#and if we get more unionized workplaces out of it i'm happy

[a-method-in-it]

So because this has spread well beyond my followers, I want to add something here:

I am a labor activist and a union steward. I've stood on picket lines. I've helped organized strikes. I 100% believe in organizing work --- of all kinds --- to improve people's lives and build a better world.

I also am a realist. If you do on-the-ground organizing you have to be. Organizing is hard. It's grueling. It's exhausting. It requires creativity and compromise. It requires you to care about people, and to care about them as they are and not as you want them to be. The emotional labor involved is on a level I think most people are simply not prepared for.

And all of it gets so infinitely harder when the law isn't on your side. I did union stuff under the Trump-majority NLRB and I'm still doing it under the Biden-majority NLRB. We are getting more done now.

So my frustration is not with people who believe in organizing. I am one of those people! My frustration is with people who think that organizing is a magic bullet that will solve all our problems and (especially) the ones who say therefore we don't have to engage with elections.

So to those people: Please organize one (1) workplace. Tell me if you still feel this way.

You know that Chris Fleming line that goes "Call yourself a community organizer even though you're not on speaking terms with your roommates"?

I honestly think every leftist who talks about the "revolution" like Christians talk about the rapture needs to spend a year trying to organize their workplace. Anyone who sincerely talks about building a movement so vast and all-encompassing that it overwhelms all existing power structures needs the dose of humility that comes with realizing they can't even build a movement to get people paid better at a badly run AMC Theaters where everyone already hates the manager.

[oscar-wilde-thing]

Four years ago I sat in a psychiatrist's office. I was explaining why a certain Cognitive Behavioral Therapy technique felt impossible.

"If I don't think I know how a social interaction is going to work out, if I don't know the pattern, I can't do it."

The Dr nodded, and we moved on.

A few sessions later, she said she didn't think she could work with me anymore.

Great, I thought to myself. I'm being dumped by my therapist.

"I don't think I can work with you, because I think you're autistic."

I literally felt my world shift underneath me.

She explained more, about social interactions, about hyper sensitivity, about pattern recognition and anxiety and early-life academic achievement. I did end up stopping treatment with her, I don't really remember why. But I held that suggestion in my head.

The end of 2019 was rocky- working retail around the holidays is its own special hell, and my grandmother died in December of that year.

Then 2020 happened. COVID and isolation and protests and my workplace unionizing. Through all of that I was reading, and watching videos, and researching. About how autism and neurodivergency presents differently in girls and AFAB people. How the research is incredibly outdated and mostly focused on white, middle class boys. How getting a diagnosis as an adult, let alone an AFAB adult, is a fight.

I kept trucking along, learning new ways to cope. Figuring out that sometimes what I had thought were anxiety attacks was actually sensory overload. That my penchant for spreadsheets and what I called my "encyclopedic nerd brain" were probably hyper fixations.

It took 4 years.

4 years, 8 more mental health professionals, a mental breakdown, a month in residential mental health care, and 5 more months in acute daily mental health care, but today, at 12:55PM, I was officially diagnosed with Autism.

I'm sitting here at my desk weeping because I'm both so happy and so angry. Happy that there's a reason I feel the way I feel, that there's a reason why the world seems so harsh, that there's a reason why I sometimes physically can't talk and a reason why certain foods and sounds and textures make me want to crawl out of my skin. But I'm also so angry that it took 26 years for anyone to see. That it took another 4 years for me to get any answers. That there are countless other little girls and adult AFABS like me out there who feel like they're doing everything they're supposed to but not getting what the world tells them they should be getting.

My life has changed. Or maybe it hasn't changed. Maybe a door has opened that had never been seen before.

I'm not sure how to wrap this up.

I just know that learning more about myself is rarely a bad thing. And now that I know this big piece of who I am, I'll be able to go forward and learn more ways to exist in this world as an autistic person.

[franki-lew-yo]

Worst year of your life so far

It's hard not to feel like every time a moderately good and nice or even great thing happens to me I ought to expect and inconvenience or a TERRIBLE thing to happen right after. This is genuinely why I'm afraid to be happy. I don't have an exact religion, I'm just certain that I am in fact an evil person or at least some evil person's revitalized soul. Since November of last year my life has been, in this order:

>Receive notice that I might owe SSI 15k because a miscalculation says they're overpaying me. I don't have 15k or stashed away 15k. I've been using every cent of money given to survive and pay back overdue fees. Life coach is sure I won't have to pay anything. I don't believe her.

>Find out that the location of my jobsite is being terminated within a week before the site is closed down. Can not be moved to a new location. The chain is dying. No location has room for me.

>Spend the days up to Christmas helping my coworkers who were a lot of times my only non-family communication, tear apart our store and then become strangers. The worst part is when they have me throw out hundreds of dollars of boutique clothes because the company wants to write it off as a reduction, DIRECTLY into a garbage bin. We'll be terminated from any further locations if we're caught trying to save or sneak away with anything. It's Christmas time and here's some clothes for needy people and my company is literally throwing them in a landfill. I just watch.

>Is repeatedly told by my job coach, REPEATEDLY, that I will get a job at a place which shares my old workplace's union. Nope. I don't. They string the both of us along for four months. By the time we move on to a new place in mind THAT job opportunity fizzles out after too many tries. My job coach and I have a fight and he doesn't talk to me or wants to see me. I feel nothing but shame. He and his wife are going through their own crisis.

>While ALL of this is happening I'm watching an active genocide a take place in real time. I try to do my daily clicks and boycott as much as possible. Come August I use up the rest of my unemployment money donating to any vetted fundraiser I can. I hope, I HOPE every time that THIS MONTH must be the last month of this slaughter. The powers that be have to do something...the answer is a resounding no. More and more innocent families are butchered. I can't offer anything really substantial.

>TWICE. TWICE IN ONE YEAR- my EBT gets cut off until I repeal it.

>My sister and I are both unemployed and in mental (in her case physical anguish). We blow up at each other more than once, especially over politics. She gets a job that she hates and is dangerous before the thankfully quits. She gets another job and is layed off for no reason in the same week she gets it.

