#i'd like to have like. more than one option right?

[artificialdevilsean]

Yeah. Like, ideally? Yes, you would speak to your prescriber about it and have them help you get off of it in the safest way possible. But that just is not always an option.

Sometimes they don't have an availability until several months out!

Sometimes the side effects are tanking your quality of life so badly that you need to get off of the med NOW, right now, no waiting, not even if they can see you next week. You need to stop today!

And sometimes, your prescriber is just a fucking bitch who refuses to listen to you about your own mental and physical state and actually work with you instead of against you.

Many reasons why someone might stop taking their meds without talking to their prescriber first!

There's nuance to it. And only you get to decide if a side effect is worth the benefits. Because you are the person taking the medication, you are the person reaping both the benefits and the drawbacks of it.

Mood stabilizers made you not depressed but now your emotions are flatlined and you can't feel strongly about anything and you realize there is less joy in your life than before you started them? You can stop!

Antidepressants improved your mood but caused physical problems so bad that you don't find the trade worth it? You can stop!

And again, if you are able to talk to your prescriber about it, that is preferable! It's great to be able to go see them and say "I don't like what this medication is doing to me. I'd like to try something else." This is the ideal way of doing it!

But we don't live in an ideal world. Far from it. And so, you just need to accept that people are going to make their own judgement calls about the things that affect their lives.

You cannot eliminate the harm that can be done by people going off their meds by screaming at them and shaming them into staying on those meds. That actually just often causes even more harm.

What you can do is strive for harm reduction. Advocate for people to have safe environments to come off of their meds that don't involve institutionalization! That's the big one imo.

I just really wish people would go with "be careful if you want to quit or reduce a psych med that has helped you" or "quitting a psych med cold turkey is often dangerous" instead of the ever-present "NEVER EVER STOP TAKING YOUR PSYCH MEDS". Because reality is much more complex and varied than "taking psych meds = good and helpful" and "not taking psych meds = bad and dangerous". That's just not everyone's reality and it shouldn't be treated as a universal truth.

[brandinotbroke]

Linux distros - what is the difference, which one should I choose?

Caution, VERY long post.

With more and more simmers looking into linux lately, I've been seeing the same questions over and over again: Which distro should I choose? Is distro xyz newbie-friendly? Does this program work on that distro?

So I thought I'd explain the concept of "distros" and clear some of that up.

What are the key differences between distros?

Linux distros are NOT different operating systems (they're all still linux!) and the differences between them aren't actually as big as you think.

Update philosophy: Some distros, like Ubuntu, (supposedly) focus more on stability than being up-to-date. These distros will release one big update once every year or every other year and they are thoroughly tested. However, because the updates are so huge, they inevitably tend to break stuff anyway. On the other end of the spectrum are so-called "rolling release" distros like Arch. They don't do big annual updates, but instead release smaller updates very frequently. They are what's called "bleeding edge" - if there is something new out there, they will be the first ones to get it. This can of course impact stability, but on the other hand, stuff gets improved and fixed very fast. Third, there are also "middle of the road" distros like Fedora, which kind of do... both. Fedora gets big version updates like Ubuntu, but they happen more frequently and are comparably smaller, thus being both stable and reasonably up-to-date.

Package manager: Different distros come with different package managers (APT on ubuntu, DNF on Fedora, etc.). Package managers keep track of all the installed programs on your PC and allow you to update/install/remove programs. You'll often work with the package manager in the terminal: For example, if you want to install lutris on Fedora, you'd type in "sudo dnf install lutris" ("sudo" stands for "super user do", it's the equivalent of administrator rights on Windows). Different package managers come with different pros and cons.

Core utilities and programs: 99% of distros use the same stuff in the background (you don’t even directly interact with it, e.g. background process managing). The 1% that do NOT use the same stuff are obscure distros like VoidLinux, Artix, Alpine, Gentoo, Devuan. If you are not a Linux expert, AVOID THOSE AT ALL COST.

Installation process: Some distros are easier to install than others. Arch is infamous for being a bit difficult to install, but at the same time, its documentation is unparalleled. If you have patience and good reading comprehension, installing arch would literally teach you all you ever need to know about Linux. If you want to go an easier and safer route for now, anything with an installer like Mint or Fedora would suit you better.

Community: Pick a distro with an active community and lots of good documentation! You’ll need help. If you are looking at derivatives (e.g. ZorinOS, which is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian), ask yourself: Does this derivative give you enough benefits to potentially give up community support of the larger distro it is based on? Usually, the answer is no.

