I guess that I shouldn't be surprised by #3 since wearing pants to work was an issue even as late as the 90s (congress critters had to fight for the right to wear pants back in 1993)
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. I’m the interim manager while my boss is out — can I make a play for the job?
I work with a small team of people who historically have only had a team lead. About eight months ago, we hired a true manager for our team for the first time. He was okay. He recently (unexpectedly) left for three months of FMLA leave and I was asked to step into his role with no warning. So far, I’ve been really enjoying the challenge and I think it’s been going really, really well. I’ve had feedback from above and below me that I’m doing a much better job than him and I feel like I have a great rapport with all of the team, and that we’re working really well together. We also just hired a few people who I’m orienting right now, which is also going well.
He’s due back in a month. We don’t know 100% that he is coming back, but my understanding of FMLA is that you are legally required to offer the job back if they return. However, he’s been here less than a year so I’m not even sure true FMLA rules apply yet.
Regardless, this brings me to my question — should I see how this plays out or should I make the case to my boss that I should stay in this role even if my old manager returns? I truly believe it would be better for the team and department. But is that even ethical? Am I being selfish? There’s not a similar leadership role I could move to, so it would probably be this or eventually leave. I may or may not have a say in this, but I’m wondering if I should make my case to my boss or keep my mouth shut and see what happens.
If this is FMLA leave, your company is required to hold your manager’s job for him, even if they find someone they think could do it better. FMLA protection only covers people who have worked at a company for a year, so that may not be in play. But if they’re calling it FMLA, they might have their own internal eligibility rules that are less restrictive than the government’s.
Regardless of all that, though, you don’t want to seem like you’re making a play for someone’s job while they’re dealing with serious illness or a family member’s health crisis. That’s the kind of thing that can harm your reputation, follow you around for a long time, and affect how much people trust you. It will also make it harder for you to manage effectively in the long term.
What you can do, though, is to say that you’re very interested in the job should it be open at some point. That’s as explicit as I’d be. If they’re seeing significant improvements under you, they’ll get the point — and from there it’s up to them.
2. Using sick days to get work done at home
At both my current and previous jobs, my company has had the following bad combination: (1) detailed work that needs to get done on a tight deadline, (2) an open office where people interrupt you all day long, and (3) absolutely no working remotely despite pleas from employees.
At my last job, my boss openly acknowledged that he would sometimes use sick leave to stay home and knock out whatever tight-deadline project he was working on. I’ve continued to do this at my new job. I’m lucky because I get enough sick leave that I usually have plenty left over at the end of the year, and it doesn’t pay out so I’m not really “losing” anything by doing this. It does annoy me that this could come back to bite me some day if I had an extended illness — but that possibility seems remote compared to the immediate need. It also involves misleading my boss, which feels wrong. Where do you fall on this practice?
I don’t think you should be using sick leave to work at home. First, as you point out, you might need it for actual sickness at some point — and if you do, you’re not going to be happy that you used it doing work for your company. Second, by doing this, you’re inadvertently helping your company believe its current set-up is working just fine.
I’d much rather see you and your coworkers make the case to your company that you need quiet places where you can focus on your work, and if that can’t be in the office, you should be allowed to do it remotely.
Of course, if they say no, you’re right back where you are now, tempted to use sick days to get work done, and thus enabling their crappy set-up. So it’s a tough situation (of their making).
3. Women wearing menswear to work
I was wondering what is your opinion on women wearing “male” style clothes in the workplace? By male style, I mean two/three-piece suits in a traditionally masculine cut with a tie and brogues or loafers.
I’m a university student and I think this is fine, provided everything fits well and matches. But my mum was horrified (like, she was really upset by this). And I’m not sure who’s wrong. Would wearing a waistcoat and tie to an interview (or to work) really impact employers’ opinions of me?
You’re right and your mom is wrong. In most situations, it’s absolutely fine for women to wear “men’s” styles.
I say “most” and not “all” because there are some particularly conservative fields and offices where this would raise eyebrows. But it sounds like you wouldn’t want to work for them anyway — and there are tons of other places where it won’t be an issue.
