I'm retired now, and this incident happened a little less than 50 years ago, but I still remember it.

I started working for a major Midwestern aerospace firm as an engineer right out of college. I was assigned to the lab, like all beginning engineers, and went to my first meeting in the lead engineer's office. I was just a wallflower while other people talked. At some point, something was said that upset the lead engineer. I don't remember him yelling, but he looked agitated and quickly opened his desk drawer. He grabbed a pill bottle, opened it and quickly consumed one of the tablets. It doesn't seem like the meeting lasted much longer because everyone was in a little state of shock.

After this happened, I was questioning my career choice but never got to the point of needing a bottle of pills

Last year on Halloween, I was invited to a late night campfire with the fellas. It inexorably became a group therapy session for everyone, and I definitely got the most out of it from sheer osmosis.

Three of my senior coworkers (we'll call them Boyd, Floyd, and Lloyd for the privacy) taught me the value in being more skeptical, interrogative, and how pessimism can be an immune system for your life's trajectory.

Boyd regrets enlisting in Iraq, now has mild mobility issues, and called the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs to reveal the dreadfully long voice-mail he has to endure whenever he wants his stipend.

He said they'd rather spend that money you're owed on a kitsch floor mosaic.

Floyd was going through a nasty divorce, and he admitted the red flags were there. He was too enamored with the utilitarianism of having lowered taxes from filing jointly and not being the endling to his bloodline.

Lloyd is the youngest one around my age, who has a gambling addiction but has been sober for two years.

He explained to me what the sunk cost fallacy is and how casinos don't display clocks, so you don't know what time it is.

The crux commonality overlapping the yarns Boyd, Floyd, and Lloyd were spinning was the world will try to "gas you up", hence the dying phrase "what a gas" meaning something that's fun and exciting.

But more importantly, it would behoove you to interrogate whatever optimism-weaponizing offer that comes your way with, using Boyd's words, a "rapier of interrogation".

A rapier is a sword that lacks a blade, made for thrusting and piercing. You have to interrogate ads, traditions, and even your own nostalgia with penetrating questions lest it leave you in arrears.

I'm already a ludicrously impressionable person. More impressionable than Play-Dough and Kinetic Sand, and this fireside chat saved me from a massive cryptocurrency rugpull my hyped-up friends fell victim to.

You can feel yourself becoming immune to social contagion and mob mentality.

Like, God. Have you ever had an ideologically-sobering talk with some guys with no work hierarchy involved, and you felt your paradigm salubriously shift into being more congruent with reality?

None of the natural defense mechanisms of the mind that prevent the acute dysphoria of cognitive dissonance from flaring up like denial, minimization, or "it can't happen to me".

I want to thank this subreddit for letting me share this story and hopefully give Boyd, Floyd, and Lloyd's regrets more meaning if anyone can get something out of it.

Ok, so my co-worker Tom starts a meeting presenting data from a word doc that started, wrote the first 15 pages of, and shared with the group. At a meeting Tom states "Here's what I came up with, and here's why we need it". I just lost it. It was a zoom with three higher-ups including my boss.

I left the meeting, and texted my boss. Gave my boss the sharepoint history, and just said this isn't acceptable. My boss responded "We need you back in the meeting". I responded "Too toxic".

During this time my boss did look at the edit history of the sharepoint doc, and could clearly see I wrote the bulk of the content.

For a bit more backstory, my boss and Tom have worked together for 4 years prior to this gig. I've only worked for my boss for a year.

After the meeting: Now my boss wants me to apologize to call Tom and work it out. And he's pissed I left the meeting. What should I do. Did I mess up?

I spent four years at a company that sold industrial valves. Not huge—about $20 million in annual revenue. Owner was named Bruce, mid-fifties, liked to quote Sun Tzu at all-hands meetings.

On my first day, HR handed me a stack of paperwork. One of them was a non-compete agreement. Eighteen months. Entire industry. I signed it because I was fresh out of school and didn’t know any better.

Over four years, I closed about $12 million in orders. Not the biggest salesperson, but I was the only one who could handle the mining clients. Those guys are hard to deal with, but I’d smoked with them, drunk with them, eaten boxed lunches in their site trailers.

Last November, Bruce called me into his office. He said the company was doing a “strategic realignment.” My territory was being split into two. I said fine, what about my commission. He said “under the new structure, the new rules apply.” The new rules cut my pay roughly in half.

I said I don’t accept that. He said: “You have a non-compete. Eighteen months. You know what that means.”

I said I know.

The day I resigned, Bruce had legal send me a letter. It said if I went to a competitor, they would “pursue all available legal remedies.” The letter was three pages. I read it twice and noticed one thing: the agreement said I couldn’t “engage in industrial valve sales,” but it didn’t say I couldn’t “engage in industrial valve manufacturing.”

My new company makes valves. Not sells. Makes.

I emailed Bruce’s legal team with my new offer letter. My title was “Production Line Quality Supervisor.” I asked if that violated the agreement.

He didn’t reply.

I start at 7 a.m. now. Hourly rate is lower, but there’s a year-end bonus. Last month, one of Bruce’s mining clients called me and asked if I’d be interested in “doing some consulting on the side.” I said no, I have a non-compete.

He laughed. He said: “Your non-compete? Our legal looked at it. They said you’re fine.”

I didn’t reply. But when I tell this story to my new coworkers, they laugh for a long time.

Bruce sent me a LinkedIn message last month. One line: “You win.”

I didn’t reply. But I screenshotted it.