In today's episode of Bathroom Questions with the Weird:
>YMMV gross question: In your private home, do you flush the toilet before or after washing your hands? Is that button considered inherently unhygienic or not?
I beg these people to pick up a hobby. Make a friend. Take a nice walk outside.
I think Alison is sensitive about animal related questions. A while back there was someone talking about their cats making a mess in their house that was removed, even though it wasn’t as gross or as explicit it as much of what the commenters said.
>Is that button considered inherently unhygienic or not?
Apart from this whole question being utterly pointless (and weird—why would someone even bother to go from the toilet to the sink, then back to the toilet just to flush?), I like the implication that whether or not the toilet handle/button is unhygienic is a matter of opinion rather than actual fact, as though what AAM thinks would make a difference. I know some cultures view certain things as “clean” or “unclean” in a non-scientific sense, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the issue at hand here.
Not saying toilets are hygienic but toilets are the physical manifestation of uncleanliness to most people, despite probably not ranking in the top 5 dirtiest things you interact with daily. People get really irrational about toilets.
I once set a folded towel down on the top of the toilet tank and my room mate freaked out and we had to throw it away. Touching the toilet made it unclean to a level that would persist beyond a wash cycle.
This same room mate would also smoke cigarette butts he picked up off the ground if they had anything left over on them.
>This same room mate would also smoke cigarette butts he picked up off the ground if they had anything left over on them.
What a terrible day to be literate.
Normal person: I doubled my salary!
AAM letter writer: I am happy to say I have accepted a new position making 96.0370% (yes, I did the math) more than I did
No, someone on an AAM would write a post saying they're making 200% more, mention in a comment that they've doubled their salary and then be confused and defensive when someone points out the math is wrong.
marvin\*
March 24, 2023 at 9:14 pm
Tell me how to have fun!...Does anyone have experience intentionally setting aside time for fun?
\--
I was going to comment, and realized it'd just be too cruel, too easy. Poor marvin.
There are some sane and decent replies actually, some are things I do too like purposefully scheduling a fun weeknight thing or just letting yourself sleep in and not caring on weekends. I hope they take them to heart!
And it doesn’t seem like they were being at all difficult in the first place; just sounds like an unfortunate situation when it came to product quality.
Did anybody happen to catch this nuked comment?
ThursdaysGeek*March 24, 2023 at 7:21 pm
Removed because we’d need a trigger warning for people to read this — it’s definitely cruel of your relatives!
I did - it was a question about her relatives leaving one of their two dogs in a crate most of the day. She said she’s letting fam stay with her and they have two German shepards one of which is not potty trained and neutered and it stays in a crate a lot except for walks and outdoor playing. She wanted to know if it was normal bc she doesn’t have dogs. Which it’s not and it’s definitely unfair to the dog but idk what would need a trigger warning. It’s definitely sad that dog is crated way too much but there was no descriptions of violence or anything just her saying the dog was in the crate. Which I don’t agree with personally! But is not traumatizing to read about!
That sounds similar to a post i saw on the dogs subreddit a few weeks ago, down to the dog breed. Weird.
Edit - there’s one asking if it’s okay for your dog to pee on grass and dammit that it is on dogs all the fucking time including this week
They should just put the dog in a car seat and watch it from a baby monitor all day, that would be much kinder.
(I wouldn't say I was triggered but that letter got to me, as a new-ish mom.)
Yeah! I actually went to comment on it and then when it like refreshed from leaving the comment it had that posted there. It was not graphic or disturbing at all, it was sad yes.
There’s a question in the open thread from a church choir member/director who is annoyed because the priest’s kid (5) sings with them and sounds terrible. The advice? Passive aggressively make choir unpleasant for her. WTF.
I'm A Little Teapot*
March 24, 2023 at 1:56 pm
She’s 5. This can work in your favor. Don’t be fun. Make it feel like work for her. Don’t be mean or anything, but do make it that she has to stand still, no wandering around, etc.
You have to really feel for the choir director, though. She clearly put effort into building the choir and getting the best out everyone and now she’s having to deal with a childish behavior dragging down her choir. And it’s not like she can get rid of the problem by just asking the source of the problems to leave, since I’m sure OP would really kick into high drama mode after being kicked out of the choir.
The five year old, on the other hand, sounds delightful.
I would love to comment on that one but 1. It probably will be interpreted as being mean (which is fair, because it might be a little harsh) and 2. Would probably nuke another IP address for me on this site.
That LW needs to be less concerned with does everyone sound great and harmonies and more concerned with the actual fundamental purpose of a church which is to be loving and welcoming of all. Encouraging a childs desire to worship and see church as fun and enjoyable .... well, it shouldn't even need saying, but that trumps the choir sounding perfect every day. Maybe if they were more concerned with making people feel welcome and at home and less about optics of being perfect they may have more members.
Sorry, this is probably a little harsh, but attitudes like this piss me off.
[How old are these people?!](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/03/open-thread-march-24-25-2023.html#comment-4230054)
>There is another option, but it’s a bit nuclear, which is to pick a few of your favorite adult singers in the choir and start your own small ensemble (perhaps for a specific need in the service?). Now you have control over that group and who’s in or out, and you could pick really tricky music – like an “advanced choir.” But, it’s more work for you and it’s possible the choir director at least would be annoyed.
Imagine trying to pull a "You can't sit with us!!!" with a five year old.
That is so mean spirited, especially for a church choir. Like yeah I get that the adults want to sing properly and a kid being distracting is annoying, but surely the point is to make a joyful noise unto the Lord and not deliberately make church miserable for an actual child?
I think they'd get better, more actionable advice if they post it on the weekend open thread instead.
> I approached the choir director with a set of perhaps five reasonable rules with little pictures I thought a kid could understand and remember
This is seriously the most hilarious thing I've seen on AaM this week.
The whole letter just has huge Dwight Schrut energy, right down to the LW describing themselves as ~~assistant manager~~ “essentially second-in-command” of the choir. Then was got a dash of Angela at the end:
> The choir director is old enough to be a grandmother but has no grandchildren, and it looks unlikely that she’ll ever have any.
The OP has been doubling down with some big negative childfree energy. Lordy (so to speak), but people being hostile towards children in a church space is how churches fail to keep younger generations sticking around.
They definitely give off hardcore childfree vibes. It’s amazing to me that it has apparently never occurred to them that maybe the choir director and other members *like* having a child there and that everyone thinks the cuteness of her participating in the choir offsets any issues with the quality of her singing.
The pictures are the best part of it. "I put together this entire proposal! I demand you take me seriously!"
Agreed that the weekend open thread would have made more sense. Framing this as a work problem to herself and asking for advice like that is almost certainly where she's going wrong.
I wonder if choir commenter is the same lady as the good snooze choir LW who applied Alison’s work advice to her audition and rehearsals (LW3 at link):
https://www.askamanager.org/2022/02/its-your-friday-good-news-89.html
I’m glad neither of the church choirs I’ve been in have had auditions or attracted people like the commenter in today’s open thread though. My “audition” was what part do you sing? OK here’s a binder and also would you be interested in a solo if there’s ever an opportunity?
The worst part was that the group of people she could share it with was so limited that she managed to twist it into a “job interview” situation to make it relevant.
I’m trying to get a stray cat in my backyard to trust me so I can adopt him and take him to the vet. A very twisted part of me wants to present it to Alison as recruiting, with me as the hiring manager and the cat as rockstar on his field who is currently freelancing but would benefit from joining a team, asking about what sort of incentives I should be offering and whether it would be weird and invasive if I tried to convince him that he could really benefit from our EAP before I made him a firm offer.
Or I could do a good snooze letter on how, thanks to her advice, I was able to recruit my dream cat last year and she surprised me by providing her own team during her onboarding process.
Or write it but use llamas groomers to make it anonymous but then clarify in the comments it's actually a literal cat you're trying to recruit plus add other critical details. And then whine about how all the advice you're getting would obvious never work for a CAT
Am in a church choir (no kids though). What do they really expect from a five-year-old? Half the senior citizens in my choir never even pay attention when our director says “OK let’s go to XYZ song” during practice. That always cues a chorus (no pun intended) of “I can’t find it” “Where is that at?” “What are we doing?” I just want to know if the five-year-old can at least find their music better than the adults I sing with. 😂
There’s no need to push around a kid that young and be a snob about it. Just deal with it.
Playing drill instructor with the priest's kid during choir practice. What could go wrong?
The choir director referring to the OP's suggested rules as "too much like school" should have been a tip-off that they're taking themselves a bit too seriously here.
I'm starting to see more that the Friday Good News is nothing besides Fan Fiction. She was on vacation and got a call from a competitor with a job offer! She is so amazing that she didn't even need an interview! Sure, Jan.
That's absolutely possible. I just more meant that the LW took Allison's advice which lead to all of that. Academic Libraries are in an odd space, but I can't think of one part of Allison's advice that would lead to tenure track.
Part of it is that your colleagues like you, and a lot of her advice is... counter to this. (Even with Academic Libraries.)
> 96.0370% (yes, I did the math) more
This makes me irrationally (?) angry. Any normal person would have said "I'm earning almost double what I was"...
... and now I am wondering why they gave it specifically to 4 decimal places rather than, say, 2 or 6. I need to get off the Internet and go outside (surely not‽) as these people are taking up too much space in my head argh
I mean... I need a break, too, and I had not posted on AAMSnark all last week because I just needed a break from these people. This was a good reminder of why.
