I’ve noted in the past that Microsoft and IBM collaborated on a project known as OS/2. The Microsofties viewed the IBM engineers as mired in corporate policy, whereas the IBM engineers viewed their Microsoft counterparts as a bunch of undisciplined hackers.
At a team meeting in Redmond, Steve Ballmer (then head of the Platform division) recognized one of my colleagues in the back of the room¹ who had previously worked as an intern at IBM. He asked, “You used to work at IBM, right? What do they think of us?”
My colleague replied, “They hate us just as much as we hate them.”
¹ Steve Ballmer is well-known for his ability to remember the names and personal details of people he has met, even if only briefly.
In brief: Today is the first of several days, likely lasting through the Labor Day weekend, that the Houston area will be subject to the potential for widespread showers and thunderstorms. For most of our region these will be a nuisance, but for the immediate coast there is the potential for street flooding, which is why we’re initiating a Stage 1 flood alert for coastal counties.
Stage 1 flood alert
We are putting this flood alert, based upon our flood scale, in place due to the potential for heavy rains near the coast during the next several days. A Stage 1 alert simply highlights the potential for intermittent street flooding, particularly in low-lying areas, and possibly along some feeder roads. I anticipate keeping this alert active through Labor Day Weekend.
It applies to coastal counties across our region: Matagorda, Brazoria, Galveston, Chambers, Jefferson, and Orange. Essentially, that’s the entire upper Texas coast. The reason is that these areas will be closest to the source of moisture, and susceptible to the most frequent rainfall. Some of our latest modeling indicates the heaviest rains will be further east, in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area, but I feel the entire upper Texas coast is at risk. These coastal areas could see 5 to 10 inches of rain over the next week, with higher isolated totals.
Thursday and Friday
After rainfall of a more scattered nature for the last couple of days, showers and thunderstorms should become more widespread beginning today. As noted above, rain chances will greatest right along the coast, but all locations along and south of Interstate 10 will be prone to periods of medium- to heavy rainfall, with lesser chances further inland. Rains today and Friday will be driven by a combination of lots of moisture in the atmosphere along with an upper-level low pressure system that will help drive the formation of storms.
Based upon high-resolution modeling, which is not great but the best we have, I anticipate showers and thunderstorms to start developing over coastal areas around 8 to 10 am this morning and then persist, on and off, for much of the daytime. Activity may diminish somewhat this evening before redeveloping on Friday. With plenty of cloud cover, high temperatures today should remain in the upper 80s for most locations, although some inland areas with scattered sunshine may reach the lower 90s.
NOAA rain accumulation forecast for now through next Tuesday. (Weather Bell)
Labor Day Weekend
Widespread showers and thunderstorms, particularly for coastal areas, will likely persist from Saturday through Monday as the atmosphere remains ripe for showers. Houston, particularly inland areas, will not see wall-to-wall rain this weekend, but there definitely will be the potential for storms to pop up and mar outdoor activities. Intermittent showers and clouds should help keep highs to the upper 80s to about 90 degrees for most locations this weekend, so this will definitely be one of the cooler Labor Day Weekends we have had of late.
Next week
Rain chances will persist on Tuesday and Wednesday before slackening some toward the second half of next week. This probably will allow high temperatures to claw their way back into the lower 90s. I don’t want to jinx anything, but there is a non-zero chance of a weak cool front pushing through in the September 8 to 10 period. Right now I would give it about a 25 percent chance, based on the medium-range modeling. Even if it doesn’t happen, the mere fact that we’re looking at the possibility of fronts suggests that fall may not be all that far off.
As August comes to an end, the lull we’ve been enjoying for awhile now is likely to come to an end as well. There is increasing model support for the development of a tropical system in the Central Atlantic which will then move toward the Caribbean Sea. After that? There’s not agreement in the models, so pretty much anything could happen. But given that we’ll be in early September at that point, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on the tropics.
“This spring, the Dallas Museum of Art presents When You See Me: Visibility in Contemporary Art/History, a permanent collection exhibition that grapples with the complexities of visibility. Taking its title from Deborah Roberts’s work of the same name, the exhibition showcases numerous recent acquisitions by a diverse, intergenerational group of 50 artists, mostly artists of color, women and queer artists, whose work contends with visibility both socially and formally.
Featuring nearly 60 works in various media, When You See Me broadens and complicates official histories and their corresponding visual strategies to allow for richer representations of those who have been traditionally excluded or erased. Employing a wide range of formal and conceptual devices—from abstraction to figuration, fiction to documentary, and the shades of nuance in between—the featured artists explore invisibility, hypervisibility, the desire to be seen and the right to be private.”
Installation view of Theaster Gates, “Young Lords and Their Traces” at New Museum, 2022. Courtesy Theaster Gates Studio
“Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is excited to announce the upcoming exhibition, Theaster Gates: The Gift and The Renege, featuring a series of large-scale paintings, sculptures, and installations that reckon with histories of labor, material legacies, and the sociopolitical architecture of the built environment. Born out of a multi-layered engagement with historic bricks from Houston’s Freedman’s Town, The Gift and The Renege contends with patterns of promise and retraction related to the fight for land, particularly for racialized and subjugated communities. Houston’s Mother Ward, Freedmen’s Town in Fourth Ward is a community first built by newly freed Black people, who formed a vibrant community anchored by handmade and laid brick streets.”
“Carros y Cultura: Lowriding Legaciesin Texas will open at the Bullock Texas State History Museum on Saturday, May 11. The bilingual exhibition highlights the rich culture of Texas lowriding communities through artifacts, interactive experiences, and lowrider cars and bicycles from San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Laredo, Pecos and more.
Lowriding started with the Mexican American community in California after World War II as an expression of cultural identity. Drivers began customizing their cars with elaborate artistry and low-to-the-ground frames. The cars soon became tied to the Chicano civil rights movement and cities began passing laws restricting car height. Those laws led to innovative hydraulic systems, allowing cars to be raised and lowered, which became the defining feature of lowrider vehicles.”
Julian Onderdonk, “Dusty Road,” 1915, oil on canvas. Nancy and Ted Paup Early Texas Art Collection
“One of the first chroniclers of art in Texas was Abilenian France Battaile Fisk, who wrote in her 1928 publication, A History of Texas Artists and Sculptors, ‘…our painters of Texas landscape, with its ever changing moods and rapidly developing country are rendering a great service, as with canvas and brush they are faithfully picturing the characteristics of our Lone Star State…’
The mythos of Texas is tied directly to the land. An area of vast contrasts covering 268,596 square miles and elevation ranges from 1,000 feet above sea level at the low end near the meeting of the Pecos and Rio Grande Rivers to the highest point in Texas, Guadalupe Peak, reaching up to 8,749 feet. This exhibition is curated as a visual dialogue focusing on the longstanding tradition of art as an expression of the lore, lure and love of the vast and varied Texas landscape.”
Leeanna Chipana, “Woman in Blue Hat,” oil on board, 20 x 16 inches
5. Leeanna Chipana
Contemporary at Blue Star (San Antonio)
July 5 – October 6, 2024
From the Contemporary at Blue Star:
“Leeanna Chipana’s paintings draw from her Quechuan and American identity, local Indigenous-Latinx communities, and media portrayals of Central and South American immigrants. Leeanna creates figurative oil paintings of emboldened and timeless indigenous peoples in both dreamed and potentially real environments. Employing Incan, Aztec, and Mayan iconography with classical European oil painting techniques and approaches, Leeanna’s work challenges the conventions of traditional figure and landscape painting. Subtly blurring the lines between classical and modern forms of representation, her work examines societal assumptions and views of the Indigenous-Latinx body.”
At OldJob where I was an intern, there was a couple (Bob and Barbara) who were having an affair. They were in the same department but on different development teams and they didn’t think anyone knew, but in the gossip-heavy workplace, it took all of two seconds for the affair to be discovered. The couple’s preferred way of being discreet was to pretend they didn’t know each other. Whenever someone would mention Bob to Barbara, she’d say something like “Oh does he work on (wrong floor)? I don’t think we’re acquainted.” And then Bob would say “Barbara? Is she the (wrong title) in (wrong department)?”
