goldberry
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Posts posted by goldberry
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4 minutes ago, annandatje said:
I’ve served sliced apples with Rainforest brand crackers spread with cream cheese. You can freeze the cream cheese; just remember to thaw in time for guests. My grocery stocks frozen baguette bread. Pita crackers will keep for months and are good with hummus. You could also do a mini charcuterie board.
Do you mean Raincoast? I see those, what kind do you like?
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1 minute ago, Annie G said:
What do you snack on? I’d start there. I usually just make a plate of assorted snack stuff. I snack on crackers w flavored cream cheese, sliced bell peppers and cherry tomatoes, fruit, nuts. I usually have olives, too. I always have cheese I can slice.
I'm a disorganized snacker. Just opening cabinets and grabbing things. I do usually have nuts, crackers, and sometimes olives.
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2 minutes ago, Kassia said:
If you have freezer space, you can keep the fancier bread in there and just thaw it if someone comes over. Same with frozen cookie dough if you want to have fresh baked cookies. Otherwise, I'd go with things like chips/salsa or crackers and cheese. Apples last a long time in the fridge, so maybe you can have those to have slices with any bread/cracker combos? My MIL always had things like crackers/cheese/pepperoni/chips around.
I'm pretty simple though - maybe you'll get some answers for fancier foods.
Don't need fancy! Just want to be more hospitable. As an introvert it does not come naturally! : ) Does thawed bread taste okay?
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This may be a weird question. I do not have people over often. I have a friend who whenever I go over, even last minute, she always has something to put together for a snack. Like bread with bruschetta, or crackers and crab dip, all kinds of things. However, she is pretty extroverted and has people over often. When I've tried to stock some things like what she makes, they sit in my fridge until they expire. I mean, I have sandwich bread around, but not baguette bread, ya know?
I would like to feel more free to invite someone by if they are in my area. I would like some ideas of things I could have on hand that would last a good while in the fridge or pantry that I could use when someone comes over. Any ideas?
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I have a single one at my job and love it. My one at home is kind of custom builtin to the granite and I can't change the shape. I would if I could. Go for it!
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23 minutes ago, wintermom said:
I've seen wire bird feeders for this purpose featured on a British TV program. The wire is big enough so the small birds can enter the feeding area, but the big ones can't. It could work for both water and food if something similar was placed on the ground.
I would also provide water for the larger wild critters, though, as it's probably not just the magpies accessing water.
Yes, I have one like that and it keeps the magpies from eating all the food. But they are running off any animals trying to use the water. They are super aggressive and the size of small chickens. I just watched them attacking a squirrel who was trying to drink. ☹️
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So in totally old person fashion, we have water and bird feeders in our yard. Our bird feeders are set up for smaller birds. We live in somewhat of a rural area, so the water gets used by birds, squirrels, chipmunks, etc.
A magpie couple has moved in and taken over both the water and the yard. They will not let any other animal use the water and chase them off loudly. And even in the yard they are chasing off birds and the squirrels.
This is disturbing to me. But how can I discourage the magpies without discouraging the other animals?
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Someone I know got a $10,000 hot tub this way. The hot tub was so delayed during COVID they finally just canceled the order. Like 6 months after they canceled the hot tub showed up. After multiple calls to the company and no call backs or response, they finally gave up and just kept the hot tub.
As an honest person I do feel responsible to pay for things. But I have a limit how many times I'm going to try to rectify something with no response. At some point it's on them.
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On 6/2/2024 at 5:12 AM, marbel said:
It may hurt someone who may wish to go, but feels that they can't because they can't manage the dress code.
But beyond an individual level, it continues to perpetuate the notion that the wedding is "the bride's day" and she can and should cater to any and all whims regardless of how they affect her guests.
You could ask the same question "who does it hurt?" of the bride - "why can't people just wear clothing that they have and that is comfortable? Who does it hurt if everyone does not adhere to your desired dress color requirement?"
Well, that's why I said if I was able. If I'm not able then I wouldn't go, and would figure it was not important enough to the person that everyone be able to be there. I was referring mostly to the request to wear certain colors.
As far as the cultural implications... If the person is not my daughter, then it's not up to me to try to change their cultural position and I would likely not have any success anyway. Do I think it's selfish and silly? Yes. With my own daughter I would say something.
But otherwise if I wanted to go and I had a dress that color or could get one thrifted cheaply, I would go. And Just make the best of the day.
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The dress color dictating is definitely not my thing, but I would have no problem accommodating if I was able. Who does it hurt? BUT, the impracticalities of it all... I'm not sure I would have a suitable dress that I would be willing to get muddy and possibly ruined.
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12 hours ago, Catwoman said:
If she still couldn't manage to do the job properly after three weeks, I can understand why the employer needed to let her go. However, I know you described this as a "receptionist" position, but that girl was doing WAY more than answering the phone and taking messages; she had to interact with customers both in person and on the phone, and fill out forms for them (about repairs she probably knows nothing about,) and call them when jobs were finished. In all honesty, the job sounds too important to the business for the employer to have entrusted an inexperienced 16yo with that much responsibility.
Let's face it, if this business is very busy and the girl had no prior work experience, maybe she was just a little overwhelmed with having to perform several different tasks -- probably often simultaneously -- so she got flustered and kept messing up. My suspicion is that the kid was nervous, and once she started making mistakes, she got even more nervous, so she ultimately ended up not being able to do the job. I doubt the people there were "mean" to her, but I can understand it if they got a little impatient if she kept making the same mistakes over and over again, despite extra training, and the other employees had to do extra work as a result.
Honestly, I wouldn't have had a 16yo work 8 hour days at her very first job, and I'm kind of surprised that the employer hired her at all with no work experience.
One thing I would suggest to the mom is that she have the girl get another job quickly, so she doesn't lose her confidence and assume that she won't be able to handle any job she gets. I would encourage her to choose something more along the lines of being part time sales help at a retail store, with bonus points for jobs at stores where she already shops. She will probably do just fine in a job like that, and she can move on from there to other opportunities later on.
Curious .. why would you consider this "way more than a receptionist position"? My first job was at a larger company with a receptionist. Not me, but I was friends with her. She answered the phone, but had to determine who of many different people would handle the call (which was not the case here). She had to take messages on a form. She handled walk in people and either directed them or took messages (again on a form). The messages were not always "call me" messages but were sometimes describing a problem. She also had to leave messages for people confirming appts. So to me what the girl was doing was exactly a receptionist job.
Also just for information, the office was medium busy I would say. Could be a few hours with no calls or anyone coming in, but yes, you probably could have a time with more than one person or phone call. My daughter's first job was at a UPS store that was busy all the time. Typically more than one person in line. So this was not that busy but I'm sure could get busy at times just because of the flow of customers.
I do think after the input here the hours were probably too much for her. But I do hope the mom thinks about exposing her to more experiences and also keeps an eye out for learning challenges.
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16 minutes ago, Ginevra said:
Scotland is awesome! But someone needs to be a brave driver because Scottish rural road are kind of unbelievable.
My daughter went to Scotland last summer and that was her biggest freak out! Fortunately a travel mate was driving but she said you had to be on constant alert!
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3 hours ago, pinball said:
Sure it is. You heard the employer’s side of the story.
I’d be money the OP is related to the employer thru blood or marriage or has a relative who works in the shop, too.
Edited to add: forgot to say part of me thinks the OP works here or has worked here herself
Yeah, wrong on all those counts. Small town, so I happen to know the people involved. Actually closer to the mom than the others involved. But now I remember your argumentative tone from other threads. So, sorry that I was responding to you like you were sincere in your comments. My bad! 🫡
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2 minutes ago, pinball said:
I don’t think it’s unfortunate AT ALL that a mother would take a DD’s side
I mean, that’s crystal clear based on your OP
I feel bad for both parties. Bad for the employer and bad for the girl.
And it's unfortunate that the mom didn't question or clarify anything. She could help her daughter with certain skills if the daughter wanted to get better, or talk about what kinds of jobs might be a better fit and how to find them, or about how to communicate with an employer when there are issues... Any of those things could have benefited the daughter more than just accepting face value and being mad at the employer.
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3 minutes ago, catz said:
Ok I have a few thoughts here
- No one around here is hiring 16 year olds for a job like this. I'd think an employer was trying to get off cheap. My expectation would be at a minimum a high school grad, possibly someone with customer service experience, possibly even a college grad if you really wanted someone to jump in and be a problem solver.
- If you were going to hire a high schooler for a job like this, I would expect scripting, forms (ie when you answer a call fill out this form with X,Y,Z, etc), and structured instructions at the beginning of a shift
- Teens these days don't talk on the phone that much.
- I don't know if I'd be comfortable saying anything about this kid's intelligence/neurodiversity. Did she interview for this job? Does she otherwise have strong interpersonal skills? Have a connection with this employer? Did she REALLY want to do this job or did someone say she had to get a job? Why did she start homeschooling?
- Some teens develop executive function and organizational skills and social maturity at different rates than other teens.
- If this is her FIRST job, that's an adjustment right? So you're going to a job, working around a bunch of older adults you don't know and doing a bunch of skills you haven't really practiced before and maybe feel put on the spot? Like again, employer going cheap? A 16 year old with zero work experience trying to juggle this much at once for pennies might be too much to ask. And FULL TIME no less? Yikes. Kid went to never working to working 8 hours in a row many days a week?
- Sometime in the past year I had a conversation with an acquaintence that is faculty at a major university. She was musing how she was spending some of her time coaching students on some very basic life skill stuff you'd expect early college students to come in with. Plenty of us are still recovering from covid times.
- I can be empathetic for the kid, but still think the mom is off her rocker. Her mom should be the first to acknowledge, kiddo wasn't remotely ready for this. Maybe we should be working on some professional presentation skills. Maybe a first job part time in fast food or grocery carry out or teen camp counselor might have been a better fit.
