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Dec. 9th, 2025 04:00 pm
oursin: hedgehog in santa hat saying bah humbug (Default)
[personal profile] oursin

London Pride has been handed down to us:

Busiest Thoroughfare of the Metropolis of the World - review of book on the history of The Strand.

Over 250,000 images of London from the collections at The London Archives and Guildhall Art Gallery

***

Heritage endangered:

On an old cobbled street in a market town, residents say hundreds of years of history are disappearing before their eyes as thieves keep stealing large slabs of Yorkshire stone.

The Royal Society of Medicine is putting some of its rarest books and photographs up for sale at Christie’s this month. Is this a case of medical negligence? Screaming. The GMC should strike them off.

Rare piece of Australia's Indigenous history captured on camera in the desert

According to a local anthropologist in Broome, the photos were taken by a nurse who was volunteering at the La Grange mission.
In his opinion, the images are extraordinary — one of the rare moments of "first contact" on the Australian continent to be captured on camera.
The originals were donated to a Catholic Church archive, which is not accessible to the public.
But it turns out there are copies. On a dusty CD buried in the boxes of an elderly author.

I have a lot of questions here about disinterring the original - I have very cynical thoughts about the church 'archive', as probably a storeroom in a basement somewhere - and in general things which are literally hidden in the (unprocessed, uncared for) archives of some institution.

And at this I can only fall on the floor, weeping and going 'the horror, the horror': [S]ome AI chatbots (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Bard and others) may generate incorrect or fabricated archival references.

***

Gender and learning:

The Real Way Schools are Failing Boys - though possibly, just de-emphasise competition, for starters???

Estrogen levels predict enhanced learning (at least in rats....)

[syndicated profile] aam_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

Remember the letter-writer whose partner was angry about how she handled harassment at work? Here’s the update.

Addressing the domestic violence situation: following my post, we took more than a month away from each other. I stayed in our flat, he stayed with a friend and we had zero contact during this time. About 40 days in, my partner came home (as agreed), but he works away a lot so he booked jobs to be away Mon-Fri for four weeks and we used the weekends to talk about whether we wanted to and most importantly could, despite loving each other, work this out. He was, as before, very apologetic and very earnest.

During the time apart, I worked hard to get to grips with the higher responsibilities in my new job and relaxed at home. I had friends round, I reupholstered some furniture (which still makes me laugh picturing this 32-year-old loose with fabric and a staple gun), and I rediscovered my single life routine of work, gym, cooking, and reading. I thought hard about all the comments to leave but this was a one-time event which surprised me because it was so unusual. It being a one-time event is how I managed to stay calm and strong in myself at the time.

My partner sought help and, as a very private man, has done this on his own. A couple of commenters were right, he didn’t know he had issues until this happened and he saw himself, didn’t like it, and wanted to change. He went against his usual walled privacy a little to write me a journal each day whilst we were apart and he talked with his mother and sister more then and continues to do so now, which is wonderful — their previously strained relationship is recovering. It is evident he has done the work to overcome his issues from the logical and calm way he handles any conflict now. That past behavior which took me by such surprise has not reared its head at all — in any conflict with me, he is often the one to extend an olive branch first and leads by example. He looks after me, takes care of my needs above his own at all times, and supports me. I have a good feeling that he relies on his sister for help understanding me if and when needed which is great that he seeks help and advice and clearly wants to understand me. We are both constantly learning, but I guess him more so.

The one thing from your advice, Alison, that really stood out to me was “If he simply can’t live with how you’ve decided to handle your own work situation, his options are to try to change your perspective respectfully or to leave.” I raised this point to him during our talks and it really helped us both work through everything with clarity on the options.

Addressing the workplace harassment: Looking back at my old workplace, I am sad I didn’t do more. But someone’s comment on my post helped me make peace with it — I did what I could at the time and survived. New workplace has its own problems, all communication and change management driven, which I spoke up about on behalf of our team in a meeting with the board! My manager’s manager and the COO have asked me if I would consider a manager’s position as one is available, but my Plan A is financial adviser — managing people isn’t my dream. I’m well on the way to securing my dream job, and any Plan B is a waste of resource to me.

