Cowboy Who?

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Hypnotisim is a very, very serious matter.
Oh yeah?
Oh yes! Although it has found some practical application in today's modern science and medicine, it is still a potentially leathal form of Black Magic!
Oh yeah? Cool! #CowboyWho

A recent comment I received on Facebook stated: “The death of Randalls should be studied for future generations.” Well, good news, I’ve already studied it! At nearly 7,500 words (about 20 printed pages), the Randalls Food Markets page is one of the projects I’m most proud of on HHR. It gained enough traction to catch the attention of Randall Onstead a few years back, who invited me to his office to meet him and discuss ...

In brief: In today’s post we discuss Houston’s sunny weather this week, and a splash of lower humidity before sultry conditions return this weekend. Rain may return by Sunday night or Monday.

Real talk, y’all

There is no shortage of inclement weather in Houston, from hurricanes to freezes, and heavy rainfall to deep summer heat. But at other times our pattern is calm and fairly predictable. This is one of those times. I’m not saying you should not read Space City Weather for the next day or two, but if you wanted to take a break it would not be the worst idea in the world. Houston’s weather pattern is fairly calm in the coming days, and in terms of confidence I don’t expect the forecast to change too much.

Wednesday

We are seeing another pleasantly cool morning across Houston, with temperatures in the upper 60s in Houston, and even cooler the further northeast one travels. Don’t get used to this, because are lows are going up big time this weekend. But for now, it is really rather pleasant. With light northwest winds, sunny skies, and moderately dry air our high temperatures this afternoon will rise to about 90 degrees, or even a touch above. Temperatures will cool down this evening, with lows tonight probably dropping to around 70 degrees in Houston, with conditions a touch cooler for outlying areas.

Thursday

This will be a day a lot of like Wednesday in all but one respect: winds. They’re going to veer from the west to south, and this will be the beginning of the onshore flow. Afternoon winds may gust up to 20 or 25 mph. Lows on Thursday night should drop to around 70 degrees.

Friday

Highs on Friday will be in the upper 80s for most of Houston, with mostly sunny skies and breezy southerly winds. Lows will only drop into the low- to mid-70s.

Saturday and Sunday

This weekend should see a mix of sunshine and clouds, with the best chance for some clearing skies during the afternoon hours. Highs will generally be in the vicinity of 85 to 90 degrees for most locations, with plenty of humidity. Our nighttime lows will be quite a bit more sultry, in the upper 70s. Rain chances on both days will be about 10 percent, so pretty low overall. That may change by Sunday evening or night.

Next week

As the moisture levels pile up in our atmosphere and high pressure departs over the weekend, this will set the stage for higher rain chances during the first half of next week. I don’t feel too confident yet in accumulations, but after a warm and sunny week any precipitation will be welcome for most of us. In terms of temperatures, highs probably will hang out somewhere in the upper 80s before, possibly, a weak front pushes into the area by the middle of the week. Maybe. These things often tend to wash out before pushing all the way through Houston at this time of year.

Stop motion can be a very provocative form of animation. Even its name sounds sensual… Stop. Motion.

LANGLEY, VA—In the wake of an operation condemned by critics as a reckless provocation that fails to heed the lessons of history, the Central Intelligence Agency came under fire Friday for arming a group of rowdy 7-year-olds in the town of Heronburg, OH. “Last I checked, the American people were never consulted about whether they wanted to spend millions of dollars on assault weapons and air-to-ground missiles so we could back a bunch of rambunctious elementary schoolers,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), denouncing the “interventionist boondoggle” known as Operation First Grade, in which the CIA outfitted the pack of red-faced, boisterous school children with AK-47s, Stinger missiles, and anti-tank weapons in exchange for continued access to their playground, where the agency plans to construct a special training facility. “Let’s be real here: Jackson H. is not a faithful steward of Lincoln Elementary’s student body, and if he is deposed, you know what? You wind up with Jackson P. in charge. And he’s a genuine bully. Have we even asked permission to do this from their mothers? No, of course not. And I have yet to hear a single legitimate explanation for how it benefits our citizens in any way for these kids to topple their principal.” At press time, CIA director John Ratcliffe had issued a statement denying responsibility for the rocket-propelled grenades that destroyed the school’s cafeteria, insisting they were fired by anti-lunch extremists. 

The post CIA Under Fire For Arming Group Of Rowdy 7-Year-Olds appeared first on The Onion.

