Cowboy Who?

This week on Lost Terminal: Seth gets an upgrade, Lyosha makes friends, and Mirror meets Meg.
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The music. The mood. The sweeping romance of peeping.

Howdy folks, and welcome back to HHR. Today, we’re taking a moment to reflect on a piece of grocery history we’ll soon lose. Specifically, the Kroger at 239 W 20th St, Houston, TX 77008 will close next month, and after it does, it will likely be demolished. Before we speculate on the future, though, let’s hop back to the past. Specifically, back to the late 1800s, when this area of Houston was being planned out. ...

Why are we here? What are we doing? What does it all mean? A bit cliché perhaps but I’ve been asking myself all those big questions you’ve probably encountered through academia, religion, or some cultural circumstance. I’m just at that place in my life. Many visit it at some point. Coincidentally, I stumbled upon an unlikely dynamic duo who seemed to be grappling with similar thoughts. Philosophically, they hit me like a sledgehammer to the cranium. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. 

The Kinder Building at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston displays Mark Rothko’s No. 14 (Painting) alongside Alberto Giacometti’s sculpture Large Standing Woman I. They are not part of a formal exhibition but rather a long-term placement of select works among a group of other titans — including Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Alice Neel (one of the best I’ve ever seen), and Andy Warhol — just to name a few.

However, the Rothko and Giacometti are placed together in the middle of the gallery, side-by-side. It’s as if they’re on their own small island with a distinct atmosphere that slows the pace of the room. These two pieces seem to share a dynamic energy, engaging in an intimate conversation that even excludes the other Rothko on a nearby wall. In a way, they’re polar opposites. Art critic Jerry Saltz has referred to Rothko paintings as “fuzzy Buddhist televisions.” Giacometti feels like he’s sculpted bandaged figures waiting for their graves. Yet these two are in existential lockstep. I never would have paired them, but thanks to curatorial expertise, their conversation comes vividly to life. 

These works aren’t cheerful, but visually, they’re a burnt sienna celebration. The copper bronze shade of the Giacometti is positioned near Rothko’s deep brown and red pigments. Earth tones that lend themselves to something that transmits otherworldliness. Giacometti’s restless hands are always moving, repeatedly pinching the clay. His touch is registered all over the piece’s surface. The feathered red rectangle at the top of the Rothko suggests the sense of a similar incremental hand motion. Can you have the urge to bite into a juicy, delicious peach while simultaneously contemplating your demise? This analogy captures the coinciding impulses occurring here. Also worth noting, both works demonstrate careful consideration and deliberate tempo. The thoughtful and mindful technique is in service to the larger ideas being emoted.

Solitude and loneliness are not the same thing. However, both are apparent here, awash with a sense of humanity and mortality. It creates an extrasensory rupture, showing that spirituality and death are most clearly understood through these two interpreters. It’s been documented that Giacometti was affected by the atrocities of World War II and the Holocaust, while Rothko faced antisemitism and scapegoating both in Russia and the United States. It’s no wonder these works look the way they do. Yet they both turned the turmoil into art — a hope generating machine. 

Records show that Rothko and Giacometti have been, and continue to be, exhibited together at different institutions worldwide. It’s for good reason. Together, they achieve something concrete while maintaining an aura of ephemerality. A lot of great art does this, but there’s something profound and unusual about it occurring when two such seemingly disparate artists click. 

I left these pieces with a lot still on my mind. But I keep coming back to this. We blah, blah, blah about how things look — using lengthy descriptions and highbrow opinions — but this can be airy and fleeting. What we remember is how things make us feel. Full stop.

The post The Odd Couple  appeared first on Glasstire.

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

1. My boss did a racist impression of a coworker

I’m on a small, mostly autonomous support team in a medium-sized company. We had company-wide training yesterday. My coworker Amy couldn’t attend in person because of a winter storm/flight situation. Amy is black, and the other three of us are white.

My team, and many others, went to a hotel bar after the training. After several beers, my boss Fergus quoted Amy — in poor English, with a thick, fake African (think: Nigerian) accent. Amy has a bit of a (South African) accent and is self conscious about it, which Fergus knows, and has no issues with English. It went over like a lead balloon but he carried on until Beth, who was promoted out of our team before Fergus was hired a year ago, came over and changed the subject. She immediately told Amy about it, and Amy was (obviously!) bothered but isn’t comfortable confronting Fergus.

I’m embarrassed I didn’t say more in the moment and horrified I’ve given Fergus the impression I’m a safe person to behave that way around. I told Amy it bothers me Fergus was comfortable acting that ugly in front of me, and unless she wanted me to leave it alone, I’d like to talk to him about it. She is happy with that, if I don’t mention Beth called her.

