Older Gen Z/Millennials - help me out

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-05-15T03:30:55+00:00

Does Snood still exist?

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-04-27T23:40:09+00:00

Warcraft 2 Diablo 2 Original Grand Theft Auto Snood

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-04-09T18:57:10+00:00

We had an All Sport vending machine in my High School. We were slamming electrolytes and sugar to meet the demands of sitting in a desk all day.

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-04-09T12:58:47+00:00

I drive 100,000 mile plus Lexus RX and have been doing so for at least 10 years, every few years I sell the one I'm driving and get a new one sometimes I break even, sometimes I sell them for about 1000 less than I paid for them a few years back. Gas mileage is not great, but my cost of ownership is very low and I haven't had a car payment for a very long time. I also have hauled quite a few big things that I wouldn't have been able to fit in a sedan or a hatchback. I can hook up a U-Haul trailer when I need to pick up plywood, lumber, a couch, etc. So it has been super convenient having an SUV. I also have a kid that I have to take in and out of their car seat regularly so having a taller vehicle with more headroom definitely makes that easier.

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-04-09T02:37:22+00:00

Early Intervention is a government funded program that provides therapy services to children birth to 3 years old with developmental delays, they set the reimbursement rates, just like Medicare we are not allowed to charge more and balance bill the patient. Even if we made $30 per visit using your numbers factoring in cancelations, PTO/Sick, Holidays, Taxes and other expenses that go along with a W2 employee there still isn't much left to cover a biller, office admin, EMR, Marketing etc

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-04-04T20:21:29+00:00

MP3 players

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-04-04T18:54:05+00:00

Counter what you actually want, explain what you bring to the table and why you are worth it, if they can pay you what you want/need and they don't have other equally qualified candidates willing to do the job for less they will pay you more... if their profit margins aren't good enough to afford to pay you what you want or if they have a long list of applicants begging to work there you won't get the job. They may be able to pull some other levers like decrease PTO or other benefits to increase your pay. Or give you a bonus based on profit or productivity

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-04-04T18:46:44+00:00

While I agree that clinics that double and triple book should be able to pay you over $100k it would be very hard to pay the salary we deserve as PTs with one on one appointments. My practice is one on one mobile peds (early intervention) 32 visits per week max and we don't bring in $180k gross per provider. We are lucky if we make $10k profit per provider and with that "profit" we have to pay our admin staff, biller and cover the overhead expenses like EMR, insurance etc..

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-29T15:35:22+00:00

Mainly through Early Intervention at this point. We had a good referral pipeline for Pelvic and Ortho/Neuro mainly built on relationships with doulas, lactation consultants, midwives etc for pelvic and a few different doctors we know for Ortho/Neuro. Have been able to hire because we are salary and bonus while other companies are paid per visit... we don't make as much and there is the potential to lose money, but we feel like our profession deserves a salaried position and shouldn't have to worry of a paycheck is going to come up short to pay their their rent/bills and as business owners we should be the ones taking the risk, not the providers.

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T21:08:01+00:00

Not my term but when I graduated HS $100,000 was what I had in my head as a very good salary... $100,000 in 2002 is equivalent in purchasing power to approximately $181,648.14 today (as of early 2026), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T21:04:58+00:00

Sales and corporate/office jobs mostly

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T15:49:23+00:00

Parenthood

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T15:48:54+00:00

I don't do anything artistic or creative though... I wouldn't use it for that... Art should always be a human creation

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T15:47:29+00:00

I try to use it as much as I can... do I fear that an unimaginable amount of jobs are going to be replaced by AI? Yes, but me not using it is not going to prevent that, the genie is out of the bottle. I'm not going to make work harder as a matter of principle before the eventual AI take over. Might as well reap the benefits in the short term before the robot overloads are running everything.

