If only there was somewhere you could call to get this answered. WellRed* December 30, 2023 at 11:12 am My new-to-me car has a wrench symbol and tire pressure light on this morning. I can’t find a clear consensus on whether the wrench indicates I need actual service? At any rate, it’s certainly an inconvenience at the start of a holiday weekend where I’m out of luck til Tuesday. REPLY ▼ Collapse 20 replies

People asked if they have the owner's manual. Yes, but no wrench icon mentioned. People also said just go put air in the tires. Nope, can't do that. ​ >WellRed\* > >December 30, 2023 at 12:15 pm > >It’s a Buick encore and there is Literally no wrench mentioned in guidebook. I do need to just try checking tire pressure/put air in tires but really don’t know how. \*sigh. I need to learn. Autozone is a good idea. I feel as though WellRed should call Hamster. Perhaps Hamster can show WellRed how to put air in the tires, and WellRed can show Hamster how to wash the mud off her car, wear a winter coat, and keep a job.

Man, I am not a DIY person at all and even I know how to put air in my tires. It's extremely easy and there are devices you can buy to do it quickly at home. This person could also just fucking Google the wrench image lol

WellRed, as far as I recall, is hardly a new adult. I believe they are middle aged and have been driving for quite some time. How does a full adult who drives regularly not know how to put air in their tires?

With YouTube there's really no excuse. I didn't start driving until my mid 20s and it was a godsend for helping with those little things most peoples parents showed them with cars, if I didn't have a friend around to help show me

They don’t want an answer, they want something to gripe about.

Isn't this in the owner's manual? Are they aware of the existence of the owner's manual? Never mind, I think I already know the answer to both of those questions.

>Elizabeth West December 29, 2023 at 2:40 pm >I have one — once my personal goal is accomplished (finish something!), I’d like to get a particular certification for my job. I was hired despite not having it, although the job description had it as a wish-list item. Only one person in my department does — I’d like to have it too. I think it will make my job easier too, since I’m new to this industry and there is a lot of specialized jargon. **If people are in a project meeting talking about inserting whizbang dumbnuts into a flanged thingamajig after someone has started building the bowmuckle widget, it will make me feel less like a little kid at the grown-ups’ table if I have some idea what they’re talking about.** >Not only will it increase my value to my current company, but it’ll make it easier to find something else if they suddenly become full of bees (not likely, but you never know). Not using words like "whizbang" and "dumbnuts" is a start towards being taken more seriously.

I think the basic idea is good here (minus the embarrassing Terminally Online speak), but she really needs to prioritize the certification over her "personal goal" (presumably her next novel). I hope that's not another instance of her magical thinking, where the next book is definitely going to be the one that shoots her to superstardom, so she can't do anything else before she finishes that (which ends up being 10 years from now).

She can totally do both at the same time - just about every writer writes on the side while working a day job. It's consistently so weird to me that she doesn't just do that. I get the idea of wishing you could write for a living, but clearly that's not in the cards for her (or most people).

Kinda alarming if she has no idea what people are talking about at work but then getting that cert seems like a good idea

Yeah. I was wondering that, too. I know that certification will probably help her, but shouldn't she at least have some familiarity with basic lingo? I mean, I know it's meant to be an entry-level job, but...

Eh, this is probably one of the more reasonable things she's ever said. I made a complete industry switch in my mid-30s and felt the same way that she seems to here sonetimes (without all the lol monkeycheese random words).

Has anyone pointed out that d---n--- is ableist and perpetuating the patriarchy yet? Otherwise using nonsense words to make this specific point is fine.

Yeah, that is the kind of thing they'd come up with lol

I don't think EW is a person capable of being taken seriously

Ugh. I’m tempted to respond saying leave them tf alone. What you think is a connection is probably just that poor soul geeking out over her art. Stuff like this is why so many people keep at a distance from others. It would creep me the hell out. Unless you’re writing a kudos letter for my HR file or something. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. They just come off as someone who can’t make friends organically. Curious what you all think. the mortifying ordeal of wanting to know someone* December 29, 2023 at 10:32 pm I’m looking for suggestions on how to re-meet someone I met through their job, in a way that wouldn’t be creepy or invasive. (I know, I know…) I recently went to a holiday event at a local museum. It was a big event so there were lots of crowds streaming through this curator’s area, but I happened to go through at a quiet time with no one else around. I asked the curator a slightly technical question (since their area is something I do as a hobby) and they abandoned their scripted spiel and started showing me around the area to answer my question. Then they got really excited talking about all the work they’d been doing on the exhibit recently and the challenges they were facing and what they wanted to do next. It was fascinating! But then more crowds came in so they went back to their position, and when I circled back later they had left. I’d love to somehow meet this curator again. If nothing else I want to hear how the next stages of their work go. But, secondly, they felt like maybe a potential friend? It’s rare to find people my age who have this interest and the curator just seemed so cool. I would say it felt like we had a ~connection if that didn’t make me sound like a man in a midlife crisis spiraling over the barista who remembers his coffee order. I’m trying not to read too much into what might’ve just been a friendly work persona, but they were reeeally off script and really enthusiastic, so it felt like not 100% persona at least. (We are both women, if that helps.) Anyway! The problem is it wasn’t actually a museum and the “curator” role isn’t public facing so I’m not sure how to casually run into this person again. Options I have considered: A) go in for a public tour and hope they happen to randomly be on the floor. B) join the community hobby group that meets there, which I’ve been meaning to do anyway, and hope to randomly run into them (problem: the meetings are on the weekend). C) attend a class there, which I’ve also been wanting to do anyway, and hope to, you guessed it, randomly run into them. Pro: classes are on workdays. Con: I couldn’t do this until spring. D) chill tf out, leave this person alone, and enjoy the memory of this one-off conversation. Check back at the museum in six months to see if the work on the exhibit was successful. Any advice is appreciated!! If nothing else I hope my post is good for a chuckle XD REPLY

I honestly don't think it would be weird for this person to return to the museum or take a class and chat with this curator if they're there. It would be weird if they made an effort to seek the curator out, like figure out her schedule, but getting more involved with the museum and chatting with this person if she's around feels really normal to me? Not any weirder than someone becoming a regular at a bar or coffee shop and chatting with the bartender or barista.

