Posts made by mietze

I have not seen anyone on this thread say that all we need to do is give to the needy. I hope that is not directed at me. I do think that there are policies that make it very hard for people who have certain circumstances to access safe and secure finances, which also makes it hard to qualify for some housing if you do not have a bank account, and a snowballing of other things.

I hope nobody here begrudges people and organizations trying to step up to fill needed spaces that are not provided by the government where people and children that would otherwise be sleeping in cars or in 24 hour open buildings can come in to sleep in a warm and safe environment and get a (donated, do not worry tax dollars are not spent on this) hot dinner and grab and go breakfast before they leave to work, school, day shelters or programs. There are lots of people that do begrudge it though. Often using language like why cant they pull themselves up by the bootstraps, why dont they give up their kids for adoption, why can't they not have to use these services if they can afford bus fares/homes. Most panhandlers arent homeless. But people often want to see people who are homeless look like third world beggars or else they obviously dont need help but if they do look like that then they dont deserve help because they are garbage people that have no interest in helping themselves.

Another change I discovered due to my teens working is that many fast food and other grunt force labor jobs (including housekeeping and landscape) try to get (or must offer because their employees cannot get a bank account) employees to accept a company issued reloadable debit card that has their paycheck loaded to it each week in lieu of paper check or direct deposit. And they make direct deposit a hassle.

Again I was totally unaware of this until I had working teens and then work in a bank where people come in with these work issues cards yo get cash advances. And have to pay fees to cash paychecks since they do not have an account or get charged by the card company for the advance.

To have a square merchant account they do (or used to) require a link to a bank account.

PayPal doesn't and a lot of other money services do not.

Before I started working in the banking industry I had no clue how many people cannot open bank accounts because they get rejected for medical and other debts and collections. There are some special types of accounts that are not as strict as deposit/checking accounts but there are still people who don't qualify.

I've had the same banking account for like 25 years now and it would not ger taken away because I racked up medical debt--if I did though without an account then I'm at risk of being in limbo hell.

Anyway. All that to say is that there are a surprising lot of people who have to operate outside of traditional banks and must rely on paypal/venmo/ect.

There is a lot of fraud as a result, but a lot of it is against the people who get are vulnerable because they rely on those systems to hold funds/pay bills, who get scammed as much as people who have real bank accounts.

Yeah, sorry for spelling error. I do really love feeding people, but not usually that way.

Almost all of my chosen family locally ate people I met because of mushing (though not necessarily because we played a lot together if at all). We have seen each other through some really ugly times RL. It is amazing to have people that you know absolutely will have your back RL through thick and thin, regardless of game stuff (where there have been the usual arguments and disagreements). I never would have met them if I had not been a musher and considering that some of my RL and online buddies have been in my life for over 20 years (can you believe it guys?) I am eternally grateful to the hobby.

I have met a ton more mushfolk from around the world. It is always fun regardless of whether I click with them (and it's always kind of surprising who I do click with face to face--sometimes it's with people where we annoy the fuck out of each other on game) however i always meet folks in public or they are invited to a group event at my place, with a few exceptions when I was younger, so that cuts down on creeper issues.

@hedgehog yep ACLU both national and local chapter have been contacted. We also have a great network of immigration activists who will also be getting involved. Word spreading rapidly locally (I misread my email, it happened friday evening/sat am not last night, I didnt check my email until this evening so was reading it raw). Will also be contacting city and county law enforcement (neither is supposed to be working with ICE and they should have a heads up this happened and to be aware). I'm just prepping for a lot of phone work tomorrow, I hate that but numbers speak loud. But I think I've done all the emails I can so tonight and there are lots of us doing that.

I have heard through the grapevine that the family has not been seen since (theres a day shelter elsewhere that many of the families move back and forth from). I know CCC keeps some records so I am hoping they'll be able to get in touch with them somehow. It's been really cold at night this weekend. I hope they found somewhere safe. I guess this is the reason why theres a list of all the small shelters in the local network.

@TNP yes we are on it. The church is handling the media, the rest of us are converging on state and local representatives including city officials.

