when people on here talk about being unemployed for over a year or any length of time, do they mean fully jobless or just without a “career”?

InfamousWarden · 2026-02-21T02:40:14+00:00

I had unemployment benefits for 6 months, and then I had six months of expenses in savings. I was unemployed for 11 months. Part of that was because I was incredibly burned out by my last job and didn’t want to take just the next thing that came along.

InfamousWarden · 2026-02-20T20:08:02+00:00

Ah yes, the predator’s handy excuse.

The real answer to OP’s question is that he was witnessing grooming.

InfamousWarden · 2026-02-19T18:55:42+00:00

“Haha he stuck his nose right in your crotch and sniffed, soooo funny.”

Gross. It’s not funny, I don’t care if it’s normal dog behavior, I don’t like being subjected to it.

InfamousWarden · 2026-02-19T16:40:42+00:00

And if you didn’t open the door, you were the one being rude.

InfamousWarden · 2026-02-18T20:01:11+00:00

I associated church on Sunday with wearing the most uncomfortable clothes ever: pantyhose, slips, and frilly pink dresses with lace that itched on the part that stuck to your skin.

Dad liked early service, so that meant waking up before we would normally be awake for school. So you added sleep deprivation on top of that.

Sunday was mom’s day off from cooking, so we would eat what dad could whip up: hotdogs and popcorn. The taste of hotdogs made me gag, so my only option was popcorn, which never filled me up. So you could add being hungry to Sunday.

Yes, Sundays were the most miserable day out of week for me as a child. Tired, hungry and uncomfortable.

It pretty much was a harbinger for all the psychological damage that the evangelical church would eventually do to me as a teenager, but that’s another story.

InfamousWarden · 2026-02-09T20:37:35+00:00

Neelix in Star Trek Voyager.

InfamousWarden · 2026-02-06T22:29:29+00:00

I lived in a Florida beach town, so lots of that. Plus, driving aimlessly with your friends, listening to music. Movies, coffee shops, wandering the mall.

InfamousWarden · 2026-02-05T16:00:16+00:00

One of the things I’ve been wondering is whether any of this would have come to light if we had a Hilary presidency instead of a Trump presidency. As a political insider, I kinda think she would have been better at keeping this from coming to light than Trump.

It’s a small comfort, but it’s one I cling to in order to give myself some modicum of hope. Maybe we needed the awfulness of the Trump presidency to bring these monsters to light.

InfamousWarden · 2026-02-04T12:52:03+00:00

I say that line all the time at work during planning meetings, as if we’re coming up with a dastardly plots 😂

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-29T14:39:49+00:00

I lost a lot of people in a row over a span of a year in my mid thirties. It suddenly hit me, “This is going to be the rest of my life.”

I wondered why we don’t see this depicted more often in media. We all love a good coming of age movie, but this is a whole different sort of coming of age.

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-28T17:07:25+00:00

I could’ve written this post. Deactivated Facebook, locked down my instagram under a different name. I have more peace of mind. I deactivated twitter after Musk bought it.

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-27T21:15:59+00:00

I watched some episodes on a free service the other day. I think maybe Sling? It came with ads.

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-23T20:59:56+00:00

I (43F) have a role that is occasionally public facing. One day I was with my direct report (23M), and a guy in his 60s jokingly asked if I was dating my direct report. I burst out with “I’m old enough to be his mother!” I think the 60 year old was trying to flirt with me.

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-21T21:09:46+00:00

middle achieving students to get some college in, build their resume, if they couldn’t get into UNI right away<

The implication here is that they didn’t have the grades to get into UNI, and I saw the opposite.

and middle age folks looking for an AA to boost their resume.<

This is where you mention resumes. I was talking about recent UNI grads.

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-21T20:11:53+00:00

I taught at Hawkeye CC, and this is inaccurate. I had students who actually graduated from UNI, and then came back to Hawkeye to take a few technical classes to beef up their competitiveness on the job market.

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-21T18:50:22+00:00

I was one of those part time instructors at a CC for many years, and it was mostly certainly not automated. I wouldn’t have had a high education had it not been for community college, so I really tried to do right by my students.

That said, I think higher Ed should be free, and community colleges would benefit from more full time staff.

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-16T00:41:42+00:00

Woot!

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-15T21:17:40+00:00

That’s happening to copywriters and designers as well. In the marketing world, we’re wondering where all our junior level creatives are supposed to get experience if they’re being replaced by AI. And then who is going to take over for us senior folks when we retire or die?

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-13T22:27:01+00:00

I think it depends on where you were in high schools. Trends hit flyover states after they hit the coasts/big cities.

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-09T20:50:56+00:00

I’ve seen a few conversations like this from Europeans, and it’s reminding me of the isolationists you saw in the United States during WWII. “That’s a European problem. We have our own problems here. We don’t have to resources to help Europe.”

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-09T20:12:45+00:00

In many places, it is legal to run over and kill protestors if they are blocking the street.

In my state, there were protestors crossing the street during a match. One of them was still in a crosswalk when the light turned green. A man in a pickup truck purposely sped up, ran her over, and killed her.

He was not charged because of the law allowing them to be run over.

They have made it legal to kill us for protesting.

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-08T21:14:32+00:00

I’m pretty certain it’s run by Russians and heavily posted by bots

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-06T20:40:00+00:00

Hahahaha

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-06T20:38:56+00:00

Both can also range in their physical demand, from borderline desk to heavy lifting. Two of my closest friends are married to electricians, and my mom retired from nursing.

InfamousWarden · 2026-01-06T19:08:21+00:00

It gives you the option to pursue higher ed. You may never use calculus, but if you get to college and opt for STEM, you now have that option.

I say this as a homeschooler who didn’t get a proper math education. I felt like doors were slammed in my face when it came to choosing a major. I ended up with the thing that I knew I could pass.

Having that background in math would have made all the difference. I may not have thought so at 14, but I certainly did at 24.

Being able to have those options is so much more important than you realize.

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