This comment thread now feels uniquely American.
I have never heard those songs, in the 90s at school and scout camps in Australia we would sing Ging Gang Goolie, Alice the Camel, and Ain't no Flies.
Also for some reason we would chant about how ugly and unlovable we are and resign ourselves to eating worms.... Children's songs are so unhinged.
Super old? 2016?
Brisbane? Their metro is literally a bus 😂 the council are so proud of it too.
Our public transport in Vic leaves much to be desired but at least we have a well developed tram system that reduces the number of tyres in the collective fleet.
We did just outlaw e-scooters which was necessary because the infrastructure and community education wasn't there and it was dangerous. But long term e-scooters do serve a place in a less car reliant community. Bike infrastructure investment is decades behind what it needs to be.
Much like everywhere, the oversized nature of "yank tanks" seems to be a large factor in every single thing wrong with cars and car infrastructure these days.
Smaller, lighter cars don't wear through their tyres as fast 🤷
And then you lose any loyalty or banked credits because it's technically a "New contract"
I had 100GB of data credit in my pre paid phone plan. I got 2GB a month for $5 unlimited talk and text starting in 2014, it's a good deal for me. And you can imagine how long it took to bank 100GB even with the occasional free bonus data promo.... That plan was replaced with a more expensive one but somehow I got grandfathered in to the cheap plan.
So naturally I didn't want to rock the boat when I was getting my phone for $5 a month (their cheapest plan now is $20)
But they finally caught on and moved me to the $20 this year, they automatically transferred my data bank and sent me the new terms.
I double checked and while this was their cheapest monthly plan the 6 month plan would save me $80 in the long term so I called to get swapped and they said that I'd lose my data bank because it was a new contract. I argued that they changed my contract and I should have had an opportunity to choose which new contract my data gets transferred to.
I spent ages debating it, but there was nothing the rep or their supervisor could do to reward my 10 years with their company or compensate me for the service I had pre paid for (data) that they now expected me to subscribe to on their new terms to be able to access despite the contract I signed saying something totally different.
Their leading budget competitor had the exact same overall rate but for a yearly pre paid plan, and new customers got a 150GB data bank start up bonus. So my phone bill is paid up for the year now and I've still got a decent chunk of data and it didn't cost more than I was prepared to pay the old company.
(and yes I do use it, I'm a substitute teacher so I'm always using my phone as a hot spot when I'm at a different school)
People's work preferences are their own, these guys are having fun, good for them.
I always maintained I can't work from home, I was forced to teach via zoom during lock downs and even now my job is hybrid, I teach in person in a shared classroom but I don't have an office, I do all my prep and notes from home. Only I don't. My productivity genuinely dropped when I lost my office.
Then I house sat for a friend who had a home office and I realised I can work from home, just not my home, because it's not set up for work and my head space in my home can't flip to that "productive mode".
So now I go to the local library, which is better than my house but still not as good as an office because it's still distracting.
But it depends on the type of work, I prefer lesson planning alone in quiet peace, I get so much done, but when we're developing community events I love being in our open staff room with laptops out, some of us sitting on the floor, others standing and just shooting ideas around, we always get so much done.
But I've worked in other centres where that level of collaboration and communication wasn't there - we didn't have the right mix of personality types, and a workplace like my current staffroom would be chaos and nothing would get done.
I do it mostly so when I get home I can add to my stash of bags for scooping doggy poop.
It seems crazy to buy a roll of brand new plastic bags for dog poo when produce bags are available, and I'm buying produce. For certain vegetables they actually store well in the bags with a tea towel thrown in, so sure a container, and mesh bag would do the same job, but then I'd also need to buy dog poo bags and that feels like a waste.
I keep the plastic packaging from the frozen Peas and the sliced bread and between that and produce bags I've got enough. I could buy compostable/biodegradable bags if I'm worried about waste, but I don't have access to composting so it's still going in landfill and it doesn't break down properly there.
