The national railroad company on Tuesday released a notice designed to engage with potential industry partners on the proposed high-speed railway, which would transport passengers between Texas' two largest cities in a matter of about 90 minutes.

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

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

1. My mom answered my phone and told off my boss

I was very sick with Covid and my mom had to come take care of me. She already knew issues that I’d been having with my boss; he’s a jerk. I learned later that he called to ask a question that he could have easily found the answer himself. My mother answered the phone and yelled at him because he does a lot of abusive things and keeps us working on days off, even vacation, not to mention when people are very sick. He is the type who can dish out the punishment or rude comments but cant handle it when you do it back even the slightest. Anyway, she told me what she had done.

Once I returned to work, I was written up and told my mother is not to answer my phone when anyone from the company calls because they chip in $50 a month for the phone. This is not their phone. Does this warrant a write-up? Do they have the right to say my mother cannot answer my phone?

No, this doesn’t warrant a write-up. If you call someone’s personal phone, you risk someone else answering it and conducting themselves differently than an employee would. But there’s no official arbiter of what you can and can’t be written up for; there’s only common sense, and your boss clearly doesn’t have it.

The question about whether they can say your mom can’t answer company calls on your phone when they pay part of the bill … eh, probably. If they consider that your work phone, then sure, they can say you’re the only one who can answer it (hell, in a lot of states they could say that without paying any of the bill). It’s a dumb response from them, though.

But also, your mom should stay out of your work life and not tell your boss off on your behalf! I get the impulse, but she doesn’t have the standing to do that and she ended up causing problems for you at work.

At the same time, though, I kind of love her for defending her sick kid. Is she up for telling off other people’s bosses too? She’d probably be in demand.

2. Staff is grumbling about sales team’s “perks”

I manage a team of salesmen who call on very large customers. Typically we are responsible for signing 5-10 contracts that generate a lot of meaningful revenue for the company. Because of the size of these contracts and the nature of our customers, we attend a lot of off-hours events to host our customers — things like dinners, concerts, and professional sporting events. As a manager, I try to be flexible with people’s schedules to accommodate all the hours they end up working outside of the normal 9-5. However, I’m running into problems with other departments complaining about my team’s availability or implying that we are more focused on partying than working. This typically happens when they want to connect with someone on my team but that person is using comp time; for example, they had a 7pm dinner the day before so I don’t have them come into work till 10 am but production wants to meet right at 9 am.

I understand why there might be a perception issue to say, “Oh, John is coming in late on Monday because he has to spend all Sunday at the suite of an NFL game,” but these events truly are a work day for us. Attending with a customer and trying to have a meaningful business conversation can be a pretty high pressure and stressful thing! We might have a beer at the game but it’s much more about making sure the customer has a great time then it is about actually enjoying the venue. Typically my team has to provide a recap of any conversations that they had and how contract negotiations are advancing. It’s also not fair to expect them to spend a weekend day or a weeknight working and then go back to a regular schedule.

My boss understands this but when I’ve tried explaining it to other departments (typically run by people at my level but without sales experience) I’ve had varying degrees of success. I’ve also set up a couple times a week like Monday afternoons, where I can guarantee that my whole team is working at the same time so these departments can schedule meetings. That has helped manage the scheduling issue that we are having, but it’s made the grumbling worse because they feel like we are being unreasonable. Is there a good way that I can explain to my peers outside of sales that we aren’t being divas, we just have a weird work schedule?

Can you stop describing the specifics of what they were doing when they were working off-hours and instead just say “he had to work all day Sunday” or “he worked until very late last night”? If you mention dinners and games, people are going to focus on that to the exclusion of the “work” part.

You might also try talking with the other managers one-on-one about the pattern and ask for their help in figuring out how to resolve it; sometimes when people are enlisted in solving a problem that they themselves are part of it, they start to get it more. And you could say, “While the events can seem like fun ones, that’s still time that my team has to be ‘on’; they can’t relax, they need to be focused on the client, and that’s time that they can’t be with their family or friends or handling household responsibilities. Since we can’t ask people to spend all their waking hours furthering the company’s business interests and they need to have time off as well, what would you suggest?”

But some of this is just a perpetual issue between sales and non-sales people, so your measure of success shouldn’t be “there is zero grumbling about this.”

3. Can I use Discord messages to confirm that my unreliable coworker told me she ignores my emails?

Right now, I am building an argument to my boss to change the workflow of a specific task to address a problem I have with a coworker (Clara). Clara’s supposed to be doing this task on my behalf. (For internal policy reasons, I’m not allowed to do it myself.) However, Clara is not reliable at doing this task. Over the years, I’ve made a thousand tiny adjustments to my work to make it as easy as possible for her, and she often still makes errors, which only affect me and are for some reason my sole responsibility to identify and (tell her to) fix. I’ve been stewing silently about this for years, because I thought I was just being a hater, frankly. But at my next review, I’m going to urge our boss to see if I can be given the authority to just handle this task myself.

