Personal Woes and Advice 5

[Iruka]

That might be more you than them that has the problem, though? What you posted there seems reasonably polite, if a little abrupt. How about "Hi, I'm your next door neighbour. Is there anything we can do about your dog barking all day when you're not in? I work night shift, and I need to sleep during the day."

I agree, your note seems rather polite. You are not making any demands or complain, you didn't even mention that it makes sleeping a problem for you! If this makes you feel more comfortable, you could play up the "I am worried about your dog, it seems unhappy" angle. For someone who cares about their pet, this would be enough to take action. Making personal contact would still be preferable. If you write a note, you should probably leave some contact information, so they have a chance to learn more from you than just "Your dog is barking all day.".

No matter how you apporach this, nothing guarantees you will get a positive response. Some people will snap at anything with "None of your business!".

[Jormengand]

That, on its own, would be enough of a reason to start really pushing the mental health people to do their jobs.



That would be enough on its own too.



Same with that.



Do that. I'm serious. Call one of your SOs and ask them to do the talking/yelling if you're not up to it. The mental health people are not giving you the help you need, and you have every right to bother them relentlessly until they do their jobs.



That's fine. If you had everything pinned down and sorted out, you wouldn't need to be here.

For what it's worth, you have sympathy from me, and I really hope things improve for you ASAP. I'd advocate for you if I could, but I'm in no position to try - not enough knowledge or age, and I'm not in the right place. Please start harrying the people who are in a position to help and whose literal job it is to try.

I don't have the willpower to fight these people and I don't know how well they'd take a call from the USA telling them "Oh yeah my lover is kinda in a bad position and has too much anxiety to call you directly but could you do your freaking job please." I guess I might grab my dad and ask him to bother them (again) tomorrow.

Bear in mind this is the mental health service provider who needed four different groups of people to bother them before they gave me an appointment that was "Only" a month and a half away in the first place. So I'm not hopeful in any case.

[AuthorGirl]

I don't have the willpower to fight these people and I don't know how well they'd take a call from the USA telling them "Oh yeah my lover is kinda in a bad position and has too much anxiety to call you directly but could you do your freaking job please." I guess I might grab my dad and ask him to bother them (again) tomorrow.

Bear in mind this is the mental health service provider who needed four different groups of people to bother them before they gave me an appointment that was "Only" a month and a half away in the first place. So I'm not hopeful in any case.

Oof, I didn't realize they were also in a different country.

[Jormengand]

Oof, I didn't realize they were also in a different country.

I dunno if it would help if they weren't, seeing as medical services tend not to be able to talk to someone who's talking on someone else's behalf anyway...

[Chen]

I guess I feel like...what would I even open with? "Hi, I'm the next door neighbor, I'm working a night shift and your dog's barking constantly during the day, especially when anyone's near the door."

That just...I can't imagine saying something like that to anyone ever. It just rings all my you're being a rude entitled ******* bells.

Your statement or the one factotum wrote are both fine. Personally I tend to plan for the worst so I'd look up any bylaws and such in advance in case the people end up being asses about it.

There is absolutely nothing rude nor entitled about asking someone to keep down the noise.

[ve4grm]

I guess I feel like...what would I even open with? "Hi, I'm the next door neighbor, I'm working a night shift and your dog's barking constantly during the day, especially when anyone's near the door."

That just...I can't imagine saying something like that to anyone ever. It just rings all my you're being a rude entitled ******* bells.

I agree, your note seems rather polite. You are not making any demands or complain, you didn't even mention that it makes sleeping a problem for you! If this makes you feel more comfortable, you could play up the "I am worried about your dog, it seems unhappy" angle. For someone who cares about their pet, this would be enough to take action. Making personal contact would still be preferable. If you write a note, you should probably leave some contact information, so they have a chance to learn more from you than just "Your dog is barking all day.".

No matter how you apporach this, nothing guarantees you will get a positive response. Some people will snap at anything with "None of your business!".

This. Phrase it as concern for the dog. Say that you're concerned that it's getting anxious, or something like that. It's situations like that where a dog will damage furniture or other things.

Mention that it's especially concerning as a night shift worker, so they know the whole story, but couch it in concern for the dog.

[Icewraith]

I dunno if it would help if they weren't, seeing as medical services tend not to be able to talk to someone who's talking on someone else's behalf anyway...