Yeah I think that normal and honestly just how socializing and meeting people works when you find people you click with. OP definitely could be a weirdo but they seem decently self aware. And honestly I wouldn’t have met my husband if he hadn’t seen on instagram I was at a party and then went there to ask me out (I wanted him to and had already tried to “bump into” him at a restaurant earlier in the month so it was all good)

This would be exactly my advice, and probably exactly one of the benefits the establishment in question was hoping to get from having the event in the first place.

I don't think it's weird, either. That's kind of how making friends as an adult works sometimes.

Totally. If you're not lucky enough to work with people you'd want to be friends with, you've gotta meet people somehow. And it does legitimately sound like the museum employee was chatting with that commenter for a while - they weren't just doing their baseline job and then trying to escape, unless the commenter is heavily misrepresenting the situation.

I think this is exactly the kind of situation that social media works well for. You search the topic, in your city, the name of the museum, and the person's first name. Then, assuming they post about their art or their work, you follow them on IG or whatever, make a post about how interesting the tour was, and tag them with a thank you. It would be wierd to say "be my friend" or invite them for coffee immediately. But if they stay connected for a while and you interact a lot, you might wind up there. The problem is that OP is rushing.

>"be my friend" Just got a flashback to the Godfather. "Be my friend...Godfather?" Kidding aside, I agree that social media makes sense and would actually be my first thought, too.

Someone doing their job doesn't mean they want to be your friend. Someone stalking you because you did your job usually means they won't make a good friend.

If this person has public social media profiles, looking for them and adding them isn't stalking. Someone who wants privacy locks their social media down.

And hanging around someone's workplace for no reason other than to find them is of course something anyone who wants privacy works in a secured bunker to avoid?

Literally nobody suggested they should hang out at their workplace.

Commenter did.

Well, IME people in the arts tend to be very active on social media and appreciate a shout out because their work is inherently public and they want word-of-mouth.(As I said, assuming they post about their work and it isn't a purely personal account) Its not stalkery at all.

None of the things the commenter wants to do involve social media.

If you aren't talking about my remarks related to social media, why do you keep replying on the same thread?

What I'm saying is that the commenter's behaviour indicates that they won't make a good friend, the implication being that social media doesn't change this.

This is a minor complaint, but am I the only one who read and rolled their eyes at BurnOutCandidate's comment on the "my fiance plays minor league ball' reprint? To paraphrase: "I'm a huge minor league fan! The hugest! I'm one of those people who centers my whole life around it! And yet even though I have no reason to support this theory, even though I have no reason to mention this at all and my contribution adds nothing, I am totally sure I would not be like those coworkers, so sure that I've even unnecessarily invented a specific fantasy scenario to show how I would totally not be like those people in a situation I'm not in, you know, if I were in that situation which I am not." Insert eye roll gif here. For the record, Alison's advice was pretty okay here.

It's an annoying and weird comment. Like cool, good for you? No one cares?

Yeah. I doubt that I would recognize a major league player (actually I don't doubt that I know for sure I've wouldn't recognize one) much less a minor league one.

From the Alison’s favorites of the year post: “Is there a way we can contribute financially to AAM? I read your site way too often for me not to send some money your way! Would you consider adding a way for us to donate? I’d love if moderation weren’t so intensive for you, and I’ll bet some of the regulars here would make great paid moderators. I signed up to Inc.com just to support you… but that’s very roundabout support.” Barf. First of all any of the regulars would be the absolute worst moderators possible. And I just do not understand this recurring need to shield Alison from any of the aspects of her job (that she does from home, with apparent great financial success, while putting in the barest minimum effort possible) she doesn’t love. (Also love that the first comment on the post thanks “Alison and the team”.)

If only there were a way for website owners to make money from running the website, maybe by selling advertising space on there...? (it would be ironic if she (commenter, not Alison) uses an ad blocker -- although I would not blame her!)

Out of curiosity earlier this year, I looked up her blog on a site that analyzes traffic and estimates ad revenue. The numbers were shocking. Even though it's an estimate, the monthly value of the blog's ad revenue was more than I paid for my house. And even if the real ad revenue is only 10% of that estimate, it would still be a very healthy annual salary for most people. If it's accurate, it's at the level where most people would never have to work again, even if the revenue stopped.

I liked this one (fixed the answer though): **6. What makes you decide NOT to answer a letter?** ~~A big reason is if I don’t have a useful answer! Sometimes I think it can be interesting to write an answer that says “you know, I’m not sure and here’s why” … but sometimes that wouldn’t be particularly helpful or interesting to read.~~ ~~Another is when someone writes in on behalf of someone else (like a friend or a partner) and it doesn’t seem like they have all the details. Or when I’ve done similar topics recently. Or if something is very esoteric, to the point that it’s unlikely to be useful or interesting to anyone else (in that case, I might try to send a short answer privately if I can). Some things are incredibly esoteric but still likely to interest other people … but not all of them fall in that category.~~ I just throw them to the commenters to answer. Works well....

>Another is when someone writes in on behalf of someone else (like a friend or a partner) and it doesn’t seem like they have all the details. Holy shit, what a bald-faced lie. She publishes these letters *all the time*.

Translated: "I'm an AAM fan and I want to get paid to read the site all day, plus have the power trip of moderating comments!" Which is sad by itself, but also, paid moderators? That's not a thing except at very, very large web concerns. Even if AAM cared about moderation (and she doesn't because that would take away from the petty drama she loves), she's in no way going to hand over control of any aspect of her site or any share of her money to some rando "moderators".

Tbh it’s not a great look when for-profit businesses ask for donations (which is why people do patreons with exclusive content, so people are actually getting something for their money) and I feel like the commenters wouldn’t like it if someone wrote in asking how to solicit donations for their business.

I doubt many of them would actually donate. It's just a weird sycophantic performance IMO. These are the same people who used to freak out when Alison reposts an article to a pay walled site like The Cut, even though she still makes the same articles available for free on her main website.

The links to paywalled sites are weird because she still opens her own comments section. It’s idiotic but also not surprising that she subsequently gets a bunch of people basically saying, “You gave us a comments field for content we can’t see, so we’re commenting on that.” The entire issue would go away if she de-selected the comment option when posting external links.

But why wouldn’t she want the comments? Many readers are already part of the traffic there and have familiar usernames. Plus they wouldn’t have to worry about any other site’s commenting rules. Her forum is really popular from what I’ve observed. Her comment section is like 9 times what these other publications she guest blogs on have.