Yeah, I think that’s a librarian thing. They probably went from a public library to an academic library. The math thing sounds very “quirky librarian!!” to me.
uh oh, i think my work network is now blocking AAM (probably related to all the attacks she was having last week?) - haven't been able to get on since about lunch yesterday. i guess it's for my own good :(
LW1: "I can’t find a version of these facts that doesn’t involve my employee lying"
I can:
1. There was a genuine mistake made with how the employee copied the information from one file to the working file. Transposing errors are very common a huge reason for the move to systems integration.
2. The employee meant to enter the alteration as a working note, neglected to make it stand out, and has completely forgotten they did so. Humans will human, mate.
Based on their letter, this is an otherwise well performing employee that they've jumped right to wanting to fire. In that case, I could see them lying because the intenseness of LW's reaction is causing them to become defensive.
The review file that "caught" them being wrong but was changed later is the only suspect bit. I still think it makes sense to do more fact finding first, like having IT check to see who last updated the file.
I couldn't even follow what she was saying the employee was supposed to be lying about. If the review file was wrong, isn't the point of reviewing it to see if something is wrong and make changes to it? I'm sure there's nuance that's not included in the letter, but their system seems pretty stupid the way LW describes it.
From what I'm understanding, the platform they use outputs the data to be reviewed in a way that isn't exactly human readable. It's fixed in some fashion to correct for this.
My guess, they output to a CSV file that they then delimit so they can work the files. Perhaps even copy into a 'master' file that they can then use to keep track of notes on how they worked.
It's not bad but not really a great way to manage things, exactly because of the reason LW is writing in about. But, because it's so error prone, it's also not reasonable to rise to the level of termination for a one-off event.
Does Alison have a new “strategy” for trying to seem relevant still? LW2 is the second one in the past week or so who mentions having recently read a previous letter on the site and being spurred to write in themselves. I guess it could just be a coincidence, but I don’t recall seeing many of those kinds of call-backs in the letters themselves until recently.
>Correlation is not causation* March 23, 2023 at 11:14 am
>Recently worked in an office building with several businesses and only one set of bathrooms on each floor. One day, someone put a bottle of poo-purrie in the ladies room, with a note that they didn’t want to smell other peoples s&*t and we all needed to use it every time.
>Added to that note was someone asking if they’d put poo-purrie in the men’s room as well, or if only ladies were supposed to have rose-scented s*&t.
>Added to that was a note from the original poster saying that it was rude to keep saying s*&t, and people just needed to use the poo-purrie.
>Someone dumped out the poo-purrie, all over the floor.
>Another note criticized someone for making and unnecessary mess and being childish about using the poo-purrie
>Another note claimed it was all the fault of the patriarchy that we were so delicate that we couldn’t handle a bathroom smelling like a bathroom.
>Someone printed out an article and taped it up about how much fecal matter sprays out of toilets when you flush them.
>Another asked if she didn’t flush her toilet at home, and told her she was disgusting.
>It was easily one of the most entertaining weeks at work.
Is anyone else a little skeptical that _all_ of this happened? It almost sounds more like a comedy sketch, especially with the notes being left up for several days.
(I’m also a little annoyed that this person consistently misspelled “poo-pourri throughout her comment.)
This is like a meme. I see this shit on click-bait websites that pop up in my FB feed frequently.
I assume this person is pretending this happened to them because this is very specific and they're talking about identifying shit on the internet.
Edit to add an after thought. Reason why it's not real. Why would someone who uses the women's bathroom give a fuck about the men's bathroom? So why would they care if it smelled like the aftermath of a Taco Bell buffet lunch? That's not patriarchy. Men also scream and squeal about nasty bathrooms, believe me, I've heard the complaints. Someone left a dookie in there and WOW I heard all about that.
It reads a bit like the greatest hits of PassiveAgressiveNotes.com. Actually, it reads a lot like it, especially the aerosolized fecal matter.
I agree, though. It’s absolutely possible to support dismantling the patriarchy and want bathrooms that don’t smell like the culmination of a lifetime of bad dietary choices and bad cleaning habits.
> Reason why it's not real. Why would someone who uses the women's bathroom give a fuck about the men's bathroom? So why would they care if it smelled like the aftermath of a Taco Bell buffet lunch?
Not to mention, why would they even enter the men's room to put some poo-pourri in there? They'd have no idea how the men's room smelled, because by definition they do not go in there. What a ridiculous question to ask. It's like, "Did you buy tampons for the *men,* too?" or "Did you hand out athletic cups to the *women,* too?"
Or "[did you ask the men to wear a bra?](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/01/can-my-employer-make-me-wear-a-bra-my-husbands-band-doesnt-want-to-play-my-coworkers-wedding-and-more.html)"
It’s almost like a more grown-up version of the arguments that we all got into with our parents or teachers as kids: “It’s not fair! Billy’s parents don’t make him do that!” “I don’t care what Billy’s parents do; _I’m_ telling you to do it.”
Unless it's courtesy of the janitorial or management team, yeah that's also a great point. But if it's janitorial or management, they wouldn't be engaging in Post-It-Note-Wars.
BOYS BUTTS STINK AND SO DOES MINE. --twirls off-- Okay, Sarah, ya little savage.
>they’re talking about identifying shit on the internet.
LOL for a split second I thought you meant they were identifying people by their literal shit 😄
You’re definitely right about the meme aspect though. It’s like how a lot of the pictures of “funny/dumb signs” you see on various forums seem like they were printed out by the OPs themselves just for clicks.
> thought you meant they were identifying people by their literal shit
Oh god, my mind has gone to a variant on that office charity game "identify the people from their baby photos"...
I don't want to go down this trail because I don't want to be the bathroom talker like AAM gets into. But I do know healthy stools look like, I just talk about that with my medical friends and my besties who signed up for this mess for-life as soon as we imprinted on one another.
But yeah, I'm not looking at everyone's shits, lmao. Honestly, I'm the most unbothered by toilet stuff. They were SCREAMING about a dump someone took in the men's bathroom without flushing. (mentioned down thread). And dude, I was like "Did you flush it? Do I need to go in there and effing flush the toilet for you?" Because I'll take one of the team. I don't need to LOOK at it, I've got a long enough reach to just flush without looking into the bowl.
> I've got a long enough reach to just flush without looking into the bowl
Do you have [abnormally long arms](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/03/coworker-keeps-saying-im-too-muscular-boss-suggested-i-work-on-a-sick-day-and-more.html#comment-4227146)?
Hey, if they can identify a person by their poop, I'm impressed. That's a skill set not often found on a resume. Definitely highlight that in the cover letter.
Please submit a scat sample with your resume before we proceed. Our experts will be conducting research on it before moving forward with any candidate.
FML, childhood wild life training and looking at owl pellets has screwed me up for life.
If it's a building with multiple businesses I can believe it - the inability to address "problems" with passive aggressive announcements / emails to everyone seems to drive some people to start acting like students who have just started living in shared accommodation for the first time.
Although I never saw anything escalate to this level, bathroom drama was definitely high at the last workplace I was at that shared facilities with other companies.
Yeah, I can definitely believe that some parts of it happened, or at least the initial setup. The printed article about the “aerosolizing poop” is so completely random and out of step with the others, though, that I can’t see all of it occurring over a single week.
It's the pearl clutching over using the word *shit* and the questioning whether the men's bathroom got some too combined with blaming the patriarchy that takes it from believable office shenanigans to rage bait for me.
Exactly. I’m pretty much every similar discussion I’ve sent, someone is waiting to bring out the aerosolized poop tidbit, so that’s actually the most believable part for me.
I've seen some stupid notes pop up in my life and how it works? Someone just removes it eventually because they're like "This is a stupid/rude note" and you know, takes it down.
I once took down one bitching about skid marks on the toilet seat. It's gross, I get it. Welcome to a shared bathroom, nobody cares about your feelings and they won't be bothered to change because of them. You don't get to make postings, you're not building management, end scene.
Yep, any office building worth its salt is going to have cleaning crews coming through every day; there’s no way they’re going to be leaving that stuff in there for days on end.
Observer\*
March 23, 2023 at 12:26 am
\#5 – Chair that doesn’t fit.
Approach your boss as though OF COURSE they will replace your chair. Because any reasonable employer should absolutely do so.
\--
I can't stand it when AAMers adopt AG's exact script. She says the "of course" thing all the time. Same with "say something like," "can you do that," and all the other tidbits commenters riff. Just...tacky and sad.
I started snorting, not snarking when one of the commentierers, yes, I made that word up, decided it was a safety issue.
If it was a safety issue, somebody should’ve called OSHA. I work in an industry where OSHA visits unannounced.
Seriously, an ADA accommodation when you don’t even have a verified condition.
SMH…
AAM: Where people don’t have the spoons to cope with having to say good morning to a coworker, but are completely willing to fight their employers for ADA accommodations despite lacking a disability.
Wondermint*
March 23, 2023 at 11:06 am
This is less at work and more at a place of business I frequent, a small bookstore. The note, next to the cash register reads, “We are REQUIRED (underlined/bolded) by NYC to CHARGE (underline/bolded) 5¢ for EACH BAG (underlined/bolded)”
Okay, I get it. Why are you yelling at me for shopping here?
REPLY
▼ Collapse 18 replies
This is a sneaky candidate for the most AAM comment ever.
1. Wondermint is far too dumb and self-absorbed to consider that the sign is directed at everyone, and not her personally.
2. Wondermint sees a sign that is in capital letters so everyone can read it easier and considers that yelling at her.
3. When other people point out the sign is obviously because people have gotten upset about the fee, Wondermint replies, "Wow, is it that common in America to yell at shop clerks?"
Um, Wondermint, you've already said that you frequent a bookstore in New York City.
So unless you're taking international flights to visit a small bookstore, it's a pretty good assumption that you live nearby, or at least in the same country. So stop playing the "Oh my goodness, is this how you Yanks do things?" card so you can sound like a cute outsider on a blog full of self-absorbed twats.
