#i left because of musk

[yamimichi]

We all knew this was going to happen sooner or later. Didn't we?

My own personal feeling is that he's doing this on purpose because his fee-fees got hurt.

If he's not doing this on purpose, then it just goes to show that he has no idea what he's doing.

[folerdetdufoler]

i finally deleted twitter! it sucks that i’ve lost that little corner of the fandom, but it didn’t make sense to maintain once it was in musk’s hands, so this was long overdue. i will always credit the skam fandom that i found over there back in 2017 for shaping me as a writer, as well as for inspiring me to travel. i know it was considered a toxic place for the fandom even back then, but it was a platform i grew up with and could communicate on, which meant i connected with some very lovely people. i was devastated when my original account was suspended back in like, 2021? because i had lost a lot of early writing and some friends who had moved on to other fandoms at that point. but i tried to take screenshots of what i had left. a lot of my links to twitter won’t work now, either, but that’s what you get when you depend on someone else as an archival tool.

anyway, a couple of years ago i was thinking about even’s notebook and that became these tweets below the cut. my shorter ideas might end up here now, or on bluesky.

[consceleratuswrites]

You know what? EVERYTHING was way better on tumblr and still is. And now we have Blue Sky anyways. I can’t stress the change in mood and clarity that has come to me since deleting the ‘toxic bird’ app from my phone and not checking it - especially in these trying times.

At this point all ‘the app’ does is show gloating imbeciles and rage-baiting losers and the people arguing with them… OR the despair that is encouraged by the algorithm system that feeds on misery.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t despair - the world is substantially worse off now. But we should at least give ourselves the space to surround ourselves with the things we love, the people that bring us joy and the environment that encourages us to thrive. That’s all we can do. That’s how we fight back - by surviving. As we did before the great migration to an awful space that actively use us as target practise for their botched humour and spite.

Just… delete the bird app man. Stop giving Elon money for his Ket habit. You’re funding all the things that actively work against you with looking at the ads and interacting with bots. I promise you that you will be happier.

[thankgodurdeer]

Just came back from an oddities expo with my brother, it was super fun!

Plus I got this beautiful tail

[darklight-owl]

Elon Musk stop commenting on foreign countries' politics challenge (impossible)

[probablygayattorneys]

Today my therapist and I had an in-depth conversation about whether or not Professor Layton would even understand the concept of Twitter and have one, in the context of whether or not he would follow Ted Cruz (we both agree he wouldn’t).

[quarencam]

(walks my sad little ass back in here)

[fleetwoodmags]

the weird thing about returning to Tumblr after like seven years is that I actually WAS there when the deep magic was written. like I KNOW about the skeleton army.

but now I’m back and trying to curate a feed from scratch and I have no idea what I’m doing or who to follow and I STILL don’t know how to escape the merlin fandom

[zmyaro]

Additionally, if the algorithm isn't configured to read the word ignoring the ZWJ, it won't show up for people explicitly searching for the topic.

Did y'all know that Elon Musk's Twitter recently added LGBTQ terms (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Transgender, Queer) to it's "offensive words" list - meaning that links to tweets with words containing them aren't previewed in twitter DMs and are generally de-boosted (shown to less people) by the website? Did you also know there exists a character called the zero-width non joiner that you can copy and paste in-between letters of any keyword so that the keyword visually looks the same but isn't automatically seen by the algorithm as containing a keyword?

[foldingfittedsheets]

Back when I was first leaving the mattress store in 2017 I interviewed at a few places. One was Tesla, the other a jewelry store. I wasn’t a fan of Musk, but I liked the idea of electric cars and I’ve always excelled at sales so I felt like it was worth considering.

I arrived and chatted with the sales manager who said everyone started on phones before they could work their way up. I was a little wary of that as I’m not a phone person but she laughed and said, “Well, you know. We’re still just a startup, so everyone has to put in the hours.”

I stared at her in confusion. Tesla. A startup. In 2017. What???

I laughed a little and suggested that it was past that stage of growth but she doubled down and repeated it later. I remained baffled. After the interview she offered to let me talk to an employee to see how happy she was.

I readily agreed. The manager left. I asked the employee how happy she was.

She said that sometimes pay was late, that promotions were promised that didn’t manifest for months, but that overall she liked working there and cut them slack because they were still just a startup.

I stared at her. It was like listening to a cultist repeating a phrase that was in direct contradiction with reality. I wanted to ask what she thought a startup was but I just thanked her for her time.

I got offered both jobs, Tesla or jewelry. Jewelry offered four more dollars an hour. When I turned down the Tesla lady I kindly said that I didn’t feel there was as much job security in a startup.

[respectissexy]

If you are not on Twitter but are interested in what's going on with Elon Musk's Twitter, never fear, I am back as your Twitter Correspondent.

So, on Thursday, 4/20, Elon removed all the "legacy verified" blue checks. That means that if you are, say, Taylor Swift or the Pope, and you have a blue checkmark because you have proven you identity and want to avoid being impersonated, that check mark went away unless you paid the $8 to subscribe to Twitter Blue.

The assumption was clearly that, despite all their blustering, when push came to shove the power users would nut up and pay for it, if only to avoid their fans being scammed using their likeness.

That didn't happen. As of 4/21, only weirdo Elon stans had blue checks. Those stans immediately got mad, because they had intended to purchase access to an exclusive club, and all the cool kids left as soon as they arrived.

To make matters worse for Elon, several influential shitposters began posting about #BlockTheBlue, a movement to block all paid Twitter bluechecks, and some even released scripts that would automatically block all bluecheck accounts for you.

However, some people retained their blue checks who swore they hadn't paid for them -- in particular, Stephen King and LeBron James, who had tweeted that they would refuse to pay.

Elon admitted that he had paid for these users' blue checks out of his own pocket. Is he trolling? Is it a weird simp move? Hard to say.

Now, as of 4/22, a whole mess of famous people have bluechecks who aren't paying for them. This seems to be a move to confound the automated Block The Blue scripts. Lil Nas X is tweeting angrily about how he doesn't want his blue check. People are speculating that a new policy has been silently rolled out to automatically assign a blue check to every user with over 1 million followers. Several people have pointed out that this amounts to false endorsement, i.e. implying falsely that a notable person uses or endorses your product without their permission, which is a crime. Blue checks have been posthumously assigned to Anthony Bourdain and Terry Pratchett, whose estates my money is on to be the ones to actually sue.

dril, famous shitposter and Block The Blue promoter, keeps being assigned a blue check as an apparent punishment for crossing Elon, but you can lose your blue check by changing your display name. (It seems really wild to tie the blue check to the display name and not use the username, but it became necessary after the era where all those legacy verified folks unleashed their inner Jaboukie and changed their display names to Elon Musk. As recently as last month a legacy verified user with 100k followers got banned for impersonating JK Rowling apologizing to trans people.) So dril just keeps changing his display name every time they bluecheck him. Elon and dril have been engaged in this game of cat and mouse all day. The "Elon bans dril and we all throw trash at him like New Yorkers defending spiderman" meme will probably come to fruition today or tomorrow.

[sammrz320]

Wtf has become of Twitter?

I just look for some casual and decent stuff, when all I get are a bunch of neo-Nazis complaining about government regulations, and a bunch of political bs that I'd rather ignore.

You've done fucked up for the last time, Elongated Muskrat. Way to improve the overall internet experience by ripping divides among humanity even further...

[upfrog]

An AI-generated art hot-take

Time to get some people mad at me.

I just saw a post where someone was expressing their frustration at generative AI, specifically the risk it poses to artists, and how it continues/worsens/partakes of a tradition of reducing art to a finished product. There was a particular piece of it that made me very annoyed, and I've seen this piece in a lot of posts about generated art. Well, it's past midnight where I am, I'm tired, and I'm tired of shutting up about my view on this.

"It's [AI art's] entire central premise is built on the grim truth that many people don't see artists as skilled laborers using years of practiced skill to create something unique, but as data to be exploited"

Some other posts also emphasize a perceived sense of entitlement to art; that AI art advocates feel it is unfair for artistic creation to be limited to the elect few.

I would like to give a very strong rule. Like all rules, no doubt you could come up with exceptions to it. But this rule is foundational to the world around us, it's development, and it's future.

Making it easier to create things is good. Period. Making it take less time, effort, people, and training to create things is good. Period.

Technology making jobs redundant is a good thing. It is the foundation of almost all human progress. We are all descendants of farmers who were cruelly put out of work by new technological developments. The day when one person and a computer can do the work of an entire department of artists will be a good day - we are not there, maybe we'll never get there. But technology making people redundant is good. Expanding the ability of the average human to do things is good. And the fact that we have gotten to the point where people are unironically saying "it's *good*, actually, that it takes years of practice and effort to be able to produce good art, and you shouldn't want it any other way" is... Perverse? Horrifying? Taking self-interest into the realm of actively tearing your fellow humans down?

To be clear (because this is the internet, and if I don't specify then someone will fill in the gap with the worst things imaginable) I'm not saying that a future where generative AI is extremely good, widespread, and accessible will not have downsides. The threats of bespoke scams, deepfaked videos, floods of bots with a superb ability to guide the narrative, and so on are real, dangerous, and may already be coming to pass.

I know that one aspect of the anti-AI-generated art kickback has to do with the nature of professional art, and the type of people who do it. "Art", broadly defined, is substantially a passion field. You don't do it to get rich, or to have a stable life. You do it because you love the work, and are willing to put up with a thousand downsides, annoyances, and more in order to do what you love. And having this taken away feels cruel in a way that, say, keeping grad students and accountants from having to manually calculate thousands of sums doesn't.

A few words of encouragement. Widespread literacy may have killed the scribal profession as it was understood at the time. But it opened up vastly more work than it destroyed, even if you just count the directly writing-related work. Mass-produced off-the-shelf clothing shrunk the tailor (as once understood) into practical insignificance. Does that mean that no one who is passionate about making clothes can work in the field now? No. We have far, far more clothing (insert anti fast fashion rant here, I'm all on board with that kickback), and more variety, and lots of people working with clothing. The development of software code compilers unemployed a large number of human compilers. In many ways, programming has gotten easier over the years, with a lower barrier to entry, more comprehensible languages, more resources, and so on. But that hasn't meant that software developers are stuck in an unemployment hell of too many job seekers and not enough openings. We, as a society, keep on finding more and more things we want them to program, and demand for the skillset keeps rising. I can't see the future. Maybe AI-generated art will be the end of employment for artists. Maybe the generative AI revolution is fundamentally different from every past productivity revolution. But I doubt it.

[tame-the-lion-writes]

feral omega reader x 141 [pt.2]

(If you haven't read it yet, here's a link to part one and its "spin-off" with Konig.)

Let's backtrack for a moment. Take things in from reader's perspective. (With a little added focus on Price.)

The room is small, but you remember smaller. And it's so much warmer and softer than the other one.

When the big alpha carried you home, you'd put up a fight. You didn't trust him, in spite of that heady, spicy musk--the calming scent of bourbon, mixed with cinnamon and star anise. Like the coming of fall and the holiday season, and flannel button-ups by a fireplace. Awaiting the first snow fall from the fresh wood of a cabin.

But you didn't trust him.

Not when he wrenched you out of your prison cell, and hauled you over his shoulder. Not when he hushed you gently, or wrapped you in a blanket. Not when he tended to the scrapes and scratches, or gave you space in what you assumed was his room. No--alphas were awful, terrible people--if they could be called people at all. And you were not going to kneel and heel at the tip of his boot, just because he was decent, because decency devolves quick.

But it didn't.

You assumed he wanted to mark you as his. If he couldn't do so directly, he'd do so by keeping you here--surrounded by that autumn sawdust and hints of citrus sweet. But for the next few weeks, all he did was sit with you, while you hissed at him from your his bed. Swirling his wrist so the honey gold liquid in his glass emanated the same scent he did.

