LONDON – Following years of fomenting hostilities, Liam and Noel Gallagher, founding brothers of British rock band Oasis, have announced a diplomatic breakthrough, each recognizing the other’s sovereign right to exist. “In respect of our shared heritage and the historic presence of each other in the highly contested region of mid-90’s angsty Brit-Rock, Liam and […]
The post Oasis reaches two-state solution appeared first on The Beaverton.
Man, will you look at the calendar! August’s almost done with us, but we are not done with it, which means it’s time for our monthly Space City Weather Q&A.
And yeah, we know, there wasn’t an installment in July. We have no excuses, other than to say that July was . . . a little busy.
Anyway, we’re reporting for duty now. On with your questions!
And don’t forget to to feed this beast: Post questions for future Q&A’s in the comments here, or use the Contact link below the blog’s header.
Q. If you were on summer vacation, at what time would you come back if there was something tropical-ish heading for Houston?
A. First, a word on my own plans for summer vacation. I try to never take them in August or September, because that’s the time I’m most concerned about when it comes to tropical weather and Houston. And when I travel in June or July, I definitely bring a laptop.
As for returning in the face of tropical weather, it’s really a difficult question because there are so many variables. Are you returning to prepare your house, only to evacuate again? Are you returning to prepare and hunker down? Are you most concerned about, wind, surge, or inland rainfall? That said, the fundamental question I would want to answer is how long you need to make whatever preparations you want to make before the storm hits. If it is 24 hours, then I would return no fewer than 24 hours before the onset of tropical conditions.
The National Hurricane Center has a useful tool for this you can use during active systems. This product offers a forecast for “earliest reasonable arrival” of tropical storm force winds. (The image below shows the forecast for Beryl, issued on the morning of Saturday July 6, for example). Essentially, this is a good guide to when final preparations for an impending storm should be made. We sometimes publish them on Space City Weather for this very purpose.
–Eric
Q. On Sunday, July 21, in a special weather statement for areas east of Houston, the statement talked about the risk of tropical funnel clouds. What are these and why is there a special weather statement for them vs. a tornado watch?
A. This is a good question. It’s a phenomenon we see frequently in Southeast Texas but not one we really talk a lot about. Tropical funnel clouds form typically when it’s humid and breezy. Why do they form? Funnel clouds form by similar processes both within supercell thunderstorms (which can produce tornadoes) and in these more benign tropical environments. With breezy, humid conditions, you can get a setup with a little bit of wind shear, especially near the coast, where wind direction may change with height. This can lead to some “spin” in the atmosphere, or what we call vorticity. As that vorticity gets stretched out a bit vertically, you get faster spin. And as that happens, you can get a funnel cloud.
So why are these benign? The process by which these funnel clouds form is much slower than the process by which supercell thunderstorms can produce funnel clouds and subsequently tornadoes. Additionally, they usually dissipate after a few minutes. Very few of these funnel clouds ever reach the ground, producing a tornado, and even if they were to do so, the tornado would likely cause minimal, minor damage. So they’re more likely to just get noted as a curiosity more than anything else. Because the process is slow to evolve and quick to dissipate, it doesn’t warrant a watch or warning.
–Matt
Q. My mom says she can remember back 10 or 20 years ago that Houston would normally get thunderstorms every day in the summer. Today it seems like long periods of no rain in the summer is the new normal. Has the weather pattern changed in the past 10 years? Or is it is just a lot drier where we live now (near Addicks Reservoir) than it is over downtown?
A. As best I can tell the patterns of summer rainfall have not really changed all that much in Houston, during the summer, over the last couple of decades. (That’s in contrast to temperatures, which have gone up strikingly, particularly at night). We have always been subject to prolonged periods of summertime high pressure during which there is no rainfall. Sometimes, as in last summer, these highs persist for months on end. This year, the high pressure pattern did not emerge until early August, in which case it hung around until the last week of the month.
In June, July, and August, when we are on the periphery of a high pressure system, Houston summers are like the ones your mom described. This is due to the sea breeze, a pattern in which the land heats up faster than the Gulf of Mexico. This typically happens during the late morning or afternoon hours, and the rising air over land forms clouds a few thousand feet up at the lifting condensation level. This can then lead to the development of showers and thunderstorms. Some summers, particularly the ones your mom remembers, can see this type of pattern persist for weeks.
–Eric
Q. I saw a (radar) effect I can only describe as a rain “splash” or “bubble”. This is a ring of what appears to be very light rain, that starts centered on a newly forming cell and expands in all directions, rather quickly, before eventually dissipating. It appears like a two-dimensional cross section of a bubble inflating, or the expanding wave one might see after tossing a pebble into still water. Are you familiar with this phenomenon?
A. This is good opportunity for us to explain some common features you may see on weather radar that aren’t specifically precipitation. When you look at radar and you see what looks like a bunch of “noise,” as if there’s a bunch of light precipitation, we call this ground clutter.
Ground clutter can literally be anything other than precipitation: Birds, bugs, bats, etc. can all make it up. You see it at every radar site. After awhile, you learn to disregard it. Radar can also pick up wind turbines.
These can be a bit of a headache when you look at radar, but again, after awhile they sort of just become background noise to a seasoned user. I noted ground clutter above. How about bat colonies heading out for a night of snacking?
Similar to bats at sunset, you can see birds emerging from slumber during the morning, a phenomenon that looks like something is literally exploding on radar. These are just enormous flocks of birds taking off for the day from various locations. We call these “roost rings.”
Then, I think we get to what this reader asked about. If you look at this radar loop from July 17th in the afternoon, you can see numerous showers and thunderstorms over the Houston area generally propagating westward.
To the untrained eye, this is a chaotic mess of storminess. But if you look closer, the radar can actually tell you what’s happening here. Let’s zoom into Sugar Land and Greatwood down into Fort Bend County.
If you look right above and on the right side of what I circled on the loop above, you can see what looks like a “line” of green on the radar. We call these outflow boundaries or gust fronts. When we get thunderstorms, sometimes a cool breeze or cool gust of wind will move in before it starts raining. That’s what we call outflow, and you’re literally feeling the rain-cooled air come in ahead of the rain itself. In this case, outflow from the storms east of Greatwood, closer to Pearland was pushing west. Near Greatwood, it ran into another outflow boundary that was lifting northwest from storms down in Brazoria County. As the two boundaries collided, a new storm formed right over Highway 59/I-69, flared up and then weakened.
Such outflow boundaries are common in our area in summer. Sometimes, you’ll see what looks like outflow lifting north from the Gulf of Mexico. That’s the sea breeze, and once one storm pops on a hot day, it can create an effect of boundary collisions all over the place in erratic fashion. This explains why so often you’ll get a quick inch of rain whereas your neighbor 5 blocks away gets next to nothing. I liken it to atmospheric bumper cars: Pure chaos.
