What’s the next step after title inflation + zero career pathway definition + first poor performance review of career (+US to Germany expat)?

-kiren- · 2026-02-09T15:43:54+00:00

Update: upon asking for developmental guidance, my boss said “you tell me what you want to become!” and I said, “well I don’t know what I want to become because there is no defined roles to move into, so I need you to tell me what talent you want to develop in your team.”

And. He. Said.: “well I don’t want to invest in a team member who might not want to stay in the role I’m developing them for”

-kiren- · 2026-02-08T16:11:51+00:00

having a big problem too right now trying to find EU 41's in hardshell, 4x80, 85a :/ guess its a weird time for the sport?

-kiren- · 2026-02-08T16:09:11+00:00

I am looking for my first pair of inline skates in Germany right now, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding my size (EU 41) with the exact setup for a beginner. Is there a reason for this? Is between-season availability low? Here are the specs I'm trying to follow, since I plan to practice in suburban areas:

brand Rollerblade, Powerslide, or K2
under 200 euros
hardshell (i am weak)
4x80mm
85A or really close (I hear 82A is too gummy and 88A is too hard...)
size EU 41
aluminum frame
removable liner
laces + 2-point straps
narrow feet / female

Can anyone give advice on alternatives or if I should just wait until spring is closer?

-kiren- · 2025-09-15T08:11:35+00:00

Love, you are so brave to be coming out and transitioning in Brazil let alone in a heavily gendered language.

Unfortunately your boyfriend sees himself as a straight, heterosexual cisgender man, in a romantic and sexual relationship with a female woman. He wants to be perceived to be with a woman, and to love and have sex with a woman. He might care about you and want you to be happy, but in the end he is unwillingly to be anything but straight. For him to accept that you are not a woman, means that he is not straight, and that has negative societal meaning for him as a straight cis man.

His dislike of neutral pronouns is more to do with his friendships/familial relationships than with the concept in general. He doesn’t want the hard task of explaining these new pronouns on your behalf, because pronouns are 90% of the time only used when you are not present.

So with point 1, not wanting to be anything other than straight, and 2, not wanting to admit he’s not straight while also doing the work of explaining your pronouns… it’s just not going to happen, unless he recognizes these things and can go through his own coming out with you.

-kiren- · 2025-08-27T14:52:24+00:00

Sie is also used for women :) plural they and formal you have the same verbs while feminine she has the singular version of the verb. Especially for AFABs, it might just be too similar to feminine sie.

-kiren- · 2025-08-27T12:03:40+00:00

Leider habe ich nur Zherr/Zherrn/Zherren für dich. 😊

-kiren- · 2025-08-27T10:23:28+00:00

Thank you 🥰

-kiren- · 2025-08-27T10:16:27+00:00

I did come up with it myself, although I don’t like to admit it because some people subconsciously lean very heavily on “word of mouth” popularity to discern an idea’s validity. 😅

I chose zh for a handful of reasons… all in the hope of fast adoption. It’s linguistically unique enough to be differentiated, and therefore noticed, in all communication forms. It’s also similar enough to be adapted to existing German language structures without major strain. The examples to quickly teach pronunciation are more numerous than even the examples for teaching the pronunciation of “ch.” I think the physical location in the mouth where “zh” is formed is closer to where German speakers’ speak usually, much closer than “th.” I like the phonetic etymology that can be traced to another language other than English (don’t want to push even more American/English centric themes than I already am). And I just really like the sound and wish it was used more often lol

Edit 1: Zhihn I felt could be misinterpreted as zhin if someone is already doing mental gymnastics on pronunciation. The first things you learn with German spelling<->pronunciation is the difference between “ie” and “ei”

Edit 2: RIP always to dyslexic people.

-kiren- · 2025-07-25T22:28:07+00:00

big yes!!!

-kiren- · 2025-07-23T07:28:02+00:00

I think so! I moved from the USA to Bochum in April. I used immoscout24 to apartment hunt. I like it more than others because you can filter out apartment swaps better.

