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bbhyuckie · 6 years ago

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Crossed Wires - 1

The Doyoung office fic nobody asked for.

Genre: Slowburn office romance.

Words: 5.5k

Warnings: Exposition.

When you were younger, you never really envisioned yourself working in an office. Like all the other kids, you wanted to be an astronaut, or a doctor, or an actor. You suppose, no one ever really dreamt of working in an office, but there you were. A twenty-something in a corporate building, working a solid nine-to-five.

As far as office work goes, you actually had it really, really good. You had applied to SM right out of highschool with very minimal background experience. Honestly, you hadn’t really expected anything from putting in your resume, but by the grace of god, you landed the summer secretary position. The job was easy enough to do and complex enough to keep you focused for an eight hour work day. When August rolled around and you were called back to your manager's office, you were sure that it was the end of the line for you; end of summer, end of job. But to your surprise, you were offered a job outside of the lobby and into the office blocks.

Which is how you ended up here: the marketing department. The sudden shift away from greeting guests at the front desk and setting up appointments for people on the way out was jarring. Work suddenly had weight to it. If it hadn’t been for the considerable upgrade in your check every month, you probably would have lost your mind. Marketing wasn’t necessarily hard . It was just a lot more than what you were used to. Micro to macro, so to speak. The job outline wasn’t single people anymore. You were connecting with hundreds of thousands of people behind the guise of company-community involvement, media planning, and advertisement. Luckily, you didn’t have to do it alone.

Your immediate team consisted of three charismatic young men that fit the forward thinking, strikingly attractive, deceptively smart and strategic outline your department demanded. It was hard to picture yourself fitting in with them most of the time, but from your first day forward they all welcomed you in like you had been there since the dawn of time. It seemed the thoughts of not quite being up to par during brainstorming sessions, and feeling slightly out of place when someone walked in to your department passed with time.

The eldest in your team was named Chittaphon, but the other boys called him Ten because of [insert inside office joke that you weren’t there to learn here]. He was eccentric and stellar at his job. Since he worked there the longest, he helped you through your marketing training and made you nifty little cheat sheets with frequent call numbers and contact names. You got close with Ten first because of how closely you worked in your training period, and he was a gateway to the other two boys in your department. He was always either complimenting your work attire or praising your work ethic.

After finally being released from training, you got your own desk right next to the second oldest member of your department. Jaehyun was a great desk neighbor, all things considered. Sure, he had a stressfully cluttered desk and never put his phone on silent, but somehow he still got all of his work done and even managed to help you with yours. Jae was so handsome that it was hard not to fall head over heels for him. And maybe, you would have if it wasn’t for the fact that you had seen how he danced while he was heavily intoxicated at a department night out… It was an ugly sight. So instead, you settled for going to company dinners together and ultimately you became Jaehyun’s wingwoman.

The last member of your team was Mark, who seemed to be perpetually waiting for everyone else to catch up. He was a touch younger than you, but the two of you got along pretty well. That is, after the two of you started speaking. For how quirky and talkative he was with the other two boys, he seemed to keep his guard up around you for the first few months. Jae teased that it was because Mark had never had to talk to girls before and he didn’t know how, to which Ten scoffed and Mark slumped further down in to his chair. You and Mark finally hit it off when Jaehyun had called out sick. Without your trusty companion to ask for help, you decided to take the leap and roll your chair over to Mark’s desk. At first, he was surprised that you would even consider coming to him for help, considering Ten was in the same room as the two of you.

To say that Mark was nervous, was an astounding understatement. His hands were shaky and cautious as he reached for the stapler on the other side of the desk. However, after a few cheesy jokes on your behalf Mark was absolutely smitten with you in the most platonic sense of the word. Soon he was showing up to work with two coffees instead of one, and the middle drawer of his desk was filled with snacks just for you.

The days of learning simmered out into days of keeping your eyes open, and the longer you were there, the more second nature your position became. Nothing ever became particularly mundane, but with four of you in the office there was a lot of time to just… talk. About stupid things. Or funny things. Or kind of secret things-- like the fact that Ten was dating your department manager, and no one knew somehow. Or how Mark almost strangled the new secretary last week, because, who the fuck would hire Donghyuck oh my god . Or how Jaehyun needed you to be his fake girlfriend at the next wedding in his family. Again.

You had to pay your downtime to those in logistics. Realistically, if the logistics department didn’t exist, you probably would have quit a long time ago. Connecting with so many people called for a lot of… calls. That you didn’t necessarily want to, or know how to, make. If someone asked you who you respected, hands down you would have said your agent from logistics, Yuta.

Yuta was a great partner to work with. Typically he opened the phone calls with a warm greeting before filling you in on the latest plots of this new anime he had recently started. He then transitioned into how cute Manager Sicheng had been looking lately, and more often than not you had to remind him that the purpose of the call was to relay information. He was the person who had gotten you into watching cheesy anime and he was your go to gossip partner whenever Ten was busy with “lunch dates.”

He was the one who always had jokes to tell or advice to give, and although your departments were on opposite sides of the same floor, his friendship felt real and close. These were likely the reasons it absolutely broke your heart when Yuta informed you that a transfer hire would be taking over his spot as your go to logistics man.

“Yuta, you’ve told me a lot of stupid shit these past few months but thinking I’m going to just let a transfer hire take your place is by far the stupidest.”

“Calm down, sunshine, I won’t forget about you. I’ve just been having to juggle yours and Jaehyun’s sorry asses for the past few months. Trust me-- if I got to pick, I would take you over him in a heartbeat,” Yuta replied, clearly unbothered by the whole situation.

You huffed halfheartedly and slumped in your chair, “This sucks.”

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t cry about losing Yuta as your logistics man in the break room later on that afternoon. Mark eventually finds you with your legs huddled close to your chest as you let out quiet, pathetic sniffles. He handed you a box of tissues that had been placed on the counter, almost as if it had been left there for this exact purpose.

“I heard about the whole Yuta thing, and I kinda figured you’d be in here crying.” His voice is soft and comforting, but you’re also partially offended he assumed you would be crying in this situation.

“And how did you know that?” You quip back bitterly, and Mark chuckles at your childish antics.

“You cried for two hours when Yuta told you how Monsters Inc. ended.” Although it was meant as a lighthearted joke, a fresh wave of tears hits you and you’re crying even more now. Because god dammit now you had to think about how Boo lost Sulley on top of you losing Yuta.

Mark’s eyes are wide, like a deer in headlights. “Jaehyun! Call Yuta’s dumb ass, like, right now!”

After teasing Mark for freaking out, Jaehyun obediently dialed Yuta’s number and called him to the break room. Admittedly, crying about losing Yuta was a tad bit melodramatic. However, you felt a wave of dread wash over you at the mere thought of your friendship slowly dying off because you wouldn’t be talking half as much as you used to.

Nonetheless, your band of misfits had decided that the best way to deal with the situation at hand was to get shitfaced. After all, friends that make regrettable decisions while intoxicated together stay together, right?

For the duration of your appetizers, Yuta had been trying to get you to fess up about why you were crying about the situation. In his defense, Yuta couldn’t really understand why you had been so upset. The way he saw it, your friendship didn’t need office calls to last.

“I guess I’m just afraid that with the new transfer hire, we won’t talk anymore.” You finally confess, teary eyed. Yuta swears he tried to hold in his fit of giggles, but it was just too hard.

Laughing, he pulls you into a tight side hug and ruffles your hair with his hands. “You dumbass! You think I won’t be texting you every five minutes about what happened in my show? Working a nine to five job really has rotted your brain.”

His eyes are bright and cheery as he continues to comfort you, promising every so often that he’ll visit your apartment and watch anime with you to compensate for the lack of business calls.

Now that the mood had brightened considerably, you were able to pay attention to Mark, who was trying to prove his manliness by downing shot after shot while Jaehyun couldn’t stop teasing him for freaking out over tears. As you shifted your eyes over to them, your heart swelled with warmth. Your office friends had become like a second family to you. And you wouldn’t dare change it for the world. Resentment sank slowly into the pit of your stomach, however; not towards any of this newfound love for this gang of corporate slaves, but rather for the transfer that was seemingly trying to ruin all of it. The realization of this sudden blind hatred made you feel well and truly immature, more so than crying in the break room at work (which is a hard thing to top). You shrugged it off and ordered another round of drinks.

The next day came quickly and angrily. You blinked your eyes against the offending light that had woken you and groaned. This was a feeling you had grown to know well. A hangover.

You yanked your blanket back over your head. After blindly fumbling around for your phone on your bedside table, you managed to type in the number to your department managers office. You inhaled deeply and pressed the overly bright green button. The ringback was deafening, until finally--

“Advertising and Marketing, this is Johnny Seo,” his voice cut through the receiver like a knife. It was hard not to wince.

