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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Saturday Open Thread

Saturday Open Thread

by Betty Cracker|  April 4, 20158:30 am| 118 Comments

This post is in: Domestic Politics, Open Threads

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 A sign at one of Tampa’s finer entertainment establishments:

 I’ve got a busy day ahead. We’re on the road heading out to the woods for a five-mile hike now, then lunch, then a birthday party for a nephew, then home and then in the middle of the night, off to the airport to pick up my kiddo, who’s been away on a school trip since early this week.

How I’ve missed her scowling and complaining! Seriously! 

What are you up to today?

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Previous Post: « Late Night Open Thread: Thrown
Next Post: Saturday Afternoon Open Thread: April Fish »

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    April 4, 2015 at 8:39 am

    sigh…. brings back memories of the boxes next to the toilets in restaurant banos filled with fecal encrusted paper with flies crawling on them… sigh… I really miss Mexico.

  2. 2.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 8:45 am

    Reminds me of when republicans I’ve known complained about and mocked “unnecessary” laws. But the point is, we wouldn’t need signs and laws like this if some time in the past, some asshole hadn’t done something stupid, disgusting and harmful.

    I had a republican boss for ten years who LOVED complaining about all the unnecessary rules and regulations over his business, and the construction of his new building, and the stupid safety laws. He didn’t know anything about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, or shoddy construction causing building collapses or fires.

    If greedy, self-centered assholes behaved themselves we wouldn’t have a million rules and regulations or silly signs. There’d be no need.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    April 4, 2015 at 8:56 am

    Good advice. Would have been perfect if it said “In the name of all that is holey.”.

  4. 4.

    OzarkHillbilly

    April 4, 2015 at 8:57 am

    I have a new hero: John Fugelsang zings conservative radio host: ‘If you don’t like gay people, take it up with the manufacturer’

  5. 5.

    Baud

    April 4, 2015 at 8:57 am

    @germy shoemangler:

    If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

  6. 6.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 9:00 am

    @Baud: We wouldn’t need the airlines, either.
    Just sport coats with holes in the backs for our wings.

  7. 7.

    Zinsky

    April 4, 2015 at 9:00 am

    As a former sanitation engineer, totally sympathize with the sign. People can be pigs when it comes to using public bathrooms. The stuff that ends up in toilets is disgusting. I am practicing some tunes on guitar this morning, and then getting ready to have all three grown kids home for Easter weekend. Probably throw some burgers or chicken on the grill for dinner. Should be nice…

  8. 8.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 9:01 am

    @OzarkHillbilly: Fugelsang writes some funny tweets. I think he was also the last guy to have George Harrison on his show. He handed George a guitar and was treated to a nice sit-down concert.

  9. 9.

    max

    April 4, 2015 at 9:02 am

    What are you up to today?

    A couple of weeks ago, it was snowing. Then it warmed up, very briefly. Then it was really cold and iced over. Then it warmed up again and we started getting red flag warnings. (Fairly ridiculous ones based on 20 mph winds.) Now it’s taken up bloody raining.

    Personally, I’d love to give Californians their rain back, but not gonna happen.

    max
    [‘So I guess I’m stuck indoors.’]

  10. 10.

    raven

    April 4, 2015 at 9:03 am

    Burn and stir.

  11. 11.

    raven

    April 4, 2015 at 9:05 am

    @Zinsky: I wrote a thank you to the mayor, manager, public works director, and contractor for the sewer re-route. They seemed to like it.

  12. 12.

    Cervantes

    April 4, 2015 at 9:10 am

    What are you up to today?

    Visiting with friends in Woodstock.

    Sunny, clear skies, windy day.

  13. 13.

    Big ole hound

    April 4, 2015 at 9:13 am

    Have been watching the lunar eclipse here on the left coast and yes the “blood moon” came though as really red. It’s about over now and no ill effects have occurred.

  14. 14.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    April 4, 2015 at 9:13 am

    @germy shoemangler: He was indeed. I found the video of that interview, they re-aired it the night George died.

    At the start of my hike last week was the George Harrison tree. They’ve planted a new one, not a pine this time, after the last one was killed by the Beetles.

  15. 15.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    April 4, 2015 at 9:15 am

    @Big ole hound: I posted some pics in the previous thread.

  16. 16.

    beth

    April 4, 2015 at 9:15 am

    Can I rant for a second? Thanks.

    Hey Human Resource Directors everywhere – here’s a tip. I’m coming to work for your company. I will like some people I work with and some I won’t like. Same goes for their feelings for me. I don’t need to sit through a day long orientation training session designed to make me bond with them by doing silly things like singing and/or dancing in front of a group of strangers. Just try and realize that there are shy, introverted people (like me) who would rather shove knives in my eyes than do things like that. We’re not all bubbly, extroverted people persons like you. You hired me because I’m good at what I do – just let me do it.

