Walgreens help for bunions

So, here is part 2 of my entitled employee story. We left off with discovering Sally’s retaliation of giving me trash as a Christmas gift after her latest write-up.
So, the next several weeks, I am noticing more problems, but here’s some of the highlights.

1. Ever since we had issues of the office’s checks going randomly missing, Sally had apparently decided to just stop throwing any envelope away when opening the mail. She would supposedly search the envelopes/paperwork & then keep the envelopes with the paperwork. So, instead of doing her job better, she would decide to just stop doing the job at all. After all, you can’t get in trouble for screwing it up if you aren’t doing it, right? However, this resulted in items getting left with the paperwork (which sometimes wouldn’t get touched for several weeks due to being busy) that had needed to be collected or addressed right away.
   
2. Sally’s careless mistakes continued at about the same rate (average of 2 to 3 a week). She would put deposit slips/emails with the wrong office’s report, put one office’s mail in another office’s bin, put one office’s funding papers in another office’s bin, put one office’s bills in the folder for their correspondence & vice versa, put one office’s bills in the folder for another office’s bills, put the new month’s bills in the folder without taking out the old month’s bills so they would get mixed up. I could go on & on.
   
3. Sally would still ask for help on things she shouldn’t need help on anymore, ‘cause I had helped her many times on items exactly like it in the 2 years she’s worked here. I mean, the whole point of asking for help when learning new things on a job is so you can take the input you’re given & use it to get better at the job so you don’t have to ask for help anymore. I mean, what kind of office works by their employees constantly needing to be walked through everything every day? Sally would even ask for help on things no one would need to ask for help on. For example, she asked me, “An office took a deposit to the bank without showing it on their report. How do I write that up in the letter to fax to them?” Um, exactly what you just said to me. Or another time, she asks how long she should wait before calling an office back. Well, how long do you think you should give them? Just use your good judgment. You don’t need help with that! Again, you’ve been here 2 years!
   

On Jan 26, I take the Dec bills, correspondence faxes, & timesheets out of their folders to scan them into the computer. Now, one thing the bills should always have on them are the check number used to pay for this purchase & the date it was paid. The offices themselves are supposed to write this on there, but they don’t always, which is why it is our job to write it on there if it’s missing. I had noticed when I scanned Nov’s bills around Nov 30 that a lot of Sally’s offices don’t have that info written on them. So, I explained to her what needed to be written on every bill/receipt. I now flip through the Dec & Jan bills of her offices really quick to check them. There are quite a few of them with no info written down on them. There’s strike one for noncompliance.
Another task we would do several days a week (that’s Sally’s responsibility) is to check the bank accounts online. She is to look at the bank balances & report any low balances to Greg (or me if Greg isn’t there). She is then to look at the transactions in order to see if anything looks fraudulent. Since we are a loan company, check fraud is very common for us. So, we look at the checks for anything funny-looking, & we look to see if there are any auto debits (like when you use your bank account online to pay for a bill) that would tell us if someone got hold of our bank account info.
On Jan 30, at 1:15 p.m., I asked if any of the bank balances were low (Greg was out of town for a few days). Sally said she had forgotten to check the bank accounts that morning. Weird, ‘cause you had to check the Dallas office to make sure the money we sent them had shown up. How did you get the login sheet out to look in their bank account but then forget about checking all the bank accounts? This just further cemented in my mind that she was NOT checking these bank accounts the way she should. I was 100% positive that all she does when logging into these bank accounts is checking the balances to give to Greg but then never checks the transactions. I know this ‘cause, 1) I’ve observed Sally only logging in to write down the balances & then logging back out (she had some flimsy excuse ready when I asked her about it), 2) there have been auto debits that appeared in bank accounts that we didn’t find for weeks until I happened to see it for some reason & guess what? She never pointed those out to us, & 3) Sally hadn’t bothered to check the bank account balances since Greg was out of town, so clearly she only felt the need to check the balances. There’s strike two for noncompliance.
& even more bad mistakes or decisions:

1. At the end of Jan, we discovered that Sally had mailed the employees’ W2s to the managers’ home addresses instead of to the offices to distribute to their employees!
   
2. We had an office that moved locations to right across the street, so the only thing that changed in their address was their street number (12 Main Street instead of 11 Main Street). I explained this to Sally & gave her an updated list of the office’s addresses. 3 weeks later, we get a call from that office saying that mail we send to them keeps going to their landlord’s house. I check the address labels Sally had created for herself. Sure enough, it had the wrong address on them. I go to grab the lease, & at the top is where the tenant’s new address is listed. & all the way at the bottom of the page in the paragraph titled “RENT” where it lists where to send the rent is the landlord’s home address. & that’s the address Sally had chosen to be the new office’s address on her address labels.
   
3. Sally hadn’t been faxing the offices to ask for bills/receipts that never made it to us.
   
4. I used the last towel on a roll of paper towels, so I went to the cabinets to grab another. We were out. Sally is in charge of keeping track of supplies that need ordering, so I go to Sally & say we’re completely out of paper towels, we need to order some. Sally response: “No one ever tells me when they grab the last roll so I know when to order them.” Um, excuse me, since when is it our job to tell you to do your job? It’s your responsibility to keep track of supplies. You should be checking the level of paper towels, toilet paper, Kleenex, etc., to see when you need to order them.
   

So, I knew she needed a second warning write up for carelessness cause of the numerous mistakes since the first warning write up in the middle of Dec, & I would be giving Sally a first warning write up for negligence cause of her not asking the offices for missing bills & not writing the info on the bills I had told her to do at the end of Nov. However, it was only a few days from Feb, which was the time for performance reviews. So, rather than doing a write up now & then in a week or so doing a performance review that was one of the worst performance reviews I’ve ever heard of, I decided to just do it in one fell swoop. You know, just get it all out of the way with one bad conversation, one bad day, & then both of us can hopefully put it behind us & move on.
I decided to do the performance review & write ups on Feb 5 (Monday). It went much smoother ‘cause Greg was there, so Sally couldn’t really give me lip or lash out by showing attitude & anger like she had previously.
On Feb 7 (Wednesday), I log in to get the transactions for an office who is switching banks. I wanted to get an updated list of outstanding checks so they know how many checks are left before they can close the old bank account. & what do I see? Someone had used the bank account to pay $100 on their AT&T bill. I call the office & find out it was actually them, so no fraud there. But I then ask Sally if she had seen that when checking the bank accounts. She said she didn’t remember. Obviously, I have found my proof that she is either not checking them or isn’t paying attention when she does. I have a discussion with Greg about it, & we decide I need to have a sit down with her about her not doing her job. She is sick on Thursday, so I plan to talk with her the next day she comes in.
On Feb 9 (Friday), I begin the conversation about checking the bank accounts & how important it is. I am planning to say things like, we expect you to do this job, you’ve been told multiple times to do this task, if you’re not going to do the job, then you’re welcome to go find another one, etc. But she cuts me off at the beginning with an excuse of, “Well, I didn’t know what I should be looking for, now I know.” & it broke me. She does this exact thing every time I have to have a conversation with her. She has an excuse ready to go on the tip of her tongue, always spins it around so it’s not actually her fault. It’s always, “Well, I didn’t know that, but now, I do.” & I was just done. I didn’t continue the conversation, even though I needed to, ‘cause I just broke down in tears from the stress of having to discipline her & knowing that nothing will ever come of it, but having our hands legally tied to be able to fire her right now. I cried nonstop for over 4 hours.
On Feb 12 (Monday), I sat down to continue the conversation, this time with a written statement for her to sign.
Me: You respond a lot of the time that you don’t know how to do things, which is very frustrating, ‘cause you’ve been shown multiple times how to do these tasks. It’s very inefficient & wasteful that I have to constantly check all of your work & retrain you on the same thing over & over again. This needs to change. This job is about accuracy & accountability.
Sally: You’re not giving me a chance to improve. I never hear “Good job,” from you. All I ever hear is, “You’re doing a bad job, sign this paper.” I get in trouble every time I ask for help, so I guess I’ll just follow the instructions & hope I’m doing it right.
The problems with that response:

1. You’ve worked here for 2 years, Sally. You’ve had plenty of time to improve.
   
2. The reason you never hear “Good job” is ‘cause you’re not doing a good job. How am I supposed to tell you “Good job,” but also need to give you a write up for doing a bad job? If you’re getting multiple write ups for doing a bad job, don’t you think that’s a sign that something is wrong? I mean, she thinks that managers should be telling their employees good job on everything they do right. No, you’re expected to do these tasks. We’re not going to congratulate you every time you do your basic job requirements like some toddler that needs constant positive reinforcement so they know that doing something right is a good thing! You will hear “Good job” when you are doing a really good job on something, when you go above & beyond!! I mean, do you think Greg tells me “Good job” when I’m just doing my job as expected?!! NO!!! I’ve never had a manager constantly tell me “Good job” all the time!!!! (Whew. Sorry about that. Kinda went on a crazy rant there. I’m good now.)
   
3. Here’s another example of her mentality of “if I don’t do the job, I can’t get in trouble for doing it wrong.” She’s going to stop asking for help instead of using the help I’ve given her to do better. I mean, if you’re making these mistakes when you ARE asking for help, how many more are you going to make when you stop asking for help? How does this make any logical sense?!
   