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Look, we all know how most people live their lives these days, so let’s not beat around the bush and pretend you need a nice home for entertaining and shit like that.

Reference #538518

The post Great For Streaming TV And Jerking Off appeared first on The Onion.

In the US, fired and laid-off workers often have their digital credentials deactivated before they learn about the loss of their jobs; indeed, the inability to log in to a corporate system may be the first an employee knows of the situation.

Although not a generous or humane approach to staff reduction, it does follow from the simple fact that a fired employee with access to company systems is a security risk.

Just ask the Akhter twin brothers, accused of wiping out 96 databases hosting US government information in the minutes after both were fired last year from their shared employer.

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In brief: In today’s post we discuss our somewhat cooler-than-normal start to the month of May. Alas, it won’t last. After some lower humidity to start the week, dewpoints and overnight lows will rise considerably as we get into the weekend.

Stickier weather ahead

Through the first 11 days of this month the city of Houston’s average temperature has been 72.3 degrees, which is running 2.4 degrees below normal. We have had several nights in the 50s and lower 60s, along with a couple of fronts. All of this has given us a nice start to the month, and perhaps led some of us to forget that we are right on summer’s doorstep.

That will change later this week. Our moderately cooler nights and somewhat drier air will hang around through Wednesday or Thursday. But by this weekend a much muggier pattern returns to the area. We’re talking about daytime highs in the upper 80s to possibly 90 degrees. However the impact will be even greater at night, with very sticky conditions and lows only dropping into the upper 70s.

So if you enjoy more moderate conditions during the mornings and evenings—which I certainly do—today and Wednesday are your best bets.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Houston will enjoy a light, northerly flow today and Wednesday, and this will bring us continued fine weather for May. High temperatures today will likely be in the mid-80s, followed by the upper-80s on Wednesday. Both days will be sunny. With dewpoints in the low 60s our humidity is not exactly low, but it will still be quite a bit more comfortable than it will be by this weekend. Mornings and evenings will remain quite pleasant, and we can expect overnight low temperatures to fall into the upper 60s in Houston, with cooler conditions for outlying areas.

Thursday and Friday

These will also be days with sunny to mostly sunny skies, but the air probably will be a bit more humid as our flow turns southerly. Expect highs in the upper 80s to 90 degrees, with nighttime temperatures in the low 70s.

Saturday and Sunday

As we head into the weekend Houston’s weather will turn more humid. With more atmospheric moisture I also expect partly to mostly cloudy days, although there will still probably be some afternoon sunshine about. This will likely determine how high temperatures get, but generally they probably will top out in the upper 80s to 90 degrees. Nights will only drop down into the upper 70s, so yeah, we aren’t going to cool down much. Rain chances are not zero, but they probably are about 10 percent so you should be good to go for outdoor activities.

Next week

In the most likely scenario we will remain warm and muggy. However beginning Monday our atmosphere may turn somewhat more disturbed, and this would open our region up to some better rain chances.

A reader writes:

I make a technically reasonable but low salary at my entry-level job, and while I’m not slacking, I’m also definitely not pushing as hard as I could. I do above my quota easily as it is, and I’m confident I could do more — even the work of two people — without overburdening myself. I like the work and I’m extremely good at it, but I’ve been feeling pressured to look for a new job because that salary just isn’t sustainable.

Our team is short-staffed at the moment, like everyone else, and it takes some time for a new employee to get up to speed. If I could make, let’s say, half of another person’s salary on top of my current pay, I’d be making the amount of money I want and I feel (though I could be wrong here) that’d they be getting a bargain. Let’s say I make $35,000 a year, and so hiring a new person would be another $35,000 plus their hypothetical benefits. If they gave me half that plus my current salary, I could do the work of two people for $52,500, and this would meet my needs.

It’s the sort of thing that feels like it could be mutually advantageous except for social conventions and the defined salary range. Is there any way to propose this gracefully, or should I well and truly let go of the idea?

Also, I totally understand if there are questions regarding the wisdom of taking on such a workload. I know the job and my skill level, but I’d do some more specific assessment before reaching out about anything, if it would indeed be acceptable to do so.

What you want to propose sounds extremely logical, and yet companies will almost never do it.

Some of that is skepticism that you’d really be taking on the work of a whole other person’s job. Sometimes that skepticism is warranted, because in practice it can end up meaning that you do the basics the other person would do but none of the extras and they miss out on the advantages of having two brains looking at problems (and coming up with ideas, taking initiative, etc.) rather than one. You might think that’s a reasonable trade-off to make if it saves them from having to hire an entire other person, but there are legitimate reasons for managers to be uneasy about that.

