#how to explain layoff

[mentorshelly]

DMs That Work: How to Approach Recruiters and Mentors Online

Let’s be honest—sliding into someone’s DMs can feel awkward, especially when it’s for professional reasons. But in today’s digital world, a well-crafted message can open doors to job opportunities, mentorship, and career guidance you might not find elsewhere. Whether you’re reaching out to a recruiter for a job or a mentor for guidance, the key is being clear, respectful, and intentional with…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

"Efficiency" left the Big Three vulnerable to smart UAW tactics

Tomorrow (September 22), I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. Tomorrow night, I'll be in person at LA's Book Soup for the launch of Justin C Key's "The World Wasn’t Ready for You." On 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.

It's been 143 days since the WGA went on strike against the Hollywood studios. While early tactical leaks from the studios had studio execs chortling and twirling their mustaches about writers caving once they started losing their homes, the strikers aren't wavering – they're still out there, pounding the picket lines, every weekday:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/09/how-hollywood-writers-make-ends-meet-100-days-into-the-writers-guild-strike.html

The studios obviously need writers. That gleeful, anonymous studio exec who got such an obvious erotic charge at the thought of workers being rendered homeless as punishment for challenging his corporate power completely misread the room, and his comments didn't demoralize the writers. Instead, they inspired the actors to go on strike, too.

But how have the writers stayed out since May Day? How have the actors stayed out for 69 days since their strike started on Bastille Day? We can thank the studios for that! As it turns out, the studios have devoted so much energy to rendering creative workers as precarious as possible, hiring as little as they can getting away with and using punishing overtime as a substitute for adequate staffing that they've eliminated all the workers who can't survive on side-hustles and savings for six or seven months at a time.

But even for those layoff-hardened workers, long strikes are brutal, and of course, all the affiliated trades, from costumers to grips, are feeling the pain. The strike fund only goes so far, and non-striking, affected workers don't even get that. That's why I've been donating regularly to the Entertainment Community Fund, which helps all affected workers out with cash transfers (I just gave them another $500):

https://secure2.convio.net/afa/site/Donation2?df_id=8117&8117.donation=form1&mfc_pref=T

As hot labor summer is revealed as a turning point – not just a season – long strikes will become the norm. Bosses still don't believe in worker power, and until they get their minds right, they're going to keep on trying to starve their workforces back inside. To get a sense of how long workers will have to hold out, just consider the Warrior Met strike, where Alabama coal-miners stayed out for 23 months:

https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/warrior-met-strike-union/

As Kim Kelly explained to Adam Conover in the latest Factually podcast, the Alabama coal strikers didn't get anywhere near the attention that the Hollywood strikers have enjoyed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvyMHf7Yg0Q

(To learn more about the untold story of worker organizing, from prison unions to the key role that people of color and women played in labor history, check out Kelly's book, "Fight Like Hell," now in paperback:)

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fight-Like-Hell/Kim-Kelly/9781982171063

Which brings me to the UAW strike. This is an historic strike, the first time that the UAW has struck all of the Big Three automakers at once. Past autoworkers' strikes have marked turning points for all American workers. The 1945/46 GM strike established employers' duty to cover worker pensions, health care, and cost of living allowances. The GM strike created the American middle-class:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-18-uaw-strikes-built-american-middle-class/

The Big Three are fighting for all the marbles here. They are refusing to allow unions to organize EV factories. Given that no more internal combustion cars will be in production in just a few short years, that's tantamount to eliminating auto unions altogether. The automakers are flush with cash, including billions in public subsidies from multiple bailouts, along with billions more from greedflation price-gouging. A long siege is inevitable, as the decimillionaires running these companies earn their pay by starving out their workers:

https://www.businessinsider.com/general-motors-ceo-mary-barra-salary-auto-workers-strike-uaw-2023-9

The UAW knows this, of course, and their new leadership – helmed by the union's radical president Shawn Fain – has a plan. UAW workers are engaged in tactical striking, shutting down key parts of the supply chain on a rolling basis, making the 90-day strike fund stretch much farther:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-09-18-labors-militant-creativity/

In this project, they are greatly aided by Big Car's own relentless pursuit of profit. The automakers – like every monopolized, financialized sector – have stripped all the buffers and slack out of their operations. Inventory on hand is kept to a bare minimum. Inputs are sourced from the cheapest bidder, and they're brought to the factory by the lowest-cost option. Resiliency – spare parts, backup machinery – is forever at war with profits, and profits have won and won and won, leaving auto production in a brittle, and easily shattered state.

This is especially true for staffing. Automakers are violently allergic to hiring workers, because new workers get benefits and workplace protection. Instead, the car companies routinely offer "voluntary" overtime to their existing workforce. By refusing this overtime, workers can kneecap production, without striking.

Enter "Eight and Skate," a campaign among UAW workers to clock out after their eight hour shift. As Keith Brower Brown writes for Labor Notes, the UAW organizers are telling workers that "It’s crossing an unofficial picket line to work overtime. It’s helping out the company":

https://labornotes.org/2023/09/work-extra-during-strike-auto-workers-say-eight-and-skate

Eight and Skate has already started to work; the Buffalo Ford plant can no longer run its normal weekend shifts because workers are refusing to put in voluntary overtime. Of course, bosses will strike back: the next step will be forced overtime, which will lead to the unsafe conditions that unionized workers are contractually obliged to call paid work-stoppages over, shutting down operations without touching the strike fund.

What's more, car bosses can't just halt safety stoppages or change the rules on overtime; per the UAW's last contract, bosses are required to bargain on changes to overtime rules:

https://uaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Working-Without-Contract-FAQ-FINAL-2.pdf

Car bosses have become lazily dependent on overtime. At GM's "highly profitable" SUV factory in Arlington, TX, normal production runs a six-days, 24 hours per day. Workers typically work five eight-hour days and nine hours on Saturdays. That's been the status quo for 11 years, but when bosses circulated the usual overtime signup sheet last week, every worker wrote "a big fat NO" next to their names.

Writing for The American Prospect, David Dayen points out that this overtime addiction puts a new complexion on the much-hyped workerpocalypse that EVs will supposedly bring about. EVs are much simpler to build than conventional cars, the argument goes, so a US transition to EVs will throw many autoworkers out of work:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-20-big-threes-labor-shortages-uaw/

But the reality is that most autoworkers are doing one and a half jobs already. Reducing the "workforce" by a third could leave all these workers with their existing jobs, and the 40-hour workweek that their forebears fought for at GM inn 1945/46. Add to that the additional workers needed to make batteries, build and maintain charging infrastructure, and so on, and there's no reason to think that EVs will weaken autoworker power.

