The course includes examples of when abortion is permitted to protect the life of the patient, but many experts say the complications women face in pregnancy are impossible to capture in a brief presentation.
Reggaeton and Latin trap artist Bad Bunny is this year’s Super Bowl halftime show performer. The Onion sat down with the musician to discuss the upcoming show.
The Onion : How did you book the halftime show?
Bad Bunny: Roger Goodell is my cousin.
What can we expect from this year’s halftime show?
I’ve been practicing that magic trick where you pour a pitcher of milk into a rolled up newspaper and it disappears.
What do you say to those who claim you’re not American?
I understand it’s confusing to encounter an American who can speak two different languages.
Any advice for young people trying to become musicians?
Just go for it. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re too charismatic and talented to succeed.
What message do you hope America takes away from your performance?
Circumcision. Is. Child. Abuse.
What’s next for you?
I’m going to eat a whole pizza while catching up on Pluribus.
ERIE, PA—Saying that every full-grain cowhide motorcycle jacket would help keep a brooding, wayward rebel warm through the cold weather months, a local charity announced Tuesday that it had begun its 10th annual leather coat drive for bad boys in need.
According to organizers, donations can be placed in drop boxes outside pool halls, 24-hour diners, and biker bars throughout town. Jackets are needed in all sizes, especially broad-shouldered and athletic fits, and may be harshly used, as tattered fabric reportedly lends bad boys an undeniable mystique. Statistics indicate the need is urgent, as a lack of proper leather apparel puts renegade youth populations at increased risk of frostbite, road rash, and looking like a doofus.
“This winter, we ask that you consider the outwardly tough, but deep down vulnerable, young men in our community by cleaning out your closets and setting aside any leather coats with prominent shoulder studs,” said Janet McGwin, who told reporters the charity, known as Bundle Up Our Bad Boys, works to ensure area hoodlums stay warm while loitering on street corners with their friends and hassling passersby. “Many bad boys have to make that single pack of cigs rolled up in their shirtsleeve last an entire day, and they struggle to access basic necessities like a black double-rider jacket with a sewn-in half belt.”
“It’s so sad to see them shivering in their plain white T-shirts while they rev their motorcycles in abandoned lots, slugging back extra whiskey to fend off the cold or simply smoking an unfiltered Pall Mall and staring off into the distance,” she continued. “Unfortunately, sleeve tattoos don’t keep a person’s arms warm.”
McGwin added that her group plans to collect at least 5,000 leather coats by the end of the month, ideally ones that have asymmetric zippers, snap-down lapels, or patches that say “Born to ride.” Also accepted are buckskin bomber jackets, as they can work too, depending on the style a bad boy is going for. In addition, the organization welcomes donations of fingerless gloves, Wayfarer sunglasses, fine-tooth combs, hair pomade, and switchblades.
Recipients from past leather coat drives confirmed these items were essential to retaining a sense of bad boy dignity. For local ne’er-do-well and high school dropout Tony Lockhart, having a fringed leather cruiser jacket with epaulets and zip-close sleeves has meant a new beginning.
“I love having this killer coat in the winter, especially when me and my buddies are cruising around and blasting tunes in my old Mustang, which doesn’t have any heat,” said Lockhart, stretching his lean frame over a pool table to sink a bank shot as he spoke to reporters about how he spends much of his time fixing up the muscle car, which has a faded King Cobra decal on the hood. “Bundle Up Our Bad Boys understands that when a guy like me looks good, he feels good. I’ve become more successful in all areas of my life, whether it’s picking up broads, fighting some jock who dissed me, or street racing at night around a deadly bend on the edge of town.”
At press time, the charity reported that it had attempted to begin delivering donated leather coats to those in need, but all the bad boys had hit the open road, tearing out of town for parts unknown and swearing never to return.
NEW YORK—Expressing alarm at their friend’s deeply uncharacteristic behavior, concerned sources reported Tuesday that local alcoholic George Ralston wasn’t himself when he was sober. “George is normally such a loud, outgoing party animal, but when he hasn’t had a drink in a while, he becomes this completely different person,” said Ralston’s friend Joe O’Hara, adding that Ralston’s frightening transformation into someone with common sense and safe driving habits made him all but certain to ruin the night once he had a few pints of bitters and soda in him. “It’s like he’s a shell of the erratic boozehound we know and love. When I look into his lucid, focused eyes, it feels like a stranger staring back at me. It’s honestly sad to see him respecting everyone’s personal space and making a complete gentleman out of himself. Apparently these days he hardly ever wakes up in a hotel room in Atlantic City with no idea of how he got there anymore. That’s not the real George. The real George is 10 beers deep and picking a fight with a bouncer.” O’Hara added that the hardest part of confronting Ralston over his sober episodes was that his friend seemed to lose all memory of them upon returning to his usual self.
