Kate Violette
@kate_the_purple
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Multipurpose nerd. Engineering manager waylaid by complex illness. On a mission to watch every Katharine Hepburn movie. 🏳️🌈 they/them (🇬🇧), elle (🇫🇷)
Portland, OR
Joined May 2009
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Pinned Tweet
me saying good morning to my intestinal microbiome:
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I don't know why microplastics have become the new hot leftist topic but as someone who's been trying to live thoughtfully re: plastic for a while now, let me talk to you about reasonable ways to reduce your production of microplastics. It may not be things you think.
How do you feel about having microplastics in your blood?
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God bless this one doctor (out of seven ER visits) who wrote in my notes that my symptoms "aren't an anxiety attack" and wrote instead "my best guess is this is a complex neuroendocrine problem that is outside the capacity of the ER department to diagnose".
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I just...
Literally the moment I introduce myself--"hi I'm Kate and I use they pronouns!"--I have, by some folk's reckoning, already begun a "social/political" discussion at work.
OTOH, I can't *not* introduce myself.
So when a company is all "don't bring politics to work"--
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I've got a literally life and death one.
5G cell networks are going to set back weather forecasting ~30 yrs bc they operate at frequencies too near that of water vapor in the atmosphere, harming measurements.
We'll lose 2-3 days' worth of accuracy in hurricane path forecasting.
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1. Change the fabrics and textiles you buy/use.
I don't want to hear anyone with a closet full of synthetic fabrics giving shit to disabled people using plastic straws. Those plastic straws don't get churned around hundreds (thousands?) of times a week in your washing machine.
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guy I wrote to on Hinge replied and said we probably wouldn't be a good match because his previous partner was also immunocompromised and that was "one third of [their] issues" so I asked him if he'd give my number to his ex-gf
too bold?
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Seriously. Washing synthetic fabrics is a major source of microplastics: you're buffeting the material, scraping it against other materials--that agitation produces microplastics.
Microplastics that are then immediately shunted out to your municipal water supply! Bad news bears!
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@AITA_online
I LOVE THIS MAN
A TRUE HERO
he's even not explaining it to his stepdaughter and wife, letting them exist in their unknowing bliss (most importantly for the stepdaughter, poor buddy, what a sensitive health issue to be dealing with)
10/10, truly no notes
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Anyway, I still remember that guy. Just a really solid dude. Not surprised at all to find that his notes *weren't* a flaming pile of sexism.
One out of seven ER visits, y'all. ONE OUT OF SEVEN.
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Doctors need to learn this literal 60 second test for pretty much reliably differentiating between ME/CFS and depression:
doctor: "if you felt completely better tomorrow, what would you do?"
person w depression: 😐🤷 idk
person w ME/CFS: 😯 laundry list of 18 different ideas
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I only by natural fibers (cotton, linen, wool, modal--we can argue about the environmental impact of modal later, but it's at least not plastic), except for:
- bras
- the elastic on underwear (otherwise cotton)
- anything else that needs an elastic band, like gym shorts (but--
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I don't think people understand how expensive it is to stay alive with a poorly-understood illness.
I just finished reviewing my 2021 finances, and it cost me a smidge over $90k to care for my illness last year.
A tiny thread. 🧵
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Action: Starting looking at the fabric content of everything you buy, and commit yourself to a system that works for you.
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(cw: pandemic)
The next 2-4 weeks are probably going to be pretty horrific, like NYC in the very early days of the pandemic level horrific. I'm making a mental health plan for the next few weeks and I suggest you do, too.
Your mental health plan could include:
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I was talking in therapy today about how my isolation (being mostly stuck at home bc of how ill I am) isn't helping the trauma that I'm trying to psychologically process (from my recent terrible flare(s)).
And they asked if I'd like a home visit for our next session--
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(He took a couple stabs at what it might be, and ran some tests later specialists might find interesting, but also said he'd be surprised if I hadn't already been worked up for his guesses.)
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I think I'm done trying to get leftists to care about people with disabilities. It's just too heartbreaking. We're not welcome in the conversation anywhere.
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3. (last one for this list!) When I said "consider the fabrics and textiles you buy", I didn't just mean clothes.
I mean your:
- furniture
- curtains
- bed linens
- pillows
- throws
- rugs
(etc etc)
*Anything* fabric.