Anyway, now when you look at radar, maybe you’ll be able to detect some cool features too!
-Matt
Q. Do hurricanes come in clusters in certain parts of the Gulf and Atlantic? Several years ago, it seemed like Florida and the lower East Coast were getting slammed over and over. Then for a while the upper Gulf Coast was the big target. Is this faulty memory, or does this actually happen? And is it maybe the Texas coast’s turn?
A. The simple answer is: Yes, that can happen. Look back at 2020 when it seemed as if every storm had its mind set on Louisiana. But we can look back at some other seasons and see this concept in action. Let’s take 1995 for example.
In 1995, there were 19 total storms. Many ended up in the Atlantic, clipping the Caribbean islands or just wandering out to sea. There was a secondary cluster of storms in the Gulf, particularly near the Florida Panhandle. 2010 was another season like that, where we had lots of storms clustered into two distinct areas. The first was out at sea as in 1995. But the second was focused on Central America and Mexico. But then you get seasons like 2017, where anyone and everyone was in play for hits from storms.
The reasons are tough to explain in a simple Q&A, but in general: The weather pattern in summertime can be semi-permanent. In other words, the Bermuda high over the Atlantic can sit in place for weeks at a time. Like we experienced last summer, high pressure can sit over Texas for weeks at a time. When patterns like this happen, it can sort of lead the atmosphere to produce a more common outcome. Those features help steer storms, so when they don’t move, most storms will follow generally similar tracks. Each year is a blank slate, though various climatological cycles can possibly predispose a series of seasons to a more common outcome (see the 1950s on the East Coast of the U.S.).
So does that mean anything for this year? Our weather pattern this summer has been a little more chaotic, though it has firmed up some in the last month, trending more toward stagnant over Texas. That would theoretically put the East Coast or western Atlantic in play, not so much the western Gulf. And we’ve seen Ernesto (Bermuda) and Debby (Florida) do just that. Will that hold through October? No clue truthfully. But it would be nice for us to say Beryl was it for this year.
-Matt
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
This is a weird low-stakes thing. I work in a small government office and we have a guy working here who’s been here for over 40 years and is within a year or two of retiring.
I like him well enough, but I’ve noticed he almost never calls women by their names. Any woman he speaks to, he addresses as just “you,” and if he’s talking about a woman who’s not in the room, he just says “her.” There are more women working here than men, and he always uses the men’s names or at least their surnames.
It makes it very confusing when I have no idea which “her” he means. I’m “her,” my closest colleague is “her,” our big boss is “her.”
I have no idea if he’s doing it deliberately/maliciously or if he just genuinely can’t remember any of our names, and thus no idea if I should be outraged or trying to do anything about it. If I prompt him, he usually will clarify who he’s talking about, after a bit of hesitation, and he’s not particularly sexist or anything beyond this. Is this just a weird quirk I should continue to be mildly amused and perplexed by, or should I be taking a more active stance in getting him to use women’s names?
Why not just ask him about it? “I’ve noticed you never refer to women by their names although you use men’s names. How come?”
And then maybe: “It’s really hard to know who you’re talking about when you don’t use names. Can you please use our names just like you do with men?”
Who knows why he’s doing this. Maybe he’s uncomfortable with women, maybe he sees us all as a generic block with no individuality, maybe he’s taking a stand against women being at work. I don’t know, but it’s weird and troubling and it doesn’t belong at work. You should feel free to call him out on it every time, which will make him look even weirder if he insists on continuing.
You might also point it out to your boss. I’m guessing she’s noticed, but saying it out loud might nudge her to address it herself.
When I was twelve, my grandfather lied about my age to get me a job on the golf course where he was the greenskeeper. I worked as a cart boy, cleaning, parking, and gassing up the golf carts every morning before the sun rose in advance of the first tee times — a child laborer in charge of gas-powered vehicles. Goose Creek Golf Course was beautiful and peaceful in those predawn hours before the first round of golfers arrived.
Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman, “American Landscape,” 2022, 96 inches x 16 feet. x 87 inches, mixed-media diorama with taxidermy, found objects, and painted background, fabricated by Aaron Delehanty and Loud Cow Studio. Courtesy the artists and American Federation of Arts, Photo: Walter Colley
The golf course is the subject of a collaborative centerpiece in the traveling exhibition Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld. Curated by Suzanne Ramljak, the show continues a decades-long dialogue between the artists. Dion and Rockman met while attending the School of the Visual Arts in the early 1980s, and in the subsequent decades of art making both have addressed, in different ways, the role ideology plays in scientific discourse. Drawing from a wide set of source materials, they use humor and imagination to communicate how nature is constructed through cultural channels.
Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman, “American Landscape,” 2022, 96 inches x 16 feet. x 87 inches, mixed-media diorama with taxidermy, found objects, and painted background, fabricated by Aaron Delehanty and Loud Cow Studio. Courtesy the artists and American Federation of Arts, Photo: Walter Colley
Journey to Nature’s Underworld comprises individual bodies of work by both artists and culminates in the stunning collaboration American Landscape which brings the distinct styles of the two artists into a single piece. The work takes the form of a life-size diorama — one that might be found in a natural history museum, except this one is mobile: a large art crate on casters. It contains a glass front through which the viewer can see a golf course depicted in daylight on one side and nighttime on the other. In an interview with Patrick Jaojoco, Mark Dion noted, “The golf course is the landscape incarnate of class exclusion, privilege, old-boy deal-making networks, the suppression of biodiversity, and unwise land management; materialized by way of petrochemical fertilizers.”
Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman, “American Landscape,” detail, 2022,
96 inches x 16 feet. x 87 inches, mixed-media diorama with taxidermy, found objects, and painted background, fabricated by Aaron Delehanty and Loud Cow Studio. Courtesy the artists and American Federation of Arts,
Photo: Walter Colley
An array of animals populate the diorama. A coyote, a deer, an alligator, and others are depicted surviving and adapting to the human-engineered environment. Buried below the surface of the green we can see animal-related trash such as rat traps, insecticides, dog food containers, gummi bears, and more. Speaking on the ubiquity of trash, Rockman states “You can’t make art about ecology in the twenty-first century and not include it. It’s the reality of the planet.”
Alexis Rockman, “Ark,” 2014, oil on wood, 44 x 56 inches
Will people in the future look back incredulously at the golf courses, car washes, landfills, and swimming pools of the present day? Culture can set the stage for political change. Can political change bring about a solution to the toxins, microplastics, and rising temperatures that beset the human animal?
