u/EsperandoVida

My girlfriend is out of the country on a 6 week academic trip. We have been together for two years and she is moving in next year.

Due to a three hour time difference, she always wants to FaceTime in the evening. Honestly, scheduling my nights around a call is becoming a burden. When I work late, the added responsibility of a scheduled call is stressful. I hate having plans after work. I want the freedom to grab food on the way home and live without a schedule, and because I feel tied down, I end up disengaged on the phone.

I love her and our relationship is solid, but I strongly prefer face to face time. I would understand this level of communication in a long term long distance relationship, but this is just an extended trip. I am completely unconcerned about going a few days or a week without a video call. It is actually nice having a few weekends to myself to decompress and see old friends. Right now, the daily FaceTime expectation just feels like a chore.

For guys who have navigated extended trips apart, I would like to hear how often you FaceTime and for how long. I am also curious how you handle communication without feeling tied down to a strict daily schedule.

Every pet sub repeats some version of this, and it gets upvoted every time, but I think it falls apart the moment you ask what actually happens to the dog.

Shelters are euthanizing healthy, adoptable dogs right now because there aren’t enough homes, so when you tell a broke person they shouldn’t keep a dog, the realistic alternative for that animal isn’t a wealthier family with pet insurance, it’s being put down. People frame that as the responsible, pro-animal position, and I don’t see how it holds up. A dog that gets eight good years with an owner who eventually can’t afford a surgery has still had a far better life than one that dies in a shelter at eighteen months without ever having a home at all.

What bothers me most is that the standard only ever runs in one direction. Nobody calls the wealthy owner unfit for boarding his dog most of the year and barely noticing it, because the only thing that actually disqualifies you is being poor. Poor people have kept and loved animals for as long as animals have been kept, and treating a dog as something you have to financially qualify for seems like a recent idea that’s very convenient for people who’d like a polite reason to look down on those with less.

Change my view by showing me that low-income ownership produces more genuine suffering than the shelter system it’s competing with. Not more death, more suffering. Short of that, this just looks like rationing dogs by income and calling it ethics

I’m near Wilshire/Vermont and my partner and I are looking to take the train, eat good and get drunk today. Rail only please.

Anyone got good recommendations?

Curious to hear other people's stories, because I'm currently living one.

I am a transportation engineer with 6 YOE. I moved across the country for what looked like a great opportunity — an Assistant PM role at a large county transportation agency, with a pay bump, better hours, and less chaos than my previous job. On paper, it checked every box.

Seven months in and I'm going out of my mind with boredom. The work is slow, siloed, and I have genuinely not learned a single transferable skill since I started. My reviews are great and a promotion is likely next fiscal year, but I don't want it. I came from a private consultancy doing complete streets and multimodal work where things actually moved, and this is the complete opposite of that environment. Thankfully, I love my new city.

I've already received offers to go back to that kind of work, and my reasoning is straightforward — I want to keep growing, and the private sector is where that's actually happening for me. My only hesitation is how less than a year at a public agency looks from the outside, even when the explanation is that simple.

Has anyone else made an early exit from a role for similar reasons? How did it land?