Sometimes, too, they can have worries about coverage: right now if you’re out, there are X other people who can do the work, but under what you’re proposing it would be X-1.

They also might worry about your capacity. Maybe you’re right that you could easily field both jobs now, but they don’t know if it will be sustainable long-term — if, for example, the workload of either position changes, or if something changes on your end (like a new commitment that takes a lot of your energy outside of work and leaves you less bandwidth).

And, crucially, a manager might figure that what you’re proposing would work fine as long as you’re still employed there, but if you leave, they’d need to hire two people to replace you and it would be a battle for them to get that headcount back if they give it up now.

Other times, none of those concerns are in play and they just object to the idea of structuring pay the way you describe, figuring that they’re paying for your time and if you can do X job and Y job in 40 hours, that’s what your existing salary covers. In that case, they’re more likely to be open to a raise, but not one that’s structured as half the salary of another position.

Ultimately, that’s likely the most effective way to propose it: to say that you think you could take on much of the work of the other role, saving them from having to hire another person and, if you did, would they consider increasing your salary to reflect that? You might propose a one-month experiment so both sides can see if it works. The risk in doing that, of course, is that they could decide to add most/all of that position’s work to your role without a sufficient pay increase. But if you’d otherwise be planning to leave over pay at some point regardless, that might be a risk you’re willing to take on.

The post can I ask for half an extra salary if I take on someone else’s job plus mine? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

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

1. I was fired for charging customers’ cash purchases to my credit card

Started my part-time summer job (I am retired) a few weeks ago, working at small convenience/snack/candy store near a local free tourist attraction that opened up for the season. Got fired yesterday.

This year, the store went to a “no cash” payment system. Small sign on the door, another by the register. Problem is, not all people carry other forms of payment besides cash, mostly older folks, plus who wants to use their credit card for a 50 cent piece of candy? To help these customers out, especially ones who don’t have another form of payment available, I accepted their cash, then ran the transaction on my credit card. I asked if this was okay with them before hand and printed off a receipt that I kept for my records to keep everything on the “up and up.”

The owners noticed the number of receipts with my name on it and questioned me. I explained what I was doing and why and they fired me on the spot for “violating company policy.” I asked them to show me the policy and they could not. I asked them what specifically I was doing wrong, they could not give me an answer.

I understand “employment at will” so they can let me go for any reason, but I may file for unemployment because they didn’t have a “valid” reason for firing me and that is why I am writing. Was what I did wrong?

Yeah, it wasn’t wise. You were overriding the store’s payment policy; you basically created your own means for customers to pay, without first checking with your employer. I think they overreacted by firing you — they should have just told you to stop doing it — but you should have asked your manager first if it was okay to do it, especially before doing it multiple times.

Most importantly, having a bunch of receipts with an employee’s name on them is likely to raise red flags from an auditor. Beyond that, though, a customer could come in when you’re not working and expect a different cashier to do the same thing you were doing, and then be upset or frustrated when they refuse. It also opens your employer to accusations that they’re accepting cash from some customers and not from others.

2. New boss keeps questioning how I’m doing things

When I started this job about 10 months ago, my old manager made sure to give me positive feedback, even when I was new. Any negative feedback became a conversation instead of something accusatory, and she noted in my performance reviews that I was doing great but needed more confidence. My old manager made me feel heard and like I could talk to her about any troubles I was having at work.

However, she left the company, and our team’s new manager isn’t as great. It’s only been a few weeks but I constantly feel questioned as to why I’m doing things the way I am. What’s worse is that I don’t notice her asking similar things to my teammates. I feel like I’m being singled out and I’m the youngest with the least amount of experience. I never get positive feedback from my new manager, and it’s taking a toll on my self-esteem because I can’t accurately judge if I’m good at the job or not.

Do you have any advice for me? I really like the job and with my old manager, saw myself staying for years. Now I’m contemplating if I want to stick around more.

It’s possible that you’re being singled out because you’re the least experienced, but it’s also possible that you’re being singled out because your new manager finds you the most approachable or thinks your explanations are the clearest or shortest or she likes your way of doing things. It’s also possible that she’s asking your coworkers and you just don’t see it. Or, yes, it’s possible that she’s doubting your expertise.