4. I’m being offered less than my predecessor
I took a temp-to-perm position replacing a guy who was fired after 30 days. Given he hadn’t worked out they advised that decision time from their side would be around two months. I’m now about a month in and they just made me an offer for the permanent position. It’s pretty decent, and more than I was making at my last job.
Here’s the thing: I happen to know what my predecessor’s salary package was because HR accidentally emailed it to me. (HR knows I saw this.) The salary is the same, but they offered him a larger annual bonus and several other perks. He and I are the same age with comparable experience and qualifications, and were offered the exact same position a matter of weeks apart.
If I hadn’t known his package, I would have likely accepted their offer. But knowing they offered him more benefits makes me reluctant. What do you think I should do?
They know you saw his offer, and you don’t have to pretend you don’t. That makes this easier! You can say, “As you know, Cecil’s salary package was accidentally emailed to me. He was offered XYZ. If you can offer that to me as well, I’d love to accept.”
5. Coworkers asks our admins to tell me she was looking for me
I have a coworker who comes by my office to look for me, and if I am not there, she will ask our admin staff to tell me she is looking for me. At first this seemed harmless enough, but it’s starting to bug me. Our admins usually tell me this coworker was looking for me on my way in or out of the office (because that’s when they see me) and I often don’t have the time to stop and call her or go find her. I would much rather she call me if she needs something, or email me if I am away.
Is there a way I can tactfully communicate this to my coworker? She is my superior but she is not my boss, and we both report directly to the same boss (the CEO of my company). I don’t want to step on any toes but I feel like this isn’t the best way for her to communicate with me and I would like to try to improve things if I can.
Yes! The next time it happens, say this: “By the way, when you’re looking for me and don’t see me, would you shoot me an email instead of leaving a message with the admins? That way I can be sure I’ll see it when I’m back at my desk — otherwise they often give me the message when I’m on my way somewhere else and can’t stop to respond.”
You could also enlist the admins’ help. Ideally when she asks them to tell you she’s looking for you, they’d respond with, “Jane has asked that we tell people it’s better to call or email her directly rather than leaving messages with us.”
Is it ever normal to have 10,000+ unread emails in your professional inbox?
Yesterday I inadvertently saw that my boss had 10,965 unread emails. She is a general counsel of a medium-sized company and does not seem to be overloaded with work. The majority of her team (around six people) are very autonomous in their work and do not often need her insight. Her working hours are equivalent to mine, around 50 hours per week, which is considered to be normal working hours in my field. Nor do we have automatic software notifications that tend to inundate our inboxes.
I have heard colleagues saying that she rarely answers emails. And I generally don’t send her email if I need her insight or feedback, as I know I will not get a quick answer (unless I chase her up face to face regarding the message). If I need something from her, I will go directly to her office or text message her, and in those those cases she is responsive. However, I work in the same building as she does, so I can step into her office anytime. Some of my colleagues who are not based in the same city struggle a little more to get answers from her.
Last month, I needed to obtain an information about a file I am working on, and she told me to contact someone in an other department for the info. Once I contacted did, that person told me that they already sent an analysis of the situation to my boss. I went to my boss’s office to ask her whether she has received the analysis. She checked her emails and found it. She then sent it to me and apologized.
This morning, we were in a meeting with an other department, and she mentioned something about an email that we all received. But I think that she read it so quickly that she misunderstood it (it was a very simple message), and she was corrected by the sender, who was in the meeting.
I haven’t worked for her that long and, given my autonomy, I do not closely work with her, so I cannot truly evaluate her competence or workload. And to be fair, she is always available whenever I step into her office. I was simply taken aback by her huge amount of unread emails.
There are a surprising number of people like your boss with literally thousands of unread emails in their inboxes. Even tens of thousands.
I don’t get it, but they’re out there.
With some people who do this, it’s not that they’re intentionally ignoring messages. They’re on mailing lists that send tons of messages and rather than deleting them, they for some reason leave them in their inboxes and just keep an eye out for anything else. But of course, when you do that, it’s easy to miss messages you actually need to see. It’s not a good system, although clearly some people feel it works for them.