"You could leave any time," he told you, adjusting his posture with a sigh. "I won't keep a refusing omega. Won't force you--none of us would."

After exchanging one last glance, he leaves with his drink--the door left a half inch open.

... But the door's always a half inch open. And the lock's never in place. And you know that, you know that, you know that.

So why are you still here, kitten?

Why are you still here?

[swordsandholly]

Cherry Bomb - tattoo parlor au anthology

MDNI | poly 141 x fem fat reader | masterlist

Part 2: Piercings and Puns

“Pleeaaasse?” Johnny whines, pressing his hands together and giving you the biggest, sparkliest puppy dog look you could imagine.

You roll your eyes. “No.”

“Please! My two o’clock cancelled an’ I’m so bored!” He flops over the counter, arms dangling right above the appointment books. You pointedly ignore the size of his biceps.

“I’m not letting you pierce me just because you’re bored.” You scoff. “Now shoo, Simon’s got an appointment coming in soon.”

“But ye barely have any!” He argues. “All I’m askin’ fer is a wee ear. No’ even a nipple!”

A shocked amalgamation of a bark, laugh, and scoff forces it’s way out of you at that. “It’s still a no!”

Johnny groans, but at least moves away from the counter. Unfortunately, he takes the opportunity to circle around behind you, pinching the cartilage of your ear. “C’mon, ol’ righty’s beggin’ fer a conch.”

The intercom buzzes before you can respond. You swat Johnny away with one hand while pressing the speaker button with the other. “Hello?”

“I’ve go’ an appointment with Ghost.” A man’s voice drifts through. You blink dumbly for half a moment. You still haven’t gotten used to Simon’s social media and booking moniker - he doesn’t like giving his real name out much, apparently.

You buzz him in. Johnny is still hanging around the desk even when you leave to get Simon - making your way down the shirt hall to his studio. The large man stands in front of his stencil maker, back turned to you.

You knock on his door frame quietly. “Your guy’s here.”

“Be out in a moment.” He mumbles, focused on whatever he’s doing. You don’t really know the steps by heart, but you do know that there’s something so special about watching artists perform this repetitive song and dance. This rhythm they know by heart. Skilled hands enacting each step with careful precision.

He’s so hard to read. Big and bulky but calm as the night sea. You want him to like you, but you know badgering him certainly won’t get you there. So, you turn on your heal and head back out. When you return to the front, Johnny’s disappeared back into his room.

You suck your teeth and lean back in the desk chair, rolling your earlobe between your thumb and index finger. It’s not a bad offer, really. You only have two earlobe piercings on each side. Wouldn’t hurt to add a helix… you’ve also wanted to get your thirds done for a while. Work your way up. You glance at the clock. Simon won’t be done with his client for at least an hour or so, and you’ve balanced the registers for the moment. Both Kyle and John are out today, so they won’t need anything.

It wouldn’t hurt… well, not metaphorically.

With a sigh you stand, wandering your way to Johnny’s space. The door’s wide open, and his head snaps up the moment you step close like a sixth sense. “Takin’ me up on my offer, bonnie?”

You roll your eyes. “Guess I am.”

“Whit d’ye want?” Johnny practically skips around his station, pulling out wrapped, sanitized tools and placing them on a rolling tray. He pats the center of the padded table in the middle of the room.

“Uh, been wanting to do my thirds for a while.” You shrug. “If you have time for two.”

“Och, I’ve got all the time in the world fer ye, hen.” Johnny grins, pulling up in front of you and grabbing a marker.

He’s so close as he places the marks on your ears, warm fingers feeling for the best spots. A thumb traces the back of your left ear down just to the beginning of your jaw briefly. Fuck, he smells good. Warm musk with hints of citrus around the edges. The way he tucks your hair back, hands framing your face as he lines up the dots, is so oddly intimate compared to the other times you’ve gotten pierced. He chews at his lip in concentration, pulling at the scar on his chin while turning your head back forth a couple times.

“Think I’ve got it.” He grins and steps back. “Have a look.”

You take the mirror, casually checking but not paying too much attention. You trust him to do right by you. “Looks good.”

“A’right. Now the fun part.” He grins, tearing open the pack of tools and a two new needles.

“Is this fun?” You frown, squirming a little at the size of the needle.

“It’s always fun t’poke a pretty girl.”

You roll your eyes, a growing theme between you two it seems. “Oh, you thought that was real clever, didn’t you? Had that in your pocket a while?”

“Why donnae ye reach in an‘ check?” He murmurs, leaning close to clamp your left ear. You’re half tempted to tell him it’s mean to tease a fat girl like this - but you don’t think he means anything like that by it. He’s just a flirt by nature.

Before you can answer, he shoves the needle through your ear. You stiffen, a strained noise bubbling up out of your throat.

Johnny coos as he slips the earring into your ear. “One doon.”

“Uh-huh.” You sniffle. Not that it hurts badly, just a basic physical reaction. Johnny still gives you an empathetic smile.

The second goes quicker, Johnny locked in on his work. It’s interesting, seeing how intense they get. You Is it odd to wish someone would look at you like that? With that much focus and passion?

“There ye go…good girl.” He murmurs in that deep rumble that would have you squirming if you didn’t still have a needle through your ear. “Doin’ so good f’me...”

“You’re a devil, MacTavish.”

Johnny just chuckles, knowing full well exactly what he’s doing. He steps back to look at the final result after slipping the second stud into your ear. They feel hot - like two small ovens on either side of your head.

“If it weren’t for the piercings I’d think ye were blushing, hen.”

“You’re gonna get yourself slapped one of these days.” You scoff, sliding off the table.

“Wouldnnae be the first time.”

You find yourself rolling your eyes for the millionth time.

You grunt, squatting low in an attempt to pick the last of the parlor trash. It’s not that you mind, trash was part of your duties from the start, but holy shit do these boys put bricks in their bins? You’d think tattoos would make light trash. Especially after the sharps are disposed of separately.

“Solid?” Simon appears in the hall, eyes flicking over you. You still can’t tell how he feels about you. Neutral, you suppose. At least that’s all you can glean from behind his seemingly permanent black surgical mask.

“Ya.” You sigh, letting the bag drop and leaning back to stretch. “Just heavy. Swear y’all aren’t throwing rocks in these just to fuck with me?”

You give him a grin. Simon just cocks an eyebrow - exaggerated by the small piercing lining it. You think, maybe the slight shaking of his shoulder is a laugh. In combination won’t he crinkles in the corners of his eyes. Maybe not.

“‘ere.” Simon grunts, closing the short distance between you quickly before snatching up the bag like it weighs almost nothing.

You stutter, following after him toward the back exit. “You don’t have to-“

“Not a problem.” He grunts, tossing the thing over the side of the bin. He quietly leads you back inside, locking the door behind you “Johnny go’ you already?”

When you frown in confusion he points to his ears.

“Oh! Yeah.” You shrug, leading the way back to front desk to finish up your closing duties. “He’s insistent. I’d wanted them for a while anyway so I figured there’s no harm.”

“Give ‘im an inch...” He sighs, pointing to the black bar bridge piercing at the apex of his nose. “Somehow talked me into this shite.”

You tilt your head. “Yeah? I think it suits you.”

It really does. You can’t see most of his nose form under the mask but the arc of it leading up to bridge is strong, the piercing settling into the space nicely.

Simon breaks the silence. “You about done?”

“Almost. Just gotta check the ATM against the book real quick.” You nod.

He stares down at you for a moment, glancing out the semi-opaque window, now black with the night sky. There aren’t many street lamps on this side of town. You can only see a very faint glow from the one down by the car park.

“I’ll wait.” Simon settles his wide frame into Kyle’s usual chair.

“Oh! No you don’t have to! I’m sure you’re tired-“

“Wouldn’t feel right leavin’ you alone in the dark.” He cuts you off.

“It’s not a far walk-“

He scoffs. “Definitely not leaving you to walk alone.”

You sink your teeth into your lip, debating briefly on arguing. Based on his comfortable lean and crossed arms, it’s probably best to just let him walk you home. He looks so wide like that, veins prominent across his forearms. Fuck, you gotta find a boyfriend or booty call or something in this city. Anything to stop the temptation to stare at your hot coworkers.

It doesn’t take long to finish up your final chores. You turn all but one light off, wiring down from the bright overheads glaring at you all day. You glance over at Simon a few times while locking up the ATM, his covered face lit up by the light of his phone.

He leads you out of the shop once you’re finished, locking the door behind you and trying it a couple times to be sure. “Which way?”

“Uh, down here. It’s only twenty minutes.” You murmur, feeling guilty that you’ve kept him out extra late. You shove your hands in your hoodie pockets as you walk, the only sound on the street made up of your footsteps and some distant cars.

“What falls but never gets hurt?” Simon asks suddenly.

You frown. “Huh?”

“What falls but never gets hurt?”

You squint at him, trying to decipher anything from his face in the low light. You get nothing but a calm, warm gaze resting on you.

His eyes crinkle in the corners again. “Rain.”

“Pffft-“ You choke, caught off guard. “That’s such a lame pun.”

“Oh? I’ve got a better one.” Simon says, a smirk in his tone. “Why’d the mother clam scold her children?”

You chew your lip. God, you’re too literal to be clever enough for stupid puns and riddles. It doesn’t help that your head is spinning from this brick shithouse, incredibly attractive and intimidating man spitting popsicle puns at you.

“They were being shellfish.”

“Oh fuck off!” You shove at his arm playfully without thinking. He gives, let’s you push him slightly before you stiffen. “S-sorry! I don’t-“

“Nothin’ to apologize for.” The corners of his eyes crinkle deeper. Yeah, definitely a smile. You answer it with one of your own.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Return to office and dying on the job

Denise Prudhomme's bosses at Wells Fargo insisted that the in-person camaraderie of their offices warranted a mandatory return-to-office policy, but when she died at her desk in her Tempe, AZ office, no one noticed for four days.

That was in August. Now, Wells Fargo United has published a statement on her death, one that vibrates with anger at the callously selective surveillance that Wells Fargo inflicts on its workforce:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WellsFargoUnited/comments/1fnp9fa/please_print_and_take_to_your_managersite_leader/

The union points out that Wells Fargo workers are subjected to continuous, fine-grained on-the-job surveillance from a variety of bossware tools that count their keystrokes and create tables of the distancess their mice cross each day:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/24/gwb-rumsfeld-monsters/#bossware

Wells Fargo's message to its workforce is, "You can't be trusted," a policy that Wells Fargo doubled down on with its Return to Office mandate. Return to Office is often pitched as a chance to improve teamwork, communication, and human connection with your co-workers, and there's no arguing with the idea that spending some time in person with people can help improve working relationships (I attended a week-long, all-hands, staff retreat for EFF earlier this month and it was fantastic, primarily due to its in-person nature).

But our bosses don't want us back in the office because they enjoy our company, nor because they're so excited about having hired such a swell bunch of folks and can't wait to see how we all get along together. As John Quiggin writes, the biggest reason to force us back to the office is to get a bunch of us to quit:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/26/in-their-plaintive-call-for-a-return-to-the-office-ceos-reveal-how-little-they-are-needed

As one of Musk's toadies put it in a private message before the Twitter takeover, "Sharpen your blades boys. 2 day a week Office requirement = 20% voluntary departures":

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/29/elon-musk-texts-discovery-twitter/

The other reason to spy on us is because they don't trust us. Remember all the panic about "quiet quitting" and "no one wants to work"? Bosses' hypothesis was that eking out a bare minimum living on from a couple of small-dollar covid stimulus checks was preferable to working for them for a full paycheck.

