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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • Funnily enough, GDPR/cookie laws say denying consent needs to be as easy as granting consent.
    I’ve noticed a few websites with “Deny All” buttons next to the “Save Preferences” button. So, some people are paying attention to the law.
    I’m pretty sure your country will have a site/service for reporting non-compliant websites.



  • I was 8 when I moved to the US. It was bizarre. Obviously, as an outsider, I felt I had to fit in. I never questioned it. I didn’t understand it. I just said the words.
    I guess at some point you understand the words (I left the US before then), but by that point it’s probably become a habit. It’s still the thing that everyone else in the class does. And you still want to fit in.
    Never mind understanding the politics of the US that you have the right to not do something that is habitual and seems completely normal.



  • Timpsons apparently has really interesting business models.
    A friend of mine has worked on a few of their conferences, and apparently it’s both fascinating and they come across as a genuinely wholesome business.

    It’s a franchise, but the franchisee (ie the shop) has complete control over what they sell and what services they provide (I dunno if there are any guard rails). So if they want to offer dry cleaning, they can. If they want to offer phone repairs, they can. If they want to only partially offer something, then they can rely on the Timpsons service network to provide the actual service (so dry cleaning without owning dry cleaning equipment).

    https://www.timpson.co.uk/about-timpson

    The management teams delegate authority but retain responsibility and we have only 2 rules:

    • Look the part
    • Put the money in the till

    And apparently they look after their staff really well. Actually good/useful perks & benefits. In addition to the compassionate leave you’ve mentioned, I’m sure my friend said something about timpsons owning some property that they allow their staff to book for free (like free accomodation for holidays). Or maybe they do block bookings of stuff, or something. I wasn’t hugely paying attention tbh.





  • My first GP phonecall to get an in-person appointment resulted in a tiny piece of paper with suicide/help hotlines, and an ADHD form.
    I was worried about ADHD and Bipolar. I wasn’t myself. At all. It got pretty bad.

    After an in person appointment and me failing to fill in my form (edit: or not filling it in correctly, I guess?), a referral to a psychiatrist wasn’t justified and I heard no more.

    I eventually seeked private healthcare for this.
    And proper private healthcare, not that fucking “better health” or whatever that YouTube ad is. From actual doctors from an actual clinic.
    After a 1 hour consultation and £300, I felt listened to.
    The psychiatrist identified both ADHD and Bipolar traits, but said they were not significant enough compared to the depression. Treat the depression first, then circle back to the other possible issues.

    6 months on SNRIs, and I can’t believe the difference.
    I don’t feel like I’m struggling with memory loss. The traits I thought could be ADHD (hyperfocus sessions and yet easily distracted - exclusively) became manageable. The every day tasks suddenly were accomplishable. I haven’t tracked my mood very closely, but I’m either on a 2 month hypomania streak or this is actually just what I’m normally like and I can’t remember what feeling normal actually is. So maybe any bipolar I do have isn’t impacting my life so much.

    It took 6 months between the GP disappointment and seeking private care for it.
    It’s the best fucking £300 I’ve ever spent.
    The reason I got there, as opposed to accepting the GPs diagnosis, was a colleague talked about their experience. They talked about their depression, a failed visit to a GP, seeking a 2nd opinion, getting meds, and turning their life around.
    They said “don’t stop until you feel heard. Don’t stop until you agree with the doctor”.




  • Yeh, mental health issues are just health issues.
    It took me a while to realise that. A broken brain (whether Alzheimer’s, chronic depression or whatever) is just like a broken leg (or broken arm, or chronic back pain or whatever).

    You don’t ask someone with a broken leg or chronic back pain to help you move house.
    I guess it’s easier to tell when someone has a physical injury, which probably removes some of the stigma around talking about it.






  • It’s probably the whole “yeh, still capitalism. Still big oil. Still big pharma. Still genocide and world-police”.
    And you show that Dems are better on all those things. But because Dems don’t fully SOLVE 4/4 of them, it doesn’t matter who you vote for because you still get fucked.

    It’s bullshit.
    Dems have more social benefit policies and track record of social improvements than reps.
    ACA, vet funding/care, insulin etc pricing, student loans. Hopefully things like unions, but idk if I have been caught up in propaganda that Dems don’t care about unions.