Naturally, this led to everyone finding ways to mention Bob and Barbara as much as possible just to see what new way they’d pretend not to know the other. Then someone created a scavenger hunt list. Every week, a group of employees would compete with each other to get Bob or Barbara to pretend not to know the other in as many different parts of the building as possible. Elevators and bathrooms garnered the most points.
The game came to an end during the state association conference when the two of them wound up on the same certification panel and were forced to “introduce” themselves to a huge room full of their colleagues. Scuttlebutt was the department head got sick of the scavenger hunt shenanigans and assigned them both to the panel as a way to shut it down.
2. The cheating rumor
When I started dating my husband, I referred him by his proper name (let’s say John). But he had a nickname in the family, let’s say JJ, and he always went by JJ when we were with family and friends. So a couple times at work, I used JJ instead of John. One of my gossipy coworkers went to another and said, “Oh my gosh, John seemed like such a good fit for her. I can’t believe she went behind his back with this guy JJ!” Supposedly they decided not to “embarrass” me by asking about it, so for a few weeks, my office thought I was cheating on my boyfriend with … my boyfriend.
3. The head of HR
I’m a cheater whisperer, people feel the need to confess to me when they’re cheating, thinking about cheating or being cheated on all the time. I don’t know why either.
The weirdest confession at work came from the head of HR (!!), at the Christmas party, in the bathroom.
Jane, head of HR, hired Fergus, a sales manager. Who was engaged at the time, which everyone knew as it was part of his introduction to the company.
About three months after Jane hired Fergus comes the Christmas party, traditionally with an open bar. I’m drunk and in the bathroom, washing my hands. Jane comes in, presumably even drunker than I am, bursts into tears and sort of falls into my arms and confesses her affair with Fergus to me. There are tears. There is sobbing. I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t remember the whole episode that clearly (again: drunk as hell) but I remember awkwardly patting Jane’s back with my wet hands since I hadn’t gotten around to drying them yet; a couple of renditions of me going “he’s never going to break off the engagement” and her going “I know but I think I love him”; a colleague walking into the bathroom, seeing Jane and me and just turning around and walking back out again; and the same colleague later coming back to rescue me. I don’t know how long Jane and I were in the bathroom, but it felt like forever. It was at least long enough for my colleague to grow a conscience and return to help.
The whole thing was so surreal that the next morning I genuinely wasn’t sure if it was real or an alcohol induced hallucination, except the colleague who came to my rescue asked me the next day WTF that had been all about (I DON’T KNOW) and Jane didn’t look me in the eye for weeks (no great loss, she was shitty HR anyway).
4. The Love Shack
At my mom’s workplace years ago, they were all social workers for the state and had cleaning crew provided by the county. They were performing the cleaning as part of community service requirement. For the most part, this was fine. The workers treated the cleaning crew well and respected them. The work was mainly vacuuming halls, dumping trash, and groundskeeping.
One social worker who was married and had children struck up a “friendship” with one of the crew who was her age. My mom and her coworkers did think it was odd she was pouring so much attention on this guy. And she turned around saying she was helping him through her church. I mean, the guy met her husband and had been to her house during a party that other coworkers were at. Turns out they were having liaisons in the storage shed out the back during working hours. They got caught in the act one day by a worker going to get some equipment.
And the worker that caught them was legendary. They didn’t notice her. She walked back into the building, got on the phone intercom and called the office head to come out back to the “Love Shack.” The office head starts asking her what she means and she tells them as she walks them back to the shed where they both catch them. That worker got fired on the spot and to our knowledge, never told her husband why. My mother and her coworkers consistently called the storage shed the Love Shack after that point.
5. The hookup capital
I worked at this place that was known as “hookup capital.” Cheating is rampant — people would come married into this workplace and leave married to someone else — it’s nuts. There was this one guy who sat next to his girlfriend, and they worked on the same department. They were classic high school sweethearts who had been dating for years, until they got married while working there. Turns out, the girl was cheating on the guy for years with someone else who sat next to them in the same department. They divorced, while sitting next to each other, and the girl married the new guy. Later on, the girl left to a different place for a couple years, and then divorced the new guy. Then she came back TO THE SAME DEPARTMENT and sat next to her ex-husband and proceeded to date someone else while cheating on them with the original guy. I think they even got remarried or they were dating by the time I left — it was unclear.
That workplace is a mess. I miss the drama, it kept me entertained.
6. The revenge
Male manager (Bobby), divorced, has girlfriend (Cindy) who everyone knows because she runs a hotel/conference center and gives company great cost breaks. Bobby begins acting suspiciously with Jan, his employee, who is married. Bobby and Jan deny anything is going on. Jan gets divorced. Bobby claims he has broken up with Cindy so please don’t ask her for discounts. Bobby gets involved with Marcia, but it’s not romantic – she just needs his help so he goes over and makes her coffee every morning, but he definitely doesn’t sleep there!
Jan begins to smell a rat. She contacts Marcia, who says what do you mean? Bobby and I are engaged! Jan reveals she and Bobby and engaged! Jan calls Cindy and – you guessed it – she and Bobby are engaged!
The stage is set. Marcia and Bobby go out for dinner. They are seated at a table for four. After drinks are ordered, Jan and Cindy appear (IN THEIR WEDDING DRESSES!) and sit down.
Bobby married Carol six months later.
7. The obliviousness
I am oblivious to this type of thing and am always the last to know about any interoffice romances, cheating or not.
I once walked into my boss’s office to ask a question and a coworker was in there too. Asked my question, got the answer, and went back to my desk to continue working. I DID NOT SEE ANYTHING or SUSPECT ANYTHING untoward going on. Must have had my head down looking at paperwork or was just not paying attention.
Next day, both parties came to me separately so embarrassed asking me not to say anything/gossip about what I saw the prior day. I truly had no clue what they were talking about. I can only assume I did see something but my brain would not compute and just lost the memory completely.
8. The mess
I have a good one because of the absolute audacity! This background is necessary for how this happened and caused no one to get in trouble. The first place I worked after college was very “high school” in terms of gossip and everyone making horrible relationship choices since 95% of the people hired in that department were hired straight out of college and most higher ups had come up through the ranks with almost no outside hires. The job involved a lot of lab work where people were scheduled to work with the same people throughout the whole day. The tasks were pretty mindless, so gossip was the easiest way to pass the time.
There was a girl (Sherri) on one of the teams. She was secretly dating Casey, Zane, and Jess. She’d told each of them that she wanted to keep it a secret because she didn’t want their relationship to become workplace gossip. She also told each of them that she HATED the other two guys due to them treating her poorly. Thus, all three guys would only talk to her one-on-one at work and tried their best to avoid each other.
This worked really well until she went on vacation with her family. One of the schedulers who had an idea of what was going on chose violence that week and scheduled all three guys in the same task every single day that week. The first day all three worked in silence. The second day Casey started talking about how he was sad because his girlfriend was on vacation that week. Zane and Jess thought that was a coincidence because their girlfriends were also on vacation. One of the three of them said something about it being hard to have a secret girlfriend at work. Then the floodgates opened and they all realized they were all dating Sherri and she was cheating on all three of them. Picture the Spiderman meme where they’re all pointing at each other if you want an accurate picture.
At the end of the week, Casey and Jess were assigned to lead a project together for the next three rooms, even though they hated each other so much that they couldn’t speak to each other and none of the three were allowed to be scheduled with each other because it would devolve to screaming.
Sherri came back to a nightmare. Casey, who had been dating Sherri the longest, ended things with her because he also blamed her for the issues. Jess would talk crap about Sherri to anyone who would listen. Zane thought Sherri was out of his league and that he couldn’t do any better, so he continued to date her and they made the relationship public. However, Sherri continued to cheat on Zane with Jess.
Jess would talk about it with other coworkers while riding the bus home, so everyone, including Zane, knew about it. It was the talk of the department for months.
