Cowboy Who?

We are closer than ever to finding aliens according to astrophysicist Adam Frank. He isn’t alone in his optimism. Over the last two decades, the tools used to search for extraterrestrials have been advancing mightily. Where we were once only monitoring with radio telescopes, we are now actively looking for bio and technosignatures on exoplanets. Find out why scientists think new technology may be a game changer in the hunt for life off Earth.

Guest:

Adam Frank – Astrophysicist and author of a new book “The Little Book of Aliens”

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

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The City of Houston draws raw water for the East and Southeast Water Purification plants from the Trinity River pump station, which is 35 miles downstream of the Lake Livingston Dam, Erin Jones, a spokesperson for Houston Public Works said Monday.

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

A reader writes:

Six months ago, I was promoted to lead a group of three managers who each lead around 20 people. “Howard,” one of the managers, had been hired two months before by my predecessor, but it was immediately obvious to me that his work was not up to par. I did my best to give Howard clear feedback about what he needed to improve, provided retraining, and was explicit that if he did not improve X by Y date, it would lead to first a performance improvement plan and ultimately termination. Unfortunately Howard did not improve so I fired him a month ago.

During this process, several of Howard’s direct reports came to me about their problems with his poor performance. I tried to acknowledge their concerns and assure them I was addressing the issues with Howard, but I didn’t think it was fair to tell anyone on his team that I had him on a PIP already.

After firing Howard, I had 1:1s with each of his direct reports, and three of them told me they had felt frustrated that I wasn’t taking any action to address Howard’s performance. I feel bad that I gave them this impression, but I don’t want to be the kind of boss who undermines my managers by telling their direct reports when they’re getting written up, put on a PIP, or fired. How do I reassure a team that I am addressing their boss’ poor performance while not spelling out the gory details?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

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

Last week we talked about summer interns, and these are 12 of my favorite stories you shared.

1. The bookshelves

Best ever intern was at a publishing company. She re-alphabetized multiple bookshelves (hundreds of books) by AUTHOR FIRST NAME. Every time I looked at it I started laughing.

2. The identical twins

Years ago, I worked in a department store as a part-time job. The store decided to partner with local high schools to provide work experience for high school students, and they brought in about 10 students to work on Saturdays only, helping the sales associates on the busiest day of the week. On the second floor, which was women’s clothing, they brought in four teenagers, two of whom were sisters, and identical twins to boot!

One sister was assigned to my department (Special Sizes, which was plus and petite) and the other was assigned across the floor to Misses Sportswear. From the start, it seemed like we’d always have to go over to Misses Sportswear, find our intern, and send her back. Misses Sportswear would come over to our area to find their intern and send her back. We just thought it was the two sisters wanting to chat with each other. It took us over a month to figure out that only one sister was showing up on any given Saturday, signing in for both of them, and floating back and forth between the two departments.

3. The naps

We had an intern who would vanish every day for pronged periods of time. The intern’s manager and I kept noticing the disappearances and started looking around for him. We were in a small mixed office/warehouse space. At one point we found a desk chair in a corner of the warehouse where clearly he had been napping. He must have figured out we found it, and so found a new nesting spot.

We looked and looked and finally realized he had taken several throw pillows from the informal lounge/meeting area and put them under the stairwell outside our interior backdoor. One of the guys in my department put A MINT ON A PILLOW. The kid actually put a sticky note on it saying “touche.”

4. The hole

I worked at a national park, as a natural resources intern, for $15 a day and housing. Being a natural resources intern meant a lot of manual labor. All of us had second jobs or were on food assistance to make ends meet (I folded jeans overnight at the Gap, but that’s a different story). We were all exhausted all the time, and hungry.

The park was divided into cultural zones and natural resource zones. Silt and debris washed down a steep hill from a cultural zone into a natural resource zone. On a hot summer day, we were instructed to shovel the soil into wheelbarrows and push it up the hill back to where it came from. After dutifully following instructions for several loads, we decided to dig a big hole in the natural resource zone, dump the soil there and cover it back up. Then we sat in the shade for a while. Whelp, a couple weeks later there were a bunch of wildflowers that had sprouted where we had dug the hole. Flowers that hadn’t been seen in that national park in decades. We had inadvertently exposed the dormant seed bank! We were praised for our hard work, and I later learned that this was actually good ecological practice. Smarter, not harder!

5. The black mold

We had a year-long intern through a program that placed interns from a particular European country in U.S. nonprofits that did work related to that country’s history. One of said interns showed up for weekend shifts (9-5, a regular workday that rotated among all staff and full-time interns, in a public-facing role) drunk and would sleep it off in a closet. Intern lived in an apartment provided by the org. Over the course of about eight months, he destroyed a brand new sofa (not sure what he did, exactly, but it was covered in black mold) and did … something that resulted in the bathroom also being so covered in black mold that it had to be gutted. (The European-style stovetop espresso maker — you know the kind — was also packed to the brim with cigarette ashes. Intern claimed not to have known it wasn’t an ashtray.) Intern was removed from both internship and apartment, and org now provides a rent stipend for interns to secure their own housing — including signing their own lease.

