Today's links

• Tabs give me superpowers: Lifehacks are good, actually.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019
• Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

Tabs give me superpowers (permalink)

"Lifehacking" is in pretty bad odor these days, and with good reason: a once-useful catch-all for describing how to make things easier has become a pit of productivity porn, grifter hustling, and anodyne advice wreathed in superlatives and transformed into SEO-compliant listicles.

But I was there when lifehacking was born, and I'm here to tell you, it wasn't always thus. Lifehacking attained liftoff exactly 19 years and 348 days ago, on Feb 11, 2004, when Danny O'Brien presented "Life Hacks: Tech Secrets of Overprolific Alpha Geeks" at the 0'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (aka ETCON). I was there, and I took notes:

https://craphound.com/lifehacksetcon04.txt

O'Brien's inspiration was his social circle, in which people he knew to be no smarter or better or motivated than anyone else in that group were somehow able to do much more than their peers, in some specific domain. O'Brien delved deeply into these peoples' lives and discovered that each of them had merely ("merely!") gotten very good at using one or two tools to automate things that would otherwise take up a lot of their time.

These "hacks" freed up their practitioners to focus on things that mattered more to them. They accomplished the goal set out in David Allen's Getting Things Done: to make a conscious choice about which things you are going to fail to do today, rather than defaulting to doing the things that are easy and trivial, at the expense of the things that matter, but are more complicated:

https://gettingthingsdone.com/what-is-gtd/

One trait all those lifehacks shared: everyone who created a little hack was faintly embarrassed by it, and assumed that others who learned about their tricks would find them trivial or foolish. O'Brien changed the world by showing that other people were, in fact, delighted and excited to learn about their peers' cool little tricks.

(Unfortunately, this eventually opened the floodgates of overheated posts about some miraculous hack that turned out to indeed be silly and trivial or even actively bad, but that wasn't O'Brien's fault!)

I'm one of those people whom others perceive as very "productive." There are some objective metrics on which this is true: I wrote nine books during lockdown, for example. Like the lifehackers O'Brien documented in 2004, I have lots of little hacks that aren't merely a way of getting more done – they're a way to make sure that I get the stuff that matters to me (taking care of my family and my health, and writing books) done.

A lot of these lifehacks boil down to making your life easier. There's a spot on our kitchen counter where I put e-waste. Whenever I go out to the car, I carry any e-waste out and put it in a bag in the trunk. Any time I'm near our city dump, I stop and throw the bag into their e-waste bin. This is now a habit, and habits are things you get for free: I spend zero time thinking about e-waste, which means I have more time to think about things that matter (and our e-waste still ends up in the right place).

There's other ways I use habits to make my life easier: after many years, I learned how to write every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/22/walking-the-plank/

For longer-form works like novels, I "leave myself a rough edge," finishing the day's work in the middle of a sentence. That way I get a few words for free the next day, meaning I never start the day's work wondering which words I'll type:

https://locusmag.com/2014/01/cory-doctorow-cheap-writing-tricks/

One of the most powerful habits I've cultivated is to have a group of daily tabs that I open in a new browser every morning. The meat of this tab group is websites I want to check in with every day, either because they don't have RSS feeds, or because I want to make sure I never miss an update.

This tab-group habit started before RSS was widespread, when most of the websites I wanted to check in on every day didn't have feeds yet, and for many years, this group was just a set of daily reads. But over the years, I started throwing things in the tab-group that I needed to stay on top of.

My daily tabs are in a folder called "unfucked rota" (they were originally in a folder called "rota," which got corrupted and had to be reconstructed in a folder I called "fucked rota," until I finally took a couple hours off and got it in good running order, hence "unfucked rota"). As I type this, "unfucked rota" contains more than a hundred websites I visit every morning, but it also contains:

• The edit-history pages for four Wikipedia entries I'm watching;

• Chronological feeds of my books on Amazon and Audible, to catch counterfeits as they are posted;

• The parent notification portal for my kid's school;

• The mileage history for the airline I flew on yesterday (I'll delete this once the flight is posted);

• The credit card history for a card I reported a fraudulent charge on (I'll delete this once the refund is posted);

• The sell-pages for three products that are out of stock (I'll delete these once the products are in stock and ordered);

• A bookmarked newest-first Ebay search for a shirt I like that has been discontinued by the manufacturer;

• The new-survey-completed pages for my last two Kickstarters;

• The courier tracking page for an item being shipped sea-freight to me from Asia.

