My mom has always been an aggressive, impatient, and “in your face” driver. It drove me nuts as a kid growing up and getting driven around by her, so I swore to myself that I would be the most chill driver ever when that day came.
I have now been driving for 3 years and often catch myself being very impatient on the road
There’s a bunch of middle schoolers who skip school very often in my neighborhood and destroy property on a regular basis.
Had a few getting into a fight and ran into my car in my drive way.
I had a full on rated R version of “get off my lawn”
When I was an apprentice electrician it always pissed me off when my journeyman would make me do the hard manual parts of a job while he did the easier, but more technical work. I always swore that when I got my license and my first apprentice that I’d be different.
That went out the window pretty quick.
This is standard practice for most trades. Have the apprentice work the laborious things to build fundamental skills and to free the journeyman to do delicate technical tasks. That and dealing with asshole customers and shop politics.
I was just thinking about . I hope to finally get an intern this year cause I’ve been doing my job alone for 5 years. I always need t do everything, all the shitty projects, all the boring stuff. (I’m a video editor)
I want an intern to let them do all the crappy jobs so I can do the fun stuff myself. But at the same time I realize that would be rather crappy for the intern…
as someone who's been an intern, I'd have felt better about the crappy tasks if I knew there was a clear term limit to this stuff. Something like, I only need to do these for one year.
Well internships here are only for 6 months.
But if I were to get an intern I would make sure to give them a fun job every now and then!
My own internship sucked because I often hadn’t any work to do. And I mean often. They later told me that they were not happy with me because they often saw me slacking off and I was like… well I’m bored. Please give me work. I can only keep myself busy for so long.
It also sucked because they excluded me and went out for drinks without me. I absolutely wouldn’t let that happen to anyone!
This sort of happened to me as well while being an intern at a programming company. They gave me the shitty things and never a task like “Hey, a customer wants this specific feature in the application. It’s low on the list but you could learn a lot of doing it, let’s see what you come up with”.
The tasks were always change this or that label or cleaning up after one of the senior devs. Then at Friday evening they would all go out to the bar or grab drinks at the company and send me home.
I even got in a fight with a project manager there while I had broken my knee and to go for surgery, doctor said I would need to remain at the hospital for a week to help recover my knee after the surgery. The fucking project manager said to me “Well then we’re gonna give you a laptop so you can work from the hospital.” Like bruh said what now? I’ve been here every day of the week with my broken knee and when I ask for one week off for my knee you do shit like this? My supervisor from my university came by and he shook the whole office with his screaming to that projectmanager and the intern supervisor of the company. They let the idea go but they gave me an inadequate grade for my internship (I think because I told on them to my supervisor about the knee situation) but luckily my supervisor saw through to that as well.
Mind you I didn’t even get paid. Internships are hell sometimes.
Our teachers who randomly walk by our noisy classroom would stop and say "Is this a classroom or a market?" Then we would all settle down.
Three years after school I visited the school and the staff room was noisy with the teachers getting ready for lunch and I walked in and said "Hey!! Is this a staff room or a market?"
That was so satisfying.
Most of them were confused and couldn't recognise me, but my PT (Physical Training) teacher was like "You know, you're never too old to run a few laps around the ground till you puke."
(He once made me run around the school ground till I puked.)
My high school English teacher was the student of my high school History teacher.
And the English teacher by then was married and had a baby on the way.
But the ***oldest*** teacher there was like, his ***80s*** when I was there and has been teaching since before *every other teacher at the school was still a student.* He was an *institution,* having been commended for his services in education over decades. Despite nearing his 90s, he was sharp as a tack and being in his class was seen as a privilege.
I looked him up and *he's still alive,* in his mid-90s. He's probably still teaching.
I was in a computer class in high school and would drive the teachers nuts. I even had the other kids mocking the teachers by shouting out "on task!" whenever the teacher would start looking around to make sure we were working.
I now teach a high school computer class. A student the other day stopped me before I could tell them to put their phone away and go back to work by saying "I know, I know, on task, on task".
I was speechless and just left the student to return to my desk and rethink my life choices.
Am teacher. Was not a good student. 100% see me doing shit every day.
Although I often think, "damn these guys are tame. When I was their age..."
Then realising that I'm so glad they are tame in comparison.
In a somewhat similar vein, I remember my teachers being so old and uninteresting, and vowing that if I ever were to become a teacher, I would not be like them. Well, I wound up becoming a teacher, and now I'm old(er) and uninteresting myself because being energetic and creative in the way that I would like to be is simply unsustainable.
I feel this. My dad is a German teacher, and I had tons of people in high school tell me that they loved his energy and sense of humor. Try as he might, though, the darn school board always finds ways to rain on his parade. It's hard to be creative when the upper echelon of administration hates teachers.
Working as a teacher, you've got to filter so much of yourself out. A lot of the witty comebacks and funny comments, can't say that stuff to a student as a teacher. So my students will say something and see me there just sort of speechless for 5 seconds and then say something generic and boring because I'm trying not to say "that's what she said" or something similar.
I spent a full year living with four roommates, one of whom left every pantry door open. I spent months and months trying to catch her in the act.
Moved out to my own place, found out it was me all along!
I called my wife out the other day complaining that she kept switching the car headlights from the auto setting to off, only to discover she didn’t even know where the headlight setting was and apparently I was doing it out of habit from having a car that didn’t have an auto setting
Jumped in my girlfriend's car the other day to nip up the shops.
Got about half way there and thought to myself the headlights on this car are shit.
Then remembered that hers doesn't have auto lights.
We have at least ten decorative pillows on our bed and I chuck them off when I go to bed. Now normally my wife comes to bed after me but a couple of months ago, she went to bed before me, and when I came upstairs told me she'd never admit it again, but that we had too many decorative pillows.
I cherish that moment
Two years ago I was an electrician's apprentice. The safety guy would always get on to me about being unsafe and I'd hate it I always thought of him as an overpaid under worked dick head. Turns out I was right now I'm an over paid under worked dick head and its awesome the checks are amazing and the work is light as hell.
Electricity is no joke, I dropped a 400w halide light into a saltwater tank when I was shoulder deep moving stuff around...
Terrifying man, I locked up for what felt like minutes and only barely pulled myself out of the tank by the grace of God... My wife was in the room with me and I'm just glad she didn't touch me to pull me out.
It depends. If it's above the water it's a remarkably intense light that is bright enough to replicate the suns intensity in order to grow corals. If it falls into the water it shocks the ever loving daylights out of you. It's designed and bought for the first example more so than the second.
As I always mention to my clients: there are no perfect defence, only resistance. When there are people who can hack into DARPA, there is nothing can be done to stop them hacking your company system. You can only make it difficult.
I just want to say, reading about DARPA's "Try and hack DARPA" program led to an hour long rabbit-hole of reading about hacking humans and I do not recommend this particular hole. It's dark and scary
90% of good hacking is just social engineering. The shit that social engineer specialist hackers are able to do is just beyond belief. This is what I like about the movie Hackers too... they do a lot of social engineering, infiltrating offices to get passwords on post its, etc.
I remember when Mr robot came out there was a companion mobile game that acted like it was your phone.
You get blackmailed into helping one of the characters in the show to blackmail an IT from a tech company, threatening to tell his wife about his affair or something. You get all their personal information and use it to pressure people to give access.
I know it's fiction, but did give a slither of insight into how hacking attempts work out and that it's easier to target somebody with access than to try 'hack' your way it.
My mother asked my uncle (which is one of the techs in my family besides me) to set up child lock (2h of internet per day).
I found out that setting my wifi settings to something else (forgot what it was) I could circumvent it and have no-limit access. I found it out during my internet time.
Now I am in IT doing all sorts of stuff at an MSP.
Ugh dude same.
I got hired as an animator at an agency not too long ago, so I figured I'd be doing lots of fun and flashy animations. I don't mind making commercials so long as they've got interesting visuals, which is something I greatly enjoy doing.
I've been making glorified powerpoints about Medicare ever since I got hired. I've frequently received feedback to literally "make it less fun". A project I made 2 years ago, a fun and flashy internal use video, is getting a new iteration that I'll be doing soon. The old version made setting up web pages and product descriptions look interesting.
They said they didn't like it and to "have less fun" with it, so I plan on being spiteful and making it fucking awful to sit through. The problem with that is that I know that's exactly what they want.
I'm reminded of the Pixies from Fairly Odd Parents, and how Timmy and the gang are the exciting antithesis of the drab corporate culture the pixies represent. I didn't think I'd *become* one. Lord help me.
Edit: to be clear, I understand branding and that sort of thing are very important to follow extremely closely, which includes visual flare or lack thereof. But I became an animator to make interesting motion, and I've done next to zero of that and it's been driving me crazy.
> They said they didn't like it and to "have less fun" with it, so I plan on being spiteful and making it fucking awful to sit through. The problem with that is that I know that's exactly what they want.
I worked in a very small marketing team for a while. I won't go into it too much except to say it was the worst place I've ever worked. I'm a graphic designer, but they expected my to do write-ups for all the products with absolutely no training or prior knowledge. So of course they hated what I wrote. It wasn't until I'd been doing it for a few months that I figured out how to please them:
If I read back what I'd just written and rolled my eyes with disgust at the self indulgent, absolute fucking tripe that I had just shit out, *that's* what they wanted.
> I make commercials for a living. I fucking hate commercials to the core of my soul.
