Inside Information

Here’s one for my long-suffering Lady Readers:  it turns out that engaging in a simple fitness exercise can provide you with a Big Moment.

The tingly, burning sensation traveled from the bottom of my feet up the back of my taut calves, through my thighs, into my pelvis, up my spine, on towards the crown of my head. Then as I raised myself back up onto my toes, it traveled back down my body again. My calves burned but so did other parts of my body – parts that shouldn’t be at 9.15am on a Tuesday, as I stood in my gym kit trying to increase my core strength as I trained for a half marathon. It was pain, but it was also, unmistakably, pleasure.

It was – and I apologize if you’re eating your breakfast as you read this – an orgasm.

I mean, think about it:  you can get a Big O without all that hassle of involving a partner, or touching yourself inappropriately under the desk, or messing up the bed (if you’re doing it properly, that is).

And you can even get it while doing something healthy:  a two-fer, to use retail-speak.

No need to thank me, ladies;  it’s all part of the service.


And for the rest of you:  it seems like this is a girls-only phenomenon, sorry.  You’ll just have to do what you normally do to get yours.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.

Thieves

I had to chuckle at this little piece of advice for dealing with this particular issue:

There’s even a handy-dandy little list:

It is, as they say, to laugh.

As I’ve stated so often before, seagulls don’t respond to defensive postures such as the above:  the little fuckers will sometimes attack you for fun, not just for food.  So ignore all the above, non-violent measures.

As with most animals, the best defense is attack.  Lo and behold Kim’s Ultimate Anti-Seagull Device (which I describe more fully here):

Instructions for use:  if you’re going into seagull territory — which is just about anywhere there’s a large body of water — carry one of these.  When you see one of these airborne rats approaching, wait till it’s in range, then take a full swing at it;  don’t just bat it away, you want to inflict massive pain on the fucker or else it will just come back for more.  In my experience, you’ll only have to do this twice or three times before the other airborne rats will get the message and leave you alone.  The goal is to leave the bird flailing around on the ground with broken limbs (wings, legs or neck), making an awful ruckus that will frighten others of its ilk away.

Don’t get put off by the anguished squeals of any bird-lovers in the scene because they’re irrelevant to your problem.  Just whale away at these rodents (the birds, not the bird-lovers, but be my guest).  Then relax and enjoy your snack.  When you leave the area, feel free to kick the carcasses out of the way.

Remember:  a tennis racquet is sports equipment, not a weapon.  Just remember to rinse the blood and feathers off the thing when you get home.

Great Idea, Never Happen

Turning Britishland into Singapore?  It’s an intriguing concept, as explained here.  An excerpt:

There is nothing new in the comparison between modern Britain and circumstances in Singapore when it gained independence in 1965. Like the UK following the Brexit referendum, Singapore was involved in a rancorous divorce from a much larger geopolitical entity that left it facing an uncertain path. For one island’s withdrawal from the European Union in 2016, read another’s split from the Federation of Malaysia 55 years ago.
As many a minister has pointed out in recent years, Singapore went on to conjure an economic miracle. In the space of a generation, it has transformed itself from a country where the average citizen was two and a half times poorer than the average Briton, to a hotbed of soaring prosperity where total economic output is now 70 per cent higher than in the UK.

Here’s what the Brits would have to do, though:

In a country where the average monthly salary is about S$70,000 (£40,000), [Singapore] residents pay income tax of just 7 per cent – less than half of the 20 per cent charged in the UK – while a salary equivalent to £46,000 would attract 11.5 per cent tax.
The individual tax ceiling is 24 per cent, payable only by those earning more than 1 million Singapore dollars; the equivalent rate in the UK is 45 per cent, a bracket that comes into play for anyone with a salary of more than £125,140 (about 217,000 Singapore dollars).
The country’s more favorable tax regime extends to corporation tax, which stands at 17 per cent in Singapore compared with 25 per cent in the UK. There is no capital gains or inheritance tax.

Cut and eliminate taxes?  In Britain?

Hence the title of this post.

