Cowboy Who?

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#CowboyWho

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

1. I’m being asked to lead DEI training with no expertise in it

I’m very happy to work for a company that remains committed to DEI, even in this strange time. The direction coming down from many levels above me is that the company will be implementing DEI training for all employees. And because my colleague and I have experience conducting training, the powers-that-be have decided that we will present the DEI training, even though we have no expertise in DEI.

We’ve had a chance to preview the course they want to use, and it is A LOT. Maybe this is a model DEI course? I wouldn’t know, since this is not my field! On top of some pretty hard-hitting, in-your-face material, participants are asked to share personal experiences, which feels like a weird ask at work. Adding another layer of discomfort, during the course preview, people were drawing parallels between past practices referenced in the course and current events. The company has a staff of around 1,500 employees; surely it’s reasonable to expect that they vote all across the political spectrum. My colleague and I agree we that we do NOT have the skills and experience to present the material and facilitate the discussion this course is asking for, even if participants avoid politics.

Our supervisor agrees with us that this training should be conducted by a DEI expert, and he has recommended to his leadership that the company should hire a consultant. The decision makers are not listening to him and are doubling down on “anyone with training experience can lead this course.” My colleague and I are preparing to push back as a team. We agree that DEI is an important topic, especially now, and therefore it’s worth doing well. Even if the course material was less dramatic, I still believe we are unqualified to present it. I can’t tell if somebody up in the C-suite just wants to check off that DEI training is being done, or do they truly not understand that assigning this to amateurs does not bode well for a good outcome. Regardless, are we overreacting? Are there other factors we should be taking into consideration?

You are not overreacting; this is a looming disaster. These trainings are sensitive and challenging under the best of circumstances; having trainers without expertise risks it being a catastrophe. Is flatly refusing an option?

For what it’s worth: I’m not sure how committed to DEI your company really is, if they’re not willing to take the training seriously enough to hire trainers with actual expertise in the material. This reads like box-checking from people who aren’t convinced it’s really important.

2. My coworkers keep taking calls on speakerphone

Since returning to the office after the pandemic, I’ve noticed some people using speakerphone for calls in our open office plan. It’s bad enough that you have to hear one side of everyone’s meetings now, but hearing both sides is unbearable! We have phone rooms available that they could be using if they don’t want to use headphones.

Is there a polite and effective way to ask someone to use headphones? For context, my floor is full of “miscellaneous” employees who are all part of different teams and do not work directly together. I have no way of knowing who the person is or what team or manager they report to without asking. There is not a floor manager or other authority who is physically in the space. One person is particularly egregious about this and I have sat on the other side of the floor from her, but others will do it from time to time as well.

Ugh. If it’s pretty widespread, ideally your office would issue some guidance on it as a whole; any chance you could suggest it to someone with some authority to address that? They don’t need to be physically in the space to issue guidelines if you tell them there’s a problem.

But otherwise, it’s reasonable to say to any individual offender, “I’m sorry to ask, but I’m having trouble focusing when your calls are on speakerphone. Would you mind using headphones or just not using the speaker?”

3. What happened with this meeting invitation?

Part of my job is speaking to clients about how they want us to custom-design their products, whether it’s getting preliminary information or gathering actionable feedback to refine the product before shipment. I’ve got a good handle on how these conversations usually go, and it’s a point of pride that I’ve never once missed a meeting (thank you to two planners, several phone alarms and bundles of anxiety!).

After I recently provided a client with my availability to discuss their specs, we settled on a time that worked for all parties. I had about a 20-minute window between their call and a previously scheduled one, which is plenty of time even for my anxiety-fueled soul.

The first call did run a little long, but I still had a solid buffer of time to prepare for the next meeting. So imagine my horror when I got an email from that second client suggesting I no-showed, and that they cancelled our meeting 15 minutes before our mutually confirmed time! Sure enough, the meeting invite they sent was half an hour earlier than the time we agreed on: I had accepted it without even thinking to visually confirm the meeting time, and I’ll take the lumps for my failure to fact-check an invite’s details.

But I’ve also never had a client change meeting times on me without confirming it was okay first. After I apologized and provided a new window of availability, I tore through the digital paper trail between this client and me. They had said nothing about scheduling our conversation for a different time than the one we agreed upon.