The tail end of this unfucked rota changes all the time, but as you can tell, it's got a lot of stuff that would be time-consuming to build a whole new system to track, but which has a web-page that can be easily added to a daily, habitual check-in and then removed when it's not relevant anymore.

Some of these things have email notifiers or RSS feeds, but those are too easy to lose in the noise. I generally delete email from ecommerce sites unread, since 99.99% of the messages they send me are unsolicited marketing nonsense, not the "notify me when this is back in stock" message I do want to see (same goes for my kid's school, which sends me fifty unimportant messages for every message that I must reply to).

Most of the internet is still on the web, which means it can be bookmarked, which means that it takes me one second to add it to the group of things I'm staying on top of, and one second to remove from that group. I get up in the morning, middle-click the "unfucked rota" item in my bookmarks pane, make a cup of coffee, and then sit down and race through those tabs, close-close-close.

It takes less than a second to scan a tab to see if it's changed (and if I close a tab too quickly, the ctrl-shift-T "unclose" shortcut is there in muscle-memory, another habit). The whole process takes between one and 15 minutes (depending on whether there's anything useful and new in one of those tabs).

Tabs, like lifehacks, are also in bad odor. Everyone stresses about how many tabs they have open. It's even inspired Rusty Foster's excellent newsletter, Today In Tabs:

https://www.todayintabs.com/

But this is a very different way to think about tabs. Rather than opening a window full of tabs that need your detailed, once-off attention later, this method is about using groups of tabs so that you can pay cursory, frequent attention to them.

In a world full of administrative burdens, where firms and institutions play the "sure, we'll do that, but you're going to have to track our progress" game to get out of living up to their obligations, this method is a powerful countermeasure:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/02/02/david-graebers-the-utopia-of-rules-on-technology-stupidity-and-the-secret-joys-of-bureaucracy/

My little tab habit is so incredibly useful, such a powerful way to seize back time and power from powerful actors who impose burdens on me, that I sometimes forget how, for other people, tabs are a symptom of a life that's spiraling out of control. For me, a couple hundred tabs are a symbol of a couple hundred tasks that I'm totally on top of, a symbol of control wrestled back from others who are hostile to my interests.

This isn't how tabs were "meant" to be used, of course. It's an example of the kind of "innovation" that comes from users repurposing things in ways their designers didn't necessarily anticipate or intend.

This is what Jonathan Zittrain meant by "generative" technology back in 2008, when he published his incredibly prescient The Future of the Internet: And How To Stop It:

https://memex.craphound.com/2008/07/22/zittrains-the-future-of-the-internet-how-to-save-the-internet-from-the-internet/

For Zittrain, "generativity" was the property of some technologies that let its users generate new, useful tools and solutions for themselves (this is very different from "generative AI!")

Zittrain described how "curated" computing systems, like mobile devices that relied on apps that couldn't be adapted by their users, were dead ends for generativity. 15 years later, the dismal world of apps has proven him right:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

To the extent that "lifehacking" is about doing more, rather than being more deliberate about what you accomplish, it can be harmful. I am not immune to the failure modes of lifehacking:

https://locusmag.com/2017/11/cory-doctorow-how-to-do-everything-lifehacking-considered-harmful/

But overall, using tabs as something I close, rather than something I open, is a source of comfort and calm for me. For one thing, ripping through a group of tabs every morning means that I don't have to worry about missing something if I go too fast. I'll get another chance tomorrow:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/27/probably/

Decades ago, Dori Smith dubbed her pioneering blog her "#Backup Brain":

https://web.archive.org/web/20020120231027/http://www.backupbrain.com/

At their best, our systems – be they physical, like a spot on the counter where the e-waste goes, or digital, like a tab-group – are "cognitive prostheses." They allow us to move important things from the highly contested, busy and precious space between our ears and out there into the world:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

Like those lifehackers that O'Brien studied for his presentation in 2004, I confess to feeling a little silly about telling you all about this. For me, this habit of decades is so ingrained that it feels trivial and obvious. And yet, when I look at people in my life struggling to stay on top of a million nagging administrative tasks that could be easily watched through a morning's flick through a tab-group, I can't help but think that maybe some of you will find a useful idea or two in my unfucked rota.

