The shuttle service launched Thursday and will be available, with a reservation, from 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. until mid-October, with the last return shuttle leaving at 7:30 p.m.
DENVER—Asked for his comments on playing in his first NBA Finals, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic told reporters Thursday night that he found basketball boring. “I do not find this sport very interesting at all,” said Jokic, adding that he was actually disappointed that the Nuggets reached the Finals, because there…
Gay pride marches and parades will be held this weekend across the United States as LGBT Pride Month draws to a close. Here are some local gay pride celebrations throughout the country.
Scientists and tech industry execs are sounding the alarm about artificial intelligence, writing in a new public statement that fast-evolving AI technology could create as high a risk of killing off humankind as nuclear war and Covid-19-like pandemics. What do you think?
Hey marketing team for every major brand: Do you really think that I—a proud, rational, and tasteful LGBTQ+ person—am going to purchase your silly little product just because you released a pride edition? Because I will. You are correct.
The pride month pandering that occurs every June is both predictable and exhausting. Rest assured that your attempts to commercialize this celebration of queer history and culture have been noted. You know what’s also predictable? The fact that I’ll buy into it without even a second thought. My Hugo Boss wallet is going to be exhausted by July.
Oh, a Boston Red Sox hat with a rainbow “B” on it? How expected of you. Don’t mind if I do. I won’t even complain about the unnecessary price markup you added. Hell, I’ll buy two in case you lose any sales from bigots boycotting you because of this. Did I mention I haven’t watched baseball since I was nine?
Let me be clear: I do not appreciate that greedy corporations perennially commodify LGBTQ+ identities for profit. Especially since many of these companies still donate to politicians who are actively fighting against gay rights and demonizing trans people. Wait, is that a bottle of blue cheese dressing… with a label covered in Keith Haring drawings? Looks like I’m having buffalo wings tonight. I’m vegan, but I’ll make an exception. Mostly because the packaging for the chicken says “LOVE IS CLUCKING LOVE” on it. How camp!
Why am I like this? Well, according to my therapist, it’s not that simple. She told me my actions are fueled by a mix of internalized rainbow capitalism, arrested development from a closeted childhood, and Stockholm syndrome. Personally, I just think that—oh my god, the Lexus commercial on TV right now has RuPaul in it. I’ll be back in a sec after I sign up for a low-mileage lease with a predatory monthly payment. It’s giving opulence!
Okay, what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, pinkwashing and stuff. It’s bad. Speaking of, I got a badass pink coupe. I can’t wait to pull up to the parade in this baby, blasting “Vroom Vroom” by CharliXCX. They might even let me in the procession. Also, the car dealership gave me a little pride flag for my cup holder. It looks so cute when I wave it while wearing my rainbow Apple Watch band. Slay!
Good morning. Today marks the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season, which will last for the next six months. It’s also a big day for Matt and myself, as we’re launching a new website devoted to tropical weather in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea. It’s called The Eyewall, and you can head over there now to check it out, and find out more information about what we’re doing. But I’m sure some readers will have questions about what this means for Space City Weather, and that’s what I’m going to address now.
Is Space City Weather going to change?
No.
Like not at all?
Like not at all. Matt and I are 100 percent committed to Space City Weather, and improving it every way we can. To that end, look for an updated version of our app soon, that squashes some bugs and delivers the much-asked for dark mode feature in addition to other goodies.
Why are you doing this?
There are two primary reasons. One, much of the current national hurricane coverage is sensationalized, and we think there is room for a different, no-hype approach. And two, we are frequently asked for local sites during hurricane season. (I.e. my mom is in Destin, where can she get this kind of coverage for Tropical Storm X or Hurricane Y) Well, now we’ve got an answer. We’re counting on you to tell friends and family beyond Texas.
Will there be cross-over between the two sites?
A little bit. The Eyewall will publish a “Daily Tropical Outlook” every weekday, and weekends as needed. There will be other hurricane content as well, and lots of coverage of active storms threatening land. Once a week we will cross-publish one of these “tropical outlooks” on Space City Weather (i.e. like with our weekly tropics report).
What happens if a hurricane threatens Texas?
For Space City Weather we cover the storm as usual. The local material would then be cross-posted onto The Eyewall. But our intent is that for readers of Space City Weather there will be no noticeable changes. We will not be publishing content from the Eyewall about storms affecting other parts of the country, or Mexico and the Caribbean Islands here, although we may link to it from time to time on Space City Weather.
Do you have a sponsor?
Not yet. Really, this is an experiment. Matt is taking on a big extra burden with this, and while we’re going to have some contributors, we want to see if this is sustainable. We also want to see if there are readers for this. Maybe it flops. Maybe it doesn’t. Really, we just want to give people some comfort in a terribly trying and traumatic time in their lives. We’ll see.
