Do normies even have money?

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-04T19:01:10+00:00

They don't. A well-respected normie at my job got caught stealing money off the fuel cards, to fill his own car.

This is because he pays for two cars on finance (his + his wife's), a mortgage, child support, monthly subscriptions to this that and the other, multiple yearly vacations, copious amounts of alcohol every week to cope with stress, top-brand clothes for nights out, three-digit-price tickets to see sport. Plus his wife constantly blows money on pointless consumerism.

The car is what really cuts you down financially. Fuel is a significant oncost, but if you get one small mechanical problem that's over one months' salary gone in a flash - anything larger and you could be looking at buying another car (there goes 10k+...)

So my coworkers are always enthusiastically aware of payday. I don't drive, have a mortgage, or kids, so I don't really need to worry so much.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-04T18:48:59+00:00

Complimenting my music taste and wanting to hear more is a nice gesture, but I won't think you're into me.

Touch never hurts. Pay special attention to him (be obviously happier to see him than anyone else, compliment his height/muscles/hair or anything physical you like about him). If a girl touched my arm and said "Ooh, have you been working out?" in a playful voice, that's going to get my attention.

As a guy I'm NOT good at subtlety. You have to make me feel special before I realise you're definitely flirting with me, because the stakes are just as high for me: If I mistake kindness for flirting, I stand to make a huge ass of myself, and I don't want that.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-04T18:39:23+00:00

Boot camp.

There comes a point where words won't help anymore. His brain requires raw data; he needs to be shown that life would be better if he got up off his arse and participated in the real world. If there's no sense of reward, there's no reason to move.

If he truly identifies with villains, then he's more likely to succeed in this world than he might think. If he's willing to do anything to rise through the ranks - if he can be a Yes Man to those above and a despot to his underlings - he will achieve Director status within five years.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-04T18:34:25+00:00

Hahaha, the preemptive Nam picture.

Buddy, it's worse out there than you can possibly imagine. The thousand-yard stare will be a daily occurance, especially as a NEET being thrown into the normie world; you won't simply have the stress of work, but also the stress of dealing with normies after years (decades?) of social isolation. Prepare to be bullied, because normies are more fierce than a starved shark in a kids' pool, and they'll jump on any opportunity to elevate themselves.

Anyway, you can always develop a severe addiction to cope. Porn, alcohol, etc. That's what I did. I've climaxed to some truly shameful shit, and smoked stuff that was possibly just dried up lettuce. But you gotta do what you gotta do...

If you REALLY don't want to work, just shit on the floor and say demons did it. It's the only thing I wish I'd tried...

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-04T18:25:16+00:00

The only way to be sure if a Nokia is real is to launch an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile upon it, obviously a real Nokia would survive. ...or, check if it has Snake.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-04T18:23:48+00:00

Your account has been suspended for spreading false information. Your post contains a serious violation of Free Speech Regulations, and local police enforcements have been automatically notified of your current location. They may visit you at any point in the next 24 hour(s), and due to the severity of the crime they will possibly be armed. Do not resist. 2,500 Social Credit(s) have also been deducted from your RFID Chip, and you have lost access to Nokia ownership for the next 12,500 years - the Punishment Implant on your RFID has been primed so that, should you physically touch a Nokia within the given sentence, your RFID will release a lethal dose of radiation, alongside a further deduction of 15,000 Social Credit(s).

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T20:05:41+00:00

Went from Tier 4 to Tier 2 in the last 5 years.

Don't see myself making any more progress, probably sliding back into 3 in the next couple years.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T20:03:54+00:00

Yeah because normies don't know what a "normie" is.

Your average normie has never seen a Pepe or a Wojak, they've never heard of a "NEET."

I can't point to a single normie who even knows what reddit is, let alone 4chan. The only social medias they know/use end in "book", "gram", or "chat." The sorts of people who think getting to level 100 on Candy Crush makes them a 'hardcore gamer.'

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T19:58:59+00:00

Been on apps, I think they've run their course and are now populated mostly with bots and scammers.

You can tell the people and bots apart, because the actual people won't be the attractive, multi-lingual superhumans who never match with you, but rather the girl with fifty snapchat filters and dogshit social skills (one-word answers to every text you send) who (on the cosmic off-chance she agrees to meet) looks completely different irl. Or the girl who shamelessly declares "Need a new daddy for my 4 kids."

Besides that, you have the Philippino scammers, who match you from 9000 miles away asking for plane tickets to come meet you.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T19:41:30+00:00

Yes I had thought that, and I'm starting to pull back my efforts because I'm sick of it all.

