Haaaaaaaa that's just his normal face sitting on my chest purring.

Thanks. I had so many people say how stupid they were for not being able to see how bad it was and that I could just cut straight to it.

I needed a way to explain why they weren't dumb, but in a way that they could believe with their low self esteem. It's because they did the hard work and packaged it up for me to understand.

This is my cat. We went to the vet and saw a "have you seen this cat" poster of an identical looking void pirate and my heart fell out of my arse for a moment. I asked the staff about it and due to the timings they can't possibly be the same cat, but for a moment I thought my life was over.

When someone else tells you what they are going through, its a summary. "They said this, they did that, then they said this" etc. so it's easy to spot all the telltales and red flags, it's obvious it's abuse.

When it happens to you it's happening alongside everything in your life. Work, family obligations, cooking, life admin. No one is summarising your life for you to tell a concise story. Its "just life", there's no narrative.

Plus many of us don't show ourselves the kindness, patience, forgiveness or support we show others. "Its happening to me, not someone I care about, it isn't as important"

Its a fucked combination even before the actual abuse that primes us to downplay it.

My company had a client who did those financed schemes where people buy furniture and TVs and stuff and pay in installments. The one bit of information that stuck with me was they expected 50% of customers to default. They went under.

I was about to say how can you run a business like that but it just clicked. The execs were running a scheme on the company itself. The company tricks financially illiterate customers (I sympathise, not denigrating) into debt and bankruptcy, ruining their lives, while the owners pay themselves handsomely and buy cars and mansions running the company into bankruptcy. But they walk away with all their toys paid for by the broken finances of their victims.

Fucking parasites.

I was once told, your gut reaction and first impulse is your upbringing and conditioning. It's your reasoned, critical response that makes you who you are.

I have had similar questions about myself recently and this advice helped me to analyse my thinking without getting caught up in guilt.

She's back?

Help! I'm being threatened with a good time!

I'm trans and I learned a lot myself from this. I might have brought up the 41% thing and not knowing its use, miscommunicated what I meant in support of trans rights. Glad to have read this, being trans doesn't automatically make you aware of every aspect of the conversations.

Yeah even with native English speakers I've had "yes" to "is the LED flashing green or red?"

I had a job where the culture was all you know and all you do is what you're told, and fuck you for asking. I have bitter memories of being scolded for not knowing something I'd never been asked to work on before and wasn't even aware of it's existence. It's so painful to read your story of taking the time to provide training and it being not just unappreciated but disrespected.

Yep.

"How sure are you about this?

Ooooh.. 99%?

"So you're pretty confident"

What? No I couldn't have less faith in this unless I saw it fail with my own two eyes.

Agreed. Because of the type of people I normally train and the subject, I start with asking what their experience is. Comfortable with BIOS, networking, drivers? OK cool I'm going to assume then you know enough to follow, don't hesitate to stop me if i mention something or use an acronym you don't understand but let's continue optimistically that you have that knowledge. I think its better for their confidence that I don't explain DHCP unless they ask. It's a form if respect in my view.

The key difference as you mentioned is they sought out my knowledge instead of having it thrust upon them like with this guy. He honestly seemed confused what the relevance was to him, if it was important it would have come up on his course, no? The relevance is to your fucking job my friend.

I wouldn't trade places with him for anything but it amazes me he can walk into his first job with a starting salary I'll never achieve with such contempt for a simple screwdriver.

I believed in the general principles already but in a superficial way. Then I realised I was trans just as #metoo was happening and learning what it's like to be a woman while everyone was talking about what it's like to be a woman made me see how much of it I had been blind to.

Being living proof of that does not make it right, John

Reminds me of a comedy sketch in the 90s with I think Hugh Laurie, set in a scifi scene.

Alien Woman: "Captain, tell me about your human emotion, love"

Hugh:

Alien Woman: "I see. So what is oral sex?"

Hugh:

Shared MACs, you're fucking kidding??

"Hey it's fine no one would ever want more than one of our product, right?"

My brain read "biblically accurate" and I want to know what that looks like now.

GIVE ME leather Picard

Same. When I saw it had reached triple digits I spontaneously cremated.