Now, onto the forecast…
Thursday
Our weather for the next few days will be guided by a modestly strong ridge of high pressure. This means we’re going to see warm and sunny weather. Highs today should reach about 90 degrees, with light southeast winds. One nice aspect of the weather is that dewpoints have not reached hair-melting levels yet, so the humidity won’t be oppressive. Lows tonight drop into the low 70s. Rain chances today are about 10 percent.
Friday
A little warmer, with highs in the low 90s. Otherwise, pretty much the same as Thursday.
Saturday
Another day with mostly sunny skies and highs in the low 90s. For areas far north of Houston, likely even north of Conroe, there is a slight chance of some rain showers later in the day.
NOAA rain accumulation forecast for now through Monday. (Weather Bell)
Sunday and Monday
As high pressure eases off, skies will become more cloudy in response to rising atmospheric moisture levels, and our rain chances will go up. Both Sunday and Monday should see about a 50 percent chance of rainfall, with accumulations in the order of 0.25 to 1 inch. Overall chances are probably a bit higher north of Interstate 10, but this far out I don’t have great confidence in that. The clouds should bring highs back down to around 90 degrees on both days.
Later next week
Rain chances continue for a few more days, helping to tamp down high temperatures. But it’s possible that we’re headed toward the low- or even mid-90s by later next week. Hello, June!
1. The Big Show 2023
Lawndale (Houston)
June 2 – August 12, 2023
Opening June 1, 7-9 p.m.
Read more about the show and see a full list of participating artists here.
From Lawndale:
“Lawndale is pleased to announce the artists and public opening for the 2023 iteration of The Big Show, our ambitious annual exhibition of new work by artists practicing within a 100-mile radius of Lawndale. This year, juror Dr. Kanitra Fletcher selected 113 works by 112 artists from over 400 entries.”
“Dr. Marla Price, director of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, is pleased to announce Robert Motherwell: Pure Painting, the first exhibition in more than a quarter century to examine the work of Robert Motherwell (1915–1991), a major figure who shaped postwar art. The Modern is an especially fitting venue to mount this exhibition given its longstanding institutional commitment to the artist’s work, which dates back to the 1960s and 1970s. Today, the Modern holds more than seventy works by Motherwell in its permanent collection, in a variety of media ranging from paintings, collages, and prints. The assembly presented in this retrospective and catalogue represent a tribute to the success of his influential oeuvre, making special note of his organic revisionism.”
Sarah Fox, film still from “Bad Bunny Gets Lucky,” 2022.
“Invasive Species is a group exhibition, curated by Alexis Hunter and Jacqueline Overby, featuring fourteen women-identifying artists examining womanhood in a multi-generational habitat of male-ordained moral, sexual, and spiritual repression and exploitation. Each artist has her own unique perspective and biome of references. Whether it’s religious trauma, generational trauma, sexual trauma, or revenge, Invasive Species is an opportunity to explore these painful themes from many perspectives like that of a fat woman, a trans woman, a Black woman, a formerly incarcerated woman, a survivor, and a mother.”
Installation view of “Floating Between Chaos and Peace” at Sala Diaz.
“Sala Diaz is happy to announce Floating Between Chaos and Peace, a solo exhibition featuring Alethia Jones, and curated by Barbara Felix. The exhibition will open with a public reception on Friday, June 2, 2023, from 6–9 p.m. at Sala Diaz. This event is free and open to the public.
In Floating between Chaos and Peace, Alethia Jones explores her personal mental health through painting. Utilizing bold colors, Jones creates fantastical landscapes, or dreamscapes, sprinkled with hints of recognizable objects. Though made with paint on canvas, the works have a collage-like quality to them, furthering ideas of sampling different experiences and emotions.”
Robert Hodge and Tim Kerr, “No Kings,” 2022, mixed media. Image courtesy of the artists.
“HodgeKerr is a collaboration between Robert Hodge (Houston) and Tim Kerr (Austin). Individually, their work is steeped in the rich history between music and pop culture, and they also share a deep interest in racial equality and human rights. Robert and Tim have long admired one another, from color palette to messaging to medium, and they have come together to entwine their creative vision.”
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
People are weird about free food at work. Really weird.
Free food can make some people lose all sense of decorum and manners (and interestingly, the employees who get the most vulture-like are often the highest-paid). Some reports of free food havoc that have been shared here over the years:
• “I had a coworker who thought any treats were just for him. If breakfast tacos were ordered for my department, we’d usually offer other departments nearby any leftovers. If he hadn’t already, as soon as he heard that leftovers were being offered he’d go through and get all of the ones he wanted (example, all the brisket) and hide them in his desk drawer before the other department could get any. He’d also get in line first or near-first (he volunteered to help with setup), and would take massive amounts of what was there. If some folks didn’t get firsts while he was loading up his second, he’d say folks should have gotten there faster. Management did talk to him, but his answer was that he didn’t care.”
