I do think it’s inappropriate to demand your staff feed live crickets to your daughter’s pet chameleon. On the other hand, if you’re a congressional staffer, you have tons of other job opportunities.
In any case, any staffer who chose to drop this a month before a must-win election should be blacklisted. If you must be a massive, whiny pussy, wait until December to run crying to the newspaper.
I recall the Times doing a perhaps similar hit piece a while back on Amy Klobuchar (whom I really hoped would get the nomination to run for president, having noted that George Will and my friend in Minnesota who was a Bernie supporter both liked her), and wondering whether the editors were closet MAGA-ites.
The NYTimes article contained other details that Yglesias didn’t mention: accusations that she physically shoved a staffer and that she called someone in her office a “faggot” (not just that she used the word), which she denies. This is not just using a slur. This is (allegedly) creating a hostile work environment, if the accusations are true.
Furthermore, it is indeed inappropriate for a Senator to make her staffers care for her pet lizard. These are taxpayer funded roles, and she’s using it for personal benefit. If it’s incidental and negligible in frequency or time consumed, that’s one thing. But if this is a more than a one off or took the staffers appreciable time or expense, that is considered unethical use of taxpayer resources.
Yes, being a Senator is hard. But raising a reptile is purely optional. If it’s too much for her to handle privately, whether by herself, her family or her privately hired employees, then she should not take on the responsibility of such a pet.
Being a Democrat is not an excuse for wrongdoing, big or small.
Matt is both right and wrong, and I enjoyed the comment section. As an old(er) person, I feel the "you need to toughen up a bit" is generally correct. However, having dealt with assholes, I have little patience for that. There is a difference between being tasked with extra work-related shit and doing your bosses personal business. If no one in your family can feed the lizard, then maybe you shouldn't have a pet because you can't handle the responsibility..?
I'm not going to read all the comments, but I would love to feed crickets to a lizard. Because you know what's better than working? Anything that involves lizards. Besides, how long would it take to feed the lizard? It doesn't seem to take that long, so it doesn't rise to the level of misuse of public funds. Have you ever hung out in the bathroom at work for a little too long, perhaps looking for a lizard to feed, or just goofing off? This seems equivalent.
I'm not up on my journalistic ethics -- is it possible that the NYT just shot the breeze with some staffers at a happy hour and wrote up the juicy stories? That the 'leakers' didn't intend this as an incriminating leak at all but were just recounting anecdotes?
Reading this I can't help imagining an older woman telling some young woman in the 60s that having your boss make a bit of sexual innuendo or dealing with naked women on bulletin boards was just part of the job. Like Matt's take, such a response informs you about what is currently socially normal but not whether it should be.
Yes, ultimately, employment is a contractual arrangement that you can leave if you don't like it but we socially/legally define the boundaries of what that relationship should be like and what you get to ask of subordinates. In a different world maybe blowjobs are part of some PA work. But we've decided that we don't want that to be our world because we think it makes for a worse world.
So 'suck it up snowflake that's normal' isn't really a good answer to whether we **should** regard this as appropriate behavior by bosses. That requires some kind of analysis of the costs and benefits to society. I don't have an opinion about how we should feel about the behavior here but this piece didn't help me decide.
This helped me appreciate that the representative wasn't way outside the social norm and that's fair enough -- and I think the crap about the wrong words is just dumb -- but I don't like the way it suggests without analysis that we somehow know the norm is currently set correctly.
If only there were a difference between sexual harassment and being asked to feed a pet. Blowjobs aren't part of any work in PA, so I guess you can make that argument in that other world. I have no idea why people are so determined to get worked up over literally nothing.
Quite a few people in the world exchange blowjobs for money. We even make it legal in Nevada. But we feel that you shouldn't be expected to do that as part of a 'normal' job. Being treated like a servant feels different in degree not in kind. Sure, I can quit but now future employers think I'm a worse office worker because I find it humiliating to be treated like a servant.
I don't have an issue with people wanting to work as servants just like I don't have an issue with sex workers but I think there is a good argument that if my job description is office worker not servant it's inappropriate to cross that line. Some people don't like exchanging sex for money, some don't like doing personal errands. Neither should be something I have to do to climb the lader in a different industry like politics.
