What happens if your school loses accreditation

Ooo ooo I know this one! That’s when you get a letter in the mail saying the feds have taken over your loan, the month payments start being due, and literally no other information. And then you call them and ask where to send payments and they say to send it wherever you had been sending it, seemingly missing the part where they just took over the loan. And then life happens and you realize you haven’t made payments. So you call and get the same runaround. And then you call later and give them an address update when you move, ask them about paying, and get treated like you have three heads. And then a few years later you get a very angry letter that the loan is in default. So you call and explain, and the person on the other end treats you like human filth, barely stopping short of using obscenities. So you hang up to let your anger simmer down, call back, and speak with “a manager.” Explain the whole thing top to bottom. That’s when you find out that when they took over your loan seven years ago, they immediately put it into the delinquent bin even though it was quite fresh at the time. And everyone you’ve talked to since just assumed you were a deadbeat.

Then you pay off the loan total using a credit card (because it’s thousands of dollars and you’re broke) and pay the interest again.

There’s been someone casting this just behind me at random intervals since I was like 5. Haven’t caught the fucker yet, but it lands more often than it doesn’t.

My microwave when done: beep. beep. beep. beep. beep.

My microwave stopped one second early to head off the unnecessary beeps: BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

The perfect one-panel comic doesn’t exi—

I’m pretty sure poor sound balance in modern media is mandatory.

I haven’t worked in the field, but oh boy do I ever notice it. Is it the player? The display? The receiver? I don’t know, and I will fuck with it until it’s tolerable… and then something drifts and I’m clawing at the walls again. Yes, something in my setup sucks, but the gear is all from ~2017 and I’m broke. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My Xbox is connected to the 1080p/low latency HDMI port on my display, with the audio going over optical directly to my receiver, stereo only, foregoing 4K and surround sound for the express purpose of playing Rock Band with as little latency as possible. The two types of guitar and the drum set have slightly different optimal calibration settings in the game. The whole reason I bought a 360 over a PS3 back in the day was that the guitars were still wired, and trying to calibrate while playing on my friend’s PS3 was next to impossible and spawned a lot of arguments.

Today, that same friend contentedly watches content 1/4-1/2 second out of sync. And his wife prefers watching everything with subtitles. So I have to actively ignore both distractions and pretend everything’s fine to be a good friend. 🫠

I only line dry my clothes when I think they need to be seasoned with some guano.

Better put the bread box in the cupboard, just to be on the safe side.

Holy crap, this is the first time I’ve seen this image that hasn’t been either deep fried, pointlessly censored, or both.

But… but… this one is obviously well-trained.

c/uncommoninsults@…?

They don’t even need to reach critical mass. The last place I was at was a shitshow held together by a handful of overachievers. At every level there were idiots making decisions and protecting friendly mouth-breathers. And when we would contact the Big Players in the industry, it was much the same on their end. It got to the point where I had to remind people that just because you’re calling Big Name Brand, the person you’re talking to is you. And they report to Dave (the know-nothing manager we all worked under). Nobody has a fucking clue. So cut the person on the other end of the line some slack.

I’m middle aged. I have friends, some of them since high school. Everyone I know is stretched thin, either barely getting by or dealing with situational crises that otherwise drain what reserves they once had. And those pulling the strings seem content to keep tugging. Shit is either going to explode or collapse.

Best I can do is paying for survival.

Any notes I take are almost universally useless. My attention is now divided between listening and documenting, and I end up doing neither well. If I’m being presented with all-new information, I have zero way of knowing what will need future reference later as I’m taking it in. Anything I write down is just going to be random tidbits.

Up front, my experience probably isn’t going to be much help, aside from validating your experience. I’m up shit’s creek and have been for quite some time. To hit your numbered list first:

1. Yes. So much this. A lot of it likely comes from childhood, where unless I was puking I was “faking it” because I had earned the “lazy” label thanks to early academic aptitude and subsequent failure to complete assignments (undiagnosed AuDHD). “I’m not dying, I should be okay. Instead I’m sitting here doing nothing.”
2. Unless you’re running the business this should never be a thing… but as we all know this is all too common in an office setting. The longer you’re out, the more backed up you get, to the point where even planned vacations are stressful because in the back of your mind you can see the accumulating workload. It’s by design and it makes me want to flip tables.
3. I’m only recently getting a good read on my past and present experiences with autistic burnout (which is absolutely its own thing but thanks to the lack of interest in studying adults the only language we have is “it’s like burnout, but turned up to 11”). It first hit (as an adult, anyway… childhood still needs to be unpacked) a mere year into my professional career, trying to navigate a high level of technical challenge (since I was green) and a high level of social challenge (field service work in and around a dense urban area). The most recent was the culmination of 11 years of hard work being rewarded with more work and more responsibility, and getting hung out to dry when it overwhelmed me. Probably the last 4-5 years of that was me “pushing through” burnout, because I simply had no other frame of reference and bills needed to get paid (this is “real life,” I don’t have the energy to look for something else, bad economic time to be the low man on the totem pole, better the devil you know, etc.). It got bad. I left two and a half years ago when they tightened the screws enough that I could no longer pretend. I had like 6-8 months of expenses saved, my spouse had steady work, and the plan was to take time to recharge and worry about the gap in the resume later. The recharge never happened, thanks in no small part to life continuing to pile on. The only upshot to this is that I’m finally getting some real therapy, after years of off and on bad experiences with prior attempts.

To kind of sort of answer your questions:

• Do you have difficulty identifying burnout?

Yes. And so do employers. Individual managers may care on a professional level, maybe even on a personal level. But the business itself is incapable of caring. A burned out employee will simply be replaced once they no longer produce. The added nuance that autistic burnout brings to the table is a “you problem.” Yes, I am bitter.

• Do you have difficulty identifying when you’ve recovered?
• How do you decide when to go back to work?

I realize this kind of response is unhelpful, but that’s where I’m at right now. I’m trying to unpack things through therapy, but life doesn’t get put on hold just because I can’t handle it. And being in the US isn’t helping, what with all the make believe rugged individualism and the gubmint doing a slash and burn on social services. I feel like I’m on a trajectory to starve in the streets as opposed to recovery. I am still trying in spite of it. I’m exhausted though.

I wish I had better answers for you.

I think I like the coloration in your work better than the (lack of) coloration in the official art. Gorgeous.

Which conveniently comes from trusted brands like Pepsi and Coca-Cola!

…no, wait…

Can’t speak for y’all, but I’m firmly in “will never be able to retire” territory.

Shout out to the $8 quart of ice water with half a lemon in it sold as “lemonade” at last year’s ren faire. Though I did get lemon-flavored melted ice for the next few hours out of the deal.