#IT sector recruitment process

[banglakhobor]

কমছে চাকরির সুযোগ! ঘোর 'সঙ্কট' IT সেক্টরে, ভেসে থেকে আসছে খারাপ খবর

নিউ দিল্লি: দেশে সর্বাধিক সংখ্যক চাকরি প্রদানকারী আইটি সেক্টরগুলি বর্তমানে বেশ চ্যালেঞ্জিং পরিস্থিতিতে রয়েছে। গত এক বছর ধরে তথ্যপ্রযুক্তি খাতের কোম্পানিগুলো ছাঁটাই ও নিয়োগ সংক্রান্ত বিভিন্ন কৌশল গ্রহণ করেছে। ভবিষ্যতেও এর প্রভাব পড়তে পারে। একটি প্রতিবেদনে বলা হয়েছে, আইটি কোম্পানিগুলো চলতি আর্থিক বছরে নিয়োগ অনেক কমিয়েছে এবং ভবিষ্যতেও একই ধরনের পরিস্থিতির সম্ভাবনা রয়েছে। প্রতিবেদনে বলা হয়েছে,…

[hallsara139]

According to our latest market study on “Personality Assessment Solutions Market Forecast to 2028 – COVID-19 Impact and Global Analysis – by Delivery Model and End-User,” the Personality Assessment Solutions Market Size is expected to grow from US$ 7,421.59 million in 2021 to US$ 16,461.43 million by 2028; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.1% from 2021 to 2028.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Intuit: “Our fraud fights racism”

Tonight (September 27), I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine. On October 2, I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab.

Today's key concept is "predatory inclusion": "a process wherein lenders and financial actors offer needed services to Black households but on exploitative terms that limit or eliminate their long-term benefits":

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2329496516686620

Perhaps you recall predatory inclusion from the Great Financial Crisis, when predatory subprime mortgages with deceptive teaser rates were foisted on Black homeowners (who were eligible for better mortgages), resulting in a wave of Black home theft in the foreclosure crisis:

https://prospect.org/justice/staggering-loss-black-wealth-due-subprime-scandal-continues-unabated/

Before these loans blew up, they were styled as a means of creating Black intergenerational wealth through housing speculation. They turned out to be a way to suck up Black families' savings before rendering them homeless and forcing them into houses owned by the Wall Street slumlords who bought all the housing stock the Great Financial Crisis put on the market:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

That was just an update on an old con: the "home sale contract," invented by loan-sharks who capitalized on redlining to rip off Black families. Back when banks and the US government colluded to deny mortgages to Black households, sleazy lenders created the "contract loan," which worked like a mortgage, but if you were late on a single payment, the lender could seize and sell your home and not pay you a dime – even if the house was 99% paid for:

https://socialequity.duke.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Plunder-of-Black-Wealth-in-Chicago.pdf

Usurers and con-artists love to style themselves as anti-racists, seeking to "close the racial wealth gap." The payday lending industry – whose triple-digit interest rates trap poor people in revolving debt that they can never pay off – styles itself as a force for racial justice:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/29/planned-obsolescence/#academic-fraud

Payday lenders prey on poor people, and in America, "poor" is often a euphemism for "Black." Payday lenders disproportionately harm Black families:

https://ung.edu/student-money-management-center/money-minute/racial-wealth-gap-payday-loans.php

Payday lenders are just unlicensed banks, who deploy a layer of bullshit to claim that they don't have to play by the rules that bind the rest of the finance sector. This scam is so juicy that it spawned the fintech industry, in which a bunch of unregulated banks sprung up to claim that they were too "innovative" to be regulated:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/01/usury/#tech-exceptionalism

When you hear "Fintech," think "unlicensed bank." Fintech turned predatory inclusion into a booming business, recruiting Black spokespeople to claim that being the sucker at the table in the cryptocurrency casino was actually a form of racial justice:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/business/media/cryptocurrency-seeks-the-spotlight-with-spike-lees-help.html

But not all predatory inclusion is financial. Take Facebook Basics, Meta's "poor internet for poor people" program. Facebook partnered with telcos in the Global South to rig their internet access. These "zero rating" programs charged subscribers by the byte to reach any service except Facebook and its partners. Facebook claimed that this would "bridge the digital divide," by corralling "the next billion internet users" into using its services.

The fact that this would make "Facebook" synonymous with "the internet" was just an accidental, regrettable side-effect. Naturally, this was bullshit from top to bottom, and the countries where zero-rating was permitted ended up having more expensive wireless broadband than the countries that banned it:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/countries-zero-rating-have-more-expensive-wireless-broadband-countries-without-it

The predatory inclusion gambit is insultingly transparent, but that doesn't stop desperate scammers from trying it. The latest chancer is Intuit, who claim that the end of its decade-long, wildly profitable "free tax prep" scam is bad for Black people:

https://www.propublica.org/article/turbotax-intuit-black-taxpayers-irs-free-file-marketing

Some background. In nearly every rich country on Earth, the tax authorities send every taxpayer a pre-filled tax return, based on the information submitted by employers, banks, financial planners, etc. If that looks good to you, you just sign it and send it back. Otherwise, you can amend it, or just toss it in the trash and pay a tax-prep specialist to produce your own return.

But in America, taxpayers spend billions every year to send forms to the IRS that tell it things it already knows. To make this ripoff seem fair, the hyper-concentrated tax-prep industry, led by the Intuit, creators of Turbotax, pretended to create a program to provide free tax-prep to working people.

This program was called Free File, and it was a scam. The tax-prep cartel each took a different segment of Americans who were eligible for Freefile and then created an online house of mirrors that would trick those people into spending hours working on their tax-returns until they were hit with an error message falsely claiming they were ineligible for the free service and demanding hundreds of dollars to file their returns.

Intuit were world champions at this scam. They blocked their Freefile offering from search-engine crawlers and then bought ads that showed up when searchers typed "freefile" into the query box that led them to deceptively named programs that had "free" in their names but cost a fortune to use – more than you'd pay for a local CPA to file on your behalf.

The Attorneys General of nearly every US state and territory eventually sued Intuit over this, settling for $141m:

https://www.agturbotaxsettlement.com/Home/portalid/0

The FTC is still suing them over it:

https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/192-3119-intuit-inc-matter-turbotax

We have to rely on state AGs and the FTC to bring Intuit to justice because every Intuit user clicks through an agreement in which we permanently surrender our right to sue the company, no matter how many laws it breaks. For corporate criminals, binding arbitration waivers are the gift that keeps on giving:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/24/uber-for-arbitration/#nibbled-to-death-by-ducks

Even as the scam was running out, Intuit spent millions lobby-blitzing Congress, desperate for action that would let it continue to privately tax the nation for filling in forms that – once again – told the IRS things it already knew. They really love the idea of paying taxes on paying your taxes:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/20/turbotaxed/#counter-intuit

But they failed. The IRS has taken Freefile in-house, will send you a pre-completed tax return if you want it. This should be the end of the line for Intuit and other tax-prep profiteers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/17/free-as-in-freefile/#tell-me-something-i-dont-know

Now we're at the end of the line for the scam, Intuit is playing the predatory inclusion card. They're conning Black newspapers like the Chicago Defender into running headlines like "IRS Free Tax Service Could Further Harm Blacks,"

https://defendernetwork.com/news/opinion/irs-free-tax-service-could-further-harm-blacks/

The only named source in that article? Intuit spokesperson Derrick Plummer. The article went out on the country's Black newswire Trice Edney, whose editor-in-chief did not respond to Propublica's Paul Kiel's questions.

Then Black Enterprise got in on the game, publishing "Critics Claim The IRS Free Tax Prep Service Could Hurt Black Americans." Once again, the only named source for the article was Plummer, who was "quoted at length." Black Enterprise declined to tell Kiel where that article came from:

https://www.blackenterprise.com/critics-claim-the-irs-free-tax-prep-service-could-hurt-black-americans/

For Intuit, placing op-eds is a tried-and-true tactic for laundering its ripoffs into respectability. Leaked internal Intuit memos detail the company's strategy of "pushing back through op-eds" to neutralize critics:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483061-Intuit-TurboTax-2014-15-Encroachment-Strategy.html

Intuit spox Derrick Plummer did respond to Kiel's queries, denying that Intuit was paying for these op-eds, saying "with an idea as bad as the Direct File scheme we don’t have to pay anyone to talk about how terrible it is."

Meanwhile, ex-NAACP director (and No Labels co-chair) Benjamin Chavis has used his position atop the National Newspaper Publishers Association to publish op-eds against the IRS Direct File program, citing the Progressive Policy Institute, a pro-business thinktank that Intuit's internal documents describe as part of its "coalition":

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6483061-Intuit-TurboTax-2014-15-Encroachment-Strategy.html

Chavis's Chicago Tribune editorial claimed that Direct File could cause Black filers to miss out on tax-credits they are entitled to. This is a particularly ironic claim given Intuit's prominent role in sabotaging the Child Tax Credit, a program that lifted more Americans out of poverty than any other in history:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/29/three-times-is-enemy-action/#ctc

It's also an argument that can be found in Intuit's own anti-Direct File blog posts:

https://www.intuit.com/blog/innovative-thinking/taxpayer-empowerment/intuit-reinforces-its-commitment-to-fighting-for-taxpayers-rights/

The claim is that because the IRS disproportionately audits Black filers (this is true), they will screw them over in other ways. But Evelyn Smith, co-author of the study that documented the bias in auditing says this is bullshit:

https://siepr.stanford.edu/publications/working-paper/measuring-and-mitigating-racial-disparities-tax-audits

That's because these audits of Black households are triggered by the IRS's focus on Earned Income Tax Credits, a needlessly complicated program available to low-income (and hence disproportionately Black) workers. The paperwork burden that the IRS heaps on EITC recipients means that their returns contain errors that trigger audits.

As Smith told Propublica, "With free, assisted filing, we might expect EITC claimants to make fewer mistakes and face less intense audit scrutiny, which could help reduce disparities in audit rates between Black and non-Black taxpayers."

Meanwhile, the predatory inclusion talking points continue to proliferate. Nevada accountants and the state's former controller somehow coincidentally managed to publish op-eds with nearly identical wording. Phillip Austin, vice-chair of Arizon's East Valley Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, claims that free IRS tax prep "would disproportionately hurt the Hispanic community." Austin declined to tell Propublica how he came to that conclusion.

Right-wing think-tanks are pumping out a torrent of anti-Direct File disinfo. This surely has nothing to do with the fact that, for example, Center Forward has HR Block's chief lobbyist on its board:

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4125481-direct-e-file-wont-make-filing-taxes-any-easier-but-it-could-make-things-worse/

The whole thing reeks of bullshit and desperation. That doesn't mean that it won't succeed in killing Direct File. If there's one thing America loves, it's letting businesses charge us a tax just for dealing with our own government, from paying our taxes to camping in our national parks:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/30/military-industrial-park-service/#booz-allen

Interestingly, there's a MAGA version of predatory inclusion, in which corporations convince low-information right-wingers that efforts to protect them from ripoffs are "woke." These campaigns are, incredibly, even stupider than the predatory inclusion tale.

For example, there's a well-coordianted campaign to block the junk fees that the credit card cartel extracts from merchants, who then pass those charges onto us. This campaign claims that killing junk fees is woke:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/04/owning-the-libs/#swiper-no-swiping

How does that work? Here's the logic: Target sells Pride merch. That makes them woke. Target processes a lot of credit-card transactions, so anything that reduces card-processing fees will help Target. Therefore, paying junk fees is a way to own the libs.

No, seriously.

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/2023/09/27/predatory-inclusion/#equal-opportunity-scammers

[go-to-the-mirror]

Transcript:

The following message is an advertisement for the podcast The Magnus Protocol, and is a work of fiction.

The Office of Incident Assessment and Response has positions open for immediate recruitment. Our work involves meticulous handling of incident reports, and offers job security and regularity unmatched in other sectors. The application process is simple. Send your cover letter to hr@office-of-dash-incident-assesment-and-response.org.uk, with the subject line "job application." Thank you.

Realise, report, and respond, with the O.I.A.R.

[thundercrack]

Study of Elite College Admissions Data Suggests Being Very Rich Is Its Own Qualification

By Aatish Bhatia, Claire Cain Miller and Josh Katz July 24, 2023 (full text under the cut)

Elite colleges have long been filled with the children of the richest families: At Ivy League schools, one in six students has parents in the top 1 percent.

