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sanderssides-springfling · 4 years

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Chess and Democracy

for @normallyaspen

i’m sorry if this isn’t what you were looking for or if you wanted more this is the best i can do but i hope you enjoy it!

Logan admits that he agreed with Deceit about Thomas going to the wedding, and so does Virgil. The pair realized they have more in common then previously thought.

“If… If it makes you feel any better, I think you were right.” The voice had startled Deceit, who had been sitting in his bed with his head in his hands after he lost the courtroom case. He moved his fingers just enough so that he could see Logan.

“W-what? Why?” He was shocked and hadn’t expected anyone to check up on him, especially not Logan.

“I only agreed with Patton because I did not want to make him upset. I believe this is also the reason why Roman changed his vote at the last second.” The logical side explained, looking at Deceit with some sort of sympathy. Deceit nodded, not sure what to do. The room fell into silence.

“…I’m sorry for benching you at the end there.” Deceit said suddenly, breaking the almost awkward silence. Logan looked confused for a split second before realization flooded his face.

“Oh! That! It is fine, Deceit, you are forgiven.” He said, and the lying side was once again shocked. He wasn’t expected to be forgiven that easily.

“Oh, well, alright then.” The snake-like side said awkwardly like he wasn’t shirt what to do next. Unfortunately, Logan was equally bad - if not worse - in social situations like these, so he offered something that neither of them truly expected.

“Would you like to play a game or two of chess? I believe you would be the only side intellectual enough to have a fair go at winning.” Logan looked shocked at his own words and Deceit didn’t look much better.

“Sure!” Deceit suddenly agreed, smiling up at Logan as he stood up, pulling on his gloves that the logical side didn’t even notice weren’t being worn. While Deceit was distracted, Logan noticed something he could only imagine the other sides did not know about.

“Do you have scales on your left hand?” he asked, before realizing how insensitive that was. Too late now, he thought. Deceit froze.

“…No?” He said, quickly shoving his left hand into the glove with more force than necessary. Logan gave him an unimpressed stare. “Fine! So maybe it does, just, don’t tell the others, ok?” The snake said, almost desperately. Logan smiled.

“Of course not.” He assured. Deceit returned Logan’s smile.

“Well,” Deceit started, “We should probably play in your room if we don’t want Patton yelling about how I kidnapped you or something equally stupid.” Logan had nearly forgotten about the game of chess he agreed to play with Deceit.

They had played six games, with Deceit winning all but one of them. Logan was incredibly confused as to how Deceit managed to be better at him at chess, seeing as he was pretty sure none of the other sides even knew how to play chess.

“You have to teach me!” Logan had said. Deceit just smirked.

“Maybe later.” Was the only reply Logan had gotten.

It was peaceful, but they both knew this peace wouldn’t last. Not when there were multiple chaotic morons wandering around the house at any given time. This was around the time a loud knocking was heard on the door to Logan’s bedroom.

“Hey, Logan? Roman and Patton are having an argument over whose turn it is to wash the dishes. Again.” Virgil’s voice rang out through the door, causing Logan to sigh. Deceit looked at him in amusement; a grin plastered on the lying sides face as he watched Logan roll his eyes.

“I swear, Patton may call himself a father but he acts like a child. I’m the one that has to act like an actual adult here.” Logan grumbled before walking over to the door. Deceit took this as his cue to hide, sinking down before Virgil saw him and alerted the others.

Logan walked over to the door and opened it with a clearly unimpressed expression on his face. Virgil gave him a lazy smile in return.

“I tried to get them to stop, but they just keep going at it.” The anxious side had said. He turned around and started walking, but before he got far, Logan interrupted him.

“Virgil… I would like your honest opinion on the court case, do you truly believe it would be best for Thomas to go to the wedding?” Logan had asked with practiced ease, knowingly keeping his expression blank. Virgil froze, and out of sight, Deceit did too. He hadn’t been expecting Logan to bring it up, but if they convinced Virgil then it would be four to one, assuming Roman still agreed with them.

