I need sleep to do battle again tomorrow

Very much did in the sense that I literally do not know where my job is at the moment. But, for the time being I haven't been let go because nobody else including the store owner knows where it is either.

So, I don't wanna risk doxxing myself by posting pictures but goddamn am I tempted because this is not a believable event. This is a cartoon problem. For looneytoons.

But yeah, so, I work(ed?) at a kiosk selling boba tea, right? Freestanding kiosk in the mall with full water and electrical hookups and multiple fridges and sinks and a mini kitchen and the works. Fully functional tea shop. Very important to note that it was there last night, The work chat was discussing another issue last night at closing time. I'll get back to this.

It's been showing signs of being on the way out with how business is being handled lately and I've been considering other options, which is probably why I'm not as torn up about this as I should be, but maybe it just hasn't set in yet, but that's not the point. The point is there's been a lot of shit breaking and not being replaced and nobody mentioning anything about it until I walk into work in the morning and have to figure out why shit like the fucking cash register isn't there today. So I'm kinda used to having to ask questions about big things that nobody bothered to update me on. I was out for two weeks recovering from a surgery, so I came to work this morning assuming there'd be some kind of bullshit, yeah?

So, the question I had to ask the chat this morning was:

Not a text I ever thought I'd have to send in sincerity, but there it is. Because what I found instead was a fenced off patch of discolored tiles and a few holes in the floor where my entire place of employment used to be.

And the answer? Nobody knows! It was there last night when the mall closed, and every single trace of the structure and all its contents including drink making supplies and our safe and cashbox was gone when it opened again. And when I say nobody knows, I mean everyone from last night's closers to the actual (former?) owner of the store jad no fucking clue about this until getting that text from me this morning. For once I am actually the first to know. 🎉.

So. I guess I didn't so much lose my job as had it stolen. Not by AI, but good old fashioned hands-on human beings picking it up and carrying it away somehow. All mall security would tell me was that they were instructed not to tell me anything and have us contact our management. Who also don't know anything. And later on I came across some construction workers around the gravesite of the kiosk discussing filling in the holes, asked them about it, and was told that they "weren't at liberty to say".

So, not only is my job gone in the most literal physical sense of the word, but it was taken in some kind of super secret kiosk extraction in the dead of night without any warning or witnesses and nobody is allowed to speak of it. The store owner said she was gonna figure it out 10 hours ago and still no word back.

My mother in law thinks the FBI took it.

Not any of the other stores around the state. Just the one little kiosk.

Why? Because she loves a conspiracy and is just a little bit extra.

Also because she was around for the massive crackdown on Yakuza-owned businesses in Waikiki (in her homestate) that did actually involve the FBI seizing stores (no confirmation of making kiosks cleanly disappear in the middle of the night though).

Still no word from my job on what's actually going on, but the most likely theory so far is that maybe the kiosk was on lease and got repossessed? The mystery continues

According to the owner, based on what she's been able to find out, the kiosk was not removed legally and they're starting a potentially long process of legal action. I hope she gets to sue the shit out of whoever did it but for now at least I know for sure I'm unemployed.

Really hoping for more details in terms of who/why/how, so I'll keep updating if I learn anything.

For now the summary is: An unnamed entity that is most likely mall management (on account of mall security cooperating with them) stole an entire kiosk and all the contents including money and machinery with barely a trace in the middle of the night grinch-style, with zero warning or explanation, and ensured the silence of both security and the construction crew, in an action that was definitely preplanned and illegal, and as far as I know nobody knows its whereabouts.

Enjoy the unintentionally funniest text I've ever sent in my life

Aaand a close-up:

HEY HI HELLO THIS ONE'S MY FAVORITE

The height of the crack in the wall is very low. The implication is intended to be that he started clawing at this wall when he was much, much smaller. At this size, if the figure stood, it would nearly touch the ceiling.

The marks are mostly in clusters of 4 parallel lines, implying that he was indeed clawing. His hands are hidden from view, so you don't know if they're damaged.

His position near the center of this curve means that viewers can almost never see his face, or all of his body at once. He's hiding.

The cluster of center columns means that most of your view of him when looking straight on is like seeing him through jail bars.

The absence of rubble from the wall makes it unclear if he has just stopped momentarily, or if he gave up on widening this hole a long time ago; the seated pose also makes it clear that at least for the moment, he has stopped even trying to escape.

The curved shape of the ceiling isn't appropriate to the architecture of the actual origin of this story, but I chose it in order to make the labyrinth feel more compressed and to put the inside in a deep enough shadow that the crack would always shine with bright light in comparison, blanking out the view from the minotaur's side unless you look very very closely.

1. It sucks so so so so bad but it’s worth it.

2. You can’t make the change overnight. This was a lifestyle commitment I made over several years (initiated by a dramatic conflict in my life that made me realize I hated the way most people behaved around conflict).

3. Prioritize your mental well-being in times of peace so you can be rational and calm in times of conflict. Practice listening. Practice breathing. Practice doing it scared. Practice clarity. Practice sincerity. Do those things in little ways so you’re ready to do it in a big way later.

4. You have to leave behind passive-aggression, sarcasm, clever retorts, and irony. (In favor of clarity; sincerity.)

5. Know your boundaries so you can hold them. Remember, a boundary is not “YOU can’t speak to me like that,” a boundary is “If you continue to speak to me like that, I’ll end the conversation here.” (About what you do, not about what they do.)

skips every song on my ipod

lets the music play without interruption

cause like. apart from the (potential) exception of writing code, there is not really anything useful that a Large Language Model can do.

it imitates patterns in the text that it takes in

that's fundamentally how it works

Yes, haha funny, the AI is bamboozled by spelling, but seriously: I asked Google the same question 5 different times just now, and not only did I get 5 incorrect answers, I got 5 completely different incorrect answers.

The fact that they're different every time demonstrates just how much of an LLM's output is up to random chance. This is how LLMs imitate human language: each stage of constructing the text has built-in randomness, just like how human language has variation and flexibility.

This is my problem with using these things in the workplace. Like, imagine you're using an LLM to fill out a report of an accident that happened, or to write dietary recommendations for a patient, or to give feedback on a paper a student wrote...really anything you can think of.

Even if the LLM-generated text doesn't say anything technically flat-out wrong, the words and details are still randomized instead of being chosen by you for an actual reason.