91 karma · joined February 9, 2022
If something like this is what happened, I would suspect it would raise HR flags to the point of requiring the note to return to work.
Added the first part of the sentence missing from your example. Prolonged exposure to an unhealthy stressed environment can create physical changes in the brain and body. In this case, chronic stress which had such adverse effects it caused a forced medical leave.
> ...from the stress of being a software engineer
"My two years at Google were spent perpetually stressed, acting as an unofficial PM, helping run meetings and document decisions while dealing with sometimes hostile colleagues." - I can't speak for others, but this is not the 'normal' stress of being a software engineer that I know. That has all kinds of red flags. I have never been asked to perform the duties of an assistant/secretary or help organize a meeting that was not mine. Nor have I had to juggle the actual normal stress of my software job on top of having an unofficial/unpaid PM role (itself a full time job), while also having to deal with hostile colleagues. And, it seems they were not the only ones having to deal with some of this.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/protect-your-br...
https://www.metabolismjournal.com/article/S0026-0495(05)0003...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03064...
> The real choice was months earlier.
That is a large blanket assumption. Condom breakage, having a specific gene which makes female birth control very unreliable [1], partner reproductive coercion [2]. Among others. Given enough time, moral purity spirals into attacking then punishing the people wronged or having found themselves in an unfortunate situation. In this particular case, condom breakage, an unfortunate gene one didn't know they had, finding out too late you trusted the wrong partner [sneaky birth control sabotage] etc.
I personally dont like cooking, and I avoid anything requiring more than 3 items - my steel pans remove the annoying factors (equipment handling, maintenance & care) make me dread cooking a little less. Had the pans for 4-5 years now and they are an absolute joy to use
Its not that one side wants the other to suffer or stay poor/oppressed so they can feel exceptional. They dont want to feel their entire struggle and outsized contribution was for nothing. The other people dont factor in at all - they are trying to feed their family first (humans are gonna human). Why bother being a nurse and doing all that night school if they could just be support staff and get paid the same without the responsibility + extra loans? We are not even talking about the real rich vs poor here, so even thou the idea is to close the rich/poor gap - the solution of not raising adjacent workers pay to get it done, does nothing to solve it and only introduces obstacles to the real goal.
I think discussions like minimum wage end up talking past each other (as happened with my friend and I over many talks). It is desperate for a divergent solution. I dont have one that doesnt involve completely rebuilding every social/societal construct from it's foundation. Basically pointless and not something thats going to happen. But I am sure someone smarter than me can find a 3rd way without adding bugs/negative effects to other branches
Not sure I see how that is going to get a lot of support. A number of years ago when the talk was $15/hr, a friend of mine was livid whenever talking about it. She just finished a nursing degree (while working full time) and was starting her first job as an RN around $15/hr. And now the support staff, who didnt need more than a HS education was going to make as much as, or more than, her and not have the student loan burden on top of it? Her and I disagree on most social issues, but I can see how that would not be popular enough to be adapted. It had nothing to do with wanting to keep others poor and everything to do with -feeling- like everything she worked so hard for (to improve her own situation) meant nothing. Of course, over the years as nursing pay increased so did the support staff or maybe the other way around. I dont presume to know the causing factors. I know that my friend isnt upset that the support staff is paid a living wage now, but I also know her pay ladder (and nursing in general) increased as well.
> Then again, maybe there's something very different than WoW and EverQuest that I'm not aware of?
Agreed that WoW did not define what an MMO was, a lot of the perception has to do with timing. More people had access to a decent computer and reliable internet when WoW came out than in the mid-late 90's. I think of BBS door games and MUDs I played as a teenager as what defined MMOs (personally, not generally). To me those were huge, playing games with random people I would never meet at a time when the other options were 1.) passing a controller around or 2.) literally carrying computer equipment to random LAN parties.
But it was UO that made the big commercial splash, the marketing was on point. It was this new thing called a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG. This new world where you could be someone else. A place you could just log in to go fishing, or save up to buy a boat to find better places to fish, hunt and mine ore. And placing your first home, which was probably the smallest most useless building in the game, was yours. Your little safe haven in this new crazy virtual wild west that didn't stop evolving just because you had to go do homework. I was obsessed with MMO's after that, and obsessed with being one of the first to play. Luckily I ended up in one of the first areas to offer cable internet in the late 90's as these MMO's were doing beta test sign ups - having cable internet usually got you in early.
