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$50,000 immediately dropped into my bank account wouldn't improve EVERYTHING but boy it sure would be a grand, sexy little start to a good, happy life path, don't you think

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Tumblr, demonstrating its perfect ad choices

this is by far my favorite safety/warning sign btw. they really went off with this one

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This right here is one of the big reasons that we haven't seen any meaningful student loan relief or increases in education budgets -- if the graduates are so broke that they need to take defense jobs or starve, and the universities are so broke that they can't risk pissing off any potential funding sources, it's a lot less likely that people will stand up for ethical principles.

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from a recent commission! The commissioners husband works in dam maintenance on the great lakes I believe, I was asked to illustrate him and three coworkers into the drop capital, and include lampreys if I was able.

they specifically paid me to create the original, scan, do digital cleanup and print three more copies

might turn this into a print, they gave explicit permission to do so, what do yall think?

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things to remember when you move out

•always have bottled water in your house/apartment •pay your bills on time •wash your dishes everyday •don��t tell anyone you don’t trust you live alone •call your mom and tell her you love her •make sure you have extra toilet paper •remember to close the curtains when changing •lock all the windows and doors at night/before leaving the house •double check that the stove is off •don’t leave lights on too much •use real plates instead of throwaways •have flashlights in every room •fruits and veggies are important •night lights aren’t just for babies and kids •electric and water bill are more important than cable •don’t eat out too much •do your laundry •it’s okay to ask for help •own at least two recipe books •never lock yourself out •but don’t hide a spare under a mat/plant •don’t open the door without knowing who it is •mop •wash your bed spread a lot •make sure you always have food in the fridge •if you feel unsafe call someone •candy/snacks are not meals

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tidy wires are less of a fire hazard =)

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Parsnips. Because you can use them to turn people into vampires.

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They were very strange and could be quite dangerous if they were mistreated, but were generally safe if properly cared for. The exact same description applies to the people in this thread.

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@sindri42's comment should be true, but very often it isn't. American labor law makes the distinction of "waiting to be engaged" and "engaged to wait"; in plain terms, this means that on-call isn't necessarily paid time if you aren't being restricted from performing personal activities (i.e. if your boss is saying "you're only allowed to go home or come to work, do anything else and we'll fire you", that's paid time, saying "I expect a response to any texts or emails within 30 minutes" is not). However, any time spent responding to work calls/texts/emails during an on-call situation is paid time, and must be paid normally. Remember that any break in work duties that lasts less than 20 minutes is a paid break, so if you reply to emails at 6:00, 6:10, 6:23, 6:37, 6:50, and 7:00, you've been on duty from 6:00 to 7:00 and must be paid for that full period even if you spent less than five minutes replying to each email. Some states have more stringent protections for on-call time, so this is a case where it pays to know state law.

An incomplete list of things that employers commonly threaten that are 100% illegal in the United States

"We'll fire you if you tell others how much you're making" The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 specifically protects employees who discuss their own wages with each other (you can't reveal someone else's wages if you were given that information in the course of work, but you can always discuss your own or any that were revealed to you outside of work duties)

"If we can't fire you for [discussing wages/seeking reasonable accommodation/filing a discrimination complaint/etc], we'll just fire you for something else the next day." This is called pretextual termination, and it offers your employer almost no protection; if you are terminated shortly after taking a protected action such as wage discussion, complaints to regulatory agencies, or seeking a reasonable accommodation, you can force the burden onto your employer to prove that the termination wasn't retaliatory.

"Disparaging the company on social media is grounds for termination" Your right to discuss workplace conditions, compensation, and collective action carries over to online spaces, even public ones. If your employer says you aren't allowed to disparage the company online or discuss it at all, their social media policy is illegal. However, they can forbid releasing information that they're obligated to keep confidential such as personnel records, business plans, and customer information, so exercise care.

