OAKVILLE, ON – Heralding its new offerings as the culmination of nine years of intense laboratory research, Tim Hortons president Axel Schwan proudly announced that the franchise’s new lineup of pizzas are made with 100% Canadian cardboard. “We’re a proudly Canadian institution and we want to showcase the best Canada has to offer,” said Schwan, […]
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SMBC is the 74-almost funniest webcomic.
If you were a patreon subscriber, you would be seeing my magnum opus at this very moment.
RESTON, VA—Documenting how spiraling loop-de-loops through traffic help workers speed past rush-hour bottlenecks, a study published Thursday in the Journal Of Transportation Engineering found that rocket-powered roller skates were still the fastest way to commute to eccentric inventor jobs. “Even in areas with access…
RACINE, WI—Touting the product as a quick, easy way to take the putrid stench out of expired goods, household brand Glade announced Wednesday that it had released a brand-new meat freshener spray. “With Glade’s new meat freshener spray, say goodbye to animal products with rotting, foul odors, and hello to…
CHAMPAIGN, IL—As she struggled to pull open the café door with an armful of books, friends of local woman Fela Torres reported Wednesday that the drama queen was, as usual, seeking everyone’s attention and obviously hoping the sad display would lead to one of them asking where her other arm went. “Oh Lord, I wonder…
Indonesian authorities closed an airport and residents left homes near an erupting volcano Thursday due to the dangers of spreading ash, falling rocks, and the possibility of a tsunami.
Recent rainfall and flooding in Dubai of all places has set off a firestorm of misleading, incomplete, and even some bizarre theories on social media. How did this actually happen? Turns out it was a pretty straightforward forecast, and no one should be surprised that this was a major event. It just happened to also hit a place that has a lot of people, rarely sees events of this magnitude, and happened to mention that they also seed clouds, which is unlikely to have done much to affect the outcome.
An extremely anomalous weather pattern established over portions of the Persian Gulf and Middle East this week, featuring a rather deep upper-level trough over the area. This type of pattern is what typically brings unsettled, wet weather to mid-latitude locations.
This trough seems to be cut off from the jet stream, a condition that also isn’t necessarily uncommon in many places, and historically it does lead to localized prodigious precipitation totals in spots under the right conditions. So while the placement of this weather system was a little strange, the outcome (scattered heavy rain and flooding) was not.
Model forecasts were all over this. In fact, the forecast from Sunday’s European model (shown above) pegged Dubai for roughly 4 inches of rainfall between Sunday and Thursday, with most of it falling Tuesday. Nearby areas showed bullseyes of 5 to 6 inches of rain over the Strait of Hormuz and into portions of southeastern Iran, as well as in Oman (where over 15 people died from flooding). So this was not a surprise storm by any means. Unusual and historic, certainly, but not a surprise from a modeling standpoint. This is about as well telegraphed as you could hope for.
Various other factors likely helped amplify the rainfall over the UAE, Oman, and Iran. The location of this region in proximity to a number of features that usually align with heavy rainfall, and the presence of precipitable water values (PWAT) that were likely over 200 percent of normal made this basically a straightforward case of an area that would get hammered by heavy rain.
Precipitable water is essentially how much moisture is available for rainfall. If I saw this 2 to 3 days ahead of time over a place many of you will be more familiar with, like Houston, I would expect flood watches and warnings to be imminent.
The bottom line: An anomalous pattern produced an anomalous result, and nothing about it should have been a surprise given the forecast.
If you read the above section, you can see that models were actually printing out 4 to 6 inches of rainfall over this area. Cloud seeding is a process where humans fly an aircraft into a storm and release a small amount of a harmless compound, typically silver iodide. The intent is to seed the storm with a few more nuclei for raindrops or snowflakes to form on within the cloud that will enhance precipitation downwind of the storm. This strategy has been practiced for years, all over the world, and almost always in arid areas where water is a vital and precious commodity. Every little bit helps these areas, so when storms happen, it is common for cloud seeding to occur. Typically, you could see rain totals increase by 5 to 15 percent based on the project. Each one has mixed results, some with more rain, some with little to no increase in rain.
So doing that back of the envelope math, if you assume the UAE generates cloud seeding results on par with historical averages, you would be looking at roughly 0.3 inches to 0.6 inches of additional rainfall. When dealing with 6 inches of rain in an arid location that lacks the ability to handle so much water, that’s primarily background noise, a rounding error mostly. Cloud seeding certainly did not cause the storm, as we saw above. And historical results suggest it would have had minimal impact on the end results as well, other than providing just a little more water for an arid region. It’s like saying that the 538th home run by an unnamed baseball player that allegedly took performance enhancing substances was directly caused by the performance enhancing substance. That ballplayer would almost certainly have hit a deep fly ball or even a home run without the PEDs, but the PEDs just added a little whipped cream on top to nudge it out. The heavy rainfall was the cake, the cloud seeding was the icing. You’re still getting cake, you’re just getting a few more calories.
