If you’ve ever cried at work, you probably felt mortified – and you might not have realized how far from alone you are. While we tend to think tears have no place in an office, the reality is that a lot of people cry at work at some point in their careers.
That shouldn’t be terribly surprising – work can be frustrating, and it’s often full of disappointments and strong emotions, and many people are deeply emotionally invested in their careers. But we’ve also been taught that “professionalism” means not showing certain types of emotions.
At Slate today, I wrote about crying at work — why it happens, recovering after it does, when it can become a problem, and how managers should handle it. You can read it here.
did you guys think i was going to shut up about these? NOPE.
APEROL CONTENT FOREVER.
If there is one thing I discovered during my time in Italy, it is just how delicious an Aperol Spritz is! While there, Annette whipped up a few of this delightful aperitivo for a light pre-dinner moment and I immediately fell in love. The recipe I am sharing today is from her book Cocktail Italiano and could not be easier to follow — literally it’s a matter of following a 3-2-1 ratio. I put a slight twist on the recipe by garnishing with Castelvetrano olives instead of the traditional orange slice. While in Venice, I had this version and loved it even more. I’m definitely more of a savory than sweet person, so I’m sure that’s why I’m drawn to this change to the classic Aperol Spritz.
This refreshing prosecco-based cocktail is the perfect thing to sip during pretty much any occasion… especially because it reminds me so much of our amazing Italian vacation. As soon as I taste this balance of sweet and bitter, I’m immediately transported back to leisurely lunches and the sounds of a bustling Tuscan city. Some have even called it the official drink of summer, which I happen to wholeheartedly agree with!
Typically, Aperol Spritzes are an after-work drink, served during the aperitivo hour with some small bites. I was pleasantly surprised to find that most restaurants and bars serve a spritz with a side of simple, salty potato chips. Once you have the chips and cocktail though… it makes total sense! I also love nibbling on extra olives while sipping this light cocktail, too.
BTW, these gorgeous glasses are from Suite One Studio and were just restocked! You can shop for them here.
Fill a wine glass with ice cubes. Following a 3-2-1 ratio, pour in the Prosecco, followed by the Aperol, then the soda. Garnish with either an orange slice or Castelvetrano olives on a skewer. Don’t forget a side of salty potato chips, too!
If you’re craving a bit more of a bitter and herbal flavor, you can use Campari or Cynar instead of Aperol. There are so many spins on this classic, too. From frosé to granita, it seems like everyone has shared a version of the Aperol Spritz. I hope you enjoy this one!
Photography and styling by Jojotastic. Recipe developed by Annette Joseph, shared with permission.
Poll: Would you go on a free* 10 cruise with your coworkers? ($1000 out of pocket if you want to bring plus-one)
It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…
1. My boss invited our whole office on a 10-day cruise at his expense
I’m seven months into my first adult job after college. I work for a university doing outreach for the VP and AVP of university advancement.
On Monday, our VP (my boss’s boss) called us all into a meeting. He said he needed to “get the ladies’ opinion” on his gift for his wife’s birthday. He then loaded up a PowerPoint presentation (we were all chuckling at this point) in which he shared all about the 10-day cruise to Mexico he had planned for her. In the end, he told us all that he and his wife had discussed it, and that they’d decided they would love to invite the office along with them. This includes my two bosses and four (including me) administrative staff. We have until next Monday to make a decision. VP is going to pay out of pocket for all of us, but if we want to bring our spouses we need to pay $1,000.
I’m in shock. I don’t want to commit career suicide by saying no (especially because I’m hoping to move up here eventually). But it’s tough to consider paying that money for a vacation I didn’t plan when I should really be paying off my car or saving for a down payment on a home. Not to mention it will use up every hour of vacation time I’ve saved and then some — and I can’t afford unpaid time off! I don’t want to go without my fiance either, because I know all the other ladies will be bringing their husbands and I’m already by far the youngest employee. I also would hate to make him feel like I don’t appreciate such a generous invitation. On the flip side, I’m concerned about the professional boundaries of going on a 10-day vacation with all three of my bosses. I shared some of my concerns, about money and vacation time, and VP said that he would “gift” me his extra vacation time and not to worry about the money and we could work something out. This is vague and makes me kind of uncomfortable.
Is this normal?? What do I do?? Can I tactfully say “no thank you” without it offending him? Or should I start saving? VP is an incredibly kind, hard-working, and generous man but I’m so early in my career, my fiance and I both are still paying off our debts from school, and this is tough to think about doing because it certainly means putting off any personal plans we had for the winter.
This is not normal. It is very, very unusual. (And that’s saying nothing of the idea of inviting all your employees on your spouse’s birthday cruise. I would be consulting a divorce lawyer if I were his wife, but apparently she’s enthused?)
Normally I’d say to explain you can’t afford it or need to save your vacation days for something else, but you’ve tried that and it sounds like he’s finding ways to negate both of those. You’re going to have to use a reason that he can’t offer to “fix.” I’d say that it’s a very generous offer and you really appreciate it, but you’ve realized you have an unbreakable commitment during the dates of the cruise, like a big family event that you’d never be forgiven for missing. (Make sure the dates are locked in before you say this; otherwise there’s a risk that he’ll try to find other dates.) Alternately you could say that there’s no way your fiance can get the time off work and you wouldn’t want to go without him, but that opens up the door to him pressuring you to go on your own.
2. Should I take another promotion without a raise?
I have been working at a small nonprofit (~150 employees) for the past four years. About two years in, I was promoted to a manager position, which gave me a new job title, but did not come with a salary increase. Since then, my company has not given annual raises, but has instead given end-of-the-year stipends as a bonus, so my salary is still – 4 years later – at the coordinator level.
My boss turned 65 this year and will be retiring soon. I have previously been told by upper management that I am part of the succession plan: when my boss retires (who is at the director level), I am slated to get her job. I am worried that there will be no pay raise again when they offer me this new position, as we were informed that managers will not be getting raises this year.
When I was promoted to the manager level I did get new benefits: namely, more paid time off. When I move up to the director level, the benefits are the same but the responsibilities increase exponentially. I am a high performer and am regularly chosen to do special projects by the CEO. My annual performance reviews are consistently outstanding.
Do I take the promotion (and the title) with no raise? I love my job, but I am starting to feel like they are taking advantage of me.
They are taking advantage of you. It’s one thing to temporarily freeze salaries; that’s sometimes a thing that happens. But having your salary frozen within the pay range for the job you’re doing is different than being hired into a new job and still paid in the salary range for the older, lower position.
Think of it this way: If they hired an outside candidate rather than promoting you, they’d have to pay a reasonable market rate for the position, right? They couldn’t say to this outside candidate, “Oh, we have a salary freeze so we’re going to pay you a coordinator’s salary for a manager’s job.” That would be ridiculous, right? But they’ve already done that to you once. Do not let them do it a second time.
3. Should I tell an employee I had a dream predicting his death?
I know this is a bizarre question. I just woke up from an incredibly vivid dream in which a fortune teller told me that one of my favorite/best employees was going to die on September 25, 2024. I’m not sure I even believe in psychic dreams, but it felt so vivid and certain that, were this just a friend or someone I worked closely with, I would tell them about my dream. But when I consider telling my employee about it, I just kind of imagine the letter that they could write you from their perspective: “Dear Alison, did my boss just low-key threaten my life?”
I shouldn’t tell my employee, right? I do actually kind of want to warn him.
PS: I promise to update on September 26, 2024 and let you know what’s up.
Do not tell your employee. I’m not sure you should tell anyone if you have this kind of dream about them, but definitely not in a business relationship.
There are really only three outcomes here: (1) He thinks it’s bizarre that you decided to relay this to him and now doubts your judgment more broadly. This is highly likely. (2) He’s unsettled but can’t do anything about it since if it’s a real prophecy, he can’t avoid it, right? (At least that was the lesson I learned from Sleeping Beauty and the spinning wheel.) (3) He thinks it’s silly, but is mildly bothered by having it in his head anyway and is annoyed you felt you needed to share this with him.
None of those outcomes are good. There’s nothing actionable here for anyone. Shake off the dream and move on!
4. Do you need to write a cover letter when contacting a recruiter?
I’m currently looking for work for the first time in 10 years, and I’ve found that a lot of the jobs I’m interested in are posted online by recruiters. In most cases the job posting says something like, “To apply for this position email your resume to [recruiter name] at [email].”
In these cases, should I still send a cover letter along with my resume, even though I’ve not been asked for one? I’ve read advice before that said to always send a cover letter with your resume if possible.
In general, you should always send a cover letter even if it’s not specifically requested, because a good cover letter can bump your application up. (Note that’s only true if it’s a good cover letter. If it just summarizes your resume, which is what 90% of them do, it doesn’t add much.) That said, it’s definitely true that, on average, recruiters tend to care about cover letters less than hiring managers. But that’s on average; there’s individual variation on both sides. And since you don’t know specifically who you’re dealing with, it makes sense to include a cover letter if you want the best shot at the job.
