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Eglinton LRT builders mail ransom note, severed piece of track, to Torontonians
TORONTO – With the Eglinton LRT transit extension multiple years behind schedule, and no firm completion date in sight, the various firms contracted with building the project have sent a ransom note to the citizens of Toronto, threatening to harm the line if their demands are not met. “We want another billion dollars, or the […]
The post Eglinton LRT builders mail ransom note, severed piece of track, to Torontonians appeared first on The Beaverton.
The Name of This Cartoon Would Ruin It
RFK Apologizes To Family For Super Bowl Ad Featuring JFK’s Campaign Imagery, Music
Claiming that the ad was created “without any involvement or approval from my campaign” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apologized to his family for any pain caused by his Super Bowl ad that used JFK’s campaign song and inserted RFK into 1960s imagery, despite keeping the ad pinned to the top of his X page. What do you think?
Man Takes 2 Bites Before Realizing Panties Aren’t Edible
NORCROSS, GA—Choking on the lacy fabric he had expected to find delicious, local man David Garay reportedly took two bites of a pair of panties Wednesday before realizing they weren’t edible. “Wait, what the hell? This isn’t tasty at all!” said a grimacing Garay, who spit out shreds of a woman’s undergarment after…
Coughing Baby Aimed At Enemy
SAGINAW, MI—Clutching her son and strategically pointing him outward at all who dared challenge her, local mother Cara Gershwin wielded her coughing baby like a weapon Wednesday and aimed him at her enemy. According to sources, Gershwin had been spotted pacing around slowly with her baby, making direct eye contact…
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Deepfake
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The really sad part is when they start deepfaking themselves for affirmation.
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I was rejected because I told my interviewer I never make mistakes
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I was rejected from a role for not answering an interview question.
I had all the skills they asked for, and the recruiter and hiring manager loved me.
I had a final round of interviews — a peer on the hiring team, a peer from another team that I would work closely with, the director of both teams (so my would-be grandboss, which I thought was weird), and then finally a technical test with the hiring manager I had already spoken to.
(I don’t know if it matters but I’m male and everyone I interviewed with was female.)
The interviews went great, except the grandboss. I asked why she was interviewing me since it was a technical position and she was clearly some kind of middle manager. She told me she had a technical background (although she had been in management 10 years so it’s not like her experience was even relevant), but that she was interviewing for things like communication, ability to prioritize, and soft skills. I still thought it was weird to interview with my boss’s boss.
She asked pretty standard (and boring) questions, which I aced. But then she asked me to tell her about the biggest mistake I’ve made in my career and how I handled it. I told her I’m a professional and I don’t make mistakes, and she argued with me! She said everyone makes mistakes, but what matters is how you handle them and prevent the same mistake from happening in the future. I told her maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since I actually went to school for it, I didn’t have that problem. She seemed fine with it and we moved on with the interview.
A couple days later, the recruiter emailed me to say they had decided to go with someone else. I asked for feedback on why I wasn’t chosen and she said there were other candidates who were stronger.
I wrote back and asked if the grandboss had been the reason I didn’t get the job, and she just told me again that the hiring panel made the decision to hire someone else.
I looked the grandboss up on LinkedIn after the rejection and she was a developer at two industry leaders and then an executive at a third. She was also connected to a number of well-known C-level people in our city and industry. I’m thinking of mailing her on LinkedIn to explain why her question was wrong and asking if she’ll consider me for future positions at her company but my wife says it’s a bad idea.
What do you think about me mailing her to try to explain?
Don’t do that.
Not only did they reject you for this job, but it’s very likely they won’t consider you for jobs there in the future. Emailing an interviewer to “explain why her question was wrong” (!) will only make it worse.
There a number of problems with how you approached this hiring process, but the biggest is that you were arrogant and snotty to one of the interviewers. And not just any interviewer, which would be bad regardless of who it was, but to the hiring manager’s boss! No reasonable employer would hire you after that; if you’re rude and snotty to someone several levels above you, it’s just too damning about what you’ll be like to work with day-to-day.
