Should I pursue a lean six sigma green belt from my university costs 3k?
I am currently a senior at my University. I just got the offer to join Wells Fargo in their OPs department upon my graduation. I need to go to a different state to work for a year starting this July 2023.
I want to back to where I live, and the only bank near me is Citi Bank. I am interested in pursuing a career in Business Analyst and Operations. Will a lean six sigma green belt cert have me find something at Citi in a year after Wells Fargo?
I need to stay where I live right now to take care of my single mom.
I am open to any suggestions and advice! Thank you!

Floater pharmacist whose seen the COVID test push for extra hours, and a lot of pharmacies in my district, because they are not begging for extra tech hours. Like stores where if u r a part timer with full availability, ur getting 35-40 hours a week cuz the store has plenty of hours, and the place is just constantly too slammed to bother.
Also, at least before the push, stores in more affluent areas, families and grandparents would usually come on the 30 day mark to pick up their tests every 30 days. I notice this that we don't really have to push them in more affluent areas, cuz we already have the multiple full families and all the grandparents who are gonna come in to get them on the daily. I worked at stores that do much higher volume in lower socioeconomic areas, yet do way fewer COVID tests on the daily.
Also, hard to push them in stores near college campuses cyz college students dont need a box of them, but those stores tend to be understaffed so the PMs aint begging for extra tech hours.
But areas that are high Medicaid/Medicare and not conservative, once we started pushing the COVID tests , we could send them out left and right and people would keep coming . Have families of 7-8 people who will all get COVID tests, and we'll give them 4 every 2 weeks.
I'm in Massachusetts, but worked in Florida, and comparatively, we are much less conservative but I still hear from stories from techs specifically from a couple pharmacies in my district, about us pushing the COVID propaganda, and patients telling them stuff, like the vaccine gives people COVID, and other anti COVID hysteria. Have heard stories from patients claiming COVID vaccine is leading to mass death and other crazy stuff. One patient said in front of me, I identify as trans-vaccinated, and I was like wtf. I didn't bother but the techs asked what that means to him ,and his explanation I was like Jesus.
Not to get political but a lot of these same people are on Medicaid when conservatives were tryna cut Medicaid, so just food for thought.
Overheard, some people say if CVS is pushing the COVID tests, they must not be good cuz why would CVS be looking out for their health cuz they make money off sick people, and I was like warmer at least comparatively,
Also, you you reach a plateau with a COVID tests, and some of these goals like 250 scripts a week are just super unrealistic, and they just keep upping the goals. Like yeah we could meet 150 a week easily at first, but now that we've been pushing it for a month, a lot of people that would say yes in the past don't want any more boxes, so we're pushing out way less even when we try yet they keep upping our goals.
Like DL starts with goal of 150 a week, then 175, then 190, then 210, then 250, without realizing you've exhausted ur existing base, cuz they don't want a million boxes, and it's not remotely possible to meet that goal.
The only store where they keep hitting the goals tend to be non-conservative high Medicaid/Medicare areas cuz like 80 percent of people will qualify and u can really just keep upping ur total

30M trying to learn realistic self defense.
So i found a place that has Judo twice a week, kind of distant from my home. I always wanted to do Judo but im aware that Judo is hard on the body, specially adults. Good teachers tho. But from what i looked online is takes some time to get decent at Judo.
There is this other place with a big gym near home, where they teach BJJ, go into competitions and stuff, and you pay by class and not a monthly fee. No mandatory branded gi's also. The place is legit. And given my career and stuff paying only for the days i show up seems like a great deal. So far i like this the most.
There is this place near home that has Taekwondo and Hapkido, they seem real nice people with experience (medals and championships won by the teachers) but they dont spar and maybe pad work only. Most of students are children (ofc there are some adults). I dont know if i will learn a lot there, because of the focus of this place, but i honestly think that in a hardcore Hapkido place there is a lot of decent things to learn. That seems a long discussion.
If i try BJJ (or Judo) what kind of minor injuries should i expect?
Should i give the Hapkido place a chance? I dont wanna go into bullshido with knifes and stuff, i just wanna learn enough to hold my own without getting hurt bad enough to interfeer on my career, losing job days etc.

I have a Pixel 6A and it got March security update a few days ago, this update also enabled 5G, which is kind of useless for me because there are no 5G towers near me.
But this update also caused my very fast 4G internet to slow down after just a few minutes of usage. If I turn on and off airplane mode it would be fast for another few minutes and after that it would slow down to about 2G speed. So I went to the network settings and changed "5G (recommended)" to just "4G". After that the problem went away. BTW, I am on Jio network in India.

I (19F) am interning at a startup right now. The job is fully remote, and it has been a hot mess since day one. The offer letter I signed said I would be paid bi-weekly, but I have been at the company for nearly 2 months now and I still haven't seen a single paycheck.
The company is still very small and the founder handles everything, including payroll. I have messaged him multiple times about the fact that I still haven't received any pay. Last month, when I didn't receive a check after the first pay period I worked, I let my boss know about the payroll issues. He assured me that he "fixed the payroll issues" and that I "should be receiving pay soon." That never happened.
I messaged him again last week and let him know that I still have not received a paycheck for any of the pay periods I have worked since starting the internship. He just ignored my message (he has read receipts on his iMessage, so I know he read it). It's been over a week and I still don't have a response.
What do I do? I'm honestly at a point where I just don't even want to show up for work anymore. I feel like I'm being taken advantage of.

I (20m) and my bunkmate (20m) currently stay together. On our floor there are 2 toilets at each end. At the end of the week we are tasked to clean the toilet closest to us, which is honestly tiring and disgusting work. What further infuriates us is the fact that there are people from the other end of the level coming over to our side just to use our toilet. When I confronted they had the nerve to tell me that they just did not want to dirty their own toilet which they had to clean at the end of the week also.
Now here comes the problem. I told my bunkmate, lets call him K, to confront anyone from the other side about using our toilet if he caught them there. K agreed with me. The next week, K then wrongfully scolds another level mate (20M), lets call him N, who lived near the middle of the floor but still clearly on our side of the building about using the toilet. He even went as far as to gather most of the NSFs that lived on the floor to really complain about the issue to them.
When I told him that he had made a mistake he initially felt embarassed and went to apologise to those he wronged. However, a few nights later he starts blaming me, saying that it was my fault that he had made a mistake because I planted the idea in his head, and that he was fine with cleaning up other people's waste in the toilet. He also blamed me for not being able to casually talk to the rest of our level mates anymore because of his mistake and the way he acted because he thought he was in the right. He claims that him confronting N was simply a gesture for our good and he stood nothing to gain from it.
At that point I called him out on his bullshit but I keep thinking that maybe I was in the wrong, so reddit, AITA?

