ZMonster

ZMonster, 5 days ago

Lol, yes, it’s been a fucking journey though. I didn’t realize I was abused by my family so I spent the better part of two decades being depressed, self-destructive, and suicidal. I also participated in the genocide in Iraq and tried to bury that away too. Therapy has been recent but life changing. I’d tried it before but I didn’t know that everyone wasn’t like me so I always came off as indifferent, insensitive, or unmotivated. I spoke to a VA counselor once, about a traumatic experience, and all he wrote in his notes were, “patient states”, then a very truncated summary of what I had said. Then he diagnosed me with halitosis. What an absolute fuck head. I wrote off therapy for 10 years after that. Finally met someone who was blown away that I had never been treated for ADD/ASD and she tested me. Then the therapy advanced and she was able to communicate with me. Realized the PTSD, child abuse, and toxic behaviors that I was newly habituating. Who knows if growing up in a healthy/safe environment or being tested would have changed any of these failed prospects. But if you have trouble getting along in a team environment (I massively do) then you can look for work in remote or secure locations, look for vocations that revolve around data collection and travel, or look into govt jobs. I’ve worked a few govt jobs (not infrequently unionized so 👍) and everyone there is either a 5th dimensional chess level wackadoo or they expect everyone else to be. They embrace weird, they just don’t pay shit. So here is my vocational history:

Medic - in emergency response/combat, no problem. But on the civilian side there were too many… civilians. May lean heavily on communication, but nearly all of it can be done free of niceties, body language, idioms, or banter.

Then a phleb/lab tech while I changed vocations. May require interaction with patients. So if that’s a problem then stick to lab tech work. Also, seek night shift positions if you want to take isolation to the next level.

Electrical engineer until I realized I had to work in a team of dumb people, and no matter how many companies I changed to the teams just got dumber. If you are more perceptive than you let on, and you expect people in high functioning/accountable roles to be demonstrably intelligent, then maybe steer clear of these team based fields of work. I switched to trades where I (admittedly, rudely) expect everyone to be a drooling lepton and am always impressed at their ingenuity.

So field engineering inspections for a while. That didn’t work out eventually, and after leaving this vocation I was diagnosed and mental health began to improve. This was travel based, and very solitary. I had to be self motivated but the work was enjoyable so that helped. Time management and resource allocation were always difficult so routines and checklists were leaned on heavily.

Then electrician, equipment fabrication, and control design (again, yes, but part time). Trades tend to work in teams at lower levels of experience so if you are willing to grit your teeth through the monotony of other people’s opinions, there are specializations that can alleviate the surplus extraversion. Custom work keeps things fresh. But if you have to do something repetitive, then maybe find a pastime that keeps your lizard brain occupied (I love podcasts, Behind the Bastards, Knowledge Fight, The Dollop - I listen to these and the day is over in a blink).

This job ends in a few years, and I do have a master’s in software engineering, but the SO wants to be the bread winner so I’m preparing to do law school because why not.

I’d be happy to respond to any questions if you think I can help. Good luck!

ZMonster, 5 days ago

I’m so envious! My job is ending in a few years and I am going to do law school. I can’t wait.

ZMonster, 5 days ago

I switched to PPG after realizing that piloting was not a good fit for my stress capacity. You still get to fly but for a fraction of the cost. 🪂

ZMonster, 5 days ago

I build electrical panels but walk past the machine shop every morning and love seeing all the machines that you get to work with. The water jet is my favorite. Also, the press. So f’ing cool.

ZMonster, 5 days ago

Lol, don’t let school indoctrinate you into thinking that design work is the only thing for an engineer to do. There is so much more. Field engineering is great and rarely requires design. Inspections are also an awesome way to use that degree sans design. Look into regulation or travel opportunities. High tech and applications also dabble in design without requiring it. Controls and instrumentation can also provide build, maintenance, or modification opportunities that more closely align with what you would call trade work. That said, if the cost is a problem (and I fucking get it), you can always take a hiatus and join the trades as a trial. Electricians have a pretty cool job. You can do residential and mostly cookie cutter work that never ends, or do commercial and specialize, get into service, or even govt inspection. Just throwing some ideas out. Good luck and grats! EE is the shit!!

