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Posted by Cata Holmes

One private school fundraiser unexpectedly turned into a very uncomfortable financial request.

Most parents expect awkward small talk at school events, maybe some passive-aggressive PTA energy, or somebody trying to sell overpriced wrapping paper for a fundraiser. What they probably do not expect is getting a message from a casual acquaintance asking for help finding a massive loan after seeing them publicly donate money at the school fundraiser. 

That is exactly what happened to this mom, whose family had recently been recognized for their generosity at their kids' expensive private school. Things got even weirder when the other parent kept shutting down normal financial options while casually mentioning her children could miss finals without immediate payment.

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Posted by Etai Eshet

When a company reaches out to recruit you for a management position and you show up prepared to lead, the last thing you expect is to spend half the interview answering questions for an entry level job nobody bothered to tell you about. But this is kinda normal now as wer'e all just walking in an HR wonderland.

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Posted by Inés Soubrie

She thought she was competing for the job, the company thought she was HR paperwork.

Job hunting is already miserable enough without companies turning the hiring process into elaborate corporate theater. Most people can handle rejection. It's not nice, obviously, but it's part of applying for jobs. Sometimes another candidate is more qualified, sometimes the timing is wrong, sometimes the hiring manager decides they want someone with "more leadership experience," which could mean literally anything. That's life. What people don't expect is finding out they were never actually being considered in the first place. That's what makes this story so infuriating.

This woman went through four rounds of interviews for a senior analyst position. Four. That's not a quick introductory phone call and a polite rejection email afterward. That's hours of preparation, scheduling around work, taking time off, mentally investing in the opportunity, and making it far enough into the process to believe the company was genuinely interested. 

There was even a presentation involved. A presentation! At that point you're basically halfway employed emotionally.

Certain questions linger

May. 15th, 2026 07:14 pm
oursin: One of the standing buddhas at Bamiyan Afghanistan (Bamiyan buddha)
[personal profile] oursin

I was intrigued to see this report: London's Wellcome Collection returns 2,000 manuscripts to the Jain community given that that is a repository I know well although not a part of the collections with which I was particularly acquainted.

I was also a bit taken aback to see that there is a Centre of Jain Studies at the University of Birmingham, though on a spot of further looking around I find that there is also a Jain Ashram in Birmingham. (Not of as great antiquity as the Shah Jahan Mosque in Woking, f. 1889, and featuring in HG Wells' The War of the Worlds.)

It is a religious tradition particularly associated with non-violence.

While one might think that this collection of South Asian origin might return there: article points out that there are hardly any Jains left in Pakistan, where a significant tranche of the mss came from. I also wonder - it is not mentioned in the article - what is the position of Jainism at present in India. Some sources I have looked at suggest it is relatively assimilated to Hinduism? The article refers to them as a 'fragmented community'.

The Wikipedia article does suggest that they have a long tradition of being involved in commerce, banking and trade, and founding an array of philanthropic enterprises, including libraries....

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Posted by Bar Mor Hazut

Some people should have a position of power over others, because there is no way of knowing what they would do with it…

Have you ever walked into a doctor's office and had to talk to a secretary who you could just tell didn't want to be there and didn't care one bit about you or your problems?

The issue with people like that is that once they hit a certain breaking point, it doesn't stop at 'not caring' about the people they service everyday. At some point, they go from indifferent to spiteful, and their boredom with their job becomes an excuse to mess with others, with complete disregard for how it affects their lives.

That is how we imagine the University admin below feels, if her actions are anything to go by. It's not just that she doesn't care about the students or their issues; it seems like she is actively trying to make their lives more difficult by inventing rules that don't exist. That is why she decided to mess with this group of students and tell them they have to switch classes because she made up a rule about how they couldn't participate in the one they chose…

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Posted by Remy Millisky

Is this friendship of 15 years suddenly over? 

It's become a running joke in recent years: weddings and their various parties are becoming more and more intricate, time consuming, and expensive. These days, you can expect to watch a friend become engaged, and then a flurry of future invites and requests for payments will flood your inbox. 

