A hug is a standard greeting between well-acquainted men in Sweden, so yeah. I hug my friends and family.
At that point, you’re basically just listening to podcasts. Leaning into it might be a good choice, since there’s no visual element that gets lost when listening to podcasts, as compared to YouTube videos.
Those things sound super great… but they’re of course all meant to keep you working around the clock, meeting deadlines.
This is not going to be universally true at all big tech-companies. There are places with perfectly reasonable WLB on top of huge salaries and fantastic perks.
These places are usually big enough that you’re going to see extremes on both ends within the same company - some departments with huge deadline pressure cultures, and some with highly relaxed work settings. It can be a bit of a gamble.
I don’t know that I’d use ‘insanely’ as the modifier here as their position has weakened significantly over time, but they do certainly still play a large role in the Swedish labour market.
For the sophisticated sparkling beverage connoisseur.
I didn’t graduate from university.
In order to get some more money, I decided to take a TA-position at the school.
For context, I live in Sweden - university costs nothing to attend here, and you get access to a mix of governmental assistance and near-zero interest loans (at about 1/3 assistance 2/3 loans) to finance your living costs while attending university. To get this money you are required to get passing grades in a certain percentage of the courses you take, around 75% is required). If you do not meet these requirements, you lose your benefits, and quickly risk not being able to afford food and rent.
This TA-position however took up more time than I thought it would, and as such, I didn’t manage to pass the courses I was taking. Since I no longer met the passing grades requirement, I could no longer get student loans and assistance, meaning that I had to keep working TA gigs to stay afloat. This finally became untenable, and I decided to drop out and move to another city and look for work.
So far, it’s worked out extremely well. I’ve been ridiculously lucky.
While we’re on the toxic masculinity train - can you really call yourself a man if you brought the groceries home by car? I doubt it, tbh.
It’s a tool like any other, appropriate under some circumstances and inappropriate in others.
Blindly rejecting it without considering whether it’s appropriate in the context is honestly just as bad as choosing it without considering whether it’s appropriate in the context, fwiw.
I was previously convinced that taking cold showers was my only saving grace during hot summers, but this year I got the advice to try to take a warm shower a short while before bed, and I’m surprised to say that it has helped. This is for high 20s though so YMMV for sure.
Other things that help: