Images of tummy tuck gone wrong

Hello,
I have recently built a new and also my first PC with my friend, who knows his way around this stuff and has built quite a few PCs. The problem is that I cannot get it to work. When I start it up, everything seems to work, stuff is spinning and there are lights all over the place, but there is nothing on the monitor (meaning that I cannot get into BIOS). Also, there are LED indicators on the motherboard and the orange one is permanently on, which according to the Asus webpage and the instruction manual means, that something is wrong with the RAM.
I have bought a set of 2x16gb g.skill flare x5, which is listed as AMD expo, though it should not matter afaik. I have since then returned the set and bought another one, G.skill 6000MHz CL36 Trident Z5, which is XMP and is also listed on the QVL as compatible with the motherboard (=officially supported). However, no change. Orange light still on, display still off.
Any help would be immensely appreciated as the PC cost me quite an amount of money and it is from my scholarship, meaning that I have to prove what I have done with the money and non-working PC is not the best image.
I would also like to note that I am a computer science student, and therefore, while I know how this stuff works in theory (but more so assembly, a bit of processor architecture and OS architecture), I am very much a stranger to the technical details and more generally the technologies and implementation in place as I haven't been into PC hardware for quite some time. So please be patient with me.
Below is listed my full build:
Motherboard:
Asus TUF Gaming Z690 Wifi Plus
Processor:
Intel 14th gen core i5-14600KF
Graphics card:
Asus Dual GeForce RTX4070 12GB OC
RAM:
G.SKILL 2x16gb 6000MHz CL36 Trident Z5 (F5-6000J3636F16GX2-TZ5RK)
SSD:
Crucial P5 Plus 2TB Heatsink
Power:
Seasonic Focus GX 850 Gold
And then a box to put it into and a CPU cooler.
Also, don't hesitate to call me stupid if I (or my friend) have overlooked something obvious, but please provide a reasoning as to why :).

Hi, I have a question regarding my application of SD. Lets say I have an Image of 1024x2048, I now want to do Img2Img using SD1.5. Which workflow do you recommend?
I cannot figure out how I can transform the image using e.g. Img2Img + Controlnet pipeline without losing resolution. I have to rescale it to 512x1024 to get ok results, but then the output image is only 512x1024, even upscaling does not work, because the background content is already gone at the smaller resolution.
I also thought about multiple 512x512 infererences on small patches but that did not work out.
Any tipps? Thanks in advance!

So at the climax of Revenge of the Sith, when Anakin has gone all 9/11 and is flailing about in his lifelong misery while taking the galaxy down with him, he and Obi-Wan start arguing about political differences, religious beliefs, and whether it’s morally acceptable to murder hundreds if not thousands of people along the way to get there. Obi-Wan takes the valid stance of it not being cool, and makes it clear he’s going to fuck Anakin’s shit up for all his dark deeds. Anakin is eager for this because as said above, he’s riding high on FUBAR as a state of being and seeks the catharsis/validation of beating someone he can project all his problems onto. Thus, we get the baddest lightsaber duel there is, and you know the rest.
Now a lot of the time, people drag their knuckles about the line “Only a Sith deals in absolutes” and how it’s some kind of indicator of inherent Jedi hypocrisy or dramatic irony or George Lucas being a hack or what-fucking-have-you. I don’t really care because I think it's stupid, as Jocasta Nu illustrates for us here, and it’s not the point I want to make. Instead, I’d like to draw your attention to the line Obi-Wan drops before: “Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic, to democracy!”
Nice delivery by Ewan aside, the meaning of this line is pretty clear: that Obi-Wan, in the face of Anakin flying completely and absolutely batshit off the handle into Divine-Right-of-Kings-For-Those-I-Love, is declaring himself an ally to the Republic and democracy specifically. That he is a very pro-democracy individual and considers it a part of the Republic. Which, cool, because Anakin is totally bugfuck nuts at this point and anything he believes in is probably bugfuck nuts as well so it’s smart to avoid it.
The thing is though, that Obi-Wan is wrong. Actually, he's not just wrong, he's speaking nonsense that is genuinely complete nonsense to hear from a Jedi in the Prequel Era Republic. Because let's recap a few details:
The Jedi Order of the Prequels inducts their initiates as infants or toddlers, with an aged nine Anakin being considered way too old. Now it's their prerogative to take students as they wish (though the thousand years of uniformity unsurprisingly severely backfires), but generally speaking, children under nine are learning things like what's acceptable to put in your mouth and how to read, write, and use the bathroom. The ability to choose "make me a Jedi for life" is genuinely nonexistent for them, so right off the bat, one of the basic democratic cornerstones is also nonexistent for them. It's also not like the Jedi are just Space Catholics/Buddhists: they are explicitly raised and taught to serve the (increasingly corrupt) Republic and its (gradually growing in obscenity until they have to violate their identities as peacekeepers) needs. The actual ability to choose for Jedi is already in the negative double digits.
And for whichever one of you that's breaking their keyboard typing about how Jedi can leave if they want, I'm already aware, thanks for nothing. The thing is that A.) the ability to be able to refuse to participate in something you did not actually sign up for is what I would consider the absolute bare minimum, B.) it doesn't change the part where they don't make the choice to join to begin with, and C.) given how Jedi are taken into the Order usually before they even begin forming concrete memories, we can probably assume that's the reason so few do. When you're raised in that environment for your entire life, the choice to leave is synonymous with abandoning everything you've ever known, which is pretty terrifying.
Moving on: in the Jedi Order, the positions of authority are broken up between the Grand Master (who leads the entire Jedi Order), the Master of the Jedi Order (who is the leaderepresentative officer of the Council), and the Jedi Council. Let's talk about how the buck of leadership is passed around these people, and how there's frighteningly little oversight for the vast majority of the Jedi. Pay attention to the bold words.
The Council is made up of twelve Jedi Masters, including the Grand Master and Master of the Order (this was Yoda and Mace respectively in the PT) who historically are the same person holding both titles. In ROTS, Anakin serves as the senate-appointed representative, an extreme breach of tradition and what sends the Council into dealing with Palpatine's dictatorship (long after the Chad Mace Windu had sobered up to his increasing power and the problems of the war in the EU). While there's no 13th chair made for him, it's never clarified who Anakin was replacing or why there was an open spot at the moment. Though we can probably assume it was due to a wartime event, like the previous Council member being violently executed with a planet full of civilians on the HoloNet by the Separatists as part of their terror campaigns a week ago, it ultimately doesn't matter because this isn't about him.
The twelve seats are split between five lifetime members, four long-term members (and the end to that term is entirely decided on what's the "approved end date", not an actual hard number), and three limited-term members (that limit is not stated). If a lifetime appointment member dies, then it's possible for a long-term member to succeed them or for the Council to choose another Jedi Master at their own discretion, and the long-and-short-term members can be elevated to another position in the Council and have their term extended. The Council, in addition to serving as the liasion between the Jedi and the Senate, are also responsible for deciding when Padawans have progressed to the point of being ready for the Trials to become a Jedi Knight.
(Before I get some wannabe trying to blast me in the comments for using supplementary material to make an argument, take a look at the lineup of the Council in the movies. In the ten year period between TPM and AOTC, there have been only two switches in membership (which in extended material usually involves both being killed), and the three year period after AOTC leading up to ROTS being a war makes it questionable whether term limits became a thing, or Council members just stepped down or got killed off. Not really ideal).
Now notice how, nowhere in the above, is there a "members of the Jedi Order vote for who should be on the Council" option. Even if you want to argue that there should be a qualification factor, like say, holding the rank of Master, that still leaves a large candidate pool open where the actual rank-and-file of the Jedi could decide who they wanted making decisions. We're talking about a group that's supposed to be at least 10,000 members strong at this point, I somehow believe there are enough people willing and capable of leadership given the opportunity. Let alone the idea of immutable, set term limits.
Instead, it's basically just Yoda (also: very telling that the dude who probably only missed a four digit lifespan due to an unholy amount of trauma and misery at the tail end of it is a key decision maker for everything) and a couple of other people (who very well might have similarly lengthy lifetimes on account of being aliens) holding onto power for insanely extended periods of time and selecting who else gets to hold on to power for insanely extended periods of time at the whims of this inner circle. This is obviously a little less than preferable for how leadership should be handled, and that's not even taking into account how the Council seems to be the only real governing body of the Jedi Order.
But let's sidestep how completely anti-democratic the Jedi Order is internally, and focus on its external agency. The Jedi, despite being members of the Republic and a key cornerstone of it as a government institution, are never shown able to participate in the Senate in any meaningful way, shape, or form, such as actually voting for senators to be representatives of any star system. Let me remind you, this is the same senate where megacorporations get to have their own seats, so we aren't exactly talking about a sacred and honorable institution here.
Even if you want to assume the Jedi wouldn't want to influence the elections of systems they technically aren't part of (because of the above-mentioned total removal from their homes and cultures to become Jedi), there's an enormous leap between that and the basic ability to vote for who you'll be taking orders from. Why can't the Jedi have a voice in the government when Space Exxon gets to have their own senator? Even if it's just something as basic as "participate in the vote for who will become Chancellor of the Republic", that would be A.) an enormous leap towards the Jedi Order getting to participate in a democracy, and B.) exercising the absolute bare minimum of power in the system they are part of and help uphold. Maybe if there had been Senatorial Representative Jedi Master Shii-Par Kewwll in the PT, they could have turned the vote against Palpatine in TPM! Or advised Jar Jar against giving Palpatine emergency powers in AOTC! But nah, we can't have the defenders of the Republic decide anything about how it operates, that's too much.
Actually though, scratch that, the Jedi wouldn't actually be participating in a democracy even if there was a Senatorial Representative Jedi Master Shii-Par Kewell. Because according to the Prequels worldbuilding, senators don't even have to actually be selected by the systems they represent. Let's look at Padme's case: She is supposed to represent the Chommel sector of the Republic, a system that holds about thirty-six different planets. You would imagine then, Padme had to be elected by all of them, or some other selective process, to act as their representative, no?
Nope. The only system we are ever informed of regarding the election of senators is that 1/36th of their constituency-in this case-their home planet's ruler-has them serve as the representative. Even if Padme is from Naboo, that doesn't make her part of the Queen's administration if she serves as the senator of the entire Chommel sector. The fact we only get one other named political representative for the Chommel sector in Jar Jar, who is representing the second species of Naboo, doesn't suggest much involvement from the other planets they are supposed to be serving.
Hell, Padme herself wasn’t even democratically elected if we go off her own account of Naboo’s post-TPM political history. After she served her second term as Queen, the population wanted to abolish term limits to keep her in power, which she refused to accept and the next Queen, Jamilla, was elected. Queen Jamilla then has Padme become their senator through the tried-and-true democratic process of…requesting her to serve. Nowhere is the mention of other candidates, an election, anything that isn’t just the monarch asking the previous monarch very nicely if she’ll take over the job for the entire sector.
It also bears noting that the only reason there is a current monarch that’s not Padme is because Padme refused to follow the people’s wishes, which were to break term limits on the monarchy for her to stay as Queen…which can be summarized as “one person making everyone else agree”. Now, that’s not to criticize Padme for preserving what shreds of legitimacy Naboo has as a government, but breaking term limits so someone can spend fifteen years total controlling policy is nuts. From fourteen to twenty-nine, Padme has massive control over Naboo’s politics, which is an insane amount of time even if people had wanted her to serve another term as Queen and presumably were all in on her being Senator as a result. Even if the people had wanted it, there not being a formal election means that this system is just begging to be abused. Wonder how Palpatine got his start, huh…
So to recap: if you’re a Jedi in the Prequels, you have been picked up from when you were very small to be raised in a system you will have no conceivable influence on at any point in your life. As part of that system, you are also taught to serve another system you will never have any conceivable influence over, and it’s very likely that the vast majority of the populace that make up that system don’t have any hope of conceivably influencing it either. This is the amount of agency you will have over your entire life, unless you decide “hey, I’m going to leave now, can I keep the lightsaber so I can fight off the wolves I’m being thrown to?”, which the Jedi at least have the good will to offer as an option in contrast to the Republic. Turns out that when Anakin’s starting to talk about authoritarianism in AOTC, he’s actually just telling Padme about how the Jedi and Republic operate as institutions, and how the daily life of the average member of both is just getting teabagged by everything ever. There was never any democracy to save in the Republic, the characters are all living in a shared delusion that cracks on an accelerated timeline when Palpatine starts his Sithma grindset, and the only solution was to send Anakin in with a flamethrower and let him cry himself out burning everything down, so the ashes could be used as soil and his tears as water to grow something better with.
I should probably be clear that I don’t get the sense much of this was intentional. Lucas often flip-flops in his BTS commentary about the Jedi, and that’s without getting into how it actually plays out in the stories he writes. Despite the Republic and Clone Wars being a deliberate criticism of America, a lot of the politics are muddied and not really fleshed out for the audience. The lack of interest in Padme as a character is clear for everyone to see, so it’s no surprise a lot of her story has more than a few headscratchers. I think it’s clear there’s a lot of stuff in the PT that wasn’t completely thought out or put together well, and this is another instance of such a thing occurring.
Ultimately to me, it doesn’t matter too much what that intent was. If your takeaway from the Prequels is that the Jedi and Republic were hopelessly fucked from the beginning and both systems needed to be entirely flipped on their heads to even begin to be democratic, all that matters is that you can back it up from within the films themselves, as I have done with the above. The point is, the Jedi and Republic were not soulfully democratic in any sense, their defenders and allies were not supporters of democracy as a result, and Obi-Wan took yet another L. It’s just how he rolls, gotta love that for him.
TL;DR: A lot of the ways the Jedi operate as an entity, and their dynamics with themselves, in service to the Republic, and outside parties as part of the Republic, makes far more sense when you read about how George Lucas considers them to be peacekeepers in the same way mafia dons are. Based Nute Gunray, dodging an offer he couldn’t refuse in TPM?
(Also if you come away from this post thinking it’s point was “OP is saying the Jedi are bad/evil” and I see that shit in the comments: you’re a moron. This post has sailed over your head. You have the same level of reading ability and intelligence as the Avatar movies do cultural impact. Go outside and touch the grass.)

This is my ranking of every Impractical Jokers episode starting when Joe left. I was going to wait until season 10 was over to post this, but I’m just gonna post it now, as I have no idea if season 10 is done or still going.
I’ll be referring to the episodes by their celebrity guests, but that’s only because that’s how IJ names their episodes. I’ll be judging the episodes as a whole, not just the guest.
I’m only doing mainline episodes, meaning no “sideline smacktalk” or shark week special.
25. Bobby Moinahan
In general, I like challenges where the Jokers have to convince a mark to go along with what they’re doing, but making it so both challenges had that goal made this episode monotonous. The telethon challenge was particularly disappointing, as I think there was a ton of potential to make the marks do a bunch of wacky things, but it wound up being “insult the customer” over and over.
The punishment also felt disjointed. Murr having to annoy and creep out wedding dress buyers was pretty standard, but making him eat his wedding band and then wear a wedding dress to the airport seemed really tacked on.
24. Jillian Bell
The “you’re fired” challenge was a swing and a miss. Not only is it not fun to watch the Jokers just act like jerks of their own volition, but the ruleset is backwards because it requires you to be a jerk and then you’ll lose if you do too good a job. I think this game could be easily fixed if they made the first half be a standard “refuse you lose” and then fire the mark and beg for your job.
The “one more minute” skit was pretty cringey (this is coming from someone who likes the skits more than the average IJ fan) and I much preferred the deleted skit shown on “Filming with the stars”
The punishment was really underwhelming.
The one saving grace was the “Boot and Rally” challenge, which isn’t one I’d want to see again, but was still entertaining because of how over the top it was, and because of how self aware they were that it’s not a good challenge.
23. David Cross
They basically copied and pasted one of the Rob Riggle skits for this episode. Even though the skits are the least important part of the show, it’s still kind of upsetting to see them get recycled.
The challenges were fairly average, with the exception of Max Zoda dragging down Sal’s turn.
I did like the punishment. The post-Joe episodes have been pretty dependent on physically painful punishments, but this one was pretty creative both in using various methods to torture Murr, and in doing it in a context where it seems acceptable.
22. Adam Pally and Jon Gabrus
The babysitting challenge was solid, and I like the choice to play beer pong with the guests instead of doing a skit. In fact, I think it would’ve been better to consistently show authentic interactions with the guests instead of skits. They could even make it a callback to the walking bits from season 1.
Sal’s shock punishment was also pretty entertaining. Although it is watered down by the abundance of physical punishments in this era of the show.
21. Paul Scheer
The two challenges were solid, but the punishment was pretty underwhelming. The overall idea is pretty funny after it’s explained, but the entertainment value dissipates after the first couple rounds.
20. Colin Jost
The ice cream challenge was an improvement over the “you’re fired” challenge from last episode. While it still involved the vague command of “act like a jerk”, they now made the mark a witness instead of a victim, and the Jokers were actually rewarded instead of punished for fulfilling that command.
This episode also opted to show a real interaction with its guest instead of a skit, which again, is a decision I like.
The love guru’s challenge was solid, with the best part being when the guy claimed to know about the relationship expert Murr and Sal made up.
The punishment was entertaining, but again, kind of diluted by how many physical punishments there have been recently.
19. Eric André Returns
Fairly underwhelming as an episode, but never to the point that I wasn’t enjoying it. The best part was Sal talking about his exploding wife.
18. Harvey Guillen
The lawyer challenge was alright. The best part was Q’s “potato chip or two” line, which highlighted the absurdity of how convoluted the contracts were
Having a challenge where each turn was at a different location was an interesting idea, but ultimately didn’t have much impact.
Q’s punishment was kind of underwhelming. When it started with him getting prosthetics, I was expecting him to look radically different and for it to be crucial to the punishment, so I was disappointed when Q was fairly recognizable and it wasn’t necessary for what he had to do. Though the punishment itself was still fun due to the energy Harvey gave it. Plus it had a surprisingly light hearted ending.
17. Paula Abdul
Most of the episode was middling. I was disappointed because I was expecting Paula to have a great dynamic with the Jokers due to them making a movie together, yet she wound up blending in as a guest.
The high point of the episode was the “get my wallet challenge”. I loved the twist of having Cha throw Q out instead of Dan, and I especially loved Q sabotaging Sal by giving him his wallet before the mark could get it. It was oddly nostalgic, as it was the kind of thing Joe would do.
16. Kesha
I really don’t like that they repeated Sal’s shock punishment, the seance setting made it just barely different enough to justify doing again.
However, the “fall in love” challenge was pretty fun, and the debate challenge with MJF was great. I’d love for him to work with the Jokers again.
15. Michael Ian Black
I liked the return of the texting challenge, and Murr chasing the greased up boy was ridiculous (in a good way).
The punishment was fairly standard, but Michael did a great job acting as the straight-man and adding to Sal’s embarrassment.
14. Kim Fields
Murr’s “fuck marry kill” conversation, Q’s mistletoe, and Q eating the dog treats were all fun moments. The punishment felt pretty old school (in a good way) and while Q calling a woman’s bitch briefly dampened the fun, the mood was saved by Murr’s impression afterwards.
13. Post Malone
I liked seeing the etiquette challenge brought back and I especially loved seeing the guy do a 180 after recognizing Murr.
The punishment was clever and Post did a great job fanning the flames between the customers and Q. Though I think it was an odd choice to end it as a man was calling 911 without showing how the situation resolves.
12. Eric Andre
The challenges don’t have any moments that particularly stand out to me, but they were consistently entertaining in a way where it always feels worth my time to watch.
This is a rare time where I’d say the best moment from an episode came from a skit, as I love the idea of Murr being a fictional character.
The one change I’d make is that I wish they cut the opening skit and instead spoke to the audience directly, explicitly acknowledging that Joe left and they would be changing things up. I feel like that would’ve made for a better transition.
11. John Mayer
I don’t like that this episode only had one challenge before the punishment, but I do like that the celebrity guest was involved in both the challenge and the punishment, which I wish was the case more often.
The challenge itself was also fun enough to make up for being the only one. I loved Sal randomly arm wrestling the investors, the constant utterance of “Bro” and Murr’s mark insinuating he hired prostitutes.
10. ALF
The ticket challenge was solid and the phone call challenge was great, especially Sal’s McRib story.
Making a fictional character the celebrity guest was a somewhat risky choice, but I think it worked out. They did a good job integrating ALF into the punishment, and I loved the detail of him thinking Q enjoyed the food.
9. Anthony Davis
I like challenges where the Jokers have to convince the mark to lie, so I really enjoyed the “playing hookie” challenge.
I did not like the second challenge though. I found Steve Byrne’s antics more annoying than funny.
This is made up for by the punishment, which I consider one of the best punishments in recent history. Allowing Sal to opt out of tasks at a price was a clever way of adding stakes and making the punishment standout. The final task in particular was genius, and while it could have been over the line, Anthony avoided that by giving the kid his own shoes.
8. Method Man
The punishment was just uncomfortable and not very fun to watch, but the episode makes up for it with the challenges.
The scientists challenge was great, and the “don’t smirk” challenge was possibly the funniest segment in the whole post-Joe era. I personally think the “no smirking” rule was a bit excessive, and a rule against laughing would’ve been plenty, but the content of the challenge was hilarious, and that’s what matters.
7. Bruce Campbell
The Rosanna Scotto challenge was alright, with the most interesting part being when customers defended dumpster diving.
The waiter challenge was great. I loved Murr’s “who’s paying?” bit and Q constantly trying to improve the women’s ribs.
The punishment was great and felt like something we’d get in the older seasons. For the Bobby Moynihan episode, I mentioned that parts of Murr’s punishment seemed tacked on, and that’s not the case here. Each step of Q’s punishment felt like a natural extension, and Campbell did a great job as the overly demanding director.
6. Bret Michaels
The Grocery Roll was a great challenge to kick off the COVID restrictions being lifted. Murr and Sal each had spectacular Pratt falls.
The hide and seek challenge was a welcomed return. While I wouldn’t want it to become a staple of the show, I think it’s a great game to throw in once every couple of seasons to shake things up. Sal genuinely wondering if he can breathe in the fridge, repeatedly trying to close the door on himself, and hurting his arm on the third attempt was very stupid in the best way possible.
Murr’s punishment was a mixed bag. The armwrestling, bowls of soup, and Paul Rudd showing up out of nowhere were all hilarious, but whenever a mark is furious and has their face blurred, I go from enjoying the discomfort to just feeling bad for everyone involved.
5. Rob Riggle
The taste test challenge was great, with Q’s mark being one of the funniest of season in recent history.
The workout challenge was even better and really recaptured the magic they had in earlier seasons. Murr’s “wrong/good” workout and Sal’s refusal to accept help were particularly great.
The punishment was also solid. Murr having to stay still while mostly naked was simple and effective, and they were able to create a wacky enough environment around him that there’s more to keep things entertaining.
4. Chris Jericho
This is the first episode that made me realize IJ can make great episodes.
The Joint Gravy challenge was absolutely hilarious. Especially Sal’s turn.
The focus group challenge was also great. I’d be happy if they made Jiggy… not the fourth Joker… but the official stand-in whenever they have a challenge where they need to pair up.
The two skits were both really good. The opener was grounded and reserved, while the mid-show skit was ridiculous in the best way.
While I’ve said that IJ has gone a bit overboard with the physical torture punishments, I think this one was well done. It was creative to let Q alternate between various painful tasks as he wanted, and I loved how he was dependent on Sal’s mom to end the punishment. I really wish she started getting involved in the show earlier, because she’s hilarious.
3. Kal Penn
Having to sell a product after coming in through the window was hysterical, both in concept and execution. All three turns had a completely different feel to them. Murr was slimy and confident, Q was overly enthusiastic, and Sal was completely desperate.
The eating challenge was similar to the “Boot and Rally” challenge to me, in the sense that it’s not something I’d want to see again, but it was made funny due to the Jokers being self aware about it not being a good challenge. Murr’s frustration at Q and Sal saying they’d just take the thumbs down was 10X funnier than if they actually attempted the challenge.
The punishment itself was solid. It’s a simple but effective idea, and revealing that it was Sal’s breath that stunk was a great ending.
2. Blake Anderson
They brought back two challenges that had each only been done once before, which could be risky, but worked out great.
The “phony fees” challenge was a welcomed return. Johnna did a great job making the charges seem legitimate, and the woman constantly praising Q was amazing.
The Yearbook challenge was also really good. The gag about them all being married to Melissa reminded me of the organic humor we got back when Joe was on the show.
The punishment was my favorite of season 10. It has a juvenile charm where I know what Sal’s doing is really dumb, yet am root for him to get away with it.
1. Brooke Shields
Brooke gave the same energy as a guest that I was hoping to get from Paula Abdul.
The opening skit was great, largely because of how well Brooke sold the role of a fangirl.
This was the first time we saw the celebrity guest participate in a challenge, and it was very fun to watch. The girl trying to dab while in a suitcase was hilarious.
The “Brooke of Love” punishment was genius. We’ve seen challenges that convert to punishments before, but it was always done on the fly and/or kept secret from the joker being punished. Having everyone know that whoever loses will be punished immediately was a really unique approach and I hope they do something similar in the future.
I also love the idea of a dating show where the guys are all trying to be as unappealing as possible. Sal’s rap, the return of Stanley Merkle, and the hushed trash talking (trash whispering?) were all fantastic. I know the show (usually) doesn’t repeat punishments, but I’d love to see the challenge be done again, even if it’s without the instant punishment at the end. It could be in the context of a dating show again, or it could be something like a job interview.

