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QueenofBabyLoon
Apr '20
unknown_user

I will tell you something that will make it worse and that will make it better too. Your body, and that includes your brain, has all sorts of ways to do negative feedback on overly-stimulated processes. Virtually any hormone that has any relationship with the pituitary will block it back.

The same goes with what you are feeling. This horrifying sentiment of guilt, helplessness and a painful understanding that something is deeply wrong with one part of society living in luxury, one part of society believing that through hard work they will achieve a lifestyle of luxury, one part of society trying, with herculean effort, to pay the monthly bills, and one part of society dying like so much garbage on the side of the road is called empathy (you know that much). Not that that helps you in any way (have you noticed I write a lot of things to you without really helping you, ever).

But the more poor people sleeping on the side of the road you see, the more desensitized you shall be. That image will send a message to your brain: "We are about to have an upsurge of empathy. Empathy leads to unnecessary neural stimulation. Neurones, be ready. Drop dead. NOW."

And that is exactly why you talking to all those people who work at your company would be a complete loss of energy and time. And that energy you would have invested in sharing your view is energy you would not have invested elsewhere. What would those people have answered? Platitudes that have been taught them in their schools to maintain a social system with very rigid social classes.

"Why am I monster when I don't give money to the homeless (it is not about YOU giving money to the homeless, it is about society being broken and the homeless being a symptom of that)?! I am not a charity!!!"

"Well, I first help myself (that Porsche you are driving, that Rolex you are wearing, those are not helping yourself, those are flashing your "hard"-earned money - in today's society, it is not by working hard that you make that much money)! I work hard, I deserve the best. Why don't they get a job?!"

"Oh, I do some volunteering. I do my part. (Which doesn't solve the problem, but makes you feel better; just the cherry on the icing that is your unnecessarily obscene salary: "Look at me. I am rich. But a good person. Though I don't need to be. Because I am rich. At the top of the social ladder.")

Would you honestly lose your time listening to this?! These things are being said when you put your brain on autopilot!!! They are not an invitation to discuss society. On the contrary, they are a wall being put between any valid arguments you might bring to the conversation that might shake their beliefs and make them, good God, feel bad about them being an integral part of maintaining these social constructs that victimize them.

At the end of the day, humans are monsters. It is not their grasping for more, their trampling the weaker underfoot, their cold indifference to suffering that makes them monsters, though. You can see that in the animal kingdom. Imagine if a lion cried every time a lion cub died of some disease, instead of producing another one (I am saying this, but animals do grieve; bad example)! What makes us monsters is the hypocrisy of not acknowledging that we only take, without every truly giving, and that we rather die of overconsumption than actually giving our surplus to those who would need it more.

I won't expand much on why you should NEVER, in a professional setting, go against the flow and express opinions that may not be well-received, as outspoken as you may be. You do not want to end up sleeping on the side of the road, with nothing but a newspaper to cover yourself. You might think I am exaggerating, but don't forget that whenever a new employer will look at your resume, he might call your former boss and ask about you. You do not want to be called a "Debbie Downer", that is more damageable than being called a corporate thief, nowadays.

unknown_user
Apr '20

Well. You're right at several points.
Particularly, about cliched answers. Yes, people really would answer like this. In essence, these answers represent common psychological defense mechanisms.

But I also have to disagree with you in some.

Those particular IT professionals, who worked with me, didn't receive money for nothing. Working with them, seeing their code and discussing work things, I ascertained that they deserve their money by their skills, expertise and hard work.
(However, I have to note, that I know many other people, who also deserve good salary by their high professionalism, but by various reasons they don't have it.)

Hehehe. You're suggesting impossible.

I don't. Particularly, because I have much more guess how does it feel than my colleagues and university buddies from well-being families, who never experienced poverty by themselves.

But living righteously-cowardly life, hiding under socially acceptable mask until my death...
...just to end my days in a cute house with white picket fence, surrounded by loving spouse, caring children and adorable grand-children, happily playing around with big kind-hearted dog, named "Bobik"...
Sounds much more repulsive for me. 🤢🤢🤢

vothnthorvaldson
Apr '20
unknown_user

There's some other options though :laughing:
But yeah... the best I can do, myself, is regulating A BIT my honesty to just pass society minimum standards. That's the best I can do :sweat_smile:

unknown_user
Apr '20
QueenofBabyLoon

@33rdCenturyCaveman :joy::+1:

@QueenofBabyLoon Now, I recalled that I promised to answer your question about landing competitive job...

