Daily Discussion Thread: 🦁🐯🐱 Thursday, August 8, 2024

Well I rang the EAP people and after being told they are no longer our support, which would have been par for the course, she was wrong and I have an appointment sorted.

Aside from that little hiccup, it wasn't scary at all.

Thanks for your support too. It made it easier to deal with.

No problem. The other place had somewhere called ‘explain like I’m scared’, it would be a helpful resource here

I got some good news! As of 4:55pm, I'm officially enrolled in my community services course! I begin on the 26th

Naturally I'm a little nervous, but I think I'll do much better in TAFE than high school. I tend to get along better with adults and older people (who I imagine will be the primary demographic) than people my own age. Although I am second guessing my decision to go for a 1 day a week course. After all, if it only takes 9 months to finish one day a week, it should only take 3 if if I did it 3 a week. Maybe that would put me in a better position next year.

But it's a start at least I suppose. I should probably prove to myself that I'm capable of doing 1 day a week (which I know I can, but also think I need to experience for myself to fully believe it) before trying to bite off more than I can chew

Yass! 💪🏻
(Also, I love reading your posts.)
- Thanks llabsy. I'm glad to hear, I've been getting a bit worried that I've annoyed everyone by posting too much
Congrats!!!
It's a great start to start small with one day a week! We don't know what we're capable of until we try and in sure you can adjust it later on if you want! That's fantastic!! How exciting to be enrolled and to start so soon! TAFE is definitely a different vibe, people want to be there and they want to have conversations and collaborate. I think you're extremely intelligent and clever so you're going to do great with talking to adults and your fellow classmates.
I'm very excited for you!
- Thanks Chud. Completely agree. My biggest issue with high school is that 95% of my experience is that nobody wants to be there, so everybody treats everybody else like shit, and the poor teachers try their best, but just can't help everyone enough with the class sizes and lack of resources/funding. This course looks likes it's small enough to not be pure chaos, but large enough to still be able to blend into the crowd if I want to
That’s so sensible, taking it gradually to see how you cope with the load
this is awesome 👍
TAFE is a brilliant venue to get qualifications, work hard and get some practical qualification for a good career
yay 🥂
- Thanks Goonsy. I think this will be a very positive step
  Unfortunately no 🥂 for 219 days, but I do have apple juice. That's basically the same thing, right?

Cat adventures with Bill and Ted.

So early this morning Ted was upstairs meowing his head off. He wanted to get into the office. I called "Ted" at least ten times to get him to come down stairs. The meowing just louder.

Time for a plan. I used "confuse a cat".

I called out "Bill". There was complete silence in reply. I called "Bill" again and Ted came running down the stairs to tell me he wasn't Bill, he was Ted, and that Bill was sitting next to me.

Bogus. 🤭

When I call out for my daughter my dog will try to knock her down to get to me first. He thinks it's a race.
- aww, 💞
I accidentally taught all three of our cats their names were "sit".
"sit". All three stop whatever they were doing and comes running to me, demanding for food.

Happy International Cat Day 🐱🐈🐈‍⬛

My (not-so) little man has been gone for many years now, but seeing @Catfish's post has made me want to share a picture of how well-dressed he used to be all the time in his tuxedo (not that he had a choice!)
- What fine whiskers he has. 🐱
- Naaaw. What a cute guy.
Maybe that's why she was so energetic at 4am lol
- Her perfect little white snout 😻
Little one doesn’t want to get dressed up
- I swear the kitty on the right looks exactly like StudSpud's Mickey
- Omg 😂
  One doesn't mind the office and the other is like "why the fuck do I have to be here".
- The little one very unhappy with what's happened.
Meow

Home now, things are good. First aid for animals and CPR, as well as a long term assessment.

Tomorrow is theory, and sitting at my PC from 9 to 6, but I have learned so much already, and I really like my teachers so it's all good.