Was it an error? Was it a bait and switch? Did I unknowingly agree to an end time for the conversation and not an actual call time? I don’t know, because they didn’t acknowledge their part in creating this confusion when we rescheduled the meeting, which I will admit that I’m kind of salty about.

Is this wholly my error since I should have been more diligent instead of blindly accepting their invite? Am I being unreasonable by expecting someone to signal a change in previously confirmed plans? Are there chaos gremlins out there who hear “Let’s schedule a call at 3:30” and interpret that as when the meeting should be ending?

You’re reading too much into it! This is probably just a mistake on their end. You agreed on 3:30 and somehow they wrote down 3:00. It happens.

It’s not a bait and switch, and it’s not an indication that people have started using ending times as start times. It’s just a mistake.

Should you need to double-check that the time on invitations matches the time you agreed to earlier? You shouldn’t need to, but it’s a good idea to do it, especially when you’re dealing with clients. Is it a disaster that you didn’t? No. But it’s a good thing to check for in the future (especially when you’re dealing with this client, since now you know it’s a risk with them.)

4. Can my performance evaluation mention my maternity leave?

My work will be doing annual performance evaluation shortly. My supervisor and I have already had conversation about it, and there aren’t any surprises ahead. They have asked me to draft some bullet points for their supervisor narrative and I was wondering if it’s appropriate to mention my maternity leave from the past year to provide context within the narrative. Simply, I accomplished a lot for a normal year, much less one where I was gone four months. For example, if my 150-person department normally makes 200 self-sealing stem bolts individually and collaboratively in a year, this year I made five all by myself.

I ask because I would normally consider it not something that goes in that narrative and introduces possibility for bias, but on the other hand, it shows how well I manage my time!

Yes, you can absolutely mention that to put your accomplishments in better context.

Your evaluation shouldn’t mention your maternity leave as something that gets held against you (like “Jane missed a crucial busy season”) but it can mention it to point out strengths (“despite working a compressed year because of medical leave, Jane was still able to have a record year”).

5. What is the purpose of this workplace stress check?

Every year, I get an email from the company that provides my employer’s EAP asking me to take the annual stress check-up. It’s an online test and, according to the email, it’s “a tool for measuring your stress levels.” I’ve worked at this employer for years and never taken it — I’ve never prioritized it before the deadline, those online tests kind of stress me out, and I wasn’t sure of the purpose.

But am I missing out on a workplace benefit? What kind of information can a stress check give you? Also, is my employer getting aggregate data they can use to improve working conditions, or does nothing go to the employer at all? The email says, “You may rest assured that your check results will never be disclosed to your company without your consent,” but I’m not sure if that includes anonymized data as well.

Most likely it’s used to provide you with personalized info on managing stress, as part of the EAP’s offerings. “Personalized” could mean anything from automated results assessing your stress level and recommendations for improving them to marketing emails throughout the year targeted to areas you identified as stressors. It’s unlikely to be more involved than that, although if you’re lucky I suppose it could be one step above the “meditate and have good sleep hygiene” pablum that a lot of workplace wellness programs provide.

It’s possible that your employer also receives aggregated data, but I wouldn’t assume they do — and if they do, it’s unlikely that it gets used in any real way to improve working conditions, although there may be rare exceptions to that.

If you want to know more about how your workplace’s program works specifically, you could also ask HR or whoever administers your EAP. But it’s almost certainly less involved than you’re envisioning.

The post I’m being asked to lead a training with no expertise, coworkers keep taking calls on speakerphone, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Erin Malone, the user experience designer behind Kodak’s first website, looks back on the early web with the story of how she and a colleague built the company’s inaugural homepage in 1994, before most of marketing even knew what the web was.

Fresh out of grad school and self-taught in HTML (as everyone was at that time), Malone helped create a pioneering site that today lives on in the Wayback Machine. Her testimonial highlights just how radical those early experiments were, and why preserving them matters.

“Another person in the design group that I worked in…suggested, ‘Why don’t we build a website for Kodak?’ And since I had done a website, I was like, sure, let’s do it. 

And we asked our boss if that was OK. And he said, ‘Yes,’ because I don’t think he really knew what we were talking about.”

Erin Malone, interaction designer

When I got out of grad school, I started working at Kodak. And in 1994, Mosaic came out. I had just taught myself HTML and another person in the design group that I worked in, his name was Frank Marino, suggested, “Why don't we build a website for Kodak?” 

