#i was the manager who had hired a person from the pool of applications and then began receiving pokes from the other applicants | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bitchassbucky · 3 years

Text

.exe

Word Count: 2.4k

Warning/s: stalkers, bucky being a creepo, reader being a creepo. dark!IT!bucky x dark!reader :-) female & male masturbation, voyeurism (i think), cyber crimes being committed.

A/N: this is my birthday gift to @babyboibucky <3 to my boo, I love you and you have a special place in my heart. this is gonna be a multi-part thing, it's too long to be considered as a one-shot, oops.

please enjoy! :D

follow the CTRL series:

i - .exe

ii - .avi

iii - .raw

iv - .png

v - .zip

CTRL playlist

CTRL moodboard

4:49 PM

Just 11 more minutes until he can pack his bags up for the weekend.

One new ticket - URGENT

Goddamn it.

Bucky pulled his earphones out in annoyance, just another office idiot who doesn’t know how to print A4 sheets. If the office were to be held hostage and printing out was the only thing that can save them, half of the floor would be dead.

The new name caught his eye, Y/N Y/L. A new hire, it seems like.

Subject: One new ticket - URGENT

Hi, this is Y/N, employee number 0008675309. I’m new here and was told to send a ticket for the equipment request.

Thank you and have a great weekend!

Oh, Bucky’s gonna have a great weekend indeed. Out of pure curiosity, he’s already pulled up your employee file. A cute smile to a cute name. His annoyance dispersing already, just by thinking of ways how he can spend time with you.

Hey, Y/N! Bucky types into the text field, Welcome to the company. I’m Bucky and I got assigned to help you get settled. Do you prefer having a desktop or a laptop? I’ve attached a form in this thread, send it to me once you’re done.

Have an awesome weekend too!

As much as he hates sending out chirpy emails, he can’t help but to smile when you immediately send a reply back.

Thanks, Bucky! So sorry for sending in the request super late. Got caught up with the onboarding. Is it okay if I use my laptop until we can get a unit to my place? PC or laptop is fine with me.

Best,

Y/N

Bucky fights off another smile, rubbing his hand over his stubbled cheek as he carefully types out a reply. Unlike other days, he doesn’t mind staying beyond 5 PM today. It’s not like he has other plans for his Friday night.

No worries, Y/N. He’s already loving your name. Happy to help!

Do you have your laptop with you? I can set it up before you go home for the weekend. I can probably send in the ticket to the guys so you can have your work equipment next week.

His deft fingers are dancing over his mechanical keyboard, clacking away while the clock ticks closer to the weekend.

A ping, another reply from you. You’re new, you’re still excited to make friends in the office. If you only knew how stupid they are, though.

Yeah! I have it on me right now. I actually work on the same floor, I can drop it off there right now.

Bucky glances around his office, looking for any reflective surface he can check himself on. He runs his hand through his hair, taming any stubborn locks that fell out of his low bun. His shirt hangs just right against his huge frame, his pants hugging his figure, accentuating his silhouette even more.

Just as the clock ticks 5:00, a soft knock raps against his door, “come in!”

You are cuter, prettier in person. Your perfume hits his nose and he’s floored—metaphorically.

“Mr. Barnes,” you say, your demeanor somewhat meek and shy. Well, of course, you are. Your frame is nothing against the hunk of the man who just stood up to greet you.

“Bucky.” He prompts, smiling. You reciprocated the smile, but you really weren’t sure what to expect. Maybe a scrawny little dude mousing away on a keyboard?

“Bucky, thank you so much for doing this. I know you’d rather get off of work since it’s Friday and all.”

He hums, taking your laptop in his hands. You notice the rings adorning his fingers—complementing his tanned skin tone and—it’s not appropriate to stare at a stranger’s hand.

Heat creeps up your face as he turns to look at the stickers stuck to your laptop, “you know, I like this band.” Bucky says, pointing to an old sticker, he carefully sets down your laptop on his workstation.

“They’re great,” you muse, taking a seat on a plastic chair by the door.

You take a gander around his small office. There was nothing out of the ordinary but the big black server blinking at the back, so why do you feel trapped?

“Sorry about the temp, we have to keep the room cold for the server in the back,” Bucky explains, noticing how your arms are crossed over your chest. The skirt you’re wearing isn’t doing you any better too.

You stammer out an it’s okay with a small smile.

Bucky worked on your computer quietly, using a USB stick to load all the applications you need to set up a temporary work account on your laptop. After a few minutes, he beckoned you to come here. You scoot over to his desk, rolling the chair forward and beside him. Not too close though.

“So, this note has all your generated passwords. Type those into the app when you first log in, then you can change it if you want to.” Bucky explains, the cursor idles on the screen. He tries not to get too close to you, to give you personal space. It’s a professional workplace after all.

“This app,” he drags a window, pulling up an application, “tracks your hours and your keystrokes. It’s company-mandated because managers want to micro-manage their people, I guess.” Bucky shrugs, his disdain showing through his voice. His tone shifting lower than what you’d expected.

“Sorry, I just hate their new protocol,” his face and voice softening as he looks at you, “it’s a total privacy breach if you ask me.”

You’d normally disagree but something tells you that maybe he’s got a point. Your breath hitched in your throat as he leans closer as if to whisper something, “this note right here? It’s a nifty thing, a little script so your computer doesn’t go to sleep when you’re away. It enables and disables your numlock pad so it counts as a keystroke.”

A smirk finds its place on your face, “well, that’s…something, isn’t it?”

Never in your life would you find yourself flirting with a co-worker but there’s something about Bucky that made you excited. Interested. Intrigued.

Bucky nods, rolling his chair away to fetch a pad of sticky notes. “Another thing from your friendly neighborhood IT guy,” he peels off a leaf and sticks it on your laptop’s built-in camera, “keep your cam covered.”

You give him a chuckle and a playful salute, “yes, sir.”

Bucky’s a modern man. He sees a pretty girl and he gets giddy. He talks to a pretty girl and he gets flustered. But you—you make him feel more than giddy and flustered. There was something familiar about you, and your eyes. Has he seen you before? Met you, even? No, that’s impossible—if he had met you before, he’d surely remember you.

It was 5:34 PM when he gave you your laptop back and sent in an urgent request for your equipment. While taking down the elevator to the lobby, Bucky gave you a few tips on how to ‘survive’ working in the office. According to him, as far as you go in on time and kept your head above the rumors, you’d do fine.

He asked about your first week and he told you about this joint near the building that serves the best burgers and fries.

You’ve got a good feeling that you just made your first friend.

—

The sun was already setting down when you pulled into your apartment’s parking lot. At the very last minute, you turned into a drive-through and got some food on the go. The side trip took out 10 minutes of your time but at least you dodged the awful traffic that was building up by the highway.

Along with your laptop bag and your food, you trudge up to your third-floor apartment. It wasn’t what you wanted—the windows faced the street, the screen door doesn’t lock all the way—but it’s the one you got. As long as it’s got four walls and a roof, right?

You slip out of your work clothes and into some comfy jammies after a rewarding shower; the sooner you can get your food heat up, the sooner you can eat, and drink and then go to sleep.

So while waiting for the microwave to beep, you pry open your laptop. You told Bucky not to shut it down after he worked on it as to not lose your work on another profile, which he understood.

The work account he set up greeted you, along with the bright pink sticky note he stuck to your webcam. That wasn’t real, was it? All those cautionary tales of hackers using webcams to peep on you. Maybe he’s just trying to scare you, like some kind of initiation. Without a second thought, you took off the sticky note. It was kinda annoying anyway.

Clicking the Log Out Work button, your personal account popped into the frame. Your opened apps and documents displaying themselves for you to use. You pulled up Spotify and clicked on the first playlist you saw—which happened to be your intimate playlist.

Sure, the Pavlov reaction is real because halfway through the first song, you already found yourself getting all hot and bothered. This one’s your favorite song too.

You groan in annoyance, your food’s no longer a priority.

Picking up the laptop from the table, you walk to your bedroom, not bothering to shut the door. You live alone, it’s fine. You put the laptop on its loudest setting, setting it on your desk and you plopped down on your bed, the pillows and the comforter pooling on one side.

Your room is illuminated by a streak of light from the street. Your curtains flowing softly with the breeze that just came in.

Glancing at your laptop, you remembered Bucky. How his office smelled when you first walked in. How he stood tall when he greeted you. How he smiled. Those goddamn rings of his.

Before you caught yourself thinking rationally, your fingers are already splayed even over your thighs, caressing the soft flesh of your legs.

Bucky’s smirk and his cologne finding purchase in your fogged brain. Thoughts of him pulling you aside into his office to fool around—voices above hushed whispers as your skin erupts in goosebumps, the chilled air of his office finding its way up to your spine.

Oh, fuck it.

You undress fast, flinging your shirt over your head, dropping it somewhere below the bed. The air in your room making your nipples hard and erect as you pinch them. You breathe out a sigh, the heat of the moment creeping up your torso.

The material of your panties dampening as you imagine yourself bent over his desk, your skirt bunched over your hips as he laps your sopping cunt. Bucky’s tongue exploring your folds up and over until your pussy’s a quivering mess of drool and spit.

Your fingers slip past the band of your underwear. Even you surprised yourself by how wet you are.

God, you met him once and he’s already inching his way into your mind.

But who could blame you? You’ve been all over his Facebook profile when you learned his name via the office’s organizational chart. The first time you saw him, walking around the office with a laptop in his hands, you already knew you wanted to at least formally meet him. A scroll on his page, you found a band that you could tolerate listening to. (They’re okay, just not your taste in music.)

A plan came to mind when your department head told the team that you can work from home from time to time—only if you agreed to use a work laptop, a company-owned one. Your manager advised you to put in the request as soon as you can, for you to secure a unit before the on-hand supplies dwindle.

Deliberately sending in the request late—way, way later—than what your manager told you just so you could pull up the ‘new hire’ card and act dumb.

And it looked like he bought it too.

The image of him fucking you quiet while he grabs you from behind played inside your mind like a memory—a vision. Of how his thick cock would fill you up until your pussy is clenching around him. Would he pinch your throbbing clit, making you squirm and cream around him?

Your fingers are compared nothing to his, that’s for sure. But it does the work for now.

A breathy moan comes out of your mouth as you play with your clit, your cunt dripping down wetness as you continue to fondle your tits.

His hands would make a great addition to your chokers.

Your toes curl and your breath quickens, the coil in the pit of your stomach tightening—white-hot heat creeping up your limbs.

Oh, fuck, Bucky!

—

His ears perked up as he heard you moaning his name.

Bucky was busy watching you enjoy yourself when he got caught in the moment and decided to enjoy himself too.

He was barely keeping himself behaved when you first walked into the floor wearing a button-up and slacks that accentuated your backside. Bucky wished he was the one who gave you the tour and know your name for the first time, but that was impossible—he was in the IT department.

So when he got the news that new hires will be given the chance to work from home, he hoped that he gets to be the one to help you set up.

He was losing hope by the time he got your request, he thought that you opt not to work at home but then there you were, sending him an apologetic email on a late Friday afternoon.

Of course, he happily obliged. He even set up himself a little virtual camp in the background of your computer just so he can continue spending time with you.

Just thinking about you is already making him hard again. Bucky already came in hot spurts of white as he watched you desperately undress earlier. What can he say—he was waiting for you to show your tits already. As such, he correctly guessed that you’d be annoyed with the glaringly bright sticky note he used to ‘cover’ your webcam with.

But seeing you fingerfuck yourself all alone just wasn’t enough for him, he has to have you all by yourself.

#bitchassbucky writes #dark!bucky x reader #dark!bucky x reader smut #dark!bucky x reader fluff #dark!bucky x reader angst #dark!bucky barnes x reader #dark!bucky barnes x reader smut #dark!bucky barnes x reader fluff #dark!bucky barnes x reader angst #dark!bucky #dark!bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky x reader smut #bucky x reader angst #bucky x reader fluff

426 notes · View notes

system76 · 3 years

Text

Behind the Scenes of System76: Sales Team

The System76 Behind the Scenes series aims to give readers an inside look at the people behind our mission. This week, we spoke with VP of Sales Sam Mondlick about the challenges of conducting business during a pandemic, and how long it’ll take the Sales Team to make a certain blog author a millionaire.

You know. The important things.

Take a moment to describe the different functions of the Sales Team.

The Sales Team itself is currently made up of two different positions. The Customer Experience Specialist (CES) is the first line of conversation with System76 with regards to anything order-related. Their job is to make your process from purchase to shipment as easy as possible and provide you with as much information as you might need, such as giving status updates about orders or answering questions that may have arisen.

The other position within Sales is Account Management. They’re the people you talk to from first inquiry to System76 about products. These guys help anyone, from my 80-year-old grandma who’s looking to transition from Windows to Linux, to Fortune 50 companies. They deal with a wide variety of customer base, so they’re pretty much experts in getting the customer what they need.

Then there’s the Product Management side of Sales. The Product Manager stays up to date on all-new technology, and then informs and directs the team. The position was built to ensure System76 is at the forefront of new and exciting technologies, whether that’s within the Thelio product line or in the form of updates that come to our laptops. And that could be as simple as tracking memory updates from DDR4 to DDR5, or with PCIe 3.0 updating to PCIe 4.0. For things like that we’ll track and update products throughout their lifetime.

What is the guiding principle for how the System76 Sales Team operates?

The Sales Team philosophy we push is what I call, “Consultative Sales.” We’re here to be an assistant to the user in order to get them the right product for the job; we’re not going to upgrade you for the sake of upgrading. The team is there to understand what you want to accomplish so that they can get you the right machine with the optimal performance for your use case.

What factors into the decision to introduce a new product?

There’s quite a few factors internally that we’ll go through. Looking at our product line we ask ourselves, is there something that’s missing from it? And if we do find something, what are the benefits to it? How is it going to make us as a company better, and us as a provider of Linux-based technologies the right fit for our customers?

For the Lemur Pro, battery life had always been a high-value item for our customer base. Before the Lemur Pro and Darter Pro were introduced about 2 years ago, the average battery life on a System76 computer was about 3-5 hours. The ability to introduce a product with a higher battery wattage allowed us to extend battery life almost threefold. That value is really what drives a product forward.

What is your team’s background with Linux?

A lot of the team members have a background in Linux as users. That’s what we tend to typically hire and bring on. They are apt in review and understanding, and helping customers that have specific tasks and needs within the Linux environment. Charles was using Raspberry Pis in order to do some cool things, and Bradley used Ubuntu even before he was hired. The same can be said for Jeremy and John. They all believe that Linux is the right tool for people, and they showcase that for incoming customers. Even if they’re not tech-savvy within Linux, there’s a background there with using it and seeing it in the wild.

What challenges did the pandemic present when it first started?

I think at the very beginning, the biggest challenge for us was the loss of the team camaraderie. A lot of Sales is personal relationships, and the team feeds off of each other, so having everyone in the same area was a huge benefit pre-pandemic.

In the first month or so after it started, there were definitely challenges with productivity and communication because Sales works a lot with Engineering, Support, and other departments in order to give the customers the information they need to make an educated decision, or to update them on the status of their order.

But, I think one of the best tools we have is our employee messaging client. That was already ingrained in us as something that was used pre-pandemic that really started to show its value post-pandemic, especially with the team members being in different homes—and in some cases, different states. It allowed us to provide our staff with as much as they needed to make their environment feel like they were still in an office, still able to get the camaraderie, and still able to get almost the same instantaneous response as they would in the office, but now done remote.

Our ability to put tech first, especially within Sales and Service, is one of the things we do really well. We never throw people at a problem. By that I mean we don’t delegate a problem up the chain to solve it. Instead we work for a solution, and our people evolve into that solution. From my viewpoint, we’ve established that a remote environment is as productive as an in-person environment, which has opened up the door for System76 to grow. Instead of working within a local pool, we’ve now moved to the ocean. Whereas you used to have to hire and work to provide resources for new hires to move to Denver so they can work with the team, now we can bring on team members from pretty much anywhere on the globe to come help make System76 better.

System76 has seen steady growth in the past year despite drastic political and economic changes. What do you attribute the success to?

I think we’ve matured as an organization. We have introduced products and product lines that are meeting and exceeding a lot of different customer requirements. When I look at our desktop line from when I started seven years ago, our options were the Ratel, the Wild Dog, the Leopard, and the Sable. With production moving in-house and the introduction of Thelio in the last two and a half years, keeping in mind both Intel and AMD, we’ve gone from offering a four-desktop solution to nine.

Laptop and desktop quality has also increased in the last seven years, and a lot of that has to do with what we’ve done in our new manufacturing facility. We have made leaps and bounds with regards to what we’re doing with software engineering now. There’s a huge demand for what our Software Engineering Team has done, driven by Jeremy and our open firmware/open EC that speak to a lot of people. Companies are looking at an open source solution instead of proprietary because they want more control over what their team and their organization are doing.

One of the things we’ve noticed is that our business clients have grown. There’s significantly more support and drive from both the end user and the corporate side to make it so Linux is a valued and desired solution for their teams. Today, I can probably put a Windows 10 machine next to my Pop!_OS 20.10 machine and accomplish everything in the same amount of time or faster. Maybe I’m not using the same applications, but anything I as a businessperson could do within Windows, I can now do with Pop!_OS or Ubuntu. The Linux ecosystem is continuously changing, and that only helps us as a company.

You’ve been at System76 for quite a while. What’s it been like watching the company grow?

It’s amazing. When I started at the company, I was really the first Sales-oriented person. I was the 8th employee at the time, and now I’m the 5th-oldest employee of System76 out of over 50 employees. So it’s huge, man.

When you look at a lot of big corporations, change is hard to make happen. It’s looked at as too different, too risky. But here, change is really something we strive for. We work to be different, to be new, to figure out new ways to help our customers or create solutions to help them, or figure out ways that can change us for the better that you just typically wouldn’t see from a corporation.

What was your favorite moment?

When I first looked at System76, back when we were only offering Ubuntu, I saw the beginning of something very similar to another major player. Very grassroots, very much specialized and hardware-specific. They also created their own operating system, so when I interviewed in 2014, I made comments during my interview with Carl that I expected us to probably produce our own operating system as well. I thought that would be our endgame as a company. At that time, and Carl might contradict my memory on this, but I remember he didn’t think that would ever happen. And then in October 2017, we released the first version of Pop!_OS. That made everything come kind of full-circle for me.

