Cowboy Who?

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

Last month I asked about the pettiest things you’ve seen (or done!) at work. There were so many hilarious stories left on that post that I couldn’t fit them all my favorites into one column. Part 1 was here, and here’s part 2.

1. The new offices

This is a thing that I knew because I was in a very, very small department at my undergrad. Small enough that our department proper was two professors, with about six others that were technically part of other departments pitching in. (Cross-disciplinary science degree, small school, etc.)

My senior symposium was a hydrology and river ecology seminar taught by a biology and geology professor who were best friends. It was also held the year before a huge remodel of the science building on campus, so the professors were mildly obsessed with the whole process, as the building had been built in the sixties. Professors Fish and Rock were especially enthusiastic, and recruited the seniors in my department to help pack things (mostly rock samples, also a tank of invasive round gobies that Prof. Fish had removed from the environment but was too softhearted to kill) that had to be moved out over the summer. This is where my entire graduating cohort (all ten of us) learned some of the best gossip on campus.

Offices in the New Science Building were being assigned by professor seniority. If you were hired in X year, you could go down to the building office on Y day and write down your name on the office you claimed. First come, first served, with minor exceptions for people who had to be within shouting distance of their labs – mostly chem and biology. Unfortunately for Professors Rock and Fish, Professor Unpleasant, who was not at all popular with students or faculty, had more seniority than them, and took the last spot near the wet lab where Professor Fish had to be stationed to care for his fish.

Professor Unpleasant made the mistake of writing his request down in pencil, so Professor Rock Simply erased his claim, wrote himself into the office next to his bestie, and banished Professor Unpleasant to a basement storage area. Allegedly there were at least a decade of grievances involved in this decision, but academia is like that and if I’d stayed to listen to them all someone would have talked me into trying for a PhD.

Professor Unpleasant didn’t discover his relocation until the final building plan with office assignments was announced, the day of my senior banquet. My whole department got to witness Prof. Unpleasant tearing through campus looking for Professors Fish and Rock to yell at them, and didn’t tell him they were hiding under the library steps with a cheese tray, giggling.

2. The poker chip

Occasionally people in my department would need to borrow the master key for our floor from our program manager (if we accidentally locked ourselves out of our office, for example). Previously, we’d just ask her for it, use it, and bring it back.

Then another small department was moved into some empty space on our floor. Immediately the most unpleasant member of that small department created a complicated system for borrowing the master key: each of us had a poker chip that we had to write our names on, and they were kept in a special bin, and if we wanted to borrow the master key, we’d need to fish through the bin of full poker chips, find ours, and move it to the spot where the master key was kept. It took longer to find my poker chip in the bin than it took to borrow the key, open my office, and return it.

The same man instituted a bunch of other ostensibly efficient new methods and expected everyone to obey them. He had no official authority, he just decided these things and assumed we’d listen (and scolded those who didn’t). He was a deeply unpleasant man in general, and I resented his arrival on my floor.

So I stole his poker chip. My petty heart loved imagining him searching fruitlessly through his stupid bin, looking for the one with his name. Long after he retired, I’ve still got it in a little box on my dresser.

3. The pens

I once worked at a healthcare office that was always busy and paid poorly, so our staff was a bag of mixed nuts. One guy brought in a new pen that clicked, and he started clicking it all. the. time. His coworker (Tiffany) asked him nicely to stop clicking and not only did he refuse, he started clicking it in her face when she around. It became a HUGE thing, with his minions clicking their pens at her every chance they got. She put in her two weeks (don’t blame her a bit!), and about an hour after she left on her last day there was an uproar at the front of the clinic. She had removed the springs from every last click-y pen, and the poor dears had to use basic Bic ballpoints until they went to the store the next day. Well played, Tiffany, well played.

4. The daffodils

I had a coworker who was having a one-sided feud with me because I got promoted to her same position and I think she took it as a threat (even though our work didn’t overlap).

We had someone bring in daffodils to sell for Daffodil Day and this coworker overheard me say I wanted to buy a few to take home and proceeded to buy every single daffodil before I could get any. She hasn’t been with the company for years, but my coworkers and I still bring this up on occasion. So bizarre, but amusing.

5. The nickname

I worked at a university and there was a chief officer (reported directly to the president) who I kept ending up on the same committees with me. He was in general a very genial guy but from our first meeting he kept calling me by a nickname. For example, if I were “Katherine” and only used “Katherine” professionally, he would be calling me “Katie.” At first I’d say, “It’s actually Katherine” and he’d apologize and then a month later in a committee meeting, he’d say, “What do you think, Katie?”

And then one day I was out of f’cks to give and so I nicknamed him back: “Well, Timmy, I was thinking…” And everyone kind of froze because I was about 3 levels down on the org chart from “Tim.” He was oblivious.

And so it kept on. For years. We’d run into each other at the campus coffee shop and he’d say, “How are you, Katie?” and I’d say, “Just fine, how about you Timmy?” If it was my turn to take notes in a meeting, I’d label him “Timmy Jones” as in attendance. Once we were presenting to a faculty body and after he off-handedly mentioned me as “Katie”, I found a way to say, “It’s great to work with Timmy!”

And when he heard I was leaving the university, he stopped by my office to say, “This place is really going to miss you, Katie.” My reply, “Thanks so much, Timmy.”

6. The new technologies

I would make up technologies to mess with my know-it-all co-worker. “Oh have you heard about the new Flarbelstein video card? It’s got 15 numptytons of RAM…” and they would nod along, “Oh, yes, the Flarbelstein, great stuff.” I never let on.

7. The detective work

One time I had a student defacing my bulletin board while another teacher used my room. I spent several days trying to rig my document camera to record that part of the room during her classes so I could catch the kid in the act. Like, strategically putting it inside a box on a shelf with a small hole cut in the side levels of “spy” work. Totally ridiculous and it didn’t even work! This was NOT a problem worth so much energy but it was one of many irritating things involving this coworker so I think I snapped lol.

8. The bookstore

I worked in used bookstores for many years. Most customers were great but there were always some who were incredibly nasty and mean and who loved “catching us” out on tiny things and generally being horrible on purpose. They were usually repeat customers who we all came to know and loathe. One such came to the counter with two copies of the same book – copy A priced at $4.00 and copy B priced at $5.00. He wanted copy B, and first harangued me about our “error” (it was not an error) and then demanded that I sell him copy B for $4.00. We did not allow price changes and never negotiated with customers, which he absolutely knew. I looked over both books extremely carefully and deliberately, really taking my time. Then, while looking him dead in the eye like an apex predator, I said, “You’re absolutely right – I’m so sorry for the mistake. These books should be the same price! They are both $5.00.” and then gave him the most sincerely apologetic smile I could muster. He did not buy the book. It was glorious.

9. The lunch

I worked for a small nonprofit that centered around mental health support. Our ED was nuts but a very good sales person. She managed to talk our state’s pediatric professional association into partnering with us on a pediatric mental health conference. She promised connections to celebrities and corporate sponsors. It was all BS. She never had that stuff and after leading the association on for many months it was too late for them to pull out. They had secured a location and began promoting it. Not only were the sponsors and celebs not coming through my ED was difficult at every turn. She would take too long to approve conference materials and have a lot of feedback. I was mortified. Day of the conference and we have a number of attendees. The Professional association put out the worst conference lunch I have ever seen. Imagine picking out the menu with a blindfold. It was like, sandwiches, mac and cheese and pudding. Something weird like that. (The association created the menu. They usually put on a good conference with a tasty lunch so this was glaring.) It was noticed by people at the conference.

The association would not return our calls after that day.

10. The sauce crime

During my brief flirtation with food service, I worked at a very dysfunctional restaurant as a busser— or at least nominally so. In reality, they were always so understaffed that I did a little bit of everything. I had two bosses (the two owners) with wildly different standards, one who very strict and the other totally lenient. My strict boss was very exacting about staff meals and their exact portions and contents, which were the same every shift. I wasn’t going hungry or anything, but it was boring, and there were many other more egregious issues which I don’t need to detail here.

The restaurant served a particular sauce (with things to dip) for free to every table, and had eight or so other sauces which were generally served in a sauce sampler. One of my jobs was assembling those appetizers and samplers. I could have the basic sauce with my staff meals, but the other sauces were completely off-limits. So naturally, I made it my mission to eat every single one of those sauces. I planned everything very exactingly, waiting for the perfect night when my strict boss wasn’t in and my lenient boss wasn’t looking to sneak into the walk-in, fill up a ramekin, slip it onto my plate, eat frantically in the corner behind the ice machine, and conceal the evidence with the rest of the dirty dishes. Slowly, over the course of that summer, I tried every single sauce— and it turned out that the one I was already allowed to eat was the best by far. I’m normally a rule-follower, but it was so satisfying to do something off-limits in that particular moment. I never got caught, even though I was always getting in trouble with strict boss for one thing or another. The restaurant has since closed and I live in another city now, so I think it can be said that I pulled off the perfect sauce crime.

