George, elected as a Democrat in 2018 and 2022, has faced increased scrutiny over alleged criminal activity. He is facing felony money laundering charges as well as a misdemeanor charge of misrepresentation of identity.
Whitmire reversed his initial position that none of the $315 million in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which awarded the funding in response to last year’s storms, should go toward housing. Community advocates say unmet housing needs require at least $100 million.
First, as I went about learning more about the situation with Laurel’s mission, I was told that Laurel does have some experience pertinent to the “tree planting mission field.” (As an aside, some commenters on the original post got bogged down in the exact details of tree planting, and I’d like to remind everyone that it’s an anonymizing fiction.)
When I talked to my manager about what I learned from following up on a member’s request for me to look for grants that would help support Laurel, I was told that it was none of my business and that I shouldn’t have done it at all, as it was not explicitly stated in my job description.
I talked to the committee the church has organized to support Laurel’s work. One reassuring thing I heard was that the committee had been encouraging her to wind down her work in Chile and transfer it to local leadership for several years. There’s a specific thing she does, say it’s teaching people how to test soil for suitability for trees, that is unusual in that country and would be helpful for local people to incorporate into future tree planting work. There is a professional in the field on her committee, and I trust her judgement when she speaks to this thing’s value. Passing this specific thing on was the primary aim of the most recent trip she took, which happened after I sent the first email to Alison. It was pointed to me all that work of this nature has some degree of inefficiencies. That’s both true and Laurel’s is on the extreme of tolerated inefficiencies.
I held Laurel’s bookkeeping high regard despite this conflict. She works as an independent contractor for many small churches maintaining their books, as she does for our church. I certainly hold them less highly now! It came to light that she made a $7,000 error while submitting our church’s taxes. It was a technological issue, and she’s not very adept with computers, nor did she take me up on my many offers to help in many different ways (remember that I had been doing the books before this, so I did know how to fix this!). Laurel also pushed for a specialized bookkeeper to come in and clean up the books after my time with them (and in my defense, I was working with an outside bookkeeping firm who was supposed to be doing the more technical parts of the work, and apparently weren’t doing a good job). This bookkeeper cost our church $15,000 over three months. I have no idea if that’s a reasonable sum for a contract bookkeeper, but shouldn’t Laurel have been able to handle the clean-up as part of her work if she’s such a lauded bookkeeper? Not coincidentally, our church has been in the red this year for the first time in a century’s operation to the tune of exactly $22,000.
Even more frustrating, given that it’s been emphasized to me again and again that Laurel knows what she’s doing and I should trust her, is that she’s not correctly doing the books for money related to her mission. Missionaries are considered clergy for the purpose of taxes. If they are paid directly by the church, they are an employee and the church needs to file the appropriate payroll taxes and file documentation to report that they have employed this person as an employee. It’s pretty common for missionaries to direct any funds they’ve raised to an outside organization who can handle the legal and financial aspects of their work. Laurel has skipped this entirely! I know from doing the books for one mission trip of hers that money comes into the account of the church from donations and payments go directly out to her, with nothing taken out. This leaves our church in the position of having underpaid payroll taxes for decades. When I brought this up to Laurel’s committee, the general response was that it’s all so complicated, how could anyone be expected to know what was required financially around Laurel’s mission? But if Laurel is a bookkeeper with a specialization in small churches, shouldn’t she have known this? From what I can tell, the amount of donations that came in was the amount that was paid out to her, meaning that there weren’t overpayments. Until she took over as bookkeeper last year, our church’s bookkeeper (not her) managed these payments. She’s provided financial reports to the church every year. The one good thing I could say about the external bookkeeper is that if they did the deep dive into the books they were paid for, financial impropriety (beyond Laurel conveniently not paying taxes on her work!) would have turned up.
