Everyone has weird workplace stories, or at least everyone who is old enough to have held a job or two. I once had a summer position where the job description involved an activity that was technically illegal -I stapled posters on telephone poles. What was the weirdest thing your boss ever asked you to do?

Yeah, that's weird. I have a degree in psychology, and I know interpreting dreams is a fool's errand. The upside is that these people have some good stories to tell years later.

You can see 27 pictofacts about weird orders from bosses that you are glad aren't your boss at Cracked.

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This is how I feel hearing my daughter and her new husband speaking French. The difference is that I don't even pretend to understand. The closed captions on this video have a lot of [speaking French], so I don't know if Keegan Michael-Key is speaking actual French or French-sounding gibberish. The auto-translate doesn't help, because it translates the English captions, not the spoken language. -via Digg

Update: It's real French. Not a real French menu, though.

Got bit + dragged by a 10 ft (3 m) croc and all I got were these scars. Today all wounds have healed (finally!), bruising gone, + can walk w/o (much) pain. || Me mordió y arrastró un cocodrilo y esto es como se ve mi pierna! Gracias que estoy bien y puedo caminar! #SharkWeek pic.twitter.com/Rdp0R6IrO1

— Melissa Cristina Márquez (@mcmsharksxx) July 24, 2018

Australian marine biologist Melissa Cristina Márquez was looking for a hammerhead shark south of Cuba while filming a documentary for Shark Week. Her mind was on sharks when she felt pressure on her leg. She thought it might be her flipper caught on something, but it was a crocodile... which began pulling her away by her leg! Luckily, while Márquez had never before encountered a crocodile up close, she knew something about alligators, and was calm enough to realize she must not move her leg even the slightest.      

I was in its mouth, which is highly receptive to texture, to taste. I hoped that it wasn’t not biting me too hard. It didn’t feel like it. I didn’t feel pain. I felt really, really hard pressure, but no actual pain. So I was hoping, “Alright, hopefully, because I have the scuba suit on, no blood is coming out, so it doesn’t taste that. It doesn’t feel the meat, essentially, of my leg. It just tastes the neoprene, and it’s gonna let me go.”

I was like, “Don’t struggle,” because two things can happen. Crocodiles will either bite down harder, and then I would start feeling pain, and then: There goes all my rational thinking, really. If it bit down harder, not only would it possibly be painful, but it also could have taken out a chunk of my leg. Or, the worst scenario is that it rolled. That’s how a lot of them incapacitate their prey.

Márquez suffered numerous bite marks, from which the biggest danger was infection, but is on the mend. Her new wetsuit, however, was completely destroyed. Márquez told the complete story of being dragged by a crocodile to Jezebel, with a unique science perspective, and it's a compelling story.  

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The New Yorker brings us an adventure set in a very flammable location -a city made completely of corrugated cardboard! When a vehicle ignites, it's panic time. Fighting this fire is a dangerous proposition, because even the fire hose is made of cardboard. The story is a mixture of funny, terrifying, and dumbfounding. What idiot opens a fireworks shop in a city made of cardboard? -via Metafilter

Most of the restroom graffiti I've encountered is "Anne loves John" or "For a good time, call..." plus some random words you don't want your kids to learn. But occasionally, there are clever gems that are worth taking a picture.

Of course, it's still vandalism, and I would never endorse taking a Sharpie into a public toilet. Or a private one, for that matter. But the quality of the thoughts behind those scribbles seems to have improved in the last few decades.  



See 19 masterpieces of restroom graffiti at Buzzfeed.

Stonehenge was not always a protected treasure. Ever since it was noticed as something strange and different, people desired a piece of it, and literally took those pieces home with them. A visit to Stonehenge meant taking a hammer and chisel to get a piece of rock for one's collection or mantelpiece. During the Victorian era when travel and tourism was on the rise, the vandalism reached a fever pitch- people not only took chunks of rock home, they left their names carved in the stones.  

