• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
    • Showing only topics with the tag "work". Back to normal view

    4. Things are crumbling around me and a lot of it is my fault

      ~health.mental Text 926 words
      Mods - I didn't know where to put this or what to title and tag the post with. This is mostly just venting and confessing. There's a lot of back-story to this but I'll start at the trigger and...

      Mods - I didn't know where to put this or what to title and tag the post with.

      This is mostly just venting and confessing.

      There's a lot of back-story to this but I'll start at the trigger and work from there.

      The short version

      My boss is remote-only, so calls and WhatsApp messages are how we communicate. Wednesday he called me and started the conversation off by how tired he was today and why. To cut to the chase, he revealed to me, in detail, that he is a white supremacist, a holocaust denier, and potentially an actual Nazi. These aren't conclusions I am making based on piecing information together -- he outline each aspect at length while I silently listened.

      The long version

      He started the conversation telling me that he was tired because he was up all night with his wife "healing" his son's friend who was in the hospital suddenly for liver (or kidney, I don't remember) complications. He and his wife are "energy healers" and he gave me examples of how he and his wife, all by themselves, stopped natural disasters with their powers. The example he gave in this instance was the wild fires in 2020 in the PNW of the US. He said he that his wife "had enough" and went outside and raised her hands and said (I don't remember the words, I'm not going to make it up here) and the fires went out instantly. No one needs me to spell out the reality of these claims, so I won't. But if you want factual information about these wildfires, you can read more about them here.

      He then started telling me that his adult son (who has ASD or on the spectrum -- apologies, I don't know the right way to refer to this) has a hard time making friends but he and this guy were fast friends. His friend is from Ukraine and escaped the country right as Russia invaded (2022). This part is important because this is what launched the white supremacy garbage. After he said his son's friend escaped before the war, he went into a confusing ramble about how Russia was invading to kill "real white people" and that most of Putin's regime "are Jews" and that it's part of a global movement to "exterminate white people". This then went into how there are different kinds of white people and different kind of Jews. I don't know what "good/neutral" Jews are in his fucked up mind, but he said Zionists are the "bad" Jews. He says the Zionists have "mixed" with every government on earth and thus are in control of x-y-z.

      He said that I "looked like a real white person" and asked if I had German heritage (I don't). I tried to change the subject.

      That stream of thought led to literally saying Hitler was misunderstood, was misguided by his Jewish ancestry, and the Holocaust wasn't what we are being told. Photos are doctored, gas chambers were just showers, they had restaurants (?) in the camps, any deaths that occurred were from disease, not murders, and "how could 3 million Jews have been killed if there weren't 3 million Jews in existence?" Also that "Jews have a declaration to exterminate non-Jews"

      He then went into something about "mixing races" and how that's a terrible sin. "I'm not racist, I just think white people should only marry white people and black people with black people, and so on". The assumption here is less about marriage and more about procreation...

      I'm sure there's more shit I'm not remembering right now but those are the ones that I can't forget.

      Throughout the one-sided conversation, I tried to change the subject back to work (you know, since I am at work) numerous times and didn't respond to anything he was saying, but after the last part, I just hung up on him.

      There is no excuse for me letting him spew this hateful bullshit and I am ashamed of myself. I normally have no problem with conflict and ostracizing myself by calling out hateful bullshit people say but I chose to be silent this time because $$$.

      I've been going back and forth between being angry, ashamed, disappointed, and just sad since then. I knew my boss was a conspiracy nut because he's told me some of his wild beliefs before but none of them seemed hateful and I told him I wasn't into that sort of stuff. I don't know why he suddenly decided to unload all of this on me.

      I know there is a reality where I don't let this ruin my job, but I don't think I am able to do this.

      I need this job because I need the money. I moved across the country to work this job and now that I know who I am making money for, I have to quit. I have to find another job immediately. I can't afford to quit without having another job lined up. I had been looking for a better job for 2 full years before I moved here for this one and had no luck. I've done nothing but work since moving here for this job. I haven't made the time to try and make friends and instead just worked more and more.

      I feel like there were signs (details not mentioned here) I ignored out of desperation. I feel defeated.

      The only thing I know I must do is find a therapist and find a new job.

      40 votes

    7. Do you feel like you’ve had many lives so far? Why, why not? Which?

      ~life Ask
      I’ve been mulling over this for the past few weeks. Even though I haven’t drastically changed lives over the course of my lifetime, I still feel like I’ve had eras: As a young adult in the UK and...

      I’ve been mulling over this for the past few weeks.

      Even though I haven’t drastically changed lives over the course of my lifetime, I still feel like I’ve had eras:

      • As a young adult in the UK and around the world, figuring things out
      • As a student in Canada
      • As an employee in another province
      • And now as an independent consultant in Switzerland and France

      Although I still live a comfortable western lifestyle, I do feel these different eras are akin to different lives. 18 year old me wouldn’t guess what 30 or 40 year old me became. Not only professionally but also emotionally and day to day.

      To delineate my eras, I consider career/professional matters but also outlook on life, lessons learnt, relationships, country/city of résidence (or lack thereof).

      Do you have a similar feeling? Why or why not? And what do you consider you life or lives to have been so far?

      32 votes

    12. Things to do when you've lost your job

      ~talk Ask (advice)
      ** Edit: I updated my situation below in a comment but I'm gonna keep this post up to help others! ** About a month and a half ago I was put on PIP to step up at work. Feedback has been good over...