A large new study, released Monday, shows that it has not been because these children had more impressive grades on average or took harder classes. They tended to have higher SAT scores and finely honed résumés, and applied at a higher rate — but they were overrepresented even after accounting for those things. For applicants with the same SAT or ACT score, children from families in the top 1 percent were 34 percent more likely to be admitted than the average applicant, and those from the top 0.1 percent were more than twice as likely to get in.

The study — by Opportunity Insights, a group of economists based at Harvard who study inequality — quantifies for the first time the extent to which being very rich is its own qualification in selective college admissions.

The analysis is based on federal records of college attendance and parental income taxes for nearly all college students from 1999 to 2015, and standardized test scores from 2001 to 2015. It focuses on the eight Ivy League universities, as well as Stanford, Duke, M.I.T. and the University of Chicago. It adds an extraordinary new data set: the detailed, anonymized internal admissions assessments of at least three of the 12 colleges, covering half a million applicants. (The researchers did not name the colleges that shared data or specify how many did because they promised them anonymity.)

The new data shows that among students with the same test scores, the colleges gave preference to the children of alumni and to recruited athletes, and gave children from private schools higher nonacademic ratings. The result is the clearest picture yet of how America’s elite colleges perpetuate the intergenerational transfer of wealth and opportunity.

“What I conclude from this study is the Ivy League doesn’t have low-income students because it doesn’t want low-income students,” said Susan Dynarski, an economist at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who has reviewed the data and was not involved in the study.

In effect, the study shows, these policies amounted to affirmative action for the children of the 1 percent, whose parents earn more than $611,000 a year. It comes as colleges are being forced to rethink their admissions processes after the Supreme Court ruling that race-based affirmative action is unconstitutional.

“Are these highly selective private colleges in America taking kids from very high-income, influential families and basically channeling them to remain at the top in the next generation?” said Raj Chetty, an economist at Harvard who directs Opportunity Insights, and an author of the paper with John N. Friedman of Brown and David J. Deming of Harvard. “Flipping that question on its head, could we potentially diversify who’s in a position of leadership in our society by changing who is admitted?”

Representatives from several of the colleges said that income diversity was an urgent priority, and that they had taken significant steps since 2015, when the data in the study ends, to admit lower-income and first-generation students. These include making tuition free for families earning under a certain amount; giving only grants, not loans, in financial aid; and actively recruiting students from disadvantaged high schools.

“We believe that talent exists in every sector of the American income distribution,” said Christopher L. Eisgruber, the president of Princeton. “I am proud of what we have done to increase socioeconomic diversity at Princeton, but I also believe that we need to do more — and we will do more.”

Affirmative action for the rich

In a concurring opinion in the affirmative action case, Justice Neil Gorsuch addressed the practice of favoring the children of alumni and donors, which is also the subject of a new case. “While race-neutral on their face, too, these preferences undoubtedly benefit white and wealthy applicants the most,” he wrote.

The new paper did not include admissions rates by race because previous research had done so, the researchers said. They found that racial differences were not driving the results. When looking only at applicants of one race, for example, those from the highest-income families still had an advantage. Yet the top 1 percent is overwhelmingly white. Some analysts have proposed diversifying by class as a way to achieve more racial diversity without affirmative action.

The new data showed that other selective private colleges, like Northwestern, N.Y.U. and Notre Dame, had a similarly disproportionate share of children from rich families. Public flagship universities were much more equitable. At places like the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia, applicants with high-income parents were no more likely to be admitted than lower-income applicants with comparable scores.

Less than 1 percent of American college students attend the 12 elite colleges. But the group plays an outsize role in American society: 12 percent of Fortune 500 chief executives and a quarter of U.S. senators attended. So did 13 percent of the top 0.1 percent of earners. The focus on these colleges is warranted, the researchers say, because they provide paths to power and influence — and diversifying who attends has the potential to change who makes decisions in America.

The researchers did a novel analysis to measure whether attending one of these colleges causes success later in life. They compared students who were wait-listed and got in, with those who didn’t and attended another college instead. Consistent with previous research, they found that attending an Ivy instead of one of the top nine public flagships did not meaningfully increase graduates’ income, on average. However, it did increase a student’s predicted chance of earning in the top 1 percent to 19 percent, from 12 percent.

For outcomes other than earnings, the effect was even larger — it nearly doubled the estimated chance of attending a top graduate school, and tripled the estimated chance of working at firms that are considered prestigious, like national news organizations and research hospitals.

“Sure, it’s a tiny slice of schools,” said Professor Dynarski, who has studied college admissions and worked with the University of Michigan on increasing the attendance of low-income students, and has occasionally contributed to The New York Times. “But having representation is important, and this shows how much of a difference the Ivies make: The political elite, the economic elite, the intellectual elite are coming out of these schools.”

The missing middle class

The advantage to rich applicants varied by college, the study found: At Dartmouth, students from the top 0.1 percent were five times as likely to attend as the average applicant with the same test score, while at M.I.T. they were no more likely to attend. (The fact that children from higher-income families tend to have higher standardized test scores and are likelier to receive private coaching suggests that the study may actually underestimate their admissions advantage.)

An applicant with a high test score from a family earning less than $68,000 a year was also likelier than the average applicant to get in, though there were fewer applicants like this.

Children from middle- and upper-middle-class families — including those at public high schools in high-income neighborhoods — applied in large numbers. But they were, on an individual basis, less likely to be admitted than the richest or, to a lesser extent, poorest students with the same test scores. In that sense, the data confirms the feeling among many merely affluent parents that getting their children into elite colleges is increasingly difficult.

“We had these very skewed distributions of a whole lot of Pell kids and a whole lot of no-need kids, and the middle went missing,” said an Ivy League dean of admissions, who has seen the new data and spoke anonymously in order to talk openly about the process. “You’re not going to win a P.R. battle by saying you have X number of families making over $200,000 that qualify for financial aid.”

The researchers could see, for nearly all college students in the United States from 1999 to 2015, where they applied and attended, their SAT or ACT scores and whether they received a Pell grant for low-income students. They could also see their parents’ income tax records, which enabled them to analyze attendance by earnings in more detail than any previous research. They conducted the analysis using anonymized data.

For the several elite colleges that also shared internal admissions data, they could see other aspects of students’ applications between 2001 and 2015, including how admissions offices rated them. They focused their analysis on the most recent years, 2011 to 2015.

Though they had this data for a minority of the dozen top colleges, the researchers said they thought it was representative of the other colleges in the group (with the exception of M.I.T.). The other colleges admitted more students from high-income families, showed preferences for legacies and recruited athletes, and described similar admissions practices in conversations with the researchers, they said.

“Nobody has this kind of data; it’s completely unheard-of,” said Michael Bastedo, a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Education, who has done prominent research on college admissions. “I think it’s really important to good faith efforts for reforming the system to start by being able to look honestly and candidly at the data.”

How the richest students benefit

Before this study, it was clear that colleges enrolled more rich students, but it was not known whether it was just because more applied. The new study showed that’s part of it: One-third of the difference in attendance rates was because middle-class students were somewhat less likely to apply or matriculate. But the bigger factor was that these colleges were more likely to accept the richest applicants.

Legacy admissions

The largest advantage for the 1 percent was the preference for legacies. The study showed — for the first time at this scale — that legacies were more qualified overall than the average applicant. But even when comparing applicants who were similar in every other way, legacies still had an advantage.

When high-income applicants applied to the college their parents attended, they were accepted at much higher rates than other applicants with similar qualifications — but at the other top-dozen colleges, they were no more likely to get in.

“This is not a sideshow, not just a symbolic issue,” Professor Bastedo said of the finding.

Athletes

One in eight admitted students from the top 1 percent was a recruited athlete. For the bottom 60 percent, that figure was one in 20. That’s largely because children from rich families are more likely to play sports, especially more exclusive sports played at certain colleges, like rowing and fencing. The study estimated that athletes were admitted at four times the rate of nonathletes with the same qualifications.

“There’s a common misperception that it’s about basketball and football and low-income kids making their way into selective colleges,” Professor Bastedo said. “But the enrollment leaders know athletes tend to be wealthier, so it’s a win-win.”

Nonacademic ratings

There was a third factor driving the preference for the richest applicants. The colleges in the study generally give applicants numerical scores for academic achievement and for more subjective nonacademic virtues, like extracurricular activities, volunteering and personality traits. Students from the top 1 percent with the same test scores did not have higher academic ratings. But they had significantly higher nonacademic ratings.

At one of the colleges that shared admissions data, students from the top 0.1 percent were 1.5 times as likely to have high nonacademic ratings as those from the middle class. The researchers said that, accounting for differences in the way each school assesses nonacademic credentials, they found similar patterns at the other colleges that shared data.

The biggest contributor was that admissions committees gave higher scores to students from private, nonreligious high schools. They were twice as likely to be admitted as similar students — those with the same SAT scores, race, gender and parental income — from public schools in high-income neighborhoods. A major factor was recommendations from guidance counselors and teachers at private high schools.

“Parents rattle off that a kid got in because he was first chair in the orchestra, ran track,” said John Morganelli Jr., a former director of admissions at Cornell and founder of Ivy League Admissions, where he advises high school students on applying to college. “They never say what really happens: Did the guidance counselor advocate on that kid’s behalf?”

Recommendation letters from private school counselors are notoriously flowery, he said, and the counselors call admissions officers about certain students.

“This is how the feeder schools get created,” he said. “Nobody’s calling on behalf of a middle- or lower-income student. Most of the public school counselors don’t even know these calls exist.”

The end of need-blind admissions?

Overall, the study suggests, if elite colleges had done away with the preferences for legacies, athletes and private school students, the children of the top 1 percent would have made up 10 percent of a class, down from 16 percent in the years of the study.

Legacy students, athletes and private school students do no better after college, in terms of earnings or reaching a top graduate school or firm, it found. In fact, they generally do somewhat worse.

The dean of admissions who spoke anonymously said change was easier said than done: “I would say there’s much more commitment to this than may be obvious. It’s just the solution is really complicated, and if we could have done it, we would have.”

For example, it’s not feasible to choose athletes from across the income spectrum if many college sports are played almost entirely by children from high-earning families. Legacies are perhaps the most complicated, the admissions dean said, because they tend to be highly qualified and their admission is important for maintaining strong ties with alumni.

Ending that preference, the person said, “is not an easy decision to make, given the alumni response, especially if you’re not in immediate concurrence with the rest of the Ivies.” (Though children of very large donors also get special consideration by admissions offices, they were not included in the analysis because there are relatively few of them.)

People involved in admissions say that achieving more economic diversity would be difficult without doing something else: ending need-blind admissions, the practice that prevents admissions officers from seeing families’ financial information so their ability to pay is not a factor. Some colleges are already doing what they call “need-affirmative admissions,” for the purpose of selecting more students from the low end of the income spectrum, though they often don’t publicly acknowledge it for fear of blowback.

There is a tool, Landscape from the College Board, to help determine if an applicant grew up in a neighborhood with significant privilege or adversity. But these colleges have no knowledge of parents’ income if students don’t apply for financial aid.

Ivy League colleges and their peers have recently made significant efforts to recruit more low-income students and subsidize tuition. Several now make attendance entirely free for families below a certain income — $100,000 at Stanford and Princeton, $85,000 at Harvard, and $60,000 at Brown.

At Princeton, one-fifth of students are now from low-income families, and one-fourth receive a full ride. It has recently reinstated a transfer program to recruit low-income and community college students. At Harvard, one-fourth of this fall’s freshman class is from families with incomes less than $85,000, who will pay nothing. The majority of freshmen will receive some amount of aid.

Dartmouth just raised $500 million to expand financial aid: “While we respect the work of Harvard’s Opportunity Insights, we believe our commitment to these investments and our admissions policies since 2015 tells an important story about the socioeconomic diversity among Dartmouth students,” said Jana Barnello, a spokeswoman.

Public flagships do admissions differently, in a way that ends up benefiting rich students less. The University of California schools forbid giving preference to legacies or donors, and some, like U.C.L.A., do not consider letters of recommendation. The application asks for family income, and colleges get detailed information about California high schools. Application readers are trained to consider students’ circumstances, like whether they worked to support their families in high school, as “evidence of maturity, determination and insight.”