“Uh… Maybe? I don’t really like people or weddings but I like agreeing with Deceit less. So, I guess, I just agreed with you and Patton? That was the right choice, right?” Virgil asked, his panic increasing. Logan was quick to soothe him.

“I’ve actually changed my mind, I do believe going to the callback would be the best course of action.” Logan started, “If Roman still agrees that it would be better to go to the callback, then the vote would be in our favor.” The logical side continued, shooting a glance at Virgil to try and examine his expression. It seemed Virgil was looking at him with equal intensity.

“…You talked to Deceit, didn’t you?” He said almost accusingly, but with a twinge of something else in his voice as well. Logan’s eyebrows raised, and unbeknownst to him, Deceit’s did too. Virgil let out a deep sigh, shooting his eyes downcast.

“You can come out now, Deceit. I know you’re listening.” Virgil said calmly, and Deceit appeared next to him looking quite sheepish. He opened his mouth to say something - probably an apology - but was interrupted by Virgil. “I agree with you. They’re happy now? And, just so you know, I wasn’t disagreeing with you just so I could be difficult; I didn’t want to upset Patton or make him hate me.”

There was a bout of silence before Logan spoke up.

“He would not hate you for that. Sure, he may be quite…” He paused, thinking of the right word, “emotionally driven,” he eventually decided on, “but he would not hate you for that.” Virgil gave a half-hearted grin before talking to both of them.

“Well, let’s go confront Popstar and Princey then, huh?” He said, turning to walk down the stairs, Logan and Deceit following behind him.

Once they reached the bottom, they could hear Patton and Roman arguing much more clearly. Once the pair saw them, Roman immediately pointed his sword at Deceit.

“Fiend!” The princely side yelled. Deceit let out a long-suffering sigh. Virgil rolled his eyes and approached Roman and Patton, who both just looked confused now.

“We’ve been talking, and so we’ve decided we’re going to the callback.” Deceit spoke up, resulting in a large argument that even Thomas eventually got involved in.

“Fine!” Patton eventually said, “We can go to the callback!” Logan looked unimpressed.

“We were already going to do that seeing as everyone else agreed to.” He said blankly, causing both Deceit and Virgil to stifle a laugh. “Now, if we can proceed without any more interruptions, I and Deceit were - as you may call it - ‘hanging out’.” The logical side stated, turning towards Deceit. The two appeared in Logan’s room; the chessboard lied untouched on the table where they left it.

“Would you like some tea, Logan?” Deceit asked, summoning two cups when Logan nodded. They reset the chessboard and began playing, occasionally taking sips from their drinks and making friendly conversation. Both the Deceitful side and the Logical side knew this wouldn’t be the only time they were in each other’s company, and they thought right, as this slowly became a daily activity for the both of them.

Part 2

Someone finally asks if Logan and Deceit are dating, and this is what follows

Logan and Deceit had gotten quite close over the many days they had spent in each other’s comfort, so it was only obvious that someone would eventually ask the million-dollar question...

“You guys dating yet or what?”

…But they weren’t expecting it to come from who it did. The pair were expecting it to come from anyone else, really. They had even spent multiple nights joking about who would ask, with Deceit saying it would Roman, a known hopeless gay romantic. Logan had suggested that it might be Patton, who couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. They had both agreed that Remus could also be the asker, considering both his habit of blurting out all of his thoughts and the fact that he thrived on making people uncomfortable.

Neither of them had been expecting Virgil. But why would they? Who would expect the quiet emo with a penchant for keeping things to himself to be the one to finally ask? Not Logan and Deceit, that was for sure. They had both been stunned into a sudden stupor, an awkward silence quickly filling the room. Both Logan and Deceit looked flustered, and Virgil quickly looked uncomfortable. He quickly tried to escape the situation with a hasty excuse.

