Amber"Establishing a Peace Accord Between Parents and Their Childless Friends" -- Everything this!
David Chang Calls Out Starbucks. As somebody whose edible creations have become popular, used for marketing for large companies and sold in major stores without even so much as credit I can feel this pain.
Happy 20th Birthday To This American Life, Which Is Way Darker Than You Think. Via The Morning News.
The clog post — Medium. “I’ve fallen off sidewalks from Brooklyn to San Francisco, disappearing mid-sentence wherever I go.” One of my internet Old Ones is posting on Medium every day through December and it’s making me giddy.
Hatton Garden robbery drill-hole necklace | The Guardian. A fine pendant in the shape of the hole drilled to pull off a multi million pound heist in London.
Establishing a Peace Accord Between Parents and Their Childless Friends – The Everywhereist.
The 24 Most Insane Theories About Who Rey’s Parents Are. #24 is the author’s crazy theory and it’s awesome.
Hired Hand — The California Sunday Magazine. Via The Morning News.
AmberThis is so, so good.
You will be the kind of woman who can tell anyone to fuck off if a fuck off is deserved, so naturally you start a Fuck Off Fund.
AmberSpoiler Alert: "It’s best to assume you’ll use your savings to cover about one-third of the cost of college and income and loans to fund the rest, according to Mark Kantrowitz, a financial-aid expert. That means setting aside about $250 per month starting when a child is born to afford in-state tuition at a public college, roughly $500 per month for a private college, and $400 per month for an out-of-state public college, he says."
How much should parents save, per month, for their children’s college education?
Apparently if you wrote the BBC asking how to make Tom Baker's Doctor Who scarf, they would send you the knitting instructions on BBC letterhead. According to the Whovians in that forum, the Fourth Doctor wore this particular scarf in a pair of episodes early in season 12. (via laughing squid)
Update: And here's the Fourth Doctor's scarf in HTML/CSS/JS by @kosamari.
Tags: Doctor Who fashion TVAmber@Charity, we have to watch this!
Steven Avery spent 12 years in prison for rape before being exonerated by DNA evidence. After his release, he was charged with murder. Making a Murderer, a new 10-show Netflix series premiering on December 18, will examine Avery's crimes, a la Serial and The Jinx.
Tags: crime Making a Murderer Steven Avery trailers video
From Julia Kim Smith, The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore, a look at the names of wifi networks in various neighborhoods of Baltimore. Some favorites:
Abraham Linksys
NSA Surveillance Van
Fuck Off
Bill Wi The Science Fi
There was even a Wu Tang LAN sighting. Note: about 4 years ago, my wireless network was called hamsterdam. Currently: surfbort.
Tags: Baltimore Julia Kim Smith language videoAmberI would hate to be a high school math teacher in 2015...
Some iOS apps still seem like magic. Case in point: PhotoMath. Here's how it works. You point your camera at a math problem and PhotoMath shows the answer. It'll even give you a step-by-step explanation and solution.
Tags: iPhone apps mathematicsAmberCards Against Humanity is run by good people.
Hey, check it out: Applications are now open for our Science Ambassador Scholarship, a full-ride scholarship for a woman studying science, technology, engineering, or math. The winner will receive full tuition coverage for up to four years of undergrad.
Scholarship funds come from the sales of our Science Pack, the 30-card expansion we wrote with Phil Plait & Zach Weinersmith. The Science Pack is available to buy for $10.
If you’re a woman studying STEM (in high school or college), here’s how to apply: submit a three minute video to ScienceAmbassadorScholarship.org explaining a scientific topic you’re passionate about. That’s it. Videos will be judged by an advisory board of over 50 women who work professionally in science. Applications close December 1st, 2015.
We’re really, really excited about this project, and we’re anticipating a huge number of videos. Feel free to spread the word to anyone eligible.
I am in another city, another hotel, but, as with everywhere, the shape of you is always around me.
After an event, I am often alone in my hotel room, decompressing. It takes so much energy meeting so many people, performing, living the public side of the writer’s life. I am happy to expend this energy, honored and grateful even, but I also crave the solace of silence at the end of the night. And then I crave something more, something just beyond my reach.
