Dumb shit your work does: for some reason in the Diablo font.

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Dumb shit your work does: for some reason in the Diablo font.

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YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

We had a gathering where everyone at the company was treated to dinner and an open bar.

The next morning, we were put into little groups and forced to "bond" by coming up with ways to improve our company's platform. Most of us just sat there. :geno:

# ¿ Jan 30, 2021 18:05

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 14:01

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

I'm sorry if I missed this, but does anyone else work at a company where they hired waves and waves of new people so it ended up that there were whole departments of people who had -- at most -- 4-ish months of experience?

Currently I work at a company where there are four QA people on my team (myself included) -- my boss has a year of experience being a boss altogether, today is my two-month-iversary, and the other QA people got hired like three weeks ago. THEY'RE asking ME for help, and it feels very "blind leading the blind"-y.

There's also the fact that onboarding took about a month, and part 1 was for marketing-centric, and part 2 was dev-centric, so I spent about a month learning very little that would actually help me do my own job.

# ¿ May 27, 2022 16:52

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Zil posted:

So not technically a dumb thing my current job is doing, but anyone currently applying for jobs are you having to do multiple interviews for something that seems like a simple yes or no from one person is fine? I am not someone applying for upper management, so having to sit through 3 or more interviews seems a bit extreme.

I had three interviews with seven people, and a salary negotiation, and I legit started wondering whether or not I even wanted the job toward the end of it. Such an exhausting process, and now that I'm in it and dealing with all the dumb poo poo from my last post, I'm legit starting to wonder if the 17-ish% raise was even worth it.

# ¿ May 27, 2022 19:37

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Can someone on this doomed earth please tell me what the point is of scheduling 20-minute "speedy meetings" if the meetings still regularly go for 30 minutes or more? :psyduck:

# ¿ Jun 8, 2022 19:20

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Samuel L. Hacksaw posted:

Abusing you to keep you subservient. I just drop them at the scheduled time unless there's profit depending on the discussion, otherwise it can be a tomorrow thing.

I mean, I'm pretty sure that 90+% of things that office jobs do is for that purpose, but how does scheduling but not honoring a short meeting keep employees subservient specifically?

# ¿ Jun 8, 2022 20:21

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Samuel L. Hacksaw posted:

They'll yell at you for dropping at the meeting end time once it becomes a pattern, and accuse you of shirking duties. At least that's what happened to me.

In my experience, that isn't the case. It's more that it's just accepted among everyone.

For example, there was a meeting today scheduled for 1-1:20. At literally 1:25, the meeting host was like "well, we're over speedy meeting time -- do we have anything else to discuss?" Everyone thought about it for a solid minute, then he decided to go through the rest of a list of stuff to talk about. Then everyone thought about each list item, and by the time they were done, it was 1:31, at which point he asked AGAIN if anyone had any other thoughts. Then he ended the meeting. Like...why?????

# ¿ Jun 8, 2022 20:42

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Samuel L. Hacksaw posted:

You acquiesced to the dominance game. He proved that he can get you to stay after the meeting end time.

I'd be less acquiescent if I had been there for more than two months.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2022 20:58

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

side_burned posted:

I gusse being tech support gives me a different perspective on meetings. However, boring a meeting may be its better than talking to the clients.

The fact that literally anything is better than talking to clients is basically how I stumbled into my current job. I was working at this tiny company with three devs and they asked me to go over this giant update that they were about to deploy, and I was like "yay no phones!" and then it turned out that QA was fun.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2022 16:43

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

# ¿ Jun 13, 2022 19:08

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

I feel like every couple of weeks I learn a new corporate slang term. A couple of weeks ago, it was "popcorn". More recently, it was "dog food". I wonder what will come next. :geno:

# ¿ Oct 5, 2022 19:49

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Thank you for defining "dog food" for me. :eng101:

TotalLossBrain posted:

Don't make me look up popcorning on Urban Dictionary

"Popcorning" seems to be synonymous with "passing the mic", just making sure that someone talks after you in a meeting.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2022 23:04

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

CitizenKain posted:

We got a reminder to log into our HR portal and complete our self assessment for the year. By the looks of, its the standard review given by our managers, but now we do it to ourselves?
It honestly seems like they hosed something up, as it looks like we are filling in the manager's fields, and then they comment on it. Pretty much in reverse to how it should go.

happyhippy posted:

My company has been doing that for years.
Its a pure scam. I've argued with my direct manager if I really thought I was the best employee ever, did nothing wrong the entire year, did everything perfectly, if I put that down in my own review would it mean I would get a pay rise or more of the profit share?
gently caress no. Its what my direct manager thinks.
Self review is so that they can get ammo they wouldn't normally see to use against you.
"I think I did great this year, why is my pay raise 1%?"
"Well you said in your review yourself you were lacking in some parts of the job, so not meeting expectations."

Isn't this the logic behind unlimited PTO too, that we'll be more inclined to police ourselves more harshly to the benefit of the company? Giving ourselves C reviews "to be fair" so our boss doesn't have to admit we did A- work & the company doesn't have to reward us, giving ourselves 7 vacation days a year "to be fair" so the company doesn't have to outright TELL us that we could take three whole weeks?

# ¿ Oct 13, 2022 03:23

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

CitizenKain posted:

People will pick weird things to just decide not to learn.

My grandmother wanted to learn online banking, and she straight up refused to use her password. I tried to sign in when the password that was written down for her, and I couldn't log in so I was confused. I was like, "isn't your password 'Password!'? Why isn't it working?" and she was just like "I figured I could log in with 'password' instead." Then we couldn't unlock her account because she didn't have her email password. I'm not sure why we didn't have security questions, but whatever, I was over it.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2022 04:49

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

I can't believe I never posted in here about one of my coworkers unironically using the word :females:

during a meeting. Did I post about it in a different thread? Well, whatever, I'm posting it here now.

It was jarring, to say the least. He's kind of a douche, but it still caught me off guard.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2022 23:27

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Backstory: we had this thing called Recharge Fridays, in which we all got one Friday a month off.

quote:

Team,

We still have two weeks left in FY24 and are also laying the foundation for success in FY24. We have a focused strategy and important work to do, so we must act purposefully amidst the intensifying economy and competitive landscape around us.

As you�ve seen in our FY24 Strategy and ongoing changes to Working at [company] as part of our Execution Excellence initiative, we�re making changes to meetings, the crew model, and more to help all of us move at greater velocity and have more space to innovate across the company.

We also know we need more time for the work that matters and must balance this time with the need to recharge. As myself and my Direct reports assessed the work to be done in FY24, and the time and space we need to do it, it was clear we need to evolve our approach to Recharge Friday.

Going forward, Recharge Fridays will happen four times a year in the middle of each quarter, namely, the second Friday of the month in the second month of the quarter. So the Recharge Friday dates are:

* March 10

* June 9

* September 8

* December 8

We recognize that each of us recharges in different ways and that this shift may take adjustment. We believe that by creating more time to do the important work that will achieve our goals, while balancing that work with time to recharge, we�ll be at a healthy balance.

Thanks,
Robert

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 17:22

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

I feel bad because a bunch of our recruiters recently got laid off, and while I don't wish ill on them specifically, I have literally never had a positive experience with a recruiter.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 21:50

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Remember that time the CEO cut our Fridays off from once a month to once a quarter? Well, he sent us another email about it (warning: long), this time with the subject "Velocity Matters".

quote:

Hi Team,

A number of people have noted that with FY24 planning there is a lot of talk about velocity, urgency, and execution excellence. Folks have noted that across all of our FY24 Company Crews, the CEO is the Exec Sponsor on only one, and that crew is Execution Excellence. I think it's fair to say the subtext is "Why in the world does it make sense for the CEO to focus on the details of execution and not on the broader strategy as we head into what is sure to be a challenging FY24"?

A simple but powerful formula I think about is:

Strategy + Execution Excellence + Urgency = Velocity

Velocity, which is both speed and direction, is the key to our future success. The company with the highest velocity has enormous advantages. Higher velocity means faster decisions, faster iteration, faster innovation, faster speed to market, and ultimately delivering more value to our customers. A focus on velocity does not mean we stop making big bets or lower our quality bar - it means that we do those things with a focus on our speed to market.