A user by the handle Grumpy Elder Millennial read between the lines and understood my intentions in my original post — I just wanted assurance that I had done nothing wrong. I was very confused at the time being on the receiving end from someone I trust that I had been wrong, and I’m grateful for the assurance that I hadn’t. With time, my own space to come to this realization, and relying solely on my personal reflection, I now do wish I had done more, such as take the log I made of events to the director (a director who does want to do right by his employees, dreads doing the hard stuff but will get on with it when required, sometimes after a period of scrambling to maintain the status quo). I am okay with this being a lesson learned.

I am grateful to everyone for their advice, no matter how hard to read! And thankful to everyone who wished me the best. I am happy that this seems to be one of those rare times where seeing the good in someone in a terrible situation was the right choice.

The post update: my partner is angry about how I handled harassment at work appeared first on Ask a Manager.

althea_valara: A picture of knitting needles, laying on top of many skeins of colorful yarn. (knitting)
[personal profile] althea_valara
Boy am I late with this...

I did a LOT of knitting in a very short timeframe in November, and TBH it pooped me out and I think I'm still recovering. BUT! I successfully knitted a pair of legwarmers to wear to the A New World concert! Here they are:

A pair of cabled legwarmers. Yes, one's bigger than the other.
[Image Description: A pair of knitted legwarmers. They are Aran colored (think natural undyed yarn) and feature a folded ribbed cuff at top, with lazy cables on the body and an intricate cable at the back. One is larger than the other.]

So yeah, this pattern comes in small and large sizes. Small wouldn't fit me, but large was TOO big. I altered the pattern some for my first one, taking some stitches out to make it smaller. Well, I finished it and tried it on and nope, too big. So for the second I took even MORE stitches out of the pattern. This one felt like it fit well, but as soon as I started walking, it drooped.

I didn't have time to reknit them, so I made do with them as is, and used elastic headbands under the cuff to keep them up. That worked well! Also, I shortened the pattern because in the pattern pic, the lower edge was dragging on the ground and I didn't like that. Unfortunately, I shortened it TOO much. I might unpick the bind off and knit them a bit longer, but for now, they work. And no, I am likely not going to reknit the too big one. TOO MUCH WORK.

I also made progress on a hoodie!
Central Park Hoodie November 2025 Progress
[Image Description: a sleeve in progress for a knitted hoodie. It's mostly gray in color and features deep ribbing at the cuff. A center cable panel runs up the middle, in teal.]

At the beginning of the month, I had one cable cross done. Now I have two. So not much progress, but hey, progress is progress.

I also did some work on the Versailles Scarf, a small true lace knitted scarf. I wanted to finish this for the concert as well, but decided the legwarmers were more important. It'd be nice to get this done for Christmas, but with the lack of crafting I've been doing so far this month, it's not gonna happen.




FOLKS! I had a cat for 20 minutes!
A photo of a calico kitty who visited our house for about 20 minutes.
[Image Description: A photo of a calico kitty visited our house for a bit.]

She came up to our patio door before the snow hit, when it was still decent out, and we decided to let her in for a bit, once we closed the bedroom doors. I, of course, was enamored. Mom less so. Being a cat, she did cat things, like scratching at an area rug (mom yelled at her, poor thing, but I can't really fault mom for that) and jumping on the kitchen table to try to get to our Christmas cactus. I kept a close eye on her the entire time she was in the house, so when I saw you going for the plant, I gently picked her up and deposited her back on the floor, because well, I don't know if those plants are safe for cats.

She was inquisitive and explored a lot, and liked to rub against legs. At one point, she was in our living room and started trotting towards the kitchen, so I called out to mom to let her know she was headed mom's way. Unfortunately mom was distracted and didn't hear me, and the cat, being friendly, came up behind her and rubbed her legs and mom almost tripped on her. :(

We considered calling an animal shelter, but due to her friendliness, decided to just let her back outside. Not before she jumped on the table AGAIN, though. I tried to grab her to deposit her back on the floor, but she jumped on the back of one of our chairs, and well, the chair tipped over.

Which means mom has declared NO CATS. :( I had really hoped she'd come around and we could, like, adopt a senior kitty, and my older sister made noise about us doing just that at Thanksgiving, but I don't think mom would be happy with a cat. Alas. But at least I had one for 20 minutes.
[syndicated profile] cakewrecks_feed

Posted by Jen

"LEAPING LILY PADS!! Is...is that what I think it is? Phil, are you seeing this?!"

 

 "...Phil?"

 

"...Will?"

