Restaurant work is not typically salaried unless you’re the manager. I’d say that one might be an outlier. This is the first time I’ve heard anyone refer to hourly wages as independent work.

Find a Mormon. They will be ecstatic to do this for free. Of course all the social events will be church related and they will certainly try their best to convert you… But harassing people into participating is what they’re best at.

I think this might be the best time to start having these conversations: when things are getting bad for almost everyone, and there is so much governmental upheaval that changing the economic system becomes a lot less disruptive than it would be during good times. It’s only going to become more and more clear that capitalism is failing.

My favorite economic system so far is a land value tax with UBI. I still don’t know exactly how businesses would operate, but this system would eliminate the parasitic generational wealth siphoned from hoarding property and housing. It would also allow for people to not work if they’re unable to.

I’m sure it’s probably just delusional hopium that we could ever get through the threat of fascism and come out of it with a better system than what we had, but that’s about all I got left right now. The rest is just doom.

I just found out you can get into some local museums for free on the first full weekend of the month if you have one of three specific bank cards. I think Thursdays are free for anyone, but that can be hard to arrange if you have a 9-5 job or want to take the kids.

Slightly unrelated, but last time I vomited during a flight they refused to take the bag and throw it away. I had to sit there for 6 hours, holding an uncloseable plastic bag full of my own vomit. Next to other passengers. Like, I get that it’s technically some kind of hazard waste that flight attendants shouldn’t have to handle, but the alternative is me potentially accidentally spilling it on or near other passengers. I had to carry it off the plane with me like it was my carry-on. It was absolutely ridiculous.

Look, communicating awkwardly doesn’t make you a horrible person. I think part of it is you have a confidence problem. It sounds like you always cowtow to your coworkers’ reactions, even going so far as apologizing when you haven’t objectively done anything wrong (your responses don’t seem that weird, but maybe it is the way you say things). It seems odd to me that anyone would be offended by an offer to go home early, unless you’re making it seem like you specifically don’t want them to be around.

At the end of the day, your coworkers are just people with their own issues and imperfections. They are probably not experts at communication either, so don’t treat them as such. I would not take any social cues from coworker 1.

You may not be able to change the dynamic at work, so my advice is to find a way to socialize outside of work (with people who actually like & respect you!). That way you won’t have to rely on your workplace for those needs.

How is that post borderline insane? It’s a lot of unnecessary detail, but outgrowing your high school mates is a pretty common thing that people sometimes don’t know how to handle.

What even is this “news source”? It’s just a couple of quotes with no context, and the other posts they list sound like absolute conspiracies.

I understand where you’re coming from, completely. It definitely feels like being silenced (again, because let’s face it, this shit is mentally throwing us right back into childhood when our needs and feelings were ignored). I understand that desperate feeling of needing to be heard. But we’re adults now, and the people at work aren’t your parents. There’s nothing obligating them to listen. Even my spouse needs time where I’m not ranting about politics. An hour a day is all he can do right now, and this is someone who cares about how I feel. But this isn’t a rejection of my feelings.

One thing I’ve personally had to realize is that the stuff about politics isn’t actually you. You have to find a way to have a degree of separation between the political and your actual core. I know it looks like they’re the same thing right now. But think about what you really want to accomplish, think about what kind of culture you want to create at work. Do you want everyone to be as upset as you are? Would that make a good working environment? If you want others to be more compassionate, I think coming from a place of compassion yourself might work better. Right now it sounds like you’re treating people in ways you probably wouldn’t want others treating you. You can still be true to yourself, your ideals, and values without being quite so forceful. For some reason beyond my immediate comprehension, demonstrating the intensity of your feelings doesn’t translate into people caring - it’s rather the opposite.

This was a really hard lesson for me and took a few weeks to fully understand and think through. I hope you have someone likeminded in your life you can talk to outside of work. If you don’t, please consider trying to find a new friend. You need someone who already understands, who you don’t need to convince, to blow off steam with. Good luck.

No, those are different things. Intrusive thoughts are your brain telling you terrible things like you suck at your work or your hobbies, you’re worthless, your friends don’t actually like you, and hey remember that time you did a cringey thing in front of people? They’re not true, and you’re not intentionally having these thoughts, but your brain can’t easily rationalize them away. It’s usually something that builds up over a lifetime so that you don’t even realize it’s happening. Thats how so many people get stuck believing the intrusive thoughts.

Yeah I saw a Bloomberg headline this week that said the price of eggs will probably never come back down. If they had published that three months ago, maybe people wouldn’t have based their vote around that.

Don’t go to Facebook first! We need to start normalizing ways to organize outside of those giant corpo-fascist sites.

Especially at work, where you can’t leave and should probably be focusing on the work.

Apparently they’ve decided once every 5 years is enough for women. Now I wonder if that’s because of the doctor shortage…

One time it snowed a foot or two in Seattle. I had a set of studded tires on a little Toyota Tercel and I swear I was the only fucker driving around. Uphill, downhill, cruising down the lumpy hard-packed freeway, didn’t have any problems. Besides, if you get stuck in a Tercel you can just lift the whole rear of the car out of the snow with a second person. I really miss that car.

That’s odd. I read most of The Myth of Normal and did not get anything like what you’re saying from it. In fact, Mate mostly blamed “the system” for keeping people traumatized. I would have stopped reading immediately if he’d said anything like “children are too sensitive.” Are you sure this Barkley isn’t mischaracterizing Mate? Did Mate later change his stance about everything? Based on his book, I can’t imagine why he would ever say the things you describe.

Oof. Soon every job is going to ask “HoW mAnY fOlLoWeRs Do YoU hAvE?”

Exactly. I don’t think you meant to, but you just described the majority of billionaires.

I guess not everybody is as smart as you. Congratulations or something.

You win, lol. That’s terrible.

My mom used to be a great cook but now she just makes everything in the microwave, often in plastic containers. This year she seemed to forget half the things she was going to cook. We had plans to make beignets and homemade eggnog (we didn’t). For Christmas dinner she made this elaborate meal plan and then changed everything at the last minute. She somehow didn’t think about starting the rice until the chicken was done cooking… then suggested we have nasty precooked pouch rice. For Christmas dinner. It would be different if she didn’t cook much or know how, but cooking is her whole thing! I’m honestly baffled. I’ve decided I’m just going to volunteer to cook the entire dinner next time. I’ve been a professional cook before. I can make something fancy, even if I’m the only one who will appreciate it.