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#help retailers avoid
lionfanged · 1 year
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anyone else go into a slow rage after listening to one too many christmas songs or has retail broken me
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ballsballsbowls · 1 year
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I cannot stress enough that is not directly relevant to the amphetamine shortage, as it happened at a retail pharmacy a DECADE ago, but perhaps this little anecdote will give some insight into pharmacy ordering.
At one of my retail jobs, a decade ago, we had an older woman who received a 90-day supply of Lomotil in our pharmacy. Lomotil (Diphenoxylate / Atropine) is a Schedule 5 medication, so just barely problematic enough to need government regulation.
This woman got it from us presumably because she was unable to get it via mail order because it was 1.) a controlled medication and 2.) a PRN (as needed) script.
Her dose was up to 6 tablets a day as needed, for 90 days, which if you are playing along at home is FIVE HUNDRED AND FORTY TABLETS. We could only get it in bottles of 100. She is also the only customer we currently have who gets Lomotil. Like, in 4 years there, I did not dispense a single tablet of Lomotil to anyone BUT her.
So, from her POV, she is a customer at the same pharmacy for years and comes in for this same script multiple times a year when her bottle is nearly empty, so why are we ALWAYS out of stock when she comes in?
From the other side of the counter, this is just a combination of corporate and federal policies combining in the worst possible way:
1. The normal way we solve a rare-ish med issue is by convincing the customer to let us auto-fill it. Auto-filling gives us a few days’ leeway before it should be out (usually 5), and combining that with something like text alerts lets them know when we actually physically have it ready for pickup.
Because it is a controlled medication, and PRN, we cannot auto-fill it.
2. Next solution is that if they get others meds, we might nudge them about it when they come in for something else. “How are you on your other medication? Ready to refill it? Want have us get it started now?”
Because she didn’t get any other meds with us, there was no way to find out if she was ready to refill.
3. The FINAL strategy that we have is C5 meds (and non-controls) can be auto-ordered from the warehouse based on usage patterns, and sent in . So that should have caught it, right?
Well, at my pharmacy, the predictive ordering only captured the last 90 days. 
Because she had a 90 day supply, and took it PRN, she usually came back in about every 100 days. Just OUTSIDE of the capture window of predictive ordering.
So every time she came in, without fail, we did not have her meds.
And none of us were about to ORDER the medicine unless she came in, because that is SIX bottles of a medication we will never dispense if she switched pharmacies or died
And this was one woman with one medication. Multiply all of these cost-saving strategies across hundreds of medications in dozens of sizes and dose forms and you can get a sense of the scope of the problem.
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ellevandersneed · 2 months
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finished reading thru The Hundred Years' War On Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance by Rashid Khalidi and I cannot recommend it enough. A lot of people and, very likely, the average person not completely blinded by Islamophobia and/or USamerican/European/British exceptionalism are probably at least moderately sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but I don't know how many of us actually understand the degrees by which Israel is based in settler colonial ideology, how it has continually attempted to subjugate and ultimately eradicate the Palestinian people, and the degree by which the US and Britain (but mostly the US ever since the Six Day War in 1967) have been complicit in this continual genocide.
This book is an amazing comprehensive guide on understanding the conflict and I genuinely think you should give it a read (or listen) if you want to learn more. It is one thing to feel sympathy and to declare support for a cause, but I think it is important to take a step further and educate yourself more on it. A ploy I have seen frequently by zionists is to tell people to "educate themselves" before commenting on this genocide, hoping to instill doubt and encourage silence. Well, here is your chance to educate yourself! I'm obviously biased in favor of this one as it is the first major text on the Palestinian genocide that I have read, but I fully believe in its quality.
You can find this book online in PDF format or, if you prefer, you can purchase a physical copy from many of the large retail bookstores; Barnes & Noble in the US sells it, and so does Waterstones in the UK. There is also an official audiobook that you can either purchase through many of the major audiobook distributors (though I recommend avoiding Amazon if it can be helped), but you can also obtain it via other means if necessary. It's actually currently up on YouTube in its entirety, though I won't link it here in case it gets taken down. (It's really easy to search for, just type in the books title + 'audiobook' into your preferred search engine or on YouTube itself and you'll find it. It's about 10 hours long which is a reasonable length for an audiobook). I'll include a link in this post to an overview/lecture/dialogue with the author Rashid Khalidi on the contents of the book conducted at Brown University in 2020.
I do ask you read this book. I think a lot of people already are. I checked a couple of online libraries that have a limited number of audiobook copies that had all been checked out and that to me implies that people do want to educate themselves. There's a sizeable stack of these books at the local bookstore I ocassionally shop at, front and center on the table in the history and world affairs section. It's not hard to find. I hope you all have a good day or evening and I know that if we all take the time to educate ourselves further and approach this genocide with a deeper understanding, we may be able to do something about it. Emotional pleas are not enough, they must be informed ones as well.
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the-unkindled-queen · 9 months
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I like how my friends acknowledged for the most part that they did get caught up in the toxic mentality and grouped together, making me feel left out and a little uncomfortable all at once. I felt kind of bad for mentioning that because I didn’t want to basically be a bummer to anyone’s fun (Because they all seemed to be having fun in DBD), but at least they admitted they got pulled into it and it happens. 
#i felt selfish for being uncomfortable and depressed about how i felt pulled out of the circle#i usually avoid people or situations i dont find make me happy#because the toxic and otherwise irritating personalities like this i just dont have patience for like i used to#or the mental strength because i feel it has a lot to do with my job as well? retail emotionally drains me anymore#but i never went to college and never had any other experience all my life so what can i do honestly?#im not a smart person and have so little to offer#i do acknowledge that clique mentality happens to the best of us#i try to believe otherwise but its hard trying to be special when i dont feel special#but the toxic energy had become so exhausting that it just made me depressed#im glad i took good advice and actually talked about it rather than deal with it#for fear of losing my friends#it might help for other things ive been having thoughts on#and things i might find courage to talk about#i really hope that even if i dont like this person#they dont gang up on him about it and just talk to him#maybe hearing it from his friends would end better#i need to be able to tell people when something feels bad without fearing making them angry or hating me#it's a bad mentality im working on#at least it took me less longer to do that honestly#something like this would have taken me a LOT LONGER#so...baby steps i think#it went better than i thought because my overthinking brain goes to the worst scenario possible
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hotyanderedaddies · 3 months
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Spending the Night with Your Yandere Vampire Boyfriend
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[Yandere! Vampire x Human! GN Reader]
·゜·:.。..。.:·☆·゜·:.。..。.:·☆
You've been with your new boyfriend for a few weeks by now, and things were developing really quickly. Much faster than any of your previous relationships.
Your new boyfriend, whom you playfully call Daddy, recently revealed to you that he's a vampire which was a total shock to you.
Well, maybe you should've caught on when he'd only come around at night when the sun was down, you never saw him eat any food, he seemed to avoid garlic at all costs, and he was super pale... and he had vampire fangs.
A total surprise.
Either way, you weren't too scared when Daddy revealed his "secret" to you.
Daddy is perfect boyfriend, honestly.
Daddy knows all of your likes and dislikes, and even loves all of your hobbies. The two of you share the same interests in books, movies, video games-- everything!
And you better since he spent such a long time following you around, studying your every move. Watching. Waiting.
Daddy is a pure gentleman, always treating you with the upmost respect. He virtually worships the ground you walk on, treating you like you're his precious treasure.
Because you are his. All his. And only his.
Daddy really seemed to walk straight out of a daydream, rescuing you from such a dreary life of working retail and attending boring college classes. He really helped to lift you up, especially after so many of your personal relationships seemed to have tapered off once you'd started college.
He only got rid of those who would try to take you away from him. Honest. He did it all for your relationship.
So when the two of you were on one of your dates at Daddy's house, he suggested that you stay the night (well, the morning). He had some sleep aid that he could give you to help you fall asleep during the day; although, dating a vampire was kind of throwing your sleep schedule out of whack.
