Damn. [DOT 19/3/21]

19/3/21 MegMegMcGee 41

Some of you were mentioning that this has been a long week. I think with the time change, the weather, and the news, you may be correct in calling it the longest week ever. So instead of “daaaaamn” it’s just plain old “Damn”.

I hope everyone is headed into a weekend of R&R!

Hate to lead off with this, but this has been on the top of my mind this week:

A nationwide horror: Witnesses, police paint a picture of a murderous rampage that took 8 lives
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/what-happened-atlanta-shooting/2021/03/18/163e4de8-8733-11eb-8a8b-5cf82c3dffe4_story.html

This poor kid. Sounds like his mom did an amazing job.

Son of Atlanta Shooting Victim Calls ‘Bullshit’ on Sex Addiction Claim
https://www.thedailybeast.com/son-of-atlanta-shooting-victim-hyun-jung-grant-calls-bullshit-on-robert-aaron-long-sex-addiction-claim?ref=scroll

[Sure Jan dot gif]

Texas man arrested outside vice president’s residence told police he was ‘looking for help’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/paul-murray-arrest-gun/2021/03/18/0929f1b2-87f0-11eb-8a8b-5cf82c3dffe4_story.html

Rand Paul is a big dumb idiot.

See Rand Paul spar with Dr. Fauci over masks
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/03/18/coronavirus-response-hearing-fauci-rand-paul-masks-sot-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/

This is not alright, alright, alright.

Stonks!
File under No Shit. Doesn’t mention their salaries though. [I don’t condone the abuse obviously, but what did they expect?]

Group of junior bankers at Goldman Sachs claim ‘inhumane’ work conditions
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/18/group-of-junior-bankers-at-goldman-sachs-claim-inhumane-work-conditions

I think I’m just going to leave this here…

This country hates women more than it loves guns [Season 4, Episode 5] from r/BoJackHorseman

None of these are Cousin Matthew, AFAIK

‘Joy every day’: New Yorkers reveal their fabulous apartments – in pictures
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2021/mar/18/new-yorkers-at-home-sally-davies-in-pictures

OMG

Every teacher I’ve ever known:

And lastly, in “today I learned”…

Have a good Friday!

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41 Comments

  1. …on the goldman sachs thing…I know someone who used to work for deutsche bank & remember some pretty dire stories they had to tell about unreasonable demands…& I know the salaries these people are paid are big enough that it seems like they shouldn’t be complaining but I also know I would have quit in the face of what they put up with?

    …to put it another way, they once pointed out to me that although the starting salary at DB is on the high side for an entry-level position as a graduate if you worked it out on an hourly pro rata basis they would have been better paid to flip burgers for mcdonalds

    …I’ve heard similar stuff from people who went into corporate law, too…one of those feature-not-a-bug things…the attrition rate is so high that the salary of the next tier up is less a reflection of what they’re worth than it is of the incentive required to get the rung below to put up with what’s expected of them…& if anyone who points out things that seem problematic is swiftly shown the door & labelled as a disgruntled ex-employee…well…it doesn’t seem likely things are going to change?

    • Truly, whenever someone who makes an ass-ton of money complains that they’re really making less than minimum wage, it really pisses me off.  When I used to work in graduate medical education, I heard that shit all the time from Residents and Fellows.  So, I would say, “let’s do the math, shall we?  You’re a PGY5, which means–in this area–you make roughly $80,000 per year.  If you worked 80 hours per week, without a single week off for vacation or other reasons, your hourly wage would be $19.23.  So, no, you are not making less than minimum wage.  In fact, while we’re on the subject, you’re making 20k more than me, so you might want to read the room the next time you complain about how you’re not getting paid enough.”

       

      Now, with that being said, excessive work hours have been the subject of much concern and debate in the GME community for a very long time.  There are people who argue that the studies show there is no problem to work a Resident or Intern for 24 straight hours, and then eight hours later going another 24 hours.  I know what the studies say, and I’ve seen the data…but if I’m in an emergency room and I’m being worked on by someone who has had maybe 5 hours of sleep in the past two days, ain’t no way am I going to feel confident that this person isn’t going to make a major sleep-deprived mistake. 

       

      Most of the resistance to lowering work hours requirements in medicine comes from the tenured faculty (“I had to get my ass kicked, so now it’s your turn”) and from the first year Interns (“If I don’t look like I’m 100% on board to get my ass kicked then it’s going to look bad for my letters of recommendation.”).

      • I’ve read about this for medical interns and residents. Bottom line is the entrenched thinking is going to continue until laws are passed to stop it with massive fines when violations are found. And I mean laws specific to the industry, not just general employment law. And you’re going to have to have inspections and audits from outside agencies. There’s no incentive to self-report if you’ll destroy your career. 