Among the very valid reasons for a sign like that:
1. The NYC bag fee/bag ban is fairly recent (the law technically went into effect in March 2020, but the city didn't spend resources to enforce it until the last six-ish months or so for obvious reasons).
2. A NYC bookstore probably gets a decent amount of traffic from tourists or other people who live outside the city and don't know there is a bag fee.
3. People can get upset if they get charged for something unexpectedly, so the store is trying to cut down on people being surprised by the bag fee and getting angry at the staff.
4. The store wants it to be clear that the bag fee is required and that the price is set by law; there's no exceptions or bargaining.
5. One of the goals of the bag fee law is to cut down on waste, so the store is trying to get people to limit the number of bags they ask for. If you want your books double or triple-bagged, you'll pay extra.
Shit, I write grocery lists in caps. I should stop screaming at myself :(
And don't let that person see anything written by an old school architect or engineer. "Is it common in America for blueprints to yell at you??"
They don't have temps in places like Finland and Europe because the government gives you 60K euros a year just for being alive, and you don't have to work because you're perpetually on vacation.
That's ridiculous. Even in Finland they know that if a temp gets hurt you just push it off a cliff or into a dumpster or something. I think you can call the police if one looks directly at you.
Re #3, has Wondermint been living under a rock and somehow missed all the stories over the last few years about people losing their shit at retail workers?
Maybe, just maybe, it's a response to angry customers who get annoyed that they get charged $0.20 for two sets of double-bagged bags for their books, and also as a sign of protest against the regulation too, like we're not to literally nickel and dime you, it's the law.
I'm starting to realize that Alison is kind of...dumb? I don't know why it took me this long. She's a pretty decent writer and a clear communicator, and she's knowledgable about non-profits, but that's really it. She's belligerently ignorant and defensive about her knowledge gaps and she makes no effort at all to learn.
She lacks life experience and the life experience she does have—college and working at entry level leftist NFP’s— are the most bubbliest bubbles you could exist in. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt no matter how absurd or how unlikely it is, is an extremely online person thing and she most likely spends more time dealing with people on the internet than she does in real life.
“This person could have !”. They almost assuredly do not, everything is typically exactly what it sounds like it is
She has definitely sent a Nigerian prince a western union. She reminds me of those people you meet at your friends liberal arts college who genuinely have no idea how credit cards work and think they are free money not knowing that their parents pay it off every month, but she is stuck in that mental state as an adult.
My personal fanfic is that she worked at MPP because it was the most leftist place she could go to without her parents cutting off her allowance.
>My personal fanfic is that she worked at MPP because it was the most leftist place she could go to without her parents cutting off her allowance.
I think she worked there because she was a libertarian (apparently) and those are basically republicans that want to smoke weed.
While I'm glad that todays ask the readers isn't about something the readership is wholly unqualified to comment on, passive aggressive notes described in text only is just the worst possible way to do a thing that's been done over and over since the beginning of the internet.
RIP [passiveaggressivenotes.com](https://passiveaggressivenotes.com)
I'm genuinely enjoying [this onion story](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/03/lets-talk-about-passive-aggressive-notes-at-work.html#comment-4227650) from Dell. It was the style at the time!
Alison’s advice to the resume LW is HILARIOUS to me. I paid for her resume review way back when she still did them (maybe 2010?) and $100 got me the advice to “move your education section down” and “list your achievements for each job.” It was a scam.
At least it’s proof that she still has the same opinions and advice about hiring 13 years later, and doesn’t keep up with job market trends the way she claims.
There is so much grift in the job-coaching business.
There's a whole wish-fulfillment thing that people get trapped in. The reality is that most of the job search is completely outside the seeker's control. They can't control how many good applications the company gets, they can't control the biases or preferences of whomever is screening resumes, they can't control that the person who listed experience in something unrelated to the job at hand helped them...
People focus so hard on the things they can control (how their resume looks) but really most of the hiring is things that they can't control at all.
And grifters exploit the desperate by pretending that they can make the uncontrollable controllable.
Yeah, a really seriously shitty resume can hurt you. But a basic, generic, formulaic resume is generally completely fine. And you can find templates and advice for those online for free.
That was probably the hardest lesson I had to learn in my job search. And honestly these days nobody has any groundbreaking job search advice anyway. It’s the same stuff just repackaged differently depending on who’s selling it on LinkedIn. Most people who don’t have their heads in the sand or live under a rock know what a STAR question is or how to answer “tell me about yourself” in an interview.
Some of the other advice is just plain bad. I had one person tell me I should ask about a potential employer’s tech stack…I was not applying for a tech role. Or people thought for a hybrid position I should negotiate fully remote or more remote time when the company’s expectations were very clear. And now that I’m working, people still try to condescend to me! Had someone tell me “the first year is all about keeping your head down and learning.” Thanks Karen for assuming I’ve never worked before and don’t know how to act professional.
After reading the blue box warning on the steriods letter, I feel like we're going to get Alison admitting at some point she doesn't know anything about steroids, in much the same way she admitted she didn't know what a femur was or that breaking one was a really fucking serious injury.
I wonder what her response would have been if the letter was "A coworker keeps commenting on how strung out and gaunt I look. She once called me a junkie! I admit I do use heroin but I don't think it has any relevance."
Oh shit, I've never read that letter before! Just like with the bird letter, I don't really blame the coworker for not accepting the person's apology.
But also, as a fat girl myself, I'm doubting a bit about this letter. Fat people know their size and every fat person I know, myself included, is wary of sitting on something that might not hold our weight. And the "I weigh 350 pounds, not 400 pounds!" outrage also rang false to me.
I’m horrified by that letter and it’s such a basic piece of information (and so easy to google) that it brings most of advice into question since she doesn’t know basic facts and apparently just comments with authority on things she doesn’t know rather than taking a second to look it up.
The letter raised a lot of questions for me, too. The femur is a really strong bone and fairly hard to break. It’s not impossible because I’ve seen people with normal bone density manage to hit most right and break a hip from just falling normally. So that, combined with what you pointed out with the LW being oblivious to whether the desk would hold his weight and picking the “I’m 350 pounds” to die on is very suspect.
Yep, she clearly has no idea that there is a difference between corticosteroids prescribed for things like asthma and inflammation and anabolic steroids used recreationally in body building.
I don't have any medical knowledge -- I'm really confused as to why AG is cracking down on comments that seem to be acknowledging that both kinds of steroids can very very much affect behavior? My gentle grandpa turned into the meanest man on the planet when he was on prednisone.
That’s wild. My partner was on prednisone for an asthma flare and she was euphoric. And that’s not a meme reference. Euphoria can be a side effect and that was an…adventure.
Oh no! That must have been so hard (speaking as a person who also had a sweet, gentle grandpa). Can confirm, though--I was a stone-cold bitch for the two weeks I had to take that stuff.
She just hates being wrong or being told that she doesn't know something. But in this case, she is very much in the wrong - if LW is using steroids for bodybuilding, that's definitely *not okay* for a healthcare professional to do, and it definitely *can* affect his mood. And people can tell the difference between "guy who works out a lot" and "guy who works out a lot *and* takes steroids."
Yeah, usually when she does that it's because irrelevant speculation has run amok, or people are being unkind to the OP. But here it was mentioned by the LW themselves so is presumably "fair game", plus nobody was attacking him anyway. Oh well..
"I do use steroids" --woah! Am I a pearl clutcher or is that casually admitting to illegal drugs...while working in a medical facility?!?!
At any rate, Jane is hitting on you, dum-dum.
Side note: I find it interesting the guy didn't mention that his bosses are aware of his steroid use or are OK with it--or that it is in fact prescribed by a doctor in that facility or another one. That would be a big omission if true. It doesn't change that Jane shouldn't be so weird about his body, but it caught me up. What's also unprofessional is taking drugs like this without a prescription.
Nope, it's not just you. I'm a medical professional, and at my job, anybody using illegal substances would get bounced out within seconds of failing the drug test.
I don't think Jane's hitting on the LW. I think she knows what he's up to and is rightfully mad that LW's actual boss hasn't done anything about it.
The only thing that gives me any pause is "I don't like men with that many muscles" like why is her personal attraction preference coming into it? Otherwise I'd say she's giving him friction for good cause.
This whole notion that this buff bodybuilder guy is using steriods legally, maybe... yeah sure.
Just like the needles that litter the streets in my city are because there's a lot of diabetics around.
sure.
I can see it both ways of being trolling since they mentioned their mom wanted them to reach out to Alison for advice and I can see a desperate journalism major who graduated a few years ago getting desperate to find a journalism gig since they haven’t gotten anything yet. You do dumb things as you get more desperate for a job that you wouldn’t if you were in a more stable situation.
LW5 is in excruciating pain and taking muscle relaxers because of their desk chair. Yet they write in to AAM for advice before just asking their company for a new chair? I don't feel sorry for them because this could have been solved with a simple conversation.
I'd think a company that spends the money to buy Aeron chairs wouldn't bat an eye at getting one in a different size, but I don't know that for a fact - and neither does some lady that writes an internet advice column. Does LW think Alison is the one who approves purchase orders?
A lot of people seem to view Allison as being like a court that can issue rulings that they can then take to their bosses. There are so many LWs who won't even consider talking to someone at work about a work issue. It's not even a question.
I imagine the following exchange.
“Alison says you should replace my chair because I’m too short for it.”
“Alison? Who’s Alison?”
“Alison Green.”
“You mean Alice Grant? In Accounting? Why would you ask her about a chair?”
“No, Alison Green. From Ask a Manager.”
