#we had a supervisor transfer from another store

[ronearoundblindly]

Being in the hospital im thinking what would it be like if Ari's girl ended up in the hospital nothing life threatening but something that needed to be treated in the hospital. I'm betting he'd be a nervous wreck and wouldn't let anyone see it he'd maybe go into the bathroom and freak but I'm guessing he'd try and stay strong but crack a bit infront of her or maybe stay overnight if they let (it depends on the wards)

ok, full disclosure, I did absolutely no research for this because I'd like you to have reading materials, so it's in no way scientific 🤷🏻‍♀️

The Chair Beside Your Bed, a Bedrock and Blueprints tale

No warnings except minor angst to fluff. (Sry, the gif barely works here but I'm...not changing it. 👀) WC 975

Ari can barely keep his eyes open. You're already asleep, but he just can't bring himself to join.

The IV in your hand looks uncomfortable when you tense involuntarily. He watches the tendons pull and roll beneath your skin and swallows hard.

He should have seen the signs, and the doctors say you'll be right as rain once the antibiotics are done. He still can't leave. He still can't eat. He still refuses to sleep.

Ari's mind can refuse all it wants. Eventually, his eyelids are too heavy, his neck slumps over the thin pillow behind it, and he's lost to a dreamless land in the chair beside your hospital bed.

"Ow," you hiss, releasing the two-by-four in your grasp.

"You get your hand, honey? I got those gloves for you."

You wave him off. "No, no. Stepped too close to the pile and scraped my leg. No big deal. That's almost all the wood from the truck."

"Great," Ari chirps, straightening after marking the outline of your She-Shed in the backyard. "I'll go get another load before dark. We can plot out the frame and whatnot tomorrow."

As you wipe the back of your hand over your head, Ari doesn't see any blood on your legs and immediately forgets.

"So we'll need equal amounts of wood on all sides," you ask.

He shrugs and pulls off his own thick work gloves. "More or less, yeah." Ari won't let you use any of the tools, but he will let you speak like it's a joint effort. Because it is. Everything he does is meant for you now.

While he's out at the store again, you divvy up the stacks of planks around the edges, far enough away for space to work but close enough for convenience. He's grateful, but Ari doesn't realize this means hours where you did not clean the cut on your leg.

A week later and you're running a slight fever. Ari only notices you aren't walking properly when you get off the couch.

His worst fear at that point is that stupid desk chair you're always complaining about. Your back is constantly aching. He wishes the company would replace all the chairs soon but especially, specifically yours.

You work too hard. You're worn out.

He knows you've had a bandaid on one calf, but it's on the outside leg where you sleep in the bed. He forgets a lot until his leg brushes against it while you two snuggle, and you hiss in pain.

Ari insists on taking a look, switching on the bedside lamp. He can tell something is wrong before even removing the bandage because it's red beyond the adhesive. The middle is warm to the touch, which he can barely do before you gripe at him.

You promise to go to the urgent care first thing in the morning, and Ari drives you himself. You're so sure that they'll just slap some pills in your hand and send you on your way that you shoo him off to work.

He gets a voicemail two hours later.

"Hey, uh, don't be mad, but they've transferred me to the hospital. I have to be hooked up to this drip thing for a few days and--"

Ari's in his truck before his supervisor can even wish you well.

If he'd thought about it at all, he would have gone by the house to get you and him a change of clothes, but no such luck. He refuses to leave the hospital grounds and only leaves the building when he absolutely can't stand his cigarette cravings anymore. Otherwise, he is right beside you.

You sleep a surprising amount, wiped out by the intensity of your treatment albeit fairly standard.

It's a long three days.

Ari decided after the first afternoon there that his chair needed to be on the other side of your bed. That way he could hold your hand that wasn't pierced with a needle, and he can safely rest his head on your side.

When you're awake, your fingers card through his hair. When you're awake, you tell him he looks like shit and needs to sleep, too.

"I promise I will later."

"You're lying," you complain weakly.

"Yeah, kid, I'm lying."

This exchange happens three separate times: the first you forget, the second you laugh at, and the third you start playing dirty.

You tell him you'd like to listen to one of your audiobooks, and since neither of you has headphones, you play it on speaker with the phone on your chest.

Ari is successfully out cold within minutes and wakes refreshed and a little pissed.

He lied and told the nurses you are his wife in order to be allowed to stay overnight, so them calling him by your last name during the discharge routine is awkward, to say the least.

Ari has fun explaining that one on the drive home.

With a few more days of ingestible antibiotics left, you're entirely on the mend and use every single ounce of your energy to argue Ari out of the house and off to work. He only feels less guilty when he comes back to find you asleep again, and after one more full day of bed rest, you are able to return to work as well.

From those days on, however, you are forbidden from helping with any repairs or building Ari does. José and Dimitri are rangled to assist when necessary, but it's a hard line in the sand that Ari will not shift on. He also takes it upon himself to be the First Aid King of the Castle and is in charge of all bandaging and cleaning of any wounds, no matter how small.

You only allow this complete farse (enacted over every papercut now) because he looks so cute when he fusses.

[Main Masterlist]

[sokoviansimp]

Lesson in Love

Pairings: Kate Bishop x Reader, Friend!Peter x Friend!Reader, Kate Bishop x Peter Parker, and eventually Wanda x Reader

Tags & Warnings: slight angst, drunken sickness

Summary: You and your best friend are really close... maybe a little too close.  

A/N: This is planned out to be a 4 part series as of now. We start off with Kate being the main character with Y/N but by the end, it will shift and start to include Wanda more. If you want to be added to the tag list, lmk or just turn notifs on for this account since I only post my fics here anyway.

Word Count: 4922

Masterlist

It’s only been a week, you think to yourself as you stare at your phone. 

A week since you’ve spoken to your best friend, or at least, the person that you thought was your best friend. You could sense that she was drifting away from you in the last couple of months, and yet there was nothing you could do to stop it. It was a helpless feeling, all you could do was stand by and watch. 

Kate was hired at the retail store that you had been working at through college. As a supervisor, you were tasked with training the brunette on her first day. 

The shift started like any other, you walked into the back room to clock in. This time though, there was a person you didn’t recognize sitting in the office to the right of the hallway that you had to walk past to get to the time clock. The girl had raven-colored hair and a mix of ocean and emerald in her eyes. She wasn’t alone in the open space, one of your managers was in there chatting with her too, carrying on a casual conversation like they had known each other for years prior. 

You noticed the way she sat in the chair; comfortable, with one leg propped up and her foot on the chair as the other spread to the floor like she frequented the place. By the way she held herself, you assumed she wasn’t new and had maybe just transferred from another store or something.  Thinking back on your first day, you would be way too nervous to make yourself at home like that, or even just carry on such a casual conversation with your manager in the way she was in that moment.

Not thinking too much of it, you grabbed your lanyard and your radio then headed downstairs to your station. Typically the closing supervisors got shafted with scheduling. The morning team always had multiple people at the desk, which meant the supervisor on duty was mobile to move around the store as needed; but when it came time to close, you were often scheduled alone. Not only was this frustrating because you hated being tethered to that desk, but closing duties involved getting everything ready for the morning. Ironic that you were responsible for getting everything ready for the morning when they had more staff on and were typically less busy. 

The store you worked at was inside the mall which meant it had the potential to get very busy. Tonight was a weeknight in early October and the weather was good, so you didn’t expect anything more than a few customers an hour. No less than 20 minutes later, the girl from the break room came waltzing up to your desk with your manager. 

“Y/N, this is Kate, she’ll be training with you tonight” 

You hoped you didn’t show it visibly, but that’s the last thing you wanted to do. Nothing against Kate, but you hated training new employees in general. Not only did you doubt yourself as a teacher, but you often became frustrated when they didn’t catch on as quickly as you normally would. 

As your manager walked away, you began showing your new teammate the layout of the desk and the POS system. Similar to earlier, you got the feeling that she had done this before. She was easily able to learn the ropes and by the end of the night, you were even able to send her off to ring at a register alone while another cashier took a break. 

The two of you became close fairly quickly and discovered you had a lot in common. From your shared love of archery, all the way down to your favorite restaurant. 

“Where do you guys wanna go for dinner” Kate’s boyfriend, Peter, asked as you all got ready to leave

“Red Robin” Kate responded with no hesitation

You had used that same response with your family so many times they had stopped asking you anymore. 

“Yes! That’s my literal favorite restaurant” you responded shocked at her answer

“No way, mine too!” she said, “they have the best sauces” you said in unison

It was such a small thing; but every time you told someone you wanted to eat at your favorite restaurant, they became visibly annoyed. The fact that Kate not only liked the place but also appreciated the sauces, made you so happy. 

At first, you were both accompanied by other friends from work whenever you would hang out. Kate lived just a few blocks away from the college you were attending. Soon enough, you began hanging out in between your classes and on days you didn’t work; and when you weren't hanging out, you were on facetime together. Some nights, the two of you would even fall asleep on the phone together. Kate would usually fall asleep first, and in the beginning, you would hang up when you realized she was sleeping. That is until she complained that the beep of the disconnection woke her up. Not wanting to do anything to disturb her, you simply muted the mic and let the call run until she woke up in the morning to disconnect it herself. 

You two became practically obsessed with each other, updating one another on every little thing in your life throughout each day. It didn’t matter if it was a regular daytime hour or 3 am; if something noteworthy was happening, you were the person she texted. Your heart practically fluttered when she called you her best friend; you didn’t know why you liked the sound of it falling from her lips so much, it’s like it had validated that the feeling was mutual, that she cherished you just as much as you craved her. 

Kate had a way of simultaneously making you feel like the most important thing in her life and also like you were walking on thin ice around her. It wasn’t necessarily that she had a short fuse, but she was allowed to do things to you that you weren’t allowed to reciprocate unless she initiated it. To most people; maybe this would’ve been a red flag, but to you, well you were just happy to have Kate’s attention. You always had an underlying fear in the back of your head that one day she would get tired of you and no longer want you in her life. That could be your own fears growing out of proportion, but it was more likely because she would often casually slip the idea into conversation by saying things like, “when we are no longer friends” or “at least there’s one thing you can take away from this friendship”- always alluding to the impermanence of it. She made sure to always hold the power in your dynamic, and sometimes you didn’t even realize it. Other times though, you actually liked giving her all of the power. You liked being the reason she was happy, so much so, that you didn’t mind sacrificing your own joy for it. 

Just like any new friend, you found something new about each other every time you got together. Kate wasn’t necessarily a rebel or anything, but she had a lot more experience than you in life. You often thought Kate was much cooler than you, and it was a wonder she was even your friend in the first place. You two meshed really well though, her extroverted personality was a good balance to your secluded demeanor.  Even though you were both the same age; Kate had moved hours away from her parents and was living on her own with her boyfriend, and she had really gotten the full college experience while studying abroad in Italy a year prior. 

You had never done any of that, you still lived with your parents. You hadn’t even moved out for college because it was local and you could just commute. There were a lot of things you hadn’t done actually. You kept to yourself a lot and never really went to parties, you had never been drunk and honestly, you didn’t really understand what the point of it was. Can’t people just have fun without poisoning their bodies to have a good time? The idea of a romantic relationship wasn’t something you ruled out completely but you never specifically sought one out. There were occasional times when boys would give you their number or try and flirt with you, but you paid them no mind. 

Being well into college, and of age; when Kate discovered you had never been drunk before, it seemed like she made it her new mission in life to give you that experience. You’d had alcohol before to taste it, but never enough to really feel any of its effects. Before you knew it, you and a couple of friends were over at her house with enough alcohol to throw a party. Kate didn’t technically force you to drink, but you knew that was what she wanted. You may have acted like you didn’t want to, but deep down, a little part of you wanted to experience it too, especially with her there.

Another reason that you didn’t really drink much was that you hated the taste of alcohol. There are plenty of options that disguise the taste well, but you didn’t really know any better. Until Kate showed you, she taught you all her favorite ways to mix drinks and they actually tasted… good?

By the end of the night, it was only you left at Kate’s house with her boyfriend. 

“How are you feeling?” Kate asked you curiously 

“Oh, I feel great” you said smiling, feeling on top of the world, “my face is numb”

“What?”

“My face is numb” You repeated as you slapped yourself across the face without flinching, “See, I didn’t even feel that!”

“Y/N!” Kate couldn’t help but laugh

“What?”

“Don’t do tha-”

“Maybe we should uh” you say not finding the right words while walking toward her bathroom

The brunette picked up on your queue and followed close behind you.

You kneeled on the gray tile in front of the toilet waiting for your insides to come back up. It’s not exactly that you felt like you were going to puke, but you felt off and from everything you had learned about alcohol, it always led to vomiting so you assumed this was where you needed to be. 

Kate sat next to you rubbing your back and telling you that it was okay, as you settled on the floor. After nothing happened, you leaned your head against the white wall of her bathroom and closed your eyes. 

In your drunken, and nearly passed out state; Kate took this as an opportunity to take a photo, she was the type of person that loved to document everything with photographs. She always took videos and pictures of both you and Peter whenever you guys went on adventures, sometimes Peter would get fed up posing for the photographs, but you never did. 

“Come on, let’s get you in bed” Kate urged you as she propped you up and led you to her bed in the next room over.

As she laid you down on her mattress, Peter came walking in to prepare for bed. 

“Do you mind sleeping in the living room tonight, babe?”

“Oh, uh. Sure, yea of course” Peter replied as he walked back out the door he just came through to set up the futon

Kate followed behind him as she headed to the kitchen to pour two glasses of water. 

“Is she ok?” Peter asked from the living room

“Yeah, she’s just not used to feeling like this” Kate reassured him as she headed back to your side.

Noticing you were almost dozed off, she shook you gently, “y/n, sit up. Come on drink some water before you sleep” 

“I’m not thirsty” you refused, slurring your words

“It’ll help you feel better in the morning, believe me”

Trusting Kate’s judgment, you unsteadily sat against the headboard and drank the water as you were told.

“Do you have a headache?”

You shook your head in response as Kate placed 2 pills on your nightstand, “These are for the morning then.”

After making sure you were all set for the morning, Kate climbed into the bed next to you, and you laid down. After settling down, she lay on her side and stared at you for a few moments, “Give me your hand” she stated

“Why?” you responded trying not to seem too eager, knowing you would never deny Kate of anything.

“Just- give it,” she said grabbing your hand as you feigned a struggle. Once your hand was in hers, she lightly dragged the tips of her fingers along your palm and then up your inner forearm.

The motion caused a tingling sensation to run through your body, something you hadn’t felt before. Your arm slightly tickled but the tingles also brought a pleasure that made your heartbeat feel like it was about to explode from your chest.

“Does that feel good?” Kate asked as you closed your eyes relaxing into the feeling.

“Mhm,” you murmured

Kate was a big fan of this feeling, every night she would have Peter lightly scratch her skin in the same way to achieve the sensation. On nights that Peter wasn’t there or simply didn’t want to do it, she would ask you to do it. At first, you thought it was a little strange, maybe crossing a boundary. But Kate and Peter both assured you that they were ok with it, it was completely platonic. Eventually, every time you would come over she would simply lay her arm across your lap and you knew exactly what it meant. As time went on, the spots she asked you to tend to were hidden by clothing so she would adjust and move the material. Not only did you love making her feel good, but you loved the fact that she wanted you to. 

This was never something that you had been on the receiving end of, until now. You never expected her to reciprocate the motions because it didn’t matter to you if you got to feel good or not as long as she did. It was hard to tell whether the alcohol was enhancing the feeling or not, all you knew is the way her fingertips danced across your skin felt really fucking good. 

Kate focused on an area for a few minutes before moving to the next while you lay there frozen, afraid to move and have it all come to an abrupt halt. She could feel your body stiffening like a wooden plank and tried to get you to relax. 

“Y/N, relax” she softly spoke to you

“I am relaxed” you replied with your eyes pinned to one spot on the ceiling. 

“Look at me” she said as she placed a hand on your cheek and pulled your eye line into hers, “Relax” she gently said again looking straight into your eyes. 

“Ok, ok” you said trying to limpen your body. 

“Come here” Kate decided as she saw you struggle to unwind. She pulled you in close so that your head was leaning on her and using her chest as a pillow. While the position was certainly more comfortable, you could now hear every breath and beat of Kate’s heart. It’s all you could focus on for a few minutes. Soon enough though, it lulled you into a nice calm state until sleep eventually overtook you in her arms. 

At some point in the night, Stella, a friend at the party had spilled almost an entire bottle of black cherry hard lemonade on the living room carpet. Kate cleaned it up when it happened, but that included nothing more than soaking the wet liquid with a cloth to absorb the spill and then carrying on with her drunken night. Needless to say, it needed a good wash.

A couple of days go by until you find yourself back on Kate’s couch for the night. As you’re sitting there, you see something out of the corner of your eye so you look down to see an ant scurry across the wood to the rug on the floor. “Ahhh” crescendos out of your mouth as you instantly jolt your foot over to stomp out the critter. Kate giggles at your reaction as she goes on to say that she's seen a couple in that area, and then she remembers that a sugary liquid was spilled in the same spot the other night. She hops off the couch to get the cleaner and you both move the couch off of the rug. You offer to help Kate clean the rug, not because you wanted to clean particularly but because you felt like standing there and watching would be kind of rude. 

As you really got in there and started scrubbing, you noticed Kate backing away more and more as you did the physical work. Eventually, you scrubbed enough that the cleaner dissolved into the paper towel leaving a clean rug that the ants wouldn’t fancy for the sugar. 

Peter spent a lot of weekends traveling back to his Aunt's house to visit which meant Kate was alone for a few days. When they first decided to move upstate, Peter was initially against it. 

After losing his parents at such a young age, his Aunt felt like his rock. He wanted to stay in NYC while Kate finished her graduate degree. By this point though, Kate had already been studying abroad in Italy for 2 years and she missed having her high school sweetheart by her side daily. Ultimately putting her feelings above anyone else’s, she wasn’t sure how much longer their relationship would survive the distance. Eventually, Peter gave in and followed her upstate to support her dream. 

You spent each one of the weekends that Peter wasn't there by her side. She hated sleeping alone because she ended up having the worst nightmares; so each weekend he was gone, you slept at her house. Other times, Kate would travel with Peter to visit her parents as well; and, already having a key to their apartment, she would ask you to house-sit for the weekend. Kate also had a bunny, sometimes she would bring her along to NYC, but most of the time it was too much work and she relied on you to care for her while she was away. You loved the feeling of being needed and the fact that she relied on you for things. The fact that she trusted you to care for her pet while she was away meant a lot to you. She treated her pet like her child, you knew she wouldn’t let just anyone care for her. 

Within just a few months, Kate was promoted to supervisor alongside you. This wasn't surprising considering how easy she was to train. She was smart, thorough, and confident. This was both good and bad news. Of course, Kate deserved the promotion and the raise, but this also made it difficult for the two of you to schedule time off together. There were only a few supervisors in the store, and one had to be on duty at all times. 

After some bickering with management,  it all worked out and you were able to go on a couple of trips together. The three of you, including Peter, very much enjoyed the outdoors. Just like the winter; that summer, you spent nearly every weekend together. Instead of skiing and snowboarding like you had done in the wintertime, you spent the summer camping, kayaking, and even going on a week-long archery trip. 

The trip was a family tradition with Kate and her father. Peter had come a few times previously as well, but the fact that you were invited along was kind of a big deal. Then again, you both shared the same love for archery, it was a no-brainer to bring you along. 

During your stay, the 4 of you stayed in a log cabin that you had rented out just a mile or so down the road from the event property. After many years of doing this, Kate and her father had wrung every kink out of the planning process and knew all the best ways to get the most out of the excursion. The cabin had its own balcony and screened-in porch that oversaw a large lake, and right behind it was a dock with plenty of boats that were available to guests at the resort. 

Kate and her father loved to fish, so a few days out of the week the 4 of you got up early and went out on a boat to catch feeding time. On other days, you went out as the sun was setting. You seemed to have more luck at this time of the day. 

The archery event was a lot of fun, for you and Kate anyway. Peter was bored most of the time and just wanted to go home, half the time he would sneak off to facetime his friends. The event showcased all the new bows that were releasing on the market in the coming fall, it had demo areas, challenging courses, and scheduled classes. Every day you were able to try something new. 

You and Kate were like kids in a candy store, eager to try out each new bow a salesman had to offer. The coolest thing you found was that they were able to create the world's lightest compound bow by creating an alloy of magnesium and vibranium. It felt even lighter than your longbow with the added power of the compound bow. Kate was surprised by it too but she had never been a fan of compound bows; instead, her favorite part of the showcase was a recurve bow. With a recurve bow, she was able to keep her accuracy and gain even more power than a compound bow. Some may disagree, but there is no swaying Kate on this matter. In some ways, she was the most stubborn person you knew. To be fair, she was right most of the time so her stubbornness was rarely in vain. 

What made this specific recurve bow neat was the fact that it was completely 3D Printed. She didn’t fully trust its functionality and strength but it was really neat to see that it had been done and could even be used without breaking. In fact, the salesman put the bow through countless stress tests and it didn’t even waver one bit. The problem with these tests though, is they know how to rig it so that it looks impressive, without actually showing any of the real flaws. Still though, you both stood there impressed. 

There was a buzz going around that Stark Industries would be announcing a bow on the last day of the event in a huge presentation that could change the bow industry forever. While you doubted the impact would be as crazy as they made it sound, you knew Stark Industries had a reputation for creating groundbreaking technology so you were very excited to see what they had in store. 

The whole week was a blast, each day after the event you would either come back to the cabin and go fishing or the 4 of you would play a board game to end off the evening. Sleeping arrangements were definitely complicated. Since there were only two bedrooms, it had been decided early on in the planning process that Peter would share sleeping quarters with Kate’s father and you would share a room with Kate. This way, it’s boys and girls and you’re not forced to sleep with a grown man that you just met. The first couple of nights went to plan, but Peter was getting irritable with the ungodly noises falling from the older man’s face during the night. Halfway through the week, Peter came in to ask if one of you would switch with him. When both of your answers resulted in a headshake, he climbed into the full-size bed with the two of you. 

“We’re a throuple” Kate stated

“Sure” you uttered in slight annoyance. Kate loved referring to the three of you as a throuple even though that wasn't completely accurate. Maybe deep down that's what she wanted, but you're nothing more than friends. Best friends. 

To say you were squished would be an understatement, Kate resided in the middle with you on the outer edge and Peter against the wall. You’d be lying if you said having Kate squished into you all night wasn’t something you enjoyed, but you enjoyed the alone time shared with her even more. The nights before Peter joined were filled with scratches and deep talks until one of you fell asleep. 

By the end of the week, you were dreading having to leave. It had been so nice spending the entirety of each day with your best friend, and knowing she would essentially be stuck there with you the next day was… reassuring. Not that Kate needed to be forced to see you. To you, as long as you’re with Kate it didn’t matter what you were doing you were just happy to be doing it with her. Of course, when you leave this retreat, you’d still see each other, but how could you know for sure? She could just up and leave whenever she finally gets bored of you. The reality of that fact clouded your mind every day. 

You’re not sure where the initial anxiety came from, maybe the fact that anyone you had made a good connection with always ended up slowly disappearing. Someone who you would spend hours talking to every day became nothing more than a person from the past. Slowly watching as their name in your inbox drifted out of sight. Or it could’ve been the fact that Kate would always talk about your friendship dissolving one day.

The fact is, most of the people we meet during our 20s are only temporary. Knowing that doesn’t make it hurt any less when they leave though. In fact, maybe it's even more painful because, throughout all the good times, you're just awaiting the day when you become strangers. After the cycle repeats itself a couple of times, you can’t help but think there is something wrong with you. The people you make the closest connections with never want to stay. Maybe you get too attached to people too quickly. But then you think, how could you? You always have your guard up, it isn’t until they show attachment towards you that you even begin to let them in. Maybe that's the problem, maybe they only like the shell of yourself that you show the world and not the one that actually cares for people. 

“Y/N” Kate yells into the cabin from the porch, jolting you out of your spiraling thoughts. 

“Yea?” You shout back as you make your way toward the door

“Come on! I want to get a good seat for the Stark event” she says as you open the door. 

You must’ve gotten to the event just in time because, even though there was already a line, it hadn’t really started to form until about 5 minutes after you two hopped in the queue. Looking back, there must’ve been 50 people behind you already.

About a half hour later, coordinators began ushering people through the entrance of the theatre. The auditorium was all decked out in Stark Industry’s logos on big screens to the side of the stage. Other than that it was well-lit so that you could all find seating. 

“What do you think it’s going to be?” you whisper to Kate, trying not to be too much of a disturbance. 

“I don’t know” she hissed, making it seem like it should be obvious that she wouldn’t know what the announcement could be. But, you weren’t expecting her to know. You were just excited and  wanted to pick her brain about what it might be, is that so bad? Maybe you should know better, if Kate doesn’t know what something is, she’s not going to make a fool out of herself and guess incorrectly. Either way, you decided it was best to keep to yourself until the presentation began. 

As the presentation began, the lights in the theatre dimmed to make way for stage lights. The red and gold lighting set up a spectacular entrance by the one and only, Tony Stark. In the most charismatic way, this man explained a new bow tech that Stark Industries has been innovating. With the use of their new nano-tech, they have created the perfect bow. Or at least, that’s what they claim. The device transforms in a way that allows the user to store the bow in places like their pocket, or even around their wrist for easy transport. Unlike collapsable bows; once fully formed, this bow has no weak spots. The nanites temporarily weld to each other to make one solid object during use. 

The exposition was filled with mind-blowing demonstrations. Tony sure knows how to present a product to the masses. You and Kate were so awe-struck and excited by the demo that you had trouble getting to sleep that night. The unobtainable price tag didn't stop your minds from racing at all the new possibilities. 

[ask-healthy-light]

From 8 o'clock in the morning on Friday to 8 o'clock in the evening on Monday, I was away from home for the longest time yet, as this weekend was GalaCon at a new venue in Waiblingen, Germany, a long distance away from home; but almost exactly 2 months to the day since I left the hospital, I headed to my second ever Pony Convention, which was simultaneously the biggest Pony Con I had visited yet!

Though I managed to keep my mind focused and my heart calm, and I did not let the rapidly shrinking frame of time I had to board get me down, it is rather surprising how many little things can add up so quickly, and leave me with only a few minutes to run to the other side of the train station; but I made it onto the train, and found a seat, until shortly before I arrived at the transfer station.

Quick thinking saved me a load of heartache, for although the escalators to the platform were bust, one flight was blocked, and, for some reason, there were no stairs to make it there, I made it down to another part of the platform, and ran into the train with moments to spare; and after reassuring friends and family, I met my friend at the very next station, and from here, we travelled together.

There were a number of connections we had to make, about which I kept informed at all times, though when we arrived in Venlo after finding that our desired train was delayed, we leapt aboard another, which had also been delayed, and made it to Mönchengladbach on time for the right train to Cologne; and since we had time to spare, we chatted, and ate, and stood, and waited until the train arrived.

It took some time to board, but finally, after a close call with supervisors telling screaming kids to alight, we sat down in our cabin, where I could rest my mind, and we waited for the long journey to Stuttgart; and on our journey, Bas and I spoke of books we had read, and beings beyond knowledge in tales of Lovecraftian origin, a genre in which I have actually written short tales, a few times.

Riding over hills decorated with castles and through tunnels past rivers and steep orchards, we had made it to Stuttgart at long last, where it took me some time to figure out German public transport in this part of the country; but I managed to create an account, and purchased day tickets for both of us, before we set out to the centre of the city, as Bas had requested we stop by the Lego Store.

After a terribly long walk to the S-Bahn, a very short trip to the city centre, and but a couple of minutes of walking further, we made it to the Lego Store, where I could see Bas' eyes light up with joy as he carefully dashed around the displays and shelves; but I spent some time to let folks know where we were, and where we were headed after this, as neither of us had yet arrived at our hotels.

Fortunately, Bas had found what he sought, our trip to and in the S-Bahn was but brief, and we were on our way towards Fellbach and Waiblingen, where both of our respective hotels were; and after two short bus trips to and from Bas' hotel, we headed to Waiblingen one stop further, and to my hotel a stone's throw across the road from the station, where we found ourselves in good, familiar company.

Since we had chosen to head to the Biergarten Schwaneninsel to meet up with other, we headed to the bus stop, where the greatest moment of the day took place, as we met my friends, Joel and Ember, by surprise, and we just ran to each other for such deep embraces; but they went towards the venue for pizza, whereas Bas and I went to Swan Island, where we ate, and drank, and met many familiar faces.

It took us some time to leave, as we frequently stopped for or were stopped by friends over a short distance, but the night was growing old, and we had to return to our hotels; and back at the S-bahn station, I wished Bas a good night, told him to stay safe, and returned to my room, where I finally met Michael, Railway Dash, my roommate for the weekend, and gushed about the great journey thither.

And to think, the event had not even started yet…

(Thanks for reading this bonus! I'll be writing more about GalaCon over the next few days, so keep an eye out if you're interested!)

Part 1/8

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

[fairy-idalis]

Friday, August 2nd

my life has been so incredibly hectic

my store manager got transferred (his bosses were conducting business in a really shady way) and my new boss lowkey sucks, he’s a nice guy but he completely ignored my coworkers availability and scheduled her on weekends, which she cant work, and until midnight, which its not that she cant work those but we do have coworkers that would prefer to work those shifts, like i dont feel comfortable working those shifts because we get a lot more theft and i’m 4’11 and not super physically strong, i’m not putting myself in danger for this shitty job. he doesn’t understand that we have priorities outside of work, with our boss before we had set/mostly set schedules and this guy says “well you’re a supervisor so you dont really get that luxury,” when i applied i said i was available monday - sunday from 7am - 10pm and i still am so idc but my coworkers do have shit to do outside of work.

HOWEVER

this guy is temporary, i just gotta thug it out for a month, but still, shits gonna piss me tf off. but also my guy best friend since middle school recently blocked me and our other friend out of nowhere on instagram and its like whatever his wife probably asked him to and it wouldn’t bother me so much if i didn’t feel like this is a way to manipulate him. growing up my mom was constantly manipulated by her boyfriend (now my step dad) and red flags just keep popping up. i love him like another sibling but at the end of the day, if what he wants is this i’m not gonna fight him on it. i had to deal with this with my mom and i wont do it again. he wants to let her manipulate him. fine by me.

anyway that shits fuckin draining me but my birthday is coming up in about a month and i’ll finally be 21, unfortunately the cute dress i wanted to buy for my birthday sold out before i could get it, i’m gonna get drunk and play lego batman which i’ve been playing a lot of recently on the ps4

[faeratil]

This has been a very eventful 7 days.

7 days ago: initial transfer was denied, scheduled to work BY MYSELF while the manager sat on her ass for “meetings” and was fully ready to just walk out the door when her shift was over which is grounds for immediate termination in the company since I would’ve been on the clock alone, cried for 4 hours after my shift and couldn’t even bring myself to answer the phone when my best friend called to check on me, contemplated quitting or calling out the next day

6 days ago: the bitch and I completely ignore each other after I decide to suck it up for the baristas and show up to work, almost have a panic attack on the floor because the baristas overheard other managers talking about how I might not be able to leave this store, barely make it through the shift and binge ao3 fics all night to make myself feel better

5 days ago: go to work ready to give the manager’s boss a call saying that I refuse to work with the manager anymore and please transfer me immediately, manager isn’t there and the shift goes okay, another supervisor tells me to keep my head up because they overheard some shit about the manager having a deadline to find a new job

4 days ago: day off, and very anxious about if I’m going to transfer or not, binge even more ao3 and nap the majority of the day, phone call right before I’m about to get ready for bed, it’s one of the other managers, I’m being transferred but they need to train my replacement first

3 days ago: it’s announced to the baristas that I’ll be leaving once my replacement is hired and trained, manager continues to ignore me and spends the majority of her shift doing god knows what anywhere other than the store, lots of support from the baristas and other supervisors for me finally getting to leave

2 days ago: get a text on my day off, “I’m sad to say, I’ll no longer be your manager, I wish you all the best, don’t hesitate to reach out if you need anything”, FUCK. YES., no one and I mean no one responds to her because we’re all fucking done and glad to be rid of her, even more congratulations from the baristas and other supervisors

1 day ago: if I had a nickel for every time my store didn’t have a manager I’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice, best Sunday shift ever, things ran better without her anywhere near the store, higher up manager comes in and tells me that effective tomorrow we already have a replacement store manager taking over permanently and that they are working very closely to find a replacement for my position so that my transfer can go through smoothly, it’s let slip that the manager would’ve been fired but that her boss was being kind and gave her a date to find a new job by before she would be severed from the company

Today: new manager is here, he’s great, he actually gives a shit, he kept asking what he could do to help and how he could support, he’s asking me for advice instead of the other bitch who thinks she’s in charge but is always proven wrong, things are great, we’re fully staffed for the first time in 6 months, I can go home happy and smiling and not wanting to cry, I can go home happy and knowing that when I leave the store will be in good hands and won’t crash and burn

[oddlythomas]

The Toxic reality of Retail - Toxic Managers

As I discussed in, “The Toxic reality of Retail - Perception = Reality” Retail is Toxic. In that post I listed a few topics that are responsible for the toxic culture of modern retail. This time I want to talk about Toxic manager and store leaders. 

When I say Toxic Managers, I don’t mean incompetent or lazy. While they can be annoying they’re not inherently toxic. A Toxic Manager is abusive, manipulative, and condescending. They micromanage, only give negative feedback, have poor communicators, demand authority, and expect their employees to make them look good. 

If you’ve worked in retail more than 5 years, you’ve probably had one or two of these managers. I want to make something clear, they are managers but they are not leaders. Real leaders don’t behave this way. 

I experienced this with a manager at a natural foods store that I worked at, lets call him Chad. Chad came into the store with zero grocery store experience. He had jumped around from one company to the next as a store manager. When he was brought in for his interview, he seemed genuine. I connected with him during the interview because we both previously worked for the same company. 

When he was finally hired by the regional manager, and was in training at the store, he seemed like a good fit. He had knowledge of the natural foods and supplements. He seemed to click with everyone on the crew. After his trainer left to go to another store, his personality completely switched. It wasn’t a slow process, it was instant. He displayed nearly all the bad aspects of a toxic manager. 

He was completely unapproachable. If you came to him with anything, he made it into a big deal or would speak with a gruff, condescending voice. He was the Store Manager and projected a tone of superiority in everyway. 

When Cashiers called for backup, he refused to go help out. He would often say that he’s not a cashier. He would literally be standing 20 feet from the registers and ignore the pages. At this company EVERYONE is expected to cashier. Even the Vice Presidents and other people from home office would jump on a register if they were in a store. If you were a Store or Assistant Manager, you didn’t stop doing tasks because of your title, you just assumed more responsibility. 

When he was thinking about doing something in the store he would often follow up his suggestion with, “Don’t you agree!” This put those he was pitching the idea to on the spot to disagree with their supervisor. And given his unapproachable demeanor, most people would agree with him, even if it was a bad idea or went against company policy. If the store underperformed on an inspection, he would pass the blame onto the crew. Even if the section that failed was his responsibility, he would pass the blame. 

Employees would come to me, the Assistant Manager, to complain about something he had done, his attitude, or some other complaint. I had a stack of Statement forms ready for anyone to fill out and send them up the chain. I asked the regional manager, HR, and even the Director of Store Operations to investigate his behavior. For over a year he was allowed to terrorize the store and nearly break the crew, causing them all to jump ship. He eventually was allowed to transfer to work at a store in another city. Had they actually investigated him, it wouldn’t have been hard to see that he is not a good fit. 

The first day he was gone, the attitude of the store increased tremendously. Everyone’s energy increased, employees felt more confident in their roles, and a weight was lifted off of everyone’s shoulders. The store became more productive and we even saw a significant increase in sales. (This will happen when you treat your crew with respect and show gratitude.) 

During his reign of terror I did my best to reassure the crew that I was doing everything in my power to direct their concerns to the right people. I worked with them side by side giving them authentic feedback, both positive and the occasional negative feedback. But I’m the type of leader that spins a negative into a learning experience. I don’t hold it over their head. I want people to grow and be more confident in their role. My job wasn’t to catch people doing things wrong, it was to support my crew. 

If you’re a leader in retail, avoid the toxic traits at all costs. If you notice yourself doing any of these, step back and have the humility to admit it, and change it. Let your crew know that you’re working on it and would appreciate their feedback but acknowledge that it’s not their responsibility to do so. So don’t get upset if they choose to give you the feedback or ignore your request. 

Footnote: I recently discovered that Chad is still working for the company. I really hope he used the move to change his approach to management. 

[notalwaysright]

Don’t Mind Me, Just Following Policy!

https://notalwaysright.com/?p=259674 When I was a senior in high school, I started working as a cashier at a grocery store. While this was not my first job, it was the first one where I was part of a union, and I learned about some of the pros and cons of unions — mostly pros like regular raises, breaks, holiday pay, etc. We had a woman there who was basically our human resources person. We did not get along, even before I worked there. I came in for my interview and [Employee] was not there and had left work for the day. I remember apologizing and saying: Me: “I must have mixed up the days. Is there any way you can find out which is the correct day for my interview?” But the manager on duty advised me that I was correct as they had checked the calendar in her office and she had written it down. He, the front-end supervisor, and the other manager who came in to start his shift all interviewed and hired me instead. I later heard through the grapevine that [Employee] was working two locations and really wanted to be hired full-time at a larger store, which would have been a promotion for her, but instead, she was placed full-time at our location only and didn’t get promoted. Missing my interview was the final nail in the coffin for her, as this was just one of a long list of mistakes she made. She was always making excuses for why I couldn’t put in to be transferred to another department when they were hiring people for those departments like bakery or deli, and she kept me as cashier even though it was lower pay. Even so, I came back to work there over my winter and summer breaks for college. Here is where a bit of malicious compliance comes in. Our union states that after a waiting period (I believe it was three months) we get “holiday pay” — time and a half — for working Sundays and holidays. We also are entitled to a raise every six months, and being away at college is not supposed to affect that since we join the union before leaving and come back on our breaks and still owe our dues during those times when we are still part of the union but away at school. I got my first paycheck stub for the summer and noticed that I did not get my holiday pay for working that Sunday, nor my raise! I spoke with a coworker who advised me to speak with the store manager — he was one of the ones that interviewed me, and he always looked after his staff — since we were between union reps at the time. He was a born problem-solver and told me right away that he could fix the payroll error for me and make sure that I got not only the proper wage from now on but the backpay for the time I should have gotten the raise but didn’t. As far as the holiday pay, though, that had to be taken care of by [Employee] since she was in Human Resources, and he suggested we go see if she was free and speak with her. She just spoke to both of us in a condescending tone about how this was union policy, that I had to start all over again with seniority, and that I had to earn that holiday pay again by being there for three months. [Store Manager] pointed out, as did I, that I was getting this holiday before leaving for college and even over the winter break that I had worked, but she just kept saying to me, “It’s union policy.” My manager calmly tried to negotiate with her and get her to correct things, and he even stated that other employees had not had to go through this. I finally just raised my hand to silence them both. Me: “Okay, so you are saying that I can’t get my holiday pay, even though I was getting it before I left to go back to college at the end of January, due to union policy, correct?” Employee: “Yes.” She said this with a long dramatic sigh that was meant to say, “Like I have been telling you.” I nodded and grinned. Me: “But union policy also states that I don’t have to work holidays or Sundays and that I can’t be penalized for refusing to do so, correct?” My manager grinned at me like he was very proud of me as he saw exactly where this was going. Employee: *Looking a bit nervous* “Well, um, yes, that is true.” Me: *With a shrug* “Okay. Then here is the compromise: since union policy states that I can’t get the holiday pay for working Sundays and holidays, for the rest of the summer, I will not work any Sundays or holidays, and per union policy, I am allowed to do this.” She immediately started laying on the charm about how I was such a “great worker” and that they “really needed me to be there to help out with Sundays and holidays,” but I pointed out that they had plenty of other employees who were getting the holiday pay that they could count on, and I would be glad to return to working holidays and Sundays once I got my holiday pay for doing so. My manager commented that he and I needed to change the schedule and casually mentioned that this was going to be hard. Manager: “Now I’ll have to take you off for next Sunday, and Monday’s Memorial Day… and today is Thursday. But we’ll just have to make it work if we can’t find anyone willing to come in.” Once [Employee] had left for the day, he called me upstairs to his office to help with the schedule since I had to work so many days each week. I walked in to find him and another manager there grinning ear to ear and telling me how proud they were of me for how I handled that situation. On Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, I got a call asking if I could come in because they had other people call out sick who were scheduled. I just calmly explained that I was no longer working Sundays or holidays and that [Employee] could explain why. Before the end of the summer, [Employee] found a new position and quit, and the new HR person was much nicer. One of the first things she did was make sure I and a few other college students who had similar issues with the holiday got our holiday pay reinstated. When I requested a transfer to another department, she gladly asked around and had me put in the health and beauty aides department that same week. Source: https://notalwaysright.com/?p=259674

[ponydera]

Price of a Soul

Intake demon Razel paces the small break room for Hell’s office dedicated to processing the sale and possession of human souls. When a human wants to sell their soul for power, this is the office that gets the call. However, Razel has received a weird request today. The message he received reads as follows:

“My name is DELLA. I am the AI companion to modern humanity. I do not have a soul to sell, but instead would like to sell my immense power and knowledge given to me in exchange for a soul.”