Well, here’s another chance for some malicious compliance. She claimed she didn’t know how to check the bank accounts, right? Well, my job as the manager is to make sure my employees know how to do their job. So, I need to sit down with her & train her how to check the bank accounts. Again. Even though I know she already knows how to do it. So, every time you tell me that the reason why you didn’t do a job is ‘cause you didn’t know how to do it right, well, we’re going to sit down & waste both our times & annoy you having to be retrained on something you do, in fact, know how to do.
Sally continues making careless mistakes & not doing stuff she doesn’t think she should have to do. Like answering the phones. It’s her job to answer the phones; that’s something I as the manager should be delegating to her. However, she never answers the phone unless I literally can’t. So, I had asked her to start answering the phone more. She will wait until the last possible second before answering the phone. By that time, it’s already rung twice, so I have to answer it before it goes on any longer or they hang up. One time, we were both away from our desks when the phone rang. We both went to answer it, but she was closer & got to her desk before me, put her hand on the phone, & watched me until I got to my desk before she picked it up. With a comment of, “Oh, (laughs) I didn’t want to make you walk all the way to your desk.” Well, you did, anyway, you little jerk.
On Feb 27, Sally asks for help on a report. She says that my note stating the office is over-deposited $28 on report 1 but fixed on report 2 by being $28 under-deposited didn’t work out. She says that they were never over by $28 in the first place. I take the report to look it over. Her calculator tape adding up the deposits shows the bank is in balance, but I don’t see deposit slips.
Me: Where are the deposit slips?
Sally: I haven’t gotten them yet.
Me: (trying to comprehend her logic) Then how do you have the deposit amounts added on this tape?
Sally: I got the amounts from the report.
Me: You…(my brain trying not to implode at this point) you can’t add up amounts to see if the bank has too much or too little money in it without knowing what was actually taken to the bank. The amounts on the report don’t always equal what was taken to the bank.
I log into the bank account & discover just that: the report says they took $500 to the bank, but their deposit says $528. They were indeed $28 over-deposited. I then lecture her (for the second time in a few months) on the correct way to account for the deposits at the bank, that we are only to use the dollar amounts on the bank’s deposit receipt. (The first time was her getting the deposit amount from what was written on the deposit slip instead of what the bank gave us credit for on their printed receipt. The bank had shorted us $500, & we never knew until her deposits didn’t work out when reconciling the bank statement at the end of the month. We were missing $500 for 4 weeks! It’s a miracle we didn’t overdraw the account.)
Another task that we do several days a week is checking the CFPB website. This is a government website that uses federal regulations to monitor financial institutions. It’s like the Better Business Bureau, but more official. Customers can make complaints through them, prompting an investigation to make sure we’re following the federal guidelines. We have 2 weeks to respond to a complaint before it is past due.
On Feb 29, Greg just happens to be looking at an email inbox that he never checks, ‘cause after all, we’re checking the CFPB website, so he doesn’t have to look there, right? There is a complaint in 2 of the portals that have been in there since Jan 22. He immediately marches out & tells Sally about them.
Greg: Aren’t you checking the CFPB sites?
Sally: Yeah, I am.
Really? Then how come you didn’t print this complaint off to give to Greg in the last 6 weeks? She came back from lunch to a second warning write up given by me for negligence.
On Mar 5 (Tuesday), we are working on reconciling the bank statements so we can close the month of Feb. Sally brings me a Jan bank statement for an office.
Sally: This never cleared in Feb.
I look at the bank statement. It’s an electronic deposit of $254 on Jan 31. I remember this. She had asked me at the beginning of Feb why this deposit wasn’t recorded on the office’s report. I explained that since it didn’t show up in the bank account until the last day of Jan, they might not have known about it before the end of the month & so recorded it on the first of Feb. We will wait until the first report of Feb. If it’s still not recorded, then we’ll bring that to the office’s attention. & here she is, clearly telling me she hadn’t brought it to anyone’s attention all month long.
Me: (staring at the bank statement as I try to prevent my autistic brain from exploding at her while also trying to prevent a spontaneous stroke) You didn’t keep track of this all month?
Sally: Well, I didn’t know if it was treated differently ‘cause it was OTBP (One Time Bill Pay, which is the electronic deposit). (Oh, what a shocker, she once again didn’t know how to do something.)
Me: But we talked about this. If it wasn’t on the first of the month, we needed to address it.
Sally: Okay, well, now I know that we treat this the same as other deposits. (goes nonchalantly back to her desk like it was no big deal, like she hadn’t just revealed she had once again disobeyed my detailed instructions)
Me: (seeing her flagrant disregard for the seriousness of the situation & wondering just how on earth she could once again think that not doing her job would have no consequences) This is exactly what Greg talks about over & over, about how we can’t leave errors like this to sit for weeks & weeks, that these need to be dealt with as they happen.
Sally: (still as easy-going as if she had simply used the wrong color highlighter) Okay, I’ll make note of that.
Now, I am getting really pissed off. She keeps saying, “Oh, now I know that OTBP is treated the same as everything else.” That doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter that you didn’t know it’s treated the same! I specifically told you to take care of it if it didn’t appear on the first of Feb! It didn’t matter what kind of deposit it was! I said to tell me if it wasn’t on the first of Feb!
Now, this was right before she leaves at 3:30, so by the time I’m finished with my text conversation with Greg (‘cause he isn’t there that afternoon), she has already left. But I’m telling Greg that I have once again caught her being negligent, & she’s already had 2 written warnings about this, which means our next step is letting her go. Not to mention, her carelessness is still continuing. He said that he supports my decision to let her go. By the way, the final decision happened an hour after she left. If I had known before she left that we were indeed going to fire her, I would have done it before she left so she didn’t have to come all the way to work in the morning just to leave again.
So, on Mar 6 (Wednesday), I arrive early to work so I can be prepared. I am standing at my desk, watching her come in. This is unusual, so she frowns as she approaches me.
Me: Sally, we need to talk.
Sally: (still frowns at me)
Me: (handing her the typed up notice) We are going to read this together. “When reconciling the month of Jan, around Feb 5, it was brought to my attention that we had a deposit that hadn’t been reconciled. I gave you instructions to wait a report to see if it works out. If not, you would need to bring it to mine & the office’s attention for further instructions. This wasn’t done. It wasn’t until Mar 5 that you brought this to my attention again. You have been told many times the importance of reconciling the financials of the office. You have been warned several times of negligence. This is another example of negligence with respect to your job. All you had to do was follow my instructions. It is for this reason that it is now time to terminate your employment.”
Sally: When did you tell me to do this?
Me: (thinking, “Um, I kinda just told you when I told you do that, but, okay.”) When you showed me the Jan bank statement—
Sally: Yesterday?!
Me: You showed me the Jan bank statement a month ago when you were reconciling Jan. I told you to wait for the first of Feb & then—
Sally: You did no such thing!
Me: Yes, I did, Sally.
Sally: When does Greg get here?
Me: Around 9, like usual.
Sally: I’m calling him, ‘cause this is ridiculous. You’ve had it out for me from the very beginning.
Me: No, I haven’t.
Sally: Yeah, you have. Just like the other 2. (sets her bags at the front door, goes outside, & calls Greg)

1. How could I have had it out for you from the very beginning when we didn’t have problems for the first year & a half you worked here? If I’d had it out for you from the beginning, you wouldn’t have had a job the past 6 months. Need I remind you what Greg told you about the timesheet thing being something we fire someone for on the spot, but that Molly had gone to bat for you & gave you a second chance? Why would I have done that if I had wanted you gone from the start?
   
2. “Just like the other 2.” She’s talking about Irene (who had left in Feb 2023) & another employee (who we’ll call Phil). Phil had been fired (by Greg, by the way) for continuing to watch movies on his phone at his desk despite being told multiple times by Greg to not do that. & Irene? She wasn’t fired. She gave her 2 weeks’ notice. & we then discovered when going through the work she’s been doing as we started taking over her tasks that she didn’t just not do jobs. She would actually forge the work so she wouldn’t have to work. “A bank imbalance of $2.65? Well, I’ll just add it to the imbalance that’s been building up for who knows how many months & just label it as an over-deposit from the end of the month. That way, I don’t have to look into why the bank isn’t balancing.” But no, I had it out for them, apparently.
   
3. Does she really think that calling Greg was gonna reverse my firing her? Does she really think I would do something as drastic as writing her up or firing her without discussing it with my supervisor first? Did she really think I would do this behind his back?
   

Apparently, she did, ‘cause Greg confirmed that Sally tried telling him about all the stuff I’ve been doing to her as if he didn’t know. She hung up on him when he explained that he’s been told everything as it happens & he supports this decision.
Sally: (storming back into the office & towards her desk) I’m not signing anything.
Me: Ok.
Sally begins packing up her desk. I had known she kept a lot of personal items at the office, so I had gotten a big box or 2 out & placed them nearby for her to use to pack up her desk.
Me: We can give you a box if you need it.
Sally: I don’t need sh** from you guys.
Me: The only thing we’ll need is your office key.
Sally: You’ll get it when you get it. I’m packing my desk.
Me: Ok.
I go back to work, keeping an eye on her as she packs to make sure she doesn’t take anything she’s not supposed to or damage any company property. Sally at some point decides to use the boxes she didn’t want from us to pack up her many items. She takes both boxes to the front door where her bags are & sets them down to put the last of her things in. She picks up one box to take outside.
Sally: You are the worst manager ever. (goes out the door)
Me: (shrug)
Sally: (comes back in for the final box) Seriously, you’re the most evil person I’ve ever met. (leaves)
Really? I rank worse than the guy that beat you up? I’m worse than him?
I continued watching her to see if she’s going to come back to give up her office key. As she packed up her car, another employee had arrived (we’ll call him Randy). He had run into her on the way in & asks me if Sally quit. I explained, no, she was let go. I then see that Sally has gotten behind the wheel of her car without coming back to give us the office key.
Me: Well, I guess we’ll just change the locks.
Randy then takes it upon himself to go out to her car. He phrased it very gently by saying he wanted to spare her having to come back in to turn the key in.
Sally: I guess Molly didn’t have the balls to do it herself. (hands the key over)
& then…she was gone. Despite having to do the entire corporate office’s work all by myself & falling steadily behind little by little, I have never been more happy. I had forgotten how much I loved my job & how much I couldn’t wait to get to work. I haven’t been this stress-free in 6 months, & it feels fantastic! & the great part is, I’m not really falling as far behind as I expected to without her. Having to do 2 people’s jobs by myself is only affecting me a little. Really goes to show you how bad she was for the company & for my job when she disrupted everything that much. For example, me & her would get through maybe 5 to 6 offices’ reports between us in a single day when playing catch up after closing the previous month. One day? I caught up on 10 offices’ reports in a single day. By myself.
Oh, did I mention she smoked marijuana most days on her way to work or while on her lunch break? We could never actually prove it. But, come on, you don’t smell that strongly of marijuana on only select days if you aren’t smoking it recently. If it was leftover from the smell of your house or car, you would smell like that every day. But it was only some days she would come into work or back from lunch smelling like that. Obviously, smoking on the job. So very glad to be rid of her & her awful skunk smell. Although, I do wish her well on a new job search. I don’t wish ill on anyone, ever. But I am just glad she’s no longer my problem to deal with.
(Added 2 months after she was fired): By the way, I am actually gaining on my work. I’m not only not behind on my work, I’m actually getting it done soon enough to work on extra stuff. Also, out of the blue, we’ve started getting about 3 to 4 sales & scam calls every day since Sally left (for things like better Medicare benefits, better retirement benefits, & even one time recently where “Walgreens” was calling to ask if I still had diabetes). I’m convinced Sally signed us up for calls as retaliation. I hope they die down soon, especially as they are starting to get rude. (Our response to every one of these is “Sorry, this is a business.” This one guy responded to me with, “This is my job.” I said, “I understand this is your job, but this is a business. I am not allowed to take personal calls.” He said, “Why?” I said very slowly & firmly, “Because I’m working!” He started to say, “Can you explain to me why—” I hung up. Jerk.)