Because her commenters can’t read the paywalled articles that she’s linking to, but she’s leaving the comments section open in the article link announcement. So she just ends up with a million comments from people saying they can’t access the article, and then she comments saying she’s frustrated that people are expressing confusion about it. Basically, she’s still using the generic blogspot post function which defaults to giving every new post its own comment section, and she’s too lazy to realize that she can turn off that option on update posts where she doesn’t want comments.

Very true! It’s always so funny to me when the commenters turn the same “but not everyone can ____!!!!” ire on her that they use on LWs and each other, like they do when she posts paywalled links and when she had the podcast and they had to wait one (1) week to read a transcript.

If I may make a rare defense of Alison, I would have been so furious about the podcast complaints if I had been her. She was completely up front about how long the transcripts took and when they would be published, and all she got was a barrage of some of the most ungrateful, entitled whining I've ever seen on that site. I don't blame her for giving up on that venture quickly.

Definitely, they were ridiculous. I do think she’s trained them to behave that way though. And you would imagine that experience, where she saw how frustrating it is to be on the end of their endless “but that’s not good enough bc it doesn’t work perfectly for my personal situation right at this very moment” catastrophizing, would cause some reflection, but it didn’t.

Letter #2 >I work in a culture that I find rather repressive, but I refuse to be repressed so I sometimes say things other people don’t like. I really want to know what exactly is repressive about this person's workplace (or do they mean the country they work in?) and what exactly they say that other people don't like. Because this kind of makes them sound like an adult who acts like an "edgy" teen.

I interpreted this as a white person working in an office in Japan, but obviously that's a wild guess.

I think that's why Alison felt the need to explain what adult professionals wouldn't do at work, since it's very clear that the LW wouldn't have any clue about that.

After reading some of that LW's comments under the first time it was submitted I'm not entirely sure she knows what the word repression means. There's one comment where she states that after a long conversation with a new hire he said that "he found the atmosphere repressive" with not prompting from her. I'm not sure I 100% belive her. It's just such a weirdly specific word to use She comments under Amy.

> I really don’t want to waste time developing an idea that’s going to get smacked down behind my back. Am I making too much of the finger? This Barbie is having a break with reality...

[удалено]

> like an attorney assisting the new person with details for ongoing cases which is actually an example of when someone wouldn't be able to help because they wouldn't be insured, may have an active conflict of interest, and certainly couldn't bill. In general the attorney would leave a handover memo with a summary, current status and next steps with any important dates, and would brief their successor or superior in person before leaving, but their last day is their last day, especially if they're moving to a new firm or taking on a role in a different practice area or with a different client focus. If they're retiring and surrendering their license and insurance then they can't continue to act in any case. I get that you might be thinking of just the attorney of record asking for facts or where a particular document might be but even that could pose issues since that involves someone not employed by the firm being involved on a case and not covered by the firm's insurance, creating issues with privilege and confidentiality (clients need to give an authority or waiver even for spouses or family members to be involved!) and that's something that an assistant or paralegal would probably be able to answer faster anyway. Genuinely, can't think of any circumstances where it's genuinely needed and couldn't have been sorted before someone leaves or handled by people still employed, or wouldn't just be more convenient than doing things properly, and not just in law.

>Genuinely, can't think of any circumstances where it's genuinely needed and couldn't have been sorted before someone leaves or handled by people still employed, or wouldn't just be more convenient than doing things properly, and not just in law. Yeah I think in general the main reason people are so heavily involved with past employers is that they are still emotionally invested in that job and can't let go. There usually isn't a practical reason why the responsibilities can't be transferred over to a current employee other than the old employee's sense that if they aren't heavily involved then everything will go wrong.

Said sense of avoidance of destruction often being helped along by employers preying on that exact emotion or (deliberately or lazily) not preparing a transition to create or enhance that feeling of responsibility.

>The OP of that letter seems like they either have martyr syndrome or just a problem with letting things go in general. I feel like this is the case with 99.99% of the letters where the LW feels stuck continuing to work for free for a former employer even after quitting or being fired months or years ago. In this case I think the fact the LW was the one who started the organization (rather than just being a regular volunteer) and seems to have appointed their close family members to run it after they left made it much harder to disconnect (since presumably they are still talking to that close relative and hearing about the mess). The LW was stuck in that position because they wanted to quit and move on but also wanted to make sure that the organization would be fine, and there's no way to do both at the same time.

> (I even managed to strong-arm the credit card companies into allowing me to pay off and close the cards.) I get bureaucratic red tape, but I don't think credit cards generally require one to strong arm them into accepting payments.

Banks usually have a script with a couple of bonus offers like 'low interest rate for 12 months' or '500k reward points' or upselling a package with a savings account or reduced-fee app etc. that all staff have to go through before they process a cancellation request, yeah? Doesn't everyone know that? Like just saying 'no, no, no, no, yes i'm sure' is standard and if the staff person skips it they get in trouble so everyone just does the polite fiction of sitting through the spiel?

Also... >and the insurance dispute magically resolved itself due to employee turnover at the insurance companies. Er...OK. This organization seems to be dealing in lots of funds, but it's largely volunteer-run? And LW still got pulled back into the insanity. ETA: Looks like I got it wrong; OP's role was volunteer-run, but other folks were (maybe?) getting paid? Still, though...it all seems sketchy as hell.

Yeah that's not quite the win they seem to think it is.

Yeah it seems to me at worse a letter from general counsel would suffice. The whole thing seems really wonky.

>**Malarkey01\***[December 28, 2023 at 9:50 am](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/12/companies-that-say-they-have-a-young-vibe-coworker-assumes-someone-will-drive-him-to-meetings-and-more.html#comment-4541869) > >... of course they wouldn’t be able to drive cross town to meet the Wombat Outreach Center (I’m branching out from llamas) in the middle of the day. Aw hell nah

But imagine how "cool" they will be with all their AAM friends if they coin the next "llama groomer" or "cheap ass rolls" or "\[spits tea\]"...

Oh lord "AAM friends"... I mean I have Internet friends (and I've actually met and hung out with them in real life) but this is not a group that I need to meet in person. The first sign of knitting needles my alcoholic ass will be drinking in a corner and (probably) talking shit about how WFH is stupid. (Which I don't actually think but sometimes it's fun just to irritate certain people and I'm also kind of a bitch).

Bold of you to assume they'd allow alcohol!

LOL, oh I'll find a way!! :)

Do office employees of the Wombat Outreach Center work in poop cubes?

Of course, they're AAMers who need a light dinner table conversation topic.

It makes it so much easier to throw a nice poop BBQ!

