A driver has been arrested on charges of threatening to kill or harm the president, vice president, or their family members after he allegedly plowed a U-Haul truck into security barriers near the White House while carrying a Nazi flag. What do you think?
Hovertext:
There exist solutions that would work if only you could take them seriously.
While we’ve all been focused on growing a bee-friendly habitat in our gardens by planting pollinator friendly varieties, there’s something else that’s vital to the health of bees that often goes unmentioned: Bees need water. In their natural habitats, bees get water from ponds, pools, and puddles that naturally occur…
Good morning. A complex of showers and thunderstorms to the west of Houston associated with a large convective system appears to be fading this morning, and I don’t think it will impinge too much on our region today. That’s not to say rain chances will be zero. Overall, however, we should continue to see warm, mostly sunny and not-too muggy weather for the next several days.
Today will bring partly sunny skies, with highs around 90 degrees, and light northeasterly winds. This morning areas to the west of Houston, including Katy and Cypress, will see a chance of thunderstorms and briefly strong winds due to the storm complex over central Texas. These storms should wind down this morning. Later this afternoon, with daytime heating, I expect some additional shower and thunderstorm development through the early evening hours, although this should be fairly scattered across Houston. Lows will drop to around 70 degrees.
Skies should be mostly sunny on Thursday, with high temperatures again bouncing around 90 degrees. With daytime heating there will be about a 10 percent chance of isolated showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon hours.
Look for mostly sunny skies and highs around 90 degrees.
Saturday and Sunday, at this point, look like carbon copies of one another. With high pressure in place we can expect a pair of partly to mostly sunny days with high temperatures around 90 degrees, and overnight lows around 70 degrees, plus or minus depending on how far inland you are. With dewpoints in the 60s, the air will feel less sticky than it normally does during the summer, so that will be nice.
Memorial Day should bring more of the same, albeit with a few more clouds and a chance of isolated showers and thunderstorms during the afternoon with daytime heating.
As the onshore flow reestablishes itself, we’ll see increasing humidity, but daytime temperatures should remain in the upper 80s to 90 degree range. A moistening atmosphere will make for somewhat better rain chances, so for now I’ll ballpark in a daily 30 percent chance during the afternoon hours.
LUBBOCK, TX—Admitting that he assumed the guy was waving his gun at him, local man Jeffrey Regis confirmed Wednesday that he was embarrassed after taking a bullet intended for the person behind him. “Oh my god, I’m such an idiot—I totally thought those shots he fired were meant to go into my chest, skull, and arm,”…
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
Our company has three partners: me, Lou (my husband), and Sarah (our best friend). Lou’s sister, Leah, and Sarah’s younger brother, Bobby, have worked here for over 10 years and basically feel untouchable and do as they please. Leah has made some effort to correct her actions and she primarily works with Lou so she’s less of an issue.
Bobby, on the other hand, has a history which has been documented and discussed with him numerous times. For example, it is now crunch time in our industry so while everyone else is working hard as a team, Bobby continues to make his own schedule, doesn’t follow the rules, and frustrates everyone around him. He knows that Sarah will always take care of him as she has been doing all her life. Sarah has always employed Bobby after he failed out of college. Bobby is now 49 and Sarah is 56 and the oldest sibling.
I’m the partner who other employees come to with numerous complaints about both Leah and Bobby, but especially Bobby.
We have documented issues, had numerous conversations with Bobby, given chances, but after a short time of improvement, he returns to the poor behavior.
There are grounds for firing both of them, although Leah is a couple years from retiring so I think we’re riding out that one. However, Bobby continues to take advantage of us and acts like he’s untouchable, because he has been. Even with numerous reprimands and changes (we’ve changed his job numerous times,) the end result is he’s lazy, unaccountable for his actions, and disappears while other employees notice.
Unfortunately there is a long family history with Sarah and Bobby, and she’s at her wit’s end on how to handle him.
We’ve hit a wall and I’m afraid we’re going to lose Bobby’s frustrated manager, Jackson. Jackson is doing a great job, but has no control over the situation. Jackson and as other team members have reached out in confidence to me about Bobby numerous times and we have weekly meetings with Jackson to discuss progress. But nothing happens in spite of me telling my partners that we need to do something firm and act responsibly.
We are a 10 million dollar company that the three of us have built from the ground up. 20 years into this, we’re all very close. Sarah and Lou are in a tough spot since it’s their siblings. I’ve put myself in their position and empathize greatly, but business is business.
I recognize this is a difficult situation, but think it’s greatly affecting our team right now and we all have to be on top of our game. I’ve been frank and honest with them both, but nothing I say sinks in.
Ultimately this comes down to whether the three of you, as partners, are willing to fire family members.
If Sarah absolutely will not budge on firing Bobby, no matter what he does, then you and Lou need to decide if you’re going to force the issue or not. Are you able to overrule her? Are you willing to overrule her? It sounds like that’s what it’s going to come down to.
