#RARE LIVE POST. NOT 5AM QUEUE

[bananasmores]

falling back in love with creating

Realized in the middle of this I would need to design a dress for her to be making and was excited about this stained glass butterfly dress idea and forgot it was going to be in monochrome.

[mollydollyjournals]

Its Thursday 1st July and I hit post limit so all I can do is update this post

I just want to drink til i pass out

9:46pm - oh when did i post this? Doesnt matter i guess. It really annoys me that the daily post limit applies to all blogs you have. I have 2 and i follow a lot of NSF- stuff so i have so much in my queue for my other blog, and i tend to post more immediately for that so i dont end up with a massive backlog, but thaats when i hit the limit. Whatever it is. I basically just wish i could set the queue to post more often when i have more there. Just post every 15mins or whatever and it'd go through quicker without me having to do it myself

Idk it doesnt matter i guess. Im still just venting all my bullshit here that i cant put anywhere else. But now is when i need it. I want interaction and company but i dont want to bother anyone and I dont know what to do with it. I dont have it in me to try to be a person right now. Tumblr is for messy. At least thats how i do.

But once you hit post limit it apparently doesnt even let you delete stuff to post anything else. I havent been here in years really so i totally forgot. Plus it could have been different anyway. Idk. Guess i will just drink until i disintegrate or something

10:20pm - it just makes me feel worse. I know theres a reason for post limit and its not the end of the world. Just it doesnt reset til 5am and I'll be asleep by then which means for the rest of today i cant actually say anything, and that kinda fucks with my derealisation/depersonalisation/whatever it is. I need acknowledgement to feel real. I need people to remind me that i exist. Even just a little. Its stupid and insecure but i do. Everything is worse since covid and being stuck in a house with someone who barely acknowledges my existence. I feel like a ghost. I feel netter at least a little temporarily if someone just sees and acknowledges me. And currently i can't do anything about that. Nobody is going to go to my page(s) and see whats up, its not that kind of thing. Even if it was they still wouldnt. I put on my other social media fucking ages ago that i was really struggling, then i disappeared, and it took days for it to get noticed at all. Then only 3 people acknowledged it. People have their own lives and there are algorithms etc so i cant be angry at them, but the end result is i still feel really alone.

I often feel like i want to just talk to people. Only a select few. Its not that i necessarily need to talk about "deep" stuff, but i need to know that i could if i needed to. Or if we just both happened to be in that mood at the same time. Like how i dont wanna talk about something totally innocent and generic with someone who turns out to be racist or whatever.

I dont know. Maybe i do need to talk some shit through right now. Doesnt matter either way. Ill most likely just be back to this post later to say more about how i dont really feel like being alive.

10:39pm - I hate that im like this. I dont know if its reasonable or not. I used to be someone who wantes so much space. I still dont feel like i want to always be around people. I must have some individuality somewhere. But i cant find it. Since the pandemic hit especially, it just highlighted everything ive been missing and trying to supplement. I need things to change. But i dont have a hope of doing so while i feel like this. Im so lost. Ive spent my life trying to be confident in myself and ive run my reserves dry. I so rarely get any help topping up. I fucking hate the whole Strong Black Woman trope. Im tired. Ive carried my family since I was 13 and romantic partners have expected me to carry them too. I need to be held and comforted. I need support. If nothing else i need to just be acknowledged. I dont feel like a person. Im invisible and inaudible so much of the time and apparently that only changes when someone wants to see or hear me. When do i get to be a person in my own right? When does someone actually see or hear me for who i am and care about my existence regardless of what it does for them

10:54pm - its the worst of my mental health, tbh, that i dont feel like its worth trying anything if its not going to be acknowledged and welcomed by anyone else. Existing included. I feel my worst and most suicidal when i cant have anyone remember that i exist. Because maybe i dont. Maybe people dont miss me or think of me unless theyre reminded for some specific reason. And i say these things because i want to be proved wrong but why would anyone.