These newly-engaged lovebirds mean well: they want the people they love most to celebrate them. But the costs of a bach weekend, bridal shower, pre-wedding dinner, the ceremony itself, the reception, gifts, and a honeymoon fund are just way too much for some friend groups to handle without fractures forming. 

Witches, Historical Romance, & More

May. 15th, 2026 03:30 pm
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Posted by Amanda

Dire Bound

Dire Bound by Sable Sorensen is $1.99! This is book one in the Wolves of Ruin fantasy romance series. Book two in the series just released this month.

Fourth Wing meets The Hunger Games in this spicy, page-turning romantasy where humans and direwolves forge unbreakable bonds and fight for survival at all costs.

Only the worthy survive the Bonding Trials.  She’ll risk her life—and her heart—to be one of them.

Meryn Cooper has always hated the Bonded, elite warriors who form mental links with the massive, vicious direwolves they ride. While they live in luxury, Meryn struggles to keep her family out of poverty. When her little sister, Saela, is kidnapped—stolen across the border by the immortal monsters her country has spent centuries fighting—Meryn’s world falls apart.

Desperate to cross the front and save her sister, Meryn enlists in the army and is thrown into the deadly Bonding Trials, where any mistake will cost her life.

Now Meryn must survive four months of training at the castle. She is bound to a feral direwolf who refuses to communicate. The other trainees would love to spill her common blood. And her cold and beautiful instructor, Stark Therion, is eager to punish any weakness.

Everything is a competition, and everyone is out to get her—everyone except the dangerously handsome crown prince, whose attention adds another target to her back. In the castle, every smile hides a knife…and the halls hide dark secrets.

It’s bond or bleed. Duel or die. Failure is ruin.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

Enchanted to Meet You

Enchanted to Meet You by Meg Cabot is $1.99! This is book one in The Witches of West Harbor small town paranormal romance series. Have you read this one?

It’s Magic When You Meet Your Match

In her teenage years, lovelorn Jessica Gold cast a spell that went disastrously wrong, and brought her all the wrong kind of attention—as well as a lifetime ban from the World Council of Witches.

So no one is more surprised than Jess when, fifteen years later, tall, handsome WCW member Derrick Winters shows up in her quaint little village of West Harbor and claims that Jess is the Chosen One.

She’s the Chosen One

Not chosen by West Harbor’s snobby elite to style them for the town’s tricentennial ball—though Jess owns the chicest clothing boutique in town. And not chosen finally to be on the WCW, either—not that Jess would have said yes, anyway, since she’s done with any organization that tries to dictate what makes a “true” witch.

No, Jess has been chosen to help save West Harbor itself . . .

As Summer Ends, Her Power Grows

But just when Jess is beginning to think that she and Derrick might have a certain magic of their own—and not of the supernatural variety—Jess learns he may not be who she thought he was.

And suddenly Jess finds herself having to make another kind of choice: trust Derrick and work with him to combat the sinister force battling to bring down West Harbor, or use her gift as she always has: to keep herself, and her heart, safe.

Can she work her magic in time?

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

How to Date Your Dragon

How to Date Your Dragon by Molly Harper is 99c! This is book one in the Mystic Bayou small town paranormal romance. Harper’s paranormals are often over-the-top and a little goofy. Sometimes I’m in the mood for that. Sometimes I’m not.

The first book in Molly Harper’s uproariously funny, sinfully sexy new Mystic Bayou series!

Anthropologist Jillian Ramsay’s career has taken a turn south.

Concerned that technology is about to chase mythological creatures out into the open (how long can Sasquatch stay hidden from Google maps?), the League for Interspecies Cooperation is sending Jillian to Louisiana on a fact-finding mission. While the League hopes to hold on to secrecy for a little bit longer, they’re preparing for the worst in terms of human reactions. They need a plan, so they look to Mystic Bayou, a tiny town hidden in the swamp where humans and supernatural residents have been living in harmony for generations. Mermaids and gator shifters swim in the bayou. Spirit bottles light the front porches after twilight. Dragons light the fires under crayfish pots.

