#792 – chatting, eh

In my experience as a non-observant Jew, the identity manifests in a few particular ways: intergenerational struggle, feeling strongly one way or another about Israel, New York delis, and the intimate vulnerability of a Bar/Bat Mitzvah photo. Everyone who's ever loved me has seen mine, hung between my mother's living room windows, tallit draped and yad in hand, a child masquerading as an adult, on the verge of total embarrassment.

I'm not a fan of the lettering in panel 3. I just don't know why I couldn't get the words to really fill that balloon, which I think they needed to be doing.

4 thoughts on “#792 – chatting, eh

  1. The lettering is fine to me. I mean, the uptick in intensity is certainly there, the insistence I “hear” in the periods and the relative sizes are very natural.

    If it were bigger it would seem too…loud?

    Plus the “thiiiiink” in panel two sets the whole thing up.

  2. (Another non-observant Jew here, just wondering:) But is there really such thing as any Jewish person (particularly in NY) who's surprised to discover that someone they know is Jewish? In my experience, we all already know; much more common to be surprised (again, particularly in NY) that someone who feels totally Jewish (typically a combo of appearance and tri-state-area cadence/affect) turns out _not_ to be, right?

  3. Excessively casual manager who's trying to be cool but not realizing how the power they hold makes it so that they will never have the relationship they want to have with their subordinates is SO REAL

    1. I spent a lot of years working shitty jobs under shitty managers, and I wrote down how I was going to be instead as a way of coping with their bullshit. This particular kind of shitty manager here was the worst; at least with outright abusive managers I didn't have to act out emotions or social rituals I barely understand.

      Anyway, eventually I did start getting promoted, and I am always very upfront with my employees: I care about your welfare, and that includes you emotional well-being, and in order to be effective and protect you and help your career I cannot be your friend. I am an ally, a resource, a guide… and as long as I'm stuck playing the role of boss in the bullshit hierarchical system we've decided is "work", we will never go drinking together. Also, during standard work hours we work hard, sorry not sorry. To keep things fair, during non-work hours I don't call or text or bother you unless there's actually lives and/or limbs on the line (in my work that stuff happens, so I did call or text out of hours occasionally).

      When this COVID-19 bullshit hit I broke my rule a little and texted all of my current reports and those of my former employees whose contact info I retained, checking up on them, making sure they had the stuff they needed to hunker down for awhile. I know it's paternalistic AF, but if that's the way we are gonna run this shitshow, the least I can do is be good at my part. A few of my past employees responded to tell me I was the best boss they ever had, or ask me to come back to take over and run where they are now. I'm a grown-ass man who works for the military, my emotional range mostly runs between "rage" and "kinda peeved", and yeah… I teared up a little.

      Don't get me wrong. The bar is low, and I know it. But, whatever I may have failed to achieve in life, at least I'm not that asshole, pretending we're cool while holding a knife to a person's livelihood.

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