u/QuietFrustrationRam

It would be nice to be housed, fed, and clothed by the state!

Can we just take the socialist parts of Gilead?

How is it that the Aunts, handmaids, and Marthas don’t have to pay for housing, food, clothes, etc. What if the state could just provide for its people, as a benevolent state?

Working for a wage sucks and I hate capitalism LOL. Why can’t I just exist.

My understanding is that only the economen actually work for a wage, which would suck.

So I’m only about halfway through season 4, but we know that June is absolutely wrecked because she wasn’t able to bring Hannah with her out of Gilead.

We also know that Hannah no longer recognizes June, and that Hannah is even fearful of June.

While I think it’s obviously wrong that Hannah was kidnapped in the first place by Gilead, wouldn’t it be like June kidnapping her back if she was able to get Hannah? (I’ve seen and read The Testaments, I know they don’t finally reunite until Hannah is a young woman).

By that point…is the kid really “yours” if they no longer recognize you and are even afraid of you? I don’t think Hannah would willingly leave with June at this point, if she got the chance. She’d probably feel like she was getting kidnapped.

I’d be interested in learning about real life cases of stolen children who grew up with a new family and no longer recognize their birth parents.

So I’m actually from Michigan and I have taken the ferry from Milwaukee to Muskegon and back, but how are they getting all the way to Toronto? In 10 hours??

Also, what territory are the Lakes in? How is Gilead letting the NGO take refugees from Chicago to Toronto?

Also Moira said she was “born and bred” in Toronto and she used her real name with the Gilead coast guard people. Wouldn’t they know she was from Gilead?

Also…like what kind of claim does Gilead have over escaped refugees? If someone wants to emigrate from Gilead?

I’m reading The Testaments, almost finished with it. Jade/Nicole discusses the food a few times, and how bad it is. Some soup that tasted like dishwater, “fake Gilead cheese,” etc.

I would think that with Gilead’s emphasis on health, the food would at least be fresh and not processed. Even Aunt Lydia says that they have dry sandwiches with “something ruinous that had been done to tomatoes.” That’s just sad lol.

Is this all of Gilead? Or just the food that the Aunts get?

I have some issues with the audio controls. Sometimes the buttons on both the steering wheel and the dash system don’t work properly. I’ll try to adjust the volume with the dial, and it either won’t do anything, or the volume numbers don’t shift correctly.

I play music from my phone with a Bluetooth connection. Sometimes a song will randomly skip and go to the next one. Sometimes I’ll try to skip to the next song and nothing will happen. Sometimes the song will skip, but the display doesn’t change to the new song.

This sucks, but getting it fixed or replaced would be probably not worth it?

Just guessing here that the majority of people in America pre-Gilead are not even religious. Idk what the current stats are, but I’d guess that less than half of Americans currently identify as religious.

Given that Gilead mandates a very radical form of Christianity, my guess would be that most people follow along in order to not get killed.

Watching THT for the first time (finished the book last night). I will say, I do love how the tv series expands on the book, shows other perspectives, and continues the characters’ stories that are unknown in the book. I loved the book, but wish we got to see more characters’ perspectives, life in the colonies, what happens when people escape, etc.

So I loved season 2, even more than season 1. Season 1 was more depressing with the emphasis on the ceremonies and the Red Center IMO, and not as much in terms of resistance or escapes. I loved the continued world building, and June’s escape attempts in season 2. The episode where June was hiding in the mansion and gave birth was soooo thrilling, my God. I was like, is this a thriller? I’m on the edge of my seat, jaw dropped!

I’ve heard that seasons 1-4 are fantastic and seasons 5-6 are not as good. Sad.

I’m a little confused, but I bet it’s on a case-by-case basis.

For example, we find out in season 1 that Emily was an academic and was openly gay. But because she was fertile, she was made a Handmaid. Then she ran over someone with a car and got sent to the colonies.

So it seems like Emily’s known fertility was the only thing that saved her from going to the colonies in the first place. But then, she became too uncontrollable.

Or was Emily given a choice of whether she wanted to become a Handmaid or go to the colonies? Why didn’t they just kill her outright because of her being an academic and gay? Just because she had working ovaries?

I had posted another post concerning my confusion around menarche in the show, considering these girls appear past the age of menarche. Many said that the girls were “implied” to be older and that menarche starts later or doesn’t come at all due to a propagandized environmental crisis.

People said I wasn’t paying attention to the show, and that context clues and inferences would point to later menarche.

Well, Agnes is 14 y’all. These girls are not having delayed periods.

So…I have actually not seen The Handmaid’s Tale. But The Testaments caught my eye!

I’m guessing that all of the Plums were born into Gilead and don’t know anything else, but what about the adult characters? The Aunts? The Wives and Commanders?

Are the adults thinking like…wtf and go along with it because they have to? Or do they actually believe in all of this?

Yesterday I had a meeting with my supervisor and manager.

The meeting started with: “so there have been some tensions between you and the new shift lead.”

I asked for clarification, and the shift lead had told them that I didn’t do a cleaning task the other day (I explained this was because I was doing a different task that I was supposed to be doing at that time). They then said that they’ve got “complaints” that I haven’t been doing certain aspects of the job, which I said is simply not true, and I gave specific examples of things I’ve done in that regard. Because I said “that’s not accurate, I’m not sure why anyone would say that,” the manager said I “had an attitude.”

