I wrote early this year about the many goals I was pursuing in 2024, and since we are more than halfway through the year I want to do some (perhaps weekly) posts on how various things are going. I’ve been on a real self improvement bender in the last two years, and I think that sharing my experience might be motivational or educational.
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Flexibility
My flexibility has improved by leaps and bounds this year, and for what it’s worth, I was able to make a lot of the progress in the first few months of the year, basically entirely by stretching daily (sometimes twice a day) and specifically focusing on stretches that were meant to help me touch my toes (my main goal — which I achieved for the first time since I was… an infant!). I have also tried to improve posture, and stand more often at my desk which I think forces a better posture for me than sitting anyways.
Outcome-wise, improved flexibility is hard to directly map onto specific outcomes, but what I will say is that while in previous years I have sometimes had strains of various types when exercising, I really haven’t noticed that as much this year. At the same time, when I am sore after intense exercise, that seems to subside quite quickly!
Tracking my Eating
I have been super consistent in tracking my eating over the last 8 months, and I think it’s also been a good reminder not only to not snack, but also to eat well since I try to colour cells in my spreadsheet for days I ate in a notably unhealthy way — eat a burger and you get a yellow cell, and nobody wants a yellow cell! I’ve also added a tracker for glasses of water, and supplements I take into the sheet, and I would say this has absolutely improved my consistency with my supplements and probably pushed my water consumption up by 20-30%, which is pretty significant. I also think being able to look back over time is a nice motivator — for example, I can see my ice cream eating habit being reduced, my daily glasses of water being increased, and my diet slowly improving here and there.
In terms of outcomes, I think it’s pretty clear that tracking my eating has nudged me in the direction of improving things pretty substantially, and for better or for worse, my diet at the beginning of the year was already a lot better than in years before. I’ve also noticed a bit more pressure to continually improve, which I think is more important than exactly what I am eating any given day — just slowly making things better every couple of weeks.
What I have also noticed is that I am having less digestive issues and things like acid reflux, which I would have considered to be normal, which is a nice side effect. I’ve also been trying to follow 腹八分目 (Hara hachi bun me, which is a Japanese phrase/teaching translates to “eating till 80% full”), though it’s obviously hard and a real change in how you eat.
Maintaining a Good Sleep Schedule
Sadly, my sleep schedule has not really kept up, I think ultimately as the result of poor time management, so I am still working later than I want, and this pushes my regular “wind down” later as a result. Sometimes I also just end up staying out late, going on a walk or watching a movie, or having to get up earlier to go to an appointment. I probably need to try and plan these things around maintaining my sleep schedule more.
I was using an Apple Watch to track this, but in about June I realized I didn’t want to rely on Apple Health tracking (I like my spreadsheet — which is cross-platform in case I want to change platform to Android / Linux), and so I’ve attempted to start doing that. The tracking is probably not more reliable, and some days I forget (I try to write the time down when I close my eyes and when I get up in the morning), but I think it makes me more intentional — and the Apple tracking is just not amazingly good anyways (I can be lying awake and it “thinks” I am sleeping).
While things are not amazing, at the very least I have managed to keep my actual time sleeping over 8 hours on average, and better yet, I generally sleep and wake within a two hour window on both ends, so the consistency could be worse. I am basically haven’t pulled any all-nighters. That being said, I would like to get my schedule (especially waking up) much more consistent by end of year. For outcomes, I do feel like I am extremely exhausted much less frequently, which feels pretty good!
Weight Loss
Weight loss along with flexibility has been a huge success. My weight is down to what it was when I was starting university, and I have been able to keep it within a roughly 5 pound range, which feels quite good.
Losing weight has not been a consistent, or easy process — I weigh myself every day, which people generally don’t recommend, but I find it is a good way of keeping my weight on my mind. Ultimately, it’s come down to a lot of exercise (often 2-3 hours a day, on top of a lot of time spent stretching) and way better diet.
Exercise has been much more varied than in previous years, I lift weights most days (albeit nothing crazy), walk 10 kilometres every day (usually more, but I don’t generally count walking down to the store etc.), and run a couple times a week (though this is now weekly and I am trying to reintroduce weekly climbing to the mix). I will say, living quite some distance from frequent transit and a major destination has been a great way of “building in” a lot of this walking without having to do all of it as purposeful exercise. As with diet, every couple of weeks I ramp things up, whether that be heavier weights or more reps, or a faster run — the goal is to make sure that I maintain the “strain” or “pressure” of exercise.
