#funny Scrum lessons

[josephkravis]

🐽 Eddy the Pig: Lost in the Scrum of Life 🐽

Once upon a sprint, Eddy the Pig 🐖 decided he didn’t need a backlog or a burndown chart.

Once upon a sprint, Eddy the Pig 🐖 decided he didn’t need a backlog or a burndown chart. “Stand-ups? Pfft! I’ll just do my own thing. 🚀 After all, how hard can it be?” Spoiler alert: Eddy got so lost. 😱 He wandered off the product roadmap 🗺️ and into a maze of side quests: 🚗 Hitchhiking through bugs: Eddy thought he could handle a quick fix but ended up in an endless loop of debugging…

[tapedsleeves]

#4 with ya know who, pls? 👀

4 - Standing in front of them protectively. and you know who i assume is 6167, them's the usual suspects for us :)

Out of the corner of his eye, Max sees Mark freeze. He didn't hear the question, but now that he's turned his attention towards the scrum rather than the play fight that Haguer and Roysie are having, he can hear Mark's silence perfectly fine. Mark's not the most verbose guy, but most of the times his silences are thoughtful rather than panicked. Max's jaw throbs from the hit he'd taken earlier, but he catches Marchy's eye and hands the ice pack off to him before stepping into the screened off area for press.

He steps beside Mark, feeling people turn their attention towards him. Good. Give Mark a chance to recover from whatever had been said.

"Hey, everyone." Max says, putting his hand on Mark's shoulder. He squeezes a little, but Mark dips out of it a little early instead of pressing into it. Alright, that's fine. "I think I missed the question, but I'm happy to step in for my Captain here." He laughs, makes a joke out of him not paying attention.

Max may not be a good liar, but that doesn't mean he can't be charming.

"Hi Max, we weren't expecting you," Jesse says from the side.

"Yeah," Max says, "having a little cosmetic issue." He shrugs, still smiling. He doesn't point to it, knowing that the forming bruise can't be more obvious. His shirt is a little wet at the collar from the ice pack.

Jesse laughs, along, letting the room follow their lead. "We just had a question about the scrum at the end of the third there." Max hadn't seen the punch coming - it had literally been out of nowhere, since Kane had been behind him. But Mark had seen it. Kane had pulled Max around by the back of his jersey, using his momentum against him and hauling his fist against Max's jaw. Mark had been there, almost as soon as it landed, yanking Max out of the way and shoving Kane away and into the linesmen.

Talking on the ice in the middle of a scrum was a lesson in futility - people around them were yelling, the crunch of chest and shoulder pads connecting, blades on the ice, clattering sticks. Not to mention the roar of the home crowd yelling "Asshole" like DeAngelo had the puck.

But standing with Mark, having Mark gently push him toward the bench, had felt like a little bubble of calm. Or maybe Max had just still been dazed by the sucker-punch. Who knows.

When they'd got to the bench, Mark had caught him by the sleeve - Max must really have lost something because he hadn't had gloves on, when had he lost his gloves? There had been something in Mark's eyes, fierce and protective that had made warmth pool in Max's chest. He could feel that more than the already sore jaw. He catches Mark by the wrist.

"Well, yeah we all have each other's backs out there. When someone punches you like that out of nowhere, you know that your team is going to come in and defend you." Max says.

"And what happened after, at the bench?" Max knows now why Mark had gone silent. He hadn't had a way to explain why Max had pressed a kiss to his knuckles. Not one he could give to the press anyway.

"A show of appreciation." Max says, with a wry smile.

"Quite a show." Jesse says, answering the same. He knows there are recorders everywhere, picking up every word he says and he hopes that the ones he said were funny or distracting enough to cover Mark's silence. "Wouldn't be Vegas without one." He takes a step back, and says "Thanks for your time everyone, but I think this show is over for now." Max can hear the wash of protests, but more than that, he hears the scrape of Mark pushing back his chair and standing.

He leans forward, back into the microphone, and says "Thanks, everybody. Sorry you had to deal with this one." Mark says and shoots smile at Max, managing to include everyone in on the joke, and quiet their protests all at once. Mark may think he's not good at press, but Max knows better.

"Thanks everyone for letting me answer a question." Max says, "Have a good rest of your night." He lets Mark push him back into the hallway, behind the screens that afford not a whole lot of privacy.

"Sorry about that," Max says. "I just couldn't leave you hanging." He pushes his shoulder into Mark's, trying for a little more comfort than he can express in words.

"We have each other's backs." Mark says. "That's what you said."

"Yeah." Max says, unable to cover the way his voice goes soft and warm. "We do."

prompt meme ask me this fic on ao3

[steveramsdale]

10.11 MyLastEverBlog(?)Blog?

Think back to November or December in 2015. You’d never heard of Tashkent and your Saturday mornings were your own. If you had heard of Tashkent, you probably knew little about it and could not imagine what daily life there might be like. Those things were about to change. I was about to find out about daily like in Tashkent and, through me, so were you. I think I’ve said before, I didn’t expect to be writing a blog every week. I didn’t think anyone would be interested in reading such a document. But here we are. It is not ending how I expected, this year has not turned out in a way anyone expected. This will be, almost certainly (!!!) my last Saturday as a economic migrant in Uzbekistan. So, find a comfortable seat. Grab your favourite Saturday morning beverage. Settle for the final edition of the blog no-one needed! Therefore, this is (almost certainly) the last blog from Teaching on the Naughty Steppe. By the way, that blog title is made of the five best words I have ever written, probably the only good, clever, interesting words over the four and a half years. Anyway, you will be getting back your Saturday mornings, so start planning for what that freedom could mean to you.

On Saturday, I went out for tea, back with Wendy, Malek and Maya, and it was hot. Just as I arrived back at NBU, the theme of the week emerged - The Ticket Crisis. I received at text message telling me that my flight on 1st July had been cancelled. It advised that I could change the ticket. This was in the context of news that Turkish Airlines had not been given permission to resume operations to and from Tashkent. There was also news of additional repatriation flights operated by Uzbekistan Airways to various locations, including Istanbul. I tried using my phone to re-book the ticket. I tried using a laptop at Wendy’s house. I kept getting an error message at the same stage. I downloaded the Turkish app. It worked. I was able to rebook for the 2nd July and was able to relax and enjoy the evening (for a while). Various colleagues said ‘hi’ as they left the compound and when a group of three returned, they came into the garden. They came to let us know that they had just been to the main office of Uzbekistan Airways as they had been told that the last 5 tickets out of the city were available. They had bought them for a flight the next day. They had all sorts of rumours available to share. There would be a few more flights but commercial flights were shut down until August. The whole of Central Asia was shutting down until October (because a Kazakh government minister contracted the virus). There were, however, more tickets on the flight than the five they had told me about. It was a wild ride. I had my tickets. There were three more days of school. I had things I needed to do. I was sceptical about the stories. That was not the end, however.

On Sunday, I had my last Russian lesson(?). I had managed to ‘sell’ most of my spare Uzbek currency via UK bank transfers, which was good. Then I realized I owed for one Russian lesson and had this last one so I didn’t now have enough money - maybe. I can use a Visa card if I really have to.

On Sunday morning, I got another text message about the flight. At first I thought it was another cancellation and thought: ‘Is this going to keep happening for the rest of my life?’. It was, in fact, just a change -10 minutes earlier. By about 10:30am on Sunday, I was organised to such an extent that I could have been out of the flat, on my way to an airport, in m 15 minutes. This was my intended state of readiness for the next 11 days or so.

I made my last ever bus journey. Early Monday I walked to school - or I set off walking. I saw a couple of almost empty buses go past and decided I should take one last ride. Early adopters of the blog will remember our fun getting on different buses when we first came to Tashkent. It was the 24, fittingly.

By the end of Monday afternoon, the classroom was almost packed up. I would go in again on Wednesday for a final check - but it was almost the end. On Monday I also received another text message about the flight - again just a ten minute change to the the departure - the second flight this time.

Tuesday morning saw no changes to my ticket. Unusual times. Discussions were still ongoing in the message group. I was, once more, working from home. Between lessons, I decided to go and get some different drinks, via the bin to Ben’s little shop. I went downstairs and got to the corner, only to realise I had forgotten a face mask. I went back and got one. When I got back to the exact same point, I noticed something strange in the rubbish bag. It was a kitchen knife. I stopped and thought about going back again. I could not bear the thought of that. I put the knife in my little bag and went down to the bins. As I headed towards the shop, I thought about the fact that they sometimes check bags. I did not want to try to explain why I was carrying a knife, so I went home!

Wednesday morning saw the arrival of an email saying that Turkish Airlines resumption of flights had not, in fact, yet received official Uzbek government approval. So, the date of 2nd July was still ‘up in the air’. I genuinely apologise for that phrase. Would I be flying on the following Thursday?

All of this uncertainly (keep reading) may mean, there may need to be at least one more blog to resolve this part of the story. I cannot tell you that I will definitely not be here next Saturday. I think you might want to know how (and even if) this ends! Anyway, if I’m going to suffer, you can, too.

Here’s a strange little story to change the mood for a moment. As I was drifting off to sleep on Tuesday evening, I thought about someone and decided I would ask Mairi, the next day, if she had heard from this person. I was awake in the middle of the night and knew that I would not be getting straight back to sleep. So, I got up and checked my messages and there was a message from this person. I know that is a coincidence, but still slightly cool and spooky.

Wednesday was our last day. I saw one of my students in person as she came to return her iPad and collect her belongings. That was really nice. She was the only one I saw. It was a very strange end to then year but I think it was ‘easier’ for me that a proper end would have been.

A few staff arranged to have a get-together on Wednesday evening and I decided to go. It was not too far from me so I walked round and it was very pleasant. I made this note - ‘The girl selling tissues who took the money but didn’t give the tissues.’ It was Mark who was persuaded to buy them. I think she just forgot to hand them over, but it was funny. I then saw her again later as I walked home . She was walking along counting her money.

On Thursday I had my flat inspection, a ‘hospital appointment’ my telephone with my consultant and an interview with a supply agency.

Friday was also an unexpectedly busy/exciting day. The next flight chaos arrived. A message saying my flight from Tashkent to Istanbul had been cancelled. It was time to see if the Uzbek repatriation flights were on. As I set off, Dave got in touch and I told him to join me. It was quite early, but there was already quite a gathering outside the office. I won’t say queue because this is Tashkent. I stood at the back of the scrum. A man asked me if I needed help. I said I was here for a ticket to England. He said I could go straight in. I was unsure, but others waved me forward. I was allowed in and soon after, Dave arrived. Within about 20 minutes, we both had tickets to Istanbul and a reasonable price. Now to check the UK leg.

