A family of cheetahs sleep with the forest guard every night. When the Forest Dept. heard about it, they decided to check the veracity of the claim by installing a CCTV camera. This is what the camera recorded! Just amazing.
we cry “the innocent women and children” to appeal to the masses, to try and force their sympathy, but the men and boys are innocent too.
I have seen sons crying out for their mothers, their fathers, their siblings. I have seen them break down at the loss of their families. I have seen them cling to their dead and grieve.
I have seen fathers cradle their dead children, seen them kiss their faces and hold their little hands. I have seen them faint with grief when asked to identify the dead. I have seen them carry their sons and daughters. I have seen them fasting to provide what little they can for their families.
I have seen men and boys digging through the rubble with just their bare hands, I have seen them comforting strangers, playing with children, rocking them, hushing them, even if the face of such imminent danger. I have seen them cry, seen them grieve, seen them break down into each other’s arms, seen them be selfless, beyond selfless, becoming something I don’t have a word for.
I have seen the men who are doctors refuse to leave their patients, even when they have no medicine or supplies to give them, even when they’re threatened with bombings. I have seen fathers who have lost all their children pick orphans up into their arms and proclaim them their child so they are not alone. I have seen men and boys digging pets out of the rubble.
the men are innocent too. the men and boys are being hurt and killed too. the men and boys are grieving too. the men and boys are scared too. the men and boys are fighting to save their people too. the men and boys deserve to be fought for too.
idk. yesterday was a slow day and at the end of it, I still stared into a cash drawer, one of three, that had more than my rent in it, even if you only count the 20s. I spent a lot of that day trying to calculate in my head how many hours of work equal one pair of pants, let alone how many hours of work equals the fun thing I want to do next month.
I feel a cough coming on, because I work in a drug store, and all of my customers are sick. I always feel a little bit sick, now. I can’t afford to eat well enough to keep my body healthy. Cough medicine is worth two hours and 20 minutes of work. Our store probably bought a case of cough medicine for they price we’re selling one box. If this cough gets worse, I might have to call out, which will cost me more than the medicine in the long run- but that doesn’t give me the money to buy the medicine right now. I stock a case onto the shelf. I don’t buy any.
A mom wrangling three crying, sick kids enters my line and sets two types of children’s medicine down, says they’re both on sale and thank god for that. I ring her up, and she gets very quiet, because she misread the sign, and her total is twice as high as she was expecting. Her youngest screams in the cart, because she’s burning up with fever. Her mother very quietly asks, please, she’s so sorry, if I could please take the more expensive one off her total.
I agree, I move the box below the counter, and when she’s not looking, I slip it into her bag. I pray as hard as I can that if she notices the “mistake” she says nothing, because I so desperately want her to have that medicine. The store has lost profit at the cost of a child’s health. I don’t bat an eye. This is a terminable offense. If I’m presented with the same situation tonight, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.
The myth of evil employees stealing from the company falls apart the second you realize the company would shoot you dead to make a profit. This isn’t two equal players, one of whom is stealing from the other. This is someone fighting for survival versus someone fighting to make an extra million. It’s not equal.
Employees should be able to steal, actually.
Bro I teared up oh my god bro
When I worked at Walmart as a cashier almost 20yrs ago. A guy came in with his obviously sick 5yr old son. & all he was buying was a bottle of medicine for his kid. He was short a dime. A fucking dime. 10 cents. I had a dime & pulled it out of my pocket & helped pay for the medicine.
My manager comes over in a huff & angrily says, “What were you thinking?! How could you do that?! What if he expects you to cover him every single time he’s short on money??? He could be a meth addict or something.”
Me, “I’m not going to lose any sleep over helping & being out a dime. I would do it again.”
This guy comes in a day or two later, holding a dollar in the air & running towards me. He gives me the dollar & says for me to keep it. He wasn’t there for anything else, just came in to give the dollar.
When it came time for me to quit. It was still during the time a cashier didn’t need an override to discount items. I had HAAAADDD it with Walmart’s bullshit. & so EVVVVERYYYYONE got discounts over the course of a week.
A woman comes in with a couple thousands dollars worth of stuff to redecorate her house. She probably paid $300.
Moms with a basketful of groceries. 75% off.
I even told my husband (they didn’t know he was my husband) to come in when he got paid & to get as many groceries & hygiene & cleaning products as he could fit in a basket. & whatever else he wanted. & I discounted TF out of it.
I didn’t care anymore & I wanted to save everybody in my checkout money.
& to this day, working the odd jobs in retail - I internally snicker at loss prevention. Fuck that. You want to steal something? Babes, I didn’t see shit.
we should talk more about how every decision you make as an adult leaves you with the same sensation you got at a friend’s house the morning after a sleepover when you’re the first to wake up. It’s dreadful and a homesickness and loneliness and you want your cups and you want your comforter and it’s just you on your own trying to get through.
I think one of the consequences of getting older is finding out that your parents were kind of right when they complained about technology? At least you can see they werenât entirely wrong.
