arduinna

Posted by chavenet

https://www.metafilter.com/211398/Swedish-was-the-fourth-language-I-learned-on-Duolingo

Perhaps needless to say, I didn't reach fluency in German, French or Irish either. I have, slowly, read books in French, but I lose conversational threads quickly. I can tell you that I don't like someone's trousers in Irish anytime you like, but that's about it. German, I still know basically nichts. So I gave up on Duolingo about five years ago, thoroughly disillusioned. In the meantime, Duolingo has continued to be the most downloaded language learning app in the world. from The Promise of Duolingo [The Dial]

https://www.metafilter.com/211398/Swedish-was-the-fourth-language-I-learned-on-Duolingo

askamanager_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/all-of-my-2025-book-recommendations.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=33485

All year long, I’ve made a weekly book recommendation when kicking off the weekend open thread. These aren’t work-related books; they’re just books I like, mostly fiction. Sometimes they’re books that I’m in the middle of reading, and other times they’re just long-standing favorites.

Here’s the complete list of what I’ve recommended this year (maybe in time for holiday gift-shopping!). I’ve bolded my favorites of the favorites. (Interestingly, with some notable exceptions, it appears that what I was reading got lighter and lighter as the year went on.)

Long Bright River, by Liz Moore. It’s SO GOOD! It’s the story of two sisters, close as children but estranged as adults. When one becomes a police officer while the other struggles with addiction. When the younger sister goes missing, the other tries to find her. I thought this would be a gritty police procedural, which isn’t normally my thing, but it’s a beautifully layered literary exploration of family bonds and addiction that will get you right in the gut. The best book I’ve read in months. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Rental House, by Weike Wang. After the daughter of Chinese immigrants and the son of a white, working class family marry, they grapple with their relationship with each other and both sets of parents over the course of a summer vacation. (Amazon, Bookshop)

God of the Woods, by Liz Moore. A teenager disappears from the summer camp her family owns, 14 years after her older brother similarly disappeared. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson. After loving Liz Moore’s Long Bright River, I wanted more literary fiction mysteries where the character development gets as much attention as the plot. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Perfume and Pain, by Anna Dorn. A cancelled writer searches for inspiration and develops a surprising relationship with her new neighbor. Funny and smart. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Piglet, by Lottie Hazell. After her fiance confesses a betrayal two weeks before their wedding, a woman becomes inexplicably ravenous. (Amazon, Bookshop)

The Safekeep, by Yael van der Wouden. When her brother’s girlfriend comes to stay with her in the Netherlands, a woman’s post-war life is upended. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Blob: A Love Story, by Maggie Su. After a woman takes home a blob she finds in an alley, it grows into her ideal man. (Amazon, Bookshop)

The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett. The Queen of England stumbles into a mobile library and develops a love of reading, which upends her life as the monarch. (Amazon, Bookshop)

The Rachel Incident, by Caroline O’Donoghue. A best friendship is upended when one of the friends begins an affair with a married professor. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Real Americans, by Rachel Khong. This is an epic family saga told in three generations: a pair of scientists who fled China’s Cultural Revolution, their daughter, and the son she has in America with the wealthy heir to a pharmaceutical company, whose business is intertwined with her parents in ways she learns of only later. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Show Don’t Tell, by Curtis Sittenfeld. I will read anything Curtis Sittenfeld writes, including short stories, which normally frustrate me for being … short. As she has moved into middle age, so have many of her characters, including one story that revisits the protagonist from her novel Prep. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Every Tom, Dick & Harry, by Elinor Lipman. Yay for a new Elinor Lipman, who I believe is the Jane Austen of our time. A woman is hired to handle the estate sale of her small town’s brothel/B&B. There’s intergenerational friendship, a romance with the chief of police, family drama, a high school reunion, and much more. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler. The night before a woman’s daughter is getting married, her ex shows up on her doorstep with no place to stay (and a cat). The story is the day before the wedding, the day of, and the day afterwards, and it’s charming and cozy and ended too soon. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Greta & Valdin, by Rebecca K. Reilly. Greta and Valdin are siblings and roommates, one dealing with his break-up with a much older man, and one trying to figure out love and her career. It’s also about their large Maori-Russian-Catalonian family, and about struggling to find your way, and it’s funny. (Amazon, Bookshop)