I want to cut. I hate this stupid post limit. I could have at least distracted myself by reblogging stuff for a bit. Im still spiralling. I need a distraction and there isnt one and there wont be one and if i even get through tonight itll just be another reminder that in the end im alone

11:24pm - something feels particularly cruel about not being able to post here, even if i delete stuff. Its just an app sure but its the closest thing i have to therapy. I came back here specifically because i was struggling posting on my regular social media and having people not pay any attention. I thought id make a fresh anonymous account where i could vent and my shitty brain couldnt take it personally if nobody acknowledged it. Now i just have all that shit going round my head and nowhere to put it. Im right back where i started. Nobody will read this. If they do they wont care. If by some chance they did they'll be put off by me being so negative.

"One day someone will hug you so tight all tour broken pieces will fit back together" yeah sure. Whatever.

[negotiaetor]

JUST SOME REPLY UPDATES!

I am working on queuing things for my blogs currently but I do my best to tag them so you know whether I’m actually posting live or my queue is just running.

My queue posts three times a day between 5am and 10pm. I know, it’s super slow. I apologize.

As for replies, here are a few things:

Starters made for me have first priority, in order to get the thread going.

I try to work on things that have been sitting for a while first so that means if you reply very quickly, you’ll still end up waiting. The older things are at the top of the list unless I’m really struggling with them. Very rarely will I reply like, same day, but it could happen. I don’t like to play favorites but if I have immediate muse, I will take advantage.

Asks are usually last (unless I sprinkle them in the queue to break things up) and occasionally, I might end up not responding to them at all. The only exception is if you’ve specifically asked me to reply to something or I know you’ve sent a meme to initiate first interactions.

If you’re wanting me to boost your reply to the top of the queue so it is released sooner, please just let me know. The length of time it takes to get a reply is not indicative of my excitement or interest, I love all my threads!

[workfromhomeyoutuber]

Thinkific: Customer Support Specialist

Headquarters: Vancouver, BC URL: https://www.thinkific.com/

**This role is for someone in Eastern Canada who wants to join our new remote Support Team. You’ll start between 5am-6am Pacific Time to support the Eastern Time Zone (ET).  Please only apply if you are located in Eastern Canada.**

Are you energized by helping others succeed? Love sharing and helping explain a great product? Excited to join a fast-paced, growing tech company? You know that the success of any company is tied to the customer experience—and that’s where you come in.

As a Customer Support Specialist, you’ll be helping and supporting customers to grow their business through education. Being the first point of contact on email and phone, you'll be answering questions, giving advice, solving problems using your technical know-how and helping our customers build successful online businesses. You’ll learn our platform inside and out, with opportunities to work cross-collaboratively with other teams and have dedicated time for you to learn, grow and explore professional development opportunities. At Thinkific you’ll be part of a collaborative, passionate and insanely helpful team that provides the best support in the industry! 

In this role, you will:

Spend the day working through our support ticket queue in Zendesk and ensure customer problems are resolved as quickly as possible

Investigate technical issues reported by running diagnostic tests, researching technical nuances, and cross-referencing with JIRA updates, then conveying your findings and any available solutions to customers based on their specific needs

Identify, reproduce and document bugs for the Technical Tier II team

Help identify areas of improvement, or spot trends based on customer feedback to flag for the rest of the internal teams

Answer the support phone line for a full day once per week (but don’t hesitate to jump on additional calls with customers who need an extra helping hand)

Work closely with our product team, including the QA of new features so you can effectively communicate each feature use-case to customers 

Jump on weekend support once a month, getting a day off in lieu of the preceding or the following week!

Support customers at different stages of the customer journey from jumping on calls with prospects to discuss their needs, to helping customers launch their courses, to coaching customers close to churning

Have an opportunity to take on side projects based on your areas of interest such as writing help articles to help grow our Knowledge Base, helping grow our Facebook group or hosting webinars to our customer base.  

To be successful in this role, you must:

Have at least 2+ years in an online customer-facing role (ideally in SaaS)

Love helping people— you go above and beyond to show you’re fanatical about customer success!

Have stellar communication skills both verbal and written so you can explain technical problems succinctly, and then clearly articulate solutions to customers.

Be an independent problem solver. You do not give up when you don’t know the answer immediately and while you rarely run into a roadblock you can't creatively get around, you're humble enough to ask for help whenever you need it

Be technically savvy and constantly stay up to date by learning the ins and outs of our platform, and any partner apps, quickly

Have experience troubleshooting software-related issues across common browsers

Be a team player and believe teamwork makes the dream work!

Love talking on the phone—it’s your bread and butter!

Have a great attitude and a willingness to overcome any challenge that comes your way 

Perform well under pressure and understand the importance of work-life balance

Have a strong work ethic and don’t believe in the traditional 9 to 5. You are resilient and flexible as customer needs evolve and ticket volume changes

You might be the person we’re looking for if you:

Know the importance of listening, building trust and confidence with customers

Have a flair for translating product features into tangible benefits for customers

Are passionate about online education, digital marketing, and small business (or all of the above!)

Are great at handling difficult customers from the disgruntled to those who aren’t technically savvy

Have experience supporting customers via email, phone, live chat, and video calls

Are goal-oriented and driven by performance metrics

Have experience using customer service software like Zendesk (or a similar tool)

Bonus points if you:

Have experience with sales or account management

Understand the basics of HTML/CSS  (but any coding skills are valuable)

Read API documentation 

Have experience with domain hosting and setting up custom domains

Have experience using Asana, Slack, Google Drive and/or TextExpander

About us:

We’re about the results of online learning and the people along the way! Thinkific is a software platform that enables entrepreneurs to create, market, sell, and deliver their own online courses. Our mission is no less than to revolutionize the way people learn and earn online by giving them the tools they need to turn their expertise into a sustainable business that impacts both them and their audience. We believe in meaningful, innovative work: we're building and expanding an incredible product that empowers course creators around the globe while working collaboratively to learn and succeed together. Together, we’ve served over 40,000 course creators and more than 10 million students, and these numbers are growing each day! 

Why we think you’ll like working with us:

Be part of a team of incredibly talented, passionate, and driven people focused on building and innovating on a best-in-class learning platform

Make an impact with your work—each person has an equal opportunity to contribute to our goals and every day, we get to see how Thinkific is empowering both course creators and their students

Join one of the fastest-growing companies in Vancouver and find opportunities to grow in your own career—offering advancement opportunities for our team members is important to us!

We are lucky to have team members working remotely with us for over a year, so you’ll walk into an established system where you’re supported to be productive and successful

We make sure you always feel included and have opportunities to build meaningful relationships with your team, whether that’s trips to Vancouver to solidify those connections, meet and greet with new team members by video, taking a remote-first approach to meetings or ensuring you have lunch provided for our team-wide events!

Contribute to Thinkific’s award-winning culture—we’re one of Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Cultures and a certified Great Place to Work!

We offer competitive salaries, a comprehensive benefits package including health, dental, and vision coverage, and an Employee and Family Assistance Program to support the wellbeing of you and your family

Get additional health and wellness support through a lifestyle or health spending account to put your dollars where you need it most

Enjoy our open vacation policy and flexible work environment, because we know the importance of having a great work-life balance

Learn and Grow is one of our values and we take it seriously, providing opportunities through lunch and learns, training, workshops, mentorship, and our $1500 education allowance

Grow your career AND your family at Thinkific—you’ll be taken care of with our parental leave top-ups as you add to your family

Work with the hardware you’re most comfortable with, and upgrade or replace your system when you need to with our technology bonus

Help you get the equipment you need to set-up a home office where you can do your best work

Be confident bringing your whole self to work—we’re proud to be an inclusive company with a diverse team and values grounded in ethics and equality

Thinkific welcomes all applicants regardless of race, gender, orientation, sexual identity, economic class, ability, disability, age, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, or status. We believe that different perspectives and backgrounds are what make a company flourish and we welcome you!