If they cancel on you, you deserve an immediate reschedule within a short period of time. You probably will have to call, though. Can either friends or family remind you to call at a prearranged time or be with you (physically or virtually) when you call for moral support? When you're dealing with mental issues, sometimes it's hard to get the willpower to do a big, unpleasant thing on your own.

With regard to disturbing thoughts- I'd avoid discussing specific/disturbing content with people in your life that don't have an urgent need to know. Medical professionals (who need accurate information in order to have a chance of doing their jobs correctly), maybe extremely long term relationships, that's about it.

Regarding the content of those thoughts, do the events of your past include anything you might categorize as "sexual assault/abuse"? (You don't HAVE to respond to anything of course, but you're extra-free to not respond to this if you don't want to discuss it here.)

[Jormengand]

If they cancel on you, you deserve an immediate reschedule within a short period of time. You probably will have to call, though. Can either friends or family remind you to call at a prearranged time or be with you (physically or virtually) when you call for moral support? When you're dealing with mental issues, sometimes it's hard to get the willpower to do a big, unpleasant thing on your own.

I mean, yes, probably.

With regard to disturbing thoughts- I'd avoid discussing specific/disturbing content with people in your life that don't have an urgent need to know. Medical professionals (who need accurate information in order to have a chance of doing their jobs correctly), maybe extremely long term relationships, that's about it.

Yeah, I made the mistake of discussing it with a support worker who immediately panicked. Even medical professionals have called the police because of what I said I was thinking (remember upthread when I said I wasn't going to make a specific 1984 reference? Well, I still won't, but IMPLICATION!). So I might just take up the art of not discussing it at all with people who aren't the faceless legions of the internet.

Regarding the content of those thoughts, do the events of your past include anything you might categorize as "sexual assault/abuse"? (You don't HAVE to respond to anything of course, but you're extra-free to not respond to this if you don't want to discuss it here.)

Spoiler: TW: The Obvious

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I've been raped and otherwise sexually abused and sexually harassed, but this almost exclusively occurred after these thoughts were essentially there.

Honestly I don't like the idea that I'm having these thoughts because of abuse in my past, perhaps because we just got done disproving the same essential ideas in terms of people's sexual orientation. People don't change their essential sexuality because of their past.

[Florian]

(As a side note, I have no idea if our beers are usually pasteurized or not. I think not, but none of the 4 different kinds of beer bottles from different brewers I had handy said one way or the other. One did say that they add yeast for bottle conditioning and gave advice on how long you can/should store it, which seems like it would be really futile if done before pasteurizing, but that could work in the other order like yogurt I suppose.)

Depending on how your local hygiene and food laws are, you should find a stamped bottling and expiration date on each beer.
Basically, fresh, unfiltered and unpasteurized beer starts deteriorating after 4 days and will have an expiration date of maybe 60 days (higher ABV and IBU (alpha acid level) will prolong this, as would a more rounded calcium acid, sugar and tannin level in the extract - hence IPA and Imperial variants).
Both, filtration and pasteurization will each add roughly 3 month to the expiration date (yes, it could hold out longer and still be edible food, but the taste is gone), at least when measured against a standard 5% Lager type, way more when talking about some belgian abbey-style Tripple, talking about decades here, but that follows the same principle as any good cellar-able wine, that you need the afore-mentioned balanced extract and the values will degrade with time. Once one has reached zero, drastic changes in taste will set in.

Bottle Conditioning is the kind of topic that can really lead to vitriol-laden shouting matches between "craft" and "industrial" brewers. During primary fermentation, you really need to bring the sugar level as close to zero, then skim the primary yeast off, then filter and pasteurize it. At that point, you should know your bottles and filling line, so you will add a certain, very measure amount of fructose sugar and yeast to the chemically inert beer to get a secondary fermentation going, which you need either for a very "heady" style like Weissbier, or when you've gone for something like oak-barrel aging as an in-between step and lost all oxygen saturation/head because of that. And yes, the beer must really be rendered inert, mostly by pasteurization, else this step will really be catastrophic.

Edit: The "vitriol" stems from how to approach that process. Naturally, you get a higher quality product when keeping the beer longer in your basic steel tank, than starting the bottle fermentation under controlled temperature and environment, so after 28 months you get a product that doesn't have to hide from high-class red wines or campaigns a bit, but will also clock in at the same price, so roughly 60€/L, something which most customers are not ready to pay, because it´s, well, beer, and doesn't have the right image to make it seem worth it.

[Algeh]

Depending on how your local hygiene and food laws are, you should find a stamped bottling and expiration date on each beer.
Basically, fresh, unfiltered and unpasteurized beer starts deteriorating after 4 days and will have an expiration date of maybe 60 days (higher ABV and IBU (alpha acid level) will prolong this, as would a more rounded calcium acid, sugar and tannin level in the extract - hence IPA and Imperial variants).
Both, filtration and pasteurization will each add roughly 3 month to the expiration date (yes, it could hold out longer and still be edible food, but the taste is gone), at least when measured against a standard 5% Lager type, way more when talking about some belgian abbey-style Tripple, talking about decades here, but that follows the same principle as any good cellar-able wine, that you need the afore-mentioned balanced extract and the values will degrade with time. Once one has reached zero, drastic changes in taste will set in.

Bottle Conditioning is the kind of topic that can really lead to vitriol-laden shouting matches between "craft" and "industrial" brewers. During primary fermentation, you really need to bring the sugar level as close to zero, then skim the primary yeast off, then filter and pasteurize it. At that point, you should know your bottles and filling line, so you will add a certain, very measure amount of fructose sugar and yeast to the chemically inert beer to get a secondary fermentation going, which you need either for a very "heady" style like Weissbier, or when you've gone for something like oak-barrel aging as an in-between step and lost all oxygen saturation/head because of that. And yes, the beer must really be rendered inert, mostly by pasteurization, else this step will really be catastrophic.

Edit: The "vitriol" stems from how to approach that process. Naturally, you get a higher quality product when keeping the beer longer in your basic steel tank, than starting the bottle fermentation under controlled temperature and environment, so after 28 months you get a product that doesn't have to hide from high-class red wines or campaigns a bit, but will also clock in at the same price, so roughly 60€/L, something which most customers are not ready to pay, because it´s, well, beer, and doesn't have the right image to make it seem worth it.

The (canned) beer I have handy today (Cavatica Stout from Fort George Brewery - I highly recommend this beer for anyone in their distribution area) says that it's unfiltered, should be kept refrigerated, and to drink it fresh rather than age it, so I still have no official idea on pasteurization but it wouldn't surprise me if it's not. It's 8.8 ABV%, so it should "keep" longer than a 5% would. Pretty much all of our beers here are either really hoppy IPAs and/or high ABV, and distributed fairly locally, so it changes the dynamics from things with lower ABV, fewer hops, and/or longer distribution chains (not sure if ale vs. lager also makes any difference - we definitely tend to get mostly ales with fewer lagers in the local market).

There is a local market for high-end specially aged beers here, mostly around Christmas. I'm personally only willing to spend $20-$30 for a sharable-sized bottle of something suitably delicious, but I do see the occasional bottle above that price point for sale. It's certainly a smaller market and something you'd have to buy at a specialty store rather than the supermarket (well, or at the fancy supermarket that also has nice wine and cheese options, which will have a couple of choices in the $20 range). I can see that there'd be less of a market in a situation where the local beer consumers hadn't already been pretty trained to seek out interesting craft options at specialty bottle shops, though. I don't remember seeing those $20+ bottles around until about 10 years ago, which was about 20 years after local laws changed and craft breweries started cropping up everywhere. Also, if you have the same "need to make 10,000 bottles" constraint, that would make it much riskier than someone who can go with smaller batches. I have no idea what the runs are on some of our expensive seasonals, but I assume they're smaller than the stuff with wider distribution.

[Mith]

I dunno if it would help if they weren't, seeing as medical services tend not to be able to talk to someone who's talking on someone else's behalf anyway...

From my understanding, they can only talk to other people in a Guardian capacity. I can only second arranging for emotional support and making the call yourself, since you are going to need to keep that momentum once you get started. And while having a proxy caller may get you so far, it is likely to hit a wall at some point.

When you make that call, see if you can arrange to have a proxy caller, or in what situations a proxy caller can be useful and effective (useful for you, and effective for the system).

[Florian]

There is a local market for high-end specially aged beers here, mostly around Christmas. I'm personally only willing to spend $20-$30 for a sharable-sized bottle of something suitably delicious, but I do see the occasional bottle above that price point for sale. It's certainly a smaller market and something you'd have to buy at a specialty store rather than the supermarket (well, or at the fancy supermarket that also has nice wine and cheese options, which will have a couple of choices in the $20 range).

It´s simply a case of very divergent market development. Keep in mind that Germany is only half the size of Texas, but sports a bit over 1400 active breweries (I think Texas has around 50?), with roughly 400 of them in the brew pub/micro brewery segment. Leaving aside the very special case of the Pilsener market segment (and former socialist countries, where I'm based), most of the major breweries are highly specialized in producing traditional region-specific beers and deliver that on a very good cost-benefit-ratio, when it comes to quality for your Euro, "Plain standard" is mostly pretty good (when it doesn't come out of Dargun) and clocks in around 1 Euro the half liter (plus 8c deposit).

That leaves us craft brewers with a slight problem: When the customer is willing to pay "double the price for double the quality", when the base quality you're competing against is already quite solid, it´s a hard case of diminishing returns to try and go further without taking the economics of scale into account. So while we can offer a very decent Baltic Porter at around 1.80€ at a good profit margin, we can´t go higher than 4€ for an Imperial Choc Baltic Porter with Rum Barrel Finish. Sad but true and makes me suddenly dream about being able to export to the U.S.

[Algeh]

It´s simply a case of very divergent market development. Keep in mind that Germany is only half the size of Texas, but sports a bit over 1400 active breweries (I think Texas has around 50?), with roughly 400 of them in the brew pub/micro brewery segment. Leaving aside the very special case of the Pilsener market segment (and former socialist countries, where I'm based), most of the major breweries are highly specialized in producing traditional region-specific beers and deliver that on a very good cost-benefit-ratio, when it comes to quality for your Euro, "Plain standard" is mostly pretty good (when it doesn't come out of Dargun) and clocks in around 1 Euro the half liter (plus 8c deposit).

That leaves us craft brewers with a slight problem: When the customer is willing to pay "double the price for double the quality", when the base quality you're competing against is already quite solid, it´s a hard case of diminishing returns to try and go further without taking the economics of scale into account. So while we can offer a very decent Baltic Porter at around 1.80€ at a good profit margin, we can´t go higher than 4€ for an Imperial Choc Baltic Porter with Rum Barrel Finish. Sad but true and makes me suddenly dream about being able to export to the U.S.

Yeah, the more I think about it, I think the key to my local market developing the way it did was that in the 80s, my state passed laws allowing for brewpubs that brewed their own beer on site and served it in their bar/restaurant during a time that the large distributors were really not doing anything at all fancy or interesting with beer, leaving the "everything but Budweiser and Bud Light" market entirely to the micros. My parents didn't used to drink beer regularly before the brew pubs with interesting choices popped up, so offering more types of beer brought new beer consumers into the market who started with a preference for microbrewed beer and actively sought out new beers to try. (My own first experience with beer was a 6 beer taster tray at a brewpub shortly after I became old enough to drink legally - I've always preferentially ordered stouts and porters as my "default" beer since that tray, although I do drink other things too.)

The 2017 numbers don't appear to be out yet, but the craft brewer's guild in Oregon says there were 230 brewing companies (261 brewing facilities) in the state in 2016. The Washington Beer Commission lists 373 breweries on their page, so that looks like we have over 600 breweries just in the PNW without trying to also count places like Idaho or Nevada as part of the region. I suspect that most of them don't have bottling lines and just sell by the keg, which is certainly a business model that allows for more experimentation than someone running bottling lines. It's like if we had a music scene that focused on having a live band at every bar versus someplace that focused on trying to have bands good enough to record albums. (Actually, I kind of suspect we're doing that too, but that's another thread.)

I feel like we're pulling this thread really off-topic, though, so I'm going to stop responding here to give the space back to people who need it to talk about things closer to the thread's purpose. I'm happy to continue this discussion elsewhere (maybe Random Banter?) but I feel like I'm clogging up the personal advice thread with things that don't belong here.

[Florian]

I feel like we're pulling this thread really off-topic, though

Agreed. But to finish the part of the topic that started here, found a solution to my problem. Contacted a neighboring smaller brewery and we agreed to swap our facilities for that small experiment, possible end of April. Looking forward to it! (And yes, random banter looks fine)

[Jormengand]

One of my lovers joined the long list of people trying to critique my existence today. I've decided that I've had enough of them and left them. Still stings.

I don't know that I have the strength to try to get help. Every lover I had was one of the thinner-than-I-thought threads keeping me from actually giving up.

My job's taking forever to start because doing anything remotely bureaucratic is horrifically expensive and time-consuming if you're trans. Oh, I have to get a new ID because this government organisation won't accept the old one, but if you're trans that ID has to take an extra two weeks of processing, and ugh.

I imagine that even if I do get mental health help it will take forever to actually reschedule no matter how hard I fight.

[Mith]

One of my lovers joined the long list of people trying to critique my existence today. I've decided that I've had enough of them and left them. Still stings.

I don't know that I have the strength to try to get help. Every lover I had was one of the thinner-than-I-thought threads keeping me from actually giving up.

My job's taking forever to start because doing anything remotely bureaucratic is horrifically expensive and time-consuming if you're trans. Oh, I have to get a new ID because this government organisation won't accept the old one, but if you're trans that ID has to take an extra two weeks of processing, and ugh.

I imagine that even if I do get mental health help it will take forever to actually reschedule no matter how hard I fight.

I am sorry to hear that you had to break ties. That is never fun, and never easy.

I realise that this is an option that you have likely already persued, but do you have people that you can turn to to help with setting a schedule to either blow off steam, divide a workload, etc.? This can be anything from a regular meet up either as a social activity to keep yourself grounded, get insights from someone who really knows you. Or even something that allows you to prep ahead such as cooking ahead. I am picturing something that allows you to work ahead and conserve your spoons, to borrow from the Spoon analogy. If you cannot borrow from tommorrow, can you possibly borrow from someone else?

[Jormengand]

I realise that this is an option that you have likely already persued, but do you have people that you can turn to to help with setting a schedule to either blow off steam, divide a workload, etc.? This can be anything from a regular meet up either as a social activity to keep yourself grounded, get insights from someone who really knows you. Or even something that allows you to prep ahead such as cooking ahead. I am picturing something that allows you to work ahead and conserve your spoons, to borrow from the Spoon analogy. If you cannot borrow from tommorrow, can you possibly borrow from someone else?

I do see people to spend some time having (relative) fun, yeah. But as far as spoons are concerned...

I dunno, it feels like rather than having conventional spoons, I have about 3 spoons per day: each of them is worth about 25% efficiently passively, or I can spend them to get about 400% efficiency for a while... except that once spent, they don't provide their 25% efficiency, and other people or just circumstances can force me to spend them, and I feel like lately I'm getting more like 1d3 instead of 3.

[The Fury]

Oh sweet Pelor not again. From someone who actually is a sub, no. Just no. How attractive you are doesn't matter. Nor does your self esteem. Me finding other people ordering me around and controlling me hot in some situations has nothing to do with how I look or my self esteem. I am in fact perfectly capable of distinguishing between feelings that I am a horrible person who deserves to be hurt and the thought that it would be sexy for my girlfriend to order me around and call me a good girl. For starters in one of these scenarios it only happens if I ask for it and it stops the second I say the word. There is no evidence that people who are into kink are psychologically worse off and a couple of studies that suggest we're on par or better. The fact that you knew you were going to get flack for this Crow strongly suggests to me that you knew what you were about to say was offensive at best. At worst you're part of the reason why I have to be scared of losing my job if I was outed in my hobbies.

I feel like I was pretty ignorant and owe you an apology then. I'm sorry, I put my foot in my mouth badly a lot of times and I feel like this was one of them.

On the topic of my own issue, life can be serendipitous sometimes. By which I mean when you find you self not sure of what to decide, sometimes you get thrown something that makes the decision for you. In my case, I had a lot of family drama dropped on me that looks like it isn't going to leave me much room for friends and things I enjoy. So I broke it off with my current group. It probably wasn't the best choice for myself, but the other options were off the table. They're probably better off without me anyway.

[Recherché]

No worries. I was actually more frustrated with Florian and Crowley than you. And no your group was not better off without you. From all the sounds of it they liked you and cool people you're compatible with are hard to find.

In other news, I have a job again! Admittedly part time and a part of town it's inconvenient to get to but I has a job!

[The Fury]

In other news, I have a job again! Admittedly part time and a part of town it's inconvenient to get to but I has a job!

That's great! I'm not so great at feeling happy right now, but I'm glad for you.

[Gray Mage]

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I've had an public exam/interview this week to get a teaching job, and not only did it not go well, I was the worst at it (it was graded and put on display on the site). I was not feeling very hopefull about it, but I was not expecting it to be so bad and it crushed me. I wonder if people are right and I'm not cut out to teach.

[FinnLassie]

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I've had an public exam/interview this week to get a teaching job, and not only did it not go well, I was the worst at it (it was graded and put on display on the site). I was not feeling very hopefull about it, but I was not expecting it to be so bad and it crushed me. I wonder if people are right and I'm not cut out to teach.

Answering in spoilers.

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Wait... what. Put on display on the site? Like on a website, for everyone to see? What the hell is that?!

We all sometimes fail, especially in situations that cause us a lot of stress. I used to study to become a primary teacher, and well... I failed often. My circumstances weren't too well as I was getting suicidal and bullied by my coursemates and my supervising teacher at the school I had my practice period at. That immense stress and fear made me fail. I gave up and it was a good decision for me, but another friend who went through a similar stage decided to stick with it and has now been teaching for two years - she didn't let others push her to a pit.

Do you have a chance to try again? Are you ok otherwise, or was this just a one time thing? Please don't give up if it's something you want to do. Is taking a break an option? Sometimes sitting back and taking a fresh look at things could help.

If you need any help with the whole "performing as a teacher", I'm willing to give tips, just ask if you need it.

[Crow]

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I've had an public exam/interview this week to get a teaching job, and not only did it not go well, I was the worst at it (it was graded and put on display on the site). I was not feeling very hopefull about it, but I was not expecting it to be so bad and it crushed me. I wonder if people are right and I'm not cut out to teach.

Use this as an opportunity to collect critical feedback. Due to how poor your performance was, there will certainly be plenty of areas you can focus in on for improvement; and probably some low hanging fruit in there that you can address right away.

Speak to those involved in the interview and grading as soon as possible. I can't stress this enough, because the longer you wait, the less specific the critiques will become unless they've retained notes. Ask them where you were deficient, and how to improve, and wring the most specific answers you can from them. Don't let them off easy; ask for examples.

Take notes during these conversations. Develop a plan to address the deficiencies, and follow through with it.

As far as the grades being displayed publicly; good. Use this info to get in touch with those who did particularly well, and try to get some input on what is working well for them; and see how much of that you can integrate into your own approach.

Better to miss by a mile than an inch. Opportunity for improvement comes easier that way.

[WarKitty]

This might be silly, but...I just hate the whole work environment right now.

A good employee doesn't call out sick very often, because "people are relying on you to be there and get your work done." The advice people say is if you get sick more often and need to call out is that you should get a job where being present during specific hours isn't quite so important. Because "it's a business, not a charity," and they shouldn't have to work around you. If you have to call out more often, you're the problem and you need to stop expecting other people to work around you.

Except...if you're looking at lower-end jobs and don't have special skills, that is every job you could possibly get. And if you work a lower paid job or part-time and need assistance because you can't actually pay the bills like that, then you're a problem and need to stop expecting other people to work around you.

It feels like the only possible answer in society that doesn't make you a lazy, entitled person who just wants to be coddled by everyone else is to not have health problems. Or that somehow through the magic of persistence and positive attitude you'll make everything ok all on your own.

[2D8HP]

This might be silly, but...I just hate the whole work environment right now.[.....]

That seems entirely rational and justified.

[.....]A good employee doesn'[.....]

Why do you want to be a good employee?

Your employers interests are not your own, often they're opposed.

[.....]somehow through the magic of persistence and positive attitude you'll make everything ok all on your own.

You do realize that's snake oil don't you?

I hope you also realize that "motivation" is about employer profits, not employee happiness.

You're in the U.S.A. aren't you @WarKitty? Maybe it's different if you're Japanese, German, or Scandinavian, or even Canadian (who knows?), but here you owe your employer nothing because mostly they don't care about you at all, you are a tool to them, that they will dispose of you just as they will a tool the second a tool is worn out.

When the boss says "We're a family here", they mean "We want your loyalty, but we will treat you like animals being raised to slaughter".

I can't stress this enough, don't trust bosses, and especially owners ever!

It won't help you "be positive" but reading the works of Barbara Ehrenreich may help you understand reality better.

Don't believe Brightsiders.

Steinbeck's Tom Joad and most of the punks of the 1980's are still right.