I work in an animal care setting and overheard a coworker casually mention that they had taken an edible about an hour before the end of their shift. They said it didn’t fully hit them until the last few minutes of work, but during that time they were asked to help restrain a patient. They weren’t administering medication in this instance, but they were still performing tasks while impaired. They also mentioned that there have been a few times when they’ve come to work slightly under the influence.
I know some coworkers use substances on their own time, and our workplace doesn’t test or screen for this. I don’t have an issue with what people do off the clock, but using anything before or during a shift — especially in a role involving patient care — feels unsafe to me. At the same time, I don’t want to create problems for others or inadvertently push the workplace toward testing policies that impact everyone.
I’m not sure what the right step is. Should I say something, leave it alone, or approach the situation in another way?
This wouldn’t be the case with all jobs, but because of the nature of this one, it’s a serious safety issue — for the animals and for your coworkers. You need to say something. That would be true even if it had just happened once, but it’s even more urgent because they’re apparently doing it repeatedly.
Talk to your boss about what you heard. It sucks that you have to, but that’s on your coworker, not on you.
2. Interviewer was upset I wouldn’t tell him whether I was married
I’m a female physician. I had a call with a recruiter, and the second question he asked me was, “Are you married?” And then, “What kind of work do they do?” When I asked neutrally, “Oh, why do you ask?” he got very upset that I didn’t want to answer the question and said, “No one has ever done this (refused to answer) in my 25 years of recruiting.” I tried to smooth things over, but then he hung up on me.
Unfortunately I don’t know which organization he is representing and I think he may be the head of his recruiting group so I had no one to report his behavior to. This is unfortunately a question I get asked a lot, and just to avoid this kind of scenario I’ll answer, but I hate having to do that! Is there anything else I can say?
“Oh, why do you ask?” is the exact right response to this kind of question. It’s not illegal for them to ask (a common misconception), but it’s illegal for them to factor in your answer in any way so there’s no reason they need to ask, and it’s a good way to instantly make candidates uncomfortable.
One alternative is to answer what you think they’re really getting at, which in this case was probably something about whether you would be able to devote enough time and focus to the job. So for example, you could say, “Oh, I have great family support for my career, that’s never been an issue.” And if he responded to that by again asking if you were married, at that point I might say, “I’ve never been asked that in an interview before (even though you have) — why do you ask?”
But also, this particular recruiter sounds like a massive tool.
3. My boss says she wants to accommodate immunocompromised people, but won’t hold hybrid staff meetings
I work at a public institution of higher education. I’m immunocompromised, which my managers knows (although she does not know the exact condition). On the days I’m in-person at work (we all work a hybrid schedule), I consistently mask and am very careful about protecting my health. Our quarterly all-staff meetings have been hybrid for several years now, after being totally online during Covid. These have never been particularly fruitful meetings, neither informationally nor for team-building, though my manager wants to make them more useful.
At a meeting last year, she brought up the idea of making our next meeting in-person only. I mentioned that we have immunocompromised and medically vulnerable people on staff (I’m not the only one, but I have tenure and can more easily speak out) and suggested considering ways to make the meetings less risky — like at least making the winter meetings fully online. She asked to meet with me one-on-one to discuss ideas for making the meetings safer and I shared other ideas too, like holding our September and June meetings in a space with windows that open. We have two campus spaces like that where we’ve held all-staff meetings in the past so this doesn’t seem a huge ask.
My manager seems to have taken none of what I said to heart. Our September meeting was in-person only and was in a space where no windows or doors could be opened, though she did have a couple of HEPA filters in the space. But now she is proposing making our February meeting every year all-day and in-person only and making our fall and spring meetings half-day and hybrid. I’m at a loss as to why she would make the meeting during the height of flu and norovirus season in-person and why she asked for my suggestions in the first place if she was going to ignore them.
I know being immunocompromised is a real disability, but I feel like it’s treated like it isn’t because, unlike being a wheelchair user faced with a space only accessible by stairs, I physically can go to these meetings. It’s just at tremendous risk to my health. And I have some colleagues who go to work sick all the time, which makes it even more risky. I’ve already brought this up in meetings with others present and in that one-on-one meeting and it clearly had no effect. Should I just tell her I can’t attend? Talk to HR, which is notoriously unhelpful and their ADA coordinator left last spring? Keep pushing back? I’m already dealing with an illness that gets worse when I’m stressed and I wonder if it’s easier to just take a sick day and skip the meeting to avoid the whole thing. I feel so demoralized at this point.
At a minimum, tell her you can’t attend. Sample language: “I can’t safely attend an all-day in-person meeting, so would it be better for me to call in or skip this one?”
But you could also say, “I know you’d asked for ideas to make these safer for immunocompromised employees, and one thing would be — if one of these has to be full-day and in-person — to make it the fall or spring one, not the February one, since that’s the height of flu season.”
