Cowboy Who?

Whenever SpaceX rockets blast off from the sandy property that Elon Musk controls near Brownsville, the road to Boca Chica Beach—including Boca Chica State Park—closes by order of the county judge (as well as other days when the company deems it necessary). At times, rockets have exploded and showered down debris on public and private lands for miles around. Bits have been discovered in grassy coastal areas identified by officials from the nearby U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuge as the territory of the endangered piping plover, a small shorebird with a distinctive black-striped face.

But for Rio Grande Valley residents, this land is more than habitat for birds, nesting sea turtles, and other wildlife. It’s a longtime gathering spot for Brownville families and fishermen eager to avoid the tourists and towering resort hotels of South Padre Island to the north. It’s also a place that members of the Carrizo/Comecrudo tribe prize as their ancient camping and fishing grounds.  

That’s why more than 2,300 public comments flooded in—the majority negative—when the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission recently debated a proposal to trade away 43 acres of Boca Chica State Park, west of the beach and adjacent to the existing launch site, to SpaceX.  A contentious March 4 hearing attracted dozens of spectators, including three vanloads and more cars full of activists from the Valley who made the five-hour trip to Austin in order to speak for just three minutes each. 

But Commission Jeffery D. Hildebrand, a billionaire businessman appointed by Governor Greg Abbott as chairman of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, told opponents this hearing wasn’t about their SpaceX concerns but about what he considered a good deal.

He and other commissioners unanimously voted to swap the parkland for the possibility of acquiring another 477 acres that’s fully 10 miles away, across the Brownsville Ship Channel and west of Port Isabel, even though SpaceX doesn’t yet own that other property. (The company proposes to acquire the land and donate it later.)  “​​Through this transaction, we are guaranteeing the conservation of 477 acres, which would otherwise potentially be developed into condominiums or strip centers,” Hildebrand said.

In April, only weeks after that meeting, the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, in partnership with the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas and Save RGV, sued the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and the commission for its land swap decision. The groups denounced TPWD for allowing what they called “a land grab of Boca Chica State Park land for a private space corporation that is clearly not in the public interest.”

But giving up or giving away Texas state property is nothing new for the state’s park commissioners. Over the last 25 years, commission members have agreed to swap, lease, give up, or give away thousands of acres of public lands, according to records and news accounts.

In some ways, though, this latest proposed land deal is different: It comes only months after Texas voters approved a billion-dollar endowment fund specifically for state park expansion. In other words, Texas state park commissioners are no longer so cash-strapped that they are forced by budgetary constraints to trade away land in order to grow. “It’s absolutely ridiculous,” Olive Hershey, a longtime environmental activist from Houston, said in an interview. “They don’t have to do this at all.”

Voters overwhelmingly approved the Centennial Parks Conservation Fund in November 2023 as a way to celebrate the state parks’ 100th anniversary. On top of that new billion-dollar endowment, Texas voters had previously approved a constitutional amendment that entitled the TPWD to receive 94 percent of the sporting goods sales tax—another fund that has grown to about $160 million a year.

Neither during their March meeting, nor in response to questions for this article did park leaders explain why they chose not to tap the endowment to acquire property instead of sacrificing parkland to SpaceX.  

Hildebrand is an energy executive used to cutting deals with major corporations. (He is executive chairman and founder of Hilcorp Energy Company and previously worked for Exxon Company, U.S.A, among others.) Supposedly, the new land acquired via the SpaceX deal will be used to build another state park someday.r

In response to questions about the deal from the Texas Observer, a TPWD spokesperson said via email: “The acres proposed for swap are noncontiguous tracts largely surrounded by private owners and encroached on by construction,” apparently referring to construction by SpaceX itself. “Given the breadth of opportunities to expand and enhance Texas state parkland using the Texas Centennial Parks Conservation Fund, this swap providing a ten-time return on acreage offers the most prudent use of public funds for expanding state park availability in Texas.”

Alex Ortiz, an Austin-based lawyer and water resources expert who currently serves as the volunteer water resources chairman of the Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter, is one of many people who consider the swap a bad deal for local residents and wildlife —and bad policy for Texas parks in general. In his formal comment, he wrote: “Approving this action today could potentially risk irreparable harm to Texas’s coastline, endangered species, indigenous communities, and the whole Texas Parks system. Moreover, this decision risks setting a dangerous precedent that large for-profit entities with an appalling history of being a bad land steward and bad for public beach access, like SpaceX, have the ability to slowly chip away at beloved state parks in communities that do not want them to expand.”

TPWD staff have already been authorized to begin negotiations with SpaceX, which will likely involve months-long environmental assessments, though the lawsuit seeks to stop that process. The tracts the state proposes to relinquish are likely visited both by coastal waterbirds and sea turtles, Ortiz said. The larger property SpaceX will supposedly acquire, further inland along a lagoon, likely supports migratory birds and other wildlife. Comparing the ecological value of those two may prove difficult, but, to Ortiz, it all seems unnecessary. “You didn’t have to sacrifice 43 acres of Boca Chica State Park to do this,” Ortiz said in an interview. “This is just bad all around—a bad conservation practice.”

Over the years, TPWD officials, overseen by gubernatorial appointees, have repeatedly cut deals to enable development on current or former state park land. They’ve also traded away state park and recreation land to businesses and other government entities.

In 2019, Port Arthur LNG purchased and donated 1,280 acres near the state’s existing JD Murphree Wildlife Management Area in Port Arthur in exchange for 126 acres owned by the state. Though the math seems to favor Texas public lands, the state land was in an area known as Round Lake, which included sensitive coastal wetlands. A TPWD spokesman said that acreage was already “surrounded by land owned by Port Arthur LNG, which prevented TPWD from effectively managing the lake as it did not own or control the land around it. The company is now developing that parcel for a liquid natural gas port.” 