I was recently approved for paratransit because I have cptsd and because of that I have severe agoraphobia. If I can't hardly take my own garbage out to the street, I sure as hell can't walk to a bus stop a mile away and back. Yesterday I was doing my usual, I got ready for college classes and prepared to take my bus. Routine bus, been on five rides so far. I have a bus pass through my college that pays my fare(rediculous to charge a disabled person with no income for bus fare, but thats the USA for you.) As normal, I got in and sat down. My pass should've been on the manifest.
However, people have no bounds to the level of bullshit they will go to to kick disabled people down when they think they're finally getting a leg up in the world. Presenting the worst morning in a long while;
Guy asks me for my fare or a ticket. I said I don't need it, I have an approved pass.
"Kay. Can I see fare or a ticket?" I show him on the back of my pass where it reads, 'unlimited paratransit eligable,' and he goes... wait for it, "Yeah I've never seen that before so uh, fare or ticket."
I tell him, I have been approved for this by a supervisor officially with the local bus, it should be there. "Yyyeah I don't see anything, fare or ticket."
I tell him to call dispatch and show him the email exchange where photo evidence of my pass was sent and approved, "Yeah sorry, I'm gonna need fare or ticket or you have to get off the bus."
I'm nearly in tears so I tell him I've been on five rides in the last week and nobody else had a problem with my pass, "Fare or ticket."
I tell him contact dispatch then, because they should know. They should have access to the information. He does, he calls dispatch, dispatch doesn't bother to check at all, "tell her she needs to have fare or ticket"
I just tell him to check again.
Dispatcher responds in not nearly enough time to have even glanced my account, "Yeah seeing nothing, fare or ticket."
I call the bus customer service and tell them that the driver is refusing me. I have it on speaker. Phone guy says, without checking, "The rules say fare or ticket." Didn't check my account.
I tell him I have an approval from (names the supervisor who approved my pass).He fights me on contacting a supervisor to clarify the problem, and I only got him to do it after asking five times in a row, "Oh, uh, yeah it looks like something's here actually, Please hold" Puts me on hold to finally contact the supervisor.
During the time I was on hold, the driver opens the bus door, and forces me to get off the bus or he would "have to do something about me"
I said, "FINE, get out of here then, I don't want to see it. I don't want to see your face. Good luck when this comes back around," which was Admittedly a bit rude, but honestly a million times less rude than either of them had been to me that morning. They had it coming, I'm not sorry.
On the way out I hear him mumble something something "karen."
Less than a minute later paratransit customer service comes back online, and it's the supervisor there to say, "Yes, I can see right here that you have been approved."
Too little too late. I then had to fight with them to replace the ride I was refused, because I was supposed to go to a college class, I couldn't afford a cab considering I cant afford a 3.25 bus pass without giving up toilet paper, and it was a lab class no less where attendance and participation are my entire grade for the day.
While doing that, I told them I wanted a written permission I can bring to make sure that this never happens again. Three. THREE people failed to look for an obvious note in a row, to even try. I had to fight them on that too, they eventually submitted the request in the form of a complaint and I guess I'll just have to wait until someone decides they care enough to trouble themselves with it, or not.
The new bus driver arrives 20 minutes later than projected. Parks on the opposite side of the street to pick up an agoraphobe. Oh. Mygod. Took another 10 minutes for him to realize he wasn't on the right side of the street.
I was late to class, big surprise. My professor proceeded to verbally make an example of my 'BAD BEHAVIOR' over not letting him know if you're going to be late to the entire room to which I interrupted him, "Uh, yeah. I sent you an email over an hour ago when it happened, did you read it?"
*y...you did? Ahm, uhm, yes well-" I kept talking, "Yeah, my bus pass was illegally refus-" starts talking over me about INTERRUPTING PRESENTSTIONS BLAH BLAH."
I didn't say anything, but I wanted to say, "do not make an example of me if you didnt even bother to look. I was sobbing all morning trying to get here, I didn't need to be publicly embarassed twice today."
I don't know if he docked me points today or if he permitted my tardiness,.because he grades non-traditionally and I won't see my next grade until the semester ends. I gave him a note that explained so I could get to working on the exercises for the day, I think I saw him read it. I have no way of knowing if he docked me the points anyway. He knows I'm disabled and that I have struggled to get to my classes on time in the past because of my condition. He should have realized why it was inappropriate to say that.

Basically, I went through my partners phone (which I know isn’t a sign of a healthy relationship either lol) and I found my partner [23M] has been bragging to his friends about how he’s been hooking up with a girl, how he and his friends got cashier’s phone numbers, and how he matched with a SW on Tinder. I checked for any messages or contacts with these girls and I found nothing. The closest thing I found was he started following a local girl on IG and had liked her IG story. My first instinct was to completely end the relationship then and there but we had a similar argument before where he basically explained to me that it’s just “guy” talk and he was trying to brag in front of his friends. I’m not sure whether to just end it all or have a conversation/confront him about everything I had seen. We have been together for nearly 4 years and I just don’t know if I can wrap my head around the thought of us endingZ The worst part about it all is we were talking and starting to plan to move in together and now I’m just at a loss for words…

I have no where else to vent about this. For years, I could never get myself to brush my teeth and I always figured it's because I'm lazy. But as time passes I realized even when I'm perfectly able to, and feeling somewhat energized, I just can't get myself to brush my teeth. I'm aware of the consequences but I'm so trapped in my mind and I can't even do this simple task. I feel so shitty. I hate talking or even opening my mouth because I'm self conscious. My depression makes it nearly impossible to do such a simple task and it's destroying my life. So much money wasted on my dental care only for me to have a panic attack when I have to go tp the dentist. The sense of dread gets heavier every day. Am I being dramatic? Is it just my laziness? Is this all in my head to convince myself I'm not a worthless piece of shit who is so unbelievably careless that they can't even walk to the bathroom and brush their teeth for two minutes? Gosh I'm so tired of this. All the anxiety from a problem so fixable. Fuck. Sorry for the rant.

Just singing the Steam Deck’s praises again. I had the game running at a smooth 40/40 with medium/low settings, FSR2 balanced, 800p, high settings for all the physics + enemy options for that wonderful destructible and gory goodness; as well as resource intensive lighting on—oh and only 10 TDP.
Co-workers we’re honestly impressed with how smooth and clear it looked on the mobile screen and then one of them wanted to try plugging it right into the 60” TV with an HDMI adapter plug, and he was amazed that it was instantly just plug and play, and everyone started watching me as I nearly got crushed by a building and rabid monster dogs chased after me. We just had a good time playing for a solid 2 hrs before the battery started to get low so I called it, since I didn’t have an actual dock with me. So yep, loving this thing all over again and probably convinced a couple people to buy one as well.

Hey, as the title says, I'm looking for a roleplay partner. I'm okay with nearly every ship, if you'd like we can discuss further details. I'll send you my discord once you DM me. Looking forward to roleplaying with someone!

There is a certain aura, a cultural meme, regarding the United Nations Armed Forces. A very particular version of events that is peddled across the galaxy, generally the result of an interstellar game of telephone. This aura is that of an unflinching, uncaring war machine. One that starts with the goal of total destruction of its opponents, and works towards that by any means necessary.
It is easy to see how this came about. Even putting aside the pre-Contact War conflicts, there is plenty of brutality to be found. The exploits of Spearhead Platoon during the Second Hekatian War, fighting it's way from the Susquehanna to the palace of the Hekatian Emperor, has particularly dominated the popular consciousness for many, and it is difficult to argue they did not experience some of the worst the war had to offer. A still frame of Corporal Heppell, gas mask concealing all but his eyes, half a second away from plunging his plasma-enhanced bayonet into a Hekatian platoon commander, has become one of the most reproduced images of the whole Battle of New York.
While plasma bayonets were only issued to a small portion of British units during the Second Hekatian War, melee fighting still occupied a disturbingly high proportion of the wars with the Hekatians a modern war. The Battle of London (both 2021 and 2025) saw civilians armed with little more than axes and clubs achieving at least some success against mechanised Hekatian forces in the tight urban confines of the city, with their contributions in the Second Hekatian War forming a part of the critical force that halted the Hekatian offensive. Less well commemorated, but by no means less brave, was the near-complete annihilation of the 8th Battalion Rajputana Rifles in the opening phases of the Battle of New Delhi. Caught out-of-position by the surprise landing of Hekatian forces, the soldiers rushed into battle against a far-superior Hekatian force. By the day's end, only 3 soldiers survived from the entire ordeal, but their counterattacks, waged with everything from rifles to chunks of rubble used as clubs, successfully held up the better part of a division for some critical hours. Doubtless similar stories exist across every front of the war.
Infantry fought with all manner of weapons, with KPA forces famously utilising shovels and large quantities of grenades while fighting from trench to trench on the slopes of Mt. Paektu. During the later stages of the Battle of New York, Gurkha units roamed the irradiated rubble of the city, wielding plasma-enhanced kukris: this was so extraordinarily effective that Hekatian units in the Brooklyn area had a bounty set on the weapons, on the basis that each collected meant another of the feared soldiers had been eliminated, and that soldiers would be more watchful in hopes of collecting said bounty. The actual effect was that the number of losses credited to Gurkha units went up, as their soldiers (now aware of just how effective they were) delved deeper and deeper into psychological warfare. Meanwhile, Hekatian soldiers became so jumpy that they often exposed themselves to Human forces by firing away at nonexistent targets, and were so nervous as to lose all composure when engaged. When the United Nations counterattack successfully trapped a large quantity of supply-starved Hekatians in the radioactive ruins of New York, an intimidation campaign of such ferocity was launched that even a century later headless Hekatians are occasionally located within the New York area.
There are, of course, other ways to be brutal than a bayonet or bullet.
The Second Hekatian War, for example, saw the mass deployment of nerve gas against Hekatian forces landing in Southern England, with this considered to be the single deadliest event in the history of warfare (excluding attacks targeted at civilian populations). True numbers on the death toll are hard to come by, but it is estimated these attacks alone killed roughly 100,000 Hekatians, unprepared for the gas as they were exiting their ships, with an unknown number severely wounded. This is at present the only confirmed deployment of chemical weapons in either war: rumours persist of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea having used significant quantities during the fighting across the Korean Peninsula, and into Northeastern China. To this day, neither the People’s Republic of China, nor the Korean Federal Republic have confirmed these rumours, and all files regarding the status of the DPRK’s chemical arsenal have been sealed away until 2155.
Chemical weapons were not the only weapons of mass destruction brought out in desperate defence of Earth. Biological weapons were deployed, albeit in significantly less flashy ways. Though continuously denied by the United Nations to this day, all evidence indicates that a modified form of Tularemia was deployed against Hekatian forces in the United States. By all accounts, this was extraordinarily effective in shattering Hekatian morale, along with generally degrading their ability to resist United Nations counterattacks. This disease, relatively minor as far as biological weapons go, was generally non-lethal, and thus believed acceptable to be used against the Hekatians without causing further escalation if discovered.
Currently, there is significant reason to believe the Hekatians may have deployed biological weapons of their own, which may later have morphed into the infamous Cincinnati Flu, though this is highly controversial amongst war historians, and is believed to have occurred independently of the use of Tularemia. It is also worth noting that declassified British documents speak openly of a large stockpile of anthrax being distributed across the island at the start of the Second Hekatian War, with the intent being to release it en masse as a form of vengeance should Britain fall. Still uncertain is why, even a century after the war and the collapse of the Hekatian Stellar Imperium, several Hekatian-majority worlds (including, most infamously, Kulabaddos) semi-routinely see severe outbreaks of a disease worryingly similar to H1N1.
The most destructive WMDs in pure terms were the InterStellar Faster-than-light Missiles. Effectively the old idea of the Relativistic Kill Vehicle, except with a hyperdrive strapped to them, they saw very little use across the war, except for a few carefully calculated deployments by United Nations forces. Using stolen missiles, the Muaytrov and Hualkinov anchorages were utterly destroyed, followed by the military staging post of Traxio.
But these are not the weapons of mass destruction thought of when the Second Hekatian War springs to mind.
In the course of the Second Hekatian War, nukes were tossed around in large numbers. City after city across the United States of America fell victim to Hekatian nukes, while American strikes (generally tactical in nature, directed at concentrations of Hekatian forces and key command and control sites) usually invited yet more retaliation. Historians are unable to come to much of a conclusion on the effectiveness of this strategy by the American military, in no small part due to the difficulties of credibly predicting what would have happened without it. It is arguable that these attacks were responsible for the collapse of Hekatian morale and eventual widespread mutinies: this can also be attributed to any of hundreds of factors. It must be noted, though, that the Hekatians began the nuclear game with the destruction of Washington DC, and that ultimately all responsibility lies with them.
After the war, there was much debate on the morality of this action, rather than just the efficacy. It was declared by some that Humanity, now no longer in an existential fight for it's liberty and potentially survival, was in a "post-nuclear" age, where it could step away from these insanely destructive weapons. While this did hold for biological and chemical weapons, it simply could not for nuclear weapons, as the reality of maintaining an effective military on the interstellar scale quickly caught up. Nukes are fielded in what could be described as a liberal amount: fashioned into Nuclear Explosively Formed Projectiles or Casaba-Howitzers, they form the backbone of the Stellar Navy’s anti-ship missile arsenal. Special forces units have routinely made use of sub-kiloton devices in the Rigel Campaign, and conventional forces maintain large stockpiles for tactical usage. Even the famous SIM-94, defender of the skies, is more commonly than not fielded with a nuclear warhead of some sort.
These are carefully calculated tactical uses, yes. A Casaba-Howitzer melting a warship is a far different thing than the nuclear bombardment of Los Angeles, both in scale and morality. But most commanders do still hesitate when they order a nuclear strike in an exercise. Failsafes abound for all devices intended for anti-ship purposes to prevent their usage in other ways, while devices for use as bombs are subject to hyper-strict command-and-control procedures. ISFMs are subject to even stricter control, since their misuse could devastate an unshielded planet.
The cumulative effects of such a war have continued to be felt for decades afterwards. The Second Hekatian War is believed to be the war with the single highest rate of PTSD amongst veterans. Post-war advances in medical technology helped to at least lessen the effects of physical wounds, and the general improvement in living standards that followed the wars has significantly helped many veterans, but some things can't be solved by getting to take a holiday to space on the cheap. This is of course not to mention the refugee populations of the former United States, many of them surviving by flukes while losing their entire family. It is a horror no one seeks to experience again.
Yes, the plasma bayonet is still technically fielded by both the Territorial and Stellar Army (though, notably, not the Orbital Infantry, who solely fight in the cramped confines of space stations). But it has not been used in combat in decades, and is widely agreed to only exist because of tradition, and also as a somewhat risky means of cooking food. To the average soldier, the idea of a bayonet charge is unthinkable, not least because it means a lot has gone wrong.
When the Hekatians were at the gates in 2025, it was necessary to project a certain image. The unflinching warrior, remorseless and unplagued by questions of morality. Even at the time, this had serious problems. Now, in 2150, things are different. That image is back in the box as far as the United Nations is concerned, even as the myth continues to spread. But the thing about boxes is that you can always open them up again. The only hope is it never will be.
Authors Notes
Some points: the Korean Federal Republic is supposed to be the unified state that now comprises the Korean peninsula. The Rigel Campaign thing is something I have been meaning to expand on for a while now, and has been mentioned before, though not by that name. Fingers crossed I can sort out the relevant stories for that some time soon.
Some may notice that there has been a slight retconning of ISFMs here. Originally they were intended to hit their target at FTL speeds: I have spent at least a year bothered by my earlier concepts of FTL. Firstly, the problem of where they got the energy to go FTL: this was covered by a "no one knows", which was eventually meant to be "no one knows but it's being siphoned from other dead universes and for some reason can't be harnessed by other uses", which was a cop-out to be honest. The second issue was that obviously any shield to protect against this would be absurdly powerful, so absurdly powerful as to render any planet basically invulnerable to everything. Thirdly, they had an interesting effect on space battles, in that they forced them to be more conducted in orbits of planets where collateral damage would prevent the usage of ISFMs. I really like this as a concept, especially since I think it's a kinda nice inversion of how anti-ship missiles work in reality (which force ships to get further and further away), but I realised that ISFMs were basically just too good at this. So I have decided to change it slightly, so that it's closer to a "slipspace" style. ISFMs are now just RKVs with the ability to go faster than light, then they drop out slightly before hitting the target. Still very powerful but less nakedly reality breaking. The point about forcing battles to be more in orbit still stands, but now those ships could better defend themselves or evade. Basically the difference between how hypersonic weapons are portrayed against modern carriers, and their current reality: still capable but not perfect. The same change applies broadly to regular hyperdrives, but they're not really that affected.
Anyway, if you enjoy my work, please consider buying me a coffee, it helps a ton, and allows me to keep writing this sort of stuff. Alternatively, you can just read more of it.

