LEAWOOD, KS—Urging her boyfriend to calm down after he woke up and immediately began to panic, Taylor Swift reportedly began her day Friday by playing a video reminding Travis Kelce who she is and how long they’ve dated. “Hi baby, I know you don’t know who I am right now, but my name is Taylor, and I love you very…
Fujikawaguchiko, a town in Japan known for its clear view of Mount Fuji, has begun constructing a large black screen to obstruct that view in an effort to ward off tourists, saying that the town has become overrun with people blocking traffic, littering, and trespassing. What do you think?
NEW YORK—With multiple eyewitnesses saying the public display of affection on a Manhattan-bound F train had gotten way out of hand, reports confirmed Friday that annoying teen Thomas Hansler had his girlfriend’s whole face in his mouth. “Ugh, if he wants to apply that much suction to her forehead, eyes, nose, mouth,…
WASHINGTON—His cell phone ringing and causing a huge distraction right as their piece began, the nation reported feeling embarrassed and devastated Friday after President Joe Biden answered a business call during their big recital. “We spent weeks practicing for the spring piano recital, and he missed our whole…
WASHINGTON—As mounting campus protests and arrests over the Israel-Hamas war threatened his fragile electoral coalition, advisors to President Joe Biden assured him Friday that this would blow over once all Gazans were dead. “Just lie low, let a few thousand more bombs drop on densely populated areas, and you’re…
They should have a German word that describes the feeling you get when you’re speaking English, and you experience something that you’re sure Germans have a very specific word for but for which there is no direct English translation.
Germans, I’m sure, could create a word that roughly translates to that feeling when you drop your phone, and it feels like your life has ended, but then you pick it up, and it’s fine.
It would be great if there was a single German word for that wave of emotion that comes from seeing a person you know you’ve met before but whose name you’ve forgotten walking right toward you. But before your ignorance is revealed, they say, “I’m sorry. I know we’ve met before, but I have forgotten your name,” and you’re off the hook for having forgotten Jeffrey Larson’s name. They should have a word for that.
They should make a word, probably with a lot of consonants, for the feeling you get when Jeffrey Larson starts talking to you about English Premier League soccer because one time, like four years ago, you mentioned that you knew who a player from Manchester City was. Now he assumes you follow the Premier League, and it’s too late to correct him because he’s been talking to you about Watford and Everton for several years at this point.
Make a word for when two words are interchangeable, but an annoying coworker corrects you every time you say “soccer” instead of “football,” even though they mean the same thing. The word doesn’t have to use Jeffrey Larson’s name directly, but it could if the Germans wanted.
They should have a word for when you’re at your desk, and you look up because you swear you just saw Jeffrey Larson walking down the hallway past your desk. But that’s impossible. Two weeks ago, you and Jeffrey went out to a bar. He’d invited you to watch a “football” match, and you were in too deep to tell him, “I don’t watch Premier League, man. I just happened to know who Sergio Aguero is because of Ted Lasso.” When Watford scored, Jeffrey got up and started taunting a bunch of tough-looking Liverpool supporters. As you went to close out the tab, Jeffrey stepped outside with the Liverpool-supporting ruffians. Things must’ve escalated quickly because when you got outside moments later, you found Jeffrey lying lifeless on the pavement. The paramedics had pronounced him dead on the scene. But now, Jeffrey is alive and walking down the hallway like nothing happened?
A German word for when you can’t find your phone, but it’s just in your other pocket.
Maybe some kind of really long German word that expresses the sensation that runs up your spine when you follow Jeffrey Larson down the hallway and approach him in the breakroom. “Jeffrey?” you muster in a timid, confused voice.
Jeffrey turns to you and says, “Jeffrey, that’s me. Jeffrey La… La…”
“Larson?” you offer.
“Larson, that’s it!” He says, seeming to have forgotten his own name, before his face lights up, “Hey, check this out.”
He pulls out his phone and shows you a nude picture of Jeffrey’s wife—something he has never done before and never would do. As he pulls the phone out, you notice his lock screen is the Liverpool FC crest. There’s no way that one of the Liverpool ruffians who killed Jeffrey just… became him? There’s no way someone could, like, take over someone else’s body, right? Now that you think about it, there was never a memorial service or anything. When you saw Jeffrey’s wife at the grocery store she acted fine, as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Someone can’t just take over another man’s body and assume his identity. You’re sure of that. Yet here stands your friend who was confirmed dead less than a fortnight ago, trying desperately to remember his own name.
Maybe a German word for fermented cabbage, wait, never mind. They have that.
They need a difficult-to-pronounce German word for when you’re having an extreme existential crisis because you can no longer decipher what is real and what isn’t. A word for when you walk along the street and every face looks like your friend Jeffrey, but also, none of them do. For when you can’t even really remember what Jeffrey looked like, if he was actually your friend, or if he even really existed at all. Your ears are ringing, you can’t focus on anything, you feel dizzy. Everyone who passes seems like they could be a figment of your imagination, or real, or perhaps they were also killed and their body assumed by a Liverpool supporter.
They should have a German word for when, despite this intense crisis of consciousness and existence, you really want to see that picture of your (possibly) dead friend’s wife again.
Even Google admits – grudgingly – that it is losing the spam wars. The explosive proliferation of botshit has supercharged the sleazy "search engine optimization" business, such that results to common queries are 50% Google ads to spam sites, and 50% links to spam sites that tricked Google into a high rank (without paying for an ad):
https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies#site-reputation
It's nice that Google has finally stopped gaslighting the rest of us with claims that its search was still the same bedrock utility that so many of us relied upon as a key piece of internet infrastructure. This not only feels wildly wrong, it is empirically, provably false:
https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf
Not only that, but we know why Google search sucks. Memos released as part of the DOJ's antitrust case against Google reveal that the company deliberately chose to worsen search quality to increase the number of queries you'd have to make (and the number of ads you'd have to see) to find a decent result:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan
Google's antitrust case turns on the idea that the company bought its way to dominance, spending the some of the billions it extracted from advertisers and publishers to buy the default position on every platform, so that no one ever tried another search engine, which meant that no one would invest in another search engine, either.
Google's tacit defense is that its monopoly billions only incidentally fund these kind of anticompetitive deals. Mostly, Google says, it uses its billions to build the greatest search engine, ad platform, mobile OS, etc that the public could dream of. Only a company as big as Google (says Google) can afford to fund the R&D and security to keep its platform useful for the rest of us.
That's the "monopolistic bargain" – let the monopolist become a dictator, and they will be a benevolent dictator. Shriven of "wasteful competition," the monopolist can split their profits with the public by funding public goods and the public interest.
