Hugs for anyone who needs them.
I think we’re a bit overdue for another open thread for personal stuff. As per usual, no trolls, no flames, no being a butthead.
I’ll paste in some recent personal comments from other threads.
Posted on November 2, 2013, in off topic, open thread. Bookmark the permalink. 135 Comments.
Misogyny. I mock it.
I find a lot of it in what's called the "manosphere," a loose collection of Men's Rights, Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), and Pickup Artist (PUA) sites. That said, there are numerous posts here that don't have anything to do with MRAs, or PUAs or any of their ilk.
Contact me by clicking my head, above, or at futrelle [at] well.com
Enjoy!
David Futrelle
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That recipe looks so easy, but I’m just betting our supermarket wouldn’t have tapioca flour or half the other ingredients, for that matter. This place isn’t quite a food desert but by god, it’s dictated by the stocking of Coles and Woolworths, and they just stock the same stuff.
Grrr.
But I’m buying the groceries today, so dammit I’m adding those to the list just in case I’ve underestimated ‘em!
Kittehs, you could probably just use a cup of regular flour, and a half cup of regular sugar instead. I’m doing the grain-free thing because gluten makes me depressed and anxious.
Hugs and beagle kisses to all who want them.
I am giving a giant middle finger to the corporate retail big shots in the USA. Seriously, Black Fucking Friday does NOT need to start on THANKSGIVING. There is NO reason that people need to be shopping on 5pm Thanksgiving - and making poor retail workers work on that day.
Fortunately, I am not expected to be in work until midnight, but still WTF! It would be nice if you considered your employees to be human just this ONCE (cause Ceiling Cat forbid you give them benefits or anything). And yes, Big shots, I blame YOU not the people shopping on that day- just because some people are assholes and do not realize that associates are *gasp* people who might want to spend time with family/friends and relax does not mean you should cater to their every whim. The customer is NOT always right, something you might actually know if you had to spend any amount of time with said customer. So FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU right in your holiday bonus.
Thank you manboobzers for listening. Here is your regularly scheduled pictures of Cute:
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They’re making you do a midnight shift?
WTF?
On top of all the other things you said (totally agree), do you normally work daylight shifts? What the hell sort of hours are these?
WRATH
Oh, FFS. Neuroticbeagle, your corporate overlords are assholes. I know you knew that, but it needed to be said.
Also, Fall Back Day. I like the extra hour, but I DO NOT like the fact that it’s 5:20 pm and pitch black outside. I hate winter.
We only close two days a year. Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
But, all in all, the only day we have to work is inventory. The rest is pretty much work around. I got told last year I should have taken the weekend around Christmas off. This year I might.
Neuroticbeagle: that fucking blows. I refuse to go out on Black Firday, and I’m sure as shit not going to interrupt my turkey coma to go out on Thanksgiving Day.
I hope the greedy assholes who thought this up get something very itchy in a sensitive place that doesn’t respond to any creams.
You know, between the turkey comas and the the fact that more and more people don’t have a lot of disposable income, not to mention MORE cuts to social support programs coming up in the States, it’s possible that Black Friday will not be the bottom-line-saving event that corporations are counting on this year.
A petty part of me almost hopes that will happen, except that it would only result in MORE layoffs and wage rollbacks for the staff. Not the executives and stockholders, obviously, because they’re doing important work creating jobs. Or so I’ve been told.
Neuroticbeagle: Ugh ugh ugh. Black Friday may be the worst invention ever.
Midnight? Retail work at fricking midnight!? On a holiday?
Fucking evil.
@abominalsnowpickle
I have fibro too! (assuming fibro is short for fibromyalgia, if not sorry)
Sorry, I don’t get to talk to fibromyalgia people very often.
It makes me a tiny bit excited.
I don’t know if I’ll look familiar to you; I used to comment more but have kind of away lately.
@ally
That hike sounds really scary, and I hope everyone is doing alright\\
Just read through the thread. Warm thoughts and wishes to everyone who chose to share their stories, and to anybody else reading this who is having a rough time right now.
I really must figure out how to re-train the auto-complete on this silly phonetraption so that I stop logging in with the wrong email address. I apologize for the double comment.
Ally — that sounds terrifying and I’m glad you guys got found. Park rangers are seriously under appreciated, I don’t doubt he really would’ve been out there until he found you.
Black Friday…urgh…
Normal (non holiday) hours are Mon-Sat 10am-9:30pm*, Sunday 11am-6pm*
Holiday hours are as early as 7am and as late as midnight*
*These are only the hours in which the store is open to customers. Workers/managers come in several hours earlier to clean(sweeping, mopping, dusting)/ open register/other manager paperwork shit and can leave much, much later than the closing time depending on how trashed (clothes not folded, hung right, sized, put back etc) the store is and how perfect it must be (aka corporate visits).
