Sometimes, life likes to throw difficulties at us at the most inconvenient times, and we are left to fix them all on our own.

Even though we all signed up to do our jobs, everyone wished for an impromptu day off from time to time. Think about it, how great would it be if your office would suddly get a power outage, and your boss would tell you that you can go home while they try to fix it?

You could be getting a whole day to relax while someone else deals with an issue at work, and no one can blame you for it… 

That being said, a technical issue shouldn't actually disturb your job for more than a day, unless you want to truly risk your position at your workplace. There is only so long that you can get away with not working, even if the problem is not up to you. At some point, it can very much cost you a lot more than a little delay for your workload.

Take the employee below as an example. Almost three weeks ago, their computer broke down, and since then, no one has been able to fix it. Not only was the computer not fixed, but IT seemed to make the situation worse when they discovered that the employee's account and login were deleted entirely from the faulty computer.

Since then, every day the employee arrived at work, and every day they sat there waiting until someone could fix the issue and allow them to get back to work. And every day, they were unsuccessful… It had gotten to a point where the employee's coworkers thought they had quit, and they are so behind with work that the entire company is going to feel the backlash very soon. Still, no one is able to find the solution.

Do you play feather with your cat? 

Call it what you will, the "wand toy" or an "interactive cat teaser," ultimately, this is a playful cat game that all cat lovers enjoy: the feather. It may be a simple string/feather/stick mechanism, but the goal is quite simple. Stay away from the feline, and you win! However, this isn't a game for the faint of heart, because even if you're clever and well-versed in the guile and nimbleness of feline-hood, there's a chance you (THE HUMAN) might lose this game. 

Cats are natural predators, capable of catching birds out of the air and bringing lizard carcasses to your front doorstep. Before you accept these gifts and totems, remember this: a cat is more acrobatic than you think. Those mean-beans are sharper than you think. That cat is faster than you think. And they are absolutely going to catch that feather on a string before you can fling it to Timbuktu. 

Don't be fooled, fellow cat lovers, when it comes to cat play and playful games of cuteness and floof, be prepared to lose once or twice. Because cats may act docile and mellow around their human companions, but that's just so we continue serving them and waiting on them hand and foot. If humans knew that cats were capable of opening the cupboard and pouring their own tin can of kitty gravy on their kibbles, then the cats would lose a faithful servant. It's all a part of the cat's strategy to appear meek and simple-minded, but when the feather comes out, they can't help but reveal their true nature: the beast within. 

They may still relish in the lazy cat moments of napping on the shelves and basking in the sunspot on the kitchen floor, but every cat, even the old fatties and the sleepy eepy babies, love to play a game of feather. Not only does it remind them of their magnificent cat culture and feline history, but it gives them a chance to flex their meowghty muscles and show the humans who the real boss is in the house. Hint: it's not the humans. 

Do you get along with your in-laws?

It is such a cliché to have beef with your in-laws, and yet, it truly happens all the time in real life. What came first, the art or real life? The chicken or the egg? Like, why is this cliché still so often the truth? Why can't we all just get along? This Redditor, u/TheLastLook- seems to be living the cliché, but in an even pettier way. The passive aggression of her mother-in-law is laughable, and that's usually what she does when she gets into sticky situations with her. She just laughs at the absurdity of her MIL and carries on with her life. Except for one thing… Her MIL keeps tricking her into being the "late" one arriving to all of the family functions, and this Redditor finally cracked. 

Can you imagine catching your horrid MIL in the act of trying to plan your demise? I can't tell if that is extremely satisfying or just sad… Like, why don't you want the best for your family, MIL? Why does it have to be a competition? The way her MIL made a fool out of herself in front of the DIL and the rest of the family is pretty satisfying, though. 

The DIL told her hubby to get the kids ready to leave an hour early to make it to the reservation on time due to the fickle weather. Unfortunately, dum dum hubby told his mom that they were leaving an hour early, so his mom went and told everyone else to get there exceptionally early to ensure her DIL was still the late one. However, when the DIL got there, she spotted the MIL through a two-way mirror that the MIL didn't realize was there. Well, let's just say the DIL got some front row entertainment and epic ammo to call out the MIL in front of the entire family at the dinner table. 

The World Cup has all of us in a chokehold, but that doesn't mean you can bail on your own children.

Football, soccer, whatever you call it, has always been important. But in the last few years, the World Cup has achieved an importance that surpasses geographical limits. It does not matter who you support, but the fact that you watch it. The importance is such that advertising spots have gone up by millions. This also means that a lot of people have become obsessed with it, taking time off work to watch the matches or, in this case, bailing on their children so you can watch it with friends at a local bar.

In this Reddit story, the main problem is not the friend who does not know how to set boundaries and avoid getting used to, or the mother who excuses her husband and defends him when he is doing something wrong. The real issue is the dad who prefers to abandon his children to go to a bar, is the dad who prefers that someone else take care of his own descendants, and the dad who has no remorse in putting his hobbies and pleasures above everybody else's. This is not about the hard-working women who are doing more than they can to take care of the little ones. Is the unapologetic man who decided to put himself above others, even his own children.

This story is not showing us a friend who takes advantage of her childless friend, because she doesn't. The user who wrote this rant offered to be the free babysitter so that her friend could have some free time. The problem is that instead of being a good thing, it transformed into the easy way out for a grown man who likes to avoid his responsibilities. It shows the entitlement and poor care this dad has for his household. And that is the real problem. 
 

Cats are proud creatures, any cat lover worth their salt can tell you that. But what is not all too well known about them is how much pride they put into their pawsonal possessions, in some cases never letting those possessions leave their side, and today we explore this heartwarming world of feline wonder.

Our cat children all too easily find themselves getting attached to the most random of objects in the most random of ways. Sometimes the relationship is simple and straightforward like a cat child falling in love with a fluffy toy and they carry it with them for comfort and cuddles wherever they go. While in other cases a cat child might become massively attached to something as simple as a rock or even a bottle cap. Now, this relationship is quite a different one from the loving and caring one a cat might have with a soft toy. This kind of relationship could stem from a bitter rivalry that got squashed, a nemesis who the cat suddenly saw eye to eye with or simply a case of your cat being randomly taken with a certain item.

But regardless of how your feline fur baby comes to find and become attached to their pawsonal possessions, once they have, they become inseparable. Creating some of the cutest moments such as your kitty cat climbing into bed with a stuffed unicorn to go to bed, or even your feline fur baby bringing you their prized piece of string to hold and play with while you are feeling sad. So today we celebrate the cute cat children who cannot go anywhere without their inanimate companions and the heartwarming meowments that come with that.

 

If one sibling provides years of hands-on care while others remain distant, should inheritance reflect that contribution?

There's something almost mythical about the idea of a life-changing windfall of cash that drops in your lap, pulling you out of the current paycheck-to-paycheck repetitive cycle you find yourself in and changing your financial outlook considerably. Things like inheritance and insurance payouts are the most likely ways that this will happen, but that will come at a great cost, perhaps even greater than you are prepared for. That's exactly how it was in this story, which a grandson shared to a popular Reddit community, which sparked conversation on the delicate questions surrounding family, obligations, inheritance, and fairness. 

This is why my partner and I call buying a lottery ticket the "hope tax," which we do occasionally when we are having a bad week. Simply, throwing away $20 for a one in a million chance gives us that fantasy, at least for a little while, that one day we could quit our jobs and travel the world some time before we reach retirement age.  

Of course, this is a slippery slope, and one should be extremely careful about such things. It would be better to put that money toward some other small habit or pleasure that we enjoy and start building towards that success that we dream of. Why, that lottery ticket could buy a week's worth of coffees that could be slowly sipped while sitting in a coffee shop somewhere or on a bench in the park. And that habit would probably help out a lot more with that rough week than the lottery ticket.

More often than we would like it to be so, cats and kittens simply cannot find places in their local shelters and rescues. Even after the hooman who found them went to great lengths to save them in the first place. And this story tells the tale of such a kitten.

Reddit's r/TuxedoCats subreddit is usually a place to glorify and be enamored with the beauty of our tuxedo cat children while also enjoying a few quick quips about their pawsonality and the fact that they are always pawfectly prim and purrfectly dressed to attend all manner of award shows and events.  But this story from the subreddit is quite a departure from that telling the tale of the cat Ditch, who was, well, found in a ditch behind his rescuer's home. It is a rollercoaster of a rescue including tense moments, emotional lows and highs and a challenge which the new cat and his pawrent had to overcome together.

But as heartwarming and wonderful as this story is, it highlights a glaring issue in the shelter and rescue system and even serves as a warning to those considering taking a cat to a shelter once they have been rescued from whatever situation they were in. and that is that in order for a new arrival to have a space, an older resident who has not been adopted will likely lose their life. A kind of math in which the math certainly ain't mathing by our count. Now tis is not the shelter's fault, they are overrun and underfunded. But it is a reminder that if you are able to and if you care enough, the best place for that cat is in your home with you, that is until you can find someone who will love it more than you ever could. Otherwise, you might not like to hear it, but that is now your cat.
 

Nobody has ever heard a cat purring and thought, "I wish that would stop."