Last night an ICE agent posing as a homeless person tried to infiltrate the emergency family shelter that I volunteer at (it's in the basement of the church, we serve a warm meal to the families, and then two social workers from catholic community services stay up in shifts to make sure everyone is safe). The family in question (who I know and am in tears and distressed over) sensed something was up when she first started asking questions of the staff members (about a family that "looked white but wasn't") and fled out a side door literally leaving their dinner plates and everything but one backpack behind. They have two children under the age of 6 who are NOW FUCKING ON THE STREET god knows where. The staffers told the woman that she could not stay because you can only stay in this emergency shelter if you have a child under the age of 18 but she was invited to stay and have a meal at least. While the social workers were distracted checking in and setting up a brand new family with their paperwork, the ICE agent started asking invasive and harassing questions of the families. It was then that she was asked to leave. When one of the social workers went out for a break at 12:45 AM this morning (while the families were sleeping) she saw the undercover agent talking to two others beside an ICE marked van across the street.

I feel sick. There are not many family shelters in my area that will take people in on a walk in basis. Most of our families do not stay too long maybe a month or two until transitional housing or a real shelter beds open up. They can only stay from 8:30 pm till 7:00 am. They sleep on mattresses on the floor. It's not swank. Its emergency situations. These are the most vulnerable of the vulnerable. I volunteer on a recurring day of the week and when I was there last week I held a 3 month old baby so her momma could have a break and eat. Theres always kids running around and it's pretty fun for that. People are only here because the families do not want to be separated or the family housing is full.

I am shaking with anger right now. There's a special place in hell for people trying to make quota preying on families with children because they think they are easy targets. I feel sick. I guess I'm going to be making a lot of angry phone calls on Monday. And wondering how many more families wont come for help when they need it when word gets out.

If this makes you happy, then go fuck yourself.

The woman who stole pictures of my twins sonograms and baby pictures (I'd created a website/blog for family m) so that she could pose as a mother of twins on a message board and create a dramatic story of one dying (there were some medical pics on my site because my boys had ttts and one almost died from a hospital acquired infection)....later got caught posing and soliciting private interactions as a 14 year old cancer survivor, including trying engage people in romantic communication.

She was in her 30s, married, ect.

There are a ton of people who get off on doing that sort of thing of all ages. Might be harder to do now with the advent of Skype and real time video chat but. I'm sure it still happens.

Just because you do not see or agree with the reasoning behind an ask does not mean that there isnt one.

And a lot of the time the way workarounds are asked for has a huge impact on what part of that interaction is the real evaluation.

It could be even "you know, we already have 5 players on the game that have a very low tolerance for rolling with things even if they dont enjoy them and often need a lot of specialized attention to get through things that are obstacles for them. Can we/do we want to add on another person that is going to need more time/has to be challenged very carefully?" might be provoked by how something is asked vs another way of asking might provoke a "huh. I never thought of that alternative, I like it, let's put it on the wiki as another way right now. Thanks!" by the same staff.

I guess if you do not want to have to do whatever everyone else has had to do to gain entrance to a game, then you will need to persuade the people running it that you are someone they want to participate so much that they are willing to amend or forego the rules for the sake of your inclusion.

I bet that this /can/ be done, but seldom is it going to happen by telling them that their vetting/selection process is stupid.

Usually I see what kinds of hoops there are for participation as just as informative for me as for them. Do I like their management style? Do I think I can approach them/how do they react? If the answer is no/no/no then it seems like a good time to walk away.

As a ST I actually started to directly ask my players what forms of recognition/reward were most meaningful for them, and even share examples of interactions/rewards they've received elsewhere that were especially memorable. If my place actually gets off the ground I actually want to incorporate that in the CG questions.

True, sometimes people wont say or will get offended that you cant guess, but honestly when people have been open with me, getting to incorporate what speaks to them in a plot/scene is one of my favorite and sustaining things.

The only issue is volume. I do know people who seem to be able to regularly sustain 10-15 person scenes and feel like they were able to give something to everyone, but that's a gift I do not have. It is one thing to do it for a special occasion (epic battle, ect) which I think just has to happen sometimes and can be great fun in and of itself, especially if you are bringing smaller groups together. But for me even with extensive notes on each pc I find it hard to feel like I'm connecting well enough without smaller interactions (for me the magic number seems to be 4-8 for getting to know the players/pcs)

I think it depends on the game though. I do not think it's bad/incorrect to require of staff that they be competent in the RPG system IF that is part of what your expectations are/what you need to run the game you want to run. I could see that being essential on some games, especially if consistency in how scenes are run is important and there's an absence of supportive code.

Will that be important to every game or every game owner/runner no, but it isn't invalid even if some other games do not have that as an important criteria.