And as Dayen points out, this overtime addiction isn't limited to cars. It's also endemic to the entertainment industry, where writers' "mini rooms" and other forms of chronic understaffing are used to keep workforces at a skeleton crew, even when the overtime costs more than hiring new workers.

Bosses call themselves job creators, but they have a relentless drive to destroy jobs. If there's one thing bosses hate, it's paying workers – hence all the hype about AI and automation. The stories about looming AI-driven mass unemployment are fairy tales, but they're tailor made for financiers who get alarming, life-threatening priapism at the though of firing us all and replacing us with shell-scripts:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

This is why Republican "workerism" rings so hollow. Trump's GOP talks a big game about protecting "workers" (by which they mean anglo men) from immigrants and "woke captialism," but they have nothing to say about protecting workers from bosses and bankers who see every dime a worker gets as misappropriated from their dividend.

Unsurprisingly, conservative message-discipline sucks. As Luke Savage writes in Jacobin, for every mealymouthed Josh Hawley mouthing talking points that "support workers" by blaming China and Joe Biden for the Big Three's greed, there's a Tim Scott, saying the quiet part aloud:

https://jacobin.com/2023/09/republicans-uaw-strike-hawley-trump-scott/

Quoth Senator Scott: "I think Ronald Reagan gave us a great example when federal employees decided they were going to strike. He said, you strike, you’re fired. Simple concept to me. To the extent that we can use that once again, absolutely":

https://twitter.com/American_Bridge/status/1704136706574741988

The GOP's workerism is a tissue-thin fake. They can never and will never support real worker power. That creates an opportunity for Biden and Democrats to seize:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/18/co-determination/#now-make-me-do-it

Reversing two generations of anti-worker politics is a marathon, not a sprint. The strikes are going to run for months, even years. Every worker will be called upon to support their striking siblings, every day. We can do it. Solidarity now. Solidarity forever.

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/2023/09/21/eight-and-skate/#strike-to-rule

[watchersleuth]

I didn't think I'd use this blog to make a post like this, but I'm seeing more and more comments and posts criticizing Watcher for their recent decision to layoff their production staff, and I want to try to explain some things. I also have experience working in film and television production so I hope that's helpful in this case.

For background, on March 17, 2025 people discovered via LinkedIn that Katie LeBlanc had ended her employment with Watcher. This, of course, caused some alarm.

I'm not in the habit of sharing things posted in the Wiscord, but Shane did let everyone know an important detail that I think is getting overlooked

I want to point out the part where he said that they were taking some "full-time positions and converting them to freelance"

Note: Almost every US television show that you watch from a major network runs on a freelance model

Yes, that one that you're thinking of right now. Also that one. Most exceptions to this would be a show like a news program or talk show that runs year-round and doesn't only film for a few months out of the year. When a crew member is freelance and one job ends, they use their networking connections to find another job. That's the way it's been done for over a hundred years in Hollywood.

This isn't ideal for everyone, for many reasons. And of course it would be preferable to live in a society where we valued creative work and people could get steady employment and benefits from being in this, or any artistic, field.

That's why Watcher hired folks on full-time as soon as they could. Remember in the 2022 Making Watcher when Steven talked about how they doubled their staff from 10 to 21 and how they were reinvesting into their own company? That was by design to try to give as many creative folks a shot at a regular full-time gig and I'm so proud of them for that!

Knowing this, I would bet that Watcher didn't WANT to convert anyone to freelance positions. People need to stop talking about the layoffs like this is something they wanted to do. They told us last year that they were launching the streamer to stay afloat, because YouTube isn't as beneficial as it used to be for creators.

Not to sound parasocial, but if you think that any of the Watcher Founders wanted to layoff the staff that they've worked with for years - people that have been with them since Worth It and Unsolved - then you don't know them at all.

Even if you think that they laid off everyone just for fun, consider that now when Watcher wants to film a new season of say Puppet History they will need to ask their previous staff if their schedule aligns with their filming time so they can be hired on to work the shoot. If not, they will have to advertise or go word of mouth, to find crew. That's more time and resources spent to staff a shoot than pulling from their regular crew.

TLDR; There's no controversy behind this news. This is normal for many media companies and is what Watcher had to do to remain in business.

It's not ideal, and I wish the streamer would have been so successful that they could've went the other direction like they planned all along - to bring on new hosts and make the diverse shows they've wanted to since 2019.

If you want to help Watcher:

-Subscribe to Watcher TV if you can. They've been running constant promo deals for the past year so if you do get an annual subscription make sure you use the discount code. The banner is always on top of the site.

-Subscribe to their main and podcast channels on YouTube

-Watch the videos as they get uploaded to YouTube, even if you're already a Watcher TV subscriber. Try to watch within the first day or two of uploading to push it up the algorithm. Make sure you "like" it and leave a positive/friendly/funny comment too! YT is looking for engagement and watch time, so the likes and comments help. And so does watching the video all the way through. (Bonus: Watcher has been using audience comments from videos on their social posts and it's fun to see what they choose!)

-If you're short on time or don't want to rewatch a video you already saw on the streamer you can always put it on a separate tab on your browser and mute it. Let the new videos or your favorite playlist stream in the background while you surf the web!

-Share their videos with friends, family, co-workers, etc. The more people that watch them the better! The Watcher channel is one of the more diverse that I've seen on YouTube so there's something for everyone.

-Make posts about what you enjoy about their shows and you'll find more friends that way.

Thanks for everyone who read this far. Comments are open if anyone wants to ask general production questions and I'll try to answer. Probably can't speak for Watcher specifically but maybe I'll know the answer from a Making Watcher video I can point you to.

And if you read all of this and still feel like you want to choose chaos (ie. harassing Watcher via their social media posts with accusations about the economy that they can't control) then I would urge you to direct that energy at your elected officials no matter what country you're in, find a fandom you enjoy engaging with instead, and maybe go touch some grass.

[noonesgaylikegatson]

The majority of rich people on this earth are broke. They don't have any money. I'll explain why:

Rich people don't make enough money to afford their lifestyles. What they do is that they they take out loans. These loans are countered against the property, businesses, and shares they hold.

So a rich person who brings in about 250,000 a month, will take out a loan for about $10 million to afford their lifestyle. That's for buying property, cars, going on vacation, hosting parties, jewelry etc.

They don't have enough liquid cash to afford any of these things on their own. That's why they take out these loans. Plus they have lines of credit.

