Putting an employee on probation

Context:
I am 25. I grew up in a family who owned and operated pizzerias in NY. I had started working on the register when I was 13 and started summer jobs as a Bussehost when I was 14. The restaurants I worked FOH were 4star high end (worked for 3). I have also always had a serious passion for cooking. When I was 18 I moved out of my home and began working for a dairy farm, then transitioned to a smoothie/salad/vegan gluten free oriented places (19-21). I was a manager making specials like gf desserts, ready to eat salads, and also worked on their equivalent of a “line”. It was not refined whatsoever, clean, simple food. Did that for 2 years. Then quit during Covid after having tremendous stress, after helping reorient the entire business to be more grocery focused as we had a store front with organic, superfood tonics, meats, plant based stuff, etc. I had issues with the kitchen manager as she treated me differently than the other staff. I immediately applied for a junior sous position at a restaurant that was upscale dining, and after a trial day they were willing to train me on garde manger. I worked their and trained under two very capable chefs who were willing to teach me everything. One 36m another 29m who was actually head chef. I moved my way up to hotline after a yr and a half and was enjoying the job, environment, coworkers, and we would do about 200 covers a night in the summer. I carried on with the company for another year even after my head chef gave a months notice and took a much better more cdc job for a larger more high end company. I took on more responsibilities and and finally decided I had reached my ceiling of learning from that restaurant and I wanted to move overseas to broaden my skillset and resume but felt like I picked the wrong country/restaurants as the food was not on par even with the smoothie salad place I started at. I moved home a year later (2024) and was offered by my now cdc chef, same one who trained me and really vouched for me. I executed a 7 course tasting for the first time ever, dishes ranging from quiche, to pork chop, sole(which I had never cooked before), chicken pot pie, croquettes, salad, basque cheesecake, I made my own stock even, and I had a day of prep and the following day to plate. I landed the job over 4 other people. It was for a “family oriented” but upscale bistro as it was on main street in a very affluent town in NY. We have investors, had a full reno as the spot had been a local favorite for 30 years a recently sold. We lost a lot of time we were supposed to be in the kitchen and the prospective opening day was for May 3rd. It got pushed back to the 10th, friends and family 7th and 8th, training of staff was 5th and 6th, while simultaneously doing recipe testing with chefs that had been brought in from other existing locations. Unbeknownst to my cdc, the investor, and restaurant owner, they hired a head chef from nyc that made good food, but could not complete 95% of tasks that were crucial to opening a restaurant, onboarding employees, understanding the kind of volume our town does in summer, actually cooking volume, properly executing recipes, having any recipes of his own that weren’t fresh off google, said he spoke Spanish and then couldn’t communicate to our staff which were all Hispanic spare 1 line cook I hired and use to work with at my first job, the wastage was off the charts, he couldn’t do inventory properly, and spent half of the time speaking constantly and ignoring everyone thinking he’s “working hard”. I took it upon myself to try and execute recipes I had 3 days to learn, make stocks, train employees and learn how to schedule, organize a kitchen from the top down, clean kitchen after a full Reno, and my cdc and the business owner kept assuring me it was not my fault that things were going sideways and that the head chef was completely incompetent and they were actively looking for a replacement. I couldn’t keep up with the prep as hard as I tried, the walk in was a disaster. Felt like every time I organized it my head chef would receive an order and do things like put raw chicken on top of produce. I found cheeses on shelves and raw ground beef in dry storage left out overnight bc of him. He would just constantly talk and talk and talk about everything and nothing, call me in the off hours to talk about a tart mold that he wanted to make in house for 2 hours. Mention things I could do to loose weight, and it was just constant stimulation leading up to the actual opening and during. All the while he would delegate every single one of the the more complex recipe tasks to our untrained employees (sauce work, chopping herbs for garnish, cutting salmon, tuna for line and for Tartares) and I felt obligated to try and pick up as much of his slack. And if I’m being realistic, I as much as the owner and former cdc who hired me believed in me, I still had a lot of refinement to do in my skillset. I have very shakey hands by nature so my knife skills leave a lot to be desired. Also I can’t just bang out a beurre blanc or mornay without thinking about it. I still have to watch and follow a recipe a few time to get the hang of it even though I understand the principles well. I anticipated a balance between my head chef and I and direction. And the worst part is, he would agree to certain tasks and I was the only one trying to organize our flow of prep, made a detailed prep list because his made absolutely no sense, and we would split tasks, I’d execute mine, and he would spend 4 hours chopping mushrooms and par cooking them even though the pick up was raw as per the owner and cdc. It was absolutely maddening. I started having break downs everyday after work NEVER on site; even when to a psychiatrist in between one of our friends and family days to get the non narcotic equivalent of Xanax. I ended up walking out yesterday (13th). More like called and said I wasn’t coming back after my first day off in a week of straight 14 hour days constantly trying to pick up the pieces my head left behind. I have never walked out a job. But now after all of this, I am questioning whether I will ever be able to have a management position in the kitchen. Asking myself, did I progress too quickly? Am I just not capable? Have I completely exhausted myself in the kitchen? Also, I am sober spare nicotene which I consume like an absolute fiend right now. Any insight is appreciated. Please feel free to ask for more context as this is quite the ramble. Also have photos for reference of the food I’ve cooked over the years .

I’ve been a bagel snob ever since I moved into the city about 7 years ago. I’ve tried all the places from the icons like essa-bagel to all the hype like pop up bagels.
I’m a regular at Bagels and Schmear, and even go out of my way to get there sometimes. Today I wanted something different and trusting the employees there I told them to pick my breakfast. They put together an absolute monster of a sandwich for me.
Everything bagel, scallion cream cheese, lox, capers, onions/tomato…then they dropped a bacon egg and cheese on top of it. They said it was what the owner usually eats when he makes himself lunch.
I won’t ever order anything else. I told them they should add it to the menu it’d be pretty popular. It was absolutely GOD TIER!!

