#sam works

[copperbadge]

Someone has been attempting to fax* something to my work telephone for the past three days, with escalating frequency. This happens every so often; either someone's giving out my number as their fax number, or possibly some company somewhere has a list of "frequently faxed numbers" by the fax machine and mine is on there instead of the correct one. Usually I get like, three calls in a day, then they figure it out and it doesn't happen again for a couple of months.

* A fax machine, kids, is what we would use to send documents before email. You feed the paper copy into the machine, and it scans it and sends it to another machine in the other person's office, which prints out a copy. Why anyone sends faxes anymore is a mystery because they are less reliable than email and less info-secure than your average wet paper bag but hotels and doctors' offices really fuckin' love them a fax.

This person is clearly either stubborn or stupid. Could be both! But letting it go to voicemail repeatedly didn't work, answering and yelling "If you can hear me this is not a fax machine!" didn't work (sometimes it does -- some combined phone-fax machines, if they call you, they broadcast any audible response to whoever is nearby), and calling them didn't work because *gestures* all I have is their fax number.

I might also be stupid because it took me a while to realized I can fax them.

Hello! Please be advised that the phone number [my work number] is not a fax machine. It is my work telephone number. You have been faxing an incorrect number. I cannot receive faxes at this number. If you are aware of anyone who is giving this number out as their fax number, you would be doing me a favor if you let them know! Thank you and good luck in your faxing endeavors.

I'm especially proud of that last line. I hope it helps to convey that while I am very much in earnest in wanting them to STOP FAXING ME, I am also amused at the situation and want them to succeed.

[samatheia229]

Spirit Weapons AU

Soul Eater meets Miraculous Ladybug meets TMNT.

Summary:

In an alternate reality where the Resistance fails very early on, the other leaders decide to seal the turtles' souls in their weapons and send them back in time to guide their younger selves. However, in her haste, Renet severely miscalculates.

In another world, when Hamato Yoshi escapes following the battle between him and Oroku Saki, he takes with him a photo of his family and four soul-possessed mystic weapons that have been passed down the clan for generations.

==

Takes place in S1 EP1 of TMNT 12, this AU is a What-If scenario in which the Rise turtles' souls are bounded to their weapons and sent across space and time, resulting in the 2012 turtles having both mystic abilities and four new chaotic mentors that happen to be older alternate versions of themselves from an apocalyptic future.

Longer Description Below

An AU where the Resistance fails very early on and Future Rise souls are transferred into their weapons in hopes of guiding their past selves to prevent the apocalypse. Instead of Mikey, the Rise version of Renet sends them back in time but miscalculates, sending them to Feudal Japan of the 2012 universe.

The weapons are enchanted to respond to only the turtles' souls (but unbeknownst to anyone, any version of the turtles), and so their souls and mystic abilities have remained dormant for generations. The weapons end up in the hands of a man whose descendant would later found the ninja clan Hamato, and the weapons became priceless heirlooms passed down the family from generation to generation.

Following the battle with Oroku Saki, Hamato Yoshi escapes with a photo of his family and the set of weapons that are considered the pride of the Hamato Clan. Several years later, a mutated Splinter allows his teenage sons to wield the weapons as a test of worth before he lets them go to the surface. He expects his sons to prove themselves as Hamato ninjas, not a multi-coloured light show, the bursts of powerful magic and the reveal that his clan's heirlooms have hosted the souls of his sons from another universe.

[copperbadge]

You know, it's not unheard of to have to document financial fraud, political malfeasance, or acts of violence in the research biographies I write; sometimes rich people do get into trouble and sometimes you only uncover that trouble when you dig a little.

That said, at my current employer, it's not very frequent. I think this is the first time in at least six years I've had to include reports of an attempted murder while looking up someone's net worth. And it's definitely the first time I've ever written "survived being shot in the face" in a philanthropic research document.

Nice to know that after fifteen years in the field I'm still finding new career experiences.

[copperbadge]

You know, ten years ago I might have looked at what working remotely has done to my daily routine and said it's really fucked me, but this morning I was thinking about it and I think I'm much closer to my natural inclinations than I could have been before.

I woke up around 2am today (after going to bed at 8ish), ate half a hamburger, and made a batch of meringues. I'd planned to make meringues and macaroons this morning before making haroset for the Passover dinner I'm going to, and meringues basically look after themselves -- after 90 minutes in a 200F oven they'll be fine if they stay in the cooling oven a bit, and my oven has a timed-shutoff function, so if I go back to sleep it'll be okay. And now the mixing bowl has time to dry after being washed before I make macaroons.