“Johnny,” you said, voice untested and rough, “It’s me. I can't come in today.”

You swore you heard him chuckle on the other end, knowingly. You couldn’t find the humor in this situation.

“Sure thing, want to use PTO? Or accept the consequences of a bad hangover?” he asked.

You rubbed the palm of your hand over your face, “Y’know, I’m gonna leave that up to your discretion.”

“Understood, I’ll see you nice and sober tomorrow morning.”

Begrudgingly, you slid out of bed and pressed your feet against the floor. The cool tile was grounding. You decided today was the day you would catch up on the anime Yuta had sent you, get your laundry done, and catch up on your sleep. With a newfound purpose, you trudged into the kitchen of your apartment and started a pot of coffee, before deciding, yeah, you did need to wash your hair.

Before you knew it, your impromptu day off was coming to a close. You were clean, caught up on laundry and anime, and more broke than that morning. Online shopping really was a trap. With a full wasted day under your belt, you fell back into bed and turned the lights off.

As you laid there, waiting to fall asleep, your mind wandered idly to what happened at work while you were away. You were almost positive Mark called out too. If anyone was more of a certified lightweight than you, it was him. Jaehyun probably had a wonderful day, you thought, with Yuta all to himself. You found yourself then wondering about this nameless company transfer. Would he be nice? Would he get your jokes? Would he have an annoying voice? Would he know how to do his job? Stress prickled in your chest and you took a deep breath to choke it down. You could deal with that tomorrow.

Feeling as refreshed as you possibly could after dealing with such a horrendous hangover, you pushed yourself to get ready for the day. Your heart was pounding at an alarming rate when you realized it was time for you to leave for work. You had even considered calling in again and telling Johnny that maybe you weren’t hungover, maybe it was alcohol poisoning or maybe you were on the brink of death.

But you knew Johnny would tear you to pieces if you called in with such a lame and poorly thought out excuse. So instead, you begrudgingly grabbed your work bag and headed out the front door.

On your way in to the office, you caught Mark at the front door. He was, unsurprisingly, harassing the secretary. Donghyuck looked positively pleased with himself as he swiveled on his rolly chair, an angry Mark saying something about eating the rest of the leftovers.

“Oh, Mark,” you said, throwing an arm around the boys shoulders. His tray of coffee for your department teetered dangerously in his hands. “Leave the poor boy alone, I wouldn’t want to have to call HR on you.”

Mark shot you a look as he steadied the coffee in his hand, opening his mouth to say something. He was cut off by Donghyuck.

“Thank you! I’m just here, trying to do my humble job, and I’m being brutalised by this man! ” Hyuck clasped a hand over his heart and puffed out his lower lip.

“By god Mark, stop making a scene, let’s go,” you faked chastised as you pulled him down the hall towards your offices.

“Har har,” Mark made a poor attempt at fake laughing and shoved a coffee in your direction, “Very funny. G’morning to you too.”

You bumped your head against his shoulder in apology as you walked side by side, “Sorry, Marky-baby,” you saw him flush at the name, “You know I’m just teasing.”

Mark visibly relaxed and his stern look softened, “Yeah, yeah, whatever.”

“So how was yesterday?” You poked your straw into the top of your iced coffee.

“I was about to ask you the same, but I take it you called out, too.” You smiled up at him sheepishly. He knocked shoulders with you and you both giggled at your notably low alcohol tolerance.

“I was hoping to get some intel on my new guy,” you paused for a second and sighed, “I would like to reiterate the fact that this… sucks.”

“Oh, c’mon. It can’t be that bad.”

You tried not to bristle at the dismissal, “That’s awfully easy for you to say, not having to get used to someone other than Taeyong, and all.”

“That’s-- That’s not what I meant. Just give him a chance, I guess.” You rolled your eyes at his comment before shooting him a devious smirk.

“Maybe you should give Hyuck a chance.” You were answered with an elbow in the ribs.

You pushed the door to your department open and held it for Mark before you walked your opposite directions to your desks. As you sat down next to Jaehyun, you rolled your chair suspiciously closer to the side of your desk furthest away from him. Jae immediately noticed and shot you a look somewhere between confused and wounded.

Ten piped up from behind you both, “Uh oh. Mommy and daddy are fighting again.”

“Who’s who?” Mark asked with a snicker.

“Are you actually upset with me over this?” Jae asked quietly, disregarding the other two.

You glanced over to him and immediately felt bad. “No,” you said apologetically, “I’m not mad. Really, Jae. This is just weird, and I don’t want to talk to the new guy.”

Jaehyun’s brow squished together in the middle, clearly confused. “But he’s so nice?”

“Oh yeah,” Ten swiveled around in his chair, “He came in and introduced himself yesterday, wanted to get to meet who he was gonna be running logistics for before he got locked upstairs.” Ten paused and smirked wickedly, “Probably not the best first impression.”

You groaned helplessly and melted into the leather of your chair. A wave of humility washed over you in thinking that, shit, he was probably nervous too. You had all of your friends around to support you and only one part of your daily routine was changing, but this guy was coming from out of the city and didn’t know anyone . Jae looked at you pitifully, which arguably made the whole situation worse.

“Don’t worry about it. He seemed genuinely nice, if not just a little quiet. I’m sure he understood.”

“Jae, stop,” you whined, “That definitely makes this worse!”

You looked around to see three sets of eyes on you with varying expressions. Ten looked unimpressed, Mark looked confused, and Jae maintained an unwavering look of pity.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Ten said slowly, “I’m going to need you to get this--” he gestured vaguely at your current state, “--figured out. It is far too early in the morning for a mental collapse. And while I would love to watch this unfold, we unfortunately do not get paid for that.”

Ten turned his chair back to his desk with an air of finality.

With a huff, you heaved yourself back up into a proper sitting position. You organized your papers that you had left on your desk from the prior work day and tapped them into line with each other. You smoothed them against the faux wood of your desk with a hand and took a breath to calm yourself. Jae’s hand found itself over top of yours. He caught your eye before he smiled reassuringly, and squeezed your hand before letting go.

You stalled for as long as you could with paperwork from the day you missed, but damn it, you were a touch too good at your job and finished everything you could do by yourself within the morning. You took lunch with Mark and watched vine compilations together in the break room. As your half hour of freedom drew to a close, you came to terms with the fact that you had to swallow your pride and call down to logistics.

You cozied back into your office chair and tucked your feet underneath you. There was no more procrastinating to be done. You fiddled with a ring on one of your fingers before finally biting the bullet and dialing in the extension to logistics.

The line rang three times, and with every buzz of the callback, you felt your stomach do a flip. Equal parts of you wanted the ringing to end and go on forever all at the same time.

“Logistics, this is Doyoung,” a clear voice broke through the line.

“I--,” you started before your brain could keep up, “Sorry, what was it again?” You smushed your palm against your forehead, because you idiot , you heard exactly what he said! “Can you spell that for me, I mean?”

“Uh-- Ah, yeah, it’s D-O-Y-O-U-N-G. From, uh. From logistics.”

“Right, Doyoung” you repeated, scribbling down his name on a sticky note before peeling it off the pad and pressing it onto the receiver of your phone. “I’m Y/N. From marketing. But I’m sure you already knew that.”

Doyoung mumbled a non committal noise on the other end of the line, “What can I do for you?”

You closed your eyes and breathed in through your nose, “I was wondering if I could get some documents faxed over from accounting, actually. Uh, stocks, to be specific. For our upcoming ad campaign, I need to see affiliate ownership growth between January of this year and now. Yuta has been keeping a file for the dates that we’ve been doing growth research on and--”

“Yeah, I’ve got the folder. I’ll send the forms down. Anything else?”

“Um,” you said, taken slightly aback by Doyoung cutting into you speaking, “No, that’s it I think. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

The line went dead.

Slowly you put the phone back on the receiver. A series of emotions flashed through your head. You took a moment to try and process exactly what went down but also if you didn’t swallow the lump that was beginning to form in your throat you were afraid you’d start crying again. You were a grown woman and knew how to keep your emotions under control, but the amount of frustration that washed over you was infuriating. You mentally kicked yourself for even trying to be nice to this guy when he was going to treat you like an inconvenience. This was his job! He was, quite literally, paid to help you!

As you were finally getting your breathing back under control, a knock came from the glass door. You glanced over your shoulder to see one of the interns smiling at you. You pulled a smile on and waved at him. His smile only widened and he waved frantically, calling you out into the hall. You suppress the urge to complain solely because this was your favorite intern.

“Na Jaemin,” you smiled, closing the glass door to your department behind you.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite marketing expert,” the younger boy winked at you.