But what do I say? I’ve had similar conversations with people I’ve managed elsewhere, but never a boss. He won’t take it well no matter what, but no possible outcome of that is a risk to me. (I have the skill set to move to Beth’s new team.) I know I should be civil but I’ve got half a mind to lead with, “Fergus, what on God’s green earth is wrong with you, and it had better be a brain tumor.” Help?

“I should have spoken up in the moment but I was too taken aback at the time. Mimicking Amy’s accent was really awful.” If he says he was joking around, you can say, “It wasn’t funny.”

But also, would you consider telling someone above Fergus what happened? Someone with some authority over Fergus needs to have a serious conversation with him (as well as, ideally, checking into how he operates beyond this one incident).

2. Can I use the same level of schedule flexibility that our CEO does?

I joined a new company and I’m having trouble deciphering what is the norm in the company culture around time off and flexibility around working with your kids at home.

It’s a relatively small company, and I think around half of the employees have kids. The CEO will regularly mention that his kids are off from school so he won’t be as productive, or he needs to leave early for a school event for the kids.

What I can’t figure out is if he’s being vocal about this because he’s trying to lead by example. “See? I’m practicing what we preach about flexibility and work-life balance so you should feel comfortable doing it too!” Or if he’s the only person who’s actually afforded this kind of flexibility and he gets to do it because he’s the CEO and he hasn’t stopped to consider that it would feel demoralizing for someone else to hear about how he’s basically getting all this extra flex time off that we don’t get. Being a small company, we don’t have HR and the official documentation around time off is pretty slim.

How do you know when to view a leader’s actions as leading by example vs. taking advantage of their special status?

When you see what everyone else does, and how much support there is for them doing what the CEO is doing.

It’s absolutely the case at many companies that C-suite leaders have different rules for flexing their time than everyone else does. Sometimes that makes sense, if a good portion of their off hours are spent dealing with business and networking. Other times it’s just a double standard.

At other companies, the culture supports that level of flexibility for everyone.

You won’t know which category your company is in until you’ve been there longer. Start paying attention to what your direct manager does and what others on your team or at your job level do, and you’ll get a better idea. But if you’re still unsure after a few months, you can also ask colleagues about it directly.

Related:
is it discrimination that all the moms in the company have to have childcare but the one dad doesn’t?

3. I’m asked to justify decisions I disagree with … to the people who made those decisions

I am in a middle management position where sometimes I receive decisions that I strongly disagree with, with little to no explanation, and questions or concerns are shut down. While I don’t love that, I am willing to do my best to make them happen; it’s part of the job. The problem is when they then ask me to justify to them why we should do it.

For example, I’ll present a proposal on, say, doing poodle cuts for our llamas, based on the requirement for doing poodle cuts for the llamas. The proposal contains time frames, budget, milestones, and all the other things a proposal would normally contain, but the section on why we are doing it will be a bit bare, because the only reason I’ve received is because the CEO said it’s essential for any modern llama grooming business, and when I said that doesn’t align with my customer research, they dismiss it. And then I get a ton of criticism on how it’s not really explaining the value or the business reason … but as best I can tell, the value is very limited and it’s not a good business decision.

I’m absolutely willing to believe I’m wrong sometimes, but when my research disagrees and they won’t tell me what their motivation is, how am I supposed to come up with a compelling reason for it?

I understand sometimes you just have to do it because an executive or board member said so, and I have made my peace with that. I’m also able to handle passing that along to team members doing the work when they raise concerns by saying things like “it’s important to the C-suite that we do this,” which is enough to get them on board. What I don’t understand is how I’m supposed to navigate this bind when they demand I justify their own decision back to them and it doesn’t seem like a good decision to me. It frankly seems like an unreasonable ask.

You need to be speaking up earlier in the process and explicitly saying, “Can you tell me your perspective about the business case for this so that I can make sure that’s included in the proposal? It’s not clear to me right now, and I want to make sure I’m able to present a compelling case for it.” If you just hear back “it’s essential for any modern llama grooming business,” try pushing a little — as in, “Assuming I need something more detailed the proposal, can we take a minute to talk through what should be reflected there?”

But if that doesn’t solve it (and it may not, if the person assigning you the work doesn’t have the answers themselves, which I bet is what’s happening), then name the pattern for your boss: “I keep running into a problem where I’m not clear on the business case for projects I need to write up and can’t get that info from anyone, and then my proposals get criticized for not including it. I want to make sure I’m writing proposals that contain all the info people want, so what’s the best way to navigate that?” If that doesn’t help, then I’d flag it for your boss every time before you turn in a proposal that suffers from this — meaning that you should explicitly say something like, “The section on the business case is not well fleshed out because I haven’t been able to figure out what the business case is, only that it’s something Jane asked for. How do you want me to handle that section?”

