117

Trustworthy
Posted on December 30, 2022 by David M Willis

117 thoughts on “Trustworthy”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “Whilst I appreciate the consideration, mum, I realise that we were inconveniencing you, so sorry, I do believe I must go queue now”

    1. Pylgrim

      Cheerio and well met.

      1. JBento

        Pip pip.

  2. shadowcell

    set regrets to maximum

    1. Lysbeth

      Noooo, live with integrity for NO regrets

      1. Taellosse

        Sorry to disillusion you, but that’s not actually how integrity works. You just end up regretting different things, for different reasons. SOMEtimes there’s less guilt and shame swirling around your regrets that way, but you can’t even bank on that – life has a habit of presenting one with situations that lack tidy solutions.

        1. Yumi

          ~it’s a reference~

  3. Sirksome

    Some of life’s best moments are sharing your shame with a complete stranger.

    1. Andy

      Group therapy ftw, I’ve had some really good experiences sharing stuff or hearing stuff from semi-strangers and now friends.

  4. Steamweed

    Cue “random” encounter with Robin DeSanto.

    1. Clif

      Maybe. We can hope.

      1. The Wellerman

        Totes is. Take a look at the blurry Patreon preview 😀

      2. Steamweed

        And here she is! Right on cue! 😀

    2. Leorale

      Bow-tie appreciation society

  5. deathjavu

    Ruth, what exactly are you trying to draw a parallel to in panel 4? I’m pretty sure none of your mistakes have landed in that category.

    1. Caro

      One of Billie’s has.

      1. Clif

        Ruth was having an affair with a student she had authority over. And here she is still as RA. The irony is not lost on her.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Is Jason’s grandfather corrupt and influential enough to get him his job back whether he wants it or not?

        2. Inbar Fink

          I’m pretty sure we heard his father is a powerful corrupt businessman who’s ‘basically a supervillain’. But he picked the TA Job in America spesifically to get away from him and his influence.

          So it’s not an exact thing, but the parellels are there. Although my guess is maybe Ruth’s thinking more of her general abuse of the students under her care than her relationship with Jennifer?

      2. Thag Simmons

        Not coincidentally the exact same offense that got Jason fired

    2. Sirksome

      Too bad her brain won’t let her believe that.

      1. The Wellerman

        At least not yet. New medication can take quite a while to work 🙁

        1. TheCatCameBack

          Eh, new SSRI’s usually start taking an effect two weeks in. I think the greater problem is that, for the vast majority of people, medications alone don’t cure them. CBT, group therapy, or some other traditional talk treatment is needed alongside medication to help the patient understand their cognitive biases and combat them effectively. My bet is that Ruth just needs some time with meds, therapy, and a stable life in order to grow into someone who can forgive herself.

        2. thejeff

          She also needs to be out from under the thumb of her abusive grandfather. Much harder to recover and grow when the abuse is ongoing – even if it’s mostly at a distance now.

          She was probably back there over the break wasn’t she?

        3. Mr D

          Excuse me, CBT???

        4. Yumi

          One time I was talking to my therapist, and I said something like, “The other, kinkier type of CBT.” And they said,”I’m not sure what you mean by that?” And I was like, ” …That is completely fair, but I’m not going to explain.”

          Anyway, Mr D, if you’re not sure, TheCatCameBack was referring to (I ASSUME) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

        5. The Wellerman

          Honestly I wasn’t sure of the kinker meaning either until just now LOL XD

        6. Mark

          Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

        7. Taffy

          Look, for some people, a stiletto heel in the nads can work wonders.

    3. cain

      I’m pretty sure she thinks most of them have. Years of gaslighting and abuse can do that to a person.

    4. pickonecard

      Ruth does not seem to think very highly of herself. I’ve got maybe three incidents I’m thinking of: getting with Billie, breaking up with her, and what she’s doing right now.

      1. Thag Simmons

        Also we don’t know what exactly went down with her and Rachel, but it has to have been something

        1. Sirksome

          They were roommates right? I wouldn’t want to be roommates with pre-timeskip, pre-dating Billie Ruth.

        2. Clif

          Someday we will get the Rachel flashback and it will turn out to be something completely inconsequential.

