That's a good start. However, as some one who has worked at a charitable non-for-profit, those percentages can get messy. If you spend $100,00 on a fund rasing event like charity ball that generates a total of $400,000 ( for a net gain to the charity of $300,000), You have to report that $100,000 that was spent on putting the event together as a non charitable expense. Even if the $300,000 goes directly to building a school in Africa, it looks like you as a charity only spend %75 of all funds on your charitable cause.
...but that's kinda exactly what happened in your hypothetical scenario, isn't it?
That's why charities have to separate charitable and non-charitable (administrative) expenses for reporting. Any money spent for the sole purpose of raising more money, such as salaries for envelope stuffers or cold callers, and yes, costs for charitable fundraising events *should* be reported as administrative overhead, because that's exactly what it is. If you want to see a better ROI from the fundraising event, you'll just have to find some way to bring in more cash with less expenditure, just like any other business.
A fundraiser event that brings in $2 million is great! One that brings in $2 million but costs $1.5 million is just rich people throwing themselves an expensive party to pat themselves on the back before they go back to Tahiti to play with their yachts. (Okay, that would be some party, I'll admit:) Not to mention being a huge risk to the charity: what if they don't recoup the initial expenses? Sure, they can brag that their party brought in 'over $1 million in donations', but in the end, the contributions are simply wasted on champagne and caviar instead of going to the people who need them.
I agree, sometimes it can be a bit tricky figuring out if something should be classified as a charitable or administrative expense, but in the end, as a potential contributor to the cause, that admin overhead percentage is exactly what I want to see before I lend my support. I don't want to give money to organizations that simply turn around and spend it primarily on making more money. If I wanted that, I'd just give it to the bank instead.
I love your story! Mod points wouldn't be enough for your post 8)
I love your.sig too;)
8-PP
Thanks! That story usually gets a chuckle and rolled eyes from those who know us:)
It just goes to show that having lots in common with your partner isn't 'boring'...in fact, I think it's essential if you want to build a long-term, trusting relationship. I'm not saying that pilots and accountants can never be happy together, they had just better have a *lot* of other areas of interest in common:o)
Because that way you understand each other. Because that way your eccentricities don't bother her so much, and vice versa. Because that way you can generally simultaneously do things that you enjoy doing and also spend time with the person you enjoy spending time with, rather than picking one or the other exclusively.
I've never met anyone exactly like myself, though if I were single and did meet such a person, I would be immediately interested, but I wouldn't even consider a relationship with someone I didn't share a majority of interests and a similar worldview with. I've seen where that leads (it leads to a relationship like my parents':p).
Exactly! My husband and I are both EE's and we've been happily together for...wow, has it really been 12 years already? Our main interests naturally have a lot of crossover, but it's not like we're clones of each other. We have plenty of other interests to discuss when we don't want to talk shop, and ones that allow us to interact with our (mostly non-engineer) friends. But when it's just the two of us, as you said, we can easily find things that interest us both. Museum of modern art? meh. Museum of scifi/fantasy? Two tickets, please!
I do think we understand one another in ways that couples who subscribe to the 'opposites attract' theory of life never could. For example: he once got me a NAS unit with four 1TB hard drives for my birthday...and it was incredibly sweet, because it was exactly what I had wanted, right down to the brand of the hard drives. I think he must have snooped my browser history or something, because I hadn't even been hinting about it. Of course, if I do get a hankering for non-tech presents, I do have to hint very baldly indeed...but I know and accept that I won't get perfume for Christmas unless I email him the specific brand and where to buy it, whereas if I want the latest RPG for one of our gaming consoles, well, I just have to say 'hmmm, that one looks interesting' once;o)
I was stunned when I watched the Hunger Games Blu-ray this weekend as what I thought was the lead up to the main menu in fact lead to a large message: "Previews for Your Mandatory Viewing". This was a purchased copy mind you, not a rental version. Of course now the Main Menu button was disabled, fortunately the chapter skip button was not (it must not be able to or it would have been).
This button disabling shit is unbelievable, even the Stop button. Yes, the Stop button.