The University of California system also partners with schools in the state, from pre-K through community college, to support students who face barriers. There’s a robust program for transfer students from California community colleges; at U.C.L.A., half are from low-income backgrounds.

M.I.T., which stands out among elite private schools as displaying almost no preference for rich students, has never given a preference to legacy applicants, said its dean of admissions, Stuart Schmill. It does recruit athletes, but they do not receive any preference or go through a separate admissions process (as much as it may frustrate coaches, he said).

“I think the most important thing here is talent is distributed equally but opportunity is not, and our admissions process is designed to account for the different opportunities students have based on their income,” he said. “It’s really incumbent upon our process to tease out the difference between talent and privilege.”

Source: Raj Chetty, David J. Deming and John N. Friedman, “Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Determinants and Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges”

[venturelovebot]

A/N: Aaaaaaa I tried my hardest with this one but as someone who doesn't exercise this is probably super badly written, I'll be honest. 😭 Either way I hope you enjoy and thank you for requesting! Link to said request is here!

Premise: You were one of Overwatch's best fighters. Now, you're one of their best trainers. It just so happens the new recruit is extremely cute. Trainer!GN!reader x Insecure!Shy!Venture. ( ˊᵕˋ )♡.°⑅

Warnings: None! Pure fluff.

"Great work everyone! Expect the same tomorrow." You watch as everyone slowly trickles out of the gym and into the showers.

You sit down on a nearby bench and down some much needed water. Your body is sore and aching from pushing yourself beyond your limits this session. With Null Sector attacks becoming increasingly relentless you couldn't let your team (and by extension– yourself) get sloppy now. You can tell they resented you for it... except for Zarya, who welcomed the extra pressure with no complaints.

You bury your face deep into your towel and exhale a heavy sigh. Behind you there's a soft hiss of steam from the door being opened again. You don't pay much attention to it figuring someone simply left something behind and came to retrieve it.

"Oh. I'm sorry– I thought this place would be empty..." You hear an unfamiliar voice mumble.

You peak from behind the towel in the direction they were standing. "Empty? Most of us enjoy training together."

"I just prefer to do it on my own I guess," They avoid looking at you as they start to pick up their things and leave. "I'll come back later."

"Wait."

They glance back shyly. "Really– it's fine. I didn't mean to bother you."

"You're not bothering me at all. Why don't we train together?" You suggest. "I just finished but I think I could go for a little while longer. Besides, Winston always encourages team building."

A discouraged sound leaves their throat as they step back into the gym. The door hisses again and closes itself.

"It's nice to meet you! I'm [Y/N]. You're the new agent, right?" You stand up to greet them.

"Yeah. Venture! Uhh... Sloane, I guess. What does everyone usually go by?"

"Whatever they want. Most people used to call me [Code Name]. Now I'm just [Y/N]."

Sloane nods and sits down on a nearby mat. They fidget with their loose fitting shirt for a moment before hesitantly taking it off to reveal their binder underneath.

"Um... I didn't see a changing room so... I hope you don't mind."

You freeze for a moment as they begin changing in front of you.

"It's fine. We change in the barracks actually," You reply.

You glance away as they continue changing. A light pink adorns your cheeks as you listen to the sound of shifting fabric.

"Okay. I'm decent."

You take another look in their direction. They readjust their binder in an attempt to hide their body a bit more.

"Uh, so... you help train everybody, right?" They ask.

"Yep! I retired after the last mission for medical reasons. Angela said if I continue doing what I did then I wouldn't live to see my next birthday," You laugh and and take a seat on the floor next to them. "So I figured doing this was the next best job."

"I saw what you did! You're a hero! You saved so many people!" Their eyes light up recounting the story Winston had told them. "I hope I can be useful to you guys, too!"

You smile at their eagerness. "You can be useful in a lot of ways, not just endangering yourself on the battlefield. Now–"

You shift yourself to sit in front of them and hold their feet in place.

"Let's start training, shall we? How many crunches can you do?"

They blush softly watching you turn from kind to serious in a heartbeat. "Uh... I never counted. So I guess we'll have to see!"

"Then start. I'll count."

They assume position and lock their arms behind their head. They lift themself up and meet your face up close. You didn't even flinch.

"One."

They repeat the process. Their face once again comes close to meeting yours. Your stern look doesn't fade.

"Two."

It continued for minutes on end. Their stomach begins to burn from the stress and still your disposition is rock solid. Their breaths begin to grow heavy on every rep.

"Twenty. Keep going," You demand. "I want at least fifty out of you."

"A-ah! Alright!" They cry out between heavy breaths.

"You can lift a sixty pound drill effortlessly. Don't tell me you can't get to fifty crunches."

"I-I can! Watch me!"

They strengthen their resolve and begin to hasten their work out. The look of seriousness is mirrored on their face as sweat begins to bead on their forehead. There was a deep sense of pride building up in them to prove themself capable.

"Forty eight. Forty nine,"

On the fiftieth they fly up so fast that your foreheads nearly collide. They open their eyes and meet your gaze once again. Embarrassment takes hold and they immediately throw themself back down on to the mat below them.

There was something about your rigidness that they found sincerely attractive– but there was no time to think about it right now.

"Fifty. Good job!" You let go of their feet and lay down next to them. "Now it's my turn."

They nod and hold your feet down just as you had done for them.

"No need to count for me. I'll keep track of it myself."

They nod one more time at your words. You lock your arms behind your head and begin your repetitions. Sloane watches you in awe– you're hardly tired despite working out for nearly an hour before this. They watch as your body strains and relaxes with every crunch. The fresh scars that batter your body seem use to being worked so hard. It all seemed so hypnotizing to watch.

"Your face is bright red. Do you need some water?" You ask.

"Oh. Uh, yeah! Water would be nice..." They look at the nearby water dispenser to distract themself.

"Go ahead and get a cup. I can take it from here."

Sloane scrambles to the dispenser and grabs a paper cup from the holder. The cold water refreshes them and they shake their head softly to center themself. Behind them they can hear you softly begin to groan from working your body so hard.

"How many have you done so far?" They turn to ask, becoming lost in your movements again.

"Fifty. Same as you,"

They watch as you collapse down on the floor for a moment before wiping your damp forehead.

"Maybe it's time to take a break?" They suggest. You laugh softly.

"Perhaps you can, but I'm just getting started."

"Just getting started? Didn't you train for an hour before this?"

"Indeed– but I don't mind showing off if you like to watch," You smirk, making your way to the pull up bar next. "Go ahead and get comfy. I'll show you how it's done around here."

Sloane is left speechless, mouth agape, as you picked up where you left off.

[theunkown-yachirusan]

The Crimson Moon

Opening File......

File name : Y/n

.......

Y/n Uchiha the eldest sister of Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke. The very well known "Akai me no Kaibutsu" or as "The Red-eyes Monster" of Konoha as that time her team was ambushed by a fully armed Shinobi which her friends and teacher was killed and in the process her Sharingan and then her Mangekyou has appeared and she killed everyone and then a ninja from Konoha saw it all. A 10 year old girl killed an army . Her Susano'o barely was barely complete but it did not failed to protect her. When growing up and rising to rank Jonin she and her brother Itachi become Anbu together.She was then imprisoned by Danzo and sealed her never to be seen by anyone after the massacre of her clan, but years later she was released by the man named 'Madara' and recruited her to Akatsuki. She has hidden herself to anyone but her brother and the organization,but when the war has come she revealed herself and was killed by the hands of Kaguya Otsutsuki but unbeknownst to Kaguya, Y/n was the reincarnation of her.

Upon arriving to Valhalla and meeting Brunhilde she found herself at Japanese Pantheon. Reuniting with many familiar faces that she knows back at her own world, the world of Shinobi and her love ones.

When hearing the news of the rise of the demons, she created an association together with the Demon Slayers and Valkyries and Humanities Champions(during the selection). The leaders Herself, Ubuyashiki and Brunhilde became the three main leaders of the association that will ensure the safety of all the beings.

The association was created even before the announcement of eradication of humanity or even the meeting of all the Gods.

Going back, The three main leaders has planned upon the following and the group that will be called :

Alpha squadron consist of all Shinobi together guarding the Swordsmiths and are assigned to go around every pantheons secretly and investigate if there are demons or suspicious around and will kill in secrecy. This squadron has 3 sector :

the Cavaliers who will kill without any hesitations and is grouped to any squadron or group. They are mostly assigned to protect and/or assassinate.

The Revolutionists consist of Akatsuki members but they are the group who will want changes as they all want to go against the Gods since they want to eradicate humanity they are assigned sometimes for negotiations or stealing. Some of them only agreed because they were going to be paid(hi kakuzu) they are the ones who are also called Protestants. They are mostly assigned to protest and to spread rumors.

The Investigators most likely consist of all kages but there are some who are not kages and is assigned to find any traces of Demons around and any suspicious people.

Beta squadron consist of Demon Slayers the ones who will hunts down Demons along with the Cavalier group. Yoriichi tsugikuni, Michikatsu tsugikuni, Lady Tamayo and Yushiro has also become a part of the corps ever since knowing that demons still roam around.

Delta consist of Human Champions(even Buddha is allowed) and Valkyries they are the ones on the spotlight. It was supposedly only the Valkyries but then the eradication of humanity was announced.

But then Brunhilde, Lord Ubuyashiki and Y/n found their selves at the presence of the creators of their world. Along with Nyx, her husband Erebus ,along with the Titans and the rest of the creators has blessed those who are to protect everyone. Which Blessed all those who are in the association. Especially. You.

The Alpha and Beta squad is not to be seen, they are only the darkness and shadow of the Delta squad. They are the ones who will guard down the whole place and every pantheons and never to be seen. No one, not even the Gods has noticed their existence. Except to the God of Underworld.

But before the creation of the association, she asked Brunhilde if she can work at the Norse Pantheon to which she agreed. And informed the Gods rather late.

Her duty at the Norse Pantheon is a maid which was quickly makes everyone question...even Odin was left questioning as to why such a human herself wound want to work...since...working there would be endless. And no human can last forever. or are they?

And the eyes of the Storm meets the incarnation of Otsutsuki Kaguya.

|

[ukrfeminism]

Women in the public sector are quitting their jobs due to being blocked from working flexibly with three in ten seeing their requests rejected, according to a major new study.

Researchers at Unison, the UK’s largest trade union, who polled just over 44,000 women working across the public sector, found three in ten working in hospitals, schools, care homes, town halls, police stations and other key services had pleas to work flexibly denied.

Some women said employers told them to leave their job or use annual leave if they want to work flexibly, while others report their requests were immediately blocked on the same day they were put in. Struggles to access flexible working meant some women had quit their jobs, researchers warned.

Christina McAnea, Unison’s general secretary, said: “Too many employers are still turning down flexible working requests, which means the right to request is pretty meaningless for many women. The right to work flexibly from day one would be beneficial for staff and employers alike, and help bring workplaces into the 21st century.”

Helping women juggle work with childcare and caring for loved ones can enable workplaces to recruit for jobs which are tricky to fill and likely boost the quality of public services, she added.

Ms McAnea said: “It’s disheartening to see many employers continuing to deny their staff the opportunity to work flexibly. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

"But sadly many women who find they need to inject some flexibility into their working lives are coming up against employers with inconsistent, rigid and unimaginative attitudes. While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, some form of flexible working is achievable in most workplaces.”

A quarter of those women who were informed they could not change their working conditions say their requests were rejected on a number of occasions.

Researchers also found more than two fifths of women were told they could not work flexibly because doing so would harm the service being provided, while almost three in ten were informed there would not be enough colleagues to cover for them. 

A fifth had their request rejected due to managers saying doing so would result in colleagues making similar pleas, while around one in seven were not provided with a reason by their employer.

New flexible working legislation comes into force in April which gives employees a statutory right to ask for flexible working from day one at a new job. While this is an improvement on the current wait of six months to ask, Unison warn employers are too easily able to block flexible working requests.

Emily*, who works in the energy sector, said she only managed to get her flexible return to work from maternity leave agreed just before she was due to return to work. 

“The process was horrendous,” she said. “I had to submit several requests and they were all turned down within days. I was stunned. I was caring for my baby and having huge levels of anxiety simply trying to get some flexibility at work. I was scared I’d lose my job. It dragged on so much I couldn’t sort out childcare. The process left me traumatised.”

While Nadia*, a local government worker with a disability, was blocked from working flexibly even though she had medical notes written up by her doctor. 