Google has clearly reneged on that bargain. A company experiencing the dramatic security failures and declining quality should be pouring everything it has to righting the ship. Instead, Google repeatedly blew tens of billions of dollars on stock buybacks while doing mass layoffs:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task
Those layoffs have now reached the company's "core" teams, even as its core services continue to decay:
https://qz.com/google-is-laying-off-hundreds-as-it-moves-core-jobs-abr-1851449528
(Google's antitrust trial was shrouded in secrecy, thanks to the judge's deference to the company's insistence on confidentiality. The case is moving along though, and warrants your continued attention:)
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-2-trillion-secret-trial-against
Google wormed its way into so many corners of our lives that its enshittification keeps erupting in odd places, like ordering takeout food:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security
Back in February, Housefresh – a rigorous review site for home air purifiers – published a viral, damning account of how Google had allowed itself to be overrun by spammers who purport to provide reviews of air purifiers, but who do little to no testing and often employ AI chatbots to write automated garbage:
https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/
In the months since, Housefresh's Gisele Navarro has continued to fight for the survival of her high-quality air purifier review site, and has received many tips from insiders at the spam-farms and Google, all of which she recounts in a followup essay:
https://housefresh.com/how-google-decimated-housefresh/
One of the worst offenders in spam wars is Dotdash Meredith, a content-farm that "publishes" multiple websites that recycle parts of each others' content in order to climb to the top search slots for lucrative product review spots, which can be monetized via affiliate links.
A Dotdash Meredith insider told Navarro that the company uses a tactic called "keyword swarming" to push high-quality independent sites off the top of Google and replace them with its own garbage reviews. When Dotdash Meredith finds an independent site that occupies the top results for a lucrative Google result, they "swarm a smaller site’s foothold on one or two articles by essentially publishing 10 articles [on the topic] and beefing up [Dotdash Meredith sites’] authority."
Dotdash Meredith has keyword swarmed a large number of topics. from air purifiers to slow cookers to posture correctors for back-pain:
https://housefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/keyword-swarming-dotdash.jpg
The company isn't shy about this. Its own shareholder communications boast about it. What's more, it has competition.
Take Forbes, an actual news-site, which has a whole shadow-empire of web-pages reviewing products for puppies, dogs, kittens and cats, all of which link to high affiliate-fee-generating pet insurance products. These reviews are not good, but they are treasured by Google's algorithm, which views them as a part of Forbes's legitimate news-publishing operation and lets them draft on Forbes's authority.
This side-hustle for Forbes comes at a cost for the rest of us, though. The reviewers who actually put in the hard work to figure out which pet products are worth your money (and which ones are bad, defective or dangerous) are crowded off the front page of Google and eventually disappear, leaving behind nothing but semi-automated SEO garbage from Forbes:
https://twitter.com/ichbinGisele/status/1642481590524583936
There's a name for this: "site reputation abuse." That's when a site perverts its current – or past – practice of publishing high-quality materials to trick Google into giving the site a high ranking. Think of how Deadspin's private equity grifter owners turned it into a site full of casino affiliate spam:
https://www.404media.co/who-owns-deadspin-now-lineup-publishing/
The same thing happened to the venerable Money magazine:
Money is one of the many sites whose air purifier reviews Google gives preference to, despite the fact that they do no testing. According to Google, Money is also a reliable source of information on reprogramming your garage-door opener, buying a paint-sprayer, etc:
https://money.com/best-paint-sprayer/
All of this is made ten million times worse by AI, which can spray out superficially plausible botshit in superhuman quantities, letting spammers produce thousands of variations on their shitty reviews, flooding the zone with bullshit in classic Steve Bannon style:
https://escapecollective.com/commerce-content-is-breaking-product-reviews/
As Gizmodo, Sports Illustrated and USA Today have learned the hard way, AI can't write factual news pieces. But it can pump out bullshit written for the express purpose of drafting on the good work human journalists have done and tricking Google – the search engine 90% of us rely on – into upranking bullshit at the expense of high-quality information.
A variety of AI service bureaux have popped up to provide AI botshit as a service to news brands. While Navarro doesn't say so, I'm willing to bet that for news bosses, outsourcing your botshit scams to a third party is considered an excellent way of avoiding your journalists' wrath. The biggest botshit-as-a-service company is ASR Group (which also uses the alias Advon Commerce).
Advon claims that its botshit is, in fact, written by humans. But Advon's employees' Linkedin profiles tell a different story, boasting of their mastery of AI tools in the industrial-scale production of botshit:
https://housefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Advon-AI-LinkedIn.jpg
Now, none of this is particularly sophisticated. It doesn't take much discernment to spot when a site is engaged in "site reputation abuse." Presumably, the 12,000 googlers the company fired last year could have been employed to check the top review keyword results manually every couple of days and permaban any site caught cheating this way.
Instead, Google is has announced a change in policy: starting May 5, the company will downrank any site caught engaged in site reputation abuse. However, the company takes a very narrow view of site reputation abuse, limiting punishments to sites that employ third parties to generate or uprank their botshit. Companies that produce their botshit in-house are seemingly not covered by this policy.
As Navarro writes, some sites – like Forbes – have prepared for May 5 by blocking their botshit sections from Google's crawler. This can't be their permanent strategy, though – either they'll have to kill the section or bring it in-house to comply with Google's rules. Bringing things in house isn't that hard: US News and World Report is advertising for an SEO editor who will publish 70-80 posts per month, doubtless each one a masterpiece of high-quality, carefully researched material of great value to Google's users:
https://twitter.com/dannyashton/status/1777408051357585425
As Navarro points out, Google is palpably reluctant to target the largest, best-funded spammers. Its March 2024 update kicked many garbage AI sites out of the index – but only small bottom-feeders, not large, once-respected publications that have been colonized by private equity spam-farmers.
All of this comes at a price, and it's only incidentally paid by legitimate sites like Housefresh. The real price is borne by all of us, who are funneled by the 90%-market-share search engine into "review" sites that push low quality, high-price products. Housefresh's top budget air purifier costs $79. That's hundreds of dollars cheaper than the "budget" pick at other sites, who largely perform no original research.
Google search has a problem. AI botshit is dominating Google's search results, and it's not just in product reviews. Searches for infrastructure code samples are dominated by botshit code generated by Pulumi AI, whose chatbot hallucinates nonexistence AWS features:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/01/pulumi_ai_pollution_of_search/
This is hugely consequential: when these "hallucinations" slip through into production code, they create huge vulnerabilities for widespread malicious exploitation:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/
We've put all our eggs in Google's basket, and Google's dropped the basket – but it doesn't matter because they can spend $20b/year bribing Apple to make sure no one ever tries a rival search engine on Ios or Safari:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-payments-apple-reached-20-220947331.html
Google's response – laying off core developers, outsourcing to low-waged territories with weak labor protections and spending billions on stock buybacks – presents a picture of a company that is too big to care:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi
Google promised us a quid-pro-quo: let them be the single, authoritative portal ("organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful"), and they will earn that spot by being the best search there is:
https://www.ft.com/content/b9eb3180-2a6e-41eb-91fe-2ab5942d4150
But – like the spammers at the top of its search result pages – Google didn't earn its spot at the center of our digital lives.
It cheated.
