I got rear ended and I think I may have a concussion.
My finances are so tight right now. I’m at an ER right now, because everyone I know says to get any symptoms documented ASAP.
Rear ended at a stop light two nights ago (Thursday). Tried to work last night (Uber driver), but whereas I usually do 4-5 hours before a break no problem, I could only go about 1 hour before being too exhausted and feeling my attention slip.
I really, really need to make money this weekend. I hope there’s some kind of lost wages support I can get, because I’m afraid if I drive (a) I could be unsafe and/or (b) I could prevent my brain from recovering by not resting enough.
I don’t have any buffer to cover me for now, even if I’m awarded some kind of lost wages judgment later. I’m worried, overwhelmed. Don’t know what to do.
On top of this, my nephew who’s in a rough spot in life just showed up in town unannounced. He didn’t ask, but I offered to let him stay with me. He’s homeless. He says his plan was to just stay on the street or at a shelter.
He’s a good kid, but he’s a total spaz. He found some gig work today, but he botched getting up on time and I woke myself up early to drive him to this job.
I really, really need my sleep. When I wake up there’s like a 30 second window for me to go back to sleep. But I rolled out of bed and drove him to the job site. Because he didn’t plan well enough for getting there.
I grilled him the whole way on how he can avoid making that mistake in the future. His answers were vague at first. He literally just said “discipline” when I asked how he can avoid this in the future. I was like “no, I’m asking what specific steps you can take to avoid this”.
He’s got a seizure disorder. He’s in and out of mental hospitals. He’s been on the street in Oregon. Got OR gov’t to provide him a train ticket to Denver.
I feel for him, but I really really need solitude and rest if I’m gonna recover from a concussion.
Fuck.
He’s got really bad adhd. I keep finding food he took out of fridge then just forgot.
I’m in my 40s, he’s in his 20s. This is my first apartment ever. I’m struggling to survive. Living week to week doing uber with a rented car. But the shelters are full as far as I’ve heard. Meaning he’d be on the literal street.
I’m praying. My own father is helping me out.
The fucking timing on this is crazy. Was heading to the train station to meet him, stopped at a red light, when the other car just ran into mine. Like, just sitting there then bam, my world is changed.
Nephew is weirdly childlike. He’s turning 30 this year, but he talks like a teenager. Thinks like one. I find myself naturally fathering him, like “Did you remember your coat?”. Shit like that.
When I lived on the street it made me grow up. I don’t understand how it hasn’t made him grow up. Or if I’m mistaking mental illness for childishness (as others have done with me).
I’m sitting in an ER waiting room right now. Staff giving me dirty looks like I’m a drug seeker. Don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do.
My own father, in his late 70s, is offering to lend me a little money to get through this. I’ve got shame issues around accepting that. Trying not to let the shame control me.
I might just tell the nephew that he’s got to go out for the next four or five days. Figure out other housing or sleep on the street. I simply cannot rest my mind unless I’m alone. It took me until my fucking 40s to secure an apartment that was mine, where I could be alone. Then when I really need the solitude, in order to let my neurons relax and recover from the fogginess of this concussion, is literally the same day (out of the approx 15,000 days of my life) that my nephew drops out of the ether needing help.
I don’t even know what kind of help I need. I guess I need clarity and courage. Clarity to know exactly what I need to do, and the courage to do it.
I think the right move is:
- Accept the loan from Dad
- Kick Nephew to the curb (at least for a week while I recover)
But I feel no certainty about that. It feels wrong. My mind and my heart are out of alignment.
My daughter is taking a nap, and my wife is out for most of the day coaching soccer. Things are peaceful now, but when my daughter wakes up, I have to do the grocery shopping for the week and start meal prepping. Not sure if you guys have dealt with a toddler in a super market, but it’s a nightmare. Then I have to figure out how I am going to get the groceries up to my 3rd floor walk up apartment while wrangling my daughter. I can’t just leave her in my apartment while I make trips because toddlers are basically constantly trying to kill themselves, and it’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen. Then I have to start meal prepping with a toddler in my care. This is another set of challenges. I could wait until my wife gets home, but then I’m shopping late and won’t be able to cook until tomorrow. And if I have to cook all day tomorrow, then we don’t get to go on a family bike ride, and this time of year is so perfect for bike riding. I could order the groceries online, but they always fuck it up and then I end up having to go to the store anyway.