        • There’s a non-governmental accrediting agency called the ACGME, which can impose sanctions on programs up to and including the stripping of accreditation, so programs generally try to stay on the right side of that.  But it’s the ACGME that sets the work hours requirements.  Program requirement changes are pretty involved processes which can take years to complete, and the committees which write these requirements are populated with attending physicians, residents, fellows, mlps, etc, so the representation is pretty good…but in this particular case they rely too much on the data from the studies and the pushback from the interns to justify leaving it alone.  It really would take an act of Congress to force the issue.

      • …I’m not disagreeing with you…but in fairness to the friend in question they weren’t complaining when they pointed out the hourly rate thing…& in their case that math actually checked out…it came up because they’d been asked to do some recruitment stuff & the conversation we were having was about why they didn’t feel comfortable pitching the “great pay” angle without addressing the workload that came with it…which they weren’t so much expected to downplay as to avoid any mention of

        …it was a trade off they were personally willing to make for the money they were paid…but if my employer blew up what little annual leave I got by fed-ex-ing my work laptop to the other side of the world in order to demand I spend my holiday time working because they seemingly didn’t grasp the concept of time off…or called me up at 2am on new year’s day & expected me to leave the people I was celebrating with so my drunk ass could go put in an unscheduled 14hr day at no notice…let’s just say my response would be unlikely to be compatible with my continued employment?

        • As in most job situations, it all boils down to how much shit are you willing to eat for the pay and benefits you’re getting.  For my part, I have always drawn a hard line between work time and personal time.  This has had a negative effect on my career prospects, generally speaking, but my current employer and position is such that the trade-off all those other years was essentially worth it.

           

          Of course, don’t remind me that I said that the next time I bitch about how much the fucking cesspool repair is going to cost.

      • You’re figuring 80 hours at straight time.  If you figure 40 hours at straight time and 40 hours at time-and-a-half, it comes out around $16/hr.  Then if you hyperbolically say, “Well, minimum wage is supposed to be $15…………………………”
         
        And honestly, would you do that job for $19?  My wife, who has been an RN for almost 30 years, makes more than twice that hourly.

    • I’ve never once encountered one of those “if you divide my pay by the hours I worked” situations that came anywhere close to minimum wage. Even if it did, they’re typically talking about gross or net paychecks, and not factoring in health insurance and benefits.

    • A clash of generations.  On one hand, I can see the newbie’s points about unreasonable demands.  On the other, you’re being paid way above what the average starting grad makes so you should be expecting going in to be eating a lot more shit.
      Similar views I have on ambitious people who cry about getting promoted.   There’s a reason why companies pay execubots and managers larger and larger sums of money when you get promoted.  Working odd hours and dealing with headaches/pressure is part of the process especially at a company that works 24/7.
      However, I am a touch more sympathetic to recent grads than ambitious assholes because they haven’t worked in the real world.  Think studying is hard?  Hahahahahaha.  Good luck with that.
      I’m more readily to pat a recent grad on the head in a patronizing manner going “There, there.”  Opposite is true with ambitious folks.  Seen too many unprepared ambitious fuckwits getting promoted whine, bitch and cry about how tough it is to be in management.  As someone who has rarely been promoted yet spent a lot of time cleaning up their fucking mistakes, doing their job, and also preparing and reading books on management/leadership, I want to punch the fuck out of them.
      I wish I could say to them:  “They don’t give a big raise and perks so you can sit on your fucking ass and pout, motherfucker.”
       
       
       

      • The higher I move up the food chain, the more of my time is spent dealing with bizarre problems and weird mistakes. But I do that so my team can focus on the regular day-to-day. That’s the deal. There’s a lot of days I wish I could just do the normal stuff on my to-do list, but it never happens any more. And nights and weekends are more of a Platonic ideal rather than reality. But again, that’s the deal. If crazy shit jumps off after hours, you call me. Don’t disturb my team after they’re off work.
         
        It bothers me that one of my peers thinks that one of the perks of her position is that somebody else has to handle the after-hours shit. No, that’s what YOU’RE getting paid to do. Somehow, though, the turnover on her team never gets linked to her management “style.” 

        • Yeah, that was my approach when I was in management–eat the shit so that your team can focus on their jobs.  Funny thing is that my new job isn’t management, but I’m still getting paid more than I was as a manager.  It’s pretty nice to just sit back and do my work and not have to fuck with all the bullshit.  There’s enough growth opportunity on this particular job ladder that I might not ever have to resort to going back to management to make more money.  I’m OK with that.

          • I’ve always talked about the concept of “fealty.” Which sounds incredibly elitist, but the basic concept is that commoners owed fealty to nobility, but nobility ALSO owed fealty back to their people. They had to take care of their people — that was their part of the deal. Too often you only see that running one way in the workplace, from the bottom to the top. 

            • The way I would explain it to new managers who thought it was a one way street was like this.

              “Their job is to make you look good.  YOUR job is to make sure they are treated well and know that you have their back, so that they will actually make you look good.  If you don’t do your job first, they won’t do theirs–and you’ll be the one trying to explain your shitty numbers to your boss.”

