What's Bothering You? (The thread about what is bothering you.)

[Shapey Fiend]

Agreed on the phone size issue. The chinese all want massive phones and they're the largest market so that's how things are gonna go. I use my phone mostly for calls and podcasts so a small screen would be fine. I've bought budget phones cos they're small but the crappy battery life inevitably drives me back to the big ones

My right shoulder is totally messed up too. Use a mouse doing autocad 50 hours a week has weakened my trapezium or whatever the things call. One shoulders way out there. The other ones fine. Been doing loads of pilates that seems to have helped if not completely solved the issue.

[suicidal_orange]

Reading up about intercostal (rib muscle) injuries - suggestion for recovery is 6 to 12 weeks of no stretching or heavy lifting and no heat for the first 48 hours.  Comparing this with coming home and taking a long hot bath then cycling to work the next day including a couple of heavy lifts and it's little wonder they're getting worse not better.  I fear a couple of days off is not going to help much...

[noisyturtle]

My right shoulder is totally messed up too. Use a mouse doing autocad 50 hours a week has weakened my trapezium or whatever the things call. One shoulders way out there. The other ones fine. Been doing loads of pilates that seems to have helped if not completely solved the issue.

Careful you don't wanna wind up with Larry King shoulders. You'll look like a perching vulture by 60.

[Kavik]

Reading up about intercostal (rib muscle) injuries - suggestion for recovery is 6 to 12 weeks of no stretching or heavy lifting and no heat for the first 48 hours.  Comparing this with coming home and taking a long hot bath then cycling to work the next day including a couple of heavy lifts and it's little wonder they're getting worse not better.  I fear a couple of days off is not going to help much...

I've pulled an intercostal muscle at least twice. It's going to take at least a week not to hurt every time you sit down or stand up, and it will probably be a month before you can do normal things without pain. Even then, it may be several months before you don't feel it at all, even if just slightly.

[suicidal_orange]

Reading up about intercostal (rib muscle) injuries - suggestion for recovery is 6 to 12 weeks of no stretching or heavy lifting and no heat for the first 48 hours.  Comparing this with coming home and taking a long hot bath then cycling to work the next day including a couple of heavy lifts and it's little wonder they're getting worse not better.  I fear a couple of days off is not going to help much...

I've pulled an intercostal muscle at least twice. It's going to take at least a week not to hurt every time you sit down or stand up, and it will probably be a month before you can do normal things without pain. Even then, it may be several months before you don't feel it at all, even if just slightly.

What is normal for you?  If you're describing driving to an office job I have a problem.

[jamster]

Agreed on the phone size issue. The chinese all want massive phones and they're the largest market so that's how things are gonna go. I use my phone mostly for calls and podcasts so a small screen would be fine. I've bought budget phones cos they're small but the crappy battery life inevitably drives me back to the big ones

It's not just a Chinese thing. When it comes down to really pulling out the wallet, nobody (or close enough to nobody) really wants small phones.

Keeping in mind that the mini iPhones are easily some of the best instances of small form factor smartphones:

Wave7 Research, another research firm, also estimated that the iPhone 12 mini accounted for 5 percent of iPhone 12 sales in the US. And Flurry Analytics declared the mini the least successful iPhone launch in the past three years

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/the-iphone-12-mini-hasnt-sold-well-according-to-multiple-estimates/

[tp4tissue]

Agreed on the phone size issue. The chinese all want massive phones and they're the largest market so that's how things are gonna go. I use my phone mostly for calls and podcasts so a small screen would be fine. I've bought budget phones cos they're small but the crappy battery life inevitably drives me back to the big ones

It's not just a Chinese thing. When it comes down to really pulling out the wallet, nobody (or close enough to nobody) really wants small phones.

Keeping in mind that the mini iPhones are easily some of the best instances of small form factor smartphones:

Wave7 Research, another research firm, also estimated that the iPhone 12 mini accounted for 5 percent of iPhone 12 sales in the US. And Flurry Analytics declared the mini the least successful iPhone launch in the past three years

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/the-iphone-12-mini-hasnt-sold-well-according-to-multiple-estimates/

The interpretation is open,

You can't say based on the sale of mini that people don't want small phones.

Small phones are harder to use for extended hours,  therefore on average people who use small phones use them less, people who use phones less on average will want to pay less for their phone (that they don't use much of), Therefore an expensive small phone is not on the purchase list for lighter users, leading to poor mini sales.

[jamster]

Agreed on the phone size issue. The chinese all want massive phones and they're the largest market so that's how things are gonna go. I use my phone mostly for calls and podcasts so a small screen would be fine. I've bought budget phones cos they're small but the crappy battery life inevitably drives me back to the big ones

It's not just a Chinese thing. When it comes down to really pulling out the wallet, nobody (or close enough to nobody) really wants small phones.

Keeping in mind that the mini iPhones are easily some of the best instances of small form factor smartphones:

Wave7 Research, another research firm, also estimated that the iPhone 12 mini accounted for 5 percent of iPhone 12 sales in the US. And Flurry Analytics declared the mini the least successful iPhone launch in the past three years

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/the-iphone-12-mini-hasnt-sold-well-according-to-multiple-estimates/

The interpretation is open,

You can't say based on the sale of mini that people don't want small phones.

Small phones are harder to use for extended hours,  therefore on average people who use small phones use them less, people who use phones less on average will want to pay less for their phone (that they don't use much of), Therefore an expensive small phone is not on the purchase list for lighter users, leading to poor mini sales.

Considering that people tend to be tied firmly into either ecosystem camp, I find that fairly unconvincing, but I remain open to persuasion via hard data, preferably in the form of actual sales figures.