At first, you were a little nervous since the two of you hadn't done anything past making out, but with one look at the eager face Daddy had, you melted.
"Sure, Daddy," you smiled.
Daddy's smile stretched out his handsome face, and his vampire fangs even poked out.
He grabbed you by the hand, his cool fingers interlocking with yours, as he led you up the stairs to the bedroom. You've never been up to his bedroom since the two of you almost never made it past the couch, so you were a little excited--
The bedroom door swung open and in the middle of the room was the "bed".
"A c-coffin?" you stuttered, your stomach falling to the floor.
"Of course, Darling," Daddy chuckled, dragging you closer to the coffin. "I'm a vampire after all. What did you think I slept in?"
"A bed...?"
"But then how would I keep the sunlight off me?"
...oh.
The coffin seemed to be standard-sized (you've been to one or two funerals, so they weren't completely unfamiliar to you), and it was lined with a clean, white satin that looked incredibly soft to the touch.
But it was a coffin!
And your frantic human brain couldn't help but associate it with death! Hell no, you weren't getting in that thing!
"Um, Daddy?" you mumbled, uncertainty drenching your small voice. "M-maybe we could rush to my apartment to use my bed and I'll put up some curtains?"
Daddy's smile disappeared, quickly being replaced with a deep frown. He narrowed his red eyes in your direction, tightening the grip he had on your hand.
"We won't make it before the sun rises," he growled, his voice deep and curt. "Now, get in our coffin."
When you hesitated, Daddy lost his patience, wrapping both of his steel arms around you. The vampire was much stronger than you are, so he had absolutely no problem forcing you into the tight confines of the small coffin.
Daddy crawled inside right after you, grabbing the lid and slamming it down with a bang. An audible click sounded out, and you were trapped in the dark coffin.
You couldn't see a thing thanks to how dark it was.
The coffin was so compact that you could feel multiple sides-- the back pressed against you and was rather soft, but you could also feel the one of the sides and the top touching you. It was enclosed all around you, trapping you, leaving almost no room for you to even move or wiggle around.
You could barely move.
You could barely breathe.
But there was a cold, hard feature inside the coffin with you, and it snaked both of its large arms around you and roughly yanked you into it.
Daddy buried his nose in your air and moaned loudly as he inhaled your scent.
"Calm down, Darling," he cooed. "Daddy's here. Daddy's got you."
Your heart raced in your chest and you felt dizzy from your panicked hyperventilating.
"It's okay, my sweet darling," Daddy continued to whisper into your ear, keeping you trapped against him. "I know it's a bit of an adjustment, but it'll be worth it, I promise."
He pressed his cool lips against your forehead.
You tried to squirm away, but he was tight against your front and the side of the coffin was tight against your back.
There was no room to move away.
At all.
You're trapped.
"Get some sleep, Darling," Daddy yawned. "I love you."
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evegwood · 1 month
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Post-covid cons have had an influx of attendees who have never been to a con before, and that's great! But I've also seen a rise in some slightly inconsiderate behaviour so I'd like to do a little post on what is generally considered good manners when attending a convention:
1️⃣ Ask before taking photos, whether it's of cosplays, stalls, traders, or merch. It's very rude to approach a table, take a photo of their stock without asking, and leave.
2️⃣ Don't comment on the prices of merchandise at exhibitors' tables. If you think something is too expensive, keep it to yourself; traders need to make money from their art and have likely already priced items fairly. Related, but in general don't make negative or jokey comments about someone's merchandise in front of them. Or at all, honestly.
3️⃣ Don't try to haggle or ask for bulk discounts. Conventions are not farmers' markets or retail stores.
4️⃣ Please try not to take up too much of the exhibitors' time by chatting. It can be really exciting to meet a creator, and a lot of traders are really friendly and enjoy talking to customers, but please remember that this is also a workplace for traders and they need to sell. If an exhibitor excuses themself because there are other customers waiting, this is usually a good point to thank them for their time and say goodbye so they can continue working.
5️⃣ Try to avoid placing anything on the exhibitors' tables, including bags but especially drinks and food. This can at best mess up a display and at worst ruin merchandise, putting exhibitors out of pocket.
6️⃣ If you are waiting to look at one table in particular, be courteous of neighbouring tables. Do not stand in front of other tables because you are queueing or just standing chatting with friends, as you are likely blocking other potential customers from seeing that table.
7️⃣ An extra point raised by @pppondi - feel free to ask to have a look through books and comics, but don't read the entire thing then put it back. That's why they're on sale, so you can read them!
���️ I really do hope this helps someone! Some of these guidelines might not be obvious but it makes for a better con experience for both you and the exhibitors; traders are less stressed and you get to interact with happier creators. If you have more suggested guidelines for people who are starting to attend cons please feel free to share, but also remember that a lot of shy, anxious, and neurodivergent folk attend cons. I'm trying to be constructive, not just list "weird" behaviour.
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thebibliosphere · 2 years
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Seriously if you’re considering messaging me to tell me I deserve not to make money because I “made a deal with the devil” and anyone who works with Amazon deserves to live in poverty—all actual things a disgusting number of people have said in my inbox since yesterday—kindly fuck off into the void.
You’re not helping and your blatant lack of understanding about how publishing, distribution and late stage capitalism works for both indie and trad pub authors is woefully lacking.
If you have the luxury to avoid the largest retail platform in the world, then good for you. Wish I had your financial stability. But as a queer, multiply disabled author living paycheck to paycheck, I can’t eat principles.
So kindly take your self righteousness, sanctimonious, blatantly cruel, lacking in compassion rancid hot take, and go fuck yourself.
You’re not as righteous as you think you are. You’re just cruel.
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macabr3-barbi3 · 4 days
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dream a little dream (of me)- chapter 2 [Alastor/Reader]
https://archiveofourown.org/works/54459367/chapters/138625708
Chapter 1 is here!
Same tags as chapter 1: Dream Sex, Dreamsharing, Vaginal Sex, Cunnilingus, Rough Sex, Dreamwalking, Non Sex-Repulsed Alastor
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It’s truly amazing what a regular sleep schedule can do for someone. Within days of starting to sleep in Alastor’s room, life in Hell just felt… better.
And Alastor was tolerable, in his own way. There was no mention of the deal that you had made, and if anyone noticed you spending the evenings in his bedroom they didn’t question it. It was the same every night- you would knock, he would invite you in, and you would engage in the tiniest of small talk before he shepherded you to the bed he had set up for you in the bayou dimension. It was always made, the sheets comfortable and soft and warm as you laid your head down and fell into dreamless sleep. You were keeping to your end of the deal, unable to resist the siren call of actual rest in favor of sneaking to Alastor’s side of the room to see what he dreamt of these days. 
You wondered about his end, and what he had promised if you stayed out of his dreams like you agreed- like you were doing. “Whenever you would like,” he had said, but you didn’t want to just- proposition him. That felt improper and scandalous. For the time being you were content to just accept the peaceful relaxation that the bayou realm offered you.
You quit the retail job that you held after about a week and accepted Charlie’s offer to find something to do in the hotel- you were designated to the Resident Events Coordinator, which basically meant that when Charlie got it in her head that everyone needed to go on a field trip somewhere, you were in charge of booking, paying invoices from the Hotel budget, and making sure everyone was accounted for and following the rules when you got there. In theory, anyway- you’re pretty sure Charlie came up with the job on the spot but you hadn’t actually gone anywhere yet, no field trips taken or tasks for you for a couple weeks now. 
That seemed like it was going to change as Charlie squealed your name from the front office and asked you to join her. Poking your head tentatively into the room, she has a bunch of papers spread across the desk, Vaggie in the chair next to it with a hand to her temple. She shoots you a smile before her eyes return to the carpet, muttering something in Spanish under her breath.
