My son just graduated high school last week. I was immensity proud and the week leading up to it was super busy getting the house ready for visitors, celebration, etc.

This week had been the opposite, while my kid is visiting his college for orientation I can't help but have this "lost" feeling. Not depression or empty nesting but more of "Now I got to figure out what I want to do when I grow up" mindset.

Did you make any life changes? New hobbies? Did you experience something similar?

I have the opportunity to purchase a house in a beach town that would double as both a vacation home for myself and a short term rental property. This would be my first foray into the world of short term rentals so I was hoping to get your general advice, guidance, and experience.

I should mention that I think I've got a pretty good grasp on the financial aspects of it, i.e. the mortgage, rental rates, fees to the town and rental platforms, taxes, insurance, etc.

I'm more curious about things such as:

• Do you recommend using an umbrella management company to handle cleaning, maintenance, landscaping, etc. or do you outsource an individual cleaning service, handyman, etc.?
• What type of "filtering" do you recommend to make sure you're renting to people who will respect the property?
• What sort of furniture, linens, etc. do you recommend?
• Are there any gotchas that you didn't expect when getting into this line of work?

So, I have my first child on the way. To say I'm unprepared or overwhelmed isn't exactly accurate, but wouldn't really be wrong either. My wife and I are reasonably intelligent, compassionate, patient people so I have a lot of confidence in our ability to figure this out as we go, but there are some things we have to prepare for before the baby comes.

The big current task is the "baby registry" so I thought I would start a discussion on the things we should actually be asking for, what's worth buying new, and what's worth finding second-hand or making ourselves.

A few things have been gifted to us already but I wanted to start an open discussion of the items that are important, helpful, or even just fun for newborn babies and raising infants and toddlers in a safe, enriching, and comfortable environment.

I thought it might be helpful to request top-level comments for discussion on various aspects of "baby life" and the things a new parent should make sure they have, government or private services and programs to be aware of, or anything else I might be forgetting. I'd like to have this topic focused on first year of life concerns.

I'd like to avoid any discussion of "how to raise your kids" because I think it's such a highly personal thing and also based heavily on what your individual child is like - so I'm really thinking in terms of goods, services, and easing the burden on us, the parents. You don't have to have kids to reply! I think outside perspectives are also very valuable because there are so many preconceived notions about this stuff. I'll post a few top level comments of the things I am personally thinking about, but please feel free to fill in anything you notice is missing, or doesn't fit well in a posted category. I'm happy to change categories as requested as well to be more inclusive or specific.

I’m building a new home and we have hard water around here. I want to save our brand new plumbing and fixtures from being loaded up with deposits from day one. I’ve never used a water softener before. What’s the best route to go?

I'm a newly retired 60-year-old, with a 76-year-old spouse. This is really hard sometimes!

I'm trying to stay active in my non-profit, non-commercial endeavors, but I'm finding myself with more time on my hands than I know what to do with.

How you doing?

I’m attending college this fall and moving cross country for this move. I wanted to ask everyone who’s currently in college or graduated not too long ago on whether if it’s worth it to stay on-campus in the dorms.

I heard you get assigned a roommate and some dorms, depending on which one you get, can have 1-3 additional roommates.

I’ve always had my own room and the closest thing I’ve had to a roommate was my little sister…but she had her own room as well.

I know staying on campus it’s easier to get to class and I get to live the traditional college experience. I don’t mind having a roommate but I heard if you have a shitty one, it’s not gonna be fun.

The perks of having your own apartment you get the ability of having your own space and doing whatever you want with no dorm monitors right? Only downside is paying rent?

If you have any insight or experience to share I'd love to hear them! 🙏

Two years ago by wife and I split up as friends and while I understand it and think it was the right move, I'm still in tears and the feeling of a broken and pointless life. She moved on, found friends, new hobbies, new whatever. I still am where she left me and I don't know what to do. We've been together for almost 20 years and while I wasn't very communicative before, I sure ain't now. Even less than before.

I tried finding new friends, but I can't really read people and seem to misinterpret everything. I've met a woman on my daily walks with my dogs and her dog loves me and my little idiot dog. We two seemed to like eachother and after a few months of random meetups I asked her if I should give her my email (because I thought that would be less intrusive than my phone) to meet for walks. I made clear that I didn't intend to hit on her, but the look on her face broke my heart. I can't really tell what it was, but it wasn't positive. Now I'm back in my hole and back at feeling alone.

How do people move on? How can I get out of this... I don't know, terrible loneliness combined with the fear of seeing that expression again if I open up to others? I don't think I can handle this often.

