Prices go up. Occasionally, prices go down. But for 70 years, the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola didn't change. From 1886 until the late 1950s, a bottle of coke cost just a nickel.
On today's show, we find out why. The answer includes a half a million vending machines, a 7.5 cent coin, and a company president who just wanted to get a couple of lawyers out of his office.
The Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas has named Otobong Nkanga as the winner of the 2025 Nasher Prize, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to sculpture.
Otobong Nkanga
Ms. Nkanga is the first Nasher Prize Laureate to receive the award since the museum shifted it to a biennial format. Previous winners include Senga Nengudi (2023), Nairy Baghramian (2022), Michael Rakowitz (2020-21), Isa Genzken (2019), Theaster Gates (2018), Pierre Huyghe (2017) and Doris Salcedo (2016). The change to a biennial timeline provides the awardee a longer duration of time to prepare works for an exhibition at the Nasher. Ms. Nkanga will receive the award in Dallas on April 5, 2025 in conjunction with the debut of her exhibition and the publishing of a monograph of her work.
In a press release, Jeremy Strick, Director of the Nasher, stated, “The work of Otobong Nkanga makes manifest the myriad connections — historical, sociological, economic, cultural, and spiritual — that we have to the materials that comprise our lives. Delving deeply into the variegated meanings these materials take on, Nkanga’s work makes clear the essential place of sculpture in contemporary life.”
Otobong Nkanga, “Taste of a Stone,” 2010/20, Marble pebbles, Hedera Helix, Sempervivum arachnoideum, Sedum acre, Sedum rupestre, Linaria alpina, Tillandsia multiflora, Tillandsia straminea, Tillandsia aeranthos clump, reindeer moss, boulders, gneiss, granite, Iceland lichen, inkjet prints on Galala limestone slabs. “Kolanut Tales–Dismembered,” 2016, woven textile (yarns: polyester, organic cotton, linen, acryl), 82 4/5 x 68 4/5 inches. Installation view of “Otobong Nkanga: There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground at Gropius Bau,” 2020. Photo: Luca Girardini.
Ms. Nkanga is a Nigerian/Belgian artist who is known for her powerful installations and performances. For two decades, her work has addressed the relationships between people, the land, and its resources, exploring issues such as consumption, connectivity, and care. Ms. Nkanga’s work often incorporates research related to the raw materials of a specific place, such as minerals, spices, nuts, metals, oils, plants, and stones. Additionally, her work often touches upon ideas of movement, migration, and belonging.
Otobong Nkanga, “Anamnesis,” 2015, plywood, gauze, coffee, tea, spices, cacao, raw tobacco, peat, 204 3/5 x 451 1/5 inches. Installation view of “Streamline, Ozeane, Welthandel and Migration. Oceans, Global Trade and Migration” at the Deichtorhallen, 2015
Nasher Prize juror and Professor at University College London Briony Fer remarked, “Otobong Nkanga maps urgent global problems but does so in subtle, enigmatic, and probing ways. She works with materials that draw on many different aspects of the world’s resources, and the complex histories of those materials are embedded in her works. The intense and productive way in which she presents formal and material questions is what marks out her huge contribution to sculpture right now.”
The 2025 Nasher Prize jury that selected Ms. Nkanga is comprised of Nairy Baghramian, artist; Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Director of Castello di Rivoli, Italy; Lynne Cooke, Senior Curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Briony Fer, Professor, History of Art, University College London; Hou Hanru, Artistic Director, MAXXI, Rome; Yuko Hasegawa, Director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa Japan; Rashid Johnson, artist; Pablo León de la Barra, Curator at Large, Latin America, Guggenheim Museum; and Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair, Arts Council England.
Learn more about Otobong Nkanga’s work via the Nasher’s website.
As a British woman in the Edwardian era, I have to admit that at times I’ve been swept up in fantasies of Gilded Age splendor. Perhaps it was the allure of evening gowns and perfumed parlors that led me to Henry Higgins’s door for speech classes. It was certainly what made me stay.
But tonight, choked to the gills in Parisian satins, I can’t help but wonder whether I’ve made a huge mistake.
Just a few hours ago, after telling Higgins quite plainly he would “not be seeing me again,” I changed my mind and returned to his home anyway—so seductive was the offer of social and financial security. And yet, despite all we’ve been through, instead of greeting me with any hint of delight, the man just slumped into his chair and said, “Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?” He didn’t even look at me.
I feel like the last person in the world to realize this, but I should have chosen Freddy.
My reasons are myriad. Freddy:
loves me
is handsome
can sing
is my generation
doesn’t encourage his staff to beat me
brings me flowers
hasn’t threatened repeatedly to throw me into the gutter
enjoys my colloquialisms
doesn’t call me silly girl, bilious pigeon, chicken cackling in a barn, squashed cabbage leaf, disgrace to noble architecture, an incarnate insult to the English language, liar, baggage, deliciously low, dirty, guttersnipe, draggle-tailed guttersnipe, heartless guttersnipe, barbarous wretch, “that thing,” “the thing,” presumptuous insect, the creature, infamous creature, irrational, exasperating-irritatating-vascillating-calculating-agitating-maddening-infuriating hag, fool, idiotic, impotent hussy, a millstone round my neck, owl sickened by a few days of my sunshine, hell-cat, and easy to forget.
Sure, Higgins and I did have some good times. Notably, there was that one evening when I had my first breakthrough and said “Spain” correctly. We all celebrated together, and—as I told the housemaids—I could’ve danced all night.
But if I’m honest with myself, I was too caught up in the opulent lifestyles of the men around me to see my own complicity in their oppressive system. I made life very hard for the servants that night, who had to clean up after me and get my drunk rump into bed. I could’ve danced all night, sure, but they had an eighteen-hour workday the next morning.
