Howdy friends!
I would like some input from y'all if possible. I finally feel like I am ready to apply to grad school. This upcoming cycle feels like the perfect time: If I apply this fall, I should find out where I got (hopefully) accepted to by April. I will be in the city that I am in right now until right around next summer when my partner's job contract ends, and it will be the perfect time for us both to pick up and actually start our lives somewhere we don't hate lmao. I am aiming for schools back out west/ southwest, where we are from. I have had enough of the east coast after only 1 year I am aiming to apply to about a half-dozen schools
- SDSU/ UCSD (they have a joint doctoral program I am interested in)
- University of Arizona
- University of Washington
These are my realistic choices. I am also thinking about applying to USC and UCLA as my reach schools. I would be applying to biomedical programs for all of these schools.
Now a little bit about my background so y'all can lmk if I'm being a clown or if I actually have a chance.
For the past 9 months, I have worked as a research specialist in a medical school at a large research institution. I am exceedingly lucky because I work for two individual PIs on two separate projects. These PIs work very closely together in a cohort that does research on a very prevalent autoimmune disease (think Dr House). I have my name on a manuscript already, and I will have my name on 2-3 more papers by this time next year from both labs combined, which might include a mouse genotype paper which is pretty cool. I get along extremely well with everyone in my lab and I am positive that both PIs will be willing to write me very strong letters of rec.
Now, my educational background is not in biomedicine. Like I said, I just got exceedingly lucky. I graduated with a BS in what is essentially wildlife biology and a minor in environmental science in May 2019. My GPA was pretty good at a 3.65. My original intentions at 19 were vet school, but I also thought about grad school after being exposed to research in the field during undergrad. I opted to go into the workforce after I didn't have the money at the time to apply to any grad school during my senior year. Then I got fired from my first job post college and then COVID happened and I was unemployed for like 8 months in 2020 lmao. I don't want this to get too long, but from then till now, I got very lucky in terms of job opportunities and I got to work in a clinical lab which exclusively provided PCR COVID tests and results within 24 hours, for which I got to write and SOP for and train people. I worked here for a little over a year until the company closed because no one needed COVID tests anymore, which opened the door for the job that I have now.
How realistic am I with my school choices? My GRE is already expired, but none of the schools I'm applying to require it. Are the letters of rec and statements going to be strong enough for me to be a contender? Should I email professors I am interested in working with and build rapport? Should I mention that I have an incredibly supportive partner and family in the cities these universities are in so I will have support that will help me be successful? Any advice, words of wisdom, knocks upside the head will help!

I just finished my senior year in hs. I live in a small town, and after this summer, I'm gonna be going to college on the East Coast (I live on the West Coast)/ I really want to come out to my friends but I feel like a lot of them might be homophobic. But I really want to tell them who I really am (bi) before I go t ocollege ends because most of them I've been friends with since sixth or seventh grade. But then again I dont want to lose them, so maybe I shouldn't tell them? I'm also gonna be going to college with about three of them.
I really don't know what to do.

Hello all. Just looking for some advice from residents for someone who isn't very familiar with the area. As the title suggests, I am considering potentially moving our family from Iowa to Maryland for a job. I work in epidemiology/microbiology. The position is in Silver Springs, but mostly remote (I would have to go in to the office around 1x per week). My husband is a software engineer and works fully remote. Coming from Iowa, we aren't really "big city" people, and would prefer to live outside the DC metro in a quieter area. We currently live in the Des Moines metro, which is about 700k, but it still has a fairly small town feel and no where near the bustling metropolis that is the D.C. metro. I'd be cool with driving an hour or so (maybe more) to get to work, since it's only once per week. Our income is about 300k annually, so we would probably be looking to spend up to 700k for a home. Importantly, we would be moving with two younger children (a 2 year old and 3 month old), so good schools/daycare access and an area of lower crime would be important. Also, we are very outdoorsy, so it'd be a big plus if we lived near hiking areas, bike trails, water (we have kayaks), that sort of thing. Can you think of places that might fit the bill? TIA!