(sorry this is long, I just started and couldn’t stop)
I'm a 57F professional working as a Contracts Specialist for a large Tech Company. I discovered I have total Aphantasia about 2 months ago. I hate saying it that way, I "have" Aphantasia. It sounds like a disease or something. Still working on a way to word that when I share this with people who have never heard of it.
I have spent the months doing as much reading and self-searching as possible. I immediately felt relief when I discovered what Aphantasia is and have never had the feeling that I am missing out by not seeing the images, but I can sure understand why some would feel that way. For me it was the answer to questions I have been asking myself all my life. I just found out "I'm not crazy" AND "I'm not alone". I've never posted anything like this before, but when I joined, reading things like this from others when they first find out they are an Aphant was very helpful.
Some things I have thought about since learning this about myself.
Psychology Profession and Memory Loss - I have known I have a bad memory since I was a kid, I never understood why I couldn't remember things until someone "triggered" the memory. Once triggered, I can remember things fairly well. As many young adults, I had some issues adjusting to college life and chose to seek help with a professional. This was my first experience with being told I must be repressing a traumatic experience from my childhood. We spent many months/years and many tears trying to determine what that could be. Now I should add I was abused as a child and had remembered and dealt with that. My parents ended up shipping me off to my Grandparents to get away from her influence. But answer me this, if I remembered it and dealt with it and no longer had negative consequences from it, why didn’t my memory get better? Over the years I have seen a couple other therapists that wanted to concentrate on repressed memories because of my memory. I went along for a while but finally became convinced that there were no other memories to find. But that profession took a lot of my money, time and emotional wellbeing - yet nothing was ever discovered. I doubted people in my life that I never should have. Now I believe Aphantasia should be a part of all professional training for mental health wellness. I'm old, so maybe it is now??
Fake Memories - After experiencing this kind of high pressure "therapy" I can totally understand how people create fake memories. So many thoughts and details were provided during these sessions, I could have easily started to "make" things up and that leads to believing it happened in that environment. As a woman, I am always looking to please people, I tried to please my therapists. Aphantasia or not, false memories are not as hard to plant as you might think especially when that person is trying to make you happy.
Being Present - This has been a big thing the last few years. People pushing for you to be present in your life. Professionals have also mentioned that my memory issues may be due to the fact that I have never "been present" in my life. It took a few sessions to understand what the hell they meant and then spent much time trying to "be present" and I the only thing I determined is that I have always "been present" as best I can! I stopped going to therapists after this one.
Objects & Memories - I now understand why I have been holding on to things that most people would have let go of by now. For instance I have a large stuffed animal collection and have always told my husband I could not get rid of any of them as each one is a trigger for a good memory. I am afraid if I get rid of it, that memory will be lost forever. If the memory really does go away, then I can get rid of that object. If there is no memory trigger, it's pretty easy to let go. Same with taking photos, I have a better understanding of why I always had my camera out. Without a picture, did it really happen? Not in my memory!
Deep Connections - Aphantasia may be a factor in my perception as to why I cannot make deep connections with people. Because my brain does not pepper me with visions and thoughts of loved ones, I don't think about other people very often. I don't know what people mean when they say "I miss you". I truly am an OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND lifer. When I have expressed to others that I feel that way, I have been told they feel a deep connection and don't know what I would mean by deeper. Now I believe since I don't think about others often, I've just convinced myself over the years that my feelings must not be deep. If it were deep, wouldn’t I be on their minds like I am on theirs? I am starting to understand things a bit differently now, I love and care DEEPLY for the people in my life, I'm just not triggered to remember them.
Learning/Training - I have always had issues with classroom learning. I have trouble concentrating on what is being presented unless there is some kind of hands-on activity associated with the training. I recently moved to a new position at work, I used to be a corporate trainer. To start my new position there was a large learning curve. I found when someone one told me something about the job I needed to see it or even better perform the task myself. That is not always available in training situations. It has taken a while to get up to speed in this position and I was doing a great job of beating myself up about not catching on quickly. I must be getting old, I thought. I was usually frustrated as a trainer when I had to train people my age, they just didn't seem to "get it" when others did. Well here's my payback, now I have to learn and I'm the one not "getting it". I do really wish I had known about Aphantasia/Hypophantasia/Hyperphantasia while I was a trainer. I think about all the improvements I could make on the material if I knew how the student's memory worked. I never really used much visual assistance, other than performing the task in front of them, and now I think that would have been helpful for "normal" memory types. The good thing about my memory is that once I understand WHY something is done, I've got it, it's in the vault. I actually do better than most others once that lightbulb goes off. Sometimes it just takes a while to really have that understanding. I am very detail oriented and technical; I can pick up computer operating systems quickly, they make sense.
Face/People Recognition - I have a hard time identifying characters in a movie, especially if they are wearing similar clothing or haricuts. I even have difficulty remembering my waitperson after talking to them directly. I usually remember if they were Female or Male, but not always. If I need something from them, I am awful at locating my wait person. I usually end up asking some random employee. Once I am familiar with the person, I will recognize them, but there has to be some kind of connection made. This has proven to cause quite a bit of embarrassment when I run into someone I have met and have zero recollection of who they are or where I met them. Unfortunately, this has happened more than a handful of times. It makes the other person feel bad and that's the last thing I want to do.
Another thing I noticed that I believe fits in this section, is how people can imitate others. I now understand how they can do that; they actually have a mental image of that person doing something. They can see them moving, hear them talking and then interpret that to an imitation. That was one of the many lightbulbs that went off in my head while researching Aphantasia. I mean how does someone tell a sketch artist what someone looked like after a crime? Not only face blindness but adrenaline flowing as well. But some people can remember down to the angle of their eyes and shape of the mouth. That has always been such a mystery to me, how can people do that? Now I understand, they actually SEE the face.
Processing Information - One thing I have been wondering is if Aphantasia has anything to do with how fast my brain processes information on the regular. I have been called a fast thinker when I come to a conclusion quickly and process what is in front of me quicker than others. I notice this when playing games, learning and putting things together during a conversation. I have the ability to see the big picture which allows me to put things in place and make decisions quickly. It drives me crazy when it takes my mom 5 mins to make a move in a game. I can understand that a bit better now, so learning this about myself has also helped me understand others. Others have all kinds of images they are needing to process to decide. And after sharing my findings with my family I have determined that my mom is a Hyperphantasic. Her memory is amazing, she remembers everything from her childhood from 4yrs on. I've always been jealous of that kind of memory.
I even understand how Chess works and what they mean by look ahead 5 moves.
Psychedelics - In the Aphantasia community, I have FINALLY found kindred spirits when it comes to experimenting with certain drugs. Aspirin, Antihistamines, pain killers and other prescribed drugs work just fine. But when I have taken any illicit psychedelics, nothing happens. The first time I noticed I was not as affected as others was in college. I just figured everyone else was really exaggerating and I wasn't interested in trying again. But I have since tried experimenting again with my husband who has gotten into Microdosing. We thought it would be interesting to take a recreational dose. He had an awesome time with lots of visuals and motion. For me, nothing. I could make the grass or a picture on the wall get "movement" but nothing like what he was experiencing. Decided to try again, this time with my sister and husband. I took a double dose this time just to make sure I would feel something. Nope, nothing. I have tried up to 10g at a time with nothing (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME, DONE BY A PROFESSIONAL). I have never heard of anyone else having this kind of experience until I joined this group. There have been several people indicate they have similar experiences including one who even called out that they don't feel anything more than a minor wavey feeling.
Now I think it is probably for the same reason we don't have a "minds eye". Some synapses somewhere are not sparking normally. I do believe for some Aphants, this does actually lead to some visual or other sensory experiences they have not had before. But for some of us, we don't have the ability to "Trip". This is probably the only thing I have found that I don't like about Aphantasia. I have been able to put a positive spin on most of what I have found, but I do wish I could experience that feeling others have while taking a "Trip".
Where do you see yourself in 10 years? – This is a question that I have had to answer many times in my career, it is one of the favorite questions asked during an interview. I’ve never been good at answering that question. Others would provide great details on where they see themselves going, but I have never had the ability to look that far ahead. I don’t see myself anywhere specifically, I tend to follow the opportunities that come my way.
In conclusion (yes finally almost done) I've gone 57 years telling myself I can improve my memory, "I'll remember that if I really think hard" but I never do. Or I try to make sure I am "Present" so I can remember, nope, doesn’t help either. Now that I have an answer that explains my brain is acting differently than most people, I don't kid myself anymore. I'm just not going to remember and that's OK, that's how my brain works and part of who I am. There is nothing I can do about it, no more wasted time working on my memory!!
I can honestly say I am grateful to learn about this memory process and for the ability to move on from difficult situations. There are many more things I could get into, but that would be an even bigger book. My sister can get stuck on something that is difficult for her to get past, the images of bad things “haunt” her. For me, as soon as the actual event is over, it may take a few days depending on the severity, it is buried and does not "pop in" and bring me back. If only I had known this when I was younger, I can only imagine what I could have accomplished! I imagine my self-doubt/hate could have been less with this information as well as the therapist bills that could have been saved. This is such important knowledge, I am so happy to see research being done!! I only hope the information continues to spread so more people are aware. I don’t know if all the things above are in direct relation to Aphantasia, but my eyes have been open to these differences.

