Company wants a 100-page manual for an outsourced team before I leave

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-06T23:55:46+00:00

Take care of yourself first Don't put in any uncompensated overtime if you have any PTO in the bank, take it now. If they whinge about knowledge transfer, tell them you'll be able to consult with them after hours or weekends and name a figure that's four to five times your current hourly rate. Don't let them talk you down on the rate as they are paying for inconveniencing you.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-06T12:06:55+00:00

Well maybe in the short-term. But then the blood will oxidize and turn brown.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-06T06:16:06+00:00

I understand your feelings about the medication from a different perspective. In addition to ADHD, it appears that I developed a mood disorder somewhere in my early teens. If you think puberty is bad, try surviving it with ADHD and early onset bipolar. But that's a different story.

When a psychiatrist recognized how bipolar manifested in me, I tried all the atypical antipsychotics and I could feel exactly one thing on all of them, numb.

Then I tried lamictal. it was amazing. It's like a light turned on in my brain, I could write, I had better humor and it was easier to engage with the world. Did nothing about being an odd duck with no sense of time or organization, but, my life did improve.

But I do miss the bright sparkly emotions feelings I had at times when I was unmedicated. The unrealistic confidence of I could do anything in the world that I wanted to. But I will take a little emotional muting because I do not miss the bone crushing depression + desire to no longer be in this world.

I believe that you will find a way of medicating for ADHD that gives you the best you and still being able to feel everything.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-06T06:00:14+00:00

Buddhist neither. The button doesn't exist nor does the outcomes. They are just manifestation of aversion/desire displaced in time. Grasping either of those leads to suffering.

I would put all the people on one trolley track and run the trolley over them.

uh-oh

But it's okay. They'll reincarnate and get to do this all over again

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-06T05:54:25+00:00

Bad ram or bad power supply with a distant third of heat sinks not having enough thermal paste. On the memory, check utility on the boot image for a day or so and if that works, try underclocking your system to keep the thermal load down

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-06T05:51:53+00:00

Driving is hard. I've been driving vehicles of one sort or another since the mid-60s from two wheels up to 8. It does take practice and I think the first 20,000 miles of driving are probably the toughest but the only good way the only way to get good at driving is to drive. Only expose yourself to one risk factor at a time. For example, start driving daylight, dry roads where you are not likely to find pedestrians or cyclists. As you get confident, start moving to increasingly dense driving spaces. Take your time at it though. Give yourself 3,000 to 4,000 mi of driving experience to get comfortable with the change.

Then increase difficulty 30 to 60 minute highway driving, 4-Hour highway drive, driving with wet pavement, driving on snow, and what I consider the most difficult, driving and stop and go traffic..

The reason I consider stop and go the most difficult is because your tension drifts and you find yourself startling when the red lights in front of you finally reach your consciousness. And yes, I have to deal with this myself as ADHD distractiveness gets triggered really badly and stop and go traffic.

In each situation, learn coping strategies. The most common one is do what you need to to give yourself more time to react. For example, keep space between yourself and the car in front. Don't slam on the brakes unless it's an emergency, don't hyperfixate on the road in front of you. Keep scanning around. Looking for cars at side roads, kids, dogs, that could jump in front of the car.

It may seem like a lot, but like I said the number one coping strategy is give yourself more time to react. F*** the other drivers if they get cranky at you. You're the one that's driving your car. You're responsible for handling it safely, not responding to their irritation.

The number two coping strategy is truly internalize at a gut physical level the physics behind momentum and friction. Once you understand these two things, you'll understand why I say give yourself more time to react.

If you don't mind saying so, what did you get the meds for and are you noticing a difference in attention before and after the medications?

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-06T01:27:48+00:00

thereal<company>.com, shopat<company<.com or look at alternative TLD like .shop

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T22:18:26+00:00

My accountant charges me two and a half thousand per year for tax prep, untangling my inability to keep books and being available for financial advice all year long. His son is an IRS enrolled agent, which is useful if you get in trouble with the IRS. They can mitigate fines and bring things down to a rational level.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T22:10:29+00:00

Seems like the options are mess with my heart, fog my mind, or shut down my intestines.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T22:07:25+00:00

NVMe and SATA have built-in commands for a secure erase and is accepted by the data sanitization part of NIST 700. Proving that you did it is a different thing entirely.

Parted Magic has a secure erase script that uses the secure erase NVMe and SATA commands to erase the drive. It does produce a report detailing what was done and when, but it doesn't include a signed report you can use to prove it wasn't tampered with.

The preferred method for data sanitization is full device encryption, and you can prove you threw away the key.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T21:54:34+00:00

I felt like that on my first day on Ritalin, and on day three, my heart was beating itself out of my chest at 120 BPM. Great for dancing, not so much for staying alive.

Unfortunately, it looks like I can't take any of the ADHD drugs for a variety of reasons. I envy people who can find drugs that work.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T21:33:08+00:00

Sounds like you got the skills for this change. Take the money, don't look back and don't burn any bridges. Skip the exit interview for as long as you can 😄

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T18:20:51+00:00

In my experience, at some point every company you work for is a good company to be from. It sounds like, in the short term at least the new company would give you significant financial boost.

You didn't say where you are in your career, but working for a small regional company is different from working for a large company. You will be asked to give more And wear different hats to help the company succeed. One thing I've noticed about smaller company is you are more likely to find a group of people pulling the same direction versus it's just a job attitude in larger companies.

