The gold and narco road
Dec. 4th, 2025 08:34 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
metafilter_feedupdates: the unhealthy snacks, the coworker who won’t share her calendar, and more
Dec. 4th, 2025 08:29 pmaskamanager_feedIt’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are five updates from past letter-writers.
There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.
1. My employee wants us to stop ordering “unhealthy snacks”
After I wrote in and read your advice, I decided that if the employee were to make any of his comments about others’ food choices in my presence, I would address it with him and explain how it’s not appropriate and used the language you suggested. However. I never really had the opportunity and he never broached the topic with me or my employee again.
Also, to clarify, I am not his manager. However, my manager had a meeting with me and another coworker to discuss his request and how we would respond to him. I used the points you made about how he should not be commenting on what others eat and that we would always be happy to accept suggestions for other healthy snacks that we could order, but we would not stop purchasing other snacks that could be considered unhealthy. I don’t know exactly what was said to him, but since then honestly I don’t think he’s done it again. I have made an effort to change up the variety of fruit we bring in and try to keep it a good balance for everyone, but we definitely still have chips and cookies.
I know some felt that he was not meaning well, but I genuinely think he was. He’s also young, so it could be that he wasn’t aware that what he was saying could trigger someone or make them feel judged! I think he believed he was helping others. However, if he ever does start up again or starts commenting on what others are eating, I know how to handle it.
2. A man at our events makes other attendees uncomfortable
After you printed the letter, the other planners and I sat down and decided we wouldn’t allow Alex to attend, which we had been leaning towards. It ended up being moot, as he didn’t try to register. He no longer engages with this fandom as far as we can tell.
Our event went really well earlier this year. We had a code of conduct that included a rule about levels of socialization, and we had pins for badges to indicate how much someone would like to be talked to.
We got so much wonderful feedback from people, and many people said they appreciated the steps we took to be inclusive. Thanks again for the advice!
3. I accidentally let a contact think my dad is still alive
Thank you for your advice. It made me feel a lot less worried about this ultimately quite funny situation! The next couple of times I saw my Narnian contact I made a point of saying, “Oh, my dad would have loved X!” or things like that, and seems to have cleared up the confusion.
I also wanted to say thank you to the commenters who reassured me that they have also made this kind of past/present-tense slip when talking about people they’ve lost. I think that what I was really worried about was the idea that I might have given people the idea that I’d somehow forgotten about my lovely dad, who was very precious to me and a huge influence on the person I am now, and it was really comforting to know that other people do the same thing. I’m choosing to think of it as him continuing to make his presence felt!
4. My coworker refuses to share her calendar and says she’ll quit if she’s ordered to
As many of your readers pointed out in the comments (which I read voraciously), the real issue was not so much the private calendar, but more the lack of available time to schedule on the calendar. Our boss/CEO spoke to her about this issue and it has gotten better. She has more usable time on her calendar, so it is less of a bottleneck to put meetings on, and the onus of scheduling has been put back on her – if she can’t make a specific time work, but refuses to let something happen without her, then she has to solve it.
Overall, it’s better. It still bucks the trend of the office, she is the only one with a private calendar, so it can come up as an issue that rankles others – but a lot of the drama has died down.
5. Do I need to rush to buy a new car for my job?
My boss transported project stuff and I also attempted to use a Big Name package pickup company to make some deliveries, but the package pickup company was unreliable.
After a while, I did end up getting a car when my local dealership got a car I couldn’t pass on!
Ultimately, having a car does make my job a lot easier. I wish my workplace provided some type of additional compensation for myself and my colleagues who regularly use our cars while working. Thank you to everyone who reassured me that I was not obligated to buy a new car for work!
The post updates: the unhealthy snacks, the coworker who won’t share her calendar, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
Fanart, H2O: Just Add Water (tv), Cleo/Lewis, Kissing out at sea
Dec. 4th, 2025 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluerosekatie posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
smallfandomfestArtist: bluerosekatie
Fandom: H2O: Just Add Water
Pairing/Characters: Cleo Sertori/Lewis McCartney
Rating/Category: Gen, Het
Prompt: H2O: Just Add Water (tv), Cleo/Lewis, Kissing out at sea
Notes/Warnings: N/A
Link to art on my DeviantArt
( Read more... )
update: I turned down a bait-and-switch job offer and now they’re blowing up my phone
Dec. 4th, 2025 06:59 pmaskamanager_feedIt’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December 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 who turned down a bait-and-switch job offer and the firm started blowing up his phone? Here’s the update.
I wish I had a wild update, or a satisfying update, but here is what ended up happening in my saga with the strange contractor who tried to change the pay rate and then assaulted me with endless texts and calls.