And since I had done a website, I was like, sure, let's do it. 

And we asked our boss if that was OK. And he said, yes, because I don't think he really knew what we were talking about. And, you know, marketing wasn't really into the web yet. And they didn't have any objections. 

So we built a website that was essentially a big image map with four images coming out of the center. And I think each one linked to, I don't know, a white paper or a page with just some text on it. 

We built that in, I think,'94. I think what the Wayback Machine has is dated from 1996, but it's the same image, the same homepage. And it was pretty radical at the time. 

EDMONTON – Following the invocation of the Notwithstanding Clause to shield the Alberta government from legal challenges arising from bills targeting the province’s 2SLGTBQIA+ community, Premier Danielle Smith has again invoked the clause to prevent Albertans from watching Canada’s Drag Race. “For too long, Albertans have been subjected to these sassy drag queens on television. […]

The post Danielle Smith invokes notwithstanding clause to ban Canada’s Drag Race appeared first on The Beaverton.

Poor Nemulon-13, he’s a gas now and he’s not coming back.

The post Are you all right? appeared first on Bad Machinery.

But she actually ordered a Gibson, so yep, she’s sending it back now.

The post Dennis Hastert Just Going To Assume He Welcome Back In GOP appeared first on The Onion.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND—Audibly sighing as he “listlessly” undid a corset string by the light of a candle, a sulking, exhausted stable boy was reportedly going through the motions Thursday of tearing open Lady Marietta Ashcroft’s bodice. “At first I thought he was distracted by the nickering horses, or the passionate surging of the thunderstorm, but now it seems he’s simply not present at all,” said a sexually frustrated Lady Ashcroft, who observed that the strapping young stable hand had bent her over a hay bale to ravage her with complete disinterest, pausing frequently to relight the candle. “I know my countenance is pleasing, and my bosom is ample, so what the hell gives? Any chiseled lad in his right mind would jump at a chance to engage in a forbidden affair with me. It’s like he barely even cares that we’re of different classes!” At press time, the noblewoman’s husband, back early from business in London, was reportedly scolding the half-clothed pair before half-heartedly joining in on the action.

The post Exhausted Stable Boy Clearly Just Going Through Motions Of Tearing Open Bodice appeared first on The Onion.

Pluribus, a new sci-fi drama starring Rhea Seehorn, is Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan’s first show since Better Call Saul concluded. The Onion shares everything you need to know about the series.

Q: What’s the premise?

A: An extraterrestrial virus causes everyone except those who were robbed at the Emmys to join a hive mind.

Q: How is Pluribus connected to the Breaking Bad universe?

A: Vince Gilligan has confirmed the series takes place entirely within Jesse Pinkman’s mind. 

Q: What does “pluribus” mean?

A: It is French for “plums.”

Q: Is it true it has an anti-AI message?

A: Yes, the story is a veiled metaphor exploring the dangers of Nvidia’s market cap exceeding Apple’s.

Q: So, wait, did Walt really, actually, definitely die at the end of Breaking Bad?

A: Again, just to be clear, Pluribus is a different show.

Q: Where can I watch it?

A: At the home of any friend who didn’t realize their Apple TV subscription auto-renewed. 

Q: Will Breaking Bad fans like it?

A: Considering that the main character is a woman, no.

The post What To Know About ‘Pluribus’ appeared first on The Onion.

SAN FRANCISCO—Shedding light on how consumers were most likely to interact with the popular software application, a new report published Thursday by OpenAI revealed that ChatGPT was primarily used to ask if hot dogs were too old to eat. “Our large-scale analysis found that 98% of our users are leveraging the computing power of AI to determine whether it’s okay to consume withered processed sausages that emit pungent odors,” said OpenAI research scientist Eric Bouvier, adding that speakers of every language in the world had asked the question, whether about bloated packages of unopened frankfurters or leftover chili cheese dogs that had been lingering in the refrigerator on crusty paper plates. “At any given point, the vast majority of users are employing our chatbot’s cutting-edge neural network to generate responses to the question ‘Are hot dogs supposed to be covered in slime?’ And thanks to the photos they’ve uploaded, our model has now been trained on over 1 billion unique images of pallid meat tubes. We estimate that delegating that task of assessing hot dog safety to ChatGPT has increased user productivity by 500%.” At press time, reports confirmed millions of users had contracted food poisoning after ChatGPT told them to scrape off the mold and “chow down.”