This is an incredible role for the right candidate. We can’t wait to meet you!

To apply: https://www.thinkific.com/careers/job-post/?gh_jid=4656126002&gh_src=8a3597f72

from We Work Remotely: Remote jobs in design, programming, marketing and more https://ift.tt/2TflSJo from Work From Home YouTuber Job Board Blog https://ift.tt/2vmKE2d

[drferox]

20 Questions with Dr Ferox #8

My gosh, there’s just so much stuff you vetlings want to know, isn’t there? Well, knowledge is good, so here we go with yet another info dump as I try to answer a big slew of your questions in one hit.

Anonymous said: I sometimes get your patreon emails or an update on your blog while I'm studying/struggling in the wee-hours of the morning (vetmed). I'm in WA, so where-ever you are it's also late/early. What are you doing up in the witching hours?

First of all, I am an AdultTM and as such I am permitted to set by own Bed Time. There are many reasons why you might receive notifications from me so ‘early’.

I have a blog post on queue every morning between 5am and 6am my time (so probably 3am and 4am your time). It goes up automatically, so I can see initial responses before I go to work.

I think Patreon sends its emails at the same time each day, regardless of when I post. I certainly don’t type there early in the morning.

Sometimes I’m on nightshift and can get kinda bored at 3am sometimes.

Sometimes I just can’t sleep, especially with the changing day/night cycles.

Most of the blog runs on queue, honestly. At least three posts a day do.

@banesidhe said: Just happened to discover your blog. Thank you so much for posting like you do (even the snark. I'm a 911 dispatcher, I appreciate the snark ;) ), and sharing your experiences. No vet question, but if you could only ever re/read five books for the rest of your life, which five titles would make your cut?

Ah, I have found many similar people to myself among emergency personnel. There’s a particular combination of gallows humor and wishing people would get to the point that unites us.

For fiction books:

Feral, Kerry Greenwood

The Shepherd’s Crown, Terry Pratchett

Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett

Watership Down, Richard Adam

Good Omens, Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Hmm, bit of a trend there.

But the work books I couldn’t live without are:

Plumb’s Veterinary Drug Handbook

The 5 minute veterinary consult, Dog and Cat Edition

Ettinger’s Textbook of Internal Medicine, Expert Consult

BSAVA Rabbit Medicine & Surgery Handbook

Small Animal Surgery, Fossum.

Anonymous asked: what was the most exotic/rare patient youve ever had?

This fat meerkat.

Anonymous said: My dog is a shelter dog and we suspect she was abused before we got her (afraid of E V E R Y T H I N G) and weve been slowly working on getting her to at least ignore people we walk past or that enter the house and thats been making progress. But she hates the vet. Hates it. Gets in my lap and refuses to leave. New dogs people and smells. So her normal vet takes the approach of having one of us hold/console her while they do all the poking and listening and whatnot and muzzling her if they need to and just getting it done as quickly as possible. But this last time she saw a new vet and this vet took the approach of hand-feeding her almost an entire bag of treats and called it "stress-eating" and tbh you should have seen the look on my dogs face. She was so weirded out. Shes highly food motivated so it was like heaven to her but she was simultaneously very suspicious. Her face was like"i love this but idk if i trust it" it was great.Have a greatday!

If you an reinforce the behaviour by arranging frequent, short visits to the vet clinic where nothing happens but lots of treats, she may start to associate the vet clinic with positive things (food) ad no scary things. This might make the rest ofher life easier.

Anonymous said: I own fancy rats and just want to put out there to people, that while they are THE MOST amazing tiny friends, in my experience most vets are completely lost when it comes to their care & several I've seen refused to even touch my exceptionally friendly females. They often get respiratory infections requiring antibiotics. One of my friend's females passed away bc nobody would perform a simple surgery on her. So please be cautious when buying them. 

