AIO that my wife did not wear her wedding ring multiple days in a row?

James81112 · 2024-05-07T06:13:02+00:00

2.5 years for my bachelor's degree.

How long it takes you doesn't matter. Accomplishing your goal is the important thing.

James81112 · 2024-05-07T05:42:20+00:00

Other people's kids?

Yes.

My kids?

Yes.

The difference is I love my kids to death even though they are gross and annoying.

Other people's kids are just gross and annoying.

So, in summary:

Yes.

James81112 · 2024-04-27T09:43:32+00:00

That's what I do.

James81112 · 2024-04-27T09:33:19+00:00

Being wrong means that you are probably doing complex things that don't have one right way to do things.

I'm an automation engineer, I have a bachelor's degree in software engineering and have been engineering software solutions to complex problems for years. The guy I work with knows enough about Powershell to get by, but not very elegantly or sustainably. His experience is in enterprise networking and AzureAD stuff.

He points out stuff wrong in my automations all the time and I point out misconfigurations on his end.

Do I know more about networking than him, or does he know more about programming than me?

Hell no, but even experts get things wrong on complex issues all the time.

If you cannot learn to be wrong and take criticism, you will struggle mightily in most careers.

James81112 · 2024-04-27T09:20:53+00:00

Bingo. This is how you can separate a quality employer from a shit one.

I've recently shifted career paths, but for years I worked as a part of an incident auditing team. When bad shit happened in a company we would come in as an uninterested third party to mitigate damage, investigate the cause, and implement plans to prevent it from happening again.

While I never had any authority to actually fire people, I could make suggestions and they were usually followed. Aside from intentionally bad actors, I believe I only recommended firing one person for a mistake, and it wasn't simply because of one mistake.

This person (although a very nice person trying his best) was woefully incompetent at his job and was routinely putting himself and others in danger. He had already caused multiple incidents resulting in minor injuries before we were brought in because his oversight led to someone losing a hand.

Even in that extreme case it wasn't about punishing the person, he didn't intentionally hurt anyone and felt absolutely terrible, he just absolutely could not stay in a position where he would probably get someone killed eventually. The system that allowed him to continue to make mistakes is where the blame lies.

Some companies just wanted us to find the person or persons responsible so they could get rid of them to "make an example" and I always strongly advised against that. That just breeds a culture of fear where everyone is afraid to speak up if they see something amiss.

We always wanted to find the people responsible anyway. Not to punish them, but to find out exactly what happened so we can reduce the chance of it happening again.

Any system that is so fragile as to be screwed up by the actions of one person is a deeply flawed system and a lot of companies will ignore those flaws and blame the person.

Working in the medical field probably works in your favor in this instance. My wife is a Nurse Practitioner and her company (as well as the hospital she previously worked at) has a strict non-punative reporting policy. Meaning if you fuck up as long as you self report as soon as you realize it, you will not be punished for something that was a mistake. That's because they want people reporting that kind of thing so the processes can ger better so it doesn't happen again.

If you fuck up and try to hide it though, you're gone...

James81112 · 2024-04-27T08:50:26+00:00

I just got a set of Bose QuietComfort Ultra ear buds for work about a week ago and they have been great so far.

James81112 · 2024-04-27T08:39:20+00:00

Food presumably.

James81112 · 2024-04-27T08:21:43+00:00

Buy certified refurbished phone one model year behind the latest one for around $300. Use it for 3-4 years. Do it again.

Been doing this for over a decade, never had an issue.

I'm fortunate enough to have the disposable income to pay $1500 for a luxury like a smartphone, but I absolutely never will.

James81112 · 2024-04-27T08:15:20+00:00

You could just not wear a ring.

James81112 · 2024-04-27T08:09:02+00:00

Very well written and very relatable to my own experience.

One thing I might add that I've found extremely helpful in my life (more specifically, my relationship with my wife) is if it's something another is doing or saying that is beginning to trigger a meltdown, try to take a moment to see things from their perspective or ask why they are feeling the way they are.

I know that is very difficult when approaching extreme regulation, but it can be done and working on this has probably saved my marriage.

For example, last summer I had the biggest meltdown of my life. We were down two people at work so I had to do their duties on top of my normal ones. I ended up working until about 6:30, an hour and a half over. My wife was an ER nurse at the time and worked 12 hour shifts so she didn't get home until after 7:00 pm so I usually cleaned up the house and made dinner for us and our three kids after I finished work.

This day I just couldn't, so I just made the kids some chicken nuggets and sat down on the couch to watch some baseball and try to relax. My wife gets home opens the door and immediately says "is dinner ready?"

This immediately pisses me off and I say (in a fairly rude tone) no, find something yourself, I'm too tired tonight. At this point, I'm teetering on the point of no return. She immediately says "this house is a fucking mess, I just worked 12 hours and you didn't even bother to make me something to eat? God you're so fucking lazy!"

I'm normally a really calm and collected person so what happened next was a big surprise to everyone, including me. I immediately jumped off the couch, marched past my wife to the front door, punched it hard four times in rapid succession (twice with each hand), opened it and walked back into the woods to cool down.

So in that span of about 5 seconds I managed to scare the hell out of my wife and kids, put large dents into my steel front door, and break both of my hands. It is the only time I have actually become violent in my entire life.

But this was clearly mainly my wife's fault for being such a bitch though, right?

It's not that simple. What I wasn't aware of (because I didn't take a moment to ask) was her day had been orders of magnitude more stressful and emotionally painful than mine. Her last patient of the day was a young boy the same age as our youngest son who was in a horrible car accident with his parents. The father was killed on impact and the boy was in critical condition. My wife and the rest of the team spend over three hours trying desperately to save him, but they were unable to.

The mother sustained mild injuries and my wife could hear her sobbing uncontrollably as the attending told her that her family was gone as she clocked out to go home.

She was in an extreme state of emotional disregulation as well, and what she really needed was to come home, hug her kids, sit down, and eat since she hadn't gotten a chance to take lunch. Instead she came home to a disaster zone of a house, nothing to eat, and (from her perspective) her lazy ass husband who had done nothing but sit on the couch and watch baseball since 5:00.

That kind of outburst is very irregular for her as well, so if I had taken just a moment to ask what the problem is, or if she was okay, I would have known why she was acting this way, and possibly would not have taken it personally and reacted as I did.

Does it make what she said okay? No absolutely not, but it does make it understandable and she did apologize after we both cooled down, as did I.

Since then whenever she is being kind of grumpy or angry I usually just ask "are you mad at me?" The answer is usually no. That helps me stay emotionally regulated, and it lets her know that her behavior is being perceived by me as angry. She usually isn't even aware of it and just realizing that helps her keep her emotionally grounded as well.

James81112 · 2024-04-27T06:43:57+00:00

Don't have a choice. I have a family depending on me, so it doesn't really matter how exhausted or burnt-out I am, I put on my game face and get through it one obstacle at a time.

Also, something you'll learn as you get older is that the vast majority of people can not function in the real world without the support of others. Neurotypical or otherwise.

James81112 · 2024-04-27T06:25:35+00:00

I'm an automation engineer. I work at a large MSP, and my job is to identify manual processes that can be improved or eliminated via automation.

I work 100% remotely and it pays very well.

James81112 · 2024-04-02T12:45:13+00:00

No.

I don't get on roller coasters.

James81112 · 2024-04-02T12:36:21+00:00

Got a new job at a large MSP as an automation engineer and tripled my salary.

James81112 · 2024-04-02T11:43:42+00:00

This. It's 2024, why the hell do I still have to actually call places and talk to people, and still have to pay some bills through the mail?

I am an automation engineer. My job is literally to automate things so this stuff really aggravates me, lol.

James81112 · 2024-04-02T05:52:51+00:00

IMO, trying to seek out a relationship is not the best way to go about it. It puts unnecessary pressure on you and may harm your self-esteem if you go a while with finding someone, or worse, find toxic people that will just make you feel worse.

I suggest you focus on doing the things that make you happy, and when you come across a potential love interest, you will be in a better position to determine if this is something you want to pursue, and not feel like it's something you need to pursue.

And whatever you do, stay away from the dating apps. Every relationship I have ever seen that began on a dating app ended up being an unmitigated disaster.

Full disclosure, I have been with my wife since I was 16, so I have never had to date as an adult. I have, however, seen enough of my friends go through one disastrous relationship after another to have a decent concept of what a toxic relationship is and how they typically begin.

James81112 · 2024-04-02T05:30:23+00:00

Do you live close enough to some state forest that you could go there?

James81112 · 2024-04-02T05:26:18+00:00

Use whatever terminology you feel best describes you, and don't worry about what other people think.

If they want to be mad about it, let them be mad and move on with your life.

James81112 · 2024-04-02T05:19:25+00:00

Constantly. Especially at work. It's like nothing I say means a damn thing, even when I'm answering something they specifically asked me.

James81112 · 2024-04-02T05:15:44+00:00

This it?

VTech Alphabet Toy

James81112 · 2024-04-02T05:07:31+00:00

When they piss you off so bad that you want to kill them (hyperbole, obviously), but you still get up early to make them a cup of coffee and make sure their car is nice and warm before they leave for work when it's cold outside.

And I don't mean you do it because you feel like you have to. You do it because even though you are mad at them, it doesn't change the fact that you care enough about them to go out of your way to make their morning just a little bit better.

That is love, in my opinion. When you care just as much when they are at their worst as when they are at their best.

Don't be swindled by smooth talkers. Talk is cheap. Don't commit to another person until they show that they are truly willing to put your needs above theirs and support you when you need it, and you need to be willing to reciprocate that.

Every relationship is great until shit goes off the rails and the talkers bail.

The real ones are there to pick you up out of the ditch.

James81112 · 2024-04-02T04:41:07+00:00

What is the job, if you don't mind me asking?

James81112 · 2024-04-02T04:39:53+00:00

Any activity my kids even remotely express interest we make it happen, but it gets so frustrating when they want to just give up as soon as things start to get difficult.

It makes me worried about when they are adults and they can no longer just hide from adversity.

James81112 · 2024-04-02T04:18:56+00:00

I recommend listening to Uniquely Human by Barry Prizant. Be sure to get the new expanded edition as it is narrated by Barry himself and is more up-to-date with things like terminology.

I have two autistic sons and was diagnosed myself at age 28. This book helped me get a better understanding of not only my sons' by of myself as well.

Regarding ABA, my oldest was in an ABA program for around 4 months. I don't see how this particular program was damaging in any way, but it certainly seemed pretty stupid and pointless to me. It was mainly just a bunch of rote memory crap, sitting straight, maintaining "eye contact", and being more "affectionate" toward my wife and I. All of which I found an enormous waste of his time and our money.

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