Cowboy Who?

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "The Crush"

Where You Can Stream It: Hulu and Peacock

The Pitch: Two years before Alicia Silverstone would become teen queen royalty for her performance as Cher Horowitz in "Clueless," she made her feature film debut opposite Cary Elwes in the evocative "Lolita" thriller, "The Crush." 

The 1990s were a golden era for erotic thrillers, but few were willing to tackle the taboo nature of a sexually-forward teenage girl and a grown man who certainly knew better. Elwes plays a writer named Nick Eliot who moves to a new city for a magazine job, and rents the back house of Cliff (Kurtwood Smith) and Liv Forrester (Gwynyth Walsh), whose 14-year-old daughter, Adrian (Alicia Silverstone) becomes enamored with him. Nick stupidly kisses Adrian at a party, but upon realizing the error of his ways, attempts to set a boundary with her. Adrian, however, does not take kindly to his rejection, and her obsession only grows. Feeling rejected and angry that he's pursuing a woman his own age (Jennifer Rubin), Adrian begins to destroy Nick's property, ruin his friendships, and do whatever she can to try and get back in the good graces with the object of her affection.

Why It's Essential Viewing

Let's make one thing clear: Nick is in the wrong from the very beginning and the fact that "The Crush" tries to place the blame on a teenage girl is laughable and inexcusable. Writer and director Alan Shapiro wrote the film based on a situation from his own life, even going so far as to name the character "Darian," the real name of the woman he based the character off of. She successfully sued him for doing so, which is why the film was re-edited with the name Adrian. 

Truly bananas to think that just under 30 years ago, grown men were able to write films where they admit they were inappropriate with a 14-year-old and somehow make it out to be their fault. WILD! Adrian is clearly presented as mentally unstable, but this does not negate the fact that DUDE KISSED A FRESHMAN IN HIGH SCHOOL. Anyway.

With this acknowledgment out of the way, it's hard to imagine a feature film debut from a teen actor with the ferocity and star power of Alicia Silverstone. The character of Adrian is essentially an All-American teen girl's take on Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction," and Silverstone is an undeniable powerhouse. Nick tries to brush off Adrian's affections as nothing more than a schoolgirl crush, but Adrian shows her dangerous hand from the very beginning. 

Even without saying a word, Silverstone delivers a snarl or a raised eyebrow from behind a pair of sunglasses that screams, "I'm going to destroy you" with the volume of a bomb going off. The material is so intense and mature, and yet Silverstone wasn't even old enough to vote when she delivered one of the greatest villainous performances by a woman, ever.

A Cult Favorite Thriller

Due to its pulpy nature, "The Crush" was not received favorably by critics but has since developed a cult following. The film inspired a number of thriller and suspense movies throughout the 1990s and 2000s, but Silverstone's devilish performance remains unmatched. Adrian is presented as capital "E" Evil, and yet Silverstone is so undeniably charismatic you can't help but hope she tears Nick's life to pieces. 

In recent years, the subgenre of "Good For Her" horror films has grown in popularity, with characters like Jennifer Check in "Jennifer's Body," Grace in "Ready or Not," Dani in "Midsommar," and the titular "Pearl" turning into aspirational idols. Alicia Silverstone's Adrian deserves to be a member of this esteemed club, as she was already destroying the lives of men who deserved it decades ago. The "evil temptress" is a trope as old as cinema, but few have ever delivered quite like her.

We all know while watching "The Crush" that the story is exploitative and sleazy, but if you give yourself over to the absolute ridiculousness of the plot, you'll find yourself dazzled by sheer camp greatness. Elwes plays a pathetic worm with perfection as he tries to defend himself as something other than a dude who absolutely got seduced by a teenager, but is no match for the ruthlessness of Silverstone's unhinged femme fatale. "The Crush" is what happens when the trashy crime stories usually reserved for Lifetime movies (this is a compliment) are given a studio budget, and a cinematographer that frames Silverstone in as many close-ups as humanly possible, letting a facial acting artist craft a masterpiece.

Read this next: Horror Roles That Changed Actors Forever

The post The Daily Stream: Alicia Silverstone Delivered a Star-Turning Performance in the Sleazy, Erotic Thriller, The Crush appeared first on /Film.

Total contributions to the so-called "Border Transportation Funding" fall well short of the more than $12 million price tag to transport migrants to other states.

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

“An American teenager’s victory against the world champion has sent chess into an uproar… Allegations of cheating—including wild speculation involving vibrating anal beads—have rocked chess to its core.” – The Guardian

The Queen’s Gambit

Beth Harmon walks into a chess tournament. It is the 1960s. She sits down opposite her opponent.

BETH: I can’t help but notice that there’s a long power cord coming out of your pants.

OPPONENT: (shrugs) No reason.

X-Men

Before making his first move, Magneto hesitates, as though sensing something metal nearby.

MAGNETO: Is there anything you want to tell me, Charles?

PROFESSOR X: Absolutely nothing.

The Seventh Seal

DEATH: Hello, I am Death.

ANTONIUS BLOCK: Death! Let’s play chess.

DEATH: Excellent. You may live as long as the chess game continues. It will be a metaphor for a life well lived and the struggle of faith and despair.

ANTONIUS BLOCK: Great. Just, uh, hold on a second.

DEATH: Why?