      ** Edit: I updated my situation below in a comment but I'm gonna keep this post up to help others! **

      About a month and a half ago I was put on PIP to step up at work. Feedback has been good over the last few weeks but not enough I guess. I was told I was terminated today.

      The job market out there is rough right now and I'm not sure what to do. I know a lot of people here have faced similar situations and everything, so I'm wondering if there's any tips/tricks/thoughts anyone has.

      I'm an Android developer and was working in fin-tech adjacent work if that's relevant.

      51 votes

    17. Career mentorship: How does one find a mentor?

      ~life Ask (advice)
      Have you had a fulfilling mentorship, whether as mentor or mentee? How does one gain a mentor? Are there professional associations that one pays a fee to join? Advice on career development wanted....

      Have you had a fulfilling mentorship, whether as mentor or mentee? How does one gain a mentor? Are there professional associations that one pays a fee to join?

      Advice on career development wanted. Especially advice for introverted, neurodivergent women in business.

      optional rambling Background : I'm not young anymore, and to be honest, I feel embarrassed to be doing front line starter level work when [*comparison to others redacted*]. I like the day to day work I'm doing, I love working remotely, and I'm not interested in climbing the corporate ladder or spending my time managing people. But I do feel somewhat taken advantaged of by Sales team pushing work onto me, when I'm in support team. Its very difficult for me to stop speaking with "probably / I think / I feel that" etc; I'm working on appearing and speaking with more confidence. I am always receiving feedback that I'm fun and caring of others and easy to work with, but when I ask for opportunities at work it's always "we'll see" --> ghost --> "no". The gist of it is that I don't feel like I'm taken seriously.

      I remember @lou mentioned that they were a writing mentor, but it took a lot of work and wasn't always rewarding. I understand that nobody wants a free-riding hanger on, of course. I do feel like I'd be willing to put in some work, but because we can't really know what we don't know, I don't know what I'm asking of a mentor. I don't have a clear goal? I joined a work committee recently but they're SO quiet no one is even saying hi, let alone feel like a community, or enabling more personal relationships.

      I do realise it's entirely possible that I'm mediocre at "career" because I'm mediocre at "work", and i should keep getting better at work before expecting more. But I might also be held back by enduring values of "serve others quietly and take care of others while keeping your head down": my first professional job was so abusive but my parents got so mad/scared for me when I finally quit. Who do I think I am, asking for more?

      I'm the go to person for a few types of things at work now, but I feel more like the laundry lady than "subject matter expert" that sales people like to introduce me as to clients. Sorry for the rambling.

      I want to hear a variety of stories, of how you became good at "career", beyond becoming competent at "work", and how you learned to be good not only at what you do but how you go about doing what you do.

      Thank you for your time.

      20 votes

    18. AI makes an appearance at my union meeting

      ~tech Ask
      I had an interesting experience this week. Not all union meetings are interesting, even if they are useful. Yesterday was a pleasant exception where it was both useful and interesting. For the...

      I had an interesting experience this week. Not all union meetings are interesting, even if they are useful. Yesterday was a pleasant exception where it was both useful and interesting. For the first time, I witnessed AI coming up as a topic of conversation. There is no secret that people fear losing their jobs due to AI automation, and sure enough I saw proof of it to the extent that the union may consider adding some clauses around protecting jobs from AI.

      How is it at your workplace? Where I work, this year I witnessed a very strong push to use AI. Messaging around using AI at town halls, messaging around using AI in team meetings, articles on the intranet site, IT events around how to craft good prompts, etc. I would not be surprised if they tied some leaders' bonuses to how much they can get their teams to use AI. This part is quite annoying to me, not to mention deceitful. If I were a leader I'd straight up tell my team about it. I am not a leader - leaders are not part of the union to begin with.

      The whole thing made me also think about how my colleagues use AI. It really is a mixed bag. I see everything from the person who runs a 2-line email through AI five times to finetune every word, to myself who only reach for AI when I am stuck and it's just much faster than a search engine/forums/videos to solve my issues (for example needing a script in a programming language I am not familiar with).

      37 votes

    30. How do I convince my workplace we need SQL databases?

      ~tech Ask (advice)
      I work for a GIS company and our tools have not grown with our projects and client base. We use ArcPro personal geo databases (GDBs) for ALL data. We recently had a project where shit really hit...

      I work for a GIS company and our tools have not grown with our projects and client base. We use ArcPro personal geo databases (GDBs) for ALL data. We recently had a project where shit really hit the fan, one major issue was related to invalid values from poor version control. Everything uses personal GDBs and is just "version controlled" by dating filenames in Explorer. It would have been trivial to fix in a proper database. We also have operational constraints, like we can only have one person doing X job at a time since all the data for X job is in a personal GDB.

      But I'm just an analyst. I've garnered some attention for my technical expertise beyond processing the data. PostGIS is a thing so it isn't as though we'd be recreating the wheel. How can I push for that sort of change? I'm thinking I can sell it using how much we lost on this project because of these avoidable failures. I'm also wondering if I can make this an opportunity to create a "database administrator" position for myself

      29 votes

    31. What happens when the internet goes out at your work?

      ~tech Ask (survey)
      Can you pivot to other tasks, or are you dead in the water? What about others? Your team/department? Tell us what its like for those minutes/hours. How often does the internet drop for you (if at...

      Can you pivot to other tasks, or are you dead in the water? What about others? Your team/department? Tell us what its like for those minutes/hours.

      How often does the internet drop for you (if at all)?

      If you don't ever lose internet at work (lucky you!), answer hypothetically about what would happen.

      35 votes