VENICE, ITALY—In a welcome bag filled with favors such as local chocolates, artisanal soaps, and scented candles, guests arriving for the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez this week were reportedly given monogrammed plastic bottles in which to urinate during the ceremony. “Because guests will be strictly prohibited from leaving the room at any time during the festivities, the couple have provided these custom-made bottles as a token of their appreciation.” wedding planner Lucia Contarini said as she showed off a makeshift urine receptacle emblazoned with the initials “J” and “L,” noting that it would be the only option available to attendees who did not wish to wet themselves when they inevitably needed to empty their long-held bladders. “We ask that guests also save some room in the bottle for the reception, because the groom has requested the dance floor be full at all times and no one will be permitted a bathroom break.” At press time, the dancing had been in progress for hours, and witnesses confirmed an exhausted Leonardo DiCaprio was completely drenched in urine and struggling to continue moving to the beat of “Uptown Funk.”

The post Bezos Wedding Guests Given Monogrammed Plastic Bottles To Urinate In During Ceremony appeared first on The Onion.

VENICE, ITALY—Smiling at the couple’s lighthearted twist on a traditional ring bearer, guests at the wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez were reportedly delighted this week by the sight of an Amazon worker with a ring tied to his collar crawling down the aisle. “Oh my gosh, my heart is melting—such a good boy,” wedding attendee Sierra Neal said of the 28-year-old Amazon employee, who was dressed in a dog collar and his mandatory high-visibility warehouse vest as he ambled clumsily on his hands and knees to deliver the rings to the bride and groom. “I know most people would have just left him in the crate at home, but he’s a big part of their life, so I’m glad Jeff and Lauren were able to incorporate him this way. I’m sure it took a lot of training—he’s adorable, but he sure is rambunctious!” Sources confirmed that after the rings were successfully delivered, Bezos rewarded the employee for his good behavior by slipping him a piece of beef jerky from his pocket.

The post Bezos Wedding Guests Delighted By Amazon Worker With Ring Tied To Collar Crawling Down Aisle  appeared first on The Onion.

The post Andrew Cuomo Subpoenas Gynecological Records Of Women Who Didn’t Vote For Him appeared first on The Onion.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and the world’s second richest man, wed his fiancé Lauren Sanchez in a lavish, multi-day ceremony this week in Venice, Italy. The Onion examines the facts and figures behind the event.

4,976:

Number of Amazon fulfillment center workers who fainted on the job to make this possible

25:

Yacht pileup in the Grand Canal

120:

Gladiatorial combatants fighting to death in reception pit

2,500 ml:

Amount of lip filler present

AFU826:

Serial number of warehouse container holding Sanchez’s ex-husband

0:

Childhood friends

2.5:

Kardashians expected to attend

357:

Hours you’d have to work to afford a single centerpiece

45:

Seconds Oprah Winfrey is willing to spend chatting with Katy Perry

10 p.m.:

Time DJ a hard out unless he paid double-rate in cash for extra hour

The post Jeff Bezos’ Italian Wedding By The Numbers appeared first on The Onion.

Firefighters had to rescue a man who got stuck in the chimney of a Connecticut parks building while attempting to retrieve his dog from a bathroom when the doors automatically locked for the night. What do you think?

“At some point, you just gotta let your dog live with the decisions it makes.”

Haylie Nance, Balm Producer

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“They probably could have just lured the man out of the chimney with a treat.”

Axel Parra, Necktie Archivist

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“Thank goodness that dog had a phone.”

Chuck Gould, Landscape Framer

The post Man Gets Stuck In Chimney While Trying To Rescue Dog Trapped In Building appeared first on The Onion.

For the most accurate total walk time, select all that apply.

You are wearing sensible shoes -1 min

You are wearing heels +6 min

You are wearing heels (but you are Sarah Jessica Parker) -5 min

You are over 5′10″ -1 min

You are under 5′2″ and staging a protest against your long-legged friends +5 min

You get a CNN alert that starts with: “White House hits Harvard with…” +2 min

You’re having a main-character moment while listening to Rihanna’s “Bitch Better Have My Money” -2 min

You’re having a main-character moment while listening to the Beatles’ “The Long and Winding Road” +2 min

You’re having an unpaid non-union background extra moment +0 min

You are taking a phone call from your mom, and she has juicy hometown gossip +5 min

You are taking a phone call from your mom, and she wants to know what a Labubu is and where to buy one -1 min

