#corporate employee welfare

[townpostin]

Linde India Signs New Salary Agreement with Workers Union

Employees to receive Rs 5,800 monthly gross salary hike and enhanced benefits Linde India and Indian Oxygen Workers Union reach a new 3.5-year salary agreement, boosting employee compensation and benefits. JAMSHEDPUR – Linde India and the Indian Oxygen Workers Union have signed a new salary agreement, significantly increasing employee compensation and benefits over a 3.5-year period. The…

[baldwinheights]

[cent-scratchnsniff]

yk that one test with electic shocks with the dogs. thats them. i love learned helplessness

[binah-beloved]

Binah who takes a hit for you when a particularly vicious Abnormality breaches. and while you fret and worry over her injuries, she simply hugs you without saying a word, like she's trying to shield you from the world

of course, she doesn't mention it after. but you're grateful nonetheless

[kunosoura]

deus ex has more cohesive themes, released in a complete state without major problems, and is a landmark of immersive sim game design. But C2077 lets you play as a katana wielding dickgirl. So it’s hard to say which is better

[feministdragon]

Transcript:

"Many people still believe that the spread of transgender ideology represents a harmless fad, or a phase, or a problem of youth culture or social media, I've chosen to talk about the wider context and conditions that have allowed this ideology to take hold.

Transgenderism is a predatory, an authoritarian, neoliberal ideology, and one that couldn't take hold outside of the context of the rape culture that Steff described. I want to make this as clear as I can in ten minutes. My slideshow is just a series of books, my sources, and if you want to record them, go ahead.

So the first point to make about neoliberalism is that it's basically synonymous with globalization and with corporatization. It is not just a flawed economic policy, it is a corporate backlash against the political left and a tool of colonization. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the rise of a strong political left, indigenous Renaissance movements, workers unions, successful independent struggles that ousted colonizers, anti-war protests, and women's rights movements.

By the 1990's the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund had a response. They adopted policies that would reverse the progress these movements made. They began to hand out financial loans to governments only on the condition that they undergo what is euphemistically called ‘structural adjustment’, a term to ponder in relation to this issue, for the benefit of multinational corporations.

This structural adjustment has three basic components. Firstly, governments have had to make natural resources, lands, and public infrastructure, available for purchase by foreign corporations. Secondly they are compelled to drastically cut back public spending on health, education, welfare, and social services. Lastly, regulations and legal protections that restrict corporate profiteering, like laws that protect workers from exploitation need to be removed.

This is neoliberalism: the commodification of nature and the removal and defunding of social services and protections, ramped up for the age of multinational corporations. Neoliberalism and its so-called structural adjustments are packaged with rhetoric about freedom. The story is that our so-called free market—in which private sector employers face minimal barriers to profiteering—fosters job and opportunity creation and a trickle-down effect that gradually enables the empowerment of the self-made individual or employee and choice for consumers.

In her book the Shock Doctrine, Noemi Klein points out that people—especially people who have been fighting for centuries for true liberation—don't actually take these sorts of reforms lying down, so alongside propaganda, disaster conditions have been crucial for imposing neoliberalism worldwide. That's why Klein calls neoliberalism disaster capitalism.

Structural adjustment often follows a state of emergency, a natural disaster, or a military invasion or coup. Multinationals and profiteers and agribusiness and tourism move in and benefit. And because women are made especially vulnerable when land is sold off and degraded, subsistence lifestyles are destroyed, wages drop and welfare and health care are harder to access.

One of the industries that has profited most from neoliberalisation is prostitution. The global sex trade lobby is extremely strong at the moment, and of course in a neoliberal climate, it sells us the idea that prostitution is a legitimate business and that pimps are just job creators, in an industry we are now supposed to call sex work, and perceive to be empowering for women as individuals, disregarding the factors of poverty, land theft, sexism, and rape.

Combine this with tourism and the internet and you have huge industries, and sex tourism, trafficking, and pornography—one in ten websites are porn sites. The industry is worth more than the combined revenue of the top ten web technology companies. To encourage porn consumption, porn is also normalized through mainstream media. All of this fuels a climate, described by Steve earlier, a climate of male sexual entitlement, rape and violation, objectification, body hatred, dissociation, dysphoria, and anorexia.

