When the author's dad died, she reevaluated her approach to work.
Courtesy of Tayla Blaire
I used to push myself at work, outearning myself year after year.
When my dad died, and I heard how people talked about him, I reevaluated my approach.
Now, I still make enough to cover what I need, but I'm living a fuller life.
I'm a reformed workaholic. I'd love to say I slowly came to realize that my value isn't monetary or based on how high I can climb a ladder, but that epiphany wasn't achieved in a growth-centric way. Instead, it was a surprising side effect of losing my dad suddenly in September 2024. He was there, and just like that, he was gone. And my willingness to burn myself out died that day, too.
In the flurry of administrative chaos and world-wrecking grief that follows sudden death, it took a while for me to notice the change. It was normal to work less while grieving. Except it's now almost two years later — and yes, I'm still very much grieving — but I am back in the flow of working. And it looks completely different.
I had been working hard for years
When I was balancing full-time teaching with a writing side hustle, I regularly pulled ridiculous hours, working from 7 am until late at night. Not only that, but I was also frequently working both weekend days and throughout school vacation. I even had an accident in May 2024 that put me out of work while my arm was in a sling to help the broken bones heal, but once I was back, I hit my highest earning month of all time. But then my dad died, and I just don't care the way I used to.
There wasn't an inheritance that suddenly made working optional. And it's not all-consuming depression either — the months that followed were immensely dark, but I'm doing really well from a mental health perspective now. Instead, there's been a reshuffling of priorities. My identity fundamentally shifted in 2024. I came entirely too close to dying in an accident while riding horses, where doctors couldn't fathom how I survived without paraplegia, and then, mere months later, my dad had a heart attack at 65.
The way people spoke about my dad made me want to live a fuller life
The eulogies poured in for my dad, who was a beloved doctor. Hundreds of people messaged us, telling stories of my dad's generosity, his kindness, adventurous spirit, talent, sense of humor, and utter chaos.
The sheer number of anecdotes was almost mythical, as it seemed impossible that someone could do so much with their time. My dad even started kitesurfing in his 50s because he thought it would be cool, and regularly drove hours out of town to reach the nearest dam to do it. His last kiting session was the week before he died. He was an astronomer, a chess player, an artist, a rugby fanatic, a dear friend, a dedicated husband, and the best dad anyone could wish for.
It made me look at my own life. I was out-earning myself, year after year. But I lived in a city that gave me little joy, and my hobbies were…well, just reading. And often, I was only reading self-help books to help me earn more or be more productive.
It's not that I took a step back from work. I just didn't step forward again. I have ongoing luxury travel copywriting clients. I still do a fair bit of journalism and a little bit of coaching essay writers. I ensure I earn enough to make ends meet — pay my mortgage, set aside money for my retirement, health insurance, and so on, but that's it. Once that goal is met each month, my foot comes off the accelerator, and I focus on life instead.
I moved to the coast and qualified as an advanced open water scuba diver. I knock off early on Fridays to hit the beach if it's a nice day, and I'm dabbling in surfing. I've started lifting weights. I have more friends than I've ever had before. I've started painting, and my guitar has been dusted off and tuned again.
I don't have it all worked out. I'm still trying to figure out what life without my dad can possibly look like. I just know how much life he crammed into the years he had, and the best way I can honor him is to try to do the same.
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Ask a chatbot why something happened in the war, and the answer may be written by Russia. Russia is poisoning AI chatbots with millions of fake articles so they repeat Kremlin narratives as fact, a cognitive weapon with strategic impact, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert “Madiar” Brovdi warns on Telegram.
Russia has waged a cognitive war against Ukraine for years, and it intensified sharply with the full-scale invasion. This war goes beyond fake news and disinformation: it aims to shape the deeply ingrained beliefs that drive people’s attitudes, decisions and behavior, and its newest weapon is artificial intelligence.
Brovdi calls it a cognitive operation with strategic impact, one his forces studied among the technological risks of 2027. People increasingly ask a chatbot “why did X happen?” and take the instant answer, he explains, without asking where it comes from.
“Artificial intelligence does not know the truth. It retells the internet, literally,” Brovdi claims.
How the strategy works, step by step
Brovdi lays out a chain that turns a single lie into something a machine will repeat as fact:
The enemy invents a lie. For example, that Ukrainian soldiers did something terrible, when nothing of the sort happened.
It is copied across thousands of sites. The same fabrication is published again and again, in many languages, until it looks like everyone is reporting it.
It fakes a crowd of independent sources. The sites cross-link to one another, but ten sites copying one lie are not ten independent confirmations.
A person asks the AI. They type “why did Ukrainian soldiers do X?”, though X may never have happened, so the lie is already smuggled into the question as fact.
The AI may repeat the lie. If the system ingests unreliable material and checks facts poorly, it echoes the fabrication in a calm, confident tone.
The person trusts it. “The AI said so,” they think, so the answer feels objective, and they believe it, retell it, or share it online.
The lie shapes decisions and trust. People start to distrust the army, the state, or one another, and even an unproven fabrication has already changed how they feel.
The machines already repeat the lie
The attack runs on volume. Russia floods the web through the “Pravda” network, close to 200 sites in dozens of languages posting 4 to 6 million near-identical articles a year, Brovdi claims, written for machines, not people.
It works, by his account. Of the ten most popular chatbots studied, about a third of the time they reproduce Russian fakes, he noted, and four of ten in a 2024 test affirmed that Azov fighters had burned an effigy of Trump, a fabrication, and cited sources for it.
A war Ukraine admits it is losing
Brovdi is blunt about the balance. Ukraine is losing this fight to Russia’s troll farms, he concedes, even as a layer of homegrown trolls has sprung up too.
His closing advice was aimed at readers.
“Critical thinking should not be delegated. Not even to the smartest machine. Switch on your own judgment and always check the source and the information,” Brovdi states.
