#My customers understood

[wizardnuke]

manager called me and my work bestie tweedledee and tweedledumber while he was yelling at us today but if it helps i was tweedledee in this situation, not tweedledumber

[homestuckreplay]

Biscuits’ Oven Jealousy Hours

(page 1220-1247)

Eggs and Biscuits are my new favorite characters. We were previously warned that they were morons, but I did not expect their names to be so literal or their powers to be so ridiculous. Eggs, it seems, can summon a duplicate of himself from another timeline every time his egg timer rings, which is often. In one timeline somebody has taken a bite out of his hat as though he is a peeled hard boiled egg. Biscuits, on the other hand, is able to time travel into the future by climbing into an oven and waiting for the future to arrive. People think he’s too stupid to realize he’s not time traveling, but personally I think he’s pulling the best scam ever. He gets an excuse to hide away, chill and not interact with anyone (or put himself in harm’s way). That’s a sweet deal.

We meet Fin, and the thread of Droog recruiting Deuce to assist in a diabolical past/future trail plot gets tied up beautifully. I like how past and future trails dissipate over time, putting limitations on Fin and Trace’s powers and making it easier to follow the panels visually. I also really like these shots of Deuce (p.1226-7) which is just like previous shots we’ve seen of dream Jade and robot Jade side by side, now with versions of a character from different points in time instead of in space.

‘Doze unslows himself and begins mumbling something feverishly. About his hat.’ I was a fool for not realizing how perfectly a character like Doze can be used for a punchline. The outcome of Deuce and Itchy’s game of musical hats and the previous line that this game might be ‘driving [Doze] nuts. Just very slowly’ (p.1181) being a giant bomb under Doze’s hat absolutely works. It’s a satisfying payoff for a miniature time travel escapade that was a little convoluted, but still followable and consistent.

That particular scheme tied up, there is still a week ish to go in the intermission, so who knows what’ll happen to complicate things further. The Midnight Crew are doing pretty well on the green torsos but we still haven’t caught a glimpse of Clover, Stitch, Sawbuck, Cans, or of course Snowman and Lord English. And we are barely at 10% completion on clocks destroyed so the Midnight Crew better step up their game if they wanna 100% the Felt Mansion.

‘Spades Slick cannot return to being Hearts Boxcars because obviously Diamonds Droog is too busy being Clubs Deuce.’ (p.1242) is a top tier line. I won’t overthink it, I will just accept its truth. Not sure what tone to take from the ‘But we all realized it. Because it's obvious and couldn't possibly be more clear’ later on that page though – but no matter which way I take it, it feels kind of unnecessary.

Anyway I am putting on my tinfoil hat again to talk about page 1236, where we once again see Die in the timeline where Slick is dead, in the strange colored wasteland. Blue and red sand, pink crystalline rocks left behind, emerald city in the distance, large green planet/moon in the sky, and a smaller pink planet/moon with its own tiny satellite. It is REALLY beautiful and looks very alien.. And it is ‘a desert amidst the ruins of a dead civilization’ (p.1236) just like what happened to WV, so... this is a different planet who played Sburb? In which case the Felt must have been the players who beat Sburb and survived and were able to come back to their old planet, while the Midnight Crew are the equivalents of WV, PM and AR, who left the game and actually succeeded in their civic infrastructure goals? And these are two rival gangs because they are literally the only people left alive? Presumably at one point there was one chess piece for each Sburb player, but the others may have been killed already, or the pieces from Prospit may not have wanted to be involved in crime?

Does this mean that getting some sick ass time powers is the prize for winning Sburb? It’s definitely on brand for Skaia given its ability to show scenes from all across time, but it’s not quite the ‘unlimited creative potential’ that was promised. Unless only Lord English has access to that, since he’s ‘killable only through a number of glitches and exploits in spacetime’ (p.1239) and probably has the powers of all the others combined? Did he just level up way more than his friends? Or complete an objective they didn’t, or screw them over inside the game? Is this wasteland/city the kind of life that John, Rose, Dave and Jade have to ‘look forward’ to if they win? Will John get to live in Can Town? Or is what we’re seeing now a ‘bad ending’ for Sburb, and the beta kids will be able to achieve a ‘good ending’ if they work together, where (for example) they can use these time powers to somehow entirely rewind time and stop Sburb from ever being invented or the meteors ever being triggered or something else? I know Nannasprite said Earth is ‘done for’ (p.427) but maybe not in all timelines? Or could the powers even be used to stop Skaia itself? what is going on????