I am not the OOP. The OOP is u/Hopeful_Picture586 posting in AmItheAsshole and her user account
Concluded as per OOP
2 updates - Long
Original - 1st June 2022
Update1 - 2nd June 2022
Update2 - 16th October 2022
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AITA for refusing to go to my daughter graduation ceremony
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I (40sF) have a daughter (18F) who I’ll call Belle. When she was younger, her father (broke up before she was born) was very involved in her life and she was admittedly a “dad’s girl” but this all changed when she turned 8 and he got married. He barely called and just abandoned her for his new family. This was obviously hard on her and she rebelled a lot. But she went to therapy and seemed good. Belle has not seen him since she was 12 and he speaks to her maybe 3 times a year maximum. When he calls, she believes he is now back in her life for good then he ghosts her for the remainder of the year. This being said ,Belle and I have a great relationship, we do everything together. She even refers to me as her best friend so I’d say we have a good relationship.
Recently was her graduation and I was excited. But then she came to me a week before and told me she is going to invite her dad and his son. And cos her dad doesn’t want to see me, I can’t come. Belle told me that was the only way he was gonna go. I angrily told her, I felt betrayed and wont forgive her for this. She just told me I have been there for many of her milestones and she wants her father to experience some too. Things got heated and we argued.
The night before her graduation, I pleaded with her but she ignored me when I spoke. And only said “I’m sorry but I’m not changing my mind. I left and cried until my sister offered to take me out during the graduation to take my mind of it and I agreed.
I woke up the next morning to my daughter bawling her eyes out. I looked at the time and realised the ceremony starts in 5 minutes. I asked Belle why she hasn’t left yet. Belle then tells me her father ditched her and isn’t answering anymore. I hug her and tell her to make the most of her graduation. She looked shocked and asks if I’m not going to the ceremony now her father isn’t anymore .
And how it’ll be embarrassing to be the only one there without parents. I told I’m sorry that I already had plans. She then screamed and called me a bad mom. I apologise once again and got ready to meet my sister. I chose not to go because I felt betrayed and wanted to teach her actions have consequences, even if it broke me that i didn’t go. Since Belle returned she hasn’t spoken a word to me. And she looks depressed and like she’s been crying for ages. I’m starting to regret not going.
My sister says I did the right thing, but one of the moms at my daughter school said she was depressed at graduation and now I feel bad that I ruined what was suppose to be a day to remember because I wanted to teach my daughter a lesson. So aita?
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Comments
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Mad_Cowboy_64
NTA. You gave her an important lesson about maintaining relationships with the people who are there for you and not blowing them off for the next new thing that comes along.
Agitated_Cheek4890
I fully agree. Daughter treated her horrendously. Daughter might now go NC but she would be an AH to do so given how she's treated her mother. ETA: thank you for the award
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Awkward-Wasabi-9262
And OP stop apologizing. You didn't do anything wrong. The more you apologize, the more your daughter believes that her was right in her actions. At best you can say "look, I understand you're hurt and I'm sorry you're upset but this is a consequence of your actions."
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Update - 1 day later
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I don’t think I’m a bad mom for this one thing. And I accept the judgements and read everything. To answer your question: Belle does go therapy. This isn’t the first time Belle has ditched me for her dad, she been doing it for 10 years. This is the first time I have said no to her after he father abandoned her. I have asked her therapist, if Belle is being manipulated. and she said no based on Belle and her father’s messages, and my daughter is just grasping onto a reality that isn’t there
Update: I went to my daughter and apologised for not going to her graduation. I also explained that it is not a nice feeling to be left out and I feel under appreciated. Also, that is fine to want her father there for her, but I should too. Belle told me that she’s sorry things ended this way and that she loves me(hugged me)and wants things to go back to normal. And that she acted like a bitch. I told her nevertheless I should have been there and if I could do this all over again, I would’ve gone. ( honestly I said this as I thought she now knew her dad can’t be trusted- and I felt for her).
Then I asked her if she regret uninviting me in the first place and unsurprisingly she said no. This hurt me but I figured it was because I didn’t go so it was understandable. But no, she continued saying that it was probably best I didn’t go because she would’ve been more miserable as she would have preferred her dad to be there anyway. Then I got pissed( I didn’t show it). I told her my feeling were hurt, especially since I’ve been there for her.
And she said that she’s always going to want her dad there for her big moments. I asked, even at the expense of me and knowing he most likely won’t show. And she replied “ I mean if I have to make sacrifices, I’m going to, to have my dad there. I repeated the question as she seemed to be swerving it but she just shrugged and went on her phone. I told her not to expect everyone to apologise and turn a blind eye when she doesn’t value them in the real world. And i also said, knowing how she feels, don’t expect another apology from me and this is the last time I’m doing this. She looked tear eyes but I left.
I don’t know how other parents do this. I know her father is going to keep abandoning her and honestly I’m at my limit. And If I didn’t know whether I was wrong or not before, I definitely know I was right in not going. I know I’m going to get a lot of backlash saying this but I’m bitter and angry. I understand wanting her dad there but I should be on the same level of importance as him. I’m still going to be there for her when he inevitable ditches her again but if this behaviour carries on to her next graduation or wedding day. I can’t say I’ll be that apologetic to her. I should’ve just listened to NTA.
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Comments
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Alibeee64
Can I ask why her dad didn’t want you at the ceremony? It sounds like you don’t have an issue with him, but he obviously has one with you. Perhaps your daughter needs to work to understand this, as he seems very vindictive. If she doesn’t learn to set boundaries with him, what is going to happen when he makes similar demands at other important life events like college graduation, or her wedding? Is she going to expect you to keep letting her run over you emotionally in order to accommodate her dad’s crazy demands, especially when he keeps letting her down. And is she going to spend her life chasing after men who emotionally distance themselves from her because her relationship with her father has taught her to do this?

OOP: Honestly we broke up on good terms. I haven’t spoken to him in years though. And when I have seen their messages, it’s always small talk and nothing about me. So I don’t where this came from.

