PLANO, TX—Citing faulty HVAC systems and temperatures over 100 degrees, Plano Independent School District in North Texas canceled classes Friday over concerns that the extreme heat made its campuses unsafe for mass shootings. “We take the well-being of our students very seriously, which is why we have suspended…
Former president Donald Trump was booked at Fulton County Jail and was listed at a 6'3" and a dubious 215 pounds. The Onion asked Americans to guess Trump’s weight, and this is what they said.
Hello, and welcome to our adult friendship. It can be hard to maintain close friendships upon reaching adulthood, and that’s why we’ve streamlined the process into a simple monthly text. Please respond with “lol” to confirm our friendship.
By confirming this friendship, you are agreeing to participate in one friendship confirmation text per month on a variety of subjects. Any subject is acceptable as long as it does not attempt conversations longer than two texts. Text messages that try to continue beyond “hahaha” or “that’s crazy” may be grounds for termination.
Please confirm the friendship within twenty-four hours. Failure to confirm the friendship within the time limit will result in the other party assuming they did something wrong. Did they do something wrong? Maybe they said something insulting? Should they apologize? What would be the point, though? Because they’re probably not even friends anymore because of whatever they did.
Should questions or concerns arise about the status of your friendship, you should probably just think about it all the time. Reinterpret previous texts as if “Have you seen the show Severance?” really means “I fucking hate you.” Replay events from years ago in your head like it’s the end of A Clockwork Orange. Question the friendship until the idea of friendship loses all meaning. This process is normal and should not be discussed with your adult friend, because that would be super weird.
Unconfirmed adult friendships may qualify for a late renewal if within one week the unconfirmed party responds with “Sorry, didn’t see this.”
Initiating your half of the monthly friendship text is an easy process. Texts should be drafted and reworked for a minimum of one sleepless week. Your text should sum up everything you feel about your friend: that you miss the sound of their voice, the tickle of their breath on your ear, and the safety you feel in their arms—but in a platonic way. After this fifteen-page text has been completed, you should feel emotionally taxed. Delete said text and send a meme.
As the adult friendship continues to blossom, the subject of these texts may start to form a recurring pattern. Does one party have an animal? The pet package involves periodic messages, including a picture of a pet. Please respond with “I’m so jealous you get to come home to that!”
Do you like golf? Because the new hobby package means you’ll be receiving periodic pics of various golf clubs. Please respond with “I’m so jealous you get to come home to that!”
Did somebody just get married? Because with the new partner package, you’ll be getting pics of your friend with their new significant other. Although it may be pretty obvious, please do not respond with “I’d like to have sex with your partner.”
If the highly unusual in-person encounter occurs, both parties agree that “this is fun” and “we should do this more often.” In an attempt to increase these interactions, the parties may suggest starting a project together. This project could be starting a band, training for a high-stakes poker tournament, or the most upsetting suggestion: creating a podcast. However, both parties understand that they will, under no circumstance, actually move forward with the proposed project. Participants purely agree that they “should totally do that” and “yeah, we definitely should.”
Thank you for agreeing to the terms of our adult friendship. While this type of relationship may be different than what you remember from childhood, you’ll get used to it eventually. Just remember: this technically still counts as friendship.
Among households in the United States, 68% are owned and 32% are rented, based on estimates from the American Community Survey in 2021. That breakdown isn’t uniform across the country though. In Maine, almost 80% of households are owned, whereas in California, less than 60% is owned. In Washington, D.C., it’s less than half. Here are the splits for each state.
Hovertext:
This comic will become way MORE relatable after the apocalypse when everyone urgently needs potatos. It's what you call playing the long game.
A second starred review for A City on Mars - this one from Publisher's Weekly.
Thursday was a day for the books in Houston. Hobby hit 107°, Huntsville hit 111°, but the 109° at Bush is only the third time on record we’ve ever recorded a temperature that hot in Houston. It was last done on August 27, 2011 and prior to that on September 4, 2000. Yesterday was also our second hottest day on record by average temperature (high + low divided by two). Even Galveston got into the act hitting 99 degrees for the first time since 2012.
While I would hesitate to say we’re going to get a reprieve today and tomorrow, the heat should be a little less intense, if only by a few degrees. There is a chance that we make a run deep into the 100s again on Sunday before some changes.