I See You’ve Called In Dead, by John Kenney. An obituary writer publishes his own obituary after drinking too much one night, then he learns his newspaper can’t fire him because their systems now list him as dead. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Back After This, by Linda Holmes. A podcast producer who’s been wanting to host her own show gets offered the chance to do it … but she has to agree to let the show be about her dating life and to work with a relationship coach and influencer, of whom she’s highly skeptical. It’s smart and funny, and I looked forward to reading it every night and was sad when it was over. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Three Junes, by Julia Glass. The story of three generations of a Scottish family, across three summers. It’s about the expectations and obligations of family, as well as marriage, love, and loss. One of my favorite books of all time. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Dearly Departed, by Elinor Lipman. After the unexpected death of her mother, a single mom returns to her small hometown and realized life there was different than she’d previously understood. (Amazon, Bookshop)

The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern, by Lynda Cohen Loigman. A retired pharmacist moves to a retirement community in Florida, where she reconnects with a man from her past. The story alternates between their relationship in the present day and what happened between them when they were growing up in Brooklyn in the 1920s. (Amazon, Bookshop)

The Glitch, by Elisabeth Cohen. A tech company CEO who’s the walking embodiment of every piece of dehumanized corporate advice you’ve ever heard has her life disrupted when she meets a woman who appears to be the younger version of herself (literally — same name, same scar, same history). Darkly hilarious. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Food Person, by Adam Roberts. A down-on-her-luck food writer is hired to ghostwrite a cookbook for a messy, narcissistic TV star who doesn’t even like food. Roberts, a food writer himself, seeds the whole thing with expertise about the food world, and it’s hilarious and in parts surprisingly moving. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Consider Yourself Kissed, by Jessica Stanley. The title makes it sound like a light romance, but it’s the story of a woman who enters a relationship and finds, like many women before her, that her life must narrow so his can expand, and how she deals with that. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Aftertaste, by Daria Lavelle. A chef who can taste ghosts’ favorite meals finds he can temporarily reunite people with their lost loved ones by preparing those foods. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Girls Girls Girls, by Shoshana von Blanckensee. As soon as they graduate high school, two best friends (and secret girlfriends) drive to San Francisco and try to make a life there. It’s about being gay, Jewish, and loving your grandma. It’s also about strip clubs, cringing at yourself, and figuring out who you are versus who your family is. I loved it. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Far and Away, by Amy Poeppel. A family in Dallas and a family in Berlin swap homes for the summer, then find their lives intertwining in unexpected ways. Funny and sweet, and I am already missing many of these characters. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Park Avenue, by Renee Ahdieh. An ambitious young lawyer is asked to take on a case against a monstrously rich family’s patriarch, who seems to be hiding money from his kids and terminally ill wife. (Amazon, Bookshop)

The Bedwetter, by Sarah Silverman (Amazon, Bookshop). If you like her comedy, you’ll like this. Warning: it is crude. If you don’t like really crude comedy, then let me suggest some hilarious but less crude books by other comics: I’m Just a Person by Tig Notaro (Amazon, Bookshop); I’d Like to Play Alone, Please by Tom Segura (Amazon, Bookshop) and You’ll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein (Amazon, Bookshop).

Musical Chairs, by Amy Poeppel, who loves nothing better than to assemble a big messy group of family and chosen family and let the chaos fly. This time, the musician daughter of a famous conductor, her chamber trio, her kids, her octogenarian father’s new fiancé, and assorted other characters gather at a ramshackle home in the country and nothing goes as planned. (Amazon, Bookshop)

A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping, by Sangu Mandanna. The latest from the author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, this is just as cozy and delightful. After one of the most powerful witches in the world loses her magic and is exiled from the magicians’ guild, she must find her way back while running an enchanted inn that only people who truly need can find. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Carnegie Hill, by Jonathan Vatner. A newlywed struggling with her marriage watches other relationships in various states of disarray in her her New York co-op building. It’s about people with money, people with less money, marriage, fidelity, and secrets. (Amazon, Bookshop)

