Venting thread

[alynnidalar]

In my experience, there's a noticeable amount of class prejudice surrounding fast food. You know: the proles insist on eating fast food that makes them fat instead of dining on overpriced Buddha bowls or spending their Sundays batch cooking like normal people.

True enough. But I'd say there are limits to how low-income you can get and still eat a lot of fast food. I don't know how it's elsewhere, but where I live, the food at fast food chains, while cheaper than at regular restaurants, is still a good deal more expensive than the cheapest supermarket food. I don't think I could afford to eat at McDonald's every day, for instance.

I mean a burger costs $0.89 USD where I'm from. $1 for small fries and all the ketchup you can carry. $2/day for a hot meal that requires zero effort, storage, or going to a grocery store is not a bad deal!

[Raphael]

My bad; I was mainly thinking of the most-marketed and most-advertised "menus". The cheapest options are a bit cheaper.

[Ares Land]

In my experience, there's a noticeable amount of class prejudice surrounding fast food. You know: the proles insist on eating fast food that makes them fat instead of dining on overpriced Buddha bowls or spending their Sundays batch cooking like normal people.

True enough. But I'd say there are limits to how low-income you can get and still eat a lot of fast food. I don't know how it's elsewhere, but where I live, the food at fast food chains, while cheaper than at regular restaurants, is still a good deal more expensive than the cheapest supermarket food. I don't think I could afford to eat at McDonald's every day, for instance.

It's a widespread stereotype, but with a basis in reality that's probably really tenuous.
(I think kebab is a better bargain, but around here I think it's considered the lowest of the low)

[Linguoboy]

In my experience, there's a noticeable amount of class prejudice surrounding fast food. You know: the proles insist on eating fast food that makes them fat instead of dining on overpriced Buddha bowls or spending their Sundays batch cooking like normal people.

True enough. But I'd say there are limits to how low-income you can get and still eat a lot of fast food. I don't know how it's elsewhere, but where I live, the food at fast food chains, while cheaper than at regular restaurants, is still a good deal more expensive than the cheapest supermarket food. I don't think I could afford to eat at McDonald's every day, for instance.

I found this chart on the CDC page. "FPL" stands for "Federal Poverty Level" (which is absurdly low in the USA--$27,750 for a household of four as of 2022) and the category of "fast food" was left up to participants to define.

[Travis B.]

This may seem stupid to vent about, but I'm looking at I2C in the RP2040 reference manual and it seems far, far more complicated than SPI. It seemed like the natural next thing to implement once I finished my big SD card and FAT32 extravaganza, and I had someone specifically ask for I2C support, but now I'm not looking forward to implementing it.

[Raphael]

I found this chart on the CDC page. "FPL" stands for "Federal Poverty Level" (which is absurdly low in the USA--$27,750 for a household of four as of 2022) and the category of "fast food" was left up to participants to define.

Wow, thank you for digging that up! Looks like there's a little bit of the effect I predicted, but less than I had thought.

[MacAnDàil]

In my experience, there's a noticeable amount of class prejudice surrounding fast food. You know: the proles insist on eating fast food that makes them fat instead of dining on overpriced Buddha bowls or spending their Sundays batch cooking like normal people. *

Buddha bowls are recent. I disliked junk food since when my parents were both unemployed so it isn't connected in my case at least. Unless class isn't about wealth but degree or something else.
Junk food is dearer than that here anyway: 10 euros for the blasphemy establishment. And kebabs used to be six euros, now up to seven.

[Ares Land]

No, I don't think there's really much of a connection between income and fast food. I do believe the class prejudice is real though!

[Raphael]

Another rather lengthy and whiny vent:

Why do I have to be so bad at life?

I seem to be pathologically unable to manage basic aspects of life that are completely everyday stuff for most other people. Even simple stuff like controlling when I'm awake and when I'm asleep. As a result, my life started to fall completely apart in my twenties, and I was never able to put it back together again. For the past seven years or so, I didn't even seriously try.

Thing is, I never really grew up. Two generally accepted important parts of growing up are the first job and the first love. And neither of those ever happened in my life. Instead, I wasted my teens, I wasted my twenties, I wasted my thirties, and if I live long enough, I'll probably waste a couple more decades as well. I can see what's happening, and I can see no way to stop it. Like watching a traffic accident in slo-mo.

For a while, I thought I had made my peace with all that. Other people would get to live their lives, I would get to observe them, and that would be that. Two years ago, I even posted a post on the ZBB expressing how weird it was that I wasn't more depressed, with the state of my life generally being what it was. Well, now the frustration has returned.

Part of what frustrates me is that while I think I'm reasonably smart in some ways, I'm not smart in any way that you can actually use for something. I'm no good at higher math. I'm no good at large-scale rote-learning. I'm no good at doing the kind of work you need to do in order to thrive in academic environments. I'm no good at reliably coming up with creative ideas on command. I don't have much of a sense of aesthetics. I have few interpersonal skills, and I used to have even fewer. I'm not street-smart. I'm not slick. I'm not competitive. And every way I can think of for turning your brain power into money involves at least some of the specific mental skills I've just mentioned. As for more manual work, I'm even less suited for that than for mental work. I guess theoretically, I could be a history teacher at a school where all the kids would be on some kind of medication that would reliably prevent them from acting the way most kids usually do most of the time, and would also make it impossible to bore them. But even that would require me to get academic qualifications first, and of course to reliably get up in the morning to arrive at school on time.