Mark Dion, “The Classical Mind (Scala Naturae and Cosmic Cabinet),” 2017, wooden structure, taxidermy specimens, artifacts, plaster bust, and LED lights, 11 feet x 12 feet, 42 inches
Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey to Nature’s Underworld will tour through December 2025. The catalog documenting the exhibition contains an interview with the artists and essays by Lucy Lippard and Suzanne Ramljak. It is a handsome, hardbound book with full-color illustrations and a timeline of important dates in the work of the two artists.
The post Book Review: “Mark Dion and Alexis Rockman: Journey To Nature’s Underworld” appeared first on Glasstire.
In brief: Houston will continue to see scattered showers and cooler temperatures for a couple of days. Then, rain showers should become more widespread during the second half of the week, and we are starting to see the possibility of heavy rainfall by next Monday or so.
Over the last day or so, the model trends have been pushing toward a wetter pattern than expected for the next week to 10 days. Since the region has been so dry, and rain chances will be hit or miss over the next several days, I’m not anticipating any serious flooding during this week. However, in part due to a front stalling north of the region early next week, we could see the potential for more widespread and sustained showers.
The bottom line is that we’re watching things, and something like a Stage 1 flood alert may be necessary for early next week, potentially the Monday and Tuesday time frame, for coastal areas. Again, even in a worst case scenario, we’re probably talking about something that floods lower-lying streets. I just wanted you to be aware of our thinking.
Today will be something of a repeat of Monday, with showers developing offshore and moving inland during the morning and early afternoon hours. However, coverage does look likely to be slightly less than on Monday. Skies, otherwise, will be partly sunny, with highs in the low 90s. Rain chances will slacken during the evening hours. Lows on Tuesday night will drop into the upper 70s.
Like on Tuesday, rain Wednesday will be of a fairly scattered nature, with perhaps only about half of the area seeing a passing shower. Accumulations should not be too significant, with the hardest hit areas perhaps picking up a half inch or so, and most of the region less. Highs, again, should be in the vicinity of the low 90s with partly sunny skies.
Rain chances will increase as we get into the second half of the week, and weekend. I can’t find much to differentiate the weather on any of these four days, which is why I’ve lumped them together. Each day is more likely than not to see rainfall, and there will be chances for showers overnight as well. High temperatures each day will range from the upper 80s to lower 90s, so quite a bit cooler than is typical for late August. I don’t really have any flooding concerns for this period, but showers could definitely put a damper on outdoor activities. It certainly won’t be raining all the time, but showers may pop up any time.
As a front stalls north of the area, this should provide some additional lift and juice our rain chances. Since we’re talking about a period a week from now, the details are going to be hazy. But with the potential for widespread showers, and some heavy rainfall, we necessarily cannot rule out the possibility of some flooding. We’ll see. Daily highs will remain in the vicinity of 90 degrees. Most of our modeling shows rain chances slackening as we get toward the second half of next week, for what it’s worth. Which probably is not a whole lot.
After a quiescent period, there is a new system to watch. There is a chance that an area of low pressure in the Atlantic could develop over the next week or so, as it moves toward the Caribbean Sea. Yesterday afternoon some of our best global models were hot to trot, and ready to develop this system into a tropical storm, but this morning they’ve backed off some. There’s not much else we can do but watch at this point—the next month is the period during which we should be most concerned about the potential for powerful hurricanes to strike Texas. For more detailed coverage, be sure to check out The Eyewall.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I’m looking to book a birthday getaway for myself and my partner in the next few months. It is nothing extreme, just a long weekend away that might require a Friday and a Monday off. I’d like to keep it a surprise until the week of the getaway. Would it be inappropriate to reach out to my partner’s line manager (who I do not know but do have an email for) to ask her to pre-approve the necessary leave for her? Alternatively, I could reach out to her colleague (who I do know), who would then ask the manager on my behalf.
I don’t wish to overstep any boundaries by doing this, so I just wanted to check it was an acceptable thing to do.
As a manager, this kind of request from a partner (or from a coworker acting on the partner’s request) would make me really uncomfortable. Here’s why:
* I don’t know if my employee wants to spend her time off that way. She could be saving it up for something else later in the year and I’m not comfortable overriding that decision for her.
* In a lot of jobs, planning for time off involves real planning, not just lining up someone to cover for you — for example, finishing a draft early since you won’t be here to finish it later in the week, getting a colleague the numbers they’re waiting on, moving meetings around, or even just knowing not to tell a client you’ll call them that day. Keeping it secret means none of that work can happen, or someone will have to manipulate the situation to devise reasons for why those things need to happen.
* I don’t know what the state of your relationship is. It’s probably fine, but what if your partner doesn’t actually want to take a trip together right now? What if you’ve been bugging them to take this trip with you and they’ve been using work as an excuse not to, and won’t be thrilled to discover you’ve circumvented that without their okay (while docking their accrued vacation at the same time)? Again, this probably isn’t the case but I don’t know and it’s not my business.
Ultimately I just don’t have any business deciding whether or not one of my employees will want days off that they don’t even know are being requested.
There’s another way to do this though! Can you instead ask your partner to take those days off for a surprise you’re planning, without explaining the details? Yes, it’ll give a little bit of it away, but it’s a better way to do it when someone else’s job is involved.
NEWARK, NJ—Marveling at the manifold natural wonders on display inside such a small, self-contained ecosystem, a panel of scientists described feeling awestruck Tuesday by the biodiversity within a single Italian sub. “There’s just an incredible variety of species thriving inside the surprisingly hospitable habitat of this sandwich—among the varietals of flora alone, we can see lettuce, tomato, onion, hot peppers, and oregano,” said Professor Charles Boutwell of Rutgers University, one of several scientists who expressed amazement when a DNA analysis found evidence in the crusty semolina roll of yeast fungi and multiple grasses from the wheat family, as well as an ability to germinate sesame plants. “And then beneath this canopy of vegetation, we find layers and layers of pepperoni, capicola, soppressata and thin-sliced salami, which suggest this habitat can support many, many pigs, all living together in symbiotic harmony. It’s breathtaking. And that’s before you even start getting into all the listeria, E. coli, and parasitic roundworms.” Boutwell added that, unfortunately, humanity was destroying the delicate balance of the Italian sub’s ecosystem with each delicious bite he took.
The post Scientists Awestruck By Biodiversity Within Single Italian Sub appeared first on The Onion.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—Expanding its offerings beyond traditional vapes, Juul Labs announced Tuesday it had begun selling e-solvents, a new product it would market toward huffers. “With Juul’s new e-solvents, hanging out with your other huffer buddies by the dumpster behind Walmart just got a lot more fun,” said CEO K.C. Crosthwaite, explaining that the electronic solvent would be released in several flavors, including paint, glue, and blue raspberry. “Not only is the euphoric lightheadedness unmatched, our e-solvent is also as much as five times healthier for you than inhalants found in traditional spray paint canisters. All the benefits of aerosol fumes without any of the harmful chemicals.” At press time, confused advocacy groups were reportedly too disoriented from visual and auditory hallucinations to bring a lawsuit against Juul for its e-solvents.