“Flattery,” you said as you pulled his glasses off the bridge of his nose to clean them. He had a bad habit of staring through smudge marks that didn’t seem to bother him, but drove you insane.

“Maybe,” he smiled, rubbing over where the feet of his glasses were previously sat on his nose, “But only because you deserve it.”

You smiled at that, and it wasn’t forced. You remembered why he was your favorite.

“What can I do for you, kid?” you slid his glasses back onto his face.

“More of what I--” he waved a manilla folder in front of you, “--can do for you.”

You laughed at that, because, “Please don’t ever do that again.”

He laughed with you before finally handing you the file. You both stood there for a moment before he asked, “So do you like the new guy you’re working with? I just picked these up from him and he seemed pretty nice, I think.”

Right. The new guy. Doyoung.

“Jesus, the other Jae told me he’s great too, but the only conversation I’ve had with him was short and decidedly unpleasant.”

Jaemin exhaled pointedly and looked at you with sympathy. “That sucks. I won’t bring him up then.”

“No, it’s okay. I just have to get over it.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Jaemin leaned forward like he was letting you in on a secret, “I have to deal with the rest of the interns.”

You found yourself smiling again, despite yourself. Somehow, this high school intern had a way of leaving you in a better mood than he found you. “God help you,” you chuckled.

You and Jaemin parted ways shortly thereafter. You slipped back into marketing and to your desk. You took a moment to get situated and take a sip of your then watery coffee. Eventually, you convinced yourself to open your files back up on your computer and get the numbers put together. You flipped the front of the manila folder over and were met first with a jumble of numbers on the right side of the folder. On the left side was something you weren’t expecting. A small note on nice paper, taped parallel with the top of the folder. The handwriting was reminiscent of a font, in neat, narrow letters.

Y/N,

Sorry for rushing off of the phone earlier.

Management called on the other line. I hope

you understand. If you need anything, feel more

than welcome to call me. You have my number

and I work the same hours that you do.

-DY

You read over the note a few times before it finally sank in what it was saying. A pang of guilt thumped you in the chest as you traced your fingertip over the note again. Maybe you were too quick to judge on him, you thought to yourself. You tried not to slump in your chair.

You tore your brain away from being an overly-sensitive, hyper-judgemental individual long enough to put a decent dent on your ownership trend report. The numbers were cleaner than you remember them being organized before, and the spreadsheets had rows in alternating colors that made it easier on the eyes. You noticed somewhere along your productivity streak that there were now tabs separating affiliate from corporate ownership, and there were certain forms that you hadn’t requested but had helped your report.

By the time five rolled around, you felt like you had gotten an unusually large amount of work done despite bitching and moaning the entire morning. Only as Mark tapped on your shoulder with his backpack slung over his back did you realise it was already time to go home. Your face flushed at the uncharacteristic loss of time; you were typically the one counting down the minutes until the day was over.

As you walked out of the office with Mark, you came to two conclusions: the first was that this was one of the most emotionally confusing days of your life, and the second was that Doyoung must have been a robot. Everything he did seemed so critically calculated and practiced. You didn’t want to say that he was better than Yuta, but after going through the revised file he sent you… he was definitely more efficient. Even as you waved goodbye to Mark in the parking garage, you were stuck on your new partner.

By the time you got home and collapsed onto the couch with a box of takeout, you were finally not thinking exclusively of Doyoung. You managed to watch a few episodes of yours and Yuta’s anime, take a shower, and fold an entire load of laundry before crawling up into bed. You pulled the duvet up to your chin. You clicked open your phone to find a clean screen and let out a breath of relief. Sometimes, silence after a long day like the one you had was welcome. You watched the drizzle of rain start to come down outside your window and pulled your blankets up tighter. As the chill of early fall crept into the glass of your window, your mind crept into sleep.

Over the next few weeks, you found that Doyoung was not, in fact, a robot. Shockingly, he was just really good at his job.

Calls with Doyoung became significantly less stressful as time went on, but it was nothing like what you and Yuta had before. Despite being considerably more productive and organized, the phone calls weren’t as memorable. Doyoung seemed to have a strictly business sort of take on things, but he was human.

His humanity came through subtly. It started with you sending Jaemin up to logistics with the completed ownership trend report in a new manilla folder. You decided, after a bit too much thought, that you would attach a note of your own for Doyoung. Peacemaking, your brain supplied.

doyoung,

thanks for the files! no hard feelings.

if you could organize everything like

you did with those documents, my life

would be considerably easier. thanks

a million!

-Y/N

You looked down at your note, on your cheap sticky note with your far from perfect handwriting and wondered if you should just send the file by itself. You shook your head and pressed the piece of paper on the folder before closing it with a decisive snap.

Later that day, you called up to logistics to check on the file you sent.

“Logistics, this is Doyoung,” you swore his voice could be on a recorded line from how similar to the previous day that sounded.

“Hey Doyoung, I just wanted to make sure you got the report I sent up earlier.”

“Oh--,” There was a muffled rustling sound, like he was sorting through papers, “Yeah. Yeah I did.”

“Okay! Just let me know if my numbers don’t check out or something, yeah?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line followed by a slight huff that loosely resembled a laugh, “Yeah, of course.”

After you thanked him and hung up the phone, you wondered if he thought your note was amusing or if the two events were completely isolated. The socialite portion of your personality hoped it was because of you, but the realistic portion of you recognized it could have been because of anything. Hell, it could have not been a laugh at all.

About five minutes later, your email pinged with a new message in the inbox. Your eyebrows knit together in confusion; most people didn’t email you directly unless you messaged them first. You pulled up the portal and saw one (1) new email from a Kim Doyoung. A tiny paperclip icon next to the email envelope told you that there was something attached to the message. You opened the attachment to find a spreadsheet with clean lines and alternating color blocks. The font was simplistic and streamline, and despite it just being a spreadsheet, it brought a smile to your face. This felt like the first step towards something manageable.

In the following days and documents, the two of you kept phone calls short, but often left notes in files that were dropped off to each other. Doyoungs’ were always short and concise, written with a painfully steady hand on paper that was too nice to justify writing a note on. Yours, on the other hand, were on various pieces of parchment you found in your department, handwriting fluctuating with how busy the office was. There was a consistency in the pattern the two of you had that you could almost appreciate; the two of you were hardly acquaintances, even farther from friends, but the routine gave you a new normal.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2

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alivannarose · 7 years ago

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Laziness Does Not Exist

But unseen barriers do.

[This article was posted on Medium, written by Erika Price]

I’ve been a psychology professor since 2012. In the past six years, I’ve witnessed students of all ages procrastinate on papers, skip presentation days, miss assignments, and let due dates fly by. I’ve seen promising prospective grad students fail to get applications in on time; I’ve watched PhD candidates take months or years revising a single dissertation draft; I once had a student who enrolled in the same class of mine two semesters in a row, and never turned in anything either time.

I don’t think laziness was ever at fault.

Ever.

In fact, I don’t believe that laziness exists.

I’m a social psychologist, so I’m interested primarily in the situational and contextual factors that drive human behavior. When you’re seeking to predict or explain a person’s actions, looking at the social norms, and the person’s context, is usually a pretty safe bet. Situational constraints typically predict behavior far better than personality, intelligence, or other individual-level traits.

So when I see a student failing to complete assignments, missing deadlines, or not delivering results in other aspects of their life, I’m moved to ask: what are the situational factors holding this student back? What needs are currently not being met? And, when it comes to behavioral “laziness”, I’m especially moved to ask: what are the barriers to action that I can’t see?

There are always barriers. Recognizing those barriers— and viewing them as legitimate — is often the first step to breaking “lazy” behavior patterns.

…

It’s really helpful to respond to a person’s ineffective behavior with curiosity rather than judgment. I learned this from a friend of mine, the writer and activist Kimberly Longhofer (who publishes under Mik Everett). Kim is passionate about the acceptance and accommodation of disabled people and homeless people. Their writing about both subjects is some of the most illuminating, bias-busting work I’ve ever encountered. Part of that is because Kim is brilliant, but it’s also because at various points in their life, Kim has been both disabled and homeless.

Kim is the person who taught me that judging a homeless person for wanting to buy alcohol or cigarettes is utter folly. When you’re homeless, the nights are cold, the world is unfriendly, and everything is painfully uncomfortable. Whether you’re sleeping under a bridge, in a tent, or at a shelter, it’s hard to rest easy. You are likely to have injuries or chronic conditions that bother you persistently, and little access to medical care to deal with it. You probably don’t have much healthy food.

In that chronically uncomfortable, over-stimulating context, needing a drink or some cigarettes makes fucking sense. As Kim explained to me, if you’re laying out in the freezing cold, drinking some alcohol may be the only way to warm up and get to sleep. If you’re under-nourished, a few smokes may be the only thing that kills the hunger pangs. And if you’re dealing with all this while also fighting an addiction, then yes, sometimes you just need to score whatever will make the withdrawal symptoms go away, so you can survive.