The post OpenAI Reveals ChatGPT Primarily Used To Ask If Hot Dog Too Old To Eat appeared first on The Onion.

The post Gifted Khashoggi Head Mounted In Oval Office appeared first on The Onion.

AUSTIN, TX – Radio show host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is once again reaching out to his listener base for help with a new GoFundMe campaign to make his face even more ruddy-looking. “So the radical left has clearly found a way to deflate my head, in hopes of making me appear to be […]

The post Alex Jones launches GoFundMe to make face even puffier appeared first on The Beaverton.

With ardent anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the country’s top health official, a federal webpage that previously laid out the ample evidence refuting the misinformation that vaccines cause autism was abruptly replaced Wednesday with an anti-vaccine screed that promotes the false link.

It’s a move that is sure to be celebrated by Kennedy’s fringe anti-vaccine followers, but will only sow more distrust, fear, and confusion among the public, further erode the country’s crumbling vaccination rates, and ultimately lead to more disease, suffering, and deaths from vaccine-preventable infections, particularly among children and the most vulnerable.

On the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website titled “Autism and Vaccines,” the previous top “key point” accurately reported that: “Studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD).”

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When a Cloudflare outage disrupted large numbers of websites and online services yesterday, the company initially thought it was hit by a “hyper-scale” DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack.

“I worry this is the big botnet flexing,” Cloudflare co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince wrote in an internal chat room yesterday, while he and others discussed whether Cloudflare was being hit by attacks from the prolific Aisuru botnet. But upon further investigation, Cloudflare staff realized the problem had an internal cause: an important file had unexpectedly doubled in size and propagated across the network.

This caused trouble for software that needs to read the file to maintain the Cloudflare bot management system that uses a machine learning model to protect against security threats. Cloudflare’s core CDN, security services, and several other services were affected.

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The district was sued earlier this month by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton because it's not complying with Senate Bill 10. Federal judges have blocked 25 other Texas school districts from displaying the commandments, saying the state law is likely unconstitutional.

mst3kgifs:

Send my mask to mother!

In brief: In today’s post we discuss the region’s ongoing, record-setting heat; our uncertain rain chances for this weekend, and an eventual cooldown next week. We also dive into the chatter about a ‘sudden stratospheric warming event,’ and what that might mean for Texas.

What is a stratospheric warming event, anyway?

In recent days there has been buzz about a sudden warming in the mid-levels of the atmosphere, about 5 to 25 miles above the surface, above the poles. This is the stratosphere, where the atmosphere is very thin. It lies above the troposphere, where we live, and most of our weather patterns develop. However, when there is a significant warming of the stratosphere over the poles it can influence conditions lower in the atmosphere. Such is the case with a “sudden stratospheric warming event.”

The first thing to understand is that that such events are poorly understood, both in terms of why they occur, and what their impacts are. However this stratospheric warming does, at times, lead to a weakening of the polar vortex that bottles up colder air at the poles of the planet. And it is possible that the present stratospheric warming event will weaken the polar vortex at the North Pole, and send some of this colder air shooting down into the Northern Hemisphere in about 10 days to two weeks.

Some of our AI modeling guidance suggests this will happen over North America. However, it is equally plausible at this point that the colder air will be released into Europe or Asia. For example, in the AI version of the European model we see the most significantly colder air pushed into Russia, with a lesser helping slipping down into the United States. In this scenario it would bring near-freezing temperatures to the Houston area during the early days of December. However this is just one outcome, and we would strongly caution wariness about such long-range forecasts.

Thursday

Ok, after our brief tour of global and upper atmospheric weather, let us return to our focus on Houston. It may not be stratospheric, but the city tied its record high of 85 degrees on Wednesday (previously set in 1985). Today’s record high is 84 degrees, and we probably will tie this record today as well, if not beat it. Conditions will remain very humid, with partly to mostly cloudy skies. This afternoon will be windier, with gusts as high as 20 mph, from the south. There will be a slight chance of rain today and tonight, perhaps 10 or 20 percent. Any showers that develop will pass quickly. Lows will only drop to around 70 degrees.

Friday

This will be another warm day, with temperatures in the mid-80s. A front will sag toward the area, and this will increase shower and (possibly) thunderstorm chances. However I must say that as we have gotten into the territory of higher resolution models they have really backed off on the potential for precipitation. I still think there’s a 50 percent chance of rain on Friday and Friday night, but the overall rain totals will be on the lower side, with most areas probably picking up less than one-half inch through Saturday. Lows Friday night will remain warm, likely in the upper 60s.

Saturday and Sunday

The weak front is going to move into Houston and stall out. This will have some interesting and unpredictable effects on our weather this weekend. It’s likely that some areas inland of Interstate 10 will see some drier and briefly cooler air, with perhaps the maximum extent of this nose of drier air occurring on Saturday night into Sunday morning. The presence of the stalled front will also mean that the region continues to see a decent chance of showers on Saturday, and possibly Sunday as well. These will not be wall to wall showers by any means, but should mostly be brief. However we can’t rule out a few thunderstorms. Anyway, my guess for temperatures this weekend is low 80s, with partly sunny skies. Some inland areas may drop into the lower 60s on Saturday night as the front reaches its furthest extent.

Next week

The ‘front’ should lift back north on Sunday only to be followed by a second front that looks to be stronger. This will bring a healthy chance of rain on Monday and Monday night. By Tuesday or Wednesday we should see an influx of cooler and drier air. My prediction for Thanksgiving Day remains for morning temperatures in the lower 50s, with highs in the upper 60s. Skies should be mostly sunny. Lows will bottom out on Friday and Saturday, probably. Anyway, it should feel more like late November in Houston, finally. Precise details to come.

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Sometimes the biggest battles at work — and definitely the funniest — are over very small things: the office-wide meltdown when new phones were installed with fewer speed dial buttons; mundane parking rules that led to threats, bribery, and fake parking tickets; a rebellion after a change to the cafeteria’s sushi trays; and a full-on mutiny over thinner bacon.

Let’s discuss very big office battles over very small things. Share what you’ve seen in the comment section.

The post let’s discuss: very big office battles over very small things appeared first on Ask a Manager.

“There is a piece of cloth flying above city hall that I don’t like!!” Luke and the Panel (Clare Blackwood, Nile Seguin and Megan MacKay) talk about the Liberals (barely) passing their budget, the Conservatives new ‘hide behind the curtain’ voting strategy, and Donald Trump’s Epstein problem getting worse by the day. Then the Approximately […]

The post Toronto City Hall flying Palestinian Flag declared the most innocuous thing Conservative media has ever pissed their pants over appeared first on The Beaverton.

Remember, Microspeak is not necessarily jargon exclusive to Microsoft, but it’s jargon that you need to know if you work at Microsoft.

You may receive an email message that was sent to large group of people, and it will say something like “Little-r me if you have any questions.” What is a little-r?

The term “little-r”¹ (also spelled “little ‘r'” or other variations on the same) means to reply only to the sender, rather than replying to everyone (“reply all”). My understanding is that this term is popular outside Microsoft as well as within it.

As I noted some time ago, employees in the early days of electronic mail at Microsoft used a serial terminal that was connected to their Xenix email server, and they used the classic Unix “mail” program to read their email. In that program, the command to reply only to the email sender was (and still is) a lowercase “r”. The command to reply to everyone is a capital “R”. And the “little-r” / “big-R” commands were carried forward into the WZMAIL program that most employees used as a front end to their Xenix mail server.

These keyboard shortcuts still linger in Outlook, where Ctrl+R replies to the sender and Ctrl+Shift+R replies to all. If you pretend that the Ctrl key isn’t involved, this is just the old “little-r” and “big-R”.

Related reading: Why does Outlook map Ctrl+F to Forward instead of Find, like all right-thinking programs? Another case of keyboard shortcut preservation.

¹ Note that this is pronounced “little R”, and not “littler”.

The post Microspeak: Little-r appeared first on The Old New Thing.

"Frontera Freeways" explores the legacy of growth and displacement brought on by the precursor to I-10.

Abbott fought for months to keep secret emails between his office and Elon Musk. Now, hundreds of pages have been released.

As Texas heads into an eventful holiday season, here are several festive parades to look forward to in cities around the state.

Fort Worth, 2025 GM Financial Parade of Lights
Sunday, November 23, at 6 p.m.

The 2025 GM Financial Parade of Lights in Fort Worth is coming up quickly. The parade, which bills itself as one of the top illuminated parades in the country, kicks off at the intersection of Weatherford and Throckmorton Streets in the city’s downtown.

This year’s Grand Marshal is Chris Cassidy, President and CEO of the National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation in Arlington. High school marching bands, car clubs, Ballet Folklorico, and the Grinch will be among more than 100 participants in the Parade of Lights.

Tickets for reserved seating are available on the parade website. The event will be broadcast live on TXA-21 television, and Facebook Live.

Houston, 76th Annual H-E-B Thanksgiving Day Parade
Thursday, November 27, at 9 a.m.

Identified as one of the oldest such parades in the nation, the 76th Annual H-E-B Thanksgiving Day Parade will draw several hundred thousand spectators to downtown Houston.

Grand Marshals for the parade are Houston sports mascots Toro, Clutch, Orbit, and Diesel, and featured performers include Christina Wells, Danny Gokey, and Payton Howie.

Check the parade website for detailed information.

El Paso, Sun Bowl Thanksgiving Day Parade
Thursday, November 27, at 10 a.m.

If you’re willing to include the first versions held on New Year’s Day in 1935 and 1936, the Sun Bowl Thanksgiving Day Parade in El Paso (it moved to Turkey Day in 1978) is yet older.

Also held on the holiday itself, the parade travels down Montana Avenue, starting at Ochoa Street and ending at Copia Street. More than 100 floats, equestrian units, marching bands, military ceremonial units, Mexican and Indian dance ensembles, drum and bugle corps, and local celebrities will celebrate with Grand Marshal Chef Aarón Sánchez.

The theme for 2025 is “Childhood Is Where Dreams Are Born.” Tickets for reserved seating are available for $10, and a link to a live stream of the event are available here.

Dallas, Dallas Holiday Parade  
Saturday, December 6, at 8:30 a.m.

The Dallas Holiday Parade is the City’s largest one-day, outdoor event. More than 350 television stations in 159 markets have syndicated the parade, which won 2024 Emmy awards for its producers and hosts.

Called the “Miracle on Commerce Street” since its origins in 1988, the parade route begins at Commerce and Houston Streets. There will be vendors, entertainment, and holiday fun at Main Street Gardens and Civic Gardens before and after the parade, which begins at 9 a.m. and lasts about two hours.

Information on tickets for reserved seating, and a link to a Google Map denoting the parade path, is available here.

San Antonio, Ford Holiday River Parade and Lighting Ceremony
Friday, November 28, at 6 p.m.

San Antonio loves its namesake river, which it celebrates regularly with festive flotilla parades. One of the biggest and brightest is the Ford Holiday River Parade and Lighting Ceremony, viewable along the downtown River Walk. The event begins at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, with a live broadcast starting at 7:05 p.m. sharp from the Arneson River Theatre.

The river parade boasts 200,000 lights, with floats reflecting the theme “Merry Movie Magic.” Appropriately, Buddy the Elf from the musical Elf will be the parade’s grand marshal.

Information on tickets for seating throughout the parade route is available on the San Antonio River Walk website.

Corpus Christi, Port of Corpus Christi Illuminated Boat Parade
Saturday, December 6, 2025, at 7 p.m.
La Posada Lighted Boat Parade
Friday, December 12, at 7 p.m., and Saturday, December 13, at 6 p.m.

Corpus Christi celebrates the holidays with not one, but three parades, appropriate to its Gulf Coast location.

The Port of Corpus Christi Illuminated Boat Parade runs Saturday, December 6, at the Downtown Seawall. Boaters from Corpus Christi and beyond will set sail in a sea of lights while competing for the most festive vessel of the season. An afterparty follows.

The following weekend, the two-day La Posada Lighted Boat Parade brings cheer to two locations on Padre Island. On Friday, December 12, the parade starts at the JFK Bridge, with watch parties at Marker 37 and Doc’s Seafood & Steaks, which will also accept new, unwrapped toys for kids. On Saturday, December 13, the parade starts at Caravel Boat Ramp North, then travels down the South Canals.

For further information on both parades, check out the Visit Corpus Christi website.

Brownsville, 73rd Annual Brownsville Christmas Parade
Saturday, December 6, at 7 p.m.

The 89th annual Charro Days celebration kicks off in Brownsville with a Christmas parade downtown on St. Nicholas Day.

The post Where to See Thanksgiving and Holiday Parades In Texas appeared first on Glasstire.

Glasstire counts down the top five art events in Texas.

For last week’s picks, please go here.

The post Top Five: November 20, 2025 appeared first on Glasstire.

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

1. Employee keeps falling asleep in meetings

I have an employee who joined the team about 10 months ago. He is a good contributor so far, but I’ve noticed he has a bad habit of drowsing off during afternoon meetings, especially ones that are within an hour after lunch. I brought it up to him once about 2-3 months after he joined the team, and told him frankly that it was unprofessional and not acceptable. He agreed and said that he would work on getting better. But in the past month I’ve noticed it happening again. He’s also a bit older (maybe early 60’s though I don’t know his exact age) — not that age changes anything, but maybe makes him more susceptible to post-lunch food coma?

I’ll likely bring it up again in my next one-on-one with him next week, but I’m concerned about things possibly backsliding again. Any ideas on what to do if that happens?

Just be direct! “We talked about this previously, but I’ve noticed it’s happening again. If there are things we can do on our end to help, I’m very open to them, but I do need you to get it under control permanently, not just temporarily.”

But also think about whether there are tweaks you can make that would help. For example, it’s probably not realistic to avoid all afternoon meetings but since he otherwise does good work, is there any room for reshuffling things in a way that would minimize this without much inconvenience (like if there’s one meeting where it always happens and that meeting could easily be before lunch rather than after)? Are your meeting rooms too warm? Sufficiently stocked with caffeine? Can you encourage people to stand or move around during meetings if they need to?

I’m not saying this is on you to solve — he’s an adult who has to figure out how to manage his own energy patterns (or needs to raise it if there’s a medical issue he needs accommodations for) — but there’s no harm in being thoughtful about small tweaks that could help.

2. My office party is in a bar with a photo of me in a bikini on the wall

My director is taking out our team for a staff party and dinner at a local bar in a couple of weeks. The problem I have is that on the wall of that bar they have a bunch of pictures of the winners of their annual bikini contest. I won the contest in 2010 when I was in college and there’s a huge picture of me in my bikini on the wall and my name listed below on a gold colored plate. Should I consider not attending the event or perhaps begging HR to force them to move the event? Maybe I should just go and if the picture is noticed make a joke about it? Do you think anything bad would happen if my colleagues see a younger me in a bikini?

Well … if you work in a male-dominated field or just a particularly sexist or conservative one, it’s not great; that’s a context where it’s risks being really unhelpful to have your coworkers see you in the sort of sexualized way bikini contest winners tend to be portrayed in photos that hang on bar walls. (In other words, it’s not just the bikini itself; it’s the social framing around the photo.) If you don’t work in a male-dominated, conservative, or sexist field, it might not be a big deal, particularly since it’s from 15 years ago.

But if you do … any chance you could just ask the bar to take it down? A lot of people would be happy to oblige if you showed up and said, “My whole office is about to come here for a staff party in a week and I really don’t want them seeing a huge photo of me in a bikini; can you take it down for now?”

3. I was promised a monthly schedule, but it changes weekly

I’m two months into a new job as a full-time AV technician at an events venue. I’ve been doing similar jobs for the past few years on a freelance basis. I’m well accustomed to the demands of irregular and unpredictable hours. Before this role, I was often booked for a job the night before or day-of. This work is not my passion but it’s related to my love for making music and performing. I see this as my priority and work as a means of facilitating my passion. I’m in my 20s, if you couldn’t tell!

When I took this job, I was told by the COO in the interview that my working hours would be irregular from Monday to Sunday (anything from 7 am to 1 am) but by consolation I would be given my rota a month in advance. However, to my surprise, on my first day my manager said I would be given my rota weekly. That is, on a Saturday for the following week.

Despite my familiarity with irregular hours, I’m struggling with not being able to plan my personal commitments. When I was self-employed, I had the freedom to refuse work. In spite of my great efforts, band rehearsals are falling to the wayside and I have not seen my friends the past two months. I can request days off but it does not look professional to do so frequently, nor would the requests be approved. (However, this is the best salary I have ever received and am determined to stick around and do well here.)

I have constructively brought this up with my manager, even suggesting that I write my own rota two weeks in advance for his approval, as the calendar is about 90% certain at this point. However, I am simply ignored. I’m aware flexibility is a necessary condition for working in busy events operations, but I feel I was misled in this respect. Do you have any suggestions for how to advocate for myself tactfully or how to learn to cope in my own way?