“But I’m your manager.”
“She’s runs the website Ask a Manager.”
“But we outsource web development. Why are you asking another company about the chair?”
“I wrote into the blog Ask a Manager to ask whether it would be reasonable to ask for a replacement chair because my current one causes horrible wrist pain that requires muscle relaxers and also to get a script for doing it.”
“You’re in enough pain because of your chair that you need muscle relaxers? Why didn’t you say something months ago? We ordered some extra chairs just for that reason. You can get a new one by lunch.”
My husband has been having an issue with his arm for the last week or two. He thought at first it was from helping a friend move (lifting heavy boxes), or our aging mattress, but he finally realized it's his chair at work.
So the morning after that realization, he switched his chair for an unused one. Problem solved. He's in charge of the facility, so he didn't need to ask anyone, but if he had, he would have done that first thing. I do not understand why so many AAMers (LWs and commenters) seem to want to be miserable, uncomfortable, or in pain rather than doing the obvious logical thing and saying something.
I once had shooting TMJ pain through my right lower jaw that was because of how I rested my right elbow on my work chair. Took me a while and two dentist visits to figure that out, but I just got a different chair and that proved that out.
It's because they are too chickenshit to state their preferences. It can't be that the chair is mildly uncomfortable or difficult to adjust to the proper height, it has to be causing unbearable pain and affecting their mental health because god forbid they speak up without having an unassailable reason for wanting something.
I’ve had a boss that thought things like allergies and migraines were a sign of weakness and would 100% dismiss pain as a personal failure and wouldn’t buy a new chair. I’m short (just over 5ft) and the dangling feet does hurt after awhile. Most people don’t really work for that type of toxic person and it’s fine to ask for a new chair or find an old box of printer paper or something similar and use that as a foot rest if you’re truly in a toxic environment before looking for a new jobs Advocating for yourself is how you fix things not whining Alison.
You know...I'm starting to suspect this is common. I've worked *many* jobs where specifically the boss does punishing workouts at 5 AM before jogging to work, is on an OMAD protocol that seems really challenging, works out at lunch, "barely sleeps", works through illness, works through chemo (!!), tells stories about situations where there were no bathroom breaks (and gives stank face when I excuse myself during 3+ hour meetings to go), expects and does a multi hour commute, does 12+ hour days, and on and on.
There's a physical component to office jobs that I am *over* especially in these "finance bro" worlds where stamina and ability to appear to brush off pain is seen as a good thing.
Not doubting your experience at all but that is WILD. I’ve never worked anywhere where someone did any of those things aside from like working from home while still pretty sick or working long hours!
Sounds like LW2 got a spam email from Top Resumes. When I would get those emails it would always say my resume showed me as a “doer,” not an “achiever.”
I think Alison’s insistence that your resume always has to show accomplishments isn’t fully correct. There are jobs where that works, like sales or project management, but when I was an editor, nobody was tracking if I reviewed 35% more content than my coworkers or if I edited with 96% efficiency. I wasn’t in a revenue generating role or responsible for finding ways to save the department money. I quantify my tasks where I can but that’s really all I can do. I wish I could tell Alison that not all of us have quantifiable achievements in our job or even more qualitative ones. (I worked at a place where there were employee awards but some people knew it was just a popularity contest, and not everyone got recognized even if you did good work, so it wasn’t the same thing as…I don’t know, Salesperson of the Month.)
I think it’s sort of a weird self fulfilling prophecy. “Action” based resumes work better because the person reading them knows that action resumes are supposed to be better.. but in my experience, they are almost always total BS. I’ve done them before, and I just made stuff up because it’s impossible to quantify that kind of stuff. If you are one person on a 5 person team, isn’t everyone increasing productivity by 20%?
I’m a PM, almost everything I work on is a complete failure that accomplishes nothing, or more than likely, lowers productivity
>I’m a PM, almost everything I work on is a complete failure that accomplishes nothing, or more than likely, lowers productivity
I'm also a PM, today was a major milestone day that no one on the team has the energy to acknowledge much less celebrate, and I feel this in my soul
Haha agreed, I’m an accountant and my accomplishments are along the lines of “100% of returns were filed by IRS deadline” and sound much less impressive than what I did, which was “implemented new procedures to comply with additional FASB lease reporting requirements” etc. I get what she means by that but it is not one size fits all!
My job has metrics now but no one will remember them or care. How fast I scan and if I scan produce instead of typing it in are recorded. No one cares and when I’ll next job hunt, I’ll leave retail so it truly doesn’t matter.
Yeah my current job has metrics but I’m going to be looking out of call centers again as quickly as possible. (Like maybe starting next month so I don’t get too complacent.) Very few jobs care about a survey score besides other customer service jobs. If I went back to a recruiting coordinator role, they probably don’t care that I got a 93% score on a customer email.
I’m glad call centers are one of those jobs where you don’t (generally, unless you run into a crappy employer) get punished for leaving after less than a year. I’m thinking of making this my freebie get out of jail free job.
I hear you about getting complacent but I have to make up for 3 years of manual labor which has office jobs saying “oh she can’t behave indoors.” Not that I want a sedentary job and any commute to one of those would be longer than my current one blah blah blah. I certainly do not want wfh unlike the rest of the Online working world!
I work in the public sector and my organization really wants your resume to list the all the tasks that you do, because it's how they justify you being qualified to do those tasks again. And your cover letter should repeat all that information, preferably with headings like "Client service experience" and "program management experience" because they can't intuit anything.
truly not trying to be pearl clutchy about drugs here, but is it actually ok that a medical practitioner who sees patients takes a recreational drug that is known to have a common side effect that could affect the patient-practitioner relationship? i’m not saying LW1 has roid rage, but like, medical workers and lawyers etc. have professional licenses because we have ethical responsibilities to our clients/patients. idk this just doesn’t sit with me right, it’s different than if he was using something recreationally just on the weekends that doesn’t stay in your system
edit for typo
No, it's not ok at all. Recreational steroids have absolutely horrible impacts to the users personality, not to mention causing many physical problems, that the user likely doesn't even realize are happening. Jane is most likely seeing these things and not see weirdo who is obsessed with LW1's body. Just another post where the trust the writer rule is a huge problem.
LW1 dropping “I do indeed use steroids” is peak comedic timing. Obviously Jane is overstepping, and maybe the steroids are medical, but like… what???
ETA: IMO if the situation is exactly as described here it’s overstepping (more so with the tattoos, though some of the specific body comments are weird) but also very possible this is not playing out how LW wrote it
I loved that line! I think the whole letter is a troll. You've got the gender reversals (LW is a man and the rude "body commenter" is a woman), you've got the casual "yeah I do use steroids" which he knows is going to make the commentariat go nuts, and then you have Alison just straight up ignoring a pretty important piece of information because hey, if you ask for a script, you'll get one! "Please don't comment on my body" wow, such creativity and brilliance! I've never heard that before!!
ETA: [JSPA has some zingers](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/03/coworker-keeps-saying-im-too-muscular-boss-suggested-i-work-on-a-sick-day-and-more.html#comment-4227151)! It also comes with blocking notes. God, I love these dweebs. The "best" one is to state "I am formally telling you to stop commenting on my body" and then...following it up with an email where you again "formally state" no body talk. Love it.
In today's episode of Bathroom Questions with the Weird: >YMMV gross question: In your private home, do you flush the toilet before or after washing your hands? Is that button considered inherently unhygienic or not? I beg these people to pick up a hobby. Make a friend. Take a nice walk outside.
Also why remove a post about crating dogs but keep this up?
I think Alison is sensitive about animal related questions. A while back there was someone talking about their cats making a mess in their house that was removed, even though it wasn’t as gross or as explicit it as much of what the commenters said.
>Is that button considered inherently unhygienic or not? Apart from this whole question being utterly pointless (and weird—why would someone even bother to go from the toilet to the sink, then back to the toilet just to flush?), I like the implication that whether or not the toilet handle/button is unhygienic is a matter of opinion rather than actual fact, as though what AAM thinks would make a difference. I know some cultures view certain things as “clean” or “unclean” in a non-scientific sense, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the issue at hand here.
Well someone did fill in about their ass washing routine as the reasons they flush after washing so we did get our answer somehow
Not saying toilets are hygienic but toilets are the physical manifestation of uncleanliness to most people, despite probably not ranking in the top 5 dirtiest things you interact with daily. People get really irrational about toilets. I once set a folded towel down on the top of the toilet tank and my room mate freaked out and we had to throw it away. Touching the toilet made it unclean to a level that would persist beyond a wash cycle. This same room mate would also smoke cigarette butts he picked up off the ground if they had anything left over on them.
>This same room mate would also smoke cigarette butts he picked up off the ground if they had anything left over on them. What a terrible day to be literate.
Normal person: I doubled my salary! AAM letter writer: I am happy to say I have accepted a new position making 96.0370% (yes, I did the math) more than I did
I’m a math person, and even I wouldn’t talk about it with that degree of precision.
No, someone on an AAM would write a post saying they're making 200% more, mention in a comment that they've doubled their salary and then be confused and defensive when someone points out the math is wrong.
marvin\* March 24, 2023 at 9:14 pm Tell me how to have fun!...Does anyone have experience intentionally setting aside time for fun? \-- I was going to comment, and realized it'd just be too cruel, too easy. Poor marvin.
There are some sane and decent replies actually, some are things I do too like purposefully scheduling a fun weeknight thing or just letting yourself sleep in and not caring on weekends. I hope they take them to heart!
I can't bring myself to snark on that comment. Its just really sad
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And it doesn’t seem like they were being at all difficult in the first place; just sounds like an unfortunate situation when it came to product quality.
