She was a cat, she said meow, could we make it any more obvious?

We've seen a lot of cats with celebrity names in our time, but every once in a while, the universe really commits to the bit. Meet Avril Lavigne: a roughly 2-year-old domestic shorthair at Surrey Animal Resource Centre, and quite possibly the most appropriately named shelter cat on the planet. Just look at that eyeliner. The dramatic stare. The effortlessly unimpressed expression. This is not just Avril Lavigne the cat. This is Avril Lavigne in her Let Go era (arguably her best era, if you ask us). 

Naturally, the internet noticed.

According to the shelter, Avril is incredibly sweet with humans and loves attention, affection, and admiration from her fans (as most cats do). In other words, she's ready for her Girlfriend era… provided that girlfriend, boyfriend, or pawrent understands one very important thing: other cats can kindly sk8 away.

Avril wants to be the only feline headliner in her home. No opening acts or surprise duets. No complicated multi-cat household dynamics. Dogs are still an unknown, and the shelter recommends a home with cat-savvy kids ages 12 and up. We have to admire a woman who knows exactly what she wants.

We're happy to report… drum roll, please… that this tiny pop-punk purring princess is about to get her Happy Ending - someone submitted an application form for her after looking into those purrfectly lined eyes and said, "I'm With You."

If they don't adopt her, then good news! She might just be your cat soon, but we hope that doesn't happen… because there's no need to make things so complicated.

Which would you choose?

A few short years ago, I thought that remote work was here to stay. Nearly every white-collar employee in the world got a taste of one of the perks usually reserved for the upper crust, and I didn't think they'd let it go easily. Companies only allowed remote work for all their employees because they had no other choice, given the state of the world at the time. These days, remote work has returned to being a luxury. Many employees are holding onto their remote positions for dear life because they know they won't be able to find a new one in 2026. Unfortunately, if you're not independently wealthy and have to work a job for a living, you still have to do what your boss says. If your boss wants you to come into the office, there's really not much you can do about it. 

For some employees, a return to the office makes more sense. Some people work much better when they have to be accountable for showing up at an office every day of the week. If their entire team is in the office and needs to talk to each other throughout the day in a series of meetings, being in the same room helps build rapport, making the work easier and better. If you're starting in your career, you will get more out of being around your coworkers and mentors than someone who is going to retire in the next ten years. The young guy in this story has the chance to make a big career change, but he is hesitating because he's nervous about letting go of his WFH position. 

This isn't your average campfire ghost story.

On a foggy Sunday meowrning, everything was quiet and the water was still. Not a mouse stirred anywhere in sight, and one other thing was noticeably missing…

Hoomans.

Washington authorities boarded an abandoned ship floating off the coast of a beach this weekend, and found a colony of cats on board. It took them time to understand how many were on board, as the ship was by no means small and there were many cracks and crevices for the kitties to hide in. With many hiding underneath the floorboards, their early estimation jumped from 10 to more than 30. After spending hours corralling all of them into safe containers, we're pawsitively happy to report that all 31 cats and kittens were rescued from the boat.

But how did they get there in the first place? And why?

It's one thing to pick a fight with a front desk employee, but picking a fight with the entire staff seems a bit excessive.

Sometimes people are just insanely lost. When you are working in customer service, you are aware of the fact that not every customer is going to be nice. You even know that they aren't always going to have manners either. It's something that you either accept from the beginning or learn to accept over time. You even stop expecting it from customers, and when they do act kindly and correctly, it's the highlight of your day. Is usual to encounter people who are angry about something that you don't even know about, and they will expect you to fix it and blame you for it. That is the norm, so you accept it.

When you get a customer who acts like the one in the story below, you aren't surprised about it. You kinda accept it and try to de-escalate the situation as much as you can so we can avoid having to involve managers. When you see something like a previous communication the customer had to the place in the system where they describe them as unable to be helped or too angry to listen. Internally, you panic a bit. As if it was already setting you up for disappointment. You already knew the customer was going to be hard to manage, but the fact that the previous person had to give up is too much. The original problem escalated a ton. But there isn't much you can do. You still have to deal with them and do your best to not only help them but also calm them.