But we can't just all tell ourselves "go faster". We have to collectively create an environment where world-class velocity is achievable.

Velocity starts with the right strategy. For FY24 we have a well articulated strategy, as detailed in the strategy memo, and if we deliver on that strategy I am confident we will win the category. So execution excellence, urgency, and velocity are now front and center for me and the leadership team.

Execution Excellence requires a number of things:

* Aligned priorities. We are driving this through our Company OKRs, Company Initiatives, and Company Crews.
* Clear Roles and Responsibilities. We are driving this through the consistent application of the [company] Crew Model.
* Efficient Decision Making. We are driving this through the consistent application of the GREAT decision making framework to delegate decisions and empower our people.
* Fewer Meetings, Better Meetings. We are driving this through consistent application of meeting best practices. Meetings are core to how we work, and making them more efficient is a critical piece of execution excellence.

Having the right strategy and execution are necessary but not sufficient to achieve high velocity. You need "skill" (strategy + execution) but you also need the "will" to go fast and that is where urgency comes in.

Urgency is not a one-time thing; it's not an email or a memo. Urgency is a mindset to pick up the pace, get things done, and deliver customer value. Urgency creates energy and momentum and excitement. Urgency is not code for working more hours, rather, it is about working and thinking differently. It's using every encounter, meeting, and opportunity to increase the pace of whatever is going on. A culture of urgency sets ambitious but achievable schedules, constantly looks for and removes blockers that are slowing down projects, challenges assumptions that might be unnecessarily burdening crews, and in general remains laser focused on delivering real customer value as fast as possible.

An analogy I think about is running a race. To win the race you need both the skill but you also need the will to win the race. Often the race goes to the runner that wants it more and is willing to push harder. The same is true in business. Combined with the right strategy and execution, a company with the will to push hard is almost impossible to beat.

Coming back to the original question, my focus on execution excellence is a means to help us increase our velocity. With the right strategy, execution excellence, and urgency we will remain unstoppable.

Thanks,
Robert

# ¿ Jan 24, 2023 02:09

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

DeeplyConcerned posted:

keep your head down, and power through

My coworkers have been talking about taking their own Fridays off out of their (unlimited) PTO since the day that first email went out, and I only hope that taking our own Fridays off won't end up getting our PTO limited.

Also, I have to power through because if I leave before April, I'll have to pay back my signing bonus.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2023 02:53

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Methylethylaldehyde posted:

Just start taping up variations of with lovely word art VELOCITY poorly mspainted over it.

Rocket powered roller skates, rocket sled, cliff dive to the ground, big catapult, etc. Plenty of VELOCITY to choose from, all of it stupid.

If only the office weren't on the opposite coast from me

(not just for the vandalism opportunities, but also because I'm one of the only people I know who prefers working in an office)

# ¿ Jan 24, 2023 17:35

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Subject: Difficult News to Share

quote:

I have difficult news. We must let go approximately 100 employees across the business and, unfortunately, your role has been eliminated. Today will be your last day.

While we remain a high-growth business, we failed to fully anticipate the speed and severity of the economic downturn, and we overhired. We took a range of measures over the past several months to drive down costs before making this decision, but we must now confront the economic reality and reduce headcount.

I know this is hard to read and may be painful and stressful. Your Executive Leader and HR Business Partner will discuss the specifics of your separation from the company in a personal Zoom call with you later today, with the invite coming from a member of the HR team.

Please stay home today and we�ll share more details soon. You will have access to Zoom and Google Workspace through the end of your notification meeting. If you�re based in Seattle, your key card has been turned off. Don�t worry about any work. If you�re a people manager we�ll be reaching out to your direct reports soon.

We�ll be offering you severance, healthcare, job placement services, and mental health services to help you through this transition.

I�m truly grateful to you for all you have done to help build [company].

-Robert

And the day after my application for a new apartment gets accepted!

# ¿ Feb 2, 2023 16:47

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

goatface posted:

Did they signal this might be happening or was it a totally out of the blue shafting?

No, this wasn't even the first wave of layoffs! If you look at my post history in his thread, you can see it coming. 100 people got laid off today, including my supervisor, and while I'm not happy that this happened to her or anything, I'm definitely relieved that I didn't just get laid off because I was low-key too dumb and/or lazy to continue working there.

