u/Serious-Speaker-949

I’m from Appalachia and I’m about to make the drive. I’ve driven from Seattle to here before and what I remember was a lot of corn. Hours and hours of corn. I expect something similar. Like hours and hours of corn, followed by a short beautiful stretch of snowy mountains and then hours and hours of nothing but sand. Until Yosemite.

And what’s more. I’m about to move to get a better job, same type of area, very remote. I’ll make $102k gross household income. And I still. Will barely be able to afford rent somewhere that’s actually worth living.

My childhood home, “we”bought for $140k. It’s selling for $670k.

I know it’s lame but you guys (chefs in general) have really been the only people I can talk to about things in my life. I’ve been working toward becoming a member of management at a large resort for years. I’ve wanted to live in a national park for years. I’ve wanted to do van life for years. Well I finally did it.

My start date for a manager position at a large resort in a national park is October 1st. I’m going to drop $5000 to convert my suv into a fully self sufficient living situation. All is well. Except for one thing. It cost me my wife.

We’re getting divorced. She doesn’t want to move there. She doesn’t want to do van life. And a decision had to be made. It feels like all of my dreams are coming true, but I won’t have the person who makes life feel magical there with me. Life has lost all of its color and I feel weird.

So we haven’t been truly happy for a few years now. She’s accused me of cheating on her like 6 different times, I never have. Not even emotionally. The most recent time, this week, she accused me of cheating because I took my nephew to see Spider-Man and she was convinced I was seeing some bitch. Well okay now you know she’s prone to wild accusations.

I’m at the beach right now with my family and she didn’t come, for obvious reasons. Well apparently 5 men tried to break into the house last night after breaking into our neighbors. She’s accusing me of sending them after her. Like I’m the fuckin mafia???

And she’s calling me every name in the book. Just yesterday I said we were friends, we just werent meant to spend our lives together like this. And the desire for divorce came mutually. No contest, no dependents. Don’t want anything from each other.

But I’m very concerned that she’s going to try to accuse me of adultery or sending people after her and shit in front of a judge. Like have I been the best partner? No definitely not or we wouldn’t be here, but that goes both ways and I’m definitely not a cheater and I’m definitely not looking to see her harmed. I just want to sign the papers and call it a day, wish each other the best and move the hell on. She is not interested in a peaceful resolution it seems.

Should I get a lawyer?

Seriously it’s always been a problem, since this games conception it has always been a problem, but it is getting so much worse. Like every 3 games at LEAST there’s someone using XIM software. I just had three games in a row with ximmers. Once on my team. Dude went 16 and 0 on my team with zero recoil I reported the shit out of him. Another dudes name was literally I love XIM how are you not banned.

I am just so over it if you XIM I hope you turn your heat on and it’s cold forever. I hope both sides of your pillow are warm at night, your phone charger only works at a certain angle, I hope every shopping cart you grab has a wobbly wheel. I hope your fitted sheet pops off every corner. I hope your fries are cold and your cereal gets soggy. I hope your socks get wet big dawg.

I hate these mfs. Imagine having to cheat just to be silver. I digress.

The same people always get banned and I feel like it’s such a waste of a ban. Mira is almost always gone, she’s easy to counter and most people don’t even know how to use her anyway. You know who I would much rather be first pick who never is? Literally ever. Valk. Winning relies on knowing what’s going on, communication, etc etc. she’s one of the best operators in the game if you know how to properly utilize her.

And why are we banning ace? Who gives a shit they still have thermite, hibana and every third operator has hard breaches now anyway. Just accept that no wall is safe. If you’re gonna ban kaid you also have to ban bandit which that is not a bad choice.

Dokk. Always banned. Ooooh my phones gonna ring? What if it blows up? I take like 10 damage big dawg I think I can spare it. Now her having access to cams? That I do understand, but I don’t see it being enough of a problem where I have to ban her every game, just shoot your own cam. Lion gets banned a lot, dude stay still? For literally 5 seconds. Now if someone is really good at using lion, I get it. Most of the time, it’s just not worth the ban. You know who I would much rather not have to fuckin deal with? Ying, fuze, twitch, snake. Ban the people who play like rats god damn it. (I say this as a ying main, I play like a rat). Hell even Blackbeard is a much better ban than dokk.

I just don’t understand how seemingly the entire playerbase came to the same conclusion to ban operators who don’t actually change the game in any seriously meaningful way. I might be alone in feeling this way I don’t know.

Edit : Apparently I’m wrong about dokks damage but I still stand by it. Other attackers are much more detrimental.