Few people who haven’t been homeless think this way. They want to moralize the decisions of poor people, perhaps to comfort themselves about the injustices of the world. For many, it’s easier to think homeless people are, in part, responsible for their suffering than it is to acknowledge the situational factors.

And when you don’t fully understand a person’s context — what it feels like to be them every day, all the small annoyances and major traumas that define their life — it’s easy to impose abstract, rigid expectations on a person’s behavior. All homeless people should put down the bottle and get to work. Never mind that most of them have mental health symptoms and physical ailments, and are fighting constantly to be recognized as human. Never mind that they are unable to get a good night’s rest or a nourishing meal for weeks or months on end. Never mind that even in my comfortable, easy life, I can’t go a few days without craving a drink or making an irresponsible purchase. They have to do better.

But they’re already doing the best they can. I’ve known homeless people who worked full-time jobs, and who devoted themselves to the care of other people in their communities. A lot of homeless people have to navigate bureaucracies constantly, interfacing with social workers, case workers, police officers, shelter staff, Medicaid staff, and a slew of charities both well-meaning and condescending. It’s a lot of fucking work to be homeless. And when a homeless or poor person runs out of steam and makes a “bad decision”, there’s a damn good reason for it.

If a person’s behavior doesn’t make sense to you, it is because you are missing a part of their context. It’s that simple. I’m so grateful to Kim and their writing for making me aware of this fact. No psychology class, at any level, taught me that. But now that it is a lens that I have, I find myself applying it to all kinds of behaviors that are mistaken for signs of moral failure — and I’ve yet to find one that can’t be explained and empathized with.

…

Let’s look at a sign of academic “laziness” that I believe is anything but: procrastination.

People love to blame procrastinators for their behavior. Putting off work sure looks lazy, to an untrained eye. Even the people who are actively doing the procrastinating can mistake their behavior for laziness. You’re supposed to be doing something, and you’re not doing it — that’s a moral failure right? That means you’re weak-willed, unmotivated, and lazy, doesn’t it?

For decades, psychological research has been able to explain procrastination as a functioning problem, not a consequence of laziness. When a person fails to begin a project that they care about, it’s typically due to either a) anxiety about their attempts not being “good enough” or b) confusion about what the first steps of the task are. Not laziness. In fact, procrastination is more likely when the task is meaningful and the individual cares about doing it well.

When you’re paralyzed with fear of failure, or you don’t even know how to begin a massive, complicated undertaking, it’s damn hard to get shit done. It has nothing to do with desire, motivation, or moral upstandingness. Procastinators can will themselves to work for hours; they can sit in front of a blank word document, doing nothing else, and torture themselves; they can pile on the guilt again and again — none of it makes initiating the task any easier. In fact, their desire to get the damn thing done may worsen their stress and make starting the task harder.

The solution, instead, is to look for what is holding the procrastinator back. If anxiety is the major barrier, the procrastinator actually needs to walk away from the computer/book/word document and engage in a relaxing activity. Being branded “lazy” by other people is likely to lead to the exact opposite behavior.

Often, though, the barrier is that procrastinators have executive functioning challenges — they struggle to divide a large responsibility into a series of discrete, specific, and ordered tasks. Here’s an example of executive functioning in action: I completed my dissertation (from proposal to data collection to final defense) in a little over a year. I was able to write my dissertation pretty easily and quickly because I knew that I had to a) compile research on the topic, b) outline the paper, c) schedule regular writing periods, and d) chip away at the paper, section by section, day by day, according to a schedule I had pre-determined.

Nobody had to teach me to slice up tasks like that. And nobody had to force me to adhere to my schedule. Accomplishing tasks like this is consistent with how my analytical, hyper-focused, Autistic little brain works. Most people don’t have that ease. They need an external structure to keep them writing — regular writing group meetings with friends, for example — and deadlines set by someone else. When faced with a major, massive project, most people want advice for how to divide it into smaller tasks, and a timeline for completion. In order to track progress, most people require organizational tools, such as a to-do list, calendar, datebook, or syllabus.

Needing or benefiting from such things doesn’t make a person lazy. It just means they have needs. The more we embrace that, the more we can help people thrive.

…

I had a student who was skipping class. Sometimes I’d see her lingering near the building, right before class was about to start, looking tired. Class would start, and she wouldn’t show up. When she was present in class, she was a bit withdrawn; she sat in the back of the room, eyes down, energy low. She contributed during small group work, but never talked during larger class discussions.

A lot of my colleagues would look at this student and think she was lazy, disorganized, or apathetic. I know this because I’ve heard how they talk about under-performing students. There’s often rage and resentment in their words and tone — why won’t this student take my class seriously? Why won’t they make me feel important, interesting, smart?

But my class had a unit on mental health stigma. It’s a passion of mine, because I’m a neuroatypical psychologist. I know how unfair my field is to people like me. The class & I talked about the unfair judgments people levy against those with mental illness; how depression is interpreted as laziness, how mood swings are framed as manipulative, how people with “severe” mental illnesses are assumed incompetent or dangerous.

The quiet, occasionally-class-skipping student watched this discussion with keen interest. After class, as people filtered out of the room, she hung back and asked to talk to me. And then she disclosed that she had a mental illness and was actively working to treat it. She was busy with therapy and switching medications, and all the side effects that entails. Sometimes, she was not able to leave the house or sit still in a classroom for hours. She didn’t dare tell her other professors that this was why she was missing classes and late, sometimes, on assignments; they’d think she was using her illness as an excuse. But she trusted me to understand.

And I did. And I was so, so angry that this student was made to feel responsible for her symptoms. She was balancing a full course load, a part-time job, and ongoing, serious mental health treatment. And she was capable of intuiting her needs and communicating them with others. She was a fucking badass, not a lazy fuck. I told her so.

She took many more classes with me after that, and I saw her slowly come out of her shell. By her Junior and Senior years, she was an active, frank contributor to class — she even decided to talk openly with her peers about her mental illness. During class discussions, she challenged me and asked excellent, probing questions. She shared tons of media and current-events examples of psychological phenomena with us. When she was having a bad day, she told me, and I let her miss class. Other professors — including ones in the psychology department — remained judgmental towards her, but in an environment where her barriers were recognized and legitimized, she thrived.

…

Over the years, at that same school, I encountered countless other students who were under-estimated because the barriers in their lives were not seen as legitimate. There was the young man with OCD who always came to class late, because his compulsions sometimes left him stuck in place for a few moments. There was the survivor of an abusive relationship, who was processing her trauma in therapy appointments right before my class each week. There was the young woman who had been assaulted by a peer — and who had to continue attending classes with that peer, while the school was investigating the case.

These students all came to me willingly, and shared what was bothering them. Because I discussed mental illness, trauma, and stigma in my class, they knew I would be understanding. And with some accommodations, they blossomed academically. They gained confidence, made attempts at assignments that intimidated them, raised their grades, started considering graduate school and internships. I always found myself admiring them. When I was a college student, I was nowhere near as self-aware. I hadn’t even begun my lifelong project of learning to ask for help.

…

Students with barriers were not always treated with such kindness by my fellow psychology professors. One colleague, in particular, was infamous for providing no make-up exams and allowing no late arrivals. No matter a student’s situation, she was unflinchingly rigid in her requirements. No barrier was insurmountable, in her mind; no limitation was acceptable. People floundered in her class. They felt shame about their sexual assault histories, their anxiety symptoms, their depressive episodes. When a student who did poorly in her classes performed well in mine, she was suspicious.

It’s morally repugnant to me that any educator would be so hostile to the people they are supposed to serve. It’s especially infuriating, that the person enacting this terror was a psychologist. The injustice and ignorance of it leaves me teary every time I discuss it. It’s a common attitude in many educational circles, but no student deserves to encounter it.

…

I know, of course, that educators are not taught to reflect on what their students’ unseen barriers are. Some universities pride themselves on refusing to accommodate disabled or mentally ill students — they mistake cruelty for intellectual rigor. And, since most professors are people who succeeded academically with ease, they have trouble taking the perspective of someone with executive functioning struggles, sensory overloads, depression, self-harm histories, addictions, or eating disorders. I can see the external factors that lead to these problems. Just as I know that “lazy” behavior is not an active choice, I know that judgmental, elitist attitudes are typically borne of out situational ignorance.

And that’s why I’m writing this piece. I’m hoping to awaken my fellow educators — of all levels — to the fact that if a student is struggling, they probably aren’t choosing to. They probably want to do well. They probably are trying. More broadly, I want all people to take a curious and empathic approach to individuals whom they initially want to judge as “lazy” or irresponsible.

If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it — some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed.

People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them, or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder.

Maybe you weren’t always able to look at human behavior this way. That’s okay. Now you are. Give it a try.

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workfromhomeyoutuber · 5 years ago

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SpinupWP: Full Stack Laravel Developer (Vue.js)

Headquarters: Remote URL: https://spinupwp.com/

Hi, my name is Brad Touesnard. I’m the founder of Delicious Brains Inc. We make high quality products for WordPress.

The “we” is currently a small team of six developers, one designer, one marketer, and myself. I’m very proud to say that our little crew has been managing to delight thousands of customers for years.

In addition to this position, I’m currently in the process of hiring a Developer Writer and a WordPress Developer with plans for more soon. We have big plans for 2020. Exciting times!

The Job

Back in November 2018, we launched a new SaaS product called SpinupWP (a modern cloud-based server control panel designed for WordPress). We launched out of beta in May last year and have been growing steadily ever since. We’ve helped thousands of customers spin up over 8,000 sites, perform over 62,000 site backups, and perform over 660,000 tasks!

Currently, Gilbert and Ash work full-time on SpinupWP developing and maintaining the app as well as supporting all of our customers. Lewis, our in-house designer helps with all things design as well.

I’m looking for a talented Laravel developer to join Gilbert and Ash to help build new features for SpinupWP as well as help out with support and documentation.

The app is built using Laravel (PHP) and the front-end is built using Vue.js, so lots of experience with both frameworks and their associated tooling is essential. You’ll also be using Ansible to make sure SpinupWP provisions servers and creates and maintains sites using our LEMP stack (Nginx, PHP, MySQL, Redis, etc) so sysadmin experience of hosting sites/web apps is also essential.

We currently work in eight-week cycles with a two-week cooldown period where you can work on whatever you want from the SpinupWP backlog. All of our code is committed to GitHub and your code will be reviewed by Gilbert or Ash using GitHub pull requests. You’ll also be reviewing Gilbert and Ash’s code.

Responsibilities

Help plan and define the scope of new features

Build new features using modern PHP (Laravel), JavaScript (Vue) and Ansible

Work on bug fixes and improvements during each cycle

Maintain and write new unit and acceptance tests

Write documentation and in-app copy

Support our customers via email

Write articles and tutorials for our blog

Attend company retreats (see details below)

Requirements

Expert PHP & JavaScript development skills

10,000+ hours (6+ years working full-time) of advanced PHP development

10,000+ hours of HTML & CSS development

10,000+ hours of advanced JavaScript development

8,000+ hours (5+ years working full-time) of project work with Laravel

5,000+ hours (3+ years working full-time) of project work with Vue.js

1,600+ hours (1+ years working full-time) of project work with git as source control

Sysadmin experience hosting sites/web apps on Nginx, PHP, MySQL, Redis

Experience writing automated tests

Excellent English communication skills (spoken and written)

Work hours in a North America time zone

Self-motivated and work well independently

Comfortable working remotely (we don’t have an office)

Nice-to-Have

Experience with WordPress

Experience with Ansible

Experience building and using REST APIs

UX and design skills

Open source contributions

Computer Science degree or equivalent

About You

You’re excited about the prospect of working on the full spectrum of tasks that are required to build a successful SaaS app. From backend and frontend development, sysadmin, design and UX to documentation and support. You don’t mind wearing multiple hats on any given day.

You’re curious and love to learn. You embrace the opportunity to level up, learn something new and really dig into it. You’re a disciplined worker and have no trouble getting work done at home on any given day.

You value consistency above preference and will adopt new coding styles, standards, and tools to that end. You are stellar at identifying the simple, elegant solution in a sea of over-engineering possibilities.

Although you often need people to help you generate ideas and formulate a plan of attack on a project, you do your best work in isolation without interruption. You’re proactive in tackling things that need to be done without direction.

You’re exceptional at communicating in writing via instant message, email, etc. You’re ok on the phone and video chat too. You understand that clear, concise written communication is how remote teams thrive. Putting a pull request up for review without explaining its context is unheard of for you.

You own both successes and failures. When a project you’re leading turns into a disaster, you own it and you learn from it. You never point the finger at others.

You invite criticism and genuinely want to grow as a professional. You’re onboard with pushing each other to be better and are not afraid to give constructive criticism in addition to receiving it.

Perks

Location Independent. Work from wherever you’re happiest, as long as you can make scheduled meetings.

Choose Your Schedule. Most companies claim to have flexible hours, but the reality is often very different. We flex our hours for real. 💪As long you’re hitting 30-37.5 hours per week on average and you do what you say you’ll do, we’re good.

Company Retreats. As a remote company, it’s super important to get some face time. Last year we met up in Berlin and we’re headed to Portugal in June. Will you be joining us?

Personal Development. If there’s a conference or event that will help you level up, the company will cover your expenses. You’re also allotted 3 hours per month to learn something new, participate in community discussions, and/or contribute to an open source project.

Profit Sharing. I present a Profit & Loss report to the team quarterly so everyone knows how the company is doing. And when the company does well, the team does well.

Company Holidays. Things get pretty quiet in late December / early January, so we always treat ourselves to a couple of weeks off to reboot during this time.

Paid Leave. For the birth or adoption of a child, the company offers 8 weeks of 100% paid leave for primary caregivers and 3 weeks for secondary caregivers. We also offer 5 paid sick days and 3 days of paid bereavement leave.

Competitive Salaries. The company pays salaries that are competitive with the market in which you reside. We don’t use the benefits of remote as leverage to negotiate lower salaries.

Apply

Fill out the application form: https://deliciousbrains.com/laravel-developer-apply

We are an equal opportunity employer. Application information that is prone to unconscious biases is hidden during the review process whenever possible. We judge the content of the applications on their own without knowledge of the applicant’s race, color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, physical or mental disability, or age. We support workplace diversity, but not at the expense of equal opportunity and meritocracy. We’re looking for talented and empathetic people no matter their other attributes.

I look forward to reviewing your application.

Best of luck,

Brad Touesnard Founder & CEO Delicious Brains Inc.

To apply: https://deliciousbrains.com/laravel-developer-apply

from We Work Remotely: Remote jobs in design, programming, marketing and more https://ift.tt/38s5SKk from Work From Home YouTuber Job Board Blog https://ift.tt/38AAtp2

#WorkFromHome #OnlineJobs #RemoteJobs #Entrepreneur #WorkFromHomeJobs #WorkAtHomeJobs #Self Em

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gaudeixcc · 5 years ago

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Peloton News – Germany calling

Last weekend I rode with 2 English riders who speak German. It’s not their natural language, but since they are both taking coin out of Merkel’s economy, I guess it made sense to put some effort in and learn.

JT has been firing employees in Germany for a couple of years now and is getting more and more comfortable despatching the walking dead with a Bavarian lilt. Neil, who has a proper job it turns out, has been there a similar amount of time.

Unlike the usual peloton career, Neil’s job is making real things. On deeper discussion, turns out he’s made the engine for one of the early hot hatches, the good old Ford focus ST170. He’s actually designed and made the thing. With his team of people. This is indeed useful and pretty impressive. James just yells at people. Dripping wanders the country with his health and safety clipboard and pencil round his neck, Macca drives a bus (albeit in the sky), RTA is in Insurance marketing so no doubt spends his days imagineering. The rest of us, well, it’s non-too impressive is it fellas..? I mean, me being able to navigate post-it notes and a flip chart stacks up pretty poorly against a man who makes engines for Henry’s firm.

Anyway, Neil was very modest about the whole thing, so I just sat there quietly hoping he was going to be shit at cycling so it would make me feel better.

He wasn’t. Bollocks.

Anyway, more of that shortly.

In numerous cafés and restaurants my 2 faux-Germans baffled me with what looked like pretty good conversational German deployed to numerous waiting staff. The waiting staff responded in kind and clearly communication was occurring which everyone understood.

Everyone that is, except me.

I sat there feeling like somebody’s Granny. Listening to the waiter, then turning to James and half shouting ‘what did he say?’

I don’t understand James at the best of times. I understand him even less when he is barking his shouty orders to menials in verse I don’t follow.

Still, German and indeed Germany suits JT. There is a ruthless efficiency to the country that perfectly apes our diminutive chums’ approach to life and work.

On the last night after 2 days of amazing/horrific bicycling, JT took me to the local German pub. We marched into the gaff… through the gaff… and out the other side into the Garden. There must have been half a thousand people in the Garden, all sat at benches drinking massive glasses of lager and eating food.

‘See the blue table clothes?’ squeaks JT ‘That’s where you can buy beer from here but bring your own food’.

A-huh.

