Tips on how to unsuck your soul

Having a 9-5 can drain you if you don't know how to handle it; you can spend your entire life stuck inside that loop, so it's mandatory to search for alternatives to make your life enjoyable again.

Some jobs are too tiring, and the only alternative is to change, but other jobs are ok, and what needs changing is our routine or our attitude for the rest of the day.

For example, if I get out of work and take a nap, I'll run out of energy and mess up my entire schedule; I have to control myself, so I don't do it. And if I don't keep my house tidy or my plates clean, I also run out of energy, so aside from work, it's good to get those things out of the way quickly, so I have energy to do something else after work.

Ideally, household chores shouldn't keep you from enjoying your free time. The solution to this problem, for me, is to get them done very quickly, at a specific moment of the day, so they don't take up much of your time. I put on a podcast and try to have fun while I clean or cook, so that when I get off work, I can focus on things I actually enjoy.

Is it hot out there, or is it just me?

I know that summer is the hottest season, I've lived through 36 of them to know that much. But every year, I'm surprised by simply how hot it gets outside. It feels like I could cook an egg on the sidewalk, and in some places, that's not even an exaggeration. Seriously, how did people survive before air conditioning? It's like walking through the Sahara Desert daily on my way to work, and even the thought of it makes me want to call in "sick" and stay home with my cats. To be fair, though, I want to do that even when it's not boiling hot outside.

There are some things I simply can't do when I'm too hot, like running, sightseeing, or literally anything outside. I'm too uncomfortable and sweaty to enjoy myself, so I stick to staying inside where it's nice and cool. You know what is a great activity to do indoors? Scrolling through some refreshing feline funnies. You know what's even better than that? Scrolling through some funny felines while petting my cat, on my couch, in front of the AC. Ahhhhh, that's better.

When the sizzling summer heat has fully melted your last brain cell, cat memes are the only place left to go. You can scroll through them while sitting down, while rotating like a rotisserie chicken in front of the air conditioning for maximum chill, or lying on your bathroom tiles to feel their natural coolness seep into your overheated body. If you must go outside, you had better at least cool yourself down with these frigid felines and their silliness before your life becomes a literal sauna. 

But if I were you, I'd stay inside and scroll a little longer.

Would you volunteer to work on your day off if it meant you got paid more? 

Every employee has different priorities. Some employees would work every single day if it meant they were getting paid more, because they're trying to save as much money as humanly possible to achieve their life goals. Other employees will only do the bare minimum required of them because they value their time outside of work more than making as much money as possible. Any normal employer understands that most of their employees will be in the latter category. They do their work, they go home, and they don't do extra work until they're back in the office the next day. Unless you're paying your employees an exorbitant amount of money, you really cannot expect much more from them than that. Unless you tell them from the beginning that they'll have to work nights and weekends, you shouldn't expect them to do so for little or no extra money. 

The employee in this story is annoyed that he is being voluntold to work on a Saturday. It would be different if he had a shift at his company on Saturday, but he doesn't. His boss wants him to work a private event at the office. Because none of the employees are volunteering to do it, the boss is threatening to assign the volunteers himself. This sounds like a great place to work at…not!

Do you have your memes in a row for the workweek ahead?

Or wait, is the saying with ducks? Ducks, memes, whatever- are you ready? I sure am. I always have my memes in a row before the start of my workweek. I wouldn't be able to survive the capitalist wheel if I didn't! Your boss doesn't want you to know this one trick: Meme on the company dime. Why send a regular 'ole "circling back" email when you can send a meme of a dog chasing its tail? It basically means the same thing. And it makes you seem like a chill af coworker. Who doesn't want to be the chill coworker? Even if you're a manager, in fact, even more important for a manager! You have to meme to be understood and respected. 

Then again, I work for and about the memes, so maybe my office dynamics are different than most… You might as well try it though! Even if it just gets your office bestie to LOL during the 9am meeting, it's worth the meme. Memes are like a little bit of PTO during your day. You can't take another week off because you used all of your PTO, and sickdays… But your boss can't stop you from scrolling on your computer as you go about your day. How do they even know what you're scrolling through? Maybe it's through the email chain with Karen from marketing or something. 