It is strange to be learning more about relationships than I ever have before, this late in life, learning about processes, both mine and yours, learning patience, learning so much more.
I have been pretty hard on myself lately but to be fair the world has been pretty hard on me. There is this shield I wear around myself, around my heart when I go out into the world but then something breaches that shield, a cruel remark, a whispered comment, a wide-eyed stare. I am reminded of how people see me. And then I feel like nothing. I feel like less than nothing. And I have to try and build myself up again to face the world because the world isn’t going to stop turning.
I read this essay by Sarah Einstein about being plain and having an attractive lover and how he openly admitted he wasn’t attracted to her body. As an aside, I’ve met this writer and find her to be quite striking so that was a bit of a disconnect. That is also neither here nor there. It was an excellent, thought provoking essay. It made me feel so depressed. I always worry that I am the plain one, the hideous one, unlovable. I’m not, the best part of me says. But I am, the hungrier, weaker part of me says.
I’m seeing a new trainer, whenever I can, whenever I am home which is not often. I need to stop acting like my schedule is this thing that is beyond my control, though. I need to say no more so I can say yes to myself more so I can make this one dream come true, for me. For more.
I have this ex who constantly nagged me. I was never good enough, not in my appearance, or the way I comported myself, or the things I did. What she did was more than nagging, really. I’ve written about it before. But my point is, that kind of thing lingers. I hear her voice still, not often anymore, but it’s there. And worse yet, sometimes, I find myself being a nag with someone who is perfect as they are. I am trying to feel my way around being supportive and being a pain in the ass. I want to be the former not the latter. I will be the former and not the latter.
I don’t know much about long term relationships. My longest relationship was five years. I know nothing about anything. But I think I am learning about ups and downs and plateaus and how quiet doesn’t mean the end of things. Sometimes, it just means quiet. Or other things are going on. Or who knows.
I think, “How can I breathe?” How do I learn that?
I watched a documentary with a subplot that hit close to home. It seems like there is this one specific story I keep stumbling upon. Is it a sign, I wonder. I tell myself no. There is no such thing as signs. I tell myself not to believe in such flights of fancy, or is it futility?
Here I am anyway.
Have you seen those Matthew McConaughey commercials for Lincoln? Dude is serious. He is gaunt, his hair slick but curly, and he tries to make it seem like owning a Lincoln is some kind of urbane vision quest.
It’s just a car, right?
Push pull push pull push pull push pull.
As a writer, I want to know the end of the story before it has been written. That isn’t how life works. Or, maybe I am learning that some stories don’t end, can’t end. And maybe I am hoping I am not alone in this hope.
The words, “We don’t have the money for that,” echo in my ears from childhood. Clothes from Sears back-to-school sales, store brand groceries, leftovers from Tupperware every other day, and camping vacations defined our lifestyle. Yet we always lived in one of the nicest houses on the block. When the neighbor kids asked if we were rich, I laughed, my stomach twisted in confusion and embarrassment. As I grew up, I realized that real estate was simply my parents’ priority. It made sense as an investment, but it also felt a bit like a lie to have told us all those years that we didn’t have the money for this or that. I certainly didn’t learn anything about financial priorities as a kid.
My husband and I also believe in prioritizing real estate, but beyond that we’re of the same mindset as recent scientific research that spending our money on experiences is more worthwhile than loading up on possessions.
So far, we’ve traveled from Northern California with our two daughters to the clear teal waters of the Dominican Republic, where we stood waist deep and watched the sun set after everyone else had cleared the beach. That same trip, the girls flew on trapezes and windsurfed for the first time.
Our best Christmases in the last several years were spent with my nieces and nephew in Chicago, where my daughters got to see the magic of first a Christmas through a toddler’s eyes. While everyone else bustled out one year to see the Christmas light display at the Lincoln Park Zoo, I held my three-month old nephew in the quiet of my sister’s couch on his first Christmas Eve, so lucky to have him in my arms.
Every winter, our family sings Les Miserables as we drive over the mountain to ski the Sierras. The girls jokingly, for the most part, argue about who gets to play what part. My husband jumps in to sing Jean Valjean during the most dramatic scenes, with the Bruce Springsteen-esque voice I love. I laugh and sing along whenever I can remember the words.