"If you unionize, we'll just shut this branch down and lay everyone off" Threatening to take action against a group that unionizes is illegal, full stop. If a company were to actually shut down a branch for unionizing, they would be fined very heavily by the NLRB and be opening themselves up to a class-action lawsuit by the former employees.

"We can have any rule we want, it's only illegal if we actually enforce it" Any workplace policy or rule that has a "chilling effect" on employees' willingness to exercise their rights is illegal, even if the employer never follows through on any of their threats.

"If you [protected action], we'll make sure you never work in this industry/city/etc again." Blacklisting of any kind is illegal in half the states in the US, and deliberately sabotaging someone's job search in retaliation for a protected action is illegal everywhere in the US.

"Step out of line and you can kiss your retirement fund/last paycheck goodbye." Your employer can never refuse to give you your paycheck, even if you've been fired. Nor can they keep money that you invested in a retirement savings account, and they can only claw back the money they invested in the retirement account under very specific circumstances.

"We'll deny that you ever worked here" not actually possible unless they haven't been paying their share of employment taxes or forwarding your withheld tax to the government (in which case they're guilty of far more serious crimes, and you might stand to gain something by turning them in to the IRS.) The records of your employment exist in state and federal tax data, and short of a heist that would put Oceans 11 to shame, there's nothing they can do about that.

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In the Christian heaven:

Jesus: [relaxing]

Chief Engineer Miles O'Brien: [appears]

Jesus: AGAIN? You gotta start filing complaints, man, this is getting ridiculous.

Chief Engineer Miles "Pincushion" O'Brien: You think I haven't? They have a bloody file cabinet full of my complaints and incident reports -- and think about how much that is, when we can fit an entire library onto a grain of sand

Jesus: So what was it this time? Doomed timeline? Q? Warp core accident that caused a negative space wedgie?

Accident-Sponge-In-Chief Miles O'Brien: Molly got a toothache, and Julian gave her an "experimental new treatment", now she can apparently banish things to another dimension with her mind. Such as a grumpy dad telling her that it's thirty minutes past her bedtime and it's time to put the PADD away, apparently

Jesus: Wow. At least this one sounds fast and painless

Miles "Eternal Torment" O'Brien: Nope, that other dimension didn't have any air in it, and vacuum asphyxiation is slow and very unpleasant.

Jesus: That's rough, man. How long do you think we've got this time?

Chief torment-experiencer Miles O'Brien: Well, nobody but Molly saw it happen, and Keiko's at another conference on Bajor, so they probably won't even notice until I don't show up to my shift tomorrow -- and if they don't need anything fixed, the command crew probably won't care.

Jesus: What are the odds they won't need anything fixed?

Chief Tech-Support/Babysitter Miles O'Brien: Mercifully low. Half the reason I haven't gutted that station's electronics and replaced them with something more reliable is just so the command crew notices when I'm gone.

Miles' communicator: sounding distant and ethereal but paradoxically still working: Sisko to O'Brien, please report to Ops, the replicators are outputting cold bacon grease when I order a raktajino again.

Chief Collateral Damage Miles O'Brien: And there we are. Probably another ten minutes to realize something's wrong, Dax will work out how to undo it in another couple of hours, and Molly and I get to have a touching father-daughter moment where I promise to be more lenient with her and we pretend she didn't just send me to die in a cold void. In the mean time, got any Guinness?

Jesus: Sure. Hey, apropos of nothing, have you ever thought of getting a different job?

Chief Engineer Miles "Clueless" O'Brien: Why would I do that?

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The dear Marie who lived with and loved @saint-batrick as family is struggling under the responsibilities that come with losing them. I know how many lives Bat touched here, and I wanted folks to get a chance to see/donate/share if they can <3

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Wannabe philosophers confidently and incorrectly "refuting" solutions by concentrating the responsibility onto a bystander rather than acknowledging that the rest of the world exists. In the same breath that you say that this isn't about whose fault it is, you wax on about whether pulling the switch makes the bystander "a participant in the system of immoral actions that resulted in a loss of life" or whether inaction by the bystander is "immoral by its nature". You're searching for morality in a scenario that contains none, and mocking the people suggesting you search elsewhere.

Fun fact: abusers love to do this -- they'll present their victims with two awful choices, then claim that by making a choice, the victim became a participant. And it's bullshit. A bystander forced into a ridiculous choice in a scenario not of their making represents nothing other than an additional victim of the tragedy.

And let's answer the other forms of the question that you and others have posed:

"A pilot deciding whether to crash in a populated area, risking the lives of people on the ground for a landing that may allow his passengers to survive, or if he should steer towards an unpopulated area that will be more likely to kill everyone on board." -- you try to minimize the loss of life, end of story. Pilots are already taught how to minimize casualties in an emergency landing. If a landing strip is unavailable, that usually means going for a field or meadow and hoping it's abandoned; if that's unavailable, you look for unoccupied roads, then large bodies of water near shore, then leafy forests. An area containing more people than the plane has passengers will most likely also contain inconvenient outcroppings such as buildings and cars, and not be a suitable landing site, so this won't really come up as a problem anyway. And if you can't tell what decision leads to the smallest loss of life, you give it your best guess and move on to the business of trying to minimize the harm your decision made. The same chain of responsibility that clears the pilot of fault also provides them with a clear path of decision-making to find the best possible option.

A doctor contemplates murdering a vagrant to harvest his organs and save six patients -- in doing so, the doctor would be creating a world in which vagrants must always worry about being harvested. And no, you can't say "this happens in a vacuum, the effects on the greater world don't matter"; that either means that there is no "greater world" and these are the only people in existence -- which rather changes the equation, if this is all that's left of humanity -- or else there are other people in the world, but we don't care about the suffering we inflict on them, which makes the search for morality in this scenario rather hypocritical. Trying to make this decision solely about the doctor, patients, and sacrificial vagrant completely ignores the reasons why such a decision matters.

A foreign academic stumbles upon a death squad preparing to execute twenty civilians; the commander of the squad offers to let nineteen of the civilians go if the academic kills the twentieth: the commander is attempting to legitimize his actions by coercing the academic into participating in the genocide, which would complicate future international efforts to stop the killing. The appropriate action depends on the fullness of the academic's bladder -- ideally, he would urinate on the commander's shoes, but if that option is unavailable he will need to settle for spitting in his face. This isn't a question of morality, it's a question of real-world consequences that will be ignored if you try to make it about philosophy instead of reality.

A trolley is speeding toward its doom, and its only hope is if you push a fat person in front of it to slow it down: Trying to make this about morality or philosophy misses the more pressing issue of physics -- the inertia of a single person, even a particularly large one, cannot slow a trolley down enough to prevent a crash; if the trolley is traveling so slowly that such an impact would stop it, it's traveling so slowly that it isn't in any danger. It is acceptable to throw the fatphobic philosopher who posed this scenario into the path of a train, even if that train is not in danger of crashing.

A self-driving car suddenly recognizes a pedestrian in its path, but is driving too quickly to safely brake and will likely kill its passenger in a collision if it swerves away: pedestrians should not be suddenly entering a high-speed road like this, meaning that either the pedestrian recognition is wrong or the pedestrian has run into the road against the laws of traffic. Giving the self-driving system the authority to kill its passenger would present an opportunity for malicious or confusing inputs to kill passengers and the occupants of other vehicles outside of genuine emergencies; it is reasonable to limit crash-avoidance measures to those that do not threaten the lives of the passengers.

Amazing how much easier things get when you stop focusing on the contrived moral quandaries and start looking at the actual real-life cause and effect of these choices!

Hey so the trolley problem is dumb because the real person at fault for any of the deaths is the person who designed the trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who put in the purchase order for a trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who approved a PO for a trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who delivered a trolley without an emergency braking system, the organization that inspected and certified a trolley without an emergency braking system,and the operator who did not make a huge stink about being assigned to a trolley without an emergency braking system.