 

"...Jill?

 

"You guys, snap out of it!"

 "I'm...I'm scared, Gill."

 

"It's unnatural, I tell you - UNNATURAL!"

 

"Quiet, Bill! He's coming!"

 

"Hey guys! Wassup?

 

"They call me...TADPOLE."

 

Thanks to wreckporters Susan M., Abby G., Amber K., Becky L., Jesse D., Madi L., Sara M., and Tammy H. & Melanie D., who sent in separate reports of the same frog. I love it when that happens! My wrecky minions are everywhere - EVERYWHERE! Muah-ha-haaa!

*****

If you know someone who loves frogs, maybe skip the wreck and get them this instead:

Fanatical About Frogs

It's part of a cool animal series with incredible art. In fact I'm also eying Obsessive About Octopuses, just for the cover alone. Hnnng.

themis1: Lightning (Default)
[personal profile] themis1 posting in [community profile] girlmeetstrouble
Chapter 2: Read more... )

Chapter 3: Read more... )

Comment: Looking in the mirror made me laugh since authors are advised against using that as a way to describe a character! I’m not sure the large info dump in chapter 2 about the social ins and outs of Canadians are relevant to anything much! I’d quite forgotten how much of this book there is before anything happens.

Friday Five (Nov 28 Edition)

Dec. 9th, 2025 09:01 am
ofearthandstars: A single tree underneath the stars (Default)
[personal profile] ofearthandstars
From [community profile] thefridayfive

1. What were some of the smells and tastes of your childhood?
The smell of the chlorine from the spa my mother worked at, and later, the smells of the craft store (Old America) that she managed. Tastes would be Velveeta cheese and Vienna sausages.

2. What did you have as a child that you do not think children today have?
The ability to have your own thoughts without 1,000 things vying for your attention; freedom to roam without being under a microscope.

3. What elementary grade was your favorite?
Probably 5th. I was a stinker in the early grades, often acting out and getting into trouble. We moved around a lot due to the recession and I went to 5 different elementary schools. I think by 5th we had found a stable spot to land and I was able to relax a little. That was when a teacher first began to encourage my writing.

4. What summer do you remember the best as a child?
Probably 7th grade, the summer I broke my foot at my aunt's pool and spent the rest of the summer hanging out of our own pool with one leg in a hot pink cast hanging over the side.

5. What one piece of advice would you give to your younger self, and at what age?
I'd warn my younger self at 6 or 7 that they are worth more than their young body, and worthy as they are emotionally and mentally and intellectually, without need for perfection, and that they should never accept being told they are less than, especially by those who would profess to love them.

james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A depowered witch discovers she is just one zany scheme away from regaining her power... provided her estranged mentor does not intervene. Which of course he will.

A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna

(no subject)

Dec. 9th, 2025 09:36 am
oursin: hedgehog in santa hat saying bah humbug (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] bibliofilen and [personal profile] nineveh_uk!

Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

Dec. 9th, 2025 08:37 am
icon_uk: Mod Squad icon (Mod Squad)
[personal profile] icon_uk posting in [community profile] scans_daily
In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.

Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.

The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than scans_daily. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.

In deeply unfortunate moves in the UK, both girlguiding and the Women's Institute have announced they will no longer accept trans girls and women as members, both made it clear that they still believe transwomen to be women, and are only doing so is due to concerns regarding possible legal action following the UK Supreme Courts recent ruling that gender, under law, is solely defined by biology at birth.

In more surreal news from the US, and in an inspired bit of trolling, FIFA presented POTUS 47 with an entirely made up "Peace Prize" at the World Cup Draw. The ultimate participation trophy, and a medal he hung aorund his own neck, grinning like a five year old.

An interesting piece from the Sedgewick County Zoo, on the dangers imlpicit in AI animal content videos, and how to spot them.

In the run up to the release of "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery", a tribute of sorts was shown by, of all things, "Sesame Street" with their guest star Beignet Blanc, starring in "Forks Out".

