Cashless?

In Evanston, IL, where I currently live, the city council members have been debating about whether to ban some businesses from being cashless. Some council members (mainly one council member) believe that businesses that don't accept cash discriminate against the unbanked. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, cash is legal tender and it should be accepted by all businesses, right? On the other hand, even the unbanked have access to electronic methods of payment via prepaid credit cards, etc. that can be purchased from a variety of places, including your local Walgreens. (There is a fee for these cards, but the point is that they're available for anyone to purchase and use.) You don't have to have a bank account in order to have a credit card that can be used at any business that doesn't accept cash. My father, who refuses to use a debit card and prefers to pay cash for just about everything, complained that the self-checkout registers at his local Walmart store don't accept cash. They used to, but now are for credit transactions only, so he's forced to go to a register with a live cashier in order to buy anything. My father is not unbanked, he's just old. He really should just get a debit card and call it a day, but he won't. So I guess he'll have to wait for a cashier to ring him up whenever he's at Walmart. 

Chicanery

At times, I feel like I curse too much, so I make feeble attempts to clean up my language and use words other than curse words to say what I mean. There's been a lot of nonsense going on at my day job and rather than saying a lot of bullshit, I'm going with "chicanery." (I can't really curse like I normally would at work anyway unless I want to be summoned by the HR folks.) 

Chicanery is the perfect old-timey word to describe trickery or shenanigans going on. Too many folks are lying and doing weird underhanded stuff. Chicanery has run amuck in my workplace. I even described a coworker as our own in-house George Santos because he lies so much with a straight face. And yet the guy, like Santos, keeps moving on up. He was promoted recently. Ugh.

Being a frequent reader of Datalounge, I came across a thread recently asking how people's lives have changed during the Covid pandemic and someone posted: I'm seeing my job as the joke it is and enjoying more time on my own. I feel the same way, Datalounger. 

I work because I have to, not because I necessarily want to. If I had the means, I wouldn't work at all or I'd do something I wanted on a part-time basis. But, bills have to be paid, I need food, health insurance, transportation, and shelter, so I have to work.  

Can you tell I'm feeling better? I am, physically. Mentally, I'm just trying to stay afloat and rise above the chicanery in my workplace. That's a full time job in itself!

Work in Progress

I vowed to try and stop being so much of a recluse during 2023 and get back out into the world. Well, one month into the new year, and my attempts to be out and about have been mixed at best. First, I caught Covid at the start of the year. Then I started having some other health problems that, hopefully, aren't serious. So I've been to the doctor and I'm trying to get my issues resolved or at least controlled. But, in more promising news, I am writing something new and it's coming along. I'm really working to get this thing moving and finished in the next month. I've been trying an failing to write a stalker story. It's something that's been on my mind for some time now. Finally, I feel like it's coming together. It's a work in progress, but it is progressing! 

I really wanted to take a trip this year, but I don't know if that's going to happen with health issues I'm having right now. I was out of the country after Christmas and for New Year's, but that was for work and I really didn't get to enjoy it. I had one free day to enjoy Bermuda. It's a lovely, expensive country and I'd love to go back on my own dime and my own time when I could truly see the area.