When I got home, I called Turkish airlines. The app was not letting me do anything. I explained the situation and said that I now had an alternative flight to Istanbul. I wanted to know if I could still use the Manchester ticket. He said I could not. After some back and forth, he told me I could cancel the whole ticket and book a new flight. He told me about the one at 13:40, I pointed out that I knew about that flight as I HAD A TICKET FOR IT. We cancelled and re-booked. He also told me I could only arrange a refund via email. I sent the email. I also filled in a claim on the website. A little while later, a call came to my phone from an Uzbek number. It was a woman ringing to give me a number to call to claim my refund. I wrote the number down and then called it. I got in to a hold queue and decided not to wait. When I looked at the number of the incoming call it was the same as the one the woman had given me. So she called to give me the number she was calling from for me to call to get the refund! A little while later, someone else called and they sorted the refund. The outstanding one from Emirates is still outstanding. But, I (hopefully) have a route home with only 24 hours at Istanbul airport.

My final activity on Friday was to meet two wonderful people at Ecorn. We made a video call to Mairi, too, so she was ‘there’ as well.

The government here is trying to encourage people to continue to be vigilant and sensible. They have sent out police and national guards to check hygiene methods are being observed at shops and markets. Also, the cars making announcements are back out.

And that is my last week (probably). It has been quite a ride. By next Saturday, I should be home home! I will let you know either way! Good Bye.

[virtutenonaliter]

Thank You Ilderton - Media Scrum (transcription)

Transcription of the Thank You Ilderton media scrum below the cut

(with help from @buriedinthesky )

Interviewer: I guess first of all, Scott, the crowd, I mean when you’re driving down there, what was the vibe like there?

SM: It’s pretty fun, especially seeing the young kids, seeing how excited they are, and obviously... nothing can prepare you for a moment like that, I don’t think, it’s pretty special, and I love this community so it’s nice to be able to go down and feel that support and see the faces of people who have been behind you for 21 years.

I: Expecting such a large crowd?

SM: I don’t know - I don’t know, we’re not very good at knowing how many people are there but I didn’t expect that many people, that’s for sure.

TV: It’s still alarming to us that anyone would take time out of their long weekend in August to come and celebrate today, but it’s not even about us today, it’s really about the community and it’s so neat to look around and take note of those who are hopefully enjoying the day and, uh, having a fun summer.

I: Tessa, as the crowd got bigger as you got closer to the arena, the fans started getting a little more vibrant and jumping around the street.

SM: (laughing) There was a couple rambunctious areas for sure, I think that -

I: What was it like to see, as the fans started to get more interactive with you, obviously it looked pretty exciting to see the girls especially running up?

TV: I mean, it’s so heartwarming, I’ve been on the other end of that, and on the other side, in a lawn chair watching the Ilderton Parade go by or on a float with the mini jets or something, so it’s fun to sort of take in that atmosphere and we’re so appreciative of all the support we’ve received - it’s just, it’s heartwarming, I mean, this community has embraced and adopted me from the very beginning and for that I’m so grateful.

I: Scott, why did you guys wanna do this?

SM: Sorry?

I: Why did you wanna do this thing?

SM: Well, it’s just, it’s exactly, it’s in the name, it’s just to thank everybody for the support that they’ve given Tess and I our whole careers and, uh, we always like to tell people that, you know, it takes a village, and it’s true in our case, we had so much support - both from London and Ilderton - and we just wanted to throw an event that gave people a chance to come out and have some fun. It’s summertime - we won’t be skating today (Tessa laughs), but there will be a lot of fun, so we’re pretty excited about that.

Interviewer 2: Some people are saying out there, I was talking to some of the children that come here - and I know you guys like to do stuff for the kids specifically - and one of the things that they told me was, the fact that you guys did what you did means that they can live up to their dreams, even if they’re from a small town. What do you guys think of that?

SM: Yeah.

TV: I mean, that’s the best, if we can inspire anyone to chase their dreams or to believe in themselves or to just instill a sense of limitlessness, I think that’s incredible and how fortunate are we that we have that platform and that ability to connect with so many people, and the fact that our programs and our performances resonated with kids is really meaningful, and more than that, hopefully it’s what we will continue to try and do off the ice.

I: The party’s just getting started, right, just kind of talk about tonight, after the sun goes or just before the sun goes down...?

SM: Absolutely. (TV: After the media wraps up.) Yeah, as soon as we’re done with this media scrum the fun really gets going. No, I’m just kidding. But it’s a family day, we’re really excited about that, and we can’t wait to just hang out with our people from Ilderton, with this community and the skating club and, uh, it’s gonna be a lot of fun, but it’s not anywhere near close to being done yet, that’s for sure.

I: Can you give us - finally give us the bandlist, or playlist...?

SM: You’ll see it when it comes on the stage, but I will say that we’re very proud of the people that we have because most of them are from the community; uh, you know, when we were looking for kind of our first little breakthrough and to skate in front of a big crowd at the then JLC, it was huge for us, and the fact that we can have, hopefully seven or eight thousand people here for some of these young artists, it’s great.

I: What do you wanna tell the town? That they all came out here to see you, is there anything that you wanna tell them or...?

SM: Thank you. There’s not much else to say. Thanks for everything.

TV: Every time that we took the ice, no matter where we were in the world, we always felt the support of Ilderton and, we knew that we represented Canada but that also meant representing Ontario and Southwestern Ontario and the Ilderton Skating Club, and we were very cognizant of that every time we laced up our skates, and the support we’ve received has just been unwavering and steadfast throughout the two decades and it’s remarkable that everyone isn’t sick of us (maybe they are but) they really stood by us and it really, truly means a lot to us.

I: Throughout your entire storied career has there been one memorable moment that stands out above all of the others?

SM: Not really, I mean, I think we’re pretty fortunate that we have different memories along our career, I mean, we’ve had twenty-one years together and, uh, I don’t think there’s one that stands out specifically but I - I can remember coming home, especially ‘cause a day like today, you remember coming home and one moment I’ll remember from our career is being in the London airport on the way home from Pyeongchang, and seeing the thousand people that decided to wait for our flight to come in. It’s that kind of support that we wanna give something back like this for, I mean, we’re fortunate that we had the career we had, we had a great sporting experience and it’s, I think, kind of our duty and responsibility to kind of pay it forward and inspire some young people to be, not just be athletes, be artists, to chase their dreams and uh, hopefully we could do a little bit of that today.

I: After your final skate, Tessa, you had - you’re being interviewed - you had one trickle of a tear coming out, was it a tear of joy, or a tear of happiness...?

TV: Sweat. (laughter)

I: Could be sweat, yeah.

TV: No, it was, uh... it surprised me, there haven’t been many moments in our career when we’ve been celebrating that we felt that, um, sort of emotional... pull and, I mean... I think it was just an acknowledgement of the team that got us there, of that comeback process, of investing everything into the work to get us to that one moment, and to have executed the programs we did together and... honestly just being so proud of Scott. (SM: Yeah.) Sometimes it’s easier to recognize our success when I see him as an athlete, just so proud of him, and so excited for him.

SM: And I think of that moment, it’s really quite a personal one - I know that’s kind of crazy, we shared it with all the canadians - but it was really for us and about our journey, and I know that’s Tessa’s reaction, the one tear, but I mean, that was for us, I mean, that’s why it’s cool doing a day like today where we can not be under such intense pressure and be so worried about delivering for our team and for each other and just share a great day, a summer day with our community that’s always been there for us.

I: What is (???) going in the Canadian Hall of Fame (???) ...folks?

TV: I mean, that’s the highest honour imaginable. 

I: Was it a complete surprise?

TV: It was... (SM: Yeah.) definitely a surprise to receive that email, and especially to see such esteemed names, you know, we’ve admired so many of those others for so many years, and I’m not quite sure it’s sunk in yet but what a thrill that will be come December.

I: One last question for me; is there one lesson that you’ve learned through your entire career that you wanna share with kids that have goals and aspirations much like you did, back when you first started figure skating, one lesson you take away?

SM: Well, there are a lot of things that have to go right in your career, but we always say, it’s not a very complicated solution, there are no shortcuts and uh, dream big, and commit yourself to those dreams. I mean, that, it sounds really cliché, you’ve heard that from everybody, but we believe in that, there are no shortcuts, hard work will get you where you wanna go, and that’s what we try and relay to kids.

I: On behalf of the Ilderton community, everybody around Canada, thanks for everything you guys have done and brought attention through the sport, and you’ve done Canada proud. (SM: Thank you.)

TV: Thank you. You’re gonna bring back another tear (laughs).

Interviewer 4: When you walk into this building, you’ve been coming here for twenty, twenty-one years (TV: a lot), what’s your emotion, or what do you feel..?

SM: I don’t feel much in the curling rink, in the skating rink I do (laughter). But this is our community, we’re here all the time. I mean, it is kind of funny to walk back in, I play beer-league over there, to remember kind of the first time we ever skated together and, you know, we talk about inspiring kids but what we try and inspire kids to do is sports for pleasure, and that’s all it was for us, we weren’t skating to win the Olympics when we were skating in this building. I think there’s so much that has to go back into putting pleasure back into sport, that’s what we think about; I think about not being able to hold Tessa’s hand or talk to Tessa or being so shy that -those are the memories that come in -rushing back and pretty much when we were skating all we were worried about was if we could go up and get ice cream afterwards or not, wasn’t very thoughtful. (laughter and unintelligible jokes)

I: How often do your families get together nowadays? Or maybe...

SM: How often do our families see us, I think is the better question. I mean, I think my mom, or our moms, forgot what we look like when we came home, we were in Japan until July 12th, so uh, it’s been a busy ride, we wanted it to be, we knew it would be, but our families do get together, that’s what they really missed. Coming back, these last couple of years it’s been fun to travel together again and I think our families feel that, especially our moms being able to share so many experiences over twenty-one years, I mean, that was every family vacation was to a skating competition, so it’s a special bond. We were always lucky, I mean, we see a lot of young dance teams, we always felt like we hit the jackpot with the Virtues, I mean I don’t know how Tessa feels about us.

TV: We just had that conversation, too,…(SM: it was more of a friendship), our families were paired up for twenty-one years, and how lucky are we that everyone just adores one another and really cherished that time but just, you know, got such support from the Moirs and uh, yeah, I mean, they’re family, they’re my family too.

I: Yeah, and you know, I think your dad said that when you make friends with a Moir you got a friend for life.

SM: ‘till you cross me, Ryan. (laughter) That’s the motto of the whole community here, I mean it’s nice that we get to put our name on this but at the same time, we don’t make this happen, there’s a committee, and the volunteers, very similar people - same people actually - that put together the 2010 celebration had a lot of work in this and what a special day it is for us to just be able to be here and kind of have the platform that we have.

I: You have a black eye?

SM: I missed the ball. Slow pitch, missed the ball. 

I: What were you playing, what position?

SM: I don’t wanna talk about it. (I: Were you pitching?) No, I was out, I was in the outfield, I was running in for one of the guys and…

I: (overlapped jokes) Did you dive for it?

SM: No, I missed it completely, it was bad, but (TV: the sun was in his eyes) I caught about seven or eight in the other game so I’m good.

I: What’s next for you two? What’s the next goal?

SM: Well we have a tour coming up, the Thank You Canada Tour.

I: After that

SM: which is exciting… well that’s a big part of it for us because it’s, we’re part of the production team for that tour and I think what happens after that will depend on how this tour goes. 