You told your interviewer that maybe she made mistakes as a developer but since you “actually went to school for it,” you didn’t have that problem? Aside from how rudely insulting that was, that made you look incredibly un-self-aware. Everyone makes mistakes, whether they went to school for a subject or not, and the best of them embrace those mistakes as ways to learn. The only people who think they don’t make mistakes are people who are oblivious to weaknesses in their work, or too arrogant or insecure (and those are often two sides of the same coin) to acknowledge them. Managing someone who’s convinced they don’t make mistakes is a nightmare — and it’s an absolute non-starter in hiring, since you’re announcing that you’re going to resist feedback and be unable or unwilling to learn and grow. That on its own would have torpedoed your candidacy, and that’s before we even get into the snottiness.
But let’s talk about the snottiness too, because it’s coming through so loudly in your letter that it’s likely it came through in your interview as well. You clearly have disdain for the director — “she was clearly some kind of middle manager,” “it’s not like her experience was even relevant,” her questions were “boring,” she made mistakes because she’s inferior to you … come on. If even a fraction of the disdain that comes through in your letter was detectable in your interviewer, that’s the kind of thing that will get you put on a “never interview/never hire” list.
And now you want to contact the interviewer — not to apologize for how you came across or to say you realize you should answered her questions differently — but to tell her why she was wrong? All that would do is get your name bolded and underlined on the “never interview/never hire” list. It will confirm that their initial assessment was right. Do not do this.
For what it’s worth, loads of people work their way into management positions without a degree in the specific subject they’re overseeing and excel there (and that’s certainly true in technical career paths). It’s also not weird or unusual to interview with the boss’s boss. It’s really common.
I’m not sure what your work life has been like up until this point — I’m guessing you’re either early in your career and don’t yet understand how work works, or you’re further along but have been oblivious to how much interpersonal skill deficiencies can hold you back — but this should be a wake-up call that treating people with contempt and arrogance won’t get you the results you want.
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 1057
is it normal to cancel days off for a resigning employee?
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I am a new manager, though I’ve led individual contributors on project-based work for a large part of my career. My direct manager, “Sam,” said something puzzling to me last week and I’ve been chewing on it all weekend.
One of my direct reports, “Drew,” put in their two-week notice on Monday. We’ve recently had a re-org and they’d only been reporting to me for four days when notice was given, and their previous manager had approved PTO for Friday long before the re-org occurred so we only had nine of 10 working days to transition their work. In addition, when Drew submitted their two-week notice, the HR team decided to shorten that period by one day so that they wouldn’t have to process one day of payroll for the departing employee in the next payroll period (Drew will get paid for their full notice, just doesn’t have to work on their last day). While it’s inconvenient to me and the transition plan to only have eight out of 10 working days, it’s not the end of the world and we’re rolling with it.
On Friday, Sam called me and chided me for not cancelling Drew’s PTO and told me that everyone at this company “lacks maturity” and Sam is going to talk to Drew about professionalism next week because they need to know “how things are done.”
I suspect it’s a sour grapes thing on Sam’s part because it’s gotten out that Drew is going to work as a consultant for our industry, and Sam thinks Drew is a traitor (their actual words) for accepting an offer from this consultancy group. I disagree that it’s an issue for several reasons: we don’t have a non-compete agreement, Drew applied for a publicly posted position, and non-compete clauses are not legal in my state for people who make less than $100,000/year anyway.
I guess I have three major issues with the idea that I should have cancelled Drew’s PTO once they gave notice:
1. Drew had plane tickets and hotels booked for a long weekend away. It seems unreasonable to ask them to change those plans because they submitted their resignation notice.
2. The PTO was submitted and approved long before Drew put in their notice and long before they were moved under me. I inherited this PTO approval, I didn’t make it.
3. This would do more damage than it’s worth. Why wouldn’t Drew quit on the spot if I’d cancelled it, which would further impede effective transition planning? Wouldn’t this damage my team’s trust in me, my leadership, and my ethics?Legally, there is nothing wrong with Drew accepting an offer from that company. Morally, I have no problem with this move and the positions are different enough that I’m not super concerned with intellectual property issues. And even if those things weren’t true, Drew is still in the industry, and their partner and many of their friends still work for our company, so it’s not like they want to watch us burn. They just want to move on to their next role and I say, let ‘em. I appreciate their contribution, have truly enjoyed working with them, and wish them well in their future endeavors. It’s a relationship I intend to maintain and I don’t want my boss to nuke it or torpedo the transition because they’re having a hard time managing hurt feelings.
Here are the things I don’t think are normal:
1. Rescinding previously accepted PTO during the resignation period, particularly when flights are involved.
2. Being upset when an employee accepts another offer to the point of skip level calling them to chew them out, calling their maturity/professionalism into question, and informing them they’re no longer eligible for rehire under the guise of “coaching.”
3. Expecting that employee to finish out their notice period after one or both of those situations occur.Is this situation normal and I need to adjust my expectations around accepting the resignation of a direct report AND that Sam should go ahead and deliver “professional coaching” to Drew or is my boss being petty?
Sam is being a jerk, and a bad manager.
Some employers do a have a policy that resigning employees can’t use PTO during their notice periods. Typically, though, that’s designed for situations where someone wants to give two weeks notice and then take most or all of those two weeks off, leaving their manager with no time to transition their work. It’s not usually applied to a request for a single day off, especially one that was already approved earlier. (It also doesn’t typically apply to a situation where someone gives really generous notice — like a month or more — and wants to take time off during that period; if it did, no one would ever give any extra notice.)
The idea that missing a single day during a notice period somehow “lacks maturity” or is unprofessional is ridiculous and overblown. If you, Drew’s actual manager, had concerns about whether there would be enough time to cover all the transition stuff you needed to cover, you could maybe address that, depending on the circumstances; there are some situations where it might make sense to say, “That’s going to cut it really close on XYZ, any chance we can move your last day to the 6th instead of the 5th since we won’t have you for part of your notice period?” (Those situations are rare, though, and even then you’d need to be prepared to hear Drew couldn’t do it.)
But Sam doesn’t sound like they have any actual work-related concerns; they’re just objecting on the principle of it all.
All the instincts you wrote about in your letter are correct.
I’m stuck in a job I can’t quit, an X-rated view from my office window, and more
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. I’m stuck in a job I can’t quit
A few months ago, my wife and I moved long distances so I could take a management job with a pay bump and better annual raises. The company also paid for the relocation. It seemed like a total home run, even if it meant moving very far away from any of our families.
I had been in a similar job in my industry where I was wildly successful, and respected by my management team, to the point where one pushed pretty hard for me for the job I have now. I was doing so well, my company was stunned that I left, but it came down to money.
The new job has been a disaster and is a bad fit. My managers have pointed out several faults they have with me. Among these: I’m not “vocal” enough, I’m not a “loud presence in the room,” and they like to point out my predecessor “made sure everyone in the room knew he was there.” They have also told me I’m not “assertive” in the way they need me to be.
I have never been a vocal person, a loud presence, or an assertive person. If anyone who knew me asked to describe me, those kind of words would be the absolute last they would use to describe me. I tend to keep to myself as much as possible. I’ve always been that way but it’s not been an issue for any other employer before now. As a painfully shy person who could be considered socially anxious, I am never going to be those things above. My current employer obviously wants someone with a different personality than I have.
It’s become clear my company’s priorities do not align with my strengths the way they did at my last company. More importantly, my bosses have a different vision for what someone in my position looks like, and it’s not someone put together like me. In hindsight, my last job now feels like a senior-level individual contributor role instead of a management role, even though I was part of the management team.
Quitting is not an option because I’d have to pay back what they gave us to relocate, plus steep penalties for breaking the two-year contract I signed. If they fire me, I shouldn’t owe anything but I’m essentially trapped in a job that’s a very bad fit. Because of our rental lease, which my income mostly supports, I need to gut it out here for at least a year. Any advice?