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Update - 4 months later
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I’m sure no one asked for this update but here goes.
I’m going to refer to Belle's father as Frank.
For the past few months I’ve done a lot of reflection. Although, I can’t say I regret not going to B’s graduation ceremony, I do wish I handled the situation more like an adult. Growing up, I was taught never to ask questions I don’t want the answer to and that is exactly what I did with my daughter. I shouldn’t have asked if she regretted uninviting me because truthfully I didn’t want to hear the answer. And for that, i think I acted childish.
To clear up some misconception: I don’t speak to Belle’s father simply because he refuses to be cooperative. Also, when I said Belle referred to me as her “best friend”. This doesn’t mean I treat her like my equal. I do parent her, she did get grounded and got her phone taken away when she misbehaved at school etc( which is rarely). I think she calls me that because she feels comfortable to talk to me about everything.
Now to the update: There was an incident after, where Belle wanted her dad’s help her move into her college apartment before term started but he refused because he “had work”. She begged for weeks. The whole 3 hour ride to her college was her crying hysterically. My sister consoled her but if I’m being honest I was pissed. Pissed at my daughter as she refuses to go therapy anymore, but seriously pissed at my ex.
It took me ages after graduation but I finally got in contact with F’s aunt. I explained the situation and that I need to get into contact with him as he’s either ignoring or not getting my messages. He ended up sending me a very long letter. In a small nutshell, it said that my daughter has been stalking and threatening him and his family and he’s been trying to have a healthy relationship with her but she keeps being aggressive so he had to distance himself.
He acknowledges he hasn’t been the best father but he tried for the past few years and Belle is too aggressive so he had to put the safety of his family first. As for the graduation, he wrote that he definitely refused to go. And only said it was probably for the best as I probably wouldn’t feel too comfortable with him there. He said not to contact him again and that we’ve done enough damage.
He added photocopies of messages between him and Belle, where she “says” deeply troubling things, like physical threats. Personally, I thought everything he said was BS and misconstrued. I spoke to Belle and told her of her father’s accusations. She broke down in tears hysterically and admitted that she hasn’t been the nicest to Frank’s wife and child (understandably) but she never threatened and stalked them. I was trying to calm her down. I told her I believe her and suggested therapy. Then she turned on me, blaming me for the breakdown between her and her father relationship.
She swore at me and broke stuff. She told me to stop trying to villainize her father, when I’m the problem. She called me a burden and cancer and said I should’ve stayed out of her business. I was called a bad mother and told I should burn in hell. To be clear, she was never violent towards me. She packed her stuff and left, presumably back to college. Me or my family haven’t heard from her since. I called and called but only got one message from a random number telling me to leave her alone. I told her I’m always here when’s she’s ready to talk.
It’s been 2+ months since I spoke to her. I’ll never admit this to anyone but honestly I feel relieved. My self esteem plummeted and I felt dead for the longest time because of this situation. I’m going therapy and feel the tiniest bit better. I finally went on a date yesterday for the first time in a decade, without getting guilted. In hindsight, mine and B’s relationship were no where near perfect. I don’t know what more I could’ve done but I wished I did more. She’s my child and she was a victim of an overall shit situation.
Sorry for the long update.
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Comments
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maybemaybo
I'm guessing with the graduation he likely said something like "and your mom probably wouldn't be comfortable seeing me.." in an attempt to let her down politely.
And that probably led her to go "well if I uninvite my mum, problem solved!" refusing to actually see the truth, that he won't come because it doesn't fit in with their fantasy.
I would honestly reach out to F's family member and say "pass on that he should use these threats to try and get a restraining order" because now she's cut you off, who knows how much more desperate she is to get to him.
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I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP. Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

So, here is part 2 of my entitled employee story. We left off with discovering Sally’s retaliation of giving me trash as a Christmas gift after her latest write-up.
So, the next several weeks, I am noticing more problems, but here’s some of the highlights.

1. Ever since we had issues of the office’s checks going randomly missing, Sally had apparently decided to just stop throwing any envelope away when opening the mail. She would supposedly search the envelopes/paperwork & then keep the envelopes with the paperwork. So, instead of doing her job better, she would decide to just stop doing the job at all. After all, you can’t get in trouble for screwing it up if you aren’t doing it, right? However, this resulted in items getting left with the paperwork (which sometimes wouldn’t get touched for several weeks due to being busy) that had needed to be collected or addressed right away.
   
2. Sally’s careless mistakes continued at about the same rate (average of 2 to 3 a week). She would put deposit slips/emails with the wrong office’s report, put one office’s mail in another office’s bin, put one office’s funding papers in another office’s bin, put one office’s bills in the folder for their correspondence & vice versa, put one office’s bills in the folder for another office’s bills, put the new month’s bills in the folder without taking out the old month’s bills so they would get mixed up. I could go on & on.
   
3. Sally would still ask for help on things she shouldn’t need help on anymore, ‘cause I had helped her many times on items exactly like it in the 2 years she’s worked here. I mean, the whole point of asking for help when learning new things on a job is so you can take the input you’re given & use it to get better at the job so you don’t have to ask for help anymore. I mean, what kind of office works by their employees constantly needing to be walked through everything every day? Sally would even ask for help on things no one would need to ask for help on. For example, she asked me, “An office took a deposit to the bank without showing it on their report. How do I write that up in the letter to fax to them?” Um, exactly what you just said to me. Or another time, she asks how long she should wait before calling an office back. Well, how long do you think you should give them? Just use your good judgment. You don’t need help with that! Again, you’ve been here 2 years!
   

On Jan 26, I take the Dec bills, correspondence faxes, & timesheets out of their folders to scan them into the computer. Now, one thing the bills should always have on them are the check number used to pay for this purchase & the date it was paid. The offices themselves are supposed to write this on there, but they don’t always, which is why it is our job to write it on there if it’s missing. I had noticed when I scanned Nov’s bills around Nov 30 that a lot of Sally’s offices don’t have that info written on them. So, I explained to her what needed to be written on every bill/receipt. I now flip through the Dec & Jan bills of her offices really quick to check them. There are quite a few of them with no info written down on them. There’s strike one for noncompliance.
Another task we would do several days a week (that’s Sally’s responsibility) is to check the bank accounts online. She is to look at the bank balances & report any low balances to Greg (or me if Greg isn’t there). She is then to look at the transactions in order to see if anything looks fraudulent. Since we are a loan company, check fraud is very common for us. So, we look at the checks for anything funny-looking, & we look to see if there are any auto debits (like when you use your bank account online to pay for a bill) that would tell us if someone got hold of our bank account info.
On Jan 30, at 1:15 p.m., I asked if any of the bank balances were low (Greg was out of town for a few days). Sally said she had forgotten to check the bank accounts that morning. Weird, ‘cause you had to check the Dallas office to make sure the money we sent them had shown up. How did you get the login sheet out to look in their bank account but then forget about checking all the bank accounts? This just further cemented in my mind that she was NOT checking these bank accounts the way she should. I was 100% positive that all she does when logging into these bank accounts is checking the balances to give to Greg but then never checks the transactions. I know this ‘cause, 1) I’ve observed Sally only logging in to write down the balances & then logging back out (she had some flimsy excuse ready when I asked her about it), 2) there have been auto debits that appeared in bank accounts that we didn’t find for weeks until I happened to see it for some reason & guess what? She never pointed those out to us, & 3) Sally hadn’t bothered to check the bank account balances since Greg was out of town, so clearly she only felt the need to check the balances. There’s strike two for noncompliance.
& even more bad mistakes or decisions:

1. At the end of Jan, we discovered that Sally had mailed the employees’ W2s to the managers’ home addresses instead of to the offices to distribute to their employees!
   
2. We had an office that moved locations to right across the street, so the only thing that changed in their address was their street number (12 Main Street instead of 11 Main Street). I explained this to Sally & gave her an updated list of the office’s addresses. 3 weeks later, we get a call from that office saying that mail we send to them keeps going to their landlord’s house. I check the address labels Sally had created for herself. Sure enough, it had the wrong address on them. I go to grab the lease, & at the top is where the tenant’s new address is listed. & all the way at the bottom of the page in the paragraph titled “RENT” where it lists where to send the rent is the landlord’s home address. & that’s the address Sally had chosen to be the new office’s address on her address labels.
   
3. Sally hadn’t been faxing the offices to ask for bills/receipts that never made it to us.
   
4. I used the last towel on a roll of paper towels, so I went to the cabinets to grab another. We were out. Sally is in charge of keeping track of supplies that need ordering, so I go to Sally & say we’re completely out of paper towels, we need to order some. Sally response: “No one ever tells me when they grab the last roll so I know when to order them.” Um, excuse me, since when is it our job to tell you to do your job? It’s your responsibility to keep track of supplies. You should be checking the level of paper towels, toilet paper, Kleenex, etc., to see when you need to order them.
   

So, I knew she needed a second warning write up for carelessness cause of the numerous mistakes since the first warning write up in the middle of Dec, & I would be giving Sally a first warning write up for negligence cause of her not asking the offices for missing bills & not writing the info on the bills I had told her to do at the end of Nov. However, it was only a few days from Feb, which was the time for performance reviews. So, rather than doing a write up now & then in a week or so doing a performance review that was one of the worst performance reviews I’ve ever heard of, I decided to just do it in one fell swoop. You know, just get it all out of the way with one bad conversation, one bad day, & then both of us can hopefully put it behind us & move on.
I decided to do the performance review & write ups on Feb 5 (Monday). It went much smoother ‘cause Greg was there, so Sally couldn’t really give me lip or lash out by showing attitude & anger like she had previously.
On Feb 7 (Wednesday), I log in to get the transactions for an office who is switching banks. I wanted to get an updated list of outstanding checks so they know how many checks are left before they can close the old bank account. & what do I see? Someone had used the bank account to pay $100 on their AT&T bill. I call the office & find out it was actually them, so no fraud there. But I then ask Sally if she had seen that when checking the bank accounts. She said she didn’t remember. Obviously, I have found my proof that she is either not checking them or isn’t paying attention when she does. I have a discussion with Greg about it, & we decide I need to have a sit down with her about her not doing her job. She is sick on Thursday, so I plan to talk with her the next day she comes in.
On Feb 9 (Friday), I begin the conversation about checking the bank accounts & how important it is. I am planning to say things like, we expect you to do this job, you’ve been told multiple times to do this task, if you’re not going to do the job, then you’re welcome to go find another one, etc. But she cuts me off at the beginning with an excuse of, “Well, I didn’t know what I should be looking for, now I know.” & it broke me. She does this exact thing every time I have to have a conversation with her. She has an excuse ready to go on the tip of her tongue, always spins it around so it’s not actually her fault. It’s always, “Well, I didn’t know that, but now, I do.” & I was just done. I didn’t continue the conversation, even though I needed to, ‘cause I just broke down in tears from the stress of having to discipline her & knowing that nothing will ever come of it, but having our hands legally tied to be able to fire her right now. I cried nonstop for over 4 hours.
On Feb 12 (Monday), I sat down to continue the conversation, this time with a written statement for her to sign.
Me: You respond a lot of the time that you don’t know how to do things, which is very frustrating, ‘cause you’ve been shown multiple times how to do these tasks. It’s very inefficient & wasteful that I have to constantly check all of your work & retrain you on the same thing over & over again. This needs to change. This job is about accuracy & accountability.
Sally: You’re not giving me a chance to improve. I never hear “Good job,” from you. All I ever hear is, “You’re doing a bad job, sign this paper.” I get in trouble every time I ask for help, so I guess I’ll just follow the instructions & hope I’m doing it right.
The problems with that response:

1. You’ve worked here for 2 years, Sally. You’ve had plenty of time to improve.
   
2. The reason you never hear “Good job” is ‘cause you’re not doing a good job. How am I supposed to tell you “Good job,” but also need to give you a write up for doing a bad job? If you’re getting multiple write ups for doing a bad job, don’t you think that’s a sign that something is wrong? I mean, she thinks that managers should be telling their employees good job on everything they do right. No, you’re expected to do these tasks. We’re not going to congratulate you every time you do your basic job requirements like some toddler that needs constant positive reinforcement so they know that doing something right is a good thing! You will hear “Good job” when you are doing a really good job on something, when you go above & beyond!! I mean, do you think Greg tells me “Good job” when I’m just doing my job as expected?!! NO!!! I’ve never had a manager constantly tell me “Good job” all the time!!!! (Whew. Sorry about that. Kinda went on a crazy rant there. I’m good now.)
   