>Can't afford a real dentist. Have to do a dentist-intern who tells me to watch my cavities that I have but no they can't do anything about it.

>My laptop's mouse stops working. It's fine for tablet but it means I need to use an external mouse for everything casual and writing. I'm already avoiding doing too much digital artwork on account of not wanting to wear down my system. Oh also my screen has a shadow on in.

>My mom is evicted from the house she and her boyfriend have lived in for years now and is forced to live in my grandpa's house which HE'S been forced to move out of. It was also a house I had lived in for awhile as well and so all of my sister and my own childhood things have to come back with us to our apartment. We don't have room. I'm going to have to downsize so many of my things.

>Catch covid because I was too stupid to bother with a booster. It delays getting me my new job and tasting anything for a month. Also delays me getting to work on the art I need done by September/October.

>Dog gets a bad flea infestation almost immediately after this because of summer heat. Also she wasn't on flea medication when it happened.

>My new job is two days a week rather than three. Lesser pay than what I used to have. All throughout October my schedule is cut to one day a week. I can never truly finish my job for my supervisors like they need to of me.

>Life coach assigns new job specialist; the one who got me my job. New specialist tells me all about Tiktok and how I need it and how I ought to download and post more on there. When I ask her for help navigating the platform and for her to help me on my social media art campaign; she shuts me out. Tells me repeatedly she's not versed in social media and tells me to instead take an online class. That's not what I want from her I want her to support me as an artist and that means occasionally just following my pages. She gives me a hard "no". Literally all my plans for a semi-active youtube, tiktok and instagram campaign fall apart. If I can not be supported even emotionally what's the POINT??

>I learn just this night how I unintentionally deeply hurt one of my oldest friends on the platform when I get the courage to ask if she's really upset with me or not. She blocks me mid me trying to ask for more information on the incident that hurt her. I do think I wronged her, but it's that I didn't even know I did that HURTS. Another one of my friends is right in the way of a frikin hurricane.

>Sister/Roommate is diagnosed with a condition that makes drawing difficult. I try not to draw near or around her as much as possible. It hurts. We are both still artists.

>Next door neighbor who's made creepy sexual comments about me to my sister throws dog poop on my sister's car at night. He thinks it's our dog even though I'M THE ONE picking up our dog's poop every single time.

and finally

>Country elects the same admitted fascist we kicked out for starting a riot.

Art, fandom and my dog is literally all I have. It is my one and only escape and happiness. I would be proud of myself and how much I've matured since just last year, but I can't. I can't be because I'm too miserable and so is everyone else around me. People tell me it's my fault or not my fault, people tell me I can help but won't or that I can't help at all. It's never enough. I wish I could be a better friend towards every one of you. I wish I could be a better creator. I wish I could find the time in my schedule to find a time in my therapists' schedule to see me again. All I ever feel like is an entitled garbage heap for even complaining when so many people are suffering to such an insane degree. Even the campaign people coming to me about how they want me to reblog their posts trigger me on account of how so many seem to forget they've already talked to me before. The fact that I am forgotten by circumstances where people can't remember anyone's username hurts me when it shouldn't.

I just want it all to stop.

----

And, for the first time, I actually want to thank you if you somehow read any of this. This is going to get deleted soon (or maybe not) because it is a trauma dump and TMI.

And yet I genuinely needed to get all of that off my chest. I am INCREDIBLY stressed out and hate to feel bad for myself because that just makes me hate myself and then feel more bad for myself AGAIN rather than do what I keep saying I want to do and help people. I wish this clarity and odd inner-peace wasn't brought about by such turmoil and inner pain. I wish that so much. I guess to quote Art Spiegelman quoting someone else: "Samuel Beckett once said: 'Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.'...but then again, he did say it."

[ceasarslegion]

As someone who is a member of a teamsters local union it kinda irritates me when tumblr users who have never worked a unionized job act like you can "just unionize" or that unionizing means all your problems will disappear overnight or that striking is always unilaterally the best decision or my least favourite, when they act like unions can't be corrupt or have issues.

A union is not the solution to the problem of your employer, a union is a stage to stand on against them. You still have to negotiate. And sometimes it won't work in your favour. A lot of the time it won't actually

A union is only as strong as the people in it. If your reps and shop stewards and coworkers are wishy washy and/or corrupt, your union will be too. This is the current problem in my own workplace, we have like one good shop steward and everyone else is so shit that people often request their friends to witness disciplinary action instead of a shop steward because their friends will have their backs better than them. Security guard unions are so hit or miss in my experience and this one is a miss. Compared to some others I'm forking over twice the dues for half the benefits every month, they care more about the union elections and that their personal friends get special treatment than actually doing their jobs for all of us.

And no, it's not that easy to "just unionize." Youre more likely to get fired than establish a union, especially if you have the attitude that being loud and obnoxious about it is going to do it, and double especially if you think that a union is going to solve all your workplace problems overnight.

And saying all this does not make anybody anti-union. We don't have to be happy with half a meal just because the alternative is starving. I might have job security but the job itself is still ass and the employer still beats everything they can out of us. That didn't change just because we have paid sick days and an unlimited shift trade board

[void-galaxy-shenanigans]

^^

This, 100%. But also as someone who worked this kind of job it *is* sincerely helpful when customers understand what’s going on behind the scenes.

I’m absolutely not saying it’s the customers’ fault, or that you shouldn’t unionize, or that it’s not understaffing (I’m extremely aware that that’s about 90% of most of the problems we faced). You’re right and I wish that could have happened, been fixed, etc. (I’m at a new job that, fingers crossed, seems to be much better about this.)

What I *am* saying is that customers tend to be more patient and understanding if they know what we’re up to / expected to do. Especially in the meantime while we are forced to be understaffed.

We’re *technically* not supposed to tell customers that we’re understaffed or why we’re struggling or any of that, but as an autistic who’s sometimes brutally honest, sometimes I would anyway. It usually gave customers a sense of relief, ironically (because then they understood we weren’t intentionally slow or ignoring them, and that it wasn’t their particular order or anything special about them that made us struggle).