Since all of the measures I take to help Clara and make up for her errors are individually very small, I’m compiling documentation to explain everything I’m doing and confirm that, collectively, they consume a lot of my time and energy — much more than just doing it myself. One item I wanted to include was an email from several months ago, where Clara asked me to indicate importance in the subject line of emails to her; I send out a lot of notices to the whole building, so she mostly just ignores messages from me and sometimes misses important ones. However, when I received this email, it made me so blindingly angry — considering everything else I’m already doing — that I trashed it immediately without responding. Now that I’ve decided to talk to our boss about it, it’s gone from the face of the earth.

But I have the annoyed Discord messages I sent to my partner the day-of that confirm that this email once existed. They don’t say anything spicy — essentially, “Clara just straight-up admitted to me that she doesn’t read my emails” with an air of frustration — and nothing rude, hostile, or profane. Do you think it would help or hurt my case to include these? If including them is a bad idea, do you have any alternate suggestions? Even if I had the original email, would it have been too petty to include, anyway? Clara’s otherwise very nice and definitely isn’t acting maliciously, so I still feel insane for actually complaining about this.

Don’t include the message you sent to your partner about it. It’ll come across as petty, and it puts the focus on your frustration more than on Clara’s behavior. It will also seem odd that you’re proactively trying to come up with outside “evidence” that the email existed, when no one has asked for any, and it risks putting a more adversarial lens on the whole thing.

In most reasonably healthy work environments, you could simply tell your manager what was said and assume that you’ll be believed. (If your word isn’t enough, there are bigger problems that would dwarf this anyway.)

4. Manager said we can’t talk to HR without telling him first

Is it legal/ethical for a supervisor to tell their team they cannot go to HR without telling him and letting him set the appointment with HR?

This comes after a coworker went to HR for two reasons (supervisor issues the entire team is having and a request to move departments). Today the team came in and was told that they cannot go to HR about anything without telling him first what it is about and then he will set an appointment with HR if he deems worthy/necessary.

I am thinking it is not illegal, but not exactly ethical and definitely not in the favor of the team as the supervisor will not set up appointments if he wants to hide things and there would retaliation.

While it’s not illegal on its face, it creates legal liability for your company. What if someone wants to report harassment or discrimination from your boss? They have to go through him first and he’ll decide if they get to talk to HR about it or not? What if he decides they can’t?

It’s very unlikely that HR would be okay with this rule if they knew about it (in part because companies need clear and accessible reporting procedures for harassment and discrimination to effectively defend themselves against lawsuits in those areas), so someone should break the rule to tell HR (and when doing that, should point out that they’re doing exactly what they were told they couldn’t and will need HR’s assistance in ensuring they’re not penalized for it).

HIALEAH, FL—Crimson droplets splattered across local man Cameron Downs’ white porcelain sink Thursday after he began flossing and reportedly spat out blood like a battered prizefighter in a championship bout. According to sources, the 32-year-old accounts receivable specialist braced himself against the edge of the bathroom vanity like a pummeled boxer laid out on the ropes, struggling to summon the strength to clean his lower teeth. Then, in the spirit of a welterweight being pushed back into the ring after having his eye cut open by a trainer, Downs was seen defiantly hocking a second mouthful of bloody saliva into the sink before wrapping a clean portion of floss around his index fingers. With a burst of renewed energy, Downs is said to have flossed the last of his bleeding gums and then dropped the waxed thread into the trash as if it were the sweat-stained hand wrap of an aging fighter defending his title for the last time. At press time, reports confirmed Downs was straining to squeeze the last bit of his maximum-strength sensitive toothpaste onto his extra-soft-bristled toothbrush.

The post Man Spits Out Blood While Flossing Like Battered Prizefighter In Championship Bout appeared first on The Onion.

MIAMI—Asserting that many differing perspectives on the fruit were readily available online, billionaire Jeff Bezos reportedly sent a note to staff at the Amazon-owned Whole Foods this week strictly forbidding the criticism of grapes. “I grew up eating grapes and proudly so,” said Bezos, who emphasized the role grapes have played in shaping American culture and expressed his commitment to defending them as a fun and sweet snack. “Bite-sized, flavorful, and healthy treats like grapes are right for America, and I feel this viewpoint has been underserved in grocery stores around the country until now. Supporting grapes is ethical and practical. Grapes are perfect whether you’re on the go or sitting down for lunch, and they greatly reduce hunger among all Americans.” The note concluded with an acknowledgement that leadership changes were already underway to select produce managers who would support this new direction.

The post Jeff Bezos Sends Note To Whole Foods Staff Forbidding Criticism Of Grapes appeared first on The Onion.

President Trump said he will introduce a new “gold card” visa to attract wealthy foreigners to America, which would be similar to a green card but would allow people to pay $5 million to apply to become lawful permanent residents. What do you think?

