Tuesday's Most Active Posts

Once again the most active thread of the previous day was related to the British Royal Family. This one, titled "PR lessons from Buckingham Palace" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, addressed the topic from a different perspective. The original poster assured us that her intent was not to bash anyone, but to simply explore the public relations response by Buckingham Palace. In the view of the original poster, the response has been "never complain, never explain" by the Royals themselves, while their "servants" have been sent out to talk to the media. The original poster asks whether this has been an effective response. Many of those who respond believe the strategy to be effective. Others didn't comment on the efficacy of the response, but offered opinions about why such a response might be chosen. It really is impossible to prevent any thread about the Royal Family from turning into a hatefest and before the first page was even complete, multiple posters had ignored the topic of PR and simply posted criticisms of Harry and Meghan. Eventually, the thread was completely hijacked into a general discussion of the Royal Family with no connection to the original topic at all. As a result, I locked the thread.

Yesterday's second most active thread was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "schools w/ no merit aid" the original poster has been researching colleges for her daughter and discovered that several prestigious schools that her daughter might choose are very expensive, but don't offer merit-based assistance. Since the original poster's daughter wouldn't be eligibile for need-based financial assistance, she is finding that they are priced out of some schools even with significant college savings. The responses I've read, which weren't very many, basically agreed that what the original poster has observed is true and argued that those schools are essentially reserved for the very wealthy and the very poor (who are eligible for need-based aid). Two of the early responses in this thread recommended a book by Jeff Selingo. I mention this because since I've been reading more threads in the college forum, I notice Selingo's books and website being mentioned frequently. I am fairly certain that I've never heard of Selingo outside of DCUM posts, but I see his name almost daily in the college forum. So, I am wondering if he is really some sort of fountain of knowledge about colleges or if there is a bit of astroturfing going on. Either way, DCUM is probably driving a lot of traffic his way. Another point I see being made in the thread is that the original poster should not be so quick to assume that her child might not be eligible for need-based assistance because even some relatively high income families can qualify at expensive schools.

The next two most active threads from yesterday show we are still dealing with the fallout of the COVID pandemic. The first of these was titled, "Failing to comply with order to return to office" and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. When the pandemic forced many to start working from home, some found that this was a preferable arrangement and want to continue. Many businesses, and even local governments, are eager to have employees return to their offices. This has created a new point of conflict between employers and employees, the dynamics of which are still developing without a lot of clarity regarding how things will turn out. The original poster of this thread explains that she is not able to fully comply with her employer's "return to office" order and she wants to know how similar situations have played out for others. Again, I haven't read many posts in this thread, but from what I have read it looks like many of those responding consider the original poster to be insubordinate and expect that she will be fired. The original poster doesn't really disagree, but wonders how long that process might take. Obviously, nobody can answer that, but one poster reports mostly ignoring a return to office requirement and gotten away with it for almost a year. Some posters advise strategic approaches in which the original poster might appear to be adhering to the policy without exactly doing so. Personally I think these disputes will simply come down to how valuable you are to the company. If they want you bad enough, you will be able to decide where and when you work. If not, adios amigo (or amiga).

The final thread from yesterday was also posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum and also sort of COVID-related. Titled, "Found out my coworkers were lunching during covid", the original poster says that all the women from her office met once a week for lunch or coffee while they were working from home. However, the original poster was not invited and now finds it difficult to feel part of the team. She asks for advice. Most of the replies focused on either explaining why the original poster's colleagues might not have included her or implied that the original poster was actually at fault. This became even more the case when the original poster revealed that she commuted once a week by airplane. Most posters lost all sympathy for her at that point thinking it was understandable that co-workers wouldn't invite someone who had to fly in to be involved. The original poster protested that nobody was giving her ideas about how to rejoin a team that she believes doesn't want her. In response, some posters suggested that she take the lead in organizing meet-ups. I stopped reading this thread at the point that posters got frustrated with the original poster's seeming lack of interest in taking advice and preference for making excuses. This caused the thread to turn to mostly criticism of the original poster and I lost interest.