    Okay, I feel better. After three years of part time/temp work I did finally find a job in my field that seems to be a pretty good fit for me. So I’m happy about that. But I’m sure going to curse under my breath at the HR director every time she passes by.

  17. 17.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 9:26 am

    @beth: I understand and share your resentment.

    At my job, someone had the bright idea to hold a big meeting with the sales dept. and us. They told us to roleplay. Pretend to be salesperson and client, and then switch, pretend to be client and salesperson.

    I told them I thought it was highly inappropriate to roleplay anywhere outside of the bedroom. I was rewarded with blank stares.

  18. 18.

    Phylllis

    April 4, 2015 at 9:26 am

    Wondering why hubby insists on sticking with off-brand Geek tech for malfunctioning Windows 8 that has not followed through on any of the three or four promises they’ve made to him this morning instead of just calling the real damn Geek Squad, like I told him to to begin with.

    In the words of that great sage Sheriff Andy, “Call the man.”

  19. 19.

    Baud

    April 4, 2015 at 9:26 am

    @beth:

    I had to do that. Agree that it’s completely pointless.

  20. 20.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 9:28 am

    @beth: I’ve always suspected exercises like this were designed to single out the shy, introverted employees so as to make them targets of the extroverts.
    I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to yell “this is a workplace, not a fucking kindergarten! Leave me alone and let me do my job!”

  21. 21.

    Violet

    April 4, 2015 at 9:29 am

    Off to a volunteer garden project. I’m not looking forward to it because I’m tired. Otherwise should be fun.

  22. 22.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 4, 2015 at 9:30 am

    Betty, I adore you. Thanks.

    In a gay bar in Taiwan that’s playing Run To The Hills by iron maiden. About to Uber to a dance club with the ol husband. Capitalism FTW

  23. 23.

    Peale

    April 4, 2015 at 9:34 am

    @germy shoemangler: ok. You be the traveling salesman whose car has broken down in the country, and I’ll be the farmer’s beautiful daughter.

  24. 24.

    Violet

    April 4, 2015 at 9:36 am

    @beth: There are ways to get groups of people to interact with each other that don’t involve standing up in front of people and singing and dancing. Like maybe working together in a small group on a project. That HR director is really dumb.

    One of the goals of those kinds of things is often to have the people in the larger group get to know people across the company–people they otherwise wouldn’t get to meet–so they’ll have contacts in other departments if they need them. It’s not a bad goal but it sounds terribly executed.

  25. 25.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 4, 2015 at 9:37 am

    @raven:

    What a really nice and decent thing for you to do. I’ll bet that hardly ever happens, and I’ll bet you made their day!

  26. 26.

    Josie

    April 4, 2015 at 9:38 am

    @beth: Loved your rant. The last job I had (teaching life science to students visiting a bird sanctuary) held a team building day during which we played outdoor games and sang stupid songs. It was really unpleasant and a total waste of our time. I guess the main payoff was that it gave me a greater understanding of the kids who don’t want to do the assigned activity for the day.

  27. 27.

    Major Major Major Major

    April 4, 2015 at 9:38 am

    @Peale: I also love Mr. Show

  28. 28.

    Baud

    April 4, 2015 at 9:39 am

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    That’s so Raven.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    April 4, 2015 at 9:39 am

    @beth: I once showed up on a jobsite for curb and gutter work and the general contractor had a formal safety introductory meeting given by some Psyche 101 graduate of “feel good management” for the 4 of us. About the 3rd or 4th time I heard how “We’re all just one big family and we want everyone to be so happy happy happy…” I had had enough and said something along the lines of “I already have a family and you’re not in it” and “I am here for one thing and one thing only: To make me and my boss money.”

    At which point he got all hurt and started talking about his “feelings” and I was hurting them by being so “blunt and uncaring”. So I said, “You want to talk about feelings? OK, let’s talk about feelings.Let’s talk about my feelings. You want to hear about my feelings?”

    It got real quiet and then he softly said, “No.”

    “Alright then, let’s cut the BS and go to work.”

  30. 30.

    Peale

    April 4, 2015 at 9:40 am

    @Violet: after 20 years at the same company, I’ve run out of “one interesting fact about yourself”s to tell at corporate icebreakers. I’m down to using “things I almost did”s. I really need a new job where no one knows me.

  31. 31.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 4, 2015 at 9:44 am

    @Baud:

    Excellent, excellent.

  32. 32.

