George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
To be clear, I am not sure it's a lawsuit. It seems to be a machination within the company, but that could have dire results. And as far as I know he was not asking her to "friend" him, just asking for clarification based on the Facebook algorithm suggesting that profile--and then trying to confirm if it's her. (This could be a subtle way of him asking for a friending, I'm not sure, but at face value it's innocuous.)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
There may be a non-trivial age difference in the two, but I don't know. He didn't even ask to "friend" her as far as I know, just asked did she have a Facebook account and was this her? Possibly a senior asking a junior this is the issue? Not sure.
I don't typically post primary level comments in CW threads but I was having a conversation with my wife last night that prompted me. It's not particularly explosive and treads much of the same ground as many more nuanced posts before it.
Last night I'm in the middle of sorting out a chicken lasagna among other things and I get this text from my wife: Something shocking happened at work today.
I checked the clock. I sleep very early most nights and I calculated roughly what time she'd be getting home, added how much time she'd need to decelerate and actually sit down for dinner, how long after that she'd get the story tellable in her mind, then how long it would take to hear it, factoring in my own responses, if any, her reactions to those, and keeping in mind the obvious unknown variable that maybe the story would, indeed, be shocking. I knew I'd be sleeping later than usual.
Because none of the trivialities of my day mean anything to anyone here I'll get to the point. A temp worker at her company under her tutelage has made noises that she may be leveling some sort of harassment suit (edit: complaint) (power probably). Not against my wife, but against her direct supervisor. The reason? This temp worker has three complaints that I can tell:
-
She was said to resemble a well-known (by other people, not me) celebrity chef on her first day. It may be relevant that I do not know what this chef looks like or whether being compared to her might be taken as an insult or compliment. This, to me, seems to matter, but maybe it doesn't, as simply the acknowledgement that the temp worker has an observable appearance and that this appearance has made some impression may, in the end, be the sin at hand.
-
She was asked if she is on Facebook.
-
She was asked her birthday.
2 and 3 were asked because apparently the supervisor was prompted by Facebook to "friend" a person with the same name as the relevant temp worker. Unsure and with no profile photo to go on, but assuming it might be her as the kanji for her name is rare and matched that of the recommended person, he unwisely and perhaps naively made his inquiry. I assume he asked her birthday for the same reason (that seems to be the case.) All of the above was done in full earshot and view of my wife and others in the office. This suggests it was not a hamhanded prelude to some attempt at making contact for an out-of-office assignation.
All this has erupted in now a series of slightly delayed-reaction texts from this woman to her work group (of which my wife is a part.) Asking whether the company has any sort of guidelines on this (my wife used a different word than guidelines but I can't remember it) and prodding that her complaints be sent up the company chain-of-command. Presumably to the mainest of main offices. The first step of this is already occurring.
I sat there listening and kept thinking to myself how Japan always seems to import the worst of American culture. From shitty hiphop styles (I'm old) to self-entitled behavior when dealing with service personnel (many convenience stores now have a term: customer harassment [kasuhara] because people are such assholes to workers. And I mean assholes. Like getting the worker to dougeza because of some imagined infraction. It doesn't help that this is a country where people commit suicide over hurt feelings.) To now a willingess to go Defcon 4 over what, to me, seem the mildest of social grievances. The triumph of HR.
I've no idea if this woman has a legitimate legal case. Recently a Hyogo prefectural governor came under fire for the kind of inappropriate behavior one would expect from a Thai royal. Or is it? In some ways it's par-for-the-course in what has always been a very hierarchical society. Sempai lord their authority over kohai who grumble but then become sempai a year later and do the same thing to their underlings. But the Hyogo guy's vwry public scandal has put the term powaah hara in the public lexicon.
But then I don't necessarily expect much from the law here, which sometimes seems applied with such bizarre reasoning it makes me wonder if I should GTFO now.
The terms sekuhara, powaah hara, kasuhara and whatever else are all abbreviated forms of borrowed terms from English (sexual harassment, power harassment, customer harassment, etc.)
Anyway we'll see. My wife is upset because she wonders at the repercussions on her supervisor, whom she likes, and with whom she has a friendly working relationship. "If it becomes like this," she said, "how will anyone be able to work together at all?"