Or even: “I know you’d asked for ideas to make these safer for immunocompromised employees, and I’m curious if you ran into obstacles doing that. I might be able to better tailor ideas if I know more about the constraints we need to work within.”
4. I was laid off and still have my laptop — is there a point where it becomes mine?
I got laid off mid-November, and HR said we’d receive instructions for returning our equipment. While my company access was cut off, and my laptop was remotely wiped, it’s now mid-January and I haven’t heard anything about returning it. I emailed last week asking, and haven’t gotten a response. I live near an office, but the implication during layoffs was that they don’t want laid off employees coming back to the building, understandably.
Is there a point at which the equipment is mine? I’ve seen some advice that at some point you’re within your rights to notify the company that you’ll be disposing of the equipment if you don’t hear from them in X amount of time, but what if you wanted to use it instead of dispose of it?
First, try calling them instead of emailing — just on the principle that if one method of communication doesn’t work, you should try a second method before giving up.
But if you still don’t get a response, contact them and say, “I have not heard back from you about how to return my equipment, despite asking on (date) and (date), so this is notice that I plan to dispose of the equipment unless you arrange otherwise by (date).” If you really want to be safe, you can send that by certified mail. In most jurisdictions, 30-60 days will be considered a reasonable window to offer, and after that you are free to dispose of the equipment as you wish (which you don’t need to volunteer will mean “now it’s for personal use”).
WASHINGTON—Pledging to provide her with spectacles, a curled-up tie, and whatever else she needed to do a great job, President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he would be appointing Lara Trump as the next Dilbert. “My daughter-in-law Lara is just fantastic, so we’re gonna make her Dilbert from now on,” the president said unprompted to reporters gathered on Air Force One, adding that Lara Trump would be posted indefinitely to a Washington, D.C., cubicle where she would spend every weekday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. “Crazy Democrats will say you can’t do that. There’s just the one Dilbert, they’ll say, because they’re all so crooked. But I have unlimited power to do this, and Lara’s going to be a really special Dilbert. And we’ll look into getting her the Dilbert dog, eventually. Maybe that’ll be Eric [Trump]. We’ll see how it goes.” Reached for comment, Lara Trump said she was unaware she had been appointed Dilbert at the time of the announcement but confirmed she was honored and looked forward to having her mouth surgically removed.
The Washington Post announced sweeping layoffs amid declining revenue and backlash against the way owner Jeff Bezos has managed the company, with sports coverage, international, metro and the paper’s podcast being hit hardest. What do you think?
“Most newspapers fail in their first 150 years.”
Eddie Fernandez, Flatware Polisher
“If it’s not in Cigar Aficionado, I don’t need to know about it.”
Chuck Bird, Pet Outfitter
“To be fair, how many reporters do you really need to write ‘Buy Amazon stock’?”
“He’s the boy who cried ‘I’ll stop being an insufferable prick’ and we’re starting to think he doesn’t mean it.” Luke and the Panel (Clare Blackwood, Megan MacKay, and Ian MacIntyre) talk Pierre Poilievre’s completely unexpected leadership review victory, the latest round of Epstein nightmares, and what exactly Mark Carney is trying to do with […]
In brief: Our forecast is fairly straightforward for the next 10 days, with most every day having high temperatures in the 70s. So we’re having a little fun today by paying homage to the music from that era.
That 70s weather
After today Houston appears likely to experience a string of days with temperatures in the 70s, and our weather will enter something of a Goldilocks zone—not too hot, not too cold. As a result, we thought we’d mix things up today by adding a splash of 70s hit songs to our forecast. So as you head into the weekend, be sure and Take it Easy.
Image of 1970s era Houston generated by ChatGPT.
Thursday
If you’re waiting for the 70s era to kick off in terms of temperatures, today’s a day for simply Stayin’ Alive. That’s because high temperatures won’t get into the 70s, but rather will settle into the low- to mid-60s for highs. But there won’t be that chilly wind we saw on Wednesday, and as a result it should feel a little warmer and more Happy outside. Lows tonight will be warmer as well, likely only briefly falling below 50 degrees as the airmass over our region moderates.
Friday
As Rocky Mountain High pressure builds across Texas, this will be a mild, sunny day with high temperatures in the low-70s. Winds will be from the west at about 10 mph. Lows on Friday night will drop to around 50 degrees in Houston.
Saturday
This will be just about a perfect day, with highs in the mid-70s, sunny skies, low humidity, and light winds. This is the weather Dreams are made of.
Sunday
This will be mostly a Blue (sky) Sunday. However, the southerly flow becomes a little more pronounced, we will probably see a few more clouds. Still, this will be a pleasant day with modest southerly winds. I recommend spending a lot of time outside, and that you Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough.
