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What does the Milky Way look like in radio waves?
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And the scales fell from my eyes
Nov. 19th, 2025 02:48 ammetafilter_feedFrom interviewing the Pope to the COLBERT module on the ISS, Stephen Colbert responds to his fans for GQ magazine. 10m of light-hearted fun from one of our living masters.
U.S. gerrymandering duel escalates
Nov. 19th, 2025 01:52 ammetafilter_feedThe states of Texas & California are locked in a game of partisan gerrymandering one-upsmanship for the 2026 mid-term elections, drawing a half-dozen more states into the conflict. At stake is party control of the U.S. House of Representatives, currently with a Republican majority. Texas kicked things off over the summer with a new map expected to net five new Republican seats, but today a three-judge panel struck it down as a racial (not partisan) gerrymander.
California's map is facing a similar legal challenge, though redistricting expert Rick Hasen thinks it's safe thanks to the lopsided victory of a ballot proposition framed exclusively in partisan (not racial) terms. Missouri has enacted a likely 7R/1D map replacing a 6R/2D one from last election and North Carolina went with a likely 11R/3D map to replace their existing 10R/4D one. Utah just enacted a new likely 3R/1D map after a court decision struck down the state legislature's proposed 4R/0D map. Virginia and Maryland are two other states contemplating pro-Democratic gerrymanders, while Indiana has decided not to pursue a pro-Republican gerrymander for now.
California's map is facing a similar legal challenge, though redistricting expert Rick Hasen thinks it's safe thanks to the lopsided victory of a ballot proposition framed exclusively in partisan (not racial) terms. Missouri has enacted a likely 7R/1D map replacing a 6R/2D one from last election and North Carolina went with a likely 11R/3D map to replace their existing 10R/4D one. Utah just enacted a new likely 3R/1D map after a court decision struck down the state legislature's proposed 4R/0D map. Virginia and Maryland are two other states contemplating pro-Democratic gerrymanders, while Indiana has decided not to pursue a pro-Republican gerrymander for now.
ごめん寝。Miri’s sleeping pose.
Nov. 18th, 2025 11:00 pmmaru_feedイケメン風まるさんのクッションを出したら、みりがすぐにチェックしに来た。 As soon as I put the cushion of handsome Maru on the sofa, Miri came to l […]
The only constant is change
Nov. 18th, 2025 10:38 pmmetafilter_feedPhrack is both a technical journal and a cultural document. Like all zines,
it represents a snapshot of the scene at the time. We share not just our
discoveries, but the stories of how we came to know things and the context
in which we existed. We share our triumphs, failures, and lessons learned.
By fostering a culture of communal idea sharing, we learn how to solve
problems creatively, and make the most of our current situation.
it represents a snapshot of the scene at the time. We share not just our
discoveries, but the stories of how we came to know things and the context
in which we existed. We share our triumphs, failures, and lessons learned.
By fostering a culture of communal idea sharing, we learn how to solve
problems creatively, and make the most of our current situation.
The Strange Afterlife of Hilma af Klint, Painting's Posthumous Star
Nov. 18th, 2025 10:19 pmmetafilter_feedPossession is an esssy by Alice Gregory in the New Yorker [archive] about Hilma af Klint, her breakthrough abstract paintings, religious beliefs, posthumous fame, drama in the foundation that owns her art, and the question whether she made all the works she's been credited with, or whether her friend and possible lover Anna Cassel painted some of them.
"And this to hold your beans in a different way"
Nov. 18th, 2025 09:06 pmmetafilter_feedYoutube Boardgame Satire Channel The Dragon's Tomb (previously) received an invitation from Probable Scam Kickstarter Company Starmork to receive a free table to review. A month after the kickstarter finished, the (possibly The Only) table arrived. Here is his promised review, and likely his magnum opus.
Hope is anti-police, allegedly
Nov. 18th, 2025 07:55 pmmetafilter_feedThe legendary hacker conference Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) says that it has been "banned" from St. John's University, the venue where it has held the last several HOPE conferences, because someone told the university the conference had an "anti-police agenda." HOPE was held at St. John's University in 2022, 2024, and 2025, and was going to be held there in 2026, as well. The conference has been running at various venues over the last 31 years, and has become well-known as one of the better hacking and security research conferences in the world. Tuesday, the conference told members of its mailing list that it had "received some disturbing news," and that "we have been told that 'materials and messaging' at our most recent conference 'were not in alignment with the mission, values, and reputation of St. John's University' and that we would no longer be able to host our events there."
how do I deal with the two-faced manager who laid me off?