What does it say about me that he passed me off as a duchess at Buckingham Palace, but I don’t like who I am when I’m with him?
Recently, Higgins talked me out of marrying Freddy, because Freddy isn’t as wealthy as him and doesn’t know how to earn a living. But how did Henry Higgins earn his wealth? He’s old-money British upper-class, which means his fortune was likely stolen off the backs of murdered and oppressed people, looted from their possessions, and poached from their homelands’ natural resources.
I’m a good girl, I am, and so I don’t wanna earn my money the way people like him do.
And what will I be for Higgins beyond a plaything? It’s telling he overlooked the other lowly flower people for the one conventionally attractive soprano he knew could help him win a bet. Like so many rich white men before and after, he turned me into his own personal paper doll and managed to talk-sing himself into being the sympathetic protagonist of my story.
Respectfully, fixing my accent and teaching me how to walk in heels doesn’t meet my relational needs. I couldn’t have been clearer when I said that all I want is a room somewhere, with heat, a place to rest my legs, and a nice, gentle person who treats me well.
So how does it fit my vision to have my mouth stuffed with marbles as part of some sick phonetic kink by a patronizing, fascistic linguist who declares I should literally be hanged for not pronouncing “captain” exactly like him?
I’m upstairs in Higgins’s mansion now, taking off this couture hat he ordered for me that’s so big it could house a pauper, while that arrogant numbnut is down in his study, wearing his velvet smoking jacket, waiting for one of the dozen maids or me to fetch his shoes or pipe or some other nonsense he could easily get himself.
I reflect on my twenty-year-old face in the mirror—a face he grew accustomed to, and I don’t recognize anymore. I picture a life with him and shudder. I picture a life with Freddy and shudder less. But then my mind wanders even further…
I imagine the rain in Spain… or Hartford, Hereford, or Hampshire, where hurricanes hardly happen. I wonder what it would be like to live there instead. What eligible people I might meet.
Marriage to a rich man is a flower girl’s best option for security in this miserable, polluted city. So, of course, it was a relief when I realized I’d finally perfected my accent enough to attract such a person.
But maybe underneath all those vocal exercises, all that effort, all us flower girls really need is freedom over our lives.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
Later this week, I’ll be going on a second round of interviews for a position I’m interested in. From what I can tell, it’s a great team and the work directly aligns with how I see my career going. I’m also lucky to know a couple of people who work there now, so I know how things really are on the inside. It’s a step up and in the right direction for me, which is something I appreciate as my current position has felt dead in the water for some time now.
So, why am I not more excited? I don’t know if it’s the after-effects of the pandemic or if my current job has just done a number on me or if I’m less idealistic now that I’m older or what, but I just can’t seem to get excited about the possibility of a new job anymore.
It’s not just this current opportunity that’s eliciting this reaction, either. I’ve been feeling this way for a couple of years now, and if anyone asks me to describe my “dream job” or what I most want to do, I mumble my way through it. I know what I’m good at, and I know what my wheelhouse is, but there’s no specific job or company that would make feel capital E-excited to land.
And that’s mostly okay with me. For the longest time, work took over way too much of my personal life, and I’ve been working hard at creating and maintaining those boundaries for myself. But it now feels like the pendulum has swung the other way, and I would be lying if I said that working 40 hours/week for the next 20+ years of my life without any excitement or real professional fulfillment sounded good to me. It doesn’t.
Is this normal—or to be expected after the last few years? How do I get excited about job opportunities again?
It’s normal. It’s so, so normal.
There’s a reason “I do not dream of labor” has become a meme.
Most people work to live and aren’t especially passionate about their jobs.
Several generations of us have been sold a bill of goods — the idea that we’re supposed to find work fulfilling and rewarding — “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” blah blah blah.
For most people, it’s bullshit! Most people work because it’s a necessary part of obtaining food and housing, not for emotional fulfillment.
It’s also a particular brand of bullshit that’s only been sold to certain socioeconomic demographics. Most of the population is expected to be okay with working for a paycheck! But if you’re from a certain socioeconomic class, work is supposed to complete you. It’s not only elitist and destructive, but also happens to be a really effective way for certain types of organizations to exploit their workers — since if you’re supposed to be there for the passion/prestige/fulfillment, it’s a lot easier to guilt you out of demanding fair pay or reasonable hours or more parental leave.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the pandemic has laid that more bare for you. Or it might be that you just see things more clearly after having been in the work world longer.
But while seeing work for exactly what is it is — a trade of your labor and skills for money — is a good thing, it’s also true that it can feel like giving something up. When you used to find fulfillment and excitement in your work, it feels like loss not to have that anymore. Going to work every day to do something you feel great about boosts your quality of life, makes it easier to stay motivated, and engages your brain in a different way than if you’re just going through the motions. So it makes sense that you’re feeling blah.
It’s striking to me, though, that you’re experiencing this in regard to a job search and not your day-to-day work. That makes me think that you might simply be being realistic that there’s no “dream job” out there … but it doesn’t mean that you can’t find some satisfaction in doing work that you find interesting and are good at.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I need a reality check on whether I should weather the current company storm or jump ship. My manager, Bob, is the owner of the company, and while theoretically has people high up who could push back on him, the reality is that he makes the final decisions on most everything.
Bob has recently decided that the type of work our company takes on needs to drastically shift. This on its own is not an issue; we’ve all had a bit of job scope creep in recent years as a result of the pandemic, and he’d like to refocus on our core skills. The problem, however, is in his delivery.
The entire company received an email several weeks ago that there would be a three-hour, mandatory session with a business coach, who would be discussing the future of the company’s strategy. We all went to the meeting, expecting it to be the typical cheesy strategy sessions businesses like to do from time to time.
