me, and it means so much to me that I work with wonderful people like this (it’s no surprise, but I’m still wildly thankful).

The thing is, I don’t really need the money. Yes, $5,000 was a huge hit, but I’m fortunate in that I had that money in savings. I’d planned to use it on non-emergency home repairs this year, but those things can wait. I don’t see how I can accept money knowing that I was able to pay this bill without going into debt. Additionally, while I’m cutting back to save a little money here and there, I have a huge vacation planned next month that I’m still able to take. I think accepting money while splurging would be wrong, not to mention the optics.

I’m thinking of declining, and contacting the organizer to thank her profusely, tell her what it means to me, and explain why I don’t feel right accepting the money. Then I thought of making a digital thank-you card featuring my dog to email to all the people who put their names with their donations. I thought I could include a brief line about being fortunate in that I could pay this bill, and encouraging donors to either put their donations away for a rainy day, or donate to a local shelter. But, I’m so worried about offending my colleagues and all those who’ve so thoughtfully donated. Do you think declining the donations in this way is appropriate? What would you do?

I’m sorry about your dog! I hope she’s okay.

There is sometimes a weird thing with GoFundMe culture where people assume someone will need help with something when in fact they’ve got it covered. More broadly, people sometimes tend to assume that whatever their financial situation is, others who seem like them probably have similar finances. You see this in both directions — like with people who are financially comfortable assuming that others can afford the same things they can, and also with situations like yours, where people really kindly offer help without checking to see if it’s needed.

In any case, you have lovely colleagues! And it’s absolutely okay to say, “Thank you so much for thinking of me like this. I don’t feel right accepting the money because fortunately I’m able to cover this bill, but I’m so moved and grateful that people were willing to help.” And I love your idea of the digital thank-you card with the photos of your dog.

Kind people aren’t going to be offended by this — they’re going to appreciate your integrity and be glad you’re covered. It’s true that it’s possible that the person who organized the GoFundMe without checking with you might be a little embarrassed — but assuming she’s a generally reasonable person, it won’t be like “how dare Jane reject my help!” It’ll just be “whoops, I should have checked.” And you can help soften it by making a point of thanking her directly for her instinct to help.

how do I say “no thanks” to a GoFundMe organized on my behalf? was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

lolawashere:

Those were 2.20 minutes well spent!

loveitorreblogit:

sorry my english was bad to write this

Queueing theory is the scientific study of waiting in line. It can apply to familiar lines like those at the grocery store or bank but also to things like web servers, highway traffic, and telecommunications…basically any situation where you have things entering a system, being processed by a system for a certain period of time, and leaving the system.

The study of queueing is necessary because the effects of waiting in line often run counter to our intuition (which causes people to get cranky about it). Take this example from John Cook of tellers serving customers at a bank:

Suppose a small bank has only one teller. Customers take an average of 10 minutes to serve and they arrive at the rate of 5.8 per hour. What will the expected waiting time be? What happens if you add another teller?

We assume customer arrivals and customer service times are random (details later). With only one teller, customers will have to wait nearly five hours on average before they are served.

Five hours?! I would not have guessed anywhere close to that, would you? Now, add a second teller into the mix. How long is the average wait now? 2.5 hours? 1 hour? According to Cook, much lower than that:

But if you add a second teller, the average waiting time is not just cut in half; it goes down to about 3 minutes. The waiting time is reduced by a factor of 93x

Our lack of intuition about queues has to do with how much the word “average” is hiding…the true story is much more complex.

Aside from the math, designers of queueing systems also have to take human psychology into account.

There are three givens of human nature that queuing psychologists must address: 1) We get bored when we wait in line. 2) We really hate it when we expect a short wait and then get a long one. 3) We really, really hate it when someone shows up after us but gets served before us.

