Cowboy Who?

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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was formally declared the winner of his country’s disputed presidential election a day after the political opposition and the entrenched incumbent both claimed victory in the contest. What do you think?

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The U.S. women are bringing home the country’s first medal in rugby sevens. In a dramatic finish, the U.S. defeated Australia, 14-12 to win the bronze medal.

(Image credit: Carl De Souza)

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Sofia Nelson, a former close friend of vice presidential hopeful J.D. Vance, about how he's changed from the person she knew for more than a decade.

Campaigns don’t often reach out to male voters as men. At least on the Democratic side, that changed when Kamala Harris became the party’s likely nominee.

As Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claims an unverifiable victory, anti-government protests there grow.

The issue of border security is one of Vice President Harris' biggest vulnerabilities in her campaign. On Tuesday, she tried to use his signature issue against former President Donald Trump.

(Image credit: John Bazemore)

When President Joe Biden announced just a week ago that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, he did not pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.

He passed it to us.

It is up to us to decide whether we want a country based on fear or on facts, on reaction or on reality, on hatred or on hope.

- Letters from an American - Heather Cox Richardson - July 28, 2024

Vote!

President Joe Biden called for sweeping changes to the Supreme Court, including a constitutional amendment that would limit immunity for presidents, impose term limits for justices, and stipulate an enforceable code of ethics. What do you think?

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Somehow, there is a claim of a 30-year mystery surrounding Microsoft’s Blue Screen of Death. The argument goes that there are three conflicting sources of authorship: Steve Ballmer, John Vert, and me.

But really, there is no conflict. There are three different blue-colored screens, and each has a different author.

First is the Windows 3.1 Ctrl+Alt+Del screen, which is a blue screen of unhappiness, not death:

The text for this message was written by Steve Ballmer. (He didn’t write the code to display the message; he just wrote the text that goes into the message.)

Windows 3.1 did not have a blue screen of death. If Windows crashed, you got what could anachronistically be called a black screen of death:

Next is the Windows 95 kernel error, which you could consider a “blue screen of death”, although Windows 95 lets you ignore the error, so it’s not a true death. (Then again, there’s no guarantee that ignoring the error will return you to a usable system.)

I was the one who brought this version of the Windows 95 kernel error blue screen message to its final form. (Some people have misidentified an early version of it as a Windows NT blue screen.)

The third blue screen of death is the Windows NT kernel error, and that’s the one authored by John Vert.

This is a true “blue screen of death”: The system is unrecoverably dead at this point.

So we have the following table:

¹ I did not write the early version of the Windows 95 blue screen message, but I was the one who brought it to its final form.

The post There is no mystery over who wrote the Blue Screen of Death, despite what some may want you to believe appeared first on The Old New Thing.

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WASHINGTON—Figuring a wardrobe update would play well with voters, Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly rushed to Marshall’s Tuesday to buy nicer work clothes. “It’s time I finally invested in a decent blazer,” said Harris, who flipped through the racks of discount merchandise, picked up a pair of stretchy black…

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This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

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

1. Coworker’s retirement email took credit for our full product line

I received an email from a coworker who is retiring next month. The worker, let’s call him Carl, announced his upcoming retirement and then bragged for a long paragraph about his integral design accomplishments for an important product line. The email includes a smiling photo of Carl standing next to nine products, as though he was the program manager who was responsible for the team of engineers who developed the products for the world to use!

Carl is a draftsman, who followed directives from engineers. The program manager and the engineering team worked long and hard on each product design before meeting with drafts people for drafting implementation (blueprints, CAD, etc.). During weekly reviews, and sometimes more often, Carl reported to an assigned engineer and the two of them worked out any possible glitches or changes for design alterations that we other engineers made.

I believe in team work. Every job is important because every job has different functions when developing and manufacturing products. Working together, we all provided necessary input for each product. I can’t understand how or why Carl believes the product line is his. Worse, I can’t understand why he sent this self-applauding company-wide.

My engineering colleagues are privately laughing at Carl’s email, mostly because they never heard or saw such brazen nonsense. I have to say that it’s the oddest retirement email I ever got. Is sending pictures of your so-called accomplishments (or of your real accomplishments) a new thing? I find it icky, not to mention a morale buster for everyone else on the product team. How should we react publicly to Carl’s news? We aren’t motivated to give him a party because we aren’t going to enable his delusion. We don’t want to mock him, either, because, well, that’s not nice.

