Lament 3: Cry Hard With A Vengeance

[Gands]

I've started applying for tutoring gigs. I have an interview soon.

The sooner I can get out of this kitchen, the better. They keep cutting hours while customer numbers remain stable, in the name of profits. I get the profit motive, but treating employees like this is ridiculous. Fun fact: My workplace has lots of poker machines. They're looking to install retirement living facilities upstairs, because waiting for the old people to come to them at 8 in the morning is just too much apparently, and they need to milk them more directly. I don't want to be a part of that organisation.

[Phantasee]

4 weeks of insomnia. This fucking sucks.

I'm listening to Enrique's Insomniac album. If I get to Sweet Isabel I'm probably going to cry a little.

[Bounty]

4 weeks of insomnia. This fucking sucks.

I'm listening to Enrique's Insomniac album. If I get to Sweet Isabel I'm probably going to cry a little.

Is there anything particularly stressful you're dealing with right now?

[Phantasee]

I don't know. It's the same shit I've been dealing with for a while, same work. I have a job offer that is stalled somewhere just before the point where I start working, but I wasn't planning to work for another month anyway. I've got a backlog of other work but it's not a high priority for me right now, I'll get it done soon enough.

[Bounty]

How do you feel about where you are in life right now?

[Agent Bert Macklin]

What the hell is it with unpaid internships in the art sector? Why would I accept knowledge as compensation for manual labor and volunteer time?

[Bounty]

If there's enough people desperate enough to work for experience, why spend money?

[Agent Bert Macklin]

It's slave labor, bounty. The only positives from this internship is that I will learn and network. But juggling it with advanced mathematics courses and a relationship will be difficult. It's not really worth it.

[Bounty]

That it is. I'm not daying this is a situation that's to everyone's benefit.

[Infinity Biscuit]

Studies have found that taking unpaid internships gives only a negligible increase (or sometimes a decrease!) in employability compared to not having any internship at all. Only paid internships have any boost in employability, so not only is it unpaid labour, but you're not even getting the nonmonetary benefits promised.

[Phantasee]

I feel good about where I am in life, for the most part.

I've been doing that introspection thing and I'm thinking I'm depressed again, at some level. It's only given me insomnia a few times before but I never really linked the two.

I feel saudade for an unrequited love.

[RyanThunder]

Oh boo fucking hoo. I'm not sure I can fall in love unprovoked at this point.

You, otoh, are going to do better than that. You're gonna forget about whoever's dragging you down like that, and you're gonna go find somebody who's good for you. And shits gonna be fucking rad. So get to it.

[Crazedwraith]

yay! lets all get in a 'who's more pathetic' contest. That'll solve everything

[RyanThunder]

Did you actually read what I wrote or just the first line

[Crazedwraith]

Yes I did read it all. No matter what encouraging remarks you add on to it. 'I've got it much worse than you' is never as cheering as you think it it is.

[Infinity Biscuit]

Please read up on how to actually handle people with depression before you try to do so, since people are pretty terrible at it by default. Yes this is addressed to RyanThunder here in particular

[Phantasee]

I've already done the 'have sex with a lot of other people to forget about her' thing and it hasn't worked (yet again). It just takes time for the memories and feelings to fade.

[RyanThunder]

Please read up on how to actually handle people with depression before you try to do so, since people are pretty terrible at it by default. Yes this is addressed to RyanThunder here in particular

Alright, I'm sorry. fwiw, I did seriously think that might help.

[Infinity Biscuit]

Yeah, I figured you probably were, but handling depression (and especially suicidal urges, but that's hopefully something else that this) is something that is pretty much backwards from what most people seem to want to do to help. In this case, it probably came off as invalidating Phant's feelings by implying that what was going on with him wasn't so bad, even if that's not what you meant to express.

[Phantasee]

Nah I'm not suicidal, that only happened that one time when i was a kid and i really fucked up... I got over it quickly enough, thank god.

[Questor]

Jury duty next week! Yay!

And I almost missed the check-in date. Thank goodness for electronic minions.

[Big Orangutan]

OK, I had this unfortunate incident today that has really confused and upset me, and if I see this guy again I may inform the authorities about him (or lodge a formal complaint to the bus company).

When the bus journey I took today was nearly over, this swarthy, dishevelled looking guy was sitting in front of me and then turned round, demanding to stop looking at me or he'd cut off my ears. I cannot recall intentionally looking at him and was just daydreaming with smartphone earphones on. Essentially random and unprovoked. It's a cliché for mentally unsound people saying 'What 'd yer think yer lookin' at!' to strangers who supposedly gave them a "funny" look. Looking into his unpleasant eyes and hearing his eerily calm voice, he seemed either drunk or not taking his medication.

[timmy]

When I first moved to Hobart and had to start catching buses to school etc(I'd always lived walking distance before that) I found myself in that situation a lot.

There was this one guy that got around town that we used to call Red Jumper Man. This was of course because for the first few months we were aware of him, he wore a faded red jersey. Anyway, you'd see him limping around - real stout guy, tall too - looking in bins. Sometimes he'd have a bag with him. Sometimes not. His hair, like steel wool, fanned out to about halfway down his neck. A mate of mine used to yell out 'hey Red Jumper Man!' as we skated or drove past him, and he'd always lock on with this goggle-eyed stare, point a finger, and lurch in our direction. But we'd be gone already.

On New Years Day, 2001, I sat in a little park in the city surrounded by buildings and accessible from three different arcades. I was nursing a bad hangover(and possibly a concussion, having been punched the night before) and eating from a box of KFC and reading a newly acquired Timothy Zahn novel. Then a medium-build dog came out of one of the arcades, trailing a length of rope tied to its collar. It kept trotting and the rope kept coming. The dog vanished into another arcade and the rope was still going. And then, out of the original arcade, lurched Red Jumper Man.

I wrote a short story once in which I imagined how he'd come to be that way - Vietnam vet with PTSD, fell through the cracks of society etc. But the crazy thing is that thirteen years since last laying eyes on him, he doesn't seem to have changed at all. Pratchett was onto something there.

[Flagg]

Reaganomics! Just close the looney bins and let em die on the street!

[thejester]

Canberra is ground zero for bus folk. Massively high concentration of them.