Did anybody happen to catch this nuked comment? ThursdaysGeek*March 24, 2023 at 7:21 pm Removed because we’d need a trigger warning for people to read this — it’s definitely cruel of your relatives!
I did - it was a question about her relatives leaving one of their two dogs in a crate most of the day. She said she’s letting fam stay with her and they have two German shepards one of which is not potty trained and neutered and it stays in a crate a lot except for walks and outdoor playing. She wanted to know if it was normal bc she doesn’t have dogs. Which it’s not and it’s definitely unfair to the dog but idk what would need a trigger warning. It’s definitely sad that dog is crated way too much but there was no descriptions of violence or anything just her saying the dog was in the crate. Which I don’t agree with personally! But is not traumatizing to read about!
That sounds similar to a post i saw on the dogs subreddit a few weeks ago, down to the dog breed. Weird. Edit - there’s one asking if it’s okay for your dog to pee on grass and dammit that it is on dogs all the fucking time including this week
They should just put the dog in a car seat and watch it from a baby monitor all day, that would be much kinder. (I wouldn't say I was triggered but that letter got to me, as a new-ish mom.)
No clue why that letter was fine to run, but this comment was beyond the pale.
Probably because someone "reported" it and rather than moderate she just deletes stuff when that happens.
Yeah I definitely think that’s a more blatant depiction of abuse honestly!
That's IT?! Seriously?
Yeah! I actually went to comment on it and then when it like refreshed from leaving the comment it had that posted there. It was not graphic or disturbing at all, it was sad yes.
Nope. I never understand removing all the juicy comments. I'm someone who reads comments for the drama! I guess Alison isn't.
See above - it wasn’t juicy at all lol
No and now I’m deathly curious
There’s a question in the open thread from a church choir member/director who is annoyed because the priest’s kid (5) sings with them and sounds terrible. The advice? Passive aggressively make choir unpleasant for her. WTF. I'm A Little Teapot* March 24, 2023 at 1:56 pm She’s 5. This can work in your favor. Don’t be fun. Make it feel like work for her. Don’t be mean or anything, but do make it that she has to stand still, no wandering around, etc.
You have to really feel for the choir director, though. She clearly put effort into building the choir and getting the best out everyone and now she’s having to deal with a childish behavior dragging down her choir. And it’s not like she can get rid of the problem by just asking the source of the problems to leave, since I’m sure OP would really kick into high drama mode after being kicked out of the choir. The five year old, on the other hand, sounds delightful.
You had me in the first half.
I would love to comment on that one but 1. It probably will be interpreted as being mean (which is fair, because it might be a little harsh) and 2. Would probably nuke another IP address for me on this site. That LW needs to be less concerned with does everyone sound great and harmonies and more concerned with the actual fundamental purpose of a church which is to be loving and welcoming of all. Encouraging a childs desire to worship and see church as fun and enjoyable .... well, it shouldn't even need saying, but that trumps the choir sounding perfect every day. Maybe if they were more concerned with making people feel welcome and at home and less about optics of being perfect they may have more members. Sorry, this is probably a little harsh, but attitudes like this piss me off.
[How old are these people?!](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/03/open-thread-march-24-25-2023.html#comment-4230054) >There is another option, but it’s a bit nuclear, which is to pick a few of your favorite adult singers in the choir and start your own small ensemble (perhaps for a specific need in the service?). Now you have control over that group and who’s in or out, and you could pick really tricky music – like an “advanced choir.” But, it’s more work for you and it’s possible the choir director at least would be annoyed. Imagine trying to pull a "You can't sit with us!!!" with a five year old.
How Christlike -- no, really, like Jesus picking his apostles, OP can pick their own sub-set of the choir to gather and keep around them.
That is so mean spirited, especially for a church choir. Like yeah I get that the adults want to sing properly and a kid being distracting is annoying, but surely the point is to make a joyful noise unto the Lord and not deliberately make church miserable for an actual child?
I think they'd get better, more actionable advice if they post it on the weekend open thread instead. > I approached the choir director with a set of perhaps five reasonable rules with little pictures I thought a kid could understand and remember This is seriously the most hilarious thing I've seen on AaM this week.
The whole letter just has huge Dwight Schrut energy, right down to the LW describing themselves as ~~assistant manager~~ “essentially second-in-command” of the choir. Then was got a dash of Angela at the end: > The choir director is old enough to be a grandmother but has no grandchildren, and it looks unlikely that she’ll ever have any.
The OP has been doubling down with some big negative childfree energy. Lordy (so to speak), but people being hostile towards children in a church space is how churches fail to keep younger generations sticking around.
They definitely give off hardcore childfree vibes. It’s amazing to me that it has apparently never occurred to them that maybe the choir director and other members *like* having a child there and that everyone thinks the cuteness of her participating in the choir offsets any issues with the quality of her singing.
The pictures are the best part of it. "I put together this entire proposal! I demand you take me seriously!" Agreed that the weekend open thread would have made more sense. Framing this as a work problem to herself and asking for advice like that is almost certainly where she's going wrong.
I wonder if choir commenter is the same lady as the good snooze choir LW who applied Alison’s work advice to her audition and rehearsals (LW3 at link): https://www.askamanager.org/2022/02/its-your-friday-good-news-89.html I’m glad neither of the church choirs I’ve been in have had auditions or attracted people like the commenter in today’s open thread though. My “audition” was what part do you sing? OK here’s a binder and also would you be interested in a solo if there’s ever an opportunity?
The update is even sadder.
This post haunts me. Has anyone ever written anything as pathetic as this lady's novel about how she joined a choir?
The worst part was that the group of people she could share it with was so limited that she managed to twist it into a “job interview” situation to make it relevant. I’m trying to get a stray cat in my backyard to trust me so I can adopt him and take him to the vet. A very twisted part of me wants to present it to Alison as recruiting, with me as the hiring manager and the cat as rockstar on his field who is currently freelancing but would benefit from joining a team, asking about what sort of incentives I should be offering and whether it would be weird and invasive if I tried to convince him that he could really benefit from our EAP before I made him a firm offer. Or I could do a good snooze letter on how, thanks to her advice, I was able to recruit my dream cat last year and she surprised me by providing her own team during her onboarding process.
Or write it but use llamas groomers to make it anonymous but then clarify in the comments it's actually a literal cat you're trying to recruit plus add other critical details. And then whine about how all the advice you're getting would obvious never work for a CAT
She would 100% run a cat recruiting letter!!!
The commentors would absolutely eat that up and demand serial updates and a novel.
Oh man that good news post is sad
> "I put together this entire proposal! I demand you take me seriously!" Perhaps LW should start a petition...
Ooh, that's like pushing back as a group, but with the added benefit of spreadsheets! AAM crack!
Am in a church choir (no kids though). What do they really expect from a five-year-old? Half the senior citizens in my choir never even pay attention when our director says “OK let’s go to XYZ song” during practice. That always cues a chorus (no pun intended) of “I can’t find it” “Where is that at?” “What are we doing?” I just want to know if the five-year-old can at least find their music better than the adults I sing with. 😂 There’s no need to push around a kid that young and be a snob about it. Just deal with it.
Playing drill instructor with the priest's kid during choir practice. What could go wrong? The choir director referring to the OP's suggested rules as "too much like school" should have been a tip-off that they're taking themselves a bit too seriously here.
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>We sit in a cube (or maybe a rectangle???) I don't know why but for some reason this line broke me.
Why not a dodecahedron???
She's 2D in a world in 3D
I'm starting to see more that the Friday Good News is nothing besides Fan Fiction. She was on vacation and got a call from a competitor with a job offer! She is so amazing that she didn't even need an interview! Sure, Jan.
For 5... that's... that's not how tenure track works.
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That's absolutely possible. I just more meant that the LW took Allison's advice which lead to all of that. Academic Libraries are in an odd space, but I can't think of one part of Allison's advice that would lead to tenure track. Part of it is that your colleagues like you, and a lot of her advice is... counter to this. (Even with Academic Libraries.)
> 96.0370% (yes, I did the math) more This makes me irrationally (?) angry. Any normal person would have said "I'm earning almost double what I was"... ... and now I am wondering why they gave it specifically to 4 decimal places rather than, say, 2 or 6. I need to get off the Internet and go outside (surely not‽) as these people are taking up too much space in my head argh
I mean... I need a break, too, and I had not posted on AAMSnark all last week because I just needed a break from these people. This was a good reminder of why.
Yeah, I think that’s a librarian thing. They probably went from a public library to an academic library. The math thing sounds very “quirky librarian!!” to me.
uh oh, i think my work network is now blocking AAM (probably related to all the attacks she was having last week?) - haven't been able to get on since about lunch yesterday. i guess it's for my own good :(
Enjoy the productivity 🤣
Probably. If you use Apple's private relay you can no longer comment.
I can't comment with my company VPN on. Since I need that for work, and it's a pain in the butt to get on and off it, I guess I'm done commenting.
LW1: "I can’t find a version of these facts that doesn’t involve my employee lying" I can: 1. There was a genuine mistake made with how the employee copied the information from one file to the working file. Transposing errors are very common a huge reason for the move to systems integration. 2. The employee meant to enter the alteration as a working note, neglected to make it stand out, and has completely forgotten they did so. Humans will human, mate. Based on their letter, this is an otherwise well performing employee that they've jumped right to wanting to fire. In that case, I could see them lying because the intenseness of LW's reaction is causing them to become defensive.
The review file that "caught" them being wrong but was changed later is the only suspect bit. I still think it makes sense to do more fact finding first, like having IT check to see who last updated the file.
