When I worked in Mebine, North Carolina (during our “van days”, “out in the wilderness”) I witnessed, first hand, all sorts of corruption that a powerful factory, and rich boss can get away with.
This was a factory that made “granola bars”. I worked in maintenance, and then as a line machine operator.
- Using company funds he bought a “company car”. You know, to go on business trips. Except that it was an expensive custom Corvette sports car. LOL.
- There was a 22 year old girl who was on the payroll as his open sex partner. She was one of those girls… you know the kind… attractive, blonde, voluptuous… attracted boys at 14 and was addicted to sex. She befriended me, and openly talked about her escapades with “the boss”. She would come in for a few hours each day to “help him in the office” and then leave.
- They factory was running out of money and started to have financial problems. So we were ordered to take the huge (four story tall) storage tank and weld a fake partition at top. Then we gathered some of the molasses that it stored. We then burnt the molasses intentionally. Put it up at the top. The Boss then called the supplier and complained. They vendor came. Took a sample from the top, determined that it was burnt… and refunded the cost of the truck load to our boss.
- The factory workers took up a collection to help us (me and the wife). The money was given to a girl to buy food for us, and we really appreciated the two bags of groceries… until we saw that all the items had “buy one get two free” stickers on everything. But the bags only contained one item. Someone clearly took one half of the food for themselves.
- The factory made granola bars, with was nothing more than mixing peanut butter, nuts, honey, raisins, etc in a huge vat, forming them into ribbons, cutting the ribbons into pieces, and then wrapping them in foil. The thing was that almost all the ingredients were FREE from the United States government. Somehow the factory boss cut a deal where he got free “government food” that was intended for the poor, and made granola bars at a profit.
- That being said, our “Christmas bonus” consisted of a USDA block of cheese. Promptly labeled “not for resale”.
As I get older, I see how everything in the United States was twisted, reformed, readjusted, and made so that only certain groups prospered, while others got poorer and poorer. How long can this continue?
It seems to me that the ONLY thing keeping Americans “on the plantation” are loads of drugs, social media pacification, and ignorance of the rest of the world.
If you are still trapped inside… GET OUT NOW.
Today…
As a police officer, what’s the most devastating case of child neglect you have ever seen?
The mother of an 11-year-old decided her daughter needed a whipping (She did). This is what happened that did NOT constitute a “whipping”.
Mom started out with an electrical cord pulled off a lamp. After numerous strikes, the cord got lost in the struggle. While holding the girl, mom punched her with her fists several times. Mom grabbed a wire coat hanger, straightened it and started whipping again. The end of the wire was wrapping around the girl’s body, puncturing her arms, legs, hips, sides. Then the coat hanger got pulled away in the struggle.
Mom grabbed a woman’s belt, about 1/4 inch wide and started in with it, cutting into the girl’s skin. After numerous strikes, that also got lost. The beating had moved through four rooms, into the baby’s room. Mom snatched a side slat out of the baby bed (about 1″ by 1″ by about three feet, and started using it. Somehow, the girl escaped the house, ran down the street, and was taken into a house by a neighbor who called the police. She was admitted to the hospital with cuts and bruises from her ankles to her head. She had a hematoma about the size of a baseball on her forehead that swelled her eye closed. She looked like she had gone 9 rounds with Mike Tyson.
Mom was convicted on Felony Child Abuse and served 5 years.
Why did the Roman Empire stop expanding?
My professor, put the answer this way, the Romans ran out of people to rob. This was Rome at its maximum extent:
This takes a massive army to maintain and that requires money. I will say something unpopular, after conquest, a standing army is a financial drain. Soldiers produced nothing but cost you a great deal and you must feed them locally.
Thus the conquests must:
- Be worth the value in permanent productivity and taxation
- Better hope you have a weak neighbor with low organization and social cohesion. Otherwise, you will have a lengthy oozing wound that exhausts your army and financially wrecks you with continuous war
So, to the South, Romans would be expanding into the Sahara; what was the point of that?
