I am a mid-level supervisor for a state government agency. While I directly supervise several employees, about half of the employees in my section directly report to my manager, “Michael.” He, in turn, reports to “David” and “Jan,” who are the chief and the second-in-command. There are several other sections within our agency that do separate work, and those sections have their own corresponding Michaels, who also report to David and Jan.
Hypothetically (I do not have any plans to do this currently), given the fact that I supervise some employees, would it be inappropriate for me to organize a Bible study, book club where we read a religious book, etc., which would occur, say, over lunch?
On the one hand, my religion is extremely important to me and my religious beliefs aren’t exactly a secret. (For example, I told a coworker who lost a family member that I would pray for them, because I know they follow the same religion as me.)
However, I would not want anyone, especially those I supervise, to think that their participation (or lack thereof) in this sort of activity is being encouraged by me by virtue of my position. That is, I wouldn’t want there to be any pressure for people to participate because someone in management is doing it. Does the fact that I only supervise a handful of people when there are well over 100 employees in our agency, many of whom do entirely separate work from me, make a difference?
No, a manager should not organize any kind of religious discussion at work. No matter how sincere you are in saying that people who attend wouldn’t get favorable treatment from you, some of your staff will still worry that they will and/or will feel pressured to participate and/or will find it unfair that people are getting extra networking opportunities with you based on a shared religious practice. And frankly, it would be unfair — that is an extra networking opportunity with you, and it shouldn’t be open only to people willing to talk about religion with you (or be based around religion at all).
2. Can I ask an interviewer about their terrible customer reviews?
After being laid off a month ago, I’m in the early stages of interviewing for a learning and development role at a midsize corporation. Unlike my last job, where I was creating customer-facing trainings, this role would entail creating internal trainings on a wide range of topics, which is much more aligned with my long-term career goals. However, when I was researching the company, I discovered that the service the company provides garners VERY low customer ratings (as in, 1.4 stars on Google reviews and Yelp and an enormous pile of Better Business Bureau complaints). While of course I realize that these online reviews don’t reflect the good experiences (there must be some, right?), I was appalled by some of the claims people were making.
Right now, I’m leaning toward not moving forward in the interview process, as I’m not desperate for a job (yet!) and I am reluctant to work for a company that seems to have no compunction about scamming its customers. But there is a part of me that is curious as to how they would respond if I asked them about those reviews — I mean, maybe they’re working to address the issues. I have been considering asking something like, “I have seen some online reviews where customers are really unhappy with Company’s services. I know that people who are happy with Company aren’t likely to go online to rave about it, but I was wondering what steps Company takes to address customer feedback and how your customer service reps fit into the vision you have for the L&D team.” Or something along those lines. Is that totally unhinged? Should I just cut and run now?
It’s not unhinged at all. That’s a pretty normal question to ask in this context, and they’ve probably been asked it before! They’re aware of their reviews, and they’re aware (some) candidates will be too. Your wording isn’t particularly aggressive or adversarial; it’s reasonable.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t cut and run. But if you’d otherwise be interested in the job, go to the next interview and ask.
3. Should I tell a former coworker that someone is talking smack about them?
I had a job recently where we were a team of seven, including the system admin, Amanda. Her attendance was sporadic, but didn’t really affect the rest of us. I felt like whatever arrangements she had with our team’s leadership were none of our business.
The front-end guy, Kevin, and I talked regularly, and he’d often talk junk about her. He’d regularly make comments to me like, “Well, what the hell does Amanda do all day? Why don’t we see her on X date?” It made me uncomfortable because neither of us was Amanda’s supervisor and I felt it was none of our business as it didn’t affect our jobs in the slightest.
Now that I’m no longer there, should I warn Amanda that Kevin was talking junk about her? Why or why not? Does it make a difference if I got fired for an unrelated reason? (It was my fault, and I own it.)
Are you close with Amanda and do you consider her a friend? If so, sure, you could go ahead and tell her — if you think she needs to know that Kevin is potentially stirring up drama that could affect her. If you’d just be telling her on principle and not because it potentially could have repercussions for her, then no; in that case I’d leave it alone since there’s no point in getting involved when you’re not even there anymore.