(Image: freezelight, CC BY-SA 2.0, modified)
Message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-congress-curbing-monopolies (h/t Naked Capitalism)
The Age of Cloud Capital https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-age-of-cloud-capital
#20yrsago Senator Franken? https://www.salon.com/1996/02/10/franken/
#20yrsago Musicians don’t understand copyright, but they don’t like the RIAA suing their fans https://web.archive.org/web/20040502072815/http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/pdfs/PIP_Musicians_Prelim_Findings.pdf
#15yrsago Warner Music to Warner Music: You are pirates! https://memex.craphound.com/2009/05/03/warner-music-to-warner-music-you-are-pirates/
#15yrsago Britain’s secret spy-on-every-call-and-email plan already well underway https://web.archive.org/web/20100106082536/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6211101.ece
#10yrsago The business/markets case for limits to copyright https://www.rstreet.org/commentary/r-street-paper-calls-for-shortened-copyright-terms-and-examination-of-international-treaties/
#5yrsago AOC endorses Elizabeth Warren’s Big Tech breakup plan https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/3/18528234/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-big-tech-break-up-plan-elizabeth-warren-endorsement
#5yrsago Strange codes from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2019/04/27/rare-and-strange-icd-10-codes/
#5yrsago In 2008 “synthetic CDOs” destroyed the global economy, and now they’re back https://www.ft.com/content/9c33cea0-6ceb-11e9-80c7-60ee53e6681d
#5yrsago Fentanyl execs found guilty of racketeering, face 20 year prison sentences https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/02/health/insys-trial-verdict-bn/index.html
#5yrsago “Smart” doorlocks have policies that let landlords and third parties spy on you https://onezero.medium.com/americas-favorite-door-locking-app-has-a-data-privacy-problem-f19169a8ab2e
#5yrsago Chinese urbanization has left 25 million vacant homes in rural villages https://web.archive.org/web/20190502215749/https://www.sixthtone.com/ht_news/1003928/25-million-homes-vacant-in-rural-china-due-to-migrant-workforce
#1yrago The Swivel-Eyed Loons Have A Point https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/03/paranoid-style/#eat-bugs
Massy Arts (Vancouver), May 4
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/solo-reading-cory-doctorow-the-bezzle-tickets-876989167207
Tartu Prima Vista Literary Festival, May 5-11
https://tartu2024.ee/en/kirjandusfestival/
Tim O’Reilly and Cory Doctorow on “Enshittification” and the Future of AI, May 14
https://www.oreilly.com/live-events/tim-oreilly-and-cory-doctorow-on-enshittification-and-the-future-of-ai/0642572001651/
"Finding the Money" screening (LA), May 15
https://www.laemmle.com/film/finding-money?date=2024-05-15
Media Ecology Association keynote (Amherst, NY), Jun 6-9
https://media-ecology.org/convention
HOPE XV, Jul 14 (Queens, NY)
https://www.hope.net/talks.html
American Association of Law Libraries keynote (Chicago), Jul 21
https://www.aallnet.org/conference/agenda/keynote-speaker/
Show Me The Money Club (The Rideshare Guy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCETi3XqSds
NUOVO BARETTO UTOPIA
https://videoteca.kenobit.it/w/azRmQBCenVwjSRz9WCp8JS
"The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)
"The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html
"How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)
"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html
"Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.
Unauthorized Bread: a graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2025
Today's top sources:
Currently writing:
Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS JAN 2025
Vigilant, Little Brother short story about remote invigilation. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM
Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests. FORTHCOMING ON TOR.COM
Latest podcast: Precaratize Bosses https://craphound.com/news/2024/04/28/precaratize-bosses/
This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.
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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
A reader writes:
I have a job, and I think a lot about trying to find a new job.
When I was previously looking for a job, the question “why are you looking to leave your current job?” came up a lot. Trying to answer that question is quite fraught. It’s challenging to say what’s wrong with the current job without sounding like a complainer. Trying to sound always professional and upbeat and very respectful of the people I work with leads to a lot of tricky dancing around actual issues inspiring me to job-hunt.
One thing that I think I should be able to say this time, truthfully and without dishing on anybody or any project, is: “I could be earning more money.” I have skills in a field in which salaries are typically 50% more than what I’m earning currently. My boss tells me that the organization balks at the idea of paying anyone in my group more. After my glowing performance review last spring, I got a 1% raise — not even cost of living. I’m behind on my career progression because of having spent a lot of time being just “Mom,” but I’ve just completed a relevant master’s degree (my second master’s) to try to jump-start things. It’s not all about the money — if I loved my job, this would not make me leave; I am able to live on what I earn — but more money would make it easy to justify making a move.
But a friend of mine (who has a great job, managerial-ish, at a prestigious company, so she should know what she’s talking about) says, “Don’t say that.” Rather than bluntly saying “I could be earning more money,” she suggested alluding to this issue in some much more vague, mealy-mouthed, roundabout way when I get the “why are you looking?” question. Like, “Oh, I just want to see what opportunities are out there for me.”
Is this true? Why? I don’t think my current lower salary should reflect badly on me; my current job is the kind of research-focused lab work typical of STEM-field graduate students. Is it tacky to mention the money dimension of the employer-employee relationship? Are you supposed to pretend that money isn’t a consideration, that you’re just so fascinated by the work that you don’t care? (I don’t think the people hiring actually believe that, anyway. One time I tried to apply to a job that paid less than what I was earning because the work seemed really compelling, and I couldn’t convince the recruiter that I was worth interviewing further — it seemed she couldn’t believe I wouldn’t decide against the move, because of the money?) Are they going to think that, if I think about the money at all, I’m perpetually dissatisfied and will forever be jumping towards higher salary?
I think that answering “I could be earning more money” conveys that I am a serious candidate, worth interviewing because they will think I am likely to take the job if they are offering more money. Also, like many female-presenting people, I should perhaps practice expecting recognition and respect. It does weed out employers who might be thinking that they would offer me only as much as I’m earning now. If there’s a potential job that has compelling other advantages (“save the world doing fascinating work in your own private office!”) then I would name those other advantages and not say anything about money. But until I see that dream-job listing … I’m allowed to want to move up to higher salary, yes?
Yes. You are allowed to want a new job for a higher salary.
That’s always the case, but especially when you’re earning half of what your field normally pays.
It’s true that there used to be a bias against talking about money in job interviews or indicating that money is in fact the primary reason most of us work. (Witness this ridiculous post from 2013.) That was always absurd, but it’s changed significantly in the last 10 years, and particularly in the last five.
“I could be earning more money” isn’t exactly the way I’d say it, though. An interviewer who wanted to really parse that might figure that you could always be earning more money no matter what job you’re in and might wonder if that means you’ll jump ship quickly if they hire you. But you could say it more like this:
“I love my work, but we’re severely underpaid for the field.”
“I like a lot of things about my job, but our salaries haven’t kept up with the market, so I’m looking at what else is out there.”
