Ring Ring Ring

Things people tell me on the phone for some reason, and other stories.

[thegaymertrainer]

His comedy has evolved so much his timing and delivery is really amazing

[mamatriedtoraisemebetter-deacti]

[only-tiktoks]

[starlightomatic]

I don’t even think Christmas shouldn’t be all over the public space like it is. Clearly it does make a lot of people happy and I lowkey I actually kind of like it too! (Sort of. But I also don’t.) So, continue covering your town square or wherever with trees and lights, I’m not saying not to. What I *am* asking for is:

- Acknowledge that Christmas is not a universal holiday and that some people either feel negatively about it or just don’t celebrate it. Stop being offended by this.

- Stop forcing people to participate. Don’t make your Jewish employees wear Christmas outfits, don’t make schoolkids be part of Christmas plays, etc.

- Stop pushing back when Jews are honest with you about how they feel about it.

- Stop deflecting to talk about how Christmas traditions are actually pagan in origin. We know, and also it’s fully irrelevant to our issues with Christmas.

- Recognize things from other cultures. Or at very least don’t *prevent* members of other cultures from expressing them. If your employee wants to put up a menorah, let them. If your coworker wants to add a Chanukah decoration to your office don’t take it down when they’re not looking because it “messes up the Christmas spirit” or whatever.

- Recognize things from different cultures at other times of the year too. Let your Jewish students and employees take days off for the fall holidays. Maybe even consider merchandise or decorations for those holidays too!

- Stop with the double standards. You don’t get to say that a menorah is religious and a Christmas tree isn’t. Either both of them are or neither of them are. A menorah actually is a ritual object but a) plenty of secular Jews use them and b) I don’t think most Christians know that, they just think of Judaism (and therefore Jewish culture) as “a religion” and Christian culture as normal. When people claim to object to Chanukah (the holiday most widely — and often exclusively — celebrated by secular Jews) because it’s “religious,” they’re actually objecting because it’s non-normative.

- Listen when someone is telling you about their experiences with and thoughts about hegemonic culture. Don’t argue that actually it’s fine becaude Christmas is secular or pagan or whatever. Trust people about the experiences they’ve had and how things impact them.

(Yes, non-Jews can reblog this.)

[graftandgrief]

Eating while on shift is not permitted, staff are told. “If the system detects no keyboard stroke and mouse click, it will show you as idle for that particular duration, and it will be reported to your supervisor. So please avoid hampering your productivity.”

A training video about the webcam system, seen by the Guardian, says it “monitors and tracks real-time employee behaviour and detects any violations to pre-set business rules, and sends real-time alerts to managers to take corrective actions immediately”.

Capitalism is so exhausting

[upsettingandunfortunateclasshate]

Fuck this

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

This is insane.

[tonysopranobignaturals-deactiva]

Capitalism is so innovative /s

[thestoryofaslut]

Hi!  Want to completely fuck the keyboard-tracking system in the ass?  Want to do it in a way that they literally cannot do anything about without disabling primary Windows functions?

Step 1: Open Notepad.

Step 2: Copy the following text, line for line, omitting only the --- that caps either end of it. --- Dim objResult Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Do While True   objResult = objShell.sendkeys("{NUMLOCK}{NUMLOCK}")   Wscript.Sleep (6000) Loop --- Step 3: Save this as whatever.vbs, put it somewhere you can access easily, and double click it when you start your computer.

What does this do?

This runs a very basic script, and every six seconds, your computer will double-tap the NumLock key (i.e., turn it on, and then off) in a single instant.  This counts as a key-press, occurs with a key that shouldn’t affect most things that you’re doing, occurs with no gap between them even if it could affect things you’re doing, and should prevent this kind of BS from engaging.  As an aside, this will also prevent your computer from automatically locking itself, so take that into account if you need to manually lock your computer when going to lunch or whatever.

[grucose]

Damn, Tumblr back at it. Now we got coders coming in to save the day.

[barin-mclegg]

Tumblr’s collective hate for capitalism is astounding every time but damn if I don’t love it

[simonalkenmayer]

For all my call center readers.

[turtlesandfrogs]

Queuing this for January too.

[deadcatwithaflamethrower]

Black Friday does not exist.

Controversial shitboxing time: Black Friday isn’t real.

Well, okay. It exists. It’s a real name affixed to a real date on a real shitshow of a calendar system used by Western civilization. (I’m using the term civilization loosely here.)

But: I’ve been watching. I am a paranoid shopper, mostly because I hate shopping, so I’m not going to spend my money on something unless I know I’m getting a deal. This means I price-watch, even on things I’m not currently in the market to buy. The only market I don’t do this on the regular for is cars, because we already know the prices are inflated. That’s what haggling is for. (Always. Play. Hardball. Be willing to walk away. If you need financing, get it before you go to the dealership. You want to be in control, not them.)

