u/SARB033

I moved in with my mom after being laid off. Where she lives in Montreal has a severe lead problem in the pipes because the sewage system is so old, the city has tested and we have lead in her building for sure. Since then they have provided a Zero filter and done nothing else, which was 6 years ago. Anyway, I digress.

Partly as a thank you for letting me stay with her, and partly because I couldn't stand the Zero filter, I bought her an Aquatru Carafe. That was about a year ago.

The carafe has 3 filters (PRE, RO, and VOC). The PRE and VOC filters are rated for 1 year, or 300 gallons, and the RO for 2 years or 600 gallons.

What we've seen is that they don't even last half that time. In the 11 months of ownership, we've replaced the PRE and VOC filters twice, and the RO filter as well.

Is this normal? I know it's because we go through a lot of water. It's just the two of us here but we both exclusively drink water (and coffee and tea, but that's effectively just water for the purposes of this discussion). Roughly a gallon a day each would make sense, plus a bit extra for ex. cooking. But still, why advertise a year+ of use if the actual usage of a below-average household well surpasses their expected lifespan?

If I had known how short the actual lifespan of these filters are, combined with how expensive they are, I would have picked a different system.

Just throwing this out there. I don't know how many of us there are but I'm sure I'm not alone.

I got laid off March 2025 from a tech role (DevOps) and the market for tech has gone from terrible to horrible. Beyond that I cannot stress that I *hate* AI, I hate using it and I hate seeing it. It's ubiquitous in tech and I don't think it's going anywhere even if the bubble pops.

Also, I feel like tech in general has really done its level best at fundamentally undermining society as a whole for the worst. I don't want to contribute to that evil, overall the thought of returning to work in tech has loomed like a pall over my life for the past year.

With that in mind, and considering the likelihood that the next few years are gonna be extremely rough for the job market especially in tech but just generally everywhere, I'm very likely looking at going back to school and getting out of this cursed industry.

I've always had immense respect for everyone who works in healthcare. It's been something I wish I could work in, unfortunately due to mental health struggles in highschool I failed Chem.

I'm turning that around though. I've signed up for some adult education courses to get my highschool chemistry and biology grades up (I graduated in HS in Quebec in 2013 and bio was just... not on the curriculum after grade 9) and I'm gonna try applying at some colleges afterwards.

Has anyone else taken this path before and have any advice for me? I've read there's also some roles in IT in labs that I figure with my work history I'd eventually be good at, but I'm taking things one step at a time right now.

I'll be honest, I have tried every mechanic under the sun except heist. I've been playing since well before Heist was in the game but skipped the league it came out and never tried it, beyond at league start picking up contracts during the campaign for easy early cash.

However since the patch notes are showing beastcraft splitting being removed, and my initial plan being kinda nerfed by the changes, I'm thinking it might be time to change things up. I'm considering doing a heist focused league start, maybe toxic rain?

Problem is, I'm truly just ignorant about most heist mechanics beyond the basic gist. I don't know how to optimize my NPCs, or how to properly reveal blueprints, or which skills to focus on. I'd love a good in depth tutorial and maybe a content creator who will have a build for league launch. I can make my own builds very easily at this point but lacking any knowledge about what's good in Heist (I know MS is king but thats it) I figure I should probably follow a scaffold if nothing else.

New player trying to join the discord and the website's discord link is broken. The launcher's discord link also seems to go to the same website, so it's also broken.

I worked as a DevOps engineer for the past 3 years, and as a full-stack before that for 2 years. Got laid off in March 2025, and have had a very similar experience as many since then. I'll spare you those gory details since I'm pretty sure we've all seen it enough.

The only thing I'll add is that I hate AI. I despise it in ways that words fail to adequately describe. And I know that it's probably going to be unavoidable in tech moving forward.

I want to go back to school for something that will;

1- be a safe & stable career, it doesn't need to make tons of money but enough to get by hopefully.

2- won't have to interact with AI, or at most be very minimal

3- will be somewhat satisfying

My sister recommended looking into something medical and that seems like the best bet. I think looking into becoming a medical lab technologist would be a solid choice for me; it's a 2 year certificate program.

Here's my quandary though. I don't know if I can sustain myself for 2 years on my meager emergency fund (down to 10k now from 30k when I was laid off and got severance) as well as scholarships, bursaries etc. And I don't know if I'd be able to find a job to support myself in the meanwhile. I'm currently living with my mom in Montreal but my French is rusty from 12 years of neglect and it's a requirement to study in Quebec to have at least college level French. Also, if I'm being frank, living here is a disaster for my mental health. Somehow or other I think I'll need to move out ASAP. Am I stupid for trying to pursue this? I know I can keep applying for tech jobs and try and hold one down while also studying but that feels like I would be overfilling my plate, if it were even possible in the current conditions.