Where do i go to change slots mugen

My job (OPS worker for a public university) has been telling me they will be moving me to a full-time, salaried/contracted A&P position for a year. I have this in writing multiple times, and the paperwork to reclassify my position was signed, processed, then trashed due to a lower-management change. I am now the only employee in my department working 40 hours with no benefits. Coincidentally(?), I am also the only employee with reasonable accommodations, which are under scrutiny for no provided reason. I apologize for the length, but that is the tldr, and everything is public record.
I began my job as a part time, at-will/OPS employee in January of 2023. In June, I casually began a conversation with my coworker about going full-time since I was already working 35 hours a week. He is friends with my bosses boss, and said he'd talk to her about it. Bosses boss said it was possible, and she'd gather more info about it. Somewhere in there, we discussed the my tuition getting paid as part of the benefits package offered (this is offered to all FT employees). In July, my boss (who was later terminated) came into my office and told me that I needed to go to her if I wanted to go full-time, and that she would make it happen.
In September, boss emails me asking if I still want to go full time, I reply yes, she replies that she hasn't forgotten about it and thanks me for my patience. In December, I follow up via email again, and boss tells me we can address if after the first of the year. I tell her that my tuition is due the 19th of January, and asked if I will be FT by then and get my tuition paid for. She says yes.
In January 2024, I email my boss again, copying HR, for an update. My boss and HR reply saying they'll set up a meeting to "discuss my transition to full-time status." They have the meeting, and boss later asks me verbally if I want benefits. I say yes. Somewhere after that, the new A&P position is drafted up and sent over to HR. I end up getting a tuition deferment to mid-Feb. On Jan 29, I email again asking for an update, and my boss says HR is working on approving the position, and that my company "will be paying my tuition." HR replied saying the position was still with them for approval, and once it is approved, it will be posted for candidates to apply, and that they're working on my tuition payment.
In February, my boss is terminated. My bosses duties fall to my bosses boss. The next week, bosses boss tells me verbally that she will be signing the paperwork for the new position. Somewhere after that, she signs the paperwork and HR starts working on getting the job posted. This same week, I turned down a job interview for a comparable position at another gov agency. Later that month, we have an interim director appointed. During this time, I am also approved for and begin working from home 2 days a week as a reasonable accommodation, all signed off on by the HR ADA office and bosses boss.
In March, I email HR again asking where we are, and let them know I only ended up getting my tuition partially covered (ended up paying $500 out of pocket). HR says they're in the middle of creating the position, and that she will see where we are. A week later, they tell me that they stopped the process and that they'll need to start over with my new boss. The already-approved position and paperwork signed by my bosses boss were scrapped. I email my boss asking if he can follow up, and he said he is meeting with bosses boss and will bring it up.
In April, I email interim boss for an update. He gives this vague response about how the department's staffing model needs to be looked at and addressed with HR. He says that he's indicated that I need to be brought up to full-time, and that bosses boss is working to resolve the situation. Boss also starts having concerns about the departments "arbitrary working from home" (done by another coworker, who decides she can WFH whenever she wants without permission), and sends the university's WFH policy (separate from WFH as an accommodation).
Early May, he tells me verbally that I will start working 40 hours a week as an OPS employee. He also asks if I will be coming back in the office everyday, and I say no due to my accommodation. He goes on to say that other coworkers were working remotely and not getting work done, tells me he knows I am getting my work done, but that these coworkers are essentially ruining it for everyone. I tell him again that I have an accommodation, and he says he will need to talk to HR about that. I email him my paperwork with ADA coordinator copied, and she says the paperwork still stands with bosses boss signature and that it does not need to be reissued. The next week, he makes an announcement to the staff that all WFH requests have been denied, other than me due to an "exception," and that he's still talking to HR about it. Same day, coworker who is ruining it for everyone tells me she's planning on faking a disability to get an accommodation. I tell my boss about this immediately. Nothing happens.
Yesterday, I email my boss if it was still in the works to become an A&P employee with a benefits package. He replies saying no changes in position classification will occur in the immediate future.
The state of florida employee website says "OPS employees do not fill established positions and may not be assigned the duties of any vacant authorized position." My departments org chart has 2 empty positions I am/could be considered filling: Marketing Representative and Marketing and Communications Representative. I am currently classified as "information assistant and writer," but I am the only marketing position, manage everything myself with no guidance, and additionally manage an assistant that reports to me. Assistant is also employed as an information assistant and writer.
I am now the only employee in my department working 40 hours a week with no benefits, my accommodations are under scrutiny, and I turned down an interview for a position that would have paid more than. Do I have any sort of legal ground here, especially with everything being public record? Is there anything I can do other than find a new job? Could this be discrimination?

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.)

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.

