Editor: Ok unnamed writer. Trump just ‘Truthed’ that he was going to do a 35% tariff on all products sent into the U.S. from Canada. And I know the last 15 times he did this we scrambled to write an article and then he had already backed down before we could even publish it. But […]
CALGARY – Following a shocking spate of non-fatal stabbings at this year’s Calgary Stampede, reports are that the even has already sold out of hastily-commissioned “Calgary Stab-pede” merchandise. “On one hand we worried that this would be in poor taste,” explains Calgary Stampede spokesperson Shirley Gunderson, “But on the other hand, everyone survived and the […]
QUEBEC CITY, QC – Four men involved in an far right terror plot were arrested this week by RCMP, not for plotting terrorism, but for releasing a written manifesto that was not properly translated into both French and English. The written manifesto, which outlined the group’s “ideologically motivated violent extremism”, reportedly failed to adhere to […]
There is no evidence the footage was deceptively manipulated, but ambiguities around how the video was processed may further fuel conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death.
In a somewhat anticipated move, Belkin is killing most of its smart home products. On January 31, the company will stop supporting the majority of its Wemo devices, leaving users without core functionality and future updates.
In an announcement emailed to customers and posted on Belkin’s website, Belkin said:
After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to end technical support for older Wemo products, effective January 31, 2026. After this date, several Wemo products will no longer be controllable through the Wemo app. Any features that rely on cloud connectivity, including remote access and voice assistant integrations, will no longer work.
The company said that people with affected devices that are under warranty on or after January 31 “may be eligible for a partial refund” starting in February.
MILWAUKEE—Calling the effort a long overdue attempt to address the city’s checkered history, Milwaukee officials announced Friday that they had removed the iconic riverfront Fonzie statue amid an ongoing reckoning with the town’s greaser past. “In the year 2025, no one should be celebrating the dark era in this city when motorcycles, leather jackets, and necking dominated our streets,” said Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who held a press conference at the former site of the controversial statue known as the Bronze Fonz, telling Milwaukeeans it was also time to consider renaming Pinky Tuscadero Park. “It’s hard to imagine being a young buttoned-up square or egghead walking past this monument, knowing full well that it commemorated a man who might have revved his engine at you at any moment. Of course, there’s a sanitized narrative that being a greaser was all thumbs-up and fixing jukeboxes. But we know better than that. We should be condemning Arthur Fonzarelli for repeatedly urging Ralph Malph and Potsie to ‘sit on it’—not preserving him in bronze.” Johnson added that the city planned to melt down the statue to make a soda fountain where bobby-soxers could congregate without fear of being creamed.
CHICAGO—As a singer made her way onto the field to kickoff another home game with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” White Sox public address announcer Gene Honda politely reminded fans Tuesday to remove the Polish sausages from their mouths during the national anthem. According to spectators, Honda told the crowd to “Please rise and kindly remove any tubed meats from your mouth,” instructing those in attendance to respectfully place the bun over their hearts until the song had ended. Several reports indicated the announcement also included a reminder to take the nachos off one’s lap before standing to honor the American flag, though this message was largely drowned out by the chomping, crunching, chugging, and belching that echoed throughout the stadium and the city at large. Security officials later confirmed they had removed several “disrespectful” White Sox fans who had interrupted the anthem with various forms of meat-induced coronary failure.
An Australian woman was found guilty of murdering three of her estranged husband’s relatives by serving them beef Wellington laced with death‑cap mushrooms. What do you think?
“Poisoning your in-laws is no reason to waste a perfectly good tenderloin.”
Theo Wong, Unemployed
“You gotta get creative living in a country with such strict gun laws.”
Howdy folks, and welcome back to Houston Historic Retail. Today, we’re visiting a modern-day remnant of Gibson’s Discount Center; Drug Emporium. To explain the connection, we’ll need to start with a bit of history. The first Gibson’s Discount Center opened in 1960 in Abilene, TX. The company’s roots are a bit deeper than that, but this was their entry into the discount department store territory. The stores were a big hit, and founder Herb Gibson ...
1. Recommending a book in an office Slack channel with (mild) adult content
Our office recently started a book/TV/movie recommendation Slack channel, which has been fun and an easy way to get to know people and their interests outside the office.
My question is, what’s the line to consider when publicly recommending material that isn’t completely G-/PG-/PG-13 among your colleagues (including supervisors and senior leadership)? I read a book recently I think many in the office would enjoy, but it did contain some mild suggestions of a sexual relationship — truly nothing graphic, though, and I honestly think the inclusion of the word “moaning” was the most of it. It’s not the focus of the book at all, and the one or two times it’s mentioned are over in a flash or treated more as a passing reference. I think I would consider this fine (we’re all adults who live in the world), and obviously I wouldn’t recommend anything like 50 Shades of Grey, but beyond the explicit, I’m not always sure of the rules within the grey (pun intended) middle.
And whatever your guidance may be, would it be similarly/generally applied to any subject matter considered “controversial” or in need of a trigger warning?
What you’ve described isn’t a big deal and shouldn’t require a warning. If it were more consistently explicit, then sure (for example, “I will warn you there are a few R-rated scenes, but it’s not the main focus”). It’s hard to come up with precise guidelines for exactly where the line is, but you can always err on the side of caution and include the warning.
And yes, I’d follow a similar guideline with other potentially sensitive topics (“be warned, there are some domestic violence themes” or so forth).
2. My former company banned me from their store
I used to manage a store for two years (worked in the company for almost three). I left on good terms in order to go traveling in January. Upon returning from my travels, I’ve popped into where I used to work to order a coffee and say hello to my ex-colleagues. These visits were a lovely chance to catch up with them, as I hadn’t seen most of them in months.
After a couple of visits, I received an email to my personal email address from the regional manager, with a banning notice claiming I had been harassing people and making inappropriate comments in the store. I’ve never demonstrated this kind of behavior and it was a complete shock to my ex-colleagues when I spoke to them about it. I have never once spoken to the current manager or the new staff members, but she has made it clear to my ex-colleagues that she doesn’t like me speaking to them (we don’t really know why). I’ve been a paying customer just like anyone else who has ordered a drink, and on a couple of occasions I’ve done some work for my business on my iPad while I drank my coffee. She’s made remarks to them saying that this is not normal behavior, despite other customers doing this on a regular basis. Since this incident, she has also been telling my ex-colleagues that it’s got nothing to do with her and she doesn’t even know why I’ve been banned (some of my ex-coworkers are now my friends outside of work, and one is my partner’s sister).
I have contacted the HR department as I really would like to understand the claims made against me. At first they told me that they were not even aware that email was being sent to me and they would investigate it. After 10 days, I got a response to say that it had been passed on to the legal team and then to the data protection officer, who said that they reserve the right to ban any person, including former employees, and they are not obliged to justify the decision, they do not propose to enter any further discussions with me on the topic, and they consider the use of my personal email and address as the least intrusive way to contact me that was reasonable and proportionate.
Whilst I understand that they can retain people’s data for business purposes, I don’t think it is to be sent an email of such nature from the regional manager. Also, no other customer would be sent this via email (I have had to ban a customer in the past and they are handed a paper copy, with multiple prior warnings of their behavior).
I am just really confused, as are my ex-coworkers, and I am at a loss on what to do next. This is a franchised store so I have thought about contacting the actual company themselves but I just need some advice.
There’s not really anything to do here. They banned you, apparently for an unfair reason, but they have the right to do it. You asked them to reconsider, and they’ve told you they’re not going to. At this point, the only practical thing to do is to stop going by the store.