‘See those table over there’ Sayeth James with a pointy finger that has dispatched many a quivering underling from his office on the 20th floor of Sky towers. ‘Table service’.

Er…ok.

‘and this section is self-service. Follow me’.

The next 90 seconds were a bit of a blur. But here goes an accurate (for once) account of what happened next.

James orders me a plate of Pork knuckle from a large German man who looks like he’s lived on nothing else. Within seconds it’s on my plate with a dumpling and gravy.

‘Veg James?’…… The place went quiet….James’ eyes narrowed and also spoke (a first for eyes). ‘Oh do fuck off’ they said.

No veg then.

5 seconds later we were at another counter. Behind this one another large German stood with his back to us. He was drawing lager from a cask which could have easily accommodated a cow. It looked like this was wasn’t just his job, it wasn’t his vocation, it wasn’t even his dream. It was his utter and complete meaning. Without even turning he placed a pulled litre of lager firmly onto the counter. James took it and put it on my tray. 5 seconds later he’d done it again, another lager on the counter. No looking. No talking. No contact. Just lager. James nabbed the next one up and the hurried me off the counter number 3.

Payment.

James paid for both within seconds (a first) and noted down in his little leather-bound accounting ledger the transaction and proposed apportionment (muscle memory).

We sat down.

90 seconds. Seriously. Breath-taking efficiency which has been giving JT wet dreams since the moment he landed in Munich central.

The food and beer were sensational. I had been dreaming of both during the 2 cycling days. Meat on a big bone accompanied by lager. Don’t over complicate perfection with greenery and other such fripperies.

We both sat there and reflected on the preceding coupla days.

‘Well, I’m getting an electric bike. That’s all there is to it’.

JT in one of the peloton’s strongest riders. Surely a couple of German/Austrian hills can’t do this to a man? I know he’s not done much training, but how hard can riding a bicycle up a hill be for pities sake?

Pretty hard is the answer to that one.

Near the town of Zell am See, nestled in the Austrian alps, lies a mountain. Großglockner. This is the highest peak in the Austrian alps and has been a pass for human traffic for over 3,500 years. The road probably wasn’t tarmacked back then and they definitely didn’t charge 35 Euros to haul your car up and down the mountain like they do now. Still, with around 2,000 meters of climbing for nearly 20k, 8% as an average was always going to be tough.

Interesting fact number 1. James has done next to no training. Interesting fact number 2. I have done quite a bit of training. Fact 3. I have also been consistent with shovelling Haribo and Dolly mixture down my greedy gullet of recent. This could all be very interesting indeed.

Obligatory photos are taken at the foot of the hill before we set off.

Now I am in no hurry to bust a gut on this one. We have the Pyrenees beckoning and for JT and I, this is very much ‘getting your eye in’ type of stuff.

Still, it doesn’t stop me putting an initial sprint in after 15 seconds on the hill. I’m in the lead. I’m already regretting having done that. Normal order resumes as Neil and JT gently pedal past, James shaking his head slowly.

We all settle in to a rhythm. Neil has a fast-paced cadence which is I suspect measurably accurate and consistent to within 0.05 rpm. He looks professional with his 95 revolutions every minute. I have a cadence of similar accuracy, the only difference being I occasionally mash the pedals, more often than not vary the speed of rotation between about 5-15 rpm, sometimes I kick over the top, sometimes I drag back and lift, sometimes I go for the fluid movement (but for never more than 8 pedal strokes in a row). Other than that, in comparing form we could literally be cycling brothers…

The hill is hard. The 8% climb is unrelenting. And the weather is starting to degrade. Gentle drizzle spits in and out of existence and whilst warm, clothes are starting to cloy to skin.

Unusually for a ride with JT, he doesn’t fuck right off into the future to leave me to my own mental demons. He’s up the road from me, but not that far. Probably about 100 meters or so.

We climb. The scenery is stunning, despite cloud significantly obscuring the best views.

Within half an hour we are high high up. 8% of climbing has seen us well into the sky. Trouble is, inside my head I can hear the voices complaining loudly about the effort…the drudge… the slog. It is hard going. You forget what proper hill work is like. We remember all too easily the tea and slice of cake at the crest of previous efforts, followed by the flowing downhill of ribboned tarmac folded across alpine pastures. Today is stark and real. This stuff is tough. I project forward to the Pyrenees. I know James is ahead of me doing exactly the same thing.

Training wise neither of us are in the ‘too little, too late’ category and the Pyrenees may be steadier in gradient. Still, a resolve is being independently crafted by both of us to put some real effort into quality training in the remaining weeks.

Of course, I’m now in Turkey caning the ‘all you can eat’ buffet and drinking the resort out of pina coladas and Baileys. Other than that, quality training is my mantra. (There is no Haribo at this hotel. I have written to governor of the local province to ask him what the flaming heck is going on under his watch. I’ve had to resort to eating iced buns for goodness sake. I’m battling through the obvious discomfort this whole situation is causing me).

It’s an hour into the climb. JT and I are now cycling together. For a period of time I’ve actually been ahead. This is a most unusual experience. It’s like a different universe where I am the one with cycling talent. JT is the one who is frustrated and annoyed. I think if provoked, there may even be a little wheelie in the locker too…. But I’m too tired to irk him with this sort of behaviour. Instead, we both push on.

Neil is ahead and is looking comfortable (well, as comfortable as you can be on an increasingly cold and wet mountain).

We pass a sign showing the 1,900 meter mark. As a group we commit to go to 2,000 meters. It’s a good mental stimulus. Something to focus on. The signs come and go and the metric altitude counter seems to only inch up (I thought about that sentence for too long!).

We round a corner, JT in front, expecting to see the 2,000 meter sign. It’s not there! I can literally see the man deflate in front of me. He stops. Arms folded across bars. Head hanging. He’s in a tough spot. We’ve all been there. Ready to hurl your bike off the side of a mountain and just sit your arse down. It’s brutal. It’s miserable. It’s cycling.

We cross the road into a lay-by and call Neil back. As we discuss options, a cloud literally comes down the road toward us. A cloud. Actually, on the road. This is all JT and I need. I reach into JT’s imaginary rucksack and haul out the white towel and hurl it up the road. That’s it. We are done. Wheels about and off we coast.

The next 15 minutes are technically quite challenging. Slick roads, winds and drizzle combined with increasing cold. I’ve got the brakes applied for nearly the whole duration of the decent. My new wheels are great, but I’ve not ridden these tyres before. My old Conti 4,000’s gave ultra-confidence and I’m just getting my eye in with these Bontragers.

I over-cook one or two turns, but other than that, we were down a lot quicker than we were up.

We now have a flat 15 or so K before we get back to the hotel.

There is a tiredness in the team. Weariness. Like post-lunch toddlers, nap time is upon us. We have no choice. We look at the stats and the numbers don’t quite tell the story of the ride. That consistent gradient was the real killer. Combine that with JT’s lack of prep (my ok prep, ok-ish weight and less than ok age these days) and reality bites. We talk about comparative difficulty. This is probably up there with a Stelvio/Croix de Fer… that sort of thing.

That evening at drinks, a funny thing became apparent. Zell am See is a small town in the Austrian state of Slatzberg. Nothing funny there you would have thought. We were munching down on a burger post-pint and I slowly became aware of the general population mix and ethnicity. There seemed to be a fair few Gulf state rich folk and their families milling about the place. When I say a fair few, I would estimate that the general tourist population was 75% Gulf state. I’d definitely not noticed this proportional representation anywhere else whilst in Austria/Germany. So what gives?

JT is hardwired to the Internet and quickly found an answer.

Apparently back in the day, some smart bod on the town council thought that their picturesque town, crystal clear lakes and mountainous back-drop was an absolute shoo-in for the description of paradise laid out in the Quran. And so off started a spectacularly successful marketing campaign directed Emirates way. And so, every summer, thousands upon thousands of well-shod Arabs head toward this little town to get out of the desert heat and spend some of their hard earned on Austrian trinkets and general tourist junk. They even had a shop there selling hookah pipes. Although I’m not sure which foolish gulf resident is going to rock-up back in Qatar with his genuine Austrian Hookar pipe and show it off to his mates…. Wouldn’t that be akin to going to the Galapagos to pick up some Kendal mint cake?

Next day saw some more gentle weather. The cycling with picturesque and generally less battering than 24 hour earlier.

There was however one notable exception.

One section stood out. 20% of solid climbing for what turned out to be perhaps a third of a mile.

I don’t think I’ve ever bicycled slower. Out of the saddle and still I reckon I’m doing 3mph.

James is behind me (repeat, James is behind me). It’s funny how such a simple statement can give me such warm comfort.

