Posts made by Aria

@insomniac7809 said in The Work Thread:

Co-workers! I'm sorry you're on the outs with your respective significant others, but additionally, I don't actually care! Please hold off the loud arguments until you're on your own time!

Boss' boss! I'd really like to know, when you ask for "feedback" on the new decision, if you're actually looking for feedback or if you're just looking for us all to tongue your asshole about what a great idea this is. My answers would be dramatically different depending.

Oh, man. This came up in a work meeting last week. We had a new complexity to the training program that I handle the logistics for added to the current class of trainees. There were two ways I could set it up to deal with that, both of which meant additional hurdles/consideration for the trainers.

Two weeks into it at our staff meeting, I flat-out asked them, "I know this is harder than last time and we're not that far into it yet, but seriously, do you guys hate this? Please tell me if you hate this."

There was a bunch of awkward silence, one person laughed nervously, and someone made a comment about a leading question. I had to repeatedly reassure a room of twenty people that's responsible for training people away from micromanaging and into more collaborative and functional teams that I had been that blunt on purpose because if they hate it, I honestly won't be offended and really want them to tell me without sugarcoating any difficulties they're having. I can do it the other way for the next class that I'm currently planning, it just means trading one set of hurdles for another. It led to really good conversation and plans. I wish managers would accept honest feedback! Someone questioning an idea or even saying outright "I'm not sure this is going to work and here's why" is not the same as "You're a turd and also bad at your job and PS, you should be embarrassed in front of all of our colleagues." Unless they fall into the category of sleazy office politics asshole, they're honestly probably trying to help you make the underlying thing you're trying to achieve work.

So it's now October, which means Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Which means that every goddamn thing marketed to women ever is now pink. And as someone who comes from a family where my grandmother had breast cancer at 46, and my mom had breast cancer at 50, and where I probably have a max of about 15 years before my tits try to kill me.....

This infuriates me. Mostly because a whooooooooooole lot of these things that are Pepto-pink and slapped with ribbons? Either don't actually make any charitable donations, make very minimal ones compared to the price of the product, or donate to poorly run organizations that effectively exist to make a profit rather than actually benefit anyone. (Lookin' at you, Susan G. Komen Foundation.) Especially if they're advertising their primary mission as "awareness". We all know what breast cancer is, guys. Mission accomplished!

If you were going to buy something anyway because you liked it, by all means, go right ahead and do so guilt-free! If you're buying something because you want to do good and get something in exchange, do your research. If you just want to do good, please just donate directly to the charity! I'm already getting emails that are like, "For every ugly $55 pink sweatshirt you buy, we'll donate $1 to one three charities!" and I pinkie-swear-no-backsies that you can probably find an ugly pink sweatshirt for $30 and donate the other $25 to the BCRF or wherever.

ETA: PS -- Check your boobs for weird lumps. Please. It takes, like, two minutes.

@surreality said in RL Anger:

@Aria I recommend, "No, Myra! No! No one in your family has ever been a drinker!" because I'm mean today.

Maybe also a very visible tally board? Or make up a custom punch-card, like a loyalty card, and just punch a hole in that fucker every single time, loudly.

I vote loyalty card. For every ten punches, you get a free intervention from your disappointed family members.

@AeriaNyx So I'm saying this to make you laugh at the mental image rather than making a serious suggestion, because JFC, you have the patience of a thousand saintly turtles for not totally losing your cool....

But have you considered getting a spray bottle for operant conditioning? Like, every time she picks up a drink in front of you, you just squirt her in the face and say sternly "No, Myra! NO!", like she's a cat scratching the couch or something?

@Ghost said in RL Anger:

@Ganymede @Macha @Auspice My SO and I are pretty generous. We have a lot of friends who don't have as much as we do, so we often do things like cook dinners, help people with projects, etc. We have a yearly tradition where we invite people who don't have family in town for a post-Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving with all the fixins. We are that couple that give out a lot of free food to homeless people, etc.

