Posts made by mietze

@pyrephox That is exactly what is happening in every school right now, pretty much. And every daycare, though.

The workplace in the US heavily /relies/ on people not taking any time off, either by minimizing as much as possible paid leave, utilizing firing for missing more than 3 days or less for illness or other reason, and by having minimal staffing so that any loss is a major hardship for coworkers and people know it.

The only place I have ever been encouraged to use the (ample) time off provided in like 30 years of working has been when I worked at the bank, because it's a federal requirement that you're out of the system for 5 consecutive business days once ever year, and they grant a shitload of other leave too.

Everywhere else I've worked there was pressure internal and external to never miss a day. Especially in service and early childhood education.

Tagalongs and samoas! I've not tried any of the new ones tho.

@testament Time to break out the 50 somethings! Though honestly, one of my favorite PCs for their rich background that made her a delight to play was one I made for Arx that was in her late 60s (the age on cg maxes out at 65 but obvs you can be older). I wish I'd had more time with her (and sometimes think about bringing her back) just because it was nice to see people relax OOCly around that play. It did not have to be fraught with horndogging. Now that I've ventured into playing younger PCs mixed in, since our community has aged RL, I'm finding they also don't get hit on either in an older-skewed setting, which can be pretty nice to have people be more judicious about rushing that sort of play. Judging from logs the bedhopping/chasing here and there seems to center on whatever the dominant age is (even if it's 30s). Which while annoying if one doesn't want to be approached for romantic RP, is also somewhat cheering as well. It's not like only teens and 20somethings have sex, so it's nice to see some diversity in romantic rp too.

I always enjoy the ancient looking PBs people used to (and still do on occasion) slap on late 30someting and 40 something PC or NPCs.

Maybe it's just my life experience talking (and just being around a lot of different people at different ages outside of my cohort) but I find that I am more appreciative of a variety of ages as far as storytelling depth. And it tends to be in the hands of the player too. Some people play their middle aged/elder PCs very shallowly or by stereotype. And I've seen many young PCs done well (though admittedly the Doogie Houser types still make my eye twitch, but so do the old dried up hag at 40 PCs!)

Having played mostly on the fringes of late (young PCs or elderly PCs), it can be a really interesting experience to see players not willing to give either a chance. It can feel like a bummer, but I think it's rarely personal so I try to not take the kind of awkward OOC dismissal personally.

@macha depending it may not be a bad investment when compared to other issues and injury/pain that will be caused if you don't have the proper support!

I think that many people are in the middle of a trauma response mental health wise. I know that I am and in talking to more and more people I am finding that right now very much feels like the beginning of the cascade of shut downs at the beginning of the pandemic, even though intellectually its understood that it is unlikely to happen again in the same way.

I feel stressed because I know I'm going to get sick at work and infect my family, and I do not believe there will be any sort of health order given this time to slow or mitigate it. There isn't a will for that, not even in my state. My anti-mask/virus isn't real friends and family are stressed because just like when the first shutdowns happened they're convinced that they are going to get rounded up and put in a camp.

We don't have a president who says as many stupid and weird things as Trump did anymore but he still is going to be biz first (and to be honest thats why he got elected really). So we are still going to have piecemeal state to state policies and actions but I think it will be more like FL rather than my state the first time round.

I know so many people who are ill (with the virus) right now, personally. I also know very many people who are in slow-motion mental health crisis and I wonder how many of us will survive the next few years. I suspect this is super wide spread as far as what people are feeling.

So I hope everyone takes care as much as they can. One foot in front of the other.

People here realize that it's not the teachers who are making the policies, I hope. And if teachers quit or commit suicide or have other breakdowns, it won't improve anyone's child's experience probably.

Someone saying that they are struggling or hurting or whatever doesn't diminish anyone else's.

At least around here the remote synchronizer instruction is something that has finite windows to sign up for because there is a finite number of slots staffed for. Regular homeschooling without district support is available to anyone. Staff supported but parent driven homeschooling support (middle ground) has more flexibility because of its structure and so they take on people on a space available basis and they have more spaces.

It pains me to see more parents have to go through this. I have a 2020 high school graduate kid and two 2021 hs graduates. There was a lot of grief I had in different ways for both of those years. And their college experiences have been chaotic. So I get that grief. I have further grief over the destruction in my now 2nd graders life and the long term impact of last year in particular.

However, me dismissing the very real distress and mental health issues that teachers face in dealing with this as well as being surrounded by community anger/dismissal doesn't really help.

The reasons why nobody is being served super well right now is a lot deeper than "just" bureaucracy. I can see why that sort of comment might come across as hurtful, intentionally or not.

I work in a private school that has a toddler and preschool program in addition to K-12. Despite masking requirements for all students 3 years old and up, and requirement that all staff and admin be vaccinated we had to shut down the high school and middle school classes, plus 3 others this week to quarentine. We are now out of subs (admin are filling in for classes in addition to all available subs on deck).

The part of the school i work in is the preschool and we know that we will not close unless we don't have the staffing because that is in essence daycare. Every day it is running the gauntlet because we have people attempting to bring sick kids in, using the DoH loophole that allows non symptomatic people even in the same household as someone quarentined to not be quarentined if there's a test to stay program (we have one but will run out of test supplies next tuesday).