And if you’re not close with Amanda, then there’s nothing to do. You’re no longer there and that office’s issues don’t need to take up any space in your brain (and it risks coming across as odd and drama-stirring to contact someone you’re not close to after leaving to share something like this).
4. Expected to show up in person even when we don’t need to
I’m a teacher in an independent school, and I love my job, for many reasons. However, my colleagues and I get frustrated by the administration’s expectations regarding our working hours. Like essentially all teachers, we work quite a bit outside of school hours; we work before school, after school, evenings, weekends, and on breaks. That’s just part of being a teacher. We are salaried, and sometimes we are required to stay after school or be at school in the evening for meetings, events, Parents’ Nights, graduations, etc. Also part of the job.
What’s frustrating is that the administration and HR tell us that we have to be on campus for a particular eight hours a day (even when not teaching) and sometimes even on days with no classes or meetings. As teachers, we are a pretty highly educated bunch; most have advanced degrees and could earn a lot more in other industries. It feels kind of disrespectful of our time and dedication for us to be told that we have to be on campus when nothing is scheduled, and it feels inconsistent with other jobs for salaried professionals. What are your thoughts?
Yes, it’s disrespectful of your time, your obvious commitment to the work, and the amount of additional hours you put in over and above a normal work week. It’s also pretty par for the course in teaching, unfortunately, which is still very much a “you need to be in the building to be seen to be working” culture from what I understand.
5. Is it legal for a job ad to set a limit on years of professional experience?
I recently read on your site that requiring someone to be a recent graduate could quality as age discrimination. I’ve seen a company director posting a job on LinkedIn (not an ad, a post from their regular profile) saying the job only accepts people with a maximum amount of professional experience of five years. This is in the U.S., so doesn’t this open them up to age discrimination? While they work in an field I’m not interested in, I am nearing 50 with decades of “professional experience” and it really sounds like it is a statement of “old people need not apply.”
Yes, it absolutely opens them up to liability for age discrimination. I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t find that language in the actual HR-approved ad (because they know better) and this guy, in writing his own message, let the truth about who they prefer slip out.
TORONTO, ON – Ontario Premier Doug Ford was on hand as he and other school administrators broke ground on the new FanDuel Toronto Primary School for students in Junior Kindergarten to Grade 8 in the Sugar Wharf community. Named after the sponsor and primary funder of the school, “FanDuel Primary”, as it has come to […]
Hovertext: During the book tour of A City on Mars, I did a talk with Randall Munroe in NYC, and he made, impromptu, a better joke than any of us have committed to paper. During a discussion of whether you could eliminate all life on Earth for a reasonable price, a person asked if there might be a way you could specifically annihilate Queens. To which he replied, 'regicide?'
[This was posted on Patreon last week, I realise some of you aren’t signed up to the free tier where you get the newsletters – sorry for the repeat if you do.]
From late April I am taking a two-month sabbatical from work. The long and the short of it is that I’ve completely worn myself out. About a month ago I realised I was going to have to take a serious, actual break. Usually, I get a second wind, a wind which on this occasion was not forthcoming. A friend got me to write down everything I’d done in the last two-and-a-half years, and it was ludicrous. It looked like four years work, if not more. Their words: “this reads like a really great death warrant”.
For a one-man show run by someone who lives alone, this is a serious decision. “Never give your readers a jumping-off point,” as I like to tell people. But my health is starting to suffer, so it’s best not to let things get catastrophic.
The next Solver story is finished, completing Volume 2, and will run throughout my break. After that, I’m going to re-run Murder She Writes (with commentary i.e. “mirthful asides”), Monday-Thursday for eight weeks. Not ideal, but I believe it’s been off the website for more than a decade, and it’s been titivated for a 15th anniversary reprint. Re-running it on badmachinery.com probably removes the need for a reprint, we shall see.
Patreon updates will continue, I have plenty in the queue, including a process zine that reprints a whole A4 notebook full of story notes and drawings. It is hefty.
