#But what's wrong with landlords people on Reddit always ask

[girlfromthecrypt]

i don't mind the rambles, don't worry. but yeah, honestly trans people even when we're not shown in media as specifically unattractive, we're not like. depicted as attractive either. we don't get to be like objects of attraction if that makes sense? we get to be like side characters and shit. and top surgery or any surgical scars are generally pretty damn taboo because ooOOOOoooo we're mutilating something or other or whatever the fuck it is. even irl, we're generally considered a stereotypically unattractive group. when trans people are rarely represented, we don't get to be like objects of attraction. we're usually "and here's the lesson! don't be mean!" one off characters or best friend characters (assuming we're not horrible stereotypes). plus a lot of medias arent eager to add us in in general in fear of losing their more conservative audiences.

it's totally fine when you rant, I do it too (as demonstrated by the above), I've had quite a few VN/IF creators apologize to me about like rambling about their games and like, I'm asking questions because i love the media. I get the feeling, cause I get that about other stuff. but seriously, info-dumping about something you've created that people love is awesome for fans (not to speak for all of us, but generally it seems to be)

Ngl I'm blind to a lot of that media portrayal bc I'm not entrenched in a lot of media anymore. I "conceived" Basil as trans from the start (he was a LI/supporting character in a nosleep story [horror writing subreddit over on Reddit] I never ended up posting), and in my mind, he was just always "him" and always pretty cute. I was comfortable enough writing a trans character bc one of my oldest friends is a trans man, and he let me ask him just about anything I wanted to know. Ofc I researched most of the necessary info on my own, but having him around was still helpful and very reassuring. (In hindsight, this is also making me kinda sad bc that friend and I have kinda drifted apart since...)

I was kinda hesitant about sharing though bc I was afraid of getting things wrong, but hey, if what you're saying about the mainstream portrayal of trans folk is anything to go off of, I'm probably doing okay (nervous laughter).

Actually, have an excerpt from the original story Basil appeared in! [Note: he's WAYYY dorkier and socially awkward in this than in Such Happy Campers. He's also a landlord in this, so the vanlife stuff and spiritualism is part of his overhaul for SHC. But original Basil makes the same amount of horrible jokes.] [more below]

I was prepared to camp outside that house. That turned out not to be necessary, as right at that moment, a peculiar-looking youngish man appeared in the doorway. Pieces of striped tapestry clung to his threadbare tracksuit and glue coated a good portion of his hair.

I asked him if he’d just been in a fight, and he assured me he’d merely been putting up new wallpapers in one of the apartments. When I asked whether he had something for me to rent on short notice, he was surprisingly cooperative. He introduced himself to me as Basil, and enthusiastically welcomed me to the house and the neighborhood. When we shook hands, our palms stuck together. 

“Sorry… I had an accident with the glue,” he explained, grimacing awkwardly. “Don’t worry, I got something to wash it off. You’d best come in.”

With a glance at our entwined fingers, I told him I obviously had nowhere else to go, to which he replied that one could say my hands were tied.

Been meaning to share this snippet for a while and this seems a good opportunity. This was how he "looked" at the time/how the main character describes him:

I admittedly always considered him very attractive, albeit goofy-looking with his fluffy blond mustache and mullet. Something about his appearance inspired trust and openness, and the warmth he exuded was more than welcome.

So yeah, that's some of Basil's history. In this old version, he was actually kind of insecure about his surgery scars (which were fresher at the time, and he hated a lot of his looks in general), which I ended up discarding because I much prefer him with astronomic levels of smugness. Like, I want him to be fully aware of how good he looks.

I'm very happy with the current version of Basil, and I'm glad I "saved" his character for this IF project instead of posting his story back then. I just realized (while I was writing the nosleep story at the time) that I LOVED writing him and wanted to have him there in a bigger project, which ended up being SHC.

Okay yeah I'm about to be one of those IF authors you mentioned bc now I need to apologize as well. I went on a huge tangent here. Hope this particular infodump was at least somewhat interesting to you! Either way, thanks so much for the talk.

[shornb]

Moved to Japan. I'm scared and unprepared. 8th day. Still adjusting.