I struggle to understand all of this. Why no one pointed out that being paid money to go somewhere and do work means that you’re an employee and need to pay taxes in the last few decades Laurel’s been doing this isn’t something I understand. While I don’t have training in bookkeeping, I found what seemed to me to be pretty clear answers to that in a quick google. There was a lot of discussion with me about how poorly I was doing with the books while they were my responsibility, and it’s been made clear to me that part of what allowed me to keep my job is because Laurel’s taken over the financial aspects of the church’s administration. There’s this story of me as a colossal fuck-up with the church’s books. But from what’s been shared with me and what I’ve seen, the primary origin of that story is Laurel! I didn’t get payments and reports to her about her work’s financials to her as quickly as she wanted, and I know that deeply annoyed her. While there certainly may be errors that I may have made as bookkeeper that are beyond my ability to understand, what I can say for my work is that I always filed taxes and report on time, and certainly never cost our church thousands of dollars because I was too stubborn to admit I didn’t understand how to fix a technology problem with the filing system. The $22,000 in the red really grieves me. It is a hard thing for a small church to come back from that kind of deficit.
I’m much younger than Laurel, I’m much newer to the church, I have this story of deeply fucking up the books and so costing the meeting tens of thousands of dollar attached to me. I’ve talked to many people about this problem, and no one’s interested in taking this on. Probably not least because if the church paid the back payroll taxes, that would cost us thousands of dollars when we’re already in the hole!
At the end of the day, Laurel’s planted more doomed trees, she’s continuing on unquestioned, and I can’t get another couch for the office because there isn’t the money for it. I’m staying in this job becauses its very mellow and flexible part time work that accommodates my disability in a way that’s hard to replicate. There’s some things about it that drive me absolutely crazy, there’s some things I find deeply meaningful. I’m planning to leave this job in the next year, and I’ll take with me a lot of lessons about how even well-meaning organizations can go hugely astray.
A crystal-covered chair inspired by one of Vincent Van Gogh’s most famous paintings was seriously damaged when a tourist sat on it while posing for a photograph. What do you think?
“And that, too, is art.”
Gail Holmberg, Systems Analyst
“You can’t really judge art until you know how comfortable it is.”
Fabian Azarias, Polyurethane Enthusiast
“I can never keep track of what we’re allowed to sit on these days.”
The Galveston Police Department requested additional personnel from the sheriff's office to assist with dignitaries planning to be in Galveston, the birthplace of Juneteenth. Among those dignitaries is Biden, who made Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021.
In brief: You probably don’t need to check the weather forecast every day, at least for the next few days, as our pattern looks to remain fairly consistent. Houston will see typical temperatures for June, with a smattering of rain chances through the weekend. Next week could be a little more dynamic as high pressure shifts eastward.
High pressure, but not HIGH pressure
Houston remains largely under the influence of high pressure, expanding into the area from the southwest. But this is not a “death ridge” like we sometimes see later during the summer, when high pressure sits on top of the area and pushes temperatures up into the triple digits. As a result we are going to feel “June hot” for the foreseeable future, which is to say highs closer to 90 degrees than 95 degrees for most of the area. Rain chances will largely (but not completely) be squelched this week, but should improve to some extent next week.
Temperatures will be consistent this week. (Weather Bell)
Wednesday
I expect today to be a lot like Tuesday, with high temperatures in the vicinity of 90 degrees for most of the region. Skies should be partly to mostly sunny. Winds today do look a little bit stronger than yesterday, so we could see some southerly gusts up to 20 or possibly even 25 mph later this afternoon. I expect we will see some isolated showers and thunderstorms pop up this afternoon, but I would put chances at perhaps 10 percent or a only a touch higher. Lows tonight drop into the upper 70s.
Thursday and Friday
These days will be similar, with mostly sunny skies and high temperatures probably slotting in somewhere between 90 and 93 degrees. I think wind gusts will be a little bit lower, but rain chances a little bit higher. On Thursday, the Juneteenth holiday, there will perhaps be a 30 percent chance of rain, mostly during the afternoon, and maybe nearly that high on Friday. For the most part these should be quickly passing showers. Nights remain warm and humid.
Most of us should see a little rain through the weekend. (Weather Bell)
Saturday and Sunday
The weekend looks more or less the same: highs in the vicinity of 90 degrees, mostly sunny skies, and plenty of humidity. I do expect we’ll continue to see some afternoon showers and thunderstorms, driven by the sea breeze. But whether these are isolated, or reach the point where they hit say 30 percent of the area, I cannot really say with confidence.
