#no i don't know if those two have newer community names i've been here for 11 years and that's how i remember them

[astorythatwritesitself]

Well I guess I have a turian OC now???

[skruffie]

In light of the situation that happened with my manager, she informed us today that she is planning to move back farther south where her primary community and support system are. I think we all saw this coming; the doctor predicted it like the day after we got the news about what was going on and for privacy's sake I'm not going to expand on it here even if I'm not naming names. It's the kind of situation where nobody would blame her for wanting to no longer live in that house.

She hasn't told her boss yet. The typical situation here is that the assistant manager would take her position and that would potentially put me in as assistant manager since I'm third down from the top, but our assistant manager is not enthusiastic about this idea. He moved up to WA to go to school to be an optometrist, not an optician, but was already kind of talking about moving again maybe in a year or two where there are better schools. They wouldn't promote me to general manager from my position just yet, especially without actual management experience, but I know when I started with this industry I showed a lot of promise and there were conversations had about what I wanted my future to look like. I'm not sure if I am ready to be a manager but I would feel comfortable as assistant.

This then leaves the potential they bring in someone from a different store, which is what I would prefer over an outside hire. The tech and I were talking this evening before they went home about how they're hoping whoever will take our boss's place will still be just as queer friendly and chill with our various disabilities, and that would be ideal. I've become a much more fully embodied worker with this team where I don't have to mask any aspect of my personality with who I'm working with--do you know how rare that is at a job? An outside person isn't going to be able to put that light out, and I already said outright that if they pick someone shitty I am absolutely not afraid to leave. I love my job, but I have a feeling they're going to be hunting for someone who is a lot more aggressively sales focused since we haven't been doing too well.

What we've been trying to tell the higher management is that the demographic of the area we live in is a lot more low income than the newer locations they put out. It's not really much of a secret but part of optical, especially at retail chain locations, is exam conversion: we want you to both get your exam done and also purchases glasses and/or contacts with us the same day. Everybody gets their prescription to take home with them regardless if they actually buy anything or not, but we stay in business when people buy. That's how it is with any retail industry.

Our exam conversion is actually pretty damn good but the average amount of money that people spend is lower than other stores and we don't get a lot of new patients. It was busier the first year this place opened but then they opened three new locations farther south and east and it took patients away because now there was a place closer to them. We've been trying to market up north where there are no other locations but it's a bit more of a schelp, especially now that one of the primary routes to get from city to city is going to be closed down for four months for construction. The area of the city we're in specifically is pretty low income and has one of those stupid reputations for being the "bad" part of town. We've had some of our luxury frames stolen. It's a thing. We have these magnets on the frames but over in one of the newer, more affluent locations, their lux collection has no security tags at all.

Optical is a niche industry and whenever I have my profile set on Indeed to "available to work immediately" I'm often getting messages from people desperate to hire me. Even without a license, I can still start an apprenticeship and be making a lot more pretty much anywhere else. I've stayed here because of the location and the team and I think quietly I've been emotionally preparing for knowing that can always change. I always had a feeling our manager would leave at some point because she also has a more specialized industry she left for this one + makes frequent weekend trips down to Portland for friends and keeping her connections, but the way this is happening is the worst fucking possible way.

[libraryofbaxobab]

Video captions after the break:

Welcome to the Library of Baxobab. Please present your library card; if you do not have a library card, you may apply for one with two forms of identification and a valid library card. Please note that Restricted Sections are accessible to demons only. All sections in the library are restricted, except, of course, the unrestricted section, which is comprised of all materials in the library’s collection.

While the benevolence of Baxobab has granted me access to these sacred stacks for eternity, I, your humble library assistant, have begun a passionate love affair with my local library, which is patronized mostly by humans.

They just keep letting me have books for free! They want them back but they just keep letting me take em!

I should make it clear that I'm not an expert on human libraries: I didn't go to school for library sciences, I've never worked at a bookstore or in publishing, this is just my experience both being a library patron and volunteering at a local human library where i used to live. I don't think my research at the Library of Baxobab applies to earth libraries.

I am extremely hype about my local library because first of all it's been really convenient. Without doxing myself, I live in a very medium American city, and I suspect our library system is not much different than those of comparable metropolitan areas. There are two of the famous branches within one mile of my house, so it's really easy not only for me to go there and browse but also to go there and pick things up. I can go online and request anything I want from any other library in the whole system and have those shipped to a mile away for free, so I wouldn't have to go on a 45 minute drive to [location undisclosed], I can just pick that up on Tuesday on my way after work.

