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A boss wanted a phone call, an Amazon box grew dinner, and science has notes on your wine
A text message starts an argument, an Amazon box grows dinner, and science spoils the fun.
Greg Sullivan
October 21, 2026 • Est. Reading Time: 3 minutes
“I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley
One generation's considerate text is another generation's unforgivable workplace offense. Welcome to Wednesday! Jeff LeBlanc helps us navigate the communication minefield, Annie Reneau shows us what happens when somebody gives an Amazon box a second career as a potato farm, and Mark Wales delivers some rather unwelcome news about the things we do to our brains every day.
Society
Same words, different languages.
An employee is running late, so she texts her boss. Is she being considerate by not interrupting him with a phone call, or is she being rude by not bothering to pick up the phone? Lock in your answer!
As workplace culture researcher Jeff LeBlanc explains, your answer has everything to do with which generation you're a part of. Gen Z sees a text as a non-disruptive way to communicate, and Gen X sees it as a minimal-effort cop-out. This divide isn't about younger workers having worse manners or older workers being hopelessly out of touch. It's about the unwritten rules we absorb early in our careers and eventually mistake for common sense. And for a generation that came of age during a pandemic, many of those rules were learned under radically different circumstances.
GOOD reader Nancy Guilfoyle submitted this image and simply called it “Sunrise.” It’s giving me Dr. Seuss vibes, and I’m here for it!
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You can give your brain one superpower. Which are you choosing?Sorry, telekinesis is currently out of stock. |
Yesterday’s Results
In yesterday’s issue, we shared 17 older women’s bold outfits and even bolder life advice.
And we asked: How has your approach to getting dressed changed as you’ve gotten older? Comfort has taken full control for 59.4% of you. Your closets have spoken, and they’d prefer an elastic waistband.
I’m bolder and more adventurous (5.7%)
I’ve found my look and I’m sticking to it (17.2%)
Comfort has taken full control (59.4%)
Honestly, it hasn’t changed much (17.6%)
GOOD reader Drewski01 makes the case. “I'm still aware of what I'm wearing, but no longer nerved out what others may think. Comfort rocks since I've retired!”
Nutrition | Courtesy of Upworthy
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A guy planted two potatoes in an Amazon shipping box to prove a point. Mission accomplished. | ||
You should see how many potatoes he got out of this experiment. | ||
By Annie Reneau | ||
In the era of supermarkets and wholesale clubs, growing your own food isn’t a necessity for most Americans. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea to try. | ||
A household garden can be a great way to reduce your grocery bill and increase your intake of nutrient-dense foods. It can also be a good source of exercise and a hobby that gets you outside in the sunshine and fresh air more often. However, not everyone has a yard where they can grow a garden or much outdoor space at all where they live. You can plant things in containers, but that requires some upfront investment in planters. | ||
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Technology
Brain rot isn’t something your mom made up to get you off the Nintendo.
Psychologist T. Alexander Puutio, Ph.D. (imagine the size of that business card!) has bravely volunteered to be the latest scientist to poop our collective party. He’s done the research and put together a list of the habits and vices that are doing our gray matter the most harm. Insidious little things that we might not even think about are making us dumber.
“By far the most performance-reducing habit is treating the brain as if it’s a fixed fixture.”
If you’re reading this late at night with a glass of wine, sorry, but you’ve already found items one and two.
The good news is that Psychologist T. Alexander Puutio, Ph.D., doesn’t just diagnose the rot, he offers easy, science-backed fixes that could sharpen your focus and keep your gray matter thriving, and this story by Mark Wales has them all.
On this day in 1911, artist Mary Blair was born in McAlester, Oklahoma. You might not recognize her name, but there’s a good chance you grew up inside her imagination. Her bold colors and playful designs helped shape the look of Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. She had a knack for putting colors together that other artists wouldn’t dare, then making the combination feel perfectly natural.
Blair had hoped to become a fine artist, but the Depression steered her toward a paycheck in animation. She joined Disney in 1940, and a trip through South America the following year helped ignite the vivid style that became her signature. Later, Walt recruited her to help design “it’s a small world” for the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair, turning her distinctive visual world into one people could actually float through. The earworm is worth the extraordinary feast for the eyes.
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💬 From the group text…
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Until tomorrow, text OR call, reaching out at all is better than nothing.