Those are fine. Those are normal and reasonable to say.
However, as a side note: I wonder if you feel a higher-than-warranted obligation to offer the complete story when an interviewer asks why you’re thinking of changing jobs. Your friend’s suggestion of “I wanted to see what other opportunities are out there” is always okay (as long as you’re not leaving after, like, six months — in which case it would raise red flags about what else might be going on). And you really don’t need to find a way to say what’s bothering you in your current job if it’s tricky to talk about; you can use a blander answer.
But in this case your answer is salary, and it’s fine to say that it’s salary.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…
1. How do I talk to my employee about sleeping in and missing work?
I have a direct report who is not a morning person. We have a hybrid schedule (two full team in-office days, remainder WFH). Our day starts at 8 to accommodate half day Fridays, which she takes. She is always last to arrive to the office, typically around 9:15, blaming traffic despite living 10 minutes from our office . She isn’t communicative/visible on Slack until late morning on WFH days. Our team has a very flexible/be-an-adult vibe, which we all appreciate and factor into planning our days/lives — it’s truly great. The issue is, she will miss meetings or join late (often still wearing her nightguard/retainer), turn in incomplete or hurried work, and has been open about accidentally sleeping in on numerous occasions (when she was “caught”). She will be managing our intern this summer, who is working hourly and thus will need to be “in” during typical work hours. Is it possible to change somebody’s sleep habits?
You’re asking the wrong question! Instead, how clear have you been as her manager that she currently isn’t meeting the requirements of her job and about specifically what needs to change? How much she is or isn’t willing to try to change her sleep habits is something for her to manage; the way she shows up at work is yours. Focus on the latter.
Tell her, as bluntly and clearly as possible, that she needs to arrive on time on in-office days, cannot miss meetings or join late, must be communicative and responsive on Slack at the start of work hours, and cannot turn in incomplete or hurried work (and that last one is a really big deal). This needs to be a serious conversation, where it’s clear that these aren’t suggestions or hopes; they’re requirements. You’re doing her no favor if you downplay that; she needs to understand that this has the potential to jeopardize her job — which it should — so that she takes it seriously.
If she has a sleep issue that makes it impossible for her to meet those expectations, she should raise it and you can figure out what to do at that point, and whether there’s a way to structure her job and her schedule that she’s not turning in rushed or incomplete work. But right now, at this stage, your job is to be clear about what needs to change.
2. A business lunch at an ethically shady restaurant
I work for a large Fortune 500 that has multiple locations in five states. My line’s VP is coming in from out of state to do a visit. The visit itself is very low concern, just a basic “Hey! How are you? How’s life? Are you happy here?” etc. However, she’s taking about a dozen of us to lunch. And here is where I have an issue. Morally, I do not spend any money at this restaurant. I used to, until they supported a person convicted of child sexual assault (multiple victims). The perpetrator was employed by them before, during, and after the trial (he’s a cousin to the owner). They did term any employee under 18 and do not hire anyone under 18. Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of “nice” options open at lunch and this place is just down the road from the office. Would it be wrong of me to bring this up to the VP, essentially stating many of us do not support this restaurant? She’s not from our area and would have no idea about this situation.
Since you said many of your coworkers feel this way too, raise it! You have relevant info that she doesn’t have.
For example: “You have no way of knowing this, but some of us prefer not to eat at X because of their support for a cousin of the owner convicted of really awful crimes against children. Could we go to Y or Z instead?” It’s okay if Y and Z are further away. Or if they’re unrealistically far: “What we usually do if we want somewhere nice is ____ (whatever you usually do in that situation).”
3. Break room etiquette
My office has a little break room in the basement that is honestly pretty depressing. As a result, not many people tend to use it, which I think has skewed how some people use it.
Within the past month, I’ve never shared it with more than one coworker at a time and these coworkers all seem to act like they’re alone. One would loudly talk to their partner on the phone the whole time, then later broke up with them while I was there! Another had a significant other make a surprise visit and they made lovey eyes at each other with me stuck as an awkward third wheel. And currently another is watching videos loudly at the table next to me.
I just started sharing an office so I need to use the break room now and I dread it every day! Am I being overly critical of how they use the room? How do I learn to handle this?
Someone broke up with their partner while you sat there! Amazing.
I don’t think you’re wrong in thinking people should be more considerate of others who are using the space … but I also don’t think it’s unreasonable for someone to take a call in the break room or sit with a visitor there, particularly if there aren’t other logical spaces to do those things. It’s actually more awkward because you’re the only other person there; it there were 20 people in there, those things would be less noticeable.
The person playing loud videos is more out of line. And technically you’d be on solid ground if you wanted to say something like, “Would you be willing to use headphones while you’re watching those? My head is killing me and I came here to try to get a break from noise.”
But it does seem like the culture in your office is for people to use that space for whatever kind of break they want, noise included. Any chance your office would be open to setting up a quiet room for people who want it? That sounds like it would get you more of what you want.
4. Can my younger coworkers read cursive?
Recently, I’ve signed a going-away card for a colleague and I’ve passed a handwritten note to a direct report during a training. I used cursive on both, because that’s what I default to, but now I’m wondering if I should stop using cursive as a default? I really like using it because it’s pretty, but obviously I really like people being able to read what I write, too. The colleague’s a peer, age-wise, but my direct report is a recent college grad. Should I only use it with people my own age? Is there a cut-off where people are going to be more unlikely to be able to read it? I’ve been complimented on my handwriting a lot, so it’s legible if you can read cursive, but I realize that’s a dying skill.
I honestly have no idea. I think cursive is pretty readable even if you can’t write it yourself, as long as it’s neatly written (and messy cursive was never all that readable to anyone anyway). But I’m incredibly old. Let’s toss this out to readers who still have more of the bloom of youth upon them and see what they say. (Also, the idea that we all used to learn basically a second font to write in is pretty fascinating.)
BELOIT, WI—After following a vehicle that had exited the parking lot of Hatley’s Pub and pulling it over on suspicion of drunk driving, local traffic cop Travis Hatcher was reportedly too intoxicated Thursday to administer a field sobriety test. “Hey there, Mr. Speed Racer Man…uh, do you know how fast I was—I mean you…
The Beigie Awards are back to recognize the regional Federal Reserve Bank with the best Beige Book entry. This time, we shine a spotlight on one entry that explains how some businesses are feeling the impacts of higher for longer interest rates.
Related episodes:
The interest-ing world of interest rates (Apple / Spotify)
The Beigie Awards: Why banks are going on a "loan diet" (Apple / Spotify)
Where are interest rates going?