To paraphrase John Siracusa, everything about Blu-ray sucks, except the AV quality, which you can't get anywhere else (legally).
Wow, just...wow.
Damn, I was really looking forward to buying the BluRay to support a movie/storyline I quite enjoyed, but if they're going to pull that shit...guess I'll just buy more books and hand them out instead.
It's a shame, because it's not many movies that I like enough to make me want to own my own physical copy, maybe one every two or three years (sometimes a couple per year, if it's been a good year) but when they crust up the legit copy in so many layers of marketing filth that you're too furious to enjoy the movie once you (finally) get to it...no. I refuse to support that business model, even if I'd really like to support the actual movie itself. Double damn.
For my part I don't really know who to trust. How do I know that PrivateInternetAccess is a legit service, and that they are really doing what they say they do? If I'm going to pay for a VPN service, I definitely want to be sure that they are solid.
I haven't joined a VPN services because I'm thinking that may just make it worse. Now some company has not just my browsing habits but potentially an email, credit card number, and address (or whatever billing details that are required).
There are VPN services that allow to mail cash. However, they know you by your IP. Just a few years ago I'd have thought I'm crazy for even thinking like this. But with all the news about companies trumping consumer rights and warrentless searches I really don't know anymore what to think.
Tangent here, but I think it's the same fundamental problem. Anybody have a brilliant idea?
Well, not brilliant, but useful:) Did you know that most of the VPN providers will accept PayPal? And did you also know that you can set up a PayPal account using a Visa or Mastercard gift card...that you bought with cash?
Yes, it's a bit of a hassle, since you'd have to add a new gift card to your faux PP account every so often as the other runs out, but hey, then they don't have anything but your IP to work with, and some throwaway email account. It's some peace of mind, at any rate.
As our bookshelves can attest, my spouse and I have been fans of Mr. Harrison's writing for decades now. He was a versatile writer who excelled at creating engaging and entertaining characters. We were so excited to find "The Stainless Steel Rat Returns" a couple of years ago, after thinking he had retired the series...
Rest in peace, good sir, and may the stars watch over you.
I can see this happening for some fairly small studies, but many very big studies simply can't be replicated. For example, a big public health study will possibly change the sampling population.
Err...so? If the study results can't be supported across a different sampling population (that still meets the study's stated criteria), then the original study results should be revised or invalidated. In fact, it's a better acid test if they do change the population.
fictitious e.g.: if a study emerges that says eating X amount of tomatoes increases the chance of bearing twins in women ages 19-29, but changing the sampling population to people from a different country (still eating tomatoes, still 19-29 and still bearing some percentage of twins) reverses that finding or is inconclusive, then the original finding is either too broad or just plain wrong.
That being said, I agree with the rest of your post. Some experiments are just to big, too long and involving too much specialized equipment to be able to quickly replicate elsewhere. Trying to book time at the LHC for this would increase the costs far beyond reason, any research grants would basically have to be doubled to support it.
Fair question. I suppose I should have said "laptop webcams" instead of the more generic term "webcams".
Indeed, if I need a webcam for my desktop, it isn't plugged in until I use it, and is unplugged right after I'm done. You can't do that with an integrated webcam, and it's getting harder to find laptops or netbooks without integrated webcams these days...
I'm surprised there isn't more ransomware that turns your webcam on, perhaps catching you in something you'd rather not have on the interwebs, and blackmails you with that.
For this reason, I am still amazed that no (well, not many) webcams out there come with a physical shutter that the user can slide closed / open. Why leave it 'looking' at you when you're not using it?
It's not like people don't know this is possible, it's been used as a premise in enough tv shows...
Ah well, a sticker works about the same for me...low tech to the rescue!:)
I have a much harder one for you, that I've dealt with myself once (and admittedly not with 100% success): a road covered in fresh snow. No lines visible, everything white. In the dark, with the edge of the road only detectable by a small drop in the snow level and the occasional pole sticking out, snowed-over reflector optional.
Have one of the systems see in a wavelength where the refractive index of water ice is close to the refractive index of air. Snow will be transparent.
