magnetosphere

I’m experiencing so many conflicting emotions right now. Horrified, amused, enthusiastic, resigned…

There’s smoke coming out of my ears, and I smell a burning clutch from constantly shifting gears.

No, but it didn’t matter anyway. That area wasn’t known for earthquakes. By the time my brain got out of “WTF?” mode, it was over.

The worst was also the funniest. An earthquake hit while I was on the toilet.

Everybody wins

In my case, a sack of White Castles.

Almost. Substitute dictatorial control for independence, and you’ve got it!

I had to keep reminding myself that it’s August, not April 1st. This is asinine.

I had the opposite experience. I worked for a guy who easily could have retired years before, but kept working because he liked the continuous puzzles he had to deal with.

His books were an absolute mess. His daughter tried her damndest to handle the accounting, but it was a losing battle (the staff wasn’t affected, because there were never any payroll problems). He often forgot to charge customers, and when he did eventually send a bill, the rate was significantly less than what a competitor would charge. He just didn’t care about that part of the business because he didn’t need the money.

I finally figured out that by showing up unshaven and half asleep on my first day, I set the bar nice and low, and kept expectations to a minimum. Just being punctual, reliable, and civil made me Employee of the Month material.

IMPORTANT NOTE: this advice is only intended for a job that you don’t take very seriously. It is most emphatically not recommended behavior for your dream career.

Yeah, that was the #1 reason they gave. There weren’t enough mods to keep up with the sudden workload.

I just wanted something kinda nifty, but ultimately forgettable. I think I succeeded.

Yeah, that’s possible. You can create a totally private instance (where nobody who’s not a member can even see posts), or just an independent instance that isn’t federated with anyone. I personally don’t know anything else - I’m just paraphrasing someone more knowledgeable.

As for Beehaw, it’s the instance I use most. When they defederated, the mods gave trolls as the biggest reason (they are very transparent about their decision making, which I appreciate). They were simply overwhelmed with mod duties. There weren’t a lot of people running Beehaw (I don’t know if that’s changed in the last few weeks), and they defederated from the instances that most of the moderating workload came from. They said that defederating was a last resort, and hoped they’d be able to re-federate some day. We’ll see.

They are very serious about maintaining a civil atmosphere, but they’re not “word police”. Disagreements are fine as long as you’re not a dick about it. It’s not about what you say, so much as how you say it. If you’re not a rude, nasty person, it feels like any other instance. I’d recommend giving it a try!