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To our treasured [COLLEGE / UNIVERSITY NAME] community,
This week, the unthinkable occurred on our [REVERENT ADJECTIVE] campus. An [INFLAMMATORY COLLECTIVE NOUN] overtook the historic [CENTRAL CAMPUS LOCATION NAMED AFTER PROBLEMATIC DONOR]. Thankfully, the [CAMPUS POLICE / MUNICIPAL POLICE / NATIONAL GUARD / PRIVATE MILITIA HIRED BY BILLIONAIRE FOOTBALL BOOSTERS] responded with [A DIFFERENT REVERENT ADJECTIVE] and [YET ANOTHER REVERENT ADJECTIVE] action to defend the defenseless [AFOREMENTIONED CAMPUS LOCATION] from this band of thugs. While [NUMBER HIGHER THAN 100] individuals were thrown to the ground, tased, tear gassed, and arrested, only [PERCENTAGE BETWEEN 85 AND 99] of these vigilantes were affiliated with our campus as students, faculty, or staff. The vast majority of [NUMBER BETWEEN 0 AND 5] of them were outside agitators from the greater [CITY OR TOWN WHERE YOUR INSTITUTION IS LOCATED AND IN WHICH IT CLAIMS TO BE DEEPLY INGRAINED] area.
These individuals have all been charged with criminal trespass and are forbidden from returning to campus, except, in the case of students, when submitting outstanding tuition payments of [YOUR BIRTH MONTH TIMES YOUR DATE OF BIRTH TO THE 15TH POWER] to the Office of the Bursar to process their official expulsion paperwork. Faculty should accommodate any students affected by these events, which is no students, because, again, these were not student-activists but rather [IDK JUST MAKE SOMETHING UP LOL].
This is not who we are as a campus community. When [NAME OF COLONIAL SLAVE OWNER] founded our college as a [SEMINARY / FARMING AND ANIMAL HUSBANDRY TECHNICAL COLLEGE] in [YEAR OF FOUNDING WHEN NEITHER WOMEN NOR STUDENTS OF COLOR WERE ALLOWED TO ENROLL], he bravely coined our motto: [LATIN PLATITUDE THAT OVER THE YEARS HAS BECOME A RUNNING JOKE AMONG STUDENTS AND FACULTY]. These wise words have guided our mission ever since and rang in my ears as I called in the [CAMPUS POLICE / MUNICIPAL POLICE / NATIONAL GUARD / PRIVATE MILITIA HIGHERED BY BOOSTERS OF THE FOOTBALL TEAM] to use [EUPHEMISTIC REFERENCE TO MILITARY-GRADE WEAPONS] on the enemy infiltrators.
Thanks to our [THESAURUS ENTRY FOR UNDERPAID] staff, who worked through the night to clean things up, I look forward to welcoming your families next week to [AFOREMENTIONED CENTRAL CAMPUS LOCATION] via hologram from my bunker for our [ORDINAL NUMBER] and definitely not final commencement ceremony. Kindly remind your loved ones to bring three forms of ID and a pair of [FAVORITE BRAND OF PROTECTIVE GOGGLES]. In the meantime, we’d like to give you a chance to share your thoughts and concerns regarding this developing situation at our upcoming webinar on Friday from [SHORT, WILLFULLY AMBIGUOUS TIMEFRAME]. Please submit all questions for review to alumnidonations@[INSTITUTION’S NAME].edu.
And to the Board of Trustees: Remember that I know where the bodies are buried. Literally: our campus is built on the ancestral grounds of the [LOCAL INDIGENOUS GROUP WHOSE NAME I HAVE TO LOOK UP HOW TO PRONOUNCE BEFORE OFFICIAL EVENTS] people.
Go [RACIST MASCOT]!
President [YOUR REVILED NAME]
NEW YORK—Resting the device on his thighs behind the defendant’s table, former President Donald Trump reportedly watched a movie on an iPad during his trial Thursday, not bothering to use headphones. As witness Keith Davidson continued his testimony this morning, several reports indicated that people in the courtroom…
In brief: Houston has largely been spared by heavy rainfall during the last two days, but the story has been different to the north of our region, especially along and north of Highway 105. This could change beginning late Thursday night, when the city of Houston will see the potential for heavy rainfall. Next week still looks rather hot.
It has been a wet and stormy night for areas north of Houston, including locations such as College Station, Huntsville, and Livingston. Since Wednesday evening, accumulations for areas north of Lake Conroe and around Lake Livingston have reached 7 to 10 inches, leading to flash flooding. This is certain to lead to additional, significant downstream flooding along the San Jacinto and Trinity rivers during the coming days.
So far Harris and surrounding counties have been spared by the latest round of showers. Although the atmospheric conditions supporting heavy rain remain most favorable for locations north of the Houston metro area in the coming days, some of this activity will push southward. At this time, the most likely period for heavy rainfall across the Houston metro area will now come early on Friday.
To that end we are maintaining a Stage 1 flood alert for the Houston area today and Friday. For the northern locations described above, the regions around the lakes Conroe and Livingston, we are definitely approaching Stage 3 conditions on our flood scale. But I want to be clear that, for now, we don’t expect that kind of flash flooding conditions in the Houston metro area. It really has been a sharp gradient in rainfall. For example, during the last two days The Woodlands has recorded less than one-quarter of an inch of rain. Less than 30 miles to the north, New Waverly has received nearly 8 inches.
I expect the band of heavy rainfall to the north of the Houston metro area to persist through the morning hours before there is some weakening. It will likely move slightly south, covering much of Montgomery County, but it should be diminishing in intensity through the morning hours. Later this afternoon I expect to see some scattered showers and thunderstorms pop up across Houston, but at this time they don’t look too terribly organized. For the most part, in the city of Houston and points south, we should see partly to mostly cloudy skies with muggy air and highs in the mid-80s. There likely will be a bit of a break from showers this evening for the area.
While there is the usual uncertainty, it does appear as though another round of showers and thunderstorms will develop later on Thursday night, likely after midnight. At this time there is a greater likelihood of rainfall across most of the Houston area, including locations south of Interstate 10. Roughly speaking, there is the potential for an additional 1 to 4 inches of rainfall accumulations, with the risk for higher totals running from the wee hours of Friday morning into the middle of the day.
There could be some higher bullseyes. I don’t feel overly confident in the details of this forecast, so expect an update on this website later this afternoon as we get better data. The bottom line is that it could be a wet night for Houston, but I’m not guaranteeing it. Because of this potential for additional rain tonight into Friday, we’re holding on to the Stage 1 flood alert for the entire Houston area.
We probably will see the heavy rainfall threat ending later on Friday, so expect partially clearing skies to go along with highs in the low- to mid-80s during the afternoon hours.
The weekend, for the most part, should bring partly sunny skies and modestly warm weather to Houston. Look for highs in the mid-80s. While rain chances overall in Houston are quite low, they are not zero. Unfortunately, chances appear to be a bit higher for locations north of the city, including the hard hit areas north of Highway 105 described above. To be clear we’re not talking about inches and inches more of rain, but there will be the potential for additional showers and thunderstorms this weekend.