Not only was yesterday a historic heat day, it snapped a record streak of 48 consecutive days without measurable rainfall at IAH, which is the official Houston record now for longest dry streak. Hobby saw a storm in late July that has kept 2023 off their list of longest dry streaks (it did not rain there so yesterday was day 30 in a row; the record is 58 in spring of 2011). Not everyone saw rain yesterday, but some did, and it even led to some damage in Kingwood, most likely from downburst winds. We will have some other rain chances over the next few days, but just be warned that not everyone will get to partake.
We aren’t running into critically severe drought issues with things like water supply. Yet. Water restrictions are spreading however. But we are tinder dry in many parts and it continues to produce wildland fires. We’ve heard from some folks watching their foundations closely as well. So, yes, we need more rain.
Expect sunshine and clouds. We’ll top off in the low to mid-100s, with some humidity. It’ll be another day of heat advisories and excessive heat warnings. Rain chances will be in the 10 to 20 percent range today, mainly north of I-10. Areas to the south will probably be in the 5 to 10 percent range. Tomorrow’s rain chances are probably a little less than that.
We should see a slight spike in temperatures Sunday, relative to Friday and Saturday. So look for highs well into the 100s on Sunday afternoon.
A few late day or evening storms may pop up, some of which could be on the stronger side, moving northeast to southwest across the area.
More of the same on Monday, with highs approaching the mid-100s again. Areas south of Houston could push deep into the 100s again. However, we have a front. This is not an autumn cool front, but it is a bit of a humidity boundary. This will probably swing through the Houston area Monday night or Tuesday. As it does so, showers and thunderstorms will be at their best chances. Not everyone will see rain, but it could be heavy at times where it falls. Coverage may be on the order of 30 to 40 percent or so.
Behind the front, it won’t be refreshing, but the mornings are almost certainly going to be noticeably less stifling. Look forward to that on perhaps Wednesday and Thursday morning. Daytime highs will have a bite taken from them, so instead of low to mid-100s every day, we’re probably looking at upper-90s and some low-100s. I’m not sure if we’re going to entirely rid ourselves of heat advisories, but we should have some days that will be comparatively “not bad” for this summer.
Unfortunately, assuming a front does push offshore, that’s going to take a big bite out of rain chances for mid to late next week. We may feel more comfortable, but we’ll continue to have to deal with increasing drought problems.
We continue to watch this potential system in the eastern Gulf next week, and we continue to deem it no threat to Texas. Behind that we don’t see anything else of note for us in the tropics. More details on this can be found at our companion site, The Eyewall.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes:
I work with college students looking for co-ops, and was wondering about advice for first-generation college students adjusting to professional workplaces — maybe an “ask the readers” about what they wished they knew? I’m one such person (though it’s been many years since I’ve been in school), so it’s something I try to be mindful of when working with students.
When reading a previous post about lack of ambition, I was struck by the letter-writer’s comment, “It was almost like the follow-up to being a first-generation college student and having no idea what’s going on is just becoming a first-generation professional and having no idea what’s going on.”
I remember being confused and lost while I tried to adjust to a professional work environment, especially since much of my experience upon graduating was in academic research, though I also worked in a bank. The comment inspired me to reach out to you.
Let’s hear from readers who were first-generation college students on this one. Please share your thoughts in the comments.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I am a receptionist at a radiology clinic. Our sonographers (the techs who do ultrasound) get a bonus every time they do three ultrasounds in an hour. One of our sonographers, Meg, prefers to spend more time with patients so only does two an hour, and seems to be supported in this. I see my grandboss, Victor, sometimes tampering with her appointment times but he’s never given me hassle when I’ve changed them back, and he’s mentioned being reluctant to overwork her before. Because of this, this sonographer is more than happy to do urgent scans when they come, and even does walk-ins on occasion. She knows her limits, moderates her workload, and she takes on extra work when required because of that.
The senior sonographer, Piper, is a different story. She wants the bonus, so I’m instructed to pack her schedule in.
This is not a problem until urgent cases come in and throw the whole schedule out of whack. Piper flat out refuses to do them unless they’re referred by specific doctors, claiming we have no obligation to do them otherwise; Victor disagrees and tells me to schedule them in and tell her “call Victor” if she has a problem with it.