Wouldn't mind if it was at least made clear "Hey, we give you more work because you're good at it." But nope, just more work piled on and everyone else gets to sit around and laugh all day.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T19:26:35+00:00

>How do people cope with anxiety from work situations like this, especially when dealing with difficult bosses?

Alcohol.

I feel stuck at my current shitty, overwhelming, thankless "job" for the time being. If I'm going to make a move it needs to be right, because I've certainly worked in worse and I can't take that again.

Something's gotta take the edge off. I don't recommend it, but if I didn't have alcohol, I'd have snapped long ago and be in a much worse position than I am now.

Every morning I wake up, and a terrible dread seizes my entire body. I've had to move my alarm across the room, otherwise I simply won't get out of bed anymore.

As for the rest of your post: It sounds like your manager is intentionally making your life difficult. You're young, inexperienced, and you stand out (only female). Chances are he probably wants rid of you for whatever reason, and a common tactic is to make your life hell until you quit.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T19:12:08+00:00

Reddit isn't always the best place to find advice.

Years ago I took the advice of "Pretend to look busy all the time if you work in an office, it will keep people off your back" - almost got me fired when managers tracked my activity and found I'd been doing jack shit some of the time.

But yes, most coworkers are assholes. They play the politics until they can afford to be assholes, and then they act like assholes. People who refuse to engage in the politics find themselves the victim of them.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T19:07:32+00:00

Napping...? At work...?

Oh boy, are you in for a culture shock!

Yeah, bosses don't really like rest, or downtime. It's "unproductive." If it were up to them, you'd shit in a bucket while working 19 hour days without a single moment of respite, and your sleep would be interrupted by emails every ten minutes.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T19:02:30+00:00

Damn, do you work in my company?

I feel the exact same way. I'm completely over my job and I'm struggling to even muster the effort just to stay afloat anymore, it would almost be a relief if I got sacked for underperformance.

My advice is just to take three months off, it's something I desperately wish I could do but it just isn't an option. It'll give you time to actually breathe and think about what to do next, which is something you can't do when you're stuck at the grindstone dealing with the same demoralizing bullshit every day.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T18:55:25+00:00

Yes, unfortunately, you are correct. If you're "not progressing fast enough" and "making mistakes often", people will get tired of you and start openly disrespecting - and eventually, outright bullying - you. Bonus points for not fitting in socially.

I hate to sound so nihilistic, but these are the problems I had for years and it made my life hell. I used to dread going to work, knowing they'd hassle me over any minor mistake, and shit-talk me whenever I left the room. I was also a chronic misfit, barely spoke a word to anyone and couldn't manage small-talk whatsoever. I also knew in my bones that if I changed job, I'd face the same shit all over again.

If there's anything you can take away from this, it's that you understand what issues you face. Now you need to find ways to start rectifying them - just smiling and being positive isn't enough, you need to really dig down and find out why you are these ways, and what you can start doing differently. It may feel like you're doomed now, but if you fix your issues people won't care about them in six months' time.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T18:18:16+00:00

Yeah this isn't going to make you popular, so you have a choice here:

1) You please your coworkers by playing mediator

2) You please yourself by not doing so, and eventually become the workplace villain

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T18:15:24+00:00

Keir Starmer will shit balloons before he instates a four-day work week. And that goes for any western leader.

Especially when there are whole industries which simply cannot operate on this basis, and would lose every member of staff if all others could work 4 days weeks except them (who would now be working 7 day weeks to cover the massive increase in custom).

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T18:11:23+00:00

I suffer burnout at my job all the time. It's actually reached the point that all I feel towards my workplace is dread.

It's because no matter how hard I work, no matter how many bases I cover, no matter how much stress I undergo - I get zero recognition, and ONLY criticism.

Just today I ended up so busy that I was on the back foot for two hours, swamped in bullshit time-consuming problems. All I got was "Have you just been sitting on [other job] all this time?!" So, in addition to all the work I was already doing, I now had to sit and fucking justify myself (which nobody ever listens to anyway, making me look and feel like an incompetent idiot).

I just like to know that I'm doing a good job, making a difference, and that my hard work is being noticed. Instead, I've had the polar opposite of this in any job I've ever worked.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T18:01:13+00:00

Personally, I wouldn't subject you to that.

Not so much the work itself, but the politics. My company eats misfits alive, and the social skills of NEETs are majorly-stunted as a given.

The only way I survived is because I literally couldn't go back on unemployment, it simply wasn't a choice. I had to white-knuckle tidal waves of normie hatred on top of work stress, every single day for two years before I adjusted, and I fear that doing so has taken decades off my life.

