Oh, boy, Charlotte, do I have a doozy for you. It’s such a doozy that it comes in 2 parts. I guess it would qualify as petty revenge, since that’s the only flair that fit, but it’s more of an entitled Karen story.
For the sake of telling the story a little smoother, I'm going to explain some things up front. I (female, early 30s; let's call me Molly) am the manager in the accounting office of a very small loan company. Like, really small. We have less than 30 offices with only 2 employees at each office. For this reason, we are kind of low-tech, old-fashioned. I'm talking paper timesheets that get faxed to our office (we're also the corporate office that handles the payroll). Our office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with a half-hour lunch. Me & my employee (who we'll call Sally) work this shift. Our boss (who we'll call Greg) is the owner & CEO. He works in the office starting at 9:00 a.m. till whenever he leaves for the day. Most of the time, that's around the time we leave, sometimes it's earlier due to errands he needs to run.
So, in Oct 2022, Sally (female, early 30s) gave us a note that her doctor wants to have daily appointments with her indefinitely. She let us know she would need to leave at 3:30 every day. Greg granted that request & even gave her the opportunity to come in early so she didn't miss any of her 8 hours each day. So, she began coming to work between 6:45 & 7:00 & would take however long of a lunch she needed to so she would have an 8-hour day.
Due to a combination of our fiscal year-end work in Oct & Nov 2022, playing catch-up from Dec 2022 to Feb 2023, & the other coworker (who we'll call Irene) leaving the company in Feb 2023 so we had to play catch-up again for several months before we got used to the bigger workload, I hadn't been able to pay too close attention to Sally's work. But in the middle of Aug 2023, I began to suspect her. I realized that the tasks Sally had in the morning would usually take me an hour & a half to do, which meant I would be relatively finished by the time I would arrive at 8:30. Sally, on the other hand, would only have stuff halfway done. Now, I knew Sally worked slower than me since I knew the job better than she did, but this still seemed very slow. I began to suspect Sally was either not arriving as early as she said she was (she was the only one in the office before 8:30) or she was arriving on time but wasn't working.
On Aug 21 (Monday), I decided to come in early to the office since I had to make up time due to a doctor appointment later in the week. So, I arrived at work at 6:40. 6:45 rolled around...no Sally. 6:50...no Sally. 7:00...same thing. Sally arrived at 7:20. Now, ok, maybe she ran into traffic. However, that's a bit of a coincidence that the one day I show up early unannounced is also the day she happens to be late. But I waited to see what time Sally would write down on the timesheet. However, she didn't write down her time until Tuesday right before she left. She had written down that she had arrived at 7:05. I asked her about it, and her response was "I must have copied it down wrong from my spreadsheet." That's strange, 'cause you hadn't arrived at 7:05 any other day that week. Just where did you copy it down from?
Now, I am curious as to what time Sally puts down when she believes no one has seen what time she arrives. So, for Sept 4-15, I would arrive in the parking lot across the street & read a book & eat breakfast while I wait to see what time Sally would arrive. Every single day, she would arrive around 7:15 or 7:20, but would write down 6:45 or 6:50, a half hour discrepancy every single day. & we have no way of knowing how long she's been stealing a half hour every day. She could have been doing this for the past year since her schedule changed.
On Sept 18, I write down Sally's actual times from these 2 weeks on a paper & tell her to correct all the times I indicated. Sally says that she will use the office clock to write down her times from now on. Wait a minute, you're saying that your phone is a half hour earlier than the rest of the world? But only when you arrive at work. When you go to lunch & leave work, it matches the rest of the clocks. & then switches during the night so your arrival time can be wrong again the next day? Wow, that's a pretty glitchy phone you got there.
On Sept 20 after Sally left, I installed a camera that connects to an app in my phone. I put the camera in a place where it wouldn't be able to see any computers/paperwork & turned off the microphone (I didn't want to risk any company info being seen/heard). I only needed to see when Sally arrived. Where I ended up placing it, I was able to see Sally where she sat at her desk.
On three of the following days, Sally would arrive 10 to 15 minutes after the time she would write down. I speak with Greg about this, & we decide to write her up. By the way, usually when an employee is caught forging the timesheet like this, it's an immediate termination. At any other office, she would have gotten fired in the beginning of Sept after I first discovered the half hour forgery. I am deciding to give her a chance to make this whole thing right.
On Sept 26 (Tuesday), I give Sally the write up when she arrives.
Sally: I'll sign it, but I don't know why. I mean, I get here at 7:00. (Ok, there's a sign right there. Who signs an official write up when their employer is lying or setting them up?)
Me: I've observed you arriving between 7:10 & 7:15.
Sally reads the write up & then keeps it at her desk for a bit after signing it. After plenty of time, I ask for it back. She grabs it, so I lean forward & hold my hand out (our desks are right next to each other), but Sally flings it at my desk. The whole thing is made better by the fact that Greg is out of town Tuesday thru Thursday. So, Sally proceeds to be angry & have an attitude all the way through Thursday. She refuses to talk or answer the phones. She does that tossing/flicking-papers-around, aggressive-typing, heavily-setting-things-down thing people do when they're frustrated or angry (which she did all...day...long). She sped out of the parking lot & down the street so fast that I could hear her engine rev & tires squeal from inside the building.
On Sept 27 (Wednesday), Sally is still doing that slamming things thing. I enjoy not responding to her whatsoever. I could see out of the corner of my eye that she would slam something down & look at me. I wouldn't give any kind of reaction, wouldn't look at her, & it would piss her off. Sally would then start slamming things around again. I admit, that was fun.
On Sept 28 (Thursday), I see on the camera that Sally arrives at 7:00, but then I watch her sit on her phone for 45 minutes! She is still having attitude issues, &—unbelievably—is still slamming things. After she leaves for the day, I then see the calendar that Sally keeps on her desk as I was passing by. On the box for Sept 26 (the day she was written up), she had written the words "F***ING JOKE!". The audacity of her to write that in plain view of everyone in the office & think she wouldn't get in trouble for it.
On Sept 29 (Friday), Sally arrives at 7:00 but sits on her phone for 30 minutes WHILE VAPING! (Not sure about other cities or states, but it's illegal to smoke or vape inside a building in the city where our office is.) But Greg is back this day, & I had been texting him what's been going on. He had texted back he wanted to do a meeting on Friday. So, the 3 of us go into the breakroom for a meeting.
Greg: So, Sally, what's been going on with this timesheet thing?
Sally: I just, I forget to write down the time when I arrive.
Greg: Ok, well, whether it's done on purpose or through negligence, we can't have wrong times on the timesheet. So, from now on, you won't be able to come to work before Molly gets here at 8:30. Now, are there any other problems you'd like to discuss with us?
Sally: (begins getting worked up) I just, I feel like I can't talk to her. She creates such a hostile work environment.
Now, I am blown away. Me? Hostile? I'm autistic, so I'm naturally shy & hate socializing, so I usually don't talk to anyone very much. Everyone I tell this story to, their eyes widen when I mention this, 'cause there's no way anyone would ever describe me as hostile.
Luckily, Greg interrupts her to defend me: This isn't a hostile work environment.
Sally: (backpedaling) Well, I mean, she gets mad at her printer & bangs on it, & that just flashes me back to stuff. I mean, I'm trying to work on myself & the anxiety, & she just sends me back.
Oh, so now, we're claiming we have PTSD & that my "violent" actions are giving her flashbacks? Um, who is it laughing right along with me every time my printer jams? (By the way, I know she's lying about the PTSD, 'cause I have a couple friends with PTSD & recognize the signs. Sally doesn't show any sign of fear or panic or shrinking away from things, nothing like that. There are no signs whatsoever of her being alarmed by anything I do.) Oh, not to mention the double standards. You're allowed to slam things around (for 3 straight days, by the way), but I'm not?
Anyway, we wrap up the meeting after Greg underlines (for Sally's benefit) that everyone in the office needs to get along.
On Oct 2 (the next Monday), I had a good drive & happened to get there at 8:20. Sally arrives at 8:25 & comes in, stopping at my desk.