After my lease is up in my current apartment, I am hoping to purchase a home somewhere in the US and am just now in the beginning stages. I'm not too far into my search but am generally looking for 2-3 bedroom with 1.5 bath, a basement, and a decent backyard. My budget is <$250k and I am looking at east Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, and maybe Michigan. Fortunately, I work from home and am not terribly dependent on being near a job, but unfortunately it seems like all houses have exploded in price the past 3 years in pretty much every area. It is crazy to look at a house that sold in 2019 for $100k being listed now at the top of my budget at $250k! It kind of makes me want to put in an offer at 65% of the listing price for some of these egregious increases. Especially as the higher interest rates making the house way more expensive than what they originally purchased at when the rates were at all time lows. It seems like the market for a $150k starter home is non-existent for most parts of the country these days.

• Anyways, I was curious who here is a homeowner?

• What is your experience like going from renting to buying, or if you were a homeowner and went back to renting?

• What are some things you wish that you had known to do prior and what advice would you give yourself back then?

• How long did you search and how long are you planning to stay in your home?

• What do you think of the current market dynamics? Is there any hope for prices to come back down to Earth?

• Any other thoughts you want to share?

Given how the 2020s have gone so far, I'm feeling some meaningful concern about the news that we might be getting rolling blackouts if European fuel supplies get too low. I'm not at all sure whether they're overplaying the risk to prepare people, or dramatically underplaying it as they did with the first COVID lockdowns.

I'd be interested to know what, if anything, people recommend as preparation? I don't want to go overkill on something that may not even happen, but it also seems reasonable to consider the issue before everyone starts panic buying supplies.

I'm in the middle of a city, which has definite advantages in terms of walking access to shops and public buildings, but everything I own (including gas boiler and gas stove) needs electricity to run. It seems like a 500Wh LiFePO battery might be a good middle ground in terms of keeping creature comforts up and running, but they aren't exactly cheap so I'd be interested in any opinions and recommendations there?

More broadly it'd be great to hear what people think about the general risks, good preparations to make, and useful supplies that are easy to overlook?

Beginning of next year I am setting out as an independent software engineering consultant. As such I am interested in hearing from others who have already done something similar! I have been working as a developer and team lead for more than 10 years of which the last 5 have been focused mostly on the .Net stack. Now I want to expand my horizons a bit more, preferably with a new domain or another tech stack.

What are some suggestions/advice you'd give someone just starting down this path? Anything I should avoid doing? Anything I should definitely do? I suppose the specifics will vary a bit by country, but are there some general things I should be thinking about?

Oh, if you happen to have a need for a senior developer/tech lead, give me a ping!

I have a work-related ethics question, and I thought the fine people here on tildes were perfect to give feedback. I'll try to be brief but still give all of the information.

Background

I work for an energy utility. This company isn't a charity, but it is a non-profit. We are owned by the people who buy power from us (called "members"). We don't profit off of the electricity we sell to our members, but we do generate extra electricity to sell to other utilities (mostly to for-profit ones). Any profit we make is either set aside for future use or is sent out to the members as a check. Yes, our members actually get a check each year. This cooperative was built to serve rural communities since at that point in history profit-driven companies weren't willing to spend the money to run electricity to these communities. We cover 90% (geographically) of our state, along with portions of a neighboring state. We generate using wind, hydro, solar, coal, and natural gas. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I believe roughly 30%-40% of our generation comes from renewables, and we now have a dedicated team researching nuclear power (SMNR) and energy storage (which would allow us to further shift to renewables).

Context

There is a PAC (an entity that throws money at politicians in exchange for votes) for rural electric cooperatives that we participate in. This PAC can only accept donations from our members or employees. While the stated purpose is to advocate for rural cooperatives in general, I personally think that largely translates into advocating for fossil fuels.

Every year there is a 10-day period in August where they start asking us employees to donate. Anyone can donate at any time, this is just the time that they emphasize it. Leadership has REPEATEDLY emphasized that there is no pressure and that our supervisors can't see who has and hasn't donated. I've been here nearly five years, and they've said this each time. I know that under the previous CEO (he left ~10 years ago) there was pressure to donate, and that's probably why they emphasize this now.

Issue

I've discovered however that the leadership CAN see information on who has donated and how much. PAC donations are public information, and the names and amounts can be easily seen online if you know where to look. I do believe that my division leader didn't know this, though I can't really know whether the other leadership did or didn't. There's no way to know if any supervisors have looked at this data or made decisions on it. After I brought it up to my division leader he thanked me and said he will send this new information out to our division.

However, communicating this to the rest of the company is beyond his control. He's alerted the people who can do this but what they do is up to them. While my division doesn't really care who donates, I get the impression that other divisions feel differently. IT has a profoundly different culture than the rest of the company. Senior leaders say there's no pressure, but that's not neciserily the case for supervisors and managers. It's been implied to me that the teams that work in power production, transmission planning, etc still have expectations about donations.

