1. We’re supposed to do enneagrams at a company retreat
I work at an organization with 100+ employees. We gather periodically for company-wide retreats. We have done this in the past with various professional learning opportunities. This time we were asked to fill out an enneagram survey that would be facilitated in conversation about “what truly drives you and how to apply that to your job.” I find it to be mumbo jumbo and about as scientific as astrology. I took the quiz and found myself increasingly uncomfortable with the questions and rigor of the survey.
How can I share this with management? How can they create alternative options for those of us who do not want to participate in such a session? Am I totally off-base here in my discomfort with this in the work setting?
You’re not off-base; it’s pseudoscience. Some people don’t really care about that; they figure it’s the equivalent of a Buzzfeed quiz and they have fun with it without putting a ton of weight on the results or they find it an interesting tool for self-reflection. But it’s legitimate to dislike it and to be annoyed if your workplace is spending time on it and putting real weight on the results. Moreover, materials about the enneagram can have a religious slant (sometimes a Christian one, while other branches of Christianity strongly object to it — either way, a problem at work).
At a minimum, you should point out the religious angle and ask if people can opt out.
2. My employee’s posts on LinkedIn make me worried that he might be violating our company AI policy
I have a question about my responsibility as a manager when one of my direct reports may or may not be violating our company AI policy. Like a number of other companies, we have an internal instance of Microsoft Copilot enabled that keeps data internal, and are permitted to use it (but no external tools).
Recently, I saw a LinkedIn post from one of my direct reports (he added me as a connection when he started the job), talking about a number of generative AI tools he has been using. I know he has a lot of hobby code projects that are completely independent of his job (he posts about them on LinkedIn often), and of course he is allowed to use whatever tools he pleases for those. What gives me pause is that this post talks specifically about generative AI tools for data analysis, which is a core function of his job.
It’s impossible to tell from the post whether he is talking about a personal project or his work, but it could be about either — it was a description of how he likes to use certain tools. If he’s using it for work, it’s a violation of our AI policy, and he does work with patient data (deidentified, so no PHI, but still concerning). I don’t want to overstep and grill him over his LinkedIn activity if it’s just for a personal project, but the possibility that he may be using it for work is concerning.
As his manager, I feel like I have to do something, but what is the correct course of action? Do I start by asking him? Do I start by reaching out to our go-to person for the AI policy (who I do have a strong working relationship with) to ask for guidance?
In case it makes a difference, he also drops the ball quite frequently on some bureaucratic things. For example, he failed to reset his password when it was expiring because he thought that the email telling him to do so (from an internal IT email address) was spam. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t realize that we have an AI policy, even though it is available on our intranet and must have been communicated when he started the job.
Just ask him! You didn’t go snooping and come across his mention of AI in a shady way; he connected to you on LinkedIn and posted it about there. You can just mention what you saw and ask about it: “I saw your post on LinkedIn talking about generative AI tools you’ve using. It’s pretty interesting! I did want to ask if you’re using any of them in your work here, and make sure you know the details of our policy on AI.”
3. Intern can’t shake hands with men
We had a grad practicum student in our office this summer, and she is Muslim (and wears a hijab) and tries not to touch men. This is easy to manage in our office, but during partnership events she found herself shaking some men’s hands even though it made her uncomfortable.
How I could have made these events smoother for her and our partners? Are there lines I could use while introducing her that indicate she prefers not to shake someone’s hand, or lines she could use herself? In the future, I would brief our partners quietly about it, but that’s not always possible. Our sector is very empathetic so no one will mind, but being junior and a minority led her to feel pretty awkward during these interactions regardless of whether she shook a man’s hand or politely declined to.
A lot of people who don’t shake hands for religious or other reasons develop a physical signal that deters the handshake while still conveying warmth (which, after all, is the point of the handshake, so a warm substitute really helps). A lot of religious people with this restriction will put their right hand over their heart and bow their head a little. If someone seems confused by that, they can say, “I don’t shake, but it’s lovely to meet you” (or “to see you” if they’ve met before).
If she’s going to do that, it will be easier if she does it with everyone, not just men. In a workplace setting, you really want to treat men and women the same, which means that if you have a restriction for one sex (whether it’s not shaking their hand or not being alone with them), it’s better to apply it to everyone.
4. What’s a professional way to say “it’s been one thing after another”?
It’s been a challenging few months, and I’m significantly behind at work. Things are starting to get better and I’m catching back up, but I have no idea what to say to people (if anything) about the communication delays and other dropped balls. My supervisor is in the loop, so this is more about communicating with coworkers and stakeholders.