Sally: (annoyed) Are you gonna be early all week?
Me: (frowning & caught off-guard) Um, I don't know. It just depends how long my drive takes.
Sally: (with a snarky attitude) 'Cause I had to keep driving around waiting for you, so if you're gonna be early, I'd like to know.
Ok, first of all, no one is forcing you to drive around. You can park your car in the parking lot. Do you really think we're gonna fire you for sitting in the parking lot while you wait for me? We only said you couldn't come in & work before I do. & second, it's none of your business when I get to work. My shift starts at 8:30, therefore, you should aim for 8:30, just like Greg told you to do. How am I supposed to predict the exact minute I get to work? & you're gonna get angry at me 'cause I didn't show up before my shift starts? Since when is it a requirement of mine to come into work before I start working?
Well, a bit of malicious compliance in this entitled story: if I can see I'm going to arrive at work more than 5 minutes early, I stop at the store just down the road & shop until 8:30. 'Cause guess what? Sally gets there who knows how early & sits in the gas station across the street, waiting for me. Fine, you wanna be that way? I can be petty, too.
By the way, Sally has a radio talk show she listens to from before I get to work until it ends at 10:00. I'm not into talk shows, but it wasn't too annoying (most of the time), so I didn't say anything about it. The reason why I started having a problem listening to it was that they would get into inappropriate things (s** toy review, for example). It made me super uncomfortable when they did segments like this. From the moment Sally was written up, she started only listening to the show on her headphones, thinking she was punishing me by me not getting to hear the show. Joke's on her. Sally did me a favor by not having to listen to that thing.
Sally was also told that she is no longer allowed to take smoke breaks on the clock. As no one else in the office takes breaks but chooses to work through them, this change would be made so all employees were equal now. But here’s the interesting thing: Sally suddenly stopped taking smoke breaks at all, but her bathroom breaks grew more numerous & longer. When she had been taking smoke breaks, the alarm on her phone would go off at specific times, such as 2:00. She would then go outside to take her smoke break. After the on-the-clock-smoke-break privilege was taken away, the same alarms would go off, such as 2:00. She would then disappear to the bathroom for 15 minutes. & I even smelled smoke in there when I went in there right after one of these long bathroom breaks.
Ever since the write up, there’s been attitude every once in a while. Most of the time, I have no idea what it is I did that could possibly have set her off that day. All I know is that Sally’s suddenly slamming things around again (hmm, PTSD cured now, is it?). & she’s still constantly making mistakes (like she’s always done).
On Nov 27, Sally is working on the Funding (loan proceeds funded onto a customer’s debit card). What we do is get the list of customers, determine how much the office funded that customer, transfer the money from the office’s bank account to the holding account, & then transfer the total from the holding account to the account that directly funds the debit cards to replenish the money. We had two customers with similar names (say, John Smith & Jack Smith). Sally hadn’t paid attention to the whole name & had applied John’s $0 funding to Jack. However, Jack had been funded $250. So, that money was missed, & I had to make a separate transfer for it.
On Dec 4, Sally is working on the Funding & writes down $0 for a customer. But the report from the office says he actually got $96.
On Dec 8 & 9, we discovered 2 checks that were supposed to be sent to our office (one from Oct, one from Sept). Neither had been cashed, & neither had ever reached us, even though we had the rest of the paperwork that would have come with those checks. Due to the dots I had connected, I had a pretty strong hunch that Sally wasn’t thoroughly checking the mail envelopes to make sure they’d been completely emptied before they got thrown away. I believed these checks were still in some envelopes that were then thrown away by Sally.
On Dec 11, on the bank reconciliation sheets we work at the end of the month (like balancing a checkbook), one of Sally’s offices was out of balance by $68, & she couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find it, either. I pulled out the one done for the month before. I couldn’t find it there, either. But I did notice one thing. The checks that hadn’t cleared the bank yet didn’t add up to the total amount of outstanding checks Sally had written down. By $68. I go back to the month before that one. There were a total of $68 in old checks that never got cashed & therefore should have gotten written off on the fiscal year-end at the end of Oct. But she hadn’t transferred them to the new month’s sheet. So, now, we have to hold onto them for a whole year to write off next Oct.
The same day, I went through all the offices to double check the GL codes that we post the expense checks to (GL codes determine where an expense gets coded, e.g., post an electricity payment to the GL code for utilities). The day previously, Sally had gotten several GL codes incorrect in the Miller office. She had forgotten to change the codes from the one for the Checkbook to the ones for the expense account. She had caught those ones since it affected the balance of the Checkbook, so I had helped her fix those properly. However, there were expense checks sent to a GL code that wasn’t the right one that Sally hadn’t caught.
I talk with Greg, as I feel that every time I turn around, I am either retraining Sally on stuff I’ve trained her on multiple times, I’m correcting mistakes on stuff Sally should know how to do by now (‘cause again, I’ve trained her multiple times), or I’m disciplining Sally about stuff she’s doing wrong. Greg asks how many mistakes due to carelessness she’s made in the last 2 weeks. I check my notes & tell him 4. He says that’s too excessive for an accounting office. We need to write her up.
So, I made the write up, but I just know I’m going to be dealing with the same attitude as the last time I had to write her up. & guess what? Greg’s out of town till Thursday again. I used my phone this time to record the audio of the interaction. That way, if Sally has attitude towards me again, I’m able to play the recording to Greg so he can hear what Sally’s like when he’s not here (which is why the following conversation is pretty much word for word).
On Dec 12 (Tuesday), I sat her down first thing.
Me: So, in the past couple weeks, I’ve noticed some errors happening due to carelessness, & they’ve become a bit excessive for an accounting office. The most important thing in an accounting office is accuracy. That’s why we focus so much on thoroughness & attention to detail. So, whatever needs to happen to lessen those errors, whether it’s slowing the pace of the work itself or double & triple-checking the work before it’s finished, it needs to happen. For example, when I work the payroll, after I get the total for all the offices, I then subtract each person’s individual hours to double check my entries. That way, if there is an error, at least I know it wasn’t ‘cause I was going too fast or not paying attention or something. So, whatever you need to do to decrease the mistakes, please—
Sally: What errors are we talking about?
Me: I have a page here with the items from the last couple weeks. (hand her the write up)
Sally: (reads the pages for a minute) Ok…
Me: So, whatever you need to do to—
Sally: (talking quickly ‘cause she’s pissed now) I’m gonna need more time & focus strictly on Funding. I don’t wanna touch mail, I don’t wanna touch anything else. I wanna focus strictly on that. ‘Cause I’m getting 80 plus a day (which was a lie, we never get nearly that much), & now, I’m gonna start getting in trouble if it’s not 110%. I am human. I will make mistakes. So, if that’s not allowed, then…(shrugs) let me know, I guess. I’ll talk to Greg & I guess figure something out. I am human, & I am gonna make mistakes, A. B, I feel like crap. He (Greg) has been in here sick the last week. I caught whatever he has. I’ve been hacking. I’ve been sicker than sh** the last week. I am trying. You guys usually have until the 12th to close the month. Since I’ve worked here, I’ve closed before the 8th. Yeah, I made mistakes. I told you I made a mistake on the Miller office. I knew what happened. So, to throw it in my face again that I already made that mistake is kinda rude, but…(shrugs) I’m actually kinda shocked to see that on there.
Me: Well, you did catch the errors involving the Checkbook, but there were other mistakes on that office that you didn’t catch, & that’s the reason that was listed on there.
Sally goes back to her work, & I decide to not ask her to sign the write up I had given her right away since she was diving right into the Funding. She had expressed she wanted to focus solely on it to minimize mistakes. I wanted to use positive reinforcement to convey that this was good behavior & good thinking, so I decided to wait for her to finish before asking her to sign & return the write up.
Now, here’s the issues with her little outburst above.

