limelight79

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limelight79 ,

I have a meeting later today for an employee who requested a reasonable accommodation to work from home for medical reasons, and it was declined (by the people who review the RA requests, not by me). The employee, like the rest of us, have been doing the job for over four years from home; how can anyone possibly make the case at this point that they need to come into the office?

The meeting description has a sentence in it that clearly states the medical documentation was sufficient to support working from home. So why are we having this meeting?

I, of course, completely support her request and will argue for it, if necessary. I wish I could come up with a similar justification for myself, honestly, but I cannot, and I'm not going to game the system and possibly affect people who really do need it.

(Our employer's whole return-to-office thing is driven by outside forces that have little to do with our work. I suspect our leadership would continue work from home if they could. Unfortunately their supervisors do not agree.)

limelight79 ,

Thanks. Part of me wants to find an employer similar to yours, the other part of me is like, hey, I'm planning to retire in like 7 years.

There's a LOT of concern over what this return-to-office plan will do to staff - we think quite a few people will find other jobs. A few have said so out loud; who knows how many more are planning the same quietly (of course, some people also talk a big game, but when push comes to shove...will they really?). We're also running into more issues hiring; another manager I know had a candidate decline because the position wasn't remote and they didn't want to move here. When I talk to candidates, it's now the first thing I check, even before I schedule the interview - no point in wasting time for either of us if it's a non-starter.

It's kind of weird - we only have to go in once a week, which actually isn't that bad at all - for those of us who already live in the area. But it's harder to convince people to move across the country to a high cost of living location so they can sit in their apartment 4 of 5 days each week. But we have to support the local Popeye's fast food joint, I guess.

limelight79 ,

I don't - for us it's really supposedly about the surrounding businesses, as though we all go out to lunch every day.

limelight79 ,

Update: They kicked me out of the meeting. The employee's first-line supervisor was still in it, and it was really short - they basically asked if the employee could do the job remotely or not. It sounded like they were going to approve the request. This whole meeting setup is very strange; it's never happened before on any accommodation request I've been involved with (maybe half a dozen over the years). Maybe they review a few at random or something.

limelight79 ,

Chug-chug-chug? Are you sure you weren't in a steam locomotive?

limelight79 ,

My wife got into that lularoe shit. We set a limit, which she promptly blew past. You just had all these people, including the owners, telling you to buy buy buy.

They prey on people's insecurities. They take advantage of them.

Call my wife stupid, I'm sure someone will because this is Lemmy where everyone is self righteous, but I think you don't really understand the power of manipulation these companies wield until you see it firsthand. It's actually really sad and dangerous what they do to people. And my wife has a successful career and makes 6 figures, we don't need the money, but they still had her convinced she had to do this. I thought it would be a side hobby for her, but they were not kind to her. (Well, they were, but only to get money.)

I remember trying to warn her that the company makes money when she buys, not when she sells. I don't think it sunk in, and let's face it, that's how retail works in general. But with regular retail, you control what you get - Lularoe just sent whatever quantity of leggings, blouses, dresses, etc you ordered. You had no control over the patterns. I'm not sure if you even got to pick what sizes you received.

Early on I helped, but I got tired of spending time and energy so she could sell one pair of leggings. She went to a few group sales things and would spend hours sitting there, plus all the prep and tear down time, plus gas, all to sell like three things. She only went to two of those.

A host of other companies jumped in to help, for a price. Website. Square. Stamps.com.

We still have some in the basement. I want to burn it, but we donate some to charities now and then, and occasionally neighbors and friends will come raid it (we give it to them free). We started watching the documentary on Amazon about it, but never finished. My wife was just too angry.

One meeting we went to before she got into it had the head of Lularoe on video conference. She talked about having "600 new arts each week", ie 600 patterns. That comment runs through my head every time I see a particularly ugly lularoe pattern.

Ehhh at least I got a new camera out of it, for taking pictures of the stock.

I joined the antimlm sub on reddit for a while hoping for advice and info, but it was just a very negative sub, mocking people and no helpful advice. I unsubbed after a few weeks. Fortunately my wife eventually figured it out.

You're not going to stop people from doing this by showing them numbers. You have to realize it's an emotional thing. They are preying on emotions. You have to find a way to fight that.

limelight79 ,

Yep. Anyone who doesn't support you is actively working against you.

It's really disturbing.

limelight79 ,

It might just be a joke. I use transitions in my cycling glasses, where I might be in shade or when it starts to get dark (but I'll still have something protecting my eyes). I use regular sunglasses in the car, as transitions generally won't work there.

limelight79 ,

Yeah, I've used mine while cycling in freezing temperatures without an issue.

limelight79 ,

I prefer to cut the top off.

limelight79 OP ,

For the shed wiring job…

First, switch wiring. Normally when you wire a light switch, you have your 14-2 (or 12-2, or whatever, I’ll use 14-2 but the gauge isn’t really relevant) coming into the box, then another 14-2 wire leaving the box, and the two black (hot) wires are connected to the switch. A sequential setup, if you will: Power, switch, light. A simple diagram.

However, in certain situations, it’s more convenient to run only one 14-2 to the box. For example, you might do this if you have a supply of constant power at the light fixture, but no source of constant power near the light switch. So, you bring the supply 14-2 into the box, and then use a single 14-2 to run to the switch. The black wire is connected to the supply at the light and one terminal of the switch, and then you connect white to the other terminal of the switch, and back to the light in the first box. You are supposed to mark the white on both ends to indicate it is being used as hot rather than neutral. Here’s a diagram of the setup.