I’ve been playing since beta across multiple accounts, on the main account I just hit 1000 hours, stopped playing for a very long time. Picked it back up this year. My highest rank is plat 2. This was before emerald even existed. Well I just checked a r6 stat tracker app out of curiosity.

I have died 4,600 times and lost 651 matches. I must be a masochist. Since each match is about 30 minutes+ I’ve devoted about ~350 hours of my life to losses. I’ve died mostly due to some bullshit almost 5000 times. Almost 5000 rounds I have gotten smoked. Yet still. I play.

Tell me why I’m better now than I ever was and I’m having to fight tooth and nail to get out of silver. Granted I’m solo queuing but still.

This game fucks me harder than my wife. Not hitting the uninstall button on this game is like having cancer and refusing treatment. My team mates are all the equivalent of a wet paper bag and I’m out here facing Jynxi himself. How am I 10 and 4, the enemy top frag is 14 and 1, but my whole team is like 1 and 4. It takes every ounce of willpower that I have to not turn my mic on and turn the lobby into an OG MW2 game chat.

God I love this game. 10/10 do not recommend. Dokkaebi mains, your mom’s a hoe.

Hotel breakfast chronicles. Just had a guy run barefoot into my kitchen at 6:10am (we don’t open until 7am) and start eating my pastries. When I was like hey dude wtf he looked me in my eyes and said I was never here. Then ran away.

I was pissed but I just let it go. Then he came back like 40 minutes later talking about unicorns, still barefoot, then ran away again. I called security on his ass but they can’t find him. Dude disappeared.

Edit : they found him roaming the hotel halls trying to open random doors. When they were escorting him out he reportedly just wished them a good day and said he was going fishing, with a big smile on his face. Completely oblivious to what was happening.

Hotel breakfast buffet. Been awake since 3am, it was super busy today. One lady “there’s something wrong with your toaster, it burned my toast”. Walk over. Well you set it to 6 so, it’ll do that. “You don’t have to be so rude about it.” I feel like I do. Agree to disagree.

Next lady. “Your yogurt is like milk…”. That’s… because that’s milk. The yogurt is over here. “You should have that labeled >:(“. Points at the labels. She storms off.

“When are you going to have more eggs!?” As I’m walking in front of him with eggs. I just set it down without breaking eye contact and went back into the kitchen. It’s all day with this shit dude I am no longer amused lol

So I haven’t REALLY played since velvet shell, operation health era. I started back when the beta came out. I used to be platinum, top 9% of the community (Ubisoft Sam shared this stat back when it existed) and I have 951 hours. Which I started playing on a different account so I probably actually have like 1200. That is to say, I played a pretty decent amount. Platinum back in year 2 was a lot more of an accomplishment than it is today.

Anyway I started playing again and hit up one of my old squad members. He never stopped playing. This motherfucker has 7,700 hours. Psychopath behavior. So I’m just curious, how many hours does the average player today have?

My schedule got switched and I’ve been working hotel breakfast. I only got 3 hours of sleep last night and I joked “anyone have any cocaine?” (I’ve been sober for 4.5 years)

One guy said dude it’s 4:30 in the morning and I’m making crepes, what do you think? Yes I have cocaine.

Fair enough. Carry on.

I’ve only ever played on nightmare difficulty, beat it twice that way. Once is coincidence, twice I don’t know. I think that on nightmare difficulty if the alien ever SEES you run out of flamethrower fuel, and you survive the encounter, then it immediately learns that you CAN run out of fuel. And it’ll bait you constantly to burn fuel. Or just outright ignore the flame eventually. So if you’re low on fuel I think it’s better to just accept the L and die than use the last of your fuel on it. And this also may just be a thing on nightmare.

I’ve always respected my chef and defended him against this subreddit. Not anymore. It’s a lot of compounding things, but this is like the final straw. Starting off today I made the amuse bouche, it was beautiful. I put a lot of work into it, I was pretty proud of it, I took a picture as we always do and sent it to the group chat with “amuse is ready”. He said “..is it?”. Dude is never happy with anything. That hurt a little bit.

Then fast forward to what I was told. My coworker had a meeting with him this morning and apparently chef told him that I suck at grill? First of all I’m a chef de tournant for context, but I’m primarily working with saute. 95% of the time. With that said, I can run grill solo, done it many times. I can run grill AND saute solo, simultaneously, done that. And it’s a steakhouse. I rarely have sendbacks. But apparently I suck? Verbatim that’s what he said, so I’m told.

So I’m just pretty angry at that. I’m going to strictly work grill, if he doesn’t like it, smd. I’m going to become his best grill guy hands down… and then quit.

