Battle Kitten: Ascension

[WhiteGhost]

I have never heard of anyone giving out a business card as a test.  More often than not, business cards are only given to candidates that have a good chance of getting hired, because the risk is that candidates that don't have a chance then have the contact info and can get really annoying asking for more chances and trying to keep their foot in the door.

 

I think the most likely scenario here is that they were happy with how the interview went, are serious about considering you for the position, and actually meant it when they said "contact us with any questions" because a lot of times legitimate questions come up after the interview that could determine your interest in the position.

 

My recommendation would be to relax, enjoy your holiday, maybe send a Christmas message to whomever would be your immediate supervisor, and then if they don't get back to you in the second week of January send them a follow up message that you appreciated the interviews and ask about next steps.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

I think you're expecting those people [from the interviews] to react like your parents would. The "it's a test" stuff sounds like the kind of crap your mother would pull. To be honest, if it was a test, there would be no correct answer because the kind of people who do stuff like that do it so they have an excuse to be upset about something.

 

Furthermore, if they were that crazy, you don't want to work at that place because it would be incredibly toxic.

 

You're not wrong for feeling that way, again, it's coping skills that helped you survive your family.

 

So to reframe the situation by not sending those emails you cannot lose. Either they aren't necessary, and no harm done, or they were necessary meaning the workplace is toxic and you have no business there.  So you've either not harmed yourself or protected yourself. You win either way.

[fleaball]

Yeah you both made good points. Even as I was writing “it’s a test” I was like “that makes no fucking sense and I’m being ridiculous.” But this is how my brain works. Sigh. 

 

Thanks for the feedback. I feel better now about just not doing them. I’ll hide the business cards somewhere so I don’t have to think about it. 

[Severine]

9 hours ago, fleaball said:

Haha but fuck, now I'm like "wait but they all gave me business cards, what if it was a test??" They all also told me to contact them if I had more questions; I don't think they necessarily expected or are waiting for an email with followup questions, so of course my brain just decided there's no other reason for them to give me business cards unless they were looking to see if I'd do thank yous?

 

In my experience people just give out business cards when they meet people for the first time in work settings. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. Usually the company orders you some stupid amount, like 500, and you either end up letting them sit in a box in your desk or just giving them out to basically every new person you meet. It's a handy way for people to know they've given you their contact info, to feel like they've done what they're supposed to do, but it doesn't mean they're expecting a contact. Most of the time they just give you a card out of reflex and then forget about it. Also, in a situation like a conference or an interview circuit it's common for people to collect business cards for everyone they meet to keep track. It's just a thing that happens and personally I wouldn't read too much into it.

[Severine]

8 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

I think you're expecting those people [from the interviews] to react like your parents would. The "it's a test" stuff sounds like the kind of crap your mother would pull. 

 

So much this. When your therapist says she doesn't think you have an anxiety disorder, just PTSD, I think this is what she means. From what I can remember, most of the stuff you worry about is related to stuff you grew up with, and the way you feel worried when you imagine the outside world working that way. 

 

Most people just don't work the way your mother worked, thankfully, and over time as you heal and readjust you'll become less and less inclined to expect those behaviors from people, and the same interactions that used to seem so full of potential for missteps will seem a lot more neutral and benign. Like Tank said, it's not that you're bad or weird for worrying about this stuff - for literally decades it was an adaptive, self-protecting way to view things. It'll take time to change but it'll happen.

 

[Sylvaa]

6 hours ago, Severine said:

 

In my experience people just give out business cards when they meet people for the first time in work settings. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. Usually the company orders you some stupid amount, like 500, and you either end up letting them sit in a box in your desk or just giving them out to basically every new person you meet. It's a handy way for people to know they've given you their contact info, to feel like they've done what they're supposed to do, but it doesn't mean they're expecting a contact. Most of the time they just give you a card out of reflex and then forget about it. Also, in a situation like a conference or an interview circuit it's common for people to collect business cards for everyone they meet to keep track. It's just a thing that happens and personally I wouldn't read too much into it.

 

I do this all the time! While unrelated to interviews specifically, I have a ton of old business cards (with my old title) and like, I throw them around a la Oprah trying to get rid of them before I need to get new. Also, very rarely do I expect this to actually result in a follow up e-mail, unless something more specific comes up as part of a conversation. 

[fleaball]

I just put in all my obnoxious Christmas earrings before I go out driving. Except most of the holes had partially closed since I haven’t worn earrings in forever, so now my ears hurt. I probably should have cleaned off the earrings too since I haven’t  worn these ones in two years. Womp. 