Escaping technology for a long weekend every year, we visit my uncles in their Idaho mountain cabins. We keep bugs away with nightly campfires in the teepee and cheat with flashlights to find the outhouse in the dark. The girls spend hours reading and then ride down to the icy river in the back of a pickup truck full of local kids.
Since the girls were infants, we’ve explored the island of Maui where my husband spent his childhood summers with his mother’s extended family. As the girls grew, they learned to snorkel off the reefs and partake in traditions, like wiping the gravestones down with baby oil and filling the vases with fresh flowers and water.
The last several years, we’ve chased and cheered on my husband as he competed in triathlons all over the country. After his first full Ironman in Arizona, he said, “Thinking about you guys waiting for me during the run was the only thing that kept me moving, sometimes.”
This summer, we’re all headed to Europe for a whirlwind tour of three countries in nine days before our older daughter soon heads off to college. Time is running out for our adventures together.
And yet, these experiences require monetary sacrifices. The general rule in our house is that new clothes come at Christmas and birthdays unless your toes are sticking out of your shoes. Otherwise, you can buy them yourself.
The same goes for “stuff,” like electronics, or toys, when the girls were younger. For doing a few chores, they receive a small allowance for things like going to Jamba Juice or to save up for something. For the most part, they know better than to ask for things. But once in awhile, I’ll pull out my parents’ old phrase, “We don’t have the money for that.”
My husband hates it when I say that. For me, it’s a reflex, though I know it isn’t really true. Instead, it’s that we’ve chosen to spend the money other ways.
I’m trying to get in the habit of saying, “We have a big trip coming up, so we’re saving money for that” or “As a family, we choose to spend our money on things like travelling and seeing shows together, rather than new jeans.”
Sometimes I wonder what people think when they see my kids in the same clothes week after week with their fraying shoes, while they’re jabbering on about their vacations to Club Med or how much they loved Kinky Boots and Book of Mormon. Never mind that the teachers and other parents probably think I’m crazy to expose my 13 and 15 year olds to those shows; they also probably think my financial priorities are completely out of whack.
But I wouldn’t change anything, and—short of us winning the lottery—I don’t think the kids would really change our lives either. Every day this summer, our younger daughter says, “I can’t wait for Europe!” She just spent her birthday gift cards on a buy-one-get-one free sale online and bought a few new clothes for the trip.
But maybe they are learning something about making choices about financial priorities, too.
Recently, my older daughter, who will be a junior this fall, told me she doesn’t remember much of anything about her normal, day-to-day summers growing up. But, she said, “I remember nearly every minute of our vacations together.”
When my younger daughter told her friend she was going to Paris this summer, the friend said, “Oh, you’re so lucky! You always get to go to all these cool places. You’re going to Paris, and you’re always going to Hawaii.”
My daughter told me she responded, “Yeah. And you get a new iPhone every six months.” The friend laughed while my daughter rolled her eyes.
Amy McElroy is the Editorial Director and a writer for sweatpantsandcoffee.com. H
Getty Image
After Fox canceled The Mindy Project, Hulu stepped in and swept the show off its feet, guaranteeing a new season that will — according to Mindy Kaling — have a lot more sex and drugs. According to Variety, the streaming service will premiere the 26-episode season on September 15th.
According to Hulu’s head of originals, Beatrice Springborn, the series won’t have too many big tonal changes aside from the extended length of each episode. The move to pick up the series after Fox canceled it was a no-brainer for Hulu as previous seasons of The Mindy Project has been a consistent fan-favorite.
Springborn expressed high hopes that these new episodes will bring more viewers to Hulu, by saying, “Because it had such an established fanbase and such a vocal fanbase, we also knew we would get those loyal viewers who were watching Fox to come to Hulu, and they would come to subscribe and become loyal viewers on Hulu versus Fox.”
Shots fired, Fox. Shots fired!
(Via Variety)
Some competitors never waver in their spirit, even in the face of certain defeat. This video of a wee Taekwondo student can teach us all that failure (no matter how frustrating) is never insurmountable. The boy, who can’t be over the age of three, would stop at nothing to earn his white belt. This poor kiddo tried numerous times to break his board, but he simply didn’t possess enough weight or strength to finish the job.
