u/theodora_antoinette

I am moving to Coos Bay/North Bend. I'm looking at a few rental options, but competition for housing seems pretty high. One of the apartments available doesn't have a washer/dryer or hookups, which isn't ideal, but maybe manageable if we could just pay someone to do our laundry. When we lived in a much more densely populated area, it was pretty easy to find this service. However, none of the laundry apps service the area and it doesn't seem like any laundromats offer this service.

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I absolutely would not commit to a rental without hookups unless I know confidently that I could find someone willing to accept payment to do my laundry. Where I lived previously, this was generally 2-4$ per pound of laundry, so $75-100 bucks a week.

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Is this a service I would be able to find in the area?

Psst- if you're a planning consultant named Henry, I may be mentioning you here. Proceed with caution.

The support structures that are supposed to exist in a workplace don't exist in mine.

I started a new job as a Planner I in a small rural government on April 21st. While I had plenty of transferrable skills for this role, I have no background in city planning. I did plenty of research on what I needed to do to excel in this role, although mostly on reddit. Tons of people in r/urbanplanning told me that I would do great as long as I found a mentor to look up to and took any learning opportunities I could. I moved across the country for this job and was incredibly eager and excited for my future in this field. It was a significant pay raise and a moderate responsibility bump (according to the job description).

Well, the week before I started my job, the city manager was put on paid administrative leave. Then the man who hired me, who I expected to mentor me, resigned without notice on my second week. Then our longest-running consultant canceled her contract without notice. My only other coworker in the department has only been here a month longer than me and also has no planning background. After our supervisor resigned, we were told we could ask anyone any questions we had. Well, I tried, and nobody knows the answers. But they miss meetings. Ignore emails. They tell me to ask Henry, our only remaining consultant.

Well, it's not Henry's job to manage us. He's a consultant! We can ask him questions, but sometimes it takes days to get an answer. Which is his right- he's not an employee! He's incredibly helpful and smart, but objectively not accessible. That's what a director is for!

But now city leadership is telling us they're not going to replace our previous supervisor/director. They don't think he needs to be replaced. They talked about it on the last city council meeting. Henry is the same price as it would be to hire a director, according to them, but I think it's because he can't really fight back or advocate for the department's staff. Management doesn't care what staff thinks about this decision. They have never asked for our input and ignore any emails we send relating to the internal functioning of our department. They put action items on council agenda about our department without telling us a conversation is even being had.

And now they've decided I ask too many questions and stand up for my and my coworker's needs a little too much, so they don't like me either. I know that they're waiting for me to quit.

I'm casually looking for another job, but I moved to a relatively rural area for this "opportunity." There's limited opportunity here (maybe 4 administrative jobs are posted a week at most within 45 minutes), so until I find another job, I've been using AI to teach me how to make my department function. They didn't ask me to do this, thank God. They just genuinely don't care if we crash and burn so I found something that worked (a little). For example, I need to use GIS to run reports. I try to do my own research, and I'm just not getting the results I need. It's a very complicated software and vivid in my department knows how to use it. I try to make a report and it doesn't work. So I ask ChatGPT, and it tells me. It takes a while, but it manages to figure out what I'm doing wrong when I wasn't able to figure it out myself. I've been using NotebookLM to help me interpret the city code. It really helps. Because I genuinely am not equipped to do this job without being trained. I have not been asked to use AI, but I do feel like it's my only accessible resource when I need help and can't wait days for a reply from our consultant. I try to use it responsibly. I check sources, and I read the parts of the code it's referencing in its answers so I can make sure it isn't hallucinating. It's only hallucinated once or twice, thankfully.

As I wrote this out, I realize I am probably enabling city management's abysmal leadership by using AI to make the department function (albeit minimally). The department shouldn't be functioning with the way they're managing us. But they do expect the department to function. I don't want to give them another reason to dislike me. I need to try to avoid being fired until I can find another job, so I have to give the illusion of competence, at least internally.