We’re still looking at the warmest weather we’ve seen so far in 2024 next week. Expect highs in the low-90s by mid-week, with plenty of humidity to make it feel rather warm out. It’s not full on summer, but it will definitely feel hot since it’s been half a year since we’ve felt heat like this. There is a chance, but only a chance, that we may see a final, weak-ish front trail into the area some time next weekend to bring us some drier air. A man can hope …
Roberto Jackson Harrington (center) explains his installation of arrangements from “Taller de Harrington’s Leitmotiv Carattere Efforts, perched atop both Piedistallo Narciso and Piedistallo Mogano (support structures for optimal viewing).”
In the final days of 2023, downtown Laredo was frantic with paisanos en route to and from Mexico, buying armfuls of a variety of gifts: Dora the Explorer backpacks, textiles, perfumes, y fajas colombianas para cruzar por las aduanas. The mass of shoppers swirled by the invisible hand of global capitalism around the calm eye of the storm that took up the full city block inhabited by the Laredo Center for the Arts (LCA). As you walk in and shut the door behind you, the city’s volume quickly dials down to zero, as if you’ve been sucked into a vacuum, leaving only the serene quiet of a gallery.
The installations throughout the large space were a dreamlike microcosm of the world outside, as visitors immediately saw two life-sized model car installations by Keith Allyn Spencer, painted with soft aerosol primary colors on polytab over a wood base; it felt akin to walking into a Sims game. Towards the back of the exhibit, visitors saw symbols of consumerism with installations made of recycled bottles built into columns by Roberto Jackson Harrington, a large, suspended multimedia quilt by Mariah Ann Johnson, and a short parody commercial video by Michael Anthony Garcia, all emphasizing the role of consumerism during its busiest season of the year.
The exhibit was the latest by Los Outsiders, the Austin-based curatorial collective of Hector Hernandez, Michael Anthony Garcia, Jaime Salvador Castillo, and Roberto Jackson Harrington. Formed in 2007 when the group met at an exhibit at the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Los Outsiders committed to showcasing the work of underrepresented voices in the predominantly white and affluent capital city. The exhibit’s title, Chai’n Brai Laika Daimon, was a nod to one of these voices: the unique yet much-derided language of the South Texas border where Spanish and English seamlessly tag-team through everyday conversation.
Wrapping up 2023 and kicking off 2024, Chai’n Brai Laika Daimon was a symbol of the LCA’s new direction towards a more contemporary and multifaceted experience. With bold installations, performance art, experimental videos, interactive workshops, and even augmented reality, the exhibition offered an experience unlike many before it.
The LCA’s new direction has its roots in the pandemic years when board members like Melissa Amici-Haynes and Pedro Morales visited other galleries like Presa House in San Antonio for inspiration. That reflective period gave birth to the LCA’s Art Acquisition Project, which invested in bringing long-lost Laredo artists to exhibit back home and purchasing their art for the LCA collection. Most notably, the LCA bought Blue Bato von Sunglasses by Chicano icon Cesar Martinez, whose work was recently acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Virtual reality headset from the “Dreaming at the Border” exhibition by Julio Obscura and Josias Figueirido
Josias Figueirido, “Piri the Dreamer and Flying Coyote in the Garden #47,” 2003, vinyl paint on canvas, 39.5 x 39.5 inches
The Art Acquisition Project kicked off in the fall of 2021 with Obsolescence, an exhibit by Laredo artist Jorge Javier Lopez. Since that time, the LCA has invested in consistent large exhibits that rotate quarterly, in addition to smaller shows on the second mezzanine level that houses the LCA’s growing permanent collection of local artists’ work. This approach is geared towards securing new sources of funding through grants from organizations like the Mellon Foundation, with the ultimate goal of establishing Laredo’s first contemporary art museum.
LCA’s investments in regular comprehensive exhibits have occasionally undercut its longtime reliance on rentals to outside groups. This resulted in differences of opinion as to how to move the organization forward with a cash-strapped budget, which ultimately led to dramatic changes to the board and the LCA’s leadership and staff in late 2023, following Eric Avery’s exhibition Art as Medicine. The show included what some might consider provocative sexual imagery, like large nipple installations that popped out of the walls. According to longtime members of the LCA, this would have been deemed inappropriate for more conservative leadership within the LCA’s past, and helped foster a new approach as to how the center works with artists, an approach that former executive director Rosie Santos strongly advocated for.
While a reconstituted LCA staff works overtime to keep the organization afloat, one unmistakable change is a more artist-heavy board. Rasquache artist Gil Rocha recently assumed the role of Interim President, complemented by an all-artist staff that gives visitors a sense of the new blood as they enter the space. The staff includes Interim Executive Director Bruno Rendon, who enthusiastically gives visitors a personalized tour of the space and the various new initiatives that are taking the LCA beyond a mere gallery space.
“When these changes happened with the Center, there was a lot of uncertainty,” said Rendon, “but the only certainty that I knew was that we need to continue to have people coming to the center. The show must go on.”
Performance by Julia Claire Wallace (pictured left holding microphone) for her piece “Contact,” 2023.
One of Rendon’s most recent initiatives is Art Couch, a side exhibit that allows visitors to divert from the main exhibits, take a seat, and reflect on local artists. In contrast to the main exhibits that typically highlight more established artists, Art Couch often features artists who have never exhibited before. The project began in August of 2023 with photographer Gabriel Velasco, a member of the Laredo Film Society, which is housed in one of the LCA’s suites. Art Couch has since rotated new artists monthly. A recent installation featured the cross-border photography of Pepe Garcia, which was on view through the end of March.
Rendon also runs the Community Art Gallery, which recently showed works from a watercolor workshop by Los Outsiders that was inspired by the work of Mariah Anne Johnson. “The workshop we did with Los Outsiders was a hit,” said Melissa Amici-Haynes. “We had to schedule another workshop because of the demand.”
That high community demand was reflected at the show’s opening, where Los Outsiders’ Hernandez was initially concerned about how one of the performances would be received. “We had a performance by Julia Wallace from Houston. It was going to involve a Ouija board and get the audience involved. I was like, ‘I don’t know if Laredo is ready for that.’ But we asked, and Gil said, ‘You know something, sometimes we just gotta go and see what happens.’ It had a great response, and everybody thought it was really interesting because she involved the audience. And that was just a way to bring them and make them feel that this exhibition and art is for you,” Hernandez said.
* * *
At a recent art walk at the Canopy Complex in Austin, I was struck by how often I ran into signs of my hometown. Walking into Ivester Contemporary, my eyes quickly met the unmistakable animated works of Josias Figueirido, who had just exhibited with Julio Obscura at the LCA for its fall quarterly exhibit, Dreaming at the Border, which incorporated interactive augmented reality with a virtual reality headset and a cellphone app that visitors could use to explore hidden realms behind the exhibit. A large painting by Jasmine Zelaya stood tall to the left and was part of the same series of abstract female faces that looked at you at the Los Outsiders exhibit. As we discussed Laredo and its artists, owner Kevin Ivester mentioned his gallery’s display of work by Juan Dios de Mora, a Laredo printmaker who has previously exhibited at the LCA.