When I first got to this assignment, I was upfront with my ratesenior rater about where I was at. I wanted to continue serving, but I was a promotion risk, and I was willing to do what it took to overcome it so I could VTIP into a functional area branch. My team and I had a great. We innovated and implemented new systems, policies, and changes. Our team was recognized multiple times by higher headquarters for doing great things. Somewhere in there, I was a victim of my success when a higher headquarters unit tried to recruit me to work for them. I only learned about the event after my SR blew up about organizations attempting to steal his people again and that I worked for him at a meeting one day.
Around January, I asked my rater if I could get a close-out evaluation for the board. I don't hear anything back until after my board file closes. Then, "Hey, MC. Boss' profile is tight. Keep doing great things, and we'll take care of you". We stay on course, another big event happens and I get a false sense of security that I'm going to be okay. S1 shows up to my office one day and tells me that a [undesirable, high optempo] unit down the street needs help and asks if I want to go there to get the evals I need. I've seen this story too many times before and know that ain't happening, so I decline the offer. I elected to talk to the SR directly because I was unhappy that they sent the S1 to deliver the news on their behalf.
During the discussion, the boss gave me the evaluation—MQ write-up with exclusive enumerations and potential, but an HQ block check. Despite being the most senior officer by 2-3 years in his organization, he needs to take care of his junior captains in K/D because "Non K/D doesn't weigh as much" despite me filling an O4 slot as an O3 while simultaneously acting as an OIC for two subordinate battalions. My rater talks to me afterward; he appeals to my ego, citing injustices of the Army promotion system and how he wishes we could promote everyone. I already know he's trying to manipulate me. I play the fool and focus on getting out of his office ASAP. Before I left, he let it slip that the boss had to take care of two other officers, who were fresh from CCC and needed the evals more than me.
I decided to use some leave and left work. During the drive home, it has hit me how shitty this situation was. Especially when the rater name-dropped the two people who beat me out. I never thought highly of those people. I perceived them as unit "party planners," as they only planned social events, gossiped too much, and undermined our core mission. I know corporate Army culture over values this behavior, but I always tried to negate it by being active, productive member of the team instead. To make matters worse, I reached out to that contact who tried to pull me up to their headquarters. I told them what happened. That officer then said to me that if I had gone up to his headquarters, their Chief of Staff had a dummy thick profile for Captains and offered to try to move me up there again after my SR leaves in a few weeks.
As I sit here on leave, this whole situation sucks. I feel so invalidated. It just feels like my chain of command doesn't respect my team's contributions and everything we've done. Here we are doing great things, but none of it matters because "its not a K/D assignment". Having the knowledge that they blocked a transfer that could've helped me ascend twisted the proverbial knife in my chest. So, not only did they negatively impact my career, but they used my accomplishments to better their chances for promotion. Especially given that at the end of the rating period before they PCS, they say, "Why not go to the shittiest, most toxic unit on post instead?"
I decided to go on leave for a week, but like, jfc. Why bother to try so hard if none of this matters?

Movie pros:

1. Excellent freaking soundtrack by Dario Marianelli
   
2. Portrays Lizzie Bennet as louder, messier, & more confident which is a more modern and unique take on the character.
   
3. Pretty damn impressive visuals and cinematography (particularly the Lizzie on top of the cliff scene…breathtaking shot)
   
4. Darcy and Bennet have soooo much tension and chemistry. Especially in the ballroom scenes or the proposal. Just way more believable as a relationship. Especially since compared to book Darcy, Macfadyen’s is pretty tame & more likable.
   
5. Relationship with Lizzie and her father is so lovely and portrayed really nicely in this movie.
   

Movie cons:

1. Rushes thru the entire story of Wickham & makes him a bland and nothing character by just talking about what he did “wrong” & not showing how he basically tried to groom Georgiana & other girls. (Yeah I guess they showed him & Lydia coming back to visit but…it just felt so cheap & rushed considering they barely show why Darcy hates Wickham so much).
   
2. Doesn’t do the greatest job of showing why Darcy has to change by making him so fumbly and awkward the entire movie. He’s just kind of standoffish…& antisocial? Really doesn’t come off as super pompous or full of himself like he was in the book or Colin Firth tbh. And yeah in the proposal scene he starts insulting Jane’s fam & whatever but it’s all talk. For most of the movie he has not shown that attitude towards them AT ALL. He doesn’t come off as rude or snobby more just shy. They just kinda tell us he broke up Jane & Bingley but fail to show the impact of it as well as the series did.
   
3. Doesn’t fully address many flaws if at all of Lizzie Bennet & makes her a perfect superhuman who is wronged by everyone else. Like the whole point of the book is that she and Darcy are both wrong and misguided just to different degrees. She also acts really unrealistically extroverted and unrestrained for a woman of her time even tho she’s a progressive, feminist character anyways. I love Keira Knightley but her as Lizzie was a bit too modernized imho.
   
4. Makes the Bennet family dynamic kind of watered down bc in the book the whole conflict about their family is that they’re seen as silly and embarrassing (especially Lizzie’s younger sisters). There’s barely any scenes about this & Darcy just kind of mentions it without us seeing more about Lizzie’s conflicted feelings with her fam. Really doesn’t do much justice to the whole social commentary of Austen’s book by barely showing how people perceive Lizzie’s family. Also Jane & Lizzie have little to no chemistry as sisters and have like 2 good scenes together.
   
5. Jane and Bingley’s relationship really isn’t done much justice. There’s maybe two big scenes with them and that’s it. Super boring in the movie when it’s meant to be such a huge plot point.
   Series pros:
   
6. Really good casting for Lizzie and Jane Bennet, their bond as sisters is really believable and book-accurate. I especially love the scene where Lizzie and Jane are in the garden together and each is equally trying to console the other.
   
7. The whole Bennet family dynamic is given enough attention and flaws to show why Lizzie has such conflicting feelings about them and how it affects other people’s perceptions of her. (Especially in terms of the mother & younger sisters 😂)
   
8. The Bennet Father has way more of a personality besides stoic & lightly supportive as he was in the film. He legit takes responsibility for his lack of caution and care with Lydia after she runs away and admits to Lizzie and the others that he was wrong.
   
9. The Bingley sisters are straight out of mean girls and are way bitchier to Lizzie and her family which WORKS so much better as social commentary and in turn, motivation for Darcy to improve.
   
10. Charlotte Lucas has way more of a personality that makes sense with Lizzie Bennet as her friend. They’re both very calm, cool, and intelligent which is more fitting. It also gives time for her to explain why she married Mr. Collins and that she’s satisfied with not marrying for love. In the movie she’s just kinda nice, disappears for most of the time, & then shows up again like “yea I just need his money you don’t GET it Lizzie!!”
    
11. The whole conflict with Wickham is really expertly carried out as he seems charming at first but is developed into a careless two-timer. I wanted to punch him which meant the actor did a great job.
    
12. Music is great and plays a noticeable role in the story several times.
    
13. Bingley and Jane’s relationship is given a lot of attention and clearly shows rather than TELLS the emotional damage this has on Jane.
    