I always wonder about how much that costs because allegedly interlibrary loan is the reason that media mail was invented and that's why it's so cheap. But even though it's cheap, it's not zero dollars and I'm paying $0 for this book not only to be lent out to me but also to be shipped now... so I prefer to think that one guy just drives around to all the library locations on the weekends like a local Santa Claus.

Your library gets paid based on how many people they serve, not in aggregate. It's not that they look at "well there's this many people in the community, and this percentage of them have a library card, and this number of--" no, the library takes count of every person who benefits from the library's various programs. They want you to go there and do all their free stuff. And the reason I know this is because of my previous volunteer position: I used to want to distance myself from the activities going on. My thought was, I'm here to volunteer; I'm here to work; I'm not here to receive these services; so you know they'd be like "hey take a juice box and put your name on the sign-in sheet" and I'd be like "nah nah those are for the kids I don't need one" and they would be like "hey listen. take a juice box. and put your name on the sign in sheet. because if you don't take a juice box you can't sign in for receiving an afternoon snack. and so if only five teenagers receive an afternoon snack, we will only get enough funding to feed five teenagers afternoon snacks. We would like to have more teenagers, but that means we need more snacks. so take a juice box."

"Okay I'll take a juice box for the team!" They have to prove that each individual person who received something actually received something and that that individual person was there. So don't feel bad asking for things, taking a snack if they're available, checking books out and not reading them and giving them back and checking them out some other time because they get more money, they get more funding, based on you using their services. Every person who comes in and logs into the computers, they can say, "These many people use our computers and that's why we need money for a newer computers." They might say "This is how many people checked out this book, that's why we need three new copies of this book and we should order more from that author for next time, people are going nuts for this person." "This many teenagers (and adults and local volunteers) got afternoon snacks on these days, we're going to need more snacks next time." This is how they get money for more cool stuff. It's this great cyclical effect where: you get stuff for free, they get more money to make it more free to more people, which means you can get better stuff... also for free. That helps out authors in that way, that if you're checking out your favorite author's book more than one time, if they end up with a huge waiting list because so many people are reading that book, they're more likely to buy more copies. I can go online and check the waiting list to see how many copies of each book that I want are in circulation, which libraries they live at, and how many people are on the waiting list, so I don't feel bad that House of Hunger has been sitting around for like 2 weeks now, because they have 22 copies of it and only 14 of them are out. So if anybody wants to read it, they can! They also look at "well this book was checked out so many times it probably has the usual wear and tear. We might have to replace it."

This has saved me a ton of money because most of the books that I've been checking out from the library were published this year, so that means they're unlikely to be found used at the secondhand stores, which is most of my personal collection is secondhand. Pretty expensive for me to have gotten and I would have to be a lot more selective in what I pre-order, what I buy brand new, versus what I buy secondhand.

This has been so much cooler because I've read all of these books that are recent I haven't spent $30 for every new author that I've tried out who has a brand new book this year. Save that money but still contribute to that author by being on the waitlist at my library! "We only have 14 copies and there's 12 people still waiting we should buy more of those." There's no way that I would be buying 14 copies of even my favorite book, that's an insane person thing to do. But the library can do it because they're serving more than 14 people.

The other thing is some of the books that I've read from the library I've liked so much that they are now on my wishlist to purchase and to put into my home library. It's just sort of like a positive feedback loop, and it's hard to imagine those cause we don't get a lot of those in other places in life. Check out your local library. Check them out online: they have ebooks--I can't read ebooks because the screens make my eyes sad. It's not for me but it is for a lot of people--; they have audiobooks, both downloadable and on CDs; they have movies (you can just rent a movie. It's like Redbox but for no money and for three weeks!); nearby has video games--actually I'm on the wait list for God of War. It's just an all-around good thing? Your local library supports you. You support them by letting them support you.

Get whatever I want, anytime I want, really easily, and not pay for it: there's not a downside! That kicks so much ass. Some of these have auto renewed four times; I've had them since September. I haven't had to risk any money, I don't have to hedge any bets; if a book starts out being boring, I don't feel like I have to finish it. I've been less choosy about which books come into my home and more choosy about which books get my time which I think is a change for the better. So... thank you for joining me in the library.