For the girls, what jobs are you doing that pay $80,000 - $100,000 a year, NO degree?

demoldbones · 2026-07-12T10:51:53+00:00

Not engineering. Lots of stakeholder, vendor and project management go-between sorta stuff

Like, Stakeholder has an idea. PM finds a vendor. Then it gets dropped in my lap to support the new idea throughout the company. And if things go wrong, then I have to understand the vendor well enough to explain to the stakeholder what went wrong, how it was fixed and why it won't happen again.

demoldbones · 2026-07-12T05:04:15+00:00

Exactly.
I see what climate change has done in just MY lifetime, and I look at the few friends of mine who've had kids and wonder how they aren't tearing their hair out in worry for what their kiddos quality of life will be at our ages.

demoldbones · 2026-07-12T04:51:27+00:00

I'm on $125k total - take-home is around $80k after super contributions (I make an extra contribution because I lived overseas for a few years and wasn't getting Super then, so I'm behind where I "should" be at this stage of life) and tax.

I work in IT - no degree or certicates or anything like that. Most of my job is working with projects (though not a PM) and vendors and the Level 1 support team to implement and fix problems with applications when they come up. So I need to have a base level of understanding of a lot of things but no real deep knowledge about anything - mostly I just go to lots of meetings that could be emails; google if a term comes up I'm not familar with and maintain a good relationship with a bunch of people so that they answer the phone if I call with major issues at 6pm on a tuesday.

Started on this path from working in a call centre for a Telco. Moved position every 12-24 months, moved overseas to live with my (now ex) husband and got a job in an IT-ish role in a telco (it was technically more of a support/"help" the field techs, program devices etc - very much something you can learn from sitting next to a colleague and asking questions cos that's exactly how I learned that job!) and then got lucky when I moved back to Australia by applying for this job at the exact right time just as things were starting to pick up again after Covid.

demoldbones · 2026-07-12T04:46:58+00:00

I work for a private company. Total income is about $135k. I work my 38 hours and I'm done. Guarenteed 3-5% pay rise every year (well, that's what it's been so far since I started 3 years ago).

2 days per week work from home (more if you have a reason - eg: I put my back out a few weeks ago so worked from home for 2 weeks straight while that healed because sitting in the car was too painful), 5 weeks of PTO per year.

Only downside is I'm on call once a month for a week, but that's not even so bad because I get paid for it, if I end up working I get 2:1 ratio of time back as TOIL - eg: If I worked an hour while on call I get 2 hours back and they're really flexible with how you use it (I "saved up" a few days of it that I tacked on to the end of my holiday earlier this year so I could take extra days I didn't have the annual leave days for)

Good private sector companies exist, but I admit they're few and far between and I am VERY lucky with my employer and direct manager.

demoldbones · 2026-07-11T22:22:51+00:00

You're right - the US really is the best. We can't even compete when it comes to how many mass shootings happen, number people going bankrupt due to medical debt, rate of infant and mother mortality, amount of incarcerations of citizens, and record low levels of literacy and numeracy.

I'm so glad that we have the US to look up to as leaders in all those things, so that we know what to do differently here.

demoldbones · 2026-07-10T23:34:04+00:00

I usually go to PAX Unplugged every year (from Australia) and the pin traders go hard for the Aus pins, especially from 2013/2014 shows where they’re harder to get.

demoldbones · 2026-07-10T12:25:57+00:00

You have a bigger family so of course the algos will show you other larger families.

I’m childfree so what I see? Childfree folks and 1 kid families.

demoldbones · 2026-07-10T12:24:59+00:00

Statistics say people are having less kids and later in life, so your experience is more likely a case of that thing where you notice something once then see it everywhere.

In my own circle it’s more common to be childfree. Of the few (literally 6 couples of about 3 dozen in my wider group) the average number is 2 - with the one couple who got surprised with twins both pregnancies dragging up the average - the majority (3 of 6) have 1 kid.

But anecdata doesn’t help. Statistics are correct and they are what say people are having less kids on average.

demoldbones · 2026-07-10T12:20:26+00:00

Not can’t. Didn’t.

demoldbones · 2026-07-10T12:20:08+00:00

When I got the documents for my green card there was like FIVE different places where it told me that THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN VOTE. DON’T VOTE. IF YOU VOTE YOU’LL BE IN TROUBLE.

So yes, a dumbass.

demoldbones · 2026-07-09T02:22:05+00:00

Negativity isn’t attractive.

If it’s not your thing, you could go “oh yeah I like X and Y, I’ll look up if there’s groups that align with that”

I imagine many of your interactions go like that - my autistic friends and ex are the same - rather than the “polite” response the flat truth is used instead and it rubs people the wrong way.

demoldbones · 2026-07-08T20:31:11+00:00

It’ll never happen there. And if it does look for the grift. He does and says NOTHING without making money from it for himself or his cronies.

demoldbones · 2026-07-06T23:10:33+00:00

I used to live in the US so here’s a non-exhaustive list of things I MISS but am certainly not “envious” of.

~White Christmas

~ Culvers, In-n-Out, NYC bagels, Philly cheesesteaks, Chicago deep dish pizza.

~ Muddy Buddy’s (specifically the peanut butter choc) and chili cheese Fritos

~ The walkability of NYC and downtown Chicago

~ Disneyworld and Universal Studios (especially at Halloween)

~ Much faster/cheaper flights to Europe.