Saying it feels obvious just appeals to the standards of the day and many people in the 50s would have said the same about things we now consider sexual harassment.
You seem a little obsessed with blowjobs professor but I just can't fathom why you are using it as an example when it has nothing to do with the situation
Not a professor (I don't have to teach anymore). And probably because the Lewinsky scandal makes a really dramatic way to point out that it can't merely be enough to say: "well that's the job" because we do think it wouldn't be ok to just define the job of a staffer to include sexual favors. So if you don't accept my theory you need to offer one that explains why it's ok to define the staffer job to include feeding your pets but not sexual favors. So far every response fails to offer an account of why that hypothetical situation would be different.
Like if Bill Clinton had just been like: yup I expect that of all my interns, if you don't want to do it find another job would that be a problem?
I disagree. In a healthy organizational culture subordinates are not expected to do personal favors for their bosses’ families. Staffers are public employees, hired to do legislative work, not feed pets. The public pays their salaries and we should expect their time to go towards the public good. Peltola is misusing taxpayer-funded resources for her personal use. If she can’t afford to hire a nanny, that’s her problem, not ours.
Are people really lining up for it’s fine to yell at your employees and speak like this? I don’t think it’s national news but what the hell?
Bosses shouldn’t be yelling at you and their language should be highly respectful.
I think the lizard thing feels quite different but yelling at someone over minor office stuff, in general, should be deeply shameful. And your boss shouldn’t be extra sensitive to insulting people. It definitely shouldn’t be just how people act with authority. It doesn’t feel like this should be national news but it feels unacceptable for managers in general.
You shouldn't yell. Yelling is in poor form. It's far more intimidating to state your demands quietly, without breaking eye contact. But Mary yells. SO WHAT? She'll vote the right way, if she wins.
I think what's acceptable behavior as a boss is as important an issue for the newspaper to report on as what laws someone will support. Even if I'd vote for her I think this is shameful behavior from anyone from a member of Congress to the manager of an Arby's.
I'm not American; I can't imagine any of these work issues being significant enough to complain to a global newspaper about. Is this an American thing to complain about trivia in the workplace? Ok, the boss is often grumpy. Welcome to my world... but then again, I am lucky to have work in a recession. Feeding the lizard- who cares? When I think of all the literally crappy jobs I had to do to pay the bills when I was young and not so young, all I feel, tbh, is intensely jealous of the entitlement and privilege of someone who would complain to the world that this is unacceptable. Wow. I wish that I had ever been so sheltered in my life. I absolutely do NOT think that young adults nowadays have it easy, quite the contrary, but I just can't wrap my head around this "news" at all. I can't understand why it would even be local news, much less international news. (I, like many people around the world, have subscribed for years, ever since Trump called it "the failing New York Times", which made me think that they must be doing something right that I would like to support.) At the end of the day, unless a candidate does illegal stuff, and/or sexually harasses their staff, or similar, the issue is whether they will help enact the policies you want, and whether they can help save THE WHOLE WORLD (please!!) from Trump.
> I’m not American […] I am lucky to have work in a recession.
Something that Matt underplayed in his article is that the U.S. economy is quite good, and the unemployment rate is low, especially for the young, college-educated, white-collar professionals who staff Capitol Hill. This point may well be underappreciated by young Americans, partly because of ignorant and unfounded influencer content about the economy. But it’s true. Congressional staffers exist in a competitive labor market, and if they don’t need to feel lucky to have a job. Instead, they should feel empowered to leave for new jobs if they don’t like their current employers.
They might retort that jobs working for members of Congress are relatively scarce. But if you object to Peltola’s behavior (and I do, to some extent), you’re going to have trouble with loads of other members of Congress, too. That doesn’t make you wrong to complain. But it does suggest that Capitol Hill may not be the best place for you.
I do think it’s inappropriate to demand your staff feed live crickets to your daughter’s pet chameleon. On the other hand, if you’re a congressional staffer, you have tons of other job opportunities.
In any case, any staffer who chose to drop this a month before a must-win election should be blacklisted. If you must be a massive, whiny pussy, wait until December to run crying to the newspaper.
Jann Wanner screaming at Matt Yglesias to clean up his desk, surreal moment in history
I recall the Times doing a perhaps similar hit piece a while back on Amy Klobuchar (whom I really hoped would get the nomination to run for president, having noted that George Will and my friend in Minnesota who was a Bernie supporter both liked her), and wondering whether the editors were closet MAGA-ites.
The NYTimes article contained other details that Yglesias didn’t mention: accusations that she physically shoved a staffer and that she called someone in her office a “faggot” (not just that she used the word), which she denies. This is not just using a slur. This is (allegedly) creating a hostile work environment, if the accusations are true.
Furthermore, it is indeed inappropriate for a Senator to make her staffers care for her pet lizard. These are taxpayer funded roles, and she’s using it for personal benefit. If it’s incidental and negligible in frequency or time consumed, that’s one thing. But if this is a more than a one off or took the staffers appreciable time or expense, that is considered unethical use of taxpayer resources.
Yes, being a Senator is hard. But raising a reptile is purely optional. If it’s too much for her to handle privately, whether by herself, her family or her privately hired employees, then she should not take on the responsibility of such a pet.
Being a Democrat is not an excuse for wrongdoing, big or small.
It certainly should be for small.
Matt is both right and wrong, and I enjoyed the comment section. As an old(er) person, I feel the "you need to toughen up a bit" is generally correct. However, having dealt with assholes, I have little patience for that. There is a difference between being tasked with extra work-related shit and doing your bosses personal business. If no one in your family can feed the lizard, then maybe you shouldn't have a pet because you can't handle the responsibility..?
Thank you. This is a column that has long been needed.
I'm not going to read all the comments, but I would love to feed crickets to a lizard. Because you know what's better than working? Anything that involves lizards. Besides, how long would it take to feed the lizard? It doesn't seem to take that long, so it doesn't rise to the level of misuse of public funds. Have you ever hung out in the bathroom at work for a little too long, perhaps looking for a lizard to feed, or just goofing off? This seems equivalent.
I'm not up on my journalistic ethics -- is it possible that the NYT just shot the breeze with some staffers at a happy hour and wrote up the juicy stories? That the 'leakers' didn't intend this as an incriminating leak at all but were just recounting anecdotes?
Or is the NYT categorically beneath such a thing?
Reading this I can't help imagining an older woman telling some young woman in the 60s that having your boss make a bit of sexual innuendo or dealing with naked women on bulletin boards was just part of the job. Like Matt's take, such a response informs you about what is currently socially normal but not whether it should be.
Yes, ultimately, employment is a contractual arrangement that you can leave if you don't like it but we socially/legally define the boundaries of what that relationship should be like and what you get to ask of subordinates. In a different world maybe blowjobs are part of some PA work. But we've decided that we don't want that to be our world because we think it makes for a worse world.
So 'suck it up snowflake that's normal' isn't really a good answer to whether we **should** regard this as appropriate behavior by bosses. That requires some kind of analysis of the costs and benefits to society. I don't have an opinion about how we should feel about the behavior here but this piece didn't help me decide.
This helped me appreciate that the representative wasn't way outside the social norm and that's fair enough -- and I think the crap about the wrong words is just dumb -- but I don't like the way it suggests without analysis that we somehow know the norm is currently set correctly.
If only there were a difference between sexual harassment and being asked to feed a pet. Blowjobs aren't part of any work in PA, so I guess you can make that argument in that other world. I have no idea why people are so determined to get worked up over literally nothing.
Quite a few people in the world exchange blowjobs for money. We even make it legal in Nevada. But we feel that you shouldn't be expected to do that as part of a 'normal' job. Being treated like a servant feels different in degree not in kind. Sure, I can quit but now future employers think I'm a worse office worker because I find it humiliating to be treated like a servant.
I don't have an issue with people wanting to work as servants just like I don't have an issue with sex workers but I think there is a good argument that if my job description is office worker not servant it's inappropriate to cross that line. Some people don't like exchanging sex for money, some don't like doing personal errands. Neither should be something I have to do to climb the lader in a different industry like politics.