Yes, this is true. You have to dig deeper to really understand which "shape of package" do they search for and hit the target. Discussing these things with employees, who already got there, was helpful for me to get it better. You can try to make acquaintance with employers of your target corporation personally and ask them to get a better picture, too.
Besides, I don't know about chemical engineering field (unfortunately :slight_frown: ), but some of top-5 companies in IT openly upload the examples of how their interviews are going, with the exact structure, letting you understand, what to expect. They also provide their own advises for preparations - specific for each company.

During preparation for a coding Inverivew (it's, basically saying, when they give you tricky programming task, and you have to implement an algorithm in short time, explaining your solution in process), I found "Cracking the Coding Interview" book helpful. It gives very clear guiledlines to how to solve common problems, which they give on such Interviews. With a lot of excersises and questions to test yourself. Is there any book like this for chemical engineers? :sweat_smile:

Haha! If this would be so easy...

Yes, contacts are useful. It's life.

One more note: If your target companies make Internships and educating programs, it also can be a faster way to get there.

Preparing very well and trying to look like their ideal candidate is more-or-less reliable way, but not the only one. Sometimes you can get the job without it, just by showing your good expertise and charming your interviewers with your non-standard approaches to everything and sincerity (well, with restricted version of sincerity, i.e. without dropping fuck-bombs, saying really provocative things or telling about your worse fails in life). :imp: But yes. Good expertise and skills, fitting well to position are requirement in both cases.
(Obviously, I got jobs both ways)

QueenofBabyLoon
Apr '20
unknown_user

I think you misunderstood me as looking down on IT people! Certainly not! IT professionals are necessary and certainly deserve remuneration for their work. I am certainly not saying that IT specialists should not be remunerated for their work. In fact, I was thinking generally about any field, rather than specifically about IT specialists.

However, I do believe that WORKING HARD does not bring money. I do not think that skills bring money, as we are taught to believe, however impressive these skills may be. I believe it has to do with goals society has set itself, with the need of a set of skills RIGHT NOW to achieve these goals and with the urgency associated with achieving them. Eventually, one day, IT work might also get devalued as virtually any job in this world. Will it be tomorrow or in 10 000 years, that is the question.

I am in the medical field, still a student though. I can assure you that the doctors that work the hardest, that get horrible cards dealt every day of their lives, that come back home days after they went to work … are not the most paid. And we won't even start speaking about the poor nurses who are my personal heroes. You want to have a sad, miserable, shitty life, with zero security of any type, become a nurse in Quebec. Or a teacher. But these people all WORK HARD (and are dealt very, VERY shitty cards).

Now about you having gone through hardship, I am actually very impressed by you. I generally met people who lost their capacity to empathize as soon as they dragged THEMSELVES out of poverty. And always spoke of how they did it without any help, so others should swim or sink too. The fact that you can project your own hardships onto those of others and feel a sense of kinship is beautiful in my opinion.

As Vothn mentioned, you need to find a sort of line to walk, or a sort of switch, where you will put on that socially-acceptable mask in certain situations and shed it as soon as you are out of those situations (which becomes more and more difficult to do as our bosses are, through the internet, prying into our private lives and imposing their ideals onto us even inside of the workplace). Easier said than done.

DualDragonsMaster of Yeet
Apr '20

sigh, here we go again.

So lately i've been trying some new things, trying to improve. Which is something i'm always doing. In this case, trying some new things with line weight on my page.
But apparently people dislike the new things i try and advise me to start the darn thing all over again.

Which made me open my eyes just now. I just suck at drawing if i can't improve right. I also kinda suck at writing stories (i'm sure i'm not the only one with that opinion). I suck at my studies since my group project today was one of the lowest graded projects. I'm bad at making friends, i'm always lonely and ignored.
And i suck at sports, anything athletic is something i'm bad at. Seems like i'm bad at everything. And it made me realise how useless i have been in life so far, having done nothing useful except helping at volunteering.

Summary

Now i'm not asking for any pity or kind words since i probably won't get it anyways (and yes i posted in this thread before, getting straight ignored. But that wouldn't be the first time now, wouldn't it?)

unknown_user
Apr '20

WTF man 0_o
I've just checked your comics and I can say that the difference between the first and last pages is drastic. Improvement is undeniable.

