u/BusyMathematician844

I got a job working for state/local government as an environmental compliance inspector. Part of the job involves complaint investigations.

Training for complaint investigation consists solely of one-on-one coaching with a manager for our first few complaints. After that, we're pretty much expected to handle investigation on our own, although we can ask for advice if we get a more complex complaint.

I looked all through our training library and only found a couple of videos on how to de-escalate someone who is already complaining to me. I can already handle that really well, so that didn't help me.

There was no training on how to initiate, guide, and conclude a conversation. Nothing about field safety, what to do if someone becomes especially defensive/belligerent, or anything like that. To be fair, if we anticipate possible issues, we can request a security officer or law enforcement accompaniment, but that's only for on-site visits and only if we know in advance that we may need it. I also asked my manager if there was more training and was basically told they don't have anything beyond what I'd already found.

I know I tend to be more conflict-averse. I'm completely fine answering a phone call from someone who is already mad, but there is something about me having to call someone else to essentially deliver bad news/make someone else mad that gives me anxiety.

Is this amount of training (or lack thereof) normal for environmental compliance jobs?

Does everyone struggle with complaint investigation, or am I really not suited for this job? I have given it almost a year. I don't know if that's enough time? Would it get better with more time?

I moved out of Lincoln in the fall of 2021 to a different state. On paper, my new state appears to have similar landlord-tenant regulations, but after being here a while, I’ve realized I had far more peace and protection as a tenant when I was in Lincoln.

The problem is, I moved right around late 2021, so I can't tell whether less tenant protection is purely due to geography, or if it's a broader pre- vs. post-pandemic shift in the rental market everywhere.

If Lincoln's rental climate is still more or less the same as it was when I left, I'm seriously considering moving back. If things here have changed significantly for the worse over the last 5 years, I want to know so I can make an informed choice.

Please no big-picture politics, I just want to know what it's like being a renter in Lincoln now!

I'm open to any feedback or insight, but I'm especially curious about:

- Code Enforcement: Are Building and Safety / housing inspectors pretty objective, or do they tend to side with landlords?

- Landlord Entry & Privacy: is 24 hours notice still expected/ required (barring actual emergencies)?

- Any other things.. any issues with hidden fees in leases, health things like mold/pest control?

I've been working on finding decent therapy, but the problem is I haven't found one therapist that's helpful long-term.

What I've experienced in the last four years:

- several therapists have been helpful for the first couple of sessions. It helps me to get some things off my chest and have a listening ear to talk to. But when I want to actually do something about it, like work through deeper trauma or learn better social skills or whatever, we hit a dead end.

- one or two therapists really pushed CBT on me, despite it not being recommended for my neurological makeup, and also not recommended for the things that I've been through. That was a waste of time and money.

- most recently, I've been seeing a therapist that does Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) which has actually been the most helpful out of all the therapy I've done in the last four years. However, I'm finding that also has its limitations and I don't think this therapist will be helpful longer-term.

Is it normal to have to switch from therapist to therapist depending on where you are in your therapy journey? Right now it's looking like ART will be helpful for a little while, but then, I don't know. There's still a little bit that I want to work through regarding my childhood. I also really want to work on social skills and my relationship with the world around me. All the therapy I've done before has been about me. But I don't exist in a vacuum (even though at this point, it feels like I do). So that's why I want to work on interpersonal skills and stuff like that. Also just generally understanding the world and the rules of society.

It feels like I need someone who can do therapy for kids, families, parenting, etc. if they will take me as a client. And then.. I don't know.. an existential therapist?

Saw a new therapist today. Their website made it sound like they do a few different types of therapy and can tailor it to the person's needs, but when I went to their office for a consult, we pretty much just talked about ART and even did a quick ART session.

I tried asking about the limitations of ART, and they said the only limit was the client's willingness to do it, which didn't make much sense to me since pretty much everything has some limitations.

The ART session was honestly very helpful and I think would be helpful for more sessions, but I'm nervous about falling into the trap of just one modality again.

With previous therapists, I've had a lot of frustration with doing one modality and just never progressing past it. It's like we do whatever modality, it helps for a short time (sometimes a *very* short time, like one session), but then we reach the limit of its helpfulness and I hit a plateau because we don't move on to anything else. I think ART would help for longer than one session (honestly, it might help longer than any other modality that I've done recently), but I'm nervous about previous experiences with all my issues and concerns just being forced into the framework of one modality.

So I don't know - does it make sense to go to this therapist for whatever time the ART is useful, and keep in mind that I'll likely need to change therapists once I'm done with this part?

Please be gentle as I struggled quite a lot with landlord issues in my previous town. I thought it was the town (my previous town IS notorious for being bad for tenants), so I tried moving to a different city. And now that's gone poorly as well and I'm trying to figure out how the logistics of renting work, because the timeline doesn't seem to be in favor of tenants.

I found what I thought was a reputable apartment complex. It's about 6 years old - which in this town, is the "sweet spot" for being old enough that it's established but not so old that it's falling apart. I toured a unit that fit my budget and had everything I needed. I signed a lease set to start yesterday.