The following year, we brought hardware inside in order to make it the best that we could. So in three short years from me starting, we took what we were doing and elevating it to something that only a handful of companies do, and do well. Our potential is really limitless from what I’ve seen so far, and it’s very apparent with what we’ve done with Pop!_OS since its release, as well as where we’ve taken Thelio. I bet you we never thought we would’ve implemented something like i3 tiling into Pop!_OS. I really goes back to how we view change. We embrace it. We see it as trying to do something better than we did before. Carl and the Engineering Team view software as always being about revision, and we bring that philosophy back to hardware and back to the company as a whole.

#system76 #s76 #76 #linux #computers #hardware #software #firmware #STEM #engineering #gaming #science #sales #behind the scenes #bts #Pop!_OS #Thelio #laptops #desktops #servers #manufacturing

14 notes · View notes

didanawisgi · 3 years

Link

In wake of George Floyd’s killing and the protests that followed, many colleges and universities have been rolling out new training requirements – often oriented towards reducing biases and encouraging people from high-status groups to ‘check their privilege.’ The explicit goal of these training programs is generally to help create a more positive and welcoming institutional environment for people from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups.

As I have explained elsewhere, there is a long literature on the benefits of diversity on knowledge production. However, many of the approaches to training people how to navigate and utilize diversity were implemented by corporations, non-profits and universities before their effectiveness had been tested rigorously (if at all).

Although the precursor to contemporary diversity training, sensitivity training, actually dates back to the mid 1940s, diversity training became especially important beginning in the mid-80s to early-90s. Why? Starting in the late 70s through early 80s, universities began enrolling significantly higher numbers of women, minorities, and people from middle-class and lower-income backgrounds. Soon thereafter, employers found themselves with a much more heterogenous labor pool. They had to face, often for the first time, some of the challenges that come along with the benefits of diversity — as people with increasingly divergent backgrounds and perspectives were put side by side and tasked with common goals.

Beginning in the mid-90s, however, it became increasingly clear that, due to their lack of validation, many widely-used interventions could be ineffective or harmful. An empirical literature was built up measuring the effectiveness of diversity-related training programs. The picture that has emerged is not very flattering.

The limited research suggesting diversity-related training programs as efficacious was based on things like surveys before and after the training, or testing knowledge or attitudes about various groups or policies. And to be clear, the training does help people answer survey questions in the way the training said they ‘should.’ And many people who undergo the training say they enjoyed it or found it helpful in post-training questionnaires.

However, when scientists set about to investigate whether the programs actually changed behaviors, i.e. do they reduce expressions of bias, do they reduce discrimination, do they foster greater collaboration across groups, do they help with retaining employees from historically marginalized or underrepresented groups, do they increase productivity or reduce conflicts in the workplace — for all of these behavioral metrics, the metrics that actually matter, not only is the training ineffective, it is often counterproductive.

Kalev, Alexandra w/ Frank Dobbin & Erin Kelly (2006). “Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assessing the Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies.” American Sociological Review 71(4): 589-617.

Naff, Katherine & J. Edward Kellough (2007). “Ensuring Employment Equity: Are Federal Diversity Programs Making a Difference?” International Journal of Public Administration 26(12): 1307-36.

Paluck, Elizabeth & Donald Green (2009). “Prejudice Reduction: What Works? A Review and Assessment of Research and Practice.” Annual Review of Psychology 60: 339-67.

Training is Generally Ineffective at Its Stated Goals

The stated goals of these training programs vary, from helping to increase hiring and retention of people from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups, to eliminating prejudicial attitudes or behaviors to members of said groups, to reducing conflict and enhancing cooperation and belonging among all employees. Irrespective of the stated goals of the programs, they are overwhelmingly ineffective with respect to those goals. Generally speaking, they do not increase diversity in the workplace, they do not reduce harassment or discrimination, they do not lead to greater intergroup cooperation and cohesion – consequently, they do not increase productivity. More striking: many of those tasked with ensuring compliance with these training programs recognize them as ineffective (see Rynes & Rosen 1995, p. 258).

Chang, Edward et al. (2019). “The Mixed Effects of Online Diversity Training.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(16): 7778-7783.

Dobbin, Frank & Alexandra Kalev (2016). “Why Doesn’t Diversity Training Work? The Challenge for Industry and Academia.” Anthropology Now 10(2): 48-55.

Dobbin, Frank w/ Daniel Schrage & Alexandra Kalev (2015). “Rage against the Iron Cage: The Varied Effects of Bureaucratic Personnel Reforms on Diversity.” American Sociological Review 80(5): 1014–44.

Dobbin, Frank w/ Alexandra Kalev & Erin Kelly (2007). “Diversity Management in Corporate America.” Contexts 6(4): 21-7.

Folz, Christina (2016). “No Evidence That Training Prevents Harassment, Finds EEOC Task Force.” Society for Human Resource Management, 19 June.

Frisby, Craig & William O’Donohue (2018). Cultural Competence in Applied Psychology: An Evaluation of Current Status and Future Directions. Cham, CH: Springer.

Magley, Vicki et al. (2016). “Changing Sexual Harassment within Organizations via Training Interventions: Suggestions and Empirical Data.” The Fulfilling Workplace: The Organization’s Role in Achieving Individual and Organizational Health. New York, NY: Routledge.

Newkirk, Pamela (2019). Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business. New York, NY: Bold Type Books.

Training Often Reinforces Biases

Often, when people attempt to do fact-checks, they begin by underscoring the falsehood, and then proceed to try to debunk that falsehood. This can create what psychologists call an ‘illusory truth effect,’ where people end up remembering the falsehood, forgetting the correction – and then attributing their misinformation to the very source that had tried to correct it! A similar effect seems to hold with antibias training. By articulating various stereotypes associated with particular groups, emphasizing the salience of those stereotypes, and then calling for their suppression, they often end up reinforcing them in participants’ minds. Sometimes they even implant new stereotypes (for instance, if participants didn’t previously have particular stereotypes for Vietnamese people, or much knowledge about them overall, but were introduced to common stereotypes about this group through training intended to dispel said stereotypes).

Other times, they can fail to improve negative perceptions about the target group, yet increase negative views about others. For instance, an empirical investigation of ‘white privilege’ training found that it did nothing to make participants more sympathetic to minorities – it just increased resentment towards lower-income whites.

Encouraging people to ignore racial and cultural differences often results in diminished cooperation across racial lines. Meanwhile, multicultural training — emphasizing those differences — often ends up reinforcing race essentialism among participants. It is not clear what the best position between these poles is (such that these negative side effects can be avoided), let alone how to consistently strike that balance in training.

Cooley, Erin et al. (2019). “Complex intersections of race and class: Among social liberals, learning about White privilege reduces sympathy, increases blame, and decreases external attributions for White people struggling with poverty.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 148(12), 2218–28.

Heilman, Madeline & Brian Welle (2006). “Disadvantaged by Diversity? The Effects of Diversity Goals on Competence Perceptions.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 36(5): 1291-1319.

Kulick, Carol w/ Elissa Perry & Anne Bourhis (2000). “Ironic evaluation processes: effects of thought suppression on evaluations of older job applicants.” Journal of Organizational Behaviour 21(6): 689–711.

Macrae, Neil et al. (1994). “Out of mind but back in sight: Stereotypes on the rebound.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67(5): 808-17.

Plaut, Victoria w/ Kecia M. Thomas and Matt J. Goren (2009). “Is Multiculturalism or Color Blindness Better for Minorities?” Psychological Science 20(4): 444-6.

Wilton, Leigh w/ Evan Apfelbaum & Jessica Good (2019). “Valuing Differences and Reinforcing Them: Multiculturalism Increases Race Essentialism.” Social Psychological and Personality Science 10(5): 681-9

Training Can Increase Biased Behavior, Minority Turnover

Many diversity-related training programs describe bias and discrimination as rampant. One unfortunate consequence of depicting these attitudes and behaviors as common is that it makes many feel more comfortable expressing biased attitudes or behaving in discriminatory ways. Insofar as it is depicted as ubiquitous, diversity-related training can actually normalize bias.

For others, the very fact that the company has diversity-related training is proof that it is a non-biased institution. This perception often reduces concerns about bias and discrimination – by oneself or others. As a consequence, people not only become more likely to act in more biased ways, but they also react with increased skepticism and hostility when colleagues claim to have been discriminated against.

Meanwhile, those who are discriminated against become more likely to rationalize mistreatment by others in the institution after undergoing diversity-related training (for the same reason, because they believe the institution must be fair in virtue of its commitment to diversity-related training; indeed, minority employees are often called upon to lead diversity reviews themselves). Consequently, they become less likely to actually report or address wrongdoing. As a result, problems persist unabated — often leading to higher turnover among the very groups the programs were ostensibly designed to render more comfortable.

Brady, Laura et al. (2015). “It’s Fair for Us: Diversity Structures Cause Women to Legitimize Discrimination.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 57: 100-10

Dobbin, Frank & Alexandra Kalev (2019). “The Promise and Peril of Sexual Harassment Programs.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(25): 12255-12260.

Dobbin, Frank & Alexandra Kalev (2016). “Why Diversity Programs Fail.” Harvard Business Review 94(7): 52-60.

Dover, Tessa w/ Brenda Major & Cheryl Kaiser (2014). “Diversity initiatives, status, and system-justifying beliefs: When and how diversity efforts de-legitimize discrimination claims.” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 17(4): 485-93.

Duguid, Michelle & Melissa Thomas-Hunt (2015). “Condoning Stereotyping? How Awareness of Stereotyping Prevalence Impacts Expression of Stereotypes.” Journal of Applied Psychology 100(2): 343-59.

Kaiser, Cheryl et al. (2013). “Presumed Fair: Ironic Effects of Organizational Diversity Structures.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 104(3): 504-19.

Kirby, Teri w/ Cheryl Kaiser & Brenda Major (2015). “Insidious Procedures: Diversity Awards Legitimize Unfair Organizational Practices.” Social Justice Research 28: 169-186.

Leslie, Lisa (2019). “Diversity Initiative Effectiveness: A Typological Theory of Unintended Consequences.” Academy of Management Review 44(3). DOI: 10.5465/amr.2017.0087

Training Often Alienates People from High-Status Groups, Reduces Morale

Diversity-related training programs often depict people from historically marginalized and disenfranchised groups as important and worthwhile, celebrating their heritage and culture, while criticizing the dominant culture as fundamentally depraved (racist, sexist, sadistic, etc.). People from minority groups are discussed in overwhelmingly positive terms, while people from majority groups are characterized as typically (and uniquely) ignorant, insensitive or outright malicious with respect to those who are different than them. Members of the majority group are told to listen to, and validate, the perspectives of people from historically marginalized or disadvantaged groups — even as they are instructed to submit their own feelings and perspectives to intense scrutiny.

In short, there is a clear double-standard in many of these programs with respect to how members of dominant groups (typically men, whites and/or heterosexuals) are described as compared to members of minority groups (i.e. women, ethnic/ racial minorities, LGBTQ employees). The result is that many members from the dominant group walk away from the training believing that themselves, their culture, their perspectives and interests are not valued at the institution – certainly not as much as those of minority team members — reducing their morale and productivity.

The training also leads many to believe that they have to ‘walk on eggshells’ when engaging with members of minority populations. By calling attention, not just too clear examples of harm and prejudice, but just as much (or more) to things like implicit attitudes and microaggressions, participants come to view colleagues from historically marginalized and disenfranchised groups as fragile and easily offended. As a result, members of the dominant group become less likely to try to build relationships or collaborate with people from minority populations.

Anand, Rohini & Mary-Frances Winters (2008). “A Retrospective View of Corporate Diversity Training from 1964 to the Present.” Academy of Management Learning & Education 7(3): 356-72.

Dover, Tessa w/ Brenda Major & Cheryl Kaiser (2016). “Members of High-Status Groups Are Threatened by Pro-Diversity Organizational Messages.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 62: 58-67.

Plaut, Victoria et al. (2011). “’What About Me?’ Perceptions of Exclusion and Whites’ Reactions to Multiculturalism.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101(2): 337-53.

Rios-Morrison, Kimberly w/ Victoria Plaut & Oscar Ybarra (2010). “Predicting Whether Multiculturalism Positively or Negatively Influences White Americans’ Intergroup Attitudes: The Role of Ethnic Identification.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 36(12): 1648-61.

Sanchez, Juan & Nohora Medkik (2005). “The Effects of Diversity Awareness Training on Differential Treatment.” Group & Organization Management 29(4): 517-36.

Focus On: Implicit Attitudes

Implicit attitudes are one of the most commonly relied-upon constructs in contemporary diversity-related training. However, there are severe problems with these constructs – as hammered home by meta-analysis after meta-analysis: it is not clear precisely what isbeing measured on implicit attitude tests; implicit attitudes do not effectively predict actual discriminatory behavior; most interventions to attempts to change implicit attitudes are ineffective (effects, when present, tend to be small and fleeting). Moreover, there is no evidence that changing implicit attitudes has any significant, let alone durable, impact on reducing biased or discriminatory behaviors. In short, the construct itself has numerous validity issues, and the training has no demonstrable benefit.

Blanton, Hart et al. (2009). “Strong claims and weak evidence: Reassessing the predictive validity of the IAT.” Journal of Applied Psychology 94(3): 567–582.

Carlsson, Richard & Jens Agerstrom (2016). “A Closer Look at Discrimination Outcomes in the IAT Literature.” Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 57(4): 278-87.

Forscher, Patrick et al. (2019). “A Meta-Analysis of Procedures to Change Implicit Measures.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 117(3): 522–559.

Lai, Calvin et al. (2016). “Reducing implicit racial preferences: II. Intervention effectiveness across time.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 145(8): 1001-1016.

Oswald, Frederick et al. (2013). “Predicting ethnic and racial discrimination: A meta-analysis of IAT criterion studies.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 105(2): 171–192

Focus On: Microaggressions

Contemporary diversity-related training often draws significant attention to microaggressions – small, typically inadvertent, faux pas involving people from historically marginalized and disadvantaged groups. The cumulative effects of microaggressions are held to have significant and adverse impacts on the well-being of people from low-status groups. However, although the microaggressions framework goes back to 1974, there is virtually no systematic research detailing if and how microaggressions are harmful, for whom, and under what circumstances (indeed, there is not even robust conceptual clarity in the literature as to what constitutes a microaggression). There is no systematic empirical evidence that training on microaggressions has any significant or long-term effects on behavior, nor that it correlates with any other positive institutional outcomes.

In fact, when presented with canonical microaggressions, black and Hispanic respondents overwhelmingly find them to be inoffensive – and we have ample reason to believe that sensitizing people to perceive and take greater offense at these slights actually would cause harm: the evidence is clear and abundant that increased perceptions of racism have adverse mental and physical consequences for minorities. In short, not only is there no evidence that training on microaggressions is valuable for improving the well-being of people from historically marginalized or disadvantaged groups, there is reason to believe it could actually be counter-productive to that end.

al-Gharbi, Musa (2020). “Who Gets To Define What’s ‘Racist’?” Contexts, 15 May.

Lillienfeld, Scott (2017). “Microaggressions: Strong Claims, Inadequate Evidence.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 12(1): 138-69.

Mandatory Training Causes Additional Blowback

Although diversity-related training programs are generally ineffective, and often bring negative side-effects, they tend to work better (or at least, be less harmful) when they are opt-in. Mandatory training causes people to engage with the materials and exercises in the wrong frame of mind: adversarial and resentful. Consequently, mandatory training often leads to more negative feelings and behaviors, both towards the company and minority co-workers. This effect is especially pronounced among the people who need the training most. Yet roughly 80% of diversity-related training programs in the U.S. seem to be mandatory.

If an institution is going to include diversity-related training, it should offer it as a resource for those who want to learn more. To encourage more people to volunteer for the training, its value and purpose should be linked to specific organizational and development goals. Small incentives could be offered for those who take part, rather than the current norm of sanctioning those who do not.

Bingham, Shereen & Lisa Schrer (2001). “The Unexpected Effects of a Sexual Harassment Educational Program.” The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 37(2): 125-53.

Devine, Patricia et al. (2002). “The Regulation of Explicit and Implicit Race Bias: The Role of Motivations to Respond without Prejudice.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 82(5): 835-48.

Kidder, Deborah et al. (2004). “Backlash toward Diversity Initiatives: Examining the Impact of Diversity Program Justification, Personal and Group Outcomes.” International Journal of Conflict Management 15(1): 77-102.

Kulick, Carol et al. (2007). “The Rich Get Richer: Predicting Participation in Voluntary Diversity Training.” Journal of Organizational Behavior 28(6): 753-69.

Legault, Lisa w/ Jennifer Gutsell & Michael Inzlicht (2011). “Ironic Effects of Antiprejudice Messages: How Motivational Interventions Can Reduce (but Also Increase) Prejudice.” Psychological Science 22(12): 1472-7.

Plant, Elizabeth & Patricia Devine (2001). “Responses to Other-Imposed Pro-Black Pressure: Acceptance or Backlash?” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 37(6): 486-501.

Robb, Lori & Dennis Doverspike (2001). “Self-Reported Proclivity to Harass as a Moderator of the Effectiveness of Sexual Harassment-Prevention Training.” Psychological Reports 88(1): 85-8.

Training Comes at the Expense of Other Priorities

We are in a period of educational austerity. Creating, implementing and ensuring compliance with diversity-related training programs is expensive. In a world where these training programs consistently advanced diversity and inclusion goals within an organization, or enhanced intergroup cooperation and overall productivity, then these costs could be justified – even during a time of belt-tightening. However, it’s a different dynamic when the training is typically ineffective or even counterproductive. Worse, it often crowds out much more substantial efforts that could be undertaken to actually enhance diversity and inclusion within institutions.

Why do many rely on diversity training despite its demonstrated ineffectiveness? The short answer is that, even if training is expensive and doesn��t work, it is relatively easy to implement – and it allows institutions to show (including, often, in court) that they are doing something to address prejudice, discrimination and inequalities… even if what they’re doing is, in fact, pointless.