About other cases, when you are trying to improve in something, but do not succeed for a long time... well, let's assume for a moment, that you really don't succeed, not just downplay your progress (actually I don't know the truth, but I should start with some assumption).
In these cases, the reason may be that you're learning in a wrong way. At least, it is what happened with me many times. There were several cases, when something looked super-hard for me, but as soon as I found good teacher or books on the topic, or just listened to a good advice of someone who already learned the topic, about how to learn it efficiently... things got MUCH better after it.

DiegoPalacios
Apr '20
DualDragons

Hey there, just saw this and didnt get to see your previous thread.

Sometimes people get used to certain art styles in a story, so a drastic change may backfire. For some subtle art upgrades i tried, i asked for feedback here in the forum to other artists and to my readers too.

In the end i didnt do all the changes in art i had in mind, but kept the ones that worked better for my story.

When you try new things, sometimes these work, and other times they dont. If a change doesnt work, you learn from the experience and try something new. If a change work, you learn from the experience and go for it. Either way, you learn and improve. And even if you dont notice the change, it is a step towards something bigger.

I struggled with socializing when i was younger, i have some book recommendations that helped me a lot if you are interested.

The only way to improve in athletic tasks is to excercise. Guess now you may not be able to get out due to quarantine, but there are many excercises and work out videos you can do at home.

Humans are dynamic beings, we grow and develop, but some changes are more gradual. Dont give up, figuring out your talents and developing skills is one of the best presents you can give to yourself.

unknown_user
Apr '20
DualDragons

I also not deny, that everyone have some inclinations. Things, which are easy for one, maybe harder for another one. Significance of natural propensity is particularly noticeable in sport (which you mentioned) and other physical skills.
So, I'll not lie: if you're aimed to learn thing, to which you're not inclined naturally, you should be prepared to complications! ᕦ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)ᕤ You'll have to put more willpower and diligence into it to reach the same level of expertise/skill in such thing, as more lucky people.
The alternative is to try yourself in as many fields as possible, and find those ones, to which you have inclination and which will be easier for you personally. There are so many things, which people can do, it's really hard to imagine one, who is bad in all of them.

sartinjacqueline05
Apr '20

Not sure if this is the right thread to say this on but, I guess I'll say somthing thats been bugging me lately. The thing I've been dealing with is the fear of disappointing people. I know that everybody on Tapas is nice and understanding but I still get those thoughts in my head sometimes. When I first started here I was struggling to decide what kind of upload schedule to have. Right now I'm trying to keep my current schedule stable. I guess I'm just afraid of losing my readers trust if my uploading schedule were to continue to change. (Which is won't for awhile).

irene_addler
Apr '20
1

I had to change up my upload schedule because I was burning through my buffer far too fast, I just couldn't keep up with the drawing, and it really stressed me out, and coupled with a nasty bout of depression, I just couldn't keep up, and my sense of self-worth plummeted. I wound up having to go on hiatus to get my head back in the game, and am still not back to posting yet. My readers have been super kind throughout the entire thing, and have been very understanding. I really didn't lose too many readers, either (not that I had very many to lose, but I was worried I'd lose the ones I had, of course!), I actually managed to gain a few along the way, oddly enough. So don't be afraid to take the time that you need, just be honest and explain what's going on every time you feel the need to change something about your upload schedule! Just my two cents, take it as you will!

unknown_user
Apr '20
4

It was the critique of some things which upset me in G*%gle corporative culture. Redacted. I don't think anymore, that this forum is the proper place for such post.

vothnthorvaldson
Apr '20

Sounds hellish, but is that specific to Google? Sounds like corporate culture + North American culture (which, for my personality, is one of the worst possible combinations. Maybe corporate + Japanese culture would be worse, because of the extra strong seniority/hierarchy aspect).

unknown_user
Apr '20
1

Yeah, I'm not sure, if it's specific to this corp. Probably many other corps have culture issues like this. But here I saw it for the first time.

I'm feeling a bit guilty to not being happy there and to write all of this, cause they really paid me very big money and gave other cool benefits, and people were really high-qualified and helpful. But all what I wrote above is still true, despite of this.

vothnthorvaldson
Apr '20

I don't see why you should feel guilty of not liking to be bribed to shut up and behave a certain way. I mean, that's always the case as an employee, but everyone has limits. I think it just means that for you, even the high salary and all the extras do not worth what you have to give up; other persons with a different personality will find it a very good deal.

unknown_user
Apr '20
3

It was some more critique of corporative culture. Redacted. I don't think anymore, that this forum is the proper place for such post.