Last weekend we had some friends in town and took them to my favorite pizza spot in all of Seattle, Cornuto. Not only are their pizzas the best on the West Coast (IMHO), but they also have an excellent bar menu. We ordered a few rounds of drinks to experience the entire breadth of the menu, but one of my personal faves was the Negroni. Typically, a classic Negroni is made of one part gin, one part sweet vermouth, and one part Campari, then garnished with an orange peel. Ever on a mission to put my own twist on a classic cocktail, I asked Rocky, our resident cocktail expert for a twist on the Negroni… and it is sooooo good!
So how exactly is our Negroni different? Well, we swapped in Aperol instead of Campari and added a few dashes of special bitters for an even more flavorful cocktail. Both Campari and Aperol are Italian aperitivo spirits, or aperitifs, but Aperol is is decidedly less bitter — and has a really fun vibrant orange hue! The flavor has a lovely herbal taste with notes of fresh orange (and some even say rhubarb, but I’m definitely not that fancy). The result of this mix is a beautifully balanced aperitivo inspired by my time in Italy!
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail mixing glass over ice for 45 seconds. Strain into a small rocks glass over ice and garnish with a castelvetrano olive (or two!) on a cocktail pick.
Honestly, my favorite part of this drink is the olives! When serving this delicious cocktail to guests, I always put out a bowl of leftover olives for snacking. While I was in Italy, I also noticed that most aperitivos are served with a bowl of salty potato chips. The pairing is really quite satisfying!
Also, considering how easy our Aperol Negroni is to make, this is a great cocktail to serve guests because it’s not too labor intensive (um hello, Ramos Fizz). Also, Aperol is not as alcoholic as Campari which makes it perfect for some quality late summer day drinking. The next time we entertain on the sailboat, I fully intend on making a few of these for our guests!
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Photography and styling by Jojotastic. Recipe developed by Raquel Roof for Jojotastic.
"A young girl offers what she thinks may be a real scrimshaw found in a bag of rocks; the expert quickly shows her how to recognize it as a fake, and then pauses before giving a valuation to ask how many rocks were in the bag."
The 2018 Emmy nominees for Outstanding Structured Reality Show include ABC’s four-time winner Shark Tank, HGTV’s home-makeover behemoth Fixer Upper, Paramount Network’s made-to-go-viral Lip Sync Battle, Netflix’s much-beloved Queer Eye reboot, and TLC’s celebrity-ancestry show Who Do You Think You Are? The last nominee in the category is the longtime PBS/WGBH appraisal series Antiques Roadshow, and this is its 14th consecutive nomination. When you combine the current Structured Reality category with the earlier Outstanding Reality Program award, it has more nominations for best reality show than any other series. ButAntiques Roadshow has never won an Emmy.
Antiques Roadshow is not cool. It is not trendy. Clips from Antiques Roadshow do not go viral. With vanishingly few exceptions, the celebrities of Antiques Roadshow do not break out into a broader cultural awareness. It is a public-TV stalwart that just finished filming its 23rd season, and despite small format changes here and there since its 1997 premiere (inspired by an even longer-running British series of the same name), the core of the show has remained essentially the same.
An object sits on a table, carefully propped up for display and often set against a backdrop of midnight-blue cloth. It might be a painting, a tea set, or a doll, or it could be some strange, unnamable old thing with no obvious utility or beauty. On one side of the table is an antiques appraiser (in Roadshow parlance, the “expert”), and on the other side of the table, the object’s owner (the “guest”). The expert asks the guest questions. Where did you get it? When? How much did you pay for it? Are there any family stories about it? Do you know anything about it at all? The expert listens, thoughtfully, while the guest lays out what little they know, the family anecdotes and years-long mysteries of the object. Maybe it’s an egg warmer? At home they just call it “the egg warmer.”
And then, the magic. “Let’s take it apart a little bit,” the expert says, carefully opening a painted ceramic container with three round, cupped openings on the top. “It’s not an egg warmer. It’s what we call a bough pot,” he explains, before laying out a lengthy 18th-century history of English pearlware ceramic boxes made to grow and display bulb plants. (“Like tulips or hyacinth,” the expert adds.) This bough pot dates to about 1810, and it’s very unusual to see one “this appealing to the eye.” Then, the money shot: The expert, in this case an appraiser for New York’s Heritage Auctions named Nicholas Dawes, lays out what he thinks the guest could get for this object if he wanted to sell it. Maybe $1,000? Maybe $1,500? If the guest has a matching pair, the set could go for more than twice that much. “Good!” the guest replies, happily.
A dozen times or more, for each hour-long run of an Antiques Roadshow episode, that appraisal process repeats: The display of the object, the guest’s knowledge of the object, the expert’s unbelievably meticulous explanation of its likely history, and the reveal of a probable price. Astonishingly and without fail, it is mesmerizing — a regular cycle of mystery and revelation, the assured delight of giving an object a name, of identifying a lost creator, of connecting knowledge with an unknown.
Antiques Roadshow’s hypnotic effect is not an accident. It is the painstaking design of showrunner Marsha Bemko, who’s carefully, subtly tweaked the format and rhythm of the show throughout the 19 years she’s worked on it. An example of Bemko’s adjustments: Antiques Roadshow films episodes in many cities around the country, and Roadshow used to include a field report segment that ran in the middle of the episode. The show’s host Mark Walberg (no, not that one) would visit a local historical location and talk about it with one of the experts. But that field report is gone now. “We learned from our ratings, that’s when you like to go to the bathroom,” Bemko told Vulture. “I don’t want to make TV for people to go to the bathroom.”
What viewers want from Antiques Roadshow is more appraisals, so Bemko has figured out how to provide them. They’ve added a “feedback booth” that plays over the end credits, where guests talk about their experience at the taping. A sample feedback booth features an elderly man standing next to someone dressed in a Planters Mr. Peanut costume and flatly delivering the line, “I told my wife we’re going to Antiques Roadshow … and she went nuts.” There’s also man wearing a massive black coffin like a backpack, who says, “I’ve got a coffin on my back!”
They’ve also added several shorter segments that display brief, expert assessments of objects that don’t warrant a full center-stage disquisition. In those “snapshot” segments, you can catch a glimmer of slyness in Roadshow’s editing. An expert tells a woman that her enamelware tray is “really quite special.” “But not special enough to be on TV?” the guest retorts. A young girl offers what she thinks may be a real scrimshaw found in a bag of rocks; the expert quickly shows her how to recognize it as a fake, and then pauses before giving a valuation to ask how many rocks were in the bag.
Over its soon-to-be 23 seasons, the most significant change in Antiques Roadshow has been in its audience and its guests, who used to show up at a Roadshow event with absolutely no idea what they were holding. In the age of the internet, guests now tend to arrive with reams of paper demonstrating all the research they’ve done. You’d think this would make the show less necessary now — why go on Antiques Roadshow when you can look it all up yourself? — but Bemko passionately believes in the irreplaceability of expert knowledge. “What our experts offer that they’ve made look easy, is decades and decades of experience,” she said. “What is so impressive, and I think what people intuit by watching the show, is it’s not easy to know what they know.” At a time when the biggest resource on the internet is false information, Antiques Roadshow offers the truth. Yes, it is a Fabergé. No, it is not a Tiffany lamp.
The show’s producers are ruthless in their fact-checking, too. They call artists’ estates to verify whether a work has ever been seen before, they bring in multiple experts to validate the likely provenance of an object, and if anything is matter of opinion, Bemko insists that it be noted that way in the final valuation. The level of fact-checking is especially impressive because none of the show’s experts are paid. For almost everyone who appears on camera, Antiques Roadshow operates on an exposure economy, and some appraisers make their careers by becoming Roadshow stars. But all 160 members of the show’s active expert pool donate their time, regardless of whether their role is an on-camera close-reading of an ancient teapot or a phone call to verify an Edward Hopper etching. Bemko says the show would be impossible to make otherwise: “If we [paid them], I wouldn’t be talking to you because we’d have to add so much to the budget. I don’t know how we’d get all that money!”
For a show ostensibly about money, where the big moment is always the financial valuation at the end of an appraisal, the money almost always ends up feeling secondary. “Oh!” a guest will inevitably gasp at the reveal of a five- or six-figure valuation. “You’re kidding!” Nearly every time, though, the follow-up is: “But I could never sell this, and it will stay in our family.” The guests come to the Roadshow looking for information or validation. They want to know that what they own has value, and the shadowy, unseen foundation for Antiques Roadshow is that there is a market for rare, unusual, especially lovely things. Money could change hands; fortunes could be made. But this never happens on the show. The economy of Antiques Roadshow is information: It’s what gives Bemko a good story to tell, it’s what lets an appraiser make a valuation, and it’s what the guests come to find.
