Stress of having to be a grown up

I think I'm operating day to day burnt out. Just... completely burnt out. And I keep doing what I'm doing because my family needs me to. I have twin 5-year-olds. I have a 16-year-old step-son. And I have a pretty amazing wife who is also bearing the burden of stress. We both work full-time jobs, and both of us let the job bleed over into our personal time. We work from home, so there isn't really great cut-off, and that might be the very best argument ever for working from the office. Having some separation between home life and work life might actually help. But working from home has become something of a necessity for us with the twins. Being able to handle it when they have colds/fevers they have to stay from pre-K for is pretty key. But it's things like being able to start a load of dishes or laundry, and take care of the dogs, and run errands if needed during business hours, and more.

I hate my job. I'm not looking to burn bridges, so I'll leave out who I work for in this post. If you figure it out from somewhere else, then congratulations on your hard fought knowledge. When I got hired, I was pretty desperate for work. I had been laid off from my previous job when the pandemic hit and the owners of the previous company didn't want to dip into their profits to be kind to their employees. Ten percent of us had to go. And in the tech industry where demand for online services might go down in a pandemic... they weren't willing to risk their precious comfortable income to protect us. Yes. I'm bitter about rich people who don't understand that their employees are what make their company possible, and choose to keep all the money we generate. Inhumane, inconsiderate, greedy, garbage human beings. Where was I? Oh right...

So, I was desperate for work during the height of unemployment near the beginning of the pandemic. A person at my wife's company on another team was looking to hire someone. It was not the right fit. The technology stack was completely different and the work was less software development and more dev-ops. I was a long time software engineer who could learn, and they were an employer. I took the offer, and have been here for about 2.5 years. The group we work for is the remnants of a company that got bought by a bigger company. And because of management indecision, lack of foresight, lack of care, and lack of understanding the group has been abused pretty much the entire time they've been owned by the big company. Demands for excellent work and customer service with the promise of our product being shut down being made over and over. We get told the product is going away, and then they remember how much their own internal teams use our product and depend on it. And then they try again, and change their minds. And then new people get involved and they try again and still can't make it happen. All the while, the domain knowledge experts keep leaving. The demands to keep the service running are put entirely on their shoulders, and then when things don't go perfectly, they're scape-goated. We get punished when things don't go well, and they won't hire anyone to help us. And they don't understand that losing those domain knowledge experts makes this WAY harder to do. Service incidents occur, and they slap us with a change freeze and make it harder for us to do our jobs. And my favorite recent thing was my current (fairly new) manager telling me what some deadline was on my project and telling me to "act like it"... as though it's my fault the deadline got chosen without any basis in reality and without any consideration for the super long approval processes they imposed.

The current situation is that my job sucks. It sucks for all of us on my team and my wife's team. All the stress of high expectations without even 10% of the resources we need... AND we'll get the blame when things go wrong. What a stupid arrangement. I'm job hunting, but that's not going great. I interviewed at a place that seemed to like me, but then the company decided to cancel the job rec. Pretty much like the company I work for. It feels to me like people are hesitant to hire and spend that money. Guessing it's more rich people that don't want to accept a little less pay for themselves so that their employees can have less stress. Last I checked, the average CEO was paid 361 times what their average employee was paid. So, if the national average for yearly pay is around $50,000, the average CEO would be making $18,050,000. Per year. Assuming they pay any taxes, they easily have 5 million left over. Outright buy a huge freaking house. That's the first year. What other big expenses do they have? What do they need all that other money for? And if they were fired and replaced with someone making a quarter of what they were making, would the company suffer at all? Is that CEO really providing over three hundred times the value of their other employees? Really? The answer is very clearly "no". Losing the CEO wouldn't slow the company down. Losing 300 employess would. And what those people at the top SHOULD do is chop their own salary down. With that average example, if the CEO chopped just their own salary down to 3 million, they could bump 300 employee salaries up by just over 50,000. If they're at the average, that doubles their pay. Suddenly, people don't need to get second job and can actually live their lives.