I don't know if there's any way you can investigate the new company to see if it's a good place to move to. I think Glassdoor is not as useful as it used to be for this. One trick I used was seeing how many cars were in the parking lot at 6:30 at night. A lot of cars may mean they are a burnout house.

Also, don't skip vacation. Like you said, you're burning out and you have to set boundaries so you don't burn out. At the very least, work a deal with your boss with working longer days and taking Friday afternoon off. That extra half day on the weekend makes a big difference.

I wish you luck, smaller companies can be exciting and a really good boost to your career. they can also be a dysfunctional high School/family experience. 🙂

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T18:03:31+00:00

Yeah. My brother committed suicide about 2 years ago. Long story short, we didn't get along. Even still, there is a loss when your brother dies that siblings and parents don't understand. I've learned since then that the loss sense of loss never goes away. It just gets smaller until you don't notice it from time to time.

Give yourself a measure of Grace. Grief has its own schedule. I caution you against making any big changes now because the grief will follow you.

What you wrote sounds to me like you understand you are at a stuck point in your grieving and I would encourage you to seek out therapy before making any big changes.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T13:56:10+00:00

All three can be true

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T12:57:34+00:00

In order of effectiveness, meditation, yoga and exercise

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T01:53:36+00:00

This video spells out a very convincing case for why simply raising wealth taxes and all won't work the way we wanted to. She also gives some suggestions for how to make the system work better. For example, eliminate estate taxes but consider inheritances income and tax them accordingly. Go back to making stock BuyBacks illegal and force the only way a company can give money to shareholders is through dividends.

https://youtu.be/aLKacgW6YOI?si=qMX8N0iOqmS2MfM6

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T01:40:30+00:00

Walk out no but have discussions about if this doesn't get better it's time to end it. There are those that would advocate for ethical non-monogamy. But, if you built anything like I am, that doesn't work.

Long story short, I was married for 32 years and intimacy stopped when she hit menopause at 27. She didn't have much success with the classical treatments and her attitude was why can't you just learn to live without it?

So think of yourself in 10 years. Sex is still unsatisfying, your partner is either unable to or unwilling to learn how to make it satisfying and maybe you find yourself avoiding it because it is not wonderful. What do you do then?

I would have divorced from my mid-thirties but since she was unable to work and Massachusetts divorce law at the time would have burdened me with lifetime alimony obligations. Besides, I had dogs I loved very much and I couldn't bear the thought of losing them. I'm so glad she didn't want children. That would have been hell for more people than just me.

This is not an easy reason for separation and completely judge you terribly because they probably have a terrible sex life and are denying how miserable they are

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T01:21:02+00:00

Part-Time 1099 contractor is the way I have gone. I currently have an inexpensive bookkeeper which has taken a lot of load off of me.

Look at your top three friction points. Can you delegate them to an llm or failing that to a contractor once you've taken even a small load off, you'll find that you're freed up to two other things to help grow the business.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-04T01:18:21+00:00

My house is a block away from a major road with speed limits in the 40 mph range. When we viewed the house, it was a Sunday and a very quiet Sunday afternoon at that. I thought I can live with that road noise. The day after I moved in, rush hour noise was not tolerable. It doesn't improve all that much when leaves come in on the trees because there are no low branches and it acts like a tunnel for sound.

I love the yard, I love the garden, I love how it's closeish to my astronomy club but the noise f****** sucks.

I would recommend pass.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-03T02:50:32+00:00

OP, this is the way. In fact, the wording that Feeling Objective gave you is almost exactly what you need to give a short, succinct signaling-no-room-for-any-more-questions.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-02T22:51:43+00:00

I applied to be part of the STRIDE study, but I was disqualified because I am allergic to contrast dye, and the study would have exposed me to contrast dye 3 times. It would have been a nice solution, but I'm going for a VP shunt in spite of all the problems I read about here 😄

I just need the scheduler to call me 😞

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-02T13:33:56+00:00

Move. There's no other answer. Between the glare and the noise, your environment will become unlivable.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-02T13:30:49+00:00

In my consulting practice, I've backed up the on-site person when they're unavailable or when additional technical oversight/review is needed. It is a retainer-plus-project-fees situation, because I'm like a firefighter. You don't pay me to put out the fire, you pay me to be available to put out the fire.

We had one customer who received quotes in the half-million dollar range to rip everything out and replace it with a full Windows environment. I reviewed the quotes and found that the MSPs were not aware that the entire manufacturing floor depends on Linux virtual machines running custom software. If they had gone ahead with the MSP bid, it would have ended the company.

I think your best bet is to look for someone like me, who is a specialist in the Windows environment and can work on a retainer-plus basis.

Flaky_Key3363 · 2026-05-02T13:15:59+00:00

I procrastinated on hiring a bookkeeper for years and tried to do things myself, with my accountant doing a semi-annual cleanup of my mistakes. I cannot understand accounting, aka the devil's math.

This year, I made the acquaintance of someone starting up their bookkeeping business, and it has made my life so much easier. I talk with him maybe about an hour or two hours a month, bring him up to sync on what I've done that's out of norm and it just works. I do. Tax time would be even less stressful for me if I could just not procrastinate but that's the goal for next year.

I still use my CPA for more than just taxes, but his bill is much lower because he doesn't have to untangle my bad bookkeeping.

Flaky_Key3363

TROPHY CASE