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#so they HAVE to deal with and can't pretend that was normal coworker stuff and not soulmate stuff lol
gamebird · 14 days
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I'm reading this book called Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. I'm actually reading the Audible version but a quick google turned up a YouTube full audio version if anyone wanted to check it out without Amazon being involved. It was recommended by a coworker and I picked it up hoping it would help me understand how to make my brain work better, given the intermittent brain fog.
It's not that kind of book. It's more about the way people think, what biases we have and what fallacies we fall prey to on a systematic scale. There aren't really fixes for this, any more than there's a fix for being the height that you are or dying of old age. It's just a thing about people.
I have not listened to it under the best of circumstances. I've been sick off and on over the last two weeks, recovering from jet lag, and it's been busy both at work and at home. So while he talks, and I hear the words, I can't say I've always been listening (or maybe it's the opposite, where I'm listening but not necessarily hearing). Either way, my retention and understanding haven't been great.
Which is fine, because like I said, the book isn't giving me what I wanted it for. It's still interesting. Kahneman was a young man at the start of Israel and had a role in the psychology division of their military, crafting interviews for recruits to sort them and how to best judge candidates for officer training. When you're doing something like that, you want to do it right. What he found was that their efforts were no better than random chance. When he took human interviewers out of the equation and used simple ratings of objective performance or past accomplishments, they realized a slight improvement over random chance.
This ended up being something of a trend in his professional life. He would tackle things where people thought they were in control of a process, with their actions making a difference and improvement in things, then show they were either making no difference, or unwittingly sabotaging the process with biases.
Stock traders, for example. Since he was a big deal in the circles of decision-making psychology, a big stock trading firm wanted him to talk to them. He got 8 years of trading information on their various traders, who were all paid by performance so they had tracked this carefully. He went through it in detail. None of them were better than random noise. Even the ones who were hot pickers for a year or two would even out and be revealed to have had the usual lucky streak that happens. Just as the ones who were lousy pickers for a year or two would turn it around and have some good years. This wasn't because they'd learned anything. It was just normal statistics.
He showed this to the firm's management. They were very, 'Oh? Hm. Yes, interesting,' didn't act surprised, and changed nothing at all about their process as a result.
(This is a fascinating intersection with another book I read recently, Bullshit Jobs, which talked about how there are a lot of jobs and sometimes entire professions who accomplish jack shit but are still employed to fill a seat and pretend. Stock traders are one of them. The author of Bullshit Jobs was mystified as to why this happened, because from what he could tell, the upper management knew in many cases their subordinates were unnecessary. So it's intriguing to see here that one of the foremost experts in how to think told upper management to their faces their subordinates were bullshit, and they went right on employing them.)
So much stuff we think we control is just random. Listening to this book has scared me about my retirement portfolio, most of which is invested in stocks. Because it means my wealth manager's stellar performance in the last year is likely a fluke. I believe it is - because he's been unable to explain adequately to me what he's done in the last year that's different from previous years of poorer performance. And so I need to be sure I'll still be able to survive retirement on a baseline income instead of the returns I've been getting the last year. (I checked; I'm fine.)
Also, experts are less trustworthy than anyone else on most of this stuff. Your most reliable person in a field has been in the field for a few years, is not publicly acclaimed, and isn't listened to. Perversely, if people are seeking out your advice and acting on it, your advice is almost certain to get worse. Human bias drags your predictions toward extremes and unlikely events that garner more attention, and if people have lauded you as an expert, then they will downplay your failures or accept your (or even make up themselves) excuses for why you were wrong "this time".
It's a mind-boggling dilemma. All those people who feel like no one ever listens to them and the experts are fucked up? Are entirely right. However, if you swapped them with the experts, then in short order they'd be fucked up and the former experts, now humbled and sidelined, would start making better predictions.
It's a 20+ hour book and I'm 2/3rds through it. There's a lot of good stuff in it.
But no, it's not going to help with brain fog. In good news, and just as random as everything else, the brain fog has been gone for the last several days anyway. That's been nice!