This of course is not free money. They have to pay back monthly premiums. If they ever default, the banks will start snatching up their assets. This is where we start the nonsense:

Lower taxes? Rich person bringing home $250,000 a month that means they pay close to $150,000 dollars in taxes. They want to pay less taxes so they can:

get bigger loans

have more cushion rooms to pay their premiums

As you can imagine, getting a 10 million dollar loan, and spending it on luxury life style, will cause that money to quickly run out, and now they're paying premiums and are broke. They have to take out more loans, get more credit, it's a violent spiral.

(This is why I always say that people who complain about taxes are bad with money.)

How it fucks you: Less taxes means services get cut, and become worse.

Rent? A lot of rich people invest in property because it gives monthly income that they can use to pay their bills. The push against work from home? Majority of companies rent out their corporate spaces. With WFH, many companies downsized or got rid of their spaces. We saw a lot of rich people who expected monthly income suddenly lose that income. This scares them because they were counting on that income to pay their bills.

They're also against zoning reform, and building more houses because that could potentially lower rent, which would mean their monthly income would reduce.

Remember, the loans and credit that these broke fucks have to pay back, don't decrease.

Layoffs? Rich people who have shares in companies get dividends. When a company makes 1.2 billion in profit, those dividends go to the shareholders. If next year, the same company makes 800 million in profits, the shareholders get smaller dividends. Rich people are expecting on the money they receive from these companies to stay the same or get bigger.

Every wonder why companies rush out products that are obviously not ready? Those shareholders are pushing for the product to get out as soon as possible so they can quickly get the profits so they can pay their bills.

Investment bubbles? Rich people throwing their money in the new shiny thing in hopes it explodes and they make profit in order to pay off all their loans and credits, and then get even bigger loans and larger credit lines.

Literally every shitty thing in society can be traced back to rich people's poor money management. Very few rich people have liquid cash. This is why billionaires are so powerful.

When interest rates go up and causes premiums to balloon, rich people have to sell their assets to stay afloat, Billionaires can eat the costs, buy up businesses, properties and capital at lower rates, and then sell them when the economy recovers and the value bounces back.

You ever wondered why celebrities and athletes make so much money and then seem to lose it all? It's because of what I described as above. They get loans to afford their lifestyle, and then when their earnings dry up, they can't afford to pay their monthly premiums and the bank takes everything away.

We are told stories of "irresponsible spending" ex: buying golden yachts. When in actuality, they were simple doing as the romans do. Majority of celebrities don't have consistent income that lasts for decades unlike rich people have jobs and companies that pays them regularly for decades.

In conclusion: we need to destroy the lifestyle of the rich.

Loans should be regulated to things like buying property (homes people live in, and primary cars), entrepreneurship, life events, (weddings, ceremonies, plastic surgery, medical issues, emergencies, necessary renovations etc), education, research, etc. and other loans (luxury items, extra homes, personal loans etc.) should be penalized and taxed.

By forcing rich people to live on their liquid cash, would literally shift our society to a more egalitarian one, and make a healthy economy that focuses on progress and growth.

[dntaed]

I did a bit of research about the 'Tumblr getting shut down' rumour, and while I am not an expert in any of this, I just wanted to make a post for anyone following my account and my dear moots.

**info on this post will be updated systematically.

The rumour sparked because of tumblr staff being fired. Some are saying, this is connected to the tries to make tumblr even more profitable. They want to spend less money on staff, (from what I've read and been informed by others) so in the end the money they get is even more and in turn, even more profitable.

In the article, it said: In Wednesday’s announcement, Mullenweg explained that the newly announced layoffs will allow Automattic to become “more agile and responsive,” “break down silos that have created inefficiencies,” “focus on product quality,” and “ensure a viable financial model for long-term success.”

In automattic's post explaining this situation, they called this an "Restructuring Announcement". CEO Matt Mullenweg shared with Automattic employees the following message: This restructuring will result in an approximately 16% workforce reduction. This process is complex with Automatticians in 90 countries.

Of course, I've heard rumours like these for a lot of apps and they are currently fine and still running. Though, the discussion about all of this is still important. We need to remember profits and investments for tumblr is still important. Tumblr isn't a non-profit like ao3 is. They need the funds investors give, or they go bankrupt. Plus, ao3 is text based, Tumblr isn't. It needs even more funds because of that. So making it dependent on donations isn't going to work.

There are ways to protect yourself. So don't worry. Listen to those with a better understanding of this. One of the best advice I've heard is to be ready to back up your blog.

How to back up your blog?

It might actually be only a rumour and nothing more. (I second this)

The loss they'd have from complete shut down would be MUCH greater that the possible profit loss they have now. Social media sites like these don't get shut down just like this. I genuinely do not believe it will be shut down. The argument brought forward is pretty weak under heavy scrutiny. There's isn't an overall reason for it.

Were to go if you need a similar platform like Tumblr? There are sites like pillowfort, dreamwidth, mastadon, livejournal, (for mature blogs, alot of go to fetlife).

***For my dear moots, I will reblog this soon with my other socials. I love you all dearly and I do not want to contact.

***Again, don't panic. That's the last thing we need.

tags: @minorlyatfault @jjsblueberry @pjxcksonswrd @gibsluv @yintous @corpsedogs

[synergysilhouette]

How the mighty have fallen--but will something better come out of it?

I stopped playing "Choices" a few months ago and it's WILD to realize I haven't played "Fictif" since it stopped 3 years ago as well as "The Arcana" when it finished around the early days of "Fictif" (I think), but I feel like I'm experiencing the first nostalgic era of the digital age when it comes to mobile games; the mid to late 2010s was the best era of mobile games, it seems. Of course, after doing some digging, it's WILD to hear about the downfall of the companies that made these games. Nix Hydra (maker of "The Arcana" and "Fictif") is a rabbit hole that I can't even begin to explain, and it's content quickly became second priority when acquired by Dorian, despite Dorian saying it would still prioritize NH's content, instead taking the back seat to Dorian's own app--the app of which I liked in concept, but not execution. In any case, some members of the team from "The Arcana" and "The Last Legacy" from Fictif, as well as other games, made the indie Red Spring Studio company, with their first game "Touchstarved" (which had a Kickstarter that FAR EXCEEDED it's OG goals by 8x; one of the goals included a Nintendo Switch port). I think the game comes out at the end of this year, so I'll be excited to see how it goes. Unfortunately, their Kickstarter page has their updates limited to backers (people who helped fund the project) only, which IMO limits the exposure the game gets, but let's hope for the best.

As for Pixelberry, apparently they've had issues for years, and last year they had massive layoffs and were acquired by an AI company, so...there's that. Plus it seems they're still smut-focused and even the early 2024 art was victim of AI usage, maybe before that. To recooperate their costs, PB closed out two of it's other apps, and while still generating content, is losing the trust of fans, especially since, from what I've seen on their newsletters, they're focused on more "content" for established franchises--which doesn't mean sequels or spinoffs, but often a short book. Anyway, three of their creatives have went on to found Candlelight Games: the Head of Design was once the ex-creative director at PB and helped write "Bloodbound," "Blades of Light and Shadow," "Most Wanted," and "Endless Summer"; the Head of Narrative was an ex-head of Choices and helped write "America's Most Eligible," "The Nanny Affair" (man, the switchup is CRAZY), "With Every Heartbeat," "Distant Shores," and "Ride or Die"; and the CEO was the former VP of new games, an ex-head of Choices, and ex-head of Hollywood U. As someone who became disappointed with many Choices books when the decade hit, this feels promising. The company's first project, "Project Spellstruck" (codename), is expected to start releasing this year.

Seems like the mid-2020s may have me more engaged in interactive mobile games that haven't been exciting for half a decade. Check out these stories and spread the word!

[isaidyoulookshitty]

"i wrote lucanis as a bisexual disaster" vs "oh he's actually pan-demisexual and a virgin" well which one is it, girl. do either of those statements mean anything (rhetorical: pro- or retroactive commentary from devs/writers means fuck all to me if none of it is actually reflected in the product i paid for) or did you see how disappointed players were with the underdeveloped, rushed, and badly paced romance your baby boy ended up with and just slap a "grey-asexual" sticker on his forehead to explain it away. like anyone on the asexual spectrum is any less deserving of a well written romance plotline.

hi; i'm demisexual myself, so i know a bit about how this is supposed to work. there is NO chemistry between rook and lucanis, they have NO in-depth conversations about what they feel for each other, and there is NO foundation for emotional rapport to build on his supposed demisexuality. most of lucanis's thoughts, feelings, and motivations are revealed to the player through secondary npc's! but go ahead and throw out a bunch of queer fandom buzzwords on socmed to make it more marketable. a little more lipstick on that pig can't hurt.

as i've said before, maybe this is true of the other romance options. maybe they are all similarly flat, awkward, and disjointed. but i wouldn't know because at the time i wasn't allowed to pursue anyone else AND lucanis, and after i finished my first playthrough i skipped the credits and uninstalled the game. and i never will know because i have no desire to ever play it again. i get that the devs all worked hard and fought through a decade of mismanagement, layoffs, and development hell, but the harebrained spin job and damage control bioware keeps trying (and failing at) rather than acknowledging any of veilguard's shortcomings are nauseating at this point.

""""found family"""" """""hurt/comfort"""" """""slow burn""""" oh my god i'm TIRED. are we talking about an ao3 summary or a $70 video game?? if you absolutely must yoink fanfiction tropes for your professionally developed, AAA studio title either do it competently or leave it to the fic writers. after this dumpster fire i know they're already hard at work.

[phantomrose96]

Hey not to go all "tumblr is a professional networking site" on you, but how did you get to work for Microsoft??? I'm a recent grad and I'm being eviscerated out here trying to apply for industry jobs & your liveblogging about your job sounds so much less evil than Data Entry IT Job #43461

This place is basically LinkedIn to me.

I'm gonna start by saying I am so so very sorry you're a recent grad in the year 2024... Tech job market is complete ass right now and it is not just you. I started fulltime in 2018, and for 2018-2022 it was completely normal to see a yearly outflow of people hopping to new jobs and a yearly inflow of new hires. Then sometime around late-spring/early-summer of 2022 Wallstreet sneezed the word "recession" and every tech company simultaneously shit themselves.

Tons of layoffs happened, meaning you're competing not just with new grads but with thousands of experienced workers who got shafted by their company. My org squeaked by with a small amount of layoffs (3 people among ~100), but it also means we have not hired anyone new since mid-2022. And where I used to see maybe 4-8 people yearly leave in order to hop to a new job, I think I've seen 1 person do that in the whole last year and a half.

All this to say it's rough and I can't just say "send applications and believe in yourself :)".

I have done interviews though. (I'm not involved in resume screening though, just the interviews of candidates who made it past the screening phase.) So I have at least some relevant advice, as well as second-hand knowledge from other people I know who've had to hop jobs or get hired recently.

If you have friends already in industry who you feel comfortable asking, reach out to them. Most companies have a recommendation process where a current employee fills out a little form that says "yeah I'd recommend such-and-such for this job." These do seem to carry weight, since it's coming from a trusted internal person and isn't just one of the hundreds of cold-call applications they've received.

A lot of tech companies--whether for truly well-intentioned reasons or to just check a checkbox--are on the lookout for increasing employee diversity. If you happen to have anything like, for example, "member of my college Latino society", it's worth including on your resume among your technical skills and technical projects.

I would add "you're probably gonna have to send a lot of applications" as a bullet point but I'm sure you're already doing that. But here it is as a bullet point anyway.

(This is kind of a guess, since it's part of the resume screening) but if you can dedicate some time to getting at least passingly familiar with popular tech/stacks for the positions you're looking into, try doing that in your free time so you can list it on your resume. Even better if you make a project you can point to. Like if you're aiming for webdev, get familiar with React and probably NodeJS. On top of being comfortable in one of the all-purpose languages like C(++) or Java or Python.

If you get to the interview phase - a company that is good to work for WILL care that you're someone who's good to work with. A tech-genius who's a coworker-hating egotistical snob is a nuisance at best and a liability at worst for companies with even a half-decent culture. When I do interviews, "Is this someone who's a good culture fit?" is as important as the technical skills. You'll want to show you'll be a perfectly pleasant, helpful, collaborative coworker. If the company DOESN'T care about that... bullet dodged.

For the technical questions, I care more about the thought process than I do the right answer, especially for entry-level. If you show a capacity for asking good, insightful clarifying questions, an ability to break down the problem, explain your thought process, and backtrack&alter your approach upon realizing something won't work, that's all more important than just being able to spit out a memorized leetcode answer. (I kinda hate leetcode for this reason, and therefore I only ask homebrewed questions, because I don't want the technical portion to hinge at all on whether someone managed to memorize the first 47 pages of leetcode problems). For a new hire, the most important impression you can give me is that you have a technical grasp and that you're capable of learning. Because a new hire isn't going to be an expert in anything, but they're someone who's capable of learning the ropes.