I don’t even know where to start this. I’m at my wit’s end. My husband and I married in November 2017, and separated October 2020. We had a child together in 2016. I would be here all day telling the story (I’m happy to if prompted), but in a nutshell, there was a lot of narcissistic abuse involved and I eventually got to the point that I was so depressed I actively wanted to unalive myself every day and tried to, once (obviously unsuccessfully).
At the time which we separated, we were living two hours away from our hometown so that I could attend a college that I ultimately had to drop out of once we separated because I could not afford to stay there on my own. We could barely afford to live there together. That doesn’t mean much, we could barely afford to live at our hometown either because there was financial abuse involved within that narcissistic abuse that I mentioned before. Upon separation, we both moved back to our hometown, separately. We genuinely went our separate ways with only communication regarding our son, 95% of the time. We even quickly went about finding new partners. There was a lot of aggression on his end after separating and I have hundreds of screenshots of verbal abuse from him in the months following. Neither one of us could afford lawyers, so we were trying to navigate fair custody of our child ourselves to the best of our abilities. For the most part, we did well to split that evenly with some rough patches here and there, usually involving pick up and drop off. Again, because neither one of us could afford a lawyer, this also hindered us actually getting a divorce. Neither one of us really knew how to go about getting a divorce without lawyers involved (and I still don’t) and I think most of his lack of trying was from laziness, and expecting me to do everything in that regard (exactly as the rest of our marriage was).
Worth noting at this point, we were both living in the state of Georgia, not far from the Alabama state line. I eventually (October 2021) found a job in property management across the state line over in Alabama, and was given the opportunity to move to the property for which I worked, with my then partner and his child from a previous marriage. I took this opportunity, which put me about 45 minutes away from my hometown, but still managed to get our son to and from school for the remainder of the school year and we continued to split custody of him evenly throughout the school year and the following summer. At this time I attempted to find a lawyer to start up the divorce process but was told that I have to wait six months of living in the new state before I could do anything, as well as a price tag that was outrageously out of my means. That being said, I didn’t pursue that option.
When the new school year (2022-2023) started, and I enrolled our son into a school in my new state, his father agreed, and we were in a mutual understanding about custody at that point. The understanding being, that on any weekends and school breaks that he wished to spend time with our son, I would happily drive him to 45 minutes over to our hometown for them to spend time together and handle all of the transportation. Since I made the decision to move away, he just had to let me know when he wanted to arrange the visits. These arrangements never happened. The only instances in which he reached out were Father’s Day, Christmas, and Thanksgiving. And chose to only spend an hour to two hours with our son at a time on each of these days. In the past, I did not ask for financial assistance since we split time evenly, however now, since it wasn’t split evenly, he did agree that it would be fair for him to pay some amount of financial assistance in the way of child support. As you can imagine, that also never happened.
In November 2022, I decided that I was not happy with my job choice, and that I wanted to go back to the college that I was at prior to our separation. I waited for my son to finish out his school year, separated from my partner, and moved back to Georgia and found a job and a house that I could afford on my own. I have a new partner (medium distance, he lives in the hometown) now that treats me and my son very good, I make just enough to barely get by if I’m smart with my money and make sacrifices, and I am the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m a full-time college student in a very demanding major (natural resources management with a focus in wildlife management), and a full-time employee working as many hours as I possibly can at a local assisted-living facility. All while being a single mom to the sweetest elementary school aged boy you’ll ever meet. (I know I mentioned having a partner and then turned around and said single mom— my partner and I live two hours apart from each other and I do not ask him for any financial assistance with anything regarding my bills, and we split expenses when we do get to spend time with each other. “Single mom” doesn’t mean “single person”)
All of this to say, since the summer of 2022 ended, my son’s father has seen him a combined total of less than 24 hours. Holidays only. Not even for his birthday, he only got a phone call on the past two birthdays. I have paid for school breakfasts and lunches, summer care programs, afterschool care programs, all of the finances that come with being a parent completely alone since then. He has paid me all of $50, on two occasions for a total of $100, in that time. I haven’t tried the child support office because I am told by his family members that he is constantly getting a new job, and then getting fired from it, he barely pays his extremely low rent already (the house is owned by a family member of his), and there’s no point in waiting to see if it gets taken out of his taxes because he owes on his taxes every year. Truthfully it’s not even about the money, I’m doing just fine paying for our sons expenses, I’m just brokenhearted for him that he doesn’t understand why his father doesn’t want anything to do with him.
The reason I broke down today, is from finding out that he up and moved away from our hometown in the middle of the night to God knows where in Virginia. Apparently with—- HIS FIANCÉ. I just found out they were engaged. I don’t care, I’m happy for them. However, we are still married and around two years ago, we had a conversation over the phone that involved him crying and begging me not to tell her that we weren’t actually divorced yet because he had told her that we /were/ divorced. I have no idea if anything changed in that time, but I don’t even know anything except her first name to even be able to reach out to tell her otherwise? I’m hesitant to reach out anyway because his mother helps me out occasionally and we have a great relationship and I don’t want to put a strain on that. She is disappointed that her son abandoned his son, however, she still has love in her heart for her son.
Now that he has moved, and I have no idea where, just the state, how do I get a divorce? What do I do? Why are lawyers so expensive, I don’t know what to do???

Back in 2020 I had to have a full hysterectomy due to endometriosis completely destroying my uterus, I had a fairly severe case and unfortunately there were complications leading to much longer recovery time and stronger medications. My husband took FMLA from work and was SUPPOSED to be taking care of me and our children while I recovered. Well I was sleeping in the other room and my husband had just put our 2 kids down for a nap when he decided to go get taco bell for himself and for me and left the house. I woke up extremely disoriented and apparently took more pain medication than I was supposed to and overdosed. I thought for whatever reason that I needed to go to work so I got dressed and left the house and since I didn’t see my children sleeping in their rooms I left them unattended. I was found passed out at the wheel a block away and my oldest had unlocked the door and both children age 3 and 1 were playing in the front yard by a neighbor who called the police. I was arrested when they found me for DUI and child endangerment and my husband got home just as they were about to call DCF to take the kids. I’ve never been so humiliated in my entire life. I went to court and had to take parenting classes and had the charges dropped to 2 misdemeanors for aiding in the delinquency of a minor and served a year of probation and was told after completion my record would be expunged. At this time I separated and planned on divorcing my husband. It took 2 years of counseling and living apart to come to a place where we could work on moving forward and we’ve been doing well the last 2 years until today. My daughter is a Girl Scout I was a Girl Scout and it was my dream to one day be a Girl Scout leader for her troop. Well I filled out the paperwork and have been an active volunteer the last year when I get a bomb dropped that not only am I not going to be a leader I am now no longer allowed to be a volunteer either. I can’t go to camp outs or trips or events and I am completely devastated. I don’t know how they found out about it when I was cleared as a volunteer a year ago and my record is supposed to be expunged. I knew since I was pregnant with a girl that I wanted this and now my dream is dead. All of the anger and the humiliation and resentment has come flooding back and all of the progress we’ve made feels like it’s evaporated in an instant and now I don’t want to even look at him anymore. I’m thinking of packing my bags and leaving with the kids before he gets home from work. I really thought we could move past this but now I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to forgive him.

Hello all,
I am currently in a contract role as an analytical scientist at a major biopharm company. The company has been experiencing cut backs and layoff of full time employees. The company is now in a hiring freeze and only bringing in more contractors. There's so many different rumors floating around about what will happen next. It sucks because idk if my retainment will still be upheld. My experience has been working on the bench (scientist that work in the lab) and some guided managerial work; as far as my career goals, I would like to move from the bench and into quality/compliance (office-based) role within the pharm industry with options of a hybrid schedule.
Fast forward to this week, I've been contacted for a 6-month contract role with, as they put it in the job description, a high likelihood of an extension or possible hire as a full time employee for the client company. This job will get me off the bench plus it's a quality/compliance role and the schedule is hybrid. All signs are pointing to go forward at least with the interview process to get more info.
I am a bit nervous to leave my current role (which i am not sure if I will have another 6 months of employment due to so much downsizing and other changes occurring). I just signed a 12 month lease so that has me worried the most among other things depending on income. I do have some savings but not to last another 6 months but I think I will be able to survive with
Any advice on what I should do?