Other records show that the park officials were cozying up to Port Arthur LNG, even as others were fighting that same project in court as potentially hugely damaging to the already fast-subsiding and often-flooded stretch of Texas Gulf Coast. Around the same time, the project developers, Sempra LNG, a San Diego-based energy company with more than $66 billion in assets, received a 2019 environmental stewardship award from TPWD for its employees’ participation in cleanups at nearby Sea Rim State Park. In March 2023, the company announced a multibillion-dollar deal related to its expansion, which was praised by Abbott. (A Sempra spokesperson did not provide comment by publication time.)

But the financial motivation for trading away other state park or recreational land seemed to evaporate in November 2023, when voters approved the billion-dollar endowment. State parks leaders—who oversee 89 parks, natural areas, and historic sites—immediately pledged to begin a new era of expansion.

The 2023 vote came only a few months after TPWD leaders had been publicly embarrassed after being forced to abandon a popular state park on wooded lakefront acreage that they’d leased for decades from a power company. The property, the former home of 1,460-acre Fairfield State Park, was sold to a private developer after state leaders failed to act on an opportunity to buy. They were given 120 days to vacate after the sale went through. Though state officials belatedly tried to recover the land through eminent domain, they quietly abandoned those efforts in December 2023, losing any chance to recoup trails, picnic grounds, and other amenities built with taxpayer money. Much of that public investment will now benefit new owners: the private subdivision’s developer and its future residents.

The avoidable loss of an attractive park and lake so near the fast-growing Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex attracted plenty of adverse publicity. But Texas park leaders have a long tradition of quietly wheeling and dealing away parkland and wilderness tract.

In 1999, the Legislature amended the Parks and Wildlife code to authorize the transfer of state real estate to local governments because TPWD leaders were complaining that they lacked funds even to address a huge backlog of needed repairs and upgrades in the popular state park system. (Those shortfalls had been created mainly by the Legislature’s failure to allocate enough of the sales tax created in 1994 on sporting goods to adequately support parks.) A series of state land giveaways ensued. 

In 2004, state leaders transferred the hugely popular 517-acre Kerrville Schreiner State Park , originally developed by the federal Civilian Conservation Corps between 1935 and 1937, to the city of Kerrville. Lubbock Lake Landmark State Historical Park, a 336-acre site with archeological ruins, went to Texas Tech University and three other state properties were traded away too in the early 2000s.  

The Boca Chica State Park property was acquired in 1994, but for decades, much of that land was leased back to the federal government to add to the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. That lease ended in December, only a few months before the land swap vote.

Texas already ranks low in state park acreage per capita—it’s 35th among states. (That rises to 28th in the nation based on the percentage of land covered by state and national parks.) And even that dismal ranking is artificially higher than it should be: It’s skewed by the size of Texas’ largest (and most remote) state park, Big Bend Ranch, which sprawls across 311,000 acres along the meandering Rio Grande in a Far West Texas stretch of desert that spans Brewster and Presidio counties.

Texas owns very little parkland along its 350-mile Gulf of Mexico coastline. But this is not the first time part (or all) of a beachfront state park has been threatened with closure or given away. Most of Bryan Beach State Park, 862 acres of beachfront near the mouth of the Brazos River, in Brazoria County, was transferred to the city of Freeport in 2019 (and the rest went to the Texas Department of Transportation for a dredging operation).  

If the 2024 vote holds, SpaceX will soon claim acreage that belonged to one of Texas’ four remaining state coastal parks. Boca Chica State Park, Galveston Island State Park, Mustang Island State Park and Sea Rim State Park. All four have been adversely affected by flooding and hurricanes, but Boca Chica is the only one where public beach access is regularly blocked by private commercial activity. SpaceX did not respond to an emailed request for comment.

The Boca Chica swap won’t happen right away, partly because the land SpaceX proposes to trade is still owned by an Austin-based company called Bahia Grande Holdings, the Houston Chronicle reported. (The owners could not immediately be reached by the Observer).

A TPWD spokesman said, “This disposition process could take up to 18 months and would include an environmental assessment and opportunities for public comment and federal environmental compliance consultations through the National Historic Preservation Act and Endangered Species Act, and with local tribes.”

The recently filed lawsuit may further delay action. But even some opponents worry there’s limited chances left to stop SpaceX’s Boca Chica expansion.

Already, SpaceX has adversely affected Boca Chica State Park and the surrounding area, activists say. Cameron County commissioners have issued a standing order, with permission of the state General Land Office, that allows the county judge to temporarily close off access to public State Highway 4 and the public Boca Chica Beach to allow SpaceX activity. 

According to real-time text alerts sent by SpaceX, the road to Boca Chica was closed on March 3 (the day before the land swap hearing), March 7, March 11, March 14, March 25, March 27, and April 5. 

For Alex Ortiz, that practice poses yet another troubling question: “There’s a constitutional right to beach access in Texas. So it feels different if there’s repeated closures to a beach in a state park.” (The late René Oliveira, then a Brownsville state representative, passed a bill a decade ago allowing SpaceX to effectively undermine the state’s six-decades-old Open Beaches Act.)

To Valley activist Emma Guevara, a Sierra Club local community organizer, it already seems like “SpaceX is in charge.” She says many local residents are deterred from visiting the public beach at all, because SpaceX has so many “crazy beach and road closures.” 

“You have to sign up for alerts and the system is not always accurate,” she said. “Our whole argument is … the more land they get, the more control they’ll have over that area until they have complete control. They pretty much do now because the county supports them.”

Editor’s Note: Olive Hershey is on the board of directors of the Jacob and Terese Hershey Foundation, which is a financial supporter of the Texas Observer.

Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that Texas ranks 35th in park acreage per capita based on state parks alone and 28th including state and national parks.