9. The car dealership
During my time at a car/recreational vehicle dealership, Phil was our top salesman, for reasons no one could define. His jokes weren’t funny, his belt buckle was the size of his head, he wore his shirt unbuttoned nearly to the waist, he referred to himself in the third person – he probably even hated puppies, not sure. Phil never met an elderly customer he couldn’t or wouldn’t screw over.
Phil was married – as cads often are – to a wonderful woman we all loved, who was unaware of his penchant for picking up strippers, bringing them back to the dealership, and “christening” the new RVs. None of us could stand him but since he had the highest sales, he was untouchable.
One morning, a few salesmen were standing around, snickering about the night before. They had all gone to a strip club, where Phil met a stripper – “Berry” – whom he brought back to the dealership for the RV portion of his evening. Typically, he would just shoo them out when they were done, and go home to his wife, but Berry was impressed with his new “digs” and resisted leaving. Phil told the salesmen that she delayed him getting home so much, his wife was suspicious.
I asked the salesmen if they wanted to assist ruining Phil’s morning; they couldn’t agree fast enough.
Our dealership was huge, covered three buildings and four large parking lots. This pre-dated cell phones/pagers, so to get a hold of someone, you had to use the PA system. Both the buildings’ and the lots’ speakers were insanely loud; the people buried in the cemetery down the road probably never got a moment’s piece during business hours.
I knew Phil was in the RV lot, tidying up from the night before. Over the PA, I announced, “Phil, please call Reception.” When he did, I said a friend of his was waiting in the lobby, she said her name was Berry. I am fairly certain he dropped the phone. He told me to say he wasn’t available, and ordered me to get rid of her. I hung up. Minutes later, I paged Phil again; when he called, I reported Berry was interested in buying a car, and would not work with any other salesman, given that Phil had promised her a big discount. Phil was irate (cheating on his wife with strippers was one thing, giving a customer a discount was intolerable) and again, told me to get rid of her.
I hung up and paged him again after another imaginary conversation with Berry. This went on for a ridiculous amount of time; Phil giving me increasingly panicky demands to get her to leave, “Berry” becoming more insistent on getting that discount she was promised. I was just about to let Phil off the hook when the owner of the dealership arrived, perfect timing! I to page Phil twice to get him to come to the main building.
When he finally stormed over, he noticed the owner’s car and really panicked. He said, “Where’s Berry?” and one of the salesmen said she was waiting in the customer lounge. When Phil couldn’t find her, another salesman said he saw her walk out to the new car lot. Still no Berry. Yet another salesman said, “That chick wearing the blue dress? I saw her walking over to the RVs.” Phil sprinted out the door just seconds before we all broke down laughing. We kept that up for an hour, making Phil jog all over, looking for Berry. Cruel, but highly entertaining. Finally, Phil had sweated through his clothes, and we had gotten bored. The salesmen told Phil they tracked her down and asked her to wait in the conference room. Phil burst through that door, only to find our way-past-retirement (and in on the joke) comptroller sorting files. She looked up at him and said, “Hello, big boy!” and winked.
Phil didn’t talk to anyone for over a week. It was glorious.
10. The calculations
My spouse works as an independent contractor for a larger company, where each person/team is paid for jobs completed and difficulty, not hourly. Those able to complete the greatest number of jobs and/or who have expertise in the most challenging specialties make the most money.
There was a woman who worked in sales who realized she could calculate which of the subcontractors were making the most with the data she had … and then she proceeded to date ALL of the top earners (this is a very physically demanding, male-dominated industry). At once. The company is spread out across the country, and most subcontractors travel frequently, so it was actually pretty easy to keep them secret from each other for several years.
However … when it got out, the whole company kind of exploded. She’d been in “exclusive” relationships with at least 12 men, some of them with wives and children, and almost all of whom she’d convinced to spend extravagant amounts of money on her in gifts and vacations. There were several divorces and at least one physical altercation. One employee literally disappeared into the desert for several weeks and then just … went back to work and nobody said anything about it. The saleswoman was let go, but almost all of the men stayed with the company, so … now all the top performers just hate each other’s guts. No one with any of the key specialties can teach the whole system, and they absolutely refuse to work together on anything ever, including teaching the same person in sequence, so the company is now slowly crumbling because one woman was the world’s most manipulative player.
11. The all-staff email
I used to work at a small agency owned by two partners. One afternoon, a coworker looked over at me across the open-plan working space and whispered “Have you checked your email?” When I did I found an email from the wife of one of the partners addressed to the entire company with the subject line “Big News!” and the text:
Hey Everybody!
[Partner] and [Designer] are sleeping together! She can have him!
I sat there for the next fifteen minutes or so as you could watch people go from quietly working to gazing around with the same shell-shocked expression that I and my coworker had. Eventually the designer in question read the email and left in understandable embarrassment. I left shortly thereafter, texting my wife with the location of a bar near her office and informing her that I would be waiting there with a stiff drink until she could get off work.
Relatedly, if you want to read a very long email sent company-wide by the wife of an employee who was cheating on her with a coworker, you may do so here.
NANAIMO, BC – Local woman Michelle Jennings has been labelled as some form of all-seeing sorceress after perfectly timing her edible to the end of her workday. Jennings, who largely works from home as an executive assistant to some guy whose job she doesn’t entirely understand, reportedly began mastering the arcane art of edible timing […]
KHOU 11 Houston is going through some ch-ch-ch-ch-changes as David Bowie once sang, or at least the TEGNA station seems to be experimenting in the way the famous singer used to do from album to album.First, have you noticed former morning anchor Ron Treviño (current 4 p.m. anchor) back on the AM newscast ever since Kimberly Davis left?Also, a Channel 11 viewer told me the sports segment
Carol Samuel, 76, was born, raised, and educated in Third Ward, a sprawling and storied community of color in Houston. She now lives on the third floor of the Law Harrington Senior Living Center, where she and roughly half of the residents have disabilities or severe health problems. Even before Hurricane Beryl hit the city on July 8, spawning a blackout, the elevators were broken.
“When the hurricane came through, many people in this building, along with myself, were more or less restrained to their suite or to their apartment,” Samuel told the Texas Observer in an interview.
There was no security because the management said they could not afford it, according to Samuel. For three days, no one came to offer help. The senior center had only enough backup generators to power hallway lights, but when the electricity failed, air-conditioning and even the water went along with it. Although some residents had saved up water in pots, there wasn’t nearly enough. Residents could not access the internet or make calls. They had no information about cooling centers.
For Samuel, using the stairs to escape would have been nearly impossible. After graduating from Texas Southern University, she taught grade school and later college classes, standing on her feet for hours. These days, she’s able to stand for only ten minutes. “After that, my feet start getting numb or my joints start getting stiff,” she told the Observer. Samuel has neuropathy, a disease commonly caused by diabetes that deteriorates the nerves in the feet. Luckily, after three days, the electricity returned.
But a shocking lack of support provided for Samuel and others in Houston neighborhoods, including many left to fend for themselves for as long as 10 days in hot homes without water, air conditioning, or lights in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, reflects a larger breakdown in communication and coordination between the state, CenterPoint Energy, Harris County, the City of Houston, and communities across the region, according to interviews and an Observer examination of city records and county emergency management plans. Though Beryl was only a Class I Hurricane, 38 people died in Greater Houston in the aftermath—12 in Harris and Galveston counties alone perished from heat-related issues, medical examiners’ records show.
Cars pass a fallen power line in Houston on July 9. (Reginald Mathalone/NurPhoto via AP)
Even as state, city, and county leaders blame CenterPoint for the disastrous power outage that befell 2.26 million CenterPoint customers after Beryl hit, Third Ward residents and community leaders say city and county leaders also failed to coordinate and communicate about emergency responses, leaving fragile and elderly people exposed to intense heatand without information or access to cooling centers as the blackout continued.