We’ve seen a lot of heavy precipitation extremes in recent years all over the world, and as much as many folks don’t want to discuss climate change, you absolutely need to in this instance. Here’s a look at Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman water temperature anomalies.
Given the Arabian Peninsula’s location, if you were to inject 200 percent of normal moisture to this area and got heavy rain, it was almost certainly influenced by the excessively warm Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf, and Gulf of Oman. No matter which direction the wind was coming from, you were probably transporting this warm, moisture-laden air into an already primed atmosphere. The end result was one of the worst rain events for an area in modern times. Our oceans are on fire around the world right now, and heavy precipitation extremes are increasing. The causes are more complex than a social media post or three could cover, but climate change is a significant player in it all. Expect to see more situations like this in the coming months and years.
OTTAWA – The new Liberal budget was officially released yesterday, with the government unveiling a number of plans involving new programs and spending, including $10 bajillion dollars for whatever thing you happen to be into right now. “Today we are unveiling our most ambitious budget yet,” said Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. “In it, we are […]
The post Liberal budget promises 10 bajillion dollars to whatever thing you’re into appeared first on The Beaverton.
A report from the Global Wind Energy Council found that worldwide, windmills able to produce 117 gigawatts of power were installed in 2023, a 50% increase from the previous year. What do you think?
This exclusive gated community features everything from restaurants to basketball courts, and it even has its own security team!
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Hiring manager assaulted a police officer
I’m interviewing for a role that I’m excited about, but caught something odd when googling the hiring manager’s name to find their LinkedIn profile. 15 years ago, when the hiring manager was in college, they were arrested for assault and battery on a police officer while presumably drunk.
I know people, especially college students, do regrettable things sometimes, and from all other indications it seems like this person is a well-respected professional. Still, I’m having trouble getting past this, and given that I’d be reporting directly to this person, should I consider withdrawing my candidacy?
I think it would be a wild overreaction, but you get to decide what bothers you and how bothered you are. If it helps, though, I can think of a lot of situations that could result in that charge that wouldn’t mean anything about the person’s character, particularly 15 years later. (For example, some police officers have been known to charge people with that if they even slightly resist an unfair arrest. Obviously we have zero idea whether anything like that happened here, and it could be on the exact opposite end of that spectrum, but that’s kind of the point — we have zero knowledge about any of it.)
2. Do I need to cancel my vacation because I need surgery?
At all my previous jobs, sick time was separate from vacation time. However, at my current job (where I’ve been for nine months), sick and vacation time are all the same.
I have two vacations planned for this year, which will use most of my time off (20 days).
The problem is that I just discovered I need surgery. Now what do I do? Do I need to cancel one or both of my vacations? Or do I need to attempt to work through my recovery? I can’t take unpaid time off, as this surgery is going to use my entire out-of-pocket maximum. Should needing surgery mean I can’t have any more days off?
Should it? No. Does it? In this situation, probably.
In theory when you’ve got combined sick and vacation time, you need to leave to set some of it aside for sick time. Rather than the company separating out the buckets for you, you’re supposed to do it yourself based on how much you think you’ll need for each. You can’t really look at it as “I get 20 days of vacation” or you won’t have time available for illness or other medical stuff. That doesn’t mean people don’t ever make vacation plans for all their days — they definitely do, especially if they’re people who don’t often get sick — but when you do that you’re gambling that you won’t end up needing any of those days for sick leave. (Of course, this means you won’t really know until the end of the year how many vacation days you’re left with, which is one of several problems with combined PTO.)
3. It’s hard to run meetings when my coworker has the same name I do
I am a manager of a small remote team. We have daily meetings to check in on our work as a team together, and often invite people from other teams to join us for the conversation. Recently, a person from another team, Jayne, has started joining many of our meetings. Jayne is great at her work and everything is going pretty well. She and I share a name, but mine is spelled “Jane.” The spelling difference means that in writing, it’s easy to tell who someone is talking about.
In our meetings, it’s hard for me to tell whether someone is talking about/to me or Jayne, particularly because all of our meetings are on Zoom so other clues like looking at someone aren’t there. It throws me off when someone says something like, “I agree with what Jane said about XYZ” or “Jane, can you tell us what you know about ABC” and it turns out they’re talking to Jayne and not me (or that I assumed they were talking to Jayne, and they’re actually talking to me). It’s not impossible for me to ultimately tell from context that they’re talking about/to Jayne instead of me after a few seconds most of the time, but it is still sometimes really hard to tell, and regardless it tends to really throw me off in meetings I’m leading. On another remote team, there’s a “Jason” and a “Jasen,” and the senior Jason goes by his first name and last initial, like “Jason X.” whenever people call him in or refer to him, and the newer Jasen, goes simply by his first name.