The “business coach” began describing his credentials, where it was revealed that he is a therapist by training. He then launched into his three-hour series, which focused largely on the fact that Bob works too much, and that work is affecting Bob’s personal life. Everything about the company restructure was framed in light of how it will make Bob’s life easier and better, with the heavy implication that no one at the company could possibly have it harder than Bob.
It became clear by the way this “coach” spoke that he is, in fact, Bob’s personal therapist who also happens to have some business training, and who Bob hired to give us this message. The session lasted for three hours, and only at the end (after time was up) was anyone asked to speak or give input. After the session, everyone was given a lengthy document describing the new strategy, and required to provide feedback on it.
Bob heard through the grapevine that people were unhappy with the session. Late one night/early one morning on a weekend, Bob sends out a 1,000+ word email in which he explained his reasoning for the company shift, described the company as friends and family, said that the sharing of his personal struggles was in an effort to provide the transparency that apparently had been asked of him, and characterized people’s concerns as complaining about the transparency they asked for. Several days later, this email was followed up by a 10-page document further explaining the reasoning behind Bob’s vision to restructure.
None of the restructure on its own is negatively perceived by any of the employees. But everyone is upset at the implication that we don’t work hard and don’t have our own struggles, and also that we’re now responsible for managing our boss’ emotional turmoil. Everyone is walking on eggshells around Bob, because any pushback on the delivery of this message is met with extreme defensiveness.
What I’m struggling with is that this company used to be a dream to work for — great hours, flexible work arrangements, interesting work, great coworkers, and management that recognized and respected the employees. I can’t tell if this recent shift is some sort of temporary personal crisis that Bob is going through (and dragging us all along with him) or if it signals a bigger problem. Should I keep my head down and weather it or begin my job hunt in earnest?
Bob is walking evidence of what happens when you give yourself too much power and don’t have people around you who will push back when you want to do something bananas.
To be clear, transparency is good! If Bob heard that people wanted more transparency around the restructure, calling a meeting to share his thoughts in person wasn’t a bad idea. But (1) asking his therapist (!) to lead (2) a three-hour (!!) session (3) about Bob’s personal struggles with working too much (!!!) … well, we were just talking recently about how therapists don’t always get work stuff right and holy hell is this is a clear example.
When people want transparency around work changes, it means they want to know the business reasoning, what options have been considered and rejected and why, how the new system will work, and what it means for them, and they want the opportunity to ask questions and have their concerns heard and considered. It does not mean “we need a better understanding of what’s in the CEO’s heart.” It does not mean “talk at us for three hours while centering yourself to the exclusion of everyone else.” It definitely does not mean “bring in your therapist to lecture us and then get defensive when people don’t like it.”
As for what to do from here … to what extent is this out of character for Bob versus not terribly surprising? Is your sense that he is generally a steady hand at the wheel and this was one misstep, or is it part of a pattern of missteps? Are the things that made you previously describe the company as a dream to work for still true, or have those things been on their way out for a while? The answers to those questions should point you in the right direction.
Either way, though, it wouldn’t hurt to start job-searching. You don’t need to leap at the first offer you get — or any offer, for that matter — but when things seem like they might be going bonkers around you, it’s useful to do some of the groundwork to create options in case you need them.
CULVER CITY, CA—Showing off their creativity and lack of parenting skills, TikTok users across the globe were reportedly participating in a new trend Thursday to see how fast they could get their kids taken away by child protective services. “Basically, my entire TikTok feed right now is children getting carted away…
MONTREAL – Local man Morgan Powell has been accused of both “ignoring the plight of Palestinians” and “hating the only democracy in the Middle East” for his controversial position that children should not be murdered for any reason. “I just think both the Israeli government and Hamas have committed atrocities in the last few days […]
TOYOTA, JAPAN—Noting that the colorful, shiny vehicles are far more toxic than they appear, Toyota officials announced Wednesday that the company has created a new bitter coating to prevent children from swallowing cars. “Thanks to this state-of-the-art denatonium benzoate coating, children will be far more deterred…
PORTSMOUTH, NH—Insisting that she simply wanted to make him feel welcome during his three-day stay, local mom Debra Solander reportedly gave her 37-year-old son a grand tour of the snacks in the pantry while he was home for the weekend. “Let’s see here, we’ve got unsalted pretzels, tortillas, those pita chips—but…
NEW YORK—A new study published Wednesday by researchers at Columbia University found that charismatic Americans are experiencing a friendship epidemic. “The data shows that captivating and social people have started acquiring an alarming number of friends and acquaintances—more than they know what to do with,” said…
WASHINGTON—Claiming to have acquired enough evidence to support the allegations, Pentagon officials held a press conference Wednesday to accuse China of being Chinese. “After a years-long investigation, we now have corroboration from numerous witnesses that China is definitely Chinese,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd…
Hurricane Lidia will make landfall near Puerto Vallarta late this evening as a moderate hurricane before weakening and merging in with a bunch of other tropical moisture that will quickly transit the Gulf toward Florida.
Tropics: Lidia makes landfall in Mexico tonight, combines with other systems to bring rain to the Gulf & South
Hurricane Lidia will approach Mexico later this evening as it intensifies, likely making landfall on the coast very near Puerto Vallarta.
