Sam K

I have a pretty shitty situation going on here. I am currently a contractor at a tech company in California. I have already looked up laws regarding contractor vs. employee, and from the look of it, I should be legally classified as an employee. I work regular hours at this company M-F, ranging from 9 to 12 hours per day, I do not work anywhere else, and my work is micromanaged like all hell.

From there, I have another problem. My CEO has repeatedly told me that I should work however many hours it takes to finish everything. He has previously told me that I should come to work at 8 AM and work for 12 hours every day. I frequently come in at 9:30 to 10:00 AM and leave at 7, occasionally I do not leave until 8 or 9 (this has become quite frequent lately). Yesterday I left at 6:00 PM, and this morning he bawled me out for it. And when I say bawled out, I mean it--full on yelling at me, which I feel is employee abuse (harassment? I don't know how this is classified). He has told me on 3 occasions that if I am not willing to do what it takes to work in a startup, I should get out. I am paid $2,600/mo, which amounts to an average of $15/hr *IF* I worked 40 hours/week. In reality, I make between $10 and $12/hour because I work 50+ hours per week. As you can imagine, I am certainly not paid enough for it to be reasonable for me to work the kind of hours he expects. I have never had to deal with labor laws before, because despite several shitty jobs in the past, it has never gotten this bad (believe me, what I have stated here is only part of it). I need to know what organizations to contact about the demand that I work 12 hours/day and the fact that I should not legally be considered a contractor, but I also need to know how to protect myself from retaliation. Though I certainly plan to find a new job, I can't afford to leave or lose this one until I find a new one.

I basically have 2 pages that are mirror images of one another. I have text in a shape for one of the pages, and for the other page, I need the same shape facing the other way, but obviously have the text going left-to-right. Anyone know how to do this? The text is not on a path, by the way, it's just in a shape.

I am trying to sell my car on Craigslist. I got 3 or 4 emails from supposed buyers. The emails are all very short just saying that they are interested in the car, and all give a phone number that is relatively local to me. There are no questions about the car or anything. Does anyone know if this is a new scam?

I'm reading a journal article and came across this word. It isn't defined in the article, and I couldn't find the definition online. Based on what I believe to be the etymology of the word, I think it means 'promoting memory.' If anyone knows for sure, please let me know.

I'm wondering if it would be OK to use the word "Sol" in a book. The deciding factor is will people understand it? So when I say Sol, do you know what I mean?

Asking the question for a story I'm writing.

Let's say someone lost some blood from an injury or something, and a couple of days later, a dog got the scent of that blood. Could the dog then track the person that the blood came from, assuming that the wound is still there (being only a few days old), but is bandaged and not actively dripping blood all over the place?

I would appreciate an answer from someone that knows for sure, and not a guess. I can make an educated guess about it as well, but I want to be certain.

Who do I talk to if I have an issue with the county court (I don't know if that's local or state level)? I know that when having problems with any organization of the federal government, senators have ombudsmen that can help. Who helps with more local issues?

I am writing a story that involves dogs. A couple of thing that I don't know are kind of important.

1) If a dog sniffs some blood, could it find who the blood came from, even if the person was not still bleeding?

2) If a dog is hit really hard on the muzzle, would its muzzle swell up like a person's face would?

Sorry, this isn't really a very good category for my question, but I couldn't think of a better fit.

This is just a bit of idle thinking. I know that after the Salem Witch Trials, it was put into law that supernatural evidence was not admissible as evidence. But what if someone DID have supernatural powers, and used them to murder or commit other crimes? How would the legal system handle it? Would the legal system be able to?

We have bunches of cartoons, TV shows, and movies about bad guys with super powers. What if it really happened? Would the legal system be able to handle it? I am currently watching the anime series Death Note, but I have wondered about this for ages. Let's say someone did have the power to kill another person by writing their name in a notebook or simply using some sort of psychic powers. What would happen? Could the person be convicted? Would the judge, jury, and public even believe it?

Personally, I think that unless it became widely known that such abilities were factual, the legal system couldn't do anything. If it was just one or two people that somehow had such abilities, I think that people simply wouldn't believe it to be possible.

I dunno, I guess I am just curious to see where people will go with this.

In the anime series Inuyasha, Inuyasha gets the Tetsusaiga near the beginning of the series. Later on, we learn that the Tetsusaiga not only protects Inuyasha as a powerful weapon, but it also seals his demon powers, which are too powerful for his half-demon body. If Inuyasha is in great danger and loses hold of the Tetsusaiga, his demonic side takes over. If this is the case, then why did Inuyasha never become a full-demon prior to getting the Tetsusaiga?