8 days since moving to Japan. I should be happy, excited and ready to be here. I'm far from. I'm worried, anxious and upset about how very unprepared I am. It could be worse. I could have no money, no experience, no idea or plans, alone. I have quite a lot of money. I'm fortunate and to be honest have always been quite fortunate with that all my life. But that doesn't come without draw backs. Having that lifestyle I had back at home for so long has made me so naive and unprepared about this new move and lifestyle change it actually scares me. At the time of writing that I feel how pathetic I'm being but I can't help feeling that all the same. I've always had what I needed when I needed with the smallest of worry and effort. And at 28 I realise and remember, the problem I've always had all my life. I never was prepared for not having any of that. So with that. These 8 days have been quite the rollercoaster ride with emotions. Again with being how naive I am I decided that the first few days should be filled with no worry as the couple of weeks before were filled with stress and worry as well. It would be so easy to just give up. Better for my mood, better for my anxiety but looking forward to that path that I could choose I see more worry and more self doubt as I would regret my giving up and loss of this amazing opportunity I currently have sitting in. Living on your own is a big deal and fending for yourself is obviously a big change from moving away from your parents. But that, on top of a foreign country with a different language adds to a whole new level of challenge. A few things I really wish I finished before coming here which adds to the unpreparedness and general naivety of my personality and I guess, laziness.. was not being further in my Japanese studies and also my English teaching course studies. I can read basic Japanese. I'm proud to say it's helped me a few times. Albeit the first time was discovering coke cola on a menu. And with speaking, being able to ask questions in stores. But again that doesn't come without the worry thinking that I may be doing something wrong. As for English teaching, I just looked up my course and I have 7 months to complete it. Now I just need to not do what I always do and let that time run out. The good thing I have at the moment and that might turn things around is that I have yet to look for a job. I am completely unknowing on how difficult it may be and what I could get a job for. I know it's possible to get a job where no prior experience is needed and that only knowing English and no Japanese is fine. But I guess I'll have to wait and see with that. Luckily I also have my girlfriend Viki of 8 years who have a lot of knowledge on being here and finding a job, she also has a lot of friends over here that may be able to help us along the way as well. Okay so more troubles I'm facing; Weather: It's extremely cold here, our heating isn't perfect, it's very cold outside and I wish I brought more of my warm clothes from home. Washing and drying: we are lucky that we have coin operated washing machines and dryers in our building but there are also easily 60+ people in the building as well. And all the instructions are in Japanese. I think we managed to do everything fine but spent more money than we needed in learning. Internet access: okay so these part will probably make me look really awful, petty, pathetic etc. But I've more or less always had access to the internet, and TV. I could easily just spend days in watching TV and being online. And I was like that for all my life. Not anymore. There is no TV here. And as for the internet, we have a limit.. and that means constantly checking on how much I've used and not being able to watch any Type of videos without getting worried and also no online streaming of any kind. I'm assuming people will argue that, why should that be an issue, I'm in Japan and shouldn't be watching videos or social networking. But that's the problem. Me like So many people are used to social networking and spending time watching TV shows and movies. I don't get that luxury anymore. Not without spending a lot of money that I don't know if I can spend yet. Spending money on luxuries instead of necessities could be the difference of me making it out here and not. And what made the change more difficult: For the first week we though our internet was limitless. We though my because it was under the things our air bnb was providing that it didn't matter, and that may be partly on our landlords fault but it is majorly with us as we should have asked at the beginning. So we allowed our selves to watch a lot of Netflix, I downloaded a game on steam, we viewed a hell of a lot through instagram, facebook, Snapchat, YouTube etc I also played a hell of a lot of Pokemon Go.. something Viki won't let me forget.. And through constantly doing those things we managed to clear the 50gb that we're on our pocket wifi within the first week. That being all said it wouldn't have been unreasonable for it landlords to leave it at that. After the limit. Wifi speeds on this system drop to around 0.05mbps. This leaves just enough to send and receive messages and view text pages after waiting for a long time, occasionally you might be able to view the image at low quality here and there. But the landlords told us not to worry and gave us a new pocket wifi the next day. So we were back online, kinda. We now have 3gb per 3 days for the both of us. Viki's still sleeping, it's 11:00am and if I remember correctly I woke up around 9:30am. I used about 260mb since getting the internet back at around 10pm last night. And have used it for Reddit, facebook, twitter and instagram. Instagram for only a little time. We're planning on going to a Mochi? Event today and also visit Harajuku again. Oh, free wifi is accessible around a lot of places in Japan, including a lot of train stations. And also when our wifi speed was capped, upload speeds stayed the same as before. I'm unsure if that is normal or not but I'm still able to post pictures and updates etc even if I can't access or read anything. So I guess that's about it. I don't really want to post this on facebook so I guess my tumblr will have to do. Maybe I'll wait a while to share this on facebook. I don't want my parents to worry. Cheers. Hope all you guys are well. Take care. Shaun