Yeah, this isn’t reasonable — you can’t make plans if you have to keep your schedule wide open until two days before each week starts and you can only infrequently request specific dates off.

Have you told your boss that the COO explicitly promised you in the interview that you’d have your schedule a month in advance? If so, and he doesn’t care, are the internal politics there such that you could go back to the COO and say, “We talked about this explicitly in my interview, but it’s turned out that I’m only getting my schedule two days before the week starts. Since you’d mentioned when I was being hired that I’d have a lot more notice, I wanted to check back with you about it.”

If that seems like a politically risky move, then I’d ask yourself: would you have taken the job if you’d had the correct info about the schedule from the start? If so, that’s one way to frame it for yourself — that this isn’t ideal and it particularly sucks that you were given bad info, but that it wouldn’t have stopped you from accepting regardless. Additionally, I wonder if it’s possible for you to negotiate one day a week that you’ll always have off (or even every other week) so that you have some ability to plan?

4. Should a CEO’s contract prevent them from being unfairly fired?

The firing of the CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art has roiled my nonprofit world. It’s gossipy in and outside Philadelphia partly because so many unusually specific details of the firing were included in the news — for “just cause” almost never is actually part of the press release! — and also because she was under contract and it seems like contracts are supposed to prevent leaders from being fired quickly like this.

Not withstanding the specifics of the situation, can you clarify how a contract does, or does not, protect employees from regular hiring and firing decisions?

It varies widely depending on exactly what’s in the contract, but it would be typical for a contract for that type of position to spell out what would be cause for firing, which would generally include things like ethics violations and failure to perform (as opposed to leaving it wide open like at-will employment typically does) and what terms would govern a separation (how much severance, etc.). It’s also common for a contract at that level to include two different separation packages: one if the person is fired for cause, like fraud or gross negligence, and a higher package if the reason is something more like bad chemistry with the board or the organization making a strategic shift.

In this case, it looks like the board is claiming they fired her at least in part for improper spending; depending on what that means in practice, the firing could definitely be allowed under such a contract (assuming there was real financial impropriety, not buying herself a fancy pen or something). Or it could be BS to cover up that they just didn’t like her and wanted her gone (which sounds like is at least partly the case).

5. Can I give one employee a larger bonus than the others?

I have a newish employee, Jane, who is amazing. She’s been with the company for about six months. Jane inherited a messy situation from her predecessor, who was a poor fit for the role, and has not only cleaned that up, but also made significant improvements in our processes. She is trustworthy, reliable, hardworking, competent, and proactive. I feel really fortunate to have her on the team!

I try to give all my staff flexibility and perks in whatever ways I can manage, but Jane’s role is one of the least flexible on the team. (For example, other people are able to work remote, hybrid, or flex schedules, but she can’t, due to the nature of the role. Other people travel around our area for work and have company cars, but Jane is based in the office so she takes the bus.) It’s also the most junior role and pays the least.

We traditionally give bonuses at the end of the year, and I’d like to recognize Jane’s value and contributions to the company with a larger-than-normal bonus. I’m thinking $500-1,000 instead of $200-400. Is this a good idea even if I won’t be able to match it next year, the year after, etc.? Is it fair to my other staff, who are also wonderful and hardworking, but who get paid more and enjoy more perks year-round?

I don’t want to create bad feelings with other staff if people decide to discuss their bonuses (which may happen), and I also don’t want to set an expectation that I can’t live up to in subsequent years. But I feel strongly that Jane deserves recognition for how much she’s contributed thus far, and money is the best way to do that.

Note: We also give raises, and I fully expect to raise Jane’s salary, but she won’t be eligible until she completes her first year of employment.

You absolutely can give Jane a larger than normal bonus in recognition of her good work; that’s a very common and normal thing to do. You’d want to be prepared to explain the discrepancy if anyone asks about it, but it sounds like you’d be able to do that easily (she’s done an phenomenal job and she has the least flexible and lowest-paying role on the team).

To avoid setting Jane up to expect it every year, you can say something like, “Our year-end bonuses are typically less than this, but you’ve done such a fantastic job this year under difficult circumstances that I wanted you to get some special recognition for that.”

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