Okay, but what EDITION of this distro should I choose?

"Editions" or “spins” usually refer to variations of the same distro with different desktop environments. The three most common ones you should know are GNOME, KDE Plasma and Cinnamon.

GNOME's UI is more similar to MacOS,  but not exactly the same.

KDE Plasma looks and feels a lot like Windows' UI, but with more customization options.

Cinnamon is also pretty windows-y, but more restricted in terms of customization and generally deemed to be "stuck in 2010". 

Mint vs. Pop!_OS vs. Fedora

Currently, the most popular distros within the Sims community seem to be Mint and Fedora (and Pop!_OS to some extent). They are praised for being "beginner friendly". So what's the difference between them?

Both Mint and Pop!_OS are based on Ubuntu, whereas Fedora is a "standalone" upstream distro, meaning it is not based on another distro.

Personally, I recommend Fedora over Mint and Pop!_OS for several reasons. To name only a few:

I mentioned above that Ubuntu's update philosophy tends to break things once a big update rolls around every two years. Since both Mint and Pop!_OS are based on Ubuntu, they are also affected by this.

Ubuntu, Mint and Pop!_OS like to modify their stuff regularly for theming/branding purposes, but this ALSO tends to break things. It is apparently so bad that there is an initiative to stop this.

Pop!_OS uses the GNOME desktop environment, which I would not recommend if you are switching from Windows. Mint offers Cinnamon, which is visually and technically outdated (they use the x11 windowing system standard from 1984), but still beloved by a lot of people. Fedora offers the more modern KDE Plasma.

Personal observation: Most simmers I've encountered who had severe issues with setting up Linux went with an Ubuntu-based distro. There's just something about it that's fucked up, man.

And this doesn't even get into the whole Snaps vs. Flatpak controvery, but I will skip this for brevity.

Does SimPE (or any other program) work on this distro?

If it works on Fedora, then it works on Mint/Ubuntu/Arch/etc., and vice versa. This is all just a question of having the necessary dependencies installed and installing the program itself properly. Some distros may have certain prerequisites pre-installed, while others don't, but you can always just install those yourself. Like I said, different distros are NOT different operating systems. It's all still Linux and you can ultimately customize it however you want.

In short: Yeah, all Sims 2-related programs work. Yes, ReShade too. It ultimately doesn't really matter what distro you use as long as it is not part of the obscure 1% I mentioned above.

A little piece of advice

Whatever distro you end up choosing: get used to googling stuff and practice reading comprehension! There are numerous forums, discord servers and subreddits where you can ask people for help. Generally speaking, the linux community is very open to helping newbies. HOWEVER, they are not as tolerant to nagging and laziness as the Sims community tends to be. Show initiative, use google search & common sense, try things out before screaming for help and be detailed and respectful when explaining your problems. They appreciate that. Also, use the arch wiki even if you do not use Arch Linux – most of it is applicable to other distros as well.

[i-am-a-bad-influence-writes]

What car would they drive?

Masterlist

Author's note: I saw someone on TikTok do this and it was Sylus with a red Lambo, Rafayel with a Masserati, Zayne with a Mercedes, Caleb with some kind of off roading car, and Xavier with a Fiat Panda. I slightly disagree. Here's what I think as someone who loves classic cars. These are also just my opinions, they're not canon at all.

∘₊✧───────────────────────────────────────✧₊��

Zayne

2019 Volvo S60 T6 4-door 4wd, no questions asked.

Why? It is widely considered one of the savest cars on the market while still looking cool as hell. If there's anything I think Zayne would want in his car, it's safety and quality. Volvo has both. It is also a semi-automatic, so he can use it as an automatic but I feel like Zayne would like the extra control of changing gears at certain times.

∘₊✧───────────────────────────────────────✧₊∘

Xavier

Okay, so I get why this person said he would drive a Fiat Panda. He's sweet and all that, but we all know he's a lot darker behind closed doors. Which is why I feel like he would drive a very nice, very unique car.

This is a Maserati Ghibli 4.7. For this one I'd really like to hear if others agree with me, but I do think he would be part of some classic car club. Other than Sylus and Rafayel, he would actually like the quirks that come with owning a classic car. I feel like he would like tinkering with it.

∘₊✧───────────────────────────────────────✧₊∘

Rafayel

See, there's two ways this could go. We all know Rafayel is a drama queen, so I think he would drive at least two cars. One for drama and one for convenience.