Eh, I think you and your coworkers are being a little mean-spirited about it! It doesn’t sound like Carl is trying to take credit for being the product manager; it sounds like he’s saying he’s proud of the projects he’s worked on, and here they are. You want employees to feel ownership and pride in the work they do, whether they’re the ones calling the shots for it or not. Was it a bit much in this context? Maybe! But I don’t think it warrants denying the guy a retirement party.

If I’m wrong and he explicitly took credit for things he didn’t do, that’s different. In that case, laugh away, or roll your eyes, or so forth. Although even then, I don’t think it rises to the level of “no retirement party for you” (unless Carl has generally been a jerk to work with; if he has, feel free not to put any special effort toward celebrating him).

2. Can I take my shoes off behind the counter?

I work at a gas station (overnight shifts 6pm – 6am). During my shift I’m usually behind the counter. During slow nights, I’m sitting at the work computer on my phone between customers. It’s a casual setting and the manager is pretty chill, but I’m curious … being behind the counter so often, can I take off my shoes for a bit during my shift? I usually put them on if I’m going anywhere other than behind the counter, but would it be wrong to let the dogs breathe for a few minutes or till a customer arrives?

The more practical question is whether anyone would know. If no one but you will know, that’s between you and your feet. Just make sure there’s nothing you could step on, for safety/comfort reasons.

But if anyone might see, keep your shoes on; a barefoot attendant isn’t usually the look businesses are going for. (For that reason, “usually” putting your shoes on if you come out from behind the counter really should be “always.”)

3. My coworker won’t help in our shared job

I work in security in a large hospital (we print the ID badges for numerous contractors to have access throughout the hospital), and I work in an open office environment. I’ve worked there almost two years now, and really like my job.

People approach our long desk where my coworkers and I sit, facing the public. There are three of us who do the same job, and we are all cross-trained to do everything that’s needed to get these people badged. That being said, two of us carry the brunt of the work. The third person, Martha, has a serious problem with playing on her cell phone ALL THE TIME. When people approach the desk, they approach Martha’s seat first. She doesn’t acknowledge their presence most of the time, because she is so engrossed in her cell phone, leading to me or the other coworker greeting and helping the person almost every time. The phone rings, and she can’t/won’t answer it, because she is either on her cell phone or talking to her daughter or husband on her business phone.

She always asks why I haven’t asked her to help with anything instead of doing it myself. I don’t feel like it’s my job to delegate work; we are equals in position and she knows what needs to be done. I don’t like confrontation, so I don’t say anything most of the time, leading to resentment because I am literally doing everything. I have said things in the past, yet here we are again. I don’t feel like it’s my place to keep saying things. My boss has a lot of health problems so is hardly ever present to be able to address the issue. I don’t know what to do, as I am running extremely short on patience with this problem. I don’t want to scream and make a scene, but I am done playing these games with her. I need help!

Martha sucks here, but you’re also writing off the only things that will help. Talk to her! I know you said you’ve tried that in the past, but I’m curious how direct you’ve been. Ideally, the next time it’s happening, you’d say, “Could you please not be on your phone when customers come up? When you are, Jane and I end up doing more than our share of the work, because you’re not acknowledging customers when they approach.” You’ll probably need to say this more than once, but that’s not confrontational or out of line; it’s a normal conversation to have about how workload is distributed. It’s not about assigning work to her; it’s saying, “I am doing more than my fair share and I need your help.”

And if you’re at the point of worrying you’re going to scream at her, it’s far kinder to have a calm conversation with her first.

Assuming this doesn’t solve it, though, then you do need to talk to your boss. You say she’s not there much, but the next time she is there, ask to meet in private, explain the problem, and say you’ve tried speaking to Martha about it directly but it’s continuing to happen. (That’s the other advantage of talking to Martha directly first: when you escalate it to your boss, you want to be able to say you’ve tried that.)

4. How to ask a coworker to stop watching me work

The least favorite part of my job is being shadowed. I absolutely hate having people following me around staring at me, and this summer it has been constant, and with multiple people. At one point I had so many people silently watching me working, I came closer than I ever have to walking out on my job. It’s almost over, thank god, interns and assistants have been gotten rid of and/or are going back to school.

However, we have a new receptionist who likes to come back and watch the “fun” procedures, standing around and getting in my way while I’m trying to work. It’s not “fun” for me, it’s my job, and I’m trying to do 100 things at the same time. I’ll admit I don’t particularly like this person and I’m a bit … on edge, due to the near constant aggravation of the last couple of months. I don’t want to be an ogre about it, but her job is at her desk doing her job, not watching me do mine.