In fact the only thing which could make this cooler ALSO happens, as we got a reaction video

The UNIT based miniseries, "The War Between the Land and the Sea" debuted with two episodes on Sunday (in the UK at least, those accessing it via Disney+ will have to wait until January 2026) and, believe it or not, it was terrific! Classic RTD firing on all cylinders. We met new kinds of Homo Aqua, Russell Tovey as an everyman stuck into a high stakes situation more or less by accident carries the role brilliantly, and the effects were GORGEOUS! PLEASE let this be as consistently good as these two episodes!
silveradept: The emblem of Organization XIII from the Kingdom Hearts series of video games. (Organization XIII)
[personal profile] silveradept
It's December Days time again. This year, I have decided that I'm going to talk about skills and applications thereof, if for no other reason than because I am prone to both the fixed mindset and the downplaying of any skills that I might have obtained as not "real" skills because they do not fit some form of ideal.

08: Disappointment

It's a remarkably human thing for someone who is looking for a response to ignore the response that they're being given because it doesn't match what they are expecting to hear. People who work in public-facing positions know this intrinsically, and often have to devote considerable resources and time to making sure that what is happening in front of them is not a failure to understand, but instead a decision not to accept what they understand. That particular insistence on a wrong position being correct generally only comes out when there's money involved. Even so, good places that deserve repeat business are willing to work with people when it's genuine mistakes that have been made, or someone realizing that they've ordered the wrong size shirts to surprise someone with.

I, on the other hand, rarely am dealing with money matters, and instead there's a lot of "oh, I did return that book, I remember doing so" and a fair amount of "Oh, shit, I think I returned that book to City Library System instead of you, County Library System." On that last one, I can reassure them that things will get back to their proper places in some amount of time, because this happens very frequently and we trade materials between ourselves on the regular.

What I encountered recently was, instead, people who were expecting a specific response and didn't get it, and refused to hear what was actually being said, because it didn't match their expectations. I don't think it was malicious, since it was about getting information, but it does crop up regularly. A person who was asking about renewing a digital checkout, for example, kept insisting that they have never seen the thing I was describing to them in all the amount of time that they have been using the site, while I patiently kept trying to get through and say "that option doesn't appear until about three days before due date, and it should appear here, on this page," but it was at least three or four times around the block of "no, I've never seen that, I don't know what you're telling me" before I finally managed to get this person on a working situation. Mostly by having them first go to the spot where the thing would appear, and then explain that this is the spot where it will appear, but it will still have to be about three days before the due date before it will appear. And that it still might not appear if someone has a request in for it. I think that finally got through by having someone actually do the steps, instead of insisting that the thing that I know exists has never been part of their experience.

Same day, later on, someone is calling to get information about a half-remembered thing where one of the local Christian megachurches put on something like a "Living Christmas Tree" and they wanted to know what the details would be about getting tickets for the program. I found the thing, a Singing Christmas Tree, and which church it was associated with, and there was a nice note on their homepage saying "Hey. We know that we've done things in the past that have been big spectacles, but this year, we're taking a different tactic and giving you awesome Christmas experiences for each Sunday in December. No tickets, no cost, just Christ." Which I relayed to the person on the telephone, and they wanted to know about the ticket cost and the performance dates. And so I gave them the times for the Sunday services, and they said, "No, those are regular church times." And so we went through this information dance a second time before it went through and the person understood that the big extravaganza they were hoping to either get tickets for or relay information to someone else about was not going to happen, and then they hung up. A little bit more research, now that I had the right name, showed that the big extravaganza had finished up a final show in 2022, and so this hadn't been an actual thing for three years now. If that note hadn't been on the church's front page, I might have had a helluva time knowing that I had the right thing, even when I eventually would have discovered the article about the show hanging up after fifty years of performances. I'd be confident in my answers, but saying "no, that doesn't actually exist any more" is one of the answers that tends to get a more disbelieving answer. Probably because the expectation is that the answer will be something other than that. When that happens at work, I can either react to it with "well, I've disappointed someone," or with "just because I told you something other than what you wanted to hear does not mean that I'm the villain here!" Depending on how the interaction goes, it'll lean one way or another.