The post The SpaceX Land Swap Is Only the Latest Texas Public Park Giveaway appeared first on The Texas Observer.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My coworker is bitter that I wouldn’t play a game with her

I (19M) am a college student with a single source of income. Before my shift today, my coworker (18F) sent me a Game Pigeon text out of nowhere. I sort of went along with it, we went back and forth with Cup Pong a few times, and then I started my shift at work. I assumed it was okay to leave the game unfinished until I got off of my shift, but my coworker kept trying to distract me and get me to finish the game. I feel it’s perfectly reasonable to patiently wait to finish a Game Pigeon game until later, but apparently she didn’t share that conviction. She got increasingly irritable the entire shift, even at one point going as far as trying to call me and then leaving a succinct voicemail with just two biting words: “fuck you.” This was the final straw for me and when I decided I was going to draw the line in the sand. I made it clear to her that I wasn’t going to finish the game until I got off work. I politely informed her that I would get off at 11 and that we could continue the game then.

She proceeded to harass me throughout the entire shift and made it clear that I was no longer a friend to her, just a coworker. It was so bad at the end of the night that she wouldn’t even speak to me. I tried to say bye in a cheery voice and she just gave me a blank stare, her lips pursed as she glared at me. I tried a few more times to lighten the mood, but it was clear that she wasn’t gonna bite. She then left and now I just feel bad. Am I the a**hole?

No. Your coworker is a petulant child.

2. Older employees give me basic life reminders

I am a relatively younger manager (early 30s) and keep running into a minor issue when I manage people older than me — they keep giving me advice and reminders like I am not a capable person. For example, when planning a big cross-country move, one gave me unsolicited advice on the best way to pack and lift a box (!). Today, a person I manage reminded me that I need to file my taxes or get an extension if I am not ready (they were done weeks ago).

Answering the question in good faith rubs me the wrong way because I wouldn’t even like this type of “advice” from my mom, but I also don’t want to be abrasive about such innocuous comments. I don’t have any issues with them following my instructions or adhering to my decisions, so it feels silly to be fixated on this, but I also don’t want my colleagues to think I need basic concepts like “file your taxes on time” explained to me.

I would love a script or advice on what to say next time so I don’t accidentally blurt that I have been a grown adult for several years now and don’t need another parent.

Are you a woman and was the box-lifting advice from a man? Because you might not ever cure them of that. But you can try with a dry, “I’ve moved before, thank you” or “I’m good with that stuff, but thanks.”

With the tax-filing advice and similar topics, it might be interesting to think about how you’d respond if the comment came from someone your own age or younger. If someone younger than me reminded me about taxes, it would probably feel more camaraderie-ish than parental — more like “ugh, taxes are due for all of us / have you filed yet / I’m still working on mine” and less like a parental reminder. But even if it’s clear they don’t mean it that way, you could try responding as if they did — “I did mine last month, have you done yours yet?” And responding as a peer might reinforce to them that you are not in fact a child in need of guidance.

If it’s not possible to respond like that because the advice or their manner is so infantilizing, sometimes the most effective thing is to allow your face to pointedly convey “what an odd thing to say” and/or to dryly respond, “I’ve got it covered.”

3. My employee smells bad

I have a team member who has some pretty bad BO (body odor). I’ve had a conversation about it with her, and, without prompting from me, two other team members have politely mentioned it to her. Both times she said she’s had Covid and couldn’t smell much, but also swears she used deodorant and cologne. I even had gotten a new stick of deodorant and put in a drawer I keep hair spray and a few other such things in and told her it was in there if she needed it, just in case it was a financial issue. She said she had sensitive skin and couldn’t use that kind.

Now, I would think that once someone has told you that you stink, you would be mortified and make it a point to handle it, and if not after the first, the second time!? Everyone says she has really bad BO and one other team member in particular is very upset at working with her like that. I hate to write up or fire someone for BO, but what else to do? Is it an offense worthy of such?

It’s reasonable for you as an employer to set baseline expectations that people will show up at work clean and not smelling of body odor so extreme that multiple coworkers have complained. So it’s time for another conversation. This time say something like: “We’ve spoken about this before but it’s continued to be a problem. You might need to wash your clothes more frequently or shower more often, or it might be something medical that you should speak to a doctor about. I know you mentioned you were unaware of it previously, but this time I do need you to see what you can do about it.”

(Obviously if she informs you that there’s a medical reason for the problem, that changes the situation. But unless that happens, it’s reasonable to expect her to come to work with appropriate hygiene.)

Related:
how to talk to an employee about body odor

4. Manager recorded training role-plays without employees’ knowledge

My husband works for a large company at a location managed by Bryan. Bryan isn’t his supervisor or in his reporting line, but he does have the ability to assign him some tasks and can make some decisions that affect my husband as an employee based out of that location. However, all of the other employees at this location are directly supervised by Bryan. He has made some odd management decisions in the past, but nothing especially egregious until last week.

All employees at this location went through a training session with corporate HR and Bryan. They were paired with another employee to act out scenarios in front of Bryan with the HR person joining remotely over Teams on Bryan’s laptop. After everyone had completed the training, Bryan sent out a link to a recording with everyone’s session. No one taking the training had any idea that they were recorded. Some folks have tentatively raised this issue with Byran, but he doesn’t seem to get that this was inappropriate.

People are understandably upset. We live in a one-party consent state, meaning that nothing illegal has occurred from what we can tell. Even so, my husband is surprised that Bryan wouldn’t realize the implications of recording employees without their knowledge. The presence of an HR person over Teams makes this particularly baffling, since they would have received a notification on their screen that it was being recorded. My husband plans to let his own supervisor know what occurred since she works closely with Bryan’s supervisor. Are we correct in thinking that Bryan did something wrong here? And is there a better way to elevate the concerns of employees in this location, given the fact that HR may have known that people were recorded without their consent?

Yes. You don’t record people role-playing without their knowledge. It would be reasonable to ask HR for a clearer policy on recording, one that at a minimum ensures anyone participating in a meeting or training session is aware when something is being recorded. (Ensuring you have everyone’s consent can be more complicated in a work situation since sometimes people’s discomfort with recording is trumped by business needs— but at a minimum people should be informed and have the opportunity to raise concerns if they have them.)

