I'm currently a software developer consultant working as a lead developer in the fintech industry. My team consist of me and 6 other developers of various levels of expertice. I started apx a year ago in this position and the project was to take over an system built by an external company and develop and maintain it going forward. We grew the team over time, so initially there was only me, but after 3 months we'd added a couple of other developers. The most junior developer with only a few years of experience took on the scrum master role at 50%, which allowed the other of us to focus moren on dev stuff. I wouldn't have said the scrum master was a junior level developer based on them having worked for several years. That was my expectation...

After a few months we've continued to grow the team. All in all we are now 7 developers. The person that initially had the scrum master role has since opted to focus more on the dev side. We've accomodated them and since mid january they've focused soley on dev. However, the outcome of this hasn't met my expectations. Working 50% as a dev I understand (and expected) that they wouldn't pick up the domain/system as easily as simeone soley focused on the dev role. Given that they've now had a couple of months I don't really see any improvement however! And, to be clear, it isn't really about their level of output. I'd be content if they were able to show some increased understanding of the domain and/or had increased the quality of their work somewhat. I see none of this and a tendency to "hide" their work (postponing creating PRs so it's hard to judge their progress/need of help, not asking for support, dismissing offers for help when given, non participation in discussions/problem solving etc etc).

Speculating, but to me it seems they are not comfortable in their dev role and I seem to have failed in this instance to establish enough trust (either in me or in the team as a whole). I don't see this issue in the other team members though (even with the more junior people). Complicating things is that I am not their manager. So, it is ultimately not my responsibillity.

Any advice in addressing the issues? Ideally the outcome would be a situation where they have started to contribute to the team in some meaningful way. Should I be more patient? Should I impose help on them, e.g. comitt to pair with them on all work? What is a good and construcrive way to approach this (preferably without being a complete ass)?

As I age, my ambivalence towards social interactions becomes clearer. I can't really sustain the doom and gloom facade, as it is entirely obvious that, if I ever achieve "solitary utopia", the first thing I would do would be to find someone to talk about how great it is to be alone.

I used to have an awesome way to do things where I saw my friends 5 or 6 times a year. It was enough for me. Unfortunately, that group is imploding since mid-pandemic, and I don't think there's a way back.

This is made worse by the fact that most men I know are either completely ignorant, downright hostile, or intentionally removed from anything relating kids or fatherhood. Sometimes it feels like I am carrying some kind of virus, and spending time with me will make them become fathers by association.

It's hard to not feel jealous of the kind of support my wife gets from her female friends.

Given the current situation, I feel inclined to ask. Has anyone managed to make meaningful friendships in their 40s or early 30s? And by that I don't mean just someone to play videogames with, but someone with whom you can share stuff?

I am not really opposed to friendships with women, but that is kinda covered already.

This is one of those bizarre examples where I think a simple Google would solve the mystery, but I've tried dozens of searches like "halogen track lights with LEDs in center" and NO product comes up with it. Does anyone know what these are?? My guess is that it has to do with one of the lights being out, but why so many LEDs then?

The latest iteration of a study regarding the cost of student housing in Germany found, that rent prices for students have risen to a germany-wide average of 479€. Three years ago the average was just 391€. In Munich the average cost for student housing has risen to no less than 760€. This is more than double than the housing-cost covered by BAföG, a public program providing financial support to students from low-income families. [1]

Statistically, more than a third of students in Germany are at risk of poverty at the moment, meaning they have less than 60% of the country's mean income available. [2] [3]

Also with regards to Munich specifically, the number of designated student housing facilities has not grown significantly or even dropped over the past few years, while the number of students has been steadily increasing. This means that more and more students have to look for rooms in shared apartments on the city's highly competitive housing market. Statistically, these students are those that live close to the poverty line particularly often.

I realize that the cost of high-quality higher education in Germany is not as majorly fucked as for example in the USA, but still the financial burden on students is steadily increasing due to housing cost. How does this compare to where you're from? How is student housing organized in your city, how much does it cost relative to the mean income, and do you experience similar trends in your region?