Just feeling good I think haha

Really glad to hear it ❤️ You're doing great!
- Thank you!! It's such a relief to be out of call centre hell!
  I really appreciate your support through this! You're the best, Gibs!
Awesome news, you're doing awesome Chuddy :)
If I may ask, how different is animal first aid from human first aid? Obviously CPR is going to be a little different, but are the fundamentals like wound care similar?
- Yeah fundamentals are similar. We follow DRSABC (dangers, responsiveness, airways, breathing, CPR).
  CPR is similar and we were taught how to locate the heart, and how to give breaths. As well as proper bandaging techniques and stress free handling, how to transport large dogs.
  The caveat is that CPR is really not that effective outside of a vet clinic, but it's better than nothing at all and at least gives the animal a chance of survival. The best success rates of animal CPR are within vet clinics/hospitals where there are multiple members of staff to assist and provide intravenous supports/breathing.

Greetings fellow.. checks notes.. humans!

Well I'd been going along fine without any symptoms until I felt like a bit of a Nanna nap in the afternoon and ended up crashed out for several hours. When I got up to cook dinner I started sweating profusely and felt a bit hot. With it came a hard feeling to describe, sort of oddly confused and flustered. Managed to make a curry and rice, and cooked some chicken drumsticks with corn on the cob for Miniest. Elder isn't feeling like eating much, but he ate a hotdog. Went to bed early and feel ok at the moment, but I'm not out of bed yet.

Take care of yourself Peeler! Be wary of pushing too hard when you feel ok, it might hamper your recovery...
rest as much as you can

So, super karma good vibes, caught a cab from the airport and shared, and the mate paid my fare.

Such a nice feeling, can’t wait to pay it forward.

At TAFE early, for the coffee and the study 🙌🙌

Got a case of the downers today. Feeling a bit isolated, the honeymoon period of being self employed is ending and I'm starting to feel like I did when I was WFH full time during lockdowns (which is not good). I'm making the effort to fill my social battery during the week in other ways, which helps but these kinds of down days from the isolation and lack of forced structure still pop up. I saw a photo my old workplace at some event together on LinkedIn and that's made me miss being employed (although I don't regret leaving that hellish place for one second). Just went for a walk and while it was freezing, I already feel better.

I kind of know how you feel about the isolation part. You're right, you have to get out and do stuff to stay sane.

Got a conditional offer into a Master of Teaching course! Nice to know I've got an option for next year should I pass the semester :)

Congrats! That's got to be a nice feeling. Options are very good to have

those kitty noses need booping 🥰

Good night everyone.

Aww, I love that you noticed
Indeed they do. For anyone else in need of a cheer up: https://youtu.be/PAHpVUcG1gk https://youtu.be/eC5-0uAU1Gc
- The look on the lion's face! 🦁
- Yikes on a few of those. So much danger cute.

I feel like really rich people should be philanthropists again. Fund shelters, schools, hospitals, libraries and animal pounds.

Aww, the sucullent chinese meal guy passed away.

I saw that :(
Hoping in the beyond there are many succulent chinese meals and good judo for him.
:/ I just saw that
I hope he enjoyed the virality

Thanks guys for your responses before. Without giving too much away his company deals with some big names and government contracts. He's ok with them showing his name and pretty little face but he wants to be paid more mullah for it.

Haha, for lack of a better word, if they’re “selling him” hehe, for sure they should!
- I may have used the word whoring
Yeeee, he needs to be paid like a king 💲💲💲

Oh, the joy of being a dog.

I'm trying to get the will to get out of bed and get ready for bed. 🤪

Very interesting news at work.

You might remember a few weeks ago, I posted here about an acting "manager" in a department I work with a lot at work.

Well, today the "manager's" boss announced who's going to be permanently filling that role.

And it's an external candidate.

The "manager" is moving to a newly-created role leading the sales team.

The woman who currently leads the sales team is not happy about this. As in, visibly pissed off about basically being demoted so "manager" can have a job.

Heh… Melbcat used to be a friendly but highly independent cat and lived half wild before coming to me. Now she lives inside, sleeps in the bed and is a lovebug lap cat.

I’m spoiling her with how many treats I give. I need to wash the new treat tower puzzle, put some in and see if she can pull them out. I also added a discounted snuffle mat to the latest food order to see if she can find hidden treats. Try to add more enrichment to indoors. (Her bloods had improved but the kidney disease is showing up again, so I’m spoiling my elderly girl rotten.)

I am still fretting about the budget like always but have been trying to fix a bunch of niggling quality of life issues lately

hehehe misha was half wild living outdoors before coming to us. Now she screams at me if I leave the door open and a breeze gets in.
- She remembers. She doesn’t want to go back!
  Melbcat still wants to adventure but I have mostly stockholmed her with food, love and drugs

gah, this teaches me not to do my budget in my head, I majorly stuffed up the numbers and redid them today with a calculator and the difference was off by $100. Bleh!

My budget is a complicated spreadsheet spread across 13 pages. My brain would implode if I tried to do it in my head 🤣
- Mine wasn't too complicated, I forgot to carry the 1 when I was doing the maths :(
- I dream of being at this level one day lol. Slowly getting there sheet by sheet.

dat feel when your favourite eco supply store starts selling fucking alkaline water GOD DAMMIT

2 different dreams hearing 2 different original songs of styles I don't usually listen to.

Cool but weird.

Warm enough to not need heating in the office? Whoa.

I recommended to the boss on Tuesday that we should get an Apple Watch to test because our customers will likely have them and use them with our managed Apple devices, so we need to be able to see what managed data is available to them and test policies applicable to their use.

2 have been ordered and arrive tomorrow :D

New toyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. That's a MacBook Pro, iPad Air, iPhone and now Apple Watch. I'm collecting Apple products like Pokemans.

next, Apple tv

This is going to sound really dumb, but I am planning to call our Employee Assistant Program cos I really do need someone to talk too and I'm good and I want to do it, but then I think about calling and I don't know what to say when they answer the phone. How to initiate that initial 'Hello, welcome to blah blah, how can I help you?' kinda of greeting.

My usual canned opening line is ‘Hi I’m X and I’m inquiring about your Y?’ Or just ‘Hi, I’m after some Information/advice about Y’
So basically that greets them and gives a brief idea with an opening to ask what they can help you with more specifically, allowing you to go into more detail and explain the problem.
I wouldn’t say I was great with people or the phone but I sometimes do have to cold call or email a lot of organisations.
Edit: Oh unless this is about something like counselling. Then I guess just say ‘I need help and someone to talk to.’ And they will ask what with and you can give them an area of struggle, lay out a situation in dot points, or tell them what caused you to seek help etc. Something very basic gets them to ask further questions and gets the ball rolling
First up: Go on you for thinking about reaching out. I'm really proud of you. the first interaction is always so awkward. Still is for me 6 years into therapy. Dont over think it! just say "hey my name is dan, I work at X and I need someone to talk to".
- Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm hopefully gonna work home this afternoon and I'll feel better making the call knowing it's private on my end.
Not dumb at all. I reached out to my EAP earlier this year. I'm a strong independent woman, doing all the shit. But I just needed someone to listen while i laid my cards on the table and help me reshuffle the deck to an order. My initial phone call was quick, then my appointment with the counsellor was the next day. It really helped, and I've since told everyone I know to use it. So use it!
- I'm glad it worked out for you :-)

IG gives me the absolute *****.

The only notifications I want are direct msgs. That’s it.

I have turned off a bajillion settings and I am still getting notifications about things I do not care about.

In fact the amount of settings should be illegal. It’s like bamboozling someone with fine print they can’t read.