Ideally, the three of you would sit down and hash out the reality of the situation. Is the business’s decision that siblings of partners are so protected that they’re not accountable and can’t be let go? Right now, that’s the way it’s working. Is the business — meaning you, Lou, and Sarah — willing to put real accountability measures in place for relatives, or are you going to keep them at all costs, no matter how they behave, no matter how much they demoralize the rest of your staff, and no matter who you lose as a result?
Those might be interesting questions to put to Sarah. (And you should put them this bluntly; don’t soften them.) But you and Lou need to answer those questions too, because right now you’re letting Sarah sacrifice your business needs to her desire to protect her brother. Are you willing to do what it will take to reverse that?
If Sarah’s top objective is to protect Bobby at all costs, does it make sense for you and Lou to remain in business with her?
If family members are untouchable, then you’re probably going to lose Jackson. You’ve asked him to manage someone without giving him any power to do that job — of course he’s frustrated! (If he wrote to me for advice, I’d tell him to get out because he can’t do the job he’s been hired to do.) You’ll probably lose other people over time too, because they’ll resent being held to standards that Bobby isn’t held to.
All this applies to Leah too. Even if she’s not as bad as Bobby, deciding to just let her go on being a problem for a few years until she retires will impact other people. And what if she doesn’t retire when you think she will? You could be signing on for five more years of this, or more, just to avoid dealing with the problem now.
Beyond the staffing issues, your business also is going to be less effective than it otherwise could be — because of the time and energy put into dealing with Bobby and Leah and the opportunity cost of not having someone better in their positions.
But ultimately you have a Sarah problem more than you have a Bobby problem. If Sarah is protecting Bobby and won’t let him be fired, none of you have any power to do anything about him … and Bobby sounds like he knows that.
When you say Sarah is at her wit’s end about how to handle Bobby, that’s because she’s not willing to use the most obvious option: removing him. When you ask someone to change over and over and they don’t do it, you need to accept they’re not going to do what you need, and proceed accordingly. In an employment relationship, that means you warn them that you will need to let them go if XYZ doesn’t happen, and then you follow through on that. You can’t just cajole and cajole forever.
The three of you have to decide — or maybe just you and Lou have to decide — which goal is more important: running an effective business or employing family members. Right now you’re functioning as if it’s the latter.
Loud cheers erupted inside a packed high school gymnasium after the Brandon School Division rejected a call to remove certain books dealing with sexuality and gender identity from libraries.
In parts of Canada, people are campaigning to make public and school libraries remove books they claim make sexually explicit material available to minors, or even contain child pornography.
WASHINGTON—According to the results of a new study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, the average American considers biting a stranger three times a day. “We found that nearly 90% of American adults experience the uncontrollable urge to sink their teeth into the leg, arm, or face of a person they do not…
The NAACP issued a travel advisory for Florida, urging people to avoid the state due to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion programs” in the state’s schools. What do you think?
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. Can I ask my employees for proof that she asked other employees to take her shift?
I am a shift manager at a fast food restaurant. I have a question that my manager seems to be avoiding. Today an employee (Emily) texted me that she won’t be able to come in. I told her okay, but to ask Xio, Luis, Sam, or Carlos if they’re able to come in. She said yes, she would text them. I ended up being the only cashier the entire afternoon.
When I got off of work I was texting Sam, who is also my friend, just ranting about the shift. Well, it turns out Emily never even reached out to see if she was able to cover her. So I’m not sure if Emily texted the other three employees. It also had me wondering if she was faking being sick or just called out to hang out with Luis, who is also her boyfriend, because he didn’t go to school today either.
I was wondering if I’m allowed to, or legally able to, ask Emily for screenshots confirming that she texted the other employees? If not, do you have any advice on how to handle this situation? I’ve had issues with her in the past such as her work performance and inability to follow instructions.
There’s no legal reason you couldn’t ask Emily for screenshots, but it would be a pretty crappy way to manage — and awfully demoralizing for her if she was actually sick and if she did indeed contact some of them. If you really want to dig into it, you’d be better off just asking the others … but even that seems like focusing on the wrong piece of the situation. If you have issues with Emily’s work or her reliability, address those head-on and tell her what you need to see change. If it doesn’t change, then decide if it still makes sense to employ her under those circumstances.
But most of the time when a manager finds themselves wanting to demand this kind of proof from an employee they already don’t trust, it’s a sign that you need to deal with whatever the issues are that have made you not trust them in the first place.
I’d also suggest rethinking the system of requiring employees to find their own coverage when they’re sick. I know it’s incredibly common in retail and food service and I’m undoubtedly fighting a losing battle on this one, but when someone is legitimately sick, it’s not reasonable to expect them to call around for coverage.
