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What is something you're holding together?
You're the glue, the leader, the center of gravity, the one making it happen.
Without you, it would probably fall apart, cease to function, or stop.
What is it?
What do you do?
Do people appreciate your role, or is it invisible?
I volunteer at a library of things, a place where you can - for free - sign out any of the items we have in stock, which is mostly power tools and kitchen appliances. If you need to drill a shelf into the wall, you don't have to own a power drill, because we have like 12. You get the idea. It's a good project, and the biggest of its kind in the world, as far as my research goes[1]. We've been around since 2016, and as you may be able to tell, this is not a business model, so there wasn't really any commercial or even open source software to manage this. We had a big Excel spreadsheet, and that was about it.
Clearly, we needed something that was a lot more flexible. We just entered data like "Person X signed out item N on this date, expected back on that date, deposit amount E" in plain text. It wasn't usable. So a volunteer (this was before I joined) built a system. It worked fine, but couldn't scale. I'll spare you the details, but the juiciest bits were that we used a system called CouchDB, which is less of a database and more of an S3 bucket full of JSON files, and we didn't even store the items there, that was stored in a WordPress installation using the WooCommerce online shop builder with all the prices set to zero. The access times soon ballooned to tens of seconds, which is unusable if there are four people waiting in line, and you need at least three calls for every full sign in/sign out interaction. Weapons-grade bad times.
So after that developer left a couple of years back, a friend and I set out to build a new system, a real system, one that wasn't cobbled together but one that used modern infra, modern tech, and was so robust other libraries could build it too. He was the main developer, I was the main designer, although I did take on many of the development duties as well. When my friend left the project to focus on his business a few months back, all of that fell on me.
And despite all the work I put in to make this self-documenting, the actual documentation I write, the tons of agent directions to make it easy for even the layman to not make horrible contributions thru tools like Codex or Claude, I'm pretty sure it would all fall apart within months of me leaving. Not because there's actual tech debt, at least there's not much, but because I do a lot of behind the scenes work to improve the UX and add new features.
I do however think my colleagues know this. And even though I really am begging for another developer on the team, I mean, god knows what our server is doing half the time, the CI pipeline is still the stuff of nightmares, I also know that I'd be foolish to leave these guys alone if they ever pissed me off a little too much. I can't. I love that project.
[1]: The criteria being non-tax-funded independent free to use tool libraries
Is this open source? I recently did a similar project, rewriting a mediocre tool for a non profit. Mine is a donation/membership portal and thankfully the previous tool was very simple (which is to say it was missing critical functionality).
It is, that was one of my core requirements for a rewrite. The stack is modular and all of them can be found at github.com/leih-lokal
Here’s the thing I made https://github.com/noisebridge/donate-portal
It’s fully stateless (all state is in Stripe) and server side rendered.
It also has a twitch-style donation alerts page which we show in 3 locations in our building: https://wacky.pics/i/ujocozt6.jpeg
There are special animations and effects for different amounts like $4.20
I'm not a programmer but that sounds pretty insane!
I still regularly ask myself how any programmer worth their weight in salt would ever consider that to be an acceptable solution. The mind doth boggle.
I’m the game master for my D&D game group - without me, the entire thing would fall apart in a heartbeat and no one else would take up the mantle.
Such is the plight of the forever DM. Not only do you have to curate the experience by finding maps, plotting out the general story, design encounters, etc., but it also usually falls on you to schedule everything too! At the very least - are you having fun being the DM?
I love being the DM! It's much preferred for me vs being a player - I've only been a player for a short time in a handful of things.
Good, I'm glad you're having fun. I know some people who hated playing as the DM but none of the players wanted to relieve them so they were having a rough time.
I definitely like both sides of it. I'm decent at improvising and it's fun to build the world around the characters, but it's also nice to take on a role and really commit to it in addition to not having to worry about all the prep.
Something I appreciate about my group is everyone shares the DM mantle. We take turns running games for each other so no one person gets burnt out and everyone gets to play.
Yeah I've done this with two groups and it was pretty fun. It was a nice way of getting some DM experience under my belt without having to commit to a whole campaign. It also allowed for very different story arcs that felt very unique.
I'm thinking of floating the idea of running a one-shot for one of the players in my current group and hopefully them getting enough of a taste that they want to pick up DMing after me.
I just glued together some red oak side tables for my bed.
Hopefully not to yourself though!
Not today thankfully 😋
My guts, organs, and blood vessels!
A good number of friendships.