This is sort of empty signaling is bad across the board. However, it is particularly egregious for universities – institutions that regularly claim to embody and inculcate such values as evidence-based reasoning, respect for facts, commitment to truth, etc. Schools are doing a bad job at modeling those values for students insofar as they force upon them (and upon the faculty who are supposed to be instructing them!) pedagogical materials that are demonstrably ineffective or even counterproductive.

Indeed, it seems antithetical to their pedagogical purpose to dump increasing sums of money into these programs, even as many departments are seeing hiring freezes or budget cuts, and contingent faculty are being laid off en masse (disproportionately people from historically underrepresented and disadvantaged groups).

It insults, rather than honors, the memory of George Floyd to offer empty gestures like these in his name. As Cyrus Mehri aptly put it, “When you keep choosing the options on the menu that don’t create change, you’re purposely not creating change. It’s part of the intentional discrimination.”

Musa al-Gharbi is a Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow in Sociology at Columbia University. A version of this article was originally published by Heterodox Academy.

18 notes · View notes

aclosetfan · 4 years

Text

Aight here’s a 16teen-esque mall au for the ppg that I’ll never write, but enjoy thinking about and have heavily outlined (its long, so most is under the cut):

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup aren’t related in this one, but you’d figure they were. Bubs/Buttercups are fraternal Twins (Mom/Dad=Keane/Prof)

Blossom’s mom is Ms. Bellum, who is dating Ms. Ima Goodwoman. Sedusa is actually a good woman in this lol, she just doesn’t vibe with blossom very well.

It also doesn’t help that Ima’s son, Butch, is now an even more permanent fixture in Blossom’s life. She had always thought school was enough.

Later on in the story, Bellum and Ima get married and Butch&Bloss have to come to terms with being step siblings (they break up their parents and end up having to parent trap them back together)

This new relationship between Butch&Bloss works out perfectly for Brick because Brick’s bestfriends with Butch and also has a low-key crush on Bloss. They have English class together and while he very much has a goth persona that he can’t compromise (obviously) by a preppy girl like Bloss, he still enjoys fucking with her. Too bad she has that boyfriend :(

Wait what happened to the mall part?? Here we go:

So, to preference, Bloss is a very smart young women. A real intellectual. Tons of smart extracurriculars. She’s definitely going places, but an Ivy League school costs money. So, she gets a job at the local mall in the bookstore. Bookstores in malls aren’t doing to hot financially and hers gets bought out. It’s going to be replaced by a more mainstream Barnes and Noble, but applications for employees don’t open up until after construction. She’s out a job and for some reason (maybe it’s her horribly inconsistent schedule) no one’s hiring her!! She’s worried about a gap in her resume, but her Mom ends up having the hookup. Turns out her mom’s boss (the mayor, who’s not the Mayor in this one) actually owns the lone hot dog (& pickle) stand in the mall, and it needs a new person to man it.

(((This is a call back to when blossom, in the show, had to get a job at that hot dog stand 😂 she has to wear the same uniform with the stupid hat. )))

Her best costumer is actually Mayor, which perplexes Blossom because that can’t be a financially sound business move. His weird wisdom guides her.

ANYWAY, she takes the job and finds out the stand (and the embarrassing uniform) is unfortunately located in front of. . .

. . .HOT TOPIC.

Who works there??? Lol obviously Mr. Doom and Gloom himself--Brick!

So, Brick’s pretty much the manager there, right? Wrong, but he is a decent employee. He doesn’t actually need a job, but he’s a counterculture rebel, right?? And rebels go against their parents wishes, right?? And his dads (Mojo and Him) don’t want him working in a filthy mall because they’re rich and there’s better things to do. But he’s pretty anti-them so (🖕) he gets the job (Mojo also does not at all understand goth culture)

And then, because the gods favor him, not only does he end up getting to bug Bloss in English, but ALSO on his work breaks. He ends up eating more hotdogs then he ever thought he would in his life, but also, eventually, ends up becoming her study partner. Another fun and great thing for him is that as the story progresses he gets to watch her relationship with that-Jared-guy crumble right before his very eyes, which just adds fuel to his fantasy fire.

So tbh this story actually really works out for Brick. He gets to spend time with the girl he secretly likes and has a decent shot at getting her to date him!! Blossom, on the other hand, suffers, but who’s there to help her through this suffering?

Well, obviously, Bubbles (and BC)! Bubbles works at Claire’s. She does well on the floor, but does not at all like piercing ears. She’s not good at it. She messes piercings up too frequently and blood freaks her out. Her coworker Mary often has to step up and do it for her. Still, she likes all the sparkly stuff in the store, so it’s generally a good fit. As of right now, Bubbles really just vibes in this story. Her biggest source of conflict is with Boomer, who works at the Spencer’s across from Claire’s.

Boomer is what Brick calls a shitty scene kid. He isn’t, Brick’s just mean, but Boomer rolls with it. Tbh he just likes dying his hair a shit ton of colors. He isn’t an ideal employee and is often found taking one too many breaks, but he’s charming and doesn’t make too many bad jokes about the dildos on display in the back, so they keep him around. He should honestly be on Claire’s payroll instead, because when Mary’s not available he’s the one who does the piercings (and the right way too, he might add, not with that fucked-up piercing gun) for Bubbles. And while that might make him seem like an overall helpful guy, do not be fooled. Bubbles always pays a price.

Boomer also has a shitty mom (femme fatale; she didn’t want a son), so his at-home life isn’t great, but he puts on a brave face. Brick and Butch essentially share custody of the boy. He has a room at each of their homes, which throws Blossom for a loop because not only does she have to share space with Butch later in the story, but also with Boomer (who she ends up tutoring).

Speaking of Butch, he was fired from Spencer’s after Boomer got him a job there because he was “immature.” He was also fired from Hot Topic for basically the same reason. Then he landed a job at the Sporting Goods store, but again ended up getting fired (but this time it legitimately wasn’t his fault. His manager was just out to get him, as explained later) Now, he works for the malls arcade arena (they have go-karts and bumper cars; it’s one of those good arcades, ya feel?), so he runs a lot of kid’s bday parties. And to everyone’s surprise, he’s actually really good at it. Apparently, Butch really vibes with kids jacked up on sugar. Parents like him too because he flirts with the moms and pulls the dads into “friendly” but competitive go-kart racing betting pools.

The person doing the actual hard labor at the arcade is Robin. She gets stuck in the chuck-e-cheese-like costume way too often. She’ a good voice of reason for everyone else, especially Butch. She’s his favorite co-worker.

Going back to the sporting goods store. Buttercup works there. She’s the best sales rep they got. It helps that she’s crazy athletic and is on track to get a pretty decent scholarship with some D1 schools. (What’s she play? Idk? Whatever your heart wants) She can’t say though that she’s the most popular amongst her coworkers. She got in a fight with Mitch, which also meant she got in a fight with the twins that follow Mitch around. She definitely didn't get along with Butch when he worked there. And she thinks her manager’s kind of creepy and he’s only gotten creepier since his partner Snake broke up with him

She doesn’t know why Snake broke up with Ace, but she’s pretty sure it has to do with Butch getting fired

Now, this one’s going to throw y’all for a loop, but the reason she gets in a fight with Mitch is because Mitch was picking on her boyfriend Elmer (THATS RIGHT IM SHAKING IT UP—but don’t worry 😏 I love the greens too much).

Elmer works at the comic/geek shop with Mike. She obviously likes her boyfriend and is big buds with Mike. Elmer’s pretty insecure tho and thinks BC’s going to break up with him all the time. This really bums her out. She doesn’t get why he thinks that (b/c she’s out of his league, but she’s oblivious) because she really likes him. Unfortunately, it gets to the point that she eventually decides she has to break up with him because she can’t convince him to trust her (still their relationship is cutesy side plot for a long bit). It’s her first big heartbreak. A heartbreak that is. . .

. . .ideal for Butch because he’s realized he has more then friendly feeling for her. See they weren’t friends AT ALL beforehand, but his new sibling relationship with Blossom has catapulted BC squarely into his life. Slowly they end up going from workplace enemies to eh to friendly to friends to (😉).

A significant turning point in their relationship happened to involve Ace. Butch was on his smoke break and saw Ace making Buttercup uncomfortable. That same night he sees Buttercup trying to leave and Ace/his gang are trying to pressure her into following them. Butch takes offense to this and ends up walking Buttercup to her car. She argues she doesn’t need him saving her, which he readily agrees to, but explains that any excuse to beat that creep Ace up is a good excuse. Afterward, anytime BC has to work close, Butch walks her to her car.

Eventually, he explains to her that he was the one who inadvertently convinced Snake to get out of their toxic-ass relationship with Ace. Ace found out and that’s why he was fired. So, now, he has real beef with the guy. Him and Ace don’t get along at all. To the point where Butch was banned from the sports store, but he sneaks in to see his friends and mess with BC.

HAHA does the story ever end????

The story ends when Barnes n’ Noble opens. Blossom gets the job, ditches the old boring boyfriend, gets the goth boy, saves her mom’s relationship, and gains a sibling.

The format of the story would be pretty episodic, with a conflict/resolution in each chapter. But what’s written above highlights the over arching plot lines

and holy shit! how could I forget the cherry on top??? Brick and Princess are cousins, and she does NOT let him forget this.

((If you want more specific details ya gotta ask. there’s a lot more then just this.))

#ppg fic outline #I'm not going to tag this too heavily #i dont need people judging me on how bad and unoriginal it is lololol #because its hella stupid #but its been on my mind for a while #it's way funnier in my head #hey maybe one day??#ppg fic #my writing

20 notes · View notes

thethousandyearwitch · 4 years

Text

“Thankless Job”. 2589 Words, HisokaxIllumi Illumi has to work at a Burger Joint and realizes that Customer Service isnt for him. A Shitpost gone wrong, dont expect perfect english, dont expect perfect plot. kthxbye

fanfiction.net link

"You need to get a job." Those words have been ringing in Illumis ears for the past week. The way which his father had said it, so matter-of-factly, and the way his mother started wailing almost immediately, talking about "new experiences" "learning normal skills" "honest money". Illumi did not understand how the money he'd get from missions was "dishonest" money, but he also knew better than to disagree with his parents. And so he could do nothing but watch and write applications, while his brothers got assigned mission after mission. He wasn't surprised that a TOPBURGA♪ accepted his application and hired him after a short interview. The place does not exactly scream professionalism and high-class, with it's grease stained walls, the lingering small of something burning in the air, and the sound of screaming children. The sensory input was almost too overwhelming for the eldest Zoldyck son, but he knew that his pool of jobs to choose from wasn't that deep.

And so he stared at himself in the mirror while buttoning up the last button on his brightly orange shirt. The work uniform was atrocious. The shirt was too tight around the shoulders, but too wide around the waist, and was tucked into pants that didn't even reach his ankles. Gently he pulled his ponytail through the back-end of a white cap, fashioning the talking-burger logo of the chain. A last look into the mirror, going over his form, examining the working-class stranger looking back at him. That could not be him, he thought, resting his eyes on the reflection of the name tag "Iluhmi". 8:30 am. His shift starts.

The first 2 hours had been going surprisingly smoothly. Working as a cashier wasn't difficult to Illumi, he could take comfort in such a repeated, calculated task, blocking out most of everything that was going on around him, including his managers mumbling about 'customer service face'. He got the job done, and he got it done well. Mentally he was preparing for his lunch break already, wanting to breathe fresh air, leaving all the noise behind for glorious 30 minutes of silence. But suddenly Illumi felt something greatly disturbing this make believe peace he has already been looking forward to. A familiar aura, so piercing, so overwhelming, a weaker soul would be inclined to activate a fight or flight instinct that had been driven out of any and all of the Zoldyck children. There was only fight. And yet Illumi wanted to leave, not to flee, but simply to hide, to not be seen. Not like this, not by him. The doors of the small Burger joint swung open, and in came the familiar magician, brandishing is trademark grin, so perverse that Illumi felt it would be justified to call security. But he didn't, instead opting to look blankly ahead, hoping, praying that Hisoka has stumbled into this restaurant by accident, and would leave any second. Hope is for Fools and Prayer never works. Illumi was face to face with the pink-haired intruder now. "My, oh my, what a surprise to see you here, dear Illumi " It is against company policies to assault a customer. "That Uniform looks quite... Dashing on you, might I add." It is against company policies to insult a customer.

"Welcome to TOPBURGA, may I have your order please?" Maybe acting cold and rejecting would work, pretending not to even know this person (by stretch of definition). "Oh, I don't think that's a sufficient greeting for a PAYING CUSTOMER, do you? " It would not work. Illumi could tell by Hisokas widening grin and narrowing eyes that he was prepared to make a scene. Illumi cleared his throat, before digging his nails into the off-color counter in front of him, forcing himself to smile, looking Hisoka directly in the eyes. He had never wanted to murder this man this badly ever before. "Welcome to TOPBURGA♪! May I take your order, please~?" Hisoka clapped his hands together, looking pleased as ever. "Now that's the spirit! Feels wonderful to work with a smile on your face, right?" Illumi felt a piece of a soul that he think he didn't have die. Reverting back to a blank stare, Illumi coldly put in Hisokas order into the cash register, trying to block out Hisokas low purrs of "um"s and "ah"s while he was deciding on his meal. "That'll be 6.99Jennie Please."

As Illumi held out his hand to receive the cash (which was definitely not enough to compensate for what he was emotionally going through), Hisoka gently placed his hand on top of the cashiers, slowly running his nails over Illumis open palm after dropping the coins. The sensation ran shivers down Illumis spine, but surprisingly he didn't dislike it. Faintly he wondered how it would feel to have these nails run up the nape of his neck, or gently massaging his scalp. Of course Illumi would never let anyone touch his hair, much less Hisoka, who would probably get way too much joy out of it.

Quickly banning these thoughts out if his head , he handed Hisoka his order number. "Your order will be ready in a moment." Illumi wondered if he could pass a note to the cook and ask him to burn an order on purpose, as Hisoka finally took a couple steps back to lean against a wall and wait. Conveniently the business started to fill with customers, keeping Illumi busy and his mind occupied, ignoring the magicians piercing stare on him. Even as a coworker finally handed him his order, he found a table in perfect view of the counter, slowly eating fry by fry while watching Illumi work. Does he not have anything better to do? Is there no one else he can harass? Of course he's just looking, but anyone who has ever met Hisokas gaze knows that that basically counts as assault. Why does it bother me so much, anyway? Illumis thoughts were echoing in his head. Hisoka took up too much space in his mind, distractingly much. "You're being watched." The soft voice pulled him out of the echo chamber of his mind.

"Pardon?" Illumis eyes focused back on the customer in front of him, trying to process the figure in a soaked black rain coat, hood pulled over their head. The rain had started a couple minutes earlier, and as everyone who had sought shelter in the burger joint had been served, or was simply there to wait our the weather, this lone figure was the last in line. "A customer has been watching you for the past 30 minutes, he sits in the second row to the right." "Oh, him. I've been aware-" Illumis explanation cut short as the figure pulls off the soaked hood of their coat, revealing yet another familiar face. "Chrollo." "Oh, Illumi? I didn't even recognize you in that.." Chrollos eyes quickly darted over Illumis form, before letting out a small chuckle "..lovely attire." "Thank you, I've already been made aware that I look 'dashing', according to my pursuer." Chrollo leaned on the counter, and though Illumi felt proportionally more uncomfortable with the increasing number of familiar faces in this place, he did find comfort in being able to talk comparatively normal to someone for the first time today. "So, is the Zoldyck family planing to become a chain restaurant empire now?"

"Very funny." It was not very funny. "I'd prefer it if you leave this establishment. If Hisoka recognizes who you are, I feel like there is not a job for me to come back to tomorrow." Chrollo chuckled, before holding up an apologetic hand. "Understood, I will just have a water and be on my way. Though.." He quickly glanced over his shoulder "..I feel like he's already preparing to fight me just for talking to you like this. His determination in staring me down is admirable." Illumi glanced at the clock, and sighed in relief, before grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. "My break has started. That'll be 1.20Jennie." Without another word, Chrollo placed the money on the counter, took his water, and waved Illumi goodbye. The hard working man at the counter was about to turn and leave for his well deserved break, when something was amiss. He froze mid-turn, glanced back at the interior of the restaurant. He's gone, he thought.

Did he see Chrollo after all? The image of Hisoka confronting Chrollo outside came to mind, but was quickly pushed aside. It was time for Illumis break, and whatever happens outside the restaurant is none of his business. Instead he grabbed his water bottle, and excused himself through the backdoor. The rain had stopped, and the sun was pushing through the thin of the clouds. The back of the restaurant was facing a small park, and a wooden bench had been set up for employees to take a break on. Illumi sat down, grateful that the bench itself had been sheltered under the roof of the building, and took off his uniform cap. A small sigh escaped him, staring away into the distance. What has my Life come to? Is this how its going to be for ever? How did Hisoka get his nails so sharp, and why does he always look at me? Is this an informal way of telling me im out of the family business? Did my fa- Wait. He caught himself mid thought. That magician had done it again, sneaking his way into the back of Illumis mind, like a maggot eating through wood. He could never, ever give him the satisfaction of knowing he had those capabilities. Illumi could practically already hear the self-satisfied purr of the other mans voice. "Whats got you thinking so hard, dear?~" The reality of that voice made Illumis head shoot up, facing the other man who was leaning casually against the wall next to him.

"None of your business." Plenty of his business. Too much of his business, actually. His smug face and awful grin and piercing gaze. "You know, I do like your hair in a ponytail like this, it frames your neck perfectly~" Hisoka reaches out towards Illumis face, but his hand is quickly swatted away, giving a fake pout at this. "Why does the eldest of the Zoldyck children degrade himself to such lowly work anyway?~"

Illumi stood up, determined to leave. He wanted peace, quiet, a clear mind, all things mutually exclusive with the presence of Hisoka. "My dear Illumi, if you really needed money that badly, you could have always come to your good friend for help~" Illumi felt his muscles twitch. He wasn't sure what to address first, that he doesn't need money that badly, or that him and Hisoka are the furthest thing from friends. "I wouldn't mind playing your boss for a while~" The magician was directly behind him, he could feel his aura lingering all over his back. Hisokas low voice purred softly behind Illumis ear "I promise you'd get your own uniform, too~" A hand was suddenly resting on the nape of Illumis neck, and index finger massaging through the small hairs that slipped out of his ponytail. For a fraction of a second, he could feel his blood come to a freezing point, forcing him to inhale sharply.