Nov. 18th, 2025 06:59 pmaskamanager_feedA reader writes:
I’ve been working in the marketing department of a large company for nine years, in a somewhat specialized role. I sit within a smaller subteam originally managed by “Jean-Luc,” who was the kind of manager everyone hopes for — fiercely protective of his team, willing to go to bat for any of us, and fair if it came down to any issues that needed dealing with.
At the beginning of the year, Jean-Luc told us that he’d be moving on and assured us he’d be directly responsible for hiring his replacement to ensure a good fit. Two weeks before he left (I’m in the UK and we typically have three-month notice periods), he hired “Kai Wynn,” who seemed very knowledgeable and interested in my specialist area, so I was looking forward to expanding my own knowledge and geeking out about it with her.
Sadly, that hasn’t happened. Six months after Kai Wynn took over, she told me and another role specialist (different area) that our roles would be made redundant and a single role would be created, which we were both welcome to apply for. The new role is basically an expansion of the role my colleague is doing, though in an area I have some previous experience in, and my role is going to be outsourced to an agency. We both applied for the role and my colleague got it — not surprising as the interview task and job description were basically what she already does. So I was laid off, with a (thankfully generous) severance.
It feels like Kai has set this up deliberately to get rid of me, knowing I wouldn’t have had the experience to compete with my colleague. Some of my other colleagues (the ones I can trust to confide in) have said it all looks suspicious too. It especially stings as I’ve just got a mortgage, so now I’m panicking about being able to get another job to avoid losing my house.
I’ve been given an end date of six weeks hence, with a further six weeks pay in lieu of the remaining notice (fairly standard here, I think). Thankfully I work remotely so I don’t have to see her or my other colleagues in person during these last few weeks. I’m also undecided if I want a leaving-do — it’s standard practice in our team when someone leaves of their own accord, but it doesn’t feel appropriate for my situation. I also don’t want to socialize with Kai for obvious reasons!
Kai is now being overly nice in our weekly one-on-ones, asking if I’m okay and if I need anything, offering to help me with my CV, and even sending me job listings that match my skill set. It’s coming across as really two-faced and insidious, and I’m having to hold myself back from saying, “No, I’m not okay — you’ve kicked me out of the job I love!”
She’s now asked me to do a handover in my last few weeks for the agency and my colleague who got the role, which feels like a real kick in the teeth. Honestly, I feel so hurt by how she’s gone about this that I’m tempted to just refuse, and let her deal with the fallout, but that feels unfair to my other colleagues who would be left to try and unpick my processes without documentation. How should I handle my feelings of resentment towards her until I leave?
It’s completely understandable to feel resentment toward a new manager who came in and eliminated your job … but I think you’re reading more into it than probably happened.
If Kai felt your team didn’t need both roles and would be better served by combining them into one (or if she needed to make budget cuts and judged this the least-bad of the places to cut), it makes sense that this happened. It doesn’t mean it was personal or that she set out to get rid of you specifically or was engaging in any double-dealing; it’s much more likely that it’s just what she judged made the most sense for the business (even though that doesn’t make it suck any less for you personally). It’s also possible that the decision came from above her.
I also wouldn’t assume she deliberately set you up to compete against your coworker while knowing for sure that you wouldn’t get the job; she might have figured it was fairer to let you both interview for it. (If she hadn’t offered that and instead had just laid you off from the get-go, you might have resented that she didn’t even give you a chance to compete for the job. Or maybe you personally wouldn’t have, but a lot of people would!)
It also makes sense that she’s being nice in your one-on-ones and offering to help in your job search. Managers should be supportive of people whose jobs are cut and should be doing exactly the things she’s doing.
You don’t have to like her or respect her judgment or anything like that — you’re allowed to feel bitter! — but it’ll be easier to make peace with what happened if you don’t look at it as dishonesty or back-stabbing.