6. The non-competition

In this instance, I was the intern, and the weirdness came from someone who was working in the office where I was interning. It was with a political campaign in 2012 or so, and I was recruited to the internship after volunteering by one of the organizers. After about a month of being there, the other organizer (a man in his 30s) who did not recruit me got really paranoid that I was going to take his job. I was a 19-year-old college student who was only home for the summer and was not interested in a full-time position, but the guy got super combative — he’d challenge me with pop quiz type questions about how to do something, then get weirdly pissed off if I knew the answers. He’d pile work on me one day, then ignore me for two or three, then get mad at me for not doing anything even though I had finished everything I was assigned. The office supervisor was rarely on-site and I didn’t really know how to deal with it.

In my last week, Paranoid Guy was shocked that I was actually going back to school (even though I’d told him that practically weekly) and suddenly started acting like we were best friends and complimenting my work and telling me he’d miss having me around. It was definitely a whirlwind lesson in office politics, which was not the political educational opportunity I was expecting!

7. The wrong job

My old job had two buildings, spread out but you couldn’t get to one without going past the second. The day the intern was supposed to start, he drove past the first building (where he was supposed to work) to the second. Boss at second building says, “Ah, you must be our intern!” and puts him to work. We spent two weeks wondering where the intern was, and the intern spent two weeks working at the second building. It wasn’t until he repeatedly fell asleep on the job that boss started asking around, realized the mistake, and sent him to us. He was similarly unproductive in our building.

How did it take so long to correct the mistake? How was the intern reporting time with no one noticing he hadn’t shown up? Why wasn’t this fixed by calling the intern on the first day? All questions I will wonder about for the rest of my life.

8. The parties

I worked for a large company, close to 5,000 people at that location. This was in the 90’s and this company was really good about celebrating the employees.

Our summer interns kept disappearing for hours at a time. We finally figured out that they were attending every celebration in the complex. Years of service parties, retirement parties, promotion parties, achievement celebrations. You name it, they went. The announcements were always sent building-wide because there were so many intersecting teams and many people had worked there for decades. A higher than average number of parties were in the summer because of common hiring/retirement months. It was not uncommon for there to be 10-15 gatherings a week.

They were mostly going to score the free food. We were sympathetic to them being poor college students so we finally said they could go for 15 minutes near the end of the scheduled parties, and no more than one party per day.

9. The assignment

As an intern at a very large energy company in the mid 90s, I was introduced to my manager, who was a large, sweaty, angry man who informed me (through clenched teeth the entire time) that his wife was having an affair and had given him hepatitis, and that his plan for the next several weeks was to arrange divorcing and suing her, suing her affair partner, and suing the company we were working for (I don’t think the company had anything to do with the affair – he was just furious at them separately). He handed me a single printed 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper and told me to accomplish the project on it, and as long as we never said another word until the last day of my internship he would sign whatever paperwork needed. In stunned silence, I went and read the project, which was to program an automated security system to monitor whether or not a critical piece of nationwide energy infrastructure was on fire (at the time, the company was paying dozens of people across the country to visually inspect it several times a day to make sure it was not, in fact, on fire).

The hitch with this assignment is that I was not a computer science major (nor did I have any formal science, programming, or engineering training). I was a high school graduate who was starting a Fine Arts degree the next fall. Long story short, I wandered around the dozens of floors of the corporate skyscraper for days (probably looking like a lost toddler) until I found a floor that looked like they might have the foggiest clue how to do what I had been tasked (they had lab coats, and better computers, and science looking equipment) – and managed to get directed to someone who gave me some how-to software manuals and technical documents, and would answer questions if I got stuck – and, against all odds, I did in fact come up with a very duct-taped computer program which would use a scratchy old-school modem to dial into various computerized monitoring stations connected to the thing and use some very rudimentary diagnostic information to determine if the thing was (probably) on fire. It made a wonderful screechy alarm noise if it thought the thing was on fire, and otherwise just dutifully wrote a little “probably not on fire” log, that anyone could check from the computer running the checks every couple of minutes.

There was an end-of-summer intern project demonstration – and I was incredibly frustrated to learn that there was actually more than *two dozen* interns working at that company that summer (no one told me, and apparently they didn’t know I was there, so I didn’t get invited to orientation, or group events, or check-ins to see how I was doing). Also, all the other interns had group projects like “learn how to use the internet, and come up with 10 ideas how the company could use it” or “look up info from old printed records and enter them into a spreadsheet.”

Everyone was astounded to see my software demo, and I heard at least one senior executive ask, “Who approved that as a project, we were told that wasn’t possible?” True to his word, my “manager” never said one more word to me and spent the entire summer yelling at a series of lawyers on his phone. But did write me a nice signed letter that I’d completed my internship to his satisfaction a couple of hours before he resigned in spectacular fashion, yelling profanities at everyone as he stomped off to the elevator and telling them they’d be hearing from his lawyer.