So, here is part 2 of my entitled employee story. We left off with discovering Sally’s retaliation of giving me trash as a Christmas gift after her latest write-up.
So, the next several weeks, I am noticing more problems, but here’s some of the highlights.

1. Ever since we had issues of the office’s checks going randomly missing, Sally had apparently decided to just stop throwing any envelope away when opening the mail. She would supposedly search the envelopes/paperwork & then keep the envelopes with the paperwork. So, instead of doing her job better, she would decide to just stop doing the job at all. After all, you can’t get in trouble for screwing it up if you aren’t doing it, right? However, this resulted in items getting left with the paperwork (which sometimes wouldn’t get touched for several weeks due to being busy) that had needed to be collected or addressed right away.
   
2. Sally’s careless mistakes continued at about the same rate (average of 2 to 3 a week). She would put deposit slips/emails with the wrong office’s report, put one office’s mail in another office’s bin, put one office’s funding papers in another office’s bin, put one office’s bills in the folder for their correspondence & vice versa, put one office’s bills in the folder for another office’s bills, put the new month’s bills in the folder without taking out the old month’s bills so they would get mixed up. I could go on & on.
   
3. Sally would still ask for help on things she shouldn’t need help on anymore, ‘cause I had helped her many times on items exactly like it in the 2 years she’s worked here. I mean, the whole point of asking for help when learning new things on a job is so you can take the input you’re given & use it to get better at the job so you don’t have to ask for help anymore. I mean, what kind of office works by their employees constantly needing to be walked through everything every day? Sally would even ask for help on things no one would need to ask for help on. For example, she asked me, “An office took a deposit to the bank without showing it on their report. How do I write that up in the letter to fax to them?” Um, exactly what you just said to me. Or another time, she asks how long she should wait before calling an office back. Well, how long do you think you should give them? Just use your good judgment. You don’t need help with that! Again, you’ve been here 2 years!
   

On Jan 26, I take the Dec bills, correspondence faxes, & timesheets out of their folders to scan them into the computer. Now, one thing the bills should always have on them are the check number used to pay for this purchase & the date it was paid. The offices themselves are supposed to write this on there, but they don’t always, which is why it is our job to write it on there if it’s missing. I had noticed when I scanned Nov’s bills around Nov 30 that a lot of Sally’s offices don’t have that info written on them. So, I explained to her what needed to be written on every bill/receipt. I now flip through the Dec & Jan bills of her offices really quick to check them. There are quite a few of them with no info written down on them. There’s strike one for noncompliance.
Another task we would do several days a week (that’s Sally’s responsibility) is to check the bank accounts online. She is to look at the bank balances & report any low balances to Greg (or me if Greg isn’t there). She is then to look at the transactions in order to see if anything looks fraudulent. Since we are a loan company, check fraud is very common for us. So, we look at the checks for anything funny-looking, & we look to see if there are any auto debits (like when you use your bank account online to pay for a bill) that would tell us if someone got hold of our bank account info.
On Jan 30, at 1:15 p.m., I asked if any of the bank balances were low (Greg was out of town for a few days). Sally said she had forgotten to check the bank accounts that morning. Weird, ‘cause you had to check the Dallas office to make sure the money we sent them had shown up. How did you get the login sheet out to look in their bank account but then forget about checking all the bank accounts? This just further cemented in my mind that she was NOT checking these bank accounts the way she should. I was 100% positive that all she does when logging into these bank accounts is checking the balances to give to Greg but then never checks the transactions. I know this ‘cause, 1) I’ve observed Sally only logging in to write down the balances & then logging back out (she had some flimsy excuse ready when I asked her about it), 2) there have been auto debits that appeared in bank accounts that we didn’t find for weeks until I happened to see it for some reason & guess what? She never pointed those out to us, & 3) Sally hadn’t bothered to check the bank account balances since Greg was out of town, so clearly she only felt the need to check the balances. There’s strike two for noncompliance.
& even more bad mistakes or decisions:

1. At the end of Jan, we discovered that Sally had mailed the employees’ W2s to the managers’ home addresses instead of to the offices to distribute to their employees!
   
2. We had an office that moved locations to right across the street, so the only thing that changed in their address was their street number (12 Main Street instead of 11 Main Street). I explained this to Sally & gave her an updated list of the office’s addresses. 3 weeks later, we get a call from that office saying that mail we send to them keeps going to their landlord’s house. I check the address labels Sally had created for herself. Sure enough, it had the wrong address on them. I go to grab the lease, & at the top is where the tenant’s new address is listed. & all the way at the bottom of the page in the paragraph titled “RENT” where it lists where to send the rent is the landlord’s home address. & that’s the address Sally had chosen to be the new office’s address on her address labels.
   
3. Sally hadn’t been faxing the offices to ask for bills/receipts that never made it to us.
   
4. I used the last towel on a roll of paper towels, so I went to the cabinets to grab another. We were out. Sally is in charge of keeping track of supplies that need ordering, so I go to Sally & say we’re completely out of paper towels, we need to order some. Sally response: “No one ever tells me when they grab the last roll so I know when to order them.” Um, excuse me, since when is it our job to tell you to do your job? It’s your responsibility to keep track of supplies. You should be checking the level of paper towels, toilet paper, Kleenex, etc., to see when you need to order them.
   

So, I knew she needed a second warning write up for carelessness cause of the numerous mistakes since the first warning write up in the middle of Dec, & I would be giving Sally a first warning write up for negligence cause of her not asking the offices for missing bills & not writing the info on the bills I had told her to do at the end of Nov. However, it was only a few days from Feb, which was the time for performance reviews. So, rather than doing a write up now & then in a week or so doing a performance review that was one of the worst performance reviews I’ve ever heard of, I decided to just do it in one fell swoop. You know, just get it all out of the way with one bad conversation, one bad day, & then both of us can hopefully put it behind us & move on.
I decided to do the performance review & write ups on Feb 5 (Monday). It went much smoother ‘cause Greg was there, so Sally couldn’t really give me lip or lash out by showing attitude & anger like she had previously.
On Feb 7 (Wednesday), I log in to get the transactions for an office who is switching banks. I wanted to get an updated list of outstanding checks so they know how many checks are left before they can close the old bank account. & what do I see? Someone had used the bank account to pay $100 on their AT&T bill. I call the office & find out it was actually them, so no fraud there. But I then ask Sally if she had seen that when checking the bank accounts. She said she didn’t remember. Obviously, I have found my proof that she is either not checking them or isn’t paying attention when she does. I have a discussion with Greg about it, & we decide I need to have a sit down with her about her not doing her job. She is sick on Thursday, so I plan to talk with her the next day she comes in.
On Feb 9 (Friday), I begin the conversation about checking the bank accounts & how important it is. I am planning to say things like, we expect you to do this job, you’ve been told multiple times to do this task, if you’re not going to do the job, then you’re welcome to go find another one, etc. But she cuts me off at the beginning with an excuse of, “Well, I didn’t know what I should be looking for, now I know.” & it broke me. She does this exact thing every time I have to have a conversation with her. She has an excuse ready to go on the tip of her tongue, always spins it around so it’s not actually her fault. It’s always, “Well, I didn’t know that, but now, I do.” & I was just done. I didn’t continue the conversation, even though I needed to, ‘cause I just broke down in tears from the stress of having to discipline her & knowing that nothing will ever come of it, but having our hands legally tied to be able to fire her right now. I cried nonstop for over 4 hours.
On Feb 12 (Monday), I sat down to continue the conversation, this time with a written statement for her to sign.
Me: You respond a lot of the time that you don’t know how to do things, which is very frustrating, ‘cause you’ve been shown multiple times how to do these tasks. It’s very inefficient & wasteful that I have to constantly check all of your work & retrain you on the same thing over & over again. This needs to change. This job is about accuracy & accountability.
Sally: You’re not giving me a chance to improve. I never hear “Good job,” from you. All I ever hear is, “You’re doing a bad job, sign this paper.” I get in trouble every time I ask for help, so I guess I’ll just follow the instructions & hope I’m doing it right.
The problems with that response:

1. You’ve worked here for 2 years, Sally. You’ve had plenty of time to improve.
   
2. The reason you never hear “Good job” is ‘cause you’re not doing a good job. How am I supposed to tell you “Good job,” but also need to give you a write up for doing a bad job? If you’re getting multiple write ups for doing a bad job, don’t you think that’s a sign that something is wrong? I mean, she thinks that managers should be telling their employees good job on everything they do right. No, you’re expected to do these tasks. We’re not going to congratulate you every time you do your basic job requirements like some toddler that needs constant positive reinforcement so they know that doing something right is a good thing! You will hear “Good job” when you are doing a really good job on something, when you go above & beyond!! I mean, do you think Greg tells me “Good job” when I’m just doing my job as expected?!! NO!!! I’ve never had a manager constantly tell me “Good job” all the time!!!! (Whew. Sorry about that. Kinda went on a crazy rant there. I’m good now.)
   
3. Here’s another example of her mentality of “if I don’t do the job, I can’t get in trouble for doing it wrong.” She’s going to stop asking for help instead of using the help I’ve given her to do better. I mean, if you’re making these mistakes when you ARE asking for help, how many more are you going to make when you stop asking for help? How does this make any logical sense?!
   