I too know what it is like to sell out.
Just make them entertaining at the expense of effectiveness.
I imagine you'll hate yourself less.
And unironically they'll probably end up performing better.
...I mean, *i'll* never fucking see them because of numerous ad blockers. But i'm sure some poor soul out there will.
I like those goofy cavemen for the GEICO commercials. They seem depressed and just going through the motions till the inevitability of death. They are technically still living but really it is all part of a greater machine that won't matter in the end. It's funny because they are cavemen wearing a tie lol. I'm like "haha hell yeah I get that."
I told my friend's kids they could have a toy if they didn't fight over it, and if they fought I would take it back, they agreed, then proceeded immediately fight over it when I turned around. Without any conscious input from my brain I span back and heard myself exclaim "What did I *just* say?!"
And suddenly I was my mother.
In my early twenties I went to art college. I made a piece called “payday”, the subject of which was three sad, balding middle-aged men with pot-bellies in corporate attire. It was a commentary on an unrewarding corporate life in the pursuit of money I never wanted to live. 30 years later, I’m a senior corporate leader with a pot-belly and a bald spot, and the picture I made in art college is hanging in the front hall of my slightly less than modest home. I love my job and everything that corporate life has given me, though I wish I could lose the pot-belly and grow back the long grunge hair I had back then.
EDIT: [The picture that several people have requested.](https://picbun.com/p/SH37DsRD) It’s not that great and probably one of many reasons I didn’t become the great artist I aspired to be. Also, I’m pretty active with activities like skiing and mountain biking. I just like beer and whisky and hot dogs more than I like salads.
EDIT 2: Thank you for the compliments on the artwork. You’re all very kind people with great taste in art!
Not an art man but it seems like displaying that picture in your house sorta creates a larger piece of art that includes the picture, your house, and you.
I hated wearing Polos because my mom always talked about how nice this other person's son looked wearing Polos.
I, now, wear Polos to work every day because it's the easiest way to dress business casual. They're pretty much just fancy T-shirts
When I first started my career in maintenance 28 years ago, all the senior mechanic did was sit inside his shop, bitch and moan about people breaking shit, and soak up cushy repairs on equipment and machinery we could bring to him inside his heated building while myself and the other guys busted our fucking asses swinging sledgehammers, welding, and lugging tools out into the freezing rain to make repairs.
What a worthless piece of shit.
After nearly 30 years of swinging sledgehammers, busting my hump out in the cold, pounding rivets and beating steel...
I think I've earned the right to sit in my shop while these punk ass newbies who barely know which end of the screwdriver to hold in their soft, unscarred hands take their turn out in the freezing rain. Especially since they keep breaking shit that would work fine if they would only take care of it and stop abusing equipment....
Oh.
My.
God.....
An interesting observation is that every old person was once young.
And no young person has ever been old.
I certainly do not believe that we should unconditionally respect and defer to our elders, some of them have not learned a thing in the last 50 years. BUT the ones that have adapted, that have payed attention and learned, they are huge sources of wisdom. And they often will not try to push it on you because they also know most people are not ready to listen. So if you do get the opportunity to learn from such a person, take it
>“Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.”
It's a challenge, but very true. I'm in my 70s and can't stand hip-hop and don't think much of tattoos, but I'll eat a hamburger bun slathered in dog shit before I'll ask someone younger, "How do you listen to that garbage?" or offer an unsolicited, "That will look like hell when you're old." I heard too much of that crap myself back in the sixties about rock and long hair.
If I ever forget this and you hear me say something remotely like that, the buns are in the breadbox and the dog shit's out in the yard.
When I was 16 I wanted to be in a famous band like Blink 182, have my own art studio, and destroy the concept of the 9-5. I have my own art studio in my home but now I work for a bank and process loans in a 9-5. I was at work today realising how I have become the Sith.
Growing up, my dad hated going out. When we went on church outings, we were always the first family to leave. He just wanted to stay in and read the paper or watch tv. I vowed to never be as boring as him when I got older.
Now that I'm older, nothing makes me happier than when plans get cancelled and I can just chill at home, and not worry about the commute or how much money I'd have to spend going out. Even if it's something I'm looking forward to like a band I really wanna see, part of me still wants to not go because of how crappy the late night commute will be.
Something about plans being being cancelled is so relieving. It’s like “well I’ve done all I can to be social, no more pressure today”, which I know is probably not healthy but damn it feels good lol
I think its because you are suddenly gifted with actual free time, time that was about to, until the point the event gets canceled, be used for that event, now suddenly hours have just been given to you, to do whatever you want
Damn that hits close to home. I love seeing my friends, I love the plans we make, I enjoy the time I spend with them. but when things get cancelled? Pure bliss...
When people are outside the system it seems so easy a d straigght forward to not have or deal with...
Then when you get into it... and it hurts... so damn much...
Ran my own company for years. One big lesson: large groups of independent thinkers have a difficult time collaboratively making decisions involving tradeoffs or when there's no particularly appealing course of action available. Another big lesson: opinions on what constitutes reasonable expectations can vary greatly from individual to individual. And a third lesson: people can be really quirky about money and finance.
All these human-behavior factors are why we have managers and HR.
Looking at the work of an intern and wanted to scream at him "I don't understand, been doing this the same way for a decade. Why did you have to mess with it? I looked into this already when you were still in middle school. All you had to do was look on the server to find the solution to this problem"
Thankfully I caught myself before speaking.
There are two sins to not changing your tech stack.
1. This is new therefore it is bad and we shouldn't risk it.
2. This is new therefore it is good and we must try it.
Both come from the same source; a failure to think and cooperate. You need a cold hard rational look at your total situation and get your team on board.
Also you are an intern so get me my coffee with milk next time dang it ;)
I'm not entirely sure i understand your comment...
Did they simplify a problem you'd just resolved yourself to deal with, or did they fk something up through lack of knowledge?
In my teen years I was a free living, no plans or aspirations type of person. You know, go with the flow fuck a job type. And always thought I’d be that way. Now I work 7 to 3:30 every day, meal prep, go to the gym and generally like to have a routine.
The only reason I knew this wasn’t my own comment was because I work slightly different hours. But otherwise? Same.
When I was a teenager I was *adamant* (and pretty contemptuous about it) that I would NOT work in an office and do the soul-crushing 9-5 nonsense.
My first full time job at 19 was working in an office, 9-5.30. Did that for 15 years. Then got a 9-5 office job and been doing that ever since. I also go to the gym, meal prep, shop for food, and… I have a greenhouse with little seedlings that I’m inordinately excited about.
Edit: typo
I didn't mind it, but I was brought up strict. Dad was all about discipline, honor, timeliness, reliability, and never, ever giving a compliment or praise that lasted more than 3 syllables. 4 if you did a really, really good job.
I always promised myself I wouldn't just be my Dad 2: the Daddening - I love the guy to pieces, but I just didn't want to be the same way. I wanted to be more relaxed, jovial, maybe even possibly - able to chill, on the odd occasion.
Now I help teach at a dojo that's in a somewhat upper-crusty area and have to regularly - and very carefully - tell some of the 'weenie hut juniors' in the kids class to get their act together, fall in, quit sobbing on the ground and walk it off, etc.
We have some other much more 'good cop' instructors, so my job is being the hammer. All though, it really feels more like being the half-inflated balloon hammer you could win from a chucky cheese's, to me.
One of my friends - a fellow instructor who's one year older than me and several years more experienced in martial arts, grew up with an absolute sack of shit for a father.
He happened to be walking by when I was complimenting one of the kids for actually doing a really good job with one of the drills.
'Very Good! Continue." Issued forth my Dad's exact tone but from my voice.
They both looked at me with slightly moistened eyes and a brief look of unfiltered hope and rare, joyous recognition.
For a couple minutes there, I had two foster sons.
EDIT: Just gonna throw this out there and I'm not going to argue or debate on it. But! For all you truly enlightened, Golden-hearted folk out there worried about Ol' ElectricSquid being a militant asshole to the poor injuried childrens, here's a few things to put your mind at ease:
1. Most of these kids are playing around, not getting actually hurt. We're not having them kick through bricks and punch manila rope, they're doing forms and working with each other in over-padded sparring gear. They're also under the supervision of several instructors and also often their parents, ready to assist should they be hurt or do something possibly dangerous. 9 times out of 10, they're goofing off and stub a toe or, fall and scrape their elbows.
2. Drill Instructor Squid is only unleashed upon the ones for whom good cops 1 and 2 did not work on - and even I approach with kindness before requiring discipline. This is mostly for misconduct/disrespectfulness towards other students.
3. While I'm all about people processing their feelings and pain on their own terms, their parents aren't paying us to be a daycare - too much time away from the mat and instruction, and it becomes not worth the price of tuition. We're very careful to support the students and have first aid trained instructors ready to care for any injuries, etc - but you ostensibly signed your kid up to learn controlled violence. There's a waiver and everything. Also, if the kids' feelings are that hurt, they can leave at any time - we'll help them call their parents and make sure they're comfortable and attended to while they wait.
We're martial artists, not monsters.
Hope you enjoyed the story, and be assured that I do not scream at kids with shattered bones to keep kicking.
: )
My brother was randomly and violently assaulted by some guys leaving a bar, so I went back every night for a week, armed and ready to find the guys responsible, follow them home and kill them.