The post Trump Plans To Sell $5 Million Gold Card Visa To Attract Rich Foreigners appeared first on The Onion.

VATICAN CITY—Revealing that he had quickly distinguished himself at the four-day invitation-only event, Vatican sources confirmed Friday that Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, a 75-year-old American prelate with a 3-foot vertical leap, had emerged as the frontrunner in the Papal Combine. “The College of Cardinals has produced some strong prospects this time around, but Dolan’s basilica agility time of 10.8 seconds has made this his papacy to lose,” said Catholicism analyst Dave Hutchins, adding that high-ranking members of the Holy See hadn’t seen vertical prowess like Dolan’s since the legendary John Paul II era. “These cardinals have been training their whole lives for this, but when the whistle blows for the 40-yard baptism dash, Dolan’s leaving them all in the dust. That 3-foot vertical is putting him way closer to God than any of the other pontifex maximus hopefuls. Every drill they run, Dolan’s at the front of the pack. He’s swinging that censer the fastest. He’s weaving through those cones and glasses of sacramental wine without spilling a drop of holy water. This is a cardinal in his physical and spiritual prime, and frankly, it’s an exciting time to be Catholic.” At press time, Cardinal Dolan had reportedly dropped out of the combine after a blood test came back positive for Protestantism.

The post Cardinal With 3-Foot Vertical Leap Emerges As Frontrunner In Papal Combine appeared first on The Onion.

The post Andrew Tate Grabs Some Romanians From Airport Gift Shop appeared first on The Onion.

ETOBICOKE, ON — After his Conservative party was officially re-elected with a majority vote this evening, Doug Ford celebrated his win by immediately hopping in his car, tearing down University Avenue, and obliterating SickKids hospital. “Folks, the people of Ontario have voted… Or, in this case, not voted… and they have made their voices very […]

The post Doug Ford celebrates majority win by demolishing closest hospital appeared first on The Beaverton.

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I recognise those two aspirational musical stars. The haircuts are different, but the song remains the same.

The post We didn’t vote for it! appeared first on Bad Machinery.

WASHINGTON—Addressing the ongoing outbreak in Texas that has infected at least 124 state residents and killed one child, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed Thursday to make measles deaths so common that they wouldn’t be upsetting anymore. “When President Trump appointed me, I pledged to desensitize Americans to preventable death by making it such a normal, everyday occurrence that people would just shrug it off,” said Kennedy, who added that the current epidemic, which is considered Texas’ largest in 30 years, was the first step to one day fully numbing citizens to the experience of watching each other die painful measles-related deaths. “We’ve been following this outbreak since it began in late January, and we’re proud to announce that Americans across the country are already jaded enough to throw up their hands and dismiss it as just another sensationalized news story. As it spreads, we will continue to fan the flames in the hope that if someone you know and love succumbs to a measles infection, you won’t even bat an eyelash.” At press time, Kennedy added that one day measles deaths would be so common that no one would even care if he died from the disease, too.

The post RFK Jr. Vows To Make Measles Deaths So Common They Won’t Be Upsetting Anymore appeared first on The Onion.

“[T]he University of North Texas administration recently censored the content of more than two hundred academic courses, including by mandating the removal of words such as race, gender, class, and equity from undergraduate and graduate course titles and descriptions. These actions were allegedly taken in response to state legislation banning certain diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and practices, even though the legislation specifically exempted academic course content.” — The American Association of University Professors

Effectively immediately, race will no longer be considered as a factor in admissions decisions. In fact, to ensure we don’t promote equal access to education by accident, only applicants named “Bradford” will be admitted to the college.

We will also stop pretending to try to recruit a diverse faculty.

The all-gender bathrooms will be changed to “both-gender” bathrooms because, as biology tells us, there are only two genders.

(The biology department has informed us that this is not true.)

The biology department has been dissolved.

No trans women will be permitted to participate in women’s sports, to protect the cisgender women who have not asked for protection.

Effective immediately after this sentence, the university will no longer use the word “trans” since that’s not really a thing.

(The history department has informed us that [REDACTED] people do exist and always have.)

The history department has been dissolved.

To avoid enforcing Title IX regulations, the university will no longer conduct investigations into allegations of sexual assault or harassment. This change will allow us to more efficiently maintain our record of zero consequences for those accused of sexual assault or harassment.

All women’s bathrooms (as well as the newly established both-gender bathrooms) will be closed. Given our commitment to ignore Title IX, we don’t want to give women something (in this case, bathrooms) just because men have them.

In keeping with our not keeping with Title IX, all women’s sports are canceled, effective immediately. Except volleyball, because we like their shorts. Members of the women’s volleyball team will be subjected to weekly examinations by a male athletic inspector to make sure none of them are [REDACTED].

