Morning Ed: Society {2017.04.18.T}

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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51 Responses

  1. fillyjonk says:

    That Rothman dude in the Judge piece sounds almost like HE walked out of a Mike Judge film…

    Idiocracy is one of the most uncomfortable movies I’ve ever seen. (I teach college). My brother, who used to work as an actuary at the headquarters of an international insurance company says that Office Space is one of the most uncomfortable movies he’s ever seen….Judge knows something.Report

    • InMD in reply to fillyjonk says:

      A former colleague of mine and I referred to the company we worked for as Initech. Office Space is actually kind of gentle compared to the reality of white collar corporate America.Report

      • fillyjonk in reply to InMD says:

        Wow. I always figured I wouldn’t fit in in Corporate America but if it’s *worse* than Office Space, DANG.Report

        • Marchmaine in reply to fillyjonk says:

          Love Office Space (well, the first 60% anyway), but that’s a decidedly 90’s satire of corporate america. It is different now. We need an updated Office Space.Report

        • InMD in reply to fillyjonk says:

          The inane culture satirized in Office Space still holds pretty true though even that’s gotten worse. Office Space predates Enron so doesn’t include the massive CYA bureaucracy, trainings, and and enforced cultural norms/focus on ‘optics’ that have followed. Also even though Wall Street has done well since 2008 the world is still precarious for a lot of people whereas Office Space came out during boom times. Now you’d need to throw a lot more paranoia and buck passing into the mix (among plenty of other things).Report

          • fillyjonk in reply to InMD says:

            Oh man, yes. All the mandated training sessions: how not to sexually harass, what to do if someone shows up truly intent on burning the place down, how to avoid needle-sticks. (That last one may be unique to campus/hospital settings, though – we all had to do the no-needle-stick training, and by “all” I mean “not just the biologists but the historians and English profs and art profs too”)

            And yeah, there would be that person wandering around, muttering worriedly about how they were gonna lose their job and THEN what would they do?Report

            • Kimmi in reply to fillyjonk says:

              filly,
              Surprised they didn’t have you do the training on how not to get strangled by your badge (or bit, or spat at).
              We have a psych hospital in our portfolio.

              (We mostly did a ton of fire training).Report

              • fillyjonk in reply to Kimmi says:

                As of yet, we don’t need no stinkin’ badges. But yeah, the badge-on-a-lanyard could represent a threat to the employee (Breakaway lanyards, I suppose)

                (We’re supposed to carry our IDs with us, but I’ve never been asked to show mine anywhere other than to check out a book at the library).

                We have to do CRASE training (active shooter awareness) annually; that’s bad enough.

                What I found more useful though was the (optional) workshop on how to de-escalate when you’re working with an angry, angry person.Report

              • Morat20 in reply to fillyjonk says:

                Rather randomly, my workplace insists on breakaway lanyards — if you use one at all — because otherwise they’re a hazard. White collar office, although we have fab shops.

                We need breakway ties…Report

              • dragonfrog in reply to Morat20 says:

                … and tearaway pants. If nothing else it could make the office pretty fab too.Report

              • Morat20 in reply to dragonfrog says:

                Admittedly lanyards are choke hazards. I’m actually not sure what the tensile strength of a tie is, but they make some of those lanyards tough. (And also, generally, thinner than ties).

                Of course if you’re working in the fab shops you’re not supposed to wear ties anyways, but you ARE supposed to carry your badge with you so that’s probably a good enough reason.

                And if they’re already handing out breakway lanyards to the fab guys, they might as well source all their lanyards to the same place and give them to everyone. Can’t hurt.Report

            • dragonfrog in reply to fillyjonk says:

              For two summers in university I had jobs doing computer programming.
              Everyone who was doing summer work on campus took the same safety course – the groundskeepers who used various rapidly whirling blade machines, the folks doing lab work with radioactive materials and incredibly poisonous chemicals and live pathogen samples, agriculture and vet med students working with large animals, and us computer desk sitters.

              It was kind of interesting, but I can’t say I learnt a lot of direct use for that summer’s work.Report

      • LeeEsq in reply to InMD says:

        One of the great advantages to working in a small, real person law firm or even all but the biggest of law firms is that there are rarely enough people to justify what goes on in the rest of regular white collar corporate America. I never had to deal with HR or annual performance reviews in my life.Report

        • InMD in reply to LeeEsq says:

          That part of in house actually isn’t so bad. Everywhere I’ve been has had a tacit acceptance that Legal is different. You go through the same motions as everyone else but it isn’t what you’re judged on.