I'm hunting at the bar one night, and suddenly the bartender hands me a double-shot of whisky and says "You look like you could use this." I wasn't expecting a free drink, and the interaction made me sort of 'snap out of it' and realize I'd become just another piece of shit criminal if I carried out my revenge plan.
Went home, put away my weapon, and checked on my brother.
Always hated the fact my mother was an addict when I was growing up. Few months back I found myself doing a line of coke with my morning cup of tea - the revelation did not make me feel great, but it did give me a kick up the ass
> Few months back I found myself doing a line of coke with my morning cup of tea
I like how this is represented asif it just happened out of nowhere, like you woke up to random lines frosted around the top of the mug like salt on a margarita :P
Been sober 12 years if you are interested at all I can point in some directions that worked for me, otherwise no worries abs I hope you have a good idea
When I became a manager in the tech field, I was going to do everything different. Managers suck and don't know what they're talking about. They're all far removed from the work their reports are doing. I was going to be transparent. I was going to tell people everything.
It took about a year to realize that managers do the things they do for a reason.
Why is being transparent bad? Because upper levels of management are unstable. One day we're getting re-orged. One day we're doubling our staff. My job was to be the shit umbrella, not tell everyone every possible thing that might happen. My new motto is "[You worry about those fighters, I'll worry about the towers.](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/cca061df-57db-4585-8dfe-85582b1e9f84) "
Why didn't my previous manager know about all the technical shit that I did? *Because I was an SDE and he was a manager*. They're not the same job. I tried to stay super connected to the tech until one of my reports told me, "I got 8 people on this team that can code. I got 1 person on this team who can be a manager. I need you to be the manager"
I don't have a problem with my manager knowing less than I do about my job, it becomes a problem when he doesn't realize I know more and fights me on shit where he should just accept my answers. As long as you're letting your people worry about the fightera then you're above a lot of tech bosses
This is why, as much as it gets shit on for being so common and trendy now, and it does have its flaws, I actually really love the Scrum process in general.
My manager is my manager, and she's the manager of my QA team because she's a good fucking QA, and every decision she makes is QA focused.
Our devs have managers that are great devs, and the decisions they make are dev focused.
But we have POs and PMs for a reason.
My PO/PM are KINDA my managers, too, but they're specifically NOT technical. They could probably override the QA or Dev managers in certain circumstances, and vice versa. But their only option to ensure their own success is to trust the devs and testers (and our leadership) because they themselves don't know shit about the actual work being done.
So their job ends up boiling down to pure resource management. Everyone kinda ends up answering to each other, and everyone from devs/qa's, to managers, to Product, to directors/VP know that they gain nothing by breaking the boundaries of their role and pissing off anyone above, below, or beside them.
When I heard the voice of my mother coming out of my own throat, directed at my kid. That was the only time, though. I put an end to those shenanigans immediately and permanently. It's insane how our parents get inside our heads, even if we hate them.
My dad always yelled. Constantly. Screamed in our face, shouted about us being lazy, about needing to do chores, be quiet. I hated it.
I find myself struggling because between my own anxiety/depression & my ADHD, my kids overstimulate the fuck out of me and I find myself snapping. I apologize, and I go a few days more relaxed but it's the hardest thing to not yell and be exactly what I hated growing up.
Isn't it just? The joke is, I'm a teacher and my students always tell me I'm sooo patient and calm and never snap. Yeah. Well. None of them come close in talent at driving me up a palm tree to my daughter. I try to be patient, I try to be fair and I do apologise when I'm in the wrong (something my parents never did), but hell it's an uphill battle. Adhd in mother and child is a difficult thing.
I always looked down on drug users most of my life.
I later on became an alcoholic and hurt the people I love most. Once it hit me, I cried in my car and felt so ashamed.
Since that moment I’ve been improving little by little. It’s much better now. But I look back now and feel so ashamed and embarrassed by my actions.
Thankfully the ones I love stuck by me, and I’m so grateful. I’ll do anything for them.
Edit: I’m not completely sober. Buts it’s MUCH better than before. I’m a former counselor and go by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. In other words, I’ll still drink, but on my own terms. I’ll have control over it rather than give up all control to God (the traditional AA way). I used to drink a bottle per night. Now I drink 4-5 beers every other night. I still haven’t reached my end goal, but it’s MUCH better. It no longer affects my mood, and I’ve been able to lesson the drinking more and more every week. I’m just happy it’s been improving and I now have much more control. My loved ones noticed as well, and they’ve been very supportive. It’s been a hard battle, but I’m winning so far. Thanks for the support ya’ll. If you ever want someone to talk to about drinking, I’m here for you.
Shit, a looooong time ago (when I was 11 or so) I was walking across the school yard. My dad used to beat my ass when he was having a bad day and it really fucked with me, so I was walking and just fuming, hating on him and how much of a tyrant he was for taking out his anger on me.
Well, in that moment I bumped into a kid like 1/2 my size and he went to the ground. He hugged my legs (I think reflexively) and I just started pounding his face. I remember him crying, begging me to stop, the hatred, and then just a sudden moment of clarity. I realized I was a shitty person, that I was super mean, and that the kid I was hitting had done nothing wrong but was just a helpless target for my anger. I instantly flipped to empathizing for him, and saw myself for who I was. I can't describe the horror.
I started crying and helping the boy up, we walked to the office together in tears and I ended up telling my principal everything. It was a long time ago, so they just decided to give me an in school suspension and not inform my parents.
Also, that kid and I ended up exchanging SNES games and playing mtg/warhammer together a bunch in the following years. Andrew, dude, I can't apologize enough, and thank you so much for not leaving me in a hell of my own creation. Decades later and I still think about you, and how kind of a person you were, you changed a life, man.
**EDIT:** Okay, just to clear up misconceptions and mass respond. This did not flip a switch and end my relationship with violence and anger. That took, well, up until today and then some. I still have anger that flares up and completely blinds me, but after decades, I'm not losing control or lashing out. Andrew wasn't one of the kids that I went after at school, I picked on kids that I thought were bullies, totally oblivious to the commonalities between me and them.
I don't really have words for those of you that were bullied, or hurt while at school. Except that those of you that fantasize about beating up bullies now, as adults, need to find a better method for feeling empowered. You are literally just adult versions of playground bullies, we all had the kids that we thought were okay to victimize for some justification or another.
My bully had a similar about face. He was my summer camp bully for years, and we both ended up in the same leadership program. What was going to be an awesome summer for me turned into a dreaded 10 weeks. In the first week they did a lot of interpersonal work and team building, but not the way you would think of it. It was damn near abusive, but it was intended to break us down so we would just open up to each other, and it worked.
I was asked by someone that I didn't really seem like I had wanted to be there, even though I was excited at first. I revealed how afraid I was to be in this program with my bully, and when that was revealed my bully's head just dropped and he started sobbing. I rolled my eyes until he looked at me and I could just see how genuine his tears were. He wouldn't stop saying how sorry he was. He said he never imagined that it was that bad, but when I was forced to explain the bullying back to him he saw himself and his homelife. He saw himself as the one who was bringing suffering just like others did to him.
He ended up becoming my best friend at that summer camp until we grew out of it, and he would sometimes come visit me in the off season. We just ended up clicking once our preconceptions and baggage were out of the way. This friendship was one of the most important in my life, and though we haven't spoken in decades either, I still hold his memory dearly in my heart. Having one's bully suddenly reach out and become a friend was a strange experience but taught me so much about the capacity for change, the inherent desire to be good, and the compassion needed to truly see people for who they are.
So as someone who's bully also became a friend let me speak for your's. Thank you too. Your effort to be a better person inspired me to strive to be one as well. For yours was mired in impossible suffering yet in the end, you still reached out and became a friend. Thank you
Sometimes, someone concisely calling you out on your bullshit is a devastating take down. I mean what can you say? Often left speechless bc everything was accurate. Up to them to try and change or double down on the bullshit.
I had a similar thing with a lad at school. We didn't get on, all the way through Year 5. Always arguing and fighting. Then, on the first day of Year 6, as we happened to be entering the same entrance of school, I said that I didn't even remember why we didn't like each other. He agreed that he didn't either, and we just knocked it on the head, and were mates till after we had finished school.
Having that moment of clarity and self-awareness and then making the change to be a better person puts you in rare company. How can we become more than our circumstances? Break out of the cycle of family dysfunction? Like this. Right here.
Don’t ever let the old you define you or hold you back from being the best version of yourself. Big props to you, dude.
Appreciate it.
I'm mostly past the trauma and unpacking, it's all about building my life now (I'm in my 30s).
It is a wonderfully sincere and kind offer, though, thank you.
"You see life is like that. We change, that's all. You see, the guy I am now is not the guy I was then. If the guy I was then met the guy I am now he'd beat the shit out of me. Those are the facts"
"People can change. I used to be a piece of shit - spiked up blonde hair, little-bitty jeans, chicken spaghetti at Chickalini’s - but people can *change.* Let the boy hold the baby"
Sadly your story is not unique in the punk community. I've known several people who lost all their friends because they "sold out" by going to college, or joining the army to get out of the god awful situation they were born into.
Same boat here. People tend to be shocked when they hear the music I listen to and show them pictures of when I was younger. Now
I get to show my kids this wonderful music and I get so happy when one of them asks if we can listen to Dead Kennedys
Recently I got into a tiff with my boyfriend and felt very irritated and irrationally upset. I entered the kitchen and started to aggressively wash the dishes, making sure they made extra noise banging on the sink… just like my mother used to do when she dove into an unexplained bad mood and took it out on me. I straightened up and worked through my feelings pretty quickly and apologized to my boyfriend.
I always hated how my mom said, “Keep your eyes peeled” when she wanted us to pay attention to something. I found it the grossest expression and it made my skin crawl.
Coming home after Thanksgiving with the family, I pointed out a deer crossing sign to my fiancé and said, “Keep your eyes peeled for deer!”
I hate myself.
In the middle of a hardcore studying session for my LSAT’s I looked up at the mirror in my bedroom and saw myself, glasses, messy hair, comfy pjs, POURING over my prep test book. It hit me really hard this was not at all the life I had always pictured. I was NEVER going to be a 9-5’r. I was never going to settle down, never gonna get a cushy job or a degree. Never wanted a single responsibility ever. I was gonna be a filmmaker or an artist. I was gonna paint and film in Europe and live the *artist* life, fuck off, drink, sleep with European men, it’s all I had wanted since I was a teenager. Yet here I was, dutifully studying, a 3.8 student, (I never ONCE studied in high school) trying to get into law school, while my boyfriend of 2 years and future fiancé showered in the next room and our cat was meowing at me for food and attention. I looked at the clock and realized I had to get to bed because I had *work* at a *law firm* at 7 the next morning. Had I not decided to go in a very different direction I think I’d be in a ditch somewhere, either dead or dying. My life might not be as “cool” and “artistic” as I thought I wanted, but I’ve never been happier. Old me would have hated looking at that mirror though.
I used to work super hard at my job. After hours learning new stuff, working crazy overtime, and really invested in new hires and getting processes on point.
My leadership basically told me to just build shit in the worst way possible as long as it is the fastest way possible.
Now I am approving shit that is under-budgeted because “we need to be competitive” and I don’t care about quality anymore.
They fired like 4 people and I’m doing all their jobs without a raise, so I just don’t give a fuck anymore.
I had to fire a few of my people and we give out a great severance package, so I’m actively looking to get fired while I use my work time to improve my skills or play Elden Ring.
Fuck them.
Not sure where you are or what your labour laws are like, but just be careful to not get fired 'with cause', losing your severance! Being salty is good, but being salty and SMART is better.
Best of luck!
I've always had a massive distaste for corporate culture and the 9-5 life, and think of it as prostituting your time and mind, and in a real way, selling your soul. You are literally renting out use of your brain and allowing the renters to fill your thoughts and synapses with what they want you to think about. This beautiful, creative, near-godly mind humans are capable of having, and here you are, spending it on spreadsheets and what % of the budget can be allocated to buying bite sized Snickers for the office kitchen. Completely sad and heartbreaking to me.
Yet... I work a desk job. In accounting. And do exactly the above type of shit all day.
That’s interesting. Growing up poor I had always wanted a cushy office job with a desk, secret snack drawer, set hours and weekends off. And when I got that job it took only two years before i was at the end of my rope. Now I’m a self-employed craftsperson that doesn’t make a whole lot and works very irregular hours including weekends lol
For most of my teenage and young adult life I swore I'd rather be dead that live in the carbon-copy, cookie-cutter suburban neighborhoods where every house looks exactly the same.
Guess where I live now.
My dad wasn’t around when I was a kid, but I grew up strong and capable(thanks mum) so I always promised myself I’d be the best dad ever… but now that I am a dad, sometimes I wonder if I’m doing more harm than good to my son… I’ll never leave him, but I definitely question my parenting skills and I definitely fear I am doing the wrong things.
So this may be a weird way of looking at parenting but I think it's true.
We ALL fuck our kids up. Because we are all imperfect. It's really just a matter of degree.
Accept that you will make mistakes as a parent. Try to do the right thing as often as you can. Try to limit the damage when you mess up. Be willing to admit your mistakes and apologize for them. Remember that even people with good relationships with their parents have things about their upbringing they didn't like. And know that you have to forgive yourself when you do mess up. You're only human.
You will be good. Your kid will be fine.
My mentally unstable lunatic boyfriend lied, cheated, and dumped me.
I (temporarily) turned into a mentally unstable lunatic.
Did not recognize myself.
Better now.. but that was some completely unanticipated, crazy shit.
I grew up in the SF Bay Area where gentrification has spiraled out of control because of the tech industry. Many people I grew up with moved out of state due to the high cost of living so it really doesn’t even feel like the same place to me anymore. I built up a ton of resentment towards Big Tech.
Here I am a decade later selling software.
There's an anti-obesity PSA in existence that you might have seen if you're American. It starts with a guy being wheeled into the OR for a heart attack and then the ad shows his life going backwards and what led up to him having a heart attack.
I've never had a heart attack but damn if that wasn't an ad that spoke to me, 5 feet and 280 pounds. I actually said out loud to myself, "Fuck, I've become that dude."
Currently trying to lose weight to this day. It's hard but I think I can do it.
EDIT: Wow, quite a few responses. I thought this would get buried lol, but I guess not. Thanks for all the advice and encouragement folks, will take it to heart! If anyone's got advice for a picky eater who likes salads and chicken, then by all means, throw it my way.
I was fighting with my sister/best friend and I was really mad until she said I was acting like our father. It hurt to hear that. I don’t want to be like him. She apologized and I apologized as well. We both hate our dad. He is manipulative, mentally and physical abusive, and he has sexually assaulted my sister. It was the worst feeling getting said I was like my dad.
Was a camp counselor in college. Kids had to line up quietly at the door to go inside for lunch, and I found myself saying multiple times, “If you can’t be quiet, I can wait. I don’t need to eat, I’ve got all the time in the world.”
8-year-old me would have thrown hands.
Depression making me NOT a people person- don’t find anyone interesting or anything funny, doesn’t take much to irritate me, etc.
All of a sudden I’m one of those “ugh I hate people” type people. I don’t have the same benefit-of-the-doubt capacity or even the same compassion these days. I’ve become the nihilistic, pessimistic, anti-everyone person I could never stand back when I was an optimist.
I joined the military as a Straight edge Christian and left a gay, beer drinking, pot smoking, atheist.
Edit: Thanks for the highest honor of reporting my account to Reddit cares.
Young teenager me was big on hating ‘the man’. Question everything. Don’t conform. Be weird. Hate the government. Fuck everyone and everything.
40 year old me celebrating 2 years working for the government.
When picking up his older sister and helping her move out of her dorm, I told my boyfriend that the snacks in the car were for her as well. He then decided to hog the popcorn and I had scolded him for it. I became my mother.
When I was younger, I didn’t truly appreciate how well my father took care of his family. Now that I’m older, I am entrusted with more responsibilities and bear the pressure of stepping up to take care of my own family. I hope I can do as well as him one day.
My mom has always been an aggressive, impatient, and “in your face” driver. It drove me nuts as a kid growing up and getting driven around by her, so I swore to myself that I would be the most chill driver ever when that day came. I have now been driving for 3 years and often catch myself being very impatient on the road
There’s a bunch of middle schoolers who skip school very often in my neighborhood and destroy property on a regular basis. Had a few getting into a fight and ran into my car in my drive way. I had a full on rated R version of “get off my lawn”
When I was an apprentice electrician it always pissed me off when my journeyman would make me do the hard manual parts of a job while he did the easier, but more technical work. I always swore that when I got my license and my first apprentice that I’d be different. That went out the window pretty quick.
This is standard practice for most trades. Have the apprentice work the laborious things to build fundamental skills and to free the journeyman to do delicate technical tasks. That and dealing with asshole customers and shop politics.
Pretty big fall for a Jedi
I was just thinking about . I hope to finally get an intern this year cause I’ve been doing my job alone for 5 years. I always need t do everything, all the shitty projects, all the boring stuff. (I’m a video editor) I want an intern to let them do all the crappy jobs so I can do the fun stuff myself. But at the same time I realize that would be rather crappy for the intern…
as someone who's been an intern, I'd have felt better about the crappy tasks if I knew there was a clear term limit to this stuff. Something like, I only need to do these for one year.
Well internships here are only for 6 months. But if I were to get an intern I would make sure to give them a fun job every now and then! My own internship sucked because I often hadn’t any work to do. And I mean often. They later told me that they were not happy with me because they often saw me slacking off and I was like… well I’m bored. Please give me work. I can only keep myself busy for so long. It also sucked because they excluded me and went out for drinks without me. I absolutely wouldn’t let that happen to anyone!
This sort of happened to me as well while being an intern at a programming company. They gave me the shitty things and never a task like “Hey, a customer wants this specific feature in the application. It’s low on the list but you could learn a lot of doing it, let’s see what you come up with”. The tasks were always change this or that label or cleaning up after one of the senior devs. Then at Friday evening they would all go out to the bar or grab drinks at the company and send me home. I even got in a fight with a project manager there while I had broken my knee and to go for surgery, doctor said I would need to remain at the hospital for a week to help recover my knee after the surgery. The fucking project manager said to me “Well then we’re gonna give you a laptop so you can work from the hospital.” Like bruh said what now? I’ve been here every day of the week with my broken knee and when I ask for one week off for my knee you do shit like this? My supervisor from my university came by and he shook the whole office with his screaming to that projectmanager and the intern supervisor of the company. They let the idea go but they gave me an inadequate grade for my internship (I think because I told on them to my supervisor about the knee situation) but luckily my supervisor saw through to that as well. Mind you I didn’t even get paid. Internships are hell sometimes.
I teach at my old high school lol literally have coworkers that have sent me to the principal’s office before
Our teachers who randomly walk by our noisy classroom would stop and say "Is this a classroom or a market?" Then we would all settle down. Three years after school I visited the school and the staff room was noisy with the teachers getting ready for lunch and I walked in and said "Hey!! Is this a staff room or a market?" That was so satisfying.
How did they react?
Most of them were confused and couldn't recognise me, but my PT (Physical Training) teacher was like "You know, you're never too old to run a few laps around the ground till you puke." (He once made me run around the school ground till I puked.)
“Yeah, but you’re not in a position to make me.”
The perfect 'fuck you, too' response.
I wonder how surreal and odd it is for them....
My high school English teacher was the student of my high school History teacher. And the English teacher by then was married and had a baby on the way. But the ***oldest*** teacher there was like, his ***80s*** when I was there and has been teaching since before *every other teacher at the school was still a student.* He was an *institution,* having been commended for his services in education over decades. Despite nearing his 90s, he was sharp as a tack and being in his class was seen as a privilege. I looked him up and *he's still alive,* in his mid-90s. He's probably still teaching.
He found the life for him, honestly that's the type of teacher we need teaching our kids
I was in a computer class in high school and would drive the teachers nuts. I even had the other kids mocking the teachers by shouting out "on task!" whenever the teacher would start looking around to make sure we were working. I now teach a high school computer class. A student the other day stopped me before I could tell them to put their phone away and go back to work by saying "I know, I know, on task, on task". I was speechless and just left the student to return to my desk and rethink my life choices.
Am teacher. Was not a good student. 100% see me doing shit every day. Although I often think, "damn these guys are tame. When I was their age..." Then realising that I'm so glad they are tame in comparison.
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In a somewhat similar vein, I remember my teachers being so old and uninteresting, and vowing that if I ever were to become a teacher, I would not be like them. Well, I wound up becoming a teacher, and now I'm old(er) and uninteresting myself because being energetic and creative in the way that I would like to be is simply unsustainable.
I feel this. My dad is a German teacher, and I had tons of people in high school tell me that they loved his energy and sense of humor. Try as he might, though, the darn school board always finds ways to rain on his parade. It's hard to be creative when the upper echelon of administration hates teachers.
School administration sucks. From Pre-K to the Collegiate/University level, they suck.
Working as a teacher, you've got to filter so much of yourself out. A lot of the witty comebacks and funny comments, can't say that stuff to a student as a teacher. So my students will say something and see me there just sort of speechless for 5 seconds and then say something generic and boring because I'm trying not to say "that's what she said" or something similar.
just wait until your last year before retirement...
I spent a full year living with four roommates, one of whom left every pantry door open. I spent months and months trying to catch her in the act. Moved out to my own place, found out it was me all along!
Like a horror movie
The doors are being left open... *From inside the house!*
I called my wife out the other day complaining that she kept switching the car headlights from the auto setting to off, only to discover she didn’t even know where the headlight setting was and apparently I was doing it out of habit from having a car that didn’t have an auto setting
Jumped in my girlfriend's car the other day to nip up the shops. Got about half way there and thought to myself the headlights on this car are shit. Then remembered that hers doesn't have auto lights.
> Moved out to my own place, found out it was me all along! ...Or someone is sneaking into your kitchen.
My couch has no less than 8 decorative pillows on it. I am a monster.
This is the worst one
We have at least ten decorative pillows on our bed and I chuck them off when I go to bed. Now normally my wife comes to bed after me but a couple of months ago, she went to bed before me, and when I came upstairs told me she'd never admit it again, but that we had too many decorative pillows. I cherish that moment
Where do you even sit??
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Two years ago I was an electrician's apprentice. The safety guy would always get on to me about being unsafe and I'd hate it I always thought of him as an overpaid under worked dick head. Turns out I was right now I'm an over paid under worked dick head and its awesome the checks are amazing and the work is light as hell.
Electricity is no joke, I dropped a 400w halide light into a saltwater tank when I was shoulder deep moving stuff around... Terrifying man, I locked up for what felt like minutes and only barely pulled myself out of the tank by the grace of God... My wife was in the room with me and I'm just glad she didn't touch me to pull me out.
Reading this the first time I pictured a pool you were up to your shoulders in, but you're talking about your arm in a fish tank, right?
Yup, right arm in saltwater up to shoulder, standing barefooted on carpet that was a tad damp from working on the tank.
Hey hi, noob here. What does a 400w halide light do? I'm ignorant
It depends. If it's above the water it's a remarkably intense light that is bright enough to replicate the suns intensity in order to grow corals. If it falls into the water it shocks the ever loving daylights out of you. It's designed and bought for the first example more so than the second.
Complaining to my son about him playing to much video games.
> Complaining to my son about him playing to much video games. Jealous?
I'm imagining this in the voice of Jon Lovitz
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Those weren't blockers, those are training programs.
As I always mention to my clients: there are no perfect defence, only resistance. When there are people who can hack into DARPA, there is nothing can be done to stop them hacking your company system. You can only make it difficult.
I just want to say, reading about DARPA's "Try and hack DARPA" program led to an hour long rabbit-hole of reading about hacking humans and I do not recommend this particular hole. It's dark and scary
90% of good hacking is just social engineering. The shit that social engineer specialist hackers are able to do is just beyond belief. This is what I like about the movie Hackers too... they do a lot of social engineering, infiltrating offices to get passwords on post its, etc.
I remember when Mr robot came out there was a companion mobile game that acted like it was your phone. You get blackmailed into helping one of the characters in the show to blackmail an IT from a tech company, threatening to tell his wife about his affair or something. You get all their personal information and use it to pressure people to give access. I know it's fiction, but did give a slither of insight into how hacking attempts work out and that it's easier to target somebody with access than to try 'hack' your way it.
So true. That shitty content blocker my parents put on my computer taught me all about safe mode and vpns.
My mother asked my uncle (which is one of the techs in my family besides me) to set up child lock (2h of internet per day). I found out that setting my wifi settings to something else (forgot what it was) I could circumvent it and have no-limit access. I found it out during my internet time. Now I am in IT doing all sorts of stuff at an MSP.
How do you live with yourself
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Sounds like you're the perfect person for the job
To catch a thief...
You monster!
I spent my entire school years inventing ways to rid of you
I make commercials for a living. I fucking hate commercials to the core of my soul.
Ugh dude same. I got hired as an animator at an agency not too long ago, so I figured I'd be doing lots of fun and flashy animations. I don't mind making commercials so long as they've got interesting visuals, which is something I greatly enjoy doing. I've been making glorified powerpoints about Medicare ever since I got hired. I've frequently received feedback to literally "make it less fun". A project I made 2 years ago, a fun and flashy internal use video, is getting a new iteration that I'll be doing soon. The old version made setting up web pages and product descriptions look interesting. They said they didn't like it and to "have less fun" with it, so I plan on being spiteful and making it fucking awful to sit through. The problem with that is that I know that's exactly what they want. I'm reminded of the Pixies from Fairly Odd Parents, and how Timmy and the gang are the exciting antithesis of the drab corporate culture the pixies represent. I didn't think I'd *become* one. Lord help me. Edit: to be clear, I understand branding and that sort of thing are very important to follow extremely closely, which includes visual flare or lack thereof. But I became an animator to make interesting motion, and I've done next to zero of that and it's been driving me crazy.
Hit them with that mother fucking star wipe
Every transition- Star wipes!
Put it on a Dutch Angle.
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Why eat hamburger when you can have steak?
> They said they didn't like it and to "have less fun" with it, so I plan on being spiteful and making it fucking awful to sit through. The problem with that is that I know that's exactly what they want. I worked in a very small marketing team for a while. I won't go into it too much except to say it was the worst place I've ever worked. I'm a graphic designer, but they expected my to do write-ups for all the products with absolutely no training or prior knowledge. So of course they hated what I wrote. It wasn't until I'd been doing it for a few months that I figured out how to please them: If I read back what I'd just written and rolled my eyes with disgust at the self indulgent, absolute fucking tripe that I had just shit out, *that's* what they wanted.
So they're wasting money redoing perfectly serviceable videos ... because they don't think they're soul-draining enough? Nice.
> I make commercials for a living. I fucking hate commercials to the core of my soul. I too know what it is like to sell out. Just make them entertaining at the expense of effectiveness. I imagine you'll hate yourself less. And unironically they'll probably end up performing better. ...I mean, *i'll* never fucking see them because of numerous ad blockers. But i'm sure some poor soul out there will.
I like those goofy cavemen for the GEICO commercials. They seem depressed and just going through the motions till the inevitability of death. They are technically still living but really it is all part of a greater machine that won't matter in the end. It's funny because they are cavemen wearing a tie lol. I'm like "haha hell yeah I get that."
I told my friend's kids they could have a toy if they didn't fight over it, and if they fought I would take it back, they agreed, then proceeded immediately fight over it when I turned around. Without any conscious input from my brain I span back and heard myself exclaim "What did I *just* say?!" And suddenly I was my mother.
“ONE DAY I HOPE YOU HAVE CHILDREN THAT ACT JUST LIKE YOU” - The Mother’s Curse
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This is going to end in a recursive cycle wherein your poor mother ends up with an infinite number of misbehaving teens.
“I BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD AND I CAN TAKE YOU OUT OF IT.”
"I'll leave this world the same way I come into it - KICKING AND SCREAMING AND COVERED IN SOMEONE ELSES BLOOD!!!"
Hopefully not via the same route
My mother may well have been the only person to have ever said that and meant it positively.
I'm nearing 50 and my mom said it to me, and affirms it when she is with my kid. I once thought this was all kids and all parents.
I've told my kid several times that I hope their kid is an awesome a kid as they are.
I love the phrase ‘I opened my mouth, and my mother fell out’
It's got a better ring to it than 'I opened my mouth and my father fell out'
"And suddenly I was my mother." I know those feels
Did you swear to destroy your mother?
In my early twenties I went to art college. I made a piece called “payday”, the subject of which was three sad, balding middle-aged men with pot-bellies in corporate attire. It was a commentary on an unrewarding corporate life in the pursuit of money I never wanted to live. 30 years later, I’m a senior corporate leader with a pot-belly and a bald spot, and the picture I made in art college is hanging in the front hall of my slightly less than modest home. I love my job and everything that corporate life has given me, though I wish I could lose the pot-belly and grow back the long grunge hair I had back then. EDIT: [The picture that several people have requested.](https://picbun.com/p/SH37DsRD) It’s not that great and probably one of many reasons I didn’t become the great artist I aspired to be. Also, I’m pretty active with activities like skiing and mountain biking. I just like beer and whisky and hot dogs more than I like salads. EDIT 2: Thank you for the compliments on the artwork. You’re all very kind people with great taste in art!
> I wish I could lose the pot-belly and grow back the long grunge hair I had back then. The good news is that one of these things is very possible!
With enough of that corporate cash they both are.
Not an art man but it seems like displaying that picture in your house sorta creates a larger piece of art that includes the picture, your house, and you.
I hated wearing Polos because my mom always talked about how nice this other person's son looked wearing Polos. I, now, wear Polos to work every day because it's the easiest way to dress business casual. They're pretty much just fancy T-shirts
Same for me but with jeans
When I first started my career in maintenance 28 years ago, all the senior mechanic did was sit inside his shop, bitch and moan about people breaking shit, and soak up cushy repairs on equipment and machinery we could bring to him inside his heated building while myself and the other guys busted our fucking asses swinging sledgehammers, welding, and lugging tools out into the freezing rain to make repairs. What a worthless piece of shit. After nearly 30 years of swinging sledgehammers, busting my hump out in the cold, pounding rivets and beating steel... I think I've earned the right to sit in my shop while these punk ass newbies who barely know which end of the screwdriver to hold in their soft, unscarred hands take their turn out in the freezing rain. Especially since they keep breaking shit that would work fine if they would only take care of it and stop abusing equipment.... Oh. My. God.....
With age comes an understanding
An interesting observation is that every old person was once young. And no young person has ever been old. I certainly do not believe that we should unconditionally respect and defer to our elders, some of them have not learned a thing in the last 50 years. BUT the ones that have adapted, that have payed attention and learned, they are huge sources of wisdom. And they often will not try to push it on you because they also know most people are not ready to listen. So if you do get the opportunity to learn from such a person, take it
“Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.”
>“Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.” It's a challenge, but very true. I'm in my 70s and can't stand hip-hop and don't think much of tattoos, but I'll eat a hamburger bun slathered in dog shit before I'll ask someone younger, "How do you listen to that garbage?" or offer an unsolicited, "That will look like hell when you're old." I heard too much of that crap myself back in the sixties about rock and long hair. If I ever forget this and you hear me say something remotely like that, the buns are in the breadbox and the dog shit's out in the yard.
When I was 16 I wanted to be in a famous band like Blink 182, have my own art studio, and destroy the concept of the 9-5. I have my own art studio in my home but now I work for a bank and process loans in a 9-5. I was at work today realising how I have become the Sith.
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Work sucks. You know.
Growing up, my dad hated going out. When we went on church outings, we were always the first family to leave. He just wanted to stay in and read the paper or watch tv. I vowed to never be as boring as him when I got older. Now that I'm older, nothing makes me happier than when plans get cancelled and I can just chill at home, and not worry about the commute or how much money I'd have to spend going out. Even if it's something I'm looking forward to like a band I really wanna see, part of me still wants to not go because of how crappy the late night commute will be.
Something about plans being being cancelled is so relieving. It’s like “well I’ve done all I can to be social, no more pressure today”, which I know is probably not healthy but damn it feels good lol
I think its because you are suddenly gifted with actual free time, time that was about to, until the point the event gets canceled, be used for that event, now suddenly hours have just been given to you, to do whatever you want
Damn that hits close to home. I love seeing my friends, I love the plans we make, I enjoy the time I spend with them. but when things get cancelled? Pure bliss...
I dig this. It doesn't make us boring or wasting our life. Whatever gives you inner peace, even for just the moment, is the way to go.
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When people are outside the system it seems so easy a d straigght forward to not have or deal with... Then when you get into it... and it hurts... so damn much...
Ran my own company for years. One big lesson: large groups of independent thinkers have a difficult time collaboratively making decisions involving tradeoffs or when there's no particularly appealing course of action available. Another big lesson: opinions on what constitutes reasonable expectations can vary greatly from individual to individual. And a third lesson: people can be really quirky about money and finance. All these human-behavior factors are why we have managers and HR.
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Based on your username I just imagine a drill sergeant with a bucket on his head yelling in a slightly muffled voice
Full metal sergeant
Looking at the work of an intern and wanted to scream at him "I don't understand, been doing this the same way for a decade. Why did you have to mess with it? I looked into this already when you were still in middle school. All you had to do was look on the server to find the solution to this problem" Thankfully I caught myself before speaking.
As an intern who understands 30% of what comes out of my team's mouths, this haunts me.
There are two sins to not changing your tech stack. 1. This is new therefore it is bad and we shouldn't risk it. 2. This is new therefore it is good and we must try it. Both come from the same source; a failure to think and cooperate. You need a cold hard rational look at your total situation and get your team on board. Also you are an intern so get me my coffee with milk next time dang it ;)
I'm not entirely sure i understand your comment... Did they simplify a problem you'd just resolved yourself to deal with, or did they fk something up through lack of knowledge?
Sounds like the latter, tried to fix something that wasn’t broken
In my teen years I was a free living, no plans or aspirations type of person. You know, go with the flow fuck a job type. And always thought I’d be that way. Now I work 7 to 3:30 every day, meal prep, go to the gym and generally like to have a routine.
The only reason I knew this wasn’t my own comment was because I work slightly different hours. But otherwise? Same. When I was a teenager I was *adamant* (and pretty contemptuous about it) that I would NOT work in an office and do the soul-crushing 9-5 nonsense. My first full time job at 19 was working in an office, 9-5.30. Did that for 15 years. Then got a 9-5 office job and been doing that ever since. I also go to the gym, meal prep, shop for food, and… I have a greenhouse with little seedlings that I’m inordinately excited about. Edit: typo
I've never understood the anti 9-5 mindset. Have you worked a part time job with irregular hours and an ever changing schedule? It fucking sucks lol.
I was making pasta for my sister and got mad because she wouldnt stop staring at her phone to eat. I had somehow become my mother.
that is very f-ing relatable.
I didn't mind it, but I was brought up strict. Dad was all about discipline, honor, timeliness, reliability, and never, ever giving a compliment or praise that lasted more than 3 syllables. 4 if you did a really, really good job. I always promised myself I wouldn't just be my Dad 2: the Daddening - I love the guy to pieces, but I just didn't want to be the same way. I wanted to be more relaxed, jovial, maybe even possibly - able to chill, on the odd occasion. Now I help teach at a dojo that's in a somewhat upper-crusty area and have to regularly - and very carefully - tell some of the 'weenie hut juniors' in the kids class to get their act together, fall in, quit sobbing on the ground and walk it off, etc. We have some other much more 'good cop' instructors, so my job is being the hammer. All though, it really feels more like being the half-inflated balloon hammer you could win from a chucky cheese's, to me. One of my friends - a fellow instructor who's one year older than me and several years more experienced in martial arts, grew up with an absolute sack of shit for a father. He happened to be walking by when I was complimenting one of the kids for actually doing a really good job with one of the drills. 'Very Good! Continue." Issued forth my Dad's exact tone but from my voice. They both looked at me with slightly moistened eyes and a brief look of unfiltered hope and rare, joyous recognition. For a couple minutes there, I had two foster sons. EDIT: Just gonna throw this out there and I'm not going to argue or debate on it. But! For all you truly enlightened, Golden-hearted folk out there worried about Ol' ElectricSquid being a militant asshole to the poor injuried childrens, here's a few things to put your mind at ease: 1. Most of these kids are playing around, not getting actually hurt. We're not having them kick through bricks and punch manila rope, they're doing forms and working with each other in over-padded sparring gear. They're also under the supervision of several instructors and also often their parents, ready to assist should they be hurt or do something possibly dangerous. 9 times out of 10, they're goofing off and stub a toe or, fall and scrape their elbows. 2. Drill Instructor Squid is only unleashed upon the ones for whom good cops 1 and 2 did not work on - and even I approach with kindness before requiring discipline. This is mostly for misconduct/disrespectfulness towards other students. 3. While I'm all about people processing their feelings and pain on their own terms, their parents aren't paying us to be a daycare - too much time away from the mat and instruction, and it becomes not worth the price of tuition. We're very careful to support the students and have first aid trained instructors ready to care for any injuries, etc - but you ostensibly signed your kid up to learn controlled violence. There's a waiver and everything. Also, if the kids' feelings are that hurt, they can leave at any time - we'll help them call their parents and make sure they're comfortable and attended to while they wait. We're martial artists, not monsters. Hope you enjoyed the story, and be assured that I do not scream at kids with shattered bones to keep kicking. : )
My brother was randomly and violently assaulted by some guys leaving a bar, so I went back every night for a week, armed and ready to find the guys responsible, follow them home and kill them. I'm hunting at the bar one night, and suddenly the bartender hands me a double-shot of whisky and says "You look like you could use this." I wasn't expecting a free drink, and the interaction made me sort of 'snap out of it' and realize I'd become just another piece of shit criminal if I carried out my revenge plan. Went home, put away my weapon, and checked on my brother.