The problem is, Piper knows he won’t budge, so she doesn’t bother; she just leans on me instead. She doesn’t accept “call Victor” as an answer. Other coworkers have even stepped up and told her to lay off me, that it was his call, but she’ll continue staying mad at me for it and demands to know when she’s expected to take breaks, how she’s supposed to keep up, etc., from me and will not bring it up with him. I’m certain that she’s choosing me as a target on purpose.
Victor just keeps saying, “Tell her to call me.” He has said she gets paid a shit-ton of money and if she wants a lighter workload they’ll have to readjust compensation accordingly.
If Piper is burning out, I don’t want to contribute to that, but I can’t go against Victor either. At the same time, urgent patients being turned away is horrifying, and putting them through and delaying less urgent patients is part of the job. And Victor needs to give me better tools to deal with her other than telling her to call him, because she won’t do that, she’ll just keep coming down on me instead. (I look like someone who’s fresh out of school and am learning to stand up for myself; I’m pretty sure she’s taking advantage of that.)
Until I figure a way around this, I’ve been reserving slots especially for urgent cases to keep Piper off my back, but I’m expecting Victor to get rid of them when he sees them.
Not sure if it’s relevant, but I also want to note that while I haven’t worked with both of them long (two months). Victor seems to be a bit of a people pleaser, so it stands out to me that he’s dying on this hill because he’s normally the kind of person who’s very reluctant to say no.
Do you have any suggestions/scripts for how to handle this?
Three things:
1. When Piper complains but refuses to call Victor, call him yourself. Say to Piper, “Victor was really clear that he wants to be looped in when this happens, so I’m going to call him and can put you on with him.” Then do it.
2. Talk to Victor again. Say this: “You’ve told me to tell Piper to call you when she’s complaining about having to take urgent appointments, but every time she refuses and just keeps leaning on me, insisting that I change the schedule and then is hostile toward me afterward. Since just telling her to call you isn’t working, can you talk to her about you want her to handle urgent appointments? Otherwise she’s going to keep pushing back on me every time it happens.” If he again tells you to have her call him, say, “I do and she refuses, so what’s our next step?”
3. Decide you don’t care if Piper is upset. If she seems mad, say, “I can’t ignore instructions Victor gave me. You should raise this with him if you want me to handle it differently.” If she’s still snippy, ignore it (but keep looping Victor in — as in, “Piper got angry again today when X happened but refused to call so I’m looping you in”).
I know you said that if Piper is burning out, you don’t want to be contributing to that — but you’re right that you can’t unilaterally ignore instructions from your boss’s boss. If Piper has concerns about her workload, she needs to address it with management above her (and, if that doesn’t work, decide if she wants the job under these circumstances or not). It’s not okay for her to be hostile to you for doing your job in lieu of the more practical actions she should be taking. And if she is trying to manipulate you because you look young and/or she can tell you have trouble standing up for yourself, that makes it even worse. Piper is not without options; being a jerk to someone without a lot of power shouldn’t be on the table.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…
1. How to handle chronic interrupters/ramblers at meetings
I’m on a team at work with a coworker who always jumps in with personal anecdotes or non sequiturs whenever we’re in a meeting. Our team lead (not her supervisor but the person who assigns the team work) will be leading a meeting, telling a story to make a point, and she’ll jump in with her own experience. It basically triples the length of our meetings. The lead doesn’t do anything to turn it down, but I don’t know if he’s just being polite or what. He’s also pretty new so I think he doesn’t want to make waves. I currently just ignore her and vent to anyone who will listen (not the best strategy, I know, but she’s SO ANNOYING).
My concern is I just got a promotion and I’m about to go to another team to be the team lead, and I have no clue what I should do as a leader if I’m faced with someone like her. I realize I can’t just shout “shut up!” but I’m not sure what I could do to politely shut it down. My ideal scenario is I won’t have someone like her, but just in case I want to be ready.
You have to be willing to assertively manage the flow of the meetings — and to see that as just as much your job as, say, meeting deadlines is. That means things things like:
* Saying in response to rambling or off-topic tangents: “I’m going to interject because we have a lot to get through today and I want to stick to our agenda.”