Sources (german), besides in-person conversations and experiences:
[1] https://cms.moses-mendelssohn-institut.de/uploads/24_03_19_Wohnkosten_Studierende_804a7b53ef.pdf
[2] https://www.spiegel.de/start/statistisches-bundesamt-mehr-als-ein-drittel-der-studierenden-lebt-unter-der-armutsgrenze-a-460cb19f-8a62-43ab-8b52-652814234250
[3] https://youtu.be/UVaY8SCtjwg

I work as a prek teacher. I go to work, clock in, and spend 8 hours actively engaged with kids teaching reading, writing, math, social skills, science, games, and more. I don't have "down time" at work; I'm always on, because I have to be. There are demands of me every moment I'm there.

But what about you corporate folks? I can't seem to figure what you actually... Do?

My dad worked such a job (VP in pharma) and I could never get a real answer from him. He would always just say "I'm busy", he traveled a lot, and as far as I could tell his "work" was just meetings.

Other business folks I interact with, it's the same. They're always playing on their phone, or (my favorite) constantly talking on the phone when picking up or dropping off their kids at school, and ignoring them. A buddy of mine is a senior exec and was able to complete baldur's gate 3 during work hours because he's just sitting around in meetings all day.

How is that work? How does that justify earning 4x+ what I make?

I'm genuinely curious because I've never gotten a straight answer and my impression is that in these jobs you don't actually do anything, but that can't be right.

Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Hey folks - I've been wanting to go whole hog on automating my home, I read through this smart home automation - tips and tricks thread started by @Merry and had a lot of useful information.

Some of the things I took away from it:

• Home assistant is pretty great (if you don't mind tinkering)
• Getting something that will boot back up after a power failure is great
• Use smart plugs / switches vs bulbs
• Maintain it's usefulness if there is an internet outage

Like I mentioned I'd really like for this to be privacy focused and mostly self contained. Sure I'd love to be able to control stuff from my phone while I'm home and also recognize that I'm home or away.

I just am a bit smooth brained when it comes to even seeing "would something like this work with the wiring / circuity that I have in my home already?"

If there are any good guides to follow or really specific advice / steps I could follow to begin this process I'd really appreciate it.

I've always been interested in entrepreneurship, and I think I want to get serious about doing something. I checked out the Millionaire Fastlane forums, and it's just completely saturated with the whole "grindset" BS. I tried reading a couple of threads, and my eyes almost rolled out of my head. 🙄

I've also hung around on the entrepreneur subreddit, and it just seems like a bunch of people without much experience trading unproven advice and people trying to sell courses.

Does anyone know of a better community? I'd like to find some friendly, welcoming adults with actual experience to talk with. Are entrepreneurship and hustle culture always a package deal?

I’m looking for advice about what sort of portable room cooling devices to look at and what pitfalls to avoid. Some context:

Over the past few years I’ve noticed that I do pretty badly in the heat, especially at night. I live in Zürich, the concept of air conditioning has not yet arrived in this place. The prevailing wisdom for how to survive summer is to just make sure your house doesn’t get too warm in the first place, but my apartment is pretty badly insulated and during the worst weeks it doesn’t cool down that much at night either, so it’s been pretty bad the last few years. I’ve mostly just avoided being in my room whenever possible, but I do have to sleep somehow.

The obvious solution to me is to buy some sort of air conditioning device, a topic I know basically nothing about. My flatmate has one for his room, of the “dangle a tube out of the window” kind, which seems to do an okay job, but it is extremely loud and quite bulky - neither of those are dealbreakers per se, but I’d happily pay a bit more money if that gets me something quieter. In addition, our windows are not sliding windows but ones that open like a door, so any device that requires me to poke something out of the window would probably need a solution for this as well. Any sort of permanent modification to the house such as putting a hole through the wall or the window glass are not allowed.

So my questions are: What types of coolers should I look into, what types are best avoided? Any specific brand or model recommendations would also be appreciated. I looked at one electronics vendor’s website and found a huge range in prices from below 100 to over 1000; I don’t have a specific budget in mind per se, but unless it makes a big difference (e.g. in noise levels) I would rather stay below 500 dollars.

Greetings Tildeans!

