Lol, sorry buddy, not something I can just… Do. There’s gotta be context/history/etc, lol, they’ve gotta earn it.

I told a cousin once I wasn’t going to be lectured on morality by a woman whose sole contribution to society was how much money she could spend at a liquor store. That whole post I wrote was honestly, according to my brother, some of the best criticism he’s read, quote, “You called her a lush without ever actually using the word, while also going up one side of her and down the other, saying everything the rest of us wanted to.” That cousin, to this day, will not interact with me at family gatherings.

I also once threw shitty advice I was given back into my boss’s face in my resignation text, to the point where he mentioned it felt “personal” when he called me to try to get me to stay. That was the resignation friends/family told me I should be a writer because, “You have a knack for telling people to go fuck themselves in a way where they thank you afterwards.”

My go to, though, when someone insults me is to usually respond, “I’ve been called worse by better.”

Are you saying the driver is wearing the seatbelt, the passenger(s) aren’t?

And how does the death result? Is it because of an accident? Are they messing/moving around in the car? Are they legally allowed to not be wearing a seatbelt in the vehicle?

There’s too many undefined variables I think for anyone to give you a solid answer.

America: our mail system is. USPS processes 23.5 million packages per day, and processes and delivers 318 million pieces of mail every day, to every single household in America, 6 days per week (7 days per week for packages).

They will throw mail sacks onto the backs of donkeys and trek them down into the Grand Canyon to deliver to tribes down there. They will deliver by bike, plane, boat, truck, car, etc. Hell, name any other organization where you could hand someone a letter and $0.62 and ask them to take it to Alaska for you, and they’d say no problem.

“Post” roads in the U.S. are named as such because they were roads built specifically for the movement of “post” across the country, and people have even argued that USPS (then the Postal Service) created the layout of the country as we know it.

And despite what many may think or know, USPS is incredibly efficient when it comes to mail and delivery compared to other countries. I remember them telling us during our orientation (I used to be a mail carrier) that back around 2013, representatives from USPS were actually flown to Germany to teach and help them start delivering 6-days per week. USPS taught Germany how to be more efficient at something 😂

Every person is three meals away from being radicalized. Not my quote, not sure who it’s attributed to, but I’ve seen it on the internet over the years.

I agree, shit will really hit the fan when people can’t find food/water anymore, or at least have it not be readily available. Personally, I think it’s coming sooner than people are expecting just because climate change will compound on itself year over year, and we’re doing damn near nothing to mitigate any damage (still pumping ground water up like it’s an instantly renewable resource to water golf courses in the dessert, for example).

But radical people tend to be desperate for change, and most people get desperate when they start to actually get hungry.

I had a coworker who cited music licensing as the sole reason he can’t find his favorite show anymore: The Drew Carrey Show. Whatever schmuck owns the music licensing refuses to cooperate with the rest of the show owners, so it can’t be streamed or distributed anywhere.

Another example would be Scrubs, most of the songs used in the show (including key moments and the OG songs were perfect for them) have been edited out and replaced because of licensing issues. Unless you’ve got the DVDs or pirated older versions, you’re stuck with the new music and it’s not the same.

Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.

Let’s say you’re in school, and you’re assigned a lab partner and told the requirements of your project and that you need to compromise both individual’s ideas to make it happen.

Every time you try to make a suggestion, they immediately say no and suggest something that isn’t even graded for the project, and refuses to budge until you compromise. When you don’t compromise, they threaten to tell the teacher that you’re not compromising. As you try to hold your ground trying to get a good grade for both of you, they just keep doing whatever they want and making more threats to you: they’ll take your lunch money, they’ll beat you up after school, they’ll pop your bike tires, etc.

When you tell the teacher, they tell you to stop overreacting and you need to learn to work with others. After school, your science partner punches you and says you better agree to XYZ tomorrow. You tell the teacher they hit you, and you’re told you need to stop exaggerating and learn to compromise and work together. Every day that week, your science partner makes good on each threat after school, and every day you tell your teacher, they tell you to stop exaggerating and learn to play nice.

On the last day, you punch the kid back, really hit him, break his nose kind of punch. And you’re punished: the teacher says you shouldn’t have resorted to violence, your partner says they were the true victim in the project arrangement, you get a failing grade because everything you compromised on didn’t meet the requirements, but your science partner still got an A and wasn’t punished for anything he did all week because “the rules don’t apply to them the same way, they’re troubled/have a lot going on at home/whatever excuse.”

That’s the current state of US politics: Republicans are justified in any and everything they do because they’re “special,” but Democrats have to follow all of the rules, all of the time, even when the other side of the aisle refuses to even listen to them or the centuries/decades of legal precedent. And they, the Republicans, still win because that’s just how the fucking system works.

I’m with you 100%. No one consents to being born, and it should be every human’s right to decide when they’ve had enough and consent to checking out of life.

We put down animals because they’re suffering, it’s seen as a mercy, yet when it comes to humans? Oh no, go through your fifth round of chemo, take two shots of morphine every day, exist in nothing but physical pain because wanting to die is somehow… Wrong?