“What’s-”
Charlie is bouncing with excitement as she sings, “I have a resident event for you to coordinate!” She gestures to the papers on the desk with wiggling fingers. “I’ve been doing some research and while it's been found that just regular stuff in a familiar setting is all well and good and helpful, doing things like trust exercises or just hanging out in an un familiar setting can also be really great! So Vaggie and I looked into some stuff and we decided ooonnnnnn….” She trails off and gestures grandly to Vaggie, who looks up from her dead stare at the floor.
“Camping. Yay.” Her enthusiasm is noted, but when Charlie pouts at her she smiles and pulls some jazz hands. “Sorry- camping! Yay!”
You offer your own smile even as your heart drops. “Okay, cool! What do I need to do?”
Camping would mean everyone sleeping in the same area- you had gotten so accustomed to a regular night’s sleep that you weren’t sure if you could stay up an entire night to avoid falling into anyone’s dreams. Alastor probably wouldn’t come with the group- he didn’t seem like camping was his style- so you wouldn’t be able to rely on that. You hoped that going back to the energy drinks for a night or so wouldn’t irreparably damage your new internal clock.
Charlie launches into a spiel about what was needed of you- reserving the campground, making sure that there were plenty of smores ingredients handy, snacks and things to grill and bottled water all in ready supply. You would need to get the list of rules, a map of the area, tents, and did you know how to start a fire? 
“Babe, you’re the Princess of Hell. I’m pretty sure you can start a fire just fine.” Vaggie looked at her girlfriend with an air of amused frustration.
“Well yeah but I want it to be authentic! No magic on the camping trip- not even from me.”
You look up from the notepad Vaggie had handed you before Charlie got too far into it, catching up on everything she had listed off. “No magic- got it! Do you have a particular place in mind?” 
And the demon was off again, listing off nearby wooded areas that offered camping and everything the group might need. Looking at the list of items you had accumulated, you figured that this job would be actual work and not just something Charlie gave you for a title- you wondered if Vaggie had to talk her into letting someone else handle the intricacies of outings so she didn’t burn herself out.
You spent the rest of the week finalizing everything, only being met with a small groan when Charlie informed the group of what would be happening on Friday evening. Niffty seemed excited- “lots of wild bugs,” she said with a crazed look in her eye, and you made a mental note to call the campground again to ask if ‘murder of bugs’ was something that was allowed- and Angel and Husk just seemed to resign themselves to their fate. Alastor had raised an eyebrow and said he would see if his ‘schedule could allow him to attend,’ so he was most likely out.
You had only managed to acquire three tents- one for Charlie and Vaggie, one for Husk and Angel, and one for you and Niffty. You had no intention of sleeping in it- you would wait until the smaller demon fell asleep, which she always did swiftly and deeply, and then spend the night sipping caffeine and manning the fire to keep everyone warm while they slept. When you came home on Saturday you would return to Alastor’s room and catch up on the rest you would be losing.
You arranged for the delivery of everything to the campground ahead of you all, and were pleased to see all of your materials where they should be when you arrived. It felt good to be able to do something for the group, and to help Charlie like this and take some stress off her plate. You started sorting through it all, handing out sleeping bags and designating Husk to management of the food items when you hit the first snag.
“Uhhhh…” The box containing the tents had two that were regular sized- big enough for two people while still remaining in the confines of the campsite as you set them up. The last appeared to be a child’s tent- large enough for Niffty on her own but certainly not for the two of you. That threw a wrench in your plans, as you were sure that no one would go for the idea of you sleeping outside on your own.
“Oh no!” Charlie looked over your shoulder and saw the predicament. “That won’t work for the two of you- wait, you can share with Vaggie and I! There’s enough room in there for three, right?”
Fuck.
“Maybe,” you agree hesitantly, but it wouldn’t be as easy to sneak out of the tent with two of them, one being a former Exorcist Angel with a penchant for nightmares that woke her up. And just laying there pretending to sleep would probably result in you actually falling asleep- and also, it was a little weird to share a tent with a couple, right?
Vaggie frowns as she finishes setting up hers and Charlie’s tent. “I don’t know, hun- there’s not much room in here, I’m not sure if three people will fit.”
Charlie goes to inspect the tent. “Well, we would be pretty close but I think it would be okay!”
You start to wave your hands in denial. “That’s okay guys, really- I still have a sleeping bag, I can stay by the fire-”
The resounding chorus of “NO!” from the group is touching, it really is, but not helpful to your current struggle. Husk is adamantly insisting that if anyone sleeps outside it should be him, Angel is complaining about the possibility of not getting to share a tent with Husk, Niffty is- chasing bugs on the outskirts of the site, completely unconcerned with the issue at hand.
There’s a crackle of static and Alastor emerges from a shadow, casting a glance over the group. “Hello everyone! Are we having trouble already on our little camping trip?”
“Alastor.” Your heart thumps in your chest- maybe he could conjure another tent for you, do some of his magic to put a pocket dimension inside of it like the bayou in his room. “I thought you couldn’t make it.”
“It seems that I was able to free some time up to join you,” he says, then looks at the tents that have been set up. “What seems to be the problem?”
You can’t fight the surge of irritation. “I messed up the order somehow. We got two normal sized tents but the last one is only big enough for Niffty which is who I was supposed to share with- I should have sprung for another one in case you did show up, now that I’m thinking about it.” You bring a palm to your forehead. “God, that was stupid-”
“Nonsense! Why, you can share with me, my dear.” With a wave of his hand the tents are moving, repositioning to make room for a red tent that appears in the middle of the others. It’s larger than the other two, causing Angel to let out a whistle, and the relief that rushes through you is immediate.
Husk doesn’t seem to agree, and Charlie and Vaggie are both looking at you with trepidation. “Now hold on,” Husk starts. “I’ll share with you, Al. There’s no reason the little lady should be stuck in there with you.”
“Why Husker, I’m offended! Do you think I would behave improperly? I’ll be a perfect gentleman, I promise.” He gestures to the tent. “It is more than large enough for the both of us- arguably a better position for her to be in than sharing with one of you, smushed in like sardines.”
Vaggie cuts in. “Why don’t you take mine and Charlie’s tent and we can share the big one with her-”
“Vaggie,” you interrupt her. “It’s fine! I’m okay sharing with Alastor. He’s right- it is a bigger space, there will be plenty of room for us both, and I don’t want to intrude on you and Charlie.” You flash her a smile. “Everything will be okay- it’s just for one night.”
The woman groans but gives in. “If you’re sure you’re okay with it, fine. But!” She adds, pointing at Alastor. “Charlie’s rules. No more magic.” Alastor hums in agreement and the rest of the plans for the evening go without a hitch.
There’s a nice nature walk through a nearby trail, a brief stint of swimming- unplanned and unauthorized, since you specifically told Niffty it wasn’t allowed beforehand- and an easy dinner made by Husk over the fire that Niffty started. Smores are concocted and consumed before you all tell scary stories together, putting an end to it before Alastor could have his turn- no one wanted to open that can of worms, as it were.
Everyone started to turn in, including Alastor, until only you and Husk were left out by the fire. He overturned a bottle of water on the flames to douse them, a flickering ember all that remained as he sat on a log next to you. “You’re really okay sharing with him, kid?”
You raise an eyebrow. “I’m a fully grown adult, Husk,” you remind him, and he doesn’t even look sheepish. “But yes, I’ll be fine. Besides, I think Angel would throw a tantrum if he was denied being able to sleep so close to you.” You throw him a wink, and with this, at least, he blushes. 
“Yeah yeah,” he mutters, “whatever. Just… you let me know if you wanna switch. Any time. I’ll wake up if you come to our tent.”
“I appreciate it,” you say with a smile, knowing it won’t be necessary. If Alastor had put another pocket dimension in the tent you would sleep soundly, no need to switch with anyone or stay awake. “Have a good night, Husk.” You go your separate ways, waiting for him to duck into his and Angel’s tent before entering the one you would be sharing with Alastor.
There’s no bayou waiting for you- just a large bed in the very center of the space, Alastor tucked under the covers with a book in his hands. “Ah, there you are, dear!”
