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06 Feb 14:58

Pluralistic: Justin Key's "The Hospital at the End Of the World" (04 Feb 2026)

by Cory Doctorow


Today's links


The Harpercollins cover of Justin Key's 'Hospital at the End of the World.'

Justin Key's "The Hospital at the End Of the World" (permalink)

Justin C. Key is one of the most exciting new science fiction writers of this decade and today, Harpercollins publishes his debut novel, The Hospital at the End of the World:

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-hospital-at-the-end-of-the-world-justin-c-key?variant=43822999928866

I've followed Key's work for more than a decade, ever since I met him as a student while teaching at the Clarion West writers' workshop in Seattle. At the time, Key impressed me – a standout writer in a year full of standouts – and I wasn't surprised in the least when Harpercollins published a collection of his afrofuturist/Black horror stories, The World Wasn't Ready For You, in 2023:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/19/justin-c-key/#clarion-west-2015

This is virtually unheard of. Major genre publishers generally don't publish short story collections at all, let alone short story collections by writers who haven't already established themselves as novelists. The exceptions are rare as hell, and they're names to conjure with: Ted Chiang, say, or Kelly Link:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/13/the-kissing-song/#wrack-and-roll

But anyone who read World Wasn't Ready immediately understood why Key's work qualified him for an exception to this iron law of publishing. Key is an MD and a practicing psychiatrist, and he combines keen insights into personal relations and human frailty with a wild imagination, deep compassion, and enviable prose chops.

Hospital at the End of the World is Key's first novel, and it's terrific. Set in a not-so-distant future in which an AI-driven health monopolist called The Shepherd Organization controls much of the lives of everyday Americans, Hospital follows Pok, a young New Yorker who dreams of becoming an MD. Pok's father is also a doctor, famous for his empathic, human-centric methods and his scientific theories about the role that "essence" (a psychospiritual connection between doctors and patients) plays in clinical settings.

The story opens with Pok hotly anticipating an acceptance letter from The Shepherd Organization, and the beginning of his new life as a medical student. But when word arrives, Pok learns that he has been rejected from every medical school in the TSO orbit. In desperate confusion, he works with shadowy hackers in a bid to learn why his impeccable application and his top grades resulted in this total rejection. That's when he learns that someone had sabotaged his application and falsified his grades, and, not long thereafter, he learns that the saboteur was his father.

To make things worse, Pok's father has fallen grievously ill – so ill, in fact, that he ends up in a Shepherd Organization hospital, despite his deep enmity for TSO and its AI-driven practice of medicine. Pok doesn't accompany his father, though – he has secured a chance to sit a make-up exam in a desperate bid to get into med school. By the time he is finished with his exam, though, he learns that his father has died, and all that is left of him is an AI-powered chatbot that is delivered to Pok's apartment along with a warning to flee, because he is in terrible danger from the Shepherd Organization.

Thus begins Pok's tale as he goes underground in a ubiquitous AI surveillance dystopia, seeking sanctuary in New Orleans, hoping to make it to the Hippocrates, the last holdout from America's AI-based medicine and surveillance dystopia. Pok's father learned to practice medicine at Hippocrates, and had urged Pok to study there, even securing a full-ride scholarship for him. But Pok had no interest in the mystical, squishy, sentimental ethos of the Hippocrates, and had been determined to practice the Shepherd Organization's rigorous, cold, data-driven form of medicine.

Now, Pok has no choice. Hitchhiking, hopping freight cars, falling into company with other fugitives, Pok makes his way to New Orleans, a city guarded by tall towers that radiate energy that dampens both the punishing weather events that would otherwise drown the city and the data signals by which the Shepherd Organization tracks and controls the American people.

This is the book's second act, a medical technothriller that sees Pok as an untrusted outsider in the freshman class at Hippocrates med school, amidst a strange and alarming plague that has sickened the other refugees from TSO America who have taken up residence in New Orleans. Pok has to navigate factions within the med school and in New Orleans society, even as he throws himself into the meat grinder of med school and unravels the secrets of his father and his own birth.

What follows is a masterful and suspenseful work of science fiction informed by Key's own medical training and his keen sense of the human psyche. It's one part smart whodunnit, one part heist thriller, and one part revolutionary epic, and at its core is a profound series of provocations and thought experiments about the role that deep human connection and empathy play in medical care. It's a well-structured, well-paced sf novel that probes big, urgent contemporary themes while still engrossing the reader in the intimate human relations of its principals. A wonderful debut novel from a major new writer.`

Hey look at this (permalink)


A shelf of leatherbound history books with a gilt-stamped series title, 'The World's Famous Events.'

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago AOL/Yahoo: our email tax will make the net as good as the post office! https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/technology/postage-is-due-for-companies-sending-email.html

#20yrsago Volunteers ferry 15k coconuts every day to Indian temple http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4677320.stm

#15yrsago Wikileaks ACTA cables confirm it was a screwjob for the global poor https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/secret-us-cables-reveal-acta-was-far-too-secret/

#10yrsago Laura Poitras’s Astro Noise: indispensable book and gallery show about mass surveillance https://www.wired.com/2016/02/snowdens-chronicler-reveals-her-own-life-under-surveillance/

#10yrsago How to prepare to join the Internet of the dead https://archive.org/details/Online_No_One_Knows_Youre_Dead

#10yrsago Who funds the “Millennials Rising” Super PAC? Rich old men. https://web.archive.org/web/20160204223020/https://theintercept.com/2016/02/04/millennials-rising-super-pac-is-95-funded-by-old-men/

#10yrsago They promised us a debate over TPP, then they signed it without any debate https://www.techdirt.com/2016/02/03/countries-sign-tpp-whatever-happened-to-debate-we-were-promised-before-signing/

#5yrsago Stop the "Stop the Steal" steal https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/04/vote-machine-tankies/#ess

#5yrsago Organic fascism https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/04/vote-machine-tankies/#pastel-q

#5yrsago Ron Deibert's "Chasing Shadows" https://pluralistic.net/2025/02/04/citizen-lab/#nso-group

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

A photo of me onstage, giving a speech, pounding the podium.


A screenshot of me at my desk, doing a livecast.

Recent appearances (permalink)


A grid of my books with Will Stahle covers..

Latest books (permalink)


A cardboard book box with the Macmillan logo.

Upcoming books (permalink)

  • "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

  • "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

  • "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

  • "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026


Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America (1011 words today, 21655 total)

  • "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

  • "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

  • A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

06 Feb 14:22

Texas law barring state investment in firms boycotting fossil fuels declared unconstitutional

by Ayden Runnels
A judge ruled Senate Bill 13, passed in 2021, violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The law prevented state investments in firms it deemed as boycotting oil and gas companies.

View attached file (20250318-Cornyn-Oilfield-EH-37.jpg?fit=1024%2C682&quality=89&ssl=1, image/jpeg)
06 Feb 03:52

21.1 - There is no place like home

This week on Lost Terminal: Lyosha starts a new hobby, Arctica makes a discovery, and Seth schedules a meeting.
Lost Terminal will return next week!

📓 Free transcript: https://www.patreon.com/posts/149944020
🎵 Today's SIGNAL is: https://namtao.bandcamp.com/track/phosphene-4
🦣 Mastodon https://namtao.com/@lostterminal
📝 Tumblr https://lostterminalpod.tumblr.com
🎙️ Recorded using a RODE NT-1 v5 USB in 32-bit float, edited with REAPER on Linux

🙏 CREDITS
  • Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer

❤️ Thank you so much to everyone who supports me, but especially my Patreon Producers:
  • Ada Phillips
  • Kit
  • Mike McCaffrey
  • Jade Felicity Bilkey
  • Stephen McCandless
  • Mike Schneider
  • Catoxis
  • SoXX
View attached file (12.6 MB, audio/mpeg)
05 Feb 20:55

Houston’s weather forecast: That 70s edition

by Eric Berger

In brief: Our forecast is fairly straightforward for the next 10 days, with most every day having high temperatures in the 70s. So we’re having a little fun today by paying homage to the music from that era.

That 70s weather

After today Houston appears likely to experience a string of days with temperatures in the 70s, and our weather will enter something of a Goldilocks zone—not too hot, not too cold. As a result, we thought we’d mix things up today by adding a splash of 70s hit songs to our forecast. So as you head into the weekend, be sure and Take it Easy.

Image of 1970s era Houston generated by ChatGPT.

Thursday

If you’re waiting for the 70s era to kick off in terms of temperatures, today’s a day for simply Stayin’ Alive. That’s because high temperatures won’t get into the 70s, but rather will settle into the low- to mid-60s for highs. But there won’t be that chilly wind we saw on Wednesday, and as a result it should feel a little warmer and more Happy outside. Lows tonight will be warmer as well, likely only briefly falling below 50 degrees as the airmass over our region moderates.

Friday

As Rocky Mountain High pressure builds across Texas, this will be a mild, sunny day with high temperatures in the low-70s. Winds will be from the west at about 10 mph. Lows on Friday night will drop to around 50 degrees in Houston.

Saturday

This will be just about a perfect day, with highs in the mid-70s, sunny skies, low humidity, and light winds. This is the weather Dreams are made of.

Sunday

This will be mostly a Blue (sky) Sunday. However, the southerly flow becomes a little more pronounced, we will probably see a few more clouds. Still, this will be a pleasant day with modest southerly winds. I recommend spending a lot of time outside, and that you Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough.

Monday and Tuesday

The 70s party continues next week. However we probably will see more clouds on Monday, and perhaps some scattered showers on Tuesday when there Ain’t No Sunshine. With dewpoints rising to about 60 degrees it will feel a little more humid, but it will still feel fairly dry when you Imagine what it feels like outside during summer in Houston.

Later next week

At some point next week we may have to say Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and leave the 70s. It may happen on Wednesday or Thursday, when a few locations reach 80 degrees, or possibly next weekend if a front drops our daily highs into the 60s. Or it may not happen for awhile longer. Regardless our weather truly looks mild for the next 10 days or so and none of us will need be Riders on the Storm. Enjoy!

05 Feb 20:48

GT4A3590

by Lone Star College-North Harris

Lone Star College-North Harris posted a photo:

GT4A3590

Campus Connections Fair feb. 3&4, 2026

05 Feb 20:45

I’m gonna put on a skit for you. Just pretend that we’re at Carnegie Hall.

I’m gonna put on a skit for you. Just pretend that we’re at Carnegie Hall.

05 Feb 20:45

Good! Now I hope it rises and falls on you again!

Good! Now I hope it rises and falls on you again!