I’m Glad My Mom Died, by Jenette McCurdy. An incredible memoir about her abusive stage mom that grabs you and won’t let you put it down. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Bring the House Down, by Charlotte Runcie. When a performer discovers a theater critic wrote a scathing review of her show the same night he slept with her, she creates a hit show about what happened. Told through the eyes of the critic’s friend and colleague, it’s an exploration of what (some) badly behaved men tell themselves and the chaos they create for those around them. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Flying Solo, by Linda Holmes. After returning home to clean out her great-aunt’s house, a woman who recently called off her wedding finds a mysterious love letter and an even more mysterious wooden duck. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Morningside Heights, by Cheryl Mendelson. The woman who wrote the amazing Home Comforts: the Art and Science of Keeping House also wrote a novel! Two married musicians grapple with the their careers, the troubled love lives of their friends, the aftermath of a neighbor’s death, and the way rapid gentrification may soon push them out of their beloved home. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Sisters of Fortune, by Esther Chehebar, who’s been called “a Jewish Jane Austen.” Three sisters in the insular Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn try to figure out their relationships to men and to each other, as one begins to question her engagement. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Sister Wife, by Christine Brown Woolley. I don’t know what made me pick this up but once I did, I couldn’t put it down. Written by one of the (former!) three sister wives from TLC’s reality show about a polygamous marriage, it’s absolutely fascinating. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Single, Carefree, Mellow, by Katherine Heiny. I don’t normally like short stories but I will read everything Katherine Heiny writes and these short stories are just as funny and smart about love and relationships as her longer books. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Great Big Beautiful Life, by Emily Henry. Two very different writers — one an outgoing celebrity journalist and one a Pulitzer-Prize-winning curmudgeon — compete to write the biography of a once-famous tabloid princess who long ago dropped out of sight. Not my favorite Emily Henry, but everything she writes is so entertaining that it’s still worth recommending. She’s an ideal author for when you want fluff that’s still smart and well-written. (Amazon, Bookshop)

The Sisters Weiss, by Naomi Ragen. The daughter of a strict ultra-Orthodox Jewish family rebels against the expectations of her parents and community, to mixed results. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Everything Here Is Under Control, by Emily Adrian. Two estranged friends reunite when one is breaking under the strain of new motherhood. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Land of Milk and Honey, by C Pam Zhang. With food supplies disappearing after an environmental disaster, a chef escapes to a job in the Italian Alps to cook in a closed oasis for the world’s elite. (Amazon, Bookshop)

What Is Wrong With You? by Paul Rudnick. Both funny and poignant, it follows a motley cast of characters (including a former TV action star, a fired book editor, and a dentist in mourning) as they prepare to attend the wedding of one of their exes to a famous tech billionaire. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Nobody’s Girl, by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. It’s an account of the author’s abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell (including abuse that simply took another form after she escaped them), and it’s absolutely harrowing. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Grace & Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon, by Matthew Norman. After being recently widowed, a mom raising two young kids meets a man who recently lost his wife, and they slowly start to rebuild their lives. It is charming and legitimately funny and there’s a lot of Baltimore in it, and I loved it. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Wreck, by Catherine Newman. A woman in middle age has a a delightful family, a mysterious rash, and a preoccupation with a local train accident. The family is the same one from her first book, Sandwich, but this book is 10 times funnier, and you don’t need to have read the first one to enjoy this one. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Ladies in Waiting: Jane Austen’s Unsung Characters, by Adriana Trigiani and more. A bunch of well-known authors, including my personal favorite Elinor Lipman, reimagine the lives of some of Jane Austen’s minor characters, including Mary Bennett, Georgiana Darcy, Caroline Bingley, and Miss Bates. (Amazon, Bookshop)

Buckeye, by Patrick Ryan. A short-lived affair in a small town in 1945 has long-lasting consequences for two families. I loved this! This ended up being my favorite book of everything I read this year. (Amazon, Bookshop)

And if you’re looking for more, here are my lists of book recommendations from 2024 … from 2023 … from 2022 … from 2021 … from 2020 … from 2019 … from 2018 … from 2017 … from 2016 … and from 2015.

This site is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites, as well as an affiliate of Bookshop.org. I make a commission if you use these links.