10. More napping

Not my intern, but a neighboring department. The intern would park the truck in the woods and nap underneath it. He would tie his hands to the undercarriage of the truck so it looked like he was working on it. He was busted when someone called it in for a possible tow.

11. The Spiderman

At a former job, people would always tell stories of a long-ago summer intern known only by the nickname “Spiderman.” In an effort to be deferential to his superiors, he would dramatically leap out of the way of anyone walking by in the office and press himself up against the wall, invoking the image of Spiderman sticking to walls with his superpowers.

12. The successful coaching

We had an intern a few years ago who was smart and hardworking but had no concept of work place norms. He thought that work email was optional – he said he didn’t want to use it so could we just tell him or text him what he needed to know? So we explained to him that unfortunately, he had to use email. He also had a terrible handshake (wet fish fingertips) and didn’t know how to tie his tie. One of the guys set up some coaching sessions with him to work on these things including introducing himself and shaking hands with everyone in the department. He is now working full time and is successful.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
We need an arc of History that smashes BOOM right into Justice.

Today's News:

WASHINGTON—With the party’s candidate facing increased pressure to step down after a disastrous debate performance, the Democratic National Committee released a commercial Monday that claims a doddering, out-of-it President Joe Biden will let the nation get away with whatever crazy shit it wants. “This guy is out…

Read more...

Police want to speak to anyone from the 1970s.

The decision likely ensures that the case against Trump won’t be tried before the election, and then only if he is not reelected.

In brief: As July begins we take a look back at June’s rain and temperatures, and look ahead to a hot week to start the month. Rain chances will be on the low side this week, but some isolated showers and thunderstorms will nonetheless be possible. Hurricane Beryl should remain in the southern Gulf of Mexico this weekend, so it’s unlikely to affect our area.

A brief June review

The month of June was wetter and warmer than normal. The city of Houston, officially, recorded 7.8 inches of rainfall, which is nearly 2 inches more than the average monthly rainfall for June. As a result of a wet spring, the entire eastern half of Texas, including all of the Houston metro area, is entirely out of drought conditions. It is a fine posture to be in headed into the hottest months of the year.

In terms of temperature, the city of Houston recorded an average of 84.6 degrees, which is 1.6 degrees above the normal temperature recorded over the last three decades. The average high, of 93.1 degrees, was not far off normal. However, our nighttime temperature averaged 76.1 degrees, which is well above the normal June temperature of 73.7 degrees. This is consistent with a warmer Gulf of Mexico and the background pattern of climate change.

Monday

If you’ve been enjoying our hot and sunny weather, you’re in luck. This pattern should persist for much of this week. In truth, there’s not a whole lot to forecast when high pressure is more or less in control of our weather pattern. High temperatures today will reach the upper 90s, with plenty of sunshine and humidity. Winds will be light, generally from the south, at 5 mph or so.

There is a bit of intrigue when it comes to the possibility of some rain showers late this afternoon as a weak boundary pushes into the area. This may generate some isolated showers and thunderstorms across parts of Houston, perhaps near downtown. Overall rain chances today are probably on the order of 10 to 20 percent for most locations. Lows tonight will be warm, perhaps dropping only to about 80 degrees.

Tuesday

A day similar to Monday, with the possible exception of highs being a degree or two cooler. The setup for isolated showers is similar.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

The overall pattern remains the same, although with high pressure slightly relinquishing its grip we could see highs only in the mid-90s rather than the upper-90s. Ongoing rain chances are similar in terms of the afternoons and early evenings possibly seeing a few isolated showers and thunderstorms. If you’re wondering about July Fourth fireworks, everything looks fine at this point.

Saturday and Sunday

At this point it appears that high pressure may back off still a bit further this weekend. If so, that may increase daily rain chances a bit, to perhaps 30 percent. It may also bring daytime highs down into the low- to mid-90s range, so more in line with temperatures more typical for early July. We’ll see.

Tropics

We’re continuing to closely watch the evolution of Hurricane Beryl, but at this time there are no indications that it will move into the central Gulf of Mexico and threaten the upper Texas coast. The most likely scenario at this time is, rather, that it tracks across the Yucatan Peninsula and into the Bay of Campeche. After that time the odds that it moves north toward Texas are increasingly low. So, for the greater Houston area, nothing much to worry about at this time.

Also of note, Tropical Storm Chris formed last night in the Southern Gulf of Mexico, but it is already moving into Mexico near Tampico, and is not a concern for the United States. (Heavy rainfall, however, is likely in central Mexico). For full coverage of tropical activity, be sure and check out The Eyewall.

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

A reader writes:

I work in the marketing department of a fairly large healthcare company. I’ve been with the company for 15 years and with the marketing team for 12, and my coworkers are one of my favorite things about my job. We all get along really well, my boss and grandbosses are extremely supportive, and there is literally no drama in our department ever (there has been in the past, but the people who bring the drama always end up leaving or getting let go).

I say all that to say that what I’m writing about today is definitely an anomaly in an otherwise extremely positive work experience.