Nobody gets tired of hearing a cat purr. In fact, a lot of people seem to actively seek it out.

Cat owners will go out of their way for a good purr. They'll stop mid-scroll to pet a cat a few extra times. They'll delay getting up from the couch. They'll sit in increasingly uncomfortable positions just to keep the purring going. Entire evenings have been spent thinking, "I should get up," followed immediately by, "Well, not while the cat is purring."

A purr also has terrible timing in the best possible way. It shows up right when you're stressed, tired, overwhelmed, or trying to convince yourself to be productive. Then a cat starts rumbling away nearby and suddenly the situation doesn't seem quite so serious anymore.

It's basically emotional support in audio form.

People spend money on white noise machines, meditation apps, calming playlists, and fancy gadgets designed to help them relax. Meanwhile, cats have been walking around with a built-in soothing soundtrack this whole time.

Maybe that's why so many cat owners secretly hope for a purr when they've had a rough day. A cat doesn't offer advice. They don't solve problems. They just sit there making their little motorboat noises and somehow that ends up helping anyway.

For a sound that comes out of an animal whose main hobbies include sleeping and causing minor inconveniences, purring does a remarkably good job of improving people's moods.

Not every hero wears a cape. Some are tiny black kittens named Batman.

Batman is a recently rescued black kitten who has already made a huge impact on his new family. A recent vet visit showed that he's doing well, and while he's still underweight and will need another checkup in a few weeks, he's continuing to gain strength and settle into his new surroundings. As many members of Reddit's r/CatDistributionSystem subreddit would say, Batman seems to have landed exactly where he was meant to be.

The family originally worried that Batman might be lonely, but those concerns disappeared pretty quickly. The shy kitten they first brought home has turned into a confident little cat who spends his days playing, exploring, and generally causing chaos.

What nobody expected was how closely he would bond with the family's youngest daughter.

She never really connected with the household dogs, who were a little overwhelming for her, and she has struggled with confidence issues herself. Caring for Batman quickly became part of her daily routine, and before long the two were attached at the hip.

According to the family, Batman has made it very clear who his favorite person is. Whether he's looking for attention, playtime, or a lap to curl up on, he seeks her out.

The family took in a kitten who needed help, but Batman wasn't the only one who benefited. While he gained confidence and a place to call home, their daughter gained a loyal little companion who seems just as happy to have found her.

Sometimes you have to act out a directive in order to prove the flaws. 

Sometimes in life. Let's be honest: no matter how open, honest as a manager you are; no matter how "down to earth" you are and how much you believe in empowering your teams and giving them agency… Sometimes, sometimes, you just want to give a directive and have it followed without question.

It's important to realize this and know that you might have a great relationship with your boss, but sometimes you might drive them crazy pointing out every little thing that is wrong with their decision, or especially the decision that they had passed down to them from on high.

Of course, in these times, the best thing you can do as the one taking the directive is to simply follow this. In this way, malicious compliance can be extremely effective, pointing out glaring flaws in a policy change or process without having to be a "naysayer." Of course, getting the directive in writing and documenting every step is important because simply following orders won't stop fingers from eventually being pointed at you.

Overwhelm can quickly create compounding issues in workplaces and cause stressed-out managers to behave in stress-driven ways that they wouldn't normally. Leading them to set strict authoritarian directives that they wouldn't normally.

But let's be honest. Like in this story of workplace malicious compliance, which was shared by a service industry utility worker who normally was stationed as a runner, chefs are famously known for being stressed-out perfectionists who run their kitchens with an iron grip.

When your friend is perfect, and you… aren't

Have you ever had a friend who has simply everything going right for him or her? Have you ever had the same friend having everything going right not for a period of time but FOREVER? I had, but I never reacted with jealousy. I don't want to seem like the moral police here, but I think there can be plenty of postures to take that are much more beneficial than jealousy. The question is whether that is something which you can decide upon.

This Redditor shared a story with us about her seemingly perfect best friend and presents herself as doubtful about what to do about it. Do you have any recommendations for her?

Do you ever feel like there might be something wrong with your cats? 

We all love our furry babies! We love to spoil them. We buy them toys, treats, and we take them to the vet (against their will, I must add), to make sure they stay happy and healthy. Our phones are filled with photos of them and the second we have the chance, we start telling the tales of all those times they made our lives better.

