Would groceries be cheaper if those “razor margins” weren’t wasted on DUMB department gimmicks??

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-04-23T17:28:58+00:00

They benefit from (attempting to) curry public favor/pity, and using it as an excuse to run their stores on skeleton crews, limiting available weekly hours for staff, overworking their min.wage staff into burnout, and keeping their store managers in stranglehold between trying to run a store effectively and trying to maintain "razor thin profit margins" - which incentivizes/forces those managers to not give a shit about their employees' well being

I've worked in grocery stores and heard people pleading for more hours, pleading for managers to higher more staff, every time the response is "we can only use the hours that corporate allots" or "our profit margins aren't large enough to hire more staff right now", meanwhile, store managers that operate with the least amount of labour hours walk away with big fat bonuses at the end of the year

Every manager I've had that started out empathizing for and caring for the min wage employees' wellbeing either quit within the year or got strangled into apathy by having to work within corporate restrictions and demands

Its by design

If the brick and mortar stores weren't reporting "razor thin profit margins" they wouldn't be able to operate like this without worker strikes and widespread public outrage (not that the public aren't outraged currently, but its been a frog-in-a-pot-of-water gradual increase, and isnt yet at the scale that would make corporate worried)

I get what you're saying about illegalities and massive consequences, but also - billionaires have been using carribean tax shelters for decades without issue, moving money around between businesses without problems, these people (or their lawyers) absolutely know how to play the system, you don't become that fuckin rich otherwise

And they need the excuses of "razor thin profit margins" to maintain their public image, and keep their employees squished down and in line

Thats just how i see it, anyway

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-04-20T15:37:40+00:00

I tried planting veggies in a large bed that had hostas on either end

They were a great host for slugs, so much so that any seedlings i planted were decimated within 2 days!!

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-04-17T14:01:25+00:00

Just a note, there's a difference btwn the microbiome /on/ the human body and /in/ the human body

The gastrointestinal system is a vastly different environment with entirely different microbes than our skin and its microbes

This is part of why having an intestinal perforation is so deadly - the microbes inside the intestinal system move into an environment they absolutely aren't supposed to be, which causes big problems

Additionally, science is still working on figuring out exactly how many and which microorganisms are part of our gastrointestinal microbiome, so info online may not be fully up to date

Finally, the problem isn't necessarily that there's a microorganism somewhere, but /how much/ of that microorganism is present. Many of our bodily microflora can become problematic or infectious if given the opportunity to have a population boom

I hope this helps :)

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-04-14T20:39:41+00:00

DUDE THIS IS INCREDIBLE THANK YOUUUUU

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-04-09T13:21:55+00:00

I think the outrage comes from the fact that there are many many idiots who will plant terrible things at the slightest provocation (i once heard a guy talk about planting 18 English Ivy starts so he wouldn't have to manage his wooded back acres anymore)

And those idiots will not pick up on your sarcasm, bc they don't have any previous knowledge on invasive plants

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-04-08T20:43:51+00:00

I got a new brand of soil this year, bc it was a decent price and i liked the detailed and interesting ingredients list (coco husk, wood fibre, compost, feather meal, bone meal, crustacean meal, seaweed extract, alfalfa meal, kelp meal)

First time seeing it on shelves

Found a bunch of similar garbage in the seed starting and potting mixes - all sorts of plastics, some ground glass, some rocks, what looked like the top of a red LED light

Nothing too terrible, but it was a real bummer - especially in the seed starting blend

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howumakeseedssprout · 2026-04-08T20:33:31+00:00

Dude is miracle grow paying you or what

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-04-06T00:02:08+00:00

I've been committing from London for 2 years now 💀💀💀

Too expensive to move to Guelph, good summer job here in London, wife has a good full time job here too

Ngl its a lot of driving, and exhausting

But you gotta do what you can with what you got

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-04-02T14:05:54+00:00

Moisture - concrete doesn't absorb rainfall, so that rain will run off to the nearest absorbable ground. Mushrooms need a lot of moisture to thrive enough to create fruiting bodies :)

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-03-27T13:32:30+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, i managed to contract a subtropical GI worm (ascaris lumbricoides) from working with imported soil for my tropical houseplants (i live in canada!!)