We all work remotely, but we get together in person twice a year for a couple of days and we recently had one of those meetings. We usually have one or two optional social outings, which I always attend because I enjoy hanging out with my coworkers. We’ve done things like going on a dolphin cruise, doing an escape room, happy hours, that kind of thing.

Well, this time, our administrative assistant, “Gina.” scheduled us for a Redneck Comedy bus tour. And yes, it was just EXACTLY how you would imagine it to be based on the name. I decided to give it a chance, because maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as I was expecting and plus, like I said, I enjoy hanging with my coworkers so I didn’t want to miss out on the chance to do that.

But it was definitely as bad as I expected. I don’t think this guy told a single joke that wasn’t racist, sexual, or misogynistic, if not all three. And the crazy thing to me is that Gina mentioned that she had warned the guy that we were a corporate group so he should keep everything HR-appropriate. I shudder to think what his non-HR-appropriate schtick was.

So I guess my question is: am I crazy or is that type of thing wildly inappropriate for a work-sponsored outing? Everyone else (there were 10 of us altogether) seemed to think it was hilarious, although I did see a few of them occasionally groaning at some of the worst jokes. And I feel like it’s important to note that the single black person on our team chose not to attend, which I can’t imagine is a coincidence since she’s participated in all the other activities we’ve done on past trips.

I’m going back and forth on whether I should speak up and say something. I didn’t say anything at the time because I didn’t want to ruin everyone else’s fun, but I kind of regret that now, since it probably seemed like I was perfectly fine with it. But now Gina sent us a survey to fill out and one of the questions has to do with feedback on the social portion of the week. I feel pretty confident that my boss and grandbosses would hear me out and there would be zero retaliation or bad reactions or anything from them. I guess I just need a little confirmation that my gut feeling about the whole thing isn’t off-base.

You are not off-base. Speak up!

This is egregious enough that you should speak up even if you weren’t being asked for feedback, but your opinion is being actively solicited! There is zero reason to keep your concerns to yourself, and tons of reasons to speak up.

Nearly every joke being racist, sexual, or misogynistic puts this so over the line that I’m baffled that Gina didn’t say something in the moment or immediately afterwards, given that earlier she’d thought about it enough to warn the comic to keep it work-appropriate. At a minimum she should have acknowledged it afterwards — but it would have been better to short-circuit the show once it was clear bigotry and sexism would be the theme. To be fair to Gina, that’s hard to do mid-show if you’re not in a senior role. But someone else there in a position of leadership should have.

Broadly speaking, stand-up comedy can be tricky for workplace events, since so much humor relies on being edgy and one person’s “edginess” is another person’s offensiveness. So any work group hiring a comedian needs to be clear ahead of time about what’s off-limits and make sure the comedian will adhere to that — and they also need to be willing to step in if things go off the rails.

And ugh, my heart hurts for your coworker, who sounds like she had a pretty good idea ahead of time of what this was likely to be and now has to grapple with the fact that her coworkers happily went and seemed to enjoy it.

Please speak up, and don’t sugarcoat it.

The state of Vermont agreed to pay $175,000 in damages to a man who was pulled over for giving an officer the middle finger in 2018 and arrested for disorderly conduct, with the ACLU saying that “Police need to respect everyone’s First Amendment rights—even for things they consider offensive or insulting.” What do you…

Read more...

New comic!
Today's News:

What's he going to do, say no to the Divine Dragon?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a dogsled team to train.

5-Day Uncertainty Track last updated Mon, 01 Jul 2024 11:54:34 GMT


Wind Speed Probabilities last updated Mon, 01 Jul 2024 09:23:03 GMT

Issued at 900 AM AST Mon Jul 1 2024

000
WTNT62 KNHC 011255
TCUAT2
 
Hurricane Beryl Tropical Cyclone Update
NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL       AL022024
900 AM AST Mon Jul 1 2024

...EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY 4 BERYL CLOSE TO LANDFALL IN THE 
WINDWARD ISLANDS...
...900 AM POSITION UPDATE...
 
Beryl is nearing the Windward Islands and expected to make landfall 
within the next few hours.

A weather station in Barbados recently reported a sustained wind of 
44 mph (71 km/h) and a gust of 60 mph (95 km/h).

Another position update will be provided at 1000 AM AST (1400 UTC).
 
SUMMARY OF 900 AM AST...1300 UTC...INFORMATION
-----------------------------------------------
LOCATION...12.1N 60.8W
ABOUT 60 MI...100 KM E OF GRENADA
ABOUT 55 MI...90 KM ESE OF  CARRIACOU ISLAND
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...130 MPH...215 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...WNW OR 285 DEGREES AT 20 MPH...31 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...957 MB...28.26 INCHES
 
$$
Forecaster Kelly/Cangialosi
 
 

3 PM CT Monday Update

Beryl made a quick landfall this morning on the island of Carriacou just north of Grenada as a category 4 hurricane with 150 mph winds. Beryl remains a beast of a storm, albeit relatively compact in the Caribbean. It will mostly avoid land now for a bit.