You are running after your lover as they board the midnight train going anywhere -5 min

You are listening to an audiobook of Miranda July’s All Fours and get caught up daydreaming about domesticity and dirty hot sex +10 min

You are listening to an audiobook of James Clear’s Atomic Habits (but absorbing nothing… you’ve still got sex on the brain) +0 min

You’re having an A+ hair day, and your route contains several well-maintained reflective glass buildings +3 min

Route contains catcaller -30 sec

Route contains giant choreographed flash mob +3 min

Route contains sad, little flash mob with only one guy really putting his heart into it +3 sec

Route contains a gorgeous, sweaty, shirtless jogger weaving through lanes of traffic +30 sec

Route contains a wounded baby bird you will seriously consider rescuing and rehabbing +1 min

Route contains dogwalker with a worrisome grouping of dogs, including but not limited to: a German shepherd, two chihuahuas, twelve doodles, and a French bulldog in serious need of a rescue inhaler +2 min

You smoked too much weed and have now become paranoid that a flock of pigeons is following you (and wishing you harm) -2 min

Route contains man with a clipboard soliciting monthly donations -10 min

Route contains group of tourists clad in neon ANDERSON SQUAD REUNION ’25 T-shirts +2 min

Route contains a smell that reminds you of Him (the one that got away) +1 min

Route contains a smell that reminds you of Him (frankincense and myrrh) -1 min

Route contains sidewalk chalk hopscotch +10 sec

Route contains surrealist sidewalk chalk labyrinth +45 min

There is enough precipitation that it ruins your hair, but not enough that it’s socially acceptable to whip out an umbrella -2 min

There is a torrential downpour that eats umbrellas for breakfast +7 min

Uh-oh, banana peel! +5 sec

Celeb sighting (Pedro Pascal) +7 min in heaven

Celeb sighting (Mr. Beast) +3 days trapped in an underground cave

Celeb sighting (Sarah Jessica Parker) +0 min

In brief: Tropical Storm Andrea formed yesterday — and dissipated yesterday. Heat records were shattered on Tuesday in the East, but the heat will slowly fade away now. Flooding risks continue in New Mexico, and more rain is likely on the way for the Southwest next week.

Atlantic

This morning, we start with a tribute to Tropical Storm Andrea. It formed yesterday morning around 10 AM Central Time. It left us a full 12 hours later. It fought a courageous battle but was ultimately no match colder water temperatures, drier air, and wind shear. Andrea set an example that all other tropical systems should seek to follow between now and November. For that, we are grateful.

In all seriousness, with Andrea coming and going, the Atlantic looks to remain quiet for the next week or more. The Pacific will awaken again this weekend or so.

Heat records obliterated

Let’s just talk for a moment about the heat yesterday in the East. On Monday, we saw outrageous dewpoints. Yesterday was about temperatures. State temperature records for June were tied or broken in Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Maryland.

For Boston, 102° was their hottest June day on record and 4th hottest day overall on record. Providence saw their hottest June day on record and 6th hottest overall day on record. It wasn’t just the mayoral primary heating up in New York City. Central Park’s 99 degrees was a record for the date, but it fell short of June’s temperature record of 101°. LaGuardia’s 101° ties the June record. 102° at JFK Airport was tied for 3rd hottest all-time and set a new June record. The 103° in Newark, NJ ties for 12th hottest on record and ties the all-time June record. Shout out to my hometown of Atlantic City, tying for 6th hottest day on record at 102°. The hottest day on record was in June of 1969. Philly hit 101°, while Baltimore and DC were comparatively cooler at 98° and 99° respectively.

The heat will begin to ebb now. Another round of multiple temperature records are possible in the Northeast Corridor again today, but they will fall short of yesterday in most cases.

Notice how nationally (at the top of the image above) the number of records threatened drops off dramatically after today. The number of nighttime low warm records is pretty wild, but that’s worthy of another post on another day.

Desert Southwest soaking

Parts of New Mexico have received 3 to 6 inches of rain in the last 24 to 48 hours, triggering multiple flash flood warnings across the state on Tuesday.

Additional showers and thunderstorms are likely today but hopefully in a more isolated fashion. Several more inches of rain may fall in parts of the state however before all is said and done.

Looking farther out in time, it looks like monsoon season is really going to begin to flex in the Southwest next week, with heavy rain possible again in New Mexico but also perhaps parts of Arizona and West Texas.