In Australia a Duvet is called a "Doona" (Du-Nah) and is different from an American comforter.
We also have "American comforters" but they don't need a cover, the whole thing can frequently and easily go in the wash, but a doona/duvet requires a huge process to launder, so you always put a cover on it.
Weighted blanket should be about 8%—14% of your body weight depending on why you're using it, hard to tell how thick the rings are but you could get 5-7kg from that blanket which would be hefty enough for a petite person.
I'm Australian and was always told the cover letter was unnecessary, especially if your CV has a bio.
The cover letter was for additional information not covered by the resume - name dropping the manager at the company you know who inspired you to apply, explaining why it appears your changing industries, justifying "overqualifications", mentioning a personal hobby that's relevant to the industry and isn't technical work experience.
Basically the things you plan to bring up in the interview to wow them, you can introduce them while introducing yourself in a cover letter.
But if your resume lines up with the position description, you don't need a cover letter.
Basically I was told a cover letter is necessary when you're a burnt out nurse or teacher applying to be a cashier at kmart to avoid having your resume immediately thrown out.
That said. I've literally never written one, even as a serial industry hopper. If there's no email address to send my resume too, then the system is too auto for a cover letter and they don't want to read it anyway, if there is an email address, just include a few lines of a short cover letter in the body text of the email before attaching your resume.
In Australia cigarettes are sold behind the counter, all packets are identical brown with plain white text with the brand. You can't smoke them in public, and they're one of the highest taxed products (a 25 pack will easily cost you $50)
And yet we still have a major smoking problem here.
Mostly because of black market fags, $20 illegal import packs, and "vape wars". It's shocking when a tabbaconist shop doesn't get fire bombed by a competing shop.
That said, the tax revenue is nice, if people wanna smoke the rest of the community may as well get something out of it.
Tax the birdie.
This, when I've got a new program or a program has updated I take my time to familiarise myself with it, it takes me more than five minutes because I'm visually impaired and have a learning disability, but it doesn't take that long and I have fun exploring the program without pressure.
But when a program updates the UI the morning I start work and I realise I've got 5 minutes to figure out where everything has moved? It's overwhelming and unfortunately I have a "freeze" response to stress and it took me years of therapy to push through that gut instinct to freeze up and just stare at it feeling like it's too much and I can't.
That said, I do still really struggle to find the button mid-meeting. I can vamp, but I can't vamp while properly searching my screen because with my visual impairment that takes too much concentration, so the result is "okay I'm going to share my screen, but my UI has updated so everyone go refresh your coffees while I hunt down the screen share button" and some helpful person will try to explain where the button is, not understanding that my screen doesn't look like there's because I have adaptive software making things larger.
Though a few times I've logged a ticket to IT saying "I'm sorry, I know the issues exists between keyboard and chair on this one, I can't for the life of me find the print button" and they'll remote into my machine and say "oh, that's because you're enlarged font has pushed half your toolbar off the screen entirely. You're missing a bunch of features" and suddenly it made sense why I felt like my co-workers were more efficient in these programs. Unfortunately they couldn't fix it so I still have to work around only being able to see half the screen of this program they suggested "returning everything to the original aspect ratio and getting better glasses"
My boss seems to think our little 2 man IT department can fix Adobe's bad adaptive UI.
The "Bail out Bed" was a flawed idea because no one wants to get up and relocate in the middle of the night and interrupt their sleep cycles.
He snores, he always snores, tonight won't be any different, so why don't I just start in the bail out bed so once I fall asleep I stay asleep and the human freight train I shacked up with doesn't wake me up.
He finally got a Cpap last year for his obstructive sleep apnoea.
but we'd slept in separate beds for 5 years, and I was used to sleeping alone and having full control over my temperature and I'm a fidgety sleeper, so we couldn't get used to sharing a bed again.
I think both of us being well rested and refreshed each day is more important to the health of our relationship than sharing a bed. If we're not fatigued, headachey and cranky, we can spend quality time together outside of bed.