          The parts I struggle with have more to do with the human interactions. There are good business people and I actually find them a pleasure to work with. They take legal advice seriously, their risks are calculated, and you can really learn from them as much as they do from you. Unfortunately these people are few and far between. Most of your interactions are with big egos, bullshit artists, lousy salesmen, mindless box checkers, and people whose primary objective is to fly under the radar. You spend more time navigating personalities and trying to interpret nonsensical, vaguely positive corporate speak than doing actual legal work.

          Granted this is just part of being a lawyer. I had plenty of stupid experiences when I was hanging out with Sean the weed dealer instead of Bob from Business Development.Report

          • Kimmi in reply to InMD says:

            InMD,
            At least you haven’t been hired as someone’s “pet lawyer” (aka “This person is too important to be distracted by legal bullshit. Fix it for him”).

            At least you didn’t take a JOKE legal document and accidentally conclude that you sent the Cease and Desist…Report

  2. The “don’t give advice” article is pretty good (But it ends on a weak note. C. T. May shouldn’t hinge his/her argument on what one’s face looks like and what one’s voice does when you give advice.)

    I do think it’s important to distinguish between types of advice, too. One might distinguish between solicited and unsolicited advice. One might also distinguish between advice where the advice-recipient has reason to believe the advice giver knows whereof he/she speaks and where the advice-recipient doesn’t.

    (Pro-tip to would-be advice-givers: If you know someone who just graduated from college with a history major, don’t say, “have you thought about applying to a museum?” as if the recent graduate has never heard of museums before–and especially don’t do it if you don’t know of any museums that are actually hiring.)Report

  3. Damon says:

    TV: I fail to understand why people give any credence to “oh you MUST see it”. No I don’t. I might, but maybe not. Don’t be the herd. The herd gets slaughtered.

    Oregon Ducks. I still laugh at that team name. Not as funny as the Gamecocks, but still.Report

    • Road Scholar in reply to Damon says:

      It depends. If the person dispensing the OMG has a track record of liking the same sort of TV that you do then it’s probably worth a look. Otherwise it’s just random noise. In all probability, Netflix knows your tastes better than any actual person.

      The herd may very well get slaughtered, but they also get their favorite shows renewed. That’s not a very good argument for taking someone else’s viewing advice but it’s a rational motivation to dispense it.Report

  4. Oscar Gordon says:

    Seattle March For Science

    If you listen to the audio clip, you get to hear this gem at the end:

    Politicians are politicians and they will throw science under the bus whenever they think it suits them.

    Ah yup!Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      Myhre put it this way: ā€œThink about the things that American science has done in the last hundred years. We put people on the moon. We landed an instrument on an asteroid.

      We obliterated two Japanese cities in atomic fireballs.

      Wait, I am doing this right?Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to Kolohe says:

        Yep, doing it just fine!

        PS I find it amusing that a Marine Biologist resorts to examples of Aerospace achievements to drive a point about American Scientific Leadership.Report

      • Autolukos in reply to Kolohe says:

        Typical lack of respect for the businessmen who made it possible to obliterate cities in normal fireballs.Report

        • Oscar Gordon in reply to Autolukos says:

          True, we did obliterate Tokyo with perfectly normal fireballs.Report

          • Kimmi in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

            Dresden had concrete fires. Self-perpetuating concrete fires.Report

          • El Muneco in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

            Hell, look at some pictures of Atlanta the day after Sherman got done with it.

            That took hours, Tokyo minutes, Hiroshima/Nagasaki seconds, but other than the time frame (yes, I realize that the time frame affects how many have a chance to escape).

            We did a lot of horrible things in WW2. The atomic bombs are not worthy of being singled out among them.Report

            • notme in reply to El Muneco says:

              Don’t blame Sherman for everything that happened to ATL. There was a lot of blame to go round.

              https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/who-burned-atlanta/?_r=0

              Besides, war is about doing horrible things.Report

              • PD Shaw in reply to notme says:

                Yes, credit where credit is due, most of the destruction of Atlanta was by the rebels, not Americans.Report

              • Kolohe in reply to PD Shaw says:

                As we’ve seen recently, infrastructure in Atlanta kinda just self destructs.Report

              • notme in reply to Kolohe says:

                Crackheads setting fires doesn’t help.Report

              • notme in reply to PD Shaw says:

                Not quite. According to the article, “The real cause of the subsequent mass destruction was Shermanā€™s acquiescence to widespread disobedience among his soldiers.”Report

              • PD Shaw in reply to notme says:

                Phil Leigh is not an historian and he’s a person of peculiar views; he thinks that the cycle of history has moved from “Gone with the Wind” to “Roots” and is due for a correction. Its good though that the NY Times showed some variety in its coverage of view points.

