Cowboy Who?

When someone mentions land art, the most iconic work that comes to mind is probably Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (1970). Much of the history of land art has been dominated by male artists like Smithson, Walter de Maria, or Michael Heizer (who Texans might recognize from his piece in the Menil Collection’s front lawn, Isolated Mass/Circumflex (#2), 1968/78), to name a few.

A new exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Groundswell: Women of Land Art, expands the art historical lens and reframes our understanding of this movement. Conceived and developed by Associate Curator Leigh Arnold, the show is consequential and ambitious. There are over 145 objects from 12 selected artists, all women working in the U.S. from the 1960s through 1990: Lita Albuquerque, Alice Aycock, Beverly Buchanan, Agnes Denes, Maren Hassinger, Nancy Holt, Patricia Johanson, Ana Mendieta, Mary Miss, Jody Pinto, Michelle Stuart, and Meg Webster.

Lita Albuquerque (American, born 1946), “Spine of the Earth,” 1980, pigment, rock, and wood sundial, El Mirage Lake, Mojave Desert, California. © Lita Albuquerque, courtesy of the artist and Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles

Mary Miss (American, born 1944), “Battery Park Landfill,” 1973, wood, 5 ½ x 12-foot sections installed at 50-foot intervals, temporary installation in the space that was the landfill that became Battery Park City. © Mary Miss, courtesy of the artist

But how do you display an exhibition about land art without, well, the land? Groundswell features a mix of remakes and reimaginings of pieces that can be experienced within the confines of the museum, along with documentation via photographs, drawings, film, models, and related ephemera of temporal or site-specific works. For example, arguably the most recognizable piece in the show is Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels (1978), which is permanently sited in Utah and represented in the show through a model and accompanying drawings. With an abundance of material, the exhibit encompasses almost every crevice of the Nasher, both inside and out.

Nancy Holt (American, 1938–2014), “Sun Tunnels,” 1973-76, Great Basin Desert, Utah, concrete, steel, earth, overall dimensions: 9 1/6 x 86 x 53 feet (2.7 x 26.2 x 16.1 m), length on the diagonal: 86 feet. Collection Dia Art Foundation with support from Holt/Smithson Foundation. © 2023 Holt/Smithson Foundation and Dia Art Foundation/ licensed by Artists Rights Society, New York.

Despite the seemingly remote sites of some of the better-known artworks in the exhibit, land art isn’t just out there, somewhere in the far reaches of the country; it can be found, too, right here in North Texas. Two of the exhibit’s most notable examples are Patricia Johanson’s Fair Park Lagoon (1981-86) and a new work by Mary Miss commissioned by the Nasher and situated within the grounds of the museum’s sculpture garden.

Patricia Johanson (American, born 1940), “Fair Park Lagoon,” 1981–86, gunite, native plants, and animal species, dimensions variable, for the People, the Meadows Foundation, Communities Foundation of Texas, Texas Commission on the Arts and their private and corporate donations. Permanently sited in Fair Park, Dallas. © Patricia Johanson, courtesy of the artist. Photo: Michael Barera

Beyond the museum’s campus, just ten minutes away, is Johanson’s Fair Park Lagoon (1981-86). The lagoon itself was originally built in 1936 as a flood-control basin for Fair Park in South Dallas. But by 1980, it was in need of a cleanup. Using funds from the National Endowment for the Arts’ Art in Public Places program, the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (now the Dallas Museum of Art, and located in Fair Park at the time), commissioned Johanson to create an artwork that could help restore the water feature. 

Johanson created two outdoor sculptures that flank either end of the lagoon. On the southern end is Pteris Multifida, which is the Latin name for Texas Fern, and on the opposite end is Sagitaria Platyphylla, also known as Delta Duck Potato, both species that thrive along the banks of water. The sculptures’ undulating frameworks reference the forms of the plants after which they are named. Both pieces are comprised of terracotta-hued gunite (sprayed concrete) elements that arch over or float on the surface of the water, creating a tangled mass of pathways.

Through the five-year-long design process, the project was revised six different times, to the artist’s dismay. But reflecting on Fair Park Lagoon thirty-seven years later, Johanson holds no grudges. “If we’re talking about aesthetics, it only matters to the artists and art critics. Nobody ever discusses the aesthetics of the Statue of Liberty, because it is too beloved and historical an object. You need to transcend the petty dialogue about what is ‘good’ and what is not, because the public will decide over time.” 

Although the final piece does not align completely with Johanson’s original vision, it does achieve two of her goals: to create a functioning ecosystem for wildlife and to integrate people into nature with walkable pathways. 

Installation view of “Groundswell: Women of Land Art” at the Nasher Sculpture Center, September 23, 2023-January 7, 2024. Featuring Mary Miss (b. 1944), “Stream Trace: Dallas Branch Crossing,” 2023, mirror polished stainless steel, dimensions variable. Photo: Kevin Todora, courtesy of the Nasher Sculpture Center.

Visitors to the Nasher can also experience a new land art work right in the museum’s backyard. Mary Miss’s Stream Trace: Dallas Branch Crossing (2023) is a site-specific artwork that follows the path of a buried stream that passes under downtown Dallas, including through the Nasher’s own sculpture garden.

Miss marked the path of the stream with a series of reflective Xs on stakes. “I was looking at this pattern of water going over sand or gravel, and this diamond pattern that was left. I ended up with this idea of trying to trace this stream with these mirrored elements, reflective elements that have the reflection of water. When you approach from the entrance of the garden you really don’t see anything. But when you get to the location of the installation, these things layer up to form a ghost of the stream.”  

Where did the stream come from? The Dallas Branch was a tributary of the Trinity River, originating in what was once a freedman’s town (in the present-day neighborhood of Uptown Dallas). But sometime in the early 20th century, that community was built over and the stream was encased in a concrete culvert. 

The artist laments, “we’ve removed ourselves so much from the environments we live in, especially in cities.” Through her current work with her nonprofit, City as Living Laboratory, Miss is making people more aware of the systems, like this stream, that are all around us but often invisible. 

The public can follow the path of the stream beyond the walls of the Nasher by participating in a series of artist-led stream trace walks, or take self-guided walking tours to learn more about the history of the land along the banks of the Dallas Branch and about the people who once lived in these areas.

Groundswell: Women of Land Art is on view at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas through January 7, 2024.

The post A Landmark Exhibition about Land Art: “Groundswell” at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas appeared first on Glasstire.

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

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

1. Can I cut short an interview if it’s clear the candidate isn’t right?

So if I’m interviewing a candidate, and five minutes into the interview it’s become painfully clear that I would never, EVER hire this person, is there some way to gracefully end the charade at that point and recover the time that would otherwise be wasted? It seems rude to just stand up, shake hands, say “thanks for coming in” and show them out when we’re only a few minutes into the meeting. But it’s disingenuous to pretend that there’s any reason for continuing, other than just common courtesy, and not damaging the firm’s reputation in the recruiting community. Suggestions?

It depends on the reasons. If the candidate did something openly offensive — made a racist or homophobic comment, for example — you absolutely can cut things short and say why. Alternately, if there was some sort of miscommunication — like the job truly requires experience with X and somehow this person was invited to interview without it — I’d argue it’s often more considerate to be up-front about that: “I’m so sorry, I’m not sure how this wasn’t caught earlier, but we wouldn’t be able to hire you for this position without X.” Similarly, if they say something that indicates this is the opposite of what they’re looking for, it’s not unreasonable to say, “You mentioned you’d never want a job doing X and the majority of this job is X — does it make sense to keep talking?”