Despite experts reassuring employers that 2024 will be the year of the "Great Stay", new data from LinkedIn and Microsoft reveals that their predictions might have been overly optimistic.
In a survey of 31,000 people across 31 countries, the two tech giants have found that 46% of people want to quit their job this year - in 2021, it was 40% 📈
According to their report, US-based companies are in for a particularly bumpy ride this year, as it shows that 85% of professionals in the US are on the lookout for a new role.
But can we really blame them? 🤷
Already battling with the cost of living crisis, workers are also falling victim to mass redundancies, return-to-office (RTO) mandates, and wage stagnation. Meanwhile, corporations are celebrating record profits.With so many employees feeling overworked, underpaid, undervalued, and unsupported, it's no wonder they're jumping ship 🚢
A study by the Policy Institute at King's College London, 61% of British people no longer believe that hard work brings a better life. And bosses know they need to do better. The report by LinkedIn and Microsoft also revealed that nine out of ten organisations globally are concerned about employee retention, and half of hiring managers in Europe predict an increase in employee turnover in 2024.
Given these figures, we can't help but wonder, what's it going to take for employers to change their ways? 🤔
If they won't put their people first now, then when? And by that time, will it be too late? 👀

At work I have my huge Outlook Add-in going since 2016 and it keeps expanding. Recent additions include using A.I. for a number of tasks - and I'll show two here.
1. TextTransformer
TextTransformer
As employees at my company correspond in a number of languages I decided to make it easier. So I made what I call my TextTransformer to make translations very simple.
Basically it started as an easy way to mark text in an email and translate it using Google Translate, DeepL or ChatGPT (really it's currently OpenAI's model gpt-4o).
But since the GPT can do so much more than translate I added a Prompt section where the user can add any prompts they like and have the GPT produce a result. Prompts are ofc saved and can be used again and again.
So now anyone at my company can easily write anything in any language and have it translated/refrased/whatever. And when they are satisfied they can copy the result or have it put directly back in the email they are composing.
2. Analysing Account Statements
Result of Statement check
Accounting team receives a lot of statement from foreign vendors/agents with lists of invoices that they have issued. Team must then check them all to see if all invoices are recorded.
Every vendoagent use different methods of sending statement. Some statements are attached pdfs, some are Excel files, some are embedded in the email body. Invoice number can be anything from 5-digit to 25-lettedigit sequences. Traditionally it's relatively challenging and time consuming to reading/extracting the invoice numbers and checking that all are on record.
...but it's not hard not anymore. Yesterday I decided to make a Sub that extracts all text from the email and the attachments while also opening the attachments. I then make some preprocessing to remove sensitive and/or unnecessary data from the extracted text before asking the GPT to try to identify all invoice numbers in the text. The invoices numbers are then matched against the Accounting system (using SQL) and the result presented to the user.
So now a user can just get an email, press a button, the attachment(s) open up and the result of the match is also shown. User can very quickly verify if the invoices mentioned in the email or on the statement matches the invoices found on record. Any discrepancies are also shown. Todays tests show remarkable precision and a statement from any vendoagent could be checked in less than 15 seconds.
Coding is Fun Again! (just kidding, it always was)

I’m aware someone told me I should quit or attempt to fix it. Right now I’m taking a work survey on my experience at my job. Might do that after I use the rest of my vacation.
Now for the question that has free typing says, “If you could say anything to the leadership of Super One about your experience as an employee, what would you want them to know?”
Should I put this, make changes, or what?
I have typed up currently, “First 8 months at the other store was amazing. Here is horrible but SLOWLY improving.
I am also expecting a pay raise OR reimbursement for the extra work I did that wasn’t my job from night shift not doing their small portion of cleaning. Reimbursement is probably the best option since you wouldn’t have to pay me my pay plus Minnesota minimum wage on top of that. Failure to reimburse will require me to take further action.
Those things are, cleaning the icer(they’ve kept up with that recently), putting their sugar bowls, glaze screens, and grease pan back onto the glazer before they leave, as well as their grease floor cardboard and leaving dishwasher full of clean dishes. Been happening since April 2023 and hasn’t been fixed yet. (Bakery)”
Thanks in advance.

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard once wrote about the effects of private telematics on the living subject (preferably metropolitan or suburban, like the majority of this sub and myself), and I've always found his account acutely prescient,

"today one's private living is conceived of as a receiving and operating area, as a monitoring screen endowed with telematic power, that is to say, with the capacity to regulate everything by remote control. Including the work process, within the prospects of telematic work performed at home, as well as consumption, play, social relations, leisure. One could conceive of simulating leisure or vacation simulations in the same way that flight is simulated for pilots [...] We know that the simple presence of a television transforms our habitat into a kind of archaic, closed-off cell, into a vestige of human relations whose survival is highly questionable."

Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstacy of Communication, 1987:88, pp. 17-8
As the sub is aware, the sharp decline in office occupancy in our downtown finds its immediate cause in the severity of the pandemic. I believe, however, that what is underemphasized in this reorientation is the total reconsideration of the logic of business communications that's happened. In an article about the history of office buildings, published by Morgan Lovell (a British firm specializing in interior office design), there is an idea of the administrative necessity of physical centralization. The article uses historical examples to undergird this point,

"Organisations such as the Royal Navy and East India Company were established to further Britain’s interests overseas. A central base of operations needed to be built to manage their incredibly varied tasks and organisation. East India House was built in 1729 on Leadenhall Street in the City of London as the HQ from which the East India Company administered its Indian interests. Thousands of employees were based in the building to process the necessary paperwork [...] Like the Roman politicians, The East India Company understood the necessity for centralised administration, and the efficiency this brought to what was essentially a process of making and distributing vast amounts of money. In this way, many non-political organisations followed suit – such as Sir John Soane’s Four Percent Office in the Bank of England, erected in 1793."

While centralized organization seems to remain essential for modern business, this centralization is growing less dependent (through contemporary technics) on a final site in three dimensional space, whose utility has always been founded on its ability to concentrate resources and information. Urbanists will (and probably already have) descend on the post-pandemic office landscapes of D.C. to articulate the rational blunder of such a monofunctional zoning schema, and why shouldn't they? Now is the most opportune time for advocating new zoning possibilities. It ought be maintained, however, that considering this downtown contraction to simply be the result of bad zoning, is incomplete. This development is only possible through the timely innovations of communications technology, which have engendered a change in what private telematics are good for.
Simply put, the local economy in this section of town was still too predicated on the necessity of the physical presence of labor-power, for work to ensue. For a long time, the purpose of communications tech was to close interpersonal gaps, lessening relational latencies between various 'nodes' in an organizational network. A filmic example of this would probably be something like Demon lover (don't watch this with children), where you have this mobile business class who use telematics and telephonics to compensate for the fact that their physical presence is not instantaneous; a phone call to Tokyo is followed up by a business trip, &c. Furthermore, they return back to their offices, and still conceive of their itinerary as beginning and ending in the office. Personal interface was still superior, mediated interface ameliorative. This state/conception of technology still works in confluence with a "presentist" mindset that values a physical center, hence the relatively high pre-pandemic occupancy, even with more complex informing networks.
The burgeoning logic constitutive of the continued lacking occupancy is one where telematics and telephonics no longer compensate for interpersonal latencies, but totally supplant a classic conception of presence, forcing a logical reconsideration of the utility of forced travel and physical convention. Perhaps, in the vein of Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco, telematics offers us something BETTER than the the real of classical presence, that being the variable hyperreal of omnipresence, of being here, there, and everywhere else by way of "remote control." One of Baudrillard's great themes is the demand of capital surpassing the limits of the real, and the terrestrial real of geography becomes, as Baudrillard would later write, a "vast, useless body." In summary, what has happened in D.C. since the pandemic is precisely another instance of a larger movement in media relations, which is the making-superfluous of physical spaces, redrawing new lines of relation for business and the social reproduction of the worker.

