We got the best all-staff email about a new vacation policy -- they are cutting down the amount of time you can carry over (to a reasonable amount, I think). The email opens with all this bs about work-life balance, and how that's so important to all of us, and people should have time off...and then transitions into the real fact that having all that leave time on the books is a financial liability.

We had a firm no-teasing rule in place in prep school. And it was hard core. And I was a tattle tale. So you could start in on my name, but I would get you sent to the principal in a heartbeat, so think twice.

In fact, if a teacher thought someone might be teased, she sat everyone down and told them not to even think about it. We got the speech when Susan got orthopedic shoes, I remember. And she got left alone.

At high school in Jamaica there was more peer pressure teasing, which I was on the receiving end of because I was a foreign-accented upper middle class girl. The girl I remember being the worst later recognised my mother in the supermarket and told her how much she'd liked me. At the time, she was just a stank bitch operating off her pop charts fame. I have no idea where she thought there was affection in our exchanges. It was all about me not being Jamaican enough.

In English high school no one really gave me shit. They did restrain me physically once from going after another girl, but that was about it. I'm not sure what she did to piss me off, but it was something they thought was playful, and I thought I'd get to beat her up about. But I thought all matters of honour were to be settled by the sword at that age.

I don't remember being physically bullied in elementary school as well, but there was a lot of emotional bulling. I was the Intelligent Weird Kid who did weird stuff, and classmates didn't know how to handle something so different than them. In a way, it was as if I was borderline in the spectrum then - couldn't care less what about I wore, didn't have a hunch of peer pressure or knew the right way to react to things. But I felt very well that I didn't fit. I did make connection with some people, but every connection, by the general context of things, was Fucking Weird (to me. And I'm sure that to them as well). By junior high I learned to keep everything to myself, but classmates still sucked. I thought that the entire world was like this, and preferred my own mind's company. It was a good day if people noticed my existence and said "hello" to me in the morning.

It was high school which restored my faith in the human kind. We were a bunch of outsiders, together, in a boarding school, with an intoxicating feeling of freedom, creativity and a strong feeling of belonging and brotherhood. With all of teenage angst, I think I never felt more happy and free as I was there. To this day, I regard to it as the best decision I've ever made.

We got the best all-staff email about a new vacation policy -- they are cutting down the amount of time you can carry over (to a reasonable amount, I think). The email opens with all this bs about work-life balance, and how that's so important to all of us, and people should have time off...and then transitions into the real fact that having all that leave time on the books is a financial liability.

Ours doesn't carry over at all. It's a huge pain, but otoh it makes it harder for managers to discourage people from taking any time in the first place. As someone who struggles to remember or coordinate time off in the first place, it does give you an incentive to actively make sure you do take the time.

These days, schools are better at combating bullying, right?

We try really really hard, but stuff happens away from school, via texting, and online. Also, there's a lot more of them than there are teachers, so they can do stuff that we miss. We spend time teaching about bullying (inc. cyberbullying), what it is, what you should do if it's happening, etc. I come down hard on namecalling in my room, but I'm sure I miss things.

In high school, the kids who picked on me and bullied me were what we called "dirtballs." When I first went to public school, some of the smart, popular kids picked on me, but they learned I was smart and funny, so they soon liked me. Eventually they started calling me "Tommy John" (after the baseball player, as my middle name is John) instead of "Slim Goodbody."

As someone who struggles to remember or coordinate time off in the first place, it does give you an incentive to actively make sure you do take the time.

Yeah, I have a coworker who keeps claiming she's going to take a day off...and then having a meeting scheduled for that day, so she cancels. She was just joking that she'll have to take October off. But it would be good for her!

My boss is like that - she's been with the company over 20 years so she has a riDONKulous amount of vacation, and keeps saying things like "I should work 4 days a week for a while to use some vacation days up" but never does.

My father took almost a year off when he retired. I mean, got paid for almost a year of vacation. And then went back to work on contract. Freaking crazy person, especially considering that he was funded to fly his family back to Jamaica once a year. And he didn't.

There was a series of weird coincidences when we were moving around for awhile. Everywhere we went there seemed to be a family of all boys next door or behind us that took it upon themselves to pick on the family of (nearly) all girls.

Most of the bullying came from older sisters.