Cowboy Who?

Is this the last video on heat pumps? Well, for a while anyway. This isn't a complete picture by any means, but I hope that you leave this video with the knowledge that this future is well within our grasp.

Hey! There's now a PLAYLIST with all the heat pump videos. You can find it with this clicky thing:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv0jwu7G_DFVIot1ubOZdR-KC-LFdOVqi

Technology Connextras (the second channel that stuff goes on sometimes):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClRwC5Vc8HrB6vGx6Ti-lhA
Technology Connections on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/TechConnectify
The TC Subreddit
https://www.reddit.com/r/technologyconnections


And check out these cool people!
Smith8154 , Kenneth Siewers Møller, jacob kamphaus, Slysdexia , HurleyPotter, Tommy McCarthy, Andrew Bobulsky, On Ice Perspectives, TheGreatCO , Petteri Hjort, Polaris, Nathan Obuchowski, Shaun Puzon, Vlycop, Devon Hodgson, Zimpan , Filmmaker IQ, Jan Houben, Bren Ehnebuske, T.J. Zientek, Vernon , Ton Brands, Scott Wright, Kory Howard, rezonant , Thanasis Dimas, Adam Quartarolo, Marc Grondin, HexTheDragon, Craig Kollai, Daniel Barrera, Erkin Alp Güney, Mark Stradling, Peter Sodke, Dee Dub, joseph , Kristian Scheibe, BigMcLargehuge510, Nick , The Orangewalled, Chris Cody, Jason Portwood, Chad Fertig, Joseph Houghtaling, Ben Tucci, Josh Braun, Ellie Dugger, Christopher Lowell, Oleg Korsunskiy, Michael Sacchi, Ali Elam, Dan Allen, Zhenbang Xiao, Markus Towara, Barky doggo, Ectra , Reid Fishler, Daniel Meagher, Joel , Clemens , Bill Bates, Dennis Walsh, Alex Warren, Paul Robins, Michael Gernoth, Les , Keenan Finucan, Ian Clanton-Thuon, Ryan Pratt, Paul Newton, Greg Golds, Gopher on the Road, aceat64, Ben Ratner, WildMartin, Paul Sharp, Craig Brickey, Zidy , Brandon , Karl Kornel, Danila Fediashchin, Adam , Ryan Kamphuis, WB , AmbientCyan , Sam Calandra, Miezensortierer, Will Preston, Christopher Olson, Kor Nielsen, Adrian Hunziker, Jacob Ford, Stephen Amar, GmCity , Andy24x, David Jeroslow, Charles MacDonald, Tim Jones, Crisco762 , Phil E, Jack Mudge, Ian Spence, Mike A, Leslie Deana, hipp1eguy , shacklesburst, Justin Derleth, NEON725, Emily Eisenberg, Tinker, Bard , Megan Lovett, LGR, kn0tsin , David Wulff, FirstWizardZorander, Paul Kavanagh, Isaac Clarke, Sean Hearrell, selectric, Keithius , Seb Bacanu, Mauricio , Hunter Thornsberry, Austin C Borger, Gabe Cook, Anapan, Hodgkin LeBlanc, Michael Snow, Sonic Ether, mike quick, Calisto, Adam , Lucas , Daniel Kraut, John de Largentaye, Peter Hillier, PeterH , William Holt, Ethan Hamel, Grant Campau, Michael Dunn, Kenny, Ugi Kutluoglu, Richard Hicks, Atlas Pup, Mike Roach, Matthew Schwartz, gs , ashka , Mr. Yan, Matthias Feist, adan c, Thomas Fuchs, Markus Wüst, Alan Holland, Dan Boulden, Phiroze Dalal, Devin Rosenthal, electronicMe, G Cowell

00:00 Intro
01:02 Recap on why heat pumps are important
02:20 Insulate, Insulate, Insulate
08:16 What getting a heat pump is like
09:02 Ductless mini- and multi-split systems
15:15 Air-to-water heat pumps
18:15 The US is largely all set for heat pumps
19:40 Except... the equipment we can get isn't great
20:49 VRF systems and an outstanding performer
22:38 Things are starting to get better in the US...
24:42 But why have they been so bad for so long?
27:18 Getting a cold-climate heat pump is difficult
27:56 Price gouging
32:43 Pricing obfuscation and where to go from here
33:53 Ductwork challenges
37:33 Ambient noise concerns
40:29 A look at some packaged units
45:05 Jazzy bloopers

[link] [142 comments]

This post, the dog-riding child, the overheard therapy session, and other Zoom meeting mishaps , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

Last week I asked about the funniest mishaps you’ve witnessed on Zoom calls. Here are some of my favorite stories you shared.

1. The dog

Not a gaffe exactly, but the absolute best thing I saw on Zoom during 2020 while schools were closed here was a coworker’s son RIDING INTO HER OFFICE ATOP THE FAMILY DOG while we were on a call together.

Fortunately it was a small kid, big dog kind of scenario. She was mortified, and I was cracking up; I just can’t imagine a stronger bid for maternal attention during the weird boundary-bleeding time that was the early pandemic than riding in on the dog. It remains one of my favourite work memories from that era.

2. The relief

It was one of those corporate town hall things and one of the speakers had just finished giving a very cohesive and articulate presentation. Immediately after she said “back to you, host!”, she immediately whipped off the blazer she was wearing over her t-shirt and let out a big “UGH MY GODDDDD, BLECHHH”. The host kindly reminded her that her video and sound were still on.

It’s fairly mellow, but that raw “I hate presentations” attitude was amazing.

3. The wanderer

I spent one half day long call (training session) watching a lady zooming on her cell phone video wandering around living her life. She often left herself unmuted. Some highlights:
– Stared at her ceiling fan for a half hour at one point.
– Watched her tool around her kitchen making breakfast and coffee with her husband. (Has a double oven.)
– Hung out with her in her bathroom as she did her make up.
– Got to go along with her on her morning walk, watching either the sky and occasional tree, or randomly the ground. (Bonus heard her chat with her neighbor on the walk because of her unmuting problems)

Honestly provided a lot of hilarious chat fodder in a slack chat of 3 of us being tortured by the session as 3 tech people surrounded by a group of non-tech people.

Punchline of this entire thing: The meeting was mostly focused on how to hold our meetings on Zoom.

4. The Alexa mishap

On a conference call with the execs in another country so fairly high level. Somehow the household system heard a discussion of accounts payable as ‘Alexa, pull my finger’ and started making loud farting noises.

5. The amigurumi

I like to crochet amigurumi and other 3D items, the splashiest of which is a very large and highly detailed penis and testicles. When I say highly detailed, I mean, our friend the urologist was so impressed he showed photos of it to the other urology residents. This decorative item is usually on display on top of a cabinet. However, I moved it to the top of a bookshelf while dusting, forgetting that said bookshelf is in the background of my husband’s Zoom calls.

He spent half of a Monday morning all-staff meeting cheerfully answering questions (he’s a VP) before realizing what was sitting in the background. Most of his coworkers are fairly conservative evangelical Christians.

He video muted in horror and removed the offending objet d’art, hoping no one had noticed. Later that day, a coworker who had recently turned in two weeks notice–and thus had nothing to lose–DMed him a screenshot of his video feed with the decorative penis and testicles circled and annotated with “????” My husband tried to pass it off as a butternut squash. Luckily no one told the CEO, or if they did, he wrote it off as an inevitable consequence of employing secular Brooklynites.

I now make sure to replace all decorative objects in their proper homes while dusting.

6. The therapy session

A friend of my husband’s committed what I think may be the worst Zoom horror of all time, and I really hope he doesn’t read this site…apparently he was on an extended, mandatory Zoom call (like 4 or 5 hours) with his entire company. Small financial office, but still a good number of people, as well as a client on the call. He had a therapy session (also remote) scheduled during this time. He did his therapy session, via phone, while still on the Zoom call, and was completely unmuted during all of it (I do not know why the person running it did not mute him, although from this thread it sounds like there are still many meeting-runners who don’t know HOW to do that).

But his therapy session consisted of half a session bitching about his coworkers and how stupid they are, at length, foul language and all. And the second half about an amazing date/sex he’d had with his wife. Meanwhile coworkers were frantically messaging him to tell him he was NOT muted but he didn’t get any of those messages until after the meeting was done.

