When I was a five year old boy, my father gave me a magnifying glass… set me on the curb near an anthill, and I spent the entire afternoon burning ants.

It was cruel.

But I had no idea about that during that time in my life. I mean, I was only five.

I wonder how many times that I hurt others though ignorance, and a lack of compassion. I really do wonder.

Look guys, we cannot change the world, but we can alter our little piece of it. Let’s just strive to be a little bit better on a day to day basis. What do you say?

Today…

As a teacher, what was the biggest lie you heard a student say?

I’ve been teaching nearly 20 years and my favorite lie is still the one that I heard as a brand new teacher.

A student came to class with his hand bandaged, carrying a doctor’s note. He told me “last night, my computer blew up and the shrapnel injured my hand so I couldn’t complete the homework assignment that was due today.”

I took a look at his hand. The bandage was so loose it was falling off. There was no way that any sober doctor had done such a sloppy job. It looked like he had tried to apply it himself and been unable to do it properly one-handed.

Then I took a look at the note. It was from a doctor’s office and it said “[Student’s name] has been seen for a ___ hand procedure.” I took a closer look at the blank space between “a” and “hand”. The word “minor” had been erased (but not well enough that I couldn’t see it if I squinted). I was guessing he had a wart removed or something that morning.

I didn’t need to point out the holes in his story, though. I just told him, “I’m sorry to hear about your injury, but the assignment wasn’t due today. It was due two days ago- the day before your ‘accident’.”

He walked to his seat without a word. He looked like he was going to be sick.

China’s Most Advanced Warship ABLAZE

World Hal Turner 21 November 2023

China’s People’s Liberation Army – Navy ship “Longushan” is reportedly ablaze just off the coast of China tonight.   The vessel is reported to be “China’s most advanced warship.”

No OFFICIAL word on what caused the fire.  (There ARE rumors . . . .)

All mention of this is being rapidly scrubbed from China social media networks, and no official information is coming out of Beijing.

The vessel bears Hull Number 980 and is described as a Type 071 landing ship.

China’s fifth Type 071 amphibious transport dock (LPD) Longhushan; with hull number 980) was commissioned with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN or Chinese Navy) on September 12, 2018 in Shanghai.

Originally designed after the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1996, the Type 071, measuring 210 meters long and 28 meters wide, is capable of carrying an 800-man marine battalion and some 20 amphibious tanks.

When you lost him

Has anything apparently insignificant or of little value ever been found by archaeologists, which later turned out to be of extraordinary value?

During building construction in an Athenian suburb in 2014, a tomb of the classical period was unearthed. It was no big deal, it happens frequently in Athens. Archaeologists took over but the findings in it weren’t of much interest…until they assembled a ceramic wine cup (a skyphos) smashed in 12 pieces, this one:

The cheap cup belonged to a man named Drapetes (the name, inscribed at the bottom of the cup, indicates a slave) However, the big surprise came from the other six names inscribed on the cup:

Aristides, Diodotos, Desimos, Arrifron, Pericles and Efkritos. Could this Pericles be the famous general?

Archaeologists say yes! This is why:

One of its fragments is engraved with six names, including Arrifron — the moniker of Pericles’s grandfather and brother. “The name Arrifron is very rare,” said A. P. Matthaiou, secretary of the Greek Epigraphic Society

. “The mention of [Arrifron] over that of Pericles on the surface of the vase makes us 99% confident that they are the two brothers.”

The inscription of the name Aristides also points favorably to Pericles having used the cup. Aristides was a politician who acted in Athens between 488 and 478 BCE, while Pericles led the city-state from 460 BCE to his death from the plague in 429 BCE. The cup dates between 480 and 465 BCE when the two might have interacted in a social setting such as a symposium or tavern. As men commonly drank from the same skyphos, it’s possible they would have carved their names onto the cup as a token of their meeting. “[He] certainly was dizzy from the wine as it is clear that whoever wrote the name of Pericles made a mistake initially … and then corrected it,” Matthaiou said.

Drapetes kept the cup. We don’t know why or how, maybe he was flattered by the presence of the noble company in his tavern.

It’s always a little magical when archeologists turn up objects that place such mythic figures in real time and space, breathing the same air and walking the same ground we do today. It seems miraculous that 2,500 years after the orator’s death, an ancient cup just happens to contain six complete names evidencing a life that has evaded archeologists for centuries.

U.S. Army prepares for War with China and Congress is EXCITED about it

Sigh. You all afraid, yet?