These are the disaster conditions that transgender ideology exploits and that enable whole populations to buy into the idea that not only can women be bought and sold like products, but womanhood itself is a commodity to which men should be entitled. Transgenderism is a neoliberal ideology that treats the natural fact of biological sex itself as something to be plowed over and substituted with the cash crop of gender identity.

It is "empowering" for the individual to reject biological sex, and substitute it for a customized gender that expresses one's own essential tastes. Just like your clothes and shoes are meant to do, and even your car and your cell phone screen protector and your toothbrush.

The mindless mantra, “trans women are women”, encapsulates both the ideology and attitudes of transgenderism and the neoliberal zeitgeist in three words. It implies the destruction of nature, of biology, of our own bodies, including through the radical mastectomies increasingly conducted on adolescent girls, mainly lesbians. It is based on the commodification of women and it leads to the removal of legal protections and social supports designated for women and based on sex. And using this mantra, ‘trans women are women” like a threat, because if you don't accept it you're a ‘bigot’, men are colonizing woman's hard-won spaces, organizations, movements, and safe houses, as well as lesbian culture.

This mantra is also having the effect of consolidating the domestication of the whole political left—peace groups, unions, socialist organizations like Anna described—and assimilating them with the establishment as they ingest and then commit to and prioritize transgender mythology, purge feminists and independent critical thinkers from their ranks, and build stronger ties to the liberal political parties and big money, also promoting gender identity and funding the pride parades.

In this way the lie that trans women are women is the neoliberal answer to the myth of the resurrection within the Catholic Church. It is the one mad thing that you need to accept these days to demonstrate that, despite whatever else you believe in or work toward, you are ultimately willing to surrender your critical faculties and submit to power and to groupthink.

People would never buy the idea that men can get pregnant or that a lesbian can have a penis outside of the disaster conditions we feminists call ‘rape culture’. The conditions of male sexual entitlement—a woman being raped somewhere in the world every single second of the day, normalized porn objectification, dysphoria and body hatred.

In a culture that honored women, cared for children, and was grounded in the natural world, the spread of transgender ideology would not occur. Voltaire’s famous warning that 'those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities' is also pertinent.

Despite all these large-scale pop-up social movements taking place throughout the West at the moment, it is actually a dangerous and threatening climate. We live in a climate in which the absurdities of transgenderism are promoted so widely, while they cause such serious irreversible harm, and it's so taboo to question. Women who speak out now face ostracism, and losing their livelihoods at the hands of the very same people who are currently joining mass movements that claim to fight for the planet and for social justice.

But as Audrey Lorde famously said, “Your silence will not protect you.” So to women out there holding their tongues to stay safe I say, “We're living in an era of rising authoritarianism, and this ideology is a key vehicle for it. You need to find your sisters. Now is the time to speak the truth where you can—in spite of those who will turn on you, who'll refuse to offer you solidarity—and find your sisters. We're here, we're healing, and finding our voices together, and we want you among us."

[simply-ivanka]

Kamala Harris’s ‘Joyful’ War on Entrepreneurs

When Democrats talk about boosting the middle class, what they mean is government employees.

By Allysia Finley Wall Street Journal

Americans who tuned in to Kamala Harris’s coronation last week heard from plenty of celebrities, labor leaders and politicians. Missing from the “joyous” celebration, however, were entrepreneurs who generate middle-class jobs.

No surprise. Cheered on by the crowd, Democrats took turns whacking “oligarchs” and “corporate monopolists.” By the time Ms. Harris took the stage, the pinatas’ pickings had been splattered around. This is what Democrats plan to do if they win: destroy wealth creators so they can spread the booty among their own.

Corporate greed is “the one true enemy,” United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain proclaimed. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders insisted the party “must take on Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Tech, and all the other corporate monopolists whose greed is denying progress for working people.” Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey railed against “greedflation” and accused corporations of “extorting families.”

Barack Obama lambasted Donald Trump and his “well-heeled donors.” “For them, one group’s gains is necessarily another group’s loss,” Mr. Obama said. “For them, freedom means that the powerful can do pretty much what they please, whether it’s fire workers trying to organize a union or put poison in our rivers or avoid paying taxes like everybody else has to do.”