11. The business cards

I had an incredibly toxic boss at the beginning of my career. She was in charge of the word processing and proofreading department at Fancy Accounting firm. She’d choose one person to be her “pet” for a few months and drag them into her office for hours every day, telling them all her life story, her troubles and woes in her love life, her gyn health issues, really inappropriate boundary crossing and line stepping. I was too young to understand that this was so wildly out of the norm, that I just went along with it. I was her pet for about three months, my work not getting done due to her emotional bleeding for hours every day. After some imaginary offense, she’d pick a new pet.

I quit that job with in a blaze of profanity and no notice after one too many insults to injury and being written up for, I sh*t you not, “not being nice enough to Boss.”

Some months later, I was at a restaurant that the office would often frequent. They had a giant glass fishbowl on the hostess desk in which people would throw their business cards to get a free lunch in a drawing. I noticed that Old Boss had about 10 cards in there. When the hostess left to help another customer, I dug out every single card of hers I could find and chucked them in the bin out on the street.

In my defense, I was left unsupervised with the bowl.

12. The heels

I had a manager who was petty and a micromanager. She was about two inches shorter than me, but she always wore three-inch heels and I usually wore flats in the office. On days when she was especially frustrating, I would change into heels and make a point to stand close to her so she had to look up at me. She never failed to comment on me being taller than her.

13. The keyboard

This was back in the day when your keyboard plugged into your computer. I worked in an extremely dysfunctional office with the most ineffective boss you could ever have. He thought nothing about throwing us under the bus to save his own skin. One day when he was out of the office I decided to unplug his keyboard from the computer, but leave the cord in just enough so it looked like it was still plugged in, and kind of forgot about it until the next morning when he started pounding on his keyboard pressing random keys, etc., freaking out about it not working.

He called IT to come fix it and then left the room for a few minutes. I plugged the keyboard back in. He came back, the IT guy, who generally acted like all requests were stupid and a huge inconvenience comes in and presses a key on the keyboard and as it is working he keeps pressing that same key over and over while giving our boss the death stare, then just walked out of the room with no comment. Coworkers talked about this story for years even after I was long gone because it was so satisfying to make him look like an idiot.

14. The coloring books

An old job had a “relaxation station” that featured, among other little activities, adult coloring books with large, complex designs. People would sit there for a few minutes and work on the top page, so each picture was colored by multiple people. One coworker took the coloring extremely seriously, telling people what colors to use, which parts to work on, etc. He even called people out by name for coloring badly or using clashing colors. When he was out for two days, a few of us colored three pages in the most garish, awful color scheme, making sure to go over the lines of just about every section.

15. The complaining customer

LONG time ago I worked for a cable company in the Northeast. They got bought out by another cable company, so I think it’s safe for me to say it was MediaOne. Guy calls in because his internet is out and he wants a truck out thing first thing tomorrow, at the latest, to fix things. His problem didn’t qualify him for a next day service call, and the next available appointment was 4 or 5 days later. We went back and forth for a bit, with him acting like a bigger and bigger jerk each go around.

Finally he says “Can you see where I live?”

“You live in (village),” I say, (village) being the name of one of the higher income, tonier suburbs of our nearby city.

“That’s right. I am exactly the kind of customer you want. Are you telling me you can’t cancel an appointment in (town #1) or (town #2) and send the truck to me?” (town #1) and (town #2) were very low incomes towns which had a poor reputation in our state. Undeserved reputations, in my opinion, but still …

This dude’s classism and audacity knocked my barely extant sense of professionalism offline, so I just said, “Oh I’m sorry sir, it’s Bizzaro Month at MediaOne. We’re doing all the poor towns first.”

The guy lost his mind, which made me very happy. Then he hung up on me, which made me even happier. So I was feeling pretty good the next day when I rolled in for my shift, until my boss met me at the front door and hustled me into his office.

Know how at the beginning of service phone calls it says you may be recorded for training purposes? Turns out that’s true. The customer called back in, got my boss and gave him an ear full. My boss checked and, yup, they had the whole thing on tape. My boss didn’t say a word. Just sat me down and played the tape.