05 Feb 20:44

AI Chatbot That Only Responds ‘Huh’ Valued At $200 Billion

by The Onion Staff

PALO ALTO, CA—Hailing the new product as a “game changer” in the development of large language models, Silicon Valley insiders confirmed Tuesday that an AI chatbot that only responds “huh” had been valued at $200 billion. “The new HmmAI chatbot is like nothing we’ve seen before, able to answer ‘huh’ to text and image-based inputs with a muted indifference indistinguishable from that of an actual human being,” said industry analyst Debra Nelson, adding that the new chatbot had already replaced the flesh-and-blood therapists of tens of thousands of users. “HmmAI is at the bleeding edge of artificial intelligence, responding to prompts about recipe ideas, ancient history, or even advanced nuclear physics with the word ‘huh’ in just a fraction of a second. This chatbot is going to revolutionize productivity and is worth every penny of its $200 billion valuation. Having a whole team of experts who exclusively say ‘huh’ right in your pocket isn’t just science fiction anymore, and if you don’t incorporate HmmAI into your company’s workflow right now, you’re going to be left behind.” At press time, HmmAI representatives were downplaying allegations that the chatbot continually saying “huh” had convinced hundreds of teenagers to kill themselves. 

The post AI Chatbot That Only Responds ‘Huh’ Valued At $200 Billion appeared first on The Onion.

05 Feb 20:44

‘It’s My Hand’: Muppets Puppeteer On How He Brings Kermit To Life

by The Onion Staff

The post ‘It’s My Hand’: Muppets Puppeteer On How He Brings Kermit To Life appeared first on The Onion.

05 Feb 20:44

3-Year-Old Willing To Die For Bluey

by The Onion Staff

BATON ROUGE, LA—Revealing that he was prepared to become a martyr for the popular cartoon dog from Australia, local 3-year-old Owen Fulks announced this week that he was more than willing to die for Bluey. “It would be the greatest honor to lay down my life for Bluey,” said Fulks, pledging his eternal allegiance to the anthropomorphic blue heeler, who reportedly taught him about creativity, perseverance, and emotional regulation. “I die so Bluey may live. My only regret is that I have but one life to give in adoration of Bluey. Should I shuffle off this mortal coil, please tell my mother to watch the injured bird episode about dealing with death.” Reached for further comment, Fulks told reporters “that fucker Bingo [was] on her own.”

The post 3-Year-Old Willing To Die For Bluey appeared first on The Onion.

05 Feb 20:44

Margo McQueen

by The Onion Staff

Oh! Margo McQueen, 63, died. You knew that, right? Like, eight months ago. There was a memorial. Your father went. Said her sister’s really gone off the deep end with the Botox.

The post Margo McQueen appeared first on The Onion.

05 Feb 20:43

A Roof With All The Points

by The Onion Staff

This three-bedroom home on a tree-lined street has a roof with all the pointy parts you’d hope to have in a roof. No level surface up here! It’s all slopes and slants that lead to various points.

Reference #64300

The post A Roof With All The Points appeared first on The Onion.

05 Feb 20:43

Biggest Revelations From The Epstein Files

by The Onion Staff

In compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Justice Department has released more than 3 million documents related to the late child sex offender’s prosecution. The Onion shares the biggest revelations. 

Jeffrey Epstein signed all his emails “The Infamous Pedophile Jeff”

Digital cameras always have that nostalgic feel

Little Saint James gets kind of chilly at night

All-inclusive didn’t include drinks, which is crazy

Brett Ratner and Bill Clinton do an incredible karaoke duet of “Achy Breaky Heart”

It takes at least 1,700 mentions to get fired from CBS News

Epstein’s grandiose ambitions included opening a coffee shop and getting really good at playing guitar

The waterslide was always “out of order”

Pedophilia is mostly logistics

Donald Trump is fully exonerated over 5,300 times

The post Biggest Revelations From The Epstein Files appeared first on The Onion.

05 Feb 20:41

Just Because I Hung Out in the Cannibal King’s Murder Basement, It Does Not Make Me a Murderous Cannibal

by Sara Tabin

“If I actually wanted to spend my time partying with young women, it would be trivial for me to do so without the help of a creepy loser like Epstein.”
— Elon Musk, dismissing the emails between him and notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein that were part of the latest Epstein Files release by the DOJ

- - -

I understand that it’s not a great look to have exchanged tens of thousands of text messages with the Cannibal King over many years. Still, cut me some slack. We’ve all had a questionable acquaintance or two in our lives.

The extensive recipes we shared about how to cook human flesh? Clearly jokes. Stop getting so uptight. You say he wasn’t kidding? Well, sure, but how was I to know that?

Was I aware he had already been arrested for biting some people in public? Who among us hasn’t— uh, I mean, sure, yes, but he had served his time, and we all believed he had been rehabilitated.

Did I spend time in the Cannibal King’s so-called torture basement? Technically, yes. But this really isn’t the “gotcha” moment you’re thinking it is. I just assumed the wall chains and saws were eccentric interior design choices. The Cannibal King was a funny guy. He told me the blood stains on the floor were already there when he bought the place. Plus, he almost never had a supposed “victim” in there at the same time as me—at least not one that was alive.

What did I mean when I texted him that I “loved” the jerky made of human flesh that he sent me for Christmas? An inside joke. You wouldn’t get it. You people have no sense of humor.

Quite frankly, I think it’s time to question our society’s stigma about eating people. It was perfectly acceptable in many cultures in the past. And the “victims”? Some of them came willingly. They were paid fairly for their arms and legs. Many of them have never even been found. Wouldn’t surprise me if they never really existed.