Interesting...I suppose rescue workers on ski slopes find these devices absolutely invaluable for locating buried avalanche victims. And for checking out Frosty's underwear, of course.:p
With hundreds of self-driving cars everywhere, then they may even be able to save on gas by flocking together and save on wind resistance and save on stopping time by sharing gas and Slurpees at high speeds.
High-speed beverage passing? We can only dream...
Although, that does sound much more entertaining than a lot of the other crap on the idiot box these days:)
This study just corroborates what I already knew. People are shallow. Especially all you Comic Sans haters. I think half the Comic Sans hatred is just because it has become trendy to hate Comic Sans.
First World Problems. Slashdot is full of articles about them lately, and people who like to bitch and moan about them.
Anyone who flies into a rage at seeing a font they don't like has to step back from the screen and get out of the basement/cave for a while...a looong while. Get out and volunteer to be a Big Brother or something, seriously.
btw, if I could've, I would've written this entire post in Comic Sans, for all the fans out there:P
Of course, it's often the boss who is the source of the problem.
You are correct, and this can be a major problem, especially if the boss is 'old school' and secretly resents having to hire a 'chick'. I don't mean to imply that this attitude is restricted to older gentlemen only, it's just that, in my experience, I'd usually get the most pushback from customers when they were within a few years of retirement, with a few wonderful and open-minded exceptions. I can (luckily) only imagine what having to work for someone with that attitude would be like.
That sounds like an excellent case for escalation, and one would hope most reputable companies would have some sort of mechanism in place to accommodate this. In all cases, though, your best approach is to document everything from the outset. Keep notes on conversations, times, dates, possible witnesses, your responses and their follow through (or lack thereof). Try to keep it from being he said / she said as much as possible, and make it clear that you have made them aware them of the problem(s) on several occasions. The boss (or over-boss) who can look at that and still dismiss your complaints...well, now it's moving into civil lawsuit territory.
ITA! There is a huge difference between guys having pictures of girls on the wall and being catcalled. I worked as a sec in a warehouse. This was fine. I walked through the warehouse and had to hear the guys tell their jokes and see the pictures. It was all good. As the only girl in the place, it could be a bit awkward going to the back but you got used to it.
Then a new guy showed up and he way crossed the line. When he started offering me money to take off my top, that is not fun and games. He was fired on the spot because that is NOT something you do in the workplace.
Yes, that was totally over the line, even if he just thought he was being 'funny'. Not cool, but it's great that your boss backed you up like that!
I'd get the occasional crudity directed my way from riggers, but a) we only usually had to deal with them for a couple of hours a week, if that, and b) most of them took the suggestion to 'get it from your inflatable girlfriend' with a laugh, and left it at that. For the (very) few that were extra creepy, 'my' guys on the truck made sure I was never alone on site, and did the running back and forth for me if information was needed (honestly, it was like working with a passel of big brothers).
Thank goodness none of that ever came from our own employees, they all showed respect for my person and my abilities (or if they didn't when they hired on, the others soon set them straight:)
... when they already had a (much lesser known, admittedly) product named "Surface"?
I understand they've renamed their table computer, but I don't think I've ever seen any explaination on what motivated them to want to change the name of that and call their new tablet "Surface" instead.
That was my thought exactly! When I first heard that they would be coming out with the Surface, I was all "ooh, table-sized touch interfaces are finally on the way! Hello new coffee/gaming table!"
The return to reality was quite a letdown...seriously, board games and RPGs could be so much fun on one of those things:(
1) The freaking stylus. I get Jobs hated styluses because he never got over the period you were forced to use them. I get everyone wants to copy his "genius". Still, there are times when I want to write on my digital tablet like it is actually a tablet. Using my finger on an iPad feels like I'm writing out notes with a highlighter. Using a third party stylus feels like a crayon. Microsoft is recognizing some of us want to use pens. Maybe I'm wrong, but this is something that I haven't seen in Android or iOS yet.
They're out there, at least for Android. And they're sooo much better than crayons:)
Sometime ago we had an article where a MS was taking the heat because one of its employees who also contributed to Linux kernel put 0xB16B00B5 as an hex constant in the kernel. THAT is the degree of insanity that this nonsense reached nowadays.