The post all of my 2025 book recommendations appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/all-of-my-2025-book-recommendations.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=33485

metafilter_feed

Posted by clew

https://www.metafilter.com/211397/The-CRASH-Clock

How much does Earth's satellite panoply depend on maneuvering to avoid collisions? More and more, especially in some busy orbits. This is a link to the ArXiv (public) copy of a research paper; one of the authors chats about highlights here.

https://www.metafilter.com/211397/The-CRASH-Clock

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Photograph of a grinning Shiba Inu dog wearing a pink party hat with a 15 on it. Text: Happy Birthday, Fancake. On this day in history, jerakeen made the very first post to this comm. Happy birthday to us!

To celebrate fancake's fifteen years of operation, we're taking a two-pronged approach, with thanks to full_metal_ox for suggesting the second prong:

post recs to the comm for fanworks published in 2010 for amnesty (if all else fails, theme: old fandoms should probably cover you, but consider also theme: favorite fanworks, theme: fandom classics, and theme: underloved fanworks)
comment on this post with what you were into when you were fifteen—or what you were into fifteen years ago—what you're into today, and how your tastes have changed—or not!—over the years, or share your thoughts in your own journal and leave us a link here in the comments
a secret third thing???

Happy birthday, Fancake! Thank you for making this comm a community. 🎂

prisca posting in

fic_promptly

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

askamanager_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/update-employer-who-laid-me-off-is-now-asking-me-to-sign-an-indemnification.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34528

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

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

Remember the letter-writer whose employer who laid them off and then wanted them to sign an indemnification (#2 at the link)? Here’s the update.

Your advice was incredibly helpful.

My previous manager continued to send me multiple followup texts regarding the indemnification that felt very guilt-tripping (reminding me they could not proceed with the critical business operation unless I signed and agreed). I did not reply to any of the texts. I did reply to the document they sent me via email (indemnification document). I cc’d the company’s head of legal. In the email, I refused to sign, said I did not consent to the use of my credentials, and that this was my final decision. In reply, they said they hoped for a different outcome but “respected my decision given the use of my name and dob in login credentials.” I also contacted the government agency that I had the credentials with and informed them I no longer worked there, asking them to remove my credentials from association with the company, and they did so.

Months passed and I heard nothing more, but eventually I received a text from this same manager, who let me know that they found another partnership and were able to continue with business as usual (they “thought I’d like to know”). I responded with a very brief “Glad to hear” and have not heard from them since. Of course, what I would have liked to say was, “Why do I care? This isn’t my business since you fired me” but I wanted to end on an okay note.

I am still job searching. It’s extremely rough out there, and I have not been able to get very far in interviews for the same job I left at this company because I am so early career. I’ve been getting feedback from companies when they do not move forward with me that they just have more candidates with more experience, always. I feel resentful that I was cut off from developing in my early career by this company that clearly didn’t think through their own needs before making that decision. I’m starting to look outside my previous industry with a little more success (and a big pay cut). I wish everyone out there looking right now the best of luck.

Again, thank you so much for all your advice, and your readers for their comments! I enjoyed reading through them all and it felt very vindicating.

The post update: employer who laid me off is now asking me to sign an indemnification appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/update-employer-who-laid-me-off-is-now-asking-me-to-sign-an-indemnification.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34528

askamanager_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/office-holiday-gift-giving-stories-worst-gifts-and-weirdest-gifts-6.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=33219

In the spirit of the season, let’s hear about workplace gift debacles. Did a game of Secret Santa end in tears? Did a coworker throw a tantrum when she didn’t win a raffle? Were you given a jar of mold as a gift? Did you receive an oil painting of your coworker’s mother in the style of Napoleon? These are all real stories that we’ve heard here in the past. Now you must top them.

Share your weirdest or funniest story related to gifts in the office in the comments.

The post office holiday gift-giving stories: worst gifts and weirdest gifts appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/office-holiday-gift-giving-stories-worst-gifts-and-weirdest-gifts-6.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=33219

metafilter_feed

Posted by Kitteh

https://www.metafilter.com/211396/22-years-and-a-remastered-edition-later-DBTs-finest-moment-shines

Well-lubed and swerving all together: Drive-By Truckers get back to Decoration Day. As soon as he got "The Deeper In" jotted down, he knew Decoration Day was going to be the Truckers' masterpiece. "And I had that in my head the entire time we were writing it," he continues. "I was going through a divorce, we were all living way too hard—not even just in the partying sense. I mean, we were pushing ourselves to beyond a limit for years straight. It could have killed us."