“Sorry I shouldn’t have said that I know it’s none of my business sorry I-“

“Actually, I think that is a fantastic question, Virgil.” Or at least, Virgil tried to escape the hallway he had currently accidentally trapped himself in. Unfortunately for him, he was stopped by Deceit purring out a response that neither of the others in the room expected. Virgil pauses, halfway turned around and already a couple of steps away. He turned around to look at the snake-like side with wide eyes. Logan looked even more flustered, his face now resembling a tomato.

“...Yeah?” The nervous response came from Virgil, who was now staring warily at the sharp-toothed smirk on Deceit’s face. Deceit’s shark-like grin seemed to widen at the anxious side’s nervousness. Virgil may have shuffled an extra step back, but that was neither here nor there.

“Yeah.” Deceit confirmed. The room was once again plunged into silence. It only lasted a few seconds, though, as it seemed Logan - whose violent blushing had finally calmed down - had finally regained his voice.

“Deceit, what is it you are planing-“ Though he didn’t get to finish his sentence as Deceit once again spoke up, interrupting him.

“I actually think that Virgil has a good point, are we dating? I feel like we should be dating, how about you, Logan?” Logan, once again, lost any sort of linguistic ability that he had just regained. The blush returned full force, and Logan opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but nothing came out besides from a few short huffs of breath. Virgil was now giving Deceit a completely bewildered stare, but the deceitful side either didn’t notice or just didn’t care enough to grace Virgil with any sort of response, his eyes never leaving Logan’s shocked face. When Logan finally regained his voice for a second time, he stuttered out a response to Deceit, who currently looked like the cat that ate the canary.

“Ah- um- yes!” He eventually stammered out, his eyes blowing wide and shooting up to meet Deceit’s. In Virgil’s opinion, the only thing that came anywhere close to being able to describe the truly frightening grin on Deceit’s face was to compare him to the Cheshire Cat, but even that comparison didn’t do the almost ear-to-ear grin covering Deceit’s face justice. There was another short second of silence as Logan and Deceit stared into each other’s eyes, Logan blushing furiously and Deceit grinning dangerously while Virgil watched the pair uncomfortably. Again, If Virgil took another couple of steps towards his door at the end of the hallway, it was still neither here nor there.

“Well, if you’re sure,” Deceit practically purred, leaning in to whisper into Logan’s ear, “Then I’d be happy to oblige.” He quickly brought Logan into a deep kiss. Virgil watched Logan’s eyes widen before he kissed back as Deceit pushed them both against the wall.

Virgil blinked once, then twice, before realising that maybe he shouldn’t be watching this. He quickly flushed, once again feeling uncomfortable and out of place.

“Uhh…” His brain hadn’t quite processed anything beyond that, though, and so he was forced to stand and stare blankly at his two friends making out in front of him. When his brain did eventually catch up, he blinked again before stammering out a rushed sentence. “I’m just gonna… go…” He said, still not moving. Deceit turned to look at him, his cheeks and ears flushed red.

“It’s probably for the best…” Deceit smirked at him before turning back to where Logan seemed to be gasping for breath and taking him into another deep kiss. Virgil let out an honest-to-God squeak and quickly shutting the door with a bang in a an instant. After a couple of seconds had passed and his flush had nearly all disappeared he slowly opened his door and peeked out in the directions he had just come from. He just caught the tail end of what looked like Logan dragging him and Deceit into Deceit’s room. He shut the door as silently as he could, started his favourite music playlist slightly louder than usual to drown out any… sounds that may come from the room two doors down, and opened Tumblr to try to bleach his brain from what he had accidentally started.