ZMonster, 5 days ago

I’m unbelievably offended that you would assume I do IT. I’m an EE.

But yes I’ve done IT.

ZMonster, 5 days ago

Hah! Great to hear then. My apologies for assuming. I didn’t understand the nuances or opportunities of engineering when I went through, but you sound much more prepared for the job than I likely was. Good luck to you then! And stick with it. It’s tough but worth it.

ZMonster, 15 days ago

Allow me to share some personal experiences when setting those up. Nimby’s would approach us and rant about how we were only there to justify a new stop sign or speed bump. A few times we were approached by ding dongs wielding weapons. And every once in a while people like to sabotage or steal the equipment. But once they tamper with the equipment enough times they basically get put on the shit list so their road doesn’t get serviced they don’t get plow service they don’t get anything. Maybe this was their goal maybe not who knows they’re idiots.

Honestly, highway data is used for all kinds of things but mostly for planning repairs, upgrades, and modifications. Redesigning things like intersections, traffic lights, and stop signs are rarely the result of this sort of highway data collection. It’s reported collisions and fatalities that drive safety interventions.

But again, we’re talking about nimby’s who are all fucking idiots.

ZMonster, 15 days ago (edited 15 days ago)

Sure, they’re nothing special, but they were intense at the time. Especially for a bunch of summer interns that had the misfortune of needing to find employment during a recession. I was an engineering student and my cohorts were all in the sciences as well. For being a job that required hammering, measuring, and not getting hit by traffic it was one of the more stimulating jobs I’ve ever worked.

So the typical process for us was to drive to the site, usually it was just a road segment from a list (3-5 year annually rotating lists). We had a truck bed filled with precut hoses, solar powered counting modules, spikes, and then wire mesh hose retainers. We would get the appropriate size hose, slip on retainers, hammer in the spikes, and attach and program the module.

One day a fellow in a pickem’up truck followed us from one road to the next telling us that we had no authority to be there and he would sue if we didn’t take our computers and leave. The next day, at a completely different part of the city (honestly, I have no idea how he found us) he jumped out of his truck and racked a shell in his shotgun. We all just left everything and got in the truck and drove away with him standing there shit talking. The equipment was gone but the police knew the guy. They got our stuff back. They didn’t get my buddies coffee thermos though and he was pretty bent out of shape about that. I think it was old or his dad’s or something. But never saw that guy again.

We would constantly get approached by homeless people who wanted to know what we were doing. I always tried to be as informative as possible but most of the time the basic concept was too confounding. The orange vests were always a problem. One guy asked me why I only have one cone. I still laugh about that today. Just the question. Fucking hilarious. The things you don’t think to ask. It was completely legit too. We were daily put in situations where we were inches from traffic. A single cone and a truck were the only things between oncoming traffic and our faces. Why only one cone? We had to cross roads to attach the hose on the other side. If we require a cone for traffic going this way, why don’t we require one going that way? Is the cone FOR THE TRUCK?!?

dumbMeme

What a treasure of a memory that was.

EDIT:

I forgot, there was a contractor who did the leftover work that was occasionally needed the rest of the year, but he was always out of work during the summer and he didn’t like that. So one night I was driving past one of the modules that we set up the week before and there was a frumpy looking guy walking back to his car that was parked very near it on the sidewalk. So the next day I found out who he was from the supervisor and went to the site to check it out. He had unlocked the module and slipped in a piece of paper that just said, “you’re a bitch”. Fucking ROFL.

ZMonster, 15 days ago

There’s a timing tolerance you can program. So if you only want to count double axles or get the speed data based on a presumed axle spacing, you can program that in. But, if you feel you must spoof it, listen to the sets of tires as they cross the hose and match that timing while stomping on the hose. You need to stomp pretty hard to get the hose to compress enough and you need to generate an air hammer pressure wave within the hose. This and the intensity is what is measured by the device and recorded as an event.

