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notalwaysright_feedRead This Conversation Is Not Tracking
Customer: "It says that it's on the way, but it's not here. I don't understand what that means. It's not clear."
It takes me a second to try and think of an answer that isn't insulting to her intelligence before giving up and explaining:
Me: "It says it's on the way because the package hasn't been delivered yet, and that when it's been delivered, it'll change to delivered."
snopes_feedsnopes_feednotalwaysright_feedI’m leaving my gym in late evening/night. It’s a hot summer so I didn’t bother to put on anything over my gym clothes – I’m in a black sports-bra and sweatpants; perfectly normal outfit of the type in which you see women jogging on the street every day. I should mention the gym is right […]
notalwaysright_feedThis story happened around 10 years ago when I was about 11-12 years old. Once a week my school would take us to the local leasure centre for swimming lessons. We were split up into three groups depending on our swimming ability since our swimming ability varied from some not being able to swim at […]
notalwaysright_feed(I’m at the pharmacy to pick up my prescription for the anti-conception pill. I have been taking this for 7 years now and I am 27 years old. It will become relevant why I have to mention my age.) Me: “Hi, I’m here to pick up my prescription.” Assistant: “Name and date of birth, please.” […]
notalwaysright_feedRead Voting Red Meat
Me: "This side is the regular menu, but if you flip it over, it shows all of our vegetarian and vegan options."
Customer: "I don't want the woke menu."
Read Voting Red Meat
notalwaysright_feedI got home tonight just in time to stop my parents from entering their credit card information into a scam site. They were trying to update their [popular gps system] and clicked on the first link in the search engine, without checking to see if it was legit. After removing the malware that was installed […]
notalwaysright_feed(I just finished my shift and I stopped to grab a bite.I’m in my early 20’s but look like I’m still in high school.This guy is standing a little to close.) Man:Hey cutie,do you like hot-dogs? Me:Sorry,what was that? Man:I,uh,asked you if you like hot dogs. Me:Only when they’re chopped into teeny pieces with a […]
smartbitches_feed
I picked this book up only because I loved Adler’s second book, Happy Medium. (I haven’t read her first yet) For this book, I didn’t feel particularly moved by the blurb. I wasn’t interested in anything to do with a treasure hunt and second chance romance is usually a turn off for me. Yet I still picked this book up and I am so very glad I did. This ended up being a Bad Decisions Book Club for me and an easy A.
Nina’s life fell to bits. Her promised permanent position at a college in Boston didn’t materialise and so she’s unemployed. She breaks up with her boyfriend because she realises that he doesn’t actually love her and she doesn’t have a place to stay because she was due to move in with her boyfriend and had given up the lease on her own place. So she ends up back home in a small town in Maryland living in her childhood bedroom. Nina is rudderless and so so lost.
But so is her childhood neighbour. Quentin had been living in Paris with his fiancee when his life imploded, so he’s back home as well, living on the other side of the duplex Nina’s parents live in. Nina and Quentin’s bedrooms share a wall and have windows very close together. Nina and Quentin haven’t spoken in 17 years until they are reunited by these circumstances. They had been the closest of friends, until things went wrong in their teens and Quentin moved away and cut contact with Nina.
Quentin and Nina start talking again tentatively, but there are so many hurt feelings to navigate. The conversations are fraught. Quentin suggests that they restart the treasure hunt they began as teens. Incidentally, it’s also the reason that their friendship ended. Drawn to each other, they nonetheless decide to go ahead with it, even if only for the monetary reward that Quentin says is still available.
The treasure hunt was set up by an eccentric seltzer magnate in the 1930s and no one had solved it in the intervening 100-odd years. As far as the treasure hunt goes, I enjoyed the clues and the process Quentin and Nina go through to try and solve it. There are hijinks and searches and library time. All very enjoyable to read about.
But if you guessed that the real gold lay in the emotional archeology they engage in, then you’d be right. Very slowly, they extend olive branches towards each other. It’s not all smooth reconnection, though. There are bumps in their road back to each other, but inexorably they move closer together, slowly like two magnets entrapped in the mud of the past, nonetheless drawn to each other. The emotions are so rich and full and real that it makes for a very fulfilling read.
There is a bleak moment in this book that a) really works and b) totally surprised me. I was sure this was going to be one of those books that just cruised towards a HEA, but things fall apart for our heroes in a surprising way.
I also really enjoyed reading about characters comfortably in their 30s. They’ve lived full lives and bring a lot to the table in terms of experience. Nina, in particular though, is lost. With her career on the rocks, she’s not at all sure what she should be doing next. She feels like a tremendous failure returning to her parents with her tail between her legs. She thought she was better than this small town, but the town surprises her with the ways in which it has changed.