3. Here’s another example of her mentality of “if I don’t do the job, I can’t get in trouble for doing it wrong.” She’s going to stop asking for help instead of using the help I’ve given her to do better. I mean, if you’re making these mistakes when you ARE asking for help, how many more are you going to make when you stop asking for help? How does this make any logical sense?!
   

Well, here’s another chance for some malicious compliance. She claimed she didn’t know how to check the bank accounts, right? Well, my job as the manager is to make sure my employees know how to do their job. So, I need to sit down with her & train her how to check the bank accounts. Again. Even though I know she already knows how to do it. So, every time you tell me that the reason why you didn’t do a job is ‘cause you didn’t know how to do it right, well, we’re going to sit down & waste both our times & annoy you having to be retrained on something you do, in fact, know how to do.
Sally continues making careless mistakes & not doing stuff she doesn’t think she should have to do. Like answering the phones. It’s her job to answer the phones; that’s something I as the manager should be delegating to her. However, she never answers the phone unless I literally can’t. So, I had asked her to start answering the phone more. She will wait until the last possible second before answering the phone. By that time, it’s already rung twice, so I have to answer it before it goes on any longer or they hang up. One time, we were both away from our desks when the phone rang. We both went to answer it, but she was closer & got to her desk before me, put her hand on the phone, & watched me until I got to my desk before she picked it up. With a comment of, “Oh, (laughs) I didn’t want to make you walk all the way to your desk.” Well, you did, anyway, you little jerk.
On Feb 27, Sally asks for help on a report. She says that my note stating the office is over-deposited $28 on report 1 but fixed on report 2 by being $28 under-deposited didn’t work out. She says that they were never over by $28 in the first place. I take the report to look it over. Her calculator tape adding up the deposits shows the bank is in balance, but I don’t see deposit slips.
Me: Where are the deposit slips?
Sally: I haven’t gotten them yet.
Me: (trying to comprehend her logic) Then how do you have the deposit amounts added on this tape?
Sally: I got the amounts from the report.
Me: You…(my brain trying not to implode at this point) you can’t add up amounts to see if the bank has too much or too little money in it without knowing what was actually taken to the bank. The amounts on the report don’t always equal what was taken to the bank.
I log into the bank account & discover just that: the report says they took $500 to the bank, but their deposit says $528. They were indeed $28 over-deposited. I then lecture her (for the second time in a few months) on the correct way to account for the deposits at the bank, that we are only to use the dollar amounts on the bank’s deposit receipt. (The first time was her getting the deposit amount from what was written on the deposit slip instead of what the bank gave us credit for on their printed receipt. The bank had shorted us $500, & we never knew until her deposits didn’t work out when reconciling the bank statement at the end of the month. We were missing $500 for 4 weeks! It’s a miracle we didn’t overdraw the account.)
Another task that we do several days a week is checking the CFPB website. This is a government website that uses federal regulations to monitor financial institutions. It’s like the Better Business Bureau, but more official. Customers can make complaints through them, prompting an investigation to make sure we’re following the federal guidelines. We have 2 weeks to respond to a complaint before it is past due.
On Feb 29, Greg just happens to be looking at an email inbox that he never checks, ‘cause after all, we’re checking the CFPB website, so he doesn’t have to look there, right? There is a complaint in 2 of the portals that have been in there since Jan 22. He immediately marches out & tells Sally about them.
Greg: Aren’t you checking the CFPB sites?
Sally: Yeah, I am.
Really? Then how come you didn’t print this complaint off to give to Greg in the last 6 weeks? She came back from lunch to a second warning write up given by me for negligence.
On Mar 5 (Tuesday), we are working on reconciling the bank statements so we can close the month of Feb. Sally brings me a Jan bank statement for an office.
Sally: This never cleared in Feb.
I look at the bank statement. It’s an electronic deposit of $254 on Jan 31. I remember this. She had asked me at the beginning of Feb why this deposit wasn’t recorded on the office’s report. I explained that since it didn’t show up in the bank account until the last day of Jan, they might not have known about it before the end of the month & so recorded it on the first of Feb. We will wait until the first report of Feb. If it’s still not recorded, then we’ll bring that to the office’s attention. & here she is, clearly telling me she hadn’t brought it to anyone’s attention all month long.
Me: (staring at the bank statement as I try to prevent my autistic brain from exploding at her while also trying to prevent a spontaneous stroke) You didn’t keep track of this all month?
Sally: Well, I didn’t know if it was treated differently ‘cause it was OTBP (One Time Bill Pay, which is the electronic deposit). (Oh, what a shocker, she once again didn’t know how to do something.)
Me: But we talked about this. If it wasn’t on the first of the month, we needed to address it.
Sally: Okay, well, now I know that we treat this the same as other deposits. (goes nonchalantly back to her desk like it was no big deal, like she hadn’t just revealed she had once again disobeyed my detailed instructions)
Me: (seeing her flagrant disregard for the seriousness of the situation & wondering just how on earth she could once again think that not doing her job would have no consequences) This is exactly what Greg talks about over & over, about how we can’t leave errors like this to sit for weeks & weeks, that these need to be dealt with as they happen.
Sally: (still as easy-going as if she had simply used the wrong color highlighter) Okay, I’ll make note of that.
Now, I am getting really pissed off. She keeps saying, “Oh, now I know that OTBP is treated the same as everything else.” That doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter that you didn’t know it’s treated the same! I specifically told you to take care of it if it didn’t appear on the first of Feb! It didn’t matter what kind of deposit it was! I said to tell me if it wasn’t on the first of Feb!
Now, this was right before she leaves at 3:30, so by the time I’m finished with my text conversation with Greg (‘cause he isn’t there that afternoon), she has already left. But I’m telling Greg that I have once again caught her being negligent, & she’s already had 2 written warnings about this, which means our next step is letting her go. Not to mention, her carelessness is still continuing. He said that he supports my decision to let her go. By the way, the final decision happened an hour after she left. If I had known before she left that we were indeed going to fire her, I would have done it before she left so she didn’t have to come all the way to work in the morning just to leave again.
So, on Mar 6 (Wednesday), I arrive early to work so I can be prepared. I am standing at my desk, watching her come in. This is unusual, so she frowns as she approaches me.
Me: Sally, we need to talk.
Sally: (still frowns at me)
Me: (handing her the typed up notice) We are going to read this together. “When reconciling the month of Jan, around Feb 5, it was brought to my attention that we had a deposit that hadn’t been reconciled. I gave you instructions to wait a report to see if it works out. If not, you would need to bring it to mine & the office’s attention for further instructions. This wasn’t done. It wasn’t until Mar 5 that you brought this to my attention again. You have been told many times the importance of reconciling the financials of the office. You have been warned several times of negligence. This is another example of negligence with respect to your job. All you had to do was follow my instructions. It is for this reason that it is now time to terminate your employment.”
Sally: When did you tell me to do this?
Me: (thinking, “Um, I kinda just told you when I told you do that, but, okay.”) When you showed me the Jan bank statement—
Sally: Yesterday?!
Me: You showed me the Jan bank statement a month ago when you were reconciling Jan. I told you to wait for the first of Feb & then—
Sally: You did no such thing!
Me: Yes, I did, Sally.
Sally: When does Greg get here?
Me: Around 9, like usual.
Sally: I’m calling him, ‘cause this is ridiculous. You’ve had it out for me from the very beginning.
Me: No, I haven’t.
Sally: Yeah, you have. Just like the other 2. (sets her bags at the front door, goes outside, & calls Greg)

1. How could I have had it out for you from the very beginning when we didn’t have problems for the first year & a half you worked here? If I’d had it out for you from the beginning, you wouldn’t have had a job the past 6 months. Need I remind you what Greg told you about the timesheet thing being something we fire someone for on the spot, but that Molly had gone to bat for you & gave you a second chance? Why would I have done that if I had wanted you gone from the start?
   
2. “Just like the other 2.” She’s talking about Irene (who had left in Feb 2023) & another employee (who we’ll call Phil). Phil had been fired (by Greg, by the way) for continuing to watch movies on his phone at his desk despite being told multiple times by Greg to not do that. & Irene? She wasn’t fired. She gave her 2 weeks’ notice. & we then discovered when going through the work she’s been doing as we started taking over her tasks that she didn’t just not do jobs. She would actually forge the work so she wouldn’t have to work. “A bank imbalance of $2.65? Well, I’ll just add it to the imbalance that’s been building up for who knows how many months & just label it as an over-deposit from the end of the month. That way, I don’t have to look into why the bank isn’t balancing.” But no, I had it out for them, apparently.
   
3. Does she really think that calling Greg was gonna reverse my firing her? Does she really think I would do something as drastic as writing her up or firing her without discussing it with my supervisor first? Did she really think I would do this behind his back?
   

