This week, I learned more about arrays and how a string is an array of characters. I also learned to use .length() to find the length of a string, and along with treating a string as an array of characters, was helpful for me to replace specific letters of a word with other letters in this week's quest. From this week's midterm, I now know that the comparison of two integers (for example, a < b, a > b, or a == b) results in a boolean. I also need to carefully read all of the answers, because for one of the questions, I selected that there would be no error with compilation, but didn't choose that the code had a logic error. Additionally this week, I shared what I learned about the plus operator with booleans here and passing vectors here.

I’m applying for the first time this cycle and I have two people I know for sure I am going to ask for letters of recommendation from, but as for the last one I’m not sure who to ask. The two people are a professor who is pretty much the head of the prevet stuff at my school, and a vet that I worked with for two summers. For the last one, Im kind of stuck on who I can ask. There are other vets at the clinic that I could ask for letters and would be willing to write them, I just don’t know if that’s something that would be accepted or looked down on? If it makes a difference, the clinic is actually three separate ones, with an exotics clinic as one of them that I worked at last summer. I also have non-animal science professors that would be willing to be write me letters of recommendation, but I’m not sure if the writer of the letter has to be veterinary/STEM affiliated? For example, would it be fine if I asked an English professor, or would that be a bad idea?
Additionally, do you find that more than the required amount of letters is beneficial to an application, or does it not really have a significant impact on acceptance?

Warning this is a very long read without a TLDR
I left this sub and joined the ryerson sub in 2021. Leaving behind my big drive of notes which is what I assume keeps driving these posts talking about grade inflation to my feed. My last few comments were very similar to everyone’s posts as of now - grade inflation, unfair admissions, feeling close to your goals and it being taken away. 3 years later here’s where I came from and what I’m doing now, why it’s not your fault and to offer a bit of hope if it helps. :)
In grade 12 (end of 2021) I had an 89 average, I was rejected from the majority of life sci and health sci programs (if a school had both I applied to both of them) - mac, u of t, queens, western. I got into York psych, health, TMU bio, undeclared arts and psych (waitlist), Laurier health sci and ottawa health sci. (some of my programs might be off if it’s wrong, the overarching field is what I mean). My goal was U of T life sci and to go to medical school. Laurier and Ottawa were off the table after my family and I came to the conclusion that we don’t have the money for me to move away, removing my last two life/sci options. I honestly wasn’t a big fan of York leaving TMU as my last option. I really wanted a life science or health science program because the curriculum after first year was not simply bio, chem, physics so I veered from biology at TMU.
So I ultimately ended up accepting undeclared arts as I was waitlisted for psychology. At the end of June, I got off the waitlist for psychology and accepted that. At the time, I was seriously unhappy with myself I was angry at the fact that people were getting opportunities that I wanted that didn’t deserve them due to inflation and lack of standardization of monitoring of tests during online schooling and just overall how poorly my high school experience ended. I’m talking full breakdowns about how I worked so hard and got nothing in return. I had teachers who genuinely believed that I was one of the best students that they had in years and told me that I would go far. I had a teacher go as far as writing a letter for no reason other than to just say how proud they were of me and how they knew that I would do great - which at the time I truly didn’t believe after not achieving any of the goals that I had set for myself at the beginning of grade 12.
My first year of psychology was online for my first semester where I did decently well I got a 3.0 my second semester, ended up being entirely in person because the online sections of classes were full. At the time I wanted to do medicine this dream quickly got away from me when second semester in person classes left me with a 2.67 gpa for the semester. I had a realization looking upon my peers who were still completely online at TMU or at other universities had much much better GPA than me and I wouldn’t be able to get into medicine with my GPA. So again I felt let down by systems that ultimately led to further inequality in education. I let go of the idea of medicine and had no idea what I wanted to do after my undergrad.
After my first year, I decided to join the course union at my school, which was one of the best decisions I ever made. I met amazing people who encouraged me to do better, peers who were higher years than me and gave me advice when needed and from there, my grades got better. after joining the course union I joined the liberal arts union and from there I worked on about five more different positions over the next two years. TMU is generally not seen as the best school and it’s not necessarily “competitive” but that can work in your favour because there’s so many positions available whereas at other schools where people may be more inclined to take these these positions making them more competitive. Joining these course unions gave me so many opportunities and so many things that are now on my CV that continue to provide more opportunities, for example I was offered a job at the school based on all my experience. My CV is now what I would consider amazing with all the work that I’ve gained that is applicable to the field that I want to work in and because of my experience on my CV I got a research assistant position where I have a great academic relationship with a prof. And I got my gpa up enough it’s not near a 4.00 or anything crazy but it’s good enough for me to get into grad school.
I always knew that I didn’t want to stay in psychology after I graduated so I completed my degree in three years rather than four. I also want to mention you do not need to complete your degree in three years. There’s no need for it. Had I stayed for an extra year I would’ve had so many more opportunities with extracurriculars. It’s just I did not love the psychology curriculum enough to want to stay in it for another year. I had taken summer school courses before coming to this conclusion, and I had so many credits that I didn’t want to switch programs so I fast tracked. All that being said, do not rush your degree unless for example, you don’t like it and have plans to do something unrelated afterwards - for me it was a masters in a different field that the only requirement was a bachelor’s degree so I didn’t see the point in switching. Having gained all of the research experience and extracurricular experience in the field that I want to pursue is what made my degree nonetheless beneficial even though I wasn’t doing what I had originally planned.
As of now, I will be beginning my masters at U of T in the fall (not in psychology). I feel very accomplished and fulfilled with everything I’ve done and I feel like the person that all those teachers said that I was back in high school. While I didn’t go to U of T for life sciences, and become a doctor like I had thought I would I am going to U of T nonetheless for a field I didn’t even know existed. I found and great community and something I genuinely love by continually working hard after feeling like I was ripped off by grade inflation and online school. All of which is so minuscule to everything I’ve gone on to do.
Moral of my story is you might feel ripped off right now, that your hard work went unnoticed and you might feel like you’re never going to accomplish your goals. But the truth is, it's very minuscule to the potential that you have. And as long as you continue to use your work ethic and potential wherever you go, you will be successful. You don't need big fancy school. You can do just as well if not better at schools that are seen as less prestigious or competitive as long as you continue to put in the hard work that you did in high school. So please don't feel like you have lost something but feel that you have gained the potential to do more. If you’re truly uncertain about accepting a program, take the time off think about alternate fields and try applying again, it might be better than toughing it out in a program you don’t really care about. If you’re dead set on going to university this fall, don’t wanna take time off and want to apply again and didn’t get into the one you planned, join extracurriculars meet new people and keep putting in work and it will pay off.
And I’m not saying you’re wrong in anyway for complaining and feeling the way that you feel because I felt the same way. You’re all valid asf. All I’m saying is don’t beat yourself up and don’t feel like you’re the problem because there’s so many opportunities for you so long as you seek them out and take them and you will end up in a much better position in the end.

So I'm trying to write an aid appeal letter to request more money but the thing is every example that I came across stated that I needed some sort of documentation to prove that I am in need for more aid, but I don't have any, we have not been through anything that caused my family to have any financial problems, but I still need the money and my family won’t be able to help that much.
Would I still be able to receive aid even without document proof of some sort?
I hope this question makes sense.
FYI I’m a high school senior trying to get everything set before deciding what college to go too.

So my ex and I were together for 2 years and everything was great. From the beginning we were almost everyday together and last year we even sort of lived together in his student room. He is a lovely boy who is always positive, brings a light into the room and made me feel the luckiest girl in the world. I had some bad relationships in the past and he was finally the one who loved me and cared for me in a way I would never imagine.
We both were students when we met and lived the typical student life: partying, drinking, going on vacation, etc. I graduated last June and had a job by the end of September. In the summer vacation we both went on a road trip together for 2 weeks and it was amazing. From the moment I started working, the relationship was not so exciting anymore: I came home, cooked dinner, ate together, we watch tv together or he is gaming with the boys and I’m doing my thing and then we went to sleep. My routine after work was boring if I look back at it, but it was new for me too. In the meantime we did some fun things, but not so often like we used to. I was into the adult life and even considered by moving in together and that kinda stuff.
Everything was fine and even the living together stuff was all fine by him too. We never argued (maybe 2-3 times in 2 years) and he always said “yes” or “fine by me” on everything, even if I asked his opinion 10x. So I thought we were still good. Until a couple weeks ago I came home from work and I noticed there was something wrong. I asked him a couple times and finally he said, out of the blue, that he had doubts about our relationship. I freaked out and cried so we couldn’t talk properly. He went home to his parents and the next day he came back to talk. He said he still wanted to be with me but some things had to change, for example my temper (I have a high temper and can get mad for the smallest and dumbest reasons and lately it did occur often that I got mad really fast). I said that I will work on it because it was true, it gotten worse and it wasn’t pleasant for the both of us, but he had to work on his communication as well. His doubts came for me out of nowhere because he never communicated with me about things that bothered him.
Our relationship went forward and I worked on myself and so did he. I thought it went good until 2 weeks laters the same conversation came up. He said he still have doubts about the relationship. I asked him why and what he wanted to do about it to fix it but everytime I got the answer “I don’t know”. So I suggested that we move on like we did but saw eachother less (like leave 2-3 days in between). So, then we did that because he agreed with the options I gave him to try and work things out.
Again everything went well. Couple weeks ago he was in his student room and I was at home by my parents. I noticed he wasn’t online on any social media and haven’t send me a message in 2 hours or so. Because of my past I panicked and spammed him with messages and phone calls asking what he is doing and where he is. I did this a couple of times and he got mad for my behaviour. After that, I came back to reality and realised that my behaviour is not healthy and apologised. He eventually calmed down too and said it’s okay and I love you. Later that week, we met up and he said “I think we shouldn’t see eachother for a time” and I broke down. The next day he deleted all my pictures on Instagram and removed me from the family groupchat so I was confused because this seems like a breakup instead of a break/pause. He came over and would only say “I made the decision so I stand by it”. So it was done.
Couple days later I went to his student room, where we ‘lived together’ to get my stuff. I made him a long letter which I read for him to say thankyou. After that he comforted me and we cuddled really long. We constantly kept eye contact and he admitted that he still loves me, felt butterflies in his stomach, felt happy, etc. I felt that he really had a hard time of keeping his hands of me and letting me go. At the end, we gave eachother a big goodbye kiss and it was magical. Despite all that, he still says he couldn’t be with me. He also said “maybe in the future” and “not right know” and that kinda stuff. I suggested that we go no contact for 2-3 weeks and then meet up again to see if his feelings have changed.
It’s been 2 weeks and he asked to meet up this tuesday. I want to feel hopeful, but in the meantime he deleted me on Snapchat last tuesday and unfollowed me on Instagram the same evening he asked me to meet up, which was last friday.
I have the feeling he is running away from his true feelings and is scared to get back because he thinks things will get better for 2 weeks and then the same conversation will end up. I am convinced we needed this because now I can truly see what behaviour from me is wrong and I need to get help to fix that for me. I already took the step to go to a psychologist. But he is stubborn and is convinced that it won’t work anymore.
I don’t know what else to do or say to him to get him back. I really love him and he is the man I see a future with. He does get the best out of me and supports me in things to make myself happy. I really think that if we gave this another chance it can work and we can get better out of this if we both work on our communication. How can I convince him that it can work between us and he doesn’t have to run away from his feelings? What do I do or say to him this tuesday? Is there a chance for us? I want my sweet boy back…