It’s what the viewers come for, too. When we watch, say, a Law & Order marathon, what we’re seeing is an absence of knowledge and a need to restore the status quo. Who did it? How will the cops bring the criminals to justice? It’s a rhythm that repeats over and over with each episode, an absence and an answer. An episode of Antiques Roadshow is essentially the same: We get a sequence of questions, a slow parade of objects without names, and every time, Antiques Roadshow provides an answer. It has all the soothing, rhythmic comfort of a police procedural, but rather than blood and violence, Antiques Roadshow offers us objects that lost their names, paintings and toy cars and wooden tables and necklaces that became unmoored from their context. Then Antiques Roadshow gives us their names, and tells us about them. It is a procedural about finding lost stories.
One of Bemko’s favorite moments from the show is from 2007, in an episode filmed in Orlando. Someone brought in photos of President John F. Kennedy, and a photo of Lyndon B. Johnson in the moment he was sworn in after Kennedy’s assassination. The guest had them because he took the photos himself; he was former White House photographer Cecil Stoughton, and he’d come on Antiques Roadshow for a valuation of the items and also to reassert his ownership of them. That LBJ photo is iconic, but Stoughton is rarely credited with taking it. It’s a great segment — and one of Stoughton’s very few known interviews — and it matters because it puts his name back in the story of those images. But my favorite Antiques Roadshow moments are the smaller, stranger, more surprising objects. A perfect-condition miniature salesman replica of an icebox. The “holy grail” of Hot Wheels cars. Ceramics that were partially turned into glass by the Hiroshima bombing. A hardtack biscuit from the Titanic. A book of early-20th-century original mugshot photos. They’re unexpected remnants. They’re survivors.
It may never be Antiques Roadshow’s year to win an Emmy. The show will never be the cool, politically pointed, buzzy new thing. Voting for it will never feel like making a statement. It will never feel of-the-moment. It will always feel like some old, half-forgotten, ubiquitous entry in a crowded reality-show category. A show that’s been banging around the TV attic for years. A show your grandparents had. A show that, come to think of it, might be worth reconsidering just out of curiosity. A show that maybe does have some worth. A show that might actually be pretty rare. A show that might even be a treasure, if you look closely.
“As I look back on my life, I realize that every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being re-directed to something better.”
– Steve Maraboli
cat content. (the twitter posts are indeed delightful)
happy friday!
My new coworkers are seriously interfering with my productivity.
Image: Two tiny brown tabby kittens, one lying down and one stalking/lurking in the back.
They’re here.
Meet Henrietta Pussycat (back, with the darker markings) and Daniel Striped Tiger (lying down), adopted via the wonderful Feline Friends Chicago fostering rescue. Check out the tiny watch they photoshopped on Daniel to make him more like his puppet namesake! Obviously he had to keep that name, so Nutella here became Henrietta for the full Mr. Rogers experience.
Daily (hourly?) updates on Twitter whenever they hold still long enough to photograph.
“As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time.”
– E. B. White
How do you get a well-known Asian actor if you don’t ever cast Asians in leading roles, which you are constrained from doing because none are well enough known?
Really good scripts in here about stopping bigoted speech.
Behind a cut for the casual fatphobia, racism, and misogyny of entitled white folks of a certain age. Update: People are sharing some of the specific slurs and types of comments their bigoted relatives say and asking how to challenge those things esp. in the comments, so I would counsel POC and other marginalized folks especially to be careful before clicking – y’all already know this stuff and maybe you don’t need it in your eyes while we white folks sort out our bullshit.
Dear Captain,
I (23 woman) am very temporarily living at home, so my problem can sort of be solved by waiting and moving out as I am planning, but it would be great to stop this problem for any future visits. My issue is that I feel incredibly uncomfortable/stressed/anxious going out in public with my parents due to any combo of their rude/racist/sexist/entitled comments they make to store employees or about strangers walking by.
For example (not said directly to them, but sometimes within overhearing distance): wow they’re fat/ugly/slow, so many Koreans, threatening an annoying kid, coughing while saying asshole when someone they don’t like walks by, etc
or yelling and almost crying on the phone talking to an employee.
or talking to an employee (at some store, tone escalating)
Cashier: Do you have a rewards card? Mom: Well I do, but for some reason your system has it as my daughters name. C: Well we only get names if you give them to us, so she must have signed up. M: She didn’t. She doesn’t go to Storename. C: We only can get names that are given to us, she must have signed up. M: She didn’t. and why would she use the home phone number? C: If that’s her name in our system, there is no other way for us to have gotten that unless she told us. M: That’s what you said, but I’m telling you she didn’t. She had no reason to come to Storename! So I’m just wondering where it came from. Me: Mom, I must have signed up at some point, it’s no big deal. M: They only started doing this a few months ago, and you said you didn’t sign up, so how did they get it? C: We could have only gotten it if she gave us her name.
That’s the gist, honestly went on longer in the same inane circle, we had finished paying and were just holding up the line behind us. The cashier had nothing else they could possibly say! The conversation started pretty level, but I don’t think my mom realizes her tone escalates until it feels like a big deal. She repeatedly *says* it’s not a big deal, but her actions say otherwise. I’m just standing here feeling like I can do nothing to escape this awkwardness.
Frankly, I am embarrassed and stressed out by these interactions. I am constantly on edge, I find myself noticing these people I worry my parents will talk about, I feel like I have to be overly smiley and apologetic to these employees because they have to deal with customers like this all day.
I told my mom I was stressed about it, and later overheard her whispering to my dad about how I said I was stressed and her tone definitely conveyed that she though it was ridiculous/she couldn’t believe it!
I don’t know what to do. I feel like I can’t police their actions in public, but trying to be honest is met with incredulity. I am just considering refusing to be with them in public. I still feel awful for everyone they interact with.
-Stressed in Public
Dear Stressed In Public,
My mom used to do the whole “Let me talk to your MANAGER” voice thing to berate retail employees when I was a little girl and I would stress-pee my pants. Usually a bastion of good manners, she had this very ugly way of speaking to service workers that implied that the brassieres that should have been on one rack were instead placed on the sale rack deliberately to deceive her. Good times. To all the former employees of the Auburn, Massachusetts Sears, I’m sorry for all the times I urinated on your carpets out of terror. Terror of what? I don’t even know. Just, raised voices ==> fear ==> pee.
Good news: I’m not five anymore and neither are you. So, Letter Writer, could you get comfortable raising your voice a little and intervening?
Good news/bad news: Your feelings of embarrassment and stress are very real and upsetting, but you are not the person who is most being harmed by what your parents are doing when they harass and bully people around them. They are at work, where they can’t leave, and they can’t say anything back if they want to keep their jobs. You are uniquely positioned to say something to help those people, and ***unless your very survival depends on it**** I think you have a responsibility to do something about it. Not a responsibility to stop it before it happens or fix it or change your parents (they are responsible for themselves), but a responsibility to not just let it keep happening over and over again in silence.
Let’s take the store card example. What if you raised your voice a little and said, “Mom,Let’s drop it! We can go talk to the service desk, or call them or adjust it online when we get home.” “Mom! Let’s pay and get out of here. You’re holding up the line.” “Mom, this person can’t help us, and it’s not her fault, let’s not yell at her, ok? Let’s just pay and sort it out later.” Also, if you can, de-escalate andpull her away from the conflict if you possibly can so that if she reacts badly it won’t get even worse for the target of her bullying.
It won’t change your mom’s mind about “being right.” And she might be a total jerk to this very same employee the very next time she’s there. But it might snap your mom out of it enough that she’ll stop. And it might help you to channel your stress in that moment into action. The employee can’t really fight back or stop it. You can.
Your mom clearly cares what you think, since she’s talking to your dad about it, so why not place the awkwardness you’re feeling back where it belongs?
With their more passing comments, try “Wow.” or “Really?Dad!“ or “Dad, do you even hear yourself right now?” or “Mom, I cannot believe that came out of your mouth!” “We do NOT talk about people’s bodies like that.” “Gross! If you are going to say racist stuff, I am going to go home, see you there.” Raise your voice. Make it awkward and boring for them to do this stuff in front of you. Make them know that you will call this out every single time from now on.
There is probably a bigger talk that’s like “Mom, Dad, you have to be nicer to people who work retail. You just do. They have hard jobs. They want you to be happy with their service. They aren’t your enemies. You are so rude to them sometimes, it completely embarrasses me! Do you want to end up in one of those Permit Patty or Sidewalk Susie YouTube videos? ‘Cause that’s what you sound like!”
