u/SamOakTree

I asked this in skilled trades but all they did was either list the pros to be contrarian or treated it like listing any con is the same as saying there aren't pros.

Obviously there's a lot of pros but what are things that are negative that people might not expect going in?

For example

• What are some of the difficult things to navigate?
• What are things people may not know until their in?
• How do you navigate being known as a good employee to avoid long lay offs?
• Just any down side in general.

Thanks.

I'm putting in an irrigation system and the meter set has a 1"Pex stub line that starts my side of things.

The PEX stubline has a press on male fitting that is wrapped and that is screwed into a Ford fitting on the meter.

On my side I am thinking about just doing another male press fitting. However, mine is going to be in a service box along with the whole manifold.

​​ I'm going to have two sides coming off of the pex. One of them is going to be a brass riser going to my rpz backflow. The other side is going to go to a 1-in poly trunk line for no freeze spigots. This trunk line is being done like this so it sits in front of the irrigation system and can stay charged all year even after I blow out my system.

This is my plan;

• Male press on wrapped fitting at end of pex stub.
• All female brass T.

RPZ Side:

• Nipple off of the female T.
• Full port union ball valve.
• Elbow with a male end coming off ball valve and female end connecting to brass riser.

Spigot Side:

• Nipple off of female T.
• Full port union ball valve.
• Poly male to barb fitting connected to ball valve > poly line.

My biggest goal is servicable and long lasting. The reason I want ball valves in this manifold box is so that I can shut off the water below grade / below frost. Thay way water won't sit in my riser. The spigot side is more of a just in case maintenence scenario.

Thank you. The irrigation side will be drips.

​​ I applied for the local plumbers union about a month ago and I'm waiting on my interview. I'm a veteran and I'm supposed to get priority.

I've been in high level IT for 12 years and want to switch careers and retire from the union in 28 years or so.

I know it might sound like BS but I've always been interested in plumbing and I've always thought back to it and regret it not doing it sooner.

What are some cons about being in the union? Things like being laid off and so you have to go back to the hall and wait for work. And how do you navigate that?

How do you make yourself valuable and desirable to contractors?

It might seem like a outrageous goal but I'd really like to have my plumber contracting license by the time I'm done with my apprenticeship. I don't want to start my own shop or anything like that. I just want to be as effectual as possible. Would that make you more desirable and less likely to be out of work for a long stretch?

What are some downsides that people may not know about?

I had an interview for an infrastructure engineer position this aftenoon. I was worried going in because it was developers doing an infrastructure interview.

They didn't ask me any infrastructure questions. They spent 50 minutes asking me about a theoretical web stack environment.

The problem was, they were trying to tie each piece into the next but they weren't doing a good job about it because they were all over the over the place - not being linear and jumping back.

I'm not exaggerating. They didn't ask me one infrastructure question. At one point I thought they were asking me one because the guy asked me how I would mount an NFS share to a linux server and I said I would put an entry in the /etc/fstab file. But he was asking how I would theoretically map it to a web application.

​They probably touched on 5% of what was in that job post. They said they wanted someone familiar with ansible and python and Linux but it all felt like that was second to what they really wanted. They didn't ask me about idempotency, or what linux commands would you use for x, anything python, and nothing about the stack they mentioned in their post.

The guy asking most of the questions came across like he was just projecting what he knew. It wasn't like he was interviewing. It was more like he was feeding this self image he had of himself. And it all came across as stuff he learned from doing this particular job - not stuff he knew going in. ​

I'm not exaggerating, they asked me for 50 minutes about how I would set a fictional web stack environments and wouldn't move on.

The main guy asking questions would ask me these open-ended scenario questions that you couldn't answer without a mountain of information. And I would ask for specifics and apparently that wasn't what he wanted. He would ask these highly dependent questions and asling for details got me more open endedness.

This is why I hate technical interviews. They didn't ask me anything infrastructure. They didn't give me an actual chance to show that I know infrastructure. All they know is I don't know the very specific avenue of stuff they asked. Which was the same architecture question for 50 minutes.

They kept mixing things up and would jump back and forth.