        3. Bryy

          So many in the cast have such fucking dramatic issues and black and white views on life. It makes me wonder how I ever survived college, and if I ever was that bad.

        4. Abdomino

          There are not many things as simple and concrete as how a young adult believes the world works. Some grow out of it, some don’t.

        5. Bryy

          Makes me wonder if the comic’s epilogue is going to be a flash forward.

        6. Mark

          And, every now and then, one of them makes some of it happen.

        7. thejeff

          It’s certainly possible, but it really is amazing how many people seem to assume the violent alcoholic couldn’t possibly have been at fault.

        8. Joy

          They were both violent alcoholics? What??

        9. thejeff

          Rachel was?

        10. Taffy

          Who’s saying “couldn’t possibly”? I haven’t noticed anyone saying that. I’ve seen speculation that it might not have been quite as bad as Rachel makes it out to be, but never anyone saying “There’s no possibility of that being the case.”

        11. thejeff

          Fair. Probably overreacting to the “something completely inconsequential” suggestion.

        12. Taffy

          I think it would honestly be funnier if it was something petty and super low-stakes. Rachel obviously had doubts about Ruth from the start, but I’d laugh my ass off if it turned out she didn’t mind the angry/depressive behavior and Ruth like, stole her pudding by accident or something.

        13. Needfuldoer

          Yeah, their introduction went… well…

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/01-birthday-pursuit/blankslate/

  6. Thag Simmons

    “This was never about me, was it?”

    1. poofdepoof

      Jason seems to be willing to wait out whatever Ruth is doing… Hard to tell exactly where his line is. It’s certainly farther than Ruth expected at least.

  7. AbacusWizard

    live with intergity, no ragrets

    1. Amós Batista

      Don’t say that! After it, somebody always get hit by a truck.

      1. AbacusWizard

        No worries; if you deliberately misspell stuff it doesn’t count towards the curse. This is like the It’s Walky equivalent of calling Macbeth “the Scottish play.”

  8. RassilonTDavros

    …yeah this is 100% leading towards an encounter with Robin. Wonder if they’ll have a bowtie-off.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Would he stoop so low? Robin’s bowtie is bound to be a clip-on.

      1. TerribleTransit

        No, no. It spins, remember?

  9. BBCC

    It doesn’t have to be life defining but there’ll always be pieces you can’t fit in again or are missing once you go to glue your life back together.

  10. Suet

    The day Ruth became an RA, she has fully forgotten, alt.

  11. True Survivor

    Thanks to those of you how provided suggestions about how to get this website working for me again. Fortunately, it seems to issue somehow resolved itself on its own, allowing me to annoy you with my inane comments and pointless commentary for the foreseeable future.

  12. anon

    ppl should start using that last line as an opener more often lol

    1. Thag Simmons

      Have I mentioned that I really like post-timeskip Jason? Because I really like post-timeskip Jason

  13. Dara

    Ruth, Ruth, it’s okay, you’ve already been sentenced to being a Leafs fan, you’re suffering enough.

  14. Nenja

    So no job with Leslie. Perhaps ROBIN would be interested?

    1. Wraithy2773

      I think Robin would be a good option, legitimately. Her personality is likely to cause some strife with her current TAs, which might open up a slot, she’s a lot wealthier, and much more likely to go “so, you slept with her, but you didn’t give her the grades, and she initiated the whole thing? Why’d you get fired again?” to the whole deal.

      1. Leorale

        Plus they can bond over wearing bow-ties.

      2. Nenja

        Exactly. And it would be very interesting to see how she and Jason will interact. I don’t THINK they have met here in DoA.

  15. Amós Batista

    Even for an advice for him, you cannot tell him, Leslie?
    (of course I agree with her, but…)

    1. Mark

      I’m sure there is some advice she could give, that lets him stay, and doesn’t compromise her principles. But everyone (including Leslie) is assuming she’s being asked to personally fix the problem, not to point the way.

      1. Jamie

        I am less sure that there is any possibly relevant advice that Leslie could give in this situation.

  16. DarkoNeko

    Seriously, what’s with that brit aristrocrat feel XD

  17. Formerly Glenn

    It still grinds my gears that all the other TAs were *actually* abusing their power, but Jason gets thrown under the bus for not playing along.