After a few minutes of scrolling aimlessly on Tumblr, he realised that maybe he should inform the other of what had happened through the group chat Patton had forced all six of the sides to make, which went as he expected. Patton starting freaking out bout how much of a cute couple the two were going to be, Roman was freaking out even more (Virgil didn’t even think that was possible after reading Patton’s messages) Claiming that “He knew this was going to happen!” and “He had been shipping them so hard for ages!”, almost making Virgil wish he didn’t know what the term ‘shipping’ meant. Patton had asked, but since Patton was basically his dad Virgil decided it would too weird to explain it to him so he refused to when Patton asked. Then there Was Remus’... Lewd wasn’t quite the word to describe them. His downright disturbing comments theorizing about what Logan and Deceit were doing together that Roman claimed made his eyes burn and caused Patton to chew out Remus. Yep. That was the description he was going with. Virgil smiled, he could almost hear Roman yelping after reading those.

They were all very embarrassed when Deceit had come online and questioned whether or not they realised he and Logan were also on this group chat; A fact they had all overlooked. Whoops. He decided he no longer liked this family after Remus had asked whether he and Logan ad enjoyed their ‘Sexy Fun Times’ together and Deceit had threatened to slap him. Remus also called Deceit a ‘Sexy Snakey Batard Man’. Virgil wasn’t sure what to think of that.

He had been trying to stifle his laughter when a knock on his door interrupted him. He quietly swore and quickly turned down his music before yelling for whoever was knocking on his door to come in. Logan quickly came in and shut the door behind him. Virgil blinked.

“I came to thank you, Virgil,” Logan explained standing absently in the middle of Virgil’s room. “I have had a… ‘crush’ on Deceit for a while now, but I was too frightened to admit it to him. I think we may have been avoiding actually dating unless you stepped in there. We had spent many nights joking about it, but I was not sure if he felt the same way I did.” Logan said softly, moving to sit next to Virgil on his bed. Virgil smiled, he now had another reason to love this strange family he had found himself a part of.

#sanders sides #sanders sides spring fling #deceit sanders #janus sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #logan sanders #loceit #fluff #patton sanders #submission #spring fling 2020

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mrsteveecook · 6 years

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employee is pushing for a job she’s not qualified for, my boss sent me a job posting from another organization, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My employee won’t stop pushing for a job she’s not qualified for

My boss, who oversees the entire division, is hiring for an opening on another team. “Elizabeth,” an employee I manage, wants the job. She has no experience and doesn’t have the education or certification required for it. If she were given the job it would be like hiring a person who never went to law school, never passed the bar exam, and never set foot in a law firm to be a lawyer. My boss is looking externally since no one who works here is qualified. The job wasn’t posted internally but Elizabeth still applied for it and she also emailed her resume and cover letter to my boss and HR. She was immediately rejected since she isn’t qualified. HR explained why she wouldn’t be considered for the job. She emailed HR telling them she disagreed with them and she has emailed my boss asking him to reconsider. She thinks showing initiative and being a quick learner is enough when it isn’t. Besides an internship when she was in university, this is her first job.

I’ve tried explaining to Elizabeth why she can’t have the job but she still wants it. My boss is getting fed up with her badgering him and he wants me to make her stop it. I don’t know how since she won’t listen to anyone who says she can’t have the job. It may seem obvious but I am out of ideas.

“I know HR explained to you that you don’t meet the minimum qualifications for this job. Bob is on board with that decision as well. That’s not a decision that’s going to change. You’ve continued to raise this despite that explanation, and it’s becoming a distraction from our work. You can’t continue to approach Bob or anyone else about this, and I need to know you understand that.”

If she pushes back, say this: “Continuing to push after you’ve been told this isn’t a possibility is raising pretty serious concerns about your judgment. This isn’t something we can continue to spend time on. If I hear that you’ve continue to approach people about the job after this conversation, I’ll consider that a pretty serious problem.”

Also, how’s her work and her judgment aside from this? This behavior is weird enough that I suspect this isn’t the only sign of trouble with her, and you might need to take on any other issues with her more head-on as well.

2. My boss sent me a job posting at another organization

I’ve been working at an arts organization for 4.5 years straight out of college. The workplace is somewhat dysfunctional, but we’re fundamentally a small family. Yesterday my boss asked if I would be interested in what is essentially a dream position at a much larger and well-known arts organization, and of course I said yes.