The following clubs are, obviously, canceled, effective immediately: Diversity in Action, the Black Student Union, Women in STEM, the Gender and Sexuality Alliance, and the Minority Association for Pre-Medical Students. Also, you may no longer say “diversity,” “Black,” “women,” “gender,” or “sexuality” in course titles, course descriptions, emails, conversations, or thoughts. You can continue to say “minority” since the term is outdated anyway and because it’s impossible to avoid comparing everything that’s happening right now to the 2002 sci-fi action movie Minority Report.

Aside from the aforementioned exceptions, all speech is allowed. No matter how heinous the hate speech is, it will be permitted. Hate speech is free speech, and free speech is good, so by the transitive property of speech, hate is good.

(The math department has informed us that this is not how the transitive property works.)

The math department has been dissolved.

Despite the above club closures, the Latinx Club will be encouraged to continue. Latinx Club, don’t forget to publish your meeting dates, times, attendance records, and locations on the publicly available college calendar.

Incidentally, reflecting our community values of respect and hospitality, the university will welcome ICE to campus with open arms.

The university will end the cafeteria’s pernicious diversity, equity, and inclusion program, otherwise known as “Taco Tuesday.”

Effective immediately, after the conclusion of this sentence, the university will no longer be using pronouns.

(The English department has requested to be dissolved. Farewell and best of luck to [REDACTED].)

In short, no one in power needs to worry: The university’s subversive mission to empower the public with knowledge and to encourage our students to think for themselves has been suspended indefinitely.

Sorry, is “themselves” a pronoun? In a surprise turn of events, the university is, for the first time, acknowledging our need for an English department.

The Houston Housing Authority, which hasn’t issued any new housing vouchers since December 2023 because of a lack of funding, is updating its waitlist.

ONTARIO – With polls open today in Doug Ford’s snap provincial election, voters across the province are weighing a difficult choice between going out to vote, and not doing that whatsoever. With advance polls indicating Ford headed for an easy majority victory tonight, alongside record low voter turnout, many eligible Ontarians report carefully considering options […]

The post Ontarians weigh difficult decision between voting and anything else appeared first on The Beaverton.

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

A reader writes:

Do you think it’s a red flag when a team in a smaller company immediately drops you into a group text on your personal phone upon hiring?

The context is that I’m very happy in my mid-level position at my very not-toxic Fortune 100 company. I like the work and the people and while I wouldn’t hang out with a few of these folks for recreational coffee, we’re Work Friends. I’ve worked for smaller companies and have found them to always be cliquey and toxic and in each other’s business. Like high-stakes high school, where instead of losing head cheerleader, you lose your job.

For me the common denominator red flag was that my toxic jobs had group chats. “We all get along” and “lols” and morning affirmation texts and more.

My mother came from big time corporate America and is now working for small time companies. The last one she was at was so toxic and went so far south I legally can’t say what happened. She told me that from day one at her current job, she’s been in group texts with the “team.” More “morning guys!” etc. I’m not going to diss my mom’s new job because she’s so happy to be out of the other place, but I’m seeing signs already and I’m curious if you and/or the readers think group chats/texts are a red flag!

I don’t think teams with group chats are inherently a red flag.

I do think that when a team is dysfunctional, a group chat can often be something that reinforces that — because it’s used in ways that trample people’s boundaries (like unwelcome work texts during your off hours, or an expectation that you’ll participate in endless socializing that doesn’t interest you or actively distracts you, or a team that expects everyone to be “like family” in problematic ways). But that’s generally a reflection of other problematic norms on the team, not something fundamental to the group texts themselves.

There are healthy, functional teams that have group chats! In those cases, I might theorize that they’re more likely to pop up in specific use cases, like when the work is emotionally difficult and the group chat is a place to blow off steam, or if all of the team is in a younger (read: going out) stage of life, or similar. But that’s not exclusively the case either.

In an effort to win back customers and boost profits, Starbucks’ new CEO Brian Niccol is implementing sweeping changes. Here is a selection of the innovations Niccol is making.

Baristas will use Sharpies to get high at work again

Introducing new seasonal menu items like the Ground’s Thawed So We Can Finally Bury Grandma Day Latte

Bringing back in-store cows for self-service milk station 

Some new focaccia aioli harissa egg thing that will still taste like its been sitting out for 30 years

Free espresso shots for kids under 5

Removing your favorite drink from the menu and burning all files that contained the recipe

Waste reduced by introduction of communal straw

All employees must purchase something before being able to use the bathroom

Free coffee on day of your death

“Streamlined ordering process” and other ways to not say laying a bunch of people off

The post All Of The Changes Coming To Starbucks appeared first on The Onion.

A US bird flu epidemic has resulted in the deaths of tens-of-millions of poultry and strained the country's egg supply.

That comforting hot cup of tea—or refreshing glass of iced tea on a hot summer day—could help reduce the amount of toxic metals in drinking water, according to a new paper published in the journal ACS Food & Science Technology.

