If you have the time and flexibility, you can also try out libreoffice.

Just did this on November 14th, 2024, so this is very current!

Time to feed unprofessional managers what they’ve been dishing out for far too long.

Couple things here, for when you do this to people: 

1. if you get the “answer my call” text, NEVER ANSWER THE CALL. 

They are calling you because they want to have the conversation verbally, and be able to lie later about what they said or didn’t say. Force them to continue via text or email- force them to continue the conversation in writing or not at all. 

2. “Lack of 2 weeks notice is unprofessional!” or the other version, “Not providing notice is illegal!”

No it isn’t. Neither is true. 

And in the US, all states except Montana are “at will” employment (though you may hear an employer refer to it as “right to work” to make it sound better, it’s the same thing). Sure, at-will employment means they can fire you without cause, BUT! It also means that you are not legally required to give a reason for quitting, or to give notice of any kind. 

Is it polite to give notice when you can? Sure. Do bosses expect it? Absolutely. But that does not make you legally required to provide it. 

3. The only thing I would change in the worker’s interaction here was their response when initially asked to come in. 

Don’t give a reason for your lack of availability. It may be tempting to. You may feel rude if you don’t. 

DON’T DO IT.

You do not owe your boss any information about what you do off the clock, and any reason you give will only ever be used against you. 

And leave it at that. 

Do not elaborate. 

Do not offer additional information. 

When you boss asks you to elaborate, because they will, be polite but firm. “With respect, that’s personal. I’m sorry, but I’m unavailable to cover this shift/work late/come in early/etc.”

Be a broken record- you’re unavailable. That’s the only information they need to know, and it’s the only information they have a LEGAL RIGHT to know. 

Please stop giving your bosses information they don’t need to know and don’t get to have, because they’re only going to try and use it to fuck you over later. 

My job is HR. The above is completely accurate.

— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

joe biden, you stupid fuck. listen to me. Crimes are legal for sitting presidents as long as they’re official actions. Listen: Joe. You have one chance

Even if he decides not to do, y'know, the obvious, there's gotta be some creative ways he can fuck shit up for Trump. Nothing he does in terms of actual policy will stick, but make Trump spend his first hundred days undoing Biden's last 75.

Especially make him undo stuff that will be incredibly popular. Executive order legalizing marijuana nationwide. Declare a free pizza party for the whole country, scheduled for the first week of February.

Declassify Trump's IRS records, his FBI file, and everything available about his personal habits during his previous stay in the White House. Did he ever order any pay-per-view porn? Clog a toilet? The American people deserve to know.

I'm just spit balling here; I'm sure there are even better ideas.

Humbly submitting that it would also be very funny if he resigned and then Kamala did all those things

Honestly resigning so that the country gets a black Asian woman President whether the assholes like it or not would be the funniest thing he could do all on its own.

So I have a friend that I knew since AoL. Literally since the 90s. There is no one on this entire earth I trust more. We stayed in contact more or less entirely via the internet for many years.

When we first met in person, after 20.years of knowing one another, it was still in public. We still had people who knew where we would be and with whom. We stayed in public.

And it has paid off in spades, we are closer than anyone I know. But that choice to meet safely and carefully? Don't regret it at all.

Yes, after a while that internet person becomes real to you and you should take the opportunity to meet and grow that relationship if you can!

But for the love of your own safety, still be safe and careful. Go to a con together! But get separate rooms. Meet at a coffee shop! But tell a friend where you will be and with whom. Go see a show! But have your own transportation.

"Be safe" doesn't mean stop engaging your joy and your friends. It means, "Be. Safe."

Trump voters on tiktok are EXTREMELY mad about the following:

Leftists, you need to understand this:

Do not wish the consequences of Trump's election on anyone. People will suffer and families will fracture and we have to do everything we can to blunt those consequences and stop them all together where we can. I hope people who voted for him realize the hand they had in what will come and join us to correct their mistake. If you wish the consequences on them, then the people we can call on to help will disintegrate as his voters either cheer the suffering on the people that scorn them or fall victim to it themselves.

Let them realize what they voted for. Let them become enraged at the lies they were fed.

Let them find out what tariffs will do.

Let them find out what denaturalization is.

Let them witness the bigotry of Trump's cultists.

Let them know your feelings.

Then offer them the hand of truth and help them see the way forward.

my favourite genre of tumblr posts? well,

hellsite (affectionate)

while i appreciate the general response nobody has yet really understood why i like these kind of posts so much. It's not even necessarily what they are saying in detail what's interesting to me - more the fact that they exist and that they are popular.

Like I have yet to see another social media where one of the main genre of posts is about the nature of the site itself.

Like, imagine a bunch of people on insta just posting things like:

"haha instagram ruined my picture quality again haha you get this nowhere else this is so special i love it here #hellsite "

it just doesn't happen. it's such a tumblr specific experience to connect through the sole fact that we are all using the same website and making funny little posts about it. you don't get this anywhere else.

Now is a good time to buy and use physical media.