I took some serious psychic damage last week, when, because they were offering, I accepted a free roof and attic inspection from people looking to drum up business for their roof replacement services, thinking they might give me a good idea about the state of my roof. And what they gave back to me was the possibility that my roof was structurally failing and would need to be replaced, well ahead of the schedule that the original roofers had put in for it. And so, then they provided me with the sales pitch for their services, and after all of that, we started talking numbers, and that's at the point where I started giving pushback on the matter. The numbers that came in were "it'll cost you what it's cost you to get rid of your ex" numbers, and if there's one thing that has saved my ass multiple, multiple times, including when I was in a really bad headspace, is that I know, viscerally, what I can do with the resources I have available to me, and I can calculate and budget. This particular offer was going to be a non-starter, because I don't have that kind of slack in my budget. Ask again once I've paid off the loan I took out to get rid of my ex, and I still might tell you no. I explained to the now sales person what my situation was, and what kind of monthly payment might be within my ability, and then it was "well, I can take some money off of it up front, and give it back to you as a rebate, that'll let you get a few months into this, or you could use it for Christmas presents." While I was still having a complete despair of "my roof is falling apart and I definitely do not have the resources to do this replacement," I wasn't going to budge on the part where I had to actually be able to afford this situation, and in a battle of "pushy, get-to-yes salesperson versus Silver who knows what they have to work with," pushy salesperson loses. Especially pushy salesperson who is not listening to me about what I'm telling them. They left without their sale, and I threw up a flare to people who may have been able to finance such things about the situation in a panic.

Looking back on this, I realize that the emotions and issues I was feeling regarding this were the same kinds of emotions and things that I was feeling when my ex was pushing back on me to do something that we couldn't afford. I felt terrible because I was disappointing someone by not giving them what they wanted, and with my ex, my own disappointment at failing at capitalism was then reinforced with her disappointment or upsetness at not getting what she wanted. So, yeah, I was ready to blame myself for the roof falling in because I hadn't noticed the signs, and I hadn't put together anything for maintenance once I was actually back on my feet and more clear-thinking, and there wasn't going to be anything I could do about it, so I was just a disappointment to everyone, and this massive ADHD tax was just what I deserved. Those were some unhappy neural pathways, and they were definitely well-oiled from all the time I'd spent with my ex.

After I'd calmed down a little bit through the magic of sleep, I also decided to call the people who had put the roof on and see what their opinion of the situation was, and possibly to set up a maintenance contract so that I could get as much life out of my failing roof as before. Their person that came out explained to me what would need to be done to the roof to bring it back into good work, and with the idea that doing the work of getting the roof cleaned, and then treated, and changing some things so as to prevent water damage to brick work, and then reinsulating the attic, and things would be better. They also quoted me a price for all of this that was more in line with what I believed I had in wiggle room for my budget, so I accepted that, and set up the financing paperwork, and informed the people I'd sent the flare to about the situation changing and how I was feeling much more confident in my ability to make it work, based on the new and lower price that I'd been quoted for maintenance work instead of replacement work. So yet more time spent on the "all my money goes to making sure my house and my people are healthy and well, and maybe once all that gets paid off, I can think about possibly contributing more than the absolute minimum to retirement plans" situation, but I've been managing for aleph-null years now, so what's a few more.

I think my ambient "constantly disappointing others" and panic meter have been increased because of things happening at work. While I'm not in danger of being RIF'd, a lot of people around me are, and their disappearance will result in some serious rebalancing of the work that's going on, to the point where everyone, except upper administration, loses. The justifications for this have ranged from utter bullshit to rank bullshit, and despite all of the big and loud pushback they've received about how this set of changes (and all the other changes they've pushed on us) are the exact opposite of good public service and show a contempt for both the staff and the public that we serve, they continue to barrel forward with all of them. So there's heightened tensions around, as well as a certain amount of uncertainty about what's going to happen when the supposed deadlines roll around and the next set of changes gets put into action. There might be some ambient anxiety leaking out of my otherwise controlled self, because of all of this uncertainty, stubbornness, and general fucking-up of making change, communicating change, implementing change, and ignoring feedback about changes. If it persists, there may need to be conversations about establishing a more effective routine of anxiety dissipation, but for the moment, things are being managed. (Oh. There's another well-trod terrible neural pathway, the one that says that all the problems at my workplace are my fault. The manager who tried to get me fired instead of helping me establish good ways of work and reminders. The other supervisor who took away my collection management responsibilities because I made her look bad in front of upper management. The coworker who complained about various fidgets of mine to my supervisor. And all of that related material.)