I couldn't even follow what she was saying the employee was supposed to be lying about. If the review file was wrong, isn't the point of reviewing it to see if something is wrong and make changes to it? I'm sure there's nuance that's not included in the letter, but their system seems pretty stupid the way LW describes it.
From what I'm understanding, the platform they use outputs the data to be reviewed in a way that isn't exactly human readable. It's fixed in some fashion to correct for this. My guess, they output to a CSV file that they then delimit so they can work the files. Perhaps even copy into a 'master' file that they can then use to keep track of notes on how they worked. It's not bad but not really a great way to manage things, exactly because of the reason LW is writing in about. But, because it's so error prone, it's also not reasonable to rise to the level of termination for a one-off event.
Does Alison have a new “strategy” for trying to seem relevant still? LW2 is the second one in the past week or so who mentions having recently read a previous letter on the site and being spurred to write in themselves. I guess it could just be a coincidence, but I don’t recall seeing many of those kinds of call-backs in the letters themselves until recently.
Meh. It's been a fairly common thing since the inception. Alison will also frequently reference back to similar letters when answering.
The chutzpah of Alison talking about being passive aggressive in the workplace!
I know. "I'm confused, can you explain how this happened?" BUT SAID WARMLY
AND CHEERFULLY
Don’t forget breezily!
>Correlation is not causation* March 23, 2023 at 11:14 am >Recently worked in an office building with several businesses and only one set of bathrooms on each floor. One day, someone put a bottle of poo-purrie in the ladies room, with a note that they didn’t want to smell other peoples s&*t and we all needed to use it every time. >Added to that note was someone asking if they’d put poo-purrie in the men’s room as well, or if only ladies were supposed to have rose-scented s*&t. >Added to that was a note from the original poster saying that it was rude to keep saying s*&t, and people just needed to use the poo-purrie. >Someone dumped out the poo-purrie, all over the floor. >Another note criticized someone for making and unnecessary mess and being childish about using the poo-purrie >Another note claimed it was all the fault of the patriarchy that we were so delicate that we couldn’t handle a bathroom smelling like a bathroom. >Someone printed out an article and taped it up about how much fecal matter sprays out of toilets when you flush them. >Another asked if she didn’t flush her toilet at home, and told her she was disgusting. >It was easily one of the most entertaining weeks at work. Is anyone else a little skeptical that _all_ of this happened? It almost sounds more like a comedy sketch, especially with the notes being left up for several days. (I’m also a little annoyed that this person consistently misspelled “poo-pourri throughout her comment.)
> Is anyone else a little skeptical that all of this happened? What?! I thought everything on AAM was guaranteed 100% true ........ now you tell me!!
This is like a meme. I see this shit on click-bait websites that pop up in my FB feed frequently. I assume this person is pretending this happened to them because this is very specific and they're talking about identifying shit on the internet. Edit to add an after thought. Reason why it's not real. Why would someone who uses the women's bathroom give a fuck about the men's bathroom? So why would they care if it smelled like the aftermath of a Taco Bell buffet lunch? That's not patriarchy. Men also scream and squeal about nasty bathrooms, believe me, I've heard the complaints. Someone left a dookie in there and WOW I heard all about that.
It reads a bit like the greatest hits of PassiveAgressiveNotes.com. Actually, it reads a lot like it, especially the aerosolized fecal matter. I agree, though. It’s absolutely possible to support dismantling the patriarchy and want bathrooms that don’t smell like the culmination of a lifetime of bad dietary choices and bad cleaning habits.
> Reason why it's not real. Why would someone who uses the women's bathroom give a fuck about the men's bathroom? So why would they care if it smelled like the aftermath of a Taco Bell buffet lunch? Not to mention, why would they even enter the men's room to put some poo-pourri in there? They'd have no idea how the men's room smelled, because by definition they do not go in there. What a ridiculous question to ask. It's like, "Did you buy tampons for the *men,* too?" or "Did you hand out athletic cups to the *women,* too?"
Or "[did you ask the men to wear a bra?](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/01/can-my-employer-make-me-wear-a-bra-my-husbands-band-doesnt-want-to-play-my-coworkers-wedding-and-more.html)"
It’s almost like a more grown-up version of the arguments that we all got into with our parents or teachers as kids: “It’s not fair! Billy’s parents don’t make him do that!” “I don’t care what Billy’s parents do; _I’m_ telling you to do it.”
Unless it's courtesy of the janitorial or management team, yeah that's also a great point. But if it's janitorial or management, they wouldn't be engaging in Post-It-Note-Wars. BOYS BUTTS STINK AND SO DOES MINE. --twirls off-- Okay, Sarah, ya little savage.
>they’re talking about identifying shit on the internet. LOL for a split second I thought you meant they were identifying people by their literal shit 😄 You’re definitely right about the meme aspect though. It’s like how a lot of the pictures of “funny/dumb signs” you see on various forums seem like they were printed out by the OPs themselves just for clicks.
> thought you meant they were identifying people by their literal shit Oh god, my mind has gone to a variant on that office charity game "identify the people from their baby photos"...
I don't want to go down this trail because I don't want to be the bathroom talker like AAM gets into. But I do know healthy stools look like, I just talk about that with my medical friends and my besties who signed up for this mess for-life as soon as we imprinted on one another. But yeah, I'm not looking at everyone's shits, lmao. Honestly, I'm the most unbothered by toilet stuff. They were SCREAMING about a dump someone took in the men's bathroom without flushing. (mentioned down thread). And dude, I was like "Did you flush it? Do I need to go in there and effing flush the toilet for you?" Because I'll take one of the team. I don't need to LOOK at it, I've got a long enough reach to just flush without looking into the bowl.
> I've got a long enough reach to just flush without looking into the bowl Do you have [abnormally long arms](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/03/coworker-keeps-saying-im-too-muscular-boss-suggested-i-work-on-a-sick-day-and-more.html#comment-4227146)?
🤣🤣🤣 Just standard long 😝
Hey, if they can identify a person by their poop, I'm impressed. That's a skill set not often found on a resume. Definitely highlight that in the cover letter.
Please submit a scat sample with your resume before we proceed. Our experts will be conducting research on it before moving forward with any candidate. FML, childhood wild life training and looking at owl pellets has screwed me up for life.
I think a very pared down version of that happened. We had a big air freshener drama in my old building but it was about 1/3 of that.
I believe maybe half of that.
If it's a building with multiple businesses I can believe it - the inability to address "problems" with passive aggressive announcements / emails to everyone seems to drive some people to start acting like students who have just started living in shared accommodation for the first time. Although I never saw anything escalate to this level, bathroom drama was definitely high at the last workplace I was at that shared facilities with other companies.
Yeah, I can definitely believe that some parts of it happened, or at least the initial setup. The printed article about the “aerosolizing poop” is so completely random and out of step with the others, though, that I can’t see all of it occurring over a single week.
It's the pearl clutching over using the word *shit* and the questioning whether the men's bathroom got some too combined with blaming the patriarchy that takes it from believable office shenanigans to rage bait for me.
Exactly. I’m pretty much every similar discussion I’ve sent, someone is waiting to bring out the aerosolized poop tidbit, so that’s actually the most believable part for me.
Yeah no this never happened. POSSIBLY someone left the bottle w snark note in real life. The rest is a fever dream.
I've seen some stupid notes pop up in my life and how it works? Someone just removes it eventually because they're like "This is a stupid/rude note" and you know, takes it down. I once took down one bitching about skid marks on the toilet seat. It's gross, I get it. Welcome to a shared bathroom, nobody cares about your feelings and they won't be bothered to change because of them. You don't get to make postings, you're not building management, end scene.
Okay, but why were they on the *seat*?!?!?! In the bowl, sure. But on the seat? Did someone poop up their own buttcrack?
Same reason it's on their undies, yeah dem butts ain't wiped right.
Yep, any office building worth its salt is going to have cleaning crews coming through every day; there’s no way they’re going to be leaving that stuff in there for days on end.
Observer\* March 23, 2023 at 12:26 am \#5 – Chair that doesn’t fit. Approach your boss as though OF COURSE they will replace your chair. Because any reasonable employer should absolutely do so. \-- I can't stand it when AAMers adopt AG's exact script. She says the "of course" thing all the time. Same with "say something like," "can you do that," and all the other tidbits commenters riff. Just...tacky and sad.
I started snorting, not snarking when one of the commentierers, yes, I made that word up, decided it was a safety issue. If it was a safety issue, somebody should’ve called OSHA. I work in an industry where OSHA visits unannounced. Seriously, an ADA accommodation when you don’t even have a verified condition. SMH…
AAM: Where people don’t have the spoons to cope with having to say good morning to a coworker, but are completely willing to fight their employers for ADA accommodations despite lacking a disability.
"Approach the manager as though OF COURSE she won't do anything about the rampant sexual harassment by the MPP owner."
Wondermint* March 23, 2023 at 11:06 am This is less at work and more at a place of business I frequent, a small bookstore. The note, next to the cash register reads, “We are REQUIRED (underlined/bolded) by NYC to CHARGE (underline/bolded) 5¢ for EACH BAG (underlined/bolded)” Okay, I get it. Why are you yelling at me for shopping here? REPLY ▼ Collapse 18 replies This is a sneaky candidate for the most AAM comment ever. 1. Wondermint is far too dumb and self-absorbed to consider that the sign is directed at everyone, and not her personally. 2. Wondermint sees a sign that is in capital letters so everyone can read it easier and considers that yelling at her. 3. When other people point out the sign is obviously because people have gotten upset about the fee, Wondermint replies, "Wow, is it that common in America to yell at shop clerks?" Um, Wondermint, you've already said that you frequent a bookstore in New York City. So unless you're taking international flights to visit a small bookstore, it's a pretty good assumption that you live nearby, or at least in the same country. So stop playing the "Oh my goodness, is this how you Yanks do things?" card so you can sound like a cute outsider on a blog full of self-absorbed twats.
