BisectedBrioche's Brilliant Bread Random Banter Bthread #243

[LaZodiac]

Shouldn't that digital/physical determination have been confirmed before it got to you? Are you sure this issue was with Client and not somewhere between you and Client?


(I say this as someone who once received "sorry; the thing you spent months working on was what they asked for but not what they wanted"....)

Pretty sure the former by how it was explained to me. Also no worries it didn't take a month, just all of this morning and most of this afternoon. I'm more angry about the fact that I wore out my legs standing doing this and wasted so many reams of paper.

THIRTEEN ****ING THIRTY! Beat my required minimum time by damn near two minutes, only three seconds behind a 25-year-old who also passed. All that's left is the psych eval tomorrow and I'm made in the shade.

Hell yeah. I believe in you Peelee.

[Rater202]

My elementary school gave out awards to a couple of students in a monthly assembly, kids who put in extra effort or made major improvements.

I got one during my last year at that school... But I distinctly remember one girl getting one because she came in when she was sick more than once.

...And now, as an adult living through a pandemic, I have to wonder... How many people, as adults, got sick, go others sick, or just fricking died becuase as a kid this one girl was explicitly rewarded for this kind of irresponsible behavior?

[Mystic Muse]

My elementary school gave out awards to a couple of students in a monthly assembly, kids who put in extra effort or made major improvements.

I got one during my last year at that school... But I distinctly remember one girl getting one because she came in when she was sick more than once.

...And now, as an adult living through a pandemic, I have to wonder... How many people, as adults, got sick, go others sick, or just fricking died becuase as a kid this one girl was explicitly rewarded for this kind of irresponsible behavior?

Our economic system is about prioritizing short term games over long-term sustainability.

This is an extreme to be sure, but there are plenty of businesses that legitimately value a few days of profit over the lives and health of its employees.

[Anonymouswizard]

My elementary school gave out awards to a couple of students in a monthly assembly, kids who put in extra effort or made major improvements.

I got one during my last year at that school... But I distinctly remember one girl getting one because she came in when she was sick more than once.

...And now, as an adult living through a pandemic, I have to wonder... How many people, as adults, got sick, go others sick, or just fricking died becuase as a kid this one girl was explicitly rewarded for this kind of irresponsible behavior?

I have a shockingly American attitude towards illness, in that I havve to have very obvious symptoms (generally at the level of actual vomiting) before itaking time off, and then go back to work pretty much as soon as I feel better. It's a behaviour my dad accidentally drilled into me when he made sure I wouyldn't overestimate how sick I was.

This has caused me to be spent home for being too ill to work a couple of times, and once for being too tired to get along with people. I also know people who are absolute terrors when sick because they'll endlessly complain while absolutely refusing not to work at full pelt (thankfuilly they tend to have an ability to regularly work from home).

I understand it's even worse in the US where sick cover is assumed to be the employees responsibility (it's not over here, although you still can't take the piss). Over here there is a kind of expectation that sometimes you'll have to cancel your daste because Geoff has called in sick today and it's vital that tasks are actually completed (depending on what your job is, of course, I encounter this more than a code monkey would).

[Jasdoif]

I'm more angry about the fact that I wore out my legs standing doing this and wasted so many reams of paper.

I daresay that's even worse! Disappointment at time gone to waste is one thing, but needless physical pain?


Public Service Announcement: Poor communication hurts people, people!

[Rater202]

Our economic system is about prioritizing short term games over long-term sustainability.

This is an extreme to be sure, but there are plenty of businesses that legitimately value a few days of profit over the lives and health of its employees.

So what you're saying is that my conspiracy theory about the school system being deliberately designed to condition people into accepting toxic work practices later in life has merit?

[Anonymouswizard]

So what you're saying is that my conspiracy theory about the school system being deliberately designed to condition people into accepting toxic work practices later in life has merit?

Nobody said it didn't, but sometimes it turns out that the practices are useful anyway.

Like homework.

EDIT: okay, to be a bit more serious, schooling as it currently stands has two somewhat conflicting intents as a pathway into the workforce and a pathway into academia, and the first is for better or worse the more prevalent.