I just joined this sub trying to find more information about my eczema. I have had these patches of dry skin which turn to fissure and open wounds on my feet (majority of it on my right foot) for over a year now. My heels were especially bad when it started. I got deep fissures that would bleed and hurt more as they healed. Over time the cracks have reduced but have moved to the side of my foot. It heals and then gets worse and heals again, but it never goes away. Currently I am dealing with this and some new cracks have appeared right under my foot, on the arch. Current situation on my right foot
I spend most of my time just hobbling around and it is really difficult because I started a new job in January, teaching art in a primary school. It has started to affect my posture and most days I am just sucking it up and going on with my life. Most of my colleagues have cushy lives and a larger paycheck. They can afford better care and have help at home. I am still waiting for an approval from the ministry to become an official employee, so for now I don't get any benefits, just a monthly paycheck. I live with my folks in a household of 5 and most days I get home and have to pick up the load of cleaning and cooking. My feet are always extremely sore and they are completely tight and rigid when I wake up in the morning. I work hard at my job and I need the paycheck to save for a masters and also pay the bill at home, but I wish either my condition went away or I had some more time to let my feet rest and recuperate.
Over the course of this year that I have been dealing with this issue I had to hear so much crap about "not taking care of myself" from friends and family. I have always had dry skin, but after I crossed 25 my skin got drier. I also live in the middle East so it is extremely dry and hot throughout the year. I just brushed it off for the first few months as a bad case of dry skin but the fissures got bad enough to make me start thinking about getting treatment. I have low tolerance for heat and I hate applying weird creams to my feet. The fact that I am actually dealing with a real condition was accepted only after I got a diagnosis. Even then the random comments and unhelpful advice doesn't stop. I have tried vaseline and glycerine and cerave. They help to a extent but my skin just gets soft and cracks even more. The doctor's prescription didn't help much and I want to try to take low to no-medication way out of this.
I now wear closed shoes because it is difficult for me to stand for hours this these open wounds, but I completely loathe wearing them. I have always been an open footwear person unless the outfit or occasion needed it. I didn't know how much this really affects me emotionally until I started writing this post. After looking at the other posts about eczema on feet I finally feel like I am not the only person going through this and I don't have to be ashamed because it isn't my fault.
Any advice on managing this in a holistic manner would be much appreciated. I don't use any random creams or soaps, avoid scented items like the plague, my feet don't sweat-just burn like crazy when I put shoes on, socks make me want to kill myself. It's currently peak summer here and the temperatures cross 44°C in the day. Sorry for the long post and scary photos. Thank you for reading ❤️

This is a hard question for me to put into words.
My mother died in July of last year with dementia, survived by her two children (5 grandchildren), her husband, and two stepchildren (her husband's children). She had been married to her husband for 15 years, both my brother and I were adults when they met and married. They lived in Oregon, my family lives in California, my brother's family in Washington. When my mom and I talked about her end of life planning, she told me that they had an agreement that eventually their shared wealth would be split among their four collective children. My stepfather approached my brother and me separately a few weeks prior to my mom's death to ask if it would be okay if he would explicitly disinherit his son, include a larger share for his daughter, and add his assistant at work and his elderly siblings as beneficiaries. No mention of amounts during this conversation, though he did ask me not to mention it to my mom, he didn't want to worry her in her final days. Both my brother and I said, "Of course, thanks for filling us in." He wasn't sure when he would get it finalized with a lawyer.
It turns out that my mom and her husband had a joint will naming each other as the inheritor of their shared estate when one of them died.
A few weeks after my mom died, my stepfather had a medical scare and he was worried that his son would have a claim against his estate if he didn't have something in writing. He texted me a copy of a handwritten will dividing his entire estate between his siblings, his daughter, and his assistant, with a provision leaving $5 to his son as a sweet FU. My brother and I were not mentioned in this will, even to account for my mom's items, like family furniture, jewelry, photos. This is not at all what I was expecting, and I asked to talk with him about it. He refused, saying there was nothing to talk about, the people he named needed the money and my brother and I didn't. My stepfather and I stopped talking, though he did occasionally send me things he thought I should keep, especially photos of my mom's family.
I was furious that he refused to hear me out, and that he was so obviously going against what my mom would have wanted. She doted on her grandchildren (and on her kids) and wanted to do anything to support them and their growth. That my stepfather did such a 180 from her values with no regard for our feelings in the wake of her death... I'm still furious about it.
This April, my stepfather committed suicide, shortly after the death of his daughter. His will divides his estate between his daughter, his assistant (who was named executor), and his siblings. There is a small gift ($5k) to each of my mom's 5 grandchildren. The estate is estimated to be worth about $1M, and that includes all of my mom's possessions. She had some beautiful stained and blown glass collections, family heirlooms of furniture, art and jewelry, and loads of items that don't have any significant monetary value but lots of sentimental value as I grew up with them in my home. Probate will be a mess because his daughter's death leaves her two young children in a custodial gray area.
I've talked with the executor and she outlined a process where everything in the house would be liquidated, and the proceeds divided to the beneficiaries. If there was anything of sentimental value that I would like to keep I could buy it from the estate before auction. I've talked about it with my family, and I won't be buying anything from the estate. My family can't afford the expense at this point in time (3 kids all eying college) and the items themselves would be charged with all these bad memories and anger. I've asked if I could come up to the house to photograph her collections and tag anything that may be easier to just give to me than sell for pennies on the dollar. I'm getting run around from her on scheduling something because she would have to be on site at the house while I went through things.
I don't particularly want to engage in this legal mess, but I do want to know. Would I have a claim on his estate? I'm curious about financial benefits and property. It just seems so unfair. She trusted him and would never have approved of her husband leaving out her family like this.
Thank you for your time and your thoughts.

We have an employee who appears to be manufacturing a WRC case or has some agenda to disrupt the business.
They were hired as a manager at the higher level of the pay scale as they said they had experience managing. During their first week they were immediately raising concerns about pretty much every aspect of the job and when they were informed they could carry out their task in anyway they seen fit, given they had several years experience, they said no I want you to train me as if it’s my first day ever working. They had been trained in our standard procedures.
Since then they file formal complaints constantly and when they’re investigated they appear to be spurious and simple a way to avoid working. That keep stressing it’s so hard to work without constant support and they don’t have enough time to carry out any tasks. We understand they even filed a complaint with the regulatory body, this was reported to us by another staff member, that we know is spurious and malicious.
We have had two performance reviews with them and they on both occasions they would engage in conversation for over an hour after the review. They appear to use the constant reporting of concerns as a way to avoid work.
What is the best way to handle an employee of this nature? We’re naturally concerned that they are constantly filling formal complaints to pursue a WRC claim or in some way damage the business.
Thanks 🙏🏼

Obviously, I'll be vague about the more sensitive or identifiable details, but here is a rundown of what has happened.
Recently moved back from overseas and looking for employment. This is in England.
Nov '23 - Interviewed for a role. I was told I was the last person to be interviewed on the way out, but an interviewer corrected that as an Executive was wondering whether to approach someone else about the role. A couple of days later I was told that I wasn't successful, but that they're putting me forward for another role that I might be suitable for.
Dec '23 - Meeting about the other role. It sounded great, and it was strongly suggested that I was the only candidate for the role. I got positive feedback and was told by the person in Talent (let's call them TK) that there needed to be a meeting to confirm the specifics of the role. This got pushed back a few times and I was told that it was definitely going ahead in the new year. As I had been living with family whilst I found my feet, I asked for a firm assurance that it would as I needed to move for the role, and my living arrangements were increasingly unstable and I'd need to move to a different city. I got firm assurance, and so my girlfriend and I moved into a flat closeby with a year's lease.
Jan - Feb '24 - The meeting kept being pushed back, or was vague. TK didn't keep me up to date and wouldn't always reply to texts/emails within a reasonable time. I got repeated assurance that the job was going ahead shortly. I was eventually told the job description had been finalised and I was sent a copy to review. I read it and said I was happy to move forward. I was emailed a conditional offer of employment document that was referred to as a contract. The conditions were;

1. Evidence I am eligible to work in the UK
2. Successful medical
3. Satisfactory references
4. Evidence of qualifications
5. Security clearances (incl overseas checks for the 2 countries I'd lived in outside of UK)
6. Successful 12 week probation
7. Agreement that employer can deduct any liabilities from salary
8. Acceptance of T&Cs in job offer letter

I signed the document and returned it. The week afterwards, I attended my medical and provided my ID documents for the checks to be carried out. The week after that, TK called to say that a new Executive had decided to take a different strategic direction and that the team I would be a part of had been pulled. For this reason, my job offer was withdrawn. I asked about the contract that I'd signed and TK said that they'd check. They called back the next day to explain that my overseas checks hadn't come back yet so they didn't owe me anything.
March - May '24 - I wanted to see if my checks would eventually come back, as that would satisfy another of the 8 conditions. My UK and one of the overseas ones came back clear, but the second overseas one was cancelled by the employer. I had independently had one carried out in this process and that came back clear, so I know I wouldn't have failed it. Following ACAS rules, I had already informally raised my concern over the phone, and so a formal grievance was the next step. The job offer had been withdrawn, but there had been no conversation around the document that was referred to as a contract, not even verbally. In that document, there are two sentences next to each other that are a little unclear:

Your notice period to \employer* will be 3 months from either side.*
\employer* will give you 1 month's notice for the first 4 years of employment and an additional 1 week for each additional full year of service up to a maximum of 12.*

These are right next to each other, but seem to contradict. I've also never seen the phrase "from either side" before.
In my grievance, I explained the negative effect this has had on my financial stability and mental health, and pointed out the notice period above. I also mentioned that I was now locked into living in an unfamiliar city, and that my future job search was now very limited to the area. I didn't ask for a specific outcome, just that I'd like to start a constructive dialogue and that I'd like to see their grievance policy. They've replied and reinforced their position that they don't contractually owe me anything as I didn't satisfy condition 6 - the probation. They also said that they'd offer 4 weeks' wages as an ex gratia. I haven't replied, as I'd like to properly understand my options.
Questions

1. How do you interpret the notice period?
2. Can a company withdraw a job offer and a contract without honouring a notice period for the reasons they've given (change of strategic direction / haven't completed probation). I haven't been given a chance to complete the probation and so it's not like I've underperformed or been frequently absent.
3. Is there a difference between a job offer and a contract, and do both have to be formally withdrawn?
4. Am I right in saying that because they haven't followed the ACAS Code of Practice for Grievances?
5. Do you think I have a case that is worth pursuing in ACAS' Early Conciliation / Tribunal?
6. Is there anything else I've missed?

Thanks so much, this has been a huge headache over the last 6 months.

I joined a new company in January as a manager, with a 4-month probationary period.
From my perspective, the assessment is very negative: no integration, promises made in writing by HR not kept, high expectations when it's the first time I've had this type of job,... people from all over the world warning me in the same way 'it's going to be horrible, the money you earned coming here you're going to spend on your therapist, if you survive this you can survive anything...'. In fact, I have 3 positions...
So I did my best but without sacrificing my personal life either. I could have done more by working late into the evening, but I thought it wasn't worth it. Historically, I've always done it and it's never brought me anything.
Anyway, today my supervisor calls me in and tells me that my probationary period is being renewed, that for him I'm still in the process of taking on my role. He has set me goals to achieve by the end of my probationary period, saying 'I want this to be a success'.
Given the toxic nature of the company, I consider all possible scenarios, such as they found someone to replace me and are keeping me on probation to fire me more quickly when he arrives. Or we renew all probationary periods like this to put pressure on people to work more. And then, if in a few years we want to fire them, we have an extra argument 'he's not up to the job, look, even his probationary period wasn't validated the first time, we renewed it.' I'm not in the US and here it's hard to fire someone.
Anyway, it's the first time my probationary period has been renewed instead of being validated directly and I'm not sure what to think. What do you think is happening?
Does the company have anything to gain by keeping its employees on probation for as long as possible?"

