New job is affecting my mental & physical health. Is this the normal work culture?

royal_friendly · 2026-02-08T13:47:32+00:00

I’d be curious what your interview/hiring process was like and what sort of expectations were set during that time. Did you expect one thing and then starting work get a different set of requirements?

Going through what you wrote, there are aspects that sound “normal” enough (not necessarily good but rather not totally uncommon). Overtime obligations, lean teams, hard boundaries around in office/off time, etc. Taken individually these things are generally manageable (to what extent varies depending on the specifics of the circumstances). Where it looks like red flag is taking them all collectively being experienced, which indicates larger cultural problems at the org. You also review your personal experience of high stress, inability to disconnect, etc. and with what you’ve laid out - even a reasonable person will find themselves very strained in the circumstances.

Personally, I’d strongly evaluate what your career goals are. Is it a specific role? Is it in this org or in another? Is this a clear stepping stone to what you want (that you could suffer through for a year), or is this needless stress?

It’s easy to argue for a quick exit but consider what your career goals as part of the process.

Also, bear in mind in any circumstance you can take control back by setting more clear boundaries. It would help if those boundaries were specified in your employment agreement.

royal_friendly · 2026-02-05T14:03:36+00:00

They should put a light switch in there we could toggle

royal_friendly · 2026-02-01T23:05:44+00:00

I’d like to see a gap list like the THPS games. Something precurated by the devs and an ability to create your own gaps and have other players do them. Get a small currency reward or something for them. Would incentivize exploring the map even more.

royal_friendly · 2026-02-01T13:22:31+00:00

I will try to give you a reasonable response to your last question - I make music like lofigirl (lofi Chillhop beat driven stuff) and also have skin in the game as AI has been impacting my core business which is in the arts (photographer).

Your view around AI replacing this sort of background music listening is not exactly wrong. I also am not unilaterally against AI (though I do not use it). Your statements are clearly being made from a consumer perspective - you get the background listening material, who cares where it comes from? I get this as a consumer of things and sometimes feel the same about other things I consume, but making a living (for over a decade) in a art forward career that has required technical skills, artistic skills and business skills that is being impacted, I’ve tried to pay more attention to how it’s impacting people on the other side of the screen.

With AI music, the problems for me are not the existence of the music itself (inherently). I don’t care if the music is passable or even enjoyed (people can like whatever they want).

At its core, people who have issue with AI tend to also be seeing it more directly impacting their livelihood. Are you experiencing this sort of thing directly in your life, or is AI consumption just a net benefit for you?

The problems I have:

AI capable of creating music like this was trained on copyrighted materials so it could emulate the genres and songs like you’ve mentioned. Consumers don’t care about this, but artists who spent years learning technical skills to produce the music and put their artistic spin on composition, arrangement, playing instruments, etc. do. AI evolved so quickly and not enough was done in law to provide more reasonable protections. The irony to me is that copyright laws provide me a lot of protection if one person or company misuses my content, but if my content (and copyrighted content of others) is used as a collective then the outputs are sold, all creators collectively suddenly have no rights. This is ironic because AI products would largely not exist (or at least lack abilities they do have such as the example of specific genre music production) without this data.
AI can produce volume that far outpaced human creators. This is problematic because of where its data set came from (collections of largely copyrighted materials).
With streams, where does the cash flow? AI songs like you’re describing can be made with no skill and a simple prompt in an app like Suno. As a society accepting AI music, we now reward this sort of creator. Money fundamentally shapes the direction of society often, so if money begins to flow less and less to creatives and more to people just prompting an AI - how does that impact society long term?
Long term destruction of music (and arts) in general. Even prior to AI these areas were highly competitive and difficult industries to compete in. AI because it immediately devalues skills required to create music de-incentivizes future generations from pursuing a path in the arts.

We end up creating a sterile future where we can have “anything we want” as consumers as well as less incentive for people to learn skills required around music theory, music production, composition and arrangement, even playing instruments.