According to city records, Third Ward, a low-income community of roughly 16,000 residents, 60 percent of whom are Black and 38 percent of whom fall under the federal poverty line, didn’t have a cooling center until five days after Beryl hit. That one, at Emancipation Park, was open only four hours a day, and community leaders told the Observer they were not informed about its hours until more than a week after the hurricane. City Council member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz organized water distribution outside Third Ward Multi-Service Center right after the storm hit, but that facility lacked electricity and did not open as a cooling center until nine days after the storm. Smith Neighborhood Library finally opened 10 days after Beryl hit.
Those three Third Ward city-operated facilities, which are usually designated as disaster resource centers, share the same power line that consistently fails in severe weather. Prior to the storm, CenterPoint had spent $800 million on 20 backup generators, which could have been placed in community multi-service centers across Houston. None were used.
For Third Ward residents, the nearest cooling center initially was five miles away at the Sunnyside Multi-Service Center. But 30 percent of community residents do not own vehicles, and there is no direct METRO bus route from Third Ward to Sunnyside. Residents, who were instructed by the City to call 311 for transportation, said phone lines were tied up.
Records obtained by the Observer reveal that other predominantly low-income communities of color in Harris County, including Galena Park, also were never provided with any cooling centers.
It was hard for Houston and Harris County residents stranded in homes without electricity to find lists of cooling centers, even for those who had rides or cars and somehow managed to log onto the internet. Houston and Harris County’s plans for emergency response to natural disasters are not on their websites. The Houston Office of Emergency Management refused to disclose its plans to the Observer for responding to hurricanes and extreme heat during power outages, citing confidentiality for “the purpose of preventing, detecting, responding to, or investigating an act of terrorism or related criminal activity.”
Brent Taylor, chief communication officer for the Houston Office of Emergency Management, told the Observer that immediately after Hurricane Beryl hit, only the Southwest Multi-Service Center,—which serves the Gulfton and Sharpstown areas—and Lakewood Church—a megachurch along Highway 59 in the affluent Greenway-Upper Kirby area—were available as official cooling centers. More were added in the following days. “This is reflected in the number of available resources growing as the damage assessments were conducted and power began coming back on,” Taylor said.
The Excessive Heat Plan developed by the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, which largely serves heavily populated but unincorporated areas, describes how local governments are supposed to collaborate with community organizations to prepare and respond to emergencies. The plan calls for working with “volunteer and service organizations, food banks, faith-based groups, immigrant groups” to identify vulnerable populations and make sure they have access to cooling centers, transportation, communication, and in-home visits if needed.
Spokespeople for the city and county emergency management offices told the Observer that government leaders work with larger umbrella organizations, such as United Way, Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, and the YMCA of Greater Houston to coordinate with community-based non-profit organizations.
But Third Ward community leaders, including those at the resident council of the Houston Housing Authority’s largest public housing complex Cuney Homes, the tenants council at the Law Harrington Senior Living Center, and SHAPE Community Center told the Observer that no one reached out to them.
“We were asking, ‘Does anyone care about us?’” Law Harrington Senior Living Center’s tenant council president Debbie Deacon told the Observer.
Ed Pettitt moved to Third Ward in 2011, and, ever since, the environmental justice researcher has been volunteering in the community, including for the Emancipation Economic Development Council and as a founder of the Columbia Tap Trail to improve neighborhood nature trails. In 2017, Pettitt became a committee chair for former Houston mayor Sylvester Turner’s Complete Communities Initiative in Third Ward and later the vice president of the Greater Third Ward Super Neighborhood #67.
Houston oversees its 88 super neighborhoods—a community planning area designated by the city —through the Mayor’s Assistance Office of the Department of Neighborhoods. But even Pettitt, a super neighborhood leader, wasn’t informed when a cooling center finally did open in Third Ward’s Emancipation Park—even though he lives two blocks away. He said he didn’t know about the center until four days after the storm arrived: “By that point, people had already found a way to survive. So I don’t think that was too helpful.”
Pettitt says that while Third Ward City Council member Evans-Shabazz is quick to relay information she knows, “The City doesn’t engage the super neighborhoods, and especially in disasters, as much as it should.”
Hurricane Beryl had again left the city-operated sites in Third Ward—Emancipation Park, Third Ward Multi-Service Center, and Smith Neighborhood Library —powerless. Since Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Pettitt had been complaining to the City that those sites needed backup or solar generators, as well as disaster response supplies. Nothing happened. “Those three entities are on the same power lines. So whether it was Winter Storm Uri, Hurricane Harvey, or Hurricane Beryl, if the power goes out or we overwhelm the grid, those entities will be out of power as well,” Pettitt said. “It should be the first priority of this administration to equip every city-run multi-service center with backup power generation.”
Although Harris County’s Excessive Heat Plan, updated on March 2024, also guides it to coordinate with the local electric utility to identify and develop procedures for the operation of “… cooling centers that could be exempt from blackouts,” Brian Murray, deputy coordinator of Harris County’s emergency management office, told the Observer that it is CenterPoint who maintains the database of critical facilities prioritized.
Taylor, the city emergency management spokesperson said, “CenterPoint has a seat in our Emergency Operations Center for every incident involving significant power loss. As response operations began, we worked with them to both understand their restoration cadence and provide them with information on critical situations where they could escalate operations, if possible.”
In an email, a CenterPoint spokesperson told the Observer, “When restoring power, we prioritize facilities vital to safety, health, and welfare, such as hospitals, water treatment plants and public service facilities.” CenterPoint declined to clarify whether “public service facilities” included cooling centers.
CenterPoint’s delay in restoring power to residents, along with the city and county’s delay in providing critical services and resources proved deadly. Hurricane Beryl’s death toll in the greater Houston area is at least 36 people.
Of 20 Beryl-related deaths reported by the Harris County medical examiner, 12 were of people over 60, and eight were due to hyperthermia. Although the Galveston County Medical Examiner’s Office told the Observer they did not take body temperatures of those who had died in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, reports from the Galveston County medical examiner’s office show four of the five deaths that had occurred there in the week after the storm were also heat-related.
Oscar Rodriguez, 87, died of hyperthermia midday in the few hours between his family’s morning and evening visits on July 10, two days after the storm hit. The temperature in Houston reached 93 degrees Fahrenheit that day. His home in Near Northside was more than four miles away from the city’s closest cooling center.
Janet Jarrett, 60, told reporters that she did what she could for her older sister, Pamela Jarret, who relied on a wheelchair and a feeding tube. On their fourth day without power, Janet woke up to Pamela gasping for air. The sisters lived in Spring, 14 miles away from the nearest Harris County cooling center.
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An interactive map shows Harris County cooling centers and heat-related deaths post-Beryl. (Josephine Lee)
Murray, deputy director of Harris County’s emergency management office, told the Observer that the central emergency management office does not oversee the cooling centers; instead, individual county commissioners identify and set up cooling centers in their precincts. The county’s plan guides the emergency management agency to work with local groups to make sure information is quickly disseminated to residents and that transportation is provided to those who need it.
Spokespeople for both the city and county said that information was disseminated through the media, nongovernmental organizations, and through an emergency alert system. But in order to get alerts, residents must sign up to receive voice calls, text messages, and emails from the city or county. Roughly 220,000 people are signed up with AlertHouston and 60,300 are signed up with ReadyHarris Alerts—a tiny fraction of Harris County’s 4.7 million residents.
“Communication during disasters is always challenging. During the May derecho and Hurricane Beryl, we used every possible channel to let residents know how to find resources such as cooling centers, food, water, and ice.” Murray said. “We will continue to look at how to better connect with our communities, especially when lack of power complicates our ability to be heard.”
Delores Ford, who is president of the Cuney Homes Resident Council, said the power was restored to her complex’s 553 units two or three days after the storm hit, but representatives from the Houston Housing Authority didn’t arrive until the following week. About half of the roughly 1,200 residents there are seniors and 20 percent have disabilities, she said.