If they’re as unhappy as it sounds like they are, they might be open to a negotiated departure where you both agree it’s the wrong fit and they let you out of the contract and the relocation repayment. It’s worth a conversation where you say something like, “I’m increasingly realizing that you want someone for this role whose strengths are XYZ — which are not mine. I think there may be a fundamental mismatch between what you need and what I’m good at. I don’t feel like I’m in a position to simply move on, given the contract penalties and relocation repayment that would trigger, but if you’d consider waiving those, it could open up some easier options for both of us.”
2. I can see someone having sex from my office window
What’s the best response to a couple having sex very visibly from your office window? This has happened twice now.
I work downtown and my office building faces an apartment building that has floor to ceiling windows in some apartments, including the bedroom. Most apartments have the bedroom blinds closed, but not this one!
I do have blinds, but closing them makes my office feel immediately claustrophobic, so I want to leave them open as much as possible. However, that window is very visible to anyone entering my office, and now I’m grappling with the very real possibility that someone will come in and see this couple having sex behind me.
Am I doomed to claustrophobia? Should I put a large sign up in the window asking them to close the blinds? Mime the inconvenience until they notice?
Also: how do I respond to someone if they’re in my office and do see the couple having sex because I hadn’t noticed before? Thankfully I’m not client-facing, but that’s still not a conversation I want to have with my boss!
Oh my. Is there a middle ground where partly closing the blinds could block the view a bit but without making your office feel so closed off?
Otherwise, you’re stuck choosing between closing the blinds completely or risking some truly distracting stuff behind you when people come in.
Readers, any better thoughts?
3. Should I give unsolicited advice to a job-hopping client?
I am happily self-employed in business services practice. My question for you is about a tax client who, in the decade I’ve prepared her taxes, has had W2s from multiple companies (it’s six or seven over this time), and also had self-employment income from various contracting engagements.
Jane is well-educated and has many accomplishments. However, the constant job movement is, in my eyes, due to some difficult personal qualities. She dominates conversations of every type. Whether in-person or via teleconference, it’s almost impossible to break in and say anything. This even happens when I am responding to direct questions from her. Interruptions are nearly constant. She refers to her specialty (logistics, software support for logistics, documentation for logistical processes) constantly, and often out of context. References to interactions at the C-suite level are not uncommon. Several years ago she was hired by a distinguished local financial institution. When we first discussed this new job, she announced that she’d settled for the position after several months of unemployment and was “managing up” to assist her supervisor. That one lasted about 18 months, just like most of the others.
It must be infuriating for any manager to have such a person on their team. I know that these were qualities that I coached people out of when I managed a staff of my own. My question for you is – should I say anything to the client about this? To be clear, she has not sought my guidance. I see her only during tax season, and briefly. None of this really impacts me. But… it seems to an ongoing problem, with little self-reflection available to address it.
Absolutely not. You don’t have the sort of relationship where the feedback would be appropriate; it would be pretty bizarre for the person she’s hired to prepare her taxes to give that sort of feedback unsolicited. (You also don’t know if she even considers the job hopping a problem!) It would be as a serious overstep.
4. How to turn down fans who want to connect one-on-one
I work on a mental health podcast that’s recently gotten pretty popular. With the increased attention, we also have a lot of listeners private messaging to us for advice and mentorship (we aren’t therapists and that’s not the focus of the podcast, so those regulations don’t enter into the equation). At first, we were so excited about reaching so many people that we happily jumped on calls/made friends/connected with people. That’s no longer feasible with the volume of requests that we get — our host would literally spend every waking hour having one-on-one conversations with fans.
We’re nowhere near famous and I hate the idea that we have to distance ourselves from everyone who makes us successful. We specifically got into this to help people! Do you have a script for turning people down when they reach out? What do you do personally in this situation as someone whose blog has really exploded? Also, we do have multiple lists of resources that we can pass along but many of our listeners have no access to real mental health care because of cost, availability of providers, and long waiting lists (which is infuriating and only makes this harder).
I went through a period where I tried to respond to every single person who wrote me (at least privately) and it was overwhelming. To keep doing it, I would have had to give up most of my leisure time and would still have “go answer more email” constantly hanging over me. So I quickly came to terms with the fact that it wasn’t realistic — and that’s completely okay! When you create something, it’s amazing to know that it resonates with people so much that they want to connect with you in a more personal way … but you’ve got to get comfortable setting boundaries so that you can continue to make the thing that caught their attention in the first place, because (at least after a certain point) you cannot do both.
Don’t look at this as distancing yourself from the people who made you successful; it’s about being clear on what you are equipped to offer (podcasts that delve into mental health that serve a large audience) and what you aren’t (phone calls and other private communication that has an audience of one). That boundary is necessary to maintain your primary product (the podcast), because otherwise you will quickly burn out and then not help anyone at all.
What that means in practice: you need some warm, friendly form letters to field all the requests you’re getting. Sample language: “It means a ton to us that you liked our work enough to reach out. We’ve been overwhelmed by the volume of messages we receive and unfortunately that volume means we can’t respond personally to each one, as much as we would like to.” People will generally get it if you spell it out.
5. How long should I keep old-work-related papers?
I’m working on scanning and shredding my paper clutter, and I have many, many copies of old performance evaluations, as well as other things like letters confirming job offers, etc. Is there any reason to keep any of this? Tax records have published data for how long you should keep documentation, but how about work-related things? I feel like I need “permission” to just shred some of this stuff, like the performance evaluation from my first job in the early 1990s (eeeeeek)!
There are no real guidelines on this, but I’d say keep stuff for at least the last 10 years (but it doesn’t have to be paper copies; it’s fine to scan and store them electronically). You never know when you might have trouble confirming employment (if a place shuts down, for example) and could use an offer letter, etc. to help do it. You’re highly unlikely to need really old performance evaluations, although as a completist I might be tempted to scan those too in case they’re amusing to look back on 20 years from now (but to clear, this would be for nostalgic/entertainment value and not “what if it would ever help to show I excelled at my job in 1992” … and if you do not consider bureaucratic detritus in any way amusing, you can skip it).
Cormac McCarthy’s Valentine’s Day Candy Hearts
Taken from works of the late great Cormac McCarthy.
Authorities Demolish House That Was Site Of Horrific Marriage
FALMOUTH, ME—Saying the residence evoked far too many painful memories to be left standing, Maine authorities confirmed Tuesday they had demolished the house at 231 Pinelock Lane that was once the site of a horrific marriage. “When that terrible marriage first struck this town, it was like a nightmare come to…
‘I Am Your New King,’ Says Bloody, Cancerous Polyp To British Public
LONDON—Proclaiming a new era of unstoppable proliferation across the United Kingdom, a bloody, cancerous polyp addressed the British public from Buckingham Palace on Tuesday and informed them that he was their new king. “Bow down before me, subjects, for I have dethroned your once-mighty monarch,” said His Majesty…
Man Adjusts Balls A Second Too Long
CHICAGO—Failing to use the appropriate level of discretion, local man Keith Makarewicz took a second too long to adjust his balls, sources reported Tuesday. “Look, there’s nothing wrong with moving your testicles into a more comfortable position, we get that, but you have to be in and out,” said one eyewitness, who…
Terrifying Friend Of Friend Asks Woman Point-Blank What Brand Of Vibrator She Uses
DENVER—Cornered by the unreserved woman with nowhere to run, local 29-year-old Christine Lopez was reportedly terrified Tuesday after a friend of a friend had asked her point-blank what brand of vibrator she used. “So are you into clitoral stimulation, or what?” said the woman, whose name was unknown to Lopez, as the…
Sources Who Once Had Self-Respect Report It Nice To E-Meet You
CLEVELAND—Responding to an email thread that included the senior staff on multiple org charts at both Intrepid Solutions and Mayflower Global, sources who once had self-respect reported Tuesday that it was nice to e-meet you. “Danielle, so glad we could virtually connect with your team on this and looking forward to…
a coworker is harassing my neighbor (who is having chemo)
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I live in a high-rise condo complex and work for a prominent and large (10,000+ employee) healthcare system.