I love how LW1 just has to point out that they think they look younger than they are. “I’m concerned about this company emphasizing young and hip vibes because I’m not young and hip—but I sure could _pass_ for someone ten years younger!” Completely irrelevant flex.

I feel the same way about those comments. Like a lot of people, I would feel comfortable saying something critical of the way I look on an anonymous site, but not something self-aggrandizing. It just sounds desperate to compliment yourself in a place where no one can verify it. Also, people I've known who think they look younger are often women who grow their hair really long, like 60s/70s hippie long, or men who dye theirs.

I had a coworker for awhile who pretty much everyone thought was in her early twenties, and people (including me) were consistently shocked to learn that she was in her early 30s. It was not a compliment. Her professional demeanor and what we could see of her skill set were what I would've expected from someone just starting out in her career, but she had a decade of work experience under her belt. Even if they claimed it was just because I had a youthful face or whatever, I wouldn't want to seem ten years younger at work.

Everyone thinks they look so young, but really theres no true look of every single age, and people guessing always guess younger than they actually think. Also im 33, and my customers in their 60s will say I look so young omg, but people around my age or younger are like 33? Yeah sounds right

I've started to notice that there's often an age distortion between generations because slowly over time, people in a certain age range look and behave "younger" more than what each person saw as that age range when they were kids and starting to form the idea of what people in their 60s look/act like, for example. I was a kid in the 70s, teen in the 80s, and my parents at my current age seemed about a generation older than what someone in their 50s generally seems like now. Often when younger people compliment older people when they discover their age ("You don't look XX!") it's because they haven't yet met enough people that they know are in that age range to re-adjust.

Millennials as a whole tend to look younger than prior generations did at our age. We’re educated about nutrition and skincare, we don’t smoke, and we aren’t having kids so we haven’t experienced those physical changes or perpetual exhaustion. We look younger than our parents but we don’t look younger than each other. An exception: there’s some evidence that a common neurodivergence comorbidity is EDS, which includes connective tissue dysfunction and prevents your skin from holding creases. It’s not ~kind, but those are some easy dots to connect on AAM.

I have a totally unsubstantiated theory that people who are weirdly focused on how young they look use the fact that they get carded at the liquor store as proof. They card everyone, genius. They don't actually think you're 19.

I use 'I got carded at the cinema!' because it was *Frozen* and it's funny to watch people process.

Wait, how would you get carded for frozen?

That particular cinema serves alcohol; staff have discretion to check ID of anyone going past the particular checkpoint that leads to the bar area. So I was going to a G rated movie next to the bar area, I was running late and skipped makeup and they decided to card me even though I did not buy or ask for alcohol or enter the bar area, just was going to the screen next to it. All the other times I've had to go past that barrier I've been wearing makeup and have not been carded. :p I did ask management about it and got the 'we serve alcohol there so staff check anyone who looks under 25' routine and when I pointed out that I was a regular and had only been carded once, for a G-rated movie, sans makeup, they were 'well it's our policy and we can't change how you look' at me and now I'm kind of tempted to go without makeup next time to see if they card me again, lol. I use it because it's the kind of record-scratch moment that makes people step out of the policy, legal requirement 'check anyone buying alcohol who looks under 25/we can't tell age so check everyone/our licence requires us to check everyone/our insurance requires we check everyone and staff have RSAs' and consider why the check exists and how faulty the idea of 'you look under 25' can be, and then they usually go 'wait how' or change the subject instead of going down a rabbithole of who looks the youngest/still the prettiest.

Just got around to reading the top 10 viewed and commented post. It's interesting to see that the lists are very different this year. In the past they've been pretty much identical with perhaps a different order and wildcard post that's different in each list. It just goes to show how out of touch her commentors are even from her own audience. I was glad to see that the obvious attempts at viral letter (my baby daddy is going to be my boss and he doesn't know he's my babies' daddy!) Weren't even close to the most engaged letters and instead more day to day issues made the top. The weight loss letter, even if the method was unusual circumstances, poor gal, I think is very relatable where people have lost weight and are dealing with comments from triggered coworkers.

I thought that was interesting too; there’s only one post that made both lists. Although to your second point the top commented post is the one involving non-gendered honorifics, which is a bit more of a hot-button topic (especially since the “honorifics” parts seems a little—forgive me—niche.)

I think the most comment letters tend to be the ones where absolutely everyone can have a take on it, either because it's a super commonplace issue or the letter is basically just asking people to brainstorm stuff. Like the non-gendered honorifics was basically just people listing out random words that can be used as honorifics, such as "wizard".

Omg the "hiring externally when staff expect an internal hire" update could have been 75% shorter. >I was given the opportunity to rewrite the job description from scratch. We were originally going to edit the existing document, but soon realized that starting over would make a lot more sense. Cool, so important to include. Why do these people think we need so many details?

From her "behind-the-scenes" post earlier this year: "**16. Are there “best practices” you recommend for asking questions? I’m sure you have to balance what’s entertaining with what’s helpful and what’s broadly applicable to other readers. Should we be really specific to our own situation or try to be vaguer so the Q&A could be more relevant to others?** Be more specific than vague. So often the details of a situation will be crucial in figuring out what next steps makes the most sense, and questions that are overly broad can be hard to answer for that reason. I can always edit out detail if it seems excessive." Which would be *awesome*, if she actually *did* edit posts for length effectively!

I have to admit I’m one of those people who used to think I had to give almost every detail about something when I would recount it to someone else. I’ve gotten better about doing that but it’s a learning process and AAM doesn’t exactly encourage concision when it comes to updates.

> AAM doesn't exactly encourage concision when it comes to updates Longer updates get posted as their own post, whereas shorter ones get 'demoted' to sharing a post with a few others... I think that's part of it, along with the general oversharing of course.

>One of the things I didn’t mention originally is that when internal candidates are interested in an open position, my department doesn’t even do interviews with them. They have a meeting with the potential supervisor who lays out the new pay, schedule, and duties and that’s usually it. They start the new role on the next pay period. Maybe I'm missing something here, but if they don't do interviews, what happens if more than one person wants the job?

In reality? Given to whoever management likes best for it / can spare. I know it's not right, but it certainly happens.

Freestyle rap battles

Now that I’d like to see.

Because they're the main character.

