It's Personal...

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 2:36 pm

Yes, we do get paid: A stipend of around $120 IIRC, which is pretty good. Since I'm not employed, I don't know if employers have to let you work elections without dockage. What I do know is that most of the people who do work the elections volunteered to do so, and most of them are retired (I may be the youngest poll worker in Boston, if not Massachusetts).

The supervisors don't mind/care if you read/browse/whatever when your not working, so it's not all bad.

Honestly, it's not that bad a gig; aside from having to get up a 5am (which sucks all the balls), it's mostly just dull, especially primaries or other elections with low turnouts. November should be much better and much more exciting, what with people actually caring about this one.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 8:15 pm

Not bad. Maybe I'll look into it after my job ends in early November

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sat Sep 13, 2014 4:53 pm

I am having absolutely terrible luck with hardware this year. In the spring, I had two hard drives fail on me. Over the summer, my laptop charger began making funny noises and emitting a worrisome smell. Then, this fall my new charger started making funny noises, and a replacement charger I ordered was of the wrong type, while someone else also ordered one for me and it got shipped to their billing address several states away instead and had to be mailed to me. I've also bent a number of microUSB heads, and I've had to get a wireless adapter for my desktop that's got something terribly wrong with its drivers.

Also, it's apparently spreading; Anime club last night required streaming and gathering episodes from volunteers because the president lost all his connectors after someone literally dropped a bowling ball on his backpack in a convenience store.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Sep 13, 2014 5:23 pm

Yeah, similar problems over here.
The cable on my laptop charger is broken, blank wires poking out, i can't use the laptop anymore untill i have a new charger . .
And one of my 2TB HDDs just went and threw up several SMART Alerts.
Furthermore, the USB3 Connector for one of my 4TB HDDs has gone the way of the dodo too it seems, so i now have to make do with an USB2 one . . that is so not fun with 4TB of files x.x . .
Not sure if i have dataloss in my server yet, but that one is also acting up with suddenly not allowing hot swap of the SATA Data Disks but somehow now the OS SSD and the optical drive can be hot swapped . . which leads to all kinds of shenanigans . . and something in my new top of the line computer is on it's way to the grave as well, it's suddenly making disconcerting noises that i can actually hear through the sound dampened case <.<

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 3:09 pm

For anyone interested in my book "Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos" coming out from Hippocampus Press, the Weird Fiction Review website asked if I could cram a history of sex in weird fiction into 2,000 words or less. It's a bit cramped, but I think I hit most of the highlights.
http://weirdfictionreview.com/2014/09/a ... d-fiction/

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 12:08 am

I was challenged to post shelfies: http://imgur.com/a/EtbjO#0

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 2:31 am

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 3:38 am

He's already admitted it. See the last entry, where he admits that the comics section is incomplete?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 10:14 am

Well, no collection is every truly complete...

Count Arioch the 28th · Sat Sep 20, 2014 6:13 am

I ordered stuff from Paizo at the beginning of the month. It was supposed to show up at the beginning of the week. It has not shown up yet.

I have sent e-mails to both Paizo and UPS asking them what the hell is going on, and haven't gotten a response.

I am not pleased with Paizo right now.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 8:48 am

So, the tale of stupid bosses continues.

People may have heard that some dumb kids in Wisconsin killed another kid to appease Slenderman, then some even dumber adults got all outraged that Halloween stores sell costumes of a murderous fictional monster. ...right next to the other murderous fictional monsters that have been in stores for literally decades. So Spirit Halloween, and the franchise owner who employs me, have decided that this fictional murderer must be pulled from the shelves. Meanwhile Jason and Freddy and Michael Myers all remain, and costumes of real life killers, ie, cops, continue to have their own entire section.

This is more fucking idiotic than when the Twin Towers were removed from a bunch of movies made just before 9/11.

Then the DSM topped this by telling me to drop an employee who missed a shift because a court appearance ran longer than expected, and to drop all of my other employees because they were not available to cover a shift literally in the middle of it because like normal people they made plans for when they weren't working. Oh, and to give hours to a person who I have been informed offered drugs to the husband of the person informing me, who has been assigned to my store.

Now, however, they are also saying that employee discounts must be preapproved. And that the discount is not to be given to new employees, and that I should be prepared to justify why an employee of mine should get a discount.