I've shared fiction here before and it didn't go altogether too poorly, so I'm going to press my luck and do it again. This was written about a year ago, and I'm tired of trying to peddle it to lit magazines. Might as well share it here, know that it met a few eyeballs, and have done with it.
It's relevant to the sub insofar as it's about urban alienation and the working conditions at a small business run by IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE people. (I tried to pitch it as a story of the great resignation with a momentary flicker of cosmic horror.) It's based on a similar job I took on after getting laid off during the lockdown, and the circumstances of the main character's breakup are faintly similar to one I went through several years back (her job sucked the life out of her).
Without further ado:
* * *
It was getting close to midnight, and the temperature outside was still above 80 degrees. We’d locked up the shop at 10:15 and walked over to Twenty, the dive bar on Poplar Street, where a single wall-mounted air conditioner and four wobbly ceiling fans weren’t putting up much resistance against the July heat baking the place from the outside and the dense mass of bodies giving it a stifling fever from within.
Just now I came close to saying it was a Wednesday night, because that was usually when the cyclists descended upon Avenue Brew, the gritty-but-bougie craft beer and sandwich shop I was working at back then. Every Wednesday between March and November, about fifteen to twenty-five Gen Xers dressed in skintight polyester, all packages and camel toes and fanny packs, locked up their thousand-dollar bikes on the sidewalk and lined up for IPAs and paninis. They reliably arrived around 8:00, an hour before we closed, making it impossible to get started on the closing checklist and leave on time at 10:00. The worst of them were demanding and rude, and even the best got raucous and stubborn after a couple drinks. There were nights when bringing in the sidewalk tables couldn’t be done without arguing with them. Most were sub-par tippers, to boot.
After Wednesday came and went that week without so much as a single 40-something in Ray Bans and padded shorts stopping in to double-fist two cans of Jai Alai, we dared to hope the cyclists had chosen another spot to be their finish line from there on out. But no—they’d only postponed their weekly ride, and swarmed us on Friday night instead.
I was the last person to find out; I was clocked in as purchaser that evening. The position was something like a promotion I'd received a year earlier: for twenty hours a week, I got to retreat from the public and sit in the back room with the store laptop, reviewing sales and inventory, answering emails from brewery reps, and ordering beer, beverages, and assorted paper goods. When I put in hours as purchaser, my wage went up from $11 to $15 an hour, but I was removed from the tip pool. On most days, tips amounted to an extra two or three dollars an hour, so I usually came out ahead.
This was back in 2021. I don't know what Avenue Brew pays these days.
Anyway, at about 8:15, I stepped out to say goodbye to everyone and found the shop in chaos. Friday nights were generally pretty active, the cyclists' arrival had turned the place into a mob scene. The line extended to the front door. The phone was ringing. The Grubhub tablet dinged like an alarm clock without a snooze button. Danny was on the sandwich line and on the verge of losing his temper. Oliver was working up a sweat running food, bussing tables, and replenishing ingredients from the walk-in. The unflappable Marina was on register, and even she seemed like she was about to snap at somebody.
What else could I do? I stayed until closing to answer the phone, process Grubhub orders, hop on and off the second register, and help Danny with sandwich prep. After the tills were counted out, I stayed another hour to take care of the dishes, since nobody had a chance to do a first load. Oliver was grateful, even though he grumbled about having to make some calls and rearrange Sunday's schedule so I could come in a couple hours late. Irene and Jeremy, Avenue Brew's owners, would kick his ass if he let me go into overtime.
Danny suggested that we deserved a few drinks ourselves after managing to get through the shift without killing anyone. Not even Marina could find a reason to disagree with him.
The neighborhood had undergone enough gentrification to support an upscale brunch spot, an ice cream parlor, a gourmet burger restaurant, a coffee and bahn mi shop, and Avenue Brew (to name a few examples), but not yet quite enough that the people who staffed them couldn’t afford to live within a ten-minute walk from the main avenue where all these hep eateries stood between 24-hour corner stores with slot machines in back, late-night Chinese and Mexico-Italian takeout joints with bulletproof glass at the counters, and long-shuttered delis and shoe stores. Twenty on Poplar was the watering hole set aside for people like us. It was dim, a bit dilapidated, and inexpensive, and usually avoided by denizens of the condos popping up on the vacant lots and replacing clusters of abandoned row houses.
When we arrived, Kyle waved us over. He didn’t work at Avenue Brew anymore, but still kept up with a few of us. He was at Twenty at least four nights out of the week.
So there we all were. I sat with a brooding stranger freestyling to himself in a low mumble on the stool to my left and Oliver on my right, who tapped at his phone and nursed a bottle of Twisted Tea. To Oliver’s right sat Marina, staring at nothing in particular and trying to ignore Danny, who stood behind her, closer than she would have liked, listening to Kyle explain the crucial differences between the Invincible comic book and the Invincible web series.
I recall being startled back to something like wakefulness when it seemed to me that the ceiling had sprouted a new fan. I blinked my eyes, and it wasn’t there anymore. It reminded me of an incident from when I was still living with my folks in South Jersey and still had a car, and was driving home from a friend’s house party up in Bergen County. It was 6:30 AM, I hadn’t slept all night, and needed to get home so I could get at least little shuteye before heading to Whole Foods for my 11:00 AM shift. I imagined I passed beneath the shadows of overpasses I knew weren’t there, and realized I was dreaming at the wheel.
I was pretty thoroughly zombified at that point. Heather and I had broken up for good the night before, and I hadn't gotten even a minute of sleep. Calling out at Avenue Brew was tough. Unless you found someone willing to cover your shift on like six hours' notice, you were liable to get a writeup, a demotion, or your hours cut if you couldn't produce a doctor's note. So I loaded up on caffeine pills and Five-Hour Energy bottles at the corner store, and powered through as best I could.
I finished the last thimbleful of Blue Moon in my glass. Oliver wiped the sweat from the back of his neck with a napkin and covered his mouth to stifle a laugh at the KiwiFarms thread he was scrolling through. Pool balls clacked; somebody swore and somebody laughed. The TouchTunes box was playing Bob Dylan’s “Rain Day Woman #12 & 35,” and enough bleary 40-something men around the bar were bobbing their heads and mouthing the words to make it impossible to determine which one of them paid two bucks to hear it. A guy by the cigarette machine who looked like a caricature of Art Carney in flannel and an old Pixies T-shirt was accosting a woman who must have been a toddler when he hit drinking age, and she momentarily made eye contact with me as she scanned the area for a way out. Danny was shouting over the bartender’s head, carrying on a conversation with the Hot Guy from Pizza Stan’s, who was sitting on the horseshoe’s opposite arm.
I never got his name, but when Oliver first referred to him as the Hot Guy from Pizza Stan’s, I knew exactly who he meant. Philly scene kid par excellence. Mid-20s, washed-out black denim, dyed black hair, thick bangs, and dark, gentle eyes. He was only truly alluring when he was on the job, because he seldom smiled then—and when he smiled, he broke the spell by exposing his teeth, stained a gnarly shade of mahogany from too much smoking and not enough brushing.
“How’s Best? Marcus still a joker?” Danny asked him.
“Yeah, you know Marcus. You know how he is.”
So the Hot Guy had been working at Best Burger (directly across the street from Avenue Brew) ever since Pizza Stan’s owners mismanaged the place unto insolvency. (Afterwards it was renovated and reopened as a vegan bakery—which incidentally closed down about a month ago.) Danny used to work at Best Burger, but that ended after he got into a shouting match with the owner. I happened to overhear it while I was dragging in the tables and collecting the chairs from the sidewalk the night it happened. It wasn’t any of my business, and I tried not to pay attention, but they were really tearing into each other. A month later, Oliver welcomed Danny aboard at Avenue Brew. I hadn’t known he’d been interviewed, and by then it was too late to mention the incident. But I’d have been a hypocrite to call it a red flag after the way I resigned from my position as Café Chakra's assistant manager two years earlier—not that we need to go dredging that up right now. Let's say there was some bad blood and leave it at that.
Anyway, I was thinking about giving in and buying a pack of cigarettes from the machine—and then remembered that Twenty didn’t have a cigarette machine. I looked again. The Art Carney-lookalike was still there, fingering his phone with a frown, but the girl was gone—and so was the cigarette machine.
I had only a moment to puzzle over this before Danny clapped me on the shoulder and thrust a shot glass in front of me.
“Starfish!” he said. (Danny called me Starfish. Everybody else called me Pat.) “You look like you need some juice.”
He distributed shots to everyone else. Marina declined hers, but changed her mind when Kyle offered to take it instead.
She and Kyle had stopped sleeping together after Kyle left Avenue Brew to work at the Victory taproom on the Parkway, but Marina was still concerned about his bad habits, which Danny delighted in encouraging.
We all leaned in to clink our glasses. Before I could find an appropriate moment to ask Marina if I could bum a cigarette, she got up to visit the bathroom. Danny took her seat and bowed his head for a conspiratorial word with Kyle.
I watched from the corner of my eye and tried to listen in. Like Marina, I was a little worried about Kyle. He got hired at Avenue Brew around the same time I did, just before the pandemic temporarily turned us into a takeout joint. He was a senior at Drexel then, an English major, and sometimes talked about wanting to either find work in publishing or carve out a career as a freelance writer after graduating. But first he intended to spend a year getting some life in before submitting himself to the forever grind.
He read a lot of Charles Bukowski and Hunter Thompson. He relished the gritty and sordid, and had already been good at sniffing it out around the neighborhood and in West Philly before Danny introduced him to cocaine, casinos, strip clubs, and a rogue’s gallery of shady but fascinating people. (None were really Danny’s friends; just fellow passengers who intersected with the part of his life where he sometimes went to Parx, sometimes came out ahead, sometimes spent his winnings on coke, and sometimes did bumps at titty bars.) Kyle recounted these adventures with a boyish enthusiasm for the naked reality of sleaze, like a middle schooler telling his locker room buddies about catching his older brother in flagrante and seeing so-and-so body parts doing such-and-such things.
Marina hated it. She never said as much to me, but she was afraid that the template Kyle set for his life during his “year off” was in danger of becoming locked in. The anniversary of his graduation had already passed, and now here he was trying to convince Danny to contribute a couple hundred dollars toward a sheet of acid his guy had for sale. He wasn't doing much writing lately.
I was the oldest employee at Avenue Brew (as I write this I’m 37, but fortunately I don’t look it), and when Kyle still worked with us I felt like it was my prerogative to give him some advice. The longer he waited to make inroads, I once told him, the more likely he’d be seen as damaged goods by the publishing world. He needed to jam his foot in the door while he was still young.
I could tell the conversation bored him, and didn’t bring up the subject again.
The bartender took my glass and curtly asked if I’d like another drink.
“No thanks, not yet,” I answered.
She slid me my bill.
I missed the old bartender, the one she’d replaced. I forget her name, but she was ingenuous and energetic and sweet. Pretty much everyone had some sort of crush on her. Sometimes she came into Avenue Brew for lunch, and tipped us as well as we tipped her. Maybe three months before that night—Danny witnessed it—she suddenly started crying and rushed out the door. Everyone at the bar mutely looked to each other for an explanation. (Fortunately for Twenty, the kitchen manager hadn’t left yet, and picked up the rest of her shift.)
She never came back. None of us had seen her since. But drafts still had to be poured and bottlecaps pulled off, and now here was another white woman in her mid-twenties wearing a black tank top, a pushup bra, and a scrunchie, same as before. Twenty’s regulars grew accustomed to not expecting to see the person she’d replaced, and life went on.
“How’re you doing?” I asked Oliver, just to say something to somebody, and to keep my thoughts from wandering back to Heather.
“Just kind of existing right now,” he answered. His phone lay face-up on the counter. He was swiping through Instagram, and I recognized the avatar of the user whose album he hate-browsed.
“And how’s Austin been?” I asked.
“Oh, you know. Not even three weeks after getting over the jetlag from his trip back from the Cascades, he’s off touring Ireland.” He shook his head. “Living his best life.”
He’d hired Austin on a part-time basis in September. We needed a new associate when Emma was promoted to replace a supervisor who'd quit without even giving his two weeks. There was a whole thing. I'm having a hard time recalling the guy's name, but I liked him well enough. He was a good worker and he seemed like a bright kid, but he was—well, he was young. Naïve. One day he found Jeremy sitting in the back room with his laptop, and took advantage of the open-door policy to ask why the store manager and supervisors didn’t get health benefits or paid time off. Jeremy told him it "was being worked on," and that he couldn’t discuss it any further at that time. I understand the kid got argumentative, though I never knew precisely what was said.
Irene started visiting the shop a lot more often after that, almost always arriving when the kid was working. No matter what he was doing, she’d find a reason to intervene, to micromanage and harangue him, and effectively make his job impossible. A coincidence, surely.
It’s something I still think about. By any metric, Jeremy and Irene have done very well for themselves. They’re both a little over 40 years old. I remember hearing they met at law school. In addition to Avenue Brew, they own a bistro in Francisville and an ice cream parlor in Point Breeze. They have a house on the Blue Line, send their son to a Montessori school, and pull up to their businesses in a white Volkswagen ID.4. But whenever the subject of benefits, wages, or even free shift meals came up, they pled poverty. It simply couldn’t be done. But they liked to remind us about all they did to make Avenue Brew a fun place to work, like let the staff pick the music and allow Oliver and me to conduct a beer tasting once a day. They stuck Black Lives Matter, Believe Women, and Progress flag decals on the front door and windows, and I remember Irene wearing a Black Trans Lives Matter shirt once or twice when covering a supervisor's shift. None of the college students or recent graduates who composed most of Avenue Brew's staff could say the bosses weren't on the right team. And yet...