I think of it as a giant T - supply power comes in the top left, light is on the top right, and the vertical line is the wire to the switch that carries supply hot and switched hot on the “wrong” wire. It’s useful when there’s no power source near the switch, but there is power at the light fixture it controls.

Note that in the box at the light, you’d have three 14-2 wires coming in (6 conductors plus 3 grounds) - supply, power for the light, and the run for the switch.

Okay. It’s like the previous owner of our house learned this trick…and wanted to use it everywhere.

So, there’s a box in the shed that has:

  • A constant supply coming in.
  • A constant supply going out to outlets in the shed. (No GFCI, but we’ll ignore that issue for this discussion.)
  • TWO of these fucking T setups. One controls a light in the next shed, and one controls a light in the shed this box is in. Each one of these generates TWO sets of wires (supply is already accounted for in the first bullet).

So, I have 6 sets of wires coming into this box (hot, neutrals, and grounds). Oh and on at least one of them, he switched the neutrals, not the hots, so there are white wires serving as hot (unmarked, naturally) and who knows what else is going on. At the very least it’s a violation of the code for the amount of conductors in that size of box.

The worst part, though: It wasn’t necessary.

  • Both light switches are near outlets that have constant power that could easily supply the switches.
  • The light in the second shed could run directly to the switch that controls it, and that would have saved wire and complexity, and make diagnosing an issue much easier. There’s no reason to run that complex circuit.
  • The lights in the first shed, where the box is, are somewhat near the box, but not so close that the complexity of this setup is worth it.
  • Even if he did want to supply the switches directly from that box for some reason, he could still cut it down to FOUR sets of wires in the box, with no unusual usage of wires and a much more understandable setup.

It’s insane. I’m going to redo it soon, and I don’t think I’ll need to buy ANY supplies to do that. In fact I bet I’ll have extra wire when I’m done (I may need smaller wire nuts, which I have already).

limelight79 OP ,

Yeah you’re probably right. Which reminds me, he was a bomb technician. And he had all of his fingers. So clearly he understood electricity for that purpose…

limelight79 OP ,

My house is wired that way, or at least the living room is. And that was done by the builders.

limelight79 OP ,

I can’t see what the problem would be, honestly. (I’m not an electrician, though.)

What are "complicated" taxes that require a professional? (USA)

I always see advice about which software to use and there’s always the advice that FreeTaxUSA is the best bang for your buck and does everything you need for when your taxes are “simple.” I’ve used and thought it was great for years. But as my career has grown and no longer filed as a single I’ve begun to question when...

limelight79 ,

Don’t forget to consider the amount of time you spend figuring this out, and any peace of mind you’d gain by having a pro do them for you if you were ever audited or contacted by the IRS. So it may be worth the money to have someone so it, if it frees up your time to do something that is in your wheelhouse.

limelight79 ,

I kind of doubt that. Mustangs exist in part to bring buyers into the dealers. They actually buy a new Edge or Explorer, because there’s now a link in the buyer’s mind between Mustang performance and Edge performance. Same with Corvettes and Chevrolet dealers, for example. Halo cars.

limelight79 ,

No, farmers are buying them to do work. His point is that they couldn’t afford them if there weren’t huge subsidies for farmers. If those subsidies didn’t exist, farmers would still need pickups, so the manufacturers would almost have to come up with cheaper models, or they’d lose sales to companies that do.

limelight79 ,

I wasn’t blaming farmers for anything. I was holding them up as an example of someone that legitimately likely needs a pickup. And if tax breaks are available to them, why shouldn’t they take advantage of them? You can argue the subsidies shouldn’t be there, and perhaps they shouldn’t, but they are, and I don’t blame people for taking advantage of them.

Similar situation: Education has gotten so expensive, possibly because student loans are so readily available. If there were no loans available, few people could afford college, so it seems very likely the colleges would find ways to make it less expensive…or a bunch would go out of business.

I am neither young nor an urbanite.

limelight79 ,

Yeah but you need to know when they’d be sleeping, for example, so you still need to figure something out related to time differences.

limelight79 ,

It really looks like one of the ones on my Airstream. It’s almost exactly the same size even. This company makes well-regarded replacements.

limelight79 ,

They did make them sign a loyalty oath in the 2016 election, because they assumed Trump would lose the nomination and then start his own party or, at the very least, continue bashing the other candidates.

limelight79 ,

Mods on reddit do not have that ability.

limelight79 ,

Reddit admins have the ability. Mods do not.

limelight79 ,

Reddit admin has been pretty consistent about letting mods run the subs the way they want, except in cases where the mods are encouraging brigading or breaking laws. For the former, they’ll let that go a few years before they do anything about it, though.

Putting aside your specific situation: Threatening a site-wide ban for circumventing a sub’s ban comes from dealing with users that are complete pieces of shit and refuse to follow the sub rules and keep coming back with new accounts to troll. The site has to raise the stakes to get them to stop; what other options are there? I’ve been active on online forums for years; one had to ban a whole city for a while because users there kept logging in and starting shit (they were coordinating with each other).

On the other hand, if the user started another account and followed the sub’s rules, who would even think to check? It’s unlikely that person would get a sitewide ban.

limelight79 ,

I had a blade on my riding mower snap one time, apparently it was damaged from hitting something solid at some point. The racket from that was impressive. It sounded like the mower was completely coming apart, so I was actually relieved when I saw the broken blade. Of course, then I couldn’t finish mowing, because I had to wait to get new blades.

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