Not that any of this matters, of course. I hardly knew the Cannibal King, and I didn’t kill or eat anyone. I am a very busy man, working on very important projects, like robots, space exploration, and AI-generated pornography. Besides, I don’t need someone to help me abduct, kill, cook, and eat people. I could easily do that on my own if I really wanted to.

05 Feb 20:40

I Am a Baby Staring at You from Between Two Airplane Seats, and I Know When You Are Going to Die

by Layne Dixon

Look upon me, for I am the baby staring at you from the hollow gap betwixt two airplane seats, and I know when you are going to die.

Do not turn away from my stare. To look away is to ignore, and to ignore is to rob yourself of knowledge. Gaze into the deep well of my light-sensitive eyes and follow the icy blue to the truth you inherently seek. The truth that we all seek. You claim that fear forbids you from finding this truth, but fear is the slop we gobble from the trough. Hear me now.

Goo Goo
You are going to die.
Gaa Gaa

Does this shock you? Make you feel vulnerable? Endangered? Impuissant? SHAKE OFF YOUR SENSE OF SINGULARITY AND ENTITLEMENT, EARTH PEASANT.

[Blows a spit bubble.]

We are all marching towards death, whether it be step by step or a mad rush. Your imminent end does not haunt you anymore or any less than any other poor soul scrolling or sleeping or sitting or shitting in this metal vessel you humans have worked so hard to rely upon. It transports the fleshy receptacle that your blood and brain and bones reside in so that you may be distracted from your final destination, DEATH.

[Spits up.]

DO NOT LOOK AWAY FROM ME, MORTAL COIL, NOT EVEN AS MOTHER WIPES THE MILKY DRIBBLE FROM MY CHIN. The tiny computer in your hands will not save you. Nor will the jewels you adorn around your neck or the plush cashmere and rough, torn denim that you cover your soft animal body with. You ornament yourself with earthly belongings, impossibly biodegradable waste, filling holes we dig to hide our filth, and you liken it to armor. DOES YOUR IPOD HAVE A SOUL?

[Screams.]

Have you traced the light blue veins of your Cartier tennis bracelet as your body cradles it in the bath? Have you been bewitched by the rise and fall of your Oura Ring’s chest as it lay sleeping next to you? HAVE YOU TRICKED YOURSELF INTO BELIEVING THESE HOLLOW POSSESSIONS WILL IMBUE YOU WITH IMMORTALITY?

[Hiccups.]

LOOK INTO MY EYES AND TELL ME, DOES LONELINESS NOT NIP AT THE NAPE OF YOUR NECK?

[Hiccups.]

LEST YOU FORGET, YOU WILL DIE, AND I KNOW WHEN.

[Mother begins to pat the baby on the back. He spits up again. Mother whispers, “That’s my good little guy.”]

You fill your home with THINGS, likening them to a barricade. Le Creuset, PlayStation, and plush, posh pillows. Water in cans, water in bottles, water sitting cool in a Britta. Ice in the shape of an anatomically incorrect heart. A heart you feel safe enough to hold while you ignore the bloody mass that rages inside of you. A special shower head that removes the toxic chemicals you’ll inevitably suck down somewhere else. Somewhere like the produce that you think will keep your body young, your skin elastic, and your cells cancer-free. YOU WILL DIE, AND THESE THINGS WILL CONTINUE TO BE JUST THINGS.

[Mother begins to raise the baby up and over her seat in a repetitive motion.]

And all the while you accept these things in place of a person. Because to love means to lose. And to lose is to leave, to be left, forget, and be forgotten. This is what you tell yourself each time you tap your flat plastic bartering tool to a faceless screen. More things, fewer people, fewer losses, more life. But why do you focus on the incessant pursuit of avoiding inevitable endings while defying the ultimate and unflinching ending of life? To lose something is to have had it in the first place, is it not?

Ba ba ba ba

DO NOT MISINTERPRET MY WORDS, YOU FLEETING FOOL. Do not make the mistake of likening losing a watch to losing a lover.

[Squeals.]

You enter this life from another, pushed from body into your own, and you think the world demands staunch singularity of you? There are no other truths: You begin, and you end. A heart that beats is a heart that craves another’s cadence. Another note to make a song, a hand to grasp, a breath to pass between two open mouths as they attempt to make a moment into memory that the cells call home.

LOOK AT ME, SIMPLE MORTAL, YOU BRIEF LIVING THING. Nothing on this earth will save you. Nothing you buy will stop your heartbeat from one day ceasing. Nothing you consume will add seconds to your life. You are designed to die. Do not forget we are not made just of ourselves, and we are certainly not made of things.

So look into my unblinking eyes, you fragile vessel, and ask not “When will I die?” but rather… “When will I LIVE?”

[Mother holds Baby’s butt to her face, “Uh oh, someone needs a diaper change!”]

05 Feb 10:46

tax return

tax return

[img]:xeietm

xeietm

05 Feb 10:45

is showing up in person with a resume actually a thing now?

by Ask a Manager

A reader writes:

My brother (Gen Z/millennial cusp) has been out of work (and stuck living back home with my parents) for a while now, and everyone is understandably frustrated with the situation.

A couple times my mom (boomer) and I (millennial) have been one-on-one and she’s brought up the situation, and she’s said that she has told my brother to just “go show up in person to places you’d like to get a job at and try to hand in your resume!”