“I had a very supportive manager during the pandemic and we all worked well during that time,” Nadia, a single mother of two, added. “But as the situation eased, my new manager suddenly wanted everybody in the office all the time. Daily attendance then worsened my condition and I had to go off sick for a few months to recover. Being able to work from home on the days I’m struggling would make a huge difference, and also make it easier to look after my children.”

Helen*, a specialist nurse and single mother of three, explained she was repeatedly blocked from working flexibly.

She said: “I had to go down a pay band to get some flexibility, which put me and my family in financial difficulty. I was told if they allowed me to work flexibly they’d have to do the same for others. But others aren’t in my situation. 

“I'm a survivor of domestic violence and have no family support. The process was awful and I was made to feel like a massive inconvenience. Now I don’t want to be a nurse any more and am looking for a new job in retail. I’ve had to take time off because of the stress and anxiety I experienced. It shouldn’t be like this as I do love my job.”

*Names changed

[acradelius]

Please can you do a junkerqueen X Male Reader maybe reader is a overwatch agent trying to recruit her and ends up getting into a fight with her that goes like this

"So, About That Recruiting Process, Eh?"

Fandom: Overwatch / Overwatch 2

Pairing: Junker Queen ("Odessa 'Dez' Stone") x Male! Reader

Rating: Lime [🟢] - (Equivalent to PG-13)

Warnings/Mention Ofs: Reforming Overwatch Era, Recruiter! Reader, Male Pronouns Used For Reader, Mentions Of Various Other Characters, Reader Almost Gets Beheaded, Reader Gets Stepped On- Literally, Humor- Probably A Bit Dry, Reader Blatantly Tries To Flirt, Open Ending (?).

Word Count: 1,529 Words

If you'd like to be tagged for all posts, certain fandom posts, or certain character posts then feel free to message me!

(Y/N) had to continuously keep pinching the flesh upon his arms to make sure that this indeed was now his reality, and not just some bizarre lucid dream that he was currently experiencing. It had begun with him assisting the legendary Reinhardt and some of his companions in destroying the command ship that was wreaking havoc to the city of Gothenburg. Now here he was as one of the handful of recruits for the secondary formation of Overwatch, being given a tour of the newest headquarters located within Malevento, Italy. It was an amazing experience so far! Getting to meet various former heroes such as Cassidy and Sojourn, and then newer members such as Lucio and D.Va. (Y/N) couldn’t wait to begin the trainings and then be able to go on missions, to begin coming up with concepts of his own costume, to be able to- 

‘Uh, (Y/N)?’ 

Oh, yeah. 

Turns out that it wasn’t all how (Y/N) had believed how things were going to go. 

‘You doing alright down there, luv? You’ve been quiet for these last couple of minutes?’ 

While it was quite obvious to him that he wasn’t going to be instantly thrown in missions that were dangerous or would end up in extreme circumstances, this was definitely not what (Y/N) was thinking when he was recruited for Overwatch. Instead of being sent on basic covert missions to help address future locations that the Null Sector would attempt to strike at next, it turns out that the former members of the Overwatch crew had decided that the perfect position for (Y/N) would be to venture out and go recruit other members of interest to increase their numbers. 

Yeah, you heard that right. 

(Y/N) (L/N), newest recruiter for Overwatch.

‘Uh, yeah.. Doin’ fine, Le- I, uh, mean.. Tracer.. Yeah, just finally getting around to the last person that’s on the list for this area that some of the others are interested in recruiting. 

“Let’s see, where we’re at on this damn thing..”

Mako Rutledge.. “Roadhog”.. 

Jamison Fawkes.. “Junkrat”.. 

Ah, there we are! Odessa “Dez” Stone.. Junker Queen..

‘Wait, Tracer? This.. wasteland.. Actually has a Queen? Like they have literal lines of royalty out in this dump?’ (Y/N) questions the woman over his comms, eyebrows furrowing slightly as he proceeds to reread the name and the context following a couple of times just to make sure that what he was seeing was actually correct. There’s absolutely no way that a place as.. chaotic and savage.. would have any sort of royalty, let alone the capacity to really understand how royalty and their systems work. At least there couldn’t be, right? 

‘It’s not what you would think when thinking of the term ‘royalty’, such how royalty is within other places. For example, the United Kingdom, where I’m from. Within Junkertown, the term royalty follows more- Well, it’s a bit complicated to explain. Let’s get this process done quickly so we can get you out of there before the locals start getting riled up with an outsider being in their presence.’ 

Tracer was definitely right, and (Y/N) couldn’t agree with her anymore than he already did. The faster that he could get this recruitment process done and over with, that’s if this “Junker Queen” agreed to be recruited, then the better that this whole situation would be. He could only hope that it wouldn’t be as hectic as dealing with that “Roadhog” and “Junkrat” duo. 

It’s not like there was a possibility that this trip could become even weirder than it already has been.

..Right? 

“Hold on,” Apparently there was a bodyguard that (Y/N) had to address his intentions to, and apparently be deemed worthy by the bodyguard, before being able to approach the Junker Queen. “So, you’re telling me that you’re the Queen’s bodyguard?” 

A hamster. 

A hamster that’s in a mechanical ball. 

A hamster that’s in a mechanical ball, that speaks apparently, is the Queen’s bodyguard. 

“Affirmative.” 

It’s then that there’s a somewhat awkward moment of silence, moreso from (Y/N)’s side than the hamster that has informed the man to address him as “Hammond”, as they stand there and just stare at each other. (Y/N) then proceeds to hold out the list of individuals for recruitment. “Uh, so I’m (Y/N), one of the newer members and now the recruiter for Overwatch, or at least this reformation of it, and your.. Queen.. happens to be upon the list.. So, would I be able to meet her? To discuss the possibility that she might be interested in joining?” He could only think about what Tracer’s thoughts might possibly be as she was also watching through the cameras that were located within the hall that Winston had managed to infiltrate, and ultimately (Y/N) wouldn’t be surprised if she was to tell him that his next task was to attempt to recruit the damn hamster as well. 

“Right this way.” 

There’s something similar to an eerie silence that begins to overcome the environment as (Y/N) proceeds to follow Hammond down the hallway to where apparently the Queen’s throne was located, or at least what (Y/N) would hope to be the Queen’s throne and not some crazy death trap. Just a quick turn around to look behind him to ease the slight paranoia that had begun to work its way within the depths of his mind, but (Y/N) turns back around to find out that he’s apparently lost sight of Hammond. ..Somehow.. But at this point it doesn’t necessarily matter. Back to the original purpose of being here, recruiting the Queen. 

“Uh, hello?” He calls out into the open, the sound of his voice echoing off the metal walls, but not being met with any response whatsoever. Just the creaking and groaning of machinery within the background. “Hello?” (Y/N) calls out once again for safe measure, for maybe he wasn’t heard in the first place- “What the hell?!” A slight shriek leaves past his lips as there’s a sudden blur that whips past his face, the breeze from the encounter causing his hair to become disheveled. He doesn’t necessarily get even a moment to process and figure out what the thing was that had flown past him and imbedded itself into the wall behind him - object, person, whatever it happens to be, before he’s having to quickly throw himself back to avoid having his face sliced off from the ax that has seemed to materialize out of thin air and just inches away from his face. “H-Holy shit!” 

‘(Y/N)! Look out!-’ 

Tracer’s voice, a panicked tone, could be heard through the comms not even a moment later, but it was already too late at that point to give a proper reaction, as (Y/N) could only focus on the brief pain that surged from what seemed to be the thick heel of a boot colliding with his chest, and then pain surging through him once again as his back collides harshly with the floor beneath him. 

Was this the end for him? 

How his life long dreams were now going to be short lived memories?

Yet, what he wasn’t expecting was to feel an immense pressure upon his face and practically be tasting a mixture of dirt and rubber. Moving his face proves to be fruitless as the pressure on his face increases. 

‘(Y/N)?! (Y/N)?! Are you okay?!’ 

“Oh, doing fine!-”

There wasn’t any doubt that she was definitely something of a taller woman. While she didn’t necessarily need those couple inches of wedge upon her boots to give her that extra height, it was definitely a mixture of not only intimidating but also attractive as well. (Y/N) couldn’t necessarily care about height, but that was more his personal preference. The various variants of blue within her hair, despite that he could see the brown color peeking out within her roots, yet it’s quite an eye-catcher as while typically the colors would contrast within the red of her eyes, yet, it just made her all that more beautiful. Don’t get (Y/N) started on the articles of her appearance either. From the metal studs that were embedded into the fabric of her clothing to the faded makeup to her eyes. It just enhanced it all. Tied everything together like it was a bow on a present. 

God, she was just absolutely beautiful. 

‘Are you sure that “doing fine” is the correct choice of words? You’re literally being crushed by the Junker Queen, (Y/N)!’

There’s some soft, muffled chuckle that makes way past (Y/N)’s lips at Tracer’s words, watching as Odessa proceeds to lean down to get a better glance of the man beneath her foot while a slight sneer begins to make its way to her own lips. “Well, Tracer, she’s kinda fine, if you happen to get what I mean~” He goes to lift his arm which briefly catches Odessa’s attention, slightly waving the clipboard that he somehow, miraculously still held onto. 

“So, gorgeous~ How about we get started on discussing you joining Overwatch?~”

[soulcastermindset]

Memorable Gaming Moments: Thane's Loyalty Mission in Mass Effect 2 (aka: why Seryna is a personal favorite)

So, I've been playing through the Horizon series again recently and examining some of the side characters more closely, trying to really focus on picking apart their motivations and the ways they connect with Aloy and the larger story. Unfortunately for all you HZD and HFW fans, though, this post is not about those games (Though I'm sure I'll yell about them at some point).

While I could talk about Morlund and his theatrical counterparts for quite some time, I'd rather talk about a character from my favorite video game series who I've been meaning to collect my thoughts on for a while. Mass Effect 2's sheer volume of recruitment missions mean that Commander Shepard meets their fair share of alien personalities, but to this day, Thane's recruitment mission contains the one I am most intrigued by.

Seryna, the asari Shepard meets in the transportation sector, is only on-screen for about five minutes of the game. Despite that short length of time and the fact that she never shows up again in the next installment of the franchise, I remain fascinated by her. In five minutes and three (two and a half?) scenes, she plays the situation to her advantage extremely skillfully, in a way I'm not sure even most of the main characters could imitate, and she comes out clean and almost intentionally forgettable on the other side.

Seyna's first words to Shepard are "Who wants to know," immediately evasive and prodding for information, giving herself a chance to size up the threat in front of her under the guise of disinterest. As soon as she learns that Shepard is after Thane, she's immediately very matter of fact and unafraid to freely give information.

One of the biggest reasons this is notable to me is that in almost every other recruitment mission so far, a character has required something from Shepard before they are willing to provide their assistance. Mordin needed help stopping the plague on Omega. Okeer wanted help killing Jedore. The Warden on the prison ship wasn't willing to provide help at all, planning a double cross the entire time. The list goes on. Seryna just tells them what they want to know and gives them immediate access to do it. She clearly doesn't trust Shepard, but she navigates the conversation with them in a way that doesn't invite any kind of retaliation on their part, which seems very intentional.

Also during this conversation, Seryna reveals that she worked for Nassana's security and confronted Nassana when she learned her boss was having people killed. And yet, somehow, despite being willing to kill to keep her secrets under wraps, Nassana leaves Seryna alive, firing her rather than just killing her too. This always struck me as rather odd, considering that Nassana was willing to sacrifice an army of mercs just to keep herself safe from an assassin. Even if Shepard doesn't do the side quest to unknowingly help Nassana kill her sister, that's pretty damning evidence all on its own.

So, what was it about Seryna specifically that made Nassana choose mercy? We know she's not Eclipse, since Eclipse is an existing group outside of Nassana. Even if Nassana fired her, she'd likely still be doing Eclipse work instead of having to find a job at the transport station that she clearly isn't fond of.

Seryna certainly wasn't spared because Nassana wanted to keep her in her back pocket as a potential re-hire, either, since Nassana knows Seryna will call her actions into question, and she's clearly paranoid enough during the actual recruitment mission that she would never trust Seryna again at this point.