That done, and stifling a laugh, he said, “I assume we’re not going to have a problem like this ever again?”

I assured him we would not, and that was that. He was a great boss.

PHILADELPHIA—In the hours following a violent rampage in Pennsylvania in which a lone attacker killed at least five individuals and injured several others, citizens living in the only country where this kind of mass killing routinely occurs reportedly concluded Wednesday that there was no way to prevent the massacre…

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Meanwhile, Steve can't even see who he's having sex with.

Good morning. Houston faces the first of two days of fairly widespread showers, and the potential for some thunderstorms. Today and Thursday will offer a nice reprieve from the very high heat the region experienced in June. Temperatures will start to rise again this weekend, before we’re back in the upper 90s next week.

Before jumping into a detailed forecast, I want to go through a few housekeeping notes. The social network site Twitter used to be an amazing place to share weather information in real-time. However in the months steps have been taken to end the free dissemination of information, especially by National Weather Service accounts. The site has increasingly been gated and walled off, and is clearly evolving into something that will be not free and open and accessible to everyone. So our social media outreach strategy must evolve as well.

Today I wanted to remind readers of the four main ways to access our forecasts, and provide an update on our social media channels.

• By visiting our website, SpaceCityWeather.com, any time, day or night. A Spanish-language version is available at Tiempo Ciudad Espacial.
• By subscribing to our newsletter (the form is on the right side of this page on a desktop, but you have to scroll down on mobile to find it). There is no BS with our newsletter; just every post we do, directly into your inbox.
• By downloading our app for Apple iOS or Android. Speaking of which, we have a brand new version of the app, with some new features and bugs squashed, coming within a week or two. Look for more details on that soon. The price remains the same: $0.00.
• And finally, there’s social media. We’re on Facebook, Instagram and yes, for now at least, Twitter. We’ve also just created a Blue Sky account, and likely will start a Threads account when it launches this week (Threads is a Twitter-clone from Facebook). We’re considering Mastodon as well, but I have to tell you, this is a lot to keep track of. As noted above, we’re still navigating this landscape and trying to decide which sites work best for our messaging, and reaching people during times of inclement weather.

OK, now on to the forecast.

Wednesday

In the absence of high pressure, our region is open to an influx of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico. Already this morning we see showers starting to fire up offshore, and with daytime heating these should migrate inland later this morning. The peak time for showers and thunderstorms will come this afternoon. You probably have about a 60 percent chance of seeing rain today. Thanks to the clouds, and rain-cooled air, most of the region should see highs of only around 90 degrees today, although it will of course remain plenty humid outside. Winds will be light, out of the south.

Thursday

Our chances for rain will peak on Thursday, as the upper-air pattern becomes most favorable for rising air. The coast will likely see the highest accumulations, but the entire area should see at least some modest accumulations. I’m not particularly concerned about flooding, as I think most of the area will see between 0.5 to 1.5 inches, and our soils are quite dry. Highs Thursday may not even reach 90 degrees in some locations. Winds will again be light, from the south.

Friday

As high pressure starts building in again, we’ll see rain chances start to tamp back down. Look for partly sunny skies and highs in the low 90s.

Saturday and Sunday

Expect mostly sunny conditions this weekend, with highs likely in the low- to mid-90s. Rain chances aren’t going away entirely, but we’re likely back down to a 10 or 20 percent chance, daily. Bottom line, it should be a hot, but not exceedingly hot July weekend. Conditions will be fairly typical for this time of year, actually.

Next week

Most of next week looks hot, with highs in the upper 90s to 100 degrees for much of the area, and mostly sunny skies. Rain chances will be very low, but perhaps not zero. The bottom line is that if you like your weather on the sane side of blazing hot, enjoy the next few days.

OVERLAND PARK, KS—Marveling at her strong gait, no-nonsense attitude, and absolute laser focus while striding past, dozens of witnesses reportedly mistook a local woman’s overwhelming need to find a bathroom for confidence on Wednesday. “Wow, that’s someone who knows what she wants and knows how to get it,” local…

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LOUISVILLE, KY—Providing patients with the exciting, lucrative opportunity, Norton Hospital announced Wednesday that it would offer free healthcare to anyone who beats their 500-Milligram Morphine Challenge. “All you have to do is swallow the full bottle of opiates without dying, and all your medical bills will be…

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In recognition of the many cute monikers and hateful terms of defamation by which these American leaders are known, The Onion exams the most famous nicknames of every U.S. president.

