#id dont want to have to lose my job and stability over this one person

[aresfms]

「 harry styles. cismale. he/him. 」i hope that #lexsquad member「 ARES BYERS 」adds me to the squad ! the 「 TWENTY THREE 」year old 「 FINANCE 」 major has been apart of the squad since 「 DECEMBER 2018 」and seems to be the 「 THE RECUSANT」of the group.「 ARES 」is a「 SENIOR 」 and seems to enjoy 「 BOXING AND SOCCER 」but you can always find them at a squad party , too !

listen don’t say i didn’t warn you, this is a lil long. but if you guys are interested in any connections ( scroll down to the end for some ideas ) then pls hit me up. im so ready.

okay basically i’ll do a summary in case y’all dont wanna read his SAD story. tw: domestic abuse, abandonment, alcohol abuse. 

Summary: ARES BYERS, 23, SENIOR.

A finance major at LexU.

He’s currently doing both soccer and boxing, but soccer would be for his athletic scholarship. ( he has a full ride )

Boxing would definitely be like more of an anger relief thing and honestly, he defs loves soccer but he knows he can’t rely on that for a forever thing. plus he defs things boxing is good money, yknow that side hustle illegal shit

Loves art like a lot.

 He visits his siblings probably every other day or whenever he can because he really is so protective of them or he’d even bring them to campus all the time even though his “ step dad” hates it.

His relationship with his mum is still super strained because she really is in denial about her toxic abusive situation with his “step dad”  and hes trying to tell her hes going to get her out and she just does not want to.

His mum is an alcoholic and his stepdad is physically abusive to them like most of her past partners which is something ares has been dealing with since he was a child.

hes solely doing finance to get a good job to get his mum and siblings out of the situation theyre in now.

he wants sole custody of his 3 siblings but i mean, he needs a stable job and place to live aka finance

 has 3 younger sisters who he adores.

HISTORY STUFF ( YIKES SOZ ) Its long everybody.

 He was born to teenage parents who hadn’t even graduated high school yet. They had a pretty tumultuous situation and his dad really didn’t think they should have a kid, but his mum thought that it would bring them closer together and make his dad mature…. Which definitely didn’t end up happening.

once Ares was born his dad stuck around for about a year or two before basically abandoning them and offering to give up parental rights to his mum Alycia.

That’s when things basically just went downhill. It really messed with his mum, obviously she was supporting ares on her own with no support from anyone, no family and very little money, at the time she had been trying to go to school but had to give that up once she was the sole provider for Ares. And the fact that someone she thought was going to be her partner abandoned her just led her down a pretty dark path.

It was just his mum and him after this. There wasn’t a lot of stability for them. His mum for a while was the only family he had. his grandma wasn’t really very supportive of his mum having the baby and living with his dad etc and they’re relationship was quite strained too.

• By the time Ares was about 12 he was already probably mature beyond his years, his mum by then had basically gave herself up to alcohol and had some pretty bad shady boyfriends in the house. Ares would definitely still vividly remember like explosive fights between her and boyfriends where things got physical between them and even to Ares from multiple different boyfriends.

His schooling was just.. a mess he definitely repeated a grade or two because of the commotion of home life.

Regardless though he was still VERY protective of his mum even if he felt pretty abandoned by her, he was just confused why she was letting these people come around when they were better on just the two of them. But that really didn’t last long, his mum ended up having multiple other kids with different people.

 So he has Maeva, Orion and Lea who are his half siblings and theyre all under 12.

I  think he definitely grew up faster than most because he always felt an urge to protect his mum and his siblings now especially. he worried about them all. He was definitely an anxious kid.

• His mum ended up marrying but honestly Ares couldn’t hate his stepfather more. He would refuse and still does refuse to call him dad or stepdad because he truly thinks he’s a piece of shit. Like he knows he treats his mum like shit and hes had no problem being physical with the both of them and once ares got old enough he really did start fighting back which only made it worse.

There’s probably been multiple times where its been ares calling the police on him after he fought with his mum but as usual his mum always takes his side which honestly fucked ares up constantly but eventually as soon as he could he was working even at like 13/14 because he was desperate to save money thinking he could help his family get out of the fucking mess they were in.

 His number one priority is and will always be his mum and his sisters even though deep down I think he has some kind of resentment towards his mum he’ll always love her. He just wishes that she would take his side especially against his “ step dad”

Basically though once he was about that age he realised he really needed to start focusing on school, grades and sport anything he could so he had some kind of chance to get into a good uni and get his family out of everything. Like he knew he’d need somewhere he could get a full ride since theyd never be able to afford it and somewhere still nearby so he could look after his sisters still.