2. My boss interrupts me while I’m presenting
Someone who used to be my coworker became my boss. She has some micromanaging and impulse control issues. While she was my coworker, I was asked to give two different presentations to various groups. The first time, she interrupted my presentation to say, “Oooh, tell them about this,” and “You should tell them that!” I hadn’t got to that part of my speech yet, and it was really distracting to have someone coach me in public this way. I received a scholarship for the college forensics team, so I am not a stranger to public speaking. I had prepared a perfectly complete speech, she just couldn’t help herself from trying to “fix” it while I was in the middle of presenting it.
To avoid this happening the second time, I “practiced” my half of our joint talk in front of her so she would know that I was doing a competent job. (She did not feel the need to run her half of the talk by me.)
I have been asked to make two presentations at meetings she will be attending this summer. How can I ensure that I am able to give my speech uninterrupted by unhelpful comments from my boss?
The simplest solution won’t work. I can’t approach her about this, because she has a habit of not remembering things, and will have no memory of her rudeness, so bringing it up will be a waste of time. I do not want to “practice” my speech for her. My options as I see them are: (1) ask a coworker to sit next to her and stab her in the thigh with a pencil if she interrupts me this way or (2) publicly shame her by handing her the slide clicker so she can finish the presentation to her satisfaction. Do you have a more diplomatic solution?
Years ago, some other activists and I disrupted a speech by a presidential candidate (yelling, unfurling a banner, showering the audience with flyers, and generally causing a disruption). Unlike many of our other targets, he handled it perfectly. Rather than getting flustered or seeming irate, he called out, “Let’s hear it for free speech!” and praised us for exercising our right to protest. He looked great — in control and unflappable — and our protest fell flatter than it would have otherwise.
I’m not suggesting you use that approach with your boss, but I do think it’s valuable to consider “handling interruptions with aplomb” to be a sort of 301-level public speaking skill, and looking at it that way could help. That would mean that assuming that you’re going to get interrupted and preparing for it. If you’re expecting her to interrupt, you can be prepared with responses like “yes, I’ll get to that, keep listening” and “I agree, that part is exciting, give me a moment to get there” or whatever else makes sense for your specific context, and you probably won’t be as thrown off by the interruptions because you’ll have planned from the start that they’d be coming.
3. I hate my job — do I have to stick it out for a year?
I just joined a company in my field with an good reputation after being courted for the better part of a year. There were pink flags in the recruiting process, and some negative online reviews, but I chalked it all up to a few dissatisfied people. How could a company with a good overall reputation be that bad? Turns out, I am having the most negative experience. My burnout is such that I spend most days crying at some point or another, and I generally feel like I’m failing. I work on a team whose leader is unresponsive and provides no guidance or support, and that’s making my job so much worse. A lesson to everyone to do intense due diligence and not be swayed just by a big paycheck and a past good reputation.
Needless to say, I’m considering an exit strategy, but I’m concerned that I’m doing damage to my career. My last two job stays were 2.5 and 2 years, and before that 4.5 years. I left a job during the great resignation, and my most recent job I made the mistake of not bringing my concerns to my manager, which were ultimately fixable. I also made the mistake of announcing the new job on LinkedIn, because it seemed like the new norm to announce fast. Waiting to make sure a job was for me before putting on LinkedIn was a rule I held firm on in the past. I’m worried now that my reputation will be impacted by my leaving this job after such a short amount of time. It’s been only 6 weeks, but my concerns go beyond buyer’s remorse. I’m miserable every day. I’ve put feelers out at my old job, but otherwise, am I going to have to stay here for a year to make myself look okay reputationally?
What, no! You don’t need to stay at a job for a year to protect your reputation; you can leave whenever you want. Leaving quickly can be more of an issue when you have a pattern of short stays (because at some point you look like you’re always going to move on quickly) but that’s not your situation. Your last three jobs were perfectly solid stays, particularly with that 4.5-year stay in there.
It’s true that if you had, for example, only four jobs and you hadn’t stayed at any longer than two years, I’d assume you were likely to leave after two years again — and I’d take that into account if it were something that mattered for the job I was hiring for (it might or might not, depending). But that’s not your situation.
Plus, six weeks is so short that you can just remove the job from your resume and LinkedIn entirely. Go ahead and get out, so you can stop being miserable.
4. What if an employee who gave notice won’t leave?
I work in a nonprofit on a team of six people. For various reasons, three of the six have left or are leaving: one left a few weeks ago, one left this week, and the third, Jane, has more flexible departure plans but originally said she’d leave next month. Now Jane has indicated her willingness to “stay for a while and help out during the transition.”
My manager asked me if I was interested in pursuing the third position. I have a long tenure and a unique skill set, but on paper it is a lateral move. After doing some research and speaking with others in my field, I went to my manager earlier this week with a proposal to upgrade that third position and reconfigure the others to better align with current best practices.
Today she told me she’s worried if she posts this upgraded position while Jane is still here, Jane will change her mind and decide to stay. Is that a thing? Surely if Jane gave notice and we’re moving forward with hiring a replacement, she can’t actually just decide to not leave … right? And I’d think she certainly can’t decide to stay and just automatically get the upgrade?