It does make you long for the days of mistaken potatoes or cat-faces. Practically wholesome.

7. The fed up boss

I was in a meeting for a new product test launch. It was really just for us to just listen to our product team describe what they’d done and how it would impact our customers. My manager forgot to mute himself and when our (admittedly long-winded) product manager launched into his speech, he said “My GOD. Land the PLANE. I hate these people”. He then clearly zoned out, turned on music and started singing along. Four or so of us had to ping him before he realized, and abruptly disconnected. We never spoke of it again.

8. The judge

I was in court, together with my opposite number (no clients) and the judge.
We were trying to schedule the next hearing so were waiting for the court office to call back with available dates, so when the phone rang, the judge answered it and put it on speaker (as we would need to check our availability for any dates).
It wasn’t the court office. It was a *very* persistent salesman.
He starts by asking if the person he was speaking to was the homeowner.
The Judge said no, he hadn’t called a home, he’d called a court, and was speaking to one of the Judges
The salesman asked whether he owned the building.
The Judge explained that no, it was a court , so owned by Crown, via the court service.
The salesman asked who was in charge of that.
The Judge told him it was the Lord Chancellor.
The salesman asked whether *he* was available, and could he speak to him.
The Judge explained tht no, the Lord Chancellor doesn’t normally spend a lot of time in regional court rooms, and was usually to be found in the House of Lords .

All done with the Judge keeping a totally straight face and and remarkably level and polite tone.

I don’t think we ever did find out exactly what he was trying to sell – I think it was either carpets or double glazing .

Gunshot Wounds: Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques
Di Maio
1999

Submitter: This book may not be an awful library book for a college or specialty library, in fact it’s a very informative book, but this was found in our little rural public library. I can see internally it was purchased to fulfill a request by a patron many years ago and unsurprisingly it has never circulated. With that said, this book did not meet our collection development policies then, and does not now. (Whispers to self “Is it a policy if no one follows it?”) We should have been able to Inter Library Loan this instead of purchasing a copy. The book is filled with over 400 pages of graphic images of entrance and exit wounds of suicide and homicide victims . I limited what I scanned to leave most of the graphic content out for many reasons.
Lastly there is a 2015 updated edition of this book.

Holly: Thanks for sparing us the gruesome parts. The patron who requested it didn’t even check it out? Oooooh, that irks me when that happens.

The post Gunshot Wounds appeared first on Awful Library Books.

Buy our new movie EIT KIDZ KLUB!

On DVD!

On VHS! 

Now that society is collapsing, Everything Is Terrible! is reborn with their new and fantastical expedition into found footage... but this time the adults can stay home! EIT! has unearthed thousands of forgotten DVD & VHS tapes aimed at yesterday’s youth to bring you their most mind-melting movie to date. Watch in awe as all colors of the rainbow join forces to destroy the tyranny of adult civilization once and for all! All of your oldest friends will be there; skateboarding web-surfers, rapping math equations, gigantic baby ducks, and maybe even a wizard or two! And what EIT! show would be complete without a live experience that makes the Ice Capades look like a stupid piece of trash! Finally, an all-encompassing extravaganza created for kidz... by kidz! 

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
A tip of the hat to Patreon subscriber Brad Porter whose 'C is for Cordyceps' I cannot excel in this hovertext.

Today's News:

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Plz lik and sucscibe

Today's News:

Seems more than a few of you people read these. From now on, I'm going to consider this my secret conduit to a small number of loyal dorkwads.

null

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Last year, T-Mobile confirmed it was breached after hackers offered to sell the personal data of 30 million of its customers for 6 bitcoin worth around $270,000 at the time. According to court documents unsealed today and reviewed by Motherboard, a third-party hired by T-Mobile tried to pay the hackers for exclusive access to that data and limit it from leaking more widely. The plan ultimately failed, and the criminals continued to sell the data despite the third-party giving them a total of $200,000. But the news unearths some of the controversial tactics that might be used by companies as they respond to data breaches, either to mitigate the leak of stolen information or in an attempt to identify who has breached their networks. On Tuesday, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against Diogo Santos Coelho, who it alleges is the administrator of a popular hacking site called RaidForums. Law enforcement also uploaded a banner to the RaidForums site announcing they had taken over its domain. Coelho was arrested in the United Kingdom in March. Included in the affidavit in support of request for his extradition to the United States is a section describing a particular set of data that was advertised on RaidForums in August. [...] The document does not name the victim company, instead referring to it as Company 3, but says another post confirmed that the data belonging to "a major telecommunications company and wireless network operator that provides services in the United States. The document goes on to say that this company "hired a third-party to purchase exclusive access to the database to prevent it being sold to criminals." An employee of this third-party posed as a potential buyer and used the RaidForums' administrator's middleman service to buy a sample of the data for $50,000 in Bitcoin, the document reads. That employee then purchased the entire database for around $150,000, with the caveat that SubVirt would delete their copy of the data, it adds. The purpose of the deletion would be that this undercover customer would be the only one with a copy of the stolen information, greatly limiting the chance of it leaking out further. That's not what happened. The document says that "it appears the co-conspirators continued to attempt to sell the databases after the third-party's purchase." Company 3, the unnamed telecommunications firm that hired this third-party, was T-Mobile, according to Motherboard's review of the timeline and information included in the court records. The third-party that paid cybercriminals $200,000 may have been Mandiant, though the security company has yet to confirm with Motherboard. In March, Mandiant announced it was being acquired by Google.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's somewhat common for comedians to have differences between their onstage persona and their real personalities, but few had differences as vast as Gilbert Gottfried's. The actor and comedian was best known for his loud, growling way of talking and his love of vulgarity. Much of Gottfried's humor was based on shocking people, and he would say just about anything to get a laugh, even especially if it was rude, crude, or lewd. Despite being as obnoxious as humanly possible onstage, he was beloved in the comedy world as a rather shy, sweet man who would rather ride the bus than take a private jet. His loudness and intensely offensive jokes were all part of the schtick, a character he built around himself as a way to make people laugh. 

The personal dichotomy of Gilbert Gottfried is nothing short of incredible. In his private life, he was a soft-spoken husband and father of two, but in his public life, he was the voice of Iago the parrot in Disney's "Aladdin," one of the most recognizable voices in all of pop culture, and the man behind what is potentially the dirtiest version of "The Aristocrats" joke ever told. While many will honor his passing by replaying some of his favorite roast routines or stand-up bits, they should also remember the man behind it all -- a man who was much more complex than his public persona let on.

The Softer Side Of One Of Comedy's Most Boisterous

The best way to truly understand the controversial but caring comedian is to check out the 2017 documentary "Gilbert," directed by Neil Berkeley ("Harmontown"). The documentary gives unprecedented access to Gottfried and his family, including his wife and two children. It doesn't shy away from the fact that sometimes his boundary-pushing style of comedy went too far, and the film helps paint a more complete portrait of the man who made us all laugh so much. It's difficult for some to reconcile the two sides of Gottfried, who made the kinds of jokes that aren't repeatable except in very specific company, but he was ultimately just trying to make people laugh, not hurt anyone. Comedy is hard. Provocative comedy can be even harder, because in order to test the limits, sometimes you have to overstep so the next generation knows what not to do. Gottfried took those risks and became especially beloved among other comedians as someone who could always bring the room to a riotous uproar. Laughter is medicine, after all, and his was some of the strongest. 

When he wasn't making people gasp with jokes that obliterated the boundaries of good taste, Gottfried still spent his time trying to make people happy. In the 2016 documentary "Life, Animated," he surprises one very special fan, Owen Suskind, by dropping in and re-enacting scenes from "Aladdin." Suskind has autism and became non-verbal as a child, but his parents were able to inspire him to communicate through Disney movies. One of his favorites was "Aladdin," and he lit up every time he heard Gottfried as Iago, the villainous parrot. In the clip, Gottfried and Suskind share a lovely moment, surrounded by other fans with autism who appreciate the uniquely-voiced performer. 