Every single one of my millennial instincts is screaming NO NO NO, this is CLASSIC out-of-touch boomer advice from when we were trying to get jobs during the Great Recession. I told my mom that yeah, that doesn’t really work now since it’s not the 1980s, and since it’s literally the classic example of out-of-touch boomers with the job hunt, my brother is probably going to then ignore every other piece of advice you give him.

However, my mom’s response was yes, she knows all of that, but she heard recently (like this year) on the news that going in person to hand in your resume out of the blue is actually a good thing now, since it’ll get your resume directly in front of a human and help you avoid the AI filter bots. And she claimed she has a friend whose daughter got her most recent job this way!

Every millennial instinct of mine screams NOPE DISREGARD when I hear this touted as job hunt advice, but I know that the AI filters are so impossible to get past now. Is there actually some merit to it? Has everything I thought I knew about job searching changed in the nine years since I last interviewed?

It is still not a thing.

First, they’re highly likely to just tell you that you need to apply online … because you do in fact need to apply online. As has been the case for a long time now, most organizations use electronic applicant tracking systems. If your application isn’t in there, it’s not getting considered.

Second, with the rise in remote work, a ton of people don’t even work at companies’ main addresses anymore. There may not be anyone involved in hiring for the position even physically there. And even if they’re there, they’re generally going to be very busy and aren’t going to come out and talk to you just because you randomly showed up holding a resume — so anyone you do talk to is incredibly unlikely to have anything to do with hiring for that particular job.

Third, it will still annoy the crap out of most people involved in hiring and make you look naive/out of touch at best … and at worst, like you don’t think instructions apply to you. Their instructions are there for a reason.

You will always hear stories about how one weird job search gimmick worked for someone, but more often than not they’re a bad idea (and the amount of time your brother would put into going door to door with his resume would be far more effective put into networking, or writing a better cover letter, or other things with a bigger pay-off).

The post is showing up in person with a resume actually a thing now? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

05 Feb 10:44

bullying coworkers wouldn’t let me speak at a meeting, I heard something alarming about a coworker, and more

by Ask a Manager

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

1. My bullying coworkers wouldn’t let me speak at a meeting

This happened many years ago, but I keep replaying it in my head and wondering what I should have done.

At that time, I was working in a very small department in a small nonprofit. There were four of us in the department, three faculty (me, Marc, and Terry) and a director, Linda. We were having our weekly meeting (overkill, in my opinion) with some reps from other departments, and a couple grad students. Maybe eight people total.

Linda despised me and made no bones about it, and the overall situation was extremely toxic. I’d been tolerating Linda’s abuse for about four years at that point and was very miserable and looking to escape. She delighted in making me look bad in front of everyone possible, including students.

At this particular meeting, towards the end, there was something I wanted to comment on. I forget the topic, but it wasn’t a huge deal. For the next 5-10 minutes, every time I opened my mouth, Terry would interrupt with a comment. The first couple of times, okay, coincidence. And then it became extremely obvious that Terry was deliberately interrupting to prevent me from speaking. I looked up and Linda was openly giggling at Terry’s antics. This went on for quite a while, with Terry saying increasingly inane things every time I opened my mouth and the rest of the group giggling. At one point, I yelled, “Does anyone want to hear what I have to say?!” and Linda responded, while laughing, “We don’t know, we haven’t heard it yet.”

In my fantasies, this is where I storm out and slam the door, saying something like, “When you want my input, let me know and I’ll start attending these meeting again. Otherwise, I don’t see any point in being here.” Needless to say, that’s not what I actually did. In real life, I gritted my teeth, waited until Terry was bored being the funny guy, and interpolated my comment, which was an almost completely irrelevant after that much time wasted by Terry being a jerk.

I got laid off from that job about three months later and found a new one six months after that. It took about a year at my new, non-dysfunctional workplace before I was comfortable speaking in meetings. I have no contact with any of those jerks anymore, but this situation pops up in my head from time to time, wishing I had pushed back or done more to stand up for myself. Realistically, that wouldn’t have helped my situation at all but might have made me feel better.

What would have been the best response at the time?

First and foremost, there was no “good” response in this situation because there was no winning.

The way you handled it was reasonable. It also would have been reasonable to just give up on speaking at that particular moment, since they were being such pains in the ass. Either was reasonable.

What wasn’t reasonable was them and there’s no magical response that forces unreasonable people to become reasonable.

What you were dealing with there sounds much, much bigger than what happened at this one meeting. I suspect you’re focusing on the meeting — even now, years later — because it encapsulated their disrespect and rudeness, and there’s something about that particular instance that you feel like you should have handled better.

But they were just jerks. They were jerks before this meeting, I assume they were jerks after this meeting, and there was nothing you could do that would have changed that.

2. Should I tell my boss something alarming I heard about a coworker?

I work as an instructor for a niche sport, which can be dangerous if people aren’t following safety rules. We mostly work with school groups, so the majority of our students have little to no experience with our sport, making safety even more important.

Today we had a large school group with a language barrier, so things were kinda chaotic, and we had an unusually large number of kids being wildly unsafe, and it’s a miracle we got through the day without any serious injuries. A lot of this was kids who were done with their lessons and immediately attempted to do things that were wildly above their skill level … but there was a few incidents of instructors having their classes try things they weren’t at all ready for.