* Or: “Let’s hold that for the end of the meeting if we have time remaining. Right now I want to stay focused on X.”
* Making it clear your meetings will start and end on time (and sticking to that).
* Saying things at the start like, “We have one hour to cover A, B, and C and I’m going to try to keep us really focused so we get through all of that.”
* Talking privately to repeat offenders and asking them to share the air time and stay focused on the agenda.
Side note that may or may not work for your context: someone I know who runs extremely effective meetings will often use the last five minutes of a meeting to ask everyone say one thing that worked well about the meeting and one thing that could have been improved. (This is only for significant/longer meetings, not at quick half-hour ones.) It opens the door for people to say “we spent too long on X” or “we got sidetracked by Y and never got to talk about Z” or “we need to be better about sticking to the agenda and not having side tangents” or “it would have been helpful to be able to review X ahead of time” or so forth.
Related:
why meetings suck and how to make them useful for your team
2. How to hire someone who can roll with changes
I run a small growing company. I recently had an employee quit because she was frustrated and angry about changes to our processes. Most of the time, the things that set her off were small glitches that I was available to help her work through. To be clear, maybe three days a month would be impacted by a glitch — the day she found it, the day we fixed it, and the day we double-checked that it was fixed. About once a year, it might take a week to resolve it, but we provide support, so she wasn’t dealing with it alone. From my perspective, dealing with this is part of the job, but it’s not constant.
But because I didn’t know the glitch was going to happen ahead of time, I couldn’t warn her (her main complaint) — we are a “building the plane in the air” kind of company. I understand that’s not for everyone, and I want to do a better job of hiring someone who won’t find this quite so upsetting to replace her.
Do you have any suggestions for how to describe this situation to prospective employees and filter for people who will be able to roll with things being broken from time to time?
Be really straightforward about it! Say something like, “I want to tell you about the primary frustration the last person in this role had,” describe what you explained here, and then say, “Dealing with this is part of the job, but it’s not for everyone, so I want to be transparent about it so you can decide if you’d be okay with that or not.”
In addition, you could ask about times candidates have had their work thrown off by something unexpected and how they responded to that, and you could ask references about how they rolled with unanticipated changes. But I think just laying it out really openly is your best bet. Plus, people are often a lot less frustrated by this kind of thing when it was disclosed ahead of time and they knew they were signing up for it.
3. Can my reference be someone who works in the department where I’m applying?
I landed an interview for an open position in a different branch of my organization, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be asked for references at some point soon. I’ve actually worked in this branch before, in a temporary entry-level position that ended months before the pandemic hit. I was able to land my current job roughly a year after the temporary one ended. Can I use my supervisor from that temporary job as a reference for the job I’m trying to get? My other choices are internship supervisors from five years ago who aren’t as familiar with my current work, or managers from food service jobs I picked up in between who definitely aren’t familiar with my work. It feels weird to use people as references who are already in the department that I’m trying to get into, and I’m not sure if I’m overthinking it.
People already in the department you’re applying to are ideal references! From the perspective of the reference-checker, they’re more likely to be candid and more likely to know what is and isn’t important to succeed there, and they know the nuances of the work and the culture in a way an outside reference won’t. The reference-checker is also more likely to trust their judgment if she already knows them. So these are the best references; definitely use them!
(To be clear, they’re highly likely to talk to that person anyway once they realized you worked for her, whether you list her as a reference or not. But she’s a great person to put on your official list.)
4. Will it hurt my career to quit after taking lots of FMLA?
For personal reasons, I’m considering spending a few months outside of the workforce (and am in a position where this is a financially feasible thing to do). But I wanted a second opinion on if doing this would have inadvertent consequences, either with my current company’s willingness to give a decent reference (they’re the only Real Job I’ve ever had, so their opinion counts for a lot) or if the gap in employment would cause future employers to give me side-eye. Specifically, I’m particularly worried about my current company’s reaction, given this would follow me taking a sizable amount of leave.
