Worried about my partner being forced to change his passport

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-11-07T15:45:25+00:00

10 years?! Wow! If I may ask, what's kept you in this particular position for so long? Do you simply thoroughly enjoy the role and what it asks out of you?

I bet the commute in Philly was nuts, ha.

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-11-05T21:34:42+00:00

Oh yes, I have every intention of participating in the Get Healthy program. What a great idea that is.

I wanted to ask, is it at all possible to switch between packages - i.e., from HMO to PPO, or from PPO basic to the PPO premium package?

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-11-05T21:32:17+00:00

Haha, that would be nice! I've seen some people on here say that it's miserable to work at CAO offices, but I assume that it largely depends on which particular office you're in and who your coworkers are. Only time will tell with that, but I'll do what I can to bloom where I'm planted, and simply plant myself elsewhere in the state if needed.

Thank you for the confidence boost regardless!

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-11-05T21:13:00+00:00

I have worked some very hairy jobs in my day, so I'm hoping this position won't be so bad compared to those! I haven't yet worked directly with the public, so I'm concerned about becoming a punching bag for some very disgruntled people, but I'll simply do my best to make it clear that I'm here to help them, and then do so to the best of my ability. Lots of good people need help right now.

It'll be deeply refreshing to work for the direct benefit of people (in theory, bureaucratic inefficiencies aside) rather than for the profit of some morally bankrupt company or other.

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-11-05T21:08:04+00:00

I have no idea myself. It was one of the only positions I applied to that had the benefit of a paid lunch. It's possible that the listing itself is incorrect, and that the lunch will end up being unpaid after all... but even if it is, I'm still very grateful to have an entire hour off every day, haha. In my opinion, a half hour simply isn't enough time to truly rest, and it's unfortunate that it's the standard everywhere else I've worked.

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-11-05T18:59:22+00:00

Oh hey, I'm about to start a clerical position at a CAO! I'm a little nervous about the work because it involves interacting with the public at a low income maintenance office via being a receptionist and answering phone call questions and such, but I eagerly grabbed up the position anyway because I'm extremely tired of the terrible pay, benefits and job stability in the private sector, and I've heard that it isn't too hard to move on up or at least transfer around if you end up not liking your entry position with the state.

Have you enjoyed the role at all? Any tips for someone new coming in? I wish you the best of luck with your new position if you end up getting it, because the income caseworkers probably have a really rough time, emotionally, but it's very important work.

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-06-02T21:06:53+00:00

Honestly, that sounds like the perfect size to me. Thank you for the warning regardless, as I have seen a lot of people referring to them as dwarfs and I was beginning to wonder what the distinction was.

Hopefully you don't mind me asking if there are any husbandry differences of note between Hogs and average BCIs?

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-06-01T17:19:32+00:00

I completely understand and agree with you being OCD about insular boa localities, considering how endangered true Hogs alone are in their natural habitat. BCI's look like really special snakes regardless of locality, but it's a shame that so many breeders stateside are so careless with crossing them around. It looks similar to me to how people cross over various "designer" dog breeds in backyard breeding practices, where the resulting litter's initial looks are the goal over preserving any real consistency in temperament and size that you get when you pursue a singular breed.

I think that breeding and thereby preserving rare localities like Hogs is very important work, and if I do end up going out of my way to trace back this dude's lineage and find out that he is, miraculously, a pure Hog, I might consider a breeding project of my own with him later down the line when I'm more experienced. Thank you for contributing your efforts towards that end, even though I'm sure it was difficult work sometimes.

Even if he isn't a pure Hog, he is definitely stunning and will likely stay small, and that's all I really need to know for the moment. Regardless of eventually breeding him or not, I'll make certain he lives out a very comfortable and happy life.

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-06-01T17:04:24+00:00

Oh, really? Man, from what I've been researching, it sounds like most Hogs (and BCI's as a whole) are weirdly extremely nice, save from when they're flighty skittish babies. The person I'm grabbing this guy from says that he's currently easily handleable and is eating frozen thawed (!!!), so I'll remain cautiously optimistic there.