I'm sorry—I was talking about Austin. He was maybe 30 and already had another job, a “real” job, some sort of remote gig lucrative enough for him to make rent on a studio in the picturesque Episcopal church down the street that had been converted into upscale apartments some years back. Austin wasn’t looking for extra cash. He wanted to socialize. To have something to do and people to talk to in the outside world. He wanted to make friends, and all of us could appreciate that—but it’s hard to be fond of a coworker who irredeemably sucks at his job. Austin never acted with any urgency, was inattentive to detail, and even after repeated interventions from Oliver and the supervisors, he continued to perform basic tasks in bafflingly inefficient ways. Having Austin on your shift meant carrying his slack, and everyone was fed up after a few months. Oliver sat him down, told him he was on thin ice, and gave him a list of the areas in which he needed to improve if he didn’t want to be let go.
When Austin gave Oliver the indignant “I don’t need this job” speech, it was different from those times Danny or I told a boss to go to hell and walked out. Austin truly didn’t need it. He basically said the job was beneath him, and so was Oliver.
It got deep under Oliver’s skin. He did need the job and had to take it seriously, even when it meant being the dipshit manager chewing out a man four or five years his senior. He earned $18 an hour (plus tips when he wasn’t doing admin work), had debts to pay off, and couldn't expect to get any help from his family.
The important thing, though, the part I distinctly remember, was that Oliver was looking at a video of a wading bird Austin had recorded. An egret, maybe. White feathers, long black legs, pointy black beak. Austin must have been standing on a ledge above a creek, because he had an overhead view of the bird as it stood in the water, slowly and deliberately stretching and retracting its neck, eyeing the wriggling little shadows below. As far as the fish could know, they were swimming around a pair of reeds growing out of the silt. The predator from which they extended was of a world beyond their understanding and out of their reach.
The video ended. Oliver moved on to the next item: a photograph of the bird from the same perspective, with a fish clamped in its beak. Water droplets flung from the victim's thrashing tail caught the sunlight. And I remember now, I clearly remember, the shapes of like twelve other fish stupidly milling about the bird's feet, unperturbed and unpanicked.
Danny peered at Oliver’s phone and observed a resemblance between the bird—its shape and bearing, and the composition of the photograph—and a POV porn video shot from behind and above, and he told us so. Elaborately. He made squawking noises.
“And mom says I’m a degenerate,” Oliver sighed. “Can you practice your interspecies pickup artist shit somewhere else?” Oliver flicked his wrist, shooing Danny off, and held his phone in front of his face to signal that he was done talking.
Danny sagged a little on his stool and turned away. I sometimes felt bad for him. For all his faults, he had the heart of a puppy dog. He really did think of us as his tribe. There was nobody else who’d only ever answer “yes” when you asked him to pick up a shift, and he did it completely out of loyalty.
He was turning 29 in a week. I wondered how many people would actually turn out to celebrate with him at the Black Taxi. Kyle probably would—but even he regarded Danny more as a source of vulgar entertainment than a friend.
Then it happened again. When I turned to speak to Oliver, there’d been a pair of pool cues leaning side-by-side against the wall a few stools down. Now they were gone.
This time it might have been my imagination. Somebody passing by could have casually snatched them up and kept walking.
But a moment later I seemed to notice a second TouchTunes box protruding from the wall directly behind me. I let it be.
Marina returned from the bathroom. Danny rose and offered her back her seat with an exaggerated bow. Before she got settled, I asked if she’d like to step outside with me. She withdrew her pack of Marlboro Menthols from her canvas bag, which she left sitting on the stool to deter Danny from sitting back down.
Marina never minded letting me bum cigarettes from time to time. I couldn’t buy them for myself anymore; it’s a habit I could never keep under control, and was only getting more expensive. Like everything else in the world. About once a month I reimbursed her by buying her a pack.
The air out on the sidewalk was as hot as the air inside Twenty, but easier to breathe. After lighting up, Marina leaned against the bricks and sighed.
“I wish Oliver would fire Danny already and get it over with.”
I nodded. Marina rarely talked about anything but work.
“He sneaks drinks and doesn't think anyone notices he's buzzed,” she went on. “He steals so much shit and isn’t even a little subtle about it. He’s going to get Oliver in trouble. And he’s a creep.”
“Yeah,” I said. These were her usual complaints about Danny, and they were all true. “At least he’s better than Austin.”
“That’s a low bar.”
Three dirt bikes and an ATV roared down the lonely street, charging through stop sign after stop sign, putting our talk on hold.
“Remind me. You’ve got one semester left, right?” I asked after the noise ebbed.
“Yep.”
Marina was a marketing major at Temple. She’d had an internship during the spring semester, and her boss told her to give her a call the very minute she graduated. Her parents in central Pennsylvania couldn’t pay her rent or tuition for her, so she was a full-time student and a full-time employee at Avenue Brew. Her emotional spectrum ranged from "tired" to "over it." She’d been waiting tables and working at coffee shops since she was seventeen, had no intention of continuing for even a day longer than she had to, and feared the escape hatch would slam shut if she dallied too long after prying it open.
She’d considered majoring in English, like Kyle. She went for marketing instead. I couldn’t blame her.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You’ve been kind of off all day.”
“I’m terrible.”
“Why?”
I gave dodgy answers, but she asked precisely the right follow-up questions to get me going about what happened with Heather the night before.
It was the new job. Before the pandemic, Heather worked as a server at a Center City bar and grill. (That's where I met her; we were coworkers for about a year, and then I left to work Café Chakra because it was quieter and closer to where I lived.) When the place closed its doors and laid everyone off during the lockdown, she got a stopgap job at the Acme on Passyunk, and hated it. Then in March, she found a bar-and-lounge gig in a ritzy hotel on Broad Street. Very corporate. Excellent pay, great benefits. Definitely a step up. But her new employers made Irene and Jeremy look like Bob and Linda Belcher by comparison. It was the kind of place where someone had recently gotten herself fired for leaving work to rush to the hospital after getting the news that her grandmother was about to be taken off life support, and not finding someone to come in and cover the last two hours of her shift.
Heather seldom worked fewer than fifty-five hours a week, and her schedule was even more erratic than mine. At least once a week she left the hotel at 1:00 or 2:00 AM and returned at 9:00 the next morning. Neither of us could remember the last time she’d had two consecutive days off, and it had been over a month since one of mine overlapped with one of hers. She’d spent it drinking alone at home. All she wanted was some privacy.
I’d biked to South Philly to meet her when she got home at 1:30. The argument that killed our relationship for good began around 2:30, when I complained that we never had sex anymore. Heather accused me of only caring about that, when she was so exhausted and stressed that her hair was falling out in the shower. Quit the job? She couldn’t quit. The money was too good. She had student loans, medical bills, and credit card debt, and for the first time in her life she could imagine paying it all off before hitting menopause.
So, yeah, I was cranky about our sex life being dead in the water. Say whatever you like. But at that point, what were we to each other? We did nothing together anymore but complain about work before one or both of us fell asleep. That isn’t a relationship.
She said my hair always smelled like sandwiches, even after bathing, and she was done pretending it didn’t turn her off. I told her she was one to talk—she always reeked of liquor. As things escalated, we stopped caring if her roommates heard us. “You want to be a father?” she shouted around 4:00 AM. “Making what you make? That poor fucking kid.”
We fought until sunrise, and I left her apartment with the understanding that I wouldn’t be coming back, wouldn’t be calling her ever again. I biked home and sat on the steps facing the cement panel that was my house’s backyard. After my phone died and I couldn’t anaesthetize myself with dumb YouTube videos or make myself feel crazy staring at the download button for the Tinder app, I watched the sparrows hopping on and off the utility lines for a while.
At 11:40 I went inside. One of my roommates was already in the shower, so the best I could do was put on a clean Avenue Brew T-shirt before walking to the shop and clocking in at noon to help deal with the lunch rush.
“That’s a lot,” Marina finally said. “Sorry.”
I don’t know what I was expecting her to say. She was sixteen years my junior, after all, and just a coworker. She didn’t need to hear any of this, and I definitely didn't need to be telling her. But who else was there to tell?
She’d already finished her cigarette. I still had a few puffs left. She went inside.
I decided to call it a night.
The second TouchTunes box was gone—naturally. Danny had taken my stool, and regarded my approach with a puckish you snooze you lose grin. I wasn’t going to say anything. I’d just pay my bill, give everyone a nod goodnight, and walk the five blocks back home.
And then Danny disappeared.
One second, he was there. The next—gone.
Danny didn’t just instantaneously vanish. Even when something happens in the blink of an eye, you can still put together something of a sequence. I saw him—I seemed to see him—falling into himself, collapsing to a point, and then to nothing.
You know how sometimes a sound is altogether inaudible unless you’re looking at the source—like when you don’t realize somebody’s whispering at you, and can then hear and understand them after they get your attention? I think that was the case here. I wouldn't have known to listen if I hadn't seen it happen. What I heard lingered for two, maybe three seconds, and wasn't any louder than a fly buzzing inside a lampshade. A tiny and impossibly distant scream, pitchshifted like a receding ambulance siren into a basso drone...
I don’t know. I don’t know for sure. I’m certain I remember a flash of red, and I have the idea of Danny’s trunk expanding, opening up as it imploded. A crimson flower, flecked white, with spooling pink stalks—and Danny’s wide-eyed face above it, drawn twisting and shrinking into its petals.
For an instant, Twenty’s interior shimmered. Not shimmered, exactly—glitched would be a better word. If you’re old enough to remember the fragmented graphics that sometimes flashed onscreen when you turned on the Nintendo without blowing on the cartridge, you’ll have an idea of what I mean. It happened much too fast, and there was too much of it to absorb. The one clear impression I could parse was the mirage of a cash register flickering upside-down above the pool table.
Not a cash register. The shape was familiar, but the texture was wrong. I think it was ribbed, sort of like a maggot. I think it glistened. Like—camo doesn’t work anymore when the wearer stops crouching behind a bush and breaks into a run. Do you get what I’m saying?
Nobody else seemed to notice. The pool balls clacked. A New Order track was playing on the TouchTunes box. A nearby argument about about Nick Sirianni continued unabated.
Finally, there was a downward rush of air—and this at least elicited a reaction from the bartender, who slapped my bill to keep it from sailing off the counter.
“Danny,” I said.
“Danny?” Kyle asked me quietly. His face had gone pale.
“Danny?” Oliver repeated in a faraway voice.
After a pause, Kyle blinked a few times. “You heard from him?”
“God forbid,” said Marina. “When he quit I was like, great, I can keep working here after all.”
“Oh, come on—”
“Kyle. Did I ever show you those texts he sent me once at three in the morning?” The color had returned to Oliver’s face.
“No, what did he say?”
Oliver tapped at his phone and turned the screen toward Kyle.
“Oh. Oh, jeez.”
“Right? Like—if you want to ask me something, ask me. You know? Don’t be weirdly accusatory about it…”
I pulled a wad of fives and ones from my pocket, threw it all onto the counter, and beelined for the exit without consideration for the people I squeezed through and shoved past on the way.
I heard Marina saying “let him go.”
I went a second consecutive night without sleep. Fortunately I wasn’t scheduled to come in the next day.
The schedule. It’s funny. Oliver was generally great at his job, and even when he wasn’t, I cut him a lot of slack because I knew Irene and Jeremy never gave him a moment’s peace. But I could never forgive him those times he waited until the weekend to make up and distribute the schedule. This was one of those weeks he didn’t get around to it until Saturday afternoon. When I found it in my inbox, Danny’s name wasn’t anywhere on it.
As far as I know, nobody who hadn’t been at Twenty that night asked what happened to him. We were a bit overstaffed as it was, and everyone probably assumed Danny was slated for the chopping block. The part-timers were, for the most part, happy to get a few additional hours.
Oliver abruptly quit around Labor Day after a final acrimonious clash with the owners. I never found out the details, and I never saw him again. Jeremy and Irene took turns minding the store while a replacement manager was sought. None of the supervisors would be pressured into taking the job; they knew from Oliver what they could expect.
About three weeks after Oliver left, I came in for my purchasing shift and found Jeremy waiting for me in the back room. I knew it was serious when he didn’t greet me with the awkward fist-bump he ordinarily required of his male employees.
“You’ve seen the numbers,” he said. Business for the summer had fallen short of expectations, it was true, and he and Irene had decided to rein in payroll expenses. My purchaser position was being eliminated. Its responsibilities would be redistributed among the supervisors and the new manager, when one was found. In the meantime, I'd be going back to the regular $11 an hour (plus tips of course) associate position full-time.
Jeremy assured me I'd be first in the running for supervisor the next time there was an opening.
I told him it was fine, I was done, and if he’d expected the courtesy of two weeks’ notice, he shouldn’t have blindsided me like that.
“Well, that’s your choice,” he answered, trying not to look pleased. His payroll problem was solving itself.
I racked up credit card debt for a few months. Applied for entry-level museum jobs that might appreciate my art history degree. Aimed for some purchasing and administrative assistant gigs, and just for the hell of it, turned in a resume for a facilitator position at an after-school art program. Got a few interviews. All of them eventually told me they’d decided to go in a different direction. I finally got hired to bartend at Hops from Underground, a microbrewery on Fairmount.
I’m still there. The money’s okay, but it fluctuates. Hours are reasonable. I’m on their high-deductible health plan. There’s a coworker I’ve been dating. Sort of dating. You know how it goes. In this line of work you get so used to people coming and going that you learn not to get too attached. I walk past Avenue Brew a few times a week, but stopped peering in through the window when I didn't recognize the people behind the counter anymore.