Well, here’s another chance for some malicious compliance. She claimed she didn’t know how to check the bank accounts, right? Well, my job as the manager is to make sure my employees know how to do their job. So, I need to sit down with her & train her how to check the bank accounts. Again. Even though I know she already knows how to do it. So, every time you tell me that the reason why you didn’t do a job is ‘cause you didn’t know how to do it right, well, we’re going to sit down & waste both our times & annoy you having to be retrained on something you do, in fact, know how to do.
Sally continues making careless mistakes & not doing stuff she doesn’t think she should have to do. Like answering the phones. It’s her job to answer the phones; that’s something I as the manager should be delegating to her. However, she never answers the phone unless I literally can’t. So, I had asked her to start answering the phone more. She will wait until the last possible second before answering the phone. By that time, it’s already rung twice, so I have to answer it before it goes on any longer or they hang up. One time, we were both away from our desks when the phone rang. We both went to answer it, but she was closer & got to her desk before me, put her hand on the phone, & watched me until I got to my desk before she picked it up. With a comment of, “Oh, (laughs) I didn’t want to make you walk all the way to your desk.” Well, you did, anyway, you little jerk.
On Feb 27, Sally asks for help on a report. She says that my note stating the office is over-deposited $28 on report 1 but fixed on report 2 by being $28 under-deposited didn’t work out. She says that they were never over by $28 in the first place. I take the report to look it over. Her calculator tape adding up the deposits shows the bank is in balance, but I don’t see deposit slips.
Me: Where are the deposit slips?
Sally: I haven’t gotten them yet.
Me: (trying to comprehend her logic) Then how do you have the deposit amounts added on this tape?
Sally: I got the amounts from the report.
Me: You…(my brain trying not to implode at this point) you can’t add up amounts to see if the bank has too much or too little money in it without knowing what was actually taken to the bank. The amounts on the report don’t always equal what was taken to the bank.
I log into the bank account & discover just that: the report says they took $500 to the bank, but their deposit says $528. They were indeed $28 over-deposited. I then lecture her (for the second time in a few months) on the correct way to account for the deposits at the bank, that we are only to use the dollar amounts on the bank’s deposit receipt. (The first time was her getting the deposit amount from what was written on the deposit slip instead of what the bank gave us credit for on their printed receipt. The bank had shorted us $500, & we never knew until her deposits didn’t work out when reconciling the bank statement at the end of the month. We were missing $500 for 4 weeks! It’s a miracle we didn’t overdraw the account.)
Another task that we do several days a week is checking the CFPB website. This is a government website that uses federal regulations to monitor financial institutions. It’s like the Better Business Bureau, but more official. Customers can make complaints through them, prompting an investigation to make sure we’re following the federal guidelines. We have 2 weeks to respond to a complaint before it is past due.
On Feb 29, Greg just happens to be looking at an email inbox that he never checks, ‘cause after all, we’re checking the CFPB website, so he doesn’t have to look there, right? There is a complaint in 2 of the portals that have been in there since Jan 22. He immediately marches out & tells Sally about them.
Greg: Aren’t you checking the CFPB sites?
Sally: Yeah, I am.
Really? Then how come you didn’t print this complaint off to give to Greg in the last 6 weeks? She came back from lunch to a second warning write up given by me for negligence.
On Mar 5 (Tuesday), we are working on reconciling the bank statements so we can close the month of Feb. Sally brings me a Jan bank statement for an office.
Sally: This never cleared in Feb.
I look at the bank statement. It’s an electronic deposit of $254 on Jan 31. I remember this. She had asked me at the beginning of Feb why this deposit wasn’t recorded on the office’s report. I explained that since it didn’t show up in the bank account until the last day of Jan, they might not have known about it before the end of the month & so recorded it on the first of Feb. We will wait until the first report of Feb. If it’s still not recorded, then we’ll bring that to the office’s attention. & here she is, clearly telling me she hadn’t brought it to anyone’s attention all month long.
Me: (staring at the bank statement as I try to prevent my autistic brain from exploding at her while also trying to prevent a spontaneous stroke) You didn’t keep track of this all month?
Sally: Well, I didn’t know if it was treated differently ‘cause it was OTBP (One Time Bill Pay, which is the electronic deposit). (Oh, what a shocker, she once again didn’t know how to do something.)
Me: But we talked about this. If it wasn’t on the first of the month, we needed to address it.
Sally: Okay, well, now I know that we treat this the same as other deposits. (goes nonchalantly back to her desk like it was no big deal, like she hadn’t just revealed she had once again disobeyed my detailed instructions)
Me: (seeing her flagrant disregard for the seriousness of the situation & wondering just how on earth she could once again think that not doing her job would have no consequences) This is exactly what Greg talks about over & over, about how we can’t leave errors like this to sit for weeks & weeks, that these need to be dealt with as they happen.
Sally: (still as easy-going as if she had simply used the wrong color highlighter) Okay, I’ll make note of that.
Now, I am getting really pissed off. She keeps saying, “Oh, now I know that OTBP is treated the same as everything else.” That doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter that you didn’t know it’s treated the same! I specifically told you to take care of it if it didn’t appear on the first of Feb! It didn’t matter what kind of deposit it was! I said to tell me if it wasn’t on the first of Feb!
Now, this was right before she leaves at 3:30, so by the time I’m finished with my text conversation with Greg (‘cause he isn’t there that afternoon), she has already left. But I’m telling Greg that I have once again caught her being negligent, & she’s already had 2 written warnings about this, which means our next step is letting her go. Not to mention, her carelessness is still continuing. He said that he supports my decision to let her go. By the way, the final decision happened an hour after she left. If I had known before she left that we were indeed going to fire her, I would have done it before she left so she didn’t have to come all the way to work in the morning just to leave again.
So, on Mar 6 (Wednesday), I arrive early to work so I can be prepared. I am standing at my desk, watching her come in. This is unusual, so she frowns as she approaches me.
Me: Sally, we need to talk.
Sally: (still frowns at me)
Me: (handing her the typed up notice) We are going to read this together. “When reconciling the month of Jan, around Feb 5, it was brought to my attention that we had a deposit that hadn’t been reconciled. I gave you instructions to wait a report to see if it works out. If not, you would need to bring it to mine & the office’s attention for further instructions. This wasn’t done. It wasn’t until Mar 5 that you brought this to my attention again. You have been told many times the importance of reconciling the financials of the office. You have been warned several times of negligence. This is another example of negligence with respect to your job. All you had to do was follow my instructions. It is for this reason that it is now time to terminate your employment.”
Sally: When did you tell me to do this?
Me: (thinking, “Um, I kinda just told you when I told you do that, but, okay.”) When you showed me the Jan bank statement—
Sally: Yesterday?!
Me: You showed me the Jan bank statement a month ago when you were reconciling Jan. I told you to wait for the first of Feb & then—
Sally: You did no such thing!
Me: Yes, I did, Sally.
Sally: When does Greg get here?
Me: Around 9, like usual.
Sally: I’m calling him, ‘cause this is ridiculous. You’ve had it out for me from the very beginning.
Me: No, I haven’t.
Sally: Yeah, you have. Just like the other 2. (sets her bags at the front door, goes outside, & calls Greg)

1. How could I have had it out for you from the very beginning when we didn’t have problems for the first year & a half you worked here? If I’d had it out for you from the beginning, you wouldn’t have had a job the past 6 months. Need I remind you what Greg told you about the timesheet thing being something we fire someone for on the spot, but that Molly had gone to bat for you & gave you a second chance? Why would I have done that if I had wanted you gone from the start?
   
2. “Just like the other 2.” She’s talking about Irene (who had left in Feb 2023) & another employee (who we’ll call Phil). Phil had been fired (by Greg, by the way) for continuing to watch movies on his phone at his desk despite being told multiple times by Greg to not do that. & Irene? She wasn’t fired. She gave her 2 weeks’ notice. & we then discovered when going through the work she’s been doing as we started taking over her tasks that she didn’t just not do jobs. She would actually forge the work so she wouldn’t have to work. “A bank imbalance of $2.65? Well, I’ll just add it to the imbalance that’s been building up for who knows how many months & just label it as an over-deposit from the end of the month. That way, I don’t have to look into why the bank isn’t balancing.” But no, I had it out for them, apparently.
   
3. Does she really think that calling Greg was gonna reverse my firing her? Does she really think I would do something as drastic as writing her up or firing her without discussing it with my supervisor first? Did she really think I would do this behind his back?
   

Apparently, she did, ‘cause Greg confirmed that Sally tried telling him about all the stuff I’ve been doing to her as if he didn’t know. She hung up on him when he explained that he’s been told everything as it happens & he supports this decision.
Sally: (storming back into the office & towards her desk) I’m not signing anything.
Me: Ok.
Sally begins packing up her desk. I had known she kept a lot of personal items at the office, so I had gotten a big box or 2 out & placed them nearby for her to use to pack up her desk.
Me: We can give you a box if you need it.
Sally: I don’t need sh** from you guys.
Me: The only thing we’ll need is your office key.
Sally: You’ll get it when you get it. I’m packing my desk.
Me: Ok.
I go back to work, keeping an eye on her as she packs to make sure she doesn’t take anything she’s not supposed to or damage any company property. Sally at some point decides to use the boxes she didn’t want from us to pack up her many items. She takes both boxes to the front door where her bags are & sets them down to put the last of her things in. She picks up one box to take outside.
Sally: You are the worst manager ever. (goes out the door)
Me: (shrug)
Sally: (comes back in for the final box) Seriously, you’re the most evil person I’ve ever met. (leaves)
Really? I rank worse than the guy that beat you up? I’m worse than him?
I continued watching her to see if she’s going to come back to give up her office key. As she packed up her car, another employee had arrived (we’ll call him Randy). He had run into her on the way in & asks me if Sally quit. I explained, no, she was let go. I then see that Sally has gotten behind the wheel of her car without coming back to give us the office key.
Me: Well, I guess we’ll just change the locks.
Randy then takes it upon himself to go out to her car. He phrased it very gently by saying he wanted to spare her having to come back in to turn the key in.
Sally: I guess Molly didn’t have the balls to do it herself. (hands the key over)
& then…she was gone. Despite having to do the entire corporate office’s work all by myself & falling steadily behind little by little, I have never been more happy. I had forgotten how much I loved my job & how much I couldn’t wait to get to work. I haven’t been this stress-free in 6 months, & it feels fantastic! & the great part is, I’m not really falling as far behind as I expected to without her. Having to do 2 people’s jobs by myself is only affecting me a little. Really goes to show you how bad she was for the company & for my job when she disrupted everything that much. For example, me & her would get through maybe 5 to 6 offices’ reports between us in a single day when playing catch up after closing the previous month. One day? I caught up on 10 offices’ reports in a single day. By myself.
Oh, did I mention she smoked marijuana most days on her way to work or while on her lunch break? We could never actually prove it. But, come on, you don’t smell that strongly of marijuana on only select days if you aren’t smoking it recently. If it was leftover from the smell of your house or car, you would smell like that every day. But it was only some days she would come into work or back from lunch smelling like that. Obviously, smoking on the job. So very glad to be rid of her & her awful skunk smell. Although, I do wish her well on a new job search. I don’t wish ill on anyone, ever. But I am just glad she’s no longer my problem to deal with.
(Added 2 months after she was fired): By the way, I am actually gaining on my work. I’m not only not behind on my work, I’m actually getting it done soon enough to work on extra stuff. Also, out of the blue, we’ve started getting about 3 to 4 sales & scam calls every day since Sally left (for things like better Medicare benefits, better retirement benefits, & even one time recently where “Walgreens” was calling to ask if I still had diabetes). I’m convinced Sally signed us up for calls as retaliation. I hope they die down soon, especially as they are starting to get rude. (Our response to every one of these is “Sorry, this is a business.” This one guy responded to me with, “This is my job.” I said, “I understand this is your job, but this is a business. I am not allowed to take personal calls.” He said, “Why?” I said very slowly & firmly, “Because I’m working!” He started to say, “Can you explain to me why—” I hung up. Jerk.)

