Ash_the_nerd

so here's a super long post about strokes in general, and mine in particular/what I went through.

I was trained in the dark arts of the cover letter by my mother, who is a hiring manager. And her training has paid off: I've been consistently told my cover letters are excellent. Let me pass on the wisdom.

The job of a cover letter is to give a prospective employer strictly more information than is on the resume. This is where you take the resume contents and put them into context. You look at the job requirements (you are looking at the job requirements before applying, right?) and look at your resume and ask the question (in your head) "why would a person think this candidate would be good for this job?" and your cover letter is the answer to that question. If you don't answer that question, the hiring manager is going to have to do it themselves, and you have way more information to work with than they do.

This is especially important if you're moving from one industry to another, because then the relevant connections aren't obvious. It's also very important if you're overqualified, because then you can use the letter to say "I know it looks like this job would be too entry-level for me, but I'm interested to pursue it for reasons x, y, and z". You can also use this space to explain away something that might otherwise be disqualifying, like job-hopping or a long break in employment. The tone to strike here is always matter-of-fact and constrained to topic - don't go into detail about health stuff or personal tragedy, just tell them what they need to hear: that this period of your resume was affected by [bad thing] but that it's now in the past and you're looking forward to the next chapter. Remember, one of the things they're trying to learn is whether you'd be content in this role, or whether you'd be miserable and leave after 2 months, which would force them to do all the work of hiring again. You're trying to establish that you will fit right in and not cause problems. Knowing what drew you to this job in particular (and don't just say 'money', that's true for everyone) helps with that.

Aeolus and his wind bag

Odysseus meeting his mother Anticlea in the underworld. It hurts his heart to see she died of grief waiting for him to return.

The horror after Odysseus' men butcher the sun god's cows. The meat starts mooing on the skewers, the cowhides slither along the ground, and the carcasses get up and start moving like live cattle. It would've made for some great horror.

Penelope testing her husband by saying she moved the wedding bed (one of its posts was carved from an olive tree and the whole palace was built around it so you would have to uproot it to move the bed). Odysseus gets irate hearing that it was moved and his reaction is how she knows it's not Zeus in disguise (recall that Zeus is not above shapeshifting into women's husbands)

Telemachus nearly stringing Ody's bow on his first try with no prior knowledge but Ody secretly signals for him to stop

But on the internet people describe their ideas in the most shocking and extreme way possible as a way of sifting out people who are "really" on their side

That is bad for forming a movement or sparking any kind of action

it's gotten so outrageous that people will have an idea like "we should have a strong public transportation system that is accessible to everyone" but they will express it like "FUCK CARS! WE SHOULD BAN CARS! IF YOU LIKE TO DRIVE YOU'RE A FASCIST! NO ONE NEEDS A CAR!"

This causes everyone to get into arguments about whether it is true that no one needs a car, and whether banning cars would make places inaccessible for people with certain disabilities.

The whole time we don't need to "ban cars" to have public transportation and it makes no sense why we are talking about it

Cut 2 of the most famous adventures for 6 minutes of fleeing the giants

Cut the Nobody scene entirely

De-hottied Circe and made her overly-emotional and reactive and falsely accuse the men of being rape threats. No nymphs or magic besides the soup.

Had the Trojan horse portrayed as a war crime so bad it ended society and was deeeefinitely the worst and most dishonorable thing done in the Trojan war (cut the rapes from the sacking of Troy while still trying to make it a symbol of lost society so they just stab a lot of women and wax esoteric??)

Slander Menelaus and Helen. :’-] he did not drag her back as his slave queen they’re literally one of like 2 endgame-still-ok Greek couples. (Speaking of weird changes in the family, they keep Agamemnon killing his daughter, but totally leave out what he did to Cassandra)

Odysseus actively doesn’t want to get home to Penelope and Telemachus

Mentor is just some guy 100% of the time instead of usually Athena.

Odysseus is neither a wife guy nor sufferer of hubris (that is not my beautiful king that is not my beautiful general)

The gods just aren’t there. They de-god Calypso and also sort of do the lotus eaters as just her (but not. It’s bad). Hermes? Gone. Poseidon? Poseidon who. Zeus? Helios? Nah. Athena? You think so but no, that’s just Odysseus and his PTSD talking to himself.

The gods aren’t there but one of the messages is to give yourself up to God’s control and to let go of trying to carve your own path? Which Odysseus does??? Confusing and off target. 0s across the board.

They cut all the humor. No naked Odysseus. Not a laugh was had.

Odysseus won’t let Telemachus help him fight the suitors bc ‘you’d be exiled’ and then runs away with Penelope at the end instead of the remotely normal ending to the book. Why? I don’t know

I can’t tell you what it’s about bc even though it was 3 hours every scene felt like the sparks notes version, but my best guess is ‘it’s ok if society collapses bc it will rise again’???

Shot like someone who didn’t go to film school made it. Scene 1 Nolan was cutting to people every time they spoke I was dying. No audio off-camera so cringe. Also insane camera movements like did we need a push in for the 0.5 second cut to a servant listening in? Was that 0.5 seconds not gripping enough? Really??? Dude what are you doing

Why was Tiresias moving like a worm in the sand

The hunting dog got more screen time and character arc than Calypso

Every woman was handled badly. Every single one. Actually Clytemnestra was fine she was there for like 15 seconds but they were ok. Otherwise though just badly handled every single time and in gods’s bizarrest ways (what if Telemachus and Penelope fought over which one of them was good for the throne. What if Calypso wasn’t holding Odysseus hostage or sacrificing her eternal happiness by letting him go. What if Circe was a crazy emotional middle aged woman who sees all men as rapists and turns them into pigs for no reason but she’s neurotic)

seriously it’s so weird to get back to Ithica without seeing Hermes, Athena, or Poseidon once — but they’re not plot relevant, right?

Odysseus is personally responsible for the fall of Greek civilization bc of the Trojan horse trick. He basically nuked civilization. (Yes all of it bc that’s the only civilization at this time. What do you mean no it’s not that’s crazy I mean I’m p sure it’s just Greece)

Cut the whole ‘only my husband would know that’ thing with Penelope and the wedding bed

Stole the exact amount of one of Jorge’s songs you legally can

Didn’t let Odysseus go full feral in the finale

Not a Greek in sight in the main cast. Just lots of Americans and other Europeans. Really bad costume design too. And set design.

Literally start ‘the Odyssey’ with Odysseus home in Ithaca already. 98% is a flashback. First version of the Odyssey ever both thematically and literally not about going home

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.