The post Juul Unveils New E-Solvent Can For Huffers appeared first on The Onion.
Sabrina Carpenter, the artist behind summer hits “Espresso” and “Please Please Please,” recently released her highly anticipated sixth studio album, Short n’ Sweet, to critical acclaim. The Onion shares what you need to know about the singer.
Birth Name: Disney Project 874C
Genre: Blonde
Height: 6-foot-7 with a 7-foot wingspan
Vocal Style: Precision-tooled breeziness
Songwriting Technique: Gun pointed at Jack Antonoff
Most Famous Lyric: “’Tis I, the coming of the dawn.”
Cheat Meal: Licking a printed photo of mac and cheese
Dream Collaborator: Vladimir Nabokov
The post Artist Profile: Sabrina Carpenter appeared first on The Onion.
Hovertext:
I will, of course, posthumously occupy half the English Canon with my boner jokes.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Survey asked how my boss communicates about her mental health
My supervisor at work is participating in a company-run training program aimed at helping managers improve their management skills. As one of her direct reports, I’ve been invited to take an (anonymous) survey to provide feedback on her managing style. I get along with her and generally think she’s a good supervisor, so I figured it’d be an easy survey — but then I came to the question where I was told to rate how well she “communicates about her own mental health and wellness in an authentic way.”
This is weird, right? I’m not totally off-base on this? We have a good relationship and chat about things in our lives, but I wouldn’t want to share details of my mental health with my supervisor, and would probably be pretty uncomfortable if she started sharing hers with me. It feels more like it would foster bad boundaries than a professional relationship. But how do I respond to a survey where it seems clear that that’s an important metric to evaluate her performance? I do think she’s a good supervisor and want to reflect that — and I also don’t want her to be told she has to talk more about her mental health because I don’t want that to become a part of our meetings. Do I give a middle of the road response? A “not applicable”? Should I mention in the free response section that I don’t think it should be part of the survey?
Yes, that’s a weird and inappropriate question. I would either give her the highest rating (because for you, the way she is handling the topic is working well) or a N/A. And then yes, explain in the free response section that you believe everyone deserves privacy around their health at work and appreciate your manager for respecting appropriate boundaries.
Unfortunately, employers keep going off the rails with this. Yes, it is healthy to acknowledge that we’re humans with a range of emotions, and it is good to destigmatize mental health issues. But expecting managers to communicate about their personal mental health is invasive and inappropriate, and many people really don’t want to be on the receiving end of those communications. Employers who want to promote mental health have lots of non-invasive ways they can do that: offering good mental health coverage as part of their insurance plans, being flexible with time off, building awareness of what types of accommodations are available, offering strong employee assistance programs, and being thoughtful about much stress employees are expected to take on. But that takes real resources, whereas a survey question like this doesn’t.
Related:
forcing employees to talk about their feelings isn’t good for our mental health
2. Can I wear a brace to avoid handshakes?
In a few weeks, I’ll be attending an in-person meeting with my company’s founder and former CEO. I’ve met him twice before and both times, he’s shaken my hand so hard that it hurts. The second time it reactivated a minor hand injury I was dealing with, which had been from another handshake a few weeks prior. (As an aside, why do people ever shake someone’s hand that hard?)
He’s a nice guy, and I’m a woman, and I don’t get the vibe that it’s a power play. It just feels like the legacy of the “firm handshake” advice and a dude not knowing his own strength. I don’t feel like I have the standing to pull the founder aside and ask him not to shake my hand so hard. Plus, he hasn’t remembered me twice, and I’m very low-level at the company — I’m pretty sure he’ll want to re-meet me and shake my hand immediately, before any aside-pulling can happen. But when I was dealing with my handshake injury before, people reacted weirdly to me not shaking their hand when they went offered it. I got puzzled looks, and people weren’t sure what to do with their outstretched hand. Can I wear a hand brace to make it more visible why I might not be shaking? And what’s a good alternative gesture to do when people try to shake my hand?
You can indeed wear a hand brace if you want to! But it’s also fine to just say, “I’d shake your hand but I’m recovering from a hand injury.” If people look a little puzzled, it’s probably not because they think you’re breaking the social contract in some way; it’s likely just their faces processing “oops, I’ve got my hand out and now need to retract it.”
You’re fine! People have hand injuries. Or they’re sick and doing everyone a favor by not shaking hands. It’s not a big deal as long as you’re matter-of-fact about it and make a point of being otherwise reasonably warm.
Related:
chill out with the bone-crushing handshakes
3. I end up doing more work than my less organized coworker
I work in a team of four. My workmate Lucy and I are both part-time, have the same job description, and are paid the same; the other two are full-time and do different jobs.
Our manager, Sarah, often allocates work to me and Lucy without specifying who will do what, e.g., “can the llama groomers pick this up?”
Lucy is a great person and we’re friends outside of work. However, she really struggles with organizational skills (she has ADHD and is very open about it) and I have strong organizational skills. So in practice, when something is assigned to the two of us, I usually end up making it happen. I’ll often ask Lucy to contribute to it in specific ways (“can you order more llama shampoo before Friday?”), but even then I usually have to remind her, sometimes several times. On occasion I’ve just done her part myself (checking with her if that’s okay) because it’s less stressful that way and means the job will happen on time.
I find myself getting resentful of the situation. I’m paid the same as Lucy but organize much of our work. Sometimes I feel like I’m her de facto manager, but I’m not her manager and I’m not paid to be her manager. Meanwhile, our actual manager is quite hands-off once she’s assigned a job to us (I’m sure she’s aware that so much of it ends up falling to me, but this is never explicitly acknowledged). I think I’m taking on too much responsibility for things, both in terms of work and emotionally. How can I change this?
Is the work usually something where an entire assignment can be handled by one of you rather than each person taking different parts of it? If so, it would be a lot easier for the two of you to switch off who takes the full assignments, rather than splitting them into multiple tasks (which you then end up organizing). Ideally when new tasks come in, you’d be able to reply, “I’ll take this one” or “Lucy will take this one” and then wash your hands of the latter entirely. (Even more ideally, Lucy would be speaking up and say “I’ll take this one” half the time, and you can ask her to do that — but if realistically that won’t happen, ask her if you can coordinate this type of system so it’s clear who’s taking what.)
If that doesn’t work, you should talk to Sarah and ask her to assign projects to one or the other of you but not both. Explain that under the current system, you end up feeling responsible for all the work rather than only your share of it.
If that doesn’t work, make the case that you should be paid for the role you’re playing in managing the work (and ideally given a title that recognizes that too).