Whatever kind of office dynamic you have every day, may it be filled with memes. Here is a whole quarterly report's worth of them for you and your coworker to LOL to. 

Cats have been living the rock star lifestyle long before anyone handed them a guitar. 

They already have the attitude down. A cat can walk into a room twenty minutes late, refuse to acknowledge anyone, knock something expensive onto the floor, and still somehow remain the coolest one there. That's not bad behavior. That's rock star behavior.

Put a guitar anywhere near a feline and the album cover practically makes itself. Suddenly you're looking at the newest member of Meowtallica, Purrvana, or Guns N' Kittens preparing to drop the hottest record of the year. The dramatic stare helps. So does the floof. Give them a leather jacket and there's really no competition left.

Concert life wouldn't be much of an adjustment either. Cats have been practicing their vocals at 3 a.m. for years, usually without being asked. They've mastered dramatic entrances, unexpected exits, and ignoring requests from management. Their idea of crowd interaction would probably involve staring silently into the audience until someone produced a treat.

We'd still be standing in the front row.

A feline rock festival would be worth seeing just for the lineup. The Rolling Scones could open before Def Leppurrd takes the stage, followed by Blink-18Meow for an emotional set that ends with someone destroying a scratching post instead of a guitar. Fall Out Purr closes the night while one band member wanders offstage halfway through because an empty cardboard box looked interesting.

Rock 'n' roll is supposed to be loud, unpredictable, and packed with personality, which sounds pretty familiar to anyone sharing a home with a cat. They may never learn an actual guitar chord, but they've already mastered the most important part: looking like they belong onstage.

All that's left is figuring out who gets top billing on the meowsic festival poster.

Is it wrong to wear the same thing to work every day?

Some people value simplicity in their lives. If they can automate something, they will. There are lots of ways to do this in your day-to-day life. Maybe you have a go-to breakfast that you eat every day during the week. You don't change it up, and it's one less decision you have to make in the course of a day. Maybe you have a specific schedule that you keep for exercising. You know if you deviate from it, everything will fall apart, and you'll be completely thrown off of your rhythm. Sometimes it's easier just to make a decision in advance, so you simplify your life in the moment. Another great way to do this is through your choice of wardrobe. Sometimes, when you wake up in the morning, the last thing you want to do is pick out an outfit. You're feeling uninspired, and like you don't own anything that you want to wear. But you know that certain things just look good on you. You can't usually go wrong with a button-down and jeans. If you choose to wear this every day of your life, then that's one less decision you have to make in the morning. Plus it gives you an air of eccentricity. Some of our most ingenious leaders have done this. It certainly isn't something that you have to make fun of somebody for.

If you plant a cat in a flower pot and give it enough sunshine, eventually it grows into a full-sized feline.

Cats have never been particularly concerned with using things for their intended purpose, and flower pots are no exception. Forget the pet bed sitting five feet away. A round container filled with dirt is clearly the better place to curl up, watch the world go by, and become the prettiest thing growing in the garden.

Seeing a furry head pop up between the flowers certainly makes gardening more interesting. One minute you're checking whether the plants need water, and the next you're wondering when your garden started growing whiskers. This particular variety prefers treats, head scratches, and uninterrupted naps, so putting away the watering can is probably a good idea.

A sunny garden already has everything a feline could ask for. There are warm spots for afternoon naps, leaves to inspect, bugs to watch, and plenty of opportunities to supervise the hoomans doing all the actual gardening. The flower pot just gives them the perfect seat for the occasion.

The real question is how long it takes for a cat to fully bloom. The growing process begins with squeezing into a pot that looks far too small and eventually ends with paws, tails, and floof spilling over every side. Repotting might be necessary, although convincing a comfortable cat to move is another challenge entirely.

Flowers may bring plenty of color to a garden, but it's hard to compete with a pair of ears poking out between the petals. We wouldn't mind discovering this special feline variety growing outside our window every morning.

