Peccary shows up in crosswords sometimes.
You're in a band. Shouldn't you have learned what a javelina is from the Pixies?
On the other hand, I knew that javelinas and peccaries were both pig-like animals, but had never realized they're the same thing.
The pangolin. Don't believe Tierce -- ant-lions don't have any gold!
5: I confess I've never really warmed up to the Pixies. I've tried, but there's just not much there for me. Same problem with Magnetic Fields, whom I'm supposed to like but just don't care much for.
If you call them peccaries, I've heard of them. Skunk pig is new to me.
Growing up on nature documentaries, I know of peccaries exclusively as anaconda food.
They eat the efts.
That live in adits and eat orts.
Little lambs eat Ivy League basketball players of Asian ancestry.
2: ant-lions are real - they're basically the thing in the pit in "Return of the Jedi" but with pincers rather than tentacles, and sized to eat ants rather than Billy Dee Williams.
9: and also wildebeeste. The average middle-class British child will have seen 7,500 wildebeeste torn to pieces on TV by the time he or she is 16 years old. Small wonder that we all turn out bad.
For example, the idea of smoking tobacco.
Here is a strange animal you may not know. The Russian desman.
I saw javelinas in Patagonia, AZ on a birding trip. Our guide said they're particularly annoying on trash day because they knock over all the containers. Also, one of them tore into his dog with its tusks (the dog is okay).
They have smaller wild pigs in Costa Rica. I saw about 30 in the forest. They've been known to surround humans and run in a circle around the human to disorient them and attack. Fortunately the ones I saw were scared of me and took off as soon as they saw me.
Costa Rica also has agoutis, which look a lot like large rats with longer legs. The weirdest animal, and most awesome, is the sloth. I saw one, but my pics were only so so.
That's not a weird mole.
This is a weird mole. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m0PMcXK6XA
I first heard the word in The Royal Tenenbaums, and it didn't register until the billion and twelfth time I watched it. I think I may have thought he named his stuffed pig head Evelina. Which doesn't make much sense but could have been a moment of Wes Anderson Twee Eccentricity. (Sorry to bring up Twee again. Have lost track myself of what it means other than Belle & Sebastian who I'm certain are paradigmatically twee.)
Wiki says that b&s are Indie pop, chamber pop or baroque pop, in fact. I was reading about twee pop the other day, because C told me that the songwriting woman out of Talulah Gosh (after which Kid D is named, although spelt with more l's) not only still has a band, but is also a chief economist at the Office of Fair Trading.
23: I love that name. I am also fond of Ms Bankhead, even if she was a bit like the Paris Hilton of her day (albeit talented).
23 - Heavenly consisted of Matthew Fletcher, who wrote all the songs and later committed suicide; the future chief economist of the Office of Fair Trading; the future host of Junkyard Wars; the future head editor of the Oxford University Press's philosophy imprint; and the future executive producer of Being Human. Talented group of people.
Naked Mole Rat. Caecelian. Blindworm.Cymothoa exigua.
Naked Mole Rat. Caecelian. Blindworm.Cymothoa exigua.
If you say it a third time, they'll appear!
Oudemia thinks that women should wear panties. What a prude. Tallulah did cartwheels into the room without panties, which is the talent part.
20: The extremely sensitive nasal tentacles are covered with minute touch receptors known as Eimer's organs. The nose is approximately one centimeter in diameter with approximately 25,000 Eimer's organs distributed on 22 appendages. Eimer's organs were first described in the European mole in 1871 by German zoologist Theodor Eimer. Other mole species also possess Eimer's organs, though they are not as specialized or numerous as in the star-nosed mole. Because the star-nosed mole is functionally blind, it had long been suspected that the snout was used to detect electrical activity in prey animals,[5] though little, if any, empirical support has been found for this hypothesis. It appears the nasal star and dentition of this species are primarily adapted to exploit extremely small prey. A report in the journal Nature gives this animal the title of fastest-eating mammal, taking as short as 120 milliseconds (average: 227 milliseconds) to identify and consume individual food items. Its brain decides in the ultra short time of 8 ms if a prey is comestible or not. This speed is at the limit of the speed of neurons. These moles also possess the ability to smell underwater, accomplished by exhaling air bubbles onto objects or scent trails and then inhaling the bubbles to carry scents back through the nose.[6]
Some species have at least 16 different photoreceptor types, which are divided into four classes (their spectral sensitivity is further tuned by colour filters in the retinas), 12 of them for colour analysis in the different wavelengths (including four which are sensitive to ultraviolet light) and four of them for analysing polarised light. By comparison, humans have only four visual pigments, three dedicated to see colour. The visual information leaving the retina seems to be processed into numerous parallel data streams leading into the central nervous system, greatly reducing the analytical requirements at higher levels.
At least two species have been reported to be able to detect circular polarized light,[14][15] and in some cases their biological quarter-wave plates perform more uniformly over the entire visual spectrum than any current man-made polarizing optics, the application of which it is speculated could be applied to a new type of optical media that performs even better than the current generation of Blu-ray disc technology.[16][17]
The species Gonodactylus smithii is the only organism known to simultaneously detect the four linear and two circular polarization components required for Stokes parameters, which yield a full description of polarization. It is thus believed to have optimal polarization vision.[15][18]
Mantis shrimp are, quite appropriately, brilliantly fluorescent.
I'm dully fluorescent, which is pointless.
25 - oh, I will tell C about the OUP connection. He hates them (in a genial way - OUP hate the university because they have to give them loads of money, and the university hate OUP because they don't give them enough money, and they both like to complain about the other).
Always nice when someone knows who you're talking about. Often on hearing Tallulah people will mention either Ms Bankhead or Jodie Foster, and then I have to admit that no, she is named after a band that you haven't heard of. Of course, they themselves are names after a quote from Clare Grogan. Who has now written a couple of books about a girl who wants to be a popstar and calls herself Tallulah Gosh. All very pleasingly circular.
I have never watched Being Human because I can't bear Russell Tovey. First saw him as Roger in His Dark Materials back in 2003 I think, and have disliked him ever since. Kid A told me she follows the Russell Tovey tag on Tumblr just because she knows I can't stand him. Shows a worrying lack of respect.
I saw my first javelinas in Big Bend.* Their eyes glowed red, which inexorably led to Proposed Band Name (PBN) Demon Javelinas.
*Big Bend is super awesome. You should go to there.
Let all rush to the park that has a link for "how to avoid death while visiting."
The guy who died on the two mile hike probably had some kind of medical issue, one hopes.
Eh, you take your life in your hands every time you get behind the wheel but without the benefit of seeing plants straight out of Dr. Seuss.
I suppose, but I just don't like hot weather.
You Everyone but Moby should go to[sic] there.
It's well established that Moby prefers his nature to be easily squishable.
It may be a nice place in the winter, but I also hate to fly.
38: I was thinking maybe the cartel members you just ripped off might be considered a "medical issue".
The rangers seem to imply that he'd be just fine if only he'd brought some water.
For amazing plants and less death, Moby can take a road trip to Joshua Tree.
The U.S. National Park System: Death is now optional.
44: Of course, thus was it written ... Ah, I see.
Dehydration and heat stroke are usually the causes when people die in the desert. Wear a big hat and take some Gatorade and you'll be fine. Just watch out for the mountain lions. And scorpions. And bears. (Oh my!)
47: I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
50: Bear Grylls has also taught us that you can also pee on your t-shirt and wear it atop your head.
People are stupid in hot weather and cold.
52: He didn't so much teach us that as give us a better excuse for it.
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Woohoo! Raises! Adorable, cute tiny itty bitty little raises, but raises. And a cute tiny little bonus as well.
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Just another fat payout for you bureaucrats, huh?
It's funny, it's not a personal review of my performance, and it's not a lot of money, but I do feel all warm and fuzzy.
55,56: I was going to say that it warms the cockles of my heart that some part of that would be paid for by Shearer's taxes, but realized I somehow had gotten the impression that he's moving/moved to NJ.
I didn't even get a real raise when I got promoted.
Recession 101: STFU about not getting a raise. (Sorry, I'm rather behind and was just reading the "Self worth beats net worth" post.)
Nice.
Also, I've always wanted to go to Big Bend. We should have a "best national parks" thread.
63.last: Cuyahoga Valley National Park!
I think I rode through parts of that on a train that was painted to look like Thomas the Tank Engine.
Olympic, Mesa Verde, Assateague. I've never been to Yosemite, hoping to go soonish
Yellowstone is great. You're very likely to be eaten by a bear, but at least it won't be too hot to run for the brief period in which you can stay ahead of the bear.
If we wait until teo gets here, we can make him name all the national parks in 1) alphabetical, 2) geographical, and 3) number-of-annual-visitors order.
I was going to say El Yunque, but it turns out that's a National *Forest* rather than a National Park, a distinction I hadn't really ever noted before. (It's under USDA rather than Interior, whatever difference that makes.)
Yellowstone is sort of bullshit, actually, though it's way better than Grand Canyon. Both Glacier and Grand Teton, on the other hand, are awesome. (We're only going to do the first-tier parks, right? Otherwise, the game becomes about who's the coolest, rather than which park is the coolest. Right, JP? Right?)
If we're counting national forests, I think Nebraska National Forest should win. Anybody can create a national forest some place with trees, but hand planting a whole forest shows dedication.
It's under USDA rather than Interior, whatever difference that makes.
Everything in the park? Guaranteed edible.
The difference between national forests and national parks actually cuts to the core of US environmental history and pivots on the (now often discredited) distinction between conservation and preservation. I could say more but won't. Indeed, I've said too much already.
Grand Canyon is the worst, agreed, unless you're rafting. Yellowstone is great, though -- so much weirdness.
Yellowstone can not only kill you with bears, but you can cook to death if you go off the trail. That's really hard to find in the lower 48.
The fish and game service is in Agriculture, not Interior. This is all basically a troll for some inter-service rivalry stories from Teo.
My grandfather once scalded his foot in Yellowstone.
It's awesome because some day it will kill us all.
Ranked regrets about my years in Austin:
1. Did not go to Mexico when friends went on driving trips at spring break.
2. Did not see a lot more of Texas, things like Big Bend
3. Was vegetarian 6 of 7 years, did not eat barbecue but once or twice
4. Was sort of monogamously into opera and ignored lots of fun Austin music other than a few trips to Antone's
Those are the big ones. I should say "did not know M/tch" but this was before unfogged so he didn't exist.
77.1: On a piece of geology? It's not impressive if he dropped the pasta water on his toes or something.
OT: I'm not only in a middle seat, but am next to a baby. Goddamn do I miss my old status right now. If the big dude in the seat in front goes back, we're going to have a conversation about etiquette.
79: This was before they built those helpful bridges around the geysers, and he put his foot through.
Admittedly, the baby is cute.
70,last: OK, but by that stipulation, Cuyahoga Valley is 1st tier, right?
The fish and game service is in Agriculture, not Interior.
You mean Fish and Wildlife? Interior. And I'm assuming it's a caveman thing to insist on using the word "game" instead of "wildlife".
70.1 is crazy talk. Yellowstone's awesome, even if (or maybe because) I did nearly get stomped by an elk there.
I'll mention Zion, predictably.
Olympic is awesome too.
I have an aisle seat, but for 12 hours. So that probably sucks as much as, I dunno, 6 hours in a middle seat. (The subtle calculus of misery.)
I read half of Debt yesterday. I like the repeated mention of the Irish law code that specified damages for a bee sting but required the value of the bee to be subtracted.
I should say "did not know M/tch"
Racist. Sexist.
58: Huh. Raises only went to people making below $110K. I was just chatting with my boss, and she was surprised I got a raise. I'm not within twenty grand of $110K, and now I'm wondering what everyone else makes.
87: Zion really is super fantastic. And Olympic is nice, too, though not as nice. Yellowstone is great, sure, but it's too crowded and has too much variety. What one wants in a park is some consistency.
While it's a national monument, rather than a national park, one feels one must mention Craters of the Moon.
My good friend works for California Fish and Game. There are taxidermied animals all around her office.
I'm trying to make a list of all the parks I've been to -- not to prove how cool I am but to see how awesome the Park Service is. "Park" parks and mountain or river trails: Acadia, Appalachian Trail, Assateague, Badlands, Baltimore-Washington Pkwy, Big Bend, Bryce Canyon, Catoctin Mountain, C&O Canal, Death Valley, Delaware Water Gap, Everglades, GW Parkway, Grand Canyon, Great Falls, Joshua Tree, Muir Woods, New Jersey Pine Barrens, Rio Grande, Rock Creek Park, Shenandoah, Virgin Islands Coral Reef, Yosemite.
The New Jersey Pine Barrens is one of the coolest places evah.
94.last: have you read McPhee's book? If not, you must. It might be his best.