We, as humans, are complicated, messy creatures. Gottfried was as messy as could be on stage in a way that was almost cathartic to watch and laugh at. He said the worst things possible and gave us permission to laugh at all of the awful in the world, but he did it out of a kind of love for all of the other messy, complicated creatures out there. Rest in peace, you filthy, hilarious man. You will be sorely missed. 

Read this next: The 35 Best Documentaries You Can Watch On Netflix Right Now (March 2022)

The post Gilbert Gottfried Was Known for Being Loud and Raunchy, But He Was Also Very Sweet and Kind appeared first on /Film.

The 1990s were the perfect time to be a kid who liked all things scary. Thanks to shows like "Goosebumps," "Eerie, Indiana," "AAAHH!!! Real Monsters," "The Addams Family," "Mona the Vampire," "The Real Ghostbusters," and "Tales from the Crypt Keeper," youth-friendly horror shows were plentiful. It feels unfair to pit the abundance of quality programming against one another, but if any show served as the king of the castle, the distinction belonged to Nickelodeon's "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" The horror anthology series centered on the members of "The Midnight Society," a group of teenagers who gather each week in a clearing in the woods to share original horror stories around a campfire. The episode includes a dramatization of each story, acting like the child-friendly version of "The Twilight Zone."

"Are You Afraid of the Dark" is home to some of the strongest presentations of kindertrauma, like The Ghastly Grinner, The Crimson Clown, Zeebo the Clown, the Dead Man's Float, and a gaggle of ghosts, goblins, and other monsters. Every once in a while, the show would introduce a human character to give us the creeps and in "The Tale of Station 109.1," Gilbert Gottfried's Roy twisted his iconic voice into nightmare fuel for kids everywhere.

Eat Your Heart Out, Miss Argentina

In "The Tale of Station 109.1," a death-obsessed kid named Chris Leary (Zachary Carlin) gets more than he bargained for when his brother Jamie (Ryan Gosling, no really) lets Chris check out a hearse he's working on at his job. Jamie powers up the battery of the hearse, which cues into radio station 109.1 "for the dimensionally challenged." A DJ with an odd accent informs listeners that sometimes when people die, they miss their chance to cross into the afterlife and may need special assistance. As long as you follow his voice, he'll help you find the way "home." The voice is, of course, Gilbert Gottfried, putting on a kind-hearted and soothing voice to help lost souls make it beyond the mortal coil. Chris tracks down the address of the radio station and comes face to face with the voice, a radio DJ named Roy who talks like, well, Gilbert Gottfried when he's not on air. He's a lot like Miss Argentina in "Beetlejuice," except he's the one processing whether or not your soul is going to cross over to a heaven-like eternity, or torturous pain in proverbial Hell.

Gottfried's voice is typically played for laughs, but not on "Are You Afraid of the Dark." His shrill, loud, screeching voice is meant to strike fear in the heart of young Chris Leary. Unfortunately, Roy believes Chris is dead and needs to make it to the other side, ignoring his pleas that he's just a kid with plenty of time left. Gottfried screams in this kid's face, and the voice '90s kids grew up associating with Iago from "Aladdin" immediately transformed into something horrifying. He reprimands Chris for knocking on his window, and after assigning him a number to cross over, the camera zooms into Gottfried's face on a dutch angle as he lets out a maniacal laugh.

Subverting A Familiar Voice

What makes Gottfried's performance in this episode so memorable, is the subversion of associating his memorable voice with something worthy of fright. We witness his character seamlessly flip between the calm and gentle voice on the radio to a shrieking harbinger of death. His character is responsible for organizing lost souls' transition from our world into the next, and he mistakenly assigns Chris as another dead person needing to cross over. Throughout the episode, we see elderly people dragged away by terrifying ghosts in black cloaks as they shriek "You've made a mistake!" before being taken to the afterlife. Knowing that Chris almost shared the same fate, we can't help but wonder how many other mistakes Roy has made over the years. How many confused old people did he send to the nether realm?

Most of the human characters in "Are You Afraid of the Dark" leaned heavily into the camp nature of the show, but despite Gottfried's natural comedic charm, his character is genuinely unsettling. Despite being the most popular horror shows of the 1990s, the low-budget series seldom had known actors appear in the episodes. A handful of the Canadian child actors featured throughout have gone on to have successful careers, but Gottfried was one of the most recognizable performers to ever appear on "AYAOTD," which only added to the terror. For many of us '90s kids, this episode was the first time we saw the face of Gilbert Gottfried and implanted a tiny seed of fear in our subconscious that awakens each time we hear his voice cutting through the air.

Read this next: The 15 Best Horror TV Shows Of All Time

The post Why Gilbert Gottfried Was One of the Best Are You Afraid Of The Dark Villains appeared first on /Film.

Gilbert Gottfried, whose amazingly grating voice so perfectly illustrated his abrasive brand of comedy, is dead at 67.

"In addition to being the most iconic voice in comedy, Gilbert was a wonderful husband, brother, friend and father to his two young children," the Gottfried family said in a statement on his Twitter account.

— Read the rest

The long decline in the price of Axie Infinity's Smooth Love Potion (SLP) token illustrates the challenge of play-to-earn (P2E) gaming: players need more than a way to earn some random token, the token needs mechanics that enable it to hold value. From a report: P2E worked great, particularly with one game, Axie Infinity (whose treasury clocked $1.3 billion in revenue last year), until profits took a dive in early December that it has never recovered from, as Token Terminal shows. The "Smooth Love Potion" (SLP) token is the fuel that Axie Infinity runs on. To access the game, players need once valuable NFTs called Axies. Axie owners can breed more Axies with their Axies, but they need to spend SLP to do so. Users spend SLP in the game and it gets destroyed, decreasing the supply. That's supposed to help maintain the price, but there's been too much earning and not enough burning. The token has been in a long fall since the peak of its strength last July, because too few players are using SLP to make more Axies, analytics firm Naavik contends.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gilbert Gottfried has passed away at the age of 67, leaving behind a legacy of utter filth, intense depravity, and sick humor that we will all desperately and tragically miss. While Gottfried's highest-profile role as an actor likely came from voicing the animated parrot Iago in the G-rated 1992 film "Aladdin," anyone who bothered to delve into his stand-up career would discover some pretty blue humor. Gottfried was often deliberately politically incorrect, telling some of the most tasteless jokes imaginable on stage to the shock and horror — and delight — of his audiences. 

Gottfried's onstage persona was that of a brash, shrieking a**hole who doesn't seem to realize how caustic and shrill he is. Like a drunken borsht-belt comedian who long ago lost his ability to adhere to decorum, Gottfried would wail obscenities at his audience, and then whip out a punchline that was somehow even darker than the setup. Example: In his 2005 stand-up special "Dirty Jokes," Gottfried tells a joke about a doctor breaking bad news to a husband that his wife has been horribly mutilated in a car accident. The doctor describes the damage in explicit terms, and the listening husband is horrified to learn how much work he'll have to put into keeping his wife comfortable. When the husband breaks down, the doctor nudges him and says "Nah, I'm just f**kin' with ya. She's dead." 

The boldness. 

Here are some wonderful highlights of Gottfried's shocking/hilarious comedy career:

A Million Ways To Die In The West

Seth McFarlane's 2014 Western spoof "A Million Ways to Die in the West" is a sprawling, slightly-too-long homage to films like "Blazing Saddles" and "The Villain." In it, Gottfried has a cameo as, of all people, President Abraham Lincoln (well, not really). The concept of Gottfried playing Lincoln is funny enough — the stentorian speaker adopting Gottfried's stage persona is comedy unto itself. Then Gottfried got to inspire a group of students by declaring that he was "so f**king rich, I can have all the licorice I want!"

It's only about 30 seconds of screen time, but it's a lovely 30 seconds. 

McFarlane and Gottfried had worked together in the past, as Gottfried voiced a couple random bits on "Family Guy," including this horse.

Fifty Shades Of Grey

When E.L. James' landmark pornographic novel "Fifty Shades of Grey" was topping (heh) the Bestseller charts, many critics emerged to talk about the book's odd use of language, citing James' common flipping back and forth between intense sexual detail and golly-gee adolescent expletives. The phrase "my inner goddess" was used repeatedly. Of course, the prose was not the reason most people bought "Fifty Shades of Grey," preferring the zesty depiction of posh sadomasochistic sexual encounters. 