The drama car, in my opinion, is definitely a Chevrolet Bel Air 1957, specifically in the pink as on the picture below. This is a car that screams drama. It's a classic and pretty old, so he would probably have it upgraded cause he can't deal with the engine problems that come with owning classic cars but he likes the look.

For day to day he drives an Opel Mocca. Why an Opel Mocca? Well, I am learning how to drive in an Opel Mocca and that thing is smooth as butter, very forgiving, and a very nice car with very simple luxuries that make driving very fun. Yes, I added in that it's forgiving because I doubt that Rafayel is a good driver. Also, don't ask me why, but I think he wouldn't drive the electric version. I feel he would just drive a diesel, which also gives a lil more drama cause it has 6 gears.

∘₊✧───────────────────────────────────────✧₊∘

Sylus

Lamborghini Espada Series 3

A beautiful classic car from 1973, the last of the espada series. Luxurious leather seats, luxurious Italian design, the most Bond-esque car there is. I will die on this hill. I mean it. He would, however, probably upgrade it insanely well. Bulletproof windows, upgraded engine, etc. This car is already insane as is, but you best believe this man has it in mint condition. Maybe even has a backup. Tell me you can't imagine Sylus driving this. That's right, you can't.

Also drives a Fiat Dino Coupé 2400 when he's in Linkon. Not to blend in or anything, the Espada is just fucking huge and the Dino is a little smaller. Why not to blend in? The Dino is a lovechild of Fiat and Ferrari. It has a Ferrari engine and you can hear it.

∘₊✧───────────────────────────────────────✧₊∘

Caleb

Listen. Me personally. I think Caleb is probably a great pilot. Maybe even on of the best. He has many great qualities, but...

He can't drive.

Doesn't have a license. Also, as a colonel, he gets driven around everywhere so it doesn't matter at all.

If he could drive, I have two options. First, as our childhood friend he would drive a beat up Peugeot 205. You cannot tell me this silly little car doesn't fit him perfectly.

Then, after the whole ordeal, he would drive a BMW e32. Why? It is practically the perfect mob car. It has an outline for a gun in a hidden compartment by the driver's side, bulletproof glass, and another hidden compartment between the two backseats that is controlled with a switch. Oh, and it has a screen where you can watch movies in the back. I think they used to be used as presidential cars or something because some of them still have attachments on the side for flagpoles so it would fit his whole vibe.

∘₊✧───────────────────────────────────────✧₊∘

[dailyfigures]

im still a minor and im kinda of scared about moving out for like college on my own because idk if ill be able to keep my spending habits in check.... like right now i still have my parents so i dont buy as much but im scared that once im on my own i will spend lots and lots of money. sorry to ask like this but do you maybe have a word of advice as someone that went through something similar? its fine if you dont and thank you ♡

i understand and i do sadly have to say that is what tripped me up. my addiction started when i turned 18 and all my savings, my parents' savings for me and everything was transferred to me. i was also going through a really difficult time and i had pretty much nothing to keep me going. not a great combo!

more than anything i'd say mental health is the basis of any addiction. if your mental health is low, you will be more desperate for the spike of happy brain chemicals that purchasing things causes. if you're overal content/happy in your daily life, those spikes won't be worth nearly as much to you.

i would recommend for you to work on your mental health the best you can! if possible i'd recommend therapy to help you out. self care is very important, it's a lot harder to feel good on 3 hours of sleep with greasy hair and half a cracker in your stomach.

if you have a family member or friend who you trust, ask them to help you budget! they can help you figure out how much you should save and how much fun spending money you'll have each month. money tracking apps can help a lot too. i downloaded one a while back during a phase where i was getting a few too many little treats and drinks and i needed to have a visual overview of the percentages i was spending on treats, bills, fun, etc.

i currently just use different "jars"/side accounts in my bank account app. i have one for the savings my dear parents saved for me for college or an apartment or something if this fuckass economy ever allows it (i do not touch these savings), my own savings from my salary (the goal is to grow these savings however i do touch them so that's not successful every month) and just my paying account (when i get my salary i leave a few hundreds in here and the rest goes into my own savings account). not sure whether everyone's bank apps have these options but that's just my current situation!

long story short; take care of yourself and your mental health and you won't be as vulnerable to addiction! don't be afraid to ask for help, now or later. if you ever notice that things might not be going too well financially, take action IMMEDIATELY! do not wait until you have a full blown addiction, tell your parents you're struggling with managing your money and ask if they can keep your savings safe on their accounts. go to therapy if possible. you are never alone! be kind to yourself and you will be fine!

[irradiate-space]

The results are in! Of 821 votes total, at 45.6% Star Trek handily wins over The Culture (27%), which handily wins over twee cottagepunk pre-industrial pastoral fantasy (15.6%). Dystopia, at 4.5%, is right about what we should expect from Lizardman's Constant, and premise-rejection is at a nice round 7.3%.

I'm not terribly surprised that people chose Star Trek over The Culture; Star Trek is a much more popular media franchise. Witness @drarunpeel's tags:

#star trek #i just find beige very comforting bc i grew up on tng #I've never read the source material for the culture though so maybe if i had I'd prefer that

Another notable set of tags:

#in culture I could live my cottagepunk pre-industrial fantasy if i wanted

That comment, from @krakenoflight, makes me wonder whether "twee cottagepunk pre-industrial pastoral fantasy" captured some votes from the two scifi options, simply because the two scifi options allow implementing the fantasy. But @queer-folk-abroad gets it:

#The culture #you get brain drugs and easy sex changes and no one is afraid of sex and if you want they’ll stick you on your twee pastoralist primitive world

Or as @andmaybegayer put it:

#oh culture for real they're immortal and you can become weird shapes

Which, well, you can do that in Star Trek, too! But not voluntarily, as @timberwind pointed out:

#star trek winning out over culture is insane #I mean I like trek but you can't go more than fifty miles in the trek universe without falling into a time warp and having to fix history #whereas life in most of culture space is so nice and unlethal that a small fraction of people regularly feel almost aggreived about it

I particularly like @sophia-epistemia's take on the Trek/Culture split:

The Culture. obviously. those options are "die horribly of a trivially curable infection", "normie life in an under-wordlbuilt '60s liberal tolerance morality tale" (unless it's modern trek and fuck that lol), and "live forever in transhumanistan" (yeah ino The Culture has a social norm against immortality; so what, real life has one against trannies and yet here i am)

but there was one response I was not expecting, and that's @earlgraytay's choice setting:

#i mean it really depends doesn't it #which version of the Federation #for starters #i usually say that i'd prefer to live in the Pokemon universe because that kind of splits the difference #you have all the modern conveniences AND the strong bond with nature #and assuming you take the series at its word it's pretty utopian? #a lot of the BLUH BLUH POKEMON UNIVERSE DYSTOPIA disk horse is very dumb because it refuses to take the series at its word #and insists that Pokemon must be being exploited because that's the only way the arguer can see humans engaging with nature #when like pokemon are meant to be like kami. they don't fuck with humans they don't like

So thanks for voting, y'all!

At a time and location of your choosing in that setting, you live as an average person. (Yes, Trekkies can be in Starfleet if they wish.) Tag and comment with your specific responses.

This question is brought to you by discussion in my family group chat, which in turn was incited by watercooler discourse in an office somewhere. The watercooler answers were utterly fascinating to me, and now I'm wondering what my neargroup thinks. The specific answers in the poll above were chosen based on a review of various Discords' responses.

[quaranmine]

can i pay extra for a phone NOT to have ai

[camgoloud]

kind of thinking about signing up for fandom trumps hate this year but this would be in spite of the fact that i've only written like 2 fics for exchanges in the last year. do people who follow me here even remember that i used to write stuff. anyway if i did sign up would someone promise to bid 5 dollars on me so i wouldn't have to be embarrassed about it

[dkettchen]

me waking up in a cold sweat at 6:20am: "I should get evening classes to be a hair dresser & training to be a makeup artist to be my own hair/make-up person on photo/video shoots and defy industry's single-gender-dominated-and-not-improving department segregation system like the all-rounder online creator that I am 👀😤"

[burningcomputerpersona]

ahhhhhhhh guess who made the mistake of getting a haircut

[nobodybetterlookatme]

Wait what's wrong with firefighters?

With my coworkers specifically, nothing if you're into the whole macho, no feelings thing 😅 like the guys I work with are worlds better than some of the other departments I've done ride alongs and trainings at, but they're all still assholes with no brain cells (affectionate) and that just doesn't do it for me irl like it does in fiction lmao

[running-in-the-dark]

I'm really going through it today 🙃

[salvebellaluna]

ahahahahaha

[beeseverywhen]

god the duality between 'I don't want someone in my house' and 'yeah I'd like my own kids and no way I'm doing that alone'

[the-physicality]

"tomorrow we find out where paige is going" .... .tomorrow we find out which team has a 99% chance of drafting paige

[neverendingford]

,

[inbabylontheywept]

The Motherfucking Lizard King

No one at work trusts my boss. 

