“Hey you, you’re finally awake”

My industry is weird (it’s in my post history, so I’ll just say it, it’s EMS). A lot of ambulance companies don’t have someone to actively maintain a website. They might have a website but it might be a year or two out of date. It’s easier and cheaper for a supervisor to make a “we’re hiring! Email me your info!” post on Facebook, especially when that’s where everyone is anyway and that’s how everyone else is doing it. It’s a very informal and very odd industry.

We have to do so many hours of continuing education every year to maintain our certification and I have a co-worker who does the coolest trainings. I finally asked how he finds them because all I can ever find is the dryest, most boring classes. Of course the answer was Facebook. It’s all on Facebook. If you want to get into a new specialty, if you want a fun training, if you want to connect with providers who aren’t in your immediate circle, if you want to learn a new niche or find a company or a job across the country you need Facebook.

I’ve never had a LinkedIn and I deleted my Facebook and Instagram years ago. I actually think it’s why I can’t get a new job in my field. I’m currently employed, get good feedback from my supervisors and peers, have tons of experience, and have good working relationships with the people I deal with outside my company, but most networking in my field is all done on social media and most jobs are posted on Facebook. I’ve been looking for a new job for months and have applied at multiple places and followed up and heard crickets, and yet I know people with the same exact job who were fired for cause and had a job the next week. The only job openings I’ve even found are places that coworkers with social media pointed me to, because they saw posts that the companies are hiring. I’m starting to wonder if companies are looking me up on social media, not finding me, and throwing me in the reject pile. The last thing I want to do is rejoin the metaverse, but I’m starting to think I’m wrecking my career by avoiding it. It’s so frustrating.

I’m not at all religious now, but I was raised Christian. There’s some awful, awful shit in the Bible, but Jesus was such a chill dude. If everyone acted like Jesus, the world would be an awesome place. He was just a hippie who drank wine and hung out with his bros and made friends with prostitutes and outcasts and condemned the church leaders who abused their positions. According to legend he was the legit son of God and yet when he was asked to judge sinners he was like yo dudes that’s not my place only my dad can do that I’m not worthy and neither are any of you, maybe instead of worrying about what other people are doing you should deal with your own issues, ok? Can you imagine if people actually lived like that? I’m not as familiar with other religions, but from what I know other major prophets were pretty chill, cool dudes too. If people actually followed the prophets of their religions instead of being assholes, religion would be great. Instead we have poor people being exploited, women and children being abused, and the entire system is fucked and corrupted because of human nature run amok.

Came here to comment on the religion part. Humans are biologically programmed to be in a tribe and we need an “other” and we need a bad guy. On its own religion could be a neutral or a good thing, but it fits that need for tribalism and a common enemy and feeling superior. It’s the same mindset as nationalism or racism or when fans of sports teams riot and beat the shit out of each other for no reason. If religion never existed humanity would have just discovered some other way to segregate ourselves, feel superior, order each other around with arbitrary rules even the in group can’t agree on, and isolate and kill those who don’t comply. Add in manipulative people who are all too eager to hop into leadership roles and use them for their own power and selfish gain and you have pure evil, but it’s the system, not the religion, that’s a distraction.

Wow, this was super interesting to read, thanks for taking the time to respond.

I have a question, how much leeway do you have to get things covered? If the old lady calls you and says her insulin was denied and she can’t afford it, can you “accidentally” hit the approve button?

I had to have surgery for a medical issue. It was technically being controlled with medication, but the medication was expensive, difficult to get, and the side effects sucked and some of them were known to cause permanent damage. The permanent fix was surgery, and while that surgery was listed as covered under my insurance I figured that I was going to have to fight like hell to get it approved because my symptoms were under control with medication. I got home from work one day to a letter from the insurance company and I remember thinking “oh boy, here we go” and when I opened it and saw “your procedure has been approved” I was genuinely so surprised I sat down on the floor and had to reread it. I’ve always wondered if whoever did the pre-approval from my surgeon’s office was just that good or if someone at my insurance company was having a great day.

I work in healthcare. I feel like more and more people are wanting some sort of universal healthcare in the last few years, even if they are conservative, even if they’ll vote against it, and even if the term “universal healthcare” will have them up in arms. But the concept itself? They’re all for it, they complain that healthcare is too expensive and insurance companies aren’t covering things and the system needs to change. They’re getting there. It’s taking them getting fucked over for it to happen and most of us may be dead of completely preventable causes first, but they just might get there.