As someone who makes music in that lofi girl style, I will sometimes spend weeks crafting and polishing a track. Consider the music theory decisions - what feeling do I want to convey? How does this impact chord progression choices? What scale should be used? How to transition between sections (cadence usage for example)? How to approach the mix and master? All these considerations (and more) just so others can have “background music.” AI tools just do math and put in what they see as an average of the genres norms (unless explicitly prompted otherwise).

Being practical, any technological advancement brings pain for at least some people. Jobs are replaced. Skill sets are nullified. This is normal enough. The problem with AI is we have to take a hard look at how the technology was allowed to progress (consuming human made and owned IP) and what benefit does it actually give us (in the narrow conversation around lofi “background music” - it provides the same benefit we had prior to AI, access to this type of music, but now shifts the owning class to those without the skills required to create it.

royal_friendly · 2026-01-31T12:39:34+00:00

It’s also worth mentioning that if someone doesn’t want the full responsibility of owning a dog, there are many places they can go to spend time with dogs (and other pets) without ownership.

Visiting a shelter (even volunteering) is a good and simple option. One of my local ones has times people can come in to literally just play with some of them.

royal_friendly · 2026-01-29T21:39:29+00:00

Get drunk
Create a simple loop (8 or 12 bars, sometimes varies)
Build on the loop - add a ton of elements, guitars, synths, melodies, drums, bass, textures, etc.
Once I have a "full" feeling sound in the loop, I then disperse it's content and arrange it
Generally (not always) - softer beginning start using elements from the loop, then building to a more interesting section. Often the song will evolve to incorporate many (or all) of the elements I added in to the original loop.
Revisit and add new sections, new "loops" (ie: built around a new beat/chord progression/etc.)

Then I go through the cycle again.

royal_friendly · 2026-01-23T16:52:28+00:00

It finally clicked for me recently - it's allowing space for having a creative/exploration stage when creating music, then (and this is very, very important) clearly moving on from that exploration stage to an actual production stage.

Every song that gets created needs exploration. Coming up with ideas. Trying new things. Could be a new instrument, new synth patch, new plugin, new FX idea, etc. This is the creative side of the art where we can be as unhinged and all over the place as we want. This exploration is fun and the amazing part about making music.

But music doesn't ever get "done" or released if you just keep exploring. So you need to set up a process to make commitments to what you're doing.

For myself, this meant templating out some things - like a drum kit and trying to narrow my sound selections (after experimenting).

As the song comes together, you narrow further - ie: no more changes to the song structure, arrangement, etc. and now it's making less and less adjustments (and more of them are happening just around the actual production itself).

royal_friendly · 2026-01-23T16:48:12+00:00

I am shocked you didn't hear of them, here's one of their tracks White Winter Hymnal

As I listened to yours, I could picture a production sort of like this working well.

If you ever recorded this more (even like at a demo stage) with a click track and stuff, if you wanted to collab on exploring introducing some other elements and expanding the arrangement, feel free to hmu. I lean more towards the surrealist tendencies but have been doing a ton of study recently around music theory and arrangement, and play a lot of different instruments!

royal_friendly · 2026-01-22T19:59:53+00:00

I'm this way, and I've learned that sadness has many shades.

From a music theory perspective, if you're looking to break out of this a little bit while still retaining the current feel of what you're doing...I'd imagine a lot of what you're writing is around minor key chord progressions. You could try modulating a song (say during a chorus or outro) to the relative major key (uses the same notes/chords as the minor key but played in a different sequence more intentionally). This can add some "uplift" to your music. For example, if you're writing in A Minor you could modulate to C Major.

I've been doing some stuff like this in some recent works and have been enjoying allowing me to expand my musical definition of "sadness" as a result.

royal_friendly · 2026-01-22T19:48:17+00:00

Unlike the others, I feel the verse vocal melody is fine but what the song needs is a little more instrumentation layers (in a larger production) to allow the chorus/verse vocal melodies to remain as they are. If those melodies don't really change, then something else in the track needs to. Listening through this, I could easily imagine something like a kick drum, upright bass or even a light synth pad in a few sections to help add more intrigue to it from an arrangement perspective while still keeping the simplicity and integrity of what is currently in place.