In short, during a three- or four-month period, my tires were slashed three times (likely a hate crime but that’s not 100% clear), I bought a house for the first time (it ended up requiring some surprise repairs), I moved, and my pet died. Throughout these events, I seem to have consistently underestimated the level of physical and emotional exhaustion that would result, and the toll it would take overall. I took a lot of PTO, some planned and some not, and even while at work I was often distracted and not doing my best.
According to my supervisor, “this is the ebb and flow of life” but even if that’s true it seems rude to say that to people who have been inconvenienced by my “ebbing.” Citing “personal issues” seems too vague and open to interpretation, but I might be overthinking it.
Is there something quick and respectful I can say that doesn’t get into all the details but does somehow convey that I was Going Through Things But Now I’m Getting Back on Track? I feel “stuck” catching up on certain areas because I can’t figure out the first sentence for my extremely late email responses.
“I’m so sorry for the delay on this — I’ve been out quite a bit dealing with a situation that should be under control now. Let me get you the answers you were waiting on.” (Adjust last sentence to fit whatever the context is.)
Or: “I’m so sorry for the delay on this — I’ve needed to be out quite a bit so I’ve been in triage mode, and I apologize for not updating you.”
That’s it, truly! These options cover a whole variety of possibilities, shares the part that’s relevant, and is the right lead-in to whatever comes next (whether that’s getting the person info they’d asked for, figuring out next steps for a project, or so forth).
Imagine that one day as you’re walking on a hot sunny path, your hat jumps off your head and lands into a muddy ditch. And you look at your muddy hat and ask it: “What did you do that for?”
“I don’t want to be a burden anymore”, your hat answers. “You are always carrying me around, and I can’t carry you. That’s not fair.”
“I don’t mind carrying you, little idiot”, you tell your hat, “you hardly weight anything at all, and you shelter me from the sun.”
“But that’s different”, your hat protests. “I don’t mind the sun scorching on me. That happens anyway. It’s literally no trouble for me to shade you too.”
“Just the same it’s no trouble for me to carry you. But now, because you wanted to stop inconveniencing and bothering me, I am now hatless and you are in the dirt.”
hello Aesop; how’s the underworld been?
Every day I wake up and Hades kicks me in the nuts.
Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!
Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Thursday, September 18, to midnight on Friday, September 19 (8pm Eastern Time).
I work at a pretty typical data entry company and there’s monthly employee spotlight emails that go out to everyone in the company just like who are you what do you do what are you hobbies what do you look like
At my supervisor’s insistence I added this as one of the my photos that, again, went around the company of maybe 150 people
With the caption “this is what happens when you don’t empty your lint trap”
Within 20 minutes of that email going out I had 7 women from my company contact me to tell me how much they like my photos.
Today in one sentence: FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened ABC stations with “remedies” and possible license revocations over Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s killing; Disney and ABC responded by suspending Kimmel’s show "indefinitely"; Trump celebrated ABC’s suspension of Kimmel’s show, urged NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, and threatened to strip broadcast licenses from networks critical of him; Obama condemned the Trump administration after pressuring ABC into suspending Jimmy Kimmel, calling it “government coercion"; House Democratic leaders said they would support a Republican resolution honoring Charlie Kirk.