Expand into Northern Britain was done several times; those were financially unsustainable. North of the wall, population density was too low to sustain legions.
Along the Rhine, the Romans had expanded into Germany, on many occasions. It was a place of forests and swamps and small villages. Along the coast was one giant coastal wetland. No profit in that place, the Romans tried for years but it was just not profitable. This permanent fort was found in Thuringia, Eastern Germany:
Why was it abandoned? Finances.
Further along, was the Danube frontier. After Dacia’s gold was exhausted, it was not worth keeping it. Indeed, that frontier was open to the horse people and Germans. There was nothing to gain there. So, the Romans retreated to the Danube and stayed there.
To the east, was Persia or Parthia or whatever you want to call them. Those boys were as civilized, organized and militaristic as the Romans. From Crassus onwards, there was war, back and forth, back and forth, expansions, contractions, expansions, contractions…that war continued into the Byzantine era. Some claim, it NEVER ended.
So, where am I going with this? At some point, empires are about money and profit. If a place is not making money, it does not make sense to keep it. The game has not changed. Look at it from the perspective of Tony Soprano:
I want to know why there’s zero growth in this family’s receipts. Where’s the money?! You’re supposed to be earners. That’s why you’ve got the top-tiered positions. So I want each one of you to go out to your people on the street, crack some heads, making some earnings.
Conquest for conquest sake was not the point. Making profit was the point. Rome had run out of profitable places to conquer in their vicinity.
Have you witnessed anything noticeable happen immediately after someone dies?
One day, a year or so after my teenage daughter “broke up” with a boy whom we had gotten to know, (his mom had been diagnosed with cancer months before) I had a very strong feeling to contact him on Facebook and just ask how he had been doing.
He answered me immediately and said, my mom is dying. I told him that I knew she was sick, and that’s why I was checking on him. He said no… right now he is in the hospice room with her and her breathing has changed and he thought she was gone.
I asked him what he wanted to do, and he said he didn’t want to leave her. I told him it would be OK if he sat with her as long as he wanted, and when he was done he should go get the hospice staff and they would take care of her from there .
This was being done via Facebook messenger, and we sat quietly for about 5 to 10 minutes, when he said her hand was cold and he was ready to go. I told him let me know if there was anything I could do for him, and the next time I heard from him it was regarding the funeral.
On the day of the funeral my daughter and I were preparing to go and I stopped on the way to look for a card or something I could write on to share our condolences.
While standing in the card section I became frustrated I didn’t like anything that I saw, I decided a card didn’t feel right and I just wouldn’t do it… but on the way out I passed the candy section and felt a strong sense that I should buy some Skittles.
When arriving at the funeral and passing through the line with this young man and his brothers I gave him the skittles and said, “dude I brought you a rainbow”
The funeral service was lovely, his mother knew she was dying and planned most of it herself right down to the music. As the services ended they asked us all to enjoy her favorite song as we proceed out of the church.
My heart and my spirits were lifted immediately when the song started, it was “somewhere over the rainbow”
As I pass the boys again on the way out we all hugged and I made sure they knew that that message was from their mother, I didn’t even know her, but that message was from her!
At her exact moment of passing she somehow got into my psyche so I contacted her boy and virtually held his hand as she left. Then she made sure I brought him a message of hope, directly from her.
Apart from the Philippines, how many enemies China have over the South China Sea Disputes?
Except for the corrupt Bongbong Marcos government, no other country in Southeast Asia wants to be an enemy of China.
Except for the Philippines, no country in Southeast Asia is willing to become “Asian version Ukraine” used as cannon fodder by the United States.
In Russo-Ukrainian war the Americans politicians give ammunition, the rich ukrainian give the food and the poor ukrainian give their children… When the war is over the Americans politicians get back the leftover ammunition, the rich ukrainian grow more food and the poor ukrainian search for the graves of their children.
Using the lives of their own citizens as expendable goods to satisfy the ambition of American politicians to weaken China? — Southeast Asian people are not that stupid.