    Baud

    April 4, 2015 at 9:45 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    If an employer tells you, “we’re a family,” what they’re saying is they are going to treat you like a child.

  33. 33.

    JMG

    April 4, 2015 at 9:50 am

    @Baud: Also that you’ll almost never get to see your own.

  34. 34.

    Mike J

    April 4, 2015 at 9:53 am

    @Phylllis: I would never use them. Never had any call to myself, but I’ve had to fix too many computers for my neighbors or the little old ladies in the DAR after geek squad got them. Their answer is almost always format your hard drive and install windows 8 from scratch (even when told that the main parameter defining success is a running win7 system.)

  35. 35.

    beth

    April 4, 2015 at 9:54 am

    It’s amazing how almost everyone seems to hate those team building sessions yet I’ve had to sit through them nearly everywhere I’ve worked. How does that happen? Why are they so popular when they’re clearly so unpopular? Maybe we need some sort of uprising against them.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    April 4, 2015 at 9:56 am

    @beth:

    Maybe the common hate for them is what builds the team. HR people are sneaky.

  37. 37.

    beth

    April 4, 2015 at 9:58 am

    @Baud: Wow, never considered that. I believe you are correct. Damn those sneaky bastards.

  38. 38.

    Iowa Old Lady

    April 4, 2015 at 9:59 am

    Mr IOL’s employer has gotten much smarter about team building stuff. Most recently, they’ve worked on a Habitat house and played mini-golf.

    The university never made the mistake of trying to get us faculty to be a “team.”

  39. 39.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    April 4, 2015 at 10:02 am

    Only place I’ve worked that has tried team-building stuff paid for a whitewater rafting trip for everyone. That ended after the second year when we nearly lost a couple of employees to an overturned raft.

    @OzarkHillbilly: The owner of a small family company (~10 employees at the peak, four of whom were family) hired a new person. I could never decide if he was just completely clueless or severely Aspie. The women in the firm kept escalating our efforts to get him to adhere to basic courtesies like personal space boundaries. The guys called him “the wizard” because he claimed to be a whiz at everything. *snortgiggle* Soon everyone but the owner had turned against him.

    The owner tried to play the “we’re all family” angle to settle the hostility in the air. I told him after that meeting that having people like that guy in one’s family leads to not having a very close family.

  40. 40.

    rikyrah

    April 4, 2015 at 10:04 am

    Good Morning, Everyone :)

    Off to swim and run errands.

  41. 41.

    JMG

    April 4, 2015 at 10:07 am

    There was one great Homicide where Kyle Secor’s character complained that his previous unit in the Baltimore PD had felt like more of a family and Andre Braugher’s character gave a wonderful monologue in response that began “We’re like a family — a REAL family” where disagreements and people who were together without liking each other that much were part of what made Homicide an elite unit.

  42. 42.

    MattF

    April 4, 2015 at 10:16 am

    @beth: My boss seems to get it. When my officemate got a semi-promotion and moved out to his own office, the space was left officially empty.

  43. 43.

    Amir Khalid

    April 4, 2015 at 10:22 am

    I am sitting here lamenting the way Liverpool’s end of season is turning to shit. Bye bye Champion’s League.

  44. 44.

    bemused

    April 4, 2015 at 10:24 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I love that. None of my jobs had any grade school team building games, thankfully. That kind of crap just makes me crabby and resentful. I also hate the modern church ritual when you are asked to greet and/or shake hands with people near you in the pews.

  45. 45.

    danielx

    April 4, 2015 at 10:26 am

    Watching Zoey the Menace trying to convince the spousal unit that she is a fine cat and really deserves to share some breakfast cereal, most particularly whatever milk may happen to be left over.

  46. 46.

    ruemara

    April 4, 2015 at 10:28 am

    The day’s chores should be:
    1. Have a nice breakfast
    2. Do a load of laundry
    3. Hang laundry in the solar dryer
    4. Zumba
    5. Add new renders to timeline
    6. Add audio
    7. Find nice soundtrack
    8. See if I need more footage besides rendering girlfriend
    9. Make delicious dessert for Easter.
    So far, I’m up which makes doing any of this much easier.

  47. 47.

    Matt McIrvin

    April 4, 2015 at 10:28 am

    I’ve noticed that those disposable paper toilet-seat covers you see dispensed in some public restrooms are about as unflushable as paper towels. This seems like an oversight.

  48. 48.

    delk

    April 4, 2015 at 10:28 am

    Holy Week is more like Wholly Weak for the anti-gay side.

  49. 49.

    El Caganer

    April 4, 2015 at 10:29 am

    Scott Meyer take on teams: http://basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2012/12/6/how-to-get-someone-to-take-one-for-the-team.html

  50. 50.