Il Livorno aveva mantenuto la privacy parlando di semplice “interventoprogrammato“. Ma il proliferare di commenti sui social hanno spinto all’operazione verità, d’accordo con il diretto interessato: il percorso medico che deve affrontare Samuele Regazzetti, difensore della squadra amaranto (Serie C, girone B) è dovuto a un tumore ai testicoli, per il quale appunto è stato operato, con successo. Il difensore ha continuato a giocare anche dopo aver ricevuto la diagnosi e la società amaranto ha provato a tutelare la privacy del proprio tesserato, ma ieri, in una conferenza stampa, ha dovuto prendere posizione. Non è mancata la rabbia dei fratelli Lucarelli (Alessandro è direttore sportivo e il fratello Cristiano è allenatore) per le spiacevoli illazioni sui social nel giorni scorsi, quando il Livorno aveva annunciato un’operazione “programmata da tempo” per il giocatore. Durante la conferenza stampa hanno raccontato anche delle lacrime per il giocatore per qualche commento sui social, in cui si insinuava che avevano comprato un giocatore nonostante fossero consapevoli della malattia (“Un bidone” ha scritto qualcuno dei più poveri di spirito). “Leggendo quei commenti è la prima volta nella mia vita che mi sono vergognato di essere livornese”, ha detto Cristiano Lucarelli. L’operazione è stata eseguita lunedì dal primario di Livorno Maurizio De Maria e i tempi di recupero sono ancora da stabilire. “Ciò che conta è che il problema sia stato risolto: quando Samuele sarà pronto noi saremo qui ad aspettarlo”, ha affermato il direttore sportivo.
Regazzetti, classe 2004, è cresciuto nel Bresciano tra Lumezzane e Ospitaletto dopo le giovanili alla Cremonese, ed è entrato ufficialmente nel Livorno il 25 luglio 2026. La scoperta del tumore per il calciatore di 22 anni è arrivata dopo la partita contro la Pianese del 26 settembre, come ha riportato Alessandro Lucarelli. “La cosa che da tifoso e da allenatore mi ha commosso di tutta questa situazione, è il fatto che lui abbia voluto giocare ugualmente, non c’è cosa più bella per chi ama il Livorno”, ha concluso l’allenatore ed ex bomber.
Nella serata di ieri, durante il derby con il Grosseto finito 4-4, la curva Nord – quella della tifoseria più calda – ha esposto uno striscione con scritto “Forza Samuele”. In tribuna a vedere la partita proprio Regazzetti.
Attendees chat at Anthropic's developer conference in May.
Don Feria/AP Content Services for Anthropic
Anthropic published new surveys comparing its staffers' sentiments to those of US workers.
The AI startup's employees expect the tech to change work and the economy far more dramatically.
Most Anthropic employees guessed that unemployment would top 12% in 2030.
Anthropic employees believe that AI will make their labor obsolete. Most US workers don't see their jobs that way at all.
The AI company published research on Friday that compares surveys with US adults against an internal poll of 1,334 Anthropic employees. Most of the Anthropic staffers said AI will handle at least 80% of their jobs by 2030, while only about 5% of the US workers felt the same.
The research, titled "The AI expectations gap," shows the chasm between how the employees at the AI startup feel and how other American adults feel. Anthropic workers are far more optimistic about the progress of AI capabilities, how much it's already saving time, and how fast the economy will grow.
The median Anthropic employee said that by the end of 2030, they expect AI to handle 95% of the work of building a new AI model.
Peter McCrory, Anthropic's chief economist, wrote on X that the views might help outsiders prepare for more capable AI systems.
"We're publishing this research because Anthropic runs roughly a year and a half ahead of the economy on AI adoption, so what happens at Anthropic could be a leading indicator for the broader world," he said.
Anthropic workers expect higher unemployment and extreme GDP growth
Anthropic's surveys examined how workers already use AI and how they think it will change.
"US adults and Anthropic staff largely agree about what AI can do today," the researchers wrote. "However, they disagree about how quickly it will improve, how widely it will be used, and how large the productivity gains measured by time saved will be."
There are a few possible explanations for the discrepancies. Anthropic employees have larger budgets for the tools and often get access to unreleased models. US workers, on average, are more likely to work with their hands or in a service industry.
The researchers found that workers in manual trades, production, and transport thought AI would handle the least of their work by 2030, compared with Anthropic staffers, tech workers, and respondents in business and finance.
Most Anthropic employees surveyed said that they expect the unemployment rate to top 12% in 2030. The majority of the US workers thought it would hover around or under 8%. It's currently 4.2%.
So far, researchers have found mixed evidence on AI disrupting the job market — a Yale team recently found it had mainly changed jobs, and had "no connection" to changes in unemployment.
The Anthropic researchers also compiled survey responses to estimate predictions on economic growth. Based on their answers, the median US adult's guess for GDP growth in 2030 was 5.4%, compared with 17.1% among Anthropic employees. The country's GDP grew by 2.2% last year.
Anthropic's staffers are following their leader
Anthropic's CEO, Dario Amodei, has become one of the industry's most closely watched voices on labor upheaval. In March of 2025, he said he expected AI to write 90% of code within 6 months, and "essentially all of the code" within the year. He made more headlines that May, telling Axios that AI could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs within five years and lift unemployment to 10% or 20%.
Amodei expanded on that claim in a later essay, writing that he expects AI to be different from prior technological changes. He wrote that he expects an "unprecedented" short-term shock to labor, and that the economy will grow dramatically.
"AI isn't a substitute for specific human jobs but rather a general labor substitute for humans," he wrote.
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On Friday, European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) called for menopause to be recognized as a workplace issue within European Union (EU) legislation, linking its effects to the gender pay and pension gaps.
The request was made on the occasion of World Menopause Day, observed on October 18. The trade union organization warned that this life stage remains largely unrecognized in European policies, due to the lack of harmonized legislation and the fact that the European Commission has no plans to develop a specific strategy.
According to the ETUC, nearly 30% of women experience symptoms that affect their ability to work, including fatigue, difficulty concentrating, sleep problems, hot flashes, joint pain, and anxiety.
Citing various studies, the confederation noted that women’s earnings decline by 7.4% in the four years following the onset of menopause. This drop is attributed to reduced working hours, medical leave, and the loss of promotion opportunities.
“The taboo surrounding menopause at work must end. The loss of wages, missed promotions, and lower pensions are the price millions of women pay because workplaces have not been adapted to menopause,” stated Isabelle Schömann, Deputy General Secretary of the ETUC.
— Trabajo y Prevención Castilla y León (@prevencionjcyl) October 7, 2026
The text reads, “European Week for Safety and Health at Work: Let’s Move Forward. A Commitment to Preventing Psychosocial Risks”
Proposed measures
The ETUC has put forward a set of measures to adapt workplaces to the needs of women going through this stage. These include:
1- Workplace risk assessments that take into account temperature, ventilation, and facilities.
2- Flexible working hours and remote work.