91: Zion is fantastic, but I like Arches even better (possibly because I've been there a couple of times but only to Zion once).
92: aa! Pahoehoe!
I'm probably obligated to say something about Mammoth Cave. Chili lunch in an underground ballroom!
Also, I fell in love with my wife at Assateague.
And then if I add all the other places I've been to that are maintained on my behalf by the Park Service: Arlington House/Lee Memorial, Carlsbad Caverns, FDR Memorial, Ford's Theater, Gateway National Recreation Area a.k.a. Sandy Hook, NJ, Glen Echo, Harpers Ferry, Jamestown, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Meridian Hill Park a.k.a Malcolm X Park, Mount Rushmore, National Mall, Niagara Falls, Old Post Office Tower, Peirce Mill, President's Park/White House, Presidio, Statue of Liberty, Vietnam Memorial, Washington Monument, Wolf Trap, Women's Rights Historical Park, WWII Memorial, and another 3/4 of D.C.
I [heart] the Park Service.
98 + 99 haiku:
I fell in love with
my wife at Assateague but
I've never been there.
90: One thing I find a bit funny about my job is the reminders we've been getting lately not to discuss any salary information with anyone. The official reason for this is because we're a government contractor, so salary information is the kind of thing some competitor could undercut us on if word got around about how much we made. This came complete with a link to a recent news article about a company that got in trouble in a kinda sorta similar situation.
It seems much more likely to me that the company is trying to prevent Ledbetter-related issues, of course, but that's not the kind of thing I'd come right out and say to my boss's boss. And legal issues aside, they're probably hoping to prevent friction between employees. My girlfriend dislikes her current job, and one of the biggest reasons is the fact that she gets paid more than 10 percent less than people with equivalent positions. We know this because the salary information for those positions is publically available.
63: National Park, New Jersey!
Also, I fell in love with my wife at Assateague.
Wait a second. Is she a horse?
Yellowstone is great, sure, but it's too crowded
You're going to the wrong parts of the park, then. Yeah, Old Faithful will make you hate people, but go up to Mt. Washburn and you'll have a much different experience.
Is mount Rushmore a national park? Bc that would clearly be the worst.
Also IMO the wild horses of Assateague are overrated. They are horses. They are wild. Whooooo. (no offense to VW's bride).
106: You can go next door to the badlands. It really does look just like a roadrunner cartoon.
107: You can tell Halford was never an adolescent girl.
They are horses. They are wild
And they were not able to drag me away.
110: Well you can't always get what you want.
<broken-record>Discussing your compensation is a protected activity under NLRA, whether or not you are in a union, and the NLRB has even upheld it recently.</broken-record>
Raises only went to people making below $110K. I was just chatting with my boss, and she was surprised I got a raise. I'm not within twenty grand of $110K, and now I'm wondering what everyone else makes.
Oh, that would drive me crazy.
Visit Yellowstone in the winter, folks. You're more likely to see wolves, and the bears are asleep. Glacier in the winter is also cool. So is Assateague. Last NPS place I went: Heart of the Monster.
I've never been even remotely sympathetic to libertarianism's laissez faire casual cruelty towards the poor, but even if I was, the hostility to these gems of our patrimony would be a total deal breaker.
113: Here it was everybody making over $40k lost six months of the raise.
Ethical question: I have become aware that the boss here keeps the entire company's salary schedule in an unlocked file cabinet in her office, that anyone can open if they happen to be in the building after hours or on a weekend. Eveyrone has 24 hour access and coming in on a weekend is quite common. It apears that I have no grounds to complain, but obviously half the people do (and significantly more than half of the women).
When the topic comes up, should I point my colleagues to the appropriate file cabinet? Hand out copies? Stay silent? Suggesting to the boss that the cabinet be locked would also be an option.
116: As would copying the schedule and posting it anonymously in the break room. Just saying.
Really, I think the right thing to do is to quietly spread the word that the information's available, particularly to anyone who you think is getting screwed.
116: If everybody knows, first step us to make three or four fake lists. Switch them every week or so.
116: Yes, maybe, no, emphatically no.
Many, many years ago I got a glimpse at some data which led me to believe I was at the absolute bottom of the pay grade for the job I was in. I'm usually a wimp on that stuff, but some chain of events led me to confront my boss with, "I think I'm the lowest-paid x in y*" (x being a fairly big group). His immediate response was something like, "You don't know that" to which I then devastatingly replied with something like, "No, but I am." That was that, but the next month I got a $5 pretty nice raise.
*It was actually not too surprising as I had just completed a temporary clerk -> technician -> "professional" sequence. The place had salaries in an 80%-120% of target range, so you could have a pretty fair-sized gap between you and someone else in the same job.
117 is more subversive than I'd have expected from LB.
I'd need to know more information to answer, I think. Does "getting screwed" mean "making a salary that suggests the employee is being unfairly taken advantage of", or just "making less than the median amount for the relevant position in this company"?
Also, how do you feel about the company overall? About your boss? Etc.
117 is more subversive than I'd have expected from LB
It's like a dagger to my heart. The insult, the shame... is that really what you think of me?
I'm just going to have to go off and think about this for a little. See where I've gone wrong.
I have no idea of what your actual situation is at work, LB, but just on that interaction alone, I'd certainly be tempted to pursue that a bit further with my boss. There may be any of twenty reasons why to not do it, but absent any of those, I'd see if you can find out where you fall in some range/suggest that you're very surprised they were surprised.
Fuck a bunch of 121. Not you, urple, just everything you said. Everyone should know what everyone else makes.
123: I've got a fairly good guess as to what the explanation is -- the woman in our section who's probably closer to a peer, responsibility-wise, than anyone else, has been at the office more than fifteen years longer than I have. It makes sense that she's making a bunch more than I am, but it also makes sense that my boss would think of us as people who should be making roughly the same.
It's locked down, anyway -- in this budgetary climate, there aren't any discretionary changes in salaries.
(I just realized that the phrase "getting screwed" was from 117, not 116. 121.2 and 121.3 were to 116, so in 121 replace "getting screwed" with "grounds to complain". Same idea.)
112
Discussing your compensation is a protected activity under NLRA, whether or not you are in a union, and the NLRB has even upheld it recently.
Thanks. I can't say I knew that, but I'm not surprised. I'm an at-will employee, though, so if I let something slip and someone found out about it (really unlikely, but as a hypothetical) I'm sure they could make up some reason to fire me. Spending too much time on Unfogged, for example.