None of that means that this isn’t awful for you. It is. But acting in your own interests would mean taking her up on her offers to help with your CV and or at least to send you job listings, and even asking if she knows of any openings she can connect you with. You don’t have to; it’s your prerogative to decide you can’t stomach that … but why not get some benefit on your way out?
With the handover work, you don’t need to go above-and-beyond, but you should at least do it at a level that won’t make her retract those offers of help or change the kind of reference you might get from the company in the future.
The post how do I deal with the two-faced manager who laid me off? appeared first on Ask a Manager.
my new employee is someone I fired at my old job
Nov. 18th, 2025 06:23 pmaskamanager_feedA reader writes:
I recently took a new job in my same industry and city. In my new role, I’ll have a team of eight reporting to me in various capacities and functions. During the interview process, I got a brief read-out of the team and a high level talent assessment. Nothing stood out as an issue. On my first day, I met the team reporting to me. One of the people on the team is someone that worked for me before and who I terminated for cause due to performance at my previous company.
What do I communicate to my management team and/or HR about this situation? It feels weird to say nothing because ultimately, this could be a management issue — I’m sure this employee doesn’t feel great about the situation. On the other hand, I don’t want to risk harming this person’s reputation at this company if they are doing a good job so far. This person is pretty new here, too, and my impression is they are either doing a better job in this role or management has not yet identified an issue with their performance.
I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.
Other questions I’m answering there today include:
- Why do people respond to emails with a phone call?
- Setting boundaries on requests for help from a significant other’s network
The post my new employee is someone I fired at my old job appeared first on Ask a Manager.
Endangered parrot found in northern Tasmania for first time in decades
Nov. 18th, 2025 06:10 pmmetafilter_feedEndangered parrot found in northern Tasmania for first time in decades. The presence of an endangered and cryptic parrot species at a northern Tasmanian national park has been hailed as very good news by a bird expert.
Peter Thiel Gets Out of Doge
Nov. 18th, 2025 06:09 pmmetafilter_feedYesterday, I published an article that began: "Welcome to the Great AI Bubble, a metastasized trillion dollar tech tumour so massive it's practically visible from space." And today (November 17th), in a strange bit of timing, news lands that Peter Thiel - the closest thing the modern world has to a real-life Bond villain - has dumped his entire holding in Nvidia, the chip manufacturer (worth about 100 million).
Probably unrelated: The Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced a significant setback today, November 17, 2025, plummeting by approximately 800 points as mounting concerns over the health of the U.S. economy gripped investors.
Probably unrelated: The Dow Jones Industrial Average experienced a significant setback today, November 17, 2025, plummeting by approximately 800 points as mounting concerns over the health of the U.S. economy gripped investors.
Modern Humans Unexpectedly Evolving Faster than Assumed Previously
Nov. 18th, 2025 04:05 pmmetafilter_feedGenomic studies and advances are producing mounting evidence that our species have undergone striking sweeps of natural selection especially in immunity. Scientists assume our species evolved dramatically in our prehistory and our evolution settled down to a leisurely pace with our physical appearance riding an evolutionary plateau with minor differences between populations.
However, advances in genomics show surprising results. Recent deep studies of ancient DNA allowed researchers to conduct more precise DNA analysis and to track major migration patterns impacting human genes. Deadly disease is a common source of natural selection and appears more frequently in modern times due to rising urban populations. This causes "positive selection" to promote advantageous variants resisting disease which comes at a cost. The cost is the rising probability of immune overreaction in humans causing a hyper-vigilant defense system attacking the body. Results from these studies point to repeated recent natural selection in our immune systems and other places with more surprises to come. (Via Scientific American)
However, advances in genomics show surprising results. Recent deep studies of ancient DNA allowed researchers to conduct more precise DNA analysis and to track major migration patterns impacting human genes. Deadly disease is a common source of natural selection and appears more frequently in modern times due to rising urban populations. This causes "positive selection" to promote advantageous variants resisting disease which comes at a cost. The cost is the rising probability of immune overreaction in humans causing a hyper-vigilant defense system attacking the body. Results from these studies point to repeated recent natural selection in our immune systems and other places with more surprises to come. (Via Scientific American)
my employer has taken all flexibility out of working from home, and people are upset
Nov. 18th, 2025 03:59 pmaskamanager_feedA reader writes:
I work for the government. A few months ago, changes were announced to our employment situation. Government employees who were able to work remotely have been doing so since the pandemic. In 2022, we were mandated back to the office two days a week. It used to be that people could choose what days they were on site, and if someone missed a day in the office here or there it was no problem. Now everyone is required to be in the office Mondays and Fridays. You are not allowed to swap for any other day of the week. You can’t work from home Monday or Friday (for example, you can’t say you’re not feeling well, have a plumber coming and need to be home, etc.). If you can’t come on site, you must take either a vacation or a sick day. You must have childcare for the days you are working remote now and can’t be responsible for caring for children during work hours. You can only take time-off in full- or half-day increments now. No exceptions.