Indeed. Something like that is quite juvenile, but ultimately harmless. Who cares? Well, apparently some people do. Talk about a tempest in a teacup...
It's sad that common sense so rarely makes an appearance in these sorts of things.
And the same applies to the female in question. If I hire an employee, male or female I expect her or him to get the work done, instead of bitching about not liking what other employees are saying and making frivolous accusation of sexual harassing because of fleeting remarks.
I have nothing against prosecuting people who use their positions of authority to demand sexual favors, but in USA things have became utterly silly. ANYTHING can be considering harassment, even the way you look at someone. It is no wonder jobs are getting outsourced more and more.
This is an excellent point. The tolerance does have to flow both ways in such a situation, always.
I'm not saying that there aren't sniggering little douches out there, whose prime goal is to make anyone eligible to wear a skirt as uncomfortable as possible (you know who you are), but on the other hand, women working in a traditionally male workplace can't be exceptionally thin skinned either. They simply have to make it clear to everyone from the outset that the conversations, comments and innuendo in no way applies to them, they're just there to do the job.
Case in point: I used to work in the oil patch around about ten years ago. At first my crew / shopmates weren't sure quite how to behave with a 'girl' on the truck (I saw an awful lot of bare spots on the walls where the nudie pics were hastily removed:). After a brief discussion with the guys, I made it clear that I didn't mind foul language, dirty jokes, or photos of women on the walls (as long as they were wearing a bikini at least), so long as they were absolutely, crystal clear that none of that ever applies to me. They relaxed, I relaxed, and we got along great! The guys would keep their skin mags in the sleeper, and always made sure I had privacy when we didn't have a bathroom on site (more often than not, unfortunately). They'd even call down the rig guys on my behalf if they started getting obnoxious, they really were a super set of guys to work with.
Of course, the other side of the coin is: the boss must be approachable if there is even one jerk in the bunch who won't take 'no' or 'get lost' for an answer. I thankfully never got to that point, the few who were mildly persistent eventually got it through their heads that I was serious about my job and would never break my workplace rules on the matter. But if it is causing stress, and the guy just won't take a hint, then the boss better be ready to back her up with measures. Same from the other direction: if she starts hitting on some of the team and won't take 'no', or 'I'm married' for an answer, the boss had better be ready to back the guys up, pronto!
Perhaps. But under the circumstances I suspect one of the two scenarios is most likely:
He's a troll and is lying about everything. Taking him seriously just made him way happy.
He really is in the industry and, and most likely so was his wife. In this case, the "immature" responses are actually welcome, appropriate, and probably fufullable with a simple internet search.
I tend to take people at their word, because I'm a straight shooter myself. The situation he described is completely plausible in all respects, and an excellent example of why modifications to body armor should have been implemented decades ago: why assume he's making it up? Just because he has an ill-considered sig?
(also, it had never even dawned on me how a woman in body armor shooting a large gun and receiving injuries to her chest from it could be considered erotic. Some men really do live in a shallow little petri dish, don't they? Or maybe it's just their minds living there...)
Regardless, I just have one question for you. If you were once a garbage collector, would you really not mind being expected to empty trash cans and pick up litter everywhere you go for the rest of your life, while you're on vacation, while you're out shopping, even if you moved to a different career?
Then why, pray tell, would you figure she would feel any different, even if she was in the industry? It's a job, for chrissake, it's not who she is. I have what may be heartbreaking news for you and many others: the on-screen talent in the adult film industry are called actors for a reason...they're just pretending to like you (or the generic on-screen male substitute). Oh, I don't doubt that some enjoy their job more than others, but for most, it's just a way to pay the bills. Sorry.
Slashdot Mirror
Mmmmm....cinnamon applets.... ;o)
That's a good start. However, as some one who has worked at a charitable non-for-profit, those percentages can get messy. If you spend $100,00 on a fund rasing event like charity ball that generates a total of $400,000 ( for a net gain to the charity of $300,000), You have to report that $100,000 that was spent on putting the event together as a non charitable expense. Even if the $300,000 goes directly to building a school in Africa, it looks like you as a charity only spend %75 of all funds on your charitable cause.