  2. None of those apartments are mine but I’ve been in one of them (of course I have) and could have pointed the photographer to a dozen additional ones. Our old apartment was sliding into this territory but when we moved into this new construction we started new. Most of the apartment has all the charm and individuality of a Design Within Reach showroom but it is very calming and MUCH easier to maintain.
     
    The city had a horrific bedbug infestation a while back (we were spared) and I think that scarred for me for life. My fondness for interior design maximalism went, almost overnight, to “I want this room to look like you could perform open-heart surgery in it.”

    •  
      I love these apartments! Judging by the listings on Curbed [NY Mag] NY apartments are generally all the same, tiny with white walls. White walls make my eyes twitch.
      Personal style is a funny thing, I’m not a big fan of a continuous theme, it’s boring. My house is a mash up of traditional, industrial, and salvage, with some farmhouse flea market thrown in.

    • @MegMegMcGee, @MatthewCrawley, I too am horrified, still and always, about this latest massacre “by a white terrorist” who had a bad day, and this line, “this country hates women more than it loves guns” could substitute any minority for women and still be true. This separation of realities here in the US – the total lack of understanding that the “bad day” comments would enrage large swaths of people – is a fair example of the country’s polarization.

      So anyway, lets talk about fabulous apartments!!! I remember the one with all the sun imagery. Here is a link to a video, and here is a link to a text article, if you want more. And Cousin M, do spill – which one were you in? I need to live vicariously through you!

      Finally, that poor dog! I have a friend who’s puppy trashed a plastic flower pot, removed the plant and dirt, ate the bottom, and got his head stuck. He looked like he was wearing a perfect flower pot bonnet, or that pot was growing a puppy face.

      TGIF my friends!

      • I’ll let the deadplinterati guess, but I’ll give you a couple of hints. Did you notice that TWO of them have mounted deer heads? I don’t even know where you’d get something like that in Manhattan. It was neither of those. Also, when Laurie Anderson was with Lou Reed I was invited to a party at their place as a +1 kind of out of the blue, last minute, but I was out of town, and no follow-up +1 invite was forthcoming, so it wasn’t that one. 

    • Yeah I concur after I had the great bedbug disaster of 2016 my home decor went to a much more minimalist perspective. I’m still a cluttered mess, but the desire for cushy furniture has greatly diminished. 

  3. Tomorrow is the first day of Spring and you know what that means: The beginning of wedding season. Are you thinking of celebrating your big day here in the Empire State?
     
    https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mYXqURIg7f4J:https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Cuomo-says-yes-to-larger-weddings-but-onerous-16035583.php+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
     
    I will say this for Governor Cuomo: He is indefatigable when it comes to rule-making, rule-changing, and micromanaging. Because he can, but not for too much longer. The astonishing thing is he doesn’t have a staff that comes up with this stuff and he signs off on it; by all accounts he makes this stuff up all by himself. I love a good wedding and have been to dozens, so I share with Cuomo his interest in wedding planning. But as he comes under more and more intensive attack suddenly “the data and the science” that he is “following” is leading him in laxer and looser directions.
     
    It’s funny how this works. Recently the curfew for gyms has been lifted from its 11 PM mandatory closing time. I didn’t realize gyms had a curfew, nor did I know that anyone would patronize one after 11 PM, but the Grand Archduke of Albany certainly did. He still has it in for NYC bars and restaurants but those rules, too, change day by day. This is all very interesting but I doubt our experience is really adding much to the vast body of epidemiological knowledge.

  4. Dude, you’re such a romantic!
    Weddings, man. I could go on and on about how seriously fucked up weddings are, the premise, the history, the unreasonable expectations, the outright fucking lying! I can’t even go to one without breaking out in a cold sweat.

    • I love weddings because it’s easy for me, I just put on a dark suit and I’m good to go. I’m intensely social, or I used to be, and the Better Half loathes weddings, so I’m the semi-professional convenient extra man who can balance a table (meaning, increase the woman:man ratio) and conduct pleasant chats with almost anyone. I don’t normally spread gossip but I love a good family story, and if you’ve eaten as much wedding venue roast beef as I have you know that these stories fly fast and furiously. I love to dance so the minute the dance floor opens up I’m out there. Most men won’t do this. I missed my calling. I should have been a social director on a giant cruise ship.

    • There’s an old, probably discredited, crude test for canine intelligence. Or something. You drape a towel over a dog’s head and time how long it takes for them to shake it off. Most will do this very quickly but we had a fat, happy King Charles spaniel and when we first did this he snuffled it a little bit and decided it was a cue for him to lie down and enjoy his new security blanket. He was the best.

  7. Lots of Texas bullshit in the news.  This asshat needs a good smackdown! Has anyone ever know an “Chip” that wasn’t an asshat?
     
     


     
     

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