Many bigots and bullies think that everyone in their families and workplaces secretly agrees with them and are just hiding what they really think because of “political correctness.” Many others try to use the social contract of ‘civility’ as camouflage, like, they can say and do whatever they want but if you call them out on it you are the one being rude or mean. It can be a double-form of bullying – bullying the people in the marginalized group but also bullying witnesses by basically daring you to “be uncivil” (and invite reprisals) by speaking up and challenging them.
My Grampa Oscar (RIP) used to send horrifying and racist emails from the Rancid Old Man Internet to our entire family, allllllll our elected officials, and local news media. If I replied (copying all the same people) to methodically debunk whatever it was, I would get tons of heat from the family – “Why are you antagonizing him?” Sorry fam, I wasn’t the one who just casually advocated building concentration camps for Muslim people because of 9/11, and also why do I have to do all the “antagonizing” all by myself? Family:“He’s an old man!”Me: He’s an old man who fought Nazis up one side of the world and down the other and he literally knows everything about how this kind of hateful ideology spreads and corrupts, making him an old man who should know better. (While I’m issuing apologies, sorry to all the Massachusetts congressional and media interns who got CC’d on these exchanges between 1998-2011. I used to like to imagine that y’all had a binder somewhere of this old man and his mean uncivil granddaughter, duking it out between our AOL addresses.)
Here’s the secret, though: My Grampa cared what I thought. He cared a lot. It super-bothered him that I wouldn’t go along with him, that I wouldn’t tell him he was brilliant, that I didn’t validate his “superior” knowledge of world affairs. He loved me a lot and he was proud of me (about most things) and it bothered him into his grave that he couldn’t convince me to sign off on his gross Fox News talking points. And over time, when I was like “Oh Grampa, let’s not talk about politics, we have so little time left and I don’t want to spend it debunking your crap” he would literally wail at me in frustration. He wanted my agreement and my good opinion and my compliance and, while he had my love always, as long as he advocated for hatred and bigotry he could. not. have. those. things.
One of the things I could reliably use against my Grampa that you might be able to use against your parents are the things they taught us in better times when they acted like better people. “But, you taught me not to say those kinds of things.” “You taught me to be kind to people.” “You taught me that everyone is equal and worthy.” “You taught me that if I don’t have something nice to say to someone I shouldn’t say anything.” “You taught me that all human beings are valuable and deserve kindness and safety.” “You taught me that everybody is the same and deserves respect, this isn’t like you, I know you are better than this!”
They’ll say “I didn’t mean you should talk like that to ME” or “I didn’t mean Those People” and you’ll say “but of course you did, the Golden Rule is about everyone.” And their faces will turn red and maybe it will be embarrassment or maybe it will be anger that they take out on you and I’m sorry for that if it goes that way.
Your parents probably won’t change their minds or their behavior when you aren’t around, but I’ll say it again: They notice and care what you think. They want you to agree with them. They want you to think they are good people. They want you to be a reflection of them. They want you to comply with them and support their points of view in public. They probably don’t care as much about not stressing you out in public as they do about wanting to look good in your eyes. You can use that, even if it’s just to shame them into pretending to be better.
Back to practicalities:
1. Practice speaking up in the moment. It won’t feel good, it will feel scary and weird, but you aren’t a kid who can be sent to your room without supper anymore. It doesn’t ever feel easier but it becomes easier with practice. And it is the best tool you, as a person who shares your parents race and class status, has for assigning consequences to bigoted remarks. Make it socially expensive and awkward for them to behave like that around you.
2. Talk to your parents about what you are observing. “Mom, Dad, I’ve noticed some troubling stuff lately when we’re out together, you both say some things that really aren’t kind [give a recent example or two]. What’s going on there? That’s not how you brought me up to behave.”
Listen to their defenses and then say something like “Ok, well, I respect you a lot, which is why I brought this up with you directly. I don’t want us to fight all the time, but I also don’t want to just be silent when it happens – it’s so rude and stressful for me and the poor people who are just trying to do their jobs – and if you can’t figure out how to put a lid on it I don’t know how much I’ll want to go places with you.”
3. Enforce the boundaries. You’re at the store with a parent and they say or act rude? “Ugh, [Parent], we talked about this. Please leave this person alone.”
If they won’t cool it, leave, even if it’s to go sit by the car. And stay home the next time they ask you to go somewhere. Give them less of your time and attention.
4. Think in terms of baby steps. Catching themselves about to say something, muttering under their breath, a pointed “I could say something but MISS SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR is here so I WON’T,” stony silence, making ugly faces while they tamp down their ugly thoughts in front of you, “I guess I gotta behave myself because SOME PEOPLE won’t give FAMILY a BREAK,” calling you a snowflake, etc. etc. are what victory looks like here.
Stay firm. If they say mean stuff about you, try agreeing with them to remove the teeth- “Yes, I’m very sensitive and might melt like a delicate snowflake out of embarrassment if I see my Dad say something racist to the waiter again! Let’s not risk it!”
Converting hearts & minds is great and hopefully the long-term plan, but it’s not the only thing that matters. Getting bigots to stop harming people in the moment is important even if the hearts and minds stay withered and small.
P.S. I’ve gotten a bunch of emails from people who are like “I live with bigots but I am literally dependent on them for survival/housing/health care needs and if I antagonize them I might die.”
In these cases, I think you speak up the best you can when you can, and forgive yourself for when you can’t. Sometimes the best you can do is to live to fight another day. You’re the best judge of what you can and cannot risk.
I also think you organize online and find other people who are doing good work in your community and in the world, so that you’re not alone with these people all day and night. You may not ever convince your folks, so, if you decide that they are lost causes, what work can you do? Do that. There’s more than enough human rights defense work to go around right now, you don’t have to throw yourself down an impossible emotional black hole for the revolution. Can’t convince them? Out-organize them. Out-vote them. Out-number them where it counts.
But if it’s not about survival? It’s just a little stress and discomfort and some raised voices and the risk of some people falling in your esteem or thinking you are hard to get along with? It’s celebrating holidays in a different way, seeing less of people you wish you could count on to be better? In those cases I think a lot of bigots have mistaken silence for compliance for way too long, and that a whole lot of us can endure some awkward family dinners or car rides or shopping trips if we have to, like, “yep, I’m really unreasonable and hard to get along with about these topics so you should stop saying horrible stuff where I can hear it or I might literally explode from being so dang sensitive! Thanks for noticing/Bless your heart!” This is literally the least that we can do.
And we can do it. It takes resolve and practice and having each other’s backs, the way the Letter Writer is about to have the backs of a whole lot of service industry folks who can’t escape from her terrible parents.
1. If you want to come on the show yourself to discuss your question with me in real time, email your question to podcast@askamanager.org. The advantage of this option is that we get to have lots of back and forth and refine the advice to make sure it works for your situation. We record over Skype and it’s quite easy.
2. If you just want your question to be answered on the show, but don’t want to come on yourself, you can record your question on the show voicemail at 855-426-WORK (855-426-9675). Any question you leave there might be played and answered on a future show. This is a good option for questions that seem shorter/simpler (stuff like the daily “short answer” posts), or if you’re just not up for lots of back and forth or having so much focus directed on you.
I am immediately curious about what museum, what exhibition, and what politician.
A reader writes:
I am a curator at a large museum, and we are currently running a major special exhibition. There has been an enormous amount of public interest in the exhibition, and demand for tickets is very high.
Recently I was asked by my higher-ups to give a private tour of this exhibition to a prominent and controversial political figure. It’s not Trump, by the way (lots of people have asked!), but it *is* someone whose name would be nationally recognized.
I have a summer intern and have offered to let her come along as an observer. This kind of inclusion would usually be considered a major perk for an intern. But she is adamantly refusing, citing this gentleman’s political views and threatening to physically attack him if she is “forced” to be in his presence (although I’m hoping that she is rather tastelessly joking about that last part). She is also refusing to do any of the logistical or planning tasks that would normally fall to her, and that’s a problem as well.
Here’s the tricky part: I completely and totally agree with her opinion of this politician’s views and behavior. I have actually literally protested outside his office in the past. I’m not looking forward to spending any time in his presence. But my perspective is that my personal views aren’t relevant in these circumstances, and that a significant part of my job is representing my museum with dignity, even when I really don’t want to. I will never agree with this politician (nor he with me, probably) but I keep telling myself: at the very least, this is a good opportunity for us to showcase to him the value of well-funded cultural institutions.
I’ve told my intern she can sit this one out, but I feel like we need to have a conversation about this when the dust settles. I am very torn, though. As I alluded to above, I’m active in social justice work and various kinds of protests, but all on my own time; no one I work with is aware of my outside activities. I don’t want to force anyone to do something they don’t believe in, but I worry this young lady will be shooting herself in the foot if this is her stance in the long term. What advice would you give me?
Yes, talk with her. The way she’s handling this is juvenile and it doesn’t reflect well on her professionally, and I say that as someone with a deep appreciation for social justice activism (and possibly for her stance as well, just not the way she’s executing it).
