Cowboy Who?

I'm such a Negative Nancy.

1. Morning Coffee

Like all true friends, Morning Coffee brings out your best. This warm, invigorating companion is always there for you, even when you’re cranky or haven’t brushed your hair. If you’re being honest, meeting up with Morning Coffee was the only thing that got you out of bed this morning. When you suddenly need to coach your preschooler through an emotional crisis about a band-aid, Morning Coffee doesn’t even call you out for ghosting.

2. Second Coffee

It’s been a few days since you saw Second Coffee. A visit starts to seem like a good idea after you change the baby’s diaper and swallow the cold dregs of your rediscovered cup from earlier. Yes, you resolved to stick to one cup in the morning, then boost your energy with a 15-minute Pilates practice. But that was stupid. What are you, too good for Second Coffee? You’d throw away your relationship for a YouTube fitness instructor who doesn’t know you exist? You brew another cup. Unfortunately, things between you and Second Coffee start to cool off as soon as you see each other. You stick with it to save face, but the whole interaction makes you anxious and queasy.

3. & 4. Two Cocoas

A little cloying but pleasant to spend time with now and then. Small Cocoa, although probably an unhealthy influence on your preschooler, keeps her occupied long enough for you to “like” a few Facebook photos and remind people you exist. Meanwhile, Large Cocoa seems to say, You’re doing great, Mama! The affirmation feels good even though you hate being called Mama. You get the extra marshmallows, Mama, because you bought the damn marshmallows! Maybe you should get together with the Cocoas more often. Your preschooler asks why you’re squeezing the mug so tightly. When you reach to wipe a smashed pea out of the baby’s earhole, your skin is so hot that she yelps.

5. Third Coffee

Not really your friend. Toxic.

6. Black Tea

Your steady lifelong companion, Black Tea is a reassuring presence that bathes your face in steam while it listens to your anxieties and fears and — hold on, are you talking to your Yeti mug?

7. Half-Caf Hazelnut Latte, No Foam

Remember going to cafés? You haven’t seen Half-Caf Hazelnut Latte, No Foam in over a year, but the relationship is alive in your mind. You can close your eyes and picture the two of you sitting inside a whole coffee shop full of strangers, laptop open, feeling like you were part of a community. Half-Caf Hazelnut Latte, No Foam must be missing you, too. Maybe you should send a text just to say, “Thinking of you?” No, that sounds too needy. You put on the kids’ jackets, buckle them into the car and drive past the café, just in case you catch a glimpse.

8. Night Coffee

Ignore Night Coffee’s false promises about helping with the work you still need to get done after the kids are in bed. It just wants to refresh Twitter and look up music videos from the early aughts. After Night Coffee is gone, you’ll be jittery and restless all night, lying in bed and rehashing old conversations. Night Coffee has burned you in the past.

9. Shower

Some people might tell you this is not a beverage. Don’t listen to them. Don’t listen to your family knocking on the door, either.

10. Organic Nighty-Night Herbal Tea with Chamomile and Licorice

Thank goodness for your sage companion (but not Sage Blackberry, which had to be thrown out after your baby drooled into the box). Clutching your most optimistic Sandra Boynton mug with two clawed hands, you stare down at your reflection in the pool of purplish liquid. The organic brew whispers to you, audibly now. I see you, it says. You are an adult with a career. Someday you will be in your house with no other members of your family present. Your book club will definitely remember to invite you when they start meeting again. You drink deeply, with gratitude. The tea tastes like garbage.

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Google images assures me that the font style at top is 90s style, though it seems to me more late 80s? Anyway, I await your complaints.

What to do when you spy a funny tweet on the inter-web.

A reader asks

So I’m a 20-year-old law student. My father runs an olive oil business that he expressed for my cousins and me to run in the future. However, I’ve already been assigned the role of research and development without a choice. It has also been made clear that I will be responsible for running the website and other technical aspects of the business in the future, which I do not see myself doing in the future. I have no clue what to do because I wanted to gain some business experience and skill, but I also do not want to be boxed into a situation that is out of my control. If you can, some advice will help.

While this seems like a career question, it’s actually a family dynamic question. Your father assumes that you will do what he wants. He probably did what his father wanted. Your cousins are doing what he says. It’s just how it is.

The thing is, you’re an adult. You don’t have to do what he wants you to do. You can simply say, “Nah, I don’t wanna do that. I’m going to be an attorney and work somewhere else.”