I wrote to the woman who seemed to be the highest-ranking officer at the subcontractor and said, “Hello, I’m withdrawing my candidacy, and these are the reasons why.”
She immediately pressed for a phone call, but I replied with a firm no and said, “The incessant calls from multiple people, including ones I don’t know, and the general sense of urgency are really out of step with what I’ve experienced in the past.”
You would think that was clear enough, but she again pressed hard for a phone call (“A five-minute call would clear this up! Please say you’ll take a call, I can be available at any time starting right now until 10 pm”). I sent a final reply saying, “No, thank you.”
Then I started getting automated emails from the HR lady who initially argued with me and tried to browbeat me (and then guilt me) into accepting the lower rate. The automated messages were all the same: “You have outstanding paperwork that is past due. You must sign the paperwork immediately. Onboarding is not complete until you have signed everything. Do this now.” etc. etc.
I just ignored it, and eventually blocked the email address.
A final note: I’ve made a number of contacts in the legal contracting world over the years, and I touched base with a few of them to ask if they knew of this company. Most did not, but one said he had heard of them … they were known primarily for acquiring security guards for secure government installations. He had never heard of them attempting to work with lawyers or in the contracting space.
So my takeaway is that they are trying to expand their business but are out of their depth and panicked when they realized they were losing out on a headhunting fee.
Thank you again for publishing my letter! And for your advice — it was much appreciated.
I ended up moving forward with the competing offer I had. I’m still in the long, vague process of onboarding, but obviously the awful government shutdown has derailed that to some extent. I’m selling my condo and a lot of possessions to make ends meet, and hope that this situation resolves soon. Thank you for your posts about the shutdown as well! I know so many people here in DC who are really struggling.
The post update: I turned down a bait-and-switch job offer and now they’re blowing up my phone appeared first on Ask a Manager.
updates: I’m not in the group chat, new manager’s team hates her, and more
Dec. 4th, 2025 05:29 pmaskamanager_feedIt’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.
There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.
1. Everyone likes me, so why am I not in the group chat?
Well, I’m still not in the group chat, so I’m sorry to say I can’t report if it’s really about medieval falconry as discussed in the comments :-)
I’m still happy at the job and have not asked to be included or started a new chat or anything like it. You and several commenters suggested I could just leave it be and that’s what I did.
When I started the job, I was a bit apprehensive about being new to (and the only woman in) such a tight-knit long-term team, and then everyone was so nice that it seemed too good to be true, and I was maybe looking a bit too hard for red flags that might mean that I’m not accepted/excluded/people didn’t like me.
Now I know a bit more about my coworkers and their dynamics, and I think it’s just the case that, because they have been working together for so long, they know a lot of things about each other’s private lives. Health issues, trouble with grown kids, stuff like that, which I, by now, have heard about in broad terms, but I assume that the other chat is where they go into more detail about this. Could be totally wrong of course, but they are generally super supportive of one another (which I hadn’t expected from an all-male team, but that’s my own bias I guess). So it’s plausible, that, when the main chat gets “I leave early today for an appointment,” the other one gets “It’s my turn to host the support group for spouses of people with depression, wife is still not doing great” or something along those lines. If that’s the case, I’m totally okay with not being in there because I just don’t have the same history with them. I still haven’t found any other signs that people try to exclude me or are in any way toxic, so even if the chat is about something else, I don’t think me not being in there means anything bad.
However, my one-year anniversary is coming up, so there is still a chance that I will be added with great fanfare (and hopefully not an initiation ritual, as other commenters speculated) on that day, who knows ;)
2. New manager’s team hates her — but she says they’re the problem
I did try your advice, along with some other guard rails — for instance, processes fully documented so that there was no question about team members being given conflicting direction — and, long story short, it became clear that Catelyn wasn’t going to change, and was never going to be able to manage the team effectively. And it became really clear that our HR wasn’t going to back me in addressing her problems, in any sense of the term. My prediction in the comment thread of how that was going to play out was pretty accurate.
I couldn’t fix her and I couldn’t fire her, but I found an opportunity to at least salvage the team. There was another section of the organization which desperately needed help of the kind of work that Catelyn is actually good at (not managing, obviously, but the rest of her job), and I knew that layoffs were in the air and I was going to be told to give up one or more positions. I managed to broker a trade where I “gave up” Catelyn’s position, with her in it, to this other area as an individual contributor — with the asterisk that when (if) finances recover, I will need to refill her previous role, which I wouldn’t be able to do if she’d just been laid off.
The team is now being managed by someone they know and trust and they’re happy, in spite of there being one fewer person to do the work. Catelyn seems to be doing well in her new role, though I understand they’re moving at least one person to report to her and I wouldn’t put money on how that’s going to go. I also hear that even more shuffling is coming, and that she will end up reporting to the person who labeled the team member who’d carefully documented Catelyn’s issues as a “troublemaker.” So all the toxicity is in a single basket, and hopefully it won’t spill far enough to reach us … though when you have to say a thing like that, it does not bode well for the organization as a whole.