But why not ask her? You could say, “Do you have concerns about the way I’m doing things like X or Y? You’ve asked me a lot about it, and I wasn’t sure if you’re just interested in the way we do this or if you’re concerned by anything about how I’m approaching the work.”

3. We give raises to salaried workers, but not hourly workers

I work for a private college. They annually give cost-of-living raises to salaried employees, but hourly employees in the department I oversee and in comparable departments have stayed the same for the last eight years. I’ve spoken to my manager, who is a very nice human but doesn’t want to be seen as challenging and struggles with negotiations in any setting.

I’m trying to prep him effectively to argue that if both merit and cost-of-living raises are the norm for salaried employees, then even if part-time roles are capped on a pay scale and even if merit raises are not an option, if the company recognizes the need for cost-of-living raises for salaried workers, this logic should be applied to anyone working for the organization. Would love some input.

What on earth. If an employer recognizes cost-of-living raises are necessary to keep up with inflation, there’s no logical basis for excluding hourly workers from that (unless there’s some really odd and extenuating circumstance, like that somehow all the salaried workers just happened to be dramatically underpaid and none of the hourly workers are, which seems pretty unlikely). Are they just completely uninterested in retaining the hourly workers and unconcerned by the costs of finding and training replacements?

In your boss’s shoes, I’d start by asking for the reasoning for excluding hourly workers from salary adjustments to keep up with inflation and go from there (next, presumably pointing out that hourly workers face the same cost-of-living increases as other employees, and that turnover from not retaining them will be disruptive).

4. How can people get my attention when I’m wearing headphones?

I work in an open concept floor plan, with my desk facing (gloriously!) a window. To cope with the noise and to be able to focus, I wear noise-cancelling headphones that really block out everything.

People often come up behind me and want to get my attention. I was wondering if there was any technology gimmick that I could use — something like a button they could press for a light to turn on at my desk, or something to push a notification. The sillier, the better! I am not shy about putting together something custom. Any ideas, or even keywords that I could search, would be amazing!

Right now I am trying to use a mirror, which is probably the best low-tech option, but I’d love to know if there’s something more fun I could do.

There are earbuds that allow you to hear human voices over music — but it sounds like you’re purposely trying to drown out human voices most of the time.

There’s also tech that was initially developed for deaf users that will trigger a visual alert like flashing a desk lamp. The search term you want is “alerting devices.”

5. What are employers doing about high gas prices?

I’m curious if your readers are hearing anything from their employers regarding the exorbitant gas and oil prices right now? I haven’t heard anything from my employer, but I’d love to know if (and how) other companies are communicating about this. What can (or should) we expect when transportation costs are this high?

My sense is that the majority of employers aren’t doing this, but some companies are offering gas cards or cash stipends or temporarily increasing mileage reimbursement rates. Some are also increasing work-from-home options or temporarily suspending return-to-office mandates. Here are some articles about what specific companies are doing: 1, 2, 3

The post I was fired for charging customers’ purchases to my credit card, new boss keeps questioning me, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I work for a large company and am my manager’s (“Sharon”) only direct report. Sharon is professional and high-performing the three days a week she is in the office. However, on her work-from-home days and even on her scheduled days off, her behavior becomes deceptive, erratic, and deeply disruptive. I choose to work in the office five days a week and arrive at 7 am — an hour before the rest of the team — which has made me the “face” of the team while Sharon has become a digital ghost.

Some examples of her erratic behavior:

• On a remote day, Sharon claimed she couldn’t work due to a failure in our software. Since our department manages that software, I checked the logs; no such failure existed.

• She once manufactured a “critical emergency” on her scheduled day off, calling me at 7:30 am claiming she couldn’t click a link because her cat was sitting on her phone, and asking me to submit a compliance report for her. Peer managers later confirmed that there was no urgency to this request, and it could have waited until the next day when she was back at work.

• Despite an HR policy mandating that cameras be on during remote meetings, Sharon remains camera-off at home but camera-on in the office.

• She sometimes skips our team’s mandatory morning status meetings, later calling me for “debriefs” that interrupt my own work. Minutes for these meetings are uploaded daily by a dedicated note-taker to a shared digital document accessible by our entire team, so there shouldn’t be a need for her to call me about them when she can simply check this document.

