I'm a dinosaur

ultimate mass effect meme [3/3] villains → reapers

I work in customer support, and 99% of my job is interacting directly with customers. In an average week, I have around 300 live chats with customers. This is just chat, this doesn’t count emails or phone support.

In the year and a half since I’ve been in my current job, I have: repeatedly been called a bitch and a cunt; been told to go fuck myself and to fuck off; been explicitly propositioned for sexual favors; I have been repeatedly harassed by at least two men who describe to me in detail the state of their genitals; have had multiple customers pretend to have medical emergencies/pretend to be dying; have heard basically every disgusting thing you can think of regarding bodily functions, and then some.

Do I enjoy those chats when I get them? No. But do you know what I really, really dread? The kinds of chats that really stress me out? It’s chats like the one in the pictures.

It’s chats in which the customers aren’t being explicitly awful. Where their harassment is mild, conversations that, on the surface, are downright pleasant. Because every time I end a chat of this nature, every time I make the decision to ban a customer from our chat service, I have to defend it. I have to go to my employer and explain to them why I think a customer acted inappropriately enough that I refused to help them potentially spend money on our service or product.

And it’s so, so hard to explain this kind of harassment, the kind of menace these chats communicate. William Holcomb up there, he doesn’t care that I’m a person, because to him I’m not. I’m not a person he’s ‘flirting’ with - I’m very far away, so far away in fact that I’m an object. I’m an easy target. He knows that as long as he isn’t too obvious, he can keep me on chat and play whatever game he came to play. He knows he has power over me that I don’t want him to have.

Now, I’m lucky. My current employer is wonderful about these kinds of situations, and gives me the latitude to act on my best judgement. But I’m still working for a company that’s trying to make a profit, and that’s in the back of my mind whenever situations like this pop up, which is not infrequently. And I haven’t always worked for companies who cared about their employees in this way. Lots of CS agents don’t either.

This is not flirting, and it isn’t funny. This is harassment, of someone who can’t really tell you to stop.

Do you see that? Looks like a joke image, right? Well, it isn’t.

This happens in Venezuela. It looks like nobody knows how is our crisis, because I’ve talked with a lot of people (Americans, French, Canadian and even Mexican people) who really don’t know what is happening.

I’ll explain the imagen.

In Venezuela, we haven’t medicines, even in the hospitals. This is because a patient with hypoglycemia is being attended in this way, because the hospital don’t have dextrose for the people. This is happening in Caracas, Venezuela’s capital. But not only in Caracas, is confirmed that in Maracaibo too, and who know where too.

Another cases:

“I take prednisone for animals because I can’t found it anywhere and it helps me, isn’t logic, but our health can’t wait”

“Confirmed, I’m medic performing in so many decadency. We even’t have privates places for dextrose for decompensated diabetics and believe me I could write for hours about so many that I’ve lived in the middle of this catastrophic crisis, where personally I’ve take with me a hurted pacient behind of a 350 because we haven’t ambulances, where we haven’t gloves for protect ourselves and a lot of  things like that, this is the reality…. It must be give “ORALLY” because the drink is rich in glucose (Sugar) for these pacients this imagen showes [She means the soda imagen] how is conected to a micromanager where it doesn’t looks very good… But it’s valid by an OROGASTRIC probe. As a heroic way, becase like we know “It’s incorrect”.

I even can give my own testomony. My mom is sick, and she must work everyday, I can’t help her because my leg is broken, and my brother must help his own family. She’s in pain everyday, and the money is too hard to found. If there’s money, but there’s no medicine. And, if there’s medicine, there’s no money, because all the treatments are very expensive, like everything, for our inflation on the 1600%.

Since 2014, our crisis is worse with the health zone. There’s no too many medicines, and a lot of operations and treatments are delayed for this same reason.

The hospitals don’t have spaces, litters or beds for the patients.

If you go to a farmacy, there’s no medicine.

A lot of hospitals are in a terrible state.

Supplies that were lacking in public hospitals included sterile gloves and gauze, antiseptics, alcohol for medical use, scalpels, needles, catheters, intravenous solutions, nebulizers and surgical sutures. It was even common to lack basic cleaning supplies (such as bleach), which are essential to ensure a sterile environment in hospitals. Unhealthy conditions have led to in-hospital infections that could have been prevented.