I am wrapping up my Ph.D. and am pursuing a teaching-focused career in higher education. I am currently in talks for a 4-year institution teaching faculty position that would revolve around teaching a subject I am passionate about and could provide a lot of intellectual stimulation. Unless something wild happens the offer is there and we are just negotiating the parameters. I also have a position that is in 2nd-phase interviews for a community college tenure track position that would be teaching general biology, anatomy, and physiology. I feel optimistic that they are going to offer me a position, but nothing is concrete yet.

I'm at this impasse because both have really good reasons for doing them and would provide experiences unique from the other. I am trying to balance the pros and cons between these two positions and consider what might be good for my career in the long run, and so I was hoping I could get some advice. Even if you're not in academia I think it would be helpful to get some outside prospective. I'm gonna list my thoughts on it below.

4-year University

Pros:

-Teach upper level and domain specific courses with opportunity to design courses I am passionate about.
-Integrated into scientific community if I want to to do more research/keep abreast of scientific advancements.
-Great community of teaching faculty with lots of support.
-Could be good curriculum vitae experience if I want to stay teaching at a 4-year institution, and could open up teaching psychology courses.
-Option to develop a community outreach project I am passionate about, not sure if there is support for me but there is infrastructure there.
-Partner's family is in the area, and it is a big metropolitan area with lots to do.
-Can get tuition at 25% cost for my partner and I incase we want to get some other degrees.

Cons:

-Pay is not great (does have option of picking up extra summer online classes to earn more).
-My partner and I don't want to live here long term, primarily because of climate, and cost of living is increasing. We are already ready to move, but this is a good opportunity.
-Is contract based, so not as much job security. Having said that, many of the teaching faculty have been there a long time and it seems like the student body for this department is generally growing.

Community College

Pros:

-Pay is pretty good, and there is a baked in growth of salary as long as you stay there long term. Pay could be as much as $15K more starting out than the 4-year institution.
-Small class sizes, so better teacher:student ratio means more involved education.
-Cost of living in the area is pretty cheap (so far).
-Beautiful area and would put us closer to a part of the country we would like to live in long term.
-I do like biology and physiology, just not as much as neuroscience.
-From my understanding there is lot of support and easy options to get into administration if so desired. All the faculty I briefly met had been there at least 7 years.

Cons:

-Only lower levels courses, with little room to develop new ones.
-Not sure how this would impact my ability to switch to a 4-year institution if I end up craving that intellectual stimulation.
-The area is in a part of California that does have issues with forest fires (not the town proper), and the county swings hard in the opposite direction of my politics.
-Small town so there isn't as much to do.

Overall, the community college looks best on paper. We're not planning on having kids so family support isn't as big of a deal. My main concern is if I could switch back to a 4-year institution if I feel like I'm missing something. So if anyone has any thoughts please let me know, in particular if there are other things I'm not considering that you think are worth examining.

Edit: Just to add some additional information. As part of making myself a good candidate for higher education, I have worked as a teaching assistant for several courses during grad school and I have taught online physiology as an adjunct professor at a community college, so I have some experience in both environments.

Thanks ahead of time!

It's nearly 6am here and I can't sleep because our sitter has decided last minute that she can only look after my pup from 9am - 7pm this coming weekend after confirming an overnight months ago, which has left us scrambling to find suitable care. I appreciate that because my dog has some stranger danger issues we're working through, his care isn't straightforward but apart from that he's young and healthy (no need for medications at specific times, etc.).

We've had multiple paid meetups with her since December last year to make sure he's comfortable around her. We've been explicit from the beginning that we will be back from this event late at night therefore we would be happy to pay an overnight fee and there is the option of staying in the guest bedroom if she's not comfortable travelling home that late at night. I said this multiple times. I understand that part of it is because she's been unwell for a while and another part is needing to get back to her own dogs but this is an absolute nightmare. We've been planning this for months. She's suggested getting someone else to cover the bit from 7pm onwards but because of his fearfulness of strangers I'm terrified of this happening without our supervision.

