hey there tildes. i’m moving out of texas in august no matter what and am trying to decide between chicago and portland. i was wondering if anyone here has lived in either (or both) locations and could help me decide by sharing their experiences.

i’m currently in texas and by the time i move, i will have only been here 1 year but this was always supposed to be a temporary stop for a job (that is very much not working out due to the owner of the company — i’ve posted about it a few months ago and struggle with it in my mind to this day).

i’ve moved around a bit, both in the same cities and across several states, over the past 5 years. im tired of moving and starting over, so im really going to focus on making the next place work for at least 5 years. the world is too chaotic for me to pretend to see farther out than that.

i had been reading and watching a lot of videos about chicago over the past month or two and now wondering if i should give it a try? i just assumed i would move back to portland by default because i liked it well enough and now im not sure if i should fall back to something familiar or try again somewhere else.

just want to say that i know moving wont magically make my life great and i know i will have to put in a lot of work to make everything work regardless. greener grass and all that.

portland

i’ve lived in portland before (2 years) and visited many, many times in the 7 years before moving there. i liked it for the most part.

things i didn’t like (mostly my opinion/experience)

• PNW gray, dreary weather for many months. im prone to bouts of severe depression and it’s a lot of work to keep healthy during the dark months. was in for seattle for 7 years prior to living in portland so i was maxed out with the gray perhaps.
• cost of living is kind of high for the size of city and offerings
• it’s a very slow, sleepy city that feels more like a very big town than a small city. sometimes i liked this about the city (less traffic, crowds) and sometimes i didnt (less “things going on”, especially later at night)
• the sheer amount of unsheltered people and seemingly no solution or even progress. when i lived there, it was really, really bad (2021-2023) and i’ve read that it’s actually gotten worse since ive left. it’s heartbreaking.

things i did like

• green year round, even if it’s gray and winter. beautiful outdoors/hiking, swimming in the river
• proximity to seattle (i have friends there)
• much more agreeable politics for me (Leftists everywhere)
• great food options, fun bars, interesting shops
• very bike friendly (newly into biking, was not when i lived there)
• decent public transit
• relatively friendly people though i did struggle with making deeper connections
• very positive towards folks who are queer or generally nontraditional. that’s important to me
• seems like a lot of creative folk live here

chicago

i’ve never been to chicago. i’ll visit in june to check it out. i also don’t know anyone there. this isn’t a huge deal since i have done this kind of move (only visiting right before moving and not knowing anyone) i guess 3 times now.

reasons i think i will like it

• liberal city
• great public transit
• big, dense city
• diversity
• seemingly decent cost of living
• people say midwesterners are friendly (?)
• job opportunities just by the fact that it’s such a huge city

things that are/may be negative

• brutal winters. i am not used to real winters. seattle/portland had very mild winters and even denver’s were honestly not bad at all. i hear lots of talk about chicago winters.
• crime. no, i don’t think i will be regularly mugged or killed like the US media makes it sometimes seem, but compared to everywhere i’ve lived before, it’s has a higher violent crime rate.
• friends/community. i’m in my mid 30s and it’s harder to make friends the old i get and that’s sort of my number one goal each time i move to a new city. also never really had “community” and would really like to have that in my life.
• politics. i know that portland is generally much more left and chicago is more generic democrat. this isn’t the end of the world and i don’t expect everyone to be as far left as i am but i want to be able to live in the same reality as my community.

huge wall of text, i know, so thanks for those that read it. i’m not great at organizing my thoughts in these posts, but i’m just tryin’ to figure stuff out!

if anyone has anything they want to share based on my likes/dislikes and your experience, please do! i really enjoy reading what the folks here have to say about things.

Hey all,

I'm a computer science major, and I'm about to graduate at the end of April. My general life situation is a bit messy, so unless I can find a job this month, I am going to have to look into some less-than-savory options for housing and feeding myself.

I've applied for ~280 entry-level software engineering positions thus far and have had a few calls back, but once the company realizes that my graduation date is a month out, I never hear from them again (I follow up anyway, just in case.) I also have been working an internship through school for about two years, and expected to get a return offer, but that recently fell through. I can continue to work there past graduation, but I'd still be an intern for the foreseeable future, and that will not be enough to cover rent.

I haven't given up, exactly -- I'm still networking rather aggressively, and, even though it makes me feel bad, I'm milking every connection I have to try to find something. I just don't feel like the chances are good that I land a software job in the timeframe that I've got left, so I want to start looking at what else I can do with just "a degree" as opposed to "a computer science degree." Obviously the job market is horrible for everyone right now, but wider nets catch more fish and all...

So, any suggestions?