I was a cashier. I was the one who typed in some of these orders. I was sometimes the one who yelled it into the kitchen if we had a big order so that the people on fryer or sandwich maker positions could prepare a couple minutes early, to save all the time we could. (“40 nuggets going out!” (we had to drop a new bag, that was usually all we had & sometimes more than we had); “nine burgers going out!”)

So whether it was during a cleaning time, during a rush, or close to close, I would tell the customer what was going on. It made both of our lives easier.

“We had three people call in, so we’re a little short staffed. It may be a few extra minutes to get your food; ¿is that okay?” Sometimes that could save someone on their work lunch break, or it would at least give them the chance to ask for it to-go so they had time to return to their workplace. Sometimes it told them they had time to run to the restroom or call a friend to come visit.

“We have five people running ten positions today; I’m so sorry for the delay. ¿What can we get you?” Usually a quick explanation with an apology made the customer smile, relax, and order their food. Sometimes they would ask questions and make sure we were going to be alright when we were short staffed.

As long as it was brief, and often accompanied with an apology (‘sorry for the delay’), a question (‘is that okay’), or both (‘we're short staffed today, I'm sorry for the delay. is it okay if you have to wait a couple extra minutes before your food is ready? we'll get it out as soon as we can’), then customers felt reassured, relieved, respected, or at least less upset.

The customers also usually felt like they were being let in on a secret, in a happy & connective way. They would lean in, murmur curiosity, ask questions about how being short-staffed worked/affected us or about what each position was expected to do (not in an intrusive way, more of a ‘how many responsibilities are you expected to juggle? ...oh wow, that's actually a lot. can I make your job a little easier?’ kind of way). Often this meant explaining that as the cashier, I was typing in orders and giving out drink cups or specialty drinks, but I was also getting orders out to customers at the other part of the counter (two positions, supposed to be two people at least, but they usually had the cashier do it all), and I was somehow expected to still stay on top of keeping the dining room swept, the tables cleaned, touch points wiped down, finger prints off of anything glass, wiping down soda machines & replacing anything that ran out, restocking the straws/lids/portion cups/etc.— I was expected to basically do the physical labour of two to three people so corporate didn’t have to pay three people and lose a tiny bit of profit, and ‘risk’ somebody having a chance to rest and breathe (“if you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean”).

Obviously we couldn’t share some information (upcoming sales or profit info or whatnot that we’d get sued for sharing), but if I was allowed legally to share it (even if it was frowned upon), I would.

Sometimes I’d even run the drive through alone, and that’s supposed to be minimum three people (I think it should have been four). I’d have to take orders at the loudspeaker (talk to the customer, ask the questions so I got the info we needed to make it, & type it all in), cashier at the window and try to minimize the small talk (so I had time to do everything), and also bag and hand out the order. That’s not including that I had to make drinks, and only the soda machine was close by. If they wanted anything else (coffee, lemonade, etc.) I had to go around the corner away from my register to make it, then bring the drink(s) over to the window (and sometimes they ordered several of those speciality drinks). Sometimes I even had to run the fryer station too. Whenever this happened, I would tell customers explicitly what was happening. “Hey, I’m so sorry, I’m running drive-through alone” (at the window) or “I’ll be right with you, I need to cash out the car at my window” (at the speaker). It helped them feel better about the delay, and be a little more patient as I desperately attempted to keep up or catch up. It happened a lot because I was their longest lasting employee apart from (7 years, 14 years) people titled management (because let’s be honest, I was one without the pay or title by the end).

After I had made it a whole year, they gave me a celebratory pin and started asking me to “coach” new people, and started making me run 3 to 4 positions alone. The longest employees were two to three years, and by the time I finally quit (2 years), every single one of the people I started with had quit (for new employment or because they couldn’t stand it anymore). There were a handful who began after me, six months to a year in, but they were already talking about leaving too. Most people I left behind had been there a month to six months at most. (I left in part because I was supposed to have a new job (got yanked from underneath me), and in part because they were ableist (anti autistic, anti physical disability, very very anti depression (that would be a whole other post)) and sexist & transphobic (very interrelated), and in part because they refused to actually make me a manager despite having me do every single manager task up to and including training new hires *with the manager specific training packet*. I began that job because they promised to promote me to management a year or so in, but they just kept making excuses (the real reason is depressed/bipolar autistic trans masc person, who can’t perfectly mask).

I wish we had been properly staffed, or that people were employed longer than 3 months so we had time to unionize (they usually quit at that point). It was exhausting trying to run a minimum of two to three positions, or sometimes what should have been four to five positions. I wish I had known how to unionize (they of course kept all that information from us), and had the confidence to involve others. Most of that was corporate’s fault (intentional), because greedy capitalism was more important than their workers’ lives, safety, and even ability to work properly.

But I, as a cashier, also hated it when customers showed up too close to closing time (didn’t hate the customers, but did dread the extra work). I tried to not make it their problem, but I would deflate a little and immediately dread taking their order. Because like the line cook above said, as a cashier you’re very strictly told to make anything the customer requests no matter how inconvenient or painful. Make the customer happy, worry about yourself and your cleaning and your store later. So I was expected and demanded to let them order forty nuggets or three triple burgers or whatever they wanted, and I couldn’t kick them out of my dining room so I had to clean around them, lock the doors, and wait for them to leave (because I couldn’t leave until they did, even if I was technically off *at* closing). Sometimes I’d nudge that we were short-staffed or (‘how are you’) a little ‘haha, well, I'm alive’, but I got in trouble for admitting that we were all exhausted, it was three minutes to close, and I just wanted to go home.

Customers who didn’t work in fast food were shocked by what was expected of me. (Customers who did were very understanding.) So I continued—despite protests from management—to openly disclose why we were struggling, late to talk to them, or late getting their food to them. I wish more people understood how fucked up the fast food industry is (wage theft, understaffing, expectations, timers & competitions, etc.), and how difficult it can be to work anywhere in the food industry (unless you’re very well staffed with a good boss).