The problem comes with how your father and all your relatives will react when you say this. I mean, let’s look at how the Mountbatten-Windsor family reacted when Harry decided he didn’t want to be part of the family business anymore. High drama. I doubt your family has titles that your mom can revoke, but it can make Sunday dinner at grandma’s house very, very uncomfortable.

As a general rule, I don’t like family businesses for this reason. There’s pressure to stay when you don’t want to. Then there’s pressure to give a job to cousin Steve because he is faaaaaaaaammmmmiiiilllly even though he’s a slacker who will never contribute to the business. Then the non-family employees get frustrated because they’ll never get the pay and title for their job. After all, Steve has the title and salary.

Some family businesses work out great! For sure! But that requires everyone to have both business sense and boundaries.

It’s time to sit down with dad and express your concerns. He may be awesome, say he understands, will support you in what you want to do, et cetera. If he’s not willing to listen to you when you are only acting as his child, then understand he will be a terrible boss as well.

You have to decide: do you want to be in a job you don’t want to do to keep the peace in the family, or do you want to go off on your own and possibly cause family disruption?

Both are completely reasonable responses. And the family disruption may be short-lived as everyone realizes that genetics doesn’t mean you will be happy or a good fit in the family business.

It’s a conversation you need to have, though. If you ignore it, you will end up stressed out and unhappy. See what happens when you push back. Point out that every business needs lawyers and that it’s best for the business if you focus on that rather than on the website.

Image by Couleur from Pixabay

The post Pressed into the Family Olive Oil Business appeared first on Evil HR Lady.

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You can actually roll this backward by watching news commentary shows.

Lost and forgotten, jacob howard

Mother’s Day
Phelan
1965

As a mother (retired), I am totally okay with Mother’s day. (Actually, I am okay with anything that nets me a present or two.) This book gives us an overview of Mother’s day in the US and other countries. Not too bad, but somewhat boring. Then I got to the page about Mother’s Day in Yugoslavia, now Serbia. Evidently, Mom gets tied up by her kids. Really. Before you jump to any weird conclusions, I searched for some verification.

Mother’s Day is celebrated before Christmas as part of the Serbian Orthodox tradition. Mother’s Day is celebrated along with Father’s Day and a Children’s day as part of preparation for Christmas. These holidays are about remembrance and tying the past with the present. (This info is from the Serbian Orthodox Church Diocese of Eastern America and St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church)

Maybe a deeper explanation should be included. Weed this one and don’t look back.

Mary

The post Mother’s Day appeared first on Awful Library Books.

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Try this on some friend who claims to just loooove technically accurate statements.

This post, update: my office includes me in Administrative Professionals Day just because I’m a woman , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

Remember the letter-writer who isn’t an admin but kept getting included in Administrative Professionals Day just because she’s a woman? (#2 at the link) Here’s the update.

I’m the letter writer from last year who was not an admin, yet kept getting included in Admin Professionals Day simply because I’m a woman. I thought you might enjoy a two-part update:

2020
I knew they were going to include me in Admin Day last year because I’d been asked to help choose a gift for attendees. At the time, I asked the HR manager not to invite me to the luncheon because I was not an administrative professional. She told me, “But you’re administrative support.” I disagreed.

Her: “Everyone who works in the office is administrative support for the teams in the field.”
Me: “That doesn’t make any sense. Does that include you? Does that include the executives? The company owners?”
Her: “Yes, an argument could be made for that.”

So Admin Professionals Day came and I received a congratulatory email and an e-gift card. Immediately I called my boss and asked, “Am I an admin?” He said definitely not. He explained that I was on the list the HR manager brought to company executives to be “scrubbed.” They scrubbed the list three times to make sure no one was forgotten. Each time, he pushed back and said “Should OP really be included on this list?” And each time, the HR manager (who already knew I didn’t want to be included) affirmed that I should be. The reason: “She’s always been on the list in the past.”

My boss apologized to me, encouraged me to make use of the gift card anyway, and promised I would never be included on the list again.

2021
This year, the same HR manager called me to tell me that Admin Professionals Day is coming up and to ask if I wanted to be included in this year’s festivities. Whaat???

I told her absolutely not. I told her that I’d already told my boss not to include me. Her response: “He did mention that, but I wanted to check with you anyway because the parameters have changed.”

Me: “What are the new parameters?”
Her: “Anyone who’s hourly and has no direct reports.”

They’re not even trying to honor Administrative Professionals! It’s ridiculous. I told her not to include me again, ever. Hopefully I won’t have to send you an update in 2022.

Goat towers are a thing?