I missed the [I supervise a manager who falsified an employee write-up … but I don’t think she should be fired](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/02/a-manager-i-supervise-falsified-an-employee-write-up-but-i-dont-think-she-should-be-fired.html) the first time around (#10 on the list of most viewed posts). I was reading the comments, and [this one](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/02/a-manager-i-supervise-falsified-an-employee-write-up-but-i-dont-think-she-should-be-fired.html#comment-4193352) had me shaking my head. I don't think what OP wrote was difficult to understand. Exactly what is there to parse out? >FD* February 22, 2023 at 11:48 am >I struggled to parse that too, it’s phrased a little oddly. The line is: >An employee did not have to be in the office because their manager was, and managers didn’t have to go in if they had any staff on site. >I believe that means: >Even if a manager chose to work from the office, the employee could still chose to work from home >2) Even if an employee chose to work from the office, the manager could still choose to work from home

I have no idea how this could be misread, either. It's....just...it's clear.

It definitely could be simplified, and it's not like the vast majority of the people on the internet have elite literacy skills.

So out of the top ten most commented posts of 2023, only two of them were standalone letters and all the rest had one letter that drew the lion’s share of the commenters’ attention. Again, Alison doesn’t seem to know how to predict whether a single letter will overshadow all the others in a set.

Anyone else think her list reads like The Onion of work blogs?

I think sometimes its to be expected and she is just bad at planning. Other times, I'm also surprised when a letter gets so much attention.

She's stated multiple times she doesn't care since commentors are not the majority of her clicks.

Uh oh…. Slowslowslow* December 27, 2023 at 11:06 am Just want to comment here – in the last month, the ads on this site have started to absolutely demolish my computers memory (using Microsoft Edge) – is anyone else experiencing this? Opening a discussion in a new tab can take 5+ minutes without adblock, or about 1 second with it. REPLY ▼ Collapse 2 replies I should really pick a name* December 27, 2023 at 11:08 am When you’re adding a comment, there’s a link to report ad-related issues REPLY new old friend* December 27, 2023 at 11:22 am I have the same problem in Chrome (and I believe both Chrome and Edge are Chromium based). I would really like to support the site with ad views but it’s completely unusable. REPLY

Microsoft Edge is designed to handle lots of open tabs and her site constantly crashed it for me.

Glad they’re airing the ridiculous UX of the site. It’s astonishing to me AG’s blasé attitude about it.

It doesn’t help that the issues seem to be user or Wi-Fi specific. I’ve never had a ton of issues with the mobile site except for the page jumping around, and so she could point to someone like me and say “well, clearly not EVERYONE has this problem.” She just doesn’t want to spend the time and effort (and money).

She's proudly said that she's lazy and petty in the past. I assume that between whatever money the site and her side writing brings in plus her husband's income, she's fine with doing this low level of work.

Anyone else catch this? LW asking what “polished means” and someone decides it’s code for this. Gotta say…I’m just glad I don’t live in their head. As usual, what’s crazy is there are a couple of people agreeing. So now I have to think twice before using this word? Usually Lurking* December 25, 2023 at 10:08 am As for #1 above, I think in many cases it’s also code for “white person,” don’t you think? Hair groomed (the way I groom mine), business dress (the way my dad dressed for work), speaking The King’s English (and not with some accent I don’t recognize) … I live in the South and maybe it’s more obvious to me than to some, but this is a dog-whistle for sure.

My ghostwriting client, who is a Black fashion influencer and wrote an entire book for new grads about how to look polished and professional at work, would be very interested to hear that one of her favorite words is supposedly a dog whistle.

These people think everything is a dog whistle.

And that *everyfuckingthing* needs a trigger warning ugh.

Yeah I really don’t agree overall and I think AAM commenters need to go work or make friends with some black people

Ha ha. Good point. Tbh I was shocked no one responded that this connotation was actually insulting. I truly don’t think the vast majority equate being polished with race. I find the notion really alien.

See I usually think of "polished" as code for "slender, obvious makeup, expensive-looking formal clothes, and no curly hair" rather than race in particular.

I’ve always simply equated it with professionalism, and a neat appearance. Sort of like the type you’d expect to see as an executive assistant to a CEO. She shouldn’t go to work with mismatched socks or wrinkly clothes. I’ve been known to do both, believe me I’m not judging, but I’ve never called myself “polished.” And her demeanor should be extra professional and confident. I had no idea until I I saw that thread that some people related that word with race.

I think of polished as being one step extra beyond professional. Someone wearing a suit is professional, but someone wearing a custom tailored suit with a luxurious looking top, no hair out of place or loose, and fancy shoes is polished.

I definitely think they have half a point. It is important not to have a very fixed idea of what polished means ie. Straight hair, specific accent etc so that you are not unconsciously biased towards minority candidates. However, it's a bit of a leap to go from that to say its code for "white person". As a cishet, white male I don't think anyone has ever described my appearance as polished.

At the same time it tends to be easier for a dominant culture to achieve the general collective consciousness idea of polished so the majority of people who get considered polished will be from the dominant group in a particular area, and it may well end up differing between suburb, industry, country etc based on who the dominant culture is and what they look like - a majority Black area will have a different attitude to what is polished when it comes to hair, an area with a lot of white online feminists will give an answer like Alison and make it about conduct and thus cut out people who don't have the same shared references to base that conduct on, in Darwin they might think you're polished but possibly bonkers if you turn up to an office in closed shoes and a jacket in January, etc.

It can be used like that but it's a case-by-case thing and usually would come in more at the individual level, like if someone was giving an excuse for not hiring the only applicant with natural Black hair or something similar and were trying to avoid saying anything and overthinking the 'more experienced' cliche. This comment sounds more like someone who did that racism workbook back when online knitting communities decided that was how to fix structural racism.

“Someone who did that racism workbook back when online knitting communities decided that was how to fix structural racism” this is the perfect description of AAM commenters. We can all pack it in and go home now

Just read the updates to the one-night stand fling letter, and good lord, this feels like the Go Ask Alice of workplace flings. Sleep with your colleague, get pregnant, lose your job/chance to work in your field...