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

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

1. Manager waits until the last minute to assign work

I was hoping you could weigh in about whether this particular management habit is actually bad, or if my judgment is clouded by other unprofessional behavior by my boss (I won’t go into detail, but includes a lot of emotional manipulation … kind of like the work equivalent of “love bombing” and then icing me out when she’s upset).

My boss tends to assign most things with a one-day turnaround (review this doc, create this slide deck, etc.) in addition to our regular workload/projects. Some of the tasks are small, but sometimes they are more involved. I’ve read enough of your blog to know that a boss has the authority to say, “I need you to reprioritize XYZ and work on this other thing.” However, I think what really bothers me is that none of these tasks are “surprises” — this was work that she knew would need to happen weeks ago, and she just waited until the last minute to delegate it. If it were me and I was asking for same-day turnaround, I would lead with something like, “Sorry to throw this at you last-minute, but could you help me out today by editing the llama report?” Is this just a distinction without a difference?

It’s not a distinction without a difference! What your boss is doing is bad management. By waiting until the last minute to assign things that she had plenty of advance notice of, she’s creating unneeded stress and urgency in your work, as well as risking that something important will end up not getting done on time. (What if you were out sick that day? What if something else urgent comes up that also needs your attention?) Mostly, though, it’s the stress — it sucks to plan how to allot your time that day and then have it blown up for no real reason. It’s natural that things will sometimes come up at the last minute and people need to roll with that, but when your manager is causing that to happen when she could have avoided it, it’s reasonable to feel aggravated and like she’s not on top of her own job. (I think I’ve told this story here before, but early in my career a coworker and I were so frustrated by a manager who did this that we created a whole official workaround — we installed an inbox outside her office door and announced that other departments who wanted to send us assignments needed to fill out a work order and put it in the box … and then we just took incoming work orders out of the box and assigned them to ourselves, thus cutting her out of the process entirely. She was so hands-off that she didn’t care.)

You’re also right that your boss should be acknowledging it when this happens. Even if she were to say, “I’m sorry this is last-minute; I’ve been so tied up with X that I missed that they needed Y by today,” I think you would feel better than when she doesn’t acknowledge it at all.

2. Do I have to say yes to giving presentations?

I (they/them) am an individual contributor whose role is in operations and written communication like website design and content creation. I am also currently the chair of our organization’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) committee.

I see a lot of opportunities for staff to better support our members by improving written communication. So, I volunteered to do a short internal training on the topic during a standing professional development slot our department has. It was well received.

I was also asked to give a presentation on cultural competence and implicit bias for a program we run for our members. I asked a few other people if they would be interested in doing it, but none took me up on it. So, as the committee chair, I felt obligated and gave the presentation.

I also created a training on using people’s correct pronouns that I presented for our JEDI committee, mostly because I couldn’t find a pre-existing training that adequately covered the topic. It was also in part selfishly motivated: I am the only non-binary person at work and felt like the staff needed training in this area.

Here’s the sticking point: I don’t like giving presentations. I only recently found some workarounds that let me get through them without having a panic attack, and 90% of the reason I think I do okay is because these are virtual.

While there are some times I must do public speaking in my role, these projects are extras. Coworkers are asking because they need speakers for their deliverables, which is obviously a big task, but there’s no reason I must be the one to do them. I have done them because it felt like they were needed and wouldn’t happen if I didn’t do them.

Now I’m getting asked to do presentations left and right. I was asked to speak on a panel at our annual conference, I’ve been asked back to do the cultural competence training again, and I just got another email asking me to do it for another audience entirely.

I feel like people are asking me as a first choice, not a last resort. I’m glad they have found my presentations valuable, but I don’t want to give them all the time. My supervisor would support me however I wanted to handle this, and I have been candid with my close coworkers about my dislike for public speaking (they have responded by telling me I am a good presenter). Is there a way to say “I will help if you are down to the wire and absolutely don’t have anyone else but please don’t ask me otherwise?” or am I stuck just saying yes now that it seems like I’ve set that precedent? Do I need to just start saying blanket no without throwing a lifeline?

You’re not stuck doing it because you did a few and people liked them! You can switch to a blanket no if you want to (“I was willing to do a few earlier but I don’t have the bandwidth to keep doing them”) but if you’re willing to do it if they try other people first and only come to you as a last resort, you can say that too. For example, you could say, “I prefer not to present and don’t have the bandwidth for all the requests I’ve been getting, so would you look for someone else? If you absolutely can’t find someone, let me know — but even then I can’t make any promises.” Include that last part because otherwise some people will just come back to you without having put in any real effort to find alternatives.

