A few days back I was talking with Emmer about how younger me (who also had fewer debts) thought the debt snowball method was dumb and here I am working through a few debts using that method now.
Up until last week every time I saw that Cascade dishwasher commercial (run your dishwasher every day, even if it’s not full) I was like “this is so ridiculous why would I do that?” I’ve had a dishwasher since I moved into this house about 2 years ago, but I never really used it much because I don’t make that many dishes living alone.
And then a few days ago I had the epiphany that if I used the dishwasher more, I’d be washing dishes by hand less. And if I was washing dishes by hand less often, I don’t chap my hands as bad in winter.
So yeah, that’s a 180 on things I think and do.
You have anything similar? Where you had a complete flip (either for or against) on a topic or activity?
It’s not what you know–it’s who you know.
I fought that one for most of my life. I was absolutely convinced that if I was just plain awesome enough and smart enough I could get recognized for it and have no trouble succeeding in my chosen career. Who the hell needs “networking” and “building relationships” when you can just flash your degree from the top program in the nation?
So, yeah, that was fucking stupid.
Do you feel like part of that might be gender-related?
Like women tend to see men get promoted over us and we’re like “welp it’s because they’re someone’s idiot nephew/son/etc this game is so fucking rigged…”
I think it goes
Well, for damned sure there’s a lot of nepotism out there, but mostly I’m just referring to my own stupidity in not making a point of developing relationships with people on a professional level. It wasn’t until 8 years ago when I finally decided to use a personal connection to see if I could get an introduction at the employer I have now. My connection had zero pull in getting me hired, but was at least able to get me face-to-face with HR, and then it was up to me to get hired (but my resume wouldn’t have even gotten a 2nd look if it was a cold submission). Inside of that 8 years, I made a point of not only doing as good a job as I could, but also connecting with people in the organization (having lunch, being interested in their lives, developing friendships) rather than just doing my old nose to the grindstone routine. In that 8 years I went from making $16k per year to $79k and I went from an entry level grunt to a specialized technical career that I’ve been lucky enough to do from home.
For a few years I was actually managing a small group of people, so I made a point of paying it back whenever I could. When I needed to hire for this or that position I would look for the people who had translatable skills but who didn’t have connections or were from…shall we say…underrepresented demographics. I ignored the connected people. In return I got a dedicated group of people who worked harder than everyone else because that’s what they’ve always had to do. Also made a point of helping them develop networks within the company so that they could have a better shot at moving upward when they wanted to. The people who work for a living have to look out for each other.
that’s awesome, thanks for looking out for those who have more skills/abilities than social connections.
Sadly, the most important lesson that is hard to teach the next generation.
“Do what you love.” I studied English because I love reading and I learned to love writing. Thing is, that shit don’t pay. I’m also pretty good at math and I really wish I’d studied accounting or finance instead. I didn’t need a degree to prove I could write. I bumbled along and eventually made a career out of it, which I’ve now abandoned, but my friends who went into accounting are so much better off than I am. If I had it to do over I’d focus on things that pay well and maybe minor in English. People say, oh, you’d be miserable if that’s not what you want to do. No, what’s miserable was not being able to pay my bills (far behind me now but I remember it in excruciating detail).
“I’m never going to need to know any of this.” I never studied English because it was boring and irrelevant for anyone who could speak it.
*Fast forward 2-3 decades*
“Oh, you mean a new platform for a bunch of English pedants? Sure, I’d love to be a part of that!”
*Questions self*
“Sure (with or without the comma?) I’d love to be (a or no a?) part of that!”
Fuck!
*fast forward 2-3 hours*
“In that, I’d love to partake”
*passes out*
Ahem, it’s “To partake in that <comma> I would love,” mp.
*giggle*
“Never end a sentence in a preposition,” they said! Which turned out to be an entirely made up thing by a bunch of guys in wigs.
I have not changed my mind about the Oxford comma, however.
“Your degree(s) will open doors” is something I hoped would be true.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAAA. Nah.
I distinctly remember one class I was in, the prof started to mention something, and then stopped, and said something along the lines of “Nevermind, you are X students. none of you will be leaving here with anything less than a 100K job offer” (highly paraphrased)
If I weren’t so much more tired than angry, (and thought I would reliably recognize them…), I’d strongly consider loitering in coffee shops near that school, just to punch that asshole prof in the face…
no shit?
i kinda figured it must be degrees as years of experience sure as fuck dont open doors
i never finished high school…job hunting is a bitch for me
well..better put…getting past the automated sorting process of no degree goes in the shit pile and doesnt get an interview is a shit for me
“well..better put…getting past the automated sorting process of no degree goes in the shit pile and doesnt get an interview is a shit for me”
This was why, when I got “fired, but not FIRED“** from the last job I had in my previous career, I decided to change fields!