    1. BBCC

      “All the other”? Unless I’m missing something the only other one we had abusing their power was Penny. I feel like even in this comic, one is a very small sample size.

    2. HueSatLight

      Penny was fired. She was all of the other TAs. And Jason was actually abusing his power.

    3. Heatth

      Even if that wasn’t his intention, Jason did abuse his power. He slept with a student that he was tutoring and who he had grading power over. And she slept with her at least partially because of that. And that is still on him, even if it is technically a misunderstanding. That is his fault, that is why you shouldn’t sleep with someone you have power over.

      1. Heatth

        Also, I am pretty sure the only other TA that we know is Penny and she got fired for literally the same thing as Jason. In fact, we don’t actually know if she was grading Joe (or any hypothetical student she may have slept with), so technically for all we know she was actually less ethically compromised than him (though, given how she behaved otherwise, that seems unlikely).

    4. Delavan

      As a former TA and professor, no. You do NOT sleep with your students. Period, end of story. That is, in and of itself, an abuse of power, even without an explicit quid-pro-quo. And there are so many stories of female students – undergrad and grad – who are pressured into it, by professors with real power, that zero tolerance is fully warranted and morally correct. This is not a grey area. Jason acted reprehensibly. Even if he’s learned, to put him back in that kind of position so soon after he did it would be a massive institutional failure.

      Ruth is being melodramatic cuz internal demons, but actions like this SHOULD have severe consequenses.

      1. nicoleandmaggie

        Agreed with Delavan.

      2. Joy

        I also agree with Delavan.

      3. Xujhan

        It’s a bit of a grey area. Back in undergrad one of my friends ended up being the TA for a class her girlfriend was taking. Human relationships are sufficiently complicated that one single policy is going to be a good fit for every possible situation. “If you and a student are interested in one another, just wait a couple months until the class is over” is, I think, a much more practical stance than “don’t do it ever and if you do you’re a horrible human”. Catch more flies with honey, and all.

        As an interesting aside, best teaching practices are that you shouldn’t know whose work it is you’re grading in the first place. My department has been using Crowdmark since the start of the pandemic and its default setup gives TAs no way to know what work belongs to what student. That goes a long way toward disarming situations like Jason’s before they happen.

        1. Nicoleandmaggie

          There are things in place most places for pre-existing relationships—generally what happens is someone not in the relationship is in charge of grading or is the boss. This is not that hard. Yes, anonymous grading is good when feasible.

          And yes, if Jason had waited until the class was over he likely wouldn’t have been fired. Some places say no sleeping with undergraduates but many places just specify no situations with a power imbalance. Of course Sal was not actually interested in him so nothing would have happened if Jason had done his job correctly.

          It’s crazy to me how many people think these things are about sex and not power (see also: Ned Fulmer).

        2. Yotomoe

          I feel like it is about sex though? Because the idea is that sex is inherently something that is such a violation of Sal’s rights that it cannot be had without Jason being abusive, even if it’s purely consensual. I can’t think of any other consensual activity an off duty TA and student could do together that would result in immediate firing. Other than I guess maybe smoking weed or getting drunk or something.

          Sex is just sorta a big deal and you can’t have it unless there’s no chance that someone is benefiting more from it than the other.

        3. Yotomoe

          Like I guess I could argue that maybe Jason would be looked at funny if some of his students were like…his good friends. He might be biased when grading them. But I feel like even that would be a case by case basis and I feel like if Jason just did what he already did and gave the work to Penny they wouldn’t actually mind if Jason hung out with some students in his downtime. I just can’t come away from this thinking anything other than the idea that SPECIFICALLY sex is the one thing you can’t ever do with some if you’re in a position of power. Or kissing probably. Probably can’t kiss people either.

        4. BBCC

          Our teachers definitely had various lines of professional they weren’t supposed to cross in my university. The only one I know of who would’ve gone out drinking was one of my first term grad school teachers. At the end of the term, he invited the students in his class out to a restaurant at school to have a drink.

      4. The Wellerman

        Just tossing this out there, not all us internal demons are bad, and in fact a lot of us are essential in empowering our hosts 🙂

      5. not someone else

        Thank you. Jfc all these people out their getting their real world morality from porn genres.

