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Poll: How are you doing currently?

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Re: Poll: How are you doing currently?

#161

Post by dirtybirdnj »

SoftTalker wrote: post #81
dirtybirdnj wrote: post #29

Very bad. Struggling dealing with an autism / aspergers diagnosis and trying to understand how to re-enter the workforce after a few years of being under or unemployed. It's a complete nightmare. I want to work but I struggle with communication and being understood (or understanding) the world around me. I have been waiting on news about a job all week and not a peep. I'm pretty sure they are waiting till EOD Friday…

I don't know about the support network for your condition but surely there are some? I'm making an assumption, but you write as if you are trying to manage things all by yourself, which is commendable but perhaps making things more difficult than they need to be. Are you working with any kind of local autism support group? I would hope there are some resources to help people such as yourself navigate the difficulties…

You are correct in that I take on too much myself. Difficulties in communication leads to situations where what I ask for is disregarded or people take offense at the idea I'd need or date to ask for accommodations. "Just do it yourself, why do you need help?" "Stop asking questions just do it" These are knee-jerk reaction of neurotypical society and not something I can ever really change (the world is as it is).

This pattern of being ignored when I ask for help has led to a negative feedback loop where I avoid asking for help and struggle to get or ask for help when I need it most.

> I don't know about the support network for your condition but surely there are some?

I am on my second therapist and he's really awesome, I would recommend him highly. I have two local mentors who have also been incredible but there is only so much you can lean on other people for. I have an incredible wife who is being super patient while her husband struggles to be a partner instead of a dependent.

> Maybe you just need help with connecting to the right opportunities?

Yes. See negative feedback loop above, but if I am lucky enough to connect with decent or like minded people I DO have some success. When I describe these things (desire for a more fair work situation) to people I get responses like "oh so you want the perfect job?" No I just want to be treated with dignity and respect like an adult.

Re: Poll: How are you doing currently?

#162

Post by [deleted] »

gunnarmorling wrote: post #146
uxp100 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not so alien to Europe as you seem to think. Over the past 20 years, more people per capita have died in school shootings in Germany than in the US. A European nation was in a similar situation very recently. What is maybe unique about the US is that nothing will be done, where as Germany added additional gun control laws, and probably will not ever have as deadly a decade for schools as the 2000s again. I'm…

> Over the past 20 years, more people per capita have died in school shootings in Germany than in the US. Any stats to back that up? Seems completely counter-factual.

[deleted]

Re: Poll: How are you doing currently?

#163

Post by dirtybirdnj »

farmerstan wrote: post #94
dirtybirdnj wrote: post #29

Very bad. Struggling dealing with an autism / aspergers diagnosis and trying to understand how to re-enter the workforce after a few years of being under or unemployed. It's a complete nightmare. I want to work but I struggle with communication and being understood (or understanding) the world around me. I have been waiting on news about a job all week and not a peep. I'm pretty sure they are waiting till EOD Friday…

Failing as a person is if you betray your friends, if you kick someone who is already down, taking advantage of people, etc. THAT is failing as a person. You are not failing as a person. Do not define your self-worth as you having a job or money. You are going through hard times. Everyone goes through hard times. That doesn’t mean you are failing as a person. Take a short break from job hunting and pick it back up ag…

I tried working at a commercial pizza kitchen for about six months. I loved the creative cooking aspect of it. I hated the monotonous, thankless backbreaking work.

At the end of the week I lost all my time, and I had hardly enough money to pay the bills let alone disposable income. It was a net negative on my wallet and it was physically destructive to me, I was sore and worn out and that was a huge motivator to finally quit (getting a job offer helped).

I just want people to understand that the whole "take a break" thing is an incredible luxury not everybody can do. I don't have a job yet every day is stressful not knowing how I will solve the problems of tomorrow. Even if I do things to try to get my mind off it, those problems still exist when I return and often are worse because I ignored them to focus on myself.

> collect your emotions and thoughts and when you feel better level up to a new job.

I burned out a few years ago and while I am trying to recover I am starting to wonder if I ever will

Re: Poll: How are you doing currently?

#164

Post by glouwbug »

taesu wrote: post #116

Very Bad. * Preparing to work/move to US from CA (as a Canadian) as a SDE with 10yr exp * Grinding Leetcode (quit hobbies to do so) * Improving but not at the pace I want * Failed easy-medium coding test at $SHOP * Demoralized, rethinking career choice * Thinking when I can stop leetcoding..when I eventually stop being SDE? * Thinking about what happiness is * Met with mental health mentor for the first time. Cried.…

Keep going, it's going to be okay. The blind 75 is your best shot for quick results: https://leetcode.com/discuss/general-discussion/460599/blind...

You can skip dynamic programming unless you're planning on tackling Google

Re: Poll: How are you doing currently?

#165

Post by stellateganglia »

DougN7 wrote: post #92
SoftTalker wrote: post #87

I voted very good. Life isn't perfect but it never is. I'm healthy, employed, have a nice place to live and enough income and time to indulge in some hobbies and personal growth stuff.

I have what you have, but voted a little sad. So much is based on our outlook and attitude. I wish I could figure out how to acquire your attitude. Good luck continuing forward :)

Absolutely true. I am prone to having this pervasive sense of sadness and numbness become part of my identity. My friend, on the other hand, always responds to "how are you doing?" with "I'm on top of the world!" To some extent, we can train our minds to be positive.

Re: Poll: How are you doing currently?

#167

Post by jamie_ca »

uxp100 wrote: post #129
skrebbel wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's extremely scary that in the world's richest country, writing stuff about schools like "we don't have metal doors", "our barricade procedure" and "stopping power for bullets" is considered perfectly normal. I was reading your comment and I just WTF'ed 5 times in a row. As a European, it's hard to wrap my mind around how simultaneously awesome and terrible the US has become. I feel terrible for you, and I'…

This is not so alien to Europe as you seem to think. Over the past 20 years, more people per capita have died in school shootings in Germany than in the US. A European nation was in a similar situation very recently. What is maybe unique about the US is that nothing will be done, where as Germany added additional gun control laws, and probably will not ever have as deadly a decade for schools as the 2000s again. I'm…

I'm willing to give this the benefit of the doubt if there's a lack of english-language reporting, and I don't want to trivialize as it's tragic wherever it occurs, but

- Wikipedia[1] has six events dating back to 1983 plus one from 1913, with a total of 46 deaths. - CNN[2] only covers 2009-2018, with one German school shooting (to 288 American) - Infoplease[3] lists mass shootings (not just schools) worldwide from '96 to 2021, with four German shootings and 36 deaths.

At 4x the population of Germany, the US (again, Wikipedia[4]) passed 180 deaths counting from Jan 2000 to June 2014 across 65 fatal shootings (there's many more with just injuries).

Looking at just "mass" incidents (5+ deaths) to filter out all the 1-2 casualty isolated incidents in the US that get overreported, those two wikipedia sources list two German shootings with 17 and 16 deaths since 2000 compared to the US with thirteen: 10, 6, 33, 6, 7, 27, 6, 5, 10, 6, 17, 10, 22, which is a ratio over 1:5. The math for your claim does add up per capita for just the decade 2000-2009 (both German @ 33, first four US @ 55).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:School_shootings_in_G...

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/us/school-shooting-us-versus-...

[3] https://www.infoplease.com/us/crime/timeline-of-worldwide-sc...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_th...

Re: Poll: How are you doing currently?

#168

Post by dane-pgp »

SapporoChris wrote: post #78
nsriv wrote: post #26

I teach on the second floor of a city school where budget issues mean we don't have metal doors to the classrooms (older building, first floor has them). Every room has a metal cabinet though, and so our barricade procedure for the room is to lock the door, slide the cabinet in front of it, then kick out the furniture sliders from underneath the cabinet. Today, us second floor teachers pooled our personal money (near…

I do value the teaching profession, I wish the pay was better. Despite the current events, I do not think they need more protection. I am in favor of gun control and I am in no way saying there are not issues. If you look up professions with the highest death rates. Teacher's are fairly low on the list, if they show up at all. https://www.insidermonkey.com/blog/15-professions-with-the-h...

For comparison, the Washington Post[0] says:

"The Education Department reports that roughly 50 million children attend public schools for roughly 180 days per year. ... That means the statistical likelihood of any given public school student being killed by a gun, in school, on any given day since 1999 was roughly 1 in 614,000,000."

So in a given (180 day) year, such a child has a 1 in 3.4 million chance of dying, which means the equivalent annual death rate out of 100,000 children is 0.029 children.

The article you link to says that the annual death rate per 100,000 "Police and sheriff’s patrol officers" is 14.6 which is a few orders of magnitudes bigger, although children don't have as much control over whether they go to public schools as cops have over which job they do.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/school-shootings-are-...

Re: Poll: How are you doing currently?

#169

Post by armagon »

Just slogging through the day. I have trouble putting in 8 hours a day these days, but don't know what to do about it; I did tell HR I was burned out (and I don't see that I can financially afford a stress leave). I'm applying for other jobs -- maybe I can luck out and get a 4/day/week job? -- but that takes energy that I can hardly bring to bear. (Yay, coding tests!)

I did just go on a nice vacation with my wife and kids, but nearly cried when I had to get back to things, and I honestly do like working in tech. I'm looking into becoming a contractor or freelancer, but the initial plunge is scary. I did try running a small business in the past to no avail.

Re: Poll: How are you doing currently?

#170

Post by IAmWorried »

I moved back to the bay area after spending 2 years back with friends and family during the pandemic, and it's got me feeling kinda down. I have some friends here which is nice, but for the most part nobody texts me, I barely know anyone around here, today I haven't talked to a single person, and it's just got me in the dumps. And the kicker is that this is probably how it will be from here on out for the rest of my life. I'm working out, I'm adapting, I'm making changes as best I can to deal with this transition, but I find myself with a lot more negative thoughts than usual.
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