This is why I love the “Covid is faked” conspiracies. Like really?? You think the WHOLE WORLD is working together THAT EFFICIENTLY?? Even the countries that hate each other? Wow cheers for the optimism
Look up the manhattan project you dipshits
You mean the project where the only reason there was any secrecy was that none of the people had any part of the wide reaching project (Oppenheimer, Einstein, and all the others were pretty much kept way away from eachother) and was almost brought down as a secret in the group by one of the guys being an amateur safe cracker? That Manhattan Project?
The one where everybody near Los Alamos knew that something big was happening, because they were actively hiring during the War?
The one that had so many close calls to they’re working on some kind of bomb that by the time the war was over you had people involved blabbing, to the point the Rosenbergs happened?
THAT Manhattan Project?
The Manhattan project, the one that the editor of a science fiction magazine (I think it was Astounding) figured out was happening because all the physicists who subscribed suddenly changed their addresses to Los Alamos?
That Manhattan project?
We’re talking about the Manhattan project that Kodak had clearance to know about (and even got advanced warnings about tests) because they figured it out when radioactive fallout from the tests contaminated their x-ray film? That one?
And that was still just one government using the fullest extent of their power to try and keep just one secret in a time before cellular phone cameras or the internet. Imagine thinking multiple, rival governments agreed to fake a virus to fool just some of their citizens into staying home from work, while also agreeing to pay billions of dollars to compensate them for it.
I wonder if work just.. got harder in the 2000s, comparatively.
So like… ok. I haven’t researched this and I’m mostly thinking out loud, so forgive me.
I entered the working world in 2005. I had a few odd jobs for a few years and then finally just bit the bullet in 2009, got a job at a grocery storeas an inventory clerk. My job was to count surplus items in the backroom and update the counts. Additional responsibilities included helping stock the front end. I left that job in less than a year.
A friend of mine now works at the same chain, different location, same job title, in 2022. But where I shared that title with two other people, he’s the only one with that job title. Additionally, there are less stockpersons, and he is often called out to the floor to help them, which impedes his primary job function. He is also expected to clean bathrooms and some other maintenance things that I cant imagine doing as an inventory clerk.
And I thought maybe it was just that his location is understaffed, but looking back on the past few years where I was expected to do everything (be the front end, the dispatcher, the manufacturer, the teacher, trainer, janitor, delivery driver, account handler… christ, how did I do all this?) I’m looking at the issue with fresh eyes.
I hear sometimes about the ‘slim down,’ where a lot of companies took on a trend of hiring less people than they need to cut down on the cost of labor, and I look at how fast a person can burn out at a job. And how many jobs are considered 'high pressure sales’ when they dont need to be.
Like I’m looking at the possibility of starting a business and I’m looking at the jobs I’ve had that burned me out and why. And it’s almost always been 'I was always juggling responsibilities because we needed more staff’.
Like it seemed like I was doing everything, but getting paid the same.
And I think about that backroom job, where occasionally i would have to help out the stockers on big days, but mostly my job was one function.
It’s not like that anymore, is it?
So when I hear someone bemoan that 'no one wants to work anymore’ I just think… y'know, work ain’t what it used to be. When you’re working the work of 3.5 people because someone at corporate decided it was right and good to hire less people than they need because it saves them 20$ per hour per store, but you still dint get your bonus because shrinks too high or they didnt make the amount of money they thought they would or you gave too many coupons ONCE. And it’s like they’re actively trying to chase people away, and then threaten you with automation but they do t make work attractive enough for people to show…
Work dont want no one anymore.
Oh damn, the notes on this. Apparently it’s not my imagination and y'all have lived some horror stories.
I feel like we should be able to do something about this. Like we should be able to say 'no’ to lean staffing and we should have a say in what our responsibilities are.
I’m thinking about all the times i should have just straight up said something. Like I think I had it in my head that if I took on all the responsibilities in the shop, eventually I would be rewarded with higher pay. But it doesnt work like that anymore. The reward for digging the best hole is a bigger shovel.
That’s no way to live, though. And I just put up with it like it was normal to be so tired at the end of the day that I couldnt move. Maybe I should have just said 'no, you do it’ when they started making me work outside my title.
Because that took a serious toll on my mental health.
I HAVE A UNION JOB AND LET ME TELL YOU SOME THINGS
It is part time, contract, hourly, full remote. Because it’s union? They have to offer me a minimum of 25 hours a week. If I *voluntarily* go under, that is on me, but they ALWAYS offer me up to that. If I ask for the hours, they HAVE to give them.
