I is deg.
Totes are up! Get ’em while they’re there! I wound up re-ordering both Ship AND Mermaid, because I have a soft heart. If you have emailed me about a freebie and heard back, you are getting one. If you have not heard back, you are on the (at press time, 25 person) waiting list, from which I will claw a name whenever I get a new donation to the bursary. I have also added 37 Spear totes back to the storefront, about to become a collector’s item!
Remember, if you are International and order a tote, shoot me an email if you don’t get a chance to place your email address in your order, since I’ll be mailing those totes out myself and either charging you more or refunding you slightly (everything is coming to you the slowest and cheapest way possible.)
Freebies will be in the mail on Thursday!
The Turkish airport attack:
At least 28 people have been killed and 60 injured in an attack by three suicide bombers on Turkey’s largest airport, Istanbul Atatürk, according to senior officials.
Vasip Şahin, the governor of Istanbul province told the NTV news channel that 28 people had died, and said that authorities believe three suicide bombers were involved, because there were three separate explosions.
Another Turkish official told the Guardian that the suspects blew themselves up outside the security checkpoint at the entry to the international terminal, after police opened fire on them.
Corbyn is not out (unless he resigned overnight, which he may have done, I was asleep.)
This story made me INCENSED on the writer’s behalf:
I immediately emailed my editor. “I really do not feel comfortable with my book being called a memoir,” I told her. “I think calling it a memoir trivializes my reporting.” Memoir, after all, suggests memories—the unresolved issues of the past, examined through the author’s own experiences. My work, though literary and at times personal, was a narrative account of investigative reporting. I wasn’t simply trying to convey how I saw the world; I was reporting how it was seen and lived by others.
My editor would not budge. She noted that my book was written in the first person—a device I had employed, like many journalists, to provide a narrative framework for my reporting. To call it journalism, she argued, would limit its potential readership. I did not quite understand then that this was a sales decision. I later learned that memoirs in general sell better than investigative journalism.
I tried to push back. “This is no Eat, Pray, Love,” I argued during a phone call with my editor and agent.
“You only wish,” my agent laughed.
But that was the whole point. I did not wish that my book were Eat, Pray, Love. As the only journalist to live undercover in North Korea, I had risked imprisonment to tell a story of international importance by the only means possible. By casting my book as personal rather than professional—by marketing me as a woman on a journey of self-discovery, rather than a reporter on a groundbreaking assignment—I was effectively being stripped of my expertise on the subject I knew best. It was a subtle shift, but one familiar to professional women from all walks of life. I was being moved from a position of authority—What do you know?—to the realm of emotion:How did you feel?
It soon became clear that this was a battle I could not win, and I relented. The content of my work was what really mattered, I told myself. However it was labeled and marketed, my reporting would speak for itself.
Sulagna is selling If Oscar Isaac Were Your Boyfriend, the zine!
If you have a few extra dollars, this Friend of a Toastie is struggling with the costs of her daughter’s recent surgery, and I would love it if you showed her your care.
gooooood gravy, you are not Norma Rae, you do not lobby to have the dress code changed during an INTERNSHIP, what were you thinking:
I was able to get a summer internship at a company that does work in the industry I want to work in after I graduate. Even though the division I was hired to work in doesn’t deal with clients or customers, there still was a very strict dress code. I felt the dress code was overly strict but I wasn’t going to say anything, until I noticed one of the workers always wore flat shoes that were made from a fabric other than leather, or running shoes, even though both of these things were contrary to the dress code.
I spoke with my manager about being allowed some leeway under the dress code and was told this was not possible, despite the other person being allowed to do it. I soon found out that many of the other interns felt the same way, and the ones who asked their managers about it were told the same thing as me. We decided to write a proposal stating why we should be allowed someone leeway under the dress code. We accompanied the proposal with a petition, signed by all of the interns (except for one who declined to sign it) and gave it to our managers to consider. Our proposal requested that we also be allowed to wear running shoes and non leather flats, as well as sandals (not flip-flops though) and other non-dress shoes that would fit under a more business casual dress code. It was mostly about the footwear, but we also incorporated a request that we not have to wear suits and/or blazers in favor of a more casual, but still professional dress code.
Within the gay Mormon community:
Garett Smith sits in Kyle Cranney’s lap, laughing and clapping, as Drag Donald Trump emcees at the Fire House Bar & Grill. We’re at a drag-show charity event in St. George, Utah, to raise money for the cancer treatment of the mother of a gay man in the community, and the Fire House is one of the few venues in town that hosts LGBT events.
“Put your hands together if you’re Mormon,” Drag Donald shouts. “Do we clap?” Garrett asks. Their letters of resignation from the Mormon church had been submitted five months earlier; soon after, they received confirmation from the Church that their names had been removed from the membership records. Kyle shrugs and they both put their hands together.
Linda Stay, their close friend and future wedding officiate, walks over and gives both men large hugs. She’s a “mama dragon,” a term the Mormon community uses to describe mothers who fiercely advocate for gay rights. “I think every gay Mormon child wishes for a mom like that,” Garett says wistfully.
From the air, the debris trail of the downed Howard 500 stretched three-quarters of a mile and pointed like an arrow toward Lower Merced Pass Lake. Covered in ice and a modest dusting of snow, the lake was a bald patch in an undulating white landscape. Stripped of one wing and most of its tail, which came off in the trees, the plane’s fuselage had cartwheeled through the ice. More than a month had passed since the December crash, and the lake had frozen over, entombing the plane — and anyone who was onboard. Several burlap sacks lay strewn along the shoreline. Some of the sacks had ripped open on impact, leaving a chunky vegetal trail in the snow.
Since the plane was on Park Service land, Yosemite’s Office of Law Enforcement coordinated the investigation. A well-coiffed regimental ranger named Lee Shackelton took the lead, ordering his rangers to fan out alongside gun-toting Customs agents to gather marijuana and pile it near the chopper landing site on the frozen lake. A few bales stuck out of the ice like decaying stumps. The total haul was close to 2,000 pounds. Representatives from Customs and the DEA helped catalog the evidence.
“It became a recovery of drudgery because we used chainsaws to cut out these bales of marijuana, which were frozen,” remembers Setnicka. “They’re heavy, they’re broken apart, they’re wet. The chainsaws were cutting ice, you know, so the chainsaw blades don’t last long. The most obvious ones we cut out, and then we had to fly this marijuana back.”
A tribute to the glorious Sue on VEEP (spoilers for the season finale, head’s up):
Sue is funny, but she’s not the funniest character on Veep because she does not have time for jokes. (Also, extreme competency tends to be less amusing than, say, watching Mike McClintock nearly pass out during a press conference because he’s on a juice cleanse.) She doesn’t get as much screen time as many of the others, either, because Sue is busy making sure the entire Selina Meyer operation doesn’t collapse in on itself, while rarely trying to take credit for all that she does.
If you’ve ever worked in an office, you have probably worked with a Sue and you probably have not thanked her to the extent she deserves. She’s the office manager who makes sure there’s always ink in the printer. She’s the receptionist who answers a million simultaneously ringing phone lines while keeping her vocal inflections bright and her smile cranked to eleven. She’s the personal assistant who keeps her boss’s schedule straight and all superfluous meetings blocked from the Google calendar. She’s the administrative assistant or the HR rep or the payroll department employee who makes sure everybody gets paid, submits their health insurance forms, and keeps the office expenses in order. Nine times out of ten, she’s a woman. And while all of her colleagues Tasmanian devil their way through each day, trying to put out fires with bottomless buckets, the Sues keep calm, carry on, privately shake their heads at all the foolishness swirling around them, and remember to use all their allotted vacation days. Sues work hard, but they value their down time because their priorities are stacked up exactly the way they should be.
the maze of medical debt:
There were rules in charging patients for emergencies, unique explanations for one billing code instead of another. If someone was discharged from an inpatient floor, she might find a toothbrush marked eight dollars, an IV bag marked twenty-five. In the emergency department, we assigned a level based on the type and duration of care, rather than itemizing each treatment individually, a complex algorithm based on many factors, but usually distilled into a few questions: Was the patient treated on the trauma or medical side of the ER? Sutures or no sutures? Cardiac workups? EKGs? Each level had its own exacting specifications, a way of making sense—at least financial sense—of the labyrinthine mess of billing. There was a surcharge for the physician (it was cheaper if they saw the physician assistant instead), and assorted charges for interventions, for the trappings of emergency—bandages, braces, Orthoglass for splinting. There was an expectation that you moved as quickly as you could. Hopefully you did not commit any errors along the way.
please don’t, you do not have to see her but you most certainly should not ask her to lie about being your niece, that is so hurtful:
When I was young I was married briefly. I did not want children, and thought I’d made that clear to my husband. I accidentally got pregnant, and he was thrilled. Against my better judgment I had the baby, with the understanding that he would take care of it. I did not like motherhood and when the girl was 2 years old, I divorced her father and moved out of state. I paid court-ordered child support until she turned 18. I had thought that was the end of my interaction with her, but I recently got a letter from her saying she would like to meet. She suggested a visit to my current town.
From the tone of her letter it seems as if she simply wants medical information, which seems acceptable. I would not mind meeting her briefly to tell her things of that nature. Nobody in my current circle knows I have a child, and I would prefer it to remain that way to hold off gossip. When the young woman visits I intend to introduce her as a niece. I believe that would be an acceptable alternative to telling an unfortunate truth. I believe she would accept this. What do you think?
Annalisa Quinn’s NPR tribute to The Toast completely unravelled me, and I feel very honoured and understood by it:
The Toast appealed to our most interesting selves — bookish, queer, into medieval art or Shakespeare, anti-pretentious, shamelessly emotional. The Toast bet that its readership was smart, and that weird passions, beautifully presented, were just as relatable as the trilling, manic prose of women’s magazines.
Reading often involves twisting yourself into registers not quite natural for you — and that is a good thing, and part of why reading supports empathy and imagination. But, for me, in the Toast, I had the wild and improbable luxury of finding something that felt written just for me, something devoted to my precise personal interests and tastes: witches, essays about identity and race and gender and sexuality, jokes about classic literature, pre-Raphaelite paintings of women looking bored, “Grumpy Hermits I Would Like To Cuddle In Art History,” etc. That deep specificity explains, too, the fierce, specialized devotion of the commenter community. The loving, supportive, collaborative nature of the comments section was such that one regular commenter gave another a kidney, and commenters helped another leave an emotionally abusive marriage.
I bought a tote! I am excited to display my Toastie-ness to the world.
TAKE TO THE SEA
Me tooooo!
ETA: Choosing between the mermaid and the ship at check out felt like cutting a bomb wire. So stressful.
Me tooooooo!! I went back and forth forever. Finally went with mermaid. She really speaks to my soul.
I would make peace with this choice if I could get the second one on a flask. Dilemmas.
At LEAST this stressful, yes. The only way I was able to choose was by basically covering my eyes and barreling through checkout before I had too much time to think about it. A tote with the mermaid on one side and Take To The Sea on the other side would make my life complete, though.
Yes! Or perhaps the-toast should make mermaid luggage tags, which you could then affix to your ship tote! (or vice-versa.)
I got a ship and a mermaid! I think I will keep one and give the other as a gift, but I am agonizing over which to keep!!
Things got a little hairy here. I am at work, because of course my boss needed something super time sensitive just as I needed to sit and refresh and buy a tote. But I got one!
I swear this felt harder than getting Hamilton tickets but I got mine too! So excite.
I GOT MAH TOTE!
Ready to library all summer long.
Having serious self-control struggles at the moment because I am not allowed to buy any more totes but we wants it, precious.
I am looking forward to spotting my first Toastie in the wild, though!
YESSSS TOTES! I was getting so nervous/excited already 15-20 minutes ahead, getting a tote feels like such a big thing! It will be a lovely thing to remember The Toast by.
Also, here in Sweden it will feel like my own little secret, I’ll be VERY (pleasantly!) surprised if I meet another toastie!
Sansaaa, u is a beautiful deg yes u are! I kiss your nose and snorgle your soft neck fur. 🙂
WHEEEEEEE, I am toted, too!
Me also! Two totes, because why not? I can always used more bags (this is a total lie, oh well). Ship and Spear.
I told myself that I wouldn’t get one, because I really, really don’t need another tote, but I couldn’t resist anymore. Spear Lady shall be mine.
Are we all going to say hi when we see each other with a tote out in the wild? Or maybe wink? Or just smile warmly, like I do at women reading Elena Ferrante in the subway? The small possibility of recognition is one of the reasons I had to go through with it.
I am tote-ally hoping this is going to be like driving a minicooper, where I get to wave at other Toasties and let them cut in front of me on lines.
tote-ally! <3 <3 <3
Has anyone made the “I totes gonna buy a tote” joke yet? Or will a toastie never sink to such depths?
TOTE-STIES ARE ABOVE SUCH THINGS.
We would not sink to those depths, because we have taken to the sea in a ship that is sturdy and resilient.
I also do not need any more totes of any kind ever, but I got one anyway! I shall use it to attract my new bffs.
Ooh, good idea! Thank you for helping me justify my tote!
If I ever see someone in public with a Toastote, I will EMIT A PRIMAL SCREAM. So, no subtle winking or smiling for me- you’ll know.
I GOT A MERMAID I AM SO HAPPY AND READY TO BE APPROACHED BY MANHATTAN TOASTIES I LOVE YOU GUYSSS
(I think there is going to be a lot of caps locking from me in the comments through Friday)
I got a Take To The Sea! Say hi if you’re on the 4 train!
Another Take to the Sea New Yorker here, based in Brooklyn but often on the 4 train as well!
*very Smeagol laugh* Aaaaahahaha! I got one too!
I’m getting a tote, too! Hooray! Thank you, lovely Toastie donors!!!!!
I’m so happy for everyone getting totes!
I’m choosing to live vicariously through all of you, because I can’t justify 40$ for a tote right now. Maybe one day I’ll custom-print “A willing foe, and sea room” on a shirt.
Me too! I was so bummed last week – I was on a work trip and the ONE DAY I was in the field all day and didn’t have access to the internet until 10pm was the day they went on sale. I might have said nooooooooooooo out loud in my hotel room when I saw they were sold out.
I am surprised that there were any left by the time I got to work & logged on!
I bought “Take To The Sea”, too! I’m going to strut it around while wearing my matching Toast t-shirt and be the coolest Old at my local library.
I was not going to buy a tote, and then the totes sold out and I was filled with regret and realized I needed one to commemorate the Toast, and now the totes are back and I have fixed my mistake.
If any toasties are hesitant about their tote choices, I would be happy/willing to trade my mermaid for a ship!
I was at my computer at 10 to 9 to get a tote.
I’m not proud of what that says about my priorities.
My boss asked me to do something at 8:30 and in my head my answer was, “Fine, but this better not take me until 9.”
I set an Evernote reminder to get to the computer at 8:45 and then I had an Outlook reminder to make sure I refreshed right at 9. I will be taking to the sea!
It’s 6am here and I set my alarm!!
Me too!!! Stupid time zones.
Ditto! Was up at 5:45 this morning!
West Coast Toast here, I was so excited to log on at 7am and GET A TOTE!!!!!
6am for me as well and while I set a reasonable alarm apparently my brain was so worried about totes that woke up about every hour last night to check the time. There was a weird moment in the middle of the night where I was convinced it was actually 6am EST so I had to be up at 3am. Not my most coherent night of sleep.
SAME!!! Woke up so many times. Had crazy disjointed dreams about events I wanted to go to being all sold out.
This was the #1 item on today’s to-do list and I am fully comfortable with what that says about my priorities.
The first day, I set an alarm on my day off for ten til, as well, so I’d be right there to get my tote 😉
pffft, I think it says your priorities are very reasonable indeed.
I missed the start of the first sale and missed out on a Take To The Sea tote, so this time I put off joining my coworkers for break time in order to get one!
Your priorities are excellent and you should be proud of your tote-purchasing self.
I work in a “clean” environment, so I was furtively huddled in the gowning room, refreshing frantically before I had to commit myself to not having unclean things. All worth it, though!
There’s a class 100 joke in there somewhere. Congratulations!
I sat in my car after working out at 6am this morning and bought a tote. I had set a reminder. 🙂
My train reached the platform at 8:58 and I sat there refreshing for two full minutes to make sure I could get a tote! Made myself late to work but I know where my priorities are.
The way Suki Kim was treated is ENRAGING! There is no way that a man who risked his life to go undercover and report on North Korea would be pushed into calling his piece of investigative journalism “a memoir” and put in bits about how it affected his relationship with his girlfriend back home. This book should have been pushed (and heavily pushed!) as a groundbreaking look into North Korea by someone who got to do more than just go on the “official” tour, and instead her experiences were minimized at every turn.
It is the same way that books by women (or about women) tend to get stupid cover art and aren’t marketed as aggressively.
What makes me the most angry is that marketing it as a memoir apparently disqualified it from winning any journalism awards.
What! That’s horrible.
Yep, that’s something she mentions in the piece. It’s the fuck-you that keeps on giving.
“Enraging” is a good word! “Demeaning,” too! I mean, how the EFF does someone get off telling this woman, who risked her life in the pursuit of journalism, that she should be so lucky as to be Eat, Pray effing Love! The dismissive attitude and the gall and ARGH. *journalism school flashbacks* *Kill Bill sirens*
Not only that, but the amount of flak she got for going undercover! People calling her “dishonest” and “deceptive” AS IF THERE IS ANY OTHER WAY TO GO INTO NORTH KOREA! This women brought us insight into what the future leaders of the most unstable country in the world are learning and thinking and people are acting like that is not amazing information.
I have admittedly not read her book but another thing that frustrates me is the amount of criticism leveled at her in contrast to the accolades offered to Guy Delisle for his white tourist diary Pyongang: A Journey in North Korea. That dude had an incredibly condescending/clueless attitude toward North Koreans and their predicament and critics ate it up.
I’m sure there’s something to be said there about the popularity of NK tourism stories that barely touch on how the country is actually run, versus journalism about NK. Throw in some gender stuff and you probably have people feeling like this humorless woman is reprimanding them for gawking or laughing at that wacky country.
(I say this as someone whose fave is totally problematic; I will always click on travelogues that devote 12 paragraphs to the beer selection and 1 to human rights.)
ANYWAY, the meta-story about how this author was treated has moved the book from my “yeah, I’ll get that at the library one day” list to my “buy” list. The thought of her being paid for her work in feminist spite-dollars warms my heart.
I did the exact same thing! She has been on my “eh, maybe I’ll get to it someday” list (largely because I am not a huge fan of memoirs!). Then I read this article, and now I should have her book in 2-3 business days.
Really really enraging! Her book is a tremendous piece of reporting. I’ve read quite a bit about North Korea (I’m a grad student studying international politics), and I’ve never read anything like Without You There Is No Us – it juggles the broader context of life and politics in North Korea and the narrative of day to day life for her and her students in a way that I found both really informative and totally captivating. Please read it!
I read her book, it was really good! I’ve probably read 20+ first account books from North Koreans and the fact that I learned some new stuff from Kim’s book was surprising.
This is a really important book, everyone should read it. There are very, very, very few texts that’s discuss the upper class education in NK, which that alone is crazy since it explains so much about what a shit show that country is. Kim should get all the awards!!
Also: her book is great, precisely because she DID go undercover and report on her findings. I’ve read a lot of books about North Korea (although I am certainly no expert, just interested), and she’s right, the rest that are available in English that I have found are by Western observers told based on news reports or interviews or memoirs by escapees told to Western journalists.
Go forth to Amazon and make your outrage known in review comments! It’s a little thing but at least it’s a way to push back that people will see. Maybe if enough of the horrible personal-attacks-thinly-disguised-as-reviews get flagged they’ll be deleted.
Hm, I’m going to disagree a bit with folks on this. I don’t think her book should have *necessarily* been marketed as a memoir and I agree that it’s a VERY gendered issue – but the book is as much about Kim’s own experience and life as it is about her students. As her detractors have noted, I was disappointed that she didn’t do too much interrogation on what the cost of her undercover reporting would be to the students she had taught and befriended. As many know, the stakes are of the life-and-death variety and I was hoping for more thoughtfulness about her very privileged role as a teacher/journalist who could extricate herself from North Korea. Not to say that she shouldn’t have gone undercover or endeavored to write this book, but for someone who did spend time writing about her relationship back home and her experiences growing up, I never felt that she did the hard work of examining the repercussions of this type of journalism. Given the stakes, I don’t think it’s exactly analogous to other types of undercover reporting.
However, I do take Kim’s point that many journalists who cover North Korea are white and/or men — and that many condescend to her in ways that are incredibly revealing of their own biases. The fact that the NYT chose an Asian pop culture critic to review her book is especially obnxious. And per PierrePoutine’s comment below, Guy Delisle’s attitude was just horrendous and embarrassing and yet I didn’t see any backlash there.
It’s very analogous to other types of undercover reporting – the stakes are much the same for people who go undercover to report on political scandals or whistleblowing, crime organizations, dissidents or revolutionaries, for example.