1/ FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened ABC stations with “remedies” and possible license revocations over Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s killing, saying “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Carr claimed Kimmel’s monologue – “the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it” – were prohibited “news distortion.” Disney and ABC responded by suspending Kimmel’s show “indefinitely.” Shortly before the announcement, Nexstar Media Group, an operator of 32 ABC stations, and then Sinclair, a conservative-leaning operator of 28 ABC affiliates, said they would drop the show. Both companies are seeking FCC approvals for large mergers. Carr thanked them “for doing the right thing,” while Trump posted “Great News for America” and claimed the show was “CANCELLED.” (NPR / New York Times / Variety / Vanity Fair / Wall Street Journal / NBC News / CNN / CNN / Associated Press / NBC News / Variety / Hollywood Reporter)
Sinclair will replace Friday’s broadcast of Jimmy Kimmel with a Charlie Kirk tribute. The company also demanded that Kimmel apologize to Kirk’s family and make “a meaningful personal donation” to them and Turning Point USA. (Variety / Fortune)
The Pentagon is considering a campaign to use Charlie Kirk’s death to boost recruiting, with ideas like “Charlie has awakened a generation of warriors” and Turning Point USA chapters as enlistment centers. Some officials warned it would look like the military was exploiting his assassination. (NBC News)
Trump will designate antifa a “major terrorist organization.” U.S. law has no process for labeling domestic groups this way and the FBI has said antifa is “an ideology, not an organization.” (Bloomberg / Reuters / Associated Press)
2/ Trump celebrated ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show and urged NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, calling them “two total losers.” Trump then threatened to strip broadcast licenses from networks critical of him, saying, “When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump […] that license, they’re not allowed to do that. They’re an arm of the Democrat Party.” FCC Chair Brendan Carr, meanwhile, warned that “we’re not done yet” with Kimmel. (Deadline / Axios / New Republic / Politico / Bloomberg / CNBC / Associated Press / Politico / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal)
FCC commissioner Anna Gomez said the Trump administration is “weaponizing its licensing authority” and called recent threats against broadcasters “a part of this administration’s campaign of censorship and control.” (Axios)
3/ Obama condemned the Trump administration after pressuring ABC into suspending Jimmy Kimmel, calling it “government coercion.” He wrote, “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.” Obama added, “This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.” Neither the White House nor the FCC responded. (Axios / Politico)
4/ House Democratic leaders said they would support a Republican resolution honoring Charlie Kirk. The resolution praises Kirk as a “courageous American patriot” who promoted unity and civil discourse, and condemns political violence “in all forms.” While Democratic leaders told members they would support the resolution, they left it up to individual lawmakers to decide how to vote. Separately, Senate and House Democrats introduced the “No Political Enemies Act,” which would expand legal protections for people targeted by government officials over political speech. In addition, Democratic leaders called on FCC chair Brendan Carr to resign for “bullying ABC.” (The Hill / Axios / Associated Press / Axios / New York Times)
⏭️ Notably Next: Congress has 12 days to pass a funding measure to prevent a government shutdown; and the 2026 midterms are in 411 days.
✏️ Notables.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hand-picked CDC panel of vaccine skeptics voted to stop recommending the combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella shot for children under 4. Instead, the panel said children should get two separate vaccines. The committee then voted to keep Vaccines for Children coverage for both options despite the new guidance. The panel delayed a vote on proposed changes to the hepatitis B birth-dose recommendation until Friday. The recommendations aren’t final until reviewed and approved by CDC leadership. Public-health leaders noted that universal newborn hepatitis B vaccination drove pediatric cases down to “fewer than 20” a year and that infants without the birth dose are less likely to complete the series. (Wall Street Journal / CBS News / Bloomberg / CNN / Associated Press / Washington Post / The Hill / NPR)
California, Washington, Oregon, and Hawaii issued joint vaccine guidelines in defiance of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s CDC panel. The new West Coast Health Alliance said it acted because of the “destruction of the U.S. CDC’s credibility and scientific integrity.” Their guidance continues to recommend COVID-19, flu, and RSV vaccines for broad groups, aligning with major medical organizations. (New York Times / ABC News)
Sen. Markwayne Mullin accused former CDC director Susan Monarez of lying about a meeting with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., claiming it had been recorded. He later admitted no recording existed, after other senators demanded it be released if real. Monarez testified she was fired for refusing to preapprove Kennedy’s vaccine panel decisions. (New York Times / PBS News / Talking Points Memo)
The Education Department announced a “patriotic education” coalition led by the America First Policy Institute and more than 40 conservative groups. The coalition will run a 50-state college speaker tour, student history competitions, and teacher summits, while excluding nonpartisan civics organizations. The department also plans to steer grants toward programs that present U.S. history in a “unifying and uplifting” way. (NPR / USA Today / Washington Post)
Trump asked the Supreme Court to let him fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, even though two lower courts ruled the move unlawful. The White House accused Cook of mortgage fraud by appearing to claim two properties as primary residences, even though the loan documents described one condo as a “vacation home” and “2nd home.” (Washington Post / Politico / NBC News / Associated Press / New York Times)
Republicans confirmed 48 Trump nominees in a single vote after changing the Senate rules. The list included Kimberly Guilfoyle for Greece and Callista Gingrich for Switzerland and Liechtenstein, along with dozens of lower-level posts. Democrats called them “historically bad nominees.” (NBC News)
Trump complained that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “fucking me” after Israel bombed Hamas negotiators in Qatar without U.S. approval. Despite the strike undermining his push for a ceasefire, Trump imposed no conditions on U.S. military or political support for Israel. (Wall Street Journal)
Trump told UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer that Putin had “really let me down,” saying “he’s killing many people.” Trump said he thought it would be easy to negotiate a truce between Russia and Ukraine “because of my relationship with President Putin […] but he’s let me down, he’s really let me down.” Trump then insisted that U.S. allies stop buying Russian oil. (Bloomberg / The Guardian)
I Need to learn to weave I Need to I Need to I simply Must learn to weave. what the fuck will I do with any of the weavings? who on earth knows but I Must Learn
Good news! If you have string you can learn to weave for $0! You just have to be crazy enough to design and build a loom out of trash!
