Tuesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday is one that I won't name because I immediately identified the poster as a troll and deleted the thread. The next most active thread was one that I've already covered. So that brings me to the third most active which was titled, "This is really bothering me- always being ‘on’ as the parent" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that her husband is an involved father who generally pulls his weight around the house. However, he travels for work frequently, recently has had to work late for several nights, and some times behaves in an inconsiderate manner in which he takes the original poster for granted. The couple has toddler and preschool-aged kids and the original poster is, as the title says, bothered that she always is the default parent who is always expected to be responsible for the children. She asks how others have handled such situations. I've only read the first page of this nine page thread, but I suspect responses didn't change much. There was fairly unanimous agreement in the responses that I did read. Posters described this scenario as very common and, in fact, most of those responding were themselves experiencing it or had experienced it. Most of the posters also agreed that the original poster's husband likely had no clue about what the original poster was experiencing because he had never acted as the primary parent. As such, posters advised talking to him about her the situation, standing up for herself more and not just willing accepting that she would automatically be the parent who had to be "on", or taking a lengthy trip and leaving her husband alone so that he would experience what she goes through. A male poster weighed in to second the idea of a trip, saying that his wife had done that and it had multiple benefits. However another male poster responded that he was actually the default parent in his relationship, showing that this phenomenon is not strictly gender-based.

Next was a thread posted in the "Off-Topic" forum, though I wonder if it might be better for the "Beauty and Fashion" forum? Titled, "What is your opinion of tattoos?", the original poster describes having neutral feelings about tattoos and disagreeing with the perception that tattoos make someone look more alluring. Personally, I was not aware that there was a commonly-held belief that tattoos make you look more alluring. If there is, most of those responding didn't share it. The reactions were mostly negative, with posters viewing tattoos as "trashy", "vulgar", and "unnatural" among other things. A few posters allowed that tattoos on already good-looking men or women were acceptable if artistically done. There were some fans of tattoos who generally viewed them as art and, as with all art, really only appreciated what they considered "good". One poster suggested that men secretly harbor fantasies of heavily-tattooed women who they viewed as sexy. But, as far as I could tell, no other poster agreed with him. I was a little surprised by one poster's response saying that she had a small discreet tattoo but her teen daughter didn't like it because she viewed it as a "millennial thing". So, I guess I've now lived long enough to see tattoos transition from rebellious, to trendy, to old-fashioned.

After that was a thread titled, "What are your random unpopular opinions?" posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. This is at least the third such thread that has appeared in these blog posts and I am really beginning to hate them. The original poster clearly meant this thread to be light-hearted with her unpopular opinions including that "The chicken came before the egg" (something with which I disagree) and "Hot dogs are sandwiches" (something with which I agree). Several posters continued in that theme, though a few others took those responses far too seriously. However, as always happens in this type of thread, posters almost immediately began to fixate on race. Ironically, when every single thread of this nature results in posters proudly stating their negative opinions about black people, they are demonstrating that those opinions are not actually unpopular. Sadly, they are demonstrating that those opinions are far too popular and racists are far too common. One unique aspect of this thread was an argument about the Ukraine war. The notion that the war is somehow being faked has apparently entered the discourse. In my opinion, this is less an unpopular opinion and more of an admission of insanity. I assume these posters also have the opinion that the moon landing was faked and that the earth is flat. At any rate, these threads ultimately do noting but give license to posters to be offensive which is what eventually happened in this thread. As such, I locked it.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum and titled, "Tired of Managing Millenials". If anyone has gotten anything from these blog posts, I hope is that I hate generational labels and wish everyone would stop using them. They are generally inaccurate, reductive, and represent lazy thinking. In the case of this thread, in which the original poster is angry that two of his employees have asked for time off during the same period and one unilaterally purchased plane tickets, half the posts on the first page are about whether the employees are actually millennials or not. Posters are clearly split on the issue of taking time off, and I don't think that split is along generational lines. Some posters feel much like the original poster and believe that employees should politely ask to be allowed to take time off and then wait patiently for an answer and any deviation from this procedure should result in immediate firing (or delayed firing if that would be more convenient for the manager). One poster who holds this opinion even agrees with the original poster that millennials are a problem. Other posters view things differently. They see the employees as having earned their time off and, rather than "requesting" vacation time, are simply informing their boss that they will be off. These posters believe it is the original poster's obligation to work around the absent employees and anything less is an indication that he is a bad boss. Posters on both sides have fantasies of revenge, on the one hand hoping the original poster fires both of the employees while on the other hand hoping the two employees quit and leave the original poster in a lurch.