 His stepdad knew though that ares was working even when he wasn’t supposed to be and he really took advantage of that, he was definitely beyond lazy and ares basically always felt more of a parent to his sister than anyone else.

 So basically he ended up graduating – late however he was 19 when he graduated high school because of repeats and luckily enough he got a full ride to Lexington university and he really took it within a heartbeat. He ended up choosing finance not because its anything he’s interested in but because he wanted something that would pay really well so he can support his family, but he knew he didn’t have 8 years to do medical school etc.

Personality:

 he can have a shitty attitude won’t lie, like he’s very focused and set on what he wants and needs to do and he wants no one getting in the way of that.

He’s super into boxing to release a lot of the pent up anger he obviously feels and really because he wanted to know how to fight back all the assholes his mum had in his life.

He is can be extroverted and talkative but I think with the people who aren’t close to him or to people he doesn’t have a real trust in it’s probably a pretty surface level. Its never about his family or past in fact I think that part would be something very few if any people know about.

his sisters aka his pride and joy, he probs has pictures of them in his wallet.

He likes to keep things light hearted as a distraction from himself but he definitely doesn’t let people in easily.

He really tries to avoid confrontation because it’s so triggering to him but he does have a temper which is what scares him. He is like paranoid he’s going to become a product of his environment so he goes against that as much as he can but if people come for his family or anything he would lose it.

Can be aloof.

 Has a hard time trusting anyone has good motives or will stick around because of much he’s been abandoned and how manipulative the people in his mums were.

He’s cynical.

 He really holds onto grudges pretty easily.

His ass is pretty sarcastic and witty, a huge smart ass.

 He’s not into commitment right now or he’s avoiding. Like the only examples he’s ever seen of relationships have been a mess and it’s not exactly his priority. ( but lbr  whats the fun in that. )

 He tries to abstain from alcohol but he finds that pretty hard. When he does he tends to drink pretty heavily which is why he tries not to because he knows it obviously has caused his mum so much grief.

 Hes an escapist.

 He’s really super protective though, of the people he does have in his life I think he really wants to give those people the things he didn’t have so he overcompensates and would literally fight whatever or whoever for the people around him.

he hates authority.

•He definitely is really big into art but that’s also something really personal he doesn’t share much and he knows like that isn’t going to provide for his family which is exactly why he's done finance.

Connections:

MY FAVE PART!!!

Long lost half sibling aka the child his dad had after he abandoned him

Someone who is a super good influence on his sisters ( id die for this.. )

Strangers who found out they were hooking up with the same person then became friends or enemies. ( my man a nastie sometimes. )

A FWB someone he can mess with and end up talk a little deeply with bc they think its not serious.

ANYONE who is a kid of one of his mums exes, like someone she dated, bc whew why not.

a rebound, someone he used to try to get over his ex!!

a fucking roomie plssss :) ( or past roomie, he lived off campus for 3 years so defs room for multiples ) this person rlly saw... everything

someone who went on a couple dates/ messed around but then realised omg we’d be so much better off as friends, somoene who rlly has each others back.

ooo someone who has an unrequited crush on him

Or someone he hates but yknow someone who he has mad sexual tension with ( hate meaning they lowkey would ravage each other )

One of his close confidants, someone who is basically one of the few people he can confide in.

An “ex “ who he broke up without much explanation.

His dealer ( smh im the worst )

Some co workers that has his back.

Potentially someone he’s fought against esp someone who does boxing too. es

Someone on his soccer team.

he very into art, so potentially someone who he might connect or do that with, he defs shows stuff sometimes but VVVV rarely.

someone he maybe wasnt that close w/ but he knows from back home so they’d suspect about his home life and he just is not having the prying :)

Honestly any connections im down. THE USUAL, bestfriends, etc etc

#lex.intro #OMG guys bring me like any connections #bc all i live for. is that and drama #:)

[losangelesvalorant]

interesting things from tactical crouch’s interview w fusion assistant coach chrisTFer on 1/21

christfer talks abt hero bans, why fusion underperformed in s2, and why their roster is what it is. ill update this post w the youtube link once its out

