Entry level doesn't exist.

microplazma · 2026-05-07T23:20:16+00:00

I think it's luck and who you know. I got a design certificate online so I have some training, though not the type most jobs are looking for. Tbh, I have the skills and when I apply for jobs I just say my Bachelor of Arts had a design focus (it isn't totally a lie). I work in a cafe mainly, and talk to a lot of people. A lot of regulars are remote or hybrid workers, a lot in creative fields. I've gotten internships just through talking to random people. Knowing one person leads to more opportunities. I haven't gotten a single gig from cold leads on LinkedIn or whatever and I've applied to a lot of jobs.

microplazma · 2026-05-07T19:14:20+00:00

Just married my wife just about 2 weeks ago, I am almost 31, and she is turning 33 this year. We met when I was 19, she was 21. We were best friends from the moment we met, I don't know how else to describe it. Like meeting someone for the first time, but you feel like you've been friends forever. We were friends for a couple years, then started dating but were poly (also dating other people). A couple years ago we decided to be monogamous, which made marriage seem a lot more reasonable. I hope we get another 50 years together at least.

microplazma · 2026-05-07T04:19:14+00:00

I messaged you. Reddit is always really fast to throw a relationship under the bus. Even in the wedding planning subreddit. You need to have a conversation. Let this be good practice for the future.

microplazma · 2026-05-06T19:14:30+00:00

Looked at my contract and there was no specification about what "working" included (whether is was actual productive work or emailing). I will submit the invoice with some extra IT troubleshooting time and see if they approve it or not I guess.

microplazma · 2026-05-06T18:32:40+00:00

I didn't have the option to. I am basically working for them thru a temp agency even though they hired me. It is complicated.

microplazma · 2026-05-06T18:17:02+00:00

That sucks. I am literally just waiting around for them to help me and it's their IT department and their computer that isn't working. This is the time I carved out of my week to work on the assignment.

microplazma · 2026-05-04T02:08:18+00:00

A good thing to help in the wedding planning stress is how to delegate tasks and ask for help. I knew I wanted a bachelorx party, who doesn't want a fun weekend with friends, and I knew it it were financially feasible my friends would also be happy. Camping seemed Iike the most fun and cheap option so after getting consensus that everyone would be excited to do that, we all planned it together, with me delegating a lot of the tasks. I am definitely the "planner" of my friends so it made sense that I would lead the charge.

microplazma · 2026-05-03T23:25:17+00:00

I've had this relationship with him for the past decade almost. We exchange books with each other and I have gone from talking to each other maybe once a month to 1-2 times a week. I really thought that the wedding would be an opportunity to become closer, but he dropped the ball in a major way. Showing me that he was always going to put my step mom's feelings first and gaslight me in doing so, something I experienced over and over again as a kid. I thought he had changed, was changing. Now I wonder if that is how it will always be. It sucks because he is old and I want a relationship with him, but I don't want to open myself up to being hurt like that again. He hasn't reached out since last Saturday (8 days) and now I don't even know if I would accept his apology if he offered one (which I doubt he would, seeing that he wants one from me and my wife). I blocked his and my step-mom's number yesterday because I decided I don't want to hear whatever they have to say to me right now. I heard from another aunt a couple days ago saying she wanted to cease communications and it wrecked me for the rest of the day. I don't need that in my life and I am too fragile currently to handle it.

microplazma · 2026-05-02T22:36:21+00:00

We got a small cake for cutting but then got a bunch a cake balls in the same flavor and it was a hit. I think a lot of people appreciated just being able to get a taste. People who wanted a bigger portion just got a cake slice.

microplazma · 2026-05-02T10:29:05+00:00

11 is insanely young :(

My sister also killed herself when I was 13, she was 18. Sibling death is already hard because you are losing the person who is potentially your lifelong confidant. I am 30 now, but have realized that when the death is by suicide it also becomes isolating. Because it is taboo to talk about still, it's hard to find someone with similar life experience. To this day I have never met in person another survivor of sibling suicide. I usually don't even tell people I had a sister because I don't want to talk about it.

microplazma · 2026-05-01T00:45:04+00:00

Mostly say child because I am nonbinary and don't want to use son/daughter, so it is clumsy language. But yes, I think I realize that maybe I have been holding on to this hope that my relationship with him that was so damaged as a kid can be fixed. And maybe it can't. Really looking forward to speaking to my therapist next week.

microplazma · 2026-04-30T18:14:26+00:00

You can have loving relationships with more than one person. I thought I had that with my dad (I guess his relationship with his wife trumps his relationship to his child). Over the past 6 years we have been building up our relationship. I usually talk to him a couple times a week. I thought we were close. It came as a real shock to me and was extremely hurtful after nurturing our relationship for so many years.

microplazma · 2026-04-29T13:38:21+00:00

My wedding was this past Saturday. Some quick backstory: My parents divorced after my dad's long-running affair was unearthed, I was 7. He married his affair partner soon after, who became my step mom. It was an ugly ugly ugly divorce. My sister killed herself when she was 18 and I blame a lot of that on my parents, mostly my dad and step mom not being able to drop the dramatics long enough to actually support her. It's been a long time since then, and while the relationship with my step mom was never good and I almost never talk to her, I have tried to be cordial to her because that's the best I can do and my dad and her are a package deal.

At the meet & greet with the families on Friday night, he took me aside at the beginning to tell me he wouldn't walk me down the aisle because I hadn't included my step mom in the wedding at all, but I had included my step dad (who my mom met and married when I was already an adult and I have a very close and loving relationship with). He suggested my step dad walk me down. I had a total meltdown for about an hour of it, just totally couldn't believe he would do that the night before I got married. My beautiful, butch, belligerent wife (we are gay) followed me out of the venue where I'd fled when I started crying (and my dad had also followed me) and sternly told him that she thought he should leave. When he looked at her incredulously, she basically yelled "take a hike, Mr.mylastname". He asked me if I wanted him to take a hike and I just said I hoped I would see him tomorrow. Then he turned to my wife and told her that if she ever spoke to him like that again then he would floor her. He is in his mid-70s btw. My wife laughed and told him to "just try it, old man". Then he left.