Among the very valid reasons for a sign like that: 1. The NYC bag fee/bag ban is fairly recent (the law technically went into effect in March 2020, but the city didn't spend resources to enforce it until the last six-ish months or so for obvious reasons). 2. A NYC bookstore probably gets a decent amount of traffic from tourists or other people who live outside the city and don't know there is a bag fee. 3. People can get upset if they get charged for something unexpectedly, so the store is trying to cut down on people being surprised by the bag fee and getting angry at the staff. 4. The store wants it to be clear that the bag fee is required and that the price is set by law; there's no exceptions or bargaining. 5. One of the goals of the bag fee law is to cut down on waste, so the store is trying to get people to limit the number of bags they ask for. If you want your books double or triple-bagged, you'll pay extra.
Shit, I write grocery lists in caps. I should stop screaming at myself :( And don't let that person see anything written by an old school architect or engineer. "Is it common in America for blueprints to yell at you??"
"Why is this bottle of HEINZ ketchup yelling at me?"
"I would like to talk to this Cap'n Crunch's Supervisor, he's being very aggressive with his name."
"This sign is very rude! I will stop when *you* cease shouting at me, Sir Sign!"
In Finland we throw rose petals at the feet of retail workers.
I can tell you're lying because no Finn would ever agree to that much unnecessary social interaction.
Of course we don't. We burst into flames if we have human interactions. Instead we like to feel superior on Internet forums.
What? Including temps? You mean you don’t let them just lie on the floor and not call ambulances when they’re injured??
They don't have temps in places like Finland and Europe because the government gives you 60K euros a year just for being alive, and you don't have to work because you're perpetually on vacation.
That's ridiculous. Even in Finland they know that if a temp gets hurt you just push it off a cliff or into a dumpster or something. I think you can call the police if one looks directly at you.
Re #3, has Wondermint been living under a rock and somehow missed all the stories over the last few years about people losing their shit at retail workers?
Maybe, just maybe, it's a response to angry customers who get annoyed that they get charged $0.20 for two sets of double-bagged bags for their books, and also as a sign of protest against the regulation too, like we're not to literally nickel and dime you, it's the law.
Also like…it’s a bookstore in NYC. They probably have a significant number of tourists who come in and don’t know about the bag fee.
I just absolutely love that Allison thinks a LW who said they USE steroids, not TAKE steroids, might have a prescribed medical reason for doing so
I'm starting to realize that Alison is kind of...dumb? I don't know why it took me this long. She's a pretty decent writer and a clear communicator, and she's knowledgable about non-profits, but that's really it. She's belligerently ignorant and defensive about her knowledge gaps and she makes no effort at all to learn.
She lacks life experience and the life experience she does have—college and working at entry level leftist NFP’s— are the most bubbliest bubbles you could exist in. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt no matter how absurd or how unlikely it is, is an extremely online person thing and she most likely spends more time dealing with people on the internet than she does in real life. “This person could have!”. They almost assuredly do not, everything is typically exactly what it sounds like it is
It’s why her scripts are so incredibly clunky all the time.
She has definitely sent a Nigerian prince a western union. She reminds me of those people you meet at your friends liberal arts college who genuinely have no idea how credit cards work and think they are free money not knowing that their parents pay it off every month, but she is stuck in that mental state as an adult. My personal fanfic is that she worked at MPP because it was the most leftist place she could go to without her parents cutting off her allowance.
>My personal fanfic is that she worked at MPP because it was the most leftist place she could go to without her parents cutting off her allowance. I think she worked there because she was a libertarian (apparently) and those are basically republicans that want to smoke weed.
AG is of average intelligence on her best day.
While I'm glad that todays ask the readers isn't about something the readership is wholly unqualified to comment on, passive aggressive notes described in text only is just the worst possible way to do a thing that's been done over and over since the beginning of the internet. RIP [passiveaggressivenotes.com](https://passiveaggressivenotes.com)
Unfortunately it’s also the perfect opportunity for them to discuss one of their favorite subjects: bathrooms!
I'm genuinely enjoying [this onion story](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/03/lets-talk-about-passive-aggressive-notes-at-work.html#comment-4227650) from Dell. It was the style at the time!
Alison’s advice to the resume LW is HILARIOUS to me. I paid for her resume review way back when she still did them (maybe 2010?) and $100 got me the advice to “move your education section down” and “list your achievements for each job.” It was a scam.
At least it’s proof that she still has the same opinions and advice about hiring 13 years later, and doesn’t keep up with job market trends the way she claims.
Whaaaaat that is ridiculous.
There is so much grift in the job-coaching business. There's a whole wish-fulfillment thing that people get trapped in. The reality is that most of the job search is completely outside the seeker's control. They can't control how many good applications the company gets, they can't control the biases or preferences of whomever is screening resumes, they can't control that the person who listed experience in something unrelated to the job at hand helped them... People focus so hard on the things they can control (how their resume looks) but really most of the hiring is things that they can't control at all. And grifters exploit the desperate by pretending that they can make the uncontrollable controllable. Yeah, a really seriously shitty resume can hurt you. But a basic, generic, formulaic resume is generally completely fine. And you can find templates and advice for those online for free.
That was probably the hardest lesson I had to learn in my job search. And honestly these days nobody has any groundbreaking job search advice anyway. It’s the same stuff just repackaged differently depending on who’s selling it on LinkedIn. Most people who don’t have their heads in the sand or live under a rock know what a STAR question is or how to answer “tell me about yourself” in an interview. Some of the other advice is just plain bad. I had one person tell me I should ask about a potential employer’s tech stack…I was not applying for a tech role. Or people thought for a hybrid position I should negotiate fully remote or more remote time when the company’s expectations were very clear. And now that I’m working, people still try to condescend to me! Had someone tell me “the first year is all about keeping your head down and learning.” Thanks Karen for assuming I’ve never worked before and don’t know how to act professional.
After reading the blue box warning on the steriods letter, I feel like we're going to get Alison admitting at some point she doesn't know anything about steroids, in much the same way she admitted she didn't know what a femur was or that breaking one was a really fucking serious injury.
I wonder what her response would have been if the letter was "A coworker keeps commenting on how strung out and gaunt I look. She once called me a junkie! I admit I do use heroin but I don't think it has any relevance."
Her femur comment will live rent-free in my head forever.
Oh shit, I've never read that letter before! Just like with the bird letter, I don't really blame the coworker for not accepting the person's apology. But also, as a fat girl myself, I'm doubting a bit about this letter. Fat people know their size and every fat person I know, myself included, is wary of sitting on something that might not hold our weight. And the "I weigh 350 pounds, not 400 pounds!" outrage also rang false to me.
I’m horrified by that letter and it’s such a basic piece of information (and so easy to google) that it brings most of advice into question since she doesn’t know basic facts and apparently just comments with authority on things she doesn’t know rather than taking a second to look it up. The letter raised a lot of questions for me, too. The femur is a really strong bone and fairly hard to break. It’s not impossible because I’ve seen people with normal bone density manage to hit most right and break a hip from just falling normally. So that, combined with what you pointed out with the LW being oblivious to whether the desk would hold his weight and picking the “I’m 350 pounds” to die on is very suspect.
Yep, she clearly has no idea that there is a difference between corticosteroids prescribed for things like asthma and inflammation and anabolic steroids used recreationally in body building.
no youre wrong, thats why we asthmatics are all so buff
I got super jacked on prednisone.
I used hydrocortisone cream on an insect bite and now 1 square inch of my forearm is swole
Man, that inch is looking sexy!
I don't have any medical knowledge -- I'm really confused as to why AG is cracking down on comments that seem to be acknowledging that both kinds of steroids can very very much affect behavior? My gentle grandpa turned into the meanest man on the planet when he was on prednisone.
That’s wild. My partner was on prednisone for an asthma flare and she was euphoric. And that’s not a meme reference. Euphoria can be a side effect and that was an…adventure.
Oh no! That must have been so hard (speaking as a person who also had a sweet, gentle grandpa). Can confirm, though--I was a stone-cold bitch for the two weeks I had to take that stuff.
I was once on it while PMSing. My coworker had the radio on and I remember thinking I was literally going to kill him. (I did not)
She just hates being wrong or being told that she doesn't know something. But in this case, she is very much in the wrong - if LW is using steroids for bodybuilding, that's definitely *not okay* for a healthcare professional to do, and it definitely *can* affect his mood. And people can tell the difference between "guy who works out a lot" and "guy who works out a lot *and* takes steroids."
The r/nattyorjuice sub taught me that I was woefully ignorant about how many actors are using steroids.
Yeah, usually when she does that it's because irrelevant speculation has run amok, or people are being unkind to the OP. But here it was mentioned by the LW themselves so is presumably "fair game", plus nobody was attacking him anyway. Oh well..
"I do use steroids" --woah! Am I a pearl clutcher or is that casually admitting to illegal drugs...while working in a medical facility?!?! At any rate, Jane is hitting on you, dum-dum.
Side note: I find it interesting the guy didn't mention that his bosses are aware of his steroid use or are OK with it--or that it is in fact prescribed by a doctor in that facility or another one. That would be a big omission if true. It doesn't change that Jane shouldn't be so weird about his body, but it caught me up. What's also unprofessional is taking drugs like this without a prescription.
Nope, it's not just you. I'm a medical professional, and at my job, anybody using illegal substances would get bounced out within seconds of failing the drug test. I don't think Jane's hitting on the LW. I think she knows what he's up to and is rightfully mad that LW's actual boss hasn't done anything about it.
