179 karma · joined January 7, 2015
Same thing goes if they don't turn the meter on. Also a free ride. If they don't turn the meter on, ask them to right away. Or, wait until the destination and agree on a reasonable price or simply walk away.
If any cab driver tries to negotiate a flat rate ahead of time, it's usually a rip off. Though, I will do this after a busy event if we can agree on a price that's cheaper than ride share surge pricing and not outrageous. It's gotten so bad that if one does just turn the meter on at a busy event I give them a huge tip and say thank you for not pulling that crap.
If you haven't been, highly recommend a visit. Especially if you're brining kids - hard not to have a good time when you can walk into a water vapor tornado.
Lately, blatant disregard for traffic laws in Chicago has gotten so bad that it's a little terrifying. It's become a common thread on the r/chicago subreddit with regular posts pointing out how bad it's gotten and how police never stop anybody.
Here are two posts from yesterday alone:
https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/tzyrmn/red_lights_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/u0x3sd/im_getting_...
EDIT: Wanted to point this out b/c I think it's a larger problem in general of people not following rules of the road, not isolated to specific cities.
Both my primary car physician and myself aren't fans of sleeping meds either, but I absolutely needed something to help me sleep at the time.
They absolutely are for short term use. I haven't needed the meds again since, but I have a prescription filled in case I experience insomnia again. If I do, I'll likely do a sleep study as well to rule out any other issues.
Eventually, I had to go to my doctor and deal with it. They gave me a few different sleep drugs to try, and I found one that worked extremely well at not forcing me to sleep like a sedative, but helping me fall asleep and to stay asleep. Using the sleep meds and strictly enforcing my work hours plus a 2 week vacation was all that saved me (at this point I didn't care anymore, I simply got done what I could in 8hrs and the rest could fuck off).
It took about a month of 8hrs minimum per night of good quality sleep, but man did it make a big difference. After that everything mostly fell back into place. I've since kept the more strict work hours and have taken on a role that actually has me learning new things vs. grinding out mass amounts of tedious but important work. I do work too much still, but I cap it ~ 50hrs a week and take as much flexibility as I can with it. No meetings until 10am and I was online until 8pm the night before? Cool, I'll be in at 10 and will hit the gym before work so I have more family time after work. No more bending backwards to get everything done.
I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child, and have avoided the medication my whole life. Recently, I decided to try Adderall. It's like magic to be honest, and has helped tremendously in multiple ways. I can focus on a single task, less pain in getting started on tasks, can actually stay focused, can listen without the draining mental effort to force myself to, and am less forgetful.
But for some reason, this one project has put me right back in the same old 'cannot do this' state even with the Adderall.
I'm going to take what you recommend and run with it.
I used to be able to learn new tech quickly, bang out tons of work, and be able to context switch / multi-task with ease.
I can't bring myself to do my taxes. I feel it's only a matter of time until I get fired. I try hard to get back into work, but my brain just won't let me. I'll then spend more time in front of the computer to try and catch up which just makes it worse. Doing any type of work is like pulling teeth just to get started. Don't know what I'm going to do. The worst part is I get angry about it.
Books are the same. When learning a new language for example, I get a book that covers the language itself (best practices, common design patterns, etc), not how to write a for loop. It seems to be an incredibly effective way to learn. Most importantly, it cuts down on reading the same information regurgitated over and over across multiple blogs.
Eventually the marketing department caught on that I had a really fast way to build reports and marketing targets that didn't require using a cumbersome db marketing tool and manually generating reports. I shared what I had built, and it royally pissed off everyone else in my role because they thought they were going to lose their cushy do basically nothing jobs. It actually turned into the team building out more tooling + automation, and most people learned valuable skills. The company even sent people to training and paid for tech books etc.
I left shortly after for greener pastures, but overall I think it was a net win.
I know that weights are better than cardio, but cardio has major benefits for me that I can't ignore. Stress melts off, and I feel much more clear minded + focused with regular cardio. It also seems to keep my metabolism really high. I'm in my late 30s and eat like a teenager (in quantity of food) while staying lean with decent muscle mass.
What really did it for me was when we all went out for someone's "birthday" (it wasn't their birthday, the team had put cards in at a few restaurants with different dates for their birthdays to get free stuff, whatever, the restaurants don't care, but it was just weird) and most of the team berated a guy who was trying not to drink so he didn't order a beer. You could tell the guy was uncomfortable, and they just kept goading him for the entire 2hr lunch.
After a week and a half I called back a company I had turned down for this one and asked if they would still take me. Started there the next Monday. That was 10yrs and 2 jobs ago, and easily the best decision I had made for my career.
What is the wealth transfer?