Our manager has been missing in action at work lately due to personal stuff, so there’s no use trying to talk to her. Is there a way to nicely ask this person to go do her job and let me do mine? The best I can come up with is some version of, “Hey, I really don’t like being watched while I work, would you mind?” but I’m afraid it will come out through clenched teeth.

That’s actually fine to say, as long as you say it in a reasonably warm tone and not through clenched teeth. Alternately: “I find it distracting to be watched while I work and I am pretty burnt out on being shadowed the last couple months.” Tone is the big thing here — make sure it’s conveying “I like you, just not this specific activity.”

She may very well think you don’t mind being watched, since she’s seen so many other people shadowing you. Let her know you prefer she not.

But also: why have so many people been shadowing you? Is it truly necessary for their training, or is it more optional? Given that you’ve almost been at the point of walking out over it, is there any room to cut back on how much of it falls to you? If I were your manager, I’d want to know if something was happening that had you this on edge.

5. My employee passed their PIP — now what?

I have had an employee, Alex, on a PIP and for once it has done exactly what I hoped: improved performance! I’ve never had that happen before (I’ve done two, and one employee quit and I fired the other). I’m delighted that Alex accomplished what we set out in the PIP; maybe it was the wake-up call they needed.

So, what comes next, when a PIP works? How do you ease back on the PIP-related pressure of Succeed NOW, while also not risking a PIP-slack-PIP cycle? I feel like if we get to the final action date and I tell Alex, “Hey, you’ve done great doing what I asked; if you fail to keep doing that, I’m just going to fire you instead of going through this whole PIP again,” it would be the same as having a perpetual PIP. It doesn’t give Alex a chance to keep doing the job correctly now that they’ve really learned how; it’s just a sword hanging over their head all the time and that feels like a terrible way to work.

What is an effective strategy for after the PIP, when it’s not letting them go?

Ideally when you’re first writing the PIP, you include language like, “If you fulfill the requirements laid out here, you will no longer be on a formal improvement plan but will need to maintain that level of performance over time.” Or, “I need you to demonstrate this improvement in the next X weeks, and then sustain it going forward.”

If you didn’t do that, or in addition to it now, when you’re having the “you passed the PIP!” conversation, you can say, “You’ve done a great job doing XYZ. We do need to see this level of performance sustained over the long-run, and if the problems recur, we would not go through this process all over again. But based on how well you’ve done the last X weeks, I’m confident that you can do that.”

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Use warm colours and soft furnishings to create a homely, comforting ambience.

Enlarge / Converting this street from two lanes in either direction to one lane in each direction with a turning lane in-between would make it much safer. (credit: Getty Images)

Although driving is a privilege, some Americans treat it more like a right. This entitlement leads them to get upset with policy proposals that try to increase road safety by prioritizing vulnerable road users over the wants of drivers. But a new study suggests that a common complaint—taking away lanes from cars makes emergency response times go up—about traffic calming isn't actually true.

American roads aren't particularly safe, and while much of the blame of late has been directed at ever-bigger trucks and SUVs, the problem is more complex than just big cars. Like the built environment, standard American road design, with a pair of lanes going in either direction, makes it very easy to drive much faster than the speed limit, which is often over 25 mph.

This is where road diets come in—they're a relatively cheap and simple way to slow traffic and significantly cut the accident rate along a stretch of road. You take a four-lane (two-way road) and repaint it so there are now three lanes for cars: one in each direction, with a center lane in the middle for turning. The remaining space on either side becomes bike lanes (physically protected ones, please).

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SAN FRANCISCO—Pointing out that most of them don’t even own a professional sports team, local billionaire Felix Stacey gave his millionaire friends credit Monday for keeping him humble. “It’s easy to become out of touch when you have billions and billions of dollars, but I can always count on my millionaire friends to…

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WASHINGTON—Providing long-awaited insight into the attempted assassin’s mental state, a report released Monday found that gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks googled “How to be an enigma” before trying to kill former President Donald Trump. “After reviewing the shooter’s browser history, we have discovered several searches…

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PARIS – Following the decision by FIFA judges to punish the Canadian women’s soccer organization for illegally surveilling their opponents’ practice, the International Olympic Committee has also awarded the two coaches gold medals in the 600m Illegal Drone Spying event. “While we do not condone using high tech drones to spy on the practice tactics […]

The post Canada Olympic soccer coaches win gold in “Illegal Drone Spying” event appeared first on The Beaverton.

