With coworkers like this, who needs to worry about office politics?
Ah, the maliciously CC’d email. It’s leaked like a plague into offices over the past decade. A coworker wants to burn you in front of the people that count, (or brag about something) so instead of addressing the issue like an adult, they send you an email that several key people are CC’d on. That way, they don’t feel like a tattletale but get the full satisfaction of ratting you out to your superiors.
It’s brutal.
It’s people of true moral character that are usually behind it. You know the email: “Hey Coworker Bob, great job on the piece. I took a quick look before we sent it to the printers and saw you signed it “Best regards” instead of “Sincerely” and that’s not our policy here. No biggie, but can you double-check next time?”
Sure, that sounds benign, and it’s probably warranted — when it was only directed at you. CC in half the staff and it becomes a game of malicious office one-upmanship.
Or, the suck-up-to-the-boss CC: “Hi Coworker Bob. Thanks for emailing that project to the client on time. I’m glad that we got it in on schedule. Good thing I put in all those extra hours on the weekend! Best regards, Betty.” That smelly Betty just wanted everyone to know she worked on the weekend, so she CC’d in her supervisor on the email. Awesome.
It’s a sad state of affairs, the malicious CC. If you want to be an office rat or shameless butt-kisser, at least to do it face to face. But that isn’t really their style, now is it?
On that note, check this out: “Misdirected layoffs email puts Carat on defensive”
And in response… “The upside to Carat’s layoffs email debacle”
KB
Banff National Park. Photo: Kelly Nigro, Flickr Creative Commons
I’m writing a children’s book on Alberta right now. Since I’m literally chained to my desk, I thought I’d share the love:
Did you know:
- That Alberta has the second-highest proven concentration of oil reserves in the world? Only Saudi Arabia has more.
- That Alberta is named after Queen Victoria’s fourth daughter, Louise Caroline Alberta?
- That Alberta has a dinosaur named after it? The Albertosaurus
- That it takes two tonnes of oils sands to make one barrel of oil?
- That the Canadian government was less than candid when it recruited Brits and Europeans to come homestead in Alberta at the turn of the century. It promised “virgin farmland” and “ready made farms”, but forgot to add that the winters are brutal and the climate very dry. The British and Europeans? Not so impressed.
I normally kind of avoid this stuff, but I had to navigate through Buskerfest in my neighbourhood yesterday and discovered, to my surprise, that it was good times.
It runs all weekend on Front St. between Jarvis and Church. Be sure to check out this breakdance crew if you can. I didn’t catch their name but good dancing and good comedy.
Honourary favourite: Beijing Mascots. Photo: Tama Leaver, Flickr Creative Commons
1. Ian Miller and Team Canada’s equestrian silver medal: This team hasn’t had a medal since 1966! And Ian Miller is 61. And this is his NINTH Olympic Games. It was such a stellar win (down one rider on the team) and so bittersweet for Miller after his wife and business partner Lynne, died in March.
2. Priscilla Lopes-Schliep’s bronze medal in hurdles: Seemingly out of nowhere, the impressively muscle-bound Lopes-Schliep erases memories of Perdita and ends a 12-year medal drought in Canadian track.
3. Usain Bolt’s dancehall happy dance in the 200m: Hilarious.
4. Brian Price and Team Canada’s Gold medal in rowing: Awesome for those guys and Price is from my hometown. Go Belleville!
5. Canada’s 0 to 13 medal comeback: I eat my own words.
Olympic Water Cube. Flickr Creative Commons: angus_mac_123
I love the Olympics. I love the weird sports, I love the mainstream sports, I love watching superhuman Micheal Phelps take over the universe.
But as we march forward in Day 5 of the Games, the clamour surrounding Canada’s so-far medal-less performance as a country is starting to grow considerably. Today, the head of the COC told people to “calm down and relax” and that we will reexamine our athletic support systems after the Games are over.
The trouble is, we’ve heard that before. Our Summer Games performance is never that hot, and our Winter Games performance has been occasionally attributed to its generally less populated nature. But every time this happens, everyone says we have to go back the drawing board, pour more money in and in general, be more Australian about the whole thing. I just have a hard time seeing it — the Harper government launching a brand new, from-the-ground-up program to really put Canadian athletes on the map. They’re just not that kind of government.
Unfortunately, the athletes themselves seem to be feeling the sting of our collectively medal-less performance. Fencer Sherraine Schalm pretty much freaked out on camera after her first-round loss in fencing–and to be honest, I can’t blame her. “I’m sorry, I know I was Canada’s great medal hope” she said sarcastically as the camera caught her on her way out. I thought it was refreshing. That’s exactly what I would have felt like saying afterward, not some canned, super-Canadian comment about trying hard.
Let’s keep behind our athletes, but more importantly, let’s put more pressure on our government to back them in a real, significant way so that we can really ’share the spirit’ at the London Games in 2012.
Cherry Beach at dusk. Photo: 416Style, Flickr Creative Commons
Have you seen how packed the local beaches are this summer? Just take a drive by Ashbridges Bay beach or the lineup for the Toronto Island ferry and check out the oceans of people sunning themselves or waiting to. Friends who live in the Beach say they’ve never seen it so busy. We can thank gas prices–spending $50 or more just to get the car out of town and back really takes a bite out of what should be a cheap, fun day.
But as I’m sure many other people have been discovering, Toronto’s urban beaches are totally underrated. It’s just taken crazy-high gas prices to get people to check them out. We’re surrounded by such glorious destinations as Muskoka, Wasaga, and Sandbanks and more that we completely forget the bounty we have right here. Or we think it’s polluted, which it isn’t. Many of Toronto’s beaches are “blue flag” beaches and are completely safe to swim in. As of today, all 11 of Toronto’s beaches were cleared safe for swimming. See www.toronto.ca/beach for ratings and descriptions.
We spent a couple of hours on a municipal beach in Barrie last weekend and it was tons of fun. Unlike the crazy scene at Wasaga, this was super mellow and nice. And the water was beautiful. Next, we plan to do the Toronto Island beaches and take advantage of the crisp cool Lake Ontario water just minutes from our house.
In the interest of being a responsible blogger, here are the bicycle pickup locations, as listed on the CBC website. I think bike brand names A through Q are at the Strachan location, and the rest at 30 Ordnance.
Locations: 35 Strachan Ave., 30 Ordnance St., Toronto
Friday, July 25: noon to 8 p.m.
Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Monday, July 28 to Thursday, July 31: noon to 8 p.m
Check out the CBC’s photo gallery of the bike storage areas–it’s crazy how many bikes there are.
-KB
Photo: ramblin'worker, Flickr Creative Commons
Toronto police seized another 1000 bikes yesterday in what is turning into the biggest stolen bike recovery in the country’s history. Only 55 have been picked up by their rightful owners so far, but I would imagine the photos in the paper of the giant pile of bikes are a bit daunting to many. As the bikes are cataloged and displayed, I’m sure many more will be recovered.
But many people interviewed in the papers this week claimed to have known that Igor Kenk was a thief and even visited his shop when their bikes were stolen, on the advice of bike shop staff or friends. This has obviously been going on for years, so why, if everyone knew about it, wasn’t Kenk investigated before? The fact that they are “just bikes” doesn’t really fly–for many people, they are their only modes of transportation and relatively speaking, just as valuable as a car.
Most of those bikes will never make it back to their owners, and there are thousands of people in the city out hundreds and thousands of dollars over Kenk’s bike theiving/hoarding. It’s disappointing that it has taken so long for this to be pursued in a full-scale matter by police.