If you have sufficient hubris you don’t even have to look anything up ahead of time. You can figure it out as you go
Fun Fact: You can actually pick up any fibercraft with sufficient hubris and willingness to repurpose random crap. In fact, I think the high degree of hubris and willingness to repurpose objects for uses their creators, nature and god never intended is ESSENTIAL to any fibercraft.
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 06 secrets from Secret Submission Post #975. Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ]. Current Secret Submissions Post:here. Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
A little while ago the toddler's household told me that you could turn the top of a pineapple into a whole entire pineapple plant (with the caveat that at least 60% of the time it goes mouldy). My first attempt at this had got as far as growing a whole entire root network but then suffered a Tragic Incident from which it never recovered; the second had been sat around with partially-browned but no-longer-becoming-more-browned and definitely-still-partially-green leaves for Quite Some Time. I had more or less hit the point of "... is this actually doing anything? at all?" and then upon my return from the most recent round of Adventures I rotated it in service of watering it, to discover...
... that it's growing a WHOLE NEW SET OF LEAVES. Look at it go! I am very excited!
(My understanding is that if I manage to keep it alive that long it'll take somewhere in the region of 3 years to fruit, and then in the fashion of all bromeliads will die having produced said single fruit. Happily this is about the rate at which we eat fresh pineapple...)
We got to our lovely Airbnb flat not long after 9 this evening.
The day started with a fire alarm in our hotel at 7:20am, which didn't feel like a great start -- though at least it stopped while we were still sleepily pulling on enough clothes to go outside. And, more importantly, it gave D the chance to check right away if he could book an earlier sailing than Saturday. And he could! This afternoon! So it was nice to have some good news first thing...even if this booking was of course immediately followed by the same automated text he got yesterday about how the sailing could be canceled at short notice because of the weather.
D and I got up for breakfast, I had tasty mushrooms and eggs and was introduced to the tattie scone which immediately enters the small pantheon of potato products I'm actually excited to see (I'm usually pretty indifferent to them) because it was amazing.
We took some breakfast back for V, D told his boss why he wouldn't be working today as planned, and we all got ready to go just in time for checkout at 11. We hung around for a lovely walk in the grounds of the hotel with V pointing out bugs on the flowers and even picking up some lichen that they knew had fallen off the trees (very tall, with lots of what even I could recognize as Douglas firs along many other massive old trees) to let me see and touch it. It's so lovely how they carefully describe what I can't see so I can enjoy all the flora and fauna that they do.
After sharing a restorative pot of tea in the hotel bar, we went literally down the road to what had been the Strathpeffer Spa train station and is now a café, gift shop, and the Highland Museum of Childhood. I am fascinated by Strathpeffer as a name, and not just because I find it impossible to say (it always goes wrong when I get to -thp-!). It finally got me to look up the word strath which I figured out from context clues would be something Gaelic to do with a river and sure enough. "Peffer" feels so German to my Minnesotan brain, and I noted Strathpeffer being described as "the most un-Scottish of Scottish towns...variously compared to Harrogate in Yorkshire and to a Bavarian mountain resort." But that's just a coincidence; Bavarian perhaps in architecture but not in name. According to what I can find about how the place got its name, it and the other "Peffer streams" ("Peffer occurs as a burn name in Inverpeffray (Crieff), and there are two Peffer burns in Athelstaneford (Haddington), also a Peffer Mill at Duddingston...") are "likely to be connected with the root seen in Welsh ‘pefr’, beautiful, fair; ‘pefrin’, radiant; ‘pefru’, to radiate."
Anyway. We enjoyed the museum, bought treats in the shop (mostly for me: fingerless gloves in a Fair Isle knitted pattern, socks with space designs on them, and a fancy bar of chocolate, but V got a teeny cute thing of some kind which they'd picked up and said "I'm turning into an old person, I'm collecting tchotchkes!" as they held it up). We had lunch at the café, with the help of an adorable spaniel who flopped right down like he'd been our dog forever, who turned out to be called Fudge and worked hard for the teeny crusts of cheesy bread I gave him and a bit of tuna mayonnaise from V's sandwich. He's well known to the café staff, who told us his name.