Ford said that although she was checking the internet for information to provide other residents, she wasn’t sure when the city’s cooling centers opened or if residents could access transportation services. “In the end, we were able to take care of ourselves,” Ford said. The council called as many residents in the building as they could, and if she found that “There’s something that somebody needs, and we don’t have it in the building, I’ll go out and it will come out of my own pocket.”
Harris County policy calls for the government to work with local groups to determine the location of vulnerable populations, meet their needs, and “develop a plan for coordinating in-home visits.” Those with disabilities, who are medically fragile, or who have limited mobility are encouraged to call 211 to opt into the State of Texas Emergency Assistance Registry (STEAR). But the registry includes this disclaimer: “Registering for STEAR doesn’t guarantee you assistance in an emergency.”
It is up to local agencies to follow up with area residents who are registered on the STEAR database, Texas Division of Emergency Management’s Media and Communications Section Chief Wes Rapaport told the Observer.
Taylor said a team made up of Houston firefighters completed more than 1,500 in-person wellness checks and made contact with 756 registrants on the city’s list in the aftermath of the storm. There are 3,852 Houston residents signed up with STEAR. . “We perform multiple levels of wellness checks, including automated calls, person-to-person calls, and in-person wellness checks.”
Murray said the county emergency office sends a mass notification, including a needs survey, to residents on their STEAR rolls. If residents need assistance, they work with the fire departments to conduct personal phone calls or visits.
Deacon, the Law Harrington Senior Living Center tenant council president, said that while first responders did make in-home visits at her facility, it wasn’t until five to 10 days later, after power was restored, when STEAR registrants finally were contacted.
A product of the civil rights movement, the SHAPE Community Center has seen Houston’s historic Black Third Ward community in south central Houston through many ups and downs. In the past 55 years, its staff and volunteer members have fought desegregation and police brutality, fed and educated Third Ward’s children through afterschool and summer programs, served the community’s homeless population with food, clothing, and social services, organized elders, and aided residents in natural disasters.
During Hurricane Harvey, Winter Storm Uri, and the May 2024 derecho, even when cooling centers or shelters were not up and running in Third Ward, SHAPE managed to keep its lights on to let people sleep, eat, and apply for other resources.
The SHAPE Community Center in Third Ward (Josephine Lee)
But in the aftermath of Beryl, its usually buzzing building on Live Oak Street sat in the dark for 10 days. During that time, its staff scrambled to meet its youngest and oldest members’ needs, calling, visiting, delivering food and water to seniors, and spending $4,000 to charter a bus to bring kids to the Houston Children’s Museum, which they used as a temporary location to keep their programs running. At 76, SHAPE’s founder and director Deloyd Parker slept and made phone calls from his car, since the power was out in his home too.
When CenterPoint arrived, Parker told the Observer that it took only 15 minutes for them to restore power. “They didn’t even have to use a ladder. I watched them get a long pole and push something that had come down loose. And I heard our alarm go off in the center. I said, ‘We got power.’”
Known in Third Ward as the “United Nations of the Hood,” Parker says community members can “come to SHAPE for almost anything they need” and that they’ve learned not to rely on the government. SHAPE stands for Self Help for African People. But the long delay in restoring power to this longtime community organization after yet another natural disaster raises larger questions about why residents in Houston’s communities of color, like Third Ward, seemingly always have to fend for themselves.
While probes continue into the heat-related deaths and into why CenterPoint didn’t deploy its backup generators, private citizens like Parker are acting to try to address the public safety hazards posed by blackouts, which are becoming more common—both during hurricane season and beyond. Parker told the Observer that SHAPE is planning to shell out $30,000 to pay for its own generator.
Pettitt, the environmental justice researcher, recently volunteered his time to help Cuney Homes apply for a federal grant to get generators for the city’s largest public housing complex. (On July 18, Megan Thee Stallion announced she’s donating her own money to provide backup generators for senior homes in Houston.)
“I give the city an ‘F’ for failure,” Parker said, “failure to respond.”
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 employee keeps sighing heavily
I have a new person working for me who is doing a good job with the work but is constantly sighing and it’s annoying me to no end. I’m not sure how to approach it because I don’t want to make them feel bad, but I find the sighing to be distracting and unnecessary. Full disclosure, it might be a trigger for me because my emotionally abusive parent used to walk around the house sighing. What would be the best way to approach this?
Start with, “Is everything okay? I’ve noticed you sighing a lot and wasn’t sure if you were frustrated or how to read that.”
Who knows, there might be something going on that you should hear about, so it’s a useful question to start with. But if the sighing doesn’t reflect frustration or something similar, it’s a way to flag that they’re doing it, it’s audible, and it’s potentially sending distress signals they don’t intend.
If that doesn’t solve it, then it’s trickier. In theory if it continues, you could say, “I’m sorry to ask, but any way to rein in the sighing? It can be pretty distracting.” But that feels a little too close to “breathe differently” for my comfort. On the other hand, if I were annoying someone in this way without realizing it, I’d want them to tell me. But if you do mention it that way, you really only get that one shot at it. If it continues afterwards: headphones when you’re particularly aggravated.
2. Coworker said I was rude for not talking about my age or religion
I worked in a large delivery warehouse and was assigned to work one side of a large conveyor belt to sort packages. A coworker of my same level who I hadn’t met before (older woman, probably in her 50s) was assigned to work across from me. She introduced herself to me and we started an initially positive conversation about how our days had been going.
Eventually she asked how old I was (the conversation was not about age and I had not asked how old she was). I said I was over 21 (a requirement for the job). She asked exactly how old I was, and I said I’d rather not say. She then asked if I was Christian (also a topic never mentioned in the conversation) and I again said I’d rather not say. She asked why I wouldn’t answer this question, and I said I didn’t feel comfortable discussing religion in the workplace.
My responses offended her and she said I was being disrespectful to her. I said I didn’t understand how I was disrespecting her, and she responded that I was being rude to my elders since I wouldn’t answer what she saw as simple questions. I just said okay and didn’t speak to her anymore, but she continued to rant about me and youth for some minutes and had an attitude whenever she had to interact with me physically for the sorting.
I know her response was not reasonable, but could my actions reasonably be interpreted as rude? I wonder if she interpreted “I don’t feel comfortable discussing religion in the workplace” as me criticizing her for bringing it up, which was not my intent. Also, is there a less inflammatory way to word the above and decline to share information that I consider private and irrelevant to my job duties?
No, you weren’t rude! She was rude. It’s one thing to ask how old someone is — it’s not the most polite, but fine, people do it — but she needed to drop it once you declined to answer. Her pushiness about religion is even more inappropriate. And for her to then claim that you were being disrespectful for not answering her invasive questions is absurd, as is framing this as some sort of “respect to your elders,” a concept that has no relevance at work (not that she would be entitled to answers outside of work either).
For someone so ill-mannered herself, it’s pretty ironic that she has such wrong-headed ideas about what politeness entails.
As for other ways you could have responded to her questions, I like asking, “Why do you ask?” Depending on her answer to that, you could have then responded, “Oh, I don’t talk about religion (or age) at work.” But this woman wasn’t going to be reasonable or polite no matter how you said it so please don’t second-guess yourself.
3. How do I convince my coworkers I don’t want to make a career out of my hobby?
I was recently honored to be invited to show off the fruits of thousands of hours of part-time hobby work on a creative project — think a “jam band” getting minor critical attention thanks to an appearance at a local festival — and both my immediate and larger team at work know about it. I keep getting questions about why I even work there when I can do that sort of creative work, none of them realizing that “doing it” and “making a living from it” are two different things.
My director has been around the block long enough to know that there’s a big difference between having a fun hobby and a low-pressure 9-5 with good benefits and a pension vs trying to make a go of being a touring musician in my 40s, but the folks I work with all seem to think I’m on the verge of quitting. How can I make it clear that this is like my surgeon uncle selling his hand-made peppermills on Etsy? I’ve been laughing it off for weeks, but I really wish at this point that none of them had figured it out.
