I think the Condi photos are creepy, full stop.

Agreed. Though I think the idea of him having a Condi Crush Book is hilarious. In practical application -- creepy.

Sophia, the question you seem to be dancing with is how might you respond if things with the new boss go pear shaped? What options do you see yourself as having?

We've just been informed we have to start our emails with "Dear Recipient".

Okay, for a moment I thought you meant actually "Dear Recipient" and not "Dear Bob" or whatever.

That is strangely restrictive. Is yours a very hierarchical, rules-based workplace? I mean, you know where I work, and even they don't require that sort of thing.

ION, I have a cold settled into my sinuses. So I am taking today off to pound tea and edit a medical textbook chapter my brother sent me. Anyone want to learn about how you tell the difference between heat stroke and heat exhaustion?

One small (very small) achievement on my job - I have, for some obscure reason, become responsible for creating graphics of maps for our lobbying section. It was originally one, showing the status of state laws in respect to their main focus, done by color. They've expanded to a bunch of other maps, but with a blank master, making new ones isn't much of a problem. We have, however, had a long-running argument because they want to go back and change maps from earlier years to reflect the current person's take on what the status was at that time. I've maintained that it's wrong, unethical, and kind of pointless to go back and rewrite history. They insist that the previous people got it wrong and that it has to be changed to accurately reflect the status at that time.

Well, in our Death by Meeting meeting, our head person said that we (i.e., I) shouldn't go back and change maps from past years. yay?

Is yours a very hierarchical, rules-based workplace?

I think they're trying to make it into one. And they're starting with the assumption that we might as well all be in sales, and that every communication has to be polished like an initial pitch in a cold call.

Quite frankly, my emails are going to stay like "Here are the figures we discussed" and "About that open question from the Monday meeting..." Otherwise they just sound awkward and weird.

One of my co-workers is currently pushing back on some of the simplest most obvious things, and I'm tempted to "Dear Recipient" him into the next century. "Dear Recipient, we have in fact already gotten that requirement explicitly from Compliance." "Dear Recipient, the company requires that file because THEY JUST DO, and you being new to the project doesn't change things."

Oh, for the record, I am so in love with Traneto (search on that and Michael Fassbender for pictures).

I'd be pretty freaked, if my car was out of service for a long time. I'd have to come up with some sort of solution to get to work. There's no public transportation, and we're really not set up to move closer right now.

I'm glad your online campaign is making waves, Allyson. That's a huge fuck-up by GM and there are a lot of those cars on the road.

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I think there's reason for concern for Apple without Steve Jobs. Maybe not right away, but will they be able to keep coming up with products that are blast-it-out-of-the-park successes years before the competition? Google has a good position in cloud services and suddenly they have hardware, what if they come up the next really cool thing instead?

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Too bad Gadaffi became a brutal dictator, he really missed his vocation as batshit crazy celebrity.

Rice/Gadaffi - man, only in Ple's warped dreams.

I know how car problems can toss your world into a total tail-spin of fuckery.

Ditto, for Team Zmayhem, and I keep the card that came with our Buffista car help money pinned up next to my computer so I'm looking at your names all day. And thinking grateful thoughts.

dittoing what everyone else said Allyson. It IS a big deal to be facing thousands of dollars of expense unexpectedly and for what seem to be a minor thing.

Yeah, Allyson, don't feel bad about being freaked out; this ain't nothing. You need your car.

I think I am freaked out because I have never worked for someone I just didn't mesh with, but who was still a nice person. I have worked for 3 people who need incredible amounts of attention and were also malicious, and everyone else who has been super laid back.

Allyson, you have every right to be freaked out AND outraged. I've never owned a car, but I can remember when there was a transit strike, and it's horrible to be stranded. GM could at least pretend to care.