[yui]

Reading up about intercostal (rib muscle) injuries - suggestion for recovery is 6 to 12 weeks of no stretching or heavy lifting and no heat for the first 48 hours.  Comparing this with coming home and taking a long hot bath then cycling to work the next day including a couple of heavy lifts and it's little wonder they're getting worse not better.  I fear a couple of days off is not going to help much...

I've pulled an intercostal muscle at least twice. It's going to take at least a week not to hurt every time you sit down or stand up, and it will probably be a month before you can do normal things without pain. Even then, it may be several months before you don't feel it at all, even if just slightly.

What is normal for you?  If you're describing driving to an office job I have a problem.

it could be a great idea to go see a doctor, but then if it is only muscle there is not much to do, you will end up hurting less as you get used to the pain though, at least it is how i dealt with my tendinitis in my elbow (when your family has an history of week elbow do not play tennis) and my weak knee
the only issue is that if it is not muscle it may not go away without actually following the advice (like my knee).
hopping you get better.

[suicidal_orange]

Reading up about intercostal (rib muscle) injuries...

it could be a great idea to go see a doctor, but then if it is only muscle there is not much to do, you will end up hurting less as you get used to the pain though, at least it is how i dealt with my tendinitis in my elbow (when your family has an history of week elbow do not play tennis) and my weak knee
the only issue is that if it is not muscle it may not go away without actually following the advice (like my knee).
hopping you get better.

Well there was no impact to my ribs, the injury happened while repeatedly hitting something sideways with the end of a pole held in both hands which is classic 'unusual twisting'.  I know the 'cure' for broken ribs anyway having been dropped on them before - rest.  I wasn't coughing blood so they didn't even bother to xray...  You're right about getting used to it, I now can sit up with a twist so all the pull is on the other side which doesn't hurt.

Laughing at a Frenchman jumping up and down on one leg trying to wish me well still hurts though, that's the best typo I've seen in a long time

I hope you have your elbow and knee under control enough to play at least a liittle, I can't imagine living with that.

[iri]

the injury happened while repeatedly hitting something sideways with the end of a pole held in both hands

[yui]

Laughing at a Frenchman jumping up and down on one leg trying to wish me well still hurts though, that's the best typo I've seen in a long time

I hope you have your elbow and knee under control enough to play at least a liittle, I can't imagine living with that.

sorry for that, i always had problems with double and single letters like hopping and hoping
and yeah i got used to it, does not hurt anymore if i do not think about it and if i do not do something stupid, like hopping on one leg, that would hurt pretty bad. i was telling you to follow the doctor's advice because it is what i did not do with my knee and now it will likely never heal... but then it is damaged articulation not muscle, every-time i damaged muscles it was rather painful but uneventful healing

[fohat.digs]

the injury happened while repeatedly hitting something sideways with the end of a pole held in both hands

eg - golf, baseball, cricket, etc

[suicidal_orange]

the injury happened while repeatedly hitting something sideways with the end of a pole held in both hands

eg - golf, baseball, cricket, etc

They would be fun causes, I actually had a pole in my hands at about chest height which I was repeatedly slamming into a ~60kg/120lb metal bar which was stuck in the feeder tube of a CNC lathe.  Got it out, polished it, put it back in and then had to beat it out again because it was still too big.  Only then did someone suggest a better way (wrap the end in tape and use a bigger tube)  Still don't understand how it went in so easily compared to getting it out...

[noisyturtle]

ugh working sucks. It's like I'm strictly not allowed to ever have a job I am passionate about or uses any of my actual skills. Only tedious **** jobs that drain your physical and emotional energy for nearly no gains. After 1k job apps sent out since getting out of college with this useless degree and constantly seeing people with zero training or experience getting hired for my dream jobs I've been trying to land for over 5 years. Like what the hell? It's nights like this I can't stop thinking about leaping off the roof of the hospital nearby. Feels like every night lately.

I wish more than anything I knew what I was doing wrong. It's like I missed the memo everyone else got about how to be successful. Because I followed all the instructions, took all the steps for success and yet still constantly fail. My life is somehow much worse than before going to college and honing my skills. This is not how life is supposed to work.

And it doesn't help having parents who straight up refuse to in any way do anything that might be of aid. My father would literally rather give his car away to a complete stranger from another country who doesn't even have a lisence than even consider me, or even cosigning a loan. It's like he wants to see me fail. Like he gets some sick pleasure out of it.

[suicidal_orange]

I wish more than anything I knew what I was doing wrong. It's like I missed the memo everyone else got about how to be successful. Because I followed all the instructions, took all the steps for success and yet still constantly fail. My life is somehow much worse than before going to college and honing my skills. This is not how life is supposed to work.

No-one's dream job should be doable by someone with zero training or experience (except perhaps lion tamer, if you naturally have an aura lions like)  I also wonder what job you're applying for where they tell you who got it when you didn't?  This seems strange, in my experience the only time I would find out is when it's an internal promotion but then they would have experience...

Understandably given your experiences you see things negatively but working out what you are doing objectively wrong to 'fail' repeatedly is impossible without seeing you in action and knowing how your book defines success.  It's also curious that you think a loan would help so lets start with that - what would you do with it?

[tp4tissue]

seeing people with zero training or experience getting hired for my dream jobs I've been trying to land for over 5 years. Like what the hell? It's nights like this I can't stop thinking about leaping off the roof of the hospital nearby. Feels like every night lately.

Are they better looking ? maybe put some points in some + physical buffs.

[korrelate]

ugh working sucks. It's like I'm strictly not allowed to ever have a job I am passionate about or uses any of my actual skills. Only tedious **** jobs that drain your physical and emotional energy for nearly no gains. After 1k job apps sent out since getting out of college with this useless degree and constantly seeing people with zero training or experience getting hired for my dream jobs I've been trying to land for over 5 years. Like what the hell? It's nights like this I can't stop thinking about leaping off the roof of the hospital nearby. Feels like every night lately.

I wish more than anything I knew what I was doing wrong. It's like I missed the memo everyone else got about how to be successful. Because I followed all the instructions, took all the steps for success and yet still constantly fail. My life is somehow much worse than before going to college and honing my skills. This is not how life is supposed to work.

And it doesn't help having parents who straight up refuse to in any way do anything that might be of aid. My father would literally rather give his car away to a complete stranger from another country who doesn't even have a lisence than even consider me, or even cosigning a loan. It's like he wants to see me fail. Like he gets some sick pleasure out of it.

Trying to solve a problem online in a forum is like keeping a Mentat fed with spice and information. Everybody's got their own spice (boy, wouldn't that be nice) but we don't have any real info.


1. What is your dream job? It would help out greatly, to know why this job is your "dream."

2. What is your "useless college degree?"

"Do not compare yourself to others for you will become both vain and bitter: there are always greater and lesser persons than yourself." - The Desiderata (Max Ehrmann)

https://mwkworks.com/desiderata.html


I keep this mind all the time. I find it helps.

[xtrafrood]

I wasn't paying attention and thought KA2K key wells were PCB mounted just like the thumb clusters 

At least I was able to sound proof foam mod the case, take care of the thumb clusters, and add blue WASD o-rings.  Time for go to soldering tools.  Perhaps some image stabilization too.. dang

[noisyturtle]

ugh working sucks. It's like I'm strictly not allowed to ever have a job I am passionate about or uses any of my actual skills. Only tedious **** jobs that drain your physical and emotional energy for nearly no gains. After 1k job apps sent out since getting out of college with this useless degree and constantly seeing people with zero training or experience getting hired for my dream jobs I've been trying to land for over 5 years. Like what the hell? It's nights like this I can't stop thinking about leaping off the roof of the hospital nearby. Feels like every night lately.

I wish more than anything I knew what I was doing wrong. It's like I missed the memo everyone else got about how to be successful. Because I followed all the instructions, took all the steps for success and yet still constantly fail. My life is somehow much worse than before going to college and honing my skills. This is not how life is supposed to work.

And it doesn't help having parents who straight up refuse to in any way do anything that might be of aid. My father would literally rather give his car away to a complete stranger from another country who doesn't even have a lisence than even consider me, or even cosigning a loan. It's like he wants to see me fail. Like he gets some sick pleasure out of it.

Trying to solve a problem online in a forum is like keeping a Mentat fed with spice and information. Everybody's got their own spice (boy, wouldn't that be nice) but we don't have any real info.


1. What is your dream job? It would help out greatly, to know why this job is your "dream."

2. What is your "useless college degree?"

"Do not compare yourself to others for you will become both vain and bitter: there are always greater and lesser persons than yourself." - The Desiderata (Max Ehrmann)

https://mwkworks.com/desiderata.html


I keep this mind all the time. I find it helps.

1. Writing, preferably narrative design, but really writing in any department of the gaming industry. Literally anything. Even technical, I don't care.
2. An absolute waste of a BA in Game Design and Management

I've been writing my entire life. Every office job I always wind up doing technical or UX writing regardless of what I was hired for originally. It's probably the only thing I have enough confidante in to say I do it well. Even so, with the actual education, experience, and body of work I haven't even gotten so much as a wayward fart in my general direction from any hiring manager on the planet for any serious writing positions in the gaming industry. Barely any notice at all from anyone, really. Do a little digging on the company site or LinkedIn to see who they actually hired for that narrative design or UX writer position and it's some 21 year old straight out of school, or like an ex-webpage designer who has a non-existent background in writing. To not even be looked at by anyone seriously in over 450 job apps(the amount since my last job) I cannot even wrap my mind around what is wrong. I don't understand.

[korrelate]

I want to think about this a bit, but there are a couple of quotes I’d like to offer until I have a well formed response:

- “if any external thing pains thee, it is not the thing itself, but rather thy opinion about it.”
Marcus Aurelius

- “nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so”
Hamlet (but really, shakespeare is probably just paraphrasing the above)

Now, I don’t know anything about you. Never met you or anyone in your family. Your father included. I’m not taking sides, here, I’m trying to illustrate a point: how you think about your father is your choice.

1. IRL maybe your dad is a total tool, an alcoholic and he beat you when you were younger, etc., etc.

2. IRL maybe your dad is an average guy, subject to the elements of the world that we are all subject to and he can’t see past himself att.

3. IRL maybe he’s a great guy and he’s doing this for a reason.

Whichever one or or two of them, or whichever three... consider that it doesn’t matter to you.

You can think: “he wants to see me fail” or you can think “he wants to see me succeed on my own.”

Here’s the kicker: you can’t read his mind, so you you’ll never know the truth. HE may or may not even know it himself.

“A man must always take one of two things: such as he finds, or else such as he brings.”
Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

If you aren’t choosing (such as you bring) how you think about your dad, you are letting circumstances dictate how you think about him (such as you find).

So you have a choice. You can can choose to think he wants to see you fail or can choose to think he wants to see you succeed on your own. One of these choices casts you as an adventurer and the other casts you as a victim. Which choice has more utility?

[tp4tissue]

Are creative jobs usually shopped by these managers ?  They usually slot people they know into them no ? nepotism, colleague's cousin who wrote that blurb one time, etc. 

