I don’t think it’s the isolation, but the endless beige monotony.

I didn’t mind my cubefarm when I was immersed in the cube, but it was hella depressing in the morning coming into that environment. Made me feel like a worn cog in the machine. Lunch, standing up to a beige hellscape, sucked all my creativity (which wasn’t great, as a designer).

Open floor plan, when that became the alternative, was worse, though.

Working from home is ideal. I haven’t been able to work for a few years, so maybe I’m out of touch, but I can’t fathom why anyone is against working from home, especially in software dev. It’s the best of all worlds – no office space fees, and most of us will work extra hours in our cosy environment. I was more productive in that environment than ever, and would even work outside hours without reporting it because I was just happy to be creating things.

The ballot presented the status quo (which is far less than ideal, sure, but included a normal human) vs outright Fascism with a Capital F, and millions of people shirked their civic duty because they didn’t like the dem candidate enough.

When Fascism is setting fires on your doorstep and you’re too busy arguing about the feng shui in the living room to bother calling in firefighters, yeah, it’s your fault.

Like it or not, the biggest group to sway 2024 were abstainers. If the number of voters who turned out for dems in 2020 had fucking bothered, we wouldn’t be staring down the barrel of historic progressive policy rollbacks, cuts to social services that will kill the disabled and elderly, the funnelling of your own money into the pockets of billionaires on a scale never before imagined, the systematic dismantling of democracy, and the institution of a theocracy.

If you are one of those who couldn’t be bothered for whatever reason, congrats, and you need to sit down and shut the fuck up for the next 4 years or so. You surrendered your right to have your opinion considered when you failed to do the bare minimum to stop a convicted felon, conman, and traitor from gaining power over us all again. We fucking warned you.

e: just saw your other reply. If you were disenfranchised, my comment is not meant for you, and I’m sorry for my vitriol – that’s a travesty, and that should not have happened to you. My comment is meant for the ‘both-siders’ who were (and still are) everywhere leading up to the election.

Johnson also hinted at tying aid to debt ceiling negotiations

Some of us here will be directly affected by Johnson’s debt ceiling concessions. How does it feel to be commoditized like this, to the point of your household becoming a bargaining chip?

You, personally, are worth no more to Johnson &co than the number of services Newsom is willing to cut (and thus how many citizens will be pressed) in order to meet Johnson’s demands.

That’s infuriating, and it flies in the face of humanitarianism. Slaps it right in the face.

e: I can’t spell

Also, toddlers make for amazing meat shields. Nobody can deny that. What sort of monster would shoot you in the head when there’s a toddler protecting it? That’s just simple logic.