I am a volunteer organizer of a worker's union, and it acknowledges the identity of members who are non-binary, myself included.
One occasion, our union needed to send representatives to a discussion in another town held by a sister organization in our coalition.
It's important to note beforehand that said organization had a tense relationship brewing with our union, specifically because we funded their event and our coordinators kept telling them to rush things. This made the sister organization view us as acting with an authoritarian streak, since they are an anarcho syndicalist commune and didn't appreciate being bossed around.
Now I won't mince words and admit my union is not the best example of an organization that has checked its internalized male-centric style of organizing. So when I arrived at the event with another rep who's female-presenting, I felt I got immediately clocked as male by the organizers there, and I was prepped to serve as a political bullseye for their anti-authoritarian sentiments.
At this point I was already starting to feel uncomfortable, but the worst happened during the Q&A session when I asked about the commune's plans for advocating worker's rights. I think this was also a mistake on my part because I opened by saying I was a representative of my organization (instead of just asking as an individual attendee).
I got dog-piled by multiple commentors, all from the organizing committee. Even the moderator took the opportunity to give me a piece of her mind. All of them spoke out against my inferred act of telling them to formulate an action plan. It was not. I was simply asking what they had in mind for advocacy. But with all the previous factors in play, my question was perceived as an order.
This was were one of them said that my speech was another example of masculine behavior, and that it was not tolerated in their spaces. I was not given a chance to reply and they immediately ended the discussion. In hindsight, I should have waited until after the discussion to ask this, but alas. The after-event was a nauseating experience as I was still recovering from shock. This incident mentally and emotionally continued to affect me for the rest of my stay in that town. And as of now I am still consoling with my partner back home.
I have since asked my union chairperson to suspend all my communications and activities as an organizer, and I have collected my thoughts on every event leading up to that point where I felt I was singled out and misgendered. I plan to issue a letter of grievance to my union, telling them I experienced acute dysphoria from the event, and asking for responsibility.
However I am not sure if I should also send a letter to the sister organization and accuse them of committing a microaggression on my non-binary identity, as I was consciously presenting as such and got made to be self-aware of how others were perceiving me.
Thanks for reading this far btw, I needed to get this off my chest.

I recently finished reading Cicero's Orator. It is a rather wide-ranging treatise that Cicero dedicated to his young friend, Marcus Brutus, in which he lays out his personal vision of the ideal orator. He touches on many subjects, even prose rhythm, but I thought his brief remarks about the contemporary pronunciation of Latin were the most interesting. Since I know how interested readers of this subreddit are in Latin pronunciation, I thought I'd share them here with my translations. Enjoy!
* * *
Hiatus:
In the first passage, Cicero contrasts the use of hiatus or, from the opposite perspective, the prevalence of syaloepha, the blending of vowels, in Greek and Latin. When he talks about a "collision of vowels," he means a word ending with a vowel placed next to a word beginning with one, both of which were pronounced.

(151-2) in ea est crebra ista vocum concursio, quam magna ex parte ut vitiosam fugit Demosthenes. sed Graeci viderint; nobis ne si cupiamus quidem distrahere voces conceditur. indicant orationes illae ipsae horridulae Catonis, indicant omnes poetae...

"That collision of vowels frequently appears in it [sc. Plato's epitaphios], which Demosthenes generally avoids as a defect. But let the Greeks see for themselves; we [i.e. we Latin-speakers] are not permitted to pull vowels apart even if we want to. It's illustrated by those rough speeches of Cato themselves, and all the poets..."
* * *
Omission of final s and phonetic change:
Cicero also notes the frequent omission of the final s in various words. The examples he cites below are all in the ablative plural. Multimodis in particular is known from Plautus, and even Lucretius uses it (1.895), so we know that the middle i, derived from multis, was short. I wonder whether that also the case in the other examples.
Cicero regards the phonetic change of due- to be- (as in duellum to bellum) as a similar phenomenon. His remarks about the contraction of words with -xill- are not in fact correct, because those words are in fact diminuitives (vexillum, orig. "a little cloth," from velum, for instance).

153 sed quid ego vocales? sine vocalibus saepe brevitatis causa contrahebant, ut ita dicerent: 'multi' modis, in vas' argenteis, palm' et crinibus, tecti' fractis'. quid vero licentius quam quod hominum etiam nomina contrahebant, quo essent aptiora? nam ut 'duellum' bellum et 'duis' bis, sic Duellium eum qui Poenos classe devicit Bellium nominaverunt, cum superiores appellati essent semper Duelli, quin etiam verba saepe contrahuntur non usus causa sed aurium: quo modo enim vester Axilla Ala factus est nisi is fuga litterae vastioris? quam litteram etiam e 'maxillis' et 'taxillis' et 'vexillo' et 'pauxillo' consuetudo elegans Latini sermonis evellit.

"But why should I go on about vowels? Even without vowels they [earlier generations] often contracted words for the sake of brevity, so they'd say: multi' modis ['in many ways'], in vas' argenteis ['in silver vessels'], palm' et crinibus ['with palms and locks'], and tecti' fractis ['broken roofs/buildings']. But what is more impertinent that the fact they even contracted people's names to make them more convenient? Just as the called war duellum bellum ['war'] and duis bis ['twice'], so they named the Duellius who defeated the Carthaginian fleet Bellius, although his forebears had always been called Duelli. But words are even often contracted not for the sake of practicality but for the ears: how did your [sc. Brutus'] friend Axilla become Ala if not because of the disappearance of a rather broad letter? The same letter the elegant custom of the Latin language removed from maxillae [i.e. malae, 'jaws']and taxilli [i.e. tali, 'dice'] and vexillum [i.e., velum, 'curtain'] and pauxillus [i.e., paulus, 'little']."
* * *
Contractions:

154 lubenter etiam copulando verba iungebant, ut 'sodes' pro 'si audes', 'sis' pro 'si vis'; iam in uno 'capsis' tria verba sunt, 'ain' pro 'aisne', 'nequire' pro 'non quire', 'malle' pro 'magis velle', 'nolle' pro 'non velle', 'dein' etiam saepe et 'exin' pro 'deinde' et pro 'exinde' dicimus. quid, illud non olet unde sit, quod dicitur 'cum illis', 'cum' autem 'nobis' non dicitur, sed 'nobiscum'? quia si ita diceretur, obscenius concurrerent litterae, ut etiam modo, nisi 'autem' interposuissem, concurrissent. ex eo est 'mecum' et 'tecum', non 'cum me' et 'cum te', ut esset simile illis 'vobiscum' atque 'nobiscum'

"The also liked to combine words by joining them together, like sodes ['please'] for si audes [lit. 'if you dare'], sis [also 'please'] for si vis ['if you will'], and just in capsis ['take please' = cap si vis] there are even three words; ain ['you say so?'] for aisne, nequire [cannot] for non quire, malle ['prefer'] for magis velle ['want more'], nolle ['refuse, not want'] for non velle ['not want'], and we even often say dein and exin for deinde and exinde ['then', 'thence']. And isn't it easy to spot why, although one says cum illis ['with those'], one does not say cum ['with'] together with nobis ['us']? That's because, if one were to say that, the letters would run together obscenely [i.e. cum nobis would produce the sound cunno, 'cunt'], just as they would have run together if I had not put 'together with' [in the Latin, the word autem] between them. That gives rise to mecum and tecum ['with me', 'with you'], not cum me and cum te, so as to be like those vobiscum and nobiscum ['with you (pl.)', 'with us']."
* * *
Syncopated forms:
It seems that, at least in Cicero's time, the syncopated forms of the perfect stem of verbs were conventional, as well as the shortened from of the perfect 3rd person plural in (-ere for -erunt). I wonder whether the form with -erunt made a comeback as Latin was learned by non-native speakers or perhaps from literary Latin. Certain Romance forms (e.g. Spanish amaron, Italian amarono, French aimèrent from amarunt) seem to descend from it.

