This is Worker speaking. Hello.

Tom Gauld

Here's how that works:

say you get a text from your internet provider, let's say it's Comcast (whom i hate). So you have this text that says it's from Comcast about your bill with a contact number and a clickable link -- could be real, could be a scam.

Don't touch anything about this text. Open a web browser and look up the customer service number for Comcast. Or get the number from the bill they send you. However you do it, get the contact info for Comcast from a trusted source, like an official phone directory or the Comcast website itself.

Get in touch with them using that information.

So. Let's run the example both ways it could go.

If it IS a scam: you reach out to Comcast and tell them you were contacted about a problem with your bill, they look you up in their customer database, and they tell you there is no problem with your bill.

If it's NOT a scam, you do the same thing, they look you up, and they explain the problem. In this case, neither Comcast nor the employees involved give a single shit whether or not you clicked the link in the text vs. going through their official website.

This works the same for the your bank, the IRS, Amazon, political causes, charities, everything.

If it's not scam they'll be like sure, here's the reference number. Then you follow the instructions above, call the separate number you find yourself on a reputable website and give that person the reference number. And they'll help you resolve the issue.

This page from one of my history books looks like a lesbian utopia.

The long-running Canadian TV series You Can't Do That on Television ran 1979 through 1990.

you can order priority mail shipping boxes and envelopes in any size from store.usps.com for free. if you do not have a printer, you can buy them with the postage already paid on them. the postal service will deliver these boxes to your house. you can pack your item into the box at home, then go back to usps.com and schedule a time for the mailman to pick the package up from your house. this is also free. you do not have to visit the post office at any point in this process. if you use flat rate mailers you also do not need to weigh anything.

i have to explain this to people about 20 times a year, no joke. it is some sort of anti post office conspiracy that everyone thinks you have to buy shipping boxes and then drive to the post office and stand in line to mail things. you do not. shipping mailers and boxes are 100% free. priority mail service or above (and prices are now adjusted to the point that its usually pointless not to use priority mail) entitles you to a free pickup, and if you have even one priority mail package to ship, you can ask for all your other packages to be picked up on the same trip too.

When I was younger I was very right-wing. I mean…very right-wing. I won’t go into detail, because I’m very deeply ashamed of it, but whatever you’re imagining, it’s probably at least that bad. I’ve taken out a lot of pain on others; I’ve acted in ignorance and waved hate like a flag; I’ve said and did things that hurt a lot of people.

There are artefacts of my past selves online – some of which I’ve locked down and keep around to remind me of my past sins, some of which I’ve scrubbed out, some of which are out of my grasp. If I were ever to become famous, people could find shit on me that would turn your stomach.

But that’s not me anymore. I’ve learned so much in the last ten years. I’ve become more open to seeing things through others’ eyes, and reforged my anger to turn on those who harm others rather than on those who simply want to exist. I’ve learned patience and compassion. I’ve learned how to recognise my privileges and listen to others’ perspectives. I’ve learned to stand up for others, how to hear, how to help, how to correct myself. And I learned some startling shit about myself along the way – with all due irony, some of the things I used to lash out at others for are intrinsic parts of myself.

You wouldn’t know what I am now from what I was then. You wouldn’t know what I was then from what I am now.

It distresses me deeply to think of someone dredging up my dark, awful past and treating me as though that furiously hateful person is still me. It distresses me to see others dredging up the past for anyone who has made efforts to become a better person, out of some sick obsession with proving they’re “problematic.”

The obsession with finding shit in someone’s past and then claiming that a questionable or even sordid past negates all possibility of a good present needs to become extinct. Gold-star activism and purity culture are bullshit and we need to collectively reject the fuck out of them.

We really need to start asking where this purity bullshit came from. I’m not  Christian and was not raised Christian but there has been a lot evidence that much of gold star activism and purity culture originated in of evangelical youth movements and then infiltrated progressive left-wing and center-left politics when those youth left their churches but failed to leave behind the black-n-white puritanical “you’re going to hell if you stray one inch from the righteous path” style of thinking they were taught.

I distinctly remember some conversations I had in the late 00s and very early 2010s with long time social justice activists who were baffled and disturbed by the new crop of youth activists who were practicing something that was decidedly NOT social justice despite stealing that phrase from us.

In the decade and a half that has passed since then, all of this gold-star activism and purity culture has done exactly what I predicted back then: empowered the far-right while sowing division everywhere.

If you are one of these people who use to practice harmful behaviors or have harmful beliefs (which, most of us are), and you run into people who are a part of the marginalized group said behavior and beliefs harmed and they openly distrust or avoid you, you are allowed to:

- Be distressed and have big feelings about the knowledge that there are just people who will never trust you again.

- Seek guidance and counsel from others (who aren’t a part of the above group) about these feelings.

You are not, however, ever allowed to:

- Whine that a marginalized person looking out for themselves and their community is being “mean”, or “unfair”, or “won’t let you change”.

- Use their distrust of you as an excuse to not put in the work.

The harsh truth is: for some people you have crossed a moral event horizon of sorts. That is to say, you’ve done something they can never forgive or something that irreparably breaks trust. Everyone has these lines; this is a normal human thing. It’s something I learned as I left my teen years; things I did to others that they will live with the scars of for the rest of their days. I can’t take that back and they have no obligation to forgive me or accept me into their life or their space or even their community.

This isn’t said to discourage you, this is said to refocus your efforts. In fact, another hard truth is: if your desire to change comes from a yearning for external validation (forgiveness), your change isn’t sustainable. Baby steps are important and it’s GREAT that you recognize any hurt you caused and want to do right by those people, but there must come a point where it stops being about wanting “to do right by [them]” and instead simply doing as right as you can.

I can hardly believe I’m quoting my mother here but one of the best pieces of advice she gave me was “stop being so attached to the outcome, that’s why you’re always anxious”. This is relevant because she often told me this after I put in a lot of work for something and it didn’t turn out and I would always wonder “lady what? I care a lot, this means a lot to me, why wouldn’t I be attached to it”. But as an adult it clicked for me, what she meant was to stop obsessing over things you can’t control. In this world, the only thing you can control is your actions. Not what your actions bring, not have people react to them, not how things turn out. None of that. Just you and your actions. So when you set out to do the work, to rehabilitate and unlearn harmful behavior and beliefs, remember that you can’t control how people will receive you.