Tomorrow night, I'll be at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame trying not to be a nervous wreck during the finals of the Tri-C High School Rock Off. The reality, however, is that no matter the result's, Norah has already won.
She advanced to the finals, joining 11 of the best high school rock bands in the country in one the premium events for high school musicians nationwide.
She got great, constructive feedback from the panel of music industry people that judged her semifinal round, and will do so again in the finals.
And she went into the studio at Tri-C to record a song for the Rock Off's compilation album. "Boys Like You" — a jangly piece of acoustic power pop that will get stuck in your head — released today. You can listen to it here.
Rock Off tickets are still available for purchase (code: norah), but don't wait too long. This event is always a sell-out.
If you're attending, Norah plays at 7:10 pm. If you're not attending but want to know where else you can see her play, click here for a full list of her gigs. (Pay close attention to the one on May 19 … it's a biggie.)
Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.
It's really unfortunate that when Congress, in 1938, enacted the Fair Labor Standards Act it chose the label "administrative" for the law's broadest white-collar overtime exemption. That one word has caused more misunderstanding, confusion, litigation, and legal fees than any other word in the FLSA.
"Administrative" does not mean any employee who performs office or other non-manual work. Instead, it means any employee who earns a minimum salary of $684 per week AND who performs office or other non-manual work for which the employee's primary duty: (i) is directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer's customers; and (ii) includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance.
With in vitro fertilization all over the news for the past week, it's time for this important public service announcement — IVF discrimination = sex discrimination.
Courts have long held that Title VII's definition of "sex" (as expanded by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act) unequivocally includes infertility treatments.
One, two, three, four There's a plague on the planet And they went to law school A bunch of hornswogglers Treat us like fools Know who I'm talkin' about Let me hear you shout
Destroy all lawyers
Destroy all lawyers
Bunch of evil weasel poseurs
Destroy all lawyers
Watch them push them papers
And bend them laws
Will the chump with the most money
Buy them all?
Grab them by their tails
Spit in their eyes
Well they charge you by the minute
While we get paid by the hour
What I want to know
Is how they steal all this power?
[Chorus]
They got, they got their own bar
Where they drink pints of greed
Let's spay and neuter 'em
So that they can't breed
So let us
Is at the bottom of the sea
Well they're not even evil
Yeah, they're worse than the devil
Gonna blow up the planet
Charge God double
[Chorus]
R.I.P. Mojo Nixon.
Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.
Employers, hear to me now and believe me later — it is unacceptable to force a lactating employee to pump her breast milk in an open stockroom corner or in an open office.
That's precisely, however, what two McDonald's employees allege happened to them in two different stores.
Fair State Brewing, one the nation's first unionized craft breweries, just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Meanwhile and elsewhere, Aslin Beer Co. just said that it will voluntarily recognize the union petition filed by a group of its taproom employees to join the SEIU.
Evan Sallee, Fair State's founder and CEO, tells Eater than its union has nothing whatsoever to do with the bankruptcy filing.
I left y'all with quite the cliffhanger last Friday. How would Norah do in her semifinal round at the Tri-C High School Rock Off? "No matter what happens tomorrow night, I'm so proud of her." That's what I wrote last week. Of course, however, I really wanted her to advance to the Final Exam. What parent wouldn't?
In the semifinals, the acts draft their performance slot for the night, with the draft order set by ticket sales. Norah ended up drafting 5th. After saying for weeks that she did not want to close the show, she then chose to close the show. The 10th band out of 10. A singer-songwriter choosing to take the stage in a rock 'n' roll competition after 3-plus hours of loud music played by driving rock bands. "A baller move," we told her when she texted us from the Rock Hall. Her response: "Go big or go home!"
Well, she went big. She played the best 15-minutes of music of her life and breezed into the Final Exam. Choosing to close was absolutely the right choice for her to make, especially when your last song is her chill-inducing version of Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit." You can watch her full set here.
Tickets for the Final Exam are on sale now. The event is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 2 at 6 pm. Your $20 ticket ($15 for students) not only gets you a few hours of music from some of the best high school rock bands (and high school singer-songwriters) in the country, but also full admission to the Rock Hall during the event. You can buy your tickets here (code: norah). I'd love to see you there, and Norah would love your support.
Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.
🛑 Employers, for the love of all that is holy, STOP BANNING EMPLOYEES FROM DISCUSSING THEIR WAGES!!! 🛑
A supervisor of subsidiary of Duke University is accused of doing just that, and now the employer is in hot water with the National Labor Relations Board.
According to the just-filed NLRB complaint, the supervisor allegedly instructed workers during a meeting "not to discuss their salaries." When one of those employees later raised "concerns about employees' salaries and equity in pay," they were fired.
A former UCLA employee has sued the university, claiming that if fired him in retaliation for requesting to continue to work from home after its "work from home" order ended.
According to his complaint, the 23-year employee, who last worked as a mechanic in the physical sciences machine shop, suffers from disabilities that affect his arms and hands. The lawsuit alleges that his supervisor denied his request to continue working from home after Covid work from home orders ended, despite most other employees continuing to work remotely. After the university later laid him off, he sued.
Courts are generally in agreement on two things related to remote work as a reasonable accommodation: 1) regular, in-person work is an essential function of most jobs; and 2) remote work as a reasonable accommodation is a highly fact-specific inquiry.
During the recent Super Bowl halftime show, Usher took off his shirt and everyone oohed and aahed over his performance. Twenty years ago, Janet Jackson's breast was accidentally exposed during her halftime performance and the world stopped to nearly ruin her career over a wardrobe malfunction.
We need to have a serious conversation about sex-based stereotypes, double standards, and workplace dress code.