...but that's kinda exactly what happened in your hypothetical scenario, isn't it?
That's why charities have to separate charitable and non-charitable (administrative) expenses for reporting. Any money spent for the sole purpose of raising more money, such as salaries for envelope stuffers or cold callers, and yes, costs for charitable fundraising events *should* be reported as administrative overhead, because that's exactly what it is. If you want to see a better ROI from the fundraising event, you'll just have to find some way to bring in more cash with less expenditure, just like any other business.
A fundraiser event that brings in $2 million is great! One that brings in $2 million but costs $1.5 million is just rich people throwing themselves an expensive party to pat themselves on the back before they go back to Tahiti to play with their yachts. (Okay, that would be some party, I'll admit :) Not to mention being a huge risk to the charity: what if they don't recoup the initial expenses? Sure, they can brag that their party brought in 'over $1 million in donations', but in the end, the contributions are simply wasted on champagne and caviar instead of going to the people who need them.
I agree, sometimes it can be a bit tricky figuring out if something should be classified as a charitable or administrative expense, but in the end, as a potential contributor to the cause, that admin overhead percentage is exactly what I want to see before I lend my support. I don't want to give money to organizations that simply turn around and spend it primarily on making more money. If I wanted that, I'd just give it to the bank instead.
I love your story! Mod points wouldn't be enough for your post 8)
I love your .sig too ;)
8-PP
Thanks! That story usually gets a chuckle and rolled eyes from those who know us :)
It just goes to show that having lots in common with your partner isn't 'boring'...in fact, I think it's essential if you want to build a long-term, trusting relationship. I'm not saying that pilots and accountants can never be happy together, they had just better have a *lot* of other areas of interest in common :o)
Because that way you understand each other. Because that way your eccentricities don't bother her so much, and vice versa. Because that way you can generally simultaneously do things that you enjoy doing and also spend time with the person you enjoy spending time with, rather than picking one or the other exclusively.
I've never met anyone exactly like myself, though if I were single and did meet such a person, I would be immediately interested, but I wouldn't even consider a relationship with someone I didn't share a majority of interests and a similar worldview with. I've seen where that leads (it leads to a relationship like my parents' :p).
Exactly! My husband and I are both EE's and we've been happily together for...wow, has it really been 12 years already? Our main interests naturally have a lot of crossover, but it's not like we're clones of each other. We have plenty of other interests to discuss when we don't want to talk shop, and ones that allow us to interact with our (mostly non-engineer) friends. But when it's just the two of us, as you said, we can easily find things that interest us both. Museum of modern art? meh. Museum of scifi/fantasy? Two tickets, please!
I do think we understand one another in ways that couples who subscribe to the 'opposites attract' theory of life never could. For example: he once got me a NAS unit with four 1TB hard drives for my birthday...and it was incredibly sweet, because it was exactly what I had wanted, right down to the brand of the hard drives. I think he must have snooped my browser history or something, because I hadn't even been hinting about it. Of course, if I do get a hankering for non-tech presents, I do have to hint very baldly indeed...but I know and accept that I won't get perfume for Christmas unless I email him the specific brand and where to buy it, whereas if I want the latest RPG for one of our gaming consoles, well, I just have to say 'hmmm, that one looks interesting' once ;o)
I was stunned when I watched the Hunger Games Blu-ray this weekend as what I thought was the lead up to the main menu in fact lead to a large message: "Previews for Your Mandatory Viewing". This was a purchased copy mind you, not a rental version. Of course now the Main Menu button was disabled, fortunately the chapter skip button was not (it must not be able to or it would have been).
This button disabling shit is unbelievable, even the Stop button. Yes, the Stop button.
To paraphrase John Siracusa, everything about Blu-ray sucks, except the AV quality, which you can't get anywhere else (legally).
Wow, just...wow.
Damn, I was really looking forward to buying the BluRay to support a movie/storyline I quite enjoyed, but if they're going to pull that shit...guess I'll just buy more books and hand them out instead.