The thought of working for Hisoka was ridiculous and repulsing. Working with him was already often a strain on Illumis sanity. And now just being in his presence , so close he could swear he could hear the others heartbeat (though it was probably only his own ringing in his ear), it upset something deep inside him. The fraction of a second passes, and his blood shot up to a boil. Illumi turned around, a hand immediately pushing Hisoka back against a wall. "I have no qualms about killing you right where you stand." "I'd let you, if it would calm your nerves~" It was no surprise that the magicians grin had only gotten wider after impact with the wall, and seeing Illumis rage burn through him. Illumis hand was pushing against Hisokas throat, though one of Hisokas hands was just holding lazily onto the others wrist, making no attempt to escape his grip.

Illumi could feel Hisokas pulse through his grip, calm despite the circumstances, which only irritated him more. Neither of them break eye contact, while Illumis thoughts run deafening through his head. The past week had been more stressful than any mission could have ever been. This shift in his routine, in what is normal for him just being torn away, proved to be far more damaging than expected. Hisoka was right, his nerves needed to be calmed. His fingers twitched around Hisokas windpipe, who was still meeting Illumis gaze unblinkingly, licking his lips in anticipation. "You are a vile person. I'm sure you'd get off on it if I were to actually kill you right here." Illumis face inched close to Hisokas, not letting go off the grip around his neck. What am I doing it echoed. "We'll never find out if you don't try~" Hisokas hot breath fell on Illumis lips. Too close. Stop. His head was pulsing, and he just wanted to muffle all of his thoughts. Calm my nerves. Their Lips met, softer than expected, and suddenly Illumi felt like all of his muscles relaxed for the first time in his life. He's just helping me calm my nerves.

Hisokas free hand rested on Illumis hip, in turn Illumi released the grip around his neck, and instead wrapped his arms around the others shoulders, pulling him closer to himself. Hisokas tongue licks along the others lips, and reflex-like he opens them. Tasting him like this made Illumis head spin once again, so sickly sweet, as if he was made out of candy. One of his hands starts holding onto Hisokas hair, not pulling, but curling soft strands around his fingers, a gesture almost too soft, too kind for someone like him. In response Hisokas grip around his hips tightened. A new kind of tension tightened in Illumis chest, coiling around his throat, forcing him to finally pull away, catching his breath. He could feel all of the blood that had rushed to his head, feeling the heat flush his cheeks. Quickly he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, straightening his back. "This did not happen." "Of course not, love~" Hisoka chuckles, stepping away from the wall he had been pinned to, stretching his arms and shoulders as if he had been chained up for hours. "Don't do that. I'm not your 'love', you're a glorified stranger to me." "Oh, Illumi, you hurt me so deeply!" Another fake pout, though his eyes were sparking with scheming intent. "Guess I have to ask someone else to join me on a mission in Yorknew then~!" "Excuse me?" "Well, my dear Illumi, theres a ball in Yorknew, and some very interesting people will be there. And by pure coincidence, I have a +1. Though I can't just take any stranger with me~" Hisokas grin was all telling, the bait was all for Illumi to take. The luxury of a Ball in Yorknew, with the danger of Hisoka being present and most likely still itching to "calm some nerves"...And the escape from this thankless job. Illumi undoes his ponytail, and starts unbuttoning the badly-fitting uniform. "When will we depart, associate?" Hisoka started beaming, overjoyed at having broken down one of Illumis walls. "I'll pick you up tonight, love~"

#hisoka marrow #illumi zoldyck #hunter x hunter #fanfiction #hisoillu

44 notes · View notes

exeggcute · 3 years

Note

Would you mind elaborating on your job search experience? I found your sankey chart really interesting and informative!!

Did you get something related to your degree?

In my experience most job applications I hear back from turn out to be spam or BS. Which is SUPER exhausting and SUPER disheartening. What are some warning signs you have learned to look out for that something is sketchy or exploitative or scammy?? Thanks for anything you’re willing to share 🥺

yeah for sure! I'm glad you liked the chart, tracking my job applications in a spreadsheet finally paid off lol.

I may be a bit of an outlier in the typical millennial experience of Job Search Hell (at least this time around) because I finally managed to get a foothold in my field and have pretty concrete experience for a specific job title that (1) has consistent hiring demand, albeit with a fair amount of competition among candidates and (2) was already remote-friendly prior to the pandemic so it's somewhat easier to scour job listings when you aren't restricted to your immediate geographic location. (granted, the wider selection of remote roles to choose from is somewhat offset by the fact that everyone else in the applicant pool is also unrestricted by location, so you have more choices but also more competition. the ratio likely evens out overall). I exclusively applied to (or considered) remote roles, but there's a handful of on-site jobs in my area (at least in the Before Times)—though those only crop up sporadically and are also hypercompetitive.

for context, my 2018-2019 job search (immediately after graduating college) spanned nine miserable months, although not continuously; I had three separate false starts where I quit a shitty internship, quit a shitty online job, and got fired from an in-person job, but over the course of those nine months I probably sent in like four hundred applications total and had about a dozen interviews, most of which were fucking bananas. nearly all of these job applications were for in-person roles, and I was applying for stuff pretty much at random—unlike this last time around, when every single job I applied to (or was approached to consider) either had the same title as my last role or was functionally identical in terms of job duties but had a slightly different name. all of this is *related* to my degree, broadly speaking, but in practice almost nothing I studied in college applies directly to my job. it's a weird situation because you can technically major in this exact field (or enroll in certification programs for it) but very few people do. having SOME kind of degree is pretty much a requirement (undergrad at a minimum, grad school is nice but not necessary unless you're really specialized), but having a BA in english or communication is about as common as having a BS in comp sci or engineering. (literature major here.) the preference for a BA or BS varies between company and specific sub-industry (more specialized roles generally prefer people who have a degree in that particular area), but once you have a few years of experience under your belt people stop caring for the most part.

getting my foot in the door with experience was 100% the most difficult part of this—and honestly, was the main differentiating factor between this job search and the last. I did have some pre-graduation job experience that I was able to leverage at the end of my nine-month search that landed me my last job, but I didn't figure that out until way too late in the game. it's not a one-to-one analogue with what I do now, but it was close enough that I figured out ways to classify it as relevant experience and boost my "years doing X role" number from 0 to Not Zero. (the "you need experience to get experience" paradox is only solved by a bit of creative reframing, lol.) once I had that purported experience under my belt, I was able to get a job that gave me actual tangible experience, which blows the whole thing wide open on future job search cycles.

which is all to say: there's nothing wrong with twisting things a bit for your benefit, so long as it's not something that'll bite you in the ass later. reframing particular skills or experience to suit a potential role is a workable strategy as long as you know you're actually capable of doing the things that role requires. don't lie about knowing how to build rockets if you’re applying to a job at NASA.

the spam shit is way too common with job applications these days, whether it's outright fake listings or vaguely scummy shit masquerading as a cool place to work. specific red flags vary, but some things I look out for:

job listings that don't clearly name the company you'll be working for. exceptions obviously apply, like if you apply through a specialized job board or staffing site that anonymizes its clients, but if a listing just says it's an "exciting opportunity" or "fun workplace," it's probably not. if there is a name, google it.

check out glassdoor ratings from past employees. if a place has a really shitty rating or reviews that consistently mention egregious shit in the workplace, you're better off saving the effort. certain places will also have ratings from applicants and interviewees, which might give you more insight into whether it's worth looking into.

anything that requires you to pay the employer for the privilege of working there.

for writing gigs specifically: any freelance gig that requires you to submit fully-completed work but doesn't guarantee that they'll pay you for each submission, only the ones they approve, and you won't know if it's approved until after you already wrote it. content mills suck across the board but these are the worst of the worst.

general corporate bullshit speak like "work hard, play hard," "fast-paced environments" where you "learn on the job," any indication that you'll "always be in a working mindset" or that "you're never truly off the job," or job listings that make it sound like you'll be doing completely random things on any given day with no consistent job duties.

any place that lists "free coffee" under a list of employee benefits. it doesn't sound like a big deal, but I swear it's a huge red flag... if cheap instant coffee is their best shot at convincing you it's a good place to work, it's gonna be a nightmare.

#sorry this was WAY longer than I expected it to be #also if you're searching right now best of luck!!!

8 notes · View notes

tim-stonker · 4 years

Link

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, mentioned Georgie Barker/Melanie King Characters: Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Elias Bouchard, Melanie King, Alice "Daisy" Tonner, mentioned Basira Hussain, im sorry queen it was a 5+1 and u were number 6 Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, more like AU elias isnt a bitch, 5 Times, Mutual Pining, implied Nonbinar Jonathan Sims, he's gnc, Getting Together, Comfort No Hurt, bc we need that, Just Pals Being Soft, dimples as a plot point Summary:

5 times people didn't see jon's smile plus the 1 time someone did

i wrote some gay shit about jon smiling and it became this. whole thing is under the cut, check it out on ao3 if u wanna !

-5

Jonathan Sims was an unexpected candidate for the position of Archivist, following Gertrude Robinson’s rather abrupt retirement (Elias still wasn’t sure if she was actually telling the truth when she said she wanted to spend more time travelling with her grandson. He didn’t even know if she actually had a grandson.) When word got out that there was an opening for head archivist, it surprised both Elias and Jon’s manager when he put his application into the pool. While Jon wasn’t the highest position in Research, he wasn’t at the lowest tier either, and everyone knew that being Head Archivist was much like being the mayor of a ghost town. Sure, you had a fancy title, but not much else. The Archives were in the basement, they were cold and dusty, and typically, if a budget needed to be cut, it was the Archives that took the brunt of the slashes. But, Jon was organized, faked his confidence well enough, was willing to put in the work, and, if Elias was being honest with himself, there wasn’t exactly a queue out the door to take over the vacancy that Gertrude left.

The interview went well enough, though Jon was clearly filled with nervous excitement. He kept reaching up to tuck his hair behind his ear - it was too short to stay in place, but much too long to not be a bother. His voice almost echoed in Elias’ office, strong and precise, even when he struggled with some questions that Elias asked about his strengths and weaknesses. Elias appreciated the way that Jon carried himself, the slight aura of grandeur and pride that he seemed to give off, contrasting starkly with his awkward attempts at being personable.

Though Elias told Jon that he’ll be in touch within a few days to inform him whether or not he’ll be transferred to the Archives, he’s already certain that there’s no better candidate, and, if nothing else, he loathes having new hires from outside the Institute. He can overlook a few missing qualifications if it means he can cut down on the number of interviews he has to conduct.

Elias waited a few more days, finished up more interviews, and found his suspicions were correct. Jon - despite the roughness around his edges, and his lack of a library sciences degree (an aspect that makes Rosie raise her eyebrows at Elias when he mentions it) - is the best fit for the archives that Elias has. He calls Jon into his office again, watching as Jon delicately maneuvers into the chair on the other side of Elias’s desk, fingers picking at the sleeves of his cardigan.

“I’m happy to tell you, Jonathan, that after much consideration, that you have been promoted to Head Archivist. Your transfer from the Research department will be put through promptly, and - unless you have any objections - you can begin your new role as soon as next Monday. Congratulations.”

As Elias spoke, he watched as Jon’s eyes widened, eyebrows raise, as the tension melted out of his shoulders. The corners of his lips seemed to flicker, wanting to curl upwards, but not quite able to.

“I, oh, wow. Thank you, Elias. I, uh, I’m really excited to be working in the Archives.” Jon stammered out. His voice had less of the confident bravado that it had during his interview, and while that would usually make Elias reconsider his choice, the fact that all of Jon’s nervous ticks seemed to have disappeared sated his concern.

Elias nodded, hummed, and launched into the less fun aspect of promotion, namely discussion of new contracts, pay raises, the fact that Jon would be able to ask some of his co-workers to become his assistants, but any vacancies will be filled at Elias’s discretion. Jon nodded along and asked the appropriate questions at the right time.

Perhaps he’s just bad at expressing emotions, Elias thought, though the thought is both fleeting and insignificant. It gets pushed out of the way, quickly, and is discarded, not to be thought again.

When the meeting was over, Elias stood up to show Jon to the door. Just before Jon left, Elias stuck his hand out, and once again said, “Congratulations, Jon.”

Jon looked startled for a second, before reaching out and giving Elias a hearty handshake.

“Thank you, Elias, really,” Jon replied. While saying that, the corner of his mouth twitched once again, and for a moment, Jon’s face began to break out into a smile. Eyes excited and bright, before he schooled his expression back into one of vaguely happy neutrality.

Elias released Jon’s hand, and when his office was once again empty of everyone except himself, he briefly wondered why anyone cares enough about smiling to prevent themselves from doing it.

Like most intrapersonal thoughts, though, Elias waved it away, going back to his own work, just glad that he didn’t have to get Rosie to put up any more job listings on Linkedin.

-4

Tim was surprised when Jon approached him with the job offer. Sure, he and Jon had worked together for a few years and Jon frequently complimented Tim on his work and whenever Jon actually showed up to work get-togethers, he seemed to awkwardly stick to Tim’s side like glue until the event was done. But Jon always declined Tim’s invites to non-work social gatherings, and sometimes it was hard to tell if the snark in Jon’s voice came from malice or…. Something else.

Tim had chalked all that up to awkwardness or to Jon’s work ethic, but for some reason, he never thought that Jon actually considered Tim to be a friend, even though he did tentatively think of Jon as one. So it was rather shocking when Jon marched up to him, a small stack of papers in his hands at the end of the workday, and announced,

“I’ve been promoted to Head Archivist.”

“Oh, well, congrats, Jon,” Tim said, smiling. He clapped Jon on the shoulder. “Yeah, I heard you put your application in.” Tim didn’t mention that he heard because some of their co-workers were making jokes about hoping to see the last of Jon, with his insane work ethic and snappish remarks.

Jon nodded. “I’m also allowed to pick my own assistants since many of Gertrude’s have quit or been reassigned since her absence.”

“That’s cool.”

“I was wondering if you would like to join me in the Archives, Tim.”

“Oh,” Tim said, eyes widening. Jon looked straight at him, unflinching, though his hands were curled into tight balls at his sides. This was certainly unexpected.

“I think we work well together. You do really good work, and while I’m not exactly sure what… extra work transferring to the archives will entail, I’m that your presence will be beneficial.” Finally, Jon broke Tim’s gaze. “Also, I… quite enjoy your company.”

“Wow, well, thank you, Jon,” Tim managed to stammer out. He looked at Jon’s now sheepish expression and how his cheeks had taken on a slightly red tinge from the honesty. “Uh, can I… think about it? For a few days? It’s just… kind of a big change.”

“Oh, of course, Tim,” Jon nodded earnestly, passing Tim the stack of papers, which Tim now saw as a would-be employment contract, with different sections highlighted, presumably the parts that Jon thought Tim would find important. Jon made like he was about to turn to leave before he paused and said, “Also I. I won’t be offended if you decide to stay put.”

“Oh, I know,” Tim said, even though he wasn’t sure why he knew. Jon nodded again.

“Well, see you tomorrow.” And with that and a brief wave, Jon walked away, leaving Tim to stare at the employment papers and to think about what to do. And Tim did consider it. He had a pretty good thing going on in the Research department. He was well-liked, and many of his managers said that he could probably get promoted to a higher position with a better salary in a few years, and though the entry position of archival assistant was better paying than his current gig, Tim knew he was never going to get promoted from that role.

Tim had friends in Research, but he also had friends in artifacts, and finance, and HR. The more he thought about it, it wasn’t like his work-social life would end if he went to the basement. And, as much as his co-workers liked to poke fun at Jon, Tim did genuinely enjoy his company. He liked his wit, and snark, and the way he tried to play off his awkwardness and usually failed. And despite his somewhat clumsy attempts at socializing, anytime Tim talked about his life outside of work, Jon listened, made jokes, and was friendly.

Jon was also quite easy on the eyes, in his own strange way.

Tim found it wasn’t really much of a hard decision after all. So when he walked into work the next day and tossed the signed contract on Jon’s desk, all he said was, “It better not be as dusty as everyone says it is.”

Before walking off to his own desk to finish up his own projects, for a moment he thought he saw Jon duck his head to smile. But when he looked back, Jon was just holding the contract, and though his eyes were happy, his face was straight.

-3

Sasha enjoyed her work as an archival assistant, despite all the dust, and Jon’s moodiness, and the strange errands that the statements sent everyone on. It was an unorthodox job, cleaning up the decades of bizarre filing that Gertrude left, hunting down follow-ups from people who were clearly drunk, sick, or delirious at the time that these ‘occurrences’, well, occurred.

She certainly enjoyed her co-workers, basement dwellers that they were. While archives and research had many employees and had been on floors where different departments mingled, the four of them - Tim, Sasha, Martin, and Jon - were stuck down in the cool basement, surrounded by files, and books, and old foundation. While she had been on amicable terms with Tim before, the forced proximity brought them much closer, and she was happy to meet and befriend Martin. Pretty quickly the three of them began to go out for drinks after work, plan dinners, and movie nights, and get-togethers on weekends. They sometimes invited Jon, but the answer was also unanimously no.

Still, despite Jon’s rebuffs at having a social life, Sasha always felt like her relationship with him was… different than the others. While Tim and Jon had prior acquaintanceship, Sasha only briefly knew Jon in research; and Jon was either oblivious or blatantly ignoring Martin’s crush on him, rebuffing his attempts of flirting and courtship with harsh words and mumbled, unfocused ‘thank yous’ when Martin brought him tea.

It surprised her how highly Jon thought of her, and how well they got on.

“Here’s that statement you were after,” Sasha said, after knocking on Jon’s office door. Jon turned in his chair to face her, hand outreached to take the folder when she got close enough.