But if it’s something more amorphous like “I just don’t like this person” or “they don’t seem very bright,” do the full interview, or something close to it. Use that time to test your conclusions because sometimes those sorts of amorphous feelings can be rooted in some kind of unconscious bias and it’ll make you a better interviewer to interrogate that instinct. (And other times it’s based on something important, and that’s valuable to figure out too.)

Aside from those situations, this is someone who made the time to come in and meet with you and it will come across rudely (and potentially generate bad will toward your company) if you end things after five minutes. You don’t need to do the full amount of time you set aside, but do at least half an hour. You can use that time to test your conclusions and make sure they’re correct, and it’s an investment in courtesy and good will.

A lot of job seekers will say they’d rather you just tell them on the spot so you’re not wasting their time … but in reality a lot of people who say that also feel insulted by really short interviews. So I’d err on the side of the organization’s interest in preserving its relationships with people.

2. We were told “you’ll get paid when you get paid, and don’t ask about it”

I do volunteer work for a local nonprofit and get paid stipends for transportation costs. The type of work I do has me out in the community multiple times a week, sometimes out of town. I love my work, but I have recently run into a problem. Getting paid has never been on a schedule, but has always been in a reasonable time frame (no more than two weeks). Recently, my boss informed my team that for the foreseeable future, due to restructure within the organization, we will get paid when we get paid, and it may be a while. Also, please don’t ask about it because they don’t know when that will be.

I am the only person on my team who doesn’t drive, so I am reliant on Uber and Lyft or coworkers to get to engagements. I am on disability and don’t have extra money to spare while waiting to get paid. Not getting paid in a timely manner means that I will not be able to take on other engagements until I get paid for the ones I have already completed and I don’t see how this is sustainable for the long term, as we sign up for engagements weeks in advance. I don’t want to sign up, discover I haven’t been paid a few days before an engagement and have to back out at the last minute leaving my team in the lurch. How can I talk to my boss about this when they have already said don’t ask about when you’ll get paid?

Yeah, no one should have to float money to the organization for an indefinite period of time, and particularly not volunteers.

You have a lot of leverage because you’re presumably more willing/able to walk away than if it were a paying job. Say this to your boss: “It’s not possible for me to float money to the organization for an indefinite period of time, and I can’t sign up for engagements without knowing for sure that the transportation costs will be reimbursed quickly. Given that, how do you want me to proceed? Should I stop volunteering altogether until it’s solved?”

This isn’t “asking when we’ll be paid” when you were told not to ask that, although that’s an unreasonable edict anyway. It’s asking how and whether to proceed volunteering for them in light of this info.

3. Will it look bad to skip my former boss’s retirement party?

I’ve worked for the same large organization for over 20 years in a variety of roles. My job for the past two years has been the best fit for my skill set and values. Prior to that, I worked for seven years under a notoriously demanding, self-centered, controlling, and mercurial manager, Ron. We had a high-performing team in part because Ron was constantly pushing us out of our comfort zone, but it was a toxic work environment. It negatively impacted my marriage and work-life balance and led to anxiety and burnout. I took extended medical leave twice to cope and recover.

When I saw the internal posting for my current role, Ron said he was supportive of me transferring over. However, he made his permission conditional upon me finding my own replacement, as well as filling other vacancies on the team before I left. He also delayed my start date for the new position repeatedly.

In hindsight I wish I had pushed back because it wasn’t fair to expect me to find my own replacement. I worried I would lose the opportunity if I did push back, though. The transition was one of the most stressful times in my life and I was at my lowest point mental-health-wise ever by the time I started in my new role.

Now, Ron has announced his retirement and is throwing a party. Many former and current colleagues and executives will be attending. I have zero interest in spending an afternoon listening to speeches about how great Ron is. I don’t feel that I could honestly say to his face that I will miss him or that working for him was a good experience. I would also be out of pocket $40 for a ticket, as well as a half day of PTO to attend.

Would it be a bad look, career-wise, if I simply didn’t go? If people at my organization (including Ron) ask me why I’m not attending, what should I say? I don’t feel that I would use him as a reference in the future but my absence might be noticed.