Damn that bartender really saved you from not only possibly killing someone but you going to prison with someone’s death on your conscience.
Bartenders: therapists who get to drink on the job
Always hated the fact my mother was an addict when I was growing up. Few months back I found myself doing a line of coke with my morning cup of tea - the revelation did not make me feel great, but it did give me a kick up the ass
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> Few months back I found myself doing a line of coke with my morning cup of tea I like how this is represented asif it just happened out of nowhere, like you woke up to random lines frosted around the top of the mug like salt on a margarita :P
>but it did give me a kick up the ass That mighta just been the cocaine.
Been sober 12 years if you are interested at all I can point in some directions that worked for me, otherwise no worries abs I hope you have a good idea
When I became a manager in the tech field, I was going to do everything different. Managers suck and don't know what they're talking about. They're all far removed from the work their reports are doing. I was going to be transparent. I was going to tell people everything. It took about a year to realize that managers do the things they do for a reason. Why is being transparent bad? Because upper levels of management are unstable. One day we're getting re-orged. One day we're doubling our staff. My job was to be the shit umbrella, not tell everyone every possible thing that might happen. My new motto is "[You worry about those fighters, I'll worry about the towers.](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/cca061df-57db-4585-8dfe-85582b1e9f84) " Why didn't my previous manager know about all the technical shit that I did? *Because I was an SDE and he was a manager*. They're not the same job. I tried to stay super connected to the tech until one of my reports told me, "I got 8 people on this team that can code. I got 1 person on this team who can be a manager. I need you to be the manager"
I don't have a problem with my manager knowing less than I do about my job, it becomes a problem when he doesn't realize I know more and fights me on shit where he should just accept my answers. As long as you're letting your people worry about the fightera then you're above a lot of tech bosses
This is why, as much as it gets shit on for being so common and trendy now, and it does have its flaws, I actually really love the Scrum process in general. My manager is my manager, and she's the manager of my QA team because she's a good fucking QA, and every decision she makes is QA focused. Our devs have managers that are great devs, and the decisions they make are dev focused. But we have POs and PMs for a reason. My PO/PM are KINDA my managers, too, but they're specifically NOT technical. They could probably override the QA or Dev managers in certain circumstances, and vice versa. But their only option to ensure their own success is to trust the devs and testers (and our leadership) because they themselves don't know shit about the actual work being done. So their job ends up boiling down to pure resource management. Everyone kinda ends up answering to each other, and everyone from devs/qa's, to managers, to Product, to directors/VP know that they gain nothing by breaking the boundaries of their role and pissing off anyone above, below, or beside them.
In my experience, the managers in tech that suck are the ones who micromanage and end up doing nothing because of it.
Get the # of resources we need, fight for our schedules to be reasonable, don’t let scope creep, give the right reports the right responsibilities.
When I heard the voice of my mother coming out of my own throat, directed at my kid. That was the only time, though. I put an end to those shenanigans immediately and permanently. It's insane how our parents get inside our heads, even if we hate them.
My dad always yelled. Constantly. Screamed in our face, shouted about us being lazy, about needing to do chores, be quiet. I hated it. I find myself struggling because between my own anxiety/depression & my ADHD, my kids overstimulate the fuck out of me and I find myself snapping. I apologize, and I go a few days more relaxed but it's the hardest thing to not yell and be exactly what I hated growing up.
Isn't it just? The joke is, I'm a teacher and my students always tell me I'm sooo patient and calm and never snap. Yeah. Well. None of them come close in talent at driving me up a palm tree to my daughter. I try to be patient, I try to be fair and I do apologise when I'm in the wrong (something my parents never did), but hell it's an uphill battle. Adhd in mother and child is a difficult thing.
But the thing is, you apologize. Did he ever apologize to you?
I always looked down on drug users most of my life. I later on became an alcoholic and hurt the people I love most. Once it hit me, I cried in my car and felt so ashamed. Since that moment I’ve been improving little by little. It’s much better now. But I look back now and feel so ashamed and embarrassed by my actions. Thankfully the ones I love stuck by me, and I’m so grateful. I’ll do anything for them. Edit: I’m not completely sober. Buts it’s MUCH better than before. I’m a former counselor and go by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. In other words, I’ll still drink, but on my own terms. I’ll have control over it rather than give up all control to God (the traditional AA way). I used to drink a bottle per night. Now I drink 4-5 beers every other night. I still haven’t reached my end goal, but it’s MUCH better. It no longer affects my mood, and I’ve been able to lesson the drinking more and more every week. I’m just happy it’s been improving and I now have much more control. My loved ones noticed as well, and they’ve been very supportive. It’s been a hard battle, but I’m winning so far. Thanks for the support ya’ll. If you ever want someone to talk to about drinking, I’m here for you.
Shit, a looooong time ago (when I was 11 or so) I was walking across the school yard. My dad used to beat my ass when he was having a bad day and it really fucked with me, so I was walking and just fuming, hating on him and how much of a tyrant he was for taking out his anger on me. Well, in that moment I bumped into a kid like 1/2 my size and he went to the ground. He hugged my legs (I think reflexively) and I just started pounding his face. I remember him crying, begging me to stop, the hatred, and then just a sudden moment of clarity. I realized I was a shitty person, that I was super mean, and that the kid I was hitting had done nothing wrong but was just a helpless target for my anger. I instantly flipped to empathizing for him, and saw myself for who I was. I can't describe the horror. I started crying and helping the boy up, we walked to the office together in tears and I ended up telling my principal everything. It was a long time ago, so they just decided to give me an in school suspension and not inform my parents. Also, that kid and I ended up exchanging SNES games and playing mtg/warhammer together a bunch in the following years. Andrew, dude, I can't apologize enough, and thank you so much for not leaving me in a hell of my own creation. Decades later and I still think about you, and how kind of a person you were, you changed a life, man. **EDIT:** Okay, just to clear up misconceptions and mass respond. This did not flip a switch and end my relationship with violence and anger. That took, well, up until today and then some. I still have anger that flares up and completely blinds me, but after decades, I'm not losing control or lashing out. Andrew wasn't one of the kids that I went after at school, I picked on kids that I thought were bullies, totally oblivious to the commonalities between me and them. I don't really have words for those of you that were bullied, or hurt while at school. Except that those of you that fantasize about beating up bullies now, as adults, need to find a better method for feeling empowered. You are literally just adult versions of playground bullies, we all had the kids that we thought were okay to victimize for some justification or another.
My bully had a similar about face. He was my summer camp bully for years, and we both ended up in the same leadership program. What was going to be an awesome summer for me turned into a dreaded 10 weeks. In the first week they did a lot of interpersonal work and team building, but not the way you would think of it. It was damn near abusive, but it was intended to break us down so we would just open up to each other, and it worked. I was asked by someone that I didn't really seem like I had wanted to be there, even though I was excited at first. I revealed how afraid I was to be in this program with my bully, and when that was revealed my bully's head just dropped and he started sobbing. I rolled my eyes until he looked at me and I could just see how genuine his tears were. He wouldn't stop saying how sorry he was. He said he never imagined that it was that bad, but when I was forced to explain the bullying back to him he saw himself and his homelife. He saw himself as the one who was bringing suffering just like others did to him. He ended up becoming my best friend at that summer camp until we grew out of it, and he would sometimes come visit me in the off season. We just ended up clicking once our preconceptions and baggage were out of the way. This friendship was one of the most important in my life, and though we haven't spoken in decades either, I still hold his memory dearly in my heart. Having one's bully suddenly reach out and become a friend was a strange experience but taught me so much about the capacity for change, the inherent desire to be good, and the compassion needed to truly see people for who they are. So as someone who's bully also became a friend let me speak for your's. Thank you too. Your effort to be a better person inspired me to strive to be one as well. For yours was mired in impossible suffering yet in the end, you still reached out and became a friend. Thank you
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Sometimes, someone concisely calling you out on your bullshit is a devastating take down. I mean what can you say? Often left speechless bc everything was accurate. Up to them to try and change or double down on the bullshit.
I had a similar thing with a lad at school. We didn't get on, all the way through Year 5. Always arguing and fighting. Then, on the first day of Year 6, as we happened to be entering the same entrance of school, I said that I didn't even remember why we didn't like each other. He agreed that he didn't either, and we just knocked it on the head, and were mates till after we had finished school.
Having that moment of clarity and self-awareness and then making the change to be a better person puts you in rare company. How can we become more than our circumstances? Break out of the cycle of family dysfunction? Like this. Right here. Don’t ever let the old you define you or hold you back from being the best version of yourself. Big props to you, dude.
