Re: Happy Friday.

1

Legally, if your neighbors have a bush that extends over the sidewalk, you can trim it to look like a cock pointing at their house.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 9:35 AM
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2

Anyway, pruning shears will take off a finger in a second.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 9:53 AM
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3

Call me a cynic, but I think he'll renege if you actually plant bushes.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 10:00 AM
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4

Bush-trimming competition

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3640982/Holly-Willoughby-t-straight-face-challenges-Phillip-Schofield-innuendo-heavy-bush-trimming-contest.html


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 10:06 AM
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5

1: Isn't that what happened in Edward Scissorhands?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 10:06 AM
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6

I despised that movie so much.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 10:08 AM
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7

I never saw the movie.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 10:15 AM
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8

And now you don't have to.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 10:17 AM
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9

I liked it.

(not that I actually remember much of it)


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 10:25 AM
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10

I figure it's probably pretty similar to Heathers.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 10:27 AM
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11

I also did not like Edward Scissorhands. After watching it in the theater I immediately went to Blockbuster to rent Young Frankenstein which was the perfect antidote.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 11:58 AM
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12

This is the only Friday thread so far and I've got some WTFuckery. You're welcome.

I wanted to shift my work schedule one hour earlier in the day to make it a bit easier to go to afternoon appointments. I couldn't think of any reason it wouldn't be approved and I assumed that once it was approved it would take effect immediately. I first asked about this on Monday. We've exchanged a total of 12 emails about it and also had a long Skype conversation. 6 of the emails and the Skype were this morning. Not about whether I can do it, just about the proper procedures for requesting and approving something like this. One spontaneous bit of informality snowballed into a whole lot of scolding.

To be fair, this is 50-100 percent my fault. On Wednesday she approved the new schedule with a start date of this coming Monday, I agreed to that without thinking about it, I came in an hour earlier today anyway, and now she's "concerned that we have a disconnect with regards to the agreement made". (It wasn't an issue yesterday due something else that day.) I've apologized for this at least four times so far. Even so, I'm annoyed for two reasons.

1. I didn't understand why there was a delay. And still don't, even though I asked in my first email today! Would it have killed her at any point in all this to say "3/11 because I need to record it on the TPS report" or whatever?

2. This is just the latest instance of a common pattern. In person she's so warm that I've worried a tiny bit about professionalism. In writing, everything reads like she's creating a paper trail for firing. I'd be worried sick right now if this kind of thing hadn't happened at least five times before.

Also it's Friday and every Friday is busy due to a weekly task and this Friday is/was busier than usual because of other stuff I was working on. Ugh. I'll probably have a strong drink before I even get home.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 12:41 PM
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13

In person she's so warm that I've worried a tiny bit about professionalism. In writing, everything reads like she's creating a paper trail for firing.

Ugh, sympathies. This describes my workplace to a t.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 12:44 PM
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14

I intended this as a free-for-all thread!


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 12:44 PM
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15

I here I was wracking my brain for topiary humor.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 12:47 PM
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16

I once had a neighbor who carved a shrub so that it looked quite a bit like a cock and then apparently just accused everyone who asked him about it of having a dirty mind. I say "apparently" because I never asked him about it myself.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 12:51 PM
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17

Ok, SPAAAACE. Hayabusa2, Chang'e 4, Dragon manned capsule thingy. Yay.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 12:56 PM
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18

That was actually sincere. I just don't have emojiconii.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 12:57 PM
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19

Also, slavery.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 1:07 PM
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20

Sorry, wrong link, they were paid. Slavery.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 1:20 PM
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21

We don't play football.

You still gamble on it, right?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 1:46 PM
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22

Cyrus, 12 is super shitty. I don't understand why exactly it matters if you're out of sync with your Official Hours by one day, if you're so clearing complying with the spirit of going through the official schedule change process.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 2:04 PM
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23

22: Anarchist!


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 2:11 PM
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24

The only thing I can think of is that if you're not exempt, she could have FLSA compliance people perpetually up her ass on hours issues and assume you share the onus such issues typically bring without having actually communicated this fact to you.

