u/klebersu

One thing I've started noticing with creator brand deals is that the payment amount can sometimes get all the attention, while the actual terms of the agreement get skimmed over.

I completely understand why. If a brand reaches out with a good offer, it's exciting. You want to get the content planned, meet the deadline, and move on to the next opportunity. But the contract can determine what you're actually agreeing to far beyond just making one Instagram post or Reel.

For me, usage rights are one of the biggest examples. There's a huge difference between a brand reposting your content on its own social media and having permission to use that content in paid advertising. The duration matters too. Six months of usage and unlimited usage aren't remotely the same thing, even if the original deliverable is identical.

I've also started paying much more attention to exclusivity, revision requirements, approval language, cancellation terms, and payment conditions. Some of these clauses look completely harmless when you're reading quickly, but they can become important once the campaign actually starts.

This is actually why I built Rewritable. I've been working on a tool that helps creators go through sponsorship, UGC, management, and other creator contracts and highlights clauses that deserve a closer look before signing. I originally approached it from the perspective of making contracts easier for creators to understand rather than expecting everyone to become an expert in legal wording.

It's been interesting seeing how often the same types of clauses come up across completely different creator agreements.

I'm curious what everyone else has experienced. If you've done brand deals on Instagram, what is one contract term you now check carefully that you completely ignored when you were starting out?

I think those real experiences are probably more useful to newer creators than another generic post about how to find brand deals.

Braced for the usual — corrosion, emissions, handbrake. Tester barely blinked and handed me a pass cert. Only flag was a slightly worn rear tyre, advisory not a fail. For a 12 year old car with plenty of miles, I'll take it. Anyone else gone in expecting the worst and come out pleasantly surprised?

just got handed a stack of prints from some boutique ad agency for a massive pop-up event structure. Its supposed to be this huge folding aluminum canopy thing that mounts to a flatbed trailer

Look I love doing weird custom jobs. but these "creative directors" drew the whole assembly in CAD with absolute zero material thickness. They want razor sharp 90 degree outside corners on 1/4" aluminum plate without any relief cuts, and zero consideration for the actual press brake tooling we have in the shop. On top of that they expect the roof span to hold like 500 lbs of AV gear using just thin wall square tubing.

I was trying to figure out how to even approach the structural framing and ended up looking at how actual industrial builders like craftsmen engineer these crazy mobile event rigs. They actually use proper gussets and account for real-world dynamic loads so things don't literally fold in half on the highway.

Meanwhile my client is arguing with me over email because I told them their sleek "seamless" corner design is physically impossible in the real world unless we machine the entire joint out of a solid billet. which they obviously refuse to pay for

just feeling so drained trying to teach basic metallurgy to people who only know how to draw shapes in adobe illustrator

Was up in Mullingar during the week around half two on a Tuesday and it was genuinely a bit grim. A few charity shops, a bookies, a Centra. The old Dunnes unit still empty. A couple of people wandering around but nothing like the buzz there used to be even on a random weekday afternoon.

I know this is hardly a new observation but it actually hit different seeing it in person. You read about footfall dropping and retail struggling but when you're standing in the middle of what should be a fairly busy midlands town and it just feels hollowed out, it sticks with you a bit.

Part of me wonders how much of it is online shopping, how much is people driving to retail parks on the edge of town, and how much is just the cost of things meaning people aren't browsing anymore. Probably all of the above, in some mix.

Some towns seem to be doing alright though. Westport gets mentioned a lot. Kilkenny seems grand whenever I'm there. Is it purely tourism propping those up, or is there something actually being done differently at a local level that other towns could copy? Or is it just geography and luck at this point.

Curious what it looks like around the rest of the country from people actually living in these places.

Hey everyone, looking for some quick advice. Building a new side fence at our place in Brisbane, it's about 15 meters long. Originally i was just gonna buy standard palings and nail them up one by one, but i want something a bit more modern looking with horizontal slats and tight spacing. I'm worried if i do it myself it'll take forever and look uneven. Thinking about just getting a local workshop to CNC cut custom timber fence panels so i can just drop them into the posts. Quoting around $1500 for the timber.