I'm the one who reaches out to keep in touch and keep the friendships alive. Mostly it's with guys from my fraternity as after we all graduated life took us in many different directions. After I got rid of social media I realized that also got rid of almost all of the group chats and that if I wanted to stay friends with most of these guys I'd need to be the one to reach out. Doesn't always feel great to be the one who does most of the reaching out, but for some of these guys it's more of a loose friendship/keeping up in their life. Almost like the equivalent of very intermittent pen pals.
All the guys I do keep in touch with/reach out to are genuinely happy to hear from me which is nice. Most of them acknowledge that they lost touch with so many guys and it's great to keep in contact, which has in turn encouraged them to reach out to other guys. I usually tell them I look at it as it takes me a minute or two to send a quick check in message every now and then and it's worth the time to keep in touch with them.
I started doing this during COVID when I realized how many years had gone by without saying anything to some of these guys. I also knew that when I moved across the world it cut me out from all of the times I'd see these guys at alumni events so if I wanted to still stay in contact with them I'd have to put in some effort myself. This was most apparent shortly after I moved and missed our chapter's centennial event and an associated long weekend get together that guys from my time invited me to attend.
I still attend some stuff virtually when I can and have been encouraging them to do some more alumni stuff that I would organize if I lived there but can't since I'm over here. I've also started a few very slow paced read when we can book clubs after getting reconnected with guys which has been a lot of fun. There's been some talk of setting up a watch through of a show with some guys that we used to do in school, which would happen during their evening and on my lunch break as well which could be fun.
I did have one guy who was telling me that I was taking on too much by being the one to reach out to these guys and that if they really cares they'd be the ones to also reach out so I shouldn't do it. I get that point, but I'm also glad I didn't listen to him. If I don't feel like talking to them I don't have to. I'll usually notice I haven't talked with one of them in ~2-6 months and then shoot them a quick "how's it going" type message to get the ball rolling again.
For a while, my Runescape guild.
I managed to promote some mods a couple months ago who actually then began taking over tasks, though, so now if I left I think they could carry it on.
It is so hard to find good mods you guys. Maybe I’m uniquely bad at picking them but they tend to do a bunch right away and then burn out and vanish right when you really need them.
What the owner before me did was pick his friends to be mods and they got ranked up and then did absolutely nothing for the guild. What I tried the past couple times is ask who wants to be a mod, then rank those people up, but I ran into the issue above. This last time I actually demoted like half the mods (with fair warning of course) and THEN asked people to volunteer. That seemed to do the trick, since now all the new mods have good mod role models to follow and spread tasks across, since half the team was replaced I could establish a new mod culture.
I feel like you could give lectures at a workplace based on that experience.
Idk I feel like this is what they’ve been attempting to do with all the layoffs and it only works on a small scale or something.
It still amazes me how the dinky little “couldn’t afford EverQuest” mmorpg from my childhood is still around somehow.
Theres a lot of stuff from my childhood thats still around or making a comeback.
Most of it is just franchises milking the product like Jurassic Park but Oldschool RuneScape is such a blessing, maybe the company owners are milking it (they keep getting bought and sold every couple years) but the developers seem happy to be there and the game is so, so good.
I rescued Wilson from Castaway while sailing on my boat the other day. He didn’t say much, but seemed thankful.
Two households' budgets.
I'm the provider of most of the income and health insurance for my own. Now I'm also supporting the household of a relative who can't work for at least a month (and probably won't ever again pass the stringent physical for their old driving job), and the spouse who's taking care of them who can't work full time either. Neither has any unemployment/disability insurance or eligibility.
I'd kind of anticipated this situation and had some savings in reserve, but my job feels like a shaky foundation for all this.
My heart goes out to everyone in this situation. I'm lucky to have living, loving family, but so many factors in U.S. society conspire against people who face misfortune or disability.
I host and maintain several local small business websites.
I am the only person in my geographic region at work that has the knowledge and certifications to perform a certain kind of work.
I'm the go-to guy for 3D printing commissions for several people.
And if all else fails, my cat is fully reliant on me.
What can you tell me about the cat?
My beloved Yulin is an extremely affectionate tortie who, while she was at the shelter, hissed at every other cat who crossed her path. But when I met her, she let me pick her up and cradle her in my arms without any fuss. And ever since last February when I brought her home, she hasn't hissed, scratched, or bit at me in anger. She's such a good girl. And I think she's thankful that she's in a one cat apartment situation.