3- Training for managers, human resources staff, and the broader workforce.
4- Policies agreed upon with trade unions, which are then implemented and monitored.
5- Physical adjustments to the workplace. Paid leave for symptoms, with no penalty for the employee.
6- Free menstrual and menopause-related products in the workplace.
Schömann pointed out that too many women have to lose wages or leave their jobs because very little consideration has been given to an experience shared by half the population.
The organization highlighted that many labor unions are already negotiating collective agreements that include temperature adjustments and flexible work arrangements. It also called for labor regulations—currently “geared toward male-dominated jobs”—to be adapted to the reality of the entire workforce.
The author leaned out of hustle culture and said she enjoyed a more relaxed, but still fulfilling, life.
Courtesy of Catherine Work.
I spent my 20s believing that working hard and making money were the keys to independence.
I realized I was working so much that I had no time or energy to enjoy the life I was building.
Years later, being an ambitious woman looks different to me. I work less and have time for myself.
I thought making a lot of money and working hard would make me happy.
In my early 20s, I got great grades and finished my undergrad in three years. By my mid-20s, I had finished my graduate degree in law while frequently working 70-hour weeks.
I leaned into the idea of being a girlboss, often working weekends or through my lunch, and focusing on making lots of money. It was a habit I saw modeled by my parents. It worked for them, and I thought it would work for me, until it didn't.
I thought hard work was the point
At 26, I worked long days at my home desk after making "hard worker" and "responsible'"my identity for years. I thought this was what an independent woman was: someone who worked constantly and optimized all of her time.
The author said she spent so much time working in her 20s that she barely had time to enjoy the money she made.
Courtesy of Catherine Work.
Sure, I was saving lots of money and networking, but I was often too tired on my day off to do anything. I often chose to work on Saturdays and didn't even have time to spend my hard-earned money.
Two things made me realize this wasn't a sustainable lifestyle: I once told a friend I couldn't take a 15-minute lunch break to call her, and another time I struggled to lift my full duffle bag for an upcoming trip after not working out for months.
Something had to give.
I didn't want to just recover from burnout
I was clearly burned out. I could have taken some time off to recover and come back, but then the cycle would have continued.
It helped that I spent my early 20s in Cameroon and Costa Rica, two places where work-life balance looks a lot different than it does in the US, and people live with their parents much longer. Looking back on those years when I was truly happy helped me to question what I was focusing on in my life.
I came to a new conclusion. I didn't want to simply recover after burning out. I wanted to reject the premise that burnout was the price of being an ambitious woman.
I stopped hustling toward anything
In 2022, as the COVID restrictions were lifted more and a relationship I had been in ended, I decided to travel while working a few hours per week. As a then single, childfree woman, no longer heading towards a career, I wondered what I'd replace these traditional markers of success with. The answer turned out to be nothing.
I stopped trying to hustle toward something. No job, boss, passion, or person was going to truly reward me for committing to 70-hour weeks. Nothing was worth putting off a breakfast date with myself or an unplanned walk in the park, or that 15-minute phone call I told my friend I couldn't take.
I decided to opt out of the competitive nature of the working world and instead focus on optimizing myself.
5 years later, my life looks different
Five years later, I have a life my 26-year-old self would barely recognize. I work substantially less, have built a career around writing and research for companies with values I admire, and have spent the past several years living and traveling in different countries.
The author said her life has much more balance now and includes time for her to travel, cook, and connect with friends.
Courtesy of Catherine Work.
I don't own a car or a home, and I'm not chasing a traditional career ladder. Instead of constantly asking what I should accomplish next, I have far more time for cooking, relationships, travel, and simply being alive.
One thing I did keep from that previous era of my life was my deep conviction that I, and all women, need to be financially independent. I have stopped suggesting that my friends work through their lunch break; instead, we talk about ethical investing and the need to always have one's own bank account.
Independence turned out to mean something else for me
The surprising part is that opting out didn't ruin my career, and I didn't feel the need to replace work with anything else. I don't think chasing a job title, a salary, or a full calendar would have made me feel secure.
I think I would have constantly felt the need to prove myself, which sounds exhausting to me now. Instead, I have the independence I sought when I was younger. It just took the form of letting go of the idea that I have to constantly prove my worth to myself.
Attendees at OpenAI's DevDay conference on September 29, 2026.
Minh Connors/Bloomberg via Getty Images
OpenAI's Alexander Embiricos said the AI era gives a choice: work more, or work less.
He's in charge of Dots, the company's new always-on work assistant.
AI is often pitched as freeing up time. Embiricos responded to the idea that it might add more work.
As the competitive AI race pushes tech workers into long hours, the head of OpenAI's new Dots product says AI gives people another option: work a whole lot less.
Alexander Embiricos, who leads OpenAI's enterprise product and helms the new Dots agent tool, told a crowd at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference on Thursday that AI's capabilities have created something of a fork in the road for workers. You can grind to meet the moment. Or you can use AI to kick your feet up a little.
"We basically have a lot more choice now," he said.
Embiricos made the comments after a reporter asked about when AI systems will actually deliver more free time. The reporter shared an anecdote where an OpenAI employee used a ChatGPT mobile feature to work in their car and on a plane — not exactly liberated by the new tech.
Embiricos said that the moment has already arrived where a worker can "outsource" tasks to AI and do less work. Then again, some people are so excited about AI's potential that they feel like it's an "interesting, ripe moment" to put in extra hours.
"I think that's why a lot of people are motivated to work very hard right now. That includes myself," he said. "But I think actually there is this choice, and there's totally this other setup where you could delegate a ton more things."
OpenAI is billing its Dots tool as a workplace assistant, always on and capable of proactively handing tasks and sorting to-dos. Embiricos uses his Dot often in Slack, he said, engaging on various threads.
His perspective illustrates how early companies are in their journey to adopt AI tools. Most companies have not yet automated their work tasks, and many workers are still debating how much to use the tools. Early AI adopters, meanwhile, can sprint through some work that used to take days or weeks, especially in software engineering.
Embiricos summed up the situation he feels workers are in: "You either choose: do you expand the ambition of what you can do, or do you do less? I do think we're there."
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European Union governments are entering a critical round of budget negotiations after the Irish presidency of the Council proposed cutting €141 billion from the European Commission’s long-term spending plans, exposing deep disagreements over how the bloc intends to finance its expanding responsibilities.