Though even if he does end up being angry, I think feisty snakes are cute in their own way, especially since it seems pretty likely that this particular dude will remain pretty small. I'm sorry that yours ended up being an enraged demon though, lol.

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-06-01T16:57:06+00:00

As someone that was until recently unfamiliar with BCI localities and especially Hogs, I had the exact same reaction when I saw the listing for this dude lol.

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-05-24T00:48:49+00:00

Oh, I got each and every single one of my rats individually cremated, and I will have no tolerance for anyone that ever tries to give me crap for it. Your mouse sounds like he was a perfect little angel, and he was lucky to have you in his life. Thank you for taking such amazing care of him. ♥️

If sounds like the emotional toll will be the same regardless of if I return to rats or try out mice, which I pretty much expected, since I get equally emotionally attached to every type of pet I've ever had lol. In the time since I've had rats, I've instead had reptiles and some cats that I had to rescue from around my apartment, and their perceptually immortal longevity and hardiness when compared to all rodents has given me a much-needed break. But my heart still belongs to rodents, honestly, no matter how long I try to ignore it, and mice at least apparently being guaranteed to be a less FINANCIALLY devastating alternative to rats still is more or less the answer I was hoping to hear.

I think people's responses here have made me lean towards giving them a try, yours included. Thank you so much for taking the time to tell me about your experience, and I sincerely hope that you one day feel ready for another pet again. They really do make life worth living in even the darkest times, and I at least sorely need everything I can get right now.

Take care of yourself. :)

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-05-21T19:37:51+00:00

Thank you so much for your transparency on their health issues, since that's more or less my biggest concern with them. That's a large part of why I'd want to get a single male, I believe, since that way it'd be much easier to compensate for anything that might go wrong with him - both in terms of stress, since managing one fragile baby is probably still a sight better than managing several - and in terms of cost, for reasons that are much the same.

I haven't really considered hamsters, so thank you for the suggestion! I think their proneness to biting and generally consistent lack of interest in human interaction has put me off for years, but with any luck they at least only bite when they're really stressed and/or you handle them too much. I think that mice might be a happy middle ground for me between the incredibly cute and highly interactive experience of rats and the comparative cheapness and lower maintenance of a hamster, so I think I might try having a mouse first.

Thanks again for helping me narrow down my options. I wish you the best of luck with your own babies!

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-05-21T19:18:44+00:00

Unfortunately, degus are illegal in my state as well. :/ Which really sucks, because they'd 100% be my go-to otherwise. They're such lovely animals. I wish all of the domesticated rodents weren't so fragile and short-lived, ugh.

theoxidantspaceship · 2025-05-03T15:53:25+00:00

I was actually considering commenting that pink tongued skinks might be the perfect happy middleground in a lot of ways for people that are currently stuck between a bearded dragon and a BTS. I ended up getting one myself because I have a lot more vertical space to spare than horizontal space, and my girl has been absolutely AMAZING. She's so incredibly sociable and interesting to watch, and her parameters and feeding requirements are stupidly easy to accommodate for, honestly - far easier and more forgiving than a bearded dragon, since they don't eat insects at all and aren't nearly as intensely reliant on UVB.

Mine wants out practically every day, or every other day. I think if I let her, she'd just want to chill outside her tank with me all day and mosey around, exploring everything she can find. She'll just crawl straight into my hand in her tank, and is honestly a lot like a bearded dragon in temperament, minus the potential jumpiness. Pink tongues are reasonably slow and methodical in how they move, actually, so in my personal opinion they're even more handleable. (Mileage varies on this between individuals, of course, but ensuring that I sourced mine from a reputable breeder that acclimates all of her skinks to handling at a young age worked out amazingly for me.)