With other people, the unread count is deceiving. They’ve filtered mailing list messages into subfolders, so they’re not cluttering up their inboxes — but in some email programs, the unread count in subfolders still shows up in your overall unread messages count. (Personally, I wouldn’t be able to take that stress and would be deleting every day — or at least marking as read — but some people aren’t bothered by it, or at least learn to live with it.)
All of this means: Don’t draw conclusions about your boss’s competence based on her unread email count. Draw your conclusions based on what you see of her actual work.
You’ve seen enough to know that email isn’t a good way to get her attention and that she has missed important messages … so that’s a data point in favor of her being disorganized, at least.
It makes sense to adjust for the email issue the way you’ve been doing — calling, texting, or dropping by her office. Your remote coworkers probably need to do the same thing (minus the dropping by).
There are people out there who are good enough at the core of what they do that people are willing to accept this kind of deficit in them. There are also people whose work doesn’t justify having to work around them in this way — but you’re probably not in a position to do anything about that. All you can really do is file this away as useful info about how your boss operates, and adapt accordingly.
Raise a glass in celebration, because the internet finally has given us something besides a soul-crushing comment thread.
If you have a pulse and an internet service provider, you've seen your fair share of memes. And if you've spent any time perusing military Twitter over the past week, you've seen these works of art from the Military Giant Cats Twitter account, which is, well, exactly what it sounds like:
Since the beginning of September the account has accrued more than 24,000 followers, so given Military Giant Cats' near-overnight celebrity, Task & Purpose got in touch with the person behind all these absurdly wonderful cat memes.
"I am from western Europe," the manager of the account, who goes by Thomas, told Task & Purpose. "I have worked in [the] defense industry for several years. At the present time, I have a leg in plaster and a lot of free time for Twitter... Some people think I am a Russian bot or something like that...pretty funny."
While Thomas declined to provide any additional personal or identifying information, he told us the gag started as just that: "An old joke with my coworkers, photoshop giant cats in senseless situations (not only military)."
As for the page's overnight Twitter fame, it seemed to have come as a surprise.
"I know that Twitter loves the absurd accounts (and the cats!), but I am surprised by the impact on the #milTweet community," Thomas said.
After all, who doesn't like to make paws-itively purrrfect puns?
And the account's fanbase seems to stretch across the whole military Twitter community.
Hey, @the-rain-on-your-dandelions, has anyone told you that you’re a genius? That’s an incredible system. I wish I had a friend group that could function for!
I could see this working for dinners, too
it’s like the Mom Friend Anxiety Hack, but for chores.
this is how a society is supposed to function. this is the norm we’ve all forgotten
Personal finance, weight loss, marketing, careers, beating traffic, relationships, education–everything that matters to someone often comes with heavily promoted shortcuts as an alternative.
Fast, risk-free, effortless secrets that magically work, often at someone else’s expense.
But if the shortcuts worked as promised, they wouldn’t be shortcuts, would they? They’d be the standard.
A shortcut is not an innovation. It’s not a direct path, either. Those work, but they require effort, risk and insight.
If you can’t afford the time and effort to do it right, you probably can’t afford to do it over after you realize that the shortcut was merely a trap.
takes a lot of confidence to look at a newborn baby and go oh yeah that’s a Gary
Gary is an odd name. It was completely unknown before 1929, when Gary Cooper starred in his first talkie, The Virginian. And Cooper, born Frank James Cooper, took his stage name from the city of Gary, Indiana. So it’s as if someone said, “Hey, I think I’ll change my name to Albuquerque” and people just said “okay, that’s a normal name now,” and named their kids after him for 40 years.
Do not mispronounce IKEA product names. What you summon will haunt you.
Do not trust the arrows.
Walls shift and new ones appear out of nowhere.
Avoid, at any cost, staying after closing hours.
Do not ask employees for directions to the exit. Most of them have been trapped inside the building ever since they signed the contract. These once happy and good people have grown spiteful. Do not trust them. They want you to stay.
Make the bed after trying it out. It makes them less angry.