We have a backup sitter but she's recently gotten a puppy of her own so I have no idea if she'll be able to pitch in and help at such short notice. We need to be at the venue at 9am so my pup will need to be crated until the main sitter arrives - we already can't be there for one handover, the thought of another one having to happen is just more co-ordination to go wrong and more stress and worry for me. The easiest thing to do at this point would be to cancel the whole sit and miss my friend's wedding (at the very least my partner can still attend). There's just no good outcomes anymore: it's either cancel and stay home or we get sitter cover, we both go to the wedding, I'm miserable and worried the entire time.

It's not just this one off thing though. Actually finding a suitable sitter in the first place was a complete headache and it's been a constant uphill battle with trainers too. We had a trainer who was fantastic for several months but then got sick with covid before Christmas and since then contact with her has just completely petered out. Another trainer offered a six week package so I paid for the initial £115 assessment only to be told that she suddenly had to move to Manchester and couldn't commit to six weeks anymore, but she could offer two sessions in the fortnight that she had to get ready to leave (spoilers: she couldn't, turns out moving cities is a lot). A third trainer talked a big game over messages but it was utterly impossible to organise a session with him at all. As soon as I suggested an actual, tangible date instead of asking for his availability for a third time it was radio silence. Our weekly puppy classes are the only reliable constant in our lives.

It's genuinely put me in a bit of a crisis. Am I the problem? Have we just had fantastically shitty luck? Is this just the industry standard? Like, is this normal and does it just suck for everyone? My mood's absolutely spiralled from reflecting on all this, I love my boy to pieces but if this is the typical experience I just don't think I have it in me to own another dog after this. I want to believe that I'm just tired and cranky and it'll get easier once he's 2 or 3 years old, but right now everything around dog ownership is a miserable, miserable slog.

Other dog owners: please, please share your experiences.

I started listening to podcasts in June of 2017 after having heard about them being great for years but never getting around to listening to them. I preferred music at the time and would put on a playlist or an album if I had a long drive, walk, etc. Once I started listening to podcasts I was hooked. The amount of time I spent listening to music plummetted and since I started I've spent 4% of my time listening to podcasts, I've used the same app since I started which makes keeping track of that easy.

I mainly listen to mine whenever I have some tedious or when I don't need too hard about what I'm doing. Walking the dog, driving, all of the housework, and some video games when I have time to play one and just want to zone out a bit and do something. Its made me enjoy cleaning more which my wife has appreciated a lot.

I was curious when other people listen to podcasts, how you fit them into your schedule, and if you're keen on sharing what your favorites are. I have way too many podcasts bookmarked in my app to listen to but its fun to add more to the ever growing list.

The book Emotional Agility ascribes the following characteristics to values:

• They are freely chosen
• They are not goals - they are ongoing, rather that fixed
• They guide you, rather than constrain you

And suggests reflecting on the following questions to identify what your values are, if you don't know:

• Deep down, what matters to me?
• What relationships do I want to build?
• What do I want my life to be about?
• What kinds of situations make me feel the most alive?
• If you woke up and all your material concerns were taken care of, what would you do?

So - what are your values? Did you know them prior to this post, and if so, when did you figure it out?

Came home today and found wet clothes in the dryer. Which was weird because earlier, I had found the same load in there wet and just thought I had forgotten to start the dryer. Low and behold, when I stood and watched it, about ten seconds after starting it, it started beeping and gave out an F01 error code.

While googling it, it seemed that the code meant the relay electronics board had failed and needed to be replaced. I thought, I can probably do that, but the board seemed to be more than $150, which is more than the callout fee on our home warranty ($125). But what we most needed was a working dryer!

While looking for the exact price and a source to order the board, I found this video describing a simple fix for a blown solder connection. I unplugged the washer, opened it up, and the board was blown in the exact same spot as in the video. I soldered a jumper in, put it back together, and lo and behold, the dryer runs!

I have an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, even though it hasn't been my day job in a long time. So I could at least evaluate the plausibility of the fix, and I had the tools and know-how to do the soldering. So definitely not a fix for everyone.

Money is tight right now, so fixing the dryer for $0 (and in half an hour no less) was big for us. Sometimes you need a win, and today was a day I really needed one!

What fixes around the house are you most proud of, saved you some money, or kept a piece of equipment out of the landfill?