[whitesnakewine]

He's finally here!!!!

[strawburrychainsaw]

I miss PTS but most of all Baratie&Alabasta sanji so bad. that guy was peak fiction

[toasteaa]

I know I didn't do anything wrong but when I'm trying to be as nice as possible and a customer hangs up on me, I feel a little sad about not being able to help them how they wanted me to help them and also violent because how dare you hang up on me telling your stupid ass how to get your shit fixed

[vstheworld]

I spent eight hours microbraiding a doll’s hair I think I’m legitimately losing my mind y’all

[rohirric-hunter]

great news everyone, i'm walking past the home depot and a whole other employee came out and started hitting on me

[quietwingsinthesky]

fun fact about me is the reason i’ll sometimes unnecessarily append “mr/miss” to the beginning of names here on tumblr.com is that in high school i had to write a “letter” to ayn rand about her book and my teacher thought it was very funny that i kept repeatedly addressing her as miss rand while eviscerating atlas shrugged.

[sharkface]

Food service worker diagnosis

[autopsytableromance]

Have been playfully soft launching my transgenderism at work (telling a few people and letting people ask questions when they hear someone use a different name and pronouns for me) but today my manager brought me a name tag and told I had to wear it and it has to be visible at all times and I almost started crying like genuinely so I may just fucking. Make my own label for it that has Parker on it and just fully come out at work.

[lilac-melody]

I need to work on my spanish lessons again I am so stupid

[ghoul-butch]

.

[ankela]

a woman came in today at my job and demanded we give her information about the "supervisory authority responsible for this establishment". most usamerican-karen moment i've experienced thus far lmfaooo

[foldingfittedsheets]

The mattress company I worked for the first time no longer exists. It was long ago eaten and assimilated by a bigger company. But when I started it was an incredibly intense five weeks of training. I was told I was extremely lucky to be selected, and I was. From a pool of a hundred applicants only fifteen of us made the cut to entering the training program.

The course covered how to talk to customers, how to ask open ended questions, how to close a sale, and product knowledge. I learned a lot, and truthfully my greatest takeaway was a lot of social scripts that I could use in other areas of my life.

We also had a midterm exam and a final. Both included a roleplay element with a trainer and a written portion. They told us when we started that the course was challenging but it was still a shock to come in after the midterm and realize half the class had failed.

I was named valedictorian of training- a dubious honor as it meant I’d done the best in the class, but popular lore had it that valedictorians struggled the most on the sales floor. Lo, I struggled.

Not because I wasn’t good. I was. But because my manager set out to systematically destroy my self esteem. Every sale, every interaction I had was scrutinized and criticized.

If I sold a bed with protectors, moveable base, and pillows he’d ask why I hadn’t managed to sell pillow protectors too. His first trainee had thrived on being challenged and he’d never bothered to learn a different way to coach.

It was wretched. My performance started strong but nosedived after a few weeks with him. My trainer, a man I loathed for stonewalling me in my interview, came in to inform me I was on new hire probation. If I couldn’t get my sales numbers up I’d be let go.

His actual phrasing was, “When you have a bandaid do you like to rip it off or pull it slowly?”

Since it was eminently obvious why he was visiting and because I thought it was condescending I sweetly informed him that I liked to soak my bandaids in hot water so they come off on their own.

He was briefly startled at this derailing but then got on with the bad news. I signed some forms stating that I understood my job was in peril.

I went home furious. I thought long and hard about why I wasn’t succeeding and how frustrated I was with my manager. I came in the next day and my anger had crystallized into a cold sharp edge.

My manager opened his mouth to address the probation and I snapped, “Just leave me alone. Go in the back if I have a sale. If you must address a serious issue then you will give me praise on two things I did right and present it as a compliment sandwich. Otherwise just say good job and shut up. Your constant nitpicking just makes me anxious and I do worse. Back off.��� Belated and begrudging I added, “Please.”

