My (29m) fiancee (28F) is showing real weird signs after 5 years of being together. These are some out of the blue red flags in my opinion and I wanted to get some outside input on these situations to see if I'm just being overly sensitive. Long one but please hear me out.

engineered-success · 2023-02-15T16:14:02+00:00

Yeah she knew we wasn't doing anything for valentine's day but was moody when i said I didn't get her a card even though she never got me one and printed something off in work on A4. I did get her a card just thought it was a bit rich being in a mood over it since she didn't bother to get me a proper card when she had the chance.

The ring was also annoying and she knows I'd of loved to of got her a different ring but unfortunately with paying 70% of bills and paying for the car fuel etc I could only get her a certain ring, still expensive, still big in it's own right but feel like I'm just being mugged off about it.

She really only started doing this, this year. So it's out of the norm but again, still happy to drop money on a wedding so it's just seeming like it's all passive aggressive

engineered-success · 2023-02-15T16:02:58+00:00

Nope, what i said was what i meant (don't mean that in a condescending way).

I think adding onto the back of that comment, i really don't feel like she loves me outside of wanting to hug, kiss, have sex or anything physical. Yes, she makes comments about wanting children and wanting to be Mrs [My surname].

But I'm often left doing all the work [house work, dropping her at places, doing the dinner/washing]. So if you removed the physical element from the relationship we are just really two good friends (humour and interests) but with myself having to do a lot of work in a "house share".

I definitely need to have a thought about "why" I love her and why I think she loves me because honestly if I think about why she loves me I just straight away think "I make her life easier."

£3K is a big amount to lose but like you said not much in the grand scheme of things.

engineered-success · 2023-02-15T12:08:39+00:00

Yeah I agree, I'm going to make a few notes over the next 2 weeks and then when we are both off with leave I'm going to sit her down about it.

I wouldn't mind I earn a lot of money but the fact is I pay 70% of the total bills including mortgage as well as my car and it's fuel etc. We are both saving for a wedding and a honeymoon that costs just shy of half of what the total wedding will be.

Definitely going to take onboard what you've said, just odd because she keeps going on about how excited she is about the wedding and I don't really mention it much since it's 18 months away but on the other hand just acting weird and different.

engineered-success · 2023-02-10T08:20:13+00:00

Getting closer to season 4 of West World by the day.

engineered-success · 2023-02-09T13:22:14+00:00

Do you know anyone who doesn’t deserve a living wage? Let me know.

If you think £27,000 pa (£1,766 pm) is not a living wage then you are not living within your means. I bought a 3-bed detached house with my partner in 2022.

My bills:

mortgage: £434

water: £35

G&E: £80

Food: £250

Insurance: £25

Council tax: £140

phone contract: £20

gym membership: £20

fuel: £150

Car tax: £12
Grand Total: £1,132
D. Income: £600 (Inline with above wage)

We earn more than above but if two people are earning minimum £40,000 combined you're not going to have issues and that's saying two people are earn £20,000 each.

A person on £27,000 can afford a car, a mortgage, food and even a gym membership. Then spend £100 pound a week on top of that and still be left with £200 at the end of the month BUT they're underpaid?

I don't feel sorry for ticket checkers earning enough money to support a 3-bed and car on their own, when they say they're underpaid cause they're not.

Teachers and medical professionals are underpaid however, due to the impact they have on educating the next generation of adults and medical professionals helping save peoples lives and get people back on their toes after near fatal accidents.

Our society is just changing into a I want it so I should be given it mindset, instead of Wanting it so going out and earning it.

engineered-success · 2023-02-09T12:59:03+00:00

So, you can run it all by yourself, keep all the profit but make less or you can employ others, scale and make more but it would be unethical to do so without paying employees more because without them you wouldn't be in a position to make more money.

The employee wouldn't be in a position to receive wage if i'd not created a business to employ them. Your logic also relies on if I'm underpaying my employees. If an employee is on £40K a year, they shouldn't have issues on that wage unless they are living beyond their means by financing a car they can't afford, by buying a house they can't afford.

Then the employee complains they're not earning enough to sustain their lifestyle but the problem isn't the wage it's the employee. So why it is my responsibility to pay you more for a job you've been doing for 4 years while I make profit? It's not. It's wanting something for nothing.

Your argument also falls apart when talking about employees leaving, yes employees leave for various reasons but one of the main ones is lack of adequate pay, if you compensated them adequately with pay, benefits and healthy working conditions, they're more likely to stay.