Beyond its utility as daycare school tends to get you into the idea that you'll be going to the same place most of the week and doing tasks that don't vary in content too much, as well as teaching you the maths and language skills to attain a place in the corporate hierarchy (with very few practical trade skills*, I learnt the very basics of designing electrics and that was it). It's at the moment slanted more idealistically in terms of the content taught at least in the school system I have personal experience with, with a broad overview of arts and culture that might be removed depending on which philosophies hold sway when the cycle begins its next revolution.

The reality of school as a pipeline to industry tends to cause it to sometimes adopt the worst parts of working culture. This isn't always bad, homework is a legitimately good way of increasing repetition and thus retention, but it can also encourage dangerous behaviours like pushing through illness.

* Or life skills, most people my age can't even rewire a plug!

[Rater202]

Nobody said it didn't, but sometimes it turns out that the practices are useful anyway.

Like homework.

I would argue that, while studying on your own time is an important aspect of improving ones knowledge and skill, that homework as it is typically assigned seems to be more about doing work outside of the deisngated working times than getting the pracice in.

You are literally taking your work home and doing it on our own time after spending the entire morning and a good chuck of aternoon at the place where yo'e supposed to be doing the work.

Especially once you get to middle school and high school where teachers seem to be willingly ignorant that you have more than one class and that all teachers assign homework.

I was once told that you should spend three hours of your own time for every hour you're in school studying and doing school work.

The typical American Public High School day begins at 7:30 AM and 3:30 PM, that's an eight-hour day.

8x4(the hour in school plus the three of your own time) is 32 hours.

X5 that's 160 hours a week, most of which is on your own time.

A standard seven-day week only has 168 hours.

If you work as hard as they want you in school you will literally only have eight hours of your own time a week for breakfast, dinner, sleeping, and travel... You literally won't have the time to have your own life.

[LaZodiac]

So what you're saying is that my conspiracy theory about the school system being deliberately designed to condition people into accepting toxic work practices later in life has merit?

I mean that's not a conspiracy theory it's just factually true.

[Peelee]

So what you're saying is that my conspiracy theory about the school system being deliberately designed to condition people into accepting toxic work practices later in life has merit?

Deliberately? No. There's no people twirling mustaches saying, and with this curriculum we can further enforce the idea of minimizing PTO!"

The two systems are linked and will evolve together.

Take out" deliberately designed"and yeah, that's pretty much right

[Rater202]

Deliberately? No. There's no people twirling mustaches saying, and with this curriculum we can further enforce the idea of minimizing PTO!"

The two systems are linked and will evolve together.

Take out" deliberately designed"and yeah, that's pretty much right

The "deliberately" is what makes it a conspiracy theory rather than a statement of fact

Using my own memory as an example, there has to have been somebody who knew that rewarding a student for risking her own health and those of everyone she interacted with those days solely for the sake of getting more work done was a bad idea and yet it happened anyway.

[Anonymouswizard]

On homework, my school experience is that it was never that bad, and most teachers did coordinate to minimise overlap of major projects that actually took up significant chunks of free time, with intended self study and homework otherwise being about an hour per week per subject (which would work out to about a 42 hour week, plus travel time), doubled in Sixth Form where you only had about an hour of actual lessons.

It's also possible that the UK and US treat homework significantly differently, I believe there's a large difference in how we handle testing and qualifications (I have half a GCSE in IT! Also a full one in RS, which was unusual in my school).

Also I'm not going to copy-paste what I added to the end of my last post. It's too much effort, especially as I'll begin adding to it again and I really need to sleep.

Also, it's not a proper conspiracy theory if we're not including an inhuman species so where. Clearly the school system was designed to deliberately promote immoral work practices... By Bigfoot!

(I might have recently learnt about the existence of Chuck Tingle.)

* Pronounced 'sats', not 's a ts'.

[Peelee]

The "deliberately" is what makes it a conspiracy theory rather than a statement of fact

Who is conspiring? The heads if the education department at each state level collaborating perfectly with each other? An edict from the federal level detailing their evil plan?

[Rater202]

Who is conspiring? The heads if the education department at each state level collaborating perfectly with each other? An edict from the federal level detailing their evil plan?

Public schools are required to abide by certain standards which are set at both the state and federal levels, and both state and federal governments, stepping lightly, tend to cow toward the interests of business for various reasons, which would provide a plausible justification for deliberately designing those standards so as to encourage practices that in turn indoctrinate the students to consider behaviors that greatly favor employers at the expense of the employees.