Even the Filipino people themselves are opposed to Bongbong Marcos colluding with the United States to provoke China on the South China Sea issue.
Do you really think they don’t know the Yanks’ sinister intentions of sowing discord and inciting discord?
Recently, there was even news that the former president of the Philippines protested against Bongbong Marcos for provoking China and promoting the independence of Philippine Mindanao.
Quora has netizens from Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Brunei and other countries along the South China Sea. You could do a broad social survey of them and quickly come to the same conclusion I did.
What is the smartest comment that you have heard a child make?
When my grandson Henry was about four we were very close, and he loved to hear me singing and playing guitar so when he was staying with us he’d ask me to sing for him. We’d sit in the lounge or conservatory and he’d be so silent and focussed – the best audience anyone could wish for!
One time I sang him the David Olney song “Women “Cross the River”
The last verse is :
The women ‘cross the river, they’re as gentle as the dew upon the ground
I love to hear them laughing when it rains and makes that perfect sound
Now a soldier with a gun, and a battle to be won
He might shoot you with a bullet – you’d never even know the reason why
But the women ‘cross the river, they could kill you with their eyes.
I finished with a graceful, slow arpeggio key chord, and he was staring at me, totally “in the song”.
Then, Henry sighed and said “what IS a perfect sound?” Four years old ! I was speechless.
Harry Potter but in America
I watched this, and laughed my ass off!
Has someone you don’t know ever gifted you with an extreme act of kindness?
One summer my kids and I were leaving the library and getting into our vehicle when a man got out of his truck that was parked beside us and asked if the kids would like a train set.
I figured he had some little under the xmas tree set or something but he lifted a tarp in the back of his truck and showed us one one those huge sets!
He explained that he was on his way to leave it at a thrift shop but saw us and wondered if we would like it. It would save him the trip he said.
We said yes and he put it into the back of our truck.
It must have been worth a lot. I am sure he could have sold it to a collector instead. It took up most of the basement floor when we set it up. It was remote controlled and had little buildings and trees too. Lots of different sounds as well. It was older but in perfect condition.
We could never have afforded to buy anything like it.
I thanked him over and over and asked if there was anything we could do in return and he assured me no there wasn’t. Just knowing the kids would be enjoying it was enough. His kids loved it but his grandchildren were not interested in it.
My kids played with it for years. So did my husband and I.
We ended up donating it to a youth center a few years ago.
We normally did not drive a truck but that day due to temporarily being without a vehicle we had borrowed our in-laws truck otherwise we would have had no way to get it home.
What luck!
Remember these 09 things in your professional life
- Stay away from people who do back-bitching. If they can bad mouth someone in front of you, then how can you be sure they won’t do the same to you?
- Never speak your heart out at work. Learn how to be diplomatic. That’s what everyone else is doing around you.
- Office politics is for skill less people at work. Never involve yourself in it.
- Never bargain your salary by showing other job offer letters to your current employer. Even if they increase your salary, you’ll be on their radar forever.
- Efficiency is not equivalent to time. Stop staying late at work to prove yourself better.
- No matter how close you are with your colleagues, never discuss personal matters at work.
- You shouldn’t ask anyone’s salary, increment or anything personal.
- Office romance is out of equation. It will make you miserable at work. Keep a thick line between work and personal life.
- Work equally hard on your soft skills as they matter more than you think.
Czech Goulash
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup shortening
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 1/2 pounds pork or beef, cubed
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon sweet or hot paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds (optional)
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 2 cups water
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Instructions
- In a cast iron Dutch oven, sauté onion in shortening. Add garlic; sauté until translucent.
- Add meat, onion, paprika, caraway seeds, salt and pepper. Brown well.
- Add 1/2 cup of the water; simmer, covered, until meat is tender, about 1 hour.
- Sprinkle flour over drippings in the pan; stir until brown.
- Add remaining water; simmer for 10 to 20 minutes.
Harry Potter but in America 2
Still… it’s so nigga.