Possibilities: I'm hearing this at least once removed. Tone, language used, body language, eye contact, all are unknown to me (but will also be unknown to anyone who adjudicates this). Maybe this supervisor guy leers at the tempworker and my wife just isn't aware of it. Maybe the temp company assured her that at this work no one would ever ask her anything personal about anything and now that's happened. Maybe the temp worker is aware of some other infractions that have occurred in her sight and this is her way of bringing all into the harsh cleansing light. Maybe, as Jordan Peterson has suggested, men and women just may not be able to work together, despite common sense western (and eastern) assumptions.
I nodded. She was right: It was shocking. But I slept earlier than I had expected.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
No idea. It's interesting how this kind of metric (self-reported on presumably a Likert scale of a subset of a population, probably only surveyed once) is typically ridiculed on the Motte, but here it seems to be just accepted.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
Unlike others I won't disagree with you, though I'd suggest that what you say is true arguably only after he has reached a sufficient point in life that he accepts the notion that any girl might find him attractive. Many, many guys take a surprising number of years to figure this out, despite the eyelid batting or coquettish arm touching of whatever female has been pitilessly tasked by destiny with sharing space in time and a Buick with him. (Oh for the return of bench car seats).
I suppose this doesn't even bear reiterating but I'll state it anyway: Boys need time to figure out their role in dating. This has always been true, and if it's never modeled for them by anyone (or is modeled, but with grave inaccuracy, in, for example media) the process runs the risk of turning them into man-boys or themselves feminine enough that they wait around for some luckless girl to brain them with a metaphorical steam iron of romantic know-how.
I recall my first prelude to actually having sexual intercourse (apologies if this is TMI but I won't get graphic) I was with a woman considerably older (or so it seemed at the time I was 22 and she was 31). We were sprawled on some church steps under the African night sky, having left our companions at some outdoor bar. Her exact words to my fumbling passivity: "Are you afraid to screw me?" Only the fact that she was clearly wanting me to pursue the matter (I didn't, not at that moment, that would occur another night, in a tent, largely by accident) kept me from having to excuse myself to step out into the bush (no pun. I mean actual bushveldt) from the shame of it. I felt like a boychild both rewarded and scolded at the same time. This rapidly accelerated my level of prowess however. I did not immediately become Rico Suavé (I probably never did) but through this moment and others like it I reached a level of sufficient competence that enabled me to function romantically. And though I eventually broke up with this same woman rather (unintentionally) cruelly, she taught me a lot.
Whenever I hear of a couple who hitched up young and with both having relatively little or no experience, I think they're either extraordinarily lucky or just blessed with great tolerance.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
No comment on the bulk of your post, but regarding reddit I'm not convinced the vast majority of the posts in any advice subreddit (in particular relationship subs or AITA ,[Am I The Asshole]) aren't just the same random people typing imaginary, usually wildly implausible scenarios for trolling purposes and/or to keep the subs active.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
For various reasons I make our pizzas, and with some success. The usual pepperoni/Italian sausage (a facsimile I also make) but also a chicken ranch (half spicy, half not), a Mexican, once a cheeseburger pizza, and the meatless margherita.
Once you have a dough recipe and figure out your oven, the rest is fairly straightforward.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
I would never have put those two books together conceptually.
Why in Mara's name are you reading Mystery Method? The path of the PUA leads to pathology and unhappiness. If no one else has told you this (they have) I am telling you now (again). If a PUA sits by the river long enough, he will see the body of the person he could have been float by.
I cannot comment on the sitting around doing nothing. If PUA has anything to offer it can improve one's motivation to be a more interesting, cleaner, more physically fit, less needy, healthier, better-dressed and groomed man. Leading hopefully to self-confidence based in legitimate accomplishment.
None of which are achieved by doing nothing. But you seem to be on vacation now. Have you checked out the waterfalls? Done a Thai cooking class?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
I feel like that should have been "so Motte it be."
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
This is a tale as old as time and saltpeter. Your reasoning is sound I suppose (get rid of the urge then I can focus on being a chad) but only if the world worked in considerably more simple ways. Start messing around with hormones and you dance with the devil, and, to quote Joaquin Phoenix in 8mm, "When you dance with the devil the devil don't change. The devil changes you."