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--my stress level in that environment goes to 11, because all it takes is one person blustering "pReFeRrEd PrOnOuNs ArEn'T rEaL" to cast my simple business interaction ("here's how to refer to me! like my name 'n stuff!") as political fodder, and me therefore as insubordinate.
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--and what they'd need to do to make that safe for my covid risk level. 🥹
So anyway in two weeks I'll have a home visit talk therapy appt, and my therapist was totes ok with rapid testing day-of and wearing a N95/KN95 in my space.
I'm crying even just recounting this story.
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I can say literally nothing else on the topic other than "hi I'm Kate and I use they pronouns!" and I'm already in the punitive danger zone.
It's very, very clear when leaders have perhaps never meaningfully interacted with a nonbinary or trans person.
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(These tweets thanks to me FINALLY FINISHING aggregating and streamlining hospital visit notes for a particular specialist I'm going to get in the queue to see. All that remains is me digging up about 5 specific lab tests and getting my c-spine MRI next weekend. 🥳)
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2. Change how you're washing the synthetic fabrics you already own.
There are bags you can get to wash your synthetic fabric clothes in that supposedly will catch some of the microplastics before they run out in your municipal wastewater. Here's one:
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There's a whole lot of people at conferences in my timeline right now, and I love a lot of them so I'll try to keep this hopefully less biting but still authentic:
I'm disappointed, and I take it as a sign you don't really care about people like me.
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--the rest of the short needs to be a natural fiber)
- I do have a few pairs of leggings, and would only buy to replace those
And that's kinda it? I have some older clothing that has more synthetic fibers but my personal rule for new purchases is pretty strict.
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HEPA filters work!
Landlord stopped by for annual inspection and when he came back out said "whatever you're using for air filtration works great, those are the cleanest [wall/duct] filters we've seen yet, I almost can't believe how clean they are"
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On this note--
We need more genderqueer folks in higher levels of management at tech companies generally. I've never met or heard of a nb manager of managers. I've known a couple fellow frontline nb/trans managers.
Seriously, I've lost patience with this lack of representation.
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So let me get this straight
People are gonna pay $3500 to walk around with a heavy thing over their eyes,
but wearing a mask to protect your own and others' lives is just "too hard"? 😐
Apple's Vision Pro comes with EyeSight, a feature that reveals your eyes when with another person, hides them when you're immersed in VR and blends the real world in as it appears before you.
#WWDC23
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I'm tired of gender diversity being measured in cis women exclusively. I've known several women engineering directors and VPs of Eng in my day.
But I've met ZERO nonbinary people above my management level in tech. And I've been in the business for 12 years. That's fucked up.
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This is how you support folks who are dealing with terrible illnesses. I was and still am so touched by the offer. Everyone deserves a talk therapist this dedicated.
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I know this is probs the least of his offenses
however
is anyone else noticing he keeps talking about "writing code" and not about "who can read monitoring dashboards and go figure out why dbs are sad"?
like writing more lines of code is not the main challenge right now dude
NEW: Email from Elon to the engineering team: "Anyone who can actually write software, please report to the 10th floor at 2pm today. Before doing so, please email me a bullet point summary of what your code commits have achieved in the past 6 months" 1/
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ok so the bad news is, according to ex-bf, "she doesn't date girls, yet" (lol whatever that means)
but the good news is she texted me and maybe I have a new friend!
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You know when you're watching a horror movie and you know Shit's About To Go Down so you're yelling at the main character to get out of the house or whatever, but they just walk right into danger instead?
This is what disabled people feel watching abled people in this pandemic.
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@SmudgiesMom
The relief you feel when a rare medical professional finally "gets" it, highlights just how much bullshit you've been dealing with before/otherwise.
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One thing I've committed to in furnishing my tiny home is choosing exclusively natural fibers.
My couch and upholstered stools are linen. My pillows are mostly cotton (one has some sparkly embroidery that is probs synthetic). My rugs are wool and cotton. My bed linens are: linen
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But you know what I do buy? Fucking plastic bendy straws.
I need bendy straws so that I can drink liquids while lying down, because sometimes I am even too ill to be able to sit up to drink. There just isn't a good non-plastic replacement for that.