We have all been given new laptops and all of our work, our email, our phone app and everything else is behind a portal. The portal is only accessible weekdays between 9 am and 5 pm. You can no longer log into it on evenings, weekends, holidays, or any time outside of our work hours. If you are using a vacation day or sick day, you can’t log into the portal. This makes it so no one can work outside of our work hours. We are also required to log out of the portal for 30 minutes each day for a lunch break, and this is tracked so people are unable to work through their lunch. Besides when we are on our lunch break, we are supposed to be at our desk/laptop working. Screen captures are taken randomly. There are other measures to ensure we are at our laptop working if we are working remotely, and all of them are legal.
We are told these changes are because people were working unauthorized overtime, outside of hours, and on vacation days. Or people were doing things like errands and appointments during the workday and then working outside of hours to make up for it. Our location is also tracked because people were working in other jurisdictions, and it was causing tax and employment law issues. I know of one person who was hurt in a car accident, and they were over two hours from home in the middle of the workday and had not booked a vacation day. Things like this were cited as the reason for the changes.
There are no exceptions to any of this. It is legal, all of the elected officials agree with it, and it is allowed under our employment contracts and the various union agreements. I am a manager but I have been told even the unions say nothing that can be done.
The changes are unpopular, but how do I get my employees to see that the changes are here to stay? I am just as unhappy as they are, but this is the reality now. Even since the changes happened, all job openings get hundreds or even thousands of applications. The unions and any lawyers people talk to say nothing can be done. I understand everyone is unhappy, I am too, but how do I get them to realize the changes are here to stay?
The best thing you can do is to be very blunt with people about the reality of the situation, so that you don’t inadvertently say something that encourages them to think things might change. For example, don’t say anything like, “This is the situation for now” (which leaves room for “it might not be forever” — which may or may not be true but either way doesn’t help them right now). Instead, be very, very clear: “It’s not how I would have chosen to do things, but there’s been a lot of pushback and it’s been made very clear that this will not change.”
You might also consider adding: “I hope you’ll try it out and see if you can get used to it, but they understand we might lose staff over it and they’re prepared for that. I of course don’t want to lose you, but I also understand if you decide it’s not for you.” Because ultimately that’s what it comes down to — they can stay on knowing the conditions of the job have changed or they can decide not to. It doesn’t sound like there’s a middle ground.
(Or rather, I’m assuming there isn’t a middle ground. If someone is able to show that the changes are causing bigger issues than the problems they were meant to solve, it’s possible your employer will walk some of this back. But I’m guessing that they figure they have the upper hand, given the job market, and it sounds like they think people were abusing the earlier flexibility.)
You can also say, “I want to be blunt with you because I want you to be able to make the best decisions for yourself. The changes are here to stay. They’ve been challenged in every possible way, and we’re told nothing will change. At this point we each need to decide if we want our jobs under these conditions. I hope we won’t lose you, but ultimately that’s what it comes down to.”
From there, it’s really up to them. All you can do is to (a) repeat that you don’t want to lose them but understand if that’s what they decide, and (b) make sure they’re not complaining about it so much that it’s distracting other people or bringing down the morale of your team.
For what it’s worth, the requirement to have child care is very, very normal (assuming it only applies to kids under a certain age and not, like, a 16-year-old). Before the pandemic, that was an utterly routine requirement for remote work; it got relaxed by necessity when schools and daycares closed, and even afterwards because child care shortages lingered in many places) but it’s been becoming a common requirement again. It’s genuinely hard, if not impossible, for most people to care for young kids while focusing on work; one or the other ends up suffering.