Its a stressful time. I wish people were more appreciative that the staff are here and continue to come despite the danger to ourselves which is what people have screamed they want from daycare providers and schools but alas it is a constant stream of bitching about the inevitable closing that people anticipate. I could not take one particular parent's continual stream of conspiracy light complaining (when i know they are a stay at home parent anyway so their family wouldn't lose income anyway if we and their public school older students had to deal with a closure). So when she started in on her conversational bullshit (which i understand is not personal to me and is her own anxiety but I have enough of my own without dealing with her vomiting on me about my profession and other workers/teachers) i told her that if we close its likely because either the lead or i or both are actually ill with the virus and too many of the other staff are ill or out of commission to not step in to fill our vacancies. It shut her up.

I wish people could maybe be a little kinder to the people who are directly providing services to them. But I don't think we are culturally capable of that anymore.

@ganymede when the first round of shenanigans with instacart hit the news almost all of my regulars started tipping me in cash. I was asked by other people quite a bit and was honest about educating them. So knowledge can guide behaviors. This was years before the pandemic, but most of my customers were elderly or moms of lots of little kids or needed assistance as far as not being able to carry bunches of groceries from the car to the door, ect.

But there are still issues like people not knowing that by choosing "delivery" from their grocery store app they're actually using instacart even though they thought that they were avoiding a gig thing and supporting a job with benefits, ect. Theres still a lot of deceptive stuff (personally I think if a grocery delivery is "powered by" instacart it should be all over/change the appearance of the app to the instacart logo instead of grocery store logo.)

@ganymede I blame them. All of the gig platforms rely on deceptive practices towards clients and workers (tip and how people get paid obfuscation, allowing for 2-3 days for tips to be changed/revoked while not compensating worker when the original tip is part of the wage presented to the worker before they take that order) and predatory behavior towards workers. They've been caught again and again; get busted with a lawsuit and fines, lay low and then creep up with the same offenses because the $$$ is immense, for them.

Putting drivers and customers in danger with known problem customers/drivers. Lying about insurance status as far as on the job injuries or accidents, ect. Its pretty sad. People shit on Amazon and it is a shitty company don't get me wrong, but I know that they blacklist clients who assault or harass drivers (instacart will not), when I got in a fender bender on the clock their insurance paid, while they did steal tips as well (I recently got a surprise payout from them of the amount they stole from me and I haven't driven for them in like 4 years), you were also paid up front for your time.

I have received 3 oops sorry we stole from you payout from Instacart when I still drove for them that totalled almost $3000. There was a local customer who would come to the door jacking off if he saw it was a female driver, and they refused to blacklist that customer and kicked the driver who eventually filed a police report rather than just a problem customer report off the platform. They refused to blacklist a customer who let out their aggressive dogs twice on me (and many others, but I wrote down the complete address the second time and screenshotted the GPS map so I could refuse his deliveries from then on--instacart at that time obfuscated addresses but would show a modified map on offered jobs; you'd only get the address after you accepted and dropping the job after accepting would lock you out of the platform for awhile).

Customers suck too, but most of these gig companies suck even more.

I'm not sure if this is a localized thing or might be rippling out elsewhere but in the medical practice I got to they are even suspending a lot of routine or important but not critical lab stuff for lack of supplies. Including things like the specific color caps used for CBC vials, the vials for blood collection in general, ect.

I hope that this is more of a catchup thing from my state being pounded by whacky weather but. If its a broader supply chain issue, well. Its really stressful.

Given how shitty instacart's shopping platform is and it is centered around personal shopping i can't even imagine what its like having a new i wanna get a piece of this half-ass add on to a gig platform is like.

Wouldn't recommend it then. Partially bc you can usually see if its an apartment but won't know stair situation on houses but also for the lifting!

It can be a learning curve as far as figuring out how to gauge if an offer actually is good enough pay for time/distance but once I did I made decent $$ with instacart.

Another clean as you go person here, at least during prep time and cooking itself. Afterwards I tend to turn the cleaning over to someone else.

Its not just hospital icu/er care that is affected. I have had an important procedure delayed now 3 times which has definitely impacted my mental health and has the possibility thar it may impact my physical health too, depending.

I dont complain about it bc med staff and providers have enough shit in their lives and they're doing the best they can.

I do think though that if someone ever cares to track other things, people overburdening and already shitty system with covid will have led to a lot more deaths indirectly due to making care for other things less accessible. From routine things catching issues to delay in cancer screening/tests and the like.

Anyone got a good recipe for shrimp that isn't shrimp alfredo? We've been iced in since the 25th and um...well, I have a lot of mouths to feed that are carnivores and a lot of shrimp in the freezer. We do have most pantry staples, a fairly robust spice selection, and an okay amount of fresh veggies. I can do a rice bowl, but I remembered the creative minds here so thought I'd ask if anyone has a recipe that they love. Since you know, I'm a little cabin fevered too and wouldn't mind trying something new.

Also omg. As someone who loves spoilers and who rarely has the attention span or physical capacity to feel comfortable just sitting and watching something for a few hours--the many channels of movie recaps sometimes with super unintentionally humorous commentary are quite lovely.

I feel lowbrow because my destress brain candy videos of choice involve videos of ingrown hair or earwax removal and compilations of tiktok fart pranks (on youtube). Also horrible things like dance moms and toddlers and tiaras clips. And redneck barbie car races.

Though I do also disappear into food travel videos and documentaries too.