It would be one thing if she’d said, “I feel very uncomfortable interacting with this person; would it be possible for me to sit this out?” Even that isn’t necessarily ideal, and you still might need to talk to her about what it means to work for an institution that welcomes all visitors and the benefits to the museum of not turning away people whose views might be at odds with those of its staff. But that would have been a reasonable way for her to handle it. But threatening to physically attack him? Even assuming she’s joking, that’s just an incredibly unprofessional thing for her to say in a work context, and she should probably think about whether she wants to normalize that type of response in our discourse more broadly. She might also benefit from contemplating whether she really wants any employee to be able to refuse to serve anyone they disagree with or find immoral — because that goes both ways, and people tend not to like it when it’s reversed on them.
That’s not to say that there isn’t room for people to act on their consciences at work. There is. But there’s a professional way to do that and an unprofessional way, and she’s choosing the unprofessional way. The professional way would be voicing her concerns, asking if they could be accommodated (not demanding it), realizing the answer might be “no” — and knowing that if it were, then at that point she’d need to decide if she felt strongly enough to leave the job over it.
So yes, talk with her. The fact that you share her views about this particular politician might give you more credibility when you do. (Or who knows, maybe she’ll just think you’re a sell-out.)
You could say, “We’re not in the business of deciding who can and who can’t tour our exhibits, and that’s a good thing because access to museums shouldn’t depend on individual employees’ personal viewpoints. I’d be outraged we turned someone away because they supported Issue X or Issue Y (insert issues here that you support), and I suspect you would be too. We’re on very dangerous ground if we let people say that their own personal views will determine who they do and don’t serve at work.”
You could also say, “It’s not that you can never take a stand on work based on principle. You can. But it’s a big deal to refuse to do parts of your job, and so if you do that, you need to be professional about it. That means raising your concerns in a mature manner, not threatening physical attacks, and asking if work-arounds can be found, not just assuming you can refuse and that’ll be that. Sometimes it might not be possible for you to be recused, and if that’s the case, you might need to decide if you’re willing to leave the job over it. But the way you handle moments of conflict at work will have a big impact on your professional reputation, and so here’s why you’d want to approach this differently in the future…”
All that said … there are people whose actions are so directly harmful to others that I can understand why someone might take the stand your intern is taking. Sometimes our morals do compel us to stand up and say, “No, I will not act as if this normal because it is profoundly wrong.”
But it’ll be helpful to her if she learns how to do that in a way that maximizes her chances of getting the outcome she wants, and without hurting her own standing in the meantime. And of course, sometimes something is important enough that it’s worth hurting your own standing! I don’t mean to imply that professionalism is the be-all, end-all, because there are other things that are more important. But it’ll help her to learn to figure out when she has no choice but to take that hit, and when there are more effective paths to achieve what she wants.
A real-life television mystery is coming together and the clues are everywhere. This week, Showtime released two promos for a mysterious new show, refusing to reveal the title but announcing the lead character is “shameless,” “unhinged,” and “cold-blooded.” It will apparently be “perhaps the most dangerous show in the history of television” and premieres on July 15.
“You’re just standing on one little ball of dirt and spinning around one of the stars. From that perspective, do you really care what people think about your clothes or your car?”
― Michael A. Singer
We talk with BMC about their days as a wee Cylinder, what Alex and PJ are really like, and who might play them at a live event.
Image courtesy of Breakmaster Cylinder
This week, the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder (BMC) released a new album, REMIX 3. For anyone who can spot a BMC theme song right away, this new release will feel like familiar territory (see: “Morning Edition Remix”).
Recently, I invited BMC to drop into the Bello Slack channel to answer questions from the editors and our members. The result? More mystery and more adoration for our favorite anonymous musician.
How did you so thoroughly break into the podcast-music market?
Alex [Goldman] and PJ [Vogt] brought me with them when they left WNYC Studios to go make Reply All, ’cause they’re nice like that. The show is great, and it took off immediately, which gave me some name recognition. From there, I think I’ve just tried to take pretty much every job request anyone’s thrown at me. I’m not sure why people reach out to me, honestly, but I’m honored. I guess the anonymity is interesting. That wasn’t my intention, but I’m sure it helps.
Can you talk about why you continue to be anonymous? Do you mind that you might never personally get credit for your work?
I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like I’m not getting credit. You don’t need to know the real names of the people in bands you like to say you like them. It’s just as though I’ve chosen to go by a really ridiculous name half the time. My face (if I have a face) doesn’t matter.
What’s it like working with the Reply All team?
The Reply All team is lovely! Truly kind, passionate, interesting people. I dig ’em. They give me freedom to be creative and rein me in where necessary.
What’s your favorite podcast right now?
Honestly, if I have any free time I’m going to spend it writing. When I’m flying around and physically can’t write music, I’ve been really enjoying Today, Explained. Their musical parodies are spot on. Noam Hassenfeld has an incredible Brian Johnson (of AC/DC) voice.
What kind of music do you listen to for fun?
When I’m traveling, I’m probably flipping through Spotify as fast as I can. I like any music where I feel addicted and have to restart it immediately.
I just put out a mixtape of all the loops of music I retreat to when the world is ugly. They’re all songs I’ve had on endless repeat at one point or another, stapled together for about 50 minutes. This is totally therapy to me.
I don’t really have a genre I listen to more than others. Well, maybe I favor some fuzzy West Coast beats. Or literally any country’s 60s psych rock. But mostly I think every genre has something they do well. There are always good songs waiting to be found.
What’s the origin of your “pen” name?
It’s a long story. Can we say it’s a tribute?
Can you share the timezone where you live?
IT IS ALWAYS NOW.
If you could pick a brand on an any medium — TV, movies, a household brand, podcasts, bands, etc. — that you could make music with, who would it be and why?
My knee-jerk response is I’d like to work with Busdriver. I think he’d be down for making music of the cosmos. I feel most alive writing intricate, weird time signature, transcendent kind of stuff, and that feels like something he’d do in his sleep. Can’t plan for the transcendent part, that just happens accidentally from time to time. You can set it up though.
Image courtesy of Breakmaster Cylinder
Should we look for Easter eggs in your music?
Well I have a ‘Nina’, which is to say I’ve stuck the exact same melody in different albums all over the place. It’s nine notes that just feel right to me. I think some of the really sample-heavy albums just have so many dumb little references that made me happy, but the connections aren’t obvious unless you’re me, sitting there listening to it 100 times. Let’s say whenever I use a sample, it’s mostly an inside joke.
Do you make the mini-narratives at the end of Reply All?
I do make the little sci-fi episodes at the end of Reply All. Dog and I are lost in space without internet and can’t get home. Also a magical piano that bends space to travel to other planets. Also musical phrases that act as a language to conjure objects or choose destinations. Also Steve Bannon in a sexy Santa outfit. 6 episodes after introducing the piano, I realized I was actually doing “Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You” from maybe your or someone’s childhood.
Have you/would you consider making a (full-length) narrative podcast of your own?
A narrative podcast would be difficult because the vocoder voice gets grating after a while. On the other hand, there’s nothing that says the narration has to be using spoken language.
I have a lot of ideas for shows, just focusing on the sci-fi thing for now though. I think it’d be fun to push the line between a fictional, episodic podcast and an album. Even without words you could follow the sound of someone traveling from location to location, track to track, picking up objects and battling things and figuring out puzzles, but all presented in such a way that it’s still a collection of songs. Including the room atmosphere and the sounds of a protagonist navigating each song could give it an overarching plot to follow.
Speaking of Easter eggs, I sort of did this in Blithering Heights 2: If you listen closely Dog and I are sitting in a room playing the mixtape for you. Somewhere early on we leave the room to get tea, I break a television in the first few seconds, and Dog fixes it a little while later, and so on.
I feel like your music can express a kind politic (or philosophy, if you prefer) that I might say leans toward humanism. Is that on purpose? Does BMC have a political message?
Oh interesting! I don’t know if I’m consciously pushing humanism. That resonates with me though.“Singable Songs For The Increasingly Enraged” was a consciously political EP.
Someone sent me some Raffi tapes and I was blown away by “Down By The Bay”. That song says it isn’t safe to go home because Mom will say some crazy shit to you, which is a weird message for a children’s song, but is actually how many adults I know feel about [going home for the holidays]. I crowd-sourced super-talented women on Twitter saying horrible, bigoted things and remixed Raffi, and hopefully now it’s a therapeutic little ditty you and the family can sing on the drive down to Christmas dinner or whatever.
I have a lot to say about that album, but I guess an underlying belief that our similarities ought to dwarf our differences feels right. This is a continuing reason for the helmet and anonymity: that BMC as a character can stay reasonably inclusive and you can just imagine them however you want.
Image courtesy of Breakmaster Cylinder
What was your music like when you first started?