A week before move-in, I did another walkthrough and noticed three maintenance issues. I pointed them out in person and followed up with an email listing them. I was assured they'd be taken care of.

Friday morning (the day my lease was to start), I walked into the unit and found that none of the work had been done. The manager called maintenance in. They took care of two of the items, but said that the third couldn't be fixed quickly. The third issue is a building code violation that makes the unit uninhabitable, and I told the manager I wouldn't be able to move in to the space as-is.

The property manager did try to find another unit, but the only thing that was immediately available was way out of my price range. He ended up cancelling my lease in their system, which I was ok with at the time because I thought that was the fastest way to ensure I wouldn't be charged for a unit I can't even move in to.

I know that I shouldn't commit to a place until any issues are fixed. But how do you actually make that work? The previous tenant moved out at the end of May. My lease started 12 days later. If I hadn't committed and signed the lease before the previous person moved out, someone else would have jumped on the unit and taken it.

Now I'm left scrambling to figure out shelter for myself, while the landlord just... failed to deliver on a signed contract but gets to just walk away with no accountability?

I know, probably the wrong end of the state for this but I'm thinking about taking some out of town friends to a museum that has some interesting rock/geology displays and maybe a gift shop, if I can find one here. Their kid is showing some interest in rocks so I thought it would be cool to show them some different things.

Looking more from a geology standpoint, not crystals/charms.

I'm in the middle of a move - it's a transfer I requested as my old office was in a pretty difficult, renter-unfriendly town (I encountered a lot of classism and a very difficult housing market, and was nearly homeless at one point, among other things). So I am hopeful that this transfer will be an overall good thing. However, one small, nice thing about my old office was its location in a beautiful area. It was right next to a public-access pond with incredible landscaping, picnic tables where I could sit outside and eat lunch, I would walk around the block or around the pond during breaks etc.

I'm cautiously optimistic that the new town will overall be a better fit, but the new office is a modern, utilitarian building surrounded by a strip mall and parking lots. Even if I wanted to sit outside and stare at the concrete, there isn't any outdoor seating.

I'm obviously grateful to have a job and for the opportunity to transfer, but I'm struggling with the change in work environment. I'll still have the same job, the same job responsibilities, and the same manager and coworkers, just a vastly different office.

Ideas for overcoming the transition from an office that's surrounded by greenery to an office that feels like a concrete wall?

Had some not-great experiences with CBT, then my new therapist asked if I wanted to try it. It didn't quite sit right with me, although I couldn't put my finger on why. I looked into it some more (including googling "problems with CBT therapy") and I have to say it was validating to realize it's not just me.

Now I'm to the point where I don't understand why CBT doesn't come with more cautions. In my area, therapists just apply it willy nilly and don't appear to listen when the client shows signs of being frustrated or hurt by it.

So far I think my single biggest problem with CBT is it doesn't acknowledge the fact that some negative thoughts are accurate (i.e., not distorted). Some people have experienced abuse, prejudice, etc, etc. Their "negative" thoughts are accurate reflections of what they've experienced or observed. Attempting to get the client to change those thoughts can come across as gaslighting or even victim blaming. The therapists I've seen also don't take the client's ethnic, cultural, or socioeconomic factors into account (or if they do, it's only very superficially), nor do they take into account certain challenges associated with disabilities or chronic health conditions.

Other issues include that it focuses on symptom management rather than getting to the root cause or historical context of a thought or behavior. Some clients might benefit from exploring these deeper causes. Personally, I've told therapists that I want to explore deeper, get to the root cause, etc. but they just respond by giving me more CBT worksheets (side note: I actually welcome worksheets/homework. I just want them to be relevant)

I'm not sure how to convey this last point but I think I've experienced a lack of personal responsibility (for lack of a better term) with this modality. I've said things like "I am human. I mess up sometimes. This is ok (as in, it doesn't make me a "bad person"), but it means that sometimes I need to fix things, go apologize to people, etc. So I want to learn how to do this." But instead of helping me learn some relationship skills, accountability skills, or apology skills or something, the therapist just tries to find some cognitive distortion in what I said. I understand that for someone who over-apologizes, CBT might help, but it seems it can too easily make people think they never need to apologize, or it can frustrate people who already have a decent self-esteem and just want to work on better relationship skills.

Not a therapist. I've done CBT so much and it's either been just.. neutrally not helpful or it's been harmful. I've done it with a few different therapists (so it wasn't just one therapist) and I looked into CBT some more since then. I've read about what it is (and is not) recommended for, and about some of the issues with it. I concluded that it doesn't seem to fit my situation. I've also experienced many of the issues I saw mentioned.

The problem is, all the therapists around me seem to specialize in CBT and I'm at a loss as to how to find someone who can do something more appropriate for me. I've tried explaining what I need (skills training, for one thing) but everyone keeps trying to do CBT and/or vagus nerve work.

The one thing I can try (that I haven't done yet) is just state up front that I don't want CBT. I know this is obviously the most logical thing to do, but based on prior experience, I don't know how well this will work?