All this talk about food is making me hungry and it’s only 3am
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That’s the… chicken lover, from South Park. He would agree that there’s more appealing parts to chickens than what’s on the surface… 
Absolutely. The meat, liver…
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Exactly! no WAIT
(damn I’ve started a snowball of a thread here oof)
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Reporting for duty o7
I’ve quite literally never eaten meat 
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Hello all, hope you are all well. It has been some time since I have posted.
UK members may well be aware of the upcoming NHS strikes that members of the Royal College of Nursing are taking part in on the 15th and 20th of December. Pretty much all non-emergency procedures will be cancelled on these days as there will be over 100,000 nurses walking out of their shifts at 8am on those dates.
Nurses have had a 20% real time pay cut since 2010. In the same period of time the pay for Members of Parliament in this country has risen from £65k a year to £84k per year. In the last year 25,000 Nurses have left the Nursing and Midwifery Register and fewer people are applying for nursing degrees and successfully starting their course. There is already a deficit in the NHS of approximately 47,000 nurses.
The UK government has put out a number of misleading statements and interviews about Nurse pay in the United Kingdom. Starting salaries for a Newly Qualified Nurse have been stated to be £31,000 and the average nurse salary has been suggested to be about £34,000. Unfortunately the government has taken the pay scale of nurses in both the private sector and in the NHS and has treated them as the same. For example; I qualified as a nurse earlier this year in February. I work for the NHS on a ward looking after acutely unwell respiratory patients (including patients critically unwell with Coronavirus - no it hasn’t gone away), I am paid £27,055 per year or £13.80 an hour. This is part of the NHS Agenda for Change pay scale. All nurses in the NHS are subject to this pay scale. I am a Band 5 Nurse. I will remain as a Band 5 Nurse unless I successfully apply for a Band 6 position. As a Band 5 the highest my pay will get to is £32,934, and that is after at least four years in my position.
The UK Government has released the below info-graphic which is extremely misleading
The picture claims that experienced nurses will be paid £40,588. This is not the case. I have worked with nurses who have been qualified for 30+ years, but because they have no desire to go into management, they remain a Band 5 and are paid £32,934 despite their experience. Contrary to this, I also work with nurses who have been qualified < 2 years and have successfully applied for Band 6 positions. This does not reflect experience whatsoever, but it is also opposite to what the government is saying.
NHS staff for decades have been trying to discuss with politicians the issues we have with staff retention and encouraging applicants into this career. There have been many scandals in the UK, such as the Mid Staffordshire Hospital NHS Trust. Inquiries into these events time and time again highlight the need for safe levels of staffing and the importance of degree qualified nurses taking up the profession. The National Institute of Health and Social Care Excellence (NICE) in 2014 set out recommendations that a Nurse to Patient ratio of 1:8 would probably be a threat to patient safety. To be clear, yesterday on my shift I had 13 patients under my care. That included both patients with Covid and patients who have other severe respiratory illnesses.
Nursing is not currently safe and any suggestions that a strike will harm patient safety will fall on deaf ears as unsafe staffing is a reality that the NHS has been coping with for a very long time. Enough is enough. I do not expect the government to offer an above inflation pay rise. I do expect there to be an exodus of staff if strikes over the next 6 months do not bring about a significant change.
If this is too off topic then I apologise. I hope everyone is sympathetic to our cause, but if you’re not that’s absolutely fine. We will still treat you as we would any other patient because we want to help you.
All the best,
Jack
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Solidarity with you and all strikers mate. Keep on fighting
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Thanks dude, hope the band is doing well!
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Feeling low today. It started with a slight bit of sore throat yesterday and today, headache is added to that. I’ve been on bed for the most part, there’s that feeling of unbalance when standing.
But on the plus side, this gave me the opportunity to finish the eight season of The Office. It isn’t great anymore with the thing happening around the end of season 7, but I’m still eager.
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Still no holiday chicken on my end. I did spend most of the game awards watching & drawing stuff on the side, but not for my profile picture…
Anyway, it’s late, hopefully tomorrow for sure (or at least the weekend, I don’t have work then).
I do really need to get to bed earlier 
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Looks like I’ve got a lot of game sequels I’m anticipating now… huh.
Hopefully too much of a good thing ISN’T bad, and they all live up to the standards of their original games, maybe even surpass them.
- The Wolf Among Us 2
- Oxenfree 2
- Alan Wake 2
And now - Jedi Survivor (Fallen Order 2)
- Hades 2
- Death Stranding 2
(Just call me Chicken Mk2 then…)
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My electric shaver broke just in time for the holidays, so I’ll be keeping a beard until the new year.
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I can’t wait for this sequel. Fallen Order is one of my favourite games. I have replayed it around 5 time since it was released and not done with it.
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I got a dollar coin in my change at the supermarket. It’s been so long, I had completely forgotten we even have dollar coins. 
Still not as cool as a two-dollar bill, though.
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I just went to a wedding. We hated everything on the gift registry so we just gave them cash. I went to the bank and mumbled my words. I wanted to say “I need to take out $300, but if you have any two dollar bills I’ll take out $302.” What the teller actually heard was “can I have $300 in two dollar bills.” But they had enough for it 
. Go to the bank if you want some. I guess they still print them and send them to banks.
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The married couple probably thinks you’re a Stripper now
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I completely forgotten about Star Wars Jedi Survivor. I’m also glad the Kill the Justice League game has a date, although I haven’t been enjoying Gotham Knights as much. I fear this will stray from the Arkham gameplay as well.
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I didn’t actually take all the twos lol. Just one to throw in there for good luck.
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Well, for those following the epic story of my broken piece of shit computer I now retrieved it from repair for the third time, and it actually works flawlessly. It took them three attempts to conclude they needed to put in a new motherboard.
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