tea

45, they/them not witty, just socially awkward avatar from Maddel_art on picrew

[brevitea]

I think about this a lot.

I once worked at a firm with offices in multiple states and the in-house IT worked out of the main office in a state a time zone away. I had a laptop I was preparing for a new hire starting the next day and I couldn't get it to charge. It was plugged in, but the battery wouldn't charge. This was a Lenovo in 2015, so the battery was removable. I tried taking it out and putting it in again. I rebooted several times. I checked for any relevant updates. No luck.

I googled the problem. I knew a lot less about computers back then, but I knew enough to understand the search results telling me the next step was to uninstall the driver for the battery in case it's corrupt. Oh no, I thought, I needed admin privileges for that.

I got on the phone with IT. I explained to them the issue and everything I'd tried up to that point. I told them my theory and asked if they could just remote in and try uninstalling the driver for me please. And if that didn't work then it was in their hands, but I definitely needed a resolution by end of day.

Well. This simply would not do. Who did I think I was? Calling them up and just *asking* them to uninstall a driver! They would need to do their own troubleshooting before taking such a drastic step.

I calmly asked what they would do.

Well, they said. We... Well... We would...

Can we just try this, I asked. It'll take five minutes. And if it doesn't work, then I'm an idiot and you're in charge.

Fine, they said. I could tell they were unhappy with me.

They remoted in, uninstalled the driver, initiated a reboot and sat in resentful silence with me on the phone while we waited. Wouldn't you know, when the laptop booted up, it started charging right away?

I humored them while they remoted in a second time to satisfy themselves that the issue was, in fact, resolved. Then, I thanked them profusely and cheerfully, all sickly sweetness, wished them a good day, and hung up.

Basically all of this is to say that sometimes the only difference between you and your IT helper is they have the admin password.

[youreadarkwizard]

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny at FAN EXPO Denver, 05/30/2026.

[corsairesix]

I love the characterization of Lae'zel as a deliberate, reasonable person who through no fault of her own is wrong about almost everything

[boukaiisreal]

you will see him again

For your Strings are…INTERLI…

[graciehart]

how to say "I love you" in x-files [502/?] ⤷ 2.22 — “F. Emasculata”

[wilimia]

Awesome game guys

[nuge]

booing is not enough i need canes to psychologically demolish c*rter h*rt so badly that he never plays again

[elceewunjo]

Gale - The Evening Star

Well. I am rather pleased with him. Hope you'll like him as well, folks 🩶

Gale as the Evening Start from Alphonse Mucha ✨

Yes I know, I know, Mystryl is technically dead at this time, but she was still (as Mystra is now) the embodiment of the Weave, so I put her old symbol instead of the newest Mystra one, as a marker of Gale's love for magic, rather than Mystra herself. And I've swapped the original design from Mucha to have a good view of the orb.

Others in the series can be found here :

Astarion as 'The North Star' Shadowheart as 'The Moon' Wyll as 'The Morningstar' Lae'zel as 'The Comet'

Next (and last, for now), Karlach ❤️‍🔥 No idea when I'll get to her though ^^

[rosenkranz-does-things]

awoo

[the-big-mood]

[zooophagous]

Bro why did you just become a red dot on the minimap are we cool

[get-more-transmasc]

Aromantic transmascs!! I'm so glad to be in a world with aromantic transmascs!!! If you're aromantic and transmasculine, you're literally the coolest person ever!!!

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding like an effete intellectual, I do actually think you should be allowed to just take college courses indefinitely

[yourunderwaterskies]

technically you can, if you don't care about degrees.

Free Harvard courses. Free Courses from Stanford. Free Courses from MIT. Free courses from Yale. Free courses from Princeton.

Free courses on Coursera.

Free Courses on EDx Free Courses on Alison

For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.

When searching, the phrases you're looking for are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), or you can do a general search of say, "free online college courses." Oh, and so you don't get surprised like I did, have an avoid: Hillsdale College is a conservative Christian site and not a valid MOOC place. Sign up with them and you will get things like THIS IS WHY THE LEFT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS TRANS AND GAY in your inbox.

[aloeverawrites]

@yourunderwaterskies I wanted to say thank you so much for adding these links, seriously, they've been life-changingly helpful to me-

And I also wanted to mention that humanitarian organisations have free courses too, like the Red Cross on international humanitarian law.

Humanity in War

Learn more about the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Program to train policy professionals, government officials, academics,

Kaya

Kaya is a free humanitarian learning platform which offers hundreds of training opportunities across a range of key topics, including the hu

[herpsandbirds]

[kymeira]

[jinjeriffic]

Lets hear it for Malicious Compliance

[elkian]

*filming literal mold* “There is a bit of a damp problem…” The signs saying “DON’T BUY THIS” are a beautiful touch.

[silly-signs]

Official silly sign(s)

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[thulium]