Next week
At some point next week the ridge will shift eastward, and as this happens our atmosphere will open up to somewhat better rain chances. Whether this happens by Monday or Tuesday, or later in the week, is difficult to predict. Temperatures, regardless, should remain in the range of 90 degrees. And hey, the longer we get into summer without a sustained stretch of temperatures in the mid- or upper-90s, the better to me.
I wrote in a couple of times about my director who was not a good fit for our organization and whether or not I should talk to the board of trustees about her. I know the general consensus from the comments was that I and the rest of the staff were wrong and should have handled things better but now, six months later, I think it was not a good fit.
I don’t know that my going to the board made a huge difference. Several board members over the past few months have expressed that they had some serious concerns about her ability to continue in the position, which has helped me to feel a little better. I don’t know that the board and I will ever fully agree on whether or not I should have brought my complaint to them, but they are looking into how they can incorporate informal staff feedback into their director evaluations (since they do not observe the day to day work) and I have learned a lot from the experience.
After she left, I became interim director and another employee was appointed interim assistant director. We were given a fairly strict guidelines by the board as far as what was considered in and out of our scope, and we gave a lot of thought to how we could make the interim period go as smoothly as possible.
Over the past 5 months, we have spent considerable time and effort in working through some of the challenges the staff had been facing related to communications, scheduling, and job roles. We have worked to clarify expectations and to prepare staff for potential changes under the next director. We took the things that went wrong last time and used that information to create systems and strutures that will make the both the daily operations and new director onboarding process smoother and hopefully prevent some of the same issues from coming up again. I have also particpated in several trainings for managers around staff communication and conflict resolution because I know those areas are not my strong suit. Staff are all more relaxed and productivity has increased, and I am feeling good about where we are headed.
Finally, we have a new director starting in about a week and I am looking forward to working with him. We have already had several conversations and I think he will be someone that I can learn from and who will respect our past and present while pushing us to be even better.
1. Trump announces on Truth Social that he will solve the crisis in one day, and this will win him the Nobel Peace Prize.
2. Trump accidentally says, out of habit, that this war “never would have started if I were president.” Then he remembers he’s currently the president but still blames Joe Biden anyway.
3. Trump repeatedly claims all the other presidents in US history were stupid for not getting a deal, because the conflict is so easy and simple.
4. Trump doesn’t read any of the briefings he’s given detailing the current status of the various negotiations between Iran, Israel, and his own national security team.
5. Trump asks his advisers why no one ever thought to make a deal where Iran gives up its nuclear ambitions in exchange for the US lifting sanctions to entice more civil behavior from Iran by opening it up to foreign investments and economic growth. His advisers remind him that Obama made that deal, but he ripped it up. Trump folds his arms tightly across his chest and frowns.
6. Trump finally goes to a peace meeting between Iran and Israel, but has trouble staying awake. Also, they’re in a city that doesn’t have a McDonald’s, and he’s annoyed that the local Diet Cokes “taste off.”
7. Trump feels uncomfortable sitting at a table full of highly educated and professional Israeli and Iranian engineers, nuclear physicists, and career bureaucrats who are intimately aware of every detail of past negotiations and have had extensive personal experiences with all the related technological capacities to measure and monitor specific scientific thresholds of fissile materials and processes. To compensate for his utter ignorance of the details, Trump monopolizes the conversation and exaggerates with his trademark superlative vocabulary, calling everything “amazing” or “unbelievable.”
8. Trump wants a photo op and gets pissed when officials from Israel and Iran refuse to participate. Trump suggests they stand on either side of him and shake hands as he gives a thumbs-up gesture and smiles. Trump asks if anyone has an official-looking binder or thick paper he can sign his name really big on in a permanent marker for the photos. All the Israelis and Iranians just stare at him.
9. At the end of the first day of negotiations, Trump announces that Iran and Israel have “concepts of a peace plan,” while media staffers from both governments describe the meeting as “not constructive.”