My condo complex has a listserv that gets sent to the 1,000 or so residents — unfortunately with very little moderation. Over the past few months, but particularly today, somebody who works at my organization and happens to live in my building has been sending listserv messages that I consider increasingly harassing in nature over occasional barking from a neighbor’s dog. For context, we’re a pet-friendly building with a vet’s office renting commercial space on the ground floor. Today, I found out they have also taken to periodically standing on their balcony and screaming at the neighbor through the neighbor’s window.
The neighbor is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, and their rescue dog is diabetic and needs insulin shots every 12 hours (and barks at the needles). The neighbor and their spouse have, apparently, done everything from changing start times at work to changing the times of chemotherapy treatments to try and alleviate barking at odd hours.
Normally, I don’t believe in going to HR unless it’s about something that happened at work and directly involves me. The person doing the harassing does not work in my division, and I’ve never met them. But I’m wondering if I should talk to HR anyway because:
a) The harassment of a cancer patient
b) The screaming off the balcony
c) The airing of grievances to 1,000 people over emailThey haven’t named our employer, but they have stated they work in healthcare as a justification for their complaint and they state their full name. It’s not difficult to track them back to our employer. Also, they work as an office administrator–it’s not like they’re working odd shifts as a clinical practitioner. This seems like a reputational risk for the organization.
I’m really thinking I should bring this to HR, but is this even something within their purview?
It’s really not, I’m sorry. If your neighbor were throwing around the name of your employer, then maybe — but otherwise this is a jerk being a jerk who happens to have a job somewhere.
However, you certainly can — and should — complain to your condo management! Your coworker/neighbor shouldn’t be using the building email list to harass another resident. If they have a problem with the noise, it’s time for them to take it up with the building management directly, not harangue a sick neighbor over and over. (This would be true even if she weren’t sick, of course, but it’s particularly egregious to hound someone who’s sick and probably exhausted and who has clearly tried to resolve the problem.)
And the irony of complaining about noise while screaming through a sick neighbor’s window is … well, I hate your coworker.
In addition to reporting his behavior to the building management, ideally you or another resident would also respond on the email list directly with something like, “Please stop harassing this resident. If you have a noise complaint, you should speak with the building management, not harangue them and the rest of us over this email list.” I realize you might not want to do that since you work together but it would be a kindness to the targeted neighbor if you were willing to. If not, are any of your other neighbors willing to speak up? It sucks that this is going to 1,000 people and no one else is pushing back (at least not publicly).
Bathroom Break Considered Self Care
GILBERT, AZ—Noting that just spending a few minutes a day on a toilet had drastically improved her mental and physical health, local woman Jessica Emerson admitted to reporters Monday that she considered her bathroom break self-care. “I know that some people treat themselves to bathroom breaks 3, maybe 4 times a day,…
Most Common Porn Searches On Valentine’s Day
Romance is in the air on Valentine’s Day, but those who aren’t lucky enough to have a partner will have to be satisfied with the pleasure of their own company. Here are the most common porn searches on Valentine’s Day.
Patrick Mahomes Already Busy Working On Upgrading Family
LAS VEGAS—Setting to work on rebuilding immediately after his dramatic victory in Super Bowl LVIII, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes told reporters in a press conference Monday that he was already hard at work upgrading his own family. “Look, I’m proud of what we did out there on the field last…
Depressed Taylor Swift Going To Miss Being In The Spotlight Now That Super Bowl Over
NEW YORK—Realizing her 15 minutes of fame had come to an abrupt end, a depressed Taylor Swift told reporters Monday that she was going to miss being in the spotlight now that the Super Bowl was over. “I guess it’s just me and my cats now that the big game has drawn to a close,” said the disheveled, sweatpants-wearing…
Elon Musk Rushed To Hospital After Attempting To Impregnate Toaster
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Bayesing
Click here to go see the bonus panel!
Hovertext:
You can't prove me wrong because your proof requires arithmetic to work.
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