I: it goes until the end of November

SM: And we’re really excited to go into - yeah October November - and it’s going into a whole bunch of different markets in this country that many of which we have never played before and we’re really excited about that. So we’re pumped about that project and its gonna take us awhile to kind of, to catch our breath, probably will be after that. So then we’ll have to reevaluate. Tessa and I, both have a lot of goals that we want to get done but - in skating and not in skating - but it’s a short life and we’ve got to plan out these next eighty years.

I: One day at a time.

(distant shouting): EIGHTY?

Interviewer 5: What can fans expect from the Thank You Canada Tour?

SM: What can’t they expect?

TV: Yeah, I mean, it’s such a neat time for us to step into the co-producer roles, I think it’s the right moment for us, we dreamed of taking the reins and putting our own stamp on a tour and I think it just feels right, we have a good team of people around us, uh, after competing and winning with the team in Pyeongchang, we know the cast couldn’t be better and we wanna shake things up a little bit, and hopefully showcase skating in the entertainment realm a little bit differently, we’ve been brainstorming a lot with our creative team, we can’t wait to get to Montreal to build the tour, we’ll be working really hard on that over the next couple months.

I: Do you guys, are you gonna train for that, or when you go back to Montreal?

TV: Yes, we’ll head there (SM: September), next month, the beginning of next month, we’ll meet the team and get all the pieces in place and we wanna go into that sharp and healthy and trained, ready to go, and we wanna put our best foot forward. It’ll feel nice, I mean, that structure and that goal will be great for us to work towards.

SM: We really wanna push ourselves with this tour, like Tessa said. The reason why we wanted to do a project like this is because we missed the competitiveness of amateur skating, it’s why we went back, we wanna find something that kind of pushes us like that, I think that’s this tour, this Thank You Canada Tour.

I: Thanks, man.

TV: Thank you so much.

[aloneeedra]

Dance Academy (2010) S1

Where to watch it: Free on Tubi. Just look up Dance Academy on Google and it should give you the option.

Seasons: there are 3 seasons. I’m going to do something different this time and only focus on one season at a time. So this post will focus on season one of dance academy, which has 26 episodes.

Summary (spoilers): There are six main characters you need to know. 

Tara: the main character, cries a lot, wants to fly, comes from a farm. 

Kat: her best friend and a rebel; she has a ballerina as a mother and a choreographer as a father and is unhappy at the academy. 

Sammy: friends with both of them, has weak ankles, is Jewish, the best character, honestly. 

Abigail: Mean, strong-will, hard working, the best dancer, a very good, complex, character.

Christian: Has the best character background tbh, robbed some place so now he is on probation, goes to the school as a punishment, a skater boy.

Ethan: Kat’s older half-brother, basic white rich boy, he like never actually dances, want to be a choreographer like his dad.

So, I will be explaining the season through the characters, rather than episode, because it’s much easier, okay? Lets start with Tara. 

Tara comes from a farm, her parents are cool, and she was behind everyone else, whatever the means, so it’s like a miracle that she got into the school. This season for her focuses on two things: her becoming a better dancer and her love life. Let’s start with the dancing. She is the worst dancer and then slowly becomes the best one, being casted as the lead by the end of the season. She has to do a lot of private lessons and breaks her leg at one point, does rehab and ends up becoming stronger. There was also an episode where she was going to go back home because her parents couldn’t afford it but lucky her, she got a scholarship she didn’t even apply for. And then towards the end, she got half a scholarship for the next semester. Okay, now that that’s done, her love life. First, she has a crush on Ethan and then starts dating him. Then she cheats on him with Christian, Ethan breaks up with her, she gets bullied for it, then Christian confesses, she rejects him, then they kiss on a beach, her leg breaks, they date for an episode then they break up. She invites him over to the farm during the holiday and hints that she wants to get back together again, but Christian rejects her. Ethan helps her with rehab, then Ethan helps her get the lead part, then he invites her to stay the holiday with him so they can ~date again~ and she’s like sure. Then Christian says yes to going to the farm during the holidays and we don’t know what she’s going to do ~oooo~.

Okay, next is Kat. Not much happens to her this season. She rebels a lot, misses a lot of class. She ends up having to volunteer at community dance center, lets them down and then helps one of the little girls from that center get into a dancing program. She had a boyfriend who was a total scrum bag and tries to take advantage of her during her own birthday party. She kind of had a crush on Christian, but never says it out loud, kisses him once but then says it was a mistake. She ruined any chance that the hip hop classes remained apart of the academy. She dates a celebrity guy who is like way older then her for an episode and then he comes back towards the end of the season and she tries to run away with him. 

Sammy. Yesss. Okay, at the start of the season, Sammy is seen to be weak, but he gets better, not by much, but better. His dance partner is Abigail who he starts having a crush on pretty quickly. They secret date, then date, then almost do the deed, but he said it didn’t feel right so they didn’t do anything. Then he starts acting weird, breaks up with her, hangs out a lot with Christian, invites him over for the holidays, realizes he likes Christian, tries to avoid Christian, tells Christian, Christian is like ‘nothing to be ashamed of’, they have a touching bro moment in a lake, then become friends again. He also has a second plot going on for him, where his dad wants him to be a doctor and disproves of his dancing. So, by the end of the first season, his dad pulls out his financial support and Sammy says he’s going to the dance academy no matter how many jobs he needs to get. Funny how a scholarship he never applied for didn’t suddenly appear on the bulletin board.

Next, Abigail. So, Abigail takes ballet very seriously. She wants to get the scholarship (yes, the one that Tara got magically the first time around, and then she ends up getting half of the scholarship the second time). She’s the best dancer at the start of the show. She has trouble with shoplifting, does not like her body, is seen as the main villain. She’s the one that post Tara’s con and pro list of Ethan. She’s the one that send Kat the photo of Christian and Tara kissing. So, basically, we should be thanking her since she is the only reason Tara even gets a plot. At one point, she passes out. She has to see a therapist for a while, goes back to dancing and gets to be Tara understudy. She dates Sammy for a little bit, but then he breaks up with her. Her parents are getting a divorce. By the end of the season, she is watching Tara perform her solo from backstage and is happy for her, though in my opinion, she got robbed.

Christian. His mom is dead and now he has no one. He gets in trouble for robbing a place and lives at the academy instead of juvie. He’s a skater boy all the way. He’s a bit close off at the beginning. Has brother issues, trust issues, friends issues, and steals Ethan’s wallet early on. So, he’s Tara’s dance partner, calls her training bra cuz ~cute~, but, the first friend he really makes is Ethan. They bond over hip-hop and fighting. They compete over everything too, like running and parts and then later on Tara. He seemed to like Tara from the beginning. He tries to kiss her but she yeets herself out of that situation, then kisses him like one episode later. Then he confesses and she’s like nah. Then he goes to court for the robbery thing and gets off with like a suspension or something, but his childhood friend goes to jail. Then he kisses Tara again at the beach. Then he was running with Tara when she broke her leg by falling down a couple of stairs. And I mean a couple, like four. Very dramatic. He carries her. They date. He gets all butt hurt about her not talking about her knee to him, while she’s willing to talk to Ethan about it. They break up and he very dramatically walks out on her during a dance with fake snow falling upon them. Then that whole thing happens with Sammy. Tara invites him to the farm. He says no and then yes in the last few minutes of the show.

Lastly, Ethan. He’s three years older than everyone and is a player apparently, or at least that’s what everyone keeps saying. Everyone also keeps saying he’s a dancer, but like, I don’t think I have ever seen him dance, like not even once. I pretty sure the actor doesn’t know how to dance and gets paid just to look pretty. Abigail posts the con and pro list that Tara makes of him, where she says he smells like Christmas. He’s weirded out by it, as he should be, cuz that be weird. Tara’s a bit obsessives and it’s not cute. He, however, falls for her after, i don’t know, seeing her dance or something. They date. Tara cheats on him. They don’t date. He gets an offer from the company, but turns it down to follow his dreams of being a choreographer like his dad (but also, cuz, like, he never dances). He invites Tara to stay during the holidays while holding her hands, which I guess means he likes her again.

Rating: 5.7/10

Best Part: I really liked Sammy’s arch and I think Christian’s and Abigail characters are very complex and well written.

Worst Part: I don’t like Tara. Or Ethan. But mainly Tara. She’s just so whine and annoying and like I get that she’s the main character or whatever, but she’s also boring. Like, you would think since she has two guys pinning over her, there must be something amazing about her, but I didn’t pick up on it. Like, the most interesting thing about her is that she likes to dance, but so does everyone else (except maybe Ethan). Sometimes, she says things that, like, you know are suppose to be very inspiring because the music sounds inspiring, but what comes out of her mouth is just not good. She always puts herself in bad situations, which is good, like that’s how you get a character to grow and change, by having them learn from their mistakes, but then an easy solution falls onto her lap, out of nowhere, and it fixes everything for her. She doesn’t change at all. It all just works out for her, each and every single time. For example, her parents can’t afford to keep her in school, so she decides to go back home. Okay. Life's not always fair. She understands that. That’s very mature of her to do. Maybe she’ll go back home and raise some money and- oh, no, wait, she got a scholarship she didn’t even apply for. Wow. Or how about the time when she allows rumors to spread that she’s dating someone that’s in the company and that ruins his career and she faces no punishment at all? Or how about that time when she forgets Kat’s birthday, acts like a horrible friends then later on, when they fight, everything goes back to normal? Or how about the time she cheats on Ethan with Christian? She gets bully, the photos of their kiss is everywhere in school, Kat is mad, Ethan is mad. What she did is awful and she understands that she betrayed someone’s trust and that that’s not okay, oh, but wait, she doesn’t understand and actually she and Kat fight and then they make up and she gets all her friends back and then dates Christian later down the line even though she rejected him and then Ethan starts to care for her too. No harm done. Or how about the time that she gets to be the lead because Ethan fought for her to get it, and does a pretty bad job at it, and kind of doesn’t deserve it, but then she puts on a dress, feels all good inside, then becomes more confidents about herself and does fine without it when it goes missing? Or how about the fact that Abigail works her ass off, more than Tara, I would say, and yet Tara still somehow gets the lead? It’s just so obvious that the writer of the show favor Tara. She gets like no consequences and never changes.

I also didn’t like all these age gaps, they were weird and gross. Ethan is 18 and Tara is 15 when they are dating, which is not too bad, but still gross. Kat is 15 and Miles, the celebrity she tries to run away with, has to be at least in his early 20′s. Like what the hell? No one seemed to find it weird.

Last thing; not really a con. I don’t know much about dancing, so I don’t know if the dancing is actually as good as they make it out to seem or not. Sometimes, I’ll be watching and feel second hand embarrassment for the characters and I just need to know if I just don’t understand dancing, or if it really is bad dancing. The ballet looks okay. The hip-hop makes me cringe.

Should you watch it? Yeah, I mean, it’s pretty fun to watch. You’ll never get bored since so many things happened. Seriously, there where three separate times when I thought I was watching the last episode, because everything was concluded, but then I saw there was still more to go. It’s very long, but entertaining. Dramatic. It was exactly what I remembered whenever I watched it as a teenager. Lots of angst. Lots of relationships that aren’t given enough time to grow. Watch it for Sammy. 