Obviously this would be different if presentations were part of your job, but they’re not and your boss sounds like she’ll back you up on whatever boundaries you set.

3. Can you refuse to work night shifts if you have kids?

A few years ago, I worked at a company that needed coverage 24 hours a day. We worked in three eight-hour shifts: day, evening, and night. Scheduling was always a bit of a mess at this job: shifts canceled at the last minute, being called in at the last minute, time off suddenly rejected days before it was due to be taken after being approved months earlier, etc.

The biggest thing that I’m still curious about is how they determined who worked evenings and nights. One coworker who refused to work evenings or nights because they had a kid. I understand it’s hard to manage childcare and emergencies/unexpected things come up, but it felt a bit unfair to be constantly expected to work evenings/nights in their place.

I just wanted to know in jobs where it’s expected you’re going to have to work nights, is it normal for employees to flat-out refuse? Is it more acceptable to refuse if you have children? Can an employer penalize you for refusing?

It’s reasonable for an employee to have some schedule restrictions, and it’s really common not to be able to work nights for a whole variety of reasons (kids are a big one, but not the only one). However, if working some night shifts is a core responsibility of the job, that should be discussed explicitly during the hiring process — and if a potential employee can’t work that part of the schedule, that needs to be worked out before they’re brought on board.

Of course, other times something might change after they’re already on the job — maybe they suddenly have a kid when they didn’t before or their scheduling needs change. In that case, the employee should raise the issue (“I’m not able to work nights because X”) and the manager should figure out what makes sense for the team. In some cases they’ll be able to work around that schedule restriction and in other cases they can’t. I wouldn’t look at it as an employee flatly refusing, though; it should be a process of “here’s what I can/can’t do” and “here’s what we, the employer, need” and figuring out if there’s a way to make those things work together. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t.

In your case, it sounds like working some nights was a job requirement, and your coworker not being able to do that meant that other people got stuck with more than their share. That’s on your management; the onus was on them to either figure out a way to make it work without unreasonably burdening other people or, if they couldn’t, to explain that to her and even to part ways if it was insurmountable. Telling everyone else it was a job requirement while excusing one person because she had kids — and then, crucially, not taking openly about how this all worked and what accommodations might be available for others if they ever needed them — was a recipe for resentment.

(To really give you a full answer, I’d want to know how it was handled if someone without kids ever said they couldn’t work nights. If your employer was really deciding based solely on kids/no kids and turning down any non-parents who needed an accommodation — without having hired with the explicit plan that X number of people out of Y were being hired for day shifts only — that’s much more of a problem.)

4. Does it mean anything if companies keep not filling my job after I leave?

I have noticed that over the last six years, my role has not been filled after I left at at least three jobs. I had a series of unfortunate career detours: one time the new department boss blew up our entire organization and most of the people quit within six months (I was one of them), once I was contracting with a company that was going to convert me to full-time but then Covid happened so they rescinded my perm offer, and one time a major organizational shift led to me looking for something new and then that new thing ended up being a complete mismatch on both sides.

I’ve kept in touch with coworkers from each of these roles (even the disaster) so I’ve heard all the gossip and goings-on from them. And at least three of these roles have not filled my role even years later. I don’t have any insight into what’s behind this so I’m left to wonder if I did such a bad job in those roles that they felt it wasn’t worth it to fill with someone else?

Very unlikely! Typically when companies don’t refill a role it’s because they’ve decided the workload isn’t there to support it, or there’s a financial crunch, or priorities have changed, or they’re distributing the work of that role across multiple people’s plates. If the issue was that your work sucked, they’d still want the work done after you left. So what you’re seeing is something about their own internal set-up, not a response to your performance. (For it to be about your performance, you’d have to be doing bad work and have somehow demonstrated that there was no point in someone more competent doing it either.)

5. Giving notice when my boss is going on vacation

I’ve been in my job for two years and I’ve grown increasingly unhappy here. A couple months ago, I saw an opportunity to do similar work for an employer more aligned with my values and interests so I applied.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to get the job. (Don’t worry, I’m not giving notice until I’ve received and accepted an offer.) I’ll find out either way by late next week, which will give me just enough time to work out two weeks before I go on vacation. The problem is that my boss will be on vacation for those two weeks. If I give her my notice on Friday that will be the last time we see each other.