I brought up my own confusion about hearing Jane/Jayne to my team during a meeting when Jayne wasn’t in the room (I didn’t want her to feel awkward and it’s not her problem). I cited the Jason X./Jasen precedent from the other team which seems to work, and offered to go by “Jane X.” in our meetings with Jayne to reduce confusion. Folks on my team seemed open to it, but no one has done it even once in meetings since then, instead just continuing to say “Jane” and not clarifying in comments or anything. I work in a culture and on a team where folks are generally very respectful with their language and how they refer to people, so there’s precedent for people trying to help out someone when they ask for something like this.
It’s confusing and frustrating for me and I’m disheartened that no one on my team seems to make an effort to reduce confusion based on their behavior. It honestly makes it harder for me to run meetings with Jayne and I’m worried my frustration may inappropriately start to bleed through in those meetings. I’m also aware this is not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things, so I don’t want to turn it into something that makes my team uncomfortable if I bring it up again, like “we made the boss mad.”
At the start of every meeting for a while, just say, “A reminder to please say Jane X if you mean me since we have two Janes here.” You might even add, “It’s been causing confusion so for the next few meetings with both of us, I’m going to jump in and ask you to clarify if you forget.” And then if you need to, jump in with, “Which Jane?” (Do that judiciously — only if it’s actually causing confusion.)
You’re going to feel like you’re harping on it a bit — which you will be, but if it’s genuinely causing confusion, then there’s no way around it. Say it warmly, even with some amusement in your voice, and people shouldn’t feel chastised. A few rounds of that might be enough to get it to stick.
4. What to say if a concerned coworker suggests I use the EAP
I suffer from an anxiety disorder that over the last few years has mutated into social anxiety. I used to be my most confident and outgoing at work, but I now am alternately semi-credibly faking it and acting weirdly nervous and awkward for no apparent reason. I want to be better and I am in treatment, but these things take time. I am sure my coworkers have noticed. It has affected my performance on team-based activities. I am not on a PIP or anything, but it is a clear weakness for me.
I know one of the symptoms of social anxiety is believing people are paying way more attention to your awkwardness than they are …but I know for sure I am being noticed. I would not be surprised if someone pulled me aside to have the EAP talk.
If that were to happen, how would you recommend I handle the conversation? I have not disclosed my diagnosis at work because I didn’t want it to distract from the tasks at hand. On the one hand, letting it be known that I have a diagnosed condition and am in treatment might help my confused and concerned coworkers feel less confused and concerned. On the other, it might make me look unstable, cause me to be discounted, or give the impression I expect special treatment. I am also a little worried about a few well-meaning busybodies who have picked up on my mood and have previously tried to “adopt” me. It would be a bad idea for me to explain the events that caused me to develop this condition, as it gets into work-inappropriate and personal topics that my coworkers would probably not understand. But they would want me to tell them to try to make me feel better and would be confused if I did not. (My workplace is kind of cliquey.)
I would trust my boss to keep a diagnosis in confidence if he were the one to initiate the EAP talk, but if the approach came from a peer, I can’t assume my response wouldn’t immediately be more widely known.
You never need to disclose personal health information at work just because someone asks! If a colleague ever does pull you aside to suggest the EAP (or something similar), you can say, “Thanks for your concern, I appreciate it” or “Yeah, working on a health issue that affects me at work sometimes but I’m on it” or “I have a health issue I’m working on, but it’s nothing to worry about. I appreciate you looking out for me, though.” There’s no need to get into anything beyond the basic points of “thanks” and “I’m on it.”
Related:
interview with an employee at an employee assistance program (EAP)
5. Listing seasonal work on a resume
How do I update my resume if I’ve worked for a company that only hires seasonal workers? I have been called back every time for a few years now. Do I have to show I have a gap every year on my resume?
You can list it this way:
Oatmeal Stirrer, Breakfast Fans United — 2021-present (summers only)
Marfa Invitational has announced dates and events for its 2024 iteration in the West Texas town of Marfa.
The Marfa Invitational Foundation is a contemporary art nonprofit founded in 2018 by artist and curator Michael Phelan and his wife Melissa Bent with the support of Kenneth Bauso, a former investment banker. The foundation hosts an annual art fair bringing artists and galleries from across the U.S. and the world to Marfa. The first fair was held in 2019, then in 2020, the yearly occurrence was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In May 2023, the foundation temporarily lost its 501(c)3 nonprofit status for failing to submit previous years of tax information to the IRS. After this, multiple people involved on the board side pulled back their involvement, and a supporter of the foundation filed a complaint with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, alleging mismanagement of donor funds. In November 2023, the IRS retroactively reinstated Marfa Invitational’s nonprofit status, effective May 15, 2023. There has been no update on the status of the complaint filed with the Attorney General’s Office.