The boredom issue has been tackled in myriad ways — from the mirrors next to elevator banks to the TVs in dentist’s waiting rooms. Larson mentions a clever solution from the Manhattan Savings Bank, which once hired a concert pianist to play in its lobby as customers waited for tellers. “But Disney has been the absolute master of this aspect of queue psychology,” says Larson. “You might wait 45 minutes for an 8-minute ride at Disney World. But they’ll make you feel like the ride has started while you’re still on line. They build excitement and provide all kinds of diversions in the queue channel.” Video screens tease the thrills ahead, and a series of varied chambers that the queue moves through creates a sense of progress. Another solution: those buzzing pagers that restaurants in malls sometimes give you while you’re waiting for a table. Instead of focusing on the misery of the wait, you can go off and entertain yourself-secure in the knowledge that you’ll be alerted when it’s your turn.

Whole Foods had to work around our expectations when it switched to “serpentine” lines that seemed longer but actually served customers more quickly.

By 7 p.m. on a weeknight, the lines at each of the four Whole Foods stores in Manhattan can be 50 deep, but they zip along faster than most lines with 10 shoppers.

Because people stand in the same line, waiting for a register to become available, there are no “slow” lines, delayed by a coupon-counting customer or languid cashier. And since Whole Foods charges premium prices for its organic fare, it can afford to staff dozens of registers, making the line move even faster.

“No way,” is how Maggie Fitzgerald recalled her first reaction to the line at the Whole Foods in Columbus Circle. For weeks, Ms. Fitzgerald, 26, would not shop there alone, assigning a friend to fill a grocery cart while she stood in line.

When she discovered the wait was about 4 minutes, rather than 20, she began shopping by herself, and found it faster than her old supermarket.

See also How to Pick the Fastest Line at the Supermarket, Queue Theory and Design from 99% Invisible, and this paper from Bob Wescott, Seven Insights Into Queueing Theory. One of his insights:

It’s very hard to use the last 15% of anything. As the service center gets close to 100% utilization the response time will get so bad for the average transaction that nobody will be having any fun. The graph below is exactly the same situation as the previous graph except this graph is plotted to 99% utilization. At 85% utilization the response time is about 7x and it just gets worse from there.

For grocery stores or call centers, that means you’re going to have operators or cashiers sitting there “doing nothing” sometimes because if you don’t, you’re gonna be in trouble when a rush hits.

Update: John Frost shares an anecdote about his grandfather’s team designed the queueing system for the Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland:

Another fun family story is the invention of the Matterhorn’s first of its kind switchback queue. Vic Greene and his team of Imagineers developed a system that would have the entrance to the switchback part of the queue be lower than the exit. When you stood at the entrance, the exit would appear closer to you in an optical illusion. The idea was to make your wait seem less cumbersome by visually shortening the queue.

A reader writes:

I work in a small office (about 20 people at this branch of our company) and we have two individual restrooms (as opposed to stalls) in our central hallway. There is certainly a smell situation because the hallway leads to all major sections of the office, but in general, people try to control this with air fresheners, PooPourri products, etc. Sometimes a book of matches is left there, which seems to help the most.

In the last few months, however, a coworker has begun to — from what we can best understand — light clumps of toilet paper on fire, throw the burning toilet paper into the toilet, and flush. Ashes often skitter down the hallway, like smoky tumbleweeds. The whole office begins to smell like a poop barbeque. This has begun happening at least twice a week, often more.

Now, I thought people understood that matches work to mask odor because of the sulfur released, not because of the fire. Clearly, this individual does not realize this. We all know who it is, because he’s one of the few smokers (i.e., carries around a lighter) and also has been seen walking away as the ashes go flying.

I have asked my boss (not this person’s direct boss) to speak to him, but he deflects and says we don’t actually have proof, and nothing wrong has technically happened yet. This person’s actual boss is the least confrontational person in our company, so I know he won’t do anything either. My boss said, “We’d have to email the whole company and ask them to stop lighting toilet paper on fire,” and I said, “That’s fine! It’s dangerous and disgusting! Explain the science of matches to them!” but my boss keeps deflecting.

