Sunshine, Lollipops And Smut

As if working 9-hour shifts wasn't enough.

Some bosses are starting to demand more and more from their employees, as if they were overachieving machines that can't stop for a second. They already check if the status in Teams is always green, which is over-controlling in its final form. But now they are also requesting your personal phone number so they can call you anytime they need you, even if it's outside of your working hours. That is completely insane for several reasons. Firstly, nothing is so urgent to need to contact an employee on a Sunday or when they take vacations. Secondly, it proves that this is just another way of micromanaging that, instead of focusing on the amount of work done, it deems more important the fact that the employee is ALWAYS available. And lastly, it is another way of exploitation to have workers work even more while still getting paid the same salary each month. 

This Reddit story got me thinking about how much everything has changed in the last decade. Before, it was unthinkable to pretend that an employee was available after their shift. Maybe all these new technologies that make us available to contact everywhere have become too much. Now we are always traceable, as if we couldn't escape our work life, not even in our free time. As if we weren't allowed to take breaks, to not work every single second. 

People deserve free time. We deserve to be away from work for at least one day a week. We already overwork ourselves with insane amounts of tasks that seem to never end. We are always perfecting ourselves and looking to be the most perfect employee. As if that was even possible to begin with. We already do SO much. Why would it be needed to have us work even after hours? Some employees already work after hours to try to have better metrics. Why would you now force them to do those hours just to not even pay them for them? Bosses have too high expectations of their employees. They are not robots. Everyone deserves a break. 
 

Can we be at the table and in the menu at the same time?

Let's get this out of the way: the movie Mean Girls is obviously inspired by real life, lol. Things like this go down in high school, but also at the workplace and in every place where there's a group of people. One has to be very careful because gossip is really seductive; one wants to feel part of a group, and sometimes, when a group is heavily reliant on gossip, one starts to take part in that gossip only to belong. It's only later that we realize that if every time someone leaves the table, the discussion becomes about them, then we might as well be the next topic of debate once we get up and go somewhere else. The question is, should we remain a passive spectator?

Seven hours of memorizing a talk track alone in an empty office says a lot about how this company handles new hires. Before this person even signed on, they asked a completely reasonable sales question: what resources come with the job. 

Getting laughed at for wanting a company phone instead of handing personal numbers to strangers revealed the company's actual priorities. "Would you really draw a line in the sand over that much money" sounds like a sales pitch but functions as pressure, implying that boundaries are optional the moment cash is dangled.

How long should a former owner be allowed to stay connected to a property?

After purchasing her new home, a homeowner was excited to take advantage of the lush plum tree in her backyard. The first year they lived there, the previous owner asked if they could have some of the fruit since they've been making jam for the past 20 years. That time, she let them collect what seemed to be just a few plums, although they ended up harvesting the whole tree. The following year, when they asked again, she refused, causing the family to get very mad and upset.

When I read this story, a super familiar feeling came to me since this situation happened to my parents ten years ago. When they bought the house they live in now, there was a very old and very sick tangerine tree at the back of the garden. The previous owner was not a fan of plants, nor that fruit, so he didn't care too much about it. My mom loves plants, so for the first two years of living in that house, she took care of the tree until it was ready to give some fruit.

One day, my parents were at the grocery store and came across the old homeowner, and they told him they were happy to see the first tangerines of the season coming out. He was skeptical at first, but ended up congratulating my parents and left the store. The next day, he showed up at their house and asked if he could have some of the fruit to gift his family members and friends. My parents refused, not only because they didn't want a stranger in their home, but because there were only a few pieces of fruit and they wanted to keep it. Also, he doesn't like tangerines, so it's not like he was going to eat it.

Anyways, of course he got very mad and claimed that he was the original owner of the tree, so the fruit belonged to him. Needless to say, my dad kicked him out, and we never saw him again.

Does financial success mean you deserve less from your parents?

A self-made millionaire was surprised when his father asked whether he'd be okay receiving a smaller inheritance so his sister could get more. While his sister's college education, horses, land, truck, and home were heavily supported by their parents over the years, he built his wealth on his own. Now he's questioning whether financial success should affect how parents divide an inheritance.

Oh… the eternal debate among siblings. Although this could never happen to my sisters or me, I have a lot of friends who deal with inequity with their siblings. For some of my acquaintances, their parents are super fair and give the same amount of things to all of their kids, whereas others decide which kid gets more based on their skills and how well they are doing in life.

Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to help a bit more to the struggling sister here, but I don't think that's fair for the brother. As he explains, during their entire lives, the parents were more supportive of her: paying for those crazy horse riding lessons or even buying her the house where she lives now. So, with this precedent, I don't think it's fair what the parents want to do.

The worst part is that he's the one who's writing the will. Meaning, he's the one who will be completing that task for free, while his sister gets even more money from the parents. The son is being fair when he says that they should be spending their money on them, since they earned it, and not debating what to leave each kid.

And that's what makes this situation so complicated. The son insists he isn't angry at his sister and doesn't even expect to receive an inheritance. Overall, it's less about the money itself and more about what the decision seems to say about how his parents view their two children.

A food reviewer walks into a small business in Arizona to order their signature soft cookie and ice cream and write an honest review. 

SergSayEat orders 2 full sundae bowls and pays $17 for each, but when he sits down to eat and film his review, he realizes the portions are a lot smaller than advertised. He isn't sure whether this was the actual portion size or if they got his order wrong, but he proceeds with his review. He also notes that they forgot to add a certain chocolate drizzle he requested, and even reveals that there was a hair on his ice cream.

Overall, his experience wasn't so positive.

His honest review, however, didn't get many views on his TikTok account. It was only after the business owner himself saw the video and decided to respond that things started to get a lot messier and a lot more popular online…

How much is too much for family?

If your partner's family expected you to cover every meal, open your home for months at a time, and never question the arrangement, would you go along with it? After years of footing the bill, one wife decided it was finally time to set some boundaries, but her husband thinks she's the one being unreasonable.

A wedding drama that takes place before the wedding. Having a job that consists of dealing with people can be super stressful.

This long Reddit story is about a photographer who gets hired for a destination wedding only to later discover that the couple didn't exactly plan the accommodations for her and ended up creating a huge misunderstanding and a hostile environment for the photographer. This got me thinking about those jobs that aren't really in customer service or part of the servicing industry, but nonetheless, they do require the employee to deal with people all the time. We always have stories about entitled people in restaurants, hotels, bars, and even theme parks. But I never consider how many stories like this a photographer may have, and many other workers who aren't exactly expected because of their line of work. 

This story not only showcases that entitled people are in every kind of job and can make your life incredibly stressful, but also really easy. But it also proves that photographers need to be prepared for everything. Most freelance jobs have some parts of the job always be in a verbal contract. They can't always have everything written in a contract. But I do think that they should always have one nonetheless. Even if not everything got written up, you need some kind of proof that shows that you were hired for a destination wedding, that you charge x amount for your services, and that you will do this, this, and that. Just trusting the customer, even if you know them, is a huge mistake that can get you in trouble.

I have to admit that the photographer really tried to have all the information in writing, but the couple wasn't cooperating. But the truth is, she should have provided a contract the second they hired her. If she had that, she would have been able to know everything that this job entailed, as well as how the accommodation for the trip would work and how much she would be paid for it. For someone who has been a photographer for almost 10 years, she should have known better than to trust the customers just because she knew them.