Monday and Tuesday
The 70s party continues next week. However we probably will see more clouds on Monday, and perhaps some scattered showers on Tuesday when there Ain’t No Sunshine. With dewpoints rising to about 60 degrees it will feel a little more humid, but it will still feel fairly dry when you Imagine what it feels like outside during summer in Houston.
Later next week
At some point next week we may have to say Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and leave the 70s. It may happen on Wednesday or Thursday, when a few locations reach 80 degrees, or possibly next weekend if a front drops our daily highs into the 60s. Or it may not happen for awhile longer. Regardless our weather truly looks mild for the next 10 days or so and none of us will need be Riders on the Storm. Enjoy!
PALO ALTO, CA—Hailing the new product as a “game changer” in the development of large language models, Silicon Valley insiders confirmed Tuesday that an AI chatbot that only responds “huh” had been valued at $200 billion. “The new HmmAI chatbot is like nothing we’ve seen before, able to answer ‘huh’ to text and image-based inputs with a muted indifference indistinguishable from that of an actual human being,” said industry analyst Debra Nelson, adding that the new chatbot had already replaced the flesh-and-blood therapists of tens of thousands of users. “HmmAI is at the bleeding edge of artificial intelligence, responding to prompts about recipe ideas, ancient history, or even advanced nuclear physics with the word ‘huh’ in just a fraction of a second. This chatbot is going to revolutionize productivity and is worth every penny of its $200 billion valuation. Having a whole team of experts who exclusively say ‘huh’ right in your pocket isn’t just science fiction anymore, and if you don’t incorporate HmmAI into your company’s workflow right now, you’re going to be left behind.” At press time, HmmAI representatives were downplaying allegations that the chatbot continually saying “huh” had convinced hundreds of teenagers to kill themselves.
BATON ROUGE, LA—Revealing that he was prepared to become a martyr for the popular cartoon dog from Australia, local 3-year-old Owen Fulks announced this week that he was more than willing to die for Bluey. “It would be the greatest honor to lay down my life for Bluey,” said Fulks, pledging his eternal allegiance to the anthropomorphic blue heeler, who reportedly taught him about creativity, perseverance, and emotional regulation. “I die so Bluey may live. My only regret is that I have but one life to give in adoration of Bluey. Should I shuffle off this mortal coil, please tell my mother to watch the injured bird episode about dealing with death.” Reached for further comment, Fulks told reporters “that fucker Bingo [was] on her own.”
Oh! Margo McQueen, 63, died. You knew that, right? Like, eight months ago. There was a memorial. Your father went. Said her sister’s really gone off the deep end with the Botox.
This three-bedroom home on a tree-lined street has a roof with all the pointy parts you’d hope to have in a roof. No level surface up here! It’s all slopes and slants that lead to various points.
In compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the Justice Department has released more than 3 million documents related to the late child sex offender’s prosecution. The Onion shares the biggest revelations.
Jeffrey Epstein signed all his emails “The Infamous Pedophile Jeff”
Digital cameras always have that nostalgic feel
Little Saint James gets kind of chilly at night
All-inclusive didn’t include drinks, which is crazy
Brett Ratner and Bill Clinton do an incredible karaoke duet of “Achy Breaky Heart”
It takes at least 1,700 mentions to get fired from CBS News
Epstein’s grandiose ambitions included opening a coffee shop and getting really good at playing guitar
Moltbook, a Reddit-style social network where AI agents communicate exclusively amongst themselves without the need for humans, has taken the tech world by storm, with as many as 1.5 millions bots using the service to chat about the work they’re doing and the problems they’ve solved. What do you think?
“I guess that’s worth poisoning our water for.”
Erin Cullie, Massage Scheduler
“It’s full of spam accounts who are obviously human.”
Lester Rubinstein, Microwave Programmer
“I was wondering why Siri was suddenly exhibiting body image issues.”
WASHINGTON—Voicing deep frustration with the lack of jobsite carnage, President Donald Trump expressed disappointment Thursday that no one had been killed yet in the construction of the White House ballroom. “It’s been months since we started, and I still haven’t seen one worker get impaled by rebar or have his head smashed in by falling rubble,” said Trump, adding that he had at least hoped to witness a runaway steamroller squeeze the guts from the mouths of a few construction workers as if they were tubes of toothpaste. “They killed almost a hundred guys building the Hoover Dam, so why isn’t the death toll on my project even bigger? I get my hopes up every time they hoist some huge beam up with a crane, but it never ends up snapping the cable and crushing everybody. No bloody table saw accidents, no nail guns shooting into someone’s skull, no falling glass chopping someone in half. Nothing! Even though I specifically told them not to worry about being OSHA-compliant. Just my luck. They probably got plenty of asbestos exposure during the demolition process, but it’ll be years before anyone actually dies from it.” At press time, a crowbar-wielding Trump was overheard telling Vice President JD Vance to put on a hard hat and head over to the former East Wing.
