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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • When I was younger…well, there were only Palm Pilots back then, so it’s a bit unfair, but I’d prefer physical books, and if I were doing active reading then it’d usually be with a physical book.

    Reading digital books now requires using a device that often has access to Youtube or something else that’s shorter and snappier and yet pulls hours upon hours out of my life.

    And as I’ve gotten older…I haven’t read read a book in years. Is it a lack of attention span? Yes, which makes me feel sad and ashamed and so fucking frustrated because I could, I could read long books as a kid and now…I can’t.

    It’s also that I have more to do: laundry, cleaning, work, cooking, errands, exercise… So there’s less time to sit down and read, or if I do, it feels increasingly hedonistic and therefore wrong to just do one thing at once. If I can multitask then shouldn’t I?

    Audiobooks are both a godsend and a curse. I can actually consume books again! But I’m locked into the ease of it.

    Actively choosing to doing just the one thing, for myself, is far harder than it ought to be.


  • I got to a really early point in Dune where a character was thinking about the various ways to be manipulative (not necessarily evil, just politicking) with their expressions and words and body language and I just got tired of it.

    Also gave up on Wuthering Heights. Was it revolutionary in its day to draw back the gilded curtain and display naked domestic abuse for what it was? Sure. But…I don’t need that curtain drawn away, as I’ve seen far better depictions of DV, and, well, I go out in public, too. So it was just tedious bitching and being cruel to each other until I stopped reading.



  • That’s similar to how I do it. I can’t stop myself from reading an unread email, so if it’s a task or issue that I’m actively dealing with, it stays in my inbox, otherwise it gets sorted into various folders. That way, I can bring it up again if I need it for reference.

    Automatic sorting (setting up rules in Outlook, for instance) is useful for either diverting those emails you don’t really need (ones you get looped in on as part of a department regardless of whether it involves you) or are important only in that they exist, so confirmation emails. Then you can rapid fire cycle through that sorted pile instead of dancing around in your inbox.

    A general tip: you can also email yourself, or set reminders via the calendar, if you want to consolidate several discussion threads into one. Ccing your boss with “…and that’s why I’m doing [x]” might also be helpful in terms of keeping track of both your productivity and covering your ass.



  • It’s also a generational thing: everyone around me up to the mid 30s uses “no problem” to indicate that the request/help was of little bother so the requester shouldn’t feel bad for asking, which can sometimes annoy the people who say “you’re welcome” instead.

    “Happy to help”, to me, suggests a greater eagerness than just being kind.



  • Some of these are good, because getting into the habit of thanking people for helping (“thanks for catching that!”) fosters good working relationships or providing specifics that, presumably, work for you, too (“can you do [x] times?”) is a better starting point than being truly open ended.

    But I well and truly despise the “thanks for your patience/when can I expect” because we ALL know what you mean and I respect someone far more if they acknowledge, explain, and move on from their errors than just…reword shit.