Unless there are politics around this that you didn’t mention, it probably won’t look particularly bad to skip the party, particularly since it’s in a different location and you have to buy a ticket. If it were being held in your office during work hours and you didn’t have to pay to attend, I’d say to at least consider putting in a brief appearance, just as the path of least resistance. Plus you could look at it as a celebration of never having to see Ron again — a “good riddance” party in your head.

But needing to pay money and use a half day of PTO? That changes the calculus and can you just have a scheduling conflict if anyone asks you about it.

4. Coworker shrieks disruptively

I live in a city renowned for its wind and regular earthquakes. We have a staff member who, the moment they think they feel an earthquake, shrieks and jumps up from their desk and hurries away. Not only is this behavior unsafe (drop, cover, hold!), it also disrupts the entire office of 20.

How do we approach this behavior? It has been allowed to continue for several years so we are on the back foot but, seriously, it is not okay. Our conflict-averse boss won’t approach the behavior with a barge pole. We are about to enter a period of two years of construction right next to our building in which will include heavy earth moving machinery and piling which will shake the building. Daily. HELP.

“Jane, could you please not keep shrieking like that? It’s incredibly disruptive.” Maybe add, “We’re starting two years of construction which is likely to shake the building daily, and shrieking is more disruptive than the construction is.”

If Jane truly can’t control her panic reaction, she should talk to your employer about how to accommodate that; maybe she needs a more isolated workspace where she’s less likely to disturb people.

If that doesn’t work, you should keep pushing your boss to step in. Conflict-averse managers can sometimes be moved to action if you make it more painful for them to continue not acting than to finally just act.

5. My interviewer really pitched me on the company … but then I was rejected

I was recently rejected for a job and that hurt a lot. One of the reasons it hurt so much was that the person interviewing me spent a lot of time singing the praises of the company’s environment and benefits and describing how various employees quickly climbed the corporate ladder, etc. She also went through the day-by-day schedule with me and presented the onboarding and training processes in detail. This was the first interview. (Also, an acquaintance works there for more than 10 years so I happen to know that the working environment and opportunities are truly exceptional.)

I knew from the beginning that I was not among the strongest candidates (I’m missing some technical training but the interviewer did not focus on this). The thing is that through this enticing company presentation, she made me feel that they feel very strongly about bringing me on board and that she gave me points on why I should choose them.

Is this normal and I’m overreacting? Do interviewers put so much effort into making the job/workplace seem so attractive even for candidates that are not so strong?

Yeah, it’s pretty common for companies to try to sell themselves to candidates, even before the finalist stages. It’s not a sign that they’re going to make you an offer; it can just be part of their standard process for all candidates. Just as you’re showing them the reasons they should consider hiring you, good employers want to show you the reasons you should consider working there — and on both sides, that’s before either of you have made a decision.

When you’re interested in a job, it’s really easy to read too much into this kind of thing, so it’s helpful to actively try to read as little as possible into what your interviewer’s intentions might be. It’s generally impossible to interpret interviewers’ behavior with any kind of accuracy … and even if they did love you and think in the moment that you’d be their top candidate, that can change two hours later when they interview the next person. If you can stay really clear on that in your head, it can make the whole process feel less emotionally battering.

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A Hungarian study has found “a direct association between celebrity worship and poorer performance on cognitive tests,” with data showing high scores on the Celebrity Attitude Scale correlating with lower performance on the two cognitive ability tests. What do you think?