This post, do I have to come out at work to support diversity initiatives, new boss sends our team ads for other jobs, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

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

1. Do I have to come out at work to support diversity initiatives?

I’m a bisexual nonbinary person who works at a Christian college. The college is somewhat liberal and I have other LGBT colleagues, but I’m not out at work. I’m a fairly private person as is, and I don’t want to deal with misgendering or potential harassment (less from my colleagues, more from the broader campus community).

For the past few years, the college has been working to implement and improve policies geared towards equity, diversity, and inclusion. As part of these initiatives, the area of the college that I work in has established support groups for employees of marginalized populations. One of these groups is for LGBT employees.

My department head has been very involved in these initiatives and has encouraged attending these groups if we self-identify as belonging to one of those populations. But these groups have had low attendance and my department head is taking it very personally. He even went so far as to say in a department meeting that this low attendance means we — members of these populations and allies (who were specifically told that these groups were not spaces meant for them and that they shouldn’t attend) — don’t care about these initiatives succeeding.

Even if my department head’s reaction wasn’t a factor, I’m still hesitant to attend the LGBT employee support group. While it would be nice to get to know my LGBT colleagues better and support them, I’m very hesitant to come out at work, even in what is theoretically a safe space. I do like my workplace, and I do want it to change for the better and be more welcoming to marginalized populations, but is it wrong to not want to put myself out there to do it?

No. You have absolutely no obligation to out yourself for any reason — not to satisfy your department head and not to make your workplace more welcoming to others. It is 100% up to what you want to do and are comfortable with. Your sexual orientation and gender identity are not diversity initiatives, and your employer has no claim on them.

2. New boss sends our team ads for jobs at other companies

My new boss keeps sending our whole team jobs ads for outside the company. Then he follows it up with one-on-one emails that explain why he thinks we’d be good for the job. The last one I got said, “I know you applied for Tom’s position and for my position so I think this role would really suit you.” He included a link for a mediocre job at our top competitor.

Should he really be sending staff to the competition? Or does he just want to replace everyone and bring in his own people?

Many managers genuinely care about their employees’ career development and will share promising leads that could help them advance, even if that means losing them to another company. It’s not awesome that he’s linking you to a mediocre job but I wouldn’t read anything into this beyond that he genuinely thinks he’s being helpful — unless he’s given you any other reason to think he’s trying to push you and others out. (It’s weird that he’s apparently doing this on a mass scale to the whole team though. It’s … an unusual level of enthusiasm.)

If you want, you can ask him about it: “I don’t have any plans to leave any time soon, and I want to make sure there’s not any sort of message I should be reading into the job ads you’ve sent me. It’s made me wonder if you think I’ve outgrown my role here — I don’t want to miss that message if so.”

3. I wasn’t flirting

A couple of years ago I was asked to cover some travel for an employee in another department for a meeting with a customer and their end customer. This travel is in my job description, but it’s generally known that my job is kind of the end of the line, no one else can go option. It was the second time I was covering this meeting.

I thought it went okay. I was kind of nervous because I was still a newer manager and felt like a kid at the grown-up table. During the meeting, I was seated next to an intern at my customer’s company who was in their equivalent of my department. We were chatting and he mentioned he wanted to travel to my area in the future with his girlfriend, and we got to talking about the area. I also asked him for his help explaining some food at lunch because I wasn’t familiar with it. That was it.

Fast forward a couple of months, and another person from our customer’s company who wasn’t even in the meeting was visiting our office for another project I was involved in. A group of us went to lunch and I mentioned I had been at his office a while back and he said, “Oh! You’re the girl who was flirting with the intern!”

I was shocked. I definitely didn’t intend to flirt and I didn’t think I crossed any professional lines. I immediately said something along the lines of “I wasn’t flirting, I was helping him plan a future trip with his girlfriend!” We were with several of my coworkers, who proceeded to spend the next couple of weeks (lightly) teasing me about it.

I was a young female manager in a male-dominated field, and I simply wasn’t 100% sure how to handle this situation, and honestly I’m still not sure now how I would handle this now. So what should I have done?

Ugh. Men and women can have social conversations without flirting, and there is something very gross about assuming any friendly discussion between them might be flirting. (And how did this guy even hear about the conversation? He wasn’t in the meeting but someone’s hinky analysis of this “flirtation” somehow spread to him anyway and he thought it worth mentioning to you?) There’s something about it that’s rooted in sexism, too — like any presence of a young woman near a similarly aged man somehow means things must be sexually charged.