157 quid quod sic loqui 'nosse, iudicasse' vetant, 'novisse' iubent et 'iudicavisse'? quasi vero nesciamus in hoc genere et plenum verbum recte dici et imminutum usitate. itaque utrunque Terentius: 'eho, tu, cognatum tuum non noras?' post idem: 'Stilponem, inquam, noveras'. sient plenum est, sint imminutum; licet utare utroque. ergo ibidem: 'quam cara sint quae post carendo intellegunt, quamque attinendi magni dominatus sient.' nec vero reprehenderim 'scripsere alii rem' et 'scripserunt' esse verius sentio, sed consuetudini auribus indulgenti lubenter obsequor.

"How about the way they [sc. proponents of analogy] forbid us to say nosse ['to know'] and iudicasse ['to have judged'] but order us to say novisse and iudicavisse? As if we didn't know in this instance that it is correct to say the full word and conventional to say the shortened one. Thus Terence uses both: 'whoa, you didn't recognize [noras] your kinsman?' And the same author a little bit later: 'You recognized [noveras] Stilpo, I said.' Sient ['they may be'] is the full form, sint the shortened one. You're allowed to use both. Hence, in the same place: 'Later, they realize how dear they are [sint] from lacking them, and how great dominions must be [sient] retained.' Nor would I criticize scripsere alii rem ['others wrote the subject'], and I know that scripserunt ['they wrote'] is more accurate, but I gladly follow convention, which indulges the ears."
* * *
Hidden quantity and aspiration:
Cicero reveals that the i in the prefix in- is long before s and f, and similarly the o in con-. The introduction of aspirated consonants (such as the ch in pulcher) also was a change recent enough that Cicero avoided it until later in life.

159-60 quid vero hoc elegantius, quod non fit natura, sed quodam instituto: 'indoctus' dicimus brevi prima littera, 'insanus' producta, 'inhumanus' brevi, 'infelix' longa; et, ne multis, quibus in verbis eae primae litterae sunt quae in 'sapiente' atque 'felice', producte dicitur <'in'>, in ceteris omnibus breviter; itemque 'conposuit, consuevit', 'concrepuit, confecit'. consule veritatem: reprehendet; refer ad auris: probabunt. quaere cur: ita se dicent iuvari. voluptati autem aurium morigerari debet oratio, quin ego ipse, cum scirem ita maiores locutos ut nusquam nisi in vocali aspiratione uterentur, Ioquebar sic ut 'pulcros, Cetegos, triumpos, Cartaginem' dicerem; aliquando, idque sero, convicio aurium cum extorta mihi veritas esset, usum loquendi populo concessi, scientiam mihi reservavi.

"What's more elegant that this, which isn't the product of nature but some kind of teaching: we say indoctus ['unlearned'] with the first letter short, but insanus ['insane'] with it long; inhumanus ['uncultivated'] short, infelix ['unfortunate'] long; and, to be brief, in words in which the first letters are those in sapiens and felix, in is pronounced long; in all others, short. Likewise: conposuit, consuevit, concrepuit, confecit ['it settled, became accustomed, made a noise, completed']. Consult Truth: she will criticize it; refer the matter to the ears: they will approve. Ask why: they will say they like it that way. Speech should gratify the pleasure of the ears. I myself, since I knew that our ancestors spoke in such a way that they never used aspiration [i.e. h] except with vowels, I used to say pulcros ['handsome men'], Cetegos ['Cethegi'], triumpos ['triumphs'], Cartaginem ['Carthage']; but at some point--and late, at that--the truth [i.e., the 'correct' pronunciation] was wrested from me by the abuse of my ears and I yielded my manner of speaking to the people, though I kept my knowledge for myself."
* * *
Final s again:
And last but not least, Cicero notes the omission of final s in the Latin of an earlier generation. Evidently, it was fairly common to drop terminal s in general, but in contrast to the examples with which we began (like multimodis), the omission occurred in single words, not in one of two in the same number and case.

161 quin etiam, quod iam subrusticum videtur, olim autem politius, eorum verborum, quorum eaedem erant postremae duae litterae quae sunt in 'optumus', postremam litteram detrahebant, nisi vocalis insequebatur. ita non erat ea offensio in versibus quam nunc fugiunt poetae novi. sic enim loquebamur: 'qui est omnibu' princeps', non 'omnibus princeps', et 'vita illa dignu' locoque', non 'dignus'...

"Indeed--and this seems rather boorish now, but once refined--they clipped the last letter of those words that had the same two final letters as optimus ['best'], unless a vowel followed. Thus, it wasn't a faux-pas in verse, which now the new poets avoid. We used to speak like this: qui est omnibu' princeps ['who is foremost of all'], not omnibus princeps, and vita illa dignu' locoque ['worthy of that life and station'], not dignus..."

I'm currently querying a book and I got this rejection letter:

"Thank you again for your submission. You have an amazing foundation and the writing is lovely. But from a reader perspective, I found the overuse of italics to be distracting. The Chicago Manual of Style and APA have guidance on the use of italics in fiction writing, and generally say to use italics for emphasis (especially in dialogue). A great example of this is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is from a genre—upper middle grade fantasy—where the use of italics in dialogue is common.
As always, this is subjective and just my sole opinion. Other agents likely will differ, and you may have already secured an agent, so disregard my opinion.
So, I'm sorry. I will have to pass on this version. Should you ever revise in the future, and utilize interiority vs. italics for thoughts and deep POV, I'd be happy to consider again,
Thank you for considering me and best of luck with your future queries."

It seemed promising, but I write in the third person and I thought italics were used for thoughts. I'm not sure what the agent wants in this case. Do they want me to remove the italics and use "quotes" instead (though I think this is confusing to separate speech from thought) or are they looking for a 1st person's POV vs. 3rd person (if that's the case they probably aren't the agent for me)? Do they want more telling instead of showing in this case? Or is it something else entirely?

This encoding simply consists of a Caesar Cipher, however the Shift isn't the same for the entire text, but rather different for each letteword.
For example: Sgghnz would translate to Reddit with a shift of 1 to the first letter, 2 to the second and so on.
I would appreciate if I would be given further information on what the name of the code is, whether and how it is possible to break it.

I was never able to perform consistently in school due to mental health issues that went untreated because my mom was strongly against psychiatric medication of any kind. From ages 16-21 (Coincidentally also years 2016-2021), my grades in university classes were all over the map, sometimes an A, sometimes an F, and eventually I dropped out. Now as an adult who has had those issues officially diagnosed and treated, I'd like to transfer credits from the classes I passed to an undergrad program and finish my degree, then get my Master's degree. My understanding is that since I won't be able to transfer failed classes, they won't impact my GPA, but I will still have to send in transcripts from all universities I've attended when applying to grad school which will show spotty performance.
Do you think I'll get automatically rejected from competitive programs? If I'm trying for only top 25 U.S. schools for example, would a great GRE/GMAT score, spotless performance in my final attempt at undergrad (e.g. straight As for my final 3 semesters), and a letter explaining the situation with perhaps a letter from my doctor to validate my story work? Or will an algorithm auto reject me?
For added context I'm looking at IT and Business related programs at South Eastern universities (GA Tech for Cyber Security, Duke Economics program as examples. Not interested in an MBA or Law School).

General

This subreddit is North American focused. If you would like to provide information from other countries, please leave it in a comment below or contact the moderators.
 
What is a perfusionist and what do they do?
A perfusionist’s central role is to operate a heart-lung machine during open heart surgeries or other surgeries where blood flow may be impaired or interrupted. Examples of surgeries or devices that may require perfusionists most commonly include:

• Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG)
• Heart Valve Repair or Replacement
• Congenital Heart Defect Repairs
• Organ Transplants
• Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO)
• Ventricular Assist Devices (VAD)
• Intra-Aortic Balloon Pumps (IABP)
• Chemoperfusion

 
What is the salary and job outlook?
Salaries for perfusionists are generally higher than $150,000 per year. There are a wide variety of pay structures that will affect total compensation packages.
The future of perfusion is unclear, mostly due to concerns of market saturation. A search through /Perfusion will reveal a wide variety of opinions on the matter. The American Board of Cardiovascular Perfusion (ABCP) publishes an annual report listing the number of certifications gained and lost. Included in the most current report (2023) is a historical list going back to 2000. Included in the 2022 report is the number of students admitted and graduated in 2021 and 2022.
 
Professional Organizations and Resources:  

• American Society of ExtraCorporeal Technology  
  
• The American Academy of Cardiovascular Perfusion  
  
• The Canadian Society of Clinical Perfusion  
  
• The Tiny Perfusion Letter
  

 

Education and Credentialing

 
How do I become a perfusionist?
To become a practicing perfusionist in the United States, you must become a Certified Clinical Perfusionist (CCP). This credential is governed by the American Board of Cardiovascular Perfusion (ABCP) and is awarded after passing two board examinations: the Perfusion Basic Science Examination (PBSE) and the Clinical Applications in Perfusion Examination (CAPE).
Qualification to sit for the board exams is achieved by completing a certified program. The accrediting body for programs is the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP) and a current list of programs may be found by going to this page, selecting “Profession” and choosing “Perfusion.” Unfortunately, this does not include programs that are defunct or programs that are undergoing the preliminary accreditation process. All schools require an undergraduate degree before entry regardless of outcome: degree or certificate.
The list of schools maintained at Perfusion.com and at SpecialtyCare are not current.
Programs currently undergoing preliminary certification include (alphabetical):

• Emory School of Nursing
• Lawrence Technological University
• Northern Kentucky University
• University of Southern California

Program lengths vary from 18 to 21 months and cost varies from approximately $30,000 to $140,000.
 