[thewritingambition]

The Climb

(Posted on Reddit as: We thought there was something haunting our basement. We were wrong.)

After graduating from university, my boyfriend and I started sharing this attic apartment in an old house. Rent wasn't too bad and, while we were a little too far from downtown, at least we had our own bathroom and even a tiny kitchen. Most importantly, the house had its own washing machine and dryer, and since Rafael and I were both tired of dragging our laundry baskets to the nearest laundromat, that actually influenced our decision to move in.

Now, I'll admit that every laundry room is a little bit creepy. They're always in the basement, next to noisy boilers that can make some truly blood-curdling sounds. They are humid, cold and just generally unpleasant. This laundry room, though, wasn't too bad because the basement had pretty decent lighting and the machines were brand new. If I tell you now that neither my boyfriend nor I liked to go down to the basement, don't think it was because it was a dark and scary place that brought all of our childhood fears to surface; it was mostly because of the stairs.

Because the house had been split into two separate apartments, plus the attic where we lived, we could only access the basement by going around the house and down a narrow flight of wooden stairs. The steps were a little too short and steep but, other than that, Rafael and I had been rather impressed with the house. We looked around a little bit, commented on how convenient it would be to have a laundry room at our disposal, then went upstairs again.

I had been so distracted talking to Rafael about signing the lease that I almost didn't notice the creeping feeling until it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

I turned sharply.

Rafael called me from the door right above me, “You okay there, Mark?”

The landlord, a rather pleasant Filipino man in his sixties, gave me a wary look but said nothing when I answered, “Yeah, it's fine,” before throwing the basement one final look, searching for something out of the ordinary. There was nothing.

I couldn't really put it into words at that moment, it happened so fast and so briefly that I just brushed it aside as one of those creepy feelings everyone gets sometimes. It wasn't until later that night, when we started packing, that I told Rafael what had been bothering me.

“I thought there was someone behind me.”

He looked up from the box he'd been filling with textbooks.

“When we were coming out of the basement,” I explained. “I felt like someone was right behind me.”

“You too?” he said, a little surprised.

“You felt it?”

“Yeah. I thought it was you, at first, but then I turned around and you were, like, five steps behind me.”

“Did we make a bad decision signing the lease?” I asked, mostly kidding, but not really. “Would be just our luck to end up in a haunted house.”

“Fuck ghosts,” Rafa said. “If I never have to share a bathroom with five other people, it will be too soon.”

I laughed but couldn't push aside the uneasiness I was feeling. The fact that Rafa didn't look nearly as shook as I felt led me to believe that he hadn't felt exactly the same as I had. When climbing those stairs, I didn't just think there was something behind me; I knew someone was there, trailing in my steps and coming so dangerously close I could almost feel their body against mine, as if I were in a crowd and a stranger were about to collide with me.

“You're probably right,” I ultimately said. In all likelihood, there was nothing to worry about.

I put that out of my mind and didn't think about it until a week after we'd moved into the attic and I had to do the laundry. Despite my initial worry, the memory of being spooked by absolutely nothing had quickly been pushed to the back of my mind as we spent the next couple of weeks packing. I went down to the basement, loaded the washing machine, added the detergent, pressed the button, then started up the stairs wondering what I would do with the next 50 minutes.

My feet had only touched the third step when I felt it again, the certainty – the absolute certainty – that someone was standing right behind me. I stopped to look over my shoulder. There was no one behind me and I felt rather foolish looking back at the washing machine. Nothing scary here, no one was reaching out with a skeletal hand to pull me back down and take away my soul.