In case you are trapped:
Find John. He has lived in the store for six years, unnoticed.
Avoid eye contact with employees roaming around.
Hide whenever possible.
The ghost families living in the showrooms won’t betray you.
Do not steal any pencils. It will give away your position.
Avoid walking through the bed area. The creatures sleeping there won’t appreciate your presence.
When music from the 30s starts blasting through the speakers, Walter, the handyman, has noticed you and wants to drive his screwdriver through your ear.
Run.
He often shouts jokes chasing you followed by the laughter of IKEA personnel echoing throughout the store. Never let your guard down.
Open as many wardrobes as you can. Some of them are magic portals. Pray that you find one in time before he finds you.
Only go through a portal when absolutely necessary. What you find on the other side is often not pleasant.
If there is no other option, try pronouncing the name of the IKEA furniture closest to you. The ground will start to shake. Prepare yourself for the worst.
We love any excuse to create science themed food, and we had a blast brainstorming our contribution to “Astro-Gastro” contest at the annual member meeting at the Fremont Peak Observatory. We settled on some of the things we love to show visitors to the observatory: Galaxies, globular clusters, and nebulas.
Cinnamon Pinwheel Galaxies are inspired by palmiers. They are made with puff pastry that is coated in cinnamon sugar and rolled up, sliced and baked. The recipe is identical to palmiers except that you first fold the pastry over itself a little further than halfway, and then roll up from the folded edge to create the spiral pattern that shows when you slice them.
We iced them with a chocolate icing derived from a recipe for Black And White cookies from Baking Illustrated. Melt 2 oz unsweetened chocolate in double boiler. Bring 2 Tbsp light caro syrup and 3.5 Tbsp water to a boil in small saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in 2.5 cups powdered sugar and 1/4 tsp vanilla. Stir icing into chocolate in the double boiler. You may need to reheat the chocolate icing in the double boiler to keep it at a good consistency for spreading.
Immediately after spreading the icing on a cookie, very slightly moisten the top of the icing with water. You can either dip a finger in a dish of water and smooth a bit over the surface of the icing or use a water mister to give it a very light spritz. The water on the surface will make it sticky enough for the sprinkles to adhere to. Drop small white non pareil sprinkles over the center of the cookie. We used a small funnel held over center of the cookie, to create a dense cluster in the middle, and fewer and fewer as you reach the edges.
For the Meringue Nebulae, we divided a batch of meringue into two, and colored half of it with black food coloring. The other half we split again and colored with red and blue respectively, stopping before it was fully mixed in to allow for some color variation. We spread the blue meringue along one side of a piping bag, and red along the other. Then we filled the middle with the grey. We piped the mixture out with a #12 icing tip in a wavy, uneven fashion. Using two different sizes of non pareil sprinkles made it look like there were stars of different brightness in our nebulae.
Other astronomers brought moon rock smores, almond asteroid cookies, and an Orion constellation cake. We’re tickled that the Cinnamon Pinwheel Galaxy won the contest against such fun competition.
Because of course Gwyneth Paltrow has a “book curator,” a title that sounds both utterly pretentious (that would be the “curator”) and reeeeeeeally stupid, which is the sweet spot of Extreme Wealth Culture. (Shoutout Town & Country!) And as is the case with all the best Extreme Wealth Culture coverage, this interview with Thatcher Wine(!), “celebrity bibliophile,” is infuriating and incredible almost in equal measure. To quote Lit Hub’s own Jonny Diamond, “I hate it so much I love it. I want to marry it, and wear it.”
I certainly don’t want to dissuade anyone from reading the whole thing, but I can’t resist sharing some of my favorite quotes:
About his custom book jackets: “Why settle for books that a publisher designed? Books can have as much style as anything else in the room.”
About current book trends: “The Stoic philosophers are having a moment now.”
About how a pleb like you or I might go about curating our own home libraries: “First, think about what you are trying to accomplish. Is there a story you are trying to tell? A color palette you want to achieve?”
About the physical mechanics of reading: “The thing about books is that you can only really read one book at a time—yes you can be reading five books, but not literally all at once.”