Hey look at this (permalink)

• Am I My Colleagues’ Keeper When It Comes to Disclosing Connections? https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4700214 (h/t Credit Slips)

• Authors Are Fighting Amazon’s Audible https://blog.libro.fm/authors-are-fighting-amazons-audible/

• BREAKING: Union Membership Edges Up, Density Down in 2023 https://radishresearch.substack.com/p/breaking-union-membership-edges-up (h/t Hamilton Nolan)

This day in history (permalink)

#20yrsago Towards a non-evil social networking service https://foe.typepad.com/blog/2004/01/my_social_netwo.html

#20yrsago What kind of people are companies? https://kottke.org/04/01/the-corporation

#15yrsago Disagree with a flight attendant? You’re a terrorist https://web.archive.org/web/20090130091134/http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/1/26/95937/9820/454/689074

#10yrsago Korean plastic surgeon removes towering jars of excised jawbones after fine https://web.archive.org/web/20140123162257/https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/plastic-surgeon-builds-glass-jawbone-tower-filled-with-patients-removed-jaws/story-fneuz9ev-1226809081700

#10yrsago #Euromaidan: Must-see photos and stories from the front lines https://web.archive.org/web/20140131083503/http://zyalt.livejournal.com/984735.html

#10yrsago Why the hyper-rich turn into crybabies when “one percent” is invoked https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-brittle-grip-part-2

#5yrsago Predatory lender found to have swindled veterans’ pensions for eight years, so Trump’s CFPB fined him $1 https://theintercept.com/2019/01/26/cfpb-mulvaney-discount/

#5yrsago Spies tried to infiltrate Citizen Lab and trick them into talking about their research on Israeli spytech company NSO Group https://www.seattletimes.com/business/apnewsbreak-undercover-agents-target-cybersecurity-watchdog-2/

#5yrsago The Curse of Bigness: Tim Wu channels Brandeis on Big Tech (and Big Everything Else) https://memex.craphound.com/2019/01/26/the-curse-of-bigness-tim-wu-channels-brandeis-on-big-tech-and-big-everything-else/

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025

• The Bezzle, a Martin Hench noir thriller novel about the prison-tech industry. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2024

• Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

• Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM

Latest podcast: What kind of bubble is AI? https://craphound.com/news/2024/01/21/what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/
Upcoming appearances:

• The Lost Cause at Otherland (Berlin), Jan 28
  https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/zusaetzlicher-autor-innenabend-mit-cory-doctorow.html?day=20240128&times=1706466600,1706466600

• Marshall McLuhan Lecture 2024 (Berlin), Jan 29
  https://transmediale.de/en/2024/event/mcluhan-2024

• The Lost Cause at Otherland (Berlin), Jan 30
  https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/autor-innenabend-mit-cory-doctorow.html

• The Bezzle at Third Place Books (Seattle), Feb 26
  https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/cory-doctorow

• Tuscon Festival of Books, Mar 9/10
  https://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/?id=676

Recent appearances:

• Enshittification: The Rise and Fall of Big Tech (Crash Course Economics)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7AxrFQ7jIM

• Generation of Lost Causes with Vass Bednar (Toronto Public Library)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rGj5VaJSDQ

• Low-Key Clippy (This Week In Tech)
  https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/963

Latest books:

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

Upcoming books:

• The Bezzle: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books, February 2024

• Picks and Shovels: a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books, February 2025

• Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025

This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

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

Here are five updates from past letter-writers.

1. Interviewing with a service dog in my lap

The short version is: I didn’t get the job.

I ended up being so focused on preparing for the interview as a service dog user that I failed to prepare for the interview as an interviewee. I made my service dog a new bowtie so he would look professional (very cute, zero regrets), and spent an entire day working on new training so he would sit calmly and silently beside me during the interview (he did great during the interview and we have never used that skill again). I forgot to do basic things like prepare an answer to “What do you know about our organization?” I used to be great at interviewing, but this one was a disaster. I would like to think part of that was the setup (a socially-distanced panel of five, making it hard to know where to talk), but definitely a lot of it was just that I was ill-prepared and worried about how people would perceive my service dog.

I think what I really needed to hear was that it may not be the best optics to show up to a job interview with a service dog in a sling, but that if the interviewer took issue with that, the job and employer likely were not a good fit for me anyway.

Since then, another identical position at a different location of the same employer opened up, and I applied again. I asked the hiring manager from the first position if they had any feedback before applying and received a positive form letter from HR, but I was not even offered a screening video interview for the new opening.

Ultimately, just the process of applying for two positions and interviewing for one of them was so stressful that I don’t think I am ready to go back to work. I haven’t looked at job listings again since.

2. My colleague’s wife and her mommy group attended our work presentation

First, thanks to commenters’ suggestions, we moved to a different presentation format where only the moderator and speakers appeared on camera. We also realized that we had a unique opportunity to provide educational experiences for the community at large, and have continued to do so.

