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Gordon Ramsay is not exactly known for being nice.

Or patient.

Or nurturing.

On his competition show “Hell’s Kitchen,” he belittles cooks who can’t keep up. If people come to him with their problems, he berates them. If someone is struggling to get something right in the kitchen, he curses them out.

His whole TV persona is based on being the world’s worst boss.

Ramsay went on Reddit and allowed users to ask him any question they wanted.

So when a fellow cook asked him a sincere, deeply personal question about what to do when you’ve hit a roadblock in your career, you could probably guess what was coming.

Indeed, I thought the guy was making a terrible mistake pouring his heart out to a chef as notoriously tough as Ramsay:

“My hopes and dreams are nowhere to be found as I scale and portion salmon after salmon, shelling pods after pods of broad beans.
…
Sometimes I look out the tiny window and I can see people walking around the streets, enjoying the sunlight, while I’m here, questioning my dedication to this art as I rotate stock in the cool room, getting frost bitten, but the fear of the chef stops me from stepping outside to warm up.
…
The closest thing to feeling any kind of joy I get is those rare moments when I walk through the dining room near the end of service to get some coffee for everyone, and there will be a few diners left, idly sampling those little petite fours that we’ve painstakingly ensured are all perfectly round, identical, and just plain delicious. Then, one of them will stop the conversation they’re having with their company, look up from their food and say, ‘Thank you, chef. This is delicious,’ and making the previous 14-hours of sweat and tears kind of worthwhile.

My question is, how did you deal with it? How the fuck did you deal with all the bullshit, Gordon?”

But the way Ramsay responded? Totally amazing. And completely unexpected.

Turns out, real-life Gordon Ramsay? He actually can be a really kind, big-hearted dude.

He’s sympathetic to the guy. Not just because he’s a good person. But because he’s been there.

Working in restaurants is a tough, tough business. As of 2012, the average salary for cooks was less than $23,000/year. And those who are just starting out often have to work unglamorous, tedious jobs that no one else wants to do. Ramsay didn’t have fancy culinary school training. He rose up through the ranks putting in long hours for low pay in kitchens all over the world. That’s why he gets it.

Which brings up another point.

Diet Dieting GIF by Bobbi DeCarlo – Find & Share on GIPHY

When we go out to eat, we, as a culture, tend to behave … how should I put this?

Let’s go with “not like perfect angels.”

Of course, no one likes getting the wrong order. Or waiting a really long time for a meal. Or eating something that doesn’t taste the way you expect it to.

But it’s important to remember that the people behind the food, like Ramsay’s anonymous letter-writer, might be working 14-hour days. Or might be a recent immigrant who speaks limited English, trying to support a family thousands of miles away. And possibly making very little money. And sure, they screw up sometimes. But we all screw up at our jobs sometimes.

Because they, like the rest of us, are human beings.

Which is why saying…

“Thank you, chef. This is delicious.”

Could mean everything to someone.

This article originally appeared on 04.22.15

Attachment styles are the unique ways we connect with other people, and it is believed they are determined by the relationships we have with our caregivers as children. There are four main types. First, there’s the “secure” attachment style, where people feel comfortable with intimacy and independence. They’re comfortable in relationships and okay doing their own thing, too.

Second, there’s the “anxious” style, where people often worry about their relationships and need extra reassurance that everything’s okay. Third, people with the “avoidant” attachment style value independence and become uncomfortable when people get too close.

Lastly, there’s the “anxious-avoidant” style. They are a complex mix of wanting to be close while afraid of getting hurt.

Obviously, the best chance of having a healthy relationship is being with someone with a secure attachment style. Relationship expert Julie Menanno says that people with anxious and avoidant attachment styles often push away those with a secure attachment style. “Secure partners aren’t comfortable with the anxious partner’s insecurity and overbearing ways, and they aren’t compatible with the avoidant partner’s lack of autistic emotional engagement,” Menanno wrote on Instagram.

However, anxious and avoidant attachment styles attract each other like magnets, and those relationships can be challenging to navigate.