The tasks the line cook described ^^ made me recall as the cashier how much we all struggled. I watched the cooks and fryers and sandwich makers groan, or run to grab more food or add something to the fryer, or lean into the edge of their station in exhaustion, or stare blankly at the screen and count sadly how much they had to make, or panic at a new order. Even as a cashier, or when I bagged their orders, it was exhausting and stressful.

I loved seeing the regulars, and beginning to memorize their name and order. It was rewarding to see them smile or light up at being recognized. They were usually the most patient, empathetic, and respectful people. They were dependable. But the new people or infrequent people were the ones who were shocked by what was expected of us.

The least stressful late orders (or large orders) called ahead or placed a mobile order. We could make it ahead of time, and continue our tasks. It still wasn’t ideal, but we didn’t have to panic or run to prepare for it. Or at minimum it was the small orders— one meal with one drink, or a couple sandwiches.

Please please please be kind and patient with your food service workers.

~Nico

it was too much i had to make my own post

line cook here. ACCURATE

if you don't get the hate, here's what you don't understand.

it takes up to 2 hours to close down the kitchen.

The last 60-90 minutes before closing time you do almost no cooking because the restaurant doesn't have many people in it and you've already cooked most of their diners.

So if someone walks in during, like, the last hour, the cook is in the middle of an industrial deep clean of the kitchen.

(these numbers can vary quite a bit from place to place but i have worked several restaurants with these actual times and the concept remains the same)

Say the place closes at 10. If you wait til the restaurant is already closed to start all your cleaning duties, you'll be there until at least midnight.

More than that your boss knows that on an average night you can start your clean up as soon as the last rush ends and get out of there around 10:45, even 10:15 on a slow night if you get lucky. That means there are plenty of restaurants where if you do take until midnight the manager is going to come up to you at some point that week and ask you what went wrong that night, and you'd better have an answer.

So this example restaurant closes at 10 pm. The dinner rush ends around 8:30, and shortly after that the cook is going to start getting every single dish possible over to the dishwasher because the dishwasher always gets hit hard and late, and the machine runs for 2 full minutes and only holds so many dishes, so the way that works out is if you wait an extra 30 minutes to give the dishwasher all your stuff it can mean adding like 60 minutes to the end of his shift. And you're gonna KEEP finding shit to send to the dishpit right up until you leave probably.

all these little square and rectangle containers in this cold table have to be pulled out and changed over into new containers, replaced by new full ones, or in some cases filled from larger containers in the back, which can result in even more empty containers to send to the dishwasher.

while it's all pulled apart to do this, you have to clean up all the spilled food and sauce and juices and stuff from the joints and ledges and shelves and drip trays

Once you get your line changed over in this way, and fully stocked, anytime someone orders something that makes use of a bunch of that stuff, you have to restock and re-clean it some. It might already be covered in plastic. Some of it might already be stuck in the back to make room to take apart your cutting board counter to clean. To cook a dish isn't TOO much of a problem at this point, but you're really hoping for zero orders because you still have so much other cleaning to do.

Meanwhile the salad bar and appetizer section and server station and everybody are all doing the same thing. Even the bartenders are stocking olives and lemons and sending back whisks and stir spoons and shakers and empty 4quart storage containers that used to hold the back-up lemons and olives and things. Every section is dumping their must-be-cleaneds to the dishpit as fast as possible because early and fast is the only thing they can do to to help that dishpit not absolutely drown into overtime.

The poor dishwasher is always the last to clock out, soaking wet and exhausted.

Around this time you probably scrub the flat top, which has turned black from cooked on grease and is still about 500 degrees. Line cooks are divided in opinion on water-based or oil based cleaning methods for this, but they all involve scrubbing with (usually) a brick of pumice stone using every ounce of your strength while you try not to burn yourself

you scrub it from fully blackened to gleaming silver and now if somebody orders something that needs the flat top to cook, you can either fuck up your cleaning job or fake it in a couple frying pans and pass that tiny fuck you down to your dishwasher (who usually understands, especially if you help them take the garbage out or clean your own floor drain later)

If there's deep fried stuff on the menu then the fryers have to be cleaned out, which includes straining the oil out into enormous and super-heavy pots full of oil so hot that if you spill on yourself then it's probably a hospital visit and if you slip and fall face first into it it'll be the last thing you ever do.

Then you gotta scrub out the fryer. Like you gotta take the (hot) screen out and reach your arm down into the weird rounded pipes and curved areas (so hot, burn you if you brush against them hot) and scrub off whatever is down there

Depending on your kitchen you might have to do up to four of these. Then you'll have to pour the (dangerously hot) oil back in

oh, and if you didn't dry the pipes and get ALL the water out of the trap and tank?

water reacts with hot oil in a sort of mentos and coke way that can send a tidal wave of oil past the open flame of the pilot light ...HUGE dangerous mess and/or burn down the kitchen if the oil lights up.

Unless! If the oil has been used too hard and needs to be changed, it's time to carry those open topped super heavy pots full of will-kill-you-hot oil and dump them in the barrel outside by the dumpsters so you can put room temp fresh oil in the fryers. whew!

The clean up is not just some light wiping down that can be easily interrupted, is what i'm saying.

You might have to do some kind of walk-in duty (moving around 50lb cases of lettuce and 50lb bags of onions to get to the stacks of five gallon buckets full of salad dressings and sauces to move so you can reach the giant metal pots and bus tubs full of prep and get it all organized and make sure it's all labeled and i have to stop now i'm having flashbacks)

THE POINT IS

by 15 or however many minutes to close, the line cook is doing an intense deep clean and probably has the whole stove taken apart to detail.

For some industrial stoves this means lifting off large cast iron plates that weigh like 20 lbs each and are still quite hot. Whatever metal burners are on there, you gotta take off and clean, you can see here the lines that indicate the large thick cast iron rectangles that sit on top of the burners to allow heavy pots to rest on. Those five (each has one front burner hole and one back burner hole, see?) have to be lifted off and cleaned with soap and a wire brush usually, and then the underneath area also has to be cleaned because a lot of shit falls through the burner holes on a busy night.

if you didn't do it when you did the flat top you have to do the grease trap (which can be like a full five minutes and is always disgusting).. You gotta clean out all the little gas jets in each burner with a wire or something so the burners all flame evenly, and sometimes you have to remove some of the natural gas piping that connects the burners to access where you have to clean.

you gotta clean out the bottom of the oven and the wire racks, and, oh gods, you gotta take down the filter vents from the hood fans above the stove.