1. Sally is complaining that she’s human & makes mistakes & we’re not allowing mistakes. We’re not saying that she can’t make mistakes, ‘cause she’s right. Everyone makes mistakes; I make mistakes. What we’re saying is that she’s making mistakes much too often.
   
2. Sally says the reason for these mistakes the last 2 weeks is ‘cause she’s been sick the last week or so ‘cause she caught what Greg had (do you see the timing problem there?). Also, these kinds of mistakes have been happening for months & months. I only brought these examples up ‘cause they were recent.
   
3. Sally pointed out the fact that she closes each month really quick. We don’t care how fast things get done. Our goal isn’t to get things done quickly but to get things done accurately. If we happen to get it done quickly, that’s just a bonus. We would rather things go slow than to have errors causing problems or costing us money ‘cause we didn’t take the time to make sure it was correct.
   
4. Sally states it’s rude that I’m throwing her error back in her face (you already know my reaction to that). She obviously doesn’t know how a job works. Just ‘cause we discussed this error already doesn’t mean it can’t go on the write up. This is just one of the examples that required us to do a write up. We’re not doing this ‘cause we want to write you up or that we’re looking for excuses to get you in trouble. We’re doing our job. If a situation needs correcting, we have to correct it. We can’t just ignore it. & obviously, me talking about your errors all these months hasn’t helped. You’re still making the same mistakes. So, now, we’ve had to escalate to a write up on paper.
   

Sally doesn’t say another word. She, as expected, starts doing her tossing-things-‘cause-I’m-pissed-off thing. I just go back to my work. I’ve said my piece, now we can put it behind us & move on.
Now, we have until 10:30 to make the transfers for this Funding program in order to get the money back to the account the same day. We are still missing the paperwork for 2 customers from an office. (FYI, when we’re missing paperwork, we call the office & ask them to fax it. If we still don’t get it when it gets close to the transfer deadline, we call again & just ask for the amount to get it done.) So, at 10:20, Sally turns to me.
Sally: What do I do for these 2 customers? Do I just skip them?
Me: (frowning) Do what you usually do when you don’t have the paperwork in time. Call the office—
Sally: (in a sharp tone) I did. (she’s assuming I mean call the office to tell them to fax it)
Me: (ignoring her attitude outburst) Call up the office & ask for the dollar amounts.
Sally: But I don’t want to write down the amount without seeing the actual paperwork. If I’m gonna get in trouble for errors now, I don’t want to take down what could be the wrong dollar amount over the phone. I mean, I think that’s only fair to me.
Me: In the instances that were mentioned, they weren’t cases of taking down an amount over the phone. They were instances where we had paperwork or a report to see the amount. We would never write you up if there was a possibility that the office gave you the wrong amount over the phone.
Sally stares at me for a second & turns back to her desk. I turn back to my own work as Sally then calls up the office. I had to deal with her attitude the rest of the day: throwing mail into the mailbox, throwing open the letter folding machine so it made a big bang on the table. I was trying to still be the usual friendly, professional person I am at work; I told her “See you tomorrow” & everything. Sally wouldn’t talk to me unless she had to.
This is when I discovered that Sally has a habit of lashing out at me when she gets in trouble. The first write up involved her trying to drag me under the bus by claiming I’m hostile. This time, it was more personal. See, we do a Christmas gift exchange at the office; we each buy each other a gift. I had searched over & over trying to find something Sally would like. I finally found this desk calendar with gnomes on it (she likes both of these things), so I got it & a couple small items. I open my gift from Sally, & among a few cheap little things, I found…Sally’s own nearly empty bottle of nail polish remover. Wow, this is the thanks I get for not firing you back in Sept with the whole timesheet forgery thing?
& this is where I leave you until Part 2, the conclusion.

I have read a lot about P800. Lots of people recommend not shooting it at box speed, but at 2-400 ISO instead, especially indoors. With this being expired as well in 2005, what are my best options here?
Looking for some examples scenes, and feel free to link your own photos in P800.

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.)

If you're looking for Chinese dramas, please post your request at CDramaRecs, our sister subreddit exclusively created for Chinese drama recommendations.
But first, here's a quick guide on how to make the requests:

First, use the search function

Before posting your request, search Cdrama for what you're looking for.
We get a lot of "drama like" requests, especially for dramas like Hidden Love, Love Between Fairy and Devil, Till the End of the Moon.
So, search for "Dramas like [name of drama]" you will find a lot of results.
For popular dramas like these, we'd recommend that you use the search function.

Tips on writing a good drama rec request

Tip #1: Write a good title and ensure it contains your criteria
Good:

• Can you recommend me a drama to watch with my grandma?
• I need a drama that has a strong female lead, lots of good fighting scenes and gorgeous cinematography

Not great:

• Cdrama pls
• I am bored
• Xianxia recs?

Tip #2: Ensure that your body contains the following information.
Note: You do not have to list ALL of these items, but at least tell us what genre and what you are looking for. It's even more helpful if you list dramas that you've watched.
Too often, we get low effort requests where the title of the post is just "Cdramas pls" and the body text is something vague like "I need more to watch" or "I just finished watching a CDrama and want more". That's too little information for us to go by, and unfortunately, this is a favourite tactic of spammers to increase their karma, so please don't do this. Posts like these will be removed.
Please ensure your body text contains some of the following:

• Genre: Costume / Republican / Modern / Romance / Historical etc
• What criteria are you looking for? For eg: A particular plot/'something like [drama name]', trope, actoactress/couple? ("A drama starring Cheng Yi" or "A story with a Romeo & Juliet plot")
• What other elements in the drama you would like / you don't mind / you don't want at all? (For example: "No love triangles!")
• List dramas you've already watched that might fit what you're looking for so people don't recommend it again. (For example: "I've already watched Hidden Love but anything like that would be great.")
• Alternatively, list dramas that you do not want to be recommended (For eg: "But please, don't recommend me palace harem dramas like Yanxi Palace!"

Here are examples of good drama recommendation requests:

• Darker romance recommendations?
• Recommendations for Dramas with Cross Dressing Woman?
• Any recommendations of Romance C-Drama from from Male Prospective please.
• Recommendations for fun, healthy love stories

Hope it's all clear! Now, head over to CDramaRecs!

So I'm going to say off the bat again this works for me. There's always more nuance to each case, but I just want to offer unsolicited advice. Some of it may be (and probably is) a bit flawed, but I still feel like posting it.
Firstly, I've found that the internet has been a HUGE cause of my past feelings of loneliness, depression, or otherwise just emotions that inhibit me to enjoy my life. All I ever heard was you need friends, you need people or you should logically just feel like shit. The thing I didn't understand until now is, it's all bullshit.
Now this isn't to say we shouldn't feel lonely, but man we really just need distractions, we need focus, something to get completed honed in on that pulls us out of the neverending thinking-mode and makes life fun. We need to change our way of thinking of ourselves most of all, instead of thinking about every single tiny flaw we have, we need to think of ourselves much higher. Not like an inflated ego, but high self esteem. In order to feel good and be happy in your day to day life, you need to believe you have the capacity to do so first.
Now of course, each person's case is entirely different. Some people have developed neural pathways and reactions to things that are just so ingrained that it simply not as easy as flipping a switch and presto, you're happy. That being said though, I do think this is the right path to feeling better honestly.
And one of the most important things I've realized is your mind doesn't know anything, like at all. I mean we know things like leaves are green and pain hurts, but we can't predict the future, we can never have certainty, and to me personally this is a blessing more than a curse because it means we're not completely hopeless no matter how long a painful experience persists in our lives. This is not saying the same old "it will get better" because that would be hypocritical to what I just said, but it does propose the possibility of change, which is all I think we need to get moving.
Other than that it comes down to discipline, and while we shouldn't take this too seriously to a fault where we return to scrutinizing our every action and it's mistakes, we should adhere to a certain set of habits we want to adopt highly enough that we learn overtime to say no to comfortable things. Say you want to lose weight for example, try eating later in the day and build that habit of taking control of your mind, that will get a bit easier each time as your mind gets used to not having it's fix.
This is just my two cents, maybe it'll help nobody and maybe some of it is a bit wrong but I felt like sharing it just cause. Hope whoever reads this has a good day.
p.s. also journalling actually does work, which I thought was just a self-help fad, but no it does wonders if you put all your thoughts onto paper.