The hardest thing is when you realize that you've been talking for a long time and the conversation has stopped being useful. You are just two people discussing (one obviously shouting and sometimes even throwing a temper tantrum), going exactly nowhere. This person is not going to accept that the reason he's mad is his fault and that you cannot help him. So that's when you have to give up. The fight is lost. You either call security, refuse service, or call a manager. But you are done. And it's hard to accept, but you can't deal forever with a stubborn customer who couldn't even express himself nicely. 
 

Even the homeless aren't free from the shackles of the cat distribution system. 

You'd think being homeless would let you off the hook for some things. You don't even have a home, so you're pretty much exempt from any responsibility of life. So then why would the cat distribution system gift you of all people with a kitten lost in the heat of summer? This homeless man knew that he doesn't have the means to take care of a kitten, and he also couldn't stand to see the kitten suffer in the heat in the middle of summer. He promptly rescues the kitten from the streets and brings him to AC, and in this case it's a nearby CVS. He tells the workers the story, and they decide who is going to take the kitten. One kind human steps up to the challenge and says he'll take the kitten home as his own. After a vet visit and 2 weeks, he and the kitten are inseparable. The little guy is 9 weeks old, just a baby! It's miraculous to see that even without having much in the world, someone was kind enough to want to help a kitten in need. 

Do you ask your married friends or single friends for dating advice? 

Either of them can help in different circumstances, so it depends on who you trust the most, and if your friends' marriage is actually successful.

A young woman shared on r/AITAH that she doesn't really trust her married friends to ask them for dating advice. The couple has been together for eight years. They met in high school and never dated anyone else. That is not a bad thing in and of itself, but they don't seem to have the healthiest of relationships. Besides, they've been together since they were teenagers and have no idea what it's like to date when you're an adult. That was this woman's reasoning, but she didn't want to say it to their face because she thought it might be hurtful. Instead, she went ahead and asked a different friend. When the couple found out, they felt offended and insisted that she tell them why she hadn't asked them. She finally did, and they got even more offended. 

The thing is, each and every one of us has the right to ask for advice from whomever we deem worthy of giving it. A person who hasn't been on a date since the early to mid 2000s has no idea what the dating world has become now and what it has to offer. Besides, if one wants to get married and enjoy a healthy relationship with a spouse, we most likely won't take advice from people who don't seem to be happy together or even respect one another. 

No one should give unwanted advice over a matter that is none of their business and haven't been consulted about. Even between friends, there are boundaries we all respect and that allow us to maintain a nice, healthy bond with the people we love. When we are asked for advice, we give it happily. When a friend chooses to go to somebody else, we respect their decision and support them the best we can.

Living with a cat means never being completely sure whether you're about to get a cuddle or a warning swipe.

There are days when your feline bestie wants nothing more than to be attached to you. They climb into your lap, shove their head under your hand, and start purring before you've even begun the belly rubs. Personal space disappears, leaving you trapped under a warm pile of fur for the foreseeable future. Moving is obviously not an option. You have been chosen.

Then the spice kicks in.

Suddenly, the same cat who demanded seventeen minutes of uninterrupted affection yesterday is deeply offended that you dared to touch them today. You reach out for one innocent little pet and get a look that clearly says you've crossed a line. Try for a cuddle, and you're negotiating with four paws, a rapidly flicking tail, and enough cattitude to make you reconsider your choices.

Cat pawrents learn to appreciate affection whenever it's offered. When your cat voluntarily curls up beside you, you cancel whatever plans involved getting off the couch. When they climb onto your chest at 3 a.m., you accept that breathing comfortably is no longer important. And when they don't want cuddles? Well, sometimes you still attempt one quick hug before accepting defeat.

That's the sweet and spicy experience of loving a cat. Affection happens on their terms, at their preferred time, for an amount of time known only to them. One minute you're their favorite person in the entire world. The next, your hand has apparently committed an unforgivable crime by attempting pet number six.

Yet cat pawrents keep coming back for more. Those surprise cuddles and tiny head bumps are worth every rejected hug. Besides, figuring out whether today's mood is sweet or spicy is half the fun.

Being a manager can sometimes be uncomfortable.

Most jobs have elements to them that people don't enjoy, and that is especially true for management roles. With more power comes more responsibility, and even the most hands-off and incompetent bosses have to deal with annoying or unpleasant tasks like enforcing dumb ideas from executives, mitigating coworker disputes, and handling layoffs. Few companies are going to hand out that marginally bigger paycheck for nothing.

At its core, being a decent manager involves a willingness to take responsibility. They should try to understand, to the best of their ability, how to work with their team and how they can get the most out of them. Sometimes, this also means admitting to their limits; not all employees are going to be the best fit for the roles that they work in, no matter what they do. That's just the way it goes.

At the same time, one of the core responsibilities of those in management is to provide references to those who leave their employment. Although some may argue this is one of the easier parts of the job, it can be a real challenge when there doesn't seem to be much that is positive to say. Just because somebody didn't fit in their previous role doesn't mean the same will happen with the next one.

Some boundaries only become obvious once someone crosses them.

Sharing an apartment with a close friend seemed to be working perfectly until one roommate developed a habit of helping herself to clothes without permission. What began with hoodies and jackets escalated into something far more personal, leaving the other woman feeling that her privacy had been completely violated and wondering how to confront the issue without destroying their living situation.

I live with a roommate, and I have the best relationship with her. Although we're from different places, we've found a way to get along really well, and our experience has been nothing but awesome. That being said, we're super respectful of each other's belongings and time, since this is fundamental when living together. So, when I read this story, I remembered some situations some of my friends had with their own roommates, and I couldn't help but laugh.

In this story, these girls are not only roommates: they are friends from college, meaning they had a relationship before living together that sets the tone for something completely different from mine, for example. Because of that, I wouldn't think it's outrageous that the girl is borrowing clothes without asking; maybe she felt that the other girl wouldn't mind. Now, I'm not justifying her behavior at all: I'm trying to understand her way of thinking when doing this.

I would suggest that the Original Poster talk to her and to set clear boundaries. Although they are good friends and I'm sure they get along very well, it's important to have those limits not be crossed so they can all have a good experience when being roommates. This doesn't mean that something wrong needs to happen, or that the relationship has to change: is only a matter of being respectful and understanding.

Are we dreaming, or is Monday much lighter with a cat involved?

There's no mistaking the fact that cats make our mere human existence better by simply existing by our sides. If a cat's human is feeling tired after a long day at work, the cat's energy of greeting them excitedly at the door brings them their energy back. Then, playtime commences, so that means the tired human turns from low-evergy groggy creature into a high-energy feather toy flailing warrior. And if a cat pawrent is sad, their cat will gently approach, slowly walk until they reach them, and perch themselves on their lap, purring. This is bound to bring happiness to anyone's heart.

Cats have such great influence over us, and we mean it in the best way possible. So even when a Monday comes around, the fact that we have a cat near us, doing their own cat thing, already provides a great way to deal with Monday, one meow at a time. When the thoughts of your work piling up for the week are creeping in, let the cat's purrs creep instead. If the thought of another meeting that could've easily been an email clouds your mind, let your cat's meows be the sunshine in your thoughts instead. And if you fear the big bad Monday, remember your cat. It'll already make you feel better.

And that's why we insisted on bringing all these cat memes here today, of all days. We're not about to keep them for ourselves, because being a cat person is all about sharing the sweet cat content online with other cat people - especially if it helps them deal with Monday better. So, here we are, fellow cat people - enjoy these meowing memes and make your Monday better.

So you've been a cat person for a while now (to say the least), and you keep hearing "CDS this" and "CDS that", but you've wondered what the Cat Distribution System is anyway?

Well, fellow feline fans, if you've ever wanted answers, you've found the right place. We're here to explain in detail what the Cat Distribution System is, how it works, and what it does - all while using this one adopted kittey as an example. Because learning by example is the best way to comprehend such amorphous concepts as the meowsterious CDS.