14. Scenery switches up a lot and is very accurate to each location the characters go to in the book.
    

Series cons:

1. Lizzie and Darcy have zero chemistry and their relationship feels very wooden and minimal. I’m sorry I love those two in King’s Speech but Firth looked wayyy too stiff and unfeeling as Darcy. And I know that’s the point, but I just couldn’t buy those two were in love.
   
2. The episodes are really slow-paced and long which means more story is represented but also fairly hard to sit through even for former readers. A lot of the pacing is pretty dull at first especially.
   
3. Bingley and Darcy had no chemistry as friends and I couldn’t buy they were close at all. Way better bond in the movie.
   

Series pros-cons ratio: 9:3
Movie pros-cons ratio: 5:5

TLDR: gone through break up, work is stressful, want to schedule a mental health sick leave absence, but HR want me to take it as annual leave
-------------------------------------------------------------
I broke up with my partner of nine years (we were together from the age of 19 - 28) in January. We moved out into separate places in early March. It was on very good terms, there's so much love still there, but we weren't as compatible anymore. Needless to say, very said and painful although the right thing in the long term.
I haven't taken any time off as sick leave from the break up - work has generally been a good distraction.
However recently things have caught up with me and work has been extremely busy - I do a lot of external engagement in my role and am starting to feel exhausted and drained doing that while processing the break up.
I've realised I need time away from work to essentially convalese at home and just decompress for a week - which I feel like would be a mental health related sick leave type absence.
I'm a very anxious person who gets stressed at last minute changes. Because of this, I don't want to leave all the projects I manage in a stressful state, I wanted to schedule the time off for a couple of weeks time so I can tie off loose ends and go off feeling more at ease and able to let go of work.
HR has said this isn't possible without me using annual leave for it. I don't want to use A/L because then I won't have enough left for the rest of the year and that will cause burnout further down the line. I had a week off in April so it's not like I haven't had a break recently. If I call in sick tomorrow for a week though, work would be fine with me taking the sick leave for mental health reasons - it's just the scheduling it that they're saying no to.
My therapist is going to write a note to HR explaining where I'm coming from and she can also do a doctors referral to get a note from them.
------------------------------------------------------------
Any advice or thoughts on this? I'm not trying to cheat the system, I just desperately need time off in a way that works for me and won't create other problems.
​

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

Hi All, This post is going to be lil long... I am 25 (F) elder sister in family I have 2 brothers and 1 sister. We come frm middle class background where few years ago We used to live with our uncle for support and all.. now that we are financially good We live separate with mom and dad.. being elder sister I am responsible for everything and I feel I have fulfilled my responsibilities very well.. but somewhere i feel my younger ones don't have realisation of the situations here.. my sister specially never listen to anyone she always do things that disturb the home.. like going on trip for 2 to 3 and not informing to anyone not coming home on time she is always late she comes home at 11pm and so.. all these things bothers me a lot because till date I have sacrifice so many things for my family because of our financial conditions and all other issues as well but my brother and sister doesn't understand they don't take anything seriously I am the only one who is taking responsibilities be it household expenses or household chores it's me who always care for others and they don't even think abt me I don't want them to think abt me specifically but at least being family they should understand things na how long I am going to be with them ? When I will get married all things will come to my mom and she will suffer all that I don't want that.. what should I do and how I should handle this ? People say you are too good that's why the rely on you but how to not be so good? I am like this since before how do i change myself?

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

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

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

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

I (DX with ADHD treated with meds) need structure to manage my ADHD whilst my wife (not ADHD) is stifled by the needed rigidity. How do I bridge this gap?
Today, I had a significant conversation with my wife about our contrasting preferences for daily routines. As someone with ADHD, I rely heavily on a structured and disciplined schedule to build habits and maintain a balance between my professional duties, personal health, and family time. My wife, on the other hand, embraces a more whimsical and spontaneous approach to her day as a stay-at-home mom. This fundamental difference in our lifestyles often leads to challenges that disrupt my ability to function effectively and achieve my goals.
I expressed my concern about our lack of physical activity and its long-term implications. Without incorporating regular exercise into our lives, we risk serious health issues like sarcopenia. The data clearly shows that physical and mental health decline without consistent exercise. I emphasized the importance of doing it together, as when I try to work out alone, it often leads to conflict at home. My attempts to run every night were met with struggles, resulting in fights and stress that ultimately made me stop.
I tried to explain that my need for a rigid routine is not about being inflexible for the sake of it, but rather a necessity to form and maintain healthy habits. Any deviation from this structure throws me off completely, making it impossible to stick to a workout regimen or any other habit. My wife suggested I simply go work out while she handles bedtime, but past experiences have shown this approach doesn't work. Without a predictable schedule, things quickly fall apart, leading to chaos and tension.
We discussed the possibility of finding a way to establish a consistent routine that accommodates both our needs. Perhaps going to the gym as a family or hiring a nanny could be potential solutions. However, my wife admitted her dislike for a rigid schedule, which she finds stifling. This difference is taking a toll on me; without a structured routine, I feel paralyzed and unable to control or plan anything in my life. This affects my productivity, my relationship with our kids, and my overall well-being.
I stressed that my ADHD and demanding career necessitate a structured approach to daily life. Flexibility leads to disorder, making it impossible for me to evaluate progress or develop good habits. I want to be involved in bedtime routines, as it's a valuable time to connect with our children. However, when bedtime is dictated by how my wife feels in the moment, it creates unpredictability and disrupts my ability to engage meaningfully with our kids or fit in my workouts.
If we don't adhere to a consistent schedule, everyone loses. I miss out on time with the children, my wife ends up handling bedtime on her own, which she dislikes, and this breeds resentment and guilt. It seems like a fundamental difference we can't easily reconcile. My need for external structure clashes with her preference for spontaneity, and this affects our ability to find a workable compromise.
I also recognize that my wife's upbringing, influenced by her sedentary mother, shapes her current lifestyle. This may be a deeper issue that goes beyond our immediate ability to resolve. Nonetheless, I remain hopeful that we can find a middle ground that allows both of us to thrive and support each other in building healthier habits and a more harmonious family life.
Today, our conversation touched on another crucial aspect of our contrasting schedules—the impact on my ability to help around the house. My need for a rigid schedule isn't just about personal health or professional efficiency; it's also about being able to contribute effectively to our household. If we had a set routine—cleanup time at 6 PM, dinner at 7 PM, and lights out at 8 PM—I could plan my days accordingly, especially when I'm not on call. Such a structure would allow me to arrange my work schedule to ensure I can still work out daily and be present for our family duties.
Without a predictable schedule, dictated instead by the whims of how the day unfolds and how my wife feels, I find myself at a loss. The lack of structure makes it impossible to anticipate when chores need to be done, when it's time to prepare or eat dinner, or when the kids should go to bed. This chaotic approach means I never know when to allocate time for these essential tasks, resulting in a situation where I’m paralyzed by my own attempts to be flexible.
In practice, this means I miss out on opportunities to help with cleaning, cooking, and putting the kids to bed because there's no consistent timeframe to anchor these activities. If we established a fixed routine, I could reliably plan to be home and participate in these daily responsibilities. Instead, the unpredictability leads to a kind of paralysis where I'm constantly reacting rather than planning, unable to establish a rhythm that allows me to be both productive at work and supportive at home.
I need the certainty of a rigid schedule to balance my various roles effectively. Knowing exactly when cleanup, dinner, and bedtime are would enable me to integrate these activities into my daily life without the constant stress of adjusting to an ever-changing routine. This consistency is crucial not only for my mental and physical health but also for maintaining a harmonious household where I can actively contribute and support my wife and children.