“We’re not suggesting that everyone starts using tea leaves as a water filter,” said co-author Vinayak Dravid, who studies sorbent materials at Northwestern University. “Our goal was to measure tea’s ability to adsorb heavy metals. By quantifying this effect, our work highlights the unrecognized potential for tea consumption to passively contribute to reduced heavy metal exposure in populations worldwide.”

Some 2 billion people drink tea on a daily basis worldwide, and numerous studies have suggested various health benefits from regular tea consumption. Most nutrition studies focus on things like polyphenols, caffeine, or other chemicals released during brewing, but such research overlooks a unique aspect of tea: unlike most food and drink, tea leaves are not directly consumed, and the brewing process allows tea leaves to adsorb chemicals as well as release them—most notably heavy metal toxins like lead, arsenic, or cadmium. (Adsorption is when a substance adheres to the surface of something; absorption is when a material takes in a substance.)

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COVID-19 vaccines cut the risk of long COVID by between 57–73 percent in kids and teens, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open. And there's more good news: A second study published today in the journal offered more data that the now-annual shots are not linked to sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death in young athletes—a claim that gained traction on social media and among anti-vaccine groups during the acute phase of the pandemic.

Together, the studies bolster current recommendations that children and teens should stay up to date on their COVID-19 vaccines, which are estimated to have prevented more than 3 million deaths and more than 18 million hospitalizations in the first two years of their use.  So far, the recommendations for kids have largely gone unheeded; only 14 percent of children ages 5 to 17 are up to date on their 2024–2025 COVID shot. Surveys suggest that parents largely think the vaccines are unnecessary, given that most children only have mild COVID infections.

Still, not all infections are mild, and even mild cases can lead to long COVID, according to the authors of the first study. An estimated 1 percent to 3 percent of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 will develop long COVID, defined as having symptoms that continue or develop four or more weeks after the initial phase of infection. With tens of millions of kids getting infected with the pandemic virus, a large number of them are at risk of developing the condition.

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Hurricane forecasting has never been better. We say that a lot, but the statistics bear that out, and last hurricane season was literally the best one yet.

This week, the National Hurricane Center released a preview of their annual verification report. They rigorously verify their forecasts each year and compare them to the key tools that they utilize to assist in forecasting. And this year was a doozy in a good way. Put one way: The track forecast 5 days out in 2024 was equivalent to the error of a 2-day track forecast as recently as 2000-2005. Think about that for a second. They have improved track forecast errors by a whopping 3 days on average in 20 years. A 3-day track forecast today performs better than a 1-day track forecast did on average in the late 90s and early 2000s as well. The amount of improved lead time you have on storms today compared to less than 20 years ago is incredible.

Intensity forecasting is another matter. While it too has improved over the last 20 to 30 years, the rate of improvement is not quite to the level of track error. That said, a lot of research has been coming out in recent years with respect to rapid intensification, and one would expect to see these forecasts pick up further improvement in the years ahead. This statement will likely put off some folks, but sometimes the truth can do that: It is likely that climate change plays some role in the idea of chasing a moving target. This is especially true in recent years with extremely warm water temperatures in the Atlantic basin. How has this changed the behavior of rapid intensification? That in and of itself makes things difficult. So while the long-term average continues to go in the right direction, we need to continually invest in research and understanding of the mechanics of hurricanes to improve both lead time and forecast accuracy even more.

Within the report, the probability of detecting a rapidly intensifying hurricane in 2024 sat at around 70 percent. I don’t know what that was 20 years ago, but it was nowhere near that level. Per the report, “although RI remains one of the biggest challenges at NHC, it is worth noting that advancements in hurricane modeling and understanding of the science are making a difference in improving forecasts for even the most challenging cases.” Investment in research is literally paying dividends. As Jeff Masters noted in his discussion on this topic, these research improvements likely saved billions of dollars in 2024 itself, let alone over the last 10 years or so.

Some of the work that’s gotten us here has happened organically through research to improve forecasts and models, often funded by federal programs, but the bulk of this specific for hurricanes is likely attributable to the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP). HFIP was established within NOAA back in 2007 after the very bad 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. HFIP goals are to improve hurricane forecasts, extend lead time, extend forecast confidence, and more. It’s interesting to read comments from Bill Read in 2008 about the HFIP and then to see the results we have in the 15+ years since. Our Houston audience should know Bill Read who is about as legendary as a meteorologist can be in a community. He was also the director of the National Hurricane Center from 2008 through 2012 as HFIP began being implemented.

The problem is always funding. HFIP got a nice boost back in the first Trump administration when the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act was passed by Congress. Millions of dollars were allocated to weather research with that law. HFIP was specifically cited in the bill as an area to focus on. And indeed all this money and hard work to improve these forecasts is now bearing fruit.

But we sit in a perilous moment. At the risk of getting too political here, the current “slash and burn” philosophy of cutting government spending risks halting the progress that has been made. Meteorology is sitting at a crossroads right now as it is: Physics-based modeling and AI-based modeling are now both entering operational phases together, and the work being done to marry the best parts of these different technologies is just beginning. The potential results are tantalizing. Forecasts will never be perfect. But if we can continue to reduce errors and improve forecast lead time, we can save lives, save property, and reduce the economic impact from storms. If the couple billion that was put into this effort led to the economy saving tens of billions of dollars from hurricane impacts in recent years, then how does cutting a few hundred million or a billion help improve efficiency, as is the stated goal of Department of Government Efficiency? It’s a simple math problem, and the math doesn’t check out, no matter how much of a deficit hawk you may be. If these programs added no value and cost more than they saved or added to the economy, that would be another thing entirely.

Bill Proenza was director of the NHC back in 2007. He had an interesting tenure, leading the NHC through a tumultuous 6 months. He was known for being a bit brash and for publicly criticizing his bosses, the combination of which led him to be let go from that job. That style may work in some sectors, but in the NHC, the best leaders usually cause fewer distractions. Regardless of that, he made a very good point back in 2011 during talk of budget cuts in that Congress He told the Miami Herald at the time that the short-term savings of cutting hurricane research flights (allocating $17 million in funding to the program it was under versus the $29 million it had been funded at) would come with higher long-term costs. This is exactly the problem. Your political ideology may color how you feel about cutting spending, but the simple reality is that when people without expertise in matters begin to cut programs without understanding them, they’re accepting higher long-term costs in exchange for the short-term gratification of “hey, we did something.” If one is truly concerned about budgets and deficits, they would look at this problem through nuanced lens. Could efficiency be improved in certain areas of programs or research and development? Absolutely. I’m sure it could be. Does the possibility of taking an axe to a program through significant personnel losses or funding cuts put us all at risk of poorer long-term outcomes both physically and fiscally? Yes. Is the prudent way slower? Yes. Is the slower way smarter? Also, yes.

The forecast improvements in recent years have produced amazing outcomes, saved lives, and saved the economy billions of dollars. If we pull the rug out from under this program right when it’s literally at its best, we risk halting that progress, increasing costs and burdens on federal, state, and local governments, not to mention people and small businesses in the path of increasingly complex and dangerous storms. It’s simply not the fiscally prudent thing to do. Many folks in hurricane alley share the priorities of the current administration, which is fine but it’s important to understand the potential ramifications and impacts to us all in certain instances and to make sure your elected officials understand that. Given what we’ve witnessed between Texas and Florida since 2017 or so, it’s in our best interest to continue to work to improve hurricane forecasts as much as possible.

BOSTON—In a new study conducted to examine the effects of high-octane vehicles on getting her back once and for all, researchers have concluded that revving the engine of a Corvette convertible outside your ex-girlfriend’s office is the best way to show her what she’s missing. “According to our data, the efficacy of pulling up to the parking lot of her office plaza in your sweet-ass ride is nearly unmatched in terms of convincing her to get back together, and when you incorporate the act of gunning the engine until a huge cloud of exhaust pours out of the tailpipe, those results nearly triple,” lead researcher Tanya Kramer told reporters Thursday, explaining that the study also found a strong correlation between blasting AC/DC’s “T.N.T.” from the car’s killer speakers and your ex-girlfriend finally seeing the error of her ways. “When presented with the sight of a misunderstood bad boy doing donuts in the parking lot right outside their workplace, nine out of 10 of participants reacted with total awe and intense sexual arousal that left them pining after the relationship they once had.” Researchers added that these results were only obtained in cases where drivers left their tinted windows rolled up to conceal their tears.

The post Study Finds Revving Corvette Outside Her Office Best Way To Show Ex What She’s Missing appeared first on The Onion.

At a public event last week, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said higher ed would get less funding if they don’t “kick DEI out of their schools,” a few weeks after lawmakers proposed a massive cut to public universities.

One of the deaths was an unvaccinated child in Texas, as the disease has infected more than 120 people.

On Thursday's show: A new study seeks input from the public about where to spend money to improve traffic and safety along the Washington Avenue corridor.

Texas Area CBP agriculture specialists issued 16 civil penalties totaling almost $4,000 linked to the attempted smuggling of prohibited agriculture and food products, including raw eggs, according to a CBP news release.

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Corpo-Foss war. A Mata_Bot company passes through a penguin town.

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“Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, announced a major shift to the newspaper’s opinion section on Wednesday, saying it would now advocate ‘personal liberties and free markets’ and not publish opposing viewpoints on those topics.” — New York Times

For nearly 150 years, the Washington Post has been a pillar of the American media landscape. As one of the nation’s papers of record, it has always stayed true to its values. That’s why, a few years after I bought it, I, Jeff Bezos, proudly chose our slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

That said, it has come to my attention that many of our readers misunderstood my reason for adopting that phrase—first popularized by legendary investigative journalist Bob Woodward. In hindsight, I can see how some might have interpreted the move as a reminder of the media’s responsibility to report the truth, hold those in power accountable, and put integrity over profit. But that could not be further from the truth. Because “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was never a stern word of warning; it’s always been my end goal.