Okay. Yes. Very bitter at the rich people who run this country for screwing over everyone with less money than them. It's actually a big source of stress for me. It bothers me that rich people are such awful human beings. But (to move on to my next source of stress), it also bothers me how little effort some people make to avoid delusions. Millions of people in this country think Donald Trump is a good person who did good things for them. Obviously to anyone paying attention, Donald Trump is a horrifying human being that did everything in his power to line his own pockets without any care at all about how many people died because of his inept, ignorant, and damaging efforts as president. His business savvy with China lead to a failed trade war where our farmers had to be given 12 billion dollars in tax money to save them financially. Trump is stupid. He's a terrible business man, terrible president, and terrible human. But people believe him over any other information source. Even when he says stupid stuff on live TV about how windmills cause cancer and have a huge carbon footprint. Or that tax evasion makes him smart (which he said during the presidential debate with Clinton). Do his disciples not understand that rich people evading taxes means the burden of taxes is shifted to them? Seriously... we have public school, police, fire departments, the military, road and bridge maintenance, and more that are all tax-funded programs to benefit all of us (socialism). Do people want our government to stop providing those things? Now I can agree that we need to take money out of the military... that thing is ridiculous. We need universal health care and child care. And we could use an organization that helps with situations the police have no idea how to deal with... so... reduce tax money going to the corrupt violent bullies, and give it to people who are actually trying to help. But anyway, yes, our tax money should be spent better, but when super rich people evade taxes, we get to cover their portion. And Trump's supporters think he's brilliant for dodging taxes.

But my point was that almost half the population thinks Trump is good. And with all the information available they went with the conspiracy nuts and for-profit-fear-mongering at Fox News. They are literally delusional and will angrily argue that they are correct about their stance. It's hard for me to accept so many people would support a man who flippantly said he wasn't going to wear a mask, resulting in too many people not being careful, which resulted in so many more people dying than would have without the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of people. An idiot braggart conman. And so many people not only fell for it, but continue to argue it... like it's their new religion. Another harmful thing based on the lies of a few people who want to stay in power. Do so many humans really need the comfort of an easy lie to deal with life? Does it really help to carry so much hate for people different than you accept your idol will punish those people despite them having done nothing wrong?

I'm stressed about how many people in the society my children are growing up in would consign kids to hell because the gun lobby says gun violence in school is okay; because a kid is trans; because a kid is black; because they think the word socialism is bad without understanding it... I just... what kind of nutty world do we live in where DeSantis can make wearing women's clothing a crime in Florida? Or ban books because there are black kids or trans people represented? Or ban the teaching of actual history because his white pride thinks we can sweep the atrocities against black people under the rug? Or take pride in the idea of smashing the concept of "woke"? So many people supporting him that just don't care that being woke means caring about other people... about being awake to the fact that there are people suffering in what's supposed to be a powerful society. We can be better than DeSantis. That guy is seemingly worse than Trump... a zealot pile of selfishness and hate for anyone not like him. Trump opened the door, and so many people just jumped in line behind him. Ugh... what a terrifying world, and I genuinely hope we're not too late to save the country... I hope enough of us stand against people like Trump and DeSantis to make things better... long enough for the younger generation to take over, because while we might have opened some doors to move things in a better direction, the young generation is going to have to step up and take over. The old pieces of conservative garbage in the political power positions need to be taken to the curb and sent to rest in the dump.

That's the big external stuff. Job, politics, and religion. It all actively causes me anxiety every day. But the sources of stress don't stop there. I want to be a good dad to my kids; a good husband to my wife; a good friend to the people in my life; and to be of some help to people in need. I want to help kids in the foster system. I want to help people of color and LGBTQ+ people. And I don't have the resource to be more than a passive ally to people far outside my life. But I can try to help my kids. I want more than anything to give them a happy and healthy childhood. I know... I know I'm going to mess up some things. I already feel guilty about how much time I spend working and about those times I'm just too tired to play. I feel terrible about those times I lose my temper and yell. I try to apologize and try to remember so next time I won't yell. I'm trying so hard, and I hope I never do or say anything that diminishes the light I see in my children's eyes. I hope they can both be fierce beacons of light as adults. It sounds cheesy even as I type it, but it also feels right. I don't want anything to beat their sense of hope down. I want their spirits to be strong and healthy enough to whether the world should it place as much burden on them as it does to us. Worrying about the well-being of my kids and their futures is on my mind every day too.

I've been running on empty for years. Probably decades. I think I'm clinically depressed. I know I don't feel energy any day. Even on vacation... I had time away from work, but that just relieved the pressure for a little while. But even while on vacation, I didn't feel strong motivation to do anything. I wasn't energetic. It wasn't enough to recover. I'm still burnt out. I'm job hunting, but the market is low and I can't very openly job hunt for fear of my employer finding out I'm trying to leave like so many others. I want to leave but can't. I just have to keep trying to get just enough motivation to do some work. Day after day. The same thing I don't want to be doing because I have to wait until I can find a way out.