He's smart. He works hard. He's not trustworthy. He hasn't actually fucked anyone at work over, but he's ruined his last two marriages with affairs, and got dumped by his third fiance when he wouldn't sign a prenup. The fact that we all know this is just a hazard of working in a small town. 

Anyway: The thought process of the people in the lab is that if he screwed over his first wife, and his second wife, and was probably planning on screwing over his third wife, it would be insane for him not to screw us over. After all, what kind of idiot treats their employees better than their spouse? 

I dunno. His kind, I guess? He's had a few chances to fuck us over, and he hasn't taken them. Opposite really. When our parent company was doing furloughs, he stayed in the office almost a hundred hours, talking and talking and talking his way up the corporate ladder. And in the end, no one at our site got furloughed. 

He's pulled strings like that before. And it baffles me, right? Because it really does make zero sense. He'll move the heavens and the earth for us, but his wife and kids are afterthoughts. It feels like any moment, he's going to look into the mirror and realize how stupid that is. It feels like I'm betting on him making the same stupid mistake again, and again, and again - like it would be less cynical to believe he was, eventually, going to stab me in the back. But he hasn't yet, and as far as I can tell he's been making that mistake for close to fifteen years, and it's already cost him everything it can. If he was going to learn, he would have by now. 

So my position on him is that if he wanted to date someone I cared about, I'd warn them off. I don't trust him there. But I tentatively trust him to be my boss. Maybe one day he'll stick the knife in and twist, and everyone will say Ah, Babs, we warned you, but for now, I accept that he's doing a very predictable, very irrational thing, and I've made my peace with it. 

---

My job has glue traps. 

No one likes the glue traps, but we don't have a lot of options. Poison's banned by state law, spring traps are banned by company safety, and several non-lethal options tried in the past failed to work. The mouse problem can get pretty bad if it's ignored, and there's some real health hazards in that. Our site has never had a positive hantavirus test, thank God, but the big base about a half hour away has. That guy's gonna be on oxygen the rest of his life. 

If a mouse gets caught, we just euthanize it. But more than mice get stuck. Lizards can wander into those traps too, and the people working there have different feelings about the lizards. They don't pose nearly the same kind of risk mice do. They're chill little guys, and they keep the moths away, and they're just 

You know. They're friendly. There's something to be said about walking into a room, and hitting the light switch, and seeing two little guys on the wall start to do pushups as soon as they see you. 

People used to just euthanize the lizards too, but I had pet leopard geckos as a kid and I couldn't take that so I wound up googling how to free animals from glue traps. Now, when a lizard gets stuck in a trap - which happens once or twice a week - I get some vegetable oil from the breakroom, and a little plastic fork, and I'll spend fifteen to twenty minutes just kind of gently prying the little guys out. 

I have a team of technicians that help me operate one of the larger machines. They're real blue collar guys, ex-airforce, and they make me look like a little kid. Being an engineer means they'll look to me as a leader sometimes, which is a wild experience. And I started helping the lizards for my own conscience, but one of the crazier consequences of it has been that it seriously boosted my leadership cred. Because those guys see me, and they go: Hey. If he's willing to fight for a lizard, he's gotta be willing to fight for me. 

I cannot overstate how nice that is. Most engineers that want to make a change to a maintenance practice, or try an upgrade, they have to work their asses off to get the techs to buy in. But I can just ask. They already trust me to do good. They know I'm new, and they know I'm not the smartest engineer in the building, but they also know I'm the one who gets lizards out of the glue traps. 

And just because of that, they're willing to follow me. 

---

My boss has a meeting every month or two. It's typically basic house cleaning stuff - reminders about routines we've gotten lazy on, and updates on future projects. Maybe some warnings about problems coming from higher up in the company.

People are, in my opinion, a bit too cynical about the meetings. It stems from people not trusting our boss, which again, I understand, because it would make so much more sense if he wasn't trustworthy. It's a testament to the man's incredibly unhealthy priorities that he is. But as we made it to the end of the meeting, one of bullet points was: 

Do NOT mess with animals in the building. 

So I looked at my techs, and they looked at me, and when he got to the point, he was so scathing I actually just wanted to crawl under a rock and die. He said basically that he'd heard some reports about someone in the building handling animals that found their way in and got stuck, and that he just wanted to emphasize how insanely inappropriate that was, not to mention dangerous, and that if he needed to speak to anyone about it again, there would be severe consequences. 