Note from roberestarkk

I am blatantly copy-pasting this from elsewhere to help test a text-to-speech issue

Who’d ever be afraid of postcards?
After all, it’s nothing but paper, right?
That’s how I’d have reacted if you’d asked me that question about a month or two ago.
It all started back in April. I’d just returned from the grocery store and checked my mail. I do it less than frequently. The only thing that ever finds its way there are fliers, random advertisement or the occasional bill.
That day though, as I stood in front of the big outdoor mailboxes of my apartment building, there was something else. Amongst a handful of fliers that had accumulated over the past week and a half, I also found a postcard.
After I’d crumbled up the annoying advertisements, I checked the postcard. Its front showed a pair of cute kittens and a ball of yarn.
When I turned it around, wondering who it was from, I found a postal stamp, my address written in fine letters, but no message. At least I thought so until I saw a single smiley face drawn where one would usually find a message.
I stared at the card for a bit, more amused than confused, wondering who’d sent it.
Without thinking much, I pocketed it and went inside. After I’d put away my groceries, I added it to a small bulletin board in my hallway where I’d put up all the postcards I’d received from friends and family over the years.
I’d forgotten it soon enough, if not for another one that arrived a week later.
This time the motif was a sprawling forest with the sun rising in the distance. When I turned it around, it was the same thing. A stamp, my name and address, and another silly little smiley face.
“What the hell?” I brought out before I shrugged. Back inside, I pinned it to the bulletin board and went on with my day.
A few days later, another two postcards arrived. One showed a couple of balloons flying through the air, the other what I assumed to be an important historical building. Once again, neither of them contained a message. Instead, both of them showed the same lonely smiley face.
By now, I couldn’t help but frown. This was getting creepy.
This time I didn’t bother to put the cards up on the board. In the trash they went, without a moment’s hesitation.
And yet, I couldn’t help but wonder what was up with this. Why’d anyone sent me those cards? Why not add a message instead of that stupid smiley face? Was this supposed to be a joke?
I didn’t find any answers to my questions, but the next time I checked my mailbox, I found another batch of postcards inside.
They depicted random motifs, were all addressed to me, and each one sprouted another smiley face.
This time, I wasn’t confused or puzzled. This time I was getting angry. Who the hell was sending them? In my anger, I tore them to pieces right then and there and grumbled up the remains.
Then I stopped and looked around to see if the perpetrator was nearby. Maybe this was all someone’s elaborate joke to see how a random person would react to something like this?
Then I shook my head. It wouldn’t do me any good to grow paranoid about a couple of silly postcards. And they all had a postal stamp, so they’d arrived via mail, anyway.
And yet, the next day, I found myself in front of the mailboxes again, checking it even though I told myself to not let it go to my head. But wouldn’t you know it, I found another one. The same was true for the next day and the day after. Each day, a new, cute little postcard arrived, address to me and sprouting another random smiley face.
Who the hell was doing this? Those cards, the shipping, it all cost money, didn’t it?
That’s when I wondered who it could be. I didn’t exactly have friends and what few old ones I had I hadn’t talked to in years. The next thing that came to mind were past relationships, but I hadn’t dated anyone in years. The only nasty break-up I could think of was with Lin, and that had been almost a decade ago. No, as much as I racked my brain, no one came to mind.
I went online, asked about it on Reddit and other similar sites, but most of the answers I got were silly jokes. What few serious replies I got suggested it might be some sort of marketing campaign, a social experiment or someone tricking random people to see how they’d react.
Great, that didn’t help me one bit. So much for the information age.
Each day, I thought about the damned cards more and more and each day new cards arrived.
Eventually, on my way to the grocery store, I ran into the mailman who’d just started on his delivery on our block.
“Hello, excuse me, do you mind if I ask you a question?”
The man turned to me and gave me a puzzled look before he nodded.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Well, for the past weeks, I’ve been getting those weird postcards in the mail. Do you by any chance know something about it? Maybe other people receive them too and I was wondering if there’s some sort of, you know, promotion or something.”
For a moment, he stared at me again.
“Haven’t heard of anything like it.”
“Yeah, but those damned cards keep arriving. By now it’s two or three a day and I was wondering,” my voice trailed off.
“They are like, landscapes, animals, greeting cards, anything basically.”
“All right,” he brought out in a strangely suspicious voice. “Do you live here?”
“Ah, down the road, in number sixty-eight.”
“Tell you what, buddy, I’ve no clue if I delivered any postcards, there’s a ton of mail and even more mailboxes. I’ll keep my eyes open though.”
“Thanks.”
From the way he held my gaze, I knew he wasn’t doing anything like keeping his eyes open. No, I could tell he was uncomfortable about the entire thing and just wanted to get over with. I sighed, nodded, and went on my way.
The next morning, while I put on some coffee, the same curiosity overcame me again. I put on my shoes and made my way outside. Wouldn’t you know it, another pair of postcards had found its way into my mailbox.
In an onset of fury, I tore them apart, cursing to myself, and threw their remains down in front of the mailboxes.
Once done, I found one of my neighbors, an old woman walking her dog, staring at me, a worried expression on her face.
“Ah, sorry,” I mumbled, more to myself than to her, before I hurried back inside.
Great, fucking great. If this continued, I’d be known as the local crazy guy in no time. But really, what the hell was up with those cards?
I had talked to the mailman, of course, but by that point he hadn’t been at my building yet. And he probably didn’t give a shit about a random guy pestering him about postcards. No, if anything, I had to talk to him right here, while he was delivering the damned things.
Yesterday I’d met him at about one in the afternoon. So he’d probably be back shortly after noon.
I tried my best to distract myself with my work, but I soon couldn’t concentrate on it anymore. Instead, I found myself sitting at the kitchen window, watching the street and mailboxes outside, waiting for his arrival.
I sat there for more than an hour, busying myself on my phone, when I noticed the bright-yellow delivery car. In an instant, I jumped up, put on my shoes, and dashed outside.
When I’d made it, he was rummaging through the back of his car, sorting through letters and parcels. Then he made his way to my building with a stack of them in his hands. The moment he noticed standing by the mailboxes, he gave me an awkward smile.
Shit, I told myself, now I’m the guy who’s stalking the mailman.
He gave me a friendly nod, trying his best to ignore me, but every so often his eyes wandered back to me. The way I watched him clearly unsettled him. Shit, I had to do something about this situation.
“Sorry about that,” I brought out, stepping up to him.
He gave me a half-questioning, half-scared look.
“You probably think I’m a nutcase but,” I broke up and couldn’t help but laugh. “All right, shit, now you definitely think I’m a nutcase.”
He joined my laughter, but his had an awkward, hollow sound to it.
“So about the postcards,” I started, but he raised his hand to cut me off.