4. My coworkers want me to tell them why a colleague was fired
I work in the financial services industry, which is highly regulated by multiple self-regulatory and government bodies.
Recently, a senior teammate was let go for gross misconduct with regard to compliance with regulations, in part because I had to report them. I feel terrible because I don’t want anyone to lose their job, but I am legally required to report the misconduct or I could also be fired plus face criminal and civil penalties, including being barred from the industry.
I’m now responsible for telling clients that this person is no longer with the company (without any details, obviously). That’s tough but manageable, and I’m able to navigate that with minimal management-level interaction, save the occasional client that needs a call from my grandboss, who is expecting and willing to take on those difficult clients as part of the transition process as we replace the former coworker.
The problem I’m facing is that coworkers on other teams are … perhaps too curious and, in some cases, active shit-disturbers, and have attempted to corner me into telling them in detail what happened. I cannot, and would not, tell them any details, and have directed them back to management with any questions they may have. Most have taken the hint but several (more than six) have not and have been calling, emailing, sending IM messages, etc., even calling my personal cell phone after hours to ask invasive and inappropriate questions.
I let my manager know about this and they are taking it seriously. However, it’s only been a week but the questions haven’t stopped and I received a text message on my personal phone at midnight on Saturday asking me for “the hot goss.” Should I also go to HR about this, as well? I’m not responding to these messages at all on my personal devices, and I’m continuing to redirect to management for questions, but what in the world?! Any advice is appreciated.
You don’t need to go to HR, unless you want more back-up. You could! It wouldn’t be weird to. But it would also be fine to ignore the messages that people shouldn’t be sending in the first place, or to respond with, “I’m not allowed to discuss it and you’re putting me in a difficult position by continuing to ask. Please stop.”
5. Candidates say I didn’t call for our schedule phone interview, but I did
I am at my wits’ end. Some of the recruiting I do is high volume. Lately, I have been experiencing an increase in candidates claiming that I did not call them for our scheduled phone interview. When I call, if it goes to voicemail I always leave a message. In the past week or two, I have had several candidates state they did not receive a call or voicemail. I feel like it is an argument. How do I handle this? Sometimes it is the second call I’ve made after we rescheduled and they still do not answer.
First, when multiple people are telling you that an odd technical thing is happening, especially in a short amount of time, it’s always smart to confirm that there’s not actually a problem on your end (including checking your call history for the possibility that you’ve called the wrong person, especially since you’re dealing with lots of calls). But assuming you check and it’s definitely not you, you don’t need to argue with people. You can say, “I’m sorry to hear that! I did log a call to you at 4:30 pm yesterday, but voicemail can be strange. In any case…” What comes next is up to you. If you’re still willing to interview them, suggest a time to reschedule for. If you’ve moved on (or if they’re handling the call in an unprofessional way that leaves you uninterested in rescheduling), you can say, “We’re no longer interviewing for that role, but I’ll reach out if that changes.”
Also, when you confirm a phone interview time, you could include language like: “If you haven’t heard from me by five minutes past the scheduled time, please call me directly at (number).” Or you can ask that they email you, or so forth — just something that lets them know how to handle it if they don’t hear from you when they expect to. That will put a rest to the debate about whether you called or not, since it will move the ball into their court with a clear action and timeline for them to take that action. And if they’re just forgetting about the call, that will make it clear. That might be more complicated than you want or need; if so, just stick with the advice in the first paragraph and ignore this one.
OTTAWA – Canada is experiencing extremely high COVID-19 rates this summer, and health officials across the country have responded by alerting Canadians to the heightened risk of sunburn while engaging in summer activities. “Even though the summer is almost over doesn’t mean that the dangers of sun exposure go away,” Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public […]
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This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I currently have an offer for an internal transfer to a different division in my company — same level but new team and scope of work. I’m planning on negotiating the salary offered (using some of your advice from prior letters!) which I would obviously want in writing, but I’m wondering if some of my other asks (number of days in the office, specific hours in the office) should also be in writing?
Ultimately, with an at-will job in which case the employer can always change the scope/requirements whenever they want, is there even a point to getting certain flexibilities in writing? For an exempt, salaried position, I’ve never seen work arrangements specified, so would it be reasonable to ask for it to be written as part of the offer?
You should get it in writing.
That’s not because putting it in writing will make it legally binding. In most cases in the U.S., it won’t. As you noted, employers can still change the terms of your employment at any time (unless you have a contract, which most U.S. workers don’t).
But putting it in writing still significantly increases the likelihood that the terms of your employment will be what you agreed to.
First and foremost, it protects you against misunderstandings and miscommunications (like you think you’re agreeing to two WFH days a week, but they think it’s up to two WFH days per week, subject to manager approval) or even people just forgetting details down the road. It’s also useful to have a record of the agreement if there are personnel changes — like if a decision-maker promises you a salary review in six months but leaves the company after three months and no one else knows anything about that conversation. They still might not ultimately abide by it, but having documentation of what was agreed to makes it more likely.
Second, the act of writing this stuff down can bring misunderstandings to the surface before anything is finalized. For example, if you said X but they understood it as Y, putting it in writing is likely to make everyone realize that you’re not on the same page, thus giving you the opportunity to iron it out before it’s too late.
Third, getting it written down can sometimes signal to an employer, “Oh wait, we had better really think this through.” People shouldn’t make promises off the cuff without fully thinking them through, but sometimes they do — which is how you end up starting a job thinking they agreed you could bring your parrot in but then find out it’s a no-go once after they actually check with someone. Just the act of asking to put something in writing can nudge people to make sure they really have all the sign-off’s they’ll need.
Some companies are very rigid about what they will and won’t put in an offer letter and won’t budge from their normal boilerplate to add in additional details, even when they’re sincere about whatever they’re agreeing to. If you’re dealing with an employer like that, try simply summarizing the agreement in an email yourself — framing it as, “I wanted to summarize the details we’ve discussed. Would you look this over and confirm this looks right to you?” (And if they won’t even do that much, take that as a sign that the agreement may not be as firm as you thought.)
LEXINGTON, KY—Stating that the anatomical facsimile of the female groin was having the opposite of the vice presidential candidate’s intended effect, aides begged J.D. Vance on Monday to stop carrying around a model of a woman’s pelvis while meeting with voters. “I can’t stress enough how much people don’t like it when you silently hold a life-size model of a woman’s genitals up to their face when they’re talking about their family’s financial struggles,” said Vance advisor Reid Keck, adding that the expression of revulsion on the Ohio senator’s face whenever he looked at the model of the female pubic region wasn’t helping either. “I know it’s not what you’re used to, but you can probably leave words like fallopian tube, cervix, labia, and vulva out of your stump speech entirely. To be honest, you should also stop gesturing at people in the audience with that speculum.” At press time, aides were reportedly in damage control mode after Vance, in a new attempt to appeal to suburban women, opened an event by smashing the model of a woman’s pelvis on stage.
The post Aides Beg J.D. Vance To Stop Carrying Model Of Woman’s Pelvis While Meeting Voters appeared first on The Onion.
SAVANNAH, GA—His voice growing increasingly hoarse as he entered his 72nd hour of contextualizing the 2024 campaign through sports, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz reportedly panicked Monday while trapped inside a football metaphor for the third consecutive day. “It’s the fourth quarter, we’re down by a field goal, but we’re on offense, we’re driving to the end zone, and, boy, do we have the right team to win this—please, help me, help me,” Waltz reportedly said in a plea to a baffled swing voter, tears spilling from the Minnesota governor’s eyes as he attempted to clap a hand over his own mouth to stop the endless onrush of football analogies, similes, and comparisons, only to then burst out with a new remark about how there were “no timeouts left” and “every second counted” in taking Kamala Harris to the White House. “Our job, every last one of us, is to make sure Kamala has someone downfield for that last beautiful drive. Because trust me on this: She can deliver as America’s quarterback. I can’t stop saying this stuff. Jesus Christ. Make it stop, stop…stop Trump on fourth down. Leave it all out on the field, everyone. Let’s win this.” At press time, a visibly concerned Gwen Walz had attempted to steer her husband away from the conversation only for him to describe her as an irreplaceable offensive coordinator who will make sure the campaign goes the distance.
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In brief: After a long, hot August the Houston region’s pattern will change significantly this week. In the absence of high pressure we’ll see significant daily rain chances and lower temperatures. Rain accumulations will be greatest near the coast, but even inland locations may pick up an inch or more of rainfall.
Up until this past weekend, Houston has largely been beneath a potent high pressure ridge this month. It has not been directly centered over the region, which is why daily high temperatures have not been as blistering hot as the summer of 2023. But our daily high this month has nonetheless averaged 98 degrees, with a total of eight days reaching 100 degrees or higher. Additionally, we have recorded almost no rainfall. Much of the region has received 0.5 inch, or less, for the entire month of August. It’s not for nothing that I believe August is by far the worst month of the year for Houston.
As we near the end of the month, this pattern is about to change. High pressure anchored over West Texas this summer has backed off, opening the door to moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. Accordingly, a pattern of showers and thunderstorms should persist through this week, and into the weekend. We can expect daily rain chances to go along with high temperatures generally in the low 90s. Overall I don’t have any real flooding concerns, but with the return of high school football and other sporting activities, you’ll definitely need to watch for the potential of showers and thunderstorms on a daily basis.
A low pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico will help to drive high rain chances today. These showers are presently lurking just offshore, and they should move inland later this morning and throughout the day. Rain chances today, and for much of the rest of this week, will be higher along and near the coast, closer to the source of moisture. But even areas well inland, such as The Woodlands and Katy, will have a decent chance of rainfall each day. Skies will be partly to mostly cloudy today, with highs of around 90 degrees or just above. Winds will be from the east at about 10 mph, with higher gusts. Low temperatures tonight will drop into the upper 70s.
Expect a similar pattern on Tuesday, with the potential for showers and thunderstorms. Not everyone will see rainfall, but a majority of the Houston area is likely to.
The general pattern of showers and thunderstorms developing offshore, and then moving into the Houston area during the morning and afternoon hours, should continue. Overall, our evenings should be free of rainfall this week, but I would not make any ironclad guarantees. Highs will continue in the vicinity of 90 degrees into the low 90s, a nice contrast to the heat from the rest of this month.
More of the same, probably. I think we’ll see highs in the low 90s this weekend, with a mixture of sunny and cloudy skies. Daily rain chances will, again, probably be 50 percent or higher, with better chances near the coast. Nights remain warm, with lows briefly dropping into the upper 70s.
There is some evidence in the global models of another surge in rainfall on Monday and Tuesday of next week, but that is far enough into the future that I’m not overly confident. In any case, the most likely outcome for weather next week is that this wet and somewhat cooler pattern continues for at least a few more days. There’s some evidence of a push back toward highs in the mid-90s during the second half of next week, but I could just as easily see us staying a bit cooler. We’ll see!
Founded in 2021 by artists Ben Muñoz and Hugo Juarez, Familia Printshop serves as a printmaking hub for the Dallas-Fort Worth area. From monthly meetups to weekend workshops, the community print shop provides resources and equipment for artists with all different levels of experience.
Richie Peña at Familia Printshop in Dallas, photo courtesy of Familia Printshop
Richie Peña joined Familia as their master printer in 2023, introducing an editioning wing to the organization. A few months ago, Peña took over the role of Executive Director, replacing co-founder Muñoz. Since then, Familia has relocated spaces and launched a new series of workshops.
Peña recently shared about the shop and its programming as well as his new role and future goals for the organization.
Caleb Bell (CB): It is my understanding that you joined Familia about a year ago or so to start a publishing aspect of the print shop. What was your motivation for entering that role and starting it up?
Richie Peña (RP): Yes, I wanted to bring my experience as a collaborative printmaker to add something new to the Familia Printshop and work with artists again. There are a lot of amazing Dallas-Fort Worth artists, and having another resource, like the print shop, would help develop their artwork by working through a collaborative project. It is something that I felt would benefit the area greatly.
CB: When you are inviting artists to collaborate with you on an edition, what are you looking for in their work?
RP: The first thing I do is look up the artist’s work. This could be from their website, Instagram, or in-person at art shows or even studio visits. I am looking for artists willing to experiment and go beyond the medium they work in. I want them to push themselves to discover a mode of creating within printmaking.
Arely Morales working on an edition at Familia Printshop. Photo courtesy of Familia Printshop
CB: Speaking of encouraging artists to explore printmaking, I know that you have been an adjunct printmaking professor at the University of North Texas. What classes have you taught? Are you teaching again this fall?
RP: Spring 2024 was my first semester teaching printmaking at UNT. I taught beginning printmaking for relief and screen printing. It was an amazing experience, and I enjoyed working with my students and faculty there. I am teaching the same courses for Fall 2024 and looking forward to it.
CB: When you are teaching, what is one major piece of advice you share with young printmakers?
RP: I like this question a lot because I want my students to know right from the beginning — we are going to make bad prints and that is okay because right now, we are learning a new process with a lot of necessary steps. By the end of the semester, they all will see a big change in growth from where we started to now.
CB: Have you found that being in an academic printmaking setting has changed the way you approach the print shop at all? And if so, in what ways?
RP: I think it is the other way around. Collaborating with artists has made me a better teacher. Some artists that I work with are not familiar with the various printmaking processes and some are. When you collaborate with the artists, you gauge their understanding of the process to develop and guide learning the printmaking process, whether it be something known or new to them. There is patience, guidance, and a level of understanding of the individual or group when working with them. I carry every aspect that I gain from my years of working with artists to my students.