[boschlingtumbles]

Chapter 40

Cersei opened her eyes as the makeup artist stepped back and surveyed her reflection critically. She had always been beautiful—that was vanity, that was reality. But this creature in the mirror was something else. Cersei smirked, and the mirror girl turned it into a shy smile. Cersei made a note to give the makeup artist an extra large tip.

The other girls were getting ready in the adjoining room. Cersei felt an uncharacteristic twinge of guilt, upon seeing how extraordinarily awesome she looked. Like maybe the pink poofy dresses had been a touch unnecessary. Stop that, she told mirror Cersei sternly. Second guessing is for losers.

But second guessing or not, her over the top transformation left her feeling in the zone. There had been a few hiccups along the way—Robert was supposed to have been here at least thirty minutes ago, Aunt Genna was haggling over their contribution with a septa downstairs—but Cersei felt coolly prepared to deal with any issues that might arise.

“Cersei?” Catelyn Tully poked her head in for a moment. “Do you mind if we talk?”

Cersei gave a gracious wave to the chair across from her.

“I was—wow, you look fantastic,” Catelyn did a double take. 

She did. She really really did.

“So here’s the thing...”

She looked like somebody had taken the oozing surface of the sun hot sex appeal of Ashara Dayne and the wide-eyed Bambi sweetness of Elia Martell, bottled them up and shook, then served cold in an Elsa from Frozen mold.

“and I don’t think it is fair or kind to be spreading those kinds of rumors. People could get hurt. People DID get hurt,” Catelyn said firmly, looking at her.

Okay, Cersei might have lost the thread of this conversation.

“Jon will have a tough enough time growing up without this kind of nonsense following him every step of the way.”

Oh! This was about Alerie and Mace and their terrible and scurrilous rumor about her soon-to-be-husband’s best man. Cersei beamed benevolently.

“I couldn’t agree more,” she said warmly.

“Um, good, I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Catelyn said tentatively.

“Plans are in place to deal with them, don’t you worry,” Cersei assured her.

“Them? Wait, who are you talking about, I’m talking about you—“

“Alerie and Mace Tyrell spread that dreadful rumor about Ned and Ashara,” Cersei explained patiently. Honestly, sometimes she wondered if Catelyn was quite as intelligent as everyone seemed to think. “But don’t worry, I’ve arranged to teach them a lesson they won’t forget any time soon.”

“I don’t think we need to go overboard, I mean the best revenge is living well right? So as long as we make sure Jon is isolated from this kind of nonsense...” Catelyn was backtracking frantically.

The best revenge is living well?! Please, the best revenge is revenge, Cersei thought. This is why the Catelyns is the world needed people like her. To do what was necessary.

“It’s all been taken care of,” Cersei said soothingly, like she might have said to Tyrion long ago when he was being bullied. “They won’t be putting a foot wrong any time soon.”

“Do I even want to know?” Catelyn winced.

“I have arranged to give them both... vanilla wedding cake,” Cersei said with a dramatic flourish. She paused, waiting for a gasp.

“Oh, okay, that’s fine,” Catelyn said, looking bemused.

No, it wasn’t fine, it was BRILLIANT! Everybody knew the base layer of the wedding cake was reserved for the lowest denominator of wedding guest. Certainly a grasping little social climber like Alerie Tyrell did. She would get her slice of cake and it would be a terrible snub in front of all the people she most wanted to impress. Cersei had bumped Olenna Tyrell from the chocolate second tier up to the lemon-raspberry third tier to make her point even clearer. Alerie would be humiliated at the social event of the year, and spend months groveling to Cersei to get back into her good graces. 

As for Mace... well, he just really liked cake. Plain vanilla was probably the worst hand he’d been dealt since cafeteria lunches.

“I think your family just drove up,” Brienne poked her head in. Excellent.

Cersei greeted them as they entered the courtyard, enjoying the heads turning as she floated through the sept. It was only family at this early hour of course. She wouldn’t risk just anybody catching a glimpse of her and ruining her grand entrance at the ceremony.

“Cersei, a word?” Varys materialized and she favored him with a smile as they walked briskly toward the front.

“Hoster Tully arrived early. I had him turned away from the building of course, that it was only wedding party in the main sept until thirty minutes beforehand, but he is on the grounds,” Varys began. “Baelish has been working nonstop to spread those rumors about Ned Stark and Ashara Dayne. He’s still pissy about not getting the invitation I presume.” Cersei rolled her eyes. “I’ll keep the press scrum away from the bridesmaids, I just wanted to keep you apprised.”

“Any sign of Robert?”

“No but his parents checked in just now, according to my contact in security.”

“Hmmm well keep Hoster away from the bridesmaids too. Nothing to be done about Baelish at the moment,” unlike the original authors of that particular rumor, “but I’ll deal with him later.”

“Your Aunt Genna has reduced a sept to tears,” Varys consulted his notes.

“Send Uncle Gerion to deal with her, he’s good at that sort of thing.”

“Garth Greenhands is complaining that you stiffed him on the engagement flowers.”

“Give him an extra thousand to keep him happy, we can always take it out of future services.”

As Cersei effortlessly batted back every problem, she felt it again, that the entire arc of the universe was bending exactly according to her plan. 

“Excuse me, I see my family,” she gave Varys a dazzling smile, and such was her amplified charm that even the perpetually impassive Varys was forced to smile back. 

Jaime and her father both looked perfect. Cersei embraced each lightly, fantasizing about how gorgeous their photos would be. With Ellyn Tarbeck glowering across the camera from him, Tywin Lannister might even smile. 

And then came the gremlin. As with most people, Cersei’s gaze first hit the top of his head before drifting downward. The challenging smirk immediately tipped her off that something was wrong, and as she looked down she saw it. It. The hideous monstrosity that could only be described as the world’s ugliest tie. 

“Is that... a tie?” She managed, reeling at the tackiness. At least she hadn’t made her bridesmaids wear a fabric of THAT.

“It’s a fuck-you-for-ruining-my-life,” Tyrion growled, and they exchanged cold stare. “Look, it lights up!”

That... monster. What did he want from her?! He was a terrorist! A wedding terrorist!

Uncle Gerion came over, somewhat diffusing the situation, and then Jaime left to track down Brienne. As Gerion and Tywin exchanged a rapid fire exchange about Lannister Corp’s expansion into Yi Ti, Cersei stared down Tyrion. How dare he interrupt her flow?! Everything had been going so smoothly!

“Take it off!” Cersei finally snapped.

“No,” Tyrion shrugged. “It’s high time you learned that there are things beyond your control.”

Cersei stomped her foot.

“I can’t believe this is still about that stupid girl! She didn’t like you like that! I was saving you from getting hurt!”

“She didn’t have a chance to like me like that! And you can’t do this, just snap your fingers and have everybody marching to your tune! You’re turning into father!”

“She would have never liked you like that! She was a pretty bimbo who would have never been able to meet you at your level and you deserve so much more than that!”

“What makes you think I have anywhere near the choices that you seem to think I do?! Have you noticed that I’m four foot four?!”

“And you deserve someone who will take the time to get to know you beyond being a fun story to tell their mates! I know that girl, I know her type. She could never be the kind of girl who could deserve you. Who would appreciate how smart you are and how funny you are and that you have really good taste in wine,” Cersei found she was digging her nails into her palms. “Maybe I will never be able to convince you that there’s a girl out there who can do that, but I don’t have to convince you. I just have to scare away all the others until she shows up.”

“Gods Cersei,” Tyrion groaned, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “We got so close to having a moment. Why do you have to be such a sociopath?!”

“TAKE OFF THAT TIE BEFORE I STRANGLE YOU WITH IT!”

“I’D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY!”

“Cersei, Tyrion.” 

Their fight ended with the chilly admonish from their father, as most of their fights did.

Cersei huffed, glaring. This was wrong. The fucking tie was wrong. Didn’t he see? If he didn’t take it off, their photos wouldn’t be perfect. And if their photos weren’t perfect, the wedding wouldn’t be perfect. And if the wedding wasn’t perfect, NOTHING WOULD BE PERFECT!

“Cersei, I need to talk to you,” Tywin said stiffly. “Let’s walk toward the gardens.”

Behind him, Tyrion stuck his tongue out and she drew her perfectly manicured finger across her neck in response.

“This way, Cersei,” Tywin repeated patiently, ushering her away as if she were a recalcitrant child. 

Cersei tried to breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth as she fantasized a thousand different ways to murder the tie. In a shredder, in a fire, slowly dissolved in a bucket of bleach, it lit up so there were wires that could be painstakingly stripped and then unwound and then each individual copper thread diced with a chopping knife into a thousand tiny pieces...

“Cersei, I love you.”

Cersei stopped short, and her father turned. They stood like that awkwardly separate, her father half facing her and half facing away. Had Tywin ever said that? She knew on some rational objective level that he loved her, that he loved all of them, but it was only ever felt as an undercurrent passing through, there for a second in his behavior and then gone.

Tywin took a deep breath, apparently unsure how to proceed.

“Being a parent is the hardest thing I have ever had to do, Cersei. It is exhausting and overwhelming and there are no maps and no certainty that any mistake you make won’t irreparably scar the thing you love most in this world. And being a single parent is incredibly lonely. It is not something I would have ever chosen. It was forced upon me through painful, near unendurable circumstance. Frankly, it is not something I would wish on anybody. And you are so much like me, Cersei. I do see that. To see you making that choice blindly, making it without any sense of what it could mean, for you, for your child... I just couldn’t let you do it.”

Cersei felt cold and somehow remote, like she was looking down at the two of them as a bystander in her own body.

“I thought, isn’t that a part of love? To keep your children from making mistakes, to spare them from hardship, and then it was so easy to pressure Robert to propose to you and pressure you to say yes. But I’ve had a number of conversations over the last few weeks that make me wonder if my strategy weren’t fundamentally misguided.”

My strategy was fundamentally misguided, the CEO told his stockholders, not the father told the daughter fucking FORTY-FIVE MINUTES BEFORE THE WEDDING!

“I don’t know what choices will bring you happiness, Cersei. Robert certainly has his short-comings, and though I would give anything to have your mother back, I can’t promise he will be the partner she was. And... maybe if there’s a mistake to be made, it should be your mistake to make. I don’t have any right to take that choice from you,” Tywin swallowed painfully.

“What are you saying?” Cersei said, and her voice came out thin and tremulous and childlike and she hated it.

“You will have a seat on the board of Lannister Corp at thirty. You always had it.”

“You want me to call off the wedding? People are coming, we’ve already spent all the money, think of what the papers will say...”

“I want you to do what you want to do,” Tywin cut her off, the words crisp and precise. “You will have my utmost support either way. I don’t give a damn what it costs and none of us, not me, not you, not your baby will give a damn what people say. We are Lannisters.”

And on that note, he straightened and walked away.

Cersei blinked, feeling like if she took a step in either direction, she might fall. That the world had gone atilt somehow, that things weren’t at the angle they should be. She didn’t have to marry Robert. She’d never had to marry Robert. Did she want to?