Here’s where I feel slightly vindicated – it turns out that our colleague who arranged this particularly talk had been having an affair with another colleague, which unbeknownst to me had been revealed shortly before this event. The colleague’s wife and her mommy group showed up to the talk in a show of solidarity for the colleague’s wife. Since then, this colleague has faced a series of other troubles about inappropriate conduct in the workplace, culminating in complaints from three young students and the launch of an investigation! So, a wild turn of events if there ever was one.

3. I keep almost falling asleep in meetings (#4 at the link)

I sent you a message… good grief, over seven years ago!  I talked about how I was falling asleep at my team’s long, talky meetings.

Since then, I’ve had a ton of changes in both my career and my personal health. I’ve been diagnosed with a few physical issues (nothing directly related to sleep, but SO MANY THINGS that have fatigue and poor sleep as a symptom), gotten medicated for most of them, and FINALLY started consistently sleeping through the night.

As it turns out, the other issue with that team was that the Meeting of Doom would run over time and through lunch. The undiagnosed sleep issues plus a warm, stuffy room plus interminably long meetings full of arguing that I had no real ability to participate in PLUS missing lunch was a one way, irresistible ticket to snooze town.

I’m at a different job now (and my past year here could be a letter in and of itself!). Most importantly, I haven’t fallen asleep in a meeting once since 2017. Thank you for giving me the push I needed to get that checked out!

4. I feel stuck working for my father

I wish I had a better update to provide. This past year, or at least since last February, there really hasn’t been much change in my work/family relationships. I was told to stop seeking therapy by the family, so everything is more or less the same. I do receive slightly better (lower/middle income) compensation for the work I do, but still have yet to receive any direction regarding my job.

Currently, I am doing accounts payable, safety, admin work, which is fine. I have offered to set up training and/or become the site super-user for our manufacturing software, which would more or less be a similar role as when I was working independently, but haven’t gotten any buy-in for it. I still do some data analysis on the side for some internal stakeholders, but it isn’t anything newsworthy. I think at this point, I’m fine hunkering down for a few years. I know this job won’t go anywhere, but I’ve found respite in being on the shop floor more often and socializing with the maintenance department.

5. My coworker smells like weed (#3 at the link)

I don’t have a very interesting update, but the problem did go away. Seems like the receptionist either caught on herself or someone higher up mentioned something to her, shortly after I wrote the letter the smell went away and I haven’t seen her noticeably stoned since.

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

A reader writes:

One aspect of my job involves hiring short-term contractors. Their pricing can be all over the map and some are hourly, but most charge a lump sum. Those rates typically start at about $1,500 but it isn’t uncommon to pay over $10,000 for someone in demand.

While I’ve run into times when they’ve finished the work and it didn’t feel worth what they charged, I’ve never asked for money back and just make a mental note and provide them genuine feedback if they ask. However, I’m wondering your thoughts about the flip side. I’m currently looking at a few contractors and one of them is charging the least, but I think has the most impressive experience and the most to offer. I can easily hire all of them, so they aren’t competing for my business and they know that. I’m also aware of identities at play. I’ve noticed about 90% of my “underchargers” are women, people of color, and/or LGBTQ folks.

Do I have any moves here to help out these people who I consider professional colleagues even though they don’t work directly for my company? I wish I could just tell them up-front, “You could charge double and we wouldn’t blink an eye, send me an updated proposal” but I know that’s wading into dangerous waters with company resources so I don’t plan to do it, even though it’s a drop in the bucket of my budget and likely wouldn’t even be noticed by our highly profitable company.

So what can I do? This isn’t quite the same as salary transparency (which I advocate!) since I don’t actually know how much we’d be willing to pay until I see their proposals. They don’t do the same work, so standardizing our pay wouldn’t make sense either.

Do I tell them after they complete the work so they know for other clients or for us if we hire them again? Negotiate up by finding way to get them to propose doing something different or a little extra then relay what we’d be willing to spend for that updated service, showing our hand with what we’re willing to give? Something else? I can’t stand having power of knowledge and not being able to do anything with it for the good of others who are excellent but sell themselves short.

Years ago when I was new to freelancing and had no idea how to price my work, I was on a call with a client and quoted a rate for a project — let’s say $600. She paused for half a second and then said, “I’m going to put this down as $1,000.” I was immensely grateful, as you might imagine! In that short, matter-of-fact sentence, she managed to convey a ton to me about what other people were charging and what was reasonable to ask for in the future, at both her own company and others.