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truly-morgan · 7 months
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[Adult Mob with a 9-to-5 job and his exorcist adventure]
Shigeo Kageyama | Mob Psycho 100 20-03-2023
Now @unashamedfully made me have brain worms
But Mob ends up having a normal and boring 9-to-5 job, even tho he still helps Reigen from time to time with spirits.
and every time coworkers ask him what he did on the weekend and he answers honestly with stuff like:
"I travelled to Fishing City to go to a house near the sea so I could exterminate some evils spirit that was haunting the place since my shisho needed help"
and everyone is either "😃" because wtf senpai or "🤨😒" because they believe that he's lying or crazy
And it is always like this, no one actually believes that he does any of this. Shigeo Kageyama, one of the most normal dudes in their department, playing exorcist for a shisho he keeps mentioning?
yeah, sure.
but they still listen because it's entertaining.
but then I had two routes here.
1-
Someone who is stuck with what they believe to be a spirit and although everyone says that Kageyama-senpai is lying about his story or has to be insane, they still ask him for help, and they are ready to take a gamble for that.
sweet old Mob who accepts because why would he ever reject someone in help? When they end work he follows them home and takes a look at their apartment.
Sure enough, a spirit had been bothering his kohai and taking care of it for them. The spirit has gotten stronger from feeding on them for so long, but it's obviously nothing Mob cannot deal with, he has seen a lot worse.
He does apologise for all the stuff that ended up knocked to the floor as he replace everything in their place.
Lill' Kohai who is dumbfounded by what just happened, barely managing to say that it's nothing at all really.
they aren't sure if what happened was all true, but sure enough, all the weird event and feeling weirdly exhausted even after sleeping properly is gone.
now Kageyama-senpai always has someone listening to him like "😲🤩" when he talks about what he does of work with Reigen-Shisho.
Maybe they also try to make the other stop slandering him like that, what he says is true!! But everyone thinks that poor Kohai is gullible.
but it's okay because they know, and if anyone seems to be having a similar problem they are ready to refer Kageyama-senpai for help.
or 2-
Someone who wanna "catch Kageyama-senpai being fake" and asks for help about evil spirits.
They take him to an abandoned building where they planted speakers and stuff like this to pretend there's a ghost. And when Kageyama-senpai will pretend to exorcise something they are gonna reveal everything.
Only, Kageyama-senpai doesn't react much, and makes his way around the place while they follow him. They try pushing him to say something, but Mob simply says that he doesn't feel any spirits, but he'll keep looking.
He does follow all the weird sounds and all the weird movements, but he doesn't pretend to be an exorcist.
The college loses sight of him for a moment, only to see him reappear and continue searching. then after so long of just searching around Kageyama-senpai turns to them as he checks the time on his phone. "There's nothing in here AA-san, Maybe what you saw was someone playing inside of some animal who got in"
and the college isn't sure what to say. After all this time looking around, he isn't going to show off his "exorcist talents"?!? But there was plenty that could have convinces so.
"But I am certain there was something here and people say there is a ghost here" they try to push.
Meanwhile, Mob is already making his way out.
"Sometimes ghost stories are just that, ghost stories," Mobs says.
And then, just before he exits the room, "Oh and AA-san, it's not very nice to fake a place being haunted just to trick people". Then Mob is out, leaving them alone in the very normal abandoned building.
I can imagine Mob eating ramen with Reigen a couple of days later and retelling that story and Reigen is just like "I can't believe people would fake it just to trick you and make you lose your time"
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fizzingwizard · 7 months
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I am sick!! Surprising no one.
Happy thing today - I discovered a new brand of iced milk tea in the vending machine outside my apartment. It costs only 100 yen (a lot of drinks that used to be 100 yen have shot up to 110, 120, 130 this year) and it's a normal amount of drink inside. With milk tea it's often too sweet for me, but this one is really nice! Just lightly sweet and very fragrant. I bet it will taste great when it's heated up in fall too. Cheap, tasty, and nearby... yess I can be happy as long as it continues to be stocked, lol x'D coincidentally i watched a vid today where a person was on a business class JAL flight and ordered royal milk tea, the same kind that comes in a can in vending machines for 150 yen, only it cost 300 of course because you're drinking it on an airplane!! lmao
now work stuff!