Every accusation is a a confession. When your boss tells you that he thinks that you can't be trusted to do a good job without total, constant surveillance, he's really saying, "I only bother to do my CEO job when I'm afraid of getting fired':

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/19/make-them-afraid/#fear-is-their-mind-killer

As Wells Fargo United notes, Wells Fargo employees like Denise Prudhomme are spied on from the moment they set foot in the building until the moment they clock out (and sometimes the spying continues when you're off the clock):

Wells Fargo monitors our every move and keystroke using remote, electronic technologies—purportedly to evaluate our productivity—and will fire us if we are caught not making enough keystrokes on our computers.

The Arizona Republic coverage notes further that Prudhomme had to log her comings and goings from the Wells Fargo offices with a badge, so Wells Fargo could see that Prudhomme had entered the premises four days before, but hadn't left:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe-breaking/2024/09/23/wells-fargo-employees-union-responds-death-tempe-woman/75352015007/

Wells Fargo has mandated in-person working, even when that means crossing a state line to be closer to the office. They've created "hub cities" where workers are supposed to turn up. This may sound convivial, but Prudhomme was the only member of her team working out of the Tempe hub, so she was being asked to leave her home, travel long distances, and spend her days in a distant corner of the building where no one ventured for periods of (at least) four days at a time.

Bosses are so convinced that they themselves would goof off if they could that they fixate on forcing employees to spend their days in the office, no matter what the cost. Back in March 2020, Charter CEO Tom Rutledge – then the highest-paid CEO in America – instituted a policy that every back office staffer had to work in person at his call centers. This was the most deadly phase of the pandemic, there was no PPE to speak of, we didn't understand transmission very well, and vaccines didn't exist yet. Charter is a telecommunications company and it was booming as workers across America upgraded their broadband so they could work from home, and the CEO's response was to ban remote work. His customer service centers were superspreading charnel houses:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/18/diy-tp/#sociopathy

That Wells Fargo would leave a dead employee at her desk for four days is par for the course for the third-largest commercial bank in America. This is Wells Fargo, remember, the company that forced its low-level bank staff to open two million fake accounts in order to steal from their customers and defraud their shareholders, then fired and blackballed staff who complained:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/26/495454165/ex-wells-fargo-employees-sue-allege-they-were-punished-for-not-breaking-law

The executive who ran that swindle got a $125 million bonus:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/09/wells-fargo-ceos-teflon-don-act-backfires-at-senate-hearing-i-take-full-responsibility-means-anything-but.html

And the CEO got $200 million:

https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/21/investing/wells-fargo-fired-workers-retaliation-fake-accounts/index.html

It's not like Wells Fargo treats its workers badly but does well by everyone else. Remember, those fake accounts existed as part of a fraud on the company's investors. The company went on to steal $76m from its customers on currency conversions. They also foreclosed on customers who were up to date on their mortgages, seizing and selling off all their possessions. They argued that when bosses pressured tellers into forging customers on fraudulent account-opening paperwork, that those customers had lost their right to sue, since the fraudulent paperwork had a binding arbitration clause. When they finally agreed to pay restitution to their victims, they made the payments opt-in, ensuring that most of the millions of people they stole from would never get their money back.

They stole millions with fraudulent "home warranties." They stole millions from small businesses with fake credit-card fees. They defrauded 800,000 customers through an insurance scam, and stole 25,000 customers' cars with illegal repos. They led the pre-2008 pack on mis-selling deceptive mortgages that blew up and triggered the foreclosure epidemic. They loaned vast sums to Trump, who slashed their taxes, and then they fired 26.000 workers and did a $40.6B stock buyback. They stole 525 homes from mortgage borrowers and blamed it on a "computer glitch":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/29/jubilance/#too-big-to-jail

Given all this, two things are obvious: first, if anyone is going to be monitored for crimes, fraud and scams, it should be Wells Fargo, not its workers. Second, Wells Fargo's surveillance system exists solely to terrorize workers, not to help them. As Wells Fargo United writes:

We demand improved safety precautions that are not punitive or cause further stress for employees. The solution is not more monitoring, but ensuring that we are all connected to a supportive work environment instead of warehoused away in a back office.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

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

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/27/sharpen-your-blades-boys/#disciplinary-technology