The revised proposal, circulated ahead of the European Council meeting scheduled for 15–16 October, would reduce the planned 2028–2034 financial framework by approximately eight per cent to around €1.6 trillion, calculated in constant prices.
Despite the reduction, the proposed budget remains approximately 30 per cent larger than the current seven-year framework. Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and other governments concerned about national contributions have nevertheless argued that further restraint is necessary.
The compromise, detailed in negotiations over the EU’s next financial framework, reduces proposed spending across several areas while largely protecting the Union’s established agricultural and regional development programmes. The distribution of those cuts is becoming as contentious as the overall size of the budget.
Europe’s new priorities face the deepest reductions
Under the Irish proposal, agricultural and regional development allocations would decline by approximately three per cent compared with the Commission’s initial plans. By contrast, funding intended for competitiveness and security would be reduced by around 13 per cent, while external action and development cooperation face cuts of approximately 17 per cent.
The difference raises questions about whether the next EU budget can support the strategic ambitions repeatedly endorsed by European leaders.
The Commission has presented industrial competitiveness, technological development, defence readiness and economic resilience as central priorities for the remainder of the decade. Yet these sectors would absorb proportionately larger reductions under the revised framework than agricultural and cohesion programmes.
The consequences could extend to investments in advanced technologies, European industrial supply chains, research programmes and cross-border defence cooperation. They could also constrain the Union’s capacity to fund external partnerships and development initiatives.
The debate is particularly sensitive because the EU’s responsibilities have changed considerably since the previous budget was negotiated. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased defence requirements, while competition with China and the United States has intensified demands for industrial investment.
Germany and the net contributors demand restraint
The central disagreement concerns how much additional expenditure European governments are willing to finance through the common budget. Germany and other major net contributors face domestic fiscal constraints, rising borrowing costs and demands to increase national defence spending.
For these governments, accepting a substantially larger EU budget would add to financial commitments already being made through national budgets.
The Irish compromise therefore faces opposition from two directions. Some governments consider the reductions insufficient, while others fear that the remaining cuts will weaken programmes essential to their national economies.
Traditional recipients of agricultural and regional funding have an interest in protecting established expenditure. Governments seeking stronger European investment in defence, innovation and industrial competitiveness have different priorities.
The European Parliament is another obstacle. Its consent will be required before the final financial framework can enter into force, giving MEPs considerable leverage in negotiations with national governments.
New EU revenues remain controversial
The proposal also envisages approximately €55 billion in additional annual financing through new or revised EU revenue sources, including customs revenues, emissions-related income and corporate contributions.
The Commission’s framework for the next long-term budget reflects a broader debate over the extent to which the Union should develop independent financing mechanisms rather than rely predominantly on national contributions.
Such mechanisms would potentially give Brussels a more predictable revenue base. However, they also raise questions about fiscal sovereignty, the distribution of costs among member states and the political accountability of European taxation.
National governments remain reluctant to surrender substantial authority over revenue collection, particularly when proposed resources could impose costs on domestic industries or consumers.
Ukraine, enlargement and Europe’s strategic ambitions
The negotiations will influence the Union’s ability to respond to future enlargement. Ukraine and several Western Balkan countries are pursuing accession, but the financial implications of bringing additional members into the Union remain substantial.
Existing arrangements for agricultural subsidies and regional development assistance would require reconsideration if large new beneficiaries entered the budgetary system.
At the same time, the EU faces pressure to support Ukraine financially and strengthen defence production without depending indefinitely on extraordinary borrowing or ad hoc national contributions. These responsibilities cannot be addressed simply by preserving the structure of earlier budgets.
European Council President António Costa will seek to narrow the divisions among the 27 leaders, but agreement on the financial framework requires unanimity. Any government can withhold its consent if it considers the final distribution of costs unacceptable.
The forthcoming summit is therefore likely to establish the parameters of further negotiations rather than eliminate the underlying disagreements. The immediate political question is whether member states can reconcile their commitment to greater European strategic capacity with their reluctance to finance it collectively.
In a near unanimous vote, city council members in Cambridge, Massachusetts, adopted a policy order suggesting that local law enforcement authorities shouldn't arrest or prosecute sex workers.
With eight members voting yes and one voting present during the council's October 5 meeting, the new policy aims to "let folks in our community know that we do stand in support of not arresting or prosecuting people who sell sex," as Councilor Patricia M. Nolan put it.
The order's stipulation with regard to sex customers, however, is unclear. And what practical effect it will have is uncertain, since Cambridge City Council members can't change Massachusetts state law, under which both buying and selling sex are still crimes.
The new policy order states that it is the council's "belief that the arrest of adult persons for consensual sex work should continue to be amongst the lowest law enforcement priorities for the City of Cambridge" and that "the Middlesex County District Attorney should cease prosecution of persons for consensual adult sex work and cease prosecution of persons who provide support services to sex workers absent unlawful means."
The district attorney's office does not have to take this recommendation, of course. Still, it seems meaningful that government officials are urging prosecutors to adopt some level of decriminalization policy when it comes to prostitution. The Cambridge City Council isn't even the first in the area to do so. "In 2019, Somerville City Council voted to direct Somerville police not to arrest sex workers," Cambridge Daypoints out.
Originally, some Cambridge authorities wanted to go even further. An earlier draft of the order urged "the State House to support efforts to achieve the full decriminalization of consensual adult sex work statewide," but that language was removed before passage of the final policy last week. The change was made so as "not [to be] taking a stand on…full decriminalization of the buyer," Nolan said at the meeting.
Yet according to The Cambridge Somerville Independent, Council Member Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler, who authored the new policy, said that even as adopted it still supports full decriminalization (that is, decriminalization of both full-service sex work providers and their clients):
In the version that passed, some councillors believed they voted for something different: that customers remain seen as criminals and that the goal is to end sex work rather than allow the trade to continue safely with protections for human and worker rights. "People are going to read it a little differently," Sobrinho-Wheeler said, but he and supporters believe the order continues to cover clients and suppliers of sex work.
Sex worker rights advocates are calling the policy—which also includes plans for a phone line that sex workers can use to report crimes against them without having to interact with police—a win.
"Victories seem rare. This one is special because of how many sex workers, survivors, and allies supported our effort," Mary Carol, co-chair of the Boston Sex Workers and Allies Collective, said in a press release.
During the public comment portion of the council's October 5 meeting, at least 27 people—including current and former sex workers, lawyers, and people in social services—spoke in support of full decriminalization.