Common Questions About the Application Process

 
Is it competitive?
The application process is extremely competitive. Schools are typically receiving several hundred applications and most take 20 or fewer students.
When does the application cycle begin?
The application cycle is different for each school, but typically start as early as June 1 for start dates the following year.
That means that for the beginning of the 2025-2026 academic year, applications will begin opening on June 1, 2024.
When do applications close?
Again, each program will be different. Some programs close earlier than others. Some programs have processes that take awhile to complete, so it is advisable to complete your application before the process closes.
Which school should I apply to?
You should apply to every school you're qualified for.
What prerequisites are required for perfusion school?
Each of the programs have different requirements. Contacting each of the programs with program specific questions is going to result in much more accurate answers than asking here. Programs can and do change requirements on an ongoing basis.
Nearly all programs require at least a documented conversation with a perfusionist or shadowing a case as part of the application process.
How do I find a perfusionist to shadow?
LinkedIn is your best resource. You may also post a request for a specific geographical area using the flair “Shadow Request.” You can also try contacting hospitals that do open heart surgery and arranging to shadow a perfusionist.
What kind of work experience is useful when applying to perfusion school?
Perfusion assistant jobs are sometimes referred to as a “golden ticket” for admission to a school. Many schools seem to value healthcare experience, through what type varies from school to school. Traditionally, RNs with critical care or operating room experience and respiratory techs seem to have a high degree of success. Other perfusion / OR adjacent jobs like anesthesia techs also seem to correlate with higher acceptance rates. As the application process becomes more competitive, it may be worth reaching out to current students to see what class make ups look like or Program Directors to see what advice they may give. Unfortunately, the application process is a “black box” and each institution has different qualities, traits, and experience they seem to value.
What are my chances of getting into School X? / Should I apply this year or wait until I have more experience?
No one knows. Your chances of getting into a school that you haven't applied to are zero. Contact the program for specific questions and guidance about your situation. The application process is a "black box" process with only the Program Directors and Admissions Council Members knowing how they work and what they are looking for in the current cohort. If you have specific questions about feedback you have received, feel free to ask them. Generic "what if" questions have a low likelihood of being approved in this subreddit.
Social Media
Look over all your social media accounts. Clean them up. Present yourself well online.
Additional Resources
/prospective_perfusion - subreddit dedicated to the application process and questions
/perfusion_accepted - subreddit dedicated to accepted students
 
 
Thanks to ghansie10 for the original thread - if you see this, please DM me!
Please report broken links or incorrect information to the moderators.
Feel free to post questions or information below.

6 months after my husband was arrested for solicitation of prostitution and finding out he had been going to massage parlors and seeing escorts for years.
•I’ve been reading books on cbt, ptsd, negative thinking. Workbooks on self-esteem and self love.
•Individual and marriage therapy. I have a psychiatrist and and therapist
•Working out 5 days a week at 5AM
•Multiple medications. Antidepressant, mood stabilizer, anti psychotics.
•Venting on Reddit haha
I had months of paranoia, anxiety, feelings of insecurity and “I’m not enough mentality”.
These are things I have done that have helped me the most.
•Dedicating at least 1 hour a day to whatever my top most goal was. Since mine was recovery in general I would either work out for an hour, meditate, read, did my therapy, or a form of self care (bath, massage, etc.) this time has to be non-negotiable.
•Learn the science behind what is going on. The things you are feeling are activated in the back of your brain. The same feelings that you get when a grizzly bear is chasing you, is activated. Your brain is really trying to protect you so be kind to it. But also your brain can’t function in 2 places at once. You need to make the brain go to your front lobe in times of high emotion or panic. You can do that but thinking back from 100 by 7 or listing names that start with the letter B etc.
•Give yourself grace and be kind to yourself. You have a reason for the way you feel. This is trauma. Especially if you are with a narcissist don’t let them or anyone make you feel like you are crazy and that your feelings aren’t valid.
•Journal. I would write self forgiveness or things I really liked about myself, goals for the week and month.
•Cognitive Behavior. I have to practice this since I’m really not good at it but it is supposed to require your brain once you get good. Event occurs, thought happens, and then behavior occurs. Example. Husband checked out girl in restaurant, immediate feelings of insecurity. Then I would be quiet or angry the rest of the date. It’s a lot of self sabotage. Instead try to change the thought but it has to be something you really believe. Like I might would change it to “I mean she is really pretty, can’t really blame him for looking but he is choosing to be with me right now when he could be doing anything else.” I’m sure that thought could be better hence why I’m not super good at this yet lol.
•You are going to be okay regardless. When have you not figured it out? Say they mess up again. You’ll use rock bottom to propel you and good things will continue to happen in your life. Say they never mess up again, that’s great too. “With or Without You” mentality.
•Have some form of support. Whether it’s a therapist or a good friend you need someone to listen and make you feel like your feelings are validated.
•Fall in love with yourself. You have great qualities that somebody will love about you but even if you don’t date again. You are enough just being you. My aunt never got in serious relationship again after she divorced in her 30s and she lives her best life!
•I read on a sex worker forum and they said that men acting out is kind of similar to them going to the bathroom haha. They have an urge that needs to be met but it’s so not emotional. They compartmentalize sex as a basic human function. Any if they cheat on you emotionally, that’s another mental issue. I don’t know why this just made me feel better.
You are not defined by your SO and you are not your emotions! “You are a good person whom bad things have happened too”-Sirius Black
Books I’ve read that have helped so far: Girl wash your face-Rachel Hollis Confidence and insecurity workbook Self love rainbow workbook by Dominee Calderon. Get out of your head by Jennie Allen.
If you have any books you would like to share or any other advice to give please let me know!

Affiliates get ONE shot at appealing.
First, you need to pin down the violation reason. Ex: trademark infringement, unoriginal content, irrelevant product promotion, etc. This is typically easy to do, if it's a video violation- they will give you the exact violation reason. However, account violations are trickier.
Next, you need to try to pin down the EXACT CAUSE for the violation reason. So, if you got a trademark infringement violation, what exactly in your video triggered this? If you got an unoriginal content violation, what exactly in your video triggered this? You need to pin this down, to even have a shot at appealing.
But even IF you pin down the exact cause for the violation reason, guess what? Our Affiliate Appeal Policy page does not detail the supporting documents necessary for every single violation and some of the supporting documents listed would be impossible for us to collect. Fun stuff! 😭
The information below is from the Creator Appeals Policy in TikTok Shop Academy from 5/1/24. TikTok wants us to include:

• A clear explanation of why we feel that the enforcement action was taken against us in error
• Any relevant supporting documents (see list below) only submit documents related to the specific violation you are appealing.
• Any additional materials or information required by TikTok Shop

➡️ Supporting Documents Needed:
MINOR SAFETY VIOLATION - proof that the creator is not a minor, such as:

• Copy of US ID Card
• Copy of Passport
• Copy of Driver's License
• Copy of Green Card

UNORIGINAL CONTENT VIOLATION - Proof that demonstrates personal ownership of the content, including:

• Photographs of the film set and of the host(s) in the livestreams
• Unique Identification Numbers (UIDs) of original videos

MISLEADING CONTENT (MISLEADING FUNCTIONALITY AND EFFECT) VIOLATION - Credible and verifiable proof that demonstrates that the claim has been approved and legitimate. Examples include (but are not limited to):

• Results from credible and authorized tests
• Reports
• Research
• Legitimate website or certificate from a credible source that supports the claim(s).

MISLEADING CONTENT (EXAGGERATED DESCRIPTIONS OR ABSOLUTE CLAIMS CONTENT) VIOLATION - Credible and verifiable proof that demonstrates that the absolute claims are legitimate. Examples include (but are not limited to):

• Results from credible and authorized tests,
• Reports
• Research
• Legitimate website or certificate from a credible source that supports the claim

MISLEADING CONTENT (INCONSISTENT CLAIMS ABOUT PRODUCT CERTIFICATIONS) VIOLATION - Proof the product has received certifications as stated in the promoted content, such as:

• FDA-issued certifications, or certifications from other local or regulatory bodies. Valid certifications may be identified by an official issuing institution or organization, certification issue or expiry date, certification number, signature by the issuing party, and the name of the product or brand. The certification may also be printed on product packaging or on the product itself.
• Screenshots of official certification or patent verification sites containing certification or patent numbers of the product
• Official endorsement contract

MISLEADING CONTENT (CONFLICTING OR INCONSISTENT CLAIMS ON PRODUCT ORIGIN) VIOLATION - Proof of the product's origin information as mentioned in the content, such as:

• Product packaging or product with mention of the place of origin

MISLEADING CONTENT (CONFLICTING OR INCONSISTENT CLAIMS ABOUT RETURNS, REFUNDS, OR SERVICES) VIOLATION - Proof of the return and refund services as mentioned in the content, such as:

• Screenshots of order containing evidence of a processed return or refund based on the information mentioned in the content. Note : Blur out any personally identifiable information such as addresses, names, etc.

MISLEADING CONTENT (CONFLICTING OR INCONSISTEN CLAIMS ON SHIPPING AND LOGISTICS) VIOLATION - Proof of the logistics information as mentioned in the content (like shipping terms), such as:

• A copy of the logistics waybill with mention of the logistics provider
• Screenshots of order with mention of the shipping fee Note : Please blur out any personally identifiable information such as actual addresses, names etc.