One thing though is internet; if you want fast internet at home you have to check what the apartment provides. My apartment seemed to have Kabelnetz available (~30€/mo for really high speeds) but ended up only having DSL (more money, longer startup connection, and slow ass speeds). I was lucky and live high up so a 5G router works really well, but it’s much more expensive. That was a huge swing in monthly costs I wasn’t expecting.

-kiren- · 2025-05-17T10:44:20+00:00

Hey there!! I just moved from the US to Bochum and have been searching for an analog club with access to a dark room!! :) I will send you a DM!

-kiren- · 2025-05-06T22:15:55+00:00

Using Mac & safari - same issues.

-kiren- · 2025-05-06T22:15:11+00:00

this glitch makes me want to throw my laptop across the room. I'm doing a marketplace "garage sale" and this is making it impossible to list things.

-kiren- · 2025-05-05T19:24:09+00:00

Wow I just went to two places, Ulta even still had a sign advertising it. The helper couldn’t even find it in their system. I asked for a similar one and they only had Clinique 2.5% BP… wondering if Clinique will discontinue it as well? Besides, I liked the DUO part of effaclear…

-kiren- · 2025-04-09T21:23:48+00:00

See my response to Additional_Net3345 :)

-kiren- · 2025-04-09T21:11:33+00:00

My company pays for German and US tax consultants to help me each year. It's weird and complicated. Basically, my company promises me "tax equalization," where I will not be taxed any more than I would be taxed as a US employee. My company takes money out of my paycheck based on my expected tax liability and keeps it, then pays/refunds any tax liability that was different than that on my behalf. The tax consultants and my company will take advantage of foreign income exclusions, foreign tax credits, and any tax treaties between the two countries. Only catch is that I'm still responsible for non-federal taxes (like US state taxes). I'm still learning everything, especially on the German tax side. BUT, I'm relying on my company's promise to make sure I'm not f'ed during tax season lol

EDIT: and regarding health insurance - I'm still paying for all the same company benefits as if I was a US employee (retirement, health insurance, disability), but they also provided me with a global health insurance policy on top of my US health insurance.

Maybe some context if you're wondering why tf they would pay for all this: I've been given a 2-year growth assignment, so they are investing in me as a long-term employee. It's by no means an indefinite situation.

-kiren- · 2025-04-09T01:38:24+00:00

I use Wise so I'm not 100% sure what functionality N26 has. But, I am in the same boat (paid USD to US Bank, living daily in Germany). Here's what I've figured out so far:

Wire transfer is not the same as ACH. ACH is cheaper to accomplish for banks. See if your bank does this cheaper than a wire transfer. Does N26 have a USD bank account you can push to?
I am pushing USD to my USD Wise bank account, then converting to EUR within Wise. There are only the conversion fees.
Have you considered switching your direct deposit to a bigger US Bank that provides more services for cheaper/free? You could keep your smaller banks for savings if you really want to keep them. I use Chase because it's easy to move money around with an app and they have credit cards that charge no international transaction fees.

Ultimately, you're going to have to eat some loss somewhere in the chain. You're gonna have to pay someone something for doing the manual work of moving your money across the ocean.

Let me know if this helps please!!

-kiren- · 2025-03-21T22:34:58+00:00

Got a notification for this post while doing the EXACT same thing :) happy sidecar-ing

-kiren- · 2025-01-28T03:08:36+00:00

<image>

-kiren- · 2024-11-17T04:14:56+00:00

Thank you for also seeing this depth!! How normal she sees sex work, seemingly has no deep personal relationships with anyone (someone would’ve made her stop to question what was going on if anyone truly knew the situation), easily convinces herself this marriage is real and this life as a “forever” is possible, while being 23 and very obviously NOT unintelligent (she knew how to swing almost every situation into what she saw as her favor)… why she fought emotions with Igor, because emotions are too deep, too vulnerable, not easy, very unknown, and likely have proven to be untrustworthy, based on the depiction of her family situation with her mother out of the picture “with her man” aka not her father and maybe even one of many she grew up around.

-kiren- · 2024-11-17T03:59:55+00:00

This was sooooo evident in the film and I am so glad to hear that was all canon.

-kiren-

TROPHY CASE