12/19/24- Worried the hourly maid will think my place is too dirty so I went through and cleaned it myself first.
[Sorry, guys, updates have been a little sporadic lately because my daughter and I have been sick on and off a lot. I guess it’s that time of year. I’ll wish everyone an early Merry Christmas here and let you guys know that I’ll be taking Christmas Eve off. I hope everyone has a great time with the holidays.]
A compilation of stories from Australia:
“I beat up all the kangaroos in my community. Now I’m their boss.”
“A kangaroo beat a hole into my car the other day.”
“I have a sister going to school in Australia. For a couple of days, she suddenly stopped talking to me. I was worried sick, until she told me that she got beaten into the hospital by a kangaroo.”
“I haven’t seen a snake, but I’ve seen spiders the size of your palm, bats the size of eagles, cockroaches the size of your thumb. Basically, everything is 3XL here.”
“Something felt weird when I went to put on my shoes, and it turned out a giant spider was hiding in there.”
“Stayed in Australia for 5 months and got beaten into the hospital by kangaroos twice. The first time, I thought to myself, “There’s no way this thing is gonna beat me up.” And the second time, I thought to myself, “I was just under-prepared last time. It’ll go better this time.””
“Russia is great.” [IP from Belarus]
“It’s true. Every day I open my window to see this outside.”
“A bunch of onion sprouts spawned on my balcony.”
“Have you ever felt your hand itch in your sleep and open your eyes to see a giant spider in your palm?”
“Just finished fighting a kangaroo.”
“I’m not scared at all. I have a 2m+ anaconda, a goat, 8 cats, three dogs, and two parrots in Los Angeles. I had a pet rat for a while too but it scared my kid so I gave it away to a friend…I even wanted to keep a cow in my parent’s yard but they told me to go away.”
“It’s all fake, you only ever see giant rats, cockroaches, or spiders normally.”
“I feel like the whole stadium thing has given all of Zhuhai PTSD.”
Comments say, “Can’t be helped. If you were the mayor, you’d have even more stones installed.”
“Lol, they just got a new Mayor. Zhuhai is a place where mayors have a hard time leaving peacefully.”
“Can you imagine this is just a normal pedestrian crossing?”
“Our Department head even held a meeting about how you can’t buy these stones on the market anymore, they’re all sold out, even at a premium. Now they have to rent busses as a replacement barrier for large events. He even praised that busses are cheaper than stones and easier to move away.”
“I don’t know about anywhere else, but the whole province has been affected. Even my small town ordered more than a kilometre of 60cm tank stoppers. I don’t know what they’re called exactly, but it’s what you keep doors closed with.”
[Picture of protective measures outside a mall]
“Round ones are 300 each, yellow and black ones are 600 each.”
“Read a book. The author is a Korean-American. Her mom had schizophrenia, so as she was completing her Doctorate, she started retracing her mom’s past and piecing together what she went through. Her mom was one of the million Korean women who were rejected by society for providing sexual services to American soldiers stationed in Korea. She was born during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The affect of the Cold War on normal people on the Korean peninsula is humongous. The author’s tone is very gentle, but I often had to put the book down to take a breath, because I can feel how stifling it is, how suffocating it is for a small nation to have everything decided for them by a larger country’s politics. And based on this book, Korean-Americans don’t have the same sort of identity crisis as Chinese-Americans. They very naturally accept everything about America. Or maybe I’ve just read too little.”
Comments say, “Can you recommend the name of the book?” [OP replies “Tastes Like War”]
“After all, even in our darkest moment, we were only half-colonised, not totally colonised.”
“If there’s such a big difference, of course people identify with the stronger side.”
A post that is a part of Echoes of 2024 [a series that re-interviews all the hottest figures on Weibo this year], “#Sister cries as she teaches Miao language to Yang Niuhua [lead witness in sending prolific human trafficker Yu Huaying to prison], “In 1995, 5-year-old Yang Niuhua was kidnapped by Yu Huaying and was only reunited with her family 26 years later. #Yang Niuhua says her grandma is what keeps her going. After her grandma passes away, she might never return to her hometown in Guizhou. Her sister cries as she attempts to teach Yang Niuhua the Miao language, hoping that her sister can speak to her grandma in her home tongue.”
Comments say, “Her sister looks so much like her that I can’t even tell them apart.”
“Even if her grandma is gone, her sister is still around. She can still come back and hang out with her sister.”
“Yang Niuhua was one of the lucky ones.”
A compilation of people-pleasers:
“Worried the hourly maid will think my place is too dirty so I went through and cleaned it myself first.”
“Went to get a haircut and was worried my hair was too greasy so I washed it at home first.”
“Worried about making the food delivery driver wait too long so I went out of my door 5 minutes in advance to wait for him.”
“Went to get my hair washed and was worried I’ll make his arms tired so I held my own head up with all my strength.”
“Found a job listing online and went to the boba tea cafe to interview and was too shy to say anything at the store, so I just bought two cups of boba tea and left.”
“Went to get Fuding Pork [a dish from Fujian] and the owner picked up some meat he had dropped and put it back in my bowl, and I had to pretend not to see anything and say thank you to him after he hands it to me.”
“Went to get my teeth fixed, and got a newbie dentist. While drilling into my teeth, he went too far and drilled into my tongue. He hurried to pull it out and ended up drilling my lip too, and I reassured him it was alright.”
“At work, when I have to go to someone else’s office, as I’m about to get to the door, I deliberately make louder footsteps or something just in case they’re doing something they don’t want me walking in on.”