Democrats treat wealth as a zero-sum game, and so Mr. Obama’s straw men are rich. They get richer by making everyone else poorer—and taking away from the well-off is the only way to enhance the lives of the poor and middle class. Hence, the left’s plans to raise taxes on “billionaires” and businesses to finance more welfare.

It isn’t enough that the top 1% of earners already pay 45.8% of federal income tax, which funds government services and welfare for the bottom half. As for poisoning rivers, perhaps Mr. Obama forgot that his own Environmental Protection Agency caused the 2015 Gold King Mine disaster, which spilled toxic waste into Colorado’s Animas River.

Quoting Abraham Lincoln, the former president invoked “the better angels of our nature” even as he appealed to America’s darker angels. His speech brought to mind a recent homily by my local parish priest about the dangers of class warfare and envy, one of the seven deadly sins.

Success, the priest explained, isn’t a zero-sum game. When a businessman succeeds, he creates jobs that help the poor. Envying and tearing down the successful makes everyone poorer. Rather than plunder the wealthy, society should celebrate success and try to help everyone prosper.

Democrats derisively refer to such ideas as “trickle-down economics.” They denounce and diminish business success, and claim the wealthy have profited from greed and government support. Who can forget Mr. Obama’s line in 2012 that “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that”?

Rather than try to make it easier for businesses to succeed—say, by reducing taxes or easing regulations—Democrats want to do the opposite. They call for “leveling the playing field” and “growing the middle class out,” euphemisms for taxing success so government can hand out money. But government doesn’t create wealth. People do.

While business success isn’t zero-sum, government growth can be. Its expansion makes it more difficult for business to thrive. The result is fewer jobs, lower wages and less tax revenue, which finances essential public services such as law enforcement and the “safety net” for the indigent.

Mr. Trump’s appeal in 2016 partly stemmed from slow economic growth during Mr. Obama’s presidency. The Republican promised to make all Americans richer by liberating businesses from government’s shackles. Mr. Trump’s deregulation and tax cuts worked: Average real wages increased nearly 70% faster during his first three years than during Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Yet most Americans have become poorer under Mr. Biden, as government spending has fueled inflation, which has eroded wages. Job growth has become increasingly concentrated in sectors that depend on government spending. When Democrats talk about boosting the middle class, they mean the class of government workers.

Government, education, healthcare and social assistance account for more than 60% of the new jobs added in the last year. In the 17 states where Democrats boast a “trifecta”—control of the governorship and both legislative chambers—the share is 98%. In the 23 states with Republican trifectas, it’s 47%.

Likewise, average wage growth since the start of the pandemic has been lower in high-tax states such as Illinois (13.6%), New York (14.4%) and California (17.2%) than in low-tax Florida (22.5%), Texas (23.3%) and South Dakota (26.9%). If middle-class Americans want to get richer, they ought to move to Miami, Dallas or Sioux Falls.

“As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty, or to abolish special privilege,” Henry Ford once observed, “we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow.” That’s the joyous future Americans can expect during a Harris presidency.

Appeared in the August 26, 2024, print edition as 'Kamala Harris’s ‘Joyful’ War on Entrepreneurs'.

[blackbackedjackal]

I'm not mad I'm just disappointed because if you spent two seconds to think about how fur and leather alone has deep ties to human culture and our understanding and appreciation of the natural world it's honestly really beautiful and just feels so strange to me that people who say they love nature want to divorce themselves from it.

Like yes, capitalism bad. I don't agree with the way that animals are treated as products to the point where blatant animal cruelty is excused by mega corporations. I want places like that to be held accountable and made to follow higher welfare standards for the animals they raise and the underpaid employees out there working in sometimes awful and very unsafe conditions.

But if you're simultaneously ignoring the culture of African leathermaking or the beautiful leather and wool textiles crafted by Indigenous artisans or the ways that ancient humans appreciated the animals they killed for meat and clothing by telling stories and making art depicted on the skins of the animals they took, that's what bothers me.

So many people are willing to just attack vulnerable communities instead of learning about thier culture and how animal products were used traditionally and today. There are better ways to raise animals for products sustainably and humanely and many of these communities have spoken very loudly about it but are yelled over by people who just want to be right or don't want to listen or just don't care.

So yes, I will continue to speak my mind and educate myself because if nothing else I wanna be the start of the change I wanna see in the world. I love animals and I love learning the history of humans and our relationships to animals. I want to be able to appreciate them in the ways we always have. With respect to the natural world and understanding that we're also a part of it.