    Amir Khalid

    April 4, 2015 at 10:29 am

    I wonder, does anybody know the history of Team-building Kindergarten in the workplace? What devil in a necktie invented it, which “management” gurus touted it, upon whose workforce was it first inflicted, by what vector did this ghastly Dilbertian contagion spread from office to office?

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    April 4, 2015 at 10:30 am

    @ruemara: Good morning! Are 4, 5 and 6 related to the JMN video, or some other fun project you’re working on?

    P.S. I liked the work video of the pup hiding easter eggs. What time will he be here tomorrow morning to hide mine?

  52. 52.

    WaterGirl

    April 4, 2015 at 10:32 am

    @Amir Khalid: I’m pretty sure that the guy who invented pantyhose and high heels for women went back to school, got his MBA, and came up with the idea of team building kindergarten for grown-ups.

  53. 53.

    danielx

    April 4, 2015 at 10:33 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    Probably a plot on the part of popsicle stick manufacturers, since one exercise in team-building mental torture in which I had to participate involved building a helicopter (albeit a very small one) out of those things.

  54. 54.

    MattF

    April 4, 2015 at 10:44 am

    @Amir Khalid: I remember, back in the ’60’s, there was a fad for ‘T-groups’ where (I think) ‘T’ stood for ‘therapy’. A lot of the exercises in team-building go back to T-group trust exercises.

  55. 55.

    RobertDSC-iPad Mini

    April 4, 2015 at 10:45 am

    I’m at the second job today. A large press run needs to be finished, so I’m here. I have almost all I need but I do wish I had a laptop to use. The iPad is great for most stuff, but there’s Photoshop stuff I could be doing as I watch the machines run.

  56. 56.

    MattF

    April 4, 2015 at 10:49 am

    @MattF: Wikipedia has more:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-groups

  57. 57.

    Baud

    April 4, 2015 at 10:52 am

    @MattF:

    A T-group meeting does not have an explicit agenda, structure, or express goal.

    It’s relevance to team building in the workplace is suddenly clear.

  58. 58.

    Schlemazel

    April 4, 2015 at 10:56 am

    End of 1, USA up 4-2 over Canada in the gold medal game. Game really has not been that close SOG are 16-7 but, in keeping with American tradition, Goalie is a bit weak.

  59. 59.

    ruemara

    April 4, 2015 at 10:58 am

    @WaterGirl: all of that is JMN. I’m just hoping it comes together nice. Animation is hit or miss sometimes by yourself. Sadly, I think our egg delivery service still needs work. Like training the Easter doggy to not eat the treats. We cannot accept bookings at this time. Glad you like it. I had write it, shoot it, teach the cameraman to set up for it, edit it, try to get people to not just start talking over the end of their dialogue (failed) and get it ready for the holiday posting in a week. I was worried it wasn’t funny.

  60. 60.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 10:59 am

    @Amir Khalid: “devil in a necktie” – I like that description. It’s every fucker I ever worked for.

  61. 61.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    April 4, 2015 at 11:00 am

    I had a team building meeting just like week where we had to build something out of playdough and then describe the process. Good times. Good times.

  62. 62.

    Schlemazel

    April 4, 2015 at 11:03 am

    @Amir Khalid:
    The actual disease (“team building” is just a symptom) is called “MBA”. Total incompetents get the “MBA” and believe they now know how to make everything more profitable. There are two major branches of the disease. In one branch the diseased individual looks at something that worked for a successful organization and tries to jam it into every organization without understanding why it was successful (or even if it was any part of why the other place was successful). This leads to things like Lean Sick Smegma, designed to improve repetitive factory-type operations being a huge burden on on repeatable office projects. (plus its so cool to say you have a green belt and a money belt). The second branch looks to maximize this quarters returns which is most easily done by destroying long-term profitability. Lay0ffs, selling the profitable bits off and stock buy-backs are symptoms.

  63. 63.

    Iowa Old Lady

    April 4, 2015 at 11:04 am

    @Old Dan and Little Ann: Jeebus. People actually did that? And someone got paid for making you do it?

    You know all the Team Building Leaders are together laughing and bragging about how they got grown people to do this stuff.

  64. 64.

    PurpleGirl

    April 4, 2015 at 11:14 am

    @Amir Khalid: One year my office did a team building day; part of it was spent in an office (not our own one) and the rest in Central Park. It was paid for by a foundation which was supporting us at a significant level (both a monetary grant and a paid staff member). Frankly I think we’d have been better off with what was spent on the consultants was given as monetary grant beyond the given amount. The staff member, who was one of their interns, was a very nice and very good at her job. That also could nave been repeated and would have been better than the team building stuff.