Company Name	Title	City
Erickson Senior Living	Healthcare Marketing Associate	Parkville
Penguin Random House	Marketing Aide	New York
Penguin Random House	Marketing Assistant	New York
Penguin Random House	Sales Marketing Assistant, Crown Publishing Group	Yonkers
Karat Financial	Head of Marketing	Los Angeles
Genomatica	Vice President of Product Marketing	San Diego
Thomson Reuters	Sales Executive, Digital Marketing (West Coast)	San Diego
Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, Inc.	Vice President, Marketing	San Diego
Weights & Biases	Head of Product Marketing	San Francisco
Rippling	Product Marketing Manager	San Francisco
GoodRx	Director, B2B Lifecycle Marketing	Santa Monica
HNI Corp	Marketing Manager	Muscatine
Thermacell Repellents, In	Digital Marketing Coordinator	Bedford
Cornerstone Research	Chief Marketing Officer	Boston
Confidential	Marketing Director	Waltham
Erickson Senior Living	Director of Talent Development, Sales Marketing & Communications	Baltimore
Masco Corporation	Brand Marketing Manager	Novi
First American	Product Marketing Manager - Remote	Portland
The Travelers Companies, Inc	AVP, Integrated Marketing Strategy	Philadelphia
Foxtrot	Senior Vice President of Marketing	Dallas
LendingTree	Email Marketing Manager	Seattle
Foley & Lardner	Senior Manager, Business Development & Marketing	Milwaukee
CHI Living Communities	Immediate Openings Director Of Marketing Riverview Place Fargo	West Fargo
Cégep Héritage College	Conseiller ou Conseillère en marketing et en communication	Gatineau
Société des casinos du Québec	Chargé(e) de projet - Marketing	La Malbaie

Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in . Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!

Hello,
J'ai remarqué un phénomène étrange sur /france ces derniers jours : certains posts qui arrivent en front page du sub accumulent un nombre de crossposts astronomique.
Par exemple, ces deux posts qui sont arrivés en tête du sous hier ont respectivement 46 et 38 crossposts:
https://www.reddit.com/france/duplicates/13y9wlu/exclusif_8_fran%C3%A7ais_sur_10_ne_voient_pas/
https://www.reddit.com/france/duplicates/13yf2vz/je_ne_pensais_pas_que_vous_me_retrouveriez_de_la/
Vous pouvez faire le test vous-même en triant les posts du sub par top de la semaine.
D'autres exemples en vrac :
https://www.reddit.com/france/duplicates/13vlrvl/%C3%A9ric_coquerel_d%C3%A9clare_recevable_la_proposition_de/ (8 crossposts)
https://www.reddit.com/france/duplicates/13uplf3/le_ministre_fran%C3%A7ais_du_num%C3%A9rique_se_d%C3%A9clare_pr%C3%AAt/ (18 crossposts)
https://www.reddit.com/france/duplicates/13wt7wp/cyril_hanouna_la_cha%C3%AEne_c8_condamn%C3%A9e_%C3%A0_une_amende/ (10 crossposts)
https://www.reddit.com/france/duplicates/13viliq/gr%C3%A8ve_in%C3%A9dite_%C3%A0_disneyland_paris_le_climat_social/ (8 crossposts)
Dans tous ces cas, les crossposts sont quasiment tous faits en direction du profil de l'utilisateur en question et pas sur un autre subreddit. Les comptes qui crosspostent massivement ces sujets ont tous des noms générés par défaut par reddit, très peu de karma, postent sur des subreddits de type /FreeKarma4You, et surtout : ils sont tous très intéressés par des subreddit liés à Temu. Pour ceux qui comme moi ne connaissent pas, il s'agit d'une companie Chinoise d'e-commerce fondée en 2022.
Wikipedia:

Temu is an online marketplace operated in a number of countries by the Chinese-based company PDD Holdings Inc.[1] It offers heavily discounted goods[2] which are mostly shipped to consumers directly from China.[3]
Temu is owned and operated by the Chinese-based and Cayman Island registered[4] company PDD Holdings, which also owns Pinduoduo, a popular online commerce platform in China.[5] The platform first went live in the United States in September 2022[1] In February 2023, Temu launched in Canada.[6] That same month, the company aired a Super Bowl ad.[7] In March 2023, Temu launched in Australia and New Zealand.[8] In the following month, Temu was launched in France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.[9]
Temu allows China-based vendors to sell and ship directly to customers without having to rely on warehouses in the destination country.[10] Online purchased on Temu can be made using an Internet browser or through a dedicated mobile app. In late 2022, the Temu app was the most frequently downloaded app in the United States.[11]
Temu offers free goods to some users who successfully encourage new users via affiliate codes, social media, and gamification.[2] It also uses online advertising on Facebook and Instagram. According to Sarah Perez writing for TechCrunch, "These ads appear to be working to boost Temu's installs. But dig into the app's reviews and you'll find similar complaints to Wish, including scammy listings, damaged and delayed deliveries, incorrect orders and lack of customer service."[11] According to Andrew Chow writing for Time, Temu is also starting to develop a reputation for undelivered packages, mysterious charges, incorrect orders, and unresponsive customer service.[2]
In May 2023, concerns were raised about risks to users' personal data as the Pinduoduo shopping app was removed from Google Play Store after some of its versions were found to contain malware.[12]
On May 17, 2023, Montana governor Greg Gianforte banned Temu on government devices state-wide, along with ByteDance applications (including TikTok), Telegram, and WeChat.[13][14] The ban was criticized by the American Civil Liberties Union as "anti-Chinese".

En pratique, ça a l'air d'être un concurrent à Wish avec tous les problèmes que ça implique (par exemple, on retrouve souvent ces profils parler de dropshipping). Apparemment, j'ai eu de la chance de ne pas en avoir entendu parlé jusqu'ici étant donné qu'ils font de la pub de manière très aggressive et avec un budget énorme.
De fait, les subreddits liés à Temu ressemblent un peu à un champ de bataille, on y trouve quasiment uniquement des posts pour mendier du karma:
/TEMU_Official
/temu
/TEMU_Canada
/TemuHelp (celui là a carrément un post en sticky qui parle de vendre des bots...)
Il faut admettre que ces comptes ressemblent quand même fortement à des bots. Je ne sais pas trop quel intérêt ils retirent de toutes ces manoeuvres, peut-être que quelqu'un qui connaît mieux la plate-forme pourra nous éclairer là-dessus.
Finalement, à part le haut nombre de cross-posts, on est pas vraiment impacté sur /france étant donné que ces comptes sont, de ce que j'ai vu, très souvent en dessous de la limite de 50 karma nécessaire pour que AutoModerator ne vire pas leurs posts automatiquement. Je me demande quand même pourquoi ils ont l'air de viser /france si massivement. C'est peut-être juste parce que j'ai pas remarqué le phénomène sur d'autres subreddits que je fréquente moins, donc si vous avez des exemples je suis preneur.
C'est peut-être aussi une bonne idée de prendre note de ces comptes et de les bannir du sous tant qu'ils sont en dessous de la limite de karma et facilement identifiable par ces crossposts. Une fois qu'ils auront acquis le karma nécessaire pour poster ici, que leurs commentaires soit juste des reposts ou générés par IA, je pense qu'il y a de bonne chances qu'ils passent inaperçus.
C'est tout pour moi !
Edit : J'ai pris quelques captures d'ecran sur PC pour ceux pour qui les liens ne fonctionnent pas :
https://i.imgur.com/A6FwDNQ.png
https://i.imgur.com/BI2KJ3i.png

SmackDown Episode #1241
Venue: Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza (Wilkes-Barre, PA)
Attendance: ~9000

Results of Tonight's Show

Match	Stipulation	Winner
The Brawling Brutes vs. Austin Theory & Pretty Deadly	Six-Man tag Match	Austin Theory & Pretty Deadly
Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson vs. Hit Row	Tag Team Match	Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson
Zelina Vega vs. Lacey Evans	MITB Qualifying Match	Zelina Vega
Montez Ford vs. LA Knight	MITB Qualifying Match	LA Knight

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• Tonight begins with a tribute to the history of Roman Reigns' championship reign, running through his successful defenses and showing how many other champions whose reigns he has outstood.
  
• Austin Theory greets us from the ring. It's a special night because of Roman's title celebration, but what if you combined it with the greatest US Championship reign (aka Theory's reign) you'd have 1209 days. It's inspiring, like being the guy who beat John Cena at Wrestlemania. He knows he'll have a 1000 day celebration, maybe more thousands, but if he keeps being given guys like Sheamus he'll be US Champion forever. But he's here for those who do what was right, and that's why he's teaming with Pretty Deadly tonight. They join him in the ring and note it was their pleasure destroying those ugly gremlins, the Brawling Brutes. They want to show Austin their appreciation for him as a champion and gave him a YESSS BOYYYYYYY.
  
• Paul Heyman is speaking at Solo Sikoa backstage, talking about how they need to make tonight special especially after everything that happened at Night of Champions. He's going to go talk to Adam Pearce to make sure the Usos are nowhere to be found.
  