10. Trump tells Fox News, “No one knew the Middle East’s thousand-year geopolitical rivalries could be so complicated."
11. Trump blatantly takes Israel’s side because of the Jewish donors and supporters who assist his domestic political interests and wonders to himself how peculiar it is that within America’s complex political culture he’s somehow simultaneously super popular with both zealously nationalistic Zionists and rabidly antisemitic neo-Nazis.
12. Trump claims Iran “doesn’t have the cards,” prompting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to buy the company that makes his newly unveiled Trump Mobile phones, and forces the Trump phone service into bankruptcy.
13. Trump repeatedly takes credit for all the successful Israeli airstrikes against Iranian military installations.
14. Trump repeatedly claims he’s not involved to keep the isolationist wing of his MAGA base from abandoning him for involving America in another Middle East war.
15. Trump repeatedly takes credit for any temporary ceasefire deliberations.
16. Trump repeatedly blames Netanyahu and Khamenei for being “not nice” after no deal materializes.
17. Trump has a meeting with Khamenei in Switzerland. Afterward, he claims Iran has some of the “best real estate in the world” along the Caspian Sea shoreline, and how it would be a shame if it weren’t developed into a “Persian Riviera.” Trump wonders aloud if maybe there should be a Trump Tower in Tehran, or a casino. An Iranian official awkwardly tells Trump that gambling is a strict taboo in Islam.
18. Trump has a meeting with Netanyahu and, in the succeeding press conference, calls Khamenei “the literal devil.”
19. Trump has a dinner with Steve Bannon and claims he will not let Netanyahu humiliate him by going behind his back and escalating the conflict and single-handedly drawing the US into a wider war with Iran.
20. Whistleblowers in the government claim Trump is soliciting personal bribes from both Netanyahu and Khamenei, as well as hawking his various crypto grift coins if they want to “grease the wheels a little bit.”
21. Trump has lunch with Laura Loomer and announces he’s firing his entire National Security Council for not being loyal enough to mind their own business about the bribery.
22. Trump loses interest while Iran and Israel continue fighting among themselves, and claims the Nobel Committee is rigged against him anyway, so what’s the point of trying to get a Peace Prize?
CHICAGO—Expressing concern that the small aircraft was going to accidentally hurt itself in its panic, passengers at O’Hare International Airport gate C20 were reportedly saddened Wednesday to see a poor frightened plane loose inside the airport. “It just breaks my heart to see the little thing taxiing around the terminal,” traveler Dave Weister said of the two-seater Cessna 152 as it repeatedly pressed its nose cone to the window in a fruitless attempt to reach the runway. “I told the gate agent, but she just rolled her eyes and told me to notify security. A bunch of us tried to corral the pitiful plane toward the emergency exit, but it was so scared that every time we got close it flew over our heads. We saw a call sign on its side, so hopefully we’ll be able to identify it and contact the pilot.” At press time, reports confirmed several passenger planes had been grounded as the small plane crisscrossed multiple runways to make its way to the hangar.
What would you say? The night would come and go, but this 3-bedroom, 2-bath Tudor-style house could last a lifetime. Think of it. A whole house…for one night. Don’t answer right away. Just consider it.
1. Trump announces on Truth Social that he will solve the crisis in one day, and this will win him the Nobel Peace Prize.
2. Trump accidentally says, out of habit, that this war “never would have started if I were president.” Then he remembers he’s currently the president, but still blames Joe Biden anyway.
3. Trump repeatedly claims all the other presidents in US history were stupid for not getting a deal because the conflict is so easy and simple.
4. Trump doesn’t read any of the briefings he’s given detailing the current status of the various negotiations between Iran, Israel, and his own national security team.
5. Trump asks his advisers why no one ever thought to make a deal where Iran gives up its nuclear ambitions in exchange for the US lifting sanctions to entice more civil behavior from Iran by opening it up to foreign investments and economic growth. His advisers remind him that Obama made that deal, but he ripped it up. Trump folds his arms tightly across his chest and frowns.
6. Trump finally goes to a peace meeting between Iran and Israel, but has trouble staying awake. Also, they’re in a city that doesn’t have a McDonald’s, and he’s annoyed that the local Diet Cokes “taste off.”