Some context, because I suspect the situation is meaningfully different from me quitting after, say, a long vacation: I’ve gone through two rounds of continuous FMLA and accompanying bereavement leave this year. Both were in regards to people who were my only immediate family members — the second relative’s health started worsening a few weeks after the first one passed away. Even when I was at work between these leaves, I wasn’t particularly functioning, since things like unexpected late night emergency room trips still happened. I don’t think I want to come back to my job after my current bereavement leave is done, but I worry leaving now/soon would make my employer feel like I was taking advantage of their good will, especially because they paid my full salary during my continuous leave and offered more than the industry standard of bereavement. And to be frank, I admittedly did stick around mainly because switching jobs would have jeopardized my FMLA protection.
Is it likely to cause problems if I submit a two-week notice when I get back? Or is there anything I can do to protect my reference if it does? Are future employers going to worry about me not having a job for a bit, and if so is there a way to offer context that doesn’t sound too “oh poor me”-ish in tone? (When I tried to explain to a recruiter what was going on earlier in this process, I suspect he heard “for family reasons” as “I’m pregnant.” Not that there’s anything wrong with being pregnant, but there’s still amount of institutional bias against pregnant people so I’d rather not give recruiters or employers that impression when it’s not true.)
If you frame it to your employer as having realized that you’ve been through a lot and need some time away before you return to work, that’s likely to make a lot of sense to them! It logically follows what you’ve been through. You can thank them for how flexible they’ve been, then say you’ve realized you need more time off than you can reasonably ask of them. (Do be prepared, though, for them to offer you long-term leave where you’d return at the end of it. If that happens, you could say, “I’m honestly not sure what I”ll want to do when I’m ready to work again, but I really appreciate you offering that.”)
As for future interviewers wondering about the gap, it’s perfectly fine to say, “I was dealing with some family health issues that have since been resolved.” A few months out of the workforce is not a big deal at all.
BATESVILLE, AR—Holding his arm and trying not to cry as he walked nervously up to his supervisor, bleeding 9-year-old worker Blaine Wilkins reportedly asked Friday if he could go to the slaughterhouse nurse. “Um, ma’am, I cut myself on the cow-slicing blade, and it hurts pretty bad,” said Wilkins, who then held up his…
EVANSTON, IL—In the wake of several turbulent weeks in which multiple former players filed lawsuits against the school and head coach Pat Fitzgerald was fired, Northwestern Wildcats fans reportedly expressed hope Friday that a massive hazing scandal meant the school was finally getting serious about football. “When I…
CAMDEN, NJ—Saying customers were ready for a rich, flavorful product they could keep in their mouth and savor as long as they pleased, broth manufacturer Swanson announced plans Friday to introduce its first bouillon chaw. “When you tuck our bouillon chaw between your cheek and gum, you can enjoy the taste of…
NORTH HEMPSTEAD, NY—Expressing shock that her history curriculum had failed to include such a significant event from the nation’s past, local woman Beth Hudson, 22, wondered aloud Friday why no class she took in her four years of high school ever mentioned that Nicole Kidman once dated Lenny Kravitz. “When we got to…
Our 11th most-read article of 2023.
Originally published August 25, 2023.
Colleagues, friends, and adjuncts —
As many of you know, the university is facing unprecedented budget shortfalls. These shortfalls aren’t directly your fault, but to be honest, it is you who will absorb the consequences of our lack of funds. That said, please know we think you’re doing a fantastic job. (Except for the English department, which persists in assigning long books that our market research has decisively concluded students do not find cool.)
Instead, the budget shortfall is primarily due to changes in demographics. There are fewer college-aged students now than before, and of the remaining college-aged people, fewer than before are choosing our kind of institution. Thank you to Frank, our Executive Vice President of Reading Inside Higher Ed and Telling Us What It Says, for that insight.
Our efforts to circumvent these demographic changes by hiring an Executive Vice President of Circumventing Demographics have, so far, yielded limited results. However, we will keep Belinda on staff indefinitely as a consultant in case she comes up with any new ideas.
Given the college’s convenient position within a pharmaceutical research and development hub, we are currently executing plans to contaminate the nation’s supply of birth control pills, rendering them ineffective and resulting in a surplus of new humans, particularly from states where abortion is no longer legal. These babies will eventually populate our appealing new major in Some Buzzword that Sounds Like It Will Get You a Job After You Graduate.