From the outside they usually pick up the programming peeps, 'puter grunts.

[xtrafrood]

If noisy can't secure a job, we're all screwed.

[iri]

I've been writing my entire life. Every office job I always wind up doing technical or UX writing regardless of what I was hired for originally. It's probably the only thing I have enough confidante in to say I do it well. Even so, with the actual education, experience, and body of work I haven't even gotten so much as a wayward fart in my general direction from any hiring manager on the planet for any serious writing positions in the gaming industry. Barely any notice at all from anyone, really. Do a little digging on the company site or LinkedIn to see who they actually hired for that narrative design or UX writer position and it's some 21 year old straight out of school, or like an ex-webpage designer who has a non-existent background in writing. To not even be looked at by anyone seriously in over 450 job apps(the amount since my last job) I cannot even wrap my mind around what is wrong. I don't understand.

The entirety of Seattle conspired to keep you out of employment. Simples.

[korrelate]

I'm inclined to agree with tp4 on this. He has basically described your obstacle, the forces resisting you.

Nepotism and a lack of influence (better-connected 'applicants' may have more or less talent but some of them will certainly have better connections).

Your own lack of optimism (understandable though it may be) may also be working against you too.


FIRST: The Resume.

Your hiring manager doesn't look through the 100s of resumes that applied for a particular position. HR does. Or some "AI" app written for HR departments does. An HR rep (who probably has the least understanding of the execution of the tasks required by the position) does. This HR rep isn't going to be reading the resume with a nuanced understanding of the position (generally speaking, that is - I would never say never). The HR rep is doing simple pattern matching here. The hiring manager sends a list of qualifications to HR, HR screens for that. So if a posted position receives like 1000 applications, this HR rep is going to make the greatest cut: 95+% of them will never make it past her. And I think it's a safe bet to assume that the remaining 5% (at most) is going to be rich with better-connected applications. Sometimes it isn't nepotism - it's just that the HR rep already knows somebody that satisfies the list of qualifications that the HR manager submitted.

And then the hiring manager reads through that list. He or She will be reading through this list much more carefully than the HR rep. First, they'll bucket by qualifications. Every resume that seems comparatively light on quals get round-filed (trashcan). I'd say about 30% or fewer of the resumes that the hiring manager received from HR (which it self was only about 5% of the total submissions) survive to this point.

Now at this point, every one of those resumes are going to be well-qualified. So let's talk about what it is that gets your resume round-filed at this point:

1. Slight imperfections: spelling and grammar errors.

2. Agreement. If you're submitting a resume for writing on the "Candy Crush Saga" team and your writing samples are all pitches about POV adaptations of "The Bell Jar" where Esther has to make it through the killing floor of a meat-packing plant armed only with a syringe filled with a nerve agent and a broken, rusting scalpel without killing herself you are getting round-filed so quick it'll make your head spin. Your writing samples have to be laser-focused on the particular job you are applying for. If you're sending the same resume with the same writing samples for every job opening you come across you are doing yourself a real disservice.

3. Attitude. When you're managing a group of people you need another disenchanted or lazy or difficult or negative direct report like you need teeth in your a**hole. Any whisper of any of the above and it's the round file for your resume. This can definitely come through in the language you use in your resume. And if you're a writer, you are probably wearing your writing (your character) on your sleeve. Your hiring manager is going to see this, through your writing, from miles away. No need to go over-board here - hiring managers can also tell when people are just spamming their resumes with keywords and phrases. Just don't be negative.

I guarantee you, between two equally qualified employees, the more positive, energetic, optimistic employee is going to get picked every time (as long as they aren't like freebasing ecstasy to get there).

Next: Writing and Writing samples....

[xtrafrood]

Ah, the ole AI driven keyword bingo trick.  That's a fun one.

[tp4tissue]

Also, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE how important it is to be good-looking.

It's an ACTIONABLE CONSTRUCT, because grooming is an Easy + 1.5 for most people.

Exercise can give you +2 to +3,  Of course this one is much harder to crack.

Imagine your appearance under the best modifier, going from a 4 to an 8.5,    Or you can maybe hit 9, 9.5 total with some minor cosmetic surgery. (for most people rhinoplasty)

My point is,  In a world that has NO_TIME to evaluate you, where humans are really NOT_THAT_DIFFERENT from one another.     This Vanity Bull**** ends up counting for ALOT.


So if you sit on your ass, eat Cholesterololo, get Ep1(  Phat   like TP4,    It's Yous own darn fault you no haz j0b.


DehyrrrTeekkkOrrrJhrrrrbz.

[Findecanor]

2. Agreement. If you're submitting a resume for writing on the "Candy Crush Saga" team ...

Funny... I sometimes suspect that I could be on a HR black list somewhere because of harsh language when rejecting to work with that team.

(Actually, my language wasn't that harsh: I said that I wished that the company would fold, but they chose to misinterpret it the wrong way)

[noisyturtle]

I've been writing my entire life. Every office job I always wind up doing technical or UX writing regardless of what I was hired for originally. It's probably the only thing I have enough confidante in to say I do it well. Even so, with the actual education, experience, and body of work I haven't even gotten so much as a wayward fart in my general direction from any hiring manager on the planet for any serious writing positions in the gaming industry. Barely any notice at all from anyone, really. Do a little digging on the company site or LinkedIn to see who they actually hired for that narrative design or UX writer position and it's some 21 year old straight out of school, or like an ex-webpage designer who has a non-existent background in writing. To not even be looked at by anyone seriously in over 450 job apps(the amount since my last job) I cannot even wrap my mind around what is wrong. I don't understand.