It's a shame, because it's not many movies that I like enough to make me want to own my own physical copy, maybe one every two or three years (sometimes a couple per year, if it's been a good year) but when they crust up the legit copy in so many layers of marketing filth that you're too furious to enjoy the movie once you (finally) get to it...no. I refuse to support that business model, even if I'd really like to support the actual movie itself. Double damn.
For my part I don't really know who to trust. How do I know that PrivateInternetAccess is a legit service, and that they are really doing what they say they do? If I'm going to pay for a VPN service, I definitely want to be sure that they are solid.
I haven't joined a VPN services because I'm thinking that may just make it worse. Now some company has not just my browsing habits but potentially an email, credit card number, and address (or whatever billing details that are required).
There are VPN services that allow to mail cash. However, they know you by your IP. Just a few years ago I'd have thought I'm crazy for even thinking like this. But with all the news about companies trumping consumer rights and warrentless searches I really don't know anymore what to think.
Tangent here, but I think it's the same fundamental problem. Anybody have a brilliant idea?
Well, not brilliant, but useful :) Did you know that most of the VPN providers will accept PayPal? And did you also know that you can set up a PayPal account using a Visa or Mastercard gift card...that you bought with cash?
Yes, it's a bit of a hassle, since you'd have to add a new gift card to your faux PP account every so often as the other runs out, but hey, then they don't have anything but your IP to work with, and some throwaway email account. It's some peace of mind, at any rate.
As our bookshelves can attest, my spouse and I have been fans of Mr. Harrison's writing for decades now. He was a versatile writer who excelled at creating engaging and entertaining characters. We were so excited to find "The Stainless Steel Rat Returns" a couple of years ago, after thinking he had retired the series...
Rest in peace, good sir, and may the stars watch over you.
I can see this happening for some fairly small studies, but many very big studies simply can't be replicated. For example, a big public health study will possibly change the sampling population.
Err...so? If the study results can't be supported across a different sampling population (that still meets the study's stated criteria), then the original study results should be revised or invalidated. In fact, it's a better acid test if they do change the population.
fictitious e.g.: if a study emerges that says eating X amount of tomatoes increases the chance of bearing twins in women ages 19-29, but changing the sampling population to people from a different country (still eating tomatoes, still 19-29 and still bearing some percentage of twins) reverses that finding or is inconclusive, then the original finding is either too broad or just plain wrong.
That being said, I agree with the rest of your post. Some experiments are just to big, too long and involving too much specialized equipment to be able to quickly replicate elsewhere. Trying to book time at the LHC for this would increase the costs far beyond reason, any research grants would basically have to be doubled to support it.
I thought he already did that! It sure functioned like one, at any rate...
why not unplug the webcam when not being used?
Fair question. I suppose I should have said "laptop webcams" instead of the more generic term "webcams".
Indeed, if I need a webcam for my desktop, it isn't plugged in until I use it, and is unplugged right after I'm done. You can't do that with an integrated webcam, and it's getting harder to find laptops or netbooks without integrated webcams these days...
I'm surprised there isn't more ransomware that turns your webcam on, perhaps catching you in something you'd rather not have on the interwebs, and blackmails you with that.
For this reason, I am still amazed that no (well, not many) webcams out there come with a physical shutter that the user can slide closed / open. Why leave it 'looking' at you when you're not using it?
It's not like people don't know this is possible, it's been used as a premise in enough tv shows...
Ah well, a sticker works about the same for me...low tech to the rescue! :)
...it's a bad idea to be next to a car on the road anyways. You're supposed to stagger(or at least that was what I was taught).
Really? I was taught that if I was staggering, it's time to let someone else drive.
Meh. Different strokes. :)
I have a much harder one for you, that I've dealt with myself once (and admittedly not with 100% success): a road covered in fresh snow. No lines visible, everything white. In the dark, with the edge of the road only detectable by a small drop in the snow level and the occasional pole sticking out, snowed-over reflector optional.
Have one of the systems see in a wavelength where the refractive index of water ice is close to the refractive index of air. Snow will be transparent.
