Come one! Come some! Watch the stresses of daily life explode in the faces of our underpaid staff! For just the price of a yearly salary at WSN, experience the ninth wonder of the world: Staff Rants!

On Teamwork, or lack thereof:

Literally my number one pet peeve among all my other pet peeves is when someone in a group or team complains endlessly about one facet of a project without ever presenting a solution. Look, if you have a critique that helps the project move forward, by all means articulate it — your team will benefit from thoughtful criticism. But if your critique is just something along the lines of a vague “I hate everything we just did,” then that helps no one and only serves to waste the time the group could have used to polish up the project. Next time, instead of just saying “I hate this,” say “I hate this, but here’s what we could do to fix it.” —Emily Fong, Opinion Editor

On Lazy Activists:

Early Monday morning, I started to see posts on my Instagram feed of characters from animated films with the caption, “I intend to populate Instagram with children’s characters for Child Cancer Awareness Week. Give me a like and I’ll assign you a character.” First of all, where did this come from? Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is September, and nowhere on the internet can I find evidence for the last week of November being an awareness week for such. Childhood cancer is an important cause to raise awareness, support and funding for, but if someone really tries to tell me that posting a photo of Dory on their Instagram is going to solve the problem, I have one word for them: slacktivism. —Grace Halio, Deputy Managing Editor

On Pen Stealers:

I’m very particular about the pens, highlighters and all things alike in my pencil case. In some sense, each and every writing utensil is a part of who I am. When I’m not writing with my usual 0.5 lead pencil, I feel incomplete. When I look in my pencil case and there’s an empty slot where a pen used to be, I feel as if a piece of me is missing.

Regardless, I don’t mind lending writing utensils to others. I get it. It’s college. It’s 8 a.m. We’re struggling. We’re all struggling. Sometimes we forget to grab everything we need before we rush off to class. But, when I place my trust in you to take care of my pen or pencil, I expect that it be returned by the end of class. And if you somehow forgot that the writing utensil you’re placing in your bag and continuing to use throughout the remainder of the day is not yours, that’s fine. As long as I eventually get the pen or pencil back to fill the empty slots I had to glare at the past day or two, I am satisfied.

When that empty slot can never be filled because you lost the pen or pencil, I am distraught. I trusted you. And even if you offer to buy me another, it’s just not the same. The memories I had with that particular pen or pencil — whether it be in the struggles of Writing I or in the doodles in my Cultural Foundations I notes — cannot be replaced.

Honestly, this entire situation may be a bit melodramatic. It’s just that having my pencil case in place psychologically puts me at ease because even if my life is a mess, at least my pencil case isn’t. But that can’t happen when you don’t return the pen or pencil, so please, for the love of pugs, return your borrowed items to their original owners. —Veronica Liow, Deputy Photo Editor

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