I can hold my own in an interview process for this role, so it’s not about thinking it should just be handed to me. But the idea that the outgoing person has the power to just … not leave has my head spinning. In theory, how would a manager handle this situation?
Jane can change her mind and offer to stay —but offer is the key word, because she would need your employer to be on board with that decision. It’s not up to her once they’ve already began planning for her departure, but she can ask. They have the option of saying, “Thanks for the offer to stay, but we’ve already made plans based on your resignation, so let’s keep your last day as June 1.”
As for what your manager should do: She should first decide if she agrees with upgrading the position. If she does, then she should decide whether she’d rather offer Jane the upgraded role, or move you into it, or consider a wider range of candidates through a broader hiring process. If she doesn’t want to put Jane in that job, then she’d need to be prepared to tell her that if Jane asks about it. That could mean telling her that the revised position was created with you in mind, or created for a different skill set, or that she doesn’t think Jane is the right fit for the revised job, or that they’re far enough along in their plans for her departure that they no longer have a spot available for her. The fact that your manager isn’t approaching it that way is worrisome — is she so inexperienced that she doesn’t know she can? Or so weak that she’s not willing to? Or is it possible she’s not being fully straight with you about her hesitations about revamping the role in the way you proposed? My guess is inexperience/weakness, but assess based on what you know about her.
5. Do employers who say they welcome diverse applicants want me to declare my marginalized identities?
I have a question about that very common language that many employers have somewhere in the job description, something along the lines of: “We seek to hire, support, and promote people from all genders, ethnicities, and all levels of experience regardless of age. We particularly encourage applications from women, non-binary individuals, people of color, members of the LGBTQA+ community, and people with disabilities of any kind.”
I am a member of the LGBTQA+ community — I am a bisexual cis woman in a long-term committed relationship with another woman. Obviously, this is a pretty large part of my life and identity. But I struggle with interpreting what this statement means and what I should do about it. The issue as I see it is that some of these “preferred” qualities in the list above are obvious to the eye and likely to be noticed at some point in the application process just by meeting a candidate (i.e., someone’s skin color, if they use a mobility aid, or even if they list their pronouns as “they/them” on a resume or something like that). Others, of course, are not!
What is the appropriate way to disclose that you identify with one of these categories in an application, especially when your identity may not be directly relevant to the role? If I was applying to be a counselor at a queer youth center, I could talk about my personal experience as a queer person. But if I am applying to be a project manager at a consulting firm, then how or when would (or should) I say, “By the way, I am also a member of the LGBTQA+ community” if it’s not related to the work I would be doing?
I also feel like I have it way easier than some other folks – like, for example, the “A” in LGBTIA+ typically stands for “asexual” or “aromantic.” I can at least (sometimes) drop a comment about my partner and use her pronouns during small talk in an interview, but when is an asexual person supposed to drop THAT information in the application?! “Oh by the way, I’m single because I don’t experience sexual attraction towards other people” seems like a super weird thing to incorporate into an interview — but the company is SAYING that they especially want asexual people to apply! Do you have any advice on navigating this as an applicant?
You’re assuming that diversity statements like the one you quoted mean that the employer wants you to declare the marginalized groups you fall into — but that’s not typically the case. Generally, they’re trying to convey to prospective applicants that they’re committed to creating a workplace where a diverse group of employees can thrive. It’s information for you — not a signal that they want you to declare anything back (unless you feel it’s relevant to the work you’re applying to do, such as in your youth counselor example).
Also, a note: You also called these identities “preferred qualities” — but they’re not saying they will give preference to people who belong to those groups. In fact, it would be illegal for them to do that in the U.S., except with disabilities. They’re just trying to convey that they’re a welcoming workplace that strives toward equity and inclusion. (Whether or not they actually are more equitable than most is often a different question.)
The Onion asked Americans why real, red-blooded men have been relegated to the dregs of society and replaced by weak-willed, feminine cucks.
SAN DIEGO—Feeling heartbroken and betrayed by his failure of her spontaneous pop quiz, local woman Sadie Vidale was reportedly fighting with her boyfriend Neal Jones on Thursday after he admitted he did not even know her dad’s eye color. “We’ve been together nearly two years, and you don’t even know the color of his…
During a recent appearance on BBC's "The Adam Buxton Podcast," Tom Hanks turned the conversation towards AI and deep fake technology, which the actor will utilize in the upcoming Robert Zemeckis film based on Richard McGuire's graphic novel "Here." The company executing this effect will be Metaphysic, the same team that gave us twenty-something Mark Hamill in "The Book of Boba Fett."
The typical touchstones were hit upon in that conversation, like the legal and ethical question of what can be done with an actor's voice and image beyond the usual dictates of storytelling and whether or not that extends after the actor passes away. Hanks said, "I could be hit by a bus tomorrow and that's it, but performances can go on and on and on and on." He didn't say that as a good thing, by the way, but something that should be considered as the topic of AI and deep fake integration into storytelling is debated.