In 1871, The Times published another series of letters regarding the state of Stonehenge, initiated by a writer who signed off as “A Vacation Rambler.” “There were many visitors,” the Rambler wrote of a recent visit to the site, “and a constant chipping of stone broke the solitude of the place.” The monument’s owner, Edmund Antrobus, 3rd Baronet, retorted in a published response a week later that “considering the thousands who annually visit it, I think the public deserve much credit for the very little damage done.” Antrobus did report several disturbing tales of vandalism, however, including an exchange with a “respectable paterfamilias,” who, upon being asked by Antrobus not to use his hammer and chisel, shot back, “And who the deuce are you, sir?” Told that Antrobus was the owner, the man responded that he believed the stones to be “public property.”

A hundred years ago, the last private owner of Salisbury's Stonehenge donated it to the British government. Only then was any real effort put into preserving the ancient monoliths, even though academics had been complaining about vandalism for centuries. Read about the desecration of Stonehenge at Atlas Obscura.

(Image source: Library of Congress)

Just because I'm a very boring tax lawyer doesn't mean I can't have an otter tape dispenser... pic.twitter.com/K9z5SFFT0e

— LT (@ladydoomfiyah) July 24, 2018

This question was posed at Ask A Manager:

I’m not in the business world yet, but I figure this will be relevant for when I am: in shopping for supplies to take with me to school, my dad made a comment about “lack of maturity” in my taste and how he was concerned it would hurt my reputation. (As he put it, “you’re going to be the weird girl at the weird school.”) In the future, will things like this really affect my credibility as a worker? I know things like a pencil case that’s also a stuffed sloth is probably too much for a workplace, but what about a bright pink three-hole punch, a glittery notebook and pen, or a file folder which has a snail design on it?

The answer, in a nutshell, is no, you're not weird, but you might dial it back just until you get your foot in the door. Various professionals jumped into a Twitter thread about the question to let the reader know she will be in good company on the job. Some of the office accoutrements displayed are causing envy.

Plus, my coworkers’ favorite: The Cat pic.twitter.com/2UyuOM7HTx

— Rachel Magargle, Mother of Kitties (@rjmagargle) July 24, 2018

 
-via Metafilter

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Cold cereal is a fairly American habit. The rest of the world eats a light meal of bread, fruit, and a couple of other normal foods, or maybe a hearty cooked meal if you do heavy labor. So why do we eat so much sugary cereal with milk? Yeah, it's tasty, but it's not good for us. However, those cereals were born to be health foods, especially good for the suppression of sexual urges. Simon Whistler of Today I Found Out explains the evolution of breakfast itself first, and then the origins of the cereals we know.

Colatura is the traditional Italian fish sauce made from anchovies that is an important part of the Mediterranean diet. Historically called garum, it literally saved the fishing industry during the era of the Roman Empire. After thousands of years, the diminishing supply of anchovies is causing another shift in the industry. One reason is overfishing among the 22 nations that surround the Mediterranean, and another is the tuna, now regulated, that eat them.    

But there are also profound changes occurring beyond overfishing. When Egypt dammed the Nile at Aswan in the 1950s, the rich nutrients that once fertilized phytoplankton and prompted them to bloom stopped reaching the sea. On top of that, the yearly cycles of wind and weather have changed, redirecting whole populations of species out of their usual migration routes. In some cases, this is only a geographical adjustment. But more disturbing is a much larger shift, a decoupling, in fact, of the ancient predator-prey relationship that occurs on a microscopic level at the very bottom of the marine food web. The essential relationship of phytoplankton and the zooplankton that feed upon them is changing. Phytoplankton are triggered to bloom by light. As the days grow longer after the winter solstice they increase their numbers. Zooplankton, the first rung up from phytoplankton on the marine food web, are cued by temperature. With waters growing warmer and warmer each year, zooplankton are hatching too early—before the phytoplankton bloom. As a result, both types of plankton, zoo- and phyto-, crash prematurely before juvenile fish, like anchovies, have a chance to feed on them. It is partly for this reason that every year the Mediterranean gets clearer and more beautiful even as it contains less and less life.