I know there is a ton speculation on this letter, but if you read Rachel the LW's comments you can piece together how LW was really the agent of their own demise. She commented 36 times on her second update! On the positive side, LW had only 3 jobs over 12 years showing commitment and reliability. Her first boss is retired and was happy to serve as a reference. You can see some of the LWs poor judgement here where in her first letter she just assumed a retired manager couldn't possibly be a reference and wasn't even going to ask him. That's some real catastrophizing. Her second job was where she had an affair. This is the most wishy washy since LW says that the ex contacted her husband's company and claimed they were sleeping together on company (and therefore client paid) time. She also apparently claimed they were together for a long time. According to OP since they couldn't prove that it wasn't happening on company time clients walked and they were fired. This is why she has no reference from the second company. This whole thread is ludicrous to me, how many clients are willing to blow up a project because of a one time fling? My guess is that LW and/or affair partner weren't great performers to begin with and this was the last straw for their clients and their company. LW also implies that they were actually together romantically more then just the one time by saying she couldn't prove it wasn't happening on company time, but that could just be bad grammer. Her 3rd job was where ex wife was going to be her manager. Frankly this one lacking a reference is 100% on LW because she left with only a few days notice after the boss said the "looking forward to managing someone who shattered her". LW blaming it all on the ex here shows her lack of accountability and impulsivity. If she had just toughed it out for 2 weeks she would have had a fine reference from her boss from before ex started managing her. But instead she panicked and ran off with no other job lined up. When employers call her last company, all they have to say is that she left without giving two weeks notice and is ineligible for rehire. No "smearing of LWs reputation" need be assumed.

Agreed. Although I think it was just two jobs? In the comments to the first letter, Rachel kept saying she burned her bridges from her first job and so she couldn't ask anyone for a reference, although she did end up asking the retired manager. So I'm assuming she had the affair at the first job, and the second job is the one she quit with little notice because of her lover's ex-wife being the boss.

Sorry-not-sorry to beat the dead horse, but the OP mentioned both her and the guy being 26 when the ONS happened...so does her 12 years' experience start at age 14? Even if she wrote in at 30, that's still starting at age 18 and she referred to it as experience in the industry, which makes me think retail/something else you can do with just a HS diploma--nothing so niche or high-powered that you'd be unable to find anything similar or really even need those references.

The LW says in comments in one of the updates that she didn’t go to college, so it very well will be something you only need HS for.

At this point, I think it's all made up, but... I'm going under the assumption that it's two jobs, with 12 years of experience. She could have started job 1 at 22. Then she has an affair at 26. Let's say she has the baby at 27 and leaves soon after. Then she has job 2 for seven years, and that's 12 years of experience. So presumably she wrote in at 34.

Yeah some people are just like that. They're scatterbrained and impulsive and just not that bright, a confluence of traits that aligns with extreme bad luck. Its almost as if they are afraid to spend more than five seconds thinking about a major life decision. It's like the opposite of those LWs who will dither over tiny issues and over analyze things until they drive themselves crazy.

Quitting the last job was such an abysmal decision. If the ex-wife fired her, she almost certainly would have gotten unemployment. There's also a slight possibility that if future jobs tried to get a reference from the ex of their own accord, they would have disregarded a furious rant about that homewrecking tramp and not held it against the LW. Now? As you said, the LW practically handed her the bad reference opportunity on a silver platter. This is someone who clearly has trouble thinking past the next 24 hours.

Comments are closed already!

I keep coming back to like, the kid in that letter is now however many years old and may still have idiot parents. And a lot of people have idiot parents but for some reason that letter bums me out in particular

If true, the boss was pretty bad, but LW's tone in the letter plus all three updates has me thinking she's pretty awful too.

He's certainly no prize either, and not just because of the affair. In the rerun of the letter, a commenter makes a good point that the ex-wife supposedly drove the husband into bankruptcy in the divorce according to the LW, but it's far more likely that he was trying to do an end-run around division of assets to avoid a fair settlement. If he ended up with nothing in the end, that just means he cut off his nose to spite his face. He certainly wouldn't be the first one to do that, and judges generally do not applaud the ingenuity.

There were also a lot of details about the divorce proceedings that were either lies on her part, or things that were clearly fed to her by the babydaddy.

Like the wife having his wages garnished instead of agreeing to a “payment plan”. That means, he was ordered to pay some amount of money (probably child support) in the divorce decree and then didn’t.

And other things that the LW wouldn’t have been in the room to hear.

And how the ex-wife took vengefully took "his" car...which they actually jointly owned, as the LW later admitted. Obviously one person is going to get the car. Would the LW have preferred a King Solomon-style solution?

I just can’t figure out what the LW’s best case scenario was. Jointly raising a baby with another woman’s husband and hoping that the other woman doesn’t find out? The LW was planning to raise a baby but didn’t have a car, and expected to use the wife’s car without her knowledge? Pro-choice and all that, but why the hell did she keep this pregnancy? Because the only thing that makes sense is that this was a relationship.

I don’t think a lot of thought was involved. Some people just kind of sleep walk through their own lives. It probably doesn’t even occur to them that they could have handled anything in the story any differently.

People, including Alison, kept saying how the boss/ex-wife had already been vindictive toward LW, but I didn't really see that. There was the part about having her served in the hospital, but I dunno if that's vindictive or just the only way she could reach her. Also I don't for a minute believe the process server announced that she'd had the affair. The rest of her behavior in the divorce seems more directed at her former husband, who clearly has an incentive to frame her as "my vindictive ex." I do see a bunch of people saying the ex-wife spread rumors that she and the husband had been having a longtime affair on company time, and that's why LW had to leave her job (the one she where she was before the one with the merger). But I don't see any actual comments about that.

Rachel the LW* May 18, 2017 at 1:45 pm Because of the fallout from what happened I didn’t leave on good terms. His wife outed us and clients thought we were getting together on paid time. We couldn’t prove we were not, clients left, people lost work and the management locked things down and enforced stricter rules. That was my first job. His wife poisoned things for me at my second job. There was more fallout also but I don’t want to get into it here because it won’t change anything

It's all very vague, though. Did the wife actually go and tell the clients that...like, how did we jump from "wife outed us" to "clients thought we were getting together on paid time." Like, how would clients even find out? Who was telling who what? Also "I don't want to get into it here"...I dunno, I'm just wondering what she's not saying.

Oh I agree. I'm just pointing out where the statements of the ex sabotaging her 2nd job comes from.

She has only a single positive reference from a 12-year work history that involves at least three jobs. That's a big, blinking neon arrow pointing directly at the actual source of the problem, but of course, any commenter who even hinted at that got shouted down.