Way back when I got Fruityloops and started producing I was making trance albums for my raver friends. Those are all gone, I think.
Long before that though, I had a keyboard which had some rudimentary layered loop-recording capabilities and I’d just spitball there.
Wayyyyyy long before that, as a wee cylinder, I used to make choptracks on a two-deck tape recorder: Insert Sesame Street tape into Deck A. Record one or two words to blank tape in Deck B. Replace tape in Deck A with a new one, search for a sentence that would connect sensibly to what you’ve recorded so far, and add some more to Deck B. Repeat until you end up with a rapid fire series of twisted words to form new, (probably filthy) sentiments on your once blank tape.
How does composing podcast themes differ from composing other themes?
The majority of themes I’ve written have been for podcasts. You’re looking for 90–120 seconds, recognizable intro, catchy melody, and some manner of expressing the show’s theme (subtly or not). That’s not much different from film/advertisement/video game work I’ve done, except I guess that there’s no visual element. And the length, maybe.
In some ways, podcast music is probably much more freeing; your theme song is indirectly constructing the listener’s visualization. It seems more likely they’ll take your music cues and mix it with their own ideas and biases and expectations; the whole experience should naturally appear to them in a way they already understand. The host and the theme of the show color that too, but you’re not directly competing with (or trying too hard to match) a visual component.
Is there a particular set of criteria of shows you work most frequently or style of show that if they approach you for a theme you will almost always say yes?
I try to say yes to as many as possible. Maybe I have a soft spot for science/nature/feminist/identity/experimental kind of stuff. If your show sounds like it might be potentially problematic to me, I’ll ask some follow up questions, but as far as I know, I haven’t written a theme song for Nazis.
We’ve heard your name on a lot of other podcasts after Reply All. Has it been different working with other producers? Do most folks give you a lot of freedom?
There’s a difference in how hands-on different producers want to get with their theme. Some take three or four drafts, others take like, thirty. Neither one is an inherently bad way of going about it though. The whole theme-writing process is an exercise in admitting I’m not a mindreader, and then hearing what they’re trying to communicate in whatever language they use to describe it. There are a ton of little drafts as I try different things, and then the back and forth between my drafts and their feedback.
This was my absolute favorite ‘describe your ideal theme’ answer from a show though:
“Something fun and girly, but powerful. Like Sex and the City, and 90’s Veruca Salt, and if our vaginas could play an instrument… but also, we’re feminine. Like we go to church, but we don’t wear underwear there. Also we’re in a coven.”
The podcast industry as a whole is famous for projects being “side hustles” or seen as a hobby, etc, while [producers are] still working another (often unrelated) full-time job. Would you count yourself in a similar population, or do you get to create music and mystique all day?
I have duties and responsibilities that often pull me from the tireless pursuit of trying to shoot music out of my fingertips all day. That said, it’s a large part of my life. I feel lucky to be able to keep expanding it.
Even if I have to pretend to be a real live person for a while, there are sometimes opportunities for music and mystique in the way you interact with the surrounding world.
What’s a question you wish people would ask you?
I don’t know, really! I like talking about music and directors and things. People grew up with, or currently have their days shaped by, music I’ve never even heard of. That stuff, someone’s really important, ingrained, nostalgic music is always interesting to me.
Or when someone can break down the math of how we got somewhere, I like that too. Like how arguably:
mento + jazz = ska
ska slowed down = rocksteady
continuing to slow down with a heavier halftime feel = reggae
reggae stripped down to drums and bass + reverb and delay fx = dub
dub sped up and made more electronic = drum n’ bass
drum n’ bass with halftime drums = dubstep, and so on.
Also, someone explain the 5,000 different metal genres to me, please.
If you were ever asked to perform live at a live podcast event, what would represent you on stage?
I’m not sure what would represent me on stage! There have been discussions as to how I could get away with appearing at one, or how I could get away with appearing to appear at one.
Some listeners have theorized I’ll show up to Gimletfest incognito and just mingle, with a name badge like ‘Fred Podcast’ or something else equally not-at-all-suspicious-as-hell. Anyway I encourage people to do this. Let’s all be Breakmaster Cylinder.
What else in Breakmaster Cylinder working on right now?
I do some kids video game music.
I scored a horrific documentary on Trump and online hate (I actually did those simultaneously and the effect on my mindset was not insignificant).
Dog and I visited a mono planet once, which was a place where only one sound could be heard at once. So now I’m working on an full ep of tracks like that.
Podcast theme, podcast theme.
I have a weird VR album I’ve only just imagined.
I’m writing a supplemental campaign for SPELL: The RPG, which is literally a board game.
Someone just asked me to write a hymn.
I’m hosting beat battles with insane structural constraints on Indaba Music this year.
The other 99% is just cross-stitching.
Finally, how do you feel about Alexa? We’re asking because Alexa is also a (quasi)-anonymous cylinder.
Alexa, quit stealing my thunder. No that’s ok, you can stay. If anything she’s more legit than I am.
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#4 hits home. "technically two of those months were for caregiving and the rest were for me" - caretaking and the initial phases of grieving are visible - the meal trains, condolence notes, offers of support, etc are all concentrated in a specific time. Later, after the dust has supposedly settled but the grief or exhaustion continues, it's a less visible phenomenon with a less robust support system. I give the LW credit for taking time off when they needed it.
It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…
1. My boss is using a human skeleton as office decor
I work in the administrative offices of a government research program. We moved into a new building recently, and I was started to discover that our director has brought in a real human skeleton to hang in his personal office. His grandfather was a doctor and apparently it is some sort of family medical curiosity that was passed down to him. I am pretty creeped out by this and find it super disrespectful — who knows how these remains were procured! But he seems to have no such feelings, and will occasionally pose the skeleton in humorous ways in his office to greet the people who come visit him. We do work in the biological sciences, but in a field that has nothing to do with human anatomy. Can I ask him to take this down?
I’m curious to hear other people’s opinions because I might be an outlier on this, but mine is that you should leave it alone. Human skeletons are displayed in classroom settings enough that it’s not going to be universally shocking in the way that, say, displaying a mummified corpse might be. His office isn’t a classroom, of course, but I think you’re likely to come across as oversensitive if you ask him to remove it. (That said, you might be fine with coming across as oversensitive, in which case you could say something like, “I’m pretty creeped out by that skeleton — any chance I can convince you not to keep it at work?”)
2. How do I politely decline an awards dinner?
I work for a small educational body as an editor, producing studytexts for our range of exams. In order to produce these texts we commission industry professionals to write the content.
In this case, one of my updaters is a very high up in a particular niche sector of the industry and has invited me to a summit he has organised. He posed it as a great opportunity to better understand the subject matter, and I agree that it would be very educational. Additionally he has invited me to the awards dinner that ends the summit.
I suffer from GAD and, while I don’t mind sitting in a dark lecture hall listening the presentations, the idea of going to the awards dinner (where I wouldn’t know anyone) is setting off my anxiety. My immediate thought would be the make up an excuse, but that isn’t professional and it would be too stressful to concoct some lie. I do not know this updater very well as I’m only 10 months into my role and this is the first time I have been assigned this particular studytext. How do I politely, but firmly, decline the invite without damaging a fledgling professional relationship?
I’m going to push back on your statement that it would be unprofessional to make up an excuse. You’re allowed to decline things you don’t want to do (assuming you don’t need to do them for work reasons, and it sounds like you don’t). It would be rude to say “I don’t want to go to your awards dinner,” but it’s perfectly polite and professional to say, “I’d love to attend the summit — thanks for inviting me! I have a conflict with the dinner afterwards, but I’ll be there for the lectures.” (And really, this isn’t even making up a lie. You do have a conflict with the dinner — you have plans to do something else, even if it’s just to sit on your couch. You’re allowed to be vague about what the conflict is.)
Also, even if you didn’t have anxiety, it’s utterly reasonable to skip this kind of dinner. An awards dinner where you don’t know anyone would bore the pants off many of us, and you can happily decline things like that. (And I promise you that unless your contact is highly unusual, he’s not going to be shocked that you’re skipping the dinner.)
3. Can I keep my office door closed to block out noise?
I am in the luxury position that I have an office, with a door. I share this office with a colleague. I work in a junior managerial position in a clinical setting and need to be both approachable and able to work with focus and concentration when at my desk. The easiest way to give the message of presence at my desk and approachability is to work with my door open.
There is one problem: my office is on the edge of our department and very close to the paediatric waiting room where a lot of sounds are produced. I can understand that the children waiting there aren’t the happiest children in the world and can be expected to make a lot of noise (crying and yelling, also loud musical toys). However, it is very very distracting and I am becoming increasingly annoyed. I have resorted to closing my office door (thick wood) and playing music. However, this seems to give off an unsocial message and people (both my bosses and admin employees) feel very uncomfortable to drop in, making easy questions or conversations immediately awkward.