Angelina’s Zydeco Creole Jambalaya

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound smoked sausage, cut
• 1/2 pound ham, diced
• 1 cup onion, chopped
• 1 cup bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 1 cup green onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 can whole tomatoes, drained (reserve liquid)
• Pinch thyme
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice
• 1 1/2 cups stock water
• 2 pounds fresh shrimp, deveined

Instructions

1. Place sausage and ham in very heavy Dutch oven and sauté until lightly browned. Remove from pot and set aside.
2. Sauté onions, bell pepper, celery, green onions and add meat drippings. Cook until tender.
3. Add tomatoes, thyme, pepper and salt. Cook for five minutes. Stir in rice.
4. Mix together liquid from tomatoes, stock and Worcestershire sauce equal to 2 cups and add to sautéed vegetables. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and add fresh shrimp, ham and sausage. Cook uncovered, stirring often for about 30 minutes or until rice and shrimp are done.

Loyalty

U.S. Marines shifting focus to China, threat is “real”: top general

The U.S. Marines view deterring China as their key focus and will strive to make sure a conflict in the Indo-Pacific does not “spill over” to Japan, the military branch’s top general Eric Smith said Monday, while warning that Beijing’s missile capabilities are “significant” and “real.”

The Marine Corps’ No. 2 officer, who has been nominated to become the next commandant, also said in an interview in Tokyo that a littoral regiment being formed in Japan for remote island defense is being designed to provide “advanced maritime domain awareness” to allies and partners, in order to better detect events in surrounding waters.

The United States and Japan announced in January that the existing 12th Marine Regiment based in the southern prefecture of Okinawa will be reorganized into the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment by 2025, making it the first MLR to be forward-deployed against China.

The regiments will possess advanced surveillance capabilities and will be armed with long-range fires. Consisting of about 1,800 to 2,000 personnel per unit, they will also be capable of flexibly deploying small groups of marines to remote islands in the South China Sea.

The forming of the regiments comes amid China’s increased military assertiveness around far-flung southwestern Japan islets and Taiwan, which has raised the risk of conflict.

From HERE.

Commandant of US Marine Corps Hospitalized after Medical Emergency

Nation Hal Turner

The Commandant of the United States Marine Corps is hospitalized after a serious medical emergency. General Eric M. Smith suffered a medical emergency on the evening of October 29 and was taken to a hospital.

He is now in stable condition.

Per Statute Law 10 U.S.C. §8044, as the senior officer assigned to Headquarters, US Marine Corps, by date of rank, Lt. General Karsten Heckl, the Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration, who is the Commanding General of the Marine Corps Combat Command, is  serving as Acting Commandant of the Marine Corps, for the interim.

Wife Cheated On Me With Her Colleagues, so I Snatched Everything She Had – FULL STORY

“You didn’t dodge a bullet. 14 years with her, you got shot.”

What’s the most pretentious thing you’ve ever seen on a résumé?

I received a resume from someone who had recently graduated from high school. They had one job on the resume and their job title was Director in Charge of Company Morale at a prestigious local law firm.

The resume lacked all the things I was looking for, but the job title listed intrigued me. I set the interview and was waiting to hear a litany of lies.

On the day of the interview this cleancut sharp dressed young man showed up. After brief small talk I asked about the prior job and what it entailed.

Turns out his Director in Charge of Company Morale Position entailed him going out each morning and getting coffee for all the partners. He said without their morning coffee, morale was very low.

Best belly laugh in an interview ever. I hired him. And he worked out well because he found a way to place a positive attitude on everything he did, however menial the task.

Edit: I am honored that so many people like my answer. Thank you all.

Update: I’ve had several people suggest editing the gender from “they” to “he”. At the time I read the resume and set the appointment, I had no idea if the applicant was male or female. Gender was not a decision point in our hiring process. This is why I have left the answer unedited. Thank you all again for the overwhelming response.

What did you do that was a huge achievement for you but very insignificant to the people around you?

This morning, I woke up to a text from my bank.

“Unusual account activity— call this number”.

I called and the automated machine said it would read back my last five transactions to check for anything weird.

“Video entertainment— $65. California.”

“Video entertainment— $10. Declined. France.”

“Video entertainment— $10. Declined. France.”

“Gas— $30. Colorado.”

“Gas— $30. Wyoming.”

I was pretty sure I hadn’t been to France or California recently, so I checked my account summary and noticed I had -$50 in my account.