On hero bans

Christfer thinks hero bans would change EVERYTHING, every team would have to be able to think on the fly, strong ingame leadership, makes coaches' jobs a lot harder, have to practice every hero on every map. you'd have to coach fundamentals into players a lot more and more focus on quickly IDing win conditions and the enemy gameplan. very seriously hopes they aren't gonna drop it this season

if the goal is to have genuine diversity in hero pool, bans is the way to achieve that, but christfer thinks itll fuck up the competitiveness, level of play will go down. but any aspect that helps spectators is better for league overall

volamel thinks hero bans will excite and drive the audience bc banning players specific heroes would be hype as fuck. lotta strategy, lots of analysis. however he's skeptical bc if it happens midseason it's gonna fuck over coaches

christfer thinks if theyre gonna do it they gotta do it today. there's no other good time

yiska thinks it would be bad to implement it midseason bc the # of games teams play across the season is sooo spread out. teams have different amts of games every month

on why fusion underperformed in s2

Internally, fusion was kinda "naive" coming into s2, thought they were the 2nd best team and acted as if they were 2nd best. rarely felt happiness after scrims bc theyre "supposed" to be winning all the scrims. losing scrims also was hugely negative for the same reason

smaller roster makes it harder to kick people into gear, so lack of motivation was a big thing. they were just waiting for goats to die

thought goats wouldnt continue into s2, stage 4 was where they finally got motivation, fusion never completely understood the goats style of play or the fundamentals goats taught teams, they lost games they shouldnt have as a result. Not one big issue, lots of small issues

fusion held themselves to such high expectations that when they failed them and weren't enjoying the game as much so morale fell. (paraphrased) "as long as my players enjoy playing the game, it makes my job easier"

Christfer says fusion changed a lot for playins, changed coaching structure, overwhelmingly positive result. best theyd looked all season

shanghai had very particular strengths on certain maps. fusion was winning brawl comps vs brawl comps. got nervous and dropped maps they were supposed to take, but theyd given away too many of "their" maps to be able to lose shanghai's maps. 

felt like they hit the ground running on playins, but other teams levelled up across playins and christfer believed other teams wouldve developed more than they would have

even if coaching wasnt problem if team is in a slump you need new coaches to re-fire everyone up, which is what happened w fusion. 

on carpe and sado

carpe was able to play heroes he excelled at in s1, in s2 zarya was entirely different in elements of what makes a player good at the hero. carpe holds himself to a very, very high standard and playing zarya killed his morale because he wasn't so good at it. christfer considers it a failing of himself as a coach that he didn't help carpe work through that more

nobody on the team is worried about carpe’s performance. Christfer confirmed carpe wont play if he isnt up to standard (in response to reddit worrying abt how long his contract is and how much sway he has over coaches)

christfer is very upset about how people treat sado. sado is the "single nicest person you will ever meet." every single player/coach had 1 on 1s with tucker, everyone said they wanted to keep playing with sado. yiska emphasized how important it is that every player on the team wanted to keep playing sado bc for example eqo and carpe want to win more than anything and if they thought sado was the problem they absolutely wouldve said so

Other teams came to fusion wanting to sign sado

christfer said sado wasnt the greatest main tank player last year, but playing rein in a "dysfunctional" team makes the rein player look bad. 

christfer thinks this is the "season of sado." has complete faith in him

the complaints abt sado’s rein "[he] can understand," says to remember sado had never played pro before s1. he doesn't have as much competitive exp which hits him hard but he's grown wildly in the last year. 

sado's ability to hit every halt at the right time is incredible. compares him to alarm in how good his instincts are. excellent player in a team environment, kinda a big brother to some of the players on the team, sado is very important to the team

christfer agrees that if meta shifts and sado is sick, theres a problem, but says this is not a problem unique to fusion

on fusion’s new acquisitions

heesu surprised christfer the most. he’s “very, very, very very, very good.” hungry to learn, easy to talk to, they got a very good deal and christfer is surprised more teams didn't try to get him

heesu has a lot of respect for carpe, heesu said its a + for him to work under carpe

theyre trying to scrim w heesu daily, sounds like they intend to play him if the opportunity presents itself. excellent signing theyre very happy abt

the point of the chipsa signing was that they didnt need a 5th dps, their lineup is already perfect, they had to find someone that "made sense" from many levels. wanted a specialist. Christfer thinks chipsa understands the raw mechanics of doom better than any owl players, thinks he could legit play in a doom meta. also thinks chipsa could teach eqo doom in a doom meta. chipsa provides advertisement, no need for scrimming with him. if the situation is right he can play and if he's not playing he provides income, publicity, etc. christfer again restated he was originally against the signing. when tucker explained why hed be signed, christfer came around to the idea

having 2 way players is a headache in christfers opinion, so that was another reason why they didnt pick up a contenders player instead of chipsa.

chipsa has not had a scrim yet because he’s not in philly bc visa stuff, but christfer did not clarify whether or not he will scrim. 