See all the lined parts along the top of the wall?

those are hood vents, and as they pull air up they also pull a lot of grease and they have to be taken down and cleaned, then you gotta climb up there and scrub where they go before you put them back...

And then there's the mopping and floor drains and...

Anyway, that's what the line cook is doing when you walk in fifteen minutes before closing and order something that needs to be cooked on that stove. They are doing an entire industrial cleaning of a professional kitchen.

In some restaurants maybe one or two of these jobs will be every other night or even only twice a week, but in many, possibly most kitchens, ALL of these things happen EVERY night. You don't want to leave any food mess that might attract insects or rodents for one thing, so a really good kitchen is as close to brand new as you can get it every night.

IF YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO ORDER SOMETHING ANYWAY, HERE IS WHAT TO DO

open with an apology and ask the server to go ask what the cook would prefer you to order.

Any good server will already know what the cook is hoping for and what will make their line cook go into the walk in and scream. If it's significantly less than an hour to close and they say some variant of "oh anything is fine" they are either telling the lie their boss wants them to say, or they actually do not know what their line cook wants, and you can either use human connection and a conspiratorial just-between-us tone to get them to drop the customer-is-always-right act, or get them to actually go ask the cook.

It might be as specific as "the lasagna is easiest on the kitchen" or it might be a simple guideline like "nothing that requires the flat top" or "any of the sautés are easy" but a good line cook will probably have a system for if they have to make a couple of the most popular items after they start their close, so the answer is likely to include something most people like and you should be good to order that.

but for the love of all that's holy, please only do so at great need. Leave that last 30-60 minutes to the truly desperate and the crew's duties.

[leviticus101st]

My Live Tweet thread of Gen:Lock

(I copy and pasted a Twitter Thread of my reaction to Gen:Lock. I'm more active on Twitter, so if ya want to see more from me, my @ is LeviJones101st)

I don't usually do this, but I decided to live tweet my watch through of Gen:Lock.

Let's see if this shit show was worth all the workplace abuse and fucking over of the Nomad of Nowhere.

Spoilers: I believe the answer is gonna be no.

Okay. Starting out and this is more of a small thing, but I've gotten really sick of Sci fi settings that always like showing off how super advanced they are by showing technology that does not look like it'd be used.

Like Dave and his girlfriend decided to take leave to visit his mom with……some kind of physical hologram?

Why? Why do this instead of just physically going there?

My nitpicking aside. This opener is actually really solid, establishing this mysterious threat that I totally didn't spoil myself on and making the main hero look likable.

"How did it get so close?!" Lady. If nome of you noticed that thing, ya'll would have fallen apart even if this Union thing wasn't around.

Okay, this opening episode was actually pretty good.

And….wooow that Theme Song does not match this kind of show. It's apparently a licensed song, which is just baffling to me.

They forced people from their other projects to rush their work on this show, they had a moral line not to force a rush job from Jeff and Casey Williams?

I mean, I'm happy for them not being forced to crunch out or anything, I just find it funny that's where they draw the line.

I like that Chase is actually taking all of this very well.

It's actually quite nice.

OH MY GOD! THEY SAID THE THANG! can I go home now?

Doc….I think they're meeting their future regardless……I mean the future is the time that isn't now…….so technically they'll never meet it.

Also, I do believe that people should grieve however they can……but Miranda is kind of an asshole. At least the lady in MoU said 'good to say ya again'

I actually really love Weller. He is just so casual about everything and I love it.

I'm actually getting into this show. It is a bit slow though, ESPECIALLY for an 8 episode season.

"Making soldiers out of children!" Lady. These are grown ass adults. We're these guys meant to be like teenagers originally?

WELLER! JUST TELL THEM THE SPY WASN'T COMPATIBLE!

Weller's speech about "making a difference" is actually quite nice.

I'm already halfway through S1 and while it's been slow going, I'm actually really enjoying myself so far.

Hey. They're saying the RWBY thing.

This Nemesis thing is actually pretty cool.

And the action is actually pretty solid.

Being in a digital space where you control the mech and can affect the mind and personality of the mech pilot is actually a very interesting concept.

I'm sure somewhere this idea was done before, but this is an interesting concept.

The Chase clone twist is actually very compelling.

"Your Deus Ex Machina!"

That's actually a very clever double meaning with the phrase, kudos.

It took us til the end of the season, but we finally got the genlocks in their promoted designs.

The designs do clash with the shows visual aesthetic, but they are actually cool.

Okay. Overall, this first season was actually pretty good.

I'll be watching the second season tommorow, since it's like 10:00 where I live and i have a cavity filling tommorow.

So if what I heard about Season 2 is true, ill be in for a double whammy of pain.

Got a cavity filling and I can't feel the left side of my mouth.

Sounds like the perfect condition to watch Gen:Lock S2. I might be out of it, so maybe there won't be much live tweeting.

Hopefully, people were just overexaggerating how bad it is and it's just okay at worst.

Though I doubt it given what I've heard.

Okay this theme song matches the show better……but honestly this one just sucks.

And immediately it's clear that it's a different person writing for the show.

"Kazu is just whining" no, he’s not. You're just being childish Chase.

Aside from some awkwardness with the new creative team, this first episode was actually pretty solid.

Are they…….are they trying to make the Union look like they were in the right?????¿

Also, a good showcase of why you can't just stretch something into a 16:9 screen format

The Union:

Did the priest dude just use a deadass evil switch.

Wow, they really are tying to present this as a grey on grey conflict, aren't they?

Oh my lord they are.

OH WOELW! THAT SEX SCENE JUST CAME OUT OF NOWHERE!

It was a literal sex scene jumpscare.

