u/sunbleachedsoul

Im considering starting the process and as the title says, I’m 25 years old. Why? Well I don’t see myself having kids but I don’t want to fully close myself out to that possibility. I’m lucky enough to have the means to do so via my insurance. Is 25 too young to start this process?

I’m in a bit of a weird situation and wanted to get some opinions. I work remotely for a U.S. company as a 1099 contractor. I’m on a small support team, I’m offshore, I’m paid less than my U.S.-based teammates, and I don’t receive employee benefits.
A while back, the company voluntarily gave me two weeks of paid time off, which I appreciated and never expected.

Today, I had a personal emergency. I had also landed from a flight before sunrise after traveling all night and was completely exhausted. I asked to take off the first four hours of my shift and work the second half of the day instead.

My manager responded the way he always does whenever time off comes up, hostile and focused on how much notice I gave. I’ve repeatedly been told that I should provide two weeks’ notice for time off.
The problem is that I reviewed my consulting agreement, and there’s nothing in it requiring two weeks’ notice. More broadly, I’ve started realizing I’m expected to follow many of the same policies as full-time employees (Slack availability, scheduling expectations, time-off expectations, etc.) without receiving the benefits or legal protections that employees receive.

I ended up messaging my recruiter because I wanted clarification on what my contractor relationship actually is.

Part of me wonders if accepting the two weeks of PTO blurred the lines between contractor and employee. If that’s the case, I’d honestly rather give up the PTO and keep the independence that comes with being an independent contractor.
I do want to keep this job. The pay is good, and it’s a nice second income. I’m just trying to figure out how to set boundaries without creating unnecessary conflict.

Has anyone dealt with a company that treats 1099 contractors like employees? How did you handle it? Is this just the reality of many remote contractor positions, or is this crossing the line?

EDIT: I just realized I said a bunch of nothing above. My problem is that they are expecting me to “request” time off and I have a major issue with that because that means my time off request can be denied. My philosophy is:

1. For planned time off, I always give as much notice as I reasonably can.

2. I won’t intentionally leave the team in a bad spot so I consider coverage before making plans.

3. But If an emergency happens, I would like to be able to take the time i need without feeling like I’ve violated some employee attendance policy I never fucking agreed to.

I’m a foreigner living in Brazil and I’m still learning how the Brazilian employment system works.

For several years I worked remotely for a U.S. startup as an independent contractor. The company was eventually acquired, and as part of that transition I moved from being a contractor to being employed under CLT through an EOR in SP. The difference has been huge, overwhelming and scary.

There are things I had never even heard of before, like FGTS. I recently learned that I can use my FGTS balance toward purchasing a home, which was a very pleasant surprise because I am purchasing a home in 2027. The taxes are fucking horrible, but as someone who grew up and lived in countries where worker protections tend to be much more limited, I’ve been impressed by how many rights and benefits employees have under CLT.

The problem is that I’m sure there are still things I don’t know about.

I’m not necessarily looking for legal advice, just practical tips from people who have experience working under CLT.

- What benefits, rights, programs, tax advantages, financing opportunities, or other things should I be aware of as an employee in Brazil?
- What do you think every CLT worker should know?
- Are there any benefits that people commonly overlook or only discover years later?

I’d especially love to hear from people who have experience with:

FGTS
Home financing
Vacation and 13th salary planning
Retirement (INSS)
Healthcare-related benefits
Anything else that can help maximize the advantages of being a CLT employee

I’m basically trying to make up for lost time and learn everything I can about the system.

Obrigada! 🇧🇷

Anos atrás, quando eu era estudante universitária e morava no Brasil, minha família contratava ocasionalmente uma pessoa para atuar como tradutor/assistente, porque na época não falávamos bem português. Por já existir essa relação de confiança, acabei comprando dessa mesma pessoa um iPhone que ele afirmou ser novo.

Logo após a compra, comecei a perceber problemas com o aparelho. Ele apresentava sinais de não ser realmente novo, parecendo recondicionado, e pouco tempo depois passou a solicitar o login de iCloud de outra pessoa. Isso me levou a suspeitar que o telefone pudesse ser roubado, perdido ou ainda vinculado à conta de um proprietário anterior, tornando impossível seu uso normal.
Diante disso, ingressei com ação judicial no Brasil contra o vendedor.