A newsletter distributed by the organization announced that the Sculpture Park will open this May. The five-acre site is home to a permanent collection of outdoor works, including two works installed last year: Matt Johnson’s Sleeping Figure and Rana Begum’s No. 1193 Mesh. The Invitational will host a private viewing at the sculpture park on Friday, May 10 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., followed by public hours on Saturday, May 11 and Sunday, May 12 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The weekend will include artist talks and dinners, as well as the unveiling of the MI Billboard by Camilla Engström and solo exhibitions of works by Jeremy Booth (curated by Ronnie Pirovino) and Ms. Engström.
Camilla Engström
The MI Billboard is adjacent to and viewable from Highway 90, just east of Marfa. Last year, London-based artist Szabolcs Bozó was the inaugural artist to create work for the billboard. Ms. Engström, who was born in Sweden, draws on nature in her work and is inspired by the art of Georgia O’Keeffe and Hilma af Klint. The solo exhibitions will take place in the Historic Mercantile building, which is west of Marfa, in the small town of Valentine.
Jeremy Booth, “Watch Dog.”
Previous editions of the Marfa Invitational operated as art fairs in the city’s Saint George Hall and included multiple well-known out-of-town galleries who set up presentations of their artists’ works. Other editions have also included extracurricular programming, such as a lecture by critic Jerry Saltz, and dinners honoring arts supporters. As of yet, no such presentations or programming has been announced for this edition of the event.
Noah Faulkner
For entertainment this year, the organization has announced on its social media platforms that Noah Faulkner (@pedalsteelnoah), a teen musician who has gained recognition for his pedal steel guitar renditions of ’80s and ’90s songs, will be performing.
Learn more about the 2024 Marfa Invitational and purchase VIP tickets for private events taking place throughout the weekend via the organization’s website.
The post Marfa Invitational Announces Details of 2024 Event appeared first on Glasstire.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
Remember the letter-writer whose employee retired, but then wouldn’t leave, even after she had been replaced? Here’s the update.
To summarize what happened after my letter was published:
1. Boss reminded Fiona to work part-time only.
2. Fiona complied reluctantly, blaming Sally (her replacement) for this arrangement.
3. Fiona gradually increased her own working hours back to full-time. When asking other coworkers for their work failed, she made extra tasks like creating unnecessary reports or copying documents by hand writing instead of printing.
4. Even though Sally officially took over Fiona’s role, Fiona continued to monitor and criticize Sally’s work. She refused to hand over certain jobs to Sally and insisted on doing these herself.
5. Boss eventually let Fiona go. She received a month’s notice and a large retirement package.
6. Fiona tried to continue to work after her employment formally ended. She monitored shared files remotely, emailed clients, asked another employee to submit his work for her to “check,” and requested updated passwords on sensitive documents.
7. When her access was promptly cut off, Fiona contacted me privately to say she was upset at this disrespectful treatment of her, Sally’s supposed incompetence and rudeness, and being let go when she wanted to keep working full-time. I wished her well and otherwise didn’t respond to her long rant.
8. I directed our team strictly not to engage with her over any work-related issues.I do wonder if Fiona will reflect on her own behavior after time passes and realize she was the main contributor to the problem. She could have continued to work part-time as initially agreed if not for all these issues.
This was a bizarre experience. Sally, however, is doing great.
WASHINGTON—Warning that sweet, innocent little Americans should know by now to mind their own business, a blood-drenched Attorney General Merrick Garland began a televised press conference Wednesday by telling the nation it didn’t see any of that. “Look, I don’t know what all 340 million of you think you just saw, but…
WASHINGTON—Calling the elaborate heist a surefire way to keep unemployment rates low while combating inflation, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen unveiled a plan Wednesday to boost the U.S. economy by stealing the largest gem-quality diamond ever found. “The Cullinan Diamond has been behind lock and key in England…
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bill preventing local Florida governments from requiring heat protection for people working outdoors, such as in construction or agriculture, becoming the second state to adopt such a law after Texas. What do you think?
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Absolute Midden is copyright SMBC Enterprises 2024 all rights reserved.
1. My decision to spend sixteen dollars on these Mason jars would inevitably coincide with a sudden, inexplicable change in my personality, from someone who eats luncheon meat straight from the packet to someone who regularly uses fenugreek.
2. The twenty seconds I used to spend looking for the cumin, I would instead devote to loftier pursuits, like marveling at how easy it is to find the cumin.
3. I would automatically become the best, most well-adjusted and anxiety-free version of myself. An aura of uncluttered calm would radiate from me, bathing my interlocutors in a golden, turmeric-scented glow.
4. Did I mention that I would regularly use fenugreek?
5. The need to alphabetize my spices would compel me to take up calligraphy. Once I had hand-written and affixed all the labels, I would continue to practice calligraphy daily, becoming so proficient that I win several local competitions.