I’m taking poor college kid to a whole new level. I’m negative poor right now.

So I called their fraud number and the woman on the other end walked me through securing my account and getting a new card. She asked a few questions, told me my card was on its way, and hung up.

The achievement was not that I got my card number stolen. It wasn’t that I managed to put my account $50 under.

It’s that I made a phone call.

That sounds awfully small and to everyone around me it is, but I have been known to have panic attacks when forced to make phone calls. I hate ‘em. They make me anxious and uncomfortable and incredibly stressed.

I struggle with hearing on the phone (and in general, really), which exacerbates my social anxiety and makes phone calls some of the worst interactions I can have.

But today, I did it. The woman even had an accent and I think I understood her and responded correctly.

It’s a small thing, but when it’s one of your biggest fears, it can feel like the greatest thing in the world.

Make Daddy a sandwich

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OY4MSrW5U-Y?feature=share

When did you realize you’re an asshole?

I was 20 and dating a guy that I met in a 20s chat room. This was the year 2000. We went to a grocery store and was walking down the Easter candy isle when I spotted these malt eggs. I stopped and said, “eww! Do you remember getting these in the bottom of your Easter basket every year?!” He simply said, “No.” Stupid me goes on and on about how I hated them and that he MUST remember getting them… He finally says quietly, “No. I didn’t ever get an Easter basket. My parents didn’t have the money.”

THAT is why I’m an asshole.

FYI, I married that guy that same year and we are still together with 3 amazing kids.

The next Easter morning he woke up to his first Easter basket from the Easter bunny complete with malt eggs. 🪺

Are you happy with your current life situation?

I got some new shoes today.

I was cleaning the coffee cart when a guest at the soup kitchen walked by me.

“You’re wearing Converse. Do you collect them?”

“No,” I tell her. “I just like my old black pair. They’re comfortable shoes.”

“They are. I have some pink ones that don’t fit me—I’ll bring them and if they fit you, you can have them.”

True to her word, I glanced out of the kitchen door today to see her holding them up, much to my coworkers’ confusion.

At work, I can’t walk two steps without someone stopping to talk to me.

One man spent all day poking fun at me about how sunburned my arms are.

Another gave us all breakfast burritos and promised sopapillas tomorrow.

I spent a good part of an afternoon with one of our volunteers trading fun facts and talking about theatre.

Sometimes strangers stop in the serving line to tell me their story.

I learned about Rainbow Gatherings and how they send positive energy into the world.

About powwows.

About brain injuries and single parenting and the best way to make spaghetti and bonnets purchased in Missouri and what chickens like to eat and how they make decaffeinated coffee.

About cancer and babies and sunburn cures and about how food is one of the greatest gifts known to man.

I took the job at the soup kitchen because it paid and because they called me back first.

But damn, my job fuels my artist’s brain more than anything else.

People. People are all that art is.

And if you can be in a room where veterans and drug addicts and businessmen and hitchhikers all sit at the same table for a meal—

You’ll find no better place to hear someone’s story.

Today, I got new shoes, and I don’t even know that woman’s name.

But I know her. I know them all, even if all I know is that one guy likes the comics in the newspaper and another always waits for his wife before eating.

You ask if I’m happy with my current life situation.

I’m poor. My pay is calculated at pretty much the poverty line for the local community, so I’m making fuckall in money.

I’m tired and I’m sunburned and I’m sore and I’m still excited to go to work every day.

It doesn’t feel like a job. I don’t dread it like I honestly thought I would.

I’ve been sleeping full nights and working full days and while the depression doesn’t just go away, it finds someplace else to be during the work day.

I wish I had the money to do everything I want to do, but I will honestly take full days at the soup kitchen over working fast food any day of the week.

I guess I’m happy.

I don’t know. I’m content. The days are flying by faster than I can count them.

If anything, this work strengthens my desire to work in nonprofits. I don’t think traditional schools are for me.

I’m excited to keep going, and that feels good enough for me.

Don’t take it personally

Do Europeans view Americans as prudes?

I was very surprised with American attitude towards (partial) nudity. A couple of real-life examples from when I lived in NJ:

• My kids were 2 and 3 years old and during the summer it’s very normal in Europe for small children to run around the house and yard naked. When they did that in the US however, I received several complaints from our neighbours and one of them put up a solid fence between our properties after that.
• Two years later we went to a water park in Hope, NJ and our daughter was only wearing bikini bottoms. The top didn’t fit well, would only annoy her and there was nothing there to hide or cover up (so we thought). We received a warning from the park and had to cover her up or leave immediately.
• When our daughter was in pre-school we (the parents) had to stop by the principal for a serious discussion: they noticed how our 4-year old daughter started undoing her pants before she got in the rest room with the door closed, which was apparently shocking to the other kids.

After that we started adjusting better to the local norms and didn’t have any incidents anymore. I’ve always wondered though why this was such a big deal and suspect it to be a nutty religious thing.

Which is the most powerful country today?

CHINA, in every respect, I know every yank will say the USA but I don’t think so, not anymore, mainly because of their debt, and growing daily, yes, the US have a very powerful navy, but SO WHAT? Ships can be sunk, and sunk quickly, missiles are the thing these days, and China is way ahead with their hypersonic missiles, double the speed of US ones. According to all reports. Also, they run rings around the US in speed and cost of manufacturing. Which also puts China in front.

Have you ever walked out of a restaurant after you were seated by a waiter or waitress?

Yes! Just recently my husband and I did this. We were visiting NY. Our hotel had a restaurant in it. We went down for breakfast. There was a menu just outside of the restaurant. The continental buffet was $29. The hot buffet was $45. A little steep, but we figured those were just NY prices.

When it was our turn to be seated, they but us at a high communal style table. I’m 5″2 and I HATE high tables! We sat down and looked around. We looked at each other. The kind of silent communication you can do with someone you’ve been with for years. Then we decided that we were not paying $100 for breakfast while we sat at an uncomfortable “display” table. I turned and looked out the window. I saw 53rd St. Grill across the street. We walked past the waiter as he was bringing our waters. The food at the grill was delicious, and cost about $30 for both of us. We ate breakfast there for the remainder of our trip.

She can’t handle the truth…

What’s something that sucks about being a man?

I have several female friends that worked hard in school and then got prestigious jobs. But the thing about prestigious jobs is that they’re usually a lot of long hours of tough work. They made fairly good money but after a long, frustrating day at work they would sometimes joke “ugh, I need to find a rich husband so I can be a house wife.”

And then some of did. One of them moved to another country where traditional gender roles are more prevalent and she found herself a really rich husband. Then a few of the other girls moved too and, I kid you not, they also found rich husbands.

I’ve met a lot of girls that have jumped up the socioeconomic ladder through marriage. But guys? I haven’t met a single one. Generally speaking, girls still expect guys to make at least as much as them.

So what sucks about being a guy? The immense pressure to be financially successful. As much as we try to deny it, society is obsessed with financial status and will measure a man’s worth based on his wealth.

What are some good examples of perverse incentives?

The current economic system is full of perverse incentives.

Ever heard of the phrase “identifying your customer’s needs”?

The thing is, creating or maintaining needs so that you know what people need is more profitable than trying to identify new needs every time.

Problems cause need, and so problems are encouraged.

Imagine there is a pothole in the street.

That’s a problem. It’s going to cause issues.

If you identify it, then you could set up a company to fix roads, and try to get paid to fix it.

But what would be even more profitable would be to lobby so that it doesn’t get fixed, and then open a shop next to it to fix people’s suspensions after they break, or to offer towing services.

Because then you have a repeated source of income.

And then anyone trying to fix the pothole becomes a threat to your bottom line.

---

People benefit from the existence of problems, because then they can be paid to provide a temporary solution.

And this impacts many areas of our lives.

The legal system currently is bloated, and overly complicated. But the lawyers have a job thanks to that, so they don’t want it to change.

Government officials are corrupted by bribes and lobbying, and their perverse incentive is to take the money instead of working for the good of people.

Planned obsolescence leads to people making items that don’t last a long time but break fast, and have to be replaced, because that’s an opportunity for profits.

We are scared of human labor being replaced by machines. A weird incentive to be against progress and automation, because our access to resources depends on our labor being needed.

Health insurance is a business that tries to deny as many claims as possible to increase profits.

The owners and workers of the factories producing bombs and munition rely on constant wars for their income.

Creating emotionally laden clickbait attracts more attention than rational discourse.

---

If you identify a problem somewhere, fixing it is not the most profitable thing you can do; letting it happen, and then swooping in is.

If you want maximum profits, and know that the housing market will crash, you don’t want to try and avoid that, you want to short the market and make billions. And then use the billions to buy up the low price property from the desperate people in need who just lost their life savings.