Durante o processo, o juiz determinou que o aparelho fosse levado pessoalmente à Apple Store para verificação técnica, provavelmente para confirmar a origem, o estado e o bloqueio do dispositivo. Naquele período, porém, eu estava fora do Brasil exercendo função diplomática no exterior e não tinha como comparecer pessoalmente. Por essa razão, organizei para que um representante da embaixada comparecesse em meu lugar com o aparelho, acreditando que isso atenderia à determinação judicial.

No entanto, o juiz entendeu que o envio de um representante não cumpria adequadamente a ordem judicial e tratou a situação como descumprimento da determinação. Pelo que entendi, isso prejudicou significativamente minha posição no processo e acabei perdendo a ação.

Somente mais tarde fui informada de que, em razão da função diplomática que exercia naquele período, eu possivelmente poderia ter imunidade diplomática ou algum tipo de proteção jurídica relacionada à jurisdição local, salvo exceções específicas que, pelo que compreendo, incluem certas matérias como questões imobiliárias ou situações semelhantes. Essa possibilidade nunca foi levantada ou discutida adequadamente durante o processo, ao menos do meu conhecimento.

O processo foi encerrado definitivamente em 2023, com trânsito em julgado.

Atualmente, a situação permanece exatamente a mesma:

1. ainda tenho o iPhone
2. o aparelho continua bloqueado
3. ele ainda solicita o iCloud de terceiros
4. não tenho a nota fiscal
5. continuo sem conseguir usar o telefone

Minhas dúvidas:

1. O fato de eu possivelmente ter imunidade diplomática na época poderia impactar a validade do processo?
2. O fato de o aparelho ainda permanecer bloqueado e aparentemente vinculado a outra conta poderia ser considerado fato novo relevante?
3. Existe algum prazo legal que já torne qualquer medida impossível?

Acho que eu deve incluir que a pessoa foi condenada por fraude após uma denúncia/pista à polícia que fiz em dezembro de 2023 por crime que não é relacionado. (Fraude imigração)

Usei tradutor para ajudar no português, então peço desculpas por qualquer erro.

From the title I could sound like the villain but I’m not. I’m going to leave a lot of details out because this story is overly complicated and also because I want to protect my identity and the identity of those involved.

Years ago, when I was a young college student living in a country where I barely spoke the language, I made a very stupid mistake and trusted the wrong person. I wanted a new phone and went through a guy I’d dealt with before. He was introduced to my family in a professional capacity and was sort of like our “personal assistant/translator” since none of us spoke the language of the country we had moved to. He had helped me and several family members buy a phone once in the past and everything had gone smoothly, so I didn’t think much of it. This time, the price seemed high, but he offered a payment plan and I was young, rushing around, and trusted that because the first experience had been fine, this one would be too.

Pretty quickly I realized the phone was refurbished despite being sold to me at the price of a new one and right off the bat it was buggy. So I contacted him and told him it’s having issues. Then it started asking for someone else’s iCloud login, which immediately made alarm bells go off. At that point I told him I wanted the receipt so I could take it directly to Apple and verify what the hell I’d actually been sold.

That’s when everything went sideways. Instead of just resolving it, he became hostile.

The important context here is that I have a very well-known, famous family member. Not celebrity in the Hollywood sense, but someone recognizable enough that attaching their name to drama creates pressure. He knew that. And once he realized that, the whole thing stopped being about a phone.

We tried everything to make it go away quietly. Meetings. Mediation. Offers that were honestly ridiculous given the actual value of the phone. Not because we thought he was right, but because we wanted the problem gone and wanted to protect someone who had absolutely nothing to do with this mess.

He wasn’t interested in resolving it.

He wanted money. To humiliate me and this innocent family member publicly.

He sued me and the family member too. Someone who had literally nothing to do with the whole situation.

Then he pushed the story into the media and made it public (which he told all of us he would do), which was humiliating, stressful, and honestly cruel. What hurt the most wasn’t even what he did to me. It was dragging someone innocent into it because he thought their name had value. Years later, I found out I apparently wasn’t even the only person he had pulled shady stuff with.

Even after the court case ended, something about him never sat right with me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t just some angry guy with bad judgment. So over time, I started digging. I made fake social media accounts, got info from mutuals, even sent a friend to start attending his church and befriend him. I know that sounds obsessive, because it literally was and idc. When someone turns your life upside down and publicly drags your family through the mud, it’s not easy to just move on. So don’t judge me.

