SoylentNews

This is part 1 of a series of journal posts.

The United States system for early childcare doesn't seem to be good for parents, employers, or children. For those that aren't familiar with how this system works, I will describe. Both parents are entitled to 12 weeks of non-paid leave (called FMLA leave) per year to care for newborn babies. This time isn't just for childcare. It can also be used for caring for other family members or for the employee's one health issues. So if an employee uses 3 weeks of FMLA leave for a health issue, and has a child in the same year, they will only have 9 weeks to care for the child. This isn't mandatory for all employees either. It only applies to employees that have been with the employer for a year and have worked a certain amount of hours during the previous 12 months. It also does not apply to organizations with less than a certain number of employees. Another catch is the employer can require the worker to use all of their holiday/vacation time before using FMLA leave. This means that when the employee does go back to work, they have to make up hours, jump through the FMLA (FMLA leave can be used to take the child to a pediatrician, thanks to CyberB0B39 for pointing that out) hoops, or use the few precious vacation hours they have to take the child to their pediatrician's visits. Mothers who cannot get FMLA leave can sometimes file a short term disability claim if they are fortunate enough to have disability insurance. This is usually from 6-8 weeks.

More to come when I get time.

I was having a discussion with someone the other day. The person I was speaking with had what I thought was a very insightful point. Grocery stores in the US have shelves full of refrigerated and room temperature juice from concentrate. Why not just ship the concentrate and let the consumer add water? Water is heavy, and in this case, takes up a disproportionate amount of space when compared to the fruit component. Consider the amount of fuel that would save from trucks making fewer trips and carrying more with each trip. Oil isn't getting any more plentiful or cheaper. It seems like such a waste moving all this unnecessary water around.

I have a bone to pick with the Soylent editors. I submitted an Answer submission that was rejected. I wanted to know why so if there was something I could fix, I could do so and resubmit it, or why the topic was rejected so I know what kind of things to submit or not to submit. I didn't attach an email address to it, so I submitted another submission with a mailinator address (I don't want my email public, and wasn't sure if attaching it to a submission would make it public) soliciting feedback. I see that the feedback request was rejected, so I know someone looked at it, but I did not get any feedback. The submission nagger is on the main page a lot...

As part of cleaning up my residence, I decided to go through some old papers and shred unneeded documents. Why do cashier need to staple a receipt to a prescription bag instead of just putting it in the bag? Why must I be given things that are two (one sided) sheets stapled together instead of just printing on both sides? It makes shredding things a pain because I then have to remove these staples. Paper clips are much better. They do the same thing, are reusable, and are much easier to remove at shred time.