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.)

So I've been busy the last few days, but here are my thoughts on the reveal of Shadows:
-The dual protagonist feature I think will be better than it was in Syndicate; in Syndicate, aside from Jacob's belts for defense vs Evie's capes for stealth and a few exclusive skills for each, there wasn't much difference between the Frye twins. It felt like taking a silencer on and off the same gun in the last two Ghost Recon games; same model, just switching between a little extra power and a little extra discretion. With Naoe and Yasuke, they seem like they'll be much more distinctive, like a scalpel and a hammer, each with their own skills and arsenals.
-I like Yasuke being our samurai protagonist. For one thing, it'll be cool to play as a real historical character. For another, they said they wanted players to experience Japan through the eyes of a foreigner, and I gotta say that is a pretty good idea. Plus he seems like a badass.
-Seeing the two protagonists work together despite starting off as enemies will be interesting to see, how they find it in themselves to be allies despite their animosity.
-I love the idea of hiding in shadows in this game, it may make stealth in this game my favorite in an AC game. The only Splinter Cell game I've played is Blacklist, but I did like the idea of hiding in shadows, and I'm glad AC is finally doing this. The details on the IGN page say there will be a light meter to show how well concealed you are, and I'm wondering how that will look. My best guess is similar to the 2019 Modern Warfare mission "Going Dark," where your NVGs had a meter to show if you were in the light or dark.
-The dynamic weather system is pretty impressive, each season providing new advantages and disadvantages.
-Loving Naoe's Pivot Blade, and glad Hidden Blade combat and non-lethal takedowns are back.
-Although as an AC game I'm most looking forward to stealth, I'm probably gonna have a good time with Yasuke in combat.
-While I'm sad to lose the drone-like bird companion, I think it's a good idea, forcing players to recon an area on their own. Same goes for the change in synchronization points.
-The ability to build a network of spies will be interesting, a new way to get information on your target.
-So glad the hideout feature is coming back, along with the ability to create a Shinobi League and recruit and train allies.
All in all, I'm really excited for AC Shadows, and it could be my new favorite AC game.

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.

Sweet baby Jesus...
Isn't the soul duping glitch working anymore?
I set the soul to be duped to the second slot (below estus), changing order
Then selected to drop 999 arrows (from my inventory and canceled)
Then I go to brightness and input (x) + r1
Go to OK
Next I go to Quit Game
Then it asks if I wanna reset the item order??
Or it just asks if I want to quit
Not "use 999"
What do you think I may be doing wrong? (other than cheating, but I actually just wanna buy armor and weapons I'm not really gonna use just because I like to collect shit)
I sent these as messages on discord but couldn't get an answer. I hope it doesn't fuck up the formatting too much.

Hi, I had my lap done in December. Felt amazing once healed. Per my doctor, I agreed to start contraceptives. She recommended against an IUD or anything like that due to the level of pain and discomfort I have in that area. So we agreed pills.
I’ve been on 3 different ones so far. We started on lowest possible dose and have built up as needed. The first 2 I was bleeding nonstop. By the third, I think we found the right dose for the bleeding. The goal is continuous birth control.
The first one I felt amazing but wouldn’t stop bleeding for over 20 days. At 6 weeks we changed. The second one I had horrific anxiety but my gastro symptoms had NEVER been better. Physically sans the bleeding I felt incredible! But when I bled again for 20+ days we had to change it at the 6 month mark.
However, I’ve been on this third one for 6 weeks (I’ve given them all about 6 weeks before swapping) and I genuinely don’t know if I should change it. I hate the idea of starting over AGAIN and not knowing that symptoms to monitor. I hate the idea that maybe I need to tough it out longer and it’ll regulate. But I’m at a point where my gastro symptoms since starting this one almost mimic pre-surgery for bloat, constipation, and food intolerance. I have cramps again in my lower stomach, constantly tying to me a heating pad…again. My mood swings are out of control, I’m crying every other day and it isn’t just crying - it’s full on meltdowns. I’m so bloated and water retention is so bad I get emotional about that too. My doctor says this third pill is identical in makeup to the first 2, but with a higher progesterone dose. She said we can try another “brand” of progesterone and see. I’m going to do that but some positive birth control stories and maybe some insight into if this is the right choice (I know yall aren’t doctors) but again, the anxiety about starting from square one again has me so messed up.
If you read this far, thanks. The hardest part is for about 3 months I got to feel what my body could feel like. And it’s hard not feeling that right now.