“As a woman of color entrenched in a profession still dominated by white men, I have been forced to use my writing not to explore topics of my own choosing, or to investigate the world’s complexities, but as a means to legitimize myself.”
uuuuuuuuuuggggghhhhhhh
UUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH
omg yes! I saw her interviewed when it came out (The Daily Show, maybe?) and it seemed so clearly a work of reporting.
And soooo many white guys (even white women) get cut tons of slack for, idk, poverty/oppression tourism.
anyway I don’t know, most internships are aggressively exploitative scams, I hope that kid goes around and causes twice as much trouble everywhere she goes.
Like, I know people are like, “this was an internship, you were effectively a guest” but really if it’s an internship aren’t you less like a guest and more like someone who’s doing a lot of free labor? if they’re going to cheat you out of your wages, I’d think that a more flexible dress code is the least they could do for you.
I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t see that this assumption of wage slavery is supported by the text.
In all 3 of the industries that I have worked in, interns are viewed as a cross between trainees and people going through a really long job interview. In NO place that I have worked would presenting a petition have been at all tolerated.
One-on-one talks with a boss or asking for clarification, sure. But interns are there to learn how the field works, not to make waves, and people who can’t grasp that distinction are not valuable to an employer, especially ones in conservative industries.
Depends on the industry. If it were, say, one of the big tech companies out there* the interns would actually be making an outrageously high amount (like, far more per month than me).
*It definitely isn’t because there would not be a strict dress code to complain about. It could be finance/accounting, where the big firms pay pretty well and they definitely have dress codes.
FWIW I worked in finance (which I’m 90% sure this is) and the interns were paid very, very well. And they were a net drain on time & productivity. It was competitive to get the slots, and we viewed it as investing in the future. Which meant we were very quick to cut our losses when people acted entitled.
I do not think this was likely an unpaid internship, it is pretty corporate sounding. They pay pretty well.
I hope they go out of business anyway.
Yeah, I expect this is paid handsomely. And it’s an entry into a world of high-paying jobs. If you want to work there, you have to play by the rules, at least when you’re at the bottom of the hierarchy.
Yes. This. I had an unpaid summer internship after graduating (I was okay with that part, I was just happy to get the experience) and it was a very casual office. Most of the employees came in wearing t-shirts and shorts. I still came in wearing dress pants, a blouse and heels every day. To me it was a show of respect.
Plus at that stage you don’t have much of a professional reputation, so part of presenting yourself professionally is looks. If someone who’s worked there for 10 years and everyone knows is amazing comes in wearing something pretty casual, it’s different to an intern on their first day doing the same thing
Okay, then what at level of the hierarchy is it appropriate to start trying to get the dress code changed?
When you’ve been there for more than five minutes and have shown that you are useful to the organization.
Experience is more what I meant than hierarchy.
See I actually want an answer here because this is not the first time dress codes have ever come up on the internet and universally the response is “oh yeah it’s total bullshit but suck it the fuck up and stop being a baby”. As if that we would ever accept that about any other topic ever. Dress codes aren’t laws of physics we can change them.
Of course they’re not the laws of physics. But the issue is coming into a workplace, the least experienced or valuable-to-the-organization person there, and acting like you know better than everyone else.
I expect the reaction would be the same for similar issues. The one that comes to mind is being at work during the scheduled hours. Many jobs don’t need to be done during an exact time frame, or from the office, but asking to work remotely as an intern would likely get a similar reaction.
It’s impossible to give a fixed answer like “five years” or something, because it’s all relative to the size/age of the company and the manager/CEO’s temperament. I would suggest you need to be considered a “senior/top-performing employee,” whatever that means where you are. Like, you need to have proven your ability to get the job done well and shown good judgment with similar issues.
But in the end, I don’t think this is comparable to school dress codes. Everyone has to go to school, it’s not optional, and there are other issues with adolescent development and gender relations.
But workplaces are not democracies, and in most cases the dress code is whatever the boss-person says it is, and that isn’t up for debate.
ETA: My experience of this, in my first professional job, came a few months in when the CEO announced we were no longer doing casual Fridays or wearing any type of denim to work.
While this was disappointing/annoying, she actually did a really good job explaining why: that she’s observed how technical writers dress at conferences, and it’s nearly always pretty sloppy. Meanwhile, it’s a struggle to get technical writing recognized as a professional consulting service and not just secretarial work, though we are often treated that way. And it is very true that people treat you according to how you dress. So, by upping the dress code, she was raising the quality of her company and the valuation of our work, and clients wouldn’t be surprised when they were charged accordingly for professional consulting fees.
I wrote this long thing and then deleted it, but essentially, what redheadedwolf said. At conferences in particular it’s important to look professional; when you’ve literally written the book that defines the field and have been a past president of the society, you can show up in a kangaroo onesie if you want and it’ll fly. Not so much for first-year grad students who are still taking theory courses. The upshot is, look like you take your field seriously, not like you just got up off the couch to get some Cheetos.
(Side note: would love to talk w/you off-Toast about technical writing conferences, btw, if you’re up for it.)
Oh, sure! You can email me at writenaked AT gmail. Heads-up though that I haven’t actually been to my own tech writing conference yet. :/ The closest I got was the Association of Writers & Publishers conference, in my last year of college, when I nearly passed out while trying to network for the first time.
I am but one denizen of the internet, but I don’t think dress codes are so different from “any other topic ever” (meaning, I guess, workplace injustices that don’t affect health and/or safety?). But someone who wants to change something in their workplace without getting canned probably should think about how best to get through to the decision-makers, something the petitioning interns clearly didn’t do.
When you’re really good at your job and people consider your input valuable (on topics that do not directly benefit you).
Yeah, I’m a careers adviser who has worked with a lot of students and new graduates on things like professional behaviour, and I’m not convinced by that one. It’s a totally normal and reasonable dress code, but literally all the interns except one were happy to sign up to asking for more flexibility? Not a single one of them said, “Nah, guys, wearing leather shoes is a totally normal business thing, calm down”?
Either that company has a very weird culture in how it selects its interns and needs to share a lot more information with them, or the LW has frankly amazing leadership and influencing skills and should probably come over here and stand for leader of the Labour party.
(Also, this is often the kind of stuff that really gets first-generation graduates/professionals. If you’ve got parents who are used to operating in professional environments, then one of those interns just calls their parents and says, “Leather shoes – is that normal?” and the parent goes, “Totally normal, suck it up”, the end. If this was a completely standard dress code, but literally none of those interns knew that, then maybe that company is running a special internship for students who don’t come from middle-class backgrounds, but in that case, they’ve got a responsibility to make sure they educate them on professional norms.)
Oh, interesting – I was going to guess it went in the other direction, that these were students from fairly well-off backgrounds who are used to getting what they want and didn’t understand/care that they can’t make a demand about something more or less arbitrary in a workplace that isn’t really theirs. My first-gen college/professional students are keenly aware of how valuable internships are and how they absolutely must make a good impression by being professional; they ask me things like, “I want to dress well but I have no money – how do I do that?” I suspect if any of them called home and asked about the dress code, their parents would tell them to wear the leather shoes so they didn’t jeopardize the opportunity an internship gives them. (In part because, in my limited experience interacting with parents, they want their kids to have better than what they had so they tend to be over-cautious about professionalism.)
Maybe it depends on the field? It would be highly, highly unusual in my field for a student to even get an internship in the first place without having some sense of what constitutes professional dress/norms.
Yeah right I think we’re overlooking how much of a hero the letter writer is, maybe we just need to encourage her to set her sights higher / broader.
THIS. She is totally a hero, but maybe she needs to pick her battles better? Like, maybe your Vans don’t need to be the symbol of your resistance.
That said, this is basically me IRL: http://thehardtimes.net/2016/03/14/office-worker-…
Man, I haven’t written any petitions, I’m not going to judge someone who’s actually picking a fight for the fights she decides to pick.
Clearly we should be encouraging her to petition Nike for a leather edition of Cons. I would sign that petition. (Probably I wouldn’t buy the shoes, tho).
They actually make those, but they’re not great. I definitely would invest in a pair of super-high quality leather Cons though.
Of course they do, and of course they’re not. Have you tried the lined versions for winter wear? (am curious if they are actually warm or just weirdly squishy)
no, although that is also a good idea, because regular Converse in the winter are a nightmare.
I am knitting myself a pair of wool socks that are just high enough to not peek over the top of my high-tops expressly for the winter months, when wearing Cons is foolish but still sings to my heart.
Have you checked out Gustin? Their leather high-tops are basically what you’re looking for. I grabbed a pair, and they’re pretty much my favorite shoes.
Seriously! Dress codes are kinda bullshit, but it seems like the most entitled thing to pick a fight over (unless you are in a position where your compensation doesn’t allow you to be fancy-dressed, in which case that’s a different battle about getting paid). The interns at my work place created a report on their hours, duties, and outside work and how that scaled with their compensation (pitifully low). It was actually somewhat effective – the pay went up for the next class of interns, and they were offered flexible hours to accommodate outside jobs. And no one was mad because it was done at the end of an internship term and in a respectful and thoughtful way.
This. I was thinking, you go, rabble-rouser- but about leather shoes?!? Seriously, LW, if you’re in corporate you DEFINITELY have – or will soon have – big things to be getting mad about.
Agreed. That being said, I am a little surprised that there are workplaces that stipulate that if you’re going to wear flat shoes, they have to be leather.
I work at nonprofits though, not corporate, and definitely not in finance, where some AAM commenters seem to think she worked.
People in the comments were thinking, and I agree, that it could be fake leather, they were just trying to weed out things like canvas shoes.
Okay! I mean, there are perfectly professional looking cloth shoes but overall I was seriously starting to feel like this:
..as I was seeing so many people here and AAM go “this is a normal code.”
ETA: I have these moments where I think I grew up pretty white collar and relatively upper middle class and then I’m reminded that my sense of the upper-middle class part is pretty off. I’m 2nd gen USian and my fam is white collar but my family has mostly worked in health care (hospitals, retail pharmacy, etc.) and people do not stipulate the materials of your shoes there AFAIK. Especially now for my sister since she has her own practice and will probably wear whatever goddamn shoes she wants.
She would probably not react well to a slew of interns with a dress code petition, ha.
I think it’s not just you. What shoes you think are normal to wear to work depends on the field you are in and, if you haven’t worked before, what the adults in your life wore. If the intern had worn the wrong shoes, or was wondering if they could ask their manager about different shoes because they couldn’t afford to buy shoes that worked, they would have aaaaallll my sympathy. If their problem was that they had gotten fired for just asking if their was flexibility in the dress code, I’d feel bad for them. Even now, I feel a little bad for them (because I’m choosing to believe they are clueless and not entitled), but I definitely wouldn’t want them working for me.
No no, it’s not just you. I worked in a ton of high-rise/conservative offices in Houston, which is a major international city (and I think that negates classifying it as just part of the South), and I never heard of anyone dictating the material of your shoes. If anything, it would just say “no sneakers/trainers.”
yeah, i kind of doubt they’re checking to see whether they’re genuine leather or faux-suede H&M $12 flats. I take it to me “closed toes, leather looking, fairly conservative.” but it usually means, “I don’t want to **notice** your shoes unless they are super stylish & appropriate.” And we’d noticed sneakers, flip flops, anything zany. i agree with of dear manager, Why didn’t they just ask & make a conversation/learning point out of it? Why did they assume the worst & write a petition to change a company they literally have no stake in? Also, their justification that they should be able to dress more casually just because they don’t see clients is kind of absurd. Like, we dress for more than just clients…
I have a friend who worked in the front of an art gallery who was instructed (as an employee, not an intern) that she needed to dress like she made 100K on her 18K salary. So, this is literally the least absurd dress code I’ve ever heard.
Indeed — particularly for interns, who tend to be the youngest people in the workplace, it’s important to show you understand that the office isn’t the same as your house on a weekend. I have a kneejerk reaction to “show some respect,” but it is true that by dressing up, you’re showing respect for everyone else around you, rather than thinking the rules everyone else abides by don’t apply to you. It’s also a bad way to show you’re fitting in, get what it means to work here, and would be a good potential employee here or somewhere else.
Yeah, in places where I’ve worked, the shoe codes are more about open vs. closed toe, etc.
I work in finance, but in a small company, and this is not part of our dress code. I have seen people from bigger corps and banks that have to dress very formally year-round (nylons and skirt suits for women) so it might be a place like that.
We actually go business casual in the summer and a lot of people push the limits on that. Right now our (paid) intern is the most professionally dressed person in the office. I am wearing leather flats today but they are bright pink with mouse ears on the front.
Musical theater!
or the LW has frankly amazing leadership and influencing skills and should probably come over here and stand for leader of the Labour party
*sobbing*
I don’t know where she was working, but the interns who work for my company are excellent students and they get paid grown-up wages. #notallinterns
Can you really say “most” internships are? In my field, they are a very good learning opportunity, and we try very hard to make it a good experience for our interns, even though having them here creates more work for us.
Interns who put together a *petition*? Over shoes? That’s a nope. And didn’t the LW say they’d asked their manager? So your manager says no, and so you put together a petition. Noooooope.
I don’t know, I think there’s a lot of problems with paying interns with learning.
Well, I work in the legal field, and a lot interns do get paid. The ones that don’t usually work for a court, and they get experience and networking. There’s really no other way to get a good feel for what kind of law you want to do and where you want to practice than to start working, and going to law school does not at all teach you how to do your job as a lawyer. You really need an internship. And it makes you much more marketable, because firms know you’ve had at least SOME experience, so you aren’t completely ignorant.
I think if an internship works properly and teaches interns how to do their damn jobs and what it will be like to work in them, and if it introduces them to people who can help them get jobs, that’s pretty important. Obviously there are internships where none of this applies.
I mean, a better way to get a good feel for what kind of law you want to do is for you to have an internship where instead of getting paid with experience and networking, you get paid with experience, networking, and money.
As I said, a lot of them do get paid. Most do. The ones who don’t are usually working for a court, which doesn’t have the budget for paying, but having a judge willing to call prospective employers for you helps make up for that, especially in a tight labor market.
I don’t think anyone is going to convince me not to deeply and fundamentally despise 1) corporations, 2) dress codes, 3) inflexible or retaliatory management, 4) playing by the rules of a corporate hierarchy.
I guess those things are important to bear in mind, but I am always going to side with the kid that got kicked out over the nerds that made a big deal about it and didn’t just let her wear the shoes that she wants.
That’s fine, I’m not sure where you work (aside from your community theater, but that’s not your main paycheck?), but good on you for knowing yourself and choosing your career path accordingly. My 14 year old is struggling with this concept, I think a bit prematurely, but hopefully this means she’ll land where she’s supposed to.
Recognizing though, that these interns (or at least LW) are on their own chosen career trajectories, I find it surprising that they somehow are blissfully unaware of the presence of 1) corporations, 2) dress codes, 3) inflexible or retaliatory management and the importance of 4) playing by the rules of a corporate hierarchy.
As a previous commenter noted, interns have zero political capital in the workplace. That any of them should choose to act in a way that assumes they have bucketloads is honestly inconceivable to me.
That’s the thing though, I reject the notion that interns *ought* to have zero capital in the workplace, and I applaud the notion that they should try to make changes anyway. I don’t know if they’re unaware of it or they object to it or what, but I don’t care — those things are dumb, and even if you want a career in high finance or whatever, accepting a bunch of dumb shit isn’t a prerequisite, and the idea that you SHOULD have to accept a bunch of dumb shit is an idea that I’m deeply skeptical of.
It’s all one now, but that company I think is the one that lost ought, because whoever this kid is, she’s a compelling leader, and now her talents are going to be wasted somewhere else, all because some knuckleheads in management are inflexible over what kind of shoes people are supposed to wear.
But the thing is – you don’t know it’s “a bunch of dumb shit”. Those firms are successful at what they do. You may not like it. It may not be your style. But there’s a reason for how they behave.
And frankly, in lots of conservative industries, “compelling leaders” are not a good fit. I work in a large-ish law firm. There are a few leaders. They are not me. I’m a mid-level associate. I’m fucking bad-ass in court, I’m a good mentor, I’m working on developing my own practice, I’m good at recruiting – there’s lots of scope for me to use a variety of skills, but none of them are “petitioning management for change”. If I felt compelled to do that, I would be a liability, not an asset. I do have ways I try to change management, and I do work with other people to do that, but not in a rabble-rousing way.
I mean, I don’t know it’s a bunch of dumb shit any more than you know that this particular firm is actually particularly successful at what it does, or if it is, that the reasons for how they behave are directly connected to that and are not among the many bad reasons that large, conservative industries do things.
So, true, I don’t know a lot of things about this situation, but I’m still always going to default to people who object to dress codes, and also default to assuming that something that a company did is bad, unless there’s extremely compelling evidence that it’s good.
Setting aside for a moment the possibility that accepting a bunch of dumb shit while on internship is valuable experience for dealing with the absolute truckloads of dumb shit they’ll deal with on the job, why should a 20-year-old who is only going to be in the office for three months and who is coming in with little/no experience have any capital? They’re not permanent employees, they don’t have established contributions to the company/office, and there’s no financial incentive to protect them in the event of client complaints. The letter writer isn’t describing a gross violation of basic human rights that suggests she and her fellow interns are being abused or harmed; it is, as you say, a dumb thing.
In general I would agree with you that not accepting dumb shit just because someone said so is a good thing, but there are so many not-dumb reasons to agitate for change in the workplace – I’ve known students who have seen flat-out ethical violations at their internships and don’t know what to do about them, so they say nothing because they’re terrified of being fired. Why rally the troops to change something dumb, harmless, and arbitrary, when you’ll only be putting up with it for a limited amount of time anyway? That, to me, is what makes this person sound entitled.
I suspect someone willing to rally the troops over footwear would be more likely to rally over an ethical violation, which is part of why I’m with braak and on the intern’s side. I don’t think this is the type of behavior we should be shutting down.
Also, footwear does matter. There are comfort issues, physical health issues, and expense issues. It sounds like the women were required to wear leather heels. Those are expensive and uncomfortable and over time, physically damaging. The people making the dress code are unlikely to have thought about any of those things, and I can’t think of any reason for making non client-facing interns wear specific shoes (although if anyone else can, I’m curious).
All right look obviously I’ve got to defer to…well, to basically everyone here, I don’t see that I’m making a very compelling case, and the fact of the matter is I’ve never worked in finance or the law so it’s true I don’t know how it’s supposed to work. In fact, I’ve got a union at my job, and my boss’s boss would actually get fired for trying to fire me over writing a petition about shoes. So in a lot of ways I’ve got no real frame of reference for this, and people are telling me that it’s out of line, I got to accept that it’s out of line.
But I do want to say that while I agree that picking your battles is good tactical advice in some respects, in my experience this whole thing works the other way around — people don’t save up their resistance for the important fights, they get it worn down by the little ones, and the more a person puts up with in order to keep their job, the more they’re willing to put up with to keep their job.
In that sense, I don’t want to set aside the value of this as a learning experience for putting up with dumb shit because — again, this is to me and my limited experience — I think that’s exactly what it is. It’s not like this kid got fired for being wrong> about shoes, she got fired to be made an example of to anyone else who gets the idea that they don’t have to put up with something. In some ways I think that’s the entire point of it: put up with more and more as the dumb shit turns unethical, and the arbitrary shit turns into the genuinely cruel.
And there’s a certain point where you’re high enough up in the company that they don’t have to smack people around anymore, because one person isn’t going to get any traction with their peers. I’m not going to help her, anyway, because I’ve got no sympathy for people who are resisting the compromises that I’ve already made and rationalized to myself, and then the corporate culture becomes self-reinforcing; once I’ve put up with it for long enough, I start demanding that other people put up with it, too.
I don’t know, look, obviously it looks like I’m wrong about this, and I hope that I am wrong. I hope this is a case of an entitled little shit getting smacked down by the people in charge who know better, a sort of proxy case for every entitled little shit who never got told off when she was supposed to be or never had to suffer consequences in the Real World. I hope that’s true, because then the world is working like it’s supposed to.
“You’re silly to want this” was applied to the 8 hour day, of course. I don’t doubt that the people who called the 8-hour day utopian truly believed that it was a silly thing to ask for.
I happen to think this dress code petition is kind of silly. But I think it’s wise to step back and take a deep breath before joining in the long history of telling those on the bottom of the totem pole that their demands are silly.
It’s not at all unreasonable to lobby for health and safety changes in the workplace, but nobody ever died from having to wear closed-toed leather shoes.
Penny loafers, maybe.
I guess I’m just a little surprised to see “You down there, stop complaining! I’m telling you that what you think is a problem for you isn’t actually that bad” as a part of Link Roundup.
Because “what you think is a problem for you” is not the same as “abusive, dangerous, detrimental to physical/mental well-being.” Not being allowed to wear sandals at an internship is not the same as working under sweatshop conditions, so “this isn’t actually that bad” is a historically consistent answer to that intern.
This a community that routinely rallies around people complaining that the thermostat in their office is set to 68f.
Yeah, I kinda get that people aren’t siding with the intern in this story because she did things the wrong way. But I am *very* confused that people are siding with the idea of dress codes. Is there a time when getting dress-code appropriate clothing has *not* been super expensive, extra-hard for people who are plus size, and terrifyingly gender-normative? Do we really have to make “community theater” cracks about people who maybe have trouble meeting these standards for legit reasons???