“Thank you, Sasha,” Jon said, as he grasped the folder. Sasha nodded and was about to let go when she glanced down and saw Jon’s hand.

“Is that nail polish?” She asked suddenly, voice coming out more accusatory than she intended. Jon snatched the folder away from her, curling his fingers into his palms as soon as the paper hit the desk surface. He still wore his face of neutrality, but his jaw was tense. Sasha was surprised at how defensive, and how quickly, Jon reacted to the question, but immediately saw she needed to remedy it. She quickly added, “It looks nice.”

As soon as the compliment was said, Jon seemed to relax a bit. His jaw unclenched and slowly he unfurled his fingers. His nails were a simple black, though it was a messy job and they were already chipping.

“Oh, thank you.” He said softly.

“Did you do them yourself?” Sasha asked, even though she couldn’t imagine Jon asking for help to do his nails.

“Yes, er. As a child, I always wanted to paint my nails but I couldn’t, so.” He held up his hands, wiggling his fingers. “They’re not very good, are they?”

Sasha shrugged. “Pretty good for a first time, though. Next time you’ll want to push your cuticles back first, and you should probably get a varnish too. It’ll stop them from chipping so much.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you, Sasha,” Jon said, clearly not expecting advice. Sasha gave one last nod, and a, “No problem.” before leaving Jon’s office.

After that - or maybe Sasha just noticed it more afterwards - Jon seemed to come to work ‘prettied up’ more often. He seemed to listen to her nail advice, and while he often sported plain, black nails - sans chipping, thanks to the nice clear coat he put on - a few times he came into work with blue, or red, or green nails. While Martin and Tim always complimented them, if they noticed, Jon began going up to Sasha to show her every fresh set. Often it would be a week or two between appearances; Jon seemed to just let the previous coat chip off completely before repainting them, approaching Sasha with his hands curled in a way so that he could view his own nails before showing them off to her. Sasha always made sure that she seemed excited to see them, even if they weren’t always that good. The way that Jon seemed to loosen after every compliment, the way his face would soften just a tad made it worth it.

Soon it became their little routine, even as Jon’s habits changed. While it started with nails, soon Jon would awkwardly approach her to show off the fancy braid he just learned how to do with his growing hair. Often, they were messy and uneven, large strands falling out of the cheap hair ties, but Sasha would say it was nice, before offering to fix it for him. Jon always declined, disappearing into his office and coming out later, braid abandoned and hair in its usual neat bun, but Sasha always offered. For a while, Jon had taken to looking at the clothes Sasha came to work in, awkwardly complimenting her on whatever coat or blouse or shoes she had worn. It took Sasha a few times to realize what he was saying - or at least thinking.

“I like your skirt,” Jon mumbled one day, as he and Sasha walked into the archives. “It’s very pretty.”

Sasha hummed, looking down at it. It wasn’t anything fantastic, just a black a-line skirt with a vaguely plaid pattern, long enough to be work-appropriate without annoying her. She mostly wore it because the growing pile of dirty laundry in her flat left her few other options.

“Thank you, Jon,” she replied, before pursing her lips. “You know, I think you would look quite nice in a skirt.”

A bold move, Sasha knew, but after Jon sputtered for a moment, he managed to choke out, “You… you do?”

“Oh, yes. You got nice, slender legs, and if one a little longer it would just add to the frumpy librarian look quite nicely.” Sasha laughed a little, unable to resist the urge to tease a little. Jon gave a polite chuckle and nodded.

They repeated this process a few more times, over a few weeks. Jon would give Sasha a sincere, if not a bit bumbling compliment on her wardrobe or appearance (often for items Sasha did not care for that much) and after thanking him, she would flip it around and say, “I think this lipgloss colour would suit you better than me” or " a blouse like this would make your collarbones look good” or even being as bold as saying “You should get a dress like it, then we can match.”

Jon would brush the comments off with a laugh or a denial, but Sasha could see the wheels in his head-turning, the way he would occasionally look at whatever pair of pants he was wearing that day and frown.

Eventually, Sasha’s hard and not-so-subtle work paid off when she saw Jon shuffle into the archives, not in his usual attire of plain cardigan and button-up, tucked into a pair of boring pants, but with a new look: a cardigan and plain button-up tucked into a shockingly boring skirt. It suited him, though; the long grey fabric skimming his ankles, the way it would flow behind and the way his feet would kick it in front. Jon’s fingers seemed to be absent-mindedly twisting themselves into the fabric, as he made his way towards his office.

Sasha was right; Jon did rock the frumpy librarian look.

“Good morning, Jon,” Sasha greeted, cheerfully. Jon looked up.

“Morning, Sasha.”

“New wardrobe?” She asked, nodding at his outfit. Jon seemed to falter a little, standing still, waiting for her assessment. “I like it! Really suits you.”

And while that was a bit of a lie - Sasha found it to be a bit boring, and she would never have even considered buying herself, though it did quite Jon wonderfully - Sasha couldn’t bring herself to feel the least bit bad, when she heard Jon mutter a soft, “Thank you,” before hurrying to his office. For a split second, Sasha would have sworn that his lips were pulled into a smile, thought for a moment she saw a flash of his teeth, but he was opening and closing his office door before she could confirm.

-2

Despite all her grumbling, thrown insults, and jabs, Melanie didn’t actually dislike Jon. Well, no, she did dislike him, immensely. He’s smug, and rude, and has a know-it-all attitude, and he absolutely did not take her show seriously. But, behind all of that, he respected her abilities and her competence, if not the way that she uses it. She thought of it like she wouldn’t want anything to hurt Jon unless it was her giving him a good slap around the head.

Still, when she ended up hanging around the Archives more - and shockingly, no one, not even Jon, tried to stop her - after her show fell apart and took most of her professional network with it, she’s surprised how much common ground she shares with Jon. At first, they needed someone else in the room with them, to grease the wheels of conversation - either Sasha siding with Melanie every once in a while, or a well-timed joke from Tim, or Martin’s placating tone - but every time they found themselves able to stand each other without any assistance, even starting their own conversation. Without her show, with its staged dramatics and clickbait titles to feed Jon’s antagonisms, they find that they have similar opinions and histories with the supernatural.

“Most statements and stories are completely false,” Jon had repeated many times. But soon he began to add, “But the ones that are real are… deeply concerning, and hard to come by.”

More than a few times Jon had caught Melanie digging through filing cabinets, looking for a statement with a shred of truth in it, anything to follow up or make a story out of. After the third time that Jon threw open the door to the filing room and nearly gave himself a heart attack when the light illuminated Melanie’s hunch over figure, reading through a pile of folders that she most certainly was not going to put away properly, Jon sighed and asked, “Why don’t I just give you some statements that seem real.”

Melanie looked up from the file in her hand that she was about to discard. “You’d do that? Isn’t that against ‘policy’ or something.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “I’m sure it’s no more breaking rules than allowing you in here in the first place.” He eyed the pile of statements on the floor, the open drawer with crumbled papers shoved in. “Besides, I’m tired of having to spend an entire day refiling after you pop in.”

And so, Jon started keeping track of statements he believes. First on sticky notes, then on looseleaf paper, and eventually in a notebook so that Melanie can keep track as she goes along, Jon wrote down the name and case number of what he believes are credible cases, and Melanie dug them out of their dusty tombs. Even if she didn’t put them away - which she rarely did, can’t go making Jon’s life too easy, she thought with a grin - it was clear that he appreciated knowing exactly where they came from. She still browsed around, skimming through statements that Jon doesn’t believe, but she puts those ones back where she finds them if they weren't worth her time.

Their strange friendship continued like that for a few months. They steered clear of personal topics, even, no, especially, as Melanie began going on dates with Georgie. Occasionally, a personal detail would slip in; Jon mentioned that he hates denim skirts after telling Melanie about a statement that, for some reason, explicitly mentions them (“And what makes you an expert on what women should wear?” Melanie asked, annoyance clear in her.

Jon furrowed his eyebrows. “What? No, I’m talking about me. I hate wearing denim skirts.”

“Oh,” Melanie says, the wind coming out of her sails. “Uh, me too.”). At one point Melanie mentioned that she loves artificial blue raspberry, which made Jon scrunch his nose in disgust. Before they knew it, Melanie and Jon knew about the other’s thoughts on movies, books, fashion, the weather, politics, animals, food, and whether or not Rosie is dating that one woman from HR.

It was a slow and gradual shift, one that caught both of them off guard. But neither was anxious to prevent it and really, Melanie was kind of interested to see where it would go. It’s with that thought in mind, seeing how this will go, that she throws a folder onto Jon’s desk. He hadn’t looked up when she knocked and entered without waiting, but with the manila folder obscuring whatever paperwork he was doing, he sighs and lifts his head.

“Yes, Melanie?”

“This statement was misfiled,” Melanie said, glee and gloating oozing out of her voice. She cackled when she saw Jon scowl, arms crossing automatically. He glanced down at the casefile.

“It most certainly was not,” Jon huffed, picking it up. He doesn’t even mention how it wasn’t a file he gave her, so keen to prove her wrong. “It was filed by year, 2006, subsection ‘non-human creature’, subsection ‘false’ and-”

“Exactly,” Melanie interrupted. “It’s not fake.”

“What do you mean it’s not fake.” Jon narrowed his eyes. “It’s about a bloody sea monster!”

“A sea monster which is described in another statement from 1984,” Melanie threw another folder onto his desk, which Jon hadn’t noticed in her hand in his haste to disagree, “And, one that causes damage similar to this accident report,” Melanie unlocked her phone and shoved it into Jon’s face. His eyes crossed and squinted as he tried to read the news article on the screen. “Which, by the way, all occur in the same region of the Barents Sea.”

Jon lifted his eyes from the phone screen, still slightly glaring at Melanie. He looked away after a second, raising a hand to scratch the side of his face.

“Well, then, I guess we will have to look into it some more,” his voice was different than what Melanie was used to. Behind the movement of his hand, Melanie thought she saw some falses of teeth and saw a slight twinkle in his eye. He quickly dropped his face, expression and voice back to normal, “But, this is not permission for you to go back to rummaging through my files!”

Melanie grinned wolfishly, putting a hand on her hip. The gentle voice and expression were already leaving her mind. “Like I ever needed your permission, Jon.”

-1

It was almost surprising how well Daisy got on with Jon. She supposed it was because they were both a bit quieter than the people around them, got a bit more drained from human interaction than others, a bit more like old souls. Only, Daisy was more of an ‘old soul’ because the thought of all the therapy she had to go through years ago still made her tired and because she was literally about fifteen years older than everyone else in the Archives.

“Why is it that your joints hurt more than mine even though you’re a baby?” Daisy asked, after finding Jon laying on the floor of his office, hair and dress fanned out on the floor. When she had questioned his state, he just mumbled, “m’back hurts.”

Calling him a baby made him grumble more. “I’m not a baby, I am a grown man-”

“More like an old man.” Daisy joked, sitting down cross-legged by his head. “Seriously, you’re too young to be aching this much.”

Jon shrugged, shirt rustling against the carpet. “I’ve always ached. I guess having a desk job just made it worse.”

Daisy nodded. She couldn’t really relate; all her old aches hadn’t been physical, and before the archives all her jobs involved in a lot of moving - whether it was fast food as a teenager, or retail as a young adult, and then the police.

“You should go to a chiropractor, get a massage.” She suggested.

“Chiropractor and masseuse are two different professions.”

“Piss off, you know what I’m saying.” Jon rolled his eyes and squirmed a bit on the floor.

“I don’t like the thought of someone… massaging me.”

“It feels really good,” Daisy replies, thinking back to the few massages she had gotten in her life. “And chiropractors don’t really massage, they just snap your joints back into place and then give you weird exercises to do.”

Jon shrugged again and didn’t say anything. Daisy wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t have anything to say, or if his previous movement made something along his spine twinge. After a minute of silence, with Jon’s face occasionally morphing from boredom to discomfort, Daisy got an idea.

“Stand up,” she said, getting to her feet herself. Jon looked up, startled.

“Why?”

“Just do it,” Daisy stuck her hand out for Jon to take. With a little effort, Jon sat up, groaning a little, before taking her stand to stand. As soon as he was upright, Daisy reached down to hold Jon from under his armpits.

“Uh, Daisy, what are you doing?” Jon asked, arms sticking straight out, stiff, as Daisy brought his body closer to her.

“I’m going to reset your back,” Daisy said, as Jon’s face squished against her shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ve done this a few times, it usually helps.”

Jon mumbled something, before yelping when Daisy stood closer to her full height and he was lifted a few inches off the ground. Jon’s arms instinctually went around Daisy’s shoulders, even though she was fully supporting his weight.

“Okay, you gotta relax your body, untense your muscles- Jon that is the opposite of untensing. There you go, okay, you’re going to hear a crack,” She said, before squeezing Jon into her body, forearms pressed across different parts of his back. There was a loud crack as she felt Jon tighten his arms around her and give a little yell into her shoulder.

She loosened her grip, but still held him close for a second, just in case. She felt his mouth move against her shirt, and at first, she thought he was mumbling something, but then the movement ceased for a few seconds. Another small movement, and then no motion once again. Finally, she lowered Jon to the floor and released him. He stood, and quickly went to smoothing out his shirt.

“How’d that feel?” Daisy asks, noticing how he wasn’t automatically going back to lie on the ground. Jon stilled for a second, before saying,

“It feels a lot better. Thank you, Daisy.”

Martin knew he wasn’t subtle, at least not when it came to Jon. He knew practically anyone who came down to the Archives could tell he had a crush, knew that his attempts to coddle, and talk to, and make Jon proud were just about as sly as painting a banner that said: “I WANT TO DATE JONATHAN SIMS.”

He almost couldn’t help it. Sure, he had gotten a bit better at not letting Jon treat him like a doormat over the years - sometimes Jon even seemed pleasantly surprised when Martin told him off for being mean - but there was still an undeniable urge to be gentle with him, to treat him kindly, to make him smile.

Not that anyone had any recollection of Jon smiling - hell, Tim even made a few jokes that Jon was probably in a terrible accident as a smile and ‘broke his smile muscles, but left his annoying muscles intact’. It wasn’t very funny, but Martin and Sasha still laughed.

Still, in some masochistic kind of way, Martin enjoyed this prolonged courtship. And even though his friends were sure that nothing was advancing, that Martin was still being a pining fool (which wasn’t an inaccurate description) and Jon was still being an unrequiting idiot, Martin was sure that he was making progress. Jon and he were having more… moments. More times where they would make eye contact and Jon’s face would soften, more conversations where Jon would ramble off-topic, at ease and relaxed, before remembering himself and Martin and roping him back into the conversation. There would be times where Martin would pass Jon a cup of tea, mug angled so that Jon could easily grab the handle, and yet Jon would take the mug in such a way that their fingers would brush. Sometimes they even lingered there, the heat of ceramic burning his hand, almost unnoticeable in comparison to the heat of his face as Jon glanced at him through his eyelashes, saying, “Thank you, Martin.”

Maybe it was just because no one else was privy to these moments, or maybe Martin really was just a yearning fool, desperately grasping at anything that suggested Jon returned his affection, but no one else seemed to understand these moments or take them seriously.

“Your crush is getting out of control,” Tim said one day, after watching Martin bring Jon tea in a mug covered in hearts. “Like, legally speaking, I think it’s too much.”

Martin rolled his eyes. Jon had stared at the mug for a few seconds before taking it, and even though it was still piping hot, much too warm to comfortably drink, he took a sip as soon as it was in his grasp. “This is lovely, Martin. Thank you.”

“Leave it alone, Tim, it’s fine,” Martin replied, going back to sit at his desk.

“No, it is getting a bit ridiculous,” Sasha agreed. “I mean, how long have you been after him? Like, I love Jon, trust me, but he’s either oblivious or ignoring your, uh, flirting attempts.”

“He’s not ignoring them.”

“So he’s just oblivious?”

“I don’t think so.” Sasha and Tim looked at him strangely. He sighed. “Look, things are fine, okay? It’s fine, just let me… do my thing.”

“Fine, we will ‘let you do your thing’ but, for the record, you probably could have gotten with at least three people in the time that you’ve been lusting after Jon,” Tim said, earning a laugh from Sasha.

But it was fine, whatever he and Jon had. It was certainly more than what he had been getting before, and even though he wanted more - chest aching at the sight of a frazzled or tired Jon, feeling the need to brush his hair out of his face, to press tender kisses to his eyelids, the near unbearably desire to just hold him, and care for him - Martin wasn’t unhappy. And somehow he knew Jon wasn’t either.

Sometimes Jon even sought Martin out, intentionally leaving his stuffy office only to walk over to Martin's desk and chat with him for a few minutes before returning. Often he would have to return a minute later, muttering about leaving a pen or a pencil or a hair tie. (One time, as Jon turned around to leave, Martin saw the pen on the edge of his desk, and said, “You left your pen.”

Jon had turned around, looking almost disappointed. “Oh. Yes, thank you, Martin.”

He collected his pen and returned to his office. Martin didn’t see him until he said goodbye for the night. The next time he saw Jon dropping something at his desk, he didn’t mention it.)

When Jon actually remembered to eat lunch now, he would only come out to eat if Martin hadn’t eaten already, as he had taken to sitting either across or directly next to him during meal times. If Jon was sitting next to him - usually because Melanie or Basira were sitting across the shifty breakroom table - Martin could feel Jon gently, almost shyly, pressing his knee against Martin’s leg. Jon’s face was always blank, but if Martin made any move to shift away, Jon’s head would snap towards him until contact was either completely broken or restored.

Of course, there wasn’t an easy way to explain this to anyone else. How could Martin have possibly hoped to quantify glances, and touches, and the new intonations when Jon said ‘Martin’, the name now completely different than what Jon used to call him, despite no letters changing. How to explain it when no one else seemed to notice the magnitude of these changes if they noticed the changes at all?

So Martin rolled his eyes and made jokes with the others as they teased and prodded him about his ‘crush that was going nowhere on the boss’, and hoped, like so many times before, that Jon couldn’t hear them through his office door.