Laredo has long bred artistic talent that has radiated to the outside world, as shown by the far-flung work of iconic Laredo artists like Cesar Martinez and Amado Peña. As a native Laredoan, I can say with certainty that we are often conditioned to feel “unworthy” and marginalized because we live in what some might consider an inferior place that’s “in-between” and perpetually in the shadows of bigger city centers like San Antonio and Austin, and the even larger metropolis of Monterrey, Mexico only a few hours south. We have often relied on these places for a sense of culture and identity, but for the first time, it seems like our light is reflecting back as outside curators and artists give the city a closer look. The LCA’s recent exhibits show that Laredo is a creative force unto its own, with its artists imagining new and different realms that break free from the dominant border story defined by refugees in despair.
Cruz Ortiz walks through his exhibit’s preview with local journalists, explaining “El corrido de cuando when we partied in Laredo,” oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches
The LCA’s current two-part exhibition featuring Cruz and Olivia Ortiz embodies this more complex and nuanced view of the border. Cruz rejects the dominant idea of a “border,” as shown by his social media description of his festive oil painting El corrido de cuando when we partied in Laredo: “Not as the line between masses but the gap as a cosmic center. Rejecting la frontera as a peripheral existence and announcing fronterizmo as a series of mega-epicenteres, como fluid-filled pulsating muddy earthen vertebrae sprouting with plantas and river animalitos.”
In the upstairs mezzanine, Olivia’s exhibit Cosmic Lines; From There to Here further transcends the constraints of a physical border. Her abstract paintings focus more on emotional and personal borders, particularly those that constrain women into traditional societal roles. Her large abstract oil painting The Center of Attraction, which radiates pastels and charcoals that she describes as a “lyrical dance on canvas,” is an allusion to Octavio Paz’s essay “Máscaras Mexicanas,” which critiques how Mexican women are placed in the difficult position of serving as both pillars of society charged with preserving the culture, but also as passive sexual objects.
Olivia Cruz’s oil paintings in the LCA mezzanine
In line with the LCA’s new programming, Cruz and Olivia contributed their own workshops and performances. On March 23, Cruz collaborated with the No Border Wall Coalition on a printmaking workshop; Olivia held a lyrical dance performance against the backdrop of her paintings.
The interest of outside curators and artists comes at a critical and exciting time for Laredo, allowing the thriving grassroots artistic movement here to benefit from a more inclusive curatorial approach from outside. According to Los Outsiders’ Hernandez, this emerging symbiosis between forces within and without would not be possible without the time and investment from organizations like the LCA. Hernandez notes that the LCA, spearheaded by Gil Rocha, was instrumental in putting the 12-artist exhibit together over a yearlong period. In contrast to past approaches where there was limited support for outside artists, the LCA helped with a variety of logistical issues, including shipping and installation, as well as working with its longtime sponsor La Posada Hotel to house visiting artists.
In January, Los Outsiders pitched an idea to rent a large van to take a group of collectors and curators from Central Texas down to Laredo. The LCA was fully on board.
“That’s another example of the LCA really stepping up,” Hernandez said.
LCA Interim President Gil Rocha with board members introducing Olivia and Cruz Ortiz (seen at right)
Cruz and Olivia echoed similar thoughts about their experience with the ongoing exhibit. One of the nicest touches coordinated by the LCA was the live mariachi band on the exhibits’ opening night, which turned Cruz’s festive works into living corridos.
With 2024 full of excitement and uncertainty, the LCA will spend another year forging its identity as a unique artistic space that is not quite a museum, not quite a gallery, and not quite an event center. Instead, it is more like an blank canvas.
Cruz Ortiz and Olivia Ortiz’s exhibitions are on view at the Laredo Center for the Arts through May 3, 2024.
The post A New Dawn at the Laredo Center for the Arts after a Recent Shakeup appeared first on Glasstire.
Claude van Lingen, the Austin-based artist known for his long-term projects exploring time and color, died in March at the age of 93.
Mr. van Lingen was born in Vereeniging, South Africa in 1931, where he and his brother were raised by a single mother until they enrolled in a regional boarding school. He was encouraged to pursue creative endeavors by his mother and was an active draftsman from a young age, a pursuit that eventually became his professional passion.
Claude van Lingen
Mr. van Lingen studied at the Johannesburg College of Art and was awarded a National Teacher’s Diploma in Art in 1952. He taught high school for more than a decade until he was named Chairman of the Teacher Training Department at the Johannesburg College of Art, and was later appointed as Chairman of the Fine Art Department in 1975. Throughout that time he developed the highly successful Perceptual Studies course that led to his winning the prestigious Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Award and representing South Africa at the 1975 São Paulo Biennial. The award would have led to his representation of South Africa at the Venice Biennial, had South Africa not been banned at the time due to its policy of apartheid, which influenced Mr. van Lingen’s decision to leave South Africa and settle in New York City in 1978.
During his time in New York, Mr. van Lingen taught at Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts and was employed by Scholastic off and on for several years. He exhibited regularly in both solo and group exhibitions, including the prestigious John Weber Gallery in 1991, and was represented by the Vera Engelhorn Gallery in the 1990s. While in New York, Mr. van Lingen began exploring the theme of time, and developed his project 1000 Years From Now in the 1980s. The idea had various incarnations in the decades to follow and was greatly impacted by the World Trade Center attacks, an event Mr. van Lingen witnessed.
Installation view of Claude van Lingen.’s “9/11 Memorial: The 20-Year Anniversary” at Co-Lab Projects. Photo: Ryan Davis
He traveled widely with his partner Germaine Keller, and together they settled in Austin in 2005. There, Mr. van Lingen became a beloved fixture in the arts community, as an artist, a mentor, and a friend. He exhibited regularly in the area, most notably at Co-Lab Projects, where he befriended director and founder Sean Gaulager, who continues to foster the legacy of his 1000 Years From Now paintings and curated Mr. van Lingen’s final solo exhibition on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. His work is included in international institutional collections, and while his professional accolades span decades, his personal connection to the artist community in which he participated will remain a cornerstone of his legacy.
Claude van Lingen
Mr. van Lingen volunteered at most institutions in the city of Austin, was awarded Artist of the Year by the Austin Chronicle (2014) , continued to attend exhibition openings only weeks before his passing, and painted even when his faculties of dexterity began to wane. His presence was a strong yet gentle one, and his loss leaves a chasm within the Austin arts community.
Mr. van Lingen taught us metaphorical mountains of information which remain within us in perpetuity. We are lucky to have had such a figure in our community, and are grateful to both Claude and his family who shared his time with us, even to the very end.
Mr. van Lingen died on March 30, 2024 at 6:53 a.m. He is survived by his children, Etienne van Lingen and Rietta McKnight, and numerous grandchildren.
Memorial information is forthcoming and will be announced by Co-Lab Projects.
The post Claude van Lingen, 1931 – 2024 appeared first on Glasstire.
This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.