• Earlier today the OC was chatting backstage about taking out Hit Row.
  
• Post-match, AJ Styles takes down Top Dolla with a Phenomenal Forearm. And Cole attempted something that I'm not sure could be called a "rap"
  
• Adam Pearce is pre-emptive with Paul Heyman. The Usos's travel was canceled and he's promising there will be no issues.
  
• Seth "Freakin'" Rollins vs. Damian Priest World Heavyweight Championship match announced for Raw!
  
• It's the Grayson Waller Effect with guest Raw Women's Champion, Asuka. They replay Asuka's win over Bianca Belair at Night of Champions. Waller notes Money in the Bank is coming soon, plus Bianca will likely be coming for the championship again soon again, right? Asuka pops off with her screaming craziness and Waller agrees. IYO SKY interrupts, and the two begin screaming at each other in Japanese. Waller tries to interrupt when Bayley's music hits. She says obviously a member of Damage CTRL is going to win the Money in the Bank... and is then interrupted by Shotzi who wants to crush her dreams. And is interrupted by Lacey Evans, who says the contract is coming home to her. AND IS INTERRUPTED by Zelina Vega who says they're all underestimating her. It becomes a screaming argument while Grayson Waller giggles and says he loves America. Asuka reminds everyone that nobody is ready for her just in time for Bianca to attack from behind, with officials attempting to separate them.
  
• Cameron Grimes is talking to Adam Pearce about wanting to get his hands on Baron Corbin, but he's a free agent now showing up in NXT.
  
• During the break while they were cleaning up after the Grayson Waller Effect, Lacey cheap-shotted Zelina ahead of their match.
  
• After Zelina's win, the LWO meet to celebrate backstage, ahead of Santos Escobar also having a MITB qualifying match next week. Rey Mysterio says he can see it, Santos & Zelina, Mr & Mrs Money in the Bank.
  
• Post-match, LA Knight pulls out a super-tall ladder and poses with the dangling Money in the Bank briefcases.
  
• Spooky winter forest with spooky weirdos sacrificing things over a fire… it's a vignette for Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn.
  
• Triple H joins us in the ring tonight. He says we will be talking about this man for generations, welcome the Tribal Chief, the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, Roman Reigns. Roman, Solo & Paul join the ring and Triple H congratulates him on a reign that hasn't happend in almost 40 years. To commemorate this, Triple H reveals the new WWE Undisputed Universal Championship belt. Roman removes the old WWE Championship belt and Triple H fastens the new title around his waist. Roman asks the entire universe to acknowledge him... and the Usos' music hits.
  
• Jimmy stares down Roman in the ring while Jey paces. Roman tells Jey to kick him in the face. He needs to fix this, kick him in the face. Jey continues pacing and as Roman again demands him to kick Jimmy in the face and fix this, Jimmy says the only one that needs fixing is Roman. He did what he did because he was being a brother, and brothers treat brothers with love and respect... and lately Roman hasn't been such a good brother. What kind of brother manipulates, betrays, and beats down his own family? He's going to protect his brother, including Solo, as Roman will eventually turn on him too, use him up and kick him in the dirt. Roman says the only reason why the crowd champs Uso is because of him. He's the Tribal Chief, and Jimmy's the imposter. Roman says why don't we hear from Solo who he's loyal to & who he runs with. Solo stands contemplating with the mic in his hand before acknowledging his Tribal Chief... but these two here are his brothers. So then walks over to stand beside the Usos.
  
• Jimmy asks Roman, do they want to run this thing together or does he want to be on the Island of Relevancy all by himself? Roman tells Jimmy to shut his mouth but Jimmy hits him. As it looks to spin up Jey stands between them, telling Roman that they need him and they don't need to fight like this. Jimmy agrees saying they're stronger together, and let's run this place together. Jey is still pacing as Roman sweats it out before finally embracing Jimmy in a long hug... and replies... "no." Solo hits Jimmy with a Samoan Spike.
  

Additional Plugs

• Revisit the live thread
  
• Check out our SquaredCircle Twitter account for all sorts of AMA announcements and interaction!
  
• Join our SquaredCircle Discord for live chat!
  
• Be sure to follow @WWE on Twitter and Like WWE on Facebook!
  
• Like other wrestling promotions? Perhaps you're looking for other subreddits related to wrestling? There's a sub for that! Check out /AEWOfficial, /luchaunderground, /njpw, /ImpactWrestling, /ROH, /indiewrestling, /Wrasslin and more!
  

Next week's Smackdown will be live from Des Moines, IA.

Company Name	Title	City
BigOTires	Automotive Service Technician	Clear Lake
Bayer	Manufacturing Process Designer	Muscatine
Bayer	Veterans Preferred - Process Engineer	Muscatine
Bayer	Veterans Preferred - Sr. Process Engineer	Muscatine
Bayer	Veterans Preferred - Sr. Process Engineer	West Liberty
Bayer	Veterans Preferred - Process Engineer	West Liberty
Edward Jones	Associate Financial Advisor - Ankeny, IA	Ankeny
Milan Laser Company	Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN)	Des Moines
Empowerme Wellness	Physical Therapist (PT) $1,500 Sign on Bonus	Fort Madison
Milan Laser Company	Metro Travel Licensed Practical Nurse	Iowa City
ATI Physical Therapy	PRN Physical Therapist	Urbandale
TriMark USA	Contract Sales Representative	Altoona
Best Buy	Project Team Specialist- Based in West Des Moines	Ankeny
CNH Industrial	Engineering Rotational Program	Burlington
Silgan Containers LLC	Mechanic - (13577)	Burlington
CNH Industrial	Digital Data Engineer	Burlington
The Hershey Company	Territory Sales Lead (Waterloo, IA)	Cedar Falls
Innova Solutions	Data Entry Clerk	Cedar Rapids
Mestek Machinery, Inc	Mid Level MECHANICAL ENGINEER	Cedar Rapids
Mestek Machinery, Inc	Jr Mechanical Engineer	Cedar Rapids
Mestek Machinery, Inc	CNC Machinist 2nd Shift	Cedar Rapids
Cargill	Utilities Technician	Clear Lake
Cargill	Processing Team Member	Clear Lake
Integrated DNA Technologies	EHS Manager	Coralville
Michael Foods Inc.	Summer Work Program - Second Shift	Creston

Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in ia. Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!