Part of making movies and ongoing series is an agreement between the audience and filmmakers to suspend some degree of disbelief. You know Mark Ruffalo doesn't really turn into The Hulk when you're watching a Marvel movie, just as you know that Tom Cruise has a hair and makeup team seeing to him just before he throws himself off of a cliff.
The really interesting question Hanks throws out has nothing to do with the many ways that greedy studios can abuse AI tech because we all know they will (and there's a WGA strike currently going on right now to try to curb some of that down the line). What Hanks asks is a more important question: Yes, you're going to see a ton more deep fake and AI-enhanced characters in movies, but will audiences care?
That's the key question because if the audience is repulsed by AI actors in movies and the inevitable first AI-generated screenplay then this whole concern goes away. The studios care about money. All they do is chase success and that success is measured in the cost of the product versus how much it rakes in.
Tom Hanks comes to the conclusion that most of the audience will not care and I believe he's (mostly) right. Right now, deep fake is a tool to help tell stories in ways that make geeks lose their minds. De-aged Luke Skywalker in "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett" is a perfect example. As an extension of visual effects, the audience embraces these tools.
Where things start getting fuzzy is when these same tools are used to bring the dead back to roles that made them famous. You ask "Ghostbusters" fans what they thought of Harold Ramis' Egon Spengler being brought back for "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" and you'll get wildly varied responses. Some feel it was ghoulish, some thought it was a touching tribute to an old friend that was supported by and benefited his surviving family.
As the technology continues to grow and get better, you're going to see a lot more of this happening. This is why the guilds need to get rock-solid agreements in place before someone like Harrison Ford, for instance, who signed away his likeness rights to George Lucas almost 50 years ago, can now just be plopped into any random "Star Wars" property in realistic ways, speaking with AI-assisted voice replication, without Ford himself being involved for a single second.
I don't believe the tech is there yet, but it's already impressive in its infant state now and will only get harder and harder to spot as it gets more sophisticated. Right now, it's predominantly being used as an extension of practical and digital makeup, usually to trigger our nostalgia centers as we see the Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalkers of our childhoods, and I don't think most people have an issue with that.
But, as Tom Hanks posits, what will we think when we see 30-year-old Tom Hanks headlining a movie a decade after he passes? Will that be allowed? Should it be allowed? Will audiences find it ghoulish or just love to see and hear their favorite actor again?
Because that is where this is all going. Ownership of actors is old as the studio system itself. Back in the day, studio bosses would have exclusive contracts with their actors much like sports franchises today. The actors would have little to no say in what they would be in or if they'd be traded with another studio for an actor deemed to be of equal value.
We're on the cusp of studios owning actors like IPs and this debate will get much uglier before the dust settles. At the end of the day, it will be up to audiences to accept or reject a new reality in which we get our favorite actors looking photorealistic and sounding just like they did when they were young -- but what they bring to the screen boils down to simple looks and sounds. For lack of a better term, there's something innately human, a soul, we respond to when we see Harrison Ford in top form that no computer can or ever will replicate.
Read this next: The Greatest Misfires In Movie History
The post Tom Hanks Wonders Whether Audiences Will Actually Care If Hollywood Uses A.I. Acting appeared first on /Film.
I’m not wild about our current pop culture obsession with nostalgia, in part because we seem be reaching a point where a dearth of original cinematic fare is going to leave the nostalgia miners of the future with nothing to work with.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I work at a large healthcare system and I am exploring new opportunities. We have a resignation policy that states that salaried employees (I fall into that category) are expected to give at least four weeks written notice of resignation. Additionally, it includes that personnel records will reflect if someone leaves before the “required” notice period.
In previous departures from organizations, I’ve given a two-weeks notice without too much issue. Any thoughts on giving only a two-week notice with my current employer even with the four-weeks notice expectation?
Yeah, some organizations are fond of announcing that they “expect” longer-than-standard notice periods from employees, without any real ability to require it.
Let’s talk about this in philosophical terms before we get to the practical ones.
Assuming that we’re talking about the U.S., where two weeks notice is the professional standard, and assuming that you don’t have an actual contract requiring longer notice (most U.S. employees don’t have contracts at all), most of the time this is B.S.:
1. First and foremost, two weeks is the professional convention. It’s what our employment system is built around, and generally employers make do with that just fine. (It’s worth noting that notice periods aren’t intended to give your employer time to hire and train your replacement — for most jobs, even four weeks wouldn’t be long enough for that. Rather, a notice period is just supposed to provide time for you to wrap up projects and transition them to whoever will be covering them in the interim.)
2. Expecting additional notice can put employees in difficult positions with their next jobs. It’s not generally too hard to set a start date for a new job four weeks off, but if you want to take any time off in between jobs, now you’re pushing the start date out further, and it can start to get harder to negotiate that.
3. When your employer has chosen not to give employees contracts (again, like most American employers) in order to preserve their ability to terminate your employment whenever they want, it’s pretty absurd to “expect” notice from you that they’re not willing to commit to themselves. (To be fair, if your employer always pays severance when they end someone’s employment — and when that severance always covers at least the same number of weeks of notice that they want from you — this argument holds less water.)
4. Moreover, most employers that ask for four weeks of notice or longer don’t bother to use that time well. A lot of people who give more than two weeks notice find that their employers don’t start on substantive transition work until close to the end of that period anyway.
So there’s the argument against it.
In practical terms, what happens if you give two weeks notice if your organization requires four? It depends on the organization. In some of them, absolutely nothing — sometimes that wording has been in the handbook forever but people give two weeks notice all the time and no one thinks anything of it … or they’d like more notice but are aware they won’t get it every time. In other cases, they’ll warn you that there’s a penalty for doing it — like that you won’t get your remaining accrued vacation time paid out (in states where they’re not legally required to pay it) or that you need to give the full four weeks in order to remain in good standing in their system, in case you apply again in the future. In theory it’s something that could come up in a future reference check too … but “we ask for four weeks of notice and she only gave two” isn’t especially damning.
And really, in every organization I’ve seen that asked for three or four weeks of notice, some people still resigned with less and just explained that their circumstances dictated that, and it goes fine. (It might not go fine if you’re dealing with a really problematic boss … but then the boss is more the problem than your notice period is.) In most cases, people are fine saying, “I know you prefer four weeks of notice, but unfortunately I couldn’t make the timing work out. But I’ll be here until (date two weeks away) and I’m committed to doing everything I can to help with a smooth transition.”
Now, there are some exceptions to this — jobs where longer notice isn’t just desired but is truly an industry norm beyond that one company, or where there’s obviously good reason for it (and healthcare, your field, is often one of those). If you’re in one of those and everyone you work with has always given the full four weeks — or someone didn’t and it caused great scandal — then you probably need to adhere to those norms.
But for most people, longer notice periods are more the employer’s hope than a true requirement* that has consequences for breaking it. The best thing you can do is to know your culture, know what people leaving before you have done, decide how much you care about what penalties (if any) your employer imposes on shorter notice periods, and then time your notice accordingly.
* To be clear, even two weeks notice isn’t a requirement, in the sense that there’s no legal way to enforce it. Leaving without notice can harm your reputation and affect future references — and I generally advise avoiding it except in unusual circumstances — but employers can’t make you stay if you decide to leave faster.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I’ve been ruminating about a situation that happened at a previous workplace, and I’m wondering if I behaved appropriately or if there’s anything else I should have done.
This job started as an internship, but I was eventually offered a permanent role at a higher salary. This company was in the retail industry and I worked at their corporate office. Every summer, they would put on a large event that employees from across the country were welcomed to. It’s an after-hours event at a bar near the corporate headquarters. My team was tasked with setup for the event. The day of the event, a few colleagues and I bounced back and forth between this bar and corporate headquarters — dropping off stuff, putting decorations up, etc. Eventually, some of my team went to a different location for lunch since the bar’s kitchen was closed. The people at this lunch were me, an intern who on her last day of work (Sally), a contractor (Joe), and a full-time employee who was technically the same seniority as me (Bob), but had been at the company for three years so he was very trusted. All of us were similar ages, between 21 and 25.
We celebrated and wished Sally well, provided her with our contact info if she ever needed a reference, etc. Since it was a celebratory lunch, Bob decided to drink. Besides, he didn’t drive and wouldn’t have to be at his desk that day. With his first drink, we shrugged it off. Second drink, we’re questioning Bob if this is a good idea. Third drink, we are actively trying to get him to stop drinking. By this point, Bob is clearly drunk. He’s being excessively loud and can’t follow the conversation. He argues that since drinking is encouraged at this after hours event, it’s not a huge deal if he does it before. At this point, Joe suggests we get our check and leave.
However, instead of taking us back to the bar to work on event setup, Joe says he has to go to the corporate office to pick up something related to a medical condition. (Joe told me he actually didn’t need it as urgently as he made it seem, he just thought Bob wouldn’t be helpful with setup and wanted him to talk to our boss.) Joe drives us all together in one vehicle. While Joe is driving, Bob gets upset and wants to go back to set up. Bob and Joe argue for a few seconds. Then, Bob grabs the wheel and nearly causes us to hit a tree. In response, Joe backhands Bob and tells him to immediately stop or he will get us killed. Bob says that he was just trying to get us back on track and that he was joking.
At this point, Sally and I (in the backseat) are extremely on edge, but Joe is able to get us to the corporate parking lot. Bob asks if we can go to the corner of the parking lot near a designated smoking area so he can smoke a cigarette before going inside. Joe agrees and parks near there. It’s worth noting that the entrance near the smoking area does not have cameras on it. Immediately after we all got out of the car, Bob punches Joe in the face for “slapping the shit out of him for no reason.” Joe gets mad and starts to yell at Bob.