You enter the tent and close it behind you. “I was just cleaning up a little with Husk. Um- I don’t want to sound, you know, picky but-”
“Hmm, were you expecting the bayou from my room?” He sighs like its a great inconvenience. “Yes, I had planned to bring it to being in the tent or at least getting a second bed but alas- Charlie did insist on no magic!”
God damn this demon and his selective rule following. “Right. Well, at least you know why I’m not sleeping. I won’t have to pretend- do you have another book I could read?”
“Not sleeping? Darling, there’s room here.” He pats the bed next to him, grin wide and amused. “I insist- I promise I’ll behave.” His smile did not give you much hope to that.
“If you’re the closest person to me, then- what about our. Um. The deal?” You can’t stop yourself from entering his dreams if he’s close to you, let alone in the same bed.
He tilts his head. “You have my permission. It is one night only, as you told Vaggie. Sleeping anywhere else would drop you into the dreams of another, and even if I had been able to conjure another bed you would still be closest to myself. You may as well be comfortable.” He pulls down the corner of sheets opposite him, and you have to admit that it looks inviting.
You approach and climb under the covers, careful to keep a reasonable amount of space between yourself and Alastor as he waves a hand and the lights go dim. “I thought you said no magic,” you mutter, only a little bitterly. He chuckles but doesn’t respond, and soon the sound is replaced with light, even breathing as the Radio Demon slips into sleep.
You fight it as long as you can, but you end up joining him, the world going black before you re-materialize in a familiar place.
Alastor’s room. He’s sitting in an armchair near the fire, reading the same book he had been. He looks up at the inquisitive noise you make. “I figured you needn’t feel so guilty about intruding if there was nothing intimate to see,” he says, flipping a page.
“I appreciate that, thank you.” You take the seat opposite him, watching the fire dance before you both. Its quiet, comfortably so, the only sounds the faint breathing of you both and Alastor’s page flipping.
You watch him for a while, since there’s nothing else to do. You lightly trail his body with your eyes as he relaxes into the chair, traveling up the lines of his legs to his chest, the subtle musculature of his arms and flexing of tendons when he turns a page, his fingers dexterous and strong. You think about the last time you had been in his dream- how those fingers had been inside the dream version of you but you never got to experience it yourself, not really. You’d come into it right at the end to be speared on Alastor’s length, wet and ready despite not being part of the preparation yourself. You wanted-
“Something on your mind?” Your eyes snap up from his hands to find Alastor watching you, shit eating smile on his face as he watched you basically ogling him.
“N-no!” You scoot the chair back from him, your face twisting in confusion as it's pulled right back into position and then even further, a shadow racing out of your peripherals after it drops your chair right in front of Alastor’s, knee to knee. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t-”
“You know,” he says conversationally, “you’ve not yet taken advantage of your own benefits of the deal, dear. You’ve been quite compliant in staying out of my dreams- I think that warrants a reward, don’t you?”
He’s leaned into your space, inches from your face, eyes darting down to your mouth. “A- a reward?” 
“Indeed.” He closes his book and it vanishes with a twist of his wrist, freeing up the hand to brush under your chin. “You’re free to choose something else if you don’t wish to ‘cash in’ on my end of the deal. Though… you do remember what it was, don’t you?” He trails a clawed finger down your neck, brushing your hair off your shoulders and continuing down your arm, leaving goosebumps in his wake. Not hard enough to scratch but not so light you couldn’t feel it at all.
“I remember. You said… whenever I wanted.” Your face is red, your brain muddled as you take in the scent of him so close to you- you can’t bring yourself to say it. 
“The exact wording, sweetheart, was that I would allow you to cum on my cock whenever you’d like.” His hands dart out to circle your waist and drag you into his chair, grinding up against you as the seat transformed into something more like a chaise, reclined and wider. “Is that what you would like now?”
“Fuck, I- wait, fuck,” you manage to stammer at the feeling of his erection under you, and you find yourself rolling your hips along with him, chasing that feeling. You lose yourself in it, your mouth open while you gasp through the pleasure, and no sooner have you had the brief thought of wishing you didn’t have to remove your body to take your pants off than the article of clothing has disappeared. “What-”
“Magic in dreams doesn’t count, I rather think,” Alastor says, and he shifts you to one side in his lap to get a hand underneath you and slide a long finger into your slick warmth. “It seems that you can do it as well to an extent.”
“Well that’s pretty cool,” you mumble, and when you throw your head back with a moan he latches his teeth onto your neck, a light pinch that he sucks and then soothes with his tongue.
“Indeed; one learns something new every day!” He traces his mouth down your shoulder, over your collarbones and back up to suck at your skin again, his fingers working steadily inside you as he adds another in, to the second knuckle. “For example- I have learned that you taste and feel even better than that figment of dreams that I created.”
You let your head fall forward, press your forehead to Alastor’s. “High praise,” you say, and he laughs at you. “I knew you would- oh fuck- ” He changes his angle, crooking his fingers upwards into the sweet spot inside your body, the pressure unrelenting and causing what little control you had right now to spill out of your grasp like the whimpers that poured from your mouth.
He adjusts, leaning back fully into the chaise. He releases the grip he has on your waist to snap his fingers, and with a clink his belt has removed itself from his pants and curled up neatly on the floor. A second set of fingers slides between your bodies to undo his fly, the thumb of the hand inside you brushing against your clit as he works to remove himself.
You’re panting, the air hot between your mouths as he uses your arousal to slick himself, pushing at your entrance. “Don’t you ever take these clothes off?” You ask irritably, wondering if you could use your newfound ability to vanish at least his shirt as you grip it in your fingers desperately.
“Not here I won’t- we must leave something to be discovered in real life, don’t you think?” His shirt still stubbornly buttoned across his chest, he extracts his fingers from your body and grips your hips to pull you down onto his cock. The whine you let out would be embarrassing if it didn’t feel so goddamn good to have him fill you, nowhere to go to escape the pressure and the pleasure of it.
You plant your hands on his shoulders as he slides in to the hilt, and when you look at him his eyes are dark, cheeks flushed despite the smirk on his face. “That’s… that’s no fair,” you say, and you can feel the way you clench down around his length. “You’ve already seen a-all of me.”
He lets his hands run up your sides and under your shirt, claws leaving gooseflesh in their wake as he brings them up to brush against your nipples, drags them across your skin to gently rake down your back in the most delicious way. “That hardly counted,” he murmurs, bucking his hips up and watching the way that he slides in and out of the grip of your cunt. “This is merely a fantasy, dearest. I won’t be truly satisfied until I can say that I have claimed all of you- dream and reality, body and soul. Just to see your naked flesh is nothing to me.”
He digs the claws of one hand into your thigh, the other wrapping around the back of your neck to drag you down closer to his face, the ache of it only sending you towards orgasm faster as he grinds up into you. “I want you flayed open with the ache of needing me,” he groans, and uses his grip on your neck to force you to meet his eyes. “Here and in the real world. I want to fucking own you in every possible dimension, every possible way- tell me I can, darling. Tell me I do-”
Like last time, Alastor demanded verbal confirmation of your submission to him. “Fuck, yes,” you cry out, cutting him off, and as he pulls you in to lick into his mouth you find the strength in your legs finally, rising and sinking back down on his cock as he thrusts into you from below. It’s impossible to feel this good- you can’t possibly survive this, you think, as your cunt grips down tighter every time he glances off that spot inside of you. “Please, Alastor,” you whimper into his mouth. “Please, let me cum- I’m yours, I’m yours-”
He bites down hard on your lip, the skin breaking and blood pooling in the space where your mouths have joined as you hit your peak the same time Alastor does. He releases your lip with a drawn out groan while he fills you, grinding your hips down into his with a force that can only be describe as desperate . It doesn’t end; as you tip over the razor’s edge and drench his lap in your release you moan with the feeling of tightening on him, the sound devolving into a whimper as you clutch weakly at Alastor’s shirt when the wave finally crashes and leaves you limp in his arms.