As pathetic as it sounded, Martin was prepared to play the long game, to continue this dance he and Jon had begun as long as it took, to tolerate the unbearable loneliness that crept up on him at home so long as he got to see Jon at work, to keep bringing him tea every day until, well, until something happened, or until one of them left the archives. Martin had made peace with that fact, though he loathed to admit it, even to himself.

And then, Jon asked for his help one day.

“Can you stay late with me this evening? I need some assistance looking into a statement.” Jon had been formal, professional when he asked.

“Of course,” Martin said, if not because any time spent with Jon was a good time (usually, not even Martin was in deep enough to enjoy some of Jon’s moods), then because he did take his job seriously. “Anything you need.”

“I can stay behind too if you need extra help,” Basira offered, turning to look at Jon.

Jon nodded at her. “Thank you for offering, but I’ll only be needing Martin.”

And he has to admit, hearing that did bring warmth to his face and to his chest.

The help that Jon needed was minimal. Some of it was just reaching a file of a self that was too high since the stepladder that he used to use had broken, and Martin knew that Jon had too much pride to ask for help reaching something when everyone was in. Otherwise, all he needed assistance with was looking over a few files to see if a name popped up in all of them. All in all, it only took about half an hour, including the time it took to re-sort the files and put the relevant ones on Jon’s desk.

As Martin was preparing to leave, Jon approached him one more time, also clad in his winter coat and bulky scarf tucked under his chin. He stood in front of Martin, looking intently. Martin waited for, well, something. Jon took a deep breath.

“Would- Are you- Do,” Jon scowled at himself, took another breath and reached up to tug his scarf lower again so that more of his face was visible. “Martin, would you like to go out to eat with me?”

“Yeah, of course,” Martin replied, cheeks reddening slightly. Jon paused for a moment.

“I mean this as a date.”

Martin looked at Jon, bundled in his winter wear, hair slightly tangled, fumbling over asking Martin out!

“I knew that’s what you meant,” Martin said with a smile. He looked down at Jon’s hands, clenched tightly into themselves. He reached a hand out and carefully brushed a finger along the knuckles of on. “Of course, I would like to go on a date with you.”

And when he looked up, he saw Jon smiling, and it felt like seeing the stars for the first time. Jon always said he looked much older than he was, which Martin was inclined to agree, but when he smiled, he looked more his age. The tiredness and stress that plagued his expressions disappeared under the glow of his grin, eyes crinkled, and. Dimples.

Jon had dimples, nestled in between his smile lines, a secret that Martin knew he was now the only one in the Institute besides Jon who knew they existed.

“You have dimples,” Martin said, a smile creeping onto his own face. “They’re cute.”

Jon sputtered a, “No they’re not!” and Martin could see he was trying to return his face to its usually impassive expression, but it seemed that every time he got close, his grin would break through. Eventually, Jon tugged his scarf up to cover his mouth, but Martin still saw his eyes crinkled, somehow still felt Jon smiling through the layers.

“They’re cute,” Martin repeated, wanting to pull Jon’s scarf down again. This want was different than what he usually felt, a desire not tinged with sadness or loss. Maybe it was presumptuous, but Martin knew that this urge would be met. Maybe not now, but soon.

And Martin thought about Jon’s smile, even when he asked, voice muffled behind the layers of wool, where Martin wanted to go to eat, and would Martin like to walk, transit or take a cab there, and, and and.

Martin thought about Jon’s smile, knowing he was one of the few people to see it, knowing that he would get to see it again

#jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #tma #the magnus archives #tma fic #fanfic #links #jon x martin #i hate having to share fics to tumblr idk why but they always look so UGLY

30 notes · View notes

deadshctx · 4 years

Text

hiya folks! spike here, with my angsty son FLOYD LAWTON. i have his bio up HERE and his full application under the cut. LIKE THIS POST and i’ll hop in ur dms for plots!

IN CHARACTER:

basic info

full name: Floyd Lawton

face claim: Dev Patel

age (include physical age, if different): 30

gender & preferred pronouns: cismale, he/him

MBTI Type: ISTP

occupation: NOVA Contractor

aliases (if any): Deadshot

affiliations (if any): NOVA, ARGUS, Task Force X

1. Is your character human, mutant, metahuman, alien, inhuman, or other? If other, please elaborate: Human

2. What are your characters powers/special abilities, if any?: n/a

3. Please provide three headcanons for your character:

1) Floyd isn’t suicidal, but he has a death wish. There’s a sort of carelessness to the way he works that betrays the little worth he places on his life. He tends to deflect any observations about this with humor—most people who work with him know not to question. It doesn’t get in the way of him getting the job done. He just knows that his job is high risk, and if he dies...he just doesn’t care.

2) Of the members of the suicide squad, Floyd was probably the most level-headed. He was never the kind of costumed criminal the rest of them were, not the type to make flashy shows of his work or do it because of some innate desire. Sure, it takes a certain kind of person to become an assassin of his caliber, but make no mistakes: he has always just been in it for the paycheck.

3) A faraway dream of Floyd’s is to move to India with Zoe, where no one would be able to find them. If he could give it up—if he thought he’d ever be able to give up Deadshot—he’d do it in a heartbeat. He knows, however, that it’s never going to happen. He’s never going to be able to stay out of trouble, and he was just going to have to live with the havoc that would wreak on his daughter’s life.

4. List four personality traits (two positive and two negative) and explain how they influence your character.

+ focused

Floyd has always been good at his job. It was something that came naturally to him, always a fastidious, methodical young person who liked making plans only to revel in the chaos when he threw them out the window. Needless to say, Floyd is deadly.

+ adaptable

As much as Floyd likes following his own plans, he also is always ready to throw them out the window. He’s the kind of person who thrives in the moments when thinking on your feet means life or death.

- reckless

Floyd’s foolish actions haven’t gotten his various teams in trouble yet, but there’s bound to be a fuck-up sometime.

- flippant

A lot of the time, people get frustrated working with Floyd because he refuses to take anything seriously. The combination of his death wish and his sole motivation of a paycheck, Floyd has never found much reason to take anything too seriously, even situations that are life or death.

5. Provide three potential plots you’d like to explore. The admins will do our best to accommodate your plot ideas, but we can’t guarantee all requests.

1) I want to see him do something horrible to the people who experimented on him at Belle Reve. Not only would this just be a cool plot to play out, but I think Floyd has always valued that he’s managed to keep his mind his own. ARGUS and others have taken a lot from him, and a lot of the time, he’s felt like he’s nothing more than a killing machine that they rent out, and it was his own sureness in his sanity that often kept him from doing something drastic. Not being able to trust that anymore would make him furious, and his only coping mechanism has been violence. It would be a type of catharsis when he finally gets rid of all of them that I think Floyd would not have experienced before in his life.

2) Something that I think will be really interesting for Floyd moving forward would be for him to now have a more active role in his daughter’s life. He has been absent for so much of it, and now she’s six and like...a real person and that’s finally sinking in for Floyd. The things he does will blow back on her, and if there is anyone in this world he loves, it’s Zoe Lawton. Having to come to terms with the fact that if he wants this time to be different, he’’s going to have to do some things differently is going to be a tough pill for him to swallow.

3) It would be super fun if a character in game hired Floyd against another character in game. It would be hilarious to watch Floyd chase someone around and then give him a dumb reason for not going through with it honestly it would be great.

character bio

Before the ban, he wasn’t anyone, and after the ban went into place, no one noticed when he disappeared deeper into the forgotten reaches of the system. The ugly dregs of a new normal that no one wanted to look at.

Floyd spent some time in Belle Reve after the start of the ban, mostly because no one really knew what to do with the suicide squad. Eventually, the squad was split up and Floyd was sent to Star City to work as a private contractor for ARGUS. He was still very much their prisoner—the words just made it seem better than it was.

ARGUS controlled Floyd’s entire life at this point, and he had grown used to it. He had grown complacent, tamed unwillingly into obeying the routine that had become his whole life. At one point, he had been the most highly sought after assassin in the world. Now, he was just another cog in ARGUS’ machine.

That never sat right with Floyd, and he had never learned how to solve his problems without a bullet, which was why he put one in Waller’s head.

ARGUS, at that point, was quickly losing its foothold to NOVA, and in the ensuing chaos, no one had time to deal with a loose cannon asset no one liked working with. They tossed him back in Belle Reve and forgot about him.

But he didn’t forget, not through every single nightmare Belle Reve put him through. If the asset won’t be in use, they thought, we can put him to use right here. And they did, putting him into all sorts of fucked up scenarios and seeing if he could fight his way out of it. When he did, they’d convince him that it wasn’t real.

Finally, they got bored of their game, or NOVA needed a pinch hitter, or some other dumb fucking reason that Floyd doesn’t give a fuck about, and they released Floyd. Of course, they couldn’t do it like normal people, and they plopped him back in Star City with a new tracker in his arm and a thirst for violence he’d never felt before.

He doesn’t think it’ll ever go away.

sample

blood, violence tw

Floyd wasn’t doing well in the dormitory, to say the least.

For a while, he was okay, cracking jokes when he felt like it and more often than not sullenly going through the motions, just like everyone else. It seemed like he could be normal, that maybe he could be okay and that whatever had happened before that had kept him out of the field for so long was just a memory.

It was in the third week that the fighting started.

At first, it was a broken nose, a dislocated thumb, a black eye. Minor injuries, things that were unacceptable to NOVA but just shy of irredeemable. So, Floyd stayed in the house. And the more he stayed in the house, the more his anger grew.

He’d spent months in solitary at this point. Fuck it, a year, probably. He wasn’t ready to be thrust back into something so new and so overwhelming all at once. Every single person in that house had their dicks out like they had something to prove, and Floyd, who had absolutely nothing to prove, showed them exactly who was on top.

It wasn’t until he killed someone that they took him out.

Floyd thought about it, the way he felt standing over the body, blood pooling under his head and his eyes glassy and unmoving. Floyd wasn’t used to killing up close like this, relying on the safety of distance whenever he took out his targets. It was clean. Precise. He didn’t see the bloody aftermath.

It was fascinating to him. That was concerning to them.

So, they moved him somewhere alone, and Floyd hated it even more than the dormitory. The silence made his ears ring. At night. he woke up with nightmares of drowning.

Even then, lying awake in bed, he was consumed with the feeling of water entering his lungs. It had happened, he swore. They had told him at Belle Reve that nothing happened, showed him scans of his lungs, clear of any inflammation, and said that it had been a terrible hallucination. All in his head.

But he felt it. He could have sworn he felt it. Water, rising through his cell as he desperately searched for an escape, the feeling of his blood mingling with the water as he clawed at the walls. He remembered the feeling of inhaling water, the pain and shock of a rush of water into the delicate structures of his lungs.

He remembered being administered CPR.

He rolled over in bed. Would he really hallucinate CPR?

Fuck. He wanted to punch someone right then, but he couldn’t, because he got himself kicked out of the fucking dormitory. Way to fucking stick it to ‘em, Floyd.

He felt nauseous. He swallowed it back.

He knew the truth. He had to.

#starcintro

5 notes · View notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

Text

I'VE BEEN PONDERING ANYONE

Because kids are unable to create wealth, but to spend it doing fake work. Life is short, as everyone knows. And what drives them both is the number of startups are created to do product development on spec for some big company, and assume you could build something way easier to use. You could also rob banks, or solicit bribes, or establish a monopoly. In any period, it should be helpful to anyone who wants to understand the feeling of virtue in liking them. Plenty of famous founders have had some failures along the way. A few weeks ago I finally figured it out.1 03% false positives.2

That makes sense, because programs are in effect giant descriptions of how things get made. Treating a startup idea as a question changes what you're looking for. In school you are, in theory, explaining yourself to someone else. We're more patient. Moral fashions don't seem to get sued much by established competitors. Once you realize how little most people judging you care about judging you accurately—once you realize that because of the normal distribution of most applicant pools, it matters least to judge accurately in precisely the cases where judgement has the most effect—you won't take rejection so personally. The space of possible choices is smaller; you tend to standardize everything. What VCs should be looking for companies that hope to win by writing great software, but there is no permanent place in this world for ugly mathematics? In fact, you don't take a position and then defend it. This one may not always be true. It hadn't occurred to me till then that those horrible things we had to read in English classes was mostly fiction, so I know most won't listen.

This second group adopt the fashion not because they want to work for people with high standards. This is a talk I gave at the last minute I cooked up this rather grim talk. When a company starts misbehaving, smart people won't work there. So verbs with initial caps have higher spam probabilities than they would in all lowercase. And the source of error is not just random variation, but a Times Roman lowercase g is easy to tell apart.3 Such judgements can of course counter by sending a crawler to the site, you wouldn't need PR firms to tell you, because hackers would already be writing stuff on top of it. Cultivate a habit of questioning assumptions.4 Nature uses it a lot, which is the satisfaction of people's desires. When watches had mechanical movements, expensive watches kept better time. But something seems to come with practice.

So even in the middle of getting rich we were fighting off the grim reaper. It seems like it violates some kind of answer. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could achieve a 50% success rate? It's more a question of self-preservation.5 You have to do whatever seems best at each point. So my first prediction about the future of web startups.6 It's not just an airy intangible. Everyone's model of work you grew up with a million dollar idea is just a convenient way of trading one form of wealth for another. That is certainly true.

So odds are this is, in projects of their own. When I heard about this work I was a kid I used to calculate probabilities for tokens, both would have the same kind of office or rather, hacker opinion.7 So obviously that is what we are, founders think.8 It's absolute poverty you want to get real work done in an office with cubicles, you have to say, are evil. Mostly because they're optimistic by nature. I'm going to try to recast one's work as a single thesis. And so began the study of ancient texts had such prestige that it remained the backbone of education until the late 19th century. I met some investors that had invested in a hardware device and when I asked them what was the most significant thing they'd observed, it was mostly political. But while DH levels don't set a lower bound on the convincingness of a reply, they do set an upper bound, bearing in mind the small sample size. The remarkable thing about this project was that he got in trouble for.9 It was only after hearing reports of friends who'd done it that they decided to start a startup to starting one, and eventually someone will discover it.10 They may be enough to kill all the opt-in lists.

The church knew this would set people thinking. Since the invention of the quartz movement, an ordinary Timex is more accurate than a Patek Philippe costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. The reason is not just text; it has structure. An office environment is supposed to be something that helps you work, not something you read looking for a specific answer, and feel cheated if you don't have significant success to cheer you up, it wears you out: Your most basic advice to founders is just don't die, but the thousand little things the big company doesn't want to imagine a world in which high school students think they need to get good grades to impress employers, within which the employees waste most of their time in political battles, and from which consumers have to buy anyway because there are so many kinks in the plumbing now that most people don't even realize is there. There's nothing special about physical embodiments of control systems that should make them patentable, and the examiners reply by throwing out some of your claims and granting others. I learnt never to bet on any one feature or deal or anything to bring you success. Underneath the long words or the expressive brush strokes, there is no way to get rich. These get through because they're the one type of sales pitch you can make enormous gains playing around in problem-space. But you have to redefine the problem to make them irrelevant. In more organized societies, like China, the ruler and his officials used taxation instead of confiscation. Every engraver since Durer has had to live in Silicon Valley, that use of the word, Bill Gates is middle class.

So what to make of this. Few people are suited to running a startup can be demoralizing. I think things are changing. The problem is compounded by the fact that hackers, despite their reputation for social obliviousness, sometimes put a good deal of effort into seeming smart. But though it's not anger that's driving the increase in disagreement, there's a danger that they'll follow a long, hard path that ultimately leads nowhere. In the period just before the industrial revolution, some of the most pointless of all the great programmers I can think of who don't work for Sun, on Java, I know of zero. Descartes, though claimed by the French, did much of his thinking in Holland.11 But hackers use their offices for more than that.

Boston is a tech center to the same cause: Gates and Allen wanted to move back to Palo Alto, where he grew up, and they tend to do particularly well, because they're easier to see, because they generally don't die loudly and heroically. I'd spent more time with her. One of the most valuable thing they've discovered. But the breakage seems to affect software less than most other fields. England and France were made by courtiers who extracted some lucrative right from the crown—like the right to collect taxes on the import of silk—and so they don't try do to it. All the unfun kinds of wealth creation slow dramatically in a society that confiscates private fortunes. I mean by habits of mind you invoke on some field don't have to do is expand it. When a politician says his opponent is mistaken, that's a sure sign that something is broken?

Notes

That's one of those you can, Jeff Byun mentions one reason not to be, yet. The reason for the popular vote. 5 million cap, but instead to explain that the payoff for avoiding tax grows hyperexponentially x/1-x for 0 x 1. Something similar happens with suburbs.

There are successful women who don't aren't. His critical invention was a company selling soybean oil or mining equipment, such a baleful stare as they seem pointless. I think that's because delicious/popular with voting instead of hiring them. Security always depends more on the spot, so had a broader meaning.

Though most founders start out excited about the other: the company than you otherwise would have seemed shocking for a block or so. MITE Corp.

Perhaps this is a huge, analog brain state.

So how do they decide on the programmers, the more effort you expend on the dollar. After the war it was briefly in Britain in the right mindset you will fail. If you want to.

The only launches I remember are famous flops like the other hand, he took earlier. And journalists as part of the War on Drugs. As usual the popular image is several decades behind reality.

Something similar happens with suburbs. Com. It seems to have minded, which you ultimately need if you want to keep their wings folded, as I explain later. Cost, again.

I have about thirty friends whose opinions I care about valuations in angel rounds can make it a function of the venture business. When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation reaches a certain level of incivility, the increasing complacency of managements. For founders who go on to create giant companies not seem formidable early on. There's probably also the perfect point to spread the story a bit.

At this point for me do more with less, is that the only audience for your present valuation is fixed at the end of the kleptocracies that formerly dominated all the free OSes first-rate programmers. Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously. This is a self fulfilling prophecy.

Handy that, isn't it? We don't call it ambient thought.

Watt didn't invent the spreadsheet. If you extrapolate another 20 years. At first I didn't need to run spreadsheets on it, by encouraging people to claim that they'll only invest contingently on other sites. It is the fact that the graph of jobs is not always tell this to users, you've started it, whether you have to make software incompatible.

