• 4 Posts
  • 104 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 15th, 2023

help-circle



  • I was an active duty surgical tech in the US military; promoted fairly quickly and ranked up to Staff Sergeant at about 3 years. Shortly after taking that rank, we had a perfect storm of deployments, a retirement, a medical separation, etc that left me as the highest ranking enlisted in the surgery unit, which made me (a still-kinda-newby-surgical-tech) taking the responsibilities of basically a charge nurse. Chief among these was attending morning morning briefs with the top dogs of the hospital (high ranking officers) and giving report. Fortunately I knew where to access the OR’s metrics, so my report was always just a summary of our case load, average times, etc.

    This lasted only about a week until we got a new Master Sergeant and Tech Sergeant. Apparently I got some pretty high praise from those top dogs for stepping up (not like I had a choice) and doing a decent job – but that was PURE luck lol. I only did well because things went relatively smoothly on their own. If there was an emergency or something I would have had no fucking clue what to do; and all the junior enlisted seemed to just know that I wouldn’t have been able to do shit for them during that time, so everyone kept the smaller fires to themselves during that time.

    It was a weird time.


  • This is a weird one, but grocery stores for cultures other than my own.

    For one, there’s SO MUCH cool shit and delicious foods I never even knew existed. I think the biggest factor though is it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to actually traveling. Can’t afford the real thing.

    While I also love their restaurants and cultural events, there’s something about being served or attempting to showcase major cultural highlights in some event that kills the authenticity of the experience.

    In their grocery stores, I’m surrounded by that same culture, but none of it’s about me: the other shoppers don’t give a fuck about me, the staff only interact at the checkout… and other than that it’s just me and a can of… some kind of sauce? I can’t read it… but some elderly Asian woman just grabbed two of them and the rest of her cart is filled with what will undeniably become an amazing meal… fuck it, I’ll give it shot!

    The drinks and junk food too are also usually a safe option to find something both very different from what I’m used to and very tasty.

    Definitely spent more than a few bucks on things that weren’t… eh… compatible with my palette, but finding out is part of the experience.

    Idk. Weird thing to get excited about, but it’s a good time.





  • Gotcha - shouldn’t be an issue with digging to get to the good stuff. That’s more of a small parrot thing with like parakeets and cockatiels.

    If he’s eating some I’d just keep an eye on him. Fresh stuff you don’t want to sit for very long, but seeds and pellets can stay in a dish practically indefinitely until they’re eaten.

    If he’s not eating at all, or less than normal, vet ASAP. Parrots are REALLY good at hiding symptoms, so any sickness that’s bad enough to make a noticeable change in their behavior means it’s already gotten pretty bad.

    For food, just make sure he’s got a good mix - fruits, veggies, nuts, pellets… I’ve never had a macaw, so I’d look up any diet weirdness for them specifically, but in general, variety is good.






  • We’re ultimately ‘just a tech’. We make enough to pay the bills, but not enough to make things like the check engine light not-terrifying.

    It’s a good foot-in-the-door job, especially if your path of entry is like mine (enlisted USAF, they just told me “You’re going to be a surgical tech!” and I was like “Cool! …what the fuck is a surgical tech?” and they covered all my training for it).

    I generally discourage people from actually paying to go through a surgical tech school, cuz if you can afford that, then you can afford to go to nursing school, and nurses make about twice what we do.

    Super cool experience, but not a good long-term career choice.





  • Stupid doctors. Starting in the medical field, I had this notion that a doctor is this kind of universally intelligent, best-of-humanity kind of person.

    Some of them are.

    But some of them are absolute dumbasses who happen to have a photographic memory that carried them through med school… Like, full blown trumpanzee, falls for conspiracy theory bullshit, superstitious nutjob, knuckle-dragging, slack-jawed idiot.

    It shouldn’t be possible. No one who makes it through med school should be mentally capable of instantly plummeting to the rock-bottom of stupid as soon as they step foot outside of their field of study (which fortunately most of those types deliver at least passable quality of care).


  • Veteran here. Speculation - take it for what’s it’s worth (not shit). There’s a weird notion that the military is always just going to default to red, and while the total count definitely does lean red (cuz, y’know… most of us are fuckin dumbasses who vote against out own interests…) there IS a split… maybe… idk, 60-40? Point is there’s a lot more blue in the military than we’re typically painted as.

    So, civil war. First off, not gonna happen cuz we don’t have the spine for it. We’ll just continue to bitch at eachother from the comfort of our couches; and while that bitching will probably get louder and we’ll probably see some increase in domestic terrorism, it will not get to the point of actual war. But if we did… the military isn’t going to just pick a side; it’ll turn into the world’s largest shitshow of infighting. Then once we’ve sufficiently hamstrung ourselves, we’re going to get our asses handed to us by the enemies across the globe we’ve been collecting like fucking pokemon via our shitty foreign policy.

    Tldr, the sides of our civil war are basically two yipping lapdogs that will bark louder and louder at eachother until we eventually prompt our pissed off neighbor to come over with a shotgun. The actual war that happens will kill both dogs well before we get to the point of a civil war.


  • Using separate tags for “LEWD” vs “GORE” Has been a request on Reddit since practically day 1.

    The fediverse is an evolution from things like Reddit, so I’m a bit surprised this wasn’t a day-1 feature here and that we’re still having the exact same conversation.

    Community-provided custom tags would be a nice feature too. There’s some artsy content that toes the line, but even if it’s like some really cool body paint, or a tattoo or something, I still don’t want surprise tits on my screen in the middle of the break room. That would be a nice way to one-click block the 700 or so furry porn communities on Lemmy.

    …or block the 700 or so sports communities if you’re not interested in sports; this isn’t necessarily just a blood vs boobs problem as it is a content (of any kind) filtering problem.