CONTENT WITH ANIMALS VIOLATION - Proof that the products used or demonstrated on animals in the content are products intended for animals or pets
➡️ IMPORTANT NOTE: Below are the supporting documents listed from the Seller Policy "Seller Appeals for IPR Violations" from 05/13/24, which cover the documents needed for trademark infringement violations but again, this policy was written specifically for Sellers and not included in the Affiliate Policies. So I can't be certain that this would work for Affiliate appeals.
(TRADEMARK) COUNTERFEIT PRODUCTS- The listed product infringes on another's trademark rights as it involves the sale or promotion of counterfeit products.
-Letter of Authorization from the Trademark Owner or Level 1 Distributor that includes the following information:

• Name of authorizing party
• Name of the authorized party
• Authorized rights (rights to use trademark, rights to use copyright material, rights to distribute products, or authorized country)
• Authorization period
• Stamp of the authorizing party (if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)
• Signature of the Trademark Owner (or representative if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)

-Intellectual Property Right (IPR) Certificate from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that includes the following information:

• IPR information (trademark, copyright, or registered design)
• IPR certificate issuance country
• IPR owner name
• Validity period
• Trademark classification (trademark certificate only)

(TRADEMARK) WRONG ASSOCIATION -The listed product infringes on another's trademark rights as the associated trademark is for a different product.
-Letter of Authorization from the Trademark Owner or Level 1 Distributor that includes the following information:

• Name of authorizing party
• Name of the authorized party
• Authorized rights (rights to use trademark, rights to use copyright material, rights to distribute products, or authorized country)
• Authorization period
• Stamp of the authorizing party (if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)
• Signature of the Trademark Owner (or representative if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)

-Intellectual Property Right (IPR) Certificate from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that includes the following information:

• IPR information (trademark, copyright, or registered design)
• IPR certificate issuance country
• IPR owner name
• Validity period
• Trademark classification (trademark certificate only)

(TRADEMARK) OVER USE- Using another's trademark in the product listing image(s) to promote the product or service predominantly without the authorization of the trademark owner.
-Letter of Authorization from the Trademark Owner or Level 1 Distributor that includes the following information:

• Name of authorizing party
• Name of the authorized party
• Authorized rights (rights to use trademark, rights to use copyright material, rights to distribute products, or authorized country)
• Authorization period
• Stamp of the authorizing party (if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)
• Signature of the Trademark Owner (or representative if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)

(UNORIGINAL) PIRACY- The listed product infringes on another's copyright as a pirated copy.
-Letter of Authorization from the Trademark Owner or Level 1 Distributor that includes the following information:

• Name of authorizing party
• Name of the authorized party
• Authorized rights (rights to use trademark, rights to use copyright material, rights to distribute products, or authorized country)
• Authorization period
• Stamp of the authorizing party (if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)
• Signature of the Trademark Owner (or representative if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)

(UNORIGINAL) UNLAWFUL ACCESS- The listed product infringes on another's copyright as it provides unauthorized access to copyrighted work.
-Letter of Authorization from the Trademark Owner or Level 1 Distributor that includes the following information:

• Name of authorizing party
• Name of the authorized party
• Authorized rights (rights to use trademark, rights to use copyright material, rights to distribute products, or authorized country)
• Authorization period
• Stamp of the authorizing party (if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)
• Signature of the Trademark Owner (or representative if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)

(UNORIGINAL) UNLAWFUL REPRODUCTION- the listed product infringes on another's copyright as it involves the sale of products featuring unauthorized copyrighted work or unauthorized reproductions of copyrighted work.
-Letter of Authorization from the Trademark Owner or Level 1 Distributor that includes the following information:

• Name of authorizing party
• Name of the authorized party
• Authorized rights (rights to use trademark, rights to use copyright material, rights to distribute products, or authorized country)
• Authorization period
• Stamp of the authorizing party (if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)
• Signature of the Trademark Owner (or representative if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)

(UNORIGINAL) CONTENT INFRINGEMENT- The listed product infringes on another's copyright as copyrighted work is used as listing content.
-Letter of Authorization from the Trademark Owner or Level 1 Distributor that includes the following information:

• Name of authorizing party
• Name of the authorized party
• Authorized rights (rights to use trademark, rights to use copyright material, rights to distribute products, or authorized country)
• Authorization period
• Stamp of the authorizing party (if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)
• Signature of the Trademark Owner (or representative if the Trademark Owner is a corporate entity)

-Illustration of Differences that includes the following information:

• Registered design - front, back, top, bottom, left, and right information of listing product and IPR certificate image or illustration.

Regretting law school choice because there was no on campus OCI 2L or 3L recruit, didn't find articling and now applied to Ontario LPP but I don't live in Ontario and have zero intention of moving there. The first course seems fully remote but the work term appears to be in person or hybrid. No way I can leave my current job for 4 months, but now the more I think about it the more I realized the whole articling system is one big scam. I have a job that pays over six figures so doing LPP seems like it would be huge mistake given that the end outcome would be unemployment.
Articling is a scam in Canada. And LPP is even worse. Imagine paying 4k just to do yet another school course for 4 months, and then maybe find a practicum for another 4 months which may or may not be paid at minimum wage, only to still do the bar exam twice, a week apart, and still be unemployed in the end! The whole thing would cost at least 20k to move to Ontario and add another 30k in lost income; and that's just for the 4 month work term and exams. That's Canada for you. And if you do find a job most likely it's a contract temporary position which pays no higher than a government non-law worker. Even if some firm or government agency hired me after LPP, I wouldn't be moving to Ontario and definitely would take a pay cut from my current job.
Meanwhile if you go to USA there is just a 2 day bar exam, and at Harvard Law for example there's like 800+ law firms paying money for the privilege of recruiting 500 or so students on campus in a seamless interview process, with big law paying 220k+ USD day one and they also pay them for a few months to study for the bar exam as a "clerk", not to mention summer jobs with high salaries. Meanwhile at my Canadian law school there was zero on campus dedicated recruitment during 2L or 3L and no OCIs on campus for 2L or after. Please don't confuse the viLawPortal national applications for city specific Calgary/Toronto/Vancouver 2L recruitment with school specific on campus OCIs which are only for a specific school.
P.S. Thinking about doing a Harvard LLM but the cost and lost income just can't be justified. Can just write the bar exam directly in the USA and move on from this Canadian law school dead end articling circle jerk. At least then there is the hope of finding a remote attorney role even if part-time document review. And maybe down the line in-house remotely in some US corporation.
Looks like we need a PPS because the Canadian law students forum bans all critical posts:
Law School Regrets --Top reasons NOT TO go to my school: University of Alberta Law
This was something partially from the old law students forums, but on the new one it's impossible to post anything without being censored. My law school was a dead end with no career support and only in retrospect did I realize how bad it really was. Buyer beware. The worst part was the grading system where average was B- in 1L and where Cs and Ds were handed out regularly by profs. Some classmates were required to withdraw. I can tell you this not how students are treated at ivy league American schools which have pass fail systems (thinking of Harvard). Another big difference is that at Harvard most exams are just take home papers or assignments combined with participation. Brutal in class closed book final exams with harsh curving at a B- simply doesn't exist like at U of A.
1. Location, location, location. Edmonton is in a frozen industrial wasteland. It is extremely cold during 8 months of the year like -40 and lower with windchill cold. There is a lot of industrial pollution, dry air, and in the summer months suffocating smoke from forest fires. There is not much in Edmonton other than warehouses and industrial views. Views of flare stacks burning. Travelling anywhere is a huge hassle as again not much around. Even the SportChek downtown closed up shop and left reflecting Deadmonton’s downtown (high crime and deserted). HBO’s The Last of Us was filmed in downtown Edmonton and rumour is they didn’t even have to use CGI or props.
2. Building and Facilities. First year classrooms have no windows and the vibe is that of the TV show Fallout or Silo. The building is a literal bomb shelter with thick concrete. I recommend staying in the law building 1L classrooms if WW3 ever starts. The library is old and access to online databases and pretty much anything digital is extremely limited. They have very little subscription access compared to other schools due to funding issues. Don’t believe me, then try using HOLLIS at Harvard Library and see the difference in access. Anyway, the library system is severely lacking at U of A in terms of online and database access. Online textbooks and course materials anyone? One word to describe the law building: Brutalism.
3. Practical Experience and Clinicals. In short U of A has no clinics. No, Student Legal Services is not for credit and not Faculty of Law associated. There are no for credit clinics period. There are a few internship courses and they are extremely competitive so unless you’re getting As it’s not going to happen. Moots are equally competitive and the same few favorites get most of the opportunities. If you’re interested in business, or corporate law or big law type stuff or tech etc., then there is literally nothing for you at U of A as far as experiential learning or clinics. The course selection is also very limited with few options and many full instantly.
4. Career Services. There is a 1L OCI which places at the few small and medium firms in Edmonton, and that’s about it. There is nothing in 2L and minimal articling positions afterwards. The career services office had high turnover and the career advice from the former career services director for articling was to “ask your friends if they know anything”. The job board website is also useless and at one point didn’t even work for alumni. Expect zero career support or alumni outreach from U of A. One of the activities the former career services coordinator offered was "adult coloring books". Absolutely no career support from 2L onwards, no on campus OCIs, and Edmonton only has a handful of medium and small firms. On top of that there are a lot of experienced NCAs also competing for the same spots who are in the same classes! Students at UAlberta are so ignorant that they think a national viLawPortal application that is for Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver (open to literally anyone from anywhere) city specific market is the same as a dedicated on campus OCI recruit (OCI means recruiting only open for that specific school on campus usually done for 2L and 3L in the USA).
This is an example of an OCI SCHOOL SPECIFIC 2L and 3L system: https://hls.harvard.edu/ocs/for-employers/recruiting-programs-for-employers/
5. Professors and Classes. Some tenured profs are unapproachable and overly academic. You are just a number and the 1L classes are big, plus all the NCAs. Profs have no qualms about giving out Cs, Ds, and Required to Withdraws like candy. There are very few electives and it's not uncommon for them to be cancelled or full. There are only a few local externships and are very competitive by grades usually. I don't think U of A has more than a few dozen at most upper year courses. The curve is brutal around a forced B- average for 1L. Some profs even refused to supervise a paper summer course or write a generic reference letter. The practitioners are local and underwhelming. If you are looking for niche fields in corporate, tech, AI or innovative classes, there isn't really much on offer. I think they once had a Military Law course but probably don't anymore. And forget about AI or Space Law. I know it's a dumb comparison, but If I go over to the HLS spring catalogue I count 364 courses and 324 for fall; the vast majority being electives.
Good for Criminal Law???: Criminal law is the best place to be in Edmonton. They don't call it Deadmonton for nothing! Lots of prolific crimes and murders happen regularly in Edmonton and there are 4 big jails around the city.
I know some "learned" UAlberta students will argue U of A has plenty of courses, and maybe they added more, but I challenge them to post course number and titles similar to niche topics that top tier schools offer (usually with no exams, just papers and assignments) such as: International Commercial Arbitration; Government Lawyer; Modern Surveillance Law; Corporate and Capital Markets Law and Policy; Tax Aspects of Structuring Deals; Business Valuation and Analysis; Intellectual Property and Content Moderation; Digital Governance: Privacy, Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology; Nuts and Bolts of Forming a Venture Capital Fund; Global Governance; Advocacy Before International Courts and Tribunals; (Dis)illusionment for Young Lawyers; Legal Skepticism; Election Law Clinic; Cyberlaw Clinic Seminar; Applying Legal Skills to VC Business Diligence; Government Lawyer: Attorney General Clinic; Class Actions: Litigating Advanced Topics; Global Anticorruption Lab; Patent Law; Transactional Law Clinical Workshop; Investments Workshop: Public and Private Equity; Patent Trial Advocacy; Privacy Law; Deals; Corporate Finance; Roman Law; Federal Budget Policy; Democracy and the Rule of Law Clinic; Engaging China; Antitrust Law & Economics - Global; Consumer Protection Clinic Seminar; White Collar Criminal Law and Procedure; Lying and the Law of Questioning; Cybersecurity Risks, Rules and Responsibilities; Advanced Business Reorganizations; Law and Neuroscience; Drafting and Negotiating Complex Cross-Border M&A Transactions; The Non-Delegation Doctrine in Foreign Affairs; Copyright and Trademark Litigation; Drug Product Liability Litigation; National Security Law; China and the International Legal Order; Regulation of Financial Institutions; Foundations of International Arbitration: Theory and Practice; New Technologies and the Law of War; Space Law and Policy; Governing Digital Technologies; Corporate Governance: Corporate Purpose; Securities Regulation; Strategic Litigation and Immigration Advocacy; Mass Media Law; How Wars End: The Role of Negotiation; The Security Council; Venture Law and Finance; M&A Litigation; Introduction to Japanese Law; Startup Entrepreneurship and Innovations in Legal Technology; Mergers and Acquisitions Workshop: Boardroom Strategies and Deal Tactics; Becoming a Law Professor; Algorithms and the Law; Algorithms, ChatGPT, and Human Biases; Algorithms, Rights, and Responsibilities; International Law of the Sea.