I assure you that, long before I purchased the Washington Post, and long before Donald Trump was re-elected, the Post’s mission had always been to undermine American democracy. When they helped publish the Pentagon Papers, it wasn’t about holding the government accountable for lying to the American people about the Vietnam War; it was about speeding along America’s demise. And when they broke the Watergate story, it wasn’t about uncovering corruption; it was one more step in a decades-long journalistic coup d’etat. As the new owner, I’m not capitulating to Donald Trump; I’m just finishing what the Post started.

That’s why my latest announcement should come as no surprise. Rather than publishing a broad range of viewpoints, our opinion section will now focus exclusively on personal liberties and free markets. This change is just the nail in the coffin of a carefully calculated plan to turn the United States into the tin-pot dictatorship of my dreams. It’s definitely not because I’m scared of any investigations that the DOJ’s antitrust division may or may not launch.

In his book On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder famously wrote, “Do not obey in advance.” And I totally agree with him. I just think there were a few typos. When it comes to choosing whether or not to resist authoritarianism, I believe Snyder meant to write, “Do not! Obey in advance!”

Critics say that newspapers shouldn’t be owned by billionaires like me who stand to gain financially from currying favor with the president. But the Post’s editorial decisions have nothing to do with my relationship with Donald Trump, and everything to do with what’s best for America. Namely, the dismantling of our constitutional rights and democratic institutions.

Plus, those same critics fail to point out the many benefits of a billionaire tech mogul currying favor with the president. For example, if their cozy relationship meant that said billionaire’s company could continue to provide the Department of Defense with critical cloud storage infrastructure and secure, scalable, and mission-focused computing solutions that assist America’s military in detecting and neutralizing threats both at home and abroad. Just to name one hypothetical example.

For those afraid this will change the stories we publish, don’t worry—our newspaper will always report the truth. In fact, later today, we’ll be publishing an explosive new report proving once and for all that, during the 2020 presidential election, Dominion Voting Systems colluded with the Department of Justice to cover up millions of fraudulent ballots across several states, some of which didn’t even use Dominion Voting machines. The report also explains why Democrats tampered with the 2020 election but not the 2024 election, which was administered totally freely and fairly.

Eventually, I think everyone will see why the American experiment was a mistake and why we should embrace totalitarian rule as quickly as possible. Besides, Americans won’t care about freedom of expression as long as the spaceships to Mars run on time.

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

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

1. My boss told me to bring my sick four-year-old to work with me

I want to start off by saying I am the absolute backbone of our store and everyone, including my boss, knows it. My boss has the flu right now and my four-year-old has been sick. She woke up crying, feverish, snotty, etc. I texted my boss at 4 am (I was scheduled to open at 10:30 am) explaining that my child’s sickness had taken a turn for the worse and asked if there was a possibility that anyone else could cover. She responded that there was no one besides me who could work and I would just have to bring my sick daughter with me. I’d been up all night with my child as well, which I also stated to my boss.

I don’t feel like this is fair. My sales are the highest, I feel I work the hardest, and I’m often told how great I am. Even corporate has reached out to me about my amazing sales. Am I overreacting?

No, you’re not overreacting. It’s not reasonable to expect to you bring a sick child to work (nor would customers be likely to appreciate it).

I think where you erred, though, was in asking if you could take a sick day. If we had a time machine, I’d send you back in it to instead say, “Jane is very sick and I’ve been up all night with her, so I won’t be able to open the store today.” Don’t ask, which implies you’re open to hearing “no” — say you wouldn’t be there and why (just like you’d presumably do if you yourself were throwing up or in the ER or so forth). There are some situations where you simply cannot come to work because of sickness, period. In those cases, it’s better not to cloud the situation by presenting it as optional.

2. My coworkers saw porn on my phone’s lock screen

I graduated from college last May and got my first office job. I have my work iPhone and my personal phone. I only ever use my work phone for work things, of course, but my problem came from my personal phone.

I downloaded something on my personal phone so that every time I turn on the screen, the lock screen background is an AI porn pic. A new pic comes up every time. Aside from obvious benefits, this motivates me to never take out my phone at work. I won’t even check my phone until I get to my car. (The reduced phone use was my New Year’s resolution, and it has made me noticeably mentally sharper.)

But today, my phone was ringing from my backpack while I had three coworkers in my cubicle talking about a project. I usually keep it on silent but forgot this time. It kept ringing, and one of them asked if I needed to get it. I said no, and tried to turn my phone on silent with my hand still in the backpack while I peeked inside it. One asked why I didn’t just take my phone out, and I said it was fine. But I was struggling to hold the backpack and unlock my phone at the same time, and the backpack slid down and fell on the floor with my phone still in my hand.