However, the consultants we hired to analyze this plan have informed us that it will take about eighteen years and nine and a half months to bear fruit. Until then, unfortunately, we’ll have to cut costs to stay afloat.
I know budget cuts are unpopular. You have become accustomed to enjoying your free store-brand K-cups in the faculty lounge until they run out in mid-September and the 10 percent discount on Tuesday night standing-room-only tickets to our junior varsity sporting events. You’ve also appreciated being able to invite two semi-high-profile speakers to campus per year by desperately begging them to accept a tiny fraction of their usual speaking fee. Have no fear, these are luxuries the college has no intention of denying you.
Instead, to save money, we’ve hired a new administrator. Please welcome Douglas Smite-Johnson, our new Executive Vice President of Saving Money.
Douglas has a proven track record of saving money. Last semester he saved his previous institution $285,000 in a single day when he left his position to come here.
Our new EVP will seek innovative ways to save money. First, he will ensure we don’t have any money lying around. He’ll search between the cushions of the forty-year-old couch in the commuter lounge. He’ll peek above the sagging drop-ceiling tiles in the art department. He’ll double-check that none of the weights in the weight room are made of solid gold. Since the student-wellness consultants we hired last year concluded that students spend more time in the maybe-solid-gold-filled weight room than the library, Douglas will google to see whether any of the documents in the rare books room are worth anything. If he accosts you on your way to the dining hall and demands your lunch money, just humor him. He’s new here.
Douglas will speak at the next faculty meeting, but for now, he has asked me to assure you that your jobs are safe. In other words, the college will put all the money it saves by eliminating your position into a safe.
And the best news of all? Once we’ve cut languages, literature, philosophy, writing, and non-statistics math, our faculty lounge supply analysis consultants project the free store-brand K-cups will last well into October.
We’re all in this together,
Your Provost
Hovertext:
No giving birth until these planks are perfectly plumb!
ATLANTA—Hopping from foot to foot in front of their laptop and phone screens in fevered anticipation of the former president’s photo, the nation’s liberals reportedly anxiously waited with unzipped pants Thursday for the moment they could finally jerk off to Donald Trump’s mug shot. “Oh Christ, come on already,…
LOS ANGELES—Reaching an extraordinary milestone in his quest for longevity, 45-year-old tech billionaire Bryan Johnson announced Thursday that his penis was finally as small as a baby’s. “Harnessing the power of biohacking, I’ve managed to shrink my penis from adult to prepubescent and, finally, to infantile,” said…
MILWAUKEE—Analyzing the behavior on display during Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate, a body language expert explained that the eight candidates who participated in the event had all just finished having sex with each other before they walked out on the stage. “It’s obvious from how many of them had…
MARKHAM, ON – As housing unaffordability rages out of control, the loose coalition of corporate landlords, investment property flippers, Airbnb moguls, REITs, and foreign real estate money launderers held a brief press conference thanking Canadians for training their public outrage solely on immigration. “We understand that everyday Canadians are feeling squeezed by the cost of […]
The post Corporations hoarding homes thank Canadians for enthusiastically blaming immigration appeared first on The Beaverton.
EDMONTON – In truly alarming news it appears that a group of 8 teenagers at the mall is looking at you, a fully adult man with kids, a mortgage and a Costco membership. “Stay cool, stay cool,” you whispered to yourself as terrifying thoughts about what mean comments the teens could make as you passed […]
The post Fuck! Group of teens just noticed you appeared first on The Beaverton.
NEW YORK—Blaming his lack of experience with the confusing route, new Metropolitan Transit Authority train operator Sal Mazzara reportedly ended up lost Wednesday on some back-road tracks in the middle of nowhere. “I never should have taken that shortcut at 72nd Street,” said Mazzara, adding that he’d been trying to…
Rather than participate in the first GOP presidential debate, Donald Trump instead opted to appear in a pretaped interview with Tucker Carlson that will air at the same time. The Onion asked Trump supporters how they felt about the former president’s interview, and this is what they said.
Billy McFarland, who went to federal prison for crimes related to 2017’s infamous Fyre Festival, has announced that tickets for Fyre Festival 2 are now on sale for $499, though no dates, lineup, or location have been confirmed. What do you think?