That's when I turn off notifications to the app entirely 😁
I get pissed off with stupid notifications
- I was going to say there ought to be a setting within the device itself to turn off the notifications of a particular app, but I don't know enough to say that with certainty for all devices 😂

chucked the teabag in the mug, forgot the water. Gonna be one of those kinds of days apparently.

Better than remembering the teabag and water and forgetting the mug

Bugger. Apple has decided to change the theatrical release of Wolfs (Clooney, Pitt) to a one week limited release and my cinema are no longer going to show it.

Was so keen to see it at the cinema.

Temu pakige is at the airport waiting for it's flight. I'm picturing it being bored and browsing listlessly through all the airport shops to pass the time.

What buy
- 3 X shoes, 1X grater

got errands to do and another load of stuff for the opshop 👍

have a good day guys

Just about broke my big toe earlier, in fact I might actually have broken it. I got up from my desk after doing my lunch notes and my foot got caught in the straps of my work back pack on the floor. Proceeded to trip and stopped myself falling by reflexively slamming my toe and foot into the ground absolute full force. Oh man did I want to yell, but I'd only just gotten the kids to sleep and I was right outside their door. It's really fucking sore, like proper really doesn't feel right sort of sore...I think I actually went into shock for a couple of minutes, couldn't stop shaking, got really really cold and felt like I was going to throw up. Currently icing and it's numb which is nice. When I move it I can feel a horrible icky pain in the toe, on the top of my foot and up my shin a bit.....I don't think that's good.

Guess I'll see how it is in the morning....

I’ve broken a bunch of toes, mostly by kicking bed posts in the middle of the night. Smaller ones hurt like a bitch immediately but aren’t much of an issue later. Tape it to the next one and admire the strange colours. A big toe is fundamental to your balance, so might want to get that looked at propper.
yeah, that's a hospital trip
Oh nasty. If you have some tape and you can touch it, try taping it to the next toe, to splint it and protect it from movement. And yep, get to a hospital when you can.
Fucking ouch. Definitely trip to the hospital, and don't try and force it/walk on it more than the bare minimum until it heals. You can end up revealing it once it begins to heal if you out too much pressure on it and don't have it professionally treated. Also, anecdote:
I broke one of my toes a few years ago. The toe next to my little toe. It was during COVID times, early 2021, I think. Our house was in lockdown, because another kid went and broke lockdown to go get on the piss with her mates and copped the COVID. It was quite ea hellish time, I didn't even have a decent phone at the time, because I'd dropped my phone and shattered it and was just on a cheap Optus prepaid thing that lagged running 480p YouTube. We were a tier 1 site, so mandatory PCR COVID tests on days 1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, and 14. All of the workers were isolating, so we had these fucknuts in full PPE who came and sat in the office to make sure we didn't die, but nothing else. No Netflix no leaving, no books, literally nothing.
I think it was like day 4 or 5, I was at the office door talking to a worker who was alright. I was also in full PPE, with a lovely mask, gloves, Google's, and face shield to go with it. I went to take a step in, and without realising, I absolutely rammed my toe into the door (concrete reinforced, about 5" thick), right on the corner with the hinges. I fell to the floor and genuinely cried, it really fucking hurt. The worker didn't really give two shits, all I got was "GET OUT OF THE BLOOD OFFICE". He thought I was exaggerating and wouldn't give me any advice. My toe swelled up and I couldn't bend it for a few days. It hurt to the touch. The home doctors wouldn't come because it was a tier 1 site, the worker wouldn't take me to a hospital, and also convinced me there wasn't really any point calling a doctor or ambulance, or even the nurse on call.
All I could do was ice it with a bag of peas, and hobble around for the next couple of weeks. My toe still has a moderate bend to it now, so probably didn't heal right. It's not a huge deal because it's only a small toe, and I can still bend it, but being a big toe, you should absolutely go get it checked out. I'd you really have something against E/Rs, call the nurse on call (free and 24/7), and ask if she thinks you can hold off until the morning and if it's something a priority primary care clinic could treat

I did not want to get out of bed this morning. I think I’m a grouchy hibernating bear.