Other ways you could say it:

• “In the past we’ve paid $X for this kind of scope. Does that sound fair?”
•  “Looking at the scope of the work and your qualifications, we could do $X.”
• “Why don’t we say $X?”

Now, is that unfair to your company, when they could get the work for less? I’m going to argue that it’s not, as long as the rate you suggest is reasonable and in line with what your company expects to pay for this type of work. It’s not good for your company to have a pattern of paying women, people of color, and LGBTQ less … and you also risk ending up with a less diverse pool of freelancers over time if they migrate over to clients who pay them more.

Good for you for noticing and wanting to address it.

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

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

1. Coworker quit and told everyone I’m having an affair — I’m not

I have a messy situation. Long story short, I’ve been falsely accused of having an affair at work. An employee, “Flora,” quit and has been telling people the reason is that she’s just so disgusted with this affair and how it has been handled. It’s a small company with lots of gossip. Flora contacted the alleged affair partner’s soon-to-be ex wife and told her a bunch of false information and gave her my contact info, as well as info about my husband. The ex-wife then contacted my husband and told him I was having an affair. Again, I was not having an affair.

I am not fully sure why Flora believes this. I don’t report to the alleged affair partner and never have, but I have to work with him since our positions align. There were two instances where our travel aligned to a different facility, but it wasn’t planned that way, and a few instances where we went to lunch together and he opened a door for me (???). Our office is not conducive to having private meetings, so we grab lunch to talk about projects.

HR has not said anything to me, other than asking how I was doing. Flora is now leaving reviews on sites referencing the affair (not naming me, fortunately). I like to keep my private life private and my initial hope was to just let this all blow over, but now I’m not sure. Is this something I should bring up with HR? How much info do I share? I’m super embarrassed by the whole situation and really don’t want to call attention to it, but the whole situation is just so far outside anything I’ve had to deal with that I don’t know who else to turn to for advice.

Please do talk with HR, because you’re being harassed and defamed as a result of your work there! Lay it out very clearly: A former employee is slandering you, posting false things about you in reviews of the company, and interfering with your marriage. There might not be much your company can do since Flora no longer works there, but she’s made it a work issue for you. You won’t be calling attention to it; Flora is the one doing that. It’s going to be very clear you’re not the one causing drama; Flora is.

You might also consider a short consultation with a lawyer. I don’t know from here whether she’s crossed any legal lines, but a lawyer can probably shut a lot of this down with a cease and desist letter. It’s worth finding out.

2. Coworker’s office is gun-themed

I moved to the U.S. a year ago and it has been a wild adventure. Although I worked at this company in an EU office previously, the culture in the U.S. is really different. The latest culture shock for me is that someone I work with occasionally (a few meetings a month) works from his home office and that home office is “gun themed.” When he is on video, it shows half a dozen different ammunition-related wall hangings — think different calibers of ammunition, a shotgun shell shaped thermometer, and an ammunition building station with a visible reloading tool and pile of ammunition.

Is this a reasonable thing in a U.S. workplace? Am I being unreasonable by feeling a bit uncomfortable with so much gun paraphernalia?

You’re not being unreasonable; loads of people, including in the U.S., would find that distracting and alarming, and a lot of workplaces would tell him to use a different background. I sure would, if I were his manager.

That said, there are parts of the country where this might not raise eyebrows.

3. I spend too much time chasing down signatures for birthday cards

We’re a small office (12-14 fully staffed, a mix of full-timers and part-timers, but since the pandemic, generally there are 10 of us). We have always celebrated birthdays with cards and cake. I’m the business manager, and somehow over the last few years, it has become my job to keep track of the card and make sure everyone has gotten the chance to sign it.

It’s not so much that I mind doing this, it’s just that we’ve been short staffed for almost four years and I have so much on my plate. For the last two birthday cards, I missed having someone sign (a different person on each, because neither of them are full-time).

I don’t want anyone to feel less than, forgotten, or left out (no Leap Year babies here!), but I’m struggling with this “low-value” task when I have really important things on my plate, but I don’t know who else could take it over. That feels like a weird task to assign an employee, especially when we don’t have a receptionist. Is my only option to keep struggling with this task (on average) one week per month?

Three options:

A. Let everyone know that chasing people down to sign cards has become too time-consuming and you’ll no longer be doing that. Instead, you’ll send out one message letting people know the card is in your office and to stop by and sign it. If someone misses it, so be it.