Occasionally, I get asked to come in really early (5am) to do floor set (aka move shit around for selling purposes/make associates look like morons when they cannot find the product). This I don’t have to do- I like it. No customers, time goes quickly and I get hours.
However, I do not close the store anymore. CEO of store was coming to visit so we had a perfect close. I left the store around 8am after about 15 hours of working and may have fallen asleep for two seconds at a stop sign and crashed into another car. No people got hurt, but my car was totaled.
Not including inclement weather, we used to be closed three days a year -Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. This year apparently we were/are only closing Easter and Christmas.
We do get time and a half for certain holidays, which is fine for say Memorial Day, when I have nothing planned anyway.
We can get time off if we request it in advance (at least two/three weeks ahead of time). I have already taken Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas off. Christmas Eve because family traditions, and the day after- mental health purposes (holy fuck are people miserable the day after Christmas).
I am just hoping that corporate will not make the profit they expect during the Thanksgiving hours-just so they don’t pull this shit again next year.
Cause you know corporate is not working Thanksgiving/Black Friday.
My favorite about retail? What do you mean only managers open and close? I did plenty of both! (Of course, had the head manager had her way, she’d have promoted me in a heartbeat [cuz damn, $800 a month with no rent to pay and a cheap phone? Well, when do you think I started amassing fish tanks ^.^ ])
But no benefits, and that was when I went off my first round of SSRIs, the shitty insurance they offered PT people decided I was pre-existingly depressed. Unlike my current psych who appears to think it’s a personality disorder not a depressive disorder — which is just precious considering that if pecunium didn’t have his wonderful sense of humor, he’d have probably gotten added to the short list of people who’ve seen me cry. Jerkbrain =/= inability to hide it >.<
Minor complaint — I hate typography. It’s time to do the typography on Manboobz: The Magazining.
@Argenti
No, both associates and managers open and close the store. Registers are only open/closed by managers.
My place doesn’t give benefits to part timers and now, part timers are only supposed to get 20hrs a week- maybe 25- so corporate can avoid Obamacare. Fuck Corporate Greed.
Also Fuck jerkbrains. (I have one too which is one of the big reasons I haven’t found another job-along with the !@#$%^&*@ economy.)
Just got a call from my dad.
Dad: Tell me everything about that hike you went on.
Me: *says everything*
Dad: Next time you come back home from a hike after sunset, I’m going to cut off my relationship with you and kick you out of the house.
You can always count on my dad to try to manipulate people at every opportunity. How nice of him.
@neuroticbeagle
WTF? That’s just awful. I’m sorry.
Also, hugs to anyone in this thread who wants them.
That’s fucked up. I was at Joann Fabrics, idk if they still offer PT employees insurance or what, but I was getting 38~ hours a week. You have retail experience already, if you’ em got craft/art experience, or knowledge, and they’re near you, it wasn’t bad for retail. One of the managers was awful, but that’s not corporate’s fault.
Well isn’t that just special. Kid gets lost where their are carnivores, dad has a hissy about missing curfew. Wtf, no “oh gods I’m glad you’re safe!”?
Well, he did thank me for being honest, but it’s not like a give a damn about his compliments in the first place. I’m so sick of living with him.
What a lovely father.
Plus, cougars — eek! Granted, I come from a country that has no native large carnivores, but that just blows my mind. You and your hiking buddies are pretty brave.
I’ve lived close to mountains and foothills all my life (raised in the Colorado Front Range and living close to the foothills in San Jose), so the fear of cougars is nothing new to me. But rarely do I actually feel afraid of cougars unless I’m right in off-trail cougar territory at dusk - which I was during that hike. I was so anxious that I volunteered to stay up the entire night (when we were still considering camping on the hill) just to watch for cougars. Every time I heard a strange sound in the distance I nearly jumped out of my skin.
A male cougar would be a better father than him (yes I know they don’t raise the young …)
I just saw an email from him in which he briefly said he’s glad we’re all safe now. That’s nice, but either I’m too hard to please or I just find it difficult to find his words loving.
Too hard to please?
I. Don’t. Think. So.
Yeah, Ally S, I agree with kittehserf. You are not being unreasonable.
Also, neuroticbeagle, I’m sorry for all your work stress and bullshit.
So I’ve been going back and forth on whether to ask for advice here for a couple of hours - other people have far more serious problems and I always feel guilty for “asking for attention.” But fuck it.
Does anyone have advice for how to quit a job diplomatically? I won’t get into the whole story, but my current job is way too anxiety-provoking for me to handle. Some of that is the nature of the work, but a lot of it is due to a dysfunctional work environment. I’d love to just run away, but my therapist says I should “quit without burning bridges.”
What’s the peace-keeping, adult, professional way to say “I can’t deal with this crap anymore, here’s my two weeks’ notice, bye”?