Keep in mind that 300 percent of normal in the Desert Southwest equates to about an inch or so of rain. So from that standpoint, it’s not a ton. That being said, some operational modeling does hint at higher totals than this. This far out, you’re just looking for a signal, and that signal is clearly pointing to an uptick in rainfall there.

Where does heat go next?

Heat will fade in the East, as we noted above. So where does it go next? Well over the next week or so, any heat should be transient in nature, meaning it’ll come and go in spots. Some places that may see an uptick in stronger heat include the Upper Midwest (Minneapolis could push into the 90s this weekend). The interior Northwest could see a burst of heat next week, with Spokane pushing the mid-90s by Monday or Tuesday. Thereafter, it may be Texas that sees the heat too.

Summer doing summer things after an extreme late June for parts of the country.

In brief: We continue to be in an environment where showers and thunderstorms are possible, and may be numerous during the daytime. This pattern will hold through today and possibly Thursday before slightly drier weather. Later, some time next week, temperatures appear likely to soar into the mid- or upper-90s.

Wednesday

Showers and thunderstorms on Tuesday were definitely hit or miss: Some areas near Tomball and Sugar Land received in excess of 1 inch, while most of the rest of the region picked up significantly less. Then, last night, more than 1 inch fell in locations near League City. This pattern is likely to continue today, with hit or miss showers and thunderstorms across the region. Storms should be more common near the coast this morning before spreading inland later today.

Overall rain chances are probably on the order of 60 percent with everything from gully washers to light rain to simply ominous skies in your neighborhood. Flooding shouldn’t be too much of an issue, but we cannot rule out some ponding on streets. Highs today will reach the upper 80s for most locations, but areas far inland will see a little more sunshine, and may push into the lower 90s. Winds will generally be light. Lows tonight will drop into the 70s, with decreasing rain chances.

Thursday

Expect a similar day to Wednesday, albeit with perhaps slightly less coverage of showers and thunderstorms. Nevertheless the potential for moderate to strong, if briefly lived, storms will be there. Temperatures and humidity will be similar to Wednesday.

Friday and Saturday

A slightly drier air mass should drop rain chances back to around one-in-three for each of these days, with decreasing intensity. As a result skies should be partly to mostly sunny, with highs in the lower 90s. For the most part, I think outdoor activities will be fine.

Sunday and Monday

These days should bring slightly better rain chances, perhaps 30 to 50 percent, but overall accumulations look modest. Expect highs in the lower 90s.

The rest of next week

A modest ridge of high pressure may build over much of Texas later next week, and by Wednesday or so we should be solidly into the mid-90s, and possibly hotter toward the end of next week. So expect July to feel very July like. Whether this ridge sticks around or breaks down to allow some rain chances to return, well, we’ll just have to see. It’s not August—yet.

Alek Tarkowski, our Director of Strategy at Open Future, has been elected to the Board of Directors at Wikimedia Europe (WMEU), a well-known ally and collaborator in our mission to develop civil society strategies and policies for cultivating Digital Commons.

This volunteer role reflects Alek’s ongoing commitment to community leadership and Open Movement collaboration. At Open Future, he plays a pivotal role in shaping our strategic direction, fostering innovation, and building partnerships that deliver real impact. His energy and insight will help strengthen the collective work between our organizations.

Alek shared:

Wikipedia continues to be the flagship initiative of the Open Movement and a network of organizations with a shared vision of supporting free knowledge in the world. Wikimedia Europe is one of the key European advocacy organizations in this ecosystem. I hope that, as a Board member, I can contribute to its continuing development.

About Wikimedia Europe

Wikimedia Europe is an international non-profit organization advocating for free knowledge, access to information, and freedom of expression. It works to advance the common good and serve the public interest in Europe, as mandated by the Wikimedia Movement. WMEU has been an essential collaborator in our efforts toward a shared advocacy strategy for the Knowledge Commons, which culminated in a Wikimania side event in 2024 and the resulting Open movement’s common(s) causes report.

The current Wikimedia Europe Board, elected by the General Assembly, consists of Claudia Garád (President), Capucine-Marin Dubroca-Voisin (Treasurer), Marian Grubben (Member), Alek Tarkowski (Secretary), and appointed member Rebecca MacKinnon from the Wikimedia Foundation.

To learn more about WMEU, visit their website or read “Meet the New Board and See What’s Next for Wikimedia Europe” post in the Wikimedia Movement blog.