6. I become a home organization influencer—despite deleting all social media.
7. With all the time I save not being on social media and all the money I make as an influencer, I am able to spend hours cooking lavishly expensive food. I then photograph and post the food to Instagram, which I have re-downloaded and then deleted again by the time the photos are uploaded.
8. I would reconnect with old friends I’d lost touch with, all of whom would start keeping their spices inside Mason jars too, because once you’ve seen a pantry like mine, the sight of any edible substance contained inside its original packaging instantly makes you want to weep or throw up.
9. Dinner parties between these friends and me would invariably involve elaborate, twelve-course meals featuring exotic dishes from around the world. We would all compliment each other on our judicious use of ras el hanout.
10. My salt would be massive and pink.
11. My peppercorns would be all the colors of the rainbow.
12. My sleep would be greatly improved by the comforting knowledge that, should I get a midnight hankering, I could run to the kitchen and locate the harissa in mere seconds. There it is, see! Right between the garam masala and herbes de Provence!
13. My therapist would find the Mason jar thing psychologically interesting. She would suggest that it’s not really cinnamon and oregano that I’m obsessively sealing inside tiny glass containers, but my emotions. I would smile and shake my head before correcting her. She would apologize and refund me for the session.
14. I would succeed in all my endeavors, both personal and professional.
15. I would probably make my own muesli.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the layoffs of 10% of the company’s workforce, stating that the cuts would allow the foundering corporation to “be lean, innovative and hungry for the next growth phase cycle.” What do you think?
DUBLIN, CA—Seconds after the small red dot from a laser-sighted weapon appeared on a slice of complimentary focaccia, witnesses at local restaurant Berevino reported Tuesday they had seen sharpshooting mother Kathy Denton snipe the bread out of her daughter’s hands from 800 meters away. “Everyone be very careful—no…
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
A buddy of mine just quit her job, and her boss, a truly evil person, countered with a raise and a promotion. My friend refused, of course, because, truly evil person. But it got me thinking, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen bosses offer too little too late to save a stellar employee, and I wonder why.
Why don’t bosses preemptively think that if they don’t treat their best people well that those people will depart for someone who will? Why do they think that making such an offer only after the employee gives notice will work?
Good bosses are aware of that. Good bosses do proactively think about how to hold onto good employees, and then they do those things. They also ask directly, because while money is one obvious answer, there are other things people want too and sometimes those are less obvious.
But yes, bad bosses often don’t even consider that good employees might leave, and then are shocked when they do. I think it stems from power dynamics — bad managers often have an unhealthy relationship to power that blinds them to the fact that the people working for them have options. (This isn’t a logical worldview! As a manager, you should want to hire people who have lots of other choices because they’e good at what they do. That reflects well on you.)
Bad managers — by definition — also tend not to be thoughtful about management in general, and how to attract and keep good employees, and how to create an environment good people will want to work in, and they’re often not paying a lot of attention to people’s morale and satisfaction. Because they’re not thinking about it a lot, they’re more likely to be blindsided when someone resigns, and then they scramble to make a counteroffer to resolve the immediate problem that’s in front of them (“I must keep this person to avoid disruption”) rather than examining it more broadly (“what drove this person to start looking? were there things I missed?”).
Sometimes, too, counter-offers stem from thinking about pay in a way that doesn’t include much understanding of how humans work — i.e., “we’ll pay this person the minimum we need to pay them until the exact moment that keeping them would cost more and then we’ll increase to that.”
None of this is to say that every counter-offer is the sign of a bad manager. That’s not the case. Sometimes good managers miss things, or they rightly needed to prioritize putting their capital elsewhere, or they’re hamstrung by policies from above them. But definitely any good manager who finds themselves wanting to make a counter-offer should be reflecting on whether they missed opportunities to retain that person earlier on.
Dear valued faculty,
In light of the recent budget cuts, the university administration thought it would be helpful to clarify a few things about our institution and our mission. We are not a “school.” We are a hospital system with a football team. We collect grants from the federal government, payouts from insurance companies, and licensing revenue from television networks. That is our raison d’être.
At our core, we are devoted to learning. Specifically, we want to learn how to extract as much value as possible from everyone and everything we interact with.
Yes, we have an untaxed, multibillion-dollar endowment. But that doesn’t mean we can burn money on frivolities like a classics department. That involves hiring professors and maintaining a library, which, as you well know, does not help our hospital or our football team.
The fine arts are lovely, but do they receive NIH grants? Have you ever seen a cellist on ESPN?
You might think that our vast real estate holdings, on which we pay no property tax, would allow us to expand our language departments. How could you be so foolish? That land can be used for so many important initiatives, like a third football practice facility or a new breakroom for assistant vice deans.
Universities are about community. If we grow large enough, if our star shines bright enough, we will be the only hospital serving this community. That’s how we can give back: through an absolute, unquestioned monopoly.