The entirety of Seattle conspired to keep you out of employment. Simples.

pretty sure this is the correct answer

[fanpeople]

it's some 21 year old straight out of school, or like an ex-webpage designer who has a non-existent background in writing.

Maybe they hire younger people so they can sell their corporate ideology and then extract 60-70+ working weeks from them until they burn out. Discard and repeat.

[tp4tissue]

it's some 21 year old straight out of school, or like an ex-webpage designer who has a non-existent background in writing.

Maybe they hire younger people so they can sell their corporate ideology and then extract 60-70+ working weeks from them until they burn out. Discard and repeat.

That only wurks on boomers.

Not so much burned out as drowned away the pain in beer.

[xtrafrood]

it's some 21 year old straight out of school, or like an ex-webpage designer who has a non-existent background in writing.

Maybe they hire younger people so they can sell their corporate ideology and then extract 60-70+ working weeks from them until they burn out. Discard and repeat.

That only wurks on boomers.

Not so much burned out as drowned away the pain in beer.

In most cases it doesn't really matter what the age of the applicant is (there are laws against this hiring practice), if the applicant looks or acts like they're difficult to train or set in their ways, chances are they'll be passed up for the opportunity.  Young people tend to appear and or act like they can be easily taught.  Which leads some people to believe that an unqualified individual stole their job opportunity.

My problem had more to do with my appearance, and my perception of my appearance, then my attitude.  But this topic has come up quite a few times from people I've talked to in Gainesville, FL, home of the University of Florida.  And it's probably not isolated to small towns in Florida USA.

[korrelate]

it's some 21 year old straight out of school, or like an ex-webpage designer who has a non-existent background in writing.

Maybe they hire younger people so they can sell their corporate ideology and then extract 60-70+ working weeks from them until they burn out. Discard and repeat.

That only wurks on boomers.

Not so much burned out as drowned away the pain in beer.

In most cases it doesn't really matter what the age of the applicant is (there are laws against this hiring practice), if the applicant looks or acts like they're difficult to train or set in their ways, chances are they'll be passed up for the opportunity.  Young people tend to appear and or act like they can be easily taught.  Which leads some people to believe that an unqualified individual stole their job opportunity.

My problem had more to do with my appearance, and my perception of my appearance, then my attitude.  But this topic has come up quite a few times from people I've talked to in Gainesville, FL, home of the University of Florida.  And it's probably not isolated to small towns in Florida USA.

csmertx, I think you're spot on to something there: how we think of ourselves, how we imagine others see us and how others actually see us - all of these perceptions can be so very different from one another. And until we (I can definitely see a lot of this operating on me - definitely in the past, probably still to this day) accumulate enough experience to want to reconcile these perceptions... well, we just aren't growing until we do.

[korrelate]

Also, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE how important it is to be good-looking.

It's an ACTIONABLE CONSTRUCT, because grooming is an Easy + 1.5 for most people.

Exercise can give you +2 to +3,  Of course this one is much harder to crack.

Imagine your appearance under the best modifier, going from a 4 to an 8.5,    Or you can maybe hit 9, 9.5 total with some minor cosmetic surgery. (for most people rhinoplasty)

My point is,  In a world that has NO_TIME to evaluate you, where humans are really NOT_THAT_DIFFERENT from one another.     This Vanity Bull**** ends up counting for ALOT.


So if you sit on your ass, eat Cholesterololo, get Ep1(  Phat   like TP4,    It's Yous own darn fault you no haz j0b.


DehyrrrTeekkkOrrrJhrrrrbz.

There is some truth to this - some. Maybe. If there is, then it only goes so far. Sure, if you need a weather anchor, all things being equal, the more attractive person has a leg up. Although (yes I know, news bureaus aren't the same as films but I don't think I'm mixing metaphors too terribly here)... Meryl Streep isn't as attractive as Olivia Newton John or Michelle Pfiefer but M.S. is way more successful. Robin Williams certainly isn't what you would call conventionally handsome but his career was at least on par with a lady killer like George Clooney. Tom Cruise is the kind of short that would absolutely END most people and yet incredibly, incredibly successful.

So I don't know even know how much weight TP4s criticism holds, now that I think of it. But I can tell you this: if you think something's holding you back - it's your thinking that's holding you back & probably not the thing itself.

Jackie Robinson: being black was definitely a great reason to let yourself be held back in baseball when he got started. Literally, it could get you killed. Didn't hold him back. Probably because he didn't think he was going to let it hold him back.

Muhammad Ali: ditto. And to boot, having your boxing license revoked in every state that issued a boxing license is definitely a good reason to let yourself be held back. His parents were not even close to being rich though they weren't poor either.

Sandra Day O'Connor: Being a woman was a great way to let yourself think that you were going to be held back from being a Supreme Court Justice. She didn't think so. She was seated on the Court in 81', remember, 10 years before the Tailhook scandal really forced the government to BEGIN thinking about inclusion from an institutional perspective.

Thousands and thousands of southerners who did not live on plantations nor appreciate the impact that slavery had on "free" market enterprise had powerful reasons to think that it was okay to let themselves be held back.
https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2018/12/21/southerner-vs-southerner-union-supporters-below-the-mason-dixon-line/
But they didn't think so.

An excerpt:
"Representatives from 26 counties in East Tennessee’s mountainous, grain-growing and stock-raising region agreed to secede from Tennessee. Their petition to do so was rejected by the state legislature, and Confederate troops were sent to occupy East Tennessee to prevent its secession."