I am still a disappointment to others, because sometimes other people expect something out of me that I cannot give them, or they expect me to work in ways that I cannot do. And sometimes because things slip through the cracks and I don't do the things that I said I would. (Or I got distracted.) And being a disappointment to others, outside of very specific and controlled circumstances, feels like a failure to live up to my potential, or more practically, that I am not a flawless and perfect being and therefore I can expect someone to make fun of me for that or otherwise express strong negative emotions at me for that. (Because my ex. And that manager. And the classmates in primary school.) And the only way to get out in front of that is to express stronger negative emotions first, and otherwise self-flagellate sufficiently that someone else doesn't need to. It's not a healthy way of looking at things, and breaking out of it will mean accepting a baseline principle that I have yet to see enough evidence of (or that I have enough self-confidence to assert in the face of a horde of biting weasels, take your pick): that I have worth as a person, regardless of what I do or don't do, regardless of how other people perceive me, and that worth is not conditional upon anything else.

You know, the kind of thing that other people take for granted as a part of themselves, and will look at you funny when you say that you're still working on that.

(But someone said, having come back to the library, that they still remember the people who were there when they were much smaller, and that they understand a little bit better now what we were doing and how we tried to help them, now that they're having to do academic work. So some of that help stuck, or at least they appreciate the help more now. Not a total disappointment, then.)

Music: Nazdrave Ti

Dec. 8th, 2025 09:43 pm
sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
[personal profile] sonia
Here's another song we're singing this time, Nazdrave Ti, Chorbadžijo, "Cheers to You, Master of the House." This is a caroling song with a strong dance rhythm, and I took to it much more happily than Otče Naš. Koleda is the Bulgarian term for the Christmas season. And I love the design of this album cover!

Cheers to you, master of the house!
Oh, Koleda!
We sing to you, we praise God.
As much sand there is by the sea,
May you have as much grain in this house.
As much water there is in the sea,
May you have as much wine in your barrels.
As many leaves as there are in the forest,
May you have as many sheep in your pens.

[syndicated profile] aam_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. I saw my coworker buying a beer during work hours

I saw a coworker at the pharmacy near our office this morning (9:45 a.m.) buying a 40-ounce can of beer. I was confused at first and I couldn’t figure out what to make out of it, but then I also remembered that this coworker always falls asleep in meetings.

I wasn’t sure if I should have approached her (I didn’t want her to think I’m being nosy). I do not want to jump to conclusions because I also thought she might have bought the beer for someone else (i.e., a homeless person in NYC or whatever). She got back at her desk around 10:15ish without the bag. I also saw her sleeping at her desk (pen in hand, head down) at noon today.

In terms of her quality of work, my team and I stopped going to her because we never get good answers from her anyway. I also overheard her team members question her ability in doing a project. Is this something that I should report in case she needs help or in case this requires disciplinary action?

The fact that you saw a coworker buying a beer before work is not, in itself, damning. She could have been buying it for after work or, as you say, for someone else. Who knows.

If she’s sleeping on the job or otherwise not performing her work in a way that affects you, or if she’s coming to work smelling like alcohol and/or appearing intoxicated, you should absolutely talk to your manager about those things. But “my coworker sucks at her job” and “I saw that same coworker buying a beer” is not enough of a connection to report someone for being drunk at work — that’s just too much speculation. Focus on the things you know for sure.

2018

2. Intern uses “stay gold” as her email sign off

There’s an intern at my office who signs off all her emails with “Stay gold.” For example, an email from her might read, “Thanks for sending me the TPS reports! Stay gold, Jane.” I asked her about it and she confirmed it’s from the quote “Stay gold, Ponyboy” from the book The Outsiders. We work in a pretty casual industry so it’s most likely that people will write it off as a weird quirk, but I’m afraid that if she tried using that sign-off in a more formal industry or office that people would think it’s unprofessional. Should I encourage her to start using a more common sign-off?

First, this is hilarious.

But yeah, that’s going to come across weirdly in many (most?) offices, and as an intern she won’t have the capital built up to make it read “amusing quirk” rather than “inexperienced worker who doesn’t take work seriously / has no sense of professional norms.”

If you’re her manager or oversee any of her work, it would be a kindness to talk to her about professional sign-offs.

2020

3. Telling my boss his wife messed up his business travel

I used to work as an executive assistant to a person who did a lot of business travel, but also did a lot of travel for his side-business activities. This was all legit, above board kind of stuff and his main job was aware of it.