I think you can *easily* have a dress code that’s not financially burdensome, and not at all gender-normative. Does that mean every dress code out there isn’t? Of course not. But the last few places I worked were business casual, and the dress code was not at all gender specific. It just addressed things like making sure shoulders were covered (works for men and women), no shorts (again, men and women), no flip-flops (still gender neutral), no jeans, etc. I’m not sure how that’s more expensive?? Non-flip-flop shoes and non-denim pants don’t usually cost more than their alternatives.
Written dress codes also help to avoid circumstances where you’re trying to suss out what “feels” dressy enough for your workplace. That can be really tough and nonsensical, especially for people not familiar with that particular workplace culture. Codes can be used to reify privilege, too, they’re not an inherently great thing, but I think it all depends on what the code says.
Dress codes aren’t necessarily that expensive or difficult to comply with. The one described on AAM is far stricter than most. And, even if they are, having a dress code is still appropriate and professional for certain types of jobs.
I’m a short, plus-sized attorney who’s worked in mostly “business casual” environments, and I haven’t found appropriate clothes to be that hard to find. I wouldn’t feel comfortable (e.g.) going to court in front of a judge without a suit, or meeting clients in a halter top.
If you choose to enter a highly conservative and corporate field (which it sounds like this person did, and which is completely voluntary), you can usually expect a higher rate of pay to compensate for that. Having to follow a stricter dress code is one of the trade-offs for making more money.
(I chose to work in the non-profit/ government sectors because I prefer a more informal environment).
FYI, the mention of community theater is because braak does actually work in community theater and so doesn’t have to adhere to a dress code. It’s not an insult.
I agree with you about the gender/class assumptions that are problematic in (some) dress codes – I teach a lot of first-generation college students, and they do occasionally ask me how they can look professional when they have no money and are subsisting on loans and a part-time job in the dining hall. AAM notes in another column that it can be possible to find business attire at secondhand stores; depending on the community, there may also be programs like the one my local YWCA runs that accept donations of businesswear in good condition so financially underprivileged women who are applying for/starting out in jobs have access to professional clothing. I realize that not every community has these resources, but “no sandals” doesn’t make the same class assumptions that “you must always wear a suit or blazer” does. That’s part of the reason I wouldn’t side with the intern here – she’s not taking issue with the part of the policy that would potentially impose a potential financial burden or with a policy that says “women must wear dresses and pantyhose every day.” She’s taking issue with the manager telling her “no, you can’t wear sandals.” That’s the sticking point for me.
I went to art school, so I get all that. (Our standard “uniform” was pretty much green hair and bowling T-shirts).
But, by the same token, there are plenty of jobs out there that don’t require you to abide by strict corporate dress codes. If someone feels that strongly about wearing whatever they want, then they can apply for those types of jobs. People who choose to enter corporate fields usually do it because they make a shit-ton more money. So it’s their own choice as to what values they want to prioritize.
I’m going to be honest I ain’t gonna rest until every job, BY LAW, is required to let you dress like a daggone space wizard if you want to
I spend most of my day in my office with the door closed now, so I could *probably* get away with that…
Petitions are not usually the best way to get things done in that kind of environment, but I do sympathize with the frustration of being forced to follow arbitrary rules and then seeing them enforced in a way that seems inconsistent. I also have sympathy for the difficulties of building a professional wardrobe from scratch, especially if you aren’t making a lot of money, and with wishing you could occasionally wear something that’s a little less formal.
See this IS a good learning experience though, now she’ll learn not to use petitions, but instead to pretend to follow the rules and passive-aggressively sabotage her company from within.
AKA: be slowly crushed by corporate expectations until she doesn’t know what resistance looks like anymore (not projecting here, nope nope!).
I also have sympathy for the difficulties of building a professional wardrobe from scratch
Oh boy, do I feel this. I was never good at dressing for professional contexts – it’s just not a skill everyone has intuitively and it’s harder for women cause there are more rules and more arbitrariness in what’s considered acceptable. Especially (maybe?) when your breasts are on the bigger side and so you have to try to be extra aware of things like cleavage and nipple visibility (which I so resent having to be aware of). Oh, and heels. Which I have miraculously managed to avoid completely my entire life.
I am feeling for the interns in this one as I sit working from a slip cause I am now SO BLESSED to work from home and was already blessed to work in Austin where the standards are vastly more lax than in many places.
Also, it’s hard to buy good clothes and shoes if your pay is low!
It would never have occurred to me to work up a petition over something like this, but I really understand the frustration of the interns.
I’m at a conference for an industry that is desperate for young people and we’d do just about anything to be hip. But we also don’t have the energy to deal with someone who’s real calling is to be a professional protester.
Is this a way of saying the industry would do anything to be hip except relax it’s dress code in an utterly trivial manner which wouldn’t effect business in the slightest?
I think those are two pretty separate attitudes. Prestigious highly paid industries attract enough applicants by being prestigious and highly paid; they don’t have to act hip to attract young people. That’s what I pictured reading the letter, based on the writer’s description of a formal workplace with a large group of interns. If Tarragoner’s industry is desperate for young people, they’re probably not in that position.
Yes, this. For me, it wouldn’t be about the shoes. I could care less about shoes. But I wouldn’t want an intern who did this because they really, really don’t understand how a work place operates–not just in corporations, most work places aren’t going to decide things by worker petition. Most work places will have some form of hierarchy, where the new person doesn’t get to do whatever the hell they want.
But isn’t that why you get an internship? So that you start to learn these things?
And now they’ve learned that.
I mean, I expect interns to not know everything about how the professional working world works. That you can’t keep telling us day-of on a day you’re supposed to be here that you scheduled something else that day and won’t be in. That you’re making the same mistakes too many times. That if I say you need to let me know when you get in, I mean very soon after you get in, not an hour later. But this is more than that.
I’m sure there are workplaces where they do have the time to explain this kind of thing to someone who is both so unaware of how most workplaces function and also unwilling to ask around to see if that kind of thing is ok or wait a while to get a better feel for the culture. And hopefully, those fired interns will learn from this and go on to be great employees somewhere some day.
But at my job, we are all stretched very thin. I take on interns because I think of it as a service, not because we get good work out of them–even our good interns usually don’t know enough to be all that helpful, and I spend a lot of time redoing their work and then explaining to them what was wrong with it. If I told an intern no on something, and then they tried to get around me, that alone would be a BIG no. But if they did it by all banding together with a petition? No. I haven’t got the time for that. I’m not saying that if it were your intern, you should have fired them. I’m saying that this wouldn’t work for us, and obviously it didn’t work for their employer.
^^
Yes. Exactly.
But a person organizing their fellow interns to sign a petition and propose a new dress code isn’t learning how the office works, they’re too busy trying to change petty details.
Yes, generally, but I think the real problem here is open insubordination and morale undermining, which are actually damaging. It’s one thing to accept that you are going to have to teach interns a lot of things, including about corporate culture, and they won’t always get it right. It’s another thing to keep people around who have proved that they think nothing of openly criticising management – in writing! – around the office.
The new person didn’t do whatever the hell they wanted. They formally request to be allowed a slight change in the dress code that was already being tacitly allowed other people in the office.
I guess I phrased that badly. I just meant that there is a hierarchy in almost any work place. That means there will rules you don’t like but have to follow. You can ask, but if you’re told no, you deal.
And they asked, were told no, then got a petition about it. This was not the thing to push back on in an internship–which, by definition, is going to be short-term.
“a formal request” (a petition) after being told no already (and according to LW many of the other interns were also told no) is pretty dang aggressive and tone-deaf. The changes allowed to the other senior coworker were a) none of the interns’ business and b) for VERY good reasons. BUT, even if you don’t like the reason the dress code exists, even if it’s stupid, the workplace is not a democracy, particularly as an intern. Dress codes are small fry. Look at what you’re learning to do, whether you’re being compensated for that education fairly, and go from there.
I’m very conflicted on this one. The Catholic school alum in me is profoundly anti-dress code; I think that people who interact with the public should probably expect to wear a clean collared shirt and shoes that you wouldn’t mow the lawn in, but beyond that, fuck it. I started my career with an internship that had a formal dress code, and a large chunk of my meager pay went towards blazers and skirts. Not everyone can afford to do that, and it’s fundamentally shitty to think that you can judge someone’s professionalism, education, or experience by how fancy their shoes are.
On the other hand, that’s the world we live in whether we like it or not, and part of the purpose of internships is to assimilate young people into this world where we don’t wear flip-flops or mention to the boss how much we drank last night, and if you don’t at least vaguely grasp that you’re there to learn this stuff, what are you doing?
Also I’m getting the sense from the letter that this is the kind of place where women are not exactly required but definitely expected to wear heels, and that shit needs to end one way or another
That would be my first Executive Order if I were president.
Sue Wilson-Levinson is who I strive to be in this world.
day 2 of my job: i scribble “WWSD?” on a post-it note and stick in on my computer. it gives me strength on a near daily basis
I might have to try that.
Any time I shut down a telemarketer or other person trying to sell us stuff we don’t need, I feel like somewhere Sue is smiling.
YESSSSS TOAST TOTES. Nicole, thank you so much for reordering those, I can now take to the sea at the end of this week and use my new bag to hold all my Toast feelings.
I GOT A TOTE
I dithered about whether i desired a Take to the Sea or a Mermaid one, and couldn’t afford both (despite seriously considering it). I went with the Ship option, my original plan, and I can’t wait to actually hold it in my hands! I shall take it to the library and fill it with many books and the librarians will know me as one of their own.
My original plan was mermaid so I stuck with that. I hope somewhere, someday, someone recognizes us as Toasties with a knowing nod and a raised glass.
I love that my tote will be outing me to Those Who Know. It is the most exciting part of Toast Totes.
I very nearly ordered 3 of the Take to the Sea totes, but showed great restraint and only ordered one. (I might order more if they don’t sell out super fast!)
I ordered 3, but one is a gift and one is a backup in case anything happens to the first one.
Oh my god I was only thinking about the possibility of running into a fellow Toastron on the street, but the thought that this will give me cred with librarians has just pretty much made my day.
I shushed somebody in the library yesterday. If I could one day do this while carrying my books in a Toast tote, I would know that I had truly reached the apex of human achievement.
I’ve been quietly sitting at my desk all morning, typing emails and listening to Loreena McKennitt (I’m not feeling very good about myself and Loreena is the biggest comfort music in the world, along with Enya) and I bought my tote at 9:01 and feel a little lightness and happiness that I’ve been missing.
Thank you so much for re-ordering them, Nicole. It means a lot to me right now.
That is good comfort music! I like ska sometimes too, the combination of depressing lyrics and upbeat music just works for me.
I’m not much into ska (mostly out of ignorance), but I do love upbeat music paired with depressing lyrics.
If you want to explore, I think The Mighty Mighty Bostones (The Impression That I Get, She Just Happened, etc) and The English Beat works well as Listener’s First Ska Bands.
It is very good music to move to, and refreshingly little of it is about relationships!
Wikipedia has a surprisingly thorough article about ska if you want to branch out.
Okay, NO ONE ELSE buy a ship tote because I finally get paid at 12am tomorrow and I can’t get one until then. I hate getting paid monthly.
Maybe email Nicole? Idk if she can actually do anything about it but I thought I saw a similar situation earlier
Yeah, drop me an email. If it’s just a pay later situation and not a freebie, I may be able to help. JUST HER, THOUGH. NOT EVERYONE.
SENT.
Man, I love working in higher education, but I do not love the pay schedule.
Ugh, seriously. I’m on the admin side of academia and we get paid the last Friday of every month, which means July is a five-week pay cycle. And we always get paid early in December because of the holidays, which inevitably means it’s SIX WEEKS between the December and January paychecks. It is garbage.
everything is coming to you the slowest and cheapest way possible
The best way to do things! (I am being completely sincere; I found it very difficult to agree to booking first-class train tickets on my last holiday because it felt like abandoning everything my family held dear.)
I actually enjoy it (sometimes) when things take a long time to ship to me, because then sometimes I forget and it’s an exciting surprise. In this case, it will be a ghost from the Toast.
Fuck, now I’ve made myself sad again.
Yay! Thank you for ordering more totes! I will be so happy to carry a memento of The Toast!
mementoast
Kim’s “Without You, There Is No Us” is pretty great: I bought it after she spoke at BinderCon, (with Adrian Nicole LeBlanc!) where she brought up a lot of the same issues as she does in the article.
I am glad she is speaking out about it. That isn’t always easy to do, especially when you probably want to have things published in the future. I mean, obviously she is brave (North Korea, for a year, undercover? Woman has a uterus of steel), and hopefully this helps change some stuff in the industry re: the way women’s work is marketed.
Six. Thousand. Pounds.
“However it was labeled and marketed, my reporting would speak for itself.”
I must have emailed her piece from last month’s New Republic to like 15 people (not something I do), it was so good. So yeah, Suki Kim’s reporting does speak for itself. I can’t wait to read her book.
This is awesome reporting: https://newrepublic.com/article/133036/across-bro…
Thank you for linking that! I missed it before (or maybe I intentionally ignored it because for a while I gave myself a moratorium on NK, Communist China and Russia, and WW2 reading, after a heavy period of only reading about terrible dictatorships). I’ve read a little into it and bookmarked it to read more deeply this weekend.
I toted! TAKE TO THE SEA!
And i had to recover my Paypal acct to do this. Sheesh!
I thought I was going to have to go completely off-topic with the toastieslack info, but DOPE LAKE!
Toastieslacker and toast commenter @ang_mideavalist introduced me to the amazing book Death in Yosemite, in which men repeatedly ignore Very Large Warning Signs and go swim directly upstream of waterfalls and, to no one’s surprise, die of testosterone poisoning. It is a delight, and also includes a section on dope lake and hare-brained attempts to recover said dope.
So, for your post-toast (SOBBING, here) book recommendations and misandry, please join toastieslack.
Email ppyajunebug [at] gmail [dot] com for an invitation.
We love you, we love this wonderful corner of the Internet, and we are trying our very best to keep the commentariat portion of it alive.
Sending a request now!
My agency decided to up their firewalls on Monday and blocked pretty much everything, so now Toastieslack is blocked for me. With that blocked and The Toast ending, I’m not sure what I’m gonna do to keep myself sane starting next week. Sigh, c’est la vie.
I miss you already!! 💛 :insert custom toastslack emoji here:
I MISS YOU TOO!! 🙂
Sending you a request!
Today in (Feminist) History [Archive]
On this day in 1858 was the birth of Julia Clifford Lathrop, an American social reformer who was the first woman to ever head a U.S. federal bureau, as the head of the U.S. Children’s Bureau. Born to a father who was a personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, and a mother who was an active suffragist, Julia attended the Rockford Female Seminary before transferring to Vassar College, where she developed her own program of study in statistics, sociology, institutional history, and community organization. She worked for some time at her father’s law office studying law herself, before moving to Chicago to join a number of socialist reformer women (including Jane Addams) at Hull House. In the early days of the House, she formed a discussion group called the Plato Club, and worked as a volunteer investigator of relief applicants.
In 1893 she was appointed the first ever female member of the Illinois State Board of Charities; over her time on the board, she was responsible for helping to create reforms such as the removal of the mentally ill from state workhouses, and the appointment of female doctors in state hospitals. In 1912, President Taft gave in to pressure from Progressive women reformers and appointed Julia to be the chief of the newly formed Children’s Bureau. In her nine years there, she worked to guide research into infant mortality, maternal mortality, child labor, mothers’ pensions, juvenile delinquency, and more. She was known during the time as “America’s First Official Mother” (really, Patriarchy? yeesh), and her focus on maternal/child welfare gave conservative women a role in politics for the first time (as they had not been open to such a role in suffrage or women’s rights movements).
Despite her more liberal beliefs, she often towed a more conservative line while in office, mostly because she knew that doing so would avoid controversy and allow her to build public support for her agency and get the work done that she needed. It was for this reason that she continued to make clear her “opinion” that “motherhood was the most important calling in the world”, despite the fact that her very position and leadership relied on her right to a college degree and a job. The public support she garnered allowed her to do things such as support the proposed national health insurance act proposed by the American Association for Labor Legislation in 1917. The act went against the private insurance industry and, in part, provided a provision for weekly cash allocations for pregnant women. Julia argued for the act, stating that U.S. leaders needed to stop blaming high infant mortality on the so-called “ignorance and laziness” of the working and poor class, and realize that they needed to address the poverty that caused such issues. Her statement also included this remark: “Which is the more safe and sane conclusion? That 88 per cent of all these fathers were incorrigibly indolent or below normal mentally, or that sound public economy demands an irreducible minimum living standard to be sustained by a minimum wage and other such expedients as may be developed in a determined effort to give every child a fair chance?”
Unfortunately, the act did not pass, as many politicians and even other staff in her Bureau believed that women (especially those with children) should not work if they were poor; they should only stay at home and care for their children. They didn’t believe the connections she posited between children’s health and things like minimum wage, sanitation systems, or workers’ insurance, and their focus remained on teaching (white) mothers how to care for babies while disregarding the awful, incredibly high mortality rate for children and babies born into families of color. In time, however, that would change. The people who succeeded Julia at the Children’s Bureau formed a unit that created and implemented child welfare policy, which still remains today despite the loss of the agency’s power and influence.
In later years, Julia would go on to join others in calling for a separate court system for children, which later lead to the establishment of juvenile courts; Julia herself helped found the country’s first juvenile court in 1899. In 1904, she helped create and then became president of the Juvenile Psychopathic Institute, studying the physical and mental health of children, and beginning the shift away from the idea that only environment determined a child’s behavior. She was sent in 1918 by President Woodrow Wilson (along with Grace Abbott), to represent the U.S. at an international child welfare conference. Later, after her retired from the Children’s Bureau (in 1922), she became president of the Illinois League of Women Voters, formed the National Committee of Mental Illness, and represented the U.S. at the Child Welfare Committee held by the League of Nations in Switzerland in 1925. She died in April of 1932, at the age of 73; still single, and with no children of her own.
(Also today in history, a weird number of actresses passed away during different years. Jayne Mansfield died on this day in 1967, Lana Turner died on this day in 1995, Rosemary Clooney died on this day in 2002, and Katharine Hepburn died on this day in 2003.)
I just love that she was all “yeah yeah, uh, motherhood is the most important, ultimate goal, mhm” as she continued to push for all this socialist reform and blatantly didn’t marry or have any kids lol. “Uh huh sure, I think it’s super important, I definitely don’t think it’s equally important to women’s rights and careers, and quality for all people, don’t look at me, shhhh”.
That bit, “Despite her more liberal beliefs, she often towed a more conservative line while in office, mostly because she knew that doing so would avoid controversy and allow her to build public support for her agency and get the work done that she needed.” really stuck out to me and in many ways is true of what women politicians still have to do today!
Right? I was like, damn, that is smart but also super annoying that she had to do it, and that women STILL have to do that today.
I read these to my baby every day
Oh my GOSH, I love imagining that haha.
This is a little thing but I have to say it THANK YOU for writing it “suffragist” instead of the demeaning “suffragette”. That’s only one of the things I learned from my fellow Toasties but it has really stuck with me.
OMG. I can recommend some BOOKS about the Children’s Bureau and early American child welfare policy. Basically, the Children’s Bureau was pretty awesome and Julia Lathrop fought for it like hell in a man-filled Congress that did not care.
Literally anytime I woke up last night, I thought GOTTA GET MY TOTE ASAP IN THE MORNING, and lo and behold, Toasties, I HAVE! It is a good day!
Annalisa Quinn is the reason I found this place. God/dess bless her forever.
You guys, the attack in Istanbul is so so terrible; i am fortunate enough to have visited a friend in Istanbul and that is the airport I flew into and out of and my bestie’s dad is flying out of there TODAY.
My friend flew out about two hours before it happened. So terrifying.
O_o. ::toashugs::
I hope your bestie’s dad gets out okay!
I’ve been to that airport so many times in my life (my family is from Izmir, not Istanbul) that seeing footage of the bomb going off really affected me. It’s so bizarre seeing my other home country get attacked like this so much.
O gods, I have not watched the footage, is too much. ::toasthugs::
Those of you who have spent time in Turkey / have family connections, would you say that it is an increasingly divided society? Between rich and poor, advantaged and disadvantaged? That is the impression I get from observing and talking to some people who’ve spent time there, but I don’t know if it’s completely accurate.
Erdogan is an asshole though, I’d say we can all agree on that.
I haven’t visited in five years, but the divisions do seem to be there. Plus the culture has slowly become more conservative. I remember seeing nudity on public TV when I was kid and now they censor people smoking and drinking alcohol.
Erdogan has become a cartoon villain at this point. Everyone I know hates him.
idk about increasingly divided, really. Preface: i know bugger all about Turkey other than the time I spent there, the cousins I have whose dad is from there (they live in Paris), and the reading I have done since coming home.
I do think that the divide in Turkey is the same as the divide that we are seeing elsewhere; there seems to be a real pushback against people living their lives amongst conservative types these days. I don’t know if this is a have/have-not problem, so much as there is a certain segment of the population who just… cannot handle difference. I don’t know where it comes from, it is not an East versus West thing, it seems to be entirely the provenance of individuals who a) feel quashed by racist patriarchal capitalist hegemony and b) hate that other people are not similarly quashed.
Turkey is fascinating, tho, in that its citizenship has a very different relationship to military intervention than what we in the West are used to – young liberals there (I understand) do not hold democracy to be the principle foundation for “freedom”, since Turkey has largely had Western visions of “freedom” imposed on them by dictators. This is a population that feels that the “ignorant rabble” outside of the cosmoplitan metropolis that is Istanbul would use/are using their democratic rights to strip others of theirs (viz Erdogan). Like, he’s a monster, yes, but he was also terribly popular outside of Istanbul, in part because he is a monster.
I would argue that the divide that you mention also exists in Canada (to lesser extremes, clearly); politicians are always going on about how to reconcile the urban (largely left, largely pro-diversity)/rural (largely right, largely pro-hegemony) divide. I don’t know that these two things can ever be reconciled.
But the divisions that you mention – between those with resources and those without – are going to get worse before they get better, I think, and it breaks my heart, because it seems like this kind of frustrated lashing out is only going to get worse.
My father is from Istanbul, he came to the states for school as a teenager and stayed. My grandparents lived there until they emigrated to Toronto in the 1990s. I’ve gone to Turkey most recently in 2006, spent a month in 2012, & I was last at the airport in jan 2015 (the very spot the news reports show), after attending a birthday party.
Smarter people than I can speak to the cluster that is Erdogan’s reign, but I’ve definitely noticed the changes during my last few visits – everything is more and more uptight, and anti-feminist, and anti-euro. I come from a religious minority and while Turkey isn’t some magic wonderland it’s done such a great job at negotiating being at a cross-roads between east and west and being (sort of) a secular democracy, post WWII. Now Erdogan is throwing it all away in a decades-long grandiose tantrum. The well-off people I know are so bummed, and see little reason to spend time there anymore (these are rich people who grew up there but also have houses in Europe or the US), which is a bad sign.
All that being said IF YOU’RE THINKING OF VISITING ISTANBUL, YOU SHOULD! These attacks are designed to scare away foreigners, and turn muslims against muslims (Turkey has a rich history of Sufism, and ISIS/fundies hate mystical shit), and mess with tourism. Istanbul is a spectacular mega-city full of history, friendly people and amazing food at every price point. The sad reality is that Turkey has been dealing with occasional bombings on the regs for years (just getting internationally reported more frequently these days) and they have a better handle on it than most, security-wise.
I have way too many thoughts on all this stuff, I might come back here to add more once I’ve sorted out my main points.
I actually wrote up a little story about going to Shabbat services & my elegant, brilliant Turkish grandma to pitch to The Toast, but then with the closing announced I was too bereft to make the pitch deadline. Maybe buried in a nested comments thread is the proper place for it.
I would love to read that if you ever decide to publish. My knowledge of Turkish culture is mostly restricted to the western side (Izmir) and a little bit of the inner Anatolian regions.
I got to spend 2 weeks camping and riding horses in western anatolia (following the 17th c route of Evliya Celebi) in 2012 and it was amazing to get to see the countryside (my dad is such a city kid he’s uninterested in anything other than Istanbul and beaches – for him the notion of a trip to Cappadocia is like visiting Kansas) and travel through all the little villages. We stopped for a day or two in Iznik (ancient Nicea) and stayed at a hotel near the lake – we found out later the restaurant attached to the hotel was the only place left in town you could get alcohol at. Which explained how weirdly they looked at us when we tried to order cocktails (our booze and our cherry juice were presented in separate glasses) but blew my mind that in a town of 40-50k there’s now only one spot that remains. This would DEFINITELY not have been the case back in 2000, or even 2010.
The riding trip was a total shit show (my best friend and I are still working up our movie script about the experience) but it had nothing to with the beauty and bounty of the countryside and the people who live there. We also spent a week in Bursa and it was really interesting and cool.
Yes please, I too would love to read about your grandmother and Shabbat and Turkey!
And seconding your recommendation to visit; Turkey may not be magical, but it certainly seemed like it during my three week stay. And i never ever felt unsafe, not even once (although my visit was three years ago now, things may have changed)
So I read the lovely tribute to the Toast on NPR and it was great and then I read the comments and it was not great. Some are lovely! Some are probably from you wonderful people!
And then the rest remind me that I hate the comment section on every other internet site in the entire universe. Ugh, whiny man babies. Go away.
Yes. I simply cannot fathom being offended that a site aimed at feminist librarian-types exists… but apparently this is a thing!
Right? It’s just a symptom of men thinking that everything has to be specifically catered to them in order for it to have value. “I don’t personally find this funny? Well my opinion is not, in fact, an opinion because I am a MAN filled with TESTOSTERONE and my word is SCRIPTURE.”
This might be overkill of a reaction, but today is not my day.
This also demonstrates how well the mod hammer was used here at The Toast Dot Net. You KNOW those men tried to bring their opinions here, but we only ever saw the most laughable ones. And those we saw because we begged to see them!
I had the same thought, too! And I then I realized how grateful I was for the Toast and then it really sunk in that it’s gone in two days. It hadn’t yet, and now I feel particularly awful.
Not overkill. Nope. Just right.
I was tempted to make an account on NPR just to tell them that nobody cares if they don’t think the Toast is funny and there was no need to share that but that would be futile.
I really support you in this idea and support your recognition of its futility.
I just really like the idea of telling men their opinion doesn’t matter. DANG I am filled with misandrist thunder today.
Do you have a link? I’d love to read it! (not the bad comments)
It’s the one Nicole links to above! Here’s the link:�
�http://www.npr.org/2016/06/27/483394694/a-toast-to-the-toast-the-site-that-was-just-for-you-yes-even-you. <br />
It’s a really touching tribute and considering I’m already feeling vulnerable and miserable today, it was all I could do not to get misty-eyed as heck in my cube.
I somehow totally missed that section, and now I feel silly. Thank you!
No problem! And sorry everything is a hyperlink up there. I don’t know how to internets.
Internetting is hard. I have never figured out how to properly get images into these here comments, which is a shame cause my dog is super cute.
Toastie Slack is very private and easy to use to post photos of your lovely dog. I recommend it! Also, MOAR PET PHOTOS (my seekrit agenda).
I’m already on there, but have not yet played with posting pictures. I’ll get right on top of that.
I haven’t even tried, as I always assumed it was too witches for me.
At one point, I started a Tumblr of smug and/or whiny NPR commenters. It’s strange how awful their commentariat is, considering what they cover.
If I understood Tumblr, I would follow you in a heartbeat.
And I think it’s a symptom of the clientele. I like NPR and think they’re amazing, but there is no denying that there is, oddly, an elitism attached to it that I think creates a bunch of self-righteous, smug followers. And then they comment because they’re so sure of their correctness and they must simply share it.
I suppose, yes.
And thank you! The Tumblr is 2-3 ancient screenshots that are too small to read, plus a bunch stored on my hard drive, so…you’re not the only one that doesn’t understand Tumblr.
Also, I think there are a lot of people for whom NPR translates to “the snootiest liberal media”, so if they’re going to go troll a liberal MSM outlet, NPR is a go-to (along with the NYT).
I will say, though, the worst comments I’ve seen are on the Atlantic. Good Christmas there is some vitriol there.
I should understand the internet. I’m 29. I grew up with it. But I have been faking internet ability for years now. And as soon as I understand something it changes. Gmail, why are you playing with me with this inbox business? I’m already being played by a man. I don’t need it from you, too.
This could be entertaining or very upsetting. Sometimes I am amazed at the awful comments on NPR articles. I suspect it is just a few terrible people with nothing going on in their own lives and then I feel kind of bad for them.
There are a few nasties who comment on almost every NPR article. And NPR publishes a lot of articles every day– how do these people find the time?
To this day I am still infuriated by the description of Robin McKinley’s Sunshine in their reader-pick top 100 SF/Fantasy (not even getting into the lack of much on that list except straight white dudes):
All hope for stopping the vampiric elite from controlling Earth depends on human SOFs (Special Other Forces) and the success of their attempt to recruit Sunshine, the daughter of legendary sorcerer Onyx Blaise.
Yes, because what that book is really about is Teh Menz.
Aaaaaaauuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!
What!
That’s…so wrong…so many ways….
Ban men.
what. Sunshine is clearly about baked goods! I remember more of their names than I do the SOFs.
(bitter chocolate deathh….)
I’d actually forgotten about the SOFs, mostly.
That list was so wrong in so many ways though. I just got a wave of righteous Feminist Nerd Rage thinking about it.
WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
That tribute really got me. I’m going to miss this site so much but I am also really excited to see where Nicole and Mallory and all the incredible writers and the commenters get to. I will proudly carry my totes and hope that somebody says hi.
Right? I’m going to staple the tote to my body as a flag of being a Toastie.
I really wanted the Ship tote but missed out and settled for Spear, and…I seem to have just bought Ship as well.
Can this be penance for the months when I thought I’d disabled my ad blocker on the Toast but apparently hadn’t?
Email me so I can flag the two orders and make sure they ship together to save you a few bucks.
Will do!
Ooh, I did the same thing! Emailing…
Ok, the internship AAM was ridiculous (their response to finding out the exception to the rule was missing a limb was awful! Also no no no no generally.) but can we talk about the one where the employee cleaned the communal sink WITH DRANO WITH A COMMUNAL SPONGE THAT WAS THEN USED BY SOMEONE TO CLEAN THEIR COFFEE MUG (ETA here’s the link)
I was AGHAST.
Also, I’m curious– I would 100% fire that employee for reckless endangerment of their coworkers and self, but I was talking to my boyfriend about it last night and he was like “idk about firing her for an honest mistake that wasn’t directly related to her job”– so what do you guys think?
Nope. It doesn’t need to be directly related to your job to be worthy of firing. If someone set their desk on fire it may not be directly related to their job but it’s sure as hell fire-worthy! Absolutely fire her! People can be seriously hurt or DIE thanks to that stunt. Employee endangerment is no joke.
I would also consider firing or suspending LW, tbh, because apparently they didn’t speak up when they saw someone drinking from a Drano-laced mug and instead wrote to an advice columnist, but maybe I’m a hardass?
YES. A suspension at minimum qnd pretty serious chat about What The Workforce Needs, like “reporting of danger” and less “not wanting to hurt feelings.”
No, the LW clarified that she didn’t realize the mug had possibly been compromised until after he’d used it. I mean, she probably should have said something then so he could watch for symptoms, but at that point she shouldn’t stop him from using the mug.
Honestly I think the letter writer in that one is worse! There’s a time and a place for gentle diplomacy and this was not it. “FELICIA, STOP PUTTING POISON WHERE PEOPLE MIGHT INGEST IT” was the correct response, not “You might want to reconsider your choice of cleaning chemicals.” And then she didn’t tell anybody at the office about it! And watched silently as somebody washed their mug with the poison sponge! What the fuck!
DRANO LADY HOLY FUCK
Yeah LW is definitely culpable here, at least Felicia maybe thought Drano was like, a dish detergent, but LW knew.
This is why Heathers should be mandatory viewing material before you graduate high school, IMO.
This story is a terrifying combo of Heathers and 9 to 5!
(Skinny and Sweet 4eva)
CORN NUTS
Oh wow, I almost said this a little while ago. SO QUOTABLE, so much a part of my adolescence! Hello, fellow Heatherite!
Just popping in to say – I saw the Heathers musical and it was great!
I think LW might have been questioning what she knew until she had a chance to google it. Like, I think that’s super poisonous, but she seems so confident even when I point it out, so maybe I better check before throwing a fit?
Wrong choice! But sometimes seeing someone do something so entirely ridiculous with so much confidence can be disorienting. That’s the hidden theme of a lot of the AMA letters.
Also, she could have just thrown out the damn sponge! I can kinda understand having a moment of hesitation about how to handle the confrontation, but it would have been very easy to throw out the poison sponge immediately so that nobody used it!
She did throw out the sponge.
Nope, she definitely screwed up, but she did not know that he was using a poisoned sponge until after he’d already used it.
But it WAS related to her job because she was poisoning her coworkers!!
I’d also consider firing her if she didn’t get real serious real fast about understanding how big a mistake that was. If she’s adequately horrified at what she’s done, then ok there’s hope. If she brushes it off and doesn’t understand or respect the seriousness of her mistake, that’s a real cause for concern. And if it’s part of a pattern of similar behavior and disregard? Nope, outta here.
Yeah, if Felicia were like “I still don’t get why it’s a big deal” we were on the same firing page, but we disagreed on what to do if she were actually 100% naive in her intentions. I’d still fire her, even if she felt really bad about it afterwards, because accidentally poisoning people is still poisoning, but my boyfriend’s argument was that she’d never do it again if she understood the seriousness of it, so why lose an otherwise good employee (assuming she is a good employee).
I’m kind of with your boyfriend, except it seems like such an odd thing to do that I’d wonder what else she might do that was a really bad idea that you can’t see coming because it’s unfathomable.
Yes. People who are blithely out of touch with reality or incapable of applying common sense (see also: Amelia Bedelia MALLORY WHY DID YOU DO THAT BOOK) are really, really bad employees and become more trouble than they’re worth. I say this having been on both sides of that equation.
I think it depends a lot on what her actual job is and how often the possibility exists that she could make dangerous mistakes with widespread consequences. But it certainly indicates poor judgement and attention to detail, because if you read the instructions/warnings on Drano, how could you ever think it was appropriate to use to clean the basin of a sink? It’s not even a cleaning product!
their response to finding out the exception to the rule was missing a limb was awful!
Yeah, that’s when I basically went from “you kids need to stop” to “NO STOP WHY,” when she wrote, “You can’t even tell, and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument.”
THAT WAS WHEN MY HEAD EXPLODED
not your business! ATTEND TO YOUR OWN POTATOES, as the French say
YEP. How, exactly, would they have factored that in? There is no scenario in which they mention the co-worker and it helps their case. None.
I want to know what she spent her time on in college because she is not prepared for life.
Exactly! The “not consistently enforced” thing seemed to be the entire basis of their argument! They didn’t mention anything like “we have to wear high heels and stay on our feet all day and we’re developing plantar fasciitis” or “I was told I had to replace my Payless oxfords with Gucci loafers,” they just saw what someone else had and decided they wanted it. So how would they have “factored it in?”
when I got to that part I immediately suspected there must be a medical reason for it. I currently have a broken foot so maybe it’s just more obvious to me, but still! in some ways I see this as related to that kind of justification culture you see a lot from The Youth on tumblr (and I do love a lot of things about tumblr, but that irks). it’s like they expected the manager to casually tell them personal details about a superior.
Yeah, I actually thought the AAM commenters were too quick to dismiss the potential financial aspect (yes, you can get “cheap” professional shoes, but one person’s cheap is another person’s grocery money, and also if I’d landed a corporate internship in college, I would definitely have had to buy a whole new wardrobe because nothing I had was appropriate). THAT SAID, that’s an entirely hypothetical argument, because it’s not what happened here.
This is an object lesson in what a lot of AAM deals with — namely, whatever it is, your boss probably has very good reasons for doing it, and those reasons are almost certainly not your business.
This may shock you, but having now read the letter at aam…. I think the letter writer was male.
this, this, this. My vicarious embarrassment went from simmering to boiled over at that point.
eta: I would have more sympathy if it sounded like they had focused on gender disparity or financial hardship, even though the method was still way inappropriate (especially since more than one of them had already been asked and told no!) But this just feels to me like a petition on the principle of “don’t wanna” mixed with “Amy’s mom lets her go to the mall by herself!!”
Like, I was almost positive, before even clicking on the link to the rest of the letter, that there was a disability-type reason for this, and the boss was refusing to disclose a medical condition. And then there it was!
That “we would have factored it into our argument” pushed the whole thing into self-righteous Hermione territory for me. I understand the importance of being able to organize for better working conditions, and I can accept that an issue seeming petty to me might just mean I haven’t learned to see what makes it relevant. But that comment made the letter-writer sound so immature and wrongheaded that I couldn’t sympathize with her anymore.
Yeah, the “we would have factored it into our argument” . . . If it had been a case of “Now that we know, I’m sorry that we made presumptions and I know now that maybe I don’t always know the whole story and know what’s best,” then I feel that would be a more reasonable reaction. But this just felt like she felt that she should have been made privy to this information and be able to account for it in her petition to get what she wanted out of it. Sigh, I dunno, man.
oh. my. god.
nevermind my feelings of sympathy towards rebels violating dress codes.
oh. my god.
it’s like you can’t even tell by looking at someone that they lack empathy. dress codes actually normalize sociopaths. Young sociopaths, but still.
*screams into a sponge that is hopefully not laced with Drano*
Stern talking, and if she shows the slightest sign of not being contrite, fire her. SO FIRED. That is dangerous! Not just to her coworkers or her idiot self, but the company could be held liable.
WHO THE HELL CLEANS WITH DRANO????!!!!
I actually witnessed a similar scene at work some years ago in which a colleague was cleaning the communal sink with the dish sponge and an ammonia-based cleaner. I expressed horror and told her to stop and she just laughed merrily. It was an extremely dysfunctional small office and for reasons due to the office’s dysfunctionality, she would never have been reprimanded for anything or told to stop doing anything, and to actually complain to the bosses that she kept using poisonous cleaners on the office sponge would just backfire on me. So I just low-keyishly told everyone, bosses included, that I’d witnessed the communal sponges being used that way any number of times over, and considered my duty dispatched. AND NEVER USED AN OFFICE SPONGE AGAIN, OBV.
Before I clicked the link I’d assumed that of course the Dranoer had made an innocent mistake, like, intended to use a similarly-shaped bottle of non-poison, or maybe she’d didn’t know what Drano was and wasn’t proficient in any of the languages they print the warnings in! Or had grown up in a family with superhuman powers and didn’t realize poison was real? But certainly she’d feel AWFUL once she was informed of her mistake.
GOOD GOD. Felecia has 100% murdered someone in her life.
Laughing and saying “nothing cleans like Drano!” just writes itself into a detective show episode, doesn’t it?
GOOD GOD. Felecia has 100% murdered someone in her life.
I’m laughing aloud at this and don’t know why? :’D
D:
One of many reasons why I NEVER touch communal sponges at work, and always clean my coffee mug with paper towels. (Sorry not sorry, earth).
Yay totes! Yay misandrist mermaids! Bless you, Nicole, you big softie.
Haven’t got the fortitude to read the medical debt article yet. When I was in the hospital I kept *dropping* things because I was uncoordinated and highly medicated. I must have dropped fifteen of those little breathing machines that are supposed to exercise your lungs. My mom kept telling me- each time they give you a new one, you have to pay for it. But it didn’t sink in, and I still couldn’t have hold the damn things anyway. Ugh, itemized healthcare.
It’s a shitty fucking system where we have to badger patients, who shouldn’t be worrying about anything but getting better, about such things. 🙁
Oh good god, somebody please capture Jeremy Corbyn in a net and force him to resign.
I am a bleeding-heart leftie, I joined the Labour party as a paid-up member after Jez got the leadership, because he got the leadership, I am opposed to neoliberalism and Tony Blair and etc etc but MY GOD MAN at this point you are the zombie husk of an opposition leader and YOU MUST GO.
eta dammit, Jeremy
See, this is interesting to me. I’ve seen people saying both he should stay and he should go. I kinda want him to go, but it’s because I don’t like him. He feels to me like a lot of very left white guys who are very left on some issues, but they don’t support feminism. The kind that will tell minorities what’s best for them instead of asking them. The kind that thinks the issues they care about are the only important ones. And I have no idea why I feel that way about him, but I do, so I’m not able to objectively form an opinion about whether he should step down. Because who is going to take his place that isn’t a Blairite?
[edit to say that I don’t know much about it other than reading the Guardian and the BBC, so I’m not pretending to be an expert]
I am by no means an expert either but I HAVE read an awful lot of Guardian liveblog over the past few days! I don’t think Corbyn has the ability to lead the PLP anymore – even my MP, who is very leftwing, has resigned from his shadow cabinet. Whether or not the MPs who dislike Corbyn have handled things well, and I think it’s clear they haven’t, his current position just does not seem at all tenable.
Yeah, that’s a good point about the resignations (and I’ve been glued to that liveblog too!). At this point it’s probably better to have someone that people are willing to follow.
I keep hoping that this whole thing will be a wake-up call to the left to stop being liberal lite, but it doesn’t seem likely.
This is interesting, britomartian.
I am also a bleeding-heart leftie (unite!) and I was kind of amazed that people I knew just sort of.. became slavish Corbyn worshippers. I get that for some people he is an amazing breath of fresh air but for someone to be treated like an actual god is quite staggering in the politically cynical and self-aware times.
Labour needs a leader who will unite the party if it’s going to have any strength, which inevitably means someone more centrist than Corbyn. It’s a shame, because his beliefs do resonate with people (and me) but I have to say I’m with you in thinking he’s a bit of a zombie husk right now. What has he actually done?
I can see both sides really. I’m angry with the PLP, I’m angry with Corbyn. But I understand the motivations of both.