He went through the stack of letters right in front of me, showing me one after another and then the three parcels.
“Nope, no postcards, same as yesterday,” he eventually said.
“Yesterday?”
“Yeah, when you asked me.”
“Motherfucker,” I brought out.
He gave me another curious glance as he pushed letter after letter into their corresponding mailboxes.
“Sorry, not you. It’s just, I found another batch this morning, so I thought maybe today there were more of them.”
“Well, as you can see,” he said, shrugging.
“Yeah, all good. I’m just trying to figure out who’s sending the damned things,” I said, giving him a little smile.
He gave me another curt nod before he hurried back to his car.
All right, if those things weren’t delivered by the postal service...
And so the biggest question on my mind changed from why to who and especially when.
For a moment, the strangest feeling came over me as I watched the mailman at his car and opened my mailbox again. Maybe he was fucking with me and hadn’t shown them. But when I stared into my mailbox, it was empty.
Back inside, I hatched a plan. They were there every morning, and the mailman didn’t deliver them, so someone else had to be behind it. I mean, they couldn’t just appear there out of thin air. So if I just waited by the kitchen window and watched the damned mailboxes, I should catch the perpetrator.
I found myself an interesting podcast, sat down by the window, and began my watch.
I sat there all afternoon, but all I saw were neighbors checking their mail. None of them touched my mailbox at all. When the sun set, I prepared myself a can of coffee.
When night fell, I was about to turn on the light, but then remembered what I was doing. Whoever was behind this would see me in the window and would just sit tonight out. Hell, maybe they’d already seen me and decided to leave things alone for today.
Shit.
Still, I had told myself I’d catch the one responsible for this and that I’d watch the damned mailboxes.
And yet, slowly, ever so slowly, hour after hour passed. Soon enough it was midnight, then one in the morning. At two, I grew tired and downed yet another cup of coffee. At half-past three, I almost nodded off.
I slapped myself across the face, downed another cup of strong coffee, and turned the podcast a few notches louder until it sounded like someone was screaming into my ear.
Eventually, morning came, and the sun dawned. I sat there, tired, exhausted, but most of all, discouraged. No one had shown up, no one at all.
For a moment, I couldn’t help but laugh. What the hell was I doing? Why was I sitting here all night just because of a bunch of stupid postcards?
And yet, I kept sitting there, watching the mailboxes for another hour and then another. Somehow, I couldn’t stop. It felt like the moment I’d step away from the window, someone would rush to the mailbox, put the cards in and dash away.
Then I started to think. What if they were waiting for exactly that? What if someone had seen me by the window and was waiting for me to give up, to falter?
My apartment was on the ground floor. I’d be out at the mailboxes within moments. If I was fast enough, maybe I could catch them red-handed.
For a moment I scanned the area nearby, the street and the sidewalk, the bushes and trees, but I saw no one.
Still, just to be sure, just so I wouldn’t miss a thing, I put my phone up near the window where it couldn’t easily be seen. Then I made sure it was pointed at the mailboxes and started a recording.
Once I was sure everything worked, I stepped away from the window. I put on my shoes, grabbed my keys and hurried outside to the mailbox.
I was all alone. My eyes darted around for movement, trying to see if anyone was nearby or hurrying away. All was as quiet as it could be. No one was nearby.
Then I walked up to my mailbox.
My fingers were sweaty as I put in the key and my hand was shaking slightly as I turned it.
It had to be empty, I told myself, it had to be.
But the moment the small mailbox opened up, I could already see them, three postcards. Cute kittens and puppies stared at me from each one. When I turned them around, I saw the postal stamp, saw my address and name and of course the damned smiley faces.
As they stared at me, I felt almost as if they were laughing at me, mocking me. Had someone actually made it to the mailbox in the few moments it took me to get here?
In an instant, another surge of rage came over me and I shredded the damned things. Then I made my way back inside and hurried to the kitchen.
The phone was still pointing at the mailboxes, still recording.
I was filled with the strangest sense of glee, of curiosity as I replayed the recording.
I brought the phone as close to my face as I could, gazing at it. The recording began, showing me the lonely mailboxes.
“Now, where are you, asshole?” I wondered as I continued watching.
Second after second passed with no one showing up, with nothing moving.
Then I saw something and at first I thought I’d caught the damned asshole playing tricks on me before I realized it was me walking up to my mailbox. I watched as I looked around, as I took out the key and opened it and eventually tore up the postcards.
In frustration, I dropped my phone onto the kitchen table and laughed.
How the hell had someone put those damned cards inside? I had seen no one!
Then I wondered if someone had dropped them in before I’d started watching the window. There had been a few minutes after my talk with the mailman. Hell, what if I had actually nodded off and hadn’t noticed it?
What if the damned mailman was behind it? Maybe that asshole pretended not to know anything and the moment I’d left him, he ran back to my mailbox and put the damned cards in? What if...
All right, stop. This is getting ridiculous. You’re sounding like a crazy person. Hell, you’ve acted like a crazy person. This entire ‘let’s watch the mailboxes all night long’ thing was crazy enough.
I rubbed my temples and shook my head. Shit, I was exhausted and all that for nothing.
The moment I fell into my bed I was deep asleep.
After that day, I made it a conscious effort to ignore whatever was going on here. Who knows, maybe that person did it all to get a reaction out of me. Maybe they were watching me, and maybe they’d seen me tearing up postcards and talking to the mailman. Maybe if I stopped caring they’d tire of their antics?
Either way, I told myself I’d better things to do than to worry about freaking postcards.
Still, whenever I was in the kitchen, I found myself at the window, staring down at the mailbox for a little while before I moved on.
I checked my mail occasionally. When I went to the grocery store or when I returned from an evening walk. Every single time, I found postcards inside and every single time there were more of them. They had to arrive in droves by now. At one point, I pulled out over three dozen of them.
It was the strangest thing, dumbfounding even, but I forced myself not to show a reaction. I wouldn’t give whoever was doing this any sort of satisfaction. No, I took out the postcards, closed my mailbox and went inside where I discarded them.
It was about a week later that my doorbell rang in the late afternoon. When I answered it, one of my neighbors was outside.
“I guess those are for you, aren’t they?” he brought out in a slightly annoyed tone when I opened the door.
I stared at him and then at the stack of postcards in his hand. My eyes grew wide, and I almost cringed back.
“Wait, what? No, those aren’t mine, they are,” I broke up, shaking my head.
“Look, no, those aren’t mine, they are-“
“But that’s your name on them, isn’t it? Right here, on every single one of them,” the man cut me off, his voice now more annoyed.
“Yes, I know, but-“
“Then how about you take them off me?”
“I... fuck, all right!”
With that, I ripped the stack of postcards from his hands.
“You know, it wouldn’t hurt to be a bit friendlier,” he brought out, staring at me.
At first I was about to retort something. To tell him to go fuck himself. But then I told myself to calm down. The guy probably brought them here because he thought the mailman had messed up. He was just trying to be a good neighbor in his own way.