But these modules are left for weeks to months. So if the counts are all in the, let’s say, 300 range daily but then one single day shows 1000, that day’s data is typically removed from the set. Outliers can happen for all kinds of reasons (e.g. failure, hose break, weather, loss of solar power, unusual or atypical activities, children young and old). So, if the counts are wildly different than prior years’ counts, daily/weekly/monthly inconsistent, beyond comprehension, or obviously defective; they can set up more than one device if they need and some devices can receive more than one input. They can also program the device with multiple inputs to only record data within a specific range of parameters. So there are lots of ways to limit the shenanigans in the data.

And you’d be surprised at how much traffic some roads get. Even some residential roads would see thousands daily. So if you really want to bump up the priority of the road, you would be better off driving over it all day, every day until it was removed; because you’d destroy your leg trying to stomp on it that many times. And you’d have to do this on all adjacent and feeder roads to support that data. And you’d have to ensure that you do this every year until you recognize the desired effects of your endeavor, and then you’d have to continue this practice in perpetuity. Or the jig is up!

DOT Jail!

ZMonster, 19 days ago

Now, something must be done

ZMonster, 19 days ago

I’d eat my hat if they weren’t taking subsidies and charging full price anyway.

ZMonster, 20 days ago

What you are talking about is colloquially called Chevron Deference. And yes, it is on the kill list after Roe, Obergefell, and I can only assume Brown v Board ffs.

ZMonster, 20 days ago

Or at least create SCOTUS terms, maybe. Does that do anything? Who could know such things. We need to do something though. The conservative justices aren’t legal activists, they are legal evangelicals.

ZMonster, 21 days ago

And the free of the brave 🫡

ZMonster, 23 days ago

My carnivore friends are massively more evangelical than my vegan friends. Just my experience I guess.

ZMonster, 25 days ago

Was homeless at 17 for the better part of 2 years. Tried to kill myself with inhalants many times. Found out the service was taking in meat shields like they were going out of style. Watched thousands die in Iraq and still deal with the guilt and self-destructiveness today. It is getting better, good people found me and chose to love me.

There’s a part of me that does not disagree with the comment, I honestly wanted to die in that place. But it’s so disrespectful to say, and you nailed it.

ZMonster, 25 days ago

I called his son dumb because choosing to join the military to fight in the Iraq invasion was dumb when he obviously didn’t come from a poor family and thus didn’t even need to do this due to a lack of job opportunities.

As you have demonstrated, anyone is susceptible to misunderstanding. It does not discriminate by class or privilege. People join for many reasons. I wanted to get a warm meal, warm bed, and die. But others from my meps felt that they had familial or generational obligations. Some wanted the career and had great options. It’s a fantastic and debt free way of getting respectable credentials and high-speed to boot. But I don’t know a single person who honestly believed they were supporting genocide or imperialism, what have you. There were a lot of dumb people, but they risked it for their own reasons in a way you never could or likely ever will. And I will always cry for those that gave it all. Some of us are dealing with our guilt and doing what we can to prepare the next generation for the pitfalls they face. So spit at us all you want. There’s not thing one you can say that will make me loath myself more than I ever have. And I’m dealing with that too.

I hope you are never in a place that makes you tangibly consider these choices you so virulently despise. You are still someone’s compatriot and you deserve that.

ZMonster, 25 days ago

The US military’s primary role is to protect corporate interests, to the misery of many, including those that serve that machine.

I’m not refuting this. I’m pointing out that this isn’t remotely obvious to let alone the motivation for why people join. You are privileged enough to be aware of this. Not everyone has the luxury of your perspective.

ZMonster, 25 days ago

😂 It’s always fucking foxtrot. But it’s also the only place you can get shit off the books. ⚖️

ZMonster, 26 days ago

Great explanation, but unfortunately the post in the image OC missed the absolute best part, the parody article.

ZMonster, 1 month ago

I mean, okay, technically you’re not wrong; but it would affect his performance in what all involved seem to expect will be a closely contested election… So it could (and likely would) literally be the end of the Biden Administration.

ZMonster, 1 month ago

The article keeps referring to Jan 6, 2001. But you’re right again, nobody cared.

ZMonster, 1 month ago

So much this. If we aren’t going to restrict possession of firearms in any way then we can’t use that as a basis for intent. Just replace, “had a gun”, with literally any other constitutionally protected right and this argument falls flat on its face.

“He was using words, we will never know if he was about to run into a theater and yell ‘fire’…”