As predicted, HR contacted me about taking bereavement pay last week when I’d already take it in January. My response, “Yes, I lost my father in January, and my Grandmother last week. It’s been quite the shitty year.”

I work for a guy who tried to get a woman fired for leaving before her shift ended because she was told of her mother’s passing. People are dicks.

What blows me away — in addition to all the other reasons outlined by Alison Green — is that the manager never offers to come in early and cover for her. When I was a manager, I would stay late with employees to help them finish earlier and get out of the office. Or I’d come in early to help them if they needed it.…

Absolute assholes, yes. Completely. But bigger ones? I’d say a dead heat and they should all be banished to the Libertarian Island.

They got married on a plantation

Don’t expect The Daily Mail to know know what journalism or fact checking is. They’re the ones who published a ‘here’s how much worse off you’ll be’ 2 days AFTER the Brexit vote for all their racist, xenophobic halfwit readers. (Yip, still bitter!)

It’s weird, because usually she’s so subtle.

that’s what he signed up for when he married Blank Livers

Ryan Reynolds is the person in that pic with the most gravitas, who is obviously cringing inside at being a part of this.

OMG, Ryan Reynolds’ face in that picture.

I think you are at an empathy advantage and I think that’s another drawback of the “normal kids to the right, ‘special needs’ to the left” philosophy - taking people with different dis/abilities, learning styles and behaviours out of the general population - puts people at a general empathy disadvantage.

This is a wonderful piece, and you sound like a great brother. But — as someone who understands the power of certain words, and how they’re used, you should get this — I wish you hadn’t used the phrase “confined to a wheelchair” multiple times. My wheelchair doesn’t have straps or locks that keep me from moving;…

I’m sorry, but short of a mechanic saying “the timing was retarded,” there’s no reason for those words in casual conversation, whether you’re talking about someone or not.

but I’m not going to jump down someone’s throat for using words like that in casual conversation.

You do a really good job describing the absolute primal rage one feels when a loved one gets mocked or treated like your brother did. I don’t know where it comes from but it’s powerful. As an aside, my wife and I often say that one of the many silver linings that came from our 2nd son being born with Down syndrome is…

Very touching. I am a pediatric orthopaedist, and a large portion of my practice involves ambulatory and non-ambulatory CP. The ambulatory kids go through so much anxiety and frustration regarding their “differences.” It is very hard to convince someone to wear leg braces when there are numerous little shits making…

Even if Family Guy and South Park are truly satire and mean no ill-will towards groups that they mock, their fans are boys and man-children and “they know not what it means”. But they aren’t. Parker and Stone and MacFarlane (not the only ones) are puerile cultural shitstains making a buck off their emotionally…

The world would be a much, much better place if people could stop for a second and imagine what it would feel like if someone said the horrible shit they’re about to say to someone they cared about. Great article. Thanks.

Not since 1776!

Disagree. If she's going after Murdoch, she's a planetary treasure.