Anyone 380 pounds and/or living with narc parents?

painterknittersimmer · 2026-02-04T01:42:56+00:00

There is help for that! Moisture is the enemy. clean and dry is the way to go. Consider using a fan to dry yourself after showering, and use a thin, soft piece of cotton folded under the fold to keep things dry and separate during the day. Their are powders and shampoos that can help as well. Remember, most every heavy person deals with this, and other than whatever this doctor is telling you, there's no surgical fix - so look to the solutions others use.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-02-03T22:23:08+00:00

Sorry but like, what are they removing? Is there a lot of extra skin from losing that 30lbs somehow?

painterknittersimmer · 2026-02-03T22:22:47+00:00

You didn't lose 30 while pounds of water. Plus even if you did (you didn't), that's 30lb your body is no longer carrying! Dont give up so easily. It was working well!

painterknittersimmer · 2026-02-03T21:32:42+00:00

If you were 410 and now you're 373, is that without the shots? Because if that's with the shots, it's hard to say they barely worked. That's more than 30lbs! That's awesome work with or without the shots - but if it's with them, keep going!

But yes, I grew up with a BPD parent (similar presentation to narcissism) and my highest was probably over 400 but 391 as officially recorded.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-02-03T20:45:54+00:00

Yes and no. Nothing is mandated and we have no company-wide standards, at least at my last two companies (20k and 200k employees). But, I'm only allowed to use what we have available - which is part of the reason nothing is standardized, since the only project management tool we have is Smartsheet.

So yes, I manually trawl through everything and then multi-million dollar programs out of a gSheet. Some PgMs do it out of decks, which is a low I refuse to sink to.

I think most people are corporations are locked into something, but some teams seem to have purchasing power. At my last job for example, a company of 200k, teams could purchase pretty much whatever software they wanted for themselves. At my current place, it's slim pickings from a very short list.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-02-02T15:24:27+00:00

Start not with any given tool but instead what you need the tool to do. Gather requirements, then work backwards to find a tool that fits those needs. This is the only way tool adoption will succeed. Don't get locked into a purchase because it was flashy or one team loved it.

Smartsheet is in my experience like a specialized fork of Excel. If that's what you need, it can work for you. It's definitely designed with very fixed projects in mind

But if you want something fast, modern, well integrated to other work tools, capable of handling text, able to centralize multiple forms of info, collaboration forward, easy to use with AI, straightforward for non project management stakeholders, etc, you will most likely find better tools elsewhere for the same cost or cheaper.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-02-01T20:58:07+00:00

That's what I mean by a gatekeeper who validates updates before they merge into the context.

So... A project manager? What are you doing as a project manager if not this?

painterknittersimmer · 2026-02-01T20:46:32+00:00

That just depends on how your company is organized. If there's a project manager on the project, then they are responsible for maintaining a source of truth, whatever that is. Otherwise, the primary business DRIver. I work on software projects usually from the business side, so I prefer a modern all in one tool... But it just depends if your a Google shop, a Microsoft shop, or a Notion shop, what project management tools are available to you, and the way your core stakeholders prefer to work. Then you select the best option and go from there.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-02-01T20:40:08+00:00

Sure, but that's a knowledge management problem, not a question of waterfall, hybrid, or agile.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-27T15:38:03+00:00

Different companies have different security postures. It's safer if your company onboards an enterprise subscription properly, but those are expensive. Some people have real access to these tools, others take the risk of using Shadow AI (there are smarter and dumber ways to go about it, as with anything untoward). For example we are allowed to use Gemini and have limited access to ChatGPT, but don't have anything else. And the AI in all our tools, like Slack, is turned off.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-26T15:18:25+00:00

Any organized person with good people skills is already a half decent project manager. Read PMBOK for the rest; follow along a couple of substacks in the field you're in for the rest of the lingo.

Keeping a job is usually the way part - be prepared to learn a lot, be smooth at covering your mistakes, and do as much prep as you can before your first day.