He raised his eyebrows in dim surprise but I’d gauged him well. He backed off. Dutifully he’d meander into the back when I had a sale and praised me when I closed it. I resented knowing it was only because I’d demanded complimented but they still boosted me up. My numbers skyrocketed, I landed my first split king sale, and I exited probation with flying colors.

The trainer came back in to congratulate my manager for turning things around. To my gratification he gave me credit for setting him straight and said I’d taught him a different way to lead. My manager would often genuinely praise that moment when I’d stood up to him, impressed with my stubborn refusal to fail and my insight into what would help.

My biggest takeaway from the whole thing was just that people need positive reinforcement to succeed. Praise people for doing a good job. If you’re ever in a position where you need to criticize someone put it in a compliment sandwich instead of just saying the negative.

[ephemeral-winter]

just remembered that yesterday my bosses were telling me about a customer who told them that he believes in aliens and ghosts and the first words out of my mouth were “I don’t respect people who believe in aliens but I do respect people who believe in ghosts” and when I tell you that this statement brought the conversation to a screeching halt

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in SAN DIEGO at MYSTERIOUS GALAXY on Mar 24, and in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on Apr 2. More tour dates here.

Even by Amazon standards, this is extraordinarily sleazy: starting March 28, each Amazon Echo device will cease processing audio on-device and instead upload all the audio it captures to Amazon's cloud for processing, even if you have previously opted out of cloud-based processing:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/03/everything-you-say-to-your-echo-will-be-sent-to-amazon-starting-on-march-28/

It's easy to flap your hands at this bit of thievery and say, "surveillance capitalists gonna surveillance capitalism," which would confine this fuckery to the realm of ideology (that is, "Amazon is ripping you off because they have bad ideas"). But that would be wrong. What's going on here is a material phenomenon, grounded in specific policy choices and by unpacking the material basis for this absolutely unforgivable move, we can understand how we got here – and where we should go next.

Start with Amazon's excuse for destroying your privacy: they want to do AI processing on the audio Alexa captures, and that is too computationally intensive for on-device processing. But that only raises another question: why does Amazon want to do this AI processing, even for customers who are happy with their Echo as-is, at the risk of infuriating and alienating millions of customers?

For Big Tech companies, AI is part of a "growth story" – a narrative about how these companies that have already saturated their markets will still continue to grow. It's hard to overstate how dominant Amazon is: they are the leading cloud provider, the most important retailer, and the majority of US households already subscribe to Prime. This may sound like a good place to be, but for Amazon, it's actually very dangerous.

Amazon has a sky-high price/earnings ratio – about triple the ratio of other retailers, like Target. That scorching P/E ratio reflects a belief by investors that Amazon will continue growing. Companies with very high p/e ratios have an unbeatable advantage relative to mature competitors – they can buy things with their stock, rather than paying cash for them. If Amazon wants to hire a key person, or acquire a key company, it can pad its offer with its extremely high-value, growing stock. Being able to buy things with stock instead of money is a powerful advantage, because money is scarce and exogenous (Amazon must acquire money from someone else, like a customer), while new Amazon stock can be conjured into existence by typing zeroes into a spreadsheet:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/06/privacy-last/#exceptionally-american

But the downside here is that every growth stock eventually stops growing. For Amazon to double its US Prime subscriber base, it will have to establish a breeding program to produce tens of millions of new Americans, raising them to maturity, getting them gainful employment, and then getting them to sign up for Prime. Almost by definition, a dominant firm ceases to be a growing firm, and lives with the constant threat of a stock revaluation as investors belief in future growth crumbles and they punch the "sell" button, hoping to liquidate their now-overvalued stock ahead of everyone else.

For Big Tech companies, a growth story isn't an ideological commitment to cancer-like continuous expansion. It's a practical, material phenomenon, driven by the need to maintain investor confidence that there are still worlds for the company to conquer.

That's where "AI" comes in. The hype around AI serves an important material need for tech companies. By lumping an incoherent set of poorly understood technologies together into a hot buzzword, tech companies can bamboozle investors into thinking that there's plenty of growth in their future.

OK, so that's the material need that this asshole tactic satisfies. Next, let's look at the technical dimension of this rug-pull.

How is it possible for Amazon to modify your Echo after you bought it? After all, you own your Echo. It is your property. Every first year law student learns this 18th century definition of property, from Sir William Blackstone:

That sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.