See on Instagram

Menanno says that people with anxious and avoidant attachment styles are drawn to one another because the avoidant partner is often the “dating persuer” who makes the anxious partner feel wanted and loved. The avoidant partner falls for the anxious person’s vulnerability because it helps them “connect to feelings they don’t get to experience within themselves.”

So, in the beginning, both partners are brought together through their unique attachment styles. But then things will start to change.

“People with an anxious attachment style may pursue closeness and reassurance from their partner. People with an avoidant attachment style may feel overwhelmed by what they perceive as neediness or demands for intimacy,” Stephanie A. Sarkis, Ph.D., writes in Psychology Today. “This difference between the two attachment styles can lead to a cycle of pursuing and distancing behaviors in which no one gets their needs met in the relationship.”

So when people with avoidant and anxious attachment styles fall in love, are they doomed to break up or stay together and suffer from being on a constant emotional roller coaster? Menanno believes that there’s hope for them to find happiness.

“The good news is: both partners can use the relationship as a platform for healing,” Menanno writes. “Each can learn how to manage their attachment experiences and behaviors in ways that create a new environment, one that fosters secure attachment.”

There is no simple solution where people can change their attachment style overnight. But hope begins the moment they realize their attachment style so they know how to ask for help. It all starts with self-awareness and a willingness to change.

“Developing self-awareness, understanding attachment styles, attending therapy, and learning effective communication can help people navigate anxious-avoidant relationship dynamics and build healthier and more securely attached relationships,” Dr. Sarkis writes.

Sure, self improvement is important. We need a healthy dose of goal setting and productivity in life, absolutely.

But too much of a good thing is real. When we become addicted to achievement at the expense of our inner well being—foregoing feelings of gratitude, self-love and joy for life’s simple moments—then our desire for success becomes toxic.

And yet, we do live in a society that promotes this kind of behavior. So much so that anytime someone goes against the grain and beats the drum of “settling,” people often find it a breath of fresh air.

And that’s why people absolutely love comedian Tom Fell’s anti-motivational video encouraging us all to “get out there and stop grindin.”

Filmed like a cheesy infomercial (music and all) Fell sports a checkered shirt and plaster on smile while delivering tongue-in-cheek aspirational lines like:

“I’m tired of having goals!”

“I’m at peace with never reaching full optimization!”

“I don’t wanna hit metrics or milestones, I don’t wanna look back at how far I’ve come, I don’t wanna overcome adversity and emerge as a better person!”

“Learning and growing sucks!”

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step…and I don’t wanna take it!”

“This is who I am. Any improvement is purely accidental!”

And then things start to take a slightly more serious turn as Fell exclaims:

“I wanna aimlessly meander until I wander off a cliff!”

“I’m being pulverized by the crushing weight of daly structure!”

“Life is chaos and so many things are outside of my control!”

But beyond all his wisecracks, Fell does deliver a rather poignant message (and clever Kurt Vonnegurt quote):

“No thing brings my happiness. It only comes from within. We’re here on earth to fart around. Don’t let anyone tell ya different.”

@tomfellisheokay Happy Monday get out there and stop grindin. #work #comedy #kurtvonnegutquote ♬ Business Success Motivation – TimTaj

Fell’s anti-hustle stance clearly resonated with a lot of folks across social media, many who noted finally feeling seen.

“I know this is a joke but…I feel this in my BONES,” one viewer wrote on TikTok.

Another added, “No one talks about how tiring constant self improvement is. Sometimes I only have the energy to be a potato.

Meanwhile on Reddit, one viewer wrote, “Wow. This guy is just like speaking to my soul. I finally feel like I’m not the only person in the world who feels this way.”

Another wrote, “Representing 97% of humanity,” suggesting that maybe this perspective isn’t as unconventional as one might assume.

So, if you’re feeling productivity fatigue, and like you’d much rather coast through life while simply enjoying existing, know that you’re not alone. As important as ambition is, maybe it’s not the most important thing.

Catch even more of Fell’s funny content on his TikTok.

If there was an Academy Award or Nobel Prize for servers, TikTokker Cassey Ahlas of Florida deserves one for handling a challenging situation at work with incredible tact. She was working one night when a couple came in to celebrate their 4th wedding anniversary, and she knew the man because she had recently dated him.