Interesting...I suppose rescue workers on ski slopes find these devices absolutely invaluable for locating buried avalanche victims. And for checking out Frosty's underwear, of course. :p
With hundreds of self-driving cars everywhere, then they may even be able to save on gas by flocking together and save on wind resistance and save on stopping time by sharing gas and Slurpees at high speeds.
High-speed beverage passing? We can only dream...
Although, that does sound much more entertaining than a lot of the other crap on the idiot box these days :)
This study just corroborates what I already knew. People are shallow. Especially all you Comic Sans haters. I think half the Comic Sans hatred is just because it has become trendy to hate Comic Sans.
First World Problems. Slashdot is full of articles about them lately, and people who like to bitch and moan about them.
Anyone who flies into a rage at seeing a font they don't like has to step back from the screen and get out of the basement/cave for a while...a looong while. Get out and volunteer to be a Big Brother or something, seriously.
btw, if I could've, I would've written this entire post in Comic Sans, for all the fans out there :P
Q: "What was the name of your first dog?"
A: oiq387jhoxzlpo8q )7y9l;iop;a jnls7ul.l
Keepass is your friend.
Keepass combined with SpiderOak is your portable, mobile, goes-everywhere-you-go friend :)
Did anyone tell them to check their spam filters?? :p
Of course, it's often the boss who is the source of the problem.
You are correct, and this can be a major problem, especially if the boss is 'old school' and secretly resents having to hire a 'chick'. I don't mean to imply that this attitude is restricted to older gentlemen only, it's just that, in my experience, I'd usually get the most pushback from customers when they were within a few years of retirement, with a few wonderful and open-minded exceptions. I can (luckily) only imagine what having to work for someone with that attitude would be like.
That sounds like an excellent case for escalation, and one would hope most reputable companies would have some sort of mechanism in place to accommodate this. In all cases, though, your best approach is to document everything from the outset. Keep notes on conversations, times, dates, possible witnesses, your responses and their follow through (or lack thereof). Try to keep it from being he said / she said as much as possible, and make it clear that you have made them aware them of the problem(s) on several occasions. The boss (or over-boss) who can look at that and still dismiss your complaints...well, now it's moving into civil lawsuit territory.
ITA! There is a huge difference between guys having pictures of girls on the wall and being catcalled. I worked as a sec in a warehouse. This was fine. I walked through the warehouse and had to hear the guys tell their jokes and see the pictures. It was all good. As the only girl in the place, it could be a bit awkward going to the back but you got used to it.
Then a new guy showed up and he way crossed the line. When he started offering me money to take off my top, that is not fun and games. He was fired on the spot because that is NOT something you do in the workplace.
Yes, that was totally over the line, even if he just thought he was being 'funny'. Not cool, but it's great that your boss backed you up like that!
I'd get the occasional crudity directed my way from riggers, but a) we only usually had to deal with them for a couple of hours a week, if that, and b) most of them took the suggestion to 'get it from your inflatable girlfriend' with a laugh, and left it at that. For the (very) few that were extra creepy, 'my' guys on the truck made sure I was never alone on site, and did the running back and forth for me if information was needed (honestly, it was like working with a passel of big brothers).
Thank goodness none of that ever came from our own employees, they all showed respect for my person and my abilities (or if they didn't when they hired on, the others soon set them straight :)
I understand they've renamed their table computer, but I don't think I've ever seen any explaination on what motivated them to want to change the name of that and call their new tablet "Surface" instead.
That was my thought exactly! When I first heard that they would be coming out with the Surface, I was all "ooh, table-sized touch interfaces are finally on the way! Hello new coffee/gaming table!"
The return to reality was quite a letdown...seriously, board games and RPGs could be so much fun on one of those things :(
Why migrate away from the "iPad" standard?
1) The freaking stylus. I get Jobs hated styluses because he never got over the period you were forced to use them. I get everyone wants to copy his "genius". Still, there are times when I want to write on my digital tablet like it is actually a tablet. Using my finger on an iPad feels like I'm writing out notes with a highlighter. Using a third party stylus feels like a crayon. Microsoft is recognizing some of us want to use pens. Maybe I'm wrong, but this is something that I haven't seen in Android or iOS yet.