“I’m going to need to hand in my two week notice, since I have encountered some unforeseen complications. Is there anything specifically you would like me to focus on in these next two weeks, to ease this transition for both of us? Best of luck with XX”
If someone goes: “BUT WHY? STAY WITH US!”
You repeat:
“I’m going to need to hand in my two week notice though, because of those complications. So what can I do to make this easier for the company?”
And they say: “Is this about Stacey? Is she blackmailing you into doing this? I thought you loved me! We just installed that icing rink on the third floor, please stay, we need you to alphabetize our random letter pile!”
And you repeat:
“I just have a lot on my plate right now, and I can’t continue to perform here, it’s the best decision for me at this time. What can I do to make this easier for the company at this time?”
—
You are not obligated to provide any more information than the fact that there is a lot of complications in your life right now (This is true: The complication is your work environment sucks, and you can’t be bothered to continue putting your mental health at risk for it) and that you are handing in your notice. By asking what you can do to make it easier for everyone, you also deflect time, attention and energy off yourself and back on to the job at hand.
Dear Employer,
Please consider this my two weeks’ notice of resignation. My last day of work will be XXX.
Sincerely,
toujoursgai
Also:
Being polite, effecient and friendly is on you. Not being a dysfunctional to work with is on your colleagues too. Being friendly is fantastic, and all the best, but if the work environment is really, utterly, crushingly, entirely, terrible, I’m going to have to admit that the phrase:
“I’m going to need to hand in my two week notice today, because I cannot continue to put my mental health at risk by working here at this time. My therapist agrees with this decision. I wish you all the best of luck, and what can I do to make this easier for everyone?”
is pretty much as nuclear as the option gets. What are they going to do? Criticize your therapist? Also deflects attention of you and into the nebulous realm of “Doctors Orders”. You might not be comfortable telling that to an entire company of people, though, since it’s a short step from that particular phrase to “Fibi (Your name here) has a host of unresolved issues and is a ball of crazy waiting to go all murderous on us”, to provide you with an illuminating quote of one e-mail I once received after saying something to the effect of that.
Hmm … I can’t help there, because diplomatic didn’t come into it the only time I left a place because of stress. I liked the people there but the job itself sucked hugely.
FIBINACHI HAZ KITTEH GRAVATAR
I mean, if they sincerely would like some feedback in order to make it a better workplace for your replacement and former co-workers, then have at it in the exit interview (if there is one), but you’re not required to give them any kind of explanation at all. You’re moving on, and you’re giving them notice. Anything else is really not their business.
In my experience, attempting to tell them that you’re leaving because they’re sucking the creativity, joy, and will to live out of you will come across as passive-aggressive whining anyway. (To be fair, I *was* being pretty passive-aggressive and whiney.)
Anyway, just say you’re moving on, and thanks for all the fish.
Yeah, well, it’s not like I like you people… or anything like that! I just, erh, got tired of random fractal patterns is all. Felt the need for change, purrfect change.
I’m sorry, I’m so used to pretending not to have emotions it’s difficult to stop. You’re lovely people and I figured I’d get infected and join the Hive Mind(tm) and become a cat q:
Actually do that exact thing.
“So long and thanks for all the fish
Iiiiit’s
Been great but now it’s come to this
and I
Must say that I would rather die than stay
At this hellish hole of a soul sucking companeigh
But I would just
Like to also add
That tit for tat and this for that, It’s not been all bad
I mean, it’s all been jabs and no stabs
So thank you lot for that
And now goodbye!”
Then burst into the air and fly off the planet. No bridges burned, everything great. Unimaginative has great advice. You don’t owe the company anything more than “Goodbye, so long, be well”
Thanks, Fibinachi, Unimaginative, and kittehserf.
@toujoursgai, Unimaginative and Fibinachi have it right. Put a short, professional letter on the boss’s desk telling them you’re leaving and asking if there’s anything you can do to ease the process. Remember that you don’t have to give anything more specific than “personal complications” if you don’t want to.
Uff, all these retail horror stories are stressing me out, since it looks like I’ll have to find another retail job soon. My heart goes out to all of you.
@Unimaginative, am I reading that incorrectly or are you writing 20 pages a day plus what you do for NaNo? o_O
Anyways, yay, I managed to write 2,000 words today! That puts me at 5,000 total, which is way better than I’d feared I’d be at this point. I’ve found this weird trick that lets me channel my anger towards my writing into more writing, which is an interesting bit of applied cognitive dissonance.
Good heavens, no! I’ll be writing 20 pages a day, and posting my total on the class message board AND the nano board. Double-dipping, as it were. My delusions of competence aren’t quite that grandiose.
Thanks, DireSloth. And that’s awesome about your word count! I have two paragraphs so far. I don’t think I’ll be winning this year, but that’s okay. I just needed a kick in the butt to write something.