Forget having a green thumb. Give us a garden full of toe beans and whiskers instead.

"Just because you usually sit somewhere doesn't mean you own the chair, Jasmine."

Everywhere you go, there are seats, and people who use those seats. In school, every student had a chair and desk in the classroom, and a place to sit at lunch. In cafes, restaurants, and libraries, people find a comfortable place to sit and do whatever it is they came to do. There are chairs everywhere, and we all share them. 

There isn't a single place we can think of, other than someone's home, that grants someone the option to claim a seat as their own. The world isn't divided into assigned seats, and unless you bought the chair, you have no claim to it, and should expect others to abide by rules you made up in your head.

That is what we would have said to the coworker below, called Jasmine, who for some reason thought she owed 2 of the 5 chairs in her workplace's break room. 

It is one thing to claim ownership of a work desk and chair, which we can understand why some people prefer to assign. But the seating in a break room is open for all; no one can claim they have a bigger right to sit in one of them than someone else. The fact that Jasmine decided she owns not one, but two seats in the office she worked at is truly baffling, and we were even more baffled to learn that she actually came up to one employee and demanded they move.

The first time she did it, the employee decided it was not worth the argument and moved. But when she came up to the same employee for the second time and asked them to move out of a completely different seat, the employee decided enough is enough. She doesn't own the seat; she has no right to demand it, and it's time she knows it.

Sometimes the family member you didn't expect is exactly the one you need. 

After her youngest brother headed off to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, one woman found herself sitting with the emotions that come from watching your family grow up. A week filled with goodbyes had finally come to an end, the house felt noticeably quieter, and she was left wondering what this next chapter would look like. Then an energetic little cat came running into her life and refused to be ignored.

The friendly feline had plenty of personality but wasn't quick to trust. She would run over with her loudest little meow before keeping a careful distance, turning every interaction into a slow game of patience. Rather than rushing to catch her, the woman spent days earning that trust, waiting until she could safely bring the cat in without causing unnecessary stress.

That patience paid off.

The kitten eventually found a home, a full belly, and a name that couldn't have been more fitting: Annie, inspired by Annapolis, the place her younger brother had just begun his own adventure.

Big life changes have a way of making a house feel different. Siblings move away, routines disappear, and familiar chapters quietly come to an end. Then, every once in a while, something unexpected arrives at exactly the right moment.

Annie didn't erase the sadness of saying goodbye, but she filled the quiet with playful zoomies, loud meows, and a brand-new routine. Instead of focusing on an empty house, her new human was busy earning trust, handing out meals, and getting to know the little cat who had suddenly become part of the family.

Whether you believe in the Cat Distribution System or not, it's hard to ignore the timing. Just as one family member left to begin a new chapter, another showed up looking for one of her own.

Industry secrets? I'm always in for this gossip…

When you start working in an industry, you end up discovering things you never expected to know in the first place. It happened to me. I remember when I started working with an insurance company, an industry I knew absolutely nothing about. I started with some training that gave me a general idea of what insurance was and how it worked, especially what payments were attached to it. But when I started to actually work, I ended up discovering so much more. How it was managed, how people were paying for it, what it covered. I even learned about state laws and permits. I went from 0 to 100 in almost no time. It was insane.

This wasn't particularly useful for me per se, but I realized that because of reading insurance documents all the time, I now knew how to read other relevant documents and how to look for the information I needed in no time. I also learned how to get to a real person when calling other insurance companies in no time, which was the most useful thing of all. Nowadays, I can call whatever company number and go through their IVR system in two seconds to get to the real person. I also practiced so much math that I can do calculations quicker.

I believe you learn useful stuff at every job, and when I say everyone, I mean it. You may think that being a server you will just learn how to deal with people, but the truth is you will probably also learn about food, cooking methods, and even etiquette. So if you want to learn more about other industries, especially the secrets they hold that can make your experience as a customer a 100 times better, then read the thread below for some juicy gossip. 

Do you answer when karma calls?