We like to think of our patients the same way we think of our students. If they can’t pay, they’re worthless.
Now, you might be wondering, what about skyrocketing tuition? Where does that money go?
Once again, we are not a “school,” and our pricing model reflects that. Just like in a hospital, our prices are arbitrary and astronomical. Fifty dollars for an aspirin, fifty thousand dollars for room and board—that’s the beauty of the system. That’s what being a nonprofit is all about.
We hope these clarifications provide peace of mind and spur rich philosophical reflection. As a reminder, all such reflection should take place outside of the Philosophy Department, as that building is being demolished to make room for a new football media center.
Yours sincerely,
The University Hospital Administration
Donald Trump began his trial in Manhattan this week in the case regarding his hush money payments to cover up his affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, marking the first time a former American president has faced a criminal trial. What do you think?
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I am casual friends with a couple who are both teachers at a public high school. One day while catching up, they told me that they found out one of their recently-hired colleagues (“Jane”) is the direct descendant of a Nazi. I don’t know which Nazi, I don’t know how they found out, and I don’t know if the school knew this before Jane was hired. My friends said that Jane did not volunteer this information and has never mentioned it, and she has never shown any support for Nazi views or any kind of hate.
Even though Jane is a pleasant and competent coworker, they both expressed strong discomfort with working with her because of her familial connections and said they wished that the school district would terminate her employment because of it. I asked them if they thought that no one should ever hire Jane because of this, and they said, “I’m not saying that nobody should ever hire her, it just shouldn’t be here.” I disengaged from the conversation at that point, but my sense is that by “here” they meant both a school where teachers have access to children, and the state where they live which is a bit of a hot spot for white supremacy.
Is it legal to fire (or refuse to hire) someone because they’re related to a Nazi? It doesn’t sound like a protected class to me, but on the other hand it seems a bit unfair that someone should be ostracized solely because they’re related to a terrible person. I know you’ve had letters before from people who have relatives who did horrible things; is this the same or does the Nazi aspect take this to a different level?
I am fully in favor of firing Nazis. (I am in favor of a bunch of additional things worse than firing for them as well, in both their original incarnations and their modern-day ones.)
But we should not be firing people for being the descendants of Nazis. Or the descendants of slave owners or mass murderers or child abusers or Pol Pot. You don’t deny people employment because of the sins of their ancestors.
Legally, no, “related to a Nazi” is not a protected class. But not only would firing them –or refusing to hire them — be unethical and unfair, it would also open up a can of worms about who else we might decide to fire or not hire because we don’t like something their great-grandparent did. And I’m quite confident that if we looked into everyone’s ancestors, we’d find a whole lot of problems.
And look, I’m a Jew. Would I be uncomfortable finding out a colleague’s grandparent or great-grandparent was a Nazi? Honestly, yeah, probably, until and unless they gave me reason not to. (Other Jews might not; we’re not a monolith.) But “I feel a little uneasy around this person” isn’t anywhere near “and thus they should lose their job.”
NEW YORK—Provided with a bullish catalyst as the world was cast into perpetual darkness, brimstone stocks rose Tuesday on news that the Antichrist had ushered in the Age of Eternal Misery. “Common shares of brimstone surged to all-time highs after the Antichrist announced a new era of pestilence and never-ending woe,”…
Dear Wyna Liu, Editor of Connections:
My morning ritual used to be a time of peace and solitude. A sacred time in which I’d gather up the energy to face the day. I’d brew my coffee and eat my smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. And then I’d open up the New York Times Games App.
I’d always start with the Spelling Bee. Personally, I like to find the pangram first and then hopefully find enough words for a respectable “Great” or “Amazing.” Not every morning is a “Genius!” morning—and that’s okay!
Then, I’d do the daily Crossword. Not the Mini, the Crossword. A delightful five-minute exercise on Mondays, an hour-long conquest on Sundays.
And if I still had time before my first meeting of the day (and sometimes I’ll admit, during my first meeting of the day), I’d do the sudokus. My personal goal was to solve the easy level in under three minutes and the medium in under four. Just for an extra little challenge, you know?
These puzzles were our brain ticklers, modern man’s solution to the sphinx’s riddle. But you got excited, maybe you got greedy.
You introduced Connections.
It was a simple enough concept. Sixteen words. Four categories. All we had to do was find the four groups of four words. You were merciful. You let us have a few chances to make mistakes and you’d even tell us if we were on the right track.
The first few games were fun. Seductive. Intriguing. Playful.
But then they got sneaky. Maybe you realized it wasn’t all that easy to come up with these puzzles and you decided to get a bit creative. I saw it happen over those first few weeks. And now, every day, I wake up and I see your tricks. The overlapping words across all four categories. The carefully arranged word placement forcing us to see your misleading phrases. I remember the time you gave us the names of three social media platforms and we racked our brains trying to find a fourth that simply didn’t exist. And let’s not forget about the category that was “Words that start with classic rock band names.” Who wouldn’t get that?
Sometimes, they’re not even words. Once, it was just sixteen pairs of letters. Another time, it was emojis.
When I work out two categories and have just eight words left, you’d think it’d be easy. But that’s still seventy possible combinations. Seventy! And do you know how many meanings words have in English? It’s not one of those hyper-precise languages like German where you can keep clumping words together. The word “run” has 645 different definitions on its own. I’m terrified of that word now.
Sure, when I solve the game on the first try, I’m elated. I’m basically bouncing off the walls. But on those days when I don’t solve it… well, let’s just say those are dark days. I don’t sleep properly anymore. I can’t eat. I haven’t had a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel in months. Those sixteen words haunt me.
So here’s a little puzzle for you, Ms Liu. Let’s see if you can guess the categories:
1. RUINED; DESTROYED; UNENJOYABLE; WRECKED.
2. INSANE; BONKERS; LUNATIC; PUZZLE-CRAZED-BASTARD-WHO-NEVER-LOVED-ME.
3. MY; WIFE; IS; LEAVING.
4. LECHE; LOVAGE; LOGOUT; LATIN.
Yours truly,
A discontented & disconnected puzzler
1. My mornings.
2. Things I’ve been called recently.
3. My wife is leaving—also the answer to ‘I; Am; Getting; Divorced’.
4. While we’re at it, words that should be recognized in the Spelling Bee, but aren’t (and these are just ones that start with the letter L). It would be great if you could fix that too.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
Big news: the White House has approved a proposal from the Department of Labor to change the rules that govern who must receive overtime pay.
If it becomes law, your employer would be required to pay you overtime (time and a half for all hours over 40 that you work in a week) unless you earn at least $55,068 annually – a big increase (54%!) from the current threshold of $35,568. That means employers would have to either track and limit the number of hours a large pool of people can work or start paying them overtime … or raise their salaries to the new threshold.
In addition, the proposal includes automatic updates to this salary threshold every three years based on wage data.
However, the change is not a sure thing. It needs to be placed in the Federal Register for public comment (and until it’s published there later this month, we won’t know if $55,068 will be the final number; they might tweak it based on more current wage data, which presumably could send it slightly higher). There will also be court challenges (as there have been in the past whenever there’s a proposal to raise the exemption threshold). In fact, in 2016, the federal government announced it was raising the minimum salary for overtime exemption, and a judge blocked it the day before it was scheduled to take effect … and it stayed on hold until 2020, when it finally went into effect but at a lower salary level. So at this point there’s no knowing whether it will happen or how the presidential election later this year could affect things. But if it does survive, it’s expected to take effect at the beginning of next year.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. I work in a sleep clinic and some patients want to sleep naked
I recently changed careers and now work as a sleep technician for a well-known medical facility. I’m still a student so I only work part-time until I graduate from my program. Technicians are not nurses, unless they have additional, specific training. We are machine operators who happen to work with patients. My job is to attach electrodes to the patient’s body for the purpose of monitoring and recording the body’s electrical signals during sleep. Nudity is not required for me to do my job, which is partially why I chose sleep.
Here’s the issue: some of my patients do not bring/wear pajamas for their sleep studies. You would think it’s common sense to wear pajamas to sleep in, but, apparently, as I am now learning, it’s not. And some patients report, “No one told me to bring PJs.” The biggest issue for me are men (it’s mostly men who do this) who strip down to their tightie-whities or state they sleep naked. In my opinion, this is incredibly inappropriate. Not only is it creepy, unprofessional , and plain weird (seriously, it’s one night away from home), it forces the workers into a situation that could be easily misconstrued. We techs already record all interactions to protect ourselves from erroneous accusations.
As a newbie in a new field, would it be out of line to ask the lab manager if the night crew could have a package of hospital gowns in inventory for patients who don’t have pajamas with them? I don’t want to hurt my chance to move into a full-time position here, but I also can’t hand off every creepy dude to my coworkers. I don’t know if this matters, but the majority of people at my facility are female-presenting. I think besides a few of the doctors the rest of the staff is over 95% women. It’s rare to have a male tech on crew.
Not only would be it reasonable to ask to keep hospital gowns on hand for patients who don’t bring something to wear, you could also suggest that patients be informed ahead of time that they should bring something comfortable to sleep in “or a hospital gown will be provided.” If the answer is no, then so be it, but asking about it shouldn’t look out-of-line.
If you want extra cover (ha) because you’re new, you could talk to some of your coworkers about it, see if anyone shares your discomfort, and raise it as a group (or have the person with the most influence raise it). But it’s entirely reasonable, and sometimes it takes a new person to see that something everyone else has gotten used to is off and/or could be improved.