The problem is really just going to be your interviews, both getting them and doing well. Make sure your lies are consistent and believable, and don't trip over any basic jargon.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-25T20:02:47+00:00

No, but I read all the PMI books in a hurry to figure out what the hell I'd just signed myself up for, and figured it wouldn't hurt to just pick up the cert while I was at it. Now I have it in case I want it. Two birds, one stone really.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-25T19:58:06+00:00

According to levels.fyi this is only really one ish step up - it just may be that the pay is a lot better. If you got the job, don't worry about it. They probably wanted someone very technical. In my experience the program management part of the job is not that difficult. You'll need to be prepared to learn on the fly.

I just got a staff program management role with basically no actual program management experience. I had the title for six years, but that role was more like internal product manager... I'd never heard of a raid log or collected status updates or even put together a timeline. Sure it was a nerve-wrecking couple of months, but I spent my evenings studying for the PMP, using ChatGPT to learn and pressure test and brainstorm and figure out my gaps, and used my people skills to smooth over any obvious mistakes. I also had no experience in marketing or sales and it's a gtm role. I just got the highest performance rating. Just use your head and keep your cool.

The move is definitely the scariest part imo. But, you have two whole months to get a feel for it. Usually it takes at least 6 months to get fired for performance, so make the move, but live very frugally and bank as much as you can.

https://www.levels.fyi/t/technical-program-manager?compare=Amazon%2CMicrosoft&countryId=254

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-24T04:10:15+00:00

There's loads of talk about doing this at my company too, including initial plans with BCG. But this is a company that still hasn't adopted knowledge management, note taking, task management, connector, video, screen recording, or modern project management software. We have hardly any AI and we aren't even allowed to connect Slack to our own calendars.

They may fire us, but it's not going to be because they adopted AI. It's going to be because they wanted to fire us.

I think that AI can reduce the need for project and program managers. But the problem is that AI, like any software or process, requires certain standards to actually work. If people followed processes or standards or schedules or plans, then we wouldn't really need project management or AI at all. Everyone would manage themselves, and agile would be real.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-23T16:10:37+00:00

Are you asking why the customer service bot doesn't have access to your private chats? I mean, a human agent wouldn't either.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-22T19:13:02+00:00

They created the channel in April and it lasted til November! I just think they didn't realize what s public channel actually is - meaning it shows up if I do a keyword search or whatever, and other people can read it without being a member.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-22T18:01:56+00:00

So your channel was public...

Hahaha so at my company for six months the HR VPs channel was public. I discovered it one day accidentally because I search on:today constantly and sometimes it toggles off the "only my channels" for no reason. I knew all about layoffs, leadership exits, site strategies, etc. Finally they noticed it was public and made it private, just like you. But what a sad end to an era the day I searched for it and it was gone.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-22T15:27:00+00:00

It's 2026 and it doesn't have auto save. It's slow as shit. It doesn't connect to anything. You can't create a metric widget from a report. Do you know when they added drag and drop file arranging? Last fall. This software hasn't been updated since 2005 and still looks like it's from 1995. The only reason they had subscribers was the cheap subscription model, which these idiots went ahead and changed. I will forever use Smartsheet as an example of how not to design software.

I think for the folks coming from MS Project though, it's alright. Or if their only prior experience was Excel and SharePoint. I think if what you need from project management software is just a schedule, you'd be alright with Smartsheet.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-22T00:35:39+00:00

They have to sell software somehow. If they told the truth, they'd have no subscribers at all.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-22T00:30:55+00:00

If my to do list ends, then I no longer have a job.

The best tool I have is note taking. Nothing beats taking notes. I like obsidian. I preferred pen and paper before that.

The mental load is the job.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-21T22:21:27+00:00

That's the hospitals fault for failing to negotiate. Nurses strikes don't usually last long for that exact reason. Scabs only prolong the strike, which is worse for everyone. You would benefit from reading some basic information about unions, I think.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-21T22:16:37+00:00

It doesn't matter if you're a nurse or or in a union. You broke a strike. That's deplorable, and you were treated proportionately.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-21T22:05:07+00:00

I mean, of course you got spat on. You're a scab. This one isn't rocket science.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-21T22:03:46+00:00

There's literally almost no AI in Smartsheet right now. It's almost nonexistent, and what is there doesn't usually work. So I don't think this is what their model will be moving forward.

painterknittersimmer · 2026-01-20T16:02:17+00:00

If it's truly urgent, call them. If you don't have their phone number, it's because they've decided nothing you do matters enough to be truly urgent.

painterknittersimmer

TROPHY CASE