Saying it feels obvious just appeals to the standards of the day and many people in the 50s would have said the same about things we now consider sexual harassment.
You seem a little obsessed with blowjobs professor but I just can't fathom why you are using it as an example when it has nothing to do with the situation
Not a professor (I don't have to teach anymore). And probably because the Lewinsky scandal makes a really dramatic way to point out that it can't merely be enough to say: "well that's the job" because we do think it wouldn't be ok to just define the job of a staffer to include sexual favors. So if you don't accept my theory you need to offer one that explains why it's ok to define the staffer job to include feeding your pets but not sexual favors. So far every response fails to offer an account of why that hypothetical situation would be different.
Like if Bill Clinton had just been like: yup I expect that of all my interns, if you don't want to do it find another job would that be a problem?
Today's post is just ripe for dishy comments from Milan, Ben, and Halina about the times they had to get Matt a burrito.
Poll: How many times did you literally laugh out loud reading this article?
I disagree. In a healthy organizational culture subordinates are not expected to do personal favors for their bosses’ families. Staffers are public employees, hired to do legislative work, not feed pets. The public pays their salaries and we should expect their time to go towards the public good. Peltola is misusing taxpayer-funded resources for her personal use. If she can’t afford to hire a nanny, that’s her problem, not ours.
I had no idea so many people see basic pet reptile care as degrading.
It is only degrading when it is someone else's pet reptile!!
Are people really lining up for it’s fine to yell at your employees and speak like this? I don’t think it’s national news but what the hell?
Bosses shouldn’t be yelling at you and their language should be highly respectful.
I think the lizard thing feels quite different but yelling at someone over minor office stuff, in general, should be deeply shameful. And your boss shouldn’t be extra sensitive to insulting people. It definitely shouldn’t be just how people act with authority. It doesn’t feel like this should be national news but it feels unacceptable for managers in general.
You shouldn't yell. Yelling is in poor form. It's far more intimidating to state your demands quietly, without breaking eye contact. But Mary yells. SO WHAT? She'll vote the right way, if she wins.
I think what's acceptable behavior as a boss is as important an issue for the newspaper to report on as what laws someone will support. Even if I'd vote for her I think this is shameful behavior from anyone from a member of Congress to the manager of an Arby's.
I'm not American; I can't imagine any of these work issues being significant enough to complain to a global newspaper about. Is this an American thing to complain about trivia in the workplace? Ok, the boss is often grumpy. Welcome to my world... but then again, I am lucky to have work in a recession. Feeding the lizard- who cares? When I think of all the literally crappy jobs I had to do to pay the bills when I was young and not so young, all I feel, tbh, is intensely jealous of the entitlement and privilege of someone who would complain to the world that this is unacceptable. Wow. I wish that I had ever been so sheltered in my life. I absolutely do NOT think that young adults nowadays have it easy, quite the contrary, but I just can't wrap my head around this "news" at all. I can't understand why it would even be local news, much less international news. (I, like many people around the world, have subscribed for years, ever since Trump called it "the failing New York Times", which made me think that they must be doing something right that I would like to support.) At the end of the day, unless a candidate does illegal stuff, and/or sexually harasses their staff, or similar, the issue is whether they will help enact the policies you want, and whether they can help save THE WHOLE WORLD (please!!) from Trump.
> I’m not American […] I am lucky to have work in a recession.
Something that Matt underplayed in his article is that the U.S. economy is quite good, and the unemployment rate is low, especially for the young, college-educated, white-collar professionals who staff Capitol Hill. This point may well be underappreciated by young Americans, partly because of ignorant and unfounded influencer content about the economy. But it’s true. Congressional staffers exist in a competitive labor market, and if they don’t need to feel lucky to have a job. Instead, they should feel empowered to leave for new jobs if they don’t like their current employers.
They might retort that jobs working for members of Congress are relatively scarce. But if you object to Peltola’s behavior (and I do, to some extent), you’re going to have trouble with loads of other members of Congress, too. That doesn’t make you wrong to complain. But it does suggest that Capitol Hill may not be the best place for you.
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