Beryl will track mostly west northwest the next couple days, and it will likely encounter a good deal of wind shear after tomorrow morning, allowing it to begin weakening as it moves toward Jamaica. We continue to believe it will pass south of Jamaica. There remains a good deal of uncertainty beyond the end of the week in terms of where Beryl goes and whether or not it can track northwest enough to get into the Gulf. That remains a low likelihood scenario, and most tropical models agree that Beryl will be disheveled enough to be bullied by high pressure over the Southeast and Gulf to be forced toward Mexico or extremely far south Texas. We’ll continue watching trends, but Beryl’s forecast for the weekend is not much clearer this afternoon than it was this morning.

The morning post follows:

Headlines

• Beryl will make a direct hit across the Windward Islands today, very near Grenada or the Grenadines with impacts beyond there.
• Beryl is reintensifying after undergoing an eyewall replacement cycle overnight.
• Beryl will track west northwest across the Caribbean, eventually encountering some wind shear that should weaken it a good bit before it passes south of Jamaica.
• Uncertainty remains high on the ultimate track of Beryl beyond the Caribbean, but modeling has made a fairly southward shift since yesterday, keeping most impacts near Mexico. It still bears close watching.
• TD 3 became Chris overnight and is now inland with heavy rain over Mexico, while Invest 96L (unlike Beryl) will take a slow and steady approach to organization over the course of this week.

Hurricane Beryl: 130 mph, moving west northwest at 20 mph

Hurricane Beryl has just undergone what we call an eyewall replacement cycle (ERC). You can read about the nuts and bolts of it here, but in a nutshell, this is where a hurricane basically takes a moment to reorganize itself and expand in size. As a result, Beryl’s wind field has increased with hurricane-force winds now out about 35 miles from the center and tropical storm force winds out 125 miles from the center. Beryl remains relatively compact, but it has grown somewhat.

Unfortunately, since Beryl is wrapping up an ERC, this means it will have an opportunity now to restrengthen. Winds were down to 120 mph as of early this morning from its peak around 130 mph yesterday, but we may see those increase once more. (Editor’s note: They have increased to 130 mph again as of the 8 AM AST advisory)

Whatever the specifics are, it’s pretty clear that a major hurricane is going to directly impact the Windward Islands today, with the worst impacts coming near Grenada and the Grenadines, south of St. Vincent.

Total rainfall from Beryl will be heavy, but because it is booking it west, the rain totals will generally be 10 inches or less. Surge and wind will be major problems with rainfall a secondary hazard in this case.

Once through the Windward Islands, the next land mass to watch for potential impacts will be Jamaica. While Beryl is likely to pass south of the island Wednesday night or Thursday, avoiding a direct hit, it will be close enough to deliver wind, rain, and surge to Jamaica, and it’s just a question of how much. Notably, Beryl is expected to weaken after tomorrow morning. It will begin to encounter a good bit of wind shear in the central and western Caribbean. The official forecast keeps Beryl a category 2 storm all the way to the Yucatan, but model guidance is actually a little more aggressive in weakening Beryl to perhaps even a tropical storm. While no one should be sleeping on Beryl, this is very likely to be a much different storm in 2 days than it is right now.

For those of you with plans in Jamaica or the Caymans or the Yucatan and Belize, we can’t tell you what to do. Just continue to monitor Beryl’s progress and reach out to your hotel or resort for more guidance.

After day 3, the weather pattern will support Beryl continuing west around the base of high pressure centered over the Southeast or northern Gulf of Mexico.

The question will be how long this high stays in tact. The high is expected to weaken by Friday or Saturday. At that point, Beryl should be near or over the Yucatan. The uncertainty then lies in whether Beryl has enough left to it after encountering shear and land to determine if it continues west northwest or shifts more northwest. There is actually decent tropical model agreement that it will continue west northwest, which is close to the official forecast as shown above. A handful of other models suggest it will turn northwesterly toward northern Mexico or Texas.

From the track density plot above, you can see that Beryl is expected with high confidence to pass just south of Jamaica and the Caymans before approaching the Yucatan or Belize. Confidence diminishes from there with some models dissipating Beryl and others continuing it across the Bay of Campeche toward Mexico or far south Texas. Again, keep in mind that this will be a much different storm then than it is today, and it will probably need some time to organize itself after reaching land in the Yucatan. Its forward speed is such that it will likely have a limited amount of time to get itself back together as it approaches the coast. Folks in Mexico and Texas should continue to watch Beryl’s progress, but at this point, it’s too soon to get more specific than that.

Stay tuned for more on this, but in the meantime, our thoughts are with the Windward Islands today.

The rest of the crew

Tropical Depression 3 became Tropical Storm Chris overnight and is now inland and once more a depression. It is a heavy rainmaker for Mexico.

Behind Beryl, we continue to track Invest 96L. Models support a slow, gradual intensification of 96L as it essentially follows Beryl’s wake. Slightly cooler water will likely aid in that slower pace of growth. The National Hurricane Center is holding around a 60 percent chance of development with 96L, but it’s far too soon to speculate on exactly where it goes, short of it will follow close to Beryl’s track. What we’re more confident in is that slower pace of intensification.