Did he grow upset and throw a tantrum? Nope. Did he give up and try to quit? Not a chance. Even as the cameras rolled, courtesy of his embarrassing parents, tiny tot kept on trying to accomplish the task at hand. Let’s hope someone gave the kid an ice cream cone after class.
For his perseverance, the boy received his belt and became a viral star in about 24 hours. As of this writing, he’s already scored 800,000 video views, and the internet will continue to watch his adorable mistrials. The sad thing is that his parents decided to embarrass him by making this video public. The nicer aspect is how this kiddo will grow up, and no one will ever recognize him as “failed Taekwondo tot.”
(Via BroBible)
AmberAdorbs!
Give me your tired, your poor, your sloppy kid stuffing his face with a hot dog. America!
On Tuesday night, the Twins broadcast chose this little guy as their fan of the game. But, let’s be honest, he’s the fan of the year. He represents all of us. He represents each and every one of you struggling to keep that hot dog in the bun.
Question: Does the five second rule apply in stadiums? The answer, of course, is yes. Yes it does.
(Video via the Cauldron)
Amberwaaaaaant!
AmberYESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!
Fox
After news hit that a new X-Files series was coming, we ran a story giving you eight episodes of the show you need to watch before the new ones premiere in January. On that list is one of the show’s most infamous episodes, “Home.” When it initially premiered, it was the first episode of the X-Files that came with a TV-MA warning before being banned from the network entirely.
According to TVLine, a new rumor states the second episode of the upcoming revival series will be revisiting the original story from “Home.” The episode in question is allegedly titled “Home Again” and the writer/director attached is Glen Morgan, who was partially responsible for the original 1996 episode following the inbred Peacock Family.
Is this all a coincidence? Maybe. But there’s one more detail to consider: “Home” was the second episode of the show’s fourth season, originally airing on October 11, 1996. The second episode for the new revival series, “Home Again” will air on January 25, 2016, which almost makes it a 20th anniversary of the seminally creepy inbred monster-of-the-week episode.
Personally, I’d be interested in revisiting the story today. TV has come a long way since the original episode was banned. NBC is currently getting away with murder (pun intended) with what is being shown on Hannibal.
I’m ready to be creeped out again, Fox. Bring it.
(Via TV Line)
Actual zookeepers taking photos of themselves doing Chris Pratt's Jurassic World velociraptor taming move is a thing. Here's the original:
And the imitators:
Found them here and here. If you find others, send them along!
Update: Laurel sent this one in from the California Academy of Sciences:
Update: Several more zookeepers being awesome via @ohmygoat1, @susiethefivetoedsloth, @parrotman_jon, and @kati_speer.
Update: Ok, a few more via @MrDABailey, The Minnesota Zoo, The Georgia Aquarium, and Reddit.
Update: One last photo brings this meme to a fitting close. This is Chris Pratt himself, taming some children during a recent visit to a local children's hospital.
(via @alexcarvalho)
Update: Ok, ok, one more and then that's it, America needs to move on. Here's the Dinosaur Curator of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History taming some actual dinosaurs, long-dead though they may be:
(via @thanland)
Tags: Chris Pratt dinosaurs Jurassic World movies photographyAmber"everyone that tasted it remarked on how good it was and how much it tasted like foie gras, in spite of the fact that there isn’t a whiff of meat in it" -- I might have to try this!
People often think of Paris as a museum stuck in the past. Sure, one of the things we all love about Paris is the old charm that persists in the architecture, the culture, the cuisine, and in some cases, the way of thinking. (The recent taxi versus Uber battle irked a few French tech entrepreneurs as they felt it presented an image of France as a place unwelcome to new business ideas, or change.) But it’s hard to stop new ideas, especially when they become widely adopted, as the next generation comes along with different ideas and expectations.