That is an excellent trick. Feed that trick, and treat it well.
While we’re talking about quitting jobs, I’ll pass on the advice my dad gave me the first time I quit a job. I’d been fretting about it, because I was working on this big project, and I wanted to give them plenty of notice so as not to leave them in the lurch.
My dad said, “Never give more than two weeks’ notice, because they don’t have to actually accept that.”
And I said, sure, whatever, and moved on with my life. Twenty years later, I was working in a union environment, and the management team morphed into petty tyrants. One of my co-workers finally couldn’t take it anymore, gave her notice, and they walked her off the property within two hours.
So that’s two weeks’ worth of pay that she didn’t get, because they were even bigger douches than we even realized.
She checked with the union, and the upshot was that, while they required two weeks’ notice, there was nothing in the contract that said they have to let you stick around that long if they decide you’re a risk.
ASSIMILATION. COMPLETE.
Update: my father has officially prohibited me, my older brother, and my cousin from going on hikes as long as we live close to him. That’s nice.
What excellent parenting skills your father has, Ally. He should teach a class.
What a charming piece of work he is.
Who the hell is he to be prohibiting your cousin from doing things (never mind that the rest of you are adults anyway)?
Guys, I honestly just want to cry right now. I’m so sick of him trying to control me. He even makes me call him “Daddy” instead of “Dad” because the latter term is an insult to him and because he wants his children to feel humble and affectionate with their father.
Hugs if you want them. Your dad sounds manipulative and awful.
Your dad is the absolute worst. I hope you can find a way to be rid of him soon. Meanwhile, it is OK if you need to cry, I think.
Ally S: Holy crap that sucks. I wish you could just walk away with no consequences, but I realize that’s not an option just yet. Internet hugs if you want them.
toujoursgai: I’d honestly avoid even the words ‘complications’ and ‘personal’ in the course of giving your two weeks’ notice.
“[Boss]: I am leaving the company in two weeks’ time. My last day will be [date]. I would, of course, like to make this as smooth a transition as possible; is there anything specific that would help in that regard?”
After that, deflect like Bruce Lee fighting the Persians. No inquiries into why should be entertained. If anything, seem like the queries confuse you. Tautologies are your friend, here: You’re leaving because you’re quitting. You’re quitting because you’re leaving.
Surgery isn’t actually happening.Which is about a billion times more upsetting than if it was happening because I would really like to be able to take my shirt off in front of people without my freaky lumps.I want to go swimming again.
But anyway it seems they gave me a surgery date and then didn’t actually book me in for that date and now I don’t know what’s happening. So I have a lot of sadness.
Thanks, everyone. *hugs back*
@freemage
You know, a little earlier today I was feeling confident and empowered because of the hike - it was, of course, a terrifying ordeal, but I felt like it also showed that I was capable of much more than I had previously realized. Even the thought of me being able to handle the whole process of leaving my dad for good seemed less daunting to me. I no longer feel that way, though, ever since an email thread involving my dad and his siblings started about the hike and how stupid, reckless, etc. we were. They do a great job at making me lose my confidence.
BTW, fistbump to everyone doing NaNoWriMo. I’m not doing it this year but I am a 4-time winner and I love talking to other people about their novels, so anyone is welcome to hit me up at any time if they have problems or questions or just want to natter.
Not posting my email address here, but you hit me up in the fora or on DA or give me some other private way to contact me I’ll happily tell it to you.
@Ally - regardless of what your parental unit and his siblings say (and remember how poisonous they are, and how this is aimed at controlling and undermining you, because they are abusers) the fact is that you DID come out of that hike, you DID make the phone call that got help, and you WILL be able to get away from bumface* one day. You did these things, and what’s the bet he’s fucking frightened of you finding out just how capable you are, and eventually telling him to go take a running jump?
*wonderfully childish insult used on New Tricks the other night.
@WeeBoy - feckin’ incompetent idiots!
My brother just called me a “pussy” for saying that the hike was life-threatening in some parts. Thanks, bro. It really hurt when he said that to me, but I’m not going to confront him about it because I hate arguing with him and because he doesn’t have much self-awareness in the first place these days.
::snort:: Brother sounds like a case of the acorn not falling far from the tree, sometimes.
That, or he’d rather not remember how scared he would have been, too. Idiot. Macho man, beats chest, blah blah blah.
HUGS
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WeeBoy — little help it is, but my brother swims in a t-shirt cuz somehow that boy burns way easier than I do (shit, he’s 25, I might need to get over calling him “that boy” huh? Or do I get to keep that privilege as the first-born?)
Beagle Kisses
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You get to keep that privilege as a family member, says the 5 foot older sibling who still refers to her 6 foot something younger brother as “Little (brother’s name)”.
My little 180cm brother’s 30 and I still call him “the boy” a la Homer Simpson