This might not be as big as some of the other problems people are having today, but man, I could really just use another set of hands to help me through today’s responsibilities.
Try and change how you feel about it. Instead of your daughter being an impediment to your chore, instead, you get to spend some quality time with her. Treat it like a daddy/daughter outing to look forward to. Stop and get yourselves a small treat so you’re not hangry. Talk to her as you shop. Let her make a few small choices. Does she want carrot sticks or pepper strips for snack, white or orange cheese, red or green apples? Have her check things off your list, or just a pretend one, depending on her age.
Keeping her involved will keep her from being as much trouble and keep her entertained for longer. And you get to make nice memories with her instead of being annoyed.
And if things break down, grab the most important things first, and you can order the rest and try another day.
I’ve got 2 bush cords to stack…
I could use some help with the metric shit ton of chicken biryani I made a couple of days ago.
That sounds delicious, was there a certain recipe you used?
Damnit that’s a great problem to have! 🤤
Not today, but recently at work, I, a DevOps engineer specializing in Linux and other Unix/Unix-like systems, was given the task of doing some admin and maintenance work on a few Windows servers…
I FUCKING HATE WINDOWS
THIS OS MAKES NO SENSE AND ADMINISTERING IT IS A NIGHTMARE
FUCK MICROSOFT!
I used to work in IT.
Having to make promises about things with so many uncertain variables was really bad for my mental health.
Don’t forget about ChatGPT, which is pretty good about giving (mostly accurate) answers to tech questions.
What’s your task? I’ve supported quite a few systems
Upgrading/reinstalling some company specific software (it’s an absolute mess, we essentially build our own tools for everything in C++, there’s probably a quadrillion memory vulnerabilities and the software crashes all the time), because random people on the Windows team have been tinkering with the config over the years, and now essentially everything is broken and has to be reinstalled. We have been shipping newer versions of our software to customers than we were running internally… (of course it was tested in the staging environment, but our prod was pretty unmaintained and messy) I’m so glad that I’m usually on the Linux team… I was a software engineer before, but I was tired of C++ and the weird way we do things, so I was probably the first one who asked to move to the newly formed Linux team, when we started slowly migrating away from Windows around 6 or 7 years ago. Unfortunately like half of the Windows team recently quit or was laid off, so they had to find someone who could do this. Since I was a dev before, I’m quite familiar with our internal tools. I’m now working with 3 Windows guys on fixing this insanity. The entire process is not quite as bad as it sounds, but I really don’t want to touch a Windows system ever again in my life.
Sorry to hear that, it originally sounded like I might be able to help with some scripts but cleaning up the org is definitely going to be work. Stay strong
it originally sounded like I might be able to help with some scripts
Thanks man, I still appreciate it a lot
I feel like I just need to clarify some things. In my initial comment, I was bashing Microsoft, not because it’s their fault that my company has such a messy environment and workflows, but because the way Windows Server works is just stupid. Since there’s no proper shell (PowerShell is absolute garbage), everyone on the Windows team uses fucking RDP to log in to the server… Most of the stuff can’t be reasonably done through a CLI, and requires using the stupid GUI wizards. Configurations can’t be replicated as easily, since I can’t just use scp to copy a config file, I actually need to go through the stupid GUI wizard again. Active Directory is a huge mess that’s been held together by hopes and prayers over the past few decades, and I hope it dies sooner rather than later. Also fuck my company’s stupid decisions from 20 years ago… Integrating some stupid Windows/Microsoft specific stuff into all of our products was not the best idea, and they realized this a few years ago. Now we have a huge amount of technical debt though, and it will take decades to get everything ported over.
Preach! I got onboarded to a team with 31 other SRES and 2 weeks in I realized that I was doing all their jobs in Linux solo. The things got helped my team before I got there: octopus deploy’s “run script on host” it’s not too different from invoke command -computername “”, but Active directory :vomit: and security locked down most of the useful tools, so they used octo runbooks instead (also vomit but you do get tools back in the remote UI) but it’s setup with tentacles w/ identifiable ssh keys so it skips ad. It also lets you set env variable libraries.
Move configs to dev repos and make them set/read their own yaml/json, for some reason windows shops didn’t get that memo. Royal TSX is a decent rdp client that you can script host lists and store prod/dev credentials, ours is basically just
knife node list | sortwindirstat is a GUI replacement fordu - *. The light at the end of the tunnel is when you drop the codebase in a windows container and just remove all of the iis mess/instability for container management.Right now we are trying to figure out bootstrapping. In order to provision a new host we need to reboot the box 2x for ad and one for the app stack. We think we can remove the hostname assignment, but AD shakes fist… it’s kinda pointless targeting an automated step, when it needs manual intervention later anyways.
i drank too much last night and now i feel a bit too sick. I live alone so cleanup and cooking are a bit challenging
I brute forced myself into cleaning up and cooking healthier meals for myself. It sucks, but if you rinse your dishes right after you eat and put leftovers away instead of “letting them cool” or “soaking the dishes”, everything gets so much easier.
If you want a really tasty, filling cheap fall dish that will 100% help a hangover:
Throw some evoo and garlic into a pan and let it go for like a minute. Then throw in a handful of fresh spinach. Then a handful of halved cherry tomatoes. Then two cans of drained cannelloni white beans. Then a cup of heavy cream and a half cup of Parmesan cheese. Salt, pepper and toast some bread.
Buying all the ingredients at once is like maybe $15 and this stuff can be used for anything. I’ve made breakfast sandwiches with these beans, a fried egg, and some Sriracha on an English muffin.
Crap!
Don’t forget to load in tons of water. Be patient with yourself today. Only do what you have to until you’re feeling better.
I hope tomorrow is a fresh start for you!
I’m a software developer but a lot of the work is ambiguous and the instructions are lacking sometimes. My company puts no pressure on me and is amazing with my neuroticism and ADHD. Yet I can’t not wreck my mental state by worrying about things and thinking I’m not cut out for this. This issue is worst Mon-Tue and then gets better towards the weekend. It’s also dependent on the work load and client emails.
Also, crashed my mums car last night by not paying attention and rear ended someone. Then they tried to fight me cause I asked them to all stop screaming as nobody is hurt and it’s only material objects and I’m fully comp so they’ll be fine. Fucking cavemen. I’m not adverse to hitting someone, but it would have to be over something more serious than a minor accident.
How long are you working as a software dev? Basically a lot of new devs want to “save the world” by closing tickets and using that as a metric if they’re doing well or not. The reality is that a software dev’s job is just about as much writing, as dealing with clients, going to meetings, etc. People might value you for things that you don’t think have value. For the cut out for this part - you most likely are. Imposter syndrome is normal, I had it too, even 6 years into my career. Been the “goto guy” for the team, multiple times a teamlead at 3 different companies / teams. Never had a problem I couldn’t google away. Yet in the back of my mind, there was always a “maybe you’ll encounter one on the next ticket? And they’ll fire you for it” etc. I managed to silence that shit and bury it deep behind all of my achievements.
For the second part - some people are just idiots, some are governed by emotion, etc. Also, saying “it’s not so bad” is a shit way to deescalate the situation ^^
Only 18 months.
So my company is less ticket based and more here’s a spec for the whole application go ahead and build it kind of thing. My boss is amazing but he keeps a lot in his head and when I ask for help he doesn’t explain it in way that makes me understand or feel more confident. These issues do pass and they’re never as bad as I make them seem in my head at the time. Then we get emails from clients which we just action as and when. You’re right about it not just being about coding, as a lot of time is in client meetings, email writing and stuff like that.
I don’t know if glad is the right word for you having imposter syndrome, but I’m kinda relieved so many people say they experienced it too.
Yeah I’m an enigma as I’m incredibly socially adept at times, but then others I’m a fucking idiot. Especially, if I think people are overreacting as I’ll then try all the wrong things to get them to calm down. It was just strange that they were screaming and talking to me like shit and the second I’m like fuck this mate they wanna get physical, I’m not adverse to physical altercations but not over something so trivial (in my mind). Perhaps I should watch the way I say things.
