Universal Chat Thread

[Dragon Lord]

Sorry, forgot to reply to your question. No, thankfully since we didn't open our fridge at all aside from once or twice for just a second each time, the fridge stayed cool enough for our food not to spoil. It also helped that one of those couple of times I opened the fridge was to put some bags of ice in it to try and help it stay cooled down.

So we got the call from the vet that Zoey's ashes are ready to be picked up (much faster than the 3-4 week estimate we originally got), so hopefully bringing her home will help put some closure on the whole ordeal. It'll be nice to get her remains back home where she belongs, even if it's not the way I wanted to bring her back home, haha.

As for therapy, it's not really my thing. Brighter days are ahead and I just need to give myself some time for my mind to beat down the negative thoughts and I'll be okay. I'm already noticing an improvement, thanks in large part to the other other little buttheads I have helping me I think.

[Moonface]

Sorry, forgot to reply to your question. No, thankfully since we didn't open our fridge at all aside from once or twice for just a second each time, the fridge stayed cool enough for our food not to spoil. It also helped that one of those couple of times I opened the fridge was to put some bags of ice in it to try and help it stay cooled down.

So we got the call from the vet that Zoey's ashes are ready to be picked up (much faster than the 3-4 week estimate we originally got), so hopefully bringing her home will help put some closure on the whole ordeal. It'll be nice to get her remains back home where she belongs, even if it's not the way I wanted to bring her back home, haha.

As for therapy, it's not really my thing. Brighter days are ahead and I just need to give myself some time for my mind to beat down the negative thoughts and I'll be okay. I'm already noticing an improvement, thanks in large part to the other other little buttheads I have helping me I think.

That's good to hear about your fridge DL. I wish any time I've lost power here for an extended period I could say my fridge has never been a casualty, but I can't.

The ashes being ready earlier than expected may be because the vet might use an external company to perform the cremations. When @ShiraNoMai's cat passed last year (I think it was last year?) we were told cremations are not handled by the vet and it's done by a third party. So if your vet is using a third party too they might just give out a standard estimate from not really knowing what the workload is for the place they use for cremations.
Anyway, I hope collecting her ashes manages to bring you some degree of comfort even if it's miniscule.

How are your other kitties handling the lack of Zoey? Have any of them been acting differently since then or are they all pretty much their normal selves by now?

[Moonface]

I just went to Target for the last 90 minutes with @ShiraNoMai just to walk about and chill and we came across this book that has two characters on the front that look eerily similar to us.

[Mr EliteL]

Oh my, what the heck? Did you read the back cover, do you know what it's about roughly? That is so weird. Also I take it the first word is meant to be "Surprising" but there's something after the "g". Oh wait, "Surprisingly" I assume. *looks it up* Hmm...so which is the boy on the cover, Leo or Ben, hmmm?! OK, I don't need to know further but still. Crazy.

[ShiraNoMai]

Yeah it was "surprising" to see, but yeah, it looked super cute. The person that did the art cover has a very cute art style.

[Moonface]

I didn't read anything on the back of the book to know what it's about at all. I just noticed the front and instantly took a picture of it because of how uncanny the resemblance was.

Got an eyeball exam in like half an hour. At least this time I'll be able to expect getting air blown into my eye unlike the last time I went because I didn't know it was even a thing and nobody told me.

[Nebulous]

Hey all! Hope things are going well in your neck of the woods!

[ShiraNoMai]

Things are doing. Hoping I have a better week.

Anyone have any fun things coming up?

[Moonface]

Only fun thing I had coming up was my Fall semester starting today, and my class today was really neat! It's nice to finally be able to start a semester without any anxiety that I used to get because of my UK uni experience.

I'm just hoping work tomorrow is going to treat me well. I have a nagging feeling something is gonna be fucky with it though; probably questioning about what was going on Friday because I left without doing a lot of stuff that I would normally get done. I just wish either way my mind wouldn't keep playing scenarios out and planning what to respond with.

[Mr EliteL]

I ain't doing doing much, just another whatever week. Will be a change at work soon as we're losing one colleague moving to another department then another intending to hand her notice in because of the impending change to the rotas, leaving our department screwed with only 4 people. When they go too, well they'd better get hiring or let the seasonal colleague who's finished uni who's asking to have actual hours to work in the meantime instead of refusing them. Managers really have no clue.

Hope your work day went OK, Moony.

[Moonface]

@Mr EliteL: What change is happening to the rotas? Is that a store wide thing going on with that or just a change happening within your department?

My day went okay after all yesterday. Had my evaluation too and got a $1.10 raise which puts me almost to $18 an hour, so that was nice.

[Mr EliteL]

Just the rotas on my department. Most of us are staying the same but she would have to be moved to do later shifts and swap Saturday to Sunday which are two things she doesn't want to do, Thursday she'd be on her own as soon as she comes in as I go at 1PM. Plus she was already considering leaving so this change is making it easier to get that notice in sooner.

Ah so getting a good evaluation can get an individual raise, not bad. Definitely need it from them lowering your hours because of Summer.

[Moonface]

Ah so getting a good evaluation can get an individual raise, not bad. Definitely need it from them lowering your hours because of Summer.

My impression is that the only way anyone gets a raise in most jobs in the US is through an evaluation. It certainly isn't like how Asda does it where everyone is paid the same rate with extras then added on for certain positions/roles and the standard hourly wage goes up at the same time for everyone. I'll be making $17.85 an hour but there could be people in the same department as me who make less than $15 an hour.

Also it's funny that despite my store telling me my hours were going down (and on the schedule they did) I've rarely ended up with a week yet that was noticeably less than usual because of people calling out allowing me to stay on shift longer. My Tuesday's currently schedule me to only be in for like 4-5 hours and instead most of them have still been 7-9 hours. XD

[Mr EliteL]

Ah that's good so not only the evaluation but others are aware of how valuable your work ethic is if you're allowed to stay on. I thought you were just getting the shorter hours all the time.

[Moonface]

Oh my managers know how good I am. The trouble is corporate is limiting how many hours they can use for all of grocery right now, and full timers have to still get their 40 hours a week which means whatever is left over after that is all that can be given across all the part timers. For example, if 200 hours can be scheduled per week right now, and there are 4 full timers and 4 part timers, 160 hours has to go to full timers which leaves 40 hours for 4 part timers, which splits into 10 hours a week each or less for one and more for another.
You know how Asda will send people home early on a lot of shifts after Christmas and New Year's because they go nuts with the hours before those two events due to how busy it is, so they send people home early to make up for that extra usage of hours? It's like that. My store basically has to use less hours in the summer so there are more hours available in the winter when we get really busy.
Hopefully that was a good explanation of things.


In fun news, I see my phone is giving me a hurricane warning right now. Or rather it was but when I just went to my home screen to check it the warning is now gone so who knows? I know there's a hurricane coming through Florida in a few days but the graphs show it'll be nowhere near me so I dunno what effects I'll see of it except for maybe more rain than usual. In an ideal world class would get called off this week just so I can get more lazy days.