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EAST AURORA, NY—Describing the new product as a fun way to help infants and toddlers reach a key cognitive milestone, Fisher-Price released an updated toy smartphone Thursday that teaches children to screen all calls and assume they’re coming from debt collectors. “The latest iteration of our Laugh and Learn…

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A security vulnerability report arrive that went roughly like this:

1. Create two users on the system, call them A and B.
2. Sign on as A.
3. Create a folder, let’s call it X.
4. In Explorer, right-click the folder X, and select “Give access to”, “Specific people”, and grant access to B.
5. Now right-click the folder X again, and select “Give access to”, “Remove access”, “Stop sharing” to remove access and stop sharing.
6. Go up a level and right-click on X’s parent folder, and select “Give access to”, “Specific people”, and grant access to B.
7. Sign on as B.
8. Observe that B has access to folder X even though access was removed in step 5.

While it’s true that access was removed in step 5, it’s also the case that access was re-granted in step 6.

The finder argued that B should not have access to folder X because B was restricted from having access to the folder by step 5.

Removing access is not the same as “block future access”. Removing access means “Hey, like, if there was anybody that was given access, remove that access entry.” This means that they can’t access this folder directly. However, it doesn’t prevent them from accessing the folder by other means, such as by coming through the parent folder, or (even more simply) by you adding access later.

If you want to deny access to the folder, you can go to Advanced security and add them to the Deny list for the folder.¹

Mind you, even that is not an absolute “block future access”: You could always come back later and remove them from the Deny list.

¹ When you share the parent folder, you are reminded that the subfolder has conflicting security and asks if you want to replace the current security settings on the subfolder with the settings of the parent, or whether you want to keep the separate settings for the subfolder.

The post “Stop sharing this folder” is not the same as “Never share this folder” appeared first on The Old New Thing.

French president Emmanuel Macron announced that his government plans to submit a draft law in the coming days to enshrine abortion rights in the country’s constitution. What do you think?

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

A reader writes:

What to do with a (probably) embarrassed boss?

I (40s F), my boss (50s M), and a fellow coworker (60s F) all happen to share a hobby. In August, I made the mistake of going on a weekend trip with them. The outing was justified by claiming we could save money if we split the cost of lodging. We rented a one-bedroom condo with two lofts. The lofts faced each other across the living room. I had one loft; my boss had the other.

Friday night was fine, but Saturday he got drunk. After we all went to bed, he stood in his loft and asked if I wanted to sing while he did a striptease. I did not and told him so. I would have turned the lights off, so as not to see anything, but the control for the overheads was in his loft.

Anyway, he proceeded to take off his clothes. I rolled over and faced the wall once his shirt came off. I heard his belt buckle hit the floor not long after. I have no idea if he stopped there or if the performance ended with full-frontal nudity.

Before this happened, our relationship was great. We’ve worked together for years and have been very close. We each “had a bad pandemic” and lost people. We have cried on each other’s shoulders via phone several times.

But ever since this incident, he has completely ignored me at work. He won’t take or return calls and doesn’t respond to emails. At present, I can go a couple weeks without seeing or hearing from him at all. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve begun contacting other same-level supervisors when I have issues that need to be resolved. Usually, I send the request to him first (via email, text, or phone) then send one follow-up three days later. If I’ve gotten no response 48 hours after follow-up, I contact another supervisor.

I’ve kept all my messages friendly and upbeat because I’m pretty sure he’s just embarrassed and realizes he made a huge mistake.

The other person we were with doesn’t know and I have no plans of telling her or HR. I’ve got boys and have held leadership roles in the scouting program for over 12 years, so trust me, I’ve seen men do a lot of stupid things. Camping, beer, and stupidity are the holy trinity of male outings. This is just par for the course. The only difference is, I don’t have to work with them. I do know he’s been going through a very difficult time personally.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure he’s embarrassed. Possibly even terrified that I’ll go to HR because this has the possibility to become a career-ending debacle. I won’t do that for one bad decision, which he obviously regrets. However, this is affecting my performance at work, so something has got to change.

How do I resolve this issue? I can’t just send an email, voicemail, or text because “there is no right to privacy” on company machines. I have his personal cell number, but figured that if he’s ignoring me at work, he probably won’t answer that, either. And I can’t just walk into his office because we work remotely.