  65. 65.

    bemused

    April 4, 2015 at 11:14 am

    @Old Dan and Little Ann:

    Anyone brave enough to sculpt a giant middle finger?

  66. 66.

    WaterGirl

    April 4, 2015 at 11:15 am

    @ruemara: Easter pup was very cute. I hope the JMN video turns out great!

  67. 67.

    Mike E

    April 4, 2015 at 11:15 am

    That reminds me of the bathroom sign at the local college football stadium, “No Bottles in the Toilet! Throw in Trash Can”…kids and their sneaking airplane liquor bottles into the game, fer shame!

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    April 4, 2015 at 11:17 am

    Public service announcement for anyone who wanted to watch Better Call Saul but didn’t catch it from the beginning:

    Looks like all 10 episodes are being aired on Monday 4/6, starting in the morning.

  69. 69.

    Cervantes

    April 4, 2015 at 11:18 am

    @MattF:

    Yes, you’re right.

    @Amir Khalid:

    I wonder, does anybody know the history of Team-building Kindergarten in the workplace? What devil in a necktie invented it, which “management” gurus touted it, upon whose workforce was it first inflicted

    Who invented it? “Success has many fathers,” or so they say. (Why not mothers?)

    If you have to blame or credit one person primarily, then perhaps it ought to be Elton Mayo. You may have heard of the Hawthorne effect; he helped with and built on that research.

    by what vector did this ghastly Dilbertian contagion spread from office to office?

    Well, if you must know, Elton taught at Harvard, at the Business School.

    (So sorry, have to run now.)

  70. 70.

    PsiFighter37

    April 4, 2015 at 11:18 am

    Got less than 3 hours of sleep before I got afflicted with an insane bout of diarrhea and vomiting….basically kept me up allll night, ass I was afraid. I if ii dozed off, I would puke in my sleep. Wasn’t drunk, and my wife and I had exactly the same food…so I have no good idea what caused me to endure this. Finally starting to feel better, but still feeling really weak (I think water is literally the only thing left in my stomach.

    Shame, because it looks like a gorgeous day out,, and I had dinner plans at a restaurant specializing in Peking duck…but will end up staying in bed and eating chicken noodle soup instead.

    Ugh

  71. 71.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    April 4, 2015 at 11:19 am

    I don’t hate teambuilding as much as you all, but most of my experiences have been with my actual team at the office I’ve been with for almost 9 years and we almost always get to drink alcohol at work after the teambuilding activity, which takes the edge off. Usually the only stranger there is the HR person leading the activity.

  72. 72.

    Mike J

    April 4, 2015 at 11:20 am

    When I worked for a particular megatech company we did some sort of silly training day. The guy running it tried to tell a room full of programmers that in his last class of 20 people, 97% of them liked it.

  73. 73.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    April 4, 2015 at 11:21 am

    Also, too, I always suspect that the main effect of teambuilding is to unite everyone against the HR person leading the activity.

  74. 74.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    April 4, 2015 at 11:21 am

    @bemused No rebels in the bunch.

  75. 75.

    geg6

    April 4, 2015 at 11:23 am

    Team building “exercises” are complete bullshit. As are “self-evaluations and goal-setting” pieces. I’ve been at my job for 16 years. I have a supervisor whose much larger compensation is ostensibly tied to his supervisory duties, which would say to me that evaluating my job performance is his job, not mine. My goals are tied to my job responsibilities: support the admission and retention of students, coordinate financial aid programs and their stewardship, educate students, faculty and staff about student aid and the effects of academic decisions on aid status, publicize student aid information to the campus and in the community, certify veterans educational benefits and keep up to date on all things related to student aid and VA educational benefits. Why must I go through this fake exercise every goddam year where I make up inconsequential goals which I will never revisit because I’m doing the important requirements of my job and that is more than enough for one person and takes up well over 40-60 hours a week? Why must I make up different stuff about my achievements each year when my greatest achievements are simply getting all those things done and done extremely well? This may be useful for people who aren’t as experienced as I am, but it wastes hours and hours of my time every damn year. I hate HR people. I really do.

  76. 76.

    JCT

    April 4, 2015 at 11:25 am

    @raven: Probably the only “nice” letter they’ve received in a long time.

  77. 77.

    EriktheRed

    April 4, 2015 at 11:27 am

    What are you up to today?

    Whatever I feel like (within rthe bounds of the law and/or my wife’s patience, of course) cuz it’s me birthday.