Some good news: Once 96L exits the picture, we are expecting the Atlantic to settle down into a bit of a July lull (or so we hope). But model guidance keeps any real hint of anything absent in the Atlantic, Caribbean, or Gulf beyond 96L right now. Fingers crossed so we can catch our breath before August.

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

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

1. Do my full-time coworkers think I’m a lady of leisure because I work part-time?

I work part-time at an elite private high school that my oldest child attends. How our very middle-class family ended up with a kid at this school is a long story, but please know it was a necessary last resort for my kid’s mental health.

Very luckily, just before school started, a part-time receptionist position opened up at the school and I practically ran to apply, as it comes with a partial tuition remission. I was nervous about this school. I thought it might be stuffy and elitist. I was so happy to discover this to not be true at all! My kid is happy at the school and I love working there! It’s only two days a week.

At work, I make sure I go above and beyond to be a top notch receptionist. I recently heard feedback from a coworker that my name came up in a meeting of the school administration about what a great hire I was and what an asset I’ve become to the front office.

The only problem is that there are a lot of affluent parents and I think some of my coworkers assume I am one of them. Every Tuesday, before I leave for the week, several people wave to me and say, “Enjoy your LONNNNNNNNG weekend!” or “Gosh, I wish it was MY Friday too.” At first I just laughed it off, but it’s been almost a year, and it’s every week. It’s getting old.

Do they think I’m this woman of leisure? If it matters, my clothes are from Old Navy and Target and my car is a not-fancy station wagon that’s older than my kid! On the days I’m not here, I’m taking care of a child with intensive medical needs, tutoring my oldest so she can keep up at school, cooking, cleaning, driving (my husband travels and is gone the majority of each week) and at night after my kids are in bed, I do freelance work. I average about 4-5 hours of sleep a night. I work HARD. To me, my weekend is the two days I’m at the school! They are the quietest, most relaxing days I have. I get to sit down!

I know I’m taking it too personally, right? Who cares what these people think? I guess I just don’t get why people would say something like that to someone they don’t really know? How about “Have a good week!” and leave it at that? After a year, would you snap and say something?

I think you’re reading too much into it! Maybe they think you’re a lady of leisure, or maybe they don’t. But either way, their comments almost certainly aren’t meant to be pointed barbs about the luxurious lifestyle they imagine you have. The comments sound more akin to hackneyed office commentary like “is it Friday yet?” or “another day in paradise!” — the cliche phrases that get thrown around every office that are really just a way of saying “ugh, work, amirite.”

But if it really bothers you, one option is to share more about your life with your colleagues — since if they get to know you better, they might still make the comments but you’ll probably be less likely to read an “enjoy your riches” subtext into them. But you could also just laugh and say, “Yeah, right. It’s way more relaxing here than at home.” (Although writing that last one out, I’m second-guessing it; you don’t want to sound like you’re minimizing their own jobs compared to your home responsibilities, particularly in a cultural context where moms who work often feel judged by moms who don’t and vice versa.)

2. Jobs with no negotiation and a huge salary range

I recently came across a job listing that stated they would be using a salary algorithm to determine compensation and would not be allowing any negotiation. I found this a little odd, especially since the range given for the position was quite large ($145,000-$225,000). The organization gives signs of valuing equity and inclusion (generous PTO and six months paid parental leave, explicit professional development benefits outlined in the job posting), so it feels like this is their attempt to ensure all applicants get treated fairly in determining compensation. Am I right that this is a little off-base, especially since they weren’t clear what variables are fed to the algorithm? Or is this the way all jobs should be looking to make salary negotiations more fair?

I have no problem with not allowing negotiation if they’re clear up-front about what a job pays and the initial posting is both accurate and thorough; people can then decide whether or not they’re interested in applying.

But a range this big? Whether negotiation is possible or not, they need to explain what skills and experience would get you placed where in that range (and the larger the range, the more important that is). Clearly they know because they’ve programmed their algorithm with it. Telling people, “Our offer will be take-it-or-leave-it and, by the way it could fall anywhere within an $80,000 spread” is BS — and a good way to make a lot of candidates question whether they want to invest time in interviewing. (If they tell you where you would fall in their range during the first phone screen, I’m less annoyed, but it’s still not good practice.)

3. Covid precautions at a client dinner

I am a high-performing WFH employee at a very small company. I take more Covid precautions in my daily life than anyone else at this company (I technically am high-risk but with a very common condition). When the team gets together, I wear a mask, and the rest of the team has seen this but never commented. In a few weeks, a client is coming to town and a few members of my team are taking them out to dinner. Client management like this isn’t in the scope of my work, but I anticipate being included in this invite.

I do not want to go and want to explain that any precautions I would take at this dinner (mask when not eating, portable air purifier) would look “weird” and run counter to the dinner’s goal of soothing and retaining clients. Is there a way for me to communicate this clearly without making it a “big deal” in such a small company? (We do not have a formal HR department.) I have a yearly review scheduled for the same week and don’t want this to occupy mindshare.