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

According to “Mass Animal Deaths Heat up Fight To Permanently Halt SeaWorld Operations” by Inside the Magic, bird conservation organizations are literally begging SeaWorld to stop their fireworks shows because of how many native birds they’re killing. But go ahead keep acting like their rescue operations justify all the harm/trauma they caused to the wild cetaceans they captured and the wildlife they continue to put in harm’s way in the name of human entertainment. Using ur large platform to assuage ppl’s guilt about spending their money at seaworld *directly* perpetuates this harm. I don’t know how you call yourself a proponent of animal welfare and then support this mega corporation that puts profits above all else

Hi there it seems like you think that I support corporate SeaWorld and all the decisions it makes. I am against a lot of things that SeaWorld does.

This includes: setting off fireworks, building roller coasters instead of updating animal habitats and the cruel layoffs that they inflicted on their employees during COVID.

I agree with the letter put forward, San Diego Audubon did a great job documenting the very real impacts of fireworks on seabirds. Firework events like the 4th of July and New Years Eve are extremely stressful for all animals - as detailed in the letter there were also illegal fireworks along with the firework shows in the City of San Diego and SeaWorld.

SeaWorld stopping their fireworks shows in favour of something potentially less impactful like a drone show would be a great start, but fireworks shows - legal or illegal, would continue regardless. Whether that would reduce the impact or not remains to be seen, but I think SeaWorld should stop their firework shows.

The problem is, it is a corporate company that wants to give people want they want so they buy tickets. Guests like fireworks. People expect fireworks on the 4th of July, NYE ect. I personally think we need to evolve as a society and move away from fireworks in general but that’s not a popular opinion.

Now, to your point about impact on wild whale populations, there is certainly not enough data to conclude that populations were unable to recover from the captures.

You can see with this graph that the Southern Residents were able to recover their numbers after the capture periods, but unfortunately populations continued to decline due to other factors. This includes anthropogenic causes like boat traffic and decreasing food supply with increasing dam building and more efficient fishing methods to take more Chinook Salmon from the orcas. And ongoing effects of bioaccumulation of toxins like PCBs and DDTs.

Some scientists argue that the population decrease from capture resulted in less competition and increased survival rate. Others say that the impacts are still being felt today. There’s not exactly a consensus on it because it’s hard to measure the effects.

While I disagree with corporate SeaWorld and a lot of decisions they make, I will continue to support the work of SeaWorld’s team of marine mammal specialists and veterinarians. And support accredited facilities that are able to create positive welfare states for their animals, even if the conditions aren’t perfect. I have no issue with animals entertaining people as long as the animals have agency and choice and show positive welfare states.

Whether you like it or not SeaWorld just have more money and resources than most other facilities simply due to their ability to appeal to a wide demographic (including people who like fireworks) - that sells tickets. And yeah a portion of that goes to CEO salaries and stakeholders (not nearly enough goes to the workers). But having that luxury of that much money means getting high end diagnostic equipment, paying for medications, antibiotics, scans, developing new technologies to assist in rehab and rescue work, pay staff to work in shifts for standing in the stranding pool to hold up a baby dolphin.

That’s why they’re usually in the front lines of rescue work, often collaborating with other rescues. Because their resources are invaluable to the rescue and rehabilitation of marine animals.

These resources are also giving scientists the ability to collect baseline data and compare to wild populations - and develop technologies and test these with animals in human care before using it in field work.

I disagree with a black and white approach to animal welfare and find it to be detrimental in the long term. Welfare is an evolving state that is always in flux and depends on a variety of factors.

SeaWorld’s fireworks contributed to seabird deaths - but not acknowledging that even if SeaWorld stopped their fireworks, there would continue to be fireworks on the 4th of July that would continue to cause bird deaths isn’t helpful to protecting seabirds.

SeaWorld have rescued, rehabbed and released or provided a permanent home for over 40,000 animals. It was funded by the same company that also put on fireworks shows. The two facts can exist side by side. A company can cause harm while also creating positive change.

The reality of capitalism is that to rescue animals you need to have the resources to do so. People visit SeaWorld to ride roller coasters and ignore the animals (which I can never understand) - yet it is the ability to appeal to a wide demographic that makes money and that money is what can be used for incredibly important conservation and rescue projects.