  78. 78.

    schrodinger's cat

    April 4, 2015 at 11:27 am

    Outdoor activities and picnics are better as team building activities than sitting in a group with your coworkers and doing stupid stuff.
    I once worked for a summer program with high school students and we had a staff meeting at the lunch hour every damned day. It was terrible.
    On the other hand our weekend activities were much more fun. One was a kayaking trip, another a camping trip in an old barn on an uninhabited island off of the coast of Maine.

  79. 79.

    Iowa Old Lady

    April 4, 2015 at 11:32 am

    @raven: I’ve taken to writing more messages of praise in the last few years. No one ever hears enough that they’ve done a good job.

  80. 80.

    geg6

    April 4, 2015 at 11:34 am

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    We used to have a day when our director had us all over to his house for food, drinks and a planning discussion for our recruitment year. It was great! We came out of it with a shared sense of purpose, good feelings for each other and full bellies and a bit of a buzz (there was always a designated driver). We haven’t done this for several years and we keep agitating to do it again, even volunteering our own homes. But it doesn’t happen. :-(

  81. 81.

    Bobby B

    April 4, 2015 at 11:39 am

    I really hate people, all of them, but I wouldn’t go so low as to be in HR. They seem to be former student council representatives working out their frustrated power fantasies.

  82. 82.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 11:45 am

    @PsiFighter37: Is this the mysterious stomach bug going around?
    Lots of rest and chicken soup sounds like a good idea

  83. 83.

    D58826

    April 4, 2015 at 11:56 am

    @geg6: if I had a dime for all the goal-setting/self-evaluation nonsense I have done over the years I would be keying this comment in from the beach in Tahiti. As I look around this ain’t Tahiti.

  84. 84.

    Mike J

    April 4, 2015 at 11:58 am

    @Bobby B: To be fair, look at which employees they have to spend most of their time on.

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    April 4, 2015 at 11:59 am

    When I managed my small IT group (9 of us) at the university, once a year we would drive 50 miles to the lake and rent a pontoon boat. We spent half the day just having fun and spent the other half talking about work and brainstorming.

    It was always really fun and productive. Of course, I had hired all 8 of them, and they were all wonderful, talented, competent, service oriented people, and we shared the same values. So how could a day on the lake not be fun? But it was good for us as a team, too, to have some playtime together.

  86. 86.

    Pogonip

    April 4, 2015 at 12:03 pm

    @germy shoemangler: Yes! The “infantilization” of Americans proceeds apace and I hate it!

    Also, whenever we get a new big boss, we are herded into a pointless all-hands meeting that could be avoided if we just stipulated that: she is very excited to be here (people who reach that level seem to be quite excitable); that she is a big fan of the local sports teams; that she knows there are challenges ahead but we will prevail because of our teamwork and strong work ethic; that she hopes we will join her in making it a fun place to work by [insert activity appropriate, and fun for, kindergarteners]; and that all the employees find her life history and family absolutely fascinating. The hour-long presentation on same would be replaced by a handout or e-mail.

  87. 87.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    April 4, 2015 at 12:03 pm

    @Peale:

    Use this one next time: “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”

  88. 88.

    Karen in GA

    April 4, 2015 at 12:12 pm

    @Schlemazel:

    This leads to things like Lean Sick Smegma, designed to improve repetitive factory-type operations being a huge burden on on repeatable office projects.

    Oh, good lord. We had that at my last job, in a law department. Total waste of time.

    At another job, we once had to do a day of stupid customer service role-playing, like building widgets and selling them to each other. This was in a law firm. It was a bunch of legal secretaries and word processors who hardly ever worked with each other, and didn’t work with each other after the exercises either. I used to wonder if the HR director there actually knew where she worked. Not a bright woman.

  89. 89.

    Tree With Water

    April 4, 2015 at 12:12 pm

    Now this is the Southern California I remember as a kid. Orange county- land of Nixon, Reagan, and the John Birch Society. Unfortunately, this is being reported in today’s Huff Post:

    “Put simply,” Fernandez said, “in Orange County, the cover-up has been even more egregious than the underlying violations — themselves incredibly serious — and appears to have included actual criminal conduct by both law enforcement officers and prosecutors in the form of perjury and obstruction of justice.”

  90. 90.

    bemused

    April 4, 2015 at 12:14 pm

    @Old Dan and Little Ann:

    Not surprising. Sadly, that only seems to happen in comedy movies.

  91. 91.

    Glidwrith

    April 4, 2015 at 12:15 pm

    @ruemara: All right, I want Easter puppy! Where do I find said video so that I can compliment you on your mad editing skills?

  92. 92.

    Brachiator

    April 4, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    @Bobby B:

    I really hate people, all of them, but I wouldn’t go so low as to be in HR.

    Marketing is lower than HR. Marketing departments are the Divil’s work.

  93. 93.

