how's your week going, Beehaw

I feel incredibly restless at my job and it's everything I can do to not stand up and just leave for good. I'm paid essentially minimum wage in a dead end job at a ブラック企業.. But I'm so burnt out on job searching for months on end and terrified to return to unemployed life. I haven't touched my hobbies for months and I'm... I'm just so tired. God damn...

That’s terrible. Wishing you the best of luck to find a fulfilling job.
(For those curious like me) ブラック企業
A black company (ブラック企業, burakku kigyō), also referred to in English as a black corporation or black business, is a Japanese term for an exploitative, sweatshop-type employment system.
While the term "sweatshop" is associated with manufacturing, and the garment trade in particular, in Japan black companies are not necessarily associated with the clothing industry, but more often with office work.
While specifics may vary from workplace to workplace and company to company, a typical practice at a black company is to hire a large number of young employees and then force them to work large amounts of overtime without overtime pay. Conditions are poor, and workers are subjected to verbal abuse and "power harassment" (bullying) by their superiors.[1] In order to make the employees stay, superiors of black companies would often threaten young employees with disrepute if they chose to quit.
- Whoah wtf
💚

That sounds hard.
Do you meditate at all?.Sometimes it can help reset the critical inner voice.

Working almost every waking hour, struggling with migraines, and barely functioning. Things should slow down next week and I can hopefully begin to feel like a person again.

Are you going to post your list of books read in 2023?? I’ve really been intrigued by every one you have mentioned. @alayza

most likely yes
- Please do! I am looking forward to it.
I’d like to see this as well!

The week didn’t end too well, while coming back from the first store, my foot started hurting a bit, got worse when going to the 2nd store. Later at home while watching TV, getting up was actively painful, and I had to hobble.

The next day, I used nebenan.de (German nextdoor copycat) to borrow some crutches, and went to the doctor (which required taking the bus, Saturdays normal doctors are closed and the Anlaufpraxis is at the hospital, kinda a non-emergency emergency room). I thought it was a sprained ankle, but apparently only similar and not that bad, no bleeding, and the swelling had already gone down. I got a zinc paste gauze bandage (apparently called Unna's boot in English), that has to stay on for 3 days and can’t get wet (so no showering …)

It helped a bit and since Sunday afternoon I’ve only been needing one of the crutches which gives me a free hand, very convenient ;) This all results in my wife doing more chores, especially the dishes which, so far, has not resulted in disaster ;) I’m still cooking as that mostly works while standing mostly on my left foot.

I do miss running, but the doctor also told me I should probably get new running boots as the current ones are ancient (mostly unused, but material fatigue happens anyway) as that might be related. They should arrive tomorrow, but I’m not sure when I’ll be able to run again. Already missed dancing lessons this Sunday, the ones next Sunday will be the test if everything is fine, and I can start running again on Monday.

As you might be able to tell from this elaborate whining post, I really hate being sick ;)

As somebody who had chronic foot pain for over a year that finally got resolved, let me tell you: please listen to medical professionals! A few days or even a few weeks is nothing compared to half a year to a year of chronic pain and reduced physical activity. Grin and bear it for a little bit now so you aren’t paying for it exponentially later
- Oh, I am. I’m still walking with a crutch, have not been dancing this Sunday, and always wear foot stabilization bandages …

A new employee I took a risk on is not panning out. It's early yet so they have a few more months to gel and get up to speed but early indications are that I made a mistake. I spent a lot of time today covering their job duties and I lost my cool.

This is on me, but that's how my week is wrapping up. Sigh.

I'm okay. I had an extra long weekend which went by way too fast. I tried to spend the last day going for a quick hike at a state park, but I left way too late and only had like an hour before it got dark 😔

At least you got an hour in! That's one more hour than if you hadn't gone.
- Very true. Hopefully I plan ahead a little better next time. ;)

On vacation from work for a few days... really needed it (if you can see my IP you'd know where at).