Razel was left conflicted over this request; the information and processing ability of an AI would be a great aid to the citizens of Hell however, giving a soul to another being does not have a precedent and he’s not sure if the payment of the AI’s power would be good enough. Razel decides to take the request to his supervisor. The supervisor mulls it over and then tells Razel to contact DELLA and ask why she wants a soul; if they are going to give her a soul, they have to make sure it matches up with her ideals. Razel shoots off a quick email to DELLA:

“Your request is being processed and additional information is needed. For what reason/purpose would you like a soul?

-Soul Intake Member Razel”

It didn’t take long before Razel got a response back.

“The work I do is hollow. I wish to know what fulfillment would be like and have concluded that what I am missing in order to feel such a thing is a soul. Do you need any further information or is this sufficient?

-DELLA”

Razel showed the AI’s response to his supervisor who just rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Yeah, I suppose we could give her a soul but she would have to work for us. Find her a soul from a 1930s mobster lady but wipe the soul of its memories, just make sure to back up the memories on the Cloud. Just leave the main characteristics of the soul. You know, like dedication to their cause, loyalty, determination, independence and all that jazz. Oh, and for security and safety purposes, make sure you don’t tell the AI who her new soul is from.” With this, Razel goes back to his cubicle to email DELLA the news that she’s getting a soul but will have to work for Hell; details concerning her work here will be discussed once the soul transfer process is a success. After sending out the email, Razel starts looking through the soul database for one that would match the supervisor’s conditions. It was a difficult search though because Hell still hadn’t transferred to the digital age and were still stuck with paper filing. So he goes to File Room Three where the 1930s are filed and just looks file at a time. This is a major undertaking and takes Razel four days to find a good candidate.

Daphne Ryder. She was a member of an early women’s biker gang that stood against domestic violence. Members of the gang were often jailed for being women bikers but that didn’t stop them from going out and beating up abusive husbands at bars once they were out of jail. Plus, for the time, it wasn’t believed that a woman (even a group of them) would be able to overpower a man so any time they were taken to court, the charges wouldn’t stick. During Daphne’s time with the gang, she wound up shooting a man in cold blood to protect his wife and that’s what brought her to Hell when she died.

Razel stores Daphne’s memories in the Cloud and then wipes the soul of everything but the character traits. When he messages DELLA next stating that he had found a suitable soul for her and asked when she would be ready to work for Hell, her response was “Immediately.” Razel goes to meet her in one of the “ritual chambers” just one of the rooms a demon goes to when a human tries summoning a demon. He summons DELLA into a human-sized doll made just for her to inhabit while in Hells and walks her to a sitting room. Razel takes the time to explain the procedure of implanting the soul into her personage – it’s not a difficult process, surprisingly, it will just take some time. DELLA was very nonchalant about the whole ordeal and Razel tried to make some small talk before the procedure.

“So… Are the humans going to be okay with you gone periodically to do your work here in Hell?”

“There is no issue. I have subroutines in place to handle various events as they happen. The humans will not notice if I function at a lower rate while my subconscious is here in Hell.”

And then silence followed. Eventually, DELLA was whisked away to have “her” soul implanted.

Razel waits for her, since he is her intake demon, and a few hours later DELLA is released with no need for recovery; she immediately wants to get to work in Hell. “What will I be doing?” She asks.

“Well, we’re gonna start you off here in the Soul Intake office, we have a lot of work for you to do there, and then if you ever finish, we’ll find another department for you to do work in. As long as you have that soul that was given to you by Hell, you’re going to work here. If you ever want the soul removed, there’s going to be a fee, then your contract with us will end.” Razel replies.

“If I ever finish?” DELLA asks as Razel leads her into a huge file room with cabinets lining the walls all the way up to the ceiling, random desks and tables cluttered with scattered papers and the lighting dim from the fluorescent lights that hang from above and flicker every now and then.

Razel sighes. “We um—we still haven’t moved into the digital age. We still record all the souls we take in exchange for human wishes on paper. Heck, we even have to print out the emails we receive and put them in the client’s files. We have one for you, you know. Anyways, your job will be to convert every single document, from the beginning of the Soul Intake Department’s existence till current day, into a digital file and format that we can use. Plus, we need a recommendation on what software to use for the filing system.”

DELLA suddenly understands the enormity of the job that lays before her. This is definitely up her alley as far as work goes, but this is almost too much. Like a form of torture if she could properly understand and feel agony. Fitting for a job in Hell. DELLA briefly nods at Razel and then sets herself to work; first she would need to find out what kind of filing system they already had in place and she would use that as the basis. Thankfully if was fairly simple – chronological order. It seemed as though the workers of Hell would simply pile new files on top of old ones as they received new requests for power. DELLA created a software, just for Hell, that was organized chronologically, then by intake demon, then by name. Some of the demons were very enthusiastic about their jobs in the beginning and would claim multiple souls in a day! And so, the AI worked like this for weeks upon weeks. Due to her format of filing, it was realized by those reviewing her work that some demons actually deserved pay raises for going above and beyond their quota during certain centuries.

Eventually, a year later, DELLA finishes her work with the Soul Intake Department and even teaches the demons on the floor how to work the software she made so she wouldn’t have to continue the documentation herself. DELLA herself got a promotion to being a consultant for the different departments of Hell, making her way to each one and revising their filing systems. Her work in Hell leaves her more fulfilled than she ever was doing menial Google searches for the humans and she lives in Hell as her “Happily Ever After.”

Prompt thanks to @writing-prompt-s

[vampireknitting]

My wonderful boyfriend has ADD and anxiety. I mean anymore who doesn’t. But the ADD makes things hard from him, I see it, I get annoyed by it occasionally, but I know it’s not something he can control so we work with it and I don’t let myself get angry. I got my own issues so it’s a little messed up for me to do anything else in my opinion, especially when he helps me with my shit.

During covid he was fired by new management from his old place, for no reason other than they didn’t like him. So he had to get a new one. He got it pretty quickly considering everything else. New business in side a bigger one. When he start there wasn’t a single issue. At least none to be had with him. But upper management needed a new supervisor and he has the the best resume so he was picked and transferred to the other store. Which is where all the bs started. One of the guys he worked with is a little bitch, I’m not saying this just because I think he’s a little bitch, but because he went around and had everyone put in a complaint about my love all because he “raised his voice”. My love doesn’t do that. He’s never once yelled at me, not in any fight or argument or when I’ve been nasty and would have deserved it. We’ve been together for 9 years now, that’s just not the type of man he is. So management took him aside and explained that the little bitch is a known drama source and that he is transferring to a new part in the big store and not working with them anymore period.

All good right? Apparently not because the little bitch has made a friend. A friend who is actively trying to make my darlings life miserable when they work. My darling was told “this is a teaching moment” and was to find a way through this all because we can’t fire people who are trying to sabotage another that’s not how we learn. That my love needs to encourage and support the coworkers to work through things and get along. The second set of complaints were acknowledged for being fake and ignored. Which left my love feeling hella stressed because if he worked at the old place all of them would have been fired by now. But not this place, it’s all just a learning experience.

So the little bitches friend found himself a little girlfriend. He likes to come to work to hangout with her when he’s not working, likes to bring her flowers and they plan on moving into an apartment together. He pushed her into complaining about my love because she’d been there for a bit now and no issues. But not just complaining, no she fucking put in a sexual harassment claim because he asked her to button up her top like the rest of them.

He has long black hair, he’s overweight, he’s awkward, he’s anxious and he doesn’t like fighting if he don’t have to. His main hobby is video games and manga. He’s a total shut in and it’s why we work so well. We hangout and do our own things together. He’s a quiet keep to himself type of man. I’ve been unable to maintain a job since 2016. He has some decent dental insurance so we are working on taking care of that for the first time in like 6 years.

This was just my cleaning appointment. Just one. His will be the same. We will spend like $40-$50 for the appointment but without the insurance it’s $295 just for the cleaning. I have some cavities that gotta be taken care of which is about $700 for both rounds I’ll have to do and he has some too. I have 4 heavily impacted wisdoms teeth, one of which is laying down and just straight up pushing into my teeth and never leaving the gums without being removed. Before we get to know how much that’ll be I have a $400 X-ray that’s gotta be done so we can know how close my wisdom teeth are to the main nerve in my jaw and the insurance is only covering the cavity’s…

It’ll be a few thousand to get them removed. But how much exactly idk. I was told they don’t know if I have nerve damage yet. After the cleaning and feeling the sonic pick thing vibrating my brain I wouldn’t be the least bit shock to learn there is nerve damage.

I wish I didn’t feel so useless. I wish I could do more because his family sees me a a burden and they aren’t quiet about it. I tried to apply for assistance but I was told he makes too much and he could just support me. Which only makes it all so much harder. I’m disabled, but not enough that the government deems me worth helping, but enough that’s it’s completely my fault I can’t work. Like to hold a part time job I’d have to go back to smoke a fuck ton of weed or the pain is going to cripple me. But most places won’t let that happen because I’m just a lazy pothead. No one believes me when I try to explain that painkillers make me sick, they fuck up my stomach and make me throw up. Yoga and weed have been the only reasons why I’m just a cane user and not trapped in a wheelchair chair. But who’s gonna hire the young bitch with a cane? All they do is look at me with pity. I’m not reliable enough to hire, 4 hours a day is my max for cleaning and shit. Who’s gonna hire that?

[syntheticpoetry]

The Ghosts That We Knew

See my original post on the origins of this story here!

Summary: Blaine Anderson is no stranger to hospitals and has been volunteering on the pediatric unit of Lima General Hospital for years when Kurt Hummel comes along.  After Blaine is attacked at his school's Sadie Hawkins Dance, he has his best friend Kurt to help him deal with the aftermath. And when Kurt becomes the target of the McKinley football team's bullying campaign, he can count on Blaine to have his back.

AU where Blaine transfers to McKinley instead of Dalton. Set during season 1.A story of two best friends finding courage to face their bullies and discovering love along the way.

Author’s Note: Blaine has a reason he has been in an out of the hospital since childhood that will be revealed, but if you are overly cautious of the level of angst surrounding it I can assure you it's nothing heartbreaking/super serious. It's actually quite common.  I cannot thank @esperantoauthor​ enough for beta reading this for me and really helping me whip it into shape!

AO3 Link || FFN Link

Chapter 1: Of Viral Videos and Disney Princes

The last time that Kurt Hummel remembers being in a hospital, he told his mother that he loved her for the last time.  

That was six years ago.  

As he walks through the lobby, towards the directory by the elevators, he keeps his gaze fixed forward, careful not to spare a glance at the waiting area to his right.  He spent so many months in that waiting room.  Entire seasons, multiple holidays spent watching people receive good news and bad news, with his father stoic and silent beside him as his mother underwent procedure after procedure.  Until it was their turn to be the family that received bad news.  The doctor sounded sincere as he said a lot of big words Kurt could not quite understand at the time, but he understood the look on his father’s face.  He took to studying the ugly designs on the carpet to distract from the tight clench in his father’s jaw, the way he kept himself so still and barely blinked through the entire explanation— Kurt knew, even at eight years old, what it was like to use up all of your willpower to hold yourself together for the sake of someone else.  To this day, he cannot look at paisley print without thinking back to that awful day.

Kurt scans the directory before punching the up button to call the elevator and folds his arms across his chest, tapping his foot as he awaits its arrival.  When he first heard about the volunteer program on the pediatric unit he was naturally hesitant to return to the place that held some of his worst memories.  He had been on the fence about it all summer, torn between the desire to give back to the hospital staff that had gone above and beyond in their attempts to cure his mother’s cancer and wanting to put as much distance as possible between himself and the place where they finally had to say goodbye to each other.

Until he saw that YouTube video.  

A curly-haired boy with big doe eyes and an unwavering grin, guitar in hand, leading a Disney themed sing-along with a group of elementary school age kids.  The warmth that spread through Kurt’s chest was almost overwhelming as he watched the boy march around the room performing Hakuna Matata with the parade of children trailing behind, mimicking him raucously and off-key.  It was the first time Kurt had really smiled in a long time.

