#support employees

[contemplatingoutlander]

“'We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,' Russell Vought [co-author of Project 2025], who has been tapped by Mr. Trump to lead the Office of Management and Budget, has said. 'When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains.'”

If we want federal civil servants not to just abandon their jobs under the pressure of a hostile Trump administration, they will need support from the public. In this essay by Stacey Young, a lawyer in the DOJ civil rights division, explains the help that is needed. This is a gift 🎁 link, so there is no paywall. Below are some excerpts.

Federal employees like me have been hearing a lot in recent weeks about how important it is for us to stay in our jobs, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s open animosity toward much of the federal work force. We’ve been told by friends, relatives and good-government advocates that a well-functioning government — and the survival of our democracy — depends on it. We know. We understand what will happen if Mr. Trump fills the civil service with unqualified, inexperienced people selected for their political loyalty. But to stay in our jobs, we will need more than exhortation; we will need legal, psychological and other practical support. One reason many federal employees are thinking of leaving government — often after decades of serving our country, under Republican and Democratic presidents — is that we’re afraid. The incoming leaders of the government have told us in aggressive terms that they want us either gone or miserable.  [...]

What sorts of practical support would help? For one thing, lawyers and mental health providers could offer pro bono or significantly discounted services to federal employees.... Data-removal companies that specialize in taking down personal information online could offer free or discounted plans to federal employees who are being harassed or at risk of harassment. Friends and family members of federal employees with young children or other caregiving responsibilities could offer to pitch in. (Without their help, employees who are stripped of their ability to do some remote work or forced to adhere to overly rigid work schedules may have no choice but to leave their jobs.) Concerned citizens could urge their elected representatives to promote legislation that protects civil servants and oppose draconian bills that would harm them. Those with money to spare could donate to organizations that work to protect public servants. And if you value the civil service, don’t just tell us; tell your friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members too — especially whenever the pernicious “deep state” narrative rears its ugly head.

[bisexualgoth]

all workers' strikes are good. yes even if they're inconvenient. even if they're making your life harder. even if you don't get to watch your favourite tv show. workers fighting for their rights is ALWAYS a good thing

[cleoselene]

SPREAD IT FAR AND WIDE

Costco sells Plan B OTC and does not require you to have a membership to purchase it.

[ckerouac]

Severance being promoted as a way to save your soul is vile and inevitable and fascinating. You are irredeemable but there’s a way to create another you, free from your burden of sin, that can attain the Kingdom of Heaven. Your Innie can remain pure regardless of the actions of your Outie as they are two distinct people with two distinct souls. You have fallen too far, but if you get Severed there’s a chance for a version of you to escape eternal torment. Don’t worry about what your Innie is doing or suffering now, know that their reward is after in Heaven. You are too far gone, but if you submit to Lumon there’s a chance.

[inkskinned]

one of the things that i think we should pay attention to, socially, about the disney v. desantis thing is that it is really highlighting the importance of remembering nuance.

in a purely neutral sense, if you engage in something problematic, that does not mean you are necessarily agreeing with what makes it problematic. and i am worried that we have become... so afraid of any form of nuance.

disney isn't my friend, they're a corporate monopoly that bastardized copyright laws for their own benefit, ruin the environment, and abuse their workers (... and many other things). this isn't a hypothetical for me - i grew up in florida. i also worked for the actual Walt Disney World; like, in the parks. i am keenly aware of the ways they hurt people, because they hurt me. i fully believe that part of the reason florida is so conservative is because it's been an "open secret" for years now that disney lobbies the government to keep minimum wage down, and i know they worked hard to keep the parks unmasked and open during the worst parts of Covid. they purposefully keep their employees in poverty. they are in part responsible for the way the floridian government works.

desantis is still, by a margin that is frankly daunting, way worse. the alternative here isn't just "republicans win", it's actual fascism.