We don’t really have a management structure (she would hate to be called my boss in the first place; one of the reasons I’m trying to leave) so there’s no one above her to go to in her absence and no one to facilitate a smooth transition of my duties.

I don’t particularly like it here and I don’t particularly like her, but I do like my coworkers and I don’t want to leave them in the lurch with my departure. Is there a way around it or do I just have to bite the bullet?

If that’s the way the timing works out, that’s the way it works out. It’s not ideal, but sometimes that’s just how it happens and people deal with it.

If you want to, given the timing, you could offer to be available for one (only one!) transition-related call after you leave. You don’t have to, but sometimes offering that can make you feel better about things.

You could also start an outline of transition items now, so that you have it ready to discuss with your boss on the one day of overlap the two of you will have after you resign; having that ready to go could help make the most of that time.

By the way: Make sure you’ll still be able to take those two weeks of paid vacation that you’re counting on! Some employers would have your last day be your last day in the office and not cover the paid vacation if you’re not coming back afterwards. If you’re in a state that requires them to pay out your unused vacation time when you leave, this won’t matter. But if you’re not, be aware there’s a risk that they’ll end your employment earlier.

The Atari 2600 went through many variations over its long lifespan.  Officially Atari authorized a dozen or so variations of the console, and tolerated several more when the 2600 mattered.  Most only differ cosmetically, but the sheer number of "official variants" for an early console is quite the achievement.  Today we will identify them and discuss what makes them unique. 

The Tandy 1000s, especially the older ones, are rather reliable as non-IBM manufactured PCs go.  They tend to continue working year after year.  But inevitably they will fail, and something they cannot be easily fixed because a chip went bad.  Tandy was good enough to socket major chips in most of its machines (DIP and PLCC) and frequently reused chips from machine to machine.  Tandy sometimes would use off the shelf chips, sometimes custom chips and sometimes programmable logic.  In this blog article I will identify the major chips each system uses in order to help people find suitable replacements, if possible.  

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At the very least, I feel this would be a good dual use of photovoltaics.

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Good morning, and I hope everyone has a great Fourth of July! In observance of the the holiday, today’s post will be fairly brief, with us returning to normal operations on Wednesday. As for the weather, our overall thinking on this week’s forecast has not changed too much. We’re heading toward a rainier pattern for the mid-week, followed by hotter and sunnier weather this weekend and next week.

Fourth of July

Skies will be partly sunny today, with highs in the mid-90s. We are starting to see the development of some showers off the Texas coast, in the Gulf of Mexico, at around sunrise. These will gradually transition inland today, with the bulk of showers and thunderstorms developing between late morning and late afternoon. Your chance of seeing rain is about 40 percent. The good news is that we generally expect these showers to clear out this evening, with partly cloudy skies and lows of around 80 degrees tonight. The viewing forecast for fireworks looks fine fine, if sweaty, as is customary in Houston.

Wednesday and Thursday

The details are still to be determined, but we’re looking at a pair of cloudy and cooler days, with highs likely only reaching about 90 degrees, give or take. Both days should see widespread showers and thunderstorms as tropical moisture pushes inland from the Gulf of Mexico, with lesser chances overnight. Look for accumulations, on average, of 0.5 to 1.5 inches, with the higher totals more prevalent toward the coast. This will be our coolest, and likely wettest weather for awhile for the foreseeable future.

Friday and beyond

Rain chances don’t go away on Friday and Saturday, but they begin to diminish as high pressure starts to build back over the area. Look for highs in the mid-90s to start out, pushing back into the upper-90s toward 100 degrees by the middle of next week.

See you tomorrow!

This Fourth of July marks the 247th year of our independence as a nation. How are you celebrating?

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Clash of the Tower Swipe Matcher Puzzle has brought down marriages.

Dear Fellow Signers of the Declaration of Independence:

Now that our noble document is complete, it is time to address the elephant in the room: my name is much bigger than everyone else’s. I’ll be the first to admit that it is absolutely massive. Yet I must also speak this self-evident truth: it is not entirely my fault.

The fact is I thought we were all doing big signatures. That’s what I was told. Do none of you remember Thomas Jefferson—hopped up on parchment fumes and cheap barleywine—running around telling everyone our “sigs” had to be “freakin’ huge”? Then I go first, and everybody bursts out laughing like I did something foolish.

