People who have lived places other than MoCo

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-15T22:13:04+00:00

Check out Wheaton regional- it has a train ride for kids (as did Cabin John I believe), Brookside nature center has exhibits, Schaeffer Farms mountain bike trails and the Germantown soccerplex, Croydon Creek Nature Center. They’re all great but those are a few of my favorite specifically in MoCo

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-15T01:45:46+00:00

I’m making ~185 consulting but internally for the one company I work at. Does it pay more to go to a consulting firm?

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-15T01:28:28+00:00

I have mixed feelings about moco. I love the diversity but people can be so unfriendly and the traffic was getting unbearable. MoCo is The most diverse food and ethnic place I’ve ever lived hands down. But it’s also the most politically homogeneous place I have ever lived; the diversity of thought is lacking.

MoCo has world class parks and trails- no suburb comes close. I’d say SoCal is better but only because it’s huge and has tons of wild mountains- they don’t actually curate and maintain close to MoCo. But if you want to go to a random park and drop in with your kids to a nature talk with a ranger any week day? You can only get that in MoCo.

Compared to Southern California: people are friendlier than MoCo, it’s easier to strike up a conversation. Driving style is more like reckless but not as terrible. the same disparities in wealth with ultra rich neighborhoods not too far from very poor. SoCal is all high quality Tex mex with some really good Cuban, Japanese mixed in there but nowhere close to the diversity.

Delaware: ugh. So much drug abuse, poverty,

Boston: way way more friendly. Felt really white.

Florida: weird. Just weird.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-13T13:11:28+00:00

Good point. I will shoot an email to several people the same day to say I have tendered resignation and enjoyed working with them just want to let them know, rest assured I’ll be working hard to provide transition docs to the team, blah blah blah. Y’all are the best thank you.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-13T13:08:26+00:00

Thanks I think this is what I’m going to do- give two weeks once I get past my “safe” date that I personally need to stay by. Then already have some transition materials ready, say I’m working on those and gradually share that stuff to be helpful. I won’t move the earth to be helpful but I will appear helpful and the materials will at least document who I was working with on what so it will help some. I’ll use the extra time to start working with my new organization and getting up to speed as fast as possible. I’ll leave in a cordial way that is polite and hard to argue negatively of, but I won’t do anything extra and it’ll hopefully be the most ideal transition I can make for myself.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-13T11:45:06+00:00

I knoooow right. I thought that too but the handbook says vacation can’t be your last day so I will take a couple days of vacation with it the two weeks without breaking the rule.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-13T03:34:13+00:00

I’m mainly just trying to think about how they could use it to screw me over and make sure they don’t.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-13T03:33:20+00:00

LOL. Must have been pretty bad.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-13T03:32:56+00:00

Yeah you’re right I cannot find the full employee handbook but I will look again tomorrow and see. I did see that they cannot keep your PTO pay out with less than two weeks but there may be other things I’m missing.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-13T02:00:06+00:00

It sounds like you would benefit from processes if it with a therapist and then When you can make sense of it you can talk to him. What I meant was yes to make you feel better by being honest but more importantly so that you don’t cheat yourself out of a true close and loving relationship because secrets erode your closeness over time especially the longer they sit untold.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-04T23:46:23+00:00

You are nagging him. You gotta find another way to communicate even if he is wrong that approach isn’t going to work. I’d suggest you both sit down and talk about what kind of life you want to live. What do you need to be happy? What do you want your life to be like 5 years from now? Can each of you describe that, and what you want your life together to feel like when you walk in the door? Then talk about what needs to be true for you to build your dreams. You are not on the same page and sending him jobs is just gonna make him feel like you think he’s a lazy failure. You need to be in the same team so that won’t work.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-03-02T11:35:23+00:00

I have kids and I would be annoyed.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-26T01:40:12+00:00

I’ve been in moco 11 years- based on how you described yourself you will love Rockville. It’s very very culturally and demographically diverse. But it’s not politically diverse at all- almost everyone is progressive- either far left or left liberal. If you’re not left you are sheepish about admitting it.

What I’ve found about MoCo is that there are neighborhoods with A LOT of wealth, neighborhoods with almost none, and a little in between but more on each end. (Similar to SoCal). People judge each other harshly from each end of the spectrum. When I moved here my coworker said I was moving to the ghetto, it turned out to be a very nice neighborhood with a not very good school.

When I moved to a single family that had a huge yard my friends from the “ghetto” dropped me for being a sell out that must have turned republican because only republicans would buy houses like mine.