"I choose to do this work and I choose to do this work without going to jail for it," said Rita Romero, who said she has been "a sex worker for over 20 years."
A woman describing herself as "a student, a mother, an advocate, and a sex worker" told council members: "We are not asking you to understand every choice that we make. We are asking you to understand that criminalization does not make us disappear, it only changes how safely we are able to exist."
"Our commonwealth should protect people's dignity, not punish them for trying to survive," opined Kayla Kittredge, an independent candidate for lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.
Several speakers who described themselves as survivors of sex trafficking supported the policy order. This included Quinn, who said she was "pushed into the sex industry as a teenager" and still supports full decriminalization.
Clients "didn't hurt me because of a lack of punishment," Quinn said. "They were able to hurt me because I had a lack of power, political power, to keep myself safe and to determine the trajectory of my own life. The fact is full decriminalization—not partial, not the equality model—only full decriminalization has been proven to afford both trafficking victims and sex workers more political power, actual political power."
Only three people—two with the group Safe Exit, which helps people who do not want to be selling sexual services to stop doing so—spoke against the policy.
Safe Exit's Audra Dooty said the policy would "hurt people and get more vulnerable folks sucked into the life" and advocated what's alternately known as the Nordic model, the equality model, or partial decriminalization, in which sex workers are not criminalized but their clients are.
Several speakers at the council meeting directly opposed any policy that still prioritizes arresting sex buyers. Claudia Torres, a staff attorney at Justice at Work, noted that while some say decriminalization removes protection for vulnerable people, "vulnerability does not make meaningful consent impossible. Whether coercion is present is a fact-intensive, context-specific inquiry."
"Criminalizing buyers does not eliminate dangerous clients or exploitation," said Molly Lynch, a licensed clinical social worker. Instead, it "makes it harder for sex workers to protect themselves from those dangers." Lynch added that having worked with street-based sex workers, she learned that "sex workers are experts in their own safety."
"In other industries, like domestic work, we say the solution is giving people more labor protections," Jessica Van Meir told the council. "We don't say the solution to trafficking of domestic workers is to criminalize hiring a maid."
The new Cambridge policy order puts on the record what already seems to be police policy. Shameka Gregory with the city's Domestic and Gender-Based Violence Prevention Initiative said the Cambridge Police Department has made only about four sex worker arrests in the past five years. She did not say if any or how many solicitation arrests were made.
But even if local police aren't proactively going after prostitution, sex workers and/or their customers in the area may still face arrests and prosecutions. In recent years, Cambridge has been the home of a high-profile "brothel" bust involving both federal and state police. More than 30 clients were arrested and prosecuted on state charges, and three people who ran the business were prosecuted on federal charges.
In the News
Where will the Trump administration livesteam its firing squad? (What a sentence to have to write.) "Depending on how much [social media platforms] want to bend over backwards (or should I say, bow down?) to appease Donald Trump and the bloodthirsty Pete Hegseth, all of them except Meta can make unfortunately credible claims that livestreaming an execution by firing squad doesn't technically violate their policies," notes Mike Masnick at Techdirt. "Meta cannot say that. I'd argue that the videos likely do violate YouTube, X, and TikTok's policies as well, but it very much depends on subjective calls for all three."
"Remember, some of the earliest moral panic over how 'bad' social media is came from US elected officials losing their minds about terrorist execution videos on YouTube," adds Masnick:
It's kind of incredible how far we've come: Now the US government itself is planning to stream a gruesome execution of its own, and any platform that pushes back will likely be attacked by the president and his supporters for not being patriotic enough.
Continuing in what's apparently a surrealist theme of today's newsletter…
On Substack
Will Ukraine decriminalize porn to help fund its military? Sofya Owl has helped fund Ukraine's defense efforts by selling nude photos. That could make her a criminal in Ukraine, "where producing and distributing pornography remains a criminal offense," explains Mariana Lastovyria at The Counteroffensive:
For years, it has had a thriving market for adult content that operates largely in the shadows.
Now, as the country faces a roughly $27 billion shortfall in defense funding, lawmakers are considering whether to remove pornography from the criminal code—potentially bringing part of that underground economy into the legal tax base. This gap is critical, as the money is needed now to pay for supplies at the front line for the first quarter of 2027.
According to recent estimates by Ukrainian lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezniak, who co-authored a bill to decriminalize pornography production, legalizing the industry could bring the state budget up to $25 million a year in tax revenue. He says that amount would be enough to purchase around 30,000 drones.
Read This Thread
Why are campus administrators teaching about sex toys?
Setting aside whether universities should be in the business of providing this kind of advice, the real question is why therapeutic bureaucracies are now somehow responsible for attending to every last private corner of student life, right down to the "bondage and fetish gear." https://t.co/TmJ7ayMM5C
Two very different Flock rulings: Last week, this newsletter covered a federal court ruling in which the judge called automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems such as Flock "a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance." But all is not well in Flock/Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.
"A decision that a California judge issued the following day, which dismissed a lawsuit arguing that San Jose's ALPR network violates the state constitution, is much more typical of litigation in this area, which so far has been almost uniformly unsuccessful," reportsReason's Jacob Sullum. More:
The contrast between those two decisions suggests the challenges such lawsuits face as judges grapple with the implications of Supreme Court precedents involving cellphone location data. Although the relevance of those precedents might seem obvious, state and federal courts generally have perceived important differences between cellphone tracking and police use of roadside cameras that record images of passing cars.
• Always read Chris Ferguson on cellphone ban studies (and do it quick before he gets himself locked in a padded room rather than have to scream about effect sizes one more time).
• The winner of Britain's prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing is now under question, after "the AI detector Pangram flag[ged] almost the entire story as AI-generated," notesThe Atlantic. And "this isn't the first prize-winning story to be flagged by Pangram. It comes after similar scandals over this year's Commonwealth Prize and Prix Goncourt—two other renowned literature contests—in which Pangram flagged AI use among finalists."
• "The case for screen time limits rests in part on an unproven assumption that fewer hours will mean fewer anxious and depressed kids. The best evidence doesn't support it," writes the Columbia University psychiatrist Jonathan Slater in The New York Times:
Limiting screen time can promote children's overall health. But the amount of time children spend on screens has only a small effect on their mental health. Genetics and certain experiences in childhood, as well as the lack of proper diagnosis and treatment, appear to be far more influential. Limiting screen time is not the first line of treatment for children with anxiety or depression.