There is a reason John Lennon wrote a song called "Instant Karma." Receiving the consequences of your actions immediately isn't a bad thing, even though it might feel like it in the moment. It is a valuable life lesson. Sometimes you are the one helping the universe to give out karma, and other times you are the one getting the lesson. It's nothing to squander! 

Take this shopper, for instance; she went out to do some much-needed shopping. A day to herself to get all of the things she's been putting off on her shopping list. Finally, she's made it to the store. However, she notices a young employee following her around. She was curious about it, but didn't pay too much mind to it. She even tried to ask them for some assistance while shopping, but they sheepishly avoided her. Again, she paid it no mind and continued her shopping. 

She checked out, spent around $500, and started to leave. That is when she was stopped. The employee who had been following her around demanded she empty out her purse. She was wearing a tiny purse at the time, so she thought they were kidding at first, but nope. The situation escalated, and she decided to empty her bag. Of course, no stolen goods were in there, and the employee tried to walk away from the situation. 

However, she was not about to let this judgmental employee get away without any consequences. 

After repeated electrical overloads prevented her from properly cooling her bedroom, a 24-year-old tenant disconnected her neighbor's unsafe extension cord and locked access to her assigned outlet. But the move left he wondering whether or not she had done the right thing since it left her 60-year-old neighbor effectively without power.

Heat waves make people do some pretty crazy things. And are well known for bringing simmering neighborly tensions to a boiling point. 

A 24-year-old tenant discovered that her neighbor, a woman over 60, had been using an extension cord. The neighbor was running two air conditioners and an industrial fan, along with her indoor and outdoor lighting. The additional power demand on her own circuit left the tenant with too little power to cool more than a small section of her bedroom during this latest round of hot weather. She wanted to help the 60-year-old woman out and asked the neighbor several times to reduce her electricity use and only keep necessary devices to keep the circuit from overloading.

When I first read her account of events, I thought there was something wrong with the neighbor's utility connection, but after rereading the original post, it appears that the issue with the neighbor's own utility connection only came AFTER the tenant had locked her out of her own utility box. So this really just leads me to believe that the whole thing was really just about stealing her power in the first place and tricking the tenant into playing for her power, or just hoping that she would be too much of a pushover to say or do anything about, as she had until this point. 

Dealing with extreme temperatures within your home and not being able to do anything to escape it becomes a concern. But I don't think that the hot weather was the neighbor's primary concern. While it's important to be neighborly and help people when you can, this has well-past escalated to the point where it's the landlord's responsibility to do something about this. 

I think it's pretty safe to say the tenant, the woman who shared this story with an online community, isn't in the wrong. But by no means does that make anything about this situation acceptable.  

It is not often that a feline rescue involves more than one cat, let alone the 12 kittens that were saved from being put to sleep in this rescue story. So you can imagine that whatever may happen, we are in for a wild ride with this one.

In keeping with the unique nature of this story, the kittens in question were not even dumped on our rescuer's property as usually happens. They were found by animal control on the back neighbor's property, and when our rescuer stepped out to see what the hubbub was about she came to understand that 12 tiny kittens were about to be sent to sleep furever, not even being given a chance to enjoy all the churus and tummy skritches that this life holds for them. Despite the overwhelming amount of kittens our rescuer decided that she would take the responsibility and at least for the moment give these kittens a chance to at least learn to enjoy a cuddle.

This is where the hard work began and our rescuer essentially did not sleep for 72 hrs, giving the kittens round the clock care while also trying to find suitable homes to send them to before they are left with no other choice than to be surrendered to the shelter. A fate which their rescuer really did not want to befall them, but one that might end up being an unfortunate eventuality. Thankfully, this is a story with a happy ending, one that shows the true colors of the cat lovers community and what we feline fans are truly willing to do for feline kind.
 

You only turn 40 once, or that's the saying, I guess…

I find it a little weird when people plan a birthday trip or weekend. It gives a little bit of main character syndrome. But I guess it could be a nice thing to do with a group of friends and use it as an excuse to travel or do something fun, like camping. But when you organize something like this, you have to be conscious that some people may not go either because they can't take a full weekend off, because it's expensive, or even because they don't want to spend such a long time with your friends who aren't them. In the case of the story below, it had a little of everything. This user didn't like the idea of camping at all, so when she got the invitation, she thanked her friend but advised her she wasn't attending.