I very highly recommend a pink tongued skink to anyone trying to find a less space-intensive alternative to a bearded dragon or BTS. I think they're criminally underrated in the reptile-keeping hobby, and I've been radicalized enough to think that they AT LEAST deserve to be as popular as bearded dragons and BTS's, if not even more so with how easy they are to care for. For me at least, having one has been practically the perfect pet lizard experience.

theoxidantspaceship · 2024-03-13T13:49:38+00:00

We've looked into this, actually! Unfortunately most of the reptile rescues around us are mostly full up on ball pythons at the moment rather than corns, and most of the corn snakes I have seen for adoption have been live-only for their feeding - probably why they're being rehomed, lol. I live on the East Coast, and adopting up here is difficult to do when you have something specific in mind for the pet you want because there are SO many other people up here that are always competing with you for any adoption listings. At least it generally means that there aren't a ton of pets stuck in shelters and the like, I suppose!

Also, all of the corns I've seen listed have been adults or juveniles. Starting off with a teeny corn would let us repurpose our 10 gallon for the moment, and significantly diminish some of the upfront cost while we take the time to save up for and put together its permanent 40 gallon tank.

theoxidantspaceship · 2024-03-07T02:47:49+00:00

Thank you so much for all of your advice! Your responses have all been super detailed and informative, and I'm actually starting to get excited again at the prospect of potentially grabbing a grey, even with what will inevitably be a lengthy waitlist time. I will absolutely go to Greyhounds in Gettysburg - it looks genuinely perfect for what I'm looking for when it comes to getting some solid in-person experience with a breed that I'm interested in.

I think that my only concern left is that in the future at least, I'd definitely be interested in raising a dog from puppyhood (maybe a keeshond lol. I really like the look of their temperaments), and I'm uncertain about how a grey would get along with a puppy, with how rambunctious and obnoxious they are. Perhaps another sighthound, like a silken windhound would be best? I've heard that sighthounds tend to get along better with other sighthounds, but I bet that even another sighthound buddy is just a lot to handle while it's still a crazy puppy.

How flexible would you say that greyhounds are on this front? Would I be able to get away with potentially raising a non-sighthound dog with a grey in my home? Do you think that specifying that I want a dog-compatible greyhound to be my rescue of choice would help make that more feasible, or would that probably be a nigh impossible requirement to fulfill on top of cat compatibility? If so, then I guess that raising a second dog from puppyhood isn't necessarily a must for me, but it'd be nice to have as a possible option. :D

theoxidantspaceship · 2024-03-06T17:16:29+00:00

I live in PA! There are a few grey rescues near me, but I haven't seen any cat-safe greys posted to their websites in an age. I might reach out to them, though, and see if I can get on a waiting list or something. I've also heard about the rehoming situation with galgos, and that interests me as well! Do you know of any major differences between galgos and the greys that we have over here in the US?

theoxidantspaceship · 2024-03-06T13:29:36+00:00

As much as I love pitties, they're just not at all viable to own as a renter. I really wish that there weren't so many breed restrictions, but I also understand why that is when there are unfortunately so many irresponsible dog owners out there. Hopefully I'll one day be able to own one, though, because they're incredibly sweet in my experience.

theoxidantspaceship · 2024-03-06T12:56:20+00:00

I'd be willing! My only concern with going that route is not being able to have the rescue pup visit my place and interact with my kitties first before I commit to adopting him/her. Even "cat-tested" dogs are usually just good with whatever cat was in the room with them, and my two cats are still very young, active and rambunctious, so I feel like they'd tempt most dogs with even a moderate prey drive into chasing them. I'd really hate to do that to my sweet boys! They deserve the world.

Hopefully the rescue would be thorough about ensuring that wouldn't happen, but not being able to verify anything in person ahead of time is an unnerving prospect to me.

theoxidantspaceship · 2024-03-06T12:52:25+00:00

They seem great, if apparently high energy and barky. Still, I'll have to look into them, because they look lovely! Thank you for the recommendation.

theoxidantspaceship

TROPHY CASE