blowingglowingdandelions

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I think Pangur likes the new bed

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When the Boss Says, ‘Don’t Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Get Paid’

The HR manager tried to convince me that the offer was competitive. She told me that she couldn’t offer more because it would be unfair to other paralegals. She said that if we did not agree to a salary that day, then she would have to suspend me because I would be working past the allowed temp phase. I insisted that she look into a higher offer and she agreed that we could meet again later. Before I left, she had something to add.

“Make sure you don’t talk about your salary with anyone,” she said sweetly, as if she was giving advice to her own son. “It causes conflict and people can be let go for doing it.” (This is to the best of my recollection, not verbatim.)

It wasn’t all that surprising to hear this from a corporate HR manager. What was surprising was the déjà vu.

Just three months earlier, some of my coworkers at the coffee shop told me that our bosses, who worked in the office on salaries, and even the owner, got a higher cut of the tips than we did. One barista told me that when she complained about it, the managers reduced her hours.

When you make minimum wage and have to fight for more than 30 hours per week, tips are pretty important, so I sat down with my managers to discuss the controversy. That’s when they told me not to talk about it with the other baristas. The owner “hates it when people talk about money,” my manager added, and “would fire people for it if he could.” I sulked back to the espresso machine, making my lattes at half speed and failing to do side work.

In both workplaces, my bosses were breaking the law.

Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA), all workers have the right to engage “concerted activity for mutual aid or protection” and “organize a union to negotiate with [their] employer concerning [their] wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.” In six states, including my home state of Illinois, the law even more explicitly protects the rights of workers to discuss their pay.

This is true whether the employers make their threats verbally or on paper and whether the consequences are firing or merely some sort of cold shoulder from management. My managers at the coffee shop seemed to understand that they weren’t allowed to fire me solely for talking about pay, but they may not have known that it is also illegal to discourage employees from discussing their pay with each other. As NYU law professor Cynthia Estlund explained to NPR, the law “means that you and your co-workers get to talk together about things that matter to you at work.” Even “a nudge from the boss saying ‘we don’t do that around here’ … is also unlawful under the National Labor Relations Act,” Estlund added.

And yet, gag rules thrive in workplaces across the country. In a report updated this year, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that about half of American employees in all sectors are either explicitly prohibited or strongly discouraged from discussing pay with their coworkers. In the private sector, the number is higher, at 61 percent.

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i’m printing this out and i’m putting it on the mirror so i can confront myself with it

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I am lowkey unfit for human interaction

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you might be awkward but I can be awkward in a far deeper and more humiliating way than you ever will

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I'm wondering if, as a society who cares about vulnerable people, we could stop saying "traumatize" when we truly mean "upset"?

I am sick of hearing sad books or movies "traumatize" their readers. I simply do not believe that happens. A traumatic experience might be adjacent to books (I have vivid memories of books I was reading around certain experiences and even how the contents of those books affected my processing of the experiences). But it's not caused by the book. And, y'know. The weather is Christofascist Censorship Attempts outside.

Meanwhile from the other side I continue to be surprised at just how badly people fail to understand trauma and traumatic experiences in general. Watering down the term isn't helping. Find other hyperbole to express that The Bridge to Terebithia gutted you, chewed on your heartstrings, and made you cry your first pair of contact lenses right out of your preteen eyes.

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I have responsibilities like self torment and isolation

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commensalism between slime monsters and certain varieties of fish

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Im losing my shit

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die girlies reading this 🥰

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Anybody who says cats only play along with human nonsense in order to obtain food has never seen a hungry cat completely ignore a full bowl of food in favour of giving you shit because you did not correctly perform the Dinner Ritual.

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What's the process if you're a superhero and you come out as trans

Do you tell your villains?

Do you keep it a secret so no one can connect Spider-Man with your secret identity for a while? Or do you pop a pronouns pin on your costume and the next time you web up Doctor Octopus and he goes "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME SPIDER-MAN" you go "Spider-Girl actually! I've been figuring out some shit"

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the more i try to explain gender to cis people the more i understand plato's allegory of a cave

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does anyone else remember when peoples talking point against asexuality being a queer identity was to make up a cisgender heterosexual but aromantic man who wanted to get in to all the lgbt society meetings or was that just an embarrassing thing people i knew did

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fashion is cyclical