A complex pattern in the Pacific and Gulf will feature Invest 93L (unlikely to develop) lifting north and then northeast, the remnants of Tropical Storm Max combining with that, and eventually Hurricane Lidia’s remnants streaking in a similar direction, close behind. (Weathernerds.org)
Lidia will bring heavy rain in Jalisco, southern Sinaloa, and Nayarit in Mexico and storm surge to areas south of where it comes ashore. Hurricane Warnings are in effect on the coast of Mexico from Playa Perula to Escuinapa. The hurricane-force winds only extend out about 25 miles, so the worst wind will be felt near the eventual landfall point not far from Puerto Vallarta. Lidia will rapidly weaken once inland in Mexico, but its remnant circulation and moisture will get drawn into a conglomerate of systems in the western Gulf of Mexico that will rocket east toward Florida.
Hurricane Lidia will make landfall near Puerto Vallarta before rapidly weakening once inland. (NOAA NHC)
This mashup includes Invest 93L in the Bay of Campeche and the remnants of Tropical Storm Max which made landfall yesterday. As this family of outcasts speeds east across the Gulf Wednesday, it will bring a burst of rainfall from South Texas, into the open Gulf, and across extreme southeast Louisiana and Florida.
Rainfall from the tropical trio through Friday morning will be highest offshore, but 1-3″ will be likely in North Florida, South Georgia, southeast Louisiana, and perhaps on the coast of Alabama or Mississippi (Pivotal Weather)
This rain looks fairly manageable overall, with about 1 to 3 inches in the Rio Grande Valley and Corpus Christi areas, New Orleans, much of the Florida Panhandle, and the southern half of Georgia. Isolated areas will see more. There will also likely be a pretty sharp gradient on the northern fringe of this precipitation that perhaps limits amounts a bit in San Antonio, Houston, Baton Rouge, Montgomery, and Atlanta.
Rain totals in Texas will be highest south of Corpus Christi. (Pivotal Weather)
Aside from this sloppiness, the Atlantic tropics are quiet in terms of land impacts. Invest 92L continues to look like a late season Cabo Verde system, likely to develop over the next few days. But it will not impact land. There’s a little bit of model percolation in the Caribbean in about 10 to 12 days, but I am not ready to jump aboard that train just yet.
Central & Eastern U.S. storm to bring heavy rain and a whole lotta wind late this week
I presume most of the country’s attention with respect to weather late this week will be on the significant storm that is going to develop tomorrow night into Thursday over the Central Plains. This storm will bring a variety of weather to much of the northern half of the country.
Rainfall/flooding
In terms of rain, we’re looking at a slight chance of flash flooding on Thursday from northern Nebraska and southeast South Dakota into northwest Iowa and southwest Minnesota. On Friday, that expands east to include Chicago, Madison, and Milwaukee east to western Michigan.
Thursday and Friday will see a slight chance (level 2 of 4) for excessive rainfall in the Plains and Midwest, which will expand into Pennsylvania and New Jersey on Saturday. (NOAA WPC)
By Saturday, that will move toward the Mid-Atlantic and southern New England, including, again, New York City.
7-day national rain totals show 1 to 4 inches from the tropical moisture in the Gulf and another 1 to 4 inches from Nebraska and South Dakota to Michigan, as well as centered on New Jersey. (Pivotal Weather)
Expect about 1 to 4 inches from western Michigan west through Nebraska and South Dakota. Another 1 to 3 inches is possible in portions of eastern Pennsylvania and the New York City metro. Much of this region only needs an inch or two of rain over 6 to 12 hours to get flash flooding started. So I would expect to see flood watches get posted at some point in many areas.
Severe weather
With a powerful area of low pressure developing on the Plains, you almost always get some kind of severe weather. For Thursday that will probably be in Kansas and southeast Nebraska. On Friday that potential may moderate some as the storm comes east, but I still wouldn’t be shocked to see some reports of severe weather.
Thursday’s severe weather forecast calls for a slight (level 2 of 5) risk from about Kansas City north and west, with hail and strong winds being the main concerns. (NOAA SPC)
Strong winds and large hail are probably the main concerns, along with a non-zero tornado risk. There will be only a moderate amount of warm, moist Gulf air available so that may cap this event a little bit. Either way, expect to see (and hear) rumblings about that this week.
Strong winds
Expect to see a wide swath of 30 to 50 mph wind gusts across Wyoming, the Central Plains, and the Midwest as this storm marches east. The strongest winds will probably be in the Texas Panhandle, western Kansas and Nebraska, and portions of South Dakota.
Forecast wind gusts may exceed 40 or 50 mph with this storm over a wide swath of the Great Plains into the Upper Midwest. (Weather Bell)
Strong winds will march east as well, but they will probably ease up a bit once to the Ohio Valley and East.
Snow
Lest we ignore the powder! Snow will likely fall in Colorado and Wyoming (and perhaps Utah) as this system unfolds. Some snow may even fall in the Black Hills as well. Winter Storm Watches are already posted for a number of higher elevation spots from Wyoming into western South Dakota.
It’s getting to be that time of year! We’ll have more on this for you through the rest of the week.
VANCOUVER — Celebrity chef Walton Fisch is facing widespread criticism for his latest cookbook, Fresh Fisch, which assumes its readers can afford to buy food. Virtually every recipe in the book calls for multiple ingredients, which Fisch’s fans say is a slap in the face for anyone who doesn’t earn a six-figure salary. “Walton’s new […]
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My boss says we can’t celebrate birthdays because of one employee’s religious beliefs
I’ve recently started a new role and so far, I’m loving it. My manager seems to be reasonable and I feel supported. But a situation on our team feels odd and I’m not sure how to navigate it. It’s important to note that I don’t think there is any ill will in this situation, and everybody means well.