2. Upgrading business flights and hotel rooms at my own expense
I work for a nonprofit that requires a decent amount of travel. I am very well compensated compared to others in similar positions in my field, though I could make double or triple doing similar work in the private sector (which I used to work in).
The thing is, I’m independently wealthy. When I travel, I book within my employer’s guidelines for airfare and hotels, but then upgrade myself to first class or a nicer room. I use my personal credit card and then submit for reimbursement, but only for the originally booked expenses within guidelines. I’m probably spending a few thousand dollars a year making my work travel more comfortable. It’s worth it to me and doesn’t impact anyone I work with. If other people from my organization or a partner organization are also on the trip, I don’t do those things.
Is there anything wrong with this? Should I stop? I did tell the admin assistant who processes my expenses that I will sometimes upgrade myself with miles, just so they are not surprised if my ticket receipt shows first class. I have also decided not to get a corporate card (even though it means I may have a few thousand dollars of unreimbursed expenses for two to three months) because I want the points and don’t want to deal with finance.
Nope, you’re fine. It’s not uncommon to upgrade yourself at your expense or using your own personal miles. With nonprofits, you do need to think about what the optics could look like to donors so if you were, like, arriving at a donor meeting in a golden palanquin, that would be an issue. But upgrading your flight and room? You’re fine. (Just make sure to keep documentation of what you’re covering versus what the org is covering in case anyone ever questions it.)
3. How to ask for grace during a personal crisis
You published a letter a short time ago about someone who broke their leg and wasn’t getting sympathy/understanding from coworkers. I really liked the comments suggesting that we should do a better job of self-publishing our challenges so that others have a better opportunity to support us.
Unfortunately, I find myself in need of some support/understanding and I’m struggling with how to share it. I work with a huge number of internal customers who have urgent/time-sensitive requests. It’s already a big source of stress in my life that I can never afford to have an “off” day. It’s a very intense environment where people are often curt with each other, and I thrive in that usually, but some days I just have a lower tolerance.
My best friend died yesterday. I had urgent work so I couldn’t really call out today without burdening others, and didn’t want to sit at home staring at a wall anyway. But I’m also clearly not myself and am not keeping up with some important work.
I also found out that a coworker’s teenaged child tried to commit suicide two weeks ago, and she didn’t let anyone know and didn’t ask for time off. I’m obviously unspeakably horrified for her and rehashing every conversation, panicked that I was less than patient with her at any point, but trying to respect her request that we keep business as usual.
In both cases, I’m wondering how we can explain that we need some grace, without randomly blurting out “something awful just happened to me” to the 50+ people we interact with on a daily basis?
One option: “I’m dealing with a personal crisis so I might not be at 100% right now.” Another: “I’m dealing with a family crisis — just letting you know in case you notice I seem off.” Or if you’re willing to share more: “Someone close to me died this week, so I’m only taking care of the must-do’s right now.”
But also … “a very intense environment where people are often curt with each other” is pretty much guaranteed to be hard on someone most days. At any given point, someone in your office is probably going through something hard that’s being made worse by colleagues speaking to them curtly. It can be challenging to hold that awareness in the front of your mind all the time, especially in a really hard-driving environment, but ideally we’d all strive to.
4. My manager wants “get shit done” meetings
Is it appropriate for a line manager to put GSD meetings on your calendar? This line manager told me they were “get shit done” meetings.
Sure. It’s a term you see in some corners of business space. It’s a little tech-bro-ish, but it’s a term some people use. If it grates on you because of the profanity, you can ask to call it something else.
5. Did I accidentally misrepresent a job on my resume?
I have been unsuccessfully job searching for a few months after a cross-country move. I finally got an offer last week and am super excited about it! Here’s my problem, though. I was filling out their information for the background check, and realized they are confirming employment for all of the jobs listed on my resume. No problem! Except the oldest relevant work experience on my resume was not actually a paid job — it was an assistantship where I earned college credit. Obviously, this should have been noted on my resume, but I put it on there as “relevant experience” when I was applying to my first job in my field, and just somehow never thought to update it over the years. So when the third party background check company checks my employment, I won’t show up as a former employee, because technically I wasn’t. What should I do here? Should I preemptively reach out to HR to alert them and explain? Should I wait to see if it even gets flagged? Help!
This is not a big deal. An unpaid assistantship is still legitimate work experience, and you didn’t do anything wrong by listing it without noting that it was unpaid. There’s no expectation that you’ll flag unpaid internships and similar as being unpaid.
If you’re worried about it, you can include a note in the background check paperwork (or send it separately to them now) to the effect of, “The position at X in 2011 was an unpaid assistantship for college credit so I don’t know if I’ll show up as a former employee or not. If you need another way to verify it, please let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the person who managed me there.” But you could even leave off that last sentence and it’ll almost certainly still be fine.