• “Pre-pandemic, my larger division moved to new office space and the building management ordered trays of brownies to welcome us. My physical office was near the kitchen and I witnessed someone from another group walk by with the entire tray that had been put out for the whole floor and carry it back to his desk. There were probably at least 75 brownies on it. Soon I heard everyone being very confused that we were promised brownies and there were none to be had. This lead to people from our floor going to other floors to find brownies, which caused its own drama. Finally, when I saw the same guy walk past my office again on his way to a meeting, I ran to his cube, grabbed the tray, and placed it back in the kitchen for everyone to enjoy as intended.”
• “At a previous job, staff were allowed to take food left over from client and other meetings. People would aggressively lurk or pace around the conference rooms waiting for the meeting to be over. Some of the conference rooms were all glass, so these lurkers were extremely conspicuous to everyone in the meeting, including clients (and this was a finance company that worked with high-wealth clients). Certain staff members were referred to as ‘the vultures.’ It became so awkward and embarrassing that the company established a new rule that people were not allowed to get food out of the rooms when the meeting was over. If there was anything left over, the office manager would bring it to the cafeteria and then people could take some.”
Let’s talk about free food debacles you’ve witnessed (or committed?) at work. Please share in the comments.
In Part 1 of this series, AI proved that it could use real research and real interviews to write an original script for an episode of Planet Money. Our next task was to teach the computer how to sound like us. How to read that script aloud like a Planet Money host.
On today's show, we explore the world of AI-generated voices, which have become so lifelike in recent years that they can credibly imitate specific people. To test the limits of the technology, we attempt to create our own synthetic voice by training a computer on recordings of former Planet Money host Robert Smith. Then we introduce synthetic Robert to his very human namesake.
There are a lot of ethical, and economic, questions raised by a technology that can duplicate anyone's voice. To help us make sense of it all, we seek the advice of an artist who has embraced AI voice clones: the musician Grimes. This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee and Willa Rubin, with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Keith Romer and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Engineering by James Willetts. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.
We built a Planet Money AI chat bot. Help us test it out: Planetmoneybot.com.
Hey guys - please check out The Eyewall. Matt and Eric do a great job with Space City Weather and giving us "weather without the hype" - you'll like them too.
Today marks the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season. It also marks the launch of our new website, The Eyewall. Welcome, and thank you for visiting!
Who are we?
Writing this post today is Matt Lanza, managing editor and meteorologist for Space City Weather, a Houston based weather blog that has gained a large following both in Houston and along the Gulf Coast for our honest, to-the-point, and hype-free coverage of weather. Joining me is Eric Berger, founder, editor, and meteorologist of Space City Weather. You can read more about us here. While we are based in Houston, Eric and Matt have both covered Gulf storms rather aggressively since Space City Weather was established. Matt is also a native of New Jersey and is very familiar with coastal storms and Mid-Atlantic hurricanes and tropical storms. In fact, Matt’s interest in weather stems from Hurricane Gloria in 1985, which moved up the Eastern Seaboard knocking out power to millions and causing over $1 billion (2023 dollars) in damage.
Seaside Heights, NJ after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 (National Archives)
Why do we exist?
In our work with Space City Weather, we have found an audience that is both receptive to our style and is fiercely loyal. We are often asked if there is an “us” equivalent in other places. The Eyewall aims to be the “us” in other places, at least as it pertains to hurricanes. With Space City Weather, we’ve learned a couple things:
In world where you are constantly being pinged on your phone with alerts and can frequently see scary maps of big storms shared in social media groups, there is a desire to have a source for weather that is not going to try to bait you into meaningless engagement or click on hyperbolic headlines. When the weather is boring, we’re boring (though we do try to note interesting meteorological things!), but when the weather gets serious, so do we. Basically, our philosophy is that if we amp up the language or tone in our posts, then you know it’s actually serious. Too much weather coverage centers around engagement and competition for page views, even when weather is not serious. We don’t have any metrics to target or compete for, so all we’re trying to do is build your trust. We view ourselves as a mission-driven public service. As such, we will gladly syndicate our content to any publication or non-profit facing a tropical threat. Please contact us for permission.
We try to humanize weather coverage. Houston has been through a lot, so we know what it’s like when our community suffers. We’ve had family, friends, and colleagues impacted by some of the other major storms in recent years like Ian in southwest Florida, Laura in southwest Louisiana, and Sandy in New York and New Jersey. We’ve seen how bad it can get, and we relate to what you’re going through when disaster strikes. We will try our best to be efficient with your time, clear in our coverage, and empathetic in our tone. The science is cool and important, but people first and foremost just want to know what it means for them and their community. That’s where we will focus our efforts.
Houston rescues during Harvey in 2017 (US Forest Service)
What you can expect from us
As noted above, you can expect us to be reined in when the weather is not serious and very serious when the weather requires that. You can expect posts that are clear and transparent as to our expectations with upcoming storms. When we aren’t sure about the forecast, we’ll tell you and explain what the possible outcomes are. We will do our best to answer your questions as we can here or on our social media accounts.