I feel like social media has completely ruined my sense of what a normal engagement ring looks like.

For the longest time I thought 2 carats sounded small because every video I saw featured huge stones. Then I started paying attention to rings people actually wear every day, and most of them looked great without being enormous.

I recently spent some time browsing engagement rings from Leon Diamond and noticed that a well-cut 2 carat diamond already has a pretty strong presence.

For those who got proposed with one, are you happy? :) Or do you ever wish bigger?

Played a friend's birthday for $150. Overprepped for weeks, still played it too safe for the first 20 min sticking to my planned set instead of reading the floor.

Switched to reacting to the crowd, everything clicked. USB glitch mid-set gave me 10 seconds of dead air that felt like 10 minutes.

Still got asked back for their next event. Anyone else's first gig go sideways before it clicked?

it's funny how you go through your 20s thinking you've got it all figured out. your routine, your limits, what works and what doesn't. then you hit your mid-30s and your body's like lol nice try.

for me it's been the hips. never had issues before. now they just lock up especially after sitting for a while tried all the usual stuff - stretching, foam rolling, even those elaborate youtube mobility routines. helps for a bit but never sticks.

a mate at work mentioned reformer pilates.

I've since got a basic setup at home something that folds away. use it maybe 20 mins a day, mostly for hip openers and light stretching.

not saying it's magic. but my hips don't snap crackle pop every time I stand up anymore. and my lower back is less of a drama queen too.

anyone else in their 30s discovering that your body needs a whole new approach? or is it just me getting old lol

honestly just need to talk to people who get it.

got a concussion about 7 months ago from a car accident. not my fault, got rear ended, hit my head on the steering wheel. it wasnt even that bad at the time but here we are.

the physical stuff has improved. headaches are less frequent, im not as sensitive to light and noise anymore. so on the outside i look fine. i function fine. i work, i take care of my kids, i do all the things.

but internally i still feel like im running at like 70%. my memory is garbage. i forget words all the time mid sentence. sometimes i get this heavy brain fog that makes it hard to focus on anything. and the fatigue... its like my battery drains twice as fast as it used to.

my husband keeps saying you seem better and i dont know how to tell him that better doesnt mean fixed. my mom asked me last week if im still doing all that concussion stuff like its something i chose to do for fun. its hard when people think you look fine so you must be fine.

but even with proof its hard when people dont see the struggle. anyone else dealing with this invisible recovery thing? how do you make people understand without constantly complaining?

Picked up a 2001 Celica a few months back, thought it was going to be straightforward enough to insure. It is not a fast car by any stretch, 140bhp and it weighs nothing, but the quotes I am getting are absolutely mental. One company came back at over 4k for the year. Another just flat out declined it because of the coupe body style. A coupe. Like that is the deciding factor apparently.

The thing is bone stock, full NCT, never been modified, and I have a few years no claims behind me at this point. Makes no difference. The moment they see sports car in the category they just lose the plot with the pricing.

Ended up going through a broker eventually and got it down to something resembling a real number, but it still stings compared to what mates are paying on their boring hatches.

Curious if anyone else has gone through this with an older JDM or European sports car here. Did you find a particular insurer that was actually reasonable about it, or is it just a case of phoning around forever until someone plays ball.

There's a specific type of stakeholder I'm convinced exists on every project.

You send weekly updates. You tag them in decisions that need their input. You escalate through their assistant when needed. Radio silence.

Then the project hits a milestone - or something goes sideways - and suddenly they're extremely present and extremely upset about things they had full visibility into weeks ago.

The frustrating part: the paper trail means nothing politically. Being right about the communication doesn't protect you from the fallout.

