Sometime around the mid 2010s, I worked at one of Goodwill's busiest locations in the country. So busy we got calls almost every day complaining about the giant fucking traffic snake of donors blocking streets as they all lined up in their suburban safety bubbles to dump their literal garbage into our blue bins.
Absolute shitbox of a store. Run down, dirty, and always a mess. Especially the shoes and toys section. I already hated retail customers but that really sealed the deal. Just a bunch of broke ass motherfucking customers making broke ass workers days even harder. Two of my full-time coworkers were homeless. Those were just the ones I knew about because I worked by their side every day. Despite our poverty wages and grinding hours, I worked with some genuinely good people who cared about each other. It felt like we were all clinging to each other as we drowned in the rising tide that lifts all boats. None of us had so much as a life raft to rest in. Treading water while we gasped between waves of desperation.
Brian, I know you'll never see this but I hope you're still alive and got the help you needed. Daniel, you are far too intelligent and capable to waste your life there. I hope you got out.
A few times I had to visit the allegedly original Goodwill store. You might think if there's one store corporate cares about enough to put a bit of polish on, it would be that one. But no. It looked like the most dystopian shopping experience imaginable. Crumbling architecture, merchandise strewn all over as if the customers were in a fight for their lives, and just like my store, workers who looked ragged, tired, and barely holding it together inside. And there worked at least one young woman with Down Syndrome who I reckon was making about a third of my not-even-close-to-livable wage of $10/hr. I was starting to suspect this Goodwill place isn't in the business of good will. Then I visited the Training and Education Center which also serves as their corporate HQ in Seattle.
It was modern. Spacious. Clean. Safe. Nobody looked poor or unhappy. Any illusions I might have held about Goodwill were entirely shattered beyond any doubt.
I'll never shop or donate there again and I'll take every opportunity to tell anyone who will listen why they should stop patronizing the most for-profit nonprofit I've ever worked for.
Non-millenial here, also watching my payments skyrocket by 440%. Can't get loans with my excellent credit score because my debt to income ratio is super high. At this point it would cost me less to tank my credit, go into default, and be garnished since my credit score is meaningless anyway.
“I actually like having the kids around,” he said, adding that although they were unfamiliar with the “nuances” of Social Security, he was trying to get them to be more thoughtful. “They’re thinking about work differently.”
I respect that this guy is walking a fine line. I think he should speak his mind (I can tell he is trying to be diplomatic here) since he's going to be replaced anyway. But to say the above is just willful self-delusion. Dudek, you know damn well those kids are paid not to think at all. They're there to wreck shit.
I think they're overtrained by fear based training like Killology. They're afraid of everything. I guess we can now add acorns to the long list of things that justify astounding incompetence and willful endangerment of others.
I don't write them down anymore and don't have them as often as I used to but every single one of the future dreams that came to pass were dreams of totally ordinary events and conversations.
Always brief, a moment of realization that it's happening confirmed by the next 10-30 seconds of events. It has always happened in a social setting. At work, at school, but never at home.
Once in a while part of it doesn't happen. For example the future memory included a brief conversation and even though everything else in the moment is just like the dream, the conversation part doesn't come to pass. That has only occurred twice to my recollection.
I personally take it as an indicator that I'm exactly where I'm "supposed" to be, whatever that means.
Cable companies say they'll will raise the price without early termination fees? Oh please. They'll do that whether there's early termination fees or not. They're just threatening to bump it up on the schedule.
But not so shy that you wouldn't get naked on a beach, take a photo, and post it to the internet. I don't think you know what that word means.