Having read a lot about him and his ideologies, and those of Tony Benn, he basically bleeds democracy, and this vote of no confidence in his view doesn’t negate the will of the 250k voters who voted him in last year. If it goes to leadership election, it will be down to the will of the people again. They very well may have changed their minds since they last voted, but at least the leadership change will be at the will of the people, which is what he wants. If he resigns, there will be no leadership election and someone will just be installed.
Whether the labour party members represent all labour party voters is up for debate, but right now that’s the channel being used.
Also the PLP seem to be crapping themselves about Chilcot.
Oh fuck, I forgot about Chilcot.
Yes, please, please just go. I get why he wants to hold another leadership election (which there is a high chance he’ll win) but the fact is that a BIG part of being leader in a parliamentory system is being able to actually lead the party. So you may or may not think that the PLP should fall in line (I personally feel that they have a democratic right to express a lack of confidence just as much as members have a right to do the opposite) but given that they are OVERWHELMINGLY rejecting him he just can’t do his job.
For me personally, his behavour over the EU ref has made me lose confidence in him – even more so since I discovered he didn’t even vote on ANY reading of the referendum bill (when he could have been leading the way on constructive things such as extending the vote to 16 & 17 year olds). I did vote for him in the last leadership election but definitely won’t be voting for him in this one (assuming there is one) and think he should have the grace to resign. (ETA – I think he should have the grace to resign because he can’t lead the party and refusing to do so is dragging out a bad situation, not because of the behaviour in the referendum.)
Yes, and I am so, SO bored of seeing diehard-Corbyn supporters basically saying, “anyone who thinks actual leadership skills are important in leading is a war-monger Blairite!” The name-calling and stereotyping on both sides is the most depressing thing in the world, and I say that as a Labour party member.
Like, if it’s true that he’s revitalised the party and brought in new members and enthused grassroots staff, that’s amazing! Let that be his legacy! But let someone else take up that legacy and lead us into a general election if there’s going to be one this year, because he’s so not the man for that job.
Also, let’s just never forget that it’s a hell of a lot easier to be ideologically pure when you’re a white straight man.
^^ this
Also, let’s just never forget that it’s a hell of a lot easier to be ideologically pure when you’re a white straight man.
Yes! Also, I don’t actually want the leader to be ideologically pure – I want them to be effective. I’m infuriated by the way the far left have turned ‘Blairite’ into the worst possible insult instead of pointing out all the things that were done in the Blair years that were good. It’s a gift to the other side when your own party is weirdly ashamed of its own period in government. Why not say ‘Blair achieved lots of great things but was ultimately problematic. We’re going to preserve the best parts of what was achieved under the Blair government but also build on them to have a fairer society’?
There is an important place for people who relentlessly police their own side and call then out on all the ways they fuck up. That’s the place Corbyn has occupied for most of his career. However, that is not the job of the leader. (Obviously the leader should be able to acknowledge things which have been wrong – but they can’t behave as if those invalidate any and all achievements.)
I cannot stop watching the liveblog.
I ended up buying three totes: one as a gift, one a tote for me, and one as a backup tote in case something happens to my tote. HOWEVER I didn’t check to see if the non-ship ones were in stock, so all three are the same. Do you think it’s ok? (I mean, I really wanted the ship one the most, but…) I am racked with emotional turmoil and potential regret and could really use some reassurance
Based on the ship’s overwhelming popularity, I think you made the correct choice for a gift; and since the other is a backup for you, yes, obviously you need the same one as your first choice for a backup!
So really, you made the ONLY correct choice! (I bought the mermaid, personally, because misandry, but I hope that helps 🙂
Thank you so much for helping with my tote anxiety! I really do feel much better now <3
I will trade you a mermaid for a ship! I really wanted a ship, but they were all gone by the time I got there.
This is like Settlers of Cataan, but with bags.
I love it!
I will love my misandrist mermaid to bits to be sure. But, you know, Take to the Sea.
I know pictures of Sansa end up on Twitter on the pretty regular, but I’m worried about my reliable daily access to them after this Friday. I would appreciate it if you would hire a professional photographer to live under your stairs and run a blog solely devoted to Sansa. That wouldn’t be too much trouble, right?
*emails fabricated resume presenting self as professional photographer who accepts payment in biweekly cans of beans and enjoys living unobtrusively in crawl spaces*
That would make you a………wait for it……pupperazi!
*steeples fingers, gazes broodingly at computer for full minute in silence*
Yes. This is good. This was worth the wait. I like this.
Time to go order business cards.
*i’m your biggest fan, i’ll follow you until you love me, pupper, pupper-azi*
I feel like this is a space place to admit that I thought for a very long time that she was saying “Papa Runtzie”.
(The above should say “safe place”, but “space place” is too good to edit out.)
*cosigns*
I love your avatar so much. Karin Dreijer Andersson is a magical wood fairy.
Ahhhhhh thank you! She is my favorite forever and I will probably die waiting for another Fever Ray album but it will be a good death. So great to run into another Karin fan here 😀
Yeah, I’m not even sure we can expect another album by the Knife. They disbanded after Shaking the Habitual (although maybe this means more Fever Ray, pretty please?).
Biweekly – once every two weeks, or twice a week? (I am curious about just how great your dedication to Sansa pictures is.)
Oh once every two weeks. Trying to make myself an appealing applicant in a highly competitive marketplace.
Better make it monthly, to be safe.
I’m actually getting kind of verklempt about Sansa Growing Up So Quickly, because I’m apparently just going to be maudlin about everything for the rest of time.
Oh my God you guys, totally OT but I was laid off. And I’m five weeks pregnant. All this plus the disappearance of The Toast–this week, y’all. I’ve decided I’m going to try the world of freelance writing. My editor, who quit when she found out I was laid off, owns her own company where she does freelance writing is going to help me get started because she is the best.
I’m so sad. I loved my job and I’m not even getting laid off for a legitimately good reason–our new CEO decided to require all remove employees to move to their central office or be laid off. Even though we work in publishing which is, theoretically, one of the most flexible jobs you can have in regards to where you can do it. I’m taking solace in the fact that my supervisor is absolutely gutted and angry that this happened, and that I was given the longest amount of time until my last day because, as I was told by my supervisor, I’m one of the most valuable people in my department.
Any happy gifs or doggie/kitty photos would be appreciated.
Oh no! I’m glad your editor has your back, but that is a super shitty situation.
That is terrible and sounds immensely frustrating and stupid! Sending you so, so many good thoughts right now. But I hope the freelancing proves wonderful, and that you get a chance to enjoy setting your own schedule instead of having to work within the bounds of someone else’s. I am also in publishing and simply cannot understand why so many higher-ups do not allow more people to be flexible with their time/location. Really, you can do this work almost anywhere – why do you need to be chained to a SPECIFIC desk? But sending you lots of good and happy thoughts. They are fools for letting you slip through their fingers.
It’s so weird! All I need is a laptop with Indesign, Word, and access to the internet and I can do my job anywhere. Plus I can honestly say that since moving to a home office I am significantly more productive. I think it’s just an easy way for a new CEO to make a big change whether it’s any good or not he can say, “See? I centralized our workforce to synergize creativity!”
I’m looking forward to freelancing, though. I am looking forward to having my own schedule and no longer have to be a slave to the production schedule. There are so many things I’ve had to say “no” to because of press week. It really is kind of exciting!
What’ll be funny is if/when they hire you as a freelancer and you charge double.
I hope it works out fantastically for you! I have often dreamed of freelancing, and of not having to be responsible to anyone’s schedule (or be in an office when my work is done for the day), but so far the idea of having to drum up my own work and not having benefits has scared me away. May you go boldly into the great Freelance Sea.
That’s intensely crappy, but also kinda awesome that your editor has your back like that! I feel like you’re the 3rd or 4th person I’ve run into lately who has had to deal with this “relocate or get lost” thing at work and, as you said, it seems to be for jobs that don’t really NEED you to be there physically in person every day. That is so bizarre. Is the business world sending out brainwaves to tell all CEOs to do this now?
It really is a weird trend! I think it’s because it’s something big and grand that a new CEO can do that they can claim is improving efficiency and promoting creativity. I honestly believe that in a few years it will cycle back and CEOs will then claim that remote employees are the future–get the best employees no matter where they live and reduce overhead! (I secretly think CEOs are just sad that they can’t work in their PJs from their couch.)
Oh yes, the “look I did some random thing to show that I am doing something!” maneuver.
This is like when I and my office mate were told that we were going to be moved into two smaller offices, so that our current office space could be turned into the Open Office of the Future!(TM), completely ignoring the fact that A of all) we already operate as an open office, and 2) none of the people they planned to move into the space wanted to be in an open office, or, for that matter, wanted office space in this unit at all. (Fortunately, due to the operation of University Inertia[also TM], it looks like we’re staying in place.)
I had a boss do that once. I think when they’re new or something’s not working they feel like they need to do something big and bold that “shakes things up” and choose this stupid route.
I’m so sorry! That is idiotic. I hope freelancing goes fabulously and is a blessing in disguise with the ability to set your own schedule. I have young kids and freelance and it really does help (not like I was getting paid maternity leave anyway *shakes fist at American capitalism*). I also had a wonderful editor/former boss who has helped me make freelancing work for me, so I’m rooting for you! It can work!
What kind of writing are you looking to do? I might have some leads for you if interests align!
Right now I work for a weaving magazine so mostly I write about not just weaving, but textiles in general and artisans. That said, I used to work in the education department of a museum with frequent exhibit changes so I’m very good at learning a lot about a subject in a short amount of time and then being able to talk expertly about it. I’m definitely a non-fiction sort of writer (with secret dreams of writing the da Vinci Vode-esque best seller–it would be about Shriners and how those little cars are linked to a conspiracy), but beyond that I am flexible.
(Seriously, even if this doesn’t come to anything, this is why I love The Toast. I’m just glad I got to be a part of this community if only for a couple short years.)
Ah, okay. I’m not sure if you’re interested in science-related stuff, but I have a bunch of contacts that are always interested in freelancers.
Feel free to dm me on Toast slack or find my twitter in the master spreadsheet that’s going around if you want to talk specifics. (It’s under my real name, so I’m not going to post it here!)
Um, actually I am totally interested in science-related stuff. Not that it makes me an expert, but I am in fact married to a scientist and a good 98% of my friends are scientists. I’ll message you in Twitter, thanks!
So! I was going to say “WELCOME TO FREELANCE WRITING” and tell you to join us on ToastieSlack, but I guess there’s only a #publishing thread and not a #writing thread in general. HOWEVER. There is a “Toasties” slack (toasties.slack.com) that is entirely for writing. It’s more for creative writing, and there are prompts and stuff, but since the main ToastieSlack is so overburdened we could probably stand to go there and form a #freelancing and #publishing wing there.
Now, if I can just remember who’s in charge of toasties.slack.com ….
there is a #writers channel on ToastieSlack!
Do you know if there’s an editors’ channel? It would be so helpful to discuss freelancing with others who made the same terrible choice of major that I did!
I’m sorry 🙁
Good luck with the freelancing! I’m a huge fan of it personally, although I know it’s always hardest in the beginning.
I highly recommend seeing if there are networking groups for writers and/or freelancers in your area. A lot of my work over the past couple of year has come from referrals and when my schedule’s full I send all leads that come my way over to other writers in the community. If there are writers in your city with more work than they can handle, they’ll be your easiest resource for finding good clients.
Man, I’m about to write a dissertation chapter on the slipperiness of knowledge-buiding about/in/around North Korea*, and Suki Kim’s book is one of the few I’ve read to date that gets visceral about the constant terror (usually low-level, not always) of surveillance. Barbara Deming’s Nothing to Envy is also real good, but Kim — jeez. Nobody I’ve read gets at the futility and necessity of building relationships in these environments like she does.
Y’all read that long, long expose for Mother Jones by Shane Bauer last week about working in/for a private prison in Louisiana? That’s the kind of work Suki Kim does in her book. The way folks treated her is infuriating.
*it’s got to do with Choco Pies and their tie to Moon Pies and their value on the black market. i have eaten many of both kinds of pie as research.
This sounds fascinating and if you are hanging out in any post-Toast communities I think we would love to hear some fun (“fun”) facts from your research!
I saw the Mother Jones thing and I want to read it but I have to save up some emotional energy because I know it’s going to be difficult. Same with Suki Kim’s book which I will probably end up with a copy of. I am amazed at what she was able to do.
Oh my god Choco Pies!
I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Omg, I GOT A MERMAID TOTE.
I was sad that I had missed them and then ecstatic to see that Nicole is a softy who gave the procrastinators another chance to order one.
Today is the best day.
Whoa, Suki Kim’s editor is TERRIBLE. I can just imagine the blurb on that book cover. “Eat, Investigate, Love is a story of one woman’s undercover journey through North Korea and back to herself, but also with some reporting…”
I was coming down to RAGE about this. 1) It’s not true that memoir inherently sells better than investigative journalism. Successful memoirs are actually outliers & most do very badly in the marketplace. So their justification is actually a complete load of crap.
2) I immediately looked up who said these horrible things (because we’re a gossipy lot). All I can say is, I wish I were surprised. (I would say more, but I signed an anti-defamation agreement).
Does anyone here want my mermaid tote? I ordered one as a second choice, but now that I’ve got my first choice ship tote I no longer need it.
I haven’t donated to the tote bursary fund yet, so I’d be happy to donate my mermaid tote to a deserving Toastie instead. Let me know!
I can donate my spear tote to a deserving Toastie as well!
Both of you can email me and I’ll do a swap with people on the freebie list.
Thanks Nicole! Emailing now.
As a bursary recipient, I want to just jump in here and say that all of you are beautiful, magical people, and that once my bank account gets less alarming, I’m going to pay it forward.
What a beautiful toast!
The last paragraph made me realise how much my behaviour has changed since I’ve been reading The Toast.
Who else now snarks on the art in galleries?
What else do you do? I walk through the Lifeline Book Fair in Brisbane (literally kilometres of second hand and rare books laid out on sale for charity for two weeks every year) and refuse to pick up books by men unless i love them (Brookmyre, Pratchett, Wodehouse and G. Durrell, basically. Although I think Brookmyre could do with smackings from a rolled up newspaper and a red pen for the sake of brevity and action). I walk along merrily sneering at books about male tears that take themselves very seriously indeed, saying to myself “Oh, please, dickhead. You know you caused the trouble you’re in.”
“Oh, please, dickhead. You know you caused the trouble you’re in: A Jonathan Franzen Omnibus”
Oh lord THAT DRESS <3
When I was in uni, my (now) sister -in-law saw that I was reading Kate Chopin and asked if i ever read anything that was written by men (I WAS AN ENGLISH MAJOR, BASICALLY EVERYTHING I READ FOR AGES WAS WRITTEN BY MEN). The Toast totally helped me own that, and now when people hassle me about things like this i have the courage to straight up own that I find cishetwhitedudes (and the “literature” they write) boring.
And they never have a good response for that! ‘But, but it’s great literature!’ “It’s all the same, and that’s pretty boring to me.” and then they shut up because they often don’t actually know enough to argue that the works are distinct. I love it.
This is also how I shut down people making odes to the Marvel movies. I love them, don’t get me wrong, but they are mass-produced mass-market movies that are 90% about white dudes making poor choices and feeling sad, not unique adventures in film-making.
I do the art snark.
I think I’ve definitely made a more conscious effort to read books written by women (and not just white women) and also to learn more about women in history. I’ve also had some excellent book and movie recommendations from people here!
I read a LOT more longform-style articles than I did before. I love starting the day or having lunch with a really interesting longform article about a topic that’s completely new to me. Also, Collector’s Weekly FTW!
I think The Toast has made me think differently about certain topics, like how we perceive adoption and the different perspectives of adopted kids.
I dunno, I suspect for a long time after the end of The Toast I’ll still keep noticing ways in which it has changed me for the better. But most of all, when I’m here I think I feel better about myself and some days that’s something I desperately need.
I don’t get out of white men’s ways anymore.
A+! ♥
<3 <3 <3
One of my friends just straight-up sits on manspreading guys on the train. She’s my hero.
YES!!!!
Everytime my kid asks me something, I have one of the monks’ voices is my head and have to stifle it.
I’ve embraced the fact that I’m completely done with the majority of art/ writing about straight white men and their little problems (especially in literary fiction. Just, ugh). And gotten several good laughs out of people’s reactions when I tell them as much.
I have always snarked on art. There was a museum in Spain (the Prado, I think) where I beheld a painting of the Virgin Mary squeezing her boob to shoot a perfect arc of breast milk at the baby Jesus. I was there by myself and no one else seemed to appreciate how incredibly WTF ridiculous this painting was. Many years later, I found The Toast and I found my people.
So this is the most tangential relation to Dope Lake: My dad used to walk around singing “White punks on dope” almost constantly. Just that line, I’ve never googled to see if it’s part of a bigger song. I was like 6 and asked “what are white punks on dope?”
“A type of sandwich” He said.
About two months ago the refrain popped back into my head and I realized nope, not a sandwich at all.
I find this so charming! And… is it a line to something? Inquiring minds.
You know, I have still never googled! A part of me doesn’t want to destroy the wonder and confusion it brings. There’s so few mysteries left in the world, maybe I should let “white punks on dope” be one.
It is a song! It is called “White Punks On Dope” by The Tubes. It is pretty much just that line over and over again for like 80% of the song. My Dad also used to sing it randomly.
Dads! What weird and wonderful creatures.
Also in Tubes lyrics exegesis, it turns out that “a baby’s arm holding an apple” is… not that.
I have seen The Tubes in concert several times and you are correct. A baby’s arm holding an apple is… something different from that.
Oh, Mallory, oh Prudence, oh Prudory. I cherish our last opportunities to admire her together —
“There’s nothing wrong with not going to museums with old co-workers. I don’t go to museums with former co-workers all the time, and look forward to a rich future of avoiding trips to the museum with old co-workers for years to come.”
I have never been one to read advice columns, but Mallory. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/…
I have had to go to museums with current co-workers several times in the last year in the name of “team-building” and the only thing I can think of that would be worse is repeating the experience once I am free of them.
Mountain time here: I woke up at 6:35 and anxiously refreshed until it was 7/9. Feeling good. Feeling fresh. Feeling fiscally irresponsible in the best sort of way.
I’m so sad about Pat Summitt.
She was so amazing! Head coach at 22! 31 consecutive appearances at the NCAA tournament! Winningest coach in major college basketball!
I also read that apparently* she stopped Tennessee from playing UConn because she objected to UConn’s homophobic recruiting practices! Made me love her even more.
*she never publicly stated this was the case, but the rumor has persisted all these years and she’s never denied it
I grew up in East Tennessee, so she’s in our pantheon of minor deities. She was truly awesome for women in sports and I’ve seen so many nice tributes from Facebook friends who were inspired by her. It’s so cruel that she was taken so young.
I was sad about the news, but I was somewhat gratified that one of the first headlines I saw just said “winningest coach” and didn’t try to add any qualifiers, as though women’s sports didn’t count as much. So, progress?
Lurker since the beginning but my first time commenting- I went ahead and ordered a Ship and a Mermaid cause there is no way I wanted to live with that regret! My bank account doth protest- but my heart is happy! The Toast has filled me with glee and joy, and has spoken to my soul since day 1.
TAKE TO THE SEA my darlings!
Wow, that AAM. That’s a level of entitlement that blows my mind. I don’t think letting the interns go as a group was an extreme decision at all; it would be hard not to see it (from the company’s side) as a group attack on a disabled employee.
(also, the interns demonstrated not just a lack of judgment but a complete inability to do some investigative work to find out why someone was being given an exception to a (very reasonable) workplace ruie. That’s not fireable, but certainly means they wouldn’t be on the list for a post-internship hire unless they dramatically improved)
What kind of investigative work would enable you to find out that someone has a special dispensation to break the dress code because of a disability, given that none of the managers shared that information when they were asked? That sounds way less appropriate to me than writing a petition!
That’s true, and you are right. It was 100% none of their business. [ETA: I wasn’t really thinking of “find out if person X is disabled” so much as “find out how dress code exceptions work in general” but your point stands and I was very much wrong]
To be honest, I’m having trouble getting past my own feelings (about how disabled vets are treated) on this one, so maybe I’m overreacting by saying they should have been let go. But it is what I would want to do in that situation.
Yes! That person is way wrong. Internships are for learning. Even if the thing you learn is that you don’t want to work at that company/industry, suck it up for three months! That person is in for a rude surprise when they get a job for real and discover that jobs suck! Even the good ones. That is why it is called work and they pay you for it.
SANSA I AM GOING TO MISS YOU MOST OF ALL
I WILL MISS HIS EAR FLOOFIES
That internship thing… wow. Firing was pretty extreme and I can only assume that there is a lot of stuff that was not shared in the letter but writing a petition about a dress code is not at all the way to succeed at your internship. Internships are about a) seeing what the job you are learning about in school actually is and b) learning how to behave in a professional setting and c) making connections and getting a portfolio. This person has pretty much failed at the second two and while I can feel badly for her that she got fired for an internship it seems like her concept of how being employed works needs some adjustment.
Yes! That letter made me so angry. If they couldn’t even handle three months at that internship they are in for such a shock when they get a job for real and have to stick it out for real at a job where not everything is going to go exactly your way.