Weather’s warming up a bit so I’ll have to think about Summer clothes… clothes shopping is probably one of my least favourite things at the moment but I do need to do an overhaul.

I just bought some $20 eBay scrubs to have something lightweight and practical to clean in or wear around the house. Hope they fit and are comfortable. (I have nice linen pants and cotton shirt but don’t want to ruin them in casual wear. Think spilled coffee and snagging cat claws.)

I don’t like wearing yoga pants outside but maybe they’re a cooler option around the house.

I've got leftover taco meat. Was thinking about making taco spring rolls, probably some mac and cheese ones too. Any thoughts on this? Never made them before. I assume its as easy as buy the wrappers, then lightly fry 'em, yeah?

Make quesadillas. You need soft tacos. Spread the meat mixture on half the taco. Add a little bit of grated cheese and sauce of your choice. Fold in half. Fry in a dry pan, keep flipping until cooked and melty.
- I do love quesadillas, sadly we don’t have a ton of left over meat hence I thought the spring rolls might work better.
Yep, but takes more oil than you might think.
I've had cheeseburger spring rolls before and I guess it's similar. I didn't make em though so can't help you there.
I'd just dump the taco meat onto some spaghetti and call it a day 🤣
- Haha yeah the cheeseburger spring rolls were my inspiration. That and the Mac and cheese ones.
Taco soup? Or walking tacos

stars peeping through the clouds 🌃

I never tire of seeing the stars

Beep Beep 🚚
🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🫓🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙 🍗🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋

I would like to shout everyone here a succulent Chinese meal along with their normal orders. Ta Ta and farewell!!
- 🥦🌽🥕🥬🥩🍖🍚🍚🍚🍚🍚🍚🍚🍚
Cha siu bao And that spinach thing please
- 🐖🌾🥬🥟
Korean fried chicken and some donuts please.
- 🍗🍩🍩
A can of tuna and a bowl of milk please.
- 🥫🥣
Double quarter pounder with bacon and mayo added. Small fries and diet coke please
- 🥩🥩🥓🥚🍔^🍟🥤

Really stuffed myself for dinner tonight because I've been feeling interminably hungry these days. Just want to curl up like a cat and sleep in bliss now. Gonna be cutting my hours at work real soon and although the reduced income for a time isn't ideal, I'm really, really REALLY looking forward to more breathing space. I can feel my body relaxing more. Never wanted to do full time hours for long...

Watching The Third Man for like the 20th time.

The dissonance between the mood of the music, playful and happy, is at odds with the subject matter of the movie, which is black market medicine trade in post wwii Vienna.

Just like the dissonance between the cheerful character of Harry Lime and the evil he does.

gees I love movies, such art

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21h0G_gU9Tw

Lol, apparently paradox have delayed the release of prison architect 2 (again). It was meant to release in March, but they decided they didn't want to do that anymore, so they pushed it back to September. Now they've decided they don't want to again, and are pushing it back indefinitely.

Tbh I think the game looks like shit, it's basically the original one but in 3D on a 2D screen. But it's concerning that they keep doing this. They pushed back life by you 3 times before eventually cancelling it.

Also this is the same company that owns cities skylines, charged like 100 bucks for cities skylines 2, which barely even works unless you're running it on a very high end computer, then released like 800 dollars worth of DLC for the first one. I've hated them for a long time.

dont think I know much of their stuff beyond surviving mars. Still wish that'd get a sequel.
- They used to make a few good games, prison architect is my favourite of them all. But OG cities skylines was good too. They're also known for Europe universalis, stellaris, crusader Kings, Victoria, and a few others.
  The thing is they're a total cash grab. Especially cities skylines. They take things that should've been features at launch, then they sell them to you for 30 bucks a DLC. It just sort of feels like no matter how much money you dump into their games, you will never actually own it. Also, they released cities skylines 2 in a really bad state. Like, barely functional. I think that's why they're being a lot more cautious about releasing unfinished games (which is fucking good).
  And I'll acknowledge that this is a standard industry practice, and it's entirely a me problem, but I don't like how they give all the YouTube people free keys to the game and the DLCs. I know it's basically just for advertising, but especially when these YouTube people are claiming to review the games, I reckon they'd have drastically different opinions on them all if they had to pay 70 bucks for the game plus 20-30 bucks a DLC. And giving all the YouTube people early access to life by you, before cancelling the entire thing felt a bit like rubbing it in.

