u/Alternative-War-967 — reddlx

TW: Death

I didn’t meet him until I was 11. He’s been dying of one thing or another my entire life. His wife hated us having a relationship because she saw it as a threat to his relationship with her five kids she had prior to meeting him and always made it super uncomfortable for me to visit. A couple of years ago I realized our relationship was me mainly on the phone making him feel better and giving supportive talk every time he was dying or going through something personal.

Once he said “I don’t even see you as a daughter, you’re like my best friend” I didn’t take it as a compliment and it stuck with me ever since.

Months before his death I went low to no contact. He kept begging me to visit but I have children and promised myself I’d never put them in environments where they would feel othered, uncomfortable and unwanted. His wife planned his funeral on my birthday. I did not attend. I enjoyed knowing everyone on his side of the family would persistently ask them where I was. I went to Disney for two weeks with my kids instead. All his step children wrote things on his wall about the letters he wrote them. I wanted to comment “writing letters for all your children except the biological one you vented to about them is wild lol” but I blocked them instead. If he left me anything, they won’t tell me. They didn’t even want me to be able to use his military benefits for college although I’m his only biological child and me receiving benefits took nothing away from them.

I feel a little sad, relieved, and a lot justified for distancing myself. They tried to vaguely apologize throughout the years but it was always when they thought my dad may actually leave her and when one tried to self delete in a letter. I didn’t accept or respond to them. I never quite respected him for allowing a third party to dictate the relationship he had with his own child.

They are all white and my dad is Black. I’m Black too so the whole thing was always weird. This was good prep for going low contact with my mother as well. Now I have an answer for how I feel “if something happens” to one of them. Fine. I’d feel fine.

Dinner: Numb and spicy hotpot flavored lays to match my vibe tonight.

This feels weird to say bc I’m a single mom, but I’ve worked in tech for over a decade at this point and am currently at a one of the companies you’ve all probably heard is having quarterly layoffs. The company is “merging” roles as they do layoffs which means that every layoff I’ve survived has resulted in me doing twice/triple the workload, no flexibility regarding deadlines/scope, and essentially you’re teaching other functions do your job under the guise of “team building” at onsites.

Everyday before I log on, I’m anxious and upset and frantic. The anxiety doesn’t leave when I shut the computer. I need meds to sleep now. There’s always a fire that requires a 12 hr workday bc no one actually communicates or wants to be responsible for signing off on anything. They also announced they’d be watching our laptop behavior to train AI, which feels like a crazy invasion of privacy and I’ve never particularly been “anti ai”. This plus the tiny raise and refreshers genuinely don’t make the work worth it anymore. The energy is so depressing and between that and the constant cortisol spikes I’ve become rather ready to be laid off while they’re still offering generous severance packages.

This isn’t a situation where I can hint that I’m open to being impacted bc my manager keeps saying it’s random and she doesn’t even know who’s going to be impacted… but every time a layoff is announced and I survive, I feel a sense of dread and everyone is just kind of anxious for two months while we wait for the next announcement. During this time- we’re incredibly busy but nothing actually gets done. It feels like all the work and problems are make believe and we’re all playing a “role” of employee without ever accomplishing anything. The culture has turned into a weird masculine competition and they’re loud about it. I had an EM try to kill one of my projects bc he wanted to name it one thing but the entire team agreed on another name. Last week I worked multiple 16 hr days for a presentation to the executive leadership team and once HR confirmed layoffs were pending, a manager (not even mine) decided she’d present all of our work instead. It’s pathetic and weird energy all around.

I understand people are saying the job market is horrible, and I get that but if anything this has made me realize working for an employer is no less risky than starting your own business. Does anyone else feel the same? I’m starting to think if I spent the same amount of stress, time and info retention required to “maybe” ship something on building my own business, I’d at least be able to cover my immediate living expenses and would get better tax breaks while at it.