Whether you pull the lever is irrelevant, because a whoooole mess of people fucked up for you to be in that hypothetical situation.

Seriously, like, as a professional engineer, I find the premise of the trolley problem offensive. Cause like, so many safety regulations have been violated that it's just... insane.

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Quick PSA

Since I'm seeing a lot of social media posts talking about it: no, a solar flare cannot "send us back to the 1920s/1800s/iron age/etc". Neither can an EMP. Modern power grids are capable of handing surges far in excess of what a bad CME is capable of inflicting on us, and all life-sustaining electronics is rated for surviving extreme electromagnetic interference. Planes will not fall out of the sky, power grids will not fail, society will not collapse, and you most likely won't even be able to take the day off from work; the worst that will happen is a lot of cell phones and WiFi routers breaking and some nasty internet outages and slowdowns. Any time someone tries to bring up the Carrington Event, it is safe to stop listening.

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I didn't become an engineer the traditional way; rather than getting an engineering degree, doing internships, and then going straight into engineering work after college, I was forced to leave school early and study on my own while working as a cook, a customer service rep, an oilfield laborer, and an aircraft electrician. So as an engineer, I do my best to ensure that I don't segregate myself from the technicians, assemblers, cleaners, inventory stockers, and clerical staff. I try to be available to them as much as possible, help them when they're struggling, and stand up for them when another engineer or a manager is bullying them.

My client has been... demanding. They wanted the assembly plant on our campus to be operational *right away*, and so required the production company contracting with them to hire urgently and relocate workers from other states and other countries in order to work in a building that wasn't even half-finished -- it took six months for working bathrooms to be installed, the first three months were spent working in tents to prevent the dust and debris of the active construction zone from contaminating the prototypes we were working on, there was constant loud noise everywhere in the workplace, there were so few chairs that I caught people sitting on hazmat bins, and work space was limited so badly that stepping away from a workbench for a moment resulted in all of your work items being packed up and put away. There were sudden and unacceptable security policy changes enacted, such as the day we discovered that a personal search was a condition of exit from the production floor, or the month and a half we spent with no phone or chat access and no way for someone to reach us in an emergency. The production schedule was so ambitious that I and a good portion of the production staff frequently worked sixty- and seventy-hour weeks throughout the summer and fall, but despite the constant supply quality issues and conflicting directives we managed to stay on top and even get ahead of the schedule. Anyone who says "no-one wants to work anymore" needs to be dragged to my facility and shown just how much these men and women are willing to put up with for their job.

This morning, I came into my job to discover that all of the production staff in my workplace had been notified that the assembly plant is being shut down this spring. They'll spend the next few weeks wondering if they'll be required to relocate to another state or country to keep their jobs or simply let go, and then spend the rest of their holiday season dealing with the ramifications of that decision. And there's nothing I can do other than share pro-labor songs -- my NDA means I'm not even allowed to say who the client is.

But if any Dickensian spirits are looking for a Scrooge, I know of a few boardrooms that could use a visit.

#layoffs #workplace #employment #your boss is not your friend #fuck this betentacled hellscape #there's nothing worse than being helpless while someone hurts your friends #Youtube

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Hey so the trolley problem is dumb because the real person at fault for any of the deaths is the person who designed the trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who put in the purchase order for a trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who approved a PO for a trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who delivered a trolley without an emergency braking system, the organization that inspected and certified a trolley without an emergency braking system,and the operator who did not make a huge stink about being assigned to a trolley without an emergency braking system.

Whether you pull the lever is irrelevant, because a whoooole mess of people fucked up for you to be in that hypothetical situation.

Seriously, like, as a professional engineer, I find the premise of the trolley problem offensive. Cause like, so many safety regulations have been violated that it's just... insane.