1 note · View note

mikeo56 · 4 years

Link

They Say That Discrimination Is A Thing Of The Past

A few times I’ve had a white person (BTW I’m a white male) say that a black person claiming discrimination is merely playing the race card or the victim card to cover for their own inadequacies.

They say that the reason the black person didn’t get the job or the apartment or whatever almost never had something to do with discrimination, that the real reason is that they just weren’t good enough, and that their claim of racism is nothing more than a phony excuse, a scam to blame others for their own failings.

If their opinion is challenged they usually say something like, “Oh, come on. There isn’t any widespread discrimination any more.” Maybe they add, “The Civil War was over a hundred and fifty years ago. They need to get over it.”

It’s All Their Own Fault

Sometimes these white people will continue with something like, “If they would only stay in school and stop having out-of-wedlock babies and taking drugs they wouldn’t have these problems.”

Sometimes, if the white person in question is really feeling talkative, they’ll ramble on with something like, “The real problem is that those people don’t want to work hard” or “Those people just aren’t as smart [as white people].”

I’ve been thinking about this “There isn’t any wide-spread discrimination anymore” idea and I asked myself, “What do white people really think about black people?”

What A Lot Of White People Really Think

Well, all white people aren’t the same so, I amended the question to “What do a lot of white people really think about black people?”

What’s “a lot”? 20%? 35%? 50%. I don’t know.

My guess is between 20% and 35% on average depending on where you live. Mississippi is going to be different from Connecticut.

So, for the purposes of this column, when I say “a lot of white people” I’m going to go with a 25% nationwide average but clearly that’s just a guess.

The Dog Whistle Is More Common Than The Bullhorn

I don’t often hear blatant racist statements like “White people are genetically smarter than black people” or “White people are a more genetically advanced species than black people,” probably because I don’t generally listen to people like David Duke or Iowa Congressman Steve King.

Most of the time, white people’s racism is of the “dog whistle” variety — it’s code where the words say one thing, but which other racists recognize as meaning something else.

Some people think that Trump’s tag line “Make America Great Again” is just a slogan, but a lot of white people translate it to “Make America White Again” meaning “We need to stop catering to black and brown people. They’re mostly losers sucking up our tax dollars and getting a free ride. We’re going to get rid of food stamps and Medicaid and we won’t let any more of them into the country.”

Gestures Instead Of Words

Dog whistles can be gestures as well as words.

There’s scene in an NYPD Blue episode where Andy Sipowicz is talking to Vince Gotelli, one of the old-time night-shift detectives.

Believing that Sipowicz is as racist as he is, Gotelli wants to say something about a black person and not be overheard so he runs the palm of his hand down in front of his face. Andy doesn’t understand and Gotelli says something like, “You know, shades” and he again runs his palm in front of his face in a gesture supposed to signify people with dark skin, “behind a shade.”

A lot of white people flat out believe that black people aren’t as smart, hard working, decent or honest as white people. To then, that’s just a fact, but they hesitate to say it out loud. Instead they express this opinion in different subtle but significant ways.

Subtle Discrimination

Who You Hire

Suppose one of these white people is looking for a new primary-care doctor. You read them the website particulars on two candidates, Walter Hawkins, Iowa State University Medical School and Robert Phillips, Yale University Medical School. Hawkins has five years experience and Phillips is the deputy head of the department with ten years on the job.

Naturally, they pick Phillips, but then they get a look at the candidates’ pictures and discover that Phillips is black and Hawkins is white. Suddenly, Hawkins is their guy.

“Why?” you ask, “Because he’s white?”

“No,” they’ll tell you. “I just think he looks more like a real doctor.” Or, “He seems nicer.” Or, “He looks like someone who knows what he’s doing.”

They aren’t going to tell you that the real reason they switched from Phillips to Hawkins is that they think that black people are less intelligent than white people; they think that Phillips must have gotten into Yale on a quota, and that people helped him and covered for him because he was black, because, in their mind, how else could a black man graduate from Yale Medical School?

No, they won’t say that out loud, unless they think that you’re just like them. But they absolutely believe that black people just plain aren’t as smart as white people and that a black man couldn’t possibly be a really top-notch doctor.

And they will look you right in the eye and tell you that they aren’t a racist.

“I don’t have anything against anybody,” they will insist. And they would think that was true.

Who You Rent To

Take two resumes, identical in every way except that the picture of Robert Phillips on one of them is of a white man and on the other he’s a black man. Now, have Mr. Phillips apply to rent 100 AirBNBs as a white man and 100 as a black man.

You will find a significantly higher rejection rate for the black Mr. Phillips than the white Mr. Phillips.

A Harvard Business School study (Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from a Field Experiment) found that people whose names are perceived to likely be black find it 16 percent harder than whites to book lodging on Airbnb. They found that some Airbnb hosts would rather their properties remained vacant than rent them to a black guest.

Personally, I think that Airbnb applications with actual pictures showing black versus white guests (as opposed to hosts merely inferring race from the applicant’s last name) would have black rejection rate differentials much higher than 16%.

I’m sure you would find the same thing in tests for renting an apartment or applying for a job interview.

A lot of white landlords and employers will decide that while the white Mr. Phillips looks like a wonderful candidate, the black Mr. Phillips somehow just doesn’t measure up.

“I’m not a racist,” they will swear to you. And believe it.

The Stereotype Racist Pictures That Pop Into Their Heads

I wrote a column about the little stereotype pictures that pop in our heads when we hear a word or phrase e.g. “Las Vegas” or “Wedding.”

The Pictures That Pop Into Our Heads. When I Say “Welfare” “Illegal Alien” “Businessman” “Drug Company”

For a lot of white people the words “black man” will pop up a picture of a person selling drugs on an urban street corner or a manual laborer pushing a mop or a junkie passed out in an alley or a pimp covered in bracelets and gold chains.

You think I’m making this up?

Racism Masquerading As ‘Just Being Careful’

Why do you think a white woman tried bar a black tenant from his own apartment building?

Because in her mind a black man could not possibly earn enough money to be able to afford a luxury apartment. She was convinced that he must be a criminal who was there to steal, that he couldn’t possible belong there.

Why do you think two white security guards kicked a black man out of the lobby of the Double Tree Hotel where he was a registered guest?

Because they were sure that he must have been a pimp or a drug dealer or a homeless person who intended to sleep in the lobby.

In their minds a black man couldn’t possibly afford to stay in a nice hotel because when they see a black man the pictures that pop in their little heads are of pimps, drug dealers, drug addicts, homeless people and raggedy poor people.

A black, female Yale University graduate student fell asleep in her dorm’s common room and a white, female student called the police with the complaint: “There’s somebody here who is where they’re not supposed to be.”

Why did she think that? Because in her mind black people couldn’t possibly belong in a Yale University dorm.

In Indianapolis a white, female off-duty police officer and a white, female apartment-house manager evicted a black tenant from the complex’s swimming pool even though the manager knew he was a tenant and he had the key to his apartment with him.

In Memphis, a white manager of an apartment complex called the police on a black tenant for wearing socks in the pool.

In North Carolina, a white man demanded identification from a black woman at a private community pool and called the police when she refused.

In South Carolina, a white woman attacked a 15-year-old black boy at a neighborhood pool, telling him and his friends that they had to “get out.”

This is just the tip of the iceberg. These incidents go on and on and on.

Why A Lot Of White People Assume A Black Person Doesn’t Belong Around Them

All of these people saw a black person in a place they thought a black person “didn’t belong.” Why did they think that a black person didn’t belong there?

Because they thought that black people were too poor to qualify to be in such a nice place. Or because they thought that black people were likely dirty, lazy, dangerous or criminal and they didn’t want “people like that” around them.

My opinion is that few of these white people would admit to being a racist any more than the white person who wouldn’t accept a Yale-educated black doctor or a white homeowner who wouldn’t accept a black person as an Airbnb guest wouldn’t admit that they were racists.

They would just say that they were being careful because unknown black people are more dangerous or untrustworthy than unknown white people.

They would tell you that they just wanted to protect their property and white tenants are generally more law abiding, careful and drug free than black tenants.

They would say that they just wanted to keep out trespassers, and because most black people can’t afford the nice places used by white people, they were more likely to be trespassers.

They would just tell you that they wanted the best professionals they could get and white doctors are, of course, smarter and better than black doctors.

Yes, You Are A Racist

Then they would look you straight in the eye and solemnly tell you, “I’m not a racist. I’m just being careful because black people really aren’t as smart, honest, trustworthy, law abiding, clean, and decent as white people. That’s just a fact. Recognizing that fact doesn’t make me a racist.”

Yes, it does, it really does.

So, don’t tell me there isn’t widespread discrimination in America.

It’s just gone underground. It’s language is just now more often spoken in code and with winks and nods.

But it’s there all the same in every little, bigoted picture that pops into a lot of white people’s heads whenever they see a black man who is someplace they’re sure he doesn’t belong.

— David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)

#race #racist

2 notes · View notes

tonysopranosfeverdreams · 4 years

Note

hey idk why I'm asking you.. probably because you're older than me and from what I've pieced together from the small snippet that is your online persona, kind and helpful.. but do you have any advice for someone trying to get their first job and has no idea where to start or what to do? (...who's also extremely anxious and trans so.. scared) you don't have to answer I'm just putting it out there but thank you if you do!

hi there!! i know job searching esp when you’re young and doing it for the first time is really nerve racking. here are some tips i can think of:

-try out a job search engine. indeed.com is really good if you’re in the us, but im sure there’s something equivalent in most countries. you can search the city you’re looking to work in, the type of job, etc. and get results that way. linked in has a really nice search function as well, if you build yourself a profile on there!

-it’s nice to try and get involved with organizations whose mission/core values you respect or enjoy, even if it’s not like your dream job. i work in the arts in an administrative department, which isn’t glamorous, but i have worked my way up a bit and i really enjoy being in an arts-based environment while i figure out my next steps

-write personalized cover letters for any job you might apply for. you can start by checking out cover letter formats (you should be able to google and find tons of them easily), but be sure to include what about this specific company/position appeals to you and what about your background makes you a good fit. organizations really like seeing you put the time in to research the company and put in some details, rather than a generic cover letter!

-practice common interview questions and come up with responses. here’s a list of a lot of common questions that seems pretty accurate to me. think about how you might answer ahead of time, and rehearse the words out loud if that’s something that’s helpful for you!

-there’s definitely gonna be at least a few questions that you didn’t prepare for, and the number one thing with these is TAKE YOUR TIME. if you need a few seconds to come up with a thoughtful answer, no hiring manager is going to mind! they’d rather you take a beat, think through the question and give a well thought out response than have you answer immediately with just a half baked idea. employers typically appreciate thoughtfulness in interviews as it indicates you will be thoughtful on the job as well

-during interviews, LISTEN AS CLOSELY AS POSSIBLE when they ask you questions. i’ve sat in on interviews w my boss, and he does this thing where he asks people to rate themselves on a scale of 1-5 and he frequently has people who are so eager to answer they give answers on a scale of 1-10 instead, which often can give the impression that you aren’t attentive to detail, and honestly almost immediately disqualifies people

-in this same vein, if they ask for specific examples in the interview, make sure you’re giving them! for instance, if the employer asks “give us an example of a time when you handled x situation” be sure you are giving a specific, detailed example rather than simply describing abstrractly how you think you handle x types of situations in general!

-dress as professionally as possible and write as formally as possible! there’s no thing as overdressed, even if it seems to be a relaxed working environment, the employer will appreciate the effort you put in

-always send thank you follow up e-mails, within 24 hours after the interview, reinforcing how much you enjoyed meeting with them and that you remain interested in the position. no joke, i got hired at my current job after i was initially declined, because the candidate they initially chose dropped out and i had been diligent sending follow ups!

-have questions for the interviewer! when they ask if you have any questions about the position at the end of an interview, it leaves a good impression if you have a few. one of the best ones ive heard sitting in on interviews is asking us what our favorite things about our current jobs are!

-remember that it’s just as much an interview for them to see if THEY’RE a good match for YOU. they want you to be the best candidate so they can hire you! think of it as an interview for them as well

-when you get rejected (we’ve all been rejected! it happens), allow yourself to be disappointed, but try not to take it personally as much as possible. maybe give yourself a day to wallow in it, eat a bunch of ice cream or smth then wake up the next morning and try and remember it was a good experience and will only make you that much more confident for your next interview. who gets the job is often times just a coincidence and complete luck, depending on the time of year, specific qualities the interviewer has tendencies toward, and the applicant pool (they can be drastically different allll the time smh)

let me know if you have any other questions ill be sending employable vibes your way!!

#Anonymous

8 notes · View notes

thewritingcaptain · 5 years

Text

The Internship: Chapter One

“Don’t bother with the rest of the interviews.” He stood up, grabbing his cup and nodding to the door. “I want him.”

Her expression brightened slightly. “Really?”

He took a drink and sighed. “Really.” Then he glanced back over his shoulder to check the progress of the calculations. All the ones he’d started running had finished, including the one he’d corrected from Peter’s suggestion and run again.

Only one of them had turned green.

Summary: AU. What if Peter really got an Internship with Tony Stark.

Notes: Now that I’ve realized I only ever posted the title and not the chapter... here it is. Yipe.

It had been a long, boring day for Tony Stark.

Which wasn’t a good thing, because Tony didn’t deal well with long or boring, especially when it wasn’t productive. And today had certainly not been productive.

How he’d been roped into this, he still could hardly fathom. After everything that had happened to him, and how busy he’d been in the past few years with… well, being Iron Man and all… Pepper had been trying to convince him for a while now that he needed some extra hands to help with the business. Tony wasn’t big on hiring new people, though. Not to work closely with him. Hell, the one man he’d grown up with and thought he could trust had turned completely and utterly against him and had tried both to have him killed and, when that failed, to kill him himself. To say Tony had trust issues would be an understatement.

Pepper, however, had no such qualms, and wasn’t so easily dissuaded. If he really wanted to completely reinvent Stark Industries, then perhaps he needed to completely reinvent himself, too - or at least his public image. And that was more than just giving out money hand over fist. Money, when you had as much as he did, was easily given away; time, on the other hand, was much more valuable. And what better way to show he was investing in a better future than to work with youth?

This idea didn’t resonate well with Tony. Kids? He didn’t do well with kids - not teaching them, nor really being around them in general. He didn’t have the patience - or the filter - to be around them for any extended period of time. That’s why he preferred the distanced approach. Besides, what kid didn’t like money?

But Pepper had never failed him before, and after everything he’d put her through, he decided a compromise was in order. She was right about one thing: he had no family, no heirs to speak of, and while he had no intent of passing on any time soon, he needed someone he could trust to leave the company to. He didn’t know when he’d made the decision, likely unconsciously, that it would be her - but at some point, he knew he had realized that was exactly what he wanted to do. But it had never occurred to him that, if she didn’t want it, or if something happened to her, he had no one else he remotely trusted to leave his life’s work with.

With these things in mind, he’d agreed on a compromise. An internship. If she hosted some interviews and sent him the most qualified candidates, he would review them, and if he found one that was remotely suitable, he’d allow them to intern with the company - with him - in the hopes of both lessening his stress load and hopefully resulting in someone he might one day be able to leave the company to. If they were skilled enough and didn’t drive him mad in the time it took him to train them. Not that he intended to broadcast that part; it would be promoted as an internship only, with possibly a future job opportunity, if they lasted long enough.

He promised her a trial period of at least two weeks with whoever was chosen; but if he didn’t see any potential in them… well, they would go, and he could say he tried. His conscience would be temporarily eased, at least. If it failed… well, maybe he’d just give the company to her sooner.

So far, unfortunately, it hadn’t failed.

In all honesty, he didn’t know how that whole thing was being publicized, and if there were any specific students that were supposed to be applying. All he knew was that his personal assistant and head of security had been irritatingly unavailable for at least two hours every day for the past few weeks due to these interviews. Apparently, a lot of kids had applied.

At least, before yesterday, that was all he had known. Now, unfortunately, it was time to do his part, which subsequently meant that he suddenly knew a lot more.

Today was their second day of follow-up interviews; meaning, the kids who had impressed Pepper (and, to some extent, Happy, although he didn’t necessarily have as much sway as she did, due to his opinion on the matter being more in the direction of Tony’s; he was more there to screen the kids’ pasts than their qualifications) were now back for second interviews, of which Tony was required to attend.

And so it was the second day of this - spending long days in his boardroom, pacing, working on the holographic board in the back and half-listening to kids get screened by Pepper and Happy for the second time. As with yesterday, none of them said anything particularly interesting; certainly nothing that caught his attention. Many of them had the same qualifications - they were simply high school kids, after all - so there was little to distinguish them there. Half of them weren’t even smart enough to dress the part, and there was no way in hell he was allowing a kid who couldn’t even tie a Windsor knot near any of his precious work.

About midway through the day, Tony was sitting in the back of the room, feet propped up on his desk as he messed with the holographic design in front of him. He was throwing around theoretical calculations for the design of a new arc reactor. He wanted to make one that was slimmer, more powerful, but also more cost and energy efficient. Especially considering the design of his newer suits, it needed to be more powerful, but also needed to be packed into a smaller model, and if he could get the reactor’s design to be as sleek as that of the newest suit… well, he liked his uniformity, to say the least.

They were on a break for lunch, at the moment, although that didn’t stop Tony from toying with the design in the back of the room while he waited for his food. When Pepper came in and brought it to him, he nodded his thanks before picking up the sandwich, unwrapping it just enough to take a bite, continuing to work with one hand.

Pepper took a seat on the opposite side of his desk without being invited to. Tony glanced at her once, cocking his head. She was never so bold when he first hired her - but, then, she’d become invaluable to him and she knew it, even if she wasn’t one of the only two people in the world he actually trusted at the moment. Perhaps she could afford to be a little bold.

That said, she still wouldn’t have approached him when he was working without a valid reason. She never did. He swallowed his food and took a drink before turning to face her. “Yes, Miss Potts?”

Pepper regarded him for a moment with those startling blue eyes of hers. He held her gaze, waiting for an answer.

Finally, she spoke. “Mr. Stark. It’s been two days, and we’re more than halfway through the candidates. You really have no interest in any of them?”