Anyway.

Black Friday isn’t fucking real and hasn’t been for at least the last five years. This week in particular has been fun: I’ve been watching them advertise sales for their early Black Friday specials, and the prices that are the “sale” price are the same or higher than they were the week before, or the month before. Hell, one year I think pretty much everyone and their neighbor’s dog raised prices prior to the sale and then lowered them back down to normal in the name of Black Friday. In fact, I think that was the first year I really noticed the trend.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There USED to be Black Friday sales. Legitimate ones. I worked in those fucking stores, so I knew those prices, and I knew if they’d been legitimately dropped or not for Black Friday. Toystore and retail, your primary Black Friday offenders–I walked those trenches, my dudes. I saw true Black Friday prices for items whose prices had been lowered just for that day.

This year, I have seen exactly ONE Black Friday deal where the price was legitimately lowered $100 below its normal going price.

Just. One.

None of the others. They have claimed price drops…except these price drops? Yeah, the items in question were already that price. Nothing changed except the advertising. I’ve been looking for BF deals, too–you never know when you might see something that other people are in desperate need of, y’know?

Y’all, there ain’t shit except a one-day sale on a pair of Apple earbuds that are still hella overpriced. Just let it go. Maybe if we all refuse to fucking participate, they’ll either bring legitimate BF deals back, or ditch the idea entirely. It’s stupid and it’s gotten people killed and encouraging greed is a sin in like a lot of religions, so maybe we can step back a little.

This isn’t to say don’t buy shit. I mean, the way our society is set up, some of this is shit we actually need. But don’t be fooled by the bullshit. Shop around. Price-watch. Don’t leap for the fancy bold print, because just like the cake, it’s probably a lie.

Anyway. Stay home on Friday. You’re not missing anything this year. If you see an honest-to-fuck Black Friday deal, buy the damned thing online at 3am and then go the fuck to sleep.

[stand-up-gifs]

Lol John Deere executives think they can break the worker’s strike by having Terry from HR build an engine. 

[bartfargo]

Anyone else have the “Shake Hands With Danger” song playing in their heads?

[stand-up-gifs]

For those unaware of this masterpierce, it’s from a 1980′s industrial safety training video, and it’s main character is named ‘Three Finger Joe.’

[heatherleee]

I’m just imagining some farmer trying to fix his combine in 2023, saying “I don’t know why it won’t work, it’s only 2 years old,” and then they open up the engine and the dusty hand bones of a middle manager fall out. 

[stand-up-gifs]

Things are going great over there!

[stand-up-gifs]

It’s day 1 and salary workers are joking about forming their own union, this is great stuff. 

[thunderboltsortofapenny]

November 3 2021

The strike is still going. After the accident in the factory went viral, Deere is no longer releasing any information on accidents or near misses and cites it as confidential information. One striker was killed on the picket line when a car hit him at an intersection with blown out streetlights that the town, county and state all say was not their problem. He was 56 years old. As of this afternoon, Deere walked away from the table after UAW voted down their second offer. Part of the offer was a $8,500 sign on bonus. Deere is projected to make 5.6-5.8 billion dollars in profit this year. Strikers are getting egged by passing cars. Deere operates on a standard as need supply plan, which means there are effectively no replacement parts for tractors. If a combine goes down, a farmer likely can’t fix it and crops are lost. This will further disrupt food production and distribution as we go into 2022. Deere does this because it’s expensive to house a stockpile of equipment parts.

GoFundMe for Richard Rich memorial fund

GoFundMe for the UAW strikers fund

[what-even-is-thiss]

Every time I think about the entry level job paradox my head feels like it’s gonna explode.

Whenever I think about all the people that didn’t hire me to be a busser because I didn’t have any restaurant experience even though it’s the lowest ranking job in the restaurant I feel a dangerous urge to strangle a hiring manager.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Some internships ask for experience. Internships. You know. The places you’re supposed to get experience? Those things? I wanna eat a door.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Quite frankly I don’t know how anyone gets into any industry. Any of them. Office workers must just spawn like minecraft mobs or something.

[admiral-derbyblossom-deactivate]

That’s capitalism baby!

Let me explain:

I’m a professional animator who actually works in the field. And my uni professors would tell us that there has been a disturbing and terrible shift in the industry in many ways but allow me to explain this one in particular.

So the “experience” thing comes from the death of company training. Back in the day if I wanted to become an animator I’d approach a studio, show them my drawings and say “I want to be an animator will you teach me so I can work for you until I die?” And if my drawings were good enough, and my desire sincear the company would put me into the lowest paying shittiest job they had. Cleaning cells, polishing the cogs of the multi plane camera, organising files, sweeping the damn floor.

And then for maybe an hour or two a day I would get to sit with one of the animators and they would show me a little of what they know. I’d get training much like how I would at University except you know… I’d get paid instead of going into crippling debt.

After about three years of doing the dirty work (you know, the length of an average college course for animation) I’d get that entry level animation position. Usually an in-betweener or a cell painter. And then bing bang boom I’m on my way to working slowly through my career. And this company will want to keep me around because they’ve invested so much into me. I have bargaining power, they don’t want me going to another studio that may pay more because they trained me. So they are more likely to treat me better to incentivise that I stay.

Companies realised this and decided to switch the responsibility of training onto the employee instead of the employer. Because I have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to educate MYSELF instead of the industry educating me. I have to beg, and work for pennies, to get the experience I need to have actual value in the intustry. And because the companies have no incentive to treat me well because they have no investment in me; I can be hired and fired as they please. Oh your contract was for eight months? Too bad we blew the budget and my nephew needs another raise, you’re fired. Oh and I can’t complain, complainers get blacklisted and then nobody will hire you.

But I’m an INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR which means I have so much FrEeDoM to do ‘w h a t e v e r’ I like… 🤮

It’s all bullshit. They industry has no entry level positions because they want to choke you, they want to strangle the workforce and make them submit. It’s now your responsibility to suck cock, tearfully beg and lie on your resume just to get an unpaid internship where you’re worked like a donkey and don’t you dare complain about it.

And the most insulting lie is “oh we have more college educated kids than ever using that wonderful?” NO! NO ITS NOT!!

There were less colleague grads back in the day because not every field NEEDS a college education to be performed!! Doctors and lawyers duh, but software programmers, artists, film students, animators, fashion designers, photographers ect. All used to get their training from the companies that hired them. Even more technical fields like stock brokers, bankers, miners, mechanics, ect. Didn’t have Colleges educations they just learnt on the job.

This system was not perfect or 100% ethical but fuck it was better than the anarcho-capitalist hell scape we currently occupy.

[popsunner]

Things that happened at work today that makes me sure I’m living a goddamn fever dream (keep in mind I live in a religious and conservative town, and this is a thrift store)

Lady asked where we keep our valuable items and when I pointed at the glass shelves of assorted Xbox 1’s and old Apple watches she got mad because she thought we would have “discounted Gucci”

Coworker came out today and changed their name and my manager tried to page them to the front by their dead name, paused for two seconds, said “cancel [deadname]” and then called them up by their actual name. All seven gay employees including me cried so she panicked and bought us cookies from the vending machine

A guy legit proposed to his girlfriend in the store and my manager gave them half off the wedding dress they bought ten minutes later.

A guy came in absolutely zooted, asked if our floor supervisor was Bob Ross (tbf, Albert does kinda look like Bob Ross), cried over a little cow statue, and left

The coworker who came out asked the only cishet guy who works here to welcome them to the skater boys. He went over the store wide speaker and said “Sodern is a part of the skater boys. Everyone clap” it was followed by a good twenty seconds of confused clapping from customers.

Some guy told me I have “exotic eyes” (they’re blue), and I, apparently too tired to remember what customer service is or think about what I was saying, responded “thanks it’s the incest”

Someone called the fire department because they saw someone vaping. The fire department was very nice and all bought matching t-shirts on their way out.

Our speaker is apparently connected to Bluetooth.

All Star by Smash Mouth started playing at 8pm and looped on repeat for an hour.

[wolframandhart]

“Why don’t Americans travel?” We can’t. 😑

[wolframandhart]

I think on top of raising the minimum wage this needs to be a focus of ours as well. We’re overworked, miserable, exhausted. Everyone is jealous when you decide not to do overtime (if you’re even allowed to refuse). Everyone is jealous when you are out two weeks because you caught COVID and are trying to recover. Everyone is jealous if you get 8 weeks off to recover from surgery. “How was your vacation” people will say and I can always hear the bitterness in their voice. Americans are so broken that a ton of us straight up wish to be hurt or sick just to get a few weeks off lol. 1 in 4 Americans don’t get any PTO. The rest get on avg 2 weeks total. We are suffering, my dudes.

[smile-and-dial]

Pushy rude customers fucking suck and I wish you a very can't find what you're looking for

[smile-and-dial]

[smile-and-dial]

Pushy rude customers fucking suck and I wish you a very can't find what you're looking for

[guerrillatech]

[saint-batrick]

it's a trap. if someone in the states on unemployment puts in an application and doesn't come to the interview, or if they come to the interview but refuse the job offer, that gets reported to unemployment and that person can lose their unemployment benefits. then, with no income, they are suddenly desperate for wendy's job offer. it's sick.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

They’re also filtering for people poor and desperate enough that a free breakfast sandwich is a big deal. Ie, people desperate enough to easily exploit.