Apparently, she did, ‘cause Greg confirmed that Sally tried telling him about all the stuff I’ve been doing to her as if he didn’t know. She hung up on him when he explained that he’s been told everything as it happens & he supports this decision.
Sally: (storming back into the office & towards her desk) I’m not signing anything.
Me: Ok.
Sally begins packing up her desk. I had known she kept a lot of personal items at the office, so I had gotten a big box or 2 out & placed them nearby for her to use to pack up her desk.
Me: We can give you a box if you need it.
Sally: I don’t need sh** from you guys.
Me: The only thing we’ll need is your office key.
Sally: You’ll get it when you get it. I’m packing my desk.
Me: Ok.
I go back to work, keeping an eye on her as she packs to make sure she doesn’t take anything she’s not supposed to or damage any company property. Sally at some point decides to use the boxes she didn’t want from us to pack up her many items. She takes both boxes to the front door where her bags are & sets them down to put the last of her things in. She picks up one box to take outside.
Sally: You are the worst manager ever. (goes out the door)
Me: (shrug)
Sally: (comes back in for the final box) Seriously, you’re the most evil person I’ve ever met. (leaves)
Really? I rank worse than the guy that beat you up? I’m worse than him?
I continued watching her to see if she’s going to come back to give up her office key. As she packed up her car, another employee had arrived (we’ll call him Randy). He had run into her on the way in & asks me if Sally quit. I explained, no, she was let go. I then see that Sally has gotten behind the wheel of her car without coming back to give us the office key.
Me: Well, I guess we’ll just change the locks.
Randy then takes it upon himself to go out to her car. He phrased it very gently by saying he wanted to spare her having to come back in to turn the key in.
Sally: I guess Molly didn’t have the balls to do it herself. (hands the key over)
& then…she was gone. Despite having to do the entire corporate office’s work all by myself & falling steadily behind little by little, I have never been more happy. I had forgotten how much I loved my job & how much I couldn’t wait to get to work. I haven’t been this stress-free in 6 months, & it feels fantastic! & the great part is, I’m not really falling as far behind as I expected to without her. Having to do 2 people’s jobs by myself is only affecting me a little. Really goes to show you how bad she was for the company & for my job when she disrupted everything that much. For example, me & her would get through maybe 5 to 6 offices’ reports between us in a single day when playing catch up after closing the previous month. One day? I caught up on 10 offices’ reports in a single day. By myself.
Oh, did I mention she smoked marijuana most days on her way to work or while on her lunch break? We could never actually prove it. But, come on, you don’t smell that strongly of marijuana on only select days if you aren’t smoking it recently. If it was leftover from the smell of your house or car, you would smell like that every day. But it was only some days she would come into work or back from lunch smelling like that. Obviously, smoking on the job. So very glad to be rid of her & her awful skunk smell. Although, I do wish her well on a new job search. I don’t wish ill on anyone, ever. But I am just glad she’s no longer my problem to deal with.
(Added 2 months after she was fired): By the way, I am actually gaining on my work. I’m not only not behind on my work, I’m actually getting it done soon enough to work on extra stuff. Also, out of the blue, we’ve started getting about 3 to 4 sales & scam calls every day since Sally left (for things like better Medicare benefits, better retirement benefits, & even one time recently where “Walgreens” was calling to ask if I still had diabetes). I’m convinced Sally signed us up for calls as retaliation. I hope they die down soon, especially as they are starting to get rude. (Our response to every one of these is “Sorry, this is a business.” This one guy responded to me with, “This is my job.” I said, “I understand this is your job, but this is a business. I am not allowed to take personal calls.” He said, “Why?” I said very slowly & firmly, “Because I’m working!” He started to say, “Can you explain to me why—” I hung up. Jerk.)

Siwet Jashwant Dev Addy Adit today reminded me of my school bullies when they were asking Sachin to step back when he was taking a stand for Ishita. They are still playing like one badaa parivar. Yuvraj however flawed is still the only real guy in the villa who soundly reasoned today. Ishita did nothing wrong and was right in not trusting Cringkriti and Cuckwant today. Siwet and Jashwant clearly must have spoken and planned before coming to Splits and their current gang reminds me of Kevin and his pet boys from S13. I know this sub also has a lot of Adit dickriders who might find this offensive but Adit koi alag cool banda nahi Splits mai even though he maybe outside here he is just a safe playing Siwet pet. Dev is also a let's play it safe guy and wo jiske bhi live mai jaata hai uski tareef karega aur jiski burai ho rahi hogi baad mai uski live mai jaakar wo dusre ki burai sunega. Lesser said about Siwet and his son Addy the better. Jashwant constantly shaming and trying to intimidate Sachin like a bully really gets to me. I really wonder where that Sachin from Roadies is gone who would have fought head on.

So I have a follow-up to my interview tomorrow, the process I went through that is. This is, by no means me doing a follow-up, nor waiting for a certain period of time and then asking where I am in the process. The manager and director of a department, the company I work as a temp (while employed under the temp agency - in a different department) had scheduled a time for me to meet tomorrow on Monday, I chose 1:30 PM as the time.
So no final decision was made, from my understanding of what the recruiter for the job position told me. They are going to discuss the process of the interview with me, feedback on the stages I went through. This really feels more unusual to me, because I've never heard of a company and/or department asking to do a "follow-up" with you - that's just my personal experience, (I tried to look for similar occurrences on Reddit or on the web on a company doing a follow-up with the interviewee - in person, but couldn't find anything, then again maybe it was there and I just didn't find it) when I'm more used to a decision being made; either you receive an offer or not.
I've already went through three rounds of an interview, first was with the recruiter, second was with the manager and director - about myself and my skills, experience, third was dealing with a questionnaire to test my critical thinking (with the manager and director present) - which tbh I felt like I did shit at, because it was all new stuff I've never dealt with before. It pretty much was the equivalent to getting a test and not having any way to study for it, it wasn't expected of me to get a right or wrong answer, just to see how I do, which I've felt I could've done better.
Should I take this as a good or bad sign? I honestly feel scared that I didn't get the job and was already thinking "why not just give me an answer and tell me I didn't get it?" Maybe this follow-up is to give me an offer, but I really don't want my expectations to be high - because I don't want to have gone through these hoops to miss the slam dunk at the end - which would anger anyone to go through all of this for it to lead to nothing. But I'd rather be ready in case this does crash and burn, so I can mitigate my frustrations as much as possible if I don't get the offer.
tl;dr I have a follow-up with the manager and director, they are doing it with me and I'm uncertain of how it will go.

I will try to be brief, but it’s a long story. Me (31F) and SO (36) have been together for almost 12 years. We moved to another country 6 years ago. I thought I had a good relationship with my MIL although I’ve seen her crazy behavior towards others several times - She drinks every weekend to the point she starts being violent and starts a drama. She provokes people and plays the victim later. What confused me very much was that she was an awesome person when she was not drunk - so I only thought she had a tough life and depression issues (very silly of me). But in reality, I should’ve seen she doesn’t talk to any family members and she said they are all wrong and ungrateful and“treated her so bad after everything she’s done for them” - of course, she does not mention what she did to provoke them.
Fast forward to last year, she came to stay with us for 4 months. 10 days after she arrived she decided to drink on the weekend - I had gone Christmas shopping with my sister and niece and we spent the entire day out. My MIL started sending me weird messages and my husband told me later she was implying I wasn’t with my sister. This cause I huge fight and I told her to respect me at my house. At this point I started seeing who she really was. I could hear he talking shit about me with his siblings. 2-3 fights happened during this period and I felt my husband was not backing me up. I was trying to ignore all of this because I knew he missed his family so much and mine also live here so I tried to do it for him. But it was an absolute nightmare and I held lots of resentment towards him. One day she left her phone with me and - I know I was wrong - but I saw SO MUCH SHIT about me and my family in a conversation with my BIL. I also cause a huge fight and I couldn’t hate all of them more.
She ended up living early after I told her if I heard her talking shit about me she’d go to a hotel.
Once she returns, a friend told us she would spent the entire day bad mouthing me to his mom (who was also visiting) saying she was sure I was cheating on my husband with one friend of ours. My husband finally reacted and said a lot to his mom. She attacked the woman later with nasty messages and ended up blocked.
It’s been a year I’m NC with her and his brother (the other one I don’t like as well but he’s not blocked) . SO stills talks to her weekly.
I am now 12w pregnant and I hear their conversation - she always asks about the baby, never about me like I’m an incubator lol. She even said the baby looked like him (from a 12w ultrasound) 🤷‍♀️ Today I heard she asked how far along am I and when is the due date. She’s obsessed with her only grandchild (BIL’s son 9yo) and even said she wanted to take him from his mom because she’d take better care of him. My SIL NEVER leaves him alone with her, thankfully.
Anyway, I’m freaking out that she will offer to come and help and I absolutely DONT want this woman here at all. I don’t know how my husband would react if she starts insisting on coming here, he said I don’t need to worry but it’s very defensive about FMIL. I am aware I have a SO problem because she can’t manipulate him easily with her dramas. I swear I’d leave this house if she comes here. I want my mom to be here. I am freaking about this bc I remember how jealous she was of my SIL’s mom when my nephew was born. She wanted to be the first, the most important and etc. She’s also very jealous of my mom and our relationship.
If I have a girl she will be absolutely crazy because it was her dream and she had only 3 boys. I’m not sure if I’m overthinking this, but I feel she’ll ask to come here. When she left (even after all fights) she said something like “if you guys have a kid I’ll come to help. Actually, not sure if you will want bc you have your mum huh?” Which I replied “yes, I have my mom here and it’s all good”. She also cried when my husband told her I was pregnant saying she loved me and was devastated because she would never get to know her grandchild. She’s just a fucking narcissistic I dislike so much.
How can I prepare for this situation?