HILLSBORO, OR—Lambasting the verdict as “cruel” and “brash,” 3-year-old Ian Tobler reportedly vowed Monday to appeal his parents’ decision to keep his newborn baby brother. “I am deeply disappointed by my parents’ decision to bring Mateo home from the hospital, and I will continue to fight for justice,” said Tobler,…

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NEW YORK—Maintaining his silence in the wake of sudden tragedy, new hire Will Rorke told reporters Monday that he was not yet comfortable enough to mention that he had seen a man die on his way into the office. “I wish I knew my coworkers well enough to open up about how I just witnessed a stranger drop dead from a…

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In brief: This post describes the distinct pattern change we’ve seen from a wet end of July into a warmer August. Yes, sunshine is back on the menu. Additionally, we take stock of where we are with summer in Houston now that we’re about half way through it.

Where we are so far

By most measures we are about half way through summer in Houston, having gotten through June and nearly all of July. Moreover, as of today, we have reached the historically “hottest” time of year, when daytime and nighttime temperatures peak. This period runs through July 29 through August 12, typically the warmest two weeks of the year. So congratulations, we had to come through a Category 1 hurricane and some pretty nasty power outages to get here, but we are making progress toward fall.

What I didn’t say above is anything about extreme temperatures. That’s because, so far, temperatures this summer have been near normal for the last 30 years. The monthly average temperature in June was 1.6 degrees above normal, and for July we are likely to end up at around 1 degree below normal. Thus far this summer, we have hit 100 degrees just a single time, on July 1. Last month we actually had one day with a high of 78 degrees, thanks to the persistent rainfall during the last 10 days of July.

So where does that leave us staring into the abyss of August? Well, there is no drought for as far as the eye can see, and indeed well beyond that. With our saturated soils, we are well positioned for the rest of summer. The wet soils should also help moderate daytime high temperatures, at least a bit, for a few weeks. And, of course, all the rain during the last week will continue to produce a bumper crop of mosquitoes for awhile longer.

August is my least favorite month of the year, by far. It is prone to the hottest weather, and it is when the threat of large and powerful hurricanes starts to peak. (While the Atlantic tropics are starting to wake up from their slumber during the second half of July, there are as yet no threats to Texas). Honestly, if we can get through the next eight weeks, then fall is distinctly on the horizon, and we’ll be near the end of hurricane season for Texas.

Most of our modeling guidance (CFS, European, GFS temperature 30-day temperature forecasts) suggests that temperatures in August will be near normal. In terms of precipitation, we are also likely looking at near-normal levels of precipitation. We shall see. One tropical system can scramble all of that.

Monday

The long-awaited pattern change has arrived. For the first time in awhile, as I checked the radar, there wasn’t much happening in the Houston area this morning. This is because we’re beginning to feel the influence of high pressure, which will help suppress rain showers. That is not to say rain chances will be zero, but they will be much lower, on the order of 10 to 20 percent daily, with a few showers possibly popping up along the sea breeze.

High temperatures for much of Houston will likely rise into the low- to mid-90s for much of the region today. Skies will be partly sunny, with south winds at 5 to 10 mph. Overnight lows should drop into the upper 70s for most areas except the coast.

Tuesday

Conditions will be similar to Monday, although skies may appear to be a bit more hazy. This will be due to the influx of Saharan dust. This same dust has helped keep a lid on hurricane activity over the last week or two across the Atlantic basin. The spread of this dust typically peaks during July, and its decrease in August is one of the reason we typically see more hurricane activity in August and September.

Wednesday and Thursday

Both of these should be sunny days, with high temperatures in the mid-90s. We’ll continue to see some haze on Wednesday, although it may start to wane on Thursday.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

Our mostly sunny pattern should continue into the weekend, when we see high temperatures in the mid- to possibly upper-90s by Saturday and Sunday. Atmospheric moisture levels could rise a bit, and this may introduce rain chances in the 20 percent range daily, but for the most part I expect these to be sunny days. If you have outdoor plans for this weekend they look, tentatively, pretty good expect for the heat. But what else would you expect in August, in terms of temperatures?

Southwest Airlines is shifting to assigned seats for the first time in its history, a change that will allow the low-fare carrier to charge a premium for some of the seats on its planes. What do you think?