It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. A conversation about kittens led to a lecture from HR
Yesterday I was called into a meeting with HR where I was reprimanded for an inappropriate sexual comment that I made. I did make the comment, it was absolutely inappropriate, and I am mortified! I apologised to Joan, the coworker who raised it with HR, and I will make sure nothing like that ever comes out of my mouth again.
There was some context for the comment that Joan didn’t share with HR, and neither did I because I was too ashamed to say much. Another coworker, Beth, saw the whole interaction and thinks I should provide the context to HR now, and she has offered to verify what happened. I don’t think I should because it doesn’t unmake the comment, I don’t want to come across as blaming Joan, and I got the impression that HR considers the matter closed.
Here’s the context: it is well-known in the office that my partner and I foster kittens until they’re old enough to be spayed/neutered and adopted. Coworkers sometimes ask about the cats as break room small talk. Yesterday, Beth and I were sitting at the table having lunch and chatting, when Joan walked in to make coffee.
Beth: How many kittens do you have at the moment?
Me: Four little bottle-fed ones
Beth: Oh, so tiny! What have you named them?
Joan: I hate cats.
Me: Oh … we can talk about something else?
Joan: Cats are a menace and kittens should be drowned, not bottle fed.
Beth and me: …
Joan: Cats are disgusting, they walk over every surface to make sure everything is covered in their urine and feces germs. If you live with a cat, you’re basically walking around covered in urine and feces.
Beth and me: …
Joan: And they come and rub their face all over you after they’ve spent the whole day licking their own anuses.
Me: I mean, humans lick other people’s anuses, at least cats mostly lick their own.Joan walked out of the kitchen and the next thing I know, HR is telling me I can’t make jokes about anal sex in the break room. What Joan said wasn’t okay either, but I wish I’d just continued to sit there in stunned silence. I think I should just mentally file her comments away under Joan being rude, as they’re not HR-worthy. But do you think I should give this context to HR so maybe they don’t think I brought it up out of nowhere? Or just let it go, learn from it, and try to move on?
Well … if we had a time machine, I’d want you to explain it in the initial conversation with HR — not as “so therefore my comment was OK,” but to explain that you didn’t just pop out with a analingus comment out of nowhere (in fact, Joan introduced the concept) and that Joan herself had opened with an alarming non sequitur advocating animal abuse, and if we’re reminding people of what is and isn’t okay to say in an office, perhaps there’s one more topic here that should be addressed.
But now, after the fact … well, I don’t think you have to go back and correct the record. They’ve probably moved on and don’t think it’s a huge deal. But it would also be fine if you wanted to go back and say, “I was too mortified in the moment to share this, but I did want to give you further context so you understand that I didn’t just make a sexual reference out of the blue, which I would not do.”
2. How to politely not compliment weight loss
I saw your answer to “Coworkers want to ask about my weight loss” and wondered from the other side — is it impolite of me to not mention a coworker’s weight change?
I am uncomfortable discussing weight and body size with most people (not just a work thing!) and would rather skip the topic if I notice weight change. But if everyone else is complimentary about it, does it look impolite for me to not mention it?
No, it’s not impolite not to mention someone’s weight loss. There are people who are excited about losing weight and hope people will notice it — but there are also a lot of people who don’t want to talk about it, especially at work, and/or who aren’t happy about the weight change (particularly if it’s from illness or other not-pleasant circumstances), and their right not to feel their bodies are being assessed at work trumps the first group’s pleasure in hearing compliments. Sometimes you might know that a particular person falls in the first group (because you’re close enough to them to know, or they’ve clearly indicated it) and that would change the calculation — although even then, if you prefer not to talk about other people’s bodies, it’s not impolite to opt out!
In general, when in doubt, err on the side of not making people feel like their bodies are being scrutinized at work.
3. Are sleeveless blouses “tank tops”?
Our company recently sent an email “reiterating” our dress code (business casual), scare quotes on account of they slipped in some language that definitely was not there before: specifically, a ban on tank tops. In the “allowed” column, for shirts, it only mentions “short and long sleeved shirts/blouses.” I’m wondering if, as communicated, you would consider sleeveless blouses to be in compliance, or if I would be better off steering clear of anything that shows my shoulders.
I’ve attached an example of what I mean by sleeveless blouse. I have enough shirts like this in my rotation that I honestly am wondering if I’m what triggered this email, though in my opinion this cut is perfectly professional!?
Nah, those are sleeveless blouses. Tank tops have straps.
If you want to be sure, you can always ask them to clarify that; send a photo like the one you sent me. But sleeveless blouses are a common businesswear item, and they’re typically considered much more professional than tank tops, which read more casual. (Whether or not this makes sense is a different question, but lots of fashion rules have evolved in ways that don’t make sense. See also: skirts vs. shorts.)
4. Does my employer need to raise my salary if I’m not using their health insurance?
I work for a super small nonprofit that only started offering health insurance as a benefit a few years ago, where my employer covers half my health insurance as a benefit and the other half is taken out of my salary pre-tax. My husband is getting a new job with great benefits that will allow me to also be covered for way less than I’m currently paying, so we plan to switch as soon as he’s eligible.
My husband believes that, once we switch, my employer should automatically increase my salary to include the half of the health insurance they were paying, since that won’t be an expense for them anymore. While I think that would be nice, I don’t believe they have any legal obligation to do so, and am worried I would risk some political capital there if I brought it up. Are they under a legal obligation to increase my salary the amount they were paying for my health insurance?
No, they have no legal obligation to do that. Some employers have a policy of offering it anyway, but a lot don’t. You can ask though!
5. Handling multiple company name changes on a resume
I’ve been working at the same company since getting my degree six years ago, and I’m thinking it’s time to move on. However, the company has undergone two name changes since I was hired, and I’m not sure how to handle that on my resume. For example, when I was hired, the company was called Llama Shearing Systems. Then a few years ago we were bought by a larger company, Big Wool, and became Big Wool Llama Division. Now our parent company is rebranding and changing its name to Wool International, making where I’m working Wool International Llamas.
Do I list each name individually with the dates I worked during those particular name changes? Or do I write something like “Wool International Llamas (formerly Big Wool Llama Division, formerly Llama Shearing Systems)”?
Also, since this was my first job out of college, all of my references will likely be managers from various times during my employment at this company. Do I need to specify what name my company had at the time my reference was managing me?
You don’t need to list each name individually with the dates you worked under that name. Just use one name heading for the company and make it this:
Wool International Llamas (formerly Big Wool Llama Division and Llama Shearing Systems)
You also don’t need to specify which name the company had at the time your references were managing you, although you can. If a manager only managed you under Big Wool Llama Division, then list their affiliation as Big Wool Llama Division. But if they managed you through numerous name changes, just list the most recent name.
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The Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to approve a rescheduling of marijuana, which is currently categorized with Schedule I drugs such as LSD and heroin, to Schedule III alongside Tylenol and steroids, which would allow it to be purchased nationwide. What do you think?