I’ve suffered from depression the majority of my life, and I’ve even asked my therapist: what is so wrong, so bad, about wanting to die? We live in a society where the majority of wealth is held by very few, we’re watching governments across the world fall to fascism, people’s rights are being stripped away left and right, and yet the majority of the population believes “Well, you have XYZ, so you should be grateful! You have so much to live for!”

This is not a pro-suicide comment, either, to be clear. If you are suffering, please reach out to friends/family, or even better, a mental health professional if that is an option for you. Death is a permanent solution to what can be a temporary problem. But if an individual of sound mind and body wants to consent, for whatever reason, to no longer wanting to play this torture we call life, I believe they should 100% have the right to do so, and we should be glad we as a society have come so far as to extend the same mercy to human beings that we provide to pets.

When I worked for USPS as a carrier, my LLV (the mail truck) was older than I was by a year. I could also put the key in the ignition, start it, and then completely remove the key and the truck would keep running.

That kinda shit cracks me up, hahaha

It was my grandmother’s, and I was the 5th owner after she passed away. Manual windows, manual locks, and a fully-metal body. By the time I got it, it was so quirky, I loved everything about it.

• The horn was dying, so if you held it for longer than 2-3 seconds, it sounded like the doppler effect,
• Since the hood was metal, the horn would make it vibrate a little and the car sounded like it was begging to be put out of its misery,
• The brakes screamed when you came to a stop, but only at speeds under 10 mph, so I basically scared the shit out of every drive-thru worker I encountered,
• Our family dog knocked the rear view mirror off with her head, and after 5 months, we finally glued it back on, only for her to do it again a week later, so I learned to drive with only my sideview mirrors,
• The parking brake basically couldn’t be relied on because the previous owner, my sister, drove it for about 6 months with the parking brake fully engaged, complaining to my dad constantly that it had no acceleration.

Was a beautiful, green, Kia Sephia, and I miss that car more than some family members. My second car had another favorite quirk: the driver’s window motor died, so the window wouldn’t roll up or down. So, being the high school chucklefuck that I was, I’d go through drive-thrus in reverse if I had a friend in the passenger seat (also without a rearview mirror, thanks to the aforementioned dog).

All the staff used to come to the window laughing, and one manager gave us real shit for it despite their being no signs or anything indicating we couldn’t.

Sigh my younger days, cars today are just too boring 😂

Yeah, I remember one of my teachers (I think my high school biology teacher) chastising us a bit one day because most of the class would come from PE before hers. She was complaining that we smelled like sweat and working out and all that.

But we weren’t allowed (or given even close to enough time at the end of the PE class) to use the showers. You basically showed up, had until the second bell (about 5 minutes after the first) to be in the gym ready to go, you’d run/play/workout/whatever for almost an hour straight, and then be given at most 5 minutes to change and go to your next class.

No shit we stank, and when we asked why we couldn’t use the showers, we were told there was no way for us to be monitored in there, so it left too many opportunities for misdeeds and shit.

My dad’s trade school had this rule back in the 70s/80s. If you showed up and weren’t clean shaven, you had to pay $0.25 for a disposable razor and small little pouch of shaving cream. If you refused, you were sent home for the day.

He had a teacher that he said was really well liked among the students, former Marine who I think served in Vietnam. The guy had a coconut carved into a monkey’s head on his desk, and he’d tape a cigarette in its mouth. But he had some odd rules and, according to my dad, could be a scary dude at times.

Like, if he caught you yawning, he sent you out of the class because “You aren’t full awake, and therefore didn’t prepare for class properly with a proper night’s sleep.”

If the class got off track, or really pissed him off, he’d either: A. Lift one of those old-school metal drafting tables off all four of its feet and slam it back down, causing a HUGE boom sound that got everybody’s attention, or, B. He’d drop-kick the coconut monkey head down the hallway before returning to the class.

Reminds me of a teacher my dad told me about when he was in trade school (he went to a trade school for high school back in the 70s/80s). He said all the students called the guy Mr. Hitler behind his back.

He would regularly make fun of students, call them stupid for not understanding things, send kids to the principal for the slightest infractions, etc. My dad didn’t grow up with money but started working at like 14, and he said it always bothered him the most that Mr. Hitler would especially pick on poor kids.

“Oh, is that all your family could afford for you, rags and old shoes?” “Really, the same pants two days in a row, what, your family can’t afford to wash them?” Just shit like that, in front of the whole class, absolutely demeaning and stuff that wouldn’t be tolerated today.

Well, apparently Mr. Hitler suffered a stroke at some point during my dad’s high school days, and according to him, not a single student gave a damn to do anything to help him. He had trouble walking/was in a wheelchair, kids would let the door slam behind them despite him trying to get through. If he had several things to carry, students would ignore him requesting help to carry them, pretending like they couldn’t hear him.

I wrote my first AP English thesis in high school on this exact issue: students being assigned too much homework and the detriment it caused them. I don’t remember the source, but an academic paper from around 2010 (I wrote the paper in like 2012) talked about how assigning more than 5-10 math problems per night could cause way more harm than good.