ANTONIUS BLOCK: I have to do something first. Something that will help my game.

DEATH: What?

ANTONIUS BLOCK: Don’t worry about it.

The Wire

D’ANGELO: If the pawn makes it all the way down to the other dude’s side, he gets to be queen.

BODIE: So if I make it to the other end, I win.

D’ANGELO: If you catch the other dude’s king and trap it, then you win. Unless.

BODIE: Unless?

D’ANGELO: Unless the other dude is cheating. Using vibrating anal beads.

From Russia with Love

Grandmaster Kronsteen and Macadams sit playing chess. A waiter brings water to both players. Suddenly, Kronsteen’s chair begins to vibrate aggressively. Water spills everywhere.

KRONSTEEN: I must go. SPECTRE calls.

Gary Kasparov vs. Deep Blue

KASPAROV: Nf3 d5

DEEP BLUE: (moans audibly)

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What do you want? Student loans and you are a man or student loans paid off and you are the bad end of a horse?

Today's News:

Autumn. August. Both are basically the same, right? We hit 98 degrees officially in Houston yesterday, our hottest late September day since 2005. We have a shot at meeting or exceeding that level again today and maybe again on Monday before we can hopefully be done with this level of ridiculous heat.

Meanwhile, Invest 98L became Tropical Depression 9 in the Caribbean overnight. It should not impact Texas, but it will likely be an issue for Florida or the eastern Gulf. More on that below.

Today

More of the same. Highs likely just shy of 100 with sunshine. Watch for poor air quality (high ozone), in addition to high levels of <ah choo!> ragweed.

Weekend

Temperatures may crawl back a couple degrees this weekend, but that’s because humidity levels may increase just a bit. All else equal, it will continue to feel more like summer than fall: Mid-90s by day, mid-70s by night. A shower can’t be entirely ruled out, especially Sunday, but you’d be lucky if you saw one.

Monday

This may be the trickiest day of the forecast. We are expecting a cold front to descend on southeast Texas on Monday. Air masses tend to be at their hottest immediately before a front passes through. In addition, this front will come with little moisture and minimal rain chances. With humidity likely falling through the day on Monday, we will have a much easier time heating up, assuming sunshine. I would not be shocked to see some places blow past 98 or 99 degrees Monday afternoon.

Current forecast highs are hot, but I think there’s some chance we end up beating some of these numbers.

Tuesday & beyond

The rest of next week looks nice by September standards in Houston. We should see low humidity, allowing nighttime lows to drop into the mid or lower 60s away from the Gulf and bays. Inland locations even have a shot at 50s!

Daytimes will remain fairly hot, but not nearly to the levels we’ve seen lately and with much more tolerable humidity. In other words, the shade and a breeze should offer to provide sweet relief from heat. Look for upper-80s to 90 or so each day. Rain chances seem close to zero all of next week.

Tropics

So now we’ll discuss the tropics. Again, we do not expect that Tropical Depression 9 will impact Houston or Texas at all. So what will it do?

This morning, TD9 is located just off the coast of Venezuela. It finally pushed away from land and more out into the water yesterday, which has allowed it to organize.

Granted, it doesn’t look great on the satellite image above. There is still a lot of wind shear in the wake of Hurricane Fiona, which is impacting TD9’s growth. It will initially be slow. As TD9 works west, it should emerge from that shear into a more stable environment, and that’s when we may see it intensify more rapidly.

TD9 is expected to work just north of west over the next couple days, but it will eventually likely feel the impacts of our cold front and resultant trough over the Eastern U.S. by early next week. This will allow the storm to turn northwest and eventually north and probably northeast as well in time. Thus, the track forecast for Nine shows it threatening Florida in time.

Given the geography of Florida and the Caribbean and the turn expected from TD9, there are many, many questions on intensity and impacts. If the turn happens earlier than forecast, that could lead to more land interaction with Jamaica and Cuba’s eastern mountains, which could keep the system a bit disheveled and also allow it to track east of Florida. If the turn is slower, this could give TD9 more time over the Caribbean rocket fuel (mostly normal for this time of year), allow it to strengthen more, and produce less hostile land interaction. Thus it would be a bigger threat to the Florida Peninsula. If the turn is much slower than forecast, then odds increase for the Panhandle or Mississippi/Alabama coasts. All options are reasonable right now, but consensus favors something near the current NHC track.

Given the general interest in this system, as well as the potential impacts to the planned Artemis I launch in Florida next week, Eric and I will keep you updated on this storm through the weekend.

One last note. We’re obviously watching TD9 closely, but Fiona is still out there, and it is about to absolutely hammer Atlantic Canada. Much of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland are under hurricane warnings. Tropical storm conditions are even expected as far north as Labrador. This will likely be a generational storm for Nova Scotia. This area often experiences large storms, but this will be at another level and perhaps worse than Juan in 2003.

Thoughts with our Canadian friends through a pretty trying event.

In an 11-3 vote, workers at the Starbucks on South Shepherd near West Alabama voted to form a union on Thursday.

Good afternoon, all. I just wanted to jump in with an update because we’re continuing to receive a lot of questions about the tropical system that’s forming in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. I’ll put the bottom line right up top: While there remains a lot of uncertainty about this tropical system and its eventual fate, in very few of those circumstances does the storm wind up directly impacting Texas. So while we need to be watchful, we certainly should not be worried. After all, we’re planning a Fall Day celebration on Sunday, October 2, and we feel good about that despite this tropical mischief.

As of this afternoon, despite being afflicted by wind shear in the wake of Hurricane Fiona, the area of investigation, or Invest 98L, is moving toward more favorable conditions. A tropical depression or storm is likely to form in the next day or two, and then by late Sunday or Monday it should reach the northern or northwestern Caribbean Sea. All well and good until then, but after that is when the uncertainty kicks in. This uncertainty should diminish during the next couple of days, with the formation of a center, and hurricane hunter data. So bear with us for a little while until the forecast comes into better focus.

Three scenarios

With that said we are starting to seem some trends and I think there are three major outcomes. The most likely scenario is that Invest 98L gets pulled to the north, into the eastern Gulf of Mexico or across the Florida peninsula during the Tuesday or Wednesday time frame of next week. It could be a fairly strong hurricane at this point, or interactions with Cuba could hamper its organization. The European model is fully on board with this idea:

If the storm misses this opportunity to turn northward, into a trough along the US East Coast, it could continue tracking northwest into the central Gulf of Mexico. At that point it probably would move northward, toward the coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, or the Florida Panhandle. This is probably the second-most likely scenario.

Finally, a third possibility is that the system remains fairly weak and continues tracking west, into the Yucatan Peninsula, across the Bay of Campeche, and into the Mexico mainland. In this scenario the storm would probably remain south of Texas.

There are some freak scenarios in which Invest 98L could find its way to Texas as a hurricane, but at this point they are unlikely, and again, probably not worth losing too much sleep about. Regardless, we’re going to remain on top of the situation and Matt will have a comprehensive update on 98L, and our forthcoming front, on Friday morning. I’m starting to get excited about the dry air on the way to Houston.

New Cyanide and Happiness Comic

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The most realistic part here is me forgetting to also give the children sweaters.

Today's News:

A reckoning has come for cities and farms in the desert Southwest that were built to rely on the Colorado River.

(Image credit: Kirk Siegler/NPR)

This post, what does self-care look like at work? , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I’ve been working through some significant program transitions and expansion as a manager at a basic needs nonprofit. The need, as you certainly know, continues to grow, and we’re feeling it exponentially. My boss asked me what my strategies for caring for myself at work were, and I realized that I don’t even really know what that entails!

I understand how to care for myself in my personal life, etc., but that kind of thing in a work setting doesn’t feel intuitive. I’m wondering if you might be able to talk more about what self-care and recuperation can look like in the office.

The big ones are boundaries and time off. It’s stuff like:

•  Disconnecting from work on a regular basis, and not checking email and messages once you leave for the night or over the weekend. If you have a job that requires you to do some of that, you should be very disciplined about not doing it whenever you don’t absolutely have to. When you have a job that requires long hours, it can be easy to get into the habit of checking/responding to email even when you don’t need to … but it’s hugely important to give yourself large chunks of time when you’re not thinking about work, even if you think you don’t mind. You should mind, because over time that cumulative “always on” feeling will take a toll.

•  Taking real time off, preferably in big blocks like a full week or a full two weeks and not just a day here and a day there. For a lot of people, it takes a few days to fully disconnect mentally, and then your vacation is over as soon as you’ve managed to do that. And make sure it’s clear you shouldn’t be contacted while you’re away.

•  When you have a full workload, being assertive about saying no to projects unless something else comes off your plate or gets pushed back.

•  Carving out time at work where you can just think. If every minute of your work day is allocated to specific tasks, you’re much less likely to come up with new ideas and better approaches, more likely to miss things like “project X isn’t paying the same same dividends it used to,” and more likely to feel drained and exhausted all the time. Ensure your weeks (or at least your months) contain some space to just think.

Beyond that, the answer depends on what you personally find valuable. It might be stuff like making time to take a walk outside every day, or ensuring you eat a healthy lunch away from your computer, or being more deliberate about recognizing your own progress and accomplishments. But very few of those smaller tactics will be enough if you don’t tackle the big ones above.

Peering into the freshwater springs of San Marcos through a glass-bottom boat is a little like peering back into Texas history. Groundwater bubbles and gushes through ancient limestone to refill the clear, dark turquoise waters of Spring Lake. On the lakebed you can still faintly see the once-tumultuous geologic fault line, where the Hill Country meets the Blackland Prairie, that created these springs millions of years ago.

Archeologists think this area is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in North America, and the local Indigenous Miazan/Garza band say their Coahuiltecan ancestors traveled from the underworld into this one using the San Marcos springs as a portal.

Since then, the water has been reshaped by people. Edward Burleson, who led the Texas Revolution’s final charge against the Mexican army in 1836, once owned the springs and dammed them to create today’s calm Spring Lake. In 1929, a hotel opened at the lake’s edge, and from the 1950s through the 1980s, the lake hosted Aquarena Springs—a theme park with performers like Ralph the Swimming Pig (actually dozens of interchangeably adorable piglets), Glurpo the (terrifying) mer-clown, and “aquamaids” who staged romantic tableaus entirely underwater.

These days, the stately old hotel is the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, a part of Texas State University. While photos of piglets and aquamaids still adorn the walls, the center serves the higher purposes of research and education.