Cassey says she met him at a bar, they exchanged numbers, went on two dates, and continued talking on the phone. She didn’t know that he was married.

“So fast forward. He’s sitting there. He’s sweating bullets. I realize that I have the upper hand in this situation,” Cassey said. “So I literally did everything I could to make it as awkward as possible.”

She then began to compliment the man’s wife and asked about their relationship to make the man even more uncomfortable. “I told her how beautiful she was, but she was. She was a beautiful woman. I complimented her dress,” she continued. Cassey then got her fellow servers involved. “So I tell my coworkers, naturally, what’s going on, so then they make it a point to just stare this man down every time they walk by the table,” Cassey said.

@casseysjourney

Replying to @Mon1ca pt 2! #dating #datingstorytime #datinglife #storytime #server #serverlife #servertok #servertiktok #serverproblems #marriedmen #marriedman

The server could look the man in the face whenever she went to her computer to put in an order without his wife seeing her. “Every time I was ringing something in, and I’m just looking at him. Shaking my head, shaking my head,” she said.

At the end of the meal, Cassey gave the couple a treat, a truffle box and wrote “Happy wedding anniversary” on it. “I hope you guys have the greatest marriage ever,” she told the couple. “Happy wedding anniversary. Make sure you come see me next year. We’ll do it again.”

The entire meal, the man was “sweating,” waiting to be outed in front of his wife, but Cassey held back out of concern for the wife. “I didn’t want to do that to her,” she remarked. When the bill came, around $150, the man gave her a 100% tip that Cassey calls “hush money.”

The server never saw the man again. “I guess he learned his lesson,” she ended the clip.

Many people complimented Cassey in the comments for keeping her cool while she had the right to be angry. “You are a lady for the way you handled the situation. Bravo,” White Rose wrote. “I think you did the right thing. Good for you,” Elsa Mitchell added.

However, some commenters thought she should have mentioned something to the wife. “You had the opportunity to save her possible years of wasted time with him…should have told her,” Jillian wrote. “So you just didn’t do anything to help her,” Kedvicious said.

She responded to the criticism by saying she did what was right for the time and place. “Y’all have to remember I’m at my place of work at this time, OK?” she said. She added that she’s a single mom of 3 and has no interest in losing her job. She says she would have told the wife if circumstances had been different and they had been out at a bar.

“I didn’t wanna risk a scene,” she said.

David Guetta teamed up with Kim Petras for their new track, “When We Were Young (The Logical Song).” This release is the next one from Guetta’s ongoing interpolation series, with the DJ sampling Supertramp this time.

The two put a new spin on the 1979 song, as Petras carries the pop vocals over an electronic dance beat. Lyrically, it is about emotionally wanting to go back to a better time in life.

During a previous interview with The New Yorker, it was revealed that they were pulling inspiration from groups like ABBA.

Petras and Guetta also released a music video, directed by Hannah Lux Davis. The visual taps into the unique, free-spirited elements that are present in the song, as Petras walks on water as household objects pass her by — feeling like something straight out of Alice In Wonderland. However, just when the viewer is comfortable, the scene shifts completely, finding her spinning on playground equipment with a whole new color palette.

As mentioned, this new collaboration follows a few other interpolations from Guetta. He previously dropped “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” featuring Anne-Marie and Coi Leray, along with the popular spin on Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” with Bebe Rexha for “I’m Good (Blue).”

Check out David Guetta’s “When We Were Young (The Logical Song)” collab with Kim Petras above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

In a perfect world, everything would run smoothly—including getting kids ready for school.

There would be no spontaneous temper tantrums to soothe, no messes to clean up, no fighting to get dressed. Breakfast would go down without a hitch. Kiddos would be in the car on time. Early, even. And off they would be go to a day of learning.

But we don’t live in a perfect world. And for most parents, this idyllic scenario is but a fantasy. Reality looks way more…chaotic. Suddenly, a cereal that was the favorite yesterday is now inedible today, and there’s a last minute final touch that has to be made for a project and there are no matching pairs of shoes to be found anywhere.