We let them sleep on top of us, in our beds, sometimes even our pillows, but we always make sure they have their own space. A comfortable bed or pillow of their own. A corner where they can feel safe. And all for what? For them to find themselves in the oddest places and positions! It seems like they don't value their own lives as much as we do sometimes. Just like with toddlers, our main job is to keep them alive, that's all we should be aiming for, really. Most days I just wonder, why do we bother giving them our best when they prefer to get stuck sleeping behind the fridge without any consideration for our mental state? I don't think we'll ever understand how their little brain works, but we'll continue to love them anyway. It's not something we can help, we're already wired to be a little obsessed with their little noses, paws, whiskers (seriously, I could do this all day). And yes, we'll still come to the rescue when they can't come down from the roof they climbed all by themselves. 

So, while we wait for them to keep messing around, here we have a few that are already doing it.

Somewhere in a conference room, someone decided to convert a residential apartment building into a hotel and thought the best communication strategy was to email the tenants a month before it happens and claim nobody knew until recently. And then starting to move in furniture immediately afterward. Just a streak of bold choices

Hotel conversions involve permits, investors, contractors, and months of planning. The residents found out in an email. These two timelines do not suggest a surprise so much as a deliberate decision about when to share information that was never actually surprising to the people making it.

Landlords, in theory, are generally required to honor existing leases, but as we all know, landlords are divine creatures who are above theory, law, and any other, so this sort of human-level restrictions don't really apply here

Artificial Intelligence vs Organic Slyness

Sometimes I think the robots are overpowering us, and then I come across stories like this and realize they still lack the flexibility and the sharpness it takes to adapt to ever-changing human demands. At least the humans who know a little about coding can find ways to slip through the cracks.

This employee might have fallen into a trap of his own making cause he probably spent a lot of time and energy developing a system to get even with a machine, but in the end, it was worth it. Should we all start to learn programming? Or is it too late now? Maybe it's time to leave the internet forever and run away into the woods.

When 'we agreed on this' stops meaning anything then some things are not working right. 

Boundaries only work if both people actually treat them like boundaries, not suggestions that expire the moment they're inconvenient.

The CDS has some of the strangest ways of finding us, but sometimes, it's simple. Sometimes, it does home deliveries.

We've spoken endlessly about how the CDS can find you anywhere and anytime, whether you want a cat or not, whether you are ready for it or not. Seriously, we have seen some of the most insane stories. We've seen someone be handed a kitten at a drive-through Starbucks window. Yes, just like that. In the apron pocket, the kitten went home with them. We have seen a kitten fly through a window directly into someone's lap. And no, we have no idea how it happened. Neither do they. The only thing we know is that the kitten was adopted by them, and that is the only thing that matters. 

It can happen in the silliest ways, but it can also happen quite… normally. Although, despite the simplicity of the concept of the CDS making home deliveries, we think that the person on r/CatDistributionSystem who shared this story didn't find this normal at all. Maybe if the kitten had simply walked up to their house, it would have been something different. But that's not what happened. It was a person - a random woman came knocking on the door of this couple's house, holding a newborn kitten in her hands. The kitten was so young that it still had the umbilical cord attached to its body. Its tail was broken in two places, and the whole thing was so suspicious… that we would have had to take the kitten too.

We don't know exactly what the situation was in this story. The person who this happened to doesn't know either. But one thing is for sure, and that is that the kitten was not safe in that woman's hands, and she is much, much safer in her new home. 

People think that cats and birds cannot be friends, but we have proof that this is not true. 

In the category of animals that people think cats can't get along with, right after dogs, are probably birds. And honestly, it makes more sense than dogs. Cats and birds are natural predators and prey, so really, there's no reason for them to be friends. Except that it happens anyway. And the explanation is simple. You housecat… look at it. Look at it and tell us - honestly - if you see a hunter. Because when we look at our cats, we really, really don't. All we see is a chonky spoiled kitty who hasn't hunted so much as a fly in the last 8 years of her life. She's too lazy. That's that. And if a bird suddenly flew into our home, our cat is one of those cats who are much more likely to befriend the bird than to try to eat it. And our cat is not the only one. 

This is why we have stories of cats and birds being friends. Because against all odds, it actually happens sometimes. Like the story of the pigeon who befriended a black cat and tried to make a nest for her and her kittens. Or the iconic duo - the 40-year-old cockatoo and 17-year-old cat who have been friends for years and love hanging out together. And today, another unexpected friendship between a bird and two cats joins the list - a New York rescued pigeon and two very fluffy felines. 

The bird is a rescued one. Because of course it is. Because New Yorkers are adorable when it comes to saving animals. It would have been so easy to look away from an injured pigeon, but they didn't. They took the pigeon home, helped her recover, helped her learn how to fly, and attempted to let her go. But she didn't want to leave. She liked these humans, and honestly, she ended up liking their cats even more, following them around and doing absolutely everything with the two felines… who seem to like her just as much as she likes them. 