I think one of the easiest ways of showing that the anti-villain is still a villain at the end of the day without devolving into random acts of cruelty with no purpose beyond proving that they are "evilllll" is through hypocrisy - "Oh look, the luddist terrorist has no issue using modern weapons and technology to fight off against the so-called destructive civilization!" or "Oh look, the social darwinist is scared of dying and refuses to accept his defeat even though by his own philosophy he should just accept death gracefully!" - it's simple, effective, and frankly, realistic, after all, you don't need to be a bad guy to suffer from double standards.
...which is why i wanted to get examples of villains who aren't this - their word is word, they follow their ideals to the letter and they really do walk the talk.
Bonus points if the good guys happen to be genuine hypocrites when they themselves aren't one!

Let’s make it aware that there is a job offer scam that lies and take you to Scam Factories and you become a slave, and you may even die. Post here all cases of Disappearance of people who may be associated with this type of scam.

Know The Signs!

Have you been trafficked?

• Did you apply for the job via Social Media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram), WhatsApp, Telegram or an online platform?
• Did you have an online interview?
• Have you been promised a job with a company in Thailand?
• Were you promised a lucrative salary?
• Did you receive a letter of confirmation for your new role?
• Did you investigate the company you applied to and are they registered?
• Do you have an agent or consultant handling details for you?

How to prevent yourself or someone you know from being trafficked

• Never give anyone your passport!
• Research the company you are applying to join. For example, check their website, search for them on social media and LinkedIn, check the legal registration of the company.
• Ask for references (face to face or virtual) from current employees.
• Ensure you received an official letter of offer and check the email addresses match the companies contact information.
• Research the visa requirements for working in a foreign country.
• Notify your countries Immigration Office of your intention to travel or contact your countries Embassy once you arrive at your destination.
• If you are about to cross a river in north-west Thailand don’t, it is likely you are being trafficked into Myanmar.

Forced Scamming:

Trapped in secure compounds.

• Victims are trafficked into secure compounds within Myanmar along the Thailand-Myanmar border with no way to escape. They are watched by armed security and their movements monitored 24/7 by CCTV.

Physically tortured, Sexually Assaulted & brutalised.

• Victims are punished if they refuse to work, until they comply. They are sexually assaulted and brutalised to keep them compliant and their torture used as a warning to others. All have scars, some visible and some hidden, that they will carry with them forever.

Forced to work 20 hour days, 6-7 days a week.

• Victims are forced to work 16-20 hours per day and often 6-7 days each week. They are locked into offices with rows and rows of computers forced to participate in illegal activities, including cyber scamming.

Passports confiscated & phones strictly monitored.

• Victims have their passports confiscated usually under false pretences. All phone activity is strictly monitored with random checks are conducted daily. Victims are forced to use company phones and can only access their personal phones in their rooms.

Could this be your situation? If you or someone you know has been trapped in forced criminality, contact your nearest embassy or email the Global Alms Counter Trafficking Unit at admin@globalalms.com with the details.

This is a post for awareness. Let’s help each other. Only serious comments.
Below are more links to other related posts.
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2023/12/asia/chinese-scam-operations-american-victims-intl-hnk-dst/ (Scam Factory location: 16°38'53.0"N 98°31'15.8"E https://maps.app.goo.gl/hjxFLTUJ1SK1aLMM8?g_st=ic)
http://chinascope.org/archives/32233
https://youtu.be/m6qFCdHvYuI?si=rs2J71V1XIeFF7we
https://www.reddit.com/Thailand/s/L8OTm9Lvye
https://www.globalalms.com/protection
(My account created recently for privacy/scam concerns)

I read a quote recently that said “if you want something be the type of person who has it.” So, for example, if you would like to receive love letters, be the type of person who writes them. If you would like to be invited to parties, be the type of person who hosts them, so on and so forth.
I’m trying, still, after two years to process the grief of losing you and to process the grief of all that was lost during our relationship, including pieces of my innocence and my dignity, pieces, I dare say, I will never be able to recover. You hurt me in the worst ways imaginable yet still I can’t hate you. I won’t. Everybody says that I should and that whatever love I have fantasized in my head towards you is merely the limerence that results from Stockholm Syndrome. An obsession one would hold towards a hateful caregiver in an infantilized state.
Though, I’m not so sure. I am loathe to believe the love I hold towards you is fetishized grief. I am hoping that by putting these letters out into the void I will gain some temporary relief from the pain of your absence, at the least, and at most I will begin to build a bridge over that dark and glowering moat of grief that has kept me tethered to the past, tethered to the abusive and turbulent relationship which left me with nothing but debt to be repaid by a wandering life of pain, misery, and an emptiness never to be filled by love in the same way.
Oh how I admired you, oh man of mine. How I wanted to grasp onto every word that came out of your mouth when you were discussing your ideas. How your poems, though a little prose-like and robotic, made me sink faster into the pit of infatuation. I was in love with you. Obsessed. I wish I could have recorded the sound of your voice when you talked about science. I wish I could have mended the pain of your abandonment in adolescence. I wish I could have been the support you needed even when you pushed me away and put me down. I wish I could have healed the parts of you that were so broken to make you believe that stealing from me would somehow fill your empty cup.
But you cut off the bottom of the glass and no amount of debauchery could ever leave you more full than you were before. No amount of purity stolen from me could mend the agony you had held onto for far too long.
I am still left wondering, now, without you even by my side to soothe the wounds you had inflicted, why you chose me to steal from? Was everything really as you said? Was I too unlovable for the mistakes I had made in the past? Hadn’t I more than atoned for them with everything you had put me through? Was I really someone you loathed, who you couldn’t rest easy with at night? Was I really such a burden because I was too nervous around the crowds you chose to surround us with at the nightclubs or too sheepish about my femininity to ever be as sexy as you wanted? Where is the line? What was real and what was fake? Was there anything you liked about me at all, or did you just enjoy the joy and admiration I had for you?
When will my lonely heart stop pining over someone who hates me? If you hated me so, why didn’t you simply leave? Why did you always persuade me back into staying with your sweet words and your grand gestures?
I would say I miss you, but to miss someone is to know them truly and be abashed by their absence. I don’t know you anymore so I can’t miss you. Did I ever know you?
Part of my life has come full circle and now I am starting to wonder if any of it was ever real? The memories are so fleeting and time has warped along with everything around it. I feel alone in this universe. Nothing feels real. Were we just a dream? A requiem for a nightmare? Did any of it ever happen? Why has it all just faded into a distant memory, seared like a firestone against the forefront of my subconscious?
How are you? Do you think this way too? Why did you hurt me so much that I had no choice but to leave? Was I really so reprehensible?
Or, was it you whom you hated for your inability to love someone who had given everything to be with you?
All I know is that I didn’t deserve to be discounted and discarded the way I was. I may never be able to recover some of the innocence I lost while we were in it, but my heart, with each passing day, still feels mightily pure. Your hatred did not win, and my love for you does not cease.
From M. To J.