So you know, yes I'm up at 2am eating breakfast and doing tasks, but I ate breakfast because I was hungry and I got something checked off my to-do list. I got six hours of sleep and could get a few more if I want. ADHD has a known association with sleep dysfunction but usually that means "night owl"; I had to be different so for me that manifests as being an extreme morning person. Ordinarily that would be more of a hindrance than you think, except now nobody is seeing my schedule on the daily.

There's no real problem with being up for the day at 2am if you don't have to pretend to be alert and productive from 8 to 4:30 later that same day. I get more done at work because I can square it all away early and then just babysit email the rest of the day. If you don't have to commute, you don't have to avoid the hell of being 15 hours awake while on the bus home - for perspective, if you normally get up at 7 like a normal person, my 5pm is your 10pm.

When breakfast is at 3am, lunch comes around 10:30 -- which is good if you're supposed to take a dose of meds at 1pm on an empty stomach. I no longer have to take my lunch break all in a chunk either; I can eat lunch at a leisurely pace and still only take 20 minutes, and use the rest of my break time to cook or clean in short increments, or just spend a few minutes playing with the cats.

And my ability to stick to a schedule is better, because I have to enforce it myself...but I also can. No need to mess with alarms I'll likely ignore if I can set my work lamp to turn itself off when it's lunch time. If I have to get up to turn it back on, I might as well fix lunch, after all. No need to worry about finishing early and not being able to go home -- I can just walk away and keep email alerts going on my phone until official quitting time.

If I had to go back to in person office work, I could; I knew how to cope before. But I have to admit I'd be really bitter about it.

[copperbadge]

Still got that hot last-job trauma.

My boss: got a second to chat?

Me: Sure! *Panicking* oh fuck I'm fired for missing that email last week after taking two sick days in a row.

My boss: so I thought of this cool new project, can you facilitate this? It seemed up your street.

Me: Holy shit that's a great idea. Can do.

My boss: *unaware of my mental health or lack thereof* I thought you'd like that. Go kill it.

Me: *faintly panicked look at my coworker*

My coworker: Yeah no, it's cool, I still freak out too.

[copperbadge]

My job, most of the time, is wrangling spreadsheets and studying real estate prices. I like it, but it's not like I'm a racecar driver or a marine biologist or something.

That said, every so often I'll be looking up a donor to find out what's going on with them, why they gave, who they are, etc. and I'll just...find a millionaire. Just floatin' around in our database givin' us $50. Always gives me a little jolt of adrenaline.

This guy I found today owns a $5M home on the grounds of a golf course he ALSO owns. And he's coming to one of our fundraising events like a normal human.

I wonder which sandwich he'll ask for from the lunch tent.

[copperbadge]

Important context 1: I like my boss a lot, but he has an extremely dry sense of humor, and he believes in his heart that I am normal enough to understand when he's being funny. Usually I am, but he does not comprehend that I am also at all times a roiling sea of anxiety masked by extreme competence and Adderall.

Important context 2: At this job I have only ever had positive performance reviews. I set my own goals and as long as I hit them he makes vague encouraging noises and leaves me alone. For the past three years my performance reviews have been a 15 minute video call where he tells me how much of a raise I'm getting.

Boss: Hey, can I book your performance review for tomorrow?

Me: Sure, I'm open, book for whenever.

Boss: Gotcha. We need about three hours, you think?

Me, internally: I know he's joking I know he's joking I know he's joking but what if he's not what if I'm being fired what if he found out I write romance novels on company time

Me, externally: Oh, I think we should just book out the whole day.

Him: Oh, good idea!

And then he sent me a 15-minute meeting request and I was able to start breathing again.

[copperbadge]

what do you do for work thats so crazy 😭

I'm a research analyst specializing in philanthropy -- functionally, it's my job to find rich people that my organization can ask for money. It involves a lot of different smaller tasks like data analysis, predictive modeling, biographical research, sometimes helping my fundraisers to write appeals or work out strategies for how to approach donors. Right now it's our busy season and the bulk of my work involves looking at event attendees to see who our volunteers should be aware of, and who my fundraisers should approach if they happen to see them at the event.

It's really stimulating work, and it's kind of niche so I was REALLY struggling with how to transfer those skills to the private sector. I know people who have left this niche to do PR, consulting, even private investigative work; some go into "opposition research" which is basically working as intelligence analysts for political campaigns. I was looking a lot at data analysis for food companies -- Mondelez, McDonalds, even King Arthur Baking -- but I didn't get many bites.

I'm happy at my company and I like my job, I was just...worried about the future and sad that the nonprofit sector has such depressed wages compared to the private sector. So this raise was insanely well-timed, and while I'll never get rich I'll be a LOT more comfortable for at least the next few years.