“All right, I’m sorry,” I brought out. “Look, there’s something odd about those postcards.”
The guy’s face didn’t change. Instead, he kept staring at me.
“Someone’s been dumping them into my mailbox for weeks. Hell, probably for a month by now. Every day I find those stupid cards inside. Look, there’s not even a message on them! It’s all just those stupid smiley faces. I don’t know why they put them in your mailbox, but maybe they want to fuck with other people as well.”
“Who are... they?” the man asked me in a half-concerned, half-confused voice once my rant was over.
“Shit, I don’t know! The ones who are doing this, who are fucking with me, fucking with you!”
By now the man had grown apprehensive and taken a few steps away from me.
“Look, I’m not looking for any trouble,” he said, raising his hands in a defensive posture.
At that moment, I got an idea.
“Hold on, let’s go back to the mailboxes.”
“Why’d I-?” the guy started, but after a few moments of standing there confused and lost, he followed me.
After a few moments we were back outside, me standing in front of the mailboxes and him keeping a safe distance from who he thought to be a madman. After a quick turn of the key, I opened my mailbox. A flood of postcards descended upon me. The entire mailbox had been filled to the brim. The last ones had been stuffed inside with such force they’d crumbled.
“What the hell?” the man behind me brought out.
“That’s what I thought,” I reasoned. “They probably dumped the rest into another mailbox, into yours.”
“Look, if this is your idea of a joke, then-“
“What the hell kind of joke would that be? Look, there’s got to be dozens in here, maybe hundreds. Why’d I buy all those postcards just to play a joke on you?”
“Why’d anyone?”
This time, I couldn’t answer.
For a few more moments he stood there before he shook his head and left me alone with all my postcards. As I stared at the filled up mailbox, at the postcards who’d rained down on my feet, I couldn’t help but laugh.
This was insane, this was just utterly insane.
Over the course of the next days, things didn’t get better. More and more neighbors showed up at my door. The nice old lady from floor number three, a student from floor number six, and a young mother from down the hallway. Every single one of them would ring my doorbell to hand me a stack of postcards addressed to me that had accidentally been delivered to them.
As quietly and as normal as I could, I explained to them that someone was playing a trick on me. I told them to just ignore any cards addressed to me or throw them away.
They all nodded, but I could see the puzzlement on their faces, the confusion and the apprehension.
I could tell they were all wondering if this was my doing, and I was sure they considered me the local crazy guy by now.
It wasn’t long before even the mailman rang my doorbell. He told me there was a problem, and he had to speak to me for a moment.
When he saw who I was, he frowned.
“You know this is a problem, don’t you?” he asked, pointing at the mailboxes.
“What do you-?” I started but broke up.
Half of the mailboxes were stuffed with postcards.
I couldn’t help but laugh nervously, which prompted an angry glance from the mailman.
“That’s got to be hundreds... thousands,” I eventually brought out.
“Yeah, and I can’t deliver the mail, thanks to them. What are you going to do about it?”
“What am I... what?”
“Well, they are all addressed to you. This is clearly related to you!”
“But, I don’t, ugh,” I broke up in frustration.
By now, another neighbor had arrived, staring at her mailbox.
“Not again,” she brought out as she opened her mailbox and tore dozens upon dozens of crumbled up postcards from it.
As I watched, as I stared at all those stuffed mailboxes, I knew this wasn’t a prank anymore. No, something strange was going on here, something extremely strange.
I pulled out my phone and called the police. I made my report as vague as possible, telling them someone was stalking me and damaging the mailboxes at my apartment building.
When they arrived, I told them about the full situation. They listened intently, but I could see the look on their faces.
The longer I went on talking, the more angry they seemed to get.
I was quick to lead them to the mailboxes and pointed at the general chaos. Their anger dissipated almost instantly and was replaced by confusion.
“And, how long has this... whatever this is, been going on?” one of them asked while his colleague stepped up to the mailboxes.
“I guess, about a month and a half,” I started. “At first it was only a single postcard, but then more and more of them arrived, and now it’s come to this.”
The two police officers did the best to handle the entire situation professionally, but I could tell they were as perplexed as I was.
They asked me if I had any enemies, but I answered I couldn’t think of anyone. I told them I’d tried to figure out who was behind this for weeks, but I had no clue. I even told them of my nightly watch.
Eventually, one of them handed me his card with a phone number on it. They told me they’d take some postcards with them and look into it and they’d have someone to watch the nearby area.
With the police here and them taking action, I was sure this thing would finally end. Stuffing all those mailboxes had to take time, and I was sure they’d catch whoever was responsible.
The next morning, however, I found all the mailboxes in chaos again. Mine was so stuffed, I was surprised the door was still closed. Almost all other mailboxes were in a similar condition.
As I stood there, I took out my phone and called the number on the card the police officer had given me.
He answered, and I told him it had happened again. The man listened, but he couldn’t tell me much. They had someone watching the area, but so far, they hadn’t been able to see anyone suspicious.
The weird deliveries continued, and soon I wasn’t the only one in contact with the police. And yet, they never found out who was behind it, saw no one.
Even stranger, though, were the postcards themselves. None of them showed any label or a hint of a manufacturer. The same was true for the stamps.
And yet, nothing could be done and postcards kept arriving.
Before long people began pressuring the renting company. Something had to be done about this absurd situation. I knew some of them wanted me gone from the building while others wanted them to hire a mailbox security who’d watch it at all hours of the day.
The renting company, however, had a different plan. One day, they sent a maintenance team that took down the entirety of the mailboxes and simply moved them inside into the entry hallway of the building.
When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I did was to check on the mailboxes. Other people did the same thing.
I think we were all expecting them to be filled to the brim once more. Instead, everything was normal. There were no postcards with my name and silly smile faces on them anywhere.
I could see the relaxed faces of people around me, could hear them sigh in relief and talk about how it was finally over. And I couldn’t help but join in. They were still wary of me, still wondering how I’d spawned that madness, but I didn’t care.
Instead, still smiling, I went back to my apartment. I hadn’t even had coffee yet, I thought to myself.
With quick steps, I made my way towards my kitchen.
For the first time in weeks, hell, in more than a month, the world felt normal again. All I wanted right now was a nice, hot cup of coffee.
All those feelings vanished and changed the pure terror when I opened the kitchen door.
Right there, on my kitchen table and on the floor all around it, I found an uncountable number of postcards.
With a shaking hand, I picked up one of them. On it I found a postal stamp, my name and address and a stupid little smiley face.
And as I stared at it, as I stared at that silly, stupid little face, I couldn’t help but smile myself, smile and laugh about the absurdity of this entire mad situation.