The porn was only there for a split second, but everyone there saw it. Everyone went dead silent, and they were looking between me and each other. I put the phone away immediately and tried to start up the previous conversation again, but everyone was giving minimal answers. The meeting ended shortly after that. After half an hour of silently panicking in my cubicle, I said I was sick and left to work from home the rest of the day.

I’m working from home the rest of the week. I have no idea what to do. I hate how everyone is judging me for something that is not deontologically bad, but I never would’ve shown it at work. Everyone is looking at me like they think something’s wrong with me, and I’m terrified it will get to my manager. Will I lose my job? Does everyone hate me? What do I do now!?

First and foremost, you should take the porn off your phone’s lock screen. Yes, you didn’t intend to have it out at work but, as this experience showed, there are ways that can still happen and the consequences are too severe if it does. Moreover, even if you never intended to bring your phone out while you were there, you were bringing pornographic material into your workplace! Find another way to reduce your phone use. (That’s before we even get into the reality that as you go about your non-work life and are using your personal phone, you’re probably exposing other people to pornography against their will, which really isn’t okay to do.)

As for work … all you can really do is to make a point of being scrupulously professional from here on out. It’s unlikely that people hate you, although some of them might feel a little icky around you for a while until that impression gets overridden. You’re probably not going to get fired (although you might get spoken to about what is and isn’t appropriate to have at work). But yeah, you made people really uncomfortable because you exposed them to something sexual against their will! Demonstrate through your actions that it was out of character and that you’re professional and respect boundaries, and it shouldn’t be impossible to live down.

3. Can my out-of-office messages say that emails sent while I’m out will be deleted?

I am going on vacation for just over two weeks with my husband — our first decent holiday since before the pandemic. Given the amount of emails I normally receive (about 100 daily), I want to leave an out-of-office that will politely say that I will not be reading my emails and therefore they will effectively be deleted. I will give details of a team member who can handle urgent requests (which she is happy to do) but beyond that I would just want to ask people to resend anything non-urgent on the date after my return. I have seen OOO emails along these lines but sometimes they come across as a bit aggressive. What is your advice on how to word this? This will be the first time in 17 years I haven’t taken work or my laptop away with me and I so need the break. And also not to come back to several hundred emails to wade through!

There are jobs and companies where you could do this and jobs and companies where you couldn’t, so the first thing to figure out is whether this will be okay in your job and in your company. In some jobs, this would be seen as off-putting to clients (since it puts the burden on them to remember to contact you again in X days, which won’t necessarily be seen as reasonable or client-friendly) and/or out of sync with your company’s culture, or it might result in you missing things you really needed to know (if someone doesn’t bother to resend later as instructed, which is highly likely in some cases, especially since a lot of people don’t pay attention to the actual content of OOO messages).

So you really need to know if it’s going to be been seen as reasonable in your office. If you’re not sure, ask your boss.

But if you’re confident it’s fine in your particular context, then I’d word it the message way: “Emails sent to this address March 10-21 will not be read. For anything urgent during that time, please contact X at Y. Otherwise, please resend your message after March 21.”

Related:
my colleague’s auto-reply says she might never answer your email

4. Using an inhaler during a job interview

For reasons I won’t go into, my employer is in the process of downsizing. I am currently a full-time, salaried employee, but within the next month I will either be changed to a part-time hourly employee or let go. I am actively looking for a new full-time role, and my employer is supportive of my job search.

My issue is that recent cold winter weather, work stress, and other stressors have caused my asthma to flare up. Currently, it is difficult for me to speak more than a few words before I start wheezing. My doctor’s advice has been to continue my daily medication and use my rescue inhaler as needed, which I have been doing. This is a flare-up, it will eventually pass.

Do you have any tips on how to navigate job interviews when I will likely start wheezing and need to use my inhaler in the middle of the interview? Is it appropriate to let the hiring manager know ahead of time via email that I’m okay, I’m healthy, I’m just having a temporary flare-up and they shouldn’t be alarmed if I have to use my inhaler during the interview? At the level I’m at in my career, interviews could easily last up to an hour.

You can absolutely let them know that. At the start of the interview, you could say, “I’m having a temporary asthma flare-up from the weather. It’s nothing to worry about, but I might need to use my inhaler at some point while we’re talking and I don’t want you to be alarmed if that happens.” People will generally take their cues from you on this kind of thing, so the more your vibe is “I have this under control,” the more likely they are to take it that way.

5. Should my resume have an objective at the top?

I am applying for an internal department director position at my organization. I’m doing a redesign of my resume since it’s been a while. Is it appropriate to put “Objective” at the top? I’m seeing this in a lot of templates, but it seems like overkill to me – I mean, the objective to get the position, is it not?

Objectives at the top of resumes were outdated 15 years ago, and it’s bizarre that they’re still showing up in resume templates. You do not need one, and should not use one. They’re unnecessary, take up valuable real estate that’s better spent on something more important, and will look dated.