This is not true at all and is a bunch of crap. They’re counting anyone who drives an hour for Uber or Lyft “employed” even though they may make less than someone begging on the streets.
So there are a lot of scams in this regard. I just read about one on Ars Technica (I think it was Ars), where that scam is they ask you to write whatever, then they say you got the job and give you an expense account to buy hardware for a home office. Then they want access to your bank account for invoice verification for reimbursement. A few ways they steal from you. One is direct debit from your account for home office equipment and the check they give you is a fake. Or they own the shop you buy from, you buy and expect reimbursement and it never happens, and shop will not take a return. A whole bunch of variations on this scam.
So we are having a going away party, as my family is moving to Oregon, and my parents are hosting. Well when they were cleaning they unearthed an ancient GameBoy with Donkey Kong Country 2.
Here is my son exploring the joys of old school portable gaming
Well, to be fair, she’s been incredibly helpful, and was trying to get me to understand my value. So perhaps I couched it in the wrong terms in my post. I just see a discrepancy in her point. I didn’t push back on the point though, because I’m used to just taking in crits in writing and acting without push back. Just take the notes.
It just doesn’t make any sense to me from a logic standpoint. But be assured I think her intention was to help.
I’ll take this over to the job thread if I can find it, as @rowe33 suggested, and not clutter up What’s Happened thread with this.
A year ago, before my current position, I was ‘on the bench’ at my company for 6 months. In practical terms this means I was officially employed, was collecting my normal paycheck, but was not actually working. Literally getting paid while I stayed at home.
Now to many people this may sound great, but it actually sucked. Because well meaning family and friends constantly asking ‘where are you headed’, ‘when will you get placed’, ‘wow, sounds great getting paid to do nothing’. Nobody meant anything by it, and no one person, aside from parents, said anything too often, but it was tiring to hear almost daily for those six months.
They all meant well, but sometimes what seems innocent is incredibly insensitive when you don’t properly consider how the receiver hears it.
I hope you get it worked out. And that job scam thing sucks, never heard of anything like that before.
My issues are largely of my own doing, but the questions you talk about are still…how do I put this…whiplashing? They make me feel like shit, wreck my personal relationships, and send me into a downward spiral. But, they also get me motivated. So that’s why I would use the term “whiplashing” to describe them. Good and bad at the same time. It’s just a hard balance.
Yeah, once you start registering for job search sites you get all sorts of spam. I should have expected that. I’m not entirely a Luddite. I was just too focused to think about it being a possibility.
You should write suspense stories, man. You had me on the edge of my seat!
Glad things turned out okay.
I haven’t had a cell phone for over 20 years now. I know I should get one, and it’s been on my list of things to do for several years, but things have changed so much in the last two decades that I seriously don’t know what I need (or want), or where to go to get it. Every time I think about doing it, my mind gets overwhelmed and I end up doing nothing.
My goal is basically to get something I can use where I can replace my land line, which should offset the cost, as my landline costs $65 per month. But then I start thinking I really should get a smart phone, and all of the options with those plans bogs down my brain.
Buy an unlocked $150 Motorola Moto whatever on Amazon or best buy. You’ll make up the difference with that $65/mo price really quick. And you’ll have a smartphone too.
Not much surprises me about what people will do. I’m sorry that you need to deal with them during such a stressful time of your life. All it takes is one good match, hopefully you’ll find yours soon.
It was just how it dumped out of my brain pretty much. I was so worried that he was going to die because I couldn’t call 911 and I was looking for his phone. Thinking "why didn’t I turn back and get my own phone " when I had realized I didn’t have it because I was only a couple minutes from my house at that point. It was tough to leave him there when I ran over to the street to flag down help. I am so happy a car was coming down the street as soon as I got out there.
He’s still feeling fine today except for some soreness from falling to the ground, so that’s good.
I use Google Fi. One line is $20 a month and they have a variety of price points for phones - pay for data you use. Before that I used Republic Wireless for $15 per month. You can buy data or go without.
I use Google Fi personally but have my wife on Mint Mobile. I think Mint is a better fit for first timers because they give you quite a bit of free data on the lowest plan (3GB) which would cost $30 extra on Google Fi. The benefits of Google Fi don’t really justify that cost, unless you only use data rarely and have wifi going pretty much all day every day, or if you want unlimited data and are ok paying the price up to the data cost cap Fi has, which is like $80 extra per month I believe?
Mint doesn’t seem bad. I don’t get great Sprint coverage where I live but it’s passable. I don’t use much mobile data. My wife and I combined use less than 1GB, sometimes less than .5 GB. So we pay a combined $35 + < $10 for data. Mint may still be a better deal for us, but so far we are happy with Fi.
Apparently Metro Transit is so short on drivers that they have been unable to operate the bus I take home for three workdays in a row. (Specifically, the one right after I get off work. The one running 20 minutes later has consistently arrived.) Noooot happy about this, especially since they’ve done zero to inform their riders of this. I only even know that’s why it hasn’t been coming because there was a transit supervisor waiting for something else on Friday and I and another would-be passenger spoke with her about it.
I do get that they can’t run a bus with no one to drive it (yet), but there’s got to be better ways to handle it. They have real-time trip info in multiple places that they aren’t updating with the cancellation, for example.
Yeah, seems odd that there is no system of notification. The transportation system in Grenoble was good about making disruptions known in near real time when the yellow vest protests were going on there.
What really seems odd about this is that driving a metro bus is usually a well-paying job with good benefits. I am surprised they don’t have enough drivers.
They’ve been struggling to staff up on drivers for years now.
We’re hiring bus drivers! Part-time drivers start at $19.94/hour. Part-time weekday drivers are guaranteed 30 hours per week – with benefits – and can move to full-time quickly. Includes 40 hours/week paid training.
Seems pretty good if you’re looking at driving a bus to make money (given the general prospect of living in our current hypercapitalist dystopia), but then again I would really not want to deal with the shit that I’ve seen bus drivers have to deal with even in my pretty vanilla commuter experience on transit here.
The other thing is they have to be strict about drug and alcohol testing, so there may be a number of drivers every year who get the boot.
Really though, at $20/hour with benefits, I am surprised they can’t fill those jobs. You may have to put up with shit, but that’s just about any retail job too, isn’t it? And for far less.