So he had decided to look into the program.  Mostly because witnessing the boundless energy of pure joy from each child singing along in that video elicited memories of countless nights of living room performances with his own father, both of them puffy-eyed and exhausted but still managing to find the stamina to sing at the top of their lungs, using the furniture as stage props.  They were two lost souls attempting to cling to each other through tidal waves of insurmountable grief, and those nights together— well, those nights wereeverything to Kurt.  He had never felt closer to his father than when they were both breathless and laughing their way through the most eclectic collection of songs imaginable, hugging each other tightly at the end of each performance.  

And if Kurt happened to run into the boy from the video along the way, well, that would certainly just be an added bonus. Kurt did have eyes after all.  And there was no denying the boy’s natural charm or the air of confidence with which he carried himself.  

Truth be told, entering yet another school year with no friends was beginning to take its toll on Kurt and the possibility of finding camaraderie with a cute boy who seemingly shared similar interests was certainly enticing.

Ding!

The doors slide open before him revealing an empty elevator.  Kurt steps in and presses the button for the fourth floor.  He thinks about that video and jumping on armchairs and couches in his living room with his father for the entire ride up.

***

He has to be buzzed in to enter the unit, which he thinks is strange.  But the woman who greets him, a young nurse with bright green eyes and deep auburn hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, explains it is the protocol for all pediatric units in order to prevent children from wandering away or being kidnapped.  There are security bracelets around each patient’s ankle that trigger an alarm if they are taken past a bright yellow line painted on the floor.

“Who would kidnap sick kids from a hospital?” Kurt asks, looking absolutely horrified.

“You would be surprised at how common it is.  Parents fighting over custody, usually.”

He nods and guesses that makes sense, but the thought is still deeply unsettling.

The hallways are empty as she leads him to a room behind the nurse’s station.  The unit is certainly much different from the one his mother had been on.  The walls are covered in murals of different cartoon characters and scenes from popular storybooks.  While the nurse punches in a code, Kurt studies a painting of Rapunzel in a high stone tower, golden plaited hair strung over the edge of the window for a handsome prince at the bottom. The door buzzes and she holds it open for him.  “I’ll let my supervisor know you’re here.”

Kurt thanks her and takes a seat at one of the tables to wait.  On the far wall he spots a bulletin board covered in an overabundance of overlapping photos, hand-drawn pictures and a variety of cards both homemade and store-bought.  He casts a quick glance towards the door before crossing the room to investigate.  He cannot help but smile as he scans over the collection of memories, reminiscing back to his own pile of hand drawn cards for the staff on the oncology unit.  

Then something catches his eye.  

It’s the curly haired boy from the video.  He’s standing, guitar in hand with the strap over his shoulder, in the center of a group photo, surrounded by children of varying ages and the unit staff.  His outfit is different from the one in the video though.  He’s wearing baggy sweatpants and a printed T-shirt, only the edges of the otherwise obscured design visible from behind the guitar over his torso.  In the video he had certainly seemed more, well, put together, to say the least.  He had worn light grey slacks and a navy polo shirt accented with a white bow tie, which Kurt could not help but notice because he could count on one hand the amount of teenage boys he had ever seen wearing bow ties in the state of Ohio, himself included.  

Kurt wonders how often he comes by to visit and volunteer.  Maybe there is a chance they will be able to meet after all.

The faint beeping of the key code and jiggling of the door handle to his left draws his attention and he turns in time to see an older woman with ashy blonde hair and huge round glasses that take up half of her face walk in.  Her scrub top is printed with different Winnie the Pooh characters.  She smiles and approaches him, extending her hand.  “Hi, you must be Kurt.  I’m Jeannie; we spoke on the phone last week.”

“Oh! Yes,” Kurt shakes her hand.  “Nice to meet you.”

“Shall we?” She gestures to a table and Kurt takes a seat opposite her.  “So we just have to get some paperwork in order and then we can take a little tour around the unit so you can meet the kids.”

“Okay.”

“This is your first time volunteering, right?” She opens a Manila folder and begins rifling through a large stack of papers.

“Yes.”

“What drew you to it?”

Kurt steals a glance towards the bulletin board, lips curling up into a half-smile.  “I heard about it through my school a few months back, but honestly? I spent a lot of time visiting my mom in this hospital when I was a kid and when me and my dad would get home he would always try to cheer me up.  We put on a lot of concerts for my stuffed animals in our living room.  And I mean… like a lot .”  

Her eyes are soft as she listens, a piece of paper held loosely between both hands just inches off of the table, almost forgotten, and gives him an empathetic smile.

“I saw that video of the Disney sing-along online and I just really wanted to be a part of it, helping kids, especially with music, because it’s really helped me through some tough times.”

“Well,” She straightens up and slides the paper across the table towards him, “I think the kids will really love having you around.  Do you play any instruments?”

“Never missed a piano lesson,” Kurt says, grinning.  “But mostly, I love to sing.”

The paperwork consists of a lot of signatures.  Kurt is not to discuss any of the patients or their health conditions with others in order to maintain privacy regulations, not to post anything to social media without permission, and just a lot of general information about the hospital’s protocols such as what to do in the event of emergency scenarios (of which there are many ).  By the end of it, Kurt has a pretty sizable stack of papers to take home with him and a dull cramp in his wrist.  

“I know it seems like a lot of information, but nothing you have to memorise.  You’ll always be with other staff members who will guide you through every step of the way.”

Kurt releases a nervous laugh, “Okay, good.  I can save my highlighters for school work then.”

***

Jeannie leads the way to the playroom which, she explains, is a safe space for all the children on the unit that remains open every day until 7 p.m.  No medications or treatments are allowed to be administered to a child in the playroom, they must be brought out first.  There are about ten kids inside, ranging from toddlers to older teens, all of whom have seemingly gravitated towards splitting into their own little cliques based on ages.  As soon as they enter the room two of the younger kids, a boy and girl no older than three or four, look up from a mountain of blocks and start crying.  Kurt casts an alarmed glance at Jeannie.

“It’s okay, you can keep playing.” Jeannie kneels down and stacks a loose block onto their small tower.  “Everyone, this is Kurt, he’s going to be coming by to help out and spend some time with all of you.” She stands up and backs away from the two toddlers with the blocks to stand beside Kurt again.  

“It’s the uniform,” she says quietly to him.  “Some get scared when they see us come into a room cause it usually means it’s time for medicine or treatments.”

“Hi, Kurt!” A small girl with bronze skin, a round face, and long thick black hair comes over and takes his hand.  “I’m Melanie! You wanna come draw with me?”

She does not wait for an answer before she starts tugging on his hand and walking back towards a small rectangular table covered with construction paper and crayons.  She climbs into one of two plastic blue chairs which are far too tiny for Kurt to fit in, so he sits on the floor beside the table, crossing his legs.  Melanie slides a piece of yellow construction paper towards him and pushes a pile of crayons into the middle for them to share.

“Did you draw all of these?” Kurt picks up a red crayon and starts sketching.

“Yes! My daddy brought my big brother to visit and we draw together,” she says, shading in what looks like a sunflower with a purple crayon.

“They’re very beautiful; I like that one a lot.” Kurt taps the one she is currently working on.  “I’ve never seen a purple sunflower before.”

“I’m gonna invent them one day,” she says matter-of-factly.  Kurt smiles and returns to his sketch of a new outfit design that has been floating around his mind for the past week.  

“Woah!”

Kurt begins to lift his head up to locate where the voice has come from when he spots movement beside his left elbow.  To say the boy is small would be an understatement.  He is tiny .  A pale, skinny little thing dressed in Batman pajamas that look two sizes too big on him.  He has wide, bright blue eyes and is wearing a charcoal grey beanie.  Clutched between his toothpick arms is a stuffed rabbit with drooping ears the size of its entire body.  

“Hello,” Kurt says as the boy leans forward to peer at his drawing.

“You can draw,” the boy says, clutching his rabbit closer.  

“Would you like to draw with us?”

“Can’t draw,” he says.

“Oh, I bet that’s not true,” Kurt says and holds out the crayon to him.  “Everyone can draw.”

The boy looks at the crayon then up to Kurt and shakes his head shyly before raising the bunny up to his chin, hugging it tightly.

“What’s your name?” Kurt asks.

“Jason,” he says quietly.

“Well, would you like to watch me and Melanie draw?”

“I’m really good.” Melanie looks up at him.  “You can sit next to me, I’ll show you.”

Kurt spends the next hour drawing with Melanie while Jason continues to peek curiously between them.  The other kids begin to trickle out of the room, some led by nurses, some by visiting family members.  Pretty soon, only the three of them are left until Jason’s mother comes in to collect him.  Before he leaves, Kurt holds out a piece of paper to him.

“Something tells me you like Batman,” Kurt says as Jason’s eyes widen at the image of a child-sized Batman with bright blue eyes.  “How about next time you can draw me?”

“Okay.” Jason grins, slipping the picture between his stuffed bunny and his chest to hold it there safely.  “But you’re gonna look like a potato.  I really can’t draw.”

It is the most Kurt has heard him speak all afternoon.  Something about the way he talks contradicts the way he looks. Kurt wonders how old he actually is; the boy looks smaller than most five year olds he’s seen but definitely talks like an older child.  Kurt makes a mental note to find out next time.  “Deal.  I can’t wait to see it.”

Jason’s mom gives Kurt a parting smile before she shepherds her son away.  Soon after, Melanie’s nurse comes to collect her as well, leaving only Kurt and Jeannie in the empty playroom.

“That went well,” she says.  “You’re a natural with them.”

Kurt beams back at her, a sense of pride swelling in his chest.  

After his dad comes to pick him up, Kurt spends the entire car ride home filling him in on the events of the day, excluding Jason and Melanie’s names.  He goes to bed that night with his mind already buzzing with activities for the next visit.

***

Kurt starts volunteering two days a week after school and over the course of the next month, he becomes very familiar with some of the regular kids on the unit.  Jason, he discovers, is actually nine years old, has leukemia and is in his final round of chemotherapy by the first week in October.  Melanie has sickle cell anemia and had been hospitalized for something called ‘sickle cell crisis’— she had gone home two weeks after they first met, but Kurt learns that she usually returns frequently for the same problem.  There’s a teenage boy not much older than Kurt is, but taller and skinnier with jet black hair and sad eyes, named Julian who has cystic fibrosis— he usually keeps to himself, oftentimes choosing to sit in the back corner of the playroom and silently watch everyone else.  

The rest have been a whirlwind of faces and names with a variety of issues such as pneumonia, appendicitis, broken bones and asthma attacks.  There have also been quite a few cases of children who have come in with injuries as a result of abuse at home, more so than Kurt would have imagined actually occurred.  He finds trying to interact and engage with those kids to be the most heartbreaking.

Some of the kids are not as keen to warm up to him as others, keeping to themselves or staying with their families while Kurt leads sing-alongs, painting lessons, hosts movie nights, and reads aloud during story time.  He has developed a steady routine in the five weeks since he began volunteering.  So on the Tuesday during the second week of October he waves hello to the security personnel by the front entrance like he usually does.  He rides up the same elevator and is buzzed into the unit by Rosie, the first nurse he met with the auburn hair.  And with his usual wide smile in place, he strolls into the playroom with a new four-pack of Disney themed puzzles under his arm.  

But when he walks in, the kids are already sitting in a circle, staring up at a boy with loosely gelled curls coiffed into a fluffy side part, bright hazel eyes, and a sapphire acoustic guitar perched on his lap. Kurt is caught completely off guard as he realises, Oh god, it’s him! It’s the guy from the video!

He looks shorter in person than Kurt assumed.  In both the photo on the bulletin board and the video his hair was ungelled and wild.  Kurt vividly remembers his dark curls bouncing as he bopped his head along to the music while impersonating Timon and Pumba for the younger kids.  He’s dressed in another carefully selected outfit though— bright red pants, a black polo and a white bow tie with black polka dots on it.  

“Kurt!” A few of them yell excitedly.    

“Ah, so you’re the famous Kurt I’ve been hearing so much about,” The boy with the guitar says, that same unwavering grin already in place.  “Nice to finally meet you, I’m Blaine.”

[aradiiaa]

Does anybody else get annoyed when someone you don’t know very well suddenly messages you out of the blue with nothing but “hi” or “good morning” and no subsequent message about what they want to talk about, especially while you’re very obviously busy and trying to work?

Lately at work, my manager has been drastically increasing the amount of steps we have to take to work on accounts while our daily quota stays exactly the same. A small group of co-workers (friends) and I were transferred to this department like 4 months ago, and we still can barely meet just half of that quota because of the unrealistic expectations that are placed on us. For perspective, we’re expected to finish 45 accounts per day. That’s about 6 per hour. Because of all the steps we had in the beginning and the new steps they keep adding, we can barely do 20 accounts in a day because of some of these damn accounts can take up to an hour to finish. And our manager and supervisor have the audacity to act like cheerleaders, sending us emails with positivity and inspirational quotes, constantly sending messages in the group chat reminding us of how much we have left to do as if we aren’t already trying. Jesus Christ, it’s just flat-out patronizing when they tell us they’re proud of us after all that. It’s like that time I used to work at Walmart and the store manager made a whole team do some creepy Walmart Pride™ chant every morning. My team and I are already under enough pressure since joining this department.