My personal assumption is that Seryna is an asari commando or former spec ops agent of some kind, someone Nassana didn't think she could kill without some kind of backlash or without potentially losing her own life in the process (Seryna does mention that she might have been good enough at her job that she could have stopped Thane from killing Nassana, though whether this is hubris or not is open to interpretation). If it's not for either of those reasons, Nassana letting someone that intrinsically tied to her personal security forces go free doesn't seem like a loose end she would tolerate. This point is further expanded upon after the mission, but I'll touch on that in a moment.

If we go back to the pre-mission conversation, Seryna freely admits that she did not hire Thane, but much like she's doing with Shepard now, she's not afraid to give out info on the best ways to get to her former boss. She clearly has no love for Nassana, and it's not until the car ride to the tower that she finally asks Shepard,

"So, this assassin. You here to stop him?"

And this is interesting. Because realistically, while Seryna's more than happy to see Nassana's head on a platter, she's already given Thane the information for that to happen, AND there would be no ties to her even if he failed because she didn't hire him. By helping Shepard, who is clearly not a hired assassin, get involved, she is risking Nassana's wrath much more directly, and instead of telling Shepard to find someone else to help, she takes them to the tower even though she admits in this moment that there's technically a chance Shepard could be going to assist Nassana.

Asking this question after she's already decided to help begs the question: does she know who Shepard is and is therefore unwilling to cross them? Does she not want to look the heavily-armed gift horse in the mouth, help them out while she can, and just get out of dodge before there's any potential blowback?

I personally lean towards the latter. If Shepard is there to help, that can only help speed up Nassana's death, and if Shepard's not... hey, those are a lot of big guns they have, best not risk it.

Of course, Shepard affirms that they're there to help the assassin (though the way they put it, "I'm just here to make sure he survives," is certainly worth the slightly interested "hm" Seryna gives in response, seeing as Shepard could still be working in Nassana's benefit and just trying to keep Thane alive so Nassana can get information out of him, but I think it's mostly safe to say at this point that Seryna believes that she and Shepard are working towards a similar goal), and the mission commences, ending with Nassana's death.

After Seryna drops Shepard off at the Dantius Towers for the mission, Shepard never sees her again, but they are given a recorded message by her co-worker, Tana, and that she took an unspecified job off-world at an unknown location. We learn in this message that Seryna was "on her way to a new life" when she heard the news that Nassana was dead.

This implies that almost immediately after dropping Shepard off, she books it. She flees. Even if we as the audience assume that a couple of days pass in-universe (we know that Shepard hits the towers at night and that the sun is rising when they find Thane, and it's likely that the police find Nassana's body within twenty-four hours of that moment), she packs up her entire life in less than a day, makes all the necessary arrangements, and is GONE before the news even drops about her old boss's death. I'm largely of the mind that what she told her co-worker about finding a new job was a blatant lie (especially taking into consideration how much she seemed to dislike the transport job but chose it anyway), and she was just getting the hell out in case everything went south.

Seryna played the game, and played it well, and when the chips were falling in a way that could have been fatal to her, even if the odds were clearly in her favor, she jumped ship to avoid any potential for a wildcard ruining her plans, and she fascinates me.

TL;DR, Seryna, a one-off character whose only narrative goal is to get Commander Shepard to Thane Krios, is heavily implied to be a force of nature in her own right.

In just these few moments of game time, Seryna proves herself shrewd, competent, intelligent, possibly VERY gifted at combat, petty, and willing to uproot her entire life to stay safe and alive.

I'm more interested in Seryna than I am some of the main squad characters in this game! I'd read a short spin-off story about her, no lie, but since that will likely never happen, I'll just yell about her here on tumblr so we all give her another look on our next playthrough.

Morlund I'm sorry this post wasn't about you

[irlnumbuh3]

I love your Sector V middle/high school hcs. Can you make one for their TND years? Keep it up!❤️❤️❤️

sector v if they had joined TND

au in which nigel did join the gknd, and abby took over as sector v’s leader yippee abby!!!

omg yes !!! my first request :000 u are so sweet thank you!!! 💚💚 i love writing these so enjoy :>

- i hc that numbuh 362 is in on the recruitment process when it comes to the TND, she is supreme leader after all. she learns all about it after nigel leaves

- and because i hc that after nigel, hoagie is the oldest, he absolutely GEEKS OUT when he is recruited. he fangirls the ENTIRE TIME

- and because he has to stay away from the tree house, the group will meet in different spots every time

- in canon they all are aware that the TND exists so, it wasn’t really a secret that they were going to be part of that recruitment. after all it was promised that sector v would still be there for nigel once he returned! it’s pretty obvious that numbuhs 2 through 5 aren’t gonna be let go so easily :P

- and they’re all always like tell us tell us ! and he keeps them on their toes

- like he goes on and on “HA i’m special i’m the first recruitment in this sector my lips are sealed i don’t even know u guys!!!!” drama queen 😒

- eventually when they all are recruited they are like wtf it wasn’t even that special of a thing whyd you gas us up like that LOL

- because the old treehouse WAS on top of nigel’s house, i headcanon that a new sector doesn’t take over it. and it just becomes a lot smaller and secluded, like on the outside it looks like a regular shed and a small old tree house, when there’s SO much more. it’s an underground type of thing

- rachel makes it seem like it’s a tribute to sector v to cover for them (shoutout to rachel fr!!!) because it still is significant for everyone , even if the entire sector was “decommissioned”

- but nope that baby is still there for the new TND members. just no where near as visible as it once was. the secrecy i know!!!

- and yeah the renovations were SUPER annoying (wally must have complained about his lack of sleep 100 times bc of all the noise) but it was worth it in the end. the treehouse becomes a little more modern and comfortable for them to do their own things. and the technology only becomes more advanced

- and they get older our babies😢the maturing takes everyone by surprise kind of, especially wally’s, ugh he gets a growth spurt in the summer leading up to freshman year and it leaves everyone saying wtf. but they do have their flare ups of childishness bc let’s be honest, we know them, how could they not!! cue the bickering between wally and kuki plz!

- wally finds a passion for soccer and he’s really good at it. he’s missed a few team meetings bc of soccer though…. which always results in a lecture from abby LOL but they all go to support him at his games

- at his important games, they all make signs cheering him on, and omg does this annoy him LOOLL

- they all even wear his team’s colors, kuki buys face paint to paint his jersey number on their cheeks. she’s probably his biggest fan 🤫

- kuki finds this love for makeup , “typical girly teen behavior!” wally will tease, but she’s actually really good at it!

- sometimes in mid mission kuki will have the most glittery-colorful eyeshadow on because she was practicing before the call!😭

- hoagie let’s her practice a lot on him, and i would be lying if i said he hasn’t shown up in battle with some variation of eyeliner on

- and when abby wants her makeup done for any reason, kuki is the first to be there!

- sure the team doesn’t go on as many missions as they did before , but the missions they DO go on are usually long and exhausting. the break they get after is always treasured by our lazy teens

- abby gets super into skin care and just self care overall! she will have the entire day off after a mission as a self care day. and kuki will always join her! even the boys get curious but don’t wanna admit that😒

- one day they cave and they all watch a movie wearing their face masks. cute !!! i just know wally had the face mask that you peel off and that shit IRKED HIM😭 kuki pinned his hair back and they had a moment but it’s ruined after when she tries to rip off his face mask LMFAO

- hoagie joins the auto mechanics club in highschool. and wow is he talented with that. it only helps him further develop technology for the TND. oh and when that boy gets his license ? he does the MOST with his beat up van😭

- i would not be shocked if that boy installed a whole ass xbox in the back of that van

- these 4 ditch class a LOT for missions . they have occasional saturday-detentions 😞

- and even then because kuki, hoagie, and abby, are such loved students they find a way out. the hard part of that is convincing the teacher to let wally out LMFAOO

- tell me how they get called in for battle mid-saturday detention and kuki fakes a scene to leave

- her doing theatre throughout all of middle school and even highschool PAYS OFF this girl starts sobbing on the floor like someone just died😭so the teacher has no other choice but to let the four go

abby: guys wtf i just got a text from maurice. we need to be up at base in the next hour

wally: don’t ask me this dick won’t even let me go use the bathroom

abby: wally boy if u don’t stop making ur texting so obvious right now

hoagie: he won’t leave the room, there’s no way i can create a diversion

kuki: watch this! :D

- this girl screams and pretends that she just got the worst news of her life. and oh my god her fake crying? you would actually believe it if she said the world was ending

- in middle school these 4 were awful with keeping the TND a secret 😭 i just know they would screw up all of their different excuses

- why wasn’t hoagie in class? well he said that he was in the nurses office. oh but the nurse didn’t see him? and wasn’t that just him walking down the hallway with abby lincoln? but she got picked up early today? and why is kuki sanban trying to leave the nurses office after complaining that she threw up? she said that she was looking for her friend wally because they were carpooling home today. but where is wallabee? his teacher said he got called to the office 2 hours ago??????

- but once highschool comes the whole sneaking out thing gets a lot easier when it’s needed. hoagie gets his license first and wow he can just dip whenever he wants to. and in highschool, u can sneak off anywhere. especially with as big as a campus as Gallagher High. everyone ditches class at some point 🤷🏼‍♀️

- even these 4 get the urge to ditch when things aren’t mission related. senior year, they are OUT god does the senioritis kick in with them 😭 especially wally and kuki, those lovebirds. that boy will find any and all reasons to leave early. and he’s passing all of his classes, what’s stopping him tbh

- like the 4 plan a theme park day on a random wednesday in the middle of the month 😭 i’m telling you, they have their fun when they can

- with the workload they have on them because of the TND, this group enjoys whatever time they can have :) especially with one another

[maaarine]

this September I've been hearing about teacher shortages in Belgium, France, Netherlands, Germany

and at no point have I heard the media look at the problem through the gender lens

a) teaching is a "feminized" profession (the majority of teachers are women, except at university level)

so the pool for recruitment is already small, since men may not feel like it's a job for them, especially teaching very young kids

b) attention is focused on the fact that the low salary and low respect for the profession are driving people away from teaching

but it's a well-documented phenomenon that a job loses value once it is feminized (salaries are low because it's a woman's job)

anyways it seems to me like gender is a very relevant part of the problem, and yet it's rarely talked about

here are a few excerpts from an OECD report:

Why is the gender ratio of teachers imbalanced?

"However, gender imbalances persist among those entering and staying in the teaching profession: on average in OECD countries, 70% of all teachers are women, with large differences across levels of education.

Female teachers are especially over-represented at lower levels of education.

In 2019, 84% of primary teachers in OECD countries were women on average, compared to 64% at secondary level and 44% at tertiary level."

—

"Historically, teaching has been one of the few skilled professions that has been accessible for women because it closely fitted the traditional stereotype of women as caregivers of children.

While such gender stereotypes are less prevalent today than they were a few decades ago in many OECD countries, they might still be an important reason for the high share of female teachers, particularly at lower levels of education.

However, other factors beyond gender stereotypes also contribute to skewed gender ratios.

Teaching may be an attractive career option for working mothers because it provides the flexibility to combine work and family responsibilities.

Teachers in many countries have considerable flexibility in organising their non-teaching working hours.

For example, in 24 out of 31 OECD countries and economies with available data, teachers at the lower secondary level can spend part or all of their non-teaching working time outside of school premises (OECD, 2021).

Ideally, this would make teaching similarly attractive to working fathers, but in many countries child rearing responsibilities still fall predominantly on women’s shoulders (Craig and Mullan, 2011)."

—

"Because of these standardised wage setting processes, the actual salaries of male and female teachers are nearly identical on average across OECD countries (OECD, 2021).

However, the welcome absence of wage discrimination in teaching implies that careers outside teaching will be financially more attractive for men than for women.

Male teachers earn on average 20% less than other tertiary-educated men.

In contrast, female teachers earn on average 3% more than other tertiary-educated women, who often face wage discrimination in other professions.

Thus, gender wage discrimination in sectors outside of education also has negative implications for the gender balance within the teaching profession.

As it is financially less attractive for men than for women to become teachers, men are discouraged from entering the profession (Allegretto and Mishel, 2016)."

[mariacallous]

The Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption, GRECO, in a new report published on Tuesday, has underlined the changes Moldova must make to the judiciary and to tackle corruption in government and law-enforcement.

The report describes a series of concerning issues regarding high government positions and lobbying, integrity within the Border Police, the activity of integrity inspectors, and the allocation of resources for the Anti-corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

“This report aims to support the country’s ongoing efforts to build a solid foundation for preventing corruption by strengthening transparency, integrity and accountability in public life,” it says.