BLOOMINGTON, IL—Stopping the polo-clad man and ushering him off toward the bathroom, restaurant staff reportedly provided an improperly dressed Applebee’s patron with a loaner stained hoodie on Wednesday. “I’m sorry, sir, but we cannot seat you unless you are wearing something more in line with this establishment’s dress code,” said Applebee’s hostess Angeline Reilly, who explained that while it was nothing to be embarrassed about, the other diners would just be more comfortable around someone properly attired in a black hoodie that bore the remnants of barbecue sauce and other condiments that failed to come out in the wash. “We also have tattered sweatpants you can wear in lieu of your khakis. If you don’t like the hoodie look, I can offer you a ripped Chicago Bears 2006 NFC champions T-shirt that could be worn with a pair of ratty cargo shorts. Unfortunately, we can’t have people walking in here with collars and buttons on their shirts and ruining the mood we’ve cultivated. This isn’t Red Lobster. And I’m afraid your guest will have to change out of her blouse and into this oversized Looney Tunes sweater with half of the words peeling off.” At press time, an Applebee’s waiter was seen apologetically handing out a $50 gift card to a table that had been seated for nearly 20 minutes without seeing a single customer start a fistfight in the bar after throwing a strawberry margarita in someone’s face.

The post Improperly Dressed Applebee’s Diner Provided Loaner Stained Hoodie appeared first on The Onion.

ITHACA, NY—Stressing that even shallow puddles could undermine an infant’s traction, parenting experts at Cornell University published a report Wednesday in which they warned that babies could hydroplane in as little as one inch of water. “You have to watch infants and toddlers closely around water, because even a thin layer can send them sliding into a ditch,” said lead researcher Debbie Lin, who explained that once a child started hydroplaning, it was already too late to do anything, and parents would just have to hope the baby didn’t spin completely out of control. “Our data revealed that many families venture out in the rain without realizing how easy it is for their baby to go skating across a stretch of standing water. The grooves on a baby’s skin lose contact with the surface of the pavement very easily, and they still lack the ability to turn into the direction of the skid, which doesn’t develop until later in childhood. People assume their babies will cry when hydroplaning, but many stay silent the entire time they’re spinning, so you need to keep an eye on them. Turn your back for one second, and they could barrel out of control, spraying water and gaining speed until they slam into a tree. Then you’re potentially looking at thousands in repairs.” Lin added that beyond being vigilant, the best way to ensure a baby stayed safe near standing water was to keep the infant at speeds lower than 30 miles per hour.

The post Parenting Experts Warn Babies Can Hydroplane In As Little As One Inch Of Water appeared first on The Onion.

Earlier this month, I was introduced to the term ‘wishcycling’. Wishcycling is the act of putting something into recycling without checking to see if it can actually be recycled. It was coined in the early 2020s as a way of describing how people recycle their consumer waste when faced with increasingly complex recycling requirements. When I learnt this term, I felt pleased to finally have a name for something but also felt bad that something I’ve been doing is such a problem it’s been named.

Also, earlier this month, I read an article in Lab Horizons (shameless plug for the magazine I edit), which reported on a study about whether chemists are taking enough care over toxicity testing of new synthetic materials. If you don’t want to read the article, a quick summary is that, shockingly, making new chemical structures and releasing them into the market is probably not a good idea.

Now, the cross-over between synthetic chemical regulations and my kitchen recycling bin might not be all that apparent, but it turns out they both suffer from a very human condition: wishing it’s all just kind of fine.

I’ve always been a bit hot on lab H&S. This is something that has only gotten stronger as I’ve moved between labs and seen various things that would make even the most experienced H&S auditor have heart palpitations. These kinds of H&S issues are often the result of little to no H&S policies being followed (or sometimes even existing). But even when there are robust (i.e. a piece of paper saying, pretty please do this) policies in place requiring Risk Assessments and COSHH forms, they quickly fall victim to wishing.

For those not familiar with RA and COSHH forms, they are fun little forms you fill in before running an experiment, used to make sure you understand how it might kill you (or kill the population of a small nearby village). For our EU readers, they are equivalent to REACH and CLP, and for our US readers, OSHA’s various forms. Other countries have variants of RA and COSHH forms, all of which have been similarly named from a giant bowl of acronym soup.

This H&S documentation is generally written by the people performing the experiment and often approved by the people ordering the experiment. There is a lot of incentive for everything to kind of be probably fine. This is especially true in complex experiments and experiments producing new and unknown materials. When filling out those forms, it is very easy to stop risk assessing and start ‘wishassesing’.