Thanks for your response. It really helped me reframe what I was seeing (and not seeing).
3. My “on-site” coworker is never on-site
So first and foremost, I dropped the spreadsheet immediately.
Both you and the (very adamant) comments section made very compelling and correct cases for my mental health. That, on top of pointing out the now obvious fact that my boss cared less about it than I did, was immensely helpful in changing my mindset around the whole thing. I’m only responsible for my own work and business. Worrying about things out of my scope doesn’t do anything except add to my stress levels. So I let all that ish go and focused on getting my stuff done. My day to day improved greatly.
As for my coworker, there’s still the occasional delay or surprise day off, but much less than before. There was a large company-wide return to office initiative earlier this year and there’s a lot more folks around in general. I suspect those two things are related.
I actually took some vacation time in September, and it went swimmingly.
Thanks for the advice, and the folks who took my struggles seriously. This kind of thing can be very difficult when you’re autistic, and the kind voices doing the explaining heavily outweighed the ones calling me a nosy Nelly. It was very much appreciated.
4. I’m ready to retire young but don’t want to burn bridges (#5 at the link)
I’m happy to report that I carried out my plans earlier this year! It was scary timing, as the stock market was in a bit of a free fall and the job market is tough should I need or want to go back, but I’d spent too much time planning for this to not see it through. The first few weeks of the break were filled with administrative tasks, like enrolling in an ACA health plan, but that’s behind me now and I’m enjoying just my time off. It’s still early days, but I can’t imagine myself ever wanting to get back into the corporate grind.
If I have one regret, it’s that I gave more than two weeks’ notice. As I’d been planning for this departure for a long time, I had everything well-organized and prepared, and my likely successor was as ready as they would ever be to step into my role. The notice period was intense, because as I suspected would happen, I was subjected to multiple “what can we do to keep you?” conversations with my boss and grandboss. I’d been transparent over my tenure about the stressors of the job and things that I’d have liked to see changed, but it seems they were only willing to take action when I was on my way out the door. It’s possible I could have gotten them to agree to let me go part-time, remote, or any number of other things, but I had already mentally moved on and wasn’t willing to entertain these conversations. I needed a clean break … and I got it!
The post updates: I’m not in the group chat, new manager’s team hates her, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
Sumerian with subtitles
Dec. 4th, 2025 04:13 pmmetafilter_feedFancake's Theme for December: Amnesty
Dec. 4th, 2025 08:28 amrunpunkrun
At the end of another long year,
fancake's theme for December is, as always, amnesty. This month you can make recs for any previous theme—from any year—as long as it hasn't already been recced for that theme.I posted a rec for
thefourthvine's sexy and fun We Better Make a Start, an everybody lives/nobody dies Stranger Things fic with Steve & Robin friendship and Steve/Eddie makeouts.If you have any questions about this theme, or the comm, come talk to me!
Community Recs Post!
Dec. 4th, 2025 11:14 amglitteryv posting in recthethingThis 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 podfics/fancrafts/fanvids/fanart/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
share your funniest office holiday stories
Dec. 4th, 2025 03:59 pmaskamanager_feedWe have once again entered the season of forced workplace merriment, holiday party disasters, and other seasonal delights! Thus it is time to hear about your office holiday debacles, past or current.
Did you pass out naked in the break room? Did your manager provide you with a three-page document of “party procedures”? Did your seven-year-old tell your boss the party food “tastes like shit”? 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 holidays at the office in the comments.
The post share your funniest office holiday stories appeared first on Ask a Manager.
Torchwood: Fanfic: In Charge
Dec. 4th, 2025 02:38 pmbadly_knitted posting in fan_flashworksTitle: In Charge
Fandom: Torchwood
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Tosh, Owen, Gwen.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 661
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Jack is on paternity leave, so Ianto is now in charge of Torchwood Three.
Content Notes: Contains M-Preg.
Written For: Challenge 499: Boss.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
On the equator the moon flips upside-down as it travels
Dec. 4th, 2025 02:24 pmmetafilter_feedSteve Cropper prolific guitarist (1941-2025)
Dec. 4th, 2025 02:24 pmmetafilter_feedFanfic, Sense8, Sun/Mun, Coming out of the sensate closet
Dec. 4th, 2025 05:58 ammerricatb posting in smallfandomfestAuthor: MerricatB
Fandom: Sense8
Pairing/Characters: Sun/Mun
Rating/Category: Teen & Up
Prompt: Sense8, Sun/Mun, Coming out of the sensate closet
Spoilers: Entire show
Summary: With her cluster's encouragement, Sun formally recruits Detective Mun to their cause.
