Comment by Diesel555 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Diesel555 | Hacker News Reader

"Unfortunately, Apple became the place that I lost feeling of physical and psychological safety and the terror that it inflicted on me has impacted me on such a core level that the painful memories and flashbacks have replaced my dreams and they will hunt me until I am alive."

I really don't understand this. I'm not saying this from a perspective that they are wrong, but that I honestly don't get it, please help me understand it. My response is about ambition related stress.

I've had experiences in war torn countries and seen those that are drastically less fortunate than the author. For the author to say that they have terror and flashbacks that will hunt them.... is this just a perspective thing? The author mentions twice he had been in a war related country.

Is it a self imposed stress to do well that is greater than the stress that those in poverty and war stricken countries deal with? Is it all relative? I feel like there is real stress involved with ambition from reading this.

I mean this honestly, I read this post and feel this is a first world problem post. What am I missing?

The article talked about being psychologically and emotionally abused in a hostile work environment. The author talked about being insulted in a completely unprofessional way. Just because the trauma is much less than that of a war stricken country does not mean it's any less painful. Not to mention, the threat of poverty, or at least the disruption of one's life, is present in a hostile work environment, especially to someone on a work visa. What does ambition have to do with anything?

> I've had experiences in war torn countries and seen those that are drastically less fortunate than the author.

Author is literally from a war-torn country and would have had to go back if they were fired. This situation was explicitly part-and-parcel of their bullying.

I did mention that he was in a country that had been at war in my post. Hence my question.

For me, that explains the extreme level of stress on its own, nevermind just the normal deleterious psychological effects of workplace bullying. You don't need to invoke "ambition stress"

* from war-torn country (I'm guessing Syria, or maybe Yemen) * worked extremely hard to get a dream job * first job * complete lack of support from people who are supposed to help you do your job * bullying and scapegoating at that job, * cannot quit or you have to go back to the war-torn country * cannot be fired or you have to go back to the war-torn country * not enough experience to know if this is normal or how to handle it

As an aside, a careful reading of the article indicates that OP is probably a woman

I'm having a hard time understanding the lack of understanding. Where is the difficulty, here?

Sometimes the risk of losing everything you’ve worked for to end up right back where you care from is worse than just having stayed where you were.

A twist on the Shakespeare quote: It’s not always better to have loved and lost, sometimes people would rather never have loved at all.

That's kind of what I was getting at. We all have the same standard and can reach the same level of stress no matter where we started based on a plus or minus from where we started..... or is that false and we just think our life is hard and have no idea the magnitude of difficulty that others live in.

I don't think it takes a whole lot to end up with this sort of thing. I distinctly remember having flashbacks/panic attacks for a week or two after someone kissed me for the first time. (for those of you wanting advice for how to deal with people with less experience, take it slow and simple!)

The author was physically assaulted by their iBuddy, who was later promoted to management, among other abuses

Edit: I misread this part. I thought she had slammed the door into her face: One day I went to use the woman restroom my “iBuddy” was there. She told me “die!” and slammed the door in my face.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator

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