I never thought I would have a story to share in one of these threads, but it finally happened. I apologize for the length (so long it has to be split into 2 parts), but this one is a doozy.
For the sake of telling the story a little smoother, I'm going to explain some things up front. I (female, early 30s; let's call me Molly) am the manager in the accounting office of a very small loan company. Like, really small. We have less than 30 offices with only 2 employees at each office. For this reason, we are kind of low-tech, old-fashioned. I'm talking paper timesheets that get faxed to our office (we're also the corporate office that handles the payroll). Our office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with a half-hour lunch. Me & my employee (who we'll call Sally) work this shift. Our boss (who we'll call Greg) is the owner & CEO. He works in the office starting at 9:00 a.m. till whenever he leaves for the day. Most of the time, that's around the time we leave, sometimes it's earlier due to errands he needs to run.
So, in Oct 2022, Sally (female, early 30s) gave us a note that her doctor wants to have daily appointments with her indefinitely. She let us know she would need to leave at 3:30 every day. Greg granted that request & even gave her the opportunity to come in early so she didn't miss any of her 8 hours each day. So, she began coming to work between 6:45 & 7:00 & would take however long of a lunch she needed to so she would have an 8-hour day.
Due to a combination of our fiscal year-end work in Oct & Nov 2022, playing catch-up from Dec 2022 to Feb 2023, & the other coworker (who we'll call Irene) leaving the company in Feb 2023 so we had to play catch-up again for several months before we got used to the bigger workload, I hadn't been able to pay too close attention to Sally's work. But in the middle of Aug 2023, I began to suspect her. I realized that the tasks Sally had in the morning would usually take me an hour & a half to do, which meant I would be relatively finished by the time I would arrive at 8:30. Sally, on the other hand, would only have stuff halfway done. Now, I knew Sally worked slower than me since I knew the job better than she did, but this still seemed very slow. I began to suspect Sally was either not arriving as early as she said she was (she was the only one in the office before 8:30) or she was arriving on time but wasn't working.
On Aug 21 (Monday), I decided to come in early to the office since I had to make up time due to a doctor appointment later in the week. So, I arrived at work at 6:40. 6:45 rolled around...no Sally. 6:50...no Sally. 7:00...same thing. Sally arrived at 7:20. Now, ok, maybe she ran into traffic. However, that's a bit of a coincidence that the one day I show up early unannounced is also the day she happens to be late. But I waited to see what time Sally would write down on the timesheet. However, she didn't write down her time until Tuesday right before she left. She had written down that she had arrived at 7:05. I asked her about it, and her response was "I must have copied it down wrong from my spreadsheet." That's strange, 'cause you hadn't arrived at 7:05 any other day that week. Just where did you copy it down from?
Now, I am curious as to what time Sally puts down when she believes no one has seen what time she arrives. So, for Sept 4-15, I would arrive in the parking lot across the street & read a book & eat breakfast while I wait to see what time Sally would arrive. Every single day, she would arrive around 7:15 or 7:20, but would write down 6:45 or 6:50, a half hour discrepancy every single day. & we have no way of knowing how long she's been stealing a half hour every day. She could have been doing this for the past year since her schedule changed.
On Sept 18, I write down Sally's actual times from these 2 weeks on a paper & tell her to correct all the times I indicated. Sally says that she will use the office clock to write down her times from now on. Wait a minute, you're saying that your phone is a half hour earlier than the rest of the world? But only when you arrive at work. When you go to lunch & leave work, it matches the rest of the clocks. & then switches during the night so your arrival time can be wrong again the next day? Wow, that's a pretty glitchy phone you got there.
On Sept 20 after Sally left, I installed a camera that connects to an app in my phone. I put the camera in a place where it wouldn't be able to see any computers/paperwork & turned off the microphone (I didn't want to risk any company info being seen/heard). I only needed to see when Sally arrived. Where I ended up placing it, I was able to see Sally where she sat at her desk.
On three of the following days, Sally would arrive 10 to 15 minutes after the time she would write down. I speak with Greg about this, & we decide to write her up. By the way, usually when an employee is caught forging the timesheet like this, it's an immediate termination. At any other office, she would have gotten fired in the beginning of Sept after I first discovered the half hour forgery. I am deciding to give her a chance to make this whole thing right.
On Sept 26 (Tuesday), I give Sally the write up when she arrives.
Sally: I'll sign it, but I don't know why. I mean, I get here at 7:00. (Ok, there's a sign right there. Who signs an official write up when their employer is lying or setting them up?)
Me: I've observed you arriving between 7:10 & 7:15.
Sally reads the write up & then keeps it at her desk for a bit after signing it. After plenty of time, I ask for it back. She grabs it, so I lean forward & hold my hand out (our desks are right next to each other), but Sally flings it at my desk. The whole thing is made better by the fact that Greg is out of town Tuesday thru Thursday. So, Sally proceeds to be angry & have an attitude all the way through Thursday. She refuses to talk or answer the phones. She does that tossing/flicking-papers-around, aggressive-typing, heavily-setting-things-down thing people do when they're frustrated or angry (which she did all...day...long). She sped out of the parking lot & down the street so fast that I could hear her engine rev & tires squeal from inside the building.
On Sept 27 (Wednesday), Sally is still doing that slamming things thing. I enjoy not responding to her whatsoever. I could see out of the corner of my eye that she would slam something down & look at me. I wouldn't give any kind of reaction, wouldn't look at her, & it would piss her off. Sally would then start slamming things around again. I admit, that was fun.
On Sept 28 (Thursday), I see on the camera that Sally arrives at 7:00, but then I watch her sit on her phone for 45 minutes! She is still having attitude issues, &—unbelievably—is still slamming things. After she leaves for the day, I then see the calendar that Sally keeps on her desk as I was passing by. On the box for Sept 26 (the day she was written up), she had written the words "F***ING JOKE!". The audacity of her to write that in plain view of everyone in the office & think she wouldn't get in trouble for it.
On Sept 29 (Friday), Sally arrives at 7:00 but sits on her phone for 30 minutes WHILE VAPING! (Not sure about other cities or states, but it's illegal to smoke or vape inside a building in the city where our office is.) But Greg is back this day, & I had been texting him what's been going on. He had texted back he wanted to do a meeting on Friday. So, the 3 of us go into the breakroom for a meeting.
Greg: So, Sally, what's been going on with this timesheet thing?
Sally: I just, I forget to write down the time when I arrive.
Greg: Ok, well, whether it's done on purpose or through negligence, we can't have wrong times on the timesheet. So, from now on, you won't be able to come to work before Molly gets here at 8:30. Now, are there any other problems you'd like to discuss with us?
Sally: (begins getting worked up) I just, I feel like I can't talk to her. She creates such a hostile work environment.
Now, I am blown away. Me? Hostile? I'm autistic, so I'm naturally shy & hate socializing, so I usually don't talk to anyone very much. Everyone I tell this story to, their eyes widen when I mention this, 'cause there's no way anyone would ever describe me as hostile.
Luckily, Greg interrupts her to defend me: This isn't a hostile work environment.
Sally: (backpedaling) Well, I mean, she gets mad at her printer & bangs on it, & that just flashes me back to stuff. I mean, I'm trying to work on myself & the anxiety, & she just sends me back.
Oh, so now, we're claiming we have PTSD & that my "violent" actions are giving her flashbacks? Um, who is it laughing right along with me every time my printer jams? (By the way, I know she's lying about the PTSD, 'cause I have a couple friends with PTSD & recognize the signs. Sally doesn't show any sign of fear or panic or shrinking away from things, nothing like that. There are no signs whatsoever of her being alarmed by anything I do.) Oh, not to mention the double standards. You're allowed to slam things around (for 3 straight days, by the way), but I'm not?
Anyway, we wrap up the meeting after Greg underlines (for Sally's benefit) that everyone in the office needs to get along.
On Oct 2 (the next Monday), I had a good drive & happened to get there at 8:20. Sally arrives at 8:25 & comes in, stopping at my desk.
Sally: (annoyed) Are you gonna be early all week?
Me: (frowning & caught off-guard) Um, I don't know. It just depends how long my drive takes.
Sally: (with a snarky attitude) 'Cause I had to keep driving around waiting for you, so if you're gonna be early, I'd like to know.
Ok, first of all, no one is forcing you to drive around. You can park your car in the parking lot. Do you really think we're gonna fire you for sitting in the parking lot while you wait for me? We only said you couldn't come in & work before I do. & second, it's none of your business when I get to work. My shift starts at 8:30, therefore, you should aim for 8:30, just like Greg told you to do. How am I supposed to predict the exact minute I get to work? & you're gonna get angry at me 'cause I didn't show up before my shift starts? Since when is it a requirement of mine to come into work before I start working?
Well, a bit of malicious compliance in this entitled story: if I can see I'm going to arrive at work more than 5 minutes early, I stop at the store just down the road & shop until 8:30. 'Cause guess what? Sally gets there who knows how early & sits in the gas station across the street, waiting for me. Fine, you wanna be that way? I can be petty, too.
By the way, Sally has a radio talk show she listens to from before I get to work until it ends at 10:00. I'm not into talk shows, but it wasn't too annoying (most of the time), so I didn't say anything about it. The reason why I started having a problem listening to it was that they would get into inappropriate things (s** toy review, for example). It made me super uncomfortable when they did segments like this. From the moment Sally was written up, she started only listening to the show on her headphones, thinking she was punishing me by me not getting to hear the show. Joke's on her. Sally did me a favor by not having to listen to that thing.
Sally was also told that she is no longer allowed to take smoke breaks on the clock. As no one else in the office takes breaks but chooses to work through them, this change would be made so all employees were equal now. But here’s the interesting thing: Sally suddenly stopped taking smoke breaks at all, but her bathroom breaks grew more numerous & longer. When she had been taking smoke breaks, the alarm on her phone would go off at specific times, such as 2:00. She would then go outside to take her smoke break. After the on-the-clock-smoke-break privilege was taken away, the same alarms would go off, such as 2:00. She would then disappear to the bathroom for 15 minutes. & I even smelled smoke in there when I went in there right after one of these long bathroom breaks.
Ever since the write up, there’s been attitude every once in a while. Most of the time, I have no idea what it is I did that could possibly have set her off that day. All I know is that Sally’s suddenly slamming things around again (hmm, PTSD cured now, is it?). & she’s still constantly making mistakes (like she’s always done).
On Nov 27, Sally is working on the Funding (loan proceeds funded onto a customer’s debit card). What we do is get the list of customers, determine how much the office funded that customer, transfer the money from the office’s bank account to the holding account, & then transfer the total from the holding account to the account that directly funds the debit cards to replenish the money. We had two customers with similar names (say, John Smith & Jack Smith). Sally hadn’t paid attention to the whole name & had applied John’s $0 funding to Jack. However, Jack had been funded $250. So, that money was missed, & I had to make a separate transfer for it.
On Dec 4, Sally is working on the Funding & writes down $0 for a customer. But the report from the office says he actually got $96.
On Dec 8 & 9, we discovered 2 checks that were supposed to be sent to our office (one from Oct, one from Sept). Neither had been cashed, & neither had ever reached us, even though we had the rest of the paperwork that would have come with those checks. Due to the dots I had connected, I had a pretty strong hunch that Sally wasn’t thoroughly checking the mail envelopes to make sure they’d been completely emptied before they got thrown away. I believed these checks were still in some envelopes that were then thrown away by Sally.
On Dec 11, on the bank reconciliation sheets we work at the end of the month (like balancing a checkbook), one of Sally’s offices was out of balance by $68, & she couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find it, either. I pulled out the one done for the month before. I couldn’t find it there, either. But I did notice one thing. The checks that hadn’t cleared the bank yet didn’t add up to the total amount of outstanding checks Sally had written down. By $68. I go back to the month before that one. There were a total of $68 in old checks that never got cashed & therefore should have gotten written off on the fiscal year-end at the end of Oct. But she hadn’t transferred them to the new month’s sheet. So, now, we have to hold onto them for a whole year to write off next Oct.
The same day, I went through all the offices to double check the GL codes that we post the expense checks to (GL codes determine where an expense gets coded, e.g., post an electricity payment to the GL code for utilities). The day previously, Sally had gotten several GL codes incorrect in the Miller office. She had forgotten to change the codes from the one for the Checkbook to the ones for the expense account. She had caught those ones since it affected the balance of the Checkbook, so I had helped her fix those properly. However, there were expense checks sent to a GL code that wasn’t the right one that Sally hadn’t caught.
I talk with Greg, as I feel that every time I turn around, I am either retraining Sally on stuff I’ve trained her on multiple times, I’m correcting mistakes on stuff Sally should know how to do by now (‘cause again, I’ve trained her multiple times), or I’m disciplining Sally about stuff she’s doing wrong. Greg asks how many mistakes due to carelessness she’s made in the last 2 weeks. I check my notes & tell him 4. He says that’s too excessive for an accounting office. We need to write her up.
So, I made the write up, but I just know I’m going to be dealing with the same attitude as the last time I had to write her up. & guess what? Greg’s out of town till Thursday again. I used my phone this time to record the audio of the interaction. That way, if Sally has attitude towards me again, I’m able to play the recording to Greg so he can hear what Sally’s like when he’s not here (which is why the following conversation is pretty much word for word).
On Dec 12 (Tuesday), I sat her down first thing.
Me: So, in the past couple weeks, I’ve noticed some errors happening due to carelessness, & they’ve become a bit excessive for an accounting office. The most important thing in an accounting office is accuracy. That’s why we focus so much on thoroughness & attention to detail. So, whatever needs to happen to lessen those errors, whether it’s slowing the pace of the work itself or double & triple-checking the work before it’s finished, it needs to happen. For example, when I work the payroll, after I get the total for all the offices, I then subtract each person’s individual hours to double check my entries. That way, if there is an error, at least I know it wasn’t ‘cause I was going too fast or not paying attention or something. So, whatever you need to do to decrease the mistakes, please—
Sally: What errors are we talking about?
Me: I have a page here with the items from the last couple weeks. (hand her the write up)
Sally: (reads the pages for a minute) Ok…
Me: So, whatever you need to do to—
Sally: (talking quickly ‘cause she’s pissed now) I’m gonna need more time & focus strictly on Funding. I don’t wanna touch mail, I don’t wanna touch anything else. I wanna focus strictly on that. ‘Cause I’m getting 80 plus a day (which was a lie, we never get nearly that much), & now, I’m gonna start getting in trouble if it’s not 110%. I am human. I will make mistakes. So, if that’s not allowed, then…(shrugs) let me know, I guess. I’ll talk to Greg & I guess figure something out. I am human, & I am gonna make mistakes, A. B, I feel like crap. He (Greg) has been in here sick the last week. I caught whatever he has. I’ve been hacking. I’ve been sicker than sh** the last week. I am trying. You guys usually have until the 12th to close the month. Since I’ve worked here, I’ve closed before the 8th. Yeah, I made mistakes. I told you I made a mistake on the Miller office. I knew what happened. So, to throw it in my face again that I already made that mistake is kinda rude, but…(shrugs) I’m actually kinda shocked to see that on there.
Me: Well, you did catch the errors involving the Checkbook, but there were other mistakes on that office that you didn’t catch, & that’s the reason that was listed on there.
Sally goes back to her work, & I decide to not ask her to sign the write up I had given her right away since she was diving right into the Funding. She had expressed she wanted to focus solely on it to minimize mistakes. I wanted to use positive reinforcement to convey that this was good behavior & good thinking, so I decided to wait for her to finish before asking her to sign & return the write up.
Now, here’s the issues with her little outburst above.