With all of these emergencies happening just before having to leave for school (of course), being late is unavoidable. And to add insult to injury, most schools require that parents fill out a form explaining why their kid was tardy. As if there’s ever a sensible reason for it.

Katlyn Whittenburg recently found herself in this all too common situation, after being asked by her kid’s school to give a reason as to why she was “seven minutes late” while dropping her five-year-old daughter off.

This prompted Whittenburg to bust out a no holds barred, flawlessly accurate and all out hilarious rant about how ridiculous the expectation is for parents to give some sort of logical reason for being tardy, since most of the time tardiness is due to nonsensical kid antics that defy logic in the first place. And it’s a speech that every parent can relate to.

“I was seven minutes late dropping my five-year-old off at school today,” Whittenburg begins.

“And when you come in late, you have to tell them why. Like, I don’t understand. If it was like 40 minutes late because it’s like oh maybe they had a doctor’s appointment or maybe some[thing] crazy happened, but seven minutes late? What do you want me to say? What do you want me to say? Because I couldn’t? Because I simply cannot?”

Ramping up, she continues with the actual reasons she fell behind that morning.

“Because my daughter painted a mural using toothpaste this morning, and I apparently I support the arts. Because my other daughter had a bloody nose and sneezed and now got to get a crime scene cleanup crew to come in and get all up in my zone.”

Somewhere in there, the mom also reveals that part of her routine that morning was trying to convince her daughter to wear an actual coat, rather than an “unsanctioned bee costume.” Oh boy.

She then jokes that most parents simply put “traffic” as their reason for being late, but if her school really needs an honest answer as to why she was late, she’s gonna need way more paper space.

“Well how am I gonna fit on this one little line that I was born on a hot summer day in Atlanta, and it’s been downhill ever since? Because I’ll go into detail if you want to know,” she says, getting more existential by the minute.

“I’m just gonna write ‘see attachment’ and just start carrying around a file folder of all the reasons I can’t and shan’t. My shan’t folder. You just open it up ,and it says ‘Started with a big bang,’” she quips.

“Here we are. Oh, you want me here on time? Oh well, then next time you’re gonna get a bee who looks like they just committed a violent crime in a dentist’s office.” she concludes.

@katlyn.whittenburg 🐝 #momprobs #parentprobs #parentingbelike #havingkidsbelike ♬ W.A.Mozart, Rondo alla Turca from Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major – AllMusicGallery

Proving just how relatable Whittenburg’s situation is, literally thousands of parents chimed in with their own reasons for being late. And they are pure comedy.

Here’s a small sampling:

“Last time I wrote down, ‘life is hard ok, I’m trying,’”

“My mom used to say ‘car problems’ because we weren’t in the car on time and that was a problem.”

“My dad used to always write ‘snow in the driveway’ we lived in Florida. 😂,”

“I’ve written ‘I’m trash’ three times this year.”

“The sleeve was touching his wrist 😂”

“I’ve written ‘family of 4 with ADHD. you’re lucky we’re her this early!’”

“Spilled yogurt drink down pants and purposely sat on 8 blueberries.”

“I’ve decided I’m making a jar of various reasons and keeping it in the car. Then each time I’m late they get a lucky dip reason 😂”

Just goes to show—parenting is about rolling with the chaos. No one is spared.

If you were to look at Megan Montgomery’s Instagram account, you’d see a beautiful, smiling woman in the prime of her life, her youth and fitness the envy of women the world over. You’d even see some photos of her with her husband (#datenight), with comments saying things like “Aww, gorgeous couple!”

But beneath her picture-perfect feed was the story of a woman in an abusive relationship with her husband—one that would start with his arrest shortly after they got married, and end 10 months later with him shooting her to death in a parking lot.

In a Facebook post, one of the people who was out with Megan the night of her murder detailed how her estranged husband had come to their table, put his hand on her neck and shoulder, and escorted her out of the building.

She went with him willingly, but anyone familiar with abusive relationships knows that “willingly” is a subjective term. He had reportedly threatened mass violence before. Perhaps she was trying to protect the people she was with. Perhaps staying felt more dangerous to her than going with him.