[Crow]

Wow, as somebody who has a few employees of his own; 2D8HP sounds like he has worked for some pretty bad employers. He also sounds borderline unhirable, and unfit to be trusted with anything but the least critical tasks within an organization.

Won't brightside you on that one, buddy.

Your employer has different interests than you, yes; but your interests align in that you are both there to earn money. They need some job done, and are willing to pay you to do it. You need money and will do that job in exchange for pay. You have a mutually beneficial relationship, and you both have obligations to one another; usually agreed to at the time of hiring/promotion.

If you feel that you are being treated unfairly, you should absolutely leave if you don't find the pay to be worth the trouble. There are bad bosses out there, and bad employers out there; but if you go into every job believing that all employers are bad; and act according to that belief, you're of course going to have a bad time working.

Also, be aware of your state labor laws. Most employers are completely unaware (or if they're bad, deliberately unaware) of actual labor law. I see this most in regard to overtime, breaks, and lunches (and for those with persistent medical issues of all sorts, FMLA). Be aware of what you are guaranteed by law in your state, and hold your employer to account on it. A good employer will do the right thing. A bad employer will get hit with class action lawsuits if they don't.

[Bartmanhomer]

That seems entirely rational and justified.




Why do you want to be a good employee?

Your employers interests are not your own, often they're opposed.




You do realize that's snake oil don't you?

I hope you also realize that "motivation" is about employer profits, not employee happiness.

You're in the U.S.A. aren't you @WarKitty? Maybe it's different if you're Japanese, German, or Scandinavian, or even Canadian (who knows?), but here you owe your employer nothing because mostly they don't care about you at all, you are a tool to them, that they will dispose of you just as they will a tool the second a tool is worn out.

When the boss says "We're a family here", they mean "We want your loyalty, but we will treat you like animals being raised to slaughter".

I can't stress this enough, don't trust bosses, and especially owners ever!

It won't help you "be positive" but reading the works of Barbara Ehrenreich may help you understand reality better.

Don't believe Brightsiders.

Steinbeck's Tom Joad and most of the punks of the 1980's are still right.

I agree. I used to work with a female boss who's very horrible at my previous job. I was so miserable working here. I remain professional the whole time that I was working there and she didn't show any professionalism with me. She treated me like garbage. I tried to complain my job coach about it but she was no help and wanted me to continue working there. So anyway I finally complain to Human Resources about my boss abusive behaviour and things was a huge Trainwreck. My job coach was angry at me for doing the right thing and I finally told my job coach off about how I feel about this whole situation. My job coach was never there for me when I needed her. I complain about this problem since day one and she just ignore my complaints and wanted me to look the other way. In all honesty she was a lousy job coach. So anyway I got laid out a year later and part my separate ways with my job coach for good. That was 10 years ago.

[The Fury]

Use this as an opportunity to collect critical feedback. Due to how poor your performance was, there will certainly be plenty of areas you can focus in on for improvement; and probably some low hanging fruit in there that you can address right away.

Speak to those involved in the interview and grading as soon as possible. I can't stress this enough, because the longer you wait, the less specific the critiques will become unless they've retained notes. Ask them where you were deficient, and how to improve, and wring the most specific answers you can from them. Don't let them off easy; ask for examples.

Take notes during these conversations. Develop a plan to address the deficiencies, and follow through with it.

As far as the grades being displayed publicly; good. Use this info to get in touch with those who did particularly well, and try to get some input on what is working well for them; and see how much of that you can integrate into your own approach.

Better to miss by a mile than an inch. Opportunity for improvement comes easier that way.

Maybe, I guess? Although...

Poor test scores, plus displaying them publicly? That just seems like adding insult to injury. Whether it's better to "miss by a mile that an inch" might be dependent more on personality and mental/emotional state. I'm not sure where Gray Mage is at the moment, but sometimes "Nearly there!" feels much better than "Not even close!"

In any case, Gray Mage-- if you're the sort of person that can engage with students, then you're absolutely cut out to be a teacher. If you're the sort of person that can offer one-on-one personalized advice and encouragement to students, you'd be the sort of teacher that students will remember decades past graduation. So keep trying, it's worth it.

This might be silly, but...I just hate the whole work environment right now.