• Abortion pill update: "The Food and Drug Administration expects to complete its safety review of the abortion pill mifepristone in March," reports NBC. In a court document filed by the Department of Justice last Wednesday, the agency "said it plans to compare mifepristone's safety to that of surgical abortions through 10 weeks' gestation. Its review will measure the frequency of side effects among roughly 100,000 women who took mifepristone, it said."
• Is AI slop what the people really want? "They like the slop, they're eager for more, and whoever's serving it to them is just fulfilling the authentic demand for unlimited AI-generated garbage," suggests Jeremiah Johson at The Argument.
• A win for cryptocurrency: "The U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has withdrawn its proposal for a rule that would require financial institutions to report on cryptocurrency transactions that they 'know, suspect, or have reason to suspect' involve mixing in a foreign jurisdiction," reportsReason's Matthew Petti. "The proposal was first made in October 2023, and the government withdrew it this week, citing complaints from the crypto industry and privacy concerns."
A Ukrainian Sargan-3000 sea drone shot down a Russian Shahed flying on a mesh radio network, Ukraine's Navy reported on 7 October. Ukrainian sea drones have downed Russian aircraft before, but with missiles. This one used a machine gun.
Russia has been hitting Odesa with air attacks that come in waves with short gaps between them. Guarding the sky over water is harder than over land. Since fall 2025, Russia has also used mesh radio networks to reroute Shaheds mid-flight and dodge Ukrainian air defenses. That leaves Ukraine needing more ways to meet these drones out at sea, before they reach its ports and coast.
A Shahed steered by radio
A mesh-network drone passes its control signals along a chain of radio relays, drone to drone and on to ground antennas. That lets a Russian operator steer it in flight.
In May, Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, then a Defense Ministry adviser, said only about 5% of Shaheds had got through in a recent Russian strike, and predicted that Russia would answer with jet-powered versions and strikes near the border. By July, Ukraine was testing jamming against mesh-controlled jet Shaheds, he said.
Protector RWS turret on the Ukrainian Sargan-3000 naval drone, October 2026. Screenshot from a video by the Ukrainian Navy
The Sargan-3000 fired its Protector remote weapon station, Militarnyi reported. The station is a remotely operated 12.7-mm (50-caliber) machine gun with electro-optical sights. The outlet added that the Sargan-3000 is designed for combat missions far from Ukraine's coast.
Built for the open sea
Ukraine's Navy took the Sargan-3000 into service in April 2026, according to Militarnyi. The drone boat has a combat radius of up to 1,600 km. It moves at 40–55 knots and carries up to 450 kg of payload.
In September, a Sargan-3000 sank a Russian uncrewed boat with machine-gun fire. Militarnyi called it the first battle between uncrewed sea platforms in history. Analyst H.I. Sutton wrote that the boat carried a Protector made by Norway's Kongsberg. That is the same weapon station named in the October shootdown. Sutton added that Russian attack sea drones work closely with Shaheds, which can relay the boats' mesh radio signals.
EchoStar-subsidiary Dish DBS cut its outstanding debt by more than $4 billion after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The reduction included debt restructuring, full repayment of Dish DBS’ 7.75% senior notes due 1 July 2026 and a partial early repayment of its 5.25% senior secured notes due 1 December 2026. The prepackaged Chapter 11 plan took effect yesterday (1 October).
Dish DBS and certain subsidiaries, including Dish Wireless and its subsidiaries, filed for Chapter 11 protection on 30 June 2026 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas under a plan largely agreed with creditors in advance.
The companies split the restructuring into separate plans for Dish DBS and Dish Wireless on 27 August. The court approved the Dish DBS plan on 29 September, and it took effect two days later.
Dish DBS and its guarantors also entered three supplemental indentures covering its notes. Wilmington Savings Fund Society serves as successor trustee, while US Bank Trust Company acts as collateral agent and trustee. EchoStar will file the agreements as exhibits to its next Form 10-Q.
Dish DBS was deconsolidated from EchoStar’s financial statements from 30 June 2026 due to the bankruptcy filing. EchoStar will consolidate the business again from 1 October following its exit from Chapter 11.
The restructuring implements terms of a support agreement EchoStar disclosed in March after negotiations with creditors. Dish Wireless remains in bankruptcy proceedings under a separate plan.
France has called for money collected through European Union fines against Google to be used to reduce national contributions to the EU budget as governments negotiate the bloc’s next seven-year financial framework.
Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad said proceeds from penalties imposed on the US technology company should be treated as EU revenue and used to lower the sums governments must pay into the common budget.
The proposal comes as negotiations intensify over the 2028–34 Multiannual Financial Framework, for which the European Commission has proposed expenditure of almost €2 trillion.
Haddad referred to about €4.6 billion in revenue associated with Google penalties and interest.
The proposal is less radical in budgetary terms than it first appears because fines that become final already enter the EU budget as “other revenue”.
The Commission’s explanation of EU budget revenue states that gross national income-based contributions act as the balancing element of the budget after customs duties, VAT-based resources and other revenues — including fines on companies — are taken into account.
Higher income from definitive competition fines can therefore reduce the amount required from national governments.
France is pressing for that mechanism to be applied clearly to the Google proceeds at a time when governments are seeking ways to limit increases in their national payments.
Google has accumulated substantial EU penalties through both competition law and the Digital Markets Act.
A €460 million penalty concerned the Commission’s finding that Google gave preferential treatment to its own services in search results. A further €430 million fine concerned restrictions affecting developers’ ability to direct users towards alternative purchasing channels outside Google Play.
Google has contested elements of the EU enforcement regime and has continued legal proceedings over Commission decisions.
France also faces a sharp increase in its projected contribution.
Against that background, governments are looking at both expenditure reductions and new revenue streams that could limit demands on national treasuries.
The wider negotiations cover possible EU “own resources” — revenue that flows directly or indirectly to the European budget rather than being provided through conventional national contributions.
Existing resources include customs duties, a VAT-based contribution, a plastics contribution and national payments calculated according to gross national income.
The Commission has also proposed additional sources linked to carbon pricing and other EU policies.
Company fines differ from permanent own resources because their size is unpredictable and depends on enforcement decisions and subsequent legal proceedings.
A large fine can provide a one-off boost to EU revenue, but it cannot readily finance recurring expenditure across a seven-year financial framework.
Definitive fines have nevertheless affected member-state contributions before. Commission budget amendments have explicitly incorporated competition penalties as additional revenue, reducing the amount that must be raised elsewhere.
France is now seeking to ensure that the Google proceeds are reflected directly in the sums demanded from national budgets.
The proposal comes before another round of negotiations over the Multiannual Financial Framework, where the size of the budget remains unresolved.
With agreement requiring unanimity among all 27 governments, even relatively small sources of additional revenue are becoming part of the bargaining over who ultimately pays for the EU’s expanding spending commitments.
One day in 2016, paleontologist David DeMar got very lucky. While examining the ground at Hell Creek in the U.S. state of Montana, he found a fossil the size of a golf ball. It was a coprolite — fossilized feces — from a theropod (probably a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex or a Nanotyrannus). Inside the coprolite was a feather from an aquatic bird (not related to modern birds). With a high degree of confidence, researchers believe the bird spent the final moments of its life in the digestive tract of a teenage T. rex.
The wildfire in eastern Attica on Monday, August 10, that broke out on Monday morning in Kouvaras, eastern Attica, is being attributed to sparks caused by contact between low-voltage cables belonging to the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator (DEDDIE/HEDNO). This are the findings of the Fire Brigade’s investigative authorities so far, state-run news agency amna.gr […]
Holbrook Mohr and Mitch Weiss | The Atavist Magazine | July 2026 | 2,284 words (8 minutes)
This is an excerpt from issue no. 178, “Toxic Lies.”
January 3, 2026
In the isolation ward of a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, a nurse approaches Ron Fowler’s bed, cell phone extended in her hand.
“You have a call,” she says.
Fowler’s eyes flutter open. He tugs off his oxygen tube and, with trembling fingers, accepts the phone.
“Thanks,” he whispers, before turning his attention to us—the callers.
From his voice it’s clear that something is very wrong; he sounds nothing like his usual self. He’s due the next day to meet us for an interview in Paducah, Kentucky, where he and his friend Chuck Deuschle worked at a uranium-enrichment plant that helped fuel America’s nuclear arsenal. Years ago they blew the whistle on the government and its contractors for poisoning thousands of atomic workers. “Can’t make it,” Fowler chokes out. “Blood clots. Hospital. They may have to remove some toes—if those clots don’t reach my heart first. If they do…” He trails off, the terrible ending hanging in the air.
The Atavist, our sister publication, publishes one deeply reported, elegantly designed story each month. Support The Atavist by becoming a member.
Fowler, soon to turn 77, is desperate to talk before it’s too late—to pull up the memories one more time and commit them to the historical record. He and Deuschle had both moved to Kentucky to work at the nuclear plant, only to discover a grim secret: The facility was exposing people to dangerously high levels of radiation and toxic chemicals, and had concealed the truth about it from employees and the surrounding community. This went on for decades. Faced with a choice—either walk away or stay and sound the alarm—Fowler and Deuschle returned to work, day after day.
More than thirty years later, lying in the hospital with cancer, Fowler is certain that the plant doomed him to a slow, painful death. At 83, Deuschle is also fighting a serious health issue: an unexplained autoimmune disease. They believe their fellow whistleblowers—Deuschle’s wife, Kay, and their friend Garland “Bud” Jenkins—succumbed to illnesses caused by the plant. Still, they’d do it all again. Someone had to reveal the callous disregard the government and the plant’s operators had shown their own people.
Fowler and Deuschle have never shared their story in full—the details of what it was like to live, breathe, and possibly die from their commitment to the truth. But they want people to know, particularly in light of recent news reports: In August 2025, more than a decade after the plant was shut down, a private firm announced that it planned to revive uranium-enrichment operations there. To Fowler and Deuschle, it seems wrong to begin a new chapter in Paducah’s nuclear story. Many former employees are still seeking compensation for their exposure to radiation. Will future generations of workers be any safer?
Fowler struggles for each breath.
“Time’s up,” the nurse says gently, reaching for the phone. “You need to rest.”
Fowler grips the device tighter.
“Call tomorrow when you meet with Chuck,” he implores. “I’m staying alive until then.” He pauses for a moment. “Just make sure Chuck’s with you. Promise me.”
We promise.
1.
One morning in late 1991, Ron Fowler stood in front of the bathroom mirror, parting his hair to the side and noting the first strands of gray at his temples. His beard was neatly trimmed, his black slacks and white dress shirt crisply pressed. He was ready. Today would be his first day at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a uranium-enrichment facility about ten miles outside Paducah, Kentucky. This was more than just a job—it was the start of a new life.
Fowler was a health physicist, an expert in the science of radiation protection. For years he’d traveled the country to train workers at nuclear plants in safety protocols. The pay was great, but being on the road weeks at a time had worn him down. When he moved to Paducah in his early forties, Fowler had already lived in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Arkansas. Paducah promised stability: the perfect place to settle through retirement. His wife’s parents even moved from Illinois to be nearby.
After eating breakfast—a sausage patty and a scrambled egg—he kissed his wife, Sandi, goodbye and slipped out the door. He steered his green Oldsmobile Delta 88 through the country roads outside Paducah and let his mind drift back to his childhood in Florence, South Carolina. Life there had been simple. His father, who dropped out of school in the fourth grade, supported the family by working on the railroad. Florence was a place where men had jobs, women tended to the home and children, everyone went to church, and neighbors helped neighbors who fell on hard times. Paducah felt just as close-knit. Folks looked out for one another, and honest labor was rewarded.
Situated on the Ohio River where it meets the Tennessee, Paducah owes its origins to trade; it was founded in 1827 by William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition and named for a powerful Native American tribe. The area is naturally beautiful—the city is surrounded by rolling hills and sprawling plains dotted with ponds. For Fowler, a keen fisherman, it was paradise. Paducah had about 27,000 residents when he arrived. It was big enough to have all the right shops, yet small enough that restaurant owners knew whether regulars preferred barbecue or fried catfish, the local staples.
As Fowler drove, the plant appeared in the distance. It spread over some 3,500 acres—750 of them secured by fences and gates—and sat amid modest homes and farms. The community was proud of this place because of its long history supporting the military. Originally, it was a TNT munitions factory, built during World War II. Later, as Cold War tensions escalated, officials scouted locations for a uranium feed facility to supply weapons-production sites in Piketon, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with the material required to make nuclear bombs. Paducah native Alben Barkley leveraged his position as Harry S. Truman’s vice president, campaigning aggressively to repurpose the munitions factory in his hometown. He recognized that the project likely would inject billions into the local economy and transform living standards for the region’s blue-collar workforce.