That's everything I have off the top of my head. Good luck anon. I'm very sorry you were born during a specific range of years that made you a new grad in 2024 and I hope it gets better.

[astermacguffin]

Final semester! Help needed!

PLEASE help this struggling Filipino finish college! Due to circumstances explained in previous posts (tl;dr - unjust, unpaid layoffs in dad's workplace), I have been struggling to finish my degree. But thanks to your help, I have been able to continue my studies for the past year. I am about to enter my final semester for my undergrad, so I am again asking for help.

The cost breakdown will be under the cut, but in total, I would need a total of 42,830.50 pesos, or 745.20 USD (as of May 15, 2024). This is inclusive of enrollment fees, costs of living, and graduation fees. Again, I cannot overstate how thankful I am to everyone for your help. Even a single dollar goes a long way.

Options:

1. paypal.me/RVAster

2. Remitly:

Send to: Philippines

Delivery method: Mobile money

Gcash or Maya: 09291580204

Cost breakdown under the cut:

Enrollment: 24,630.50

Graduation: 5,700

Rent: 2,500 x 5 months = 12,500

Total: 42,830.50

[moleshow]

honest to god, what should i read to better understand economics? last time i seriously studied it was when i was 16, and my major had nothing to do with it. sorry if it’s a bit dumb but it seems you know a lot, and i of course don’t

(economically illiterate anon, LOL): I forgot to say, but it��d be best if it was somewhat targeted towards US policies, particularly those that Trump adopts, because I keep seeing many experts, and you, claim he is going to crash the economy, but I live in a red state, so I haven’t met any other local IRL who thinks so… Everyone praises Reagan and talks of how he “saved us” and all the “progress” and etc, and I know it’s bullshit, because I do know history, but I still don’t understand the economic policies themselves, and why they are irredeemable, for lack of a better word.

not dumb! i do have a post to this effect (sort of) right here with books that i will also link here. i've elaborated on which of those works might be useful to you after the cut down below.

the predictions of a crash have to do with a couple of different elements. some of the Big Ones, in my view, are as follows (not taking into account industry-specific problems or we would be here all day):

there are not enough private sector jobs to make up for the mass layoffs in the federal government. cuts to federal spending in other forms (e.g., NIH research grants) reduce employment in industries that money was funding. both of these factors drive unemployment up and aggregate demand down. people who don't have money coming in spend less, so there's likely going to be a ripple effect on employment from that as businesses dependent upon that spending close. we get the february jobs numbers on friday, folks, so keep an eye out. furthermore, the DOGE business is at least partly contributing to weakening consumer confidence so you'll likely see people holding back on big purchases.

the way this administration conducts itself is erratic, unpredictable, and generally unsound. companies do not like this. it is difficult to make purchasing decisions when you can't be sure whether an import is going to cost 25% more tomorrow than it did today. for firms exporting to countries hitting us with reciprocal tariffs, their costs just went up. because some goods bounce across borders a few times before they're finished products, they're getting dinged multiple times. additionally, there's real hesitancy when it comes to any business dealing with federal dollars now because it's not guaranteed that funds promised will actually go out. you can click here and hear (read) most of this stuff straight from the horse's mouth.

when you have a sustained period of high unemployment and stagnant or negative economic growth, what you end up with is a problem--one that tax cuts cannot fix.

of these works i think the frieden, stein, and rivoli are probably going to be the most useful for you, as well as the reinert section on international trade but especially the chapters on the political economy of trade (ch. 5), trade policy analysis (ch. 6), and on crises and responses (ch. 18).

none of these works are specifically about trump's policies but i will explain their relevance. the reinert is good to give you a foundation in thinking and talking about international trade--that'll give you the background to understand what's sort of at play.

the frieden will give you a historical view on the development of our current financial system and how previous recessions/depressions occurred, and the section at the end on the "trilemma" outlines how monetary policy involves a lot of tradeoffs. but this stuff matters for illustrating how the US is economically load-bearing and how it became that way

the stein is useful for looking at steel because that is an industry which trump has paid a good deal of lip service to, so it's worth getting a sense of what exactly happened to the industry in the US and what it takes to actually incentivize domestic production (spoiler: you need government spending and finely tuned trade policies). this is something also addressed in stein's lecture on c-span, which also touches on the economic situation leading up to reagan's election (particularly from 1:27:00 onward)

finally, the rivoli book helps illustrate (using garment production as an example) how supply chains operate on an international scale.

[its-hitoshi]

sevika and her gut instincts

you'd say at the end of season 2, sevika, in a way, won. she didn't die -- only lost an arm while finally uniting zaun in some capacity, and becoming its representative to piltover.

sevika has always trusted her gut. it's never led her wrong. however just because she trusts it doesn't mean she's listened all the time

tw: disordered eating, emetophobia

luckily for her parents, sevika was never a sickly child. though the Grey affected her, as it did everyone in zaun, sevika never had a cold that lasted too long. never had blood or grey tints in the phlegm coughed up. what she always had problems with, however, was her stomach. it started when she was small -- when her parents started arguing. though she'll never admit it, one of her first memories is curling up against the leg of the family dinner table -- shoddy and rough with future splinters -- as her parents shouted at each other. now sevika knows that the rent was going up despite wages the piltie owners meted up stayed steadily low. whether that was a result of their zaunite proxy being greedy or the pilties being out of their goddamn mines, sevika still doesn't know. she'll say her stomach hurt from hunger -- which wasn't a lie. but she's long forgotten the stress her tiny body felt as her parents' voices warred against each other. she shrank smaller and smaller until all the stress could go was to her center -- her stomach. it ached.

as she grew older, the same story rewinded. hunger. anger. ache.

when she grew of age, finally, to bleed, it hurt so bad. her parents didn't want her to, but she worked in the mines. it was safer to work than to play and be stolen away, after all. organs were needed in piltover. extra workers were needed in mines that were known to have even worse conditions than this one. she worked and worked and worked through the pain -- swung her pickaxe into the rock. shimmied her way through tunnels far too small for the her of today to fit both arms (metal and flesh) into.