Anyway, I’m struggling… unbeknownst to me James has been doing my old Alpine skiing trick of traversing. Cheeky fucker. Still, when I threw in my own towel (might be a first that… beaten by a hill) I looked back down the road and was pleased to see that JT had also had enough.

When I re-tell this particular story, James was 700 yards back. When he retells it, he was literally nibbling my rear wheel. Either way, we were both shamed into walking up a steep hill, bike being led up like some tethered goat.

At the top we again pondered the upcoming Pyrenees trip.

There is a little less than 4-weeks before 9 riders of varying levels of fitness attack a Grande Tour and this year there is a definite hint of nervousness.

Some have trained really hard. Some of have trained fairly hard. Some of just trained and some have just thought about training.

Whichever camp you sit in (and you all know exactly which one that will be), remember that riding in scenery like this is a privilege and we are all lucky to be able to be there, whatever level of training. Memories for life are booked in for 11th September.

Will we have another ‘Moley walking through the saloon doors with tears in his eyes’ moment?

Will we see Macca snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as Damo hunts him, down to the line?

Will ColMac shout ‘Buongiorno’ directly in the face of any local who has the foolishness to catch his gaze?

Who knows. For the first time in years thought the form book is well and truly wide open.

Whilst HRH and RTA will no doubt be dancing near the top of the pack, will Damo’s recent hard-yards see him flirting with the podium?

After those three, the remaining 6 look like a complete and utter shambles of a team. I think I’m going to take a photo of the ‘calamity six’ and make one of those motivational posters out of it.

There is one I’ve seen which shows a silhouette of a guy on a race bike at sunset. The slogan is ‘Effort and determination are the key to going the extra mile’.

The calamity six poster will be ‘Effort. This lot should have fucking put some in’.

So here we go again. Tour upcoming. Nerves a janglin’. Damo’s tuck shop is being stocked as we speak.

Let’s all keep everything crossed for Dripping, his new hip and his knackered back to make it there. If he can do it, the rest of you can pipe down and suffer in silence…!

G19….. this is most definitely going to be a tour to remember.

Hoppo

#PelotonNews

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eldritchsurveys · 4 years ago

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915.

If you play The Sims, what occupation do you usually choose? >> I don’t have an occupation that I usually choose. I like to try out different ones, especially since you get different aspiration rewards from maxing out different professions. ...Not that I’ve ever gotten any of those, I can’t seem to play Sims consistently enough to actually max anything out.

Do you know any funny acronyms? If so, tell us a few! >> I can’t think of any funny acronyms... what even makes an acronym funny? Is it, like... SPEW from Harry Potter?

Do you always have to listen to music? >> Not always. But often.

What was the last rule you broke? >> I don’t even know what rules I’m supposed to be bound by, aside from, like... the law.

Have you ever apologized to someone, but didn't mean it? >> I don’t think so. I prefer to just not apologise at all, if I don’t actually mean it.

What is the one thing that you can't resist? >> Stories about mortals getting freaky with eldritch abominations.

Have you ever done another persons homework for money? >> No.

Would you rather have the power to heal or to destroy? >> I’m pretty sure I have the power to do either one, considering those are both things humans are capable of doing with the right resources and knowledge. Also, I’m a child of Red and White, so... you know. Choosing one side or the other is never an option.

If you could be any kitchen utensil, which one would you be? >> Why would I want to be a kitchen utensil?

If you were the paparazzi, who would you stalk? >> I would never be a paparazzo.

What would you do if you were literally stuck in a video game? >> It would obviously depend on what video game I was stuck in, wouldn't it...?

If you owned any animal, what gender would you prefer? >> ---

How much would you pay to see what happens after you die while living? >> I wouldn't pay anything. I mean, that's a strange trade, innit? Meaningless human currency given in return for one of the universe's greatest-kept secrets?

Does your pet often jump onto the keyboard? >> ---

Have you ever treated someone like they were nothing? >> I don’t know, maybe.

Do you feel bad when you forget someones birthday? >> Not usually.

Would you ever name two guard dogs Lynyrd and Skynyrd? >> Hell yeah.

Would you name two guard dogs something similar? >> Helter and Skelter would be fun. Or Abbott and Costello. Heh.

If it was the old days, would you challenge your ex to a sword fight? >> No.

Does it frighten you when animals get into fights? >> Not unless I’m somehow in danger.

For guys: Would you give anything to just carry a cute girls books? For girls: Would you do anything to hold a cute boys hand? >> ---

Have you ever witnessed a ghost playing a piano? >> Now that’d be something to see.

Have you ever changed your favorite color? >> I’ve really only had one in recent years.

Have you ever met any kind strangers? >> Yes.

Would you give anything to be in a certain moment in history? >> No.

When you were little did you touch just about everything in the store? >> No. My father was the hitting type, so I tended to keep my hands to myself out of fear if nothing else.

Do you ever leave your drinks out in the open at a party? >> No.

Are you sometimes a bit too nice? >> I’m usually not "nice” enough, by other people’s standards. Which is fine with me, I think too many people conflate being a compassionate and respectful person with being a fucking pushover.

Do you have to be insensitive if you want to survive in the world? >> Actually, I don’t believe this at all. Despite the fact that I was obviously conditioned to be insensitive and emotionally disconnected, myself. I don’t think it’s done me any favours at all. What was supposed to be a protective measure, a defense, just ended up being a millstone around my neck.

Have you ever listened to a song over and over until it got old? >> Yeah. Not often, though.

In magazines, do you like to smell the pages with perfume scents? >> I did when I was younger. I avoid that kind of thing now.

Have you ever ordered anything from a catalog? >> No.

Has there ever been something so beautiful that you wanted to cry? >> Sure.

Would you support a family member if they became an actor/actress? >> ---

Would you hire someone to scare someone? >> No?

It is in the time of the Salem Witch Trials. Would you be a witch? >> My understanding is that most of the people accused of witchcraft weren’t witches in the first place. Also, there’s one very glaring problem with these hypothetical questions: whose body am I in? If I’m in mine, then what I know of my ethnicity suggests that I wouldn’t be anywhere near Salem during this time period.

What if you were falsely accused of being a witch? >> ---

Is your heart all good or are you still picking up the pieces? >> I’m not in cardiac arrest so I guess my heart is fine for now.

Have you ever opened a loud package in a very quiet environment? >> Well, yeah, like I’ve opened packages while at home alone...

Do you add z's at the end of a word that normally ends with an 's'? >> No.

In libraries, do you tend to whisper just because it is quiet? >> No, I have a low-pitched voice so if I speak at my normal volume it’s pretty quiet as it is. Whispering has this sibilant quality that makes it seem even louder to me, actually.

Did you ever dream of getting into Harvard? >> No.

Do you believe you have to be smart to get through a school like that? >> Not necessarily. There are studious and passionate people who get into Harvard, of course... but my understanding of schools like that is most of the student body got in there by the virtue of the Almighty Dollar.

If you got offered a high paying job without a degree, would you accept? >> What...?

Are you uncomfortable when standing close to strangers? >> Yes. Very.

If you were living on the streets, would you become a thief? >> I did a little thievery while I lived on the streets, mostly from places like Duane Reade (convenience/drug store). But I wouldn’t say I “became a thief”.

Ever suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? >> Much of the criteria of complex post-traumatic stress disorder are applicable to me. So I’ve come to understand a lot of my responses to the world through that lens.

Are you still trying to decide what you want to do for a living? >> No.

Would you be scared if you lived in an old house from the 18th century? >> Not for that reason.

Have you applied to many jobs but haven't gotten one interview? >> I did when I was young. Which is fine, because I probably wouldn’t have been hired anyway (and if I had, it would have been a horrible experience).

Is your laugh more like a giggle or a roar? >> I don’t know, man. I don’t analyse my laughs.

Don't you wish there was such thing as a teleportation device? >> Sometimes.

Can you eat a lemon or is it just too sour or gross? >> I can eat a lemon. I like sour.

Crayons, markers, charcoal, or colored pencils? >> Markers.

Can you draw with charcoal without the picture looking like a blob? >> I don’t know.

Do you hate it when guests come over and they never want to leave? >> I haven’t had this experience, but also, I’m not afraid to start kicking people out when I’m tired of their presence.

Do you like to try to figure out what is wrong with people physically? >> What???

Do you have a relative that'll talk like there is no tomorrow? >> ---

Currently are you experiencing a lot of doubt? >> Not... really?

Do you think you're a real family person? >> I’m not. I’m averse to everything about the word “family”, and have been since I was young. Guess that’s what happens when you’re abandoned by the parent you’re supposed to bond with, and emotionally neglected by the other one that got stuck with you.

Are you a person that'll draw attention to themselves? >> I mean, not intentionally? I don’t really know what this is asking.