I continued up the stairs, trying to ignore the fact that the feeling didn't go away until I opened the door. Then, like a pair of shackles weighing you down, the sensation was gone.

Isadora, one of the sisters who shared the second floor apartment, was coming back home and she must have seen me shudder because she said, “Spooky, isn't it?”

“What?” I asked, a little lost.

“The stairs,” she said. “It's okay, everyone feels it. We think there's a friendly ghost living down there or something.”

“Seriously?”

“Sure. We named him Joe.”

Isadora smiled and I couldn't tell whether she was joking or not.

“Right,” I said. “Well, if there were any violent crimes in this house, I don't want to hear about them.”

It wasn't that I was particularly superstitious or troubled by the idea of a ghost living downstairs. I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong and that this was not as harmless as I first thought. If I was forced to examine it closely, I might even consider moving.

We didn't, though. Rent was reasonable and our housemates were quite pleasant and quiet. Rafael and I continued living there for almost a year but we never really got used to the stairs. Isadora and her sister, Elena, clearly had, and they made jokes about it and mentioned their friendly ghost as if it were an invisible pet they were fond of. They speculated on the nature of the haunting with gloomy yet gleeful theories.

“Maybe some guy killed himself and his ghost is trapped in there.”

“Or maybe there are bodies in the walls, or under the stairs.”

I didn't think there were bodies hiding anywhere. The floors were made of concrete, the wallpaper hadn't been changed since the 1950s, and the stairs had open steps. The only thing underneath it was a pile of junk the landlord and his wife had accumulated over the years.

Rafael and I were not horror junkies and took no pleasure talking about the ghost in the basement. Rafael commented on how much he hated those stairs every time he had to go down there and said he was glad at least the rest of the house was peaceful, which was the strangest thing once I thought about it. Nowhere else in the house could we feel a presence, not even a little bit. Nothing ever changed places, no weird noises could be heard in the middle the night, no shadows or strange reflections ever caught us off guard. It was only those damn stairs.

About six months in, Rafael offered to do all other chores as long as he didn't have to do laundry anymore.

“I don't care what it is, I can even do the dishes every day if you want me to, but I'm not going back there,” he told me. He was white as a sheet and I could tell he was barely holding it together.

“What happened? Did you see anything?”

“It touched me.”

He spoke so softly that I had a difficult time hearing him at first.

“What do you mean, it touched you?”

“I felt it touch me, Mark. Not like before, it wasn't behind me it... it brushed past me. I swear I could feel their knuckles against the back of my hand.”

I tried to tell Rafael that the girls had probably gotten into his head and he had only imagined someone touching him. I told him about how our brain sometimes fills the gaps of what it cannot explain with unreasonable facts. Basically, I repeated out loud everything I had been telling myself for six months in order to keep my sanity.

Rafael told me to go fuck myself with my psychology degree.

“You know there's something weird, Mark. You know it, so don't be stubborn.”

It wasn't a long fight, we made up fairly quickly. After that, I took laundry duties upon myself and nothing out of the ordinary happened for a while. Some days, the certainty that someone was following me outside was nothing but a whisper in the back of my mind; other days, it was so strong I actually walked up the stairs backward to keep an eye on the basement. There was never anyone behind me, but I swear I could still feel it standing in front of me, its pace matching mine, its invisible body undeniable even if I couldn't see it. If I closed my eyes and put some effort into it, I'm sure I would have been able to picture its face in my mind, but I never did.

I just walked faster, taking the stairs two or three steps at a time, not giving whatever it was that lived in the basement the chance to catch up. That was until two months ago when two full loads of laundry meant I was slowed down considerably. As I slugged up the stairs, I could recognize the feeling when it crept up on me, but I told myself it would vanish once I opened the door, it always did. I guess our friendly ghost didn't like going outside.

It came up to me, one step after another. I could tell that its feet dragged at the same pace as mine, as if it, too, were dragging something heavy. It would vanish in a moment, I told myself. It would vanish as soon as I-

Something leaned into my ear. I thought of Rafael and how he'd said he could feel the knuckles of this... person, thing, I don't know, he could feel it touching his skin and, god, now I could feel their fucking lips touching the back of my ear and its icy breath as it whispered, “Thank you.”