We found out a while ago this acquaintance of ours lost his job and had a cancer diagnosis and was asking for a few hundred to pay bills. We reached out to friends and got a group together, and he got some 400+ out of it. Later found out he never got fired or had a cancer diagnosis, but instead used it to buy a tattoo and then Facebook blocked everyone who gave him cash.

So, having said all this...I TOTALLY GET BEING DEPRESSED OR HAVING A HARD TIME. I love being there for my friends; it's a badge of honor to me that they can come to me when they need a friend. Having said that, "I'm in a bad place and it would mean a lot to me if someone bought me WWE tickets" just kinda pisses me off. It's also hard when you just see the same 5 or 6 people just constantly flip flop from "internet fighting" to "so depressed cant do anything but would be okay if someone did..."

Just brings me down. I'd love to help. I can even understand how getting a new thing would feel great! Still...it's grating because it makes me worry that I'm friends with some people who take advantage of others.

As someone who has had a depression diagnosis for twenty years and tends to isolate myself into a little corner of blankets and exhaustion and gross for fear of either expressing my feelings or being the slightest burden to anyone ever except my poor husband.....

Your "friends" are taking advantage of you. And they fucking suck.

@Auspice I'm generally of the opinion of "If it makes you feel better and doesn't hurt anyone, go for it and don't feel guilty." Otherwise it just becomes the new thing to beat yourself up about, which I am quite familiar with.

@Ominous said in Should Rinel become smol birb?:

@Auspice

Most birds are. The tiny-dinosaurs still think they rule the earth.

Yes! Get up close to a raptor at some point. You can definitely tell that the way they're looking at you? They're trying to decide if you're too big to be food or not.

But that is about big birbs. Not smol birbs. Allow me to make it thread-relevant.

@Auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@Sunny said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

@Auspice

I am sorry. That just sucks.

Thank you.
on the upside, when I was finally brave enough to go into Sephora and ask, the girl I found has clients with vitiligo so she was able (and comfortable) to show me some things and help me find a concealor that, while not perfect, helps.

So I'm late to the party here, but. My mom has vitiligo that started as patches on her hand and is now a big splotch on her arm and has spread across about half her face. Fortunately, we are "if I were any paler, I'd glow in the dark" kinda white, so it's not terribly noticeable...

But it still upsets her when meeting new people and especially when going for job interviews.

My recommendation if it continues spreading and upsets you? Dermablend. That shit is amazing.

I think enough people are becoming aware of what it is that you shouldn't let it bother you, but.... you're also talking to a woman who won't walk into a grocery store without makeup on in an attempt to combat the "because I am fat, I must be a slob who doesn't care at all about my appearance" assumption, so. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

@Ganymede said in Good TV:

Mindhunter is turning out to be a truly fascinating series.

And not just because Jonathan Groff is in it.

I truly love this series and am greatly irritated by how much time passes between seasons given that it's hardly a blockbuster production. I watched all of Season 2 the weekend it dropped and have recommended it to pretty much anyone who will listen, including friends who work in film. Even the opening credits are fabulous.

There is a car on our cross-street that has had it's alarm intermittently going off in several minute bursts every 15-30 minutes or so. Just when I forget about it, it happens. Again.

It has been happening since 8:30 this morning. I know this because I've been home sick all day.

It is now 7:17 PM.

I... I'm justified in going outside and just setting that fucking car on fire, right?

@RightMeow No and yes, respectively. There isn't much they can do. The damage was minor, there weren't many witnesses, and what they thought might be a traffic camera -- they weren't sure, since I was about a block from the township border and the light was just beyond it -- is actually an opticon used for emergency responders to forcibly change the light.

Fuck you, guy who rear ended me and drove off this morning after assuring me that you weren't hurt.

Peak Week can bite me.

So is this actually happening, or is this all theoretical debate?