Heads-Up

Just about every single thing written here is correct, especially:

Gun: A gun is to shoot your way to safety, not to save the day. You are not a one-man counter-terror team. This is a fast track to being killed either directly, by a second shooter, or by police who have no idea who you are. Even if the cops are wrong in the end, you’re still dead.

Absolutely.  Other than to protect yourself and your family, leave the gun in the holster and get the hell away from the situation.  Leave the hero bullshit to Hollywood or to the people paid to be heroes, i.e. law enforcement (unless you live in a place like Uvalde TX or some big Blue city, where the cops are cowards).

People often think that just because I’m always yapping about self defense that I’m one of those palookas who just can’t wait for a firefight.  Nothing could be further from the truth, which is that I’m a big fat coward right up until I can’t be one because then I’ll be a victim.

But to go looking for trouble?  The hell with that.

“Dear Dr. Kim”

“Dear Dr. Kim:

“I’m a manager, and I try to be a good one. I struggle, however, when people ask for days off when they’re trying to get over the death of a dog or a cat.

“Should this really be considered in the same way as the death of a close family member?

“What’s making the issue more difficult for me is that I have never had a pet myself, which means that I probably have little idea of the attachment people can have to one of these creatures.  I am probably coming over as a bit unsympathetic.

“I would speak to HR to see if the rules on compassionate leave should be tweaked, but frankly, they’re too nervous to give a firm line on almost anything.

“Dr. Kim, what should I do?”

Lost Boss

Dear Sorta-Boss:

You could start by acting like an actual boss.

Fire the whole HR department, for starters.  Or if you want to go all wussy, ask the entire department, individually, to give some cogent, business-oriented reasons why you should give time off for the death of a pet.  If they can’t, then fire the HR manager anyway, because she’s clearly incompetent and shouldn’t be a manager.  (I say “she” because that’s the world we live in nowadays.)

Who cares if you’ve never had a pet yourself?  That has nothing to do with the actual managing of a business which is nominally responsible for creating profit for its shareholders or owner.  It’s purely an economic decision:  can your company deal with the loss of productivity, or not?  (If it can, you may want to consider retrenching staff anyway, because you’re carrying too much employee fat.)

Finally, your snowflake employees.  I can understand needing time off to grieve the death of a family member, especially immediate family:  mother, father, grandparents, siblings.  I find it more difficult to be sympathetic about grief as the family circle starts to expand to aunts, uncles and cousins, and almost impossible to sympathize when it’s second cousins, distant cousins, nodding kin, and the like.

You may therefore take it as read that when it comes to the death of pet animals, I think that asking for time off is a colossal piece of chutzpah.  (If it’s unpaid time off, of course, then by all means give them all the time they think they need, within limits of course.  Let’s see how much they really loved Fluffy when it’s an affair of the wallet.)

Lest I be thought a martinet — it can happen — let it be known that I have never been one of those clockwatcher types of boss, myself.  If a woman wants to have her hair done and can’t get a weekend appointment, then fine — ditto a man who needs the same — especially if their job involves customer interaction, where grooming is important.  And of course time off for real medical appointments should be a given.

Frankly, while I appreciate the fact that society is changing and employees demand more indulgences from employers,  I do think that this pet-worship thing is getting out of hand (see:  “comfort animals” FFS), and it needs to be curtailed.  By the way, where does one draw the line with this:  cats, dogs, horses… also snakes, hamsters, and fucking goldfish?

And for the record, I’ve owned pets for almost all my life, I’ve indulged them more than I did my own kids, and my heart has broken at the death of every single one of them.

But as much as there’s been sorrow, I could not think of asking for time off to mourn their death, because while this may have been a factor in my life, I can’t imagine why a business should be forced into this pantomime of shared grief.

And also by the way:  you will see from the response to this question in the linked article that “Nicola” (of course) thinks that giving time off for this foolishness makes the workplace more attractive to current and prospective employees.  While I’m not advocating a return to Victorian sweatshops and textile factories, I think that today’s work environment — before this time off for pet grief nonsense — is the most congenial and employee-friendly of any generation, ever.  But it never seems to be enough now, does it?

Shape up and get your employees (especially those HR weasels) under control before it’s too late.