I work in the medical field now as a CNA, and I have always been interested in physical science, but I am also interested in psychology. I plan to go back to school to become a psych nurse to meld those two interests together, and I know I can do well at it because of my previous job experience.
This previous job experience required no experience, and looking back I’m not quite sure why it didn’t. This job was the first of this kind I had ever tried my hand at, and it had a very high turn over rate. It was stressful, I even went home in tears a few times. I worked second shift, 1500 to 2300. This job, was at a mental facility. A step down facility from the state mental ward. This means that we could not use restraints as a facility, unlike the ward that can. But this place, it had a spiel, ‘we are one of only thirty facilities throughout the entirety of the United States that deals specifically with people with schizophrenia’. There were over 120 residents, and usually only 5 to 7 staff members at any given time. You would think this would be a controlled environment, you would be wrong. There were no fences, no gates, no locking doors, no knives, and no way to defend yourself. Some of the residents got violent. I have had a number of things thrown at me, not limited to burning cigarets and bodily fluids. I have been grabbed, shoved, kicked, scratched, punches and hands thrown. One person would try to bite, another sharpened the handle of a toothbrush and nearly shanked me. But then you have the quiet ones. They keep quiet because they are listening to the voices, and you have to watch their body language closely to make sure they are not about to rush anyone. We also had a group of residents that were court ordered to be there. For the most part they were calm, mainly because they didn’t want to go back to jail. I got put in charge of that group after an incident in the med line where I stood in between two of them starting to fight. Hands were being thrown over me, but I stood my ground and told the one resident to stop, if he hit me I would be able to do nothing, but he would go back to jail, things died down quick.
Overall it was a good job, but the mood of the place was like walking through dense fog. The strong delusions of the residents; one told me that her toilet was clogged because her roommate had been pregnant the previous year with devil dogs, gave birth, freezed them, and had just tried to flush them. But what always got to me was the walkers, the people who would just walk and pace while mumbling nonsense. Usually it was just nonsense, but sometimes it was very to the point. I would hear about crimes, murder, rape, things the voices were telling them to do. I made the mistake of asking what the voices were telling a very distraught resident to do. His face changed, he very calmly made eye contact and told me that he was going to kill me, strangle me with his bare hands until I stopped kicking. Another one that paced would take me by the face and staring into me, tell me I had beautiful eyes. I would have to gingerly back away and report it because she was being symptomatic. She had gouged her mothers eyes out. The worst of it was at night. Many of the residents had insomnia, and if the saraquil didn’t knock them out they would pace around the grounds of the facility in the dark. To be walking in the dark and hear footsteps turn and quicken behind you knowing full well you are surrounded by people not in their right minds, and then hear manic laughter, you turn to ice. Don’t panic, don’t show fear, you have to steel yourself, turn, and face them. ‘Hi, can I help you, are you doing alright’. The response was always something along the lines of ‘fine’ even though they were yards from you moments ago and now they are to your nose.
The strangest one that I could never figure out was the full adult hand print on the inside of my car. I had locked it, it had an alarm. But there I found it, fogged on the inside of my back window, single, alone, nothing disturbed in the entire car. It was at the end of the shift, and I know it was not there at the beginning. The doors were all still locked too, and my car keys had been in my bag, in a locker the entire shift.
That’s all I have for that one, but I do have more. I currently work at a nursing home on second shift. The sundowners can be a handful.
Btw Sinknslow2

