How Was Your Day/Week?

[Kyng]

For the past week, my sister has been at home, as a sort of 'second birthday' (after spending her actual birthday in Portugal).

We had quite a nice time together: on Monday, we went out to a local Neapolitan pizza restaurant, which is reputed to be the best in the UK outside London. And I have to say, it didn't disappoint: the pizza was lovely! Even though I had to have vegan cheese (due to my dairy allergy), it still held up very well: it was the nicest vegan pizza I've ever had, by a long way.

We've also been playing some old games (in particular, the LEGO Racers games) for nostalgic reasons. They're always fun to revisit: we must have got incredible value for money out of them!

And, on Wednesday, I participated in an online quiz, for the first time in a couple of months. I managed to get several questions right (including one my team captain didn't know), which helped us to a 47-43 victory!

[Moonface]

Ah so it's time for them to act like nothing happened, everything is all fine and dandy then. Back to normal. Yay!

Wouldn't be the first time it's happened. With the holiday season coming up though if they want to be stupid and move me off of frozen food or do something to just make me leave the job entirely then more fool them; it'll be similar to the time they took me off frozen in Asda (before you worked there) and very quickly learned that was a terrible idea. I recall back then I told them if they ever move me off again I won't go back on the department to fix it when it gets fucked up again, and thus was left alone from that point onwards.

Today is awesome. My AYN Thor finally arrived and this thing is absolutely glorious. I still have a lot of work to do to finish setting it up, but I put that on hold and just downloaded HeartGold so I could experience the absolutely glory of it on an OLED screen in x4 Resolution.

I think I remember you mentioning this a while back somewhere else on here. I don't really have enough DS games to probably warrant getting one of those, although even then I have no idea what SD865 or 8Gen2 means on the specs for the models.

Even though I had to have vegan cheese (due to my dairy allergy), it still held up very well: it was the nicest vegan pizza I've ever had, by a long way.

How are the vegan offerings in the UK nowadays? I remember it was pretty slim pickings for anything vegan/vegetarian/gluten-free when I was still in the country but that was almost ten years ago now.


Been feeling out of it for the last few days hence my lack of activity (and much of anything else really). Still feeling it a bit today but just trying to push through it somewhat because I don't really want to spend my entire week just existing.

[Kyng]

Pretty hectic.

I spent all week at a work event, where I was learning some new software development techniques. I can't really talk about the work itself - but, I can say it was intense: I was working past midnight yesterday! But it was worth it in the end, because our company was one of five that did so well it was invited to do a presentation on the main stage, in front of everyone. (It wasn't me presenting, though: I was too shy for that!)

I'm on my way home now. This weekend, I'll probably just relax and do some gaming!

[Mr EliteL]

Very crap morning today. I feel quite broken actually, because I could've done so much more than what I did.

Was a misty morning and still dark, on the way to work just before 6am. Unfortunately found a cat lying on the main road not moving. Luckily wasn't flattened by being run over, the body looked fine but had an injury on the head. Wasn't breathing however and was dead weight and lifeless when I moved it off the road.

That's all I did though, I should've phoned an emergency vet but nope my stupid drone mind went to go to work as I had to be there for 6. Absolutely regret not doing anything more, no idea how I've managed to keep working with my mind constantly thinking about the incident. I at least had the idea to try and grab an open box from work to try and prevent pests or other animals getting to the body, then phone but nah. Can't forgive myself really. If I acted right then maybe there could've been a chance for survival from a vet. Fuck. All I can hope is that nothing got to the body and someone else had acted with more heart. Damn myself.

Why am I still working today?

EDIT: After finishing and walking home, I didn't find the cat where I left it, though it was in a place no one could have missed, so just hoping it was dealt with in a good fashion. Still feel bad about it though.

[Mr EliteL]

A quick note on that poor cat, someone did find and take it to a vet. That's all I know.

Still annoyed at myself but doing better than I was. Until today, our toilets were playing up, heck all three of them. Got drainage workers to come and found roots in the pipes, so they have to come back to clear them, though they did clear what they could for us to be able to use showers and such. We've had the slight problem for a long while, just got worse the last couple days.
Why I feel bad about is I needed to go, and well they said it was "OK now" for me to. So they went and used a machine to continue clearing and it went through to where I was, so...THANKS GUYS. Agh, I should've waited 10 more minutes, damnit! Eh, part of my punishment for the other day. I'll take it.