I'm a bit confused now, but am totally in agreement with Sunny re: themes. I don't mind oppression, darkness, or seeming hopelessness in game themes. I mean, I used to run a Battlestar game, FFS. It's oppression, darkness, and hopelessness I might have to deal with in real life that I get uppity about. No one is ever going to be real-life racist against me for being in some weird apocalyptic satyr fairy cult, sooooooooo....... whatever?

99% on my home laptop. I won't use the webclient from my work computer given how heavily monitored usage is at my company and while I will pop on from my phone to check things occasionally, the connection sucks, the screen is too small, and touchscreen typing makes me want to shove a fork into my eye.

@AeriaNyx You can't see it because I pretty much only write black journals at this point (when I remember to write them at all), but it's now been documented for the sake of history that the Riven laundress is going to give her a good what-for about getting bits of hay and goat-smell all over a velvet gown, and the Keatons are the only people worth that trouble.

When a bad person you know who does bad things and treats people badly gets caught - and slapped with felony charges.

Sooner or later, karma's gonna get you. ^_^

@Auspice Totally agree. 110%.

I think what really kills me is that this is at the same company where I've been for the last five years and I've seen this treatment of assistants at every company I've ever worked at, regardless of whether it was an ivy league university or a pharmaceutical supplier or a chain of pet supply stores.

So it's clearly not just the company in this case, but something about the title. My guess would be that it tends to be one of the lowest titles in most companies (barring things like a mailroom, a warehouse, maintenance, or something typically considered 'blue collar') and it's a job held overwhelmingly by women, so both hierarchy and gender dynamics come into play.

I even once walked into the HR reps office and told her that at that very moment, one of the executives was chewing out his assistant so loudly that people from other areas of the floor were coming over to ask me what was going on, that I could hear her sobbing through the closed door, and if I were at my house and heard screaming like that, would be calling in a domestic complaint to the local police. HR responded by deciding that she and I were 'troublemakers' and causing gossip in the office. #truestory

Just treat your assistants like people. It's not that fucking hard.

So for many years, I worked as an administrative/executive assistant at companies that tended to be very bottom-heavy with their titles, so my job was really more "Assistant + Choose Two: project manager/database manager/event coordinator/marketing specialist/writer".

This summer, I started a new job with a new title that - despite being at the same pay grade and relying heavily on the same skillset - gets way more recognition and respect. And today, an admin I'd been working with for several weeks screwed something up. Like, screwed something up BIG TIME and now has us scrambling to find space for a full-week series of events for people coming in from two other states.

She almost burst into tears when she had to tell me, not because of me freaking out at her, but because of how worried she was that I might and how relieved she was when my response was "Oof. Okay. Well, that's not great, but it happens sometimes. Don't worry! What can we do to fix it? How can I be flexible so we can find other options to make this work?"

And I know that feeling - that feeling of absolute panic that you get when you tell the people you support that something went wrong, even when that something was totally out of your control or even actually their fault. The sickening dread that builds up in your stomach when you know you're going to have to tell them, even if you already have a workable solution, because they're going to flip out and put this on you because honestly how hard can this be?! It broke my heart to have someone come to me with that look on their face, that tone in their voice, and immediately start apologizing profusely on the presumption that was just expected of them because of their job title versus mine.

Guys.

STOP BEING ASSHOLES TO YOUR ASSISTANTS.

Just stop.

They deserve better. Their job is way harder than you think it is and if you don't believe me, spend a week trying to do for yourself everything they do for you. I'll be surprised if you make it two days without having to call someone up in a sad voice and ask them if they can please tell you how the expense reporting requirements work and how you even get into that system.

STOP BEING ASSHOLES TO YOUR ASSISTANTS.

That is all.

@thesuntsar said in Dark Crystal game?:

@WildBaboons said in Dark Crystal game?:

My hypothesis is there is a large group of players that frequent WoD games that really just want a blended fantasy game set in modern/near modern time with a large player base and some guidelines.

^ this here

^ Ding. Though I would personally prefer not modern, really, hence the Carnival Row comment. I prefer my escapist fantasy problems to at least have a thin veneer of not matching current-day sociopolitical problems, thx.