Hmmmmmmm. I wonder if the Union, the guys who committed mass Terrorist actions, make machines that are over the topply evil, and took over the world, are the good guys.

Yasamin is the only character making sense in this damn show.

"They were so peaceful!" NO THEY WEREN'T! WE SAW GROUPS OF PEOPLE COMMITING SUICIDE! THERE IS NO RELIGION ON THE PLANET THAT ENDORSES IT!

HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN FROM A RELIGION FUSION DANCE ANYWAY?!

Cammie girl, lass, my sister in christ….YOU LITERALLY CHANGED YOUR PERSONALITY! WHY CAN'T KAZU DO THE SAME!

Whose idea was it to throw in all the sex stuff?????? It's not gritty or gross or whatever, IT'S JUST BIZARRE!

Also, why did nobody mention this climate crisis in Season 1?

Also, are they trying to make the Union look like a cult, because that's what it looks like to me.

This shallow samurai shit made to crap on old school anime is actually crapping on bad modern anime.

No seriously, this roboshogun stuff makes me cringe so hard.

It's trying to mock old mecha anime like Gundam and the like, but instead it's giving me the vibe of a bad high-school anime that came out in the early 2010's.

Also, this might just be a me thing, but this attempt to jump around the timeline is really annoying. Just transition to one story and say their happening at the same time, yesh.

Toxic masculinity stuff. I am totally tapped out on this.

Another JumpSex. That's my new nickname for it.

AND WHY IS THIS BEING SHOW WITH INTERCUTS TO CHASE'S ACTUALLY INTERESTING STUFF.

"See how the Polity wars!" I do see……it is significantly better than how you guys do it

Wow…..Cammie is kind of a brat.

Wow. This making the polity bad shit is annoying.

And of course……Kazu's dead.

Who the fuck kills off a character after their arc just finished?!

Like……..narratively what does this accomplish????? And no 'showing the hardship of war' is not a good reason.

All this 'grey on grey morality ' shit has done is make me hate all the characters.

Except for Kazu and Yasamin…….and they killed the former. And the latter I only like because she is the only one calling out everyone's bullshit.

And now I have to listen to Marin try and justify fascism.

MAYBE TURN OFF THE SCREAMING HEADS WHEN PRESENTING YOUR SELL'S PITCH!

'Like my old one, but different' I want to throw a dictionary at your head.

This Chase corruption plot is actually cool and interesting, a shame it's not the actual focus of this damn season.

They're trying way too hard to portray the 'Flow' as a good thing.

"Man, this roboshogun thing is so graphic!"

Why are you people affected by a 2D cartoon with blood in it when you've seen a bunch of corpses.

Also, mandatory joke about how 3D characters see live action shows and that kinda thing.

Ew……just ew.

Marin is trying to stop a cult from ruling the world and everyone is trying to stop her 'evul' plan.

I hate well intentioned extremists Union. I hate it so much.

I love mechanic dude and I can never remember his name.

I have to say the LowTierGod cinematic universe is turning out to be extremely lame so far.

I praised RWBY Vol9 when It did this thing, but I think this show makes that stuff worst in hindsight.

Also, why is Cammie's model look so weird????

Does…..typo

WAITAMINUTE! YOU MEAN THE EVIL CULT WHO TRIES TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD IS EVIL?!

God, the ceo mech is so ugly

I haven't mentioned this, but man this show is so much uglier now

I actually really like the Chase plot, it's just a shame that it's buried in so much crap.

Oh my god, the last episode, I'm almost done here.

I'm all burnt out on this show. I'm just gonna point out what's funny from now.

YOU SHOULD KILL YOURSELF NOW!-The Ultimate Message of Gen:Lock

I love this dumb fucking ai thing so much.

God, at times the dialogue is so fucking bad.

God, I hate Sinclair so bad.

Also, the body horror is so lame.

Lmao! This beast thing was made out to be so big and might and yet it's so small next to the skyscrapers.

That's it? That's the climax???????????? WHAT?!

THAT'S THE CLIMAX?! THAT WAS SO ANTI CLIMATIC WHAT THE HELL!

Also, Genlock's message…..it's proud theme?!

What did Chase's sister do to get to New York exactly????

I'm gonna fucking scream.

That's it? THAT'S IT?!

Fuck this 2nd season!

Fuck the higher ups for abusing the staff!

Fuck the pornbots who keep liking this thread!

IM DONE!

I did this whole ass thread and I appreciate absolutely none of it.

On the plus side, I can feel the left side of my face again….mostly.

[jewishrevolutionary]

Poverty is not actively recognized in our country nor in the discussions of politics, and I feel deeply hurt and demotivated because of it, especially as someone who has been forced to live in the lowest sectors of it. It ends up being a discussion only used as a trump card, not a regular talking point that needs to be actively recognized. Milenials and Gen Z is the most in poverty, despite all the opportunities people had in college or elsewhere.

Ever since I got kicked out of my parents home, I have moved to the slummiest parts of my state's capital and I live in this shitty, broken down apartment that has lead paint in certain areas, mold in (possibly) the floor, the walls, the ceilings, and other areas. Our bathroom sink and toilet barely work, the refrigerator is broken down, and for the first 6 months, the lock to our front door was completely broken.

In all of that, I and my boyfriend have gone through a plethora of jobs. My boyfriend started talking about unionizing in his first job, got fired almost immediately. His second and third job was too stressful to keep up with mentally. And only now did he get a job that only gave him part time hours.

My first job was too far away to keep working in and they didnt even respect me for all the shitty work they put me through when we only had a skeleton crew. My second job, i got fired for taking a very small tip from someone. And the job Im currently working for is full of shitheads who've gotten recently promoted and are barking and kneeling for the owner and his shitty decisions. (For example, we had a foot and a half of snow and everyone avoided the topic of closing early and shamed me and another coworker for not coming in when it was too unsafe for either of us to leave) I also broke down sobbing during a stressful rush and was blamed for not communicating with my manager about the rush.

Either way, regardless of my own treatement and how much I can tell you about the treatment of my boyfriend at his workplaces, we're still in deep poverty and our rent is going to definitely increase, with the fact that we dont have a car yet that can help get us to and from places. And this constant feeling of dread that I cant escape this has made me so much more less hopeful than I was before.

I have nearly lost my faith in leftist/communist/anarchist movements because there is zero groups in sight in my state and anywhere near where I live. I have tried getting financial help by setting up GoFundMe's, public kofi's or anything. And the constant struggling and difficulty with my recent schedules have made it impossible for me to engage in any of my own artistic interests becsuse of the sheer amount of demotivation I've been through.

I want to be happy, I want to live a fulfilled life, but I dont want to be stuck under this constantly pressuring system that will harm me for not having *credit* and being a young adult.

I need money for a car, but no one is willing to spare because I'm seen as too young and inexperienced. I need credit for getting an apartment, getting a car, getting ANYWHERE, and I fear debt like no one else in the world.

And it has only made me more and more hopeless, because this a problem that is seemingly everywhere, but Americans dont talk about. They wont support each other through it, and I and my boyfriend have talked to people, have tried getting support, but we only get scoffs, angry mullings about making sure we make our own lives better, and advice that gets us nowhere. My boyfriend was told by everyone except his immediate family that trying to unionize was dumb and would have only led to his firing. That he needed to just suck it up and get better.

I want to have hope in people, but this last year has been so dejecting for me and my hope. I dont know what to do anymore. It hurts me a lot that there isnt anything for me to do. I, my boyfriend, and their sibling might become homeless because of the rent increase in the next 3 months, and I feel too dejected to even ask for money anymore because I know no one has money anymore.

I'm just going to end off on the note that I'm not planning anything. I just am going to survive. And if anyone wants to help, I just need help with saving up for a car so send me a DM or something. I have about 1200 between me and my boyfriend.

And be sure to ask everyone you know about their situation, be sure to help as many people as you can. I've been doing it despite my poverty, and it's because I have money to spend for myself that I know would be used better. It only takes a little to make people hopeful, and doing nothing makes them lose their hope.

[imeverywoman420]

I haven't been following your European discourse or whatever but I did read the post about 'self-flagellating Texans' & found myself completely agreeing. im not saying we need more patriotism from americans or chauvinism from whites but I personally wince a little whenever someone's like, "I don't have a culture! I don't have any heritage, history, etc etc." are you not embarrassed?boy? When I hear people say that, the only things they're telling me is that 1. they don't think critically about their own lives & 2. they don't listen to literally anything their family's told them about their own memories & experiences. like, fun to rag on pandora bracelets & mcmansions or whatever. But everyone belongs to a culture even if it's one they're ashamed of, one not conducive to human happiness. plus I think in a way it fetishizes or even woobifies non-Western & non-first world cultures. by intimating you don't have a culture what you really mean is that your way of life is the default. by saying you have no culture is to say your standards of living transcend it, & the pitying head-nodding self-hating liberal americans who perform this ritual denigration have boxed themselves comfortably out of the uncomfortable acknowledgment of their own relativism. Other cultures are "nice", & they 9 times out of 10 mean this supposed exemption from culture as a searing critique of imperialism. but imperialism cannot wipe out one culture without imposing another on both its oppressed & oppressor classes. this really feels no different than a white person saying they're colorblind or a straight person saying that there's no unique gay experience, love is love, after all.... these are people too entangled in their own guilt complexes to evaluate their material reality as americans. Only americans could ever insist that born-and-bred americans do not have a culture. for better or for worse, own it. I used to be boring & insufferable in this way. Like I'm a white girl from the midwest. I didn't think I had to, you know, think about this fact of my person because I was too privileged, too stupid, un-self-aware. whatever.but one night my grandma came over & we sat outside & got to talking about Her father. And he was an inventor in his free time? And a farmer? He dropped out of school in the 4th grade? And still went on to become arbitrator on behalf of his workplace's union?everyone from my family, basically, is from Ohio. Like I wouldn't qualify for the DAR or anything (thank god) but my parents' parents, their parents, & so on. anyone living on firsthand in some relation's memory, then, is from Ohio. and the older I get the more I realize I am a person with a hometown & a past, & this has a miraculously self-humanizing effect on an individual. too many kids think they were born in anywhere, USA, & the worst part's that this is becoming more & more a real truth (though by no means The Truth).....late stage capitalism, the technology it is impossible without, has more than anything else created these vast swaths of courage-draining monoculture in recent decades. So now more than ever culture preserved on individual & familial levels is being threatened. but even while an unimaginative culture of consumption diminishes the recognition of culture on an intimate level, it's....not too late. if you have living relatives you can talk to, then it isn't too late. Not yet, anyway. and while there are undeniable, indelible bonds bt. whiteness, americanness, & imperialism, too many gen-Z people think they "don't have a culture" because they're white or American. And these are, yes, the reasons why they don't want to think about their culture. But any real cultural erosion happening is facilitated by technological evolution & capitalism. Too many cheesecake factories. Simple as.

Literally so true!! The whole reason i embraced being from west virginia is bc i spent all of my life embarrassed and self flagellating for other peoples amusement.

[a-method-in-it]

Hi! I saw your post about unionizing Walmart and I'm interested in learning more. I am an employee at Walmart and I've done some activist work in the past, including starting a nonprofit with some colleagues, and I'd love to be a part of unionizing.

Hello! I am always happy to hear people are interested in unionizing!

So before you get started, I encourage you to check out this post I did recently on Walmart’s anti-union awfulness. I do honestly think unionizing is do-able at Walmart, but you should know what you’re up against before you jump in. 

I will also point out that, although you do have legal protections from retaliation for unionizing, Walmart has historically been more willing than maybe any other company to fire union-friendly people anyway and just pay the legal settlement when they get sued. This is because Walmart knows unions are a major threat to their absurd profit margin and is absolutely infuriating. But it also means that you should decide before you start if it’s worth risking your job. And if you’re not in a place where you feel you can do that, no judgement. 

Okay that was all really negative, but on we go!