Recently, this has turned into what feels like active career sabotage:

• I have led a high-profile app project since long before Sharon arrived. She asked me to cancel the twice-weekly status meetings about it that I had been leading since before she arrived; these meetings were an essential tool for staying in the loop about development and testing progress, and without them I feel like I don’t have a proper grasp on progress, even as the app has grown in complexity in recent months

• She frequently cancels our scheduled 1:1s, instead relying on phone calls out of nowhere on WFH days or asking me to “swing by” her desk with zero notice. I never know what she’s going to ask about, and it feels designed to keep me off-balance.

• During these calls, she has explicitly told me not to take notes and to “just listen.” Note-taking is essential for my focus, but she seems determined to eliminate any audit trail of her instructions.

• She is questioning my “bandwidth” to continue as project lead on the app. Yet she refuses to delegate my low-level grunt work, despite me providing full documentation for a hand-off to other team members

• In the two years she has managed me, I have received the lowest performance scores of my time at this company. During a recent “swing by” session where she claimed my performance had “dropped sharply,” I offered to show her my detailed weekly task logs. She waved me off, said the data wasn’t relevant, and continued to insist I lacked bandwidth.

• She recently told me that if our next release is delayed, she will have to “justify” to a high-level VP stakeholder why she gave me such a “high” score (the score was actually quite low). I have a great long-term relationship with this VP, and this felt like a direct threat to my reputation.

How do I handle a manager who makes formal accusations about my performance but refuses to look at the evidence that disproves them? Also, how do I protect my reputation with the VP when my manager is actively trying to eliminate my audit trails?

And finally, what do you make of her erratic behavior? I have my own thoughts and suspicions, but I would love to have your input on it in case there’s an angle I’m not considering.

Yeah, something is up with Sharon, although I don’t know what it is. If she weren’t professional and high-performing on the days she’s in the office, I’d suspect this was just garden-variety incompetence and disorganization, combined with a low work ethic, and that she was trying to hide her own ineptness by painting you as the problem. But if she’s good at her job when she’s in the office, that falls apart.

I do wonder if, due to whatever’s going on during her days away, she’s feeling threatened by your competence and that’s why she told you to cancel your app status meetings and is making what sound like baseless threats. But what is it that’s creating such a different Sharon when she’s not there? Is she working a second job / hiding a meth problem / possessed by a Dybbuk? I have no idea.

For what it’s worth, some of this on its own wouldn’t be that big of a deal. There are plenty of managers out there who skip or cancel meetings and then want updates at inconvenient times later (and it’s not usually designed to keep you off-balance) or who stay camera-off at home.

But lying about an easily checked software failure? Claiming her cat sitting on her phone was a “critical emergency” when the report she asked you to do in her place wasn’t even urgent? Forbidding you from taking notes when you talk to her? Refusing to look at actual facts (like your weekly task logs) when she criticizes your performance and your bandwidth?

Something is up here. She may indeed be actively trying to sabotage you, but she also may be flailing so badly at her job that that’s just a secondary effect.

Regardless, I don’t see good solutions that include you continuing to work for Sharon long-term. Do you have the ear of anyone senior who you can discreetly talk to about what’s going on — maybe that high-level VP who you mentioned you have a great relationship with? You could explain Sharon’s erratic behavior on her out-of-office days and that she’s been making unwarranted accusations about your work while refusing to look at actual data that would disprove them, and ask for their help navigating it. Or, in theory, you could ask HR for their help with that last part (responding to performance concerns when Sharon won’t look at actual data), but on something like this I’d rather loop in someone with more capital and influence than HR usually has when there are problems with a manager.

The post my manager’s erratic behavior is sabotaging my work appeared first on Ask a Manager.

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

1. Do we need a dress code because one employee’s skirts are too short?

I work in a small marketing office and am part of the leadership team. It shouldn’t matter for this, but I am a woman. We have no written dress code and it is pretty casual. To give you an idea, leggings and tracksuit bottoms are not that uncommon, nor are hoodies and shorts. But I’m not sure that means we have actually no rules. At the extreme end, swimwear and booty shorts would not be okay, nor would a t-shirt with swear words on it.

One staff member, Barbara, stands out a bit in how she dresses — think very short dresses (with tights underneath) and sometimes low-cut tops. I personally don’t care (and have always mentally marked this as a choice but not one that impacts my assessment of her work, which is good, or her character). Another member of staff, Lisa, has asked whether we need to consider tightening the dress code. (I think Barbara was doing something during a break that meant her dress had ridden up, and Lisa has raised it off the back of this.)