The couple reportedly had a volatile relationship from the start, and at one point both had restraining orders against the other. Regardless, she was killed by the man who had claimed to love her, an ex-cop who had been arrested for domestic violence and had been bailed out multiple times prior to that evening.

Feminist News wrote the gist of Megan’s story on Facebook, sharing photos from the couple’s wedding to illustrate how invisible domestic violence can be to those outside of it. “THIS is the face of domestic violence,” they wrote.

But what was perhaps most striking about the post was the deluge of comments from women describing their own experiences with domestic violence. Comment after comment explaining how a partner always made them think the abuse was their fault, how restraining orders were repeatedly violated, how they were charmed and loved into questioning whether the verbal abuse or physical violence was really that bad. Story after story of how they didn’t see it coming, how slowly and insidiously it escalated, how terrifying it was to try to leave.

Those of us who have not been in abusive relationships don’t always understand why people don’t leave them. But the dynamics of abuse—the emotional manipulation, the gaslighting, the self-esteem destruction, the fear and shame—are well documented.

Unfortunately, those dynamics can prove deadly. Domestic violence murders have been on the rise in recent years, going up 19% between 2014 and 2017. And sadly, our justice system does not protect domestic violence survivors as well as it should.

Part of the challenge of prosecuting in domestic violence cases is that victims are not always willing to cooperate, either out of fear or shame or embarrassment, or unhealthy loyalty. According to some estimates, domestic violence victims recant their testimony up to 70% of the time. That’s why some are pushing for evidence-based prosecution without requiring victim testimony, much like we try murder cases.

But some, like University of Maryland law professor Leah Goodmark, argue that pushing for more law enforcement hasn’t proven to reduce domestic violence rates. Addressing issues of poverty, childhood trauma, attitudes toward gender equality, and other risk factors for domestic violence may be more effective by stopping violence before it starts.

While abuse happens to both men and women, women are more likely to be victims and much more likely to be murdered by a partner. Thankfully, there are many resources for domestic violence survivors to seek help, whether you’re trying to determine if your relationship is abusive or trying to figure out if, when, and how to leave. The National Domestic Violence Hotline (www.thehotline.org or call 1−800−799−7233) has a wealth of information on domestic violence and what to do about it. The website even has a live chat where you can get your questions answered and receive assistance making a safety plan for you and your family.

If you are afraid of your partner or other loved one, there’s something wrong. No one should live in fear of the people who are supposed to love them the most.

This article originally appeared on 12.16.19

Sometimes you see something so mind-boggling you have to take a minute to digest what just happened in your brain. Be prepared to take that moment while watching these videos.

Real estate investor and TikTok user Tom Cruz shared two videos explaining the spreadsheets he and his friends use to plan vacations and it’s…well…something. Watch the first one:

What in the wealth is thispic.twitter.com/NTPTKT5CZG

— Karim Alammuri (@Karim Alammuri)
1629292830

So “Broke Bobby” makes $125,000 a year. There’s that.

How about the fact that his guy has more than zero friends who budget $80,000 for a 3-day getaway? Y’all. I wouldn’t know how to spend $80,000 in three days if you paid me to. Especially if we’re talking about a trip with friends where we’re all splitting the cost. Like what does this even look like? Are they flying in private jets that burn dollar bills as fuel? Are they bathing in hot tubs full of cocaine? I genuinely don’t get it.

To be crystal clear here, the top 5 friends on the Forbes list are willing to spend more than double what the guy at the bottom of the Welfare 10 list makes per year on a 3-day guy’s trip. I don’t know what to do with this information.

u201c@Radio_Reem Those that make less are called the “Welfare 10” ud83dude2dud83dude2dud83dude29u201d

— Karim Alammuri (@Karim Alammuri)
1629292830

But that’s not even the full spreadsheet. It might make sense if this guy was just rich, had always been rich, only knew rich people, and therefore having multiple millionnaire friends was his normal. Surely that’s some people’s reality who were born into the 1%.

That’s not the case here, though, because Cruz also has a Welfare 10 list. He says this group of friends who make less than $100K a year call themselves that, and perhaps that’s true. (If I were a part of this group, I might call myself a welfare case too because everything’s relative and some of these dudes spend more in an hour of vacation than I spend on my mortgage each month.)