“Because I’m high-risk for Covid, I’d have to mask and bring a portable air purifier. From a client relations perspective, my sense is it would be better for me to sit this one out so that my precautions aren’t the focus.”

Also, if you’d feel safer not going even if they want you to come despite this warning, then I’d skip that and just say that because you’re high-risk, you’re avoiding indoor dining with large groups (if that’s true).

4. My boss told me not leave documents out — is her reason correct?

My boss has me filing work order documents, I left two folders on my desk to work on the next day. When I came in the next morning, she told me that I needed to make sure to put the folders away always, and not keep them on my desk because if we got randomly audited she would get in trouble.

I don’t know if this is true or she used it as an excuse to have me keep the files in the drawers. I would just like to know if we would get in trouble if we were suddenly randomly audited and work order files were found outside of the cabinet.

Sure, depending on the contents of the documents and if they’re confidential, it’s possible that an audit could take issue with them being left in the open. It’s also possible that your boss just doesn’t like documents left out and is borrowing the authority of the auditor rather than owning her preference, who knows.

More to the point, though, it doesn’t really matter! If your boss asks you to store documents a certain way, you should store them that way. Unless your boss is asking something unreasonable or unrealistic, you generally need to do your job the way she asks you to. (That doesn’t mean there’s no room for pushback if you have a reason for wanting to do it differently. But ultimately it’s her call.)

5. Is it legal not to pay someone if HR’s software fails?

A weird situation, and for legal context all of this is happening at a university in Massachusetts. I’m just so angry, and I can’t tell if I have a right to be angry or if HR is correct.

We hired a student in May, but HR’s software made a mistake and only hired her for September. The student, bless her heart, didn’t tell us about this until three pay periods had passed, and we, of course, emailed HR to ask them to fix this. They, in their “wisdom,” hired her and put her on the normal pay period as she had just missed the cutoff, so she will now have not been paid for two months.

I have been emailing back and forth with HR asking them to pay her sooner than the normal payroll, or make her whole beyond what she is owed, but they keep insisting that because she was only hired at the official time there is no reason to. I say, however, that if their software makes a mistake that does not mean that she was not hired, and she is owed her money as soon as possible and with restitution.

Honestly, I am going to continue to suggest to the student that she work with her union to file a wage complaint, but am I crazy? Does a software mistake on HR’s part mean that this student was never “hired” and therefore does not need to be paid as if HR made a mistake?

You are right and HR is wrong. Employers are legally required to pay employees within specific time periods set out by state law, and “our software messed it up” doesn’t release them from that obligation. Here’s what Massachusetts’s pay deadlines are.

Caveat: government sometimes excludes themselves from the employment rules they lay out for everyone else, so if this is a public university you’d need to check whether they’re exempt from this (although I doubt they are). Either way, I suggest saying to HR, “State law requires us to pay wages owed within X days of the pay period ending. She’d be within her rights to file a wage complaint with the state if we don’t comply with the law.”

Also, if you’ve been dealing with the same HR person through all of this, consider escalating it over their head.

WASHINGTON—Admitting that he had never been more conflicted about a ruling in his life, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was reportedly torn Monday over a case in which both sides offered compelling scuba trips. “While there’s a strong historical precedent for a lavish excursion to Bali, the plaintiff has instead…

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WASHINGTON—Shedding new light on your failure to achieve financial success, the Brookings Institution released a new report Monday finding that disgraced former civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal has a higher net worth than you. “Our research shows that despite the 50-plus hours of hard work you put in every week,…

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NEW YORK—Drawing intense criticism from climate activists over her enormous carbon footprint, Taylor Swift reportedly came under fire Monday after aviation journalists located her idling plane double-parked outside a Manhattan store. “Taylor Swift’s reliance on gas-guzzling private jets continued today when she burned…

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A new survey suggests that members of Gen Z are falling for misinformation about sun protection at an alarmingly high rate. In an era where UV rays are more harmful than ever before, here the biggest misconceptions 12- to 27-year-olds have about sunscreen.
Sunscreen is an affront to the sun god Ra: Gen Z should be more…

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Beryl strengthened from a tropical storm into a hurricane on Saturday as the storm made its way through the southeast Caribbean. Forecasters expect it to intensify rapidly into a major hurricane.

A wandering kinkajou, a small mammal that lives in the rainforests of Mexico and Central and South America, was spotted outside of Yakima, Washington.

In brief: This tropical update has been cross-posted from our companion site The Eyewall. Although we do not yet have major concerns about direct impacts to Texas from Beryl, it is not out of the question that the storm could get into the Gulf of Mexico this coming weekend. Since we have been receiving a lot of questions about Beryl, here’s what we know right now.

Overview

As of late morning on Sunday, the tropical Atlantic remains very active for the end of June. In addition to Beryl, there are a couple of systems the National Hurricane Center is monitoring for potential development. We’ll comment on those at the end of this post, but our primary focus today is the rapidly developing Beryl, which as of 10:35 am CT is a dangerous Category 4 hurricane.