She swallowed and looked up at the arching glass window of the sept. That alien reflection looked back, the beautiful bride. Was it even her? It looked like her and it didn’t, one possible refraction of what she could be.

I love Robert, came the voice, small and quiet, into the stillness. And she did. It was so easy with him, and he’d always seen her for exactly who she was and it had never bothered him. He might have even loved her more for it. But it’s not like she would never see him again if they didn’t get married, another voice said impatiently. And she was Cersei Lannister, she’d never needed anyone in her entire life. She didn’t need his family and she didn’t need his money, and so what if that dopey grin of his elicited something fragile and fluttery from her.  

Cersei took another deep steadying breath. Her reflection watched her, waiting for the decision.

Her phone rang. She almost trembled in relief, fumbling for it with suddenly clumsy fingers. It was Varys with the guest list, or maybe Robert had finally gotten here or maybe Brienne—it was her doctor’s office.

Right, she’d scheduled her first ultrasound a smidge on the early side—sixteen weeks—to avoid having to deal with it during the wedding whirlwind. Just checking in with her favorite girl! Cersei rested a hand on the biscuit, still thankfully invisible.

“Hello, this is Cersei Lannister,” Cersei answered the phone in bland professional tones.

“Miss Lannister, it’s Nan Winters calling from Dr. Luwin’s office. We have the results of the ultrasound—it says here in my notes you didn’t want to wait for them because you had an appointment?”

“Yes, quite right,” Cersei said briskly. These doctors were so anal about holding your hand through every moment. Like she had time to hang around and wait for some technician to develop images of her uterus.

“Well everything looks perfect,” Nan Winters said warmly. “Absolutely nothing you should be worried about.” 

Cersei let out a breath. At least one thing managing to not be an issue.

“Actually, I have some good news,” Nan continued.

“Hmm?”

“It’s not always possible, especially in these first early ultrasounds, but we were able to determine the gender of your baby. That is, assuming you want to know.”

Cersei glanced down at biscuit. Her perfect little girl, her Genna Joanna Lannister-Baratheon, with her perfect golden curls and green eyes. She had already given Westerling instructions on saving the August edition of Vogue. It was little Genna’s first photo shoot after all.

“Of course,” Cersei said to Nan, imagining how she would frame it in the nursery. She had gone with a princess theme, but she was open to redoing it if her little girl wanted something more STEM oriented. She had found the cutest pink solar system mobile the other day, but she could also do like a jungle theme and get her little safari outfits and a stuffed elephant... She could practically see her, Genna Joanna Lannister-Baratheon, long-legged and coltish like when Cersei had been a girl, a red bandana around her neck and braids swinging under her pith helmet.

“Congratulations, it’s a baby boy,” Nan Winters said.

What? The picture perfect image in her head cracked ominously, like glass.

“What?” Cersei said. “Are you sure?”

“Quite sure,” Nan laughed. “It’s easier to confirm it’s a boy than to confirm it’s a girl you know. And he’s a big one!”

Genna Joanna Lannister-Baratheon crumbled into shards.

Cersei sat down on the grass, wedding dress be damned.

A boy. She was having a baby boy. And not just any baby boy, her eyes suddenly welled up. A big one, Nan had said. The new image didn’t look like Cersei at all. It didn’t even look like Jaime or Tyrion. It raised a chubby hand and waved, its mop of thick black hair bouncing. It was a baby Robert.

No. No no no no no. She couldn’t do this. This was not the plan. It was supposed to be her baby! Cersei took a gasping breath. Why did she feel like she wasn’t getting enough oxygen? She didn’t have a baby name! The nursery wasn’t blue! What did boys like? Jaime had always liked what she had liked. Tyrion had liked... Cersei screwed her face up trying to recall. Dragons. Tyrion had liked dragons. A hiccup of a sob shook her frame. Dragons were so dumb!

And he would be loud. Gods, he would be Robert loud. Cersei could remember Robert as a child. And even just the memory sent a shiver of disgust down her spine. Loud and dirty. Robert pushing Jaime in the mud, Robert breaking her Barbie and laughing. Robert and his stupid temper tantrums that would get them all in trouble. 

Cersei had to get away. She staggered to her feet, looking around wildly. Nobody could see her like this. Everything was spinning out of control and it was all wrong and nothing was happening like she’d planned. Cersei was done. The end, game over, tapping out. Facing her expectant audience of thousands. For my first and last trick... a vanishing act.

[chestnutpost]

Anyone Can Get Trolled — Even The New Yorker

This post was originally published on this site

On the evening of the midterm elections in November, The New Yorker published a short online profile of Jonah Rich, a “Trumphead” who claimed to have attended about 20 of President Donald Trump’s rallies. The 41-year-old Rich compared the rallies to the World Series or the Super Bowl. He said he’d met people who’d been to hundreds of them.

Rich had a familiar “Make America Great Again” backstory. In college, he’d been “indoctrinated” by “left-wing” professors, he said. Later, he’d been deprogrammed by Sean Hannity, Breitbart and Alex Jones. When the Trump train pulled up billowing nationalism, Rich jumped on board.

But that wasn’t why photographer Mark Peterson plucked him from the crowd at the Trump rally in Fort Myers, Florida, on Oct. 31 and posed him for a low-angle portrait. Rich stood out because of the sky-blue yarmulke on his head and his T-shirt, emblazoned with the Star of David and the words “Jews for Trump.”

Four days earlier, a gunman — allegedly a white nationalist — had murdered 11 people in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. Rich was at the rally, he said, to show Jewish support for Trump, despite his misgivings that the president’s rhetoric was fueling bigotry.

“I sometimes have visions of potential confrontations with Proud Boys, or with white supremacists, or with some other Trump supporter who might not appreciate having Jews around,” Rich told New Yorker writer Andrew Marantz, “but it’s never happened. To be honest, everyone I meet at the rallies feels like family.”

Jonathan Lee Riches Jonathan Lee Riches poses as Jonah Rich at a Donald Trump rally in Fort Myers, Florida, on Oct. 31, 2018.

This was good material. Too good, it turned out. Within days, the Rich article had disappeared from The New Yorker’s site. (It’s preserved here.) Eventually, editors put up a note stating that “the interview subject had misrepresented himself, and the piece was removed.”

The hoax was nothing to mock. Journalists today operate in an information environment crawling with right-wing propagandists looking to dupe the media so they can cry “fake news.” Not even The New Yorker, with its vaunted fact-checking department, is immune. 

And it wasn’t an ordinary shitposter who’d bamboozled the magazine. Like TMZ, Radar Online, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, SB Nation, BuzzFeed and other outlets, The New Yorker had been rolled by an OG troll. Jonathan Lee Riches was his name ― his given name ― but he had plenty of other monikers he’d created for lulz in the past: Johnny Sue-nami; the Crackpot Matlock Judicial Sasquatch; the “Patrick Ewing of Suing.” He was as warped as wet wood.

An underground menace long before Gamergate and the alt-right, Riches, who is not Jewish, hails from a time when trolling wasn’t the political blood sport it is today. It was wackier and funnier. More prankish, though still irredeemable.

(Want to know more? I interviewed Riches below.)

As a young adult, Riches got into phone phreaking, then phishing scams. He went to prison in 2003 for wire fraud. Behind bars, he became a world-class irritant by filing absurdist, frivolous pro se lawsuits. He filed thousands of them, against anyone and anything (e.g., the Kardashians and Kanye West, whom Riches accused of running a secret al Qaeda camp.) So prolific a litigant was Riches that he became a one-man burden on the federal court system, a troll tagging the docket forever. In 2010, federal prosecutors won an unprecedented and possibly unconstitutional nationwide injunction against him to prevent him from suing, claiming that if he weren’t stopped, the government would “suffer irreparable harm.” 

I was just creating a clusterfuck. That was my entertainment when I was in prison. Jonathan Lee Riches

Riches immediately bypassed the injunction by slipping a batch of suits to a soon-to-be-released inmate to file on the outside. The prison cracked down hard. No paper in his cell. No stamps. Riches went on a hunger strike in protest. After 22 days, the warden had him force-fed through a tube. Imagine one of today’s millennial edgelords showing such commitment to disinfo.

Riches was different. He trolled harder, unafraid to use his name and face, often shunning a keyboard in favor of real-world trickery. All of which made him a more effective hoaxer.

In 2013, I wrote a story about Riches for Details magazine. He was out of prison just long enough for me to have lunch with him at the King of Prussia mall. A few weeks later, he was back behind bars after violating the terms of his probation by crossing state lines to visit the site of the Sandy Hook school massacre, where he pulled off one of his more reprehensible trolls.

At a makeshift memorial to the murdered children — whose corpses far-right propagandists like Alex Jones have tried to convert into money — Riches dropped to one knee to pray. When a reporter asked him who he was, he mournfully said he was the uncle of shooter Adam Lanza. Soon, Riches was in the middle of a media scrum giving interviews, an early example of a bad actor creating “fake news.”

New York Daily News Archive via Getty Images Riches pretends to be the uncle of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza while visiting a memorial to the victims of the shooting.

Hartford Courant via Getty Images Riches, pretending to be the uncle of Adam Lanza, gives interviews to the media.

Riches and I stayed in touch sporadically over the years. I knew that when he next got out of prison, he’d enter a far uglier trolling landscape created by companies like Twitter and Facebook. On social media, racists and harassment crews roam freely, threatening lives, undermining democracies and radicalizing future Adam Lanzas. There’s nothing fun or funny about it.

As expected, Riches waded into the fray. He embraced the new weapons and gravitated, in particular, to Facebook, where he lures marks by creating fake pages connected to real events. Amid the media fracas over MAGA-hat clad boys from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky facing off with a Native American elder, Riches and other trolls created several Covington-related pages — including a fake page for Covington student Nicholas Sandmann that bashed the elder, Nathan Phillips. (Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues to make lying like this on his platform alarmingly easy.)

Jonathan Lee Riches A fake Covington Catholic High School Facebook page set up by Riches.

But Riches’ real-world stunts continue to set him apart from the lumpentrolletariat. He attended the Bill Cosby trial in September 2016 and offered Cosby Jell-O every time the rapist entered court. He turned up in Florida with gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum as a Black Lives Matter demonstrator. A particularly successful ruse was posing as Muslim and attending political events. He did it at a Trump event in Manheim, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 1, 2016.

Jonathan Lee Riches Riches at a Donald Trump event in Manheim, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 1, 2016.

Three days later, he was front-row at a Hillary Clinton town hall in Haverford, Pennsylvania, representing “Muslims for Clinton.”

Bastiaan Slabbers/Alamy Riches, posing as Muslim, approaches Hillary Clinton in October 2016.

That appearance led to Riches being featured in the lead image of a Breitbart story attacking the Council on Islamic-American Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group that the political right has used as a bogeyman to whip up Islamophobia.

The photo is the very definition of fake news. It is still live on Breitbart over two years later. 

Breitbart Riches appears in Breitbart as a fake Muslim for Clinton.

Riches may be a Zelig-like figure photobombing America for his own twisted enjoyment rather than for any clear ideological purpose, but his shamelessness, narcissism and lack of empathy place him squarely on the political right in the Trump era.