Walking allows me to take in new sights of the city too…
On the bright side, once I more or less hit my weight “target” I have found that maintaining weight is much easier than losing it. This is oddly counter to what a lot of people tell you, but I think it comes down to the fact that maintenance simply allows for more calories than when you are trying to cut your weight. At the same time, I am not abandoning most of my exercise now that I have reached my target (and you burn less calories if you weigh less for obvious reasons) so there is less of a risk of weight coming right back on. I think the trick here is making sure that you don’t fill the newfound “buffer” (extra food you can eat while maintaining your weight) with total garbage — or even semi-garbage, which for me is pastries etc.
All of the weight loss has had a lot of positive impacts — clothes that didn’t fit me easily fit me again, I look better, people comment that I have lost weight (including with wild theories on YouTube), my resting heart rate is way down (very good!), and I rarely feel out of breath if I am not doing a hardcore workout. It sort of just makes everything in life a little bit better.
Going forward… and some lessons
After I am done going through all my “goal categories” in blog posts like this one, I am going to start formulating 2025 goals to guide things into the next year with further improvements and the like (I think it’s good to write things that you could do better down when you come to them for later execution).
I do want to say that making my health objectively better has been a really good for my mental health. I definitely like many people suffer from some health anxiety, and trying to focus this energy into things that will actually make my health better instead of raising my blood pressure and wasting my time has clearly been positive. At the same time, a really hard run or climbing session is very good for clearing your mind — pressing refresh as it were.
The last thing I want to mention is a bit of a principle I have applied widely (not even just for my health goals), and which I think is very helpful — and that’s just keeping my goals constantly on my mind. There is little more motivating to sit out that slice of cake than a reminder that it’s going to set you back on your finance and health goals — and that your next run is going to be a little more unpleasant for your brief moment of enjoyment now. Trying to bring forward the long term benefits of discipline is really important!
Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion Josef Burton, “We’re So Glad It’s You,” in Verso Judith Butler, “Afterword,” in David Eng & David Kazanjian (eds.), Loss Judith Butler, Frames of War Judith Butler, Precarious Life Naomi Cahn, “The Digital Afterlife is A Mess,” in Slate Beverley Clack, “Constructing Death as a Form of Failure: Addressing Mortality in a Neoliberal Age,” in Immortality and the Philosophy of Death Beverley Clack, How to Be A Failure and Still Live Well Marianne Cooper and Maxim Voronov, “We’ve Hit Peak Denial: Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away from Reality,” in Scientific American David Crimp, “Melancholia and Moralism,” in David Eng & David Kazanjian (eds.), Loss Douglas Crimp, “Mourning and Militancy” Helen de Cruz, “Thinking least (or a lot) of death: On the toxicity of positive thinking, and the power of philosophy as therapy,” Ann Cvetkovich, “Legacies of Trauma, Legacies of Activism: ACT Up’s Lesbians,” in David Eng & David Kazanjian (eds.), Loss Caitlin Doherty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes David Eng & David Kazanjian, “Introduction,” in David Eng & David Kazanjian (eds.), Loss David Eng & Shinhee Han, “A Dialogue on Racial Melancholia,” in David Eng & David Kazanjian (eds.), Loss Valerie Hey, “Be(Long)Ing,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana Susanne Greenhalgh, “Our Lady of Flowers,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana Gil Hochberg, “From “Shooting and Crying” to “Shooting and Singing”,” in Contending Modernities Richard Johnson, “Exemplary Differences,” Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg “Introduction,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana Adrian Kear, “Diana Between Two Deaths,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana Tamara Kneese, Deathglitch Jess Lingel, “The Digital Remains: Social Media and Practices of Grief,” in The Information Society Michael Massimi and Andrew Charise, “Dying, Death, and Mortality,” in Proceedings of the 27th International Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics Media Diversified, “How the West Lies to Itself in Order to Destroy the Other” Sebastien Mena, Jukka Rintamaki, Peter Fleming, and Andre Spicer, “On the Forgetting of Corporate Irresponsibility,” in Academy of Management Review Thomas Nagel, “Death” and “War,” in Mortal Questions Mica Nava, “Diana and Race,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana William Odom, Richard Banks, and Dave Kirk, “Reciprocity, Deep Storage, and Letting Go” Victoria Pitts, “Illness and Internet Empowerment,” in Health Val Plumwood, “Meeting the Predator” Val Plumwood, “Tasteless: Towards A Food-Based Approach to Death” April Rosenblum, “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere” Falguni Sheth, Toward A Political Philosophy of Race William J. Spurlin, “I’d Rather Be the Princess Than the Queen!,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana Deborah Lynn Steinberg, “Bowie, Diana, and Why We Mourn in Public,” in The Conversation Deborah Lynn Steinberg, “The Bad Patient: Estranged Subjects of Cancer Care,” in Body and Society Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Jatinda Verma, “Mourning Diana, Asian Style,” in Adrian Kear & Deborah Lynn Steinberg (eds.) Mourning Diana
00:00 - 11:24 Chapter 1: Is This Loss? 11:24 - 21:59 Chapter 2: Prepare to Die 21:59 - 39:12 Ignoring Mass Death 39:12 - 46:43 Can We Do Anything About It? 46:43 - 1:00:00 It is Very Difficult to Make Videos About This
Debby is causing localized catastrophic flooding in parts of northern Pennsylvania and the Southern Tier of New York.
Debby’s remnants will exit into Canada tonight, bringing more flooding risks to Quebec, including Montreal, as well as northern New York and northern Vermont.
The next wave has increasing development odds in the Atlantic.
While no development is expected before Monday, interests in the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands should monitor this wave’s progress closely.
Debby on the way out
Debby, no longer a tropical storm, is exiting to the north today, but not before leaving more destruction in its wake. Several flash flood emergencies are ongoing in Pennsylvania and New York this afternoon as Debby’s rains lead to damaging flooding, including reports of rooftop rescues and numerous trapped people in Westfield, PA.
Debby’s remnants lifting through Upstate New York this afternoon. (College of DuPage)
Debby’s remnants will move into Canada and bring more flooding rain, with rainfall warnings hoisted for much of southern Quebec and parts of New Brunswick as well. Portions of northern Vermont, very vulnerable to rainfall are also under a flood watch as Debby’s rains move that way. Isolated tornadoes are possible as well.
Watching the next wave’s development odds increase
As I noted yesterday, I felt that the 30 percent odds of development from the next Atlantic wave were going to increase. A little over 24 hours later, and those odds are now doubled up to 60 percent.
The next tropical wave is up to 60 percent odds of development by next week. (NOAA NHC)
The tropical wave itself is not much to look at today, just an area of clouds, showers, and thunderstorms in an otherwise rather dusty Atlantic. You can see it east of the islands on the satellite image below.
The next wave looks disorganized but holding thunderstorm activity as it rambles west across the Atlantic. (Weathernerds.org)
The first thing I can tell you about this one is that we do not expect any development probably before later Monday. So we have a couple days yet before this gets started. So for folks in the islands, this will probably not be bearing down on you as a big storm; it will probably just be getting organized as it arrives. Whatever the case, by Monday, we have a tropical wave on the cusp of organization, arriving just east of the Lesser Antilles and Virgin Islands.
The tropical wave will be arriving near the islands on Monday afternoon or evening, just likely beginning the process of development. (Pivotal Weather)
From here, the ballet begins. High pressure over the Southern U.S. and Texas, a trough digging into New England, and high pressure in the Atlantic will compete as this wave develops to help steer it. The current majority of modeling suggests this will develop steadily enough that it will probably go north in the islands and eventually into the open Atlantic. However, given that we’re about 6 days or so out from that happening and the inherent uncertainty from an undeveloped system, we can’t say much for sure. Here’s what we can tell you today:
The tropical wave is unlikely to develop before Monday.
Development may occur steadily, if not rapidly as the system enters the Caribbean or grazes the northeast Caribbean next week.
While the model consensus suggests an eventual north turn well off the East Coast, it is far too early to say much about this system’s future track.
A Gulf of Mexico track is unlikely at this time but not an impossibility.
I feel like when storms have had an opportunity to come a little farther west than expected this season, they’ve found a way, so I don’t want to write this off for Florida or the East Coast just yet. Right now, folks in the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands should be watching this system closely, as once it gets going, it could start organizing fairly quickly. Beyond that, stay tuned this weekend for the latest. We’ll have another update for you on Sunday.
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Debby is moving inland across South Carolina, spreading heavy rain and flash flooding across the Carolinas.
Significant rain and flooding will continue in North Carolina and expand into Virginia today.
Debby lifts north and exits tomorrow and Saturday, spreading flooding risks into Pennsylvania, New York, and Quebec.
The next tropical wave to watch will arrive near the Caribbean islands early next week, and it will be worth watching closely.
Debby brings widespread flooding northward
Tropical Storm Debby has come back ashore today near Bulls Bay, SC, which is just north of Charleston. It continues to slowly migrate inland and will lose wind intensity through the day. One thing it won’t lose is moisture, and virtually all of east-central North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina is under a flood warning this morning. Just a huge spatial area of flash flood warnings.
Flash flood warnings in maroon cover a massive chunk of North Carolina, including Raleigh-Durham, the Triad, and Charlotte. Flood watches extend north up the Appalachians into Central and Northern New York. (Pivotal Weather)
That heavy rain will migrate northward today into Virginia, where a high risk of flooding (level 4/4) extends up through Roanoke, Blacksburg, Lynchburg, and Charlottesville.
A high risk (level 4/4) of flooding exists again today, this time from North Carolina into the Shenandoah Valley. (NOAA WPC)
Heavy rain will expand north into Pennsylvania and New York as we go into tonight and tomorrow, as well as into Quebec. Basically, we’re looking at 2 to 5 inches over a wide area, with isolated enhancement in the mountains of Virginia, where the flooding could be the worst. Everything should exit late tomorrow. Some additional heavy rain will be possible east of the this peak axis, but it will be a more manageable rain. Severe weather, including isolated tornadoes are possible too.
Peak totals will basically follow I-81 north into Upstate New York, with another maxima in the St. Lawrence Valley in Quebec, mainly east of Montreal. (NOAA WPC)
And we’ll say goodbye to Debby after this.
Next wave up is increasingly intriguing
As I noted yesterday, while modeling was mostly leaning toward the next wave not being a big deal, there was reason to watch it. It has indeed been added to the area of interest map today by the National Hurricane Center.
The next tropical wave to watch will arrive near the islands in 4 or 5 days and currently has about a 30 percent chance of development. (NOAA NHC)
They open the bidding at 30 percent, but I truthfully think we’ll see this increase some in the next day or two. This wave is going to have an interesting future. First off, development with this one will be slow. There is a lot of Saharan dust to contend with in the Atlantic, and there is no reason to think we see much of anything through the weekend. By the time we get to Monday, the wave should be approaching the Antilles. At this point, development may start to unfold slowly. But with high pressure basically in control from the Bahamas into Texas, this system will probably be cut off from “feeling” the tug of a trough in New England initially.
A slowly developing tropical system is likely to move into the islands and/or Caribbean early next week. (Tropical Tidbits)
From this point, it becomes a bit of a fight. If this system struggles a bit, it will stay suppressed, likely south of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. This means it may miss its ride out to sea from the deepening New England trough. However, if development starts moving along more aggressively, we will likely see this system gain latitude toward Puerto Rico and Hispaniola or to the north, making it more likely to ultimately be captured by the New England trough and sent north. Additionally, the specific location and strength of the trough and areas of high pressure will play a big role too. It’s far too early to say how this ballet will play out, but I have to admit, the model data today was a little more sluggish with the pull north, which starts creeping this system a little farther west than we’d care to see.
In terms of timing, impacts will arrive in the islands early to mid next week, and if they come west toward Cuba, the Bahamas, or Florida, it would be late next week. Any risk to the Gulf, if any, is unlikely before at least next weekend. We have a lot of time to watch.
Additional waves may try to get going off Africa around the 20th, but we’ll see.
In brief: Houston’s heat and humidity continue, pretty much without change, for the time being. In the spirit of optimism, in today’s post I identify a couple of silver linings to the ongoing August weather.
Small victories
Houston continues lie under the influence of high pressure, and while there will be some subtle changes in the days ahead the big picture of heat and humidity remains more or less the same. This is fairly typical for August, and there are a few upsides. One is that, with the lack of rain of late, the incredible surge of mosquitoes we saw in July has abated some. And secondly, for as long as there is high pressure in place, it should steer any tropical activity away from us. Even so, these are small victories when the weather is this sultry.
Based on the wet bulb globe temperature, yep, it’s gonna be very hot. (Weather Bell)
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
The current heat wave will peak over the next three days, with high temperatures likely to reach 100 degrees for much of the metro area. We won’t get much, if any relief from winds, which will range from calm to maybe 5 mph. Skies will be sunny, with high humidity. Low temperatures will briefly get down to about 80 degrees overnight. Please take care if you’re going to be outside during the middle of the day.
Sunday
The second half of the weekend isn’t going to be much different. It will still be hot, sunny, and humid. Rain chances will still be near zero percent. However, temperatures for most of Houston probably will not reach 100 degrees. So we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.
Next week
There won’t be a whole lot of change next week. Skies should still be sunny, for the most part. Highs likely will range from the mid- to upper-90s. I don’t want to say rain chances are zero, because they’re not. But they’re quite low, in the 10 to 20 percent range for most days. Perhaps they’ll be a little bit higher by Friday or Saturday, but one has to squint really hard into the available data to see that.
Tropical outlook from the National Hurricane Center.
Tropics
Tropical Storm Debby has moved back inland into the southeastern United States, where it will continue to produce heavy rainfall and flooding in the Carolinas, before bringing the same to Virginia and the northeastern United States in the coming days.
Beyond Debby there is a new wave that forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are tracking. Most of our model guidance indicates this wave will turn northward before threatening the Gulf of Mexico, but given the time of year we’ll keep an eye on things just in case.
“X filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a coalition of major advertisers, claiming that it had violated antitrust laws by coordinating with brands to dissuade them from spending money on the social media platform.” — New York Times
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August 8, 2024 RE: Cease and Desist from not using X
Dear Former User of X/Twitter:
On April 17, 2023, you submitted a request to deactivate your X (then Twitter) account after previously blocking user @elonmusk, adding the words “elon musk” to your muted-words list, and systematically blocking all blue-check-verified users as well as all companies advertising on the platform.
These actions constitute an illegal one-person boycott that infringes on our client’s constitutional right to free speech, as well as his right to monetize that speech in several ways, and has caused him irreparable harm. To wit:
Our client has had to expend extra effort to juice the subscriber numbers in an effort to persuade advertisers that his platform was a viable means of reaching consumers in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Our client has been forced to walk back his demand that advertisers “go fuck themselves” and resort to legal threats in order to reinstate his revenue stream, causing him embarrassment and effort that would otherwise be spent sharing flaccid memes without attribution.
Our client has been forced to reinstate the previously banned accounts of hundreds of the worst people on the planet to make up for the shortfall in subscribers.
As a result of your departure from his platform, our client has been forced to interact exclusively with not only the previously mentioned worst people on the planet but also his sycophants, including but not limited to the CEO of Twitter/X.
WE HEREBY DEMAND THAT you immediately cease disparaging the platform as “an untreated toxic cesspool of white male fragility and the brands that cater to that,” reinstate your account, follow @elonmusk, like at least 20 percent of his tweets,1 pay eight dollars per month for a verified blue check, and vote for Donald Trump in November.
Sincerely, Latundan Cavendish, Esq. Cavendish, Gros Michel, and Plantain, LLC
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1 We recognize that posts on the platform are probably no longer called tweets, but “Elon Musk’s x’s” brings up a frankly concerning relationship history, and we’d rather not get into that.
On the other end of the rail spectrum, there are a number of light rail lines at various stages of development which, while (as I often discuss) are unlikely to be groundbreaking in terms of speed improvements, will provide a more regular, consistent, and attractive local transit service on key corridors.
The Toronto region is adding 4 new surface light rail corridors, and expanding existing light rail as well.
An Eglinton Crosstown LRV.
Finch and Eglinton East
Line 6 Finch and the eastern half of Line 5 Eglinton will add two new rail services similar to the 512 St. Clair streetcar, which will replace two very busy suburban bus routes between Line 1 and Humber College, and Yonge & Eglinton and Kennedy Station through the Golden Mile. This will mean more capacity, less emissions, more attractive (but still not sufficient) streetscapes, and the capacity to reallocate road space on these corridors, which will certainly make them feel a cut above where they are today.
And, for what it’s worth, they will be a cut above the St. Clair streetcar, with faster service, larger trains, level boarding, and off-board fare payment. Essentially, the are not revolutionary, but evolutionary — and that’s not nothing.
What’s more, their interchanges with rapid transit and Humber College will all happen in new or expanded underground stations, which will strengthen those nodes and make those connections more attractive.
Hurontario
The Hurontario tram route, which will be known as Line 10 (for Highway 10 – Hurontario’s former designation), will add a service that is similar to Line 6 to the main north-south corridor of Mississauga and Brampton. My personal view is that with the enormous development on the corridor and future growth potential in Peel, this line really should have been SkyTrain. But no matter what, at the end of the day, it will likely drive more ridership and development than the current bus service, while also providing more comfortable and consistent transit service. Hurontario should also be quickly than the lines in Toronto thanks to the longer gaps between stations, which will help it gain more riders than it would have otherwise, and create a bit of a backbone that other services in the region can connect into. Perhaps it will also convince residents to push for more similar service in the future.
Hurontario is also a first in a few ways. It’s the first numbered transit route in the GTHA that is entirely outside of Toronto, and the first electric transit line outside of Toronto to directly interface with a frequent, all-day GO line (the Lakeshore West at Port Credit) — ION in Waterloo region requires an annoying walk (until the new “transit hub” at King and Victoria is completed), and the Hamilton LRT will not connect directly with either of that city’s GO stations.
Hamilton
Hamilton’s tram route is in procurement at the moment and will be the most modest of Ontario’s modern light rail lines. That being said, it will be the spark for the beginning of what can likely be a much larger system and a lot of urban regeneration. While the line won’t connect directly to GO train services, it will be a short walk away, and it will connect to major destinations in Hamilton, such as downtown, McMaster University, and Tim Hortons Field.
TTC Streetcar
Streetcars on St Clair.
There is also likely to be some modest expansion to the streetcar network. I can’t imagine the Waterfront East LRT through the Port Lands won’t be built — and that will connect the aforementioned district as well as eventually East Harbour station and the streetcar corridors on Broadview, as well as hopefully the Leslie Barns maintenance facility.
I also would expect to see a new connection on Dufferin created between the Harbourfront streetcar route and the King Streetcar, allowing for the “Waterfront West LRT” or a through-running waterfront to western Queens streetcar service to eventually run.
Of course, I am less excited about TTC streetcar expansion than the new tram routes — and that’s mostly because service on the streetcars is often not very good, and because the TTC treats them like buses. If that were to change, things would be very exciting!
OTTAWA – Local woman Marlene Kovach has decided to wait to return all her calls until she can do so in the middle of a bus full of other people. “Sure I could call my mom when I get home,” said Kovach. “But it’s way more time efficient to do it in a place where […]
“America now has a choice between the former president’s nightmarish vision of national decline that only a strongman can fix and Harris’ optimistic vow that America is still a land of aspiration. But that dichotomy also points to a huge risk for Harris. Running a campaign rooted in hopefulness and good cheer at a time when many Americans feel demoralized and tired could backfire.” — CNN
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Look, I get it. Emperor Palpatine is dead, again, and the First Order has scattered to rural Outer Rim diners to lick its turbolaser wounds over heavy mugs of blue drink. The new new hope is ascending in our galaxy far, far away, and that’s a great thing.
But is it really?
I mean, sure, we mustn’t forget the billions of voices who screamed out and were silenced as literal planets disintegrated before our very eyes, but this hope message everyone’s jazzed about… I can’t be the only one thinking it’s a bit of a risk, right?
Running a campaign rooted in hope at a time when galactic citizens feel exhausted from years of relentless star wars could backfire for the Rebels / Resistance / Republic / whatever they call themselves these days, is all I’m saying. After all, it’s not as if the moisture vaporators can work any harder simply because the Empire is no more. The Kessel Run didn’t magically shorten after Luke Skywalker Force-projected his way across space and time. And, despite what you might hope and think, Jar Jar Binks still exists.
Ultimately, I’m just asking questions, because a lot of this new messaging is heavy on hope but light on substance. Much like Master Yoda, actually, that ethereal Force ghost who, for all his supposed power in life, can’t even manipulate solid matter to put food on barren Tatooine kitchen tables. Like the Old Republic, he’s diminished and tired, and doesn’t light up a room like he used to—unless, of course, you meant literally.
At least when the Empire was a thing, we had choices. Light or Dark. Sith or Jedi. Now it’s all hope all the time, 24-7, which is nice, yeah, but when was the last time “nice” moved the needle—or lifted up an X-Wing?
But that Empire, man, with its land speeders, AT-ATs, and deep bench of ass-kicking bounty hunters—what a rush! And while the marketing behind both of its unfortunately named defense enforcement spheres may have been off—and honestly, I also don’t think anyone is denying we could have workshopped something a bit warmer than “Stormtroopers”—there’s absolutely no doubting the strength and security a fully operational battle station offers the galaxy. Like that Admiral Tarkin fellow once said, you can’t have a safe, secure Republic without breaking a few planets. That’s just how it is.
Speaking of how things are, life was a bit more ordered with the First Order in power, wouldn’t you agree? It’s right there in the name. To wit, in a galaxy of widespread restraining bolts, the droids don’t wander off or steal people’s secret plans. Roguish smugglers are encased safely in carbonite. Star Destroyers eject their trash effectively and on time before every hyperspace jump. As any sly Mandalorian would tell you, that’s just not the case now, is it?
Listen, the good guys must be cautious. If they misjudge the galactic mood, the entire New Hope platform could alienate folks, and come off as oblivious to their basic needs.
Honestly, can anyone even afford a pet Rancor anymore? I know I can’t, and that’s a damn shame.
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This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Husband has issues with my dedication to my job and 1-2 work trips a year
I am the manager at a small association, and I have the opportunity to fill the vacant CEO position soon. This promotion would significantly improve our financial situation, allowing us to afford more for our eight-year-old daughter and possibly retire by 55. We have been struggling financially a bit, which is a strain on our relationship.
My job requires travel, including one annual trade show abroad and now a potential second trip for an important convention. The first trip is 11 days long, and the second would be 4 days. However, my husband has mixed feelings about my work and travel. While he says he is proud of me, he also feels I spend too much time working. I do check my emails after hours and participate in board discussions on WhatsApp, but before that, I would just be doom scrolling or watching YouTube.
He is uncomfortable with me being away for what he calls “two weeks” and thinks it is bad for the family. He also worries about my safety in a foreign city. Recently, while he was watching videos with headphones on, I was designing a digital membership card on Canva. He later brought it up as an example of me not wanting to spend time with him, which I found confusing.
I take our daughter to school and pick her up every day. I make dinner 3-4 times a week and handle my share of household chores. We also have a cleaning lady who comes once a week. Despite these efforts, he often invites friends over on weekends when we could spend time together.
He is a great man—loving, hard-working, and a devoted dad who makes our daughter’s school breakfast and lunch every day. However, he recently lost his father and cut ties with the rest of his family, which has made him more clingy. He does not talk about it unless he is drunk, but the issue with my traveling started before this.
I am struggling to understand why my work and travel cause such tension between us. I love him, and I know he loves me, but I feel trapped and exhausted. I am starting to wonder if I would be better off divorced, even though the thought brings me to tears.
Marriage counseling, right away. You’re both coming at this from different perspectives and with different concerns but not understanding the other, and you’re at the point where you’re questioning the marriage. Marriage counseling was made for this. I wish it were a work problem because that would be easier to solve, but it’s a communication and relationship problem, and a pro will be able to help you navigate it.
Also, if the drunkenness is more than a rare occurrence, there’s an additional problem to tackle too — but marriage counseling could be a place where you look at that as well.
2. A C-suite exec recklessly exposed us to Covid
Yesterday, a C-suite leader in a people-facing role came to an in-person, hour-long meeting with me and a few others while visibly sick and coughing, claiming it was “just a summer cold.” She also mentioned that her Covid tests were negative but also that the tests she used were quite old and unreliable. This morning, of course, she tested positive for Covid.
I’ve been trying to be careful lately because I do not want to get Covid again and we are facing a summer surge. Also, when I have been infected in the past, Covid messes up my menstrual cycle for a while. This is particularly concerning because my partner and I are trying to conceive, which no one at my work knows, of course. I mask in crowded public places but I haven’t been masking in our office.
I realize now that I probably should have left the room right away, but I felt enormous pressure to stay, due to the nature of my professional relationship with this leader, her lack of suggesting those uncomfortable leave, and the fact that no one else did. I feel so stupid and cowardly now. I discussed my frustration with a more senior member of my team, but I’m still very upset.
What should I do now? How can I handle similar situations in the future without feeling pressured to stay in a potentially unsafe environment? Do we live in a world where I just need to get over this or I might jeopardize my professional relationships and career?
One thing that became clear early on in the pandemic was that you couldn’t rely on other people to take measures to protect you — you’d have to do it yourself. That remains true. If it’s important to to you to avoid Covid, the only real way to do it is to be willing to assert yourself, even when it feels a little awkward and even where there’s built-in pressure to defer (like meetings with C-suite leaders). What that means in practice: carry masks, put them on in situations like this one, and be willing to say things like:
“I can’t risk getting sick right now so I’m going duck out to my office and call in from there.”
“I’m going to run out and grab a mask because I need to be extra safe right now.”
“Would you mind wearing a mask since it’s such a small space?”
Say these things cheerfully and matter-of-factly, and then do what you need to do. If you’re working with reasonable people and you put effort into maintaining warm relationships generally, it shouldn’t be a big deal.
Also: I wrote this column at a different point in Covid, but the principles still apply about asserting yourself in ways that feel a little uncomfortable in service of a larger good.
3. Which employee is lying?
I manage a customer-facing team that answers questions and provides supplies to clients. Two team members (Taylor and Blake) are not excited about their jobs and are not invested in ensuring clients receive the best service possible. They have both participated in training and discussions about expectations. Taylor has a written warning that the next poor customer service interaction will result in termination. Blake would most likely receive a written warning.
Last week a customer complained about the service they received. The customer refused to identify the staff member since they did not want to get them into trouble. Taylor and Blake were the only two working at the desk during the incident. They both said the other one was who interacted with the customer. I don’t think either will admit to the interaction, so how do I address the poor service the client received? And is there a way to escalate discipline for Taylor or Blake?
If you don’t know who was responsible and have no way of finding out, you can’t hold one of them accountable for it — although you can certainly address it generally with both of them by revisiting how you want similar situations handled and asking them to confirm their understanding of that.
But also, given that one of them is lying about what happened, take it as impetus to supervise both of them more closely: find opportunities to observe more often, spot-check work, check in with clients about whether they’re getting what they need and to take their temperature generally, and ask their colleagues for feedback.
After all the retraining and expectation-setting you’ve already done, if you’re not seeing a significant and sustained change you should move things toward a resolution with both as swiftly as you can. And it sounds like the sort of situation where the closer you look, the more problems you’re likely to find, so significantly increasing how much attention you’re paying should speed it all along.
Also, if you can avoid scheduling them together, do that too.
4. “Strong personality”
Years ago, when I was in lower management, a coworker who was entry-level and I clashed. It was a mutual clash of styles and personalities. She complained to our boss, and during a meeting with the three of us, she defended herself by saying, “I have a strong personality.” I didn’t respond to this, but it felt like a cheap excuse to behave like an ass. Is this something people can say to avoid accountability? Or is this a non-excuse?
In contexts like this, it’s often something people say to try to avoid looking more deeply at how they might be contributing to the problem. Without more details about exactly what the issues were with your colleague, I can’t say for sure — but often it’s part of the “that’s just who I am!” school of excusing one’s own behavior.
I’ve always liked this article by Marshall Goldmith called “An Excessive Need to Be Me,” where he points out that a rigid allegiance to “being yourself” can sometimes be pointless vanity, and at odds with actually improving your dynamics with other people.
When an employee is undergoing discipline or a performance improvement plan, what can an employer tell other employees? If the employer has a “need-to-know-only” policy, does the EA scheduling the meetings “need to know” that those meetings are related to discipline?
It’s really up to the employer’s own internal policies. No law prevents them from sharing info with other employees. If their policy restricts the info on a “need to know” basis, it’s still possible the EA scheduling the meetings would fall in that category; depending on how that particular EA manages people’s calendars, they might have access to agendas, or know basic topic in order to prioritize the meeting relative to others, etc.
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