What is your labor background?

[invader_gvim]

I have worked construction and manual labor jobs my entire life because I live in a rural wasteland where coal mining is the only career. I move soon and it will be amazing. The big city sounds exciting

How has your job treated you? How have you treated your job? Are you happy with where you are and what do you plan to do one day?

In what do you find value in yourself? I hope that its in something cooler than what you do at work. For me, I find value in my irl friendships and the art / writing that I make. I also find value in the things I learn and the people I meet.

[Rosaria Delacroix]

I've had the fairly privileged position of being able to primarily focus on my education- though I have done private art commissions in the past, mostly to fund specific goals (such as my noise cancelling earbuds that I needed to get through university, due to sensory processing issues from my autism, and some application fees prior to student loans/grants hitting my bank account.)

Catering to private clientele soured me entirely on trying to make a living through my art, especially as many of the men did not understand personal boundaries and tried to strongarm their way into forcing access or a personal relationship. The people were the worst part of the work- I'm a fast, efficient painter, but dealing with the tedium of the nth man hitting on me over email exchanges or trying to hunt down my personal address made it way more hassle than it was worth.

Life in a big city is thrilling- cities never sleep, and for all of its faults, there was always something interesting going on in downtown Toronto. You could never be bored, not really. Something not enough people talk about, though, is a particular brand of loneliness that comes with high powered metropolitan spaces- feeling lonely, when you aren't alone.

They're often spaces where connections are fleeting, temporary- not by personal insult or slight, but a natural consequence of people moving out of high cost of living cities after attaining higher education, wanting to start a family, or finding a career elsewhere. Cities are, generally, a young, single man's game- or if you're older, wealthy, and have high medical needs, due to much better access to hospitals and related facilities.

The high volume of people you encounter sort of gives way to a general indifference- people in larger cities, I've found, are not warm, but they are polite. They tend to also be flakier- because there's little by way of social consequence, as there might be in a smaller area, as you can absolutely never see them again if you decide you'd rather not. You might find yourself missing the sense of vague familiarity and community that comes with living around the same group of people, making small talk at the grocery store, a friendly smile- people are strangers in a big city, and tend to be aloof.

They normally mind their own business: it would be too exhausting to operate any other way. Plus, all the panhandlers and charlatans roaming around and sniffing out targets- especially if you look young and vulnerable, tend to put people on edge. Your head held high, a strong stride, and a brisk manner tend to be valuable in deflecting unwanted attention from those looking for a soft mark.

It's not to say that cities aren't fantastic- they are, and the opportunities they carry alone can be life changing. But it's a very different, faster pace of life- and the shock of it to the system can result in a lot of transplants struggling to adjust. I would strongly encourage you to build and maintain your support network- to keep in touch with old friends, and/or actively seek out activities that will bring you into recurrent contact with others: a group sport, or hobby, tend to be good for this. It can be an anchor in an anonymous sea of people.

Take time to enjoy the sights- I hope you fall in love with the big city. I certainly know that my time in them has shaped me. But don't forget: it's a bit of a double edged sword, being around so many people. Easier to connect with others: and to fade into the crowd.

As for myself- I find a lot of value in my creative work. Writing is foundational to my life- language is my main modality of interacting with the world, especially with my aphantasia. Drawing has been a source of joy and pride- particularly after I taught myself from the ground up after a catastrophic injury. I also enjoy my personal relationships- my older brother and I are very close.

[starbreaker]

When I was 12 I worked illegally and under the table (for untaxed cash) as a barback.

When I was 16 I started working as a supermarket janitor.

When I was 21 I got my first job as a programmer fixing Y2K bugs.

I'm still a janitor even as a software developer; half the time I'm cleaning up after other programmers.

There is no dignity or lasting value in my work. I build cathedrals on quicksand. I'm only in it for the money, and seek emotional fulfillment outside my day job.

[invader_gvim]

When I was 12 I worked illegally and under the table (for untaxed cash) as a barback.

When I was 16 I started working as a supermarket janitor.

When I was 21 I got my first job as a programmer fixing Y2K bugs.

I'm still a janitor even as a software developer; half the time I'm cleaning up after other programmers.

There is no dignity or lasting value in my work. I build cathedrals on quicksand. I'm only in it for the money, and seek emotional fulfillment outside my day job.

I relate to this also. Particularly the desire for recognition and expertise. I feel very proletarian but not in the cool way. Working underground, in a tunnel which would be eaten by the earth once the coal was gone in a few months, it made me really wish I could do something that lasted.


This hit very hard. I remember when I used to be a man, having that horrible feeling. The ability to cry and to just have emotions is a freedom that half of the population should not be deprived of!

I program for fun. I wrote the GUI for a music player and my friend is doing the sdl part of it. Sometimes I've fantasized about being a programmer but I've seen stories like yours and other people's and it has definitely told me that its not worth it. Also the money isn't that good anyway. Its off to the factory with me - literally. I start work there tomorrow lol.

I've had the fairly privileged position of being able to primarily focus on my education- though I have done private art commissions in the past, mostly to fund specific goals (such as my noise cancelling earbuds that I needed to get through university, due to sensory processing issues from my autism, and some application fees prior to student loans/grants hitting my bank account.)

Catering to private clientele soured me entirely on trying to make a living through my art, especially as many of the men did not understand personal boundaries and tried to strongarm their way into forcing access or a personal relationship. The people were the worst part of the work- I'm a fast, efficient painter, but dealing with the tedium of the nth man hitting on me over email exchanges or trying to hunt down my personal address made it way more hassle than it was worth.