I can't imagine that this was, in any way, an easy decision for these people to make. Yada, yada, yada, .... things went from bad to worse for these people. Actively choosing to perceive the reality of slavery the way they did (in stark contrast to rest of the south) had its consequences:

"As many as 1,000 prominent and not so prominent East Tennesseans were arrested and taken to Knoxville. Five men were hanged, and 400 were imprisoned in Alabama. The number of Confederate soldiers in Knoxville quadrupled, with roughly one soldier for every man, woman, and child in the city. Wood sent squads of men door to door to confiscate firearms from the entire civilian population. "



These are some notable cases, to be sure. And sure it's easy to think, "Oh, they were just exceptional characters." Particularly if you are really looking for a way OUT or a way AROUND an ordeal. If you are looking for a way THROUGH an ordeal, though, it can be just as easy as making the choice to "think better of your fellow man."

"Mediocrity never knows anything higher than itself. Talent always recognizes genius." Arthur Conan Doyle.

"Whether you think you can or you think you can't: you're right." Henry Ford.

And can you possibly accuse Muhammad Ali of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses? ROTFLAMO, absolutely no way. I mean, NO WAY. Consider his rationale for not wanting to fight in the Vietnam War:

Speaking to a bunch of college guys who are questioning his refusal to fight in Vietnam:

"All you white boys are breaking your neck to get to Switzerland and Canada and London.... you're my opposer when I wanted freedom... you're my opposer when I want justice... you won't even stand up for me, here, in America and you want me to go fight but you won't even stand up for me here at home." FWIW, I'm not black, but I sincerely admire the hell out of Muhammad Ali and I think hearing what he had to say makes me a better person. Actively choosing how to perceive reality (it would have been waaay easier for him to perceive his reality the way most white people wanted him to perceive reality) is not same thing as the naivete of "looking at the world through rose-colored glasses," so don't let yourself fall down that rabbit hole.

So, if there was something for me to agree with in TP4's statement it would only be this: people with very poor hygiene will find it hard to find a job than people with poor hygiene. But between two people with equally bad (or good) hygiene - attitude - the way you choose to navigate reality as it unfolds - is your friend, and a powerful ally it is (I had to... I could feel that coming a mile away).

[xtrafrood]

Wow, tp4tissue's polar opposite enters the ring.

[korrelate]

And now for something completely different:


I went through this exact same thing with my youngest brother a couple of years ago. This is detailed because I really had a lot of this on my computer already. If I sound curt at any point it's a reflection of the strained relationship I had with him at the time (though I've done my best to remove any negative vibes). And the only reason I had so much done for that was because just a few years prior to that I had to help my step dad get through a job-finding funk.


Some questions you have to ask yourself (the answers only really matter to you so feel free to keep them to yourself or share them as you see fit):


1. Concerning resumes and interviews: Read, Research and Practice:

- For the cost of a couple pieces of paper, consider a trip to your local Barnes and Noble (or public library) and without spending a cent, grab some books off the "Resumes" or "Job Aids" sections, sit at a table and start reading and taking notes. There are literally 100s of books in these sections and most of them are going to be helpful.

- Have you ever considered finding a professional resume writer? They are out there and if you live in or near a major metropolitan area like Seattle there must be many options available. You never know where the next good bit of advice is going to come from and you may have to turn over a few rocks to find what you need just keep digging.

- Colleges usually have job placement offices / alumni services. Consult them for help understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your resume (I bet they offer additional services as well). You'd be surprised how much help is actually available when you start looking.

- Ask a librarian at your public library. You'd be amazed at the services that liberal democrat commies make available to the citizens of these states through public libraries. Maybe you'll run into people there who have positive attitudes there. Watch out!! LOL. Could be contagious.



2. What's the purpose of a resume? HINT: It is NOT "to get a job." Resumes don't get you jobs: they get you interviews.

   -    a resume is a marketing tool of sorts: you are describing how your abilities match the employer's needs. No employer wants spam resumes just like you don't read spam email. Every job oppty requires thought and purpose. If you have really sent 450 resumes and have not had a single call back it's tempting you think your resume reads like spam. I only say tempting - I certainly don't know for sure. It's equally tempting to think that your resume lacks some experience or role that the employer prizes. Solve that problem: find out what that lack is.

And let's pause for a moment because it can be easy to get overwhelmed. As soon as you actually do start doing any these things - as soon as you start taking real steps, on your own behalf to solve your problem it's almost unavoidable that you're going to start feeling better about yourself. Give yourself credit for every step you take and every hurdle you overcome no matter how little. Every little problem you solve provides you with just enough strength to solve the next one.


3. Asked any peer, friend, relative, anyone you admire to conduct a "mock interview" on you. Don't just hope that you're going to nail the interview for your dream job without practicing "interviewing". Many, though not all, of the people who get interviews practice their responses to interview questions several times before interviewing. Makes sense right? I bet Michael Jordan picked up a basketball at least once or twice before he started playing in the NBA.


4. Google for "Sample Questions for Job Interviews." Practice writing your answers out so that you are not fumbling for a response during the interviews. It's easy to be cynical about why other people get jobs but the truth is, "luck favors the prepared." Many, though not all, of the people who get jobs are really prepared for that job. Literally... you can make your own luck by preparing yourself.



Einstein said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

- If you are sending the same resume for each job opportunity you shouldn't be surprised at seeing lots of rejects.

- Rejection is par for the course even for the prepared, I'm afraid. My sister sent 100s of resumes before she got a decent job (and it's certainly not her dream job).