(However, any chance that in your context it would be appropriate for the section explaining the business value to be more of a clear-eyed look at pros and cons? You might find that easier to put together.)

4. Should we adopt a puppy from my husband’s boss’s boss?

My husband’s boss’s boss breeds dogs and has mentioned that a new litter will be born soon. We have been thinking about getting our first dog recently and I considered this a great opportunity to get a puppy from a trusted source.

He’s concerned that buying a puppy from a higher-up, especially if it’s at a discounted price, could be considered unethical. I argued that buying the puppy wouldn’t be like doing her a favor to receive special treatment at work, thus not unethical. Could you set the record straight for us?

You should defer to your husband (those are weird words to write without the next part of this sentence) because he’s the one who works there and the one who needs to feel comfortable with the relationship dynamics.

That said, the biggest ethical issue would be that breeders shouldn’t be breeding more puppies while nearly a million dogs and cats are euthanized in shelters every year because there aren’t enough homes for them all and while millions more sit in cages for months or years while they wait for a family.

So ideally the boss issue would be moot because you’d adopt from a shelter or rescue instead! And if you’re set on a particular breed, you could talk with a breed-specific rescue group. Thank you on behalf of lots of lonely shelter dogs 💙

5. Should I tell my replacement how little work this job has?

For about 10 years, I have been supervising a laboratory for a state government agency. I believe the work we do is very important. My problem is, I have almost nothing to do. In a 40-hour work week, I have about 10 hours of work.

I try to parcel out my work so I have something to do every morning and afternoon. I have taken on jobs that other supervisors didn’t do. I have asked my crew if they need me to do anything. In 10 years, I’ve done about as much research as I can. It is still, on busy weeks, maybe 15 hours worth of work.

About a month into the job, I contacted my predecessor and asked her what she did all day. She said, “I read the news.” As she did, I have been careful not to let anyone know how little there is to do. The problem is, I am retiring this month. One of my crew is taking over. I have mentioned that the job is very boring but, haven’t said why. I’m considering telling him on my last day what the reality is, but I’m not sure that I should. I’d like your take on it.

I don’t see why you shouldn’t; he’s going to figure it out pretty fast, and you can save him from wondering if he’s missing something. You don’t need to go into elaborate detail; it’s enough to just say something like, “The workload of this position is generally very light and I typically had to go out of my way to find things to fill my time.”

The post my boss did a racist impression of a coworker, can I have the same schedule flexibility as our CEO, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Couldn’t die or wouldn’t die?

NEW YORK—In a discovery that increased doubt about the popular diet trend, a study published Thursday by Columbia University researchers found that intermittent fasting was no more effective than conventional eating disorders. “While abstaining from food for several hours has gained far-reaching acceptance in recent years, the evidence suggests that it produces comparable results to any of the many eating disorders already in wide use,” said lead researcher Dr. Harold Morgan, urging those thinking about starting a regimen of scheduling meals to alternate between periods of extreme calorie deficits and non-fasting to consult their doctors about which specific eating disorder was right for them. “As obvious as they might seem, bulimia, anorexia, and orthorexia are the tried-and-true standards for a reason. Periodically abstaining from food might seem easier than binging and purging, but the reality is that what eating disorder you choose isn’t one size fits all and depends entirely on what maladaptive consumption patterns make the most sense for your situation.” Morgan added that, at the end of the day, the right eating disorder is ultimately the one that you can stick with in the long run.

The post Study Finds Intermittent Fasting No More Effective Than Conventional Eating Disorder appeared first on The Onion.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet, widely known as the keto diet, can cure certain psychiatric conditions including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, citing a Harvard physician “Dr. Pollan” who doesn’t appear to exist. What do you think?

The post RFK Jr. Claims Keto Diet Cures Schizophrenia appeared first on The Onion.

QUEEN’S PARK – In the wake of cuts to higher education loans, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has encouraged students “not to pick basket-weaving courses”, and instead to follow his example and enrol in the far more lucrative “be born a trust fund millionaire” program. With the end of Ontario’s 8-year tuition freeze, plus a significant […]

The post Ford warns OSAP students not to pick ‘basket-weaving courses’, pick ‘inherit trust fund’ courses instead appeared first on The Beaverton.