Accordingly, Aquarena Springs’ leftover glass-bottom boats are now piloted by eco-minded students from the university. Seven days a week, the young captains ferry tourists and grade-schoolers over the lake’s smooth surface. Underneath, passengers can see a miniature forest where green ribbons of arrowhead and hygrophila plants stretch toward the sunlight, and hornwort and watermilfoil wave their fluffy fronds. The children “ooh” and “aah” at turtles cruising by, flashing bright yellow stripes against the murky vegetation. The adults remark on the subtle beauty of silvery fish undulating their iridescent tails.

Eight of the species here are endangered, including wild rice, two types of fish (the fountain darter and the San Marcos gambusia), two beetles, and the Texas blind salamander—a creature resembling a millenial-pink axolotl with a featureless face evolved for life in the aquifer’s dark caves.

While these species are holding on for now, all is not well in their delicate ecosystem. The surrounding Edwards Aquifer Authority declared a stage 3 drought in June, and the flow of groundwater through the San Marcos springs has slowed. Parts of Texas are naturally prone to drought, but the added pressures of development and climate change are exacerbating the water shortage.

“Mother Nature provides a rollercoaster ride for spring flows already,” said Robert Mace, executive director of the Meadows Center. And now, Central Texas is at the “leading edge” of the state’s precipitous growth, which relies on pumping more and more groundwater.

People are flocking to new subdivisions in the Hill Country, drawn by the same natural resources and beauty that have attracted humans for millennia. In the last 20 years alone, the region’s population swelled by about 50 percent to nearly 4 million people, many in unincorporated areas beyond the reach of municipal water utilities.

2022 is shaping up to be as dry or drier than the disastrous drought of 2011, which Mace described as an “eye opener” that led to new funding for regional water planning projects. That crisis did not, however, open state leaders’ eyes to the ominous realities of climate change. A warming planet tends to make water cycles more extreme, with longer droughts punctuated by short periods of more intense rainfall. 

Mace wants the Meadows Center to be a place to look forward in time, not just backward. His staff is working on a tool to model climate change at the local level. The effort, meant to help regional planners thread the needle between accommodating population growth and keeping enough water flowing to nourish natural ecosystems, recently got a cash infusion of $2 million in federal funding thanks to Representative Lloyd Doggett, who told the Observer in an email: “There is not nearly enough attention or action on the climate crisis—and certainly not enough specifically on water scarcity.”

In some ways, the fate of the springs will be the fate of the humans who’ve settled around them. More than a million people in Central Texas, including the residents of San Antonio, get drinking water from the Edwards Aquifer—the same fountainhead that feeds the San Marcos springs, fills Spring Lake, and sustains the creatures who live here. Of the eight resident endangered species, none are found anywhere else on the planet, and it is thanks to local efforts to preserve them that more water flows through the springs and river today than otherwise would. Which is to say: In continuing to protect Texas wild rice, the blind salamander, and their fellow plants and critters, we protect ourselves. 

The post Time Traveling in a Glass-Bottomed Boat appeared first on The Texas Observer.

McDonaldland Specification Manual
McDonald’s Corporation
1975

Submitter: There are many wonderful gems in our vertical file collection that really make no sense on why we collected them. This is one of them. It’s a 1975 booklet on the McDonalds characters. I love this quote “Ronald McDonald is a CLOWN. The fact that he is a corporate spokesman should not overshadow his ‘clownness.’ He is all the good things that come to mind when thinking of clowns.” I see that this booklet has been digitized in a few places and they will allow us to let this one go.

Holly: Nostalgia at its finest! I had a birthday party at McDonalds when I was about eight. I was a cool kid for that one day. Best. Day. Ever. But yeah – why is this still in a library collection? And I’m genuinely curious – who still has a vertical file? We do, but it’s mostly local history.

The post McDonaldland appeared first on Awful Library Books.

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I had this joke idea about how Kantianism is nihilism because no maxims actually universalize, but apparently that's a centuries-old joke in philosophy.

Today's News:

My colleague Dave Plummer checked with Kai, my source for the story of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation crashing certain old laptops. and tried to reproduce the problem. Kai pointed out privately to Dave and me that Dave used a full-sized hard drive for his test, but the laptops that experienced problems were using small form factor hard drives. This is significant because the extra mass not only changes the natural resonant frequency, but it also acts as a damper.

The traditional solution for mitigating resonant frequency problems is to change the mass of the device, say, by adding some ballast mass, thereby dampening the effect as well as shifting the frequency, hopefully to somewhere less likely to be encountered. However, since these were small form factor laptop hard drives, adding mass was not an attractive solution, because one of the main features of these hard drives was their small size and weight. Adding ballast would make them bigger (no longer fitting in the laptop chassis) and heavier (not what you want in a laptop).

Even if another solution could be found, say, by securing the drive in a different way to the chassis, that would require changes to the manufacturing process, and those changes tend to be very expensive. You have to design a new chassis and go through a new round of testing: Maybe the new chassis design mitigates the resonant frequency problem, but it now fails a vibration test, or the shift in weight causes it to fail balance tests, or moving components around causes the electronics to exceed safety limits,¹ or radio frequency interference now leaks in a way that causes it to exceed government regulations.

It is much less expensive to fix the problem in software.

Note that the software approach is a mitigation, not a solution. The hard drive could still crash if some nearby system were playing Rhythm Nation loud enough. But at least it prevented the system from crashing itself.

Adam Neely undertook a deeper analysis of the problem, both from a musical standpoint and a physics standpoint. What is musically unique about Rhythm Nation that singles it out as the source of the troublesome frequency? And what is physically significant about that frequency?

I encourage you to go check it out. If you’re impatient, there are spoilers after the bonus chatter.

Bonus chatter: Note that the disruption from the natural resonant frequency does not crash the hard drive, as a number of outlets erroneously reported. It merely disrupts the hard drive’s proper operation long enough for it to result in the operating system crashing. For example, if it causes a kernel page-in I/O operation to fail, that would be considered a fatal system error. The damage is probably not permanent. The sustained disruption was enough to cause a critical I/O to fail, but removing the audio source removes the disruption, and the drive recovers normal operation.

Bonus bonus chatter: Yes, I know which “major computer manufacturer” it is, and no, I’m not telling. This is consistent with longstanding blog policy that companies are not identified in stories, because the point of the story to teach something, not to call out companies for derision.

Bonus bonus bonus chatter: Other mysteries:

• The Roman Mars Mazda Virus
• To get this computer to boot, you have to whack it in just the right place.
• To get this computer to boot, you have to tilt it at just the right angle.
• To avoid problems, don’t move the mouse back and forth quickly.
• The bug that reproduces only on one specific unit, and only when the test runs overnight, and only when it was on one specific table.

Spoilers

The Rhythm Nation music video is performed at a nonstandard tuning. Instead of using the standard A=440, it uses A=450, which shifts its notes into less-commonly-used frequencies.

Neely also found a paper that studied the natural resonant frequency of 2.5 inch laptop hard drives and matched it up with the frequency of a low E in the nonstandard tuning used by Rhythm Nation.

¹ An example of this was demonstrated live on stage at the //build 2011 conference: The rearranged components put the touch sensor too close to an HDMI processor chip that overheated under extended usage, which in turn caused the touch sensor to flip out and then eventually destroy the system.

The post Janet Jackson had the power to crash laptop computers, follow-up appeared first on The Old New Thing.

This post, boss makes us discuss all our mistakes in a group, elf work on a resume, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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

1. My boss makes us discuss all our mistakes in a group

I hate my boss. She has this policy that she believes works where she insists on discussing your mistakes on a video call with our team of nine. No member of our team finds this effective. It’s embarrassing and makes everyone terrified of making mistakes. Nobody is willing to tell her that because we know she will not take it well.

She is also incapable of admitting when she makes mistakes. Instead, the mistakes will somehow be someone else’s fault. When it is apparent nobody else is at fault but her, she just moves on with the conversation. There will never be an apology. I have reported my discomfort with this behavior to a trusted supervisor before and was told that’s just her management style and that she does it because she cares.

I dread going to work every day. I am terrified of making mistakes, to the point I have anxiety about it, and any time I do make a mistake it keeps me awake at night. The pay isn’t really worth what this does to me, but I can’t bring myself to leave. The company has good benefits, like really really good. I like most of my coworkers. They’re very understanding when I have to miss work for health concerns. For the most part, I like the work I do here. Most importantly, it took me a long time to find this job. Going back into the job market scares me. I don’t know if my mental health can handle working here, but I don’t know if it can handle leaving either. Do you have any advice?

Job search.

Your boss is a jerk. Some people can work for jerks and be relatively unaffected, but lots of people can’t — and this particular boss is clearly terrible for your mental health (and understandably so). No job is worth your health and peace of mind.

You said it took you a long time to find this job, but (a) the market is pretty good right now, so it might be different than the last time you searched, and (b) even if it takes you a year, that means that in a year you’ll be free of this job, rather than still working there. Please look around and see what your options are!

To be clear, if you loved the work, the benefits, the pay, and the coworkers and the boss was a jerk but that wasn’t eating you up inside, I’d give you different advice. In that situation, I’d say that you should decide if dealing with your boss was a price you were willing to pay for the rest of the package. Sometimes, for some people, it will be. But that’s not your situation.

2. Elf work on a resume

My son is applying for a new job. Same field, better employer.

He’s very young and his work history includes such things as field worker on a hay farm, pizza delivery, and dishwasher. One of his jobs was a seasonal turn as an elf at a large store. Not quite like Buddy the Elf, but he did take pictures, manage the crowd, etc. in Santa’s wonderland. (They liked him so much they brought him back as the Easter Bunny’s assistant.)

I kind of like leaving that on there the way he listed it — “Elf, (employer) (dates)” — because it’s memorable and a little bit amusing. It has absolutely nothing to do with the kind of job for which he is applying, but without that job his entire work history looks like one year at his current employer.

Should he list it at all? My husband wants to change it to “photographer’s assistant,” which I think is boring.

Your son should keep the elf job, and definitely shouldn’t blandify it by changing the title the way your husband proposed! It’s interesting and he will almost definitely get questions about it interviews. It’s also something that will speak to his skills working with the public, which can be really valuable, particularly when he’s early in his career and doesn’t have a lot of other experience to talk about.