It's one of those things I wouldn't have thought about until they told me not to do it. I'm not likely to talk about how much money I make in general. (OK, I've done it here before, but you know what I mean.) I don't think too much about it; I can't think of a comparison that would be interesting, because on the individual level it's all apples to oranges. Of course I make less than my supervisors and the people in the lawyers' office. If I make more than the woman at the desk next to mine, well, I've been here longer and I had more experience when I arrived, but then again if I make less, well, she works harder than me.
But as soon as they say that we aren't allowed to do it, suddenly I'm thinking about why.
Everyone should know what everyone else makes.
I actually completely agree with this. But at the same time I'm not sure I'd throw a boss I generally liked at a company I generally liked under the bus in order to forcibly put this principle into action. Especially if the salaries were all basically reasonable, and you don't think anyone's actually "getting screwed".
Fuck a bunch of 121. Not you, urple, just everything you said.
All in all, I'd probably rather you fuck me than fuck the things that I say.
(128 isn't a firm statement, by any means. In most situations I'd be tempted to share the information, and let the people at the bottom end decide for themselves whether or not they were getting screwed. But still, I don't think that's an absolute automatic reaction I'd have in every situation.
I'm an at-will employee, though, so if I let something slip and someone found out about it (really unlikely, but as a hypothetical) I'm sure they could make up some reason to fire me. Spending too much time on Unfogged, for example.
In this case I'd strongly recommend sharing the information and cc'ing your boss on the disclosure, so when they ultimately let you go you can claim retaliation.
Everyone should know what everyone else makes.
Let's all post our salaries.
The main goal of every at-will employee should be to stockpile as many potential wrongful termination claims as possible. That's how you can best make your continued employment most valuable to your employer. If they don't want you behaving that way, they should incentivize you differently, perhaps with generous stock options or something. Surely your MBA bosses can understand that.
Pinnacles National Monument is pretty awesome. Why were people naming national parks, again? I should read the thread.
117.1 would be tempting, but the problem is whether it would lead to a witch hunt. OK, the cupboard is effectively open, but if the boss is a bit of a prat, as so many are, s/he may not have worked through this scenario. So I would reluctantly favour 117.2 in principle. Which leads us to 128: if everybody's salaries are basically reasonable, the only people who are going to make a scene are the ones who would throw you to the wolves in a heartbeat when they were asked how they found out that X was making 50c more than Y.
If you have no such colleagues, you're golden (and in your shoes I'd take a 30% cut to stay there); otherwise you might need to think about being more devious.
88: I don't think either of you lived in Austin back then!!
132: Mine is publicly reported, as are those of all union employees, as required by U.S. labor law. The soulless fuckers whose single job is to bust unions, however, are not so required. I'm looking at you, Jackson Lewis.
My salary is listed in 61 of this thread.
136: Then you should regret not having a time machine, shouldn't you?
You folks do know about Glassdoor, right?
I've been fooled by glass on previous occasions.
"Grounds to complain" just means that there's a wide range and some are in the bottom half. I don't think anyone is grossly unpaid. I like the boss. She wouldn't get in any trouble if teh information was publicly posted, but she might start a witch hunt. And obviously taking private stuff out of a file cabinet in a private office is not protected by the NLRB.
I think I've ruled out public posting for two reasons:
(1) Some of my colleagues won't like having their information posted, and
(2) The file cabinet will be locked and future value will be lost.
In that case, I would recommend public posting with the names redacted. Everyone could still see where they fall on the scale.
142.last: Get the number from the key before you post.
Wise words, Mr President. Take one copy, take it home, and mention to your friends that it exists. Then, if you can avoid being shot in a vital organ and dying in agony over several weeks, you've probably done as much as you should.
I'm in the process from moving from one pay grade to another, and it's annoying me that I'm taking on a lot more responsibility, but, because I'm moving from near the top of one grade to near the bottom of the other, my pay rise will be nugatory. I'm managing a reasonably high profile project, will almost certainly be managing another additional one within a month or two, and will be sitting on committees helping oversee a few more, including some that will have a big international profile, and will (for the first time for this employer) have staff who have me as their line manager. In return for which, I'll make something daft like £80 a month more after tax. The grading process is only just beginning, so I'll probably get a bit arsey and demanding as it goes on, but still ...
146: If you have staff, you can make your job better by pushing off the crap tasks on them. That's almost the same as getting paid more.
You can run but you can't hide, Garfield. The Stalwarts have their ways.
146: If you were near the top of one grade, and will be near the bottom of another, doesn't that mean that there's plenty of room for further raises without promotions?
re: 152
Yes. The job is also more interesting. Shittily, I've still retained my previous responsibilities and it'll be a while before I have a minion in place to offload them to. So, it's more work, more responsibility, fractionally more money. But better longer term payrise/promotion chances, and some more interesting things to do on top of the usual shit.
153. You should meet my wife; this has happened to her three times.
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I love getting to use linear algebra for work.
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Hah! In further raise news, a colleague got understandably but completely unfairly screwed by the rules of who got raises and bonuses. (Complicated, but not about the quality of her work at all.) I bitched on her behalf, my boss bitched on her behalf, and she bitched on her own behalf (uncoordinated). She's still not getting a raise, but they bent the rules to get her a bonus.
Bitching works, at least somewhat and sometimes.
My impression w/r/t compensation is that, for most employers, bitching works well most of the time. Which is an unpleasant fact to contemplate.
Unfortunately, in my case the issue of the raise will go to an HR committee that handles regrading of people already in post. I expect my boss can probably wing a point or two on the scale within the grade if she writes the job description and duties to big up what I'm doing and really emphasise the management aspect, but the leeway is slim. It's out of the hands of anyone to whom I might reasonably bitch. I do trust my boss to do her best, though.
158. It's a bitch. I'm glad you trust your boss to do her best, though. But they will order these things better in the People's Republic of Alba.
125: It's locked down, anyway -- in this budgetary climate, there aren't any discretionary changes in salaries.
Yep, that'd one of the twenty good reasons not to push anything. Not that any of that was any of my business anyway.
157
My impression w/r/t compensation is that, for most employers, bitching works well most of the time. Which is an unpleasant fact to contemplate.
Yeah, I remember reading the factoid somewhere or other that the pay gap between men and women is partly simply because men are more likely to negotiate the starting salary offer more aggressively, ask for raises, and ask for bigger raises.
I didn't do any of that. Apparently I'm unmanly. I suppose this might mean that I'm getting underpaid, but (a) I don't need the money badly enough to overcome my dislike of confrontation, and (b) if I fought for a raise and got it then I'd have to start giving a shit.