1. Sally is complaining that she’s human & makes mistakes & we’re not allowing mistakes. We’re not saying that she can’t make mistakes, ‘cause she’s right. Everyone makes mistakes; I make mistakes. What we’re saying is that she’s making mistakes much too often.
   
2. Sally says the reason for these mistakes the last 2 weeks is ‘cause she’s been sick the last week or so ‘cause she caught what Greg had (do you see the timing problem there?). Also, these kinds of mistakes have been happening for months & months. I only brought these examples up ‘cause they were recent.
   
3. Sally pointed out the fact that she closes each month really quick. We don’t care how fast things get done. Our goal isn’t to get things done quickly but to get things done accurately. If we happen to get it done quickly, that’s just a bonus. We would rather things go slow than to have errors causing problems or costing us money ‘cause we didn’t take the time to make sure it was correct.
   
4. Sally states it’s rude that I’m throwing her error back in her face (you already know my reaction to that). She obviously doesn’t know how a job works. Just ‘cause we discussed this error already doesn’t mean it can’t go on the write up. This is just one of the examples that required us to do a write up. We’re not doing this ‘cause we want to write you up or that we’re looking for excuses to get you in trouble. We’re doing our job. If a situation needs correcting, we have to correct it. We can’t just ignore it. & obviously, me talking about your errors all these months hasn’t helped. You’re still making the same mistakes. So, now, we’ve had to escalate to a write up on paper.
   