B. Move to online cards. However, you still might have the same issue with people needing to be reminded to sign, so if you do this, you should still just let people know once and not spend time chasing down anyone who hasn’t signed.

C. Stop the cards altogether. Let everyone know that it’s become too time-consuming and you are heralding in a new, card-less era. Emphasize that there will still be cake.

Personally, I vote for C because you’re overwhelmed and the other two options still involve you thinking too much about cards.

4. Invited to be a guest speaker and then blown off

Several months ago, I was contacted by a professor who teaches in the grad school department I attended. I have very good relationships with the department and I am often invited to speak at alum events, but this professor is new so we had never met. (Let’s call him Dr. Smith.)

Dr. Smith asked me to be a guest speaker at an alumni discussion he was hosting for his class. He told me there would be two or three other alum invited and asked me to prepare a 20-minute dialogue about my experiences in school and my current work.

A few days ago, I checked in with him over email and he sent me a Zoom link to attend (his class was virtual). However, I was unable to get into the meeting because it was set up to only allow people with an authorized school Zoom account (which I no longer had as a long-time alum).

I email Dr. Smith asking him to change the meeting permissions. When he finally responds 30 minutes into the class, he tells me there’s nothing he can do. He says he believes it’s a log-in issue on my end and tells me, “Maybe next time, thanks anyway.”

I feel frustrated that I spent time to prepare a speech and also stepped away from work to attend, yet my absence didn’t seem to be a big deal. There was no attempt to address the tech issue and no acknowledgement for the inconvenience to me. Am I overthinking this? How should I email back?

He was rude! Technical issues happen, but if he wasn’t able to figure it out in the middle of the class, he should have apologized profusely, acknowledged your time investment, and asked if there was a convenient time to reschedule, if you were still willing to. Instead, he was cavalier about your time, as if you weren’t doing him a favor that you put time and energy into at his request.

I don’t think you need to spell that out for him, but I also wouldn’t agree to do him any future favors, particularly if they involve you committing a block of your time. (However, if you really want to say something, you could respond with, “I put a lot of time in preparing what you had requested. Can I suggest you test the tech ahead of time in the future so that doesn’t happen to another guest speaker?”)

DETROIT—Saying they hoped to bring people together “through the power of summary executions,” Detroit city officials implemented a plan Thursday to rebuild a sense of community by holding public hangings. “As part of our efforts to revitalize the city’s cultural offerings and strengthen our bonds as Detroiters, we are…

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STOCKHOLM—Utilizing one of the Scandinavian country’s generous social masturbator programs, the Swedish government gave resident Henrik Svensson six months’ paternity leave Thursday for busting a huge load. “Upon notification that Mr. Henrik Svensson had cum thick ropes of pearly white semen, the aforementioned will…

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CORAL GABLES, FL—Noting how excited participants were even just to wait in line until it was their turn, a new study published by researchers at the University of Miami found that scanning items at a supermarket self-checkout was even cooler than it seemed when one was a child. “From the scanning itself to placing…

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Starting next month, Jon Stewart will return to The Daily Show desk as a part-time host on Mondays for the duration of the 2024 election cycle. What do you think?

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SANTA CLARITA, CA—Immediately regretting every drunken decision that led him to this point, local man John Ewing recoiled in disgust Friday after the pizza he woke up to looked nothing like what he brought to bed last night. “Oh my God, what the hell did I do?” said Ewing, who admitted that while his memory was pretty…

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WASHINGTON—Following a tip from the White House IT department, Vice President Kamala Harris was reportedly reprimanded this week for playing The Sims 4 on her work computer. “What the hell is that—is that supposed to be a model White House?” said an irate Jeff Zients, the chief of staff shaking his head in disgust as…

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itsblosseybitch:

Made a new poster! :)

secondbeatsongs:

ALT

WASHINGTON—Stating that it was as easy to prepare 330 million helpings as one, President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he was reheating chili if anyone was interested. “I’m going to pop some chili into the microwave in a minute or so if anyone wants some,” said Biden, who raised his eyebrows as he gestured…

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I mean, it’s a frickin’ houseboat, what more do you need to know? You’re going to blow people’s minds when you tell them you live on a boat like some modern-day John D. MacDonald character. Just don’t let them see it, however. It’s kind of a piece of shit.