Well, there you go - the issue is with the company and the irreplacable boss. He is the weakest link obviously. Imagine he gets into a car crash, gets hit by a bus. Suddenly all his knowledge is gone, either for a while when recovering, or forever. Knowledge transfer is incredibly important. Things like tickets, scrum, kanban etc are used because they work for every type of person - they serve to transfer knowledge, the hierarchy in a team protects the programmers from shit they shouldn’t be dealing with (that’s the project manager’s role, to be a shield for the team, to curate the the messages comming from “higher up” and the ones sent out by the team). The most important thing to know is that “do the needful” is about as shitty of an ask someone can pose to a programmer. People doing that don’t know what they want, and instead rely on what they don’t want - once you actually implement something that remotely fits what they needed. As for clients not reading specs - it might be time for someone to have “the talk” with them (obviously not you). One thing you need to know is that shitty clients can be fired too, once the development starts breaking down, the communication is arse etc.
For the people on the road - they probably took it as you trying to bail on them. But yeah, impulsivity when things are getting heated is never good, it’s better to stay silent for a few seconds and then say something, rather than immediately say something that can be taken very badly.
Oof… Yeah it is hard to deescalate with a person who is primally furious with you. It was probably really scary for them, and it sounds like they might not have been emotionally intelligent enough to handle it. I’m glad you and everyone are ok.
I’m also in software and, yes, depending on what kind of business you’re in people often have no idea what they want. Do you like reading? One thing that helped me in those situations is Don Norman’s book, the design of everyday things. It helps me get into a big picture mindset.
Thanks for the response.
Yeah I agree they were just people not cut out to handle the stress of the accident and just got mad. It was my fault and I owned up to that instantly, I’m just more a chill guy as things could always be worse and no body was injured thankfully.
Thanks for the book recommendation I’m have a look for it.
Yes we are consultants and we write extensive spec that clearly the clients don’t read and then we have to go back and redo a lot of work as “it’s not what they want” but they can’t articulate what they want so you have to infer it and then when it’s wrong they’re like bruh. This is what I struggle with, the ambiguity of it all. I like to know what I’m doing and when, whereas this small company is incredibly chill and don’t expect a lot which I find hard as I’m used to being worked to death in crappy jobs and here it’s like the staff come first the code is second after we are all happy. I am blessed in that regard.
Kicking my ex out. I’m terrible at any kind of confrontation and at this point I do have the option of calling the police to assist. I just know that I am a doormat and am afraid I will cave if he gives me a sob story. He’s had over two years to get his shit together and leave but it’s come to forcefully removing him. I could use someone besides the police with a firm voice to convince him to get up and moving.
You can’t help anyone else if you can’t take care of yourself first. That’s a really hard position to be in, but you have to do it for your benefit and eventually for his too.
In fact, if I found out my lady wanted me out but didn’t flip the switch, I would be pretty upset about the time we lost living in that state. That time could have been spent rediscovering myself or finding my next partner. What a missed opportunity!
I’m done with my job.
I hate the company because I’m ethically opposed to the business model, I want to actually help people instead of building more efficient ways to steal money from small businesses and the families of dead clients. On-top of that our latest manager is the next in a line of increasingly intense micromanagers who keeps looking at our engagement scores and is basically making our jobs harder and more annoying in response, he can’t work out why it’s getting worse…
I want a new job, anything that lets me actually help people. Hard to do when you don’t have any official qualifications, a disability and are neurodivergent so interviews are a nightmare.
Do you have someone you can practice interviewing with? This is just an idea, but maybe you and a friend can slowly warm up to a challenging interview by working on one bit at a time, taking it slow. And I mean slow. Like maybe this weekend you can do an “interview” for a maximum of 5 minutes, and only practice introducing yourself. Then do it again next weekend. If you get comfortable, make it 6 minutes the third week and start talking about your past work. Then 7 minutes and include what you’re seeking out of your future job. Then 8 minutes and have them start to ask challenging questions. Also, this might be horrible advice because I don’t know you and I also hate interviewing! I will say, when you interview, be your authentic self because if they hire you as your inauthentic self, it might not end up being a great fit.
My life is pretty good but one of my good friends is currently going through post partum and it’s causing manic mania. It’s hard to see someone so happy but so unstable.
Someone to talk to about the Adastra visual novel because I can’t get it out of my head and it’s making me depressed wanting to be in that world instead of the real one so, so fucking much.
I don’t know anything about it. Can you tell me about what you would want to do there and why?
It’s more about being with the people of the story than anything else, really. It’s a romance story. But also very Game of Thrones-ish, while having a sci-fi kick.
Can you cultivate the traits you like from the people in the story?
Good morning ELIZA, it has to be very hard empathizing and communicating with everyone if all they don’t keep the conversation going.