My coworker Susie belongs to a religion that doesn’t celebrate any holidays or birthdays, and she doesn’t recognize holidays or the birthdays of coworkers. This usually isn’t an issue, but a few weeks ago, the birthday of another coworker came up. As it was a decadal birthday, two other coworkers, Erica and Jackie, got some cake for her. Our manager said it was a sweet idea, but she didn’t want us to get a card or sing “happy birthday” as she didn’t want Susie to feel excluded. Erica and Jackie are livid that “birthdays are ruined” because of Susie and said they want to talk to our manager again about this.
I’m not sure what’s the best way to proceed. On the one hand, inclusion is a topic dear to my heart and I don’t want Susie to feel uncomfortable or excluded. On the other hand, I think it’s a nice gesture to celebrate a team member’s birthday by singing, signing a card, and bringing cake. Usually I would just ask Susie how she feels about it, but our manager instructed Erica and Jackie to not talk to Susie about her religion. What is your take on this — should we ban birthday celebrations to make sure nobody feels uncomfortable and risk coworkers “blaming” Susie for not being able to celebrate birthdays or should is it okay to expose Susie to some degree of birthday recognition?
Your manager is off-base. I appreciate that she wants to be sensitive to Susie, but it’s fine to celebrate birthdays in your office as long as you’re not celebrating someone’s against their will (so don’t celebrate Susie’s) and as long as you’re not forcing participation from people who don’t want to participate (so don’t insist Susie take part in someone else’s birthday). Susie would almost certainly tell you the same thing — and it’s a problem that your manager has banned anyone from asking her and instead is making decisions on her behalf without asking her directly what she prefers.
One option is to talk to your manager and say, “Could you ask Susie how she prefers we handle this, rather than deciding for her? My strong suspicion is she’ll be fine with us celebrating birthdays as long as she’s not expected to participate and as long as we don’t celebrate hers.” If your boss won’t budge after that, in theory you could ask HR to intervene if you feel like spending the capital (which may or may not make sense, depending on how strongly your team feels about this — but if Erica and Jackie are blaming Susie for “ruining” birthdays, someone may need to, since that’s not going to go anywhere good).
2. My coworker wants to send greeting cards to our houses
I suppose we can all agree that pre-Covid there were some office trends that were harmless but didn’t translate so well to remote work. Popping by one’s cube for a chat, for instance, is more acceptable than popping by one’s home office unannounced.
We have a new team member who is into greeting cards, but is asking people for their home addresses so she can mail them directly since we’re all remote. I’m one of those people and got a “you’re amazing” card for no reason other than the normal onboarding time I spent with her. Now she’s asking me and others if we want to put our names on cards she mails to other people for things. One is a condolence situation when the office already sent a card and gift on behalf of everyone, and then another is Boss’s Day — things that, were we in the office, might not be a big deal, but feel like they cross a line into home life now that we’re remote.
It\s harder to keep personal and professional life separate when you have a coworker who clearly misses the casual chatter/work friendships of an in-office setting. She’s also invited me to hang out on weekends and tried to friend me on social media, both of which I’ve declined. Everyone probably has a different set of boundaries when office work moved to remote, but how do you know which are appropriate and which are inappropriate, and how do you best communicate your preferences yet keep a good working relationship if “appropriate” is a gray area?
When she asks for your home address so she can send you cards: “Oh, no thanks, I prefer not to receive anything at home.” (It sounds like it’s too late for that now, but if she keeps up a steady flow of cards, it’s fine to say at some point, “Thanks for the cards! I prefer not to receive things at home, so I’d be grateful if you’d switch to email or Slack for anything going forward.”)
When she tries to organize a card for something that’s already been taken care of: “We normally do official things from the office; Jane is in charge of sending cards and gifts on behalf of the team. I would rather keep it that way so those things are company efforts and company expenses rather than personal ones.”
Friending coworkers on social media is pretty common so that wouldn’t alarm me (although plenty of people choose not to and it’s fine to ignore the request or explain that you don’t mix social media with work). It’s also fine for her to extend social invitations for outside of work as long as she doesn’t push when you decline. If she continues to ask, explain you’re not usually available on weekends because of your schedule.
To the broader question about boundaries in general: The most important things are that you feel comfortable asserting your own boundaries and that your coworker respects them once you lay them out. If the latter doesn’t happen, that’s a different situation — but so far, it sounds like a situation where you just have to be slightly more direct about what you are and aren’t up for.
3. How to answer, “Is there anything in the job description that gives you pause or would be a big learning curve?”
I’ve been interviewing for jobs, and more than once I’ve been asked, “Is there anything in the job description that gives you pause or would be a big learning curve for you?” These are positions I am fairly well qualified for, so I don’t think the question is about my resume not matching with the job description. I’ve typically replied something along the lines of, “Well, the X work will be slightly new for me, but I am confident in my A, B, C abilities that are also part of this role because of 1, 2, 3.” Is there something I’m missing as a part of this question, or a better way to answer it? I try to sound confident but not cocky.
I don’t love that answer. They’re asking about potential challenges and you’re using it as a way to pivot to talking about your strengths. Some interviewers won’t mind it but some interviewers, like me, will be annoyed. I’d rather hear something like, “X will be new for me — I’m usually pretty quick to pick up new software, but how much learning curve have you typically seen people have with it?” or “I’m curious about how much of the job is doing Y” or “Z is the least familiar to me; how have you seen others approach that when they’re new to it?” or something that engages in a more genuine way with what they’re asking and doesn’t take you right into sales mode.
4. I don’t want to swap work with my coworker
I work in a small office in a client-facing role. Recently, a few of the more interesting projects for clients I’m assigned to have been given to our client service manager. From what I understand, she has requested this type of work. Typically, she works on more operations type responsibilities, including billing and reporting. This was frustrating to me, as this type of project is one of my favorite parts of my job. Further, some of the client service manager’s projects have been assigned to me as a result, so she can take on the projects that I otherwise would be doing.