My webcomics career has had phases – Bobbins, Scary Go Round, Bad Machinery, the various nostalgic excursions during my time writing Giant Days every month, and the pandemic and post-pandemic stage of Steeple, Solver and various glossy minis, created full US-format comic style. Six years seems to be about the structural limit of any of these broader projects for me, and I’m ready to rethink my approach, which is near-impossible when I’m in full production mode (which for nearly six years has been all the time).
So, once I feel like myself again, I’ll start thinking about how to go forward. I don’t know if anything will change, a rest might be enough. But I’m too tired right now to think about what I want to do. I don’t know what comes next, and in a way, that’s liberating. I have a lot of unused story ideas on the board – years’ worth. I don’t want to throw them away. And I love making comics. I hope that still comes through.
WASHINGTON—Smiling vacantly while the FBI director rattled off classified information over thumping EDM music, local bottle girl Tanya Page reportedly nodded along early Friday morning as Kash Patel screamed state secrets in her ear. “Yeah so we’re actually invading Pakistan soon! Nobody is supposed to know that, pretty cool, right?” said Patel, spilling his Don Julio as the bottle girl feigned interest in his long, rambling story. “I can tell you’re trustworthy, so I’m going to show you some videos of how the FBI actually killed Martin Luther King Jr., check it out! God, you’re so pretty. Do you want to get out of here and go somewhere more private, how about the real Area 51? Here, take the FBI corporate card, go get us another round, and when you come back I’ll tell you all the people in the world who are secretly pedophiles that nobody else knows about. It can be our little secret.” At press time, Page was reportedly thinking about what she was going to have for dinner later as Patel was explaining how the government has been funneling money into the KKK.
WASHINGTON—Lowering their sunglasses for a better look at the massive honkin’ caboose, the entire U.S. populace was reportedly enthralled Friday by an adult man with a huge, juicy ass. “That middle-aged man has an absolute bakery back there,” said Harlan Davis, 33, echoing the sentiments of 340 million Americans who could not look away from the prodigious dumper. “My God, that curvaceous rear is hypnotic. There’s no way he can buy his pants off the rack. Forget about a quarter—you could bounce a full half dollar off that thing. I want to cry that rump is so beautifully plump.” At press time, the nation began to drool as the man bent over to pick up a pen.
COLUMBIA, MO—Growing increasingly irate that the new customer base had actually made the place profitable, regulars of local dive bar The Drunken Rooster were reportedly upset Friday after the business had become popular enough to be financially solvent. “This place used to be cool and underground, man. Now they have so many people in here they’re probably going to be in the black this quarter,” said regular Emily Knapp, lamenting that the watering hole had become so in fashion that the bathrooms were no longer the disgusting and filthy as she had grown to love all these years. “Now that it’s not a huge economic drag on the owners, the place has lost all its character. Sure there were code violations everywhere, and there were massive fire hazards all over the place, but now the life is completely gone. I don’t even have to keep an eye on my drink with this new clientele. What a bummer.” Knapp went on to bemoan the fact that the bar had become successful enough to actually start paying the bartenders a livable wage.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a directive lifting the requirement that U.S. service members receive the flu vaccine, citing “medical autonomy.” What do you think?
“I hope the enemy will take the time to say ‘bless you.’”
Alejandro Cortez, Paint Consultant
“Well, we didn’t recruit them to live.”
Kara Lim, Chandelier Hanger
“Some soldiers fight better with active diarrhea.”
Nearly 4,400 fewer U.S. teens and young adults died by suicide than projected in the first two-and-a-half years of the 988 mental health crisis hotline, a sign the program is working even as it faces long-term funding challenges.
“Hi, my name is [NAME], and I’m a constituent from [CITY, ZIP].”
Here, you will let out an extremely long, exasperated sigh. Really milk it, like you can’t even believe you have to make this call. Like, your reps should be doing something about stuff already, without you having to take time out of your busy day to tell them that you’re a voter who votes and will vote for somebody else if they don’t get off their ass already. You’ll vote for anybody, as long as it’s not them. Maybe you’ll even primary them yourself; that’s how deep and exasperated this sigh should be. You should sigh for about as long as it takes to read this entire paragraph. I should have warned you to take a really deep breath. If you’re light in the head or dizzy or your vision is going black or something, I’m sorry. If you’re done reading and also still conscious, you can move on to the next part of this script.