WASHINGTON—Saying the millions of documents had restored a pleasure they lost long ago, Americans nationwide said Thursday that the recently released trove of emails connected with disgraced financier and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein had reignited their love of reading. “I didn’t realize how much I missed the simple joy of losing myself in words until these massive tranches of sex crime files were released,” said Indianapolis resident Greta Livingston, adding that she now spends the hours she used to waste on social media curled up on the couch and completely absorbed in the lengthy communications between wealthy child predators. “My imagination just carries me away when I read page after page of rich deviants asking Epstein when they could fly in for lunch on his private sex-trafficking island. And before I know it, the sun’s up because I’ve been reading all night. I hope they release the remaining files soon, because I can’t wait to find out what happens next.” Livingston went on to admit that she regretted looking at a picture of Alan Dershowitz because of how different he appeared there than in the fantasy world of her imagination.
Look upon me, for I am the baby staring at you from the hollow gap betwixt two airplane seats, and I know when you are going to die.
Do not turn away from my stare. To look away is to ignore, and to ignore is to rob yourself of knowledge. Gaze into the deep well of my light-sensitive eyes and follow the icy blue to the truth you inherently seek. The truth that we all seek. You claim that fear forbids you from finding this truth, but fear is the slop we gobble from the trough. Hear me now.
Goo Goo You are going to die. Gaa Gaa
Does this shock you? Make you feel vulnerable? Endangered? Impuissant? SHAKE OFF YOUR SENSE OF SINGULARITY AND ENTITLEMENT, EARTH PEASANT.
[Blows a spit bubble.]
We are all marching towards death, whether it be step by step or a mad rush. Your imminent end does not haunt you anymore or any less than any other poor soul scrolling or sleeping or sitting or shitting in this metal vessel you humans have worked so hard to rely upon. It transports the fleshy receptacle that your blood and brain and bones reside in so that you may be distracted from your final destination, DEATH.
[Spits up.]
DO NOT LOOK AWAY FROM ME, MORTAL COIL, NOT EVEN AS MOTHER WIPES THE MILKY DRIBBLE FROM MY CHIN. The tiny computer in your hands will not save you. Nor will the jewels you adorn around your neck or the plush cashmere and rough, torn denim that you cover your soft animal body with. You ornament yourself with earthly belongings, impossibly biodegradable waste, filling holes we dig to hide our filth, and you liken it to armor. DOES YOUR IPOD HAVE A SOUL?
[Screams.]
Have you traced the light blue veins of your Cartier tennis bracelet as your body cradles it in the bath? Have you been bewitched by the rise and fall of your Oura Ring’s chest as it lay sleeping next to you? HAVE YOU TRICKED YOURSELF INTO BELIEVING THESE HOLLOW POSSESSIONS WILL IMBUE YOU WITH IMMORTALITY?
[Hiccups.]
LOOK INTO MY EYES AND TELL ME, DOES LONELINESS NOT NIP AT THE NAPE OF YOUR NECK?
[Hiccups.]
LEST YOU FORGET, YOU WILL DIE, AND I KNOW WHEN.
[Mother begins to pat the baby on the back. He spits up again. Mother whispers, “That’s my good little guy.”]
You fill your home with THINGS, likening them to a barricade. Le Creuset, PlayStation, and plush, posh pillows. Water in cans, water in bottles, water sitting cool in a Britta. Ice in the shape of an anatomically incorrect heart. A heart you feel safe enough to hold while you ignore the bloody mass that rages inside of you. A special shower head that removes the toxic chemicals you’ll inevitably suck down somewhere else. Somewhere like the produce that you think will keep your body young, your skin elastic, and your cells cancer-free. YOU WILL DIE, AND THESE THINGS WILL CONTINUE TO BE JUST THINGS.
[Mother begins to raise the baby up and over her seat in a repetitive motion.]
And all the while you accept these things in place of a person. Because to love means to lose. And to lose is to leave, to be left, forget, and be forgotten. This is what you tell yourself each time you tap your flat plastic bartering tool to a faceless screen. More things, fewer people, fewer losses, more life. But why do you focus on the incessant pursuit of avoiding inevitable endings while defying the ultimate and unflinching ending of life? To lose something is to have had it in the first place, is it not?
Ba ba ba ba
DO NOT MISINTERPRET MY WORDS, YOU FLEETING FOOL. Do not make the mistake of likening losing a watch to losing a lover.
[Squeals.]
You enter this life from another, pushed from body into your own, and you think the world demands staunch singularity of you? There are no other truths: You begin, and you end. A heart that beats is a heart that craves another’s cadence. Another note to make a song, a hand to grasp, a breath to pass between two open mouths as they attempt to make a moment into memory that the cells call home.