Your husband could also ask that the recording be deleted since it was made without people’s knowledge or consent, but I’d be more concerned about ensuring Bryan is told it was inappropriate and that it won’t happen again.

5. Wearing a swimsuit around coworkers

I just came back from a week of travel out of state for work. Typically when I travel to this location, there are many people from my company who stay at the same hotel so the odds of running into one of your other traveling coworkers around breakfast, in the gym, in the elevator, or at the bar at night is pretty high.

However, this week while I was at said hotel, I was walking by the pool and I thought how nice it would be to go for a swim that evening after all work events and obligations were complete. I did not have my suit with me anyway, but then started to wonder if it would even be appropriate to go for a swim? As mentioned above, the chances of running into someone you work with (including your own manager) in the elevator is pretty high. Assuming that you wouldn’t be walking around the hotel in JUST your swimming suit (wearing a coverup or something), is it appropriate to go swimming (or use the hot tub) while on a work trip?

Yes. Just like it’s not inappropriate for coworkers to see you wearing gym clothes in the gym, it’s not inappropriate to be spotted wearing swimwear in the pool. You’re wearing the right clothing for the occasion.

TAOS, NM—Returning the snacks to the cupboard a few bites before everything in his life would have fallen into place, local man Mario Rossi stopped one Oreo short of successfully eating away all of his problems, sources reported Wednesday. “Well, I’ve certainly had enough of those,” the 35-year-old said to himself,…

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VATICAN—Their excitement reaching a fever pitch as they awaited the supreme pontiff’s appearance for a papal audience, a wild St. Peter’s Basilica crowd grew increasingly fired up Wednesday as they tossed around inflatable crucifixes, Holy See sources confirmed. “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy…

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Researchers combing through a server based in North Korea found animation work for Amazon’s Invincible and Max’s Iyanu: Child of Wonder, including log files that suggest animators in China further outsourced the work to North Korea, unbeknownst to the American companies. What do you think?

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PARADISE, NV—Expressing bewilderment at the utter lack of spectacle during the jam band’s four-night run in the state-of-the-art entertainment arena, disappointed Phish fans confirmed this week that they were really expecting more from the Sphere’s visuals than a projection of the group’s website URL. “Given what a…

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MIDDLETOWN, OH—Shocked by the trove of mysterious compositions, household sources revealed Wednesday that a bench near the piano had been secretly hiding several books about music. “My God—ragtime classics, Disney favorites, A Charlie Brown Christmas—does anyone else know about this?” said one source, marveling over…

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Dear valued customers,

Here at Weird Sisters Soups & Brines, our top priority has always been to prepare nourishing, ready-to-eat soups, enjoyable alone or with the whole clan. After a long day with kinsmen slaughtering foes in an odorous peat bog, there’s nothing like returning to the sod hut and forgetting all your toils and troubles over a bubbling bowl of Weird Sisters Soup. Filled with the eye of newt and chunks of frog toes our customers have come to savor, our soups are always sure to beguile you.

But we at Weird Sisters also understand that we have a responsibility to adhere to the values of society, even when that society consists of grown men running around disguised as forests. While our soups do include blood from a sow that hath eaten her nine farrow, Weird Sisters strongly condemns bloodshed in principle and treachery generally.

With this in mind, we would like to offer our sincere regret for having retained Macbeth as our company spokeslord.

We first hailed Lord Macbeth as the face of Weird Sisters Soups after he, with brandish’d steel, carv’d out his passage against our foes. When thence King Duncan bestowed upon Macbeth a new title, we immediately seized upon a golden marketing opportunity by signing him as: “Macbeth, Thane of Chowdor.”

In our defense, Macbeth’s taste for beheading was limited at the time to rebels from Western Isles and Norweyan lords, which tracked positively among clansmen 18–32.

Despite the suspicious and rather murder-y death of King Duncan, we saw no warning signs that Macbeth, now himself king, was in any way unstable. Thus, screwing our courage to the sticking place and investing heavily in billboards, we furthered our alliance by rolling out our limited-edition Weird Sisters Soup—Macbroth.

It should be pointed out that, throughout what, in retrospect, was a campaign of conspiracy and murder, Macbeth continued to meet his contractual obligations in a professional manner. In fact, Macbeth was integral in the creative process and was helpful in providing such content as “Is this a ladle I see before me? Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, I sup on soup!” and “Whenever my soul is too much charg’d with blood, I relax with a steaming bowl of Weird Sisters’ Gall of Goat, now with even more nose of Turk!”

Was the slogan “M’m! M’m! Dead!” going too far? We realize now it was, and we regret this decision to capitalize on Macbeth’s increasing notoriety and insatiable bloodlust. We could find excuses by saying we have eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner, but in truth, we were thrilled by skyrocketing brand recognition for Banquo Bisque.

We realize now that this was not in keeping with our company’s core values. Rest assured, we have listened to our customers and severed ties with Macbeth, much as Macbeth’s head hath lately severed ties with his body.

Furthermore, we are proud to announce that Weird Sisters Soups has established the Macduff Family Foundation for Not Murdering Brethren and Their Bairns.

We look forward to putting this tragedy behind us, and we hope our loyal customers will continue to enjoy such new Weird Sisters offerings as Malcolm Minestrone and Hot-and-Siward Soup.

Weird Sisters Soups & Brines: By the pricking of our thumbs, something wicked good this way comes!

New book coming this Fall! Pre-order today. Featuring over 200 pages—including 32 pages of brand new comics—Hope it All Works Out! contains all your favorite Mouse and friends comics, along with a selection of my best material from the past few years. In stores September 24! 

Pre-order here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Hope-It-All-Works-Out!/Reza-Farazmand/9781524893897

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This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I genuinely don’t understand how folks deal with the overwhelming guilt of taking time off work. I’ve had this problem since I started working right out of college, and it’s persisted through multiple job and industry changes and multiple PTO policies — from seven days to unlimited — in my over 15 years of work. During Covid, my workplace was understaffed and very strict with travel and PTO, and I felt too guilty to leave even when my grandparents were dying from Covid or when my best friend wanted me to be maid of honor at her wedding. I will never get those experiences back, and I made that sacrifice for a retail job I hated — I had no passion for it, I was a very small cog in the wheel, and I quit as soon as I found something else! (Thankfully, I’m at a job I love now, largely due to your advice.)