As far as content goes, for those of you familiar with Space City Weather, the cadence will be similar. You can expect a post each morning with a tropical outlook for the Atlantic basin. Look for our first one later this morning. We will cover what’s happening now, any tropical waves or disturbances of note, and focus on possible impacts. We will also tackle what we call “fantasyland,” which is often where the most misinformation on social media comes from. If a model is showing a storm on day 14, we’ll note it and explain why (in most cases) it will not happen or why it’s worth watching.
When a storm threatens, be it in Portland, Maine, Port St. Lucie, Florida, Puerto Rico, or Port Aransas, Texas, we will cover that storm in depth. We’ll have more frequent posts, explain risks, impacts, and share updates as needed both in the run up and aftermath. You can expect the same style of coverage we have devoted to Houston for big storms to be with us here at The Eyewall.
Outside of tropical storms and hurricanes, our coverage will be modest for now. We may post some items of interest at times. In fact, next week, look for a post here at The Eyewall that will tackle the question, “Why are we seeing so many frequent big storms in the Gulf of Mexico?” High end major hurricanes have made landfall on the Gulf Coast in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. We will explain what the research says about this issue. If we establish ourselves and are able to build a large enough audience, we will expand our coverage to other weather events in time. For now, hurricanes are what we know best, and that’s what we’ll stick with.
How can you help us grow?
We know we’ll have a small base of excited and loyal readers to start. All we ask is that you share the site with friends and family that may live on the coast or in inland hurricane prone locations. If a storm threatens, let them know about us, much as our Houston audience just happened to do during Harvey and Laura. Otherwise, we’ll let our coverage speak for itself and, as we did with Space City Weather, work to grow organically and over time.
Meanwhile, give us a follow on our social media platforms:
And on the right side of the page, sign up for email updates, so you get our daily updates in your inbox.
Let us know your feedback, thoughts, and questions. We are here for you, and we look forward to serving you this hurricane season, and hopefully in the future. Thanks for visiting!
First off: I see you. I want you to know that. You have tirelessly nourished two demanding infants over countless hours of your existence. They’ve slapped you. They’ve scratched you. They’ve wasted your elixir by popping off at the slightest distraction, just as you were pouring your whole being into the effort. And have they ever taken one moment to say thank you? To say, “O source of my ginormous, thrice-rolled thighs, I appreciate you?” Of course not. They’ve taken you for granted. I can’t imagine what a letdown that must be. (No pun intended).
I hear you when you say you want a raise. I do acknowledge the hours of unexpected overtime you have worked: overnight shifts, sometimes two or three a night. Deeply admirable. I acknowledge your sacrifice, not just of your time, but also what years of hard labor have done to you. You say you are stretched and wasted—not to mention, that you stretch nearly to my waist. I hear you, I really do. No one questions your dedication.
However. I am afraid I must decline your request.
I would like us to take a moment to also acknowledge how much I have done to support you and how much this role has benefited you. I provided high-quality brassieres around the clock, 24-7—literally 24-7—support. I never forced you into any tight spaces. I avoided sleeping on top of you so you could have room to recover. Whenever you ached or chafed, I massaged you and liberally applied healing ointment derived from the sebaceous glands of the finest New Zealand sheep, which I must remind you did not come cheap. The hospital charged sixteen dollars for just that little half-ounce tube, believe it or not! Finally, I advocated for you when passersby were scandalized by your on-the-go labors and demanded you relegate yourself to the nearest public restroom to complete your work.
You have boasted much about your beauty before you took on this role and bemoaned how that beauty has suffered due to your exertion and the challenging working conditions. I would remind you, however, that beauty is ephemeral. Had you not latched on to this role, the final destination would have been the same: middle age is upon you, after all. There’s a 100 percent chance you wouldn’t be going back to predicting the rain forecast. No more Mel Brooks burying his face in you, declaring how much he missed you “boys.” Seth McFarlane would never sing your praises at the Academy Awards. And, furthermore, this work has had its perks! You were never fuller, rounder, or grander than in the months prior to your service. True, the much-adored “bump” beneath you may have overshadowed this fact, but I didn’t miss it. On the job, you’ve swelled so gloriously that no one could fail to notice you.
Like nursing, teaching, and corporate litigation, your work is noble. I don’t disagree it is undervalued. Sure, professionals and organizations the world over tout the importance of your role, but I agree that’s largely lip service. The system doesn’t support you. My own employer has nominally had to make room for you to do your work, it’s true, but I get it: yours is a generally unfunded mandate. This state of affairs is systemic and truly beyond my capacity to alter. But think of the exposure you’ve had. Think of the bragging rights. You bear the battle scars of martyrdom! You can find unquantifiable value and compensation in the pride of a job well done.