My current workaround is forcing synchronous checkpoints instead of relying on async updates, because some people just don't process written status reports no matter how clear they are. I pull them into a 10-minute call, make them verbally acknowledge the risk or the change, and at least then I have something

It works better. But it's extra overhead I didn't budget for, and it feels like managing around the problem rather than solving it

Curious what patterns others have landed on:

• Is this a communication channel problem, a stakeholder management problem, or just a personality thing you work around forever?
• Does it actually get better when you move to a different org, or does the same archetype just show up with a different name?

genuinely feeling so burnt out by the cost of living rn. Im sitting here eating my batch-cooked lentils trying to figure out how to actually survive the next 40 years. We obsess over saving $3 on a coffee or aggressively price matching at bunnings, but then lose literally tens of thousands to stealth fees in our default super accounts

Went down a massive rabbit hole last night looking into retirement planning and just basic wealth retention, and realised my default super fund has been absolutely bleeding me dry with "admin" and "life insurance" premiums I never even asked for

like, what is the point of being so strict with my weekly grocery budget if the financial system is just siphoning it out the back door anyway? Definitely spending my weekend consolidating my accounts and switching to a barebones low fee option. Please go check your super statements guys, the hidden fees are basically daylight robbery and totally wipe out whatever we save by being frugal.

my living room is pretty simple right now with light beige walls, a grey sofa and wooden floors. it feels a bit plain and i want to add some warmth and texture without making it too busy. a rug seems like the easiest way to tie everything together and make the space feel more finished.

i have been looking at different options and came across ruglove. they have some nice neutral modern styles in soft beige and grey tones that would probably work well with what i already have. i like that they are not too bold but still add character.

do you think a bigger rug under the sofa and coffee table would make the room feel cosier? any suggestions on size, texture or colours that usually work well in neutral spaces like this? i want something practical but still looks good.

Every June I tell myself I'm going to do a proper toptobottom clean and every June I do about 40% of it and call it done. This year I actually made a list before starting: microfiber cloths, a good scrub brush, a grout brush, a squeegee for the windows, and a mop that doesn't fall apart after three uses.

I also picked up some new kitchen and storage stuf.

So far I've done the fridge, the baseboards (genuinely horrifying, don't skip these), and the insides of all the cabinets. The windows are next and I'm already dreading it.

For anyone else doing a summer clean, what's a tool you'd say is actually worth buying vs. something you can skip?

bought an old house in bendigo last year got a building inspection done before purchase, report came back clean. i was planning to renovate and knocked down a wall myself. started getting all dusty and a mate who works in construction saw the photos and said bro thats asbestos.

stopped everything and got a specialist out who confirmed theres asbestos sheeting in the wall and also in some of the eaves. said it should have been obvious to any inspector who knew what to look for quoted me $18k for professional removal. the kitchen is half demolished and i cant do anything until its cleared.

i checked the inspection report and theres no mention of asbestos at all. he even wrote no visible hazardous materials which is clearly not true cause the asbestos was painted over but visible.

i emailed the inspector and he said they dont test for asbestos and its not part of standard building inspections. but shouldnt they at least flag if something looks suspect.

anyone in bendigo had experience with asbestos in a reno. am i just stuck with the bill or can i go after the inspector. feeling pretty stupid right now.

Was out looking at a few used cars over the weekend and it really struck me how the days of stumbling across a tidy low mileage Yaris or Civic for a reasonable price seem to be well behind us. A few years back you could find an older Japanese car with honest mileage without too much hassle, but now anything decent gets snapped up within hours of going online, or the price is just mental entirely.

Looked at a 2011 Toyota Auris with around 80k on the clock and the seller was looking nearly four grand for it. No major extras, fairly basic spec. Just the fact it was a Toyota seemed to justify the price in their head.

I get it, reliability reputation drives demand and all that, but the used market here has gone a bit sideways altogether. Dealers and private sellers both seem to have lost the run of themselves since Covid and it never really corrected.

Curious if anyone else is actively searching right now and what you are finding out there. Are certain counties better for finding honest private sales? And is it worth travelling to view something a fair distance away, or does it nearly always end in disappointment? Would love to hear what others are experiencing at the minute.