Sally doesn’t say another word. She, as expected, starts doing her tossing-things-‘cause-I’m-pissed-off thing. I just go back to my work. I’ve said my piece, now we can put it behind us & move on.
Now, we have until 10:30 to make the transfers for this Funding program in order to get the money back to the account the same day. We are still missing the paperwork for 2 customers from an office. (FYI, when we’re missing paperwork, we call the office & ask them to fax it. If we still don’t get it when it gets close to the transfer deadline, we call again & just ask for the amount to get it done.) So, at 10:20, Sally turns to me.
Sally: What do I do for these 2 customers? Do I just skip them?
Me: (frowning) Do what you usually do when you don’t have the paperwork in time. Call the office—
Sally: (in a sharp tone) I did. (she’s assuming I mean call the office to tell them to fax it)
Me: (ignoring her attitude outburst) Call up the office & ask for the dollar amounts.
Sally: But I don’t want to write down the amount without seeing the actual paperwork. If I’m gonna get in trouble for errors now, I don’t want to take down what could be the wrong dollar amount over the phone. I mean, I think that’s only fair to me.
Me: In the instances that were mentioned, they weren’t cases of taking down an amount over the phone. They were instances where we had paperwork or a report to see the amount. We would never write you up if there was a possibility that the office gave you the wrong amount over the phone.
Sally stares at me for a second & turns back to her desk. I turn back to my own work as Sally then calls up the office. I had to deal with her attitude the rest of the day: throwing mail into the mailbox, throwing open the letter folding machine so it made a big bang on the table. I was trying to still be the usual friendly, professional person I am at work; I told her “See you tomorrow” & everything. Sally wouldn’t talk to me unless she had to.
This is when I discovered that Sally has a habit of lashing out at me when she gets in trouble. The first write up involved her trying to drag me under the bus by claiming I’m hostile. This time, it was more personal. See, we do a Christmas gift exchange at the office; we each buy each other a gift. I had searched over & over trying to find something Sally would like. I finally found this desk calendar with gnomes on it (she likes both of these things), so I got it & a couple small items. I open my gift from Sally, & among a few cheap little things, I found…Sally’s own nearly empty bottle of nail polish remover. Wow, this is the thanks I get for not firing you back in Sept with the whole timesheet forgery thing?
& this is where I leave you until Part 2, the conclusion.

Please help. I love to go to live classical music concerts, and I am an attentive listener. I find when people talk / whisper, open and eat trail-mix snacks around me to be distracting and it ruins my enjoyment of a performance. I understand if you are at another type of venue, for example: a rock concert, a bar, or your living room, etc… but not a classical music venue. Seeking recommendations as to best location where more ‘serious’ listeners sit. Many thanks. 🙏

I'm looking for some mods that actually add things in the game for me to do. An example would be a royalty mod I have, it allows me to go to events and opens special dialogue for my sims. I can even assign sims roles and essentially build a kingdom. I want more things like that, but I can't find anything because most mods just do things like add items. Any recommendations?

My history teacher recently agreed to write me a letter of recommendation. However he told me to include my resume and things about myself that he can contribute to. Should I provide a full resume or anything else to contribute? And should I email or print it out for him to write? Any other info on letter or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Hey, just wanted to share my first trip of the season to Six Flags Great Adventure yesterday. I don’t get out there a lot but it is my most visited park and so I figured I would detail what happened.
We first arrived to the park 5 minutes before the gates officially opened. That was the best decision we could have made as those first two hours in the park made a large difference. The park was mostly empty and so we first went over to Nitro.
Nitro (2x): To start we went to nitro, which is my most ridden roller coaster ever, and I honestly love this ride. It’s a highly underrated B&M hyper, especially in the back. We rode this twice in the back and it was a bit slower than usual because it wasn’t a full train. Still some great airtime.
Batman the Ride: After walking around to Wonder Woman only for it to be closed, we went on Batman instead. It was a walk on to the back row but we had to wait a bit longer due to them only running one train. However, it’s a great invert and is very intense in the back row. A very solid coaster and is still quite smooth considering how old it is.
Skull Mountain: This is an okay indoor roller coaster and nothing really to talk about. They were playing music and had bright lights throughout the ride, creating a disco-like atmosphere. Unfortunately, it took away from the ride experience because it was brighter in there than usual.
Superman: The wait for this ride was long but not as long as it usually can be. They were only running one train here too, which made the wait even worse. In my opinion, aside from the pretzel loop, this ride is pretty pointless. It meanders around and doesn’t really do a lot for me. The restraint system can also be uncomfortable at times but makes sense due to the nature of it.
Medusa: We took the long walk to the back of the park to ride this B&M. The wait was not too long but another case of only operating one train. This ride is pretty good with some really solid and intense inversions. However it definitely has the B&M rattle and is not as smooth as the other B&Ms in the park. Still is worth checking out.
El Toro (2x): For me personally, this is one of the greatest coasters on the planet. We first decided to go in the front row but due to one train ops the wait was quite long. Front row was great with some solid airtime but some of the roughness was definitely there. I do think that some of it has disappeared from last year and the ride seems to be much smoother overall. But riding this coaster in the front is a big mistake. We returned to the ride later in the day to ride it towards the back. I decided to try row 17 since I heard it was the best seat on toro. And I am glad to say I was not disappointed at all. EL TORO IN ROW 17 IS ELITE. That was the smoothest and best ride I have ever had on el toro and honestly any woodie. The first drop and following two camelbacks are some of the best airtime moments you can find. Rolling Thunder hill is also insane. Definitely one of the best coasters ever and it has cemented its spot as my #2
Kingda Ka: They were thankfully running two trains here but I unfortunately did not have the best ride experience. It had just started to rain before we got on and that was unfortunate for us. The second the launch began the rain hit my face like a bunch of bullets and it was impossible for me to open my eyes. That being said it s very hard to hate on this ride and I think it’s honestly pretty underrated. The launch is very intense and the feeling of going over that top hat is unmatched.
We wrapped up our day around 4:30 and it honestly was pretty successful. One train operations were very unfortunate and made waits much longer than they needed to be. For example, jersey Devil didn’t open until 2 and was only running one train, making that line impossible to wait in. Still, cowds were nonexistent for the first few hours but definitely began to fill in during the afternoon. If you’re visiting great adventure anytime soon I would recommend getting there as early as you can to maximize your ability to get on everything. I can’t wait for Flash to open and I hope that the park can maybe have better operations throughout the summer.

Basically I'm looking to create myself and a bunch of friends in a WWE game as custom characters, then watch us duke it out with the computeai being in control (i.e. none of us are playing the game, just watching) .
However before I buy the game is this something that's actually possible? As a casual WWE fan who's not massively into the games, which one would you recommend and why-for example, is the character creation better in the most recent one? Looking to buy on the PS5 or steam

I have a two-bedroom unit that currently has a 4.5 star rating and I need to something to raise it. The frustrating thing is that the sub-5 star reviews truly feel out of my control. Examples of these reviews:

• A 3-star review from a total Karen guest complaining about everything under the sun, including no rail on the tub (pics clearly show there’s no rail), creaky hardwood floors (this is a 100-year-old home and the floors creak as much as any home of that age), the TV streaming services going out (a confirmed issue with Roku’s services that was out of my control), etc., etc.
• A 3-star review complaining that a doorknob broke (this occurred at midnight and I had it fixed the next day).
• A 4-star review that said only, “He was very responsive and helpful to all my needs.”
• A 3-star review from a guest from New York City who complained there wasn’t anything to do in the surrounding area and he needed to have a car to get around (which is true and the case in almost every US city that isn’t New York or San Francisco). After I helped this guest with restaurant recommendations at midnight.

To come to the point, I’ve been wondering if I’m attracting Karen guests because my listing is priced too low. I use an automatic pricing tool and this is the price it recommends. It keeps the unit pretty full, and if I price it any higher I definitely have a dropoff in bookings. However, the price is low enough that it’s by far the cheapest two-bedroom unit in the area and typically guests will only be getting a room for that price. I’m thinking of raising the price by 50% to see what happens. What would you do?

Hi, guys! I'm back. I've just finished reading Starset's new novel, A Brief History of the Future, and i really needed to share it.
Some of you may know me from my previous posts on the Starset lore:

• In "The Starset lore Part I: Transmissions", I covered the events told in The Prox Transmissions (Starset's first novel) and linked them to the album Transmissions.
• In "The Starset lore Part II: DivisionsThe Starset lore Part II: Divisions", I tried to gather the information we had on the new storyline, mainly based on Divisions content (Horizons hadn't released yet by then) and I shared my speculations about its meaning.

