On a plus side, maybe, if you choose to delete your comments and posts again, albeit slowly, would be to copy/paste the really useful shit to Lemmy. I say this because one unintended (or not) consequence of these actions is that posts from years ago, explaining the solution to a problem that still pops up now and then, doesn't have the solution most of the time.

I don't disagree with the sentiment or actions at all, it just sucks when you find someone having the same issue you are, only to learn it's on reddit and the solution to said problem was deleted.

Prove it!

TL;DR I worked for a department store as someone who fetched large/heavy objects for customers. Coworkers smoked together outside multiple times on shift. I did not smoke. I took "smoke breaks" in the back break room whenever this happened and a newer middle manager tried to make me work while they smoked. This same manager would later get flustered when I offered to buy an old unsellable item for 10 cents USD and he agreed. I was serious, he was not!

In 2004, I worked for the moderately sized department store, K's Merchandise, before they went under. A few months before I quit, we got a new mid-level manager. He was a young guy with clear aspirations to move higher in the near future.

I worked as what they called a 600. I don't remember why it was called that, but my job, along with a couple other 600s per shift, were to bring up large couches, non-assembled furniture, and anything that was too heavy or bulky to exist on the floor. These items were stored in the back warehouse. I got a lot of daily steps in with this job for all the walking we did. When a customer bought one of the large warehouse items, we would grab an appropriate cart and bring it to the front to load for the customer. We would carry walkie-talkies and floor salespeople would call for us to come get a ticket with the item(s) to be pulled.

All of my coworkers at the time smoked and were permitted to take smoke breaks periodically. I didn't smoke, so any time they took smoke breaks, and they'd do it as a group with some others in the store, I'd be the only 600 available.

One day, my coworkers went to smoke with others, leaving me alone again. So, with my walkie still with me, I sat in the back and drank a small drink item from a vending machine in the staff break room. As I sat there drinking my...chocolate milk, I think, the newer middle management comes in from the back warehouse and asks me why I'm sitting down when I should be in the back sweeping the warehouse and other such stuff while business is slow.

I told him I was on a smoke break while the others were also on a smoke break. When he brought up how I was not smoking and needed to get back to work, I refused on principal as I felt I was being punished for not smoking. He wasn't pleased but just told me to keep the walkie close. I got to take little breaks like this whenever I was working with those other guys that smoked.

This was also the same manager that casually complained about some large mirror, with corkboard, set in a wooden frame that wasn't selling. I offered to buy it for $0.10. He laughed it off like I was joking and said sure. So I brought the item up front a little while later to ring it up. Told the cashier that the manager said I could get it for 10 cents. She congratulated me on my purchase.

As I was coming back inside after loading it into my FORD AEROSTAR van, the manager asked me if I had really purchased that thing for 10 cents and when I confirmed he said he never said that I could. I corrected him and brought up how others were there when he said I could. He had no choice but to let me keep it.

That mirror still has a place in my house, 20-years later!

I'd imagine YouTube subtracts the ad length from posted timestamps when clicking a link containing one. But we are taking about Google, soooooo...

Yeah, but a noticable increase in inappropriate jean applications!

I'll pass, thanks. Too many streaming platforms already.

If anyone is dumb enough to put anything from that dude into their head, that brain was already damaged!

I work as a sysadmin and had a user in my building call us about one of these emails. I didn't say it out loud but, if it wasn't true, why would he even feel the need to ask if it was real or possible?

They already set the stage to ignore the election results next year. Look at how many STILL think the 2020 election results were stolen. They're either enacting laws to overturn the future results they didn't like or commandeer the offices that handle elections to ignore them.

This time next year will be a very dangerous time for the United States. Even if every sane Republican voter, who recognizes the dangers proposed, votes for a Democrat, it may not even matter. I'm not looking forward to it...

"Banana for scale" takes on a whole new meaning here.

I have already begun to move from Google services.

Look for other large corporations to continue this trend: offer a product to the masses for free, wait until you have little to no competitors and dominate in market share, then put it behind a pay wall or strongarm changes that most of the population doesn't understand. Oracle did it with Java, knowing most companies were too invested to look for alternatives, and now Google is doing it with their Chrome baked-in privacy changes and ad crackdown.

I expect to see more of this trend from "free" services as the people continue to wake up and take their personal data seriously. We know the government(s) won't do a thing to change the status quo, and I have no idea what else to do other than cry into my ramen and binge watch the death of a planet in 4K!

Unfortunately, the rich keep scarcity high to ensure they not only make the most money, but they can use less money to buy favors from those with less. Man greed sucks...

Or a bunch of idiots kill a bunch of people.