Like everywhere, and like it or not, France is being updated in several ways. One that surprises outsiders is that no longer are lunches a three-hour affair with multiple bottles of wine. (Unfortunately!) Instead, lunch might be a sandwich on the fly – perhaps a jambon-beurre (baguette sandwich), or a stop at a food truck for a Bánh mì (Vietnamese sandwich), or even a burger and frites. Change doesn’t happen fast in France, or without controversy, but when a new food trend does catch on, it tends to get fiercely embraced – for better or worse. And végétarianism is becoming more popular, despite some opposition.
Dietary habits are evolving in France, as they are in the rest of the world. And a number of people, especially twenty and thirty-somethings, are experimenting with things like quinoa, raw foods, chia seeds, and kale.
Continue Reading Faux Gras: Vegetarian Foie Gras...
AmberGuilty.
“$308,” she said, ringing me up.
I blinked at her like a cartoon owl.
“Or,” she said, her voice settling into a lower, more confidential register, “$280, if you have cash …”
“Uh, not on me,” I said. “But I could come back?”
“Sure,” she said, waving me away. “No problem.”
A few days later, I was back, with an envelope of bills stacked thicker than my dining room table. Handing it over to her, I felt furtive and a little excited. We counted out the $20s together on her desk.
“Do people do this often?” I asked.
“Women,” she said, scooping up the total. “They don’t want their husbands to know how much things cost, so they pay in cash. Or they ask me to charge half to their credit cards and then they pay half in cash.”
“Really? This happens regularly?”
“Oh, sure. All the time.”
“Hello?”
“Hi Mom. I’ve got a question for you.”
“Sure, honey, of course.”
“I just paid in cash for a thing and the lady told me that women do this all the time — they pay cash, or half in cash, so that their husbands or partners or whatever don’t see the full amount. She said it like it was totally normal but I’ve never heard of it before. Am I naive or … ?”
The sound of my mother’s laughter ricocheted through the phone. “Oh yes,” she said. “All the time. Clothes. Other things too. I remember one time, in the baby house, we had to redo the tile floors of the kitchen, and your father would have been horrified to find out what it cost. I asked the contractor if he could send a bill for half of the total to the house and then a different invoice with the other half to my office. I paid that part in cash.”
“He was okay with this? The contractor?”
“Of course! It’s normal. People do this all the time.”
“Discretion is the better part of valor?”
“Especially,” she said, “in relationships.”
“So isn’t that crazy?”
“Yeah,” said Ben. “Wow.”
“I’m so glad I’ve never had to do that,” I said.
“Me too!” he said. “So how much did this thing cost, ultimately?”
“Um,” I said. “You know. Not too much.”
AmberThis story is legit terrifying.
So here’s something I haven’t thought about in a long time: Toxic Shock Syndrome. Ben even asked me about it recently, having glanced at a box of tampons in the bathroom: “Oh yeah, Toxic Shock. Do you worry about that?” “It’s nothing,” I said. “Someone died once in 1983 and we’ve had the little warning on the side ever since.”
Turns out, who’d have guessed, I was wrong, as a lengthy piece in Vice — focused on Lauren Wasser, a young model and basketball player who lost a leg to the ramifications of TSS, and whose enraged mother is now throwing lawsuits in all directions — makes clear:
TSS, which got its name in 1978, is basically a complication of bacterial infections, frequently involving staph bacteria (or Staphylococcus aureus). It isn’t a female-only condition, but there’s been a link between it and tampon usage for decades, due largely to a spike in TSS-related deaths in the 1980s. (A tampon alone is not enough to cause TSS—a person must already have Staphylococcus aureus present in his or her body. About 20 percent of the general population carries the bacteria.)
Tampons and tampon-like objects have been used by women during their menstrual cycles for centuries, but over the past 50 or so years, their composition has changed from natural ingredients like cotton to synthetic ingredients like rayon and plastic, especially among the big tampon manufacturers—Playtex, Tampax, Kotex. These synthetic fibers, along with a tampon’s absorbency, can form an ideal environment for staph bacteria to flourish. When Proctor & Gamble debuted an extra-absorbent tampon called Rely in the 80s, it created the perfect storm for TSS, resulting in a number of deaths.
The answer, if you’re looking to avoid infection, gangrene, amputation, and possibly death? 100% cotton tampons, if you can find them, and don’t wear them at night. Or avoid them altogether, which is what Lauren Wasser is planning to do.