As his assistant, I handled all the business stuff: booking flights, doing expense claims, all that jazz. However, his wife handled the side-business travel and I was instructed to liaise with her to coordinate schedules and handle any times when business travel would occur in conjunction with side-gig travel. His spouse was awesome, really organized and a great person to work with, but this was still a little bit awkward. It became more awkward when she made a mistake and booked travel for him at a time he was required to be somewhere else for his main job. I double, triple, and quadruple checked all of our email correspondence and it was for sure something that had gotten mixed up on her end, I am confident in that. So I was between a rock and a hard place: it wasn’t MY mistake but I was probably going to wear it because how am I supposed to present all the evidence to my boss that his spouse, his partner in life for over 20 years, the mother of his children, was the one that made the error that was sort of a costly mistake? He and I had a great working relationship, great communication, he had my back, all in all he was a great person to work for.

I ended up just doing my best to fix it and make everything work out, but it never sat right with me that I had to sort of pretend that it was my fault. I think that if I had tried to present everything to him that it WASN’T my mistake might have just made me look like a jerk or be really self-serving. Did I only have those two choices: screw-up or jerk? Or was there a third option that I just didn’t realize?

You were being way too delicate! It wouldn’t have been a jerky move to tell your boss that his wife mixed something up, because you wouldn’t have said it in a jerky way. You would have just matter-of-factly told him, “Hmmm, it looks like Jane booked you in Atlanta on the 20th when you need to be in San Diego. I’ll let her know.” Your brain was going way overboard with the “partner in life for over 20 years, mother of his children” thing. It’s just a routine business thing, not particularly sensitive information.

If I were your boss and I found out that you were pretending something was your fault because you thought I’d dislike you if you told me my spouse had messed something up … well, I’d actually be really concerned. I’d worry about your judgment, or whether I’d somehow given you the impression that I was too fragile to hear normal business stuff, or whether my spouse had done something to scare the crap out of you. I’d wonder what else you might be sugarcoating, and what else I might want to know that you might not tell me.

It’s worth looking at whether you’re being overly delicate with your current colleagues/manager, because this is a strange instinct! This is just normal business stuff, not anything you needed to dance around or hide.

2018

Read an update to this letter here.

4. My amazing new job has a catch: my father

I just started a new job at what appears to be a great company. On my first day, I learned that my new company is owned by the company my father works for. I also learned that interaction between the companies is expected to increase, and while it’s not probable, it’s possible that I could end up working with my father. At least one of the higher-up members in my division even knows him. (Aside: this company definitely has no concerns about relatives working together.)

The problem is that my father and I have not spoken for three years. I might be able to have a very distant professional relationship with him, but, to be frank, almost any interaction at all would make me want to quit.

It’s known that my father works for the parent company, but no one knows that we have had an intense falling out. Should I mention this to my team lead? I’d obviously couch it in professional verbiage, a la “My father works for [parent company], but we do not get along. If at all possible, I’d prefer that any work that might involve him or his team be delegated to someone else.”

This is literally my second day on the job, and I’m worried about coming across as full of drama. I’m also worried that even though it was my father who disowned me, my reporting our soured relationship will make me look bad, but I specifically want them to know that this goes beyond the potential awkwardness of working with family so that they never intentionally put us together. And, finally, I’m so new to the company that I have no metric with which to gauge how reactions to this information would go.

Yes, mention it to your manager. Your wording is good, but I’d tweak it to this: “I hadn’t realized the extent to which [this company] works with [parent company], but now that I do, I feel I should let you know that my father works for [parent company] and we’ve been estranged for several years. I wouldn’t want that to cause any awkwardness in a work context, so I’m hoping that if we ever have work that might involve him or his team, it could be assigned to someone else.”

Companies generally don’t want to invite family drama into their work, and it’s pretty likely that if there’s a way to keep you from having to work with your dad, they’ll try to accommodate that. (There might not be, of course, but it’s a reasonable thing to flag.) You’re not going to come across as full as drama as long as you don’t … come across as full of drama. In other words, if you conduct yourself professionally and maturely (as opposed to, say, complaining about him all the time, sobbing in meetings when his company name is mentioned, etc.), that’s not going to be outweighed by having a difficult family connection.

And remember, lots of people have tough family dynamics. You’re not weird or dramatic for having one too.

2019

Read an update to this letter here.

The post I saw my coworker buying a beer during work hours, my boss’s wife messed up his business travel, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

@elodieunderglass, Horse. Allegedly.