I'd say it was 15 minutes of general, 50 minutes of how would you set up this fictional env in cloud and on prem where every answer led ro 10 more open ended questions, then 10 minutes of git questions.

The way they asked was weird. Like how would you push code into the master branch but worded like they wanted me to give them the actual command when in reality they just wanted me to say that I would submit it for a code review.

​​ These types of interviews is why I get so discouraged. I'm not exaggerating. They didn't ask me anything infrastructure. And I'm not going to get this infrastructure job because I didn't know these in-depth development questions on a single subject that have nothing to do with the job they posted.

I definitely got some terminology, reasoning, and examples in there to show them that I have infrastructure and Python e experience, but it just got blown past while they beat a dead horse for 50 minutes...

It's just so discouraging to know you bombed an interview and won't get a job because they didn't really ask you anything about the job they posted or anything that can indicate whether you can actually do the job.

I'm not angry but I just hate technical interviews. It's going to be an hour and a half of them honing in on what's important to them so there's no way to really prepare.

These interviews always just feel so pointless and like there's no way to prepare there's nothing you can do. You have to just go in and hope they don't hone in on one specific weak area right away that doesn't really indicate whether you can do the job or not.

I typically don't feel this discouraged but I just don't see the point of trying to get prepared or being nervous or being worried at this point. Because interviewing for systems jobs is just ridiculous.

You can nail all of it but then say one wrong thing in the end and they just write you off. And it's funny because I was having AI draft up some questions this morning and it told me that the job posting was Broad and that they can't realistically expect me to be an expert and all of that stuff. And I just closed the tab. Because they absolutely will expect me to.

You don't see developer job posting saying we want you to be able to do everything a developer should do but also kmow these 10 adjacent roles...

I looked up the three people interviewing me and they're on the younger side. About my age. Maybe it'll just be more of a Vibe check and me just talking General will let them know that I know this stuff. But the odds of that are pretty slim.

I just find it so ridiculous because we'll just be talking in these interviews and I'll talk about 25 very technical things and I'll use very specific details that show I've been around the block before. But then they'll ask me one random open-ended (not intended to see how I think but to actually get a specific answer) and if I don't have their exact answer that's it.

I once had a guy ask me, "how would you troubleshoot dns?" I asked if he had a specific problem in mind and he said no. So I gave him an answer that showed him kind of what direction I would go and just how I would in general because I assumed he wanted to know how I thought about problem solving. But then when I was done he said, "But how woukd you troubleshoot DNS?" So I asked him if he had a specific scenario in mind and his face just sank.

I'm going to approach this one differently and just go in bubbly and try and be personable far more than I ever would. And just kind of let their questions become opportunities to just speak technically to hopefully get ahead of them asking ridiculous questions.

Part of this is I checked out about a month ago. This interview is for a job I applied to over a month ago and they just now got back to me after my screener so I kind of just assumed I had lost it and I think that's a part of it.

I just get really discouraged because whenever I start a new job I end up running circles around a lot of people and I become the go-to guy when people need to figure something out in a pinch. But I just bomb interviews. Because the interviews don't actually indicate whether you can do the job day to day. I once interviewed for a 365 position where that's all I would be doing and they were asking me how to configure a fortigate firewall from the ground up. I answered the question but the fact that they asked me that in a 365 owner interview was insane.

They built the Safeguard up to sound like this one big event but it sounds like there's multiple methodologies in which a safeguard can be implemented. Meaning, they have multiple ways to kill people.

​​ I have a 1 in PEX stub line coming off of a 1-in meter. The PEX connects into the meter set with a Vega ProPress mnpt fitting that's wrapped. ( the meter contractor did this end.)

My goal is to split off the pex stub on my end. One side will go to a riser leading to RPZ. The other side leads to a trunk line for no freeze spigots. (Spigots sitting in front of RPZ.)

Is this an okay manifold design (everyrhing is NSF 61)?

• Viega pro press male npt off of the pex stub.

Then;

• All female brass T connected to the push fitting.

Then;

Side 1:

• Brass nipple out of the brass T.
• Union ball valve
• Brass elbow where one side is male and the other female. Male end goes into union ball valve.
• Brass riser screwed into female end of brass elbow. (behind RPZ is 1 1/4 poly.)