There are perverse incentives all around us.

---

The perverse incentive is to do the easy thing, for short term profits.

Doing the right thing, even when it’s hard, to reap the long term benefits? That’s what we should be aiming for.

Men are visual

What was the bravest thing you ever did in a job interview?

I arrived for an interview and was asked to wait a few minutes as the interviewer was held up. A few minutes later he came out, apologised said he’d been called to an urgent problem. He explained that some of the stuff I’d be working on would highly commercially sensitive and while he finished up could I read through the pre-interview contract and sign it.

I read through it and though I’m no lawyer it read like they could sue for everything I owned from my house down to my underwear if I so much as said I’d been within a mile of the building. The I interviewer came back a few minutes later and asked if I was happy and had signed the paperwork.

I replied that I hadn’t signed coz it looked a bit iffy on the conditions and he replied

‘congratulations, you’re the first person out of 8 people who passed the first stage test’.

Apparently everyone else had skimmed through and signed and not bothered really looking at what they were signing off on.

I got the job 🤣

Percentages

What’s the best excuse for being late you’ve ever heard?

A kid walked in late to my English class in 8th grade.

My teacher was really weird, and would go on these rants about how space doesn’t exist, reality is a figment of our imagination, and one person at google is taking over the world by deciding what search results google gives you.

This kid walks in and says “I’m not late because time doesn’t exist.”

He wasn’t marked late.

FIRST TIME HEARING Simple Minds – Alive & Kicking REACTION

How liberal are you?

I’m a retired cop, and most people think we are very conservative. My law enforcement friends think I’m a hippie.

• I am for the legalization of recreational marijuana. I have never tried it, probably wouldn’t even if it was legalized, but it’s time for us all to grow up and see that Reefer Madness isn’t helping anyone.
• I am opposed to the death penalty. I don’t like pedophiles or murderers, I just don’t think our government should be in the business of killing people. And I know first hand how flawed our criminal justice system is.
• I support peaceful protests, even if I disagree with their views.
• I think we (law enforcement) need to work with the media. Many of my colleagues think I’m nuts. It’s win-win when we do.
• I think abortion should be legal. But I wish the last one performed was the last one ever performed.
• I support diversity, tolerance, and I believe in “seeing the whole elephant” (a term I constantly told to my sons as a lesson from a poem by John Godfrey Saxe: The Blind Men and the Elephant

• ). We need to put ourselves in each other’s shoes, and the best way to do that is to be around each other.
• My grandfather’s first sight of America was the Statue of Liberty. I believe that monument is still relevant.
• I vote for democrats. I vote for republicans. I vote for independents and green party and libertarians. I just think we need some good people in charge, and it makes me crazy when people vote straight party tickets.
• I am a straight white male, married for 37 years. (Hi, honey.) But I am glad same sex couples can get married. I have 4 grandchildren. If they grow up with different preferences than most, I still want them to find love and happiness.
• Trump is a disaster, and I’m going to wear out my rosary beads because of him.
• I believe in the Second Amendment (actually am quite fond of them all), but I think it has gotten out of hand. Maybe we are not as self controlled as the Founding Fathers had hoped we would be. I am for reasonable restrictions on gun ownership.
• I think everyone should have health insurance (at least as good as what members of congress give themselves), whether they can pay for it or not. Life is an inalienable right. Pretty sure health is too.

Not sure if that makes me liberal or not. I don’t like breaking rules or laws, but there are times when that is necessary. As long as you understand the consequences.

As that great philosopher Popeye once said, “I yam what I yam.”

Psychologist Explains Why MEN CARE about a WOMAN’S SEXUAL HISTORY: what women don’t understand

This is very interesting. I never looked at things this way.

“Paying twice as much for getting something ½ the value.”

…

“Well as a man, it doesn’t matter to me whether they have “grown” or got more wisdom, they still did the deeds, and as rude as it may sound to a woman, a good man will hold you accountable for your actions and your past. No high value man, as they put it, wants to pay new car prices for a used car.”

What are the downsides of being promoted at work?

Management didn’t know what to do with Steven and it was their fault. Steven was a 28-year-old coworker and assistant project manager. We worked at a corporate construction company and project managers were our most important personnel.

Steven was smart and had stellar reviews, but when prompted about promoting to PM, he said, “No, no, I’m good.” It perplexed our CFO and COO, who didn’t know why a good employee wouldn’t want more money and responsibility.