On the government, the report draws attention to the need to implement a code of conduct for persons in top executive positions, PTEF, to cover all relevant integrity issues and establish a credible mechanism for monitoring and enforcement.

“The lobbying activity itself is not regulated, and there is no effective supervision of the post-employment restrictions in terms of PTEF and [GRECO] calls on the authorities to address their shortcomings,” the report says.

The report draws attention to the inefficiency of the National Integrity Agency, ANI, in verifying officials’ wealth declarations. “An internal oversight mechanism should be established to ensure the consistency of the decisions of the ANI integrity inspectors, as well as an equal and fair distribution of the workload among them,” states the report.

GRECO also says the Anti-corruption Prosecutor’s Office’s mandate and inadequate resources have impeded the effective prosecution of high-level corruption.

The report also mentions that the low level of pay in the Police and Border Police is an obstacle to attracting recruits and has led employees to engage in unauthorized outside paid work in the informal economy, particularly when they are on annual leave and mainly abroad.

“As regards the Police and the Border Police, GRECO calls for the adoption of measures to address the widespread practice of promotions to interim managerial positions. Regular vetting of the integrity of law enforcement officers is missing,” the report says.

The Moldovan authorities are expected to report back to GRECO on implementing its 25 recommendations by June 30, 2025, so it can assess the level of compliance with them.

Moldova has been a member of GRECO since 2001 and has gone through four evaluation rounds, focusing on different topics related to the prevention and fight against corruption.

Some 93 per cent of the recommendations were implemented from the first evaluation round, 67 per cent from the second and 88 per cent from the third round.

But in the fourth evaluation round, which dealt with preventing corruption among parliamentarians, judges and prosecutors, only 33 per cent of all recommendations addressed were fully implemented.

Moldova is currently in the screening process for EU accession. In the next period, there will be a round of meetings with representatives of the European Commission, which will decide whether to open negotiation chapters for accession.

[emirates23]

Exploring Nursing Opportunities Abroad: Top Countries for Indian Nurses

Nursing is one of the most in-demand jobs inside and outside India. A profession that is in most demand in GCC countries for Indians is the nursing job. For Indian nurses, who are looking to broaden their horizons, many countries are waiting with promising career opportunities. If you are a skilled nurse and have multilingual capabilities then wide opportunities will be there. The overseas opportunities will give you high pay as well as a high-standard working environment. The respect for nurses outside India is much higher than inside India. Nurses are being recruited through top nursing consultancy in Kerala and here is a list of the top countries that offer promising careers.  

Five top countries that offer promising nursing career

United Arab Emirates: Dubai which is an opulent city right due to cultural and development richness hires nurses from India. A large part of nurses who work in Dubai are Indian and they a decent pay but not much higher than European and American countries. But the most attractive feature of Dubai is that the nurses can take their entire income to their homeland since there are no taxes. In Dubai, there are many world-class hospitals, medical centers, and clinics that offer good employment prospects for Indian and other nationalities. 

Saudi Arabia: In Saudi Arabia, there are a plethora of job opportunities for nurses in both the private and Government sectors. They offer good pay, accommodation facilities and also travel allowances. Saudi Arabia is one of the largest nations in GCC countries and also the pilgrimage place for Muslims, the demand for medical facilities is very high. The demand for trained professionals especially from India is of high demand in Saudi. However, finding the right opportunity is a bit challenging since there is a high scam in the field of recruitment. 

Canada: Canada is a country that offers a healthcare system with the highest standard. This country is facing staff shortages and is now actively recruiting nurses worldwide. The high-quality life and the welcoming stances towards immigrants make Canada an excellent choice for nurses. The medical facilities and education are completely free for immigrants. 

Australia: Australia's flourishing healthcare industry and stunning landscapes attract nurses worldwide. With modern facilities and advanced technology, nurses can work efficiently. During leisure time, they can explore the country's picturesque natural environment. Competitive salaries and excellent benefits make it a lucrative career option. To work as a nurse in Australia, one must register with the AHPRA (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency) and pass English language proficiency tests.

United States of America (USA): The USA boasts a robust healthcare system with a significant demand for skilled nurses across various specialties. Indian nurses aspiring to work in the USA can pursue opportunities through programs like the H-1B visa for skilled workers or the EB-3 visa for professionals with tertiary education. Opportunities exist in hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities, and community health settings throughout the country.

United Kingdom (UK): With its National Health Service (NHS), the UK offers extensive opportunities for Indian nurses to work in both public and private healthcare sectors. The UK's Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) oversees the registration process for international nurses, which includes passing the Occupational English Test (OET) or International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and meeting other requirements. Work settings range from hospitals and nursing homes to community healthcare centers.

Conclusion

If you are planning for an overseas nursing job, first research the rules and regulations for immigrants. Based on it decide which country is most suitable for you. There will be medical tests, mandatory examinations, and other verifications for each country. It is better to connect with any nursing consultancy in Kerala before you plan to move, they will guide you through the process and also provide you with data regarding the recruitment.

[liberifatalis]

flood & flame

previous chapter | next chapter

This chapter has also been posted on AO3.

DISCLAIMER: there are no major triggers for this one, however at the end the reader does have quite a toxic/unhealthy/dysfunctional relationship with a man.

CHAPTER TWO

BEFORE SIX MONTHS PRIOR…

YOUR FIRST OFFICIAL day as an operations analyst at Shinra Inc. was entirely what you had expected. It was monotonous, dull, draining, and you could not believe the amount of money you would have earned if this genuinely was your career. The amount of talking and planning and drafting was equivalent to nails on a chalkboard, and you already wanted to rip your hair out.

Reno had been talking your ear off the night he dropped you off to your Sector 8 apartment, and he somehow still had something to talk about. First it was about the local bar and a movie that was on that weekend and then it was about this “fucking wicked” console game that was being released.

“Are you even listening to me, newbie?” He asked, eyes squinting and disapproving. 

“Oh, unfortunately I am.”

You supposed it could have been worse. He seemed to enjoy your remarks and honesty whereas others would have found them off putting and immediately have written you off as unlikeable and difficult. You were unlikeable and difficult, but Reno seemed to be amused by it, for some reason. Probably because he was both those things as well. 

Up on the projector screen was a slideshow of charts and stats, outlining the comparison for SOLDIER recruits over the last five years. For the current year, there was a clear decline in recruitments. You weren’t surprised—less and less people were happy with the risk of being slaughtered to death and getting absolutely nothing in return. Who would have thought?

“Are we increasing any advertising on television channels? And what times are these advertisements being shown?” You asked Tseng, who was focused on the tablet in his hands.

“Advertisements are the same, and they are televised at times that are statistically more likely to be watched by the public,” Tseng replied. “We have tried increasing the advertisements, but people just seem to be more annoyed than anything.”

“Alright then,” you opened up your folder and turned to the section that contained all information regarding the SOLDIER recruitment process. “What are the incentives for someone wanting to be a part of SOLDIER?” 

Tseng leaned back into his leather seat, crossing his arms in consideration. “Incentives?” The corner of his mouth tilted upwards, as if the question wasn’t worth his time and the answer was obvious to everyone but you. “Well, you receive a decent salary, and you are a part of the most successful enterprise in all of Gaia. You get complete protection, and for those in the slums, it’s a way to escape such… unfortunate conditions.”

“No sign-up reward? No meeting the first or second-class SOLDIERs? No fancy tour?” You asked, head tilting in confusion. “It doesn’t need to be grand or cut deep into funding. But people need more of a reason to put their life on the line. A small sign-up reward as a bonus, or even getting a pamphlet with limited edition information from first class SOLDIERs themselves can cause an influx of recruitments.”

Tseng seemed to be mulling over the information you gave him, fingers tapping repeatedly on the dark wooden desk.

“Put more damn advertisements out. And these advertisements need to be specific. Tell the people what their life is like when they’re not in SOLDIER. Tell them that they’ll be rewarded just for considering recruitment and signing up. People are getting more demanding, and if we are wanting any sort of improvement we need to meet them where they’re at, even though we’ll always be the ones earning the profit.”

Silence filled up the room upon your…thorough response. From the corner of your eye, you could see Reno continuously glance at Tseng and yourself, anxiously awaiting who would speak first. You may have overestimated yourself and been a bit too forthright, too soon. Oops. Was there a window you could quickly jump out of? 

“Well.” Reno was the one to break the silence, turning towards you with a grin. “I think the newbie will fit right in. Don’t ya think, Tseng?”

To your surprise, Tseng let out a small chuckle, which sounded more like he was releasing air than a laugh, but you supposed it was better than unsettling silence. “Alright, I’ll get the program managers to send this data and your expertise to their advertisement team. We’ll continue on this next week. I’ll get Reno to accompany you to Level 49 for today so you can introduce yourself to the other team.”

“Level 49?” You asked, unsure of which department Tseng was referring to. You tried your best to conceal your dread when he informed you it was the SOLDIER floor.

The time between waiting in the elevator with Reno and walking to Level 49 almost made you hunch over and dry-heave. Every single sense in your body and being was heightened; the brush of the collar against your neck as you walked under the air conditioning vent felt more like a papercut than the touching of fabric on skin. You were undeniably starting to spiral, and the panic attack was close enough that you had no clue what would set it off. 

But why? For the life of you, you couldn’t understand it. You had known scheming and deceit all your life and it was almost instinctual. It was like the shaking of hands or a pat on the back after leaving your friends at a bar. It was nothing . No big deal. Was your mind playing tricks on you? Were you afraid to leave Blizzard, as leaving would guarantee your freedom but also your loneliness? Nothing felt quite real anymore, or sensical; everything felt like a gas kettle on a stove starting to boil, pushing you closer to the brink of insanity and confusion.

“Have you ever met anyone from SOLDIER before?” Reno asked, walking beside you and keeping up with your pace.

You shook your head in response, only seconds away from responding when you immediately locked eyes with the abomination himself as he entered the hallway. You couldn’t remember what you noticed first; his long and unnatural silver hair framing him like he was some carved statue, his large and oppressing frame which seemed to take up the entire room, or the Mako-infused glare—it was like you could only take Sephiroth in all at once, everything about him so domineering and overwhelming you wouldn't ever have the time to slowly breathe him in and become accustomed to his presence. He was too much. He should not exist, nothing more than a complete abomination and a living shame to nature and science.

He was nothing like any photo or footage you had seen. He was so much worse. Being in proximity to him felt almost like witnessing a collision—you wanted nothing more but to turn away and cover your eyes but you just couldn't.

You almost instinctively grabbed Reno’s forearm to brace yourself and gather your bearings, but you had this damn it. You had everything under control. This was just the beginning, there was no way you were going to start cracking now, when you hadn’t even begun to do what you do best. 

Swallowing the last of your resolve, you continued your pace, trying your best to be as nonchalant as possible, but you were still unable to tear your eyes away from his. It was too brazen, too foolish, too soon ; almost like prey not breaking eye contact with its predator. You were meant to make a good impression, not make yourself a suspicious target.

Sephiroth reached the entrance before the both of you, and instead of continuing on to the mission briefing room, he stood right in front of the door, not even blinking to break eye contact. Reno must have sensed something was off, quickly shooting you a confused glance, and turning towards Sephiroth.

They both nodded towards each other, not wasting any time on small talk, but you had absolutely nothing in you to make this less conspicuous and less tense. You had seen his interviews and seen footage of him—he was aloof and indifferent, yes, but he was never really tense around the people he often worked with. You were causing this, clearly so off-putting and jarring that he couldn’t help but be affected by it. 

There was a chance to introduce yourself, to smile awkwardly and bow your head out of respect, but you crushed it. You absolutely ruined it all. You continued to follow Reno into the mission briefing room, leaving Sephiroth standing outside most likely in a state of confusion or even repulsion. You had no thoughts at all in fact, not even any anxiety, acting completely on instinct and on auto-pilot, only able to continue doing the absolute bare minimum of human behaviour and function—one step after the other, continuous breathing, and perceiving the environment around you.

You were a god damn fool. 

You heard the door shut softly behind you, not bothering to turn around and look as you already knew what was walking into the room. Even though he was out of your line of sight, his presence was alarming; it raised the hair on the back of your neck and arms and you felt a thousand tiny pulses on your skin. His presence alone was all-consuming, as if you were at the bottom of the ocean desperately trying to make your way up to take a breath, but the weight of it all just keeps dragging you back down into the depths. 