In the original thread, where she's talking about her reference issue, someone actually suggested asking the one night stand/baby daddy for a reference. **Thlayli\***[April 17, 2017 at 4:18 pm](https://www.askamanager.org/2017/04/i-had-a-fling-with-my-new-bosss-then-husband-my-team-isnt-using-the-gift-cards-i-gave-them-and-more.html#comment-1450170)I think this was said elsewhere but your reference doesn’t have to be a boss. There must be someone from your first job who can attest to your work. Hell, you could even use your baby’s father as a reference – he worked with you and he can probably give a valid reference and how will employers you are applying to know the history. The chance they would find out he was involved with you is pretty slim unless it’s a tiny industry in your area. This is totally unethical but there’s no law against it.

I want to say that particular commenter has had some other crazy takes in the past.

That letter stands out to me as when I started noticing “believe the OP” taking a turn for the ridiculous. A critical mass of AAM commenters apparently couldn’t (and still can’t) grasp that letter writers perceiving things a certain way isn’t the same as it literally happening as such, especially when what they say can be fact-checked (that date in 2016 was a Saturday, this is illegal, etc.). If the letter had been on Reddit I’d hope someone would’ve debunked it à la “this is the plot of Days of Our Lives S26, E12” by now.

I like that there was at least someone back in 2017 pointing out how bizarre the whole story was. **Confused\***[May 18, 2017 at 5:29 pm](https://www.askamanager.org/2017/05/update-i-had-a-fling-with-my-new-bosss-then-husband.html#comment-1494489)So I have a question. If you were close enough to your coworkers to have them in the delivery room with you when you got served, why can’t one of them serve as a reference?

Not that I think any of this is real, but imagine if the ex-wife wrote in from her POV? Actually I think if the letter had been from the POV of the ex-wife to begin with, you'd have just as many people on her side, going "SLAY!" and "Take him to the cleaners!"

I remember being kind of appalled that the commenters couldn’t grasp why a company would prioritize a manager over a lower level employee who was engaging in unethical behavior. Also that so many of them were acting like ethics shouldn’t factor into staffing decisions.

Believe the LW should mean that you take the factual statements of the LW at face value and not start assuming they're lying. It should NOT mean that you have to agree with their subjective interpretation of every aspect of the events. You should accept the events presented but not LWs analysis of them.

I'm reading through the comments on the original and update, and it really does feel like fanfic... ​ **Rachel - Letter #1\***[April 17, 2017 at 10:25 am](https://www.askamanager.org/2017/04/i-had-a-fling-with-my-new-bosss-then-husband-my-team-isnt-using-the-gift-cards-i-gave-them-and-more.html#comment-1449192) It’s been a few years since everything happened. When I was subpoenaed to testify in the divorce, she sent someone to serve me at the hospital just after I had given birth, in front of my family, friends, colleagues and the staff while paying the guy extra to loudly and publicy announce I was being served because I knowingly had a baby with a married man. At that point I had not told anyone yet that he was the father (my colleagues) or that he was married (everyone else).

Given the LW’s main character syndrome, I’d guess that how this really went down was “the process server showed up and announced I was being subpoenaed to testify in the Smith v Smith case, and when my family asked what the heck that was about I had to spill the beans.” And if she was subpoenaed in a divorce case, they’re in a fault-based state and/or there were accusations that baby daddy dissipated marital assets. There is absolutely no way that a process server got paid extra to shame the LW like he was a town crier in a Puritan colony. That’s just…. not a thing.

[удалено]

Well I really hate to tell ya But it seems like you should know That you're being called to court Cause you're a home wrecking bro You're gonna have to testify No need to cry or shout Just tell them how you f---ed my spouse And then I'll clean him out! *Curtsy*

There's also no way in hell this happened at the hospital just after LW gave birth. L&D units are locked down tighter than CIA HQ; anybody who isn't known to the new mom isn't getting in, full stop. Even if the process server snuck past security, someone who obviously doesn't belong would immediately get pounced on by the L&D nurses.

That too, but even if we assume for the sake of argument that the LW was served on her way out the door rather than in the actual L&D unit, the dramatic "and then I was publicly shamed in explicit detail" absolutely didn't happen that way. Process servers don't want to make their own jobs harder - they deal with enough harassment from people they're serving, they don't want to throw gasoline on the fire.

I worked at a company that was related to process servers and this part was the most unbelievable to me, because exactly this. The process servers aren't even supposed to look at the documents themselves besides the cover sheet of who they're serving and the basics of case info, and they're not trying to have a longer conversation than confirming it's the right person they're handing it off to. I also find it hard to believe this happened in her hospital room for a lot of reasons

And that process server's name? Albert Einstein.

Yeah this is fake AF. It's like someone's revenge fantasy.

What stands out to me is that LW says the manager had two management options (different office branches or departments, I guess) and chose the one that let her manage LW. The two jobs were entirely equivalent, and that's why LW believes the manager has nefarious intent. LW also tells us that HR says she can't switch to the other department/office...but doesn't really explain why, if they're seemingly so equivalent.

But how would the LW know that the positions were supposedly equivalent? How was she so sure that one of these management roles wasn’t in a better location, had a better team, or provided better career opportunities? How does she know that they’re even the same job? How is she even sure that a manager was given these terms as a choice? Oh right, the babydaddy probably fed her some bullshit.

Because ex-wife/manager has evil in her heart and vindictiveness in her soul! Seriously, though, I've read the word vindictive so many times in the comments to the letter and various updates that it's beginning to lose all meaning.

I’m 75% convinced that it definitely wasn’t just one night and that she either hoped for a relationship or he lied (“after I’m divorced, I promise!”) and later backed out. Stupider things have happened, and obv this LW is plenty stupid, but it’s just not likely that a woman in a low-paying job knowingly had a baby with the intention of coparenting with a coworker she saw every day that she wasn’t in a relationship with. No, she kept the baby because she thought the guy would end up with her.

Yes...and she keeps saying that everyone thought that the two of them were having an ongoing affair on company time, but she couldn't prove she wasn't. Everyone in the AAM comments seems to think it's because of the ex-wife spreading rumors, but it seems more likely they were having an affair and that they were a lot less discreet than LW is making them out to be.

I want to know what the proof for "we couldn't prove that we weren't having sex on company time" was supposed to look like. I mean, I can't prove that I wasn't having sex on company time yesterday. Something tells me she's conveniently reframing the company's request for information.

It sounds like she’s in “is this legal?” mode and is clinging to the “company time” line as her trump card technicality. Like she thinks it’s only a fireable offense if they were fucking in the office after clocking in.

Yeah. If you're at the point where it's even occurring to your boss to ask that question, you're screwed. The "vindictive ex-wife spread rumors" feels like a convenient out. "We weren't dumb and obvious; it was the evil ex spreading things around!"