As much as I regret every day missing those experiences, the guilt of missing work is so strong that I still find it incredibly hard to take time off even for huge life events or catastrophes, and I delay small things as much as possible to try to stave off some of the guilt. For example, my doctors want me to have surgery that I know would vastly improve my quality of life, but I feel so guilty about taking time off I’ve put it off for over a year. When I do take time off — like my honeymoon last year — I wake up every day with tears in my eyes from guilt and feel sick to my stomach from not working.

I’ve never returned to a work crisis; at every job, there have been people to cover for me. But I can’t stop feeling incredibly guilty for missing work. My parents always say it’s a normal part of having a job, but I don’t want to spend my whole life feeling this guilty all the time. I have never come back to work “relaxed” or “refreshed,” and I’m currently dealing with some burnout because of it. I know I need time off, but I don’t want to spend it feeling worse than I currently do due to the guilt.

I wrote back and asked, “If you had to break the guilt down, what do you feel guilty over exactly? Be as specific as you can — it will help us sort through this.”

It was tough to boil it down, but I know I wouldn’t be able to afford to live if I didn’t have a job. And I don’t just mean fun things like trips and hobbies, I wouldn’t be able to afford food, housing, or other basic necessities. Any time I’m not working during work hours, I feel extremely guilty for taking advantage of my company. I know it’s part of my compensation — just like the money I need to live, but I also know no one would ever complain if I didn’t take any days off (especially since we have a no minimum “unlimited” days off policy). And I definitely hear folks complain about people who take too much time off (and those people are always first on the list for layoffs!).

I’m 1000% more relaxed in the evenings after work or on the weekends than I ever am on a vacation. I know that I put in enough work to have earned my weekends/evenings off, but I’m not able to complete enough work to ever feel like I’ve earned a full day off, much less a week. I feel like if I was just able to do two weeks of work in one, I could take a week off guilt-free without passing all my unfinished stuff to my team. It typically takes two people to fill in for me while I’m out, one of which has to be pulled off of his regular duties completely, so I know me being gone is costly for the company. If I cost too much, take too much time off, or become too inconvenient, why keep me on?

I’m not just feeling guilty for costing the company money but even more so for putting my family’s life and livelihood in danger for relaxation.

You opened by asking how other people deal with the overwhelming guilt of taking time off work, and the first thing to know is: most people don’t feel this way! The intensity of your feelings on this is vastly outside the normal range of how people feel about time off. So there’s something more going on than just a work issue.

But to address the work side of it:

Good managers and good companies want you to take time off. I want people who work for me to take time off because I want them be able to disconnect and come back refreshed — because people do better work when they’re not exhausted and burned out. People see things with fresh eyes and come up with better, more creative ideas when they get fully away from work sometimes (and not just for a couple of days on the weekend, but for a good, long break — at least a week and ideally two). I also want people who work for me to take time off because having you gone means I can better spot where the holes are — where we need cross-training, where we’re at risk of disaster if you ever got hit by a bus or seriously ill because no one knows how to access the X resource or what the deal is with the Y project.

You asked why your company would keep you on if you take time off. That is a really bizarre way to look at it! Your company assumes you’ll take time off, just like they assume you’ll cash your paychecks — it’s built into your compensation, it’s built into their business model, and they’re planning on it. It might be inconvenient to pay you too, but they do it because that’s an utterly routine, non-remarkable, necessary and expected part of how employment works. No one is contemplating replacing a good employee because they take a normal amount of PTO. It would make no sense to do that, because their replacement will also take a normal amount of PTO.

As for people needing to cover for you when you’re gone and getting pulled off other duties: same thing here. That’s a normal part of how this works. If your company is so short-staffed that it’s a disaster when someone’s out, that’s on your company — they’re not staffed appropriately. But it doesn’t even sound like disasters are happening; it sounds like people get pulled in to cover in a very standard, non-remarkable way. Again, this is normal. This is not a reason people get fired or put on layoff lists.

You said you feel you’re taking advantage of your company if you take time off, and that you’d be putting your family in danger. Do you feel you’re taking advantage of your company and putting your family in danger when you cash your paychecks? Like your pay, this is part of your compensation. You’re not taking advantage of anyone by accepting it and using it as intended.

I think you know that intellectually, but something in your brain is saying, “But they wouldn’t complain if I didn’t take it, so therefore that would be better.” So why does “they wouldn’t complain” trump the fact you deserve and have earned time off like everyone else, and that it’s essential to your health and well-being? That part in particular says there’s something more going on here — something a therapist could help you sort through.

That might not be the response you were expecting, but the feelings and responses you describe on this issue (waking up with tears in your eyes and feeling sick / not going when family members are dying or to be in your best friend’s wedding) are extremely disordered. They’re so far outside the realm of healthy thinking on this — and the impact on your life so severe — that it makes sense to bring it to someone who can help you do the hard work of sorting through it.

Some starting ideas to kick around with that therapist: did you learn growing up that your feelings and needs don’t matter? Or that you’ll be penalized if you try to take care of yourself first, or even at all? Or that you don’t have intrinsic value simply as you, but instead need to tie yourself into pretzels to justify being around? I’m not sure where it’s coming from, but you’ve got to dig into it, and that’s where I’d start.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Remember the letter-writer asking whether there was anything they could do about their nightmare workload? Here’s the update.

I wrote in about getting through a staffing crisis after both my coworkers quit right when one of my company’s two owners went on maternity leave. I wanted to make sure that my “this is awful but that’s what all the extra money is for” outlook wasn’t distracting me from anything else the remaining owner could potentially do to help.