“Don’t want to get too many refunds in case people gossip about me.”
“When I stay at the hotel, I’m worried about leaving a big mess for room cleaning, so I always clean it myself first.”
“Went to get my nails done and they ground my nails down so far I bled, and I still didn’t say anything.”
“When I stay at a hotel, I always make the bed and throw away the trash before I leave, in case the room cleaning staff think I’m a messy girl.”
“Went to get a scrub down and was worried the scrubbers will think I’m too dirty, so I scrubbed myself at home first.”
“Even if the water is so hot it’s making my scalp sizzle, if the hairdresser asked me if the temperature was okay, I’d still say, “Yeah.””
“How much do I fear troubling other people? Let me put it this way, even when I get my hair washed at a hairdresser’s, when the worker is holding my head up, I secretly use my muscles so they don’t get too tired.”
“As someone who works at a hairdressers, the more you tense up, the harder it is to wash you. And the more we get your clothes dirty.”
“Me too. I paid money, but I’m still worried about troubling other people.”
“Yeah, I don’t like troubling other people, but I don’t like other people troubling me either.”
”How much do I fear troubling other people? Let me put it this way. Even when I go out to a restaurant to eat, if there’s no trash can, then I don’t throw away the napkin that I wiped my mouth with. If I drop something I’m eating, I get nervous. If I spill some soup on the table, I always clean it up. I just want to make things easier for them.”
A compilation of advice for accountants:
“The former accounting manager told me, no matter what you do, always leave evidence. Learn to protect yourself. If it’s not Finance’s job, then push it onto other people if you can. If you really can’t, then get everyone to sign it, including the boss, and only sign your name last.”
“We use Ding Ding to approve of things, and the very first round of approvals is Finance XD”
“I’ve seen a lawyer explain that even if you were unwilling and was forced by your boss to do fake books, if you got found out, you’d still go to prison. They won’t let you go just because your boss threatened you.”
“I’ve asked a tax agent before, and he said that what I’m doing is at most just mistaken books. I can just correct my mistakes if I get audited. I shouldn’t get too worried about internet anxiety-mongering. But he reminded me to never buy and sell cheques.”
“I was confused why only extremely conscientious people could be accountants. Isn’t it just anyone who can do basic arithmetics and lay flat? Then I figured out that conscientiousness is to make things easier for yourself in the future. Otherwise, you’re the one in trouble if you ever have to look for something again.”
“My friend worked in accounting and she went to prison, just because she didn’t leave evidence with one handoff. Shit hit the fan the next day and she couldn’t even defend herself and became the scapegoat. It’s been 8 months and she’s still not out. Her parents have given up on her too. They could’ve gotten her out with money, but it takes 200K. We friends did what we could and only put together 100K.There’s nothing left to do except to say how unfortunate she is. She still has to stay in for another couple of months, and she’s got a criminal record, and her credit score is tanked.”
“When I studied international taxes in uni, the professor told us that once we get work, we should keep a journal every day and write down what we did for work, or record every conversation at work. She says to not mind the hassle, because it can be lifesaving if something went down.”
“Just don’t work as an accountant. I’m living in fear every day. The client of my accounting firm is stealing sand and rocks from the state. They only have sales and don’t have procurement. He told me to make fake books and even make fake receipts. I refused, and he was like, “But isn’t this your job?””
“Remember, it’s better to quit your job than make a fake receipt. Learn to protect yourselves.”
“1. Refuse voice calls. Get everything in writing if you can. Save screenshots of all your texts. 2. Turn on the automatic recording function for all your phone calls and save it locally every so often. 3. Buy a small signature stamp and use it for any document that you don’t want to sign. It has no legally binding power. 4. Anyone wanting to look over documents can only do it in the accountant’s office. Nobody walks off with anything unless they sign for it. 5. Anyone wants any data from Finance or wants any documents, give estimates and not specific numbers if you can, and give screenshots and not the original if you can. 6. Get your boss’s approval before publicising any document. 7. If there’s an issue with any reimbursements and the other side begs you to let it go this once, don’t waste your time with them and ask their boss and their boss’s boss to sign for it. 8. If anything needs signed, get as many people as you can to sign it. 9. Never throw away any document, no matter how useless it seems. Categorise it and store it well. 10. Remember to lock all your cabinets and lock the screens on all your electronics.”
“Find a journal and write down who signed for what, who took what document, and who told you to do what, and anything you feel unsure about.”
“Never delete your work text logs.”
“If you’re at a private company and there’s any profit-sharing, bill paying, commission or whatever, it’s usually just based on the boss’s word. You should document it yourself and get some kind of proof, or else as time goes on, you’ll have a hard time explaining what’s going on in your books.”
“You have to have a bottom line. Every time you go to a new place, your boss is going to test where your boundaries are. Always stand by your bottom line, and your boss won’t try anything too ridiculous in the time to come. If you start off doing everything he wants, then he’ll just keep asking you to do shit, and you’re the one who has to pay for it in the end.”
“Whoever is in charge of all the funds should never be whoever files the taxes.”
“Whatever happens, there’s a CFO above you. And there’s a CEO above him. And there’s a Board of Directors. I’ve been working in accounting for 12 years now, and unless it’s one of those tiny companies where the boss has no idea what’s up and there’s barely a difference between personal and business accounts” [Yes, this comment just randomly cuts off with an incomplete sentence.]
“The CFO at my former place says he never looks at any of the books and has no idea exactly what’s going on. If something happened, he can push it off to others. It was so scary that I just left.”
Get well soon Moly and Mini Moly. Merry Christmas!