This is precisely what has already happened in synthetic chemistry. It’s easier to press ahead with inventing the next precursor to X or Y if you fill in a form that says nothing will explode despite the ominous ticking the trial batch made.

While synthetic chemistry has been in the press recently, it is not even close to the only field in science that is guilty of wishassesing. Everyone is somewhat guilty of it to a lesser or greater extent, especially when the assessment systems have so many objectively vague qualities (e.g. questions like “On a scale of 1 to 10, how risky is this?”).

I’m not sure I have the answer to wishassesing. But I hope that, like wishcycling, maybe the first step is to give it a name and try to persuade people to think about it more carefully. Guilt is a powerful force, and I know that knowing the term wishcycling has certainly made me think carefully before dropping a random yogurt pot into the recycling bin. Hopefully, ‘wishassesing’ will have the same effect, and I’ll think a little more and wish a little less. Which is a great last thought for an H&S article, but a horrible ending for a children’s movie.

Toronto ON —Gary Packett, 35,  has already achieved his weight loss goal of losing 100 pounds, thanks to his revolutionary new diet consisting entirely of raw milk, raw chicken, and a healthy dose of raw salmonella. Mr. Packett began the diet with tempered expectations having failed at previous weight loss attempts. He was shocked at […]

The post Man’s weight loss resolution already complete thanks to a diet of raw milk, raw chicken, and raw salmonella appeared first on The Beaverton.

Stephen Hackett:

Our 14-day national nightmare is over. As of Developer Beta 2, the Finder icon in macOS Tahoe has been updated to reflect 30 years of tradition:

I’m going to strongly disagree here. The Tahoe beta 2 Finder icon is slightly better, but seeing it this way makes it obvious that the problem with the Tahoe Finder icon isn’t whether it’s dark/light or light/dark from left to right. It’s that with this Tahoe design it’s not 50/50. It’s the appliqué — the right side (the face in profile) looks like something stuck on top of a blue face tile. That’s not the Finder logo.

The Finder logo is the Mac logo. The Macintosh is the platform that held Apple together when, by all rights, the company should have fallen apart. It’s a great logo, period, and the second-most-important logo Apple owns, after the Apple logo itself. Fucking around with it like this, making the right-side in-profile face a stick-on layer rather than a full half of the mark, is akin to Coca-Cola fucking around with the typeface for the word “Cola” in its logo. Like, what are you doing? Why are you screwing with a perfect mark?

There are an infinite number of ways Apple could do this while remaining true to the original logo. Here’s a take from Michael Flarup that glasses it up but keeps it true to itself:

Especially in the field of computers, no company can be a slave to tradition and history. But you ought to respect it. This new Finder icon doesn’t.

Update: And here are some excellent takes on an updated Finder icon by Louie Mantia, along with some astute commentary. Mantia writes:

I really, really do not like spending my time pointing this out. I could write a whole blog post but I don’t want to seem angry about it. I just think the right solutions are simpler than what they’re doing.

No surprise, but Mantia’s icons look perfect to me. Perfectly Liquid Glass-y, perfectly Finder-y.

...and almost instantaneously you'll find your hand in .. of ... uh ... very deep ... sleep ... #CowboyWho

Number 100: Gradius II - Number 1: Dragon Quest III

To commemorate the Famicom's 20th anniversary, Famitsu released a special DVD celebrating the console and its games. The main feature on the disc is a top 100 countdown, listing the most popular Famicom games. The list is a fascinating look into the tastes of the Famicom's original audience and the only one of its kind. Let's break it down today.

Daisie’s folk club tent seems to have fallen on hard times since the destruction of her lute (seen below). But it’s Bendle I’m most worried about, he’s a real drip.

The post A brace of hogs appeared first on Bad Machinery.

divine decapitation

...

person on their laptop accompanied by a goat with gigantic scissors above their head about to decapitate a cyber angel

https://analognowhere.com/_/uetnil

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The founder of instant messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, says the more than 100 children he has fathered will share his estimated $13.9 billion fortune, including those who were born from his sperm donations. What do you think?

“Kids who grow up fatherless always have all the luck.”

Rick Holdren, Watercolors Expert

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“And yet, still only two kidneys to share amongst the group.”

Ben Crosthwait, Paperweight Tester

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“Hopefully the mother gets something, too.”

Oksana Belova, Brainstorm Navigator

The post Telegram CEO To Leave Fortune To Over 100 Children He Fathered appeared first on The Onion.

OTTAWA – Shortly after jamming through a law that allows Cabinet to ignore Parliamentary Accountability for energy projects, Liberal MPs are confident that these provisions will only be used in the most rare of circumstances, as long as the Conservative Party Of Canada never takes power ever again for even a moment. “Sure giving Cabinet […]

The post Liberals promise anti-democratic components of Bill C-5 will be used sparingly as long as Conservatives never get in power again appeared first on The Beaverton.

The post FEMA Head Under Fire After Accidentally Playing Porn On Emergency Alert System appeared first on The Onion.

#CowboyWho

A reader writes:

My company is, to put it plainly, a difficult place to work. I’ve been here three years and, in that time, multiple people have left after staying less than a year. The expectations on us are high to the point of often being unrealistic, and we’re frequently given deadlines that are impossible to meet. As a result, people tend to work lots of (unpaid) overtime on nights and weekends, and people burn out quickly. You’d think we’d at least be paid well in exchange, but no – our salaries are actually below market. Needless to say, I’ve been actively looking for a new job.

Two weeks ago, I finally received a job offer I was excited about and I put in my notice. Our company asks professional-level staff to give two months of notice, and I gave that plus an extra week (so nine weeks total). Despite the conditions here, I’ve had a pretty good relationship with my boss, Sally, and I thought this would help the news go over better. While I was expecting her to take it badly when I quit (in the past, she has tried to refuse other co-worker’s resignations!), she actually did handle it well – at least at first — and I’ve been spending time training my replacement, trying to leave in work in good order, and continuing to manage most of my projects until I leave.

However, as of this week – the third week since I gave notice – Sally has been behaving different toward me. She has started loading me up with a bunch of additional work outside of what we agreed I would handle in my remaining time, even though that will leave me without time to get everything done. Today she asked to meet with me, chastised me for the quality of my work, and said she had seen a noticeable dip in my work in recent months and now understood why (i.e., that I had been job-hunting and trying to leave). She said she expected me to give 100 percent during the rest of my time here and that I should think my “legacy” at the company. It’s definitely true that I’ve been less engaged in some of the big-picture planning conversations … because I’m leaving! I think my priority should be training my replacement and wrapping things up as much as possible in the next few weeks.

After that meeting, she sent a very long, harshly worded message about how she understands it’s normal to switch off to some extent once you land a new job, but my attitude was impacting her own workload and having a negative effect on team morale (I guess it’s not her recent demands that all staff work unpaid overtime or witch hunts punishing staff members for not doing a task correctly). She then went on a lengthy rant calling me and other co-workers robots. I did not engage and answered very noncommittally that we would finish our collaboration “strong.” But I am unsure about how to respond if these sorts of comments continue, as they are quite emotional and very draining to receive. I would like to finish up my time in my current position well and on a positive note. How do I navigate my last few weeks (if this is even possible) with these sorts of comments?

You can read my answer to this letter at New York Magazine today. Head over there to read it.

The post my boss is being a jerk since I resigned appeared first on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I work for a company that is currently contracted to a government agency, in a suburban area next to a major highway. We work in a very secure, gated government-operated building, alongside federal employees. Armed security guards, microchipped photo IDs, badge-readers on internal and external doors that are coded to your specific work hours, etc. My company’s work is of a kind that was never able to be done remotely, even during Covid, whereas many of our federal colleagues have been either fully or partially remote for years.

Under the current administration, however, nearly all government employees have had to start returning to the office this year, which has been a bumpy ride, to say the least. We’ve dealt with more people in the building than we’re used to, having to give up space in our office, breakroom fridge spats, parking lot congestion, added security measures, etc. Mistakenly, I thought that would be the worst of it.

Just this week, we were notified by our government overlords that that due to an influx of their employees adhering to an upcoming RTO deadline, my company’s employees will no longer be allowed to park in the building parking lot. Full stop. Even management! The only exception is those with a registered handicap parking placard. They are literally re-coding our badges so that they will no longer open the parking lot gates.

Needless to say, we are livid. People have talked about going on strike (unlikely to happen, even less likely to fix anything), and many are considering quitting.

The first solution that we were given was for all of us (100+) to park down the street in the parking lot of the nearby train station. This is roughly a 3/4-mile walk, in an area of town that is not considered safe, down an unlit, un-guardrailed sidewalk that sits along a busy highway. Some of us start work at 6 am, others don’t leave until 7 pm or later (sometimes as late as 9:30 pm). We also live in the south, where temperatures are already reaching the mid-90s during the day and will only get worse for the next few months. Adding 1.5 miles of outdoor walking to our days is unsafe in more ways than one. Many of our employees are older and/or not in great health (though not eligible for handicapped parking). Many live 45 minutes to an hour away, which is not accessible through public transit.

