At this point, if I'm going to die then it won't be the wait what killed me. It didn't help any, mind you, but it's not what got me.

Technically we are all literally dying to play with our next figure.

I am figuratively dying to play with that cheetor.

Still waiting for my box from BBTS to arrive.

Kingdoms is fantabulous and it's only the first wave.

My Super Collection Megatron always had two left legs and I just discovered my Thrilling 30 Crosscut has two right hips.

Fortunately, it's only Netflix Hound, so not really much of a loss here.

So it's been a while since I've had a misassembled Transformers toy.

More Micromasters would be welcome.

Instructions unclear, have more sports cars.

Or they could make the other Micromasters of the teams they half assed.

There should be a box set of eight Stakeouts.

There should be a box-set of Thrust, Dirge and Ramjet. But I'm not expecting it.

I hope there are re-releases this year!

I hope there's rereleases of Earthrise Ramjet, Dirge and Ratchet next year.

Oh no, he was loved. I'd argue he could have had a better life physically, but he was loved. Deeply.

as long s/he gave love and was loved, it was a good life

Poor puppy. Poor kid.

My condolences

So: My sisters dog just had a heart attack and died... while her 12 year old son was walking him. Welcome to 2021 everybody!

Except they're Deceptican'ts usually.

Depending on which dub: Either Decepticons or Decepticans.

Deception is the French word for disappointment. What does that make the Decepticons in France?

We're just tiny little specks, about the size of Mickey Rooney.

It's a great big universe, and we're all really puny.

That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned, a sun that is the source of all our power

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour.

relative to the speed that it's swirling around the centre of the galaxy, its rotation is fairly slow

I'd like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly.

The Earth moving gave us 2021.

It does that.

I think the Earth is moving.

Sunday evenings are awesome. Looking at the clock at 8 PM and thinking "I still have plenty of time before going to bed..."

Now I've been working permanent late shift for almost three years. Don't regret it one bit. One of the rare cases where the needs of the company overlap with my own preferences.

Before the permanent late shift was introduced three years ago (which I volunteered for as soon as the form became available), I always tended to plan my vacation for early shift weeks. Since the majority of the people in most departments prefer to work early shift and thus tended to plan their vacation for late shift weeks, there were usually enough slots available for me to get my request fulfilled.

I was promoted last December, so this past year is my first with the company where I've been able to get whatever vacation I wanted. Instead of competing with 100 other people, there's now only 1 (out of 3 others who share my job) that's been in the building longer than me, and so has first dibs at weeks. It's pretty easy to work it out between ourselves before we give in our requests, though

But there's also departments to consider, since we have a varieity of types of machines and not everyone is qualified to run everything. Altogether, there are a lot of ways you can get screwed

So a few of the same rules, a few different ones. For regular employees, requests need to be in by January 15th. If they are, those are doled out based on seniority. You're only guaranteed 2 weeks in "prime time" (basically June, July, August). Anything submitted after January 15th is given out first come, first served based on availability

So who said "Jumanji!"?

I knew a woman at Target who was forced to use up her vacation time before she could qualify for maternity leave. Then they denied the leave because she technically hadn't been at work for two weeks beforehand.

Also, if you become sick during your vacation and you turn in a doctor's sick note, it means that you don't lose your vacation days, because according to the law, vacation is intended for recreation, not for recovery from sickness or injury.

Another priority is "vacation request for the next year turned in before the deadline". Like, you missed the deadline, you have to make do with what's left.

No, they prioritize vacation during school holidays for employees with school-age children. Also, only three of the six weeks during the summer holidays per employee so a larger number of employees can get their requests fulfilled.

like, not company-wide, obviously, but by facility

That's actually not bad at all for such a large company. Do they prioritize vacation by seniority?

In my nine years with Amazon, only one of my vacation requests (not counting requests for single days) has ever been denied (with an alternate option offered for a mere week later). It might have helped that I have always tended to plan my vacation against the grain.

We also have a legally guaranteed minimum of at least 24 vacation days per year, and the law mandates that the vacation should be granted in one stretch "unless urgent reasons on behalf of the company or the individual employee make it necessary to split up the vacation". The most common valid "urgent reason on behalf of the company" would be "multiple employees have requested their vacation days for the same period, so the employer has to organize everyone's vacation grants equally".

Most places run with the bare minimum amount of staff they think they can get away with. So if one key person is out, they're in trouble. Hence, they don't like letting people take vacations.

Here in the US... you're honestly likely to get fired for taking vacation.

Here in Germany, employers are usually very eager to remind you to take all your vacation days.