of all players signed, funnyastro was by far the most in demand. they had to fight for him, almost every team wanted him. he's a "sponge" where he remembers whatever coaches tell him, incredibly coachable, very mature for his age, needs to adjust his playstyle a bit to fit into the team (bc he's going for plays he shouldnt sometimes) but if they can "tune him back" a bit hes great. want to find a middle ground bc astro's ability to kill everything and doing his job (brought up moth as the "glue guy" who enables everyone by doing his job perfectly)

alarm has insane awareness, has natural affinity for positioning, understands ovw instinctively. zero attitude issues, the nicest/perfect teammate. "the whole package."

yiska said ivy has a "special type of character," quickly clarified that it’s not a “problematic” character, but needs a dif type of coaching (christfer agreed)

thinks things got difficult for ivy on toronto bc he was moving roles so much, kdg puts a lot of stock into him, a lot of kr players do too. people from toronto think ivy is insane mechanically. volamel thinks ivy should have been toronto's standout

fury wasnt signed bc of bad synergy btween sado and poko. poko wasnt the problem. fusion is very serious abt winning everything and fury is a statement of that intent. fury/poko cover every base

on new coaches

Christfer really respects seita and kdg, happy to have gotten them. has worked w both of them in the past, considers kdg similar to crusty. they signed kdg like the second he became available, christfer asked for him specifically. 

seita will stay remote 

yiska says mobydik is nuts in terms of game knowledge. Christfer agreed, says he thinks abt the game in a very unique way, outside of the box

misc

Fusion has a system where all 3 supports are rotating in the current meta. nobody is benched. had main support play bap originally when bootcamping, but theres places u can play 2 flex sups, so fusion has a lot of flexibility. who plays depends on situations where you can always play zen/bap vs where you might have to flex to lucio

Christfer thinks main sups doing calling/single caller system is a bit outdated and more of a western concept, trying to build comm system where everyone communicates, everyone calls their own ults. can have ingame leaders, but wants everyone to call what they need to call. in this meta everyone has to make the plays and call their own ults bc its split second and only the person w the ult can see the optimal situation

Christfer thinks the positions where you need stability in ovw is main tank and main support. subbing dps players in and out is fine but you need consistency at mt and ms. 

really really think they dont need to fill their last roster spot

Christfer calls this season a "rebuild season" for fusion. if they dont do well this year christfer thinks it would be the fault of the coaches. too much talent to fuck it up. 

not taking home a title is not exactly a failure, but anything within the top 4 fusion is happy with

#notes #these r barely edited so if theyre incomprehensible thats why

[ronaldmrashid]

Productive Things To Do If You’ve Been Furloughed With Back Pay

One of the greatest benefits of full-time work is getting paid whether you work or not. I miss that.

How awesome is it to paid when there is a snow day? How good does it feel when you’re out sick for a week and the paycheck continues to roll in? When you’re sipping Mai Tais on the beach thanks to your four weeks of paid time off plus national holidays, life is pretty good!

Now imagine if you got furloughed for a month or more during the holiday season. What a wonderful opportunity to spend time with the people that matter the most to you.

Although you miss the bi-weekly paychecks, you’ll eventually get paid once the government reopens for business. Almost all government workers got paid during the previous government shutdown. Expect the situation to be no different during the 2019 shutdown.

Now compare this work and pay situation with that of an entrepreneur or freelancer. If the entrepreneur doesn’t work, and if his or her employees don’t work, the entrepreneur does not get paid. Entrepreneurs don’t have a safety net as their full-time colleagues do. And therefore entrepreneurs must always have contingency plans.

In 2018, I got something worse than a furlough. I freelanced the entire month of October but didn’t get paid because the company I partnered with decided not to pay their contractors. But not to worry, the company paid all its employees for the work they did in October and provided 1-2 weeks of severance pay.

Freelancers like myself, however, got screwed.

So you see, if you are furloughed with back pay without having to work, life could always be worse. Therefore, it’s always good to focus on the positives and take every opportunity to do good.

In my case, I took my October robbery and decided to aggressively diversify my clientele. Further, I now insist on more upfront payment just in case. And don’t worry about me. I have plans to make them pay me what they owe. Nobody ever welches on a Financial Samurai and gets away with it.

Productive Things To Do If You’ve Been Furloughed

1) Spend time with your family. The #1 complaint working people have is their inability to find work-life balance. It’s usually the case where the complainer is working too much and feels guilty about not seeing enough of his or her family.

Well now is the time to spend quality time with your family even if it’s for no other reason than you have nothing else better to do. When your kids flee the nest or your parents pass away, you will regret having not spent more time with them. 

