• New job worries

    From Nightfox@21:1/137 to All on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 09:20:25
    After being laid off in September 2025, I recently got a job offer and started just after the beginning of July (2026). It's a software engineer job where I'll be helping to investigate issues reported by customers (and one of their customers in particular, who has sites in my area).

    Starting a new job usually includes hassles of ramping up & learning while new. Usually I feel fairly comfortable doing that, though I feel like this time it's a bit different. Right away (a week after I started), they had me travel for training for 4 weeks. And this job is unique in that my manager is in a time zone 15 hours ahead of me (which is where I traveled to), so communication can be difficult sometimes. My manager has set up a daily meeting with me at 8:30AM my time; at the end of my day, I'll send him an update, and sometimes he wants to talk to me to sync up on it, which ends up being about 5:30PM my time.

    I'm still learning, and I feel like some things about the tasks my manager gives me can still be a little unclear. But I can ask him questions. Also, we use Copilot AI, and I've asked Copilot if it can explain some things I'm unclear on.

    With past jobs, new tasks I'm given usually felt a little more clear. I feel nervous when given tasks that are unclear, and I worry a bit.. In 2010, I had started a job where things were very unclear and I wasn't getting good help from coworkers; I struggled there for 6 months and ended up being let go. That was overall a bad situation.. This new job somewhat reminded me of that, although I think things are better with this job, as my manager has been fairly helpful (when our time overlaps when we have our meetings), and the people here seem to be generally friendly.

    I've been going through periods of feeling okay with things and feeling a bit down and worried. The down & worried tends to be more than feeling okay so far.

    Aside from my job, my wife and I plan to move to be a little closer to where she works as the lease on our current apartment is close to the end/renewal point. I don't like moving and having to pack & everything. It will be better for my wife's commute though.

    I'm also still going through a financial issue related to my ex wife's actions which have impacted me, to the extent where I've been working with a law firm on that. They've recently made a partial summary judgment in my favor, but things are still ongoing on that.

    Among my new job, moving, and issue with my ex wife, I feel like this is a bit of a stressful time.

    Nightfox
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  • From Will Milberger@21:2/155 to Nightfox on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 13:02:48
    Re: New job worries
    By: Nightfox to All on Tue Aug 25 2026 09:20 am

    Among my new job, moving, and issue with my ex wife, I feel like this is a bit of a stressful time.

    I feel ya, brother. Just one of those things can become unsurmountable. I do hope things work out for you.
    Any step you take, I'm sure you know, weigh it out cafefully and then do it. As Curly said in City Slickers, "That one thing."
    Now I'm starting to sound like Nuke in "Bull Durham".
    Anyhow wish you the best andhope it all works out for you.

    Grease

    ...Prepare to meet thy GOD! (Evening dress optional)
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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Will Milberger on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 11:34:51
    Re: New job worries
    By: Will Milberger to Nightfox on Tue Aug 25 2026 01:02 pm

    Among my new job, moving, and issue with my ex wife, I feel like this is
    a bit of a stressful time.

    I feel ya, brother. Just one of those things can become unsurmountable. I do hope things work out for you.
    Any step you take, I'm sure you know, weigh it out cafefully and then do it. As Curly said in City Slickers, "That one thing." Now I'm starting to sound like Nuke in "Bull Durham". Anyhow wish you the best andhope it all works out for you.

    Thanks. :)

    Nightfox
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  • From Knight Shadow@21:3/248 to Nightfox on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 12:00:39
    Among my new job, moving, and issue with my ex wife, I feel like this is
    a bit of a stressful time.

    Ooof. Hang in there man. I hope the best for you in all those areas. I hope that the job improves after you get some time there under your belt, you enjoy the move to the new place, checking out the new places/eateries/etc, and that the financial/legal situation will soon be behind you! I went through that last one recently as well, and man does it suck, but the good thing is, it will soon be in the past and one less thing you have to worry about in life. Sometimes "when it rains it pours", and you'll be able to dry off once it's all done, and just relax on the couch with your missus in the mew place, watching a movie, and basking in some peace of mind. Ahhhh that good old peace of mind. So hard to come by these days isn't it?

    |08[|07K|08N1GHT|07S|08HAD0W]
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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Knight Shadow on Tuesday, August 25, 2026 13:31:45
    Re: Re: New job worries
    By: Knight Shadow to Nightfox on Tue Aug 25 2026 12:00 pm

    Among my new job, moving, and issue with my ex wife, I feel like this is
    a bit of a stressful time.

    Ooof. Hang in there man. I hope the best for you in all those areas. I hope that the job improves after you get some time there under your belt, you enjoy the move to the new place, checking out the new places/eateries/etc, and that the financial/legal situation will soon be behind you! I went through that last one recently as well, and man does it suck, but the good thing is, it will soon be in the past and one less thing you have to worry about in life.

    Thanks :)

    Sometimes "when it rains it pours",
    and you'll be able to dry off once it's all done, and just relax on the couch with your missus in the mew place, watching a movie, and basking in some peace of mind. Ahhhh that good old peace of mind. So hard to come by these days isn't it?

    Yeah, sometimes life hits you with lots of stuff. Sometimes it's worrying that things can happen that are out of your control.

    Nightfox
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  • From Adept@21:2/108 to Nightfox on Wednesday, September 02, 2026 17:16:31
    realized they also basically had DRM and you couldn't just play them freely, and I figured I'd just stick with buying them on blu-ray or something, since physical copies are still available.

    I think this sort of thing is at least _part_ of why CD sales went up last year.

    I first tried Netflix around 2011 or 2012, thinking any movie for rent might also go to Netflix for rent so you could stream it instead of
    going out to rent a disc, but I found out that wasn't the case. I
    imagine it might be the case now though.

    I do tend to go back to the, "if you're searching for it, they don't have it" aphorism.

    Now, at this point I'm sure I'd search on justwatch.com (making sure to get the right country), if I wanted to know which service I'd have to subscribe to / pay extra to in order to see what I'm wondering about.

    There's still a _ton_ of friction there, unlike with music. The movie / TV show market is where piracy is still clearly a superior product.

    That said, I wouldn't be surprised if DVDs and Blu-Rays will go away, at some point.

    Which makes me sad, but I've never particularly cared about the format; just the ability to control what I'm getting.

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  • From Nightfox@21:1/137 to Adept on Wednesday, September 02, 2026 21:32:57
    Re: Re: New job worries
    By: Adept to Nightfox on Wed Sep 02 2026 05:16 pm

    realized they also basically had DRM and you couldn't just play them
    freely, and I figured I'd just stick with buying them on blu-ray or
    something, since physical copies are still available.

    I think this sort of thing is at least _part_ of why CD sales went up last year.

    Perhaps. I think in general, people have been getting frustrated about streaming services removing content.

    That said, I wouldn't be surprised if DVDs and Blu-Rays will go away, at some point.

    Which makes me sad, but I've never particularly cared about the format; just the ability to control what I'm getting.

    I basically feel the same way. As long as I own my copy and can control it, I'm happy. DVDs and blu-rays are still the main media for that.

    For music, I've bought one or two albums that were downloadable FLAC files (rather than a CD), but I was fine with that because those were DRM-free and can be played freely and I can do what I want with those (including make MP3 versions & such).

    Years ago, I thought the next format for movies after optical discs might be USB flash drives and/or SD cards. I wouldn't have been surprised to start seeing movies sold that way, but that never happened.

    I think SD cards would have been a convenient format after streaming; you could plug an SD card into a home media player for your TV, or plug the SD card into a laptop or handheld device when you're traveling if you want to watch that movie. That would also work in places where you don't have an internet connection, such as an airplane.

    Nightfox
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  • From Mortar M.@21:2/101 to Adept on Thursday, September 03, 2026 11:02:09
    Re: Re: New job worries
    By: Adept to Nightfox on Wed Sep 02 2026 17:16:31

    I do tend to go back to the, "if you're searching for it, they don't have it" aphorism.

    I grok. I remember making a list of 20 movies I tried to find on Netflix. They only had four. The others either didn't exist or were on DVD only. However, I did find that Netflix was good for discovering titles you may have forgotten about.
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