    MomSense

    April 4, 2015 at 12:22 pm

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):

    I thought of you yesterday. BBC has a whole series of radio programs about knitting. I was so tired last night I couldn’t even manage television so I listened to a couple of the programs. It was fun trying to imagine the people that went along with the voices, especially the interviews from Fair Isle.

  94. 94.

    Germy Shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 12:26 pm

    @Brachiator: The last company I worked for was so horrible people were jumping ship for another company in the next town. Lots of the people quitting were in marketing.

    I was tactless enough to say “I’d call it a brain drain, but this is marketing we’re talking about.”

  95. 95.

    Amir Khalid

    April 4, 2015 at 12:31 pm

    Right now I’m watching a YouTube video: former Top Gear co-host James May making a shepherd’s pie at home. (He’s the least obnoxious of the lot.) And consuming quite a bit of wine as he goes along. I must say, Captain Slow doesn’t look all that happy.

  96. 96.

    CaseyL

    April 4, 2015 at 12:34 pm

    Well, having completed my probationary period at the UW job, the Evaluation should be this week. It should go well, but this is my first one here and I don’t know what they focus on.

    (I once had a manager who considered annual reviews to be ‘prescriptive,’ i.e., focus on areas of improvement, rather than on areas of accomplishment. So no one ever got a really good review. This was a clever way of making sure no one got a really good bonus, either. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that meant she got a bigger one; she was highly accomplished at gaming the system.)

    Today’s plan: grocery shopping, laundry, and meeting with a candidate whose campaign I’m volunteering with to do thank-you cards.

  97. 97.

    beth

    April 4, 2015 at 12:37 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: I learned that lesson a few years ago when the condo manger in our building went out of his way to get a problem fixed for us and I sent him an email profusely thanking him (it was something that no one had been able to fix and really affected our quality of life so I was thrilled it got resolved). He printed it out and hung it on his wall and when I saw it there he told me that no one in the building had ever thanked him before. The building ran pretty well and I always felt like he did a great job so I was surprised to hear that.

  98. 98.

    Meg

    April 4, 2015 at 12:38 pm

    They forgot to include baby wipes on the list.

  99. 99.

    J R in WV

    April 4, 2015 at 12:39 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    “devil in a necktie”

    Amir, this is great, and so useful for so many occasions!

    Scott Walker, that finance paperwork guy at the auto dealership, the doctor who won’t speak plain English, etc, etc.

    I just now realized that the spel check for B-J’s commenting system came back to life for me. For ages it was dead, but worked in LGM’s comment system, where it thought I was British.

    It did work in the “Edit your comment” box, so I sometimes, when I cared and suspected I had messed up some stuff, would open the comment in the editor to see if anything had little red squiggles underlining the word.

    “Devil in a necktie” – so useful, I will use this, and maybe sometimes remember to credit you for it.

    Thanks again!

  100. 100.

    beth

    April 4, 2015 at 12:45 pm

    @Meg:

    They forgot to include baby wipes on the list.

    Did anyone see the Chris Hayes segment on flushable wipes? It was really very interesting. He went to some sewage treatment plant in NY to see the effects of everyone suddenly using flushable wipes. I guess they don’t dissolve as advertised (there was some disagreement from an industry spokesman and discussion about baby wipes vs. flushable) and are costing millions in extra costs to process. Some guy stands there raking them into a dumpster for disposal. Think about that next time you complain about your job.

  101. 101.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 12:45 pm

    The Shocking Secret Lives Of Easter Peeps:

    http://kikoshouse.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-secret-lives-of-easter-peeps.html

  102. 102.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 12:47 pm

    @beth: Same folks who brought us cat litter they claim is safe to flush into septic tanks.

    No it isn’t. It clumps when wet. If you flush the litter down your septic tank, you have a tank full of sand and rocks.

  103. 103.

    RSA

    April 4, 2015 at 12:55 pm

    What are you up to today?

    It’s 61 degrees and sunny here in Raleigh. I’ll be driving my wife to the dress consignment shop where she used to work, to sit with longtime friends/co-workers. We’ll be in our “new” 2006 Audi A4 (with a back seat! and a non-trivial trunk!), which replaced our old two-seater earlier this month. It should be a fun, relaxing day.

  104. 104.

    Tree With Water

    April 4, 2015 at 12:56 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly: I agree with you 100% on that “we are family” jazz in the workplace, and I always have always felt that way. I never spoke up the way you did, but if I had, I could have echoed you word for word.

  105. 105.

    beth

    April 4, 2015 at 12:56 pm

    Since the original topic was flushing things down the toilet, here’s a link to the Chris Hayes flushable wipe segment:

    http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/should-you-flush-that-wipe–418844739893

  106. 106.