You won't magically switch off the sex urge and then still have the same vigor. The surging testosterone is meant to man you up, to use a well-worn, much-maligned, and favorite phrase. So use it.
A good-paying job and a house and muscles don't just turn up at a certain age. You have to work consistently and tirelessly. There are many, many resources (more than in the History of the world) to help you toward one or all of these goals. Self-castration (even if chemical) seems an ass backwards strategy.
Don't get me wrong. I do not look back with warm nostalgia on my days as an 18-yr old who thought about sex nearly constantly (I really should have put more effort into swimming). And the slow lessening of libido as I get older is not entirely unwelcome (lessening, but by no means eradication). But that's the natural course of life in a way.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
I believe he means the book is there to be written, like David chiseled from the granite.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
You hate screens and the internet but isn't this your bread and butter in terms of your desired career? I may be misunderstanding.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
Brilliant. I'm putting this in a story.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
Do people routinely give weight room equipment names or is this a brand? Or, as I suspect, is this an obsessive thing like naming a volleyball Winston?
Let this one go. By uneven workout you mean uneven number? That doesn't matter. Also consider: Injury from injudicious increases in reps is not something you want.
It's odd and maybe I need coffee, but if your username weren't written right there I'd have not imagined you as the author of this. Striking how little I actually know of Mottizens despite my occasional suspicions otherwise.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
I apologize if my counter came off as needlessly pedantic.I do enjoy both books and most of the films and feel a certain misplaced responsibility. Your wider point is of course evident.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
Tolkien vehemently denied that he was writing any sort of allegory in the preface of LOTR, though I guess stating things plainly is the best way to be interpreted to have meant the opposite.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
Not that I've noticed.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
In Japan people might be vaguely interested if you mention star signs, but they'll really bite if you start talking about blood type.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
I love Camille Paglia, can listen to her talk for hours, and agree with much of what she says. But she's also hugely into astrology.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
A futa for those not aware, is short for futanari referring to a character with male and female physical characteristics, usually female anatomy and male genitalia.
Futa is futatsu or two. Nari seems to be derived from naru or 成る "to become". Futanari is therefore "dual form" or similar. It is not the accepted term for "hermaphrodite" but has a similar meaning. It's mostly an anime term.
Like most Japanese terms futanari gets shortened by the Japanese. I guess those extra two mora are just too much.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1mo ago
My sons used to play Minecraft (and Fortnite, and currently Mariocart or some soccer game) and also watch anime. They're like most boys their age in Japan. If there were something in these that were correlated to being trans, I'd have expected it to have manifested more clearly by now. Your friend doing child psychology rotations may have noticed a trend with "western" kids, but that, as has been said, is probably correlation rather than any kind of causal mechanism. Even within anime there are many, many styles and genre, and just as many in manga if not more. (Manga = print or otherwise cel-based drawn 2D comics, and Anime cartoons, in other words moving, as the term animation suggests.)
Whoah, haven't seen you post in a while. Or maybe I wasn't paying attention.
edit: Wasn't trying to sound like an ass, was genuinely thinking you haven't posted in a while.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Not trying to be an ass here. But I have been on the desired side of many interactions with women--meaning I was the one who was pursued, or, more accurately, I was the one who was wanted, who was desired. In states both drunk and sober. And I have never ever been "dragged to eat out" a woman. Even in the the most sweaty, unclothed chaleur du moment, I have never had a woman make such a suggestion--maybe they are just more aggressive in Pai, but I somehow can't even imagine it. I cannot imagine the words, the body language, or the context for how such a request might be communicated, in particular outside a really intimate encounter with someone known well. "Just kiss me already," sure.
I say this not to suggest that this girl wasn't attracted to you for maybe she was (though even if she was, that doesn't mean she still would be, or ever will be again). But maybe there's something in ketamine and whatever else that skews your perceptions? Something to think on.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
2mo ago
Those were the days.
The fact that she's a temp may give them some room to just not renew her--but then she may consider this the reason (which it probably would be) and see that as actionable, i.e. "They didn't want me back because I pointed out their harassment" or similar. I am not actually sure how it will play out.
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