My letter was posted in March but I wrote it in January, during what was definitely the worst few weeks of the entire stretch. The owner came back in early February, and I was unsure of how that would go — she can be very exacting, and previously most conversations related to my work went through my supervisor. Turns out it was great! Her number one priority was figuring out what she could to do help me out and what she could take off my plate. By the time my letter went up, things were already much, much better than they’d been in a long time.

The owners were grateful I’d kept things running significantly better than they’d hoped. That was great to hear but also concerning, particularly since at the same time, we were working on two transitions to streamline the business. My biggest concern was that between the “that wasn’t so bad (for us)” relief and the efficiency gains from the transitions, they’d decide maybe we were actually fine with the one new hire we made and there wasn’t any need for another. But when we sat down for a post-maternity-leave state of the union, I was clear that I was only happy if the hiring plan was unchanged, and our next new hire is starting in a couple of weeks.

As things stand now, my workload and stress level are significantly lower than they were even before everyone started quitting, which is great considering the multiple raises I’ve gotten. I can basically do no wrong in the owners’ eyes and they’re really invested in my happiness and my growth in the company. So in theory, when it comes to my self-imposed “quit if it’s not fixed by July” deadline, there should be nothing to worry about.

In practice, I don’t think the owners have learned any lessons about the importance of staff retention, and I’m really unhappy with how our first new hire (who’s now five months in) is being treated. I get all the credit for getting the company through this mess and endless grace for any balls I’ve dropped in the process. There’s no recognition of the fact that our new hire was a huge help and that I couldn’t have done this without her, or that she was a great sport about being hired into a complete mess of a situation, with only me to guide her when I barely had the time or the brainpower for it. She’s taken on so much and made my job so much easier, and the owners extend zero appreciation for that and make her miserable holding her to a standard that’s massively unfair given how haphazard her training has been. My old supervisor used to say she was shielding us from a lot, and I took it with a grain of salt, but now I get what she meant.

So that’s where I’m going to be spending my capital for now. Most of it is that I think my coworker deserves better, but it’s also because if she quits or gets fired, I’m going to quit rather than take on the extra work. I’m gathering my thoughts right now and planning to meet with the owners soon to make it clear that if history repeats, I’m not sticking around to bail them out. I guess we’ll see how that goes, but no matter what I should have a happy update later this year — either I’ll be able to report that they’ve righted the ship, or I’ll be out of there.

Installation view of “THIS SIDE UP” at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Photo: Katy Anderson.

THIS SIDE UP, curated by Sarah Darro at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, illuminates the often invisible practice of art handling. The exhibition features 16 art handler-artists, with work by core artists Vivian Chiu, Willem De Haan, Clynton Lowry and Adam Manley. Uniquely skilled craftspeople, art handlers (or preparators) pack, ship, handle, move, prep, and install art, consistently meeting demands for precision, efficiency, adaptability, and safety. This rare combination of attributes and skills, though celebrated in many artists, is expected of preparators without recognition. Most major exhibitions are only possible because of the ingenuity of these creative individuals, yet their names are rarely included on the wall next to the artists, curators, and donors. THIS SIDE UP struck a chord with me in part because I’ve worked as an art handler since 2016. I know the care, craft, and rigor required, and I have experienced the ways in which our work can feel unseen.

Clynton Lowry, “Art Handler Magazine: Issue 1,” 2015. Cover designed by SARCO. On view in “THIS SIDE UP” at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Photo: Taylor Brubaker.

During a walkthrough of THIS SIDE UP, Sarah Darro shared some insight into her vision for the exhibition and how it came to be. Over the past 10 years, various curatorial roles have necessitated that Darro learn aspects of art handling. Working in this capacity, Darro came to fully appreciate the artistry required of preparators, and her idea for this show has been percolating ever since. It was important to Darro that she mirror the relational networks of art handling communities in organizing this show, where participating artists would recommend others for consideration. 

Installation view of “THIS SIDE UP” at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, featuring “Moving Blanket Jacket,” 2013, “Moving Blanket Sleeping Bag,” 2013 and “​​Issue 2 Printing Plates,” 2024 by Clynton Lowry. Photo: Katy Anderson.

One of the strongest advocates for the art handling community is Clynton Lowry. The conceptual artist is best known for founding and running Art Handler Magazine, a highly visible publication with a large online presence that celebrates and supports preparators globally, calling for better pay and working conditions. Reprinted copies of the magazine’s first two editions are on view in the gallery. In addition, Lowry presents two suspended jackets and a sleeping bag, all fabricated with moving blankets, which are vital to almost every aspect of art handling. The materiality and form of these objects evoke a human presence and serve as haunting reminders of lost labor by skilled workers. With both the magazine and his art practice, Lowry undermines systems of power and exclusion, questioning what and who we choose to value in the art world. 

Installation view of “THIS SIDE UP” at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, featuring works by Vivian Chiu. Photo: Katy Anderson.

Multidisciplinary artist Vivian Chiu acquired and repurposed dozens of 45 to 80-year-old crates for this exhibition. The crates were a gift from Mei Lum, the fifth generation owner of Wing on Wo. & Co, the oldest continuously operating store in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Chiu deconstructed the crates and reconfigured them into vessels that match the forms of porcelain objects they were originally designed to transport. To facilitate this, Chiu developed a system of making that involves elaborate math (done by hand on graph paper), precisely cut angled units of wood, and careful labeling to ensure the units fit together seamlessly. Chiu’s works are in conversation with several chairs and a coffee table that John Powers and William Powhida fabricated using upscaled art crates. Problem solving, system design, and transformation are essential aspects of art handling, highlighted with works by these artists.

Adam Manley, “Quotidian Relic: HCCC.2023.005.A–D,” 2023. On view in “THIS SIDE UP” at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Photo: Taylor Brubaker.