Where did the convenient but dangerous little buggers come from in the first place? There’s some great consumer history here:
There’s evidence that tampons in some form or another existed in the ancient world, but the tampon as we know it today didn’t come on the scene until 1936, when Tampax put the first commercial version on the market. Tampons had been used as a way to administer vaginal medication, but not as a menstrual product. This was a new frontier. …
Still, tampons didn’t really pick up steam until women had a real good reason to switch: fashion. As skirts became shorter, thinner, and tighter, and bathing suits (and eventually, bikinis) finally came on the scene, the bulky, belted, diaper-like pads women had worn suddenly seemed really impractical, [historian] Freidenfelds said. Women started to take to the tampon, and never looked back.
Over the ensuing decades, women still used pads, and would alternate or sometimes combine the two options. Pads really made a comeback when the belt was eliminated and the stick-on pad invented in the 70s. In the 80s, with the invention of the “wings” (they wrap around the crotch of the underwear), pads were really able to compete with tampons.
But not a lot has happened in the world of sanitary protection technology since.
Newer-fangled alternatives include menstrual cups and magic underwear. Some people make their own pads out of flannel; no doubt these are the same people who can do the cloth diaper thing for more than a few months before switching to disposables. For now it seems that most women will continue spending zillions on Kotex. Perhaps the brouhaha raised over cases like this will at least incentivize the Big Three brands to create a 100% all-natural cotton version and allow us mitigate our risk.
AmberIf only!
A new video from Moviefone imagines a very special cross-over episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Orange Is the New Black with Titus going to Litchfield.
Why is Titus in prison? It could be the time he killed a sentient singing-dancing robot, or maybe that time he used Kimmy’s boss’ house to film his “Pinot Noir” music video. Why was he sent to a women’s prison? Well, don’t think too hard about it. This is basically TV fan-fiction. It doesn’t stand up to logic.
If Titus ever went to Litchfield, I would love to see him take over the Christmas pageant. He could sew the costumes, like a tear-away frock for Mary or a fabulous sequined angel dress, or do a holiday remix of “Beat That B*tch with a Bat” with Taystee. Titus and Taystee are such divas, though, that neither one of them would want to share the spotlight.
(Source: Moviefone via Death and Taxes)
Amber"I accepted the fact that college was an unaffordable next step in my life, and the only way to advance my academic career was with tons of debt."
Sunday’s editorial by Lee Siegel, “Why I Defaulted On My Student Loans,” is definitely the money-related must read from the weekend. It is a fiery, unapologetic indictment of our capitalist system, which all but mandates higher education for those trying to get ahead and yet puts it increasingly out of reach:
Some people will maintain that a bankrupt father, an impecunious background and impractical dreams are just the luck of the draw. Someone with character would have paid off those loans and let the chips fall where they may. But I have found, after some decades on this earth, that the road to character is often paved with family money and family connections, not to mention 14 percent effective tax rates on seven-figure incomes.
Moneyed stumbles never seem to have much consequence. Tax fraud, insider trading, almost criminal nepotism — these won’t knock you off the straight and narrow. But if you’re poor and miss a child-support payment, or if you’re middle class and default on your student loans, then God help you.
Forty years after I took out my first student loan, and 30 years after getting my last, the Department of Education is still pursuing the unpaid balance. My mother, who co-signed some of the loans, is dead. The banks that made them have all gone under. I doubt that anyone can even find the promissory notes.
To my mind, you have to admire this guy, even if you don’t agree with him. He is taking a bold stance and using it to make a broader, and vital, point about the economic injustices we’re willing to put up with in this country. Also his anger. There’s something so compelling about it. Maybe because I’ve started watching “The Americans”?
I mean, you could read the entire, peppery piece about why Siegel has opted out of a system that he calls “legal but not moral,” or I guess you could watch this Al Pacino clip and get the same basic idea.
When you think about it, it’s amazing that we don’t let 17-year-old children drink or vote — and, in fact, we still refer to them as “children” — yet we are okay letting them sign papers they cannot be expected to fully understand, the implications of which will, in many ways, determine their financial futures. Can we then really blame them when they come to their senses and opt out?