Heavy steps were behind you, and then you could see from the corner of your eyes that he was walking in the opposite direction and into another enclosed room. Thank God.

“You know each other or somethin’?” Reno asked, stopping beside you.

“Not that I know of.”

Reno didn’t seem convinced, and neither were you honestly, but he didn't bother you with any more prodding, leading you further into the room. 

“Where did he head off to?” You asked.

“There’s another smaller room in the briefing room where food is kept, I think,” Reno replied. “Either that or there’s paperwork and filing cabinets or some shit. I’m not sure.” 

The mission briefing room had a large projector screen at the centre, similar to the one the Turks had in the auditing room but much larger, with a dark-oak 'V' shaped desk directly in front of it. Each leather seat was accompanied with a monitor screen on top of the desk, and the point of the desk dipped into a round shape—clearly where the director was meant to sit. There was a door in the far-left corner of the room, the one which Sephiroth exited out of, but other than that the room was quite empty and dark, save for the projector screen lighting up the room.

“You’re not sure? I thought you knew everything.” You gave him a nudge with your elbow, playfully raising your brows. Yes, he was annoying and smug and actually quite the asshole, but he was already growing on you. He reminded you a lot of the people you’ve worked with at Blizzard , other fighters. All harsh and a bit grumpy and way too cocky but they were exactly how they came across. There were no surprises with them, and you always knew what you were going to get. 

“Yeah, you could say that,” Reno said, lifting both of his arms behind his head. “I do know everything, just not everything to do with the SOLDIER levels. Other than that, I’m a pretty sharp guy.”

“No evidence of that just yet, but I’ll keep that in mind.”

Reno rolled his eyes and walked you over to the projector, motioning for you to sit and get comfortable. “Well, I’ll be headin’ off. Just wait here until Lazard or the others come by.”

“Great.” You didn’t try to hide your lack of enthusiasm, to which Reno replied with a soft pat to your shoulder in comfort. You watched the red-head walk out of the briefing room, leaving you all alone and in complete silence. Neither Tseng nor Reno could brief you on your task, as you were working directly with SOLDIER, and as you had come to find out, the Turks didn’t really know everything about SOLDIER after all. Not only did Reno not have access to the entirety of the SOLDIER levels in the Shinra Building, but they were only really informed of SOLDIER tasks if they were directly involved, or if they had come across gossip or intel. While the Turks were Shinra’s intelligence agency, they mostly did the dirty work—they didn’t have the full scope and understanding of what went on in SOLDIER, and they didn’t know any confidential information, either. You had no idea what to expect, and you did not like being left in the dark.

Being in Midgar always felt a bit suffocating, but being in the Shinra Building itself felt like being smothered directly with a pillow. There was no colour anywhere, everything was dark, and the plants that were scattered throughout the building didn’t help invite any feelings of comfort. You knew that being so close to the people you were fighting against was the main source of your discomfort, but still , there was something so off about being in a place so artificial and devoid of authentic life. 

You heard a door click behind you, and immediately whipped your head around, locking eyes with Sephiroth again. This time there was no escape, you weren’t able to leave the room or pretend you were actually invested in conversation with Reno. You were stuck. 

Breathe. Sunflowers. Grassy fields.

“Hey,” you had barely let out, not too far from a mumble. At least it was something to break the silence.

You didn’t think he heard you, but he started walking towards your direction, eyes focused on you. “You are the new analyst?” He asked, making his way right beside you.

“Operations analyst, yes.” Being this close to Sephiroth was strange and unnerving to the point where your body felt like it was frozen in place. You wanted to turn away, look somewhere else and break eye contact, but your eyes couldn’t leave his. His stare almost trapped you in your seat. “I apologise about before, I…I was just a bit overwhelmed with my first day here.”

“Apologise?” He questioned.

“Oh! In the hall,” you said, crossing your hands in your lap. “Reno was uh, making fun of me before. He was saying I was glaring at you or something of that sort.” God, you felt like a kid again, pulling yourself under the covers and trying to hide from the monster in the closet, as if it protected you in any way. “Truth be told, he was getting on my nerves, hence my sour face.”

One blink. Two. Three. You were sitting there patiently, awaiting his response, blinking like a fool. He was either just as bad at conversations as yourself, or he was analysing you head to toe, picking apart any discrepancies. Any weaknesses.

He was staring at you, eyes calculating and suspicious.

And then his eyes softened, only by a bit, and you would have missed it if you weren’t paying a bit too much attention to them.

“I see.” He walked over to the seats that were next you, sitting two chairs across. You could hear the leather of his uniform crinkle as he sat down in the chair. “I have heard that often in regards to Reno, and most of the Turks.”

The chuckle that left your mouth was involuntary—you enjoyed the fact that everyone had the same thoughts on Reno as you did. You were sure that if he had found out you were having a conversation about him with Sephiroth, he’d be delighted. 

“Do you know when everyone will be arriving?” You asked.

“They were meant to arrive now.” He took his mobile phone from his back pocket and flipped it open. The size difference was staggering, it looked like a child’s toy phone in his hands. “I will clarify.��

Sephiroth pressed on the keypad with his gloved fingers and brought the phone up to his ear. The person he called answered immediately, but you were unable to make out what was being said, only just being able to make out there was a person speaking on the other end.

“Change of plans,” he said, closing the phone and placing it back into his back pocket. “I will be showing you around today. Lazard will meet with you later.”

Of course. Of course. You started to regret complaining about Reno; you would do absolutely anything for him to be with you. 

Sephiroth escorted you through the entirety of Level 49. You had already been shown the mission briefing room, but only the main room you had entered, so he had shown you the other smaller room as well, and just as Reno said, the room Sephiroth had gone into was for filing cabinets and paperwork.

“Why did you walk into this room earlier?” You probably shouldn’t be too inquisitive this soon, but the question left your lips before you could stop yourself.

“I wanted to find some paperwork,” Sephiroth said. He didn’t seem to be bothered by your curiosity. “I also thought Lazard might have been in there.”

He continued to lead the way and brought you to the materia room, the lounge area and finally the SOLDIER training room. There was a tense silence throughout most of the tour, with Sephiroth only offering the name of the rooms and some very brief information, like when they were usually in use and what to expect on a daily basis. You didn’t feel comfortable enough to interrupt him, only trying to remember the layout of everything and memorise the closest exits. You know, just in case. 

The SOLDIER training room was silent except for your footsteps enmeshing with Sephiroth’s, and the low buzzing of the harsh lights above. It had high ceilings with what looked to be concrete walls on the outside room. In the middle of the room was another room, closed off with tall, thick glass windows that enclosed the training room in the centre. It had four paths leading to an octagonal-shaped foundation in the middle, and the rest of the floor had what looked to be glass panels. A couple of men were standing on the octagonal foundation, appearing to be carrying out maintenance or repairing the foundation.

You usually weren't easily impressed, and maybe it had to do with being overwhelmed and on the verge of a panic attack for the entire day, but you were quite taken aback at the training room. It had ground-breaking technology, and looked almost futuristic due to all the glass windows and floor paneling.

“You seem surprised,” Sephiroth said. 

You hadn’t even noticed you were staring in awe for at least minutes by now, leaving him standing there watching you silently.

“Not surprised. Just impressed. This is…something.”

“Impressed?” He asked, tilting his head slightly. “I suppose since I see this all the time, this room doesn’t have such an effect on me.”

“I’ve never really seen technology like this . Not up close, at least.” You were still gazing off, staring at the men in the glass-enclosed training room carrying out maintenance. Glancing at your reflection in the glass, you could see Sephiroth was looking intently at you, almost deep in thought. In comparison to you, he was large, so large he looked nowhere near natural and human. It made you dizzy to think just how small and fragile you looked in comparison to him, and you had never been considered small and fragile by anyone in your life. “I actually think all the glass and harsh lights are making me a bit light-headed. Could we leave?”

He narrowed his eyes at you, and if you knew him at all you would say he looked concerned. But you didn’t know him. And, judging by everything you’ve been informed of, he would be a million things else other than concerned for you. Sephiroth wasn’t like you—wasn’t like the million other people on Gaia. It was beyond him and his nature to be concerned or feel a shred of sympathy. 

He nodded his head and stepped to the side, allowing you to walk out of the SOLDIER training room first. You could feel his gaze on you the entire time, as if there were a gun pointed to your back.

“Monsters?”

Sephiroth nodded, his demeanour still placid and not reacting to your confusion.

“Monsters?” You repeated, your eyes growing wider as if he was feeding you straight nonsense. “As in, the monsters we tell children are hiding under their bed? Monsters are made up stories to scare children.”

“Not monsters in the literal sense,” Sephiroth said. “There is no official, scientific name for these creatures yet. They are just being called monsters for now.”

You grabbed the document file out of Sephiroth’s hands, flipping through the pages of witness accounts and Shinra’s confidential findings. So far, there hadn't been anything— Shinra’s investigations had gone nowhere, and they weren't able to capture a “monster” yet to run tests on it. You turned to the page with photographs of the…creature. It was hideous, completely unnatural and horrifying. These things were large, almost humanoid in shape, with sharp talons on their feet and some even had wings.

“How has not one of these things been caught yet?” 

“They are quick. Peacekeeping troops haven’t been able to sequester any, and witnesses say the creatures disappear.”

Disappear? Please. Nothing on this planet could just disappear into thin air. There had to be traces left behind. Either that or the creatures were running off somewhere.

“When did this start?” You asked.

“Two weeks ago,” Sephiroth replied. “It was assumed to be stories at first, just lies spread across villages and towns. Then we started to see evidence of their existence.”

“Evidence?”

“Towns and villages have been partially destroyed, and lives have been lost.”

It didn’t make any sense. There were no such things as monsters, and nothing of this sort had happened before. There were many horrible creatures that were all throughout Gaia, but they never attacked unless someone or something happened upon them and threatened them. The creatures of Gaia were also clearly…inhuman. These monsters , however, looked so similar to people, and yet so vastly different—it was uncanny and unnerving. This was something made out of nightmares, something only depicted in a mad man’s drawings. 

“This is…” you started, unable to put everything you were thinking into a coherent string of a sentence. You had never seen anything like this, even after all those years in the slums, witnessing death and disease and drug use absolutely shift and destroy the human condition, this was still something beyond you.

“It is strange, indeed.” Sephiroth was staring intently at the document file in your hands, at the photographs of the monsters sprawled on the open page. He had more or less the same expression he had usually wore, from what you'd briefly seen, and you were unable to gather what he was thinking. “You are to accompany me and Angeal tomorrow to Gongaga, in search of these creatures. We are hoping to find a body.”

“Gongaga? Why Gongaga?”

“That is where they were first spotted,” Sephiroth said. His eyes narrowed at your response, and you recognised this from before—he was analysing you again, there must have been something in your cadence that had given him the opportunity. “Do you wish to stay back?”

“No, I’m happy to go ahead.”

Sephiroth outstretched his hands, and you suddenly remembered you had practically snatched the document out of his hands and had kept hold of it. You handed him back the document with a polite nod.

“I will take you to Lazard’s office,” he said, standing from his seat and walking towards the door. 

Lazard’s office was like everything else in the Shinra building: expansive, dark, and a complete waste of space. The office part of the room was only a tiny section in the centre, with the rest of the room being a vast amount of free space. It was unsettling at first, being given the rundown of tomorrow’s mission in detail with Sephiroth brooding behind you with his arms crossed, staring at the floor in the silence. Even when he wasn’t doing anything , he was doing too much.

Lazard was refreshing, though. Although he was professional and concise, he seemed friendly enough and willing to answer any questions you had. 

He briefed you on the entire mission—on the time it would take to the resources that you would be using. And to your surprise, he was honest enough to tell you that you’d be pretty damn low on resources and that the mission was made abruptly, without any proper planning.

The two main objectives for the mission were easy enough. Speak to the locals of Gongaga and try to gather more witness accounts, and try to find a monster’s body. You were there specifically to do what an operations analyst usually does: collect information, analyze said information, and after all that is done, possibly inform Shinra to prepare for war and make decisions related to national security. You were to determine, after gathering and analysing all evidence, if whatever was going on was a big enough threat for Shinra to adjust their policies, or if it was a big enough threat for them to decide to use SOLDIER forces. This was going to be ongoing; it wasn’t just one mission that started tomorrow and ended tomorrow. This would be constant traveling, constant paperwork, constant reading. 