[Moonface]

@Mr EliteL: Oof, I'm sorry you had to encounter that. If it wasn't breathing, I'd expect that even if you had called someone about it that the best outcome would have just been they could try to find out who the owner was, considering how it only takes a short amount of time for anything to not be breathing before a lack of oxygen causes severe brain damage even if they're ultimately resuscitated. Pulse and body heat would be the only other two things I can think of that would give any extra indication of their state, but of the little info you did gather on it I want to lean more towards it was unlikely a vet would get there in time to possibly help it.


Been a rather eventful week for me since the weekend. Saturday we went to IKEA because it had been a while, and it was also on a day where they were doing an in-store event for their Xbox furniture partnership where you could win prizes. Shira and I signed up for a gaming trivia tournament where I think whatever team had ended up with us would have been the winners, considering we were teamed up with a 13 year old girl and her dad and there wasn't anything asked that they knew the answer to that we didn't. We ended up getting two bags of items from the Xbox furniture collection which I know includes a D-Pad pillow and a D-Pad serving dish, but we haven't actually looked at the full haul yet. I wanna say it was probably at least $100 worth of stuff though.

Yesterday was our 9th wedding anniversary, which we spent a large chunk of "touching grass" as Shira called it although we didn't go outside at all. She just wanted us to spend a lot of time not using screens and such, so we played some rounds of Uno Show 'Em No Mercy and Liar's Uno which we had bought months ago and never played. I'd also never played Uno before in any fashion so it was fun to finally give it a go. Only downside to it was that the rules for two players aren't really that great because it just makes a lot of the action cards do the same thing.

Today is Shira's birthday so I went out this morning to get a couple of things that I didn't want to get before today, and managed to find a decent birthday card that wasn't just trash or AI slop. Assuming the showing isn't booked for it we're gonna go see the Resident Evil movie later on and go out for dinner somewhere, although not sure where yet.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah when I got close to the cat and saw it's eyes, they were wide open in just a dead stare. I did touch it a few times in hopes it reacted before I picked it up, that would've the second instance where I hoped maybe some life came back as I carried it, but nothing unfortunately. I should have chosen to ditch work, albeit for a little while or long depending on if I'd stay with it. My sister said she may have taken it to a vet if I brought it back home, though I was worried how she'd react right then with a practically dead cat.

Cool for that trivia event at IKEA, got there on a lucky day I guess. Also lucky for that kid you two showed up when you did.

Nice downtime you had yesterday with Shira, kick back and play some games that don't require screens. Surprised you hadn't played Uno before, but yeah it's quite meh with just two players. I can remember which way the +4 (and others like that) cards work, if they can be stacked or not for the next player, because if it is done multiple times, someone could have to pick +16 up or something crazy making that terribly unfair. Or just have only one +4 that gets moved to the next player without stacking, but overwriting the previous +4. Anyway, I have never heard of those variants of Uno before, the only different one I've played is Uno Flip, where the dark side cards be a bit more harsh than the normal side. *checks those other two* Oh, I see No Mercy has a +10....AND that stacking penalties IS mandatory as a rule! I don't particularly like the Liar's one though.

Man, cards can be AI slop now? Actually I shouldn't be surprised. Hope you both have a good time today.

[Kyng]

Well, it's been quite a week .

From Friday to Monday, I went to stay with my girlfriend (prior to my birthday). We didn't get up to a massive amount, but we did go on a day trip to Bath - a lovely city that I've visited several times before. While we were there, we visited the House of Frankenstein: not the biggest attraction, but still fairly interesting (it covers the life story of Mary Shelley, and subsequent depictions of Frankenstein's monster in pop culture). After that, we went to a Turkish restaurant for an early birthday meal - which I did enjoy, though the portions were pretty large, and I couldn't finish my meal !