CB: Education seems to be a large part of Familia’s programming including workshops. When you are looking at presenting workshops, what types of programs do you like to bring in for the community?
RP: Yes, one of the foundations that I want Familia Printshop to be known for is a place for artists, students, and the community to learn printmaking. A lot of the workshops I teach are designed for entry-level with aspects of learning an advanced technique, much like the upcoming etching workshop. Students taking the workshop will learn how to make a line etch into a copper plate. To add another element, I will show them how to chine collé, which will add color to the image by using a piece of paper, like Kozo, cut down to the size of the plate. I want students to take something from the workshops that they can use later on in future workshops or their own practice.
CB: I know that you all also have a monthly meetup for the community. Can you share a little about it and how one gets involved?
RP: Familia Printshop hosts Thoughts & Brayers every last Sunday of the month. It is open to the community and provides an opportunity to check out the print shop and talk with printmakers. The presses are open at that time for demos or individuals needing press time. I also allow members to share interests or opportunities they want to get from being a part of the print shop.
Last month, members expressed they wanted to see demos, so I will be offering Look & Learn on various printmaking processes. We also planned for a group critique for another upcoming Thoughts and Brayers. Individuals who want to get involved are welcome to join us or reach out to me by email.
Familia Printshop’s new studio space at 2043 Empire Central Drive in Dallas. Photo courtesy of Familia Printshop
CB: After taking over the role of Executive Director, the print shop moved into a new space. What prompted that move and how has the transition been?
RP: Various situations arose when deciding to relocate the print shop. As the Executive Director, I felt it was in the organization’s best interest to downsize the space and work towards having a bigger space later in the years to come.
My major goal for the print shop is to be a space dedicated to having various types of presses, studio spaces for artists, and a gallery. That is what is driving me to keep building and working towards that goal. Another resource and facility for artists and the community to learn, create, and have a press in the DFW area!
CB: Also, how has the transition into your new position been? What have you found most interesting about the change?
RP: This question is personal to me. I have found a lot of change within myself. I never thought I would be running a print shop or being able to work with artists, and I am thankful for the previous Executive Director and Co-Founder of Familia Printshop, Ben Muñoz. I have seen my abilities grow and a confidence that I knew was inside me but just needed to find it, and that is what Familia Printshop has given me. It has led to many amazing opportunities like the Ft. Worth Art Fair, collaborations with artists such as Michael Reeder, Arely Morales, Mariell Guzman, and Anna Redman, teaching at UNT, and reaching out to Oak Cliff Cultural Center and Talley Dunn Gallery.
CB: As you are looking forward, what do you hope for Familia’s future?
RP: My hope for Familia Printshop is that individuals seeking a print shop will know they have a second or third home to come to for printmaking, or just be a part of the Familia!
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
The post The Texas Matrix: Richie Peña and Familia Printshop appeared first on Glasstire.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Is the term “junior” derogatory?
I recently had a minor dust-up at work that surprised me. I had a contract service scheduled to happen on-site at a vendor. Two of my coworkers expressed interest in attending in person with me to learn how it is done. These two coworkers are relatively new grads, about 10 years less experienced than me, and have job titles below mine, though I don’t supervise them. I sent a note to the vendor requesting permission for them to attend and in doing so referred to the two coworkers as “junior colleagues” of mine.
The coworkers were hurt. One brought it up to me.
I apologized for any hurt feelings and explained, sincerely, that I didn’t have or intend any negative associations with the word “junior.” I had used the word because I needed the vendor to be prepared for inexperienced people on the job site (they need physical monitoring). I also wanted the vendor to be prepared to answer more than the usual number of questions, and though I doubted they’d refuse the visitors, I wanted to give them a polite out if they didn’t want this particular job to be used as a learning opportunity. I also needed the vendor to understand that I still was the point of contact on the project and to some degree (by virtue of being there) was responsible for the conduct of my colleagues in a sensitive location not accessible to the public. I wasn’t just mentioning rank for funsies; it was relevant.
I spent a long time in academia, and there “junior” and “senior” were very normal words to describe grad students, postdocs, researchers, fellows, etc., of varying levels of experience. Usually, you literally were just referring to how long that person had been there. It was also very common for informal mentoring and teaching relationships to exist between “junior” and “senior” people within a level; I guess I thought that was part of what was being asked of me in having these coworkers attend this service site with me.
I certainly won’t use the word again now that I know these coworkers have a sore spot with it. Is this just them, or does this term have a broader connotation I’m not aware of? Is there a better way I could phrase things when I need to communicate a difference in seniority—oops!—I mean, in title, level of responsibility within the organization, or experience?
It’s completely normal to use terms like “junior” and “senior” in a work context! Sometimes it refers to how long someone has been there (particularly with “senior”) but more often it’s a reflection of the level of the position and responsibility the person holds or their amount of experience in the field overall. Sometimes, too, it’s a description of relationships relative to each other; you could be senior to me/my position but still junior to your boss.
Assuming “relatively new grads” means your colleagues graduated a year or two ago, they are junior; you’re not required to pretend that they’re not, and you had relevant reasons for mentioning it. (And in some fields they’d be considered junior far longer than that; it’s pretty field-dependent.)
If they weren’t actually junior, it would be understandable for them to feel like you minimized their expertise and competence, but that doesn’t sound like the case. You used a normal term in a normal way.
Related:
my coworkers say I should hold back because I’m early-career … but am I?
2. All-female staff at women’s health offices
I was recently at a gynecologist appointment, and noticed yet again that all of the staff who work there are women. This has been the case at several different OB-GYN offices I’ve been to, as well as at the women’s center where I’ve had my mammograms done.
While male OB-GYNs do exist, there haven’t been any at any of the practices I’ve been a patient at. But even beyond the doctors themselves, all nurses, medical assistants, ultrasound techs, phlebotomists, and even the receptionists have all been women. I know why they do this — many women don’t want men in the room during a pelvic exam or a mammogram. But how can they legally get away with only hiring women? Especially for non-clinical roles? I doubt the law prohibiting hiring discrimination based on sex has an exception for female-target health care. Is it really that men just tend not to apply at gyn offices?
The law prohibiting gender discrimination includes an exception for what’s called “bona fide occupational qualifications,” which allows employers to make a job single-sex-only if it’s truly necessary to the work. The law recognizes this exception in three circumstances: privacy (for example, you can preference women when hiring a women’s locker room attendant), “authenticity in the arts” (like in casting for movies or TV), and when the qualification “relates to the normal operation or essence of the business” (like the mandatory retirement age for pilots for safety reasons).