One option of course is to do nothing. And maybe that’s fine. But there is a line — no one should have to see their colleague’s underwear. Should we talk to Barbara about this? If we do, how can this be phrased in a way that isn’t awful? I don’t think we want to try to construct an entire dress code because of this either, especially if it were aimed solely at women or solely at “too short skirts.”

I know you don’t want to construct an entire dress code because one person isn’t following it, and you don’t have to — you could just talk to Barbara and let her know that at least one outfit recently exposed her underwear and ask her to ensure she’s wearing clothes to fully cover her undergarments.

But I’d argue that it’s a kindness to spell out more formally what isn’t okay. So far, everyone but Barbara has picked up on it, but given that your office does have some expectations around dress, it’s not ideal to rely on people figuring out those expectations on their own. You might be thinking, “Most people look around and figure it out” — but as you’re seeing, inevitably some of them will get it wrong. Since there is a playbook that you expect people to use (just an unwritten one), it’s kinder to everyone — and better management — to spell it out.

It doesn’t need to be any more proscriptive than the current expectations. It could simply spell out what you’ve spelled out here — no swimwear, booty shorts, or t-shirts with profanity, and clothes should provide enough coverage that undergarments aren’t exposed.

Someone still needs to talk to Barbara; you shouldn’t just roll out a new dress code without explaining to her what she needs to change. But ideally you’d do both.

Related:
our interns are clueless about our office dress code

2. Construction noise when you’re working from the office

I work in a hybrid environment, and our office is located in a multi-tenant building. For the past one to two months, another suite in the building has been undergoing a major retrofit for a new tenant. About a quarter to half of the time, this has involved very loud construction work (concrete boring rather than light drilling), and we occasionally feel vibrations as well. I’ve reduced my in-office days to the minimum required, and when I am on site, I rely heavily on noise-canceling headphones throughout the day. This has helped but I still notice the construction.

How much and for how long is it reasonable to expect office staff to work in conditions like this? Management seems sympathetic to the disruption but hasn’t suggested increasing our work from home days. Management did say they requested that the most disruptive building work be done outside of normal office hours. Is this enough? Should I be expecting more?

Are they actually doing the most disruptive work outside of normal office hours now? If so, that may be the most you can expect if your work really does require you be in the office X number of days this week. If it doesn’t really require that, then it’s reasonable to ask if you can increase your work-from-home days until the construction is done (or at least until the loudest phase of it is done). That request will be stronger if it’s based on “the noise is giving me headaches” or “I can’t hear people on the other end of my call” rather than just “I still notice the construction even with headphones.”

It’s also reasonable to ask about what the timeline is likely to look like, since it’s probably easier to tolerate if you know this is the final week versus if you know it’s going to be like this for months.

3. Blessing the food at an event with employees at my home

I supervise a team of about eight people across multiple offices, and recently, when everyone happened to be in town, I invited them all to my home for dinner. I was explicit that this was an optional, after-work event. I encouraged people not to bring anything (although a few brought desserts, as people will do). When it was time to eat, I offered a brief blessing on the food, a tradition in my faith (and something I think we’ve never skipped in our home, although I’m confident the deity I worship would get over it if we did for one meal).

No one seemed uncomfortable, but after the fact, I wondered whether that was an overstep. On the one hand, members of the team are of different faiths (or no faith at all), and I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable. I’d never bring up religious issues in the workplace, and I have no desire to proselytize to my supervisees. On the other hand, this was an event in our home and we were (briefly) observing our usual customs. In future, what would you advise?

Yeah, ideally you’d avoid it when it’s a work gathering, even though it was at your house. But how overtly religious was the blessing? If it was an “in Jesus’s name we pray” type blessing, that’s much more likely to make someone uncomfortable (and be inappropriate for a work gathering) than if it was a fairly general appreciation for the food without any mention of specific sacred figures or texts.

4. I keep missing a morning meeting because of a medication side effect

I work on a team of three. Until a year ago, my team all worked mostly or completely remote. My boss, Rachel, still does, as she lives in a totally different time zone. The third member of our team, Phoebe, and I would do separate check-ins weekly with Rachel. But our company moved to a new location and started requiring all employees within a certain radius of the office to come in on a hybrid basis. Employees outside that radius are allowed to stay fully remote. Phoebe and I are hybrid, and Rachel is remote.

We started doing team check-ins, with Phoebe and me in a conference room and Rachel calling in. Except Phoebe and Rachel are both morning people, starting work at 7 am my time (Rachel is often online even earlier because she is in a time zone ahead). I am … not. I tend to arrive to work closer to 9:30–10, with 10 being the latest allowed by the company. We compromised on a check-in time of 9:30.