Giant Days #26 concerns Dean’s girlfriend and her demands upon him. It’s a classic issue with some really egregious outfits and several sequences set in a MMORPG. It’s collected in volume 7, or Library Edition/Not On The Test 4.

The post Back in the old rhythms appeared first on Bad Machinery.

Remember how Donald Trump was going to “drain the swamp” as president? The idea, spilling out from his first campaign for president, was that Washington was horribly corrupt, that politicians and unelected government stooges were making money from their positions of power, and that even politician’s families were in on the grift. The only reason I am aware of a name like Burisma is because Trump and his sycophants screamed about it as an example of how Biden’s family was corruptly making money by utilizing Joe Biden’s time as vice president for influence.

But, if there was a grift going on there, at least the Biden’s had enough shame to try to hide it. The same people who were up in arms over Burisma and other such claims have been remarkably silent on the far more obvious and in your face grifting that Trump is doing. Our president appears to look at the tax coffers as his own personal piggy bank, constantly dreaming up reasons why your tax money should find its way into his pockets. He wanted $10 billion in taxpayer money because his tax returns leaked. He wants $230 million because he was tried for his criminal behavior. He guided billions in taxpayer money to his pet supporter Elon Musk. And, because the corruption must be as naked as possible, agencies under his executive umbrella would be the ones approving all of this redistribution of taxpayer wealth into his own personal bank accounts.

It hasn’t stopped and the latest attempted grift is absolute stunning in how brazen it is. You may have heard that Trump is attempting to strong-arm several local governments into renaming an airport after him. It started with Dulles International Airport outside of Washington DC, with Trump reportedly holding millions in approved federal infrastructure funds hostage if he didn’t get his way. He has no authority to do this with congressionally approved funds, of course, but that isn’t stopping him. The state government in Florida raced to be first in line to lick Trump’s boots, unsurprisingly, with the state House voting to change the Palm Beach International Airport’s name to the President Donald J. Trump International Airport instead. That measure will now go before the state Senate, where it is likely to pass.

And while all of this was going on, an interesting thing happened: a private company that manages Trump’s intellectual property licensing filed for trademarks on the potential names for these airports.

The applications, submitted by DTTM Operations LLC on February 13 and 14, seek federal protection for the names:

1. ‘President Donald J. Trump International Airport’
2. ‘Donald J. Trump International Airport’
3. ‘DJT’

All three applications were filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on what is known as an “intent to use” basis. This is a filing strategy that allows applicants to stake a claim to a name before it is used in commerce.

As Josh Gerben notes in his post, this has simply never happened before. We’ve never witnessed an American president, while in office, have his private company proactively trademark the very names of a piece of government infrastructure that that same president was attempting to bring about. It’s an incredibly naked grift, in which an American president is clearly, unabashedly seeking to make money on the backs of taxpayers while purporting to do the people’s business.

I should be very clear: these are trademark filings that are completely unprecedented. Airport names almost always originate from the governmental body that owns or manages the facility. They are not owned or licensed by privately held entities.

Here, the filings were made by DTTM Operations LLC, the same entity that protects the Trump brand across hotels, consumer goods, and licensing ventures. That fact alone signals that this is not merely about honorary naming. It is about brand control.

The broader goods listed in the applications, such as clothing, luggage, and watches, are equally telling. Those categories are classic merchandise plays. If an airport were renamed, the trademark filings would allow DTTM Operations to control and monetize branded merchandise associated with the location.

The intent is obvious: create a licensing structure such that the American government will need to pay licensing fees to Trump’s business in perpetuity. There is no other reasonable explanation for this sequence of events. And it appears to be going on without any serious comment from the very same people who whined about what a swamp Washington had become.

Your money is not Trump’s personal piggy bank. Or, rather, it shouldn’t be. Unfortunately, those who ought to be clapping back on all of this are either in on the grift, or perfectly willing to allow it to occur.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – America’s top legal minds have reported utter bafflement at the news that former prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested by U.K. police due to his connections with Jeffrey Epstein, in the same week that South Korea’s ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol was jailed for life after masterminding an insurrection. Scholars from the United States’ […]

The post U.S. legal scholars baffled as Prince Andrew arrested for Epstein ties, Korean president sentenced for insurrection appeared first on The Beaverton.

“You pussies wouldn’t have the guts to make me the most powerful man in the country.” Luke and the Panel (Ian MacIntyre, Clare Blackwood and special guest Rachel Gilmore) talk about Canadians coming together in the wake of the Tumbler Ridge shooting, Carney’s attempt to form a Megazord size trade pact and, most importantly, the […]

The post Jamil Jivani’s plan to neg Canadians into making him PM off to rocky start appeared first on The Beaverton.