A good employee doesn't call out sick very often, because "people are relying on you to be there and get your work done." The advice people say is if you get sick more often and need to call out is that you should get a job where being present during specific hours isn't quite so important. Because "it's a business, not a charity," and they shouldn't have to work around you. If you have to call out more often, you're the problem and you need to stop expecting other people to work around you.

Except...if you're looking at lower-end jobs and don't have special skills, that is every job you could possibly get. And if you work a lower paid job or part-time and need assistance because you can't actually pay the bills like that, then you're a problem and need to stop expecting other people to work around you.

It feels like the only possible answer in society that doesn't make you a lazy, entitled person who just wants to be coddled by everyone else is to not have health problems. Or that somehow through the magic of persistence and positive attitude you'll make everything ok all on your own.

It is rather ridiculous. If you're sick, you're sick and you need time to recover. Forcing yourself to go to work, even when you're not feeling well typically just makes any health issues worse.

It's not much better for fairly healthy people. Whenever I get sick, it's been met with some level of suspicion. Like I can almost hear the person on the sick line thinking, "You've had perfect attendance the whole year and now you're too sick to come to work? Right."

taken beyond inferences, I once had a person on the sick line actually say, "Right, you're 'sick.' What time will you be coming in?"

Maybe it was a Friday or a Saturday? That would explain it somewhat. Honestly, I was running a fever bad enough that I could barely remember my own name, much less what day of the week it was.

But 2D8HP is sort of difficult to argue with here. Even though I work for a much better and much more understanding employer now, it's still hard for me to call in sick. Self-care has been sort of trained out of me.

[HalfTangible]

This might be silly, but...I just hate the whole work environment right now.

A good employee doesn't call out sick very often, because "people are relying on you to be there and get your work done." The advice people say is if you get sick more often and need to call out is that you should get a job where being present during specific hours isn't quite so important. Because "it's a business, not a charity," and they shouldn't have to work around you. If you have to call out more often, you're the problem and you need to stop expecting other people to work around you.

Except...if you're looking at lower-end jobs and don't have special skills, that is every job you could possibly get. And if you work a lower paid job or part-time and need assistance because you can't actually pay the bills like that, then you're a problem and need to stop expecting other people to work around you.

It feels like the only possible answer in society that doesn't make you a lazy, entitled person who just wants to be coddled by everyone else is to not have health problems. Or that somehow through the magic of persistence and positive attitude you'll make everything ok all on your own.

.......Yes?

If you're asked to come in at 10, accept, and don't show up until 2:30, it ultimately doesn't matter why you didn't show up until 2:30, you still didn't show up, which means other arrangements had to be made at the last second. That's only going to fly so many times before your employer stops relying on you and eventually just fires you.

Like... if you HAVE health problems, there's nothing you can do about that (aside from getting better, but I assume that's not an option here), but that doesn't change any of the facts. If the job itself is what's causing your health problems, tell your employer and ask them to cut your hours down a bit so that you can show up on time and work the full shift. An employee who shows up and does their work consistently and reliably for four hours is more valuable to the company than a guy who comes in for an 8 hour shift and spends half of it on smoke breaks.

You can't do that because you need the money? Well, A) your health is far more important than your money, and B) find other ways to make money. It has literally never been easier to make cash in ways other than full time 9-5 6 day work weeks. I currently work for a glorified taxi service that has no set times to work.

You're in the U.S.A. aren't you @WarKitty? Maybe it's different if you're Japanese, German, or Scandinavian, or even Canadian (who knows?), but here you owe your employer nothing because mostly they don't care about you at all, you are a tool to them, that they will dispose of you just as they will a tool the second a tool is worn out.

I work in the USA. What kind of f#@$ed up *******s have you worked for?

In my experience working minimum wage, your managers and employers are understanding to an extent (they're human too after all) but it only goes so far. People with the attitude that their employers are out to screw them tend not to last long, and why would they?

[AMFV]

I work in the USA. What kind of f#@$ed up *******s have you worked for?

In my experience working minimum wage, your managers and employers are understanding to an extent (they're human too after all) but it only goes so far. People with the attitude that their employers are out to screw them tend not to last long, and why would they?

Your employer isn't out to screw you, but they sure as **** aren't there to help you. They are there to help themselves. They're not going to give you anything. So if you are not helping them make money, they'll find someone who will, and if you have to take too many days they'll find someone who will. Which is why you have to look out for yourself, your employer is definitely not going to.