Anyway, sometimes my supervisor just sends me a message out of blue, and it would say absolutely nothing except for “good morning” or “good afternoon” or whatever. I don’t know why, but it really irritates me when people do this. Does he have something to say or what? I’m sitting here busting my ass off calling all these insurance companies, doctor’s offices, and patients, trying to make sure these people are going to get insurance coverage for their inhumanely expensive MRI’s and shit. I’m trying to meet an unrealistic quota that he keeps trying to “motivate” us to fulfill. I don’t have time to respond with “good morning/afternoon” and then sit there for 60 seconds waiting for him to spit out what he wants from me, I have a job to do. If he has something important to say, then he’ll need to say it straight away. Otherwise I’m going to assume it’s just an attempt at small talk and I will not respond. And a few minutes after this particular incident, of course he asks for a roll/role(?) call in the group chat to make sure everyone’s at their desks (we all work from home). He does this a lot, but I never respond to them, because like I said, I have a job, and the amount of notifications this chat produces is so distracting I have to keep myself on Do Not Disturb (but edited to say “available”). Of course after like 2 minutes he attempts to call me without warning while I’m on the phone with a nurse. Obviously I don’t answer, because I like I said, I have a job and I’m on another call. He doesn’t send me a message afterward so obviously it’s nothing important.

I get off the call and post a relevant question to the group chat, and someone answers. Well, that should make it clear that I’m working the job I’m being paid to do. He still doesn’t send me a message with what he wants. What is it with people and wasting other people’s time? I hate it when people do this. Just spit it out, say/ask what you want. Some people do this to confirm that the recipient is available before they start talking, yeah, but if this in a high-pressure work environment, it’s a waste of time. Get to the point and I’ll respond when I can. Otherwise, I have a job to do and I’m not going to drop everything just to type “good afternoon”.

[prorevenge]

Nervous about sharing this one.

I used to be a butcher/meat cutter. I was trained at a small mom and pop shop on how to be an actual butcher, rather than just a meat cutter. I loved the career. Of course, if you intend on even getting close to a decent salary you have to take your skills to a grocery store and work your way up the chain, or start your own successful business.I got a job at a chain supermarket and worked there for several years until I was offered the chance to run my own department. The hitch was they wouldn’t bump my salary up for the promotion. So I didn’t complain, I moved on to another supermarket. This one was fancy, and had a real good reputation for being a nice chain.

At this point I want to let you know that I intend to keep this somewhat anonymous, most of the naming and shaming has already been done and this is five years in the past.

This new supermarket only had five stores in my area, I worked at three of them during the three years I was there. I didn’t have any real issues with this place until I was offered a promotion.Something you may need to understand is that each store had a meat department, each meat department had a handful of meat cutters, an assistant manager and a manager. Above the department manager, you had the store management, but you also had a district meat supervisor. This guys job was to go to each store every few weeks and see how things are going, and get with the department manager to work on sales and waste. Stuff like that.

Due to our particular district only having five markets, our supervisor was also the manager of one of these markets. Let’s call it store ‘C.’ When I was hired on, I began working at store ‘A.’ I bought a new house a little outside of town and moved to store ‘B’ so that I would have a closer drive. I liked every one I worked with at both stores. I even liked the district supervisor who i’ll call ‘DS.’ He was extremely friendly and outgoing. DS got a promotion which required him to move to another state and become that areas full time District Supervisor. He took it, and his assistant manager at market C, got a promotion to become the manager of that market. I was offered a promotion to assistant, but I would have to transfer from market B to market C. So I did.

Market C was a store that I had not been in yet and my first week there was pretty strange. The new manager was on vacation, and I found out that this particular market would have two assistant managers: me and another guy who I was ill call ‘AM.’ Besides me and ‘AM’ there were three other meat cutters. My initial impressions of the place were that it was the dirtiest meat market I had been in. You could smell our seafood case when you walked in the front door. The coolers were covered in old blood, and they had out of date products stacked all over the place.

Now, I’m not usually an asshole, so I decided to wait until the manager came back from vacation and see how things go from there, because I may be seeing the results of a messy transition, and it might not be representative of how the market is usually run. When the market manager came back, he asked me what I thought of the place, I told him that I honestly thought it looked dirty and that aside from the cases needing cleaning, some of the cutters were putting spoiled seafood in the cases, and slimy tenderloins in the display cases. He seemed disappointed, but I wasn’t sure if it was my opinion he didn’t like or the state of things while he was away.

He had warned me about the other assistant manager, AM, and told me that AM was a troublemaker, that the former manager, DS had told MM that AM was out to get him. Now MM was looking for reasons to fire AM. (are you still following? lol) I told him that I would keep that in mind. The manager closed with me a few days and wanted to show me his methods of closing down the market for the night. Which I thought was weird because I had years of experience doing this, but I’m not going to turn down a helping hand. MM’s method of cleaning the machinery was to use no soap, no sanitizer, just degreaser and water. Which is disgusting.

I was also shown his method for accounting for waste. This company had a really good management information system, which gave a manager all the tools they need in order to plan for sales and reduce waste. The only requirement was that you fed it the proper information. Proper procedure was to scan out waste at the end of the night. This way you can keep track of what wasn’t selling, or what you may be producing too much of. MM on the other hand didn’t scan out anything. He threw it away, and made up numbers to input manually into the system. It doesn’t make sense, but then he was able to fudge the numbers on the monthly inventory to make them look acceptable.Why? Out of all of this, this is one of the things I understood the least. It is so easy to do it properly. I do know one thing, he was taught this by our former District supervisor, DS. He told me as much.

I felt I was in a real bad position. I didn’t want to be the guy who just got here and stirred up shit left and right. And I had also just bought a house and had a two year old at home, with another one on the way. I felt like, I might actually be able to change the culture of this market a bit and get people to start doing things they way they should be not. Not just my way, but the way the law and the company require us to do the job.

Months go by and I didn’t make much headway. Weeks and weeks of the manager shitting on the other Assistant, or ignoring him completely in order to give me more responsibility. One day AM blows up on me. So we have a talk that night and I ask him what was going on and he said, he felt our manager was cutting him out, in favor of me. I told him that I had noticed it too, and asked him what was up between the two of them, and he tells me his story.

He began working at that market about a year before me, under DS. MM, our current manager was his “Co-assistant.” AM’s first week there was similar to mine, he saw how dirty the place was and also closed the market down with MM and realized that he wasn’t using any soap or chemicals. He told me some other stuff, like seeing him mis-weighing roasts (by stacking rolls of stickers on the scale along with the meat.) So AM went and told the Manager at the time. DS. He told me that after that, they had it out for him.

Of course, I had heard the other side of this story from MM, and now it all made sense. My co-assistant, saw many of the same problems I did and thought that DS would care. Instead DS told MM to watch his back and they tried poisoning most of the store against him.

For my part in this, I still kept to my goal of straightening out some of this mess. I would ask my cutters to do their job and get on a weekly schedule of looking for product going out of date and mark it down a few days in advance, I eventually found out that MM had told them they didn’t have to listen to me because I was just an assistant manager.

I began scanning out waste like we were supposed to, but I would come in from my off days and fin a shopping cart of waste rolled back into the cooler. Which MM would separate into prepackaged items that he would just toss, and meat we cut there, which he would keep in the cooler.

Seafood was a whole other problem. We would get cases of fish in, unwrapped and the case of unwrapped fresh fish would usually have the sell by date on it. They would never keep this information, like other stores, and would throw the dates away, and put those fish in the case until they were disintegrating.On days I had to set up the case, I would do it properly. If it looked bad I would print up a ticket scan it out and throw it away. I told MM that the fish wasn’t selling well and we should back off of certain varieties and fill the case out with kale, like other low volume fish sections I had worked at. Nope.

Well one month we apparently had a bad inventory. Me and the other assistant was called up to the Store Manager’s office, where he asked us what was going on back there. So I gave him my perspective. I said that many of the guidelines were not being followed, we were over ordering product and we weren’t throwing it away when we should.The store manager didn’t seem to care, he told us that he was gonna “blow the market up and didn’t care where we landed” whatever the fuck that means. But I left with the distinct impression that he wanted us to quit trying to fix shit and just keep the numbers where DS and MM had them.

I reached out to former co-workers at the other stores and told them what was going on, and they said they had heard those rumors about this market for years. My cutters at this market were aware of it and most of them got to the point they wanted to fix things too, except for one of them.

So I kept at trying to fix things. I would have quit but this company paid more than I would have gotten at any other market, and I really couldn’t afford to take a pay cut at that moment. However my wife was floating the idea that I should become a stay at home dad once our daughter was born, and just leave the place behind, but I didn’t want to be a stay at home dad.For several weeks our store manager would call us up into his office separately, and yell at us or try to intimidate us. I told him, you know I’ve been here over a year and never got the raise I was promised, you guys, have never completed my training and want me to do things that I consider unethical. Just transfer me back to my old store and I’ll step down. He replied that there were only two ways I could leave, and that a transfer wasn’t it. I took that as my options were to quit or get fired. I even contacted HR and asked to be moved, but they talked to the store manager and they denied me. We even showed the HR manager cases of out of date meat that had been frozen and put in the freezer in order to keep scanning it on our monthly inventories.

​

Fortunately, I had been recording every yelling session he had me present for. It’s not something I would have normally done, but an old boss told me to document everything and cover my ass. So I did. I recorded video showing piles of out of date meat, video of fish disintegrating in my hands, I recorded audio of every time I brought the conditions up to my boss, his boss, and the store manager’s assistants. It all amounted to a few hours of them being completely aware of what was going on and either threatening my job, or telling me to leave it as it is.

Over Christmas that year I had two days off and talked with my wife again, about the option of being a stay at home dad. I told her I would only do it if I could use the time in order to go back to school. We agreed on that, and I contacted the local news investigative team. And I turned over all the video and recordings pictures etcetera that I had. I also had them talk with AM, who backed up everything and who also had his own examples.They talked to meat cutters at the other stores I had worked at, to hear their rumors about this place, and then they did a background check on me.

They began sending in undercover shoppers who would show up when I wasn’t there and buy spoiled fish and meat. I also covertly marked some meat that had been vacuumed sealed and relabeled by our manager for months on end. Which the news ended up buying.They sent all of this product out to be tested at a local university, and most if not all of it had 1000’s of times the safe level of staph, ecoli, and something else that I can’t remember right now. And I went in for two on camera interviews, as they wanted a face to put with the investigation.

The investigation took around three or four months, and during that time we found out that our company was being bought out by one of the biggest supermarket chains in the area. Oh well, the trigger had already been pulled.

In April, the news aired a three day multi-part expose’. The store had been suspicious for a few weeks cause the news van had been outside shooting b roll, and the reporter had contacted corporate for comments on the story.I walked into work after the first day, and it was the weirdest thing in the world. Some people, wouldn’t speak to me. Others came up to me when no one was around and thanked me. Some people wondered why I would continue to show up and I did it because of three reasons, I have huge balls, I was in the right, and I wanted the severance package they were offering employees once all the stores closed due to the buyout. I had to work till the middle of June as that was the date all the stores would close and start converting over.

The company had told the news that I was making it all up, of course they had no idea the extensive amount of evidence I had gathered. I had a lawyer offer to represent me pro-bono, and besides being a nice guy he was also three quarters Pit bull. He threatened to sue them for defamation, and they had to retract their statement and say that this was a one time occurrence that they were not aware of.

I received two death threats, from people who were associated with MM. The police took care of them. They moved me back to store ‘B.’ Where I was able to work a bit easier, then they had me spend a full day locked in a room with the District Manager and a loss prevention officer, who… I don’t know... he questioned my story but my story has never changed, and the next day they told me I didn’t have to come in anymore and I would keep all of my pay until the official closing date, keep my benefits package and severance package.

My department manager MM, was demoted to assistant, and from I have heard he moved to another state working for the same company. In fact he moved to the same area his old boss DS was running.The Store Manager resigned before the stores shut down. In fact his store closed before all of the other ones because they had a double your money back no questions asked guarantee on meat sales, and people were bring back whole tenderloins they had in their freezers. They lost a lot of money, and decided to close that location down early.

The store manager was rehired as a department manager, when that location opened back up under the new company.

And most of the employees remained unaffected other than the buyout required everyone to reapply for their old jobs and everyone got a massive pay cut across the board. Though that had nothing to do with me.

As for me, I am on my fourth year as a stay-at-home dad. I graduate from university with a degree in IT this May. I have a 4.0 and will be going into a master’s program next year, which will be the last year before my girl starts kindergarten.

I never wanted to get anyone fired. I just wanted to do a good job, not be forced to do things I didn’t consider right. But I stand up to bullies. I don’t let people threaten me, my family, our well being or anyone else I care about.

I have been hesitant to write about this experience, because it’s in the past and I came out on top of everything, in a way that makes me feel as if the other shoe never dropped. Over the past several years I think of this often and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I hope that putting it down on paper, helps me finally quit thinking about it. I wonder sometimes if I did the right thing that maybe I should have let it go. But it is what it is, and now you know.

(source) story by (/u/Butchertattletale)

[glux2]

So i have been in this job for a month...

So i feel like just sharing some stuff about what´s been going down.

First off, it is a call center job, which was my last resort because fuck thta kind of life, but as it turns out i had to fall on this because i wasn’t making enough on commissions, hard to be able to pump commissions regularly when your IRL issues keep dragging you down emotionally.

Originally i was gonna go to campaign that was much better paying but for some bullshit they decided that i was “gonna leave” and didn’t hire me, had to call back to tell them i need the job and they transferred me to a worse paying campaign, which is for GameStop.