It’s often hard to respond well to this type of thing on the spot because it’s so uncomfortable and weird; you’re far more likely to come up with good responses after it’s already over. But I’m a fan of “Why on earth would you say that?” or “What a bizarre thing to say.” Or if you want to spell it out a little more: “Surely you’ve been around long enough to know men and women can in fact speak to each other without it being flirtatious.”

It’s also okay to shut down the teasing from your coworkers afterwards. For example: “Can you cut that out? It’s pretty gross.”

4. Can I cold-email a company when their ATS rejects me?

I’ve been rejected twice now (different jobs a few months apart) by a company where the electronic applicant tracking system (ATS) is almost definitely the one rejecting me. It’s clear a human probably never got the chance to see my application, because both times I submitted my application well outside of normal business hours and received a rejection email from their ATS about an hour later. And both times, I felt I was decently qualified for the position and I tried to have a well tailored resume and cover letter.

This most recent time, I spent the bulk of my day researching the organization and the work, finessing my resume and trying to optimize it better for ATS readers by including keywords from the job description, crafting my cover letter, and trying to clearly communicate why I’m interested in the position and what I bring to the table and how I match most of the requirements, and sending my resume and cover letter to a couple friends to read over before I submitted it. My background is in a different but related industry, and I tried to explicitly explain how my experience could be applied to this position. But apparently that wasn’t enough to get past the ATS.

I don’t know if I’m the best person for the job, and I’m sure they probably have a large number of applications and have to screen them somehow, but it’s a bit frustrating that after spending so much time and effort, no human at the company will get to see my application. I don’t have any personal connections at the company to ask for advice. I know generally you don’t recommend this, but do you think in this case it’s worth looking up someone from HR or from the project I applied to and cold-emailing or LinkedIn messaging them to ask what’s up with their ATS? If so, how should I approach that? Or should I just consider any future job at this particular company a lost cause?

Don’t email a company to ask what’s up with their ATS. Because the thing is, what’s up with their ATS is that a human programmed it to screen in a particular way. If it’s rejecting candidates for not having experience with a certain software or X years of experience in Y (or whatever it might be), that’s because a human set up those requirements. Now, maybe that human was incompetent (that definitely happens), but it’s not the way you want to frame your question.

If you were an extraordinarily qualified candidate, it might make sense to try to contact the hiring manager (not HR, but the person who’d be managing the position) and see if they think you’re the right match for the job. But you described yourself as “decently qualified.” If that’s not false modesty and you’re an okay match but not a stellar one, you shouldn’t try to circumvent the process they’ve set up; that’s more likely to be annoying than anything else. (That’s pretty much always annoying unless it’s a truly outstanding candidate doing it, and even then it can be a little annoying.)

What you could do, though, is to try to network with the company/team more generally so that you get to know them and have more of an in the next time they have an opening (because that creates a situation where you could reach out to them directly).

5. Including month of graduation on a resume

I graduated with my bachelor’s in the fall of 2019. Thanks to a series of unfortunate events, my resume gap extends from graduation until now, broken up by only a few months of volunteer work this year, and one day in 2020 as a poll worker. I’m now earnestly searching for a job and I worry that “Class of 2019” on my resume makes my gap look longer than it already is. Is there any reason not to write “Class of Fall 2019,” “Fall 2019” or “December 2019” instead? I know there’s a lot of advice not to worry about a gap during the pandemic, but mine began a few months before then so … I’m a little worried anyway.

It’s fine to specify Fall 2019 or December 2019. Don’t write “class of” though — do it like this:

Porridge College, B.A. in Oatmeal, December 2019

More on resume gaps here.

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With a fine, quiet stretch of weather beginning today for Houston, Eric and I thought it would be a good time to write a bit about the new climate normals released by NOAA on Monday night. When we compare weather to “normal” or “average,” these are the values we are comparing to, so it is useful to understand how they will be changing.

What are they? Every 10 years, NOAA and the National Weather Service, along with other government weather agencies around the globe recalculate what the typical weather has been like in the previous 30 years. Think of it like the Census, but for weather.

Why average 30 years of weather instead of, say, 50 or something? First off, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which is essentially the U.N. for meteorological agencies stipulates that member states use a 30 year standard. In general, 30 years is enough data to get you a good snapshot of what the current climate is, rather than a 50 or 100 year average. In other words, when we compare weather to a 30-year normal by saying something like, “Today was 15 degrees warmer than normal,” we’re comparing to the shorter-term climate we’re used to, not the one perhaps our grandparents lived through. And 30 values is generally when statistical averages become more reliable. Some users and industries prefer their “normal” to be calculated over a different timespan, so those calculations will be added to the mix from NOAA as well.