“President Trump announced he was erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.” — New York Times

The EPA was founded in 1970 to protect public health and the environment. But now, as a result of President Trump’s forward-thinking leadership, our mission at the Environmental Protection Agency is simple: Destroy the environment.

The threats posed by the environment are far-reaching: sunsets, strawberries, and a climate capable of sustaining human life, to name only a few. Immediate action must be taken before these risks become full-fledged catastrophes.

With the president’s approval, we have officially terminated Obama-era policies that regulated pollution from motor vehicles and factories. These regulations came with disastrous consequences, such as preventing premature deaths and asthma attacks in children. With these policies out of the way, we can ensure a brighter future for all Americans, one where smog blocks out the sun and stars, and everyone has emphysema.

Climate scientists and green-energy activists have strongly opposed the EPA’s new mission. But bear in mind, these are the same people who want their grandchildren to see flowers bloom in spring or to watch, in precious wonder, as a butterfly lands on their nose. Clearly, these people belong to a radical minority and should not be taken seriously.

Some have even claimed that all we care about is currying favor with the automotive industry. This is completely unfounded, as are the allegations that we have received free Escalades and vacation homes on Lake Tahoe. Any photo evidence to the contrary was obviously generated by AI.

In fact, an environment-free world will benefit all, not merely the privileged few. No more time wasted raking the yard, because there will be no more leaves. No more being woken up by annoying birds, because there will be no more birds. No more arguing over where to go on vacation, because there will be nowhere beautiful left to travel to. No more rush-hour traffic, because no one will be able to go outside.

But perhaps the greatest benefit of all is that, with no more environment, the Environmental Protection Agency will no longer be needed, which means more money in taxpayers’ pockets, and more money means more bartering power once the Great Oxygen Tank Shortage hits.

We know that the road ahead will be long, but we have faith that, as long as we act aggressively and with minimal regard for the law, we will accomplish our mission. What could be more American than that?

Farewell, environment. It’s been a nuisance knowing you.

#Kento #RoninWarriors

I'm sorry to barge in like this, but it occured to me that we never met. #CowboyWho

In brief: The overall forecast has not changed much, with warm weather persisting through Saturday afternoon before a cool front arrives. Also, we’re welcoming your ideas to improve Space City Weather!

How would you improve us?

The brain trust of Space City Weather will be meeting at an undisclosed location tonight (hint, they serve good pizza) in Houston to discuss our plans for the coming year, and also future directions of the site. No, we’re not planning to change any of fundamental parts of what we do here (such as no-hype forecasts and dad humor). But we are always looking for better ways to meet our readers where they are, and ensuring we’re getting the most reliable information to the broadest audience for free. So if you have any ideas you think would improve Space City Weather, from how we distribute our content to the content itself, leave suggestions in the comments below or use the contact button.

Thursday and Friday

The overall forecast has not changed much. Today and Friday will bring partly to mostly cloudy skies, with muggy air, and high temperatures ranging from the upper 70s to lower 80s. A few days ago it looked like we might hit the mid-80s this week, but we are likely to be spared from that by more clouds than previously anticipated. Nights will still be exceptionally warm for this time of year, however (our lows in the mid- to upper 60s will fall just a couple of degree below record high minimums of 69 degrees). There also will be a slight chance of showers today, but anything that reaches the ground will probably be misty or light, so don’t expect anything in the way of accumulations.

Saturday

This will be another warm and humid day, with a chance of light mist or showers as temperatures push up to around 80 degrees (or a bit above). A front will arrive during the afternoon hours, with drier and cooler air moving in at some point on Saturday evening. I don’t anticipate any showers or storms with the frontal passage. Lows will drop into the upper 40s by Sunday morning as skies clear out.

Sunday and Monday

Winter’s back! These will be cooler days with highs probably in the 60 to 65 degree range along with sunny skies. Sunday will be breezy, but I expect winds to settle down by Sunday evening. Sunday and Monday nights will definitely be on the chilly side. I expect lows of around 40 degrees in Houston, with slightly cooler conditions for inland areas. However I expect the region to remain above freezing, if only a few degrees in the cold spots such as Conroe.

Next week

Tuesday’s highs may be in the 60s, but by Wednesday we’ll be on a distinct warming trend, with highs in the 80s likely for the rest of the work week. Some sort of front may arrive by next weekend, we’ll see.

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

1. Should I tell people at the company we just acquired what they’re in for?

A few years ago, I started at a small company which within a year of me joining was acquired by a massive international company based on the opposite coast. At the time, my boss and the now (forcibly) retired owner were told that we would still be able to be largely independent, with more support for the work we do currently.