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What to do when something illegal happens at work

When your boss does something illegal at work, it's common to freeze up because you're not sure what to do. Here are a few tips for how to handle those situations during and after:

While it is happening:

Keep yourself safe. In the moment, your first priority is always to keep yourself and others from physical harm and out of danger as much as possible. If any other advice I give you conflicts with that, your safety takes priority.

Make sure you know where you are. If you think your safety might be at risk, getting your bearings can be critically important. Take note of potential exit routes, hazards, the flow of traffic (both vehicle and foot traffic), cameras, and any safe areas you know of. Later, knowledge of your exact location may be very important in reconstructing events.

Check the time. Knowing exactly when something happened, and how long it took, will be extremely valuable.

Look around for witnesses, and try to bring some over if possible. Witnesses will both reduce the likelihood of more outrageous behavior and help you to take action afterwards. Do your best to remember who was there.

Say "please let me finish" every time you're interrupted, and count the number of times it happened. Bullies love to interrupt people at the first sign of disagreement, and then later they'll claim that nobody disagreed with them when instead nobody could get in a word edgewise. Saying "please let me finish" calls out the fact that they were interrupting, and a count of the times you were interrupted will help you protect yourself from being misinterpreted later.

Avoid agreeing to anything or signing anything if possible. You have the right to review any document that you're asked to sign, which usually includes taking the document and having it examined by an attorney. If you're being threatened with serious consequences if you don't sign immediately, write "signed under duress". If they're asking for a verbal agreement, try to get them to accept a "let me think about it/check my to-do list/etc" rather than a hard "yes". Even if the thing you'd be agreeing to is something you're okay with, it's still important not to agree to things when you don't feel like you're allowed to say "no"; in stressful situations, our judgment can be seriously compromised, and allowing yourself to be bullied into saying "yes" will set a bad precedent for further interactions.

After it's over, as soon as you're in a safe place:

Complete the WTWFU checklist

Send a follow-up email summarizing your understanding of what was communicated. It can be as simple as "just to ensure we understood each other, what I got was that you were telling me/us that [we'll be disciplined if we discuss our wages/contacting a union is a fireable offense/our pay will be docked if anyone submits a complaint to OSHA/etc], is that correct?". If there is information that protects you, such as a health condition or pregnancy you need accommodation for or a prior agreement that is being violated, include it in your email even if the company already knows. CC HR and any coworkers who were present and BCC your personal email*. Forward any responses to your personal email as well*.

Rescind any agreements you made. Either in the same email as step #2 or in a separate email, depending on what you think is appropriate, say "I didn't feel like I could safely say 'no' in that situation, so I'd like to rescind my earlier agreement until I've had some time to reconsider." If it's something you think you'd have otherwise agreed to, try to offer a time frame for an actual decision. CC HR and BCC your personal email*.

Collect any evidence you can, and make note of any evidence that exists but isn't accessible to you. This includes emails about the issue, any photos that were already taken or that you can safely and legally take,

If something illegal was done or hinted at, contact the applicable regulatory agency as soon as possible with all of the information above.

Consider arranging a consult with an employment law attorney -- consults aren't the same as retainers, they're considerably cheaper (or sometimes free, depending on your income and the possibility of a lawsuit) and can either turn into ongoing representation or just be a one-time service.

* Don't include information that you have a legitimate duty to safeguard, such as customer data, protected health information, or non-public market-affecting information. This does not include any information pertaining to working conditions, your compensation, regulatory compliance, or workplace safety -- the company isn't allowed to demand that you keep those a secret. Either try to get the point across without including the specific information that's being safeguarded, or censor it by replacing it with two underscores per replacement with generic descreptors as necessary (i.e. 'I have safety concerns about the release of our secret robotics project on January 10' becomes 'I have safety concerns about the release of our __[project]__ on __[date]__').

#employment law #worker rights #labor law #labor rights #you boss doesnt want you to read this