"conspiracy" is probably the wrong word, but I don't think there's a term for "theories that state that certain problematic elements fo society are the result of malicious intent by one or more actors without their being an active conspiracy maintaining them."

[Peelee]

Public schools are required to abide by certain standards which are set at both the state and federal levels, and both state and federal governments, stepping lightly, tend to cow toward the interests of business for various reasons, which would provide a plausible justification for deliberately designing those standards so as to encourage practices that in turn indoctrinate the students to consider behaviors that greatly favor employers at the expense of the employees.

Far be it from me to question your expertise on this subject, but I do question the accuracy of... well, the entirety of this.

[Hyoi]

I mean, there's a pretty obvious reason for schools to prioritize instilling qualities that employers like: one of the main ways public schools define success is the ability of their students to get and keep jobs after graduation.

To paraphrase Summer Hathaway in School of Rock, parents/government aren't dropping $15,000 a year for kids to chill out and learn to stick it to the man - they are trying to equip students to compete in real-world marketplaces.

And yes, that's terrible, but it kinda comes with the territory of public schooling. For pretty much all of history school has served one of these three purposes:

1) Increase people's economic value as laborers
2) Propagandize people into ideologies that the school's funders prefer
3) Gatekeep people's access to higher echelons of society

Americans tend to vehemently object to the government getting involved with 2) or 3), so the public school system leans really hard into 1).

THIRTEEN ****ING THIRTY! Beat my required minimum time by damn near two minutes, only three seconds behind a 25-year-old who also passed. All that's left is the psych eval tomorrow and I'm made in the shade.

Congrats on your fleet-footedness!

[Lacco]

The "deliberately" is what makes it a conspiracy theory rather than a statement of fact

Using my own memory as an example, there has to have been somebody who knew that rewarding a student for risking her own health and those of everyone she interacted with those days solely for the sake of getting more work done was a bad idea and yet it happened anyway.

Not really.

There was most probably someone overworked, underpaid and underqualified at stressful job that requires wrangling a bunch of pre-teens (I think we'll agree that this is the age where people tend to be the most disciplined...) who was given the task to perform in their 'free time' - to think about some things they can reward this wild bunch for - while their SO waits for them at home, also overstressed by their partner's lack of time (in the least).

I can easily imagine how it went.

'What can I reward them for...?' Looks at his table. 'Attendance!'

Stupid idea. I agree. I have seen it implemented in other areas (my wife's work) - basically suggested by someone who is unable to be malicious, but is very able to be stupid (I know the person personally).

And then there is the fact that some people have the immune system that is able to ignore 95% of common viruses and illnesses and therefore think other people don't really suffer from them and should just shrug them off like they do. Which is again, not intentional, but a bit stupid.

[Anonymouswizard]

Who is conspiring? The heads if the education department at each state level collaborating perfectly with each other? An edict from the federal level detailing their evil plan?

I'm telling ya man, Bigfoot. This whole thing is a one cryptid show.

[Peelee]

Congrats on your fleet-footedness!

Thanks! I felt like death afterwards.

I'm telling ya man, Bigfoot. This whole thing is a one cryptid show.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Elm11]

Hello there Banter-ers, I'm dropping by to say hello after a decade of inactivity, because despite how little I visit and interact with this beautiful forum, I think about it all the time. Y'all are wonderful and it brings me joy to see this community still quietly rolling along.

[Metastachydium]

I should clarify, I was more talking about how no one actually cares about the conversation, just Being Right. I thought I had touched on what you said, my apologies.

I kind of disagree, but no worries, we good. (And sorry if I was being too blunt.)

At any rate; my favorite fruit is pineapple, and my favorite vegetable is cauliflower or broccoli.

You have a pretty good taste for a MURDERER OF INNOCENT GREENERY.

There are so many pastas that exists in the world. The well-known ones are spaghetti, lasagna, and ravioli. The less-known pasta is radiatori, tortellini, pici, and much more pasta.

Dunno. Lasagne and ravioli are not that big 'round here. I'm more a fusilli/cavatappi (we call them 'spindles' and 'spiraltubes', respectively)/those simple little square ones person myself.

Meanwhile, today, right as work started, Iw as handed three entire tomes work of paper- 1500+ pages in total. I was asked to make a copy for the client.