If the Echo is your property, how come Amazon gets to break it? Because we passed a law that lets them. Section 1201 of 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it a felony to "bypass an access control" for a copyrighted work:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/24/record-scratch/#autoenshittification

That means that once Amazon reaches over the air to stir up the guts of your Echo, no one is allowed to give you a tool that will let you get inside your Echo and change the software back. Sure, it's your property, but exercising sole and despotic dominion over it requires breaking the digital lock that controls access to the firmware, and that's a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense.

The Echo is an internet-connected device that treats its owner as an adversary and is designed to facilitate over-the-air updates by the manufacturer that are adverse to the interests of the owner. Giving a manufacturer the power to downgrade a device after you've bought it, in a way you can't roll back or defend against is an invitation to run the playbook of the Darth Vader MBA, in which the manufacturer replies to your outraged squawks with "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

The ability to remotely, unilaterally alter how a device or service works is called "twiddling" and it is a key factor in enshittification. By "twiddling" the knobs and dials that control the prices, costs, search rankings, recommendations, and core features of products and services, tech firms can play a high-speed shell-game that shifts value away from customers and suppliers and toward the firm and its executives:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

But how can this be legal? You bought an Echo and explicitly went into its settings to disable remote monitoring of the sounds in your home, and now Amazon – without your permission, against your express wishes – is going to start sending recordings from inside your house to its offices. Isn't that against the law?

Well, you'd think so, but US consumer privacy law is unbelievably backwards. Congress hasn't passed a consumer privacy law since 1988, when the Video Privacy Protection Act banned video store clerks from disclosing which VHS cassettes you brought home. That is the last technological privacy threat that Congress has given any consideration to:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

This privacy vacuum has been filled up with surveillance on an unimaginable scale. Scumbag data-brokers you've never heard of openly boast about having dossiers on 91% of adult internet users, detailing who we are, what we watch, what we read, who we live with, who we follow on social media, what we buy online and offline, where we buy, when we buy, and why we buy:

https://gizmodo.com/data-broker-brags-about-having-highly-detailed-personal-information-on-nearly-all-internet-users-2000575762

To a first approximation, every kind of privacy violation is legal, because the concentrated commercial surveillance industry spends millions lobbying against privacy laws, and those millions are a bargain, because they make billions off the data they harvest with impunity.

Regulatory capture is a function of monopoly. Highly concentrated sectors don't need to engage in "wasteful competition," which leaves them with gigantic profits to spend on lobbying, which is extraordinarily effective, because a sector that is dominated by a handful of firms can easily arrive at a common negotiating position and speak with one voice to the government:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

Starting with the Carter administration, and accelerating through every subsequent administration except Biden's, America has adopted an explicitly pro-monopoly policy, called the "consumer welfare" antitrust theory. 40 years later, our economy is riddled with monopolies:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/17/monopolies-produce-billionaires/#inequality-corruption-climate-poverty-sweatshops

Every part of this Echo privacy massacre is downstream of that policy choice: "growth stock" narratives about AI, twiddling, DMCA 1201, the Darth Vader MBA, the end of legal privacy protections. These are material things, not ideological ones. They exist to make a very, very small number of people very, very rich.

Your Echo is your property, you paid for it. You paid for the product and you are still the product:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Amazon says that the recordings your Echo will send to its data-centers will be deleted as soon as it's been processed by the AI servers. Amazon's made these claims before, and they were lies. Amazon eventually had to admit that its employees and a menagerie of overseas contractors were secretly given millions of recordings to listen to and make notes on:

https://archive.is/TD90k

And sometimes, Amazon just sent these recordings to random people on the internet:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/20/amazon-alexa-user-receives-audio-recordings-stranger-through-human-error/

Fool me once, etc. I will bet you a testicle* that Amazon will eventually have to admit that the recordings it harvests to feed its AI are also being retained and listened to by employees, contractors, and, possibly, randos on the internet.

*Not one of mine

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/altering-the-deal/#telescreen

Image: Stock Catalog/https://www.quotecatalog.com (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexa_%2840770465691%29.jpg

Sam Howzit (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SWC_6_-_Darth_Vader_Costume_(7865106344).jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en