in a case like this, where the alternative is to allow actual fascism into united states legislation - where, if desantis wins, there are huge and legal ramifications - it's tempting to minimize the harm disney is also doing, because... well, it's not fascism. but disney isn't the good guy, either, which means republicans are having a field day asking activists oh, so you think their treatment of their employees is okay?

we have been trained there is a right answer. you're right! you're in the good group, and you're winning at having an opinion.

except i have the Internet Prophecy that in 2-3 months, even left-wing people will be ripping apart activists for having "taken disney's side". aren't i an anti-capitalist? aren't i pro-union? aren't i one of the good ones? removed from context and nuance (that in this particular situation i am forced to side with disney, until an other option reveals itself), my act of being like "i hope they have goofy rip his throat out onstage, shaking his lifeless body like a dog toy" - how quickly does that seem like i actually do support disney?

and what about you! at home, reading this. are you experiencing the Thought Crime of... actually liking some of the things disney has made? your memories of days at the parks, or of good movies, or of your favorite show growing up. maybe you are also evil, if you ever enjoyed anything, ever, at all.

to some degree, the binary idealization/vilification of individual motive and meaning already exists in the desantis case. i have seen people saying not to go to the disney pride events because they're cash grabs (they are). i've seen people saying you have to go because they're a way to protest. there isn't a lot of internet understanding of nuance. instead it's just "good show of support" or "evil bootlicking."

this binary understanding is how you can become radicalized. when we fear nuance and disorder, we're allowing ourselves the safety of assuming that the world must exist in binary - good or bad, problematic or "not" problematic. and unfortunately, bigots want you to see the world in this binary ideal. they want you to get mad at me because "disney is taking a risk for our community but you won't sing their praises" and they want me to get mad at you for not respecting the legit personal trauma that disney forced me through.

in a grander scheme outside of disney: what happens is a horrific splintering within activist groups. we bicker with each other about minimal-harm minimal-impact ideologies, like which depiction of bisexuality is the most-true. we gratuitously analyze the personal lives of activists for any sign they might be "problematic". we get spooked because someone was in a dog collar at pride. we wring our hands about setting an empty shopping mall on fire. we tell each other what words we may identify ourselves by. we get fuckin steven universe disk horse when in reality it is a waste of our collective time.

the bigots want you to spend all your time focusing on how pristine and pretty you and your interests are. they want us at each other's throats instead of hand in hand. they want to say see? nothing is ever fucking good enough for these people.

and they want their followers to think in binary as well - a binary that's much easier to follow. see, in our spaces, we attack each other over "proper" behavior. but in bigoted groups? they attack outwards. they have someone they hate, and it is us. they hate you, specifically, and you are why they have problems - not the other people in their group. and that's a part of how they fucking keep winning.

some of the things that are beloved to you have a backbone in something terrible. the music industry is a wasteland. the publishing industry is a bastion of white supremacy. video games run off of unpaid labor and abuse.

the point of activism was always to bring to light that abuse and try to stop it from happening, not to condemn those who engage in the content that comes from those industries. "there is no ethical consumption under late capitalism" also applies to media. your childhood (and maybe current!) love of the little mermaid isn't something you should now flinch from, worried you'll be a "disney adult". wanting the music industry to change for the better does not require that you reject all popular music until that change occurs. you can acknowledge the harm something might cause - and celebrate the love that it has brought into your life.

we must detach an acknowledgment of nuance from a sense of shame and disgust. we must. punishing individual people for their harmless passions is not doing good work. encouraging more thoughtful, empathetic consumption does not mean people should feel ashamed of their basic human capacities and desires. it should never have even been about the individual when the corporation is so obviously the actual evil. this sense that we must live in shame and dread of our personal nuances - it just makes people bitter and hopeless. do you have any idea how scared i am to post this? to just acknowledge the idea of nuance? that i might like something nuanced, and engage in it joyfully? and, at the same time, that i'm brutally aware of the harm that they're doing?