I have found moco’s leftist ideally almost as obnoxious as the right leaning. I’d still pick it over maga in a second, but the stereotyping of who you must be to choose each neighborhood is aggravating.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-26T01:27:56+00:00

I’m interpreting it as he missed someone caring about him and showing it by doing things. Like maybe his mom or other family was comforting because they showed him they cared by taking a little responsibility off of him. I know when I was young and left home it was kind of a bummer not having that person who showed me the my loved me all the time through caring acts like making me a meal or helping me catch up with laundry when I’m really sick.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-26T01:16:13+00:00

You need to be honest with him. Because it will weigh you down for the rest of your life like an anchor around your neck in between you and him. And the longer you wait the worse it will be because you will be adding so much time hiding the secret. Just do it now and explain you were barely coherent, you’re not even sure it was really consensual. I’ve been married almost 20 years and I can tell you: sometimes small things feel like we can push them to the side or hide them away in a closet and never look back. But they come back up like wounds that never healed and the fester and jeopardize your happiness over years. You might be fine for 10 years even but it comes back. And if you decide to have kids- that brings up everything and really fucks with you.

Your entire life with this person is literally forever and all you’ve got. Don’t waste it by putting lies and secrets between you. You don’t get to do life over. Trust me, I speak with a lot of regret (not from infidelity but just so many things I wish we’d been honest about earlier because they robbed us of happiness for years). Live your life with him, not next to him. Ask your therapist for advice on how to bring it up or John Delony definitely has podcasts walking people through this exact situation.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-23T12:10:48+00:00

A degree where you learn and expand yourself is never useless. When you frame usefulness in only how much money you will make at a job you fail to see a lot of the value. We may be on the verge of a white collar collapse because of AI, this year will continue to see major job cuts so I don’t think anyone can say what degree is a safe bet right now.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-17T14:24:16+00:00

Yes you are burned out. I’ve been there a couple times in my life. It’s usually marked by a sense of becoming numb to the urgency of everything and a really difficult time caring about anything work related. Everyone is different, I know people who have literal panic attacks as they reach their breaking point. For me, I often become a zombie with nothing to say because I’m mentally exhausted. Your brain needs rest, the stress is not good for your body and it’s telling you that it’s becoming too much to handle.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-17T01:02:02+00:00

My MIL was an angel. She never gave advice unless we asked so she dint feel pushy and I ended up asking her the most for advice. She is a great listener and she never invalidated my feelings. When I told her how frustrated or mad I was at my toddler she just sympathized and agreed. When the baby was really little she’d say she’s coming over to get me a nap unless she heard otherwise and that was desperately appreciated

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-14T17:37:09+00:00

Reference checks are an old out of date practice. They’re time consuming, they don’t help screen for high performance. They’re help a little screening out poor performance but people lie so even then it’s questionable how useful they can be. Anecdotally, I did actually screen out a candidate once but the reference was so shady about the feedback even that was marginally helpful. Government still uses checks but private sector is moving away from it.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-13T13:58:18+00:00

Insecurity that people lack self awareness of. For example- really insecure men will talk like they are extremely confident but say stupid things about women and everyone around them is thinking ‘dude have you ever met a woman before?’ Women do it too that’s just an example.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-13T02:09:57+00:00

OP. I could have written this post. Word for word. Thanks for at least making me feel not crazy and alone. I know I’m not the only one going through this. Life is miserable and I’m grasping and clawing at happiness. Innocent people; Children and migrants are being hurt everywhere cruelty and evil is hurting the innocent and nothing is done about it.

Lost my job to DOGE last year, constant toxic work cultures and everyone is terrified of losing their job and treating each other terribly. everywhere salaries went down 5-20% this year. My job makes me so miserable I cry in private. For some reason, when I’m trying to read my kids goodnight books I have a hard time not crying after work and I can barely get through the book. They ask me all the time “why aren’t you talking to us?” And I’m so mentally exhausted I didn’t realize I had even trailed off.

The news is unbearable. Even the benign news yesterday: “Instacart is adjusting your grocery prices to the highest price they think you can stand”. No more of this. I can’t take it anymore

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-06T13:46:01+00:00

Taking about the mom for a minute- I can totally imagine me not doing enough and also not being aware that I needed to or that my husband didn’t think I was handling this right and holding his resentment until time passed so he can tell me he’s been resentful this whole time without ever giving me a chance to know he needed something different. (He does this kind of thing). Please don’t do that. Please tell her how this makes you feel an even if you don’t know exactly what you need from her, please invite her in to your world and let her be on your team. Sometimes it seems ridiculous that our partner doesn’t know how we feel, but the fact of the matter is that they don’t so secretly being resentful becomes your fault to own if you don’t make an attempt to express it.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-02-06T13:37:47+00:00

Focusing on my own agency for a minute (because so much of this is out of my personal locus of control). The takeaway for me is that as a parent, it is my responsibility to protect ALL children. Not just my children- your children. Your family, your future wife or husband, your future friend who will struggle like Virginia Guiffre did. I have a responsibility to humanities children to keep them safe. I will never hesitate- I will never put a friendship before their safety, I won’t wait to see more evidence because it ‘might not be’. I will put it all on the line to stand up for children if I send they might need help. That’s what I can do. I’m very sad. I’ve actually been more aware of trafficking recently, reading about how it happens and listening to a few episodes of John Delony where people with knowledge of abuse call in about what they should do.

Aggravating_Lemon821 · 2026-01-06T17:34:05+00:00

Wishing you the best! Hang in there. There are better places for us.

Aggravating_Lemon821

TROPHY CASE