u/Otherwise_Radish7975

It looks like we're not far off some of the big 'hyper-growth' AI businesses and those heavily invested in AI running out of money to pump into this stuff as there's no proven ROI and a lot of them are not making any profit from their AI ventures. So what is the knock on effect of this happening to economies around the world? Is it as big a financial crisis as 2008? I'd be interested in any theories as to how this might play out.

I feel like waiting circa 6 months to get an endoscopy and biopsy results is just not working for a lot of people. The staff I've encountered have always been fantastic but man, these waiting times are really long - especially given you have to keep eating plenty of gluten leading up to your blood test and endoscopy. I'm still waiting for the biopsy results of mine to come back - been over 2 months since I had the scope...

What do you reckon - is there a more effective / efficient solution the NHS should consider? And how can it take that long to get biopsy results... What is the bottleneck?

Micro rant... It frustrates me when I come across people who don't see the point in UX and design. Like I really lament the fact its been so diminished as a profession - particularly here in the UK for some reason. Look, *some* of us devs can be half-decent at teasing out user needs and context and wrapping that up in neat design solutions, especially if we've actually taken the time to study and hone design skills. But lets be honest many of us are not great at it. The thing that really bugs me is when you come across a manager who wants to do it all themselves so they set up some crappy template with some hacky bodged CSS that they expect everyone on the team to use and they think that's design.

Most places I've worked in my 20 odd years as a dev don't even do the basics of design. Like they don't have anyone working with users, building wireframes / prototypes etc. Sure there was a time some larger orgs employed UX designers and used Figma etc. but it seems like it's just been cut in most places now. I mean there are some bad designers out there too but just ignoring that its a thing you need to do altogether seems like a recipe for a mess IMO.

Anyone else feel the same? Or maybe as a counter point perhaps you don't see the point in it yourself and can justify why its a good idea for a development team to try and handle design themselves?

So AI can generate code, albeit not always that well, and we're all using it more to do some of our jobs as software engineers, right? Surely this *should* be creating more opportunities in either bottom-up (UX) or top-down (architecture) design? The skills and qualities we need are not as technical as before and more based on creativity and communication. But we're not seeing that in the job market, just fewer opportunities for everyone...

Been a dev for nearly 20 years. So I know its pretty common for requirements / backlogs / user stories to be incomplete etc. But I just wanted to rant on here a little bit as lately (possibly due to lack of BAs / PMs and literally no UX staff) in my job I've been asked to work on stuff where we have literally nothing documented in the way of requirements or design.

Like the most recent project we have had one meeting with myself, the team lead and a couple of the users. After that I had a catch up with my team lead and I was concerned about whether anything from the meeting was going to be captured so I chatted through the requirements as I understood them with him. I then was unclear about next steps so said 'we probably need to capture these, even if it's just high level requirements'... His response 'What do you mean? Like what?'

He seems to not see the point in having someone who help to bring stakeholders together and work with users and just think we should handle that as a team and 'get on with it'... Which seems to mean he either holds it all in his head or I guess maybe expects me to document everything?

We have no meetings where we really break down work into user stories, no agile / SCRUM process apart from daily stand ups. I know its not out of the ordinary but its not right. Additionally we end up waiting ages for endless bureaucratic 'sign-off' from someone somewhere before we can start projects even when a BA is involved and we actually have requirements documents.

It's nuts isn't it - like we're just making the requirements up as we go, no real way of knowing or measuring if we're delivering what is needed.

I should add this is my first public sector gig as a developer so... Maybe par for the course? I sorta thought there would be a lot more UX / service design stuff going on.

So I get anxiety about things that perhaps aren't all that rational - jumping to worse case scenarios in my head and sometimes creating certain things in my head I think I should do otherwise the bad thing will happen. But like its not chronic and once I'm in the situation I'd anxious about 9 times out of 10 I'm fine at the time and afterwards.

Here's a good example: We've had a heatwave in the UK for last few days and I've had plans tomorrow to go see a friend. This whole last week I've been checking the forecast regularly and wondering if its going to be so hot: on the bus, walking to the pub, in the pub etc. that I might die. Like it'll be 30 degrees C and I know I'm not going to die if I stay hydrated, I know its not the reality of the situation but it plays on my mind.

Is this kind of anxiety normal? I feel like its normal - I get this kind of thing quite regularly, but it usually doesn't stop me from living a fairly normal life. Maybe a couple of times I've cancelled plans because of it and I do sometimes get panicky when it comes to leaving the house, leading once to a panic attack the only time I've one and that was during a generally quite stressful time for me.

Just over a year ago I got a new job which was was a breath of fresh air and generally there are a lot of positives to it. Finding and getting the job coincided with my wife experiencing a bad patch with anxiety and depression which is something she's had to deal with most of her life on occasion since she starting work full time. This meant juggling a new job and being there for her which I will gladly do and have done any time she's had these struggles.

I can't deny it did put a bit of a damper on the job I was excited about as literally every conversation was about her, her work, how she was feeling and often times there were periods where she just didn't talk to me and was crying and just wanting to sit with her emotions.

Fast forward a year and she is on anti depressants and in a much better place (I think she's done a lot of work herself to find a balance and implement strategies from when she was previously unwell so I'm not sure how much is the medication). She's a lot more considerate of asking how I am etc. but still gets stuck in these phases, usually leading up to her period where she will go into her own world and a lot of things - not just my own feelings - get forgotten.

Personally I've been having a lot of IBS like symptoms lately which I am consulting the doctor about and it is taking a long time to get results for tests but I'm glad I've decided to do something about it. But also I've been getting really tired sometimes and quite irritable.

My wife has been noticeably messier than usual - buying things online and then leaving the boxes around the house. Getting stuck into hobby projects (which I know are good for her) and leaving all the stuff around including on the small space of a table / desk I currently use for work. I know she isn't intentionally trying to wind me up but I find myself getting really annoyed sometimes which is probably something we need to discuss but I don't know how to without sounding unreasonable or basically making her feel bad because I'm sure on some level she's aware it is annoying but can't help it.

I feel like there's a good chance the way I'm feeling is something wrong with me / my own mental health, but possibly also even some kind of trauma / fatigue from exposure to my wife's own mental health situation. When it was bad it was really difficult. She'd be getting up in the middle of the night with acute anxiety and really agitated at its worst jumping up and down screaming. I am in no way saying that any of that was within her control. But I wonder if its had an impact on me.

There's also the question of whether we are in a healthy place to start a family which is something we've been trying for but hasn't happened for us yet and I have really mixed emotions about that (which again I've only partially opened up with my wife about).

I've reduced my alcohol intake to near nill but have been using some weed now and again.

I have no idea why I'm even writing this on here. Part of me wants someone to just say whether or not I need to seek help for my mental health, relationship advice / counselling or some kind of advice that points me in the direction of what to do, but I know that is something only I can decide.

I don't *think* I meet any of the criteria for any specific mental health problem. In general compared to a huge proportion of folks I live a very privileged and trauma free life. But I'm starting to feel like something isn't right and I have no idea where to start.

Just wondering how people get on with oils if they use them. I'm not currently a medical patient but if I finally get my diagnosis I should be eligible. I have tried BM oils and found them a bit hit and miss placing under the tongue, but I imagine genuine medical oils are better? Are there any tips / tricks for using these?