From there we went to Ullapool, still hopeful for the ferry, and with an hour to kill looked in the bookstore and some touristy stores where I was told how nice a £150 wool sweater would look on me, and bought some boring stuff at Boots (my eczema has been hellish lately because I've been so stressed, and also I bought my own razor now that I need one!) before sitting by the harbor watching the boats and the gulls and just having a nice time until it was time to head back to the car which we'd left in line for the ferry. Even as we were driving on to the boat I was trying not to let myself get too relieved, remembering the RVs I saw having to drive back off again yesterday with the last-minute cancellation. But it was fine. We went up on to the deck to watch the ferry leave the harbor, had dinner (I was tempted by Calmac and cheese but I'd just had mac and cheese for lunch and thought I could use slightly more variety in my diet so went for a veggie burger and salad) and then sat in the "observation lounge" where there was increasingly less to observe as we got away from the islands near shore and also it got dark but we had relatively comfy seats and everyone was tired by then. I didn't sleep but listened to an audiobook and rested my eyes.
And like I said we got to Stornoway slightly delayed but otherwise fine, it was a very smooth crossing -- V was surprised how much so --and since we're staying in the same flat those two had last year they know the location and the layout and everything, it was the easy welcome we needed.
We hauled our stuff inside and have done various things to make ourselves feel at home: D has set up his PS5 to do his daily tasks in the couple of games he's playing, V put away the food we brought, I had a shower. D and I have also had a bit of a bottle of cherry wine I was won over by yesterday thanks to the copy on the label:
Luxury cherries from Blairgowrie make this thrilling wine a cherrylicious event.
Rich and moist, dark and silky, Little Red Riding Hood lost in the Black Forest.
Van Morrison was always going on about Sweet Cherry Wine, in an unrelated incident.
We bought it yesterday, saying we'd have it when we got to our flat that evening, and then of course we didn't. It tasted great tonight.
Today a colleague asked for a way to open all the files that have changed in a particular Git branch.
They were reviewing a large pull request, and sometimes it’s easier to review files in your local editor than in GitHub’s code review interface.
You can see the whole file, run tests or local builds, and get more context than the GitHub diffs.
This is the snippet I suggested:
git diff --name-only"$BRANCH_NAME"$(git merge-base origin/main "$BRANCH_NAME")\
| xargs open -a"Visual Studio Code"
It uses a couple of nifty Git features, so let’s break it down.
How this works
There are three parts to this command:
Work out where the dev branch diverges from main.
We can use git-merge-base:
This command gives us the common ancestor of our main branch and our dev branch – this is the tip of main when the developer created their branch.
In a small codebase, main might not have changed since the dev branch was created.
But in a large codebase where lots of people are making changes, the main branch might have moved on since the dev branch was created.
Here’s a quick picture:
This tells us which commits we’re reviewing – what are the changes in this branch?
Get a list of files which have changed in the dev branch.
We can use git-diff to see the difference between two commits.
If we add the --name-only flag, it only prints a list of filenames with changes, not the full diffs.
Because we're diffing between the tip of our dev branch, and the point where our dev branch diverged from main, this prints a list of files that have changed in the dev branch.
(I originally suggested using git diff --name-only "$BRANCH_NAME" origin/main, but that's wrong.
That prints all the files that differ between the two branches, which includes changes merged to main after the dev branch was created.)
Open the files in our text editor.
I suggested piping to xargs and open, but there are many ways to do this:
$git diff … | xargs open -a"Visual Studio Code"
The xargs command is super useful for doing the same thing repeatedly – in this case, opening a bunch of files in VS Code.
You feed it a space-delimited string, it splits the string into different pieces, and runs the same command on each of them, one-by-one.
It’s equivalent to running:
open -a"Visual Studio Code""assets/2025/exif_orientation.py"
open -a"Visual Studio Code""src/_drafts/create-thumbnail-is-exif-aware.md"
open -a"Visual Studio Code""src/_images/2025/exif_orientation.svg"
The open command opens files, and the -a flag tells it which application to use.
We mostly use VS Code at work, but you could pass any text editor here.
Reading the manpage for open, I'm reminded that you can open multiple files at once, so I could have done this without using xargs.
I instinctively reached for xargs because I’m very familiar with it, and it’s a reliable way to take a command that takes a single input, and run it with many inputs.
Hello and welcome to the most boring blog post title I’ve ever written. Sorry, but I thought I’d reach out and try to crowdsource (after getting permission from my kiddo, Hailey.) You may remember that they were in the hospital for quite a while this summer with meningitis. The drs never figured out what causedContinue reading "Crowdsourcing recurrent aseptic meningitis treatment"
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