“Hm.” When you bring you head up to meet his gaze he has a wicked smile on his face, pulling out of you with an embarrassing sound coming form between your bodies. One of his ears flicks to the side before righting itself. “Sounds like you might have some explaining to do to our friends, chérie.”
“What do you-” You don’t get a chance to finish your thought before he pushes you with a finger to your forehead, and instead of hitting the other end of the chaise you slam hard into the bed, covers fluttering around you as you fight them off with the force that you’ve landed with.
“What the fuck is going on in here?” Husk is standing at the entrance to the tent with his arms crossed, Angel Dust peering over his shoulder with interest.
You clench your eyes shut, remembering that Alastor had only conjured the one bed- this was going to be awkward. “Fuck, I-”
“Yes, my dear, you’ve even given me quite the startle.” Alastor’s voice comes from across the tent- in a different bed than the one you had both fallen asleep in. A glance down reveals that you are in your own sleeping quarters, tucked under a soft comforter on your own side of the large space.
You glare at him and he keeps his eyes wide, feigning innocence.
Charlie pops her head into the tent as well. “We heard noises,” she said. “It sounded like you were in pain. Is everything okay?”
You were going to fucking kill Alastor. 
“It was… just a dream,” you tell them, and Alastor’s smile splits his face in your peripheral vision. “A nightmare. I'm sorry, I didn’t mean to worry anyone.”
Vaggie places a hand on Charlie’s shoulder from outside the tent. “We’ve got to get started with breakfast if we’re gonna leave on time, babe,” she says, then stands on her tiptoes to look at you over Charlie’s shoulder. “If you find yourself having nightmares come let me know- I have some stuff that could help.” She vanishes, off to try to start the campfire back up the way Niffty had done accidentally the night before.
Husk is glancing between you and Alastor, and one of his eyebrows raises. “You know what? Not my damn business. Come on, Angel.” He leads the spider away as well, and Charlie gives you a wave with her worried look before the tent is zipped back up and you’re alone with Alastor again.
“You-”
“What an interesting development,” he says, suddenly in the bed with you again- perched on the side of it, having shifted through the shadows in only a moment. He reaches a finger out and brushes it along the side of your neck. You hiss at the feeling, a sharp pain following the feeling, but he’s up and out of the bed before you can say anything else. He waves a hand, and a mirror appears in the space between your beds. “Have a look, dear, then come join the rest of us! What would we do without our event coordinator to lead us back to the hotel?” He doesn’t even use the door, just sinks into the floor and is gone.
You swing your legs out of the bed, only a little irritated to find that once again your legs are shaky. You make your way over to the mirror, and you see what Alastor had seen, probably what Husk had seen as well.
A split lip, and a still weakly bleeding bite mark in the shape of Alastor’s smile.
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mayakern · 1 month
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Hi, i know this may be a too-broad question, but i was wondering if you had any advice/possible pitfalls to avoid when you are looking to begin putting your art on clothing to sell it? Especially in regards to the business aspect and such, like what sites are fair to their artists? what's a reasonable profit? Thank you for your time and i hope you have a nice day ^^
unless you are able to gather significant capital yourself, you probably want to do print on demand. my favorite POD service is @threadless since they have transparent pricing, no listing fees, and good quality printing. they will also generally suggest a profit margin for you, which i think is helpful when you’re starting out.
profit margins for POD services are entirely different from if you’re working with a manufacturer directly and buying the pieces yourself. with POD, you’re likely to make a profit of 10% or less (depending on the item), with non-POD general rule of thumb for retail cost is 2.2-2.5x your cost to manufacture that item.
doing non-POD is much more expensive up front (thousands of dollars vs. free), but the potential long term profit is also much larger. however, that also comes with an amount of risk, since non-POD services will expect you to buy a minimum number of pieces, usually in the hundreds, and you can’t make a profit if you don’t sell the pieces.
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she-is-ovarit · 6 months
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Ashli Streeter said Stevens Transport did not hire her because it had no women to train her. Credit...Montinique Monroe for The New York Times
The trucking industry has complained for years that there is a dire shortage of workers willing to drive big rigs. But some women say many trucking companies have made it effectively impossible for them to get those jobs. Trucking companies often refuse to hire women if the businesses do not have women available to train them. And because fewer than 5 percent of truck drivers in the United States are women, there are few female trainers to go around. The same-sex training policies are common across the industry, truckers and legal experts say, even though a federal judge ruled in 2014 that it was unlawful for a trucking company to require that female job candidates be paired only with female trainers. Ashli Streeter of Killeen, Texas, said she had borrowed $7,000 to attend a truck driving school and earn her commercial driving license in hopes of landing a job that would pay more than the warehouse work she had done. But she said Stevens Transport, a Dallas-based company, had told her that she couldn’t be hired because the business had no women to train her. Other trucking companies turned her down for the same reason. “I got licensed, and I clearly could drive,” Ms. Streeter said. “It was disheartening.” Ms. Streeter and two other women filed a complaint against Stevens Transport with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Thursday, contending that the company’s same-sex training policy unfairly denied them driving jobs. The commission investigates allegations made against employers, and, if it determines a violation has occurred, it may bring its own lawsuit. The commission had brought the lawsuit that resulted in the 2014 federal court decision against similar policies at another trucking company, Prime. Critics of the industry said the persistence of same-sex training nearly a decade after that ruling, which did not set national legal precedent, was evidence that trucking companies had not done enough to hire women who could help solve their labor woes. “It’s frustrating to see that we have not evolved at all,” said Desiree Wood, a trucker who is the president and founder of Real Women in Trucking, a nonprofit. Ms. Wood’s group is joining the three women in their E.E.O.C. complaint against Stevens, which was filed by Peter Romer-Friedman, a labor lawyer in Washington, and the National Women’s Law Center. Companies that insist on using women to train female applicants generally do so because they want to avoid claims of sexual harassment. Trainers typically spend weeks alone with trainees on the road, where the two often have to sleep in the same cab. Critics of same-sex training acknowledge that sexual harassment is a problem, but they say trucking companies should address it with better vetting and anti-harassment programs. Employers could reduce the risk of harassment by paying for trainees to sleep in a hotel room, which some companies already do. Women made up 4.8 percent of the 1.37 million truck drivers in the United States in 2021, according to the most recent government statistics, up from 4 percent a decade earlier. Long-haul truck driving can be a demanding job. Drivers are away from home for days. Yet some women say they are attracted to it because it can pay around $50,000 a year, with experienced drivers making a lot more. Truck driving generally pays more than many other jobs that don’t require a college degree, including those in retail stores, warehouses or child care centers.
The infrastructure act of 2021 required the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to set up an advisory board to support women pursuing trucking careers and identify practices that keep women out of the profession. Robin Hutcheson, the administrator of the agency, said requiring same-sex training would appear to be a barrier to entry. “If that is happening, that would be something that we would want to take a look at,” she said in an interview. Ms. Streeter, a mother of three, said she had applied to Stevens because it hired people straight out of trucking school. She told Stevens representatives that she was willing to be trained by a man, but to no avail. Bruce Dean, general counsel at Stevens, denied the allegations in the suit. “The fundamental premise in the charge — that Stevens Transport Inc. only allows women trainers to train women trainees — is false,” he said in a statement, adding that the company “has had a cross-gender training program, where both men and women trainers train female trainees, for decades.” Some legal experts said that, although same-sex training was ruled unlawful in only one federal court, trucking companies would struggle to defend such policies before other judges. Under federal employment discrimination law, employers can seek special legal exemptions to treat women differently from men, but courts have granted them very rarely. “Basically, what the law says is that a company needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” said Deborah Brake, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in employment and gender law. “They need to be able to give women equal employment opportunities and prevent and remedy sexual harassment.” Ms. Streeter said she had made meager earnings from infrequent truck driving gigs while hoping to get a position at Stevens. Later this month, she will become a driver in the trucking fleet of a large retailer. Kim Howard, one of the other women who filed the E.E.O.C. complaint against Stevens, said she was attracted to truck driving by the prospect of a steady wage after working for decades as an actor in New York. “It was very much a blow,” she said of being rejected because of the training policy. “I honestly don’t know how I financially made it through.” Ms. Howard, who is now employed at another trucking company, said she had worked briefly at a company where she was trained by two men who treated her well. “It’s quite possible for a woman to be trained by a man, and a man to be a professional about what the job is,” she said. Other female drivers said they had been mistreated by male trainers who could be relentlessly dismissive and sometimes refused to teach them important skills, like reversing a truck with a large trailer attached. Rowan Kannard, a truck driver from Wisconsin who is not involved in the complaint against Stevens, said a male trainer had spent little time training her on a run to California in 2019. At a truck stop where she felt unsafe, Ms. Kannard said, the trainer demanded that she leave the cab — and then locked her out. She asked to stop the training and was flown back to Wisconsin. Yet she said she did not believe that same-sex training for women was necessary. “Some of these men that are training, they should probably go through a course.” Click the article to read more. The author is Peter Eavis.
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AITA for cooking non-kosher food on purpose so that my Jewish roommate can't eat any of it?
For reference we're all in our 20s, and all some level of neurodivergent.
So I live with a few other people, and for the most part it's been chill so far. The only real problem I've had is with one of my roommates, we'll call them C. C was very sheltered as a kid, and we helped him move in with us mostly so that we could help him get out of a bad situation. The trouble is that because of the aforementioned sheltering he has a very bad habit of stepping on people's toes. He's loud when other people are sleeping, he spent the better part of our first year living together trying to avoid paying for rent or utilities, and he tends to dominate a conversation whenever he joins by doing the typical "wait for you to finish so I can say what I care about" shtick.
Well, we've had a recurring problem with C being grabby about other people's food. When we first moved in together he was constantly taking other people's groceries and using them for himself without asking, and not just small stuff, but like using my noodles, my sauce, and my meat to make spaghetti or something of the like. We all buy groceries separately except for a few core things that we all use like milk, eggs, flour, etc, so he was basically taking this stuff for free.
None of us are wealthy, we're all working retail and food service jobs, so it's not like it was a small blow to be losing food like that.
Well we discussed that and he's stopped, thankfully, but now he tries to like...beg for scraps? If you cook ANYTHING or are even in the kitchen, he'll come around and ask if it's "just for you, or for everyone". Understandably, this gets very annoying. My thing is that if you want to eat food I've made, you should contribute. Either by helping pay for ingredients or doing the dishes, or something like that. Basically, if you want to eat, help out. C never wants to help out or contribute to ingredients. Plus, if you tell him no, he'll whine about it? Like if you say that he can't have some of whatever you're cooking he'll be like "That food smells so good, even though you won't let me have any."
On the other hand, I know that C doesn't have a lot of money, and I would never want anyone to go hungry. But he won't use the communal stuff to cook himself anything, he'll just complain about not having a lot of money. I've tried to yelp him get more hours at the job we share, but he's unwilling to work certain shifts so there's a limit on how much I can do.
Anyways, to get to the point, sometimes I make dishes specifically with pork or other non-kosher ingredients so that he won't be able to constantly ask for some. I would never intentionally let him eat anything non kosher, and label all the foods I make for everyone so that he can check the ingredients and see if it's something he can have. I just don't want to be a jerk I guess, because I know that the economy is god-awful and believe strongly in helping your fellow man.
So, AITA?
What are these acronyms?
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bunnie-online · 5 months
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Hayden x reader/oc in a secret established relationship but reader is a retail worker or something similar and Hayden visits reader at work to pick her up or something.
oOO HAYDEN REQUEST?! OKAY LEMME TRY
hayden x small actress fem!reader
warnings: even though it’s fluff, 18+ interaction only. established relationship, fluffy fluff fluffs 🥰
another mundane day, running around bussing tables in the small café you’re working in, chatting to customers, fake laughing at jokes. same old, same old.
you picked up a job at this lovely little cafe in downtown Los Angeles a few months ago to support yourself in between acting gigs, your boyfriend offered his help many a time but if you’re anything, it’s stubborn.
being in LA, you weren’t a stranger to serving the super rich and famous, brushing shoulders with actors, musicians and socialites alike was just another wednesday for you.
it was almost the end of your shift and an actor you didn’t expect to see today was the ever so handsome, Hayden Christensen. who you just so happened to be in a long term relationship with. Hayden was sat at a table in the corner in his usual ‘avoid the paparazzi’ get up. black hoodie, grey sweatpants and black baseball cap pulled down to almost cover his eyes.
you rush over to his table, your boss probably thinking you wanted to be the shining star of customer service but in actuality you were about to scold the customer in question. “Hayden!” you whisper yell. “what are you doing here?!” he looks up at you, pretty blue eyes round and innocent looking.
“oh! you recognized me!” he smiles, feigning innocence. “i wanted to get a coffee, is that so wrong?” he replied after seeing your face. “Hayden.” you say “you could get us caught!” you start scribbling on your notepad, pretending you’re taking his order. you knew Hayden’s usual coffee from the many times he’s made it in your apartment after he’s spent the night.
you look at your watch, it’s two o’clock, the end of your shift. “Hayden, you-! you little shit” you laugh, connecting the dots to his master plan. “because i love you sooo much, i’m gonna grab your coffee.” you smirk at him “i’ll be right back with that, sir!” you say in a chipper customer service voice earning a stifled laugh from Hayden.
you go make his favorite drink as quickly as possible, rushing it out to him. “i’ll be waiting in the car, love.” he winks at you. your face flushes and you rush to go clock out.
‘hes lucky i love him’ you think while grinning ear to ear.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hayden literally makes me giggle and kick my feet AHH i adore him sm
~bunnie
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The long sleep of capitalism’s watchdogs
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There are only five more days left in my Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.
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One of the weirdest aspect of end-stage capitalism is the collapse of auditing, the lynchpin of investing. Auditors – independent professionals who sign off on a company's finances – are the only way that investors can be sure they're not handing their money over to failing businesses run by crooks.
It's just not feasible for investors to talk to supply-chain partners and retailers and verify that a company's orders and costs are real. Investors can't walk into a company's bank and demand to see their account histories. Auditors – who are paid by companies, but work for themselves – are how investors avoid shoveling money into Ponzi-pits.
Attentive readers will have noticed that there is an intrinsic tension in an arrangement where someone is paid by a company to certify its honesty. The company gets to decide who its auditors are, and those auditors are dependent on the company for future business. To manage this conflict of interest, auditors swear fealty to a professional code of ethics, and are themselves overseen by professional boards with the power to issue fines and ban cheaters.
Enter monopolization. Over the past 40 years, the US government conducted a failed experiment in allowing companies to form monopolies on the theory that these would be "efficient." From Boeing to Facebook, Cigna to InBev, Warner to Microsoft, it has been a catastrophe. The American corporate landscape is dominated by vast, crumbling, ghastly companies whose bad products and worse corporate conduct are locked in a race to see who can attain the most depraved enshittification quickest.
The accounting profession is no exception. A decades-long incestuous orgy of mergers and acquisitions yielded up an accounting sector dominated by just four firms: EY, KPMG, PWC and Deloitte (the last holdout from the alphabetsoupification of corporate identity). Virtually every major company relies on one of these companies for auditing, but that's only a small part of corporate America's relationship with these tottering behemoths. The real action comes from "consulting."
Each of the Big Four accounting firms is also a corporate consultancy. Some of those consulting services are the normal work of corporate consultants – cookie cutter advice to fire workers and reduce product quality, as well as supplying dangerously defecting enterprise software. But you can get that from the overpaid enablers at McKinsey or BCG. The advantage of contracting with a Big Four accounting firm for consulting is that they can help you commit finance fraud.