I would like to suggest that any surgery on a rat is likely to be not simple, because they do have particular anesthetic requirements that can make their recovery difficult. Also that a lot of traditional rat medicine hinges on using post mortem examination as a diagnostic tool, which is not useful at all with pet rats.

In dog and cat medicine most of our equipment and even medications are not suitable for rats, or very difficult to adapt. We simply have fewer options, and generally less experience with these species Most vets I know will attempt to treat them, but with a great big disclaimer saying I don’t do this often, and a quick question as to whether you’d prefer to go to a nearby clinic that does see rats more often.

Anonymous said: Hello, I recently took in 3 abandoned kittens and they're covered in fleas. They appear to be 6 weeks old and can't use meds or wash for them. I clean them with vinegar and dish soap and I was wondering if you knew of any other ways to help them since they hate getting wet. I also use a comb but they dislike that as well.

You can use capstar on kittens from 4 weeks of age, and Revolution from 6, probably earlier. Talk to your vet.

Anonymous asked: Strange question but do you know if that rage syndrome thing can happen in cats also? I know a cat who does that and also acts strangely in general at the same time?

It is not documented in cats, however Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome may present in a similar way.

Anonymous said: Hey doc! I plan on getting my cat fixed soon and I'm worried about how it'll affect her. She's really skittish and prefers to stay in one room, could getting her fixed make it worse?? I guess like what are the possible behavioral effects is what I'm askin? For the qt: ive been here a while i just dont like or reblog stuff but i came for the vet knowledge and stayed for it too, especially the mythical creatures and dog breed info

She is probably not going to have any long term personality changes from being desexed, though might be out of sorts for a few days after the anaesthetic. If anything they tend to be less stressed because they’re not attracting Toms.

Another Anonymous said: My kitten was neutered yesterday and he's doing great, healing well, playing nonstop, remarkably agile despite the e-collar (navigating small spaces, jumping to high places), eating & drinking well. The vet didn't give us any aftercare instructions but I googled it -- and wish I'd done so before the surgery because I could've prepared better. A lot of it seemed obvious in hindsight but nothing I'd have thought of on my own. Do you have a flier or anything for your patients' humans? 

We send our patients home with aftercare instructions. We have a default one that we print for routine surgery like desexing, and a customized one for non-routine procedures.

We also read it out to our clients when they pick up their pet, and point out that all these instructions are written down, because it’s easy to forget details when you’re worried.

Anonymous asked: I have a question! I saw your desexing cats post and thought I might send it to you. I neutered my male cat but he still sprays and tries to roam the neighborhood. I try to keep him inside best I can. Is there a reason this happens?

It may be stress, but you should consult your vet to rule out any underlying urinary tract issue before assuming so. Your vet should be able to discus the various stress reducing techniques, changes and treatments that are available.

Anonymous asked: Whenever my roommate wakes up before me, she makes bacon for breakfast while the coffee is brewing. If she hasn't slept well, her coherence is sometimes a bit... lacking. If our cat happens to demand food, about half the time she ends up giving him a slice of bacon instead of cat food. We only recently figured out that she's been doing this. He's not getting fat, and gets actual cat food later, so is this OK, or do we need to try to figure out how to keep this from happening?

While bacon is certainly digestible, it is not a balanced diet. It would be ideal if you could minimize his bacon habit.

@nowgovanish said: Hello! I have a question about my 13 and 4 year old cats. They seem to have some pretty bad skin reactions to certain foods, and I've tried a lot of different food brands that my vet reccommended. The one that seems to work best is a grain free/ non chicken variant, but I see that you aren't a huge fan of grain free. Is there anything I should change or try sticking with what works?

I have said many times before that if it’s working, keep feeding it.

Novel protein diets, and ideally single proteins source diets, are more use for allergies than just going ‘grain free’.

