MadyStacy

"No More Hotels"

Graffiti seen around Aruba in the Caribbean, denouncing the overconstruction of hotels and the extreme land loss the Indigenous people of the Island are facing.

the catholic old white guy asked me to explain lgbtq+ to him and it was honestly kind of funny

“okay! you have 15 seconds to explain non-binary to me if there are only male and female genders”

me: if you lost your genitals would you still feel like a man?

“no”

would you feel like a woman?

“no?”

so you wouldn’t feel male or female

“yeah what’s your point?”

So, you wouldn’t fit into the gender binary of male or female? :)

him:

“so non-binary just means not feeling male or female?”

Yeah basically

“so why do they use “they” so much”?

if you were a woman would you want to be called a man?

“no…”

And the opposite?

“no…”

Why why would you want someone to call you male or female if you’re not male or female then?”

it’s not a perfect way of thinking but i had 15 seconds and i think it got the point across

if someone challenges you to break through a wall within fifteen seconds, you use a wrecking ball, not precision tools. I think you did marvelously.

If the job needs doing, the people doing it deserve to live well.

"But minimum wage fast-food jobs are for teenagers! They don't need $20/hour!" Ok. So you're only going to get fast food after 2/3 pm, when those teens are out of school, and not before 6/7 pm, so they can go home and eat at the bare minimum? You don't mind if they're closed on the weekends so they have free time for studying, homework, and relaxing? No? You don't like that? Then pay the ADULTS doing those jobs enough to live.

"But janitors-!" Without them you would be swimming in filth within days, don't even start. Have trouble keeping your house or just the bathroom clean? Scale that up to a whole building, and after you've processed that, pay them.

"But-!" Do you benefit from them doing that job? Would you be inconvenienced if that job disappeared? THEN PAY THEM WELL FOR IT AND BE GRATEFUL ITS NOT YOU

The work isn't worth less just because a teenager is doing it. Aside from that, teenagers should also be paid a living wage, because, you know, teenagers also deserve to live and not all of them have access to a safe place to stay.

"Teenagers don't need $20 an hour!" A lot of them do. Start thinking of them as people and stop looking down on them.

this video is really fucking good. fuck big tech companies, fast fashion, modern auto, and those initial inhibitive greedy lightbulb fucks. planned obsolescence, creative waste, consumer engineering. 

My face is having uncontrollable spasms. Great. It hurts really, really, really bad.

I think part of why I have trouble explaining pain to the doctor is when they ask about the pain scale I always think “Well, if someone threw me down a flight of stairs right now or punched me a few times, it would definitely hurt a lot more” so I end up saying a low number. I was reading an article that said that “10” is the most commonly reported number and that is baffling to me. When I woke up from surgery with an 8" incision in my body and I could hardly even speak, I was in the most horrific pain of my life but I said “6” because I thought “Well, if you hit me in the stomach, it would be worse.”

I searched and searched for the post this graphic was from, and the OP deactivated, but I kept the graphic, because my BFF does the same thing, uses her imagination to come up with the worst pain she can imagine and pegs her “10″ there, and so is like, well, I’m conscious, so this must be a 5, and then the doctors don’t take her seriously. (And she then does things like driving herself to the hospital while in the process of giving birth. Probably should have called an ambulance for that one!)

So I found this and sent it to her. Because this is what they want to know: how badly is this pain affecting you? Not on a scale of “nothing” to “how I’d imagine it’d feel if bears were eating my still-living guts while I was on fire”. 

I hate reposting stuff, but I’ll never find that post again and OP is deactivated, so, here’s a repost. I can delete this later, i just wanted to get it to you and I can’t embed images in a chat or an ask. 

This is possibly why it took several weeks to diagnose my fractured spine.

Pain Scale transcription:

10 - I am in bed and I can’t move due to my pain. I need someone to take me to the emergency room because of my pain.

9 - My pain is all that I can think about. I can barely move or talk because of my pain.

8 - My pain is so severe that it is difficult to think of anything else. Talking and listening are difficult.

7 - I am in pain all the time. It keeps me from doing most activities.

6 - I think about my pain all of the time. I give up many activities because of my pain.

5 - I think about my pain most of the time. I cannot do some of the activities I need to do each day because of the pain.

