Let's start with a nice cup of ... frustration, courtesy of Between Friends. The empty pot was also in yesterday's strip, so it may be the start of an arc, but it's certainly a memory.
Anyone who has worked in an office -- at least before we started piling up those damned Keurig cups in our landfills -- knows the frustration of the empty pot, but I'm going to stake a claim to special status.
The empty pot was infuriating enough when I worked at newspapers that weren't too cheap to offer coffee.
But moreso when I was doing a radio talkshow, because the break room was at the opposite end of the station and for most of my time there, I was my own engineer as well as the on-air talent.
I'd scan the schedule sheet and, if I saw a 60-second commercial, I'd know when I could get to the coffeepot, pour a cup, and hurry back to the studio before we started broadcasting dead air.
Or, I could get down there and find an empty pot, dump and refill the filter basket, pour in a carafe of water, hit the switch and get back to the studio.
And then I'd wait for my next 60-second break so I could go find another empty pot.
Good thing my ratings sucked or I'd have gone all prima donna and made heads roll. As it was, I was probably more valuable to the station as a busboy than I ever was as a revenue generator.
Or perhaps that was part of their cunning plan, since they eventually replaced me with syndicated programming.
Alex explores the exciting world of constructive dismissal, something of which I was a victim at one newspaper, where they wanted me to quit so they could hire a part-timer instead.
Employment law varies not only from country to country but, here, from state to state. The basics, however, are that, if you are fired for your employer's convenience, you are entitled to some kind of compensation. If you simply up and quit, you're on your own.
And so it's in their best interests to have you quit, and sometimes they are able to help that process come about through making your miserable, which is what Alex's board is contemplating. When you push too hard, that's "constructive dismissal."
I'm pretty sure a forced transfer to another country would qualify, but I doubt that a repeatedly empty coffeepot each time the on-air guy went on break would, unless you caught the program director pouring it down the sink.
But not only does the law vary, but it's kind of wiggly in each of its manifestations and you roll the dice any time you make a claim.
What's universal is that you'll have to live on your savings and credit cards between the time you walk out the door and the time when some adjudicator agrees -- or disagrees -- that you were being harassed into quitting.
The one time I had a legitimate claim, I couldn't afford that luxury, so I stayed on until I had a new job lined up, which I suspect is the most common outcome, which is why an employer might threaten people with jobs in Frankfurt.
It's worth a roll of the dice, regardless of the odds.
Italian cartoonist Cristina Bernazzani notes a wider societal risk in the workingclass being jerked around and made to feel they don't matter.
It's part of a collection at Cartoon Movement on populism and politics,which is worth clicking over to.
An important part of any populist movement -- whether it deals with Brexit or Trumpery or the various explicitly rightwing movements in Europe -- is to make people feel they're part of the group.
This bizarre ad came up on Facebook yesterday, and I'm a little insulted by his claim that my repeatedly telling people "For god's sake vote for anybody but that fascist screwball Trump" qualifies as having "played such an important role in our movement."
Perhaps it did.
But I'm more interested in the idea that a spammy ad is the same as a personal invitation. It's like being recruited by a cult.
"Hello, always nice to see you, (Jim). You know, the mainspring of this country, wound up as tight as it is, is guaranteed for the life of the watch. And who's watching? People like you (Jim) and you (Barney)."
Over at the Nib, Joel Christian Gill isn't buying it, and has an interesting theory for why so many people -- even those who don't support the PEOTUS -- are being so passive about it. This, of course, is but a snippet: Go read the rest.
Not everyone is sitting back without comment, and it's not surprising that, for instance, in the case of the ACA repeal-and-replace movement, Jack Ohman has little patience with those who speak of "replace" without speaking of what it might look like.
And Marty Two Bulls offers a narrowly targeted analysis from his niche in Indian Country.
Two Bulls was also active in the matter of the oil pipeline; it would be interesting to see how many of the people who worried so much about what might possibly happen in that case will now get behind the threat of what surely will in this one, and to far more people.
I was more surprised to see Gary Varvel voice his skepticism, though, upon reflection, I realized that, while Varvel is reliably conservative, he's even more reliably Christian and not just in the sense of putting on the title without accepting the morals that go with it.
It's going to be interesting, as we transition, to see who goes along passively, who actively leads the cult and who stands up to question Dear Leader.
Speaking of tough transitions:
Happy Birthday, FLOTUS. We're gonna miss you, too!
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