EverQuest was the game changer (for the more mainstream gamers, Meridian 59 was the first 3D MMO and it came out before UO). I remember the first day in EQ, standing outside in the noob area and the chat was full of people in complete awe. There was nothing even close. I ran around with a couple other people trying to see as many locations we could get to without dying and not even trying to level.
Shortly after EQ, was AC - Asheron's Call, which gave us the beautiful 3D world without the annoying (loading)zones of EQ and others, freedom atleast. I probably played AC the most while mixing in others I had missed or got beta invites. When WoW came out I refused to play it (still haven't), I was a big fan of Warcraft. I thought what they did to it was sacrilege and viewed it as the place for the new gamer-generation to pick up their participation trophy cause they couldn't handle the grind of a real MMO. They should suffer as I suffered.
As for MMO's that I found different, EVE for sure.
Project Entropia - was/is? the only one I know of that used real money for the in-game economy. You could literally play for free and make money from selling stuff from hunting, crafting, mining. I had about $200 I never cashed out (earned, not deposited) and I think my account got purged from not logging in for 2+ years at one point, or so an old email said would happen.
World War II Online - this game was def for people who would do cosplay US Civil war reenactments, but for WWII. Was a little much for me, but it was the foundation of my love of Battlefield games.
A Tale in the Desert - this one was fun when I played, I loved the concept. Its played in 1+ year long episodes where society has to pass test and challenges and work together or not. If you like crafting with a large side of real social politics that will determine if this years episode is "won", this is the game for you.
Hattrick Football Manager - browser MMO that is unlike any browser game I have played since (I played in the early aughts), if you like manager type games it was addicting. So much so I am right now trying to not make a new team and get sucked down that rabbit-hole again: https://www.hattrick.org/en-us/
Mortal Online - this was the last one I was actively engaged with, as I was trying to re-live the first days of UO, I went back to UO many times and nothing else ever felt the same. MO was trying to re-live it as well. No levels, huge crafting, hunting, exploring taking over cities. You could collect other people heads as trophies. It was ambitious and promising during beta - then completely unplayable after launch. MO2 came out recently, not sure how it is.
I think those are indeed some heavily tinted glasses. I got a job programming out of HS but took night classes to get a degree in network admin. The first programming class I took was VB (never used it before) and completed the semester project the first day, then added a bunch of extra features the next class and was asked to help teach other students because the guy couldn't keep up with everyone that needed serious help (literally everyone). Still not sure if it was because they were overthinking the structure of programming or if their thought processes just didn't naturally gel with it. Changing the way they thought about it seemed to work best
The positive was finding joy in helping them learn, the negative was the next semester in a networking course we were learning outdated tech and was asked to help again. Instead of paying the school to teach their classes, I continued to spend my work lunch in the server room with the admin guys showing me the ins & outs of networking/servers etc and I helped them with their scripting skills. Never went back to school - it was a complete joke.
Medical debt is not weighted the same as consumer debt[1] and is not as ruinous as defaulting on a loan or credit card for many lenders. The newer scoring models also ignore paid collections. So, for many lenders there is no 'black spot' since you have paid it off. Even before the newer models came out, I knew people who ignored massive medical debt/collections when deciding to grant loan and rental approvals or not.
>and only serves the rich.
It serves the people who understand that a loan or credit card needs to be paid back per the terms of the contract. There are also financially educated/knowledgeable 'poor' people who understand this and have a good-excellent credit score, just as there are 'rich' people who never learned financial responsibility and have a terrible credit score. It serves the person with a good+ score.
This includes medical bills that are "absolutely no fault of [their] own", there are services that can help with payments, almost all lenders will work with someone on repayment if an effort is made to care to do so. Also, politics/opinions aside, refusing treatment or medical travel to a cheaper country is an option. Not a great one, but still an option.
[1]:https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/medical-debt-and...
Instead, there are a lot of people who dont want to see others do better than them. From personal experience, directly & indirectly, some of the closest people that we are taught to trust are the very people who shut those dreams down, or at the very least, give support as long as it doesnt help raise anyone 'above' themselves. How many accept that and regret it at the end of life when those people have long since disappeared. Stepping outsides the norms of ones social bubble/society is far more risky than conforming to ones 'place' in the pecking order.