I don’t want anyone — particularly anyone higher up — to imagine that this side hobby is my “real thing,” no matter if I make some money at it or not. I’m concerned that it could now harm my chances of promotion into a slightly higher-paying low-pressure 9-5 because “everyone knows” I want to leave.
How are you responding when people make those comments? Ideally you’d respond with something like, “Ugh, no! There’s no faster way to kill the joy of a hobby than by trying to make money from it.” Alternately: “Most people don’t make serious money from this. It’s a hobby.” Or: “I’m very happy with having my job and a hobby on the side.”
If you’re really worried, you could share your concerns with your boss, stressing that you’re in your current career for the long haul, but I think you’re likely fine.
It’s so interesting how many people have lived for decades in this world but still believe it’s really easy to turn creative projects into full-time income. They’re the same people who encourage the office cupcake baker to open their own bakery, I suppose.
4. Letting an abuser resign instead of being fired
When I was at a previous organization, a coworker came to me about a sexual harassment issue they were having with their supervisor. I helped encourage them to go to HR, and ultimately, along with previous complaints, they decided to terminate. But instead of firing him, they gave him the option to resign. He went on to work at another public educational institution (not a school).
Why did they give him the option to resign? I understand they can’t speak disparagingly about him without proof, but it feels pretty awful that he was able to save face (I hated to see him lying about “his decision” to leave after the harm he caused, as did my coworker!) and was also able to get a new job where he could be in a similar leadership position to cause harm again.
Yes, this is what allows harassers and other abusers to move from company to company without any real consequences to their careers, while foisting the problem off on one unsuspecting organization after another.
As for why it happens … sometimes organizations find it “cleaner” to handle it this way, which really just means easier for them. The risk of scandal or controversy is higher with a firing, and sometimes they worry about legal pushback from the person being fired. In general, quiet resignations tend to be easier and safer moves for risk-averse employers. When the issue is something performance-based (like someone who simply couldn’t do the job) and the person offers to resign instead of being fired, it often does make sense to accept that, and sometimes employers apply that principle across the board even when they shouldn’t.
Beyond that, it often stems from misplaced sympathy — “he’s a good guy who made a mistake” / “we shouldn’t destroy his career over this” / “he deserves a chance to start over somewhere else” / etc. … with comparatively little concern for the lives and careers he might derail at the next place.
A couple of years ago, I started a new job. My department was responsible for managing multiple offices, including opening new offices in other cities. As we were working on a new office opening, I started getting escalating emails from the owner (a notoriously aggressive attorney) saying that the firm would not be financially responsible for any mistakes that were made. I received similar messages regarding desks that were scratched, chairs that were broken, etc.
I interpreted this as saying I might be personally pursued financially if a mistake or accident caused the company to lose money or physical assets. I had heard of a past employee in my position who had to write a check for an expensive coffee machine after accidentally ordering one extra that was not able to be returned. (They were also subsequently fired.) This was a major reason I very quickly left the company.
Some amount of asset loss is a normal part of doing business, no? How do companies typically handle a situation where an employee mistake costs them money? Is there ever a situation where an employee could reasonably be held financially liable?
If you’re exempt, your employer can’t dock your pay for mistakes (with the exception of serious safety violations). If you’re non-exempt, federal law does allow employers to dock your pay for mistakes, as long as the deduction doesn’t take you below minimum wage for that pay period. However, many states forbid it or heavily restrict it (for example, restricting it to things like reimbursing cash register shortages) so if you were non-exempt, you’d want to google the name of your state plus “dock pay for mistakes” (no quotes).
More importantly, your boss was a huge dick and you were right to get out as soon as possible. Part of employing humans is accepting that some mistakes are a normal part of doing business. (Scratched desks?!)
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have issued a ban on women’s voices in public under new orders approved by the Supreme Leader as part of fundamentalist efforts to combat vice and promote virtue, empowering the ministry to administer punishments like warnings or arrests if enforcers allege that Afghans have broken the law. What do you think?
“The Taliban is turning into a real sausage fest.”
Richard Tew, Podcast Technician
“I look forward to a better world where men’s and women’s voices are equally silenced.”
Scientists at the University of California at Davis are attempting to reengineer the microbes in cows’ stomachs to produce less methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas released by the animals that contributes about 4% of global warming. What do you think?
“Well, it’s easier than getting cows to reduce how often they fly.”
One of the central tenets of writing is that you should always “write what you know.” In the words of acclaimed author P. D. James: “All experience, whether it is painful or whether it is happy, is somehow stored up and sooner or later it’s used.” And I truly adhere to this philosophy. Our pasts are our fuel. Our memories are our ammunition. And our own unique life story is the thread from which we sew the tapestry of human creation.
That’s why, whenever I’m writing, I always make it a point of pride to draw from the rich wellspring of my lived experiences and write exclusively about the terrible relationships I have had with women who look like my mother.
Everyone has a story to tell. And my story is one where I keep dating emotionally distant brunettes who used to dance in college.
The onus on every great author is to create an immersive world that evokes both a sense of verisimilitude and authenticity. Whether it’s Hemingway, who used his actual experiences as an ambulance driver in Italy to write his seminal masterpiece A Farewell to Arms, or whether it’s me, writing about men who only date women who look like my mommy… if a story has a tangible sense of truth underpinning it, it is, by definition, guaranteed to be all the more compelling.
Take, for example, my unpublished science fiction novella, tentatively titled The Shrew-Woman of Planet Upsilon. In this 150-page space opera / dramedy, my story’s main character, space marine Drake Lancaster, enters into a tumultuous, four-month-long relationship with a seductive space alien named Rebecca (the story’s titular “Shrew-Woman”). As the story goes on to reveal, the Shrew-Woman in question is a 5′1″ brunette with whom Drake cannot connect on an emotional or physical level. Rebecca was also a dancer in college.
As the astute reader will hopefully notice, this story works well only because it successfully mimics the reality of the author’s unique human experience. Drake feels real because I am real. And so, in the story’s climax, when Drake tells Rebecca that she’s, quote, “a freaking psycho who doesn’t know how to make a man feel good,” that line only works because I said the same exact thing to my psycho ex-girlfriend Melissa, right after she accused me of sabotaging our relationship by constantly comparing her to my mother.
Would the emotional journey of Drake be as effective if I had not dated an unending string of mousy, flexible brunette women? Why don’t I answer that question with another one: Would F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby be just as poignant and affecting if the author had not personally lived through the wanton excesses of the 1920s?
I don’t think so.
Or take, for example, the plot of my dark comedic horror screenplay, The Mommies Who Ruined Their Babies. In an archly self-aware nod to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, this story is set in an abandoned, post-apocalyptic shopping mall where the screenplay’s main character, REI employee Johnny Granite, is besieged on all sides by an army of thousands upon thousands of mousy brunette women who all have experience dancing at the collegiate level. And the only way out is for Johnny to date each and every single one of these women, one after the other.
Answer me this, dear reader… would I have been able to create a scenario this horrifying and relatable without having first experienced it myself? Not very likely.
Along those lines, I have also written a collection of short stories, which includes the following thrilling tales of terror:
“Revenge of the Brunettes!”
“The Cockroach Lady Who Was Mean to Me”
“She Danced in College, She Danced on My Heart”
“The Brunettes Return!” (sequel to “Revenge of the Brunettes!”)
“Mom City”
Clearly, the overarching theme of “unhealthy mommy love” is pervasive throughout the bulk of my entire oeuvre—much like how John Steinbeck wrote predominantly about farmers during the Great Depression; or how Stephen King only writes books about authors with crippling cocaine addictions. This topic is, for me, the only subject that I alone can depict with the utmost authority.
In summation and in conclusion, as the reader of this essay should recognize, the adage “write what you know” is not merely a trenchant piece of advice for any aspiring wordsmith. But, more than that, it is an ethos that I have personally integrated into every element of my writing. From plot to characters and even to symbolism, my writing is thoroughly inundated with allusions and references to my self-destructive dating history. In short, I am defined by my crippling mommy issues. So that is what I must write about.
Well, that, and also about my crippling daddy issues. I’ve got a ton of those, too, unfortunately.