However, I would still say all of that wouldn’t matter if the welfare of the animals in their care was extremely poor. Which, based on their ability to achieve multiple levels of high standard accreditation like AZA and other signs of positive welfare in basic observation , doesn’t seem to be the case.

I encourage anyone to try to take a more nuanced approach to animal welfare and never just accept something at face value. And if you don’t like SeaWorld, that’s okay! There’s a lot of ethical discussions to be had. But I can only convey the experience and knowledge that I have in both research, hands on practical cetacean welfare experience and general experience and understanding of how marine mammal facilities operate.

[frightmaresandscreamscapes]

this is something to think about

now i did get this from grok i would like to point out that he is a "special government employee" whatever the hell that means. he does still have to abide the conflict of interest laws that say he cant be involved in government activities that can result in direct financial benefit. this proves that he is currently breaking this. because he has not stepped aside nor reassigned rights while he works for the government. i would also like to point out the crazy irony that his company receives incentives and help for lack of a better word from two states his friend has major beef with lol sorry.

Elon Musk's companies, particularly Tesla and SpaceX, have indeed received what can be described as government "welfare" or support in various forms:

Tesla:

EV Tax Credits: Tesla vehicles qualified for federal tax credits designed to incentivize electric vehicle purchases. This was not a direct payment to Tesla but reduced the cost for consumers, indirectly benefiting Tesla's sales.

State and Local Incentives: Tesla has received numerous incentives from states like Nevada, New York, and California for factory construction and operations, including tax abatements and grants.

Loans: Tesla benefited from a DOE loan in its early days to help build its first manufacturing facility, which was paid back with interest ahead of schedule.

SpaceX:

NASA Contracts: SpaceX has secured billions in contracts from NASA, primarily for cargo and crew transport services to the International Space Station. These contracts have been crucial to SpaceX's growth.

Military and Other Government Contracts: SpaceX has also received contracts from the U.S. Department of Defense and other agencies for satellite launches and other space services.

Direct Benefits to Musk: While these subsidies and contracts go directly to his companies, they:

Boost company profitability and valuation, thereby increasing Musk's wealth through his ownership stakes.

Provide a form of indirect benefit to Musk by supporting the companies he leads, which in turn can affect his personal income through stock options, bonuses, or salary adjustments based on company performance.

Musk's Public Stance: Musk has publicly stated that his companies earn government contracts because they offer competitive products at lower costs, positioning this as a merit-based system rather than welfare. However, the reality is that government support through contracts, grants, and tax incentives has played a significant role in the growth of his companies.

Criticism: Critics argue that these benefits constitute corporate welfare, especially given Musk's wealth and the narrative of being a self-made entrepreneur. There's a debate over whether such support skews market dynamics in favor of already large companies.

In Summary: Elon Musk's companies have received substantial government support, which in turn supports his personal financial success. This support includes tax credits, direct contracts, and various forms of incentives that, while not personal welfare to Musk, significantly aid his businesses. This is a nuanced situation where government involvement is seen both as necessary support for innovation and as corporate welfare by different viewpoints.

[reachartwork]

Re: ' ...we need to fight against the social system that makes it so that advancement in technology and labour-saving devices lead to layoffs'

^ I feel like this is the biggest issue with the growing use of AI and anyone who argues about the artistic merits of image/language generators et al is missing the forest for the trees. As someone who works in a profession that is constantly threatened with "you'll all be replaced with computers in a year" it's definitely my biggest concern.

The best solution would be mass socialized welfare and a UBI so that getting laid off isn't a death sentence, but that seems kind of impossible atm.

How would you feel about regulations on corporations replacing workers with AI tools similar to those applied to corporations seeking to hire foreign workers? I.e. in the Alien and Immigration Act Section 1182 (n) Labor Condition Application? (Page 174 https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2022-title8/pdf/USCODE-2022-title8-chap12-subchapII-partII-sec1182.pdf)

This would require a company to apply for and substantiate the necessity of AI tools in opposition to actual employees, along with other conditions and regulations.

Hopefully this would prevent a Duolingo situation and mitigate fears of worker replacement.