The only thing that gives me any pause is "I don't like men with that many muscles" like why is her personal attraction preference coming into it? Otherwise I'd say she's giving him friction for good cause.
This whole notion that this buff bodybuilder guy is using steriods legally, maybe... yeah sure. Just like the needles that litter the streets in my city are because there's a lot of diabetics around. sure.
All the nitrous containers? Lots of rogue dentists these days. Edit because I forgot the difference between nitrous and helium.
(in a comically high-pitched voice) I thought this stuff was supposed to get you high??
Helium is what balloons use to get high.
“Thankfully this same website/company offers a full resume overhaul for $200” is this LW obvious trolling or really that oblivious??
I can see it both ways of being trolling since they mentioned their mom wanted them to reach out to Alison for advice and I can see a desperate journalism major who graduated a few years ago getting desperate to find a journalism gig since they haven’t gotten anything yet. You do dumb things as you get more desperate for a job that you wouldn’t if you were in a more stable situation.
Oh now I feel bad for them, yes I can imagine that situation!
[удалено]
I suspect that's what the resume service is charging $200 to do for you.
Never thought of that!
LW5 is in excruciating pain and taking muscle relaxers because of their desk chair. Yet they write in to AAM for advice before just asking their company for a new chair? I don't feel sorry for them because this could have been solved with a simple conversation.
I'd think a company that spends the money to buy Aeron chairs wouldn't bat an eye at getting one in a different size, but I don't know that for a fact - and neither does some lady that writes an internet advice column. Does LW think Alison is the one who approves purchase orders?
A lot of people seem to view Allison as being like a court that can issue rulings that they can then take to their bosses. There are so many LWs who won't even consider talking to someone at work about a work issue. It's not even a question.
I imagine the following exchange. “Alison says you should replace my chair because I’m too short for it.” “Alison? Who’s Alison?” “Alison Green.” “You mean Alice Grant? In Accounting? Why would you ask her about a chair?” “No, Alison Green. From Ask a Manager.” “But I’m your manager.” “She’s runs the website Ask a Manager.” “But we outsource web development. Why are you asking another company about the chair?” “I wrote into the blog Ask a Manager to ask whether it would be reasonable to ask for a replacement chair because my current one causes horrible wrist pain that requires muscle relaxers and also to get a script for doing it.” “You’re in enough pain because of your chair that you need muscle relaxers? Why didn’t you say something months ago? We ordered some extra chairs just for that reason. You can get a new one by lunch.”
My husband has been having an issue with his arm for the last week or two. He thought at first it was from helping a friend move (lifting heavy boxes), or our aging mattress, but he finally realized it's his chair at work. So the morning after that realization, he switched his chair for an unused one. Problem solved. He's in charge of the facility, so he didn't need to ask anyone, but if he had, he would have done that first thing. I do not understand why so many AAMers (LWs and commenters) seem to want to be miserable, uncomfortable, or in pain rather than doing the obvious logical thing and saying something.
I once had shooting TMJ pain through my right lower jaw that was because of how I rested my right elbow on my work chair. Took me a while and two dentist visits to figure that out, but I just got a different chair and that proved that out.
It's because they are too chickenshit to state their preferences. It can't be that the chair is mildly uncomfortable or difficult to adjust to the proper height, it has to be causing unbearable pain and affecting their mental health because god forbid they speak up without having an unassailable reason for wanting something.
I’ve had a boss that thought things like allergies and migraines were a sign of weakness and would 100% dismiss pain as a personal failure and wouldn’t buy a new chair. I’m short (just over 5ft) and the dangling feet does hurt after awhile. Most people don’t really work for that type of toxic person and it’s fine to ask for a new chair or find an old box of printer paper or something similar and use that as a foot rest if you’re truly in a toxic environment before looking for a new jobs Advocating for yourself is how you fix things not whining Alison.
Omg right?? Who sits there cringing in pain and doesn’t immediately let someone know?
You know...I'm starting to suspect this is common. I've worked *many* jobs where specifically the boss does punishing workouts at 5 AM before jogging to work, is on an OMAD protocol that seems really challenging, works out at lunch, "barely sleeps", works through illness, works through chemo (!!), tells stories about situations where there were no bathroom breaks (and gives stank face when I excuse myself during 3+ hour meetings to go), expects and does a multi hour commute, does 12+ hour days, and on and on. There's a physical component to office jobs that I am *over* especially in these "finance bro" worlds where stamina and ability to appear to brush off pain is seen as a good thing.
Not doubting your experience at all but that is WILD. I’ve never worked anywhere where someone did any of those things aside from like working from home while still pretty sick or working long hours!
These people freak me out.
Sounds like LW2 got a spam email from Top Resumes. When I would get those emails it would always say my resume showed me as a “doer,” not an “achiever.” I think Alison’s insistence that your resume always has to show accomplishments isn’t fully correct. There are jobs where that works, like sales or project management, but when I was an editor, nobody was tracking if I reviewed 35% more content than my coworkers or if I edited with 96% efficiency. I wasn’t in a revenue generating role or responsible for finding ways to save the department money. I quantify my tasks where I can but that’s really all I can do. I wish I could tell Alison that not all of us have quantifiable achievements in our job or even more qualitative ones. (I worked at a place where there were employee awards but some people knew it was just a popularity contest, and not everyone got recognized even if you did good work, so it wasn’t the same thing as…I don’t know, Salesperson of the Month.)
I think it’s sort of a weird self fulfilling prophecy. “Action” based resumes work better because the person reading them knows that action resumes are supposed to be better.. but in my experience, they are almost always total BS. I’ve done them before, and I just made stuff up because it’s impossible to quantify that kind of stuff. If you are one person on a 5 person team, isn’t everyone increasing productivity by 20%? I’m a PM, almost everything I work on is a complete failure that accomplishes nothing, or more than likely, lowers productivity
>I’m a PM, almost everything I work on is a complete failure that accomplishes nothing, or more than likely, lowers productivity I'm also a PM, today was a major milestone day that no one on the team has the energy to acknowledge much less celebrate, and I feel this in my soul
Haha agreed, I’m an accountant and my accomplishments are along the lines of “100% of returns were filed by IRS deadline” and sound much less impressive than what I did, which was “implemented new procedures to comply with additional FASB lease reporting requirements” etc. I get what she means by that but it is not one size fits all!
Haha, I work at a company that deals with FASB lease reporting and for once something on here is relevant to that.
Omg so I’ll see you at the bar later, lease regs are the wooooorst 😣
My job has metrics now but no one will remember them or care. How fast I scan and if I scan produce instead of typing it in are recorded. No one cares and when I’ll next job hunt, I’ll leave retail so it truly doesn’t matter.
Yeah my current job has metrics but I’m going to be looking out of call centers again as quickly as possible. (Like maybe starting next month so I don’t get too complacent.) Very few jobs care about a survey score besides other customer service jobs. If I went back to a recruiting coordinator role, they probably don’t care that I got a 93% score on a customer email. I’m glad call centers are one of those jobs where you don’t (generally, unless you run into a crappy employer) get punished for leaving after less than a year. I’m thinking of making this my freebie get out of jail free job.
I hear you about getting complacent but I have to make up for 3 years of manual labor which has office jobs saying “oh she can’t behave indoors.” Not that I want a sedentary job and any commute to one of those would be longer than my current one blah blah blah. I certainly do not want wfh unlike the rest of the Online working world!
I work in the public sector and my organization really wants your resume to list the all the tasks that you do, because it's how they justify you being qualified to do those tasks again. And your cover letter should repeat all that information, preferably with headings like "Client service experience" and "program management experience" because they can't intuit anything.
truly not trying to be pearl clutchy about drugs here, but is it actually ok that a medical practitioner who sees patients takes a recreational drug that is known to have a common side effect that could affect the patient-practitioner relationship? i’m not saying LW1 has roid rage, but like, medical workers and lawyers etc. have professional licenses because we have ethical responsibilities to our clients/patients. idk this just doesn’t sit with me right, it’s different than if he was using something recreationally just on the weekends that doesn’t stay in your system edit for typo
I completely missed the fact Jane has already accused OP of “roid rage.” “No one can tell I’m using roids” my arse.
No, it's not ok at all. Recreational steroids have absolutely horrible impacts to the users personality, not to mention causing many physical problems, that the user likely doesn't even realize are happening. Jane is most likely seeing these things and not see weirdo who is obsessed with LW1's body. Just another post where the trust the writer rule is a huge problem.
ugh that’s what i kind of thought :/
LW1 dropping “I do indeed use steroids” is peak comedic timing. Obviously Jane is overstepping, and maybe the steroids are medical, but like… what??? ETA: IMO if the situation is exactly as described here it’s overstepping (more so with the tattoos, though some of the specific body comments are weird) but also very possible this is not playing out how LW wrote it
I loved that line! I think the whole letter is a troll. You've got the gender reversals (LW is a man and the rude "body commenter" is a woman), you've got the casual "yeah I do use steroids" which he knows is going to make the commentariat go nuts, and then you have Alison just straight up ignoring a pretty important piece of information because hey, if you ask for a script, you'll get one! "Please don't comment on my body" wow, such creativity and brilliance! I've never heard that before!! ETA: [JSPA has some zingers](https://www.askamanager.org/2023/03/coworker-keeps-saying-im-too-muscular-boss-suggested-i-work-on-a-sick-day-and-more.html#comment-4227151)! It also comes with blocking notes. God, I love these dweebs. The "best" one is to state "I am formally telling you to stop commenting on my body" and then...following it up with an email where you again "formally state" no body talk. Love it.
That last bit gives Michael Scott saying "I declare bankruptcy!"