I dropped the clothes I was carrying and they tumbled down the steps as I ran for the door. I don't think I'd ever been so scared in my life. I don't even think it was because of the incorporeal voice whispering in my ear; rather, it was its tone. It sounded almost like a mockery of what gratitude was supposed to sound like, as if it had heard those words in the lips of others several times before and it had learned it with the sole purpose to scare me with it.

I asked Elena to go fetch my laundry and then told Rafael that I'd rather use the laundromat two blocks down from that moment on. He didn't fight me on it.

The girls asked me about the ghost, dying for some first-hand experience. I answered their questions for five minutes, then told them to never mention it again. It hadn't been funny; it had been fucking terrifying and I didn't want to know what kind of thing had a voice like that. More to the point, I didn't want to know what it was thanking me for. Ignorance was bliss and I wish I could have stayed that way.

Last week, our landlord let us know that he would be renovating the basement. He said it was time because the boiler was too old and the place hadn't really gotten a fresh coat of paint in decades. I think, though he never confirmed it, that he thought changing things around, perhaps getting rid of the clutter and the peeling wallpaper, would make a difference. Maybe once the renovations were done, we could all go downstairs again and realize this whole ordeal had been nothing but a figment of our imagination.

Since our landlord and his wife were in their late sixties and not in the best of shapes, the girls offered to move all of the junk they had accumulated in the basement upstairs. I can only assume that they wanted to explore the space in more detail, maybe contact the dead while they still had the chance.

Rafael and I made the decision to stay away while they moved things around; if they did find a body in an old suitcase, we wanted no part in it. However, that afternoon, Elena knocked on our door. She didn't look disturbed, only a little confused.

“Hey, sorry to bother you guys, but can you come downstairs for a moment? We found something a little weird and we thought-”

“Yeah, we're really not interested in examining demon-possessed dolls or whatever you've found,” Rafael said, only half-joking.

Elena giggled. “No, no, it's not that. It's just a bunch of old junk, nothing creepy. But we think there might be some sort of wild animal living in the basement. Could you just take a look?”

We decided there was no harm in that and followed Elena to the basement. They had moved a large collection of old chests, cardboard boxes, and assorted knickknacks to the middle of the basement, clearing the space under the stairs.

Turns out the girls had gotten one thing right in their speculation: there had been something under the stairs all along, just not what they'd expected. Right behind a heavy chest, next to the wall, there was a hole big enough for a small person to squeeze out of. I took a closer look, trying to see how far it went, but I couldn't tell. It was very dark, so I can only assume it was rather deep. Around it, we could see deep scratch marks, as if a wild animal with particularly sharp talons had clawed its way out of the hole several times.

“What kind of animal can dig a hole in concrete?” Elena asked.

I shrugged. “I have no idea.” I was a little relieved, to be honest. Sure, it was a little creepy, but if that hole led outside, then maybe we had all been the victims of a harmless draft and let our imagination get the best of us.

Elena said, “Think it can be a raccoon or...”

Rafael said, “Animals don't make holes like that.”

I looked at him. He had his eyes on the hole but he didn't look curious or interested in it. Rather, he looked as if he were putting numbers together, trying to reach the solution to a problem.

“How deep do you think it-” Erin started, but Rafael interrupted her.

“Where is Isadora?”

Erin looked at him, then around the basement for a moment, as if realizing for the first time that her sister was not here. “You know what, I'm not sure. I guess she might have gone to the washroom when I went to get-”

“We're going upstairs now,” he said, then grabbed me by the hand and forced me up the stairs. When I felt something brushing against my back, I picked up the pace.

The landlord had no idea there was a hole in the basement. The house had been his father's and the basement had stayed relatively untouched for the past thirty years. Rafael insisted that he go downstairs to check but refused to go along with him.

He shuddered when he walked back out a moment later, followed by Elena, who still didn't seem bothered by her findings, nor by the fact that her sister seemed to have vanished into thin air.

“Yeah, that's a... big hole,” he said, looking worried. “It's gonna cost an arm and a leg to fix it.”

“Mark and I are moving out,” Rafa said, firmly.