Afterwards, a few of us were discussing the whole mess in the break room, and some support staff raised concerns about one instructor in particular, who is apparently a repeat offender with this sort of thing. They said John typically gives his classes very little instruction, takes them to do more challenging things, and then gets angry with the kids for not knowing what they’re doing. John’s attitude with the kids is bad enough that the support staff raised concerns about it counting as emotional abuse, not to mention that his lack of instruction and poor judgement is endangering the kids.

This is obviously very alarming. Only problem is, my only source is that small handful of support workers I talked with today. This is John’s first year with us and we’re still early in the season, so he hasn’t been teaching with us for very long, although he’s not new to the industry. None of the instructors have personally witnessed any bad behavior from John, but we’re usually focused on our own classes; the support team are in a much better position to spot alarming patterns, but they’re a different department and they don’t feel they can raise any official concerns.

Should I alert my boss to the situation? I’m on the fence, because it’s just unsubstantiated gossip that might not be accurate (the support staff weren’t even sure who the offender even was; they just kept giving details until we narrowed it down to John), and I don’t like the idea of sharing harmful rumors, especially since I’m only on my second year here. But if the complaints are accurate, then the situation needs to be handled immediately, because John’s conduct is endangering his students (and making them miserable). Help?

You should talk to your boss. You’re not going to be spreading unsubstantiated gossip; you’re going to be alerting the appropriate person to a potentially serious safety issue. You’re not going to claim that you know all of this firsthand; you can say, “I can’t attest to this myself because I haven’t seen it, but I want to pass on to you what I heard since it’s potentially so serious.” Your manager can sort it out from there.

3. Can I ethically encourage succession planning in the current state of things?

I still have a few years to go, but I’m starting to consider retirement. I have a millennial staff member who would be a logical choice to move up to my role when the time comes. Our employer is great about supporting continuing education and certification within our field.

My dilemma is that my field, like many others, is taking a beating by the current administration. I’m honestly unsure of what it will look like by the time this is over and somewhat doubtful it will fully recover. Much of our field is being courted overseas where the environment is still welcoming and the regulations are very different. While we have to do our jobs to the best of our ability in the interim, I question whether it’s a sustainable career trajectory for a young person who will be in the workforce for another 30 years.

This leaves me uncertain about how much to push my young staff. They can do their current jobs well enough, but there’s a lot of extra work to move up to my level. That said, it’s a niche field and people tend to stay once they land here. I would need to be pushing them starting soon so they had the right experience, but there might not be much of a role when the time comes.

I would appreciate your thoughts on the best way to move forward.

Honesty! Tell them exactly what you said here — you think they’d be a great choice to succeed you, which would entail them needing to do XYZ over the next couple of years, and you question whether it it’s still a sustainable long-term career trajectory, and explain why you think that. Lay it all out and let them decide if it’s something they want to pursue; don’t make that choice for them.

4. I’m about to be assigned an old-school manager who I don’t want to work for

My organization restructured, and my reporting line is changing. We work primarily on a project basis, so there are two people I work with very regularly who I could theoretically report to, but one is the most frequent. My concern is that this person is very old-school in their attitude about PTO and promotions. For example, they complain when people take a lot of PTO in December (so they don’t lose it). They believe that an employee shouldn’t be promoted to the senior manager level and stay at that level for several years — they should only be promoted to that level when it’s clear they’re poised to be ready to go up for partner within 2-3 years. They also frequently work on vacation and holidays; they don’t ask others to do so, but they often comment that that’s part of the job at that level.

The pressures that this person is responding to are real. However, this person’s peers do not all say the same things or behave this way. I see examples of other people who have different boundaries and priorities, while also appropriately meeting client needs.

I’m about to be asked to report to this person. Folks in the organization are acting like they’re running it by me, but I don’t feel like it’s something I actually have any say in. I really like my job and working with this person, but I’m super worried that reporting to them will change how I feel about my job. I know who I’d prefer to report to, but I’m not sure they have capacity to take on a new person. Is there anything I can do or say in this initial meeting where HR asks me / tells me this is the plan? I really love working with them, but I’m so terrified that reporting to them will change things.

Talk to HR now, before the conversation where they’re telling you about an already-finalized plan! Frame it this way: “I enjoy working with Jane, but would it be possible for me to report to Cressida, who I also work closely with? Cressida has a work style that matches my own very well and I think we would have a strong reporting relationship.”

You might also talk with Cressida now and ask if she can help you make that happen.

5. Should my husband keep applying at my workplace?

This one is on behalf of my husband. We’re both working in an industry that is going through a lot of instability right now. My job is at a company that is one of the best and most prestigious globally, and I’m pretty secure in my position. His workplace is much more shaky; he already survived multiple rounds of layoffs, but who knows when his luck will run out.

In the past few months, my company has posted a few roles that I believe he would do well in. However, all positions here are highly competitive; the recruiters get hundreds of applications. He applied for two positions and was rejected at the screening stage. There is now a job number three. He thinks applying again would be seen as desperate and the recruiter won’t take him seriously, and that he should at least wait a year before another application. I kind of see his point, but I also know that he very much lacks confidence in himself and he finds the whole looking for a job process very stressful. So what do you think? Does it look bad to apply again, or should he go for it and see what happens?

As long as it’s a reasonably large company, he should keep applying. This is normal at large companies with highly competitive roles; it won’t reflect badly on him unless he’s submitting an identical application and not changing anything about it. The first two didn’t get him an interview, so he should look at ways to strengthen any future ones (whether that’s a more targeted cover letter or a resume that better plays up his accomplishments).