I really wish I could be trained by an actual human. I am sure they would do a much better job, and I wouldn't be wasting time arguing with ChatGPT while it insists that I'm getting the correct results on GIS WHEN I'M NOT. I literally had to fight it when it was telling me the hundreds of results I was seeing when trying to populate a list of 27 addresses, was, in ChatGPT's opinion, only 27 addresses. It was not. It was hundreds. Ridiculous.

I'm just so frustrated with this. I don't even universally hate AI. It's helping me do my job. It's better than nothing, but my options shouldn't be nothing or AI. an actual human would be significantly better and I resent the fact that AI is my only accessible support system in my workplace only a month and a half in to my new planning role. And I resent the fact that I was so excited for this opportunity and the City I work for is genuinely trash and I may not have the bright future in planning that I fantasized about.

I started a new job in municipal government (city planning) on April 21st. While I had plenty of transferrable skills for this role, I have no background in city planning. I did plenty of research on what I needed to do to excel in this role, although mostly on reddit. Everyone in r/urbanplanning told me that I would do great as long as I found a mentor to look up to and took any learning opportunities I could. I moved across the country for this job and was incredibly eager and excited for my future in this field.

Well, the week before I started my job, the city manager was put on paid administrative leave. Then the man who hired me, who I expected to mentor me, resigned without notice on my second week. Then our longest-running consultant canceled her contract without notice. My only other coworker in the department has only been here a month longer than me and also has no planning background. After our supervisor resigned, we were told we could ask anyone any questions we had. Well, I tried, and nobody knows the answers. They tell me to ask Henry, our only remaining consultant.

Well, it's not Henry's job to manage us. He's a consultant! We can ask him questions, but sometimes it takes days to get an answer. Which is his right- he's not an employee! He's incredibly helpful and smart, but objectively not accessible.

But now city leadership is telling us they're not going to replace our previous supervisor. They don't think he needs to be replaced. Henry is cheaper, and doesn't fight back or advocate for the department's staff. Management doesn't care what staff thinks about this decision. They have never asked for our input and ignore any emails we send relating to the internal functioning of our department.

And now they've decided I ask too many questions and stand up for myself a little too much, so they don't like me either. I know that they're waiting for me to quit.

I'm looking for another job, but I moved to a relatively rural area for this "opportunity." There's limited opportunity here, so until I find another job, I've been using AI to teach me how to make my department function. For example, I need to use GIS to run reports. I try to do my own research, and I'm just not getting the results I need. It's a very complicated software and vivid in my department knows how to use it. I try to make a report and it doesn't work. So I ask ChatGPT, and it tells me. It takes a while, but it manages to figure out what I'm doing wrong when I wasn't able to figure it out myself. I've been using NotebookLM to help me interpret the city code. It really helps. Because I genuinely am not equipped to do this job without being trained. I have not been asked to use AI, but I do feel like it's my only accessible resource when I need help and can't wait days for a reply from our consultant. I try to use it responsibly. I check sources, and I read the parts of the code it's referencing in its answers so I can make sure it isn't hallucinating. It's only hallucinated once or twice, thankfully.

As I wrote this out, I realize I am probably enabling city management's abysmal leadership by using AI to make the department function (albeit minimally). The department shouldn't be functioning with the way they're managing us. But they do expect the department to function. I don't want to give them another reason to dislike me. I need to try to avoid being fired until I can find another job, so I have to give the illusion of competence, at least internally.

I really wish I could be trained by an actual human. I am sure they would do a much better job, and I wouldn't be wasting time arguing with ChatGPT while it insists that I'm getting the correct results on GIS WHEN I'M NOT.

I'm just so frustrated with this. I don't even hate AI. It's helping me do my job. It's better than nothing, but my options shouldn't be nothing or AI. an actual human would be significantly better and I resent the fact that AI is my only accessible support system in my workplace only a month and a half in to my new role.

I started a new job in municipal government (city planning) on April 21st. While I had plenty of transferrable skills for this role, I have no background in city planning. I did plenty of research on what I needed to do to excel in this role, although mostly on reddit. Everyone in r/urbanplanning told me that I would do great as long as I found a mentor to look up to and took any learning opportunities I could. I moved across the country for this job and was incredibly eager and excited for my future in this field.