Because after job-hunting the previous year, and not getting past the algorithms, and then going in-person with my resume, to one of the businesses I saw every.single.week, on multiple job sites (which was supposedly desperate for people with my skill set & years of experience!), and being told that I had to keep applying online, because they didn’t TAKE in-person resumes anymore & anyone who took one in-person could be fired for doing so….
i KNEW that the only kinds of job offers I’d ever get again were exactly the sort I was trying to be done with….
Small, family-run businesses, where you ALWAYS ran into a cap on the levels you could move up into–because those positions would eventually all be held by the owner’s kids/family members.
And after 15 years, at three companies, where I’d worked my ASS off, and having been told at various points over the years, that had I not done my job as well as I had, the company would’ve gone under,*** I decided that I’d had enough of that BS, and I wanted to be in a field where pay rates were PUBLISHED, where salaries increased on a regular–NON ARBITRARY schedule, and where I could EARN some seniority that *couldn’t* be taken back, at the whim of someone who wanted their kid to move out of their house–so decided to promote them into a VP position “so they can buy a townhouse, and get out of MY hair, already!”(😒😒😒).
So I went for Early Childhood, discovered DAYCARE pay rates are horseshit in the US, and then decided to go on for Special Education…
Luckily. I also DO love it (😁😃🤗)!
But the job security–because there are SO few people in it, and even less who are GOOD in it–is also FABULOUS for workers, and it’s something with about a kajillion possible lateral moves & versatility, if I decide I don’t want to be *directly* hands-on, teaching in a classroom.😁💖
**when I was hired, it was because the company decided to create a new position… when I was told they were eliminating my position, they asked me to stay on for two more weeks, so it WASN’T the instant shitcanning most of the people who’d been asked to leave the company got… but it ALSO wasn’t keeping my job😉
***the percentage decrease I’d created in the purchasing department of one company had been enough to create the cash-flow needed, to keep them in business one more year–and then other work i helped with brought in NEW clients, so our cash flow the next year increased a LOT…
Annnnnd for all that effort, I got rewarded with an offer to be salaried at 29K a year…
Conveniently, that offer–which I STUPIDLY accepted–came juuuuuuust before we got our tax statements at the end of January…
The end of the January that I learned, that over the course of the previous year, when I’d been working my ass off for them and earning a decent amount of overtime, I’d actually earned about 32K.😠😡🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
The only people who push the “do what you love” bullshit are the .00000000000001% who actually were lucky enough to be able to make a living doing what they love. I fell for that shit, too, which is why I got a degree that cost me 20 years to pay off (which meant that I was paying for a degree for 8 more years than the career that degree was for), instead of going to a trade school so I could actually make a good living.
Yeah, I could’ve done that too. I used to work construction with my uncle and I’m damn handy — fix my own plumbing, retile my shower, etc. Used to take my car apart and put it back together when I was a teen. All of which was extremely useful when I was poor. I could’ve gone into any of those fields and would never have had to consider filing for bankruptcy (I didn’t).
I don’t regret college — I just regret the choices I made AT college. My parents were both the first people in their families to go to college and non-traditional students. So they didn’t have the most … complete perspective. And by the time kid #4 was enrolling, they weren’t bothering to give advice or yank me up short when I was being stupid. I’m probably over the top with my kid, but I’m not going to stand by and watch her make the same mistakes that I did.
Bottom line: Make sure there’s a paycheck at the end of that rainbow.
I’m not terrible at fucking with things that aren’t working (I can’t really say “fixing”), and once or twice someone’s asked me about what I’m doing/where I learned it…
“I’ve got a lifetime of being poor and broke. If it’s not working, it’s no use to me, and I might as well see if I can open it up and do something to it to get it sorta working. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”
sorta similar situation, I was pretty much the first of my family to go off to college, and there was so much bad advice I listened to, that even if I didn’t drop out, my degree wouldn’t have been much more useful than my drop-out…
Or they’re trust fund babies and/or wealthy spouses support them so like career isn’t a real concept to them.
Weed. As a teenager, I was very against all drugs. I smoked for the first time at 28, with my younger sister and then, later, with O-H, and I realized that, holy shit, I didn’t hurt so bad! (This was long before I even heard of fibromyalgia. I just hurt all the time and that was just my normal.) I can mostly take it or leave it, but on those days I can barely move, I’m so glad I have those gummies…
I second the weed change of heart. I didn’t smoke until I was 26 because most stoners I knew growing up were the stereotypical burn out. I went to grad school and became besties with a dude who smoked daily and he got me to try it. Turns out it’s great! Been smoking pretty much daily ever since. It has really helped me chill out which in turn has significantly reduced my somatic symptoms of anxiety.