7. Trump feels uncomfortable sitting at a table full of highly educated and professional Israeli and Iranian engineers, nuclear physicists, and career bureaucrats who are intimately aware of every detail of past negotiations, and have had extensive personal experiences with all the related technological capacities to measure and monitor specific scientific thresholds of fissile materials and processes. To compensate for his utter ignorance of the details, Trump monopolizes the conversation and exaggerates with his trademark superlative vocabulary, calling everything “amazing” or “unbelievable.”
8. Trump wants a photo-op and gets pissed when officials from Israel and Iran refuse to participate. Trump suggests they stand on either side of him and shake hands as he gives a thumbs-up gesture and smiles. Trump asks if anyone has an official-looking binder or thick paper he can sign his name really big on in a permanent marker for the photos. All the Israelis and Iranians just stare at him.
9. At the end of the first day of negotiations, Trump announces that Iran and Israel have “concepts of a peace plan,” while media staffers from both governments describe the meeting as “not constructive.”
10. Trump tells Fox News, “No one knew the Middle East’s thousand-year geopolitical rivalries could be so complicated.
11. Trump blatantly takes Israel’s side because of the Jewish donors and supporters who assist his domestic political interests, and wonders to himself how peculiar it is that within America’s complex political culture he’s somehow simultaneously super popular with both zealously nationalistic Zionists and rabidly antisemitic neo-Nazis.
12. Trump claims Iran “doesn’t have the cards,” prompting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to buy the company that makes his newly unveiled Trump Mobile phones, and forces the Trump phone service into bankruptcy.
13. Trump repeatedly takes credit for all the successful Israeli airstrikes against Iranian military installations.
14. Trump repeatedly claims he’s not involved to keep the isolationist wing of his MAGA base from abandoning him for involving America in another Middle East war.
15. Trump repeatedly takes credit for any temporary ceasefire deliberations.
16. Trump repeatedly blames Netanyahu and Khamenei for being “not nice” after no deal materializes.
17. Trump has a meeting with Khamenei in Switzerland. Afterwards, he claims Iran has some of the “best real estate in the world” along the Caspian Sea shoreline, and how it would be a shame if it weren’t developed into a “Persian Riviera.” Trump wonders aloud if maybe there should be a Trump Tower in Tehran, or a casino. An Iranian official awkwardly tells Trump that gambling is a strict taboo in Islam.
18. Trump has a meeting with Netanyahu, and in the succeeding press conference, calls Khamenei “the literal devil.”
19. Trump has a dinner with Steve Bannon and claims he will not let Netanyahu humiliate him by going behind his back and escalating the conflict and single-handedly drawing the US into a wider war with Iran.
20. Whistleblowers in the government claim Trump is soliciting personal bribes from both Netanyahu and Khamenei, as well as hawking his various crypto grift coins if they want to “grease the wheels a little bit.”
21. Trump has lunch with Laura Loomer and announces he’s firing his entire National Security Council for not being loyal enough to mind their own business about the bribery.
22. Trump loses interest while Iran and Israel continue fighting amongst themselves, and claims the Nobel Committee is rigged against him anyway, so what’s the point of trying to get a Peace Prize?
It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager and I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.
There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.
I took your advice of pointing out to our more junior colleagues that the behavior was not normal and it seems to have worked as well as it could. Unfortunately, Hannah is displaying escalated behavior, including taking personal calls in public areas that devolve into shouting at her children and discussion of even more inappropriate topics – we’ve moved on from “leave your future husband because marriage is a sham” to things like “if you have a child, they’ll have to (graphic description of an episiotomy) because your hips are too narrow.” Some of this behavior was present before, but it was typically when very few people were around; now, she does it in full rooms with managers and directors present. She is also comfortable enough now that she openly makes racist remarks to, and about, our non-white employees. For reference, Hannah is white but still considers herself marginalized because her grandparents immigrated from eastern Europe and faced discrimination. I’m also white, and I suspect that Hannah has been making these remarks since she arrived and just took a while to feel comfortable enough to make them in front of other white people.