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.)

Oh, boy, Charlotte, do I have a doozy for you. It’s such a doozy that it comes in 2 parts. I guess it would qualify as petty revenge, since that’s the only flair that fit, but it’s more of an entitled Karen story.
For the sake of telling the story a little smoother, I'm going to explain some things up front. I (female, early 30s; let's call me Molly) am the manager in the accounting office of a very small loan company. Like, really small. We have less than 30 offices with only 2 employees at each office. For this reason, we are kind of low-tech, old-fashioned. I'm talking paper timesheets that get faxed to our office (we're also the corporate office that handles the payroll). Our office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with a half-hour lunch. Me & my employee (who we'll call Sally) work this shift. Our boss (who we'll call Greg) is the owner & CEO. He works in the office starting at 9:00 a.m. till whenever he leaves for the day. Most of the time, that's around the time we leave, sometimes it's earlier due to errands he needs to run.
So, in Oct 2022, Sally (female, early 30s) gave us a note that her doctor wants to have daily appointments with her indefinitely. She let us know she would need to leave at 3:30 every day. Greg granted that request & even gave her the opportunity to come in early so she didn't miss any of her 8 hours each day. So, she began coming to work between 6:45 & 7:00 & would take however long of a lunch she needed to so she would have an 8-hour day.
Due to a combination of our fiscal year-end work in Oct & Nov 2022, playing catch-up from Dec 2022 to Feb 2023, & the other coworker (who we'll call Irene) leaving the company in Feb 2023 so we had to play catch-up again for several months before we got used to the bigger workload, I hadn't been able to pay too close attention to Sally's work. But in the middle of Aug 2023, I began to suspect her. I realized that the tasks Sally had in the morning would usually take me an hour & a half to do, which meant I would be relatively finished by the time I would arrive at 8:30. Sally, on the other hand, would only have stuff halfway done. Now, I knew Sally worked slower than me since I knew the job better than she did, but this still seemed very slow. I began to suspect Sally was either not arriving as early as she said she was (she was the only one in the office before 8:30) or she was arriving on time but wasn't working.
On Aug 21 (Monday), I decided to come in early to the office since I had to make up time due to a doctor appointment later in the week. So, I arrived at work at 6:40. 6:45 rolled around...no Sally. 6:50...no Sally. 7:00...same thing. Sally arrived at 7:20. Now, ok, maybe she ran into traffic. However, that's a bit of a coincidence that the one day I show up early unannounced is also the day she happens to be late. But I waited to see what time Sally would write down on the timesheet. However, she didn't write down her time until Tuesday right before she left. She had written down that she had arrived at 7:05. I asked her about it, and her response was "I must have copied it down wrong from my spreadsheet." That's strange, 'cause you hadn't arrived at 7:05 any other day that week. Just where did you copy it down from?
Now, I am curious as to what time Sally puts down when she believes no one has seen what time she arrives. So, for Sept 4-15, I would arrive in the parking lot across the street & read a book & eat breakfast while I wait to see what time Sally would arrive. Every single day, she would arrive around 7:15 or 7:20, but would write down 6:45 or 6:50, a half hour discrepancy every single day. & we have no way of knowing how long she's been stealing a half hour every day. She could have been doing this for the past year since her schedule changed.
On Sept 18, I write down Sally's actual times from these 2 weeks on a paper & tell her to correct all the times I indicated. Sally says that she will use the office clock to write down her times from now on. Wait a minute, you're saying that your phone is a half hour earlier than the rest of the world? But only when you arrive at work. When you go to lunch & leave work, it matches the rest of the clocks. & then switches during the night so your arrival time can be wrong again the next day? Wow, that's a pretty glitchy phone you got there.
On Sept 20 after Sally left, I installed a camera that connects to an app in my phone. I put the camera in a place where it wouldn't be able to see any computers/paperwork & turned off the microphone (I didn't want to risk any company info being seen/heard). I only needed to see when Sally arrived. Where I ended up placing it, I was able to see Sally where she sat at her desk.
On three of the following days, Sally would arrive 10 to 15 minutes after the time she would write down. I speak with Greg about this, & we decide to write her up. By the way, usually when an employee is caught forging the timesheet like this, it's an immediate termination. At any other office, she would have gotten fired in the beginning of Sept after I first discovered the half hour forgery. I am deciding to give her a chance to make this whole thing right.
On Sept 26 (Tuesday), I give Sally the write up when she arrives.
Sally: I'll sign it, but I don't know why. I mean, I get here at 7:00. (Ok, there's a sign right there. Who signs an official write up when their employer is lying or setting them up?)
Me: I've observed you arriving between 7:10 & 7:15.
Sally reads the write up & then keeps it at her desk for a bit after signing it. After plenty of time, I ask for it back. She grabs it, so I lean forward & hold my hand out (our desks are right next to each other), but Sally flings it at my desk. The whole thing is made better by the fact that Greg is out of town Tuesday thru Thursday. So, Sally proceeds to be angry & have an attitude all the way through Thursday. She refuses to talk or answer the phones. She does that tossing/flicking-papers-around, aggressive-typing, heavily-setting-things-down thing people do when they're frustrated or angry (which she did all...day...long). She sped out of the parking lot & down the street so fast that I could hear her engine rev & tires squeal from inside the building.
On Sept 27 (Wednesday), Sally is still doing that slamming things thing. I enjoy not responding to her whatsoever. I could see out of the corner of my eye that she would slam something down & look at me. I wouldn't give any kind of reaction, wouldn't look at her, & it would piss her off. Sally would then start slamming things around again. I admit, that was fun.
On Sept 28 (Thursday), I see on the camera that Sally arrives at 7:00, but then I watch her sit on her phone for 45 minutes! She is still having attitude issues, &—unbelievably—is still slamming things. After she leaves for the day, I then see the calendar that Sally keeps on her desk as I was passing by. On the box for Sept 26 (the day she was written up), she had written the words "F***ING JOKE!". The audacity of her to write that in plain view of everyone in the office & think she wouldn't get in trouble for it.
On Sept 29 (Friday), Sally arrives at 7:00 but sits on her phone for 30 minutes WHILE VAPING! (Not sure about other cities or states, but it's illegal to smoke or vape inside a building in the city where our office is.) But Greg is back this day, & I had been texting him what's been going on. He had texted back he wanted to do a meeting on Friday. So, the 3 of us go into the breakroom for a meeting.
Greg: So, Sally, what's been going on with this timesheet thing?
Sally: I just, I forget to write down the time when I arrive.
Greg: Ok, well, whether it's done on purpose or through negligence, we can't have wrong times on the timesheet. So, from now on, you won't be able to come to work before Molly gets here at 8:30. Now, are there any other problems you'd like to discuss with us?
Sally: (begins getting worked up) I just, I feel like I can't talk to her. She creates such a hostile work environment.
Now, I am blown away. Me? Hostile? I'm autistic, so I'm naturally shy & hate socializing, so I usually don't talk to anyone very much. Everyone I tell this story to, their eyes widen when I mention this, 'cause there's no way anyone would ever describe me as hostile.
Luckily, Greg interrupts her to defend me: This isn't a hostile work environment.
Sally: (backpedaling) Well, I mean, she gets mad at her printer & bangs on it, & that just flashes me back to stuff. I mean, I'm trying to work on myself & the anxiety, & she just sends me back.
Oh, so now, we're claiming we have PTSD & that my "violent" actions are giving her flashbacks? Um, who is it laughing right along with me every time my printer jams? (By the way, I know she's lying about the PTSD, 'cause I have a couple friends with PTSD & recognize the signs. Sally doesn't show any sign of fear or panic or shrinking away from things, nothing like that. There are no signs whatsoever of her being alarmed by anything I do.) Oh, not to mention the double standards. You're allowed to slam things around (for 3 straight days, by the way), but I'm not?
Anyway, we wrap up the meeting after Greg underlines (for Sally's benefit) that everyone in the office needs to get along.
On Oct 2 (the next Monday), I had a good drive & happened to get there at 8:20. Sally arrives at 8:25 & comes in, stopping at my desk.
Sally: (annoyed) Are you gonna be early all week?
Me: (frowning & caught off-guard) Um, I don't know. It just depends how long my drive takes.
Sally: (with a snarky attitude) 'Cause I had to keep driving around waiting for you, so if you're gonna be early, I'd like to know.
Ok, first of all, no one is forcing you to drive around. You can park your car in the parking lot. Do you really think we're gonna fire you for sitting in the parking lot while you wait for me? We only said you couldn't come in & work before I do. & second, it's none of your business when I get to work. My shift starts at 8:30, therefore, you should aim for 8:30, just like Greg told you to do. How am I supposed to predict the exact minute I get to work? & you're gonna get angry at me 'cause I didn't show up before my shift starts? Since when is it a requirement of mine to come into work before I start working?
Well, a bit of malicious compliance in this entitled story: if I can see I'm going to arrive at work more than 5 minutes early, I stop at the store just down the road & shop until 8:30. 'Cause guess what? Sally gets there who knows how early & sits in the gas station across the street, waiting for me. Fine, you wanna be that way? I can be petty, too.
By the way, Sally has a radio talk show she listens to from before I get to work until it ends at 10:00. I'm not into talk shows, but it wasn't too annoying (most of the time), so I didn't say anything about it. The reason why I started having a problem listening to it was that they would get into inappropriate things (s** toy review, for example). It made me super uncomfortable when they did segments like this. From the moment Sally was written up, she started only listening to the show on her headphones, thinking she was punishing me by me not getting to hear the show. Joke's on her. Sally did me a favor by not having to listen to that thing.
Sally was also told that she is no longer allowed to take smoke breaks on the clock. As no one else in the office takes breaks but chooses to work through them, this change would be made so all employees were equal now. But here’s the interesting thing: Sally suddenly stopped taking smoke breaks at all, but her bathroom breaks grew more numerous & longer. When she had been taking smoke breaks, the alarm on her phone would go off at specific times, such as 2:00. She would then go outside to take her smoke break. After the on-the-clock-smoke-break privilege was taken away, the same alarms would go off, such as 2:00. She would then disappear to the bathroom for 15 minutes. & I even smelled smoke in there when I went in there right after one of these long bathroom breaks.
Ever since the write up, there’s been attitude every once in a while. Most of the time, I have no idea what it is I did that could possibly have set her off that day. All I know is that Sally’s suddenly slamming things around again (hmm, PTSD cured now, is it?). & she’s still constantly making mistakes (like she’s always done).
On Nov 27, Sally is working on the Funding (loan proceeds funded onto a customer’s debit card). What we do is get the list of customers, determine how much the office funded that customer, transfer the money from the office’s bank account to the holding account, & then transfer the total from the holding account to the account that directly funds the debit cards to replenish the money. We had two customers with similar names (say, John Smith & Jack Smith). Sally hadn’t paid attention to the whole name & had applied John’s $0 funding to Jack. However, Jack had been funded $250. So, that money was missed, & I had to make a separate transfer for it.
On Dec 4, Sally is working on the Funding & writes down $0 for a customer. But the report from the office says he actually got $96.
On Dec 8 & 9, we discovered 2 checks that were supposed to be sent to our office (one from Oct, one from Sept). Neither had been cashed, & neither had ever reached us, even though we had the rest of the paperwork that would have come with those checks. Due to the dots I had connected, I had a pretty strong hunch that Sally wasn’t thoroughly checking the mail envelopes to make sure they’d been completely emptied before they got thrown away. I believed these checks were still in some envelopes that were then thrown away by Sally.
On Dec 11, on the bank reconciliation sheets we work at the end of the month (like balancing a checkbook), one of Sally’s offices was out of balance by $68, & she couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find it, either. I pulled out the one done for the month before. I couldn’t find it there, either. But I did notice one thing. The checks that hadn’t cleared the bank yet didn’t add up to the total amount of outstanding checks Sally had written down. By $68. I go back to the month before that one. There were a total of $68 in old checks that never got cashed & therefore should have gotten written off on the fiscal year-end at the end of Oct. But she hadn’t transferred them to the new month’s sheet. So, now, we have to hold onto them for a whole year to write off next Oct.
The same day, I went through all the offices to double check the GL codes that we post the expense checks to (GL codes determine where an expense gets coded, e.g., post an electricity payment to the GL code for utilities). The day previously, Sally had gotten several GL codes incorrect in the Miller office. She had forgotten to change the codes from the one for the Checkbook to the ones for the expense account. She had caught those ones since it affected the balance of the Checkbook, so I had helped her fix those properly. However, there were expense checks sent to a GL code that wasn’t the right one that Sally hadn’t caught.
I talk with Greg, as I feel that every time I turn around, I am either retraining Sally on stuff I’ve trained her on multiple times, I’m correcting mistakes on stuff Sally should know how to do by now (‘cause again, I’ve trained her multiple times), or I’m disciplining Sally about stuff she’s doing wrong. Greg asks how many mistakes due to carelessness she’s made in the last 2 weeks. I check my notes & tell him 4. He says that’s too excessive for an accounting office. We need to write her up.
So, I made the write up, but I just know I’m going to be dealing with the same attitude as the last time I had to write her up. & guess what? Greg’s out of town till Thursday again. I used my phone this time to record the audio of the interaction. That way, if Sally has attitude towards me again, I’m able to play the recording to Greg so he can hear what Sally’s like when he’s not here (which is why the following conversation is pretty much word for word).
On Dec 12 (Tuesday), I sat her down first thing.
Me: So, in the past couple weeks, I’ve noticed some errors happening due to carelessness, & they’ve become a bit excessive for an accounting office. The most important thing in an accounting office is accuracy. That’s why we focus so much on thoroughness & attention to detail. So, whatever needs to happen to lessen those errors, whether it’s slowing the pace of the work itself or double & triple-checking the work before it’s finished, it needs to happen. For example, when I work the payroll, after I get the total for all the offices, I then subtract each person’s individual hours to double check my entries. That way, if there is an error, at least I know it wasn’t ‘cause I was going too fast or not paying attention or something. So, whatever you need to do to decrease the mistakes, please—
Sally: What errors are we talking about?
Me: I have a page here with the items from the last couple weeks. (hand her the write up)
Sally: (reads the pages for a minute) Ok…
Me: So, whatever you need to do to—
Sally: (talking quickly ‘cause she’s pissed now) I’m gonna need more time & focus strictly on Funding. I don’t wanna touch mail, I don’t wanna touch anything else. I wanna focus strictly on that. ‘Cause I’m getting 80 plus a day (which was a lie, we never get nearly that much), & now, I’m gonna start getting in trouble if it’s not 110%. I am human. I will make mistakes. So, if that’s not allowed, then…(shrugs) let me know, I guess. I’ll talk to Greg & I guess figure something out. I am human, & I am gonna make mistakes, A. B, I feel like crap. He (Greg) has been in here sick the last week. I caught whatever he has. I’ve been hacking. I’ve been sicker than sh** the last week. I am trying. You guys usually have until the 12th to close the month. Since I’ve worked here, I’ve closed before the 8th. Yeah, I made mistakes. I told you I made a mistake on the Miller office. I knew what happened. So, to throw it in my face again that I already made that mistake is kinda rude, but…(shrugs) I’m actually kinda shocked to see that on there.
Me: Well, you did catch the errors involving the Checkbook, but there were other mistakes on that office that you didn’t catch, & that’s the reason that was listed on there.
Sally goes back to her work, & I decide to not ask her to sign the write up I had given her right away since she was diving right into the Funding. She had expressed she wanted to focus solely on it to minimize mistakes. I wanted to use positive reinforcement to convey that this was good behavior & good thinking, so I decided to wait for her to finish before asking her to sign & return the write up.
Now, here’s the issues with her little outburst above.