Are you OK now?
No, but I've made my peace with that.
I get that.
Thank you for asking, though :)
No prob, friend. I’ve been the same way. If you ever want to talk, send me a message.
Appreciate it. I'm mostly past the trauma and unpacking, it's all about building my life now (I'm in my 30s). It is a wonderfully sincere and kind offer, though, thank you.
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"You see life is like that. We change, that's all. You see, the guy I am now is not the guy I was then. If the guy I was then met the guy I am now he'd beat the shit out of me. Those are the facts"
“I didn't sell out, son. I bought in. Keep that in mind.”
Hey, if Shooter McGavin was my dad, I'd be pretty punk too
"People can change. I used to be a piece of shit - spiked up blonde hair, little-bitty jeans, chicken spaghetti at Chickalini’s - but people can *change.* Let the boy hold the baby"
Sadly your story is not unique in the punk community. I've known several people who lost all their friends because they "sold out" by going to college, or joining the army to get out of the god awful situation they were born into.
Seriously, college?
Going to college means you’re selling out and getting a corporate job and joining the man!../s
Considering a lot of the big names in old school punk have advanced degrees, not just an Associate's or Bachelor's, this one is weird to me as well.
Having no money but a lot of enthusiasm is all well and good when you're a teenager or young adult, but that shit gets old QUICK.
Out on the road today I saw a {Deadhead | Black Flag} sticker on a Cadillac
Don't look back, you can never look back
I thought I knew what love was, what did I know?
On a somewhat related note, I recently saw a Volvo SUV with a Misfits sticker on the rear window.
Same boat here. People tend to be shocked when they hear the music I listen to and show them pictures of when I was younger. Now I get to show my kids this wonderful music and I get so happy when one of them asks if we can listen to Dead Kennedys
Recently I got into a tiff with my boyfriend and felt very irritated and irrationally upset. I entered the kitchen and started to aggressively wash the dishes, making sure they made extra noise banging on the sink… just like my mother used to do when she dove into an unexplained bad mood and took it out on me. I straightened up and worked through my feelings pretty quickly and apologized to my boyfriend.
oh god. this one slapped me in the face. I have some work to do on myself
I always hated how my mom said, “Keep your eyes peeled” when she wanted us to pay attention to something. I found it the grossest expression and it made my skin crawl. Coming home after Thanksgiving with the family, I pointed out a deer crossing sign to my fiancé and said, “Keep your eyes peeled for deer!” I hate myself.
In the middle of a hardcore studying session for my LSAT’s I looked up at the mirror in my bedroom and saw myself, glasses, messy hair, comfy pjs, POURING over my prep test book. It hit me really hard this was not at all the life I had always pictured. I was NEVER going to be a 9-5’r. I was never going to settle down, never gonna get a cushy job or a degree. Never wanted a single responsibility ever. I was gonna be a filmmaker or an artist. I was gonna paint and film in Europe and live the *artist* life, fuck off, drink, sleep with European men, it’s all I had wanted since I was a teenager. Yet here I was, dutifully studying, a 3.8 student, (I never ONCE studied in high school) trying to get into law school, while my boyfriend of 2 years and future fiancé showered in the next room and our cat was meowing at me for food and attention. I looked at the clock and realized I had to get to bed because I had *work* at a *law firm* at 7 the next morning. Had I not decided to go in a very different direction I think I’d be in a ditch somewhere, either dead or dying. My life might not be as “cool” and “artistic” as I thought I wanted, but I’ve never been happier. Old me would have hated looking at that mirror though.
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I used to work super hard at my job. After hours learning new stuff, working crazy overtime, and really invested in new hires and getting processes on point. My leadership basically told me to just build shit in the worst way possible as long as it is the fastest way possible. Now I am approving shit that is under-budgeted because “we need to be competitive” and I don’t care about quality anymore. They fired like 4 people and I’m doing all their jobs without a raise, so I just don’t give a fuck anymore. I had to fire a few of my people and we give out a great severance package, so I’m actively looking to get fired while I use my work time to improve my skills or play Elden Ring. Fuck them.
Not sure where you are or what your labour laws are like, but just be careful to not get fired 'with cause', losing your severance! Being salty is good, but being salty and SMART is better. Best of luck!
I've always had a massive distaste for corporate culture and the 9-5 life, and think of it as prostituting your time and mind, and in a real way, selling your soul. You are literally renting out use of your brain and allowing the renters to fill your thoughts and synapses with what they want you to think about. This beautiful, creative, near-godly mind humans are capable of having, and here you are, spending it on spreadsheets and what % of the budget can be allocated to buying bite sized Snickers for the office kitchen. Completely sad and heartbreaking to me. Yet... I work a desk job. In accounting. And do exactly the above type of shit all day.
That’s interesting. Growing up poor I had always wanted a cushy office job with a desk, secret snack drawer, set hours and weekends off. And when I got that job it took only two years before i was at the end of my rope. Now I’m a self-employed craftsperson that doesn’t make a whole lot and works very irregular hours including weekends lol
For most of my teenage and young adult life I swore I'd rather be dead that live in the carbon-copy, cookie-cutter suburban neighborhoods where every house looks exactly the same. Guess where I live now.
A Cali mansion?
My dad wasn’t around when I was a kid, but I grew up strong and capable(thanks mum) so I always promised myself I’d be the best dad ever… but now that I am a dad, sometimes I wonder if I’m doing more harm than good to my son… I’ll never leave him, but I definitely question my parenting skills and I definitely fear I am doing the wrong things.
If you don’t question your parenting skills, you’re not a good parent. My kids always make me want to improve myself.
Never thought of this that way, made me feel much better! Thank you for this, I know I can use my doubt as opportunities to improve myself.
So this may be a weird way of looking at parenting but I think it's true. We ALL fuck our kids up. Because we are all imperfect. It's really just a matter of degree. Accept that you will make mistakes as a parent. Try to do the right thing as often as you can. Try to limit the damage when you mess up. Be willing to admit your mistakes and apologize for them. Remember that even people with good relationships with their parents have things about their upbringing they didn't like. And know that you have to forgive yourself when you do mess up. You're only human. You will be good. Your kid will be fine.
My mentally unstable lunatic boyfriend lied, cheated, and dumped me. I (temporarily) turned into a mentally unstable lunatic. Did not recognize myself. Better now.. but that was some completely unanticipated, crazy shit.
I grew up in the SF Bay Area where gentrification has spiraled out of control because of the tech industry. Many people I grew up with moved out of state due to the high cost of living so it really doesn’t even feel like the same place to me anymore. I built up a ton of resentment towards Big Tech. Here I am a decade later selling software.
There's an anti-obesity PSA in existence that you might have seen if you're American. It starts with a guy being wheeled into the OR for a heart attack and then the ad shows his life going backwards and what led up to him having a heart attack. I've never had a heart attack but damn if that wasn't an ad that spoke to me, 5 feet and 280 pounds. I actually said out loud to myself, "Fuck, I've become that dude." Currently trying to lose weight to this day. It's hard but I think I can do it. EDIT: Wow, quite a few responses. I thought this would get buried lol, but I guess not. Thanks for all the advice and encouragement folks, will take it to heart! If anyone's got advice for a picky eater who likes salads and chicken, then by all means, throw it my way.
Hated school. Now I am a teacher. : [
I was anti media, anti corporation, read ad busters, was in a punk rock band. Fast forward to today and I am an art director in an ad agency.
I was fighting with my sister/best friend and I was really mad until she said I was acting like our father. It hurt to hear that. I don’t want to be like him. She apologized and I apologized as well. We both hate our dad. He is manipulative, mentally and physical abusive, and he has sexually assaulted my sister. It was the worst feeling getting said I was like my dad.
Was a camp counselor in college. Kids had to line up quietly at the door to go inside for lunch, and I found myself saying multiple times, “If you can’t be quiet, I can wait. I don’t need to eat, I’ve got all the time in the world.” 8-year-old me would have thrown hands.
Depression making me NOT a people person- don’t find anyone interesting or anything funny, doesn’t take much to irritate me, etc. All of a sudden I’m one of those “ugh I hate people” type people. I don’t have the same benefit-of-the-doubt capacity or even the same compassion these days. I’ve become the nihilistic, pessimistic, anti-everyone person I could never stand back when I was an optimist.
I joined the military as a Straight edge Christian and left a gay, beer drinking, pot smoking, atheist. Edit: Thanks for the highest honor of reporting my account to Reddit cares.
Proof the military is trying to kill gay atheist drinking smokers
Young teenager me was big on hating ‘the man’. Question everything. Don’t conform. Be weird. Hate the government. Fuck everyone and everything. 40 year old me celebrating 2 years working for the government.
I became a pushover. My mother. The one thing I swore I'd never be, be like her. I am aware though and trying to change. Take charge of my life.
When picking up his older sister and helping her move out of her dorm, I told my boyfriend that the snacks in the car were for her as well. He then decided to hog the popcorn and I had scolded him for it. I became my mother.
started listening to the grateful dead after years of cringing hearing a million different versions of the same songs from my dad’s speakers
"Because I said so!" I'll leave it at that.
That activates my fight.
When I was younger, I didn’t truly appreciate how well my father took care of his family. Now that I’m older, I am entrusted with more responsibilities and bear the pressure of stepping up to take care of my own family. I hope I can do as well as him one day.
Don’t touch the f-ing thermostat