Her behavior includes dramatically over-pronouncing “foreign” names, greeting employees in exaggerated and mocking versions of their home languages when all of these employees speak flawless English, asking employees if they are afraid of deportation, and more. She complains loudly to whomever will listen on the rare occasions that she gets reprimanded, so we know that she has been asked to stop and that she did this so egregiously to a global client that the client required she be removed from their project. My colleagues and I typically give her a pretty flat and direct “there’s no need to do that, everyone here speaks English” or other applicable response, but that does not seem to be helping and we honestly don’t know if escalating the situation in the moment would help or hurt when people are just trying to get their work done.
Hannah’s manager has ensured that the impact to our BIPOC employees is limited for now by ensuring they are rarely in the same physical space and by checking in with them once every two weeks to catalog any incidents and build a case against her. I think the slow build might be at the insistence of our legal team as Hannah has indicated that she will sue if she is fired. Her manager is also hesitant to discipline her in any real way because she had a very public emotional breakdown and threatened suicide when they discussed the idea of her going on a PIP, let alone if she got fired. I don’t really know where we go from here! I hope my next letter is that Hannah has gotten help and also found employment elsewhere.
I don’t have much of an update, except that the client did pay the invoice without any additional back-and-forth. I have no idea if they ultimately believed me, but the work is live on their website. They must have decided it was good enough to use — whether it was generated by a human or by AI.
For various reasons, I ended up not taking on any new freelance projects after that, but I’m sure this conversation has only become more complex since last year. The technology is becoming more advanced and more unavoidable (I don’t need an AI copilot for my grocery pickup ordering experience, dammit!), and it is also being viewed with even greater skepticism from environmental, academic, and psychosocial perspectives. Like anyone whose profession is experiencing AI pressure, I’m trying to understand what, at a fundamental level, this all means for my chosen livelihood. An adapt-or-die moment, I suppose.
Finally, as you can tell by my initial letter, I love an em-dash, so perhaps that was what the detector was flagging. A word to readers who are under the impression that dashes are a dead AI giveaway: they are also cherished by writers who value varied sentence structure!
I really valued the insights from the commentariat and the analysis on what could be the cause of the manager’s rather unusual comments! The comments about whether there was a conscious or subconscious intention to create a sense of obligation resonated with me. I experienced the same emotive response in my conversations with the manager as I have had with the high-intensity friends who see friendships as a series of obligations or transactions, which suggested that the same interpersonal pattern might be happening. I don’t think there was any negative intention, probably just a poorly articulated effort to show value for my work and support for me at the organization.
Focusing on practicalities, the comments were useful that prompted me to consider whether there had been issues with fraud (or similar) at the organization before and this was the reason for the hyper-vigilance. This was also suggested by a friend who was in a similar situation. I don’t think that is the situation but also don’t have any insights either way. I am very sure there was no pre-meditated setup for anyone to commit fraud and make me the fall person!
In any case, I did not get resolution on the mystery … I had to delay my start date with the organization for several months and by the time I started, the manager had been reassigned to a different office for an extended period. (For the sleuths, there is nothing unusual about this — they reallocate staff as required depending on seniority and experience, and this is part of that process.) Since I’ve started, the new manager/colleague hasn’t made any unusual comments so I think it may have been a personal characteristic of the previous manager. By the time that manager is back, I will be well-established in my position and if they raise it again, I will be confident to just directly ask, “What the…?!”
I decided to buy and wear the lilac tights and white dress combo to work and got a couple compliments that day.
In fact, I decided to lean into dressing (appropriately) nice for my office nearly all the time and wear things like silk blouses and scarves, lots of dresses, bright colored shoes, and now I’ve been seeing more and more people wear pretty, bright clothing! I even complimented a coworker on the way out of the office today and told her I loved her purple dress and matching knee-high socks.
A Juneteenth festival on Thursday will coincide with the dedication of the historical marker, which memorializes the 95 individuals believed to be part of a former convict leasing labor program involving African Americans. Their remains were found on Fort Bend ISD property southwest of Houston in 2018.
1. We don’t want to provide food to an overweight employee
We are a small company, and we have on staff a morbidly obese person (500+pound range). We know that his lifestyle decisions are what has brought him to that point. As owners of the company, we don’t want to encourage this destructive behavior and have asked all outside salespeople who regularly bring in lunch not to. We really consider his overeating as a form of suicide and don’t want to be a part of it. Are we overstepping the employer-employee relationship? Is there a better way to handle this?
Yes, you are overstepping. What an employee eats and how he manages his health are none of your business as his employer, and it would be wildly inappropriately for you to try to intervene.
It would be one thing if you wanted to ask outside salespeople not to bring in food because your staff as a whole wanted to pass along that request (for themselves, not for other people), or if you chose to provide only healthy snacks in your break room, or other policies that weren’t rooted in your feelings about one particular person. But just trying to keep food away from a single person (who actually does need to eat on a daily basis, regardless of your feelings about how he should be managing his diet) is an enormous overstep.
You’re not your employees’ doctor or nutritionist; they sell you their labor for money, and those are the boundaries of the relationship.
I had a first-round phone interview today for a job that could be a great fit. If I’m invited to a second round, it will be in person. I am currently seven months pregnant, and I look even more pregnant than that (neighbors who see me outside say “any day now, huh?”). I feel very lucky that the question of when I could start the new job didn’t come up today — thanks partly to advice you’ve given in the past, I wasn’t planning to mention my pregnancy, and that’s the one question I was anticipating where leaving that out could have made my true answer seem “dishonest” later on.
But now, thinking ahead, if I do progress to the second round, I’d really prefer not to have whoever I meet with then be so distracted by my pregnancy that they miss any of the smart things I’d (hope to) be saying! I was referred to this opening by an external recruiter, so I’m wondering, if I do hear from him that they want to move me forward, would it be a terrible idea to tell him at that point that I’m pregnant and let him decide whether and how to give the hiring manager/committee a heads-up? And if I do that, should I offer any additional details about how that affects my availability (like, I am actually willing and able to start before my due date, and I would also be open to taking a shorter leave than what I currently have planned)? I know that I don’t owe them that information now and that sharing it could complicate things for them, but it doesn’t feel like it’s in my best interests to blindside them when I walk in, or to let them worry that I’ll be more difficult to plan a transition with than I think I really would.
In case it’s relevant: due to the nature of the organization and its work, I expect everyone I might meet there to be extremely well-versed in employment law and anti-discrimination policies.
First, for the record, you don’t have to tell them. They’re not allowed to consider your pregnancy in their hiring decision or hold it against you that you didn’t raise it yourself. But in reality, that kind of discrimination does happen all the time (and it’s not always conscious or intentional).
I do think there can be value when you’re visibly very pregnant to just address it yourself since they can’t. One option is exactly what you’re considering — to mention it to the recruiter and ask for him advice about how to navigate it. The other option is to say when confirming the interview, “I don’t want to blindside you with this when we meet in person, so I want to mention now that I’m visibly pregnant. I’m due in August and my plans for leave are ___, although I have some flexibility there, depending on your needs if we moved forward, and I’m confident I could plan on XYZ.”
In this case, I’d start with the recruiter since they’re repping your candidacy to the employer and you don’t want them caught to be off-guard if the employer mentions it to them.
3. I heard a rumor that an exec is harassing multiple women, but no one wants to make an official complaint
I am a manager at a tech company. Today one of my direct reports, “Marta,” told me that she has heard secondhand from multiple women that one of our executives (from a different department) has sexually harassed them. Marta says that none of the women wants to make a formal complaint because they are afraid of retaliation. She wants to preserve their privacy and so hasn’t told me who has been affected. However, she says that they are actively looking for other jobs.
What do you recommend I do here? I want to be cautious about invading anyone’s privacy, yet I have an obligation (and strong desire) to ensure this is dealt with so that my colleagues are not subjected to harassment and they don’t feel they need to leave the company.
As a manager, you’re actually legally obligated to report sexual harassment to your company, so it’s pretty clear-cut: you’ve got to talk to HR. Explain what you were told and that none of the women want to complain for fear of retaliation. From there, your company is legally obligated to investigate as best they can. If no one is willing to come forward, they may be limited in what they can do, but that’s for them to figure out. Your legal obligation is to raise it up the chain.