Maybe we can make one! But--
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@mj_potatoes
@cakewife
@onlyannamaria
@leahmcelrath
I forget where, but I did read an interesting article about this phenomenon even prior to the pandemic, chatting about millennial humor and its tendency towards dadaism and the connection to shared trauma (things like 9/11, Iraq, POTUS
#45
etc)
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Hey I'm as pro-strike as the next lefty but I am definitely looking askance at writers/actors fawning over Fran Drescher. She's an anti-vaxxer.
As soon as your leftism leaves disabled people behind, I'm out.
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Being a covid-knowledgable person in 2023 is kinda like being a ham radio operator in 2023, that is to say: it's considered a niche, yesteryear hobby except instead of talking to your friends over radio waves you're continuing to avoid a level 3 biohazard pathogen.
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Unless you have ME/CFS or long COVID, you do not understand how hard it is to *not* push yourself on a good day.
"But I feel a little better right now!"
Yeah, but you earned that good day by staying inside your energy envelope yesterday--don't blow tomorrow already!
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More tips on reducing the microplastics generated from your laundry here:
.
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It is absolutely wild to have an illness that's literally a single tiny notch above "late stage AIDS" and have almost no one in your life that understands this severity.
"Alarmingly, more and more patients are also meeting the criteria for myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), which in its severe form has been compared to 'late-stage AIDS, multiple sclerosis and kidney failure.'"
New article by
@SheanaOchoa
featuring
@r_prior
.
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with Twitter going down how will any of you know if I'm about to meet my future wife
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I wasn't going to wade into this but here we are.
Look if you're a dude yelling about how software engineering is a thing you HAVE to do in your non-work hours, too, then I have to wonder what non-work things you're neglecting in order to make time for MOAR ENGINEERING, such as:
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Again, if you've already purchased items that are upholstered in synthetic fabric, you have to balance the fact that throwing them out has it's own environmental impact--but surely so does keeping it in your own home.
Like anything, it's about trade-offs.
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You want to know why I routinely unfollow white men on Twitter? Because all they tweet about is tech, and that perpetual reminder they have the LUXURY of not caring about anything but tech--not social issues, not human rights, not how I'm paid less for working more--bums me out.
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What healthy people think ME/CFS fatigue is: oh, you're just a little more tired than usual!
What ME/CFS fatigue actually is:
This is a fork that I dropped on the floor of my bathroom yesterday afternoon, well over 24 hrs ago and it has been sitting there ever since. Why? (1/4)
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I did it because these are items that are going to live in my home for a long time, and while I can't singlehandedly clear the world of microplastics, I can at least reduce my contribution to it at large, and I can at least reduce what's being created *within my own home*
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If you're concerned about microplastics in your drinking water, I want to give a shout-out to the Berkey filter. I've relied on mine for a couple of years now (for immunocompromised gut reasons, but it'll work for this too) and really love mine.
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✨Tech Companies Hire A Nonbinary VP Eng Challenge 2021✨
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I've spent literally several hours on the internet just finding the right rugs for my home, since I have size constraints but was still determined to stick to my "natural fibers only for my décor" goal.
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I've had a thought bothering me recently that's taken me some time to put words to. And now, I have a "managing people from underprivileged groups" pro tip for y'all:
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I honestly even think my tea tastes better when made from filtered water.
And bonus for us covid-cautious folks doing nasal rinses: Berkey filtered water is appropriate for nasal use. (Unlike Brita! Good lord do not put Brita water up your nose.)
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Straight up, your team members from underprivileged groups are going to be visibly frustrated more often than your cishet white guy team members.
This doesn't mean they're more "emotional".
This doesn't mean they have less chill.
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It cannot be emphasized enough:
If you develop long covid, especially the form with ME/CFS, you *cannot* trust like 95% of medical providers out there.
I know to a healthy person this will sound like an exaggeration. It is not. Ignore stories like this at your own peril.
@mtgScientist24
@ahandvanish
The official ME/CFS diagnosis came only after the rehab, though he'd already been tested at the local post-COVID clinic, and we'd described nearly a year of post-exettional malaise. I thought the doctors knew what they were doing. 😞
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It's funny how the same dynamic that played out in my career has been playing out in the pandemic
I was an undeniably good engineering manager. My teams shipped more, on time, and had higher employee satisfaction survey results compared to other teams. Consistently.
But--
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I need to be able to like, drink water in the meantime while we wait for a better day where we have non-plastic bendy straw technology.
