@ganymede said in The Work Thread:
Because these are public benefits, they cannot be taken away from you under Ohio law, so the employer has to pay you PTO when you leave employment.
Ours gets capped at 270 hours and only if you leave voluntarily.
Man.
I need to go work for Ohio, clearly.
@tnp said in Girl Scout Cookies:
@macha said in Girl Scout Cookies:
I thiiiiiiink it's Tagalongs? the peanut butter ones? And thin mints. And the samoas.
thankfully, I can get dupes for all these at Aldi, all year round.
And cheaper too, I'm sure. I've never really understood the obsession
They're very much not the same though. 
Even though I get teh wal-mart samoas. DON'T JUDGE ME OK?
@macha said in The Work Thread:
new chair assembled. Need to tweak the tilting, but other than that, so happy with it.
Wooooi!
@carma said in General Video Game Thread:
@derp I enjoyed Alan Wake for a couple hours, but then it lost me.
***Just some gripes***
click to showSomehow, despite my love for horror novels, I don't think I was the targeted demographic for that game. And that saddens me.
Well -- I mean, granted, I'm not all the way through it, but:
***Spoilery Spoiler Stuff***
Peter Robbins, the original voice actor of Charlie Brown. Suicide, apparently.
@vixanic said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
@derp said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I want a nap and a blankie and I just got a promotion
Congrats on the promotion though
Thanks!
@vixanic said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I have a cold.
I'm fortunate in that I don't get ill often, and when I do I tend to push on through it (though from home, rather than spread it).
Colds, however. Colds bring my tantrum-prone, whiny, pathetic inner six year old to the surface.
UGH. stamps feet
Same. I feel like a petulant four year old. I want a nap and a blankie and I just got a promotion and I can't afford to fall down on this job this early so I just have to muscle through it.
But back on the topic of video games, @Devrex turned me on to Alan Wake. I don't know how I didn't know about this game before, but I'm enjoying every second of it.
@wildbaboons said in The Work Thread:
@too-old-for-this said in The Work Thread:
@silverfox My son walks to school (there are bullies on his bus that he wants to avoid and he's familiar with the route). Yesterday, the day where the skies opened up and dumped like 4-5 inches of snow? He chose to wear his hoodie and sneakers because 'it didn't look that bad out'. People suck at judging the weather. XD
That just sounds like standard kid. We got maybe 3" of snow today and I saw at least three kids walking to/from school in t-shirts. It isn't cool to be warm. You just don't understand.
Kid? I'm still 100% this guy. It's 23 degrees and I'm in a polo.
I don't like stuff touching my arms.
Or my legs but I still haven't convinced them that shorts are totally work appropriate.
@botulism said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
with no Force/Jedi/Sith since they're supposed to be really rare post Order 66
My roommate wants a kitten so badly, but there's like.. nowhere to put a litter box. So seeing all the lil baby floofs makes me feel guilty, because I've got Logan.
Lol, would it be a companion, or a snack? With mine I can never be sure.
@roz said in 2022: A New Year, New Dead Celebrities:
What the hell, man. Gaspard Ulliel dies in a skiing accident.
Nooooo.
He was my favorite Hannibal.
@roz said in The Work Thread:
A colleague on my team mentioned at our weekly team meeting yesterday that she had to go to a meeting at 8:30am
scheduled by an Account Director
to talk about the concern he had heard
that he’s calling too many meetings.
I would set that AD on fire.
Luckily neither I nor my current boss roll in until almost 10am so.
(This is an exaggeration, I am usually there by 8:30, but only because I have actual stuff to do.)
@prism said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
Got really bad news today. Trying very hard to not think because I'll just keep crying.
2022 has been a shitshow so far.
I don’t really know you, but big hugs anyway
I'm not forgetting anything.
My mom is a teacher, and I've seen what it takes to juggle hybrid classrooms. It's not easy, but it's hardly impossible, either. Plenty of occupations have had to start switching their methodologies on the fly to accommodate hybrid approaches to things. There are other options that could work. Rotating block schedules that offer a combination of online and in-person learning could be used to reduce the number of people physically present in the classes at any time, for instance.
But I routinely hear 'be kind' in the context of 'just let teachers do their thing'. And, sorry, but no. Teachers still have oversight and accountability to more than just the school administrators. Parents still get a say in their children's education, both in form and substance, for better or worse. And if what a teacher is doing isn't working for a particular child, and like above, accommodations are not being made after a parent expressed a concern and requested a change, then 'being kind' ultimately amounts to 'ignoring the issue', which I don't think is a viable standard. For anything. When polite requests fall on deaf ears, it's no longer time to 'be kind'. It's time to be firm, forceful, and insistent in advocacy for the children involved. The teachers in question probably aren't acting with malice, sure. But that doesn't mean that harm isn't being done, either.
As one of those children who finished school while not-in-a-permanent-living-situation, i.e. living out of my car, it would have been immensely beneficial to have the kind of flexibility in time/place/manner of education that is being asked for here. I am not unfamiliar with that situation, and I got 'left behind' because I had to show up to a classroom every day rather than watch a video and answer some questions when I had the time to do so.
Lack of internet access can be a problem, but given the resources available to schools for the purchase of laptops and wireless USB dongles through various grant programs designed for this purpose, it is hardly an insurmountable one if you have effective administrators. I know, I sign dozens of those contracts every day.
The resource that is lacking is the actual educators. That's what I don't know about, in terms of alternatives. There are only so many teachers, but those teachers have access to tons of resources. So on the one hand -- yes. That is a shitty situation for teachers to be in. On the other hand -- the teacher is one person, as compared to potentially dozens or hundreds of others that require the teacher to be flexible for that position. It sucks for teachers, and I feel for them, but not so much that I'm willing to let children suffer through the kinds of things mentioned above because it's easier for an educator.
If that's what's meant by 'be kind', then -- I guess I'm just not willing to do that. Not when the stakes are so high.
@silverfox said in The Work Thread:
No one in any school out there is out to hurt the children. No one.
See, that's the rub though. It's hard to "be kind" to those insisting that children be in class in person during this time, for whatever reason. You're correct in that, generally, no one in any school out there is acting maliciously. But that doesn't mean they aren't doing harm. Even with the best of intentions, their actions and decisions are hurting kids, and there has to be pushback on that. There just isn't an alternative.
I'm not sure what else can be done. It sucks for teachers, but it also sucks for kids. And government workers. And everyone else. It sucks for everyone, and we all have to deal with it, on some level or another.
But the school situation especially is just -- it's too big to simply write off and give a little shruggie and be like 'too hard to do it any other way'.
I just don't think that's compatible with the reality that we're currently in. And it sucks.
@solstice said in The Work Thread:
So yeah, no out for them, there. It's entirely motivated by archaic 'You're not productive if you're not in your seat' wisdom.
This is why we're not allowed to do WFH anymore either. Too many conservatives got all mad that the government offices were empty, even though we were already planning on going to remote work for a lot of stuff and downsizing in an effort to be fiscally conservative, which is the freaking mantra.
So we're all back ot working in close quarters as positive tests skyrocket. Because apparently the only way to make sure we're doing stuff is for the overlords to lord over us at all times. Instead of like -- productivity benchmarks. Because it's 2022.
@greenflashlight said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I was just introduced to a handy website that tells me what streaming services host which movies. None of the ones I want to watch are on Netflix. Why do I still have a subscription to this?
Link!
@wildbaboons said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
I have family that works as a Labor and Delivery RN. The worse name they have seen was La-a. You pronounce it as La Dash A. The mother kept getting super upset when people pronounced it as "La a"