I was willing to just take the shame and move on. I was. But one of my techs is old. Old enough he could've retired two years ago. And his actual literal goal is to one day get angry, yell at someone, and storm out. That's how he wants to retire. So instead of biting his tongue like everyone else, he stood up and said: I hate the glue traps. You hate the glue traps. We all hate glue traps. But we've all sat here for years, ignoring the little things that get stuck in them, watching them die, and then Bab's comes in, and he is the first person in decades to give enough of a shit to start pulling the lizards out. And I don't want him to stop. 

Get humane traps or shut up but we are not going back to the old way of just letting things starve. 

And my boss actually froze up. He got all wide eyed and stared at Marc, and then the other techs jumped in, and there was a very small but intense rebellion in the meeting and my boss kept trying to interrupt while getting absolutely bowled over by this gang of angry middle aged air force vets, and eventually he just went 

I will speak with Babylon about this afterwards! After! And then he will speak with everyone else, but I have more points to cover. 

So they went silent, and my boss rushed through the last five minutes, and we all adjounred. The techs really didn't like that I was going in alone - they thought our boss was going to try and shout me into compliance. Marc in particular was like, Look, if he tries bullying you, stand your ground, and if he threatens anything, just come get us, and we'll give him hell. 

So armed with that, I went to my boss's office. I sat in the chair across from him, and he kept his composure for maybe five seconds before just flopping back into his chair. 

I had no idea you were saving lizards, he said, but I'm glad you are. I always hated seeing them die in the glue.  

I wasn't expecting that. I was about to ask him what the comment from the meeting was about then, but he answered that before I even got the chance.

A snake got into the building last week, and - someone picked it up and chased a coworker around. Turns out that coworker was severely afraid of snakes, and now it's a shitshow. We're a small site, and now I can't ask those two to work together anymore, to say nothing about how the snake fared after all that. Being upset about that is a reasonable thing, right? 

And he gave me a look like he actually wanted an answer, so I said Yeah, totally, chasing a coworker around with a snake is a dick move. Especially if that coworker is already afraid of snakes. 

And he said Exactly! and then we sat there a few moments longer. He looked so incredibly tired that I did, actually, feel kind of bad for him. And then he somehow managed to sink even further into his chair, and said

Look, I know I'm not a good guy. But I'm not evil. I'm not some sort of crazy asshole that's going to demand that everyone watch lizards starve to death. When you go back downstairs, could you try to pass that on? That I'm not evil? 

I said Sure because it wasn't a hard request, and he looked relieved. I actually made it halfway out before I realized I had a question. 

Who grabbed the snake? I asked. 

Not supposed to talk about it, he said. But whoever comes to mind first is probably right. 

ThatGuy? I asked. And he looked me in the face, nodded his head yes, and said No. 

---

The techs seemed a little disappointed that they didn't get to storm the boss's office, but were otherwise in good spirits. They were actually a little bit embarrassed to hear about the snake story - apparently, it wasn't much of a secret. It'd just slipped their minds because it happened three weeks ago. 

We did maintenance after that, the same basic repairs we did every week. The meeting had been stressful and it was a relief to work with my hands. When the parts were reinstalled, everything cleaned and smooth and ready to go, Marc found me again. 

You know what the lesson of today is? he asked. And there were quite a few answers to that that I could have taken - from don't assume the worst of people to be careful with how you spend your trust - we all need it more than we think. 

But instead I said what? because I wanted to hear what his answer was going to be. 

That I got your back, he said. Then he clapped one very, very large hand on my shoulder, gave it a good squeeze, and walked back to dosimetry lab.

---

The next day, Marc gave me a package and told me to open it in my office. I was suspicious, but I followed the request.

Cardboard gave way to a small baggie, obviously full of fabric, which opened to reveal a t-shirt that read

"I Am the Motherfucking Lizard King."

I looked at it, I loved it, and then I got an idea. I went to my boss's office and knocked on the door. When he opened it, I asked him if he would be willing to allow something very unprofessional to happen for morale building purposes.

How unprofessional? he asked. I held the shirt up in answer. He gave the shirt a short look over and snorted.

You can wear it on weeks without customers, he said. Which just so happened to include that week.

I'll pass on that it came with your blessing, I replied, and he looked oddly relieved.

Thanks, he said. And then I went downstairs.

---

The techs were very, very happy to see the shirt. And while my boss's reputation remains in tatters, and probably will be until he moves (or dies), the next time there was a meeting, there was quite a bit less complaining about how mere presence. Which is, I guess, a start.

We'll see if he squanders it.