That was always a possibility: people not attending, and when you plan something like this, you have to take it into account and understand it. It's a part of it. But then the story goes on. This birthday girl decided to add a new plan, going out to dinner with her two friends who aren't attending the camping trip. It sounds nice, but in reality, it became kind of a last-minute compromise they were obliged to attend because of denying the camping invitation. Truth is, this restaurant is quite expensive, and this user already had plans of going to it that same day with her boyfriend –they are on a little break, but they are still going to dinner for his birthday.

All this started a whole drama. The birthday girl was mad for different reasons. Firstly, her friends weren't coming to the camping trip, and it bothered her. Secondly, she wanted to have dinner to compensate, and one of her friends is opting out because she has plans with her "ex-boyfriend". And lastly, that same friend isn't accepting of coming to the camping trip so they can at least celebrate together. In this case, I won't tell you which side you should be, is up to you, reader. What would you do? Cancel the boyfriend's dinner and do the friend's one? Go on the camping trip? Don't go anyway and celebrate later on? 

Friends can come in many shapes, forms, and floof levels.

I love seeing odd friendships form, and I have some of these myself. For example, both my best friend and I are extremely headstrong - the type of people you wouldn't expect getting along, but clashing every day. Well, we clash friendlily, and we do so for more than half our lives. Moreover, he has this amazing ability of not giving a darn about things that don't matter - while I overthink every little thing like it was a main plot device. I think his way is healthier. Also, I tend to seek the full half of the glass, but he's a consistent pessimist. We're so different, but also similar, and not the most obvious best of friends. But, hey, we are.

But some very odd friendships can form between animals, specifically our pets. When you bring a set of animals home to raise as pets, you effectively create an ecosystem that needs to sustain itself on the social level. And since being friends with "your tribe" is a clear evolutionary advantage that's instilled in us all, we can see floofy friendships blossom between our cats and dogs - which is exactly what happens in this cat and dog BFF online community. It's demonstrated so well that it actually reminded me of myself and my best friend. It's just natural that the next step is going to be sharing this profound revelation with the pawrent community.

You would never think of cats and dogs becoming true BFFs until you see it with your own eyes. And I saw. These are some precious pairs of cuties, and their stories are just as wholesome to match. I swear my smile didn't fade for one bit reading about them and seeing the pictures. They all made me realize that maybe, just maybe, my best friend and I have the same sort of friendship.

A company forced employees back into the office, laid off half of the department, and then doubled the survivors' workloads without raising their pay.

Since the Return to Office (RTO) mandate trend started to pick up steam in late 2022, it has long been theorized that these were just thinly veiled layoffs, designed to single out those who wouldn't (or couldn't) return to the office before assessing what other cuts needed to be made. Over time, as more companies adopted this new "trend," more and more employees who had been enjoying the benefits of working from home for years were suddenly faced with an unpleasant awakening.

The employee in this story shared how their company ordered remote employees back to the office four days per week, claiming that in-person work would improve collaboration and help teams work faster. Employees faced long commutes while daily meetings continued on Teams anyway because staff were spread between multiple offices. One month later, the company laid off roughly half of the employees' department with little warning.

We'll take a look at this original story that an employee shared about their company's RTO mandate that was then followed by layoffs, then we'll talk about the trends that influenced this before ending by looking at some of the advice that was shared in the original thread. 

Cats make us feel good, and that's a sure purr fact.

Imagine going back home from a very tiring day - your boss kept on piling work on your desk, the meeting schedule seemed to take precedence over literally anything else, and your coffee kept getting cold because you couldn't even get to drinking it. Such an annoying day. But then you open the door to your place, and a floofy little feline greets you with a perked tail, happy face, and a small sound of "mrrp?" That's got to be the cutest thing, and the best way to end a rough day. Cats make us feel good, and we love them so much for it.