Overtime doesn’t trigger until 40 hrs/wk… but any time spent on emails, spreadsheets, my timesheet, ANY admin task that’s more than 15 min? I can bill for that. ALL training, meetings, etc? I bill for that.
I get holiday pay. Seperate from vacation, sick leave, personal time; if it’s a federal or state holiday I *automatically* get 5 hours of pay for that day. Period. Unlimited. I got paid 5 hours to do nothing on MLK day and presidents day, no questions asked, nothing taken away from my other pay.
I get sick leave, vacation leave, “personal” leave (anything that isn’t the former two – like, “my friend had an accident and I need to drive them home”). I get health insurance, dental insurance, life insurance. I get access to the credit union. I get access to job search help if my position gets dissolved / I get laid off!
It costs about $80/month in union dues, but I MORE than get that back in terms of benefits and peace of mind, and it’s automatically deducted from my paycheck.
U N I O N S.
Unionize, also there’s a metric fuckton of research on this subject, it’s not your imagination, most people are doing the work that two or three or four people used to do, unions help but fighting this is tough even with a union, also talk to your Union reps, let them know that workload is a key issue for you, they need to hear from their members to know what to do, workload is one of my union’s big concerns right now
To expand on this: Sometimes people don’t understand how a union can help with stuff like this, because obviously the union can’t force them to hire more people, right? That would be crazy.
And yes, unfortunately, the union can’t do that. But also we don’t have to.
What a union can do is make sure that every person who works there has a formal job description. The company sits down with the union and they all agree on what the job duties are for each position and how much the company is required to pay for that work. That work. Not other work.
In the scenario that @libraford describes above, where the company is asking people to cover other positions and take on more duties because it allows them to keep the store understaffed? Yeah, that doesn’t fly in a union shop. Your job description is the only work they can require you to do. And usually there’s a little bit a flexibility baked in – like something that says they can ask someone to fill in for another position for up to two weeks while they’re hiring someone new – but a good union contract will ensure that it can never be a viable replacement for just hiring more people and fully staffing the location.
twitter authors are so funny… “wah someone doesn’t like my book!” maybe because it’s bad
i love how many different authors are named & shamed in the notes on this post. may i recommend two goodreads reviews that made the corresponding twitter authors leave twitter:
when t-rfs talk about “peaking” people what they’re talking about is grooming btw
they will for real dedicate/circulate entire threads detailing extremely specifically how to recruit people into their ideology, often through explicitly manipulative and sometimes even outright abusive means. they gloat and joke openly about doing it to friends and partners and coworkers and younger siblings and anonymously to young trans people on the internet. you see this happening pretty much everywhere regardless of whatever blog you’ve clicked on and are hate-reading, it’s integral to their entire ideology of which would probably honestly collapse without it yet they accuse trans people of being in a cult
look at any blog in the “des-sted dysphoric” community to see innumerable further examples of this. they wear that title like a badge, very conversion therapy-esque. i’ve seen these people openly discuss how to convince their trans male and transmasculine friends into detransitioning. threads upon threads of advice on how to do this. a lot of times they even journal about it on their blogs, like “omg my TIF friend wants top surgery how do i peak them asap”. this is innately unnatural and predatory behavior
wanted to offer an example of the type of shit they’re spoonfeeding to (usually young) dysphoric people in this community that they’re attempting to indoctrinate, notice that they name-dropped explicitly anti-trans books like abigail shrier’s “irreversible damage” (best-selling in conservative circles for a period of time upon its release) and recommend following “desisters” on social media to establish an echo-chamber
The thing that baffles me about Evangelicals is that their God is actually a very weak god.
Let me be clear that I’m talking about Evangelicals, not all Christians. I’m talking about the people that absolutely believe that Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, and Donald Trump were the candidates chosen by God. Except, God was defeated.
I’m talking about the people that think that a child hearing a backward message in rock music will be denied heaven, because the music corrupted their soul beyond the redemption of Christ somehow. God can be defeated by a guy with a guitar and eyeliner.
Their God will intercede and send tornados and hurricanes to places that are sinful– but can’t keep the GOP national convention from being recheduled or cut short due to the weather. And this same god– who will kill thousands of people because their local government won’t stone queers to death– is powerless to help individual people.
They spend all their time trying to protect their God.