I (38 F) have been married to my husband (41 M) for 7 years, this coming June and together for 9 years. We have two kids, twin boys, that are 5 months old. I'm going to give a long backstory so stay with me or scroll to the bottom for the TL;DR.
2 weeks before Mother's Day, I found out my husband had been cheating on me for at least 7 months. I used his phone to use the Lowe's app to order lawn chairs since it's tied to our Lowe's card and I wanted to use our rewards. While I was looking for the particular set I want, he received a Snapchat notification from a woman. I didn't even know he had Snapchat so it peaked my interest. During this time, my husband was mowing the grass.
I open the snap and it's a nude of a woman looking to be in her mid-20s with the caption "I miss you being inside of me". My jaw hit the floor. I started going through his text messages and there were no conversations there with other women except employees from his practice (he is a dermatologist) that were harmless.
I started looking through his Snapchat and I guess he deletes everything because there were no chats between him and this woman. I am not familiar with Snapchat so I Google how to use it while I'm trying to figure out if I can retrieve deleted messages. I don't want to spend all the time I have left of him mowing reading through articles so I give up. I do go through his friend's list and end up coming back to it to take a picture of with my phone.
I look through the rest of the apps on his phone and they all seem benign except this secure folder. I open it and there's a passcode. I try three or four until I figure it out (the date of our first date, ironically) and it opens. There are dozens of nude photos of at least 3 women, including the woman from Snapchat. I know it's the woman from Snapchat because she has a very distinct tattoo on her stomach. Not only are there nudes but there are 2 videos of this same woman giving him oral.
My heart felt like it was trying to come out of my chest. I started shaking and tears started flowing. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down and then grabbed my phone and started taking pictures of the evidence. I even recorded clips of the videos, I just couldn't watch them in their entirety.
I look through all the apps again and realize that maybe he has some hidden. So, I google hidden apps on android and follow the instructions. Three apps were hidden. Two messaging apps and a hook-up app called Adult friend finder. I debated even opening them because I was so scared of what I would find. But I ended up viewing them because knowing is better than not knowing for me.
He had been messaging at least 4 different women, including the video girl. He had sex with at least two of them that I found proof of. All messages made me sick but the video girl's messages were the worst and completely shattered my heart. I had to stop to go throw up because of the stress and anxiety.
Some messages that hurt me the most were: Her: "Tell me how much better my p***y is than your wife's." Him: "Wetter, tighter and infinitely better."
Her: *sends nude* "How does my body compare to your wife's?" Him: "There is no comparison baby, you are a goddess."
There were so many others but those two come to mind as the ones that made me feel the absolute worst. Remember, I just had twins 5 months ago. I am very insecure due to all of the changes that happened to my body and my c-section scar. I am also 25 pounds heavier than I was pre-pregnancy. My husband and I stopped having sex because it was so uncomfortable for me about 2 months before I gave birth, around the same time he started messaging these women coincidentally. We've only had sex about three times since they were born due to my insecurity issues and just being so exhausted caring for and breastfeeding twins every day. I also have a business and work from home around the twins' schedules so I can stay at home with them.
I take photos of everything, using my phone again like before. The earliest messages were sent 7 months ago so I know it had been going on for at least 7 months, while I was freaking pregnant with our twins. Oh, I also found out that the night after I had a c-section and while our newborn preemie twins were in the NICU, he met with video girl for a hook-up at her apartment. He told me he was going to get food and check on his office. With our twins being preemies, anything could have happened and he wouldn't have been there because he was with her. But, that wasn't a thought for him I guess.
I close out all the apps, make sure the hidden ones are hidden from his home screen and put his phone back exactly where I found it. I also make sure the snap notification was gone. I was nervous that he would find out about the snap that was opened but he didn't.
I call my best friend of over 33 years who is also my business partner. I tell him everything and have a good cry to let it all out. He helps me to collect myself and gives me some sound advice. He tells me to not tell my husband I found anything yet and to speak with a divorce lawyer as soon as possible. He said to meet with the best ones in my area so that they couldn't represent my husband. He offers me and the twins a place to stay at his home if I need time away from my husband, assuring me that his husband would love to have me there.
Over the next week, my BFF helps me take care of the twins while meet with 5 different divorce lawyers and end up hiring, in my opinion, the best. She tells me not to leave the family home so I end up not going to stay with my BFF. She starts the divorce paperwork immediately. During this time, I am doing my best to continue on like nothing is wrong. I want to make sure all of my ducks are in a row before he realizes what I know.
Fast-forward to Mother's Day. My husband makes me breakfast in bed, gives me very expensive jewelry, flowers, the works. I can't enjoy it, of course, because it feels so fake now that I know what he's been up to. I pretend to love it though.
My husband's father planned a cook out that afternoon for my husband's mother, sister (let's call her Julie), sister-in-law (let's call her Fran) and me. We all have infants under a year old so it's everyone's first Mother's day, except my MIL's of course. I told my husband that I didn't feel like going and he guilt-tripped me by saying that my FIL had a big surprise for me and he's been really looking forward giving it to me. So, I reluctantly agree. I ask if my BFF can come since his mother sadly passed away just under a year ago. He calls his dad and my FIL replies that of course he can come. My BFF agreed to come to offer me support since he knew it would be very difficult for me to be there.
I plan to act like nothing's wrong and try to enjoy the day since it's my first Mother's Day after all. I tell myself that I will focus on the twins and get cuddles from my two nieces. Julie has an 8 month old daughter and Fran (husband's brother's wife) has a 10 month old daughter. I'm also the closest to Julie out of all his family since we became friends 10 years ago and she's the one who introduced me to my husband.
We get there and everything is fine. My husband is helping his dad, brother (let's call him Chris), BIL (let's call him Roger) cook on the grill. My MIL and the women are taking turns holding the babies. My BFF took over the kitchen, finishing up all of the sides so the moms could relax. It started out to be a really good day. I kept myself from thinking of my husband's betrayal for the most part and focused on the family.
After we eat my MIL starts taking pictures of the family. I'm sitting on the couch and she tells my husband to sit beside me for the photo. He does and then she tells him to put his arm around me and jokingly says "pretend like you love her" and I lose it. I start to uncontrollably sob.
My MIL pulls me up and hugs me and my FIL comes over and joins in the hug. My BFF comes to stand right next to me. My FIL asks me what was wrong. I look at my BFF and he gives me a "tell if you want" look.
I tell them that I found out my husband has been cheating on me for at least 7 months. Julie gasps and everyone stares at my husband. He stands up and says "that's not true at all, why would you think that? You know you and the boys are my whole world." Everyone is silent, looking at me. I tell them all that I found messages, pictures, the hook-up app and even videos on his phone. My husband looks faint and sits back down. Nobody says anything for at least 2 minutes.
Finally, Julie asks my husband, while crying herself, why? My husband tells her that "I made a mistake, I only talked to the women, I never physically cheated." My BFF quickly replies, "Liar!" Julie then asks me what all I found. I tell them everything, the nudes, the videos of my husband receiving oral, the messages and even tell them what those horrible messages said about me. He continues to deny it! I pull up a few message photos and show them to Julie, my MIL and FIL. My husband tries to gaslight me by saying that he admitted to talking to other women but he never slept with any of them. I really don't want to show them the video but I do find a few messages where my husband and a woman talked about their previous sexual encounters. My husband again says that he admitted to talking to them but never really cheated. He literally says "if the message talks about sex it was just role playing."
Roger (Julie's husband) goes over to my husband and jerks his phone out of his hand. My husband tries to get it back but Roger is 6'7 and my husband is 6'1 so he just holds it up where my husband can't reach. He asks me what his passcode is and I tell him. He then asks me where to find things and as I start to tell him my husband grabs his phone back.
At this point my MIL, Julie and Fran are all crying. Chris starts getting upset with me. He tells me this was not the time nor place to bring this all up and that I ruined Julie and Fran's first Mother's Day. Julie speaks up and says no, my husband is the one who ruined it. Chris starts yelling and saying that our personal business needs to stay private and that I had no right to bring it up to his family and ruin the only first mother's day the women will get. Fran agrees with him and tells me I'm definitely in the wrong for bringing it up, if it even is true.
At this point both of my twins start crying. I am not going to breastfeed them there and I want to get out of that house as quick as possible. I ask my BFF to take me home and we transfer the car seats from my husband's vehicle into his. My MIL follows me outside and says that Chris was right, I should have kept it all to myself and that now future Mother's Days will be a reminder of this fiasco for everyone. I just ignore her and put the twins in the car. My husband comes outside and asks if we can please talk. I tell him no, get in the car and my BFF, the twins and I leave. I end up feeling horrible and guilty that I let it all out to everyone.
My husband didn't come home and ended up staying at his parents house and has been there the past two nights. He got my FIL to come over Sunday evening and pick up clothes, toiletries, work stuff and various other items. While he was here I asked him, did I ruin Mother's Day? He tells me no that my husband did. He said that he asked me what was wrong and I was honest. He said he understood now why the "pretend like you love her" comment caused me to breakdown. I asked him about my MIL, Chris and Fran since I know Julie and Roger aren't mad at me. He said that they are still angry with me but they will eventually get over it.
TL;DR - I found out my husband had been cheating on me for at least 7 months with multiple women, starting while I was pregnant with our twins and continuing after I gave birth. I didn't tell him I knew for 2 weeks. At a Mother's Day cookout that his family hosted for his mother, me, his sister and sister-in-law, his mother made a comment that made me break down. I ended up telling everyone about the infidelity. His brother, SIL, and mother told me I ruined his sister and SIL's first Mother's Day. and that I shouldn't have said anything about the affairs.
Am I the AH?