The update to that plan was that ACTUALLY, the train station parking lot enforces towing, and we have no permission to be able to use it. So if anyone does choose to park there, they’re doing so at their own risk, and the company assumes no liability and would not help with towing costs. And if 100+ cars suddenly showed up in my parking lot, you can believe I would be towing them pronto.

It’s a suburban area so there are no parking garages or anything of the sort, absolutely no public parking of any kind. Everything belongs to businesses, etc.

This also effectively means that none of us will be able to return to our cars if we forgot something, and certainly no leaving for lunch. All but a handful of us are hourly, non-exempt employees. Our lunch break is only 30 minutes, and there are no restaurants within walking distance. Our building has no on-site cafeteria, only vending machines. Some employees have already been bringing their lunch and eating in their cars because there hasn’t been sufficient space in the breakroom.

The concerns are, roughly in order of severity:

1. Having no legal, safe place to park our cars.
2. If we do take the chance to park somewhere else, having to then walk the rest of the distance (which would almost certainly be close to a mile, if not more) in an unsafe way.
3. Losing access to our cars during the day and being unable to leave for breaks.

Management, since they are also being given the boot, has allegedly been working tirelessly to try to get something done, but at this point we don’t even know what a workable solution would look like. They were told that there’s nothing in our company’s contract that guarantees on-site parking, and that our counterparts in New York and D.C. do just fine without it (gee, I wonder what the difference is?). There were murmurs about trying to set up a shuttle, but from where?

I’m sure the answer is that this is all perfectly legal and that they’re within their rights to do so, but also … what the hell?

What the hell, indeed.

And yes, it’s legal. There’s no legal requirement that an employer provide parking — safe, close, or otherwise.

But it’s ridiculously impractical. If your work could be done from home, I’d suggest that all of you flat-out tell your company that because you currently have nowhere to park at work, you’ll need to work at home until the company solves the parking problem. But since your jobs can’t be done from home, that’s out.

This is a prime time to push back as a group. You don’t need to have a solution; you just need to speak with one voice and say that the current plan is untenable and the company needs to fix it. Your right to organize as a group for better working conditions is protected under the National Labor Relations Act; most people think of that as the law that protects unions, but it also protects you if you and your coworkers are acting as a group even without a union. (And maybe this is an impetus to think seriously about whether you want a union, if your company is going to deal with you in such bad faith.)

What your company could actually do depends on what options are in the area, but at a minimum they should be looking into renting parking space locally and/or making that idea of shuttles a reality.

The post we’re no longer allowed to park at work, with no alternatives appeared first on Ask a Manager.

BOCA RATON, FL—Sitting straight up in bed in a cold sweat as she struggled to shake the horrifying image from her mind, pop superstar Taylor Swift reportedly awoke from a nightmare Tuesday in which her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, won an Oscar before she did. “It was horrible—they called his name, and I had to stand up and smile as he kissed me on the cheek before going up to accept the statuette from Lupita Nyong’o,” said the 14-time Grammy winner, breathlessly recalling the details of a dream wherein Kelce retired from the NFL to pursue acting, was cast in a lead role in a feature film, and turned out a surprisingly sensitive and raw performance that made him a favorite to win the Academy Award for best actor. “I know it’s just in my head. I mean, in real life he can barely read without slowly sounding out the words, but the thought of it still makes me nauseous. Oh God, he got to be directed by Greta Gerwig too, and she called him a ‘generational talent’ at the ceremony. I think I’m going to puke.” According to reports, Swift managed to fall back asleep only to return to the nightmare and watch as Kelce ascended the Oscars stage to accept a second Academy Award, this time for best original song.

The post Taylor Swift Wakes Up From Nightmare Where Travis Kelce Wins Oscar Before Her appeared first on The Onion.

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That’s our Herc! Oh, that funny, cumbersome clown!

