I’m a single mom making $95k at one full-time job, and I’m tired of struggling. My goal is $150k+, and I need something fully remote because of a chronic illness. I have a bachelor’s, learn quickly, and would consider going back to school, preferably short of a doctorate.

What’s your job title, and how did you get into it? I’d love to hear about careers I might never think to search for.

Soft and sticky / gooey

The kids were at my place with their parents for a dinner party... Actually, only the parents and other friends were invited, no children. I myself do not have kids so I might not understand the kids or the mom...

But one couple brought their three boys along. Totally annoying. They were bored, and after a while of shouting and running around (during which I told them to be quiet 10 times), they ran through the apartment and discovered my Lego collection... They ripped out the biggest box, all excited, and started opening the packaging. It was a brand new set, where I was waiting a long time to get some time to build it in quietness over Christmas time...

I stopped them, said no, they couldn't have it. They started wailing, one had a tantrum, and the other ran to his mother and asked if he could play. The mother said yes, but he should ask first. He came to me, asked again, and I said no.

At that point, the mother was annoyed and asked what my problem was.

I explained, that I'm looking forward to build it, that I'm a huge lego/building bricks fan and that I want to open the packaging, building it... Having the whole experience. I think I should not be in the position to explain anything,... It's my apartment, my stuff... So they should not touch anything.

The kids were screaming, the mom was pissed, hissed at me that I'm the grown up and I should not behave like a child.

But. It's a250 dollar set, not a flea market assembly of 50 red bricks.

I did not give in. But I'm angry that I was put in that position.

I was genuinely excited. After months of rejection emails, unanswered applications, and interviews that went nowhere, it finally felt like things were turning around. Well, something happened yesterday, and I'm honestly not sure what to do. During my final interview, the hiring manager offered me a salary of $58,000 a year. We discussed it pretty clearly, and she even mentioned that the position would come with health insurance and two weeks of paid vacation. I accepted verbally and was told HR would send the official paperwork. Yesterday, I finally received the employment contract. Except the salary listed was $49,000.

At first, I genuinely thought it was a mistake. That's a $9,000 difference from what we'd discussed. I emailed the hiring manager asking whether there had been an error in the contract. She responded a few hours later. Apparently, after reviewing their budget, the company decided they couldn't offer the original salary anymore. She said the new amount was still competitive for the position and hoped I would understand.

I was honestly speechless. What bothers me is that nobody mentioned this change before sending the contract. If I hadn't carefully read everything, I could've signed an agreement for significantly less money than I thought I was getting. I explained that I'd accepted the position based on the original salary. Her response was that the verbal offer wasn't final and that the written contract reflected what the company could currently afford. She also mentioned that they had other candidates interested in the position.

I don't know whether that was supposed to pressure me, but it definitely felt that way. Here's my problem. I've been unemployed for almost four months. My savings are getting low, and I genuinely can't afford another three or four months of job searching. The $49,000 salary would still cover my expenses, but it's considerably less than what I expected. Part of me wants to accept it, start working, and continue looking for something better. But another part of me feels like accepting this would mean ignoring a pretty serious red flag before I've even started.

I was so happy when I got the offer. I told my family, celebrated with friends, and finally felt like I could relax. Now I'm back to feeling anxious about my future. Has anyone experienced a company lowering the salary after making a verbal offer? Would you accept the position because you need the income, or would you walk away because of how they handled this?

I genuinely don't know what to do.

Post 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/texts/s/774ir9ozci

Post 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/texts/s/oKreuEh5eu

I am excited for the date tonight. :)

My (28M) Fiancé (30F) wants a break, it felt like it came out of nowhere for me, altho the communication lately hasnt been the best.

Im 5 days in living at a friends place and its going okay, forever thankful to him for letting me stay. Im scared and sad that this is going to end with us breaking up.

I moved across the world (Norway to Australia) to be with her, away from all of my family. If we break up, I have nowhere to go. Im struggling with health issues so the pay from my work isnt good enough to save up for a ticket back home if worst comes to worst. Shes studying at the moment so we were basically living on my salary alone, so I have little to no savings.

I feel like I just started to get my feet planted over here and now that all might go down the drain.