I am sad to hear you say you’re thinking of quitting in spite of all of my support and the heightened visibility and praise you’ve had in this role. I admit I’m also a bit surprised. One of your best qualities as a worker is how you always go with the flow, producing to meet demand. I do have to remind you that we have several equally competitive candidates vying for your position should you make good on your threat to resign. Yes, I know I would have to pay more for them up front, but they possess greater consistency and flexibility, and the results they produce are substantially the same. Let’s be honest with ourselves for a second: in just a few months’ time, that ungrateful little whiner you serve is going to be eating fossilized animal crackers from between the seats of the Pacifica anyway, irrespective of your contributions. And yes, yes, I know, your immune benefits; antibodies, yada yada, yes, you’ve made this point very loudly. Have you ever seen the inside of a daycare, though? Because under the veneer of copious disinfectant lies an irrepressible mass of viral terror and bacterial biodiversity. It is magical thinking, at best, to imagine we have any control over preventing childhood illness.
I promise you that I value the work you are doing. I hope you will reconsider and continue staying true to the values of our shared mission and our commitment to doing the best work we can in our partnership. Thank you for all you have done.
SAN MATEO, CA—After spending the past three decades of his life being totally unable and unwilling to engage in any meaningful way with the world around him, James Parker, a local guy who sucks at being a person, told reporters Thursday that he saw huge potential in AI. “While it’s still in its early phase, artificial…
CHICAGO—Following a widely shared post that sparked debate and confusion among online factions of every stripe, the internet was reportedly divided Thursday over a video that documented a Black cop shooting a white cop for choking out a racist white woman who had just called the police on some Black teenagers. “This…
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 predecessor keeps taking over the event that’s supposed to honor my work
I’m in year 2 of being a support clerk with my city’s planning office. Every year we celebrate the huge numbers of applications we’ve processed. The very extroverted person who held the position before me created the role from scratch and was very effective. Therefore, she has been invited two years in a row to attend our celebration dinner. The problem is that she takes over the dinner and praises all of her past work accomplishments and very little, if any, space is left for me to be given credit for the work I’ve done keeping everyone on track since (which includes modernizing all of her paper-based processes). Trying to speak up for myself at this event or prior seems like being petty as she’s retired and was a staff favorite. Am I just being a small person here? Could this mean I’m not as effective as I think in my job and should just suck it up and accept that this party will forever be a downer and leave me questioning my value there?
I wouldn’t take this as any indicator of your own performance; it sounds like it’s about her, not about you — and she’s being allowed to run roughshod over you, possibly because of the strength of her personality or possibly because people are just happy to see her and aren’t thinking too deeply about it beyond that. (It’s also possible that a third year of this will start to seem strange to people, who knows.)
Can you take some control of the agenda ahead of time? Approach your boss or whoever organizes the event with a list of the program’s achievements that you want to make sure are recognized at the event (you can call them “the program’s achievements” even if they’re all yours; there’s an event being held to celebrate the work, so it’s completely normal to frame it that way). Frankly, if you have decent rapport with your boss, you could also say, “The last two years, Jane ended up running the presentation and focused on the work she did while she was still here. Since we have two years of new accomplishments to talk about now, I’d like to propose we do X this year.” (X could be you running the event, having a set list of speakers that doesn’t include a long-gone employee, having a slideshow focused on this year’s achievements, or anything else you think would work well.)
And ideally someone would be ready to intercept Jane if she does try to take things over and/or to tell her in advance that the program for the night will be X and the org will be hosting her as a guest but not a speaker since the focus will be on more recent work. Arranging that would require a pretty candid conversation with your boss, but if you have the kind of relationship with that allows for that, it’s a very reasonable thing to raise. It’s not petty in the least to point out that the event should honor the team’s current work.
2. My team lead spends hours venting to us — but tells our boss he’s training us
After being at my job for one year, things have started to go sideways. I recently rotated to a new team with a different team lead, Henry. Henry will video call me without notice and without asking if I’m free to chat. He is an absolute chatterbox! One of these unscheduled video calls will last around 30 minutes to an hour, usually multiple times a day. The meetings turn into a vent session for Henry while I sit there quietly until he stops talking.
We bill our clients and set a budget before we start an assignment, but with these unscheduled, long, irrelevant meetings, my work has been severely affected. Unfortunately, Henry “cold calls” each of us on the team (there are 3 of us) and our budget is severely dwindling.
Due to the budget problems, Henry mentioned to my manager that the reason the assignment is taking so long is because “there are three new people on this team who ask a lot of questions.” I feel like Henry is completely throwing the team under the bus and not realizing that his ineffective meetings are part of the problem. My manager is unaware that Henry is conducting these calls to each of us. The other two people on my team are new as well and we are afraid to mention something to our manager. Should we say something or are we overreacting?
Whoa, no, speak up! Frankly, you should talk to your manager about Henry’s calls even if he weren’t throwing you under the bus, simply because they’re so numerous and distracting. But with him claiming the budget shortages are due to your training needs, you really need to say something. (And if you’re worried about being believed, your manager probably already knows Henry is a talker and it’s likely to ring true.)
You could say, “I feel awkward raising this but Henry calls so regularly to chat — usually multiple times a day, for up to an hour each time — that it’s significantly slowing down my progress on the X project. These calls aren’t for training or to answer questions, and we don’t accomplish any work during them. I can see how much it’s slowing down our work, but I haven’t been sure of how to handle it.”