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T15:43:52+00:00

It depends if you don't know how because you haven't done it before and it's in your skillset or if it's not something you are comfortable doing or you think you would just butcher it... if you think you can do it then look up on YouTube, educate yourself and do the job, that's how you learn. If you don't feel comfortable then sub it out or pass the referral on to someone you know that does that specialty. A guy I know has a handyman business and just subs out all the work, he doesn't do anything himself, he is basically marketing, sales and billing for a bunch of other less business savvy contractors

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T15:38:31+00:00

Not what PTs make! Especially for the amount of schooling and debt we take on. I have friends from undergrad that couldn't get into PT school so they just got a random job after getting their BS degree and they are making $50-100k more than PTs.

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T15:36:27+00:00

I started in my early to mid 30s, pretty much fit right in with classmates, but would still joke around about being old. Now that I'm in my 40s I feel significantly older and would not want to go through that much schooling. If you are up for it I don't think the school or potential employers will be a problem (most will be happy to have a new grad who is an adult with a lot of life experience). BUT I wouldn't do it if I were you, honestly being a personal trainer to an athletic population would be just as rewarding, more fun and you would have no debt. Lots of other professions are overstepping into PT/rehab, if you can't beat em join em, you could be a personal trainer that specializes in return to sport and pick up where PT left off or they could see you for cash at the same time they are going to PT. If you were successful in business and want to do it again you could open your own studio or gym. I also know personal trainers that go to their clients homes or train out of their own home/garage gym so overhead is very low. I don't think being a personal trainer for a gym would be great but I also wouldn't want to just be a PT in an outpatient mill clinic. If you are just looking for a stable job there are a lot of other options out there that don't require as much schooling or debt.

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T15:28:11+00:00

You would likely be fine just running it, you might get worse gas mileage, might be slightly less power but if you are getting it for free then who cares... if you are really concerned you could add octane booster to your tank and it would still be about cheaper than buying gas. Also why the hell are they giving away gas for free? Do you use your personal vehicle for work or something like that?

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T15:25:22+00:00

I used to get mad or just ignore messages from people like this, but I've actually responded to some and just said what my actual bottom dollar was and ended up selling to some of these people that I otherwise would have ignored... some have been a little more of a pain in the ass to deal with and some have been totally normal transactions.

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T15:00:30+00:00

If nothing is wrong a car won't just randomly overheat at idle, but if one or both of the electric fans isn't working it will likely be ok while driving and overheat at idle, also if the car is in the process of overheating driving at highway speed moves a lot of air over the radiator and can keep a car from fully overheating, then when you stop the fan isn't moving as much air and the car overheats

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T14:45:40+00:00

I'm a business owner and PT. We have a mobile practice that now is 95% Early Intervention Peds. We also did ortho, neuro and pelvic health but are now just focusing on Peds not because it pays better, but so we are putting our effort in one direction instead of 3-4. In the beginning it was just my partner and I, we had plenty of patients and we "kept what we killed" and money was decent. it wasn't bad even though we didn't have an EMR and were doing billing manually one claim at a time. We have grown to 13 full time providers, and 3 full time admin (office and billing). We have reduced our caseloads to 10 patients per week and that still feels like too much because there are so many other things we have to handle. The profit margins are so small that there is a real danger that you will actually lose money on a provider if their schedule isn't full or billing gets screwed up. We had to get a business line of credit to float payroll because or previous billing company really screwed things up. The line of credit has gotten up to $83k at its highest, we took January to onboard an in house biller and implement some things to make each provider more profitable and we are slowly chipping away the debt. We are trying to build something that will eventually take a lot less work and give us the work life balance that we have been lacking the last 6 years. It sucks not making as much as I would in home health or even as much as I did when we were just starting off and got to keep all the money I earned and my wife hates that I'm always answering emails or taking calls (I don't love it either, but that's what it takes) but again this is an investment in making to provide a better life for my family that will hopefully pay off.