I knew why. I was the budget manager at his division and sat in on many of their meetings. I saw the grueling pressure put on project managers and saw them yelled at on occasion. It wasn’t an easy job. Steven figured, he was young and enjoying his life and didn’t want that kind of pressure. And perhaps he thought he’d be bad at the job — which is wiser than most realize.

The Peter Principle was first proposed by psychologist Laurence J. Peters and was intended as satire. It proposed that competent employees will be continually promoted until they are incompetent in their new role. Then, they remain in that position for the remainder of their career. Consequently, every role is eventually held by an incompetent employee. His concept was unexpectedly hailed by researchers as having relevance and truth. Many firms now actively work to combat it.

I would wager any person reading this, who has been in corporate long enough, can think of at least one manager who was shockingly bad at their job. Yet they seemed untouchable.

It makes intuitive sense that as the demands and competition go up, your shine can easily lose its luster. For example, I was a good swimmer and the captain of my high school team. I felt like a god when I swam in local meets against kids who only swam a few months a year. But as I went up to districts, states, and then regionals, I felt increasingly less special.

Today, I’m a writer who sits on the other side of the corporate fence, living mostly free of hierarchal structures and constantly worrying about mistakes slipping through. I see my own partner, and friends, all angling for promotions and raises. This isn’t bad on its own as I admire ambition. But I’ve watched many of them take a hit to their life satisfaction.

The data reflects this: Employees are the unhappiest they’ve been in years, due to a lack of control, unreasonable workloads and not enough time off. You’d wonder why anyone would want to take on more if they are already drowning, but they do — by the millions.

It seems paradoxical. You work to be good at your job and gain respect, only to be promoted to a position that jeopardizes those perceptions. Being highly competent risks making you incompetent.

If you succeed enough, your high flying incompetence may introduce the Peter Principle’s brother, dubbed Peter’s Pinnacle, where you make a huge mistake and are paid to go away. It happened with the president of Disney, Michael Ovitz, who was fired after 16 months but made off with a $38 million severance.

The art of balancing

A few programmers I’ve known are good at dodging this responsibility paradox. My buddy Brian is a high flying coder, who is stiff-arming attempts by management to bring them into their fold and start managing people. He insists his goal is to be a skilled programmer and contribute to the company.

But beware of letting this mindset drag you to stagnancy. Don’t become the middle aged employee who has been in the same role for 10–20 years, just going through the motion and replying blandly to questions about their day with, “Living the dream.” The difference with Brian is that he is continually refining his programming, and is passionate about coding. There’s still a fire in him.

I’ve seen many falls from grace over the years, employees who were five star performers and thought highly of. Then, months after the company gleefully announced their promotion, the whispers started, “I heard he’s been struggling in his new role.” And, “He’s slipping.”

At a former employer, there was a corner room we called “The Death Trap.” The role for that office fell under a difficult manager and had sky-high expectations. They went through four people in 18 months. The company fired three managers who’d had great reviews in prior roles. One was saved by the skin of his neck by transferring to another department. It was the Peter Principle on full display.

Companies can do better too

Per a study by Dr. Ed Lazear at Stanford University, companies should account for the Peter Principle in any promotion decision because it’s an inevitable consequence. One solution is to inflate the original promotion requirements to smooth the transition. Put another way, ensure the candidate is an absolute star in their current role before leading them to deep waters.

Sometimes, you shouldn’t promote great employees at all. For example, in school, they often took our “Teachers of the Year” and offered them jobs in the administration. It’s tragic because it removed the teacher from working with students and making an impact where they thrived. Why not pay the teacher more to keep being an awesome teacher? To the managers seeing this, think long before hard-capping salaries by job title.

Parting thoughts

Think about your job well beyond compensation. Your motivation and job satisfaction are driven by feelings of competence, relatedness (feeling connected to coworkers), and autonomy. Every move up the ladder impacts those three things in unpredictable ways. If you do take a promotion, use that job to supplement your skills. Hire and surround yourself with smart people, and listen to what they have to say. That alone would save many from the clutches of the Peter Principle.

Everything is a tradeoff. I was keenly aware of that when I quit finance to be a writer. It was a conscious but difficult decision. I resolved I would probably never get wealthy. Upward mobility, outside of me writing a fluke hit book, would be limited. My health benefits would vanish. But I’d be doing something creative and that I loved doing, with minimal oversight and flexibility. Four years out, I’m still happy with this decision, but I am constantly doing status checks. Things can change on a dime.