It’s possible the new manager doesn’t like you for some reason, or she felt like your visits were distracting the employees (in which case, she should have just told you — or them — that directly, but she didn’t). You might never know. Regardless, they do have the right to keep you out of the store. Using your personal email to tell you was a little weird, but not egregious (unless you live somewhere outside the U.S. with data protection laws that prohibit personal info from being used that way, but I assume you would have mentioned if that were the case).
Basically, they are weird and they banned you. Feel free to tell your friends who still work there about what happened — they’re your friends, you’re allowed to share it — but you don’t really have grounds to keep challenging it (and even if you did, it wouldn’t be a great use of your energy).
3. How to write an evaluation for a very average employee
I’m a manager of four and for the most part I feel very blessed about my team. They are supportive, kind, hard-working, and we all get along well. However, the one who’s been here the longest has the lowest output and ability. She’s not a problem employee, just a very average one. She doesn’t make mistakes, but is very slow and not adaptable when situations change, as they frequently do. Her newer team members have already surpassed her in terms of their volume of work and ability to think on their feet and adapt to different situations.
I’ve consistently guided her all these years and I genuinely believe she has already hit her maximum potential in this role. I’ve tried giving her more work and more challenging cases like her newer peers, but she struggled to keep up, so I now refrain from doing so.
Yet, based on our recent appraisal, she mentioned she feels alright doing what she does. She does, however, notice the gap with her peers and feels slightly embarrassed about it.
Some backstory: she was transferred to my team four years ago as her original team (a different role) found her too slow, and that team worked with many tight deadlines. My team doesn’t have as many deadlines (though our work can be more challenging in other ways).
I’m having major difficulty thinking about future annual performance appraisals with her. With the other members, I’m able to identify areas they’ve improved in over the past year and areas where they can further grow into in the coming year. But with her, I’m at a loss. I’m afraid this will make future appraisals awkward and possibly demoralizing. How do you appraise a very average, long-time employee?
First: is her performance at a level where, if nothing changed, you would be happy to keep her in the job indefinitely? You described her as “average,” which made me think yes, but it also sounds like you think her self-assessment that she’s doing alright is off-base. Is she meeting the requirements of the job? If she’s not, you have a performance issue and need to approach it through that lens (which would include describing in her appraisal where she’s not meeting those requirements and specifically what needs to change so she does).
But if her work isn’t a problem, just not great, the appraisal can be straightforward about that: She’s meeting expectations in areas XYZ. If she would like to target areas for growth, she could focus on ABC. Be clear that she does not need to do ABC (if that’s the case), but if she is interested in advancing in the role and being considered for more responsibility, ABC would be that pathway. You can also ask directly whether she’s interested in working on her skills in those areas or whether she prefers to keep her job mostly the way it is now (again, assuming that’s a realistic option available to her).
4. Telling a contact the jobs she’s targeting might be out of reach
I have a former colleague who was with us on a fixed-term contract, which was a sort of informal internship type thing. She’s since been struggling to find permanent employment, so I’ve helped her fill out some application forms. English isn’t her first language, so I think it’s reasonable to want some help with forms that can be a bit intimidating to anyone.
The thing is, the reason that she’s not being successful — I believe — is that the jobs she’s applying for are out of reach for someone with her experience. They’re pretty much all ones that would require a level of independence that I don’t think she has shown in her prior experience. And I say that as someone who has worked with her.
In order to avoid her being unemployed for a length of time, she’s going to need to start applying for lower level positions and for jobs that aren’t as closely aligned with her dream job, because the dream job isn’t coming at the moment. That said, I don’t want her to lose motivation by being told these applications are hopeless. How might I break that gently?
“I’m worried that the reason you’re not getting interviews for jobs like A and B is that you don’t have the right experience to be competitive for them yet, and I’m thinking it would help to widen the sorts of positions you’re targeting. What do you think about applying to less senior roles, like C and D, and also jobs like E and F? Those would give you more experience that might help you get A or B in the future.”
A new ProPublica data analysis adds to the mounting evidence that abortion bans have made the common experience of first-trimester miscarriage far more dangerous.
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