What on earth. It’s generous that you’re willing to forgive his drunken striptease, but it’s absolutely not okay for him to let his embarrassment over his mistake harm you professionally — which is the territory he’s now in.

It’s reasonable that he’s embarrassed! He should be embarrassed. But he needs to figure out a way to manage that on his own without you being the one to pay for it. It’s not in any way okay to transfer that burden over to you, the person who was potentially harmed by the original act and who is definitely being harmed by his response to it now.

If he won’t answer your calls, he’s leaving you with no option other than to use email. I hear your concern about there being no privacy on company systems, but he hasn’t left you with other options. You can certainly try his personal cell first in case he does answer you there, but otherwise there’s really no choice but to email him something like, “I urgently need to speak with you and have not been able to reach you through any of our normal channels. I need 15 minutes of your time this week — can you let me know when you’ll be available?” (Alternately, if you have the ability to just book time on his calendar … is it an option to do that?)

If that does get him on the phone, then your message on that call is, “I haven’t been able to reach you about anything work-related since our trip in August. It’s getting in the way of my being able to do my work and affecting me professionally. How do we move forward?”

If he won’t even get on that call with you, though, then I do think you need to escalate it. It’s one thing to decide you’ll cut him some slack for what he did on the trip — that’s your call and if you weren’t that bothered by it I’m not going to tell you that you need to be — but what he’s doing now is highly likely to cause real problems for you professionally. In theory you could give him a heads-up that you’re going to escalate it if you don’t hear from him by X date … but frankly I worry about that giving him a chance to lay some sort of groundwork with HR or his own manager to make it look like you’re the problem rather than him. You might be thinking there’s no way he’d do that — this is someone you had a great relationship with for years! — but if his thinking is muddled enough to believe ignoring you forever is a viable strategy, I’m not inclined to give him more benefit of the doubt.

You were willing to be gracious about his drunken performance, but you cannot continue accommodating him when he is prioritizing his own embarrassment over your career.

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

Here’s a round-up of advice about how to say no at work.

the basics

how to say no to a work request

can I flat-out refuse to do a project?

how to say “that’s not my job”

how to tell someone “this is your job, not mine”

how to tell coworkers “you need to do that yourself”

how to say no to coworkers who ask me to take on work I don’t have time for

how do I say no to admin tasks that aren’t my job?

I don’t want to be the go-to person for everything at work

how to say no to your boss (podcast)

saying no when your workload has become unreasonably high

how to “push back” with vendors, partners, and other external contacts

saying no in networking

how to set boundaries when contacts get pushy

how to turn down requests to meet, network, or pick your brain

specific cases and miscellaneous

you need a not-to-do list

how do I stop people from asking me to perform the admin tasks from my old job?

how to turn down “volunteer” (but not really) projects at work

how to say “no, I won’t clean the bathroom”

I’m sick of being the office printer lady

I don’t want to be the office baker

my coworker constantly asks me for personal favors

BOSTON—Overtaking Philadelphia for the top spot in the latest ranking published by U.S. News & World Report, Boston has been named the best city in which to vomit everywhere. “An education hub with a vibrant sports culture and many historical attractions, Boston has earned its place atop our list as the nation’s…

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Honestly geometry's pretty dicey, as are numbers larger than 1.

Thanks for a great launch day, all. I'll be in conversation with Randall Munroe tonight in NYC if you wanna say hi!

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

A reader writes:

My uncle is missing. It’s been so, so terrible. The police are still searching, but we’re all so scared.

I’ve been trying not to let it affect my work, but of course I’m struggling, so on the advice of several people I finally told my boss. He’s high-up in my company and head of a group that does very niche work. I’m new, so I don’t really know him well and I wasn’t sure how it would go.

I told him and he immediately said, “I have a solution!”

Me: ???