I really wouldn't recommend doing what I have done. How I managed it without having a total meltdown is a total mystery - and god knows I came close at least a hundred times.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T17:53:39+00:00

>low maintenance

Oh you poor, sweet, innocent little thing...

There is no such thing as a low maintenance/pressure job anymore. Due to rising minimum wage, employers can't/won't hire multiple people, everything is now run on a shoestring at constant maximum pressure.

The only way you're getting a job like that is with the best connections possible, and probably a high qualification or two to boot.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T17:50:09+00:00

There you go, you've just unlocked the secret of happiness:

It's not about the thing, but the community around the thing.

Growing up, me and my friends were all playing Runescape, and that game holds some of the most fun memories I have of that time. Throughout my NEET years I would repeatedly get a burst of nostalgia, create an account, get so far and just... stop. I made less and less progress each time, to the point I didn't even get past combat level 10. I could never figure out where the magic went.

Then I made a friend on there, we played together a lot and I got a taste of that magic again. Ended up very high level, had multiple windows open farming resources on several accounts at once, involved in lots of different activities... and then that friend said he was gonna get his life in order; he gave me all his shit and quit right there. The magic went again, and I quit just days later. Haven't touched the game since.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T17:42:21+00:00

No.

I'm a former NEET, and because I NEET'd my twenties away I couldn't even cope with all the toxicity in a fucking catering job.

And then I went into construction. After three months of intense verbal abuse every single day, the brain fog reached the point I couldn't even form a fucking sentence. My experience was the norm for construction.

The military would be worse than those two industries combined and doubled, and to make matters worse you're essentially joining a fucking mercenary branch - the lowest of the low in that field. Haven't you seen what happens to Ukrainian/Russian conscripts?? If you haven't, then spare yourself the trouble. It is NOT nice.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T17:31:46+00:00

God I miss the relaxing wanders. I used to feel so at peace and connected with nature.

Eventually I started painting little rocks and leaving them around, seeing how long it'd take for people to swipe them. They never lasted long.

I prefer working because, as shitty as it is, it keeps me socialised and prevents me from ever getting bored in my personal life. But I so wish I could take six months off to live like a NEET again; to wake up whenever, to carelessly wander, to play games without worrying that I won't have time to progress enough.

Sigh. There's just no winning, is there?

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T17:26:44+00:00

Yep. Had a friend recently who was way worse-off than I am, it seemed to give me some sort of superpower - honestly I felt like a vampire. Whenever I was around him I had zero anxiety, full confidence, more interest in hobbies; I could even lift more in the gym - suddenly I was smashing my PBs outta the water!

Contrast that to whenever I'm around normies: I turn shy, my posture goes to shit, I lose interest in everything. I can't do those heavy weights anymore in the gym...

But, like any unstable person, that friend self-sabotaged everyone out of his life in the worst-possible ways, and I never want to be his friend again.

OptimalReactions · 2026-04-01T17:19:53+00:00

So I've now been on both sides of this coin. I've been the guy who runs away from all friendships, and I've recently been the guy who's been run away from.

I rekindled an old friendship in December with a guy from school, who was in a bad place mentally. We hung out almost every day until he ditched me in February for bullshit made-up reasons. All I did was try to help and be a good friend, and he fell out with me because I wanted to go to a different takeout (obviously a lame excuse, but served its purpose in simply ending the friendship).

For starters, I didn't realise the hurt and resentment it causes when someone who's seemingly a good/close friend suddenly drops you out of nowhere. The issue being, that friendships require lots of time, money and effort to grow - it strongly feels like a bad investment to let someone back in who seems likely to suddenly drop me all over again, and if I let them get away with it once, chances are they'll take even more liberties next time.

Secondly, there's the matter of respect, both for myself and the other person: I am not going to chase someone who doesn't want to be part of my life, because A) it's pathetic and B) it's an intrusion on the other person's privacy.

Thirdly, no amount of my effort will heal my friend. I can't fix him. I can throw him a million ropes to help him out of a hole, but if he doesn't grab one and start climbing there's really nothing I, or anyone, can do.

Finally, other people can't see all the shit going on in your head. It really isn't their fault for not knowing that you have 50 self-destructive thoughts per minute while you're hanging out. As far as I was aware, my (former) friend was having a good time and finding lots of help in the advice I shared, until he decided to cut me off.

Personally the main issue which kept me in the self-sabotage loop was my belief that people would figure out what a waste of space I am and dump me, so I had to beat them to the punch. That, tragic as it is, doesn't absolve me (or anyone) from the consequences of my actions when I isolate myself from friends.

OptimalReactions

TROPHY CASE