Hello, I had bunion surgery on my right foot in December. Surgery went well, but during the healing process we saw some regression in the correction. The bones have healed quite a bit now, but I still have some angle in my toe. I’ve come to the realization that I over pronate on both my feet (left has a bunion too) to push off my bunion. I’ve gotten so used to walking like that that it probably caused the regression in my surgery results. And, now that the angle is less, my foot over pronates even more trying to push off my bunion. I think I need to strengthen my big toe and my ankles to try to get my walking form more normal, but it’s hard since my toe still isn’t straight. (Not interested in going under the knife for my right foot again anytime soon). Are there any recommendations on what to do about this? Any exercises that helped? Any specific muscles I should focus on? PT is expensive, so any advice would be helpful. Thanks!

I put my 2 weeks in this Friday. I got a job working at John’s Hopkins.
I’m gonna miss my coworkers as people. But I’m not gonna miss this company or the job. I can’t help but wonder if they’ll replace me with someone who will have the job title they continually refused to give me on the basis of disability, since I was already doing the job, but it ain’t my problem anymore.
Working as a CSA is all fine and dandy but I wouldn’t reccomend working in a walgreens pharmacy, nor would I reccomend working here if you have disability accommodations. Those accommodations will expire, even though disabilities do not, and you’ll have to go through the whole mind numbing process over again. Don’t submit your accommodations paperwork without having a lawyer help you or you’ll get fucked over. I’ve been taken from work to the ER twice this past year in an effort to avoid reprimand from management over taking care of my needs. The company doesn’t care about your wellbeing- I had a very painful surgery done earlier this year and all they could care about was refusing to let me sit for two minutes without having “accommodations paperwork” in addition to the note I already gave them. And also reminding me every two minutes about my excessive callouts.
They don’t care if you’re falling apart as long as they get their pound of flesh- as long as they have a body on the floor making them money. But when it comes to our hours being cut so they can save a buck, suddenly that’s our problem to deal with too.
Anyways, I’m gonna miss my friends. But I am so over working for a blood-sucking corporation.

Got married at Cosmopolitan on Thursday by a friend. The county clerk office is only open for filing the certificate Monday thru Thursday from 8am to 5pm. Not open Friday, like a normal government office. The certificate has to be filed within 10 days (and filed doesn’t mean mailed or postmark date…it means the day it is processed and filed).
Went to the FedEx in our hotel, they couldn’t mail anything to a PO Box. OK, what?!
We are planning to fly out of Vegas on Sunday and clerk’s office opens Monday at 8am.
Went to Concierge desk. He was ridiculously not helpful. He recommended we go to the FedEx upstairs. We explained why that didn’t work. Did he offer us an envelope? Nope. Did he offer to find a place to find stamps? Nope. Looked at his computer and told us the post office by campus is closed.
Went to our room and called the front desk. They said we should talk to Concierge. We explained that he was absolutely no help to us. We were put on hold for a bit, then the line got disconnected.
Asked a gift shop person if she knew where we could find an envelope or stamp, she didn’t make eye contact and just said that she did not know.
Went back to room and saw housekeeping in the hallway. Asked her if she were us and needed a stamp and an envelope, what would she do. She said she really didn’t know what to suggest.
We spent over $3000 for our stay at Cosmopolitan. So at this point, we are a little frustrated and incredibly disappointed that no one was able to help. People get married here every few seconds. How is it that no one is able to be helpful with mailing the certificate? Seems there should be a drop box at every hotel…but there is not even a drop box at the actual clerk’s office because it is a PO Box.
Of everyone we talked to, the Walgreens’ employees were the most helpful. If you go to the Walgreens at Planet Hollywood, the stationary section is aisle 22 (which is hidden all the way in the back behind cosmetics). $5 for a box of envelopes. The cashier can get you a book of stamps (cannot buy just one stamp). They are locked in a safe so it takes a while for the manager to retrieve them.
So we now have an addressed envelope with a stamp, but cannot find a USPS mailbox.
Had no idea it would be this challenging. Would have brought an addressed and stamped envelope with me had I known.
Hopefully this will save someone else from the stress we had today. Cheers!

After 6 years I finally did it. I only started with the company as a college job to get me by, and man.. hindsight, am I right? I sold my soul as a DH, and when the opportunity came to be certified, my dad was so proud of me. He was born in 41, didn’t make it past the 9th grade, so all the things I was doing, he was kinda living vicariously through. There’s not a soul that he knew that didn’t know about me and how excited he was for me to be a pharmacy tech. He unfortunately passed before I officially became certified due to my school schedule delaying it. So.. I took a break from school to work full time to try and help my mom, and to finish what my dad was bragging about. And I did it, for him. For 4.5 more years.
I never made a 4 point rating or higher. But I had a patient put me in his will for some of his best knives (I collect, thanks to inheriting my dad’s big collection). When I worked the floor, I was never champion of a bay. But I used my own resources and left over end-of-life care materials, to support my patients when the medical supply store was closed and they ran out of mouth sponges or other things. When I worked photo, it never mattered how many surveys I got. But it did matter to this lady that I helped create photo art of their loved one and printed it off poster size for the funeral. They made sure it was posted in the newspaper, too.
When I worked the floor.. no one but me noticed this young boy’s obsession with magic cards and why he would always come in all alone. I noticed. I noticed when he was short on money, too. Gradually found out on our weekly visits, he’s in foster care, a recent change. He did odd chores to earn spending money, but he felt like it was a chore to them to keep him sometimes. His mom was really sick but was working on getting better. He loved dirt bikes and wizards. His science teacher got on his nerves but he promised he’d keep listening to her anyways because I said to. I always seemed to have just the exact amount on me to make sure he got his cards, and I always made sure he got himself a snack, too. He was so young he never realized when he was short change, but don’t worry we learned lol. A few of my regulars would catch on and eventually we had a small fund for him when he came up short. [Fuck policy; I wanted that kid to have something to look forward to at the end of each week.] I noticed the day he came running in there, with the biggest smile on his face I had ever seen. He had all his cards he had bought from me over the last several months stacked in his hands. Apparently it was a decent set, he was proud of it. His mom was coming home “for real” in a few weeks, and he couldn’t wait to show her all the cards he collected. He also said he couldn’t wait for her to meet me; and that day he wasn’t buying cards, but they were going out to have dinner with his mom. He had to make sure his foster parents stopped by on their way so he could be sure to tell me. I hope our paths cross again someday soon and I can give him the biggest hug. And I’m not a hugger.
When I worked at Walgreens, I had a family transfer to three different locations, across three different counties. Every time I transferred, they followed, even when their insurance wasn’t contracted. And now that I’ve left Walgreens, they’ve followed me yet again as well as several others. Because it’s not the services YOU are providing Walgreens that keeps you in business.. it’s employees like me, like my coworkers, some of the best dang pharmacists I’ve met, that keep business flowing.
When I worked at Walgreens.. I cared about my patients and customers; more than that company has in the last fifteen years. I’ve quite literally cleaned their blood off the floors before. And I was the sole reason EMTs knew the person was on blood thinners and changed their course of action to help save them. Because I chose to care.
Now it’s time to start caring about myself a little more and returning to school in the future.
A sincere and whole-hearted good riddance, Wags.

Hi all, I am hoping people with experience with bankruptcy can offer some advice as I'm trying to help out my adult child (20yo) and his roommate (21yo) who are going through an incredibly tough time right now. I have some means to help them out a little, but I definitely don't have the means to bail them completely out of the hole that they're in.
They currently live in Oklahoma, but most of their debt is from other states (Maine and/or Arizona).
Here's the good (and honestly I think it's a very solid foundation):
Shelter: They just signed a 12-month lease for a small place they don't have to share with anyone else but each other. No shared walls. $925/month. Lease goes until May 2025. Decent likelihood that as long as he pays on time every month there would be no issue with renewing at that time, even if his credit is terrible at that time.
Income: They both work remotely, and make $14.5 per hour gross. After taxes are withheld, estimated take-home pay of $2,000 per month each, or $4,000 total
Absolute minimum living expenses: utilities between gas, electric and internet (needed for their remote work) estimated at $400 per month. Necessary medications $200 per month. Car insurance $200/month (which may be cuttable short-term maybe, will explain below).
Health: overall their physical health is okay. Not super fit but no super major health issues that prevents them from working or from walking/biking reasonable distances for things.
Walking/Biking distance: 3/4 mile away is Walmart Supercenter (grocery, clothes, pharmacy, auto center, etc), Walgreens, Aldi's. It's a bit far to walk back home with a lot of groceries, but with something like an electric bike very reasonable. There's also a bus stop 1 block away from their place, and it drops off directly at the shopping center. Bus pass is $44/month/person.
Here's the bad (and the ugly):
Car payment is $520 per month, and they're already one month behind. But the car isn't really usable. They only got it a few months ago but there's major mechanical issues that make it unsafe to drive. They don't want to keep the car, they don't even feel safe driving it except in an absolute emergency.
Auto debt is roughly $20K for this unusable car. That debt is in both their names. The roommate also has credit card debt adding up to $50K.
They also have almost nothing needed for this new place they just started leasing. Basics like a bed, pots/pans for cooking, microwave, etc, they need to get.
Their current cash on hand is basically $0.
Questions for you: Should one or both of them be pursuing bankruptcy to try to dismiss the $20K of auto debt and/or $50K of credit card debt? How long does that process take? What is the smartest things they can be doing to prepare for something like that? What can I do to assist them that limits the risk of them negatively affecting my own credit?
For example, once they've cleared up their situation, I was considering making my kid an authorized user on one of my credit cards that has car insurance automatically built into it when it's used to rent a car. It would be a credit card with a very low limit (<$1K) that I would monitor closely that he could use for incidentals that we agree on, and if he needed to rent a car for like maybe 1 day to run a bunch of errands that absolutely require a car he could. But he could also use it to easily grab an UbeLyft if needed. It could also help him with building his credit back up again.
I was also considering purchasing an e-bike for him to help him get around once the car inevitably gets taken away, but I want to make sure that's not a possession that he'd be at risk of losing in a potential bankruptcy.
I'd be willing to help pay for the legal/court filing costs for them to go through bankruptcy if it can be done relatively cheaply.

I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I’m desperate for help. My friends pressured me into going to prom super last minute, and while I have a dress, i DESPERATELY need something like boob tape to keep them up and I don’t have anything! I can’t just make a run to walgreens or walmart for them because I live in a super rural area and they’re really unlikely to have them, plus my mom won’t want to stop by anywhere on her way home.
They’re DDs, so they’re a little heavy and can’t really handle scotch tape (Don’t. Ask.)
I really need help!