College Humor wisely thought to put James' words into Gottfried's mouth, and the comedian screaming about his inner goddess and his own vagina will crack the strongest visage. The reactions of the women listening to the audiobook are priceless. 

Jerry The Bellybutton Elf

John Kricfalusi, the creator of "The Ren & Stimpy Show" was notoriously fired from his own series because he constantly butted heads with the network's standards and practices, argued with producers, and was unable to make the show on a studio timetable. The show continued for several years without John K.'s direct input (John K. would struggle to make cartoons for years, and was eventually ousted for his habit of grooming teenage girls). It was in 1994 that Gottfried appeared on the show as, rather surreally, a character named Jerry the Bellybutton Elf. 

In "Jerry the Bellybutton Elf," Stimpy (Billy West), an animated version of Larry Fine, would become weirdly obsessed with his own navel to the point of climbing inside of it. While inside his own bellybutton, Stimpy would meet the title character (voiced by Gottfried), a miniature, lint-draped cyclops that immediately turned Stimpy into his slave. When Stimpy presents Jerry with a meal of lint loaf (?), Jerry has one of the most vocal and unusual freakouts in a show full of them. Gottfried didn't just employ his well-known voice, but pushed it to 11, shrieking at the top of his lungs and mutating into a giant murderous porkchop. What a class act. 

Mr. Mxyzptlk

Another notable animated villain voiced by Gottfried was one of Superman's more notorious foes: Mr. Mxyzptlk (pronounced "mix-yes-spit-lick"). In 1996's "Superman: The Animated Series," Gottfried played the impish trickster god as a creature let loose from the funny papers, easily able to decipher Clark Kent's secret identity and eager to defeat him in battle. Luckily for Clark, Mr. Mxyzptlk can be defeated — very much like Rumpelstiltskin — by saying his name aloud and magically banishing him back to his home dimension. He cannot return for a few weeks. Each time he does, the rules of his banishment get all the more complicated, until he has to write down his name backwards, twice. Superman finds a way. 

Superman is a superhero fantasy character, of course, but Mr. Mxyzsplk brought an additional note of comedic chaos to the proceedings. He didn't play by superhero rules. He was more of a nuisance than a villain. 

"Superman: The Animated Series" was made with a younger audience in mind, so Gottfried was not permitted to let loose with a fusillade of obscenities in Superman's face (although that would have been welcome). As such, when the villain was tricked, Gottfried only muttered, "Well, shoot my monkey." It's the funniest and dirtiest piece of non-obscenity you'll find in a superhero show.

The 1991 Emmys

"If masturbation's a crime, I should be on death row." 

Gottfried's propensity for tasteless gags got him in trouble more than once, perhaps most notably for his appearance at the 1991 Emmy awards. The show was broadcast after actor Paul Reubens had been arrested for indecent exposure, and Gottfried was not one to take the high road. His act was two straight minutes of onanism jokes before presenting the award for Best Writing on a Variety Show (the winner being the writers of the 63rd Academy Awards). 

The gags were dirty, yes, and they were made at Reubens' expense, but he was careful to turn the joke back on himself, and, really, they are downright innocuous compared to some of the filth that would become a regular installment in stand-up comedy a generation hence. Regardless, Gottfried's masturbation jokes got him blacklisted from future Emmy shows, and Fox issued an apology. Only viewers on the east coast saw Gottfried's bit. His monologue was cut entirely for the west coast. Although he was not in the public's good graces for a span, Gottfried continued to work. 

Gottfried would get in trouble again in 2011 for tweeting tasteless jokes about the tsunami in Japan. This lost Gottfried a job voicing the duck mascot for the insurance company Aflac. Gottfried knew where the line was because, very occasionally, he crossed it. We can take comfort in the fact that, by all accounts, Gottfried was a kind and decent human being off stage.

The Aristocrats

In 2005, Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza made a low-fi, notable documentary film about a dirty secret in the comedy world, and a very, very dirty joke. In it, many comedians are interviewed about their relationship to shock humor, how filthy one should be permitted to be on stage, and an industry secret that let them all blow off steam. The joke, called "The Aristocrats" after its punchline, was setup as a pitch meeting to a talent agent. The performer describes to the agent that he and his family were to go on stage and perform a series of sexual and/or scatological acts that would make the Marquis de Sade blush. It wasn't really meant to be conventionally funny, necessarily, becoming a contest to see who could gross-out whom. It was a "joke" that comedians told to one another. 

While Gottfried appears in "The Aristocrats" to tell the joke to the camera, the filmmakers also recount a time when Gottfried used the joke to a weirdly cathartic effect. During the Comedy Central roast of Hugh Hefner in 2001, Gottfried made a few tasteless gags about 9/11. The audience actively booed him. Too soon. Not only did Gottfried win the audience back, but he won them over. Gottfried broke the comedians' code and told The Aristocrats joke on stage to the chagrin and surprise of the comedians around him. Rob Schneider is seen literally falling out of his chair.

The filmmakers explain how that level of unexpected filth was a healing moment. 

A Few Zingers

For good measure, here are a few Gottfried zingers to remember him by: 

A man comes home to his wife and says, "Honey pack your bags I just won the lottery!" She says, "What should I pack?" He says, "I don't care just pack and get the f*** out!"

The pressure to being a comedian is being funny, but I've given that up, so there is no pressure whatsoever.

A man goes to the doctor for a check, and the doctor examines him and says "I've got bad news, you've got cancer and Alzheimer's." The man goes "Thank god I don't have cancer."

And of course, the classic: 

I'm known for my slightly inappropriate remarks. 

Rest in peace, Mr. Gottfried.

Read this next: The 10 Best Comedies Of The Last 10 Years

The post Six of Gilbert Gottfried's Most Hilarious Moments appeared first on /Film.

I downlinked a data transmission directly from the International Space Station! This amateur radio stuff is getting exciting. Using an orbital tracker tool, I found the time and location when the ISS would pass overhead here. From 9:16 AM to 9:21 AM, rising to the south, reaching its zenith to the southeast with 19 degrees elevation above the horizon, and setting to the east. I went to the top of a hill in my neighborhood, tuned my simple handheld radio to 145.800 MHz, pointed the antenna, and waited. And suddenly I heard crazy beeping! Dog walkers were staring.

Supposedly you should hold the antenna horizontally for best results, and perpendicular to the line to the ISS. But I just sort of waved the antenna around frantically, searching for the orientation that brought in the cleanest signal. I used the voice recorder app on my phone, holding the phone up to the radio speaker to record the beeping audio, while the wind made noise and cars drove by and the signal faded in and out. I captured almost all of one two-minute transmission and part of another, before the ISS went out of view. It was several minutes of recorded whistling and beeping.

Back home, I used some software called MMSSTV to decode the recorded audio, which was a PD120 slow-scan television image transmitted from the ISS, part of a special event celebrating women in space. The software provides options for tweaking the signal sync, phase, and image slant, because the Doppler shift screws up the signal when the ISS is moving by at 17500 miles per hour. Here’s the final decoded result. Peggy Whitson PhD, first woman ISS commander. Transmission received directly from Earth orbit, Sputnik style. Good morning!

This post, my coworker keeps asking what my clothes cost in front of other colleagues , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I am relatively new at my job and have a great team who I like very much. I have a teammate we will call Ava. Ava is very young (I am late 30s, she is probably 22-25) and is brand new to the industry I work in and to office culture, I assume. She is very sweet and I like her very much. She is extremely passionate about fashion and, when I started the job, she immediately noticed that I am interested in it as well, though we work in a completely unrelated high skill manufacturing field and I mostly just dress casually at work. In previous workplaces, my fashion choices have gone completely unnoticed so I don’t think I am being flashy or anything. In many ways, I like that we share this connection as it made me feel like I belong in my new workplace.

Here is the issue. Ava excitedly comments on almost all of my outfits and asks not only where items are from, which would be no big deal to me, but also how much they cost, and she asks in front of other coworkers. It is extremely uncomfortable that she does this and I don’t really know how to address it. I am much more senior than her and likely make three to four times her salary, so her questions make me feel like I am flaunting it. Additionally, I don’t want to be judged at work for how I choose to spend my money. I find that women are often judged on our financial choices in ways that men are not, and it is already an insecurity of mine that it might hold me back at work.