"so what do i do?" ... well, often there isn't a right answer. i mean in this case, i hope mickey chops off ron's head and then does a little giggle. but truth be told, often our opinions on nuanced subjects will differ. you might be able to engage in things that i can't because the nuance doesn't sit right with me. i might think taylor swift is a great performer and a lot of fun, and you might be like "raquel, the jet fuel emissions". we are both correct; neither of us have any actual sway in this. and i think it's important to remember that - the actual scope of individual responsibility. like, i also love going to the parks. Thunder Mountain is so fun. you (just a person) are not responsible for the harm that Disney (the billion dollar corporation) caused me. i don't know. i think it's possible to both enjoy your memories and interrogate the current state of their employment policies.

there is no right way to interrogate or engage with nuance - i just hope you embrace it readily.

[acid-smoke]

I am suddenly okay-ish with living in historic times

[coquelicoq]

i know cql lan wangji looks Baby because he's played by wang yibo, who was what, 22? christ. but i like to think it's actually because of his high cultivation which has arrested his aging at a very early point. i wonder if cultivators have this problem where they're like 85 and they go on a nighthunt to some tiny village where all the residents treat them like fresh-faced teens out on their first big adventure. probably most sects, to prevent this exact problem, on purpose structure their curricula so that disciples won't get to the stage of cultivation where they stop aging until they're at least 35, but lan wangji is such a nerd he just blew right past the benchmarks 15 years ahead of schedule because no one could stop him doing the extra credit. now he's cursed to be forever baby. wei wuxian loves it; every time they go to a new town the locals think he's a cradle robber and keep pulling lan wangji aside to ask if he needs anything. is this creepy old man giving you a hard time, honey? you know wei wuxian would have a field day with that. all across the country a swath of villagers trail in their wake, forever traumatized.

[unpretty]

okay i definitely need to mute notifications about that post before people defending my coworker or complaining about The Cloud tempt me into revealing Too Much Information. i mean i've already revealed too much information quite frankly but so it goes.

[lifeisstrange-incorrectquotes]

PLEASE STOP HARASSING DECK NINE DEVS AND LIS PLAYERS WHO DON'T AGREE WITH YOU.

Death threats are not okay.

Telling people to kill themselves is not okay.

Harassing people over fictional ships is not okay.

Harassing people over their opinion of a game is not okay.

Harassing already overstressed, overworked employees is not okay. ESPECIALLY since it's been documented they've been working under discriminatory and predatory management, been through multiple crunches, and have an unidentified neo-Nazi on their team who management did not properly address and fire.

You can still be critical of a game and not harass the people who made it. Hell, you can absolutely hate a game and still be respectful to the people who made it. I'm sure the creators are far more likely to listen to the fans if we give constructive criticism than if we irresponsibly and cruelly send threats.

I know most people who see this haven't sent hate, and to those people: this post isn't about you. I massively respect you for maintaining your rationality and empathy. But for those who have sent hate or are thinking of doing so, please reconsider. Sending hate isn't going to change anything; it'll only break the fandom even further apart and stress out overworked employees. If you're going to be mad, be mad at the higher-ups at Square Enix for turning the franchise into a cash cow and at the upper management at Deck Nine for overworking and alienating their employees. (Also be mad at that 1 neo-Nazi because seriously, WTF!?)

But please, even to the worst of the worst, do not send death threats or harass people.

[r0semultiverse]

Y’all are aware we probably have to keep it in the top 10 overall into at least the 19th right? One business day after initial intended marketed advertised release supposedly. Then we should be good unless Mark says otherwise.

[lumiereswig]

I'm still seeing a lot of angry takes in the tags about how excessive Watcher's current costs are and how all fans really want, apparently, is "just shane and ryan sitting in a basement" back again. While I do think Watcher is probably spending over budget and that's a real issue, a lot of the takes I'm seeing show a fundamental misunderstanding of how video production works and where costs actually lie. So a few quick things that I just keep seeing that are bothering me:

It was never just Shane and Ryan in a basement. BFU did a great job selling that conceit and making sure you never saw anyone beyond them and maybe TJ, but they absolutely had other crew members with them on ghost hunts and they didn't do all the work on BFU themselves. This Q&A from Season 2 lists 36 people on staff for Buzzfeed Unsolved. It's fair to make arguments that Watcher may or may not need 25 people, but those arguments should not be coming from a place of "before it was just Shane and Ryan and nobody else."