Now that I've read this book, I want to sum up what we have now. Keep in mind that, for obvious reasons, this post is all spoiler content. If you plan to read the book(s) I encourage you to do so, because I'm unveiling some of the main "plot-twists" in the second book. I won't be writing a literal summary of the book's plot (I will focus on the content more than in the "drama"), but key elements of it will appear. Also, I'm taking for granted you are already familiar with the contents in The Prox Transmissions -if not, I recommend you reading my post or just dropping this post altogether and go read the book!
If you have already read the books, don't plan to read them or don't care about the spoilers, stay with me along this long post because you will discover much about Divisions, Horizons... and what's coming next!!
Let's go then!
In a unknown year the novel starts in a world dominated by a state called the New East. it's not explicit in the book, but we have reasons to identify the New East with China: it is a current superpower and the powerful people in control have Chinese names. This state is governed by a Governing Committee, composed by Ministers that stay in charge for 5 years, with an exception: the Minister of Security, also known as MinSec. He is the head of the New East's secret police and he is to remain in charge for life.
Prior to 2024, Aston Wise (remember he was one of the protagonists of the previous novel!) is locked up by the US Government. They force him to create the BMI and its Architecture. In 2024, as I have said, the New East manages to obtain it and the big war starts. This part of the story is also explained deeper in a video (called "Initial Debriefing", available in Starset's YouTube channel since September 9th, 2021), with some minor incongruencies:

In the year 2010, the US Defense Advance Research Projects Agency -or DARPA- began work on a neural link system known as the "Brain Machine Interface" developed under the highest levels of secrecy. This technology was to be used in covert espionage campaigns with the goal of giving the US a major advantage in the ever-growing cyber warfare battlefield. The intention was to use the "BMI" on unsuspecting foreign agents, giving US Intelligence a remote line into their minds. Launched in 2020 to great success, the BMI provided a window into the intentions and secrets of numerous potential adversaries. Then, in 2021, a botched operation allowed this technology to fall into the hands of an undisclosed state who would then use it agains the US itself for over a decade. This state -which came to be known as the New East- used this technology to syphon intellectual property and assert control over the US, allowing it to rise swiftly as a global superpower. In the early 2030s, the crippled US launched an attack to the New East. This was quickly thwarted. However, as the New East was fully aware and prepared, in the end, the US and its allies capitulated and became known simply as the New West. Citizens of the New West, now mostly impoverished laborers, were offered BMI implantation -sold on the wonders of its amazing benefits. Eventually though, all were made to comply. Only then did the true goals of the New East become apparent.

The New West is a de facto and de iure protectorate. The New West has its own local police -that dealt with murder and robbery-, but the military and, most important, the Civil Authorities (CA), are controlled by MinSec -focused on thought crime.
Soon after the end of the war, some people were drafted for the reclamation in Virginia by the New East army. This was a forced-labor suicide mission because it was a fallout zone. The goal was the recovery of documents from the US, such as blueprints for advanced weapons and intel. Those who survived, developed NeuroTIDS (neural tissue interface degeneration syndrome) because of the radiation.
Once in control of the US (now New West), the New East implanted into all citizens the BMI. Now, people deal with three layers of reality: unaltered reality (UR), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Considering the BMI, there are three states:

• BMI glowing white (normal state: people are in UR with elements of AR).
• BMI glowing blue (also called frosting: people are in VR having some pleasant experience, while looking absent and apathetic in the outside). See an example of person frosting in the Diving Bell music video.
• BMI glowing red (also called supplication).

(There also exists the Everything Machine in this storyline. Indeed, people ate only printed food, as real food as reserved for the New East).
On top of this, there’s an intelligent algorythm or artificial intelligence in the Architecture, called the Overseer. It is capable of detecting thought crimes by accessing a person's sensory input and also altering their perceptions (for example, blurring texts from banned books). When a thought crime is detected, CAs intervene and turn the perpetrator into a supplicant. Supplicants are stuck in VR prisons while their bodies wander in the streets or are collected and put into "corrals". See an example of a supplication facility in Where the Skies Ends music video.
The protectorate of the New East upon the New West is mantained thanks to the Quantum Comunicator, which keeps both connected and also connected to the Architecture
On the other hand, there's a rebel network still in function. They manage to meet and develop their plans by modding their BMIs, so that they become undetectable under the eyes of the Overseer. Their plan is to trap the MinSec and use their credentials to get access to the Architecture and destroy it from the inside.
(In Manifest music video you can see examples of people frosting, people supplicated, the modding minor surgery, the rebels, the CAs using their "freezing" weapons and supplicating civilians and a bigwig from the New East, maybe the MinSec himself).
Also, it is said that the New East didn't manage to conquer all the Old West (US) territories. There's rumours about the socalled Western Territories, free land where some former rebels already live, though its real existence it's in never confirmed in book. In The Breach music video we can see how a family leaving in the New West takes the opportunity of escaping into the Western Territories during some sort of shutdown.
The New West capital is established in Philadelphia, where the events in A Brief History of the Future are set. Here's the Quantum Communication Center and the New West Center for Advanced Innovation (CAI), where the most brilliant programming students are sent to develop their skills and work for the New West/East. One of this students is one of the protagonists of this book, Thomas Bell (again, someone whose name we are already familiar...), who quickly proves to be the best one and gets to be chosen as the Director's assistant. Eventually we get to discover the Director is Aston Wise and later on we find out he is the Architect himself.
A feature or app of the BMI that will reveal crucial to the plot is the Shadowcast: one can frost but, instead of being conscious in a VR, "enters" inside a celebrity's mind for an hour and experiences all they are experiencing live (the user is passive and can only perceive, but not intervene or influence the shadowcast celebrity into doing anything). You can see an example of this in Symbiotic music video, where the user is finally able to successfully Occupy the body of the celebrity. In the book, when this happens, the person occupied has their BMI turned purple.
In the book, Occupation will be a tool used by Bell and Wise, but also by the government, in an attempt of using the supplicated bodies to their own purposes. The original project launched by the New East and commissioned to the Director of the CAI (Aston Wise), was called by Wise himself 'Project X'. New East wanted to present it to the citizens as a way of emancipating from work: while working, you can let yourself be occupied by the Overseer, who wil perform your job while you can be having fun in VR. In Icarus music video you can see an ad made by the New East to promote the "benefits" of this technology (called Werk here); the other ads are based on previous BMI technology (AR, VR and Shadowcast). (Fun fact: have you noticed that the actor in 3:12 is the same from the Ricochet music video?).
As I said in the beginning, it is not my goal to sum up the book's plot and even though I have already spoiled you much info and some plot-twists, I'm not telling you here how the story of the protagonists develops and how it ends. However, I can't refrain from telling you this: the last page of the book has a QR that redirects to a video that has me really excited.
In the video, we see a man. He tells us it is 2048. In spring 2026, the New East took over the US. But... guess who's back! Oh, yes, the Order! Or rather they were there all along. In fact, the man who's talking to us is Stephen Browning! On July 4th of 2026, after the New East invasion, the Order tried to launch a spacerocket to get to "a lonely planet" (Prox!), but it was intercepted by the New East and then the army destroyed their base, so they lost all hope in a future on another planet. However, they managed to hide a "time mechanism" (I guess the same they had in The Prox Transmissions) and, finally, sent a message to 2024, warning us about this future that awaits us. Then he sais:

Dear Order friends, the time has finally arrived. We're headed to space. We're going go Prox.

This announcement matches Starset's video from six months ago ("It begins. And it ends. Now."), where we see images of astronauts and spacerockets, evoking space travel. Wow! Did you miss that "space-y" aesthetic, plots and sound from Transmissions and Vessels? Because it sounds like we're getting them back! Note that at the end of this video, the three dots of the BMI are occupied by three symbols:

• The bottom one is the symbol of the Order, appears at the beginning of each chapter in The Prox Transmissions.
• The middle one is the symbol of Divisions album, I'd say it's a symbol of the rebels.
• The top one is... unknown? It is quite similar to me to the symbol in Faultline, but I guess it represents the "following chapter"? Who knows.

It also matches the music video for Starset's last single, Brave New Word! And there's more news: the end of the video linked in A Brief History Of the Future ends with a "to be continued in Spring 2025".
So... Again, there are some questions left unanswered (and I love that!): How are both books linked? Are they the same Aston Wise and Thomas Bell, but in an alternative timeline? From where will the story continue? (The Order in 2048 colonising Prox?). I'm soooo excited to learn what's coming next and to listen Starset's next album (I love Brave New World).
Let me know about your impressions, opinions, theories... feel free to add any info I could have missed, to correct any piece I could be mistaken about, etc. Thank you so much for your attention (I literally created this account only to write these Starset lore posts I feel very invested to and English isn't even my first or second language), I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful!!