Here are 7 tips to draft a non-discriminatory, gender-neutral dress code for your workplace:
"Ageism is really one of the last acceptable 'isms' that society tolerates," says AARP senior advisor Heather Tinsley-Fix.
The numbers back her up. According to a recent AARP report, two-thirds of adults over 50 believe older workers face age discrimination in the workplace, and 90% of that group believe ageism is commonplace.
How do we best combat ageism and age discrimination in our workplaces? Here are 6 suggestions.
I believe that it's important to celebrate our victories, not just in our careers, but also in our personal lives.
Tomorrow night, my daughter will stand on stage at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in front of 1,000-plus people and play a 15-minute of set of original music and covers. It will be just Norah, her voice, and her guitar. This will be her sixth (and final) time playing the High School Rock Off. She participated for several years as a School of Rock exhibition. Then, in 2020, she entered in two separate bands and took one to the finals.
In total, Norah has played the Rock Hall's stage more than every other artist who is inducted in the Rock Hall combined. At the age of 17, she's a seasoned veteran of the local music scene.
Which is why I was surprised when, in the car on the way to school this morning, Norah told me that she's a little nervous about tomorrow night. "I've never played in front of that many people solo," she said.
No matter what happens tomorrow night, I'm so proud of her. It takes guts anytime you get on stage and perform. It takes a ton of guts to do it solo, without the support of loud rock band backing you, and even more so when you're sharing your inner-most thoughts through your own songs.
It doesn't matter what the judges say tomorrow night, Norah has already won.
(From The Chronicle-Telegram's Rock-Off preview)
If you're planning on attending the Rock Off and don't yet have your ticket, they are on sale here (code: norah). It's the best deal in town for a Saturday night — $20 ($15 for students) for performances by 10 bands plus a full admission to the Rock Hall.
If you can't make the event but want a taste of what you'll miss, last weekend Norah recorded a "tiny-desk style" session. Thanks to Jeff Koteles of Banzai Sound for offering his space and providing the audio mix, and to Digital FX Media for recording the video and supplying the finished product, which you can watch here.
Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.
A McDonald's franchisee has agreed to pay $4.35 million to settle claims brought by a 14-year-old worker raped by a manager.
According to the now settled lawsuit, the franchisee, Rice Enterprises, knew that its manager, Walter Garner, was sexually harassing child employees before Garner raped the plaintiff. Garner, already a registered sex offender during his employment, later pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from the rape and is now in prison.
It's a DEI heavyweight battle of epic proportions that played out of X over the past week.
In the blue corner, hailing from Big D, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and serial entrepreneur Mark Cuban:
I've never hired anyone based exclusively on race, gender, religion. I only ever hire the person that will put my business in the best position to succeed. And yes, race and gender can be part of the equation. I view diversity as a competitive advantage.
And in the red corner, hailing from our nation's capital, EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas:
Unfortunately you’re dead wrong on black-letter Title VII law. As a general rule, race/sex can't even be a "motivating factor" — nor a plus factor, tie-breaker, or tipping point.… This isn't an opinion; reasonable minds can't disagree on this point. It's the plain text of Title VII.
Live Nation and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced that this year's Rock Off will be the final Rock Off, at least sponsored by Live Nation and held at the Rock Hall. Barry Gabel, the senior vice president of marketing and sponsorship sales at Live Nation and the Rock Off's creator and biggest champion, is pulling the plug after this year's event because of staffing issues. He told Cleveland Magazine, however, that there's hope that the Rock Off will continue in some form in 2025 and beyond.
We're getting tons of calls from so many different venues and people that don't want to see this end, and while I'm not really available to discuss if there can be something that will follow after this year — it most probably will not be with Live Nation — but who knows. There are just too many great venues around town and too many great local clubs and passionate music people that don't want to see the Rock Off end. So we'll see what happens.
“You’re not a real man.” “If I just say ‘she’, that’s what she is.”
Those are among the allegations that the EEOC made against T.C. Wheelers Bar & Pizzeria on behalf of Quinn Gambino, a transgender man the restaurant employed as a cook. Mr. Gambino complained to management about the harassment, but it continued unabated.
I've never before had a repeat Worst Employer nominee. But never before has there been an employer like Vince McMahon.
Two years ago, I nominated the former Chairman of the WWE for allegations that he paid $3 million in hush money to a terminated, down on her luck paralegal, Janel Grant, with whom he then had an affair. Now, however, the full nature of the paralegal's allegations has come to light, and their sheer depravity require that we re-nominate Vince to this year's list.
Grant claims that she was subjected to "acts of extreme cruelty and degradation" that caused her to "become numb to reality in order to survive the horrific encounters."
Did you know that in addition to being an employment lawyer and a craft-beer lawyer, I’m also a podcaster?
A couple of years ago my daughter and I started a podcast together. While episodes have become more sporadic lately, The Norah and Dad Show is still very much a thing.
We just dropped a brand-new episode — "Rock 'n' Roll High School" — in which we discuss Norah's upcoming gig on Feb. 10 at the 27th annual (and final) Tri-C High School Rock Off at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Tickets here; use code NORAH.)
We reminisce about Norah's past appearances at the event and lament the end of the Rock Off as an annual event. Norah also shares a story about buying a new guitar, which she'll be showcasing from the Rock Off stage.
“This is very basic, elementary communication. This has nothing to do with training or understanding, this is daily required functioning.”
That’s just part of an email that a law firm partner sent to a Black associate. In her recently-filed lawsuit, she alleges that the firm terminated her in retaliation for complaining to HR that she believed that email was racially motivated.
In response to her internal complaint, HR told her that its investigation revealed that while the email was “inappropriate,” it was not racist because the partner treated everyone the same way. Thus, he was not singling her out because of her race.