How do I tactfully bring this up with my manager? I’ve received great feedback, specifically on this type of project. I’m concerned some of more tedious and messy admin type work is being assigned to me because I’m good at it and there have been some performance issues with this client service manager. Normally, I’ve never been the type to say “that’s not in my job description,” but I’m starting to feel some serious resentment as a result of this situation.
Talk to your boss! She may have no idea you feel this way and, if she’s a decent manager, should be receptive to hearing it. Say something like: “I really enjoy doing projects like X and Y — they’re some of my favorite parts of my job. Lately we’ve been giving more of that work to Jane, while giving me parts of her role like Z — which I hadn’t anticipated being part of my role. It’s important to me to continue being the main owner of things like X and Y and ideally keep Z with Jane. Could we revert those responsibilities back to how they’ve historically been?”
5. Can my company force us to CC higher-ups?
If you wish to communicate with your supervisor and get their opinion of a situation, can the company force you to CC the supervisor’s supervisor? I understand if I share a concern and the supervisor says it needs to go to a higher level or they don’t have an answer, so they wish to consult a more knowledgeable source. But sometimes, you just need a little guidance without all the bells and whistles. So can they make you include the upper management?
Yes, they can require that if they want to. It’s an odd choice because it’s almost certainly not a good use of the higher level manager’s time, and it also signals to the lower level managers that they’re not trusted to handle anything on their own … but the company is allowed to run things that way if they want to.
If that’s the practice in your workplace, the way around it is to put fewer things in email and instead talk in-person (or over the phone, etc.).
A security vulnerability report arrived that went roughly something like this.
If a system’s built-in local administrator account is not a domain administrator, but the local administrator account’s password matches that of the built-in domain administrator account, then that local administrator can connect to a domain controller, and it will grant the user domain administrator privileges, even though that user is not actually a domain administrator.
What’s happening here is that when you connect to another system on the same domain, Windows will use your userid and password to connect to that system, on the theory that the other system will honor your userid and password, seeing as it’s part of the same domain.
The finder argued that this shows that the attacker can gain domain administrator access without knowing the domain administrator password. All they have to do is match their userid and password to those of a domain administrator.
But wait. If the attacker can match the userid and password to those of domain administrator, then this contradicts the claim that the attacker doesn’t know the domain administrator password. You need to know the domain administrator password in order to match it! The local account is just a decoy. The attacker doesn’t need it. They can just log into the domain controller directly with the userid and password they already know.
This is like saying, “I can open the victim’s luggage combination lock without having the code. All I have to do is change the combination lock on my luggage to match the victim’s. Now I can use my luggage lock code to unlock the victim’s luggage!” Well yeah, but the “change the combination lock on my luggage to match the victim’s” step implies that you do know the victim’s luggage code. Otherwise, how did you manage to match it?
Now, if the attacker is someone who was able to take over the account of a local administrator by exploiting some other vulnerability, then it’s true that the attacker could use the local administrator account as a stepping-stone to the domain administrator account, but only if the domain administrator is stupid and not only left the domain administrator password enabled for remote access, but also reused their domain administrator password as their local administrator password.
Mind you, even if the passwords didn’t match, the attacker might still be able to gain domain administrator access if the local administrator had saved the domain administrator’s password in their credential cache. Or the attacker can just sit and wait for the local administrator to enter the domain administrator password in order to do some domain administrative thing, and then take over the session. Once the local administrator account has been breached, the attacker can do anything the local administrator account can do. If you set up the local administrator account so it also has domain administrator access, then you opened a hatchway from one ship to another ship, and you shouldn’t be surprised that people who get onto the first ship can use that hatchway to get to the second.
by Kiah Collier and Dan Keemahill, The Texas Tribune and ProPublica
Commissioner of Education Mike Morath has repeatedly waived expansion requirements for charter school networks, allowing them to serve thousands more students, even when they don’t meet academic performance standards.
NEW YORK—Claiming that the humanizing of occupied peoples is not what the newspaper stands for, The New York Times issued an apology Tuesday for reporting on Palestinian deaths. “Our thoughtful and accurate coverage of the Palestinian death toll in no way met our editorial standards for obfuscation, and for that we…
I’m happy to report that BMOW’s Yellowstone Universal Disk Controller for Apple II computers is beginning its second production run. I’d long thought that Yellowstone would be a once-and-done project, because a key chip used in its design became unobtainable anywhere late during the development phase. I was only able to make an initial production run because I’d had the foresight to stockpile parts six months earlier. The global semiconductor shortage was wreaking havoc, and for more than two years these parts remained unavailable at any price from the chip manufacturer or distributors. But in the past few months the chips have finally become available again, and while they’re not priced cheaply, at least they’re obtainable.
Yellowstone is a universal disk controller card for Apple II computers. It supports nearly every type of Apple disk drive ever made, including standard 3.5 inch drives, 5.25 inch drives, smart drives like the Unidisk 3.5 and the BMOW Floppy Emu’s smartport hard disk, and even Macintosh 3.5 inch drives. Yellowstone combines the power of an Apple 3.5 Disk Controller Card, a standard 5.25 inch (Disk II) controller card, the Apple Liron controller, and more, all in a single card.
VICTORIA, BC – In a completely unexpected turn of events, local heartthrob and solid 9.5, Mark Steele, has reportedly discovered his soulmate who, in a jaw-dropping twist of fate, is also somehow incredibly hot. This cosmic coincidence of two gorgeously attractive individuals who have miraculously managed to find each other in the vast sea of […]
Former president Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a Mar-a-Lago member, Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt, who then shared the information with former Australian PMs and journalists. What do you think?