And this is only talking about the health zone.

If we talk about the food shortage and the hyper inflation…

We must do LOOOOOONG lines for hours for buy the basic food. Like flour, sugar, rice, pasta, meat, chicken…. 

We only can buy one time at the week, for the last number of our ID. 

Please - someone IN Venezuela. Give me a name. A valid website. Something. I will do my damnedest to make something happen, even if it’s just a few families getting fed a few days.

The only way we have to fight this crisis is through social media, we use twitter to find meds and food and we came up with a few apps like Donamed or Akiztá to help us find what we need. 

There are a bunch of twitter accounts dedicated to locate meds, such as: @spvzla, @MedicinasEquiv, @Flapastillita, @compartex1vida, @sanandove, @Donatumed, @AyudaMedicinasV y @DonandoMedicin1

For the people out there that want to help, like I said… it’s hard to tell you how you could do that because there’s no warranty that we’ll get the help. Still, I won’t let them win so I did my research and I found a few websites that I think you guys can trust and can donate to.

http://comparteporunavida.com/ —> With your donation, this people get formula and nutritional suppliments for children in hospitals and homes in need.

http://www.ayudahumanitariavenezuela.org/english.html —> You can go to their online shop to buy medical supplies from a wish list, which are then delivered to those in need.

https://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/donate/sponsor-a-child/ —> I think you can choose and sponsor a Venezuelan child.

http://www.chamos.org.uk/about-us/ —> They provide financial support for children to acquire medical, educational or other essential equipment.

http://www.corazonymanosenaccion.com/dona_ahora.htm —> The thing with this site is that the bank accounts they work with are from here, so I don’t know the process when it’s an international donation.

The other sites I could find two gofundme created by people like you and me, I hope they mean well and that the money they receive reaches the people who really need it.

https://www.gofundme.com/FoodtoVenezuela

https://www.gofundme.com/help-venezuela

If anyone knows more valid websites where people can go and make their donation, please feel free to add it.

I figure it all ties back into some of same concepts that underwrite “fake” geek girls, friendzoning, rape apology, and other things of that ilk: namely, that men think the sexual fantasy is a power fantasy.

When creating a powerful woman, men seem to have this automatic jump to making said powerful woman a sex object, because they truly think sexiness is powerful. For them, that’s what female power is: power over men. This is behind all the guys howling that sexy geek girl cosplayers are “preying” on male nerds; this is behind all the men who say women deserve rape for what they wear; this is behind all those “friendzoned” guys who insist they can’t possibly break off the “friendship” themselves because they’re helpless before the objects of their affection. It allows them to disclaim their actions as coerced, shunt away responsibility, and blame women when things don’t go as they like. They “couldn’t resist” the power of attraction.

In comics, men both don’t understand that their male power fantasies aren’t sexy for women (horrendously muscled, bodybuilder physique is NOT typically a sexual ideal), and don’t understand why women don’t derive power fantasy from the sex appeal of the female heroes. “Look,” they’re saying, “you are portrayed as powerful, and men are portrayed as sexy!” This also slots in with the idea that women are only in anything ever because of men – that their desire to attract men is one of the principal driving forces of their existence. That, therefore, the power to attract men should be important to them in a “strong” female character.

I’ve thought about this too much today and it’s goddamn depressing. It’s the same bullshit which says a woman’s only power, her only worth, is in her physical attractiveness, that women are only powerful in relation to men. I don’t really think I can safely contemplate it more right now.

Sorry to reblog myself but okay there’s more. I had to go back to work after I posted this earlier and there’s nothing to do at work but think (monotonous job is monotonous) and even though it’s depressing I couldn’t think about anything else once I got started. /storyofmylife

So inherent in all of the above is the basic concept that men are sexy because they are powerful, and women are powerful because they are sexy. This is predicated on the notion that men have power stemming from something about them as people, whereas women have power stemming from how much they deserve the attention of men. Men not only provide power to women, but they do so by losing power themselves. You guys, maybe this is why men think power is a zero sum game: because they think that women only have power when they are overpowering men with their sexy sexiness.

