I worked with someone who changed my mind on this. She’d worked the take-out counter at a restaurant and she talked through the kinds of steps she took to ensure the meal was correct, containers were properly sealed, and they had utensils, napkins, sauces, and all the things the customer would need or expect.

Learning about the amount of time and care put in at that restaurant made it clear that it was a service.

I usually give 10% at restaurants with a similar service because of her. With takeaway restaurants where you just order at a counter, though? I generally only tip if the people working were super friendly.

I’d prefer to not have a tipping culture at all. But as long as this is the society we live in, I can afford to pay a couple extra bucks here and there to help people who generally make shit wages.

I think everyone here understands that. The person you were responding to used air quotes implying that’s what the right will view it as.

Many years ago I saw a TIFU on reddit about a person who mispronounced “banal” while on a call with many people. I will always be grateful to that person’s fuck up for correcting my mental pronunciation of that word, lol.

Usually I’ll answer product management because that’s what I do and I enjoy it (and I had no idea this career existed while I was in school), but reading this I actually think it could be a good fit for you, depending on how you feel about socializing with people.

I have an English degree but I also worked at an IT company every summer from high school through college, doing many different jobs with an increasingly technical focus. I taught myself HTML and CSS when I was like 10, but except for one high school class of Java I never got deeper into coding than that.

My interest in language and words combines with my technical aptitude in product management. I usually describe it as a job of translation, because I have to work with customers, internal users, business leaders, designers, and developers, and I need to be able to talk to and listen to all of them and understand their context well enough to translate to the other groups. I might need to tell the exact same story half a dozen completely different ways depending on my audience.

There are lots of different approaches to product management and every company does it differently, but some of the critical skills are being able to identify and deeply understand problems (of the business, of customers, etc.) and propose solutions to those problems.

It sounds like you have some technical aptitude but also interest in language and story telling (and a big part of product management is writing what are literally called “user stories”), so if you don’t mind the people interactions, it might work for you too.

I’ve been on or involved with Product teams for about 10 years now and had an actual Product Manager title for over 6, managing a team of PMs for the last 3. I feel like I found it by accident but I totally lucked into a career I actually love, so I’m happy to talk to people about it any time!

Stock photo since I’m not up for sharing my face 😆 I don’t have the blazer, but I kinda regret that decision now.

Company who made them is Betabrand. They’re comfy!

Someone else mentioned it’s houndstooth, but there’s a company out there who turned that pattern into “catstooth.” I own pants with this pattern and they make me very happy!

Isn’t that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, not Frankenstein?

You and I are on the same page. My only point was that there are unfortunately many people out there now who believe they have a “healthy” level of skepticism, but are actually misled, misinformed, and not educated enough to distinguish reality. And I named specific groups who frequently fit this pattern.

When skepticism is truly healthy, it’s great. But there are many people who are unable to identify what “healthy” means here. No where did I say or mean to imply that some skepticism is a bad thing.

Unfortunately this also gets abused by some people who believe they have a healthy level of skepticism, but actually are way off the deep end. Like anti-vaxxers, flat-Earthers, and other anti-science people.

So “healthy” in this context shouldn’t be defined by the individual.

I have a black cat and an Abyssinian, so I like to say can stare into the Abyss or scream (quietly) into the void any time I want, lol.

I’m sure you know this so I’m commenting for others.

Sodium chloride alone can really upset your stomach, and potassium “buffers” the salt in a way that reduces nausea risk. There are straight up condensed salt pills that work, but are more likely to make you sick.

I also didn’t eat a lot of salt in the past and had to train myself into it. In fact, when I first started seeing my cardiologist, I made a humorous list of all the conventional wisdom I learned wasn’t true for me.

PSAs: Salt is bad for you! Eat less! My cardiologist: Salt is good for you. Eat more. Like 7-10 GRAMS a day.

Popular media: Wearing a corset might make you faint! My cardiologist: Abdominal compression is good. Wear a corset, it’ll make you faint less.

Fitness guides: When you hit an energy wall, push through to build endurance! My cardiologist: When you hit a wall, STOP! You will pay for it if you keep going!