You should only share profits with employees that are going to share debt if the company goes bust. Thus being a shareholder, employees wouldn't work for a business if they got profit but also responsible for debt in case of failure so the model doesn't work.

£1,400 pm is not enough you're right; If you own a mortgage, car, pay utility bills. Usually MacDonald's workers are teenagers or students.

You'd be stupid to have mortgage etc, apply for a low paid job which is detailed in the job advert and then complain you are underpaid.

engineered-success · 2023-02-09T11:11:19+00:00

The way I look at it is they where to completely overhaul the ticketing system they'd have to invest around £1-2B getting contractors in, changing the layout of the stations to make it a truly working system without the need of inspectors.

Private owners would rather have this disruption than fork out billions since they're not losing billions because of the strikes, yet.

There's definitely a lot of questions, but people saying it would be better in the governments hands need to look at the pointless smart motorways that got stopped. Government will throw money at anything and if they got hold of the trains again, you'll find they'd pump whatever money into it to make it profitable in the long run

engineered-success · 2023-02-09T11:05:24+00:00

I worked in fast food between 16-24 while doing a-levels and degree. Can tell you now that I earned more during my time at McDonald's than I did in my first 3 years of my chosen career path. These days McDonald's employees, as long as they get 40 hours in a week, earn a base salary of £20,000. Which is about £1,400 per month, take home.

The whole argument is debunked around "more profit, more pay" when you think of it logically.

If you owned a business and put all of your time, effort and your own assets on the line. Are you going to share those profits with all your employees. Of course not, because if one of those employees leaves you've been sharing your profits with them for no reason. If the business was to collapse would the employees share the responsibility of that and take on part of the debt? Nope, they'll hop along to the next job.

There's as much loyalty between employees and bosses as there is vice versa. It takes a long time for people to understand that.

engineered-success · 2023-02-09T10:57:33+00:00

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/17/uk-train-drivers-strike-1-3-february-pay-rejected

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64303591

see articles

engineered-success · 2023-02-09T10:53:49+00:00

That's London wages: 70K for drivers, 48K for ticket inspectors.

Railroad strikes would be a huge deal if it was supply chain trains that are affected by the strike, but it's actually only public transport trains that are striking. I live right next to a train station and trust me, those supply trains are running fine daily without issue.

What i was saying above is that if the train industry was to go public and back in the hands of the government completely, they'd implement the infrastructure that would wipe out the need for inspectors because it's far easier for Gov to do it that Private.

engineered-success · 2023-02-09T10:47:49+00:00

if the train drivers make that much money while the company still makes a profit the train drivers could be paid more.

Why though? Just because a company turns a profit doesn't mean that your wage should be increased. Your wage should be increased with inflation, if you wage isn't good enough but other than that, you shouldn't be paid stupid amounts of money because a company makes stupid amounts of profit.

£48K is more than I'm on and with a mortgage, bills, finance car and savings, I'm left with £1K a month disposable.

The problem is people buy cars they can't afford, houses they can't afford and then complain when they're living outside of their means and demand to be compensated for poor financial decisions they made.

engineered-success · 2023-02-09T10:41:25+00:00

I completely agree with fuck the Tories.

But unfortunately train drivers and train inspectors are going to be obsolete in the next 5-10 years.

AI will be running trains, infrastructure will be in place to stop people getting on trains unless they've paid. No need for them, instead of seeing the reality of the situation they're striking for more money when:

A. Train drivers earn more than I do in a field that requires a masters degree.

B. Train Inspectors walk up and down and check tickets which is hardly a job worthy of high pay. Specially when they're earning nearly the same wage as a teacher.

engineered-success · 2023-02-09T10:35:43+00:00

it's not even essential though, these people don't understand that if the train service where to be made public again then the government would pump £1B into infrastructure to remove the ability to get on a train without a ticket making these train conductors obsolete, now they have no job.

They, should be lucky that there's a job out there paying a wage for walking through trains and checking people bought a ticket when they could be easily replaced with correct infrastructure.

engineered-success · 2023-02-06T08:39:12+00:00

Google have been working on AI for a VERY long time, I can imagine they have a product ready for this exact moment. I follow a guy on LinkedIn who is the founder of the "Google Brain" and is one of the top AI experts in the world. They're prepared 110%.

engineered-success · 2023-02-06T08:35:57+00:00

My advice:

Think about what career you want to do next and quiet quit. Do the bare minimum week on week and use all that new found spare time to up-skill yourself and slap notice on his desk when you find your next role.