It's been a pretty uggghhh September. I had a lot on my plate, and then I got bad news that my work partner, the only person on staff with me at the school over the past four years who didn't quit last spring, is going to quit in October. Not only is she going to quit, but the company doesn't have a replacement for her... I'm really upset, not with her for quitting, because if anything she's smarter than me for taking the plunge lol, but because I'm going to be left with just my 19-year-old newbie coworker and a random rotation of subs who aren't always even teachers themselves for some indefinite amount of time, with a class of 20 two and three year olds. And the company has been pretending the understaffing is a problem caused by so many people quitting at once - as if we hadn't been understaffed for years, and as if the reasons those employees chose to quit were nothing to do with how the company treated them... -.-'
So, to be honest, although I've said it in the past I've reached a point where it's more true when I say I really am job hunting again. It's a struggle, because no matter how bad things get here, I do genuinely enjoy working with very young children. I don't mind changing diapers and I don't mind tantrums and I've learned so much, I feel, about people in general from observing how different and how thoughtful my students are. I think it's a pretty sweet deal to work somewhere you can get constant hugs, play pretend, and celebrate holidays as part of your work. There are a lot of stressors as well, but they all go away when I see my kids.
But I'm so frustrated with the company. An entire staff quits (technically two requested transfers, a third was just transferred because reasons, and two stayed on as subs with the intention of quitting, one of whom has already done so - but everyone else besides me and my co-teacher genuinely quit) and their reaction is "they're a clique who did this on purpose to harm the company." Instead of "what did we do which drove away these hard-working, kind, experienced teachers who daily went above and beyond both for their students and for their coworkers?" Like. I'm not saying no mistakes were made by anyone. I just think it's ridiculous that the small mistakes that were made were treated so harshly, while little to no recognition, let alone help, was given for the very real issues we were handling. Everyone was a hard worker who I relied on and enjoyed working with. I'm not a slacker. But many of my coworkers worked even harder than me. And the company just did nothing to try to keep them. Also, that one teacher I mentioned who was transferred for mysterious "reasons" - I'm really bitter about that now because obviously we needed her here! If she wasn't against leaving, why did they make her?? She was transferred nearby (to a school that did also have some staffing issues but nowhere near as bad as ours) and is often at our school anyway filling in because there are no subs :) So dumb.
I'm especially concerned about my co-teacher quitting because as I said, my other co-teacher is only 19. She's great, but she can't help that she's young and new. And not only do I have a large class of 20 mostly still two-year-olds, but I have several emotionally challenging ones who need a lot of one-on-one attention. It's not just about how tiring it is, it's also about safety. If I'm the only experienced teacher, and I have to rely on my newbie co-teacher and some random third person who doesn't know the routine or the kids, that opens the door to so many problems. I'm the one who knows how to handle those emotionally-challenging kids. (Side note: at the start of the year I was told that my class was getting most of the challenging kids because my co-teacher has some kind of specific child development certification that made her the best choice of teacher for them. But... she is quitting... so... lol) But then I can't lead the rest of the class when they're having meltdowns. My co-teacher will have to do that. While she is doing very well, she hasn't found her teacher voice yet. She also doesn't know how to anticipate what kids will do unexpectedly. And she'll be supported by some random person... I don't like it at all. And I feel anything that happens, I will be blamed for. Like, even if I'm not blamed directly, there's a difference between not being directly blamed and getting glowing feedback in your file. The other two-threes class has also been through ups and downs and has as many kids as we do. But at least two of three teachers are experienced and the one new one has been with us almost since the beginning of he school year and isn't fresh out of high school. I just feel afraid my class will fall short and despite the challenges we faced we'll still be compared.
Anyway. Like I said, I'm pretty decided to quit, even though I'm not happy about it. The question is what to do next. Of course I'd love to stay in pre-K. But if I'm quitting anyway, it would be nice to work somewhere I can make more money. I don't know where that would be. It probably won't be education. I feel really at sea right now. I never wanted an office job, I never wanted to work for money, and I'm afraid I'll just hate it. But on the other hand, I do need money. I have savings but not a lot. And my job here is physically demanding to the point that I'm so exhausted every day. I don't get to sit down. For eight hours I'm chasing kids, squatting, lifting, running up and down stairs, carrying baskets, scrubbing floors, setting up and breaking down tables... It gets to be a lot doing it every day, although it's put me in better shape than I was even in college, lol. But I wouldn't mind a break :P and maybe just go to the gym like a normal person, lol.