Have you ever eavesdropped on all the wrong parts of a conversation? >> This reminds me of that facebook group, Overheard in New York. I’ve overheard some hilarious snippets of conversation in NYC, just because it’s impossible to avoid.

Ever had a clubhouse? Ah, the good days, right? >> No.

#surveys #survey #random survey

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salina4321 · 6 years ago

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Laziness Does Not Exist – Devon Price – Medium

I don’t think laziness was ever at fault.

Ever.

In fact, I don’t believe that laziness exists.

…

I’m a social psychologist, so I’m interested primarily in the situational and contextual factors that drive human behavior. When you’re seeking to predict or explain a person’s actions, looking at the social norms, and the person’s context is usually a pretty safe bet. Situational constraints typically predict behavior far better than personality, intelligence, or other individual-level traits.

There are always barriers. Recognizing those barriers— and viewing them as legitimate — is often the first step to breaking “lazy” behavior patterns.

…

It’s really helpful to respond to a person’s ineffective behavior with curiosity rather than judgment. I learned this from a friend of mine, the writer and activist Kimberly Longhofer (who publishes under Mik Everett). Kim is passionate about the acceptance and accommodation of disabled people and homeless people. Their writing about both subjects is some of the most illuminating, bias-busting work I’ve ever encountered. Part of that is because Kim is brilliant, but it’s also because, at various points in their life, Kim has been both disabled and homeless.

In that chronically uncomfortable, over-stimulating context, needing a drink or some cigarettes makes fucking sense. As Kim explained to me if you’re laying out in the freezing cold, drinking some alcohol may be the only way to warm up and get to sleep. If you’re under-nourished, a few clouds of smoke may be the only thing that kills the hunger pangs. And if you’re dealing with all this while also fighting an addiction, then yes, sometimes you just need to score whatever will make the withdrawal symptoms go away, so you can survive.

Kim’s incredible book about their experiences being homeless while running a bookstore.

But they’re already doing the best they can. I’ve known homeless people who worked full-time jobs, and who devoted themselves to the care of other people in their communities. A lot of homeless people have to navigate bureaucracies constantly, interfacing with social workers, caseworkers, police officers, shelter staff, Medicaid staff, and a slew of charities both well-meaning and condescending. It’s a lot of fucking work to be homeless. And when a homeless or poor person runs out of steam and makes a “bad decision”, there’s a damn good reason for it.

…

Let’s look at a sign of academic “laziness” that I believe is anything but procrastination.

People love to blame procrastinators for their behavior. Putting off work sure looks lazy, to an untrained eye. Even the people who are actively doing the procrastinating can mistake their behavior for laziness. You’re supposed to be doing something, and you’re not doing it — that’s a moral failure, right? That means you’re weak-willed, unmotivated, and lazy, doesn’t it?

When you’re paralyzed with fear of failure, or you don’t even know how to begin a massive, complicated undertaking, it’s damn hard to get shit done. It has nothing to do with desire, motivation, or moral upstandingness. Procrastinators can themselves to work for hours; they can sit in front of a blank word document, doing nothing else, and torture themselves; they can pile on the guilt again and again — none of it makes initiating the task any easier. In fact, their desire to get the damn thing done may worsen their stress and make starting the task harder.

Needing or benefiting from such things doesn’t make a person lazy. It just means they have needs. The more we embrace that, the more we can help people thrive.

…

I had a student who was skipping class. Sometimes I’d see her lingering near the building, right before class was about to start, looking tired. The class would start, and she wouldn’t show up. When she was present in class, she was a bit withdrawn; she sat in the back of the room, eyes down, energy low. She contributed during small group work but never talked during larger class discussions.

But my class had a unit on mental health stigma. It’s a passion of mine because I’m a neuroatypical psychologist. I know how unfair my field is to people like me. The class & I talked about the unfair judgments people levy against those with mental illness; how depression is interpreted as laziness, how mood swings are framed as manipulative, how people with “severe” mental illnesses are assumed incompetent or dangerous.

…

Over the years, at that same school, I encountered countless other students who were under-estimated because the barriers in their lives were not seen as legitimate. There was the young man with OCD who always came to class late because his compulsions sometimes left him stuck in place for a few moments. There was the survivor of an abusive relationship, who was processing her trauma in therapy appointments right before my class each week. There was the young woman who had been assaulted by a peer — and who had to continue attending classes with that peer, while the school was investigating the case.

These students all came to me willingly and shared what was bothering them. Because I discussed mental illness, trauma, and stigma in my class, they knew I would be understanding. And with some accommodations, they blossomed academically. They gained confidence, made attempts at assignments that intimidated them, raised their grades, started considering graduate school and internships. I always found myself admiring them. When I was a college student, I was nowhere near as self-aware. I hadn’t even begun my lifelong project of learning to ask for help.

…

It’s morally repugnant to me that any educator would be so hostile to the people they are supposed to serve. It’s especially infuriating, that the person enacting this terror was a psychologist. The injustice and ignorance of it leave me teary every time I discuss it. It’s a common attitude in many educational circles, but no student deserves to encounter it.

…

Maybe you weren’t always able to look at human behavior this way. That’s okay. Now you are. Give it a try.

Get over that wall!

…

If you found this essay illuminating at all, please consider buying Kim Longhofer / Mik Everett’s book, Self-Published Kindling: Memoirs of a Homeless Bookstore Owner. The ebook is $3; the paperback is $15.

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workfromhomeyoutuber · 5 years ago

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SpinupWP: Laravel Developer

Headquarters: Remote URL: https://spinupwp.com/

Hi, my name is Brad Touesnard. I’m the founder of Delicious Brains Inc. We make high quality products for WordPress.

In addition to this position, I’m currently in the process of hiring a Developer Writer and a WordPress Developer with plans for more soon. We have big plans for 2020. Exciting times!

The Job

Currently, Gilbert and Ash work full-time on SpinupWP developing and maintaining the app as well as supporting all of our customers. Lewis, our in-house designer helps with all things design as well.

I’m looking for a talented Laravel developer to join Gilbert and Ash to help build new features for SpinupWP as well as help out with support and documentation.

Responsibilities

Help plan and define the scope of new features

Build new features using modern PHP (Laravel), JavaScript (Vue) and Ansible

Work on bug fixes and improvements during each cycle

Maintain and write new unit and acceptance tests

Write documentation and in-app copy

Support our customers via email

Write articles and tutorials for our blog

Attend company retreats (see details below)

Requirements

Expert PHP & JavaScript development skills

10,000+ hours (6+ years working full-time) of advanced PHP development

10,000+ hours of HTML & CSS development

10,000+ hours of advanced JavaScript development

8,000+ hours (5+ years working full-time) of project work with Laravel

5,000+ hours (3+ years working full-time) of project work with Vue.js

1,600+ hours (1+ years working full-time) of project work with git as source control

Sysadmin experience hosting sites/web apps on Nginx, PHP, MySQL, Redis

Experience writing automated tests

Excellent English communication skills (spoken and written)

Work hours in a North America time zone

Self-motivated and work well independently

Comfortable working remotely (we don’t have an office)

Nice-to-Have

Experience with WordPress

Experience with Ansible

Experience building and using REST APIs

UX and design skills

Open source contributions

Computer Science degree or equivalent

About You

You own both successes and failures. When a project you’re leading turns into a disaster, you own it and you learn from it. You never point the finger at others.

You invite criticism and genuinely want to grow as a professional. You’re onboard with pushing each other to be better and are not afraid to give constructive criticism in addition to receiving it.

Perks

Location Independent. Work from wherever you’re happiest, as long as you can make scheduled meetings.

Company Retreats. As a remote company, it’s super important to get some face time. Last year we met up in Berlin and we’re headed to Portugal in June. Will you be joining us?

Profit Sharing. I present a Profit & Loss report to the team quarterly so everyone knows how the company is doing. And when the company does well, the team does well.

Company Holidays. Things get pretty quiet in late December / early January, so we always treat ourselves to a couple of weeks off to reboot during this time.

Competitive Salaries. The company pays salaries that are competitive with the market in which you reside. We don’t use the benefits of remote as leverage to negotiate lower salaries.

Apply

Fill out the application form: https://deliciousbrains.com/laravel-developer-apply

I look forward to reviewing your application.

Best of luck,

Brad Touesnard Founder & CEO Delicious Brains Inc.

To apply: https://deliciousbrains.com/laravel-developer-apply

from We Work Remotely: Remote jobs in design, programming, marketing and more https://ift.tt/3bxevpc from Work From Home YouTuber Job Board Blog https://ift.tt/2OIOGsr

#WorkFromHome #OnlineJobs #RemoteJobs #Entrepreneur #WorkFromHomeJobs #WorkAtHomeJobs #Self Em

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