Benjaben

I have a good friend that sounds kind of similar. She's historically the most active among our friend group usually, generally the most fit and capable (she did the Alcatraz swim, for example). Eats completely reasonably, at times very well (due to what you're describing). But she's just always kinda large, even at her smallest. It's always struck me as extremely unfair, like you said, and she's really suffered for it.

I don't know your situation, but she's currently living her best life. Happy family with kids, loving kind partner, rewarding job in a stunningly beautiful (if fairly remote) location. And she deserves it, she's a wonderful human.

But boy did she suffer frustration and hopelessness on repeat along the way. Nearly gave up on trying for the life she wanted more than once. And I fully recognize the deck is stacked in some important ways against folks like y'all, so please don't read my "happy outcome" story as contradicting anything you said. But don't give up on what ya want.

What an incredible experience that must have been.

My friend, the trumpet, well played, is one of the finest and most expressive instruments to ever grace earkind, how could you feel this way? Can deliver ~every possible emotion, a range of volume starting at "drunken disappointed groan" and reaching "holy shit ouch stop", only got a few little twiddly bits, fits in your hand. Shiny.

Defend your position!

That graphic in the second link, holy shit

Self-hosting isn't some silver bullet. Poorly self-hosted stuff is way less secure than large corporate cloud-based services. There are very few organizations that can successfully craft a secure IT environment for themselves.

Oh for chrisakes. I also donate to The Wikimedia Foundation, feeling secure in the knowledge that at least I could feel good about that one. Time to do some reading I guess.

Thanks, this is super useful context. I was also scratching my head how something broadly positive was coming out of De Joy, who has certainly worked to dismantle USPS from what I remember.

We sure need some reminders these days it seems

Edited to add: not a dig at commenter above whatsoever, more just a reflection on our (including my!) ignorance about the history of labor. Bout every little thing that makes working life better in the US came from organized labor forcing it to happen, and most of us have no idea.

Ugh, poor error reporting is such a frustrating time sink.

The hilarious part about your comment is you're the one over-explaining to me here. I'm super familiar with about every way a man can be characteristically shitty, happen to have witnessed most of it first hand over the years, committed some of the milder stuff before I grew up and learned how to behave, but here you are kindly helping me understand things about men. Interestingly, of all the things I have witnessed, what I don't really see often is "mansplaining". What I do see sometimes is a dude earnestly doing his best to offer help and someone else being totally uncharitable about that, like it's some affront. And never to the dude oddly enough, only in a mocking, condescending way to others behind his back. The reason I see those ugly hidden reactions, incidentally, is because my behavior makes it clear I'm a solid ally of the people making those comments, and they trust me.

So I dunno. Way I see it, there's a catalog of valid complaints about stereotypical dude behavior. But being super critical about sincere (if clumsy) attempts to support or help someone just always strikes me as deliberately nasty, for fun. But you do you.

Don't bother with the TV sitcoms, please. "Bumbling idiot father who fucks up even the most trivial things constantly and is roundly shit on by everyone including his own children" is a core, continuous joke behind so many shows. And fuck it, often it's hilarious, I'm not gonna get bent outta shape about it. Your "see, look how toxic, it's been on TV forever" feels pretty weak.

Can't forget the fun flip side too, where some guys who know a lot are unwilling to share, because they (being fuckin cowards) feel it's necessary to protect their job security by being the only one who knows how to do certain things.

Or! The guys who know how to do things - have decided they hate doing some of those things (usually for good reason in my experience) - and therefore pretend they don't know how to do them. I kinda sympathize with this one sometimes.

But yeah, "likes to teach" as the toxic trait? Anyone who thinks that is the toxic version of knowledge sharing is kinda just revealing how little time they've actually spent around men.

Completely agree! It's SO much easier to lighten the mood and keep things upbeat and productive in an actual conversation vs. just text-based feedback. For example it makes it easy to throw in self-deprecating anecdotes of your own when discussing mistakes / needed changes, which can really help put juniors at ease. It's just worlds better in >90% of scenarios.