Do I need to just let this go, or should I continue pushing my boss to do something? I’m seriously worried this person is going to accidentally set our building on fire from the bathroom out.

I am picturing your coworker striding out of the bathroom with smoke and ashes billowing around him as strobe lights flash and Metallica plays.

It is magnificent.

But only because I do not smell the poop barbecue.

I don’t see any reason you can’t just say something to this guy directly the next time you see him emerging from the bathroom in a cloud of ash. Like, it’s totally reasonable that you might comment on that! In some ways, it’s actually weirder not to say anything when you see that.

You could say, “Holy crap, did you light something on fire in there?” or “Whoa, are you okay? What’s with all this smoke and ash?” … followed by, after whatever weird response he gives you, “You’re not actually lighting anything on fire in there, are you? That would be dangerous. The matches aren’t intended to start fires, they’re just supposed to be lit and immediately blown out.”

Your boss’s reluctance to address this in any way is weird. You don’t need “proof” to say to someone, “Hey, are you setting toilet paper on fire in the bathroom? Please don’t do that if so; it’s dangerous.” (And this wouldn’t be based on just a hunch; you have seen the ashes.)

In many offices, if you hadn’t already talked to your boss about this and explicitly been told that he doesn’t want something sent to the staff email list, you could have just sent that message yourself (assuming your office is small enough that it wouldn’t have been bizarre for it to come from you rather than an official facilities spokesperson or so forth). But now that your boss has vetoed it, that’s more complicated.

Really, though, if no one around you is willing to take this on, you can just say something to the guy yourself.

Also! I discussed this letter with Jolie Kerr today on a bonus episode of the Ask a Clean Person podcast (you need to become a Patreon to hear it, but you should because we also talked about Jolie’s dating life and her very funny bad Valentine’s Day date). And we discussed several other horrifying letters about office bathrooms on the (free) main Ask a Clean Person episode today.

my coworker is setting toilet paper on fire in the bathroom was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

stream:

Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper performs at the 91st Annual Academy Awards

imsooffendedwoahwhatsthat:

kane52630:

Avatar (2009) dir. James Cameron

A reader writes:

I’ve worked with a male coworker who is close in age to me (I am female) for several years, and last year I was promoted to manage him and others. We have a great working relationship and complementary skill sets; my manager has remarked several times on what a great team we make. We have tackled several daunting projects together in the past year that previous teams struggled with; I credit our ability to connect, communicate, and be understanding of each other’s strengths and limitations for this success.

From working closely, I’d say we know each other fairly well, which, over time, has led to me developing feelings for him (I don’t know how he feels and Ive decide speculating on it is inappropriate and not healthy). I have never acted inappropriately, and I am not someone who is overly effusive at work, so I don’t think he or anyone else would ever guess my true feelings. I have done personal work and therapy to resolve/manage how I feel; however, I have found that seeing this person every day and working closely tends to prompt these feelings to recur. Short of avoiding him or changing jobs, I do not see this going away completely.

I feel inappropriate just for having these feelings, and I am concerned that I devote more attention to this direct report than others due to working so well with him and liking/respecting him as a person. My questions here are (1) if my concerns about bias are overblown (others I’ve discussed it with believe I’m overly worried about what is essentially a very human thing to feel), and (2) the most professional way to handle/compartmentalize personal feelings towards someone you work with regularly, especially if you are their manager and your good relationship with the person is actually often a positive for work results.

I would ask yourself these questions:

1. Would an objective person observing you think that you favored this employee? (This is tricky because there can be legitimate reasons for some types of “favoritism” — like it makes sense that you might spend more time with someone who’s working on a high-stakes project or just a project that you’re heavily involved in for work reasons, or that you’d have additional good will for an outstanding employee. So maybe instead ask: Would an objective person observing you have questions about the way you interact with this person versus others on your team?)

2. Do you give this employee more of your time and attention because you enjoy spending time with him (as opposed to having real work reasons for it)?