Feeling pretty discouraged after taking yet another spin around the tech interview circuit for naught
I was feeling pretty good this time around as I've interviewed with this company before and was runner up for previous role. The hiring manager contacted me for this new one, and again I aced it until the final stage where I got punted for the all nebulous "culture fit" reasoning. My mood isn't helped by the constant AI doom clouds hovering overhead that makes me wonder if I need to make bigger career changes.

How's everyone else fairing out there?

Sorry this is pretty rant-y, I tried I promise lol:

I've posted on here re: topics similar to & leading towards this one, but not in this group specifically, so apologies if this is not the right place but idk where else to put it lol: I need to talk to someone who started life less-well off, whatever that means where you come from, and worked themselves into a better situation, and then actually finally broke through whatever the fuck this is that I can't get past right now.

I am solidly working/lower middle class (low low, like I'm not gonna lose my house but I also could never move, no savings but only overdraft -occasionally-, etc.): education background, higher ed, public service, etc—I got too many degrees & got on some good meds & found out mid-30s I have a lot of marketable transferable high-level skills, setting me on a course to replace all the side gigs with one Good Job. Almost got a couple of -really- good offers (like, verbal, then waiting, then layoffs, then a very disappointing email, rinse and repeat) as it unfortunately just happened to be the worst year to look for a job since 2008 lol.

One of the things I'm good at is talking/listening to people, and one of the things I was lacking in was a good network (the other BA/education grads I knew also don't have very good jobs), so I started talking to anyone & everyone, mostly aspirational/mentor types, they have all done very well for themselves & I think it's self-selectinf but they're all pretty sales-y, which is fine. And as another skill I can usually "spot" people, pattern recognition or maybe autism idk, so I'm only talking to people who have had success but also that I don't anticipate will be telling me to pull myself up by my bootstraps, etc.

So here's the thing: every single one of them has said basically (and I think genuinely trying to be helpful): "Why do you need a better job?", "What do you really want here?", "I had what you're after and it didn't make me happy, it was what you already have that did that for me finally," and so if you are having thoughts like that, thank you for reading, please leave lol, because I just cannot—like of course it's easy for you to say "Oh, a corporate job is just travel & restaurants, that's no way to live" when you've already done it! I want in, dude. And honestly it feels like something a woman in the 80s or 90s would have been up against—like "Oh you're better off where you are," ok sure let's fucking swap then. Jesus.

Ok sorry /rant. So what I need is for someone who grew up pretty low income to tell me that there's even a hope, a shred of a possibility that I can do better for myself & my family, because all I can find is people telling me I should be happy with what I have, and the truth is I am not, I'm spinning my wheels and going insane, I am running at maybe 10% capacity and it's driving me nuts—i can literally hear it now "boy I wish I had that much free time”: yeah? What would you do with it? Expensive shit, I bet. See? I feel like I could have both things, but no one wants to let me in—is it just in-group mentality & self-preservstion? Am I somehow threatening their status quo by being a real life person who could maybe do what they did? Because the closest I've gotten so far is hearing how someone along the way cut them a break & that's how they got their start, except none of them seem to be able to see the irony in saying that to me before telling me to just enjoy it as it comes, take it easy, my god I am going to have an aneurysm. And we're talking a significant sample of probably 15-20 people—is it just boomers? Am I doomed?

The most recent take was: "Well you seem like a person who's comfortable and middle-class, so it'll happen, you're fine." And I'm not, like, giving them the hard sell or asking for a job, I'm just mostly listening. I don't get it, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do when I'm trying to find out how someone got to where they are & they end with "You don't need what I have." Is social mobility even a thing anymore in the US?

Edit: gosh I just want to say how much I love this weird lil site, I am feeling about a million times better than I did this time yesterday, to the point that when the person I spoke with (the one who sent me spiraling & considering just going to bed & not getting out of it lol) messaged me to ask if I'd like to talk some more, I didn't say anything but "I'd love to!" because I didn't have to. Because they don't have to get it, they just have to help me find a job—seems like quite a few of you get it & that's all I think I really need sometimes.

(unless you're hiring then pls lmk lol)

TL;DR: I just need your help to erect some kind of mental deep sea bunker in my soul :-)

Context: My job brings me into private homes with lots of permanently switched-on large televisions and with lots of super-talktative and socially starved human beings ambiently living around these screens.

The job is personal assistance: to remain emotionally present and relateable for hours on end. Quite an effort, not only because I get easily distracted by television sounds and screens (war-footage + sports = random mainstream deluge of endless pixel poison). I did not grow up with television and my audio-visual filtering capability is very poor. I get fixated by any stream of noise and trapped within it. This job makes me want to get better at filtering.

Thus I would much appreciate if anybody who knows this type of problem, would share techniques to filter and/or ignore external stimuli. More useful answers would take into account that being rude or flippant is not an option, and it would not be socially acceptable for me to regulate the televisions.

What would be some terms that I could use to find books about the topic? Any experiences you can share with me? Thanks <3