4 - I am constantly aware of my pain but can continue most activities.

3 - My pain bothers me but I can ignore it most of the time.

2 - I have a low level of pain. I am aware of my pain only when I pay attention to it.

1 - My pain is hardly noticeable.

0 - I have no pain.

It’s also really important to get this kind of scale to people who have chronic pain, because chronic pain drastically lowers your perception of how “bad” any kind of pain actually is, and yet something like this pain scale is extremely user friendly. 

For example, if someone asked me how much pain I’m in at any given time, I’d say hardly any, and yet I’m apparently at a chronic 2.5, and it only goes up from there depending on the day. 

There’s also a similarly useful “Fatigue Scale”

I haven’t been below a 5 on this scale for 4 years 

Here’s the fatigue scale

Fatigue scale image desc:

10: can barely move; can’t talk

9: can barely move; can talk

8: can move, but can’t do much more than watch TV

7: can watch TV and play a game on my phone simultaneously

6: can do work on my computer lying in bed

5: can get around the house, but definitely couldn’t go out

4: can run a light errand

3: can get in my 10,000 steps, making my fitbit happy

2: can do three or more activities in a single day

1: going clubbing!

See also the Mental Health Pain Scale by Graceful Patient:

Mental Health Pain Scale transcription:

MILD

1 - Everything is a-okay! There is absolutely nothing wrong. You’re probably cuddling a fluffy kitten right now. Enjoy!

2 - You’re a bit frustrated or disappointed, but you’re easily distracted and cheered up with a little effort.

3 - Things are bothering you, but you’re coping. You might be overtired or hungry. The emotional equivalent of a headache.

MODERATE

4 - Today is a bad day (or a few bad days). You still have the skills to get through it, but be gentle with yourself. Use self-care strategies.

5 - Your mental health is starting to impact on your everyday life. Easy things are becoming difficult. You should talk to your doctor.

6 - You can’t do things the way you usually do them due to your mental health. Impulsive and compulsive thoughts may be hard to cope with.

SEVERE

7 - You’re avoiding things that make you more distressed, but that will make it worse. You should definitely seek help. This is serious.

8 - You can’t hide your struggles any more. You may have issues sleeping, eating, having fun, socialising, and work/study. Your mental health is affecting almost all parts of your life.

9 - You’re at a critical point. You aren’t functioning any more. You need urgent help. You may be a risk to yourself or others if left untreated.

10 - The worst mental and emotional distress possible. You can no longer care for yourself. You can’t imagine things getting any worse. Contact a crisis line immediately.

These are so important! SO SO IMPORTANT SHARE THIS AND SAVE IT TO SHOW YOUR DOCTORS!

This is the first time I’ve seen the fatigue scale, and HOLY MOLY that’s a revelation!!! These should be on all hospital and doctor office walls.

I’ve never seen the mental health one! or the fatigue one! I printed out the pain one and gave it to my GP. 

literally so embarrassing to have someone go "i don't go here" or "what's this from?" on my art and it's a rarepair/crackship that is in no way representative of the source material... and i have to be like. well you see, the rest of the restaurant's menu is not like this. i'm doing my own thing eating black olives right out of the can in the back-of-house. whether or not you want me to throw you a can, you have to understand that's not what they serve out front

Sometimes you notice someone eating good olives out of a can and that's what gets you interested in the rest of the auraunt

This tells you all you need to know about wages not keeping pace with rising costs.

I wonder if work just.. got harder in the 2000s, comparatively.

So like... ok. I haven't researched this and I'm mostly thinking out loud, so forgive me.

I entered the working world in 2005. I had a few odd jobs for a few years and then finally just bit the bullet in 2009, got a job at a grocery storeas an inventory clerk. My job was to count surplus items in the backroom and update the counts. Additional responsibilities included helping stock the front end. I left that job in less than a year.

A friend of mine now works at the same chain, different location, same job title, in 2022. But where I shared that title with two other people, he's the only one with that job title. Additionally, there are less stockpersons, and he is often called out to the floor to help them, which impedes his primary job function. He is also expected to clean bathrooms and some other maintenance things that I cant imagine doing as an inventory clerk.