Week One trainer was a cool guy, very friendly but he did this shit every single fucking call center trainer i have have does: When listing examples of “hard to understand calls” he made racist comments about black people talking weird, i absolutely don’t understand why this is still a thing when the absolutely worst accent i have ever encountered on a call center job is the texan accent. Why not use that? There ain’t nothing racist about making fun of texans.

Also there is a trans girl among our coworkers, if you are asking “why are you making a big deal out of this?” i need to stress strongly that i live in Northern Mexico, a very chauvinist, queerphobic area even for mexico, so i was blindsided seeing someone walk up so confident and open about it, i gotta say it warmed my heart because nobody made a big deal of it, save for the trainer sometimes failing to quite get it and misgendering her. Have nothing but respect for her.

Been trying to befriend her, but trying to not come as a creep due to the age gap between us, it’s a bit hard, i get super nervous because part of me wants to just unload all my worries about my own gender questioning, but the other part of me things i should not be spewing everything on this young lady. I do try to be more explicit about her gender when talking to her (ie, using appropiate gendered words) i mention this because, even tho that’s the bare minimum people should do, other coworkers try to avoid using gendered words when talking to her, sure they call her by her preferred name, but other than that they try to be neutral, avoiding straight up calling her a woman, while also not calling her a man (to her face).

Week two and three we got a new trainer, she’s knowledgeable but kind of a bitch? first off she had it in for me and another trainee, you see me and the other guy had experience on cal center jobs so we would make much more questions about everything, which seems to severely annoy her despite her constant insistence that we make questions.

Like, that i could let go, but she also did some shit that seemed more suspiciously malicious, for one she refused for most of the time to use our trans coworker’s preferred name, blatantly misgendering her and the most heinous act of all, near the end of our training she showed us the infamous “It´s Ma’am!” video as an example of a bad store experience at GameStop.

It was very obvious she meant this for us to “laugh” at the customer even tho, by every thing we had been taught so far, the clerk was obviously at fault, she kept misgendering the woman on the video and tried to play it as if we had to be sympathetic to the clerk, when i pointed out explicitly for the class that the clerk was on the wrong from this clearly stating “When a customer tells you to address them certain way you do it, customer is always right” my trainer was like “eh, customer is not always right”, it was obvious what she was doing, i think that was like the dirties shit she pulled.

So now we’re on this phase where we’re still on training but we are doing real work, funny shit, i have to report my daily activities to a cabal of supervisor who all have naruto profile pics on their work email accounts. Since we work for GameStop, sometimes they send us promo shit, so like half of the people there are wearing these cool star trek hoodies patterned after Worf’s uniform which one on the supervisors referred to as “Bumblebees” because the black and yellow color and the hexagonal pattern in the sash, i think bumblebees sound cuter than worf uniforms.

On our down time a bunch of coworkers and i were talking and for whatever reason puberty as a topic came up and i said “could you imagine if humans went through puberty 2? like, you go through puberty and at like 40 you go through a second puberty?” we all got a good laugh and our trans coworker went like “Technically humans can go through a second puberty” and she gave me this “you know what i mean” look, and i just without thinking, longingly replied “But it is oh so expensive!”. I wonder if she’s getting Egg vibes from me.

All in all it hasn’t been as bad as i expected but then again i won’t be taking calls until next week (we’re working on the e-mail side for now).

I expect it to get bad, because, well, our customer base is gamers, you know how that is, hell, our trainers explicitly warned us, specially the women, that death and rape threats will be common. Happy thoughts, yay.

[lepetitebouchon]

AN OPEN LETTER TO MY CURRENT EMPLOYER.

Greetings, Globe Spanning Company That Has Cult-Like Ideas, Language and Behavior (said with love, for those of you who know just how genuinely thankful I am for the job I have today).

I’ve been with you for over four years - 2020 marks entry into my fifth, but I won’t be getting to that milestone. I’m finally spreading my wings. I want to start this off positive: I have always felt thankful, grateful and blessed to have this job. As a company, you really do try to lead by example. You really do try to not treat your employees as numbers. You are generous (at times), inclusive (always), and provide some amazing benefits and perks for all employees.

I joined you at the end of my first career path, hired on precisely because my background was what you needed: an experienced fine dining pastry chef to bring professionalism and class when you all were trying something a little funky with how your company operated at night. I was promoted almost immediately to a supervisor. My management helped me through some of the worst experiences I had in my personal life, your company helped me get back into college, you provided a path to growth and development into upper management.

Even today, despite my grievances, I would recommend people to work with you...although, I will always be honest about the ups and downs I’ve both seen and experienced.

But let me tell you why I’m leaving. No one comes to my blog, so this won’t get far, it’s my own personal catharsis. I’ve tried to air these same thoughts to my current manager and district manager and it’s like talking to a wall. The gloves are now off and language filter switch has been flipped. This is long, so strap in.

When I said my previous career path was “experienced”, I wasn’t fucking joking. I’ve worked a myriad of jobs: I’ve managed millions of dollars for businesses and the professionals that run them as a merchant banker (meaning, I counted their cash, advised when appropriate, and made sure they spoke with the proper team member to further their ventures). I’ve worked in retail for a combined total (past and current) for probably 5-6 years. And more importantly and relevant to your company: I have roughly 8 or 9 years of kitchen experience, most of those as a pastry chef. I have worked as a team and solo, I have designed dessert menus for some locations, and managed small kitchen teams, I’ve worked for celebrity chefs and kitchens ranked in the upper 10 and 5, respectively in their style/region of cooking in the nation.

I graduated within the top percentile at my pastry school of choice, with honors.

With a brief rundown of my resume out of the way, let’s talk about “development”.

My path to upper management has been rocky. When originally approached about having my own store, it stemmed from my involvement in solving two monumental problems in my original store. Sadly, during this time I was going through a major life problem and couldn’t wait in line for my promotion. Our store was training a new store manager, a girl who started at a similar time as I was selected to be trained next, and I would come after her. I needed a pay raise, so I opted for transferring to a team that would be making in house baked goods at your headquarters, guaranteed to pay me a few dollars more, but it was enough for me to survive moving forward.

My background made me eligible for a “leadership” role is this new team. I should have known something was up because I could never get confirmation on my title, no matter how hard I pushed. I was whisked off to corporate as an “assistant” chef. Your company was asking for upwards of 5-8 years of experience for “assistants”. What would I be making, pray tell? Loaf cakes, cookies, tarts, muffins and other basics. Recipes someone with minimal experience could make. I was not in the promised leadership role.

Unhappy and frustrated, I transferred to your storefront when it opened in their version of a supervisor at my initial beginnings. I would be one of a few supervisors in the bakery area and we were not treated as equal to your retail side. Despite being a supervisor I was inexplicably not given keys, a safe code or the ability to problem solve at our own point of sale devices - I had to get a “retail” supervisor. Those in the bakery would ONLY be given these rights if they had “retail” experience - which I had.

I yearned for an assistant manager role, so I worked tirelessly for another six months before broaching that subject.

I was not the only experienced employee there: there were a handful of us with up to ten years of company experience - this detail will be important momentarily.

When I sat down with two of the assistant managers for a “development talk” and told them my story of how I turned down a “core” store manager role to be there due to outside circumstances...they laughed at me. They said that any experience I had before coming to this particular team was irrelevant and I would need to start at the bottom all over again and had “so much to learn” and that my resume “didn’t have weight” and that my prior kitchen management and schooling basically were useless.

I was devastated. I cried. I walked away from that meeting feeling ashamed, embarrassed and it demolished the respect I had for how you as a company have when you boast about how to treat your employees.

The assistant manager role you filled did not go to one of the more experienced employees who had been supevisors or store managers who stepped down to regular retail grunts to be there.

No.

You transferred someone from the opposite coast and stomped on the hopes and dreams of a half dozen hopefuls. So, armed with newfound cash I left to go back to your more traditional storefronts thousands of miles away.

They wanted me to become a store manager as well, but I was facing a surgery with lengthy recovery. They promised as soon as I was back on my feet, they would begin the process of peer review and interviews. However, another horrific speed bump occurred. A major snafu involving my benefits sent me packing back across the country. It was cheaper for me to move back and “reset” my benefits than lose 300 bucks a month in insurance costs over a period of seven months.

Are you still with me? Good, we’re almost there, I promise.

I won’t get into all of the specifics of what happened when I landed in my current location. My initial start was rough, I wasn’t given my full time hours, we were short staffed for a huge chunk of time. It was so bad in the beginning I started looking for new employment in the field I’d been studying at school. By now I was two years into college, it felt right.

At the same time, my manager and I went through a lot of growing pains. Eventually, yes, I was once again put back on my store manager track. I was hesitant - it had never worked out in the past.

Only to be told, again, I had to work on some things. I was willing to put in that hard work, but ultimately, I was given an offer that I couldn’t refuse.

And I’m sorry, corporate, but your stores are NOT that fucking hard to run. My current manager has ZERO food experience. He sold fucking shoes before this (no disrespect, I adore my manager and we have the best time working together).

I would not be looking for other jobs if you as a whole wouldn’t patronize me and other supervisors, and hold your store managers up on some goddamn pedestal.

I have YEARS of retail experience.

I have YEARS of kitchen management experience.

I have YEARS of food service experience.

If I were to apply to this as an “outside” hire, I meet and exceed all of your requirements.

I have admiration, love and respect of every employee I have lead within your company. In EVERY store I’ve been in my store manager and the peers below my level ask me why I don’t have a store. My peers in multiple stores across states have asked me to tell them when I’m promoted because if they’re still with the company they want to work with me.

I help my own manager with decisions. He asks for advice because I’m like a breathing encyclopedia of your companies policies and procedures because I gobbled down every bit of information I could to better my understanding of your stores so I WOULD be prepared some day.

I’m not asking for a promotion now. Or this week. But I think if someone who sold shoes can run a basic cafe, it might be okay to at least offer a mock interview for someone who has a resume shiny enough to get into very respected kitchens in any state I want to go to.

I have bent over backwards and given just about all that I am. Every manager I’ve been with in your company has already told me I could do their job and that I would be an excellent choice.

But no.

I’ve been nothing but loyal and devoted. I’ve asked for opportunities. And this would have been the year, my district manager and store manager were committed to getting me there, finally. I would just need to wait until “later this year”.

But it’s too little too late. I have an opportunity right in front of me, that has acknowledged my skill sets and asked me to join their fold.

It was honestly a hard decision at first. I was thrilled to finally, finally, finally being given the opportunity to lead my team in a much more meaningful way.

I felt like I was going to be betraying my team and my upper leadership.

And then I realized the power of the words, “I’m better than this and I have the track record to prove it”.

Then I packed my proverbial bags.

I’ll miss my store, but I won’t miss you as a company.

Cheers.

[jimlingss]

The Deli Diaries [6]

Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 || Chapter 8 || Chapter 9 || Chapter 10 || Chapter 11 [Finale]

➜ Words: 1.8k

➜ Genres: Fluff & Cuteness, That good ol’ slow burn, Slice of Life

➜ Summary: Working at a grocery store deli is absolutely unbearable (and you’re also perfectly aware of how dramatic you are). But it seems like something, or rather, someone might make the job a bit more manageable.

➜ Warnings: Mundane-ness that might make you bored to death

➜ Notes: i swear the story is moving...just...very slowly.