Adam Manley creates reliquaries, which are containers designed to safely support art objects. Where most reliquaries are fabricated for rare and valuable items, Manley creates them for ordinary objects that he thinks should be collector’s items — a dolly, a step ladder, customized hammers, tape measures, or the 20-year-old mop and bucket from the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. His work makes me consider what we value in the art world now, and what will be considered valuable 1,000 years from now, when our current artifacts of industry and culture exist in anthropological museums of the future. I especially enjoyed the moment where John Riepenhoff’s fabricated art handler holds the lid of Manley’s reliquary. This direct interaction between two art objects raises questions about the value of skilled labor in the art world. 

Installation view of “THIS SIDE UP” at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, featuring works by Willem de Haan and Walead Beshty. Photo: Katy Anderson.

Walead Beshty, “FedEx® 10kg Box ©2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, International Priority, Los Angeles–Cheongju trk#77541051370, August 1–8, 2022, International Priority, Seoul–Los Angeles trk#771217397850, February 6–14, 2023, Priority Overnight Express, Los Angeles–Houston trk#774794244580,” 2022–. On view in “THIS SIDE UP” at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Photo: Taylor Brubaker.

In the business of transportation and exhibition design, Willem De Haan created a three-piece luggage set, fabricated in plywood to an airline’s exact size restrictions. It is striking to consider how these art objects would function in different settings — at the airport, they are likely to be thrown around by baggage handlers, whereas in the gallery they are venerated. Perfectly paired with this work is a small Walead Beshty sculpture consisting of a FedEx box supporting a glass cube. The cube fits perfectly into the box and travels from place to place. With no supporting foam or protection, the glass cube becomes increasingly damaged as it travels. This work is poetic, dark, and playful. Any art handler would see the humor in this, as we have all received poorly designed packages with damaged art inside. Both De Haan’s luggage set and Beshty’s glass cube are shaped in part by systems of moving and shipping. 

Installation view of “THIS SIDE UP” at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, featuring mounts by Demitra Thomloudis. Photo: Katy Anderson.

Also illuminated within this exhibition are mounts, carefully crafted objects designed to support artworks and simultaneously disappear. Viewers are not trained to look for or appreciate mounts. Instead, we admire the artwork, which floats, as if by magic. Yet it takes specialized skill and training to create custom mounts such as the ones on display by Jessica Andersen, Galen Boone, Motoko Furuhashi, René Lee Henry, Jessica Jacobi, Seth Papac, Demitra Thomloudis, and Bohyun Yoon. In this exhibition, mounts are celebrated as strange and fantastical works of art in their own right. 

“THIS SIDE UP” exhibition credit vinyl. Image courtesy of Houston Center for Contemporary Craft.

THIS SIDE UP weaves together conceptual art practices, masterful fabrication, creative reuse, problem solving, and specialized skill sets, highlighting the passion, craft, and ingenuity of art handling. Sarah Darro and these 16 artists reveal the magic happening backstage that most people are not permitted to see. Importantly, every skilled worker involved with the exhibition was acknowledged in a comprehensive credit wall, which I believe should become the norm for all art institutions. THIS SIDE UP brings much-needed visibility to art handling communities, and hopefully will be a catalyst for a more equitable art world.

THIS SIDE UP is on view at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft through May 4, 2024.

The post Review: “THIS SIDE UP” at the Houston Center For Contemporary Craft appeared first on Glasstire.

During the Cold War countless Garden Chairs of Solitude perished attempting to reach the West.

HOLLYWOOD – Superhero movie insiders report the upcoming film Deadpool & Wolverine will at long last introduce the long-rumoured nation of Canada to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the MCU has previously been established as the home of Wakandans, Asgardians, and Atlanteans, the film franchise has studiously avoided acknowledging the existence of any country whatsoever […]

The post Deadpool & Wolverine to finally introduce Canada to Marvel Cinematic Universe appeared first on The Beaverton.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
When you add in the Stalin potential it gets really dicey.

Express, which dressed generations of mall shoppers in slacks and blouses, now owns Bonobos and UpWest. It's closing dozens of stores but also plans to get sold to a consortium to survive.

(Image credit: Andrew Harnik)

In brief: Monday will yield an absolutely splendid day of weather in Houston. Like, it will be one of the top 10 nicest days of the year. Tuesday will also see a modicum of drier air before a warmer, southerly flow takes ahold. The weekend will see highs in the upper 80s with strong southerly winds, but rain chances will probably hold off until at least next Monday.

Monday

Do you like dry air, mild temperatures, clear skies, and light winds? Because today checks all of those boxes. After a pleasantly cool start in the 50s, temperatures will reach the lower- to mid-70s this afternoon with light winds. Skies should be mostly sunny, albeit with a few clouds this afternoon. With dewpoints in the 40s, the air will feel plenty dry.

In my humble opinion, this is just about the finest weather one could have—but such things never last. Those light northeast winds will shift to come from the southeast later today, and while we won’t feel the influence of that right away, it will set into motion a prolonged period of a southerly flow, and set the stage for a much warmer pattern later this week. Lows will still get into the mid-50s tonight in Houston, with cooler conditions inland.

Tuesday

This will be a bit of a transition day, as humid air begins to replace dry air, but the swap is not yet complete. Skies will be mostly sunny, with highs near 80 degrees. Winds will be from the south at 5 to 10 mph. With the influence of the southerly flow, lows on Tuesday night will be considerably warmer, in the mid- to upper-60s.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

This will be a trio of modestly warm days, with highs in the low- to mid-80s. We’ll see a mix of sunshine and clouds each day, although each successive day should see more cloud cover and less clear sky. Nights will drop to around 70 degrees, give or take, with decent amount of humidity. Winds will consistently blow from the south, increasing in velocity toward the end of the week when we may see sustained winds of 20 mph, with gusts of 30 mph.