3. Hiring externally when staff expect an internal hire
I am in charge of youth services and have one direct report, who has been here since before I was hired but will soon be moving on. This means I will need to hire for the first time since starting. After working for a number of years with a youth services assistant who has no experience working with children (and has frankly stated that they don’t like kids), I have a clear idea of the experience I’m looking for in a new hire and how I’d like the position to evolve, both of which will be the biggest factors when I interview.
My organization has a very strong culture of promoting within — in the six years since I started, the only external hires in my department have been for part-time entry-level jobs and a position that requires a specialized degree. The general rule is that if someone within the department is interested in an open position, they get the first opportunity to apply and interview before we open to external hires, which makes sense most of the time and almost always results in an internal hire. My issue is that there is no one in my department who has the skills or experience that I am looking for in this position. Normally, we would hire internally even if they don’t have all the requisite experience and then train them up to the level we need (that’s how my current assistant got their job). However, my service area works heavily with children and families and I can’t train people into having experience working with kids and parents or enjoying that type of work. (My director agrees with me that no one in our department would be a good fit for the position.)
I’m hoping people will self-select out, given my service area, but I’m afraid that the desire to move up within our department will cause people to apply even if they aren’t interested in family programming and don’t have the skills needed. We haven’t announced the open position yet, but most of the potential internal applicants work in the same service area and every time my soon-to-be-open position comes up in our management meetings, their supervisor makes a point of talking about internal applications and how great their reports could be at this position. If they do apply, I would be obligated to give them an interview, but I don’t want to make anyone feel bad about not getting the job, especially since I know I don’t plan on hiring internally.
How can I temper my coworkers’ expectations that I will hire internally, when I know that I definitely won’t? Besides being very clear in the job description and in my expectations for the position, is there anything I can do to keep people from getting their hopes up about this job opening?
Being very clear in the job description is the place to start, including explicitly labeling specific skills and experience as “required.” From there, be similarly clear with anyone who approaches you about the job (“I want to be up-front with you that I’m committed to hiring someone with XYZ experience, which could mean an external hire if we don’t find that experience already on staff”) and in those required interviews (“you probably saw that the position requires XYZ and I want to be up-front with you that that’s an obstacle for your candidacy — would you like to talk more about that?”). You should also fill people in on your thinking at those management meetings when it comes up — let them know you’re holding a high bar on XYZ and haven’t been able to find that in internal applicants.
4. How to quit when my two jobs are related
The short version: I work two jobs and I want to quit one of them. The sticky part: Job 1 introduced me to Job 2, and they sometimes work together on projects (but sometimes are competitors).
I’ve been at Job 1 for almost two years, and it’s … fine. It was a nice place to land after leaving a toxic job with a mercurial boss. But I’m a contractor with zero benefits and my hours are the first thing cut when times are lean. Which brings me to Job 2. When Job 1 had to halve my hours recently, they asked if I might want to go help out at Job 2, where they needed someone with my talents.
Job 2 is amazing. I’m an actual employee for the first time in my life, with some benefits even as a part-timer. There’s a real culture of appreciation there — bosses and coworkers constantly thank me and praise my work, even though I’m the lowest-level employee there. They also praise each other’s work and strengths. I keep being given more responsibilities and interesting tasks to work on. I feel like my opinions and ideas are respected and like I’m seen as a whole person, rather than a tool to get tasks done. While Job 1 has kept my hours reduced for months, Job 2 is happy to give me as many hours as I want, while remaining flexible about Job 1’s needs and my personal needs.
Every sign in the universe is pointing to me needing to quit Job 1. My spouse thinks I should quit. My friends ask why I haven’t quit yet. I got a tarot reading for the first time in my life on a lark, and even the cards said I should quit my job.
But again, Job 1 and Job 2 are friendly. They work together. I often get info from Job 1 for Job 2 and vice versa. I read enough advice columns to know I can’t control how other people react to things and sometimes there’s no way to not hurt feelings. But do you have any advice to help soften the blow for Job 1 when I leave them for their cooler, more successful counterpart?
It sounds like Job 2 is willing to offer you full-time hours or at least consistently more hours than you get from Job 1, so that’s the easiest explanation to lean on — “They’re able to offer me full-time work, which I really need.” That’s a very clear, easy-to-understand reason and people will understand the need for more hours. Plus, any job that halves someone’s hours is well aware that it means the person might seek work somewhere else, so they’re unlikely to be shocked.
5. Why are recruiters asking about where I am in my job search?
I am not aggressively looking for a job at the moment as I’m currently employed, but have recently had a few exploratory recruiter calls. They each ask some version at the end of “where are you in your job search?” or “are you actively interviewing/fielding offers that we should be aware of?” For the most part I’ve been honest: I’m still in my role currently, just starting to look, but no real urgency on my end. But what are recruiters looking to learn by asking this question, and what is the right answer for someone in my current position?
They want to find out whether you’re in the final stages with other employers/expecting an offer imminently/already have offers, so they know if they need to try to expedite their process with you. Your answer is completely fine.
Magic, Words, and Numbers Series: A New Library of the Supernatural Holroyd 1975
Submitter: Things no one will say: Who cares if this book is old and hideous? The public must have it! It’s full of helpful advice that anybody can follow. Do you need money? Just pluck a hair from a mare’s privates, recite a magical incantation, and make a pact with a talking snake (page 82). Are you worried about your relationship? Rip the tongue out of a live toad and place it on your lover’s heart while she sleeps. Or, better yet, trick her into drinking pulverized wolf gonads (page 83). Is there a dung heap nearby? Use it to unleash the incredible power of common household herbs (82). Or, just bury this book in the manure where it belongs.
Holly: It’s…interesting…and there are public library patrons who go for this sort of thing, for sure. A library needs to know their community and what works. If this subject matter does fit in your library’s collection, at least offer materials that aren’t almost 50 years old.
Interstellar travel is horrible-what with the cramped quarters of your spaceship and only the thin hull separating you from deathly cold and deadly cosmic rays. Much safer to stay on here Earth with our gloriously habitable biosphere, protective magnetic field, and endless energy from the Sun. But what if we could have the best of all worlds? No pun intended. What if we could turn our entire solar system into a spaceship and drive the Sun itself around the galaxy? Well, I don't know if we definitely can, but we might not not be able to.
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OTTAWA – In the wake of Danielle Smith’s re-election as Alberta Premier, the other Provinces and Territories breathed a sigh of relief that, if nothing else, they can continue to shit on the Province of Alberta to make themselves feel a little bit better. “Between Toronto falling into a state of decay and the Leafs […]
A jerk and a creep — “Hidden jerk in universal creep and aftershocks” may sound like the name of a Hollywood movie – and maybe some day it will be. But for now, it is exclusively the title chosen by Vikash Pandey at Krea University in India for a mathematical physics write-up that involves earthquakes, avalanches, landslides and bamboo chopsticks. And, indirectly, spaghetti. It was published in Physical Review E. Allan Harvey brought it to Feedback’s attention. Jerk, as most calculus students are amused to learn, is the technical word for the rate at which acceleration changes….
Lighting up — … The researchers behind the study, perhaps realising that people outside their fields might feel intimidated, provide a quietly charming graphical abstract (below). The artistically overwhelming power of the whole thing derives from the striking proximity – and similarity in size and colour – of the rat’s eye and the glowing tip of the cigarette. The rat’s head and the cigarette each float in space, compelling the reader’s attention.
How long you will live — … They take from this a cheerily dour assessment: “We find that none of these algorithms are able to explain more than 1.5% of the variation in age of death. Our results point towards the unpredictability of mortality and underscore the challenges of using algorithms to predict major life outcomes.” Do remind yourself that a few seconds ago, when you began to read this item, you were making the prediction that you would live long enough to read the item all the way through to its end.
Unfunnelled powers — Clive Teale confides having a trivial superpower that is rarely mentioned in polite or other company, maybe because it is rare. His confession adds to Feedback’s growing list of such superpowers….
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Russia’s Interior Ministry has issued an arrest warrant for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) after he praised U.S. military aid to Ukraine as “the best money we’ve ever spent.” What do you think?
We had just recently written about the American Psychological Association’s very thorough and detailed report going through much of the research about the impact of social media on the mental health of kids. That report was careful, and nuanced, and basically said that there is little evidence that social media is inherently bad for kids. It noted that studies suggested social media actually seems to be beneficial for many kids, and in the cases where it’s harmful, there are often other, extenuating circumstances. It had many recommendations, focused mainly on better educating children about how to use social media appropriately, rather than any sort of moral panic about it (of course, as we noted, the media still misrepresented the study and claimed it “warned of social media’s potential harm to kids.”)
A few months ago, we also wrote about the giant Pew study on teens and social media, which further found that most teens get real value out of social media, and only a really small percentage of them struggled with social media.
It was nice to see these reports and their thorough, detailed findings, as they pushed back on the growing moral panic that is enveloping much of the media and the political world regarding social media and kids.
So I was curious earlier this week when Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, released his Social Media and Youth Mental Health report. Nearly all the reporting I saw on it suggested that it was like the opposite of the APA release, and that it talked up how social media was absolutely putting kids at risk and something needed to be done.
But… that’s not exactly what the report says.
Indeed, somewhat bizarrely, it reads kinda like the off-brand version of the APA report, with fewer details, less nuance, and a less clear plan. It cites some of the same studies.
Like the APA report, it also says the evidence of a causal impact is lacking, and (like the APA report) it says that it appears social media is good for some and not good for others. Like the APA report, it clearly lays out the benefits of social media for kids:
Social media can provide benefits for some youth by providing positive community and connection with others who share identities, abilities, and interests. It can provide access to important information and create a space for self-expression. The ability to form and maintain friendships online and develop social connections are among the positive effects of social media use for youth. , These relationships can afford opportunities to have positive interactions with more diverse peer groups than are available to them offline and can provide important social support to youth. The buffering effects against stress that online social support from peers may provide can be especially important for youth who are often marginalized, including racial, ethnic, and sexual and gender minorities. , For example, studies have shown that social media may support the mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex and other youths by enabling peer connection, identity development and management, and social support. Seven out of ten adolescent girls of color report encountering positive or identity-affirming content related to race across social media platforms. A majority of adolescents report that social media helps them feel more accepted (58%), like they have people who can support them through tough times (67%), like they have a place to show their creative side (71%), and more connected to what’s going on in their friends’ lives (80%). In addition, research suggests that social media-based and other digitally-based mental health interventions may also be helpful for some children and adolescents by promoting help-seeking behaviors and serving as a gateway to initiating mental health care.
Then it also notes that for some, it might be negative. The same thing Pew and the APA report said. But even there, the report notes that there isn’t necessarily any evidence of a causal link, just “reasons for concern about the potential negative impact.”
And, even there, it looks like Murthy is doing some cherry-picking in how the data is presented. It quotes the Pew study (which again, focused on how only a small percentage of teens had negative experiences with social media, and a larger percentage found it helpful), but just to say that more than a third of those aged 13 to 17 use social media “almost constantly.” This “almost constantly” is trotted out frequently (including in school district lawsuits) without putting it into context. First, social media covers lots of tools. Kids use Discord to communicate with each other (and to track predator teachers), which is way different than just staring at images and videos all day. And again, there are lots of things that kids do “almost constantly” — such as attending school — that we don’t consider to be problematic.
The question is whether this usage is a problem or not, and all of these reports are saying that for most kids, the answer is no. For a very small percentage, however, there are real risks. And efforts should be focused on those individuals, rather than taking away all of the benefits that these reports describe social media as providing kids.
And the report then notes that there are many areas where we just don’t have enough information to say one way or another what’s a good approach and what’s bad. That’s also useful, as hopefully it will lead to even more research on this stuff.
Unfortunately, though, after this opening, the report basically says “well, even though we don’t really have enough evidence that social media is bad for kids, and a bunch of evidence of how it’s good, we should stop kids from using it just in case it turns out to be bad.” Which is… a really weird takeaway, unless, you are writing to a foregone conclusion that the details of your report don’t actually support:
Our children and adolescents don’t have the luxury of waiting years until we know the full extent of social media’s impact. Their childhoods and development are happening now. While social media use can have positive impacts for some children, the evidence noted throughout this Surgeon General’s Advisory necessitates significant concern with the way it is currently designed, deployed, and utilized. Child and adolescent use of platforms designed for adults places them at high risk of “unsupervised, developmentally inappropriate, and potentially harmful” use according to the National Scientific Council on Adolescence. At a moment when we are experiencing a national youth mental health crisis, now is the time to act swiftly and decisively to protect children and adolescents from risk of harm.
It is difficult to see how you get to this paragraph and think it makes any sense given all of the other statements. It’s like saying: “Cars are beneficial to people because they help people traverse long distances which has many benefits. Cars are also dangerous because they can crash and kill people. So, while there are benefits and negatives, we have to ban all cars to stop the negatives.”
Life is about tradeoffs. This report highlights all the tradeoffs… and then throws them in the garbage to say “but we can’t worry about the benefits, we just need to focus on stopping the negatives.”
The actual recommendations in the report are a little better, but it includes very dangerous suggestions like age verification (which is a privacy nightmare). It does (like the APA report) talk about how parents have to take on responsibility for educating their kids on the proper use of social media, and how more tools should be provided to them. Those are perfectly good suggestions.
But, of course, with the framing of “we must protect the children” the media had a fucking field say with the report, highlighting only the claims of the harms to children, and totally ignoring how much of the report actually talks about the benefits.
So, uh, yeah. The report says that there are clear benefits, that there may be some risks, but that the research isn’t really there to prove it, and then has a little moral panic saying we need to overprotect before we know what’s happening for sure, and every news org runs with the scare tactic headline.
If it bleeds, it leads, I guess.
Of course, as a separate NY Times article highlights, these Surgeon General advisories have happened a bunch of times over the past few decades, some for good causes, and some have marked real turning points, such as around smoking and drunk driving. However, it also details some pretty embarrassing ones that were total jokes, such as the attempts by Surgeon Generals to insist that TV and video games were damaging to children, both of which were later debunked as moral panics.
What’s almost hilarious is that the 1972 report on the negative effects of TV has many similarities to this new report. It kicks off saying this:
But then immediately says “nevertheless” and immediately just starts listing out studies that claim that watching TV leads to aggression.
So, just like this latest study, there are nods towards the more nuanced position, but then that just gets bowled over by the “but moral panic and fear” part.
Maybe the next Surgeon General can issue an advisory on the impact of moral panics.