Personally, I think it has something to do with their unwavering belief in Satan. They genuinely fear Satan; one might even say that they believe, in their heart of hearts, that Satan is every bit as powerfulas their God, although they’d never admit, of course.
I remember being an Evangelical child. I remember just how terrified I was of Satan. I honestly believed that simply seeingHis Infernal Majesty would instantlydamn me to an eternity in Hell, and that somehow not even God could or would save me. I’m genuinely puzzled now, of course, why exactly I believed that, but I doubt I was alone in that belief.
I mean that’s just it. Ignoring the fact that Bible!Satan is a distinctly different character than Evangelical!Satan, they’ve built a culture where the world God created has been twisted and perverted so that if you experience anything that is not specifically part of evangelical culture, it will destroy your soul and take you away from God.
Absolutely!
Thank you, that’s exactly it. Doesn’t matter how innocent it is (I had to give up a Transformers toy, my sisters couldn’t play with My Little Pony), if it’s of the world, then it’s a danger.
Yeah, and it’s the fragility that surprises me. They talk about how awesome, all-powerful, and and all-knowing God is, and then they turn around and talk about how His creation has been completely perverted by…. <checks notes> things He Himself created, with full foreknowledge of what would happen when He created them, that He seems to be completely helpless to stop. “Sorry, Timmy, but Optimus Prime has robbed god of the ability to redeem your soul.”
A post about my donkey’s intelligence in relation to food
Required background knowledge:
Pirlouit likes when I sing to him. He has a specific way of poking my shoulder with his nose that means “Sing, human” and if I stop singing too soon for his liking he will poke and poke until I resume singing.
He is v good at logic when food is at stake. When my little cousins were here for Christmas they enjoyed giving the animals treats, but following their mum’s household rule of “we don’t start to eat until everyone’s sitting at the table” they wouldn’t give any treats unless all of the animals were there. Pirlouit immediately inferred “IF llamas THEN treats” and instead of trotting to us when he saw the kids and their treats, he would go in the other direction to fetch the llamas and herd them towards us, like come on guys the food distribution doesn’t start until you’re here for some reason
Which brings us to:
I’ve got some leftover hay from last year, which is slightly less nutritious than this year’s fresh hay. I would like Pirlouit to be the one who eats the older hay, as he is and remains a little too plump
I tried giving fresh hay to the llamas in one spot and old hay to the donkey in another, but it took him ten seconds to suspect that their hay was nicer than his. He proceeded to ignore his spot and go squat theirs, but he eats faster than a llama and ended up eating more fresh hay than they did (so the llamas would then go eat some old hay)
New strategy: I put both fresh and old hay in the same spot (less effort). The llamas ignore the old hay and eat the fresh hay. A few metres away I distract Pirlouit by scratching his nose and singing a song to him in order to give the llamas a head start and let them eat most of the fresh hay. When the song is finished, Pirlouit can go eat; he gets some fresh hay but most of what’s left is the old hay the llamas didn’t eat.
After a few days I realised that while Pirlouit patiently waits as I sing, he starts fidgeting when the song is about to end, knowing fully well what comes next. The second I stop singing, he turns around and dashes towards the hay.
I tried to stop mid-song, to see if his logic was “When she stops singing, I can eat.” Nope. He knows this song and his understanding is “When the song is finished, I can eat.” Instead of hurrying towards the hay when I stopped in the middle of the song, he started insistently poking my shoulder in various places like I was a malfunctioning radio he couldn’t find the right button for, and his behaviour clearly spelled out Come on, finish the damn song already so I can go have lunch
one of my favorite sonic x scenes is when rouge and topaz are on a date when they’re supposed to be searching for eggman and they’re just chillin and sonic keeps running back and forth and finally rouge is like “lol wonder what he’s doing. SONIC” and he literally just STOPS DEAD IN HIS TRACKS AND STANDS AT ATTENTION while she talks to him like she was absolutely his babysitter
Also, since it frequently gets commented on in other posts: the choice of bgm is because Jingle Bell Rock doesn’t necessarily have the same cultural significance in China (or at least not to OP) so it’s not particularly recognized as a holiday/winter song
this man is so important to me. he is out there living his best life, loving what he does, getting screamed at by medium sized herd mammals, and educating the world about small but fun and important things.
one thing about americans is we absolutely love breaking into a random british accent. doesn’t matter who or where or why. we will say random things in british for fun