It's hard not to fall completely in love with cats, especially when they give us all this amount of love back. Cats greet us at the door, no matter what kind of day we've had. Cats are happy to be petted, which is like the ultimate cortisol lower-er. Cats are just happy to be around us, which in turn makes us as happy as we could be. It's a full feline circle feedback loop of joy just to have your cat around.

So it's really no wonder that all the wholesome cat content online is the best on the entire internet. And that's exactly why having it right here, at the ready, in your pocket or on your big screen, to bask in the wholesomeness of cats, is the best thing a cat person can do for themselves. So what are you waiting for? These wholesome cats are waiting just for you, whiskers, humor, and all.

When cohabitation is too hard

Having roommates must be one of the most challenging experiences one can have. I've had many roommate experiences, and whether the person is your best friend, a random stranger, a coworker, or whoever you can imagine, living together is tough. It doesn't matter if you are both organized or clean; maybe you fold laundry in a way that makes your roommate mad. You can't escape making the other person uncomfortable, somehow, with something you might deem normal.

Of course, real virtue lies in being fair, patient, and forgiving even when we're annoyed, but many things that happen in roommates' experiences are far from virtuous. That said, throwing away other people's things, even if we don't like them or consider them trash, is never ok. What struck me the most was that when this roomie described the objects the other woman brought home, she wasn't describing actual trash.

She wasn't throwing away plastic wraps, napkins, receipts, or dirt; she was throwing away wall art, knick-knacks, and vases. You are allowed not to like them, but you definitely shouldn't throw them away without her permission. I wonder what she would do if her roomie threw away her decoration elements.

I understand that extreme times require extreme measures; I've done ridiculous things myself in roommate situations, but I believe she has now unlocked the door to more chaos, and things are probably going to get worse. Do you think she has a chance to fix things, or is it already too late?

HR has turned a chill warehouse into a bizarre mix of punishment and summer camp, with daily scoldings for talking and mandatory parking-lot games on the clock

Workplace nonsense like this makes you wonder whether management is trying to improve morale or just invent new ways to waste it. The job itself sounds monotonous but survivable: pack goofy little products, keep your head down, and let the day move. That worked fine when the place had a "just do your work, and nobody bothers you" vibe. Then the expansion hit, and suddenly someone decided a warehouse needed both a pep rally and a boot camp.

Even for me,  a guy looking for comedy anywhere, that's where the comedy here turns sour. HR keeps bringing in people who don't stick, the aisles get packed, the mistakes pile up, and then everyone gets lectured like they personally engineered the chaos. Nothing kills team spirit faster than being blamed for the consequences of bad hiring. It's like getting yelled at because someone invited thirty cousins to a one-bedroom apartment and then acted shocked there was no room to breathe.

The cat distribution system works in mysterious ways. 

Chance and happenstance are all around us. Sometimes life makes you shrug your shoulders and say, "huh, isn't that something." With all the strange moments that feel fated, ironic, and bizarre, it's no wonder we have to believe something's out there. Of course, anyone can say it's random happenings, but there's another perspective, and that's one where coincidences don't exist. What we believe to be a coincidence is just giving a name to magic in the fabric of the universe. There's no test at the end of life if you knew something to be true or not, and sometimes it's better to believe in a little bit of that sense of magic. In the story here, that kind of magic does persist, and it's important to acknowledge. 

This person has been feeding a mama cat for some time. He's on his way to the animal shelter to adopt a cat of his own, when lo and behold he sees in his yard three kittens with the mama cat. After some time she stopped showing up and left her kittens behind. He thought that there's only one reason for her to do this on the day he wanted to adopt, and that's that the cat distribution system fated him with the kittens that she can't take care of. He takes all of them in. It's a process to train them and tame them, because they're feral and untrusting. They're used to being outside, but he uses food as a temptation method to get closer to them. They're sweethearts now, and they're one big happy family. The Tuxedo is skittish, but also loves pets. The black cat is a Velcro cat who just wants love. This guy is just so grateful that he got kittens exactly how he wanted, and he didn't even have to go to the shelter! Life is strange, so embrace it.