black dust tints whatever she coughs up now. it's like a rite of passage, spitting grey onto the already stained streets. it was only when she was walking home did she feel the warmth between her legs. how it felt wrong, like a knife slowly shoving into her despite how she knows something is coming out. it was the beginning of the last times when she hugged her mother, who explained to her quietly that she was growing up now. she's turning into a woman. it's normal. it'll hurt, but that'll go away (she'll get used to it. she won't bleed very often, especially if there's not enough for her to eat... her mother's heard of the layoffs coming up in the next few weeks. this is their only blessing)

sevika is sixteen when her mother dies. her mother's hope was right. her bleeding came and went. sometimes after one month, sometimes after nine. in time, sevika would realize her body always gave her a warning, as she woke up with her gut cramping up. she can't eat the day she finds out her mother has died. it was a cave-in. it killed all 26 workers of that tunnel. sevika had been in the next one over. her mouth is dry, yet she doesn't get a glass of water. doesn't want any despite how lucky she is to live in a miner's house, one of the few types of houses in zaun that have running water.

the funeral happens quickly. sevika's father says, abruptly, that they need to burn her mother. it's part of her culture. sevika wonders what this culture is -- still does. she was never taught. all her mother ever told her was that her name means servant of god in the language of her mother's homeland. well, the homeland of her mother's mother. she never learned much either. simply bits and pieces of the language. as she breathes in the smoke from the fire, feels its warmth, she wonders when was the last time her mother held her. maybe this was one last goodbye.

the first meal she has after that whole ordeal -- when was the last time she had eaten? 48 hours? 72? maybe more? -- sevika throws up. her father realized at some point that they should eat. he left once he gobbled up what amount was on his plate. left only enough money for their upcoming rent. sevika, instead, ran and threw up outside the house. all she can think of as she stares at the barely digested food is what a waste of money.

her father comes back, reeking of alcohol. the scent stings her nose. sevika has seen the way the winds blow. janna's protection could only last so long for the children of zaun. her luck's run out.

without her mother, the work needed to meet the rent has only gone up. her father's drinking doesn't help either. sevika finds it easier on the body to simply not eat as much rather than take up even more extra shifts. in her free time, she steals. piltover takes all their money -- them and their wannabe zaunite proxies in charge of the mines and and who want to be in charge the lanes because of piltover's greed -- it's only right that she takes some back.

her gut feels weird one day. doesn't hurt, just... weird. though she's seen that the streets are empty, sevika stays in her spot. she realizes she hadn't been aware enough as an enforcer stalks his way down the street where she would have landed.

she listens to this weird, odd feeling. it's somehow always right. it serves her well. she felt it as she walked away from vander. it was with her as finn's voice grated at her ears. what she doesn't listen to is how her stomach screams for sustenance, at times. sometimes food, sometimes for acknowledgement of hurt like it did the first time her father threw a beer bottle at her.

it's easier to drown out when she drinks -- just like her father did. perhaps that's what else she inherited from him. he used to say she was all her mother. all she had from him were her eyes.

smoking comes naturally to her -- what was there to worry about? her lungs shriveling like some silly piltie claimed would happen? it was a 'healthcare' campaign of some sort spearheaded by a rich, spoiled brat. whatever of her lungs the Grey and coal dust didn't already ruin deserved to be dusted with ash she decided to grace it with. (it numbs that ache in her stomach too, which somehow continues to hurt despite how old she's grown.)

her father's dead now -- she let his body float into the river. strapped a bottle of alcohol to his chest -- better quality than what she knows he'd usually drink some days she finds herself on the verge of vomiting even if she eats nothing that day. she doesn't waste her money frivolously at the bar. smokes cheap cigarettes filled with who knows what. she's met vander and silco. they're kind people. they share. she doesn't have to be hungry anymore. she steals enough to sustain herself as most of the money goes to rent. the rest to food, obviously. yet still, her stomach quietly aches.

[wilbraley]

I’m not an active part of the Mouthwashing fandom (I hardly interact with it tbh) but I’ve been thinking about an AU for a while. Is this a Good End AU, or a Bad End AU? Who fucking knows, but I think its fun!

Summary under the cut bc it’s a bit long!

Concept: at the point where Curly is surprised for his birthday, he goes to tell the crew that they’ve been laid off by the company, but they’re interrupted by a warning over the ship’s intercom: there is a damaged ship, one from their company’s fleet, nearby. Daisuke and Anya are interested in exploring it, perhaps saving any survivors, yada yada. Most negatives are reasoned with and they securely dock to the ship.

(Logistically, is this possible? IDK! Their ship might not be one that can dock to others, it might just have an entrance, but it has a docking port for this AU!)

Once inside, they see that it is a TOTAL WRECK. Everything is in disarray and decay, there’s foam everywhere (but thank god the Pony Express ships are so uniform, this ship’s layout is so close to theirs they can figure out where to go.) and half the ship is covered in empty bottles of mouthwash they find in the cargo bay. (“Damn,” they think, “these poor chumps got this beat up toting mouthwash of all things.”) Then, they find the bodies, though by this point they’re little more than bones and detritus. Unrecognizable, but with wounds that suggest crew in-fighting. (They’re set around the table in a horrific display. They cannot figure out why.)

Most of the ship is abandoned. There are seemingly no survivors. And yet, they find someone in the cryo-pod! Still alive! And it is the most injured, fucked-up person they’ve ever seen. But hey, they’re alive, so they can keep them that way. They get back in their ship and continue their journey. Perhaps they even recover the corpses of the crew in an effort to bring someone closure. Who knows, authorities ought to be able to DNA ID the bones, at least.

Of course, the ship is the Tulpar, and thats them they found. Post-game, after years of decay, but still them. By whatever means, they’ve been sent back to the past to be dealt with. (I like the idea of a wormhole, simply because thats such a time-travel cliche when it comes to space).

And because they interrupted the birthday event, none of the crew know that they’re being laid off. Curly knows about Anya, but she hasn’t told Jimmy. Jimmy is woefully in the dark, and thus doesn’t crash-out in a couple days when they pass the meteor. Speaking of, Curly and Anya are a bit busy with the injured person and the corpses (and hey! If that gives Anya a reason to stay in the medbay, well, she isn’t complaining.) Curly feels guilty he’s keeping the layoff from his crew, but they’re in a pretty odd, stressful situation right now and they don’t need that info on top of it.

Post-game Curly is having a very bad time. He’s pretty convinced, for the first good few days he’s conscious, that he’s dreaming or hallucinating. Perhaps the cryo-pod failed, and he’s slowly dying? Perhaps he’s in hell for his sins? Either way, the people he sees are figments in his eyes, and he’s falling off the deep end. After a bit, and with some coaxing, he begins to believe that it is real, but it confuses him about what is true. It isn’t until he gets confirmation that the Curly he sees is real, that the Jimmy he sees is real, that he realizes what is happening, and he tries to communicate with the crew, to warn them about the future.

(I don’t have much in mind after this point because of how open it becomes. Literally anything is possible)

Many things could happen. Maybe Anya is still nauseous about giving Curly his pills, so she has someone - Jimmy, in the worst situation - do it for her when she’s ill (he isn’t kind to the injured man, and the injured man does not respond well to him. He gets replaced by Curly, and no matter how kind Curly is the injured man seems more upset.) Maybe someone finds the layoff notice before Curly can explain to the crew. Maybe Jimmy tries something with Anya in the medbay, but Curly stops him (finally, finally doing something for her.) Maybe Jimmy tries to tell his Curly that he really doesn’t like the injured guy, that there’s something wrong with the way he looks at him, they need to do something about that. Maybe Curly can tell Anya who he is, get her to warn her Curly to beware Jimmy, to do something about him before he does something. Maybe Anya reaches out to the others before the crash. Maybe Swansea, or Daisuke figure out who the bodies are, finally realizing that there were far too many similarities in that wrecked ship to write off. Maybe Jimmy finally snaps and attempts to sabotage the ship.

Maybe it works, and the crew are once again stuck in hell, waiting for death. Maybe the crew are ready, and he fails and is dealt with.

At least Curly can try to atone for his mistakes. At least they have an opportunity to survive.

[ehrenbergese]

Musk's team to investigate employees with 'questionable' wealth as Trump orders hiring restrictions at federal agencies

During a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on February 11, EST, Musk told the press that his team at the Department of Government Efficiency would investigate federal employees whose relatively low pay has skyrocketed their net worth.

The theme of the press conference that day was federal agency reform. Trump revealed that he had signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to work with the Department of Governmental Efficiency to continue to implement large-scale layoff programs, as well as severely restrict hiring. Components of agencies (or the agencies themselves) may be eliminated or consolidated because they are performing illegal functions. Additionally, there will be one new hire for every four departing employees, except in the areas of immigration, law enforcement and public safety.

Trump also urged Musk's team to investigate “the woman who rolled up about $30 million” during the conversation. Some analysts noted that he appeared to be alluding to Bauer, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, whom he has suspended. Bauer's annual salary was close to $250,000, but his net worth soared to $30 million during his tenure.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is one of the most important tools of U.S. foreign “soft power,” exporting its influence and American values, especially to Third World countries, including support for a variety of foreign NGOs, media organizations, academic programs, and scientific research projects. In the last fiscal year, the agency received more than $70 billion in available funds, of which perhaps only 10 percent was actually used for aid programs.

Musk then responded that there are actually a number of people in federal agencies who are paid only a few hundred thousand dollars but have amassed tens of millions of dollars in net worth during their tenure in their positions. That seems mysterious. I think they got rich on the taxpayers' dime.

Since the day he entered the White House, Trump has empowered Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to make sweeping cuts to federal agencies and employees that have particularly impressed his supporters. As Musk's team continues to begin obtaining information from agencies such as the Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, its claims will soon unravel the corruption that lies hidden in the mists of the multilayered organization. Next up for Musk's upcoming audits are the Departments of Defense and Education.

But his actions have meanwhile created a huge wave of opposition among his political opponents. Former Treasury Secretary Summers has argued that Musk and the Department of Governmental Efficiency exceeded their authority and violated professional ethics by accessing the Treasury's payment system. Musk has not publicly explained how his team obtained data on the net worth of officials. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, accused Musk of a power grab, and that these “cost-cutting and efficiency measures” had a serious impact on the normal operation of the government.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.

This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.

In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.

Let’s start with the military, because that’s what he claims to care about. Don’t let the swagger fool you. Mr. Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (of group chat fame) are apparently more focused on performative fights over wokeness than preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries. Does anyone really think deleting tributes to the Tuskegee Airmen makes us more safe? The Trump Pentagon purged images of the plane that dropped the atomic bomb that ended World War II because its name is the Enola Gay. Dumb.

Instead of working with Congress to modernize the military’s budget to reflect changing threats, the president is firing top generals without credible justification. Five former secretaries of defense, Republicans and Democrats, rightly warned that this would “undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security.” Mass layoffs are also hitting the intelligence agencies. As one former senior spy put it, “We’re shooting ourselves in the head, not the foot.” Not smart.

If they’re this reckless with America’s hard power, it’s no surprise that they’re shredding our soft power. As a former secretary of state, I am particularly alarmed by the administration’s plan to close embassies and consulates, fire diplomats and destroy the U.S. Agency for International Development. Let me explain why this matters, because it’s less widely understood than the importance of tanks and fighter jets.

I visited 112 countries and traveled nearly one million miles as America’s top diplomat, and I have seen how valuable it is for our country to be represented on the ground in far-flung places. The U.S. military has long understood that our forces must be forward deployed in order to project American power and respond quickly to crises. The same is true of our diplomats. Our embassies are our eyes and ears informing policy decisions back home. They are launchpads for operations that keep us safe and prosperous, from training foreign counterterrorism forces to helping U.S. companies enter new markets.

China understands the value of forward-deployed diplomacy, which is why it has opened new embassies and consulates around the world and now has more than the United States. The Trump administration’s retreat would leave the field open for Beijing to spread its influence uncontested.

Diplomats win America friends so we don’t have to go it alone in a competitive world. That’s how my colleagues and I were able to rally the United Nations to impose crippling sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program and ultimately force Tehran to stop its progress toward a bomb — something Mr. Trump’s bluster has failed to do. (He actually defunded inspectors keeping an eye on Iranian research sites. Dumb.)

Diplomacy is cost-effective, especially compared with military action. Preventing wars is cheaper than fighting them. Mr. Trump’s own former secretary of defense Jim Mattis, a retired Marine Corps four-star general, told Congress, “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition.”

Our development assistance has always been a small portion of the federal budget, but it also has an outsize impact on international stability, especially paired with effective diplomacy. When American aid dollars help stop a famine or an outbreak, when we respond to a natural disaster or open schools, we win hearts and minds that might otherwise go to terrorists or rivals like China. We reduce the flow of migrants and refugees. We strengthen friendly governments that might otherwise collapse.

I don’t want to pretend that any of this is easy or that American foreign policy hasn’t been plagued by mistakes. Leadership is hard. But our best chance to get it right and to keep our country safe is to strengthen our government, not weaken it. We should invest in the patriots who serve our nation, not insult them.