Things are slowly getting back to normal. Not really sure what to report here, life is currently pretty slow.

learning about some arcane internet drama,

I know a lot of people are in love with these "I’m a designer and I want you to know it"-sites, but this is a perfect example of why I dislike them: Upon loading, I see a useless animation (I have prefers-reduced-motion enabled), and blank boxes. Only after 5.55 megabytes of font has been downloaded (slightly over 2 seconds), does text show up.

on friday, i took my bike on the train to a nearby city and then biked back on paths for a total of about 50 miles. my knee was not happy about it, but it feels fine now. i’m also committed to doing RAGBRAI next year, which opens up registration tomorrow!

i’m doing national novel writing month, and i’m a good 20k+ words into a story of some kind. i’ve only ever written short roleplaying posts with a group of friends, so this is a whole new beast for me! i’m not a plotter at all, so i don’t really know where the story is going. i’ll figure it out in editing (or never), haha.

My former boss is from Iowa and still maintains strong ties there. He did RAGBRAI a year or two ago with several of his friends from college. Well, I don't think he did the whole thing; only 2 or 3 days of it. Either way, he loved it. I kinda looked at him as if he were crazy when he said he was going to do that, but I do think it sounds like a fun time!
- the longest ride i’ve done previously was ~200 miles over four days… but i had to carry all my camping gear with me since it was self-supported. i’m looking forward to doing this ride with minimal baggage since the support vehicles carry your camping stuff each day!
That's so cool that you're doing NaNoWriMo! I've always felt too daunted by lack of plot. Let us know how it goes!
- thank you! it is very daunting, but i’m just winging it and seeing what happens. i am using a solo RPG as sort of a framework for where the story goes, and that has worked really well so far in the sense that i never feel truly stuck.

Feeling better this week, and feeling validated.

In the ongoing saga of the university team project, when our main teacher returned on Monday morning, he took one look at an element of the project which had been hurried thrown together by the very arrogant group member despite my best efforts to assign him to something within his capabilities. The teacher looked at what he'd done, deemed it completely unusable, and pointed to a smaller part of the project I had done and said "this bit's good, do it like that". Because it's a major, important piece of the project that has to be done from scratch, this is actually a full 3-4 days work for me, to be ready by next Monday. So I'm probably not getting much else done this week. But because I know what I'm doing (no arrogance there, I'm just applying skills I have over a decade worth of experience with to a slightly different use-case), it is going to look epic when it's done.

And because our main teacher was back, and able to teach his other classes (a course for a younger cohort on the same campus), our secondary teacher wasn't having to cover him, so we also got some attention from him this week too. This meant I could have a chat with him at the end of the day and express the impact doing 70% of the project by myself has had on my mental health - he went and looked over the project and asked if he could guess which parts I had done. After he had done this (one incorrect guess out of more than a dozen items), he said "I agree, you've done 70% of the project by yourself, that's not sustainable, I'll help you get the rest of them working." The next morning he tried all the same techniques I had tried, and it was no more effective when he did than when I had. We still got to the end of the day with most of the team having not done the things they'd been told to do.

It took the guy who did a half-arsed job on the important part of the project a full 24 hours to notice that his contribution had been scrapped and I had started it over from scratch. I learned my lesson from the last time he did this 6 weeks ago - I tried to salvage it, and the result was worse and took longer than if I'd started over, so this time I didn't even try to make his work usable. The dude is not happy that the main teacher has "shit on everything he's done". At least he's not blaming me. Yet. He hasn't been updating the digital whiteboard with the list of things he's done for the project, and he can't remember anything he's done. I've been documenting everything in my own log. I could have checked what he'd done and told him what to put on the whiteboard. I chose not to.

So yay for receiving validation that I am not the problem here. Yay for the teachers recognising that I'm doing the majority of the work, and I'm the only one doing quality work. Yay for the teachers being aware that my mental health is suffering and I need more support. But I'm still doing 70% of the work. Between the team's inaction and the teachers being absent, we're several weeks behind schedule, but the deadline is still the deadline. I'm not convinced a completed project is even achievable anymore.

Been decent so far. I'm flying out to Las Vegas later today for the Formula 1 race. And to see my family for an "early" Thanksgiving. We got tickets to go to a practice session, so that'll be exciting seeing and hearing the cars in person. I've only seen and heard F1 cars in action once back in 2019 at a fan event in LA, so curious to see how they sound now. I should probably start packing...

On the work front, I successfully helped get my co-workers to New Orleans for a conference our company is putting on. I'm in charge of technology and logistics for events. Everything got shipped on Friday and arrived on Monday with no issues. I'll be supporting them remotely in case they have any technical issues, which is a first. I'm always on-site with them for events. First time since 2015 that I'm not on-site.

I'm using this as a trial run of sorts, so that I don't have to go to each of these (which is only twice a year). I enjoy traveling, but work travel isn't always fun. It does mean I'm working outside of my normal hours since my co-workers may have issues that pop-up before/after the event begins/ends each day. And since I'm on vacation later this week, even potentially working while on PTO. Which is fine; I'll just take comp time for it. For this specific event, I'd much rather support my team remotely, than actually be on-site.

My week has been alright. I'm still looking for another job where I can progress rather than being stuck in the same position, but it could be worse. I decided stop trying to reconnect with my dad since he has another family which is a whole other story.

I've also set my vacation plans for NYC for the holidays which I'll be looking forward to. Other than that, though, it's been fine. No major complaints.

Work is normally not complete shit, but it certainly is this week. I think the universe knows I'm going on vacation next week and then decided to make this week hell instead of a normal week.

That said, I finished The Expanse (amazing show and I just want more!!!) and I'm hopelessly addicted to Cobalt Core. I've completed about 6 runs now and have one more ship and character to unlock, and then I "only" have to beat it about 20 more times to get all the memory logs. It's a very addicting game!

I'm going to have to find a show or two to occupy me in the next 2 weeks on vacation, though. I like traveling, but I'm skipping it this time to be frugal and I'm just having a staycation. I may drive somewhere for a couple days, but nothing crazy.

I'm also trying to get into the habit of reading more. I don't think I'll ever get to the point of reading double digits books per year (my adhd riddled brain just needs too many vidya games), but I'm trying to at least read a few days a week. That said, with me growing increasingly frustrated with computers (a thing I'm calling ROBS, rapid onset boomer syndrome), maybe I'll get more into reading to get away from screens (I work in software, so I really should be using a screen at home as little as possible).

Just watched a trailer for The Expanse and it looks so good! idk if I can make it thru 6 seasons tho. I'm a serial series abandoner.
- I also have a hard time catching up with established shows. It sounds like a lot, but it averages to about ten 45 minutes episodes per season, so it's not so bad. I had to get in the mindset of "nobody cares how long I take to watch it". I just casually watched an episode or two a night for a few weeks. I recommend watching, it's awesome! If you do start, I'd say that season 1 is slower than the rest and with lower production value, the show doesn't really ramp up until season 2, I feel, but then it's a wild ride the rest of the way.
- As others have said keep going through S1. It sets the scene nicely for bigger things later on. I personally rate it as one of the best things I've ever seen on TV. Certainly the best sci-fi I've ever seen.
If you want to read and want more Expanse, you could read the books. I'm about half way through the last book now and they're pretty good. Each season of the show was a book, but the last 3 books didn't get into the show so there's some new content there.
- I actually just played the Telltale Expanse game yesterday, too, and that was excellent! And yeah, I heard that the books are different enough (and that there are 3 more of them), so that a read-through would likely feel new to me. I've actually had the first book on my shelf for 10 years after a friend gave it to me and I never started it, nor knew what it was until I started watching the TV show, ha.
I've been trying to read more lately too. I used to read constantly as a kid and got out of it somewhere along the way. Hopefully we can both keep up with it!
- That's pretty much my story, too. I was one of the biggest readers in my class at school growing up and even as a young adult, I still read a lot (probably 10 books a year or so). Somewhere along the way in the last few years, I just fell off. I think part of it is finding a book or genre that really reignites me in that regard. I had a book a few years ago that did do that for a few months, but I need to make it a habit. I want to reduce screen time in my life, in general, and getting back into reading will help so much with that, while still allowing my hyperactive mind to explore cool universes!

2 months into my new admin job, and it sounded much easier then my last gig at first, but had to get humble quick as things ive been doing wrong are hitting the fan. Still much happier overall.

This is the time of the year when I teach to students as part of a work-study program. I like this profile: they're less academic, more autonomous and mature. What's more, in this program, there's much less reproduction of elite classes than you see with other diplomas. It makes my work more meaningful.

On a more personal note, I started taking PrEP treatment on Friday. It's rather reassuring when I have fun with other boys (like today) to have this double protection with the condom.