I (DX with ADHD) need structure to manage my ADHD whilst my wife (not ADHD) is stifled by the needed rigidity. How do I bridge this gap?
Today, I had a significant conversation with my wife about our contrasting preferences for daily routines. As someone with ADHD, I rely heavily on a structured and disciplined schedule to build habits and maintain a balance between my professional duties, personal health, and family time. My wife, on the other hand, embraces a more whimsical and spontaneous approach to her day as a stay-at-home mom. This fundamental difference in our lifestyles often leads to challenges that disrupt my ability to function effectively and achieve my goals.
I expressed my concern about our lack of physical activity and its long-term implications. Without incorporating regular exercise into our lives, we risk serious health issues like sarcopenia. The data clearly shows that physical and mental health decline without consistent exercise. I emphasized the importance of doing it together, as when I try to work out alone, it often leads to conflict at home. My attempts to run every night were met with struggles, resulting in fights and stress that ultimately made me stop.
I tried to explain that my need for a rigid routine is not about being inflexible for the sake of it, but rather a necessity to form and maintain healthy habits. Any deviation from this structure throws me off completely, making it impossible to stick to a workout regimen or any other habit. My wife suggested I simply go work out while she handles bedtime, but past experiences have shown this approach doesn't work. Without a predictable schedule, things quickly fall apart, leading to chaos and tension.
We discussed the possibility of finding a way to establish a consistent routine that accommodates both our needs. Perhaps going to the gym as a family or hiring a nanny could be potential solutions. However, my wife admitted her dislike for a rigid schedule, which she finds stifling. This difference is taking a toll on me; without a structured routine, I feel paralyzed and unable to control or plan anything in my life. This affects my productivity, my relationship with our kids, and my overall well-being.
I stressed that my ADHD and demanding career necessitate a structured approach to daily life. Flexibility leads to disorder, making it impossible for me to evaluate progress or develop good habits. I want to be involved in bedtime routines, as it's a valuable time to connect with our children. However, when bedtime is dictated by how my wife feels in the moment, it creates unpredictability and disrupts my ability to engage meaningfully with our kids or fit in my workouts.
If we don't adhere to a consistent schedule, everyone loses. I miss out on time with the children, my wife ends up handling bedtime on her own, which she dislikes, and this breeds resentment and guilt. It seems like a fundamental difference we can't easily reconcile. My need for external structure clashes with her preference for spontaneity, and this affects our ability to find a workable compromise.
I also recognize that my wife's upbringing, influenced by her sedentary mother, shapes her current lifestyle. This may be a deeper issue that goes beyond our immediate ability to resolve. Nonetheless, I remain hopeful that we can find a middle ground that allows both of us to thrive and support each other in building healthier habits and a more harmonious family life.
Today, our conversation touched on another crucial aspect of our contrasting schedules—the impact on my ability to help around the house. My need for a rigid schedule isn't just about personal health or professional efficiency; it's also about being able to contribute effectively to our household. If we had a set routine—cleanup time at 6 PM, dinner at 7 PM, and lights out at 8 PM—I could plan my days accordingly, especially when I'm not on call. Such a structure would allow me to arrange my work schedule to ensure I can still work out daily and be present for our family duties.
Without a predictable schedule, dictated instead by the whims of how the day unfolds and how my wife feels, I find myself at a loss. The lack of structure makes it impossible to anticipate when chores need to be done, when it's time to prepare or eat dinner, or when the kids should go to bed. This chaotic approach means I never know when to allocate time for these essential tasks, resulting in a situation where I’m paralyzed by my own attempts to be flexible.
In practice, this means I miss out on opportunities to help with cleaning, cooking, and putting the kids to bed because there's no consistent timeframe to anchor these activities. If we established a fixed routine, I could reliably plan to be home and participate in these daily responsibilities. Instead, the unpredictability leads to a kind of paralysis where I'm constantly reacting rather than planning, unable to establish a rhythm that allows me to be both productive at work and supportive at home.
I need the certainty of a rigid schedule to balance my various roles effectively. Knowing exactly when cleanup, dinner, and bedtime are would enable me to integrate these activities into my daily life without the constant stress of adjusting to an ever-changing routine. This consistency is crucial not only for my mental and physical health but also for maintaining a harmonious household where I can actively contribute and support my wife and children.