The Teiger Foundation, a private foundation that supports contemporary art curators, has awarded a total of $3,925,000 in grants to 50 curators across the U.S., including three curators with projects in Texas.
In a press release, Larissa Harris, Executive Director of Teiger Foundation, remarked, “Curators define the meaning and relevance of their visual art institutions in ways that are not always acknowledged, and their work is more complex and demanding than ever. We are proud to support established and emerging curators who are taking up the challenge with creative, humane, and nuanced projects and programs.”
The foundation’s grant program is intended for U.S.-based curators at organizations of all sizes. Funding supports research, exhibitions, and touring shows, as well as multi-year programming efforts. The grant amounts range from $50,000 to $150,000. Through its new Climate Action for Curators initiative, the foundation awards a subset of grantees with $500,000 in additional funding to support climate-conscious projects.
This year’s awardees include Alison Weaver at the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University, Jamaal Wright at the Galveston Artist Residency, and Rebecca Matalon at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Former Texan, María C. Gaztambide has also received funding for a project at the Museo de Arte Puerto Rico. Learn more about each of these projects below, via description excerpts from the Teiger Foundation website.
See the full list of awardees and learn more about the Teiger Foundation on its website.
documenta fifiteen: ikkibawiKrrr, “Building a fire, Changing clothes, Sharing small talk,” 2022, Installation Ansicht, Ottoneum, Kassel, 15. Photo: Nicolas Wefers
Breath(e): Towards Climate and Social Justice considers art practices that address the climate crisis and anthropogenic disasters, and their inescapable intersection with issues of equity and social justice. The exhibition is part of Getty’s initiative PST Art: Art & Science Collide, originally curated by Glenn Kaino and Mika Yoshitake at the Hammer Museum at UCLA. By bringing Breath(e) to Houston, the Moody Center for the Arts extends the conversation about climate change and environmental justice from California to Texas, the center of the United States energy industry.
Conduits unites artists from Houston’s historically Black Third Ward community, the home of a place-particular tradition of Black contemporary art. Despite its rich contributions, the Third Ward is often overlooked in broader discussions about Southern contributions to Black art in America. Jamaal Wright’s research traces this tradition to Dr. John T. Biggers’ founding of Texas Southern University’s Department of Art in 1949.
Mary Ellen Carroll, “indestructible language,” 2006–ongoing, installation view at Schoolhouse, Glasgow, October 30, 2021– ongoing. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Dougie Lindsay
Mary Ellen Carroll: How to Talk Dirty and Influence People is the first exhibition to survey the work of New York-based artist Mary Ellen Carroll. Working in close collaboration, Rebecca Matalon and Carroll will engage in a conceptually driven form of exhibition-making that both honors and mirrors Carroll’s recursive, materially diverse, and ecologically attuned practice and follows Ms. Matalon’s interest in the exhibition as a site for experimentation and play.
Zilia Sánchez, “Topologías/Topologies,” Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, April 20 – October 13, 2024. Courtesy ICA Miami. Photo: Zachary Balber
In winter 2025, the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico will host Topologías / Topologies, a comprehensive survey exhibition of Zilia Sánchez’s seven-decades-long career. Originally organized at the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami and curated by Gean Moreno and Stephanie Seidel, the project’s homecoming to San Juan will emphasize the unique position of Sánchez in relation to (and on the fringes of) the Puerto Rican context, and the museum’s neighborhood, where the artist has lived and worked since 1971.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I know that you’ve repeatedly discussed how romantic relationships at work can be problematic, but how do you navigate it when it’s your child? I was catching up with a friend (Sara) who told me that her teenage daughter had started dating Sara’s boss’s teenage son. Sara didn’t want to forbid the relationship as that would likely push them together even more, in a star-crossed lover kind of way. When the relationship did eventually go sour, with lots of teen angst along the way, the boss became noticeably chilly toward Sara. Obviously this shows poor management skills, but is there anything Sara could have or should have done to avoid this?
Ugh, this is really, really on Sara’s boss for letting it affect his relationship with Sara. This is teenagers dating! It’s not like their adult children got married and then one of them grievously wronged the other. It would be wrong for a manager to let that affect his treatment of an employee too, but it would least be more understandable than being this invested in a teenage romance.
I don’t know that there’s anything Sara could have done about it ahead of time. At most she could have talked to her daughter at the start of the relationship about the reality that it could intersect with Sara’s professional life — not to say “so you can’t date him,” but to say, “I trust you to operate with kindness and respect in any romantic relationship, and I’m asking you to make a particular point of that here since otherwise this could be messy” …but then she’d need to really talk through what that means (because you don’t want the daughter thinking that means she can’t break up with the guy, for example).
Frankly, though, I don’t love the idea of burdening a teenager with that. I suppose you could argue that conversation isn’t a bad lesson in the complications that come with dating someone with professional authority over a family member, but I think it’s too early for a teenager who’s still figuring out Dating 101 to have to grapple with that too.
Ultimately this is Sara’s boss’s fault, and he sucks.
WASHINGTON—Publishing their work in the peer-reviewed journal Passive-Aggression, Georgetown University researchers released a catty new study Wednesday that found the majority of Americans must lack access to reliable mirrors. “After analyzing thousands of data points, from their tragic haircuts to their questionable tastes in footwear, we determined there are millions of people across the country who presumably have no way of knowing what they look like when they step outside their front door every morning,” said study co-author Nolan Murray, who explained that the researchers’ findings were supported by tens of thousands of pet-hair-covered blouses, instances of unblended makeup, and misbuttoned shirts. “There simply can be no other explanation as to why they would go about their day looking the way they do. It is crucial that federally funded programs step up to provide low-attractiveness Americans with the mirrors they desperately need.” Murray went on to state that a startling number of U.S. households also lacked access to electricity, judging by the color of the belt they had picked out to go with their pants.
“The good news keeps coming for Vice President Harris. She has now not only made up ground in public polls in the swing states in her campaign for president, but has now actually taken narrow leads in three critical states that would put her at just enough electoral votes to win the White House, according to polling averages.” — NPR
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I have one job, which is to convince Americans that Kamala Harris is a lying, Antifa-loving child trafficker who drinks baby blood. I thought it would be easy, but it’s not going very well. Harris keeps rising in the polls, and my Trumpworld bosses are getting more erratic by the day, which, you know, is really saying something.
I’ve tried everything: whispers, hashtags, and a prime-time ad on the Tucker Carlson Network. But no matter how craftily I disseminate the Kamala libel, and no matter how many Republicans parrot the talking points, nothing seems to work.
What is happening? Eight years ago, this kind of stuff was a breeze. There was nothing I could throw at Hillary Clinton that didn’t stick—Benghazi, her emails, that one time when she said the word “deplorable.” If I thought up a reason for people to hate or mistrust Hillary, they clung to it as if it were a life jacket dipped in Stevia. Those were the days. I mean, voters actually believed she ran a vast pedophile ring out of the basement of a pizza parlor, for Christ’s sake.
Now, a guy can’t even accuse a woman of sleeping her way to the top without being called an out-of-touch misogynist. What a world! It’s almost as if something has shifted culturally, as if the very thing Trump Republicans have most feared is coming true, and Elon Musk can’t control people’s minds by scaremongering about Kamala on his lousy platform.
And the last time I checked, labeling a woman as a childless cat lady was clear defamation, a claim that automatically damned her in the eyes of middle-class voters. Yet that didn’t work either, and now people are selling Childless Cat Lady merch on Etsy. The ladies without babies don’t even seem ashamed—can someone explain how this happened? When did everyone decide that women who didn’t have birth children can be viewed as full human beings? Did I miss a memo?
Also, maybe it’s my imagination, but I think calling Kamala a dumb DEI hire backfired on Republicans. Suddenly, some of the mainstream GOP guys were like, “Tone that stuff down—gender and race attacks are a bad look.” They said Republicans should focus on “policy” instead. But I think they’re forgetting that GOP policy is just a noxious cocktail of big-money interests, forced birthing, and AK-47 worship now, and I’m not sure that’s going to resonate with Wisconsin voters.