https://www.metafilter.com/211396/22-years-and-a-remastered-edition-later-DBTs-finest-moment-shines

metafilter_feed

Posted by AlSweigart

https://www.metafilter.com/211395/In-a-digital-world-Pittsburgh-is-an-analog-paradise

Pittsburgh City Paper writes: "Despite all odds and most predictions, print copies of books are still selling in the U.S., and the number of independent bookstores has dramatically increased by 70% since 2020. Self-published zines and zine fairs continue to be popular with niche audiences. Film photography continues to attract new fans, and one of the industry's flagship companies, Kodak, is still holding on after filing bankruptcy in 2012. And, perhaps most notably, vinyl records have been making an unexpected comeback since 2006 and recently outsold CDs for the first time since 1987."

https://www.metafilter.com/211395/In-a-digital-world-Pittsburgh-is-an-analog-paradise

metafilter_feed

Posted by brainwane

https://www.metafilter.com/211394/I-guess-source-matter-is-still-source-matter

In November, Strange Horizons published two short, bittersweet scifi/fantasy stories in which adults care for or grieve their parents (content notes at the top). "Palimpsest" by Melissa A Watkins: "After my mother died, Dr. Rostrow called to ask me if I wanted anything out of her brain." Watkins says it describes "the silences that cause strain in close relationships and the hidden injustice of women not being deeply known by their own families." "HEART FALLOUT" by Jess Peng (bodyhorror): "I have considered buying my mother a special bone bag, a medical-grade one lined with regrowth powder to speed up the regeneration process, but I know it would likely sit, unused, in the bottom drawer of her nightstand where she keeps all the gifts she receives and promptly forgets."

https://www.metafilter.com/211394/I-guess-source-matter-is-still-source-matter

metafilter_feed

Posted by mhoye

https://www.metafilter.com/211393/Nasty-Brutish-and-Short

Long before the Muppets, long before Sesame Street, a young Jim Henson created dozens of ten-second commercials for the Wilkins Coffee Company, among many others, featuring early proto-muppets Wilkins and Wontkins.

They are absolutely unhinged.

https://www.metafilter.com/211393/Nasty-Brutish-and-Short

glitteryv posting in

recthething

Every Thursday, we have a community post, just like this one, where you can drop a rec or five in the comments.

This works great if you only have one rec and don't want to make a whole post for it, or if you don't have a DW account, or if you're shy. ;)

(But don't forget: you can deffo make posts of your own seven days a week. ;D!)

So what cool fanart/podfics/fancrafts/fanvids/other kinds of fanworks have we discovered this week? Drop it in the comments below. Anon comment is enabled.

BTW, AI fanworks are not eligible for reccing at recthething. If you aware that a fanwork is AI-generated, please do not rec it here

omens

We have been absolutely DUMPED ON the last couple days here. Sooo so much snow. I have shoveled so much. The neighbour took pity and helped me with half of the driveway again (he has a snowblower - the entire street has snowblowers). Why do none of these snowblower people help me with the ton of snow compressed from the plow??? ;_;

Anyway, I went to two different grocery stores the day before the snow so we are STOCKED. It's snowing again on Saturday, though. :/

The sunlight through the ice and snow this morning is bringing me joy.

In media news:

I just finished the first season of Hilda, what a cute and fun show. Fun folklore. Nice animation.

Our ongoing kdrama is Beautiful Gong Shim which started out really strong (huuuuuuge ND4ND vibes, two of the most autistic leads ever) but seems to be wobbling around 8 or 9, and we're not halfway through. A 20 ep drama?! Pretty rare. I'm not sure they have the story for it, but we'll see!

An update!!! My other neighbour helped me chop up the plow snow and shovel it enough that my car can be moved. He also gave me all the hot neighbourhood gossip, hell yeah. 🥹

Current Mood: 🫠🤓
Current Location: ❄️🏘️❄️
Current Music: 🙂‍↕️✨

metafilter_feed

Posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries

https://www.metafilter.com/211392/Shark-feeding-frenzy-at-Byron-Bay-spectacular-but-dangerous

Shark feeding frenzy at Byron Bay spectacular but dangerous. A marine scientist warns against getting in the ocean with sharks after footage emerges of swimmers at Byron Bay next to a huge school of bait fish and hundreds of the predators.