1. Sally is complaining that she’s human & makes mistakes & we’re not allowing mistakes. We’re not saying that she can’t make mistakes, ‘cause she’s right. Everyone makes mistakes; I make mistakes. What we’re saying is that she’s making mistakes much too often.
   
2. Sally says the reason for these mistakes the last 2 weeks is ‘cause she’s been sick the last week or so ‘cause she caught what Greg had (do you see the timing problem there?). Also, these kinds of mistakes have been happening for months & months. I only brought these examples up ‘cause they were recent.
   
3. Sally pointed out the fact that she closes each month really quick. We don’t care how fast things get done. Our goal isn’t to get things done quickly but to get things done accurately. If we happen to get it done quickly, that’s just a bonus. We would rather things go slow than to have errors causing problems or costing us money ‘cause we didn’t take the time to make sure it was correct.
   
4. Sally states it’s rude that I’m throwing her error back in her face (you already know my reaction to that). She obviously doesn’t know how a job works. Just ‘cause we discussed this error already doesn’t mean it can’t go on the write up. This is just one of the examples that required us to do a write up. We’re not doing this ‘cause we want to write you up or that we’re looking for excuses to get you in trouble. We’re doing our job. If a situation needs correcting, we have to correct it. We can’t just ignore it. & obviously, me talking about your errors all these months hasn’t helped. You’re still making the same mistakes. So, now, we’ve had to escalate to a write up on paper.
   

Sally doesn’t say another word. She, as expected, starts doing her tossing-things-‘cause-I’m-pissed-off thing. I just go back to my work. I’ve said my piece, now we can put it behind us & move on.
Now, we have until 10:30 to make the transfers for this Funding program in order to get the money back to the account the same day. We are still missing the paperwork for 2 customers from an office. (FYI, when we’re missing paperwork, we call the office & ask them to fax it. If we still don’t get it when it gets close to the transfer deadline, we call again & just ask for the amount to get it done.) So, at 10:20, Sally turns to me.
Sally: What do I do for these 2 customers? Do I just skip them?
Me: (frowning) Do what you usually do when you don’t have the paperwork in time. Call the office—
Sally: (in a sharp tone) I did. (she’s assuming I mean call the office to tell them to fax it)
Me: (ignoring her attitude outburst) Call up the office & ask for the dollar amounts.
Sally: But I don’t want to write down the amount without seeing the actual paperwork. If I’m gonna get in trouble for errors now, I don’t want to take down what could be the wrong dollar amount over the phone. I mean, I think that’s only fair to me.
Me: In the instances that were mentioned, they weren’t cases of taking down an amount over the phone. They were instances where we had paperwork or a report to see the amount. We would never write you up if there was a possibility that the office gave you the wrong amount over the phone.
Sally stares at me for a second & turns back to her desk. I turn back to my own work as Sally then calls up the office. I had to deal with her attitude the rest of the day: throwing mail into the mailbox, throwing open the letter folding machine so it made a big bang on the table. I was trying to still be the usual friendly, professional person I am at work; I told her “See you tomorrow” & everything. Sally wouldn’t talk to me unless she had to.
This is when I discovered that Sally has a habit of lashing out at me when she gets in trouble. The first write up involved her trying to drag me under the bus by claiming I’m hostile. This time, it was more personal. See, we do a Christmas gift exchange at the office; we each buy each other a gift. I had searched over & over trying to find something Sally would like. I finally found this desk calendar with gnomes on it (she likes both of these things), so I got it & a couple small items. I open my gift from Sally, & among a few cheap little things, I found…Sally’s own nearly empty bottle of nail polish remover. Wow, this is the thanks I get for not firing you back in Sept with the whole timesheet forgery thing?
& this is where I leave you until Part 2, the conclusion.