Edit for further venting and clarification : I have only worked two stations simultaneously once here, but point being I can do it. I’ve worked 70 hour weeks, I’ve literally written menus for our speakeasy, specials, updated many recipes, I’ve helped with ordering. I not only work in this steakhouse, I can also work hotel breakfast, pizza kitchen, run banquets, cafe, I can work ANYWHERE F&B in this whole resort and I have. I do a lot. He tells us we’re doing awesome and he couldn’t do it without us once a month, but he tells us we suck and don’t respect the kitchen like twice a week. And it’s always over like we left a rag out on a table. Is it a mistake that shouldn’t happen? Yes. Is it worth telling us we don’t respect the kitchen? Come on now. Every other post he makes on social media is about mental health, avoid burnout, use PTO, take mental health days, take care of yourself, don’t work more than 12 hours in a day ever, etc etc. but when we use PTO he scolds us to the sous chef and tells him to deny PTO. When we take 1-2 days he says did you enjoy your week off? (He’s dead serious too). Did you enjoy your vacation? It was one day and I still got messages from this fuck ass group chat the whole time. Some of which I had to answer. I still had to write a recipe. He says don’t work too much overtime, take care of yourself. Next day, come in 6 hours early. I can’t hit 40 hours if I tried, even if I only worked 4 days a week, that is not an exaggeration. If I by some miracle hit 40-43, then it’s guaranteed he’s gonna be on my shit like “why was this prep item not made?” Because I’m married and I have a life and there are 5 other chefs here for a location that does $5m in sales food only. I miss a garnish and he asks when I stopped caring. My friend literally cried to him and said he was burning out and chef told him his problems were of his own doing. By the way. I’m the tomahawk guy. He told me to do it that way, on everything I love he told me to do it that way. I wrote down what he said when he said it. He gaslit me saying he didn’t say that and there was a miscommunication. I brushed it off but he does stuff like that all of the time. He told me 7 months ago he would send me to Florida to be a sous chef for another location in 5 months. Then he told me 3 years. Gave me a $2.50 raise, but then made me the assistant sous without the title. I am really good at what I do. Am I the best at grill? No. Am I a prodigy? No. Could I use work? Yes. Do I suck? No. If I suck, fire me. Me and two other people keep this kitchen alive. Straight up. Without us it would crumble like a house of cards. I am not arrogant, I am not the best, I’m FAR from it, we’re a skeleton crew, but I care. I care a lot. I sacrifice extremely valuable time with my wife for this shit. I sacrifice food, sleep, so much. I care. A lot. And I can mop the floor with a lot of people I’ve worked with. I do not suck. Sorry this is probably just an incoherent rant but I needed that. Dudes pissing me off.

I just finished a 22.5 mile trip. It was great, beautiful trail. I’m hurting though. About halfway through my wife injured her knee and I had to take 80% of her weight and load it into my bag. Our bags were heavy already, but manageable. I proceeded to walk 12 miles in one day up 2000 feet of elevation gain, carrying ~45 pounds. I’m a small guy, that’s a lot dude. I decided right then and there, I want ultralight gear. That shit is expensive though. So I want to pick the right stuff. Our tent is fine, it’s only 3.5 pounds, not ultralight, but it’s a nice REI tent. Mainly I’m focused on the sleeping pad and the sleeping bags, but I’m open to any suggestions on how to lower my weight.

So i got with chef today (we were closed Mon and Tue) and I told him I had concerns. I laid out how we likely had air pockets, the tallow was too warm when we started the amount of tallow we were using was overkill, the bones should also be encased in tallow and everything else. I told him that we had created the perfect environment for both botulism and listeria.

He stopped for a few moments and said there was a miscommunication. He wanted me to find the LARGEST lexan that we had, not the deepest. And he wanted me to drop the whole thing in bone side down, not pre cut, then completely submerge the meat and bones in the tallow. The tallow should be 38-45 degrees, colder the better, upon starting. He apologized for not giving me a thorough enough explanation, from what he told me it sounded like I did exactly what he told me to do. But he was in a hurry. And he WANTS the amount of tallow to be overkill since this isn’t something we do all of the time.

He then said okay so we won’t sell these, but we won’t immediately waste them either. We’ll give these a few more days and then cook them up to see how they are. Moving forward we’ll do as he just said and leave them alone for 30-90 days.

Edit for confusing wording : we aren’t cooking them for anyone to eat. It’s more of a learning experience. See how they do when they come out, visually see the errors and what happened, then cook them and see how the 1 week of aging changes the steak. It’s already accepted as lost profit and we won’t eat them.