And I thought maybe it was just that his location is understaffed, but looking back on the past few years where I was expected to do everything (be the front end, the dispatcher, the manufacturer, the teacher, trainer, janitor, delivery driver, account handler... christ, how did I do all this?) I'm looking at the issue with fresh eyes.

I hear sometimes about the 'slim down,' where a lot of companies took on a trend of hiring less people than they need to cut down on the cost of labor, and I look at how fast a person can burn out at a job. And how many jobs are considered 'high pressure sales' when they dont need to be.

Like I'm looking at the possibility of starting a business and I'm looking at the jobs I've had that burned me out and why. And it's almost always been 'I was always juggling responsibilities because we needed more staff'.

Like it seemed like I was doing everything, but getting paid the same.

And I think about that backroom job, where occasionally i would have to help out the stockers on big days, but mostly my job was one function.

It's not like that anymore, is it?

So when I hear someone bemoan that 'no one wants to work anymore' I just think... y'know, work ain't what it used to be. When you're working the work of 3.5 people because someone at corporate decided it was right and good to hire less people than they need because it saves them 20$ per hour per store, but you still dint get your bonus because shrinks too high or they didnt make the amount of money they thought they would or you gave too many coupons ONCE. And it's like they're actively trying to chase people away, and then threaten you with automation but they do t make work attractive enough for people to show...

Work dont want no one anymore.

Oh damn, the notes on this. Apparently it's not my imagination and y'all have lived some horror stories.

I feel like we should be able to do something about this. Like we should be able to say 'no' to lean staffing and we should have a say in what our responsibilities are.

I'm thinking about all the times i should have just straight up said something. Like I think I had it in my head that if I took on all the responsibilities in the shop, eventually I would be rewarded with higher pay. But it doesnt work like that anymore. The reward for digging the best hole is a bigger shovel.

That's no way to live, though. And I just put up with it like it was normal to be so tired at the end of the day that I couldnt move. Maybe I should have just said 'no, you do it' when they started making me work outside my title.

Because that took a serious toll on my mental health.

i know so many people have said it but

UNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONSUNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONSUNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONSUNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONSUNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONSUNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONS UNIONS

I HAVE A UNION JOB AND LET ME TELL YOU SOME THINGS

It is part time, contract, hourly, full remote. Because it's union? They have to offer me a minimum of 25 hours a week. If I *voluntarily* go under, that is on me, but they ALWAYS offer me up to that. If I ask for the hours, they HAVE to give them.

Overtime doesn't trigger until 40 hrs/wk... but any time spent on emails, spreadsheets, my timesheet, ANY admin task that's more than 15 min? I can bill for that. ALL training, meetings, etc? I bill for that.

I get holiday pay. Seperate from vacation, sick leave, personal time; if it's a federal or state holiday I *automatically* get 5 hours of pay for that day. Period. Unlimited. I got paid 5 hours to do nothing on MLK day and presidents day, no questions asked, nothing taken away from my other pay.

I get sick leave, vacation leave, "personal" leave (anything that isn't the former two -- like, "my friend had an accident and I need to drive them home"). I get health insurance, dental insurance, life insurance. I get access to the credit union. I get access to job search help if my position gets dissolved / I get laid off!

It costs about $80/month in union dues, but I MORE than get that back in terms of benefits and peace of mind, and it's automatically deducted from my paycheck.

U N I O N S.

as we are living through a new resurgence in unions, after they were systematically decimated for decades, people might ask ‘how do i join a union?’ or ‘how do i unionize my workplace?’. the IWW isn’t a union union in the sense that it will automatically give you benefits like the above. BUT it is the single best place to start if you want to begin unionizing your workplace, connecting with other workers (including prisoners), and generally learn about unions and the international labor struggle.

https://www.iww.org

Whenever unions being destroyed comes up, some asshat's always like "but the duuuues" like, STFU. I'd HAPPILY pay the dues to not be fuckin exploited.

The slim down has affected everything. It's why most of the movie theaters around me are nasty, the retail stores are always a trainwreck, and you constantly have long wait times at restaurants and grocery stores. It's the captains, NOT the crew.

We were waiting for tires at Walmart, and they'd called someone to a section on intercom a buncha times and some ol fart customer was so offended "Why don't they send a MANAGER there???" WOMAN. It's WALMART. They do not hire the goddamn people! I get unreasonably pissed about this cuz too many people have no idea what work is actually like now and make dumbass complaints and harass workers, bitching at the wrong thing.