3. I’m annoyed that my team changed our lunch plans without telling me

On a recent work trip to a very warm location, my colleagues and I decided to go to lunch in the hotel immediately after arriving. I quickly showered and went to my colleagues, who then proceeded to leave the building. I asked what was going on, as this was not what was planned, and was informed that they were looking for a nearby restaurant instead.

I thought that was a great idea! I was rather miffed, though, that I wasn’t informed or even asked if that was alright with me, which would have been trivial to accomplish, and I was completely unprepared for a trip outside in the tropical heat. If I had been informed, I would have quickly packed my sunglasses, sunscreen, and hat (I do sunburn very quickly), worn actually useful shoes, and probably re-used an old shirt instead of using up one of my fresh ones (one of my teammates did run out of shirts later on).

When I mentioned this to my team, everybody replied that this was pretty regular and I should just go along with it. How right am I to be annoyed by this?

You do sound like you’re overreacting / being overly rigid. You’re right that it would have been more convenient if they’d given you a heads-up, but it’s not uncommon for a lunch destination to change on the fly in situations like this, and you generally just roll with it unless there’s a more compelling reason why you can’t (like if they’d decided to go to a restaurant where you couldn’t eat anything on the menu).

I’d put this in the category of “mildly annoying / reasonable to wish you’d had a heads-up” but not anything worth dwelling on after the fact.

4. Should I take my side business off my resume?

Recently I sent my resume to a consulting service that does resume reviews. I work full-time at a big bank, and I’m a photographer on the side. I have been a primarily wedding photographer for over 10 years, but I’ve still held a full-time job. His response to including this on my resume was: “There is a bias against business owners, especially those who currently have a side gig. 1) always flight risk 2) distraction risk 3) how well will you take direction 4) if so good at what you do, why do you need to find a job. Consider moving it to an Additional Experience section to keep the focus on the employer-based experience (or dropping it completely if it doesn’t matter for the role you are applying to).”

This kind of felt like getting kicked in the face by a giraffe, but is he right? Should I remove it? (It’s currently the third job down in my Work Experience section.) Does my experience not matter?

If it’s totally unrelated to the kinds of jobs you’re applying for, I would indeed take it off or move it to an Other Experience section — although mostly for different reasons than the recruiter gave you.

It’s not that the experience doesn’t matter, but a resume isn’t supposed to be a comprehensive accounting of everything you’ve ever done; it’s a marketing document for you as a candidate. Done well, it should be designed to show how you’d be a match for the specific job you’re applying for. If you use prime real estate for a job that’s not relevant to the work you’re applying for, you’re wasting valuable space on something that won’t strengthen you as a candidate. Most hiring managers skim resumes very quickly, and you want their eyes to fall on the stuff that most screams “great candidate for this job.” If wedding photography isn’t that, it doesn’t make sense to mention it more than as a side project, if at all.

The recruiter is right to say that some employers will worry about the distraction risk if you’re currently running another business, and that’s more of a concern if you give the job equal billing with your full-time work; it will be less of one if you move it to a different section like he suggested. (I do find the rest of his concerns overblown, though.)

5. Paying back a PTO advance when you leave

I’m an exempt employee who has apparently already used one more vacation days than I have accrued as of my resignation date. Do I really have to pay it back? We get paid on the first of every month so I will literally have to give money to my company since I have already received my final paycheck. I have “unlimited” sick days, of which I have used none in the past couple years, and it just feels so petty for them to ask me to pay them back for that one additional day.

Yes, when you leave, companies are allowed to require you to pay back any PTO they advanced to you before you had accrued it. It’s considered akin to a loan or a cash advance. (I can see why it feels petty … but on the other hand, some companies won’t advance employees any leave in order to ensure they won’t run into this, which also annoys people.)

Mum. Dad.

Let me begin by saying I’m a fan. You are truly two of the finest method actors of your dog generation. Your commitment to playing Ground Is Lava? Divine. Your work in “Dance Mode”? Awe-inspiring. Your miming of heavy objects in “Featherwand”? Could bring Daniel Day-Lewis to tears.

But, please. I’m begging you. For the love of all that is good in this world (including the last few shreds of my sanity), please stop.

You see, my kids used to think I was a halfway decent parent. Sure, I might spend too much time on the internet. And I routinely recycle their crafts when they aren’t looking. But I was doing okay until you two came along with your delightful Australian accents and seemingly endless stores of free time and patience.

Now, I’m expected to dance on command—in public—whenever my child yells, “DANCE MODE!” Do you know the shame of being forced to dance to “Party in the USA” in the maxi pad aisle of a Kroger? Of course not. You lick your furry nether regions when the camera isn’t rolling. You don’t know shame.

As if the dancing weren’t enough, when my kids yell, “HEAVY!” I’m supposed to pantomime that whatever I’m holding is unbearably heavy. That works fine with a pen. It’s even manageable with a cup of hot coffee. When holding your best friend’s newborn? Well, you can only imagine the choices I’ve had to make.

Because, Mum and Dad (do you prefer Bandit and Chilli? We are all adults here), you’ve made opting out not an option. You’re never too busy to play. Never say no to an increasingly ridiculous game. In your seven-minute bursts of animated Masterpiece Theater, you’re almost always ever-patient, entirely present parents.

That works fine when your children are scripted into being semi-reasonable creatures. Call me when you’ve lived with a drunk-on-power toddler for nearly three pandemic years (roughly 2.7 billion cartoon-dog years).