If your employer was having issues with people working unauthorized overtime or working on vacation or sick days, that’s likely what drove them to restrict portal access to work hours. They can get in a lot of trouble for allowing people to work unpaid. The same goes for tracking people’s location to ensure they’re not working from a different place than they’re authorized to work from; employers can get in a lot of trouble for not following the tax and employment laws of the jurisdictions where the work is taking place, even if they don’t know about it while it’s happening. I’m not surprised that they’re cracking down if there were more incidents like that car accident two hours away from the spot where someone was allegedly “at work.”
And I’m guessing the Monday/Friday in-office requirements are because they saw that people were working less on those days because they’re near the weekend.
The screen captures are overkill. But it sounds like your office felt people were abusing the flexibility they’d been given, and that’s how you ended up here. It’s not good! But it’s also foreseeable if that’s what was happening (and it’s actually good that they’ve still left three work-from-home days; other companies have made people do a full return on-site).
The post my employer has taken all flexibility out of working from home, and people are upset appeared first on Ask a Manager.
Cloudflare? More like Cloudflump.
Nov. 18th, 2025 03:01 pmmetafilter_feedGuardian: "Some site owners could not access their performance dashboards. Sites including X and OpenAI suffered increased outages at the same time as Cloudflare's problems, according to Downdetector." The Independent: "Visitors to websites such as X, formerly known as Twitter, ChatGPT and film reviewing site Letterboxd saw an error message that indicated that Cloudflare problems meant that the page could not show." Reddit: "At least the site [metafilter.com] survived until the first elected board took office."
The Vantablack Run
Nov. 18th, 2025 02:55 pmmetafilter_feedIn May 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people known to have reached the summit of Mt Everest. In May 1978, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler were the first to do so without supplementary oxygen. In September 2025, Andrzej Bargiel became the first to summit Everest without supplementary oxygen and then ski all the way back down to base camp (YouTube, 31:15).
Despite a brief product placement of his sponsor's fizzy drink at the end, this is a compelling record of an extraordinary achievement, as tense as any movie. It doesn't hurt that the landscape is also breathtaking. Bargiel's isn't the first ski descent of Everest; Davo Karnicar completed a nonstop run in October 2000, but he used oxygen on the upper sections.
Despite a brief product placement of his sponsor's fizzy drink at the end, this is a compelling record of an extraordinary achievement, as tense as any movie. It doesn't hurt that the landscape is also breathtaking. Bargiel's isn't the first ski descent of Everest; Davo Karnicar completed a nonstop run in October 2000, but he used oxygen on the upper sections.
Do I, then, belong to the heavens
Nov. 18th, 2025 11:26 ammetafilter_feedTo build new technology, we must imagine it first.
The Three Dreams
Forgotten Technologies, Towers, and Roman Shitposting
Death Rays, Brass Horses, and Dragon-Surprising Mirrors
Pondering Orbs, Black Mirrors, and World-Viewing Cups
The culmination: The Fear and Fantasy of Flying
Forgotten Technologies, Towers, and Roman Shitposting
Death Rays, Brass Horses, and Dragon-Surprising Mirrors
Pondering Orbs, Black Mirrors, and World-Viewing Cups
The culmination: The Fear and Fantasy of Flying
The border, & the many meanings of the border, isn't meant to be relived
Nov. 18th, 2025 11:22 ammetafilter_feedUnable to move from standing in front of the Dora backpack, I take a picture. I concentrate on the backpack. I tell myself to think beyond this blankness I am feeling right now. I do everything I can standing in place, as if some sentence from the void will pull through, some word or clause or syllable will whisper to me, shout at me, tell it to me. The backpack does not open itself up to interpretation. from Border Theories [The New Enquiry]
fumbling the bag
Nov. 18th, 2025 11:11 ammetafilter_feedHow did a luggage manufacturer claim the American rights to a Danish toy line? [substack] "Samsonite had told us that American kids were different from kids in Europe," a Danish LEGO official said to Business Week... "But when we took over ourselves, we found they were just the same."
askamanager_feedIt’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…
1. My coworker accidentally linked her nudes to our team Photoshop account
My coworker was using our team’s Photoshop account for a personal project (which our manager is aware of and okay with) and somehow she accidentally linked her phone camera roll to the account so all of her personal photos were visible on the team account. This might have been a nonissue, but my coworker has numerous sexually explicit photos on her phone that were then linked to Photoshop without her knowledge. The way she found out about this was our manager calling her after hours and letting her know she needed to unlink her phone photos immediately. Manager did not mention anything about the content of the photos.
