For sure. I’m too empathic for most things. I can’t watch embarrassment humour, I struggle with particularly heavy scenes in games or movies, I’ve put down books when I knew something tragic was about to happen because I couldn’t bear reading it and imagining the pain the protagonists must feel.

Autistic people may be at a greater risk to become used to some sense of “how things are supposed to work”, which can include overreacting to the unexpected or unknown. I know that I like thinking in boxes and was accordingly susceptible to mindsets that put things in clean boxes (male and female, faithful and sinner, and so on) and it took conscious deprogramming to shake off those bigoted views.

Basically, certain autistic traits may render us more vulnerable to indoctrination into mindsets that align with the way our minds work. That vulnerability isn’t universal nor unique to autistic people, of course.

I recently went and replayed the DLCs of AC3 and Odyssey, which I’d quit for various reasons. Particularly in the case of Odyssey, Open World Fatigue played a role: I couldn’t be arsed to explore everything anymore, but neither could I bear to leave anything open.

I decided to just go for the missions, to not worry about over optimising my choices, to not worry about cleaning out every little question mark and chest and finishing every location. I finished them, enjoyed my time and found new freedom in not having to draw out the maximum amount of game time for my money.

I’ve twice now gotten a position without prior knowledge of the tools in question. I think a lot is just taking a gamble on your ability to learn as you go - which clearly worked out in your case.

It’s hard to predict just how long an appointment will take. Some have been done in five minutes, just a brief check-in and new prescription, and scheduling half an hour for that would mean twiddling his thumbs for twenty minutes he could have spent helping someone that arrived rather punctual for their appointment. I think scheduling for the average appointment but allowing overtime for those who need it is the more patient-friendly approach.

I had my start with Python, albeit as a kid and I didn’t actually understand too much about the principles at the time. Still, I think that was a good place to start learning about the concepts of instructions and variables.

I learned more about the ideas underpinning it all later, and most of my understanding came when actually working in software development on a live and in-development codebase. I think that’s a good progression: start small, then learn some theory just so you’ve heard the terms once, then try to make sense of actual code using that.

Edit: definitely work on some goal though. Don’t code in a vacuum, think of something small you want to achieve and learn to do that.

As far as I can tell, my psych is doing well enough to not worry about his living, not particularly keen on getting rich, deals with some super heavy things and curses at the stupid computer system he’s required to use, so he’s probably chronically low on fucks to give for seeing the maximum amount of patients per day.

But yeah, when you see him walk out of one room with a heavier-than-usual frown on his face, taking a deep breath to compose himself before walking into the next one, you start to wonder how many times he’s had to put on a stoic face before seeing you. And then he sits down, asks how you’re doing, whether you’ve done that thing you mentioned wanting to do last time and gives you full attention.

I have nothing but respect for that man. I’ve moved a good bit away from him now, but I’d still rather take the long trip to see him for my regular appointments than search for a new one.

My psych often has people wait for their appointments. I’ll be scheduled for 800, there at 740, get seen at 840.

And you know what? That’s perfectly fine. I feel taken seriously, he listens, he asks, he quips, he shares his own experiences, he does all he can to make me comfortable telling him about the shit going on in my head. I’ll work up the courage to tell him something I find hard to phrase and unpleasant to talk about and he takes it with a relaxed professionalism, waiting patiently for me to finish, asks questions (usually very precise ones, both unpleasant in how close to home they hit and reassuring in the implications that I’m not the only one with these issues) and looks for the best way to help me.

So when I sit in that waiting room, watching the minutes tick by, I imagine he’s taking the same time with a different, far more difficult patient. Perhaps someone got slotted in for an emergency, perhaps someone needs blood drawn for a routine check and really, really hates needles, perhaps someone is having a breakdown… I don’t know and I don’t care what ails the other patients, but I know that I want them to receive the same quality of care as I do. To me, that’s worth waiting for.

The real joy of growing up is using slang without giving half a damn whether it’s dated. Let them cringe, if they must.

You can recommend all you want, the decision is far removed from me

Not gonna open it at work, but if they want pure les without any dick (magic or otherwise), couldn’t they filter their search with -penis or something to that effect?

Ooh that’s a good one

Idk how that person’s IT works, but in mine, that would probably warrant a lot of paperwork. The techs would have to pitch the change to client management, client management would have to pitch it to change management and provide test results to show it has no side effects, then deal with the techs complaining about the uptick in tickets about slow boot times or people justifying never shutting down or restarting with it taking so long to boot.

Not that they’re actually slow, our users are just super entitled. I got to observe the rollout of automatic screen lock for security reasons, and the ensuing pushback. The audacity of having to reenter your password if you’ve spent more than ten minutes doing nothing!

Security even managed to push for reducing it to five minutes after some unfortunate incident… but it got reverted for reasons you can probably guess. Hint: shit always flows downward.

I work in our service department myself (not as support tech though), but obviously, all tickets are supposed to go through 1st level. I don’t wanna be the dick skipping queue, so I did then one time I had an issue.

There’s a unique feeling of satisfaction to submitting a ticket with basically all the 1st level troubleshooting in the notes, allowing the tech to immediately escalate it to a 2nd level team. One quick call, one check I didn’t know about, already prepared the escalation notes while it ran. Never have I heard our support sound so cheerful.

The kind of thing you’d have in a small apartment where there is no space for a big one and you’re single or a couple and don’t have a lot of dishes to fill a big one with anyway.

I rambled for too long about this lol.

The fuck you did! Making the world a little less dumb, one ramble at a time, is a good thing. We don’t all need to be specialists in everything, but a brief summary like this contributes to our general knowledge and is a net positive.

…he invited them in to watch him die? I mean, that’s probably the ultimate “Walks in, makes claim, refuses to elaborate” move, but also, it’s kinda twisted and petty.

Not just the best tho, I got it too

I doubt working class people spent their evenings reading high-brow books. Magazines, cheaper novels, things that don’t demand much mental investment after 8+ hours of work have drained your energy and left a little for chores.

Families that could live on a single income may have had more time, but if that has reduced, it may well because a single income often can’t sustain a whole family any more.

TV didn’t magically create a need for mindless entertainment. It may have supplanted other recreational activities, but it couldn’t replace e.g. meeting up for a drink and a nice chat unless the convenience of it outweighed the loss of social activity.

“The same difficult fight twice”

If only it were the same fight. OOP is going to have quite the fun time for sure.

Also, yeah, it immediately appearing over there is a nasty pitfall. I understand the logic of it, but maybe he shouldn’t move there until you gathered all the ingredients. For newer players in particular, that fight can be a brutal challenge.