The overhiring was absolutely out of control, and for a solid four months, it was blind leading the blind, because the entire QA team got hired in late March (me) or late April (everyone else).

Tomn posted:

This doesn't seem like a very high-velocity strategy to me, nor is it excellently executed!

I know right? smdh

And tl;dr:

Escape From Noise posted:

gently caress you, Robert!

# ¿ Feb 2, 2023 18:42

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Tomn posted:

Dumb poo poo your work does - gently caress You, Robert!

Sixthed, on principle

edit: I can count

# ¿ Feb 4, 2023 01:23

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Aramoro posted:

My company decided to have a company wide slack channel where people can just talk about things that matter to them. One of,the first people to use it wrote a big post about how depression isn't real and people just need a better mindset instead of waking up everyday and telling themselves they're depressed.

Whoops. Channel closed await further guidelines.

Holy poo poo :catstare:

# ¿ Feb 4, 2023 15:07

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

I hate myself for loving to schmooze :cry:

# ¿ Feb 4, 2023 18:38

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

With every passing day, I get increasingly annoyed at execs and/or people who didn't get laid off talking about how their company "made a difficult decision" to lay people off. Like, no it wasn't, lol.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2023 05:07

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Samuel L. Hacksaw posted:

Lol, my fortune 500 company is no longer paying custodians to pick up trash.

I ain't fuckin' doin it.

Wtf, is that legal? :psyduck:

# ¿ Feb 10, 2023 01:43

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Speaking of disability accomodations, I'm still not sure if my epilepsy counts as a disability, considering the fact that it's well-medicated and generally not an issue in my life. I don't want to lie either way, so I've just been putting "decline to answer" on my applications.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2023 05:59

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Holland Oates posted:

Yeah I hit "decline to answer" unless it's becoming an actual issue with disabilities interfering with things. I did have to disclose hEDS so I could get a fancy adaptable chair but it rules so that's the trade-off for me.

Also: I am so glad to hear you're still doing well. Epilepsy sucks, solidarity and continued good wishes for good health.

Thank you, you too :unsmith:

# ¿ Mar 6, 2023 15:19

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

I started a new job the Monday before last, and holy poo poo. :stare:

I have never seen a less organized company in my life. There's documentation across Notion, Google Docs, and Clickup, several JIRA projects with no tickets associated with them, a readme on Github with horrifically out-of-date setup instructions, etc. I also saw a JIRA project that had one category labeled (for the sake of confidentiality) Category A that had 13 issues, one labeled Category B that had 7, and one labeled "Everything Else" that had 563. Not a typo.

Trying to find, gather, and parse this information as someone who has been with the company for one week has been less than pleasant. I feel like I'm trying to translate the Bible from Lithuanian to English using printouts of old Wikipedia pages. :psypop:

edit:

RocketMermaid posted:

Is it Tuesday already?

It ONLY Tuesday.

YeahTubaMike fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Apr 11, 2023

# ¿ Apr 11, 2023 22:49

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Outrail posted:

Did I hire you?

I wouldn't be even remotely surprised if my boss turned out to be a goon. Part of why I waited so long to post about this. :sweatdrop:

RocketMermaid posted:

Honestly, I don't know if bad documentation or no documentation is worse.

drat, quite a thing to contemplate.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2023 23:45

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

I finally lost my poo poo about meetings not ending on time. Granted, it was in private conversations with fellow employees and not like, during a meeting with the VP or anything, but yeah. Why bother scheduling meetings at all if the host is going to be late and the meeting's going to go over time? Just have Slack huddles or impromptu Google Meets instead, for gently caress's sake.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2023 22:44

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Good av material imho

# ¿ Apr 19, 2023 18:57

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Combo posted:

So my boss (owner of the company) has gotten into the habit of wanting to hire people without giving them an actual role and then just like...finding out where they fit in the company? That might be ok I guess but he's also in his late 40s, dating a girl in her late 20s, who is a bartender in a trendy area and has bartender/server friends/roommates/etc.

