More stories from hell (retail) today I was ringing up this lady and she goes oh I want to do part of this on a gift card and the rest on normal card and I go ok and then she hands me a folded piece of paper. I think oh OK it must be folded around the gift card, right? Wrong. It is a folded sheet of 8×11 printer paper with "$40" written on the inside in ballpoint pen. I go what is this. She says a gift card. I say this is not a gift card. She says yes it is. I say this is a piece of paper with "$40" written on it. She says "well it's a gift card." I say it absolutely is not. I am grinding my teeth. She says well I want to use it. I say you physically cannot do that bc it is a piece of paper. I cannot scan or swipe it. I apologize, as if this is my fault, and not because she is completely insane. I hate it here
if you want to actually start to end homelessness, you need to give homeless people unconditional homes, including when we use them to do drugs or sit around drinking. either housing is unconditional or it isn’t
someone sitting at home alone, an active alcoholic, squandering your charity, drinking all day is better situation than a street homeless alcoholic. someone using drugs in your charity house is better than them doing the same w no shelter
most of you would not like most street homeless people, I definitely don’t and didn’t when I was street homeless. for every one person who uses unconditional shelter to turn themselves around, someone else will do jack shit and very slowly, if ever, work through the issues that made them homeless, will maybe never be able to live independently. still better than street homelessness, still worth doing. ultimately either you believe that shelter should be universal or you don’t
homeless people actually can’t be rehabilitated if you want to end homelessness. we either affirm the right to shelter for the worst drunken, lying, filthy, cheating, self destructive homeless people that exist, genuinely irredeemable wankers, or we concede that shelter is not a right
If you like it, order your steak well done. Get your bagel toasted with jam and butter. Put ice in your scotch and ketchup on your hotdog. Get red wine with fish and white with steak. Who cares?
If you want to, listen to pop music. Watch blockbuster popcorn flicks. Read dime store novels. Enjoy them.
Dye your hair or cut it off. Paint your fingernails blue. Wear whatever the fuck you want on your own time (ie, when not at a job or school or whatever where you can get penalized for breaking rules) as long as you aren’t like welding or shoveling snow.
Anyone who tries to tell you you’re wrong? Say “okay” and go back to what you were doing. You’re not hurting them by enjoying yourself or having things the way you like them.
There are no caveats or addendums to this. No “but what about x?” Nah. You’re allowed the things you like. You don’t have to justify your taste or apologize for it if it’s not hurting anyone.
And likewise, let other people live their lives. We’re all dead in the long run, so tend your own garden before you become fertilizer in it.
The old school lack of transparency on tumblr is amazing because you assume the people you follow must all be equivalent to you and then you see someone write “I brought my youngest to college today” and someone else write “my mom wouldn’t let me listen to Ariana Grande when I was a kid” and then your head explodes