You were just one woman—you were a thief, a con artist, a murderer for Blizzard . You were not a damn operations analyst for the Shinra army. You would only be able to bullshit your way for so long, until everyone started to notice that you were just playing a role. You could do it convincingly, but the act would wear off sooner than later. 

You thanked Lazard before heading off, wanting to bolt out of the room before your legs would give way. It was too much, way too complicated, and you strangely wished you could be sixteen again running around the Slums, murdering dealers and pimps left and right all because Blizzard told you to. That was straightforward, and at least you had some control over it, but this made you feel like you were weak, like you were a tiny piece in a very, very big game.

“We will meet back at the mission briefing room at dawn.” Sephiroth’s voice cut through, snapping you out of your thoughts. You gave him a quick nod in return, not wanting to be near him or in that godforsaken building any longer. 

Stepping out of the Shinra building felt almost like jumping into your warm bed after a long day. Almost . Once the high of breathing in the outside air came crashing down, you started to smell the pollution in the air as if it was wrapping around you like a snake, tightening around your body each second until you were out of—

Breathe. Take a deep breath. You are out of there.

This part of Midgar was disgusting. It truly was. There was life everywhere and yet it was completely devoid of it.

Walking down the streets of Sector 8 helped to calm your nerves slightly, though. At least your body was moving, and simply thinking of nothing other than putting one foot in front of the other helped. 

You decided to take the longer way than what Reno had showed you last time, not wanting to go home yet. Whether you were outside or in, you still felt like you were trapped, and you would prefer feeling the breeze against your skin over anything else. 

There were barely any stars in the sky tonight, but that was normal in the sectors of Midgar. Instead of stars, there was smoke emitting from buildings, thousands and thousands of tiny lights, and so much damn steel and metal. How anyone thought it was more than a prison was beyond you. 

“Hey.” You heard a voice behind you, not too close but alarming enough for you to turn around and reach your hand in your back pocket, forgetting that you hadn't carried any blades on you since you began working for Shinra.

You recognised the face immediately, but that didn’t help ease the tension and alarm in your body. You would recognise him anywhere. He was still the same as you saw him last, almost eight months ago, his dark hair longer now and reaching his shoulders. 

“Hansel!” You whispered through gritted teeth. “What on Gaia are you doing here? You might be spotted.”

Hansel walked up to you casually, without a care in the world, and threw an arm around your shoulder. “Let’s head home, shall we?” 

You didn’t say anything on the walk to your apartment, wanting to confine the rage until you were behind closed doors. He was always like this, always nonchalant, showing up whenever he pleased after months of not seeing him. 

As soon as you made way into your apartment and closed the door, he was onto you, lips hungry and searching to crush your resolve, begging you to crumble under his touch. His kisses were like you remembered—quick and rushed, hooking you in and making you melt but only just— leaving you breathless but too confused to ask the proper questions. His kisses and his touches were only to cover the fact that he was here to do business, here to deceive you and manipulate you and feed into your touch-starved desires so you had just enough energy to continue on working for Blizzard .

You had realised many years ago that your relationship was never built on love. You were a means to an end. He would hold you and kiss you and fuck you so you would continue to be under Blizzard’s thumb. Most of the time, it worked.

He was only feeding you, and feeding you crumbs at that, so his precious little investment could continue to work for him and his multiple bosses and the organisation you were both apart of. 

You pushed him away, unable to hide the disappointment on your face. “You’re an idiot. And what the hell are you doing? Are you trying to blow our cover?”

“I missed you too, little flower.”

There were many times where you wanted to kill him. You wanted to do it slowly, too. And whenever he called you little flower , or any of his patronising nicknames he had for you, you had to restrain from snapping his neck in an instant.

Hansel dropped onto the couch and spread his legs out, resting his head back against cushions. He turned to you, eyes bored but still with a hint of his usual deviousness, a look you knew all too well, and made a beckoning motion with his fingers.

You sat beside him on the couch, not wanting to be close to him just yet. You knew it wouldn’t be long until you fell into his arms though, until you caved and let him hold you and pretend to love you. Sometimes, pretending was enough.

“How has it been going so far?” He asked.

“Fine.”

“You sure, sweetheart? You seem a little tense. Have the panic attacks come back already?”

Fuck him. You hated how he knew you so fucking well, so deeply, so intimately. “Not yet,” you said, your hands forming into a tight fist and knuckles turning white. “But almost. Almost . I’ve been so anxious lately and I don’t know why.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re so close,” he said.

“Close?”

“Close to the end. To the big goal. You know, the thing you’ve talked about since you were a kid, destroying Shinra and saving the planet. That goal.”

You shrugged your shoulders, sinking into the couch and staring at the ceiling. It made sense, and you had thought that yourself, too. But it didn’t feel right. You realistically knew your anxiety was from years of trauma, but this was different. It felt like you were simultaneously stuck but also moving too quickly.

“Are you going to let me hold you or what?” His hands fell over yours, squeezing tightly. Just like you had predicted, you caved. 

He held you close against his chest for a while, thumb circling your now exposed shoulder. Before you knew it, your suit had been discarded and thrown across the room along with his own. When he fucked you, he would pretend with kisses and smiles and pretty words that you were the only thing he had ever wanted—that you were a human being, someone worth loving and cherishing. And you pretended that he was doing exactly that, too. You pretended you were loved, were cherished, were valued and adored and beautiful and normal. When he told you he loved you as he came, you said it back, happy to join in on his game. 

Ah. To pretend to be loved is better than the complete absence of it, right? At least it was something.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Te-Ping Chen and  Lauren Weber

Published: Jul 21, 2023

Two years ago chief diversity officers were some of the hottest hires into executive ranks. Now, they increasingly feel left out in the cold.

Companies including Netflix, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have recently said that high-profile diversity, equity and inclusion executives will be leaving their jobs. Thousands of diversity-focused workers have been laid off since last year, and some companies are scaling back racial justice commitments.

Diversity, equity and inclusion—or DEI—jobs were put in the crosshairs after many companies started re-examining their executive ranks during the tech sector’s shake out last fall. Some chief diversity officers say their work is facing additional scrutiny since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions and companies brace for potential legal challenges. DEI work has also become a political target.

“There’s a combination of grief, being very tired, and being, in some cases, overwhelmed,” says Miriam Warren, chief diversity officer for Yelp, of the challenges facing executives in the field.

In interviews, current and former chief diversity officers said company executives at times didn’t want to change hiring or promotion processes, despite initially telling CDOs they were hired to improve the talent pipeline. The quick about-face shows company enthusiasm for diversity initiatives hasn’t always proved durable, leaving some diversity officers now questioning their career path. 

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in police custody in May 2020, companies scrambled to hire chief diversity officers, changing the face of the C-suite. In 2018, less than half the companies in the S&P 500 employed someone in the role, and by 2022 three out four companies had created a position, according to a study from Russell Reynolds, an executive search firm. 

Once mostly tasked with HR matters, today’s diversity leaders are expected to weigh in on new product development, marketing efforts and current events that have an impact on how workers and consumers are feeling. Warren and other CDOs said the expanded remit is playing out in a politically divided environment where corporate diversity efforts are the subject of frequent social-media firestorms. 

Falling demand

New analysis from employment data provider Live Data Technologies shows that chief diversity officers have been more vulnerable to layoffs than their human resources counterparts, experiencing 40% higher turnover. Their job searches are also taking longer. 

“I got to 300 applications and then I stopped tracking,” says Stephanie Lubin, who was laid off from her role as diversity head at Drizly, an online alcohol marketplace, in May following the company’s acquisition by Uber. In one case, Lubin says she went through 16 rounds of interviews for a role she didn’t get, and says she is now planning to pivot out of DEI work.

The number of CDO searches is down 75% in the past year, says Jason Hanold, chief executive of Hanold Associates Executive Search, which works with Fortune 100 companies to recruit HR and DEI executives, among other roles. Demand is the lowest he has seen in his 30 years of recruiting.

At the same time, he says, more executives are feeling skittish about taking on diversity roles.

“They’re telling us, the only way I want to go into another role with DEI is if it includes something else,” he says of the requests for broader titles that offer more responsibilities and resources. He estimates that 60% of diversity roles he is currently filling combine the title with another position, such as chief human resources officer, up from about 10% five years ago.

During the pandemic, some companies moved people into diversity leadership if they were an ethnic minority, says Dani Monroe, even when they weren’t qualified. Monroe served as CDO for Mass General Brigham, a Boston-based hospital system and one of the largest employers in the state, until 2021 and convenes a yearly gathering of more than 100 CDOs.

“These were knee-jerk reactions,” she says of the hurried CDO hires, adding that some of those elevations didn’t create much impact, leaving both sides feeling disillusioned.

On-the-job obstruction 

American workers are split on the importance of a diverse workforce, surveys find. 

Diversity chiefs also encounter obstruction from top executives, says Melinda Starbird, a human resources and diversity executive who has worked at AT&T, Starbucks and OfferUp, an online marketplace. Leaders sometimes associate diversity efforts with mandates, such as the equal-employment rules that apply to federal contractors. Those requirements for compliance can create executive resistance that bleeds over into other cultural or policy shifts, such as adding Juneteenth as a company holiday, she says. 

“Even if you report to the CEO, it’s still a battle and it’s a smaller budget,” says Starbird, who was laid off from OfferUp in November during a broader restructuring. 

Many diversity executives feel a lack of buy-in from their colleagues. In a survey of 138 diversity executives conducted this spring by World 50 Group, a networking organization for corporate leaders, 82% said they had sufficient influence to do their job, down 6 percentage points from 2022. Asked if they felt supported by middle managers, 41% said yes, an 8-percentage-point drop.

Since the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in June, companies are anticipating spillover legal action could have an impact on them. Those that are still hiring CDOs want people who can help the board navigate the political and legal landscape of diversity work and figure out how to take defensive moves to shield them from litigation, says Tina Shah Paikeday, global leader of Russell Reynolds’s diversity, equity and inclusion practice. 

“They recognize it would be smart to get ahead of that.”

People are more resistant to company-backed efforts to advance diversity when they are worried about their own jobs, whether because of impending layoffs or disruptions from AI, says David Kenny, chief executive of Nielsen, the media-ratings company. 

Kenny was both CEO and CDO for a time, taking on the diversity role to emphasize how important it was to the future of the business. Even as CEO, it could be a tough sell. Efforts to restructure compensation to make it more equitable created a backlash.

“A lot of it is, ‘I’m losing my slice of the pie,’ ” he says.

[ Via: https://archive.vn/jHRFo ]

==

The grift is over.

There seems to be a built-in implication that much of the movements around DIE in the last few years have been performative: organizations making the approved signals to keep the puritans at bay. Perhaps they've now figured out that these measures are, at best, unable to demonstrate their efficacy, or at worst, anti-productive. The number of DIE programs that can or even will quantify or demonstrate their effectiveness with metrics and data can be counted on one hand; the truly fanatical ones will scold you for even suggesting that you should. Or more likely, perhaps they've figured out that as an insurance policy, the impact to the bottom line is no longer worth the investment; throwing buckets of money to purchase indulgences during a moral-religious panic might have made sense in 2020, but not so much in 2023.

Study after study reveals that none of this social snakeoil - from the phrenology of "implicit bias training" to the Maoist struggle sessions of "white fragility training" - actually help, and reliably make things worse by making everyone fixate on identity politics rather than doing anything productive. Meaning DIE is nothing but expensive and destructive virtue signaling. If you want to destroy an organization from the inside, there's no better way than embracing DIE.

You're far better off sticking to your core telos, supported by liberal ethics like equal opportunity, colorblindness and the ideal of meritocracy. Or more formally, Merit, Fairness and Equality (MFE). Whatever results you get from a fair process are inherently fair.

"Diversity" in particular is always about superficiality and thinly-veiled racism, while "equity" requires someone in authority to artificially create preferred outcomes (establishing the perfect conditions for an authoritarian), rather than a system of fairly and consistently applied rules (equality).

I can name five people, men and women, where I work who have different ethic ancestry, who grew up within 40 miles of each other and have the same local accent.

And I can name five white men who grew up on four different continents with three different first languages, who have worked for over a dozen different organizations, from multi-national companies to military to non-profits to education institutions before immigrating.

"Diversity" apparatchiks don't acknowledge the diversity in the latter. Only, like any good racist, the bogus "diversity" in the former.