I need a line of attack that works, guys. Maybe Kamala wasn’t really born in the United States—is that a thing? And it has to be a slur that won’t just appeal to the MAGAs who would vote for Donald Trump even if he took a dump on the American flag, murdered Dolly Parton on Fifth Avenue, and defected to Moscow. So casting Kamala as the leader of a secret cabal is out, as is accusing her of masterminding a coup or putting her on the Epstein flight log.
I’m at a loss here. Can someone please help me? All ideas are welcome. Like, maybe multiple people have accused her of sexual assault or something? Has she made fun of any disabled people? Does Kamala Harris know where Hunter Biden is? Anything, people. Because my erratic MAGA bosses are getting more agitated—and weirder—by the day. And again, that’s really saying something.
NORWOOD, OH—Kicking herself as the words “1 free article(s) remaining” hovered at the bottom of her screen, local woman Margaret Cross stated Wednesday that she had wasted a free monthly Cincinnati.com article on a story about a high school golf team. “I just got pulled in because I know my cousin’s kid plays for St. Ursula, and now, because of that one absentminded click, there are all kinds of fun Cincinnati happenings I won’t be able to read about,” said Cross, who acknowledged she had carelessly squandered her limited chances to access the hottest news from Cincinnati.com and might now be the last of her neighbors to know about the closing of a nearby Red Lobster or any local car accidents. “I didn’t give a single thought to the future when clicking that link. Do I seriously have to wait a whole month before I can read this feature on Greater Cincinnati’s craft brewing scene? It isn’t fair! The worst part is that Parker wasn’t even mentioned in that golf article, because it turns out she plays for the JV team.” At press time, Cross expressed relief after realizing the articles she most wanted to read on Cincinnati.com were free, as they were in fact advertisements placed by Taboola.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Exec’s imposter syndrome makes her defensive
I chair a board of a mid-size community organization and as part of that role I line manage the chief exec, Flora. She’s a phenomenally smart, talented person with a real depth of experience in the work of the people she leads and a wonderful vision for how to make the organization better for the communities it serves. She can also tend … tetchy if she feels attacked or on the defensive. During a recent conversation about this where I noted the pattern of defensiveness and asked what’s going on, she indicated that part of the problem is she’s really struggling with impostor syndrome, especially when working with other board members who have expertise in related fields. This makes her feel defensive and less open to hearing other people’s views, and turns into a bit of a negative spiral.
I’m going to see if we can get her some career coaching, and of course I make sure to tell her both at formal and informal feedback moments what specifically she’s doing well. But is there anything I’m missing as a manager? What can I do to help Flora feel more confident and thus open to other people’s views? This isn’t a case of someone new to the workplace with no track record, this is a senior leader with lots of evidence of her value, which she is struggling to see!
A coach is a good idea. Look for a management coach, not a career coach, and make sure you or she specifically identifies this issue to them as a main one to work on.
But also: you’re approaching this in a very supportive way (“what can I do to help her feel more confident?”) but you’ve got to approach it as a fairly serious performance issue too. Flora needs to hear clearly from you that it’s not okay to be defensive or shut out other viewpoints — in any job but especially as the ED. As the ED, that behavior will have a massive negative effect on her staff — on morale, on initiative, and eventually on retention. Right now your approach sounds fairly soft — basically, “work on this as best as you can and we want to support you in feeling capable” — but it needs to include that this is a big deal and needs to change quickly.
Flora’s feelings of imposter syndrome may take longer to overcome, but her actual actions need to change now. You can work on building up her confidence too, but don’t soft-pedal how seriously she needs to take this.
2. My daughter’s work-from-home is being revoked, but she has a baby at home
My daughter has worked from home since 2020. She was just appointed a new supervisor who does not like her. This supervisor just told her that she is part of their team and needs to work in the office on Mondays and Fridays. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, but she now has a three-year-old at home and a three-month-old baby who she breast feeds. What rights does my daughter have, if any?
None, really. Employers are allowed to require employees to work from the office. (There can be exceptions made for disability accommodations required under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but that wouldn’t come into play here since breast-feeding isn’t a considered a disability.)
It’s possible that she could argue working remotely was a condition of her hire (if it was; the fact that it started in 2020 says it might have been a pandemic measure, rather than something she specially negotiated when hired). Even then, though, employers have the right to change those arrangements, and indeed many of them have been calling workers back to the office, even people who were promised they could work from home permanently. Employers are allowed to change those conditions, as much as it sucks for people who planned around different arrangements.
However, does your daughter have child care for the kids and this is just an issue of breastfeeding? I’m hoping yes since most people can’t care for young children while simultaneously working, and it’s very common for employers to require remote employees with young kids to have separate child care arrangements for that reason. But if she’s doing both jobs herself, there’s an additional risk to pushing this — because if her employer realizes she’s doing that the other three days a week, she risks them pulling those days too.
She doesn’t really have much recourse here, I’m sorry. We don’t have good systems for working parents in this country (or support for parents in general, for that matter).
3. How to email people who are dealing with crises
I struggle with how to email work colleagues when I know they are dealing with family crises or other emergencies. There’s stuff I know my boss wants to be kept in the loop on, but it feels so cold to send a bland work email when I know she’s out taking care of a sick relative. I expressed sympathy when she told us about the crisis, but now I’m drafting regular emails days later and wondering if I need to put in even more sympathy, or if that risks bringing things up/being too emotional about normal work. She’s generally pretty private, too, though has shared about this relative’s condition regularly. It’s such a fine line to walk — any general tips?
Generally people are fine with being in work mode when dealing with work, even when they’re also dealing with a family crisis. You don’t need to acknowledge the crisis in each communication; it’s fine to just send the emails you normally would. That said, if you don’t have a ton of communication with your boss and some time has passed since the last time you spoke, it doesn’t hurt to open with something like, “I hope your mom is doing okay” or similar.
4. Can I reject someone for a job because their age means we wouldn’t get a return on our investment?
I have been attempting to hire a machinist. After getting very little response from online ads, I am now considering using a recruiter and paying a fee: 25% of the first year’s salary. The first two resumes the recruiter sent to me were both very good but one machinist started working in 1984 which would make him close to 60 years old. Is it legal for me to tell the recruiter I won’t consider him because we wouldn’t get a return on our investment, considering the recruiter’s $30,000 – $40,000 fee, before the candidate retires? If this person had applied directly to us, I would be open to hiring him.
It’s illegal to make a candidate’s age a factor in a hiring decision (if they’re 40 or older) so you could not legally do that.
But for what it’s worth, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get a return on your investment in hiring younger candidates either since people leave, move, etc. So you might consider whether there are ways to beef up your recruitment efforts on your own without using a recruiter. For example, advertise in places you haven’t tried previously, reach out to local technical schools, offer apprenticeships, and/or use some of the money you’d pay the recruiter to raise the salary instead.
5. Songs about HR and accounting
My office is doing a fiscal year-end trivia event this Thursday and we’re looking for ideas about work-related songs to include in the trivia, ideally HR and accounting songs since we’re an IT group that supports applications for those areas. For example, someone has suggested Taxman by the Beatles. I thought your readers might have some fun suggestions!
“Ideally HR and accounting songs” makes this a lot more challenging than just work-related songs. But I feel we’ll come through. Have at it in the comments!
The members of PleasrDAO are, well, pretty displeased with Martin Shkreli.
The "digital autonomous organization" spent $4.75 million to buy the fabled Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which had only been produced as a single copy. The album had once belonged to Shkreli, who purchased it directly from Wu-Tang Clan for $2 million in 2015. But after Shkreli became the "pharma bro" poster boy for price gouging in the drug sector, he ended up in severe legal trouble and served a seven-year prison sentence for securities fraud.
He also had to pay a $7.4 million penalty in that case, and the government seized and then sold Once Upon a Time in Shaolin to help pay the bill.
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