I feel like sometimes we get in these circles of argument about the universal best way and I am unconvinced that there is truly one.

I dont think that it ever looks exactly the same person to person tbh.

I love STing. It is my passion. However, I prefer to just be a ST and do not like to play where I do, because what ignites my interest is helping to weave the stories together both personal stories of the PCs and the overarcing plot if any. I love spoilers and am great at keeping them under wraps (thanks to being with my hubs for 20+ years--he loathes spoilers, while I can't really enjoy tv and movies without knowing the story in advance, so I always read in advance and think wikipedia is the BEST EVER.). I do not like spoilers where I play though because the conflict of interest makes ME super stressed out. (I believe many people are the opposite and that is good and lovely!)

Many people think that it is impossible to staff/ST where you don't play. I think that may be true for many people who cannot feel connected without doing so, but I find I have a more intense and fun time when I get to be exclusively ST staff who gets to see the big picture, and the players seem to really react positively when I am hooked in like this. It's a rarity though because I do not think most people can relate and so wanting to staff without playing makes me automatically a power hungry crappy person to some. But in reality its just a matter of having finite energy and I dont often like trying to balance being a player and storytelling staff (thus responsible for bigger picture storylines) as that kind of story building draws from the same "energy bucket" for me and performance suffers at both ends a result.

I can administrate and play just fine, because that FOR ME draws from different buckets.

Oh well this probably doesnt make sense unless you are similar, but there we go.

@Arkandel yep, I think that happens more often than not. I know I usually havent minded unless people start commenting ic that my pc is "never there" on these adventures/development arcs (I do not st with my pc present) and that sorta pissed me off.

@Roz yep. I do love it when wiz staff has very clear and concise expectations that are shared when they're looking to hire though. Always a major major plus when I see that!

@Arkandel I have found/experienced that people treat you very differently when you are known as a PrP runner as well. Even on games where there wasnt a game reward (like xp/beats/story points) for doing so.

Sometimes it meant people treated you a little worse in the sense of behaving like they were entitled to something from you, or that obviously you were a "staff pet" or being suspicious, but most of the time it's a net gain especially if allows you to broaden your RP circle, at least in my experience.

And prp runners even sometimes get the same critiques (only in it for the XP or their friends' pcs!) as staff STs!!

I think on some games that do not require much staff/player interaction that maybe it is less of an issue. But when it comes to situations where dealing with a particular person is extremely time consuming and wearying whether they are a dick in general, constantly needing hand holding, emotionally fraught/fragile, constantly stirring up ooc drama, sad sacking, constant need for monitoring due to game issues like theme not not cheating per se...sometimes that takes more time and energy than staff wants to invest in an individual. That's probably going to vary depending on the staff involved.

But I do not see the harm and see more advantage than disadvantage in just cutting someone loose who is taking up more resources than you want to give as a team. I support player/sphere/alt caps for the same reason. Different teams will have different tolerances, I'd rather people make decisions that allow them to be able to use their energy/time in a way that keeps their enthusiasm and enjoyment and ability to maintain the game they want up.

@Auspice having staffed with her? Sometimes she got hired and stayed hired because she actually could be a great administrator when she was in the good part of the cycle. Sometimes she played the part of reluctant staffer too. I have seen plenty of people play folks with that shit too.

Nice people make for shitty admin sometimes. Not so nice people can do a great job. Some of the most destructive awful game wrecking people I have personally experienced come across as reasonable, mellow, competent people...until they don't.

Perhaps defined expectations, reevaluated on a somewhat consistent basis, and hiring people with the skills and desires to meet those expectations, and letting people go no matter how great they may have been at some point when it is clear they can/will not continue to uphold the standards desired is a much better way to look at it rather than what they do or don't say that they want.

@saosmash I would rather have people acknowledge the power that comes with that position than either be unaware or unprepared for some of the things that come with it. Some people have better skill than others in dealing with that, and they tend to be people who gravitate towards enjoying the responsibility on some level.

I guess I just have a knee jerk yuck reaction to the idea of the best suited person being someone who does not want it. I see that (imo) somewhat romantic view lead to some really shitty things. Especially when it edges into martyrdom. My experience is that reluctance can turn quickly into resentment and that quickly can lead to martyrdom even with otherwise good people. Which is why I love defined roles as well, and wish that was an intrinsic part of setting up/reassessing staffing models on games. On games where I have seen that happen, things seem to stay healthy and more even keeled for a hell of a lot longer.