We had an intern at one of my first jobs who was like this. He would come in wearing socks and flip flops, sat on a bouncy exercise ball, corner every executive in the hallways and (try) to schmooze them. He wrote the most unprofessional emails to authors, and then when we corrected him, he went way over the top with faux-politeness. His internship was cut short, but then he asked me to write him a letter of recommendation. And I was like DUDE in no uncertain terms, I helped get you fired. .
Socks with flip flops is a fireable offense in and of itself.
This letter to a ten-year-old who applied for a fellowship will make your whole day, I promise.
I can’t wrap my head around the fact that we only have two more days.
Damn, and I was doing so well with not being sniffly today.
Allergies, I totally have allergies at my desk right now.
Wow. This is so beautiful!
oh wow.
I feel like if I ever see someone carrying a Toast Tote in the wild I’m going to freak out on that person (in a good way). TOASTIES I LUV U ALL.
Also that tweet is so relevant to my life.
I am actually really hopefully that someday I will be carrying my Toast Tote on the train and someone will recognize it and we will enjoy a brief, joyful reunion.
i bought mine with the understanding that this would be a guarantee!
Same.
I bought a tote! Do I NEED a tote? Well, no. But I wanted to do something to commemorate the Toast :/
Everyone needs totes! They we’re good for the produce that we buy when we’re trying to be good people but forget to eat, and also for transporting the severed heads of our enemies.
Those are both useful uses for Totes! I was thinking more that I already own a thousand Totes, and husband is going to say “You bought another Tote?” And then I will point out that he recently bought a kettlebell on a whim.
Toasties, this is open thread materials but it is the day before the Toast ends and I am just breaking rules. I love all of you and will miss this space!
I have managed to put myself into a panic over a lump on the side of my neck. My doctor was not worried about it at all, said it was a lymph node and all my bloodwork was fine. I’m on antibiotics to clear up any infection. Of course I have managed to find every story on the internet about others who had this same thing but had lymphoma and I’m very freaked out. Also, we’re trying for a baby (which has been a year of nothing, which is a totally other thread) and of course I’m like, BUT WHAT IF I THEN HAVE CANCER.
internet hugs, similar “haha yes this happened but all was well!” stories, would be appreciated.
I hope this is reassuring:
I’ve totally had this same issue with a lymph node in my neck. It was several years ago and I’m still fine. 🙂
I had a lump on the side of my neck when I was a child! It wasn’t a lymph node though, but still not harmful. It was about the size of one of those lumps you get when you bash your forehead really hard. I was not worried… but that’s because at that age I was more concerned with wondering if my toys were going to come alive when I left the room. The doctors said it wasn’t anything bad and I had surgery to remove it; I was little at the time but they said it was basically a bunch of ghost cells (I remember it because I thought ghost cells sounded cool) that were harmless but…lumpy.
So basically it’s going to be ok even if my thing was different from yours. But you can now be a member of the lumpy neck club which is pretty exclusive. We have no membership fee and do no activities.
I found a small lump on the side of my neck last summer. Same thing for me–my doctor wasn’t worried, said it was a lymph node and my bloodwork was fine. A year later, I’M FINE! It shrinks sometimes (it’s tiny now), and sometimes is a little bigger.
I also get little bumps in my breasts, that seem to wax and wane with my cycle and how crappy I’m eating. Those have been checked out, too, and they’re normal and not cancer.
My lymph nodes do the same thing too, and they are everywhere in your neck. They stay inflamed longer if you poke them (not that I know from experience anything). Bodies are weird!
The exact same thing happen to me when I was a teenager, and the doctor said it was from my ear piercing getting infected and draining into my lymph nodes (fun!). It totally went away and was fine!
I had a big, really firm lump under my chin years back and went into full George Costanza IS IT LUPUS panic shrieks, but it turned out to be a reaction to a spider bite. A serious one, but it cleared up over the course of a few weeks. Take good care and it will likely resolve on its own.
Neck lumps happen all the time! They’re most often due to infections and resolve with antibiotics. It’s common for lymph nodes in our neck to get big after infections, viral and bacterial, and they can stay big for a while after you’ve recovered from the initial infection. And they can also get directly infected themselves.
Your doctor is doing the right things by starting with bloodwork and antibiotics. If a couple weeks go by and you’ve finished the antibiotics and there is no change, please contact your doctor again to make sure nothing else needs to be done. And STOP GOOGLING! I swear, those algorithms are designed to pull up the worse-case medical scenarios, even if they’re not as common as the benign stuff. Websites I recommend to my patients for health-related stuff include the Mayo Clinic, the NIH, and the CDC.
My oven continues to be broken, so here, have this article about the glories of bread: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2016/…
This article keeps using the phrase “breading wheat” as if they searched-and-replaced on the word “breed.”
I grabbed two extra totes, one for a local Toastie who mentioned being out of town and unable to be here this morning and another for a beloved Toastie whom I have not seen comment about them in the frenzy. If either of those end up being unneeded I will delightedly mail them to anyone who misses out entirely or gets missed on Nicole’s gifting list. My email is on the Google doc we have going and I will slack/tweet if they end up being superfluous once the dust settles.
Medical fees… augh. I cannot imagine the stress and trauma of wanting to be home with my little one recovering from surgery and having to choose that or keeping us financially solvent. GoFundMe is a wonderful thing. I wish I could pay the entire thing.
My tote can come to me as slowly and cheaply as you like – I am content to know it exists in the world, aware that it is mine, and intending to make its way to me.
I dropped another $25 in the bursary hoping I’d be donation #69. I may be a humorless, pedantic feminist, but I know a #lifegoals when I see one!!
bless you!!!!!
‘humorless, pedantic feminist ‘ – sounds like had ja a pretty solid lock on a life-goal already tbh
#nice
IMPORTANT: the baby just said “Hey, Ms. Carter!” back to Beyonce when she sings “let me hear you say ‘Hey, Ms. Carter'” and I have never known such joy.
OMG please say those were his first words ever
[all the hearts in the world]
Also, if you have not heard back about your freebie email, I DO have a few new donations, so take heart, you may be moving off the wait list.
Toasties. I just came back from Amsterdam where I visited some old friends. This was hot on the heels of Brexit and I was kind of hoping that I’d be so delighted to be back in the motherland that I’d be immediately prompted into moving back. However, when I was there one of my friends said he’s regularly assaulted for being gay, and I actually got spat on by someone for holding hands with my (black) friend (I’m white). On my way home I read about all the racist incidents popping up in Manchester and elsewhere and now I’m double depressed, and clinging to the thought of my Toast tote arriving at some point in a distant, brighter future. Ugh.
Ugh indeed. Sorry you experienced that. People can be so needlessly awful.
Thanks. I guess the best thing is to remember people can be needlessly and unbelievably kind too… Gulp
Dear god, that intern.
Setting aside the exploitative nature of most internships, WHAT THE FUCK WAS SHE THINKING? I’m sorry, and maybe this sounds cold, but I’ve been in management now for about 6 years, and my least-favorite thing ever to hear about dress code (ours is quite strict as well) is “Well, but so-and-so-wore such-and-such the other day! It’s not faaaaaaaiiir.” Seriously, if you come into my office to discuss your grievances couched in terms of how you compared yourself to someone else, I am sitting there picturing you kicking your heels on the carpet in my office while you talk, having a massive tantrum. The reality about the business world is Nunya, and as ‘nunya fucking business.’ It doesn’t matter if the receptionist comes in wearing a mini-skirt and sneakers. Pay attention to your own shit and leave the managing of your peers to their supervisors. Period.
Genuine question: what is an internship for if it’s not to learn these kind of things? Are they just supposed to come in knowing it?
In my company, our interns have typically been coming in to learn the ground-floor basics of our business – but not ‘how to behave in a business environment’. Some of that is likely luck on our part, and some if it is that almost no one interns at mortgage companies, or not my mortgage company. We’ve only had a very few interns (who were paid) and they were all professional, eager to learn and any complaints about the dress code were never said in management’s hearing.
The ones who do bitch in my experience are the older workers (almost exclusively women, but my office is 3/4 female so that’s likely the cause of that) who sidle into my office or their direct supervisor’s office and make nasty, pointed, snide remarks about how the dress code is fine, *they* don’t personally mind it, but did I *see how so-and-so wore a shirt that didn’t hide her tattoo?
I’ve noticed in general that people who have been with our company longer get bent out of shape when things change to give new benefits. Especially if it something that they have no use for themselves at this point.
I totally sympathize with people who don’t know. But I don’t really sympathize with this intern for not learning after 1. being given a dress code during, presumably, some training 2. coming to work daily and observing that most people follow it 3. asking their manager to change it and being told “no.”
And, like a lot of AAM commenters are saying, being fired from an internship while you’re still in school IS a learning opportunity.
Yeah, the real problem here is the arrogance and entitlement the intern displayed by submitting a PETITION like some sort of organized rebellion of interns against their overlord. They should be there learning, asking questions, helping out, and getting help. They’re not there to change the company. (Note that I had an extremely bad experience when an intern who could not even do any of his own work competently OR on time felt the need to email me, the marketing director of the company, with a list of things he thought I could be doing better. My brain short-circuited.)
Plus it’s a way better mental exercise, and much more motivating, to try to find ways to subvert the dress code that are not technically in violation.
I fit in really well with office life…
The most useful skill I picked up in my 8 years in fundie high schools and college was the creative subverting of dress codes.
“Well, where in the dress code does it expressly forbid wearing a dress that has a full-length zipper running down the front?”
I prided myself on meeting the letter but not the spirit of the law as much as humanly possible. 😀
Having read the letter, I have the strong impression the writer is male, which would go some way toward explaining the unthinking entitlement component.
Out of curiosity, what makes you say the writer is male?
I don’t manage interns, but I do have experience being mansplained at by the occasional person who has no knowledge or experience with my work telling me how I should be doing it instead and talking over me when I try to say anything. Some people would really benefit from a punch in the teeth.
What I can’t get over in the Prudie letter (the lady who doesn’t want a relationship with her daughter) is that she seems so sure that if the daughter visited she’d have to introduce her to people. I’m sure she knows her community better than I do, but man, how different her experience must be from mine that she can’t imagine going out for lunch without running into someone she knows.
Maybe it’s the introvert in me, but I do not want to live in that world at all. My mother won’t go to the grocery store without putting her full face on and wearing at least business casual, and lord, it seems exhausting.
I am hearing that letter as read by Laurie Breed from Silicon Valley.
But that having been said, she sounds awful. If you don’t want a kid, don’t have a kid. Don’t abandon said kid and then treat her like an inconvenience. Ugh.
Like, it’s not her fault she exists, you asshole. That was your doing.
Yeah, my mom and brother belong to the only country club in my small town and for every holiday, when I’m visiting, we go to the club’s brunch/lunch/buffet dinner. It’s a goddamned nightmare, is what it is.
Keep in mind, too, that this started roughly twenty years ago, when I left for college and only came home occasionally. In those few years away, I forgot everyone’s name that I was supposed to know (because of lack of interest on my part) and it was just super stressful. We had gone a lot as a kid, because of swimming, on my part anyway, and it was okay. Just, going as an adult for the sole purpose of socializing was so very brutal. So brutal.
Anyway, unrelated to my problems and anecdote, that woman is a monster.
I just keep thinking about how Maud Gonne had Iseult live with her as her ‘niece’ for years, even though they both knew it wasn’t true.
Seriously, just find a neutral location without people you know. Even if you have to leave town to get to one–that might be better anyway! Mallory made a really good point about how colluding in a lie draws people together, and asking her to do that would be counterproductive.
I actually admire that intern’s gall. It’s surprising me to see all the contempt for her here; I get that she chose the wrong hill to die on, but I think she was brave and has a massive ego. Those are both good things.
I wish I had had that kind of self-centeredness when I was younger; instead I was easily intimidated, and afraid to say boo to a goose. People assume you’re submissive and weak and try to walk all over you when you’re like me. Hopefully, LW will keep that ego and that bravery all her life, and learn to apply it to stuff that actually matters.
From the clip here on Toast, I was leaning toward sympathizing with/admiring intern. It wasn’t until I RTFA that I was blown away by how inappropriate her action was. She was basing her argument that the rule wasn’t universally enforced on an employee who wore running shoes because she had lost a leg!
I agree that it’s a very good thing to be sure of yourself and have the guts to demand your propers, but christ on a bike, have some perspective.
Yeah, but – either it’s widely known that that other employee has lost a leg, in which case the manager could have said, “Oh yeah, Lorraine’s disabled, so it’s a reasonable adjustment. Everyone else has to follow the rules!” Or else it’s not often mentioned and the employee doesn’t want it shared widely, and the management team just brought it up to make the interns they were firing feel bad. You can’t blame the LW for for not instinctively knowing that someone was disabled if none of the interns (who had apparently also discussed the dresscode with their managers!) knew!
That’s actually a really good lesson for the interns to learn, though – if you see someone with an accommodation (flex schedule, dress code exemption, etc.), your first assumption should be that there’s a good reason for it. If someone has an accommodation for a medical issue, they shouldn’t have to make that public knowledge so their coworkers will know it’s a “legitimate” accommodation.
If you’d like a similar exemption, rather than using that person as an example of why it’s not fair that you have to, say, work a non-flexible schedule, you should go to your manager & be like, hey, here are the reasons this would be a good idea for me as well.
Yes, this. God knows the worst thing in the workplace is a coworker who starts to track your vacation days, or how often you pick up the phone or go to the bathroom or how long you’re at lunch. That nosiness needs to be nipped in the bud, because it’s a clear sign you’re not paying enough attention to your own work.
I agree it’s a good lesson,which is why I think the response should have been a manager going, “OK, you’ve clearly misunderstood some stuff, here’s how this works, get the hell out of here and don’t let me hear about any more stunts like this”.
What I don’t get is that it’s either public knowledge that Lorraine only has one leg and has a reasonable adjustment (UK term, don’t know what the equivalent is), in which case why didn’t any of the managers just say that straight up, or it’s not, in which case telling them at the “you’re fired” meeting was also a massive and inappropriate breach of Lorraine’s privacy. You can’t have it both ways!
Fundamentally, I think a company that needs to fire its entire intern cohort has massively, massively fucked up somewhere along the way.
Oh but it’s TOTALLY not okay to tell other people about medical accommodations, and this isn’t something that you should pry into.
noooo please let us not aspire to self-centeredness. It is so very different from sticking up for yourself, which is what I think you mean.
I do indeed mean self-centeredness. I like it. I like hers, and I like mine. You don’t have to agree with me, but I hope you understand that I meant exactly what I said.
I would have to disagree that a massive ego is a good thing. There’s a big difference between sticking up for yourself and enforcing reasonable boundaries, and being cluelessly insufferable or entitled. There’s plenty of the latter in the corporate world already.
My bike got stolen. I keep it locked up (with a heavy-duty lock) just outside my apartment’s front door. This is the second time I’ve had a bike stolen, but this time it was my NICE bike I treated myself to a couple of years ago. It’s been my main form of transportation while the weather is nice. I made a police report but I don’t expect anything to come of it. Anyway, that’s sort of ruined my day.
Oh no! I’m sorry, that’s so frustrating and upsetting. 🙁 I hope you do get it back.
I can’t log into my account on my phone, but just wanted to say:
Keep an eye on Craigslist in case it pops up
Also so sorry it is gone, having a bike stolen sucks
Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear that, it’s horrible! Does your city have any FB groups about locating lost bikes/troll Craiglist for it?
OH THAT IS THE WORSTTTTTTT
I’m so sorry.
Reddit also has cycling subs for many cities, which can be quite enthusiastic about trying to find stolen bikes.
Ugh I remember the mild post-traumatic symptoms I had after my bike was stolen (which nicely coincided with a break up with the guy who helped me buy it) and every time I saw a red bike I was like “IS THAT IT” for weeks.
I couldn’t get on the site until 10am and I was so worried that the totes would be gone, but I got my Sea tote! I AM SO EXCITED FOR IT. It will comfort me in my Toast-less future.
Moving TWELVE of you off the freebie waitlist!
I bought and tote and then I felt guilty for buying a tote when I do not need one so I gave some money to the Toastie who needs to support her daughter. Ugh, money is the devil.
Argh. It’s so bizarre to see articles talking about ‘LDS culture’, ‘Mormon culture’ or whatever and not have a single thing in the article reflect ANY of the places I’ve lived, which includes most parts of the US outside of the Rocky Mountain/Utah area.
People, there is not one ‘Mormon culture’. There isn’t! There’s Rocky Mountain/Utah culture (which I personally find very weird and sometimes vile) and then there’s a lot of LDS people all across the world, and these things are not the same thing.
/rant
I know, it’s not a huge deal, but it really bugs me when people keep confusing my religion for what goes on in Utah, which can be pretty messed up and a big part of the reason why there are strong LDS communities on the Coasts.
Tell me more, tell me more? I recall a Mormon friend of mine, who grew up in the Southeast and went to BYU, was in a Facebook group called “In Utah, but not OF Utah,” which was my first hint that something was quite different about Utah. Is it just a more conservative/centralized church culture?
Yeah! This is so complicated, but interesting to try to articulate. My LDS communities have mostly been very loving towards queer people (throwing a baby shower for new gay dads, etc.), and have been all over the map politically. By careful choice, I’ve never lived in Utah, and I imagine you can find progressive LDS folks there, but I’ve definitely heard/felt that “Utah culture” makes that harder.
In my experience, it takes constant effort to try to distinguish spiritual truths from social traditions, so that you can recognize the possible errors in the social traditions and choose to do things differently. When you live surrounded by people who share your faith, everything is just that much more tangled together. Plus, living in an overwhelmingly LDS community in Utah might mean you don’t know anyone who’s openly gay or trans, and I’d bet that makes it a lot easier (even the default?) to avoid learning more about or changing your attitude towards anyone who is.
Interesting! It sounds like a bigger gap than I even realized. Thanks for sharing – I think it’s always fascinating how people navigate faith and church edicts they may not necessarily agree with.
*rubs hands* Gladly!
There’s a distinct Utah/Rocky Mountain culture where LDS pioneers came and settled. This culture is really heavily shaped by things like:
Persecution
1) Being chased out of the States by angry mobs and declared legally vermin (yup)
2) Then being invaded by the US Army (no, seriously)
3) Then being persecuted in their own home by government officials who flagrantly discriminated against them and did things like install prostitutes in court rooms (I wish I was making this crap up)
1800s and 1900s America was very much not in a fan of tolerance and was totally OK with abusing government power. The LDS church got a lot of that abuse, and stopped trusting outsiders as a result. This was reinforced when some high-power converts in California during the gold rush abused positions of trust and skipped town with tithing money, leading to the highly centralized church we have today where all money and materials flow to and come from Church HQ.
Then there’s the harsh living conditions they had to deal with. Being with the group and listening to the more experienced members was what kept you from dying horribly (see also: Donner party, some handcart companies, etc).
There’s also a weird strain of dissonance because on one hand, they have the true Gospel of Joy, but on the other hand life as pioneer sucked, and a lot of people decided to deal with that by refusing to discuss anything that wasn’t happy.
TL;DR
Utah culture is the result of generations of completely-justified-by-personal-lived-experience paranoia piled on top of really intense struggles just to live, and everyone around you putting their best face on things because if you stop to think about how much work you have to do to eat you’re just going to cry. None of it applies now, but the impact of that time really lingers.
So that’s Utah. But it’s not everywhere! LDS congregations are formed geographically, so the culture of an area is also the culture of the congregation. The people running each congregation are people who volunteer from their local area. Preaching is done by congregation members who are asked to speak that week. Congregations outside Utah don’t really have much Utah culture, unless they’re isolated from the culture they live in (ex military bases. Locals in several places I lived hated the military base congregations because they were so clueless).
So while the doctrines and such are remarkably consistent due to the money and material centralization, local congregations are really more reflective of their local culture and the personalities in the congregation. This is why people’s experiences in the LDS church can vary so widely – for all the centralization that really does occur, most of what people experience is dependent on their local congregation, which can be very different even from the next congregation over.
Thank you! I did not know how preaching was done in LDS congregations. It’s really interesting how history informs people’s views of themselves, as well.
You’re welcome!
I think a lot of the time people don’t realize how organizationally different the LDS church is from many Christian sects, and vice versa. I was out of college before realizing that not all churches had women preach or give group prayers. The LDS church has had women preaching from the pulpit and giving group prayers almost from the very beginning. Having women get up and preach is just the average Sunday for most LDS congregations.
Also, I was completely shocked when I learned that other churches paid their ministers and that donations might be public knowledge (I will be honest, I still have no idea how that works – really, how?). LDS congregations operate on a 100% volunteer basis and tithing is considered extremely private.
I find it fascinating how differently people organize themselves and how much that impacts their worldview!
I work at a Quaker meeting and process donations, and we treat them as veerrrry confidential. The closest we would come to ever sharing that information is making an announcement like, “Some of our biggest donors are aging and can’t give the way they once did, so maybe think about the amount of your own donations and whether you can help make up the difference.” Still, that’s maybe not a very helpful example, because we’re not a normal denomination either! It’s arguable whether we’re a Christian church or not (I would say not, although there are some Christians in it).