3. How comfortable and willing are you to give him less-than-positive feedback? When’s the last time you did that? Did you pull any punches when you did?

4. If you had to lay off someone on your team, would you be able to be objective in considering whether it should be him?

5. How might this be affecting him (with or without his knowledge)? Does he not get the same feedback and coaching he might otherwise get because you don’t want to say anything critical? Is there any chance he might suspect how you feel (and feel uncomfortable)? Are there any signs he might like different boundaries but doesn’t feel comfortable asking for them? Does he have reason to worry about others thinking there’s favoritism in play?

If you reflect honestly on these questions and conclude your feelings are staying firmly in your head … well, it’s still not a great situation. Your biggest obligation as a manager is to ensure those feelings don’t leak out into the way you treat him or others — and to be really, really rigorous in evaluating that, because this is an area where the temptation to self-delude is really strong.

But I’d also work intently on trying to banish those feelings so that you don’t have to stay in a mode of constant vigilance (and because you can never be positive that your assessment of how much it might show is accurate or not).

I think it’s Carolyn Hax whose advice for getting over a crush is to imagine as many unappealing things about the crush as possible — imagine them being rude to your family, leaving gross things in your bathroom, insulting your cooking, not doing their share of the cleaning… and the more you can tie that to real-life tendencies they might have, the better. It’s awkward to imagine those things about someone who works for you, but the current situation is more awkward, so this is in service of a greater good.

I might also resolve that if the feelings are there six months from now, you’ll seriously look into changing jobs … and having that hanging over you might help chase the feelings away too.

I have a crush on my employee was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

I *love* these simple visualizations of how different kinds of relationships change over time by writer and cartoonist Olivia de Recat.

My pal Jesse James Garrett called them “Feynman diagrams of the heart” that depict “the vast entanglement of humanity”.

The illustration is available as a print but currently sold out. :( Hopefully it’ll be back in stock soon? In the meantime, you can take a look at some of her other cartoons (mostly for the New Yorker), peruse her shop, or follow her stuff on Insta.

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are five updates from past letter-writers.

1. Telling an employee born on Leap Day she can’t have her birthday off (#3 at the link)

I just wanted to give an update and to clarify a few things. I am the employee’s manager. For some reason some people in the comments thought I was a “coworker” or “team lead.” 

One person guessed I was not American. I don’t know why they were jumped all over but they were correct. I am Canadian. I live and work outside of North America.

Some people mentioned Jehovah’s Witnesses and not being allowed to celebrate birthdays and the legality of this in the comments. This is not relevant to the situation with my employee. Also, it is considered a cult here and is banned. No one who works here is a Jehovah’s Witness.

People seemed to be unclear on the policy even though I stated it. Employees must take their birthday off. This is mandatory and not voluntary. They are paid and don’t have use their own time off. If their birthday falls on a weekend or holiday, they get the first working day off. There is no changing the date. They must take their actual birthday or the first working day back (in case of a weekend or holiday). People love the policy and no one complains about the mandatory day off or the gift card.

She had worked here for 2 years. She did get her birthday off in 2016 as it was a leap year. She did not get a day off in 2017 as it is not a leap year and didn’t get this year either. If she is still employed here in 2020 she will get a Monday off as the 29th of February is on a Saturday. This is in line with the policy. Some of the comments were confused about whether she ever had a birthday off.

The firm is not doing anything illegal by the laws here. She would have no legal case at all and if she quit she will not be able to get unemployment. She is not job hunting. She has known about the birthday policy since February of 2016 and has been bringing it up ever since. She has complained but has not looked for another job (the market is niche and specialized). Morale is high at the firm. Turnover among employees is low. Many people want to work here. Aside from this one issue she is a good worker and would be given an excellent reference if she decides to look elsewhere in the future.

Alison here. I don’t usually add anything of my own on to updates, but I want to state for the record that this is insane.

