u/trouble-in-space

hello, apologies for my ignorance since i don’t know very much at all about investing. i started using acorns back in january, and at first i just invested $5 a week with round-ups on. i wasn’t really making anything, so to get more out of it, i started doing $30 a week instead, keeping round-ups, a couple of months ago. obviously it’s july now, but even after this, i haven’t seen much, if any, improvement. it says i’ve made $5.18 total, but with the $3 monthly subscription fee, then of course i’ve just been losing money. i just have a part-time, basically minimum wage job right now, so i’m not making very much money in general. i’m not super keen on investing a bunch more money because of this, but i would add some more if i know for sure i’ll see some results. do i just need to wait for the stock market to be doing better, and/or just invest in more stocks? (i probably phrased that poorly) how much do you add if you’ve gained more than you’ve lost?

i haven’t called out before so i’m a bit worried. i posted my shift when the schedule first came out as an offered shift, and now it’s in a couple days so i’m assuming no one’s going to take it. i’ve seen that you could just call out the day before or day of if no one covers your shift but that seems kinda… wrong? maybe i just still have some stress from my old job that had a strict call-out and time-off policy, but wouldn’t you still be responsible for getting coverage for the shift? could i really just call out or would i get a time violation or something like that for it? also do you have to tell them why you’re calling out cause i feel like saying that i’m out of town won’t be excused lol

i'm truly tired of driving, and maybe i'm just being kinda dramatic because i'm still getting over crying rn but after today i just don't want to drive ever again. today i had my third lesson with driving school, and the first time went better than i thought considering that it was my first time driving in general and i felt like i did decently. the second time went not so great but i kind of just deluded myself into thinking things were fine, i'll do better next time, driving is actually kind of fun, other bs i was trying to calm myself down with. i didn't get in an accident or almost get into one today, but overall i did pretty horrible and it was stressful.

i'm supposed to be practicing outside of lessons, but i can't because NO ONE in my life wants to help me practice. i've asked my boyfriend a couple times if i could practice a little bit with him and even he's just like "you don't have your license though" no shit! i need to practice to get the license! i don't blame him or anyone in my family for saying no - i don't have my own car (and i can't afford one so maybe i just shouldn't be driving in the first place) so i would be practicing in one of theirs and obviously i get they would be worried that i would crash or be an unsafe driver. still, it honestly hurts. they ask at driving school if i've practiced between lessons, so i just lie and say yes because they say you HAVE to get outside practice. obviously that's stupid that i lied about it though.

anyway, yeah, today was bad and i just couldn't get it. the instructor had me on the freeway for most of the time, and it started getting bad when i had to keep practicing lane changes. i'd accidentally slow my speed, take too long to look because i was nervous, misjudge my distance, and turn into the lane too fast or too hard. i hate how everything with driving is so specific, and everyone has to do things exactly right in exactly the same way and everything else is wrong.

i won't share all the details of the lesson because that would take forever, but it's like once things got bad, they just stayed that way for me. i was just constantly doing something wrong. too slow, too fast, braking too late, looking in the mirrors too long, not looking in the mirrors enough, turning too late, turning too early, i could go on forever. i was just totally losing my mind. the instructor yelled a few times, which he hadn't done the first two times i drove with him, and it was stressing me out even more to the point i just couldn't handle anything anymore. it felt like my brain just totally shut off and all i could focus on was just not crashing. he said "you're not getting this" to refer to just my driving in general and i couldn't do it anymore. i literally almost missed a turn because i somehow thought he was referring to the next intersection over and literally mixed up my left and right twice. i don't blame him at all - i think it was a really stressful situation for both of us.

at the point i started crying, it was even when i was already off the freeway. it was like just going on easy residential roads which i did just fine on the literal first time i drove was way more difficult than it ever should be. again, it's not like i killed anyone or got even close to crashing the car, but i just made so many stupid mistakes and all of this happening at once was just bad. when i started tearing up, i just kept thinking about how embarrassing everything was and how stupid i am for crying right now and then i just couldn't stop crying until we got back to the building. then i got home and cried more. i cry really easily in times of pressure, but it still just always embarrasses me and makes me feel like i'm making a complete fool out of myself. i'm an adult and i don't want to be crying over every little thing, especially while driving where having strong emotions is actually dangerous.

i absolutely do not want to go back there, but i only have one lesson left. i refuse to do it without getting practice first, but no one will practice with me, so i guess i'm just going to keep having this problem. i feel like i just shouldn't drive, and i really wouldn't if i didn't have to. i live in a shitty area that is totally unwalkable. there's no way i could get to my work or even the closest store without driving or getting a ride. i can't afford to get an uber every time i need to go somewhere, nor do i want to have to depend on other people for rides because it eventually just makes them resent you. my family has also spent so much on these lessons for me, and it would be really awful if i just let it all go to waste. not driving for any longer just isn't an option for me anymore, but if i keep going like this, i'm probably going to get into an accident eventually. everyone else i know that drives is doing just fine and got their license easily, so i kind of just don't know what to do anymore. i hate driving and i hate that you can't live without it. i hate modern technology but i would take a self-driving car over having to do this any day.