Side 2:

• Brass nipple out if brass T.
• Union ball valve.
• Male npt to ips poly barb
• Poly line starts.

Is this reasonable? Is there a more typical / standard way.

Thanks.

​​ I have a 1 in PEX stub line coming off of a 1-in meter. The PEX connects into the meter set with a Vega ProPress mnpt fitting that's wrapped. ( the meter contractor did this end.)

My goal is to split off the pex stub on my end. One side will go to a riser leading to RPZ. The other side leads to a trunk line for no freeze spigots. (Spigots sitting in front of RPZ.)

Is this an okay manifold design (everyrhing is NSF 61)?

• Viega pro press male npt off of the pex stub.

Then;

• All female brass T connected to the push fitting.

Then;

Side 1:

• Brass nipple out of the brass T.
• Union ball valve
• Brass elbow where one side is male and the other female. Male end goes into union ball valve.
• Brass riser screwed into female end of brass elbow. (behind RPZ is 1 1/4 poly.)

Side 2:

• Brass nipple out if brass T.
• Union ball valve.
• Male npt to ips poly barb
• Poly line starts.

Is this reasonable? Is there a more typical / standard way.

Thanks.

​​ I have a 1 in PEX stub line coming off of a 1-in meter. The PEX connects into the meter set with a Vega ProPress mnpt fitting that's wrapped. ( the meter contractor did this end.)

My goal is to split off the pex stub on my end. One side will go to a riser leading to RPZ. The other side leads to a trunk line for no freeze spigots. (Spigots sitting in front of RPZ.)

Is this an okay manifold design (everyrhing is NSF 61)?

• Viega pro press male npt off of the pex stub.

Then;

• All female brass T connected to the push fitting.

Then;

Side 1:

• Brass nipple out of the brass T.
• Union ball valve
• Brass elbow where one side is male and the other female. Male end goes into union ball valve.
• Brass riser screwed into female end of brass elbow. (behind RPZ is 1 1/4 poly.)

Side 2:

• Brass nipple out if brass T.
• Union ball valve.
• Male npt to ips poly barb
• Poly line starts.

Is this reasonable? Is there a more typical / standard way. This sub tends to be shy about saying - "That's not how it's typically done, this is how it's typically done." So if there is a more ideal way, I'm all ears.

Thanks.

I don't know why I've put off watching it. I think because early on there was just a bunch of endless talk and it took a while for it to come out.

The ​ first thing I heard that was elephant 6 related was elf power. The very first song I heard was Will My Feet Still Carry Me Home. This would have been 2002 going on 2003 when I was in the 8th grade.

Back then the internet was obviously a thing but there wasn't a lot of information about elephant six back then and so you were kind of going down this rabbit hole of trying to determine what this was and what things were. Was it a record label was it a collective what the heck. It was all this like mystery around it.

The fact that we can come here and ask questions and talk about it is absolutely amazing. And the fact that there's a documentary is even cooler.

Is there somewhere I can watch it?

EDIT

It's on Prume video.

I bumped heads with this woman once over something related to watch. We were both thirs classes but she took over as the person who handled ordering stuff and scheduling things like equipment. So they took her off the watch bill.

There were a handful of people off the watch Bill and they didn't want people to resent them so they made up this fake watch. Basically they were supposed to walk around with a log book and just write down what they saw. But once a log book got filled up they would just throw it away. It was genuinely a fake watch just to make everyone feel like everyone had to stand watch but in reality the handful of people would just get in the rack and go to bed because there wasn't anyone or anything stopping them because it wasn't a real watch.

One of the responsibilities was to check on people standing watch but no one actually did that. Except one woman who was the same rank as me, we were both third classes. She would come to watch muster and harass me. She would stick her hands in my pockets to see if I had "contraband".

She would really just walk up to me in front of everyone and stick her hands in my pockets and no one would say anything. And if I got frustrated I was a crybaby.

She would come to every one of my watch stations for the night at least once and harass me. I was standing on Watch Once and she walked up behind me and just started feeling me up and down saying that she was checking to see I had on some protective equipment.