Clearly, my coworker is now embarrassed and freaking out about what this means for her job. Could she be fired over this?
It’s possible, but it’s far more likely that her manager will just have a serious conversation with her about being more careful in the future — or might assume the embarrassment has already handled teaching her the lesson (which it probably has). Your coworker could help things along by thanking for the manager for calling her right away and saying that she’s mortified and it will never happen again.
2. Not telling an intern the real reason she was fired
I am in middle management at a company that takes on a fair number of interns every year. At a recent meeting (just middle managers and our boss), my coworker mentioned some very inappropriate behavior from an intern. Apparently, Coworker and Intern were working with a client and Intern started talking about marijuana use at length — how it’s so helpful for her, how much fun it is, but sometimes the way she acts while high is scary to her — while Client laughed along and encouraged the conversation. We all agreed that the internship needed to be ended early, both because of this and because Intern is late more often than not.
Coworker asked us not to tell Intern that we knew about the inappropriate conversation. Boss said that was fine, and that he’d tell Intern she was being fired for arriving late too many times. I suggested it might be a good idea for Intern to know that what she said in front of the client was not okay, for her professional growth if nothing else. Coworker never discussed it with her, so she wouldn’t know. Nevertheless, she was fired for “tardiness.”
Do you think this was the right way to handle it? I understand Boss wanting to respect Coworker’s request not to tell Intern that he knew what Intern said, but at the same time, I feel like Intern deserves to know. What do you think?
I’m with you. Part of the point of an internship is to learn about how work works, and it’s a disservice to the intern not to tell her that that conversation was firing-level inappropriate. It’s far better for her to learn that lesson as an intern than at a regular job where the stakes will be higher. In asking your boss not to share the info, the coworker was prioritizing her own (extremely mild) issues of comfort over what’s actually best for the intern, and it’s too bad that your boss agreed to handle it that way.
3. How do we ask for extra pay for overnight events when we’re working for a friend?
I work part-time as an assistant event planner. The company is owned by one main planner, Jane, who does this full-time and brings in three assistants to help on the day of events. The three of us all have separate full-time 9–5 jobs during the week, so this is side work for us. Event days are long, physical, and often outside in hot weather, but we all genuinely enjoy working together and have become good friends.
As the business has grown, Jane has started taking on more events that are farther away, which often means overnight travel. We’re paid hourly for the event work itself and reimbursed for expenses while on the road, but the travel adds a lot of extra logistical work for us — arranging time off or remote days from less-than-ideal locations for our regular jobs, managing childcare and pet care, packing for several days, etc. It’s starting to feel like we should be getting some additional compensation for that extra burden, maybe a flat bonus for overnight events or something similar.
The tricky part is: I don’t think Jane realizes how much of an extra ask these overnights are. She’s a workhorse who will happily go from 5 a.m. to midnight, and when she’s in the zone she can get tunnel vision about what the event needs, without realizing that not everyone can or wants to operate that way or that we have other responsibilities outside her business.
Jane genuinely enjoys these trips and I think sees them as friend time as much as work time. To be fair, we do too! We don’t want to damage the good vibe we have, but we also want to feel fairly compensated for the extra effort that goes into supporting her growing business. How can we raise this without hurting the relationship?
Be straightforward and explain that the overnight trips require more from you than the local ones do, and ask to revisit the payment rate in light of that. For example: “Can we revisit the payment rate for overnight trips? Our current payment rate was arranged when all the events were local, but overnight events require a lot more, like time off from our regular jobs or arranging remote work and managing child care and pet care. Could we figure out a different rate for overnight trips that takes those factors into account?”