To which I say "Fuck you, I'll just tell my employees to order from the corporate website and how to get their discounts there." I may be in the minority, or completely unreasonable, or whatever you may want to say, but a fucking employee discount is not merit based. You get it because you're a fucking employee and you're (supposedly) valued by your employer. If you don't want to give a discount to everyone who works for you, then don't fucking give a discount.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Wed Sep 24, 2014 4:03 pm

It's his store, he can mismanage it however badly and weirdly he wants.
Welcome to the wonderful world of the professions. Booze helps.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Sep 24, 2014 9:17 pm

An Angry Orchard with dinner after work has become something of a tradition.

My friends well know that the most apt tattoo for me to get is the "Someone is wrong on the internet" comic from XKCD, because I have a real hard time letting go of things like this where someone is being dumb, or treating my employees unfairly. Probably the biggest lesson I'll learn this year...

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 12:26 am

So today we're celebrating Hat Day at work (which actually occurs during the holidays). To raise awareness of mental illness, people can wear any hat they like.

Does it surprise anyone here that I have a Sovjet Commissar hat? :D

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 4:48 am

It only surprises me that your sovjet commissar hat is workplace appropriate.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 5:24 am

Well it's not a real one, but it looks close enough, it's not some kind of weird BDSM Soviet hat.

(Did I mention the time someone tried to convince me there is no place for BDSM in Communism because of the central idea that everyone is completely equal?)

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 5:27 am

People are precious.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 6:06 am

Koumei wrote:Well it's not a real one, but it looks close enough, it's not some kind of weird BDSM Soviet hat.

(Did I mention the time someone tried to convince me there is no place for BDSM in Communism because of the central idea that everyone is completely equal?)

I am pretty sure you did, because I distinctly remember hearing that somewhere and I'm just going to optimistically believe that there's no way two different people could have a story about someone being that stupid.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 6:22 am

Perhaps those two different people happened to know the same person.

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Sep 26, 2014 7:25 am

Koumei wrote:So today we're celebrating Hat Day at work (which actually occurs during the holidays). To raise awareness of mental illness, people can wear any hat they like.

Does it surprise anyone here that I have a Sovjet Commissar hat?

When I lived in Virginia, there was a Military surplus store. This store sold gear and uniforms and stuff from lots of different countries and stuff. They had an authentic Comissar hat from the Soviet Union for sale for $40. I was broke. When I finally had the money (this was back when I was broke as fuck and it took a few paychecks to save up that kind of money), it was gone. That is one of my few regrets in life... ah well.

Fun fact: the store also had an authentic SS uniform too... although I think the owner was just a spergy military history nerd (as he had WWII uniforms from america, canada, australia, and some slavic country that I don't remember as well, not to mention he knew a lot about history and loved talking about stuff like that), I would be suspicious of any private person that owns a SS uniform...

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 9:28 am

What about replicas of SS uniforms with none of the insignia?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 9:54 am

It says they're either a closet nazi who doesn't want to be found out and wants an easy defence, or they just like the aesthetic of the uniform. Given they got a good company to do their uniforms, and how the stylishness of fascists (at least, of the SS) is a running joke (and check out how popular the uniforms are in Japan, where knowledge of WWII is limited to "Once upon a time, for NO REASON WHATSOEVER, America dropped nuclear bombs on us"), it's probably the second in most cases.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 1:52 pm

It's not particularly fair and is in fact irritatingly complicit with things I ostensibly disagree with, but there are a few taboos where I start to question people's judgement for breaking them even if I don't think the taboo itself is in any way practical on its own merits. For example, face tattoos don't magically make you a bad person but if you get one I will kinda wonder why you'd get a face tattoo in a country where tons of people think that even standard issue tattoos make you borderline unemployable. Owning a bunch of nazi inspired kit definitely falls into that category for me. It's not a lifestyle choice that makes sense for people who aren't in a crappy electro-industrial band.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 4:01 pm

I will admit they look pretty stylish.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 4:21 pm

That's pretty much what I expected. Of course, there's also the possibility the person is really into fetish, given how weirdly popular facist style is in the fetish community, which is pretty uncomfortable too.