What is the rudest thing someone has ever done when you were in their car?
My girlfriend and I went to the movies and she drove me home in her car. The route we took was very poorly lit and the lights on her dash were very dim, so it was very dark inside the car.
Along the way, I took out a packet of Dentyne gum (you know the kind whose pieces came in little blocks each with a small paper wrapping?)
I asked her if she’d like a piece and she said yes, so I tore the side of the package wrapping so she could grasp a piece without my having touched it. Then I got myself a piece and put the package back in my handbag.
About six days later, she picked me up to go for our weekend walk on the beach and as I got into the car she pointed down to the passenger floor and said huffily:
Before we leave, I’d appreciate it if you’d pick up the litter you left behind in my car last time and remember in future that my car is not your trashcan!
I looked down and saw that a piece of the paper gum wrapper on the floor. Apparently, in the dark, I’d thought I was putting the wrapper in my handbag along with the package, but the wrapper had landed on the floor instead.
I bent over and picked it up and said “I’m sorry. It was dark and I didn’t see that I’d dropped it on the floor.”
I should think so! she said in a repressive tone.
I got out of the car and went back into my apartment building and we never spoke again. I was angry and kind of disgusted that she let the offending piece of paper sit on the floor for six days just so she could scold me about it. I figured if it was so awful having this nasty piece of ‘trash’ in her car, why did she endure this horror for six whole days?
Stupidest thing ever to end a friendship.
Do you think that in life it is better not to look backwards?
On Christmas Eve, somewhere in the mid-’80s, my mom dropped us off at her sister’s house. When my brother and I woke up on Christmas Day, we couldn’t believe our eyes.
Santa Claus had delivered the most epically packaged gifts I had ever gazed upon.
There were twirling ribbons and fluffy bows and shiny paper. It was just so beautiful. I was jealous and envious of my cousins.
They were always on the nice list.
Thirty years later, on December 26th of last year, I went to Kmart and Walmart. I went with fifty dollars and a plan.
I bought all the wrapping paper, bows, and ribbons that I could afford. I got 90–95 percent off of all that stuff.
I saved it for a whole year.
I’ve done this now every year for three years.
For Christmas, we can’t afford to buy the kids all new things. We buy a lot of second-hand clothing and school supplies for them.
But when it’s time to wrap those gifts, I spend night after night tirelessly tying ribbons and making bows.
I am in charge of ALL the wrapping. My girlfriend hates doing it, but I love it. It’s important to me and I do it for really inexpensive.
The kids have so much fun tearing all this stuff to pieces on Christmas morning and Jess and I have so much fun watching them do it.
This kind of stuff wouldn’t be important to me today if I didn’t look back.
I think looking back on our lives is very important, even if you’re looking back at a bad memory.
The good and the bad shape who we are in this moment.
Today I’m a gift wrapping machine and that’s a good thing.
That good thing was born out of a jealous and envious brat.
I choose who I am.
10 Things not to do in your life when you feel you are matured now
- Don’t try to please everyone, because it is impossible to please everyone.
- Don’t expect the world to change according to your wishes because the world is what it is. It was always like that.
- Don’t try to be like anyone else because you are unique and you must learn to respect yourself.
- Don’t try to reform other people, because there is no need to reform anyone. People are just different from each other.
- Don’t make money by doing something you don’t like because loving your work is more valuable than money.
- Don’t be unfaithful to your spouse, because you can never regain their trust.
- Don’t abandon your friends when you become rich and famous because friends are priceless.
- Don’t waste your time networking with people for business purpose because you lose respect in your eyes when you build relationship for profit.
- Don’t take relationships for granted because once you lose it, you can’t repair the relationship ever.
- Don’t wait for the problem to happen to you before you take action because you can do a lot to prevent the problem happening in your life.
Breaking Bad but in Italy
What is your best parking spot revenge?