To demonstrate the issue, Ava once asked me how much my handbag cost in front of three other coworkers and yesterday she asked me if my shoes were over $100 and then pulled up the brand’s website to see in front of another coworker. I should note that almost none of the items are anything super high-end designer, none have any overt branding or anything, but I do enjoy finding small companies that make cool stuff or finding stuff on the resale market, and I have enough disposable income to splurge when I want to.

I don’t know how to ask her to stop and to explain that the specifics about money are not something I want to talk about at work, especially in front of other colleagues. She is pretty sensitive and insecure about her place in our company, and I worry she will think I hate her if I ask privately in the direct manner I would with someone else. What do I do?

Ask privately in a direct manner :)

Yes, it’s the exact thing you didn’t feel you could do. And I hear you that she’s sensitive and insecure about her place at work, and that you’re worried she’ll think you hate her.

But she’s not going to think you hate her if you demonstrate that you, in fact, do not hate her … and that is easily done by continuing to be warm and friendly to her.

You could say it like this: “I like that you’re into fashion like I am, and I enjoy having that connection with you! I’m generally more comfortable downplaying it at work because I’ve found that women can be judged on our financial choices in a way that men aren’t. I don’t like talking about what I paid for stuff, and I try not to draw attention to my clothes or accessories in front of other people. I realized I’ve never said that to you, so I wanted to explain that while I’m up for a little fashion talk with you one-on-one, I’m pretty allergic to it in front of other people!”

(You could leave out “I’m up for a little fashion talk with you one-on-one” if you don’t actually want to do that, or if you worry that it’ll open the door to boundaries being pushed in ways you don’t want.)

Will she feel awkward? Maybe! She shouldn’t — this wording is very mild — but some people feel awkward about any hint that they’ve ever done something that landed in a less-than-ideal manner. That’s okay! Fleeting moments of awkwardness are part of life, they won’t kill anyone, and the relationship will go on.

Keep in mind, too, that you are feeling very awkward right now because of Ava’s comments, and you’ll continue to if you don’t speak up. One fleeting moment of awkwardness is better than you continuing to feel uncomfortable for months to come. It’s also kinder to Ava — if you were repeatedly doing something that made someone uncomfortable, wouldn’t you rather know so you could stop, even if it took a mildly awkward conversation to find out?

But you can also smooth over any awkwardness Ava might feel by making a point of continuing to be warm with her. In fact, right after this part of the conversation, switch the topic to something where you’ll be able to express genuine warmth in her direction … and then the next time you see her, send some more warmth her way, whether it’s just asking about a book she’s reading, or taking genuine interest in how her weekend was, or complimenting her on a project she did, or so forth.

She will be fine, and you are very likely to put an end to the clothing comments.

This post, my company has a “Men’s Forum,” employee responds to feedback by saying her former boss loved her, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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

1. My organization has a “Men’s Forum”

My organization recently sent out an email announcing its annual “Men’s Forum” and I immediately felt icky about it. To me, it feels different than a women’s forum or an ERG for minorities because it focuses on a group that, historically, is not marginalized. For context, I work in finance which has a history of “the good old boys club.” The email even mentions “men and their allies” which also feels wrong to me.

Ick, yes. What is the event’s mission? Unless it’s to be an ally to women and other marginalized groups in your field or office, what exactly is the need it’s responding to? Affinity groups exist to help demographics that have been systemically marginalized and kept out of spaces controlled by the dominant group. The point is to level the playing field in places where it’s unbalanced and good lord, that’s not men in finance.

If this “Men’s Forum” exists to provide special networking or development opportunities to men, it’s hard to see it as anything other than a hostile response to similar efforts for women and people of color.

2. When I give my employee feedback, she tells me her previous boss loved her

I started a new job a few months ago, as a manager to a small team. I was brought on by my current boss, who I’ve worked with in a previous role for years. His advice to me was that the team needs help stepping up as a major business strategy change just happened, and this team is struggling to adapt.

I joined and was pleased to see most of the team was actually totally fine with the changes and adapting fine. With one notable exception, Jane. Jane’s work is subpar but worse, she doesn’t take feedback and has been a bit of a bully to her peers outside of our org.

The problem is I’ve given her this feedback, and she often responds with the following:
– The previous boss said she was great.
– It’s not fair of me to give her feedback that her work is not up to par.
– (Such and such other employee) said they thought the work was fine.

I feel bad that she feels like I’m out to get her, but it is my responsibility to give her feedback on the quality of her work and how her behavior affects others. Is there some good way to handle that her previous bosses may have been pleased with her performance, but that’s not the case with me as the organization has changed? I don’t want to be unfair but I also feel totally stuck.

Yeah, you’ve got to address it head-on … because right now she’s dismissing your feedback and telling you why she doesn’t need to pay attention to it. The next time it happens, say something like, “I understand that was the case in the past. The needs of the role have changed since then, and what I need now is ____. I need to see that you’re taking this feedback seriously and incorporating it into your work.” And if she still pushes back and/or you don’t see changes, then the next conversation is, “I’m concerned that you’re hanging on to feedback you’ve received in the past and not hearing what I’m telling you now. The issues I’m raising are serious ones, and I need to see you make the changes we’ve discussed. If you don’t do that, your job would be in jeopardy so it’s important to take this seriously.” That’s also the stage where you should move to a formal improvement plan, including letting her go at the end of it if she can’t make the changes you need.

Ultimately, though, it’s up to her to hear what you’re saying. Your responsibility is to be as clear and direct as possible, and to make sure you’re not softening the message out of a desire to be nice. (Remind yourself that it’s far nicer to give her a chance to hear what she needs to change to avoid being fired.) From there, it’s up to her to decide whether she’s going to take you seriously. Remember, too, that your job isn’t to convince her to agree with you, but to be clear about the bar for her job and what the consequences are if she won’t meet that bar. (It’s preferable if she agrees! But you need to move forward regardless.)

3. My boss wants me to give up my seniority if I’m promoted

I’ve been working for the same nonprofit for 22 years in a variety of roles. Currently I’m in a leadership position and report directly to the executive director. The director is new in the last two years and has made significant changes — some great and some questionable (in my view). They have a leadership style that can be quite controlling and, due to this, I am eager to get off the leadership team and have a bit of distance. I’m currently looking for other work but there is an option for me to move positions within the organization into a role that I would love. I’m considering this.

My question is around the conditions laid out to me by the director. They are suggesting that since I’ve worked there so long, it would be detrimental to the organization to have me keep my seniority. If I take the new position, I would have to formally resign from my current position and essentially apply for the new role (even though I’m guaranteed it) so that my 22 years is wiped out. The new position would also be a one-year term, although I’m told the intention is to keep it after that. I don’t see much protection for me as an employee if they decide to end the role. In my area, employees of more than 10 years must be given severance of at least eight weeks if let go. If I can negotiate terms that state eight weeks severance if let go, is that enough? Should I be questioning other aspects of this?

It sounds awfully sketchy. They’re saying it’s “detrimental” to the organization to give you the benefits that they offered you in exchange for your long tenure, and they’re trying to get you to do something that disadvantages you and advantages them. Are there other benefits besides severance you’d be giving up too, like the amount of vacation you get? There’s no reason you should have give up any of that.

And you definitely shouldn’t have to formally resign in order to be considered for a new role; that is some real BS. If they want you to apply, fine — but there’s exactly zero reason why you’d need to formally resign meanwhile, and it would put you in a much more precarious position.

Definitely say you’re not comfortable resigning without a new role and that you’d need severance codified in a written agreement if you give up tenure-linked benefits … but I’d strongly question the whole thing.

4. Calling students “clients” when transitioning out of teaching

I have a question about transitioning to a new field. How do I include job specifics on my resume that aren’t relevant to the new industry? I am trying to move out of teaching into nonprofit program coordination. I want the new potential employers to see me as more than “just” a teacher. I have some impressive accomplishments as a teacher that I can put a number on (I was the leadership coach for the senior class and we got to 100% graduation; I took over the standardized test prep program and rose pass rates from 17% to 76%) but they’re all so … teacher-y. A job coach who specializes in teacher transitions advised turning it all into corporate speak (“measurable performance improvements for 200 clients”), but it sounds so phony to me! Is it disingenuous to use this kind of language? I am confident I can do the work I am applying for, I just have a hard time explaining how in a snappy bullet point. Is there anything else I can do to stand out and show off for a job I haven’t done yet?

