The world is quiet here

The tip-off phrase is "If [circumstance] was true, then we/I could do [helpful thing.]" This is not a guarantee that the person is offering, but it should tell you "I am being informed of a way to improve things."

Your confirmation phrase is "What documentation would that require?" This is essentially asking them "if people come asking me to prove this, will I be able to? Or will they not come at all?"

The answer you are hoping for with the confirmation phrase is "Just tell me if it's true, and I'll put it on the form." Note that this is not a direct instruction to lie, because they can't tell you that.

If they didn't mean to extend an offer to lie or this is a situation where they can't, then they'll list off something like your paystubs or your birth certificate. Your response back in that case is "Thanks, I'll tell my friends who qualify." This clears you of any concerns that you may have been considering lying.

The more complex answer is when they answer by giving you a form on the spot. Your job, in this case, is to scan the form and see if what they are asking you can be meaningfully verified by an official source.

Things that can be verified by an official source include, but are not limited to, your age, legal sex, income, veteran status, and place of residence. It's not generally a good idea to lie about these on official documents.

*me, thinking about how I quit smoking in 2018 and it is now the year of our lord 2024* "Oh yeah, still working very hard. You know how those cravings can hit."

*please note, how I omitted the truth in the example. I didn't ANNOUNCE it been 6 years SINCE I ALREADY QUIT. I said that I was working hard because cravings are still a thing (6 years later not said out loud). The fact I haven't have a SINGLE one in 4 years [I was Weak during lockdown but could not finish a cig anymore] is irrelevant. The doctor asking me was *nudge nudge wink wink* pointing out that labeling my cig use as "not quite quit yet" would cut some costs on medications.

Sometimes the 'lies' you are being an opportunity to nod along for are just ommissions of truth. Like- still being an active smoker for easier access to other treatments or random pains being worse than YOU personally find them. "If X is true, Y could be an option for you" is a way to allow you to snip off details to make X TECHNICALLY true. They are asking you to be a VAGUE fuck- not a pedantic one. For BOTH of y'all's plausible deniability.

"So these symptoms prevent you from doing [X, Y, Z] activities?"

Even if YOU think you are mildly inconvenienced at best, 'OH YEAH- the generalized fatigue/nagging pain/light headed feeling just makes it so hard to [whatever activity you just find more choresome in those circumstances]!'

I have also had it happen at random coffee shops. Or vape shops.

"How much cash do you have on you? Conveniently this is on sale RIGHT NOW for you for 5 dollars less than that IF it happens to be your birthday. It's your birthday... RIGHT??????"

You all ever seen that scene in the Incredibles where Mr. incredible basically tells this little old lady to get her stuff approved? It’s a cartoonish example of what happens all the time in real life.

You ever seen a cashier conveniently forget to ring up baby formula for a single mother, and then wish her a lovely day?

If somebody does this for you, and you are at any point in a position to give Feedback On Your Experience — no they didn't. Don't tell Yelp, don't tell the customer satisfaction survey, for the love of fuck don't tell their boss, even if you mean it as praise. "Employee was friendly, knowledgeable, and professional" end of review.

You will however, understand exactly what they’re saying from the context of the video

And you will get to hear this person’s wonderful laughter

it’s not going to be very literal because trying to translate every mumbled phrase and conversational word will be Very Annoying

when she was confronted about it, she didn’t apologise or take it down, instead she said,

“well, if he didn’t want me to take pictures, he shouldn’t be wearing a skirt and fishnets.”

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'JK Rowling posted upskirt photos of a woman on Twitter' to Cas 'I love you'. /End ID]

No one doing this should be allowed to call themselves a feminist.

"Us? Oh, of *course* our Dachshund sleeps inside- we just let him out in the morning and make sure he comes back for dinner. He just does his own thing, no worries."

"Um, you know it's not humane to keep a chihuahua confined to an apartment? They're dogs, they're natural predators. They need to experience hunting behaviors or they get depressed. No we don't leash ours, he absolutely hates it, we just let him come and go whenever."

Yall get how fucking stupid that sounds, right? So stop letting your goddamn cats get eaten and attacked and infected and hit by cars

A toddler would probably love full unattended access to the neighborhood too, but we don't do that either, do we

people always say that internet spaces are americanised because the users are majority americans.

and i do always wonder how much of that is "there are actually a majority of usamericans" and how much is "usamerican cultural markers are a default for many online spaces, and non usamericans are often indistinguishable from usamericans unless you're actively looking".

so here's an incredibly unscientific poll reblog for reach or whatever

And it pissed me off so badly that I spent the ENTIRE WORK DAY today compiling evidence from every project my team has ever done for her, pulling past emails she’d sent us, putting together an entire case proving that she had been the problem all along. That she got projects mixed up, that she’d made requests that were nonsensical, literally everything you could possibly imagine. Screenshots of emails, reports we’d submitted, EVERYTHING.

This woman in particular has been terrorizing my team for years, her name is almost a slur in my office, I had simply had ENOUGH of her.

I put all of this evidence together and sent it to all of my bosses at 4:30pm. Then I took a long break to eat a sweet treat and drink some tea.

After my break, my bosses all called in an emergency meeting with me and they said they read my report and fucking loved it. And I sat on a teams call with my boss’ boss as she wrote my nemesis the scathing email I had always fantasized about sending, using the evidence I’d compiled, and hit send.