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WASHINGTON—Saying the country’s entire adult population would automatically be entered for a chance to win, officials at the U.S. Census Bureau announced Thursday that one lucky American would get to be 16 years old again. “Starting tomorrow, one U.S. resident will be given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to exit…

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PETERBOROUGH, NH—Clearing their throats as they hovered over you from behind, the nation’s quiet weirdos confirmed Thursday that they had seen you reading from afar. “I couldn’t help but notice you sitting here, engrossed in a fine volume of fiction,” said Sebastian Moore, a pale 22-year-old and one of several hundred…

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

A reader writes:

My employee lied and said she cc’d the payroll department on an email about another employee, but payroll didn’t see it in their inbox. When I followed up with her about this, she forwarded the email to payroll “again,” but in fact just typed in
“payroll@mycompany.com” in the cc section of the original email before forwarding it, so it looked like the original email was sent to payroll when it really wasn’t.

When we couldn’t figure out what happened, my employee even sent the emails to our IT dept, asking them, “How could this happen?” How do I handle this?

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

•  Employee spends lunch hour driving for Uber
• Coworkers are planning a weekend bridal shower for me and I don’t want to go

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

A reader writes:

I have worked for the same organization for eight years and been promoted or laterally transferred multiple times. I just accepted another transfer and am moving teams within the organization at the end of February. For the past three years, I have been reporting to my boss, “Joe” (a mid-50s man), who is a manager with big feelings and a little bit of toxicity. He frequently becomes emotional, throws temper tantrums, disregards feedback, and celebrates the failures of others. He sends me three- or four-page emails in response to simple questions. I never know if I will have happy boss or mad boss. Working with him has caused me to seek regular therapy as the result of depression (I’ve never been depressed before).  I can go on and on.

About a year ago, Joe and I had a series of negative interactions in which he provided deeply unfair feedback. He called me formal, frigid, and heartless after I reported another employee for violating company policy. I stood by my decision and he eventually apologized.

Shortly after, to repair our working relationship and celebrate my engagement (I am a young 20s woman), Joe invited me out for a beer. This is not unusual in our line of work. However, he asked me multiple personal questions that made me uncomfortable (e.g., is he invited to my wedding, how soon do I want children, etc.). He told me how lonely he is and how he has struggled to make friends. I smiled, nodded, and faked my way through the social interaction. The next day, when Joe told me he couldn’t wait to do it again soon, I told him that as long as he is my manager, I do not wish to socialize with him– a boundary I have had with all prior managers. He was disappointed but accepted it.

Fast forward to last week and I jumped at the opportunity to be transferred to another office in the same city without Joe. I am beyond excited! But there’s one fly in the oinment: Joe is telling everyone on my team that he is excited to be my friend, hang out, and grab beers regularly.

Forgive me if I sound formal, frigid, and heartless … but I literally would not care if Joe fell into a pit tomorrow. I’ve read your articles on your boss wanting to be your friend while you work with them — but what about bosses who want to be your friend after you no longer directly report to them? Is there a way to say “I don’t like you … actually?” without sabotaging your professional reputation? I plan to be friendly, courteous, and respectful in work settings but I have no desire to socialize with him. I do not wish to see him except at company-wide meetings. Help!

First, this is super weird.

Joe is telling everyone that he’s excited to be your friend?

This would odd even if you were both middle-aged men. But he doesn’t see how strange — and frankly kind of unseemly— this is for a 50something man to be saying about an early 20s woman?

Assuming Joe does indeed issue you a social invitation after you’ve moved on, say this: “Since you’re my past manager, I would like to keep our relationship professional.”

This is a reasonable thing to say! It could mean anything from “I want to make sure you can be an unbiased reference in the future” to “this relationship is strictly in a work category for me.” (He doesn’t need to know that it means, “I have no interest in socializing with someone who made my work life hellish and who called me ‘frigid.'”)

If he expresses disappointment because he thought your earlier statement about not socializing “as long as you are my manager” meant that the moment he wasn’t managing you you’d be having beers and going to amusement parks together or whatever he’s looking for, well … he’ll need to find a way to manage his disappointment. If he can’t understand the pressure he created on a decades-younger woman who he was in a position of power over, that’s on him. But if it helps you finesse it in the moment and you can stomach it, feel free to say something like, “I value you as my previous manager, and I want to preserve that relationship.”

If anything weird happens after that — if he makes more overtures despite your clear statement that you don’t want that kind of relationship, or if he sulks or complains to others — talk to HR. It’s really inappropriate for a manager to behave like that toward a young female report (really, toward any report — or anyone at all, for that matter — but the context here will make it especially eyebrow-raising for any HR department) and if they’re even halfway competent they’ll want to know about it and shut it down.