Why do they matter? When dealing with weather and making plans in business or designing buildings or planting crops, you need to have a baseline to anchor yourself to, some kind of “average” weather. Imperfect as they may be, the 30-year normals accomplish that. Having those allows us to explain weather in terms of how typical or atypical it is on a particular day or in a particular month. One thing we all know: Weather changes and can be wild, and “normal” is really just an average of a bunch of various extremes. But we need to have that anchor point to describe weather in a climatological context. I don’t know if this is originally attributable to him, but as Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, former president of the American Meteorological Society likes to say: “Weather is your mood and climate is your personality.” It’s good to know a local area’s “personality!”

So what has changed? Let’s start big and then go small. Across the U.S., the new set of climatological normals is generally warmer, much warmer. The only areas cooler than the previous set of normals were in the Plains.

Officially, Houston’s annual average temperature (at IAH Bush Airport) rose by 0.7° versus the previous normal. At Hobby Airport that change was 1.0° warmer, and at Galveston it was 1.1° warmer.

The only months that showed cooling relative to the previous set of normals were November and December. Summers have warmed by a bit over a half-degree on average, and late winters have warmed by over 1 degree. Some other notes: Our first day with an “average” high of 90° has moved up to May 29th from June 3rd. Our last day of average highs of 90° or better is September 18th, up from the 14th. So, we’ve added roughly a week more of days with an average high of 90° in 1991-2020 versus 1981-2010. Additionally our hottest daily average maximum temperature (or “peak” of summer) is up to 95.7° compared to 95.0° in the previous set of normals. Not only that, that peak has moved up a bit to August 4-6 versus a longer, flatter peak from August 5-12 previously. I wouldn’t read too much into that last part, but it’s something to note at least.

You’ll also notice that rainfall has increased, thanks in part to average August rainfall being over 1 inch wetter than in the prior normals. This is almost certainly thanks mostly to Hurricane Harvey. Houston now sees rainfall of roughly 2 inches more than we used to each year.

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly to some folks if they live there, Galveston actually saw annual average rainfall decrease in this latest set of normals. In fact, not only does Galveston see less rain now on average, it’s over 3 and a half inches less! This is likely both a function of randomness in the sporadic nature of daily thunderstorms here but also a notable change related to <waves hands> something with respect to the warming water temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico or more frequent ridging in the upper atmosphere over the Southeast. This feels like too big a change to me to be just random chance. In addition, Galveston was substantially warmer, especially during nighttime. Average lows are over 1.5° warmer now than they used to be.

Anyway, hopefully you find this interesting. How we describe weather “relative to normal” will change going forward, so we feel it’s notable to explain to you how that will change. On to the forecast.

Today through Friday

Step outside this morning, folks.

We have temperatures in the 50s inland to low or mid-60s in the city and along the coast. And the humidity has plummeted. Look for plenty of sunshine and highs around 80° or in the low-80s this afternoon. Tomorrow looks just as nice. Expect morning lows in the 50s north and west of Houston and low or mid-60s in the city and along the bay. Galveston should see upper-60s. Another day of sunshine will allow us to get into the mid-80s tomorrow. Friday looks like essentially a carbon copy of Thursday with a few added higher clouds at times.

Saturday and Sunday

Look for onshore flow to kick back in this weekend, driving our dew point temperatures back up to 70° or so, along with highs well into the 80s. Saturday morning will probably see 60s for lows, while Sunday should see 70s in the morning. Along with that, there is at least a chance of a shower or storm Saturday. For Mother’s Day, we expect a slightly better chance of showers, however despite being better, those chances still remain fairly low right now in most of the Houston area. As you go north of Highway 105, the chance for some more robust rain and storms may increase somewhat. We’ll hone in on details more tomorrow and Friday.

Next week

It’s too early to get too into the weeds next week, but with a cold front “in the neighborhood,” suffice to say it will probably be a somewhat unsettled period ahead. More on this for you tomorrow and Friday as well.

A Day in the Life of a Meteorologist
Witty and Witty
1981

If you are thinking of switching careers, maybe you should become a meteorologist. This book gives you the ins and outs of your average TV meteorologist – in 1981. It’s not the worst book, but there isn’t a lot of discussion on meteorology other than in a TV context. However, I just think that it’s a rather limited view of a career. I keep thinking it is more about broadcasting than actual science. Not all meteorologists are on television, and not all TV weather reporters are meteorologists. Poor Joe’s credentials and training aren’t even mentioned. I really think that most career books, especially aimed at young people, should have training and education requirements within the text.