Roughly 1000 pages in I'm told "actually the client wants it digitally".

Do not be like Client.

Typical. So typical. (Stay strong!)

Thanks! I felt like death afterwards.

You are become death, the destroyer of worlds? (Also, congrats and have fun protecting your president guy from… Mexicans, if Fyraltari's to be believed?)

Hello there Banter-ers, I'm dropping by to say hello after a decade of inactivity, because despite how little I visit and interact with this beautiful forum, I think about it all the time. Y'all are wonderful and it brings me joy to see this community still quietly rolling along.

And we're not even that quiet all the time!

[LaZodiac]

Hello there Banter-ers, I'm dropping by to say hello after a decade of inactivity, because despite how little I visit and interact with this beautiful forum, I think about it all the time. Y'all are wonderful and it brings me joy to see this community still quietly rolling along.

Oh hey I recognize you!

You have a pretty good taste for a MURDERER OF INNOCENT GREENERY.

Chomping and biting and chewing and eating of fruits and veggies. Gonna have a tuna fish and lettuce sandwich today for lunch.

(also thanks for the support on the whole work nonsense)

[DavidSh]

Dunno. Lasagne and ravioli are not that big 'round here. I'm more a fusilli/cavatappi (we call them 'spindles' and 'spiraltubes', respectively)/those simple little square ones person myself.
...
You are become death, the destroyer of worlds? (Also, congrats and have fun protecting your president guy from… Mexicans, if Fyraltari's to be believed?)

I mostly go with cavatappi myself. They are a little fancier than elbow macaroni, if just for being entirely in a foreign language.

And did we know this much about Peelee's mystery job? I had gathered that it would be a police-type job in Washington, DC, but couldn't rule out the Capitol Police (including the folks who guard the Library of Congress) or the Supreme Court Police

[Peelee]

You have a pretty good taste for a MURDERER OF INNOCENT GREENERY.

That's why i said tomatoes. Murder of innocent reddery instead.

Dunno. Lasagne and ravioli are not that big 'round here. I'm more a fusilli/cavatappi (we call them 'spindles' and 'spiraltubes', respectively)/those simple little square ones person myself.

Cavatappi is the best noodle for mac and cheese, and I will die on this hill.

(Also, congrats and have fun protecting your president guy from… Mexicans, if Fyraltari's to be believed?)

A.) Thanks!
2.) I am wildly amused at how this train of thought has evolved through the posts.


ETA: Psych eval done, im all finished with the process! Now i play the waiting game, just need to hear back on them for the final word.

[Mystic Muse]

"Potential recruit has worrying mental signs. They think Alabama is livable. However, they're a dragon so we'll make an exception."

[HalfTangible]

"Possibly a hoarder, though again, dragon, so not surprising."

[Peelee]

"Potential recruit has worrying mental signs. They think Alabama is livable. However, they're a dragon so we'll make an exception."

So fun fact, when we were walking outside of the headquarters towards a park they use for the running, i was rubbing my arms and commenting how cold it was. One of the proctors noted that it was lovely spring weather up here. I respectfully disagreed.

Then when they were deciding on which proctor got which candidate to keep their eye, they started referring to me simply as "Alabama".

[Beeftank]

One of the fitness tests in Rhode Island took place in 25 degree weather outside. I grew up in the Northeast and even I was miserable, I think you might have just turned into an ice cube.

For real though, that’s great things are moving along with the Federal job again, Im sure you’ll end up crushing it.

[Peelee]

One of the fitness tests in Rhode Island took place in 25 degree weather outside. I grew up in the Northeast and even I was miserable, I think you might have just turned into an ice cube.

For real though, that’s great things are moving along with the Federal job again, Im sure you’ll end up crushing it.

I think it was high 50s (around 13-14, for your C people). 25? I cant even imagine. Also, i did successfully delay taking it until spring intentionally, sooooo.......

Also, thanks!

[Anonymouswizard]

I think it was high 50s (around 13-14, for your C people). 25? I cant even imagine. Also, i did successfully delay taking it until spring intentionally, sooooo.......

Also, thanks!

Yeah, 13-14 is lovely and warm, as long as you're in proper trousers and maybe a t-shirt. I feel uncomfortable when the temperature hits about 20, I can't imagine how you Venus dwellers cope