Speaking of water! Bonus round! -->
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So to recap:
If you want to start caring about microplastics--and you should!--the main thing you should concern yourself with is the fabrics in your life. Those that you wear and get roughed up in the washer, and those that get roughed up in their daily use.
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Serious question:
Have any other largely housebound complex illness people figured out how to make new friends? Like, most of my old friends are gone, and at least once a day I encounter a thing where I'm like "I wish I had someone to talk to about this", but I don't. (1/2)
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Don't mind me, wearing a comfy KN95 while working on my balcony, bc of the state of my neighbor's coughing. (Idk if they have active covid, or if that's just what's happening to people's lungs after several infections these days or what, but I don't intend to find out.)
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Many people who used to think I was one of the smartest people they know, now think I'm nuts, for still masking in public, still doing everything I can to avoid catching covid myself and avoid potentially asymptomatically spreading it.
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Here's an article in Nature from earlier this year detailing the problem:
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Hoooly shit my local grocery store asked students to decorate paper bags for Earth Day and I am publicly collapsing from laughter they are so good.
✨ALLOW ME TO SHOW YOU, FRIENDS✨
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There are things that plastics do in our world that are helpful, and that we don't currently have good alternatives for.
Then there are things we make out of plastic that make no fucking sense to make out of plastic. Focus on changing these first and foremost.
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(As one more example: I am also realizing my other synthetic fabric exception is for tactical wear like raincoats. Water-repellant canvas is a thing!, but personally I have an illness that makes me weak and I can't wear something super restrictive/heavy.)
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Is it just me or is laundry zero as elusive as inbox zero? 🧐
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I used to think that was something wrong with me.
But now, I know better.
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I'll try to explain it one more time:
Would you go to a conference that said you have to be 5'8" or taller to attend? "Well I'm 5'9" so I guess I'll go--I don't want to miss out!"
This is literally what most of you are doing, you're actively supporting discriminatory events.
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@zeikonline
@DisabledDoctor
@DisabledStem
I've said in the ER before "if I were pregnant from last time I had sex with a sperm-producing partner, the child would already be here and able to introduce themself to you by name" and not only did they still pregnancy test me, the triage nurse didn't even laugh at my joke 😤
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But that never happened because so many people, when presented with inconvenient information, would rather discredit the messenger rather than confront something difficult.
And so it has been with the pandemic.
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--having someone like me in executive-level discussions would prevent your company from doing an absolute, public faceplant on D&I issues, and from further hurting your already marginalized employees.
It doesn't have to be me. But plz, somebody somewhere hire a nonbinary VP Eng.
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But it wasn't some invisible force that did this, it was the collective decisions of folks I/we counted as buddies, who decided that it was more important to adhere to eugenist/ableist pressure than to stand up for what's right and demand their vulnerable buddies be included.
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Anyone who focuses solely on deaths--when long COVID is the *most common adverse outcome*--is a fucking innumerate idiot
Silver's been obsolete for years and this is a perfect example as to why
To be less polite, the BA.5 scaremongering was bullshit and you should place less trust in the people who engaged in it going forward.
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Yours truly would gladly entertain potential VP Eng roles at companies in the 50-100 person range, with less than a 2x/yr headcount growth rate.
I'm really quite on about my consulting service idea but my mind could be potentially changed for the right opportunity/timing. 💁
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- Preemptive rest. A concept from the ME/CFS community, when you know you're about to have to do something that will drain your energy battery, is to hardcore rest *before* the drain as well as after it.
Today's a good day as any to start taking as much rest as you can.
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And the thing people seem to really need hammered home for them:
It's not 1 in 10 people will develop ME/CFS.
It's that 1 in 10 covid *infections* will turn into ME/CFS. Each infection is a fresh gamble.
If you’re making “personal risk assessments” about covid, but you don’t know about
#MECFS
, you don’t have all the info you need to assess your risk. 1/10 covid infections becomes this disease. Learn more here:
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Literally fucking almost every single one of us did this.
I stopped being able to tolerate distance running, so I started biking. I stopped being able to tolerate biking, so I started yoga. I stopped being able to tolerate yoga, so I started hiking. And on and on and on.
I am willing to bet that the vast majority of Long Covid and ME/cfs sufferers tried to exercise their way out of it. It was the first thing they tried.
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I'll say this: it means a lot when I see people sharing conference selfies of themselves and others wearing masks. In lieu of actually pushing for more meaningful change, that's at least something.
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For anyone not familiar with hurricane forecasting, that's the difference between being able to safely evacuate a major metropolitan area or instead going "whoops, guess NYC and everyone in it is just getting wiped off the map".
It's unconscionable.
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Just a reminder for non-uterus-havers:
Most pregnant people don't even realize they're pregnant by 6 weeks. That's right around the first moment anyone would think "huh, my period's definitely late, I should go get a pregnancy test".
Texas' six-week abortion ban takes effect as Supreme Court stays mum on appeal
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- A set limit of how much pandemic news you will consume. I'm going to check national and regional case counts every other day, as well as hospital capacity updates, but not read pandemic news other than that.
I'm legit still haunted by EMT tales from early NYC days.
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I probably still want to be counted among your professional buddies, and I'll continue to count you among mine, but I have an involuntary mental note now that you're not a person I can trust to have my back when it comes to topics of inclusion in our industry.
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"You're doing everything you need to be doing for a promotion, we just want to see you do it a little longer before actually promoting you."
Spoiler alert: that promotion almost never happens.
WOMEN IN TECH: what are you truly sick of hearing? Writing an article about the phrases, backhanded compliments and other such nonsense we'd like to banish from our jobs forever.
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Getting pretty fucking tired of the government deliberately trying to kill me and my friends.
On March 9th, Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act into law. This will end telehealth under Medicare. Private insurance will surely follow.
This is a final lifeline for many of us. This is an act of willful harm against vulnerable people.
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But yeah, largely I've just accepted that my career has (possibly permanently?) stalled in tech because the price of admission to networking now is possible covid exposure.
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I feel like my engineering management career has had two phases:
1. learning how to do the role well
2. learning how to talk leaders and stakeholders into to letting me do the job well
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it's so easy, it should be medical malpractice to fail to ask that question
(now, is it possible a person can have both ME/CFS and depression at the same time? sure! but like you should treat both conditions simultaneously in that case bc they're different illnesses!)
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The other wild thing is in maybe as soon as like 2 days from now I'll wake up and be like "heck yeah I apparently have Picking Stuff Up energy today!" so then I'll go through the house picking up all the things that've been sitting on the floor since the last Picking Up Of Things
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But the federal government just sold off these 5G frequency bands like it was no thang, DESPITE KNOWING full well the scientific and pragmatic impact.
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If ever I write a book on my illness that fucking fork is going to be the cover
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- caring for partners
- caring for children, elderly
- cooking food for family or sick friends
- chatting with buddies having a hard time
- voluteering time and $$$ to help the less fortunate
- learning how to wear a fucking mask
- learning something new
- smashing the patriarchy
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- Checklist for when you get mentally spiral-y. This should include tending to your body as well as your brain. Things like: hydrate, eat some veggies, drink some tea, listen to a (nothing to do with the pandemic) podcast, a playlist with music solely that makes you happy, etc
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Because the signal you send, when you expect your underprivileged team members to look and sound always like your privileged team members, is:
"Dealing with systemic injustice is your problem, not mine. And I'd like you to bear it silently so I don't have to think about it."
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In fact, it's quite possible that they have exactly the same threshold of chill as everybody else.
However, the volume of frustrating things they encounter on a daily basis is necessarily more than your privileged team members.
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Determine a plan & write it down. Don't expect your horror-fatigued brain to recall things you wanted to commit to for your health. When brains are tired, executive function (assessing, planning, deciding) is scarce.
Detail your strategies now so you can fly on autopilot later.
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Watch some fluffy Christmas movies. Do a jigsaw puzzle while listening to some chill jazz. Lie down with your eyes closed and listen to a trashy romance audiobook. Play with your pet / kids / internet gaming buddies.
Fill up the stamina tank before you call upon it.
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I have a track record of delivering projects on time, turning around broken ones, frequently have mentored (and briefly managed) other managers, have played instrumental roles in building early Eng orgs and supporting them through scale.
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When you, a person living "normally", catch long covid--and it's when and not if--you'll wish you had done more for the cause, to help those in need, while you still had the physical strength and cognitive budget to do so.
Do the math:
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It's the same as with any axis of marginalization--for very pragmatic reasons, it behooves a person to keep track of who meaningfully supports you vs who's fine with your ability to participate at all being reduced in the name of someone else's comfort or convenience.
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