Iâve been hearing from friends that itâs getting harder to find quality refrigerators that donât connect to the internet. Why exactly does my refrigerator need wifi? Or even a computer, at that? Older fridges can last decades because they have so few failure points. They have one job and they do it well.Â
I tend not to use my smart TV very often because the damn thing glitches and itâs laggy and too much of a hassle unless I am really committed to watching a movie in my living room. And the worse thing isâŚcan you even buy a non-smart TV these days that isnât secondhand? Are they even making ordinaryâŚyannoâŚtelevisions that donât need software updates and internet connections, anymore?
Someone in the comments of this post asked how bluetooth earbuds are forced and everyone pointed out that a lot of phones (especially iphones) simply do not have the ports to plug in wired headphones anymore. You must get the apple wireless headphones - and I think thatâs the crux of the problem. I am glad I have an android phone because I can use the old wired earbuds Iâve had for over 12 years. If I wanted to, I could buy wireless earbuds and use them instead, because my model of phone gives me that option.
And thatâs the kicker: the problem is that as things are âadvancing,â more and more, options are being taken away. It has nothing to do with consumer demand - obviously there are a lot of people that are not happy with these developments. But as weâre seeing, the products being made donât reflect customer preference or choice. Itâs always about is best for the companies making and selling those products.
Every day weâre hearing about new apps and tech startups and reallyâŚdoes anyone really want this shit? Is the nth attempt to make crypto work, the billions spent on the Metaverse, doorbell cameras; is a fridge with an IP address really allow it to do its job better? Is that actually going to improve the lives of anyone who arenât the developers of that product? Just the other day I was reading about a tech startup that wants to be able to beam ads into your carâs GPS screen. Video ads! On a screen! To tell drivers whatâs nearby when they can justâŚcontinue to look out the window because theyâre supposed to be driving a goddamn car.
The problem of a world run by tech companies is that the tech isnât being made to accommodate us, we are being forced to accommodate the tech.
Iâve said it before Iâll say it again.
Nostalgia tech is a thing that would make money if they would just fucking do it. Thatâs why they still make records and record players.
BUT. Now itâs a luxury and luxury items sell. As LUXURYS.
Because itâs now about money. It never was. Itâs about control.
Yâall understand? It was always about control.
So I had a new boiler fitted the other day. The old one had done its job for a long time but finally gave up.
It wasnât until the damn thing was all installed and ready to go that I was told that I would need to download an app on my phone and register my details and prescise location in order to set my heating.
I would no longer have a thermostat in my house. I would only be able to control it from my smart phone.
I am 36 years old and I went mad - not at the poor boiler engineer of course, but I refused to do what he was asking. I asked for an alternative. He initially said there wasnât one. I told him to check with the company. He phoned the company and eventually someone spoke to me about it. Explaining that this was the standard for all new boilers. I told them it was ridiculous. What if I was an elderly person living alone who didnât own a smart phone? What if I lost my phone? What if the wifi failed? What if there was an electrical fault?
It took over half an hour of exasperated bargaining before someone agreed to swap out the smart app connected parts of the boiler with a âstandard issue thermostatâ. At first they were gonna charge me an extra ÂŁ100 to swap it out, but I argued my case there as well.
After a lot of back and forth and effort that totally drained my energy, eventually I got a standard thermostat fitted. No smart phone app or registration needed. No extra charge. Just a lot of extra effort that someone a bit less stubborn and determined to avoid this technological attack on basic living would have easily backed down on.
We are already living in a world run by tech companies, where every. single. thing. in our lives is slowly being transformed into another system where they can track our every move, steal our personal information, and make life that little bit more complicated.
The fact that even white goods like refridgerators and washing machines are starting to require app connections is worrying. Itâs not a good thing, and its not being done for convenience. Itâs being done for data tracking, location tracking, and finding new ways to inflict ads on us.
Sorry if this rant derailed the post a bit, but the memory is still fresh and so apparently is my anger! But at least this is an example where being persistent and stubborn does heed results against them!
Hired someone to swap out my momâs programmable thermostat for an old-fashioned analog one. (She has memory loss. The new one confused her.)
The tech arrived with a âsimplerâ programmable one. Thatâs not what I asked for, I say.
âI get it. Even these are too complicated for some people. What we really recommend is a smart thermostat that her kids can control with an app. It gets too cold in her house, she calls you. I donât even think they make those old round ones any more.â
Haha, I have an ace in the hole: I whip out an analog thermostat, which I bought at a hardware store because I knew this was going to happen. He rolls his eyes, but he does install it.
He didnât even work for the people who would benefit from the data! He was a handyman! But he was persuaded that smart tech was smart, and in the end all I could do was persuade him to humor us.
A yellow and grey cockatiel “sings” the chorus to “September” by Earth, Wind, and Fire in a high-pitched whistle. It occasionally pecks a metal object to the beat, and it makes a deep, short sound similar to that of a cowbell.