Read the history of garum, which tells us a lot about the history of Mediterranean food, and accompany an anchovy fishing expedition at Hakai magazine.  -via Digg

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What happens when an Alabama fan marries an LSU fan? Shenanigans! Johnny is a dedicated 'Bama fan, and his bride Bekka roots for LSU. The wedding was lovely, and Bekka arranged for a nice groom's cake emblazoned with a big red A for Alabama. A lovely gesture, right? Except she was trolling him. Read the details and see his full reaction at Toprivalry. College rivalries are taken seriously in the South.  -via reddit

We joke about "the formula" that makes movie trailers look so much alike, but those are mainly for big blockbuster action films, the ones with familiar characters and existing fan bases. Hollywood cranks out tons of movies of all kinds every year, and they all need promotion. For that, there exists several specialized businesses that only produce movie trailers. The work is definitely specialized- their labor begins long before the movie is finished.      

While everyone generally agrees it can be easier to craft trailers for good movies, Bill Neil, an editor at Buddha Jones, suggests that since he’s looking at elements rather than a completed work, it’s difficult to judge the ultimate merits of a film. “We try to discover the best stuff about each movie,” says Neil. “What’s exciting about the movie, what’s the best possible version of it, because it’s not fully formed yet. We get inspired by that idea, and that’s what we work off. When the movie comes out and it’s not so great, well, we gave it our best shot.”

As producers and editors are toiling, copywriters are hiding in their offices, taking dozens of stabs at six-word taglines and crafting splashy narration for trailers and TV. “It’s abstract art,” says Weir. “Sometimes, I would just write the most offensive, absurd, and completely tonally off thing and just bury it in there just to see if anyone was reading. More often than not, that would end up being a contender.”

There are even times that a trailer, or an idea for a trailer, influences the movie itself. Read about the work of trailer producers and learn some of their secrets at The Ringer. -via Digg

(Image credit: Flickr user Thomas Hawk)

Chris Hallbeck at Maximumble is doing something different: a continued story. This is the first installment, from about a week ago. Since then, this little monster has gone out on his own and is trying to find a job, which isn't so easy. I don't know where the story is going, but I'm keen to follow along! You can start here, and hit the "next" button to pull up the panels in order. You might want to bookmark Maximumble to check for updates.

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One of the biggest bands of the 1970s was Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes, but since they didn't get the promotion they deserved, they became known as simply the Cantina band. That's being rectified somewhat with a behind-the-scenes documentary on their career, sort of, which is really just an elaborate Comic Con trailer from Conan O'Brien. A slew of celebrities make appearances. -via Laughing Squid

Marc "Zeke" Kossover is a science teacher in California. As such, he's always looking for real-world demonstrations of science principles, and he's pretty clever.

Let's say you you were into making solar ovens. Let's say that you decided a few years ago to make the best solar oven ever. Further, let's stipulate that you saw a nearly meter-diameter Direct TV antenna on the side of the road. An idea happened. You rushed to the local plastics store and bought highly reflective Mylar and glued it to the antenna.

Your solar oven was pretty amazing. While the hot spot wasn't super small, it was hot. Really hot. It can pasteurize a liter of water in 15 minutes.

The principle is called solar convergence. The problem is that a device like this will continue working even when you are not demonstrating the scientific principle. Kossover found that out when he took his homemade parabolic mirror to work and then forgot and left it in his car. In July. In California. You can read the story and see more pictures of the damage at The Blog of Phyz. -via Metafilter

The world watched and waited on edge of our seats while professionals from around the world came together to bring a young soccer team out of a flooded cave in Thailand. It's hard for us lay people to understand the difficulty of the task. Chris Peterman is a professional cave diver, safety diver, and instructor. He helps to paint a full picture of their work by stressing the five cardinal rules of cave diving:

• Be well-trained and do not dive beyond your certification level
• Never use more than one third of your breathing gas to enter the cave—reserve one third for exiting and one third for emergencies
• Maintain a physical guideline back to the cave entrance at all times
• Never dive below the appropriate depth for your breathing gas mixture
• Carry at least three lights per person—one main and two back-ups

Peterman explains each rule and relates how they would work in the Thailand rescue operation. He also tells stories from cave divers' experiences that illustrate what happens when you don't follow each rule. Read his fascinating insights at Ars Technica. 

(Image credit: Chris Peterman)