They're out there, at least for Android. And they're sooo much better than crayons :)
Sometime ago we had an article where a MS was taking the heat because one of its employees who also contributed to Linux kernel put 0xB16B00B5 as an hex constant in the kernel. THAT is the degree of insanity that this nonsense reached nowadays.
Indeed. Something like that is quite juvenile, but ultimately harmless. Who cares? Well, apparently some people do. Talk about a tempest in a teacup...
It's sad that common sense so rarely makes an appearance in these sorts of things.
And the same applies to the female in question. If I hire an employee, male or female I expect her or him to get the work done, instead of bitching about not liking what other employees are saying and making frivolous accusation of sexual harassing because of fleeting remarks.
I have nothing against prosecuting people who use their positions of authority to demand sexual favors, but in USA things have became utterly silly. ANYTHING can be considering harassment, even the way you look at someone. It is no wonder jobs are getting outsourced more and more.
This is an excellent point. The tolerance does have to flow both ways in such a situation, always.
I'm not saying that there aren't sniggering little douches out there, whose prime goal is to make anyone eligible to wear a skirt as uncomfortable as possible (you know who you are), but on the other hand, women working in a traditionally male workplace can't be exceptionally thin skinned either. They simply have to make it clear to everyone from the outset that the conversations, comments and innuendo in no way applies to them, they're just there to do the job.
Case in point: I used to work in the oil patch around about ten years ago. At first my crew / shopmates weren't sure quite how to behave with a 'girl' on the truck (I saw an awful lot of bare spots on the walls where the nudie pics were hastily removed :). After a brief discussion with the guys, I made it clear that I didn't mind foul language, dirty jokes, or photos of women on the walls (as long as they were wearing a bikini at least), so long as they were absolutely, crystal clear that none of that ever applies to me. They relaxed, I relaxed, and we got along great! The guys would keep their skin mags in the sleeper, and always made sure I had privacy when we didn't have a bathroom on site (more often than not, unfortunately). They'd even call down the rig guys on my behalf if they started getting obnoxious, they really were a super set of guys to work with.
Of course, the other side of the coin is: the boss must be approachable if there is even one jerk in the bunch who won't take 'no' or 'get lost' for an answer. I thankfully never got to that point, the few who were mildly persistent eventually got it through their heads that I was serious about my job and would never break my workplace rules on the matter. But if it is causing stress, and the guy just won't take a hint, then the boss better be ready to back her up with measures. Same from the other direction: if she starts hitting on some of the team and won't take 'no', or 'I'm married' for an answer, the boss had better be ready to back the guys up, pronto!
Perhaps. But under the circumstances I suspect one of the two scenarios is most likely:
I tend to take people at their word, because I'm a straight shooter myself. The situation he described is completely plausible in all respects, and an excellent example of why modifications to body armor should have been implemented decades ago: why assume he's making it up? Just because he has an ill-considered sig?
(also, it had never even dawned on me how a woman in body armor shooting a large gun and receiving injuries to her chest from it could be considered erotic. Some men really do live in a shallow little petri dish, don't they? Or maybe it's just their minds living there...)
Regardless, I just have one question for you. If you were once a garbage collector, would you really not mind being expected to empty trash cans and pick up litter everywhere you go for the rest of your life, while you're on vacation, while you're out shopping, even if you moved to a different career?
Then why, pray tell, would you figure she would feel any different, even if she was in the industry? It's a job, for chrissake, it's not who she is. I have what may be heartbreaking news for you and many others: the on-screen talent in the adult film industry are called actors for a reason...they're just pretending to like you (or the generic on-screen male substitute). Oh, I don't doubt that some enjoy their job more than others, but for most, it's just a way to pay the bills. Sorry.
Sir, with all due respect, pics or it didn't happen.
Okay, I must admit, that one made me chuckle. It doesn't mitigate the underlying disrespect for her gender, injuries or profession...but good one :p