As someone else who was raised and then worked at times in a family business, I think there can be a big difference in jumping into something you've seen going on and heard discussed in the background for years. And being dropped into the inner workings of a business you know nothing about. I also don't think the average parent discussing here is average in intelligence lol.
Receptionist is considered an entry level job here, and in most places I believe. There was no problem solving. It was literally passing on information from one party to another, and yes they had forms to fill out. The employer was not trying to get off cheap. They wanted to free up the other employees from answering the phone, and thought they would give this kid a chance. This was a receptionist job, not an office work job.
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Just now, TechWife said:
Does she happen to be color blind with a set of instructions that relied on her being able to distinguish color?
Again, not that I know of.
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I feel awkward because I know this mom fairly well. But no way am I getting in the middle of this. I'm kind of surprised she didn't ask more questions though.
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1 minute ago, TheReader said:
I would suspect some underlying, undx'ed learning challenge of some sort - dyslexia that's gone undetected? some other processing issue that's gone unnoticed?
On the one hand, yes, making a phone call, and needing to take down the correct info, is certainly a foreign concept in this day & age -- someone calls, the name/number is right there for me. But in calling the customer, and finding/using the wrong phone number...that suggests (to me) a learning challenge of some sort.
Re: the mom - of course we'd *think* the mom should ask more questions, but seems very common to me that the mom would take the dd's side and not question it. Unfortunately.
Yes, I can see the phone being foreign. But I don't think it's a *difficult* concept to learn after a few days working with it. Like I said, maybe a week even? I definitely wondered about undetected issues.
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Just now, pinball said:
I didn’t see how many hours total this was.
Three weeks is pretty meaningless…do you mean 40 hours per week? Less?
how many hours did she work per day?
She was working every day 8 hours.
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Timing-wise, I could see making mistakes for even a week maybe? But three weeks? I felt bad for the employer because I don't think you can keep a person more than that without significant improvement. If you were the mom though, wouldn't you ask more questions? Or would you just take what the kid said?
Adding, when DD had her first job, she said the boss was being rude and not training her. I asked her what was happening exactly and got more information. Gave her some advice how she might respond, etc. She did end up leaving, but I didn't just take everything she said at face value.
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(not my kid)
16 yo girl, homeschooled for the last 2-3 years, in public school before that. Change due to local school district problems, not kid issues. Neurotypical as far as we all know . Got a first job as receptionist at a local small repair-type business. The job involved answering the phones and taking messages. When people brought their items in, she would need to fill out a ticket with information on the customer and the problem, etc. When the items were repaired, she was to call customers and let them know. She was eventually going to also take payments (run credit cards) but never really made it to that part.
She had a couple of days training where someone stayed with her. She was given a book with instructions. After that, there were still people around to ask if she needed help. She never really got comfortable answering the phone and taking messages. She would get flustered and forget to get phone numbers, names, etc. Same thing when people brought items in. They had items with no contact information. People kept trying to help her out, but this went on for two weeks and she still was not getting it. Things like she was supposed to call a customer to tell them the item was ready, but instead called the office number? Another person answered WITH THE NAME OF THE OFFICE and she still tried to tell them their item was ready. After two weeks, the boss sat her down and said as nicely as possible that there were still too many mistakes going on. He was having someone do a "re-training" with her, but really needed to see some improvement.
The person sat with her again for another day, also added some more detailed info to the training book to help. None of this helped. After another week (so at three weeks employment) the boss said he had to let her go. He was nice enough, understood she was trying but it just wasn't working out. There was literally not a single day without multiple problems going on.
That's the employer side. Mother side, kid tells mom that they are just being mean to her and treating her like she's stupid. Mom is furious at local employer (small town, people know each other). Says local employer didn't even give girl a chance because she was only there three weeks. The mom is usually a pretty reasonable person, but is really upset.
Other people are saying "she doesn't know anything because she's homeschooled" ugh, whatever. Especially since she's only been homeschooled a couple of years. But this whole thing sounds really weird to me for a neurotypical 16 yo. Would you expect a typical 16 yo to be able to answer the phone and take a message with all the information in three weeks? Is that unreasonable?
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Now I'm a little nervous about our trip to Italy later this year! I've not had Covid so far either.
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12 hours ago, Corraleno said:
I think the key with linen clothing is to go for a loose/relaxed fit. A fitted/tailored linen blouse or pants will crease like crazy and look messy, but a loose linen blouse over a tank top, or loose linen pants under a tunic-length tee shirt, will tend to wrinkle less and look relaxed instead of sloppy. There's a reason that linen blazers are usually oversized and worn with the sleeves pushed up, instead of being tailored like a wool blazer.
This *sort of* makes sense, thank you!
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Just now, regentrude said:
Even if you iron, after sitting for 30 minutes it looks like you never ironed. So I'm not sure how effective it is - unless I stand still.
Yeah...I do like the feel of linen, and it's around in the stores right now. But I don't know if I can embrace the wrinkles!
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Staples On Hand for Spontaneous Entertaining
in The Chat Board
Posted
Oh I got that part covered! Ever since Covid... : )