I mean she was just harass me maybe five times every watch and we stood 2-3 watches a day depending. So some days it was upwards of 15 times. Just making things hard on me for no reason and making me feel uncomfortable by sticking her hands in my pockets.

The training command knew this was going on too and they wouldn't do anything about it they just left it up to me to deal with like they always did.

We had just gotten new uniforms. Meaning they had changed a uniform and replaced it with digital camouflage. When I went to The Exchange to buy mine they didn't have pants with the waist that I needed so I had to buy pants I had to waste that was a little bit bigger. So I had to keep my belt cinched up all the time.

I was standing outside on watch one evening and I hadn't gotten my belt tight enough so I under my belt and u buttoned my pants so I could pull them higher and tighten things up.

This woman storms out onto my station just as I'm putting my belt back together. And she asks me why my pants are undone and I sarcastically said, "Because I peed on the deck." I was clearly being sarcastic and the deck was bone dry. But she ran to muster and told everyone that I peed on the deck and for some reason everyone believed it and thought it was true and when I got off watch and I walked into the birthing everyone just started cracking up laughing . But I just kept on moving because I was checked out at that point and there was no point caring about what any of those f*** was said or thought.

One night when I was on watch someone wrote some joke about this woman in the log book that I spoke about earlier. Remember when I spoke earlier about a log book that they had to fill out about things I just happened to see and then it would get thrown away. Will someone wrote this really silly joke about this woman it wasn't vulgar it was just a stupid inside joke.

​​ this woman has been harassing me for 2 months and no one has done anything about it. So I get off watch and I get called into this office with these two second classes. And they had this log book and they read to me what was written. And one of them says look you need to nip this in the bud you need to try and make peace with this woman.

And I was flabbergasted for a couple reasons. I had tried to make peace with her. I tried to speak to her I tried to reason with her nothing worked and the chain of command wasn't doing anything about it. So I was out of options.
​

But the craziest thing about this was , they thought that I wrote what was in that log book because they knew I was being harassed and they hadn't done anything about it. That was my motive. My motive was the fact that they knew they had let me get her ass and they hadn't done anything and so I was resentful. And I just couldn't believe that. To openly admit to me that they knew it was going on they hadn't done anything about it but then still get on to me about what came after them not doing anything

They left me up to my own devices and then got ​ on to me about it.

​​ I just walked out and went to bed.

The HR rep said there was some delay on there end. But I'm assuming their FrontRunner dropped out or something.

This is for an infrastructure engineer position and I assumed I had botched the screener because she asked me weird questions like, "Are you just going to leave and let the company you're at pick up the slack for everything that you're doing?" After I had told her I wanted to leave because they got rid of an MSP and rolled all of operations up into my role so I was doing all of operations for the company and my infrastructure engineering position and I just wanted to focus on infrastructure engineering.

But she was extremely nice when I just spoke to her and she completely understood that I had no idea what she was talking about because so much time had passed. I mean once you said who the company was it came back to me but it took up a moment for me to realize what she was calling about because I had just completely written this place office I mean I botched it.

​​ I've already decided to leave IT and I'm about to start up with a union.

This is one thing that I hate about having to interview for infrastructure and systems related positions. The interview process for this role is five different steps. And it took me a month to go from screener to the next step and I don't even have that yet. Tge guy is going to reach out who would be I guess the hiring manager if he wants to move forward.

I live in a small city and I assume there aren't a lot of people who I think have the exact skill set they're needing. They want someone who knows Python, PowerShell, Bash, and who has been independent their entire career. (It's hybrid so they need a local infra engineer with prod experience who knows Python and that's harder to come by.) Someone who has just had to get up to speed on their own. Someone who can span a very wide breadth of infrastructure top to bottom and bridge gaps to streamline development and maintenance.

I said I'd be interested in next steps but I don't really think I am. I just kind of wanted to hear them out more than anything. But if the guy reaches out I think I'm just going to say I'm not interested.

28 days is a long time to go without hearing anything and I also had to ask her three times who I would be interviewing with. Because I was asking her if I would be interviewing with the hiring manager or someone else and she just kept telling me the company name. And that's something I hate because they don't really listen to you. And so she took this impression that I didn't even know what the company was or who they were when I was just saying who the hell am I going to be interviewing with lady.

I absolutely had written this place off I thought I botched it and I just moved on completely and completely put it out of my head. I never expected to get a call 28 days later. And there's still three more steps after the next step. It shouldn't take 5 months to get to the offer stage.

This is a local position not a remote position. If it were a remote position then a month would make sense. We shouldn't be normalizing local jobs needing a month to get back to us.

I live in a small City with not a huge number of applicants that are qualified for this position. So it's not like I'm going up against 300 people like I would for a remote job.

The pact says they're only allowed to dig so far out. So I guarantee the silos are separated by a certain distance and then the distance are allowed to dig outward is before the middle lone between silnever gets within the vicinity of where the other mine is digging out to because of the distance between silos.

What I'm saying is, the silos are probably separated by a set distance. Then you draw a line in the middle of that distance. Then they're allowed to dig out so far out and that distance never gets close to that middle line.

For example say the silos are separated by 200 ft. The middle distance would be 100 ft so the pact probably says you're allowed to dig out to 40 ft. Obviously those are just example number to get my point across.

They maybe even have some kind of barrier around the silos. Because I assume the outside soil is contaminated and they don't want people accidentally digging up and out.

They also said that the tunnels go up and down so I'm sure that there's shafts that go down and they can climb down into and then dig out or down or whatever.

I had a 1 in water meter set put in. There's a 1-in Pex stub line that I need to connect to.

I'm going to Branch off for two different lines. One line is going to be 1 in IPS poly and I'm going to hang four no free spigots off of it. This line is going to be before my RPZ so that these can be charged all year.

The other side of the branch is going to go to a brass riser which goes to my RPZ. This will lead to irrigation zones for drip emitters.

Is this going to be the best way to come off of the pex and split? Keep in mind this stuff will be in a box in the ground

• Insert fitting into pex with male connection.
• Connect a brass all female T to the male insert fitting.
• Nipple on both sides of T.
• RPZ side - attach ball valve to nipple, then riser setup into ball valve.
• Spigot side - attach ball valve to nipple, 1" MIPT inser adapter connecting poly to ball valve.

I'm not familiar with industry standard parting for manifolds. So correct me anywhere needed.

Thanks.

I've been in high level IT for the past 12 years and I'm wanting to make the switch into plumbing. I applied to my local union a couple weeks ago and I'm waiting for the interview. I'm a veteran so I get priority.

I've always wanted to do plumbing but I just never did. When I was in the Navy I didn't have a designation and I wanted to be a utility man but I was such an asset to my department they wouldn't let me leave and go to school. Back then it was much more difficult to actually get sent to a school if you were on designated. They had to change it right before I got out to make it easier on people.

When I got out I was so beat down I just went into it thinking it was something I could do long-term but I've always thought back to plumbing. And the past year and a half I've been just kicking myself for not having gone for it sooner.

I'm 37 years old and I have a lot to offer. I'm beyond good at problem solving. And I'm beyond good at politely communicating to someone that what they think is the issue isn't the actual issue but making them feel confident that I'm still going to get it fixed.

I know how to use tools, climb ladders , I'm not scared of crawlspaces. The hot water line under my kitchen burst last winter because it's a galvanized line so I called a plumber to replace it with pex. But they couldn't get under the house because the overhead is low and when I spoke to them they were very concerned about being able to get someone under there. So over the course of three nights I got under there myself and dug a trench to the pipe and then I flagged it so all they had to do was get under there and replace it. They were able to get in and out in an hour because I did that.

​​ I was in the Navy and I did two deployments so it's not like I'm going to take this job and realize how physical it is you know. I just feel like my age is a huge advantage here. Not only because of that but because I'm mature and because also I'm doing this because it's something I want to retire from and I have to take that seriously. I'm not going to be someone who just takes this and dicks around. I'm going to work the program . And I don't have any ego at all if some younger journeyman tells me to do something I'm going to do it because it means I'm getting to learn the trade.

Does anyone have any advice on the interview or what I can convey to them that will make them feel like taking a chance on me. The only Plumbing experience I have is in 2013 I worked for 6 months installing fire sprinkler pipe and fire sprinkler heads.

I don't know what they're going to want to hear but I mean I'm a very hard worker and I've got three acres so I'm always outside in the Heat and in the cold because you got to make the most of daylight so it's not like westher is going to bother me. In the Navy it'd be so hot that our boots would stick to the pavement and we just kept going.

Thanks.

We had this Lieutenant that ran our department and he was sadistic. He got off on being sadistic and he would walk around during the day just looking for things to scream at someone over just because he got off on it. And these would be tiny trivial little Things . Just any excuse he could find.

Our home Port was a very small base. It was essentially a couple of buildings and then a long road down to a pier with my ship and one other ship. There was no real work to do in port. So all other departments would usually be let off work around 10:00 a.m. except hours. They would have us do busy work all day until around 5:00 p.m.

There were certain days for this Lieutenant would inspect our berthing after cleaning stations. If he found one small speck of dust he would throw a huge fit and use it as an excuse make the entire department work until 9:00 p.m.

One day at muster they announced to the entire department that this Lieutenant was going to be inspecting the berthing and to stay out of it during cleaning stations which was only for one hour. Not a huge ask, right.

They put me in charge of making sure it's clean because I know what the lieutenants going to be looking for and they give me two guys to assist me.

​​ People were fighting me the entire hour. Everyone trying to walk through when they didn't need to. When they could go under over around. We kept having to redo things we had already done because they kept stepping on our wet floor or knocking things over trying to push their way through.

And the whole time I'm getting irritated saying no you need to stay out of here for 1 hour so we don't have to work late. And eventually you had the people coming through who intentionally wore the wrong uniform to muster. There were people who would wear the wrong uniform to muster so that before they went to work they could go and spend an hour and a half getting into the correct uniform.

Any other day of the week I wouldn't care but today this is going to cause us to work until 9:00 p.m. so I'm turning people away saying no no you can't change right now you need to come back later.

Finally this other third class (I was a third too) kicks open the door and tells his two guys to go change their uniform. But the thing is their rack wasn't in our berthing it was in the next berthing over. They could have gone over under around and stayed out of hours to ensure we got cleaned in time. And the other third class had been there longer than me and he knew exactly what was going to happen if the berthing wasn't clean when the lieutenant inspected but he didn't have these guys go under around ​or over.

So I tell this guy hey man we're trying to clean the birthing you know that it's being inspected you guys need to stay out it's not our problem they were the wrong uniform.

And one of the guys helping clean lost their mind and told me to not be childish. And then there was some other people who were standing around and said yeah you're being childish other people have things to do.

So I said, "Okay if they're so concerned with what they have to do why have they worn the wrong uniform to muster every day for the past month. Could it be there using it as a means to get ​out of work. And today are those Shenanigans going to cause us issues."

And three people had this big epiphany and said, "Ohh! That's why they do that and that's why is takes Smith 2 hours to get from muster to work." Then anither guy said, "Wait. Smith was supposed to do x last week and when it didnr get finished we all had to work late."

But others still didn't buy it. They said, people aren't wearing the wrong uniform to get out of work and you're still being childish you're making a big deal out of nothing.

Then when we worked until 9:00 p.m. that night people were saying "ohhh this is what Sam was trying to prevent wasn't it."

I was hired in August of 2022 to be an infrastructure engineer. Then a year and they got rid of the MSP enrolled every single thing the MSP was doing up into my job. This was something a team of five people had been doing for several years. Now it was me. I have a boss but he was not involved in this at all.

It was all me all the time. I was literally handling every single internal support request for the company. I was doing operations for the company by myself. I was doing onboarding, off-boarding, I owned 365, I wrote our compliance and conditional access policies, I handled all of our endpoints, I handled asset management, I handled dealing with vendors and purchasing, I provisioned laptops, any business process that they weren't sure who owned it got given to me. It was an incredibly broad role.

It's not what I was hired to do and it's not what I agreed to when I signed up. And when you're subservient to the entire company it frames the way people look at you and treat you. And it was just too much work for one person to keep up with. Especially with no support from anyone. Accounting wouldn't my laptops, my boss wouldn't help people when they were making ridiculous requests, etc.

So I did a screener for an infrastructure engineer position for a local role. (With HR rep) It's a company that's headquartered out of the city I live in. First the screener asked me why I wanted to leave and I gave them the politically correct answer of I was hired to do infrastructure engineering, a year and they rolled everything the msp was dping into my role, I want to go to a role where I'm just focusing on infrastructure engineering becaude thats what my career is focussed in and where my main skillset lies, and I feel that skillset could benefit this role and team.

Then she asked me, "Haven't you just told your employer you only want to focus on infrastructure?" I explained that systems and it for the entire company was literally just my boss and myself. And that there was no one else to take this on. But she asked me again, right but haven't you just told them you only want to do infrastructure? And I tried as nicely as I could to explain to her that that's just not an option. Because you're not supposed to complain about your previous employer and she was kind of setting me up for failure because the real answer was, of course I've had a conversation but they told me tough s***. But you can't tell them that right. So I kept trying to frame it positively but give her an answer and she just kept asking.

Then she ask me what percent I was doing infrastructure versus operations. And it wasn't quite a fair question because if I gave her a percentage it would make it seem like these weren't full-time rolls. Which infrastructure was a full-time role I just happened to be doing these operations responsibilities on top of them. So I was having to manage both roles I was still doing infrastructure full time but I was having to make time for operations. And I kind of explain that to her and she said right but give me a percentage and as soon as I gave her 50/50 she kind of treated it like okay so you're not doing infrastructure full time which is exactly what I knew she was going to take from that which wasn't accurate.

But then she asked me something insane. Because I had explained how broad my role was and everything that I was doing - she asked me how I planned to transition my work before I left. She asked me so if you're doing all of this stuff and there's no one else to do it arw you just going to leave and let them determine how to assign and manage all of this work. How will they manage if you're the only one doing it.

And I just don't see how that's my problem. And she's looking at it like it's a negative like I'm a bad candidate if I want to leave an environment where they're having me do several roles with no support from my biss or management. Because how is it my problem that they've piled all of this stuff onto one person and now if I leave it's going to create this huge vacuum. I just don't understand how that's a me problem and I don't understand how why that shoukd make me look bad to this screener because that's not my responsibility. Am I really supposed to stay where I am for all time because the company doesn't have someone that can take over for me knowing if I stay they'll never send help?

I just felt like this screener was setting me up for failure with the questions she was asking and how she was wording them. And I went on glass door and other people have complaints about the interview process at this place so maybe I dodged a bullet. But it's not just me other people were saying similar things about how the screener was very different and awkward.

When I was a kid I didn't have a fantastic home life, and my teachers were very cruel. Then the military was cruel. I had very bad anxiety. I was always on my head 24/7. I'm not talking about this new romanticized anxiety everyone talks about now. I used to lie in my bed at night strategizing every single interaction of the next day until I was so tired I passed out from exhaustion around 3am. I was 6 years old with crow's feet.

I don't want to tell my partner about that part of my life. But it caused me to be depressed and it cauaed me to have executive dysfunction. I worked a very long time to manage those things. One thing that helps me manage both of those things is having set routines.

I'm not overly rigid and I do compromise. I go out, I try to be spontaneous, I don't do the same literal thing every single night. And I do communicate and ask her if she's happy. But the past few months she's been nagging me because there are certain routines that I will not deviate from.

The reason I will not deviate from these routines is because for me it's a very slippery slope. I've trained myself to eat healthy to where I don't even crave junk. I used to eat junk constantly. And will be somewhere and she'll say just have a bite just have a bite of some sweet and I'll say no and she just keeps on and on.

The one routine that I've refused to deviate from is my bedtime. I go to bed at 11:00 p.m. every night. This is one of my strongest habits and one of the hardest things it took to nail down. I used to not get quality sleep and I used to stay up basically until work the next day every night. It took a very long time to train myself to sleep completely through the night. It also took a year of going to sleep at the same time and waking up at the same time to get my body acclimated and actually feel rested.

But a large aspect about having a set bedtime is that it makes me complete chores that I would otherwise let pile up. Because if it's 10:00 and I have to be in bed at 11:00 I don't really have time to sit down and scroll the internet if I need to do a load of laundry or something like that. It forces me to stay on top of things. Because the alternative is to just stay up later and do it later which I refuse to let myself do.

I've explained to her that these routines help me stay on track and help me stay productive and structured and that building them up took time. But she just doesn't understand and she will nag me. Why can't you stay up and watch this movie with me, why won't you just have a bite of this triple fudge cake.

I have a board with zones and my yard because my property is 3 acres and I have to break it up into certain zones. And she'll tell me that I'm compulsive but I'm not compulsive it's just I have to string trim a certain area so ants don't get into the house. But there's not enough time in the day to do that and mow everything.

I'll string trim and mow half of it on Monday and then I'll do the other half on Thursday. And she'll get mad because she'll want to go out on a Thursday or she'll want to spend more time together on a Monday. But I know if I don't designate these times I'm just going to let this stuff pile up. And there's five more days of the week that we can do things together.

I care about her but she's just not understanding that I have to stick to a set schedule about the things that I need to do or I will devolve into a completely different person.

And like I said it's not like I'm completely rigid but she acts like I am. But I compromise all the time it's just there's 2-3 things I refuse to compromise on because I know myself and I worked too hard to get myself to where I'm taking care of everything in my life.

How do I better explain this to her?

I worked a job from August 2022 to the start of July. I was hired to be an infrastructure engineer but one year into the role, they got rid of the MSP and gave me everything the MSP was doing on top of my current role. Which led to me doing operations for the entire company on my own. I'm talking operations top to bottom - every aspect. I was provisioning laptops even.

It was an astronomical amount of work for one person and too much to ask for one person to keep up with but they made it clear that it was a me problem. I was being treated poorly by a lot of people because I was literally subservient to the entire company. Which was something no one else was going through. But my boss kept telling me that wasn't true. There was no one else that had to answer to the entire company on a service level.

I wanted to leave to focus on infrastructure only. So I took an interview for and infra engineer role. During the screener they asked me why I wanted to leave and I basically said, I was hired to be an infrastructure engineer but one year in they didbaway with the MSP and I inherited everything that MSP was doing. And because of that my role has shifted to include operations for the entire company and I would like to focus solely on infrastructure.

Then she asked me, did you tell your employer you only wanted to focus on infrastructure? So I told her that systems for the entire company was my boss and myself and there was no one else to do it. I was the only one qualified and my boss had other things to focus on.

But then she asked me again but didn't you just tell them you only wanted to focus on infrastructure. I just felt like it was an unfair / shortsighted question because you're not supposed to put down your previous employer.

Anyone knows you can't always just say hey I'm not going to do this. Because it'll reflect poorly on you for a number of reasons. The question itself was very short-sighted. Because life jsn't that simple and it was inviting me to put down my previois employer by telling her I did speak to them and they dodn't care. Any reasonable person would have just acknowledged internally that it was a poor situation and leave it at that.

I kept it as positive as I could keep it but she had asked me the question three times and I had answered it but all she was going to take away with my final answer which was my poorest answer because by then I was just repeating myself.

But then she asked me, well how are they going to manage the work if you leave. Are you just going to leave them to handle all that on their own? How are they going to transition that if there's no one else to do it. Are you going to assist them with that.

Which was an insanely unfair question to ask me. I told her that I'm working for a company that was letting me do multiple roles. The company clearly doesn't care about me but she's treating it like it reflects poorly on me if I leave them to manage a scenario they created.

I just felt like it was the most asinine question I had ever been asked in an interview. Because how is that my problem and should I really limit my future growth and stay in this position where I'm doing too much work and being treated poorly. And why is me wanting to leave that make me look bad.

Her viewpoint just felt completely unreasonable. I mean, I'm supposed to just stay at a job because there's no one else to do the work and make that my problem for all time?