If I say no, then I’m a monster—thanks to you. Does everyone in your country have the energy of a Tasmanian devil that just ate an entire sleeve of Tim Tams? I’ve seen The Wiggles in concert. You people are like human energy drinks.

So, I’m begging you on behalf of a beleaguered nation of exhausted parents. Stop.

Why not take a page from Daniel Tiger’s parents’ book? Sure, they’re basically perfect parents as well (and it must take a lot of time to rehearse all those songs), but they hardly play anything more than a simple game of blocks with Daniel. You think Daniel’s dad comes home from a long day at the clock shop and is willing to let Daniel boss him around with a magic xylophone? No way. Those parent set boundaries. Sure, your kids are a little more interesting than Daniel, but at least the Tigers get to put their paws up every once and a while.

So on behalf of tired parents everywhere: just stop. Or, to put it in terms you will understand, today’s episode of Bluey is called “Bugger Off.”

Exhaustedly,
Kate

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YIMBYism for migrant policy.

I’ll let you in on a dirty secret about journalism: Most of what we write — good, bad, or otherwise — is as evanescent as yesterday’s rain. Readers may get most of their news in digital form rather than paper these days, but the old adage still holds true: Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish wrap.

Every once in a while, though, writers on deadline produce something of lasting value, an insight that illuminates not just today, but the past and the future both, something that helps explain why we are where we are.

Sam Bowman, John Myers, and Ben Southwood’s article “The housing theory of everything,” published a year ago in Works in Progress, is just such a key. “Try listing every problem the Western world has at the moment,” they wrote. From Covid to slow economic growth to climate change to falling fertility, they all had one root cause in common: “A shortage of housing: too few homes being built where people want to live.”

Their argument was as simple as it was true: So long as housing supply remains constrained in the most economically productive cities in the US, so would the country’s potential. Whatever else the US wanted to do — solve climate change, reduce economic inequality, make it easier for people to have as many children as they wanted — fixing the long-running housing problem had to come first. Everything else was just hot air.

Once you begin to understand the housing theory of everything, you start to see it everywhere. Including on a small, well-heeled island off the coast of Massachusetts called Martha’s Vineyard where last week scores of migrants were shipped via jet by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a stunt as inhumane as it was, sadly, likely politically effective for them with many Republican voters.

Passion vs. policy

Make no mistake, what DeSantis and other Republican governors like Greg Abbott of Texas are doing as they send thousands of migrants to Democratic-led cities far from the border — like some Twitter trolling done in real life, with real people — is almost entirely for their own political glory. DeSantis received a standing ovation from GOP voters at a political event in Kansas on Sunday.

If DeSantis thought that the mostly Democratic citizens of Martha’s Vineyard would respond to his stunt by treating the migrants who arrived on their island the way he would, the governor was mistaken. The migrants, who were fleeing Venezuela, received a warm welcome from locals before they were voluntarily sent onward to a military base for humanitarian support.

As the headline of a Jonathan Chait piece in New York magazine put it, “DeSantis tries to prove liberals hate immigrants as much as he does, fails.”

But if it’s clear that the people of Martha’s Vineyard or New York City or Washington, DC, don’t hate immigrants and will mobilize to welcome human beings who are innocent pawns in a political game, that doesn’t mean that they will put their weight behind the policies that are really needed to support the masses of migrants who want to come to the US for a better life.

That’s because perhaps the No. 1 thing that migrants need — and for that matter, lots of American citizens as well — is more housing in the cities that have jobs. And whatever the leaders of those mostly deep blue cities may say when DeSantis or Abbott drops a busload or planeload of migrants on their doorstep, they seem unwilling to deliver it — and too many of their constituents apparently feel the same.

Refugees are welcome here — they’ll just have nowhere to live

In Martha’s Vineyard, the affordable housing problem is so acute that the island’s only emergency-room-equipped hospital has been operating with a quarter of its staff jobs unfilled, according to the Washington Post. When the hospital’s CEO offered 19 jobs to health care workers in January, every one of them was turned down, in large part because even doctors couldn’t afford to find a year-round place to live.

Or take New York City, which I call home and where you can often see “Refugees Are Welcome” signs in the windows of nice brownstones, side by side with fliers decrying a new development. Between 2000 and 2020, New York expanded by more than 800,000 residents, yet fewer than 450,000 new apartment units and single-family homes were built during that time. Not surprisingly, in May the median rent in Manhattan reached a record $4,000 — though if you’re willing to make do in Brooklyn, you could get by with $3,250.

And San Francisco? Well, San Francisco’s leaders seem to treat housing construction like golf, where the idea is to get the lowest score possible; community opposition and restrictive regulations mean that the city is on track to build just 3,000 housing units this year, with an average building cost that is the highest in the world per square foot. (Though somehow, San Francisco still approved more new housing units per 1,000 residents between 2010 and 2019 than New York.)

Even worse than the cities are many of the suburbs that surround them. In suburban counties from Nassau and Westchester outside New York to the commuter towns surrounding Boston, even fewer housing units were added per 1,000 residents in the previous decade than in New York City itself. That in turn pushes low-income residents farther and farther away from jobs, putting further weight on economic growth.