What to do?

So here's the core ethics question: Is it unethical for senior leadership to withhold this new information about the visibility of donations from the rest of the company? The assurance of anonymity was intended to reassure us that there would be no retaliation for those who don't donate and that there would be no favoritism for those who do.

Is this just a small thing that's not really important? If this is an issue, how significant is it? It's obviously not "dumping toxic waste in the river" bad, but it still feels like it must have some level (or potential level) of impact. If this is an issue, what actions would you personally take? How much would you be willing to risk taking action on this?

Thanks in advance, I just want to do the right thing.

I recently moved to a place with harder water than I'm used to (more minerals). It tastes bad, it makes my detergents less effective, it forms soap scum everywhere, and it's definitely not good for my appliances. Does anyone have advice on how to deal with this in a cost-effective way?

I unfortunately can't install a point-of-entry water softener here. I can theoretically install point-of-use softeners for each of my appliances (bathroom sink, kitchen sink, dishwasher, washing machine, maybe shower), but the portable ones cost like $300+. I can't decide if it's worth the purchase. I also don't know enough about the different kinds or whether they're available in portable formats (reverse osmosis filtration, potassium chloride water softening, and sodium water softening; maybe others). Does anyone have recommendations?

I recently bought a showerhead with a better filter, which will probably help reduce skin irritation, but it can't actually remove calcium or magnesium. I can't visualize what a genuine point-of-use softener for a shower would even look like or how I would attach it to my showerhead, and I don't know where to get one that isn't just marketing fluff.

I have some CLR that I intend to use with my dishwasher, but I don't want to have to buy this stuff constantly (just another cleaning product in my cabinet). And I have a Brita for drinking water, but was thinking of getting an under-sink filter as I don't like waiting for it to refill; I have no idea how much to spend on this or which brands are best.

Happy to hear everyone's thoughts on household water management!

Long story short I am a web developer that currently makes more money than I've ever made in my life to this point. The downside is that my benefits package is sub-par. Very few vacation days, no health insurance (though we do get $ on our checks to go toward costs), fairly bare-bones retirement plan, etc. I also feel kind of aimless at this job. There is no clear path for raises or promotions. It's too small of a company for that.

I got an offer today for a job with a company that a former manager of mine works at (We both left our previous jobs around the same time, so no poaching concerns there). It's an opportunity to change my specialty from backend development (databases, server-side code) to frontend development (HTML, CSS, JS). I've always enjoyed frontend development more than backend. Feel free to giggle about this terminology because it's definitely ridiculous. The job basically resolves all of my benefits issues. Unlimited vacation, pretty good health insurance, and a more robust retirement plan. There are also very clear paths for raises/promotions. In fact one of the first things you do when you get hired is sit down with your manager and department head and plot out a career track for yourself. So in my case I'm aiming for team management or something along those lines in a few years. So they would cater my training and promotions around that. There's a guaranteed yearly raise, plus a nice 5% bonus at end of the year.

So what's the problem? Because the second job seems perfect, right? Well the second job pays nearly 12% less a year. So what's the problem? Because that's an insane drop in pay, so clearly stay where I'm at, right? Well I was told by my former manager (and potentially new department head) that the plan would be to fast-track me into something closer to my current salary once I'm there for a few months and start excelling at my job. And I trust this guy because he fought for me to get raises twice when I worked under him before. It's rare to work under someone who will go to bat for you, and he was always that guy for me and I've no reason to think he wouldn't be again.

Because the way I see it, once I get a raise or promotion under my belt I should be pretty close to where I'm at now, but with substantially better benefits. And in a place with more of a future for me than my current job.

I just really don't know what to do here. I've "made a decision" in my head about a dozen times today, going back and forth between options. I kind of feel like it's worth taking the hit in the short term to be working at a place that will pay off better in the long term. Not just financially, but I'll get to broaden my skill set and actually have a concrete plan for progressing in my career.

Looking for any advice, or opinions, or whatever. I'm completely torn here.

edit -- Just wanted to thank everyone here. I decided to accept the job offer. My wife and I are working on a plan to weather the loss of income. Next step is writing the resignation letter....which always sucks. I hate disappointing people and it's a small company that I'm leaivng so my departure will be felt.

First off, fuck job applications. It's an awful and tedious charade. Creating accounts on hundreds of websites for the resume parser to not work and have to manually upload that all again, to then write a cover letter that's skimmed at best, for a word to be missing from the resume which their detection tech passes before you're given a real shot.

