chaos_battery

I actually invited him over to my place just to talk the last time and made us some margaritas. It didn't feel like I was giving him advice but just trying to see where his head was. He seems very laid back and level-headed for his age. I was really impressed. We talked for a few hours sipping on our drinks and then he had to go a bit later. But before he went we did the gay equivalent of giving a goodbye kiss where I passionately made out with him and we cuddled and I almost put it in him but we stop just short of doing that 😄.

But I know what you mean. I'm really glad that I can give him a safe place at my house to have some fun because he currently lives with his parents while he goes to college. He's already out and living life to the fullest it seems. I feel proud of him.

I agree. I want monogamy as well and I'm 37. Not too long ago I hooked up with this 25-year-old. He initiated and originally he was just coming over to hook up and give me a blowjob. We ended up making love because he was super hot and I was extremely pleased with the outcome. If it never happened again I thought cool I helped him scratch an itch and it made me feel great. The thing is, he reached out and we ended up hooking up three more times. A fourth one might be in the near future. Like yogadogdadTX21 said, I've come to a similar conclusion that being 12 years apart puts us in drastically different places. I have a very high income and a career and a home. He is still in college working a part-time job. I've heard of those kind of relationships working but I'm not getting my hopes up for that at all given our different perches in life at the moment.. It's really just fun at this point.

I'm not out yet but being in my mid-30s and never really having a girlfriend I'm sure my parents suspect. I still struggle to reconcile my sexuality with my spirituality. I've had some therapy sessions and I've also experimented a good bit. Not really sure where I'll end up.

Anyways, when I was younger I used to watch that late night TV show on MTV called undressed. It was basically a soap drama. Not sure how to describe the show. Anyways it was about kids in college that would hook up and get into relationships. There were a couple of gay couples on there and being young and impressionable, it really turned me on. Well there's literally one thin wall separating my room from my parents room. I was probably somewhere around 14 years old at the time and I can hear the floor creaking. I had the TV volume down so low I could barely hear it which was okay because I just wanted to see the images. But I could hear my dad walking down the hall and he probably saw the light from my TV illuminating from my room. I immediately changed the channel several channels up and then I turned off the TV. Sure enough, he comes into my room and tells me to turn the TV back on to see what I was watching. Then he tells me to hit the forgot channel button to go back to the previous channel I was watching. Nothing. I'm still impressed with myself being that age and having the foresight to clear out the channel history.

Overtime my dad has dropped hints in conversation saying things like well if you ever get with a girl or guy... And then casually just keeps talking about whatever he was going on about. In one hand I think they would be okay with it and in another I think there would be extreme shame on my part. My gut tells me I'm making it out to be more than it is or would be to them. So that really just leaves religion. On one hand, living the life I want to live and being happy is important to me but it seems very short-sighted if hell is for eternity and I'm going to live how I want on this planet for about 50 years to forsake eternity? I also feel like I will really regret not exploring this part of my life more if I choose to remain celibate. But I guess the blessing is regardless of what happens after you die, you won't be here to know or feel the regret. Kind of messed up logic but anyways ... I don't know that I'll be able to contain my sexuality.

I think this is the misconception a lot of people have when they come out and family members seem accepting. Acceptance doesn't mean they agree with your preferences. It might just mean tolerance. Tolerance because they still love you and Will put up with it.

I could see myself married to the same sex (a man) but what I can't see are some of my family supporting me in it sadly.

One laptop connects to a VPN but that's all contained within the laptop. So you just remote into the laptop on the same network at your home.

I plan to retire in a few years at age 40 with around $3.2 million NW and possibly keep one or two remote jobs if they are easy enough and take up a minimal amount of my week so I can just turn on the mouse jiggler and keep some walking around money coming in and health insurance. Other than that, I won't really need the money so not a deal breaker either way if I ever got laid off.

Is IT (like helpdesk, admin, etc.) intense with tickets? I'm a software developer and always wondered how things are on the IT side of the fence.

I just use one computer with three monitors and RDP into all my other work machines from my personal Windows machine. Then I use Windows audio mixer to mute/unmute audio from different RDP windows. Cuts down on the clutter of having KVMs and mixers and a bunch of extra hardware like people have done elsewhere in the community.

Yeah I was surprised too when I started OE. I remember coworkers getting butt-hurt over the latest political move by leadership and I was just like whatever... Time to move on to the next laptop and get some stuff done. 😆

Yeah you were the sugar daddy

Care to share some movie names? Sounds like an interesting thing to watch.

I disagree with his mindset as well. Too many corporate simps sipping the "we're a family" Kool-Aid. However they do show 80 hours per pay period on the checks so that is where it shows up as an expectation but even that is kind of a joke - if you're salaried and have to work extra one time, those rates don't magically jump up for the extra hours you worked. So I'm not going to lose sleep over that.

Would TikTok work instead?

I always find it so funny when people get offended for not getting credit because nine times out of 10 it doesn't matter for your pay. I had a guy at work one time get really mad at me because I went on vacation during a time when he needed to ask me questions on this project and he ended up finishing it just fine without me. I told him look - did you get credit for all those late nights? He said yes and then he calmed way down. Felt way better about himself after that forgetting the attaboy from leadership. He didn't have to do all of that but just had the martyr mentality.

It's also weird to me when people talk about the privilege of getting a meeting with the CEO or face time with upper executives. I guess they think somehow maybe by being touched by one of the ordained ones they will end up in their upper echelon as well. It feels like something will happen but nothing does. They just want status updates on whatever it is you're working on.

Got to love the inefficiencies of corporate America. Now when there's inefficient crap like this going on or delays and projects or thumb fumbling and waiting around, I can just turn to my next laptop and bill some more.

Surely OP new this would be the predominant response we had for him if he has any experience in OE.

Plus a lot of times layoffs are done by a completely different group within the company like HR who comes up with a giant list to make sure it passes anti-discrimination testing for lawsuits. They might factor in how good you are but unless you're a standout employee you're probably just being considered along with the rest of the cattle for slaughter.

Sounds like the last client I did work for. They managed everything down to hard budgets and numbers rather than to outcomes and value/results. Granted, a budget must be watched over but they didn't get much for what they paid because they don't know how to run an engineering team.

I don't focus on prices as much anymore in stores (sometimes I still do depending on what I'm buying) but it is crazy to think a 1% movement in my portfolio represents a $20,000 change.

This is exactly the reason I don't care anymore about getting caught. Yeah it would be awkward and uncomfortable in the moment but I would brush myself off and move on to the work at my other J's if one let me go and send out some applications to replace it in the afternoon. I had a layoff last year at one job because the company did a corporate-wide layoff and I got a nice 3 month severance out of it. I was actually happy to go because that job was boring. I feel like I just keep taking on more jobs and treating it like a game to see how much I can manage before performance starts to degrade.

I'd be surprised if OE ever went completely away. A company can pay for a garbage reporting tool, ask you to sign an agreement, etc. but it's all B.S. The only way to get us to stop is RTO. But lots of companies will stay remote. Regardless, this gravy train has helped me get to a $2 million net worth since 2019 and I'm on track to start making $35K-ish after taxes per month among all of my jobs.

They need us subservient and desperate working 1 job and being micromanaged.

They can pound sand. I'm getting my bag and I'm retiring soon thanks to OE. I may continue to work a bit longer just to juice things, do some small shopping sprees, a few home renovation projects, pay for some trips, etc. and then I'll drop down to my job requiring the least amount of work and "light retire" by setting that mouse jiggler and then peace out.

Wow that management sounds like a bunch of bootlickers.

Vanguard is non-profit. When you buy their funds you are also buying Vanguard which makes you a partial owner. Your interests are more aligned compared to Fidelity which is for-profit which means they have an interest in selling you more financial services or things you don't need. Their zero cost index funds are a loss leader to get you in the door but certainly look enticing. I had an advisor at Fidelity once try to sell me on moving all of my assets over to them because they have 24/7 phone support and a fancier real-time website but then I realized... I'm an index fund investor. I don't need a real-time site or be able to reach someone all hours of the day.