However, customer preference for men or women in a particular role doesn’t normally qualify.
I suspect what you’re seeing is largely self-selecting — for example, men tend not to go into mammography at all, and I suspect they apply for other jobs at women’s health centers in lower numbers too — but it’s probably mixed in with at least a bit of the people who are hiring giving preference to female candidates and no one having challenged that.
3. Can I address my struggling employee’s use of PTO?
My office has a generous time-off benefit, with about five weeks of vacation and 2.5 weeks of sick time, plus all the usual holidays and a two-week winter closure (paid). Most people end up needing to take 1-2 days a month just to stay under the vacation cap, but I have one employee who has the opposite problem and often uses up his accruals immediately. He takes many vacations each year, and needs additional time off for external commitments. This means he usually hovers around a balance of 2-3 days banked (compared to most other people who have 15-20 days available at any given time).
I’ve always believed that a person’s PTO is a compensation benefit and wouldn’t make anyone feel guilty for taking the time they are owed. But lately this person’s performance is starting to dip, and a few balls are being dropped because he’s overwhelmed. Would it be reasonable as a manager to say that he may have an easier time staying on top of things if he was around more often? It feels unfair that I may need to adjust projects and reassign work to others in the office to make up for his extensive travel schedule.
Yes, it’s reasonable to say, “The expectation is that you’ll manage your time off in a way that ensures balls aren’t dropped and doesn’t require others to regularly cover for you.” It’s also reasonable to point out that an especially demanding period isn’t the right time for optional time-off (that’s why some teams have vacation black-out dates or all-hands-on-deck periods) or to say, “I can’t approve a week off next month because it’s right before the major event you’re responsible for / you just came back from a week off and you have an accumulating backlog that needs to be processed by October 1 / or so forth.”
It wouldn’t be reasonable to say either of these things if they meant a responsible person would have a tough time ever taking vacation; if the guy’s workload is such that he’s never going to get time off without you adjusting projects and reassigning work, then adjusting projects and reassigning work is what you do … but otherwise, yeah, you can say this. But look at his workload first to make sure.
It’s also pretty common for companies not to permit unpaid time off at all, or to put limits on it. If you offer 7.5 weeks off per year, you presumably hired assuming the position would be staffed 44.5 weeks a year and it’s reasonable to require that (with flexibility for extenuating circumstances). So you might take a look at how the additional unpaid time off is playing into this.
Note: I’m assuming you know these are actual vacations and he’s not using the time off for medical reasons, which would be a different thing.
4. Stuck in the middle of a conflict with my employee and my manager
One of my staff members and my direct supervisor recently had a bad interaction on the public floor (both seem to be at fault). Both reached out to me after the incident. My supervisor asked me to bring my staff member in to have a meeting with the three of us. Is this appropriate?
It’s not inappropriate. But if at all possible, you should talk to them each individually beforehand and hear about what happened from their perspectives, plus find out what your manager’s goals are for the meeting so that you’re not walking in unprepared. Your manager should be willing to to prep you for what the point of the meeting is and, since you manage the staff member, should be open to hearing your input on the best way to handle it.
Ideally, if they were really both at fault, your role would be something like a translator — “Jane’s concerns were X, which is why she said Y / Rupert was coming from a place of concern about Z / here’s my take on how we can move forward.” But that won’t work in every situation; it depends on exactly what happened.
5. Still no photos on resumes?
I was wondering if your “no photos on resumes” (in the U.S.) ruling has changed at all since 2012? I’m curious because my friend asked me to review her resume, which she had created with a snazzy online tool. It looked nice, but it had a spot for a photo, which I always thought was a no-no. Have norms on this changed since most people have photos on LinkedIn or other easily-findable places?
Nope, it’s still the rule. Photos do not belong on resumes.
What’s happened, though, is that there are a number of truly terrible resume templates online created by people who know a lot about design and absolutely nothing about resumes, and so you end up with awful templates that don’t suit their purpose at all. (See not only photos, but also templates with hardly any room for the stuff employers care about most, like job history and accomplishments.)
Half the food I find emits electricity or explodes on contact or something else horrible; this shouldn't be that surprising.
There’s nothing quite as satisfying as gardening. Whether growing vegetables or adding color to your backyard, all you need to cultivate healthy plants is sun and water.
Except not that much sun. You don’t want to broil your plants. And lighten up on the water. You’re growing a garden, not a swamp.
Start with an easy plant. Zinnias. Geranium. Basil. They’re impossible to kill. Unless you introduce the wrong amount of water and sun.
Geraniums like full sun. Hostas thrive in partial shade. And arugula needs to be in full sun except when it prefers shade, which is usually Mondays or any day you decide to spend at the beach and neglect your garden.
Green beans, peppers, and tomatoes can be planted in pots. To maintain the perfect ecosystem for each, devote your days to rearranging their pots to optimize sun exposure like they’re teenagers trying to achieve the perfect tan without burning. Don’t forget to remind them every twenty-five minutes to drink water, even if they roll their eyes at you.
Water your plants first thing in the morning when it’s cool, unless they prefer to be watered during the hottest part of the day.
If a plant isn’t thriving, consider adding less water. You should only water your plants once or twice a week. Or three times a day, depending on how much water your plant decides it needs. Don’t let the water touch the plant, only the dirt. If water touches a leaf, the entire ecosystem will crumble.
Never use sink water on your plants. Only use filtered water or bottled water endorsed by a celebrity.
If you go on vacation during the summer, don’t. Your plants need to be watered at the same time on the same days while you wear the same outfit. If this ritual isn’t followed, they’ll revolt by losing all their flower buds on the day you host your in-laws for a barbecue. But again, with the perfect amount of water and sun, you’ll have a garden that’s worth skipping the trip to the Italian coast.
If it rains, water your plants as normal. Just reduce your water amount by a third for the first watering of the week and by seven-ninths if you’re watering on the third Thursday of a month that starts with J.
How can you tell if you’re overwatering your plants? You’ll notice the leaves are browning. A few stems may wilt. One day, you’ll walk outside, and your plant will be splayed dead in the dirt with no warning at all.
You should continue to water dead plants for a week so you feel less guilty throwing them out.
Once you have the watering down, add in fertilizer. You’ll also need cages to nurture your cherry tomatoes. All of this will require 763 trips to your local gardening center. But with just a little effort, a $430 investment, and hours neglecting all other responsibilities while you coax plants, you can add a few sprigs of slightly browned homegrown basil to any summer salad.
In the winter, you can take a break.
All you need to do is plan your garden for next year, clean, sharpen, and replenish your tools, rebuild raised beds, weed, overhaul your drip system, and start seedlings by providing them with the exact amount of sun and water.
Then, all you’ll need to do come summer is add sun and water.
Except not that much sun. And definitely less water.