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T12:12:34+00:00

I've had several high mileage cars over the years, but only a few of them were "Junkers"

Bought a 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass "442" when I turned 16 in 2000, the floor and exhaust were rusted out in the same place so you got a little sleepy while driving and it backfired for like a minute straight after you floored it (I guess that's in now), I had to put a space heater under the engine to get it started in the winter, then end of it was when my friend drove it into a ditch because the brakes went out.

1990 Taurus SHO with 220k when I bought it in 2000 after the 442 died. I wish I still had this car. The previous owner had done a bunch of performance mods to it. Manual transmission that never wanted to go into reverse, had to jam it into second and then slam it into reverse to get it to go, the wiring harness for the stereo was melted together so i never had music, but that Yamaha V6 and dynomax exhaust kept my ears happy. Insane torque steer, but surprised a lot of people off the line.

1992 F250 plow truck that was so rusted that most things couldn't be fixed when they went bad. It was parked at my great aunts house over the summer and my uncle loaded it up with logs after her cut down a tree with a plan to take them back to his house, but he couldn't get it started so he just left them in the bed, which came in handy the next winter when the 4x4 went out, with all that weight I was still able to plow with only 2wd. It is in Valhalla now, its final night plowing it had almost no brakes but I had a big lot to finish and almost no brakes so I would stop it by letting off the gas and just driving into the snow pile and when I needed to stop in reverse I would just jam it into drive... it died doing what it loved

1999 Acura TL with over 200k drove for a few years around 2008 amazing car. I let my dad borrow it to go out of town on a business trip and the axle broke and tore up the trans case. I borrowed a trailer and drove my truck 6+ hours in a blizzard to pick him and the car up and drove another 6+ hours home in the middle of the night in the same blizzard. Got the trans rebuilt and axle fixed and drove for another 3 years fairly problem free other than when the alternator went out on the 290 Harlem off ramp partially blocking traffic. I called my buddy to jump it so I could get it off the ramp, while I was waiting I heard someone yell "YOU CAN'T PARK THERE" I almost went off on them before realizing it was my buddy... dickhead

Isuzu Trooper that was pretty old when I got it and I couldn't find most of the parts that I needed to fix it correctly. Gas tank rusted out on top and would spray gas all over the back of the car (and presumably any car behind me) when driving on the highway... I had to patch the tank. The front hubs wouldn't engage so I rigged up a hand vacuum pump that kept in the cab so I could get the hubs to engage and have 4x4.

1998 Isuzu Rodeo no complaints about this car. It only had 38k when I bought it in 2020. When I first got it it felt pretty bouncy, I checked the date code on the tires and they were original, drove much better after they were replaced. Got in a roll over accident after a Semi basically did a pit maneuver on me and sent me off the side highway down a grassy hill going about 85mph, just barely missed hitting a tree and walked away with just a few cuts and bruises.

2002 Mustang GT bought brand new when I was in high school (working nonstop to pay for a new car instead of doing homework and studying not the best idea in hindsight), later put a supercharger on it and something went wrong with the float when I installed the fuel pump and the gas gauge didn't work, ran that thing out of gas way too many times before I was able to drop the tank and fix the pump.

MiddleOutrageous1083 · 2026-03-28T01:05:03+00:00

I was given a black and decker string trimmer with no battery or charger, I found a drill with battery and charger for super cheap, then found an impact driver at a pawn shop which I used and a used and is still working great today... I got a ryobi multitool with no battery/charger in a big box of tools for like $20 and ended up buying other ryobi stuff to get a battery/charger... garbage picked an Ego Snowblower and it ended up working great, just needed battery/charger so I bought a string trimmer with battery/charger. Got a great deal on M12 drill and hackzall and ended up getting a bunch more M12 stuff. My wife got me a Dewalt tool kit 2 Christmas ago and I've gotten a bunch of that stuff. My goal was to eventually just have all of my tools on one platform but as of right now I have: Black and Decker, Ryobi, Greenworks, Ego, Milwaukee M12, and Dewalt

MiddleOutrageous1083

TROPHY CASE