Fast forward a few months, and I am on a medication that has a side effect of fatigue, which has hit me badly. I’m still in the office by 10, so I am within the bounds of company rules, but there have been multiple occasions where I have fallen back asleep in the mornings or overslept and missed the 9:30 call. I have explained several times it’s a medication side effect and apologized profusely. But I can tell Rachel is annoyed, even though she always says it’s okay.

I missed the call again today. Phoebe is on a sabbatical right now, so it is just me and Rachel. Rachel’s temporary solution is to have me take the call from home at 9:30, then come to the office, but we’ll need to figure out a more permanent solution when Phoebe returns in a couple months. Rachel has noted she and Phoebe prefer early check-ins, and it doesn’t really make sense to return to separate ones since Phoebe and I will be in the office together.

I know I am the problem here. I am the one who keeps missing the call. And I feel like a child every time I have to say I overslept or missed an alarm again. But I have talked to my doctor and there isn’t much she can do without putting me on a different medication that runs the risk of even worse side effects. I feel like I’m not being heard that this is something that has a very easy solution. If we moved the call an hour later, this would not be an issue. How can I lay this out and make it clearer I need a later check-in time? At least until I figure out a solution that helps me get out of bed in the mornings.

Approach it as a medical accommodation: “I am as frustrated as you that this keeps happening and because it’s medical, at this point I want to ask if we can move our meetings to 10:30 as a medical accommodation, or a later time if you prefer it? I can talk to HR about a formal accommodation if you think I should, but I thought I’d check with you first in case you don’t think going that route is necessary.”

5. Working a full-time job and a part-job for the same employer

My organization allows full-time employees to hold a part-time position within the same organization. I don’t understand how the organization does not get in trouble for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) with regards to non-exempt full-time employees.

If I work 40 hours this week at my full-time job, how is it allowed that I could then come back and work another 12 hours on the weekends as a part-time position doing something completely different and not accrue 12 hours of overtime pay? It is the same company, and the same pot of money that pays each person. Am I missing some crazy loophole?

Nope, that’s illegal.

If an employee is non-exempt (meaning not exempt from overtime) their employer must pay overtime (time and a half) for all hours over 40 in the week, even if the employee is working two completely different jobs for the same employer. That’s true even if the part-time job on its own would be exempt; if their “main” job is non-exempt, then the additional work gets treated as non-exempt too. (The only exception to this in the law is for government employees, and only if the part-time job is only occasional or sporadic.)

The post employee’s skirts are too short, blessing the food at work event at my home, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Man, am I foul today.

Albertan separatists say they have the signatures necessary to force a referendum on the issue. We sat down with Keith Greengrass, a prominent advocate for an independent Alberta, to understand more about the movement. The Beaverton: Thank you for your time Mr. Greengrass. Was there a specific moment or event that made you want to […]

The post The Beaverton interviews an Alberta Separatist appeared first on The Beaverton.

It was nice to draw Shelley in this comic, though it’s always a little tricky to factor in a. how old she is and b. how slowly she ages. She’s not like normal people, after all. She’ll outlive all of us.

Oh ... well ... hi there little partners! Well ... couple of technical problems down here but, well, that's ok. Because it's time for this week's exciting episode of Trail of the Royal Mounted! #CowboyWho

More broccoli?

You might want to sit down for this. Or at least part of this. Your cholesterol looks good, but also quite bad.

Your good cholesterol is 45. That’s good.

But your bad cholesterol is 141. That’s bad.

Your total cholesterol adds up to 222, because doctor math. That is also high and bad (well, the bad part is bad).

You might remember that when you were a kid, 160 was high (bad). You did an admirable job, never eating eggs ever (good), and getting down to 141 (good). But now 100 is high (bad). You have high cholesterol again (bad). It’s probably all those eggs (bad).

Luckily, there are all sorts of medicines that you can take to lower your cholesterol further, and we are happy to sell them to you.

We understand it may seem like we’re moving the goalposts, but these drugs were really expensive to make, and 100 being bad means a LOT more people have to buy them. Pharma Bros are people, too, and we can all agree they deserve to make enough money to support their Pharma Bro lifestyles and those of several generations of Pharma Broscendants.

Here, take four of these horse-sized CholestOff Plus supplements before every bite of non-egg food.

If you’re wondering what would happen if your good cholesterol was bad but your bad cholesterol was good, please stop; it stresses everyone out. Stress is bad.