Its been many Fridays since our last Friday phone call, before they cut me off. But it still hurts.
Y'all can look in my post history but the short story was my parents disowned me because we have different politics. they were controlling and threatened my physical safety, so I left mid-pandemic and didn't look back.
When I attended university and moved out, I would be expected to check in each week by Friday. And tbh? Even though they were mean and horrible on the phone, I still picked up everytime. Other students also checked in regularly with their parents, it gave me a sense of normalcy. Like I was just any other student
One time my mom called me in the middle of class to say my aunt had cancer, connected it to a long rant about how I'm an ungrateful daughter for not staying at home to help the family while I have fun in college whoring about.
I came back puffy eyed/in tears. My friends asked what was wrong and i told her my aunt had cancer. My friend took me outside and gave me a hug while I cried, my other friend gathered our stuff so it wouldn't get stolen. And she even told the professor - he later gave me awkward condolences and a week extension on homework.
my friend later asked if we were close and I lied saying yes. Tbh I was not even close to my aunt but I was worried about providing an explanation as to why I was crying so hard, because then I'd have to explain what my mom said.
So, I lied and said we were close. I admit it. To help me feel better they asked me to tell me my favorite story about my aunt. I told them a story but it actually involved my grandma, who used to pick me up from school and buy me a red balloon from Walgreens on the way home.
My friends and I drifted apart after pandemic and college. But they (and my professor) showed me more kindness than my mom or dad showed my entire life.
(I've told this story in other subreddits, once specifically for venting/getting things off the chest, and I've been called out for trauma-dumping on my friends, which I know is wrong now, and for lying. I've been told that what I did was despicable - like replacing my grandma's story for my aunt. All I can say is I hope my deceased grandma and aunt will forgive me for it, I was having a real hard day.)
Anyway. Sorry for trauma dumping, I hope it's okay in this subreddit but if not I'll take it down.
Its Friday and I feel sad. I hope one day when I'm older I have a friend to call on a weekly basis and check in with them. I wish it wasn't so hard being lonely.

Hi all, I have an urgent request as my worst nightmare has come true as we set foot for day 1.
I need recommendations for new WIDE foot shoes that I can use to survive the next 3 day banger. I went maybe a little too hard at Lily Palmer and Nico last might and unfortunately destroyed my feet. I have been breaking in the Hoka Clifton 9s for the past 3 weeks!!! Which I thought I was in the clear but NOPE! The shoe turns out has been killing my bunions on my right outer side of BOTH my feet. I need help! I need urgent recommendations for WIDE shoes that help subside bunions on the outer side.
PS: i am on my way to an outlet for sketchers or adidas so please send anything
Please and thank you all ravers!!

We are just wrapping up a month (April 19th to May 18th) in Playa Flamingo. We had a great time, and did less than 10% of what we had bookmarked before arriving, but that’s a good thing and just enjoyed a Pura Vida life for a few weeks. This experience is applicable if you’re staying in Brasilito, Conchal, Flamingo, or Potrero.

• MyTanFeet got it right and you should trust their advice. Especially the videos.
• If you’re a vigilant and alert driver and don’t mind swerving (duck, dodge, weave, go with the flow and hang loose man), you’ll be fine. If you are 10 and 2 and stay perfectly in the lines and must obey traffic laws, don’t drive here. (I ended up doing all the driving). There are only lines on 1/3 of the paved roads, and only highways (2 lane roads) are paved. The side streets are all dirt and rock roads with variable ruts and pothole conditions (just go slow until you’re used to it). Small SUV is fine for clearance, but get something with a beefier engine with sport mode for hill acceleration. The Hyundai Tuscan was perfect, the Suzuki struggled badly.
• Only rent from Adobe. We had people visiting us for a week at a time and they had bad experience with Budget (arguing about insurance) and Avis (ran out of SUVs and downgraded to Sedan that we couldn’t get anywhere off-road with). I stopped by the local Adobe office twice, once to replace a windshield wiper that was worn out before thunderstorms. 10 mins in and out with a smile on their face. The second time we had pulled on the trunk handle when closing it and the inside panel of the hatch came loose. 3 guys hustled out of their office to look at it, and after 10 mins of no success they drove me home, and brought me a new car (same model) an hour later with no fuss and all paperwork pre-completed.
• Rainy season starts like a light switch on May 1st +/- a few days. It was sunny and 95 with great visibility, then turned hazy and now in mid May it’s like a tropical rainforest and everything is lush and trees are blooming. We only got “wet” 3-4 times during the month unexpectedly. Lots of lightning, minimal thunder. Territorial views help to see it coming.
• There are plenty of resorts and all inclusive, but just go to Hawaii or Cancun for that. We rented a 3 bedroom AirBnb with territorial views on south hill of Flamingo. Having a view on the hill is wayyy better than being on the beach. Lots more to see. And less bugs at night from the beach.
• Booked sailboat with Serendipity Charters lucky 13 (mixed group, semi-private charter) for a sunset cruise out of Flamingo Marina. We loved it so much we went two more times, had the same crew and met the owner and made new affluent friends on each trip. We saw the catamarans with 40 people on them and shook our heads. It’s like taking a smaller adults only dinner cruise vs a Carnival cruise ship. You can book direct on their website for better pricing than TripAdvisor. Don’t let the weather forecast scare you.
• In this area, assuming you want to eat a bit more local and not “at the resort”, our favorites were Gracia Mar Vista (although they were only open 1/3 of the several times we tried to go), Gracia La Vid (amazing wood fired pizza). The Potrero Brewery and the food truck style park was great too. Coco Loco has a cool vibe but we’re disappointed with food price per value. Margaritaville is 2x the price and, is a typical resort if that’s your thing.
• Book a date night in advance (several weeks probably) for Road Less Traveled in Potrero for the Chef’s Choice 9 course meal for the private chef experience with 4 stools at their kitchen island.
• Great soda restaurant experience, frequented Azul and Soda Brasilito.
• $40/hr massages on beach in front of Margaritaville. Look for yellow towel tables. Amazing and better than home.
• We drove to Tamarindo a few times. It’s where the ladies wanted to go shopping for trinkets and casual dresses. Farmers market was meh.
• Grocery prices in Flamingo are pricey. Do a stock up trip once or twice a week to Mega Súper past Huacas toward Tamarindo.
• Super market here means mini mart, Mega Super, Maxí Palí, and Walmart (Liberia) will feel more like home. They have 1/3-1/2 of what we find at home, so you may get creative or stick to simple foods. The meats we had were all great, just expensive. Cheese here is weird and expensive, possibly not pasteurized. The groceries that last a week at home only last 3 days here. Don’t overstock. Fresh fruits everywhere and tons of sliced pineapple, watermelon, etc to be found. The prices at the soda are significantly cheaper than groceries. Get snacks for groceries and eat your meals out.
• Language Barrier: Very few speak English, unless it relates to money or a food menu. The Google Translate app on your phone in conversation tab is your friend. We managed just fine.
• Currency Conversion: 500:1 is hard. Simpler method is to see something in thousands, just drop the 3 digits to the right of the comma separator and double it. 10,000 C = 10, x 2 = $20 USD. 3,250 C = $6.40 USD.
• Paying in Cash: We used cards for anyplace we went that had a roof. Use cash for anyone you pay on the street. Everyone takes US $10s and $20 bills. Bring $300-500 for trinket vendors, massages, etc. We never hit the ATM, and only got a few colones bills back, just paid in USD.
• Credit Cards: Every business, grocery store, and restaurant uses the same BAC (Bank of Costa Rica) credit card terminal that has a tap card. There are no pins, signatures and tipping. Tap your card and go. We used our Amazon Prime credit card here with no hassles.
• Beaches: Spring break or California beach? Tamarindo. Boogie boarding or low key sandy beach? Flamingo. Other beaches are okay, just not as great and many don’t have easy access/parking. We hoped for better snorkeling but it was sub par. All of the boat trips will let you snorkel and get your fix, but go to the Caribbean side for the cool stuff it sounds like.
• Weather Forecast: The apps don’t work since they don’t have weather services down here (ex. No radar). It’s all based on satellite images of storm intensity. Use Weather Underground to play back what it did for the last few hours and if there is a yellow or red cloud in your vicinity, expect to get wet. If you Google search for Hawaii coconut forecast, it’s pretty much that. Just keep your eyes on the skies and territorial view.
• Activities: We found our one way driving radius was an hour and a half. Anything East of Liberia was too far. This is mainly since the top speed you hit out here is about 50mph on winding backroads as we describe them in the US and no fousix lane highways, so it just takes awhile to get anywhere. We could have stayed overnight out there but just ran out of time and motivation to do it. That eliminated many of our bookmarks. We just lived the beach life and chilled in the pool.
• Rain Jackets and Swim Suits: Yes, you need a rain jacket. More importantly, bring 3-5 pairs of swim suits. Several pair are always drying outside. The rain here is warm so it’s easier just to get wet while wearing swim gear than trying to stay dry. We swear by the boxer brief lined swim trunks now.
• Shirts and Sweating: As thin and light as possible. The Under Armour tech tees and Willit sun shirts were my go to. My Roblox shirt was too thick. Cotton is a no go.
• Plane Landing at night (LIR): It’s disorienting here on your first night. Get a room at Hilton Garden Inn when you land, and book your Adobe car to pick up at the hotel the next morning around 8:30-9:00. They will meet you in the lobby with no fuss. Ask for a late check out and hit a nearby waterfall first thing in the morning and come back and shower before driving to the beach towns.
• Power Outages: It happens once or twice a day, comes back on in 30 seconds or 30 minutes. You get used to it, no stress.
• Diamante: It was okay, depends what you’re looking for. Only 5 zip lines even though one is Superman. I like the 10-12 Zips in the rainforest and this is more hill peak to hill peak zig zagging down. You can take an ATV tour out of Potrero up there for added exhilaration.
• Road Trip to Nosara: We randomly decided to do a drive down to Nosara. We took Route 160 out and 150 back. You want a miserable pot hole mostly dirt road adventure, 160 is it. That must have been what the roads used to be. White knuckled for 2 hours of it. 150 is freshly paved and was a saving grace coming home. Wasn’t too much to see that we hadn’t already experienced. Just got some lunch and drove back home.
• Length of Trip: If you’re not traveling around, 7-10 days is perfect. We did a month to test if we like long term travel. After 29 days, we’ve found that 14 is a sweet spot for us. If you stay longer and have family and friends come in for a week at a time, you will have different vibes and activity interests to re-discover or re-explore and keep it fresh.
• Traffic laws? You mean suggestions. Just add a few speed bumps where we want you to slow down and yield signs on one lane bridges. In straightaways outside of the towns, it’s fine to go 15-20 kph over the limit (others will be too). Watch for speed bumps in any 40kph zone. There are 14ish speed bumps on the 1.5hr drive between Liberia and Flamingo and a handful of yield or stop signs. Doesn’t need to be more complicated than that. Never saw a stop light. Just pass whatever is on the road (dog, person, biker, horse, kid, dirt bike with 3 people) when you can see ahead of you, don’t need a passing zone or sign to do it. If something is up ahead that you’re slowing down for, throw your flashers on. Turn em off when it moves. The end.
• Buying Stuff: Just like camping at home, you need to bring it with you. There is no Walgreens, only 7-11 equivalent places. You can get a few things at the corner store but there are no malls here or Amazon or deliveries. It makes you appreciate living “off the grid” in a way.
• Pura Vida: The rules and laws that exist down here are mostly non existent or suggestions. Just live life, preferably in the slow lane. They don’t complicate anything down here. It makes me realize how consumeristic and hectic and scare too easy we are in the states. You do you, they do them. You’ll see some funny stuff and have some stories (walking your horse while holding rope out the car window, dirt bike wheelies, 3 people on mopeds, etc.)
• Local Resident Vibe: The primary industry here is tourism. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming. You’re going to see low quality of living as you drive around (ex. Shanties), that’s just how they live here. We may call it poverty back in the states, but they are just living their life just like you are living yours. I never felt threatened or unsafe in any way. Only saw police twice in our entire trip, and they were just strolling around casually. The nicer the area, the more we avoided it. The more rustic it was, the more we were intrigued.

