I live in a town where the rule is No More Than Two Unrelated. So, two moms, two dads, an unmarried couple with children and whatnot are fine. Three fraternity members or ten immigrants who are NOT related are not.

I worry a lot about non-traditional families being affected by the law, which in this town is enforced mostly as a backup to other quality of life laws. But at the same time I support the law in many cases because in a town like this, where the in-town housing has the potential to be both affordable and logical from a transportation standpoint, but IS NOT AFFORDABLE because when more than a very small number of unrelated individuals start living together, rents and housing prices skyrocket because unrelated, working adults can pay infinitely more than can a nuclear (or otherwise) family supporting one or more non-working members. The effect on the market is ugly, at least for poorer families.

Ok, so I believe the LW is more or less reliable (though I question the statement about vacation time). However, she is not displaying a healthy perspective on things. Put simply, most companies are run on personalities, and with as little drama as possible, with merit being the bottom line that determines how many charming people stay on payroll. By creating drama and presumably not presenting an optimal personality, the LW is endangering no one but herself. That doesn't mean what she says is wrong -- merely that she may be best served by not concentrating on it.

I've unfortunately worked in similar environments more than once, and in general my revenge is kicking ass at my job while everyone else is shoe shopping. Eventually good things occur as the result of my ass busting and i get sent somewhere with more money and better duties because when others quit working then everything you do looks like very lucrative rocket science -- meanwhile the lazy ones languish where they started. and that's ok with me. If the LW believes that the Olga situation is in fact a pervasive pattern of random rewards and other such b.s. (meaning applying to multiple employees) then she probably needs a new job. But if not, she simply needs to get interested in her own job.

Such situations have really served me well so far. While my old department imploded and people sued each other, I cranked out 5-10X the proposals that anyone else did and closed about the same number of prospects -- cha-ching! While my coworkers were being jackasses and taking up lots of management energy, I stopped asking for permission and instead starting handing in work that was for all practical purposes done. No effort on their part, tons of independence on mine, and lots of money. Cha-ching! When my coworkers stopped speaking to each other, turning my area into an emotional wasteland, I chatted relentlessly with anyone I actually needed anything out of, took them to lunch, and distanced myself from the stupidity. Cha-ching! I doubled my salary, juggled three internal options, and got an insanely nice promotion/move. I'd suggest it to anyone. In fact, I'd go further and say that chaos and discord is as good or better than a cohesive working unit when it comes to compensation.

Practical steps to dealing with such people include sneaky tactics to make stupidity painful (anonymous hang-up calls when she's nattering at people standing in her office, cutting power to her monitor when she's doing frivolous stuff and whining about it, occasionally setting her up to be needed when she's off not doing her job, etc.), minimizing the relationship of her jobs to yours when possible, getting headphones or whatever (most people get concerned about noise FAST when faced with the prospect of listening to rush limbaugh from your cube all day), scheduling your day so it doesn't coincide much with hers, etc.

(P.S. for optimal ass kicking, make friends with management. also, figure out what makes olga an attractive employee and emulate that portion of her work practices. oh, and stand your passive-aggressive ass up and ask her to pipe down the next time she's loudly snarking next to you.)

Did the editors at Salon make a concerted decision to bash red staters today? I ask, because I subscribe to Salon in order to read informed, logical commentary, rather than the aggressive claptrap that seems to be a staple of media these days. But aggressive claptrap toward a stereotype of the red state world view is exactly what I'm getting today.

There's a letter to Cary Tennis today in which a woman considers changing the guardianship of her children based on her sister's fiance being a gun owning Bush lover. And we have Ms. Burleigh's wierd article on her son's being indoctrinated in a small, rural school. Both of which reek of elitist, narrow thinking. No doubt we all know some latte-sipping, snobby elitist blue staters and we all know some "fergit, hell" single-toothed red-staters -- but writing articles perpetuating those stereotypes is wrong, and it's no less wrong for being directed at people whose political or religious opinions you don't hold. Furthermore, it's divisive.

Is this the best we can do? I sincerely doubt it. And as a liberal raised and living in a red state, I take offense to both.