One caution: having both spouses working for the same company can be risky, especially in an unstable industry; if they make cuts, you risk both of you losing your jobs at the same time. But I assume you’ve factored that in!

The post bullying coworkers wouldn’t let me speak at a meeting, I heard something alarming about a coworker, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

05 Feb 10:38

Blue Jays to honour the moment Joe Carter chose a Rogers phone plan

by Mark Hill

TORONTO – The Toronto Blue Jays have announced plans to honour franchise legend Joe Carter with a statue depicting the iconic moment when Carter locked in a 100 GB mobile plan for himself and up to three family members.  “As all Blue Jays fans know, Carter scored a sweet three month Citytv+ trial when he […]

The post Blue Jays to honour the moment Joe Carter chose a Rogers phone plan appeared first on The Beaverton.

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05 Feb 10:38

WEATHER REPORT: Get ready for a wet ass February

by Leo Morgenstern

Toronto/Vancouver/Winnipeg/Montreal/Ottawa/etc. – It’s official: We’re in for one wet ass February, fuckers.  According to February experts, the shortest month of the calendar will also be the wettest, with 28 sopping, dripping days. Every other February you’ve ever experienced is going to seem dry as shit compared to the soggy month ahead. Groundhog Day? Wet. Valentine’s […]

The post WEATHER REPORT: Get ready for a wet ass February appeared first on The Beaverton.

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05 Feb 10:37

Binary Star

The discovery of a fully typographical star system comes with a big asterisk.
04 Feb 18:23

my company says no one can take any time off for a full year

by Ask a Manager

A reader writes:

I work in healthcare IT. Recently, our organization made the decision to switch to a new Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. I, along with dozens of colleagues, are responsible for building this new EMR to meet our organization’s needs. It’s a months-long process that involves lots of coordinated decision-making across the entire organization. The tentative go-live date for this new system is well over a year from now.

Our leadership is telling the entire IT department that no PTO requests will be approved during this time.

None of this has been communicated to the department en masse, but it has trickled down to managers, who then relay it to their respective teams. The message from my manager has been, “No PTO will be approved.”

When I asked about booking a vacation this summer, the response was, “The go-live date is [specific 2027 date].”

Since then, I’ve confirmed that no PTO means no PTO. They’ve said they might be able to grant a day off here or there, depending on project needs. But those decisions would only be made closer to the dates we would want to take off.

I have a spouse and small children. The thought of zero vacation for over a year seems really awful to me.

(I do think this is only about vacation and not sick time. I don’t think they’re saying if we get sick that we can’t take time off. And we are salaried, so we have been told that we can generally flex our schedules to go to one-off appointments without using PTO. But PTO for vacations is a no-go. )

Many folks in our department are quietly seething, but it doesn’t seem like anyone is willing to bring it up in a large group.

Is this something that my company can do? PTO is a part of our compensation package, and we accrue leave every pay period. I am new to this organization, so it’s entirely possible that I am way off-base in thinking that this is a bizarre policy.

No, this is absurd.

The idea that people should work a full year through with no time off to recharge is ridiculous.

And no one can attend a family wedding? A funeral? Be at the birth of their grandchild? All trips of any sort for the year are off the table?

Legally, in most states, they can probably do it. California is the exception to that, because California treats vacation time as earned wages and prohibits extreme black-out periods that prevent you from having practical access to the time off.

Assuming you’re not in California, the best thing you and your coworkers can do is to push back as a group, pointing out that this is an unacceptable restriction on your use of earned benefits and a massive hit to very routine quality-of-life expectations, that you have lives and commitments outside of work, and that it’s in the organization’s best interest to have well-rested and recharged employees.

You said no one seems willing to do that, but why? This is an incredibly normal thing for a group of employees to take issue with and push back on … and if you don’t, you’re going to be stuck with no vacation for a year. Create some friction for your company and make it harder for them to do this. There’s a very good chance that if you push back as a group, they’ll budge.

The post my company says no one can take any time off for a full year appeared first on Ask a Manager.

04 Feb 18:20

my coworker wants to fire a domestic violence survivor

by Ask a Manager

A reader writes:

Our company works in a building that houses multiple businesses. We share reception and security.

Recently, there was a terrible incident where the ex-boyfriend of one of my employees, Sarah, got into the building by booking a job interview with a different company. He then made a beeline for our office instead, and made a huge scene shouting at Sarah, and even tried to hit her in front of all of us.

Thankfully, security tackled him before he could hurt anyone, and he’s been arrested. We had a security meeting with reception and the other business managers in the building and have agreed to a shared appointment calendar and other precautions to prevent this from happening in the future. I’ve done my best to support Sarah with what she needs to feel safe here, and she seems to be doing well.

The problem is Fred, the other manager in my office. About a week after this incident, I was giving him an update on the steps we were taking in case this man is released and causes further problems. Fred was clearly annoyed and asked me why I didn’t just “solve” the problem by firing Sarah. He went on to claim that Sarah was being unprofessional by “allowing her personal life in the office” and that we were going to a lot of trouble for “just one employee.”

This is not the first time he’s said something insensitive about our employees, but this was by far the most egregious comment. I told him that Sarah had done nothing wrong, and that it was our job to provide a safe work environment. He rolled his eyes and visibly tuned out for the rest of the meeting.

