It’s been a while but I think it was some of the individual prose that seemed more like Gaiman, mostly like scene setting/ambiance. I only noticed in on a reread I did shortly after reading one of Gaiman’s. On the other hand, all of the memorable stuff like characters, plot, and humor were all very typical Pratchett.

GNU Terry Pratchett <3

Better resumes are good, but there are plenty of studies showing bias towards the name alone on a resume and that a white-sounding name gets more bites than names more associated with a minority race.

People have biases, conscious or not. Did you know that women’s positions in orchestras increased greatly after switching to blind auditions? And I can’t find a legit source in 2 min of searching, but there’s also been indication that the sound of high heels affects hiring outcomes even in blind auditions.

Example studies on names and hiring outcomes: 2004, 2023, 2024 (even the “best” companies still showed a 3% bias towards white candidates vs 24% for the worst), 2016

So yeah, there are a fuckton of steps to addressing systemic racism and starting early in the process is a critical step. But the narrative that an equivalent resume is all that’s needed to close the gap is false and dangerous.

How pickles are made

Blueberries

I was kinda hoping to see blueberry pickles.

My partner and I are right there with you. Could never understand why so many people were so enamored. I tried really hard to like his writing, and there were a few that were ok, and some had a neat concept, but that was the best I could dredge up to say about them.

I doubt I was subconsciously seeing something in them, but I do think there’s a stylistic thing that never resonated with me. And now I’m glad. I am grateful to not feel the grief of losing an artist who meant something to me.

Yeah, that’s occurred to me as well. For context I haven’t brought myself to read the specifics yet, so I don’t know all the details. I don’t like to comment when I’ve only read the title, but I’ve seen enough trigger warnings to put this one off until I’m ready.

Side story: I have a number of dear friends who were huge Gaiman fans, so I tried to be one too. And I just could not. I could hardly get through most of his books. I liked the concept of American Gods but didn’t care for the story and Neverwhere was ok, but I didn’t see what my friends kept going on about.

Then I read Good Omens and loved it. Finally! I was enjoying Gaiman.

Years later, my now-partner introduced me to Discworld. Then I reread Good Omens and realized that everything I enjoyed so much in it almost certainly came from Pratchett, not Gaiman. When you know some of each’s writing, some parts start to stand out as one or the other. And I have no doubt what made that book so great (to me, at least) was Sir Terry’s influence.

Is it awful that a part of me is glad Terry Pratchett is gone and doesn’t have to face this about someone who was a friend and co-writer?

Given how progressive Pratchett’s stories were I would have a hard time believing he was a bad person or could support bad people, and I imagine this would be hard on him. Then again perhaps I’m just selfishly glad that I don’t have to know if he didn’t respond appropriately by distancing himself.

Don’t know if I’m even making sense. This is just so disheartening given how many people I know absolutely loved Gaiman.

Why did “Eye of the Tiger” immediately start playing in my head when I saw this?

I was diagnosed in my 20s but didn’t believe the psychiatrist. She didn’t do extensive testing or anything, just named it and prescribed for it given what I told her about myself and what she observed. I thought she was so wrong.

But the content about it over the past 5 or so years has made me realize how right she was. I understand myself so much better now that I believe that diagnosis and I’m better able to handle the challenges that come with it.

I’m grateful that my generation has become outspoken about mental health and neurodivergence.

Sorry, I’m curious what the “us” here is? I had my first suicidal ideation in 4th grade as well.

As a kid/teen I never thought I’d live past 30. Not necessarily by my hand, but I just felt so sure there was a cut off point for me. Yet I did and I’m still here.

I’m wondering if that may be the Mennonites? Like the Amish, they don’t have social security numbers so the tax code is definitely different for them. I can say with confidence that Quakers don’t have that exclusion.

You and I may know some of the same people! Does the name Max Carter mean anything to you?

Small correction though: the taxes thing isn’t actually true… there were (probably still are, but I’ve not been actively involved in enough years to feel justified making the claim) Quakers who chose to hold a percent of their income tax in escrow rather than give it to the government under the argument that their conscientious objector status should keep their money from going to the military.

It is not a legally recognized stance, and these people risk fees, interest, and legal action for their withholdings. And yet they choose to risk that as a form of peaceful protest.

Your comment dredged up all the memories of a workshop/talk I attended by one of these folks when I was in probably high school? It was not something done lightly or without effort.

It’s making me really happy seeing how many people in the comments here have nice things to say about Quakers!

I don’t remember the incident you’re recalling. Sounds like something my people would do though, lol. What I do think of in terms of Quaker activity at the time is a lot of protests and also Tom Fox, a Quaker taken hostage and killed in Iraq. He was there representing the org Christian Peacemaker Team, which goes to places plagued with violence to do service and good. Unlike missionaries and despite their name, they do not try to convert anyone.

I did not know Tom, but I know many people who did. And despite the very personal loss, the response was doubling down on the efforts to bring peace and stop the war. I think it was a pretty widespread assumption that most Friends organizations were on watch lists.

Leftist Quakers are pretty radical, and pretty awesome.

I mean, they wanted to cash in on the positive reputations Quakers had in business. While not being Quaker. And not implementing any of their business practices AFAIK. Plus their logo is of a traditional Puritan and has nothing to do with Quakers.

I think “deceptive” is a fair word.

There are also multiple branches of Quakerism. I greatly appreciate the person above speaking about it because they truly covered the way the Quaker meetings I was raised in are and the kinds of people I have spent so much of my life around.

However, there are other branches that don’t deserve the same praise. There are evangelical Quakers and while they aren’t as bad as what that word usually implies, they also aren’t exactly deserving of the description above. Nixon was born into one of the evangelical Quaker branches.

Source: grew up Quaker. Literally have a minor degree in Quaker studies, lol. (It’s been a while and I’m not active in any meetings or organizations these days, but I’ll always be grateful for the values it instilled in me and the community I found from it.)

Yeah, and that’s also the time that people who are grieving are likely to feel like they should be moving on, but that’s rarely the case. Having someone else acknowledge that it’s still ok if it’s still a difficult time can be really validating.

I recently reached out to a coworker whose dog died and said, “I’ve been thinking about you and [Dog’s name]. I hope you’re finding moments of comfort and are doing as well as you can. I just wanted you to know you’re in my thoughts.”

I recently lost my cat and know when a couple people reached out with similar comments it meant a lot.

The first time I ever took a Myers-Briggs assessment was on paper and every question was A or B. There was one where I was a perfect 50/50 split and could NOT choose a preference for either, so I scored it as .5 for each.

That .5 difference gave me an equal score for introvert and extrovert.

Since then I’ve taken a more professional assessment at work, and it shows how strongly I fit into the category. Like you, they were nearly all ~47-53% between the two.

Some other assessments have been intriguing imo, but Myers-Briggs has never suited me because of their dichotomy BS.

Yeah I’m sure I could have gotten more a bit faster and I’m pretty sure I’d make more with my title at many other companies, but environment and quality of life are worth more to me.

The company’s culture is fantastic for many reasons. It’s a well-known brand with ~2k corporate employees and while others are mandating RTO, my CEO has gone on public record multiple times to reinforce that we are a work-from-anywhere company. Also while there have been constant layoffs in the news over the past year, our last layoff was in 2021 (and relatively small). Layoffs under our CEO aren’t a fact of life while our prior CEO relished the twice annual layoff and is still doing that at the company he runs now.

Plus I genuinely like the work I do and love the people I work with. Now that I make money well beyond my means, I care way more about culture than chasing another buck.

Comments like yours remind me why I’m so damn lucky and grateful for my job…

In February I’ll have been there 10 years, and my salary is almost 150% more than when I started (which was above $50k for context).

I’ve gotten annual ~3% “raises” each year, as well as one role change (+11%), two promotions (+25% and +13%), and a raise I pushed for (+12%). The first promotion, my boss literally called me on a Tuesday and said I had a new title and my raise was effective as of the Saturday before.

I share this to remind people these kinds of companies do exist, even if they’re the exception.

My guess is they work across multiple locations (Market) and manage personnel (People Lead). Everything up to that title seems likely to be related to just the one location.

Field offices for my company have team leads oversee 3 locations. Not sure how it would work in fast food, but that’s what I’m drawing my guesses from.