Not only was it incredibly time consuming for people who likely had sports/music/jobs/family obligations/etc, but it reinforced incorrect learning habits. Basically, if you were given 100 math problems, but didn’t understand how to solve them correctly, you’d just be reinforcing your mistake 100 times. Add in the fact I never had a teacher who would spend an entire class going over all 100 of them, and kids were basically learning the wrong way every night. Plus, at least in my experience, the assignments were turned in and then the class moved on to the next lesson, and by the time you were given the graded assignment back, you were already 3+ lessons ahead, still learning everything wrong because the foundation was built on sand, not stone.

Was in an AP English class, and we were given a book on AP format for writing essays and such (think proper way to cite sources, alphabetize authors, other grammatical and formatting rules, etc). The class was given an example handout and told to group up into fours and go over the handout, finding mistakes and such based on the book previously mentioned.

When we went over it as a class, every group found basically every mistake except one. Every group missed this one mistake, and none of us flagged it because the book we were supposed to base all of this off of stated that it, in fact, was not a mistake. Since it was a graded assignment, we started debating with the teacher that since everyone didn’t flag it, and the book we were given said it was actually correct, we shouldn’t be penalized for it.

The teacher, however, refused, stating that it was incorrect based on AP formatting standards. Students even showed her, in the book we were given, where it said that the “mistake” was in fact correct. She refused to budge, and arguing continued.

The discussion ended when she (the teacher) finally said, “I’m the only one in this room with a Master’s degree in English, you got it wrong, I’m not hearing further debate on this,” and took the points off from all of us.

Same thing happened with a math teacher (who was an absolute piece of shit, literally everyone including the staff hated him, but that’s for another time). Everyone got a problem wrong, and when he went over it, several students pointed out the answer we all got was correct based on how we were initially shown how to solve the problem. He pulled the same “I’m the only one here with a degree in mathematics, so none of you are getting the points for it because you’re just wrong.”

Several students went to other math teachers and showed it to them, who in turn went to the piece of shit and not only pointed out that he was wrong, but the head of the math department was basically demanding either the points be restored or the question thrown out. The next class he went on a long spiel about how “after conversing with several of my other academic colleagues, it was brought to my attention it was a poorly designed question, and thus I will be removing it from all of the tests.”

Just fucking admit when you’re wrong, all you’re teaching us with your fancy degrees is that you’re a prick and to resent authority figures.

Currently, I’m a cabinet maker, and I was referred to my current employer by my state’s department of labor representatives. I’ve done damn near everything though: been a dishwasher, a chef (my longest held position at about 10 years), worked retail, was a pharmacy tech, delivery driver, the list goes on.

I interview well, always go in willing to admit what I don’t know but highlight what I do know, have a good attitude, and a decent sense of humor helps a lot (at least in my experience).

The thing that’s helped me find work the most has been my status as a veteran. Checking that box has opened more doors for me than anything else in my life because, to employers, it shows I’m more “mature” than those around my age, I’m dependable, learn quickly, don’t argue, and will get the work done if it needs to be done. It’s not surefire, by any means, but it has usually at least gotten me an interview with most places I’ve applied. Veteran employers like to see it because it’s something we can both relate to, and civilian employers like it because they know you learn a lot of soft skills through the military, and the maturity thing.

As an example, I was hired as a cook for a local brewery, but during the interview, the guy kept mentioning my time in the military and how he’d like me to start pushing their kitchen in a more professional direction than it currently was, despite the fact I had about 5-10 years less experience than their current supervisor and my military experience wasn’t related to cooking at all.

Not everyone has that on their resume, but it’s definitely helped me since I separated almost 10 years ago now.

Yep, I/my car was involved in 3 accidents over the course of 2 years almost a decade ago. First I was rear-ended, second someone turned into me cause they were in the wrong lane, and the final one I wasn’t even in the car, it was parked in the city I lived in and was one of 7 cars that were hit during a police pursuit.

That last accident, I had the same insurance company as the guy who was evading police. When I called to file a claim, the woman told me, “Well… We’re not sure we’ll be able to offer compensation, as your vehicle is one of seven involved, and the driver’s insurance only covers XYZ amount, so we may need to put it under your policy.” I told them absolutely not, it was not my problem that they willfully insured a criminal, and that I had been a customer for 5+ years, never missed a payment, and did absolutely nothing wrong in this situation. She still pushed, and I told her if that was the route they wanted to go, she could cancel my policy that minute, and suddenly it turned into “Well, let’s see what we can do.”

Fuck insurance companies, all of them, literally all of them. They also initially refused to give me my check for that last accident, as the guy at the counter told me, “Well, you have a lien on the vehicle, so we should really be sending this to your bank so they can tell you when/where they want the repairs made.” I responded, “Well, that sounds like a conversation I need to have with my bank, and since the loan is between myself and them, I don’t really understand what business it is of yours, now I’ll take my check please.”

They recently upped my rates because I moved 1.7 miles away from my old address, which was in a different zip code, and just thinking about all this makes me want to look into leaving them for another company.

God I hate insurance companies.