I've posted about a year ago regarding my then 7th month old scratching his head and hurting himself in the process. You can find the old post here: https://www.reddit.com/Parenting/comments/139ip9z/baby_wont_stop_scratching_his_head_until_it_bleads/
Recently I've had 3 different parents that have found the post and were in the same situation, inboxing for an update/solution, so I decided to make an update post in case more parents are looking for answers. Sorry I took so long. I know the despair you feel. I assure you it will get better if you persevere. This is an extremely long post, so I have bolded the several topics, in case you don't want to read everything, so they are easier to find.
To update on my son's situation: He's now 1y and 7 months. He is allergic to milk and he has a combination of cradle cap and eczema. In addition to this, he was also born with Hydronephrosis (enlarged kidneys) which means he is limited in the medication that he's allowed to take (no ipobrufren, as an example)
The Cradle Cap situation has improved by itself, mainly by just carrying on with what we were doing. We use the Frida Flake Fixer treatment and a cradle cap shampoo (Dentinox). We've also been advised not to wash his head every day, leave it 1 or 2 days (one doctor even said once a week). For the cuts, the best thing was indeed a Vaseline barrier to help the raw skin heal. Even though it definitely stinks, the healing is the most important part. I would put Vaseline on his scalp the day before a bath, do the treatment with the Frida Brush and then I would rub a Baby Scalp Oil (Colief) to soften the flakes on the day after the bath; I would put Vaseline on the scalp the next day and he would take a bath the next day, rinse and repeat, until the cuts were healed, and I could ditch the Vaseline step. If the cut was deep I would sometimes apply Sudocream only at night after a bath and the Vaseline was removed and he'd fallen asleep so he wouldn't take it off. He still slept with mittens inside his cuffed babygrow, but he always managed to get one or two fingers out, I kid you not when I say, that sometimes I would sleep holding his hand to prevent him from scratching his head when the wounds here at it's worst. All of these steps have contributed to has improved the cradle cap lot and eventually disappeared in about a month's time. He's going trough a second outbreak now, a year later, but no where near as bad as it was then, he's not scratching himself to death.
The Eczema situation. Right....... this situation has improved for a few good 7-8 months with the Aveeno Baby Dermexa Emollient Cream. I would use it 3 times a day or more to fight of dry skin. The areas where the skin folded were the worst. Arm folds, neck folds, behind the knees, there the eczema would install and spread, That could only be controlled an Hydrocortisoid Cream, 1% w/w. It did eventually disappeared save for one spot -- just behind the right knee. He developed a habit of scratching it with his left foot. But, lets put the Eczema situation on hold for a moment, while we talk about:
The Milk Allergy situation.... Oh Boy..... this is about to get very long.....
In my previous post made at the beginning of May 2023, I stated that my son had been to the A&E (a week before the post) for an allergic reaction to porridge, so he would either be allergic to Milk and/or Gluten. We were told a referral was done to our GP for a visit by an allergy team who would walk us through to process of slowly introducing allergens so that my son would hopefully be able to safely be exposed to them in the future and advised to "only feed him vegetables and fruit". We were given an "prescription" for an antihistamine to continue the treatment and to use as an SOS in case of another allergic reaction in the future. No allergy tests were done for my son at all.
We were told that, it would take a couple of weeks before we were contacted by the allergy team and to contact the GP after two weeks if we hadn't heard from them. We waited a month and nothing. At the end of May, I went to our GP to ask for updates on this situation. Imagine my shock when the GP told me that they didn't even have ANY information about my son being in the A&E. They've spent 1h contacting the hospital to get the paperwork from the A&E that SHOULD have been sent to our GP. In said paperwork, it states that the hospital would like the GP to sort out the allergy appointment. So, no allergy appointment had been made for an entire month and if I hadn't enquired about this situation, the GP would have had no clue about the need to make one because they didn't have the necessary paperwork! I was given an apology and scheduled an "assessment appointment" 2 days later. I enquired about an Antihistamine prescription, since my son was gonna start nursery in a couple of weeks when my maternity leave would end and I needed to provide a bottle for them in case of an allergic reaction, because we still didn't know what my son was allergic to.... Lo and behold, when the GP staff looks at the hospital paperwork, it was stated that no more antihistaminic was necessary, against what we were advised, as we should have one antihistamine as SOS, I had to press the GP to provide us with an prescription (which the lady was very quick to do after seeing me ready to implode regarding this absolute incompetence) so the nursery could have one antihistamine with themselves as we couldn't keep juggling our bottle back and forth with them.
The assessment appointment which basically consisted in 5 mins of asking for details about the allergic reaction, all of which was written in A&E's paperwork and only then being referred to a dietitian's team. I was given no ETA, no info about where it would be, no contact that I could call to at least be put on a waiting list in case of a cancellation, nothing. I was only asked to wait and when confronted, the practitioner admitted that this appointment COULD have been made straight in the hospital's A&E, instead of this ridiculous and time wasting bureaucratic football between the Hospital and the GP.
You might think this was the end of the miscommunication and incompetence.... Oh oh But no,.. of course not!! I waited another month of silence. At the end of June I called the hospital's appointment hotline enquiring about my son's appointment, only to be told that he doesn't have one because a referral hadn't been made yet! I was fuming!! I immediately called the GP who have assured me that a referral has been sent to the hospital's Paediatric and gave me it's referral number and they would enquire....
If you are in the UK like I am and you see that your baby/child is being ignored by your GP / Hospital and not getting the appropriate care, then do as I did and contact PALS near your area. That was the best piece of advice that I have received from people at my local breastfeeding group, and if being a mother has taught me anything, is that sometimes, you will have to be a momma bear (aka Karen to the eyes of the target) and advocate for your child. I work in retail, I despise Karens and I have no wish to be one, I am usually a pushover. But I will not allow anyone to trample on my son's health. And while I do have respect for the NHS, seeing has my brother in law works there, I know damn well, by his own words, that the main problem is not the lack of funds, but the pockets where they go and the terrible disorganization.
At that point I had enough of excuses and I made a complaint to PALS about both the GP and the Hospital. My son was almost 9months and still breastfeeding but eating mostly Vegetables and Fruit as solid food as per A&E'S guidelines, delaying his weaning and feeding development and causing stress with the nursery and our family as we didn't know what he was allergic to and couldn't move on to full meals. I flat out asked them if they were intent on my son completing an entire year of life being fed only Vegetables and Fruit besides breastmilk, and called them out because an 8 month baby should not be put on the back burner over and over again due to the incredibly poor communication between these two organizations and have his health jeopardized. I demanded a resolution ASAP and forward this to the Paediatrician as I did not trust the hospital to be able clearly communicate between their departments and whom I suspected had not been told absolutely nothing regarding all this. Two days later the allergy team specialist rang me to personally and profusely apologise and take the situation under her control and give me her allergy guidelines which I should have been given since the beginning. I was still forced to wait until early July for a allergy test - Milk was found to be the culprit.
I still thank everything that I had enough perseverance to stick with breastfeeding and never, ever, though to look at formula. I tremble to think about the consequences, Even though I'm aware that dairy free formulas exist, me being a 1st time ignorant mother, chances were I could have picked a wrong one. Fortunately I produced more than enough milk and my son had a good latch. Also because my son was not making any allergic reactions to my milk, this meant there was a higher chance that he could grow out of his allergy, as he was still getting enzymes from the dairy that I consumed. From here on, food introduction was a breeze. He's a real foodie, he loves to eat and he loves to eat with us. Adapting our diet was a bit of work, as I have IBS and my husband is diabetic so there might be some foods that will be a trigger or might not be the most ideal to someone in our family, but we managed to strike a good balance. Vegan options do help and we are having fun exploring that.
The problems then came with the nursery. After letting them know that my son was allergic to milk and other things were fine, the cases of allergic reaction in the nursery stated to increase and he started getting very bad reactions. First we suspected cross contamination, then that he might be allergic to something else, but the foods they were saying he was allergic to made absolutely no sense as he was just fine having those at home. We came to the conclusion after several events in the softplay area - that involved no food at all - that the culprit might be their cleaning products and further pressed after two different members of staff said they themselves were allergic to that product - Milton. After several bickerings between us and the nursery and us visiting our origin country for Xmas where my son ate in 4 different household and 5 different restaurant with absolutely no allergy reaction (in comparing to the then daily cases of reaction on the 3 days that he stayed at nursery), we finally convinced the nursery to change their cleaning products - they are now using Sanell. In addiction to prevent cross contamination, my son was given his own high chair, that no other child uses. Happy to say the cases of allergy are nearly non-existent now. His recent blood results also came back with amazingly good improvements, so we got the thumbs up from the Allergy Team and the Paediatrician to start the milk ladder and slowly and gradually adding milk to his diet. Currently he's in stage one and having half a teaspoon of malted milk biscuit daily with no reaction. It will probably still be able two months until he can have a full biscuit, but I can't wait to see his smile when we get to this stage - he loves taking the little piece of my hand.
Because of the back and forth with the nursery and them insisting that the allergic reaction could be due to other foods, the allergy team at the hospital was more concerned with that than his Eczema situation. We had to insist about it, since we suspected the reactions might be Eczema instead, stating that I was still waiting for the promised skin specialist appointment since end of April last year. The lead Team Speciallist, again showed her amazing professionalism and chased up the situation and we finally got our appointment jointly with her and the skin specialist in January of this year. She gave us a few products to try but said that the Eczema situation was relatively controlled. The samples that she gave were:

• Dermol 500 Lotion - we still use this for his bath as a soap substitute
  
• Adex Gel - kind like an emollient cream, it was ok-ish
  
• Cetraben Cream - didn't seem to make any difference, but can also be used as a soap substitute so we'll give it a go after Dermol is finished
  
• Zerodearm Ointment - didn't seem to make any difference, but it has a Vaseline like quality to it, so might try again
  

About a week after the appointment, my Son had an mild outbreak of Eczema on his legs. We tried several combinations of above products that seemed to temporally control the situation but didn't complete solve it. In Early March of this year the Eczema appeared in his back. He has a huge red birthmark the size of my hand on his back, so that skin is very sensitive. He started to scratch and rub his back against things and it didn't took long to break the skin. It didn't bleed but it was oozing/weeping which would make the skin get stuck to his clothes and then get raw, so no treatment was going to work on that as it would slide off with the oozing/weeping. I despaired then as I had a year ago.
So I went back to the thing that worked last time - Vaseline. This time though, it was on a place that I couldn't exactly leave uncovered. My son was about to do some blood tests so hospital had given us numb cream to put on the inside of his elbows and some clear medical film. He had this done before and I remembered that the film had been resistant enough to keep the cream in and didn't hurt his skin, so I though, maybe I could apply the same theory. So I bought some clear medical film (Tegaderm Film), put a good chunk of Vaseline on the wound and sealed it with the film. I changed this twice or three times a day, depending if he was in the nursery or not. It worked like a charm and it allowed the skin to heal. For reference, the nursery manager, whose son suffers with really bad eczema has suggested me the AproDerm Ointment which also has a Vaseline consistency to it, but my son's situation cleared up before I had to use it.
The skin specialist by then had prescribed a treatment with another hydrocortisoid cream ( Daktacort 2% 1% w/w, needs to be kept refridgerated ) and an emollient cream - Epimax Oatmeal Cream. For the other patches of Eczema (that were not in wound), I would use Daktacord, once in the morning, once in the evening, and I would use Epimax to keep the skin moisturized along the day, whenever I would change a diaper. The skin specialist told us to keep using Daktacord twice a day for a week, then drop it to once a day on the following week, and then drop it to every other day on the week after. This has worked brilliantly and it solved all Eczema patches, including the stubborn one behind his right knee, We were able to drop the Daktacord and we now only use the Epimax emollient regularly about twice a day.
Thank you if you have read everything so far, I hope you have found something that could be of use to you. Happy to answer any questions that you might have, or if you're feeling desperate like I was and just need some reassurance, just drop me message!

