Yeah, no, I’ve been there.

I started a new job. It was kind of a dream job. Great for my career, 40% pay increase, opportunities to grow my skillset in ways my old job couldn’t offer.

Everything was going great until one day a coworker who was supposed to be in like a mentor position for me asked me to do something. I was on my phone at the time, texting with my wife about my three week old son who was sick with RSV. I heard her request and told her I’d get to it right away.

A few days later my boss called me into a meeting and said that he’d been hearing reports that I was on my phone all the time instead of working, and that the quality of my work was bad. I asked what he meant about my work, if he could give me specific examples, and he threatened to fire me for not taking this seriously. Because trying to understand how I can improve isn’t taking it seriously somehow?

So I buckled down. I put my phone down every second that I was at my desk. I asked everyone –everyone– I’d worked with up to that point about the quality of my work, where I could improve, if I’d done anything wrong. Just as I’d already been told, my work was great. I was learning quickly and performing well.

Then I got called into another meeting. Apparently I was still on my phone too much. I must be addicted to it. I was on it while walking down the hall, and he’d even heard that I was leaving my desk to go to my car and play on my phone. And of course I was on it in the breakroom as well. I explained that I thought checking my phone while walking down the hallway was ok because it wouldn’t interrupt my work, and I went to my car because it was a confidential telemedicine call with my doctor.

So I buckled down even more. I rarely used my phone anymore, took shorter lunch breaks, and kept doing my work. I moved to a different part of the parking lot when I had my telemedicine calls.

I had two more meetings with my boss. The first one, he told me that my work had greatly improved (it hadn’t), and now I was doing great. The next day I asked him into a meeting and told him I quit.

I took a small pay cut and got a new job working from home. It’s not as good for my career. It may screw me over in a few years. But my work/life balance is excellent. I get to see my kids and my cats, and there are no spiteful coworkers looking over my shoulder.

Sure, Sony “outlived” two minor competitors that were already failing when the PS1 released.

Much like how I outlived actor Carey Grant, who was 80 years old when I was born. That’s definitely how I’d phrase that.

But hey, those examples were “just to name a few”, so there must be more, right?

But seriously, the way your original comment was phrased makes it sound like Sony is some kind of console war juggernaut, outlasting its many competitors over decades. The reality is that Sega folded to Sony and Nintendo back in the early aughts, and then it was 25 stable years of having three big console makers, and that’s it.

That’s all I’m saying.

3DO and Atari were never really competitors. They were minor players in the console market that were already considered unsuccessful by the time the PS1 was released.

Sega is one company. Sony has outlasted one competitor, which makes it odd to say “yet another” almost 30 years later.

Another?

Ugh. It’s so fucking dumb, and yet I still feel compelled to point out that mistreating and murdering dogs is already accepted Republican behavior.

Napkin says otherwise.

It’s 2026, and you are literally eleven 're’s short of the current number of rereleases.

*hanged

I like the preantepenultimate one, and I’m not just saying that to use the word.

Ugh, that sounds exactly what I need. But it’s awkward for me to wear Oakleys because of my name.

I learned to touch-type QWERTY in late 90s chat rooms. By 2006, I was bragging about my 100 WPM speed in my online dating profile. I met one girl who challenged me to a typing contest. She won, then I won, and then we called it a draw. We’ve been married for 13 years and had our third child last month.

When I was learning to touch type, I found it helpful to practice in my head even when I was away from the keyboard. Like whatever I’m thinking about, I’m picturing a keyboard in my head and where each letter of each word is. It slows my thoughts down a little, but that’s not always a bad thing.

I live in an extremely humid area, and I can tell immediately when the engine stops, because it starts bringing in the heavy, outside air. I turn off auto stop every single time. I’d prefer not to have it in my car.

On the other hand, obviously fuck this bullshit ad. The content of the ad is gross, the use of stereotypes is gross, the fact that it’s generative AI is gross, and it’s especially gross that all this is coming from the government. I’m disgusted by this whole thing, and it’s only 8AM, which is actually a little late in the day to start feeling disgusted by the Trump regime now that I think about it.

I remember bringing a Polaroid picture of my 10" television screen into my English class just to prove to my best friend that the Hylian loach existed.

Shitposts can be funny. These ones never are.

As of a month or two ago, any time I see a post that’s so thoroughly unfunny that it brings down the average quality of all Lemmy posts, I don’t even need to check the community. It’s always this one. Why is that? What happened here? It didn’t used to be like this.

There’s a couple of cyber trucks in my neighborhood, and one of them drops his kid off at my daughter’s school in the morning.

Still drives a cyber truck though.

Technically I’m in a city. It’s just suburban and car-centric. If they wanted to make it more walkable and add public transport, I’d love that, as long as my kids still have their space to ride bikes, and my wife still has her car.

Even then it’s fairly walkable. I walk my daughter to school when the weather and time allow for it. I could walk to a grocery store; I just couldn’t transport my groceries home.

But that wasn’t the question.

If you ditched your car, could you afford to leave the suburbs for a great urban neighborhood?

Could I afford it? Yes. Would I do it? No.

I live on a suburban cul-de-sac where my kids can go outside and ride bikes with the neighbors. Also my wife is handicapped, so a car is kind of essential for her. When we lived in an apartment the long walk from the garage to our door was difficult for her.

Other than those things, I’d much prefer to live in a walkable city. Maybe when I retire, if we can find the right place.

I’ve had many different cheeses on my burgers. I’m sure I’ve even had a gouda burger. They can be fine if you’re going for like a specialty burger with other non-standard toppings, but a straight-up cheeseburger? That’s not what proper Dutch cheese is made for, so why would you use it like that?

Different ingredients are better in different contexts.

If you think Kraft Singles have no flavor, then we must not be talking about the same thing. There’s much better American cheese than Kraft Singles, but I can’t imagine describing them as bland.