I recently attended a training that said the research shows that the earlier you start with substances, the more likely they are to become a problem, so there’s that.
What have I changed my mind on? Tomatoes aren’t terrible. But tomato juice still makes me want to puke.
When I’m super painfully hungover, I like tomato juice.
In short, I haven’t had tomato juice in probably 9 years. It’s not that I haven’t been hungover, but I no longer hang out with the friends who would have donuts and tomato juice for the group after we were beyond shitfaced.
I can’t even smell tomato juice.
An important “family recipe” for stuffed peppers involves BOILING green bell peppers stuffed with ground beef in tomato juice. Like buy the giant size canned tomato juice and glug-glug-glug it into the stock pot. And then served over elbow macaroni. So you’d end up with a soggy soft boiled green pepper shoved full of basically unseasoned boiled ground beef over plain pasta with tomato juice in the bottom of the bowl.
I didn’t realize until college that I could like stuffed peppers when a friend made them in the oven and with … you know … flavor and not boiled tomato juice.
*Gags*
…thank you Brighter. It’s been a long time since a description of something has lead me to almost puke.
…which brings back fond memories of a game I used to play with my sister and friends. I used to do exactly that: describe something with such visceral detail with the aim of making listeners gag. Kinda like… Puncturing a large semi-solid clump of bird shit, you know the type that is like a wrinkled black worm inching out of a slimy opaque sack of white puss, with a tiny stick and then stirring it in rapid frantic circles knowing that the friction will inevitably result in some warmed bird goop crusting itself under your fingernails as the smell of slightly cooked poo sears the back of your nostrils like fresh wasabi on a raw quail egg that upon consumption you realize tasted of fish sauce not because it was seasoned but due to being stored in a nest of armpit hair chunky with deodorant and human grease of a man who…. And you just keep going until the first person gags which very well could be you.
Lol what passed for entertainment pre-internets!
Online friendships. My nephews would talk about forums they belonged to and I’d wondered why they’d want to talk to strangers. Changed my mind. 😁
A few times I’ve met up at baseball games with people I only new from message boards. It was really fun.
I still talk to people I “met” on MySpace, including one guy in New Zealand!
i also still remember a lot if the html i learned from there. 😛
Yeah, I could’ve done that too. I used to work construction with my uncle and I’m damn handy — fix my own plumbing, retile my shower, etc. Used to take my car apart and put it back together when I was a teen. All of which was extremely useful when I was poor. I could’ve gone into any of those fields and would never have had to consider filing for bankruptcy (I didn’t).
I don’t regret college — I just regret the choices I made AT college. My parents were both the first people in their families to go to college and non-traditional students. So they didn’t have the most … complete perspective. And by the time kid #4 was enrolling, they weren’t bothering to give advice or yank me up short when I was being stupid. I’m probably over the top with my kid, but I’m not going to stand by and watch her make the same mistakes that I did.
Bottom line: Make sure there’s a paycheck at the end of that rainbow.
Oops. Double post. What happened to the edit function?
Makeup. As a preteen/teenager I wasn’t interested in makeup. I think I was 15 before I got any of my own. Wearing it would actually would exaggerate my low self esteem. I always felt like I looked like an ugly clown whenever my mom would do my makeup. (This was my own self esteem issue, she was good at applying makeup.) At around 18 I started teaching myself lite emo/punk rock style makeup looks and it felt a lot more comfortable. By my twenties and forward now I love makeup. I don’t like to leave the house without it. If I’m spending the day at home (and let’s face it, 2020…I hardly go anywhere anymore) I don’t wear any makeup, not even BB cream usually. But when I do my makeup now it makes me more confident and happy with myself and my looks. So yeah, total 180 reversal from preteen me who felt too ugly for makeup.
It took until pandemic-2020 for me to leave the house without makeup, even for a quick trip to cvs. Now I do it all the time because fuck it, but wearing a mask helps. I’ll go back to wearing it when i go back to the office though.
Two for me, are 1. the NCAA as “amateur” sprotz, and 2. College in general (i.e. getting a degree).
On 1–back when I went to college the first (AND second!🤣🙃) time, I TOTALLY bought into the idea that college athletes should be amateur athletes, and that the benefit they gained–that college degree–was a fair tradeoff….