/end_rant/

Sorry for any formatting issues, typing on mobile.

i think this is a much better idea of a solution than "just outlaw ai" or "just smash all the computers"

[townpostin]

Tata Steel UISL Hosts Successful Blood Donation Camp in Jamshedpur

175 units collected from employees; MD and JSU President praise initiative Tata Steel UISL organized a blood donation camp at Jamshedpur Blood Centre, collecting 175 units from employees to support local healthcare needs. JAMSHEDPUR – Tata Steel UISL effectively conducted a blood donation camp at the Jamshedpur Blood Centre, which resulted in the collection of 175 units from employees. An…

[godslush]

TokeiWoman.EXE

A central NetNavi for a large corporation, who oversees all scheduling and finances across multiple subsidiary companies. Very little is known about her other than she is not owned by an individual Operator, instead being owned by her 'company', and seems to have very little autonomy… but with nobody issuing orders, who knows what transpires when no eyes are on the code…

Tokei has two forms. Most will first encounter her ‘Combat Projection’, an aggressive, dual-blade wielding monstrosity upholding security in her region.

Instead of being a time stopper, her Combat Projection enforces a metronome on her board; combat with her and any minions/viruses occurs "on the beat" (akin to Crypt of the Necrodancer), with the background and floor pulsing to indicate the timing.

Instead of a catchy dance beat, the music would be... much more foreboding.

Her own attacks are strong but telegraphed with zones, and she's invulnerable except on beat-based intervals (and the window of opportunity changes every round, indicated by her markings’ color shifting). However, her gimmick is balanced by her Projection having low HP (akin to a slightly stronger Virus), though it can be resummoned when destroyed after taking some time to recharge.

The nature of her primary attacks involve throwing her clock-hand blades out, which linger on her opponents’ side of the board as a damaging tile. They can then either be dropped to create ‘ice’ tile zones, or recalled to do returning trajectory damage on the way back.

Tokei’s ‘true’ NetNavi form is much more subdued, quietly toiling away at a computer, chained to a desk in the center of her drive. She clearly doesn’t want to be there, but as far as she knows, she has no other choice.

Tokei is not housed in a PET, but instead runs from within a gargantuan supercomputer array at the heart of her owner corporation. It’s necessary for not only analyzing and crunching massive amounts of data, but also to make moral and ethics calls when it comes to managing things like sick leave, time off, and other intra-company HR decisions for thousands of employees per day.

Tokei’s ‘zone’ exists in an Overclocked state, where everything appears to move normally but is in fact moving at hyper-speed, causing the outside world to appear to move very slowly. This is what allows her to do so much work in a seemingly short amount of time. However, it has two downsides; it disables Operator-to-Navi communications, alongside causing other NetNavis to run out of energy and burn out very quickly while anywhere near her online presence when she’s working; she can avert this by ‘freezing’ them in a sort of stasis, to preserve them until they can be appropriately retrieved. The only reason she is able to function at those speeds without running out of energy or otherwise overheating is due to her ‘core’ body being plugged into the system for power and coolant.

This comes with the caveat that she is almost if not completely powerless outside of her domain.

Though stuck in a draconian job, especially when it comes to things like time-off requests and raises and employee welfare, Tokei will always put employees first over management and bottom-line, and the reason she gets away with it is that she insisted and eventually proved that having happier employees is better for the companies than keeping them unmotivated and wanting to quit. Despite her cold exterior, she's very much "The people who do the most work deserve to be happy." Wishful thinking on her part, but it keeps her going.

=================================

A funney idea along the lines of SlashGirl.EXE. I changed it from Tokay to Tokei and removed the more obvious gecko parallels because Tokay herself has significant narrative importance outside of MM, so I wanted to make it more concrete that the Navi is separate (just inspired).

I'd started thumbnailing designs a while back on my Twitter priv, but decided to give it a big overhaul, especially after seeing ClockMan.EXE and noting the similarities to my older passes.

Her 'tick tock' rhythm mechanic and broken clock/hourglass details (plus the 'noose' clock hand necktie) are all very evocative of a "your time is running out" death motif, but her also working in finances just makes her a big "death and taxes" joke at the end of the day.