At this moment, my priority was making sure Sally and I got back into the corporate headquarters safely. I heard the two men yelling and cursing one another, but I did not see if they continued to get physical.
Immediately upon going inside, I found our boss, who was conveniently talking to a member of the HR team at her cubicle. I told my boss, “Bob and Joe are fighting outside. They’re yelling and Bob punched Joe. Bob was drinking at lunch and I think he may have drank too much.” I left out the detail about Joe slapping Bob in the car because honestly, I was so shaken up that I forgot, although I’ll admit it may have been unconscious favoritism.
Apparently, by the time HR and security got outside, Bob was smoking a cigarette like he said he would. Joe was gone. He was in a bathroom cleaning himself up.
I’m not sure of everything that happened behind the scenes, but here’s what I do know:
1. Bob paid for everyone’s lunch with a corporate card with permission from our boss. However, we are not allowed to put alcoholic drinks on the corporate card. Bob got a separate check for his alcohol and paid with his own money. I didn’t realize this at the time, but this rule was put in place to prevent employees from drinking on the clock.
2. Bob was our boss’s golden child. He had a rough upbringing and had a kid in his teens. As a result, my boss tended to give him more leniency in general, since “none of us knew what it was like to be a parent that young.”
3. Joe was not well-liked by our boss for being “weird.” However, I was much closer with Joe (not BFFs by any means, but we had similar personal interests like video games).
Although Bob got in trouble for drinking on the clock, his punishment was much lighter than Joe’s. Apparently, because there weren’t any cameras to show the fight, there wasn’t any way to confirm what happened. However, I was never asked for further details on what happened after my initial warning to my boss and HR. Sally wasn’t questioned either, since it was her last day.
Apparently, the company decided that because Joe slapped Bob (in response to Bob trying to take the wheel of the car), they would end Joe’s contract early. They argued he started it. Joe was permitted to stay the rest of the week to wrap some stuff up, which he did. When Joe told me about this, I apologized and asked if he wanted me to go to bat for him. He said no, that he didn’t want me to risk my job, and that he was happy to get out of the hellhole.
Bob talked to me at the after-hours event and asked why I told our boss and HR about the situation. I didn’t want to get on Bob’s bad side, but felt he was wrong in this situation. “I was worried it would escalate to be unsafe,” is all I said. Apparently, Bob took this as me apologizing to him (he was semi-afraid of Joe because of the “weirdness” and the fact Joe is much bigger than him).
I know I’m in the right for informing my boss and HR, since the punch and yelling occurred on the company’s parking lot. But I’m wondering if I should have stood up for Joe better, tried to stop the two, record what was going on, called the cops, or what. What do you do when your coworkers get into a physical altercation in your company’s parking lot?
It’s ridiculous that Joe got fired while Bob only got a light punishment. Bob got drunk on the clock, almost caused an accident with four employees in the car, and deliberately punched someone in the face. Those are all serious things! Joe shouldn’t have slapped Bob — but it sounds like it was a heat-of-the-moment reaction to keep all of you from getting killed, whereas Bob’s punch was just revenge.
If anyone was getting fired, it should have been Bob.
If your management felt what Joe did warranted firing, I can’t imagine why Bob’s actions didn’t too. How is deliberately punching someone in the face somehow less serious than Joe’s slap, even if we agree that Joe’s slap was unacceptable? Your company was basically saying “violent revenge is fine.”
As for what you should have done … it’s not your job to break up a fight, and you could have gotten hurt or escalated things further if you tried. Recording it might have been helpful after the fact but isn’t the kind of thing most people would think about in the few seconds when something shocking like this is going down (and really, you’d assume your company would believe eyewitness accounts rather than requiring video). You went inside and got help; that was appropriate.
If you could go back in time and do things differently, ideally I think you would volunteered your eyewitness account to your boss and HR after the immediate situation was over. They should have spoken with you about what happened as part of their investigation, especially if Bob and Joe’s accounts differed, but you didn’t need to wait to be invited to do that — it would have been fine to initiate that conversation yourself and say, “I want to share with you what I saw that day.” But it sounds like Joe discouraged you from doing that, so I can understand why you didn’t.
The other thing I’d change if we could is the impression Bob got from you — that you were apologizing to him! — because ideally he’d hear from someone other than Joe how out of line he was. I don’t know if you chose not to do that out of fear of Bob or from more of a general discomfort with conflict. If it’s the latter, that might be the strongest lesson to take away from all this — that you want to resolve in the future to speak up when you think someone is so much in the wrong. (Well, and also that your company sucked).
Really, though, a drunk coworker punching another is so outside the realm of what we expect when we go to work that it’s understandable if you didn’t react perfectly in the moment (how many people would?) and you shouldn’t second-guess yourself too much now.
