I got nothing recent, but here are a few from the past.
I was once reading a magazine and tried to pinch-zoom a photo. I tried multiple times before I understood the depths of my stupidity.
I once took my new car into the dealer about a month after I got it for warranty work because the washer fluid wasn’t working anymore. This was after I looked it over and couldn’t find the cause, so I assumed it was a body control module or maybe the stalk was bad. I was pushing the stalk forward instead of pulling it backwards. The tech, service writer, and myself had a good laugh about how I had forgotten how to use the damn thing. There is a freaking icon with “pull” on the stalk. I had been using it just fine and then caught the stupid one day.
I once remarked that they should invent vizine, but for your mouth while I had cottonmouth. Before anyone steals my idea, water was invented over 12 billion years ago.
I tried to take photos of hallucinations to show others. Yes, photos, plural.
Before you worry, I am dedicated child-free.
lmao similar to the pinch-zoom thing, I do a lot of digital art normally, but whenever I draw on paper, I reach for ctrl-Z first instead of flipping the pencil over. Probably doesnt help that If I do draw on paper, its in the same spot where I normally put my tablet
I often use an electronic drawing tablet, with a button on the electronic pen configured as “undo.” The frequency with which I reflexively press on that bit of a real pen to undo a physical ink-based mistake does not reflect well on me.
I wouldn’t consider the photos as an “Am I stupid?” moment as much as an “Am I high?” one.
I’ve more than once pulled down from the top on my gameboy, in order to see what time it is
I’ve done the pinch zoom thing a few times before
I’m a programmer, so this is pretty much a constant thing haha. Sometimes you write the smartest shit imaginable, and sometimes you waste 4 hours on something extremely simple.
“mental block” is real
I’ve had many other jobs and few experiences in them have been as humbling as programming. My favorite is trying everything to fix an issue then realizing the problem is that you’re pointing at the wrong database or running the wrong branch.
It’s a puzzle game where all the puzzles are created by your own stupidity.
I was having a good weekend until you reminded me of the hibernate behavior I need to continue troubleshooting Monday 😔
Programming is the gradual collection of mantras. One of the strongest I have is: the easy stuff is the hard stuff.
I made a shooter on NES. Splitscreen multiplayer took five hours to implement. I’m still debugging the pause function.
It’s so random indeed. Recently I spent weeks on end debugging a “simple table” with a few columns. Constantly had data races, weird edge cases, and bugs that took days to appear. And then sometimes you just ace something complicated in one go and wonder “why did this look so hard”.
Added an extra shelf to my shoe rack today. After measuring, cutting, drilling, even made little notches below the shelf, barely putting the shelf in because of hinges in the way, vacuuming the mess, halfway packing up my tools and call it a successful day and… doors won’t close because of the hinges on the doors hitting the shelf. Moved it 5mm lower after drilling another set of holes.
Asked my dad’s permission to go see the eclipse next month
I’m almost 30
What if he said no?
I’ll be there with you!
My job involves opening boxes, getting serial numbers from the contents, and resealing the boxes. I have repeatedly done the last two steps in the opposite order.
I believe that is called ADHD.
I find it hard to tell if it’s adhd with this amount of information.
I got lost and almost stuck out on a hiking trail in the desert after dark. It was raining, I was soaked through, and so was my dog. It wasn’t supposed to rain, and I’d taken this hike before. Granted, never by myself, but still.
Luckily I found my way back to the trail head just as it was getting pitch black, but I was seriously scared there for a bit. I kept apologizing to my dog for being so fucking stupid to go on a two hour hike in the late afternoon with no emergency gear and no “just in case” rain protection.
…this happened 5 hour ago, btw, I can’t sleep, I think I’m still in shock a bit at how close I came to possibly dying. And for bringing my dog down with me.
This is actually a case of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Now the only important thing is that you treat it as a learning experience. It’s too easy to get hung up and blame yourself for far too long.
Hey, thanks. Yeah I feel a little lightheaded/spaced out today, like I definitely realized I effed up, but never again.
And this is why I carry a ton of crap with me whenever I go in the woods or on the water. Pretty sure my friends poke fun at me.
While trying to mount a speaker:
Where’s my drill bit?
Where’s the mount?
Where’s my pencil?
Where’s my level?
Where’s the mount?
WHERE ARE THE SCISSORS?