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Hovertext:
This is why I don't let my wife purchase ricin.

Living in Houston is such a weird trip. We’ll go through an event like Hurricane Harvey and never, ever want to see another rain drop again. Then we’ll go through something like last summer, with its heat and drought, and the first decent rain of the fall will feel so damn cathartic. I don’t know about you, but after this week my pendulum has swung back toward not wanting to see it rain for awhile. I could do with some sunshine.

The good news is that the Sun will rise again. The bad news is that we have to get through tonight. Here’s a quick look at the forecast for the rest of today and tonight.

Wednesday night and Thursday

There have been plenty of rain showers across the metro area today, but accumulations have been manageable with most areas picking up 1 to 2 inches. We should see a few more hours of on-and-off showers before they become more scattered in nature this evening. This lull will be short lived however, as a weak front pushes through during the overnight hours.

What can you expect? Sometime between about midnight and 4 am, a broad line of showers and thunderstorms should push from west to east across the Houston region. There will be plenty of sound and fury, but the good news is that these storms should keep moving. I expect they will have cleared the area by around 4 to 6 am, so I don’t anticipate them posing a problem with getting out and about on Thursday morning. (Getting solid sleep on Wednesday night might be a problem, however, for those light sleepers among us.) In terms of accumulations overnight, I expect we’ll see some heavy rainfall, but due to storm motions I’d only anticipate accumulations of 0.5 to 1.5 inches.

We should see partly sunny skies on Thursday, with highs of around 70 degrees and some drier air—so pretty darn nice out. The region will see another chance of showers (likely with minimal accumulations) later on Friday ahead of a stronger front. This will usher in several days of sunny skies and much drier air. So by Saturday morning we’ll be done with the rain for awhile.

ATLANTA—In a partnership with the Ad Council to educate the nation about the strange fleshy organs beneath their pants, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention addressed the plummeting birth rate by launching a new campaign Wednesday that reminded Americans what genitals do. “Hard or flushed, wet or scary—we…

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I, your beloved Snow Day, am excited to share that I’ve been meditating a lot lately and have decided to reinvent myself as the Flexible Instruction Day. You can call me FID for short. I’m the same Snow Day you know and love, just better. Now you get to stay cozy in your house during snowstorms and have school at the same time.

Some of you children may be wondering, “What about sleeping in and sledding?” Well, I’m here to ask, “What about honoring the responsibilities of your schoolwork regardless of bomb cyclones and ice-sheeted roads? What about bringing back at-home learning, one of the most enjoyable aspects of the pandemic? What about me?!”

Sorry. I’m just so jazzed about these changes that sometimes I can’t control my emotions. Kind of like you can’t control the weather or the school district’s implementation of this new policy.

Don’t get too excited—I’m just a contingency for when the weather is bad, or looks like it could potentially get bad, and I’m only to be utilized once the school district has run through all regular Snow Days built into the academic calendar. There are no Snow Days built into the academic calendar this year.

Parents, remember your own cherished childhood memories of canceled school and playing outside until you couldn’t feel your fingers, only coming in to warm up with a mug of hot chocolate? Now, remember the fun of three to four years ago, trying to educate children while they were confined in the place that contains all of their food, toys, and electronics? Get ready to relive the early, troubleshooting-filled months of COVID, because that’s what I’m all about now.

You’ll love not having to bundle your kids up for the snow or laying a towel out in the hallway for their wet boots, because they won’t be going outside. That’s right—your first grader has scheduled classes and busywork all day. (You may want to put the kibosh on that hot chocolate. Can’t be too careful with those Chromebooks and iPads. The protection plan you bought at the beginning of the school year isn’t that good.)

And teachers, rejoice. Students will have your undivided attention and will be grateful for the opportunity to log in at exact times to learn grammar and long division instead of building snow forts. And you teachers who are parents have the most to gain from my revamped style. You can still wear your slippers all day while keeping your toddler quiet in one room, facilitating your older kids’ remote learning in another room, and controlling your twenty-five students via camera and microphone in yet another.

Look, being the Snow Day was cool enough, but I’ve gone about as far as I can under that handle. It’s time for me to unleash my potential and be more. I’m still me—just the best version of me. I look forward to this new era of our relationship.

Your friend,
FID

Duluth’s Steve Solkela is back from touring Finland and has a new music video for one of the first songs he wrote back in his high school days.

The post Steve’s Overpopulated One-man Band – “If Heaven Don’t Have Saunas, I Don’t Wanna Go!” appeared first on Perfect Duluth Day.