                (1) The initial destruction came about because the Confederates set their defensive lines close to the city where they would be shelled, and in the process they burned buildings that would interfere with sight lines. (2) Upon evacuation of the City, Hood gave orders for everything of military value to be destroyed (ammunition, food stores and cotton), which is the burning of Atlanta depicted in Gone with the Wind. (3) The union army occupied the city and destroyed the railroads, including burning depots and train cars and industrial capacity. (4) Unauthorized burning by union troops a few days before departure, most of which occurred while Sherman was away from Atlanta in the field.

                I think (1) and (2) were Confederate responsibility and (3) and (4) were Union responsibility, but (2) > (1) + (3) + (4). There is ultimately a significant difference in outcome btw/ setting fires in haste in the process of evacuating the city, and the orderly destruction that the Union conducted over the course of many weeks.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

      Loved the tape. Listen to it around 1:25. That guy’s inflection sums up everything conservatives say about media bias.Report

  5. Brandon Berg says:

    Mike Judges us all, and finds us wanting.

    That’s weird. Normally he’s Schilling for us.Report

  6. Kazzy says:

    I’m curious if that chart
    A) includes people who are legally married but otherwise decommitted from their spouse.
    and B) if so, if people understand that.

    I am legally married. But my legal spouse and I are no longer committed to each other in any sort of romantic or physical way. As such, if I were to have sex with someone else, the answer to that question for me would be, “Yes.” But how many people would assume that meant that I was unfaithful to her?Report

    • dragonfrog in reply to Kazzy says:

      And I went straight away to something more like my own situation. I wonder how the answers would break down if the options were something like:

      Did you ever have sex with someone other than your spouse, while married?
      1) No
      2) Yes, while legally separated from my spouse
      3) Yes, absent legal separation, with the knowledge and consent of my spouse
      4) Yes, absent legal separation, without the knowledge or consent of my spouse

      And separately, I wonder what significant options I left out of the above, and how much they might reduce the number of respondents getting down to the final “we were trying to ask about having an affair” answer.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to dragonfrog says:

        It also presumes that sex is the only means by which an affair could be had. Sex — or physical intimacy — tends to offer a bright line when it comes to breaking commitments but it is far from the only way to do so.

        I also heard of a survey that women are more likely to be bothered by emotional infidelity than physical while men are more likely to be bothered by physical than emotional. And there is probably lots we can parse from that but I think the clearest insight it offers is that physical infidelity is not the only form.Report

  7. Kolohe says:

    I’m guessing the spike was from guys spreading their seed to repopulate the earth in the aftermath of the Y2K apocalypse.Report

    • Brandon Berg in reply to Kolohe says:

      Clinton bump. If it’s good enough for the President…Report

      • Kolohe in reply to Brandon Berg says:

        We’re talking tiny variations so the data is likely mostly noise, (and as mentioned, changes in self reporting standards), but still there does seems to be correlations between recessions and having some side action – positive in the case of men, negative for women.Report

  8. notme says:

    Georgia Dem: No issue I donā€™t live in district

    http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/329235-georgia-dem-no-issue-i-dont-live-in-district

    I thought you had to? Maybe it’s just a good idea. This guy is supposed to be the liberal answer to Trump.Report

    • Troublesome Frog in reply to notme says:

      You need to live in the state, not the district. As a practical matter, districts move around from time to time, so it’s helpful not to have your district move out from underneath you.

      I love how this guy, who has lived in the district for years and is temporarily moving less than 2 miles beyond its border to live with his girlfriend while she finishes medical school, is somehow being portrayed as some sort of carpet bagger.

      If people are concerned about the legality of it, there’s no problem at all. If they’re concerned about the principle of the matter, I simply don’t see why. He clearly has deep connections with the district and will reside within walking distance of its border.Report

  9. notme says:

    MLB commissioner wants Cleveland Indians to ā€˜transition awayā€™ from Chief Wahoo logo

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/04/12/mlb-commissioner-wants-cleveland-indians-to-transition-away-from-chief-wahoo-logo/?utm_term=.d4d7ae90bf3e

    The PC folks won’t be happier until another tradition is dead.Report