How to Get Out of a No-Win Situation

I did once have a job where one of my duties was to monitor everyone in the office (an office where everyone outranked me, and was paid substantially more than me) to make sure they filed a certain report. If they didn’t complete the report, I was supposed to “get on them” about it.

Several of these people had the power to fire me.

Needless to say, they often failed to respect my authority. More than one of them responded with the helpful suggestion that I fill it out for them. When I pointed out that I didn’t have the information I would need, they tended to offer to email me the information.

One time, when I pointed out that writing the information into an email would take as much time as just filling out the form themselves, I was accused of “getting smart.”

Ever since I was in school, it has continually amazed me that teachers, parents, and employers think of being “smart” as a bad thing.

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How to Listen to a Boring Story

Missy and I have a sort of unofficial ritual of briefing each other on how our day was if we didn’t spend said day together. In a way, it’s like the day isn’t officially over until I’ve told her about it.

I know. That sounds nice.

Unfortunately, in practice, it means that if I have a bad day it’s not officially over until I’ve bummed her out too.

Note from Missy: Fortunately, we work in the same office space now. So those kind of days are far fewer. :)

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How to Discipline Your Employees

I have worked places where the employees would have worn evidence of their rebellion as a badge of honor. I remember a conversation with a coworker who told me with pride about how he was so awful to one supervisor that they put in for a transfer just to get away from him.

I’m pretty sure he still has that job. He certainly never got promoted.

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How to Express Gratitude for an Unexpected Gift

My brother came for a visit, saw the computer I was using to create the comic, and was so disgusted with it that he assembled a computer 10 times more powerful literally out of junk he had laying around his bedroom.  It was the most elegant combination of a very nice gesture and a tremendous personal insult I can possibly imagine.

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How to Save Money

They say that every time the blues man John Lee Hooker performed, he would insist on getting paid before the show, in cash. Then, during the show, the whole time he was performing, he would keep his pay for the gig and a loaded pistol in his hat.

I’ve always chosen to believe that Abe Lincoln followed the same policy.

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How to Upgrade Your Operating System

For the record, I only needed one computer program to make it look like I had some artistic talent.  Of course, it was a highly sophisticated surprisingly expensive program, and I had to use a great many of its more advanced and abstruse functions, but still it was just the one program.

Actually, now that I think about it, it was two.

Note from Missy: I feel like Windows operating systems followed the same quality peaks and valleys as the original Star Trek movies: every bad one followed by a good one, every good one followed by a bad one. By now, though, we may be in to the TNG years of Windows releases.

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Happy Thanksgiving (Yes, it's August. This is when it came up, okay?!)

I said it in kindergarten, and have repeated it every year since. TURKEYS DON’T LOOK LIKE THAT! If you saw any living creature that looked remotely like that abomination, you’d run screaming into the night. You certainly wouldn’t want to eat it.

Imagine how disturbing Thanksgiving would be if turkeys looked like that. Kids shouting, “I get one of the giant fingerlike growths on its back!”

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How to Prepare for the Apocalypse

Ric and I have discussed what we would be if the Mad Max future came to pass. The most realistic option seems to be, “Victim who perished in the first few hours of the ’poxyclypse.”

If we survived beyond that, we’d probably be either, “Pith helmet-wearing gyrocopter captain,” or “Guy in torn tuxedo who MCs Thunderdome.”

That said, I’d totally watch a movie about those two guys striking up an unlikely partnership and roaming the wasteland looking for food.

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How to Create a Weapon That Is Devastating and Unstoppable

Let’s be fair. It’s easy to poke holes in the design of Imperial AT-ATs, but we all know that they were made the way they were for one, and only one reason; because George Lucas thought they would look cool.

He was right.

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How to Play Video Games "Together"

Missy is, for the most part, better at video games than I am. Especially open world games. That’s not because I’m not good in a video game fire fight. It’s just that open world games require you to find your way around, and I can barely do that in real life.

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