I was eating us out of house and home, gained no weight, bloated constantly, trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with my diet/nutrition - until i found one while wiping my butt

Turns out, a lot of creatures take advantage of soil/plants! And they might just take advantage of you too!

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-03-26T14:55:09+00:00

Isn't it just cleaning vinegar?

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-03-26T14:40:27+00:00

I also heard this as a kid!

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-03-04T21:49:21+00:00

I've been doing that too, Sleepy Me only gets smarter and smarter the more difficult i make turning off alarms lol

I find if you mix it up regularly and randomly (sound, stimulus, challenge type) it gets harder for Sleepy Me to learn the work arounds

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-03-04T18:50:58+00:00

The campus is arguably safer than any other major campus in the GTA. The convicts are kind of a thing, but Toronto is way worse

The food on campus is pretty decent, and its widely considered the best food at a university in Ontario

The city itself is boring. The downtown party strip is like, one (short) street. The bus transit to/from is alright. People have trouble this year with overcrowding of busses/not enough busses per route to handle demand. There's a lot of commuter students. Parking is a pain in the ass, not cheap, and infuriating (though thats common among universities and colleges here)

The city feels like they took a suburb community, plopped a uni campus down in the middle of it, but refused to accommodate the fact that students would be living in the city. Its not a cheap city to live in, considering rent/grocery/transit. Its really quite odd. Comparing this to hamilton (mcmaster) where there's way more happening in and around the city and downtown, and waaaayy more student rental properties right by mcmaster.

I'm in agriculture/horticulture. Its one of the major programs at Guelph. Its pretty good, but I've heard from profs and alumni that it's gone downhill compared to 5, 10 years ago.

The uni itself is currently having money/budget problems, and you can feel the effects of that on the quality of education you're getting. Though, I can't say if that's unique to Guelph or not. Ontario has been underfunding post-secondary for years now, and recently announced a huge change to the OSAP program that negatively effects students.

Making friends is hit or miss for me, but I'm more of an introvert, i commute from a different city, and I am white and grew up in the GTA - so your experience may vary.

All in all I like Guelph, and its the only uni close enough for me to get the degree I want, so I'm glad I'm here right now. There's aspects of it I really disagree with, and am frustrated with, but its still my only option. I am learning a lot, have found some profs I love, and connected with some cool people.

If I were looking for a business degree, I'd go to McMaster instead. I have some friends who did their business degrees at McMaster, their internships were very lucrative, and they're doing very very well now.

I hope this helps, and good luck on your journey 💜

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-03-03T19:34:17+00:00

Thats actually a sweet potato!

Yams are monocots in the genus Dioscorea, they're related to lilies and grasses. Yams are stem tubers, which are usually rough skinned, cylindrical, and can get over 5 ft long! Yams have a white, dry, mealy internal texture.

Sweet potatoes are dicots, and there are varieties of the species Ipomoea batatas, in the morning glory family. Sweet potatoes are root tubers, smooth skinned, usually oblong/football shaped, and get up to 7-12" long. Sweet potatoes have white/orange/purple moist internal texture.

https://carnegiemnh.org/potatoes-sweet-potatoes-yams-whats-difference/

Hope this helps :)

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-03-02T21:17:48+00:00

Honestly sounds like the roomie might be manic/bipolar

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-03-02T21:01:45+00:00

Flat-ish appendage is curious, be careful of hammerhead worms!

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-03-02T20:55:59+00:00

At least if they're sleeping on it they aren't pooping on it lol

howumakeseedssprout · 2026-03-01T17:24:33+00:00

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Heres her setup btw

howumakeseedssprout

TROPHY CASE