- The best way to get out of your funk is to start getting yourself out of your funk: start solving the little problems:

   A. DO I REALLY HAVE A RESUME THAT'S GOING TO GET ME INTERVIEWS?

      Most people don't enjoy the idea of reading resumes. Fact of life. If you ask someone "can you take a look at my resume." They may say yes or no, whatever. Try something different. Carry your resume with you. Tell them, "hey I know reading resumes sucks, if you could have a quick look at it while I get the coffee I'd appreciate it." And stick to that. When you come back with the coffee, retrieve your resume (this relieves them from the pressure you're putting on them to perform). Ask them for their feedback. When you approach someone, aware and considerate of their time, you'd be f**ing amazed at how much more willing to help people can be.

      It's easy to think you've got the best resume in the world and you've done all you can. Have you?


   B.   WHAT CAN I DO MAKE MY RESUME IRRESISTIBLE TO AN EMPLOYER?

      You need to realize that you may not be prepared for your dream job just yet.
But I bet you, that if you knew you were taking solid steps to getting one - if you had a plan, and you knew you were following it, you'd feel better about yourself.

      What types of jobs do people hold before they get the jobs you've been trying for? Try getting one of those jobs next.

      What types of experiences is an employer going to want?




   C.   WHAT CAN I DO TO NAIL THE INTERVIEW?
      you don't have to be perfect. you don't even want to try to be perfect. but if you're not prepared for the interview (have you even tried to imagine the kinds of questions that they may ask?) you won't get
the job.

   -   think about entering a writing competition. I googled for pacific northwest writing competitions and the second or third link listed like a 100 or so compeitions. Some with prizes.

   -   find a way to find the people who can answer questions about your field.


Note: you are NOT alone. Many, many, many people you know have to bust their ass to find a job. If your degree is not attractive to the employers offering the jobs you want you really don't need to go get another degree. Seriously. MIT and Harvard have so many free online courses it's sick. Look it up. And when I ask "do you have a plan?" you don't need to wait until you have something a military Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), baby steps, man - the next two or three steps could do you plenty of good.



Seriously, when I apply for a job, I send a unique resume every time. They're not all written from scratch, but I re-read lots of my old resumes, pick and choose the roles that are most relevant for the job I'm applying for and tweak them to demonstrate the relationship between my abilities and their needs.



Finally, in my humble opinion, it doesn't do you a bit of good to believe "all of seattle conspired against you." Or "only attractive people get jobs." Probably this is being said in jest. Perhaps these guys are saying this to try to comfort you, I don't know. Doesn't matter. Why? Because any answer that doesn't identify an issue you can influence has little utility for you.

What can you influence/control? Your response to your predicament. Blaming it on Seattle (silly), consigning your fate to something arbitrary like "looks," or "nepotism," (tempting, but really more like empathy and less than reason) is just a way to avoid the work associated with creating and implementing a plan that will help you actually get what you want.



"The job that's never started is the one that takes longest to finish."

Sam Gamgee

[tp4tissue]

There is some truth to this - some. Maybe. If there is, then it only goes so far. Sure, if you need a weather anchor, all things being equal, the more attractive person has a leg up. Although (yes I know, news bureaus aren't the same as films but I don't think I'm mixing metaphors too terribly here)... Meryl Streep isn't as attractive as Olivia Newton John or Michelle Pfiefer but M.S. is way more successful. Robin Williams certainly isn't what you would call conventionally handsome but his career was at least on par with a lady killer like George Clooney. Tom Cruise is the kind of short that would absolutely END most people and yet incredibly, incredibly successful.

Looks isn't everything,  but in these cases where again, skill and talent are NOT that different, looks is weighed more.

The VAST majority of actors are good looking, even across the people you've listed. Maybe Robin williams took up non-hero, non-chad roles, but if you put his face into a geometric analyzer, he'd score decently.

You can always find exceptions, but you're forcing an opinion.

It's far more like buying keyboards than anything else. No keyboard, no matter how good will make That much of a difference in throughput/ performance.   So people buy the one they like looking at.

There are those of us who are at the lvl to value ERGONOMICS above all else, but that makes _WE_ the exception.  The vast majority of people are still using flat, wrist destroying keyboards.

Many work studies have confirmed better looking people are PAID MORE, and PERCEIVED as MORE INTELLIGENT.

You ask 10 people about appearance, 7 of those people are idiots, 5 voted DiaperDon, at least 9 of them will give you the DISNEY, they'll tell you it's what's on the inside that counts,  Hard work is the most important,   but you get out there, and it's the exact opposite.  Well no complaint really, because as we also know,  Everyone can become better looking..   TP4 is the 1/10, intelligent OR NOT, who is pragmatic enough to say, hey comb your hair, exercise, eat veggies, get un-phat.

[xtrafrood]

Holy moly 

[korrelate]

I don't know if I'm "forcing an opinion." And I don't know that anything I wrote fundamentally contradicts your assertions. I think its obvious that appearances play a large role in much of life. There are obviously many people in the world who have traveled far in life on their looks alone. Their stories aren't the only tales being told in the book of life, though (and not by a long shot). So too are the stories of those who had much handed from them, those who took far more than they gave, etc. and yet there's still way more to life than that. The whole point of my feedback is this:

If you think something will hold you back, it will.

and

If you think something can't hold you back, it won't.

I then proceeded to list examples of people who clearly weren't deterred by circumstances that could easily have held them back.

There's no contest here. Not because "I won" or "You won," unless you think you did. If you do, great. You win. That's not what I'm on about; I'm just trying help NT find a way to negotiate this challenge he's grappling with.