As I look through many different posts in this forum, I can't help but notice a recurring theme where people are saying that the 2024 Pats defense will "take a step back" because "Bill the GOAT" is gone, and this honestly does not make sense to me at all.
Don't get me wrong, that 2023 defense was a very good unit without doubt (fewest yards allowed per rush attempt in the league), but they were still prone to making dumb/costly mistakes and had bad performances that a supposed "elite" defense SHOULD NOT be putting out. Please bear with me as I list all the 2023 games and what went (or didn't go) wrong for the defense in those games;
Eagles Week 1 - No complaints here, they played GREAT against the defending NFC champs, they just got unlucky with the Slay pick-six, Zeke fumbling away short field position to set up the Eagles only touchdown, and Jake Elliott nailing all 4 of his LONG field goals. Dolphins Week 2 - Defense did a solid, not good job limiting Tua and the passing game, but proceeded to let Mostert BULLY them on the ground by allowing 120+ yards on just 18 carries and 2 TDs. Jets Week 3 - Again, no real big complaints. A wet, miserable game where both offenses struggled and both defenses had field days, plus Judon got a safety. Although Dugger almost ruined everything on that final hail mary when he swatted the ball RIGHT TO R. Cobb, who thankfully slipped on the turf and couldn't get it. Cowboys Week 4 - A game we all want to forget about. I really don't remember anything about the defense in this game other than that they allowed 17 points and both Judon and Gonzalez got hurt. I'm sure there were ACTUAL defensive lowlights from that game but it's not worth going back and looking. Saints Week 5 - The other HORRIBLE game we'd all love to wipe from our memory. Only thing worth noting is that the defense struggled WAY MORE against both the pass and run in this game than they did against the Cowboys for some reason. Raiders Week 6 - Raiders rookie tight end Michael Mayer would end his rookie season with 304 receiving yards, he had nearly a third of that total in THIS GAME ALONE. On all 5 of his catches, there wasn't a single defender within like 15 yards of him, enough said with that crap. Bills Week 7 - We can all probably agree that this was our favorite game of the season, and while the defense did good, it still isn't safe, because they allowed that flukey Diggs touchdown where Jackson and Bryant failed miserably to tackle him and allowed that 4th down conversion near the end that eventually allowed Buffalo to score the go-ahead touchdown before the Pats game-winning drive. Dolphins Week 8 - Abysmal officiating aside, the defense allowed every 4th down Miami attempted to be converted as well as those 2 big wide-open touchdown passes, the one to Hill is slightly embarrassing, but the one to Waddle is pathetic and totally inexcusable. Commanders Week 9 - Within the 2-minute warning of the first half, Commanders had the ball at midfield on 3rd and 23 and the Pats defense had a chance to get the offense the ball back to potentially add to the lead the Pats had before halftime, but they proceeded to CHOKE HARD by allowing Howell to SCRAMBLE for a first down, keeping the ball in the hands of the Commies, and while they would force an interception in the endzone, it was too late at that point to try and get points. They also (along with special teams) kept committing stupid penalties that took away time of possession. Colts Week 10 - The first of a 3-game stretch where because the other team couldn't score more than 10, everyone was convinced that the Pats defense was "elite", when in actuality it was more of complete ineptitude displayed by the opposing team's offenses. In this game, Gardner Minshew wasn't sacked ONCE, and if I recall correctly he was only pressured or hit one time by Barmore and that was it. This failure to bring down the QB allowed Minshew to tear the Pats weak AF secondary a new one at least a couple of times. Additionally, this has nothing to do with the defense, but at one point Bill stupidly had the punt team do an all-out blitz in an attempt to block a punt, which failed because it ended up being a good punt with no return man on the field to get it, costing them lots of field position. Giants Week 12 - The Giants won 3 straight games with undrafted QB Tommy Devito as the starter. He had a 100+ passer rating in all of those games, where he went against the ATROCIOUS defenses of Washington and Green Bay, and the "elite" defense of New England. I know the Pats offense was trash in that game, but if the defense still allows Devito to have a good performance SOMEWHAT similar to the one he had against the Commanders league-worst defense, that is a problem. Chargers Week 13 - The final game where the final score is deceiving as hell. The Pats rushing defense was unstoppable without question, but the passing defense was lowkey BAD. The secondary got very lucky when Herbert's receivers dropped 4 or 5 great passes from him. Herbert very well could have had over 300 yards passing that day if those drops didn't happen. Again, 6-0 is more telling of the bad offense from both teams as opposed to good defense. Steelers Week 14 - Not too much to say. They played against Trubisky, and limited him to less than 200 yards passing, picked him off and held VERY strong in the red zone, although they almost blew it at the end. Chiefs Week 15 - Intercepting Mahomes twice in the same game is certainly something to be proud about, but he still threw for over 300+ yards when the entire Chiefs offense was a chaotic mess at that point. Broncos Week 16 - I was already a fan of Barmore, but he played GODLY in this game. With 3 sacks in a single quarter and pretty much singlehandedly preventing the Broncos from scoring at the 1 after Zappe immediately fumbled at the start made me love the man even more. However, the defense still allowed the Broncos to come back from a double-digit deficit near the end, but still held strong for the win. Bills Week 17 - The defense was basically set up to fail 3 times in a row when Zappe threw those horrible picks, giving up extremely short field position and a free 6 points to Douglas. Credit to the defense though, the only RZ touchdowns they allowed were the 2 Allen tush pushes, but they still gave up that deep ball to Kincaid. Jets Week 18 - The dreadful snow game where the defense had absolutely no answer for Breece Hall, but honestly, who even cared at that point?
Two other things that contradict the defense being "elite" in 2023 was that one, they didn't score a single defensive touchdown all year long, and two, they had maybe the 6th or 7th fewest forced turnovers in the league, which honestly doesn't sound elite to me.
With all this being said, I genuinely don't see a reason to think the defense will regress next year just because Bill is no longer coaching. The defense's strongest units in 2023, by far, were the linebackers and the line. Who coached those units? Mayo and Covington. Who is the new head coach and new defensive coordinator? Mayo and Covington. So the defense will still be very strong in those areas, mix that in with Judon and Gonzo returning (and hopefully staying healthy), Barmore developing into a star, and Pepper and Dugger finding rhythm as one of the best safety duos in the league, I'd say, if anything, the defense will AT LEAST be just as good as it was last season, and we as a fanbase should be VERY OPTIMISTIC for what the defense can do next year.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Windows are open, so I can get some fresh air. Birds are chirping, the sun is coming through a crack in the window curtain . Dreading having to get up and put my AC in the window, cuz it’s going to be hot here over next few days. I hear my neighbours, and their kids, just.. living, and here I am for a third summer - still rotting away, still stuck between being afraid I’m dying - and wanting to.
I don’t want to be bitter and resentful, this is not who I am. Or who I was anyway. The grief is just so heavy with every season that comes and goes. I don’t have many people in my life left at all, but I’m getting to the point of not wanting to be in contact with even them , because I don’t want to hear about their great, full lives.
Don’t get me wrong, when I hear my kids or the few friends I have left , getting out there and participating in life, it makes me happy, but then there’s the other side:. I’m left behind. Like I’m already dead and gone. There are SO many difficult things to navigate with this illness aside from the physical.
And here we are, doing it alone. Some of us, quite literally. Lost at sea. I’m terrified, yet also getting to the point of accepting that this might in fact be the thing in life that finally takes me out. I’ve been through a lot. Nothing ever brought me to my knees and kept me there. Until this.
The grief is unbearable today. I want to be hopeful, I want to believe it will get better. I don’t want to be a downer. I don’t want to make anyone more miserable than they already are with this post. I just needed to write this out, and feel a little less alone today here lost out at sea.
I’m sorry, that we’re all here, part of this club that no one wants to be a part of, but I’m grateful I can come here and vomit this stuff out sometimes, and know I’m not as alone as I feel I am. So, thank you

Context. I live in my bfs apartment. Its an upstairs/downstairs duplex. We live upstairs. And this isn't a normal apartment this is a house that some guy bough and renovated to be 2 apartments and rents it out on fb marketplace. He does long term rentals so my bf has had his apartment upstairs for 7 years and ive lived here with him for 2. The way you get into our apartment is you enter through the side door and theres an area everyone has access to and you can go down a short flight of stairs to get to the basement where the washers and dryers are (we own our own set ourselves and the other set is technically communal but that's gross) if you go upstairs you hit another landing with the neighbors back door and bathroom door and another starcase that leads to our front door. And since this is a renovated regular house a lot of the rooms dont make a lot of sense. The downstairs apartment doesn't have its own bathroom technically. The bathroom entrance is in the stairwell. So they have to completely leave their apartment and go into the shared stairwell to shower or use the toilet. So the downstairs neighbors use the stairwell as much as us despite them having their own front door at the front of the house.
Our landlord kinda sucks. He doesn't really upkeep the property unless someone complains. I dont have his number cuz technically im not on the lease and my bf doesn't want to bother him with trivial stuff cuz technically he could kick us out if he wanted to. My bfs lease says no pets and any people that move in must be added. The landord knows im here, ive met him several times. And he knows i have a cat. He raised our rent by $25 a month because of my cat but he never said anything about us not being allowed to have him. And I'm pretty sure its because I've personally done pretty much all of the upkeep inside the house. Im an extremely clean person. A clean freak if you will. And messes and shit make me anxious af. When i moved in we had different downstairs neighbors and they used the stairwell as kinda storage. Mountains of boxes and shoes and toys and shit stacked along the walls. It drove me nuts. But i couldn't do anything about it. When they finally moved out i completely cleaned and decorated the stairwell. Used my own supplies and bought the decorations myself. Spent hours scrubbing the walls and floors and cleaning out the window frames and shit. The decorations arent much, just a couple fake houseplants, but i figured with some decorations in the stairwell whoever moved in next might be detered from using it as storage. All in all cleaning and decorating the stairwell cost me about $150ish and a couple hours of labor. I didnt mind it at all though because now it doesn't make me anxious af when i walk into the building. And the landlord loved it and thanked me and his wife thanked me.
In the year, maybe year and a half, since the first neighbors moved weve gone through like 3 or 4 people downstairs. We hated most of them because they were loud af at all hours. One used to blast music at like 2am. There was one we really liked at first. A couple the same age as us who were pretty cool. And we hoped they would last a while but after the first week they started fighting constantly. Screaming at each other in the middle of the night and shit. They didn't even last the whole first month before they broke up and the guy left. And the chick had to leave cuz she couldn't afford the apartment solo. That's when we got our current neighbors. We've never spoken to each other and im not even sure who actually lives there cuz there's always people coming and going and I've never consistently seen any one person there. They kinda creeped me out when they first moved in cuz they had their back door open (the door that leads into the stairwell) and i was in the stairwell to go outside and smoke but got distracted on my phone for a second and one of the guys stood in the doorway and staired at me with a weird look on his face till i left. But after that i never saw him again so i dont think he actually lives there. They're pretty quiet so we didnt mind them at first. But then they started leaving their trash in the stairwell. And ig they don't have an actual trashcan for their bathroom or bedroom cuz it would be like fast food bags filled with used toilet paper and shit like that. And they would leave the trash there for days until i would take it to the trashcan outside. And i got sick of that pretty quick and tried a couple times to knock to talk to them but noone would answer so i left them a note that wasn't mean or bitchy or anything i basically just said the stairwell is communal and ive been taking their trash outside for them but they need to start taking their trash outside. And they did. But they would leave in on the ground literally next to the trashcan instead of inside it. And the wind would blow their trash all over the back yard (the back yard is our yard and the front yard is their yard) so id still be cleaning up their trash constantly. But i never had to bring it up to the landlord cuz i was outside one day when he was at the next door house (which he also owns and is split into 2 apartments the same way as ours) and he asked me if it was us leaving our trash on the ground cuz he was sick of having to clean up trash before he could mow and i told him no its the downstairs people and that they do it a lot and were leaving it inside but i was sick of cleaning up after them too. Ig he said something to them cuz they started putting their trash somewhere else. Idk where though cuz we only have 1 outside trashcan and I've never seen them use it. But problem solved right? Wrong. Im pretty sure they've been just piling their trash up in their house cuz not to long after that i saw a roach in the stairwell. I lost my shit and killed it and my bf saw it and said it wasnt a roach and convinced me i was being dramatic. Then i saw one in our apartment. And i caught it under a cup to show him and he finally believed me. So we had to sink a bunch of money into buying shit to prevent more from coming into our apartment. Caulk for cracks in the walls, outlet covers, drain covers, door sleeves. That kinda shit. It was one and done though so he didnt want to bother the landlord with it. And it's been months and i havnt seen anything else, even in the stairwell, so i think the landlord found out anyway and said something or they just decided to do something themselves.
Now they've lived here a while and have gotten comfortable. I had to buy an air freshener for the stairwell because they go and take giant disgusting shits and turn the stairwell into a gas chamber. And they've started using the stairwell to knock dirt off their carpets and shit and they just leave the dirt on the ground. So im constantly having to sweep it up myself. And my bf keeps blaming me for the stairwell smelling like cigarettes because he knows i smoke but i go outside and close the door so ik its not me and i was confused for a while how it could be me until i caught the neighbors one night smoking in their kitchen with the door to the stairwell open so all the cigarette smoke drifted into the stairwell. I've started leaving the windows open in the stairwell to clear out the smoke. But its cold at night still and the neighbors keep going and aggressively closing the windows cuz its to cold ig.
And none of this is my responsibility. I shouldn't have to constantly be cleaning up after them. It's not my house. The stairwell is communal the landlord should be cleaning it but he doesn't and since i dont want to constantly have to look at messes and shit i end up having to do it and im so fucking sick of it.

I have a 6 month old molly in my 75L freshwater tank, and he has been doing good up until now. Yesterday i noticed a white string out of its behind, and this morning i noticed that he is droopy. The string is gone, but he now has a witihg ring around his one eye, and he is veryvery droopy. His rear half is hanging and his fins are all down. He is also swimming veryvery slowly. Is he just not having a good day or what could be wrong?