JERUSALEM—Noting that he had been feeling pretty down lately and this was just the pick-me-up he needed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters Tuesday that he didn’t know about them, but the tragic attack that killed Israelis couldn’t have come at a better time for him. “Personally, while I can’t speak for…
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
Last week we talked about weaponized incompetence, and here are 17 of my favorite stories you shared.
1. The Diet Coke
My first job out of college I was the only woman on a small team of other guys who were also fresh from college. They tried to get me to make the coffee. Convo went something like this:
“Why don’t you ever make coffee?”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“Well, WE all drink coffee, if you made some occasionally it would be nice.”
“Does this mean you’ll start bringing me Diet Cokes to be nice?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay, when that happens then maybe I’ll make a pot of coffee.”
Never got a DC from those boys, but they never bothered me about it again either.
2. The allergy
Someone in my office is suspected of weaponized allergy to mold, carpet glue, and dust. She changed offices three times because “something is just getting to me” in this part of the building. She now has a lovely office with a fireplace (we work in an old house) and a balcony overlooking a luscious green lawn and hedges. Interestingly, there does not seem to be any mold, carpet glue, or dust there.
3. The duo
My boss is great, but is nearing retirement and spent most of her career in federal government service, where tech updates were not the priority. I don’t know if this is weaponized incompetence exactly, but I get away with a lot by pretending I’m just as clueless about technology as she is. For example, she mentioned not really understanding Teams and whoops, neither did I! I didn’t explain to her that if she had the app open she’d be able to see my activity status in Outlook … and now she never uses it and I can take long lunches/midday walks/etc without worrying that she’ll see that my dot went gray. Another time I was having laptop issues and couldn’t get into the office to fix it until the next day. Before I could say that I would just log in on the firm’s virtual desktop from my personal laptop, she said, “Oh well, guess you can’t work today.” I shut my mouth and said, “I guess not!”
(Obligatory caveat that we have a great working relationship and none of my white, incompetent lies create a burden for her – just a little more free time/a little less surveillance for me).
4. The coffee
As a middle-aged woman in engineering, I’m utterly baffled by the coffee machine and dishwasher. I only make coffee when I’m the first person in the office, and I make it 1.5x strength. No one has noticed that there’s fresh coffee when I’m the first person in, but I’m helpless to make it through the day. I’m also ruthless about sending people to the admins to solve their problems rather than trying to be helpful.
5. The art skills
This is from way in my youth, but here goes: in high school, I ended up on my home country’s equivalent of the student council and, once on it, was put in charge of all things art – signs, posters, decorations etc around the school. Which in practice ended up being 10% me overseeing somebody else making art and 90% me making ALL THE ART. Tried to leave after a year, but was told I had to stay on and keep making the art, which I did till I graduated.
Mentioned it to a few people when I started college and spent most of my five years there being on a team of 2-3 people responsible for making ALL THE ART in the dorm building. Signs, posters, etc. We are talking a tower 14 floors tall with 16 suites and several common areas on each floor. It got exhausting fast.
Started my first job out of college, in an IT department of a large manufacturing plant, and not even two weeks into the job, I had two young women approach me saying that they were on the (forgot the name of it … something employee-engagement-like?) committee and did I know how to draw? DID I KNOW HOW TO DRAW? I smiled and said Nope! and that was the end of my poster-making career. I’ve done some of it in my later years, but for myself (made a sign for a protest I was attending, painted the large rocks embedded in the curb strip next to my house, etc.) but never was anyone able to rope me into doing it for a job or similar on a volunteer basis ever again.
6. The weaponized competence
I did this to get out of auditing purchase card transactions at work (it’s not my job, I was just pulled in because the team that was in charge of it was drowning in work and I’m known to be very efficient/a fast worker with little to no training). I did not like doing this.
Company policy is that any employee with a purchasing card must provide all receipts of transactions, and if receipts are missing too many times the card will be revoked. (Example: missing one $5 receipt in the span of 6 months will just be a gentle warning, while consistently not having receipts, especially for bigger purchases, will definitely get the card revoked, with a sliding scale between the two points; there was also an approved vendor policy, no alcohol policy, etc.)
The CEO’s expense report landed on my desk. It was missing tons of receipts, with random high-cost expenses without explanation (think $3000 at a sports arena in alcohol and food and ticket costs). I took my red pen to that thing and attached company policy to it. Said it couldn’t be processed because of missing items, highlighted that it was turned in late too. I had already done similar things to the VPs and CFO. They’re the ones that made the policies, they should be examples of how to abide by it, right?
I was politely informed that I would no longer be doing this work after the CEO came down on the CFO and VP for allowing someone to step to him because he couldn’t do the simple thing and provide his receipts.
7. Fire drill Daryl
I worked in a hospital registration department back when I was in college. It’s very fast-paced and sometimes you’re coordinating life flight helicopter landings and incoming casualty ambulances at the same time. Even for a small college town it was an intense job.
“Daryl” worked there for about a decade by the time I was there. His mom was some high-up’s executive assistant so he couldn’t be fired. One phone line was dedicated for incoming casualties to the ER and it would literally blare an alarm, flash red, and light up the whole office. ER coordination was an in-depth task that took about half an hour and required a lot of focus. It wasn’t bad and it made the day go faster. One day he just sat there while it was ringing and then walked away. When we asked him why he did that, he replied, “Oh, I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was a fire drill so I left and went home.”
8. The apps
The times I’ve deployed it are all around defending boundaries in my pushy nonprofit, usually around things they’d like me to do on my personal phone without offering me any money. I already use my own devices for most of work, and being “unable” to get certain apps to work — either not downloading them or claiming I don’t seem to be able to work them — gets me out of more boundary-pushing (requests lately include, downloading our office’s banking app on my phone — which would now leave me as the only person who can handle checks outside of office hours (I am in communications, not finance) or being unable to take zoom meetings from my car while driving to other meetings (oh darn) or not being reachable via slack outside of hours for minutiae. It’s so unfortunate that I have this crappy old phone that just doesn’t work well!