My boss and other colleagues understand that the location is annoying, yet as there are big relocations and refurbishing plans in the next 18months anyway, no action is taken to change the situation. I tried to barter with the neighbours and get them to at least remove xylophone-like toys, but to no avail.
My roommate seems to think it highly entertaining that I get so worked up by all the sounds. She pretends like I can just not handle it because I am a 35 year-old woman who has experience with children. She does often wear headphones to shut out distraction. I think working with headphones on is an extra layer of unapproachability. Especially since there are phones to be answered, which she routinely fails to hear.
So question: is it indeed not done as a low manager to work with your door closed? Could I put up a non-passive-aggressive sign on my door inviting people in? What’s your policy on open/ closed doors? Are headphones accepted?
It’s true that a constantly closed door can seem like it’s signaling “go away,” but in your case you have a good reason for keeping it closed, and people will understand that. Put up a big, cheerful sign that says “I’m here! Please come in!” and reinforce that by explaining the situation to your coworkers and encouraging them to open the door whenever they need you. If you find people are still hesitant to come in, you might need to change course (or reiterate to them again that you want them to), but give this a shot for now. (If you think this will be totally counter to your office culture, ask your boss’s advice on whether this will fly, pointing out your unusual context.)
Headphones can be fine too, but you’re right that they can signal you don’t want to be interrupted (more than a door with a welcoming sign on it does). In this case, the door and sign seem like your best option.
4. Explaining time away from work when returning to a job hunt
My dad was elderly, frail, and lived in another state; he decided last spring to move to assisted living and the only way to get enough time to help him transition was to quit my job. He got sick and passed away unexpectedly, and I spent a couple of months taking care of him and then repairing and selling his house. I’ve taken the last few months as a sabbatical to grieve, take care of my health, travel, and re-fill my tank. In the last three years, I’ve done some heavy-duty caregiving, lost my dad, mom, and stepmom, changed jobs, worked continuous 50-hour weeks, and was completely exhausted. I’m really grateful I could have this time; I feel good now and am job-hunting.
How should I frame this sabbatical so that potential employers focus on my skills and knowledge, and not the time away from work? My LinkedIn profile shows it as “Time away for family caregiving” with an end date when I started job hunting in February. Cover letters say “I had to step away from work for several months for family caregiving; I’m returning to work now and looking forward to my next opportunity.” However, technically two of those months were for caregiving and the rest were for me. I don’t want to seem apologetic for needing time off, but I also want to be clear that I’m ready to dig in now. Should I change anything on my LinkedIn profile or the cover letter? And how would you recommend addressing this in an interview? Conversations with friends and colleagues have shown me that a lot of people don’t understand that caregiving is actual work, or what a big life change it is to lose your parents. And – I wouldn’t wish this understanding on them, because it usually means they’ve been through it too.
Nah, I think the way you’re doing it is fine. If anything, you could be even more vague — it doesn’t really need to go on your LinkedIn at all (just as it wouldn’t go on your resume). You definitely don’t need to get into the details of how much was taking care of your dad and how much was for you; it’s fine to just lump it all under one umbrella. You originally took the time off to care for your dad, and then you extended it a bit because you could. The finer details aren’t really relevant to an employer.
If you’re asked about it in an interview, you can simply say, “My father was ill and I took time off to care for him at the end of his life.” (And I’m sorry about your parents and your stepmom!)
Ronda Rankin was whizzing down a stretch of interstate in Omaha, Nebraska, on Friday night when her daughter noticed something strange about the car next to them. There seemed to be some sort of round, fuzzy blur on the roof of the maroon minivan that was flying down the road at about 60 MPH. When they inched a little closer to the van, there was no mistaking it: The ball of fluff clinging onto the roof for dear life was, without a doubt, a cat.
Side-by-side with the minivan, Rankin waved at it while her husband honked. "There's a cat on your roof!" Rankin mouthed, pointing up at it. "A cat on your roof!"
The minivan slowed down, veered off to the side of the highway, and disappeared behind them, taking the uncertain fate of the daredevil feline with it.
But on Thursday, ABC affiliate KET7 managed to track down the cat's owners, and discovered that—miraculously—the cat, aptly named Rebel, was still alive. And he hadn't even gotten injured. Michelle Criger, the Rebel's owner, told KET7 she had no idea that he had been surfing on top of their van. Apparently the cat likes to hang out around the car, and Criger knows to look under the van and inside of it before she drives anywhere. But she didn't think to check on top of it—until the Rankins flagged her down.
"When I got him off the roof of the van, he wasn't scared at all," Criger told KET7. "He wasn't shaking, heart racing, nothing. We were more scared than him."
And so Rebel the cat lives on, presumably, as his name suggests, gearing up for his next death-defying feat of bravery. Maybe he'll graduate from hitchhiking and move on to scaling very tall telephone poles, or perhaps, feeling bit by the travel bug, he'll try to make his next getaway via plane. And why not? He's still got eight lives left.
Something about all those pitch meetings, all those re-writes, all those wigs and the intoxicating scent of all that wig glue. From Emma Stone’s romance with director Dave McCary to Ben Affleck’s relationship with producer Lindsay Shookus to Scarlett Johansson spending some quality time with Colin Jost, one thing is clear: if you want to date superfamous people, get hired to work on Saturday Night Live. You should also do it because you love sketch comedy, but if new rumors about Ariana Grande dating SNL’s Pete Davidson are true, sketch really doesn’t have to be in, like, your top ten reasons.
As of Monday, US Weekly and People claim they can both confirm that Grande and Davidson are casually dating, having reportedly been spotted out at a restaurant and hanging out (where else?) at the Saturday Night Live afterparty on May 12. Grande announced her split from boyfriend Mac Miller earlier this month, while Davidson recently parted ways with long-time girlfriend Cazzie David, daughter of Larry David. While a guest on Peter Rosenberg’s Complex show Open Late last Wednesday, the SNL performer was asked if he’d be okay after his break-up. Replied Davidson, “Yeah, probably.”
super curious to know what #3's field is: "non-traditional service industry type job that involves going to my clients’ homes (think childcare, but if it were extremely lucrative)"
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My coworker uses icebreakers in every meeting
One of my coworkers runs a lot of the meetings at my workplace. He’s good at his job and generally well-liked, but I’ve noticed that he almost always schedules an icebreaker for meetings — even small ones with only three or four people. They don’t usually have anything to do with the meeting topic, more along the lines of “Rank these breakfast foods.”
I do like to get to know my coworkers, but I don’t think icebreakers before meetings are particularly effective in that regard. I can see their value in situations where people don’t know each other or there might be tension, but when it comes to quick meetings with people I already work with regularly, they just feel like a waste of time. Is there a purpose they serve here that I’m not seeing?
Nope. The idea with icebreakers is supposed to be to give people some comfort and familiarity with people who they don’t know well or, in some cases, to switch them into a more relaxed mode than they might be in for most of the work they do together. It’s weird to do them for every meeting in your office, and especially weird to routinely do them for meetings or three or four people. I’d be annoyed by the waste of time too.
I suppose it’s possible that most people in your office enjoy them (do they?), in which case you might not really have standing to ask for them to stop in general, but certainly in meetings with just a few people it would be reasonable for you to say at the start, “I’m crunched for time today — can we skip the icebreaker and get straight into the budget figures?”
2. Is it wrong to fake enthusiasm during an interview?
I’m considering leaving my current job and have been sending out job applications to get a feel for what is out there. I just had an interview and I think I did well and may get an offer. However, I’m not sure if I want to accept the job. It’s not because the job post misrepresented the actual job, it’s just that I’ve changed my mind on what I want in my next job. I came to to this realization before the interview, but went ahead with the interview just in case it changed my mind (it didn’t).
During the interview, I was asked twice if it sounded like the kind of role that I would be interested in, and both times I responded with an enthusiastic “yes.” I was generally quite warm and enthusiastic through the whole interview.
Was it okay to fake enthusiasm or should I have been more honest in the interview? Was there a better way of handling this? I’m still not ready to say that I absolutely wouldn’t accept a job offer, but I’m leaning heavily towards a no.
If it was a big company or through a recruiter, I may not feel as bad, but it’s a small company with the owner conducting the interviews, so everything feels a bit more personal here.
As an interviewer, I always want people to be honest with me about their enthusiasm level, because it helps me figure out if I want to hire them for the job or not.
But as someone who advises job candidates, I will tell you that if you don’t appear enthusiastic about a job, it’s likely to take you out of the running.
What you did was fine. While you’re still in the process of figuring out if you want the job or not, it’s fine to default to a generally enthusiastic stance. That’s just smart to do, so that you’re not taken out of the running.