Remember: if you're an executive greenlighting fraud, you mostly just want to be sure it's not discovered until after you've pocketed your bonus and moved on. After all, the pro-monopoly experiment was also an experiment in tolerating corporate crime. Executives who cheat their investors, workers and suppliers typically generate fines for their companies, while escaping any personal liability.
By buying your cheating advice from the same company that is paid to certify that you're not cheating, you greatly improve your chances of avoiding detection until you've blown town.
Which brings me to the idea of the "bezzle." This is John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the weeks, months, or years that elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery." This is the period in which both the criminal and the victim feel like they're better off. The crook has the victim's money, and the victim doesn't know it. The Bezzle is that interval when you're still assuming that FTX isn't lying to you about the crazy returns they're generating for your crypto. It's the period between you getting the shrinkwrapped box with a 90% discounted PS5 in it from a guy in an alley, and getting home and discovering that it's full of bricks and styrofoam.
Big Accounting is a factory for producing bezzles at scale. The game is rigged, and they are the riggers. When banks fail and need a public bailout, chances are those banks were recently certified as healthy by one of the Big Four, whose audited bank financials failed 800 re-audits between 2009-17:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/28/cyberwar-tactics/#aligned-incentives
The Big Four dispute this, of course. They claim to be models of probity, adhering to the strictest possible ethical standards. This would be a lot easier to believe if KPMG hadn't been caught bribing its regulators to help its staff cheat on ethics exams:
https://www.nysscpa.org/news/publications/the-trusted-professional/article/sec-probe-finds-kpmg-auditors-cheating-on-training-exams-061819
Likewise, it would be easier to believe if their consulting arms didn't keep getting caught advising their clients on how to cheat their auditing arms:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/09/dingo-babysitter/#maybe-the-dingos-ate-your-nan
Big Accounting is a very weird phenomenon, even by the standards of End-Stage Capitalism. It's an organized system of millionaire-on-billionaire violence, a rare instance of the very richest people getting scammed the hardest:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/04/aaronsw/#crooked-ref
The collapse of accounting is such an ominous and fractally weird phenomenon, it inspired me to write a series of hard-boiled forensic accountancy novels about a two-fisted auditor named Martin Hench, starting with last year's Red Team Blues (out in paperback next week!):
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865854/redteamblues
The sequel to Red Team Blues is called (what else?) The Bezzle, and part of its ice-cold revenge plot involves a disillusioned EY auditor who can't bear to be part of the scam any longer:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/doctorow/the-bezzle-a-martin-hench-audiobook-amazon-wont-sell
The Hench stories span a 40-year period, and are a chronicle of decades of corporate decay. Accountancy is the perfect lens for understanding our modern fraud economy. After all, it was crooked accountants who gave us the S&L crisis:
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10130&context=etd
Crooked auditors were at the center of the Great Financial Crisis, too:
https://francinemckenna.com/2009/12/07/they-werent-there-auditors-and-the-financial-crisis/
And of course, crooked auditors were behind the Enron fraud, a rare instance in which a fraud triggered a serious attempt to prevent future crimes, including the destruction of accounting giant Arthur Andersen. After Enron, Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), which created a new oversight board called the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).
The PCAOB is a watchdog for watchdogs, charged with auditing the auditors and punishing the incompetent and corrupt among them. Writing for The American Prospect and the Revolving Door Project, Timi Iwayemi describes the long-running failure of the PCAOB to do its job:
https://prospect.org/power/2024-01-26-corporate-self-oversight/
For example: from 2003-2019, the PCAOB undertook only 18 enforcement cases – even though the PCAOB also detected more than 800 "seriously defective audits" by the Big Four. And those 18 cases were purely ornamental: the PCAOB issued a mere $6.5m in fines for all 18, even though they could have fined the accounting companies $1.6 billion:
https://www.pogo.org/investigations/how-an-agency-youve-never-heard-of-is-leaving-the-economy-at-risk
Few people are better on this subject than the investigative journalist Francine McKenna, who has just co-authored a major paper on the PCAOB:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4227295
The paper uses a new data set – documents disclosed in a 2019 criminal trial – to identify the structural forces that cause the PCAOB to be such a weak watchdog whose employees didn't merely fail to do their jobs, but actually criminally abetted the misdeeds of the companies they were supposed to be keeping honest.
They put the blame – indirectly – on the SEC. The PCAOB has three missions: protecting investors, keeping markets running smoothly, and ensuring that businesses can raise capital. These missions come into conflict. For example, declaring one of the Big Four auditors ineligible would throw markets into chaos, removing a quarter of the auditing capacity that all public firms rely on. The Big Four are the auditors for 99.7% of the S&P 500, and certify the books for the majority of all listed companies:
https://blog.auditanalytics.com/audit-fee-trends-of-sp-500/
For the first two decades of the PCAOB's existence, the SEC insisted that conflicts be resolved in ways that let the auditing firms commit fraud, because the alternative would be bad for the market.
So: rather than cultivating an adversarial relationship to the Big Four, the PCAOB effectively merged with them. Two of its board seats are reserved for accountants, and those two seats have been occupied by Big Four veterans almost without exception:
https://www.pogo.org/investigations/captured-financial-regulator-at-risk
It was no better on the SEC side. The Office of the Chief Accountant is the SEC's overseer for the PCAOB, and it, too, has operated with a revolving door between the Big Four and their watchdog (indeed, the Chief Accountant is the watchdog for the watchdog for the watchdogs!). Meanwhile, staffers from the Office of the Chief Accountant routinely rotated out of government service and into the Big Four.
This corrupt arrangement reached a crescendo in 2019, with the appointment of William Duhnke – formerly of Senator Richard Shelby's [R-AL] staff – took over as Chief Accountant. Under Duhnke's leadership, the already-toothless watchdog was first neutered, then euthanized. Duhnke fired all four heads of the PCAOB's main division and then left their seats vacant for 18 months. He slashed the agency's budget, "weakened inspection requirements and auditor independence policies, and disregarded obligations to hold Board meetings and publicize its agenda."
All that ended in 2021, when SEC chair Gary Gensler fired Duhnke and replaced him with Erica Williams, at the insistence of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Within a year, Williams had issued 42 enforcement actions, the largest number since 2017, levying over $11m in sanctions:
https://www.dlapiper.com/en/insights/publications/2023/01/pcaob-sets-aggressive-agenda-for-2023-what-to-expect-as-agency-enforcement-expands
She was just getting warmed up: last year, PCAOB collected $20m in fines, with five cases seeing fines in excess of $2m each, a record:
https://www.dlapiper.com/en/insights/publications/2024/01/pcaobs-enforcement-and-standard-setting-rev-up-what-to-expect-in-2024
Williams isn't shy about condemning the Big Four, publicly sounding the alarm that 40% of the 2022 audits the PCAOB reviewed were deficient, up from 34% in 2021 and 29% in 2020:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-audit-the-auditors-and-we-found-trouble-accountability-capital-markets-c5587f05
Under Williams, the PCAOB has enacted new, muscular rules on lead auditors' duties, and they're now consulting on a rule that will make audit inspections much faster, shortening the documentation period from 45 days to 14:
https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/news/pcaob-rulemaking-could-lead-to-more-timely-issuance-of-audit-inspection-reports/
Williams is no fire-breathing leftist. She's an alum of the SEC and a BigLaw firm, creating modest, obvious technical improvements to a key system that capitalism requires for its orderly functioning. Moreover, she is competent, able to craft regulations that are effective and enforceable. This has been a motif within the Biden administration:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff
But though these improvements are decidedly moderate, they are grounded in a truly radical break from business-as-usual in the age of monopoly auditors. It's a transition from self-regulation to regulation. As @40_Years on Twitter so aptly put it: "Self regulation is to regulation as self-importance is to importance":
https://twitter.com/40_Years/status/1750025605465178260
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Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28 - THIS SUNDAY!) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/26/noclar-war/#millionaire-on-billionaire-violence
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Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!