As “The housing theory of everything” put it, even as everything from TVs to cars to refrigerators have become cheaper to buy on an hours-worked basis over the past 50 years, housing in major cities has become much, much more expensive. As a result, people who weren’t lucky or privileged enough to buy at the right moment are forced to spend more and more of their household budget if they want to live in a New York or a Boston or a San Francisco.

Living up to the rhetoric

It’s true that the US does face a border crisis. An average of 8,500 migrants and asylum-seekers are intersecting with officials each day, what Axios termed a “strikingly high number,” and cities along the border are struggling to deal with the flow.

It’s also true that people will keep coming. Between economic factors, the pressure of climate change, and the drive for safety, the flow of migrants from the south is only likely to increase in the years and decades ahead.

Republican officials have their own solution to that challenge: attempt to stop the flow at the border by the harshest methods possible, and make political hay while doing so. If progressives want to live up to their rhetoric, they need to support the policies that will build the housing supply needed to absorb the flow of newcomers — and in doing so, help reduce the extreme costs of living that hamper longtime residents as well.

Otherwise, refugees and migrants may be welcomed — but they won’t be welcome to stay.

A version of this story was initially published in the Future Perfect newsletter. Sign up here to subscribe!

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Free Portal DLC is an unexpected treat 15 years after Valve released it as part of the Orange Box collection, and it brings the platformer into 2022 with style. Dubbed Portal with RTX, the update doesn't add any new gameplay elements, but it does completely transform the iconic puzzle game with RTX ray tracing and Nvidia DLSS 3.0.

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This post, my boss only wants to hire attractive young women , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

Announcement: At 2 pm ET today, it’s part of 2 of last month’s speed round! Last month’s speed round had 700+ questions submitted, so this time I’ll be answering some of the questions I didn’t get to in round 1. Follow along live on the home page later today.

A reader writes:

My boss, Todd, who is the company CEO, believes that we should hire attractive women for roles on my team. Role A’s primary responsibility is to cold call prospects and convince them to take a meeting with our sales team. Role B may occasionally involve coordinating virtual events with our customers and prospects. Our market is primarily middle-aged men, and my boss believes that they will be more receptive to these outreaches if they’re attracted to the person making the request.

We do have an attractive, young woman (Pam) in Role A right now. Recently, one of our prospects told a sales rep that he had only shown up for the sales meeting because Pam “sounded hot.” That prospect ended up not being a good fit. I know of one call where Pam was harassed by a prospect who pressured her to meet him for drinks. Pam deferred and the prospect never agreed to a meeting. From the metrics, there is no evidence that Pam outperforms her male colleagues in terms of booking meetings, and she actually has the lowest show rate for her meetings.

I have told Todd that I don’t believe this is an effective business strategy, citing the data and examples above. But he keeps bringing it up, referencing pharmaceutical sales as an example of using women’s attractiveness as an advantage in prospecting.

What I haven’t told Todd is that personally (and as a woman myself), I find the idea reprehensible and exploitative (and possibly illegal?). I feel like he wants me to dangle inexperienced young women as bait to lure in leering creeps. He would likely brush that off by saying that (1) my responsibility and priority is to optimize the team to get the most meetings and (2) young women who are dedicated and smart should want to use their attractiveness as a professional advantage.

The whole thing might be moot depending on the candidates we get. Maybe the most qualified candidate just happens to also be an attractive young woman and he can feel like he got a win. Or maybe no attractive young women apply and we have to choose somebody who doesn’t meet his gross requirements.

Or maybe I should just quit.

Eeeww, Todd sucks.

Where to even begin!

First, yes, it is indeed illegal in every state in the U.S. to factor candidates’ sex or youth into a hiring decision. It violates the federal laws against sexual discrimination and age discrimination. (A few jurisdictions also make it illegal to discriminate based on appearance, but not federally.)

Then there’s the fact that Todd wants to use young women for this purpose at all — to, as you say, dangle them as bait to attract men who by definition are more likely to be leering creeps. That’s gross enough, but I also assume he’s doing this without the consent of the women involved, since presumably he’s not explaining his “strategy” to candidates before hiring them. Imagine starting a new job, which you felt good about getting on merit, and then realizing that you’re actually there to be bait for men.

Then there’s the fact that Todd’s strategy doesn’t even work! It just draws in men who want dates, not sales meetings. (To be clear, even if the strategy did work, it still wouldn’t be okay! The fact that it doesn’t is just icing on Todd’s sexist cake of misogyny.)

As for what to do, your best bet is to tell Todd flatly, “This would violate federal discrimination laws and we can’t do it.” And if he keeps pushing, keep up a flat response of, “It’s illegal so we can’t do it.” Or, “I’m not willing to violate the law, and we could get in legal trouble for this.” Feel free to add, “It’s also really gross and I am not willing to do it.” (But if you’re more comfortable sticking to the law, that’s perfectly fine too.)

Whether or not to quit is up to you. I would love to tell you to! Todd deserves to lose his employees. Todd shouldn’t be running a business. But since there are a lot of Todds out there (some more open about their Todd-ness than others), what makes the most sense is probably to look at Todd and the company more broadly — does sexism pop up in other ways there (I’m guessing yes)? What’s your experience there been generally, and that of other women? Is Todd’s judgment this off in other areas too? Basically, take this as a flag to step back and look at the whole picture of what’s going on and decide if you want to be a part of it.

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