Then the manager said “it doesn’t seem like you’re happy here.” I was dumbfounded, because there’s no way she could know that. She’s not involved in my day at all, she’s in her office all the time. I then went into all of my frustrations about how tasks are either not getting done or getting done improperly and that not everyone in the department is on the same page about how things are “supposed to” be done.

Keep in mind, I was speaking very calmly and never raised my voice or anything like that.

Then, it shifted to “we’ve heard from multiple people that you said that I am a terrible supervisor.” I said “that’s not true” and I don’t even remember what I said after that. But the manager said that since “multiple people” said that I said that, there “must be some truth to it.”

Technically I did not say that my supervisor is a “terrible supervisor,” but I have given some very specific critiques/examples to a few “mid-level” staff I trusted. My critiques are not unfounded, and others agree with me. Via text, I said that the “supervisor…doesn’t supervise” and went into how she doesn’t enforce a lot of things or check in with staff or really do any kind of “supervising.” There is zero communication, and people aren’t held accountable when tasks aren’t getting done. I even said that one staff member said “oh we have to do X task now” because staff in other departments were coming to us saying that things were getting missed. as if doing that task was optional. It never was.

I then went into all of my frustrations and got zero pushback. They seemed to be in agreement with all that I was saying. I also said that some people on staff are even doing non-work related things on the computers. The manager asked for names and I said that I “didn’t want to thrown anyone under the bus.” I have seen the supervisor do non-work stuff on the computer.

For context: I have been in this role for 4 years and I’m part-time. The new shift lead has been here for less than a year. The workplace has very high turnover from non-salaried staff, everyone says that the manager is terrible and tries to start drama, and there have been criticisms of my supervisor from a number of other people who are more senior than myself.

I’m just trying to make sense of it, and I can’t. I don’t know what happened - if something I said got super duper twisted or taken out of context, or if someone is fabricating things about me. It’s very very odd. I mean I’ve been here for 4 years and I’m only now getting pulled into all of this. The current supervisor has been the supervisor for almost a year, and the shift lead has been in their position for about a week.

People also say that the manager, supervisor, and shift lead are “insecure” in their positions. I’m not trying to climb ranks, I don’t give a shit about that. But this workplace is very hierarchical and gossipy.

And now I’m crashing out.

Others vouch for my performance, so to me, this all seems very targeted and unfounded.

Yesterday I had a meeting with my supervisor and manager.

The meeting started with: “so there have been some tensions between you and the new shift lead.”

I asked for clarification, and the shift lead had told them that I didn’t do a cleaning task the other day (I explained this was because I was doing a different task that I was supposed to be doing at that time). They then said that they’ve got “complaints” that I haven’t been doing certain aspects of the job, which I said is simply not true, and I gave specific examples of things I’ve done in that regard. Because I said “that’s not accurate, I’m not sure why anyone would say that,” the manager said I “had an attitude.”

Then the manager said “it doesn’t seem like you’re happy here.” I was dumbfounded, because there’s no way she could know that. She’s not involved in my day at all, she’s in her office all the time. I then went into all of my frustrations about how tasks are either not getting done or getting done improperly and that not everyone in the department is on the same page about how things are “supposed to” be done.

Keep in mind, I was speaking very calmly and never raised my voice or anything like that.

Then, it shifted to “we’ve heard from multiple people that you said that I am a terrible supervisor.” I said “that’s not true” and I don’t even remember what I said after that. But the manager said that since “multiple people” said that I said that, there “must be some truth to it.”

Technically I did not say that my supervisor is a “terrible supervisor,” but I have given some very specific critiques/examples to a few “mid-level” staff I trusted. My critiques are not unfounded, and others agree with me. Via text, I said that the “supervisor…doesn’t supervise” and went into how she doesn’t enforce a lot of things or check in with staff or really do any kind of “supervising.” There is zero communication, and people aren’t held accountable when tasks aren’t getting done. I even said that one staff member said “oh we have to do X task now” because staff in other departments were coming to us saying that things were getting missed. as if doing that task was optional. It never was.

I then went into all of my frustrations and got zero pushback. They seemed to be in agreement with all that I was saying. I also said that some people on staff are even doing non-work related things on the computers. The manager asked for names and I said that I “didn’t want to thrown anyone under the bus.” I have seen the supervisor do non-work stuff on the computer.

For context: I have been in this role for 4 years and I’m part-time. The new shift lead has been here for less than a year. The workplace has very high turnover from non-salaried staff, everyone says that the manager is terrible and tries to start drama, and there have been criticisms of my supervisor from a number of other people who are more senior than myself.

I’m just trying to make sense of it, and I can’t. I don’t know what happened - if something I said got super duper twisted or taken out of context, or if someone is fabricating things about me. It’s very very odd. I mean I’ve been here for 4 years and I’m only now getting pulled into all of this. The current supervisor has been the supervisor for almost a year, and the shift lead has been in their position for about a week.

People also say that the manager, supervisor, and shift lead are “insecure” in their positions. I’m not trying to climb ranks, I don’t give a shit about that. But this workplace is very hierarchical and gossipy.

And now I’m crashing out.

Others vouch for my performance, so to me, this all seems very targeted and unfounded.