So I'm looking around but I honestly don't really know what I'm gonna find, if anything, that will suit me and I'll suit it. And I'm not unrealistic about salary either - I'm not expecting to make a ton more than I do now. Just idk, more. We'll see I guess. I really don't want to leave Japan. My options here are limited as a foreigner (if I knew IT or something I'd be a little better off) but my fingers are crossed I'll somehow find a job that pays at least a little higher than what I get now.
Since I'm feeling pretty firm about quitting at the end of my contract, I'm seizing the last of my PTO to take my first trip home since before covid. Haven't bought the tickets yet though. That's gonna hurt ;___; not just the money but last time I looked I couldn't find flights that would get me home in less than 30+ hours... sigh. Fingers crossed there too buhahahha
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juicywritinghoard · 2 years
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trope with a twist writing prompts
car wash fundraiser argument leads to soapy sponge fight
enemies to lovers...but they were childhood friends
theme park employees...one wears a stupid mascot suit and the other is crushing hard
one made the other a special meal but it was absolutely awful and they may end up going to urgent care
person who usually has their hair up takes it down and the person watching walks into a wall
person scared of thunder is hiding in the bathtub during the storm. other person tries to comfort them and accidentally turns the water on
slow dancing in the kitchen turns to giggles when a cheesy ad comes on over the music
every single kiss so far has been a disaster but it's really funny
"what could go wrong" + something immediately goes wrong but it keeps happening
academic rivals to lovers but they're still rivals also
cheesy romantic hotel suite but they can't take it seriously enough to get spicy. for real, a heart shaped jacuzzi??
one meets the other's parents and it goes so poorly they ask the parents point blank for a do-over
date at the arcade becomes almost dangerously competitive
super-powered rivals but they're both villains
they got the same gift for each other...again
finding out the other has plans to propose and vibrating waiting for it to happen but they get faked out so many times they just propose instead
mermaid that definitely eats people. human is into it
royal and commoner fall in love and take down the monarchy
adopting a cat together and crying about it
very special package goes to the wrong address please explain everything they cannot rest until they understand
movie night in shambles after cuddling incident
partner that works in the circus is so flexible and won't stop doing acrobatics in normal situations
honeymoon antics lead to near-arrest but what could be more romantic than running away from the cops together
got lost and has to hold the other's hand now
coffee shop au but the barista hates their guts
teacher and another teacher who teach wildly different things
college au but both are full ass adults going back to school to get out of their shitty dead end careers
werewolf au. both of them are werewolves
fake proposing for free stuff leads to fake marriage for free gifts leads to friends with benefits situation that's going off the rails with denial
roommates but they're both secretly assassins trying to appear normal
loopy confession after waking up from anesthesia is a lot harder to pass off as a joke the third time
haha that sexy costume is so funny, well this person is about to be hilarious
this group project is either going to end in homicide or polyamory
alien and another alien and both think the other is human and also that they're doing a great job of pretending to be human
bed sharing at this airbnb gets more complicated when the cat gets involved
actual full biblical be not afraid angel and incredibly normal human holding hands
making a deal with the devil is the best thing that could have ever happened to them, actually
playing dnd together and the falling in love part is taking a backseat to a sudden gender/sexuality crisis
oh no this organization they've infiltrated is starting to feel like home but that paycheck tho…
getting stuck on the ferris wheel was cute for a few minutes but it's been like an hour and they don't want to play I spy anymore
you know what, maybe they ARE tired of being nice. maybe they DO wanna go apeshit.
they're secretly in the mafia and instead of freaking out their partner is a little too okay with it
it's starting to look like this road trip is a cover for something, actually
deep existential crisis put on hold for ice cream date
the human bones can be forgiven but if they load the dishwasher wrong one more time,
don't have a one night stand with your coworker on the spaceship
the wizard who lives in that tower might be an asshole but how else are you going to uncurse your dumb ass
please don't call an ambulance, they can't afford it, but can they give you a Starbucks gift card for a ride to the ER? there are at least 7 dollars on it still
they just found out they're magical and shit keeps going so wrong
famous musician really chill actually, happy to pay the rent of the person that saved their life and be friends maybe? please??