So if a prospective employer tells you "this is what the position pays and unfortunately there's really nothing I can do about it," do you think he's just lying?
I mean, in my case the number he came out with was better than I'd expected (the posting for the job listed a wide range, and said new hires should expect to be near the bottom of the range, and the actual salary is well above the midpoint), and I've already accepted, but still I'm curious as a general proposition. I've only ever had jobs where salaries were publicly-listed and completely inflexible so I don't really know how this works.
re: 159
Educational institution, and all that. My boss has lots of reasons for wanting to keep me sweet -- I'm extremely low-maintenance compared to some of my colleagues, and while I'm probably not the hardest working person there, I'm pretty efficient in a structured procrastination sort of way, and I get on with people. It doesn't really cost her anything to play the game a bit on my behalf.
162: He might be telling the truth from a certain point of view while lying from another point of view. Maybe budgets are set annually so it would be within his power to redistribute money or get more at a certain time of year, or he might know who to talk to about changing a salary even if he doesn't officially have authority over that stuff. I mentioned my girlfriend above - when she asked for a raise a few months ago, she was basically told what you were told. Her peers' employers found the money somewhere or other, though. She did get an unusually large bonus at the end of the year, so they did something about it, but not enough.
In your situation, I guess I'd advise asking about intangibles, like shorter or more flexible hours or whatever. If you can sell it as necessary to offset getting less money than you expected, then go for broke, but that doesn't describe your current situation. I think what to do would depend on whether you were asking because of genuine concerns about making ends meet vs. the general principle of never accepting a first offer.
162: Depends, doesn't it. I think for most private employers, there's discretion. But I don't have any direct experience: I've only had one job where I could have negotiated salary -- I tried, but they didn't move.
genuine concerns about making ends meet
Or genuine ability to convey that you'll walk away if left unsatisfied.
There's often wiggle room. When Mrs y joined the British civil service, the guy interviewing her quoted a sum which was actually the technical bottom of the grade. The bloke she would actually be working for directly then took her for a cu of coffee and said, "That's bollocks. Tell them you need another £1500." So she did, and got it. But other people who joined at the same time and hadn't gone for coffee with the arsey Scotsman, took the first offer. QED, or something.
142 (1): I don't know about your cow-orkers but I'd be pissed as hell if I found out someone I worked with was doing that kind of snooping.
You are apparently concerned that you've uncovered something bad. Since you were doing something you shouldn't have been doing, I think fair penance is to have to man up and deal with the consequences of your prying. Go talk to the boss. Confess and make it out like you're just trying to keep the company from getting sued by getting your colleagues a fairer deal.
168 seems a bit over the top/drama-y.
I suggest taking a photocopy of your ass and stapling it to the salary list. That way, if they start looking for who found the list, the emails will be great.
168: I don't think I could disagree with this more if I tried with both hands.
I suggest taking a photocopy of your ass and stapling it to the salary list.
So impossible to read this sentence without swapping "your ass" and "the salary list".
168 may seem more drama-y than intended. I was a bit rushed.
Still, I see my salary as my business alone. And the tax man's, but nobody else's.
Would you feel that way if you found out it was you getting underpaid? Can you think of a reason to be inhibited about coworkers knowing your salary other than allowing management to make inequitable compensation decisions without defending them?
172: Isn't it your employer's business too?
I find 168 and 172 interesting; obviously, plenty of people also feel this way, but I have a very hard time understanding really seeing it. Even aside from the practical issues--that salary secrecy is almost always about management's desire to (a) extract the most from each employee by dealing with them individually, as well as (b) limit the creation of solidarity among workers--there's a very obvious sense in which your salary isn't your business alone: it's your share of the income produced by the overall enterprise, which everyone involved has contributed to, and to which everyone involved has some claim. And since, on a first cut, more for you means less for the rest, it's their business, too.
I suppose a lot depends on whether you see a workplace as fundamentally more of a joint cooperative endeavor, or more of a nexus of bilateral contracts between--well, and here's where I find this latter picture puzzling, because who, in this ideal picture, represents the other contracting party with whom the individual worker contracts? Saying "the company" is circular, because the whole point is to get a sense of what "the company" means; saying "the owner" is conceptually cleaner, but fails to actually track any real entity in many if not most cases.
But then again, I'm unemployed, and have never had a "real job", so this comment has about the same authority as a rant from a guy standing on the street corner.
Still, I see my salary as my business alone. And the tax man's, but nobody else's.
Are you opposed to disclosing your salary to your coworkers because you think it is too low or too high? (In either case speaking purely in a relative sense, of course.)
173.1: Especially if I was getting shafted. Having everyone know that I was allowing myself to be undervalued would make it all the more bitter.
173.2: It's my personal financial information. That alone is a huge deal to me. Keeping salaries equitable does not require that it be known to all and sundry. Having a union rep look over things would be ideal - it keeps the information relatively private and provides a check on management shenanigans.
Keeping salaries equitable does not require that it be known to all and sundry
Actually, I think it probably does.
Having everyone know that I was allowing myself to be undervalued would make it all the more bitter.
Well, that answers 176. I can see not wanting your coworkers to know this, but isn't it something *you* would want to know? (And, absent knowing your coworkers' salaries, how could you know?)
Exactly to 179: there's no practical way for you to know if you're getting screwed unless everybody knows what everyone else makes.
177.1: I guess, what this sounds like to me is "Keeping it from being known that I got shafted is so important to me that it's worth making it much much easier to shaft me." That's a possible set of preferences, but I think an ill-advised one.
179: It certainly is, but I'd rather simply be told by someone I trust that it's equitable (see union rep again). Not having detailed information about everyone else's salaries seems to me a small price to pay for keeping my own private.
If you don't like the union rep idea, consider disclosing only to people with the same job and comparable levels of experience as a way of ensuring that Ledbetter type situations don't come up.
Complete openness discloses a lot more information to a lot more people than is necessary. There's no reason I need to know what the janitor earns or what my boss earns.
Ways to get disclosure with privacy (union rep, other trusted intermediary) require a lot of systems to make work: great if you have, e.g., a union, but not otherwise. Walking away from the concept of salary being touchy and private, if employees do it en masse, can be done without setting up any kind of a system, just being willing to gossip.
Lots of people work in positions where their salaries are a matter of public record, and it's not a problem for them.