A marine scientist has warned against getting in the ocean with sharks after footage emerged of swimmers at Byron Bay next to a huge school of bait fish and hundreds of the predators. Bond University associate professor of environmental science Daryl McPhee said that although the feeding frenzy was a sign of a healthy marine ecosystem, it was an unsafe environment for humans. Footage on social media has shown swimmers seemingly unaware they are within a few metres of sharks, while some footage shows snorkellers deliberately swimming among them. "The sharks are feeding, so the risk lies in someone in the water simply being nipped," Dr McPhee said. "It may not be a life-changing injury or a fatality, but it's still not what you want to see, particularly if someone was bitten and was bleeding with that large number of sharks around." Authorities believe two Swiss nationals attacked by a shark at Crowdy Bay National Park last month were swimming in the vicinity of bait balls. Huge schools of pilchards have been darkening the surf zone, mostly to the south of Cape Byron, for several days, attracting hundreds of sharks. Dr McPhee said the species included black tip whalers, dusky whalers, bull sharks and other smaller whaler species. He said neither the number nor the behaviour of the sharks was unusual. "It's what sharks do, they herd the bait fish close to shore so they can use the shore as a barrier to trap the fish. "It's behaviour that I have observed for over 40 years in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.

https://www.metafilter.com/211392/Shark-feeding-frenzy-at-Byron-Bay-spectacular-but-dangerous

metafilter_feed

Posted by autopilot

https://www.metafilter.com/211391/The-Colonization-of-Confidence

Watching and listening to your friends losing who they are is a rarely examined type of grief. A sad yet hopeful story of resisting the brain rot of LLMs, by Robert Kingett, a totally blind author and accessibility consultant who writes at Sightless Scribbles (previously)

https://www.metafilter.com/211391/The-Colonization-of-Confidence

sholio

I finished something I started a while back!

Movie Nights (2735 words) - Babylon 5, seasons one to five
Summary: Just a bunch of aliens getting hooked on each other's trashy serial media.

metafilter_feed

Posted by chavenet

https://www.metafilter.com/211390/I-should-have-called-them-pumps

The completion of those books meant that I had become the person who wrote them. In some way, they are a record of change. I suppose I can make the distinction between finished and resolved. There are gaps in my books, incommensurates built into their structures, but that does not mean they're unfinished. I want emptiness, silence, and the unknowable to travel along with the story. An interview with Robert Gluck [The Yale Review]

https://www.metafilter.com/211390/I-should-have-called-them-pumps

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251210.html

Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, this dusty interstellar

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap251210.html

askamanager_feed

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/nameplate-drama-boss-and-i-keep-wearing-the-same-thing-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=28274

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

1. Nameplate drama

I work for a very large company. My department is small and very specialized. The rest of company either doesn’t know we exist or, if they do, doesn’t understand what we do. My department has been the “stepchild” of the company. There have been growth and leadership changes that affected morale for many years. There’s a lack of role clarity, communication, overstepping of management boundaries, no policies or procedures, reactiveness, finger pointing, etc.

We have one long-term employee, Jan, who is known for being rude and sarcastic and trying to pass it all off as a joke. Many of us avoid her. She has been insubordinate with her prior manager and had threatened to go to the CEO so nothing was done. She had worked with the CEO in the past and has some type of continued relationship. Morale is low and people are leaving. Our turnover has been noticed by upper management — five people have left in last eight months. The most recent was everybody’s favorite manager, Jay.

Jan has been collecting all departed employees’ nameplates for years and proudly displayed them. We all have started taking the nameplates of the coworkers who have quit in past months, and Jan isn’t happy. Some had even instructed us to make sure Jan doesn’t get nameplates to display. Jan is mad that she couldn’t find Jay’s nameplate, so she printed his picture and is displaying at her desk. I walked in this morning and everybody is mad. They’re tired of Jan and all the ugliness and rudeness. The whole team is tired in general and feel, due to all the other issues, this has crossed the line. Unfortunately, the head of the department just came by asking about Jay’s picture and Jan loudly complained about not being able to find his nameplate and the reason for the picture. He laughed. The rest of us cringed. Some on my team want to complain. I decided to speak for the team with my director about how this is affecting the team tomorrow. I am somewhat second guessing myself. But I am very aware as team lead of all the issues affecting everybody and the low team morale. This has been an issue for few years. As an FYI, a few of us are looking to post out, including me, and are taking additional training courses to leave our department. Your take on this whole mess?

