#cause I'd help people learn how to implement a new... whatever it is that whatever company does

[pearl-kite]

Three day weekend for some reason, trying to convince myself to apply to office jobs and/or finally email that course advisor to try and wheedle my way out of needing to use a real learner group

[burritosandpeppermint]

I feel like every little thing with my job sets me off now, so I'm sorry if you're tired of me ranting about it and then continuing to work here. I'll keep this "below the fold" so you can move on if you're not interested. I really won't be offended and I have no true way of knowing which of the dozen or so of you will read this anyway. Also, it's me so I'm not looking for sympathy but I'm also trying to learn not to push away other people's affection so...do what you want?

Also, if you feel like this is something that could be part of some larger conversation about work and capitalism or whatever, then please feel free to reblog it. I don't really think this will be enough to explode my career, and if it does, then it was on shaky enough ground anyway.

The company I work for got acquired by another, much larger and more famous company (and a rather infamous one here on Tumblr) about five years ago. Eh, why am I being cagey? I work in email compliance and privacy for Marketo and we got acquired by Adobe.

Anyway, I'd been through a couple of acquisitions before but this one was pretty cool. A big name Silicon Valley company! A cool campus to tour in San Jose! A new office space in the same city I lived in, and with only a 45 minute walk from home to office! Really, pretty cool.

Over time the excitement on my part and Adobe's part seemed to wane a bit. There were new acquisitions and we were no longer in the spotlight. That's alright, things happen, time moves on, and ultimately I just kept working, because abuse never stops and companies keep buying lists.

But after my mentor left for another company we got a new manager, and he's great, but he's been with Adobe for a while, and most of his focus is on the Adobe part of the business that he manages, and he cares about us and fights for us when he can, but we're definitely not his primary focus. Also, in the past couple of years the workload that myself and my one coworker/colleague do has steadily increased. To make things worse this year they finally implemented a huge change in what CRM we're using and it's causing all kinds of havoc because most of us who are directly working with customers now have to manage two portals or figure out which customer matches with which or educate yet another person on where to go to accomplish what they need. We also started getting direct feedback loop (FBL) reports from a new company that seems to only send them in a new-ish format that has been accepted across the industry but is honestly not really used by it, but our system can't parse it so we have to process every single one manually rather than feed it to a bot that can automatically process it, further increasing our workload. We've also been told that there's a team who can help us to automate certain aspects of our work, so we submitted examples of what we need help with and they said it seemed doable and since then...nothing. To top it off, during a recent "town hall" quarterly all-hands I asked a question in the chat that was basically "In light of the strong performance we've done can we hire more people to support our customers and colleagues?" and the answer is "No, because we don't want to have to lay people off if there's any kind of downturn."

Okay, so...not great.

So now, today, the day before Thanksgiving, the week after Open Enrollment closed, the day after I accepted the Year End Check In on my calendar - which will be grueling because, as noted above, we've been over worked and under staffed so I haven't been able to get to any of the projects that I was hoping to get to this year - I saw an email from Adobe that looked like it was part of the corporate spam we get every freaking day, and it was from the HR company/portal we use, so I clicked on it and

OOPS

Looks like you clicked on an Adobe Phishing Test Link

Read here to see how you could have prevented this...

And I'm incensed right before a holiday, and I just hate it.

Because as much as I hate to admit it I really bought into the corporate capitalism of America from a young age, bought into the shiny toys and apps and promises of "helping" people ("And if we happen to turn a profit, that's great, too!") to the point that my dissolution with capitalism has been a long, slow, denial-ridden journey.

And that's because it can be all too easy to regard those earning the joke that is minimum wage as being the only victims of capitalism and wage theft, but if we're being honest just about anyone who isn't making millions of dollars a year to tell the world and their subordinates how great their company is is really just sitting in a pot of water that is slowly getting hotter.

We're all being paid the least amount of money that companies believe they can get away with while trying to extract the most work out of us they can legally get away with, and they're probably getting even more than that if we're being honest.

So to get regular emails about how this organization put us on a list of the best places to work for or another invitation to another seminar about how I can work on being more efficient or less sad because, you know, that's apparently 100% my doing, and then get an email that I don't bother to really scan because, like I said, given everything it seems pretty legitimate, to be told "Well, you fucked up" was just the one more thing that I didn't need this year.

