u/cosmicallyavg

Hi all! My cat (9M) had oral surgery in January to remove his top two canines and ever since then, he has been having issue with his rear end never being clean.

Now, I will say, he is overweight and cannot reach to clean himself, but this has never been an issue until he had his teeth pulled. Immediately following the surgery, he had really bad diarrhea, obviously, since being on antibiotics has that effect on a lot of creatures including humans --- to which I searched what to do and a lot of people suggested probiotic supplements. I gave him the Purina PRO Plan Fortiflora for a few weeks to see if it would help, but he continued to have soft stools and everything was very irritated and red. I thought it might be an anal gland issue, so I took him to the vet.

They expressed his glands and gave him some antiseptic wipes as well as a prescription-grade probiotic that lasted 10 days or so. I followed the instructions for both of those and it did help the situation a little bit, but he still is having mildly soft stools and I am constantly cleaning his butt with cat-friendly wipes, which he hates. Sometimes it's just residue left from using the bathroom, but other times its actual small pieces that get stuck. Even if his butt is sort of clean, he is always plopping down and trying to clean himself, probably because it's itchy/uncomfortable, but he can't reach it.

He is on Hill's Prescription Metabolic wet food and has been for 3 years or so, now, in an attempt to get him to lose weight. He lost 5 lbs or so right in the first two or three months, but has stayed stagnant since. The vet has already done thyroid blood work and has tried a steroid for joint pain to see if it helps him move around more, but nothing has changed.

Does anyone maybe have some insight to what could be the issue or what I could do to help him further? I hate having to chase him around with wipes when he needs cleaning and I know it bothers him as well. His behavior is the same and he doesn't seem to be in pain or anything.

Hi all! A little backstory on me to give some insight on why I'm asking, TL;DR at the end.

I have always been interested in interior design and after years of swapping between majors in college with no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up, I decided to finally pursue it. I found a 2 year program at my local community college that I finished in December of 2024 and have been working in the industry since August of 2024.

The first job I had was a designer at a big box flooring store, but I wasn't super happy with it, as it didn't pay super well and it didn't require much of my design skills (CAD programs, actually building spaces, etc) it was basically just helping people select tiles and flooring and things and then sending them on their way. It was pretty repetitive and predictable, which actually works super well for me, but I just wished it was a little more involved with actual design and not JUST materials selections. The sales portion of it wasn't high-pressure and my wellbeing didn't rely on making sales since it wasn't commission based, so I was much more comfortable in that environment. I actually liked this job a decent amount and the team was awesome, but the pay was the main thing for me. I could maybe handle not using all of my skills if the pay was better, but in this economy, it's not feasible to settle for low pay.

After that, I got a job at a furniture store that was supposed to be as a "designer" also, and when they explained the job roles to me in the interview, it seemed like more of what I would be interested in. They explained that I would help people with material selections, but also a bit more with actual design process and furniture layout. This was for a smaller business, so the "training" was essentially non-existent and I was thrown into a high-pressure sales environment without knowing what I was doing. Everything required me to calculate pricing on my own, on paper, based on manufacturer price books and the store's pricing formula, and it could get very complicated when people wanted to add a bunch of special fabrics and trims. This probably wouldn't have been bad, except I had NO TRAINING so my calculations were off on occasion and so my margin for commission would be low.

Needless to say, I did not make it past the 90 day probationary period at this job. I will admit, I'm not very pushy when it comes to sales, but the other salespeople there gave me a false sense of security that I would have time to learn. I was even told by my manager at one point that I was doing really well! They gave me no indication leading up to them letting me go that I was on the way out. I fully thought I was doing well like everyone had said.

Now, I am working at a flooring and cabinet store. This is much more involved, in which we actually use CAD programs and we help people design kitchens and bathrooms from scratch and it flexes my design muscles a lot more than anything I've done before. What I'm not enjoying is that I find myself extremely stressed at all times. It is still sales-based, obviously, and on top of selling and designing, I'm also essentially a project manager and am juggling manufacturers, vendors, installers, contractors, communicating with the customers, etc etc. While not inherently bad, there is only one other designer here and we are relatively busy to the point where we'll each be juggling like 4 projects at once. I also am calculating pricing on my own again and where I'm still learning, I have made mistakes already and I really beat myself up over them to the point of actually crying a few times.

And maybe that's just me not being prepared for how stressful the industry is, but surely it can't be this difficult ALL THE TIME? But also maybe it's just the place I'm working now and it's not like this everywhere, but 2/3 of the jobs I've had in the industry being stressful and difficult is making me unfortunately assume the latter.

I also just think being "let go" from the furniture store has made me so very aware of how bad I am at sales and that I worry every little mistake I make has the chance to cost me my job. And I know sales is a skill you can learn, but as someone diagnosed autistic, it doesn't seem like something I'm learning very well. A good portion of sales is manipulation tactics and being pushy and that's not something I'm comfortable with/good at. It sucks to admit, but being autistic really does mess with your ability to do certain things. What's worse is finding that something I enjoy involves something I'm incapable of doing because of my autism. Like if I had a brain that functioned normally, I wouldn't be having this issue and I could pursue whatever I wanted.

TL;DR: Essentially, I'm finding that sales is really not my forte and I also just don't really enjoy it very much. I was wondering what sorts of interior design jobs might exist that I'm unaware of that don't rely so heavily on sales skills. It might be a shot in the dark, but I really don't want to have to give up a career industry I'm interested in, but I also don't want to suffer from high levels of stress forever, either. After investing a good chunk of my adult life to this profession, I hate to have to backtrack and find something else I enjoy enough to pursue.

Any advice is appreciated! TIA