Not really a parking spot but revenge over a truck driver nonetheless… a truck driver was delivering a scissorlift and had to take it downstairs. Instead of driving the truck downstairs (parking is in the basement, and truck lifts bring the vehicles up and down), he insisted on his gears needed cooling down. And his truck had ‘broken down’ (think changing gears without the clutch). Naive as I was I believed him and let him brake down in the middle of the road for 30 minutes to make his delivery. As a result he held up half a dozen deliveries who couldnt get in or out until the truck moved. Miraculously his truck worked fine once the delivery was done.
Unfortunately I’m best friends with a guy who works for the tac, who does truck roadworthy inspections and has the power to take trucks off the road… a quiet word to him meant the trucking company had all of its trucks inspected, and given roadworthies as required. As for his own truck? As it’s already unroadworthy it was towed to the pound, and there it stays until a new transmission is replaced…
Did you ever get an order from someone who had absolutely no authority over you? What was it and what did you do?
Yeah. I used to work with a miserable old (middle-age actually) hag who thought she was in charge in our dept. One day, I saw and heard our actual supervisor give her an order to do a particular job. As soon as the boss left, the “hag” brought it to me demanding I get it done ASAP, drop what I was doing etc. Well, I just let it sit there on my table. The boss came back, asked about the project and I hears the wannabe boss say “I gave it to him, don’t know what his problem is, he hasn’t touched it” The real boss looked at her an said, “ I told YOU to do it, NOT pass it on Go to my office and wait for me” She was fired……. so, in a way I got rid of a pain in everyone’s ass and literally did nothing to do it.
That’s how it works…
She took her ex to court to get full custody of a child that she abandoned with him, plus wanted alimony on top of it. It didn’t work out as she thought.
- Dude, seeing the quiet satisfaction on Dad’s face brings me so much joy. He went into court that day just praying this judge would actually be responsible and not turn his life upsidedown. That’s beautiful.
- It’s wonderful to see a father actually win in a system that never seems to help the father at all.
What was the kindest thing someone did for you when you were young?
I was ten years old and had walked to the shopping mall to buy a loaf of bread for my mom. I had 42c in my pocket because that what a loaf of bread cost back then. When I got the mall I forgot why I was there and so I just started walking around randomly. I walked into a candy store that was advertizing a two for a penny sale.
“gee I wish I had money,” I said to myself.
“hey there are some coins in my pocket!”
“wow – I’ve got 42 cents – that’s incredible. I can buy 84 candies!”
i then began to torture the shop assistant, “can I have two cola bottles, one sour gummy worm, two chocolate Brazil nuts, three milk bottles, one fizzy chew- no, make it two. Can I gave one of the fruit jellies, a yellow one please? And a red fruit gum – no that’s purple, I mean the other red …”
eventually I finished the grumpy shop assistant asked me for 42cents. I handed it over then …
”oh my god. I just remembered. It’s my moms money. I’m supposed to buy a loaf of bread with it. I’m really sorry, but I can’t buy the candy. can I have my money back please?”
”no way you foolish child …”
then I hear an old lady behind me say “ma’m please give him his money. I’d be happy to pay for his candy. ….”
this kind lady made a huge impact on me and, 45 years later I still recall her kindness.
Has someone ever been fired because of you?
Yes. There was some busybody gossipmonger working at a local bank. When my father passed away and I was helping my mother deal with some of the financial things— such as taking his name off of their joint accounts— the teller started asking all sorts of personal questions that were none of her business. Asking if we planned to sell the place or move. We told her we didn’t know. It happened so suddenly and we were still reeling. We started getting phone calls and people showing up at our house asking when we were going to sell and how much we wanted for the place.
Apparently the loudmouth teller had started blabbing around town that we were going to sell and gave out our phone number (which was unlisted) and our home address. One of the people mentioned that “Shirley” had told them. I went back to the bank and asked to speak with her and asked her if she had told people we were planning to sell and if she gave our info to people. She said she was just trying to be helpful. I told her we were grieving and didn’t want people calling and nosing around our property and that what she did was a serious breach of privacy. I then asked to speak to the branch manager and told him what happened and how I did not want to do business with a bank with a teller who would give out my personal details to randos without my permission and that it was causing undue stress during an already stressful time. He didn’t fire her on the spot, but he send a letter to us later informing us that she’d been terminated.
We live out in the middle of nowhere to avoid people and our place is out of the way and hard to find. Having to deal with misinformed trespassers who were snooping around our yard because some blabbermouth lied to them and gave our info out would have been stressful enough under normal circumstances, but given we’d just lost my father suddenly & unexpectedly, it was doubly stressful.
It’s like watching a snake eat its own tail; predictable and entertaining.
It’s so sad. If I were in my 20’s in the USA, I’d leave as soon as I could.
If you woke up one day and you were 40, no career, no savings, no degree, no real skills and a decent amount of debt and had to make it at that age, what would you do?
At the age of 43, I found myself on the pavement with no money, no home, no job, and just the shirt on my back.
I walked into town and into a recruitment agency and took the only job they had which was badly paid, hard and unpleasant work. By being willing, I got a better job with them- still not a good job but paying better and slightly more pleasant.
At 45, I moved to Lincoln and got a better job with another agency on the back of my recent experience. By being both capable and willing, I got progressively better jobs until they offered to train me to be a trainer. I stayed as a trainer for the next ten years. My income was never as good as it had been in my youth but that was compensated by the international team I had the privilege to work with. I don’t think there was a single nationality I didn’t work with in that time. That was a very fulfilling period and the happiest time of my life.
What is one thing your kid came home and told you one day that made you want to go to school the next day and go off on the principals and teachers?
Years ago when my daughter was maybe 7, she came home from school and I could tell something was bothering her. I told her to sit down at the kitchen table and tell me what was going on. She told me she couldn’t sit, and I asked why. She told me that a teacher had whipped her. I looked at her little bottom and there were welts. I don’t remember what caused the spanking, but leaving welts like that was totally uncalled for. I called the school, asked to speak with the teacher, and when she answered, I told her that I’d be happy to meet her outside so she could try hitting someone closer to her size. I was furious, and ready to have a go at her. She refused the offer, and I called the principal and told him what she’d done, and how she’d left welts on my child. The teacher was transferred. Hopefully, she never struck another child like that again.
For those who would have done things differently, whether by suing, filing a police report or demanding the teacher be fired, you missed the first two words of my post. Years ago. Years ago, teachers were allowed to whip/paddle students. Parents spanked their kids. If a parent would have demanded the teacher be fired, they would have been laughed at, and if the parents threatened to sue, I’m sure the school would have told them to go ahead and try. Before another commenter tells me what they would have done, research what was allowed years ago.
Harry Potter in the Old Money Aesthetic
What is the rudest thing that a customer said while you were serving them?
Sorry for going anon.
When I was 19, I worked behind the front desk of a 5-star hotel in a very affluent area of Florida. Rooms were normally between $700–1500 per night.
I checked in a guest from Washington D.C. who was very pleasant, and we had a great conversation. During our conversation, I mentioned that my family was primarily in the coastal areas of New York, and that they were all nervous about Hurricane Sandy (this is important).
3 days later, it was time for the guest to check out, but he had left his belongings in the room. The guest did not checkout until 7 PM, and logically, we had to charge him another night, since our housekeeping staff had gone home, and we would not be able to sell the room.
The guest lost it, screaming at our staff, slamming his fist on the counter, the whole show.
Then he spotted me.
With so much disdain, he snarled, “I hope that your family dies in that hurricane.” My manager immediately grabbed the back of my suit jacket, and pulled me into the back office, because he knew what was coming next. I still get angry thinking about that guest.
What is the most emotional picture you’ve ever seen?
She was a brilliant Maths Teacher at Malappuram, Kerala, India. One day one of her student saw her at the railway begging for alms, but she couldn’t recognize her properly.
However when the student took a closer look, she recognized her class teacher. When the student asked her about her such a dire state, she told that after her retirement her family abandoned her and never came to know about her whereabouts so she started begging in front of the railway station.
The student broke down listening to her teacher’s story and took her home.
The student provided her Teacher with food & clothes and to secure her future contacted all those friends who were taught by their Maths teacher and took her to a better place to live her life peacefully.
So abandoned by her own family, the teacher was supported & taken care by her students whom she once taught.
This is I think the best example of Teacher-Student sacred & emotional bond and that HUMANITY is still alive.
Bitter sweet
No one could tell?
What is the dumbest crime you can commit, the one for which you will almost certainly be caught?
OK I used to process payroll for a living. One day I got an envelope from the bank and inside was a notice that one of our checks had been flagged for fraud.
There was a copy of the check so I looked at it. Turns out this is one of our paychecks that was actually mailed out, rather than given out at work.
As usual, the check was made out like the following:
John Doe
1234 Any St
Houston, Tx 77777
This allowed the name and address to show through a window on the envelope.
Someone had stolen the check from the guy’s mailbox. They took it and put it through a typewriter and added their own name followed by “ or” above the name on the check.
So it appeared as:
Steve Smith OR
John Doe
Well… if the check had been made on a typewriter originally, that might have flown. But it was printed and the font looked nothing like a typewriter. So it was very obvious that the check had been tampered with.
What kind of idiot steals money by forging their own name on a check?
Of course, the check would never be honored by the bank, so I knew they hadn’t cashed it. Sure enough, it had been cashed at a liquor store. I called them up, and let them know they wouldn’t be getting paid for that check. They exploded on me. Told me they would be suing, etc. Sure you will…
I referred the whole thing to the police. Turns out the guy who stole the check and the guy at the liquor store who cashed the check were in cahoots. So I got two arrests for the price of one.
How he made money selling cars
Why did my top performing employee quit after write up?
I was “written up” at one job by a senior manager. The comments included my failure to get a particular feature working on schedule. When I told him that I had not been assigned that task, and that my (direct) manager was doing it, the senior manager said I was just making excuses. Another complaint was that I had come in weekends to work on a feature that I thought would improve the project, instead of spending that unpaid overtime working on assigned tasks.
I was livid. I didn’t quit because I had just bought a house near the company. But I basically fell apart, and my work quality dropped dramatically.
The kicker was my re-review three months later. The same senior manager complimented me on toeing the line and doing exactly the tasks I’d been ordered to do. He rescinded the warning.
So I quit on the spot. *I* knew that my work had become substandard. It was even worse being complimented for bad work than being criticized for good work. There was no way I could have stayed at the company after that.
Moral: Don’t write up *anyone* without being really certain. Talk to them, talk to their co-workers. Find out what – if anything – is going on. Find out if they’re at fault, or if they’re being managed badly. If there’s an external issue, try to help the employee resolve it, or try to make allowances for it. But never do a writeup unless you plan to fire the person, and need to start the paper trail for that.
Trucker ELECTRICUTES SMUGGLERS with New Tool to Stop Smugglers inside
What is the most underhanded thing a co-worker did to you that they mistakenly thought went unnoticed?
It happened some time ago when I was young and naive. I had just graduated from college and still had a modicum of that idealism and youthful exuberance that made me a particularly good mark. To be honest, I thought I knew more than I actually did and this blind spot allowed the incident to unfold.
A co-worker copied my signature and bank account information from some signed HR documents before sending them through inter-office mail and then used it to forge my name on some debit card purchases. I reported it as fraud to the bank and I was able to show that I did not actually buy the items.
About two months later, she was fired when she pulled the same trick on somebody else. The new mark had an account through the same bank that I had. A vigilant analyst noticed the same website and signature patterns from my case.
I bumped into her some months later while out in a night club with friends. She was drunk and with a friend. We joked and chatted as if nothing happened. I danced with both of them for a bit and then excused myself to leave.