Wanting to save some money and avoid wasting food sounds great, but maybe do it while preserving your manners.

Restaurants have become so expensive that it is usual to see people taking home the remaining food on their plates. This is great not only money-wise, but it also avoids throwing away perfectly good food. This is now so common that most restaurants have applied an extra cost to taking the remainings home. It's a pretty inexpensive fee, so that they can place it in a plastic recipient and a brown bag. Even though the cost is usually no more than $5, there have been some critics, as the customer has already paid for the food, and this act is simply taking home that same food.

In this Reddit story, the customer decided she didn't want to pay for the extra bagging to take home her food, also known as a doggy bag. So, she took a Tupperware with her to the restaurant, and when she ate all she could, she saved the rest to take home. This attitude was not reprimanded by the restaurant workers, but it was by her friend. At first, she just looked at her weirdly, but then she said that was really embarrassing and basically that she had no business doing that. The woman tested the same attitude with another friend, and he completely encouraged her, so now she is pretty lost on whether this is correct or not.

In my opinion, this constitutes two kinds of people, the ones that are really conscious of their own presence and are easily embarrassed. And the people who simply don't care if what they are doing is acceptable or not, they just do it. This seems to be a problem in both parts. You shouldn't be living your life thinking what the people that surround you –and that you don't even know– think about you. But also, you shouldn't embarrass your friends with poor manners and attitudes that you know are not great to do in public spaces. In the end, all this could be resolved with conversation and compromise. 
 

As if we needed one more reason for our cats to keep us up all night with repetitive noises.

We don't know about you guys, but we're pretty much done with buying our cats toys. Every time we do, no matter how much it is advertised as enjoyable for every cat, no matter how many colors, feathers, or whatever other gadgets and gizmos it has, they get bored with it after a few minutes. In fact, they enjoy the trash they find on the floor purrfectly more than anything we've ever bought them. Our cat has had a crumpled-up ball of aluminum foil that she has played with for literally a whole year. But the automatic play ball that moves on its own and is supposed to activate their hunting instincts? She won't even look at it anymore.

But, that doesn't stop cat pawrents from trying to find the next best thing to keep their kitties engaged, and this time, we've turned to slot machines. Yes, a new toy developed by Circuit Cindy is a treat dispenser in the form of a cutesy pink slot machine. The cat presses the lever, the reels spin, and if the cat gets 3 in a row, a treat falls out the bottom, gum ball machine-style. However, knowing that cats can get bored pretty quickly, the toy comes with a "pity system", allowing the pawrent to set a difficulty level and essentially guaranteeing them a win to stop the cat from getting frustrated.

Now, we're not going to lie - this is adorable. And the thought of turning our sweet, innocent fur babies into gambling maniacs is tempting, but we want to paint you a picture of what we think your life will look like with this toy. Once they figure out that they can get treats from it if they press the lever enough times, you'll never hear the end of it. Hours upon hours of the sound of the lever going up and down, the reels spinning, and frustrated complaints from your cat upon not receiving the treats they deserve. It might be cute for a little bit, but when you've been hearing it since 1 AM and it's currently 4 AM, it won't be so cute anymore.

Karens, the internet way to call annoying customers.

Karen has officially become the name of every annoying customer that exists. It doesn't matter if a customer threatens to call the cops on a worker because they say they are not allowed to access private information. If they want to get a hairdresser fired because their hair was cut one millimeter more. Or if they are filming an employee at work because they have no more ice cream at the ice cream store. This may seem exaggerate but I promise you, all of these have happened.

They act almost like a child demanding something that a worker has already explained is not possible, and getting annoyed or violent at the rejection of their wishes. Their complaints are always followed by a mean comment, a horrible attitude, and a threat. This last one can be to get you fired, to sue you, or even to slap you. They seem like people who want to be saviors to the unfairly treated, but they always choose fights where they are in the wrong. Is like a superpower that activates when they do not have to.

The name started as a way for customer service workers to have some kind of vengeance toward the people who always treated them as garbage. Employees were filled with rage caused by the entitlement and believed power that these ladies have when talking to them. Instead of using words to communicate something that does not seem fair, they simply escalate the situation. As in the Reddit story, where a customer expected to receive private information just because they started yelling.

As someone who has worked in customer service, I know that these people exist. I have encountered them too many times. But the truth is, they are not only women. These people are of different genders, religions, and races. Sometimes they only explode when the conversation has gone on for minutes, and sometimes it simply starts with the explosion.

I do believe that this mocking is actually useful, making customers aware of certain attitudes and, luckily, making a change in the long run.