ion, do I need this tee? [link] I think I might need it.

I think he honestly means it, but I'm not sure. It's hard to tell when the default is bitter-ass dillweed.

I think you need it, aurelia. As do lots of folks hereabout.

In related news, I want to trade in my boss for a sane human being. She's assigned me a task that I've never done before, I have no idea how to do it, three times she's changed the parameters (which she would deny doing), and she's giving me NO guidelines or anything. I'm gonna get an ulcer.

How do we have the same job?

"Just dive in and figure it out" is fun when it's a DIY hobby project, not so good when a person in authority is gonna flip their marbles if it isn't right

Hubby was a lot like this. He knew how to do so many things and he thought they were simple and obvious, that he thought I was being deliberately obtuse when I couldn't do it or I was trying to make him mad. Apparently his first wife was a practitioner of this type of bitch-fu. We never truly resolved the issue, but I think he bit his tongue more often. There are many reasons why I despise that woman and make no effort to involve her in my life.

To this day, I hate being in situations where I don't know what's expected of me

This indeed. When I was in college I didn't care about the course content or difficulty, all that really mattered was whether or not the instructor had a detailed syllabus or could make the expectations clear. If given clear direction I can do anything, guessing what the heck you want from me, not so much.

That sucks, Plei. I don't even know what there is to say about that.

I love my family but I'm glad they aren't into social media. My only on-line familial connection is my nephew on G+, which I don't even use. And they know about my Flickr account. Although I do occasionally see indications that my former SIL has been checking up on me (LinkedIn gives it away).

Plei, what an asshat. I saw it earlier, debated on flaying him verbally, and decided it was a waste of good oxygen. Especially when we were debating old houses and paint. And your mother is wronger than a wrong thing that is the wrongest in the history of wrong things. That sconce needs to disappear from the face of the earth.

Congratulations, flea and family!

Hairpats and ~ma to those who feel incompetent in any way. You're not, and damn the fools--work or family--that make you feel otherwise.

I am not sure whether I have told this story before, but when I worked at JCPenney, I pretty much had a panic attack in front of a whole bunch of customers, because loss prevention changed their expectations after Christmas and didn't tell the employees.

This was before gift receipts and gift cards, so generally, when a customer came in without a receipt they either needed to pick something out then, or get cash. In order to get cash, we had to enter in their driver's license #. It would pop up on the register/computer when you went to give them cash.

Apparently, there was a grace period on this for a couple of weeks after Christmas. But they didn't tell the people operating the registers because they didn't want us to tell our friends.

So I had a line of people returning things, I was all by myself, and the register "let" me give someone cash without putting in the Driver's License. Since I knew this was not the policy, I called security and told them, and asked them what to do.

And they said "We can't tell you what to do." Now keep in mind, I was already in trouble once for taking the credit card of a married couple (who I knew were married) from the wife even though the name was the husbands WHEN THEY WERE BOTH STANDING RIGHT THERE TOGETHER.

SO I said- 'What do you mean? Is there something wrong with the machine? Can I give her this money?"

And they just kept saying that they couldn't tell me.

And I was so confused, and thought whatever I did I would get in trouble, possibly fired for, and there was a really long line, and I was all by myself, and I just burst into tears, and I couldn't breathe. In front of all of those customers!

I ended up phoning the girls department (I was in infants) and they sent someone over to relieve me who was a nurse trainee, and figured out I was having a panic attack (I didn't understand what was happening), and I ended up having to be off the floor for about 2 hours.

She came back and said they did it every Christmas, but we weren't supposed to know they were doing it, we were just supposed to follow the prompts and they assumed we would do so without question, so I guess security panicked because none of us were supposed to know so we could not take advantage of it. It was so strange, and I am still a little embarrassed that I had a public breakdown over it! But it was like my brain froze and I could not figure out what the right thing was to do.

My mother has the WORST taste.

No, wait. My mother has the SECOND worst taste. My Aunt Olive's is way worse.