Jonathan Lee Riches Riches moves in on former President Bill Clinton.

CactusJackTexas Riches photobombs a Michael Flynn court hearing.

He has found himself standing shoulder-to-shoulder at events with people like Jack Posobiec, the Roger Stone protégé who spearheaded the near-deadly Pizzagate disinformation campaign and has collaborated with armed neo-Nazis yet still has a platform on Twitter from which to sow discord and lies. 

In November, Riches released a book about his litigation exploits. One of his co-contributors also writes for white nationalist publications such as Counter-Currents and Arktos Media and last month appeared to endorse a political run by alt-right leader Richard Spencer.

What Riches has failed to grasp is that there’s little room left for the merry trolling of yore when truth is under assault in America. If your goal is to sandbag reality, you’re bedding down with grifters, foreign agents and an army of deplorables.

And Riches has no intention of stopping. This past weekend, he put on his “Jews for Trump” outfit to troll a benefit in Tampa where Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was speaking. Outside the venue, he helped provoke a confrontation that led to a woman being taken away in handcuffs.

Nevertheless, Riches might still have few lessons to impart ― about gullibility and how a newsy character in outlandish attire (a living meme, essentially) can slip past journalism’s antiquated defense systems. At a time of peak truthiness, he is here, above all, to remind us that skepticism is mandatory.

Note: After being contacted by HuffPost, a spokesperson for The New Yorker provided a more detailed statement about the fake “Jonah Rich” story. We are publishing the statement in its entirety here:

On November 6th, The New Yorker published a piece on its Web site about a man who claimed to travel the country attending Donald Trump’s rallies. The article was done in an as-told-to style, meaning that the interview subject’s own words formed the basis of the story. Though the subject of the piece was not able to speak with the fact checker before deadline, the checker took steps to verify the subject’s account, including conducting an interview with a woman who claimed to be the subject’s mother and who confirmed his story. We learned on November 7th that both the subject of the piece and his purported mother had deliberately misrepresented themselves. Upon learning this, we unpublished the piece. The next day, November 8th, after further reviewing the matter, we added an editor’s note. Reporting an as-told-to story involves both trust and verification; in this case, our trust was misplaced and our system for verification intentionally manipulated.

It is generally unwise to give trolls attention. A troll willing to explain his motives and tactics, however, can be worth listening to, if for no other reason than to understand how bad actors operate in an era when they are empowered by social media companies that do so little to combat disinformation. To that end, we’re including the following Q&A with Riches, from November. The interview has been edited for clarity.

How long were you in prison for?

Ten years, got out, and then I went to Sandy Hook and left the state without permission, so I violated [probation]. I got three years for a violation.

I actually went up there like a conspiracy theorist to see what was going on. I just thought it was fascinating to go there. I actually got on my knees and prayed at the memorial. Then, I got up and some reporter was in my face. Then I just winged it.

I just said, “My name is Jonathan Lanza. I’m the shooter of the uncle and I’m here to give respect to the victims’ families.” Then, next thing I know, I get bombarded by media people. “You’re the uncle of the shooter. Oh, my god. Oh, my god.” They’re putting cameras and microphones up in my face. I gave like a press conference there. I drive home. Next thing I know, my phone’s blowing up and everybody’s telling me I’m on the news as the [shooter’s uncle].

After the Sandy Hook stunt, you were in prison for three years?

Yup. At that time, I’d stopped the lawsuits and I shifted towards the Pennsylvania “right to know” law, which is like the Freedom of Information Act but on the state level. I just kept submitting them and submitting them, like “I want to know Taylor Swift’s educational record.” Every department in Pennsylvania. “I want to know how many gallons of milk your milking department made in the month of …” Just stupid stuff.

I was just creating a clusterfuck. That was my entertainment when I was in prison.

You got out of prison the second time in May 2015, which was coincidental because not long after that, Trump declared his candidacy.

That’s where I got fascinated, because Mr. Trump comes and then he just is not politically correct. He’s just a candidate that I instantly paid attention to. I was looking at the online reactions to him and stuff and then I trolled off of other people’s reactions.

So Trump was your entry point to political trolling?

Political and online trolling, yes. And real life trolling. Once he got the nomination, then that’s when I started. Especially in Pennsylvania, because Pennsylvania was a hotbed state. So I was going to every single rally with anybody that was a high-profile political figure.

I went to a Hillary Clinton town hall meeting and they placed me right behind Hillary Clinton, as a Muslim for Clinton. I shook her hand and everything. Sometimes the campaigns put people behind a certain candidate if you fit a narrative, whatever, like that.

My next troll is I’m gonna start running for political office. Like mayor, city councilman, sheriff in different elections. Like mock campaigns.

Tell me where and when that New Yorker interview happened.

It was at the Fort Myers Trump rally. I was just standing in line as “Jews for Trump” and this photographer came up to me, liked my shirt, and started asking me some questions, wanted to take my picture. He was directing me. He was telling me exactly what to look at, the way I should position myself. Which was strange, cuz I never had anybody do that. So he took my picture and gets my information and says a reporter is going to get back to me.

And you were wearing a yarmulke the whole time?

Yarmulke, “Jews for Trump” shirt, Trump shoes, shoes that have “Trump” on it. And then I just told that guy my name is Jonah. I just took a Jewish name, I figured Jonah was Jewish. Jonah Rich, I was gonna say Rothschild, but I just said Jonah Rich.

You were posing as a Jew after a massacre in a synagogue. Do you think there’s anything wrong with that when so much anti-Semitism is swirling around, and you’re not Jewish, and people might interpret it as you making light of a tragedy?

My mind at that particular moment, for that particular rally, was, go down there “Jews for Trump” and show that Jews do support Trump.

But you’re not Jewish, right?

No, I’m not Jewish at all.

So you were creating disinformation that in the wake of an actual tragedy could be viewed, especially by people in the Jewish community, as very disrespectful.

I’m just thinking of myself in the moment. With different rallies, I try to go with different themes. So I had that “Jews for Trump” shirt and I had the yarmulke for a while, and it was just an opportunity to use it at that time. Just the luck that the tragedy happened, I’m like, “OK, I’m going to run with the ‘Jews for Trump,’ because of the tragedy.” I don’t think about the long-term consequences as far as disinformation or offending anyone.

But I understand after the fact that people could be offended. My belief system shows no disrespect whatsoever toward that tragedy.

What did you tell The New Yorker reporter when he contacted you a few days later?

We talked about my life and I just created a whole story that wasn’t even true: I come from a Jewish family. I’ve been ostracized from the community, or from my Jewish community, for supporting Trump.

The only thing that was real that I told him was maybe close to my name, Jonah Rich, Jonathan Riches, and my age. I’m from Philadelphia. Other than that, everything I told him was complete bullshit.

I was telling him I was going to rallies I’ve never even been to. I was Googling Trump rallies from 2017 to get the time and month right so I could spit it out to him. He did ask me on the phone, “OK, so who’s your parents?” I’m also looking up the white pages and I just find some family [in Philadelphia] linked to a guy named Jonah Rich in their 60s. I shot him off their names so it backed me up.

How long was the story up?

The next day, I put a Facebook post up that said, “Haha, look at this, I trolled them.” And then that evening it was gone.

[Trump] knows what he’s doing. I think he’s trolling the presidency, to be honest. For what reason? I think he’s just getting a kick out of this, man.

In terms of effective trolling, how important is it for you to do things in person?

It’s like testing my own boundaries, testing my own limits. My next troll is I’m gonna start running for political office. Like mayor, city councilman, sheriff in different elections. Like mock campaigns.

Getting out diversifies my craft, it gives me confidence to do these feats. And I like to try to test the limits.

Social media has made it much easier to troll, right?

I think the tools are available now that can be exploited and it’s easy to get that message spread. The disinformation that I want, I can put out there. The next mass shooting, before they identify the shooter, I can set up 10 Twitter accounts looking like news sites and then create whoever I want as the shooter, and then use the other news sites to retweet that. Vulnerable, gullible people will see that, they think it’s from a news site and then they will copy it and tweet it out.

Whenever there’s disasters, I also set up Facebook groups and then just thousands flock into the groups. I encourage everyone to basically fight each other. I don’t censor anything.

Is Facebook aware of the groups?

Facebook is aware. Every single tragedy that happened in this country since, I would say, 2015, I got a group set up in that topic. I can create fake Facebook accounts under people’s names so I can be anonymous. If a mass shooting happens, I’ll create a video real quick and put whoever I want to identify as the mass shooter, put some music, photo edit it real quick and then throw it up on BitChute because I know that will be the searched word.

People think of trolling in a negative way for good reason, but can trolling have a positive effect?

I think if someone trolls, I think they should expose their troll to bring awareness. When I troll something and troll events, I go on my Facebook page and talk about the troll. Kind of like informing everyone what I’ve done. One, to brag, but also to wake people up. It provokes thought. It plugs the loopholes.

What do you believe, underneath all this? Do you have any firm beliefs? What are your politics?

I’m just an atheist from a Christian family. I don’t practice any religion. I don’t hate anyone for their religion. I might pretend I [belong to] a religion but not to disrespect it.

What about your politics?

I made a choice: Whoever’s in power, that’s who I’m going to support. I just try to go with the flow. Obviously, I was in prison and I strongly believe in criminal justice reform.

Do you think Donald Trump is a troll?

I would consider him the king troll. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what to say to provoke attention. He’s a showman. I think he’s trolling the presidency, to be honest. For what reason? I think he’s just getting a kick out of this, man. This might be some sort of bigger thing. Maybe with Russia or something. Create division. Because there’s no unity in this country. It’s getting more and more divided.

I don’t know what the future’s gonna be like. I just think that 2019 is going to be a bloody political [mess], right before the election again. It’s gonna be tense, man. And it depends on what Trump trolls around and tries to excite everybody with. I just know whatever is going on, I’m gonna be trolling. Whatever breaking news, you can expect me to troll it.

RELATED COVERAGE

The post Anyone Can Get Trolled — Even The New Yorker appeared first on The Chestnut Post.

from The Chestnut Post https://thechestnutpost.com/news/anyone-can-get-trolled-even-the-new-yorker/

[thedannyfirth]

UniBlog S2 week 7

Design practice this week was taken by umran as juan was on a business trip. To start the lesson, the group gathered to have our scrum meeting and share what we have done over the past week, I had a lot to offer this time around which was great. Everyone seems to be on track though I feel there is a lot more we could be doing when it comes to group communication and the weeks are coming fast and so is the due date and I feel if we don’t start working more efficiently and staying behind for 2 – 3 hours after session then we wont be ready in time. Group communication is key and I feel that we are lacking in that ilk.

Umran came around to each of the groups to see what we were doing and offered us some really great advice on how to better our game and more so how to structure each scene and level within unity. The method of doing this is a sub genre called Metroidvania level design which I have found is invaluable to this project. It’s the process of mapping out scene by scene the game plan and then stack each from on top of one another or link them to mirror the narrative.

The map is constructed of an outlining template and then this can be transferred into unity and so the level designers no what to place and where.

I will insert and image below to show a detailed example of what this method actually is.

For the rest of the session I worked with brad at re creating the designs for the weapon I had drawn and this was quite a mishap as it took longer than it should of to scale down these weapon designs but because the background wallpaper is so small we only had 17px by 10px to work with which is ridiculous so there is a massive loss in quality when it comes to assets within the game now unless we can size up the background, this is going to be difficult but now at least we know for future reference, its something we can reflect on and now when designing backgrounds for the game we can size up and though it might take longer it will look much better in the process.

Digital graphics was a very strange session but also extremely funny as it started off by mick doing an exercise with us and then he gave some very inspirational points and advice which of course I always take on board but I just wish I had the motivation to make use of them.

For the lesson we used Photoshop and illustrator to create vector maps and we used various techniques and tools in Photoshop to better our knowledge.

The vector mapping project seems very interesting and I will try and incorporate this in my coursework. 

Programming with matt was a good session but confusing, we are getting further and further into unity now and its becoming more serious now and so I don’t think anyone can afford to be having time off as the things we are learning now will be invaluable in the future for projects both for uni and individual personal projects.

[qwertsypage]

What Happens to Managers in Scrum? – Episode 1 of ScrumCast

What Happens to Managers in Scrum?

  by Tom Bullock | April 23, 2020 | Blog

This post is part of our new ScrumCast series of conversations with thought leaders who have successfully helped transform organizations and empower teams and individuals. Each episode will explore organizational Agility and Scrum patterns, tactics, and techniques that drive real-world success. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest ScrumCast episodes. 

There’s a word missing in the Scrum Guide. This missing word can leave many wondering if they have a place when their organization adopts Scrum or launches an Agile transformation. 

That word is manager. 

And while there are obvious transitional paths for executive and other senior leadership, those loosely defined as middle managers may ask themselves which one of the three official Scrum roles they fill. Are they a Product Owner? Scrum Master? Team Member? 

This can also be a difficult challenge for leadership to solve. So I asked Avi Schneier and Dave Slaten, two of our Principal Consultants to explain how they help clients answer this question.

What follows are some of the highlights of that conversation. For more details and the full in-depth interview, click here or go to our YouTube channel. 

What Do We Mean By Middle Managers?

You won’t find the title middle manager on an org chart, or printed under someone’s name on a business card. This obviously broad term is used to describe a wide range of positions that vary from organization to organization. Here’s how Avi and Dave define that term:

AVI SCHNEIER: “I think we want to distinguish the fact that product managers are not always middle managers. They may actually end up being quite often team members themselves or the equivalent. I don't like to use a lot of phrases around hierarchy, but when you consider a traditional organization before they switch to Scrum, there is a tremendous hierarchy pyramid in there. And there's this layer of managers in between senior management or the executives in the C suites as well as the people who might be just direct managers of the teams. In some companies that may be directors, but more often than not, it might actually be even above that.”

DAVE SLATEN: “I'd actually float down a little bit below that Avi. I think there's definitely the middle management layer, but I’ve had a lot of experience getting down to the people who are right on the peripheral of the teams, before and after the transformation, they can end up struggling with the idea of where do I fit into this? Because Scrum has three roles and a  manager isn’t one of them.”

The Fast But Problematic Approach

When an organization transforms, executive and senior leadership can choose to move middle managers into Scrum roles based on the positions they currently fill as opposed to the skill sets each individual possesses. 

DAVE SLATEN: “A number of times we'll go in an organization where executive leadership is looking for advice to do a direct one-to-one mapping. So all of these people are going to become this role in Scrum, and then all of this other group is now going to become another role in Scrum. The most common is that we see that one-to-one mapping try to happen is to take the project management office and turn them into Scrum Masters and take your business analysts and enroll them in the Product Ownership role.

And there are times when those translations work well. But again and again, what I've found is you might get started in that way depending on how the organization's culture is currently set up, but it really ends up being a case by case basis of who’s going to fit in best and where.”

AVI SCHNEIER: “I would say the first mistake that we see has nothing to do with Scrum. The first mistake that we see is just very common in business. You got a sales team, somebody who's an awesome salesman, and they automatically promote that person. Just because you are a great salesperson doesn’t mean you have the ability to manage people. Maybe there's a correlation, but there is no causation. 

That's a huge breakdown. Now, the other breakdown that we see is that people are confused with what to do with the PMO? There is a way to transform it. At one of our clients, it’s one of the largest retailers in the world. Our client, it's one of the largest retailers in the world. They turned their Project Management Office into a Project Acceleration Office whose job is now to accelerate projects by understanding Scrum in the agile world. 

At some companies where we go to, the project managers instantly become Scrum Masters. At other companies we work with,  the project managers instantly become Product Owners. Dave said, nothing could be a bigger mistake because each one of them has a different personality trait that is required to do well.”

A Better Approach

A “try Agile” organization knows how to identify and capitalize on the individual strengths of their employees. This is particularly important when undergoing an Agile transformation. Knowing who best fits into each of the three Scrum roles will help define your success.

AVI SCHNEIER: “So let me just give an example of what I do in my leadership workshops. I tell them there are three things here, Awesome Products, Awesome Process, and Awesome People. And I know you care about all three. But then I draw a chart with those three phrases and say by the end of the day you have to put your name in just one of the columns. 

Now if they put their name under Awesome Product they’re obviously going into the Product Owner role. If their name goes under Awesome Process, they’re going to become Scrum Masters. And if their name goes under Awesome People? There actually is a role for that as well. It's not an established Scrum role with a title, but it's generally like a functional owner or disciple owner. 

This is where management really fits. What's funny is that when you do this, you figure out that you don't need as many people deciding ‘the what’ as you thought you did previously. ‘The how’, that's what you need the most people figuring out because that's what we need, the innovativeness and the process.”

DAVE SLATEN: “I'll start with a single team centric view. And, and this is one of the mindset shifts that people struggle with, is that we're kind of a team centric view. Now in Scrum, instead of a bunch of people going around and doing different projects, we're actually bringing work to a team. 

So if we look at awesome products, I refer to it as the strategic direction of the company. When you're in a standard corporate environment, you think you need hundreds of people to make these decisions. The reality is when you untangle it from the other two pieces of the puzzle that Avi described, you find that you actually don't need that many people.

The second thing Avi mentioned was awesome process. The analogy that I'll commonly use is when we go into organizations, it's often kind of a four wheel drive, bumpy dirt road, and with the Scrum training and a little bit of coaching, we can have a team tuned up to be operating as a high-performance sports car. But if we're going to take that high-performance sports car out of the garage and they're going to drive on a four wheel drive, bumpy dirt track, uh, then it's not going to go very fast. So the awesome process is very much akin to the organization needs to sort out all the garbage and friction and issues that they've got that keep people from actually being able to do their job.

And that is awesome people. So if we have some folks who come from a very technical background or they enjoy mentoring. Or they want to make sure that their professional colleagues are up to speed with the company and industry standards and that they're all kind of talking from the same playbook. And this is where the professional development, which often gets forgotten or deferred or delayed or deprioritized because we're always so busy doing everything else”

  Identifying The Right Product Owners

Even those familiar with Agile and Scrum can not fully understand the role of Product Owner. So I asked Avi and Dave for the characteristics they’ve identified as key for success in this role.  

DAVE SLATEN: “The Product Owner is fundamentally responsible for guiding the team. And choosing what outcomes and accomplishments the team needs to contribute to the business bottom line. So stemming from that, the Product Owner needs to be decisive in choosing the direction that we're going.

That decisiveness should be predicated by knowledge of what the business needs, whether it's internal stakeholder delivery, whether it's external market interaction, the Product Owner needs to have or at least be strongly inclined to expand their domain knowledge so that they understand it.

And here's another place where I think a lot of Product Owners fall down, they shy away from understanding the market because they don't necessarily have the skill set to talk to the people, the stakeholders because they've had more of a technical upbringing.”

AVI SCHNEIER: “It's about not making the decisions in a vacuum, thinking that you know better than your, the customer does. I used to work in the stock market, and it’s a common mistake that people think they know better than the market. Nobody knows better than the market. The market will teach you very bad lessons if you think you know better than it.

The Product Owner is the liaison, the known stable interface between the team and the rest of the world. Whether the rest of the world is another team or in the company at large or particularly the customer.

And in that way Product Owners have to be customer experts. Understanding what makes them say yes, what makes them want to buy. It's all about the psychological aspect of understanding what makes our customers tick and what makes them want to use our product and how's it going to help.” 

  Identifying The Right Scrum Masters

For those unacquainted with Agile and Scrum, the Scrum Master can seem like a nebulous role. They help teams accelerate by improving processes and removing impediments. I also asked Avi and Dave for the characteristics they’ve identified as key for success as a Scrum Master.  

AVI SCHNEIER: “To me, we have to remember that when you're talking about management, then you're talking about large groups. There's a great article from the Harvard Business Review, on how much money we've been wasting in America on management practices.  We spend a lot of money on low-value ad management activities versus high-value ad activities. 

Whatever best practices or, as we like to say in Scrum, better practices because you're never truly at the best, that's part of the Scrum Master cycle, to figure out how to standardize and spread those from team to team to team so you're not wasting time reinventing the wheel.”

DAVE SLATEN: “I love the Scrum Master role. Back in 2012, my journey in Scrum started by figuring out how to bring Scrum to a team, and the fundamental role of Scrum Master is exactly that. Figuring out how to coach the team to get work done in a better way. 

I think there's, there's one thing from the project management mindset that translates really well into the Scrum Master role. And that’s looking at data and seeing where things are either on a schedule or on a budget or a number of risks or whatever goes into your regular status report. 

The project management mindset is very good at taking all of this information and making it visible not just to upper management as a report, but also make it visible back to the team. The team can respond to it on a Sprint by Sprint or even a day by day basis if they do it well, and we can tap into that at the Daily Scrum.”

Middle Managers In General

Not every middle manager will fit neatly into a Product Owner or Scrum Master role. That’s  where a lot of fear comes in. Here’s how Dave and Avi approach the tough conversations that can follow.

DAVE SLATEN: “I would take them through a conversation that begins with you're still here. Your title has changed. But your employment has not. And really dig into where do you fit in the spectrum of strategy, problem-solving, or supporting people? And I’d ask for examples of where they flourish. And work to get them into that kind of spot. I would have them take away is that they are still valuable to the organization. Their time and tenure are unique and specific. There's definitely a place for them. We just need to adapt the way that we think about it.”

AVI SCHNEIER: “I'm in the exact same place. I've had this conversation actually quite often. We tend to deal a lot in leadership levels before and during the rest of the transition.

One of the things I say to middle managers is you have job security. What you don’t have is role security. That's what it comes down to. Then what I like to do is I like to try to take them back before they were a manager and say, what did you really love doing here?

Was it, was it building X? Was it helping the team work better together? Was it mentoring the new, the new folks that came in? 

It's about finding that passion that you have for the work that you do and then turning that into what Scrum role fits that piece. So if you're passionate about making stuff, maybe you go back to the Team, or if you're passionate about talking to customers, then you're going towards the Product Owner or Chief Product Owner side. And if you're passionate about the process, about getting everybody to work together, which a lot of product managers are, then Scrum Mastering might be for you. 