2. I feel slighted by my work anniversary gift (#2 at the link)

Thank you for publishing my letter and for your great feedback. And thank you to all the commenters. I am grateful to you all for helping me feel justified in my sensitivity!

Despite everyone’s advice, I didn’t speak to my boss. I thought I’d gotten over it but now I’m helping plan a 5-year celebration for a colleague and it’s all coming back to me (not in a good way!) … so now I’m thinking I should broach the subject with my boss at my mid-year review next week. I’m still thinking about it…

The thing is I have a VERY tough time having conversations like this and I’m afraid I’ll cry. I cannot do that in front of my boss! How do you have a conversation like this when you’re prone to crying and boss is uncomfortable with these things? Last week I was attacked by someone first thing in the morning and I came in very upset (I tried to hide it best I could)- my boss avoided me like the plague all day.

The stuffed toy was spotted under my desk by my four-year-old and now lives with us in our home. I make a concerted effort to treat him like one of the family… ;)

Thanks again Alison & AAMers!

3. Do I have to tell my boss I applied for an internal job? (#5 at the link)

This is kind of a weird follow-up, but I ended up not taking your advice, but I did take the advice of a couple of the commenters and it turned out ok? Not a total success, but not a disaster. A couple commenters said maybe I could reach out to the hiring manager (who we will call Sansa) and see if she would be ok with holding off on talking to Cersei until after the initial screening process, if it turned out I was a strong candidate. Sansa had indicated in our meeting that I was one of her top three candidates and she was going to schedule additional interviews with other staff members in her department in the next month.

I ended up sending a follow up email to Sansa a couple weeks later, and basically said that I wanted to follow up on the timeline for the additional interviews and I let her know that I had not notified Cersei of my application yet and as long as she was comfortable with it, I wanted to wait until the interviews were scheduled, to avoid putting undue stress on Cersei because we had a big event coming up. Sansa asked me to give her a call, which I did, and she told me they had decided to interview people with MBAs (something I don’t have) and had chosen a final candidate (not me). She was very kind, but also apologetic.

I am not entirely happy with how things went down with Sansa – I went from being a top three candidate to not eligible for formal interviews in a two week period and the only reason I found out is because I sent a follow-up email. I am very glad I did not sit down with Cersei and have the conversation though, before finding out if I was really a top candidate. There was maybe a 2% chance that she would have reacted normally or even advocated for me to Sansa and helped things in my favor. Those are terrible odds though, so I feel like I’ve probably avoided making my toxic workplace even worse by clarifying the situation first.

4. Telling a low-performer we’re not giving her a new project she wants (#2 at the link)

The train-the-trainer project my low performer wanted ended up stalling out due to issues with our contractor, but I have had some much more blunt conversations with my employee about her performance limitations, particularly around communication. I’ve invested a lot of time and effort into trying to get this person up to speed, paid for training for her, but realistically she simply isn’t suited for the job. She doesn’t have a strong knowledge base despite over a decade in the office, shows poor professional judgement regularly, and has very poor communication skills.

I had a serious conversation with my boss just this week to ask if I could move towards firing her. I was told, very flatly, no. It’s a government agency under a civil service commission that makes firing people very difficult and he doesn’t want the headache.

5. Can I leverage a job offer for more hours at my current job? (#5 at the link)

I did not get the job offer, but was invited to join the board, so I’m still pretty involved in their nonprofit. It’s a relief I don’t work there now that I have a “behind the scenes” look at their operations.

At my current job, everything has a happy ending! The new fiscal year started September, and a new position was carved out for me. I’m now full time, negotiated a 20% pay increase, and negotiated a new title. I’m actually making more then I would have at the other place! It’s amazing to be appreciated for my skills.

Thank you Alison for maintaining this blog daily(!) and for all your thoughtful feedback.

updates: the insulting gift, the employee born on Leap Day, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I work at a small company with about 10 employees. Because it is such a small team, and most people have been there for a long time (10+ years for most), it is a very relaxed environment — and unfortunately, this has bred some bad habits and toxicity into the culture. Nothing especially groundbreaking, and for the most part it was being ignored since most of the negativity was coming from one source — our main admin, Karen.