And honestly, all of my connections and responsibilities are what keep me alive. Literally. If I didn't have responsibilities I'd be so much more likely to auto-unalive.
I know this feeling too well, and it's really important to get help and support.
Holding yourself together by being important to other people is not sustainable, and also creates hazards for them - they can be harmed by the incipient self-harm you're masking.
Imagine what life would be like if you valued yourself for your own sake - your own needs, goals, and desires. Letting yourself expand to fill some of those empty spaces, spending time with the people you want in your life who can give something back to you, will help you be more present and generous with other people.
I understand where you're going and thankfully my motivation is intrinsic and I find life worth living for its own sake. I've done and continue to do the work in therapy and am properly medicated. But when I have my worst moments and life isn't otherwise justifiable in my mind, those connections to others are what keep me around.
Torties are my favorite. You perfectly described my little one, who passed away last year.
My most sincere condolences. I am certain you gave that cat the best possible life and lots of love.
That just reminded me to go check out the website I used to maintain for the company I worked at.
Nope, it’s been well over a year and still zero updates.
Feels good man.
Always vindicating to see how things rot without you. Lol
I actually don't think I have anything in my life like this at the moment and I'm comfortable in that reality of things for now. I don't want to ever be the center or the only piece holding something together just because that comes with a lot of bad pressures and incentives and perceived obligations that often would violate my boundaries.
But being a small integral piece is fine. In past jobs I have been someone like that and it feels good to feel wanted and needed.
I know I have been in the past, while not the center, certainly a part of something outside of work even that helps hold it together. A board game night I used to have with friends is one of those. Even though I was just a participant, didn't own the games, didn't live where we played, once I left it fizzled out, just due to my leaving permanently changing the dynamic, I think. I felt a little bad for a time but realized that stopping was me respecting my own personal boundaries in a few ways and so doing so was actually emotionally the right thing to do
Big same. I know people who are the glue for various things in their family and social circles and it just looks exhausting... not just physically, but dealing with all the constant overstepping and self-centered assumptions and inconvenient annoyances that are individually minor but collectively draining. The emotional labor, as they say.
I'm selfish enough that I'm really good at avoiding those relationships/situations, but I think that makes me more attractive to those who aren't so good at avoiding it themselves. Not great either.
A Thursday karaoke night at my local-ish pub.
The previous host, a guy in his late-forties, used to do it every week but took a step back and decided to only host it monthly due to health reasons. For years, he had been balancing a full time career in civil engineering, parental duties, karaoke DJing as a side hustle, and chemotherapy (he has stage 4 non-Hodgkins lymphoma), so I'm not surprised that doing Thursday nights specifically were taking a toll on him.
Another KJ has stepped in to host the other Thursdays, but many of the regulars who followed the previous host aren't coming to these nights. It's usually just me and one other regular holding the fort and without business, the worry is that Thursday karaoke will eventually be cancelled.
I get along with the new host and she has regulars of her own who sometimes come to this pub, but the others in my group aren't so keen on her. Her setup is inferior, she uses Karafun (which isn't a bad app, but it's missing features, songs and even support for externally downloaded tracks compared to VirtualDJ, Singa and other platforms.)
I run an analytic philosophy book club that's a few years going at this point.
If I don't de-conflict schedules, check in on folks, and set a layout for the discussion the group would collapse in a couple of weeks. I get a lot of value out of it, and I don't mind too much since everyone in the group contributes substantially to the discussion.
I'm amazed you managed to have an analytic philosophy book club at all. That's really cool! Are you all academic philosophers?
That's awesome. What was the last book you discussed?
We actually did a philosophy of religion book this time that was a dialogue between theist Joshua Rasmussen and atheist Felipe Leon called Is God the Best Explanation of Things? [1]. Highly recommend; lots of good stuff related to modal skepticism, arguments from limits (as they relate to priors), and genuinely novel arguments from both.
It was a fun read; we would read one author's chapter and the other author's response chapter each week and meet up to discuss.
[1] https://philpapers.org/rec/LEOIGT
A saxophone quartet. Local community band has a small ensemble event every year. The event coordinator kept telling me it would be cool to have a sax group... People in our (rather large) sax section kept telling me would be cool to have a sax group... Random strangers kept telling me it would be cool to have a sax group... like, okay? Maybe y'all should put together a sax group, then? But no, nothing happened until I gave in and organized one last year. Now I'm organizing a group for this year. I don't even play a lead instrument.
(I grumble, but it is a lot of fun. Just feels like hearding cats sometimes)