If she resists that, it’s completely fair and reasonable to say that you can only do local events. And since there’s a friendship element here that you’re worried about too, you can acknowledge that by saying something like, “I do have a great time on the trips and like doing them, but realistically it’s not something I can make work with my regular job at the current rate. So I will sit those out, but if you ever change the way they pay, I’d be interested in doing them again.”
4. Who should really be in the “to” field vs. the “cc” field?
The VP at my work requests that we copy his assistant when emailing him to make sure he responds. Often, if I am scheduling a meeting with him, his assistant will be the right person to respond. I feel weird CC’ing her and addressing the email to VP when the assistant is going to respond.
I have been addressing the emails to both of them and talking about the VP in third person when scheduling meetings. The VP needs information on the topic of the meeting, and the assistant is the one that works out the scheduling. I feel like I should actually be emailing the assistant and CC’ing the VP, but that may not be appropriate given his position either. What are your thoughts?
Either one is fine, and different offices do it differently — and in most cases, no one is really analyzing the to/cc fields that closely (there are some exceptions to that, but they’re rare) and you’re probably putting too much worry into it.
In this case, since the VP has specifically asked that you copy his assistant, you should do it that way. And it’s very, very normal to do it that way! The idea is that you’re emailing the VP about the need, but his assistant is copied in so she can handle the set-up. But most likely, they don’t really care which way you do it as long as you’re sending the info to both of them.
5. I’m on leave and just saw my company advertising my job
I work in middle management at a mid-sized office. There have been a lot of money troubles and management drama here in the past year, and I recently went on FMLA to address health issues I’ve been ignoring. The stress of the job was definitely a contributing factor to my declining health.
I will return to work this winter and have communicated my expected return-to-work date to HR, but I was scrolling a job board and noticed that my employer posted an opening for my job. It has a different title than mine but is exactly what I do in my day-to-day. I’m trying to not freak out and tell myself that maybe management has realized how overworked I was previously, so they’re hiring help for me. But I can’t help but think that they are trying to blatantly replace me. Management is known to hold grudges toward people who go on leave. I know that technically my employer can move me to the “same or equivalent position” when I return from FMLA, but I also know there is quite literally no money or space to hire a Second Me for the office.
Is there any way to interpret this non-maliciously? My current thought is to continue with my current return-to-work plan and see what happens, but the uncertainty is killing me.
It’s possible that they can’t leave the work undone and so they’re hiring for it now, with the plan of moving you to an equivalent role when you return or of having there be two people doing the work or at least of having overlap. Or it’s possible that they’re planning to flagrantly violate federal law and push you out for taking FMLA.
One option, if you want to, is to email your manager and say you saw the job posting and ask if they’re adding a second role or envisioning you returning to a different one. But it also wouldn’t be a bad idea to make sure you have a lawyer to contact if they do indeed try to push you out.
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Simple tools to hold things together. To attach. To be attached by, or t
Nov. 17th, 2025 11:11 pmmetafilter_feedWhat else is desirable when always at hand? Because always at hand? Ubiquity is not generally part of an object's allure. Usually, it's the opposite: rarity arousing interest. But the rubber band's omnipresence may be its allure (that, and the fact that they're so quiet). from Rubber Bands [The Yale Review]
Sea wolves in BC have added Crabbing to their skill set.
Nov. 17th, 2025 10:33 pmmetafilter_feedTraps set as a control measure for invasive Green Crabs on the BC coast were being mysteriously damaged. Researchers set up cameras to try and figure out why and have captured sea wolves using the buoy lines to pull the traps on the beach in order to eat the bait.
Sea wolves are a distinct sub species of wolf endemic to the west coast of BC and Alaska including many islands. The wolves are strong swimmers and 75-90% of their diet is from the ocean. Sea Wolves previously. Invasive Green Crabs previously.
Sea wolves are a distinct sub species of wolf endemic to the west coast of BC and Alaska including many islands. The wolves are strong swimmers and 75-90% of their diet is from the ocean. Sea Wolves previously. Invasive Green Crabs previously.
We Can Now Track Individual Monarch Butterflies
Nov. 17th, 2025 09:48 pmmetafilter_feedScientists used tiny new sensors to follow the insects on journeys that take thousands of miles to their winter colonies in Mexico. [NYT gift link, archive (slightly messed up due to interactive graphics)]