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Image: Sam Valadi (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/17086570218/
Disco Dan (modified)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/danhogbenspics/8318883471/
CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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olderthannetfic · 6 months
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This might be an odd or personal question, but could I ask how you started knitting and where you started as a beginner? Or what would you recommend? I’ve tried to join clubs and groups irl, but there’s so much drama and gossiping. When I said I didn’t want to take part in that aspect, they started ostracizing and gossiping about me. Any websites, yt channels or books you’d recommend for a beginner?
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Haha.
My friend, this does not even register on the scale of deeply personal or odd questions people have sent me.
I've been trying to remember exactly how I started and why (like, even before this ask). I think it was on a family vacation to Scotland the summer before I started college. That would have been in 1999.
I taught myself from one of those awful 90s pamphlets with the line drawings. They're a nightmare compared to being able to see someone do the motions in person or even in a video. I had some awful plastic needles and no guidance on yarn and just knit with what I found at some shop there. Do not recommend!
I achieved what I wanted during college, which was to make a nice cable-knit sweater that I still wear, and then I got frustrated with crappy acrylic yarn and drifted away from knitting until a year or so ago.
The fact is, I basically didn't do beginner projects. I moved straight from making one rectangle to making grandiose sweaters or whatever else struck my fancy. (But if you want to know, I was using Viking Patterns for Knitting and a bunch of Alice Starmore books, all of which you can still buy.) I know plenty of people who did it this way, but you certainly don't have to.
And you definitely don't need to learn from a terrible 90s printed pamphlet!
Luckily, nowadays, you can find a tutorial on just about anything on Youtube. I enjoy watching the technical and historical types discuss quirks of knitting you might not think of without years of practice or research.
Roxanne Richardson is great, for example.
Look for somebody old, not wearing a lot of makeup, and not talking about their indie dyeing/yarn business and you'll avoid most of the clowns who learned to knit five minutes ago and now want to be knitfluencers.
When I want a super simple technique tutorial, I usually end up looking at either Nimble Needles or VeryPink Knits. I find her super annoying, but her tutorials are spot-on. Norman's voice is much more soothing and I just enjoy his presence more, but both of them have good ultra close-up shots of what they're doing (which lots of vloggers don't because it requires special equipment).
I'd just figure out what kind of finished products you want to use knitting for and then find patterns and tutorials geared towards those.
Cables are relatively easy. Stranded colorwork requires a fair amount of physical coordination and some people find it rather difficult at first.
Circular needles are far more popular than traditional straight ones for people starting today.
Cotton yarn is relatively less nice to knit with than wool for most people, but it tends to be the natural fiber available at a low price point from major retailers.
Picking up general tips like that by watching various youtubers will help you pick a project that won't be too painful to work on.
People who naturally knit loosely should consider grippy bamboo or wooden needles. People who naturally knit tightly should consider slippery metal ones.
My biggest piece of advice is that you're usually better off with something "hard" that you actually like rather than a "practice" project you don't care about, at least after you've made like one rectangle to practice doing a knit stitch at all.
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Finding community can be hard, and yes, some crafting hobbies are infested with drama.
But if you just want to know how to knit, you're way better off with some video tutorials and a nice pattern you like.
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fuck-customers · 3 months
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I keep getting customers who want to be helpful and I really appreciate the sentiment, I do. I definitely prefer people who try to make my job easier or at least try not to actively make it harder vs. assholes who don't give a fuck about anyone but themselves. It gives me a tiny sliver of hope for humanity.
But most of the time when I have some overly "helpful" customer, their intentions are in the right place but they end up accidentally (or maybe purposely idk) making more work for me, such as wanting to put products they didn't want back on the shelf...but then put it on the wrong shelf. Or because I specifically work in the fabric department, I will have customers try to "help" me keep the fabric straight and still by putting their hands on the fabric and holding it down, despite me repeating that it's unnecessary and asking them to move their hands.
1. I know how to do my job and I very, very rarely incorrectly cut the fabric. And if I DO fuck up, I will gladly cut another piece to correct my mistake.
And 2. These scissors are VERY SHARP and while sometimes I may want to cut a customer, I will get in a lot of trouble for that and would like to avoid that situation, so...MOVE YOUR FUCKING FINGERS OUT OF THE WAY!
If your way of "helping" is just doing whatever YOU have decided is helpful and directly ignoring what the other person is saying would ACTUALLY help them, you're not actually helping and are honestly kind of an asshole, even if you didn't intend to be. This goes for life in general, not just retail, tbh.
Posted by admin Rodney.
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bajibitch · 10 months
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Working with them in retail.
Mitsuya, Haruchiyo, Muto, Ran, Manjiro, and Souya
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❀Mitsuya❀
It’s easy for him to get the position of a manager because he’s patient, understanding, and overall good at his job. He’s fine with your questions and doesn’t mind you going to him for help. If you don’t ask him things, he’ll check on you every once in a while.
When customers are upset just send them his way. He’s able to keep his composure and can handle whatever they try to throw at him. Even if you did make a mistake he doesn’t let them treat you horribly. Things happen and you’re human.
❀Haruchiyo❀
He’s there to make money, not friends. He doesn’t go out of his way to be rude, but he makes it clear that he doesn’t want you interrupting his work. Don’t talk his ear off while he’s stocking because he’ll report you. Since he’s been there longer, punctual, and a great worker, you’ll be fired if he goes to them more than once. Try talking to him when he’s on break.
If you annoy him while he’s at work he doesn’t help you out when a customer is upset. He finds amusement in your tears and frustration. It doesn’t help that his laugh can be heard from the other aisle. If you’re respectful of his boundaries he’ll ask the customer what they’re trying to do and take it from there.
❀Muto❀
Due to his stocky build, and how his coworkers act around him, the customers assume he's the manager. Even if they’re upset they avoid escalating the problem because of his stern resting face. His boss offers him the role of a manager but he refuses to take it. Muto doesn't want all the responsibilities that come with it. He wants to clock in and out.
He isn't social at first, but he gradually gets used to having conversations with you. He isn't shy, he just didn't think he’d like any of his coworkers.
❀Ran❀
He wants the job, it's easy, and the pay is good compared to the stores around him. The customers are the only setback. As a cashier, it‘s impossible to avoid rude, entitled people and he isn't one to persevere and let them say anything they want. And the customers hate that. He turns off his light when they start getting an attitude and tells them to go to the next lane, but if he’s the only cashier, he’ll just refuse to check them out even after they apologize.
He can be chatty, but he can take a hint. If you aren’t in the mood for it he’ll stop, but that never happens because he is unintentionally a gossip boy. He isn’t afraid of his coworkers hearing him spread their secrets or embarrassing moments. After seeing others fail to shut him up, they just take it in stride.
❀Manjiro❀
He doesn’t talk to anyone. The only time he’s speaking is when a customer asks for help. They’re nice to him because he looks younger than his actual age, but sometimes he does encounter rude ones. Rather than kick them into their graves, he just walks away and gets back to stocking. They can find someone who cares.
Please don’t try to talk to him. He isn’t gonna budge and he’s not taking food from you since he doesn’t know you. After the umpteenth time, he’ll be brutally honest and say the thought of being friends with a coworker doesn’t excite him. He’ll mention how he finds it irritating when you refuse to accept that not everyone wants to be your friend. Your stories of home make playing in traffic seem fun.
❀Souya❀
He's on his phone if it's a slow day since it means he won't have a lot of customers to check out. He doesn't mind if you want to chat, he loves talking about current movies and giving you new things to watch. His favorite thing to do is debate on which character was the strongest or fucked up. It never ends up being a serious debate, it’s all fun and games.
After dealing with his brothers, there’s nothing any customer can say that hurts him. With all the back and forth through the years, he knows how to end the arguments. It’s entertaining and cool how he treats it like a game, he’s often caught with a little smile on his face after the altercations.
Since you’re his new friend, he isn’t gonna let them talk to you any kind of way. Even if it happens to be your manager. He doesn’t care for the saying, I can’t stand up for you unless you do it yourself. People get inspired and find their voice when they see that they have someone in their corner.
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