Notes/Warnings: Read on AO3
DNA analysis suggests first Australians arrived about 60,000 years ago
Dec. 4th, 2025 11:40 ammetafilter_feedBiggles ficlets from Tumblr part 2
Dec. 4th, 2025 02:49 amsholio9. Biggles/EvS forced to maintain close proximity by mad science
Responding to the prompt call with a Biggles prompt- Biggles and EvS are cursed or exposed to a mysterious mad-science substance that makes them have to maintain physical contact or very close proximity or else suffer increasingly debilitating pain &/ illness the farther they are apart- and now must work together in these constraints to fix this situation
Originally posted on Tumblr
( 900 wds under the cut )
10. Scotland Yard ladies gossiping about EvS
Biggles prompt! The Scotland Yard ladies chatter about that tall, dark & handsome foreign gentleman Mr. Boelke who comes round to Raymond's office once a month. Biggles is Extremely Normal about this.
Originally posted on Tumblr
( 500 wds under the cut )
11. Tied to a bed
Biggles prompt! There was only one (piece of furniture sturdy enough to tie a prisoner to and it was a) bed
Originally posted here
( 100 wds under the cut )
Biggles ficlets from Tumblr (catch-up edition)
Dec. 4th, 2025 02:41 amsholio1. Biggles/EvS: Biggles's friends "subtly" attempting to be supportive
I don't know if you're currently accepting Biggles prompts, but if you are: Algy, Bertie, and Ginger all try to "subtly" feel each other out to make sure no one is going to cause problems for Biggles and Erich (if there were something going on) (which there clearly can't be) (obviously)
https://www.tumblr.com/sholiofic/786139943995064320/i-dont-know-if-youre-currently-accepting-bigglesPosted on Tumblr here.
( 700 wds under the cut )
2. Dramatic dying in Biggles's arms confession (contains no actual death)
Since you're officially soliciting prompts- A dramatic Dying-In-Biggles's-Arms confession on EvS's part turns out decidedly unlike his daydreams and in fact Rather Awkward when he does not, in fact, end up dying after all, having reckoned without certain Biggles-worthy levels of determination to save him.
Posted on Tumblr here
( 700 wds under the cut )
3. Only One (team cuddlepile) Bed
As seen in commentfic here
( 500 words under the cut )
4. Whatever it is that Algy does on the many occasions he's left behind to man the phones.
Originally posted at a bigglesevents commentfest.
( 700 wds under the cut )
5. Algy and EvS caretaking
Hey, if you're still open to prompts, please may I request some Biggles whump, someone beaten up and another taking care of them, maybe Algy and EVS but whoever you like really, thank you!
Posted on Tumblr here
( 400 wds under the cut )
6. Friendly fire with Algy and Ginger
Hi! If you're still taking prompts, how about a friendly fire incident with the Biggles gang? Thanks! :)
Originally posted on Tumblr here
( 600 wds under the cut )
7. Biggles left to die
A new prompt- in their noble adversaries era, EvS leaves Biggles in/places him in a situation he knows would ordinarily merely delay Biggles before an eventual escape- were Biggles not injured or incapacitated somehow, which, when EvS realises is the case, he rushes back from his own getaway to save Biggles. Not that this choice signifies anything regarding his feelings for him.
Originally posted here
( 700 wds under the cut )
8. Erich abandoned by his associates
Biggles/EvS. EvS has not yet defected and is working a job with other Soviet agents in London. Said agents abandon EvS in a sticky situation, leaving him cornered to fight his own way out through British police. Raymond gets word of what’s happened and calls Biggles at Mount Street, who arrives at the scene to talk EvS down and convince him to defect.
Originally posted on Tumblr
( 600 wds under the cut )
(I have another batch from tonight coming soon, but I figured I'd catch up on the older ones first.)
Takuya Fukugawa's impressionist pixel sculptures
Dec. 4th, 2025 10:30 ammetafilter_feedSelected highlights: Penguins Dragon Lego dragon Another, more different dragon (from Dragon Quest) Dragon Quest boss Takuyu's work is due to be exhibited in Tokyo. Via The Brothers Brick.
Somehow, Zyxx returned
Dec. 4th, 2025 09:55 ammetafilter_feed"The only God that I know..."
Dec. 4th, 2025 09:36 ammetafilter_feed'Keep the legend alive'
Dec. 4th, 2025 08:02 ammetafilter_feedA review of Flagrant, Self-Destructive Gestures by Ted Geltner, mentioning also the new Netflix series, Train Dreams
(no subject)
Dec. 4th, 2025 06:17 amapod_feed
What would it look like to plunge into a monster black hole?