What I eventually found had absolutely nothing to do with me, the phone, or the lawsuit. I found out that he committed fraud in order to obtain residency in the country. So I made an anonymous police tip. I wasn’t sure anything would come out of it so I just sort of moved on. But about a year and a half later, out of pure curiosity, I searched his name. What did I find? Active federal investigation. I genuinely couldn’t believe it. The documents were sealed at the time but I was still so happy just to see that the police were looking into it because I knew the impact that alone had on him.

I kept up with the court case almost everyday after that, viewing the little documents that were publicly accessible at the time and about 9/10 months later he was convicted. It was honestly one of the happiest days of my life.

He’s appealing, but as it stands, he was convicted of a federal offense, sentenced to 1 year imprisonment (converted into 1 year community service) fined, and will face deportation consequences after completing his sentence.

And just to be completely clear: the lawsuit and the conviction are unrelated. He didn’t get convicted because he sued me. He got convicted because of unrelated conduct that authorities independently investigated after I reported it.

So yea… that was an original experience.

I lived in Brasília during the 2023 El Niño and remember the devastating impact it had on southern Brazil, which is part of why this is hitting a nerve. Now I live in Bahia.

I understand the basics, that El Niño can affect different parts of Brazil differently, but I’d love real-world perspectives from people who’ve lived through strong El Niño years.

I’ve been overemployed pretty much ever since I got my first real job at 19. J1 is salaried, pays extremely well for the industry, has amazing benefits, the healthiest culture I have ever experienced, and an incredibly low turnover rate, which is why despite juggling other 1099 roles over the years, I have always protected that job above all else since I’ve consistently been a high performer there, if not the top performer on a team of 12. About 2 years ago, a recruiter reached out about what seemed like the perfect J2, a remote 1099 role with straightforward tasks, decent pay, minimal workload, and a schedule that fits almost perfectly around J1. On paper, it should be the dream OE setup.

The problem is the culture is driving me insane. J2 has zero meetings, which is amazing, but for some reason they use Slack in the most chaotic way possible, relying on constant group chats that changed based on who is working that day instead of normal channels, which means I’m expected to be socially available all day, constantly interacting with coworkers, manager, and random non-work conversations about politics, weather, and life updates. My manager claimed during the interview that he doesn’t micromanage, yet if you don’t respond quickly enough, there’s passive aggressive commentary, and to make matters worse, he openly talks badly about long-term employees to me in DMs, and even to all of his employees below him regarding other employees who are not working for the day. Oh and he talks hella shit about customers which is definitely a new one for me… never had a mananger tell me he wishes a customer would go fall off a cliff, which makes me assume he does the same about me. Other employees also partake in this bs. The workload is easy, the schedule works, but the nonstop forced interaction honestly has me 🤏 this close to quitting.

Tenho 25 anos, sem filhos, e estou comprando meu apartamento(~8k/mês de financiamento).

Minha renda varia entre $27k–$34k/mês há quase 4 anos, mas mesmo assim vivo praticamente de salário em salário. Gastei muito mal no início e agora estou tentando me organizar.

Não sou do Brasil (moro aqui há 5 anos) e não entendo o sistema bancário daqui.

Quais bancos são bons e seguros? Tradicional ou digital? Que tipos de conta eu deveria ter?

Também aceito dicas básicas de investimento.

Sei que o ideal é falar com um contador/consultor financeiro, mas queria um ponto de partida.

Qualquer ajuda já vale 🙏

Oi gente, I (25F, foreigner) live in Salvador and got into a disagreement with someone staying at my place during Carnaval. Long story short, she asked me to send her weed via Uber/motoboy and I refused.

My reasoning was that I’m a foreigner and I’m not trying to risk anything here (in my head there’s a difference between personal use and literally sending it with a driver, which feels closer to trafficking). She got irritated and said it’s not a big deal and that she’s done it all the time in South America.

This has been stuck in my head because I genuinely don’t know if I was overreacting or not.

Is sending weed via Uber/motoboy actually considered a big deal here, or am I being overly cautious?

I’m 25F and a foreigner who’s been living in Brazil since 2020. I moved to Salvador in December 2023 and have been renting the apartment I currently live in, which I’m now planning to buy. This will be my first property, not just in Brazil but overall.

I have a good relationship with my landlord, and we’re planning to do a rent-to-own agreement once my current lease ends in December. The property is worth around 850,000 BRL, and I’ll be taking out a mortgage.

I know this is a broad question, but I’d really appreciate any advice, especially since I won’t be using a realtor and will be handling the purchase directly with my landlord.