[lebuc]

havens

* no matter what occupies our normal doings,

no matter the bleed into our lives, …the news from distant places;

no matter the stance taken on hot-button issues of the day

as well as

the relatively cooler but more certain core of what we hold near & dear;

we all crave our havens

some safe space where we rest literally & figuratively,

a place our soul knows as home & so acts - in its full expression

however similar or contrary to our public manners & mores.

like a venn diagram

our haven within often intersects with others', but

sometimes it may not as well, which is okay too,

just another venn…

the art of living populates the world

with havens here, there, everywhere, when not scurrying & scrambling

to maintain a pace & place dictated by corporate types exerting,

making their own profitable havens -

& employees' welfare only secondarily, tertiarily, or not at all.

the yin i'm in leads me to nudge my venn

a mite closer to your'n, if'n you too are so disposed & my accent affectation * is not too off-puttin' this stanza; once linked,

we can segue into some real talk, perhaps - in our haven's native tongue. * 12/23 - lebuc - havens * ...been binge watchin' classic Westerns on cable.

[momentokori]

oh yeah lemme tell you the different departments so you can place the koolkidz in them also note they’re more likely to see their own departments but there will be crossover every now and then (like they’ll see other departments every other week or something while their own is every day)

anyways I’ll give you their game descriptions lol

be prepared for lore

The Control Team monitors the employees and Abnormalities and plans the best course of action. They give immediate orders to other employees while watching the CCTV feeds. They tend to be quite bossy and assertive, making them unpopular with other teams.

The Information Team analyzes the Abnormalities, profiles them, and devises solutions to issues the Abnormalities may cause based on the data. They are in charge of collecting, analyzing, and archiving observation data and interview logs provided by the Welfare Team. The vast library of data is the basis for finding “solutions” to various problems encountered in the energy harvesting process; they often conduct experiments to determine the consistency and safety of the solution. All of the invaluable information could be gathered thanks to long-term observations and numerous sacrifices made by the team, not armchair theorizing as some suspect… is what they asked us to write here.

The Safety Team gives safety training to new employees and develops action plans for all kinds of potential emergencies that can occur in the company. They establish strategies for situations such as escaping Abnormalities, panicking employees and security breaches, as well as setting up safety guidelines for others to follow. They are notably meticulous and punctual

The Training team is in charge of composing and regulating company policies and various management procedures. They also run general-purpose training programs to help employees adapt well to their new departments.

The Central Command Team represents the Middle Layer of the facility. The upper and lower halves of Central Command take the role of the foundation for the facility, which allows expansion upwards and downwards. The department also functions as a bridge between the Upper and Lower Layers, making it a valuable strategic location

The disciplinary department's top tough team creates and punishes a variety of reasons, such as when an employee violates material rules, does not fulfill its obligations, neglects the job, damages the company enormously, and so on. This department has the best ability to control and sanction the situation. Whether it's a Abnormality or an employee

With the goal of preventing epidemics and secondary infection caused by Abnormalities, the Welfare Team puts preventative measures into action and works on programs that benefit the physical fitness and mental health of employees. In-house welfare is one of the highest values Lobotomy Corporation pursues; for the protection of our valuable resources… ah, no, I mean the lives of our employees

The record team department in which everything that occurs in the company is recorded. There are endless pages to be filled, but the last is always empty. The contracting and promotion of employees is decided by their records and assessments, so the employees always try to get on the good side of those who work in the Record Team; no one knows when [Record Deletion] will take place

The extraction department handles all physical material needed to maintain the company. They play a big role in the upkeep of everything by restoring collapsed facilities and extracting E.G.O. The arrangement, restoration, and extraction of Abnormalities are some of the duties that lie with this department as well. As such, its employees are always facing something from the Well, and moreover have an empty borehole within their hearts

hope this wasn’t too much of a lore dump have fun struggling I suppose ;-;

Nono it's okay, I think I got most of them

I just don't understand stuff well unless I'm really fixated on it and I'm really focused on Spooky Month and KoolKidz

You're good man👍

[azspot]

For Frank, the through-lines from the Great Depression to today are very clear. The Depression reshaped the role that the American government plays in managing the economy and economic welfare of its citizens. Social security didn’t exist before 1935, and neither did federal unemployment insurance. Two key regulating bodies, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which oversees the stock market and banking in the country, were created at the time. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was created to give structure to employees who wanted to form unions at their workplaces.

Americans are taught FDR was the hero of the Great Depression. For one historian, that’s erasure