u/polkadotncheese

My deadbeat ndad has been paying for my phone bill on-and-off since I was in 4th grade. It was his only tie to me. I only appreciated it bc my nmom couldn't confiscate my phone from me bc she wasn't paying the bill or bought the phone. But my ndad and I would fallout every few years or so, so I sometimes had to do a prepaid phone plan with Virgin mobile.

It used to be so easy to transfer phone numbers from carriers. But because of two-factor authentications with financial accounts, phone carriers now require an authorization pin to transfer phone numbers to other carriers/owners.

I've had friends lose their phone numbers of over 2 decades but they were too ashamed to talk about their nparents. Two of my friends have gone completely no contact. One friend doesn't have their SSN so they can't even work but the contact isn't even worth it to them.

About a year ago, my ndad lost custody of my half brother bc he wasn't paying child support. So he decided to cut me off his phone plan without telling me so he could add my brother to his phone bill and keep it touch with him that way (continuing narc tactics with my brother). This was my last straw for NC with him. Good riddance.

Now that I am in my late 20s, I have a lot of financial/bank accts that are linked to my phone number. I really did not want call each bank and send them my birth certificate. I had my coworker call my ndad and pretend to be my landlord. Verizon customer service is hit or miss but eventually one employee was able to get him to stay on the line so I wouldn't have to talk to him myself. My ndad would've loved for me to beg and plead for him to do me a favor. Instead he had to deal with the humiliation of being a shitty parent.

FYI if you try this, employees can only call 2-3x in a row or else their number gets flagged as spam so its no longer a good/valid number to use. You also have a 30-60 day window to transfers phone number or you lose it completely.

My coworker's brother is going through a divorce and his npartner cut him off and almost lost his number.

This creates a dynamic ripe for blackmail/reason to keep contact with nparents. I don't see anyone talking about this so I'd thought I'd share.

It's so pathetic how older generations accept racism as part of life. My parents accept racism as a means to justify their political views. They are immigrants from SE Asia so they are scared of "communism". My coworker who is also gen x but first generation American is also scared of communism bc of all the US red scare propaganda.

His dad was from Pakistan and his mom was from sweden. I met this coworker through a mutual coworker who is my age (Genz/millenial cusp) and was helping me through racial discrimination at work. He eventually left so I thought my older coworker could relate being POC who is NOT white passing. I didn't realize until a year later that he believe everyone sees him as a white man.

There is a running joke among mixed communities that mixed kids with white moms are more susceptible to internalized racism. Hate to put all the responsibility on women but unfortunately we live in a patriarchal society. It's also said that white women who don't fit in the conventional beauty standards often go for BIPOC men. His mom was probably racist and he doesn't want to admit it.

My coworker would invalidate my experience by saying I "stress" too much and that the racist people at worker don't affect him when in his retrospect they actually do. He just believes he deserves it and avoids processing it. I didn't realize it until a year later but he has extremely low self esteem and is insecure. My guess is bc mental health for older people is so stigmatized. Anytime I brought up my racist coworkers he victim blamed me bc I don't act like his meak, mild mannered mommy.

When I called him out on it he started negging/verbally attacking me. He would bring up the fact that one of my guilty pleasures is listening to country music which I told him in confidence as a joke. When I do listen to it, its reposts on soundcloud so these artists don't make money. Dumb people love using strawman arguments when they have no integrity. He complains about trump and elon but when racism happens irl, he is a coward and avoids conflict at all cost. He is performative and has no real morals.

Older people will do anything but go to therapy. His mom never taught him to stand up for himself against racism and probably told him to ignore it as a kid. My parents are narcissistic af but at least they didn't hate their heritage. My coworker said the only thing his father liked about Pakistan were the mulberry trees. His own father passed down internal racism.

It's crazy there are generations of people who have severe mental illness bc they deny their experience of racism. Not only that, but they'll deny your experience too. I take full responsibility for being naive and engaging unprofessionally with my coworkers. But yikes, its sad not being able to relate to others on such a basic level.

Paying for a subscription service and not owning anything has become a capitalist scheme. On top of that, now there are apps where you can "manage" your subscription services and cancel right from the app. The fact that people have no idea what subscriptions they're paying for is bizarre to me. And now these people need an app to keep track of such a specific subset of finances.

My coworker (56) has no debt or dependents yet complains about money and budgeting. He inherited a house from his parents that he shares with his two brothers. He's worked part time jobs most of his life because he always knew he would inherit his parent's home. He only got his current full time job to support his parent's medical bills on their death bed.

I'm not one to judge what people spend their money on but it's so crazy how my coworker justifies paying for all these subscriptions (amazon prime, HBO, disney plus, netflix, AMC, doordash, and probably porn) as a single person. He complains about eating PB&Js for lunch everyday and worried about paying property taxes but loads the pockets of all these tech corporations for the sake of convenience. He gets stressed out at the thought of grocery shopping at his grown age. People like this will do everything to avoid therapy and instead fill the void with convenience and entertainment. He has a degree in finance yet his retirement accounts aren't on track to retire. Lining the pockets of corporate billionaires seems to be a better priority to him. He also buys monthly lotto tickets in hopes he gets out of poverty. I guess even with education people believe in capitalist propaganda.

He says he does it for the sake of good credit. Mind you, he inherited his car and house and has no savings to upgrade either. We all have our vices but the way people justify their overconsumption is ridiculous. People are so pro capitalist that they think to be a model citizen you need to spend money for the sake of having good credit. Are people really on autopilot that they don't even question social constructs like credit?