Glad for your good news, lisah!

I am once again glad that I have well established that December holiday gifts are not a priority. That was always stressful when I did have to shop and it's such a relief not to have that hanging over me. I can concentrate all my stress into 2026 revenue plan preparation

I haven't really done Christmas shopping. I have no idea what to get anyone.

I am in the same boat and Hanukkah starts MONDAY NIGHT.

The problem is I have one child who likes Things and is easy to shop for, and one child (the college student) who just wants money (which is easy but not satisfying as the gifter).

I've found myself growing appreciative of the low effort money/gift card presents as I've gotten older. That bit of excitement and satisfaction over tangible gifts doesn't really balance out the stress of shopping and squeezing through crowds of other shoppers in my curmudgeonhood. In related news, I finished my holiday shopping last night (mostly gift cards) and have just the wrapping plus the wait for delivery of one Christmas wreath to go.

I'm talking to someone who is extremely bitter and barely does her actual job here and gets bitchy when she's told to do stuff and will leave early rather than do what needs to be done

So when she says no one wants to work, she’s projecting. Sounds like she’s a delight.

I’m waiting to hear back from the best of the recent interview options this week. I interviewed with them last week, and they said they’d get back to me, one way or another, in “a few days.” Which I optimistically translated to a week or so. And it’s been almost exactly that. They didn’t seem like the ghosting type, but potential employers often don’t.

I’m waiting to hear back from the best of the recent interview options this week. I interviewed with them last week, and they said they’d get back to me, one way or another, in “a few days.” Which I optimistically translated to a week or so. And it’s been almost exactly that. They didn’t seem like the ghosting type, but potential employers often don’t.

As someone who used to work in HR you should know that it's very hard to get hiring done during the holidays because people who need to sign off on anything or advance your application are out of the office. So expect some delays and don't take it to heart.

Even people who are at work are kind of not working right now anyway.

Yeah, a friend of mine who used to work here and applied for a fully remote position with us recently asked me if we'd hired anyone because she hadn't heard anything one way or another in a while. We have not, but there are negotiations with a prospective hire, so I guess no one wanted to send out the the "we're going in another direction" letters yet in case he doesn't work out. It does make sense from our end but from her end it looks like ghosting.

excellent news, Trudy's mom, erika's mom. Best luck vibes, Calli. Gift-giving energy to those working on lists.

We have had thirty-five days of rain and now are flooding. This is better than August fires, but seems like we should have happy medium in there somewhere.

Happy Birthday, suela!

Anybody I missed, vibes and wishes as needed.

Hope you can stay high and dry, Bev! Thirty-five days is approaching biblical...

I am sad to read the local Anheuser-Busch brewery is closing. I don't have any fondness for their beer, but I like smelling the malt when I drive past. And I'm not sure how many people they employ, but it seems like a pretty big facility so presumably it's not an insignificant number. And if the building is going to sit empty that will not be good - they are just getting around to building something else where the old Walmart was, that might have taken 20 years...

Sidenote, a fair number of the headlines are referring to it as a plant, which is how I tend to think of it (or as a factory, sometimes) so that's some nice validation for what I thought was idiosyncrasy

I like smelling the malt when I drive past

Driving past a brewery smells SO GOOD.