Hovertext:
Look the fact that there's a misspelling in the votey panel just makes the point more strong.
Houston’s mostly sunny, and near-summer-like weather will continue for awhile. Rain chances will be on the low side through the weekend, and we’re going to see a nice fetch of somewhat drier air that will keep high humidity at bay. With summer coming, you know that won’t last, and in late May we’ll take what we can get.
Skies will be mostly sunny today, with high temperatures in the upper 80s to 90 degrees. Winds will be light, from the northwest, at about 5 mph. Overnight low temperatures will drop to around 70 degrees in Houston, and perhaps a few degrees lower for inland areas.
This will be another mostly sunny day, with highs in the upper 80s. One difference from Tuesday is that a weak disturbance may produce some light afternoon showers. I’d say chances are about 30 percent for areas along and south of Interstate 10, with lesser chances further inland. Rain chances should end by the early evening hours. Lows on Wednesday night will again drop to around 70 degrees in Houston.
These will be a pair of mostly sunny days with highs generally in the upper 80s. One positive thing about these days is that the overall flow will generally be offshore, so the humidity will be a touch lower than normal. Don’t expect dry air, but it won’t be particularly sultry either.
Generally, this pattern of mostly sunny weather, slightly drier air, and highs in the upper 80s to 90 degrees should hold through most of the weekend. There’s perhaps a 10 or 20 percent chance of some showers by Monday as moisture levels start to rise. But overall this looks to be a fine holiday weekend for beach and water activities.
Temperatures look to remain more or less the same for most of next week, but we’re going to see increasing humidity levels, and along with that some clouds and at least some scattershot rain chances. It’s too early to say much else with any precision.
DARMSTADT, GERMANY—Finding a potential root cause for a problem that has greatly perplexed scientists, a new report published Tuesday in the Journal Of Applied Entomology has linked dwindling global insect populations to this one pale weird kid. “We have seen a massive die-off of insects, a phenomenon that could…
Chick-fil-A’s first-ever restaurant, located in a mall in Atlanta, GA, has closed after more than half a century in business. What do you think?
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of the year. Here are a few tips to help you move out of your dorms:
Log on to your housing portal and click the button marked “Express Checkout.” This will immediately cut the power to your room and disable your key.
Be sure that previous step is the last thing you do. We probably should have mentioned that.
Have your parents try and find the designated parking lots since our student volunteers made the signs out of the brown bathroom paper towels, and they all blew away.
After driving a few laps around the entire campus, find the only remaining spot next to a large grass field you’ll have to carry all your stuff across.
There are three rolling bins to be shared between the thousands of students leaving today. If you’re lucky enough to find one, your stuff will constantly fall out of the large holes in them. They also will absolutely not roll over grass.
Even though it is ninety-two degrees, please wear jeans and long-sleeve shirts since our grassy field is riddled with ticks.
For your safety, we’ve asked the local police to harass you about not having a “moving-out” parking pass while you make the ten trips back and forth from the dorm.
Be sure to gather all your recycling and garbage and then just toss it all into the same huge overflowing dumpster.
Endure the protests you’ll get from your university’s “Keep Our University Green Club” members.
Brush off nine months’ worth of dust from your dresser, desk, and window sill onto the floor.
Use one of the old pizza boxes under your bed to fan all the dust bunnies into one corner.
Take down your Minecraft poster and use it as a dustpan by scooping all the dust bunnies onto it and pouring them straight out your window.
If you don’t have a poster to scoop up the dust bunnies, use your debit card to flick them into the garbage can and pour that out a window.
Carefully peel off the “no stick” Command hooks on your wall that will take chunks of cinder block with them.
Ignore the angry looks you get from your roommate’s parents as you walk past them after pouring the dust bunnies on their heads.
In order to have your room inspected, try to find the head RA by walking three miles and guessing which quad they’re supposed to be in this year. It’ll probably be one of the rooms with the lights off for some reason and no markings on the closed door. You’ll definitely hear some loud music playing, though, which will only obscure the sound of you knocking on the door.
Don’t worry if you forget your mattress pad; it’ll be super easy to find another one that will fit our obscure “Twin-Long-Proprietary-Dimensional” size mattresses for next year.
Find out the head RA is still doing his study abroad in Ireland, and you’ll have to pay the $125 fee for not being able to turn in your key.
Pay your parking fine and dorm cleaning fee within twenty-four hours to receive your grades.
And, as long as you signed up for the dorm assignments that closed out five weeks ago, see you next year!
Zeno Vendler chose, perhaps understandably, chose to write an article about understanding something. That article is: “Understanding Misunderstanding,” Zeno Vendler, Language, Mind, and Art, 1994, pp. 9-21.
The publisher’s web site says, about it:
Keywords: Black Hole, Moral Virtue, Wishful Thinking, Plain View, Indirect Question
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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