I hereby call on my brethren of the Second Continental Congress—those who I know to be defenders of liberty, progress, and the values of the Enlightenment, to which we are all fan-boyishly devoted for some reason—to publicly stand up and say everybody told John Hancock we were doing big sigs.

Of late—in taverns and shops, on the streets, and in drawing rooms—I have overheard people asking one another for their “John Hancocks.” Like that’s just a thing now? I do not want my name to be a thing. Do you want your names to be things, my Founding Brothers-in-Arms? I say to you, Pat Henry—remember that night you, me, and Sammy Adams got totally wasted? Do you want “staggering into the town square and defiling the steps of the courthouse” henceforth to be known as “Patrick Henrying”? I thought not.

Let me be fully honest with you, brothers. The night of the signing, I did have too much wine. I meant to go big with the signature, but I went overboard. Trembling from the drink, my hand slipped, forcing me into an enormous “J.” And then it was off to the races. Each attempt to correct my mistake only made it worse, and eventually, I just had to commit.

We had options, though. We could have pasted on a few extra inches of parchment to fit all the bigger signatures or made a new version entirely, but James Madison had to return to Virginia to carve soap or something, so everybody just left. I’ve said sorry. Shouldn’t that be enough? Isn’t that why we’re building this whole system—so that people like us can do whatever we want without consequence?

I know now that I should not have told all of Boston that I wrote the Declaration of Independence by myself. That was wrong. But I got so many free drinks. I am most ashamed to report that one evening in Cambridge, I imbibed so much that I Patrick Henried all over John Harvard’s little schoolhouse.

Fine, you want the full confession? Better you hear it from me. Even though it was an accident, I saw an opportunity to make “Big John” a thing. I was planning Big John business ventures of all kinds, primarily Big John-branded whale oil candles. I am now on the hook for literally tens of thousands of candles. If anyone would like to purchase a few dozen cases, please let me know posthaste.

I understand that history will wonder about me: Did he have a massive ego? Shaky hands? A penchant for the drink? As I’ve addressed in this letter, yes, yes, and ohhh yeahhh. I own my faults, and I humbly ask you to forgive me. For if you don’t, I will have no choice but to make common cause with the British and bring vengeance down upon your heads. Especially you, Jefferson.

As a show of good faith and to rectify my error, I would like each one of you to sign this letter next to my very appropriately-sized signature and append it to the official Declaration of Independence to demonstrate for posterity that I, John Hancock, do know how to sign my name regular-style.

With ardent patriotism and deep regret,

Fuck.

In a 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s plan to forgive billions of dollars in federally backed student loan debt, a decision that means millions will have to start making student loan repayments later this year. What do you think?

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

I’m off today, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2018.

A reader writes:

So this question is … more just truly bizarre than anything. But recently, a coworker of mine has decided she is now British and has been regularly slipping into a thick British accent — very Madonna-esque.

On one hand, I guess live your life. On the other hand, OH MY GOD, WHAT? It’s truly impossible not to notice and has been gradually noticed by hordes of people within the office at this point, yet nobody really knows how to even begin processing this new information. Do we just carry on as normal? Is this what life is now? I suppose it really isn’t harming anyone — but wow is it something.

To expand on this, though we can’t fully unpack what the reasoning behind all of this is — it feels a bit like a personal branding play. Thanks for indulging!

Sit back and enjoy, because this kind of thing is what life is all about. Humans are weird! So weird, in so many different ways. Often that weirdness is hidden and comes out in ways that shock and disappoint you, after the person lulled you into thinking you knew what to expect from them. So it’s lovely when someone wears their weirdness like a peacock’s plumes, right there for all to see from the get-go.

And this is the sort of amazing and wonderful thing that makes work more interesting. You don’t need to worry about determining exactly where it’s coming from or why, although you should also feel free to indulge yourself in private speculation (emphasis on private; do not mock her with others). Does she believe she now sounds more sophisticated? (That was the Madonna theory, right?) Has she been binge watching British TV and picked it up without realizing it? Is she in disguise or possibly on the lam? Was she actually British this whole time and it was the American accent that was the fake? There are so many possibilities, and each one is fascinating.

So my advice to you: ENJOY THIS SPECTACLE. Another one so intriguing may not pass your way again for a while.

New comic!

Well maybe a modern machine fell into the ancient techno-ruins and then died and then its machine ghost came back to this fallen world and considerately packaged all its valuable parts into loot boxes. Did you ever think of that?