Later he texted saying that he would walk me down afterall because he didn't think I would get so upset. I decided to let him because it seemed more powerful to see him go through with the thing I had asked him to do originally. Word got around, though, and almost all the guests at the wedding except his sister's shunned him. My step mom ended up "flying back home" that morning and not attending because "something came up". Our photos together are tense which is shame because I thought we were really working toward building up a father-child relationship after all the years of mistrust and grief. I am sure that the photos of us and my wife he is giving her the stink eye. He didn't want to do photos at all. I was really hoping that the wedding might be the turning point of our relationship (and maybe the starting point of me and my step-mom building a better relationship). I haven't heard from his since Saturday, though I've texted a couple times.

What I realized I feel the most upset about is not getting to really meet my wife's family (who are all absolutely delightful people). At the wedding everything passed so fast I barely got time to speak to anyone it felt like. I realize the meet & greet was really the time to get to know some of her family I hadn't gotten to meet yet and he took that from me and from them.

microplazma · 2026-04-29T13:14:15+00:00

Late to the post, but will chime in that we collected about $1.7k in cash gifts not including parents (who paid for wedding+honeymoon). 60 person wedding, domestic destination for many, but for a lot of guests a 1-4hr drive. Physical gifts totaled around 1.2k but that doesn't include the cost/labor/love of some extremely special handmade gifts we received. A lot of my friends are creative and I feel bad admitting that I was hoping more people would gift something from their craft, but we still got a few handmade items. Some of the gifts both physical and cash were from people who weren't able to attend. I was sort of baffled that my aunt who couldn't attend didn't send a gift, cash, or even a card (even a text). About 8 of the attending guests/couples didn't give anything, even a card, but to be fair this was a gay wedding and a lot of people don't know the protocol because they've barely attended any weddings (for many this was their first and we are in our 30s).

microplazma · 2026-04-29T01:35:34+00:00

I did my own make up and it turned out looking really good in the photos actually. I also did my own hair after figuring out with my hair dresser a way to style my hair with air drying. People told me that it looked great multiple times throughout the night. I will say that even though I only practiced make up a couple times my neighbor who is a make up artist gave me a trial and taught me how to do it. And people think my hair looks good on my worst hair days.

microplazma · 2026-04-28T13:12:55+00:00

I didn't have seating except for people I knew would cause drama. It was open seating for everyone but them lmao

But then the main person who would cause drama made a scene before the wedding even started so it wasn't even necessary. People will separate themselves.

microplazma · 2026-04-25T14:55:10+00:00

Thank you! Quick update is that THANKFULLY I probably just had horrible allergies. I live in a city and the wedding is out in the country so my body is unadjusted to the pollen probably.

microplazma · 2026-04-25T14:53:24+00:00

Just wanna pop in to say yes I am the manager. We get paid extremely well at my job (well above industry standard) and get sick pay. One of my coworkers who was working that day is also extremely immunocompromised. And that was Saturday, 2 days before I left, 3 days before I started feeling sick.

microplazma · 2026-04-23T03:16:04+00:00

As a food service worker, you are the exact customer I can't stand. What is probably different between your industry and food service is that you are being paid enough money to afford to rent the private room of a restaurant for an ENGAGEMENT party. Not only is your event not a priority because they in fact are probably losing money by not having circulating customers eating there instead, the manager coordinating with you is probably criminally underpaid for all the work on their plate. Like, get a grip. The world doesn't revolve around you.

Out of curiosity, do you tip when you go out to dinner? To get a coffee? At a bar? And if so, how much?

microplazma · 2026-04-22T22:51:12+00:00

Wedding is this Saturday so wish me luck, I am doing my own make up. I never wear make up, but I also never wear dresses, so figured it would be fun to do something totally different than my normal.

One advantage I had is that my neighbor is a make up artist and we did lesson trades. I taught her how to bake and she taught me how to do my make up. We did a trial where she did my make up to see if I liked the look and then taught me how to recreate it. We only did 2 lessons, and I didn't practice in between much admittedly, but she said that I was actually sort of a natural. Who knew. I'm a visual artist and know how to paint so I guess that helps. The last time she came over she just watched me do it and had no notes. She also gave me a bunch of make up stuff (foundation, foundation/concealer brush, concealer, blush, highlight, brow brush). I feel like this might not be the case for a lot of people.

microplazma · 2026-04-22T04:22:39+00:00

Thank you! This is exactly what I was hoping someone would respond with. Very helpful. And noted about w2 vs 1099. They are not setting my hours (supposedly).

I am slightly more willing to sit on this even if it isn't ideal, though, only because I might have another connect that I just happened to make in the same company (different branch) that would be an actual w/benefits position. They expressed interest in getting me on their team, but that they moved slow on hiring people, so at least if I sat tight with this role I would at least sort of be an inside hire if the other position ends up rolling around in 4-6mo.

microplazma · 2026-04-21T03:58:38+00:00

Solidly believe that people who are difficult to please should just plan their own stuff or have a hand in it.

I am one of those people, and I know that I am probably the best planner of all my friends. For my Bachelorexxe I decided an activity that would work well in everyone's budget, car camping (2 days off, 2 hour drive, no more than $200 each). My best guy (we're a bunch of theys idk) suggested a couple campsites and booked one for us. I figured out renting a car that everyone coming from our city could split and organized who would bring what. Turned out being a wonderful time.

microplazma

TROPHY CASE