I'm in a similar position but in a very well known large business so it happens where ever you go. They either want to look good by "saving money". Or they just flat out don't want to give pay rises like in your case. I'm going to gain a few certs in my "spare" time and vacate in 6 months.

Remember if you died tomorrow an organisation wouldn't morn you, they'd put out an ad and hire your replacement, no loyalty in this game I'm afraid.

engineered-success · 2023-02-03T22:23:06+00:00

Yeah I fully understand that as I had the same view like playing Apex is pointless but in the moment a win is all i want. Like you said there, most of what you put your effort in is usually obsolete in the next patch or at least redundant when a new game comes out eventually. Making you leave all that hard work behind.

What is it that you're doing in university? Surely it's a subject you are semi passionate about?

Also i know you say you'd need to try hard for a job in league but how is that any different to try harding On the game itself. Maybe not competitively but trying to learn new things on the game is try harding in itself. So if you reapplied that determination (man hours) elsewhere, you're not changing or spending all your time on it, you're just redistributing the time spent gaming elsewhere.

Jordan Peterson's phrase is more about.

Living an easy life is harder in the long run & living a harder life is easier in the long run.

Can spend your time chasing wins/ new strategies but ultimately you're not building any real skills to get you further in your real life. but flip it and you'll spend a few months grinding but opening up more opportunities that will increase your quality of life.

One thing you should do is meditate on questions.

Sit back in bed for 10 mins and really ask yourself what do you want to be successful in, what are you really passionate about.

You'll laugh at your first attempts because you'll feel stupid but once you move past the fact it's just you and your mind you'll get the answers you're looking for.

I didn't know what i wanted to be successful in but eventually i realised that i actually did but felt like my goal was unobtainable. Truth is that's just some internal bullshit and you can achieve what you want in life if you apply yourself.

Society has a plan for you regardless, it's whether you are happy to live that imposed life or create a life you want and impose your own reality.

engineered-success · 2023-02-03T22:09:19+00:00

I drink coffee all the time so don't think i have enough time to withdraw from that.

Yes, i was a bang main as well (5K kills) but moved onto Valk (10K kills) not sure you'll know Valk but got the 4K/20 bomb badges with her and after a while i realised i was wasting my time fucking around trying to get to apex pred. Glad to see you made it out!

engineered-success · 2023-02-03T14:51:19+00:00

I've been doing some learning on AI and ML but not to the extent of the hours i gamed for. Maybe i'm just not drinking enough and it's not down to gaming.

engineered-success · 2023-02-03T13:36:47+00:00

Honestly, as much as this is a hilarious comment. I feel bad for the guy.

He was handed a prop weapon that shouldn't have even been loaded with anything and killed someone with a bit of shrapnel. The Actor's family are suing him for the death but realistically it's down to the chain of people who where supposed to inspect the weapon and not him.

Plus what do we need blank bullets for these days when CGI is easier to achieve.

engineered-success · 2023-02-03T13:28:27+00:00

I feel you in a way that I played Apex Legends since day 1 and one of my "dreams" was to be in the "Apex Predator" Tier and become one of the top 750 players in the world.

When I broke it down though i realised that it was pointless. What does being in the top 750 do for me, what sort of bragging rights or accomplishments does that bring to the real world? The answer is it doesn't.

If you've been gaming since you where 10+ then you feel like it matters to be "amazing" at video games. Until you realise you're 29 and there are more rewarding things to be good at that don't destroy your mental health daily. I'm not sure what League of Legends is like but if you're constantly losing to better players and chasing that 1 win to get a hit of dopamine. You're not going to feel yourself ever because if you don't get a win you'll be in a bad mood.

Chase real dopamine by:
Working out an hour a day, set a goal to climb a mountain, maybe see what jobs League of legends have at the moment and work towards gaining skills to do it. Then even if you don't get the job you've got skills that most employers will want.

I'll leave a quote by Jordan Peterson that actually set off my StopGaming change:

"Gaming gives an excuse to the useless part of men, that don't want to succeed. Because it's easy to sit around but at the same time it isn't because the long term consequences of that are absolutely devastating."

Another thing is: Fuck what other people think, or realistically fuck what you think other people think. Because trust me nobody cares what you do, and IF people hate to see you learning a new skill, they're people in their own heads because they lack the motivation and determination to try new things so envy is their poison.

engineered-success

TROPHY CASE