[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 19 February 2026 - 01:21 PM, said:

Great film!

Love this scene.

From an acting and a "martial arts fantasy" perspective that's a great scene but I cringed during the

Spoiler

knife disarm

---particularly the way they implied that it's a smooth effortless high-percentage maneuver. (More like: high percentage chance of getting killed in that situation.) Probably nobody has that level of mastery, and definitely nobody in their 70's. (Well... unless the science of human enhancement improves dramatically.)

But the movie makes it seem realistic enough that I imagine it might have inspired some people to win Darwin awards...

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 20 February 2026 - 02:27 AM

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

I'm sure this isn't a unique scenario with bad managers, but here goes.

Our team's manager left at the beginning of February. This is a really positive thing because the team all had crisis talks with senior leadership back in October and what came out of that was, for the most part, that she was causing most of the problems in both our team and our wider office, and she was the principle reason three quarters of the team were looking to leave. She handed her notice in before they could really get into gear with doing anything about her.

What's not so much messing with my groove as nuking it from orbit is the mess we're now discovering. For context, ex-manager was technically brilliant and very knowledgeable in her field, but a terrible people manager. Very much one of those types of exceptional people who view everyone less brilliant than them as useless and was quite vocal about it. She also gatekept a lot of work claiming the team weren't up to it or experienced enough (whilst also doing nothing about that in terms of training and development) - it's all work that has now been passed around the team and we're operating fine.

The biggest part of the mess is discovering just how badly she was not supporting one of the junior team members. It came up in those crisis talks and me and others tried to help, suggested taking some of his training off her (whenever she complained about having too much training to do) and she shut it down at every turn. It appears that was probably an attempt at hiding just what a poor job she'd been doing. He's way behind where he should be and understandably not feeling brilliant about the job or himself. Just... the injustice of claiming the team weren't experienced enough and how she had too much training to do, whilst deliberately not doing it and trying to cover up the fact?

One of the biggest areas she refused to delegate was client management - so upkeep of processes and procedure documents, specific training etc. This management of one of the biggest clients in the team has come to me and a colleague jointly, and honestly we're having daily "WTF" conversations about the state of the procedure documents and various things. Ex-manager used to complain continually that people didn't use the procedure documents and just asked questions instead of trying to find answers themselves - no wonder, they're an absolute disgrace and full of contradictions that make them nigh on unusable for more junior staff in particular.

And this person got to leave like an absolute fucking hero. Linkedin posts full of what a "class act" she was, from people who knew all of this post the crisis talks. The mind honestly boggles.

New manager has done everything right, been very impressive so far and put things in place for the junior colleague and wider team, and is a very sensible experienced pair of hands, so things will definitely look up going forwards. It's just processing the absolute madness and injustice of it all is taking a minute!

[Tiste Simeon]

Some people fail upwards TRB. The win in this situation is that she's not your problem any more!

[Mentalist]

Tried to replace the battery on my work laptop.

Unfortunately, 2 of the 5 screws that attach it are stuck. trying to force them just deformed the screw heads, so I can't remove the old battery.

I don't really wanna burden my bosses with the bill for a new laptop, especially seeing how electronic prices keep rising.
But this means that I'm basically stuck with a laptop that lasts less than an hour unplugged. Which is less than ideal.

[amphibian]

Mentalist, on 23 February 2026 - 12:12 AM, said:

Tried to replace the battery on my work laptop.

Unfortunately, 2 of the 5 screws that attach it are stuck. trying to force them just deformed the screw heads, so I can't remove the old battery.

I don't really wanna burden my bosses with the bill for a new laptop, especially seeing how electronic prices keep rising.
But this means that I'm basically stuck with a laptop that lasts less than an hour unplugged. Which is less than ideal.

Cut a slot in the screws to use a flat head, talk to the IT folks about new screws, weather the jokes, and replace everything as you need.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 23 February 2026 - 12:32 AM

[Macros]

Yeah, any repair shop will have a drill tap and die set that will get you away as well. Even if you brute force the last 2, you should be able to make something work

[Tiste Simeon]

The England rugby team. Not sure what's happened this year.

[Maark Abbott]

Fuel up 20p on the litre becasue of the orange nonce.

Fucking lovely.

[QuickTidal]

Yep, in Canada it was hovering between $1.20/litre and $1.34/litre...which while not great, was at least mildly manageable if we stretch, and it has jumped to $1.57/litre and I'm like "WTF, this isn't even our war but we get fucked"...