Inspired by a recent post regarding the appeal of Singapore's public transport system (including public buses), I dug deeper into how public bus services are scheduled by the LTA since they took over central bus planning in the early 2010s.
Note: To simplify the technical explanations of specific bus-related terminology, some parts of the post have been generated through ChatGPT.
In 2014, the LTA launched the Bus Service Reliability Framework (BSRF), aimed at improving en-route reliability of bus services. Under the BSRF trial between 2014 & 2016, the reliability of 55 basic bus services were monitored under 2 new indicators:

• Excess Wait Time (EWT): EWT focuses on minimising the waiting time experienced by passengers at bus stops by measuring the average time passengers wait beyond the scheduled headway (the expected time between two consecutive buses). The goal is to keep the EWT within a certain threshold, typically a few minutes, to ensure that passengers do not face excessive waiting times. It allows for slight variations in bus arrival times, as long as the average wait time remains within the set threshold. This improves the consistency of bus frequencies by reducing the likelihood of long waits between buses.
• On-Time Adherence (OTA): OTA focuses on ensuring that buses adhere closely to the scheduled arrival and departure times by measuring the percentage of buses that arrive and depart within a specific time window around the scheduled time. The goal is to achieve a high percentage of on-time departures and arrivals, often set at 80% or higher. Thus, it requires buses to closely adhere to the scheduled timetable, minimising variations in arrival and departure times. It aims to provide a more predictable and reliable service for passengers, allowing them to plan their journeys based on the published timetable.

Since the start of the Bus Contracting Model (BCM) in 2016, all basic bus services are required to operate under either EWT or OTA indicators. As of this post, most basic bus services operate under the EWT indicator, while a minority of 77 "low frequency" bus services operate under OTA, based on a Facebook post by Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Transport Baey Yam Keng in 2019 (Link to the post cannot be shared here due to Reddit restrictions). The quantity of OTA services has changed since then, with the discontinuation of multiple OTA services in 2020 (post-COVID), and the launch of new OTA services (most of which being route variants).
1 major downside of bus services under OTA is their potentially longer travelling time, as bus drivers are required to adhere to strict schedules, which means driving slower or laying over at bus stops when they reach too early.
Here is the updated list of services running under OTA as of Apr 2023. OTA services can be easily identified by their timetables at their calling bus stops. For SBS Transit and Tower Transit OTA services, their timetables can also be found on their service guides, as well as the SBS Transit app (for SBST services only). All Express (services starting with 5xx, with suffix "e" and "E") and City Direct bus services (services starting with 6xx) currently run under OTA. Thus, they'll be excluded from the list below.

• Operates on OTA daily (including public holidays): 11, 40, 42, 98M, 115, 127/127A, 143M, 160, 160M, 170, 175, 177, 191, 400, 401, 403, 912*, 927, 950, 970, 972M, 976, 981
• Operates on OTA on Saturdays only: 90A, 92/92B, 162/162M, 980
• Operates on OTA on Sundays & Public Holidays only: 78, 96, 173, 183, 883M, 966
• Operates on OTA on Saturdays, Sundays & Public Holidays only: 54, 57, 79, 90, 93, 97, 122, 123, 125, 136, 155, 156, 158, 186, 200/200A

*Service 912 (in this instance) refers to the intra-town trips that operate on both East loop (towards Admiralty MRT) and West loop (towards Woodlands Train Checkpoint) only. The single loop trips (912A & 912B) currently operate on EWT.
With the above background info on BSRF and the EWT/OTA indicators, here are some questions for fellow redditors who frequent public bus services in Singapore (and overseas):

1. Effectiveness: Did you notice improvements in bus punctuality since the introduction of OTA on selected services? Are buses generally arriving on time as per the schedules?
2. Flexibility vs. Precision: Do you appreciate the strict adherence to schedules with OTA, or do you feel it limits flexibility for passengers with longer travelling time on buses? Did you encounter situations where buses have left early or missed connections due to strict adherence to the schedule?
3. Efficiency: In your opinion, has OTA resulted in better utilisation of bus resources and improved service efficiency? Or do you feel there are instances of inefficient operations, such as empty or overcrowded buses?
4. Expansion of OTA to Existing EWT Services: Given your experience with OTA services (if any), should OTA be extended to more trunk services (i.e. services with frequencies longer than 15 mins, instead of the current standard of 20 mins).
5. Comparison with Overseas Implementation: For redditors living/who have lived overseas and taken their bus services, are there similar bus reliability indicators implemented by their bus operators/authorities? Are they more effective than the EWT/OTA indicators by LTA, and should Singapore take a page out of overseas bus operators when implementating such indicators?

While the above questions mainly focus on OTA, those who have thoughts on the effectiveness of EWT in improving bus service reliability can also share them below.

With summer quickly approaching - looking for some recommendations for bars with nice outdoor seating or rooftops. What are some of your favorite places to go in Des Moines with good outdoor vibes (downtown, east village, west DSM, etc.)?

Company Name	Title	City
Medical Resource Group, Inc.	Nurse Practitioner - Des Moines	Des Moines
Adel Acres	Dietary Cook $750 Sign On Bonus	Adel
VisionBank	Full Time Teller (Altoona)	Altoona
Connectivity Source T-Mobile Authorized Retailer	T-Mobile Sales Representative	Altoona
Athletico Physical Therapy	Physical Therapist Assistant - West Ames	Ames
Covenant Family Solutions	Senior Clinician	Ames
UnityPoint Health	Patient Access Associate (PRN)	Anamosa
UnityPoint Health	Medical Technologist (MT) or Medical Lab Technician (MLT) - (Part Time)	Anamosa
McFarland Clinic, P.C.	Receptionist/Pt Reg Rep (PT) Outreach Ankeny 2023-032	Ankeny
Hintz Family Dentistry	Bilingual Receptionist (English/Spanish) Full Time	Ankeny
Fleet Farm	Firearms Specialist	Ankeny
Ruan Transportation Management Systems	Dispatch Coordinator	Ankeny
Landus Cooperative	Sales Agronomist	Atlantic
Audubon County Memorial Hospital & Clinics	RN – Med-Surg/ED (Full-Time – rotating weekends)	Audubon
National Staffing Solutions	Physical Therapist Assistant - SNF	Avoca
WesleyLife	CNA, Certified Nursing Assistant, 2nd Shift	Bettendorf
NEW Cooperative, Inc	Port of Blencoe Longshoreman - Grain	Blencoe
Optimae Home Health Services	Field Nurse Case manager	Burlington
Industrial Service Corp	1st Shift - General Assembly/Warehouse Associate	Burlington
Western Smokehouse Partners	2nd Shift Processing Technician	Burlington
ExamOne, A Quest Diagnostics Company	Medically Trained Mobile Phlebotomist (PT) (IA)	Burlington
Securitas Security Services USA, Inc	Access Control Officer (FT)	Burlington
Slumberland & Prenger's Flooring America	Warehouse Manager (FT)	Carroll
McFarland Clinic, P.C.	Support Staff Supervisor (Receptionist Supervisor) (FT) Family Medicine Carroll 2023-066	Carroll
Housby Mack, Inc.	Service and Parts Advisor	Carroll

Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in ia. Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!