        1. Taffy

          “What are you doing, step-TA?”

          I don’t think anyone is actually doing the thing you said, though.

        2. not someone else

          Maybe not exactly, in this comments section, no. I just got a little irritable.

        3. The Wellerman

          No worries, we get it. The holiday season can get stressful for a lot of us 🙂

        4. Yotomoe

          That’s implying I have morals 😛

  18. Rabisch

    The more the story goes on, the more Ruth and Jason seem to me like a great couple with a lot in common. Dunno what will happen now, Rightfully Leslie doesn’t want to put Jason back in his previous position and I don’t think she’ll ask Robin if she can do it. Also because, it could turn out that Robin thinks exactly like her about these things. Maybe marriage is really the answer?

  19. Daniel M Ball

    Yes, Jason, sometimes when you fuck up, it DOES fuck your life over permanently, and irrevocably.

    1. Jamie

      In fairness to Jason, he didn’t ask for this conversation.

  20. zaratustra

    Some mistakes taint you for a specific institution for at least three months, yes, Ruth.

  21. bagge

    I must take leave – cape swoosh

  22. BOOSTER SHOT

    ALT-TEXT, YOU MADE ME SPIT-TAKE

  23. Plaaaa

    Your lowest moment so far!

    1. spriteless aunty

      I read that in Gabby’s voice (of Gabby’s Cats). Been spending time with my niece.

  24. Pocky

    I honestly can’t feel all that bad for Jason. Despite abusing a position of power, and having honestly faced pretty minimal consequences, he’s still able to be successful and he’s with Ruth of all people.

    1. cmasta1992

      I mean the threat of getting deported hanging over him constantly is kinda of a significant consequence!

      1. Delavan

        As a former professor and also former TA – this is exactly the consequence level he should have to deal with, from an institutional perspective. He’s lucky it was consensual-enough that Sal doesn’t press charges for harassment or worse. Even consensual, it’s still a massive abuse of power and he should not be allowed back in that position.

        If he needs to meet the work visa requirements, he should look for a research assistantship or fellowship. They exist.

        1. HueSatLight

          I know there’s Robin talk, because she’s likely physically nearby, and she does have some money and/or influence. But a fellowship or research assistantship doesn’t make sense, to me, for a math grad student from a polysci professor. She doesn’t even know him, or Ruth. With Becky, they had a personal connection and Robin may have just facilitated a scholarship that someone else was paying for.

          If he gets a research assistantship, I’d expect it to be in the math department, and for the professor for be the kind of creepy one who doesn’t think what Jason did is that big of a deal.

          And I know this strip isn’t meant to be 100% like real life, but where’s his advisor on all this?

        2. Nicoleandmaggie

          Ha! I was wondering the same thing earlier today. (Where is his advisor…)

        3. Taffy

          Keep in mind the country and region they’re in. If he’s entitled to an advisor or has some sort of fallback on his contract (or whatever paperwork he did, it doesn’t especially matter), it’s in the best interest of everyone who’s against him to keep him away from that information and those resources, legality be damned. It’s amazing how much vital info people will “forget”, gloss over, or outright lie to avoid sharing.

        4. HueSatLight

          Not talking about an advocate during the tribunal. As a grad student, he should have an academic advisor that he sees regularly.

        5. Taffy

          I don’t really understand what that is, but I’m assuming it’s a person he’s meant to visit who… oversees his status at the school? Maybe Google can help.

          “An academic advisor is a type of counselor who works with students, usually at the college level. They are the ones responsible for helping students choose a major and a minor and ensuring that they meet all the requirements to graduate with a degree in that field.”

          Okay, I kinda get it now. I’ve never encountered one before, so this is a brand-new concept for me.

        6. Seregiel

          Should but as someone who has been back to school recently, ymmv with that one. I have a mandatory once a semester check in with my advisor who confirms my classes, says they will get back to me on issues I need and then doesn’t resolve them.

        7. HueSatLight

          Undergrads see their advisor like once a semester. Grad students should probably see them a lot more frequently (about once a week maybe), in some capacity.