The landlord stared at him. I did the same.

“We are very sorry for the short notice, but we can't stay here anymore.”

I tried to speak. He ignored me and went on, “We understand that we're breaking the terms of our lease and you can keep our deposit, but we are moving out as soon as we find another place.” He paused. “Honestly, I think you should do the same.”

There was some discussion. Our landlord was actually a pretty nice guy and he liked us because we always pay on time. He also didn't want to have to find other tenants on such short notice, but Rafael was adamant about it. I was too stunned for words.

The moment we got to our apartment, I exploded, “What the hell, Rafa? We can't just move-”

“We're packing.”

Again, I couldn't do much more than just stare at him. “Excuse me?”

“We're packing, we're staying at my parents until we find someplace else.”

His parents still referred to me as “that boy who's your roommate”. Spending an undetermined amount of time in their house was not my idea of fun.

“Rafa, don't you think you're overreacting to a hole in the floor?”

“No.”

I watched as he bent down to pick our suitcases from under the bed.

“Okay,” I said, feeling my patience run thin, “I know that the stairs are creepy and that there were a couple of incidents that we couldn't explain, but listen, that hole actually explains a lot. Maybe the girls are right and there are wild animals living in the-”

“Mark, nothing lives in that hole,” he told me, pausing what he was doing to look me in the eye. “I hadn't thought about it, I don't know why because it seems rather obvious in retrospect but, I don't know, I just never realized.”

“Realized what?”

“Nothing ever follows us back down.”

I went quiet.

“I don't care what's in that hole, Mark,” he said, “but whatever they are, I think we've been leading them out.”

[automatismoateo]

My Christian landlord is doing everything he can to make my life a living hell, and I don't know what to do... via /r/atheism

Submitted January 03, 2019 at 01:10AM by JAbassplayer (Via reddit http://bit.ly/2LNhVYb) My Christian landlord is doing everything he can to make my life a living hell, and I don't know what to do...

I normally don't make posts like this, but i'm at the verge of tears right now and I don't know what to do. I just need to vent about this terrible situation.

This all started about 6 months ago, I had a new career and was moving to a new town. The area where I work tends to be a bit pricy, but I was able to find a place that I could afford. Enter my landlord. The place I found was a two story duplex, with my landlord living in the bottom floor. When I first went to view the apartment I tired to make as good of a first impression as possible. I wore my best clothes and tried to act kind and professional to my landlord. At first things were going great. Me and my landlord got along very well. I always paid my rent early and tried my best to keep unwanted noise to a minimum. I even helped my landlord with some of his projects like replacing the valves in his truck's engine (Even helped him remove a stuck headbolt that would have otherwise made the engine very difficult to fix). Pretty soon he was even inviting me to dinner and to go on hikes with him in the local state parks.

But then he asked me if I wanted to go to church with him. Let me say that I have nothing against religion or church. In fact I occasionally go to my local buddhist temple for teachings because I feel the advice and wisdom they have to offer is useful in everyday life. However on this occasion I had to tell him that I did not want to go to church with him. When questioned further, I let it slip that I am not religious. I didn't go as far as to tell him that I am an atheist, but I think he got the idea. I didn't think this was a big deal. I was not told that I had to be a certain religion to sign the lease, and surely we could just agree to disagree and move on with our lives right? Wrong.

Immediately our friendship took a 180. He stopped talking to me and no longer wanted to do anything with me. I would've been fine if he just ghosted me, but it just got worse from there. Pretty soon he started calling me at all hours of the night to complain about everything I was doing wrong as a tenant. First he called me at 2:00 am to complain that I had left a window cracked open with the heat on. Then he complained that my car was parked to far back, then a week later it was too far forward. Next, he complained that my laundry detergent was "too smelly" and made me buy "free and clear" detergent. He then promptly stole my gallon bottle of detergent forcing me to use no soap or dryer sheets whatsoever.

Then the final straw came when I invited my girlfriend up for the weekend. After she had left, he pulled me aside and told me that he was furious that I shared a room with an unmarried woman and that he was trying to keep a "Godly home". He told me he wanted me out by the end of the month. This happened right before Christmas. This forced me to find a new apartment almost immediately and of course I wasn't able to find anything reasonably priced. I'm now spending almost half my paycheck on rent and that doesn't even include electricity or gas.