Guidance on navigating a convoluted employment/consultation scenario.
Well, guys, I’m in a bit of a pickle. Please don’t judge me..I realize some of this was poor judgement on my behalf. But here I am. Please note that I am consulting with a couple lawyers next week. Ugh.
Background:
I am a sport coach professional of 15 years. I have been working independently with a handful of private clients since 2018.
A little over a year ago, I was introduced to an investor who purchased property near me, seeking the guidance of someone such as myself to help develop the property out for a business in my related sport field. I did not seek this investor out, they sought me.
I told the owner I had no interest in running the business, but I would happily act as a consultant to get the best use out of the facility as well as get them connected with other professionals who may be interested in leasing the property upon completion.
We had discussed briefly what compensation would look like, with plans to get things down on paper the following week when the investors were in town. (You might be able to see where this is going).
Well, fast forward — the investoowner of the property decided they did not want to proceed with the professionals I had connected them with, and instead wanted to see what they could do to get me and my business partner in to operate the business. Keep in mind that the investors/owners know NOTHING about my industry.
At this point we are about 4 months into this whole dynamic or whatever it is. At the time, despite how dumb it may sound, I sincerely did not mind going out of my way to help a few hours a week with the guidance of developing this property. No one in the area can help them the way I can. This type of a facility is overwhelmingly needed in this area for our sport, and there are few other professionals, if any, in the area that can help guide the development of their vision for the facility. For the benefit of the community, the time I was putting in did NOT bother me. I wasn’t worried about getting paid, and trusted we would come to an agreement (as had been promised).
Well, upon being re-approached by the owner to please reconsider operating out of the facility, they sweetened the pot by offering an ownership share for the time I am putting in. We met for dinner, they had printed out a sheet outlining the infrastructure of the ownership between me, my business partner, and them. Although nothing was signed, I have a printed copy of what was handed to me. Again, you can probably see where this is going. The ownership offer for my time made it worth it to me to move forward and start this whole thing from scratch. At the time, I had no reason to believe they would go back on their word.
After the meeting, I began putting more of my time into the facility (10-15 hrs per week). By this time, I was working with my business partner to develop business plans, working with their lawyers for documents, and all the normal stuff of building a small business from scratch. I have a years worth of texts and drafts I made for everything regarding the business. We had weekly meetings with the project manager. I began interviews for the team, hired the manager, etc etc. Each week went by, with more conversations about our agreement, promises that lawyers were drafting the agreements, yet each week we wouldn’t see paperwork prepared for us. As I’m sure you can anticipate, the original offer has been redacted and changed last minute. I know, I am really dumb for letting this get this far. Please don’t beat me up more than I am beating up myself.
What they are now offering are three different options
— a small salary + a much smaller profit share percentage
— a bigger salary
— a small salary + a lump sum payment for my time over the last year
A lump sum payment for my time and walking away was briefly mentioned, and my gut is telling me to accept that offer. But I am worried that they may make it very difficult to receive payment for my time, because we never had anything in writing for my consultation except for what was discussed very recently with our project manager and written down (Again, no signing, but I do have a photo of what was written down for my consultation fee). We are a month out from opening, and I am feeling pressured by them to make a decision despite asking for the last 4-5 months to review the final agreement. “The meeting” where the original offer was redacted, involved a lot of degrading statements and manipulation tactics — I believe they are trying to scare me into quickly complying with shady business practices.
I opted for the lump sum payment for my time and smaller salary (verbally). Now, I am waiting for the documents to be sent over to me so I can review the specifications of the NDA and the non-compete with a lawyer.
Although everything the owner has done (the details of the meeting in which the original offer was redacted was terrible — the owner showed their true colors and although I feel dumb, I am generally a good judge of character, and was sincerely blown away) goes against my values as a person, the facility we have built would be incredible for my clients to experience. The follow up meeting with our project manager, where we discussed the details of the new offer and got the stipulations written down on paper to transfer to the legal documents, was one that they were trying really hard to keep me on board, “making up” for the previous meeting. The reality is, once we are operating, I wont be seeing much of the owner at all. Regardless, at this point, if it were for myself and myself only, I wouldn’t move forward. But because of my clients, I want them to be able to train out of a facility like this. We have NOTHING like this in the area. However, although the money isn’t worth it to me, with the encouragement of my spouse, I do believe I need to see something in my pocket.
I believe I have the upper hand because I bring the clients to the facility and the knowledge. The owners couldn’t do this without me and my business partner, period.
Here’s what I’m worried about (aside from the obvious if not already stated) —
The NDA and the non-compete are going to be ridiculous. To be honest, I don’t know what “Trade secrets” would be covered in the NDA aside from their financials…there are no trade secrets in my industry that I can think of. I do think they will try to cover something I discovered and discussed with the owner — lets just say, someone on the property who shouldn’t be on the property due to legal reasons. But this is public knowledge if searched (which is how I discovered we needed to talk about this person and get him off the property, or the success of the business is at stake). But I don’t know if that’s legally possible. However, I do know that I saved “them” by bringing this to their attention because if discovered, quite literally their operation would have been completely shut down and ostracized by the governing body of my sport (For good reason). I also have reason to believe that after this person’s legal situation settles, they are trying to make him part of the business on other aspects of the property. With that, I think they are trying to shut me up regarding this situation. I also think they are going to try really hard to make it difficult for me to leave with the non compete.
Is there a way for me to negotiate protecting myself and the clients I am bringing to the business with the non-compete? Is it reasonable to negotiate that the non-compete cannot apply to the clients I am bringing with me? Or that, if I am fired, or the conditions of my employment change, the non-compete is null and void? How does the recent new ruling on non-competes affect this?
Do I have enough hard evidence to ask for my consultation fee for the last year and just end with that? Or am I completely screwed out of that?
Do you have any advice for me at all?
Like I said, I am meeting with lawyers next week who specialize in my industry and employment, but I just wanted to pick the brains of lawyers here about my situation. Their business practices are clearly shady, and I need to get my head out of my ass and need help with what I should be on the lookout for.

I recently got back into OSRS after taking a break from both versions several years ago. Currently just following an "optimal quest guide" that gives you an order to minimize grinding, which is ideal for me. Current goal before Dawntrail releases is to get quest cap and read all the stories.
Playing through a bunch of them, I've found there are a couple (typically older) quest that are pretty rough to due to lack of hints or direction. The point is to have fun, so I'm not going to stew in frustration raising my blood pressure, not sure what I'm suppose to do, so I've no problem looking up a hint, if I'm stuck. But man are there some Myst logic "click on everything, and use everything on everything" quests that give you nothing thing to work off of.
Tribal Totem being one I did last night that is a prime example where I got to the point of: "screw it, no hints just give me the answer." The quest itself also just has no meat on it anyways. It is just you finding the answer to two puzzles and that's it. So annoyed by it that next morning I was still thinking about it, and wrote this.
Are there any quest that you thought were bad, but would be fun or at least alright, if they changed it? Be it just a single word in a conversation, or you think are so bad they just need complete overhauls?