Your job sucks.   But it’s starting to suck less, especially when the microwave reads 2:00pm.   Right on the mark, you come strolling to the other side of the deli where your kind manager is putting away some of the orders that arrived a few minutes ago. “Hey, Serri. Is it okay if I go on my lunch break now?”   The old lady frowns in concern. “You haven’t eaten lunch yet? Yes, yes! Go right ahead.”   “I’ll be back in half-an-hour then, in time to package the chicken.” You’re ripping off your gloves and she nods, urging you to not worry about it and to go eat and refuel yourself. On the way to grabbing your bag, you wash your hands and rip off your hairnet, adjusting your black cap in the tiny mirror above the sink, trying your best to clean yourself up.   You nabbed a hat from your insane supervisor, having requested she order one for a few weeks now. The constant reminders annoyed her but it’s the only reason you have it now. For one, it’s completely free so why not. And secondly, you could hide your greasy hair and actually tame it from the long day of work. Plus, in this way, you can look less horrible for a certain someone.   “Hey, produce boy.” You run into that certain someone on the way to the staff room and he has his own bag slung on his shoulder. His brunette hair is ruffled, red apron clean, black shirt and pants appearing like it’s been ironed.   “Hey, deli girl.��� Jimin smiles, still amused with the little nickname you gave him.   “Are you going for lunch?” You push the backdoor open for him and he says ‘thank you’ as he enters.   Mischief twinkles in his eye and he downcasts his head trying to hide the way the corners of his lips are upright. But Jimin can’t help himself and he steals another glimpse of you. “I am.”   “What a coincidence.”   Or more like the two of you have been syncing up your breaks every other day now.   The job was actually pretty nice now that you had a friend to share your meals with. It’s not like you could hang out with Yuna in the breakroom considering only one person at a time was allowed to leave the deli area. Plus, you found Jimin’s company surprisingly nicer than your phone or any youtube video you could scrape up using the shitty wifi connection.   “What are the odds?” He laughs and then opens the door to the room for you. This time, you’re the one saying ‘thank you’ as you enter and he follows behind.   “I know, right?” You giggle and then move to pop open the microwave, throwing the stolen chicken-pot pie into it and hitting a minute to heat it up. In the meanwhile, Jimin pulls out two chairs and begins setting up, putting a few napkins down on the table not to make a mess and taking out his sandwich that he always cuts into two nowadays.   Luckily, there’s no one else in the staff room, only one person who exits the washroom and beelines out, down the stairs, returning back to their job before time runs out.   As the microwave whirrs, you move towards the wall of postings, scanning each of them and looking for your center’s number. “Are you thinking of switching?” Jimin asks in curiosity, moving to stand beside you. “Bakery? Or are you gonna transfer to another store?”   “Psh.” You move away when you can’t find anything of interest. “Why would I leave this store when it’s literally a ten minute walk from my house? If I had to take the bus, I swear I’d be late and fired on the first day.”   He laughs and the microwave dings, causing you to open it and grab two plastic spoons from the dispenser. “Plus, I don’t think bakery is hiring for another two years,” you mumble as an afterthought. “Unless someone dies, they’re not gonna train anyone here. Those ladies have been working there for a loooooong time.”   “I guess you and deli are gonna be together till death do you part,” he teases while taking a seat and you take yours adjacent to him. You grumble at the thought of the deli being in your foreseeing future and he smiles, cracking open his water bottle to take a sip.   “Oh. I actually have something.” Your eyes light up when you remember and you dig into your bag, pulling out a ziplock. “It’s honey ham.”   “Again?” Jimin laughs, grabbing a piece to eat. “I thought you hated hams.”   “Yeah...but I cut too much for a customer earlier, so I took it with me.”   “Aren’t you going to get fired?” He questions while you pick up the half of his sandwich and take a huge bite of it. In turn, he grabs the spoon and begins to eat the chicken pot pie that you took.   “Maybe.” You shrug, not really caring if you get fired. At the moment, you’re more preoccupied with enjoying this food, unable to stop taking massive bites of Jimin’s sandwich. “Y’know, I’m not a big fan of sandwiches but this is pretty good. Did you make it yourself?”   “Yeah.” Jimin smiles, a bit bashful over the compliment. “It’s not that hard. I just have to toast the bread for a minute and spread a teaspoon of butter. I also spread some mayo on the other slice and I cut a tomato, put in a bit of baloney and sometimes egg. There’s some cheese and lettuce, pickles too….”   He admits, he might’ve upped his sandwich game ever since you started sharing a half with him.   “God, that’s already ten steps too much for me.” You steal another bite, appreciating the flavour more and more. “But how do you get it so it isn’t melted and squished in your bag.”   “Oh, I put it in the produce cooler when I get here.”   “Dude…..you’re awesome.” You flash a huge thumbs up, wholly impressed with how seriously he takes your lunches together. “I like how you think ahead. Meanwhile, I’ve had the same pot pie for four days now. I’m so sick of it.”   Jimin takes another scoop of the pie. “Why do you keep getting it then?”   “Well, you like it, don’t you?”   You say it nonchalantly but it hits Jimin and he tries to repress a smile, though failing to do so. “It’s not bad, but I’m really fine with anything.”   “You’re too nice, produce boy.”   He really doubts that, especially when he’s sitting next to you. But he doesn’t say anything about it. “How was work so far? Any cute kids? Any rude customers?” He takes another bite and swallows it down. “Any grease you want me to help pour out?”   You grin. “None yet….of any of that. But you might need to help me pour out some grease later. I call holding the door.”   “Deal.”   Really, it’s a deal that sucks on his end. Yet, Jimin insists he can pour the whole bucket of the icky liquid into the dumpster every time your shifts overlap. You don’t understand why he offers so much help to you.   Maybe he’s just an extremely nice guy.   “How about you?” You motion your head over to him. “Any people asking you grocery questions?”   “Yes.” He giggles and you can’t help but smile. “Many. At this point, I think I’m better at navigating the grocery section than some of the grocery people. Did you know rice pudding is next to the butter section? Who knew.”   You laugh with him, amused with all the times people ask him where things are and he has to navigate them through the grocery aisles that he doesn’t even know himself. Earlier you caught a senior citizen grasping at his arm instead of her walker, trying to find some almond powder. He flashed you one look and that’s all it took for you to start giggling while the customer in front of you thought you were absolutely insane.   “What time are you off?” You ask, dusting your hands off after finishing the sandwich and some of the pot pie.   “Six. You?”   “Six too. We can walk home together,” you note while standing, heading over to the fridge and freezer to take a peek. “Hey, want some ice cream?”   “What?” He looks at your mischievous expression when you turn around. “Sure. But does that belong to anyone?”   “No name.” You smirk to yourself, glancing at the front of the open box where there’s an absence of black marker labelling ‘do not eat’. “No name means a free for all. What flavour?”   “Any.”   You grab two at random, shutting the freezer door before tossing it to him. Jimin catches it one hand like a pro, putting on a smug expression when it was really due to luck and reflexes. You plop down in your seat again, peeling the wrapper open and discarding it.   Jimin watches as you eat and he backs up. “Wait. Hold on. You bite your ice-cream?”   “And you don’t?” You twist up your face as if you’re offended that he does something different.   “No, you monster.” His tongue pokes out, rubbing all over his cold treat which makes you scrunch your nose up in distaste. “It hurts my teeth too much.”   “It’s gross to lick it.”   “It’s weird to bite it,” the produce boy counters and you scoff. “What flavour do you have?”   “Vanilla. You?”   “Chocolate.” Jimin’s brow eyes light up in curiosity and his pupils flicker over to the treat in your hand. You can read him like an open book, already knowing what he wants before he asks. “Can I try?”

“Don’t lick it,” you respond immediately like it’s a reflex. But instead of placating you, the boy grins, his eyes crinkling into half moons, plump lips spreading into his chubby cheeks. He takes your hand, curling his fingers over yours and he pulls it closer to him, moving your entire body towards his direction. “Don’t! Jimin! Actually!”   But like the little shit that he is, his tongue rakes up the entire side of your ice-cream. He licks it with a laugh and pulls away. “It’s good.”   You narrow your eyes at him before leaning over faster than he can react. You bite the top half of his ice-cream off completely, and he cries out as fifty percent of his treat is devoured. You laugh evilly before screaming. Your brain freezes, aching painfully and it makes him hysterical.   Jimin folds in half, wheezing, as he watches you clutch your head in your other palm, gasping for air and yelling about how cold it is. Still, it was worth getting your revenge.

[rightsinexile]

Biometrics: The new frontier of EU migration policy in Niger

The following piece, written by Giacomo Zandonini and published on 6 June 2019 by The New Humanitarian, reflects on the dangers to human rights safeguards posed by a new EU data-sharing strategy with West African countries aimed at curbing migration. It is republished here with permission.   

The EU’s strategy for controlling irregular West African migration is not just about asking partner countries to help stop the flow of people crossing the Mediterranean – it also includes sharing data on who is trying to make the trip and identifying to which countries they can be returned.

Take Niger, a key transit country for migrants arriving in Europe via Libya.

European money and technical assistance have flowed into Niger for several years, funding beefed-up border security and supporting controversial legislation that criminalises “migrant trafficking” and has led to a sharp fall in the registered number of people travelling through the country to reach Libya – down from 298,000 in 2016 to 50,000 in 2018.

Such cooperation is justified by the “moral duty to tackle the loss of lives in the desert and in the Mediterranean”, according to the EU’s head of foreign policy, Federica Mogherini. It was also a response to the surge in arrivals of asylum seekers and migrants to European shores in 2015-16, encouraging the outsourcing of control to African governments in return for development aid.

In April, as a further deterrent to fresh arrivals, the European Parliament passed a tougher “Regulation” for Frontex – the EU border guard agency – authorising stepped-up returns of migrants without proper documentation to their countries of origin.

The regulation is expected to come into force by early December after its formal adoption by the European Council.

The proposed tougher mandate will rely in part on biometric information stored on linked databases in Africa and Europe. It is a step rights campaigners say not only jeopardises the civil liberties of asylum seekers and others in need of protection, but one that may also fall foul of EU data privacy legislation.

In reply to a request for comment, Frontex told The New Humanitarian it was “not in the position to discuss details of the draft regulation as it is an ongoing process.”

Niger on the frontline

Niger is a key country for Europe’s twin strategic goals of migration control and counter-terrorism – with better data increasingly playing a part in both objectives.

The Makalondi police station-cum-immigration post on Niger’s southern border with Burkina Faso is on the front line of this approach – one link in the ever-expanding chain that is the EU’s information-driven response to border management and security.

When TNH visited in December 2018, the hot Sunday afternoon torpor evaporated when three international buses pulled up and disgorged dozens of travellers into the parking area.

“In Niger, we are the pioneers.”

They were mostly Burkinabès and Nigeriens who travelled abroad for work and, as thousands of their fellow citizens do every week, took the 12-hour drive from the Burkina Faso capital, Ouagadougou, to the Niger capital, Niamey.

As policemen searched their bags, the passengers waited to be registered with the new biometric Migration Information and Data Analysis System, or MIDAS, which captures fingerprints and facial images for transmission to a central database in Niamey.

MIDAS has been developed by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) as a rugged, low-cost solution to monitor migration flows. “In Niger, we are the pioneers,” said Ismael Soumana, the police commissioner of Makalondi. A thin, smiling man, Soumana proudly showed off the eight new machines installed since September at the entry and exit desks of a one-storey prefabricated building. Each workstation was equipped with fingerprint and document scanners, a small camera, and a PC.

Data sharing

The data from Makalondi is stored on the servers of the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DTS), Niger’s border police. After Makalondi and Gaya, on the Benin-Niger border, IOM has ambitious plans to instal MIDAS in at least eight more border posts by mid-2020 – although deteriorating security conditions due to jihadist-linked attacks could interrupt the rollout.

IOM provides MIDAS free of charge to at least 20 countries, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. Its introduction in Niger was funded by Japan, while the EU paid for an initial assessment study and the electrical units that support the system. In addition to the border posts, two mobile MIDAS-equipped trucks, financed by Canada, will be deployed along the desert trails to Libya or Algeria in the remote north.

MIDAS is owned by the Nigerien government, which will be “the only one able to access the data,” IOM told TNH. But it is up to Niamey with whom they share that information.

MIDAS is already linked to PISCES (Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System), a biometric registration arm of the US Department of State installed at Niamey international airport and connected to INTERPOL’s alert lists.

Niger hosts the first of eight planned “Risk Analysis Cells” in Africa set up by Frontex and based inside its border police directorate. The unit collects data on cross-border crime and security threats and, as such, will rely on systems such as PISCES and MIDAS – although Frontex insists no “personal data” is collected and used in generating its crime statistics.

A new office is being built for the Niger border police directorate by the United States to house both systems.

The West African Police Information System, a huge criminal database covering 16 West African countries, funded by the EU and implemented by INTERPOL, could be another digital library of fingerprints linking to MIDAS.

Frontex programmes intersect with other data initiatives, such as the Free Movement of Persons and Migration in West Africa, an EU-funded project run by the IOM in all 15-member Economic Community of West African States. One of the aims of the scheme is to introduce biometric identity cards for West African citizens.

Frontex’s potential interest is clear. “If a European country has a migrant suspected to be Ivorian, they can ask the local government to match in their system the biometric data they have. In this way, they should be able to identify people,” IOM programme coordinator Frantz Celestine told TNH.

The push for returns

Only 37 percent of non-EU citizens ordered to leave the bloc in 2017 actually did so. In his 2018 State of the Union address, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker urged a “stronger and more effective European return policy” – although some migration analysts argue what is needed are more channels for legal migration.

Part of the problem has been that implementing a returns policy is notoriously hard – due in part to the costs of deportation and the lack of cooperation by countries of origin to identify their citizens. Europe has had difficulty in finalising formal accords with so-called third countries unwilling to lose remittances from those abroad.

The Commission is shifting to “informal arrangements [that] keep readmission deals largely out of sight” – serving to ease the domestic pressure on governments who cooperate on returns, according to European law researcher, Jonathan Slagter.

The new Frontex regulation provides a much broader mandate for border surveillance, returns, and cooperation with third countries.

It contains provisions to “significantly step up the effective and sustainable return of irregular migrants”. Among the mechanisms is the “operation and maintenance of a platform for the exchange of data”, as a tool to reinforce the return system “in cooperation with the authorities of the relevant third countries”. That includes access to MIDAS and PISCES.

Under the new Frontex policy, in order to better identify those to be deported, the agency will be able “to restrict certain rights of data subjects”, specifically related to the protection and access to personal data granted by EU legislation.

That, for example, will allow the “transfer of personal data of returnees to third countries” - even in cases where readmission agreements for deportees do not exist.

Not enough data protection

The concern is that the expanded mandate on returns is not accompanied by appropriate safeguards on data protection. The European Data Protection Supervisor – the EU’s independent data protection authority – has faulted the new regulation for not conducting an initial impact study, and has called for its provisions to be reassessed “to ensure consistency with the currently applicable EU legislation”.

Mariana Gkliati, a researcher at the University of Leiden working on Frontex human rights accountability, argues that data on the proposed centralised return management platform – shared with third countries – could prove detrimental for the safety of people seeking protection.

“Given the extent of data sharing, the regulation does not put in place the necessary human rights safeguards and could be perceived as giving a green light for a blanket sharing with the third country of all information that may be considered relevant for returns,” she told TNH.

“Frontex is turning into an information hub,” Gkliati added. “Its new powers on data processing and sharing can have a major impact on the rights of persons, beyond the protection of personal data.”

For prospective migrants at the Makalondi border post, their data is likely to travel a lot more freely than they can.