All health guides: The best drink for your health is water; always drink more! My cardiologist: Just water is BAD. Drink lots, yes, but be careful to balance it out with electrolytes.

Magazine headlines: Walking is the best exercise for health. My cardiologist: Walk if you can tolerate it, but that is not good exercise for you. Rowing, recumbent biking, and swimming are best for you.

Still makes me chuckle as I learn to listen to my body and not society.

Electrolyte drink mixes are my saving grace, and LMNT is my favorite brand by a long shot. I enjoy drinking LMNT while every other brand I’ve tried is a slog.

I try to have 2 a day in about 25oz of water each. Hot days with lots of activity, I may need 3.

I genuinely can’t imagine getting 5–10 liters of water a day, and I already drink so much more than most people I know!

My cardiologist called it “POTS or vasovagal syncope,” and said he could specify with a tilt test, but since he treats them the same he didn’t recommend the tilt test.

So I could just say “yes,” but instead I give a long-winded answer to say that it’s a technically undefined dysautonomia that I treat like POTS, lol.

I use electrolyte mixes, salt pills, and salt my food, with a goal of 7–10g of salt and 100 oz of water a day. It’s amazing how much better I feel when I hit both of those targets!

Oh? I’ve had this issue as long as I can remember. Teens for sure, probably before.

It’s actually gotten better as I’ve aged because I eat more consistently and now know I need to eat tons of salt.

Worth noting since “sugar-free” sometimes means “sugar substitute” in marketing parlance: some peanut butters use xylitol as a sweetener, and xylitol kills dogs.

So yeah, read the label. Some peanut butters have literally just peanuts as an ingredient and those are best!

This is the advice I was coming to give, with the addition of a specific possible group.

I know there’s a lot of the anti-religion sentiment on Lemmy (for many good reasons) but one community I’m familiar enough with to suggest are Quakers (AKA Friends). Quakerism is rooted in progressive values and even those who practice have a wide array of religious beliefs, many of whom lean agnostic or even atheist.

It’s one of the most LGBTQ+ friendly groups I’ve ever been a part of, and there is a Friends meeting in Columbus.

I hope OP is able to find a community that supports and loves him for who he is.

And the difference between that level of “upper class” vs the truly wealthy is insane.

Unless you’re in places like CA or NYC, $170k allows for a very comfortable life. It’s nothing to scoff at and it is absolutely beyond what most people in this country have.

But when thinking of the “upper class,” I think most people picture lush lives. Mansions, yachts, foreign vacations, private schools, house staff, etc.

I don’t think most people imagine someone who lives in a nice suburban neighborhood, saves enough money for retirement that they actually expect to retire in their 60s, and takes a modest vacation every year. But that’s closer to what $170k gets you. It’s comfortable and it’s a life most people would kill to have. But it’s a whole lot closer to a stereotyped “middle class” experience than it is to what most people imagine “upper class” to look like.

Lots of advice here but I haven’t seen anyone mention coding boot camps. There are free ones like FreeCodeCamp or lots of paid options. You can do these to learn or validate what you have been taught.

My company hires associate-level software engineers directly out of college programs and boot camps. They don’t expect people from these to know everything; you may not have ever even used the language that you will be expected to code in! But by completing a program you’re showing you understand the logic of programming and that is applicable knowledge.

Look for entry-level jobs and you’ll be fine. Even better, look for companies that intentionally hire from programs like yours. They’re more likely to have internal programs to help teach new-to-career folks.

It looks to me like he has a lot of blood pooling in his hands here, so it’s possible that in the morning, at rest with his arm on a table this did reasonably match his skin.

I say this as someone with a condition that causes blood to pool in my hands, so I know how extreme the color swings can be!

I see the joke you’re making but also if you genuinely want to understand and possibly gain some empathy for these people, I’d suggest reading The Cult of Trump. It’s from 2019 so it doesn’t include a ton of awful stuff that’s happened since then, but it does a great job of contextualizing how people can fall into these belief patterns.

It was written by a man who fell into a cult in his early 20s, found his way out, and has built his career around helping others out of cults and cult-like mindsets.