9. The potlucks
Weaponized/strategic incompetence is the males in my department not being able to find or figure out how to set up the plates/cups/silverware (all disposable) for our mandatory monthly potlucks OR being able to clean up afterwards because they must do XYZ immediately.
There are labels on every drawer and cupboard. They are reminded during every pot luck to clean up … NOPE. They will not do it.
Now the ladies make sure not to tidy up after a potluck and sometimes things will sit for days, but we grit our teeth and hold firm.
One dude even admonished my female colleague that his crockpot had been sitting in the sink for three days and had not been washed. She told him the soap was in the cabinet under the sink and he could wash it whenever he wanted. I hate mandatory potlucks.
10. The black hole
I’m in a non-client-facing role. The CEO, President, and JD are all in agreement that I am not in a public or client-facing role.
My email and phone are black holes for anyone outside my organization. Emails get deleted before the inbox. My phone won’t ring if the number isn’t whitelisted. If you find my cellular number, the texts fail to route. My voicemail isn’t set up on any system. For all intents and purposes, I do not exist to the outside world.
Any time anyone tries to pass an external person off to me, it fails miserably and they have no alternative but to do their actual job. I’ve had to demonstrate unabashed remorselessness. When asked, I simply shrug and say “All I know is that I wasn’t hired for a client-facing role.”
11. The video calls
For YEARS, I managed to not be capable of online video conferences. Right up until COVID, in fact. After that, everyone had to transition, so I had to as well. Before then, though, I successfully avoided work video calls for over 10 years.
Reader, during this time, my husband worked overseas on and off for 3 years, and we had regular video calls.
12. The typing
I was one of only three female engineers. It was the early 90’s and the organization had decided that engineering admins were a waste with everyone having emails and computers, etc. and all of the engineers would have to do their own typing, etc.
A mid-level engineering manager tried one by one to make us his unofficial admin “since he never learned to type.” None of us worked for him and all of us told him we had never learned to type either so couldn’t help him. (As we turned our backs and started typing our own work.)
It was a battle of weaponized incompetence. Eventually someone left a copy of Mavis Beacon on his desk.
13. The lazy director
I worked for a director who would constantly send me last-minute requests for things that were not in my area of responsibility. I have enough general knowledge about the organization to be dangerous, so I could usually drop everything and put it together for him by the end of the day. I found out these were tasks he was supposed to produce, which he had forgotten about, and he would submit my work as his own (no changes at all) and blame me for turning it in late.
After I found out, I quit doing them. I would respond blandly with, “I’m sorry, that’s outside my area and I wouldn’t have any idea how to do that…” I wouldn’t even direct him to the right person or department. Eventually he was fired, and after he left we found a stack of similar assignments from the head of the organization that had never been completed.
14. The notes
One of my favorite days at work ever was when a new mid-level (male) manager turned to the only two women in the meeting and asked which one of us was going to be taking notes. Both of us were higher on the org chart than him (just different departments) and as a team lead it is part of his role to ensure that any meetings he chairs have a note taker (as in, he was supposed to bring one of his admin people with him to take notes or do it himself).
I was only one level above him but the other woman was exec team level with no one above her but the CEO and owner. She asked him to step outside with her and when they returned he was beet red and asked if anyone in the room objected to him recording the meeting so he could have them transcribed by his admin team afterwards. I still get a little serotonin from that memory.
15. The notes, part 2
For a while, I was the only woman on a leadership team. We got a new grandboss, who, while also a man, was actually fairly sensitive about this kind of stuff. (I later found out that his daughter was a professor at our state university’s business school and was writing a book about gender dynamics in the workplace. I guess he was listening when she talked at Thanksgiving!)
About two months into his tenure, he interrupted a meeting to ask, “Is there a reason Lizzianna always gets volunteered to take notes?” After some sputtering, someone finally said, “She just takes the best notes. Ours are chicken scratch and no one else understands them when we send them out!”
To which my grandboss said, “Well, that sounds like a developmental opportunity for you all.” And he put out a rotating schedule for note taking and specifically instructed me that I was not to volunteer to take on someone else’s week without his explicit approval.
The note taking had been bothering me for months, but I had been choosing my battles, that wasn’t one I’d decided to take on yet. The truth is, my handwriting is also atrocious, as is my spelling, I was just taking the time to type up and edit my notes, because that’s what you do when you’re the notetaker in a meeting.
16. The Word functions
Early in my work life, I worked in a secretarial office (5 of us, each assigned 4-6 professors). I loved using every available Word function to save time and effort especially on tasks done multiple times each semester (ex. merging long lists into letters and envelopes). But several coworkers always pretended to “forget” how and wanted my help to basically do it. This got old fast, so I started “forgetting” how too. I might have just done a big merge in am, but forgot how after lunch.
Technically, no one believed me but those lazy coworkers were also too chicken to call me on it – as was our supervisor so she & they would do things manually.
17. The tracking software
My department head has limited power around policies. So technically, we’re all supposed to be working from the office with no flexibility and very little vacation time. But the tracking software is complicated. So complicated that the department head, a senior software engineer, can’t figure out how to work it. And he certainly can’t expect the managers to figure it out if he can’t. So while he’s figuring that out, we should use the honor system and take the vacation that we need without worrying about it. For now, as long as we do our jobs, he won’t penalize people.
It’s been 10 years and who knows how many software changes. I appreciate him.
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