How dare someone who is dying of cancer and is too sick to work anymore get free Netflix! They can work for it like everyone else! I’m not subsidizing their Netflix /s

I have a 2 year agreement with my home Internet for a lower price. It’s not a contract because I can leave at any time, but I get a deal for a cheaper plan. It’s up in a few months, and all the options available for me to switch to are way higher. I’m going to call and try to pull the “well give me the new customer deal” shit, and if they call my bluff that they’re the only option I’ll just go without home Internet for a month or two then try to sign up again as a new customer and hope it works. I have unlimited hotspotting on my phone, it’s super slow but I can make do for a bit if I have to.

FYI, if that ever happens again and you have nail polish remover handy, it dissolves it with no filing required :)

Loneliness. Lima beans. The smell of weed.

Oof, I’m so sorry. It’s so hard to work around people you deeply disagree with on a philosophical or moral level, and I won’t even pretend to understand your struggles as a trans person in this world. Good luck to you, and I hope you can find access to the medications or treatments you need.

I have ADHD. I can usually hold my shit together at work, and I work 16 hour shifts. Some days my coworkers will notice enough to ask me if I’ve taken my meds, but most days I appear pretty chill. I’ll bet if you asked the majority of my coworkers they’d tell you I’m not ADHD.

What they don’t see is me going home and sobbing on the floor from the sheer effort and desperation of trying holding my shit together and not fuck up in ways that I can’t fix. I’m terrified every fucking day that today will be the day I fuck up enough that I can’t hide how bad my brain actually is anymore and I’ll make a critical error and I’ll lose my job. I don’t have a backup plan or someone to catch me if I fail, I’ll just be homeless at the end of the month when I can’t make rent.

This is such a good answer and I hate that it’s true.

I also am a one income household and also am no stranger to having to choose “rent or groceries” on a regular basis. I hate that you can’t get food assistance unless you make minimum wage, but where I live they release analysis every year that a single adult needs to make at least 3x minimum wage just to be able to afford to exist with a one bedroom apartment at market rates and that’s without having extra money for savings, hobbies, or going out.

I have fucked up so many things in my life but I will always be eternally grateful that I never fucked up and got pregnant.

Update, if anyone is interested. Kitty is ok, but things ended up being worse than the vet realized. Externally everything looked good except needing a cleaning and the vet thought maybe a tooth might need extracted, but when they did X-rays 4 of his teeth were being resorbed by his body and the roots were basically gone, so they needed to be pulled. Poor guy is doing good, very unhappy about his current life situation and will be medicated and in a cone for the next 2 weeks, but I’m glad it’s taken care of and he’s home.

Emergency room wait times in my area are regularly 8+ hours because uninsured, underinsured, or just plain dumb people can’t or won’t go see their doctor and go to the Emergency room for all their medical care because they know they can’t be turned away. So you have someone sitting in the Emergency room waiting to take a pregnancy test that they could have just bought at the pharmacy next to someone who has had a cold for a week and thinks the ER docs have some magic pill to make them instantly better. Meanwhile they’re also trying to treat things like strokes and heart attacks and major traumas and non life threatening but legitimate emergencies like major broken bones and more acute illnesses. Everyone is miserable and no one wins except the insurance companies.

Oof, I don’t know how I’d function if I had a toddler. Single parents amaze me, I can barely function as a single person. I have pretty bad ADHD and work is an absolute white knuckle struggle, but I have absolutely no one since my last relationship failed and I don’t want to be homeless so I cry a lot at home and then slap a smile on and grind through my shift.

Vet bills are the worst, but my cats don’t have the option to do anything about their situation or choose to work different jobs or change things about their life so it feels wrong to decline medical care and potentially make them suffer when they don’t get a say in the matter. I can make that choice for myself and my own medical care, but it feels cruel to make that choice for them, you know? They’re stuck in whatever life I give them, so I try to make it better than mine.

I hope your cat is ok!

Kitty will be ok, thank you. Just needs teethies taken care of. If we’re lucky not pulled, just anesthesia and deep cleaned, so not really surgery, but still expensive as hell. If not lucky, teeth pulled and painkillers, so more like surgery. He goes in tomorrow, both of us will be very unhappy.