The US has such an outsized effect on the world...add this to the pile of reasons I won't forgive the USA..this is such an avoidable thing.

[Tiste Simeon]

Someone I only know online who I thought was a decent sort is arguing massively about how the Trump regime is not totalitarian and that the real totalitarians are the democrats/liberals because they don't let you have opposing ideas.

This person is a mod in a Malazan Facebook group. I asked her if she thought the Patriotists from Reaper's Gale are the good guys haha

Anyway if you're friends with me I posted a relatively tongue in cheek post about how MAGA Christian nationalists and Iranian Islamic fundamenlists are kind of the same and she has been relentless about this.

Ugh it's so frustrating how people still refuse to see it (for reference I believe she's Romanian so she could be one of those that Garak has referred to in the past).

[QuickTidal]

Chuck Norris died, and I'm not posting here to be sad about it, I'm posting here because apparently people were unaware that he was MAGA trash, deeply homophobic, a rabid birther, who made videos about how Obama being elected would signal 1000 years of darkness...the man was a horrid POS, and all these articles and posts glazing him are annoying.

[Cause]

I have no knowledge or interest in Chuck Norris the person. However Chuck Norris the meme gave me endless joy.

When Chuck Norris swims in the ocean he doesn’t get wet, the ocean gets chucked.

[Tiste Simeon]

Yeah he's going to be remembered for those Chuck Norris facts. Which were hilarious I'll admit but not what he was about.

[Cause]

Some say Chuck Norris died years ago but the Angel of death only found the courage to tell him today.

[Macros]

Did not know he was a garbage person, only knew him via meme jokes

[QuickTidal]

I hate suburban life bravado and BS and small town drama...

I went to get my kids form school yesterday and it was finally a nice mild day so I let them play at the school park and I sat on the bench there and read my book.

There's a mom I know of who has a lot of mental health issues, and will talk your ear off if you let her and just trauma dump on you about how awful her life is across the park as her kids were playing too.

Some kids go by outside the fence by the road and tell the kids (my kids and others) in the park to shut up...so one of the kids in the park says "No you shut up" and then the road kids yell "No you shut the fuck up!"....and this other mom lost her cool and shouted at them that this type of swearing and behaviour would not be tolerated.

the two girls who yelled it were hiding behind a tree across the road so they could not be seen. I wandered over by the fence just to see who was swearing at my kids. I saw they were hiding (knowing they fucked up) and I turned around silently and went back to my bench and my book.

the other mother was now talking to another mom about it, and then got up with her phone (she' 95% blind she tells us frequently) and went to call the non-emergency police number...the two girls thought she was taking their photo or video...she was not, but they thought she was...so they run off home....

About 5 minutes later the two girls come back out with two moms in tow and the one mom UNLEASHES on the mom who shouted at the kids for swearing and tells her she BETTER not be videoing her kids...to which she said she wasnt. And the angry mom said if you do I'll call the police, and the shouting mom said she was already trying to call the police on the kids for their behaviour.

Eventually the second mom who was with the shouty mom calmed down the angry mom and explained that the problem was that one of the girls was swearing at the younger kids in the playground...and they walked away.

the dad and mom of a kid my daughter is friends with who I am friends with shows up and we start chatting about random shit, and the shouty mom comes over (she knows me as she's met me before but can't see me well enough to recognize me so thinks I'm a stranger) and asks if we come to that park often (we don't) and is it normal for older kids to swear at the younger kids...and I was like "I dunno" and she looped me in becuase sh knew I was present when it all went down.

Now my take is this. kids are kids, they do stupid shit like this. They got yelled at in return and they eventually went away...my kids are not any worse off for having someone swear at them from afar...the shouty mom trying to call the police non emergency number for "kids swearing" is super weird to me...what are they supposed to do? I chose not to get involved even though I witnessed things becuase small town and drama never leaves you if it taints you so I just minded my business...my buddy (the dad who showed up) after shouty mom left was like "Man, she's been going off like that for a decade"

Anyways, I just hate that a fun mild afternoon at the park with my kids was taken over by something so stupid. LOL

The suburbs man. If this was Toronto proper, none of this would have happened...we don't have time for that shit.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: Yesterday, 06:42 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

I literally live with a playground outside my house. We get all sorts of low level drama. It's great when the kids can go and mess around for a bit but it honestly causes more issues than it's worth (IMO). Nothing major by any stretch but I do get you.

[QuickTidal]

Yeah, it's just strange. I guess more than a few people gather and some kinds get less parenting than others and people butt heads, but man what a pain.