Dec. 8th, 2025 08:00 pm
[syndicated profile] gallusrostromegalus_feed

kt–extinction:

simplified-horses:

spaceysoupy:

rpepperpotshipssciencebros:

craigslisthorses:

pitylaughterforme:

anarchyisforlovers:

I just want to take the funny looking foal home. He’s like the opposite of those overbred seahorse arabs.

And I’d let him grow a tail. Obviously.

@craigslisthorses this creature seems right up your alley. Anteater nosed thing.

that is, in fact, a giant anteater

OK, so I went down the rabbit hole and this is apparently a Pura Raza Española (PRE) horse. Foals and breeding mares are traditionally shaved in this way for hygenic/grooming reasons. As this li'l guy matures, his mane & tail will be allowed to grow in and he’ll look more like this:

Please note that I am *not* an expert in any way on this, so if somone more familiar with the breed can chime in that would be great.

Pura Raza Española (PRE) horses and Puro Sangue Lusitano (PSL) horses are different. This foal is Trovante QL and he’s a PSL by Lord Plus out of Doçura QL by Riopele. He was bred by Coudelaria Quinta da Lagoa and is already growing into his features just a few months later. The rams head or “Roman nose” is normal for this breed and is often very pronounced in foals. His sire has a COI of 1.42% and I’m not sure about his dam’s line since I couldn’t find her registration but his damsire Riopele has a COI of 8.11% on 5 gens (I calculated it manually hhh) which is on the low end of the spectrum for Lusitano horses, which all have some degree of inbreeding. Unless his maternal granddam is wildly inbred, his COI is probably far lower than his damsire.

Rosa Gutierrez has another stallion named Rei Mago who was born looking like Trovante QL and has since matured into a fine looking stallion. Lusitanos are just kinda Like That. Foals in general are gangly awkward little things that have an ugly phase. He’ll grow up and look normal.

As for the shaved mane and tail, it’s tradition in Portugal to shave foals to protect them from ticks and other parasites. When they’re older the breeder/owner will let it grow out. I think they may also do it for broodmares who are foaling soon for hygiene but I’m not 100% sure.

PSL Foal Simplified

more pictures of him <3

@elodieunderglass, Horse. Allegedly.

[syndicated profile] gallusrostromegalus_feed

evilvillain666:

evilvillain666:

You need to start moisturizing before it’s too late. I’m not talking about wrinkles or any of that nonsense. Winter is fucking coming you need to grease up or you are going to dry out like a raisin. It’s too late for me but you can still save yourself. Please don’t end up like me

Guys it’s actually so dire please for the love of God start moisturizing right fucking now. I just put on lotion and my skin sucked it up before I could even rub it in we are in fucking crisis mode

May I recommend the OG of moisturizers, Bag Balm:

It was made to keep cow udders from drying out and cracking in the fucking frigid winters of Vermont. If it can keep cow tiddy supple at -10 farenheit, it can keep you nice and moist. In fact, it can keep your face, your lips, your hands, your entire epidermis head to toe, your dog, and any dairy animals you might possess properly lubricated!

I’m not getting paid for this it’s just that fucking good and I want all my internet friends to have properly functioning skin.

Bag Balm! Smear it over everyone you love!

[syndicated profile] gallusrostromegalus_feed

onceuponatimeinerebor:

dat-physics-gal:

froggiethelesbian:

I found a guide for a no tape, easy to unwrap wrapping tutorial to make Christmas a little more accessible, wish I just found it sooner

Could i not have seen that before Christmas? Anyway, queueing this for next december to save a life.

This is how they wrap surgical sets before sterilizing them (in a cloth not paper…god I wosh the cloth is a pain in the ass) except when they tuck the last bit in, they fold it over so the end is poking out of the box (like a pull tab).

[syndicated profile] gallusrostromegalus_feed

payasita:

payasita:

felt like painting & accidentally squoze out wayyy too much yellow so I found a spare foam board and decided to wash it yellow and figure it out from there. but whats actually happened is im kind of enamored with the Big Searing Yellow Slab in my room and ive decided im not in a huge hurry to paint over it

Image ID: A flash photo of a bright yellow foam board on an easel taken in a grey bedroom. The board is about two feet tall. End IDALT

idk if my phone automatically color grades photos but *i* personally did not edit it. #mysearingyellowslab 😊❣️

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