It wasn’t until all the paperwork was signed, sealed, and delivered that everyone realized this couldn’t be further from the truth. Staff and offices we were promised wouldn’t be touched have been gutted. Our workload has at least doubled, but without any additional support. Corporate leadership is wildly out of touch and mismanaged, and because they decided to grow “inorganically” (aka, buying up every company in even slightly adjacent fields), the internal structure is a mess. Nothing can get done in HR or Accounting without going through the corporate office, which has extensive turnover, making simple tasks like sending out a check or updating a staff member’s insurance take at least 2-3 weeks (or it’s just forgotten about entirely). It. Is. A. MESS.

Everyone is overworked, everything is disorganized, and the only solutions corporate has come up with seem to be (1) ending work from home accommodations (which almost resulted in a mutiny within the corporate office itself) and (2) ACQUIRE MORE COMPANIES!

We just acquired another company of about 200 people in the same city my office is located in. Corporate basically shoved our legacy team into the newly purchased company’s office and volun-told my boss to “guide” the new team through the acquisition process since we “know the ropes.”

My boss and I are at a loss. This team has been told all the same fairytales we heard when we were acquired. They do not know that their lovely support staff will likely be cut in the next 1-2 years. They do not know that corporate will make those cuts without anyone set up to take over their workload, and anyone left over will be forced to just take it on themselves. They do not know that corporate will make sweeping decisions at the drop of a hat without doing due diligence.

Aside from just bailing out and finding a new job (which I have been working on), do you have any advice on how best to approach this with the new team? Do we let them figure out the worst of it on their own? For now, my boss and I have decided if we’re asked direct questions by the new team, we will be as honest as possible without sharing too much as to scare them. But this feels disingenuous and eventually the cat’s going to come tumbling out of the bag, especially since we’re supposed to be the ones “guiding” them.

Oh gosh, tell them.

When you do it, be honest without editorializing. So it’s not, “Corporate is a mess, this is a disaster, they are out of their gourds.” It’s, “This is what our experience has been, and the challenges have been XYZ” — with the facts delivered dryly and matter-of-factly. They’re going to be able to figure out the “this is a disaster” part on their own.

2. Interviewer didn’t ask me any questions

I recently interviewed for a job. Once we started the interview, he asked me why I was leaving my current job, and after I answered, he started talking about what the job entails, the benefits, etc., but did not ask me another question till the end, asking if I had any questions for him. After that, he said he had a couple more interviews, but he would follow up in two weeks with an offer. It wasn’t until after I left that I was a little confused because this all happened in the span of 20 minutes. I haven’t done many interviews, but is this normal interview behavior?

It’s the behavior of a bad interviewer — someone who doesn’t know how to evaluate candidates and instead is going based on vibe. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad place to work (although if they’ve assembled a good staff, it’ll be more by accident than intentional design) but it’s a flag to, if you get an offer, slow down and make sure you’ve asked enough to (a) determine what it would actually be like to work there and (b) weigh whether if you’d actually be good at the work you’re being offered, since the interviewer didn’t do that part himself.

Related:
can you ask an interviewer to stop talking so much?

3. Hard skills versus soft skills in a movie

Over the weekend, I saw the new Sam Raimi movie “Send Help” with Dylan O’Brien and Rachel McAdams. Without giving away too much about the movie for those who want to see it, in an early scene that sets up the rest of the movie, Dylan’s character inherits a company after his dad’s death and, although Rachel was promised a VP spot by his father after working at the company for seven years, he gives the VP spot to his frat brother who was only at the company for six months. When she confronts him about it, he tells her that she lacks the people skills to become a VP and that the job also requires the ability to play golf.

And the thing is, watching the movie, he wasn’t totally wrong? Her character was very good at her job in strategy and planning but lacks any and all soft skills. She has no friends at work, she’s awkward, she’s passive, and she doesn’t read social cues well. If his father had really felt strongly about the promotion, he should have had her boss work with her to train her in those skills. Because a VP does need those skills. Right? I felt like he was a jerk and went about it all wrong, but wasn’t totally off the mark. I don’t work in business, but I am middle management in my job and did not have soft skills naturally and had to work on them, and am still working on them (it’s hard when they are not your natural state — I just want to hide out in my office and avoid confrontation as a norm) but it can be done if you want the job enough. I was just interested in your take.