Food service has gotten way worse thank staffing slim downs, ghost kitchens and online ordering. Seriously, look up the ghost kitchens. Tons of big chains try to pass off hokey "local" sounding food on grub hub and door dash that comes straight outta IHOP and Applebee's. It leaves the people working those restaurants effectively running numerous restaraunts of the same kitchen for single restaraunt pay. Ghost Kitchens have come under serious litigation in Houston specifically for having such poorly maintained spaces, workers have gotten seriously hurt.

It is so fucked how we're conditioned into saying yes to everything till you end up doing 5 people's work under the false promise of a better future. It burned my careers and bridges to the ground. Don't make my mistakes. I'm hopeful that GenZ and the rest of the up and comers will continue to take less bullshit at work and justifiably cry on TikTok behind the service counter cuz work is NOT working.

More Perfect Union is an excellent YouTube channel doing fantastic labor journalism that I can't recommend enough.

So, "lean staffing" was mentioned above. Not only do I hate the practice, I hate the term... calling it "lean" implies that what you cut away was fat. That it was healthier for it. But what you cut was SLACK. And slack is what allows lines to tighten without breaking. I call it "taut" staffing. A taut line is a line under strain. Strain too long, and it breaks. Increase the tension and it breaks. A taut line is one that cannot absorb changes.

Every word of this.

Adding, of you every look at shows from the 50s and 60s (even the 70s) and wonder how they managed to live like that, the answer is unions. A working class family could have a single union job that supported the primary worker, their spouse, and their kids on one salary.

sea butterflies, Limacina helicina (Gastropoda: Limacinidae)

source

It's hard to see here... but sea butterflies are a kind of snail

It is literally impossible to come up with a fantasy worldbuilding concept that is more outlandishly weird, wonderous and magical than something that already exists in the real world

All Eyes On Rafah tonignt. Do not let the Oscars distract anyone from the genocide. Big international events like this are a time for atrocities to be committed when the world is looking the other way. I hope those who speak during the ceremony think to mention Palestine in their speeches. I would. No justice, no peace. Zionists should be uncomfortable everywhere. Good art was never a warm home to fascists and never will be

If you justify spending many thousands of dollars on clothes and accessories and transportation and tickets to rub elbows with other folks vying for a tiny metal statue while you pretend that families aren’t being slaughtered wholesale then you need your “human being” card revoked in favor of “politically backed shill”.

Little turtle duck :)

Mother’s love

literally feels like a myth that there are people who don't struggle with basic tasks like getting out of bed or going to the shops or seeing a friend for coffee. how does everything not feel like a painstaking chore for them. how do they have the physical and emotional energy every single day

Too many Americans have no safety nets.

¤

before i forget to tell you all

on wednesday my history professor pulled me out into the hall and asked me how me and my family doing. i told him about how we're trying to get people out of gaza but it's getting harder and egypt is upping the prices to leave. he nodded and then said "today i wanted to talk about the biden administration and how they're handling the situation in class" and i nodded and right before we headed back in, i stopped him and said "by the way palestinians are really sensitive over using the correct words for this situation. we don't like hearing 'conflict' or 'war' because that implies there are two militaries against each other and palestinians don't have a military, and 'war' implies it's an equal fight when it's not." and he nodded and said "okay what words do you want me to use" and i said "genocide. call it a genocide, that's what it is." and the LOOK. the LOOK he gave me. i can't even describe how horrible it was. just a pure look of surprise shock and disgust and it was like every single microaggression i've ever received all put in one face. you could instantly tell he was uncomfortable. i then said "you can also call it a humanitarian crisis" and he stared at me for a while and then nodded uncomfortably and said "yeah i'll just call it a humanitarian crisis". i shrugged, nodded, and we walked back into class.

the fact that people are SO uncomfortable with using the word genocide and refusing to use it to describe the situation in palestine is just so fucking frustrating. of COURSE genocide is uncomfortable, it SHOULD make you uncomfortable. but palestinians are suffering from censorship and people refusing to call it genocide is not helping our cause. call it what it is. a genocide.

✨💖korrasami💖✨