He knows a medium who works with crime scenes and wanted to connect us. I uncomfortably declined. He then spent the next 20 minutes or so interrogating me about every detail of the case, asking me very personal questions about my uncle and spinning scenarios. At one point, he stopped himself partway through the phrase “if he’s found dead.” I was sort of frozen in fear and just tried to give him as little information as possible and try to maintain some sort of professional facade. I didn’t know what to do!

Not long after that, he called me back. I picked up the call and his first words were, “He’s alive!”

He had called his friend, the medium.

My boss then reported back to me everything the medium said, which included the information that the police search in progress is the wrong strategy and should be changed.

I stumbled my way through the end of that conversation and went back to work. (I screwed up something, which doesn’t surprise me.) I’ve been trying to process it, but I am really having a hard time.

I don’t know what to do. We have HR, but going to them seems like a one-way ticket to losing my job one way or the other. This doesn’t seem HR-fixable. There’s no place else to transfer to in my company that I can think of. To be brutally honest, there’s not a lot of jobs out there that I qualify for that pay enough for me to cover my mortgage. But how do I work with someone who’s said these things to me?

I’m so, so sorry. This is horrible on so many levels — first and foremost, the pain and trauma your family is going through, but then to have to deal with your boss’s callous speculation as if this were an interesting cocktail party conversation rather than a real, terrifying thing for you … it’s awful.

I don’t think talking to HR about it would result in you losing your job (unless your company is really horrible) — but it sounds unlikely that they could do anything to fix the situation. They could explain to your boss why he was out of line and ensure he never does anything similar in the future, but they can’t change that he already did, or what that means for how you feel about working for him now. I suppose it’s possible that if they helped him realize he was wrong, he might end up apologizing to you in a way that heals that breach … but he also might not, and you don’t need to take this on right now anyway, especially since it sounds like it would be one more source of stress at an already very stressful time.

Instead, I think the best thing you can do now is to be prepared to shut your boss down if he ever brings up the topic again. It’ll help to have language ready in advance so that you’re not scrambling for words on the spot. I suggest this: “This is so upsetting for me and my family that I really can’t talk about it at work again. Thank you for understanding.” If he blows past that and tries to continue anyway, repeat yourself: “This is too painful and I really cannot talk about it at work.”

If you’re afraid you won’t be able to say that in the moment, you could email him about it preemptively: “I’ve realized this is so deeply upsetting for me and my family that I really can’t talk about it at work at all. I’m sending this via email so that you know and don’t inadvertently raise it.”

And then: release yourself from having to figure out anything else about this relationship right now. You have something much bigger going on; you don’t need to figure out your boss right away. Down the road, maybe you’ll decide you really don’t want to work for him, or maybe you’ll decide it’s more manageable than you thought. But you don’t need to figure it right now; your emotional plate is more than full and this can wait. Keep your focus on your family, and assume you can tackle this later. Let yourself have the gift of not having one more thing to deal with right now.

I’m so sorry your family is going through this.

KINGFISHER, NE—Gathering among survivors and families in the wake of yet another horrific tragedy, President Joe Biden met with victims of gun violence Tuesday to remind them there wasn’t really anything stopping another mass shooting from happening in their community. “What happened to you is something no family…

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Thanks again. For people who want signed copies, they will be available via The Strand, as well as HelloComics of Charlottesville and Scrawl bookstore of Reston. <3

This is the hardest project I've ever worked on and, I hope, the best. Thanks for giving me a career that allows me to spend 4 years reading obscure space history so I can try to nudge along a field of study.

Zach

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The keynote is gonna be reeeediculous.

Or click here for info! Tickets are more than half sold and we're still two weeks out, so buy soon to lock yours in!

Dear Residents,

While this elevator was being serviced yesterday, the emergency phone was inadvertently disabled.

We are taping this note to the elevator to let you know that should you become trapped, you will not be able to call for help.

We are working on getting this fixed. Thank you.

—CoolWater Apartment Building Manager

Dear Residents,

Unfortunately, someone removed the previous warning note taped here.