So what on Earth am I supposed to do?

[Ares Land]

Man, I'm really sorry to hear that.

It's always hard to give advice over the internet, but hey, I'll try anyway.
I'd suggest checking with a doctor first. The low self esteem and fucked up sleep cycle is certainly a sign of something. (Might be a sign of the stealthier kind of depression, though of course I'm not a doctor so check with a real one.)

I can certainly attest that the bar for employment is a lot, lot lower than you think. (God knows I've met a lot of big corporate executive that were thick as a brick; and you don't have to be a big corporate executive.)

[Raphael]

Man, I'm really sorry to hear that.

It's always hard to give advice over the internet, but hey, I'll try anyway.

Thank you!

I'd suggest checking with a doctor first.

Oh, I've been under treatment for depression for more than 10 years now. For long stretches of that, it worked reasonably well, in the sense that it made me feel less depressed.

The low self esteem

I don't actually think of myself as having low self esteem. I'm unhappy with my life, and to some extent with my lack of marketable skills, not with my personality. I am aware that I'm not the greatest person in the world, but I am also aware that there are a lot of people worse than me around. And many of those never second-guess themselves.

I can certainly attest that the bar for employment is a lot, lot lower than you think. (God knows I've met a lot of big corporate executive that were thick as a brick; and you don't have to be a big corporate executive.)

Three of the mental abilities that I've listed among those that I don't have are being slick, being street-smart, and being competitive. I'm pretty sure most big corporate executives are at least one of those, if not two or all three. And I have my doubts about the employment opportunities for middle-aged people with no job experience, no academic credentials, and no job training credentials.

[MacAnDàil]

You may be overestimating your own faults. I know other people who sometimes call themselves dumb and useless (and not necessarily just in passing) when they do have jobs and degrees.

[linguistcat]

Three of the mental abilities that I've listed among those that I don't have are being slick, being street-smart, and being competitive. I'm pretty sure most big corporate executives are at least one of those, if not two or all three. And I have my doubts about the employment opportunities for middle-aged people with no job experience, no academic credentials, and no job training credentials.

Honestly? half the things they list on job descriptions for any given job at least in retail, they are willing to throw out if you're willing to do the basics of the job for whatever they're paying you. They list the extra bits because if they can get someone who is willing to do extra duties for the same wage as someone who won't, they'd rather go with the first person. But you don't have to be the ideal candidate, you just have to sell yourself as one of the better candidates they might hire.

The main things that companies will want to know are: Can you get there reliably? Will you be honest with them? Can you follow instructions? Can you learn on the job?

And as Ares said, you aren't trying to be a CEO or even a middle manager or whatever if this is a first job. Just find someplace you wouldn't hate working at, and apply for a position that doesn't deal so much with customers. I found I like being a line cook or even a dishwasher, but it can be a bit fast paced. You might try stocking shelves over night somewhere, which is another job I've considered and applied for in the past, specifically because the work is simple and doesn't require too much social skill. There are actually a lot of jobs like that which need filling but people might not think of because they aren't seen as much.

[Raholeun]

So what on Earth am I supposed to do?

Stop whining on the internet.

[Ares Land]

Not sure if you're trolling or just being nasty here.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I don't see terribly much difference between those two things.

My only advice would be seeking treatment, but that's apparently already happening; that and, perhaps, as the kids say, "touching grass".

That said, if the medical treatments received so far haven't produced good enough results, I might think a second opinion on the matter could be helpful (assuming a second, or even third, opinion hasn't already been sought). This sounds like a persistent and debilitating form of some sort of psychiatric condition (being not a qualified provider, I don't think I ought to try and diagnose which one myself).

Either way, being nasty to this person probably won't help them.

[Raholeun]

It was not my intention to denigrate and I apologize if it was hurtful. It was in fact meant provocatively. Getting up and doing shit is the only way to change the situation, posting online helps nothing. This is my personal experience at least. All the best Raphael.

[Travis B.]

It was not my intention to denigrate and I apologize if it was hurtful. It was in fact meant provocatively. Getting up and doing shit is the only way to change the situation, posting online helps nothing. This is my personal experience at least. All the best Raphael.

Telling someone to "stop whining on the Internet" is not a good way to get them to act to improve their situation.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

It was not my intention to denigrate and I apologize if it was hurtful. It was in fact meant provocatively. Getting up and doing shit is the only way to change the situation, posting online helps nothing. This is my personal experience at least. All the best Raphael.

This sort of "provocation" is given to backfiring spectacularly. It's more likely to worsen whatever condition to improve it, if I'm remembering right.

[MacAnDàil]

That's why I'm not that bothered by Amazon. The businesses that really lose out to Amazon are huge supermarket chains that are worse under all respects.

I don't think supermarkets are the only ones to lose out. The first to lose out to Amazon were small bookshops. And I think that, while worse than individual shops, even having the difference between Carrefour and Score or between Lidl and Waitrose is still preferable to the non-difference between Amazon and Amazon.