The basic process for unionizing is more or less the same in most places:

Talk to your co-workers, try to get a few onboard

Once you have a small group, approach a parent union for more 

With their help and advice, broaden your efforts to get as many people in your workplace onboard as possible

Show the company that you have a strong majority and ask for recognition.

If the company refuses to grant voluntary recognition, ask for a vote before the National Labor Relations Board.

This still basically holds true with Walmart, but with some caveats. 

During step 1, you want to be VERY, VERY, VERY careful. This is the point where you personally are most vulnerable because you are alone. If management doesn’t find out about union activity until after there are a lot of people onboard, they will still try to work out who the ringleaders are, but they won’t just be able to fire everyone who is interested in unionizing. 

For this step, go slowly. It’s a good idea to start out approaching people by just talking about conditions at the store. Share the things that frustrate you, ask them questions to get them talking about stuff that bothers them. Focus on people who aren’t favorites with management and who seem unlikely to report you to management. 

EVENTUALLY, bring up the idea of collective action with the small group of people — and for Walmart, I recommend keeping it small, like maybe five — that you think would be interested in a union, would be good at helping you organize, and won’t fold under pressure. 

When you do, DO NOT discuss this on store property — or if it must be on store property, do it in the parking lot, far from the building. Walmart is notorious for spying on workers, and if they hear about a union, they will absolutely come in guns blazing. 

So ask to grab coffee with someone or offer to babysit their kids or suggest you go see that movie they mentioned looks good or give them a ride somewhere or whatever else. Whatever reason you can find to hang out or meet up outside of work. 

And once you start putting a group together, keep all planning sessions off-site as well, and don’t refer to them while at work. If possible, don’t seem overly friendly with each other at work, even. 

You should also be honest with these people about the risks involved, too. I know it’s tempting to be like “unionizing is amazing, we can totally do this, you have nothing to worry about!!!” Hell, I kind of want to say that to you. But the truth is, it isn’t a risk-free endeavor—this is true at any workplace and about a hundred times more true at Walmart. And people deserve to make an informed choice. 

So be upfront that this is risky. Tell them you have a plan and you think it can work. Answer their questions. Give them time to think. Tell them that if they decide they can’t risk it right now, you completely understand. Unions are, at their core, about us helping and supporting one another, and you can’t do that if you’re pressuring people into joining. 

Anyway, once you have a group of people who are with you, you reach out to your parent union. A parent union represents people across companies but within a certain industry, and they have full-time staff who are experts in helping people unionize and in supporting individual workplaces (also called shops or units) once they have unionized. 

For Walmart, the United Food and Commercial Workers has been trying to help Walmart associates unionize for years — and while they haven’t managed it yet, they have a lot of experience with the Walmart anti-union playbook, so they will be able to tell you what to expect and the strategies they’ve found that work. 

And I firmly believe they will get it right eventually — maybe with your store!

Best of luck, and let me know how it goes. Solidarity!

[wavemistress]

I'm not going to argue the merits on the face of what's been posted here. It all seems good and I agree that happy, healthy communities not fighting over material resources would more than likely lead to less violence and, thereby, less need for police. Eliminating poverty would, I believe, at the very least, make a significant dent in the incidence of violent crime. However, there are a few difficulties that I can see with the suggested solutions.

1. Universal healthcare means nobody is competing to find cures for things that need curing, like cancer, for one. The US, with no universal healthcare, is the leader in pioneering medical research that people need the world over, as evidenced by the number of people forced to come to the US for treatment of difficulties that can't be treated in countries that *have* universal healthcare. Granted, it's expensive, but people don't usually want to do pioneering research just for the sheer joy of being able to improve the lives of the sick and afflicted.

2. I agree that public housing would be useful. I think, rather than legislate against homelessness, we should be trying to provide these people with bare minimum homes, to make finding jobs easier for them. It's hard to get a job when you don't have an address where they can mail your paycheck. The only problem I can see with public housing is that it's publicly owned. Public housing denies poor households one of the key means of building assets in the US: homeownership. At the very least, when you own your own home, it, in itself, is an asset. When you're ready to move up to something larger, due to, say, an improvement in employment, you can sell it and make a profit. With a publically-owned home, provided to you by the state (meaning the government), you *can't* sell it because you don't *own* it. Perhaps we could consider *giving* homes to the homeless and then allowing them to sell them back to the state at a profit, if they've managed to improve them. But even that would have problems, since the state would have to determine what constitutes an improvement.

3. Strong unions are an issue I'm ambivalent about. Some unions don't seem to be in the business of helping their members any more. Some, like the US teachers' unions seem to be more in the business of keeping themselves running. So, sure, I'm for strong unions, so long as the unions continue to focus exclusively on helping their members and addressing injustices in the workplace. (I'm looking at you, WEA)

4. Unfortunately, high wages do not make an economy healthy. They force small businesses to close and larger businesses to downsize because they can't afford to pay their employees. In short, high wages tend to put lots of people out of work. We have a fairly high minimum wage here in Washington ($12/hour), but the economy here is horrible because lots of good businesses have had to leave in order to maintain their bottom lines. Furthermore, when wages go up, inflation is also going to go up. That means that necessary groceries will suddenly cost more, which means that your money isn't worth what it once was.

5. On its face, universal childcare seems good since it claims to remove disadvantaged children from high-risk environments and puts them in more benign settings. However, studies in Canada, where they've tried this, have shown that it doesn't have any significant effect on whether or not kids become criminals. Additionally, studies have shown that, if you want kids not to become criminals, they each need to be raised in a decent family, with a loving mother and father.

6. Free college is a nice idea but it's too simplistic. Unfortunately, free college means that college teachers, similar to public school teachers (who already get paid less than janitors), will suddenly be paid nothing. Colleges usually don't exist because of government support. They exist through enrollment. Though I agree that the cost shouldn't need to be so high, I contend that there must be a reason why it's so high. Maybe we should find out what's causing college tuitions to inflate so much and attempt to solve that.

If you managed to get all the way to the end of this without scrolling on, I salute you and applaud your genuine interest. I don't usually have any particular interest in politics, but I just couldn't let this go by without pointing out the inherent flaws.