There are lots of rueful quotes on The Empowered Dollar about this:
When I was a senior in high school applying to schools (disgustingly expensive, private colleges, mind you), the price tag didn’t faze me. Forty-thousand dollars a year for four year didn’t seem like real money to me. I wasn’t responsible for thinking about how I was going to pay it back right now. It also felt like I didn’t have a choice. I accepted the fact that college was an unaffordable next step in my life, and the only way to advance my academic career was with tons of debt.
Let’s not forget there is often a racial component to this system, too. Half of black college students graduate with more than $25,000 in student loan debt.
For black students this cost is often greater than for their white classmates. This burden often follows them for decades after school, reinforcing income and racial inequalities that are so prominent in the US.
A Gallup poll released in September found that in the last 14 years about half of black college students graduated with student debt over $25,000 – whereas only 35% of white students did. During that same time, the number of black Americans enrolled in college had increased by 74%. In 2012, the total number of black college students was 2.96 million, up from 1.7 million in 2000. Black students make up 15% of US college students.
Generation [Dragonball] Z seems to have gotten the message from watching the rest of us that debt is a deep pit of despair:
A quarter of the respondents said they don’t think any amount of debt is manageable, and 45 percent said that they could only handle debt payments of $100 a month. Nearly two-thirds said they were concerned about being able to get a job and 60 percent expressed concern about having enough money as adults. Nearly one-third of the teenagers said college costs are “not worth it” and that the “costs will outweigh the benefits.”
What will that mean for their futures, and for our future as a nation? If nothing changes on a large scale in terms of how we assign and handle debt, will college end up, once again, the domain of the privileged few?
Oh, and whether or not you make a point of reading the comments, read this one on Siegel’s piece. It makes its point with heartbreaking clarity.
Diego Rivera image via ToPerfect.com
Good news if you’re a Chipotle employee—or a person who eats at Chipotle. Starting July 1, the restaurant will be offering paid sick days to all of its employees, including entry-level team members.
The announcement, which was reported via Nation’s Restaurant News, did not specify how many sick days each Chipotle employee would receive. It did, however, clarify that this benefit was just one of many new benefits for Chipotle workers:
“We just made an announcement internally that we are now going to be offering sick pay and paid vacation time for all employees at all levels of the company, including all entry-level employees” [JD] Cummings said. “And we’re going to be offering the full-tuition reimbursement that we offer salaried employees to all hourly employees.”
JD Cummings is Chipotle’s recruitment strategy manager, and the fact that the announcement came from him has a special significance; Chipotle is offering these new benefits as a way to incentivize new hires to stay with the company.
“We have a lot of folks who, if they realize they could make a career with Chipotle, would stick with us while they are in college and take advantage of our tuition-reimbursement program,” Cummings said. “They could find the path to restaurateur is an amazing path that they might not have thought of.”
Nation’s Restaurant News quotes Chipotle brand voice lead William Espey:
“If you can’t compete at the bottom in the terms of entry-level wage, what incentive can you build into that process—what path can you create—that’s going to hold your people?” Espey asked. “You’ve got to promise them you’re going to develop them. You’ve got to promise them a future that if they are dedicated and good and strong for the company, you are going to reward them.”
There is so much we could break down in that statement. The fact that Espey essentially said Chipotle can’t raise entry-level wages, which are, according to Glassdoor, around $9 an hour. The word “promise.” The idea that if you work hard now, you’ll be rewarded with a better future.
I am a bit hesitant about any incentive policy that promises a better future tomorrow, because the world isn’t made up of tomorrows, it’s made up of todays. However, Chipotle also appears to be doing its part to give all employees a better future today. Starting by letting them call in sick and still get paid.
Photo credit: Mike Mozart
My mom called me the other day. “I have a new manager,” she explained, “and he’s younger than you.” To her credit, she wasn’t particularly upset by this. She’s a personal trainer at a gym in New York and is used to being surrounded by 20-somethings. But it didn’t help that he had kicked off their first meeting by having all of the trainers say how long they’d been working at that gym. When my mom answered 1997, his jaw dropped and he stammered, “I was only in junior high!” He then was too awkward to make eye contact with my mom for the rest of the meeting.