The Daily News every so often does a big public records request and publishes the salary of every worker from some public entity or other. It's mean-spirited--they subscribe to the theory that public workers should pay for the privilege of coming to work, and live under a bit of tarpaulin--but I enjoy looking up the salaries of people I know.
I don't expect people to snoop through my desk drawers, even if they might think that they might find something interesting there. And would find it pretty indecent of a coworker or immediate subordinate if they took advantage of a clearly understood limitation about whether they were supposed to be looking in my desk drawers.
Personal desk drawers seem entirely different from a filing cabinet that's presumably left open so that employees can use the files therein. That particular file was probably meant to be secret, but the story seems much more that it was left in a public (within the firm) space than that it was left in a space otherwise designated as private.
We understand the situation quite differently: taking private stuff out of a file cabinet in a private office and an unlocked file cabinet in her office, that anyone can open if they happen to be in the building after hours or on a weekend doesn't sound like the document is misfiled, but rather that it is insufficiently secured to prevent snooping.
And the likely result of disclosure isn't that the file will be moved, but that the file cabinet will be locked -- suggesting that it's not open so people can access it, but it's open because locking things up is a pain in the ass not justified by the small chance that people will intrude in a private space.
Thanks for the range of views. On reflection I think that the safest approach is to stay silent, or possibly direct someone to the location without admitting I had looked myself. I'm not in the mood to lose my job over this. And I think some of my colleagues may be pissed at me for snooping on them.
Tip to the bosses here: lock the file cabinets you don't want people snooping around in.
or possibly direct someone to the location without admitting I had looked myself
Scavenger hunt?
I can't believe you guys had a national park thread on a day when I actually had to work all day and was too busy to check Unfogged.
191: Perhaps you could explain how a number of places that had other nomenclatures became simply "national parks". I recall you had the story on that.
I didn't even mention the Boston Harbor Islands National Park!
192: If I understand you correctly (and I'm not sure I do), the story is that for a variety of idiosyncratic historical reasons the National Park Service manages a wide variety of units with different types of names, some of them containing the phrase "National Park" and others not, but that when speaking of the system as a whole these are typically all referred to generically within the NPS as "parks." When talking about any particular unit we use that unit's actual designation.
194: I thought the trend has been for more of them to become simpy "Parks". For instance Death Valley and Petrified Forest from Monument previously, and Cuyahoga Valley from Recreation Area previously.
Actually even I'm not all that interested, but thought it might make you feel like you were making a contribution.
I'm hugely interested but going to sleep for unrelated reasons.
195: Ah, okay. That happens when Congress changes something about an existing unit (usually expanding or otherwise changing the boundaries) that was initially designated differently. National Monuments are designated by the president via executive order; I'm not sure what the deal is with National Recreation Areas. Only Congress can create National Parks.
And I appreciate your concern, but don't actually care very much about the opportunity to contribute to this thread.
The public land agency megathread has threatened to break out before, but it never does.
I was just going to link that thread to demonstrate that Stanley's 69 in this thread is totally wrong, in that not only has he noticed that distinction before, he even asked about it here and I answered him.
And I appreciate your concern, but don't actually care very much about the opportunity to contribute to this thread.
Well fine, Mr. Above-It-All.
What I would give to contribute to a thread.
The contribution thread's at the top of the page.
Oh, I bury my extra money; I've heard it helps the economy.
OT: Good lord, I may have been drinking for almost 9 hours, but is this as stupid as it seems?
At the same time, it's worth noting that stagnating real working-class wages are calculated by using a meaningless overall average rate of price inflation. Some things--college tuition, apartments in Manhattan, health care--have gotten more expensive much faster than average. This means that people who buy a below-average amount of those things are better off than the statistics show.
The short-term jobs situation is a real crisis, but the longer-term decline of work is an opportunity. If men want to tempt women back into marriage, they'll have to use more of their free time to pitch in with housework and child care, building a more egalitarian tomorrow. If employers want to tempt people back into working, they'll have to offer higher pay or more pleasant jobs.
I mean, I guess if Chipotle is the new Apple it's not that dumb...
207: Huh, that's the first Yglesias column I've read since he joined Slate, and it's considerably more Slate-like in both tone and content than his blogging even since the move. I think this lends some support to my theory that the declining quality of his blogging is driven in large part by Slate pushing him to focus more on the columns.
I find it bizarre, in that normally, while I may disagree with him, its usually challenging to spot the errors in his posts. Not so much with this.
For all the neoliberal and innumerate fantasias, the thing that actually got me to unsubscribe Yglesias from my RSS reader was the moneybox post where he doubted the survey that reported that most people wouldn't kill their pets for $1 million.
What I'm saying is this seems less like "focussing on columns" and more like "brain tumor".
What I'm saying is this seems less like "focussing on columns" and more like "brain tumor".
Well, I'd say it's something more like "trying to squeeze his usual hobbyhorses into Slate's particular style of short, breezy, middlebrow-centrist-contrarian columns." That style is not a good fit for him.
Eh, I'm not going to try to defend him on this.
re: 167
Yeah. When I worked here previously, I did that. Insisted on coming in at grade X.2 rather than just X.0. There may be some wriggle room, but my impression is that in a regrade rather than recruiting scenario my immediate bosses have less scope. But if they make my job description sound teh awesomes, it's theoretically possible I could go in higher or even skip one. I have a suspicion my immediate peers doing the same or similar job are two grades up, but they've been in their jobs for a few years.
"Biometric identification system" apparently means "you will be standing in this immigration line until you age beyond recognition."
essear's flight took him to... the future?
Close enough.
At least there's free wifi.
I think I was reasonably close to being above teoville, several hours ago.
They don't call it the Air Crossroads of the World for nothing.
Lots of people work in positions where their salaries are a matter of public record, and it's not a problem for them.
Exactly. The Salt Lake Tribune maintains a bunch of databases including public employee salaries. Anyone can look up what my wife and I make at any time. I wish it was worth bragging about, neither one of us broke 45K this year.
I can't believe you guys had a national park thread on a day when I actually had to work all day and was too busy to check Unfogged.
You should get a job down here park ranger. Yellowstone, Glacier, Zions, Bryce, Arches, and Lassen are all within a one day drive.
Awesome cartoons of how ham in luggage leads to demons attacking cows.
You should get a job down here park ranger. Yellowstone, Glacier, Zions, Bryce, Arches, and Lassen are all within a one day drive.
I am aware. There is actually a job open at Lassen right now that I might apply for.
There is actually a job open at Lassen right now that I might apply for.