Then, the Tuesday was by birthday. I got a new locomotive for my model railway (which sadly didn't work properly, so that's been sent back for a replacement); some more model railway wagons and accessories; some dairy-free chocolate; a new top; and some books and DVDs, among other things. Since I'd just been away from home for three days, I wasn't in much of a "going out" mood; however, I did go for a relaxing walk around a local forest in the afternoon, and then to a local Greek restaurant with family members for my actual birthday meal . That, too, was lovely - and I was able to finish it this time, having gone there a little later!

[Moonface]

Yeah when I got close to the cat and saw it's eyes, they were wide open in just a dead stare. I did touch it a few times in hopes it reacted before I picked it up, that would've the second instance where I hoped maybe some life came back as I carried it, but nothing unfortunately. I should have chosen to ditch work, albeit for a little while or long depending on if I'd stay with it. My sister said she may have taken it to a vet if I brought it back home, though I was worried how she'd react right then with a practically dead cat.

Cool for that trivia event at IKEA, got there on a lucky day I guess. Also lucky for that kid you two showed up when you did.

Nice downtime you had yesterday with Shira, kick back and play some games that don't require screens. Surprised you hadn't played Uno before, but yeah it's quite meh with just two players. I can remember which way the +4 (and others like that) cards work, if they can be stacked or not for the next player, because if it is done multiple times, someone could have to pick +16 up or something crazy making that terribly unfair. Or just have only one +4 that gets moved to the next player without stacking, but overwriting the previous +4. Anyway, I have never heard of those variants of Uno before, the only different one I've played is Uno Flip, where the dark side cards be a bit more harsh than the normal side. *checks those other two* Oh, I see No Mercy has a +10....AND that stacking penalties IS mandatory as a rule! I don't particularly like the Liar's one though.

Man, cards can be AI slop now? Actually I shouldn't be surprised. Hope you both have a good time today.

Oh, yeah I'm gonna say it was definitely gone when you found it then. The only hope would be that it being a head injury meant whatever happened was quick.

Well the event was on set days, we just happened to go on the last one and I also don't think IKEA is necessarily gonna get a lot of people with decades of gaming knowledge. And yeah, it was cool that we got to be teamed with the kid because it let her win the prizes too, and we were prepared to let her have the prizes entirely until we learned that each person on the team got a bag of the prizes, even though we were essentially two groups of two people so that meant we got double the prizes. XD

Yeah card games were never really a thing in my parents house, and growing up it was always gonna be easier to do board games and stuff that don't require secrecy so my brother could get help if needed without it obviously exposing his stuff. I think Uno is fine with two people, it just needs better rules for some of the special cards to not end up with half of them doing the same thing. Hand swapping is also really stupid if both people have multiple hand swap cards in their hand because it ends up with just trading back and forth until everyone gets rid of those cards.

So this week has been week one of my coworkers vacation, which doesn't end until November 15, and so far it's not been too bad but I'm practically doing everything solo this time. Normally I'd get help from someone on Tuesday but a new person was hired so they gave me them, but they're incredibly slow so I may as well just not factor them in at all. Today was a shit shift though because once again, nobody came to open the store at 5am so I was stuck sitting outside until 6:10am, which meant I was behind on getting stuff done so I ended my shift with a ton of stuff not done, but whatever, I'm not gonna stay late to do it because management fucked up yet again. Every time I cover for my coworker there's a shift that shit happens on, and nothing is ever done to try and prevent it.

[Mr EliteL]

@Kyng Frick I knew I read that post but didn't comment on it, but Happy Belated Birthday. I just realised you don't have an intro topic, huh. Anyway, I've never been to Bath, quite a while away from where I am. Sounded like you had a good time and on your birthday.

@Moonface Ah, you each got a bag of prizes. Surely though as you were two duos, it would be one for each duo. Were the bags with different prizes even if slightly, or the exact same?

Darn that no opening the store happens way too often, I wonder if that has happened to your coworker too. Good you're sticking to just your shift though despite the later start.

Ah, Halloween, Halloween and all the pumpkins we have. It was at 37 pallets of the stuff on the morning of Sunday, where I got out 5, then came down to 23 yesterday I saw in my shift and got 2 more out, yet we were still being sent more I was told. Tuesday sold a lot when I wasn't there. Also, there was a customer boycott happening, though there wasn't any disruption while I was in, but just less customers as normal even for a Wednesday. Fun times.