Hurricane Beryl this week

Thanks to warm seas, the system has intensified during the last 24 hours from a 50-mph tropical storm into a powerful 130-mph hurricane as it nears the Windward Islands. It should then cross these islands on Monday and move into the Caribbean Sea. The storm will likely remain sufficiently south of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola to preclude serious damage there, but it could threaten Jamaica on Wednesday and Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula toward the end of the week. After that? Movement into the Gulf of Mexico is possible, but after this point our confidence starts to decrease.

In terms of intensity, additional strengthening of Beryl is likely over the next 24 hours or so as Beryl traverses very warm seas and is encountering relatively little wind shear. The National Hurricane Center forecasts a peak strength of 140 mph sustained winds by Monday morning, when the storm passes near islands including Grenada, Barbados, St. Lucia, and Martinique. These locations should prepare for the most intense wind and surge impacts beginning after midnight tonight, and lasting through at least Monday morning. Localized rain totals of 6 to 12 inches are possible. This is a very serious situation, and residents should prepare accordingly.

As it moves into the Caribbean Sea on Monday and Tuesday, Beryl should encounter moderately stronger wind shear, and this probably will cause some weakening. But the jury is very much out on how much weakening will occur before Beryl approaches Jamaica on Wednesday. The National Hurricane Center forecasts the system having sustained winds of 120 mph at that time, but this is just a reasonable guess. By Thursday night or Friday, as the center approaches Belize and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, it’s likely that Beryl will weaken a little bit further. It will still likely bring hurricane-force winds to these locations sometime between late Thursday night and Friday night, in addition to heavy rainfall.

Hurricane Beryl this weekend

Our certainty about Beryl’s track begins to fade by the weekend. From now through Friday, a fairly strong high pressure system should continue to push the storm westward. Over the weekend and into early next week, it is possible this ridge continues to steer Beryl westward into the Bay of Campeche. (It is not clear how much interaction with the Yucatan would disrupt Beryl’s circulation, but some weakening is virtually certain). In this scenario, Beryl is likely to move across the southern Gulf of Mexico and plow into the east coast of the Mexican mainland, similar to Tropical Storm Alberto about 10 days ago.

However, there is also the possibility that this ridge weakens, somewhat. At this point, this remains a lesser likelihood when we look at the global models. Still, there is a non-zero chance that Beryl turns northwestward after encountering the Yucatan Peninsula. In such a scenario a tropical system—be it a tropical storm or hurricane—could come to the Texas or even Louisiana coast late next weekend. I understand that everyone would like to have absolute answers about whether this will happen, but we just don’t have that kind of certainty right now.

Bottom line: Direct Texas impacts are within the realm of probability from Beryl, but the odds remain fairly low. We can see this distribution of possibilities when we look at the “super ensemble” track of forecasts for Beryl, which favors the ridge holding strong. We should know more about this part of Beryl’s forecast by Monday or Tuesday, and of course we’ll remain on top of that.

Invest 94L

There is still a short window for this tropical disturbance over the southern Gulf of Mexico to develop on Sunday before it likely moves inland into Mexico on Monday. The primary threat from Invest 94L is heavy rains in southern Mexico and Central America, which saw similar impacts from Alberto just 10 days ago. Regardless of whether this system develops further or not, the effects will be the same. There will be no impacts for Texas.

Invest 96L

The third area of tropical interest is trailing Hurricane Beryl by a few days as it traverses the open Atlantic Ocean. The National Hurricane Center gives this system a 70 percent chance of becoming a tropical depression or storm during the next week, and at this point it seems likely to impact the Windwards Islands in a similar location. This could happen as soon as Wednesday, and could deliver an awful second whammy.

However, I have some questions about how much Beryl will perturb the ocean and atmosphere, and this could help to mitigate the strengthening of this tropical disturbance as it nears the Caribbean Sea in a couple of days. We will be keeping a close eye on the system, in any case.

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

WINDSOR — Local cat Furvel Mittenpaws has sent shockwaves through the Watson household after deliberately knocking over the family’s swear jar in an act of pure malice. “That son of a bitch knew exactly what the fuck he was doing,” said Darren Watson, a podiatrist and father of two. “He’s the fucking reason we’re using […]

The post Piece of shit cat knocks over fucking swear jar appeared first on The Beaverton.

TORONTO – According to a study conducted by a panel of cybersecurity experts, your new password lacks the special spark of your old one and will never bring you the same joy. “Few people get through life without resetting their password at least once, if not several times,” the study said. “But in this case […]

The post Security experts agree new password will never love you like the old one did appeared first on The Beaverton.

Former Jackass star Bam Margara, 44, agreed to six months of probation after pleading guilty to disorderly conduct in an assault against his brother Jess Margara, who suffered a ruptured eardrum during the altercation between the siblings, with Jess testifying that his brother is “a good dude when he’s not messed up.”…

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