I find myself staring out the window a lot. I want to write my book. I want to write table-top role-playing game material. I want to start my own company. I want to open up a little gaming shop with awesome table-top gaming rooms that can be used for LAN parties. I want to travel and see more places than I already have. I don't know. I do know that I'm out of fuel. My engine is running on empty and has managed a surprisingly long time. And I think my situation is probably not unique. Probably most people are worn out. We have to find a way to make the oligarchs of this country fix the problem. Or get out of the way. I think that was my stream of consciousness for today.

The Lobby System is Broken

Maybe being a federal level politician shouldn't be a path to becoming a millionaire.  No.  Definitely.  It shouldn't be a path to becoming a millionaire.  The motivation for choosing to work for the public shouldn't be huge sums of money.  It should definitely be fair pay... enough to live comfortably, and be able to support yourself after you serve until you can find your next source of income, but not millions of dollars.  And the thing is that I think it's already set up like that for how much tax money gets spent on representative salary.  But there's a HUGE problem: there's no law preventing those representatives from taking money from special interest groups or individuals.  It's perfectly legal to buy a politician.  And that politician can then push for laws that benefit the small entity that bought them, even if it's against the interests of the American people.  This situation is wrong.  And it keeps lobby groups like the NRA in power.  For example, it allows them to dictate to our politicians that we can't do research into gun violence.

No one who truly wants to end the threat of children dying in school wants biased research.  Research that starts with a conclusion and then publishes false findings to support their claim will fail to protect anyone.  What we (who want to protect children) actually want is unbiased research because we want a real reliable path to take to protect life.  The NRA blocking any research is a direct declaration that they care more about protecting their gun collections than stopping the deaths of children in school.  And the response we get from them is a claim (from Wayne LaPierre) that the NRA has supported the background check system for years, and that armed guards in schools will solve the problem.  But both claims fail the logic test.

First the claim that the NRA has supported the background check system doesn't make sense.  If that were true, the background check system wouldn't be so broken.  Politicians would have jumped all over the chance at improving the system because the left side of politics wants that, and if the NRA wants that, then so do the right side politicians that they own.  So, if the NRA has been supporting better background checks... where is the improvement?  I don't see it.

Second is the claim that armed guards at schools is the answer.  There was an armed police guard at the Parkland Fl school shooting.  He hid.  He didn't help.  And if he had run in to fight the criminal shooter, could he have prevented ALL of the deaths of the innocent children and teachers?  Or would that solution just have curbed the number a little?  Do we have to accept that 7 people would have died instead of 17?  I mean, sure it's better if only 7 die, but why do any children have to die in school?  That's absurd.  No amount of arming people at schools will protect all children.  More guns is definitely NOT the answer here.  But hey... why not allow the research to be attempted?  What if more guns turns out to be the answer?  I doubt it, but if you (the NRA and people that believe them) are right, then the research will show that.

It is my contention that the lobby system should be destroyed.  It is my contention that our representatives should be held responsible to the people they represent.  If we make it illegal for our representatives (from the top to the bottom) to receive money or anything of value from anything other than their tax funded salary, at the risk of losing their jobs and facing jail time, the lobbies suddenly don't have power.  Any politician that accepts money would immediately not have power to do what the big-money-entity wants, and I doubt any politician wants to spend time in jail.  Sure they'd try to find ways around it, but the moment any politician gets caught and faces consequences, the willingness to risk it goes way down.  We'd just have to hound our politicians and make sure they stay honest.

Maybe we'd start to see tax policy that actually makes sense.  Hold billionaires accountable for their taxes so our government wouldn't have to sap the lower and middle classes so much to fund useful programs.  Maybe we'd start to see environmental protections improve again despite the coal industry trying to keep making money off it's dirty practice.  Maybe we'd start to see programs that make college public, so our kids don't have to start their lives as adults in the workforce at a deficit.  Maybe money would stop going to big tax breaks for huge corporations and rich people, and start going to bolstering law enforcement, fire fighters, public school teachers, road and bridge maintenance, government provided health care (instead of the horrid private industry that makes the people at the top rich while we have to fight to get any money when we actually need it)...

We NEED the government to represent us instead of people with money.  We NEED this to stop being a plutocracy, and start being a representative democracy.  And we NEED our children to be safe.  Period.  This is a first world country right?  Let's start acting like it.

Trump's Band of Evil

Trump's Band of Evil...

Mike Pence

This guy is the price we have to pay to get Trump out of office.  He's a religious zealot that has worked in government to attack women's rights and LGBTQ rights.  He's an awful human being.