But regardless that's not why I'm here. I'm in the process of applying to jobs, but for the first time I'm applying to jobs internationally (I'm US based). Have any of y'all applied for and received jobs abroad? What was successful and what wasn't? I'm primarily looking into pharmaceutical research or pharmacovigilance/drug safety because that's where English language jobs are in my area of study, but hope to eventually become fluent enough in a different language so I can move back into infection prevention or disease surveillance.

I skim-read the news, 90+% just headlines, for an hour a day, if not more. I do like to stay informed, so I feel it's not entirely wasted effort, but most days, I'm caught up within 10 minutes, and after that, it's basically just apocalypse FOMO (is that a 'thing'? It should be).

Lately, as an alternative, I've started paging my way back thru the xkcd archives.

What else would you recommend, low-effort, distracting, not horrible?

Hi everyone,

I recently got accepted into University and Lethbridge and University of Manitoba for Computer Science second degree.

Both of them have co-op programs, but I don't know which would be better for me. Ideally, I want to go the uni with a better job market for CS, so Lethbridge seems to be the winner since it is close to Calgary. But I am also looking to immigrate to Canada in the future, and I know that Manitoba has easier requirements for Permanent Residence nominations.

I am in a bit of a bind, and I am trying to gather as much information as I can before I make a decision. Anything you have to share would be much appreciated. Thanks!

P.S. I know Toronto and Vancouver are much better places for jobs, but sadly I missed the deadline to apply to most of the colleges there. I do plan on applying for jobs in those cities though.

Like the title says, I'm curious if anyone has experience encountering digital resumes. Whether you're an employer or you've used a digital resume yourself how well did it work? Were you more likely to hire a candidate because they had a well-rounded website that showed off their skills or was it an immediate discard because it didn't conform to normal practices.

I'm graduating with my MS in organic chemistry this May, and I'm trying to work my way in the job market. A website/blog sounds appealing to me because I can show off data annotations and analyses from failed reactions that normally aren't discussed in papers, so I think it would be a good fit.

I'm a big believer in the theme system proposed by CGP Grey (discussed in much more detail on the Cortex podcast), and have been thinking about what I would like my theme for 2022 to be. After realigning my financial situation this year through the (imaginitively named) Year of Finance, I want to spend some time focusing on myself as a person and my existence in the world.

Enter the Year of Authenticity. Recent circumstances and some serious meta-cognition have led me to the conclusion that I am not sufficiently honest enough about my values, beliefs, expression, and well, myself. I find myself bending to the various social situations I find myself in, and it feels very dishonest at times. So I plan to spend 2022 thinking more about the person that I want to be, being more true to that desire, and trying to align my various "selves" into an individual who I am confident being in any situation.

I already have a few things in mind that I expect to work on, including my public gender expression and my fear of expressing opinions in unfamiliar groups and situations. But I find myself wondering, how do other people experience the desire to be more authentic? Is this something any of my fellow Tilderen have ever spent time working on? What are your approaches to practicing authenticty? Do you have an idealised version of yourself which you work towards? Do you find yourself acting differently with different groups of people? Is this even something I should be worried about? Lets have a talk about it :)

Edit: The nice thing about a theme (watch the video if you haven't, it gives a good explanation) is that it's fuzzy, and it can mean a lot of things, or even change meaning when necessary.

A few have mentioned the idea of consistency, which is not really what I'm shooting for. I don't believe that there is a core, unchanging, self that I have inside me that I am wanting to unleash on an unsuspecting world. I know and embrace that as humans we are emotional, multi-faceted beings, and that changing social situations necessitate changing mannerisms. I don't expect to behave in the same with with my university professors as I do with my best friends of multiple decades. I haven't yet nailed down exactly what I do mean by authenticity, but I do know that it doesn't mean trying to be the same logical, consistent character to all people.

There's a reason I've started thinking about this journey for 2022 now, even before December: there's a lot of introspection and metacognition required for something like this. Being an intronaut can be scary and difficult, but I'm excited to see where it takes me! This whole process is just beginning, and I'm looking to gain insight into others' experiences to help frame my own view of what this year can/might/should mean for me. Thanks for everyone's responses so far <3

Basically the title. Do you now, or have you ever tracked your time to try to measure where it all goes? I've been feeling a little unproductive lately, and have heard anecdotally that keeping a log of time spent can be useful for realigning your priorities. I'm checking out a bunch of different apps and services, but also just curious to know if anybody has had any joy with this sort of thing?

If you currently track your time, what do you use; are there things that you don't bother tracking; and do you feel like it's a useful tool?

If you have in the past but don't anymore, same questions, but also why did you stop?

Be it books, advice, tips, quotes, movies, activities, etc. Just anything that might've stuck and gave a new perspective on how to approach relationships.

Specifically looking for things to help improve relationships with family (parents & siblings), but honestly advice for any relationship is welcome (friends, partners, etc.).

Also thoughts on how/when to address topics such as mental health, diagnoses and sexuality or if they should be addressed at all.

Thanks

I am actually an Org Mode user, but I want something with great mobile support (Android) as well as desktop/web. None of the Org apps is good enough for me, and that may never happens. I don't even use my computer as much these days. I've been looking into Dynalist but the free version is bit too limited, the paid version is a bit much for me. Evernote is kinda the same. I could try Joplin+Dropbox? Obsidian? IDK. Any suggestions?

I terminated my position over 4 months ago and I'm still not able to apply for jobs. I'm frustrated with my inability to move on from the previous toxic work environments. My background is in a male dominated field and there was always something either insensitive, sexist or racist said in all my previous workplaces. I feel, I know I'm going to be met with some sort of comment in my next work place and I no longer want to put myself in those situations anymore. I don't know how I'll react, I feel like I may explode if I hear another ignorant phrase.

I want to be able to make money. People say I must not have liked what I did very much if I wasn't able to put up with the comments. Other people say that that's just how the world is, "get used to it!" I've also heard that I'm just going to have to wait for change because drastic/fast pace change causes recoil. All of these comments literally tell me to suck it up and allow the same rhetoric to propagate. And, of course, all of this has been told to me by white men, those who aren't effected by the comments said to me.

Things that have happened to me or that were said to me:

• Smile more
• I'm too soft spoken/nice
• I'm too aggressive
• "Do you want to fix your hair?"
• A project manager bought me hair product, I didn't ask. I have curly hair and it took me a long time to love my curls, but it's seen as "unprofessional"
• A Director was staring at my hair throughout an entire interview
• "I'll put you up there" when the males were talking about strip clubs
• "Why are women crazy?"
• I've been kissed on my face and told "if only I met you before my wife"... never had a fucking conversation outside work with this person. I didn't even speak to him more than once a week!
• "We were surprised that you and Mohammad spoke English". Both me and Mohammad were born and raised in the United States. When I responded with "Why did you guys think that?" they conveniently stumbled and changed the subject.
  ... Many more things happened, but require too much context.

I just don't get it. Am I suppose to let ALL these things slide? Am I suppose to hold empathy for people who don't have empathy for me? Who don't empathize with me and how what they have said may have made me feel? Should I forgive people who would rather hide the fact that they said something rather than apologize? (And yes, I filed reports for some of these comments/experiences and the rhetoric was "She got X fired", not "X's own behavior got them fired".)

And more importantly, how do I move on from this knowing that it's going to happen again? The last job had the most amount of sexism in it. The thing about sexism (and racism) is that it's meant to make you feel devalued, and shocker, I felt devalued. It took me so long to gain my self confidence back. And I want so badly to protect myself. I never want to feel those feelings again. But the world is still sexist and racist and homophobic and xenophobic... all the phobics. And how do I tell my next work place that the reason why I left and why I took a break from working was to deal with the emotional repercussions from a very toxic/sexist work environment (when workplaces see whistle blowers as a red flag)? And how to I prepare my little sister who is in college studying a male dominated field knowing that she'll have to deal with the same things I went through?

It's been 4 months and I'm still angry and still jobless. I've grown to hate social interactions for fear of someone saying some ignorant shit. I've grown a distrust of all people. I hate how much this thing has affected me, how belittled I feel and how I can't move on from this. I feel emotionally paralyzed and money is running out and jobs are hard to come by especially because I'm not white nor am I a male and my hair isn't straight Billie Holiday - I Love My Man.

I'm tired of confusing people with how my looks don't match my attitude/personality that they've been conditionally taught to think it was like. I'm tired of confusing people with how unashamed I am of my existence.

I'm in the market for a house, been looking pretty seriously for the past week or so. I've got two pre-approvals for mortgages, and I think I'll probably look for at least two more for fee comparison purposes. I have yet to actually see a house unfortunately, since every house we try to view gets sold that very same day :/ Hopefully the streak is broken, since we have an appointment with another house today!

Anyway, who here has advice for (any part of the process of) buying a house? Things to look for when viewing a house, things to consider that the common person might not, tips for making offers, tips for not giving up because of the market, etc.

I'll lead with some tidbits that I've gained from asking around friends and family that have already bought places recently.

1. Apparently, sending a personal letter to the owners with the offer letter has gotten multiple people a house even when their offer wasn't the highest. For example, my sisters friend knew the owners had a cat, and has cats herself. So in the letter she wrote, she mentioned how happy her cats would be laying on the windows and running around in all the new space and such.... and she got it! The owners realtor was kinda pissed.