I'm 27, FTM.
I recently connected with another guy who doesn't have an issue with me being trans (surprisingly). We talk all day, pretty much every day. We had our first date yesterday, and we're already planning another one. I like him a lot.
The dilemma: he wants to have "a night in", and as we're both adults, I have an inkling of what may happen. I'm not anticipating, just not completely ruling it out. Since it's a possibility...if the opportunity presents itself...I know I'm going to have to tell him. I've debated not telling him, and that seems wrong, as he may have boundaries regarding "taking" someone's virginity.
How do I go about telling him? I've gone over it a thousand times in my head, and it just causes me a lot of anxiety. I know that if it's an issue it obviously wasn't meant to be, but I'm still incredibly nervous to the point of feeling ill. Does anyone have any advice on how to broach the subject or maybe what to say?
I've never really wanted this before with anyone else. I plan on saying that at least.

The Selective Responder is someone who only responds to the most idiotic and obviously illogical arguments that are opposite their own positions, so as to easily look correct and to ignore the legitimate arguments on the opposing side.
As an example, I will use the very video that inspired this suggestion in the first place. YouTuber Big Joel made this video about the pro-Palestine Colombia protests (on his Little Joel account): https://youtu.be/CmY8NsWxf38?si=AN444TBLs7eKbwUT. The video responds to this article by Colombia Professor John McWhorter, that is critical of the protests: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/columbia-protests-israel.html.
In his video, Big Joel makes the following legitimate criticisms of the article:

• McWhorter complains that the protests are too loud. In fact, he says they are so loud to the point of being "abuse." Big Joel rightly points out how ridiculous a take this is. Protests are supposed to be loud, as the entire point is to grab people's attention. In addition, the validity of the cause being protested for is not dependent on how loud and annoying the protestors are. Even if the protestors were being abusively loud (whatever that means), that does not inherently make their cause unjust.
• McWhorter equates opposing not just the war but Israel's very right to exist to being anti-Black. Big Joel rightfully points out that he just assumes the two positions to be equal levels of racist and terrible. Big Joel rightfully notes that if you are going to make such a statement, you should explain why this is the case instead of just assuming it to be so. Big Joel then goes on to say that in assuming this position as fact, McWhorter does not have to attend to the merits of the pro-Palestine arguments
• McWhorter points out the following things indicating that the Colombia protests have turned violent ("It’s an odd kind of peace when a local rabbi urges Jewish students to go home as soon as possible, when an Israeli Arab activist is roughed up on Broadway, when the angry chanting becomes so constant that you almost start not to hear it and it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying members of Hamas as heroes"). Big Joel then goes on to rightfully dismantle each argument (except one). He says just because the rabbi says there might be violence, does not mean violence is already occurring. He says that one instance of violence (the Arab Israeli getting roughed up) does not indicate a systemic culture of violence amongst the protestors, especially since this assault occurred off-campus. Repeating his earlier point, he says that constant loudness does not equate to violence. Curiously, he never addresses the comment about pro-Hamas posters and clothing at the protests. I will address this more later on.
• McWhorter praises the anti-apartheid protests against South Africa in the 1980s, while condemning the anti-Israel protestors of today. Despite both protest groups similarly disrupting campus life, McWhorter only calls the latter abusive, obviously because he disagrees with the latter while agreeing with the former. Big Joel rightfully points out that, for someone who has previously claimed to be so pro-free speech, McWhorter is a hypocrite. You cannot judge the violence or lack thereof of a protest based solely on whether or not you disagree with the cause

So it seems all fine and good, right? Big Joel is making logical criticisms of McWhorter's mostly dumb arguments. However, the problem is this: there are legitimate criticisms of the protests, Big Joel just does not address any of them. In fact, he does not address a logical criticism of the protests that is within the very article to which he is responding. Let's take this point by point.

• Big Joel clearly rejects the idea that the protestors denying Israel's right to exist is a racist endeavour. In this video and in other videos, he has accused Israel of genocide, colonialism, apartheid, etc. In order to critique someone who believes the protestors denying Israel's right to exist is a racist endeavour, he does not find someone who lays out logical arguments for why this is the case (for example, someone who might say stuff like "dismantling Israel could lead to huge amounts of violence against the Israeli Jews" or "Jews, as a persecuted minority, should have the right to self-determination"). Instead, he finds someone who merely assumes this to be the case, so as to not have to address any of the actual more logical arguments for why denying Israel's right to exist is racist. I am not saying that these pro-Israel arguments are flawless, nor am I saying that denying Israel's right to exist is inherently racist. I am simply pointing out that there are more logical reasons to come to that conclusion than "denying Israel's right to exist is racist because I said so," reasons which Big Joel ignores.
• Most people criticizing the protestors are not doing so on the basis of their loudness. Rather they are doing so on the basis of the antisemitic and pro-Hamas rhetoric being espoused at the protests (I am sure you have all seen the videos). They are also doing so on the basis of their inaccurate understanding of the conflict (examples include them using extreme words like "genocide" or blaming Israel for literally everything that has gone wrong since the conflict began). Rather than focus on an article that contains these perfectly legitimate criticisms of the protests, Big Joel instead focuses on one that incessantly and stupidly tries to degrade the protests on the basis of their loudness. He has picked the worst possible criticisms of the protests so as to not address the best criticisms of the protests. And when the article does contain one legitimate criticism of the protests ("it starts to feel normal to see posters and clothing portraying members of Hamas as heroes"), Big Joel reads out the line but does not address it any further.
• Big Joel rightfully points out McWhorter's hypocrisy when it comes to the South Africa and I/P protests. However, what would he say to someone like Destiny, who supports the rights of both groups to protest yet still politically disagrees with the pro-Palestine protests? What would he say to someone who is legitimately pro-free speech, but nonetheless takes issue with the political values of the pro-Palestine protests? I guess we will never know, because rather than address someone who is ideologically consistent, he instead chose to address a hypocrite. Rather than address the most logical and consistent people who disagree with the protestors, he has chosen to address the most braindead disagreers, so as to not have to confront any legitimate and non-hypocritical arguments.

Put simply, the article is trash and a lot of Big Joel's criticisms of its logic are very valid. However, just because the article's criticisms of the protests are stupid, does not mean that all criticisms of the protests are stupid. In choosing to only address the stupid criticisms while ignoring the legitimate ones, Big Joel never has to question his political views. In this example, Big Joel selectively chose the worst possible representation of the pro-Israel (or at the very least, not as anti-Israel as the Colombia protestors) side, so as to easily look correct and to ignore the legitimate positions on said side. He can simply talk about how assuming controversial statements to be true without providing evidence is a bad debate tactic, how loudness does not equal violence, how hypocrisy is bad, and ignore the higher-quality criticisms of the protests.

I'm guessing most of you have read the new chapter, I guess it was kinda boring and underwhelming, but I def think that it could be bigger than we think it is.
At the end of the chapter, it is revealed that Aihara is planning to buy Akamine Academy. This theory came to mind when I saw Mei's reaction to Yuzu discovering the papers, she didn't seem nervous or at least a little cautious about it, she was pretty direct about it. This is my theory:
First, Yuzu is going to (probably) try and stop this from happening since she learned more about Arata and sees he's a nice guy. I think she's going to try and go to grandfather and ask this deal to stop. Second, I think this is where the plot twist is going to happen, I think grandfather is going to reveal that it is Mei herself who is in charge of this operation and proposed the idea. Think about it: She went to Akamine Academy with Yuzu to see other Academy's in the area, she was the one who got in contact with Arata, she was the one who became business partners with Arata. I believe Mei is doing this to prove to the board that she is a good candidate for chairwoman of the academy, and wants to propose a change they can agree with. Just like the Sayaka incident, Mei took responsibility for it. She is showing that same responsibility by handling this all by herself. This chapter takes over the span of 5 days, if it is believed Mei was working on her proposition when Yuzu left to go study, then she definitely could get in contact with the board and propose this in that time span.
Now this is the part where I'm confused, we probably know that Arata probably doesn't know this purchase is happening and we don't know if Mei is going to tell him or not. But the fact that they're business partners and one of them hasn't even heard the proposition is kinda weird. This is the part where I'm making a wild guess, Mei is jealous of Arata. I'm going to say this now, Arata is one of the most CONFUSING characters in this series, I don't know if he likes Yuzu, I don't know if he's gay, there is barely anything revealed on his feelings besides his role in Akamine, but still he just came into the series so I'm gonna diss on him too much. Mei has known Arata and Yuzu for a while and they both have pretty similar attitudes. (I think) Mei is trying to get Yuzu and Arata as distant as possible because she just doesn't trust him with Yuzu. But still this part is a pure guess because of how calm Mei is with revealing the purchase to Yuzu.
Knowing how this series has gone in the past, Yuzu is prob going to save Akamine Academy from being bought and make Mei trust Arata more. But when Yuzu does save Akamine, I think Arata is going to confess his feeling for her, in which Yuzu is going to deny and reveal she's engaged to Mei. Since Arata isn't in the wedding invitation, I think he starts to hate Yuzu since she lied to him saying "I mostly get in her way" even though she saved Akamine. But since Arata was introduced after Citrus, that could be wrong
The last 2 parts is where I'm very unsure, but yea that's my theory, feel free to comment or make your own theories. :)

We have three little kids. Lots of transitions, moved across the country, new job, then career ended, trying to hold it together.
Oldest turns 5 in a couple of weeks. We potty trained him in February, he seemed to be fine, then drove 500 miles away for Easter, stayed with friends, he got a stomach bug, lots of #2 accidents, I didn't understand and wasn't patient with him. He's been having accidents (#2 only) since then, and in the past few days he refuses to talk about it.
Meanwhile I thought the other two (girl turns three in December, boy turns four in August) should be potty trained so I kept them home from daycare and began potty training on Thursday, using Brandi Brucks' three day thing. Now we're on day four. Yesterday gave up on the two year old who understood when she needed to go #1 but had fits. She hadn't gone #2 since Wednesday. Put her back in diapers and now she is still freaking out about having to poop.
Three year old boy still struggling- refusing to go to potty, accidents. He has some success.
I hardly know what to do and am about to pull out what little hair I have left.
Not looking for critiques of what I've done wrong but of what I should do now. Thanks very much.

I can’t put my disc in correctly, physically. I know where to put it and how to know when it’s in the right place but occasionally, the pubic bone area is just swollen and there is NOTHING to tuck my disc behind. Where I should feel a bump, it’s smooth and bulging. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me being it only happens sometimes and I have no pain or any other side effects. I have a bar in my arm, I’m going to be bleeding for months and I’ve bawled my eyes out over not being able to put my disc in and I need all of my money, I can’t keep buying discs and cups and especially not tampons and pads. I guess nobody can even really help me unless they have the same thing so i guess I just came to vent but if anyone knows what i should do please tell me.