(edit: nvm forgot to mention i almost side swiped someone 😭)

i'm sure this is a dumb question to ask but since we are here on reddit, i'm assuming most people on this sub spend a lot of time online. i was 14 when tiktok blew up and i just never got it even though i was in the target age group for it for sure. even people i knew back then who hated tiktok and refused to get on it have all started using it within the past few years. i wonder if the social pressure just came to be too much for them, because you really cannot escape tiktok anywhere. i guess i get it because not using tiktok has definitely hurt me socially somewhat, but i don't get out a lot anyways so i try not to let it get to me. i've never gotten a single understanding reaction when i've had to tell people irl that i don't use tiktok when they reference something from there - it's always people being shocked and barely even being able to believe it lol. even from my friends. i've had to remind one of my best friends that i'm not on it multiple times because she just couldn't believe it. also, i seriously wonder how it's been like eight years now and there hasn't been a single new social media app to emerge and become the next big thing since.

i feel like since i have pretty much every other social media, i see tons of reposted content from tiktok all the time. instagram reels is pretty much just also tiktok at this point. i feel like i'm addicted enough to a lot of other social media, so why get another app which fully consists of short-form video content that will make me even dumber and give me an even shorter attention span? also, since it's been eight years, i feel like there wouldn't even be any reason to download it at this point since it's so late now. i won't repeat all the same problems everyone has said tiktok has, but the u.s. g/vernm/nt just heavily censoring it and the app itself silencing and censoring users for talking about things that i can't write about here because of rule 4 absolutely solidified my decision to never use it. people would say they would stop using tiktok after that and then got back on it again after like a day.

also, is it just me or is the vast majority of content on there just... really not funny and mostly annoying? i always have to fake laugh whenever friends or my boyfriend show me a clip from a tiktok. i think a ton of stupid nonsensical shit is hilarious, but i really don't understand tiktok humor to the point it genuinely makes me feel like there's something different about me mentally. people i know like my coworkers who are seriously tiktok addicted also just tend to have the worst personalities and it's genuinely difficult to interact with them or be around them. i seriously don't mean to sound pretentious and no i don't think i'm better than anyone so i'm really sorry if i'm coming across that way. i don't think tiktok should be taken down or anything, and i really have found a lot of helpful videos from there that i would find reposted on instagram or youtube, but i feel like people do way more harm than good on there. anyway... anyone else never use it?

these are NEVER anonymous! we should be able to access them from a work device without having to log in or something, but no. i had to take one of these that was supposedly anonymous, but it made me enter my employee id AND my birthdate for some reason. these suck because they feel like they should finally be a place where you can be honest about the gripes you have with the company, the job, the managers, etc, but instead you feel like you have to lie and give more positive responses than you want to because you have no idea who's going to see it. why would i want my store manager to know that i don't think they help create a positive environment to work at or something like that. no, my work isn't important to me. i just do what i have to to get my paycheck and leave! maybe i'm just being paranoid, and i am totally honest with some responses, but i don't want negative ones to be easily traced back to me. there's no reason why these surveys shouldn't be totally anonymous. fuck you corporate.

i use a dell inspiron 15 computer running on windows 11. neither of my browsers will allow me to search for anything for apparently no reason. for example, i just search up “google.com” on microsoft edge and it just opens an error page that says “the connection for this site is not secure. www.google.com sent an invalid response.” i do the same on chrome, and it shows the “this site can’t be reached. the webpage at https://www.google.com/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.” searching for anything else does the same thing, so you get the picture.

i’m not connected to my vpn, i have no internet issues, and i haven’t downloaded anything new since the last time i used my computer. the date and time on my computer are correct. clearing cache and cookies didn’t work. i’ve shut the computer off and turned it back on multiple times. before i got these error messages, webpages were loading really slowly and some of them weren’t working, and now none of them do. i’m not tech savvy and i don’t see any reason why this would happen so i’m kind of at a loss.

i'm about to be 22 years old and i finally did it! i was really scared of driving ever since i was old enough to do it because of just general anxiety and being in my mom's car during a bad accident that happened when i was 13, plus up until last year i lived in a really walkable area and was really close to my work so i felt like i didn't have much need to drive, but i finally studied up to get my permit a couple months ago. i've been doing driving school and it's definitely expensive, but i knew there was no way i could be a confident and skilled enough driver without it. i did four sessions with a simulator first, which were definitely a little stressful but at least i made some improvement. for some reason i had the feeling that practicing in an actual car would be easier for me, and thankfully i was right! the lesson was an hour and-a-half and it went really well. i only really got nervous when learning to park (especially reversing) but my instructor was super helpful and so was having a back camera on the car lol. definitely made some small mistakes but nothing that could have been actually dangerous to other drivers or pedestrians. i don't think i'll ever be someone who goes on drives for fun or anything like that, but honestly driving a real car was kind of fun for me and i'm excited to finally have that independence and freedom that having a license brings 🥳

former partner here and i thought this was crazy. i haven’t checked the starbucks app in a while and i noticed the store closest to me (i’ve moved since working at starbucks) is open 3am to 11pm. i thought my old store opening at 4:30 was bad. is this a common thing? would they really be getting enough customers at this time? i feel like having to work that early/late should get people extra pay but i’m sure the company wouldn’t do that. having to come in at 2:30am seems more like a night shift than an early morning shift.