Do you have a favorite movie? Is it queer? X-rated? Do you still have your old video game CDs or cartridges? Is the book you want to read at risk of being banned?

Do you think the media you enjoy may be at risk in the coming years?

Please start buying and using physical media. CDs, cartridges, books, records, DVDs, everything. Streaming services are continually removing media and becoming more hostile, and after this election, tons of media are at risk of being outlawed entirely.

Dig out that old VHS or DVD player, get your old Wii system running, and collect that entire book series that you read as a kid. Your dad's old cassette full of divorced dad rock songs is probably lying around somewhere. If you have a favorite artist who posts their work online, buy their art book. Get something you can hold in your hands.

Use your local library if you can! They have all this and more! Most thrift shops have this stuff at an affordable price!

Plus, I can vouch that it's just more fun to have the physical copy.

If the government wanted to take this from you, they would have to come to you and rip it from your hands. Make it difficult for them to do so.

girls I know this isn’t at the top of the concerns list but you’re gonna want to stop eating commercially produced meat real soon

@najaside not a dumb question! I’m going to answer here instead of the replies bc it’s a pretty common one & there’s lots to say.

USDA regulations are not the same for large commercial producers as they are for small producers. there is this precedent that a big certified facility will stay sanitary and adequate better than a small facility, on top of huge companies having the money to get away with awful safety lapses - for example, with the recent boar’s head recall, the USDA was aware of extreme violations of sanitation requirements for a year before the listeria outbreak, did not punish them then, and despite people dying from the listeria outbreak, still have not penalized them at all. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/08/blood-puddles-mold-tainted-meat-bugs-boars-head-inspections-are-horrifying/

all that is to say - local meat is more likely to be safe. feedlots are notorious disease vectors, on top of these huge companies cutting corners as much as possible at the cost of consumer safety. finding local butchers, homesteaders, etc. to buy from is invaluable! you can do a simple google search, join local farmer / homesteader groups, go to farmers’ markets, etc. nothing is zero risk, and this isn’t me saying no local producer will ever cut corners or do risky practices, but they are at MUCH higher risk of their entire livelihood being lost if they fail to keep up with safety and health standards than large companies (as you can see, they just… keep doing what they’re doing, whereas a local producer would have their entire reputation destroyed and operation penalized or shut down). many farms also allow tours, have events for you to visit them, etc. so you can get an idea of how they operate and build relationships with producers directly.

and, otherwise: don’t use anything pre cooked, because then you won’t be cooking it to kill the bacteria. all FDA recalls with reasoning can be found here, and the list is always updated to date. https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts

addendum: this unfortunately also applies to produce. buy local, visit farmers markets, apply for SNAP/EBT and see if they have farmers’ market “double your money” programs. look into community supported agriculture, AKA basically a local food subscription box, check for co-ops and other local shops that supply local goods and list where products are from.

Wanted to add:

On the subject of H5N1, start paying attention to it. The Biden Administration is dropping the ball on this shit so hard it's genuinely scary, and I know for a fact if it does go H2H Trump will not handle it at all. Covid was the warm up, we do NOT want to see a bird flu pandemic in humans, especially with Trump in charge.

Buy and wear masks, learn the signs of illness in wild animals and honestly unless you really know what you're doing you should probably avoid touching wild animals at all right now, especially wild birds. If you go to a farm or farmer's market or fair mask up, wash your hands, and avoid direct contact with animals if you can. Also bring your fucking cats inside, bird flu is lethal in cats and they will drag it into your house and probably get you sick too, and again, that's one more chance for H5N1 to mutate. And if you won't by god at least get your pets vaccinated, there are low-cost clinics and I think even PetSmart will do them for cheap, it's important for not just us but our pets as well to avoid catching and spreading preventable illnesses.

Disabled people have been screaming for years now about public health being completely destroyed and covid has done irreparable damage to the way we as a society see health and safety, even amongst leftists and progressives, which is very fucking bad. Learn to protect yourself and others, please, it's on us now.

LMAO I just found out that it’s Stress Awareness week.

Mission accomplished, I am certainly aware of stress.

I am SO aware of stress right now.

Hi. Things are bleak, I know that. I know that we paid for Trump's last term with blood and it is likely the price will be blood again.

But listen to me. LISTEN.

You do not have to force yourself to witness horrors as an act of activism. It is not a form of activism. You can put your phone down, you can block that horrific video. We cannot win if you cannot fight and you will not be able to fight if you are hopeless.

Do not let them guilt you into this. People who are exhausted are easier to walk over. Take care of yourself, find community where you find joy.

You do not have to force yourself to witness horrors as an act of activism. It is not a form of activism.

^^^ remember this. do not exhaust yourself into hopelessness. take care of yourself and stay strong.

I know I've recced it before, but if you want a place to monitor the news while avoiding getting caught in the horrors, What The Fuck Just Happened Today is a really useful resource. They summarize political (& adjacent) news so you can remain aware of what's going on while still minimizing the emotional energy you expend on any one issue. (And they provide links and sourcing if you need to know more.)