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seacreek · 4 years
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I don't want to write anything where irl friends would see (no one is gonna see this here anyway) but I need to get this out of me.
Liiiikeeeee
I was (am?) literally the most suicidal I've ever been in my life today (is today over if it's 2 am?) and not only can I tell that to NO ONE, but it's like God was fucking rubbing it my face all day. I actually laughed at one point bc I was driving behind someone thinking of whether I should try to do it at home or somewhere else when I noticed their license plate said KYS and then a mashup of my birthday numbers.
But like I've already been feeling this building bc I'm behind on bills and have no heat and it's gonna snow soon and it's the holidays which remind me that my family is all spread out and I don't really talk to my parents anymore and somedays I talk to no one at all but my cat and my life is going NOWHERE with no way to change that but to work myself even harder when I don't even feel like I have anything at all to give anymore.
And I already felt like calling out bc even though I chose to work Thanksgiving yesterday knowing I'd be the only one there, it was still depressing to know that normal people are with friends and family and I'm not. But I also didn't want to take up my neighbors/friends on their offers to join them bc I did that last year and got all the questions about what I was doing with my life and at the time I actually believed I'd be going back to school the next year but now I realize how I can't possibly afford that without accepting help from someone which would BE my neighbors bc my parents would not help and I can't pay for it alone. And I can't accept help from them bc I feel like I would just get overwhelmed and depressed and flunk out and waste their money anyway. And the other reason I couldn't go over there/can't is bc I already feel like such a burden to them. They do all this nice stuff for me all the time and I catch myself even EXPECTING it at times which is fucking disgusting. Even if I'm grateful and say thank you, it's not like they owe me anything just bc I have no one else to give it to me. So I need to stop accepting their help and gifts, but then I know they are judging me for that bc even though their really nice, they are also super judgmental and they really like me bc they think I have "potential", but if they knew that I'm actually just a natural born idiot and failure, they'd never want to talk to me in the first place. And also it's unhealthy probably how much I rely on their validation bc since I've known them since I was little, I'm almost using them as surrogate parents which is also fucked up bc they are not my parents, they have their own kids who actually have their lives together unlike me who is just like a pet project of theirs.
Soooo anyway I already had all this on my mind and more going into work today and when I get there, I look at the schedule and realize everyone called out but me!!!!
And so I had to make a frankenstein schedule out of all of theirs to prioritize what needed to get done and was still trying to do little favors for people in between that I didn't want to disappoint bc it wasn't their fault that their staff wasn't there to do it with them and it was getting super overwhelming. And then I'm super sensitive so when I'd have to tell someone that I COULDN'T do something extra for them that they really were looking forward to, it was already punching me in the gut to see their disappointment. But then the worst part is that they don't fully get that I'm not just choosing to do that out of spite, but I legitimately had negative amounts of time to get everything done so they would blame me for what I couldn't do for them. EVEN THOUGH I WAS WORKING LIKE 4 SCHEDULES IN 1. Like they don't have the capacity to think past what's in front of them sometimes which I understand it's not their fault, but it SUCKS bc then they are pissed at me even though I'm running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to do everything for everyone and keep them all happy and they should really be annoyed with my coworkers who didn't come in but I didn't even throw them under the bus bc it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I'm the person in front of them who is "refusing to do what they ask" so it's my fault.
So that's how my day is going everywhere I go as I rush from person to person and place to place, answering calls, improvising on the spot, and constantly having to tell someone that whatever they had planned on today isn't possible and dealing with the result of that. And the WHOLE TIME I am DAYDREAMING about how I'm gonna kill myself when I get home. Maybe slit my wrists, wait no my leg because I know I'll chicken out on the wrists, wait no, I'll drive out to the ocean and just swim out until I'm drowning too far out to save myself, wait no, what bridges could I jump from let me google that, wait no, I could take all of the pills at home together but then I might throw them up so wait no, maybe I'll drag this out and just not eat or drink til I just die nah that takes too long etc etc etc. And I'm really thinking this is gonna happen tonight bc I already wrote a letter monday or tuesday and I'm sure they'll find that pretty fast when they look in my journals so I don't even have to worry about that part, just the doing. So I'm contemplating my end of life and getting more anxious and sad with every hour passing bc I'm really thinking this is it, this is the day I'm out. But really I keep getting caught up bc my CAT who is sadly the one being on earth that I love who could never understand, is at home. And I'm thinking about how if I kill myself while she's there and it takes time for people to realize I'm missing/find me, she will be sad/hungry/thirsty in the meantime. Which is so unecessary and all of my suicide plans get scrapped if they involve direct trauma of another being and she's the one that means the most, so how could I be so selfish as to not make a plan for her?