She said it was in no way an indication that she wanted me to leave, but I’m not so sure. I have doubts that I would even be the most qualified person for the job, so if I don’t get it, I’m worried that I would need to find a new place to work anyway. Additionally, the person my boss sent my CV to is her friend, so in the event I do get the job, I wonder if there would be any issues negotiating salary, etc. since she can easily ask my current boss about what I’m making here. I know it’s bad practice to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I can’t help but feel like I should have declined. Is this a common practice? How do people deal with this sort of thing?

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it’s a nice way of telling me she wants to fire me. When I sent her my CV, she responded with some tips on how to make it better for the future. I know that it could genuinely be her looking out for me, but it seems really weird! Am I crazy for being so sketched out?!

This isn’t that weird!

It’s possible that it’s your boss trying to push you out, but that’s pretty unlikely. It sounds like she’s just looking out for you — she learned about an opening that she thought might interest you and she told you about it. Some managers do that, and it doesn’t mean they’re trying to get rid of you; it just means they’re not territorial about you, and that’s a good thing.

There’s no reason to think you’d need to find another job if you don’t get this one; you can just tell her that it didn’t work out, but you’re okay with it because you’re happy where you are. She’s not going to assume you were actively seeking to leave, because she knows that’s not how this came about.

As for negotiating salary, it’s possible that the new employer could get info on your current pay from your manager, but you shouldn’t let that freak you out. It might not happen, and regardless, you can negotiate based on the market rate for the new job, not what you’re getting at the old one.

3. Is it normal to advertise for a replacement before someone knows they’re being fired?

I have a question about the act of firing someone. I am a copywriter for a small agency and there is a trend in my office that disturbs me. My boss has repeatedly put up hiring ads to replace my coworkers without telling them that he’s planning on firing them or giving any warning. Thrice my coworkers have found the job postings online and were horrified and devastated to realize they were being replaced. Every time I believed my colleagues were hard working and of good character, and were being blamed for other flaws in the business.

I find this extremely heartless and sneaky. However, this is my first job out of college so I’m not sure what’s “normal.” Is my boss a snake? Or is it normal to quietly try to replace your employees while they’re still working for you? I find it weird that he tries to overlap so that there’s no time with someone empty in my coworker’s seat. I feel on edge like I could be next any minute, that if I googled the company name I’ll find an ad for a copywriter job. Am I overreacting, or is this business?

You’re not overreacting. This is a underhanded way of going about replacing people, and it’s not the norm. It’s unfair to the people being fired, and it’s generally going to seem shady to the people applying once they realize the entire interview process has to be kept under wraps. It’s an excellent way to destroy trust with his other employees too, since they’ll see this happening and realize that it could happen to them at some point.

And it’s even worse if your boss is gearing up to fire people without having had straightforward conversations with them about his concerns about their work, and without conveying to them the seriousness of the problems and what they needed to do to improve. It’s possible that he does have those conversations since you wouldn’t necessarily know if he did, but I’m inclined to think that he doesn’t, based on the rest of this and the fact that he seems overall quite cowardly.

4. Our coffee system is stressing me out

I work in a small office of between 10-15 people, and somebody is always getting Starbucks, or ordering lunch, etc. It’s been the custom to ask around the office if anyone else would like a drink or food, even if that means the asker is collecting eight or more coffees at Starbucks and bringing them back for distribution. Most people offer to go and collect food as often as they ask someone else to grab something for them, so it’s a fair system. Sometimes we order delivery using an app — free to download and easy to use, and no one has to leave the office and struggle back with a bunch of orders.

Here’s the issue: it’s getting out of control. When I pick up a coffee for myself before work, there’s semi-joking, semi-serious talk of “Where’s my coffee?” as though I’m selfish for getting coffee just for myself. If I run to the corner store for a soda, I hear cries of “Why didn’t you ask me what I wanted?”