    Anne Laurie

    April 4, 2015 at 12:57 pm

    @Amir Khalid: To add to what everybody has said already: Kindergarten-style “team building” is very popular with the self-professed extroverts whose workdays are usually divided between sucking up to the boss(es) and pestering their co-workers with irrelevancies. Since management spends more time with the suck-ups who hang around looking for any opportunity to raise their business profile than with the people who are busy doing their damned jobs, the people getting sales pitches from Team-Building Fun Time, LLC have a skewed perception of how much “everybody” loves humiliating themselves in public.

  107. 107.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 1:03 pm

    A newspaper got in trouble with their union for making employees dance for their bosses:

    http://albanyguild.org/blog/2014/03/03/ad-staff-told-to-dance-to-earn-points-with-bosses/

  108. 108.

    Matt McIrvin

    April 4, 2015 at 1:07 pm

    @geg6: The employee evaluation process is, I think, mostly intended to create a justifying paper trail for firings and promotions (in case somebody sues). The self-evaluations are intended to create a justifying paper trail for the employee evaluations.

  109. 109.

    Matt McIrvin

    April 4, 2015 at 1:14 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Kurt Vonnegut was already making fun of some proto-version of team-building exercises in Player Piano (1952), so they actually go back to before the 1960s/70s fascination with encounter groups.

  110. 110.

    Cckids

    April 4, 2015 at 1:22 pm

    @germy shoemangler:

    Reminds me of when republicans I’ve known complained about and mocked “unnecessary” laws. But the point is, we wouldn’t need signs and laws like this if some time in the past, some asshole hadn’t done something stupid, disgusting and harmful.

    When he was 11, my son remarked “It seems like most laws exist because somebody’s always gotta be an asshole”. True.

  111. 111.

    Brachiator

    April 4, 2015 at 1:22 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: Hah! I admire sales people, but too many marketing people I’ve known have been weasels.

  112. 112.

    shell

    April 4, 2015 at 1:27 pm

    Couple of days ago there was a thread (think by Betty) that asked people their favorite movie dialogue or most-quoted movies.

    I’m sure ‘Big Lebowski’ and ‘Godfather’ were way up there.

    But turned on TCM last night and there was ‘The Wizard Of Oz’ and omigod, think of the lines there.

    ‘I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore’
    ‘Are you a good witch or a bad witch?’
    ‘Follow the yellow brick road’
    ‘I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too!’
    ‘Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my’
    ‘Run, Toto, run!’
    ‘The witch is dead!’
    ‘These things must be done DE-licately’
    ‘Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain’
    ‘There’s no place like home.’

  113. 113.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 1:28 pm

    @Cckids: Your son was right. Sometimes children can see things in a startling clear way.

    @Brachiator: The sales people I’ve known have worked under soul-crushing pressure. Mgmt would keep raising the bar to make them jump higher and higher. The marketing folks just seemed weird to me, like they were putting something over on both the customers AND the company,

  114. 114.

    germy shoemangler

    April 4, 2015 at 1:31 pm

    @shell: The Wizard of Oz has so much tasty dialogue:

    “A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others.”

    Wizard of Oz: “As for you, my galvanized friend, you want a heart. You don’t know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.”

    Tin Woodsman: “But I still want one.”

  115. 115.

    Gex

    April 4, 2015 at 3:22 pm

    @OzarkHillbilly: And of course if being gay is a behavior, it only manifests itself during sex. The rest of the time, gay people are not doing anything different from gay people so there is no need to refuse to serve us in a public place.

    No need for special laws, because if we started fucking in a bakery, I think there are already laws that will let the owner address that.

  116. 116.

    satby

    April 4, 2015 at 5:28 pm

    @EriktheRed: Happy Birthday!

  117. 117.

    fuckwit

    April 4, 2015 at 6:55 pm

    @germy shoemangler: It might be useful to ask it rather than to yell it. i.e. “Why are we undergoing this humiliation? Is this a workplace or a kindergarden?” I don’t think I could ever be employed again by a corporation: I have no tolerance for that kind of bullshit.

  118. 118.

    fuckwit

    April 4, 2015 at 7:00 pm

    Also, personal pet peeve: this whole bullshit about “extroverts”.

    I once had someone explain patronizingly to me that “An introvert is someone who gets their energy from themselves. An extrovert is someone who gets their energy from other people.”

    I replied, “A person who gets their energy from other people is a VAMPIRE.”

    Actual “extroverts” might be people who GIVE their energy to other people, not take it. And have the emotional maturity and IQ to recognize when they’re dealing with people who are not in the mood, not amused, and want them to go the fuck away and stay that way forever.

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