I hope it helps! Have a great trip!

Hi everyone, I don't post very often so apologies if this doesn't come out right. I just found out yesterday that my mom will be getting a valve transplant in June due to a heart defect (stenosis, and bicuspid valve I believe?), and will be getting a pig valve. I don't know many details of this procedure, but for context, I am 20F and just had surgery on my foot for bunion, and am getting my other foot done end of May. I'm already struggling with the mental aspects of that and now I am terrified for my mom. She's had more time to process it than me, and I know the doctors are trained to do this and that her outcome is great, but it's still quite scary. I'm not sure if her sternum will be opened or not and I'm hoping it won't, as I've read that it makes recovery harder.
I'd love to hear any encouraging stories or any tips/recommendations that might help her (or me lol). I cannot imagine losing her right now and it feels like a really huge deal; I'm just in shock over all of it. She said that her recovery is expected to be ~5 weeks, and will be in the hospital for ~4-5 days right after, if this sounds familiar.
Other info: We are fortunate enough that she will have paid time off, and we were able to hire a cleaning lady as my dad works from home and we have a small house lol. I'll be out of my first boot around the time she has surgery, so I'm hoping to be a big help to her as long as I'm doing alright.

I have to share this for those that might have this same opportunity to find their box of gold liquid! I live in PA and have been waiting for the elusive 5 Zepbound. I do have a 2.5 in the frig which I will start tomorrow but it was supposed to be 5. This past week my husband had to go to Indianapolis and the thought occurred to me to see what pharmacies are near him where he is staying. So I got on Google and found about 10 pharmacies to call "just for grins". WELL...my first call this morning was to a Walgreens and lo-and-behold they had ONE box left and it was mine if my doctor would call in a prescription!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am sure that many of you know the stress from the minute they say "You can have it if your Doctor sends in the prescription" and then reaching out to the doctor by their messaging app hoping they see it and will act quickly all in time before they pass it on to the next Zepbound Warrior! Well my Doctor did and it is all mine! The pharmacist even found a $300.00 coupon discount for me...I pay out of pocket and it was under $1000! I have paid $1054.00. So I feel some relief that I have two boxes now to help ease the worry over the next 2 months to have my prescription filled here in my hometown. Soooooo Zepbound Peeps...this may be an option as you all look for your special boxes!

i am a student and have never stayed in the same pointe shoe twice other than when i bought a pair after my shoes snapped right before a show. i can’t seem to find a shoe that’s right for me — no matter what shoe i get, it seems perfect at the fitting and i have no issues, then after i sew on the ribbons and elastics and start to wear them, they just progressively get more uncomfortable or painful. often times i start sinking, but i think this might be because of the wings softening because the wings are the first to go in all my shoes. i don’t know if i am just not telling the fitters enough or if the fitters are just…. bad? ive been to many different fitters and i think its unlikely that all of them would be bad, so i think i am not telling the fitters enough or telling them the wrong things?
here’s a short list of shoes i remember trying and what happened if it might be helpful

• capezio ava: the shape was nice, but i started sinking and i was unable to roll through properly even when the shank was completely dead
  
• grishko 2007: the shank snapped in half on both shoes, started to hurt the bunion joint, was knuckling a lot
  
• grishko dreampointe 2007: the 2nd joint on my big toes hurt A LOT, more pain in the bunion area, snapped the shank in the demi and the arch in both pairs demi and arch
  
• RC30 (my current pair, same as the RP rubin i believe): they warp backwards, pain on the 2nd joint of big toe
  

if anyone’s able to help that would be so so appreciated!! i would so love to finally find a shoe that i actually like and can dance in properly

Urologist is calling in oxybuntnin to help the bladder spasms, he said basically it’s the stones in the bladder trying to come out which is why it comes and goes. He said I can take azo for weeks, months, years the biggest thing is the urine color changing, he’s refilling the flomax and said the potassium citrate will be something I take for life. but he said those combined should help and should be passing more soon. He said the big one was a weird shape which made it block the ureter less than the smaller round one which is why I could pee somewhat. So hopefully it helps. Now if Walgreens could just get both the potassium citrate doses in stock that would be great.

My ex bf and I spent about a day.
Crazzyyyyy how many people moved there last couple of years or so? Nice weather I'm sure is appealing. Especially from that MidAtlantic kind of area. Or like the freezing I'd the Midwest.
I even have family that spent some time in the Carolinas around then...small world and all right?
Yep I only went the once.
Lol not like Walgreens, man I'm there so much today I think I heard my own name getting called for pickup. Must be that phenomenon of whatever you focus on... been knee deep in my BENEFITS.
Between reconciling my reimbursement requests for co-parenting, then FSA & HSA and house reno... whew I could use a day or 2 down that way myself.
Probably a few old work folks I could catch up with? Help me full in the blanks on some of these weird little coincidences.

hey there yall. hate spilling personal tea on the throwaway but I need your help so I’ll share a lil info.
background: disabled army vet who didn’t do shit but made it through bct and ait before an injury got me med discharged before being placed at my unit Because it involves some traumatic shit that wasn’t the army’s fault but happened in service, I’m not going into the details now.
If you here to talk shit and tell me it’s not possible, I am here to tell you to go fuck yourself and step on a lego until I prove to myself that I can’t do this because you have no idea what my attitude is capable of.
I’d just thought I’d ask the experts who actually do this more than I do how i can painfully get better at rucking. I did amazing in boot camp but was horrible at rucking because I did not prepare for it at all. No scoliosis or none of that as a kid. It’s actually from an injury after service and it’s like 2.5 degrees. I ignored a fastish e-bike injury because I was worried about being charged with a dui while I was camping. Hard lesson on why you shouldn’t do it in the first place I know and I got lucky I didn’t get in hella trouble.
I have a lot of time between now and meeting a recruiter because I got some bunions that decided to pull up too but I want to use all that time to prepare for rucking because I know my body/gender is not ideal for rucking.
My biggest mistake in my childhood was thinking rucking was as easy as carrying a back pack in school and boy was I wrong lol.
Once I get clearance from my docs I wanna start training so I can be at the male standard when I’m ready to enlist. I got a while because the VA finally got my adhd medication right after giving me the run around...
Also make sure to save every piece of medical documentation because it is invaluable when you get out of the army. Doesn’t matter if you’re an old vet or new vet - all veterans I have met over the years always tell me it’s happened to them at some point. Thanks for ur time yall take care

Hi, good evening, lab professionals. I don’t have anywhere else to ask; I went to get tested by a LabCorp inside Walgreens for chlamydia and gonorrhea, but the lab person did not tell me only to urinate the first catch of urine, and also she did not tell me not to fill it. It was a big white styrofoam container. My results were negative, but now I’m worried that the test procedure they did was wrong. Please help me. I appreciate any help you can provide. It was this test accurate?

I’ve never really posted here but I’m not sure what else to do. About two weeks ago I purchased eBay gift cards from two different Walgreens in my area. When I finally went to use them on my purchase, eBay told me the gift cards were invalid. I then found out the gift cards only had 11 digits when eBay always has 13 on their gift cards. I called eBay, they said the gift cards had already been redeemed by someone. Obviously wasn’t me. Gathered receipts, cards, and other info and reported it to eBay. Filed report with FTC. Ebay emailed me back tonight saying that they couldn’t recover the funds and “as this concludes our investigation, we will be unable to respond to further requests regarding these gift cards.”
I’m kind of assuming my money is lost, but I thought I’d post here to see if I could get some help. Thank you all for your time & responses, they are appreciated.