A reader writes:

I am a manager supervising a small team of people. One of my employees, Jessica, is right out of college and is working for me on a year-long fellowship designed for professional development. A few months ago, we were out for a work dinner with a client. We were at a moderately fancy restaurant. Everyone ordered standard entrees (which each cost about $15-20), but then Jessica ordered a prime steak dinner (which cost over $65). This isn’t technically in violation of our policies — we don’t have a price cap for each person’s order. Still, it just struck me as … not very polite? I was raised, perhaps in a biased way, to think that it’s not polite to order something so much more expensive than everyone else when someone else is paying. Of course, the “someone else” in this case isn’t me — it’s our employer, a large company. I have no reason to believe that dietary restrictions weren’t at play: I’ve seen her eat other things from the same restaurant in the past.

Am I totally off-base here? Is this a convention that applies, or matters, in a work context?

Secondly, I wonder if I should have said something very gently to this employee. It’s her first job out of college, she’s the first person in her family to hold an office job, and professional development is supposed to be a part of her role, and I would hate for her to inadvertently misstep in ways that could raise eyebrows. But I also don’t want to make her self-conscious, and ultimately it wasn’t a violation of workplace policies or a huge deal. Where’s the line between kindly giving her a heads-up about an unspoken rule she may not be aware of and being judgmental about her food and scolding over a relatively small dollar amount?

You’re not off-base. It’s impolite to order something far more expensive than everyone else when you’re not the one who’s paying. That’s true in social situations, and it’s also true at work meals. (There are exceptions, of course, if it’s the only thing on the menu you can eat or if the person who’s paying strongly encourages you to order the prime steak dinner.)

That said, not everyone learns that etiquette growing up, and not everyone starts work with the same cultural playbook that teaches this stuff.

Since Jessica is doing a year-long fellowship specifically designed for professional development, you should talk to her! Don’t approach it as chastising or criticizing her (if she didn’t know, she didn’t know) but as offering professional mentorship.

For example: “I don’t want you to feel awkward about this because I’m guessing you didn’t know, but when you’re at a work meal and someone else is paying, you shouldn’t order the most expensive item on the menu; stick to the same general price range as most other people are. I figured you didn’t realize that so I wanted to tell you going forward.” You could even add, “Sometimes there can be kind of an unspoken playbook for this stuff, which isn’t very fair to people who don’t already know it, so I’m trying to be explicit about those expectations when I see them.”

In fact, it also might be useful to think about other unspoken expectations that employees risk being judged if they break them and spell those out ahead of time, so that you’re guiding up-front rather than coaching after the fact. For example, before someone’s first client dinner, you could also mention things like “it’s okay to order one drink but not more” or “at dinners like this, we try to make sure the client is getting the most air time and follow their lead on what they want to talk about” or whatever else it will help them to know. Even if this all ends up being things they already knew, most junior hires will be aware these are new situations for them and will appreciate the guidance. It also creates space for them to ask questions they might not have felt comfortable asking otherwise, because you’ll be signaling that it’s normal not to know everything when you’re just starting out and that it’s okay to have a learning curve.

The post junior employee ordered the most expensive thing at the restaurant appeared first on Ask a Manager.

From iyO’s home page:

The iyo one is a revolutionary new kind of computer without a screen. it can run apps just like your smartphone. The key difference is you talk to it through a natural language interface.

Like I wrote yesterday, I’d never heard of iyO before. But from the description above, you can obviously see how they’d feel like the new OpenAI/LoveFrom io name stomps on their trademark. (One minor curiosity: iyO itself seems unsure how to capitalize the letters in its own name: a single cropped screenshot of their own home page shows “iyO”, “IyO”, and “iyo”.)

iyO “graduated” from X (which is entirely separate from Elon Musk’s X), Google’s “moonshot factory”, in 2021. The description there:

iyO is on a mission to bring natural language computing to billions of people. The team has created the world’s first audio computer that you can talk to like a friend. While at X, the team developed their initial prototypes. Now an independent company, iyO is creating screenless, natural language computing with mixed audio reality.

Despite having “graduated” four years ago, iyO is still only taking pre-orders for the iyO One, their ungainly-looking ear computer. ($100 seems too good to be true for what they’re promising. Update: Ah-ha, turns out $100 is just the pre-order deposit. They’re going to cost $1,000 to $1,200 if they ever actually ship, which I think is a big if — this thing has vaporware written all over it.)

Lastly, last April, iyO founder and CEO Jason Rugolo demonstrated prototypes in a 13-minute TED talk. Seems cool, but some of the features already exist with AirPods, and all of the feature could exist with AirPods. I don’t see the future of a dedicated audio computer — especially ones as ugly as these — when the entire feature set can be duplicated with smart earbuds paired to your phone.