If you are exempt, I don't know what the hell it might be, but maybe if you said "Oh yes, I was just thinking of that as regular overtime such as I might have otherwise done prior to this schedule change," that would let her sort into the correct mental box.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 4:07 PM
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25

Everybody is exempt.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 4:58 PM
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26

22: To continue to be fair to her, there's reason to think I started the new schedule on Tuesday. Maybe it's a weird coincidence or maybe I was doing something else wrong, I hope to find out Monday, but she wouldn't be crazy to think I had started without any kind of authorization.

24. We're exempt but hourly- contractors. I think I've mentioned this before.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 03- 8-19 5:08 PM
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26: I think you have mentioned, but is that in the sense that you're paid hourly, or you just bill hourly?

Even if the FLSA doesn't apply, she could be subject to rigorous internal controls on hours worked by her reports and feel put out if you're doing something that could be perceived as bucking the system without consultation.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 03- 9-19 7:48 AM
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||

My 9yo stepdaughter plays basketball on a team in a city-run rec league. In general, the vibe of the league is laid-back—except for this one team (let's call them the Yellow Jackets). The YJs are coached by a bro-y dude who takes it way more seriously than everyone else. He has his team running plays that are leaps-and-bounds ahead of the other teams. And his practices (which I've seen because they sometimes take place at the same time our team practices) involve lots of fast-paced drills and whistle-blowing and shouting.

None of that particularly bothered me, although it seemed a little weird (and like maybe he was working out some things from his own childhood athletic traumas). BUT THEN, just today, I found that he's actually been recruiting players and empire-building his team for a couple years. And apparently there's this whole back-channel system, where parents can request specific coaches. And so after today's game, he was recruiting one of our team's best players to join him next year on his ever-growing empire of, uh, pre-teen basketball stars.

The whole thing seems totally crazy to me, but maybe this is normal? My preferred system would be to sort the kids onto teams by a random lottery. Every year, shake things up.

|>


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 03- 9-19 2:23 PM
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The problem with random assignment is that there's probably a practice night during the week and a system set up to let parents pick nights so that they can have kids of different ages practice on the same nights and avoid the nights they have other activities. That's probably how the back-channel works. He says that he can only coach Tuesdays and tells the parents of the kids he likes the same. They give him Tuesday because they don't have enough coaches anyway.

At least that's how it works when there are rules to try to stop him from doing what he's going.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 9-19 3:06 PM
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(and like maybe he was working out some things from his own childhood athletic traumas)

Probably. At least every other plausible explanation ranges from worse to much, much worse.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03- 9-19 3:15 PM
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31

Everyone thought I was an unrealistic villain, but actually I was a good, more or less accurate foretelling of the future of the "club" model of youth sports


Posted by: OPINIONATED COBRA KAI | Link to this comment | 03-10-19 8:10 AM
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32

||
I'm actually glad now I didn't see Free Solo in theatre because I would've sweated right through the chair.
|>


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 03-10-19 9:41 AM
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33

I didn't like the actor playing Han.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03-10-19 10:12 AM
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34

31: That your team lost was the thing everybody found unrealistic.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 03-10-19 10:13 AM
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BUT THEN, just today, I found that he's actually been recruiting players and empire-building his team for a couple years. And apparently there's this whole back-channel system, where parents can request specific coaches. And so after today's game, he was recruiting one of our team's best players to join him next year on his ever-growing empire of, uh, pre-teen basketball stars.

Here the leagues vary between this model, and the model of very vigilant board members working their asses off to keep it from happening.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 03-10-19 12:12 PM
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36

ll

shameless pitch for donations! the kid's activist group is fundraising for the bus rental fees to carry a gazillion of them to sacramento for their annual lobbying fest. the group is basta: https://www.bayareastudentactivists.org/

and their fundraiser page is here: https://www.gofundme.com/bay-area-student-activists

they are an entirely, militantly student-run group* and they do awesome stuff! super grateful for any small donations folks might be willing to make.

*this is no joke! parents who asked to attend the pre-lobbying trip training last year were told they could come only on condition that they not speak. at all. a refreshing contrast to certain student-fronted groups actually run by adults ...

l>


Posted by: dairy queen | Link to this comment | 03-10-19 1:03 PM
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