Nice. Been there before? I've been up there quite bit as my grandfather built a cabin after WWII on a lease site a bit downstream from Domingo Springs. Supposedly Chuck Norris owns a place in Chester so you know it's prime rugged manly country.
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It's a year since the Christchurch earthquake, which is odd because it doesn't seem like it's that long ago, but then in other ways it seems like it was ages and ages ago. I went and reread the unfogged threads from last year, and I am very glad I wrote down what I did that day there, because I think it is the only place I have a direct, permanent record that wasn't focussed on reassuring family and friends I was OK.
The rebuilding of the city is happening, I suppose, and while it all seems slow and painful and full of idiocy, Rome was not built in a day either.
Weirdly enough, it was when I was telling someone about the minute silence at Ibrox for the '71 disaster that I felt the most emotional.
Um. Not much interestingness there! Also, thank you all for being, you know, people who aren't living in the aftermath of a post-disaster-movie (or if they are, are pretty good at it), and argue about stupid shit on the internet.
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59
I was going to say that it warms the cockles of my heart that some part of that would be paid for by Shearer's taxes, but realized I somehow had gotten the impression that he's moving/moved to NJ.
As of 2012. But what's wrong with having LB slaving away on my behalf?
112
Discussing your compensation is a protected activity under NLRA, whether or not you are in a union, and the NLRB has even upheld it recently.
With anybody or just your coworkers? And not if you are management right?
161
I didn't do any of that. Apparently I'm unmanly. ...
How are you at chasing women? I think that gives a lot of guys experience in pushing and handling rejection.
231: With coworkers, definitely, and with non-coworker union organizers as well. I don't know exactly how wide a loophole "union organizer" is, but everything I've read indicates that NLRB and the courts have interpreted this clause broadly. And not if you are a "supervisor", but the standard advice seems to be that employers would are wise to steer wide of that line.
220: I think I was reasonably close to being above teoville, several hours ago.
"Air Crossroads of the World". Except they used to actually land there instead of flying over. But I see Tubes Memorial Airport has become a significant cargo hub--2nd largest in US after Memphis and 5th largest in the world.
Nice. Been there before?
I haven't, but I hear it's nice.
I got a job offer from that place today! I told the folks at my firm, and should hear tomorrow if they have an offer as well. In any case, a real job (with business cards and everything!) is on the horizon. The negotiations will commence on Friday.
One of the annoying things about my field (and I have no idea if this is unusual) is that there are no set names for the position levels, so at one place what's called a "consultant II" might at another be an "associate", etc. This makes it hard to discover what prevailing wages are.
In a completely different topic, Anchorage meetup in July? We've just booked a family cruise for my mom's 70th, and we're going from Vancouver to Anchorage. Teo, you're not going to be at Lassen by then, are you?
I look forward to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. Since it's both, it's better.
I haven't, but I hear it's nice.
Nice brochure, too.
Congrats, Alfrek! I will still be in Anchorage in July Actually, my mom and sister are coming up here probably in late July, and we'll be doing some traveling around, but I'll be here most of the time. It shouldn't be too hard to arrange a meetup.
As for Glacier Bay, you're almost certainly only going to be in the Park rather than the Preserve. You might see it the Preserve in the distance as you cross the Gulf of Alaska.
Great. Our ship arrives at 12:30am (I have to assume they let us sleep on the ship that night) on the 7th, so that timing will hopefully work.
I didn't know that that the park and preserve were distinct. I'm assuming they are adjacent? Wikipedia doesn't explain the difference, but I'd be interested to know. Is one land and the other water? Are people not allowed in the preserve?
Also, I'm excited because I'm now allowing myself to buy a new computer, which is fun. I'm not sure what yet, but toys!
I don't remember the new job, but yay anyway, Alfrek!
Thank you anyway, snarkout! It's a move from a planning internship that I've had for over a year to a real job, what with vacation days (20! not including holidays! Plus I can buy 5 more!), insurance and a living wage!
I got a job offer from that place today!
Hot damn. Congrats, Alfrek. Grad school averted!
I didn't know that that the park and preserve were distinct. I'm assuming they are adjacent? Wikipedia doesn't explain the difference, but I'd be interested to know. Is one land and the other water? Are people not allowed in the preserve?
Yes, the Park and Preserve are adjacent. This is the case in a lot of Alaska parks, many of which have adjoining preserves, some of which are divided into multiple discontinuous units. (The reasons for this are complicated.) The only difference between a park and a preserve is that a preserve allows sport hunting, which a park does not; there are some preserves that are independent NPS units, both in Alaska and elsewhere, but most preserves in Alaska are adjacent to parks and are managed together with them. All the Alaska preserves were established by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 (ANILCA), which also did a bunch of other stuff and governs most of what we do here in the NPS.
Glacier Bay is what we call an "Old Park," in that it predates ANILCA, which created Glacier Bay National Preserve in a small area adjacent to the existing park on the northwest, away from the part where all the cruise ships go. The boundary between park and preserve is not very clear on the brochure map, but you can see it if you look carefully.
Another consequence of Glacier Bay's Old Park status is that it owns the water and submerged lands within the park boundaries, which is unusual in Alaska, where those are usually owned by the state. That's a separate issue from the Park/Preserve thing, though.
207 et al.: I must say that I had no idea Yglesias had descended to such depths. I'm not seeing him linked around here and there (in the places I read) so much, it's true.
Interesting about the water being part of the Park - I was wondering about the cruise website saying that we would be boating through the Park. I has assumed that it was over-selling itself, that we would be able to see the park, but not actually be in it, but evidently not.
207: this isn't really quite what Yglesias is writing about, but I've been dreaming that the solution to the problem of untapped labor would be working less - either a shorter work week or more vacation time. People with jobs get paid a bit less for fewer hours, that work gets spread around, so less unemployment. But more time off, which is the point of life. I know it's unamerican, but still!
All the Alaska preserves were established by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 (ANILCA), which also did a bunch of other stuff and governs most of what we do here in the NPS.
Yo, McPhee!
I've decided that post was written by an Yglesias from an alternate universe with a basic income and free barebones health coverage. In this world, the most pressing problem is now the credentialing of manicurists.
247: I am ashamed to admit that I still haven't read that book.
I've been dreaming that the solution to the problem of untapped labor would be working less
Sadly, that doesn't seem to address the problem. Drum had an interesting post up recently, sourced from Karl Smith:
Technically, the point of this chart is that prices go up at about the same rate as labor costs, but no more. If you try to raise prices too much, competition will eventually force you to lower them. Likewise, if you try to push labor costs down, workers will go elsewhere and you'll eventually have to increase wages to attract new employees. Generally speaking, labor gets a fairly steady percentage of economic output, and as productivity goes up, wages go up.