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This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

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

1. My boss won’t stop complaining about my maternity leave

I’m four months pregnant and I had to (chose to) tell my boss when I was eight weeks due to my nausea and sickness. When I told him, his first reaction was, “How much maternity leave are you taking?” I replied, “All of it.” We get FMLA 12 weeks — nothing special.

Since that point, at least once a week/once every other week, he talks in front of others about how we’re going to have to handle my “situation,” to which I say, “It’s only 12 weeks and it’s a standard leave.” He most often rebuts, “It’s a very important 12 weeks for us.” Obviously I’m going to set up my team for success and do everything I can to make sure people have what they need.

But at this point, the constant put down about how I’m leaving for 12 weeks and that will leave the team in a lurch is really getting to me. What do I do about it?

Are you comfortable talking to HR and letting them know that your boss is constantly complaining about your upcoming maternity leave and making you worry you’re going to be professionally penalized for taking it? This doesn’t sound quite bad enough to count as pregnant harrassment, but competent HR still usually prefers that employees not be hassled for taking legally protected leave.

Alternately, an option is to address it with your boss directly: “Do you want to have a conversation about plans for my leave? I’m taking a pretty standard amount of leave, but you’ve sounded so concerned that I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing.” If he repeats that it’s a very important time for your team, then say, “Is there something you want me to do differently? Obviously I can’t change the timing of the leave, so is there something else you’re looking for?” At some point in that conversation, you might also want to say, “I’d appreciate it if you’d treat this like any other medically necessary leave that’s protected by law.”

2. Communicating with a team that doesn’t read email

I am one of several managers in my building and I manage a team of about a dozen people who all have different schedules, with two people manning the floor at once. They all overlap with me at some point, at different times, throughout the week. All the jobs are part-time and most people have a second job. Because I can’t get everyone into the same room together to have regular meetings, I’ve been trying to use email to communicate. But people don’t read their email, or they skim and forget, because when I ask to make a change it just … doesn’t get made. As an example, I recently sent an email asking everyone to please put out X in the morning and bring it in at night, and it hasn’t been moving.

These are work email addresses, and the staff in question are stationed at computers at service desks; the bulk of their job is helping customers, but there’s downtime that could be spent checking email.

Higher management and I have repeated “can you PLEASE read your email” ad nauseam, and for really important issues have started sending out emails with PLEASE REPLY in the title, insisting that everyone reply with some detail from the email. Nothing has helped and I’m at a point where I feel like I need to accept that email is not going to work here as a way to communicate.

But what will? I can talk to everyone individually about every tiny issue that comes up, but it would be prohibitively hard to remember to do that, and to remember who I’ve already talked to, every time a shift change happens all week, and then it would also take much longer to get information out. I could print out reminders and leave them on counters, but 1) those would also get ignored and 2) there isn’t a lot of counter space. Maybe you have another creative idea?

Since these emails sound mostly like one-way announcements that they just need to read and be aware of (as opposed to something with back-and-forth), you need an announcement binder. Print out announcements, put them in the binder, and ask people to initial them once they’ve read them. Hell, have a standard list of everyone’s names that get pasted onto the bottom of each announcement so that it’s easy to see who’s initialed it and who hasn’t. And then make checking the announcement binder a requirement at the start of every shift.

If they don’t have jobs that use email a lot (and it sounds like they don’t?), it’s easy for people to not even think to check for messages. You’ll probably haven an easier time making “check the announcement binder at the start of every shift” a routine part of people’s work. That said, there will be a learning curve! You should expect to have to remind people a lot at first, you should stick a “check the announcement binder!” sign at the service desks, and you should make a point of quickly following up with people who haven’t initialed things. If you’re diligent about that, it should stick in time. (And as new people are hired, make that part of how they’re trained from the start. It’s easier when it’s part of people’s routine from the beginning.)

To be clear, if these were email-heavy jobs, this wouldn’t be a reasonable solution; in some jobs people just have to be responsive to emails, period. But I think the problem you’re running into here is that email isn’t a central part of their work.

3. People keep commenting on my rosacea

I have rosacea, and my face is red most of the time. I am currently exploring treatments with a dermatologist. The cream I’m using makes it so I can’t really wear foundation to cover it. On an almost daily basis, someone I work with makes a comment about it. I get asked if I’ve been out in the sun or they just comment on how red I am. What would be a way to politely tell them it’s a medical condition and to stop commenting? I feel unattractive and embarrassed when people point it out so often.