So I'm thinking of how I have to sneak her to my sister's place while she's still at work and that's stressful enough but more so bc then I'll have a time limit on getting this done bc as soon as she comes home and sees kaiya there without me and no explanation, she'll start blowing up my phone and when I don't answer, she'll call someone. And I don't want to do that in a pressured state, I need time to process everything and think about life and what I'm doing. Plus, what if I decide not to??? (Which is what ended up happening for tonight anyway) I would've done all that for nothing and then had to confess when she found kaiya anyway and have to go to a psych ward or something which would just ruin my life faster but make it harder to get out.
So I'm thinking ALL this ALL day while working my ass off yet still disappointing everyone and swallowing tears that would turn into sobs every hour until it's time to go home.
Then I drive home and even though I pray to God to send me some sign that he cares, he doesn't.
At this point, I've already lost the fire under me so I know this is another night where I just get through it, cuddle kaiya, and wake up the next day to do it all over and I've accepted that in a way.
Then 1 am rolls around and my sister calls me to say she stopped by a party where she ran into my old best friend and friends from high school. None of whom cared enough about me to even ask what I was up to these days, even though they were talking to my SISTER. And that whole growing apart thing took such a toll on me mentally and I do feel like I'm over it now these days, but it still brought up these gross sad feelings of when I was first realizing that they didn't really care about me anymore and then fully understanding that I didn't matter to them. Which hurt SO MUCH bc they were a ride or die for me, like I would have done anything for them and I never even DOUBTED they didn't feel the same until it was so obvious I had to stop pretending around it. And that fucked with ALL of my relationships with people. Every single friend I had, I started pulling away from bc I was so insecure in myself that I felt like I had to get away from them before they had the chance to drop me which I now felt was inevitable. To this day, I feel like I have a body count of of people that I desperately want to talk to, but don't let myself bc I feel like they don't deserve to have to put up with a person as shitty and worthless as me. And I do that in every possible relationship I have, platonic, romantic, and even familial. And I can't blame them for that bc they were just a normal person growing apart from someone I guess, but I think it triggered something laying dormant in me so badly that it was actually the catalyst for my inability to connect with other people in meaningful ways. I never meet a new person anymore with the belief that they will be in my life for more than a few years at most. Most people I expect to be gone within a week or two. My walls are up so high that it's actually selfish that I even talk to people at all bc I only end up hurting them when I pull away for seemingly no reason at all. And I'm too much of a coward to tell them that there's nothing wrong with them, I just can't get that close to people anymore. Like it actually makes me physically sick to think of carrying on normal relationships with people which is SO fucked. But then I turn into the villain bc I'm worried that they'll develop the same fear of people and I'll be the cause of it. Like I'm a vampire. But I isolate myself and then get to a certain point where I think "I'll try again!! And this time will be different!! I'll really have someone new in my life!" And then I am super friendly and doing my best to be good and making plans and whatever. But then I start getting that sick feeling again, like what if what if they just haven't realized how much I suck and how disappointing I am yet, they'll definitely realize it soon and I come up with some random specific reason why they'd actually hate me if they knew "THIS" about me and I start detaching myself and then flake on plans and then disappear. And then spend weeks worrying myself sick that I permanently damaged their trust in people!!! But then I get lonely again and the pattern starts again!! All traced back to this moment in time where it actually hit me that people's affection for you can disappear in the blink of an eye no matter how much you thought they cared about you. So clearly love is conditional and just that thought alone is enough to make me want to end it all!!
So yea, just a shit day with shit cherries and cream on top.
And now it's 3am and I have to wake up in 5 hrs to do this again.
And all of this is still something no one will know if or until it comes spilling out and then my life will either be changed forever or over.
But yea, drew that lion the other day.
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