I originally didn’t understand what Jan was doing with the nameplates, but commenters have pointed out that it sounds like she’s using them as “trophies” of people she’s successfully driven out. Given that, I’m rewriting this answer.

If that is indeed what she’s doing, that’s incredibly messed up, and someone in a position of authority needs tell her “these aren’t appropriate to display and I’m collecting them from you today.” That person might be you, as team lead! But if it’s not, you can indeed cite this to whoever is as evidence of Jan’s toxicity.

It sounds like it’s far from the only problem though, and solving this will still leave you mired in serious issues: team morale is low, communication is bad, you have no systems, and the turnover isn’t likely to stop. Absent any signs of real commitment to change that from above you, I’d focus the bulk of your mental energy on getting out.

– 2018

Read an update to this letter here.

2. How do I resign without destroying my boss’s company and breaking her heart?

For the last year, I have been slowly building a company while continuing to work in a senior management position with my firm. I have been with my current employer for over 10 years and have a close relationship with my boss. We are a very small and close-knit office, but I’m excited about starting something new and moving on. My master plan was to leave once it became clear that I had business to carry me into next year, which I now do.

Simple enough, right? Over the last six months, our business has suffered from a lack of new clients. Two of my former coworkers who I worked closely with recently left because of this. Unfortunately, they both gave notice the week my boss’s spouse died. After this happened, she pulled me aside begging me not to leave and said she’d close the office if I quit. She also told me this is all she has left to look forward to. She gave me a raise because I will be “assuming more responsibility” with my coworkers gone (responsibility I don’t particularly want). She’s offered to pass the business along to me when she retires, which seems generous at face value, but I’m almost certain we have been operating at a loss for years. I’m at the height of my career and I’ve suddenly found myself in a failing company, with a staff entirely over 55. Mostly, I just don’t want this anymore. I want to focus on my own company and move on.

I’m really at a loss on how to quit with the threat of her losing the “only thing she has left” when I go? How do I quit without hurting her deeply in an already fragile time? It feels like I’m crushing someone who’s counting on me and sees me as the future of their company. I don’t want to hurt her, but this isn’t what I want.

Oh no! This is hard. But you definitely don’t need to stay. And even your boss probably wouldn’t want you to stay and be miserable if she had the full context of what you’ve been planning, but since she doesn’t know all that, the comments she’s making are all based on the assumption that you’re reasonably happy there. So yeah, you need to talk to her and let her know what your plans are.

You didn’t say how long it’s been since her spouse died. If it just happened, I’d give it a few weeks before you talk to her. One advantage of your situation is that you’re not leaving for a job with another employer, with a definite start date; you have the flexibility to wait a few weeks. It’s not that a few weeks will be enough time for her to adjust to the death of her spouse; obviously it’s not. This is just about not hitting her with yet another piece of bad news while she’s still reeling in the immediate aftermath of tragedy. But it’s not a really long time (like six months), because you don’t want her making long-term plans that center around you.

I totally get that you don’t want to be responsible for her deciding to the close the office if you leave. But that might in fact be the best decision for her, and that’s okay. Or she might change her mind; it’s possible that her comments to you were made in the initial stages of grief (and perhaps panic about the business) and she’ll decide to handle it differently later. But the best thing you can do is to give her the information about the situation that she currently lacks (i.e., that you are going to be moving on relatively soon), after waiting a respectful amount of time, so that she’s able to make the right decisions for her and for her business.

– 2018

3. My boss and I keep accidentally wearing the same thing

I work in a very small office — just my boss, me, and the maintenance guy who pops in occasionally. I adore my boss, but lately I’ve noticed that we tend to wear the same style of outfits. Like we’ll both have on a blue shirt with black pants and a black cardigan. Yesterday we both wore pink shirts with jeans and grey cardigan, etc. I’m fairly new to office environments, so I’m not sure if this is super weird or if I’m just overthinking it. We don’t wear identical outfits, but they are pretty similar in style and color. Should I go shopping or should I just chill out?

Nah, you’re fine. Sometimes this happens in offices (it’s like the clothes version of women’s menstrual cycles syncing up) and you can make a joke about the matching outfits. You definitely don’t need to buy new clothes.