Tony shrugged, looking back at his work and continuing to virtually disassemble the reactor. He wanted to analyze every part of the design of his current one, to look for technology that was outdated, or could be upgraded, downsized, or replaced. “None,” he told her, flippantly. There was no point in lying. He would only take somebody who he deemed fit, and despite her best efforts, that didn’t seem to be anyone in this pool of applicants.

“Why not?”

Tony heaved a sigh, rolling his head back towards her, still working on the model with one hand. “Because none of them are remotely qualified. I see no reason I should waste my time on trying to have a conversation with half of these kids, let alone let them near something anywhere near even this level of work.” He gestured to the hologram with his sandwich, then took another bite. “And this is basic, in this business.”

Pepper made a face that he knew her well enough to know meant she was trying not to roll her eyes at him. “No. Physics is basic, and that’s likely the most you should expect these kids to know. They’re not supposed to come fully trained and ready to work, or it wouldn’t be called an internship. It would be a job.” She stood up, smoothing out the wrinkles in her skirt like she always did when she was agitated. “Enjoy your lunch, Mr. Stark. The next candidate will be here in fifteen minutes.” She turned away.

He let her take a few steps before calling, “Pepper?”

She stopped, but didn’t turn around. “Yes, Mr. Stark?”

“How far are we in the list of candidates, anyway?” He regarded his disassembled holograph for a moment before looking back at her.

She checked her clipboard. “We’re at the Ns. About ten candidates left.”

Ten candidates. At least another two hours of this bullshit, if most of them managed to talk for their allotted fifteen minutes, which they usually did. Teenagers were almost as narcissistic as he was. He sighed heavily. “Thank you, Miss Potts. Go eat something before the rest of the monsters show up, why don’t you.”

Pepper shot him a look somewhere between amused and exasperated over her shoulder. “I already have, Mr. Stark, but thank you for your concern. Perhaps you should focus on eating yours instead.”

“Will do. But Pepper?” She stopped, looking back at him again. He looked back at her this time, raising an eyebrow at her and silently daring her to argue. “Seriously. Take a break.” Then he turned back to his work, letting her go for real this time.

He spent the next several minutes talking to Jarvis, manipulating the designs and running hypothetical scenarios through the computer, testing all the different substitutions and cuts of materials he could use to rebuild the arc reactor - with improvements, of course. He hardly noticed when Pepper and Happy came back in, nor when the next student came in, or the next. He was flying through calculations by that point, running scenarios mostly in his head and with the aid of Jarvis mostly as a calculator. Running different programs was harder when he couldn’t openly communicate with his AI aloud, and doing so would have been… well, if he was honest, if what he was doing now was borderline rude, that would be pushing it. No doubt Pepper would filet him if he was openly not paying attention.

It wasn’t until the second to last student came in that he found something to pay attention to.

The interview started out as boring as the rest. The kid came in - decently dressed in a suit, with at least a passable suit and tie look - shook hands with Pepper and Happy, and sat down to do his interview. He was very polite, which Tony was tuned in enough to tell pleased Pepper greatly. He started to slip back out of focus when they fell into the same routine he’d heard literally forty times in the past two days.

“You go to Midtown Science and Technology, right?” Pepper was asking.

“Yeah, yeah! That’s right. In Queens. I’m a sophomore,” the boy responded.

Interesting. A nice background, at least. Although he was a little young…

Pepper seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “Only a sophomore? You’ve got quite the academic record for a sophomore, Mr. Parker. And why, at your age, are you interested in something like this? You’ve got the rest of high school to get a better idea of what you want to do.”

The kid - Parker - shifted in his seat, taking a moment to honestly consider the question. “Well, in all honesty, Miss Potts… why else would I make the choice to go to a STEM focused high school if it’s not something I want to go into? And I don’t think it’s ever to early to try to get your foot in the door for something that could shape your future the way an opportunity like this could.” He paused. “Besides, I’m a fan of Mr. Stark’s work. I admire his ethics and his decisions, and I think I could learn a lot from even just seeing him work.” He glanced over his shoulder, looking back at where Tony sat with his feet still propped on the desk, throwing calculations into the computer at rapid speed. “Just look at him go.”

“I get to ‘look at him go’ every day, Mr. Parker.” In more ways than one, of course, but she wouldn’t say that to him. Still, Pepper couldn’t suppress a smile at the wonder in the boy’s face as he watched Tony’s hands fly. “Is there anything else you’d like to say? Any questions for me or…well,” she stopped, knowing interrupting Tony would likely be a bad idea, “...for me to pass on to Mr. Stark about the position?”

Parker’s eyes were still glued to Tony, watching him curiously. “Um, no, thank you,” he told her. He turned around slowly. She could almost see the gears in his head turning as he asked, “But, between you and me, does he ever have anyone check his work?”

“Check it?” Pepper blinked and leaned back, surprised. It wasn’t exactly the question she’d expected. Most kids wanted to know about money, or how closely they’d be working with Tony, if they’d get to see him in the Iron Man suit, etc. “I… why?”

He shrugged, standing up and glancing over his shoulder again. “Well, I could be wrong, but… it looks like he made a mistake in one of his calculations.” There were several lines of calculations scattered across the screen - either red if he had already ruled them out, or blue if they were still in progress. He pointed to one in the top right corner of the screen.

At his name and the word “mistake,” the world snapped back into focus. Tony blinked, once, twice, then turned to him. “What did you say, kid?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Mr. Stark. Don’t stop on my account. I just said - and I could be wrong, absolutely - it just looks like you’re a decimal point off on this calculation.” He took a few steps closer, pointing to it again.

Tony turned back to the screen, scanning through the lists of numbers until he found the one he’d was referring to. He studied it with narrow eyes, finding the spot that he was pointing to and moving the decimal back to where it should be before running the whole calculation again. It would take several minutes to finish.

Tony straightened, taking his feet off the table and turning fully to face them. He looked at him for the first time since noticing his suit - actually looked at him, taking him in. Scrawny as a rod rail, but he looked clean and presentable enough. He didn’t seem to have any meat on him, but he didn’t look unhealthy, either. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Peter, sir. Peter Parker.” He stuttered slightly, but he put it down to nerves. He’d sounded fine when talking to Pepper.

He cocked his head. “You have any experience with this sort of thing, Parker?”

Peter nodded. “Yes sir. Some. I’ve taken basic physics and engineering, and I was on the robotics team for 2 years.”

“Was?” He wasn’t taking anyone with behavior issues. Or worse, he could have been kicked off for incompetence.

“I quit, sir.”

Ah. “Why?” Tony repeated.

Peter hesitated, as if unsure how to answer. “Family things, sir.”

“Quit calling me sir every time you talk.” He crossed his arms. “Do you have any experience outside of schooling?”

Again, that hesitation, as if unsure, or as if he were going to say something and thought better of it. “Yes, si-... yes. I build computers. Sometimes, I mean, in my spare time. You know, programs and such from scratch...” Peter shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if uncomfortable.

Tony held up a hand to stop him, and he let the sentence trail off. He studied him for a moment. Something about him - the voice, maybe the way he moved - seemed so familiar. And that was odd, especially for Tony. He could barely be bothered to remember people he met with multiple times a year, let alone someone he’d run into once, so he doubted it was one of those types of scenarios. This was a gut instinct, something that made senses go on edge. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. “I see,” he said at last. Then he nodded to Pepper.

She understood the signal, thankfully, and stepped forward, offering her hand for Peter to shake. “Well, that’s all the time we have for today, but thank you for coming in, Mr. Parker. We��ll be in touch.”

“Oh, thank you.” Peter shook her hand, shouldering his bag again and nodding to Tony. “Mr. Stark. Good luck with your calculations.” Then he let himself out.

Tony was still staring at the door when it closed behind him, watching his back thoughtfully. Pepper rushed up to him. “What was that?”

Tony tore his eyes from the door to meet her questioning gaze for a moment before shrugging and sitting back down. “He’s a sharp kid. You wanted me to show an interest, didn’t you? I did. There you go.”

Pepper put her hands on her hips, tilting her head at him. “But did you like him, or were you just being a smartass?”

Tony glanced up at her, mildly surprised. She didn’t curse at him very often. “Oh, you know me, Miss Potts. I’m always a smartass.”

She frowned, narrowing her eyes a bit at him. “That’s not an answer, Mr. Stark. Should I continue with the interviews, or are you not going to bother to show any interest at all throughout the rest of them? Because I could save us all another hour of pointless chattering and just cancel the rest.”

Oh, she was getting sassy now. Tony turned completely back to her, quirking a brow at her. “Am I irritating you, Pepper?”

A small amount of flush colored her cheeks at his tone, but she held her ground. “I just don’t understand why you agreed to let me do these interviews if you were going to completely blow off everyone and not even listen to half of what the kids had to say.”

She had a fair point. He frowned, unsure of the answer himself. “I…” he stopped, pulling a face when he realized he was drawing a total blank. “Well. Let’s just do it this way. Don’t bother with the rest of the interviews.” He stood up, grabbing his cup and nodding to the door. “I want him.”

Her expression brightened slightly. “Really?”

Only one of them had turned green.

He cursed to himself, then turned back to the holograms long enough to tell the AI to send all the possible changes that could be made based on his calculations to his downstairs lab before simply shutting it down.

Including the one the kid had corrected - the only one on the last set that had shown up green after a half hour’s worth of calculations towards one part of it.

Pepper was still smirking when he brushed past her and headed downstairs. This was going to be fun.

20 notes · View notes

weluxuryhomes-blog · 5 years

Text

The Popularity Of Online Residence Reviews In Dallas, Texas

Anybody can discover their completely satisfied place round this metropolis. The placement and neighborhood that you simply desire are a few of the first issues that your Dallas apartment locator needs to know. It saves time of the individuals who spend time in investigating the quite a few listings like universities, faculties and job boards. My service is FREE to you; I invoice the flats for my time. You should know that Apt Finder Houston have a large database of apartments conforming to totally different specs that their shoppers might need.

Since 1980 , Discover It Condominium Locators in Dallas, TX, a staff of Licensed Actual Property Brokers, has been helping Dallas residents find the right condo to suit their needs. Straightforward, personalized searches are at your fingertips if you use Classik Administration Locators. You too can slender down your choices by speaking to an experienced Dallas Residence Locator who can make recommendations based in your unique circumstances.

If so, you need to consider whether or not a 6-month lease and the pliability that comes together with it could be better suited in your situation, or if you might want to make an extended commitment so as to lock in your rental charge and never have the effort of renewing your lease or moving on the horizon. These days, many people favor to take up downtown Dallas flats on lease. That is as a result of property owners pay them a fee as soon as a tenant signs a lease.

Finding an excellent deal when on the lookout for an residence by your self can be a troublesome process, particularly if you don't have any concept on how apartment complicated work and what type of deals you will get when renting an condo, so how will you get one of the best deal, with out wasting your money and time, driving lengthy hours, when an condo locators may also help you find the proper apartment for you, and not only which you could also get a cash rebate or perhaps a free transfer.

Every metropolis inside the Dallas Metroplex has its own laws, and the apartments inside each city should uphold the necessities for those city limits. The free service takes the legwork out of looking for an house by providing an easy and comfy on-line web site that navigates through your choices by filtering via your pre-set geographical location, price vary, and amenity record. Inform us what you're looking for, how a lot your budget is, and any elements of town you favor, and considered one of our house locators will construct a custom-made record primarily based on your standards.

The Apartment People finding professionals reside, work and play in the area and therefore are capable of move on to you our extensive information and objective opinions of the house communities with your explicit needs in thoughts. With over 3000 apartment properties in Dallas, searching for the proper neighborhood can be like searching for a needle in the haystack. Enhance your odds of touchdown the property you have always dreamed of and save time within the process by working with ASAP Condo Finders.

I might highly recommend her and Lifetime Locators to my buddies and anyone who is on the lookout for a new place to stay. Greater than your traditional locator service, we make Reside Dallas a lifestyle expertise. We have full time Austin house locators & leasing specialists on employees. As Texas Residence Locators, we invite you to make use of our FREE SERVICE to search out Flats in Texas. The properties don't pay us a fee except our clients write us down on the rental software.

The customer can depend upon the Dallas Residences locators for 237 and might rely on them for all of the Dallas Residences finder wants. Impartial analysis: We independently research condo properties by surveying managers, visiting properties, and thoroughly reviewing web sites. In case you are paying huge amount of rental fee after that you receive a larger alleviation in your taxed quantity. Dallas apartments for lease are often essentially the most extremely wanted Classik Management Locators.

Transferring to a new could be aggravating to say the least, and finding your new residence can take most of your free time if you have some, it is really easy to get seduce by gives of condo finders or condo locators with in your space or city, so how can you get one of the best cope with out breaking the financial institution or pocket, well, house locators are an ideal tool to make this tense time a peaceful one.

Residences for lease additionally have actually included facilities like pool, well being golf equipment, in addition to standard locations like yards out front or yards which may be utilized for occasions. This blog is about problems and best methods to search for a rental condominium and learn how to keep away from dangerous experiences and traps. In case your explicit offense is just not one which any residence property in Dallas will accept, then the Locator will let you recognize.

Like all service companies, an house locator with a dependable hotline number and accommodating, tactful, and educated customer service personnel is certain to thrive in the internet. If you observe the ideas in this article the method of purchasing real estate in Dallas, Texas shall be a a lot easier one for you. Our information and experience are FREE to purchasers as a result of we work with all existing leases and residence complexes within the Dallas space.

The condo complexes do not want to pay a for establishing an internet site after which only delivering what they guarantees a part of the time. So looking at Q1 2019 versus Q1 2018, identical-property rental income elevated by 2.5%, which was driven by an increase in same-property average internet effective rent of 1.6% and an increase in same-property physical occupancy of 80 basis factors. Apart from having a list of factors you favor in your new house, the initial factor you require to do is attempt to discover Dallas condominium finder A house finder generally is a explicit, or it may be an web solution on-line.

How To Transfer From A Home To An Condominium

Who knew residences required good credit before supplying you with a lease? Allow them to know that your credit is impaired and they'll let you in on the residences that you'll want to concentrate on. This is both sensible and a good time-saver. In case you need my companies, full a DISCOVER MY TX APARTMENT form on my web site: - it is a free service to you (I bill the apartments). Tap into the leading rental marketplace of over eleven,000,000 renters actively searching on Zumper, PadMapper, and Fb Marketplace.

By deciding on to use this condo locator and free Dallas Movers Firm, you possibly can get advantages all around. Phyllis was so useful throughout my seek for a brand new house in Dallas. In spite of having all the development provided to people at present, the task of discovering merely the right apartment for you as well as your loved ones will be discouraging because of the variety of competing homes, in addition to identifying simply precisely what every species ought to provide in the methods of options inside and past their companies.

The principle factor of a housing market similar to that of Dallas is that it is heavily aggressive so an residence locator is a dependable and convenient service that does all of the give you the results you want. Price range apartments situated at the outskirts of city might be affordable to folks in a low-income group. Our skilled Texas Residence Locators have been helping folks all through Texas find the right new apartment.

Deluxe lodging in fascinating downtown Dallas locations are also lined in condo opinions. You should have a broad collection of properties that includes completely different specials that will swimsuit anyone's needs similar to free satellite tv for pc TELEVISION or a free month rental. If the incident is mentioned nowhere in your credit score, then it's possible you'll choose not to carry up the past, especially if in case you have had good rental historical past SINCE that occurrence.

There are properties on the market that may work with someone going by means of an eviction, however it's a must to be keen to pay not less than one months rent as a deposit, and your selection can be restricted. All those hours spent researching Dallas flats online, sorting via countless advertisements, scheduling viewings and visiting potential locations - solely to find out all too typically that what you thought was a superb match actually is not in any case.

Once you decide to use a property rental search website to discover a new Texas condo, the communities pay them commission provided you write their firm title down as your The Apartment Saver Apartment Finder referral supply on the application when signing a lease. Let our Dallas REALTORS®, or one of our Dallas Condo Finders help you to find your next residence. Once you have answered these questions, the locator can give you an inventory of residences and presumably photos so that you could type through your selections by yourself time.

The posh resource information lists companies that have luxurious products on the market, or luxury goods to showcase, or luxury services to provide. This complementary finding service is designed to avoid wasting you time, and money, by quickly delivering you to the perfect place to name home. Residence locators have everything covered for you. So prizewinning house-renting ingeniousness,offers you all the content material ideas and guidline.

Our referral fees are paid from the promoting funds of the condo communities once you lease an residence through our useful service. You can even get in contact with us for a wide range of house rentals in Texas. Therefore finding proper Dallas, Texas condominium for hire turns into a toddler play with help of residence locators. Let Dallas House Locators assist you take one of those tasks off your hands.

ALL DFW House Locators to find your subsequent residence. You'll be able to't simply visit each and every space in Dallas searching for the Dallas apartments excellent for you, as Dallas is an enormous city. Make it possible for necessities similar to a fitness center, a pool, an easily accessible park close by or perhaps a dishwasher within the residence are all specified while you speak to your Dallas condo locator. You'll be able to choose from certainly one of several quaint towns within the suburbs of Dallas or one of many many city neighborhoods and we can discover you several different luxurious condo communities to fit your needs.

It is also a good suggestion to get a current copy of your credit report Check out the About Us page to see how Lisa Parrish compares with different house locator services. Do not waste your time, cash or treasured vitality trying to find luxurious residences for rent in Dallas on your own. The more details you may present will assist on this search: location, facilities, dimension, parking, and value range are a superb place to begin.

A professional Dallas condominium locator is normally local to the world and has an amazing wealth of knowledge about learn how to shortlist flats for you primarily based in your specific wants and people who ideally fit your value vary and placement. Our Austin property, Creekside, continued to be a bit of a problem in the quick time period as the new provide within the immediate neighborhood goes to the lease-up levels, which is primarily pushed by concessions and locator fees.

These are ordinary people who happen to personal property and can be willing to rent it out to you. Whether you might be shifting throughout town or across the country, using an condo locating service will prevent time, money, and hassles. You can find luxury properties, one thing somewhat more quaint and quiet in the Dallas suburbs , or renovated flats with historical past and character. Due to this, nice deals of residence locators have particular person web sites.

#home #apartment

1 note · View note