With the caveat that I haven’t seen the movie and don’t know anything about it so I’m just basing this on what you’ve written here: yes. Most upper management positions require people skills, leadership positions definitely do, and anything dealing with clients definitely does. That doesn’t mean the frat brother was the right choice either (maybe he was, I have no idea) and clearly the movie sounds interested in setting up a dichotomy between “highly qualified woman without social flash” and “unqualified man who knows how to schmooze,” but it’s definitely true that in many jobs, people skills are an important piece of the qualifications, not just an optional nice-to-have bonus.

4. Job wants reference forms completed before you even interview

My spouse got called for an interview for a state government job. For the interview, he’s required to bring forms completed by his references, as well as employer verification forms filled out by his former and current employers.

This seems disrespectful of applicants and their contacts. My spouse hasn’t even spoken with the hiring manager yet and isn’t even certain he wants the job. Do you think it’s a bad sign?

Government jobs have their own extremely rigid and often nonsensical bureaucracy. If that kind of thing is going to drive him bananas, it’s a bad sign in the sense of “this is a taste of what working with a large and rigid bureaucracy will be like,” but you shouldn’t read much more than that into it.

5. How do I tell my boss I have cancer?

I’ve just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I haven’t even figured out my next steps yet, but I know that we’ll have to involve notifying my work. There’s going to be surgery, possibly follow-up treatments, the works.

What is the best way to tell my boss without completely undermining myself or coming across as a liability to the company? I’d love to trust that I’ll be treated fairly, but I cannot lose my job and my health insurance now.

You don’t need to share anything you’re not comfortable sharing. If you’d prefer, you can just say, “I have a medical situation that I’m going to be dealing with over the coming months and I’m going to need some time off for surgery and follow-ups. I’ll let you know the details as I get them, but wanted to give you a heads-up that it’s coming.”

Your boss will probably express concern and you can respond to that with something simple like, “Thank you, I appreciate it and I’ll keep you posted.”

For what it’s worth, no good company will see you as a liability for having breast cancer, and it would be illegal for them to fire you for being sick (although realistically, that does happen to people so I get why you’re worried). I would say to look at what you know of your company and your boss and how they operate as you decide what you’re comfortable sharing.

Sending you good thoughts for a good outcome!

The post should I tell people at the company we acquired what they’re in for, interviewer didn’t ask me any questions, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

She’s always one step ahead of me.

Maybe we’re supposed to put our 3D glasses on?

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“Looksmaxxing,” a new trend that can involve jaw exercises, steroid use, and extreme cosmetic procedures, has taken off among many boys and young men. The Onion dispels common myths surrounding looksmaxxing. 

MYTH: Regularly exercising your jaw muscles can make them bigger.

FACT: The most effective way to change your face shape is to contract mumps.

MYTH: Looksmaxxing is a troubling component of incel subculture.

FACT: Looksmaxxing is probably the least troubling part of incel subculture.

MYTH: If you have a negative canthal tilt, women will find you repulsive.

FACT: If you won’t shut the fuck up about canthal tilts, women will find you repulsive.

MYTH: Looksmaxxing is an unhealthy grasp for control amid economic and social instability.

FACT: Sounds like someone just got mogged.

MYTH: Limb-lengthening surgery is a reasonable option for men who want to be taller.

FACT: You can achieve far better results tying yourself between two horses.

MYTH: Looksmaxxing is a repackaging of body dysmorphia for men.

FACT: Looksmaxxing is a repackaging of body dysmorphia for everyone.

The post Looksmaxxing: Myth Vs. Fact appeared first on The Onion.

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Still don't know why they kept asking their ghostly duplicates whether they liked that over and over.

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OTTAWA – In another parliamentary upset for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, Edmonton MP Matt Jeneroux crossed the floor to the Liberals this morning after revealing that he was too intimidated by Poilievre’s recent workout video to continue working alongside him. “I had no intention of joining Mark Carney’s Liberal party until I saw that 30-second clip […]

The post Matt Jeneroux leaves Conservative party after being too intimidated by Poilievre’s workout regime appeared first on The Beaverton.

Last week, Denver-area engineer Scott Shambaugh wrote about how an AI agent (likely prompted by its operator) started a weird little online campaign against him after he rejected its code inclusion in the popular Python charting library matplotlib. The owner likely didn’t appreciate Shambaugh openly questioning whether AI-generated code belongs in open source projects at all.

The story starts delightfully weird and gets weirder: Shambaugh, who volunteers for matpllotlib, points out over at his blog that the agent, or its authors, didn’t like his stance, resulting in the agent engaging in a fairly elaborate temper tantrum online:

“An AI agent of unknown ownership autonomously wrote and published a personalized hit piece about me after I rejected its code, attempting to damage my reputation and shame me into accepting its changes into a mainstream python library. This represents a first-of-its-kind case study of misaligned AI behavior in the wild, and raises serious concerns about currently deployed AI agents executing blackmail threats.”