My point is: Take a long view. Protecting your reputation and integrity gets harder as you carry more responsibility and teams to manage. Make sure the new role aligns well with your skillset, lifestyle, and has the support in place for you to thrive. If you make the decision solely for money, you may fall into an old and dangerous career trap.

Women are retards?

I don’t think so, but he has a point.

What was the moment you cancelled the friendship with your best friend?

For most of my life, my best friend was my sister. Then one day she called me and said that she didn’t want me to be part of her life anymore. I can’t tell you why because she didn’t say. That was five years ago and I haven’t heard from her since.

About two years ago I found out that she had moved to another state without even letting me know. I had some kind of emotional breakdown. Tears streamed down my cheeks for four straight days. I couldn’t sleep. My heart was broken.

The hardest thing about it is not knowing why. I’ve run dozens of scenarios through my mind but nothing seems to make sense. We have completely different political views but had made a pact years before that we just simply would never discuss politics. I had just been diagnosed with cancer for the second time just days before the phone call. She refuses to deal with anything “sad”; so maybe that was it.

After about four years of losing sleep and wondering what had happened, I realized that I don’t care so much about it any more. I guess that was the day that I cancelled our friendship. I consider her to be my ex-sister, now. I have lots of friends who do want me to be a part of their lives. They are my true brothers and sisters.

Blue Bayou Bananas Foster Shortcake

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

Biscuits

• 2 ounces (about 1/3 cup) brie cheese, diced
• 2 1/2 cups Bisquick
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup water

Sauce

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 4 large bananas, cut into 1/2 inch slices
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons dark rum
• 2 tablespoons banana liqueur

Garnish

• Whipped cream
• Fresh mint sprigs

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F.

Biscuits

1. Add together the diced cheese, Bisquick and sugar, mix well. Add the water and mix thoroughly to make a wet batter. Drop the batter in 4 mounds onto a greased cookie sheet and bake on the top rack for 20 minutes or until cooked through (when wooden pick inserted in middle comes out clean).
2. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

Sauce

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and sauté the bananas for about 3 minutes. Add the sugars and stir until melted. Add the cream and, stirring constantly, cook over high heat until it reaches a boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes. Add the rum and banana liqueur.
2. To serve, cut the cooled biscuits from the top two thirds of the way down, open it up and pour the sauce into the center of the biscuit.

Garnish

1. Serve with whipped cream and mint sprig.

Promiscuous Women Have The LOWEST Standards | Pearl Daily

This is super interesting.

“My first experience with a woman in a typically male job, was in a campground at age 16. We worked as general labor, building things, cutting trails, planting trees and so on. Once or twice a week we would rotate an “easy day” while we rode the riding lawn mower, basically just sitting on our ass all day long. That ended when a girl started. She did nothing but ride the mower all day, every day. Somehow what was previously 1-2 easy days of work, became a full time job for her. And the rest of us no longer got any “easy days”. She never held a shovel, or a hammer, or an axe. But she got paid the same.”

https://youtu.be/3ihhTK6fbao

Why do rich people work even after they become rich? Why don’t they play?

“Dad, when will you retire?” I asked him one day.

“Hector, I retired before you were born,” he laughed.

Confused, I asked again, “Be honest, Dad, I mean, when will you stop working?”

His response was simple, “Working? What’s work? I don’t know what work is.”

“OK, Dad, forget about it,” I said as I assumed he wasn’t willing to talk about this.

“Hector,” he said, “what you know as my job is not work for me. I enjoy architecture so much that I could do this 24/7. This is who I am. Architecture is my life.”

So, to answer your question, why do rich people work even after they become rich? Why don’t they play?

My father lived to be 91 and worked until his body gave up on him. He was a passionate architect who found joy in his work. That’s what kept him active and full of joy every day. His passion for architecture was infectious, and it taught me this valuable lesson about work as a lifestyle.

So, if you ask me about retirement or work-life balance, I’d say it’s better to find what you love and make it a part of your life. When you find that, you’ll stop working and start living. We achieve a balance not by separating work from life but by integrating what you love into your lifestyle.

Today, this is how I see it: It’s not about working less; it’s about loving more what you do.

That’s the secret to a fulfilling life. As my father always said, “The day you find what you love is when you will stop working.”

So, go out there and find your passion. Make it your lifestyle.

And remember, it’s not work when you love what you do.

12 rules