Category: Because It's True

Since once in a blue moon I actually discover a decent rule for adulting, and even though most of my followers are around my age, there's still the off chance that someone younger may wander into this den of iniquity in search of smut, and I wanted to pass on this sage piece of advice to tell you about a very important phrase.

"I won't be available."

Imagine you're at work and your boss asks you to come in on Saturday. Saturday is usually your day off and coming in on Saturdays is not an obligation to keep your job. Maybe you were going to watch a movie with a friend, or maybe you were just going to lie in bed and eat ice cream for eight hours, but either way you really, really don't want to give up your day off.

If you consider yourself a millennial you've probably been raised to believe you need to justify not being constantly at work. And if you're a gen-Z kid you're likely getting the same toxic messages.  (Note: it's just as true for Boomers who are still in the workforce.) So in a situation like that, you might be inclined to do one of three things:

● Tell your boss you'd rather not give up your day off. Cave when they pressure you to come in anyway, since you're not doing anything important.

● Tell your boss you'd rather not give up your day off. Over-apologize and worry that you looked bad/unprofessional.

● Lie and say you've got a doctor's appointment or some other activity that feels like an adequate justification for not working.

The fact is, it doesn't matter to your boss whether you're having open heart surgery or watching anime in your underwear on Saturday. The only thing that affects them is the fact that you won't be at work. So telling them why you won't be at work only gives them reason to try and pressure you to come in anyway.

If you say "I won't be available," giving no further information, you'd be surprised how often that's enough. Be polite and sympathetic in your tone, maybe even say "sorry, but I won't be available." But don't make an excuse. If your boss is a professional individual, they'll accept that as a 'no' and try to find someone else.

But bosses aren't always professional. Sometimes they're whiny little tyrants. So, what if they pressure you further? The answer is–politely and sympathetically give them no further information.

"Are you sure you're not available?" "Sorry, but yes."

"Why won't you be available?" "I have a prior commitment." (Which you do, even if it's only to yourself.)

"What's your prior commitment?" "Sorry, but that's kind of personal."

"Can you reschedule it?" "I'm afraid not. Maybe someone else can come in?"

If you don't give them anything to work with, they can't pressure you into going beyond your obligations as an employee. And when they realize that, they'll also realize they have to find someone else to come in and move on.

IMPORTANT!! PLEASE READ!!

Just like with many other parts of life, learn to say 'no' to people. You are important. Don't kill yourself for r another person, especially if they are your boss.

On the other hand, if you like your boss and really don't mind making some extra coin, go ahead and say yes. Or negotiate taking another day off that week. Whatever works.

I don't know how I happened across it, but the other day I was reading an article about the imminent demise of the Chicago Auto Show, and the author was commenting about the rise of the large electric SUVs that seem to be the new paradigm of American automobiles. He linked to an article on VICE that I found very interesting.

Quoting at length from the original article:

The picture painted of prospective SUV buyers was perhaps the most unflattering portrait of the American way of life ever devised. It doubled as a profound and lucid critique of the American ethos, one that has only gained sharper focus in the years since. And that portrait is largely the result of one consultant who worked for Chrysler, Ford, and GM during the SUV boom: Clotaire Rapaille.

Rapaille, a French emigree, believed the SUV appealed—at the time to mostly upper-middle class suburbanites—to a fundamental subconscious animalistic state, our "reptilian desire for survival," as relayed by Bradsher. ("We don't believe what people say," the website for Rapaille's consulting firm declares. Instead, they use "a unique blend of biology, cultural anthropology and psychology to discover the hidden cultural forces that pre-organize the way people behave towards a product, service or concept"). Americans were afraid, Rapaille found through his exhaustive market research, and they were mostly afraid of crime even though crime was actually falling and at near-record lows. As Bradsher wrote, "People buy SUVs, he tells auto executives, because they are trying to look as menacing as possible to allay their fears of crime and other violence." They, quite literally, bought SUVs to run over "gang members" with, Rapaille found.

Perhaps this sounds farfetched, but the auto industry's own studies agreed with this general portrait of SUV buyers. Bradsher described that portrait, comprised of marketing reports from the major automakers, as follows:

Who has been buying SUVs since automakers turned them into family vehicles? They tend to be people who are insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors or communities.

The evolution of the SUV from rugged military cosplay to the vehicle for everyone can be seen in its most potent form with the H2, which sanded down the H1's rough edges while retaining the hulking figure and bestial attributes.

SUVs don't just cost society time. They cost lives. At the height of the original SUV boom in 2004, SUV occupants were 11 percent more likely to die in a crash than people in cars, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, despite the common conception that people in bigger vehicles are safer. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, from 1993-2003, car and SUV occupants in vehicles between one and three years old died at roughly similar rates; Bradsher explains in great detail this was because SUVs were inherently more dangerous due largely to deadly rollovers, but the higher position and stiffer frame of SUVs made them more dangerous to other road users, especially those in smaller cars, which evened out the death rate.

SUVs are more deadly for pedestrians, too. Last year, the Detroit Free Press revealed "the SUV revolution is a key, leading cause of escalating pedestrian deaths nationwide, which are up 46 percent since 2009," affecting minorities in urban areas at a disproportionately high rate. And that's without the threat of a silent Hummer accelerating to 60 miles per hour in three seconds.

Since then, SUVs have become safer for the people inside of them thanks to better design and a lower risk of rollovers. But they're still dangerous to others. Starting in 2004 and continuing through 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, car occupants die at more than double the rate of SUV occupants.

In other words, buying an SUV makes you more likely to kill other people, and yet people buy them in ever-increasing numbers. Rapaille's reptilian brain concept has surpassed marketing theory and become a real-world experiment about how much Americans value the lives of others: not very much.

The entire article is fascinating and worth your time, for it points out monster SUVs are not just basic penis extenders as generally believed, but also speak of a profound—for lack of a better word, sickness—in American society today; something obvious to anyone paying attention.

…say "OK, Boomer," to this guy.

Pretty much my entire professional existence for the last ten years.