I'm just curious about what Rush songs got you through a hard time and why.
For me, I gotta say: - Earthshine when I was feeling a lot of homesickness. With this one, I don't know exactly why, the song just gave me something to stay grounded in a time of severe anxiety and hating where I was located.

• secret touch when my grandpa passed away. My life and everything going on came to a halt and I wanted nothing to do with anything. The song reconnected me to my environment.
  
• closer to the heart at the end of a my 1st ski race in nearly a year after initially quitting due to a battle with vertigo. I was just about to cross the bridge, starting the finishing stretch of the Korteloppet, feeling exhausted, ready to collapse when my favorite song of all time started to play, and the next thing I knew, I was powering through the finish line, as if I never lost any of my abilities.
  

PROVERBS 18:24; A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
Friendships are important, but it does not matter how many friends you have. It matters more what type of friends you have. Some people seem to stockpile friends, but if they do not have any friends who are loyal or dependable, then what good are they? Instead, you should try to develop friendships of the heart like David and Jonathan. These men cared deeply for one another and offered protection and love. They did stick closer than a brother. Fortunately, as Christians, we have our Savior as our closest friend.
Dear God, help me to develop relationships that matter. Give me discernment to choose friends that are loyal and draw me closer to you. Remind me that popularity fades, but true friendships last. When I feel alone, remind me that you are always near and always faithful. Thank you for loving me unconditionally and laying your life down for me. Draw me closer to you, O Lord. May I honor my relationship with you by serving you with all my heart, soul, and mind. In Jesus' name, amen.

PROVERBS 18:24; A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
Friendships are important, but it does not matter how many friends you have. It matters more what type of friends you have. Some people seem to stockpile friends, but if they do not have any friends who are loyal or dependable, then what good are they? Instead, you should try to develop friendships of the heart like David and Jonathan. These men cared deeply for one another and offered protection and love. They did stick closer than a brother. Fortunately, as Christians, we have our Savior as our closest friend.
Dear God, help me to develop relationships that matter. Give me discernment to choose friends that are loyal and draw me closer to you. Remind me that popularity fades, but true friendships last. When I feel alone, remind me that you are always near and always faithful. Thank you for loving me unconditionally and laying your life down for me. Draw me closer to you, O Lord. May I honor my relationship with you by serving you with all my heart, soul, and mind. In Jesus' name, amen.

PROVERBS 18:24; A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.
Friendships are important, but it does not matter how many friends you have. It matters more what type of friends you have. Some people seem to stockpile friends, but if they do not have any friends who are loyal or dependable, then what good are they? Instead, you should try to develop friendships of the heart like David and Jonathan. These men cared deeply for one another and offered protection and love. They did stick closer than a brother. Fortunately, as Christians, we have our Savior as our closest friend.
Dear God, help me to develop relationships that matter. Give me discernment to choose friends that are loyal and draw me closer to you. Remind me that popularity fades, but true friendships last. When I feel alone, remind me that you are always near and always faithful. Thank you for loving me unconditionally and laying your life down for me. Draw me closer to you, O Lord. May I honor my relationship with you by serving you with all my heart, soul, and mind. In Jesus' name, amen.