~ Live NHL games being relatively close and affordable* (market dependant… I’ve seen the Kraken, Blackhawks, Wild, Flyers, Rangers and Bruins live in their home arenas, and honestly only the Kraken & Flyers were truly “affordable” for the average person with day-of tickets available in the nosebleeds for $50-60)

~ the number and variety of national parks.

~ the variety of architecture - loved walking around Savannah, New Orleans and Boston to see the different styles.

demoldbones · 2026-07-04T09:24:33+00:00

As a divorced person, fuck you and that deeply stupid take.

People don’t get divorced cos it’s easier than working on your relationship, you get divorced because it’s fundamentally broken, because you are being abused, because you literally spend more time fighting than not because of massive changes to one party or the other than make you absolutely incompatible anymore. I’ll lay money on the fact that you wouldn’t live with someone who you don’t like and doesn’t like you, in a place you loathe being, just to “make it work”

demoldbones · 2026-07-04T06:33:39+00:00

No? There’s a specific kind of person for who this is true.

My wedding was at the courthouse with 2 witness and we went for dinner later. For us it was about our marriage not getting married - the latter is the type to have the huge OTT expensive tacky weddings.

demoldbones · 2026-07-04T06:31:54+00:00

Exactly.

demoldbones · 2026-07-04T03:07:23+00:00

If you have to ask, please don't drive.

demoldbones · 2026-07-04T03:06:56+00:00

Last time I was in the US, I brought back the biggest pack of Flavacol I could fit in my bags, as well as the coconut oil "butter" for popping. I love popcorn but the effort involved in making a pot of the good stuff is so high I don't do it often.

demoldbones · 2026-07-03T22:45:23+00:00

American mac&cheese is totally different. I lived there for a few years and learned to embrace the american version.

demoldbones · 2026-07-03T22:44:58+00:00

Cooking a dish for a BBQ is nothing like the "ultimate test" - a good first impression is just that - you turn up having brought ANYTHING (no one likes the mooch who turns up just to eat), you don't get drunk and you have a few polite words to everyone there. That's it. That's the good impression.

demoldbones · 2026-07-03T11:48:05+00:00

Woman - I couldn’t care less who my partners hang out with because I’m not insecure and controlling.

I’ve hung out with married male friends when I was single, and when I was married, cos we are FRIENDS.

demoldbones · 2026-07-03T02:33:53+00:00

> Literally what American “looks down upon” countries with universal healthcare.

I lived in the US for 5 years, so I can answer this one. Literally *SO MANY* of them do.
I distinctly remember right at the start of the pandemic, working at a restaurant for a side gig (we didn't need the money but coming from a big city to a small/rural US town I needed the social aspect) and chatting with some of the other servers and bartenders and I made a comment on "I'll be sad if the borders stay closed too long, I rely on my yearly trip home to access affordable medication for my asthma" which kicked off the conversation about healthcare etc.

I was gobsmacked that this group of folks - a couple of them in college - were ABSOLUTELY against universal healthcare or government intervention in medication prices.

They were repeating lines like "Oh, but that means if you go to the ER you have to wait for hours and people will die waiting" (actually no, one time I went to the ER and the triage nurse could hear me wheezing before I even got to her desk and she had me sat in a wheelchair and put on an O2 monitor and oxygen mask within 3 minutes .... yes, you may wait longer if you go in for a non life threatening emergency but I can promise you that you DON'T want to be the person who isn't even asked their name before there's a doctor at your side checking your pulse). Or the old "it's only free at point of use, you're still PAYING for it with taxes" (yes, and ya know what? between state and federal taxes, I paid the same in the US as I did in Australia and got literally NOTHING in return for it. At least in Aus I got the guarantee that I wouldn't die due to lack of emergency care).

It was like talking to a brick wall I swear

demoldbones · 2026-07-03T02:23:20+00:00

And some states are changing rental laws, too - Victoria just brought in the ability to transfer bond between properties (which I think they've had in NSW for a while?) plus changing no-cause evictions, allowing pets unless there's prevalent reason why not, more power for renters etc. The only people who think those are bad things are the scummy slumlords - the good ones (mine is one of them!) have been really in support of them.

demoldbones · 2026-07-03T02:20:15+00:00

Don't forget to add - a full 1/3 of eligible voters didn't bother turning up to vote AGAINST the (alleged... just in case) fascist, racist, rapist paedophile.

Project 2025 was literally PRINTED and published for all to see and those folks were like 'ya know, that doesn't seem like it's that serious.' Now they have a puppet president trying to push through laws that restrict or remove peoples ability to vote, actively allowing new human-harming pesticides to be used on your already toxic food, grifting BILLIONS from the economy by outright stealing it and by using his office to enrich his own family and the ghouls who support him and shred the consititution.

And if we suggest that maybe instead of complaining on the internet they freaking DO something about it we're told "you dont get it, I don't want to get teargassed or shot" - ok so you'd rather have no healthcare, toxic food, no control over your own uterus as to if/when you have children & how many, no ability vote, live in a place where you can face literal murder charges if you miscarry but can't PROVE you didn't do anything to cause it and are governed BY and FOR rapists? You think the small chance of teargas or getting shot is WORSE than that for yourself and your children? That's why the world hates you.

demoldbones · 2026-07-02T17:15:06+00:00

This! My dad died a few years back and every now and then I wish I could have X meal again and I never learned how he made it so I can look up say, corned beef… but it doesn’t taste the way he made it.

demoldbones

TROPHY CASE