Fake geek girls, specifically, have an element of dominance issue to them. Look at those hot girls, swanning into fandom, taking away not only attention and material goods (limited fandom resources, such as collector’s editions and etc., has been discussed elsewhere) but also stealing their very wills from them. Better put those girls in their place, because otherwise they’ll be the ones with the power, on account of they have mammaries, and unlike those chicks in comic books they’re not safe paper-and-ink mammaries created solely to be ogled!

Also, since this is all about false equivalence, may I go on a tangent here and talk about realism? Because comics, at least American comics, portray physical dimensions/characteristics for men that are outrageous and close to impossible. Professional bodybuilders can do it but it looks freaking unnatural. No reasonable person expects all men to actually go out and try to become that. However, the way women look in comics is still the way most men, including many who consider themselves quite reasonable, expect women to look. Male superheroes are escapism for men, so they can be as unrealistic as they need to be; female superheroes are also escapism for men, so there’s a limit on how unrealistic they can be. Although niches exist for all kinds of physical-dimension fetishes, women in comics are idealizations of what the men reading/writing those comics would want to have sex with, and so they’re kept pretty close to society’s ideal beauty standards (which, while unrealistic also, are not considered to be such by most men). Let me put it this way: a drawing of a crowded street in which you replace all the men with bodybuilders would look bizarre and ridiculous; a drawing of a crowded street in which you replace all the women with models or even well-dressed porn stars wouldn’t make most people bat an eye, except maybe to wonder what city it is or to make appreciative comments. Women are supposed to look like that, says society. Not just a few, exceptional women – all women, at least if they want to be worth anything.

The above paragraph exists to punctuate this point: when women complain about how they’re drawn in comics, it’s not about realism. The body dimensions of male superheroes are metaphorical representations of their power over whatever they’re up against, whereas the body dimensions of female superheroes are meant to be literal depictions of their power over men.

What a nice writeup on false equivalence! Puts the subject of power politics in portrayals of gender we discussed here more eloquently than I ever managed. Possibly my favorite part is: 

“So inherent in all of the above is the basic concept that men are sexy because they are powerful, and women are powerful because they are sexy. This is predicated on the notion that men have power stemming from something about them as people, whereas women have power stemming from how much they deserve the attention of men.”

~Ozzie

ht: @snarktheater

Please BOOST the crap out of this kick ass post?! It has nowhere near enough notes. :/

Luxury and the consumption of labor.

By Lisa Wade, PhD

I came across this fascinating poster advertising tea at The Coffee Bean in Irvine, CA. The ad features tea leaves balled up into small tea “pearls” and spilled into a person’s palm. It reads:

Three minutes to fragrant perfection.

It takes a full day to hand-roll 17 ounces of our Jasmine Dragon Pearl Green Tea.  But in just three minutes you can watch these aromatic pearls unfurl gracefully into one of the world’s most soothing and delicious teas.

This ad suggests that others’ toil should enhance one’s experience of pleasure.  The fact that it takes a significant amount of human labor to “hand-roll” tea leaves into balls — an action that is in no way asserted to change the taste of the tea — is supposed to make the tea moreappealing and not less.  We are supposed to enjoy not just the visual, but the fact that others worked hard to produce it for us.  A whole day of their labor for just three minutes of curly goodness.

This is a rather stunning value pervading U.S. culture.  Luxury may be defined not only as pleasure, or as the consumption of the scarce, but as the “unfurling” of others’ hard work.  What could be more luxurious than the casual-and-fleeting enjoyment of the hard-and-long labor of others?

And there’s this very persistent theme – that there are always a handful of dishes that go out of style once technological innovations turn up that make them simple to create. The evolution of the balloon whisk wrecked everyone’s taste for a “Dish of Snow” (basically egg whites whipped for a day until stiff by other people) in the seventeenth century and the food processor meant that all of the popularity of molded mousses evaporates overnight in the eighties.

then all of the sudden, when everyone could have spices, they weren’t special anymore. the french especially pulled back hard from the prolific use of spices and pursued simpler, “elegant” flavor profiles.

‘Overwatch’ players turn to Reddit to share their horrifying stories of sexual harassment and racism

Hinoe from Natsume Yuujinchou