Because of this desperate situation, I knew I needed every dollar I could get. This meant making sure that there was no issue getting my security deposit back. I spent a week cleaning every surface. Being an old worn down apartment there were of course stains and wear, but I did my best to leave it in "as found" condition. I didn't think much, of this until I got a call from my landlord today saying that the apartment was "filthy" and that I was irresponsible and never even cleaned the place since I moved in. Immediately I offered to go back and clean everything in front of him, but he just said "you're done". When I asked about getting my almost $1000 security deposit he just said that might be a problem and hung up.

Immediately I tried to determine if I could possibly sue for religious discrimination, but thanks to an amazing thing called the Ms Murphy Exemption, what he did was basically legal. Also I completely forgot to take before and after pictures and he will no longer allow me on the property. Unfortunately, I was going to use the deposit for furniture and a washer/dryer, but now it looks like i'll be living out of a suitcase for awhile.

I just cant understand how someone can be so cruel just because of my beliefs. I always go by the phrase "live and let live" but apparently some people just cant accept other people being different than them. While things look down now, I'm holding out hope that things will get better in the end. I guess the lesson here is that some people just suck....

[thebrandtag]

I did something stupid at a moment of rage (what isn't stupid in a moment of rage). Warning: Long post via /r/dubai

I did something stupid at a moment of rage (what isn't stupid in a moment of rage). Warning: Long post

TL:DR - i quite after a verbal show down with my supervisor.

so today i had a very harsh discussion with my supervisor after being accused of at worst sabotaging the project and at least purposefully delaying its completion.

the story begins 3 years ago when troubles back home started catching on to me here. during on and off setbacks my attendance sheet went haywire but i made sure it was never at the expense of my duties. often compensating with 18 hours of work or on weekends. my appraisals have always been above average/exceeds expectations and my relationship with stake holders has always been a positive one supported by peer reviews and cold eye reviews.

however 5 months ago the shit hit the fan and its been one catastrophe after another and i became stressed out 24/7 with my diastolic hovering at the 120 - 125 mark and this in turn reflected on my general health so i decided to resign but under the request of my line manager took around 60 days of unpaid leave to de-stress and if things were not ok i could always resign again so i did and packed my stuff in case i don't change my mind when i return. prepared a detailed hand over note for whoever covers my absence.

things were going well and then i get a call that there is an emergency at work and i am needed urgently so i cut my leave and return to work even though on the system i was still on unpaid leave. i sort out the problem and figure what the hell let me see where things are at and to my surprise nothing was touched for about 35 days. i suck it up don't complain and spend some time sorting shit out. i still didn't unpack because i was still not sure how i felt about getting back to work since there has been a constant increase in toxicity that can be felt. this month happened to be the end of my lease and the landlord decided to raise rent 30% which apparently by law he is entitled to because he posted a notice 3 months back on the bulletin board in the lobby. so i had to move and during moving had an accident which put me in hospital for several days (all supported with the necessary documents) then finally someone misplaced my wallet after the accident and i lost all my cards, credit, ID, driving license etc...

yesterday i was out trying to sort this mess out and during this time a progress meeting was called and i naturally i was not available. today i get called to my supervisor where he explains that during the meeting several people alleged that my absenteeism was purposeful and meant to prolong the project so i can continue to get paid (i am project employed) stating several cases where i "did not do the needful" or "missed the deadline" or "delayed the release of a package". the reason he called me in was to serve me a warning letter.

this just blew my mind because in reality work was the one thing i prided myself in doing perfectly (again my appraisals are all proof of that). so i started challenging the claims and even called for a counter meeting where i basically proved every single allegation to be utterly false. not only that. i proceeded to show where every single person was actually bullshitting about the time they do spend in office including the project manager himself. some of there things are penalties that were due on suppliers that i handed over to him A YEAR AND A HALF AGO and constantly reminded him of the necessity of acting on them. another was double dipping (essentially steeling by double invoicing) by the quality team that i highlighted to the quality manager (again with the necessary proofs) and finally some orders with the delivery team that were due for closure X YEARS AGO.