Simply put, the Cat Distribution System makes "cat deliveries". But unlike your typical Uber Eats, it's not by order. The CDS has a very profound way of looking into a cat's and a person's souls and determining whether that said person can give the cat in need their forever home - whether by adoption or by being an important foster step on their way to find their family. And yes, even a foster is a great help.

But what are/is the CDS exactly? That's a more difficult question to answer. It's a sort of body of action, an institution of discovery, a group for saving cats… but no one actually knows what or who they are. So this is the only question we'll leave here unanswered. But let us move on to the adorable adoptee below, and what his adoption story can teach us about the mysteries of the CDS.

Bootlickers are everywhere; there's one in every office. 

Some people can't seem to function unless they are trying to be friends with the bosses to get some kind of benefit. An employee shared on r/TwoHotTakes that she has a coworker who does exactly that. There was a new head of sales assigned to their department to help them with performance. This woman befriended her quickly and started ignoring and being impolite with the rest of her coworkers. She even eavesdropped on their conversations to go and report to the manager what they were talking about. All her coworkers started distrusting her and stopped talking the minute she entered the room. Unfortunately for her, the manager was later fired because of her, ironically, bad performance. Now, the coworker is behaving nicely and is friendly with everybody again, trying to get on their good side. 

We have to admit that not all of our coworkers can be our friends. There are decent people out there, but it's not all of them, and even less inside an office. We don't know what these people do for a living, but some companies promote competition between their employees, making it harder for workers to be nice and helpful towards one another. Seems like it could be the case around here, although we can't know for sure. 

What we can know for sure is that it is better to avoid contact with that kind of opportunistic people, who will step on anybody for the chance of a promotion. In this case, her attitude ended up being counterproductive. She treated everyone like trash, became a snitch, and her manager-bestie was fired; she got no benefit from it, and now her coworkers don't want to get close to her again, since they've seen her true colors for once and for all. That's what happens when you're a bad friend and a bad coworker: people stay away from you, no matter how hard you try to fix it afterwards. Once someone sees you for who you really are, there are two options: either they stay with you because they like what they see, or they leave you if you turn out to be bad. 

What would you do if you were her coworker? Would you pretend that nothing happened, or would you give her the cold shoulder? 

Sometimes, it's the person you least expect who ends up adopting the tiniest kitten. 

The beauty of cats is that they can and they do win over everyone. Yes, everyone. People who say that they hate cats have never actually spent real time with one. They've never given cats a chance. They just believe the stereotypes - that cats are aloof, that cats don't care about their humans, that cats bite and scratch and only tolerate you because you feed them. Whereas every person who has ever owned a cat can tell you that cats are so affectionate toward their humans, it's incredible. Cats, of course, have never cared what people think about them or say about them. They can sense who is going to be purrfect for them even before that person senses it themselves. 

This is why we have so many stories of people who hate cats adopting cats, and people who have never wanted pets at all falling in love with cats, and people who are allergic to cats finding the one cat they're willing to fight the allergies for. Even the grumpiest, most stoic and unexpected people will get adopted by a cat. And that cat will melt their exterior like it's butter. Which is what happened in today's story. When a customer walked into a "no pets allowed" store with a rescued kitten hidden in her shirt and got caught, what do you think happened? The obvious, of course. The "grumpy old man" employee in the store, who everyone expected to kick the lady with the kitten out, not only did he not do that, he is also the one who ended up taking that kitten from the lady and bringing the kitten home. Melted. Like butter. Because he could not withstand the cuteness of that purrfect itty bitty kitty. 

After years of helping, one late-night emergency finally pushed her to draw the line.

For years, a mother of four regularly drove her younger sister to and from work, often sacrificing her own time and gas money. But when her sister demanded a last-minute ride that meant waking four sleeping children, she refused. Instead of finding another solution, the younger sister blamed her for "ruining" her future and risking her job.