This book makes one believe that all Joe does is look up the temperature at the airports and then go on camera and tell everyone. I am super picky (okay a bit obsessed) about career books. They are supposed to give a sense of what the job entails and the training required. The librarian equivalent of this book would be pictures of librarians reading (for fun!), and then going home. This is hardly a true picture of the profession.

A real librarian career picture book:

• Endless meetings
• Email. (So much email!)
• Arguing with vendors
• Asking vendors to correct billing
• Writing incident reports
• Writing reports no one reads
• Crying

You know, reality.

Mary

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“More than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable… polls show that about 30 percent of the U.S. population is still reluctant to be vaccinated.” — New York Times, 5/3/21

It’s been almost a year since Jurassic Park announced they would be reopening the preserve even though the velociraptors had escaped their enclosure and were still on the loose. Needless to say, it’s been a dark chapter in the park’s history, as countless Jurassic Park patrons have been mauled, their dismembered body parts and bloody entrails flung haphazardly like fleshy, red tinsel on bushes and shrubs throughout the park.

Thankfully, there’s some good news: a team of scientists at Jurassic Park’s Velociraptor Avoidance and Containment Countermeasures Squadron, or VACCS, have developed a state-of-the-art velociraptor repellent that is 95% effective at preventing velociraptor attacks.

With just two spritzes, one under each armpit, the repellent releases a scent that is completely odorless to humans but, to a velociraptor, smells like an infected velociraptor anal gland, which, needless to say, is a smell they absolutely hate. Many are calling this new technology an olfactory marvel and have said it’s the last piece of the puzzle to finally stopping these horrendous velociraptor maulings, which up until now have been completely unpreventable (aside from taking a few basic precautions, like not hiking in velociraptor-infested areas, that were deemed too draconian to actually enforce).

That said, there are many of us long-time Jurassic Park customers who question the need for this so-called miracle spray that the new park leadership seems so eager to shove up our pits.

As you may recall, former InGen CEO Peter Ludlow was unceremoniously ousted recently after a protracted series of corporate legal battles, mudslinging (a literal mud fight broke out over by the gondola ride one time), and even a failed boardroom coup. Since then, the new park leadership has taken drastic steps to try to prevent velociraptor attacks, including handing out vouchers to encourage patrons to postpone their visit until it’s safe, providing clearer guidelines for how to responsibly hike the park’s trails, and finally listening to the advice of safety experts like Dr. Ian Malcolm.

Now, with this new repellent available, leadership is encouraging all park patrons to spray themselves so that the park can achieve herd immunity — the point at which the herd of velociraptors stops associating humans with food and moves on to other prey.

But those of us still loyal to Peter Ludlow, or “Luddites” as we prefer to be called, will not be strong-armed into putting anything on our bodies that we can’t be 100% sure wasn’t concocted by a shadowy cabal of elites with ulterior motives like “public safety” and “fewer people being disemboweled by velociraptors.”

With this breakthrough technology, could we stop velociraptor attacks once and for all? Sure. But at what cost? Is it really worth saving hundreds of lives if it means park patrons no longer have the freedom to let their odors drift au natural and straight into the nostrils of hungry bioengineered dinosaurs the way God intended?

Listen, I get that many people find it infuriating that a large number of Jurassic Park patrons like myself are refusing to don this miraculous and stupidly simple means of preventing mass death while other parks are literally begging VACCS to share their technology with them. But why do you care so much whether I wear repellent or not? If I choose not to wear repellent, and the group of hikers behind me gets viciously torn apart by velociraptors, isn’t that on them for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Besides, it’s so hard knowing who to trust these days. Do I trust Dr. Ian Malcolm, a guy who says smug things like, “Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun”? Or do I trust my friend Gary, an amateur homeopathic healer and die-hard Luddite, who believes the best way to ward off velociraptors is with a balm he makes from patchouli and lawn clippings that he sells out of the back of his Jeep Wrangler for $600 just outside the entrance to the park? It’s impossible to say.

So let’s all just agree that I’ll do me, you do you. And if that means the velociraptors eventually get used to the repellent and we all have to go right back to square one, then so be it.

Just remember, life finds a way… unless you’re one of the unlucky 5% that wears repellent and still gets mauled. Then you’re probably screwed.

Never stop screaming into the void.

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