So he's hiring people he meets out of that pool of people. One has kind of worked out in that she's helping with HR now but had no idea what she was doing when she first came on, she worked as a waitress and then as like the receptionist at a gym.

I get a call out of the blue a couple weeks ago at noon or so.

"Hey, I have someone I want you to talk to about QC!"

"Talk to as in like, hire?"

"Yeah, I think he'll be great!"

"Ok, if you want me to, but I'm not really hiring anyone at the moment?"

"I'll send him over, he'll be there at 2 pm!"

So I interview this guy. It's a QC role but we do a lot of electrical troubleshooting, calibrations, etc, so it's not something just anyone can walk in and do. This guy is a bartender, in his first semester of school to be an electrician (literally in a 101 class I think at the moment), a musician on the side also. So he goes to school until noon, works as a bartender in the evenings, and has side gigs in the area at local bars as a musician. His availability is like twice a week in the afternoon. He's not going to be useful to me for a very, very long time. Boss is bound and determined to hire him for *something* though, and wants me to manage him.

Is your boss season 6 Michael Scott?

# ¿ Apr 21, 2023 19:08

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Cowman posted:

I don't get why companies obsess over work-based social media. My work just implemented one and it's not exactly taking off. It just seems like a trap to me, if I spend a lot of time on the social media thing then I'm not working and they can just fire me or overload me with more work.

I worked at a company that made us sign up for some random site that I don't remember the name of (I think it started with an I?) and every once in a while, they would email us company highlights & specifically ask us to post about them on that site. Maybe I got laid off because I never did. :shrug:

# ¿ Apr 22, 2023 15:02

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Extra row of tits posted:

She clarified that what she wants is for me to take three days off and travel each of those days to another (nearby) city to help.

Use up three of my holiday days.
Work those days for free.
Travel to another city.

Man, I wonder what it's like to have enough of a sense of entitlement to ask someone I barely know to do this for me. Must feel nice.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2023 17:09

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Cowman posted:

take care of yourself first and gently caress the company imo

My exact employment philosophy. :agreed:

# ¿ Apr 23, 2023 01:01

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

A meeting scheduled for after hours, on "no-meetings" Thursday. Lol.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2023 16:03

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

StrangersInTheNight posted:

is it obliviousness, or strange rules-lawyering so they can say they technically didn't plan it during the day Thursday so it doesn't count?

Our work day is supposed to be 8:30am to 5:30pm, but this meeting is scheduled for 5-6, so I'm not sure what they're trying to do, if anything

# ¿ Apr 27, 2023 16:35

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Once upon a time in my much more lackadaisical days, I was regression-testing & marking the tests as done in a spreadsheet by copying & pasting checkmarks into the cell next to the test. I was Facebook-messaging while testing like an idiot, and I will never know why this was in my clipboard instead of a checkmark but I pasted something along the lines of "tbh I've always been kind of into [thing]" into a cell. I undid it before the autosave (I think? no one said anything anyway), but holy hell that remains the most nervewracking nanosecond of my life.

Still never sent an email to the wrong person/people though. :toot:

Takes No Damage posted:

I actually just started leaving the address fields blank until everything is written in, just to save accidentally sending an email mid sentence and having to send a Follow-Up of Shame explaining things.

Also

Ugh, I have done this while applying for jobs so many times. I always just assume they delete my email the second they notice my resume isn't attached & take the L in advance.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2023 03:32

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 14:01

YeahTubaMike: Mar 24, 2005; *hic* Gotta finish thish . . .; Doctor Rope

Chewbecca posted:

Maybe I'm an idiot, but why is this an issue why could you not just delete your "lol lmao" comment from the spreadsheet?

Computer viking posted:

If version tracking and autosave is on, he'll leave a ~~I'm really into accordion music~~ ✓ and a bubble saying he edited it, but I assume you can accept and forget edits like that?

*She, it was a Google Doc, and I Ctrl-Z'ed the instant I saw that it wasn't a checkmark because I didn't know until I tried it just now that hitting Delete after pasting something into a cell would delete all of the contents of the cell. I have no way of knowing whether or not I was quicker than the autosave, but again, no one confronted me so :shrug:

Accordion music is lovely.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2023 13:55

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > Dumb shit your work does: for some reason in the Diablo font.

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