I would find it odd to see a teacher referring to students as “clients.” And if a hiring manager doesn’t understand that’s what “clients” means in this context and asks about it in the interview, it will be awkward to explain that you really mean students. It’s feels too much like trying to dress up what you did into something else. And there’s no need to do that anyway, because your accomplishments are impressive and stand on their own. You don’t need to be coy with the language.

That said, can you get additional details in there? If I were a hiring manager outside of your field, I’d want to know more about how you did those things so I could better understand the skills you used that might translate into our work. You can’t put a lengthy explanation on your resume, of course, but adding even one explanatory line of context to each of those achievements could give hiring managers outside of your field a better sense of what you might bring to theirs.

5. Can my boss legally pay me through PayPal?

Nearly a year ago, I was brought on to work at a startup as a contract writer. Originally I was being paid though a payroll service with direct deposit. However, there was always at least a week or two delay when getting paid.

At some point, my boss claimed this payroll service was too complicated to use for his contractors and he would be switching to PayPal. I was fine with this, until I realized that PayPal takes a significant fee. I am charged this fee. They take it out of my wages. I asked if it was possible to switch back to the payroll service, but he claimed it was not.

Is this legal? I’m tempted to try again and ask if he would be willing to mail a check or brainstorm other ideas. This is really only the tip of the iceberg with this company and I’m already looking for other options.

Some states have laws restricting the fees that employees can be charged for using payroll cards, but I haven’t been able to find anything addressing PayPal specifically.

But PayPal would be terrible to use for payroll, given the fees, the fact that it won’t create a record of your payroll deductions (for things like taxes and insurance), and the occasional reports of PayPal freezing someone’s money in their account. (They’re also not governed by the same regulations that protect you at a bank, so if nothing else make sure you’re moving your money to your bank account right away every time you’re paid.) It’s also just … sketchy. Legitimate businesses don’t generally pay through PayPal, let alone pass Paypal fees on to their employees.

But I’m wondering if your boss is even deducting payroll taxes as he’s legally required to do. You mentioned being a contractor,  but you sound very much like an employee. It’s not up to your boss how to categorize you; under federal law, you need to meet certain criteria to be eligible to be paid as a contractor (i.e., with no taxes taken out). If he’s treating you like an employee but paying you like a contractor, he’s violating the law and you’re going to end up with a big tax bill at the end of the year. (If I’m wrong about what’s going on and you do in fact meet the legal definition for a contractor, then there’s nothing terribly wrong with what he’s doing — but you should ask to be made whole for the fees you’re being charged.)

This post, are personal calls OK at work? what if it’s an argument? , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I have an office with a door that closes, but fairly thin walls. What are the rules on personal calls? Obviously not overly numerous, but the occasional one?

I ask because: I made a personal call today that (very unexpectedly) turned into an argument. I kept my voice down and civil in tone, but it was an argument. The walls are thin. I am so embarrassed; while there’s no reason to believe someone might have overheard, they could have (I share walls with coworkers). I truly did not expect this and would not have made the call had I thought we would argue. Some arguments occur exactly this way though — without expectation. If that’s the fact of the matter, then is it ever appropriate to make personal calls at work, even when on break time/in an office with a closing door?

It depends on your office culture, but in most offices it’s fine to make occasional personal calls, particularly when you have your own office with a door that closes.

With normal (non-argument) conversations, the constraints are less about being overheard and more about keeping the calls in moderation so you don’t look like you’re neglecting your work. But moderation doesn’t mean none! Occasional calls to sort out logistics or deal with things that are much more easily handled during business hours are generally fine. When it looks bad (or starts annoying people) is when you’re having longer calls just to socialize. So basically: a short call asking what to pick up for dinner or sorting out a billing issue is generally fine. A call with friends or family just to catch up or chat is usually better saved for your own time.

If a call turns argumentative, that’s definitely something you don’t want coworkers to have to overhear — it can be really hard to focus when you can hear someone arguing with their S.O. through the wall next to you, and it can push negativity into other people’s workspaces (even if they just hear angry tones but can’t make out words). Because of that, I’d try to cut it off pretty quickly if the conversation takes that kind of turn, by saying you’ll need to finish the conversation later. If that’s not possible (some conversations really do need to be had right then and there), sometimes relocating will work, like to outside or a car or even a private stairwell if that’s an option.

This post, embarrassing bathroom incident, coworker won’t go to trainings, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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

1. My husband had an embarrassing bathroom incident at work

My husband has a digestive disorder where he sometimes has to urgently — like urgently — poop. He works in a big box store and the staff bathroom is inconveniently located up a set of stairs and through a locked door.

The other day he wasn’t able to make it to the bathroom in time and pooped himself in the middle of the sales floor. He turned around and left work, then the next day resigned effective immediately. He didn’t want to face anyone he’s worked with again. His manager called and asked him to reconsider. He said they would hold off on posting the job for a week to give him time to think it over.

I understand how humiliating and embarrassing it was, but he has a medical condition. I expressed that I really hoped that he could get past this and change his mind but so far he refuses to consider it. He’s been looking for other jobs but there aren’t a lot of jobs in our area that he’s qualified for. I think he’s overthinking how this was viewed by his coworkers — they probably feel bad for him but he thinks they would see him as gross. He is ashamed about what happened, like it was a personal failing. Is this really as bad as he thinks? Is his reputation at work unrecoverable?

It’s so understandable that he’s mortified but NO! This is not as bad as he thinks, and his reputation is not unrecoverable. I doubt there’s much he needs to recover from in that respect at all. Assuming he works with reasonably decent people, his coworkers aren’t thinking, “How disgusting!” They’re thinking, “Oh no, poor guy, that seems like something medical and I hope he’s okay.” They’re almost certainly assuming it was something medical, because the alternative would be … well, I’m not even sure what the alternative would be. Few adults are going around deliberately pooping their pants, so of course it was out of his control and doesn’t reflect on him in any way.

Maybe it would help for him to read other people’s accounts of similar incidents? The comment thread on this post has a lot.

2. Coworker doesn’t attend trainings but wants me to train her

I have a coworker, Susan, who started about a year after me. A coworker (who has left the company) and I taught her how to use Old System. Recently, our company has moved to New System to process payments.

We were giving months of heads-up that we were moving to New System and we were both invited to several large and small group trainings. Susan did not attend any of these meetings. Now, she keeps messaging me asking how to do X, Y, and Z in New System. I keep telling her to ask for a walk-through from the person who manages New System and she always says she will … and she doesn’t. A few days would go by and she will ask again. And again.

I pride myself in being approachable and helpful but it’s starting to irritate me. It feels like the friend who skipped class but wants to copy your notes. Am I being petty? I want to say something to her manager but we’re the only two who manage payments and I don’t want office drama.

No, you’re not being petty. And this isn’t about drama. It’s about clear-cut work issues that are impacting your ability to do your job, and Susan’s ability to do hers.

You have two choices: you can address it with Susan, or you can ask your boss to intervene. To address it with Susan, you could say, “I was happy to help at first, but at this point you need to be fully trained in the system. I’ve asked you before to set up training with Jane, and you really need to do that ASAP. I can’t keep being available to answer questions in lieu of real training.” And then if she asks for help after that: “Again, I’ve got to point you toward Jane for training.”

But if that doesn’t work or you just want your boss in the loop now (which would be entirely reasonable — this is something any competent manager would want to know about), there’s nothing pot-stirring about going to your boss and saying, “Could you help Susan get set up with training on New System? She hasn’t been trained by Jane yet and instead keeps coming to me for help, and it’s taking up a lot of my time. I’ve asked her to see Jane for training but it hasn’t happened and I think she needs a nudge from you to do it.”

3. My coworker asked for a reference and I feel like I’m in an impossible position

I work in a small office (two owners, three professionals, and four support staff). Only the owners have true supervisory authority.

One of the support staff who reports to me mostly has told me, but not the owners, that she wants to leave. Her new potential job has sent me a list of written questions I am expected to answer about her performance. I feel caught between a rock and a hard place here. Should I answer them? Should I tell the boss? I have a good relationship with everybody and I’d like to preserve it, but if this goes through, I’m going to still be here and she’s not, and I don’t want the owners to think I’m hiding things from them. I feel like she has put me in an impossible position.

Please give her the reference, and do not tell your boss. It’s very, very normal for people to discreetly ask colleagues for a reference. Telling your boss would be an enormous violation and could result in her being pushed out of her job before she’s ready to go. (Read the next question for one form of this.)

This is not your information to share. Keeping it quiet won’t be wronging the owners; it’s not info they’re entitled to. If/when your coworker leaves, it’s unlikely you’ll be accused of helping her exit — unless it’s highly dysfunctional there, in which case there are bigger problems anyway and you might as well help your support staff escape. (Also, they’re unlikely to know who she used as references, but you can ask her to keep your help confidential if you want to.)

Again, this is a very, very normal thing to discreetly do for a colleague, especially one who semi-reports to you.

4. My boss is shortening my coworker’s notice period

My coworker, who I’m friendly with outside of work, recently gave his two weeks notice at our job. Then, a few days after the meeting, our boss emails him and says she thought about it more and has decided that he doesn’t need the full two weeks and is setting his last day much earlier. My coworker is on a work visa and said he’d like to stay another week because there’s only so much time he can stay in the U.S. between jobs. He needs his new visa approved before he can start his next job, so he can’t just start his new job earlier. After he tried to explain this to my boss (and a few emails back and forth), she got very irritated and said it was pretty inappropriate for him to be negotiating this, as he’s the one who’s quitting.

Was my coworker in the wrong here? I understand that the notice period is a courtesy for the job you’re leaving, but should my boss have been a little more helpful given an otherwise great period of employment with my coworker?

Your boss is being awful. Letting someone work out a two-week notice period is hardly a major imposition for an employer, assuming your coworker is in good standing. Your boss’s refusal is already a jerk move, but add in that she knows it could affect his visa and it’s full-on horrible.

To be clear, in some situations it can make sense to say, “You know, looking at where your projects stand right now, we can actually wrap up earlier than that. Why don’t we just do one week rather than two?” But when a good employee explains they were counting on the full two weeks, a reasonable boss backs off. And if they don’t, they realize they’re seriously compromising their chances of getting a full two weeks from anyone else who quits in the future, since other people will now be expecting the same treatment when they resign.

Caveat: there are industries where it’s normal to be sent home immediately upon resigning, for security reasons. But you know if you’re in one of those and it doesn’t sound like you are. And even in those fields, good employers pay out the two weeks notice period; they don’t just cut you off from your income that day.

Your boss’s commentary on this (“he’s the one who’s quitting!”) sounds like sour grapes. She’s thoroughly in the wrong.

5. Was this interviewer’s suggestion a trap?

I recently interviewed for a role with a company, and the hiring manager is moving me forward for consideration. I sent a note thanking her for the conversation and reiterating my interest in the position, as I really do think it would be a great fit. In response to that, she confirmed she’d be moving me forward and also linked me another role within the company that she thought would be up my alley and said she’d put in a good word for me if I applied to it, stating that the company’s process is pretty fluid and it was good to keep opportunities open.

Naturally, I’m quadruple-thinking this, because I’ve never had this happen before. Is it a test of my genuine interest for her role? A compliment to me that she would support me for other positions while still pursuing a role on her team? An indication that I’m not her first choice but still thinks I’d be a good fit for the company? Some other sort of trap?

In full transparency, the new role she suggested would also fit my skillset and so I’m thankful she pointed it out. I think I will take her up on the suggestion but I’m just not sure if I should if it will ruin my chances to get the job I originally applied for!

It’s not a trap. Take her at face value! She thinks you’re a good candidate for the job with her but they’re not done with the process and nothing is guaranteed, so meanwhile here’s another role that might also be interested in. That’s it! You should feel free to apply for the second job too. If you want, you can email to let her know that you did apply for it, but that you remain very interested in the job with her and are excited to talk about it again whenever she’s ready to.

Hiring managers know people are applying to multiple jobs. It’s not anything you need to feel weird about.

This post, my employee wastes a huge amount of everyone’s time with “helpful” suggestions and questioning , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I manage four direct reports in addition to my own portfolio. For the most part this is manageable, but one of my employees, Adam, spends a lot of time pointing out inefficiencies and inconsistencies in processes or places where processes don’t exist.

Some of it is genuinely helpful feedback, but it generally requires the recipient of these suggestions (which are usually posed as questions) to spend about an hour crafting a response to show that the issue has been thought through already and explain exactly why things are the way they are. People spend this kind of time because of experience with Adam — he will badger and badger and point out any holes in an explanation. If he isn’t satisfied with an answer someone gives, he will often suggest
a bigger conversation is needed” and seek out higher-ups.

The issues are sometimes related to his work, but often they are about things he sees during the course of the day that don’t directly relate to his job. For example, when filling out an expense report, he believes he has a more efficient way of setting up the form, so he’ll write to Finance asking why it isn’t done the more efficient way and suggest that it is causing wider problems for people.

This is a significant drain on my time and energy, as well as the time and energy of people in other departments that he sends these questions to.

How can I make this stop? Every time I’ve spoken with him about more effective ways to give feedback or ask him to prioritize his questions, he falls back on “I’m just trying to help” or “I’m just asking a question.” I’ve tried to give him projects where he has more control, but that seems to only embolden him in trying to “fix” other things. I believe he genuinely thinks he’s helping, but I sense that a need to be right and be seen as the smartest plays a role too.

I wrote back and asked, “Have you told him directly he needs to stop? Or has it been softer messaging, like suggesting that he could approach things in a more effective way (as opposed to ‘you cannot do this anymore’)? Also, how’s his work in general?” The response:

It’s been mainly softer messaging, but at one various points over the past two years I have told him that he needs to focus on calibrating his responses to avoid using up other people’s time and to think more strategically about when to let things go because it is impacting how people see him.

Telling him outright to stop is tricky because he tends to play the victim a bit. When a different manager told him to stop sending emails to the company leadership, he went to HR to say that his bosses weren’t letting his voice be heard and he complained to me that it’s not fair to tell him to not to contact people in the company when he sees a problem that they should be aware of.

He also keeps saying it’s just his personality, and since we talk a lot about inclusion these days (in the context of DEI), he believes we’re being hypocritical if we tell him to tone down his personality (he is a white male) since that’s not being inclusive.

Another reason I’m reluctant to outright say “stop” is because he will then demand exact parameters and a process document that will lay out what he can or cannot do. I’ve told him to stop doing things on other projects and his response is to always ask me to ‘come up with a process’ to give him clarity. The reality is much fuzzier than that, and I’m not sure how to tell him to stop doing something if I can’t give him the exact definitions that he asks for. I haven’t yet figured out a succinct way of shutting this down, and while I try to avoid getting sucked into engaging with his questions and hypothetical scenarios, I find myself sometimes answering before I realize the path I’m going down.

As for work quality, the rigidity is definitely there in his work, but it also means that his work output is very high quality because of this kind of diligence and vigilance. The quality of the final project is usually good enough that, in our very forgiving culture, people give him a pass, but eventually I’ve seen people try to avoid working with him.

While the final product is great, it’s all of the other things that go into the work that eat up other people’s time — asking for a significant amount of direction at the outset of a project, noticing in the course of his research that there is an inconsistency somewhere in the archives and spending time tracking down how it happened — even when I’ve told him to ignore it and move on, etc.

I think you’ve got to seriously consider that Adam is not right for the job he’s in and you will need to fire him. I’m not saying you’re necessarily at that point now, but you should prepare to start going down that path.

He’s taking up enormous amounts of your time, other people’s time, and his own time on things he’s repeatedly been told aren’t priorities for him or the organization. He’s responded to your feedback by refusing to change and telling you it’s just his (utterly inflexible) personality. He’s badgering people when they answer his questions because he doesn’t find their answers satisfactory — even though he’s way outside his lane in asking. He’s escalating things that he doesn’t have the standing to escalate, and thus wasting the time of more people and higher up people. Colleagues are avoiding working with him because he makes interactions so difficult and draining. And his ability to exercise independent judgment and handle even a tiny bit of ambiguity are poor to the point of sounding disqualifying for the job.

It’s reasonable for you to say that you need someone in the role who won’t do these things. It’s reasonable to say that you need someone with the ability to prioritize correctly, exercise independent judgment, and make good decisions in circumstances that won’t always have clear, pre-set, pre-discussed parameters. Those are requirements of Adam’s job and it’s reasonable to insist on them.

If this were a minor personality issue and Adam were just annoying but relatively quick/easy to deal with, that would be one thing. But people are having to spend an hour at a time (!) crafting responses to his questions, because they’ve learned from experience with him that he’ll eat up even more of their time if he doesn’t.

It doesn’t matter that he believes he’s genuinely helping. He doesn’t get to be the final word on that assessment; that’s your call to make, and you’ve made it. He’s just refusing to listen.

It’s time to do two things:

1. Drop the softer messaging and get very, very direct. I understand why you’ve tried softening your language — you’re attempting to preemptively fend off what you know will be an exhausting response — but at this point you need to tell Adam in clear, unequivocal terms that he needs to stop what he’s doing or his job is on the line. That means using language like “you cannot do X” and “I need you to stop doing Y” and “I need to be clear that this is a condition of your job and not something we can negotiate or debate.” When he pushes back, you will need to say, “I understand that you see it differently. I am letting you know what I need from the person in your role, and what I need to see to keep you in it.”

You will need to hold a very firm line here. When he tries to test you with different scenarios, you should say, “This is an example of what I’m talking about. I need you to hear my feedback and use your judgment to figure out how to apply it across a range of scenarios. I will never be able to address every possible set of circumstances. I need the person in your role to work within broad guidelines like the ones I just gave you.”

Do not get sucked into thinking that you need to entertain every piece of pushback he throws your way! You do not, and you should not. Be ready to use language like:

• “That’s not what we’re discussing right now. This conversation is for me to let you know what I need to see you do differently.”
• “It’s not constructive for us to explore every what-if. I need you to hear the broad parameters I’m giving you and to function within them.”
• “I hear you that you see it differently. Despite that, what I need from you is…”
• “This is an example of what I’m talking about.”
• “This is an example of what I’m talking about, and the fact that it’s continuing to happen in a meeting I called to ask you to stop doing it raises serious concerns for me about whether you’re able to do what we need from the person in this role.”

Frankly, you might also consider saying, “What I think I hear you saying is that you’re not comfortable working with the sort of parameters that are realistic in our jobs — that you want a process in place for every possible scenario. I’m not able to give you that; there will always be some amount of ambiguity where you need to use your judgment to figure things out. Knowing that’s the case, do you want to take a few days to think about whether this the right job for you?”

2. Talk to HR ahead of time about the problem and how you plan to handle it, as well as the procedure for letting Adam go if you don’t see the changes you need. You want to get them looped in ahead of time so that if he complains that you’re “not letting his voice be heard,” they already know the situation and will be prepared to hold the line … as well as hopefully explain to him that “inclusion” doesn’t mean “anyone gets to take up any amount of anyone’s else time with anything they want, whenever they want.”

Based on his past history, though, he is going to complain. If you think he might complain to your boss or other higher-ups, loop them in too so they know what’s going on and what you need if he approaches them. (If they’re decent at their jobs, they’ll be relieved you’re handling it.) Expect he’s going to complain, prep people for it, and keep moving forward.

It’s possible that being very, very clear with him (no softening, no sugarcoating) might lead to him turning things around. If nothing else, giving him the opportunity to hear the message very clearly is the right thing to do. But if he doesn’t change, I’d argue you need to part ways. Even though his final work product is good, the disruption he’s causing to you and others along the way is significant enough that you can’t let it continue unchecked.

Margaret Thatcher
World Leaders, Past and Present
Garfinkle
1985

Submitter: Or, as a friend put it, “Dictators and a Couple of OK People”. This is a YA nonfic series that we only weeded a couple of years ago from the Norwood Public Library where I’m the Library Assistant. They have been sitting in our book sale room ever since; strangely, nobody has bought any of them.

These books were published in the 80s, when I was in high school. Even as a voracious reader of anything I could get my hands on, these would have bored me to tears, with their dense text and black-and-white photos. The librarian who ordered them back then was probably talked into the set by a slick salesman, since she was completely out of touch with teenagers.

Holly: More like “World Leaders, Past and Past-er.” What’s up with the font styles on the spines? That’s dumb.

The post World Leaders Past and Present appeared first on Awful Library Books.

To be… or (clears throat) NOT to be… uh… you know, THAT is the question, am I right? (knocks on table) Whether… or not it is… uhhhh… (arches eyebrows, snaps fingers) NOBLER, you see, more noble in the mind, yeah, tosuffertheslingsandarrowsof out…rageous (looks over glasses, three-second pause) fortune. I’m sorry, but could I get a glass of water, please? Throat’s already getting a little dry here. Please and thank you. Uh, where was I?

(He shifts his gaze side to side. His arms are half crossed, one hand pointing out.)

Oh yeah… big, BIG ol’ fortune… uh… OR do we take arms, uh, against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, (cough) end… them… just cut ’em right off there, you know, nip it in the bud as they say… to DIE, to sleep—

(OPHELIA gets pushed on-stage early to bring him a bottle of Fiji. He takes the water, mouths “THANK YOU,” ogles her, softly growls, then snaps back into character.)

NO MORE, I SAY! … and by a sleep to say we (winks)… end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to… I mean, it’s a consummation (shoots OPHELIA “the look,” softly growls)… devoutly, uh, to be WISHED. To DIE, to SLEEP—I know, I’m kinda repeating myself a little bit there.

To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub (winks at OPHELIA again), for in that sleep of death what dreams may come… when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us (long pause) pause. There’s the respect that makes calamity of so long… life…

(He looks down, fixates on a piece of lint stuck to his shirt. Behind the curtain, the stage manager impatiently coughs.)

Right… for who would bear the whips and scorns of time… certainly not THIS face, am I right? Sorry, I’m getting off-topic. The oppressor is, dare I say, WROOONG, the proud man’s conTUMEly… CONtumely… contumeLY… No, conTUMEly—had it right the first time… the pangs of despised love, the law’s DELAY—can we get a cut here? I just wanna try that conTUMEly line one more time. Oh, this is live theater? Never mind…

(He shrugs his shoulders, smirks, then gets back into character.)

Thepangsofdespisedlovethelawsdelay, (snaps fingers as if he is about to break into a show tune) here we go, the insolence of office, and-AND the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes, when he… this guy… HIMSELF might his quietus make with a bare body—bod—bodkin? (growls at OPHELIA) Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat (winks) under a weary life… not ME, of course, I’m full of vitality, right, darlin’?

(OPHELIA pretends to blush, then rolls her eyes as soon he turns away from her.)

But that the dread of something AFTER death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?

(He chuckles for no reason whatsoever.)

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch—or was it PITH? Maybe I read the script wrong, I dunno, huh? Well, YOU tell ME, right?!? Oh, right, LIVE THEATER, sorry—PITH and moment, with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action.

Soft you now, the fine—I mean, fair—Ophelia.

Nymph (growls), in thy orisons, uhh… be all my sins (winks) remembered.

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Buy our new movie EIT KIDZ KLUB!

On DVD!

On VHS! 

Now that society is collapsing, Everything Is Terrible! is reborn with their new and fantastical expedition into found footage... but this time the adults can stay home! EIT! has unearthed thousands of forgotten DVD & VHS tapes aimed at yesterday’s youth to bring you their most mind-melting movie to date. Watch in awe as all colors of the rainbow join forces to destroy the tyranny of adult civilization once and for all! All of your oldest friends will be there; skateboarding web-surfers, rapping math equations, gigantic baby ducks, and maybe even a wizard or two! And what EIT! show would be complete without a live experience that makes the Ice Capades look like a stupid piece of trash! Finally, an all-encompassing extravaganza created for kidz... by kidz! 

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My favorite Star Trek movie is Citizen Kane.

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