Jillian’s first assignment for the League could be her last. Mystic Bayou is wary of outsiders, and she has difficulty getting locals to talk to her. And she can’t get the gruff town sheriff, Bael Boone, off of her back or out of her mind. Bael is the finest male specimen she’s seen in a long time, even though he might not be human. Soon their flirtation is hotter than a dragon’s breath, which Bael just might turn out to be…

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

Quicksilver

Quicksilver by Amanda Quick is $2.99! This is part of the Arcane Society series, but is also book two in a trilogy within that series, if that makes sense. I assume this works as a standalone, but there may be an overarching trilogy plot.

In the New York Times-bestselling author’s latest Arcane Society novel, a paranormal killer pushes an unlikely duo’s powers and passions to the limit.

Virginia Dean wakes at midnight beside a dead body, with a bloody knife in her hand and no memory of the evening’s events. Dark energy, emanating from the mirrors lining the room, overpowers her senses. With no apparent way in or out, she is rescued by a man she has met only once before, but won’t soon forget.

Owen Sweetwater inherited his family’s talent for hunting the psychical monsters who prey on London’s women and children, and his investigation into the deaths of two glass-readers has led him here. The high-society types of the exclusive Arcane Society would consider Virginia an illusionist, a charlatan, even a criminal, but Owen knows better. Virginia’s powers are real-and they just might be the key to solving this challenging case.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

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Posted by Brad Dickson

In 2020 and the years immediately thereafter, workers were sold the idea that flexible work and working from home were the future. Certain "global-events-that-shall-remain-nameless" had forced employers, who were faced with the alternative of not having a workforce, to acknowledge that their employees—who only ever had needed a laptop and an internet connection—were in fact able to do their jobs from home… despite years of insisting otherwise. 

Fast forward a few years from there until 2025, and suddenly those lessons were forgotten. "Return to Office" became the new norm as aging managers, desperate to get away from their families and escape back into the office like they had their entire lives, began coming up with justifications of why employees were suddenly incapable of doing their jobs from the comfort of their homes any longer, despite having now done so for years.

As with any case, there are, of course, some practical arguments for this. There are certainly some strings of conversation and continuity that can only take place in the office. There's a familiarity, a closeness, that can only be fostered when spending more time together than you do with your family. 

But when has "water cooler talk" ever led to a new idea that has taken the company in a bold new direction? But, let's be honest, are we really saying that the pinnacle of "office culture" is basically a form of Stockholm syndrome? Some idea that sheer proximity is enough to spark new ideas?

If anything, it just contributes to the long list of ongoing office distractions that are the reason why there is an increase in productivity when workforces turn to working predominantly from home. 

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Posted by Etai Eshet

Buying a salvage car and finding someone's old wallet hidden inside it is the kind of thing that should be simple and straightforward, and yet immediately becomes a philosophical exercise in how no good deed goes unpunished in the current era.

Doing the right thing used to be simple, but somewhere between salvage auctions and Facebook searches it became a liability assessment.

Flowermaxxing Friday

May. 15th, 2026 02:43 pm
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Posted by Athena Scalzi

That’s right y’all, you’re getting another flower picture! I know, I can hardly believe it myself, but spring is just turning out so beautifully here and I just feel so compelled to share the blossoms with you.

Today’s bloom is a peony (I think), from a peony bush along the side of the house:

A large, fully opened, beautiful pink peony flower.

I am thrilled to have another beautiful blooming plant in the yard, especially because it’s pink! It’s actually very close to where the wisteria is, too. Also this one is in the shape of a heart:

A peony blossom that has opened up in a way that it very closely resembles a heart. It pretty much looks just like the pink heart emoji.

That genuinely made me smile so much while I was taking the photo. Like, how cute is that.

I hope y’all are having a great start to your weekend, and that you see many blooms this spring!

-AMS

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