I JUST HAD MY FUCKING DRILL BIT!
GOD DAMNIT, JUST LET ME MOUNT THIS THING, WHERE IS MY PENCIL?
Every time I try to do anything. I’m probably undiagnosed ADHD, tbh.
I was laid off this year. I’m a 25 year veteran programmer, and not to brag in the sea of tech folks we have here, but I am rather proud of my skills I have picked up over the years.
My first interview this year, they set up an online development environment and had me solve a fairly simple array sort problem, and I completely choked. Something about being watched and judged while I worked broke my brain.
I managed to ace my next interview, but they didn’t bother with the programming exercise at all.
Opens Reddit.
I tried taking a new route through a familiar building. Automatic actions took over and led me back to the entrance I came from.
I used to constantly get lost in a square building.
Spent weeks without pepper because I thought the grinder thing wasn’t working. Turns out I hadn’t screwed off the cap and removed the foil. I was just about to give up and buy a new pepper grinder.
I have pepper again.
Woke up.
Fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.
Went downstairs and had a cup
And looking up, I noticed I was late
[heavy breathing]
Why is that dumb?
I think they’re saying that they regularly ask themselves that.
I could be wrong though
Every day I wake up and go to work and realize just how stupid of an idea that was.
Every day I wake up
and go to workand realize just how stupid of an idea that was.fixed that for me
Starting to do tasks that other employees wouldn’t touch with a 10’ pole due to complexity and now having to deal with the consequences including being assigned more complex tasks… I’m making myself essential I guess, but in a union job it’s not as if I can negotiate for a better salary…
You can always negotiate for a higher group ahead of time, or boni, additional benefits, etc.
Not in my job, negotiation happens on hire only and I started with zero knowledge like most of us, my brain is just wired for the kind of tasks we do so I more do stuff people with more experience wouldn’t be able to do and until I get a promotion it just means I end up working harder for the same wage as my colleagues when I could be doing the same tasks as them which I have an easier time with 🤷
I haven’t worked a union job, so I know nothing about this. But a family friend always rails on unions and how they do more harm than good, citing these kinds of situations. I generally like the idea of unions because I’ve seen how companies abuse employees without them. So I’m torn.
Can you explain to me how the union prevents you from getting promoted/a raise? I’m specifically curious about how the mechanics of it work
Broadly speaking (in my personal experience) especially in very large organisations with a union presence employees you usually see salary grades or employee classifications which assign a pay grade. Those jobs in turn come with minimum expectations that you have to meet to fulfil your obligations to collect your base wage.
You can go above and beyond, take on the harder jobs and put your hand up for unpaid positions (union rep, health and safety officer, first aid, fire warden, etc) those roles dont carry a financial benefit and most of the time dont impose a significant time penalty (many workplaces have to accommodate your time away from regular duties) but they are also voluntary.
The thing is, try climbing the ladder internally without taking on any of those roles. They expose you to the inner workings of the business, the metrics, management speak and a measure of exposure to higher management so when an actual position up the ladder does come up anyone else has to compete with the guy who is already on a first name basis with the area manager because of that thing 3 months ago. Someone who has demonstrated that they want it not someone who just applied because there was a vacancy.
People who are non union and free to negotiate their own salary (again, this is just my experience) are often in jobs where the big boss can walk in say "Jim, unfortunately we have to let you go. Heres a glowing letter of recommendation, 6 months salary in leiu of notice and this lovely man from security will be escorting you out in 30 minutes, please pack up your desk.
It doesn’t prevent me getting a promotion, there’s no open positions is all, so I sometimes take people’s positions while they’re on leave in the meantime (so I know they want to promote me ASAP and it gives me a better pay for a few weeks at a time).
As for negotiating a salary, it’s just part of the terms and conditions where I work, starting employees at a higher salary needs to be justified and after employment there’s no provision in place for accelerated pay step increases or anything of the sort and there’s rules in place regarding salary calculation when getting promoted.
The real issue (and our managers agree with that) is that we’re missing a position between where I’m at now and the next position which is a support role for my position. They need to add an “advanced” version of my position either with the same pay rates as the people in support positions or move them one rank up as well.
But the higher ups would never be able to justify it financially and they already have a hard to determining who’s ready to move from the “trainee” position to the “regular” position 🤷
About half the things I said in an interview for a new job.