2. Try to find out the reason the owners are moving out. My sister and her husbands realtor asked around, and they were able to close on their house because the owner needed a quick turnaround to get out as fast as possible. They got the house for 60K under asking price because they were able to sweeten the deal to suit the owner.

3. Location is (generally) more important than furnishings. You can add or remove things from a house, but you can't move it once you buy it.

4. Once you make an offer on a house and the owner accepts, make sure the contract includes the following two parts that are (apparently) very important:

   • House must appraise for at least the same value you've agreed to buy it at
   • Inspection must show no more than $buyer_defined_value dollars of necessary repairs, otherwise the deal should be re-negotiated or considered void.

5. Always leave enough money in your savings account to pay for any extras (because there are always extras) after the house is yours. New furniture, carpets, smaller repairs, paint, etc. You don't want to drain your account for the house only to find out you can't do anything afterwards.

I'm very excited (and exhausted already), but I want to make sure I'm as thorough as possible since I'll be spending the next several years of my life in it!

Forgot to mention(Thanks @Thra11), this is the US East Coast.

After a hiatus of applying for jobs, I got an email from Indeed that really caught my attention. It’s for a programming job in a new-ish framework that has quickly become my favorite to work in.

I applied for that and got back to work on applying to other jobs, different languages and frameworks.

This morning I got a message from that first job opening, the one I wanted! They reached out to schedule an interview.

I’ve got really bad social anxiety and a lack of interviewing experience. How do I prepare?

Hi,

I joined Tildes a long time back but haven't been the most active member. I was recently diagnosed with OCPD by a psychiatrist and I feel I may be codependant as well. Off late I have been feeling terrible but don't a lot of people I can talk to -- my SO suffers of OCD and is going through a particularly tough period in her life, she has explicitly said she can't be there for me; I don't quite share a relationship with my friends when I can just call them up in the middle of the night when I'm feeling terrlb;e. I'm feeling exremely lonely; what can I do to not feel this way?

I would normally describe myslef as emotionally stable, stoic even. However, this recent diagnoses has been quite upsetting; the best way I can describe what I'm feeling is an erosion of my sense of self. I realise all of what I'm feeling my head, and I fear that I may be just imagining most of problems. I'm at a state where I don't quite know what to do anymore, what I need is someone to tell me what do at any given point of time. I can't pursue therapy at the moment due to a variety of constraints but I am reading books which have come heavily recommended from others suffering similarly.

Hi all, I'm becoming almost certain that my apartment is dealing with a minor bedbug infestation. Do any of you have experience dealing with the things? Specifically, my unit shares a building with about 20 others, so has anybody dealt with infestations in a similar situation? I'm wondering if a heat treatment is even possible or realistic.

I’m writing the best man speech for my brother’s upcoming wedding. I haven’t been to many weddings so to be honest I’m not super familiar with the format of this speeches, or things I should be sure to mention (I.e. things like “be sure to thank xyz person”). I’m asking some family members but thought I should cast a wider net and ask here too. Any advice for writing this type of thing? Any memorable ones, good or bad, to emulate or avoid?

So my girlfriend has this dog, a miniatura Schnauzer. He's 5 years old and in perfect health. For some reason, he fears even the slightest elevation. The dog is quite athletic but behaves as if he was much older. He does know how to get on things, like sofas that are not very high, but if we forget to "rescue" him he will literally never go down. Which is cute but also a bother. I wanna make him a bit braver and more independent. Any ideas?

I find myself at a point in my life where I have the time, energy, and money to adopt a dog. Growing up I never had a dog - my parents only had cats. I don't totally know what I'm getting into so I'm looking for some advice.

I would like to have a moderately active dog, as I live a moderately active life. However, many donation sites list even just moderately active dogs as needing a yard. I live in a fairly spacious 1 bedroom apartment that's in a small complex (5 units) on the ground floor. Does this severely restrict the kind of dogs I should adopt? I know a hyper-active breed wouldn't be happy here. But should I consider myself limited to small, lower needs dogs?

Edit:

Probably important bit of information, I don't plan to get a puppy.

I want to try something new and send some sacks of coffee over the atlantic and maybe start a sidehustle. I'm in the process of checking tarifs and stuff, but I have no idea where to even start looking for somebody who would do the actual transporting or what it might even cost.

did anybody here do something like that?
how did you do it?
what did you send?
why did you do it?
what was your experience with it?
would you do it again?

When I was a child I never seemed to mind the winter, but in the past two or three years it's become exponentially harder for me to live through the cold and dark. I'm dreading the next few months.