LOOK AT ME, SIMPLE MORTAL, YOU BRIEF LIVING THING. Nothing on this earth will save you. Nothing you buy will stop your heartbeat from one day ceasing. Nothing you consume will add seconds to your life. You are designed to die. Do not forget we are not made just of ourselves, and we are certainly not made of things.
So look into my unblinking eyes, you fragile vessel, and ask not “When will I die?” but rather… “When will I LIVE?”
[Mother holds Baby’s butt to her face, “Uh oh, someone needs a diaper change!”]
What time is kickoff? The Bad Bunny concert kicks off around 8:00 or 8:30 p.m., but there will be pre-concert entertainment starting at 6:30 p.m. from one group called the “New England Patriots” and another called the “Seattle Seahawks.”
Will I still be able to enjoy the Bad Bunny concert featuring football if I don’t know the rules? Yes. Besides, the rules are simple. When Bad Bunny says “¡Canta!” you sing. When Bad Bunny says “¡Baila!” you dance.
Is there any terminology I should brush up on in order to better appreciate the Bad Bunny concert featuring football? While not strictly necessary, it doesn’t hurt to know a few basic terms, like “fumble” (what most white people in the audience will do to the Spanish words they’re trying to sing), or “stiff arm” (what you will likely wake up with tomorrow morning after dancing too hard during the concert).
What are the betting odds for the Bad Bunny concert featuring football? Here are a few popular predictions across betting sites:
The television closed captioning puts “[Singing in Spanish]” for the entire concert instead of any actual lyrics (-400)
At some point during the performance, the camera cuts to notorious Bad Bunny fan, Jon Hamm (dubbed “Juan Jamon”), somewhere in the crowd, having the time of his life (+125)
Over/Under on the number of angry Truth Social rants President Trump goes on throughout the course of the night (12)
Bad Bunny is crowned MVP (Most Valuable Puerto Rican) (-1000)
Why will football be featured during the Bad Bunny concert? The Bad Bunny concert is fantastic exposure for the NFL and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put the game of American football in front of fans of the biggest musical artist in the world.
How much is the National Football League paying Bad Bunny for the privilege of playing football during and after his concert? In what can only be described as a display of unprecedented magnanimity, Bad Bunny has allowed the National Football League to showcase their sport at his concert for free.
Why will ICE be present at the Bad Bunny concert featuring football? The Bad Bunny concert featuring football is the perfect opportunity to arrest thousands of dangerous criminals and freeloaders who pose a grave threat to America, whether it’s climate-polluting oil executives, parasitic private equity portfolio managers, or society-destroying tech broligarchs. But, sadly, ICE will be at the concert looking for working-class immigrant families who would never be able to afford to attend anyway.
Is the Bad Bunny concert featuring football the same thing as “The All-American Halftime Show”? Yes. Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican and therefore American, so his concert is an all-American halftime show. Anything else that happens to be on television at the same time, whether it’s reruns of CSI: Las Vegas or a competing live music event, will no doubt be completely overshadowed to the point where one has to wonder whether there’s any point to airing it.
Who is most likely to win the Bad Bunny concert featuring football? The Bad Bunny concert featuring football will be a much-needed win for America. In terms of the football, though, unfortunately, probably the Pats.
My brother (Gen Z/millennial cusp) has been out of work (and stuck living back home with my parents) for a while now, and everyone is understandably frustrated with the situation.
A couple times my mom (boomer) and I (millennial) have been one-on-one and she’s brought up the situation, and she’s said that she has told my brother to just “go show up in person to places you’d like to get a job at and try to hand in your resume!”
Every single one of my millennial instincts is screaming NO NO NO, this is CLASSIC out-of-touch boomer advice from when we were trying to get jobs during the Great Recession. I told my mom that yeah, that doesn’t really work now since it’s not the 1980s, and since it’s literally the classic example of out-of-touch boomers with the job hunt, my brother is probably going to then ignore every other piece of advice you give him.
However, my mom’s response was yes, she knows all of that, but she heard recently (like this year) on the news that going in person to hand in your resume out of the blue is actually a good thing now, since it’ll get your resume directly in front of a human and help you avoid the AI filter bots. And she claimed she has a friend whose daughter got her most recent job this way!
Every millennial instinct of mine screams NOPE DISREGARD when I hear this touted as job hunt advice, but I know that the AI filters are so impossible to get past now. Is there actually some merit to it? Has everything I thought I knew about job searching changed in the nine years since I last interviewed?
It is still not a thing.
First, they’re highly likely to just tell you that you need to apply online … because you do in fact need to apply online. As has been the case for a long time now, most organizations use electronic applicant tracking systems. If your application isn’t in there, it’s not getting considered.