I (21F) have been talking to this dude (22m) since March. During that time, we initially had around one or two hangouts weekly just trying to get to know each other. Whenever we hanged out, we tended to lose track of the time because we enjoyed talking and just getting to know one another. Time just flew by and by the time we checked the time, hours have passed.
At some point, the hangouts became more regular casual study sessions where we would just be next to each other studying (sometimes they turned into regular conversational hangouts and no study done but for the most part, we studied like we intended). He would ask what I was up to and I would let him know I was studying at the university library. He would join me after his class ended and we would be there until closing hours.
Then things got more intimate than intended one day (in the moment, it was consensual for both parties) and the next morning he messaged me saying he wanted to talk. He stated that he thought I was a cool person but he had this irrational thought about the night leading to pregnancy and how it made him paranoid. We never did penetration or anything that could result in it aside from casual touching. I told him the thought also crossed my mind and that I understood where he was coming from and it made me uneasy as well. Ever since, things felt off. We talked about why he felt that way and we concluded that that night was an outlier and won't happen again. We also discussed how his paranoia might stem from the fact that he and I did not know each other that well, and that if things were ever to lead to such consequences, he wouldn't feel comfortable with it. Essentially, we were moving too fast, something that I had agreed on. This talk also lead to labels--we decided that we were just friends with an interest in one another seeing if we had potential, which worked good because he and I were both inexperienced and this was all new to us so I had figured that would be a good pace for the both of us. A pacing where we would figure it out in time and we were just testing the waters. We also made it clear that I was more attracted to him than he was to me.
A few weeks past and we continued our study session leading up to graduation. Things were normal. Then we graduated.
We went to go watch a movie. He revealed to me the paranoia came back two times. He dreamed about it two times and would feel paranoid about it. I tried to help relieve the anxiety if I could. I reassured him that if something were to happen, I would tell him and get an abortion. And that I'm also updating him on when my next period comes. I also told him I got my period a week after that night. I was debating if I should just go on birth control to calm his nerves but idk, he and I aren't even in a relationship and my hormones and period are pretty stable. Meanwhile I'm also trying to think about why he feels this way. I end up going back to the fact that he is not interested in me. And that he feels forced to be in this situation. And that he's forcing himself to try and be attracted to me. That this is his subconsciousness screaming at him that he needs to get out of this situation. But when I ask him if this is the case, he says he's attracted to me, just not sure if he into me to the point where he thinks he can take it further. I understood where he was coming from. Because it was similar for me. It's been barely over two months. I still needed to get to know this guy. But at the very least, I knew I liked him and was willing to explore where this could lead to. He was still on the fence.
I ended up staying at his apartment the next weekend since he invited me. And my god, things were awkward. Perhaps we were both stressed and tired. He had a cert exam that he had been grinding on the past few weeks. He took it the morning of the sleepover and he passed!!! As for me, I was anxious with graduation and felt like I was behind on life since I was essentially jobless after graduation and just lost with what to do with myself. During the sleepover, it mainly consisted of us resting--laying on his couch and sleeping on the bed. When we tried playing board/card games, there was an awkward feeling in the air. Conversations didn't flow and died off awkwardly. I could feel that something was off about him too because something was amiss about him and his behavior. Just earlier the week leading up to the sleepover, we felt chill. We hanged out and were also in a call just vibing. But when the sleepover occurred, something was off. We ended up just sleeping from early Saturday evening to Sunday morning. I took a shower and left with a simple bye.
Then we met the next day because we had a dinner and movie planned. The awkwardness from the weekend still lingered. I couldn't fully be in the moment because it was bugging me how he felt off. When he dropped me off, I texted him I wanted to talk. We ended up in a call. I told him I was feeling off because of the weekend and that it was making me overthink and that it would be best if we stopped the physical intimacy. He said he was confused and that the way our conversations sometimes died off awkwardly made him unsure. We would have moments were we would hit it off really well, and others, the conversations just awkwardly died off. We both stated that perhaps it was a sign of incompatibility. He thought I was a cool person but that was it. I knew that I liked him somewhat, that I came into this with the mindset that this was something I wanted to try out and see how it played out. I guess he was just going with the flow. We settled on just being friends.
The next morning, I had a nagging feeling in my chest. I texted him if we could talk. I was going tell him I wasn't sure if I could be friends with him right away and cut him out off my life. But I failed to do so. Instead, I told him everything that I felt and left out the previous night. I told him that I wanted to test the waters a little longer since everyone likes to say 3 months is the amount of time you should aim for. He said he didn't know. We could be friends. Or we could try and see for a little longer. Then I asked him about the dreams. He revealed that the baby dream came back during the weekend when I had slept over. And that it was bugging him a lot. I reiterated to him what would happened if it did end up with that consequence. I would get an abortion and he would know--I would not keep it from him. Then I went into the exact details, how I would go to walgreen/cvs and get a test if my period was off. And that I would give the details of the appointment and even give him my location on the day of the appointment. Then we both reiterated that it was highly unlikely. It seemed to relieve him a bit. Then he stated that he had another a nagging feeling throughout the day, concerned that he was leading me on. I explained to him that he was not leading me on. He and I are both people pleasers. He didn't want to make me sad if he ended things. He'd rather make everyone happy if he can. I told him I knew that he didn't like me like that. If anything, I was leading myself on. If I ended up sad from this ending, then it was on me. I was the one who wanted to take the chance to see where this could go. I am also a people pleaser so I told to please tell me how he felt about all this. He stated again he was unsure but was willing to see where this could go. We ended the night back to the status quo of being friends testing out the waters but lesser physical intimacy.
Now this is the day after and I feel like I fked up. But then if he was so unsure, why did he invite me over to his apartment? And why was he inviting himself to hang out with me more? He also started texting me more and he started calling me in the weeks leading to today. I think I know the answer and that is that he was just looking for physical intimacy in someone since he spent 22 years without the experience of a relationship and that I'm just an opportunity. But he's also a people pleaser so I can't help but also think that he's trying to compensate for his lack of equal attraction to me by initiating more. But he says that he is attracted to me and likes me as a person. Just not sure if it was like that. He said he would like to stay friends if all fails. I think a part of the reason why he said that was to ease the guilt on his ego since he's a people's pleaser. I'm just confused on where he stands. One moment, he seems interested--texting, hanging out, just the normal stuff. The next, he's all confused and unsure. I'm afraid that I'm just forcing myself to be blind and not see his actions as they are: uninterested.
tldr: He is unsure of how he feels and anxious about pregnancy. Did I force him into this situation?

I (21F) have been talking to this dude (22m) since March. During that time, we initially had around one or two hangouts weekly just trying to get to know each other. Whenever we hanged out, we tended to lose track of the time because we enjoyed talking and just getting to know one another. Time just flew by and by the time we checked the time, hours have passed.
At some point, the hangouts became more regular casual study sessions where we would just be next to each other studying (sometimes they turned into regular conversational hangouts and no study done but for the most part, we studied like we intended). He would ask what I was up to and I would let him know I was studying at the university library. He would join me after his class ended and we would be there until closing hours.
Then things got more intimate than intended one day (in the moment, it was consensual for both parties) and the next morning he messaged me saying he wanted to talk. He stated that he thought I was a cool person but he had this irrational thought about the night leading to pregnancy and how it made him paranoid. We never did penetration or anything that could result in it aside from casual touching. I told him the thought also crossed my mind and that I understood where he was coming from and it made me uneasy as well. Ever since, things felt off. We talked about why he felt that way and we concluded that that night was an outlier and won't happen again. We also discussed how his paranoia might stem from the fact that he and I did not know each other that well, and that if things were ever to lead to such consequences, he wouldn't feel comfortable with it. Essentially, we were moving too fast, something that I had agreed on. This talk also lead to labels--we decided that we were just friends with an interest in one another seeing if we had potential, which worked good because he and I were both inexperienced and this was all new to us so I had figured that would be a good pace for the both of us. A pacing where we would figure it out in time and we were just testing the waters. We also made it clear that I was more attracted to him than he was to me.
A few weeks past and we continued our study session leading up to graduation. Things were normal. Then we graduated.
We went to go watch a movie. He revealed to me the paranoia came back two times. He dreamed about it two times and would feel paranoid about it. I tried to help relieve the anxiety if I could. I reassured him that if something were to happen, I would tell him and get an abortion. And that I'm also updating him on when my next period comes. I also told him I got my period a week after that night. I was debating if I should just go on birth control to calm his nerves but idk, he and I aren't even in a relationship and my hormones and period are pretty stable. Meanwhile I'm also trying to think about why he feels this way. I end up going back to the fact that he is not interested in me. And that he feels forced to be in this situation. And that he's forcing himself to try and be attracted to me. That this is his subconsciousness screaming at him that he needs to get out of this situation. But when I ask him if this is the case, he says he's attracted to me, just not sure if he into me to the point where he thinks he can take it further. I understood where he was coming from. Because it was similar for me. It's been barely over two months. I still needed to get to know this guy. But at the very least, I knew I liked him and was willing to explore where this could lead to. He was still on the fence.
I ended up staying at his apartment the next weekend since he invited me. And my god, things were awkward. Perhaps we were both stressed and tired. He had a cert exam that he had been grinding on the past few weeks. He took it the morning of the sleepover and he passed!!! As for me, I was anxious with graduation and felt like I was behind on life since I was essentially jobless after graduation and just lost with what to do with myself. During the sleepover, it mainly consisted of us resting--laying on his couch and sleeping on the bed. When we tried playing board/card games, there was an awkward feeling in the air. Conversations didn't flow and died off awkwardly. I could feel that something was off about him too because something was amiss about him and his behavior. Just earlier the week leading up to the sleepover, we felt chill. We hanged out and were also in a call just vibing. But when the sleepover occurred, something was off. We ended up just sleeping from early Saturday evening to Sunday morning. I took a shower and left with a simple bye.
Then we met the next day because we had a dinner and movie planned. The awkwardness from the weekend still lingered. I couldn't fully be in the moment because it was bugging me how he felt off. When he dropped me off, I texted him I wanted to talk. We ended up in a call. I told him I was feeling off because of the weekend and that it was making me overthink and that it would be best if we stopped the physical intimacy. He said he was confused and that the way our conversations sometimes died off awkwardly made him unsure. We would have moments were we would hit it off really well, and others, the conversations just awkwardly died off. We both stated that perhaps it was a sign of incompatibility. He thought I was a cool person but that was it. I knew that I liked him somewhat, that I came into this with the mindset that this was something I wanted to try out and see how it played out. I guess he was just going with the flow. We settled on just being friends.
The next morning, I had a nagging feeling in my chest. I texted him if we could talk. I was going tell him I wasn't sure if I could be friends with him right away and cut him out off my life. But I failed to do so. Instead, I told him everything that I felt and left out the previous night. I told him that I wanted to test the waters a little longer since everyone likes to say 3 months is the amount of time you should aim for. He said he didn't know. We could be friends. Or we could try and see for a little longer. Then I asked him about the dreams. He revealed that the baby dream came back during the weekend when I had slept over. And that it was bugging him a lot. I reiterated to him what would happened if it did end up with that consequence. I would get an abortion and he would know--I would not keep it from him. Then I went into the exact details, how I would go to walgreen/cvs and get a test if my period was off. And that I would give the details of the appointment and even give him my location on the day of the appointment. Then we both reiterated that it was highly unlikely. It seemed to relieve him a bit. Then he stated that he had another a nagging feeling throughout the day, concerned that he was leading me on. I explained to him that he was not leading me on. He and I are both people pleasers. He didn't want to make me sad if he ended things. He'd rather make everyone happy if he can. I told him I knew that he didn't like me like that. If anything, I was leading myself on. If I ended up sad from this ending, then it was on me. I was the one who wanted to take the chance to see where this could go. I am also a people pleaser so I told to please tell me how he felt about all this. He stated again he was unsure but was willing to see where this could go. We ended the night back to the status quo of being friends testing out the waters but lesser physical intimacy.
Now this is the day after and I feel like I fked up. But then if he was so unsure, why did he invite me over to his apartment? And why was he inviting himself to hang out with me more? He also started texting me more and he started calling me in the weeks leading to today. I think I know the answer and that is that he was just looking for physical intimacy in someone since he spent 22 years without the experience of a relationship and that I'm just an opportunity. But he's also a people pleaser so I can't help but also think that he's trying to compensate for his lack of equal attraction to me by initiating more. But he says that he is attracted to me and likes me as a person. Just not sure if it was like that. He said he would like to stay friends. I think a part of the reason why he said that was to ease the guilt on his ego since he's a people's pleaser. Im just confused on where he stands. One moment, he seems interested. The next, he's all confused and unsure. I'm afraid that I'm just forcing myself to be blind and not see his actions as they are: uninterested.