“I mean…”
You’re just going to let this sit for a while. Silence is a powerful weapon when making your voice heard. It’s almost as much about what you don’t say as what you do say. This allows your listener to fill in the blanks with their own information from their subconscious mind. When your rep starts filling things in with their own subconscious, they start using examples that actually mean something to them instead of just tuning you out and pretending to listen while thinking about the hot insider-trading tip they just got. If you say something out loud, you may accidentally mention one of the terrible things going on in the world that they agree with (or have received donations that force them to act like they agree with). After all, they didn’t become a member of Congress by not agreeing with / being paid to pretend they agree with at least a few terrible things. You don’t want to do that, because then they will dismiss you and your opinions (unless you have a lot of money to donate to them, but if that were the case, you wouldn’t need this script). Still, if you don’t say anything at all and just act pissed off, and like it’s obvious that they should know why you’re pissed off, they’re going to start thinking about all the bad things they know they should be doing something about, and then they’re going to start feeling bad. And that’s what we want, for them to feel bad.
“… come on.”
“Come on” is a real gut punch when dealing with the specific type of asshole who thinks they’re important enough to represent a whole constituency of varied individuals with vastly different needs. “Come on” implies that they know better, that they are better, and that they’re performing beneath their full capabilities. Are they actually “better” than their current performance would indicate? Of course not. If they were, we wouldn’t be making this call. What we’re doing here is activating their mommy or daddy issues and making them think long and hard about living up to the potential they believe they have because one of their parents planted it in their minds long ago as a way to make up for not living up to their own potential and passing that down to the next generation.
“I thank you for your time and for your service to the United States of America.”
It is important to practice your delivery of this line before making your call. You want to land in the sweet spot of sounding a little sarcastic but also somewhat sincere. Again, we want them to be questioning themselves, their motives, their actions, and most of the decisions they’ve made in their lives that lead them to this point. Try to channel that one friend you have who tells you that you can pull off wild outfits or accessories, and you believe them in the moment, but then, when you wear that stuff out in public, you feel like a fool who has been pranked by someone who is not really their friend. Thanking them for their “service to the United States of America” should make them feel proud at first, like they think, “Yeah, I do serve the United States of America, that is me, I serve my country,” but then after a few minutes, the weight of that responsibility starts to bear down on their shoulders and they start to think about what that really means and whether they are living up to the promises they have made to themselves and others.
“I love you.”
We want to keep them on their toes, so say this like you mean it, not like you just accidentally called your supervisor at work “mom.”
Finally, with whatever time you have remaining in your message, sing the chorus of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” with all your heart. If you get cut off before you finish, call back and sing whatever you had left to complete, even if it’s just a few words, even if it’s just the letter “A” in the final “God Bless the USA.”
A newly passed law will prohibit the sale of tobacco products to U.K. residents who are under 18 and anyone born in the future, raising the minimum age of purchase by one year every year going forward. What do you think?
“My baby is pissed.”
Claire Marquez, Bacon Curer
“How long until the whole world forgets smooth flavor?”
Aiden McCall, Talisman Seller
“Thank God I’m from a country that doesn’t care about my health.”
VATICAN CITY—In a wild and sacred competition attended by a screaming, raucous crowd of Catholic religious leaders at Saint Peter’s Basilica, hot young priests were soaked in holy water Friday during the Vatican’s annual Wet Vestment Contest. “All these hunky, muscular clergymen, who are just absolutely drenched in Holy Water and showing everything through those thin cassocks, prove that God is calling us and opening our hearts,” said 93-year-old Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, adding that the young priests’ usually concealed, rock-hard six-packs were on full display to the grateful crowd. “When Father Thomas ripped open his see-through frock then dropped to his knees and started sucking on his crucifix, the place just went nuts. The Lord is working through Father Thomas to raise our spirits and a whole lot more. His rock-hard, glistening body is a precious gift from God.” At press time, Cardinal Bertone was taking a body shot of the Blood of Christ from a competitor’s navel.
ALT