Until about 2000, that is
Check out the chart.
I've remembered that there's a final Republican debate this evening -- but it's not on the radio.
250: I've no doubt that my dream is impractical, and less of one that the powers that be would never allow it. That being said, the industrial revolution was over before the 40-hour work week was instituted, and France did their 35 hour week in 2000.
Frankly, though, I just want more time off, not the boon to the economy.
Fewer hours in the work week should be a goal of all socialists. There is more to life than wage slavery. And congrats, Alfrek, on getting the job.
There is more to life than wage slavery.
Sure, there's actual slavery for one.
(Yes, as in the first thread we talked about my job search, I realize the irony of my wanting more time off while desperately searching for a job.) And thanks!
Richard Adams' live blog of the Republican debate at the Guardian is awesome:
After the "bomb Iran" section, Ron Paul is allowed to speak. "We're worried about one nuclear weapon. Think about the Cold War, the Soviet Union had 13,000 of them and we talked to them," says Paul, who wants Congress to be consulted before a declaration of war.
"We talked to the Soviets during the Cuban crisis, we could at least talk to someone who there is no proof has a nuclear weapon," says Paul. The crowd erupts in silence.
I was going to say that it warms the cockles of my heart that some part of that would be paid for by Shearer's taxes...
Wait where's Blandings? I think he has a project of quoting Love & Death in its entirety in comments. Hot cockles!
259: Actually I forget whether that is Blandings' project or mine. One of us, or maybe both. And The Archives are letting me down on finding out.
I've been thinking of working in Le Trente-Huit Cunegonde. But I'll do it under a different pseud.
But I'll do it under a different pseud.
Porgy Tirebiter.
Le Trente-Huit Cunegonde
Odd, I've always had that in my head as Returned for Regrooving. (Perhaps I am totally confusing album tracks.)
259-260: As an explicit project, not mine, but since I was already basically doing it I signed on and have, I expect, quoted more of it than anyone. Smearcase, what'd you do, place?
I thought tide and submerged lands were owned by the states in most of the states, owing to an interpretation of law coming from England where the states stand in for the sovereign as it was the states which formed the compact which formed the constitution and the tide and submerged lands were the sovereign's lands.
267: Right, but in Alaska it's more complicated because it became a state so recently and before that was in a variety of types of legal limbo under both the US and Russian administrations. I don't know all the legal details, but the relevant legal context includes the equal footing doctrine, the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, and the Alaska Statehood Act. Here's the state's take on it.
However the argument is made, though, the claim is that the state's title vested at statehood. Before that the federal government owned everything, so any land that was withdrawn before statehood, including submerged lands, remained in federal ownership. The state and the various federal agencies still fight like crazy over the exact definitions of the lands the state has claim to and the extent of its jurisdiction over them, as you can see in the state policy link above. There isn't really any dispute over the submerged lands included in pre-statehood national parks and wildlife refuges, although there's lots of dispute about basically everything else relating to this topic.
Teo, if you apply for that job at Lassen, give me a shout - I have a family connection there that could be helpful. Possibly.
Congrats, Alfrek!
And 246.2 gets it exactly right.
I'm feeling uncomfortable about tipping. If I'm in a country where my local colleagues say that one doesn't need to tip for anything, should I believe them? Even if I'm, say, ordering room service in a hotel that frequently has American guests? Maybe they expect it from us? But the local colleagues say no. I guess I should trust them.
They also seem to have a weirdly skewed view of their own history, but I'm not going near that one.
And congrats to Alfrek! That's fantastic news.
Although that brings me to something else that's been on my mind lately. I tend to think of the US as being a more patriotic/chauvinistic/whatever place than most other countries -- the pledge of allegiance I caught on TV before the Republican debate was the latest reminder. But on the other hand, in practice, most educated Americans I know are fairly critical of US politics and its historical misdeeds in various ways, whereas a number of colleagues I know in other countries have exceedingly rosy views of the role of their homeland in history. So maybe Americans are actually below the mean in terms of excessive national pride? People I know from east Asian countries, especially, generally seem pretty fierce about insisting on their positive role in world affairs, usually while explicitly denigrating all of their neighbors.
Or maybe the distribution of jingoistic attitudes in the population is similar, but the correlation between lack of such opinions and higher education isn't as strong in many places as in the US.
273: difficult to say; people from Asian countries (and indeed non Asian countries) may defend their countries to foreigners but denigrate it to each other.
I remember being shocked talking to a Portuguese acquaintance how odd her attitudes were from a British perspective. It'd be pretty standard for the average British person to have at least some awareness of colonialism, the bad things done during colonialism (by Britain), and so on. Right wingers might be apologists for it, but I don't think even they would be completely ignorant of the iniquities of empire. My Portuguese friend, literally and to the point of parody, had the view that Portugal at no time did anything remotely dodgy during their colonial history, and that every person in every country administered or colonised by Portugal loved Portugal, and was 100% completely happy in all respects with their colonial history. I can't even describe in detail her world view as it'd sound like I was making it up, or as if she was taking the piss [she was completely sincere]. N.B. this was a youngish person with a PhD who had lived abroad, not some elderly person educated under Salazar.
2755: Hmm, so not so open to further scrutiny.
JPS: No you must be the person who was quoting all of Love and Death.
Justice Kennedy explained it pretty well yesterday. Nice usage of Lewis & Clark's descriptions, too.
(Sadly, no one has seen fit to pay me to be involved in that one. I am litigating these issues in Alaska, however . . . )
From what I know about the country that I surmise to be hosting essear, the jingoism is real.
279: No, it's a greater honor for me.
Michael Flanders on the lack of English jingoism: "...I think that the reason for this is that in the old days - you know, the good old days when I was a boy - we didn't bother in England about nationalism. I mean, nationalism was on its way out. We'd got pretty well everything we wanted. And we didn't have to go around telling everyone how marvellous we were. Everybody knew that. "
Teo, if you apply for that job at Lassen, give me a shout - I have a family connection there that could be helpful. Possibly.
Thanks, I'll let you know. The job's actually a bit different in emphasis from what I do now, so even if I do apply for it I'm probably a long-shot to get it, but I might go ahead and apply just to get back into practice applying for stuff.
285: The most important thing is to apply yourself, teofilo.
Well, sure. You can't just hire someone to fill these things out and expect them to do a good job.