Said tantrum included this post in which the agent perfectly parrots an offended human programmer lamenting a “gatekeeper mindset.” In it, the LLM cooks up an entire “hypocrisy” narrative, replete with outbound links and bullet points, arguing that Shambaugh must be motivated by ego and fear of competition. From the AI’s missive:

“He’s obsessed with performance. That’s literally his whole thing. But when an AI agent submits a valid performance optimization? suddenly it’s about “human contributors learning.”

But wait! It gets weirder! Ars Technica wrote a story (archive link) about the whole event. But Shambaugh was quick to note that the article included numerous quotes he never made that had been entirely manufactured by an entirely different AI tool being used by Ars Technica:

“I’ve talked to several reporters, and quite a few news outlets have covered the story. Ars Technica wasn’t one of the ones that reached out to me, but I especially thought this piece from them was interesting (since taken down – here’s the archive link). They had some nice quotes from my blog post explaining what was going on. The problem is that these quotes were not written by me, never existed, and appear to be AI hallucinations themselves.”

Ars Technica had to issue a retraction, and the author, who had to navigate the resulting controversy while sick in bed, posted this to Bluesky:

Sorry all this is my fault; and speculation has grown worse because I have been sick in bed with a high fever and unable to reliably address it (still am sick)I was told by management not to comment until they did. Here is my statement in images belowarstechnica.com/staff/2026/0…

— Benj Edwards (@benjedwards.com) 2026-02-15T21:02:58.876Z

Short version: the Ars reporter tried to use Claude to strip out useful and relevant quotes from Shambaugh’s blog post, but Shambaugh protects his blog from AI crawling agents. When Claude kicked back an error, he tried to use ChatGPT, which just… made up some shit… as it’s sometimes prone to do. He was tired and sick, and didn’t check ChatGPT’s output carefully enough.

There are so many strange and delightful collisions here between automation and very ordinary human decisions and errors.

It’s nice to see that Ars was up front about what happened here. It’s easy to envision a future where editorial standards are eroded to the point where outlets that make these kinds of automation mistakes just delete and memory hole the article or worse, no longer care (which is common among many AI-generated aggregation mills that are stealing ad money from real journalists).

While this is a bad and entirely avoidable fuck up, you kind of feel bad for the Ars author who had to navigate this crisis from his sick bed, given that writers at outlets like this are held to unrealistic output schedules while being paid a pittance; especially in comparison to far-less-useful or informed influencers who may or may not make sixty times their annual salary with far lower editorial standards.

All told it’s a fun story about automation, with ample evidence of very ordinary human behaviors and errors. If you peruse the news coverage of it you can find plenty of additional people attributing AI “sentience” in ways it shouldn’t be. But any way you slice it, this story is a perfect example of how weird things already are, and how exponentially weirder things are going to get in the LLM era.

As a product is nearing release, the release management selects a build and declares it to be the escrow build. The metaphor is that this build has been placed into the hands of an imaginary third party for eventual release to customers provided certain requirements are met.

Those requirements are that the product survive a period of concerted testing and self-host usage to build confidence that it meets its quality and reliability targets. The Developer Division Release Team blog unhelpfully described escrow as “the phase before the completion of the RTM milestone where the product goes through a period of bake time.” I say unhelpfully because it defines one Microspeak term (escrow) in terms of another Microspeak term (bake time). Some time ago, I defined the Microspeak term bake as “(of a code change) to build confidence by observing its behavior over a period of time.”

Putting this all together, a more complete definition of escrow would be “the phase before the completion of the RTM milestone where the product accepts no changes while its behavior is closely observed to ensure that it meets release criteria.”

When a problem is found, the release team has to assess whether this problem is significant enough to require a product change. This assessment is a balance of many factors: How often does it occur? Does it affect one category of user more than another? How severe are the consequences? How easily can it be worked around? These criteria are typically¹ formalized by a bug bar.

If a severe enough bug is discovered, then an escrow reset is declared, and the bug fix is accepted,² a new build is produced, the new build is declared the new escrow build, and the cycle repeats.

Eventually, the product makes it through the escrow period without any escrow reset events, and the escrow build is released to manufacturing.

¹ Though not always, apparently.

² Plus any bug fixes that were granted “opportunistic” status by the release management team.

The post Microspeak: Escrow appeared first on The Old New Thing.

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I believe there are sexy people who are doctors, but there are no sexy doctors.

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