As we parted ways with a hug, I told her in her ear, “I know that you stole my account information. I know that’s why you were fired.” She recoiled and turned away quickly with her friend — who was quite perplexed at her sudden change in demeanor.
Good fucking riddance.
Functionality of a Vintage Overcoat
What are some important and generalizable life lessons?
- Patience is the key. Crocodiles don’t go hunting. The prey comes to them.
- Listening is the greatest life skill. Talking and not listening is the greatest folly.
- If you don’t want other people to control your life avoid looking for a job no matter how high the pay.
- Life has its irony. In school, people who succeed are those people who excel academically. In real life, people who succeed are those people who failed in school.
- Don’t worry or stress yourself when you wake up each morning feeling like a failure or things are not working for you. That’s how life is designed. To feel bad when life is working for you.
- The school of life is strange. People who actually succeed feel like they’re total failures. And in fact, they fail multiple times until they lose count.
- Don’t hate anyone no matter how you feel about them. They have no idea that you hate them. You’re only hurting yourself.
- In this life, your life is not sealed by fate. That’s the wrong way of looking at life. Your life is really like a blank cheque for you to fill with any number you decide.
- We’re all born clean from debt. However, the lifestyles and paths we decide to choose puts us in all manner of debts that we will probably never recover from.
- Be thankful for what you have, and don’t stress yourself about what you don’t have. Life won’t give you what you don’t have until you’re grateful for what you have.
Be the Rufus
Jack was about to fly home from New York to London when he met Violet at the gate and became her friend. Violet, an 88-year-old former nurse, was flying home after visiting her daughter, and she had never been able to afford an expensive first-class ticket. It was a dream of hers to do that someday. When it was time to board, Jack walked with Violet onto the plane, insisted that she take his first-class seat, and then went to the very back of the plane next to the restrooms, and sat in hers.
Stewardess Leah Amy found out about the switch and reported the story (these photos are hers), saying, “Jack never said a word or asked for anything. Of all the people I’ve met on hundreds of flights, including soccer players, supermodels, and movie stars, these two have been my favorite passengers.”
Baked Eggs on Toast
(Jaja na Grzankach – Polish)
Yield: 3 to 6 servings
Ingredients
- 6 slices white bread
- Butter
- 3 tablespoons freshly-grated Parmesan cheese
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives
- 6 eggs
- Salt and freshly-ground pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Toast the bread and butter it on both sides. Place on a baking sheet and, using the tips of your fingers, make a small depression in each piece of toast. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and chives. Carefully drop an egg onto each piece of toast and season with salt and pepper.
- Bake in a preheated 400 degrees F oven for 5 to 10 minutes, until the eggs reach the desired degree of doneness.
- Allow 1 to 2 per person.
Brett Cooper Reacts to the New Jack Sparrow
WTF? Disney is run by idiots.
What has a doctor/nurse said to you that they should not have said?
Let me preface by saying this to add some context….
I have a rare immune system disorder called Common Variable Immunodeficiency, CVID for short. This means my body does not create antibodies and I have to get infusions every week to even have a chance of fighting infections. I essentially have no immune system so with that said, here goes:
a few years back (before they found the right medicine for my infusions) I was admitted to the hospital due to an infection of unknown nature. It was shutting my body down. My temp was 106 degrees farenheit. They decided to call in the emergency response team at 2 am and had me call my family. Things were getting worse and they were going to move me to ICU. While all of this was going on, a nurse on the team looked at me and said “you don’t look sick. You should be unconscious with everything going on with you”. One of the doctors on the team looked at him and said “This is a very critically ill patient. Although I’m not sure why she’s not presenting in worse condition, I am thankful that she is coherent enough to work with us so that we can understand how she feels… get your snarky ass out of this room. She doesn’t need that right now”.
Needless to say, he tucked his tail and ran. He did end up coming up to ICU and apologizing to me though. He said he didn’t mean it in a snarky way, he was just shocked that I wasn’t in worse shape. We sat and talked for awhile and he learned a thing or two about me and my rare condition.