Second, with the rise in remote work, a ton of people don’t even work at companies’ main addresses anymore. There may not be anyone involved in hiring for the position even physically there. And even if they’re there, they’re generally going to be very busy and aren’t going to come out and talk to you just because you randomly showed up holding a resume — so anyone you do talk to is incredibly unlikely to have anything to do with hiring for that particular job.
Third, it will still annoy the crap out of most people involved in hiring and make you look naive/out of touch at best … and at worst, like you don’t think instructions apply to you. Their instructions are there for a reason.
You will always hear stories about how one weird job search gimmick worked for someone, but more often than not they’re a bad idea (and the amount of time your brother would put into going door to door with his resume would be far more effective put into networking, or writing a better cover letter, or other things with a bigger pay-off).
1. My bullying coworkers wouldn’t let me speak at a meeting
This happened many years ago, but I keep replaying it in my head and wondering what I should have done.
At that time, I was working in a very small department in a small nonprofit. There were four of us in the department, three faculty (me, Marc, and Terry) and a director, Linda. We were having our weekly meeting (overkill, in my opinion) with some reps from other departments, and a couple grad students. Maybe eight people total.
Linda despised me and made no bones about it, and the overall situation was extremely toxic. I’d been tolerating Linda’s abuse for about four years at that point and was very miserable and looking to escape. She delighted in making me look bad in front of everyone possible, including students.
At this particular meeting, towards the end, there was something I wanted to comment on. I forget the topic, but it wasn’t a huge deal. For the next 5-10 minutes, every time I opened my mouth, Terry would interrupt with a comment. The first couple of times, okay, coincidence. And then it became extremely obvious that Terry was deliberately interrupting to prevent me from speaking. I looked up and Linda was openly giggling at Terry’s antics. This went on for quite a while, with Terry saying increasingly inane things every time I opened my mouth and the rest of the group giggling. At one point, I yelled, “Does anyone want to hear what I have to say?!” and Linda responded, while laughing, “We don’t know, we haven’t heard it yet.”
In my fantasies, this is where I storm out and slam the door, saying something like, “When you want my input, let me know and I’ll start attending these meeting again. Otherwise, I don’t see any point in being here.” Needless to say, that’s not what I actually did. In real life, I gritted my teeth, waited until Terry was bored being the funny guy, and interpolated my comment, which was an almost completely irrelevant after that much time wasted by Terry being a jerk.
I got laid off from that job about three months later and found a new one six months after that. It took about a year at my new, non-dysfunctional workplace before I was comfortable speaking in meetings. I have no contact with any of those jerks anymore, but this situation pops up in my head from time to time, wishing I had pushed back or done more to stand up for myself. Realistically, that wouldn’t have helped my situation at all but might have made me feel better.
What would have been the best response at the time?
First and foremost, there was no “good” response in this situation because there was no winning.
The way you handled it was reasonable. It also would have been reasonable to just give up on speaking at that particular moment, since they were being such pains in the ass. Either was reasonable.
What wasn’t reasonable was them and there’s no magical response that forces unreasonable people to become reasonable.
What you were dealing with there sounds much, much bigger than what happened at this one meeting. I suspect you’re focusing on the meeting — even now, years later — because it encapsulated their disrespect and rudeness, and there’s something about that particular instance that you feel like you should have handled better.
But they were just jerks. They were jerks before this meeting, I assume they were jerks after this meeting, and there was nothing you could do that would have changed that.
2. Should I tell my boss something alarming I heard about a coworker?
I work as an instructor for a niche sport, which can be dangerous if people aren’t following safety rules. We mostly work with school groups, so the majority of our students have little to no experience with our sport, making safety even more important.
Today we had a large school group with a language barrier, so things were kinda chaotic, and we had an unusually large number of kids being wildly unsafe, and it’s a miracle we got through the day without any serious injuries. A lot of this was kids who were done with their lessons and immediately attempted to do things that were wildly above their skill level … but there was a few incidents of instructors having their classes try things they weren’t at all ready for.
Afterwards, a few of us were discussing the whole mess in the break room, and some support staff raised concerns about one instructor in particular, who is apparently a repeat offender with this sort of thing. They said John typically gives his classes very little instruction, takes them to do more challenging things, and then gets angry with the kids for not knowing what they’re doing. John’s attitude with the kids is bad enough that the support staff raised concerns about it counting as emotional abuse, not to mention that his lack of instruction and poor judgement is endangering the kids.
This is obviously very alarming. Only problem is, my only source is that small handful of support workers I talked with today. This is John’s first year with us and we’re still early in the season, so he hasn’t been teaching with us for very long, although he’s not new to the industry. None of the instructors have personally witnessed any bad behavior from John, but we’re usually focused on our own classes; the support team are in a much better position to spot alarming patterns, but they’re a different department and they don’t feel they can raise any official concerns.
Should I alert my boss to the situation? I’m on the fence, because it’s just unsubstantiated gossip that might not be accurate (the support staff weren’t even sure who the offender even was; they just kept giving details until we narrowed it down to John), and I don’t like the idea of sharing harmful rumors, especially since I’m only on my second year here. But if the complaints are accurate, then the situation needs to be handled immediately, because John’s conduct is endangering his students (and making them miserable). Help?
You should talk to your boss. You’re not going to be spreading unsubstantiated gossip; you’re going to be alerting the appropriate person to a potentially serious safety issue. You’re not going to claim that you know all of this firsthand; you can say, “I can’t attest to this myself because I haven’t seen it, but I want to pass on to you what I heard since it’s potentially so serious.” Your manager can sort it out from there.
3. Can I ethically encourage succession planning in the current state of things?
I still have a few years to go, but I’m starting to consider retirement. I have a millennial staff member who would be a logical choice to move up to my role when the time comes. Our employer is great about supporting continuing education and certification within our field.
My dilemma is that my field, like many others, is taking a beating by the current administration. I’m honestly unsure of what it will look like by the time this is over and somewhat doubtful it will fully recover. Much of our field is being courted overseas where the environment is still welcoming and the regulations are very different. While we have to do our jobs to the best of our ability in the interim, I question whether it’s a sustainable career trajectory for a young person who will be in the workforce for another 30 years.
This leaves me uncertain about how much to push my young staff. They can do their current jobs well enough, but there’s a lot of extra work to move up to my level. That said, it’s a niche field and people tend to stay once they land here. I would need to be pushing them starting soon so they had the right experience, but there might not be much of a role when the time comes.
I would appreciate your thoughts on the best way to move forward.
Honesty! Tell them exactly what you said here — you think they’d be a great choice to succeed you, which would entail them needing to do XYZ over the next couple of years, and you question whether it it’s still a sustainable long-term career trajectory, and explain why you think that. Lay it all out and let them decide if it’s something they want to pursue; don’t make that choice for them.
4. I’m about to be assigned an old-school manager who I don’t want to work for
My organization restructured, and my reporting line is changing. We work primarily on a project basis, so there are two people I work with very regularly who I could theoretically report to, but one is the most frequent. My concern is that this person is very old-school in their attitude about PTO and promotions. For example, they complain when people take a lot of PTO in December (so they don’t lose it). They believe that an employee shouldn’t be promoted to the senior manager level and stay at that level for several years — they should only be promoted to that level when it’s clear they’re poised to be ready to go up for partner within 2-3 years. They also frequently work on vacation and holidays; they don’t ask others to do so, but they often comment that that’s part of the job at that level.
The pressures that this person is responding to are real. However, this person’s peers do not all say the same things or behave this way. I see examples of other people who have different boundaries and priorities, while also appropriately meeting client needs.
I’m about to be asked to report to this person. Folks in the organization are acting like they’re running it by me, but I don’t feel like it’s something I actually have any say in. I really like my job and working with this person, but I’m super worried that reporting to them will change how I feel about my job. I know who I’d prefer to report to, but I’m not sure they have capacity to take on a new person. Is there anything I can do or say in this initial meeting where HR asks me / tells me this is the plan? I really love working with them, but I’m so terrified that reporting to them will change things.
Talk to HR now, before the conversation where they’re telling you about an already-finalized plan! Frame it this way: “I enjoy working with Jane, but would it be possible for me to report to Cressida, who I also work closely with? Cressida has a work style that matches my own very well and I think we would have a strong reporting relationship.”
You might also talk with Cressida now and ask if she can help you make that happen.
5. Should my husband keep applying at my workplace?
This one is on behalf of my husband. We’re both working in an industry that is going through a lot of instability right now. My job is at a company that is one of the best and most prestigious globally, and I’m pretty secure in my position. His workplace is much more shaky; he already survived multiple rounds of layoffs, but who knows when his luck will run out.
In the past few months, my company has posted a few roles that I believe he would do well in. However, all positions here are highly competitive; the recruiters get hundreds of applications. He applied for two positions and was rejected at the screening stage. There is now a job number three. He thinks applying again would be seen as desperate and the recruiter won’t take him seriously, and that he should at least wait a year before another application. I kind of see his point, but I also know that he very much lacks confidence in himself and he finds the whole looking for a job process very stressful. So what do you think? Does it look bad to apply again, or should he go for it and see what happens?
As long as it’s a reasonably large company, he should keep applying. This is normal at large companies with highly competitive roles; it won’t reflect badly on him unless he’s submitting an identical application and not changing anything about it. The first two didn’t get him an interview, so he should look at ways to strengthen any future ones (whether that’s a more targeted cover letter or a resume that better plays up his accomplishments).
One caution: having both spouses working for the same company can be risky, especially in an unstable industry; if they make cuts, you risk both of you losing your jobs at the same time. But I assume you’ve factored that in!
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