Smart reforms could make federal agencies, including the State Department and U.S.A.I.D., more efficient and effective. During the Clinton administration, my husband’s Reinventing Government initiative, led by Vice President Al Gore, worked with Congress to thoughtfully streamline bureaucracy, modernize the work force and save billions of dollars. In many ways it was the opposite of the Trump administration’s slash-and-burn approach. Today they are not reinventing government; they’re wrecking it.

All of this is both dumb and dangerous. And I haven’t even gotten to the damage Mr. Trump is doing by cozying up to dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, blowing up our alliances — force multipliers that extend our reach and share our burdens — and trashing our moral influence by undermining the rule of law at home. Or how he’s tanking our economy and blowing up our national debt. Propagandists in Beijing and Moscow know we are in a global debate about competing systems of governance. People and leaders around the world are watching to see if democracy can still deliver peace and prosperity or even function. If America is ruled like a banana republic, with flagrant corruption and a leader who puts himself above the law, we lose that argument. We also lose the qualities that have made America exceptional and indispensable.

If there’s a grand strategy at work here, I don’t know what it is. Maybe Mr. Trump wants to return to 19th-century spheres of influence. Maybe he’s just driven by personal grudges and is in way over his head. As a businessman, he bankrupted his Atlantic City casinos. Now he’s gambling with the national security of the United States. If this continues, a group chat foul will be the least of our concerns, and all the fist and flag emojis in the world won’t save us.

Hillary Clinton is a former secretary of state and U.S. senator and was the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in 2016.

https://www.nytimes.com/.../trump-hegseth-signal-chat...

[sweaterkittensahoy]

y'all, if you want me to participate in a boycott, you have to tell me why. I should not have to google the name of the thing and the date to get an answer.

In case anyone else has seen things about "economic blackout on February 28 ", it's about protesting DEI rollbacks from large companies.

But I had to look it up. You can't run an effective boycott if people don't know why, and you shouldn't want to run a boycott where people can't easily answer why.

Also, the info I saw about it said "Starting with one day, maybe going up to three."

You don't get to be wishy-washy on the length of your short boycott. That's not how this works. Are you doing a 24-hour boycott or are you doing a 3-day boycott? Because it feels like you're trying to have a ready excuse if the numbers aren't as devastating as you would like them to be in 24 hours.

Also, frankly, setting it for February 28th when Valentine's Day is FRIDAY and a day that large retailers usually get slammed makes me feel there's no real backbone in play here.

Look, if you wanna participate, participate. Here's a Newsweek article explaining it.

Also, here's Newsweek explaining who The People's Union is because i sure as fuck didn't know, and frankly from the what the founder of the union focuses on on his own Union website, I do not find them serious in the least. It's all buzz words and sob story background with nothing in the article actually indicating what this group does to actually effect change.

If Newsweek has to run an article explaining who the group is who is trying to run a boycott, and that article doesn't actually explain what the group hopes to achieve by having the boycott, it's not a serious group.

"But, Gayle! They want DEI offices back!"

Okay. But do you really think PBS cut its DEI department because it wanted to or because if they don't, the government funding they get will get yanked? Do you really think Target, that loudly made a point to talk about how less rainbow their capitalism was gonna be before Pride last year, is just chomping at the bit to put their DEI office back into place, or do you think maybe they showed up which side they were on and now they have an easy excuse to drop it?

Do you think Google, who was literally head-hunting me for nearly a year, and then suddenly stopped talking to me just as they got sued by female employees for sexist work practices geniunely care about what DEI can do?

Do you think Amazon, who has cut me out of interview cycles TWICE because when they ask "How do you innovate every day?" and I go, "I don't. I think it's an odd standard to judge all possible employees by especially in my department, where the focus should be on being able to communicate complicated information to anyone in any place at any time, which can lead to innovation but should not be a high-ranked goal" gives a shit about DEI? The Amazon that demanded workers come back to the office back in September while announcing everyone had until January? Thus making it possible for them to have a "voluntary headcount reduction" instead of a layoff to deal with whatever shortcomings the balance sheet showed?

"But, Gayle, I care!"

Aim it somewhere useful. Do a personal boycott. Email all those big companies The People's Union think they can hit on the bottom line within maybe 72 hours and tell them what you generally spend at their company and that you are taking that money away. Because, honestly, an email campaign that is "Hey, I did the math, and last year, I spent $500 at your business, and this year, I'm spending $0." Get your friends into it. Do some community organizing around it. Rather than this empty threat of 24-72 hours, commit to a long-term refusal to work with these private companies who do not have to answer to the government for their funding.

At the end of the day, for me, it comes down to this: A maybe 3-day boycott by an unproven group calling itself a "Union" whose main talking points are "government bad" and "I've been meditating since I was six" (that's not a joke, that's in the article about who the fuck People's Union is) isn't going to do jack fuck all for any DEI program. Literally every business they want you to target can easily handle three days of no shoppers. They can probably handle three years of slow sales, frankly.

The reasons boycotts work when ACTUAL unions call for them is because companies know their average sales. So, if a REAL union says, "Please show your support for the union on February 28 by refusing to buy from our place of business," and that place of business sees a HUGE drop in sales on February 28, they can only assume it's because the union asked customers to show they stand with the union. (By the way, if you ever participate in a boycott like that, please also send an email to customer service that says "I will not be buying from you on February 28 because I stand with the union," but also please only do it if you actually go to that business in general; lots of people call things a boycott when they mean they just don't and never have shopped someplace.).

Those 24-72 hours the People's Union want you spend not shopping but maybe shopping if they feel really powerful after the first 24 hours, will be much better spent bothering your elected officials to make them refuse the anti-DEI executive order.

This is a bragging rights boycott. It will not harm the businesses in the least, but at the end of it, all the people who participated can smugly announce they didn't buy anything at the Target for a whole 3 days because they're so morally correct.

[internalloops]

Can someone please explain to me how, after the shitshow that was dragon age veilguard, with writing so abysmal and lackluster, 2 of the fucking writers (who where layoff by EA/Bioware ) are now the lead writers for ghost of yotei??

Did I miss something? Like why?

What happened to the ghost of tusimma's original writing team?

Why would Sucker Punch, after taking a long look at veilguards dumpster fire be like "yeah lets bring that mediocracy over here" ..

A game that only brought in 1.5million players...

Like I honestly can't find any info that isn't being written by bigots who throw tantrums when they see a female lead character. Is there a reasonable reason for this, and I'm freaking out for no reason or is another game that I have been anticipating about to get ruined.