“It’s rosacea.”
“It’s rosacea, you don’t need to let me know.”
“That’s just my skin.”
“Yes.”

Most people will understand the subtext is “stop commenting.” But if anyone continues: “It’s a medical condition and I’d rather not get into it.”

4. Telling a rejected candidate I wish they had been hired

I’m a consultant working part-time for a global nonprofit with a very small staff (three in total). As the workload is increasing and I can’t do more than part-time, we just made an offer to a more junior person who will take on part of my workload so I can focus on specific projects. I think they were the weakest candidate by far and I supported another candidate. I was overruled by the two other members of the hiring committee, both more senior than me but with no direct experience in my field. We’re very transparent as a team; I know their reasons for choosing that person and they know I strongly disagree.

Anyway, I know this battle is lost so I’ll obviously make the new hire feel welcome and I’ll work with them as well as possible. However, I’m really disappointed for my favorite candidate who ticked all the boxes – experience, technical skills, soft skills, background, work culture, you name it.

I know I can’t email them to say, “Hey, I’m so sorry, you should have gotten the job because you were the best.” But is there a professional way to let them know, directly or indirectly, that they’re awesome and that I wish they had been hired? The standard rejection emails have been sent and they replied very courteously and professionally. I’ve been on the receiving end of rejection emails as many of us have and I know how disheartening it can be when you know you were a good candidate.

You definitely shouldn’t imply they were the best and should have been hired (that could cause problems for your organization, as well as just being out of sync with the kind of united front you’re generally expect to put on once a decision is made). But you could say something like, “I wanted to contact you personally to let you know how much I enjoyed talking with you and how impressed I was by (details).” You can include specifics about why you thought they were great, as long as you do it without comparing them to the person who was ultimately hired. And you could conclude by saying you’d love to stay in touch and hope there might be opportunities to work together in the future. (I’m slightly torn on that last part because I don’t want to raise false hopes that your org might hire them in the future, given how small it is, but you could finesse the wording to whatever makes sense.)

5. Deescalation techniques for poll workers

After hearing about the nationwide poll worker shortage, I volunteered as a poll worker for the spring presidential primary and will be working again for a state level primary next month and then the November election. I just attended a more in-depth training, which had very specific instructions for how to handle ballots when various issues arise. The early voting process was brand new in the spring and is more convoluted compared to the traditional election day process (mostly boils down to early voting requiring a voter to be marked off in a physical binder along with a digital check-in) so the majority of the training was spent making sure everyone was clear on what to do. The town registrar emphasized how important it was to get every process right because tensions are expected to be high in November. However, there was no advice or real discussion on de-escalation when a voter gets angry with a poll worker, beyond flagging the person who administers that location’s election.

In the spring election, there was some grumbling about “what was the point of early voting” by voters, which I felt was difficult to redirect without crossing a line into something that could be considered a political statement (by law, we’re not allowed to discuss politics). I didn’t run into any true anger in the spring, even when we had a slowdown in processing people, but in the past as a voter, I’ve definitely seen poll workers get yelled at for things out of their control (like a voter didn’t realize their assigned location had changed and were told they needed to go elsewhere to vote after standing in a long line). The registrar also glossed over questions about more serious security concerns, so they don’t seem to be the best resource on getting a script to direct people to the moderator’s station. The moderator for my location has been doing this for 40+ years and said they’ve seen everything so while we should expect it to be hectic in November, we shouldn’t worry. The only work experience I have with dealing with members of the public who might get angry was limited to phone interactions, so I’m still a bit nervous about getting yelled at in person. Do you have any advice or know of free resources on de-escalation and redirection techniques?

Mostly, I just want to build more confidence, especially as the moderator for my location is hoping that the summer election will be enough additional experience so they can move me into an assistant position in November. While that seems quick to me, the moderators seem very eager to give the younger crowd experience and more responsibility because most of the town’s poll workers are retirees and they’re having issues with retention between elections.

I don’t but I will bet a lot of money that some readers do. Commenters? (I also found a lot when I googled that could be helpful.)

CALGARY – Calgary has unveiled the design of its new hockey arena and event centre, Scotia Place, which will share the same sleek and contemporary look as famous arenas across Canada like Rogers Place, BMO Place, HSBC Place, and the other Scotia Place. “Like many hockey players, I’ve always dreamed of winning a Stanley Cup […]

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