Can I just say that I appreciate (genuinely) how your TL;DR was just as long as the comment it was explaining? I feel like that’s such a Toast thing to do and it makes me happy.
LOL I just realized that. Yes, I suspect that is a Toast thing to do. 🙂
I have to confess, part of the reason I did it is that the edit window is staying tiny and I couldn’t see what I’d already written. And then I went off on another tangent that really should have been in the main comment. Should have typed it up in a text file and pasted! Oh well. I’m glad it brought you joy.
The fundraiser in the LR today is for a friend of mine! Thank you so much to Nicole for sharing and anyone who has a few bucks to give. <3
Someone on Tumblr broke down Steve Rogers’ (illogical) jogging route from the Winter Soldier and it’s hilarious.
OMG I am grinning like an idiot. I look kinda like Steve in that last gif.
As a Steve/Sam shipper I love this!
I did *not* consider myself a Sam/Steve shipper (mostly because, for whatever reason, I barely remember anything from that movie) but that post made me a convert. I desperately want to read a fic like this.
awesome. Someone similarly broke down Rocky’s training run, and to follow that route, he would have had to run over 30 miles http://www.phillymag.com/news/2013/09/18/rocky-tr…
Seriously overthinking about movies, I love it!
And yeah, Wilson got introduced in a straight-up romance movie trope, I loved it. I think Steve’s orientation is mostly oblivious with a side of straight, but it was lovely that the directors were willing to play with expectations like that.
I am totally stealing “oblivious with a side of straight” for myself.
OT update on my advice-seeking yesterday, about in-laws who call my preschooler by a nickname that irritates the daylights out of me: I had the opportunity to ask my daughter if she liked the nickname, like several of you suggested. She said, “Yeah,” in that offhand way preschoolers have when they’re not that interested in the conversation. So I’m going to respect that but draw a line that the nickname is a grandparent-only thing and that they don’t use it with other people, like many of you also suggested. Thanks, y’all, for being my sounding board and providing me with some outside perspective.
Thanks for the update! I’d been wondering about this. 🙂
Maybe this is the oxycodone talking (yes, it is) but I appreciate and will miss these comments threads. Just yesterday I went in for some extensive, extensive liposuction of the hips, back, and belly (where I keep most of my weight) as the first major step in my transition from Dysphoric Mess to Custom Gender.
I have bruises that would put a roller derby team to shame but I’m hecka high and feel very much like a badass steering their own life.
I just wanted to share that with you all. My room mate is a trans woman and the first item on her own agenda is facial stuff. It’s been weird facing down the stereotype that trans people are fixated on chests and external genitals. IRL we all have different priorities.
Any kind of body can be an ideal body, and if you can change yours and want to, do it. Everyone who has tried to pull the essentialist “don’t change your body, it means you hate yourself, (stop being trans)” is someone whose had braces or lasik or diets or artificial knees. Social pressures are constructed by that doesn’t mean their not real. I’ve finally found a strong balance between loving myself and quality of life changing myself. Woooooooo.
Good vibes to your continued recovery!
Go you! Speedy recovery!
Congratulations!
OT but I have a really UNimportant online dating question I’d love to throw at toasties…I’ll put it in the reply so I don’t come off as rambling.
So, I went on a tinder date last week with a nice enough dude a bit nerdy (which is fine by me)
I was getting some odd vibes though and when we ended the date he did that thing I hate where someone jokes about “you know if I were that person I would say we should go back to my place now….”
Either own it and ask straightforward or don’t, making it a joke just feels evasive to me.
Regardless I wasn’t looking for an immediate hook up so I pleasantly shrugged that off and went home.
We planned to meet up again this week which I was game for. But when I asked where to meet he asked to meet at his place. I demurred and said “or we could go to a restaurant!” which led to almost a full day of radio silence. his response today saying “We could! But I like to be hospitable 🙂 ”
Now, having met this guy in person for only a few hours it’s impossible for me to tell whether he’s just a bit pushy or what. But I’m personally not crazy about going over to someones house immediately, especially when they’re internet strangers.
My question for you oh wise ones:
Am I being totally unreasonable by not wanting to go to someones house immediately?
Is there a way I could politely push back again without coming off as a total bore?
And various permutations of the above question.
Ahh online dating, amiright?
I realize I only have this one comment to base my opinion on, but tbh you don’t sound very into this guy. You can do and deserve better.
But if you’d like to give it a shot anyway, do NOT go over to his house if you don’t feel totally comfortable doing so. Even if it were “unreasonable” by somebody’s (whose?) standards, that person isn’t the one dating this dude, you are.
With the caveat that my creep-meter errs on the side of creepy-until-proven-innocent, that sounds creepy and pushy to me. If I liked him, I would probably have a second date, but I wouldn’t meet him at his place.
You gave him clear signals. More than once. He’s pushing past them. Ignoring them, maybe. Not boding well for future respect of your boundaries or wishes.
You’re not me. You do you. But if you were me, we’d drop him. No more time/energy for him. Focus on other people to date.
“Am I being totally unreasonable by not wanting to go to someones house immediately?”
Absolutely not. He is being unreasonable by trying to push you into something you’re not comfortable with- he’s really seeing how far he can push your boundaries. No matter who you date, you deserve better than that.
“Is there a way I could politely push back again without coming off as a total bore?”
I struggle with this question too! I have found a polite but firm refusal works. “Sorry, I’m not comfortable with that at this point! I would still like to see you though, can we go to ____ instead?” If he continues to push, then it’s clear that he’s not interested in seeing you on your terms – he’ll only be happy if you give into what he wants. At that point? I’d unmatch the hell out of him. It’s not worth your time to deal with someone who won’t respect your wishes.
ETA: Just wanted to add I dealt with a Tinder guy recently who did something similar. When he kept pushing my boundaries, I unmatched him. Have not had a moment of regret about it.
Right! It’s so hard to strike a tone via text message when you don’t know someone!
Everything either sounds too meek or too aggressive in my head.
You’re totally right though, and I like the way you phrased that response as well
It’s so, so hard to get tone right! And I always have to fight against the part of me that’s saying “oh, you’re being meeeeeean, stop being high-maintenance” which is such complete and utter fucking garbage!!! But it’s in there /so deep/ that I should always give a guy the benefit of the doubt that it’s REALLY hard to root out. Setting clear boundaries and standing up for what you want is a good, responsible, adult thing to do, and good people will see it and respect it. (At least, that’s what i have to keep repeating over and over to myself.)
Oh hello! It me!
Yup yup yup, I always self censor and get way too concerned about how I sound, which is so silly. But it’s a hard habit to break!
Yes! Keep on repeating that mantra, I will as well. Glad to see I’m not the only one who thinks this way
Don’t do it. He’s trying to push your boundaries & you do not sound like you are super excited about him. You’re not very invested at this stage and it doesn’t sound like you want to be.
My general online dating/multi-purpose advice is “you do you” and so no, definitely not be unreasonable to not want to go to someone’s house immediately!
I tend to agree with everyone else that he seems pushy based on what you’ve said, but we don’t know the whole story. I had an online date that I agreed to entirely for the “dating practice” so I get that there’s reasons you may want to go out with him (in public) again even if you aren’t that into him. I’d say something along the lines of “I’ve been wanting to try X restaurant!” or “I’ve been craving X food from X restaurant lately!” to get him to meet in a restaurant. But you don’t owe him (or anyone) an explanation, and his response to that would make it clear what his deal is.
Or he could “host” a picnic lunch and be in charge of bringing the sandwiches and such (In case it’s a money thing). I’m like everyone else in saying that most people are aware that if a man asks a woman he barely knows to come to his place and she says no it’s weird to try to convince her otherwise. If he wants to convince you he’s trust-worthy he should do that by spending more time with you in different settings and not by trying to argue you into it.
Here to agree with everyone else & chime in with a “you don’t owe anyone anything!” If this dude likes you & wants to see you again, he’ll be happy to meet up somewhere where you’ll enjoy yourself & be comfortable, i.e. not his house.
Agreeing with everyone else. If you’re not comfortable with it, don’t do it…and the fact that he’s pushing is not a great sign, I think.
You are NOT being unreasonable.
Are there possible innocuous explanations (e.g. he’s broke and entertaining you at home is cheaper)? Sure. But are they the most likely? No.
He’s ignoring your signals, you said you got a weird vibe from him on your first date, and you don’t really sound all that interested in him. If you’re the kind of person who takes a while to warm up to new people and you’d like to give him another shot, do it in a public place. If he’s worth dating, he’ll respect your boundary. If he doesn’t respect it, that tells you what you need to know.
In terms of pushing back, you have options. You can play coy, and say “oh, I wouldn’t want to put you out! Let’s go to [x restaurant]!” (I would choose a relatively casual/inexpensive restaurant, both to manage expectations and in case it is a money thing) Or be direct and say “I really feel more comfortable going out somewhere!”
You are not being unreasonable! I’ve had dudes act very similarly to me, and usually I either ended things immediately with no regrets or they (often somewhat-snittily) vanished once they realized that I wasn’t going to cave to their pressure. If a guy can’t wait a few dates for me to decide I’m into him/get more comfortable with him physically, then he clearly doesn’t value me as an individual that much or has incompatible priorities/speed from me. (I’ve had to remind myself of this a few times when guys I thought had potential faded away because I didn’t want to get physical right away.) Either way, it’s not going to work for me. Also, if a guy is being pushy to the point of being disrespectful that early on when we’re supposedly on our best behavior, that doesn’t bode well for his personality.
Chiming in to the “nope” crowd. That kind of pushback from him was unnecessary, you placed a clear and reasonable boundary and he wanted to test it. Drop him, a reasonable dude would be psyched that you want to go on a second date with them, not petulant that you don’t want to go to their place immediately.
Also, I’ve never regretted not going to someone’s house with them, so there’s that.
you are not being unreasonable! I’ve dealt with similar dudes before. IMO, if a man does not even understand why a woman might be reluctant to go to a stranger’s apartment, that’s a major red flag about his judgment and consideration. I also object to his use of a smiley face in that text, which suggests he is trying to Nice Guy manipulate you.
There are plenty of “nice enough” dudes out there, and none of them deserve a second date just for being nice enough. You deserve better than this guy!
Everyone’s already covered this, but I only have a couple more days to comment here, so: go with your gut. We’re often taught to ignore our instincts and just be polite or take a chance on people, etc., but if your gut says this doesn’t feel right, trust that.
I suspect he wants to offer you some surprise he’s been preparing — maybe he cooks, or whatever. (hopefully it’s not the chains in the basement or something). I will differ a little from others in that I think you could still give him the benefit of the doubt by explaining straightforwardly that you don’t feel you know him well enough to be going to his house yet, but are up for a restaurant instead, and see how he responds.
But only if you feel like it.
He should have explained more than “I like to be hospitable” if it’s the case that he wants to cook for you or whatever, and he should be paying attention to your needs and feelings, not just his. It’s an orange (persimmon? very-nearly-red) flag.
DEFINITELY I would not let him pressure you in any way to go to his house before you’re ready. Doing that would set off loud alarm beeps on the safety creep-o-meter!
Nope. nope. nope. This person is being pushy and not respecting your request. Seems like a dude who either doesn’t recognize or respect that women have a right to be cautious. He is either totally clueless or a rude, maybe scary person.
Well damn, what am I going to do without this site?
Everyone came in with such SANE and REASONABLE advice! Such a breath of fresh air.
I am sometimes a bit cautious when it comes to situations like these so it’s nice to have a bounce board.
Internet dating is so weird that I can have a hard time parsing what is totally normal, and I tend to spend too much time worrying about how other people “feel” (working on that!)
I should clarify as well, I had a perfectly nice time while in person, good conversation and all. It was more the responses I started getting as the date ended and afterwards that made me go “hmm”
When you don’t really know someone that well everything could seem like a red flag, but at the same time maybe just don’t be creepy? It’s not that hard dudes.
I would definitely give him the benefit of the doubt and say he may not realize how he comes across but at the same time I have no interest in teaching someone how to act.
I feel better about my firm refusal, thanks all!!
Whether or not we meet in a normal setting is TBD. For now, I’m just “boy bye”* and I’ll see how he responds from there.
*and by “boy bye” I mean a much nicer “thanks but no thank you!” ha
I recommend joining toastie twitter, a bunch of us talk about this stuff a lot.
I’ve also had that same experience before, when during the date itself everything is kind of fine, but then after I get home and reflect on it more I realize there were some red-flaggy moments that I didn’t notice in the moment. It’s totally fine to change your mind about people!
My main attitude is that I will go on a first date for coffee or a drink with almost anyone who types in complete sentences and seems decent; it’s low stakes and I try to use dating apps as an introduction tool more than a compatibility test. But I only go on second dates with people I actually enjoy and want to see again! This results in tons of first dates, which is good practice, and not many second and third ones; but I’d rather not spend my time on people I don’t feel an actual spark/connection with. Just being nice enough and not doing anything BAD is not enough to earn more of my time.
Yeah very good rule of thumb, I try to give people two dates if they seem pleasant but it’s not a hard and fast rule by any means.
“Just being nice enough and not doing anything BAD is not enough to earn more of my time.”
– SO TRUE
Toastie twitter sounds great! I need to start adding everyone 🙂
oh man this is an excellent approach ::furiously taking notes::
I should clarify as well, I had a perfectly nice time while in person, good conversation and all. It was more the responses I started getting as the date ended and afterwards that made me go “hmm”
You know, I have this a lot too on dates and job interviews. It all seems perfectly nice but once I get out of there and give myself the necessary time and space to process it, then I see the flags of varying hue in hindsight. Frequently it’s hard to pick these things up in the moment because you’re focused on presenting your best self, so while you’re absorbing what they’re putting out, you’re not analyzing it. The most valuable thing I’ve picked up in dating is to stop and listen to my second and third thoughts.
“I like to be hospitable”
Oh dude. DUDE. Hospitality is about putting people at ease. Dude, UR doin it rong.
YUUUUUUUUUUUUUP
Amen to all the advice you have received, and also:
BEING WORRIED ON A DATE IS NEVER UNIMPORTANT.
People (mostly female people) are so socialized to let others walk over them and break their boundaries, and this is not right.
Feeling uncomfortable is important!
Being ignored is important!
Being able to date someone without being creeped on is important!
You are perfectly in the right to ask whatever dating question you need answered. You do you, and that includes you take care of and respect you, including your instincts.
Yes, exactly!
OP, even if he were doing something less creepy than trying to get you into his home on your second date after you had turned him down multiple times [PS – THAT’S CREEPY.], if his behavior makes you uncomfortable, then it’s a no-go!
That is why it’s important for men to be polite and — dare I say? — gentlemanly when they first meet you. Given that you are a female person dating in a world where the chance of rape and abuse is far, far greater than the 0% that it should be, a guy worth dating would try to help you feel comfortable and unpressured while in his presence. This guy is not like that.
Listen, you don’t actually have to put up with stuff you don’t like in people that you’ve been on just a few dates with. Even if the Thing You Don’t Like About Him were objectively non-objectionable, if you don’t like it, then you don’t have to see him again. Making the choice to date someone is not some court of law decision where you have to prove that some person is off-putting enough for you to turn down. You don’t have to twist yourself up into weird little knots wondering whether or not you should give him a chance. If you don’t like something about someone this early in the dating game, turn them loose: time spent with them and their objectionable-to-you qualities is time NOT spent finding someone without said qualities.
I think a lot of the time we forget this about dating, because we want the other person to like us. We forget to check in and see whether or not WE like THEM. My standard for going out on more dates with someone is that s/he is at least as awesome as me and my friends, and that I come away from spending time with the person with positive feelings, just like I do when I spend time with my friends.
I’d cut this putz loose now while you’re not emotionally invested, but that’s because my boundaries are constructed of adamantine, obsidian, and trip-wires that emit a sonic boom when some jerk tries to trip them.
“my boundaries are constructed of adamantine, obsidian, and trip-wires that emit a sonic boom”
Yes! How lovely to meet someone like me, and how sad that the Toast is ending! I am still trying to work out Slack, although I also hear there is a Toast reddit.
He’s being obnoxious. I think when you let a guy know you don’t want something and he pushes for it again, he’s counting on female politeness to help him get what he wants because he knows you’re going to question yourself – like you did here. Obviously you’re not being unreasonable and he’s a douche for making you ask yourself (and us) that question.
Can someone recommend a relatively painless way for a US Toast to learn the basics of British governance? It shames me to admit how confusing I find it; so many parties and I can’t assess what they stand for and how they interrelate. So a bit of study is overdue! Schoolhouse Rock-level instruction preferred, but I will gratefully pursue any leads you share, thanks!
What particular bit are you confused on?
1. We elect a party, and not a prime minister. The party in charge is the one who wins the election (once every four years, unless called early for whatever reason) in a first-past-the-post system by getting the most members of parliament (MPs), one of whom comes from each constituency (so pretty much every city is a constituency, and so are large areas of countryside, but London has fourteen because it’s flipping massive). Because of the way this works out, you can have an overwhelming /overall/ vote in favour of one party (at the last election it was UKIP *shudder*) without them coming into power, because they need the most MPs. The Queen has to say she’s OK with the government, but honestly if she said no it would spark a constitutional crisis and who knows what would happen, so she just says yes.
2. The prime minster is the head of the party, and picks out a cabinet of his most favouritest followers to do things like oversee education, finance, etc. So if they quit, the party stays in power BUT may call a general election if they think they don’t have a mandate or want people’s support for whatever bullshit they’re about to pull. The parties who are not in power have shadow cabinets with the same set up. There’s a permanent civil service who do all the administration and so on so that it doesn’t all come to a crashing halt every four years.
3. The major parties at the moment are the Conservatives, who are centre-right, Labour, who are centre-left, the Lib Dems, who are slightly to the left of Labour USUALLY but with Corbyn this may be reversed, the Green Party who are gleefully left wing, and I guess UKIP who are far-right rats who’s impartial NOT ME. They are all mostly headed by rich toffs, but Labour is supposed to be the working-class party and has a lot of union support, the Lib Dems are slightly hopeless and may never be elected again after their complete stuffing up of the coalition (also very very quiet during this whole thing), the Conservatives are welfare-cutting bastards also the party of Margaret Thatcher. UKIP are basically /ostensibly/ the party of the working class, but are mostly about xenophobia and filling the channel with lava so that asylum seekers can’t cross it to steal their jobs.
4. We have two houses – the House of Commons, where MPs are elected to and which does most of the day-to-day stuff, and the Upper Chamber/House of Lords. No one in this latter chamber is elected, and the heads of the Church of England also have seats in it. Basically, this is where the members of the peerage are, and I /think/ the seats are mostly no longer hereditary. They can theoretically block legislation as it has to pass through the House of Lords, but honestly it wouldn’t last long, it mostly means it gets tossed back down to the Commons before being passed back iirc. There have been calls to abolish the House of Lords or make it elected for decades, but it hasn’t happened yet and people are kind of distracted right now.
Ooh, I understand this (checks box), it can theoretically fit on a place mat to reread at breakfast (check), all I need now it to have it set to music. (Seriously, though, bless you, this helps TREMENDOUSLY).
Hit me up if you need clarification from someone who lives here and is v. pissed off about everything right now!
Truly appreciate it. I’m doing better already, in that The Tories doesn’t make me picture Tori Spelling and Tori Amos wearing Tory Burch. Baby steps.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2015/ma…
This is a year old (about the 2015 election), but it is a fun video! x
Oh my, it came on at full volume and I almost hit the floor. I love it, very helpful (or it will be when I watch again), thanks so much!
i did a Coursera course called “Understanding the General Election” a few years ago and it was awesome. They might still have it up, or something like it?
– Really agreeing with AaM. This part in the letter really got me: “The worst part is that just before the meeting ended, one of the managers told us that the worker who was allowed to disobey the dress code was a former soldier who lost her leg and was therefore given permission to wear whatever kind of shoes she could walk in. You can’t even tell, and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument.” Or, you know, they might have considered that if the only exception allowed to the code was someone who had literally lost a leg, then their argument–sorry, but this fits–didn’t have a leg to stand on.
– That piece on medical debt just kills me, especially the ending. And good for the collections person who told her the truth.
You might want to re-read the letter: the petitioners didn’t know about the reason for the exception until after they were fired for submitting their petition (“if we had known about this”), so they couldn’t have considered the exception at the time they were preparing the petition.
I think the problem that Halloween Jack is pointing out is that it never once occurred to the group of interns that the person receiving an exception from the dress code might have a medical reason for it, and just assumed it wasn’t faaaiiirrr. This is an important thing for these interns to learn, and will serve them well in the future — assume that things you think aren’t fair actually have a sound basis and ask your boss questions about how decisions on exceptions are made instead of demanding equal treatment.
There’s some ambiguity in the letter, but I don’t think it’s obvious that the writer naively ignored the possibility of unequal treatment being based on a medical exemption. The letter says, “I spoke with my manager about being allowed some leeway under the dress code and was told this was not possible, despite the other person being allowed to do it.” Read that how you will, but I think a reasonable reading is that the writer raised the inconsistency with a manager and didn’t get any explanation for it. (If management thought the medical basis for the exemption is confidential, management shouldn’t have revealed that when terminating the writer!)