Saturday and Sunday

Those winds will persist into the weekend. We’ll see this deepening southerly flow over the region due to a potent low pressure system over the central United States. This gives us a fair amount of confidence in the forecast for this weekend, and it’s a warm and windy one. If you’re participating in the Texas Bike MS 150 (Saturday and Sunday) or IRONMAN Texas event (Saturday), you can expect temperatures in the upper-80s, generally. Skies should be partly sunny. Both days will see strong south-southeasterly winds, blowing at perhaps 20 mph, with gusts up to 30 mph—so generally a pretty amazing tail wind for bike riders. Rain chances also look low, to non-existent through most of the weekend.

Next week

By Monday we may begin to see something of a pattern change, with slightly better rain chances entering the forecast. While I can’t rule out some kind of front working its way into Houston, right now the most likely scenario is continued warm weather in the upper 80s for much of next week.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I work in a low-level supervisory role for a social service agency. Most of our employees work remotely and are issued desktop computers with a monitor and camera. The majority of these remote employees do not need to be on camera to complete daily tasks; however, when meetings or training sessions occur, “cameras on” is expected.

Recently, I set up a Teams meeting with an employee of seven months’ tenure (“Wynn”) to train them one-on-one for an additional task. As background, Wynn has exhibited some lack of conformity with business norms, including timeliness of response, reliability, and accepting feedback without excuses. This is not a first job for Wynn. I do not have authority to decide what responsibilities Wynn is given or if they require a performance improvement plan. None of their issues has reached “fireable offense” level yet, but they are a long way from being a model employee.

Wynn had some technical issues with connectivity at the beginning of the meeting. Due to that, I said we could continue with our training without requiring them to use their camera. However, Wynn was eventually able to connect their camera.

Once the camera came on, I could see that Wynn was in bed, not propped up on pillows but lying on their belly looking up at the camera. The top of the bed was fully visible and they did not use the blur feature. Throughout the call, Wynn fidgeted and moved all over the bed; sometimes on their belly, laying their side, sitting up, sitting slightly off camera, playing with their hair, face, and clothing, smoking, etc. While I understand everyone has a different tolerance for staying still, it was constant motion. I was also surprised to see Wynn smoking in a training meeting with a supervisor. They did not take notes and the meeting was not recorded.

I conducted the meeting, saying nothing about Wynn’s movements; however, when they moved off of screen I did ask if everything was okay. The level of visual distraction was high and I felt somewhat like I was intruding on their privacy as they were in bed. I would have no objection to seeing a bed in the background, or even part of a headboard or pillow to support the back, but their sprawl on the bed seemed like too much informality or familiarity for a meeting held with a supervisor. To be fair to Wynn, they seemed engaged in the training, answering and asking questions appropriately.

If this meeting included others, should I have handled things differently? What if an external stakeholder or upper management was on the call too? I am struggling with whether or not to handle this as a coaching on professional norms opportunity, but have not been told if this individual might have a medical accommodation allowing them to recline in bed while they work. Am I allowed to ask my manager that question? Also, one would not smoke in a meeting on-site, and it strikes me as somewhat casual to do when you are being trained, even if one is at home.

Was ignoring Wynn’s movements the best option? I admit to a bias in that I find it unprofessional to show so much of one’s bed and smoke when you are working but do not know if they have always done this in meetings with others in supervisory roles and it’s not been raised as an issue.

Yeah, you don’t take work calls lying on your stomach in bed unless there’s something medical going on and you have some kind of accommodation (which doesn’t have to be formal; it could just be, “FYI, I’m having a medical thing and this is the only way I can comfortably take the call, hope it’s not too distracting”).

You also don’t turn your camera on for a work call if you’re going to need to be moving around like that! It’s distracting to whoever else is on the call.

The smoking is weird too. If it were just the smoking, I’d let it go — it’s unprofessional, but it doesn’t sound like you’re Wynn’s direct manager so you could just let that go … but combined with everything else, it’s part of an overall impression of Not In Work Mode.

We can debate whether or not that should be the case. If we were creating a brand new work culture from scratch, hell, I might be an avid proponent of all calls being taken from bed and people not caring about things like smoking as long as they don’t have to smell or inhale it. But we have the culture we have, and it has conventions and norms, and the reality is that smoking on a call from bed while you wriggle around and slouch off camera and play with your hair is as out of step with those norms as, say, coming to work shirtless or, I don’t know, working from a blanket fort.

As for what you could have done in the moment … it would have been fine to say, “I’m finding so much movement distracting, can I ask you to not to do that on camera / would you rather reschedule for another time?” or just suggest they turn their camera back off if that would be appropriate for the context.

As for what to do now … especially given the other issues you’ve noticed with Wynn’s professionalism, it would be fine to mention this to their manager and say something like, “If it happens again, my thought is to say something but before I do, I wanted to make sure there’s not an accommodation in play that I should be aware of.”

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

A couple years ago, I managed an employee who was arrested at work for stealing from a former employer, among other charges. She was put in jail for a considerable amount of time.

She is apparently now out, because I received her resume. I’m no longer at the previous company. I did not consider her, but I noticed that the start date she listed with the company where I managed her precedes the date the company even opened (I imagine to cover her employment when she was working for the company she stole from) and extends a few months from the time she left for jail.

Her resume lists no employer contacts or references. A friend noticed my former company on the resume and called me to find out what I knew. The field I work in is fairly small and I anticipate more calls like this. What is the appropriate response? Do I say simply she would not be eligible for rehire? Do I mention that I have seen her resume and it is not entirely accurate? Do I mention that I saw her arrested for theft from her employer or even tell them to make sure they do background checks?

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

• Should you let someone know you’re reporting them to their manager?
• Can I ghost my former colleague?

JERSEY CITY—Lurking ominously as her unsuspecting prey lay naked with his clothes strewn at the foot of the bed, local man Greg Jensen’s girlfriend peeked up over his torso during a blow job Monday like a gator in the bayou. According to terrified sources, Jensen’s girlfriend, much like an amphibious killer roaming…

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Lumen, the company that supports 911 some emergency call services, stated that the outages in Nevada, South Dakota, and Nebraska that left callers unanswered were caused by a “fiber cut” during the installation of a light pole. What do you think?

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