Been visiting my Dad a lot, at least once a week or two if necessary. Still not looking good with him unfortunately, slowly getting worse. He still has old habits but has very poor communication, and very poor decision making. We have two reviews coming up, one with a social worker and another at the day care he goes to once a fortnight, which will be twice a week plus allowance to help pay hopefully if nothing gets in the way.

[Moonface]

@Moonface  Ah, you each got a bag of prizes. Surely though as you were two duos, it would be one for each duo. Were the bags with different prizes even if slightly, or the exact same?

Darn that no opening the store happens way too often, I wonder if that has happened to your coworker too. Good you're sticking to just your shift though despite the later start.

Same exact contents, which isn't a bad thing since the stuff in there wouldn't be weird to have multiple of around the house, such as the D-Pad pillows. I still don't actually know the exact stuff though because the bags are still unopened.

Oh it's definitely happened to her, but she has multiple managers phone numbers so when nobody comes she just calls one of them to come deal with it. On the one hand, it's a good idea to stop us sitting outside wasting time but on the other, we're paid to sit out there doing nothing.

Ah, Halloween, Halloween and all the pumpkins we have. It was at 37 pallets of the stuff on the morning of Sunday, where I got out 5, then came down to 23 yesterday I saw in my shift and got 2 more out, yet we were still being sent more I was told. Tuesday sold a lot when I wasn't there. Also, there was a customer boycott happening, though there wasn't any disruption while I was in, but just less customers as normal even for a Wednesday. Fun times.

The heck are the customers boycotting the store for?

[Mr EliteL]

@Moonface: Ah well at least you're getting paid for waiting, haha. I though it might have been like our store where the clock-in machine is inside, so if the doors aren't open, you can't be registered being at work until you've scanned in.

Apparently getting a boycott because of the price hikes we've had recently, and a campaign called "We're Not Buying It", has affected other stores not just Asda too.

[Maniakkid25]

Wednesday was a clusterfuck, and I'm not even talking about my game! I didn't even mention what happened at work. So, TL;DR: I had to refund $6230. In cash. Not 62.30, 6 THOUSAND 2 HUNDRED 30!

So, a guy called a couple hours before hand, asking about sending a large Western Union transaction -- he was expecting 5800. I did warn him there was going to be paperwork and he'll need his ID, and he told me this was the first time doing it. I didn't warn my replacement about that when I went on break, but I came back to the transaction being processed, and as soon as I heard the amount, I was able to tell them "Oh, yeah, this guy!"

He was sending money to France (the engine of a friend's car blew, so she needed a new car), and I could immediately corroborate when asked if anything was going on that there are currently riots due to the cost of living crisis; my point here is that nothing about the transaction actually seemed suspicious. Sure, it was his first ever, but this didn't scream like someone was getting scammed or something.

He didn't know that the exchange rate was constantly fluctuating, so the amount got upped to 6200 -- he wanted to hit 5000 Euros. Add in a 30 dollar fee, it came out to 6230 buckaroos. He actually had the money for it, but we ran into the hurdle that his bank's debit card (for customer safety reasons, you cannot pay credit on a money transfer) only allows 5k to be spent per day. We ended up having to call them twice -- once for the spend limit, and once more to say "yes, I am actually doing this." He then paid the remaining balance in cash, and we close it out.

"Transaction put on hold; please call Western Union."

See, because it was such a large amount, and it was his first Western Union transaction ever, Western Union cancelled the transaction, and we had to refund the full purchase amount. And because he paid in debit, we had to do it in cash. We do not have 6 grand just sitting in a register in case something like this happens! I actually got lucky; we had the cash we needed in the safe, along with enough that we could make tills with it after. So, "borrowed" 4 grand from there, added the rest from the till, and he was repaid in full. Two people did count it multiple times just because it was a huge sum of money, but I'm just glad the customer wasn't mad at us.

Lowkey, I do feel bad for him. This was his first time trying to transfer money, and this is going to be the memory he has of it. But, there's only so much I could do, so I did what I could.

My manager did compliment me on how I handled the situation, so that was nice. And honestly, it never felt like the situation was running out of my control; I was more worried about the customer's frustrations. I'm just glad it went as well as it did. Even if that register thought it was 3 grand in the hole lol.