It happens somewhat frequently in today’s working world that younger managers are in charge of much older staff. It can be tough, especially if the older person feels resentful for being passed over, or if the younger person lacks confidence in herself and her own abilities.
Having been in the position to manage older staff a few times, I know firsthand some of the tensions that can build, and some pitfalls to avoid. Really, even when managing people older than you, the same basic principles apply that you would use for anyone: respect the people that report to you, treat them as individuals, and be open, but confident in your own abilities as a manager. Here are a few good rules of thumb:
When I was only a year or so out of college, I was put in charge of a project and ended up managing a guy named Dave. He was probably in his late 40s or so. I assumed that, like me and everyone else I knew, Dave would be interested in growing in his role, in advancing, and that he would want to take on new tasks and learn new skills. It didn’t take long after I assigned him something outside of his previous pattern of work before he came to me to say that he wasn’t sure about this new task. It became clear that he wanted to stick to the work that he was comfortable with and good at. He liked the mastery he had over the tasks he was well rehearsed in. That’s not to say that he couldn’t learn new things, only that he wasn’t interested in doing so for the challenge of it.
It was a good lesson for me that not everyone is looking for the same things at work. It’s obvious, of course, but I had assumed that everyone had a desire to take on new challenges. This was not an assumption that proved true for Dave, and more generally, not a good assumption to make. It would have been better for me to have asked Dave what his interests and goals were before I imposed my own ideas.
Particularly if you are young and managing a significantly older person, it might be that they get something else out of the work than you do. This is true for my mom. She does take pleasure at growing in her mastery of the field and goes to workshops and trainings, but she has no interest in moving up, which would mean managing people rather than working with clients. Once I understood Dave, I didn’t try to push him in the direction I would have gone in his position. Instead, I made sure to express appreciation for work he’d done well, and if there was anything new to learn, to make sure to approach it slowly and patiently.
Regardless of their background, just by virtue of the fact that an older employee has been in the working world for many years has given them a unique perspective and experience. Treat it as just this: a perspective to carefully consider. I work with a woman named Jill, who has many years of experience in marketing. I have learned a lot from her, and often seek out her advice, particularly when it comes to graphic design and traditional media. Her perspective has been incredibly valuable, and has often saved me from repeating mistakes that have been made before.
However, she can sometimes seem out of date, especially when it comes to marketing via social media, and she is generally not that interested in trying new approaches. Sometimes I find it worth it to try something new, even when it means going against Jill’s opinions and even though it might mean making a mistake. It often helps when there is an example of another organization that has tried something similar successfully, and I can speak to wanting to test their approach. When moving forward against Jill’s advice, however, I do always try make sure that she knows that her perspective was understood, considered, and appreciated.
When I first started managing people, I struggled with being direct and taking charge. This was true for everyone I managed, but it was especially difficult for me with people who were significantly older than I was. I wanted to be collaborative and nice, and I felt timid asserting authority. It didn’t take long for me to see that this was just confusing, and ultimately unhelpful. Being clear became more important than being nice, even when doling out work that no one wanted to do. I learned that I could be clear and direct while still being kind and appreciative.
One specific lesson I learned was to stop using the word “we.” It was more helpful and clear when I specified who would do what, rather than hide behind what we might accomplish as a team. Being in charge sometimes means telling people what to do. It can be done nicely by checking in with them and making sure that works and appreciating what your team does. It can still feel authoritative and uncomfortable to me still, but I’ve learned that it is necessary.
Like all good manager-employee relationships, the core of managing someone older than you is to treat them as an individual. This means getting to know and understand them as a person, including what previous experience they have that can be helpful, and what motivates them and how to encourage them. You may end up working with some cranky staff that feel grumpy that they aren’t in your shoes, but the only thing you can control is how you treat them. Respect the people who report to you, treat them as individuals, and be open, but confident in your own abilities as a manager.
“The Grindstone” is a series about how we work today by Billfold writers Leda Marritz and Stephanie Stern. Looking for advice? Want to see a specific issue covered in the future? You can email them here.
Steph Stern works in energy and environmental policy in the San Francisco Bay Area. She writes about careers and life choices at Small Answers (or follow on Twitter: @smallanswers).