Additionally, there’s one woman in the office who doesn’t have a driver’s license or a car, so she can’t offer to pick anything up, but she is always eager to have people get her something when they go and never offers to help collect the drinks/food. She often goes office to office asking what people are doing for lunch, and immediately asking them to bring her something if they say they’re going out.

Today she came to my office asking if/where I was going for lunch. I replied that I was going out to grab something, and she “put in her order” as expected. I offered for her to come with me and order her own food; she said that she couldn’t afford the time away from her desk. That’s fine — I was going anyway and I know she’s busy. She leaves my office … and returns shortly with other orders from other people. She had asked several other coworkers if they wanted anything, although she had no intention of coming with me and hadn’t asked me if I was willing to order for the office.

Am I being oversensitive? I hate being volunteered for things without being asked; I already know that it’s a sore spot for me. I don’t want to be rude, but it seems like some people feel increasingly entitled to delivery service. Is there a nice way to say “I’m going to grab lunch, and I’m not taking orders”?

I don’t think you’re being oversensitive, but it also sounds like this is just the culture of your office. It sounds like the chore is more or less being shared, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with having this sysetm; it just doesn’t work well for you. so that part of it is fair. (The exception is your non-recriprocating coworker, who we’ll get to in a minute.)

In response to the “why didn’t you get me anything?” chorus, you can just say, “Sorry! I was in a hurry!” or “My hands were pretty full.” Don’t treat it like it’s a big deal or a serious complaint. That will probably go over fine.

But unlike everyone else, your non-recriprocating coworker isn’t putting in her share of labor, so I’d handle her differently. When she tries to give you a lunch order without you offering, it’s fine to say, “Oh, I can’t bring anything back today.” You don’t need to give an explanation for that, but if you want to, you can say, “I’ve got to do some other errands afterwards” or “I need to get back ASAP” or “I’ve already got more orders than I can easily juggle.” You could also pointedly add, “But you can come with me and help me carry things if you want.”

And at some point, you should try, “Hey, could you be the one who goes today? I’ve been getting it a lot and I think it’s your turn.” (That won’t work if she’s senior to you, but if she’s not, have at it.)

5. How much editing should I do?

I’ve recently started a six-month rotation at a new office as part of a fellowship program I am in. The job is mainly data analysis and visualization, and my coworkers are mainly people who focus on data analysis and web development. I like the job and my coworkers, and am looking forward to this six month stint. I might even try to turn it into a permanent position, though that is not my main goal at the time.

One of the first tasks I’ve been given is to do a final edit on a report that we will be publishing soon. The instructions were to do a thorough proofread for grammar, typos, spelling, make sure all the numbers match the results, and check language and tone consistency. I’m doing this, and making edits based on those instructions. However, the writing style is one that I find quite poor. I have a lot of writing experience — I have an PhD in a social science field, and my previous jobs included writing long reports. My writing style has been complimented by all of my previous supervisors, and my most recent supervisor turned to me for all writing-related questions. But my writing skills are not what I was hired for in this job, and I don’t know how much style editing I should do. Even if I simply limited the edits to fixing places where the style made the substance less clear, it would be a lot of changes. I don’t want to start out this job by being the person who tells her colleagues their writing style is poor.

Should I just stick to proofreading and basic editing, or should I also suggest edits to style?

You should ask! Some people will welcome style edits and some people won’t. But it’s a reasonable question to pose to whoever assigned you the work. You could also do style edits on one or two pages and use that as an example of what you’re asking about, saying something like, “I made some suggestions on these pages, but didn’t want to do it throughout before I knew if you’d want those sorts of edits as well.” That’s particularly helpful because it can be hard for someone to say “yes, do more editing” without first seeing if they like the types of edits you’d be making.

But if for some reason you can’t ask — if the person is unavailable all week or something like that — then stick to just the literal instructions you were given and skip the style editing. In that case, it’s better to err on the side of just following the instructions rather than do something they might not want.