It’s like we can see our society’s wealth gap all laid out nice and neatly in a spreadsheet, only these people aren’t even the uber-wealthy and uber-poor. This is just the range of this one guy’s friends.

I have nothing against people who build success and wealth for themselves, and even $5 million per year is hardly obscenely wealthy by billionaire standards. But Cruz says he’s known most of his “welfare” friends since college, which presumably means most of those guys have college degrees and are making pittance in comparison with the Forbes list. One could claim the guy making $5 million a year just works harder, but does he really work 100 times harder than the guy making $50,000? Doubt it.

Money makes money, and after a certain threshold of wealth or income, it’s actually quite easy to get and stay rich without actually “earning” more money, assuming you’re reasonably wise and responsible. So maybe the guys who are willing to shell out $125,000 for a week-long trip should offer to pay the travel expenses of the friends they “hang out with regardless of income” who don’t even make that in a year, since that’s probably just the interest they’re making on their wealth anyway.

But what do I know? This is like an entirely different world to me and probably 99+% of Americans, as evidenced by some of the responses.

u201c@araless Broke Bobby every time itu2019s time for a trip https://t.co/VTUf3xW1DWu201d

— Karim Alammuri (@Karim Alammuri)
1629292830

u201c@_jasminwats @Radio_Reem I noticed everyone with PTO has less than is legally required in the U.K., crazy!!u201d

— Karim Alammuri (@Karim Alammuri)
1629292830

Naturally, there will be a range of incomes in any group of people, but 1) most of us don’t actually know how much our friends make, and 2) even fewer of us make spreadsheets with that information in order to rank our friends and figure out who can go on which vacations.

People are just endlessly fascinating. That’s all I’ve got.

This article originally appeared on 08.20.21

The holidays are right around the corner. While for some people that means looking forward to wrapping gifts, for music lovers, that means looking forward to Spotify Wrapped. Spotify Wrapped is due to arrive on either November 30 or December 1 (it has landed on both) after the app has collected users’ listening data for the prior 12 months (it’s still unclear where the cutoff is). You can see your Wrapped by just opening the app on your phone once the year’s campaign has launched. But you might be wondering how exactly Spotify Wrapped works after all this time. So…

How Does Spotify Wrapped Work?

Billboard looked into it, and the results are… inconclusive. While top five artists, top five songs, and top five albums — the “big three” Wrapped statistics — are based on total number of streams (over thirty seconds), without knowing the exact cutoff, it’s somewhat unclear which songs receive the most priority in individuals’ Wrapped results.

Billboard also noted that album length has apparently played a part in prior years’ top albums’ success, with longer works like Drake‘s Certified Lover Boy performing better and placing higher in the collective results (CLB was No. 4 on Spotify’s global year-end artist list). However, although offline listens do get counted (somehow), music listened to in Private Sessions doesn’t count toward any top five lists, individual or overall. They do count toward the “total minutes listened” number, just not broken down by genre/artist.

A slew of fan-favorite TV shows are announcing their hopeful returns following the end of the SAG-AFTRA strikes and Larry David’s long-running prestige comedy is now one of them.

According to Variety, the 12th season of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm is set to premiere in February 2024. Casey Bloys, the network’s controversy-courting head of content, announced the show’s return during a press event Thursday, telling reporters, “I was thinking last night that ‘Curb,’ in 12 seasons over 20 years, or something like that, has aired all over the schedule, and it is a highlight wherever it ends up.”

Production of the show’s latest season wrapped in late March and though producers hinted that this installment could mark the end of the series, Bloys refused to commit to that. “We generally leave that up to Larry, and I think he’s thinking about what he wants to do,” Bloys said. “He knows it’s kind of been an open invitation, so I think he’s going to decide whether he wants to continue or make this the final season. I would guess before it airs, he’ll decide.”

Sources also told Variety that David’s deal with HBO may expire this year which means if the network and creator both want to produce more seasons of the show, David will be in a prime position to renegotiate his deal.

(Via Variety)