I shouldn’t have had you sit down. You need to be running most of the time, even when receiving news of indiscernible gravity.

I don’t know how I missed this, but I see you are an Aquarius cat owner who once came within five hundred feet of an egg. That means you are HIGH RISK. Your bad cholesterol should really be below 70. The lower the better. Negative would be great. Is your cat an Aquarius? We should test your cat.

Do you or anyone in your family have a heart? Unfortunately, hearts are hereditary. Most heart attacks occur in patients with a family history of hearts, especially on the maternal or feline side.

Let’s schedule a follow-up visit so we can celebrate getting below 70 and change your target to 50.

Also, we’re going to send you to get an ultrasound on your neck to make sure there are no eggs in there.

One more thing. Your triglycerides are bad. They’re high. And they’re triglycerides, which means they count triple. Your calculated, not made-up superbad cholesterol is now 423. Regardless of what ChatGPT says, that is how it works. ChatGPT is not a doctor and is hallucinating, and, by the way, you’re probably also hallucinating because your cholesterol is 423 and you’re hopped up on triglycerides. Let’s triple your max statins, stat (I can say “stat” because I’m basically a doctor).

How would you like to pay for this?

You don’t have insurance? Oh, your cholesterol’s fine then. Here, have an egg.

WASHINGTON—Calling it a shocking attack on our nation’s cultural heritage, critics slammed President Donald Trump Monday for his decision to replace the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool’s original coconut flavor with blue raspberry. “For more than a century, a statue of Abraham Lincoln has gazed out over the reflecting pool that bears his name and that has been filled with the sweet, slightly creamy coconut flavor he adored,” said preservationist Marie Pagano, adding that the significance of coconuts in American history began in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, when insurgent colonists frequently pelted British forces in highly coordinated coconut ambushes. “To see the pool filled with blue raspberry despite Lincoln’s lifelong opposition to sour, tangy flavors, is an obscenity. Each year, millions of National Mall tourists drink from the Reflecting Pool to share in the coconut undergirding our very democracy. The tart fruitiness will no doubt shock and offend them.” Pagano went on to say, however, that she was relieved the pool would remain highly carbonated, like the soda water Lincoln frequently enjoyed.

The post Trump Slammed For Replacing Reflecting Pool’s Original Coconut Flavor With Blue Raspberry appeared first on The Onion.

CHICAGO—Plunged into sudden disarray and confusion, pedestrians on Augusta Boulevard were reportedly left frightened and wandering helplessly Monday after encountering a bright orange “Sidewalk Closed” sign. According to witnesses, a growing crowd of disoriented commuters were milling anxiously in front of the sign, with one woman sobbing quietly into her hands and saying, “But this is the sidewalk,” while several others began drifting aimlessly into yards, bushes, and even the street. With no instruction on where to walk instead, over a dozen of the stranded pedestrians were seen retracing their steps to ensure they hadn’t accidentally veered from their route, but this only resulted in them circling back to the impasse again and again in a panicked looping pattern. Sources confirmed the crowd eventually swelled to over 60, with many agreeing to simply lie down on the ground and try to remain calm until authorities could arrive to guide them to safety.

The post ‘Sidewalk Closed’ Sign Leaves Pedestrians Frightened, Wandering Helplessly appeared first on The Onion.

The post Gas Station Price Sign Using Scientific Notation appeared first on The Onion.

The post Cannes Film Festival Attendee Eating Nachos Out Of Plastic Beret appeared first on The Onion.

Ben Landau and William Roth: The happy couple married in a rusty grain silo Saturday after learning the price of renting out the barn.

The post Ben Landau and William Roth appeared first on The Onion.

EDMONTON, AB — Project manager Hank Johnson exceeded his personal email exclamation mark limit today before 10:00 a.m. local time. Johnson has grave concerns as to how he will get through the rest of his workday relying solely on periods and question marks. In an effort not to seem cold or rude in their written […]

The post Man exceeds email exclamation mark limit before 10am appeared first on The Beaverton.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Admitting they “never thought it would come to this,” a rigorous poll of every American confirmed that the sustained humiliation of living under tech bro dominance has forced the nation to, embarrassingly, long for finance bros. “Look, at least a finance bro maintained eye contact while he was ruining your life,” […]

The post Tech Bro loserdom forces nation to yearn for Finance Bros appeared first on The Beaverton.

Oh, they’re doing improv now.