You can also go back to Marta and explain that you’re obligated to share what she told you but that you will stress the fears of the people involved and the need to protect them from retaliation.
4. Should employers cover tips on business travel?
How should organizations properly address tips for work-related travel? My last employer established a policy of not reimbursing travel-related tips for ride shares/taxis and hotel housekeepers. At the same time, it covered tips in restaurants for servers (possibly not over a standard 15% to 20% in the United States). This means employees either didn’t tip their drivers and housekeeping service, or eat the cost themselves.
On ride shares and taxis, I can understand addressing this by setting an upper level on tips. Employers can verify this is a legitimate expense by reviewing the receipts and not incentivize employees to be overly generous on the company dime. I don’t know how employers can verify reimbursement claims for housekeeping and valet tips. This really bothers me for housekeeping. Housekeepers work very hard, the pay is low, and the work can be dangerous. However, this can be costly for employees who travel frequently.
Employers should reimburse tips from business travel. Tipping for taxis and housekeeping is part of the cost of business travel, and employees shouldn’t need to shoulder those costs themselves. It’s easy to come up with reasonable guidelines for expected tips and maximums so that people don’t go bananas with it.
5. Are summary-style resumes a bad idea?
Like many, I’m sure, I was looking for a way I could help with all of the awfulness that has come from this administration. I work for a government contractor as a communications manager so I ended up offering to review resumes for people affected by layoffs or who needed an exit strategy on LinkedIn. I’ve been able to review 12 resumes so far, which is great. I used many of your tips!
Something odd — the last two I received were “summary” style resumes. It put the companies they worked for in one list with the years and then a completely separate list of highlights which could have happened at any job. As far as I know, these two don’t know each other.
Have you seen this before? Is it a new trend? For both, my feedback strongly suggested a more traditional resume, highlighting accomplishments relevant to the job, as you so often advise. Is my instinct correct? This is a bad idea, right?
It’s not a new trend; it’s been around for a while. But it’s a bad idea. The problem with the format you described is that it matters if someone’s experience in X was recent or from two decades ago, and how long they did it for, and in what context they did it. Hiding that info makes it a lot harder for employers to sort through what someone’s experience actually is, and it often looks like the person is trying to conceal something (such as outdated skills or a lack of any recent accomplishments despite having a job history that should suggest otherwise). As a hiring manager, it’s annoying … and it moves the person down the list if there are candidates with equally interesting highlights but whose resumes don’t present a challenge to understand.
A deputy with the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle, a gray Mercedes SUV, in Atascocita on Monday night. An initial investigation at the scene determined the vehicle belonged to the family of Foreman, a two-time heavyweight boxing champion from Houston who died in March at age 76.
CLEVELAND—Insisting she preferred the peace of mind that came from knowing who her children were spending time with, local mom Sandra Peck told reporters Tuesday she would rather her kids host a freak-off in their own basement instead of at some rapper’s house. “Of course, I’d rather they not freak-off at all, but if they’re going to do it, I want them and their friends to be safe instead of getting baby oil from some strange rap mogul,” said Peck, arguing that she would be able to monitor her teenage daughters and their classmates as long as they were having a drug-fueled marathon in the family’s finished basement instead of a hip-hop artist’s private estate in Ibiza. “If shit’s going to get crazy, I want them to do it under our roof, period. Sure, some of them might dissociate and make a mess. But we can ultimately clean up the bodily fluids and ecstasy the next day. The important thing is we know where they are. Otherwise, I’m just going to stay up all night worrying.” Peck added that she thought hosting a freak-off could also be a powerful learning experience for her kids about how to responsibly contain legal fallout from such a night through NDAs.
The Trump Organization unveiled a mobile phone plan and a $499 smartphone that is set to launch in September, with the new service being dubbed Trump Mobile. What do you think?
“Sorry, I’m locked in a two-year cell contract with Kim Jong-Un.”
David Rupert, Lunch Orderer
“If the founding fathers didn’t want presidents to sell phones named after themselves, they would’ve said so.”
Nabil Amjadi, Egg Pickler
“I’ve fallen for too many Trump scams to not also fall for this one.”