2) Do a deep dive into your finances. Most people set it and forget it when it comes to their finances. Use this time to discuss your budget, your expenses, your savings rate, and your financial goals with your partner or family members. Make adjustments as you see fit. Managing your wealth should become routine, like brushing your teeth.  

After a tremendous recovery since 2009, you may want to spend more time protecting your capital. What a shame it would be to make so much money only to lose it all. 

3) Start the side hustle you’ve been putting off forever. A furlough is a good reminder of how dangerous it is to depend on only one source of income. The key to financial security is to generate as many income streams as possible so that if one goes down, your team of other income sources can keep you afloat.

The average financially independent person has at least five different sources of income. Meanwhile, no one income source accounts for more than 40% of their entire income. It’s important to build new sources of active and passive income to truly be free. 

4) Brand yourself online with a website. During times of uncertainty, you want to plant your own flag on the internet. The law of attraction dictates that if you put yourself out there, other people with similar interests will come.

Don’t let the big social media sites own your brand. They’ve already gotten filthy rich off you in the process. Build your own internet brand and get rich off yourself. 

5) Take an affordable local vacation. Given you don’t know exactly when the furlough or financial troubles will end, you probably don’t want to take an international vacation or a vacation that is hard to get to. Instead, consider vacations within a five-hour drive so that you can return to work more easily. 

6) Follow up with neglected friends and family. There is undoubtedly a long lost friend you haven’t contacted for at least a year because life gets in the way. Make a list of three people whom you used to have great relationships with and reach out. Use this time to meet up and get reacquainted.

Happiness is all about having a good network of people you enjoy and trust. If you want to increase your happiness, work on building your relationships. 

7) Look for a new job. If you’re furloughed or your company is going through financial difficulties, you should probably aggressively start looking for new work opportunities before things get worse. A furlough of any kind means there is serious dysfunction.

Getting ahead of the curve will likely increase your chances of finding new work. Just like negotiating a severance before mass layoffs will likely not only garner you a bigger severance and more job choices. 

8) Build a larger emergency fund. Most people shouldn’t feel too much anxiety during a furlough because most last no more than one or two months. Further, if you’re going to get your pay eventually, covering a couple months worth of expenses shouldn’t be that excruciating.

However, if you are feeling anxious, then it’s important to not only build new income streams, but also ratchet up your savings so you won’t feel the same level of anxiety during the next emergency. Bad things happen all the time, so it’s wise to have at least six months of liquid living expenses liquid at any given moment. 

9) Work on neglected house projects. Houses, cars, and machines tend to get neglected over time because we’re too busy doing other things. Use the furlough to fix broken items around the house, clean up the yard, change your house filters, clean the gutters, tune up the car, and grease those old tools. You’ll feel great catching up with all the deferred maintenance. You’ll likely save money in the long run as well. 

10) Pretend you’ve retired early. If you’ve ever wanted to test drive early retirement life, now is the time to pretend you are retired. See how life is like without a steady paycheck. Record your feelings, good and bad.

If you’re feeling great during the furlough, then you just might be closer to retirement than you realize. If you feel incredibly anxious because of financial worry and you also don’t know what to do with your free time, you should probably keep on working. 

Make The Best Of Difficult Situations

When we were growing up, we’d get three months of summer vacation and at least two weeks off for winter vacation to unwind. Once we started work, long vacations became a thing of the past.

Over time, we lose our physical and mental health. Stress starts building up inside our increasingly overweight bodies. Our minds start to deteriorate as we don’t give our minds enough time to reset through meditation and creative work.

Take advantage of a furlough. Use this time off to unwind.

Life is never going to go exactly the way we planned. But we can always take some action to improve our chances for a better life.

If I ever get the opportunity to be furloughed from a job with back pay, I’d use part of the time off to catch up with my family. Then I’d use the rest of the time off to aggressively look for more meaningful work with more stability.

I won’t be beholden to the government or to a single company for money. It’s just too risky not to diversify my income streams.

Related:

Retirement Savings By Age Show Why Americans Are Screwed

How To Be A Rockstar Freelancer And Get Paid More Than A Day Jobber

How To Negotiate A Severance As A High Performing Employee

What are some things you’d do if you got furloughed? Would you be OK to miss a couple paychecks so long as you eventually got paid? Will a furlough help motivate hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people to bolster their finances so that they can better withstand another financial delay the next time around? What do you think it will take for people to save more and diversify their income streams?

The post Productive Things To Do If You’ve Been Furloughed With Back Pay appeared first on Financial Samurai.

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