I really hate to sound like the middle-aged white man that I am, but I'm just tired of not being respected for the working professional that I am. I've been in this role for eight years. I know how to talk to customers about the actions they've taken that have caused harm to their reputation, or what abuse has been foisted upon them by malicious actors; I know how to engage with Support and customer managers and run Compliance Team meetings that focus on what's important; I know what blocklists are important and actually affect our customers; I know, engage with, and am friends with people who run the email servers at companies you know and might actually use; I'm one of two people who manage thousands of IPs and domains for thousands of customers, trying to protect the network's reputation and safety from the customer's own actions and also outside actions of people who would do nothing but abuse our systems all day if they could.

And what am I told by my company?

"We can't help you because it would make us sad if we had to let people go! :("

"Have you considered not having the feelings you're experiencing during work time and just working more instead?"

"Uh, oh! We send you so much spam that you fell for our trick! This is all your fault."

What does the company value? Is it me and my time?

No surprise, AI is the buzzword of 2023 in the tech world, and email is seen as more of a forgotten backbone that I think people believe is 100% automated. Meanwhile the valiant few of us are knee deep in water in the bottom of the boat with duct tape and Gatorade.

When I've complained about work or my career in the past it's felt more like angry grunts; this is kind of the most articulate that I can really be about it.

I'll be 46 next year when I take my sabbatical. If something doesn't really change at all I might have to make some tough choices.

I'm afraid of trying to change careers or companies (if I even can; people much more experienced than I am are being laid off right now).

I'm afraid of trying to go back to school while I'm working because I just don't think I'll have the bandwidth for it, and I don't know what I'd go to school for, or if it would pay what I'm earning now.

I'm afraid of staying where I am.

I know I earn okay. I know I have benefits and that I can work from home in my pajamas.

But I also know that the good times I have with work are less and less these days, and opening my laptop is more of an invitation to an assault on my confidence and self-worth than ever before. And that's just not sustainable.

[anotherghoul666]

Hmm I’m sending another ask because now I have more questions. My severe anxiety might prevent me from taking an in-person kink-related class. Is there anything you can recommend that is stingy like a whip but safer for beginners?

So, as an addendum first: I'm autistic. I have anxiety. Eight years ago I could not step outside of my appartment to cross the street to go do groceries so I didn't eat instead, the anxiety was so bad. I know something about anxiety preventing you from doing things. I'll still say this: if kink and BDSM is what you want in life, if it's what you truly want to learn, you'll make it happen. It might take years waiting for things to stabilize, it migh take professional help, whatever you need, if the kink lifestyle is a need for you, you'll make classes happen, because you'll need it like air. Believe me I know where you're at, and if I was able to maintain my kink education through these years and come out the other side, you can too.

Now, as far as other implements: nothing feels like a whip. Even all the different kinds of whip feel unique from each other. That's kinda the whole point of investing in different impact implements and mastering them :P

At the top of my head, stingy beginner tools would be: light rubber floggers / elastic floggers, light floggers made out of a shiny, treated leather (varnishes on anything tips the tool into the stingy half of the impact sensation spectrum), a crop with a shiny leather loop would be stingy, varnished wood implements like light wood paddles would deliver a good stingy bite too but be careful not to go too heavy cause wood can get dangerous the heavier you go, silicone toys like the small evil silicone dragon tails are stingy motherfuckers and I don't think there's enough weight in them to cause legit damage, stuff like this. (using this as a plug for Tantus silicone toys because I looooove them and their silicone is suuuuper high quality ❤️) All that beign said, even with those "beginner" tools, I'd still highly, highly recommend a BDSM 101 class and an Impact 101 class at the very least to ensure you and your partner are doing it right in terms of safety, anatomy, consent, risk profiles, limits, negotiations, safewords, aftercare, drops, etc. If you don't know immediately what all of these words mean and how to do it / take care of it properly, you need a class.

We're here for that. We're chock full of anxious, awkward people. We are so warm and welcoming. We love to welcome new people into the fold and teach them how to start their journey right. Educators and event planners are there to help break the ice and calm that anxiety. We're all aware of how stressful in person clases can be, yet they are esential to a healthy practice. You got this!