Well, the week before I started my job, the city manager was put on paid administrative leave. Then the man who hired me, who I expected to mentor me, resigned without notice on my second week. Then our longest-running consultant canceled her contract without notice. My only other coworker in the department has only been here a month longer than me and also has no planning background. After our supervisor resigned, we were told we could ask anyone any questions we had. Well, I tried, and nobody knows the answers. They tell me to ask Henry, our only remaining consultant.

Well, it's not Henry's job to manage us. He's a consultant! We can ask him questions, but sometimes it takes days to get an answer. Which is his right- he's not an employee! He's incredibly helpful and smart, but objectively not accessible.

But now city leadership is telling us they're not going to replace our previous supervisor. They don't think he needs to be replaced. Henry is cheaper, and doesn't fight back or advocate for the department's staff. Management doesn't care what staff thinks about this decision. They have never asked for our input and ignore any emails we send relating to the internal functioning of our department.

And now they've decided I ask too many questions and stand up for myself a little too much, so they don't like me either. I know that they're waiting for me to quit.

I'm looking for another job, but I moved to a relatively rural area for this "opportunity." There's limited opportunity here, so until I find another job, I've been using AI to teach me how to make my department function. For example, I need to use GIS to run reports. I try to do my own research, and I'm just not getting the results I need. It's a very complicated software and vivid in my department knows how to use it. I try to make a report and it doesn't work. So I ask ChatGPT, and it tells me. It takes a while, but it manages to figure out what I'm doing wrong when I wasn't able to figure it out myself. I've been using NotebookLM to help me interpret the city code. It really helps. Because I genuinely am not equipped to do this job without being trained. I have not been asked to use AI, but I do feel like it's my only accessible resource when I need help and can't wait days for a reply from our consultant. I try to use it responsibly. I check sources, and I read the parts of the code it's referencing in its answers so I can make sure it isn't hallucinating. It's only hallucinated once or twice, thankfully.

As I wrote this out, I realize I am probably enabling city management's abysmal leadership by using AI to make the department function (albeit minimally). The department shouldn't be functioning with the way they're managing us. But they do expect the department to function. I don't want to give them another reason to dislike me. I need to try to avoid being fired until I can find another job, so I have to give the illusion of competence, at least internally.

I really wish I could be trained by an actual human. I am sure they would do a much better job, and I wouldn't be wasting time arguing with ChatGPT while it insists that I'm getting the correct results on GIS WHEN I'M NOT.

I'm just so frustrated with this. I don't even hate AI. It's helping me do my job. It's better than nothing, but my options shouldn't be nothing or AI. an actual human would be significantly better and I resent the fact that AI is my only accessible support system in my workplace only a month and a half in to my new role.

My wife and I are against zoos as vegans, but my wife is struggling with not being able to do any activities that involve interacting with animals, like horseback riding, petting zoos, aquariums, etc. She even misses the experience and going out on a lake and fishing and feels left out of the culture of our coastal town, but she has no desire to harm or kill animals.

She also wants to open her own animal sanctuary one day– she's just super into interacting with animals and doing manual labor. I am not, since I don't like dirt and don't like exerting myself more than necessary, and that also sounds expensive. She also went vegan largely due to my influence because I showed her that it could be tasty, easy, and exciting, so while her views align with veganism, she isn't quite as far along in her journey as I am. I am the "strict" one and we often find ourselves in conversations about why something is exploitative.

I tried to find a "sanctuary" for her and got tickets, but when we went I felt like it wasn't actually a sanctuary. There was no restriction on interacting with the animals, ie. kids could run rampant around animals with no restrictions, no education, etc. It didn't feel right.

We relocated to the Oregon coast where there are tons of unethical roadside zoos and safaris, which obviously isn't an option. Are there any ways to get the experience of interacting with livestock (that word feels gross but not sure what alternative there is) and wild animals in a way that benefits the animals more than the people? Or is this just something that will always have the vibe of exploitation?

This is more of a general question for what options are out there, less so what is specifically near us, of course. There's very little in our area, but we hope to travel and I'm sure she would love if we did something involving animals.