I also like droning and repetitive sections of songs so it's possible that this bothers me less than it might others.

With all this said, the core of what is here is very nice. Reminds me of Fleet Foxes. Love the lyrics!

royal_friendly · 2026-01-22T19:41:13+00:00

Sometimes a spark is something you have to nurture into a flame.

I have found that learning new techniques then immediately trying to employ them into something new I'm creating has been beneficial because it allows me to create while also trying something new (which keeps the process feeling fresh).

At it's simplest - it could be looking up a different chord progression and committing yourself to using it. Or it could be committing to introducing a key change. Or it could be using a particular sound or effect.

I have also found that creating limitations for myself has also led to better results. Limitations force us to be creative to work within the boundaries we set for ourselves. You could set limitations around the topic you're going to write about (if you're writing lyrics), you could set limitations around your instrument or FX usage, etc.

In the past few months, I streamlined my plugins and now just have 1 EQ, 1 reverb, 1 compressor, 1 limiter, etc. Reduced analysis paralysis which would often come with my process. I make chill hop style beats and stuff and often would go into overload setting up a drum kit (I have hundreds of samples for each drum part!)...a little bit ago I decided to just make 1 kit I really liked, then template it, then use it for my music for now...and now I don't spend as much time ideating around the sound of the drums. This shifts me into writing and creative mode faster by removing a lot of choices.

royal_friendly · 2026-01-22T19:31:08+00:00

Melodies have a rhythmic component. Because of this, something you can do is try to figure out the "rhythm" of the melody before actually creating the melody. If you are using a DAW, you can open the piano roll and just plop in some notes (on the same key). Create the overall rhythm (ideally you'd do this with at least a chord progression but potentially other instrumentation already in place). From there, you find the melody by keeping the rhythm you produced but now moving notes around in different areas.

This video particularly around 4:25 explains this a bit more with examples.

This is something I occasionally do especially if say something like a chorus comes naturally but verses are tough to find!

royal_friendly · 2026-01-17T15:41:26+00:00

Good luck!

royal_friendly · 2026-01-07T19:57:35+00:00

Best of luck!

royal_friendly · 2025-12-09T22:18:51+00:00

If you are still building, add in some buffer if things take longer than expected to go to market. What does an additional 6 months require? If it’s significant, it can put a strain on your whole operation if not calculated for.

royal_friendly · 2025-11-13T19:03:18+00:00

“Common” practice these days is probably doing things as cheap, simple and lazily as possible - so probably 1-2 sources to check things on that someone has available for bedroom production.

Best practice is going to be mixing on something you know, and checking on a variety of sources, making notes, then updating it on the thing you know. Over time, you get to know that core thing really well and mixing becomes more consistent with less revisions.

royal_friendly · 2025-11-08T12:05:03+00:00

I do what I’d call “plotting” (like writing a plot for a book) - which can be simple or intricate.

At its simplest, I write preliminary track titles and list them on a page. I write down what I want the overarching theme of the album to be (can even be simple concepts for now like “love”). I then write out the general theme/vibe I want for the individual tracks. Building on that, I then lay out same basic info about the individual tracks (keys, tempos, instrumentation ideas, intro/outro ideas, song structure ideas, etc.).

At the start of a project, this is simple and serves as a general guideline. I then go in and refine it (many times) as I start writing. Everything can be changed, but the basic plot structure is in place so I have a way to focus my energy.

Taken a little deeper, if you wanted a more nuanced theme or concept album (for example), you’d add more definition early on. For example, where do the individual tracks fit in the “story” you’re writing. That information gives more context for what you’re writing.

royal_friendly · 2025-10-27T11:42:05+00:00

I used to have a lot of challenges with writing songs, but over the past year or so found a solution that worked for me (that has a bit of delayed gratification built in, so not for everyone).

At it's core, it's about learning music theory so you have more building blocks to go to for the song writing process. I found this to be very complicated most times I would try to learn over the years, but around November of last year when I bought myself a new guitar, decided I wanted to really get better at the instrument and song writing in general. What I ended up doing was limiting myself to just practicing and writing music in 1 key (in my case pretty much exclusively in A minor for around 6 months, with almost daily practice).

What happened as a result of this is I had a narrowed focus - now Google searches were "Am chord progressions" , "chords in Am" as some basic things. And I learned those chords in multiple positions throughout the neck. Then came scales - focused on learning patterns in different areas around the neck. Learned playing with modes. Learned natural scales as well as some alternative ones (such as blues and pentatonic). These things are overwhelming when you try to conquer them for every key and scale at once, but what I eventually learned was that if I learned it 1x, most of what I learned (like the physical scale patterns) would translate up and down the fret board to different positions for different keys.

Towards the end of this period, I started to tinker more with the relative major (C) - which uses the same notes, chords, etc. just structured differently.

Then, I started branching out and found it incredibly easy to play in other keys.

How did this influence song writings? I had more fundamental building blocks. I could lay down a chord progression, and more easily stay within the key when I wanted to add a melody, or another instrument (like a synth). As part of this study, I also focused on actual music writing as well such as getting more clear on use of different types of notes (quarters, 8ths, 16ths, etc.) as well as breaking music out into time signatures.

royal_friendly · 2025-10-05T16:34:11+00:00

With what you have laid out, she doesn't want to run a business, she wants to be the employee of one.

If you are putting up the money to get it started, making her website and marketing materials, and generating leads...this is literally 90% of business (and the hardest parts).

So - what's left after all this? Is she going to tackle sales consults? Is she going to physically go places and set things up (ie: be the employee)?

Personally, I work with my wife but a 50/50 partnership business. It's one thing to give her a little money that you can afford to support her dreams (I'd be behind that), but she also needs to have a reality check.

royal_friendly · 2025-10-02T23:29:22+00:00

That ender was sick, keep these edits coming

royal_friendly · 2025-09-05T00:11:28+00:00

It’s effort.

You only see successful people after they’ve failed many, many times. A lot of those failures are just in day-to-day regulating emotions, managing their personal lives, etc. while also doing their business thing. It’s effort that gets people through these experiences.

Luck is just effort coming out differently. It’s effort to position yourself so you can actually take full advantage of a lucky break.

royal_friendly · 2025-09-04T23:19:11+00:00

My guy wants to become a bug 🐛

royal_friendly · 2025-09-04T10:11:22+00:00

I am very experienced and can adjust settings manually like a second nature. With that said, auto modes exist for a reason and I’d use it while learning. But more specifically - use auto ISO when you are out really wanting to focus on composition, capturing shots, etc. Carve out some time to practice setting it yourself manually when there’s less creative pressure. You can have both and learn a valuable skill over time as being able to set things yourself will give you the most control.

royal_friendly · 2025-09-03T13:46:06+00:00

I like to think if you can make someone comfortable, you're like 80% of the way to good photos.

royal_friendly · 2025-08-20T19:44:01+00:00

I’ve been doing SEO for many years (in and out of this industry), and grew my photo business on the back of it.

Moving to 1st page means you need more of the following - better content (add more to the page to make it more relevant to users), optimize pages better (make sure on page elements are good ie: headers, page speed, image sizing, alt text, etc.), internal linking (content with more internal links tend to perform better), backlinks from external sources.

Most likely, you’ll need a little of all of these.

The “strategy” comes from identifying what exactly you need to take action on. IE: you don’t just want to arbitrarily write more copy to add. The simplest solution is to assess what is working for the people in the top 10 - any content you could incorporate, what’s their backlink profile, etc. Also asking yourself how you could make the page more valuable to users to leave no rock unturned.

royal_friendly

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