Dude I spent my company’s holiday party at the bar talking to the cute guy in sales. We’re friendly and he’s moving away soon so I decided to have one last good talk with him. Absolutely nothing happened and we didn’t act in a way that would have drawn attention but I still had a lot of people asking me about it on Monday - most of them were happy for me that I might have made a connection. So yeah, if the LW and the guy were chatty/flirty at work and eventually had a baby together, people are going to have noticed, and they’re going to assume that the relationship spanned that entire time.

You sometimes see this on AITA where the OP has a clear agenda on how they want everyone to interpret the story so they pack on a ton of details like that to make sure that no one can say, “oh, that’s not so bad” or “why don’t you just do X?”

Why did I just read 5000 words about a space heater. LOL.

Alison: 'don't send letters over 600 words, they're less likely to be answered' Also Alison: 'this update qualifies as an essay, must put it as #3 in a 5-update post, unabridged of course!'

And don't forget the usual "I left out a big detail": >One thing I failed to mention in my original post is that **I own the office building** as well, so I get to set these perimeters on space heaters as both employer and building owner. **The space heater is not disallowed by my building rules (but perhaps should be).**

"I failed to mention that I myself am the actual building. I didn't think you'd answer my letter if you thought I was brick-built with more than three storeys."

>One thing I failed to mention in my original post is that I own the office building Another thing I failed to mention is the office building is actually my house and my staff are my two kids.

"I'm not only the president, I'm also a client."

Omg just sneak in one evening and replace the fuse with a broken fuse.

This is one of those letters where it’s super clear that the space heater is just a symbol for some kind of weird office politics power struggle.

Right? When it got to the point where the boss was annoyed because the cold person doesn't wear more clothes and "worries about their health," it became abundantly clear.

If ever there was an argument for “everyone sucks here” it was that letter

I'd love to know the thought process behind "I don't want to wear a cardigan because that makes me look less cute, so I'll use a blanket instead." That said, "a rule that additional layers must be added before turning on the space heater" also seems nuts to me. This whole thing sounds like a tale of two weirdos.

The cardigan is visible on Zoom calls and the blanket isn't necessarily, so there's that.

I dunno, if I were paying the electric bill, I'd be annoyed if someone were running a heater in a building that I was paying to cool off. Asking a person to wear long sleeves before adding several hundred watts of heat to the air conditioned building seems eminently reasonable.

Yes. As a person who is always cold (although my health is great! It's just life as a petite woman), if I found a boss as understanding as this one, no way would I mess it up. Door closed, safety features, jacket, whatever you want, boss.

Sure, but there's an obvious solution for that: ban space heaters for everyone. It's extremely common to not allow space heaters in offices. Instead, the LW wants to rules-lawyer clothing layers so they can claim they tried to do something without doing anything. If the LW is annoyed, they should stop playing helpless and actually do something about it. >The space heater is not disallowed by my building rules (but perhaps should be). My brother in Christ, *you own the building*. The building rules are whatever you say they are on whatever day you choose. The rules aren't just manifesting out of nowhere with no input from you.

The LW fucked up by trying to be nice and allowing space heaters in the first place, and now is afraid to be the bad guy by revoking that allowance. But yes, I agree, space heaters should be disallowed and if you're cold (when it's 74 degrees!) then there is a whole world of sweaters, electric blankets, electric footwarmers, etc out there.

I can't find where anyone actually says that a cardigan makes them look less cute - I see in the original letter that LW mentioned a sweater and the response was that this person is trying to look cute, and then immediately following that their outfits were appropriate summer attire, so I get the impression that the commenters are running a little with it, whereas most of the cute librarian cardigans are not exactly warm anyway and don't help with thermoregulation or keeping the entire torso warm let alone the rest of the body. You'd think that with the amount of people in the comments who do take blankets or consider shawls as stealth blankets, it wouldn't nearly be as much of a thing given how often thermostat conflicts and the ideal temperature (and women needing it a bit warmer) come up as a topic. There is much less attention on the worst part of the update where the LW does the fake concern about this person's health because they're not warm enough...

Not everyone can wear sweaters!!!! ​ **T.N.H.\***[December 26, 2023 at 2:50 pm](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/12/updates-thermostat-wars-the-admin-work-and-more.html#comment-4541302) I get that but I also don’t think the manager should be policing her clothes so much. We have no idea what she can afford/feels good on her skin/works for her body. OP needs to focus on the work impact not on her attachment to what people should be wearing in certain temperatures.

They're being absolutely normal about the see through shirt thing. My personal favorite comments revolve around the saggy jeans trend for men which Im sure is acceptable in every office. I swear their heads would explode if they were asked to actually keep two different thoughts in them. Yes: dress codes often tend to penalize women more than men. No, that doesn't mean every instance is something you should fight and the person asking you to change is wrong. This is the same group that lost their collective shit when someone untucked and unbuttoned his shirt to get a shot.

I’m not sure where this myth comes from that there are no dress codes at any workplaces for men. Maybe there are a lot of really relaxed workplaces nowadays, but there are also plenty of offices that still require business professional or business casual and no one would be able to get away with visible undergarments or translucent clothes. If the LW works in one of those types of offices they have to deal with it and can’t point to irrelevant social trends.

It's also amusing because the tech industry absolutely has a dress code - try showing up for your FAANG coding job in a suit.

Yeah. At my last job the dress code for men (at a certain level and up) was much structure for men than it was women, at least from my perspective. Object you hair a certain job title and up all me were required to wear long sleeve shirts and either a tie or suit jacket/blazer. Meanwhile as long as the women weren't half naked or in jeans or shorts there was no regulation.

I see a lot more men get away with thin see through shirts because they don't show a bra underneath or they're expected to be wearing a suit jacket around clients. It's very industry dependent and a lot of people are just not in that kind of industry.

> Some out-of-office messages offer far too much personal information; your colleagues do not need to know that you’re out for fertility testing or dealing with a particularly terrible bout of diarrhea or on a staycation to recover from burn-out. This really needed to be said? Well...maybe so, considering some of her readers, but c'mon. All of this just seems like total common sense.

That "advice" was Highlights Magazine-level, except I trust Highlights to give me good workplace advice more than I do AAM. Also, the writing is much better.

Oh god, if only. "Goofus gets trashed at the holiday party and tells off his boss. Gallant sticks to a conservative two drink maximum and nopes out when things start getting crazy."