As for whether knowing about the medical reason would have made the writer reconsider the petition, again, read the letter how you will, but I think “if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument” says it would have.
All that said, we face once again the problem with advice letters that there’s some ambiguity we can’t clarify.
When I read the letter and saw that there was one person in the whole department with an exception it just made sense that this one person would have a health reason for the exception, and I guessed that before getting to the part where LW revealed it was someone who had lost a leg. I think the fact that LW would not even suspect that maybe the person with an exception may have had an injury or surgery or health condition just highlights how naive they are.
Yeah, that’s how I feel about it. If the majority of employees were following the dress code, I would assume the people who weren’t either a) had a good reason not to or b) weren’t someone whose example I should emulate (for example, someone who’s been working there for 30 years and doesn’t give a fuck anymore.)
Losing your job for naivety is a pretty steep learning curve.
But….it wasn’t a job. It was an internship. And I would hope the LW is smart enough to apply the lessons from this in jobs going forward.
I completely agree that losing their job is a bit extreme, but the interns lost their jobs because the tried to talk to management about the dress code several times. It seems that they were told they had to follow the dress code and didn’t like that response so they went ahead and made up a petition. Maybe there were other issues like poor communication from their supervisor, or maybe part of the issue was that the LW spent a week not doing their assignments because they were drafting a petition and gathering signatures. Maybe there were other issues with their performance and communication that weren’t included in the letter but we just have what LW said to go by. I kind of assume this is just the peak of the iceberg of this interns issues fitting in to their workplace and understanding the instructions they were given.
Welp, I fucked up at work. More specifically, I got myself into a position where someone else’s fuckups are now my big goddamn problem. This is a new one for me (usually I’m the sole fuckup) and don’t know how to feel properly ashamed of my mistakes and angry at the other person at the same time. So I’m just sort of tense and cringing.
Luckily I still have my job, but I’m starting to think it would behoove me to get a different one. Please tell me your stories of how you escaped a morass of bullshit and got your career on track! (Also tell me if you know of anyone whose communications department is hiring.)
I am taking baby steps towards escape, and I guess the only thing that got me motivated was actually putting together applications and getting them out there. That and a round of pump up drinks with my most self-confident friend.
Ugh. Sympathy and solidarity, but no useful advice. 🙁
Did you get a pay raise and title change when you got into a managerial position? Because that’s what you’re in. If that isn’t recognized officially…that’s a major red flag for me. It hamstrings you long-term because you don’t have the leverage to prove what work you’ve done and move to a better job elsewhere. It also says that you’re going to be blamed for things beyond your official control. No idea if that is your situation, but it happens fairly often.
As for me, I worked out what I did and didn’t like in my current job, then went looking for something that was more in line with what I needed. I moved to a position that was a downgrade in some ways, but meant I had much better quality of life AND to where my bosses expected that I would improve my skills and grow, not pigeonhole me. Now I’ve got the chance for a promotion to make thousands more than I did at my old job, plus my boss is very supportive of me getting advanced training and education. Sometimes you have to take a step sideways or backwards to move forward again.
TL;DR Decide what you want out of a job and start looking for that.
Oh shit I didn’t even think of it in those terms, but yeah, I’ve been pushed into what is essentially project management over the last year or so when that was never in my job description. Turns out I’m terrible at it but I can’t find a way to say to management “I need fewer responsibilities.” Especially since we’re understaffed right now. I have a coworker who’s been doing the same fairly narrow, midlevel role for the past 20 years– he’s kind of an old coot and I think people sometimes look down on him for not wanting to move up the ladder, but now I’m starting to realize that he’s got the right idea.
Document the work you’re doing, update your resume, and move along to another job. They’re out there.
You can certainly do management if you want, it’s not that hard, but it does require some training and rethinking of your role in the workplace. Any boss who’s willing to just push you into it is a bad, or at best thoughtless, boss.
For example, this almost happened to me. But when I brought up to my boss that I was starting to have to do or oversee Coworker’s work, Boss promptly got on Coworker’s case about doing his own stuff, and we are now restructuring things a bit so we have a clearer chain of command. If you don’t trust your boss to respond similarly I’d just get out. This is not a fight you can win unless it’s not really a fight at all.
I was laid off, took the first job I was offered, which turned out to be a pit of fear and surveillance and PTSD, survived for ten months while while applying for jobs EVERY GODDAMNED DAY, got my current and probably final fantastic job which is a ten minute commute from my house.
Are you David Cameron?
too soon!
I wish I could offer advice because I have done this (“taken control of my career”) but the way I did it was by quitting my job and being self employed. 😐 It’s absolutely not for everyone.
I have a link for the link roundup!! This review is great and I should have the book in a couple of days! The title is “Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner” and it essentially points out that the labor of roughly half the population doesn’t get counted in economics (my major) and frankly, any model of the world that doesn’t include women is probably wrong.
https://newrepublic.com/article/133904/moms-invis…
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE WROTE A SHORT STORY ABOUT THE TRUMPS
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/books/review/me…
IT’S SO GOOD. MY FAVORITE PIECE OF WRITING PRODUCED BY THIS ELECTION SEASON. I WANT A WHOLE SERIES OF THIS SHITSHOW FROM MELANIA’S POV.
This just made my day
I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be a woman in that household. Luckily I don’t have to, because she’s done that for me. (I thought this was great.)
Re: That Prudie letter. NEVER HAVE A BABY WITH YOUR SPOUSE ON THE CONDITION THAT YOU WILL NOT BE TAKING CARE OF THAT BABY. This is not how babies work. The fact that this woman thought that this had any chance in hell of working makes me dislike her more than her zany “I’ll pretend she’s my niece!” plan. What are you going to do, sit there stone-faced while your 1-year-old tries to hand you her toys? Walk into another room when the baby falls down and bumps his head?
That woman’s poor daughter was doomed to emotional damage from the start: Either a cold, uncaring parent in the house or a parent who walks out. Ugh. (All of the above 1000% applies to dads, btw, since I saw a lot of “You wouldn’t judge her if she were a man!” in the comments at Slate.)
And she acts like it’s the daughter’s fault and the daughter is being really unreasonable. Ugh.
In all fairness, this is exactly how men have managed to have families and high-powered careers for generations. Even now. I’ve met more than few finance guys who refer to spending time with their own children as “babysitting.” And men are not judged harshly for this BS in the world at large (only by women like us) or penalized in their careers for it.
But I don’t think those dudes would by and large a. Functionally abandon the child and b. View it as completely unreasonable that the child would wish to speak with them. And if they did they would be like the letter writer of 2ish weeks ago who wanted to leave his wife and “her baby” shortly after the birth, and scorn would be heaped upon them.
So I’ve been meaning to ask this on an OT but i figure I’d better get it in as soon as possible *sob* – does anyone have recommendations for sci-fi/fantasy novels with queer romances or PoC leads?
NOT queer/POC, but I am a big fan of A Brother’s Price, which genderswaps romance tropes and then proceeds to play them absolutely painstakingly straight. The outraged comments on goodreads are amazing.
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is a queer romance where none of the main characters are white which I loved, and I’ve heard good things about the United States of Japan but personally can’t stand what I’ve read so far so ymmv (no queer people afaik, but plenty of PoC). Kameron Hurley’s novels are full of PoC and queer romances (her Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy is also set in a sci-fi world dominated by a couple of different future interpretations of what seems to be Islam), but are also pretty difficult reads – I’ve had to take a couple of different passes at some of them to make my way through. The Imperial Radch trilogy is… difficult to judge, as the Radch doesn’t /have/ a concept of gender and it’s honestly impossible to make out what we’d judge any character as being (they’re all referred to with female pronouns by default), but it’s superb and there’s a lot of beautiful inter-character reaction. The Grace of Kings, which I think is part one of a trilogy, is set in a silk-punk alternate eastern setting, hasn’t a single white person in it and is uttttterly heartbreaking. Seanan Mcguire has gone out of her way in her recent novels to include transgender characters, though I can’t remember any of them getting a full-on romance arc (the woman in Indexing is very much desirable and desired though, and it’s implied that she could have a full on romance arc with her beau if she wanted one and it wasn’t very complicated between them). That’s what I can think of and recommend off of the top of my head?
Trope-swapping satire, hurray! A Brother’s Price is shooting to the top of my purchase list.
Planetfall by Emma Newman – lead is FOC, queer, with mental illness issues.
Hm. I commented and then my comment disappeared. Trying again without the links!
PoC:
Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord, fantasy
Key of the Keplian by Andre Norton (part Native American), fantasy
Queer: don’t have as much, sorry
Masqueraders by Heyer is 75% cross-dressing but the final couples are het. Genre is social comedy/romace, not sci-fi/fantasy
Deed of Paksenarrion by Moon has an asexual main character, a significant lesbian couple and I think a few other queer romances? It treats every relationship as important and viable and is generally very thoughtful and kind about diversity of all stripes. Very, very good epic fantasy.
For some reason I thought Karen Lord was Kate Noble (of the lovely but totally white & het “Summer of You”) and was confused. Apparently I categorize names by meaning and initial? I had no idea.
It’s not uncommon! But yes, Redemption in Indigo is firmly non-white and also, uh, I won’t spoil things. But it’s good!
If you don’t mind there being tons of misery (not of the Bury Your Gay types, just general grimdarkery), I recommend Kameron Hurley.
Her sci-fi with bug magic trilogy starts with God’s War, and takes place on a clearly Islamic-founded planet, with a presumably Middle Eastern bisexual lady as the lead. Nyx is definitely an anti-hero, and lots of terrible shit happens, but it’s a fun book if that’s your speed.
The Mirror Empire starts her fantasy trilogy, which is a complicated book (seriously, she doesn’t hold your hand, but it’s so worth it). All of the characters are human, but she sets up societies with different gender structures (the initial society has 4 genders, and seem to be mostly unrelated to physical sex, another is a matriarchy, and a third has man/woman/neither as an explicit gender setup), there are all sorts of queer characters, most of whom are explicitly described as non-white (PoC is a bit harder to define in secondary-world fantasy, but they have brown or darker skin). But it’s also really, really dark. Lots of death and desperation.
For straight-up romance, I really enjoyed Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon. The main premise is that a princess is saved by an assassination attempt by an acrobat. Her father discovers that the acrobat is actually a woman travelling as a man, and assigns her to be the princess’s bodyguard, but the princess is unaware that “he” is actually a woman. Feelings, misunderstandings, and romance ensues.
N. K. Jemisin! Basically all of N. K. Jemisin. Leads are almost all PoC, and there are definitely at least a few queer romances (or at least relationships) that I recall.
I started reading the Inheritance Trilogy about a month ago on a Toastie recommend and am LOVing it. I devoured the first two. I’m nearly finished with the third and in that can’t-wait-to-read-it-oh-no-it-will-be-over-noooo phase.
Also, there must have been a similar thread to this as When Women Were Warriors was also being discussed. I liked this too.
Slow River by Nicola Griffith! The main character is a lesbian engineer. There is a romance, but it’s somewhat dark. Also it involves wastewater treatment, so like, all my grad school friends and I were thrilled. 🙂
For PoC lead characters – check out N.K. Jemisin’s books. She is herself a woman of color and her books are amazing and full of richly imagined worlds of diverse characters. The Fifth Season is incredible. It’s the first of a series. I’ve also read the Inheritance Trilogy and generally liked it, though I thought the first book was definitely the best.
Oh, and for more queer sci-fi/fantasy… it looks like the Lambda Literary award does have a category for LGBT sci-fi/fantasy/horror, so you could check back over their annual lists of winners:
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/complete-list-of-aw…
The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson is set in futuristic Brazil, has all PoC characters, and features a queer romance. The story is a thing of beauty. Her book Love Is the Drug is also one I can recommend.
Ash and Huntress by Malinda Lo have both WoC leads and queer romance!
Was just scrolling down to make sure someone mentioned Ash! (I will get to Huntress… someday…)
The Killing Moon by NK Jemisin! Two of the three protagonists are queer and the only white character in the book dies at the beginning. Plus the world building is fantastic, especially if you’re a fan of non-european ancient mythologies.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers features a whole collection of different sexualities/ races/ genders in its main characters. Also, it’s one of those books that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy the whole way through.
And I’m going to put in another vote for Kameron Hurley’s Mirror Empire series just because it does a lot of things well in a way that’s kind of hard to explain.
Stephen Graham King writes SF adventure-romances featuring queer fella heroes – Chasing Cold is a standalone and Soul’s Blood is the first novel in a new series. I think they’re awesome (full disclosure, he’s a friend of mine).
Panther in the Hive is a dystopian sci-fi YA novel (that doesn’t feel YA) with PoC leads and an almost entirely PoC cast.
So many great suggestions! I’m gonna miss this place.
Ascension by Jacqueline Koyanagi was excellent. Queer, POC characters, great story, space ships. Sci-fi + romance.
Oh, I forgot, I have another rec! Elora Bishop and Jennifer Diemer are a couple who have been writing lesbian fairy tale retellings together. You can get them as individual short stories/novellas for Kindle, or collected as a print edition (or possibly an e-book, I’m not sure). I have the first collection: Sappho’s Fables, Volume 1. I believe their protagonists are mostly white.
All of the stories have interesting ideas and beautiful images, but I don’t think they’re all of high quality. Seven (Snow White) in particular felt like a novel-length story packed into a novella casing. Braided (Rapunzel) employs several tropes that are complete catnip to me, so I can’t be objective, though it did seem to resolve awfully quickly. (Tropes: Magic tree. Longing. Magical/mysterious carnival. Dream-quest.) Crumbs (Hansel and Gretel) was a huge surprise to me. It’s a zombie story, and I HATE zombie stories. And it stacks like 3 tropes I hate on top of that. And yet I love it so so so much. I read it 3 times last Christmas and cried each time. (I don’t want to give the ending away, but no, a lover does not die.) It’s also the one that felt closest to the correct length.
I got the book as a huge fairy tale interpretation nerd, and I found each of the tales interesting enough to be worth reading even when they weren’t fully formed. (These aren’t just lesbian retellings, a lot of them are feminist interrogations of the original stories as well.) If you’re more of a casual reader, I’d suggest Crumbs and possibly Braided. Or just look the women up on Amazon, as I think they’re continuing to write lesbian romances in the fantasy genre. (I had thought that Jennifer Diemer also wrote the lesbian Persephone retelling The Dark Wife, but Google tells me that was Sarah Diemer? I have not read that one though and can’t comment on it.)
Anyway, a little odd and niche, but I thought if there was anywhere people might want to know about lesbian fairy tales, it was The Toast (*sob*).
Look for Tobias Buckell’s stuff. He is Caribbean and writes mostly POC leads in space opera and near-future techno-thrillers, often with POC female characters.
Ankharett Wells writes self-published lost-colony cyberpunk with queer and androgynous characters. They’re surprising and cool, and she deserves more attention.
This feels almost too obvious to mention, but the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie (Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, and Ancillary Mercy) is AMAZING, pretty much all of the characters are PoC, and the romance is, at the very least, gender-queer-ish*.
It’s also one of the few stories I’ve ever encountered in which the main character’s arc bends steadily towards happiness, which makes it increasingly delightful to read.
*One of the characters is off-handedly described as being (from our perspective) female and the other male. On the other hand, both characters are from a culture where gender isn’t a Thing, and she/her pronouns are used for everyone. Oh, and also one of the people involved isn’t actually [spoiler] but is, in fact, [spoiler] so really can we call it heteroromantic? No we cannot (imo).
Three Parts Dead! It has a WOC protagonist and it’s super good, I love it. It’s the first in a series that switches protagonist with each book though, and I haven’t read all of them yet. But it stands pretty well on its own as well.
Boop: http://www.tayenlane.com/procyon-science-fiction-… 😀
How can the ship totes be gone again, when I had emailed, even? Alas, alack, potato sack, &c
I feel your pain. Totes magotes. 🙁
Right?? I went ahead and bought the mermaid, which I really like, but I really, REALLY wanted the ship. Sigh.
That’s the one I really wanted too 🙁
UGH FML I was late to a meeting this morning and failed to buy a Take to the Sea tote, and now I can’t and WAH. But on the other hand, some other Toastie does have one, and that is comforting. I am happy with my Big Hair No Heart, I tell myself.
I’m in your boat (not your ship, though, sadly), but I’m telling myself that I’m happy with my mermaid.
That AAM interns letter is crazy and fascinating, but some of the comments are way the hell over the line. There’s no need to go on an extended discussion of how useless interns are, how we have nothing to offer, how we’re spoiled children, and how everyone who has taught us is incompetent (and leftist! shock horror).
I really, really, really can’t with the commenters over there. I’m glad there’s an advice column channel on toastie slack so I can continue to discuss AAM letters with nice, reasonable people who don’t think that jeans are too sexy for work, for example.
Dang, “advice column channel on toastie slack” might be the tipping point that gets me to finally join Slack…
SAME
I just joined slack three days ago and that channel is already my favorite. It scratches all my trashy voyeuristic gossip urges without actually being mean towards anyone but garbage men who deserve it.
At 11:55 AM PDT, there are only mermaid totes left in the store, so I cried one stoic tear and put my $25 in the bursary. Enjoy it, some Toastie!
I HAVE TICKETS TO NYCC I AM SO EXCITED GIRLS THIS IS MY FIRST TIME GOING.
That is all.
Oh wait, not quite all. I need to dig out my sewing machine, order muslin and actually do a not-glued-together cosplay costume. To Joanns!
Me too! I waited an extra day and could only get tickets to Sunday. I went a few years ago by myself and had a great time. I was post-call from a 24-hour shift and despite (because of?) my minimal sleep I really enjoyed wandering around and going to some of the panels. The cosplayers are just amazing and amazingly generous with their time while walking the floor. I’m taking my Dad this year, which should also be a great time. Good luck getting your costume together! Who will you be?
Hurray for taking family members to cons!
Someone from AtLA probably – Katara or Toph, maybe Suki. I’ll have to see what supplies I already have.
OT, but with two days left I’m assuming that’s ok. Has anyone here done a sleep study?
That’s the next recommendation from my doc to try to figure out why I feel fatigued a lot of the time and I’m dreading calling up the place they recommended to find out the cost. My health insurance is no good (there are lots of good things about Obamacare, but the plan I got on the marketplace is decidedly NOT one of them), so it will be entirely out of pocket if I do it any any point in the next 5-6 months, or I’ll need to wait until I can get a new plan at the end of the year in the hopes that it will cover at least some of it.
And on top of price concerns, I have no idea if it will actually help me figure out what’s wrong or just help me expensively rule out a few more things on the way to finding a solution.
So…who’s had their life changed for the better from a sleep study? Who felt they wasted a bajillion dollars on one for nothing? Give me your stories.
If you do have moderate-to-severe sleep apnea, and you end up getting a CPAP machine, it can DEFINITELY be a life-changer. (I haven’t done it yet, but practically everybody in my family has. We were joking about having a family reunion at the sleep lab and asking for a discounted rate). I know a lot of people who felt miraculously better after they started using it regularly.
Sometimes you don’t really know how bad it is until you get the study. One of my aunts didn’t think she snored that badly, but her test was so alarming that they ended up stopping it and sending her to the hospital.
I sat with my boyfriend for a few hours while he got wired up for his sleep study. It was a very nice room, like a hotel room (with cable!) They stick little thingies all over you, then leave you alone to read or whatever you normally do. They do wake you up at, like, 5 or 6 a.m. and kick you out, though, which I think is mean.
I haven’t, personally, but I have SEVERAL friends who have, and I am pretty sure they would all agree that while the experience itself may not be wonderful, it was worthwhile. (Though at least one was very stubborn about accepting the results as valid, even though I know from personal experience that he does stop breathing during the night). And certainly the people I know who’ve gotten CPAPs as a result of their sleep studies have seen a significant improvement in the quality of their sleep and thus their overall well being.
I want to also thank everyone who has been so generous with the Toast Totes Bursary. I literally do not have any money for such frivolities, so when I got email from Nicole yesterday that I was getting a Take to the Sea I was so overwhelmed. I was having a day of feeling very underappreciated, and that there was someone out there who did not know me but wanted me to have something I could not afford made me cry (in a good way.) Thank you all!!!!!!
<3
If I buy a mermaid tote would anyone trade their ship tote to me? I really want the ship but by the time I got out of work only mermaid left!
UGH! I was online two hours after the totes were back, but no matter how much I refreshed it only showed the mermaid one, and now they’re gone again! >:-(
/frustrated
But at least I pre-ordered the If Oscar Isaac Were Your Boyfriend zine! (physical copy version) So that’s wonderful!
And I’m sure I’ll get a Take To The Sea tote eventually. :-/
I don’t know how to react to the suicide bombing, other than with a tired, numb sadness.
I haven’t read the NPR tribute yet, b/c tears, but I was surprised that there was a Toastie among their staff (then, not surprised, when I thought about it) and touched that a major media outlet would make such a tribute. I will read it. In time.
Thank you so so much to everyone who donated! I got an email that I got one which was a lovely lovely thing to wake up to!! 😀 I love you all v much and look forward to a summer of eyeing everyone’s bags in the hope of spotting fellow Toasties!