Rex Tillerson 

Here we have an Exxon/Mobil executive with billions of dollars and business ties to Russia in charge of our foreign affairs.  I'm not totally comfortable calling him outright evil just yet, but that might be a familiarity issue.  I'm skeptical of him because he's another business man with billions of dollars.  I don't trust him to have the interests of the people of the United States at heart when he makes decisions.  I expect him to act in the interest of big business (especially big-oil) whenever possible.  I suppose there's an outside chance he won't turn out to be evil... but a very slim outside chance.

Steven Mnuchin

Here's another fun one.  Take a Goldman Sachs employee and hedge fund manager, and put him charge of the finances of the country.  So we have a guy that is super-rich, and loves making more money for the super-rich, and put him in charge of everyone?  Maybe if we had some assurance he wasn't going to screw us all over, it would be good to have someone that understands money that way at the helm.  But he's part of the problem.  He's part of the context that has been ruining our economy.  This guy is definitely evil.

Jeff Sessions

I found some denial of his racism online, but I also found gobs of quotes of his that are scary.  The man seems to dislike black people, is loved by the KKK (even if he doesn't say he likes them back).  He's also in strong support of "one-man-one-woman" marriage laws, which makes him a bigot.  I'm tired of people discriminating against the LGBTQ community.  They're human beings.  Like all the rest of us.  Sessions is evil.

Ben Carson 

This guy is a terrible role model.  He firmly stands up and says that evolution is a lie, and then points to his being a surgeon to support his stance.  There are people out there that will believe him because of his supposed scientific literacy, but the problem is that he's wrong.  He's provably flat-out wrong.  And the job he was given... what in his past qualifies him to help with Housing and Urban Development?  Ugh... might not be evil, but his influence certainly is.

Betsy DeVos

Religion is separate from Government for a very good reason.  Religion is not universal.  We don't all agree on it.  For government to be fair to all the citizens it represents, it CANNOT pay any heed or favoritism to any religion.  Period.  It shouldn't be in our courtrooms; it shouldn't be on our money; it shouldn't be in the pledge of allegiance; and it should never ever ever be part of the education system that our taxes pay for.  Sure, there can easily be academic classes to teach students about religions and their history, but a school should never suggest that any particular religion is correct.  And Betsy DeVos has publicly stated that she wants to put her God into schools.  This infuriates me.  And even beyond her offensive intentions, why did she get the job of Secretary of Education?  She has zero background in education.  She doesn't know anything about it.  I'm a software engineer.  If I apply for a job as a physician's assistant at a hospital, I expect to be looked at like I'm crazy and then told to leave.  I don't think she thinks she's evil, but like Ben Carson, her influence definitely is.

Scott Pruitt

I think he infuriates me as much as DeVos.  In the past he's sued the EPA to try get around protections for the environment, for his business interests.  He actively opposes the EPA.  And now he's in charge of it?  What the fuck is that?  And he denies human influenced climate change?  He's either stupid or greedy enough to deny it for business interest.  Yeah I'm getting worked up sitting here typing this.  I hate this guy.  I hate sitting here knowing that our government is actively working against the best interest of the citizens of this country; of the people of the world; of the environment and every living thing that depends on it.

Trump - Leader of the group

Selfish greedy asshole that is dismantling any limitations on business so that the super-rich can get richer, at the cost of the environment and citizens of the United States that are not super-rich; Lies to us despite video evidence on national television that he's lying.  Obviously evil.  Blatantly obviously evil.  He's a petulant waste of a human being that should never have been given any kind of power.  Someone needs to put him in his place and make him start working for the people instead of his business interests.  Someone needs to make him give up his stake in his businesses too.

I hate Trump.  I hate the world he's trying to make... not the one he says he's trying to make... the one he's actually making.  I want people to have jobs too... but unemployment is super low right now (thanks to Obama).  I want immigration reform so that people that want to come here have options to do it legally without waiting for 5 years.  I don't want a stupid expensive ineffective wall.  I don't want the LGBTQ community to suffer because some self-centered assholes think they know what some divine being wants (and I think which is in opposition to the teachings of Jesus which include being good to everyone).  I don't want our children to grow up thinking that creationism has as much validity as the big-bang, abiogenesis, and evolution.  I don't want our children to continue to fall behind the rest of the world in education.  I don't want the super-rich to be able to hold on to the power they've taken from us.

Jebus our country is a Plutocracy.  And that has to change.  We have to get the band of evil out of power.  We have to do something to fix the wage gap in this country.  We have to give power back to the EPA.  This country is falling apart, and Trump with his merry band of assholes is to blame.