Re: that last sentence – housing should never have become an investment in the first place.

Clive is so great. He’s just a little guy who wants to be an edgy loner so bad, but he cant help it. He just wants everyone to be safe and happy. Not counting 14, I’ve only ever played the 7 remake, and Clive is a nice contrast to Cloud.

Don’t get me wrong, Cloud has a similar vibe. But like Clive talks, and smiles, and he gets a little awkward when people flirt with him. He compliments people who do good things, and his dialog during side quests shows he’s genuinely concerned with the well-being of people around him.

It’s just nice to have a Clive to play. Like I’ve done lots of Zelda lately, and Link’s personality was never the draw. D:OS and Baldur’s Gate 3 both have protagonists that like to veer into “hard person for a hard world”. Elden Ring is Elden Ring.

Give me the protagonist who is human enough to be affected by the world, but also actually nice and stuff.

Big tech Software Dev. ~6 years ago I had housing problems and assumed I’d live in poverty for the rest of my life.

Tech is nice. It’s stressful work though, and harder still to convince myself I’m burning out when I used to have it so much worse. It’s not not my job’s fault (I mean everyone is doing layoffs lately…), but I also have a lot of anxiety around financial stability.

This is literally a dream job for me. I mean I used to daydream about working here, and it’s genuinely worth that praise (at least with respect to my old jobs, though recent economics have dampened the hype.)

But despite my boss’s assurance to the contrary, it seems like my default assumption is that I’m a week away from getting fired at all times. The layoffs honestly helped that some, since (without getting into details I might get in trouble for) it wasnt really about individual performance. I’d be angrier about it happening, sure, but the fact that it’s so out of my control means worrying doesn’t help.

That, and the fact that I just hit a year of tenure here. I have a resume of industry experience, and that helps. And I’m not going to say that I’m infinitely hireable. But I know I’m good at my job, and having a year of this place on my resume is enough that I know I’ll always have work.

This didn’t answer the question as well as I could have, but whatever. There you go.

Happy to answer questions about tech and industry work as best I can though.

Edit: Actually I’m annoyed that I never really answered the post.

• What’s your work like? Lot of brain power and problem solving. It’s weird to see how much it affects me at the end of the day vs the more physically demanding work I’ve done. There’s a difference between coming home tired but mentally buzzing, and the sort of whole-body exhaustion I get from thinking all day.

There’s lot of coding. Yes, lots of meetings. That’s honestly more tolerable than the documentation I keep writing, and promising to write for some reason.

• What do you do? Back end software dev.

• Do you enjoy it? So much. I know I just went on this whole diatribe, but I really do love using my brain. They aren’t world saving issues, but it’s like a million little logic puzzles I’m getting paid to solve.

• Is there something you wish you could be doing professionally instead? OS or compilers. More interesting problems. I’m thinking I’ll try to change my team once I’m comfortable with the way I’d be leaving things here.

• What are some past workplace experiences you’d like to share? My boss is great. I keep getting great bosses. The thing about any place that has a good or bad reputation, it’s going to depend on the team. There will be shitty bosses here. Same withal any workplace I think. Someone here hates their job because the boss makes it suck. Mine doesn’t, and usually dont. I’m lucky in that, Ive seen friends who have shitty bosses when I’m doing great, and it sucks.

my point there is, don’t assume your work will be great because your company is.

Nothing Is Ever Good

Microsoft tried to kill borrowing and lending, and this just seems like ankther attempt. Someone with a real presence on other sites (and is good at social media) should stir up a backlash.

I hate digital-only media. :/

Cleaning ☠️ Both my tabletop games have been cancelled, and what with work lately, a backlog has started to pile up.

Sleeping if I can help it, but lately I can’t nap for fuck and I wake up at (at the latest) 9. Not so bad normally but weekends are the only time I can hang out with my night shift friend who wakes up at like 6 PM. He’s a bit depressed lately and I don’t want to leave him hanging, so I’ve been working out how to be well slept and still give him some time of day.

Not much in the way of pointers here, but I’m putting out good vibes. I’ve been having trouble with news and how it affects my mental health.

Maybe check out TLDR News on YouTube. They do a sort of tiring amount of Ukraine videos, but it’s usually couched with language like “now, it’s important not to overstate xyz,” and some context why this or that event is probably not world shattering.

Edit: omg I just realized they said theyre on holiday yesterday, so nothing until next week or so. Funny timing on that lol

At least here, if you’re not a fan of de/federation practice, it’s minimal work to change servers.

I’m not excited at the idea of my posts on another service entirely getting shipped off to a meta server for them to reconstruct my network through that activity. It’s the same issue of as their shadow profiles, where meta knows who you and who you know by watching the posts your mom makes on FB.

Some of this is inevitable, I know, but I’m at least here for adding more barriers to privacy theft.