The writing in this book is also really immersive and easy to get lost in. So often there would be sections that would make me gasp with delight because they were written so well. This is just one of them:
Just because we’ve made a deal to continue our search for Fountain’s treasure doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what happened. It just means I’m willing to bury it back down in the deep, dark underbrush of my heart where it dwelled quite contently before Quentin’s sudden reappearance so rudely flushed it out from its hiding place.
Why is this book an A for me? First, for the myriad reasons I mention above. But also because I stayed up LATE reading this thing. I kept fighting sleep to try and get just one more page read. For context, my baby is now only waking once at night (okay, sometimes twice) so there was definitely the potential for me to get some good rest, but no! While she slumbered peacefully, I read voraciously. I would also periodically slam the book down on the bed and exclaim to my partner that this was Such a Good Book. I did this a number of times. These are my indicators that a book is something special. I heartily recommend this book to the Bitchery – it’s excellent!
notalwaysright_feedRead Assuming Everyone Knows About It Doesn’t ‘Lock’ In The Knowledge
I'm on a job trip to the other end of the country, and I've been given this old, worn van for the ride. I do the job, get back to the company park, and start offloading my bags and stuff.
Midway through, the van doors lock themselves, with the key still in the ignition! I call the fleet manager.
Read Assuming Everyone Knows About It Doesn’t ‘Lock’ In The Knowledge
notalwaysright_feedRead It’s Beer O’clock Somewhere, But Not Here
Tall Customer: "I'm too drunk to write the check, so my friend will write it out and I'll sign it."
Me: "I'm refusing to sell you the beer. If you're too drunk to write a check, I'm not selling you alcohol."
snopes_feedsnopes_feednotalwaysright_feed
Client: "The bass is too quiet."
So he boosts the bass.
Client: "Still too quiet."
So he cranks it up to eleven, to the point where there simply is no balance anymore.
notalwaysright_feedRead At Least The Cake Isn’t A Lie… Oh Wait
Customer: "Excuse me. These say they’re baby carrots. But they’re not. They’re just small regular carrots!"
Me: "Yep, ‘baby’ is just how they’re cut, usually from fully grown carrots."
Customer: "So they’re not actual baby carrots?
fail_feedTraining your replacement can be a stressful process. If you're leaving the company on poor terms, the last thing you want to do is give your soon-to-be former boss more of your time and hard work. However, if you're leaving on good terms, you likely will go through with the training anyway so as not to burn any bridges. It's the so-called "professional" thing to do after all. But what happens when the person you're training turns out to be woefully incompetent? Do you tell your ex-boss that they are making a huge mistake in hiring this person, or do you keep your mouth shut, do your best to explain what you can, and let the new hire fail as they inevitably will?
This was the conundrum that the author of this tale of workplace drama found himself in. Two months after he left his previous company, he was still answering calls and texts from his replacement with incessant questions, many of which he had explained before and some of which he thought was general knowledge (such as attaching documents to emails in Outlook). Clearly, this guy's ex-boss did not do his due diligence when he hired this lady. Now, there was nothing the author could do to salvage the situation!
notalwaysright_feedI work at a very nice hotel in the kitchens. The staff has a reputation for being gracious amd accommodating. But in private the KITCHEN staff has a reputation for being very aggressive. I have a reputation for being relatively soft spoken in the kitchen. Yesterday I got into an argument with a front of […]
notalwaysright_feedRead Put Them In The Wrong In-Your-End-O
I work at a tech shop that offers repairs. A coworker of mine has a bad habit of cracking all sorts of sex jokes in response to... basically anything that happens in his vicinity, no matter how far he has to stretch to find an appropriate remark. One day, my boss gets fed up, and threatens to fire him if he makes one more remark.
notalwaysright_feed - This Conversation Is Not Trackingsnopes_feed - Did Morgan Freeman pledge $11M to build dog sanctuary on his 88th birthday?snopes_feed - No evidence of ICE agents at Disneyland, but footage indicates nearby activitynotalwaysright_feed - (no subject)notalwaysright_feed - (no subject)notalwaysright_feed - (no subject)notalwaysright_feed - Voting Red Meatnotalwaysright_feed - (no subject)notalwaysright_feed - (no subject)smartbitches_feed - Finders Keepers by Sarah Adlernotalwaysright_feed - (no subject)notalwaysright_feed - Assuming Everyone Knows About It Doesn’t ‘Lock’ In The Knowledgenotalwaysright_feed - It’s Beer O’clock Somewhere, But Not Heresnopes_feed - Canada is not making its suicide hotline available to US citizens, despite popular rumorsnopes_feed - Eisenhower said every gun that is made' signifies 'a theft from those who hunger and are not fed'?notalwaysright_feed - I’m All About That Basenotalwaysright_feed - At Least The Cake Isn’t A Lie… Oh Waitfail_feed - 'I told my old boss she’s not right for the job': Incompetent new hire keeps asking ex-employee fornotalwaysright_feed - (no subject)notalwaysright_feed - Put Them In The Wrong In-Your-End-O![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandroot
