This topic is a bit lowbrow, but here it is:
I just used a ladies’ room and someone had “hovered” and not wiped the seat. Ugh. But that reminded me of a situation at work a few years ago….
I worked at a manufacturing site, in the admin building. The entire site had about 15 buildings, widely scattered on the grounds. About 18 women worked in the admin building with 25 men. The admin ladies’ room had three sinks and three stalls. There was very low employee turnover, so we were all used to each other’s restroom etiquette, and we were a neat group, wiping up splashes on the counter top, refilling paper towel and tp dispensers when empty, etc.
This day there was a meeting in one of the conference rooms in the admin building, and two of the attendees were women who worked in other buildings as managers, which meant they “out-ranked” all of the women in the admin building. The meeting lasted all day, taking breaks and a lunch hour. One of the admin regulars told me, as I entered the restroom mid-morning, “Don’t use the third stall! Someone “hovered” and wet the whole seat!” Wet seats never happened with our normal group, so it had to be one of the two females at the meeting. At lunchtime, another co-worker stopped by our office and said that TWO seats were now all wet. By mid-afternoon, all three toilets had wet seats. Apparently, the hover-er had moved on to a clean stall each time, until all were soiled, leaving us to either clean up her urine or hike five to ten minutes to the nearest building with a bathroom. A few of our group finally located some gloves and attacked the seats with cleaners and paper towels so we could use the bathroom.
So rude! 1113-18
Feel Good Friday – Brontë Sisters Power Dolls
I love this. Just goes to show that sometimes humor can be a more effective means to get a point across.
Workplace Baby Showers
I have a question for e-hell. I have a co-worker who I manage (she reports to me). She is currently pregnant and going on maternity leave soon. She is a very sweet girl from a personality perspective (to other people) but is a NIGHTMARE as someone to work with. She is exceptionally lazy, doesn’t get work done (which I have to then do to avoid missing important deadlines), she comes in to work late and leaves early, spends all her time talking on the phone or surfing the ‘net, she has even fallen asleep at her desk before. She doesn’t have a medical condition, aside for being pregnant, but she milks it where she can. She takes time off for every tiny reason, including tummy aches and headaches and is pretty much the worst worker I have ever known.
The problem is she is generally popular in the office because no one but me experiences her bad behavior. I am always doing her work, because as her manager I am the one who will get into trouble if it isn’t done. She has also lied to me on a few occasions. Recently, a close friend of mine passed away and I couldn’t be at the funeral because she had let me down for a deadline. I therefore don’t personally like her very much and don’t feel hugely generous towards her. I remain civil with her, but I am not taken in by her “bubbliness”.
My problem is that, because she reports to me, people expect ME to throw her a baby shower. This would have to be done at my personal expense (to buy decorations, food and a present) and I unfortunately am having financial issues. I might be inclined to borrow money if it was someone I really loved and wanted to throw a shower for – but how should I handle this when I don’t want to reward her bad treatment of me in the first place??? I am getting nasty comments from people about how mean I am being by not setting a date for the shower and organizing one.
1002-15
It’s been my opinion for years that work-related wedding and baby showers should either be an employer provided benefit that is done on company time and company expense or it is a private affair planned and paid for by individual employees interested in hosting a shower off the clock and off property. If your company protocol for years has been that management hosts a shower at the manager’s expense and on company time, you are screwed. You cannot now play “non-favorites” and decline to benefit one particular employee. If the protocol in your company is that individuals can plan showers for fellow co-workers off the clock, by all means encourage one of the employees to own that hosting duty. Ignore people who want all the fun of someone else working their backside off to host a party they are not willing to host themselves.
Play Date Etiquette
I am hoping to get some advice on the polite thing to do.
I have 2 elementary school age kids, who ride on a school bus daily. They have plenty of friends in general and their play dates fall in one of two types. School friends are usually dropped off or picked up by us from school and their parents collect them some time later. Occasionally the parents stay for a a bit to chat with us, but these dates are predominantly kids only. For our family friends usually the mother or the father stays – so both kids and parents have time with their respective friends (these happen more often on weekends or evenings when both families have finished work). I should also say that with school friends we host play dates probably twice as much as we send our kids somewhere. We like hosting and having the kids play at home is no trouble at all. My husband and I both work from home and kids that age do not need much supervision any more, one of us can step out to help and come back to our work.
One exception is a neighborhood girl of similar age to my kids. Her house is on the way to our home from the school bus and my kids have fallen into the habit of stopping there for a half hour play date a couple of times a week. This is always by invitation from the girl and her sitter, actually the invitation is extended almost daily, but my kids have sports after school some days, so not all days work. My impression is that it’s easier for the sitter if the girl has company, the kids have fun, and since the invitations keep coming (often the sitter will stop by in advance to get my permission to have them come over) it’s probably mutually beneficial. The mother of the girl has been to our house once staying over a birthday party and knows our kids too, no problems from her and she is at work during these dates anyway. I have recently made my children bring some snacks to share since I noticed they often get treating to snacks at the other place.
My dilemma is to what extent can I have this going on without reciprocating. As I mentioned above we host often and we find kids no trouble. The issue is that this kid comes with a sitter. We have invited them a couple of times and the lady comes as well and stays. It’s a bit awkward, since either we have to stop working for the whole time and chat with her, or send her join the kids in basement or backyard wherever they are playing, which seems impolite. It would be incredibly easier if she would be willing to drop off the girl and collect her later, but I haven’t dared suggest that. Don’t get me wrong, nothing against her personally, but this is still during the work day for us and not convenient.
What is the proper thing to do? Keep going as now, extend invitation occasionally and just bear the awkwardness, ask the sitter to do drop off? 0322-17
Children As Political Pawns
Over 11 years ago, when this blog was in its infancy, I posted a strongly worded opinion post about anti-war protestors invading the residential space of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. When you have a basic principle that an action is wrong, it’s wrong regardless of who the victims or who the perpetrators are on the political spectrum. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now although in retrospect the protestors 11 year ago were mild compared to what is happening today.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson was at his desk Wednesday evening, less than two hours before his 8 p.m. live show, when he suddenly started receiving multiple text messages.
There was some sort of commotion happening outside his home in Northwest D.C.
“I called my wife,” Carlson told The Washington Post in a phone interview. “She had been in the kitchen alone getting ready to go to dinner and she heard pounding on the front door and screaming. … Someone started throwing himself against the front door and actually cracked the front door.”
His wife, thinking it was a home invasion, locked herself in the pantry and called 911, Carlson said. The couple have four children, but none were home at the time.
Antifa thugs chanted “Tucker Carlson, we will fight. We know where you sleep at night”, the oak front door of the house was cracked after being pounded on and the security camera caught someone mentioning a “mail bomb”. These thugs had blocked off both ends of the neighborhood street and posted online the addresses of not just Carlson but also the addresses of his brother and his best friend.
The timing of this home attack wasn’t a coincidence. Carlson was not home but at work meaning that the assault on the house was meant to terrorize the Carlson children and Carlson’s wife. Miserable cowards drag the innocent into their dramas, children particularly, using them as shields and soft targets. Vile. The neighbors on that street are collateral damage as their safety and their freedom to move freely with an expectation of not being in the midst of a melee that appears to be on the verge of violence has been diminished.
You have a beef with a politician or political pundit? Get a permit and protest at their office.
UPDATE 01/24/2019: Several commenters have referred to the published testimony of one protester to downplay the severity of the situation. However, the witness ends his statement with this:
The point, in other words, is to unsettle and frighten — and I certainly would have been frightened had it been me in that house.