And by the by, when you put it like this, "many work studies have confirmed..." I don't doubt it one bit. Statistics, though (and here I'm talking about little 's' statistics like the kind you hear mentioned in news reports), are means of describing entire populations of people. It's helpful, perhaps to be reminded that they aren't the same as Physical Laws (i.e. The Laws of Thermodynamics). They are measures of central tendency only. Are they / can they be useful? You bet. LOL. Can they be misused? Absolutely. When people read statistics and use them to help characterize the 'lay of the land,' or to understand challenges that might be faced, or to help understand a situation, then they are being used well. What most people know about statistics, though, is what they hear from the news and the news makes them sound like laws (or else like incontrovertible facts).

The media and the general public are the 'only' people  who see them this way (it's almost funny to say 'only' here because this is really a lot of people). In math and science communities, though, stats are always discussed in conjunction with their error rates (false positives, false negatives - Type I and Type II errors) and with other goodness-of-fit statistics that explain how well a model fits the underlying data.

And when you start digging into stats you begin to analyze variance - just how wildly outcomes can change from one observation (one person, let's say) to the next. Variance is frequently extreme enough that an acceptable model for a dynamic can't be asserted until outliers are completely eliminated from the data. Outliers: observations (people, let's say) whose performance, circumstances or outcomes are so different that they can completely contradict that a model that otherwise explains the entire population. So statistics can describe environments and inferential statistics can quantify the odds of success of an individual who is representative of the sample. And it can do this very well and has been used to great advantage ... it's perhaps less useful to think of stats as right and wrong because they "know" how wrong they can be... their failure rates are baked into their development.... it maybe more useful to realize what statistics are not: they are not Laws. Not the stats you hear on TV, I mean.

Statistics, with a capital S: the subject that gets studied in Math and Science departments is predicated on mathematical law - it's foundation is as 'law'ful as it gets. One the other hand, statistics - with a little 's' like the ones you hear on tv, those are measures of central tendency - and they really are most useful when used to describe populations and less useful when used to describe particular individuals.

Now that I think about it, statistics are such a different thing that it's almost helpful to think of them as their own unit of measure. You wouldn't used pounds to quantify the flow of electrons through an electric circuit. You wouldn't use PSI to measure length. Little s statistics (like the ones on TV) really shouldn't be used to understand an individual - they are meant to describe populations (and while a population is certainly comprised of individuals, no single individual is the population).

[korrelate]

Concerning the power of perception, consider this:

https://www.wired.com/2009/08/ff-placebo-effect/

"Half of all drugs that fail in late-stage trials drop out of the pipeline due to their inability to beat sugar pills."

I.e. it's THAT difficult to beat a placebo.

And it's not just drugs. Gene therapies find it hard to beat placebos:

"Last November, a new type of gene therapy for Parkinson's disease, championed by the Michael J. Fox Foundation, was abruptly withdrawn from Phase II trials after unexpectedly tanking against placebo."

Both quotes can be found in the link above. And if you start searching for "placebo" you'll quickly learn how difficult it is to beat the placebo effect.


It's not the end-all, be-all of existence, but thinking you can do something (thinking helpful, constructive thoughts, thinking about ways to improve your odds, thinking about ways to become more competitive) is at very least the beginning of success.

[xtrafrood]

Good luck folks

[ddrfraser1]

City picked up my neighbor's recycling but not mine   
1st world problems.

[stoicbias]

This hangover. 

[suicidal_orange]

Holy moly 

Good luck folks

Was there was a big lottery draw announced and everyone's entered?  Or was the crazy sounding Qanon guy right and the end of the US as we know it is happening before February is over, starting outside your window tonight?

So few words, so little context

[iri]

So I went through literally all devices supported by LineageOS. And literally all of those started in 2018 or later are shovels. What the ****. All the phones I could find in the 5"--5.2" range are either unavailable or sold used. What. The. ****.

[yui]

My bosses are exploiting a coworker of mine, and i do not know what to do to help, feels bad, especially because it is the 2nd time it happen with 2 different bosses, and i never know what to do...

[suicidal_orange]

My bosses are exploiting a coworker of mine, and i do not know what to do to help, feels bad, especially because it is the 2nd time it happen with 2 different bosses, and i never know what to do...

Go higher to their boss or call the HR department and report it as bullying?  Both options only work if it's a big enough company, if not just tell the sufferer to quit and quit with them in the hope of taking the company down.  The latter is of course very risky but in your position I'd have been looking for the door for a long time, it sounds like a terrible place to work.

[yui]

My bosses are exploiting a coworker of mine, and i do not know what to do to help, feels bad, especially because it is the 2nd time it happen with 2 different bosses, and i never know what to do...

Go higher to their boss or call the HR department and report it as bullying?  Both options only work if it's a big enough company, if not just tell the sufferer to quit and quit with them in the hope of taking the company down.  The latter is of course very risky but in your position I'd have been looking for the door for a long time, it sounds like a terrible place to work.

well i am looking at the door, but i am also looking at my coworker that will be in trouble if i go right now... although one of those exploited coworkers is now in sick leave for now 3 months and worrying me and the other one started when she sent her resignation... since the company was bought the upper management thinks they are in a millions employees company while we are only 300 and the count is only going down... and our HR is rather useless nothing can ever be done for anything.

[fohat.digs]

My bosses are exploiting a coworker of mine, and i do not know what to do to help

Many years ago, my wife worked for a company that was not huge, but moderate sized. Most of the employees were white-collar professionals. Annual turnover rate was ~70%.

Several times, the owner/manager hired a consulting firm to figure out what the problem was. Each time, the conclusion was that he, and his small cabal of luietenant mamagers, were torpedoing morale.

Nothing changed, my wife lasted there about a year and a half.

[iri]

Guardian called a 5.7" Google Pixel "small size". Are people losing their minds?

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/31/google-pixel-4-review-battery-life-camera