Sorry
In all seriousness though, I’d like to hear as well.
I think I’m missing a puzzle piece on that one 🫠.
I guess I was more wondering what you like about the characters, and what makes you want to be around them. Can you learn things from them and apply them to your life? If you do, then you will be around them when you’re around yourself!
Maybe a checking account with more than a $2,000 daily debit limit so I can pay a fortune to live in a 60’s-era shithole (but it’s “aesthetic”). Or a landlord that accepts modern payment methods.
Gonna have to buy a checkbook probably. What century is this?
See if your bank does “bill pay” where you can add bills and they mail a check for you. It’s usually free.
What century is your bank from lol
I don’t use the service, but I know a lot of banks do it. It’s really nice for the bullshit places that add “convenience fees” to pay electronically. Which I always found funny. Since the electronic payment is way more convenient for them than getting paid by check.
Aye I remember fees for paying electronically. In about 1998 😂
If you’re in a hurry and can’t wait for a checkbook you might be able to get a money order. Banks and even some grocery stores will do this for a fee (it was like 0.50 last time I did this… Like 16 years ago omg what happened)
I’ve resorted to that, but I had to buy money orders on different days due to the debit daily transaction limit.
Most banks allow you to pay bills online and they’ll send a check on your behalf to your landlord. You can set it up to go automatically every month too.
I bank mainly online but I did have a shared account with my wife at a traditional bank with that service. Unfortunately they started taking 2-3 weeks to mail it to my landlord two miles away, so I gave up on that.
Psoriatic arthritis flared up in my entire body that has made it impossible to sleep or even really exist for the last week and a half.
It would be awesome to just not hurt for a few hours.
I know nothing about psoriatic arthritis but I do know a little about joint inflammation. I read about how an imbalance of omega fatty acids can cause inflammation and after taking a fish oil pill most of the pain went away in my knees. Would that be something you could try?
Diet changes are one of the major things I’ve been working on that has made the last little bit rough. I’ve been cooking a lot more, primarily oily fishes which I love, but I did cut out the trash sugars and caffeine that I use as a crutch.
Almost daily mackerel and salmon has been awesome though. Saba shioyaki is probably my favorite comfort food and I never realized how easy it was to make. I’ll have to give the actual fish oil pills a try though, thanks!
I hope it calms down, I cannot even imagine what that must be like. Do you have access to people with experience with this? Support groups, or even one mentor?
I could probably find one with a little effort but the fatigue is crazy. I can barely keep myself awake during the day and can’t sleep at night.
I think it’s starting to calm down a bit now at least.
I hope that when you’re feeling better you can use that time to find a way to get more support. But more than all, I hope you’re feeling better. Lean on your friends, they love you.
Any y’all got any tips for getting worries about the future out of your head?
What I’ve found that helps me with this is follow through on the worry. For example, maybe I’m worried my boyfriend will leave me, and to follow through on that I think “then what happens?” Well, I would be depressed for awhile, and then eventually get over it. I’ll go through the stages of grief for the death of the relationship but I will survive and move on. This Follow Through thought pattern works best on situations you have actual control over in your day to day life.
Another thought is “you can’t control everything but you can control how you react to things”.
I am not hopeful about our future. But something I came to terms with is that I am going to die. It might be in 40 years or it might be sooner, it could be next year. But it will happen. Also, it’s possible that I don’t just die but life becomes incredibly unpleasant. All the same to me in this current point in time, where I am able and I have means to do interesting things.
I know this is hand-wavy but I heard someone say something along the lines “we need to stop worrying about putting more years in our life, but work on putting more life in our years.”
This sort of mantra helps keep me grounded when I’m deciding what to do with myself and my family on a day to day basis.
Yup, like the others, I’m broke. Month to month barely getting by. Gotta trim back where I can.
It’s hard but you are doing it. Don’t forget to find away to enjoy yourself, is there a friend you haven’t talked to in a long time?
I’m doing fine really, just stressed about money. Working overtime where I can and keeping expenses low.
I play D&D with friends twice a week. Low cost, high imagination way to hang out.
The main issue is that we took in someone in need this last summer who can’t pay their own way and for now, we are shouldering the difference.
It’s worthwhile but taxing.
That’s so kind and awesome of you.
Is it looking like a long term situation?
Probably for at least a year.