That said, you don’t want to fake enthusiasm across the board. If you know for sure that you don’t want to do X or Y and that you wouldn’t take a job that focused heavily on those, you’d be shooting yourself in the foot if you faked enthusiasm about those; that’s a recipe for ending up in a job you’re not going to be happy in. But seeming generally interested in the job itself, while you’re still in the process of figuring out if you really want it? That’s just savvy interviewing.
3. How to set boundaries with clients for my days off
I work in a non-traditional service industry type job that involves going to my clients’ homes (think childcare, but if it were extremely lucrative). In my line of work, forming close emotional relationships with clients is very much the norm, and generally this is something I appreciate about my job. Because of this closeness, however, it can often be difficult to set boundaries about the hours I am and am not available to work.
Because my job is non-traditional, my schedule is too, but I do still take two days off in a row each week because I have to do laundry and go to the store and generally have a life. I frequently get requests to work on these days and I always reply simply that I’m not available, but often clients will press for details or pressure me to work anyway. It’s difficult for me to say no, especially in situations in which they are very reliant on me, but when I don’t take my normal “weekend,” my mental health really suffers. How can I be clear – but polite – about the time that I need to myself, and how much of an obligation do I have to explain how I’m planning to use that time?
For reference, I’m not a freelancer. I work for a company which assigns and manages clients, but I set my own schedule and I have a lot of flexibility. Unfortunately, though they are generally good employers, they aren’t very supportive in this area – employees at my level earn them LOTS of money, so they basically want us to work as much as we can, and they’d happily have me work from noon to midnight (which I do from time to time) every day of the week.
You don’t need to explain anything about how you’re planning to use that time. You should just be able to say, “I’m sorry, I’m not available on Sunday, but I can see you on Monday if you’d like.” And if someone pushes, you can say, “I’m fully booked then” or “don’t have any time open then.” You don’t need to specify “that’s my day off” if that seems to invite people to push you to make an exception for them; sticking with some version of “that time is booked up” is likely to be harder to argue with. (And it’s not a lie — that time is booked up; it’s just booked with your weekend, rather than another client. And you don’t need to explain that.)
4. Can I treat a job fair like a networking event?
This may end up being a little niche, because I’m in teaching–the hiring cycle is pretty specific. Private and charter schools February-early May, public schools late May-July, not very good schools August. I just graduated and was feeling pretty anxious about finding work, so I started sending out my resume early, and have been lucky enough to receive a few offers from charters, one of which I’m likely going to accept. However, long term, I want to be working in the public school system–I just can’t afford to turn down the definite job until my student loans are paid off.
I got an email from a recruiter about a public school job fair in three weeks. I will almost certainly have accepted a job by then, and I don’t want to waste people’s time, but I’d love to attend anyway and start getting a feel for the schools and principals in my area, what their timelines are, what they look for, etc., so that in a year or three, when I’m making the jump, I’ll be more prepared and maybe have established some relationships. Should I go and just explain that I’m not looking for the 2018-2019 school year? Should I print up a special version of my resume that explains this at the top? Do I just say nothing and wait to explain if I’m offered any interviews? I definitely don’t want to burn any bridges, because teaching in this area is a very who-you-know job!
I can’t speak to teaching in particular, but for job fairs in general, I wouldn’t do this. For one thing, most job fairs aren’t great for networking, as they tend to be staffed by HR or relatively junior people, who aren’t necessarily the people you’re hoping to network with — and they are probably not thinking about hiring that’s a few years off. But also, if your new school has a table there, there’s a risk that they’ll spot you there and be uneasy that you’re at a job fair when you’re already committed to working for them (and sure, you could explain it, but it’s potentially going to alarm them). I’d look for other ways to network instead of this, like other events that are likely to attract people in your field who you’d like to meet.
5. My boss said I could work from home on Fridays … but it seems to have disappeared
I’m a woman, so is my boss. She has several kids, I have one almost-toddler. Shortly after I returned from maternity leave, she told me: “It’s fine with me if you work from home every Friday. When I first had kids, I wanted to reduce hours but realized I’d just reduce my pay with the same work expectations, so I negotiated working from home on Fridays.”
So that’s pretty cool, right? Except … nothing was formalized, I felt uncomfortable taking her up on an informal offer so didn’t take full advantage, I’m basically a coward, and that offer seems to have disappeared. For example, my baby was sick (just a slight fever so had to stay home from daycare) on a Friday and I asked if I could work from home rather than take a personal day. She said no.
Can I negotiate that work-from-home deal back? Should I look for another job that is actually flexible or part-time? My salary is a fraction of my spouse’s and cutting back on my salary wouldn’t be a big deal for our overall household income.
It’s possible that the reason she said no to that particular request was that she doesn’t want you to work from home as a substitute for child care — because with very young kids, that generally means you won’t be getting much work done. With the original offer, she might have assumed your baby would be at day care while you were working from home.
But if you’re interested in getting that work-from-home-on-Fridays offer back, ask about it directly! For example: “When I returned from maternity leave, you told me it was fine for me to work from home on Fridays if I wanted to. At the time I wasn’t sure yet exactly what would end up making sense so I didn’t take you up on it, but I wonder if that’s still possible. If it is, I’d love to experiment with it.”
And then if she says yes, start doing it right away so that it gets normalized as a thing you do.
ok i might actually watch the ferrell and shannon hosted version (but not live, for god's sake)
Ask any American what they’ll be doing at the crack of dawn on Saturday, May 19, and the answers will likely vary from Huh, sleeping? to Watching some British people get married! That’s because, of course, the long-anticipated wedding of “Meghan” Markle (ofSuits fame) and Prince Harry (of ginger fame) will then occur, where the happy couple will exchange vows and smooch for all the world to see at the unbearably regal Windsor Castle. Whether you want to watch it live, record it for later, or totally ignore it in favor of some precious zzzs, television networks are making it easy to watch the big day unfold — but yes, having a cable subscription is advisable. Damn the Yanks! Here’s how to watch the royal wedding.
ABC A special Good Morning America will be dedicated to the wedding, hosted by Robin Roberts and David Muir live from St. George’s Chapel. The coverage will also be livestreamed on the official ABC app and website. Start time: 5 a.m. ET.
BBC America The network will air the entire event with limited commentary, both on its channel and through a livestream on the official BBC America app or website. Start time: 4 a.m. ET.
CBS Gayle King and Kevin Frazier will be hosting a special CBS News report on the wedding, which will also include “special correspondent” Tina Brown. The wedding will be aired in full on the network, and through its livestream on the official CBS app and website. Start time: 4 a.m. ET.
E! Giuliana Rancic, Brad Goreski, and Sarah-Jane Crawford will be hosting E!’s coverage, which will air the wedding in full while peppering it with the trio’s commentary. Start time: 5 a.m ET.
Fox News Shepard Smith and Sandra Smith will be reporting live from St. George’s Chapel, during which time the wedding will be aired in full. Start time: 6 a.m. ET.
HBO Following their smashing success from the Rose Parade, Cord Hosenbeck and Tish Cattigan — or rather, Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon in character — will break out their hosting chops once again for the royal wedding, which will be available to watch on both HBO and HBO Go. Start time: 7:30 a.m. ET.
NBC Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb will be live from Windsor Castle for NBC’s coverage, which will air the wedding in full with the duo’s commentary. It will also be available to livestream on the official NBC app or website. Start time: 4:30 a.m. ET.
PBS PBS will be switching between its own original commentary by Meredith Vieira and Matt Baker, and live coverage of the wedding from the BBC in the U.K. Start time: 4:15 a.m. ET.
MSNBC Joy Reid will be anchoring the network’s coverage of the wedding, which will air in full. Start time: 4:15 a.m. ET.
BritBox The Anglophile subscription service will be utilizing Phillip Schofield and Julie Etchingham for the wedding coverage, which will be livestreamed in full. Start time: 5 a.m. ET.
TLC Hosts Randy Fenoli, Lori Allen, Monte Durham, George Kotsiopoulos, and Hayley Paige will provide fashion commentary throughout TLC’s live coverage of the wedding, which will air in full. Start time: 5 a.m. ET.
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to our entire family, allllllll our elected officials, and local news media. If I replied (copying all the same people) to methodically debunk whatever it was, I would get tons of heat from the family – “Why are you antagonizing him?” Sorry fam, I wasn’t the one who just casually advocated building concentration camps for Muslim people because of 9/11, and also why do I have to do all the “antagonizing” all by myself? Family: “He’s an old man!” Me: He’s an old man who fought Nazis up one side of the world and down the other and he literally knows everything about how this kind of hateful ideology spreads and corrupts, making him an old man who should know better. (While I’m issuing apologies, sorry to all the Massachusetts congressional and media interns who got CC’d on these exchanges between 1998-2011. I used to like to imagine that y’all had a binder somewhere of this old man and his mean uncivil granddaughter, duking it out between our AOL addresses.)