Hey All, quick rant
I work as an HR rep at a company privately owned by a very wealthy old-money family. I was hired upwards from within the company where I worked for a while in a smaller role, and went to school and got myself qualified for a real HR job. I started literally at the bottom of the ladder doing hands-on manufacturing and made my way up. Everyone else in my HR department is either a niece/nephew or family friend of the ownership, and they all went to Ivy-league schools, which they tout bags and hats and mugs from every day. I think I was only hired for my current role because someone else quit with no notice and they were in a pinch, and they thought that the fact that I'd done the hard jobs myself and had existing relationships with the employees on the manufacturing floor would lend some legitimacy to the department, which has historically been considered out of touch and "white-glove". Recently I interviewed an applicant for a machine operation job, and she was clearly drunk. I went through the motions and conducted the interview professionally, waited a few days, and sent her a standard email letting her know that she had not been selected for the position. This is the same email I always use, and the template was actually given to me by a peer in my department. She was upset and somehow got one of my superiors' emails and told them that I was discriminating against her for being a single mom. Ownership is very cautious with the company's image and was very upset, they made the situation a much bigger deal than it needed to be and stressed about it for days. The thing that really bothered me though, is that I was entering an office to drop off some paperwork and overheard one of the owners say to a member of upper management, "That's why you don't let guys like HIM handle sensitive things like interviews. Whether he went to school or not, HE's not going to get it like WE get it." And like...Jesus, I don't think I've ever heard someone rich say the quiet part out loud like that before. When I started with the company, I had gauges and face piercings, I always wore short sleeves that exposed my tattoos, my hair was always dyed an unnatural color. You wouldn't even recognize me today. My career is so important to me I completely changed how I present myself. No piercings, long sleeves every day, well-ironed button up with suit pants and dress shoes that I really couldn't afford when I bought them, hair cut neatly and back to it's natural brown. Painstakingly put myself through school at night while I worked full time. But at the end of the day, anything that ever goes wrong, they'll all rally together and throw me under the bus, because I'm not one of 'them'. I'm not quick to anger of sadness but after all my hard work, all the staying late Fridays and fielding calls on the weekend, all the times I've even been out drinking with these guys and thought we were friends, it was a real punch in the gut to hear them so casually refer to me as being fundamentally different from them somehow because of my poor background. There really are two different worlds in their minds, and they don't see us as people the way they see themselves as people.

I’ve posted on here to ease my anxiety, and I finally had my first court date. I immediately got a lawyer due to my BAC being on the border of an enhancement and possibly facing a speeding enforcement.
The police report showed speeding (he claimed 105) but only with pacing, no radar.
Complaint comes up with no enhancements at all!
Came into court, got some fines reduced and walking away with still a lot of fines, 3 month dui program, and 3 years informal probation.
You never know until it’s all said and done. Feeling extremely relieved that I avoided the possibility of 2 month jail time! Thanks for sharing all your stories, and I will never ever put myself in this situation again!
Here comes all extra fees of insurance, fines, and program fees.

I've worked as a waitress for five years and I've regretfully taught myself to never assume people share the same basic knowledge you have and to dumb down anything even if most people already understand what you're talking about.
In other words, if you're ordering a CHEESEburger, you should expect that burger to get CHEESE on it. Or if you order a steak, you're getting beef and not chicken, pork, or fish. Sadly, I've served guests who didn't make these connections and would not only complain, but throw fits and sometimes go as far as asking for a manager. In the end, a perfectly good plate of food ends up in the garbage. Like, dude, what do you mean you didn't expect me to put cheese on your burger? You ordered a cheeseburger. It's in the name!
Then there's situations that are a bit more complicated. For example, my restaurant serves an appetizer called "totchos." In case you weren't aware by the addition of "tot" to the name "nacho," these aren't traditional nachos. They're called that because you're getting loaded tater tots instead of nachos. You'd think people would see that name and either expect to get tater tots or at least ask what they are, but I've served an alarming number of people who will get the dish and realize that they aren't nachos.
"Where are the chips? I thought these were nachos..."
"No sir, they're totchos. That's why there's tater tots."
"Oh, well that's not what I wanted. I want a refund."
And usually, they don't realize this until after taking a bite, which not only means I'm forced to throw the food away, but also that I have to explain to my boss why we have to comp a $20 food order because they didn't question why our menu called nachos "TOTchos" instead. This has actually become a staple for me when training new employees because I absolutely refuse to watch another beautiful order go into the trash. Seriously, these things are super good. What a waste of food.
If I've learned one thing from this job, it would be to never assume. Not just for the server, but the customer too. Humans aren't mind-readers and we're likely to make decisions that lead to mistakes because we assume we know. It's better just to ask questions and confirm things only to look silly or obvious rather than make a mistake based on your own assumptions and deal with the consequences afterwards. It's not like I've gotten into trouble for these things or anything, but man is it annoying at times.

Ok... My OnePlus 8t screen finally went out on me. It was cracked for over a year and a half. Blacked out on me, so I ordered a new phone screen for it. The screen took FOREVER to come in... So, I bought a new phone (Nord).
In the meantime, I took my 8t to a phone repair place. Back glass, battery, and screen, was going to cost me $300. I said "Do It". After 5 days, I get a call from them, and head up to their store. The employee had my shit taped together! He had it stuck in an endless boot-loop, and said he couldn't do anything with it. He put everything together, like it was originally(minus several screws 🙄), and I left with my still broken 8t.
The new screen FINALLY came in... So, I decided to try my hand at it. It's fixed! 🙌 BUT, it doesn't seat correctly. The screen display consists of the translucent display, with a goldish colored backing, that's where all the magic happens. There was a small strip of plastic, that went around the entirety of the phone, so the screen could fit into. The old piece was destroyed by the phone repair guy. My question is... What is this piece called? And where can I get one?

My Grandma recently passed away. Her estate wasn’t complicated and so was set up with NO will and NO trust - everything was set up POD/TOD/Beneficiary. I am the next of kin and have a (Colorado) small claims affidavit entitling me to any assets discovered under $82K.
Two weeks after Grandma’s passing we discovered a local credit union checking + money market account that no one knew existed. A statement was sent to my Aunt (by marriage, since divorced, Uncle passed in 2020) showing the accounts and a ~$2400 ACH transaction from the credit union to an unknown Wells Fargo Mortgage account. No one knew this account existed. There is no TOD/POD/beneficiary. No one had any idea to check this account or that these deductions were coming out.
My grandma had no mortgages. She did bank with Wells Fargo but they confirmed in writing that she has no open accounts and never had any mortgage products. I have also been to the tax assessors office who confirmed Grandma owned no other property or had no other mortgages in the state. My Aunt and I are the last living members of the family. I am legally next of kin but splitting any unassigned assets with Aunt as was Grandmas wish.
From what little I’ve been able to gather (given that I do not have personal representative or executor paperwork), the credit union account once stood at $40K and has been depleted down to $1K since the ACH deductions began in June 2022. Grandma was in an assisted living & memory care facility beginning January 2021.
I have visited both institutions multiple times over the past week. Wells Fargo is opening a case and will assign a case manager today. Theoretically they will then call me to get any info and begin their investigation. I am told they are “working on” stopping the ACH on their end, but my personal banker contact isn’t able to provide a timeline or process for what this looks like. The banker I’ve been working with indicated this may take a year or longer to resolve.
I brought the paperwork from Wells Fargo confirming no accounts/mortgages in Grandma’s name to the credit union today in hopes they can stop the ACH on their end. The next withdrawal will be June 2 if neither institution is able to stop this, putting the credit union account negative and accruing fees as a result. I am unable to dispute transactions from the credit union side and have basically been told that it’s in legal’s hands.
I’ve been told the credit union account must legally be closed within a year of Grandma’s passing and I’m hopeful we can get the funds returned to this account within that timeframe. Otherwise my understanding is that any funds may be provided via check to the “estate” thus requiring expensive and time consuming probate, which we very much hope to avoid.
I know this is a super rare and strange situation, but it is infuriating bouncing from bank to credit union and back and getting no further in the process. What is the likelihood of recouping these funds? Of stopping the ACH? Is there anything else I can or should be doing to get resolution here? Any wisdom would be appreciated.