Make the most of the next two months

Feel free to add on.

wow! as a broke college kid, i wish there was a way to access books and movies as well as scientific articles that the new administration isn't necessarily a fan of. man. If only there was a free and trusted vpn ( up to 10 gigs of downloadable data) to use in conjunction with an anonymizing router (also free up to 10 gigs) to safely, er, permanently borrow media in an untraceable way as well as share files. Man, what's that browser that keeps your online activity anonymous? I'm awfully attached to firefox, personally. If only i had a browser extension that would throw a smoke screen over my browsing data while blocking ads at the same time.

what was i talking about? hmm. weird.

Any protest gear you want to buy, get it now

We all hoped for the best. Now it’s time to prepare for the worst.

1. Government censorship is coming. Freedom of speech will be the first thing to go.

A. Get the physical addresses / mailing addresses of all your friends and family members now.

B. Lock down your social media accounts. If you still have or use X / Twitter, delete it.

C. Make your settings friends only.

D. Download a full copy of the United States Constitution, or buy a printed copy. Do this now before the text becomes unavailable or edited.

E. Download Project 2025 so you can anticipate the next attacks against rights, personage, and property.

2. If you are currently a person with a uterus, immediately stop using any sort of online period tracker, delete all your data, and delete all personal information regarding your reproductive health from anywhere you can find. Your medical information is no longer confidential or protected.

3. Make a full list of your finances. Look for places you get money from the government, such as pensions, social security, Medicare/Medicad, subsidies, etc., and budget out how long your finances will last without any government funding.

4. Make a list of all the books, music, art, etc., you’ve enjoyed that’s likely to wind up banned or burned. Queer, people of color, women, indigenous, etc., so that even if you don’t have the ability to have a copy yourself, you’ll know those works exist.

5. Plan B has a shelf life of 4 years. Also, stock up on pads, tampons, and other health items for those with a uterus. 6. Things that are morally reprehensible will become legal. But also, don’t stand idly by when others are in danger. Do not allow hate to win.

A friend in New York posted this to facebook today:

I couldn't have said it better myself.

As a 30 year old man who escaped the Alt-right pipeline, you're not going to be happy about the answer.

All I hear from leftists is how much they hate me for my immutable traits, how much they blame me for everything wrong with the world, how much they want me and everyone who looks like me dead.

Whereas Alt-right types would call me "brother" and welcome me into their ranks so long as I hated the right ways.

Do you understand the difference?

I'm an ally and support equality because I feel it's the morally correct choice to make, but holy fuck is it difficult to reconcile that with the fact that means fighting for a lot of people who see you as the scum of the earth.

Read this and then read it again and then read some fucking bell hooks because this is a legitimate problem on the left.

"To create loving men, we must love males. Loving maleness is different from praising and rewarding males for living up to sexist-defined notions of male identity. Caring about men because of what they do for us is not the same as loving males for simply being." - bell hooks, The Will to Change https://bellhooksbooks.com/product/the-will-to-change/

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: one of the most successful alt-right psyops 4chan ever pulled was sealioning leftists in general and feminist women in particular to such a degree that, in response, we started reacting to every polite, 101-level question about feminism or leftist politics from men with anger and hostility, thereby driving said men directly towards the sympathetic arms of the alt-right, which was the entire fucking point of conditioning us to do that. I cannot emphasise enough that 4channers did this on purpose, as a concerted strategy, to make the left look unhinged, misandrist and unreasonable, and that we, collectively, took the fucking bait.

which is where the role of radfem/terf shit in furthering the same gender essentialism espoused by the alt-right really needs to be acknowledged: because as necessary and overdue as #metoo was on a cultural level, the framing of so many subsequent discussions as Yes All Men is radfem brainrot, not because patriarchy doesn't exist (it does!), but because patriarchy is an institutional and sociocultural problem rather than some inherent, indelible facet of masculinity, and that distinction matters, because you cannot solve the problem of patriarchy by treating it as fundamentally unsolvable.

this doesn't mean excusing misogyny. it doesn't mean absolving shitty men for their shitty actions. it means acknowledging that, at a basic psychological level, the vast majority of people do not react well to an all stick, no carrot approach to self-improvement, and if your response to that reaction is to say, "well, but they shouldn't need a carrot - they should just know to do right anyway, for its own sake, and the fact that they don't is why they deserve the stick," then I'd invite you to consider exactly how many different groups with individual, often radically self-contradictory definitions of right exist in this context, and how many of them, as opposed to you, are distributing carrots.

like, listen: I know that it sucks that people, universally, are not born with an innate, collective knowledge of The Best Way To Run A Society And Treat Each Other, and it additionally sucks that, even if we somehow figured out the perfect answer, some would still take convincing, others would still be on the fence, and a terrible few would still commit to being assholes. but that's what it means to be human, and there's no shortcut to getting around it! the work is the work. men are always going to exist, which means you can't build a better world without them - and if your better world doesn't acknowledge that, then it's not a better world at all; just a silo away from reality.