‘Grain Free’ labelling on food particularly vexes me because it’s not regulated. You can find ‘grain free’ food that really mean ‘corn free’ and either use grain byproducts or straight up use rice. Last time I checked, rice was a grain.

It’s like ‘Hollistic’ - it means nothing on a pet food label. Neither does ‘Organic’, pet food companies do not have to use all organic products in pet food to label the food as organic. These are marketing ploys like ‘all natural’ which are targeting your emotions and don’t mean anything when it comes to the food.

If you’ve come across a novel protein diet, or a minimum ingredient diet, that is beneficial for your cats then stick with it. But recognise what’s marketing and what’s useful.

Anonymous said: I love my dog but he is a complete and total moron. He has strangled himself so often that his bark is now raspy. He even found a way to do it with a harness! We've resorted to jogging when walking him to try and keep up but is there some way to make it better? We've tried letting him learn on his own, pausing when he pulls, and getting a longer leash. If he was much smarter I'd accuse him of being into asphyxiation.

I would suggest that you potentially need to figure out what motivates your dog most. Consider using positive reinforcement to encourage him to heel on the lead, instead of wandering and pulling.

You might also want to consider something like a halti collar, which pulls the dog’s nose downwards to their chest when they pull, instead of something that goes around the neck.

Anonymous: Would you consider it a good generalization that dogs more closely resembling/related to wolves (like huskies) have less health problems? I am aware that no dogs are completely lacking in health problems.  Tax: came for good hard factual analysis.

No. And here’s the thing- all modern dog breeds are equally distant from their wolf-like ancestor, unless they have been recently mixed with wolves again.

Their health problems are different to those dogs with more extreme anatomy, but dogs that look like wolves are not inherently healthier.

@justslowdown said: a book i have discusses the man who created the GSD breed (aka isolated traits from a diverse population) pairing dogs with their daughters, granddaughters, great-granddaughters and onwards til more than 1/2 of the pups had to be culled. due you think this could be partially responsible for the health issues remaining more than a century later? "Very drastic inbreeding was espoused during the formation of the breed [...] to quickly form specific type" - The German Shepherd Dog by Ernest H Hart

Certainly.

This is called line breeding, where the offspring of a ‘perfect’ individual are repeatedly bred back to the same individual generation upon generation to try to recreate it. All you really do is lose genetic diversity very quickly and allow recessive deleterious genes to proliferate in the population.

This is why just about everywhere else that’s not the purebred pet world, this is considered a bad thing to do.

@eyestumblin said: Do you think horses would look significantly different if their wonky anatomy were more logical?

They would no longer be a horse.

@cirque-du-spoon said: I saw you mention sheep on the horse thread and I spent a fair bit of time on a sheep farm in Wales. The head shepherd once told me "sheep are born, they spend the rest of their life trying to die". Then he opened his landrover door, and the passenger footwell was maybe 6 lambs snuggled up to one of his old motherly collies.

The common phrase down here was “The aim in life of a Merino ewe is to die and take fifty of her friends with her.” It’s not really much of an exaggeration.

Anonymous said: I'm intrigued to hear the faults of sheep, lay it on me!

Oh I will. It’s on my list for a big write up.

@queenalia said: Hi! I love the post about why horses make no sense, and I was wondering if you would do a similar one for sheep (one of the most suicidal animals on earth in my opinion)?

It will definitely be done sometime in the next few weeks. As you understand, it’s not  quick answer.

@vulturegeorge said: Hey Dr.F, after reeding your "horses-are-spindily-legged-disasters" post and your comment about how sheep are worse, I was wondering if you wished to elaborate? I am currently working on a heard of 50 random sheep my uni bought with a ton of lung issues ... so it'd be super interesting to me. Question tax: came for the Lucifer story, stayed for all of your amazing advice & opinions. I hope you are finding balance between vetting and living. cheers!

I promise I will elaborate. I can’t leave a cliff hanger like that and not explain... eventually.