And in all honesty, in the mid-1990’s, when I went, and BEFORE the multi-billion-dollar behemoth that the NCAA has become, you COULD have still probably argued in good faith, that the deal was reasonably fair….
It was juuuuust before the Michigan Fab 5 and “Coach Clem”/Gopher basketball scandals broke, and just a couple years after the Olympics opened the rules in ’92, allowing Pro athletes to compete at the Olympic level.
College sprotz wasn’t the Madden/Video Game behemoth it now exists as, and colleges/universities/coaches weren’t making the utterly RIDICULOUS sums of money they now DO off the blood, sweat, tears, and injuries of their players.
And the fact that–although it’s getting better now, there have been SO many poor, first-gen “student athletes” who have LITERALLY gone hungry over the years, while rich adults made MONEY OFF THEM, that imo, the NCAA is 100% unconscionable, and needs to pe put to an end.
WE OUGHT TO BE PAYING THESE KIDS, FOR THE LABOR THEY ARE REQUIRED TO DO, as part of their admission to their schools.
It IS work!!!
And it is 100% UNACCEPTABLE that they are NOT fairly compensated FOR that labor!!!😠😡🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
And 2. For MANY years, as a Gen X’er, and one of the last generation/last couple generations of folks who were able to get decent jobs on the merits of our skills in a work environment, I thought it was BS, when folks would bring up the idea that “everyone needs a college education!”
But with the unfortunate standard nowadays, of “degree inflation,” and the fact that you can’t even move into *store-level* management at places like Target, without at LEAST an Associate’s/2-year degree….
I think it’s BULLSHIT, but I do fully acknowledge that–if you don’t want to always need to work 2+ jobs to pay your bills, everyone DOES nowadays need that shiny damn piece of paper, saying they sat their ass in a classroom, for around 120 credits.
It’s BULLSHIT, but it’s what you HAVE to do, if you want a decent life….
It was bad enough, back before the 2008 financial crisis, but it’s only gotten worse.
A few years back–after the crisis, i heard it put something like,”a college degree used to be a sign that a person had motivation, drive, and was interested in bettering themselves or society… but now, it’s simply an easy way for employers to sort the resumes of applicants, to narrow out folks they don’t want to/don’t have time to look at.”
It’s bullshit, but it’s ALSO sadly accurate. 😕
It’s like the inflationary aspect of Ivy League degrees… they mean JACK SHIT, in regard to whether or not the person has even *two* brain cells to rub against each other, inside their heads (See: MOST of the current WH administration’s staffers & “advisors”🤨🤨🤨
I.e. Dolt45, and his “Wharton” degree, Jared and his “Daddy Paid for a Building!” tradeoff, and
ShrubGeorge W. Bush, and sooooooo many other children of the rich & somewhat powerful😒😒😒)But as others said about the “It’s not what you know, but Who you know” thing.
The entry fee to even a *modest* life, *hopefully *out of poverty, is that damnably expensive piece of paper, saying you know how to park your ass in a seat, and participate at least somewhat.🙄😕🙃
unpopular opinion, but I don’t think athletic recruiting should be a thing in colleges/universities. I don’t even think competitive sports should be a thing in educational institutions.
I’m not at all opposed to non-competitive, or even less competitive stuff, I just abhor the idea that so many educational institutions have prioritized competitive sports over education…
But, yeah, barring my little perfect world scenario, I’ll agree that student athletes should be compensated. I have no idea how to begin on assessing what’s enough, or what’s fair, but I imagine it’s not going to happen any time soon. 🙁
I’d prefer a complete end to all competitive sports associated with educational institutions (at ALL levels!) getting eliminated, too…
But until then, at minimum, I firmly believe that “student athletes” in college ought to get work study pay for every hour they’re in a sprotz-related activity…
AND, that that work study funding ought to be coming out of the athletics budget!!!
Traveling to games?
Paid for every minute they’re doing so.
Mandatory practice/gym time/training time?
Pay up.
Need to leave class early, to go for treatments from the Athletic Trainers?
Compensate that time.
If the colleges HAVE to pay fair wages for pulling the students out of classes, I feel like we’d suddenly discover that not quite as many sessions are actually needed, as are currently demanded of “student athletes.”🤔🤨🤫
SEX. Used to love it, had to have it, even had boyfriends complain that was all I wanted. I gave it up right after I turned 50, it’s so messy, emotionally and physically. Just can’t be bothered. I feel that way about dating, too.
Oh, and cats. Since I was 10 I had dogs and total disdain for cats. Got a cat 2 years ago and he is the best cat, entertaining as hell, as doesn’t need to be walked.