The lockdowns in March and April were pretty agonizing because I had too many responsibilities but suddenly none of the support systems I had built up in my friend groups. I got through that because it was slowly getting warmer and I could just go on a walk if I needed space. But it's started snowing this week and I don't know how well I'm going to manage for the rest of the season, with it getting dark at 4 PM and seeing so few people. I get caught up in my own head in these destructive patterns of anxiety about past friendships and relationships and obligations that are very hard to escape from around this time of year. I have a lot of hobbies but I can't do most of them right now, so I kind of just end of staring at the wall or my phone for half the day, feeling bad that I screwed up a relationship or said something weird 6 months ago or whatever. On repeat for every day. I have some friends in the area who I like a lot, but I'm a little scared to leave my house from what I hear about the virus on the internet. I've been trying to do phone calls sometimes but they kinda just burn me out and make me feel worse.

I'm wondering if anyone else has a recurring problem with the winter like I do. I'm not sure if this is a normal thing and I'm just naive and haven't figured it out, or if most people are automatically as happy in the winter as they are in the summer. I've brought this up sometimes with people irl and they say "haha yeah I have seasonal depression too," but they mostly seem to just not like the cold (?), it's not the issue of banal-yet-existential dread and torturous self-probing that I can't avoid. I have a very sweet cat who will keep me company, and she's a good listener, but she doesn't talk a lot and she's hiding in another dimension half the time anyway. I journal and meditate every night, and that helps a little, but I really mostly rely on being able to go to pretty places to keep myself happy, and it's hard to do that when they're all closed or when it's too cold to be outside for a long time. If people have any thoughts or experiences I would love to read them.

thank you xoxo

for those still committed to monogamous relationships: if you've been in a situation where you're talking with a few people that could be romantic interests, how do you let them know it's not gonna happen once you've found the (current) one ?

Hello, I am a late 20s person from Europe who works part-time at a low-skilled job and is nearing completion of a masters in Financial Mathematics (FM). I also have an undergraduate degree in Economics and a post-graduate degree in Finance.

Previously I’ve worked full-time as an IT consultant, in R&D at an asset management company and in operational risk at an investment bank. I stopped working full-time in early 2018 due to mental health issues such as depression, anxiety disorder and possible Asperger’s. But even before then it was obvious my health was deteriorating and I actually got fired from my second job partially due to these problems. Since then I’ve been slowly working (or at least trying to) on my health, which has improved substantially but not as much as I would like. So in early 2018, with way too much time in my hands, I decided to get the part-time job to partially offset my expenses and also decided to go back to school to study FM.

I went back to school for multiple reasons. I was tired of doing work that was not very technical or quantitative. While working on my health I realized that I don’t do well with work that is subjective, unstructured or involves little interaction (for example doing a lot of reading, specially when I have no clear goal). I did a little programming at previous jobs and more during the masters. So, I can say with some confidence that I enjoyed it. But going back to the FM masters: it is very technical, I was fascinated and curious about it plus it has an excellent track record with regards to employment prospects. I also considered “going back” and doing an undergraduate degree in computer science but decided that it was just too long (minimum 3 years).

So with this “introduction” out of the way let’s get to the heart of this post. I don’t know what to do after I finish my masters. Of course I could just apply for jobs related with what I am studying. However, I think I really want to try working in the technical side of IT. I will admit I don’t know much about the different aspects and careers in IT but I find it interesting. Every time I was doing non-technical work I just wanted to understand and do the work of my technical colleagues. I think it both better suits my personality and aligns well with my long term goals of increased freedom and flexibility (IT generally pays well and you can do a lot of work remotely). I have this idea of maybe becoming a freelancer but I can understand that is not realistic in the short-term. So, working in IT inside a company is probably my best bet at this time. Regardless, another objective of mine is to be able to work less than 40h per week. I think it would be great for me, specially health-wise.

I have to say I got more excited about my ideas when I saw this post here on Tildes: https://tildes.net/~comp/quj/would_any_tilderino_be_interested_in_tutoring_me_in_programming. I am willing to put in the work and it would be awesome to have some tutoring. Another point I took from that post is that IT is a very big field and I honestly don’t know specifically what I want to do inside that space. However, I do know I don’t like dealing with UI or graphical/design aspects.

I guess I will finish by asking direct questions to help people structure their answers around (but if you want to talk about something else I wrote, be free to do so):

• First of all, what technical areas within IT do you think would suit me? If it’s not much of a hassle, please provide a brief description of what people actually do in those areas.
• Is it realistic to start working as a technical IT freelancer and learn as I go? Or are the odds very slim?
• Alternatively, if I decide to take the "safer" and more probable route of nailing a technical IT job, what should I do to put myself in a better position to attain that goal?

Thank you =)

I’m moving from the Midwest to California on Tuesday to start graduate school (I’ve been in an post-baccalaureate research position for the last two years). I’ve been so busy packing and making sure I see friends that I think it hasn’t truly hit me yet. I’ve lived around Chicago my whole life, even during college, so I suppose I’m a bit nervous about the change of location and being so far from friends and family. I’m incredibly excited of course to begin this new phase, but nervous nonetheless.