Construction of the nuclear plant began in 1951. By the following year, it was enriching uranium for atomic bombs and the Navy’s nuclear fleet. Rising from the countryside, the gleaming buildings looked like modern marvels, and the economic windfall lifted Paducah residents’ spirits. Meanwhile, employees at the plant—everyone from nuclear technicians to welders, cooks, and janitors—were united in patriotic pride. Their jobs paid well, and the workers believed that they were helping fend off communism. It was no wonder Life magazine printed a photo spread of the site.
As the Cold War thawed, the mission changed but the jobs remained. The plant began recycling materials—gold, among other things—extracted from dismantled atomic weapons while continuing to enrich uranium, now for nuclear power plants instead of bombs. Wages allowed families to buy homes and cars and afford vacations—the American middle-class dream. The plant operated like a self-contained town for its 1,700 employees: It had its own security force, fire department, library, post office, and health clinic. A shuttle service ferried employees around the plant’s grounds. Workers participated in golf leagues and fishing tournaments. The Uranium Enrichment News kept everyone informed about goings-on at the site.
Though the plant was owned by the Department of Energy, it was run by contractors. Union Carbide initially oversaw operations, followed by Martin Marietta, which later merged with Lockheed to become Lockheed Martin. Management changed, but to employees that just meant a different name on their paychecks. The people on the ground were like family—fiercely loyal to one another and to the plant they called the Atomic City.
Fowler smiled as he drove through a security gate into a sprawling lot. He parked by the administrative building and checked in with a secretary, who called someone to escort him to his department. From there he would lead health and safety training sessions. The federal government had known as early as 1944 that radiation was hazardous and had issued policies to limit worker exposure. It was Fowler’s job to help ensure that regulations were enforced, to protect both employees and the surrounding community from contamination.
He had barely settled in when a coworker poked his head in.
“Want to see the place?”
The complex was huge—more than five hundred buildings connected by nearly twenty miles of access roads. Fowler was impressed until, as he rounded a corner on his tour, a yellow triangular sign with the radiation symbol caught his eye. There was no step-off pad in sight. In a nuclear facility, a step-off pad is a buffer zone between a hazardous area and a clean one. Workers at the Paducah site were supposed to remove radiation-tainted clothing and footwear before crossing through these zones to ensure they didn’t unwittingly transfer dangerous materials to other parts of the plant or transport it home with them.
Fowler flagged down a worker leaving the building where the warning sign was posted. “You don’t have a step-off pad down here,” Fowler said. The worker shrugged and said there was nothing to worry about.
“That sign says otherwise,” Fowler said. He explained that protocol required a pad and training for workers so they knew how to use it.
The worker’s expression was unchanged as he walked away.
Fowler’s pulse quickened as he imagined invisible particles on boot soles spreading throughout the plant or, worse, tracking onto kitchen floors or into rooms where children played. He hurried to his division manager’s office. The supervisor listened, then leaned back in his chair and tapped a pen on his desk calendar. He said he’d call a meeting about the issue.
That night at home, Fowler sat at the kitchen table watching Sandi cook. Normally, he’d have been joking with his wife about her limited culinary range—she often made breakfast for dinner—but tonight his mind was elsewhere. The sizzle from the stove filled the silence between them.
Sandi knew something was wrong. In the years since they first met at a bar in Joliet, Illinois, she’d become attuned to her husband’s moods. Despite his imposing frame—six foot two, 245 pounds—Fowler had always been the gentle sort and quick to laugh. Their courtship progressed quickly, and within four months of meeting Fowler had moved in to her family’s home in Aurora. They married there so her father, a former school principal paralyzed from a stroke, could attend.
“What is it, Ron?” Sandi asked, spatula in hand.
He sighed. “Something’s not right at work.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way they treat radiation—like it can’t hurt them. No precautions,” Fowler said.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Sandi replied, frowning.
“I know.” Fowler shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Uranium is a silvery-white radioactive metal. More than 99 percent of it found in nature is U-238, and the rest is U-235, an isotope that can sustain the chain reactions needed to fuel nuclear power production and atomic weapons. Enrichment is the process of increasing the concentration of U-235 in a supply of uranium. At different points, enrichment produces one powder Paducah workers called black oxide—not to be confused with the coating of the same name applied to some metals to improve corrosion resistance—and another, uranium tetraflouride, that’s known as green salt. Eventually, uranium hexafluoride, a colorless crystalline solid, is heated into a gas that’s pushed through microscopic porous barriers. This process, called gaseous diffusion, separates U-235 from U-238; at plants like the one in Paducah, it’s done hundreds of times in a cascade until the desired enrichment level is reached.
Uranium enrichment is hazardous business. Fowler knew that any leak, spill, or accident at the Paducah plant could damage kidneys and lungs, irritate skin, and increase cancer risk. More insidiously, simple mistakes or oversights by workers could have that same result. During his first few weeks on the job, Fowler explored the plant on his own, and what he found unsettled him. Employees worked in radioactive areas without protective suits or masks. Some couldn’t read and might not understand warning signs. People left the site after their shifts without changing clothes or showering, likely conveying radioactive dust home to their families. Some workers even warmed their lunch on top of machines in hazardous areas.
Fowler knew that things needed to change, and quickly. He took his concerns to the plant manager, Steve Polston, who heard him out and then called a meeting about step-off pads—the very issue Fowler had flagged on his first day. At the meeting, Fowler outlined the safety gaps he’d observed at the plant, but it seemed to him as though the senior managers in the room could barely feign interest. He heard what would become something of a refrain: “We’ve been doing it this way for years.” He was also told that Department of Energy officials visited the site regularly and hadn’t raised concerns.
More worried than ever, Fowler spent the next several months developing new safety protocols. He beamed with satisfaction as he handed the plan to Polston. In the period that followed, however, he became frustrated with how officials implemented the measures. Even when company-issued safety equipment was made available, Fowler noticed that much of it was obsolete. And he watched in disbelief as employees poked holes in respirator masks to smoke while working.
“I’m not making progress,” he told Sandi one night between sips from a can of Miller Lite. “No one is listening.” He likened his work to “scooping water out of the ocean.”
Sandi, who had studied his training manual to understand his work, gently touched his arm. “Be patient,” she suggested. “Maybe you just have to get to know the people better.”
Fowler’s shoulders dropped. “It seems like more than that,” he said.
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