– 2019

Read an update to this letter here.

4. My company wants me to impart years of knowledge to someone in my last week on the job

My current role is multi-faceted. We’re a company of fewer than 50 employees, I do all of the marketing, all of the graphic design for our e-learning modules, and 80% of the customer service for online learning (seriously). I have a bachelor’s degree in graphic design, and taught myself the sister software for instructional design after college.

With less than a week left before I leave for a new job, I’ve been tasked to teach our video production intern (turned full-time employee) everything I know about the software. This is an advanced software program that took me years to learn, and even now, I’m nowhere near master level. The intern is fresh out of college and knows video production very well, but has very little graphic design experience (not to mention, he’s arrogant, having once told me he doesn’t need to attend professional development conferences or skills trainings because “he already knows all of that”). First, I just don’t think I can get him up to par before I leave. Second, isn’t this asking a lot for a departing employee? Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but I’m used to passing off tasks and projects upon departure, but not being required to teach a newbie everything about a tool that I use…? Can I ask your thoughts? Furthermore, my superiors are holding this “carrot” of being able to take Thursday and Friday this week as PTO, giving me a couple of days off before I start my new job on Monday, provided I teach him this software.

It’s totally reasonable to say, “I have a degree in graphic design and spent years getting proficient with this software, which is fairly advanced. Even now I’m nowhere near master level or even really equipped to teach it to others. There’s no way I can teach him the software in a week, but I can show him some basics and point him to some tutorials that might be helpful.”

I wouldn’t get too swayed by the promise of getting Thursday and Friday off, if it comes at the price of an unreasonable expectation. I’d rather you be straightforward with them about the limitations of what’s possible, so that they have that context and don’t blame you a few weeks from now when — surprise! — he doesn’t know an advanced program that takes years to master.

– 2018

5. Recruiter says I need a “cover story” to hide that I spent eight months off with my baby

I am 16 years into my impressive (I think) career with experience working in the government in DC and for commercial industry. I also have an MBA, a master’s in Policy and a BA. For the past four years, I worked at a very large aerospace company but was part of a RIF that occurred last September due to a merger. The situation was kind of stinky as I received notice while I was on maternity leave (not illegal, just an a-hole move). I received a package which allowed me to stay with my baby (my first) for several more months before I started actively looking for a new position.

I have been looking for several months now on my own and due to my industry not being strong in the state I live, it’s more difficult for me to find a job. Finding the aerospace position took just over a year last time. I have recently linked up with a recruiter who is very well connected and I think could really help me. He helped me revise my resume and LinkedIn profile and seems to know people at the companies I am interested in applying to.

The recruiter has said that I need to “come up with a story” for why I haven’t been working since last September. He suggests that I tell people I was consulting or doing small projects. I pushed back and said that I am not ashamed that I got to spent time with my daughter and that any person/company I work for should appreciate the value in that. He said that at “my level,” people don’t expect that and it will look negatively for me. My husband feels very uncomfortable with this lie and I am not sure either.

I’d give this recruiter a wide berth. It’s very normal to take parental leave, and there’s nothing wrong with being up-front that that’s what you were doing with that time. If you’d been out of the workforce for a much longer longer time — like years — he’d have a point that it’s better to be able to say you were doing projects of some kind (but not if that’s a lie, which is what he’s suggesting). But eight months of parental leave, particularly when it coincided with a layoff, is just not a big deal.

If you’re concerned that maybe he’s right about the norms in your field, check in with people you know and respect in your industry (ideally at the level you’d be working at or higher). But this guy sounds like a tool.

– 2019

The post nameplate drama, boss and I keep wearing the same thing, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/nameplate-drama-boss-and-i-keep-wearing-the-same-thing-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=28274

sholio

This is actually something I wrote last winter, February or so, when I was bingeing MASH. I figured that although I could post it at the time I wrote it, I could also wait and post it at actual Christmastime.

Goodnight Moon (1816 words) by Sholio
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: MASH (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Charles Emerson Winchester III, B. J. Hunnicutt, Minor Characters
Additional Tags: Christmas, Missing Scene, Episode: s09e05 Death Takes a Holiday
Summary: Hawkeye makes a discovery. (Missing scene for 9x05 "Death Takes a Holiday," the season 9 Christmas episode.)