This story is right up my alley since I'm the oldest sister of three. And I do have an entitled little sister as well, who is nine years younger. So, as you can imagine, she does whatever she wants around the house, and my whole family (including myself) do evetyhing she wants without question. That being said, I admire the position the OP took in this conflict and stopped being her servant and her personal chauffeur.

When it comes to family dynamics, problems often arise when certain roles become the norm. After years of helping each other, people can start expecting things you never really agreed to, simply because "that's how the family has always worked." In this case, the older sister had spent years helping her younger sister in different ways, and once she became a mom and started working, those rides to and from work gradually turned from a favor into an expectation.

But life happens, and things change, so it's totally okay for the older sister to refuse to drive the other one, because now she has four little kids that need her complete attention and cannot leave in the middle of the night to drive her sister to work. She will need to find a new way of getting to work if she wants to keep this job she has. And needless to say, this is not the older sister's fault at all.

Maybe just give the employee what he is working for if he deserves it

If you have a core employee, you do everything in your power to make them stay at the company for as long as you can. Core employees get perks that most wouldn't. They can arrive 5 minutes late, take too many coffee breaks, and get chatty. All because when they work, they do a better job than any other employee and in less time. So when you have the luck of encountering someone like that, as a manager, your main priority is for them to choose to stay at the company for as long as possible. They bring great value, and they are the best at their job. Yes, they can be a little lazy sometimes, but what they bring to the table is so important that you have to look past it.

If they one day decide that they want to leave, you do ANYTHING to convince them otherwise. The one in the story below thought that a raise would be enough. Well no. This employee wanted to be COO. If he had offered that, we wouldn't be in this situation. After all, what this employee is looking for is career growth and nothing else. There is no reason for him to stay after all, if what he's looking for, he's not going to get. That is how building your career works: if you can't grow anymore in some place, you need to change your direction, change companies, look for somewhere where you are appreciated, and you can gain the experience that you need and want.  

Finally, risking this employee is not only the loss of a great employee, but it is also more work for the others. Someone who brings so much to the table and does so much more than anyone else leaves a space that is bigger than you would imagine. His resignation doesn't only mean that HE is not going to be there anymore. It also means more work accumulating because he cared for more than what he had to. It also means that the excellent work will not continue to be excellent, and most likely will be deemed just fine. As a place that does sales, you need customers to be very happy with the work employees perform in their job, not just alright. So maybe, in this case, they should give this employee what he deserves, even if he isn't exactly qualified. 

Sometimes, the CDS gives the wrong delivery address to the kittens. 

Listen, the CDS is real, and it works. That is a fact. We can't imagine anyone arguing with us. How else do you explain all the stories? How do you explain a kitten flying in through the window into a man's lap and his first question being "what do I need to get to raise it"? How do you explain kittens following their owners home on some of their most important days? My cat followed me home on Independence Day and never had another day of independence in her life. My husband's cat followed him directly to his house on his birthday. The CDS knows which cats need help and which homes to deliver them to. And it always works. A bad adoption is not the work of the CDS. It does not count. But sometimes, even the CDS is faced with employee error, and the kitten in today's story was accidentally given the wrong address. 

When a kitten is ready to get off the streets and into a forever home, there is nothing stopping it. The kitten will literally chase its chosen humans if it has to. And that is what this kitten thought he was doing. He was given an address, spotted "his humans," and started running. Except… they started running too. In the opposite direction. And so, okay, it's easy for us to say that it's their loss for running away, because Gus is one of the cutest kittens that we have seen in a while, but Gus couldn't have felt that way when he was running toward what he thought was his forever home, and his forever home was running from him. He just didn't know that his actual rescuer was sitting in the drive-through, watching the whole thing. 

Malicious compliance is an art form. It requires patience, precision, and a complete lack of regard for corporate dignity, and this IT worker? Well, he's an artist

For some managers, the green status dot is a productivity meter. Gray means slacking. Green means working. The actual output does not matter and the dot is the job. Exceptional managerial capabilities, you guys, just exceptional.

Another Monday is here, and it's time to start the week with a fresh batch of purrfect cat Tweets! 