If you don't know how many people are needed to make a professional video from a TV/film standpoint, you will not have a reasonable grasp of why Watcher wants to keep 25 people on staff. Sure, some YouTubers get by with a ring light and a contracted editor. The Watcher team have stated repeatedly that they do not want to work as just YouTubers and see themselves more as a production studio—so why do people keep referencing the YouTube model to understand their business? This is like asking the local shake shop why it doesn't function like the kids' lemonade stand down the block. The item category is similar but they're not trying for the same products or process.

The "gold dusted food" is not the big budget sink you think it is. On most TV shows I've worked on it's normal to partner with businesses that are shown onscreen and work out a deal where the price of the product (in this case the gold food) is reduced or eliminated in exchange for the free publicity. Watcher very likely made a deal with every restaurant it worked with to make the Korea trip affordable for the company. The real budget spends are on things you're probably not seeing but that still matter: camera and lighting equipment is expensive, insurance for that equipment is expensive, business overhead and paying your staff are expensive. So again—it's fine to critique Watcher for the streaming plan and the perceived budgetary issues, but go into this knowing the costs might not be coming from the things you see onscreen.

My source is that I work in TV and film and actually have a clue on how the industry functions. Again, 36 people worked on Unsolved (and those were the people mention in Season 2—who knows how big the team blew up past that in later seasons). Entertainment work is real work, and demands decent equipment, competent staff, and the same types of business and budget problems you'd find in any other business (overhead, staffing, etc.). Feel free to critique Watcher's business model, but first try to understand where that model is coming from and what goals it's attempting to serve.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

The fact that Labour actually seems to be acting like disability doesn't hit you until after you turn twenty two with their idea of not allowing anyone under twenty two to get health benefits on top of the normal universial credit payments, like... Do they fucking think people under twenty two with disabilities in need of support money wise dont fucking exist??? Or do they fucking think if they do exist, that they can somehow work these disabilities off even when they cannot at all??? Let alone that employers actually exist out there for all these young disabled workers??? Because that's something THAT LABOUR STILL HAS YET TO ACKNOWLEDGE!

[gremlinghost]

I find it so funny that a courtroom getting bombed, Apollo getting assaulted in the ruins of the courtroom, Apollo taking a leave of absence, athena getting accused of murder, and Trucy getting held hostage in a robot uprising all happen in the span of 4 fucking days. But the funniest part is that it is only like top 5 for "most stressful weeks of Phoenix Wrights life"

[gaylizardowner]

I want more Nhil content :[ bro doesn't even have sprites :[

[scarefox]

me @ the (so far just few) "but what about MichaelTopten / PopLee?!?!" crowd

My siblings in hell didn't you notice that Change2561 isn't that closed with their actor ships? We got so far besides the main ships: Ping x Garfield, Nut x Pavel, Nut x Pop, Nut x Lee, Pop x Lookmhee + some more het constellations in other dramas! They are not that strictly bound to just one acting partner. If Nut can literally have 3-5 within 2 series, the other actors can have more as well. That does not mean that their other projects get canceled, their ships get divorced or actor replaced in coming series.

I really hope Change2561 pulls through and ignores the whiny toxic crowd and just gives all the actors who want it different partners, without further public justification. You can still support Michael and Topten in their other projects, while also support Pop and Topten in their new project. You can totally decide that on your own and you don't have to chose between just one. It's possible and great, I promise.

[draganwhorror]

Ted Raimi as Cowardly Warrior/Brave Warrior/Supportive Villager/S-Mart Employee - Army of Darkness (1992)