Life in a big city is thrilling- cities never sleep, and for all of its faults, there was always something interesting going on in downtown Toronto. You could never be bored, not really. Something not enough people talk about, though, is a particular brand of loneliness that comes with high powered metropolitan spaces- feeling lonely, when you aren't alone.

They're often spaces where connections are fleeting, temporary- not by personal insult or slight, but a natural consequence of people moving out of high cost of living cities after attaining higher education, wanting to start a family, or finding a career elsewhere. Cities are, generally, a young, single man's game- or if you're older, wealthy, and have high medical needs, due to much better access to hospitals and related facilities.

The high volume of people you encounter sort of gives way to a general indifference- people in larger cities, I've found, are not warm, but they are polite. They tend to also be flakier- because there's little by way of social consequence, as there might be in a smaller area, as you can absolutely never see them again if you decide you'd rather not. You might find yourself missing the sense of vague familiarity and community that comes with living around the same group of people, making small talk at the grocery store, a friendly smile- people are strangers in a big city, and tend to be aloof.

They normally mind their own business: it would be too exhausting to operate any other way. Plus, all the panhandlers and charlatans roaming around and sniffing out targets- especially if you look young and vulnerable, tend to put people on edge. Your head held high, a strong stride, and a brisk manner tend to be valuable in deflecting unwanted attention from those looking for a soft mark.

It's not to say that cities aren't fantastic- they are, and the opportunities they carry alone can be life changing. But it's a very different, faster pace of life- and the shock of it to the system can result in a lot of transplants struggling to adjust. I would strongly encourage you to build and maintain your support network- to keep in touch with old friends, and/or actively seek out activities that will bring you into recurrent contact with others: a group sport, or hobby, tend to be good for this. It can be an anchor in an anonymous sea of people.

Take time to enjoy the sights- I hope you fall in love with the big city. I certainly know that my time in them has shaped me. But don't forget: it's a bit of a double edged sword, being around so many people. Easier to connect with others: and to fade into the crowd.

As for myself- I find a lot of value in my creative work. Writing is foundational to my life- language is my main modality of interacting with the world, especially with my aphantasia. Drawing has been a source of joy and pride- particularly after I taught myself from the ground up after a catastrophic injury. I also enjoy my personal relationships- my older brother and I are very close.

I just  ewwwww! I also did commission work for a long time, so I sympathize. A lot of the commission stories I wrote were for people who felt lonely in their interests, and maybe a little unfairly judged. They felt a connection due to our shared interest, but I did not share the connection. Honestly I still ""do commission work"", but I no longer seek them out, advertise myself, or anything like that. It's been over a year now since I've wrote a commission story for anyone and I'm glad about it.

Heck yeah I'm gonna seek out clubs! I am very much looking forward to what the activist circles in the city are like, and I'm hopefully going to be able to do homeless outreach again. In a lot of ways now that I'm a new me, I want to be around people who don't think of me as the old me, but as for my friends - the kind of people who text me and meet me for fun - those people will always be my true family now and forever.

One club that I'm sort of being dragged into by my husband is a group of Twin Peaks enthusiasts. I like the show Twin Peaks, but Dib really, really loves it.

Linux User Groups have always fascinated me and I super hope that I can find one.

A Linux User Group would be full of people who think its turbo kewl to browse melonland using a terminal browser like Lynx.

[drmollytov]

I'm currently a high school librarian, but I got here by a pinball route. Fifteen years ago I was a corporate attorney! I've done a bunch of other things as well.

The one thing I've done most consistently is write. Writing has made up a chunk of my annual income for 25 years now. For a lot of those years, that chunk was "100%." (It's currently about 40%, because being a teacher librarian doesn't pay as well as you'd think, given all the degrees it requires!)

I've also been a medical records clerk, a nonprofit's PR person, a co-founder of a small press, a college English instructor, a figure skating coach, and hauled water to fill swimming pools. I was a farmhand and a botanist's assistant for about 18 years too - but that was childhood so I'm not sure it counts, even if it did give me mad survival skills.

[Kallistero]

I'm effectively working for myself right now, and work that I do for myself is generally just more fulfilling than work that I do for anyone else.

Over the past years, I've changed paths enough to be fairly well-rounded, too. I can weld, I can lead people, I can do some cooking, I can design physical products, I can work safely with electricity, work in a laboratory, maintain my car, make sales, deal with children, turn complicated technical work into workable instructions or communications or training, write & deploy full-stack Web applications, build custom furniture (or product prototypes, it's not the most different  ), repair my own computers & cell phones & other electronics, parse through a lot of data & paperwork without being initially familiar with it, and I am never ever above being on the ground floor shoulder to shoulder with my people doing footwork & manual labor if it's what gets the job done. 

The people at my jobs generally treated me well, I've treated them well, but I've motioned away from needing an employer at all. I'm productive without needing anyone to tell me to be, and this past month has driven that home. This January has been the most time I've spent working in a long time, and the motivation for that comes from it being my own work toward my own visions of things.

I'm setting in motion what I "plan to do one day," for me to create... I'll call them wonders.    I think it's a blessing to have a life's work or a passion that other work wound up building toward. It's a way out of work being a miserable experience, and it's probably something people can't choose to have.

I can take pride in being a capable person with some skill & knowledge in a lot of things, but what I value, in a way, has more to do with what I don't know. It's my curiosity. That's definitely manifested professionally, but there's really more to know about absolutely everything!