One of our residents, Janice in #613, became trapped in this elevator last night and unknowingly tried to use the emergency phone.

Another resident waiting for the elevator overheard Janice screaming, “Help! I’m trapped in this stupid elevator! Why won’t you answer the phone? Oh god, my ice cream cake is melting!”

Please do not scream into the broken emergency phone. Quiet hours in our building are from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

If you hear screams coming from the elevator shaft, report it during business hours. Please do not remove this sign. Thank you.

—CoolWater Manager

Dear Residents,

The emergency phone has been reconnected. However, the technician hooked the line to the wrong socket, and the phone now seems to call a different emergency phone in a different elevator.

If you become trapped, you will not be able to call a rescuer. However, you may be able to talk to someone else who is riding a different elevator. Whether this appeals to you or not is a personal choice.

Thank you.

Dear Residents,

We have an update. The technician replaced the emergency phone line. However, the line is bad. The phone now calls a man who whispers in Japanese in a very fast and confusing way. He sounds angry.

We want to know who this man is, and we are investigating. Thank you.

Dear Residents,

We believe the whispering man is a librarian trying to collect late fees from delinquent book borrowers in the central Osaka Prefecture on the island of Honshu.

One of our residents who speaks Japanese figured this out when she was briefly trapped in the elevator for five hours yesterday.

We have disconnected the emergency phone until the elevator company fixes it.

Thank you.

Dear Residents,

A technician reconnected the phone yesterday. An hour later, one of our residents, David in #715, became trapped in the elevator.

David tried to use the emergency phone to call a rescuer, but due to some wiring issues, the person who answered the phone was a younger version of David himself, riding the same elevator in the past. Present David, who teaches philosophy at the nearby college, warned his younger self about the many problems currently plaguing academia: poor funding, administrative bloat, etc. Younger David became disturbed and vowed to go into real estate instead of philosophy, thereby actualizing a contradiction.

We are actively working on resolving this temporal paradox. Thank you.

Dear Residents,

We are terribly sorry. In the past twenty-four hours, many more residents have been trapped in this elevator, and everyone who uses the emergency phone ends up talking to younger versions of themselves.

Regina in #330 told her past self that George in #331 has been stealing her Amazon packages since 2021. Past Regina retaliated against past George by pointing her speakers directly at their shared wall and blasting early Megadeth albums 24-7, thereby leading George, who’s more of a jazz guy, to retaliate by blasting Charles Mingus. This led them to both move out two years ago.

Then, Samantha in #117 warned her 2020 self to not let her cheating asshole of a boyfriend, Derrick, move into her apartment. This meant she no longer had Derrick to help pay the rent with the lottery winnings he accrued from tipping off his past self about the Powerball numbers. This led 2020 Samantha to fall behind on rent during COVID, and we were forced to use the elevator phone to call ourselves in 2019 and warn ourselves not to rent to her.

All of this raises the painful question of how Regina, Samantha, and Derick ended up in our elevator yesterday.

Please do not use the emergency phone right now, as creating metaphysical paradoxes is a lease violation.

We will have this fixed by Monday. Thank you.

Dear Residents,

We have good news and bad news.

The technician worked on the phone over the weekend, and sadly, he became trapped in the elevator. Fortunately, he was able to call his past self, who had reinforced the phone wiring six years ago. Not only is the emergency phone fixed, it was never broken. All time loops are now closed. Should you become trapped, rescuers are standing by.

Unfortunately, the elevator is currently out of service.

Please take the stairs.

Thank you.

—CoolWater Manager

No Frills, Ontario – Wealth-hoarding public school teachers across the province are starting to take second jobs after complaining that the hundreds of dollars they make per year isn’t enough. “My kid’s math teacher delivered a pizza to us the other day,” explained Terence Millard, a local parent. “Of course I didn’t tip them… the […]

The post Greedy, overpaid teacher takes second greedy, overpaid job at grocery store appeared first on The Beaverton.

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