I realize that the gateway to Inuyasha's father's grave was hidden inside of Inuyasha's eye, but my understanding is that it was a gateway, and not the place itself, so arguing that the Tetsusaiga was effectively inside of Inuyasha prior to him actually wielding it doesn't seem to make sense. Anyone want to tackle this question?

Psychology deals with the individual, not with society. Why is it considered a social science? My university places it in the College of Social Sciences, Yahoo Answers categorizes it as a social science, and when I tell people that I am majoring in psychology, they almost inevitably say something about it being a social science and not a "real" science, like physics.

People seem to be fine with calling engineering and medicine science, while both fields are really the products of science, and not sciences themselves. How many doctors or engineers are actually conducting experiments? Very few.

This is something I'm frequently annoyed with.

Psychology is a science. It is the scientific inquiry and exploration of the human mind and brain.

Browsing the psychology section just now, I saw three questions asking for someone to interpret what their dreams mean. That is not psychology, people! That is pseudopsychology at best. It can't be psychology because no one really understands what causes dreams, so how can anyone explain what a dream means?

Grr. Science, people. Science. The APA should forbid schools from ever again offering arts degrees in psychology, only science degrees should be offered.

GRR.

I am looking for an activist group of some sort that is tackling the issues of diet and food integrity in America. Issues like factory farms, cruelty to farm animals, GMOs, Monsanto, FDA, etc. I tried to Google it, but probably can't think of the right keywords to find a group. I am interested in volunteering.

I'm an English tutor, and I have a 5th grader that's learning blends and digraphs.

I think I understand what they are, but I don't understand the point of teaching them. For spelling? Maybe, but my spelling is excellent and I never learned blends and digraphs. For reading? There, I can see digraphs being useful (sh, th, ph, those can be hard for young children to learn to treat as a single sound), but I still don't see the point of blends. What difference does it make if a student treats "pl" as a blend versus two separate letters when learning to read the word "place," for example? And why in 5th grade?

Can someone explain to me what blends and digraphs are in adult language, and explain to me what the point of them is? Most of the material I find is for kids. It says what the things are, and gives plenty of examples, but fails to explain their function. I don't like teaching something that I don't see a purpose to.

Psychologically speaking, is it just to help students chunk what they read instead of treating letters as individual units? Won't they learn that with practice anyway?

I am trying to dissect this sentence: "John ate twenty hot-dogs in five minutes."

"John" is the subject, "ate" is the verb, "twenty hot-dogs" is the object, but what is "in five minutes"? Is it an adverbial clause because it tells when the verb was performed? Or is it simply a prepositional phrase?

I'm trying to figure this out because I'm an English tutor and sometimes feel like my formal knowledge of grammar is lacking. Believe it or not, when I started tutoring, I didn't know ANY of this. I don't know if I was taught it in school and don't remember it (i.e., didn't pay attention), or if I simply was never taught, but I've been learning it on my own in the past several months, and still sometimes get confused.

Thanks!

I can't see myself spending the $30+/month for paid dating sites, when it doesn't seem like the chances of meeting anyone are that good. It seems like everyone that I meet at school or work is already seeing someone, or is not interested in me. I don't want to be dating the kinds of women that hang out at bars. I've even tried CraigsList personals, and actually met some cool women, but it doesn't go anywhere.

I'm 25. A bit overweight, but not obese, and not unattractive.

I'm not looking for an easy lay or for one night stands. I am ultimately looking for a long-term relationship, and the dating that it takes to get there. Anyone have any bright ideas?

My brother and his girlfriend have 2 dogs that are destructive. They've destroyed several couches, and it needs to stop. My brother's a crappy dog trainer, and is too busy to really work with them. I don't live with him and have my own things to worry about (including my own, well behaved dog)

Does anyone know how to stop the dogs from chewing stuff? Maybe something that can be sprayed onto the couches that won't bother humans (won't smell or feel gross) but will taste so disgusting to the dogs, that they won't touch the couches any more?

I'm looking for a simple solution, not training. My brother's not great at training dogs and won't do any serious behavioral training--unfortunately.

I am looking for a term that is more precise than just "noun." I know they're nouns. Existentialist is a noun, and so is Existentialism, they should have more precise terms that distinguish their roles. I think "Existentialism" is a common noun, but I'm not sure about "Existentialist."

Why is Yahoo complaining about how much punctuation I use? -_-