sufficient to say everyone was put in their rightful place but the damage was done. i was so angry that i was shacking and gritting my teeth so hard that my jaw muscles are still sore and i said the magic words "i quit" then stormed out of office. back home i feel betrayed an shame to say i wept. there was a lot of injustice i endured over the years but i always considered that the remuneration was fair enough to cover things. being passed for promotion, always getting a lower raise than my peers. even while i was away on my leave i was thinking that i should try and stay at least till the project is completed. that i owed it to the company. ......so much for corporate loyalty.

now i'm sitting thinking how the fuck should i deal with this on Sunday. do i go through with it ? do i retract and act like nothing is wrong despite knowing that almost every senior person on the project has his cross hairs in my direction and just looking forward for me to slip on something ? do i present the warning letter and my refuting evidence to HR and guarantee a bad review or escalating things ?. i know for a fact that the project will not be completed within the next couple of months. i also know for a fact that the penalties to be enforced can only be collected by me since i am the only constant person from project inception and the only person qualified and have the rapport with vendors to negotiate them paying us.

PS: yeah i'm also syrian so basically i'm rock bottom at the recruitment pool but i do plan on starting to look for work starting tomorrow.

PSS: for whoever was asking me if they were hiring just be careful if you do land a job.

Edit: fixed some grammar.

Submitted July 27, 2017 at 10:54PM by Blue_Lightning_17586 via reddit http://ift.tt/2eRp3GE

[automatismoateo]

My landlord said the United States is God nation, and I have to be a Christian to be here. What should I do? via /r/atheism

Submitted December 23, 2018 at 01:16PM by eli0mx (Via reddit http://bit.ly/2Lv6ww0) My landlord said the United States is God nation, and I have to be a Christian to be here. What should I do?

Im not sure if this is appropriate for this subreddit. But I really don’t know where to post this.

I am an international student in the United States. I just came here to study this June. I am here all by myself. When I was just coming to the States, the landlord offered me an 1-year lease to a small apartment. He was very kind and generous. He helped me a lot. I really thank him for everything.

But I never expected this would happen. when I went to his office this week, first he asked about religion. I said my family has a philosophy combined with Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. (Yes I am from China. I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t want anyone to have stereotypes which I have a lot of them for these months.) Then my landlord said Christianity is the only right choice. He said my god don’t talk or care about me. He said some miracles happened on him. For example, he avoided a car crash because of believing in Jesus.

I said I respect any religions but my family has our own beliefs. Then he said if I don’t follow Jesus, I will go to hell. If I listen to him, I can go to heaven. I didn’t response. He continued to say this is how American people live, they are all Christians. He said all the neighbors are Christians. He said I should be very grateful to be in this great country.

“If you want to be above others, you have to be Christian. The United States is God nation. You want his blessing. That is a very simple choice.”

That was almost his exact words. He said something about money. Being a Christian is a way of living. He told me my way of living was wrong. “You don’t want satan in your life” He said I need to think for myself. “Do you want to go to heaven or hell?”

I just smiled. I have a lot to disagree. Because my family always teach me to respect people older than me. So I said that was a lot to think. Then I made up an excuse to leave.

Then I have a very mixed feeling. It is like I am upset, confused, and depressed at the same time. I am upset that I tried my best to understand his beliefs, but he didn’t even want to know my culture. I am confused that before he was very kind and generous to me, and now I feel he is threatening me. I don’t want to go Church. That is not my culture. But still he and many other have kept trying to force me to abandon my culture. That is the point I am feeling depressed.

Personally, I really respect every religion. That is the case for my family. One of my father’s relative is Catholic. When she visits our home and has dinner with us, we always wait for her to say her preyers at the table. And there was a neighbor next door. She was an old Muslim lady. Once she told my mother how unpleasant it was for her to watch us to buy pork. She said even the smell of pork made her vomit. She told my mom pigs are kind and wise beings. We should not eat them. So my family didn’t buy or eat pork at our home for 10 years. That happened in my childhood. So I understand for many people how important their own religions are.

But I really don’t understand why many Christians forcibly want others to be Christian as well. I don’t know what to do. Anyway this is some of my gibberish. Sorry for wasting your time. I am just very confused.