        8. Nicoleandmaggie

          That definition is for undergrad. I assumed he was a PhD student, not masters. If so he should have a committee of 3-4 people (eventually). If he’s just an MA student, that’s only a couple years and it’s not really a career credential so he’s going to have to go back home or transfer to another program anyway. It’s unlikely he’d be a TA as a math MA anyway since those slots are usually reserved for PhD students. If he’s a first or second year phd student then he might have an academic advisor and not a PhD advisor depending on how the program is set up. But that person is still in charge of helping with funding concerns. It’s possible the person assigned is not proactive and nothing will be tripped until the end of the school year. There should also be an international students office to help deal with paperwork concerns though if Jason is working without papers he may be avoiding them. Still, my international grad students have stuff that needs to get signed every semester.

      2. Joy

        On the one hand Jason absolutely deserved the consequences he experienced with regards to his TA job, on the other hand U.S. immigration law is extremely messed up and I don’t know that he deserves to be deported. (If I were Sal I’d honestly feel kind of relived if he was deported… So maybe it would be best if he was?? Idk)

        1. Alex

          Agreed. Losing his position was a minor consequence. The threat of deportation isn’t part of his punishment, it’s an unintended consequence of harsh immigration laws.

        2. Mr D

          Why would Sal feel relieved if Jason was deported? It wasn’t Jason who was looking for it, Sal was the one who enthusiastically initiated the encounter by literally jumping him while shirtless. Hell, if Jason had not responded, that would be grounds for sexual harassment.

  25. Devin

    No Ruth. Mistakes must be learned from. And for positions of power especially, there has to be some kind of demonstration that the person who made the mistake has learned from it and won’t repeat it (and even if such a demonstration did exist the person is not entitled to another chance). Jason has given no such demonstration.

  26. Taffy

    Eh, I really don’t buy into the concept of being “stained forever”, because how far back does that get to go? Yes yes, consequences from actions and all the other sanctimonious bullshit people are obsessed with tacking onto that, but how small can the action be, how young can you be when you do it, and how far are people supposed to be allowed to go with the consequences? What are the limits? How much can we justify putting a person through over a given mistake?

    And this isn’t me saying Jason didn’t fuck up (if you think it is, learn how to read and come back later), I just get a weird vibe sometimes when it comes to mistakes and the proportions of the consequences.

    1. thejeff

      Not all mistakes. Ruth does say “some mistakes are life-defining”, not “all mistakes”.
      Some of them shape your life long after any one is still putting direct consequences on you for. If Jason winds up being deported for losing his job, that’s going to change the entire rest of his life, long after everyone’s forgotten the original cause.

    2. Yumi

      I’m of the persuasion that maybe some (even all) mistakes are “life-defining” in terms of we are shaped by all our experiences, but the “they taint you forever” thing is very mental illness talk. Which I get, at someone who deals with mental illness. There are some mistakes I would love to stop feeling shame about, and would probably grow from more if I did. But it’s a lot of work to get to that point, been a lot of work to even get to the point of recognizing that as something to aim for.

    3. BBCC

      Those are all really subjective questions, and I think you’ll get a different answer from everyone. I think in this case, Jason being fired and not being able to get his job back (or even a different job at the same institution) is a reasonable consequence given he’s a grown man who should’ve known better. Meanwhile, let’s say, like, lying about where you hid your sibling’s stuff just to annoy them. That’s a lot more excusable for a seven year old than, say, a seventeen year old. For the seven year old, I think saying ‘Don’t do that’ and telling them why and making them go get it and apologize is pretty reasonable and everyone involved should move on pretty fast. For the seventeen year old, maybe a longer lecture and telling them to grow up and stop doing such immature things is probably appropriate but probably still pretty fast to move on from.

      Your seventeen year old robbing a bank and hiding the money though? That’s probably gonna have more severe consequences that won’t be moved on from so easily.

      Sorry, unhelpful, but that’s all I got. Shit’s subjective and context matters.

    4. Sporky

      Ruth is talking about herself and projecting here

  27. Opus the Poet

    did anyone else notice DYW put up a new “Shortpacked”?

    1. Taffy

      The tapping one? Yeah, I saw it but I don’t get it. I assume some guy did the thing the character does, maybe in a YouTube video or on Twitter, but aside from that it’s just a funny scenario to me.

  28. Bunny

    So help me he sounds like John Oliver in my brain.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.