If there is one thing that the internet continues to be good at, it's cat stuff. The world could be on fire, we could be on the brink of disaster, zombies could invade, and still, the internet will continue producing cat memes. Because we need cat content. Cats rule the internet for a reason, and that is because we want them to, because the world, and especially the internet, could never be the same without them. And one place on the internet where they continue to rule with an iron paw, no matter how many changes the platform goes through, is Twitter. Or X, whatever. 

Our feeds might be full of the worst news we have ever seen and spoilers of everything that we want to see, but amongst all those things, all the things that you wish to avoid, is something meowgical. Viral cat content everywhere if you just look close enough. But of course, when there is so much that you don't want to see online, then you may not want to look quite that closely. And that is what we are here for. 

Each and every week, we bring you a new, carefully curated collection of the most viral cat tweets of the week. So you don't have to go looking. So you don't have to search through the wasteland. We do the work for you. We put together the cutest, the funniest, the most wholesome and even the slightly controversial cat tweets of the week into this one collection. Zero effort on your part. All you need to do is wake up, get on ICHC, scroll away and enjoy every bit of purrfect cat content that you might have missed on Twitter this week. 

After more than a decade preparing for an IT career, a struggling job seeker faces contradictory demands from his parents who can't comprehend the modern hiring process and the state of the job market.

A lot of the older generations just don't realize how different things are, and just how painfully bad the job market is at the moment. This generational gap brings constant judgment around expectations that are wholly unrealistic. They'll tell you to "Take any job," when there are no jobs to take. To hand your CV to employers who aren't hiring. 

Sure, this is worsened by living situations where adult children in their late 20s, 30s, and sometimes 40s are forced to move back in with their aging parents after being laid off or fired and unable to find work. The parents recognize that there is a problem, but they fall short of recognizing what the problem is and how bad things are. 

Meanwhile you're completing dozens of applications a day to jobs that you strongly suspect mostly don't actually exist. Feeling less and less confident that you're going to find a job, and more burned out every day.

It might not help you find a job in this moment. But it's important to remember that we have too much of a tendency to attach our current employment to our worth. Just because you can't find work in your career or field right now, it doesn't mean that you have to give up on it completely. 

You can apply to a broader range of jobs, even entry-level ones in completely different fields that are available to you locally. Take things as they come, don't get too down on yourself, ignore the judgement of others, and suspend your own judgement of yourself for now.  

Heck, that's how I ended up working in a bike shop for a few years. I had just finished studying biology but had been working as a writer, social media manager, and editor. And, well, working in a bike shop had nothing to do with either of those things. I eventually went on to manage the shop, and I consider that experience to be invaluable despite the fact that it was a side step of my two possible career pathways at the time.

Take up some extra studies with online classes, get some extra experience by volunteering in your spare time if you need to pad out your resume, treat applying to jobs like a second job. But, by all means, keep your options open even when you land that temporary job. Don't get too lost or invested in that job once you find it. 

It might be exhausting, but it will get you to a better place where you can finally look back, relax your shoulders, and take a deep breath knowing that you have a brighter future. 

The myriad of ways in which our feline friends are gotten rid off seems to have no end and yet endless creativity with the latest cat to catch a case of homelessness finding their way to the streets via a parking lot push out of the car. Thankfully, they were not without a home as there was a loving cat pawrent on the scene who saw the whole thing go do.

Cats really do get the short end of the stick far more than they deserve to. What have they ever done to use hoomans that we did not have coming to us? Sure, some people end up with scratches, litter box contents strewn across the floor and 3 am wake up calls that start to seep into their nightmares. But these acts of revenge are just that, responses to things that hoomans have done to them. So it really grinds our gears when we hear about a cat being thrown out of their home for no good reason like in this story.

But as is often said every wrong has a right and this wrong had a right waiting right there in the very same parking lot watching the whole harrowing event happen in real time. Of course this pawrent could not just sit around and let a cat child crawl into the undergrowth to fend for themselves, and so she stepped in to bring the kitty home to rest and recover. But as time went on, things turned sour between the newcomer and one of the incumbent cat children causing quite the conundrum…