This fall, an opportunity opened up for me to work exclusively from home, due to the nature of my particular position, and I jumped on it. I go into into the main office about twice a month, and for the most part, it’s been a dream. I am vastly more productive, work hard to ensure that I maintain good work-from-home habits, and have found that my mental health has improved drastically.

Since the transition, I have done everything I can think of to set clear expectations as far as when I am available. I have specific, set hours when they can expect me to be at my desk. I use Google Hangouts’ away messages to say if I’m up from my desk for a quick break to stretch my legs, use the bathroom, etc. (with a time I’ll be back). I also always have my personal cell on me in case it’s a (rare) emergency.

I do most of my communication with clients and our team via email, but I do have a VOIP phone that dials out with the main office number, and I can be inter-office paged via this phone as well.

Almost the whole team is great with this arrangement, with one exception: Karen cannot seem to respect these boundaries. She’ll page me outside of my work hours, or regardless of whether I have an away message set, and if I don’t get to my phone fast enough (I can hear it elsewhere in the house), she’ll call my cell — usually for a very simple question that could have waited, or could have been an email. If I point out that I set an away message, she’ll say, “Sorry, I didn’t see it.” I have even paged her and told her I’ll be unavailable for an hour, and she’ll agree pleasantly, and then turn around and page me 15 minutes later, followed by the usual call to my cell if I don’t pick up. I will also often come back to see that she’s IM’d me in an effort to get my attention, as well.

When I politely point out that I had set an away message/was away for a short time/this question could have been an email/etc., Karen will often reply with, “Well, I didn’t think it was a big deal since you’re already there!”

My position does have a certain degree of needing to be on-call — if certain things happen with my projects at any time of day, I do need to act — but Karen’s questions are rarely about that so much as spellchecking and nitpicking coworkers’ work, which is another problem she has and one of the chief reasons I leaped at this opportunity to keep my job but not work in that office.

I should note that working from home is a perk offered to everyone as an as-needed thing, and there is one other employee who works from home full-time. I asked him, and he says that he has not experienced this level of intrusion at all, and then when he says he’s busy, Karen leaves him alone — no away messages needed. Meanwhile, when I say I’m busy, Karen says, “Oh, I knowwww, we all are,” and continues with her question/behavior.

What can I do differently to enforce these boundaries? I have stopped running to the phone if I’ve communicated that I’m away and I hear a page or IM, but that doesn’t stop the inevitable tide of calls and texts to my cell phone, or sometimes she’ll just page and page and page until I get sick of hearing it and answer, even though I’m taking a break. I pride myself on being just as available now as if I were in the main office, but at this point, I’m being forced into being much more “available” at home than I ever was when I worked in that building.

How do I keep from turning my work-at-home situation into, “Haha actually I just live at work, now”?

P.S. I had this open as a draft, got up to refill my coffee after setting a “BACK AT 10:30” away message — yes, with the all-caps — and what do I hear from my kitchen but a page and a “Hello? Helloooooooooooooooooooooooo?”

I wrote back and asked, “How does the paging work — can you turn it off or mute it if you want to?”

I don’t know if I can mute it — I can turn it down so I can’t hear it elsewhere in the house, and I have, but then I get bombarded with texts and passive-aggressive comments when I come back to my computer. Right now I have it at a volume where I can hear it if I’m up, but it’s not startlingly loud if I’m sitting at my desk, either.

I suppose I’m also worried about drawing the boundary too firmly, and seeming unavailable to my colleagues who aren’t Karen, you know? I can definitely see the value in being able to communicate within the office quickly, and it definitely does make working from home easier. But there have been plenty of times when I’ve tried to page a colleague, can’t get ahold of them in that moment, and either make a note to try back later or write an email if it’s urgent, and move on. That’s the overall staff’s approach (regardless of whether working remote or in the brick-and-mortar building.) It’s just Karen who seems to think that since I literally live at my office, I should be able to respond instantaneously to the pages and IMs.

Karen needs to be helicoptered to an island with no communication devices and left there for the duration of 2019.

It sounds like you’ve tried addressing this with Karen on a case-by-case basis, but haven’t had a bigger-picture conversation with her about it, so that’s what I’d try next. The next time you’re in the office, sit down with her and say something like this: “We need to change the system you’re using for reaching me when I’m working from home. You’ve been paging me outside my work hours for things that aren’t urgent, like X or Y, which means that I hear the page all over my house when I’m not working. And during the day, if I don’t immediately answer your call, you’ll often call my cell, even though it’s not urgent. I need to be able to focus on other projects and I need to be able to eat lunch or stop working at the end of the day without being chased down by the pager or texts. Of course if something is urgent, that’s different — but when something is not urgent, I need you to wait for me to get back to you, rather than trying to track me down in the moment when I may be dealing with something else. Can we agree that except in the rare cases where something is truly urgent, you’ll email me and wait for me to get back to you rather than expecting an instant response and trying to track me down?”

(Alternately, instead of waiting until the next time you’re in the office, you could just call her the next time this happens and say it then, which might have the benefit of conveying “I am at the end of my rope with this and we need to talk about it now.”)

If she balks at this, then say, “It’s affecting my ability to focus on other work, and it’s interfering with my off hours as well. I do need you to agree to this system going forward.”

If she says anything that sounds like no, you should say, “Okay, let me talk with (Karen’s manager) about this and see what we can figure out.”

And Karen’s manager should indeed be your next stop unless this conversation fixes the problem entirely — because what she’s doing is incredibly disruptive, incredibly rude, and incredibly weird.

You did note that your company has traditionally ignored problems, and has ignored Karen in particular. But unless you know that people have specifically complained about Karen to her manager about similar issues (in a clear, direct way, not dancing around the issue) and been ignored, I wouldn’t assume that this won’t bear fruit. Sometimes “my small company ignores problems” means “no one at my small company brings up problems, so it’s easy to ignore them” — which is different from “no one will act on anything, no matter how clearly the problem is pointed out.”

But if that doesn’t work, then you’ll need to move to solutions that change the type of access Karen has to you. Set her calls to your cell to go straight to voicemail. Mute her texts and IMs, so they’re there when you look for them but not annoying you with alerts popping up. And I’d seriously consider lowering the volume of your pager to a level where you can’t hear it outside of your office, and letting other people know that if they need to reach you urgently, they should call your cell instead of paging you.

Frankly, you could even tell her that you’re doing this! As in, “Karen, I’ve asked you not to bombard with me calls, texts, and pages for non-urgent items, but since it’s still happening, I’m going to mute your texts and pages for a while so that I’m not being constantly interrupted. I will still see them and get back to you, but they won’t be constantly popping up when I’m in the middle of something else. If there’s something that comes up that’s truly urgent and you can’t reach me, we can revisit this then, but so far none of these instances have been time-sensitive so I think this will work fine.”

As for your other working-from-home coworker who Karen leaves alone: It could be sexism, or it could be that he has a different type of job, or it could be that she’s not as comfortable with him, or who knows what. (If he does have a similar job to yours, though, I’m guessing that on some level it’s sexism. She sees his time as important and worthy of respect, while yours isn’t.) Regardless, she’s obnoxious and you have every right to create and enforce boundaries with her.

As for your worry that you’ll draw the boundary too firmly and seem unavailable to other coworkers: I don’t think you will. You’re only going to cut off Karen’s access, not everyone else’s, aside from the pager — and frankly I’m not convinced you should ever need to be paged in your own house when you’re not at your desk, when your cell could be used instead.

I work from home and my coworker wants me available 24/7 was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.