I've become fairly confident with B&W developing at home, can get good results every time or at least good enough for me. In the interest of money saving how easy is C41 developing to start when I have the essentially for black and white film. Apart from a sous vide machine for temp control is there anything else colour needs?
Any chemical recommendations? Id rather buy chemicals individually than those basic colour kits you can find. Is there a standard developer like D76 for example?

My 6 week old baby seems to ALWAYS be hungry and I’m starting to feel like something is wrong?
For reference, he was born at 8lbs 10oz and is now 13 lbs 1oz. We saw the pediatrician at 2 weeks old and since he was already up past his birth weight and doing well, she said she didn’t need to see him again until 6 weeks, so we are back at the end of the week, so we haven’t been able to address these concerns with a doctor yet but definitely will, just want to gauge if I’m overreacting or not.
Our baby was born a hungry boy. He started out eating 2oz every 2 hours but by 6 days our pediatrician had bumped him up to 3oz and then by 2 weeks she bumped him up to 4oz per feed. She said that would last him 3ish hours, but by 4 weeks, he was eating 4oz every 1.5-2 hours without spitting up. Now at 6 weeks, we’ve bumped him up to 5-6oz per feeding, but he’s still eating constantly. He wakes up almost hour through the night to feed.
For example, this morning he woke up at 7am and we gave him 5oz, then at 8am he had 3oz, at 9:30 he had another 2oz and at 10:30 he had another 5oz. He displays hunger cues and cries before we feed him, we aren’t just doing it automatically. He doesn’t spit up or display signs of being uncomfortable after eating.
I was reading babies around his age should be consuming 2.5oz per pound of body weight each day which would put him around 33oz/day, but now by only 10:30am he’s already had almost half his days recommended amount.
Like I said, he doesn’t seem uncomfortable and he’s very alert and not lethargic and doesn’t spit up, so it would seem like he’s okay, this just seems like a crazy amount to be eating given both our doctors recs and guidelines we’ve read. Should I be concerned?

Hey guys! So I made it back into the United States from a work trip to London via advanced parole! The side benefit of having an entry with inspection is amazing of course and just traveling out of the country for the first time in 22 years was just something special! I highly recommend if anyone can do it, to do it! Especially if you don’t have legal entry. Doing it now before the next election is critical imo.
I had another post where I described my timeline and experience. One thing I’d add is you will need to have nerves of steel when coming back. Everyone’s experiences are different but for me, the airline I was using refused to let me board until I had to call my company’s lawyer who then had to get the director of passenger operations from JFK to call the airline to validate the document.
This honestly scared me off from doing advanced parole ever again. But now I got put on another project that needs me to attend regular calls with the Japanese team of 2 clients and a Hong Kong team of another client. So I began thinking this might be a great opportunity for me to visit Tokyo to either meet them in person or at least be in the same timezone for a couple weeks where we can have a few dedicated sessions and really hammer out the project.
So for people who’ve done advanced parole multiple times, especially through work, I wanted to get your thoughts and experiences. And had some questions.

1. How long did your advanced parole take? Mine was surprisingly fast. biometrics in October 2023 and my original advanced parole approved at the end of December. I never received that one so I had to do an emergency request to not jeopardize my trip.
   
2. How long was yours issued for? They told me daca recipients only get single entry for one month.
   
3. Were you questioned or had any issues on your return home?
   
4. Did you get your employer to cover the fees? Or did you pay out of pocket. I had my employer cover it the first time mainly to add more credibility to my case. That this is truly for work. Does it weaken your case if you apply by yourself and pay for it? Or do you just need the letter from the employer? Mainly cuz my Boss will not approve paying for this again due to limited budget.
   
5. Do you have any tips for explaining to airlines how you’re able to return to the United States? The airline questioned my document and basically said it was not legitimate due to them not being familiar with it and USCIS made a really bad typo in the body (United Stales lol). If I do this myself, I will not have the company lawyer who can pull strings again at JFK. Unless I try to get the contact info of the person who talked to the airline and confirm if he can help me.
   

Thanks!

Hi, I discovered recently mini pcs and I think they're the perfect solution for my small room but I can't decide which one to get and how much money should I invest. The first option that was recommended to me was the mac mini m2 at 579 euro, but later I found out that macs have some issues with monitor at qhd and 4k resolution, moreover it is not compatible with many games, for example genshin impact. Is there a mini pc at that price range that could run genshin impact well (even at full hd 60 fps). Or is gaming not worth it on a mini pc and I should just buy one of those on aliexpress with n100 and 12/16 ram drr5 ? Are these fine for basic chrome and office usage in 4k?

Let me preface this post by stating I am making this on my phone, so my formatting will probably be hideous. I am sorry. I appreciate any of you who still choose to read through my post and add your own thoughts on the topic. Now, let's get started on why I made this post.
You may often see inspiration tree recommended as either your primary or (more likely) your secondary tree. Oftentimes you will see 'cosmic insight' suggested. You may opt to change it, if you are unaware why it is so strong. You may leave it, but not understand why you take it. You might just autopilot and not really care. Regardless, if you are someone who likes the concept of strategizing in league, this post is for you.
Now, let's discuss what cosmic insight offers you:
18 summoner spell haste 10 item haste
These aren't exactly flashy, right? Especially when you compare them to other tree's third row/tier. Summoner spell haste is already great. It has good synergy with lucidity boots, too. I am not too concerned about explaining the value of it in this post. You can go to the league Fandom website and see how much it will lower your summoner spell CDs, and then you can draw your own conclusions from there. What I really wanted to have a discussion about is the second line (item haste). This works with actives and passives that have CDs (i.e. An active passive such as Zhonyas will have a lower CD if you take cosmic insight. A passive that has a CD such as Luden's companion will also have a lower CD if you take cosmic insight). OK, so you may be thinking 'so what?' Well, let's use the aforementioned Luden's companion as our primary example below.
Luden's companion has a baseline CD of 12 seconds. Every 12 seconds, you get your 6 charges. However, when you take cosmic insight, you lower that CD to just under 11 seconds (10.91 to be exact). It might not seem like much, but think about skirmishes. Think about extended teamfights. Think about the trades during standoffs around an important objective that spawns. Heck, think about it over the course of an entire game. It all adds up more than you might realize. Just like how the balance team will sometimes add or takeaway 5 AD from a champion, and then said champion's winrate will fluctuate X% as a result. Most might see that tiny change and think 'that doesn't do much', but they would mistaken. Obviously, depending on your build, cosmic insight's usefulness will fluctuate. If you are playing Malzahar, for example, then cosmic insight probably isn't worth it. You probably won't even have any items that can utilize it.
Finally, with all of this said, let me tell you which items (meaning if you build these items, you should heavily consider taking cosmic insight) gain a substantial amount of power with cosmic insight:
Any sheen item - especially Ezreal players that build one
Unending despair - ANY player building this seriously needs to take cosmic insight or just don't build this item.
Any tear item - regardless of your champ, if you build tear, take cosmic insight. You will get stacks so much faster, and your completed item passives will be up more frequently
AD junglers that plan to build a tiamat item or sundered sky
Bonus point: If you play ARAM, I'd take cosmic insight on any poke champ who builds even just one item that benefits from it
I could have spent hours on this post giving comparisons to other third line/tier options from the same [inspiration] tree as well as other trees, but there is no real definitive 'always take X rune' type thing. Sometimes you may take a different tree than inspiration purely because of the first or second line/tier rune that is offered there. My primary goals here were to shed light on the items that benefit a lot from cosmic insight and to hopefully have at least one person see this post and have their brain start churning. People need to realize runepage adjustments can sometimes be so clutch; especially in scenarios where your champ looks like it's going to have a hard time. The combination of adjusting your runes and items based on different scenarios can legit turn what would feel like unplayable matches into somewhat salvageable matchups. Even if all you gain overall is a slightly higher win percentage, that's better than having more losses, right?
Anyways, enough of my rambling. Sorry if my post was all over the place. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments. Feel free to not comment at all. I just had an itch in my head that wouldn't go away until I shared this information. Happy gaming to you all!