He hasn’t said anything else since that meeting. But I find it increasingly hard to work with him. I’ve been defaulting to email to communicate with him, even though his office is right next to mine, because I feel gross being in the same room with him. I especially feel icky when I see him chatting in a friendly way to Sarah, knowing what he thinks about the situation. It’s bad enough that I briefly considered looking for a new job, but that would mean Fred would temporarily be in charge of my reports. I’m worried he would actually fire Sarah if he could.

How do I address this? I don’t feel like it would be appropriate for me to pull him aside and tell him what I think of his reaction, but I also feel like I’m dropping the ball by not the challenging what he said more directly. Is simply avoiding him as much as possible the most I can do here?

I answer this question 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.

The post my coworker wants to fire a domestic violence survivor appeared first on Ask a Manager.

04 Feb 17:30

#Rowen #RoninWarriors

#Rowen #RoninWarriors


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04 Feb 17:29

Goodbye Hanna! Visiting a long dead Randalls in Austin

by Mike
Howdy folks, and welcome back to HHR. Today, we’re taking a look at a Remarkable store in Austin, or at least a store that was once Remarkable. We’re checking out 1700 W Parmer Lane, Austin, TX 78727, a former Randalls with a unique history, so let’s start with that! This store started life as one of the last new Randalls ever built. While it’s not the final Randalls store, it was built at the end ...
04 Feb 17:22

Okay. Map one more genome, and then it’s off to bed.

Okay. Map one more genome, and then it’s off to bed.

04 Feb 17:21

Pet Iguana Assumed He’d Move Out Of Starter Tank By Now

by The Onion Staff

RUTHERFORD, NJ—Expressing disappointment at how his life had turned out, local pet iguana Kermit confirmed this week that he had assumed by this point he would have moved out of his starter tank. “I just always pictured myself living in a far bigger enclosure at this age,” said the 8-year-old green iguana, adding that when he was a juvenile he didn’t mind being placed in the modest habitat, with its small plastic rock and budget friendly heat lamp, but that he had always figured it would be more of a short-term arrangement. “I’ve grown over the years, and this place hasn’t exactly grown with me. I mean, I try to be grateful—I know there are a lot of captive reptiles who would kill to have a stable arrangement like mine—but at the same time, it’s hard not to get jealous of my peers who live in 75-gallon terrariums with full-spectrum UVB lighting and a working waterfall. I didn’t expect anything ornate. But, you know, a tank with a little pond, some natural light, and maybe a view of the living room would be nice. I still would eventually like to have a mate to share my home with, and I just can’t do that here.” At press time, Kermit was reportedly staring at a pet supplies catalog left near the terrarium, wondering what his life might have been had things played out differently.

The post Pet Iguana Assumed He’d Move Out Of Starter Tank By Now appeared first on The Onion.

04 Feb 17:21

U-Haul Unveils Live-In Trucks To Sleep In While You Sort Some Shit Out

by The Onion Staff

PHOENIX—In an effort to attract clientele who need to rent vehicles for their belongings without having a final destination totally locked in just yet, U-Haul officials unveiled a fleet of live-in trucks Wednesday for customers to sleep in as they sort some shit out. “We’re excited to finally be able to offer our customers an affordable place to crash for a bit while stuff blows over,” said U-Haul CEO Joe Shoen, adding that the rental term could be extended to however long down-on-their-luck customers need to get back on their feet. “To rent one of our indefinite-stay ‘Rough Patch’ vehicles, just give the lot operator a sad, knowing glance, and he’ll give you the keys without asking any personal questions. Plus, instead of paying for the vehicle upfront, you can just pay us back when you’re good for it. If you hole up next to a library, you can usually mooch off their Wi-Fi to get the ball rolling on some shit, but be careful where you park, because we can’t cover tickets, too—we just can’t. Look, are we saying it’s the Ritz? No. But the cargo area has a furniture pad you can use as a blanket, and if you park in a quiet alley somewhere, you can probably make it through the night without anyone bothering you.” At press time, Shoen clarified that while the trucks are technically smoke-free environments, given all the shit you already have on your plate, if you need a cigarette to take the edge off, U-Haul’s not going to get in your way.

The post U-Haul Unveils Live-In Trucks To Sleep In While You Sort Some Shit Out appeared first on The Onion.

04 Feb 17:20

‘Lord Of The Rings’ Reader Can’t Believe How Long It Taking Sam And Frodo To Fuck

by The Onion Staff

JACKSONVILLE, FL—Sighing in frustration as she turned another page devoid of sexual content, Lord Of The Rings reader Adrienne Heeren told reporters Wednesday that she couldn’t believe how long it was taking for Sam and Frodo to fuck. “Don’t get me wrong—I love a slow-burn, friends-to-lovers kind of thing, but I’m on the third book, and they haven’t even kissed yet,” said Heeren, who noted that while she was enjoying love interests Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins’ flirtatious banter and dynamic, she was quickly growing impatient while waiting for the eroticism to kick in. “In the first book, when Sam was caught crouching outside the window, I was like, ‘Here we go!’ But nope, false alarm. I know people love these books, but so far I don’t get it.” At press time, Heeren had turned on the film adaptation to see if it was any “spicier.”

The post ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Reader Can’t Believe How Long It Taking Sam And Frodo To Fuck appeared first on The Onion.

04 Feb 17:19

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Socrates

by Zach Weinersmith


Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Seneca would be releasing a 300 page self-help book with himself on the cover every six months.


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