I have a serious question. My husband has received an email from management. They want to "showcase" him on LinkedIn. We don't even know what LinkedIn is really about.

What are the pros and cons of doing this? If he agrees what should/shouldn't he do?

All advice welcome

LinkedIn is like Facebook for business. It's full of useless content extolling the virtues of putting your workplace ahead of your personal life. Things like "I am on holiday on this tropical island but had a killer idea, so I am now at a shared workspace networking with professionals" etc.
Unfortunately, if you are looking for a job in IT, LinkedIn is one of the likely places to find it - so a LinkedIn profile is sort-of required in some fields. I hate that it is sorta necessary, because it's the one place on the Internet where I am listed under my real name.
If his employer wants to "showcase" him, it means they want to brag about him on the network. They are trying to make the company look better. To customers? To prospective employees? To government? I don't know, potentially all of the above.
Maybe your husband is a leader in his field and they want to entice rookies to work at the place so they get a chance to work with your husband. Maybe he has done something cool they want to brag about? Maybe they're a tiny company that nobody has heard of so they'll showcase some employees to look more legit? I honestly don't know.
If my employer wanted to showcase me, I'd hesitate. I might concede, but I'd need a bit of time to think about it. It could be a good thing: if I have an employer bragging about me, it would probably make me look good to future employers. If someone Googled my name though, this will come up. I may not want people to know where I work and what I do.
Short version: This is something they want. It may or may not be something your husband wants.
LinkedIn IS Facebook these days. It used to be strictly work-related content, now it's mainly wannabe influencers posting crap with a tangible connection to the work/business world.
I would ask for a draft of whatever they plan to post to approve before they go ahead, to make sure you're happy with what gets posted. Showcase sounds like there's going to be a photo involved.
- If anyone's still on Reddit, r/LinkedInLunatics is a fun read. We have one here too, but it's not super active
That platform recently had a bad data breach. My work is mandating a certain number of their courses per year. I refuse to join, so there are now group viewing sessions of their (largely useless) videos.
- I refuse to join most of these apps as well
Like people are saying, it's facebook for "corporate" or similar. Really fucking cringey.
Workplace wants to use him as a promo for something.
If he agrees, his real name and work details will be online for people to see.
If he disagrees, management might have a little sook. If he chooses not to he should say something like "I genuinely appreciate you wanting to showcase my work, but I'm not comfortable with social media platforms in general".
That's pretty much it.
It sounds like a fine gesture, others have accurately spoken about what the platform is (corporate facebook).
I killed my LinkedIn years ago because it seemed to just be a place for people to be fake and virtue signal all day to self-promote and I can't STAND that nonsense.
But I'd just think of it as them wanting to post a news article to the corporate world about how cool he is. Nothing to stress about.
My immediate reaction: "Showcase" him how?
Is this just a LinkedIn post? A video? An article on the company website that's linked to on LI? Something else?
Maybe clarify with them? It could mean making a profile whereby he is identifiable by name and workplace etc.
It can be made so that you have to be logged into LI to access, but yeah, that’s the gist. Some fields love it for networking/jobs etc.
Not my tumbler, but different horses, you know.

Chill night, has charcoal chicken for dinner. Been years since I had it and just had a major craving. Partner was my saviour and got some on the way home 💜

Breach Wanderers time, I'll get to you, depth level 4 goddamn youuu