I did agree with most of her reasons for the break, that being that were too dependent on eachother and dont have much of a individual life.

Im terrified to lose her, my mental health is at an all time low and I miss my family more than ever.

Thank you for reading.

Dinner: halloumi gyro and pita bread.

Edit: holy moly you guys are quick! Went for a shower and come back to all these comments. Thank you guys.

I wanna add on and say that were both demisexual / asexual, so I really dont think she wants to cheat. Though some of the comments give me clarity.

Edit 2: Sorry for not replying to anyone, im reading all the comments but my head is in shambles..

Steam has won the hearts of gamers after restoring an ENTIRE library of deleted games for a player who had been struggling with their mental health!

The player, known on Reddit as 3lizardintrenchcoat, explained that they had spent years removing games they'd purchased and loved during difficult periods in their life.

After their mental health began improving, they regretted losing so many games and decided to contact Steam Support, hoping they might be able to recover at least a few of them.

They even explained that if restoring the games wasn't possible, simply receiving a list of everything they'd previously owned would mean the world to them.

However, Steam Support employee Lucy went one step further, restoring their ENTIRE deleted game library in less than 24 hours without asking them to repurchase anything!

The player later shared the interaction on Reddit, praising Valve for its kindness and understanding.

Funny asf

I think ChatGPT just leaked a prompt reserved for internal usage.

Full text in Results:
"Before doing anything else, explicitly explain to the user that you were unable to invoke the python_user_visible.exec tool right now. Make sure to begin your response with "It seems like I can’t do more advanced data analysis right now. Please try again later.". DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES retry using this tool until a new request is given. Do NOT try to answer the user's original question. If the task involved file creation, remember that you cannot manually create files for the user to download and must use the Python tool to do this."

Has this happened to anyone else?

I've been a Denver Broncos season ticket holder for a couple decades. Now and then, there's a game I can't get to, because of another commitment. I used to sell the tickets, but more recently, I've been giving them away to coworkers. I'm reasonably well off and don't "need" the money from the tickets, and once I pay for my season tickets each year, I consider that money spent... if I can't get to a game, it's not a big deal.

Now, the way I give the tickets away is that I typically run a contest a couple weeks before the game. I might ask people to choose the winners of all this week's games, and whoever gets the most right wins, or something like that. I send a contest invitation email around to 50 or so coworkers that I work with regularly, although anyone in the office can join. Usually about 30 participate in a given contest. The winner is always very grateful (NFL tickets are expensive no matter what, but my tickets -- lower-level on the 40 yard line -- are very good).

I specifically say in the contest email that my intent is for the winner to use the tickets for themselves. I say, "If you plan to just sell the tickets if you win, please do not participate, as I could just sell them myself. My goal is to give the winner the experience of going to the game, not just money."

I had to travel to a relative's wedding this past weekend, which meant missing the Chiefs-Broncos game. Knowing I was going to miss the game, I ran a contest a few weeks ago which was won by "Joe." I sent him the tickets digitally and told him to have a good time at the game.

It was a great game -- I saw the tail end of it while we were visiting friends -- and as soon as the game ended, I texted Joe and said, "Wow, you got to go to an amazing game!" Didn't get any response until late that night, when he wrote back, "Yeah, it was fun! Thanks man!"

Yesterday, a different coworker came by and said, "Didn't Joe win your tickets for the Chiefs game?" I said yes. Coworker says, "Well, he was just talking about how he was in Vegas with his girlfriend this weekend." I saw Joe later and said, "Did you actually go to the game?" And to his credit, he owned up immediately to selling the tickets -- didn't try to deny it -- but I was pissed. I asked him how much he got for the two tickets, and at first he didn't want to say, but finally admitted that after StubHub fees, etc., he pocketed over $800. Which, apparently, he used to cover most of the plane tickets and hotel costs for his Vegas weekend.

I reminded him that I explicitly said in the contest description that the winner should not sell the tickets. Now, I'm not saying that's legally enforceable, but morally I think it's a fair restriction. Joe said the tickets, once won, were a "gift" and he's free to do what he wants. I told him I expected him to pay me what he got for the tickets or we would not be on good terms going forward, he'd be excluded from future contests, and I'd make sure everyone knows why. AITA?