The whole point is to bring more value to the customer, more revenue to the company, and greater job satisfaction for those people who do the work. That is true across the board. That is Agile management. 

Summary

No, Scrum has no role called ‘manager’. But that’s not the important point to make. What matters is how you capitalize on their individual strengths in order to move them into the right new role. One that sets both the organization and individual up for success. 

What Happens to Managers in Scrum?

by Tom Bullock | April 23, 2020 | Blog

This post is part of our new ScrumCast series of conversations with thought leaders who have successfully helped transform organizations and empower teams and individuals. Each episode will explore organizational Agility and Scrum patterns, tactics, and techniques that drive real-world success. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest ScrumCast episodes. 

There’s a word missing in the Scrum Guide. This missing word can leave many wondering if they have a place when their organization adopts Scrum or launches an Agile transformation. 

That word is manager. 

And while there are obvious transitional paths for executive and other senior leadership, those loosely defined as middle managers may ask themselves which one of the three official Scrum roles they fill. Are they a Product Owner? Scrum Master? Team Member? 

This can also be a difficult challenge for leadership to solve. So I asked Avi Schneier and Dave Slaten, two of our Principal Consultants to explain how they help clients answer this question.

What follows are some of the highlights of that conversation. For more details and the full in-depth interview, click here or go to our YouTube channel. 

What Do We Mean By Middle Managers?

You won’t find the title middle manager on an org chart, or printed under someone’s name on a business card. This obviously broad term is used to describe a wide range of positions that vary from organization to organization. Here’s how Avi and Dave define that term:

AVI SCHNEIER: “I think we want to distinguish the fact that product managers are not always middle managers. They may actually end up being quite often team members themselves or the equivalent. I don't like to use a lot of phrases around hierarchy, but when you consider a traditional organization before they switch to Scrum, there is a tremendous hierarchy pyramid in there. And there's this layer of managers in between senior management or the executives in the C suites as well as the people who might be just direct managers of the teams. In some companies that may be directors, but more often than not, it might actually be even above that.”

DAVE SLATEN: “I'd actually float down a little bit below that Avi. I think there's definitely the middle management layer, but I’ve had a lot of experience getting down to the people who are right on the peripheral of the teams, before and after the transformation, they can end up struggling with the idea of where do I fit into this? Because Scrum has three roles and a  manager isn’t one of them.”

  The Fast But Problematic Approach

When an organization transforms, executive and senior leadership can choose to move middle managers into Scrum roles based on the positions they currently fill as opposed to the skill sets each individual possesses. 

DAVE SLATEN: “A number of times we'll go in an organization where executive leadership is looking for advice to do a direct one-to-one mapping. So all of these people are going to become this role in Scrum, and then all of this other group is now going to become another role in Scrum. The most common is that we see that one-to-one mapping try to happen is to take the project management office and turn them into Scrum Masters and take your business analysts and enroll them in the Product Ownership role.

And there are times when those translations work well. But again and again, what I've found is you might get started in that way depending on how the organization's culture is currently set up, but it really ends up being a case by case basis of who’s going to fit in best and where.”

AVI SCHNEIER: “I would say the first mistake that we see has nothing to do with Scrum. The first mistake that we see is just very common in business. You got a sales team, somebody who's an awesome salesman, and they automatically promote that person. Just because you are a great salesperson doesn’t mean you have the ability to manage people. Maybe there's a correlation, but there is no causation. 

That's a huge breakdown. Now, the other breakdown that we see is that people are confused with what to do with the PMO? There is a way to transform it. At one of our clients, it’s one of the largest retailers in the world. Our client, it's one of the largest retailers in the world. They turned their Project Management Office into a Project Acceleration Office whose job is now to accelerate projects by understanding Scrum in the agile world. 

At some companies where we go to, the project managers instantly become Scrum Masters. At other companies we work with,  the project managers instantly become Product Owners. Dave said, nothing could be a bigger mistake because each one of them has a different personality trait that is required to do well.”

A Better Approach

A “try Agile” organization knows how to identify and capitalize on the individual strengths of their employees. This is particularly important when undergoing an Agile transformation. Knowing who best fits into each of the three Scrum roles will help define your success.

AVI SCHNEIER: “So let me just give an example of what I do in my leadership workshops. I tell them there are three things here, Awesome Products, Awesome Process, and Awesome People. And I know you care about all three. But then I draw a chart with those three phrases and say by the end of the day you have to put your name in just one of the columns. 

Now if they put their name under Awesome Product they’re obviously going into the Product Owner role. If their name goes under Awesome Process, they’re going to become Scrum Masters. And if their name goes under Awesome People? There actually is a role for that as well. It's not an established Scrum role with a title, but it's generally like a functional owner or disciple owner. 

This is where management really fits. What's funny is that when you do this, you figure out that you don't need as many people deciding ‘the what’ as you thought you did previously. ‘The how’, that's what you need the most people figuring out because that's what we need, the innovativeness and the process.”

DAVE SLATEN: “I'll start with a single team centric view. And, and this is one of the mindset shifts that people struggle with, is that we're kind of a team centric view. Now in Scrum, instead of a bunch of people going around and doing different projects, we're actually bringing work to a team. 

So if we look at awesome products, I refer to it as the strategic direction of the company. When you're in a standard corporate environment, you think you need hundreds of people to make these decisions. The reality is when you untangle it from the other two pieces of the puzzle that Avi described, you find that you actually don't need that many people.

The second thing Avi mentioned was awesome process. The analogy that I'll commonly use is when we go into organizations, it's often kind of a four wheel drive, bumpy dirt road, and with the Scrum training and a little bit of coaching, we can have a team tuned up to be operating as a high-performance sports car. But if we're going to take that high-performance sports car out of the garage and they're going to drive on a four wheel drive, bumpy dirt track, uh, then it's not going to go very fast. So the awesome process is very much akin to the organization needs to sort out all the garbage and friction and issues that they've got that keep people from actually being able to do their job.

And that is awesome people. So if we have some folks who come from a very technical background or they enjoy mentoring. Or they want to make sure that their professional colleagues are up to speed with the company and industry standards and that they're all kind of talking from the same playbook. And this is where the professional development, which often gets forgotten or deferred or delayed or deprioritized because we're always so busy doing everything else”

  Identifying The Right Product Owners

Even those familiar with Agile and Scrum can not fully understand the role of Product Owner. So I asked Avi and Dave for the characteristics they’ve identified as key for success in this role.  

DAVE SLATEN: “The Product Owner is fundamentally responsible for guiding the team. And choosing what outcomes and accomplishments the team needs to contribute to the business bottom line. So stemming from that, the Product Owner needs to be decisive in choosing the direction that we're going.

That decisiveness should be predicated by knowledge of what the business needs, whether it's internal stakeholder delivery, whether it's external market interaction, the Product Owner needs to have or at least be strongly inclined to expand their domain knowledge so that they understand it.

And here's another place where I think a lot of Product Owners fall down, they shy away from understanding the market because they don't necessarily have the skill set to talk to the people, the stakeholders because they've had more of a technical upbringing.”

AVI SCHNEIER: “It's about not making the decisions in a vacuum, thinking that you know better than your, the customer does. I used to work in the stock market, and it’s a common mistake that people think they know better than the market. Nobody knows better than the market. The market will teach you very bad lessons if you think you know better than it.

The Product Owner is the liaison, the known stable interface between the team and the rest of the world. Whether the rest of the world is another team or in the company at large or particularly the customer.

And in that way Product Owners have to be customer experts. Understanding what makes them say yes, what makes them want to buy. It's all about the psychological aspect of understanding what makes our customers tick and what makes them want to use our product and how's it going to help.” 

  Identifying The Right Scrum Masters

For those unacquainted with Agile and Scrum, the Scrum Master can seem like a nebulous role. They help teams accelerate by improving processes and removing impediments. I also asked Avi and Dave for the characteristics they’ve identified as key for success as a Scrum Master.  

AVI SCHNEIER: “To me, we have to remember that when you're talking about management, then you're talking about large groups. There's a great article from the Harvard Business Review, on how much money we've been wasting in America on management practices.  We spend a lot of money on low-value ad management activities versus high-value ad activities. 

Whatever best practices or, as we like to say in Scrum, better practices because you're never truly at the best, that's part of the Scrum Master cycle, to figure out how to standardize and spread those from team to team to team so you're not wasting time reinventing the wheel.”

DAVE SLATEN: “I love the Scrum Master role. Back in 2012, my journey in Scrum started by figuring out how to bring Scrum to a team, and the fundamental role of Scrum Master is exactly that. Figuring out how to coach the team to get work done in a better way. 

I think there's, there's one thing from the project management mindset that translates really well into the Scrum Master role. And that’s looking at data and seeing where things are either on a schedule or on a budget or a number of risks or whatever goes into your regular status report. 

The project management mindset is very good at taking all of this information and making it visible not just to upper management as a report, but also make it visible back to the team. The team can respond to it on a Sprint by Sprint or even a day by day basis if they do it well, and we can tap into that at the Daily Scrum.”

Middle Managers In General

Not every middle manager will fit neatly into a Product Owner or Scrum Master role. That’s  where a lot of fear comes in. Here’s how Dave and Avi approach the tough conversations that can follow.

DAVE SLATEN: “I would take them through a conversation that begins with you're still here. Your title has changed. But your employment has not. And really dig into where do you fit in the spectrum of strategy, problem-solving, or supporting people? And I’d ask for examples of where they flourish. And work to get them into that kind of spot. I would have them take away is that they are still valuable to the organization. Their time and tenure are unique and specific. There's definitely a place for them. We just need to adapt the way that we think about it.”

AVI SCHNEIER: “I'm in the exact same place. I've had this conversation actually quite often. We tend to deal a lot in leadership levels before and during the rest of the transition.

One of the things I say to middle managers is you have job security. What you don’t have is role security. That's what it comes down to. Then what I like to do is I like to try to take them back before they were a manager and say, what did you really love doing here?

Was it, was it building X? Was it helping the team work better together? Was it mentoring the new, the new folks that came in? 

It's about finding that passion that you have for the work that you do and then turning that into what Scrum role fits that piece. So if you're passionate about making stuff, maybe you go back to the Team, or if you're passionate about talking to customers, then you're going towards the Product Owner or Chief Product Owner side. And if you're passionate about the process, about getting everybody to work together, which a lot of product managers are, then Scrum Mastering might be for you. 

The whole point is to bring more value to the customer, more revenue to the company, and greater job satisfaction for those people who do the work. That is true across the board. That is Agile management. 

Summary

No, Scrum has no role called ‘manager’. But that’s not the important point to make. What matters is how you capitalize on their individual strengths in order to move them into the right new role. One that sets both the organization and individual up for success. 

The post What Happens to Managers in Scrum? – Episode 1 of ScrumCast appeared first on Scrum Inc.

What Happens to Managers in Scrum? – Episode 1 of ScrumCast published first on https://koresolpage.tumblr.com/