[fleaball]

How to ruin my night in one easy step: I saw a post on reddit where someone was working on weight loss but asking for tips because they’re getting a breast reduction soon and their surgeon recommended they get as close to their ideal body as possible so they can size their boobs right. 

 

That was not recommended to me and I really wish it was. Because “I want to lose weight” is a lot different from “I was told to lose the weight so my boobs aren’t still gigantic if I lose weight after.” I had my surgery when I was 180ish and had plenty of weight to lose. So if I ever get to where I want to be, I’ll still be unhappy with my boobs. Like regardless of the number on the scale, if I lose the extra fat I will not be anywhere near proportional. And I am super fucking grumpy about it right now. 

[Severine]

44 minutes ago, fleaball said:

How to ruin my night in one easy step: I saw a post on reddit where someone was working on weight loss but asking for tips because they’re getting a breast reduction soon and their surgeon recommended they get as close to their ideal body as possible so they can size their boobs right. 

 

That was not recommended to me and I really wish it was. Because “I want to lose weight” is a lot different from “I was told to lose the weight so my boobs aren’t still gigantic if I lose weight after.” I had my surgery when I was 180ish and had plenty of weight to lose. So if I ever get to where I want to be, I’ll still be unhappy with my boobs. Like regardless of the number on the scale, if I lose the extra fat I will not be anywhere near proportional. And I am super fucking grumpy about it right now. 

 

Asking from a place of total ignorance on the topic, so forgive me if this is a stupid question - in such a case would it be possible to do a second reduction? Or would that be bad or not possible? I mean obviously having an extra surgery is never as good as doing it right the first time but if it's possible it might at least feel less shitty?

[RES]

Literally every person I've ever known who had reduction surgery (and it's been several) was given this advice...I would be grumpy too!

[fleaball]

21 minutes ago, RES said:

Literally every person I've ever known who had reduction surgery (and it's been several) was given this advice...I would be grumpy too!

Ugggggh. My surgeon was supposed to be really really good but she was also super pregnant at the time so I wonder if she just forgot to tell me these things? Because I also had to call back after the initial consult/after the surgery was scheduled to be like "wait we didn't talk about what size I want??" (I assumed there would be another appointment for some reason because I knew nothing about process) and she did say then that it came down to like, what insurance allowed and also what would look good with my body shape? But didn't specify that if I wanted to lose weight I should have done it then. I really wanted to be like, a C or something so I'd look normal eventually and I remember nearly crying when I went to get fitted for new bras after and I got an E. But I got over it because it made a massive difference anyway. Bitter about it now though. 

 

22 minutes ago, Severine said:

 

Asking from a place of total ignorance on the topic, so forgive me if this is a stupid question - in such a case would it be possible to do a second reduction? Or would that be bad or not possible? I mean obviously having an extra surgery is never as good as doing it right the first time but if it's possible it might at least feel less shitty?

Tbh I have no fucking clue. If I ever manage to lose the weight and get to that point I'll definitely ask. My concern would be less "booo surgery" and more "would insurance cover a second one because this shit is like $5k minimum." I'd be down for doing it again because it wasn't that big a deal, mostly annoying that I couldn't lift my arms too high for several weeks. It's really not worth looking into right now though because I've got over a hundred pounds to lose before I get to that point.

[fleaball]

In other news, I'm like two seconds away from having a breakdown just because I fucking hate Christmas and New Year's and I need it to be like, March right now because fuck all of this and I want it to be over.

[Severine]

17 hours ago, fleaball said:

In other news, I'm like two seconds away from having a breakdown just because I fucking hate Christmas and New Year's and I need it to be like, March right now because fuck all of this and I want it to be over.

 

 

You're definitely in good company in hating the holidays. My biological immediate family is fucked up, and when I was younger the only thing that made the family bullshit surrounding the holidays worse was the omnipresent cultural pressure to be happy, and the endless parade of people telling me to enjoy time with my family etc. I know tonnes of people who've been through similar periods. Just know that you're allowed to hate the holidays, you're allowed to want it to all be over, you're allowed to say things like, "actually the holidays are not a happy time for me, so I'd prefer we talked about something else" to your Lyft rides, etc.

 

  

 

[fleaball]

Merry Christmas, my coffee maker just killed itself. 

[fleaball]

I've spent most of the day looking at vegan recipes for inspiration/motivation and even though everything looks super tasty and I'm skipping over the ones that are too complicated, it's still giving me ridiculous anxiety. Which is entirely the opposite of what I wanted out of this experience. Awesome. 

[WhiteGhost]

10 hours ago, fleaball said:

Awesome

Huh. Not the word I would have used to describe that.    