[anarchapella]

Please fucking lie to your employer. Like they don’t need to know your mental health issues or what drugs you do. Ffs

[thecolorsfucked]

its not lying if its to employers or cops

and look up ur rights on what they can and cannot ask u many places ban asking about ur record and transportation status and things like that resources will also tell u how they reword sketchy questions so ur prepared

[mixingpumpkins]

Hey. Take it from a former HR person… this goes double right now. I just spent some time putting in some job applications myself (not for HR, lol) and got about 15 interviews. And idk if it’s because of COVID uncertainty or if places just don’t fucking care anymore because they know people are desperate for work, but the amount of straight up illegal shit my interviewers asked me was appalling. (That’s not even counting the questions that were technically legal but clearly fishing for information they’re not legally allowed to ask.)

A tame example? Two questions into a phone interview, the guy on the other end of the line asked: “How old are you?” I said “Excuse me?” - giving him a chance to rethink that. He didn’t. “How old are you?” “Sir, you are not allowed to ask me that question.” “Well, I want to know. I’m asking.” “And you’re legally not allowed to ask me that. I’m not required to tell you my age.” At that point, I guess he managed to remember an old HR bulletin or something (I hope to god he wasn’t actually HR himself), and he said, “Well, I need to know if you’re over the age of 18.” (Which is what he should have asked in the first place… or not, since that was in the application that he could have read.) “Yes. I’m over the age of 18.”  And we moved on. Two questions later, he tried another illegal question. I called him on it again and ended the interview, citing that a workplace with such a clear disregard for the law, especially upon first contact with a potential employee, was not going to be a good fit. (They offered me the job anyway, lol. I didn’t send a thank-you or a response.)

At a different interview, the majority of questions were “fishing” questions - just looking for that info they’re not actually allowed to ask. (This person was also either not really HR or an HR person who was exceptionally bad at their job.)

I could tell they were getting frustrated when I dodged answering the personal stuff, and they actually got extremely upset when I mentioned later in the interview (re: less relevant work experience) I had worked in HR. They were super flustered for the remainder of our time, and I watched them skip over questions on their sheet they had clearly planned on asking. They KNEW they were being sketchy and were counting on me not knowing anything about HR - or my rights - and so they got upset when I did. These were super tame examples. I’m begging you, if you’re job searching right now, PLEASE know your rights. Please know what interviewers are allowed to ask. Please don’t volunteer information or elaborate more than you’re required to about personal things. Save your words (and everyone’s time) by elaborating why you’re good for the position/what you can do. I may create a resource list on this shit later but PLEASE PLEASE KNOW THIS STUFF BEFORE YOU TALK TO AN EMPLOYER. This goes for anywhere you’re interviewing as well as your current employer. This also goes for HR. HR may be the person you go to when shitty stuff happens, but that doesn’t mean they’re your friend (or competent). They don’t need to know your age (beyond 16+, 18+, or 21+, depending on the job). They don’t need to know your medical history. (For the love of god, do NOT answer the “have you been diagnosed with depression?” question.) They don’t need to know if you have kids or whatever. They don’t need to know a LOT of those things that may appear on an application, including your veteran status, whether you’re on/have been on unemployment, etc. They’re not entitled to know specifics about your transportation (unless you’re using that transportation for the job, like Uber/delivery drivers). Look this up for your state/the job’s state. Beware questions like “What year did you graduate?” if you’re like me and don’t put dates on your resume (I just put amount of time spent at employers, not dates of employment). They’re fishing for your age. It’s “Oh, you know, 100 years ago,” if you feel comfortable making a joke, or “About [generic number, like 5 or 10] years ago” if not. Also beware things like the “What do you do in your free time?” question, even if you already work there. This is not a friendly getting-to-know-you question. This is a basis for judgement. Not up to an invisible standard? They’re going to be biased against you for pay raises, promotions, etc. Mention kids/lots of family/social engagements? That’s a tick against you for not being the kind of person who lives to work (yes, it’s gross and stupid). Mention lots of solitary things? Cool, that’s their mental note to ask more from you because you’re “not doing anything anyway.” By all means, be friendly with your coworkers/talk about shared interests if you want, but it is none of your boss’s business, and be aware what could get back to them.  Don’t. Tell. Employers. Shit.

[awed-frog]

not all heroes wear capes

[smile-and-dial]

I can't even recount every single absolute fucko I've had to talk to today

I am very tired