Have any of you all ever had big moves in the past? Any advice for settling in a new locale?

I've been in a relationship with my current girlfriend for almost a year now, and things seem rough right now because of an issue we're having.

My girlfriend is upset with me because she thinks I don't care about her past trauma. She's told me, very roughly, what she's gone through, and I told her that whenever she's ready to talk about it, I absolutely will. But according to her, the last time she tried to initiate talking about it, I told her that I had no idea what to say. And this upset her and stonewalled the discussion.

I don't doubt that happened. My problem is, is that if she were to try again, I might just very well do the same thing. I have zero idea on how to handle something of this severity. How do I ask her to talk about it? Is that something I should be asking? What does someone even say when given this information? I am not equipped whatsoever to deal with information of this magnitude and I'm at a loss. How do I let her know that I really do care about her, and am 100% willing to listen to what she has to say? I worry I'm too far in the doghouse to even make use of any of this advice, but any help is immensely appreciated

Edit in case anyone was interested: We talked and we're okay :). She told me what she went through and I didn't handle it nearly as bad as I worried I was going to. Thanks everyone for your kind words and helpful advice.

i'm currently on the path to receive a BS in business administration management information systems concentration from a four year state school. i was accepted to my major near the end of this spring. my university also has a data analytics minor that i am heavily considering.

once i am done with summer classes i plan to really dive deeper into excel and ease into learning sql b/c that will help in lots of MIS contexts it seems.

i read online that MIS is a great degree that can lead into system admin, database admin, network admin, or business/it/system analyst roles. id find any of these careers interesting so at this point in time i feel on the right path. most importantly i just want to a job that will allow me to live a comfortable life, ya know?

i have never really met anyone that has an MIS degree before so i have no idea what the job market is actually like for degree holders beyond clickbait articles that say how great it is. if you have an mis degree, what is your experience with it and what kind of role are you working? would you recommend this degree to someone else? what skills do you recommend most for hire-ability? id assume this is area specific, but i live in the PNW and live near an area with a strong biz/tech scene and lots of govt opportunities.

i was recently speaking with some CS majors and they were talking about how MIS is a garbage non-technical degree that isnt good for much. obviously CS is a harder more technical degree that can result in higher salary but i feel they were just trying to put my down for pursuing what they saw as a lesser degree, but nonetheless it put a sense of fear into me about my potential career opportunities.

i just need some guidance and would like to hear your experience.

thank you

She is a mixed breed (more pinscher) and is perhaps 16 or 17 years old.

She simply doesn't eat anymore. She went to the vet when this started and they found nothing. Gave her some appetite injection, she would eat for two days and stop. Went again and same thing.

I changed vets and he did blood work and everything was fine. He examined her throat with his hands because he didn't want to anesthetize a senior dog for a scan. He discovered a throat and ear infection. Treated and she started eating again, but only for a few weeks. She never gained her weight back.

Now she is only losing weight and not eating, it's been five days since she last eat something.

She sleeps almost all the time and is so thin and her back is so curved that when she drops her head to drink water her rear legs go up and she falls. We had to put the food and water up so she doesn't have any accidents.

She is so frail it's breaking my heart. I'm so afraid.

Update in the comments below, but I'm going to put it here too

Updating here: it happened today.

She got a little better and we didn't had the courage to do it when I made this thread. She was eating better.

But now she started having difficulties lying down and standing up. She would fall, couldn't lie down by herself. I had to help her.

This night her bed was a little wet and I figured she might have pissed while lying down.

Talked to the vet and she is gone forever.

But I didn't had the courage to watch and be with her during the procedure. I am dying inside because of this. I loved her so much, she was with us for almost 18 years...

I will never see her again.

Thanks for everything Meg and sorry for letting you down.

Some years ago, I wrote a book about telecommuting, including a section about the reasons people don't want to be remote workers. High on the list was, "It's too hard to move up in the company" because if you're out of sight, you're out of mind.

Well, now suddenly nearly everybody is a telecommuter, whether or not they like the idea. So that particular skill is particularly relevant. And I've been assigned an article on "How to 'manage up' when you work from home." I'd like your input.

My article is meant to compile practical how-to tips for people working from home on “how to stay on your boss's radar.” What advice do you have to share?

Ideally: Give me a bullet point (“Do XYZ”), why (“It accomplishes this”), and perhaps an anecdote sharing how it made a difference.

Please don’t expend energy telling me why it’s important, or what the barriers are. Take that as a given. I’m looking for solid “Do this” suggestions.