[fleaball]

I had a follow up with my PCP today and asked to test my cholesterol and glucose, partly because I figured they had to be terrible since I've been backsliding, and partly to get a baseline in case I actually manage to get my shit together this year. Got the results back, and I have no idea what the actual fuck my body is doing. 

 

Weight: 7/19/17 - 219.8 ; 7/23/18 - 250.6 ; 12/31/18 - 268.0

 

 

Obviously not perfect (wtf triglycerides??) and that liver function test that indicates fatty liver went up yet again. Glucose went up but a1c is still just below the threshold for prediabetic. But in general... what is happening? I am genuinely confused as to how my weight has gone up, my diet it shit, and I barely move during the day and yet my cholesterol looks like this? I'm not trying to humblebrag or whatever, I just don't understand wtf is happening. And while I don't want someone to tell me I'll have a heart attack tomorrow if I don't get my shit together, I wonder if having these numbers despite all the damage I'm doing is like, negative motivation to start fixing things? 

 

Mehhhhh. I'm on the fence about doing a challenge this round. On one hand, I'm not feeling it and I still feel like it's too easy to fail because I'm so all-or-nothing no matter how I set things up, but on the other hand, Saturday is my 5-year anniversary here so I feel like I should do something? I did have a weird idea for a challenge theme that I want to run by my therapist on Wednesday, and I also feel like "do it out of spite" could be a perfect theme given who I live with and where. But just having a good theme isn't enough to get me going, as evidenced by the past 4 years of challenges. 

 

In other news, idk if anyone remembers that for one of the scholarships I went abroad on I'm supposed to work for the federal government for a year or pay it back once my deadline passes? So basically I've been applying to a bunch of jobs that I'm pretty sure I have no shot at but hey, at least I can say I applied since we have to track it all, right? Yeah... a position in DC wants to do a phone interview. And now I'm like "fuck how do I turn this down without getting bitched out?" I don't want to move back to DC, the pay isn't going to be enough to live in DC, I'm kinda hoping I get a better job here this week or next. I'm not really stressed about this and don't need advice on it, this is more of a "I've been applying for these fucking jobs for years and now they want me when I'm not in the area and hopefully have a shot at something else?"

[fleaball]

Starting the new year off right: it’s 6am and I haven’t fallen asleep yet. Whee. 

[Sloth the Enduring]

Did you drive all night?

[RES]

7 hours ago, fleaball said:

In other news, idk if anyone remembers that for one of the scholarships I went abroad on I'm supposed to work for the federal government for a year or pay it back once my deadline passes? So basically I've been applying to a bunch of jobs that I'm pretty sure I have no shot at but hey, at least I can say I applied since we have to track it all, right? Yeah... a position in DC wants to do a phone interview. And now I'm like "fuck how do I turn this down without getting bitched out?" I don't want to move back to DC, the pay isn't going to be enough to live in DC, I'm kinda hoping I get a better job here this week or next. I'm not really stressed about this and don't need advice on it, this is more of a "I've been applying for these fucking jobs for years and now they want me when I'm not in the area and hopefully have a shot at something else?"

So it not paying enough to live on isn't a good enough reason to turn it down if it's offered?

[fleaball]

12 hours ago, fleaball said:

Glucose went up but a1c is still just below the threshold for prediabetic.

HAHAHAHA NOPE. Calculated this based on the glucose result. Then got the results for an a1c test this morning that I didn’t realize she did - 6.4%, meaning I’m just below being diabetic. That escalated quickly. 

 

7 hours ago, Sloth the Enduring said:

Did you drive all night?

Nope. It was super duper slow all day. I drove from about 6-10pm and then gave up. I don’t like dealing with drunk people so I wasn’t planning on being out after midnight anyway. 

 

4 hours ago, RES said:

So it not paying enough to live on isn't a good enough reason to turn it down if it's offered?

To the people running the program? Nope. 

[RES]

2 hours ago, fleaball said:

To the people running the program? Nope. 

Ask them if they're willing to pay your room and board while you work there...

 

[fleaball]

1 hour ago, RES said:

Ask them if they're willing to pay your room and board while you work there...

 

Not a thing. I'm just going to email them back and say thanks but no thanks on the interview and hope the people that track the applications and shit don't ever follow up with the agencies to see what happens. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[fleaball]

So I nearly just killed myself by struggling to unplug my laptop and accidentally touching the metal part while it was still partially in the outlet. How’s everyone else’s new year going?

[WhiteGhost]

If I may make a suggestion, you might want to consider not doing that next time.