2016, a dystopian future year if I ever heard one
So been what, another year and a half since my last entry? Glad to see people still check in here once in awhile. I'm going to do a separate post on April (my daughter, not the month) and Lexian because they merit it. So, a few things, not in order or importance. You may think otherwise from a few of the things I'll write about, but it's mostly upbeat. I do want to write about a fight Lex and I had because it's important to me, that'll be next, and alot of the stuff in this post ties into that. Everything is related to everything, so bear with me.
Turned 35 last month, guess it'll be awhile before the shock sets in. This finally became topical for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLqASlSFOxg
Going back and reading my old posts when I was a 20 year old with no filter, and more, realization that the people I knew back then are also my age or older, it's hard to process. Hell, even the ones younger than me have hit 30 by now, but in my mind everyone's still the same. Here I am, on the young side of middle age with a kid and a house and the two cars and all that, and mentally I still feel the same. I don't say every little thing that pops into my head anymore, but really, that's about the only difference.
So, "lost" my job, that is to say, it got offshored and I didn't make more than a token effort to find something else in the company. They became an AOL/Verizon/Inotech, started treating everyone like shit (more on that in a minute), and I could see the writing on the wall at least a year ahead of time. It went from a decent place to work to a grim, humorless parody of corporate mismanagement, one of Dante's circles of hell where people who want to have some kind of work/life balance go when they die maybe. I only did three or four unenthusiastic internal interviews, it was like a hazing, exactly like something Mike Judge would write, and believe me, the people who actually cared got it worse. I took my severance, found something else before I could even qualify for unemployment, and in a much better place. The drive sucks, the pays about the same, the environment, culture and work? Infinitely better.
It got bad. When everybody, and I mean everybody complains at work and management doesn't even bother to pretend they care about your opinion anymore, yeah, it's time to go. People were getting diabetes, hypertension, various stress related diseases. Two senior engineers dropped stone dead of heart attacks. Me? I picked up a variety of health problems while there, the level I can normally handle is a moderately stressful job and Lexian's bullshit, then throw what they did and the kid into the mix, it's no wonder I got sick. But long story short, the last, oh, 9 months or so, been struggling with LPR. Never mind all the other symptoms, you want to sleep. All the time. And when you're not asleep, you may as well be for how well you function. I finally managed to diagnose myself because the doctors sure as hell couldn't, changed the way I eat again, so down to 200 lbs again, with the goal of getting down to 180-175. This last weekend I actually managed to stay awake through most of it, and fact I'm writing this should tell you how I'm doing.
Family is finally getting it together. My mother made a bad financial decision, and I loaned her 5 grand to help, and what a difference that makes in how someone talks to you. Also, April finally will give her the time of day. Supposedly she'll start paying me back next month, but the nice thing is I don't even need the money. Brother fell in with an older woman who's keeping him honest, so even though professionally and developmentally he's where he should have been at least 5 years ago, he's working and in a relationship, so that's as good as I could have hoped.
Mortgage is getting paid off, I'm thinking of putting down another 10 or 15 grand on it next month. I could pay the whole thing off tomorrow but I want to stay a little liquid as I'm still a temp at this job. Pretty sure they'll pick me up, but you never know. So yeah, now that I'm getting over the LPR a bit, things are good, how's things with you guys?
Turned 35 last month, guess it'll be awhile before the shock sets in. This finally became topical for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLqASlSFOxg
Going back and reading my old posts when I was a 20 year old with no filter, and more, realization that the people I knew back then are also my age or older, it's hard to process. Hell, even the ones younger than me have hit 30 by now, but in my mind everyone's still the same. Here I am, on the young side of middle age with a kid and a house and the two cars and all that, and mentally I still feel the same. I don't say every little thing that pops into my head anymore, but really, that's about the only difference.
So, "lost" my job, that is to say, it got offshored and I didn't make more than a token effort to find something else in the company. They became an AOL/Verizon/Inotech, started treating everyone like shit (more on that in a minute), and I could see the writing on the wall at least a year ahead of time. It went from a decent place to work to a grim, humorless parody of corporate mismanagement, one of Dante's circles of hell where people who want to have some kind of work/life balance go when they die maybe. I only did three or four unenthusiastic internal interviews, it was like a hazing, exactly like something Mike Judge would write, and believe me, the people who actually cared got it worse. I took my severance, found something else before I could even qualify for unemployment, and in a much better place. The drive sucks, the pays about the same, the environment, culture and work? Infinitely better.
It got bad. When everybody, and I mean everybody complains at work and management doesn't even bother to pretend they care about your opinion anymore, yeah, it's time to go. People were getting diabetes, hypertension, various stress related diseases. Two senior engineers dropped stone dead of heart attacks. Me? I picked up a variety of health problems while there, the level I can normally handle is a moderately stressful job and Lexian's bullshit, then throw what they did and the kid into the mix, it's no wonder I got sick. But long story short, the last, oh, 9 months or so, been struggling with LPR. Never mind all the other symptoms, you want to sleep. All the time. And when you're not asleep, you may as well be for how well you function. I finally managed to diagnose myself because the doctors sure as hell couldn't, changed the way I eat again, so down to 200 lbs again, with the goal of getting down to 180-175. This last weekend I actually managed to stay awake through most of it, and fact I'm writing this should tell you how I'm doing.
Family is finally getting it together. My mother made a bad financial decision, and I loaned her 5 grand to help, and what a difference that makes in how someone talks to you. Also, April finally will give her the time of day. Supposedly she'll start paying me back next month, but the nice thing is I don't even need the money. Brother fell in with an older woman who's keeping him honest, so even though professionally and developmentally he's where he should have been at least 5 years ago, he's working and in a relationship, so that's as good as I could have hoped.
Mortgage is getting paid off, I'm thinking of putting down another 10 or 15 grand on it next month. I could pay the whole thing off tomorrow but I want to stay a little liquid as I'm still a temp at this job. Pretty sure they'll pick me up, but you never know. So yeah, now that I'm getting over the LPR a bit, things are good, how's things with you guys?