By sought after I mean the hospitals searching for us. As you say, my hospital is bringing in high schoolers to intern because the industry basically has no pipeline for workers because most of the old guard are still there but retiring and/or dying off so suddenly there’s a massive lack in a very tiny pool caused by it basically not being advertised until very recently.

Hell, even moving to another state is an expense most americans can not afford. Especially with the absurdity of rent prices being, in some places, as much as monthy minimum wage is, if not higher.

OH MY GOD THANK YOU! So many people don’t get that when you’re in a shitty red state it’s REALLY REALLY hard to get out because someone making California wages has absolute way more than we do. Sure, they’re broke as shit there because the prices are high, and that sucks, but then if you’re coming from Missouri to California, the phrase “fucked” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

It’s telling that I say I clawed my way out of Arkansas and Missouri was my “better”

The captain of your sinking country is throwing citizens overboard, and you remain in line? Move!?

Hahahahahahaha… you sound like one of our republicans.

I work as a biomed, a sector of repairing medical equipment that is a sought after career field, desperately needed. Been doing it for five years, and I like to think I’m damn good at my job.

I also only have an associates degree.

There are not many countries that will take me with only that associates degree. It’s like I tell conservatives who do the “Don’t like it, move”, being from the US isn’t some special wonderful status that gets us open doors into other countries. Other countries don’t want us like the Republicans don’t want foreigners from other countries, unless they’re wealthy.

I mean sure… but how the fuck does one fix when the population of a country is now living in two separate realities? I make my comment because our political divide is still the same ones that lead to the original Civil War and the wounds have been allowed to fester for the past century and a half. So now we’re a country where both sides are sure the other side is morally evil… and honestly I’m at the point where I can’t even disagree with that when I understand that’s a problem so I’m definitely at… well… we’re fucked?

If you got a better idea… good luck.

Oh I get it completely. There’s a bunch of subreddits I miss, my industry I work in which is very niche, leatherworking, heck even the motorcycle community in Lemmy is… lacking.

On the other part you brought in… OH BOY! Unhinged TED talk time.

So I live relatively close to the Royals and the Chiefs stadiums. John Sherman, gas magnate, the owner of the Royals decided he wanted to move the stadium to downtown, where things have been picking up. Specifically he wanted it in the Crossroads where there’s a lot of local community shops and everything, because he wanted it near Power and Light district where there’s bars and the like which… oh right, he owns a lot of. Troubles came up that the stadium proposals took foooooooorever to even come up, looked like it was drawn on a napkin instead of anything serious, and wanted a tax levy to be put on the city to continue one that still hasn’t been paid off for the last time the two stadiums were built. The whole time saying “Look how the stadiums bring business in!”… the area around the two stadiums have managed to keep a Denny’s and a Taco Bell alive, the big resort hotel couldn’t even survive. Yea… real great for business.

Another trouble is… as I say, I am one of those who actively detests sports… I wish I could find the post, there’s an old Reddit post describing what not liking sports was like and used archeology in how it invades everything around you so it’s easy to go from “I couldn’t care less” to “Okay, I hate this thing now. It is insufferable.” I say all that to say, just paying any attention to the news I knew at the time the Royals was the second worst team in the MLB, they were that bad. So they knew they couldn’t get this move off the ground so they went to the Chiefs who was the most recent superbowl winner which of course was happy to get money their way, and the ad campaign went out. And despite the Royals/Sherman being the push on getting this going, it was all Chiefs all the time. I literally even got a flier in my mail “The liberals are trying to take away our teams!” paid for by the team push, so yay politics even drug in. The whole time threatening “Well if you don’t vote it in, we’ll move. Maybe to Kansas (right over the border) or hey, even Tennessee.” Thing is, the state remembers St. Louis on the other side had the rams, built them a stadium and whoopsiedoodle they packed up and moved to California leaving a city with a stadium and fuck all to do with it.

So we’ve got all sorts of issue in state and local level, but holy fuck all the political pressure since the voters turned down the tax is “How can we keep these teams in Missouri!” And it’s funny, I said I’d be more okay paying for it if we got ANYTHING out of it… I don’t mind paying taxes to keep our zoo going and it’s nice I get a hefty discount when I go, but the Royals and Chiefs are giving a nice hearty “go fuck yourself” for us paying taxes so the billionaires have their teams.

On to the “Why are you a fan?” question you brought up. I don’t question it… but I’ve never understood it. I grew up in Arkansas that never had a pro team so college sports was big… I got to hear the “calling the hogs” my entire life and never comprehended the why. Probably because dad was not a sports guy and had the opinion “Why do I want to watch people play a game?” even though he played in high school and I’ve been pretty much the same. I get the community stuff, and that’s fantastic. I’ve just found a community outside of sports so it doesn’t resound to me. The reason I’ve become so against sports beyond it’s completely impossible to ignore it it’s so inundated in culture, is the sheer amount of money that goes into it in all levels. High school, if you’re one of the “football” schools, your school only has 3-4 sports, all the big stadium ticket getting team sports, the smaller less prestigious schools get more sports like wrestling and the like… guess which situation I ended up in? And watching schools dump money into the sports above all other things like theater, labs, etc. “But it brings in money for the school.” Cool cool… so why are we getting asked for a tax levy so the school can build yet another stadium? Repeat this for the college level so the “Hogs can have a proper place to play!” and now the city with pro teams level. And I hear the ticket prices and think I wouldn’t pay those prices to see my favorite band… and again, those ticket prices and yet we have to pay for their shit?

I’m not a sports guy, I’m pretty anti-sports actually (I can go on absolutely unhinged TED talks about how the local teams are trying to drain the city for taxes… I want to continue, so feel free to ask but not doing it here.) But I agree with you on the niche hobbies and local flavor.

I still have to use Reddit because there hasn’t been a good community for local on Lemmy (yes, I know everyone going “it’s user generated” but I’m like 1 of 5 instead of the hundreds still on reddit) and small hobbies in a lot of the crafting world is non-existent on Lemmy.

I don’t have an answer on this one, just sucks. It’s the trouble of being one of the first ones in the door.

Roughly 160 years behind the 8 ball on fixing the country.

Gonna disagree there, gamers can’t give up pre-ordering games through studios that regularly bait and switch and throwing money at the biggest AAA studios.

So he learned from the video gaming industry?

So, did travel work for my job. Driving long distances was a normal thing, company van.

Had to go to corporate for a training thing. After that, to get home and flying, took me 14 hours. The drive is 12.

Next time I had to get to corporate, company tried to get me a plane ticket and I refused, each time boss tried any reasoning it was responded with “14 GODDAMN HOURS!” I got to drive.

I like flying… as in the act of flying. But I refuse to fly anywhere in a 12 hour driving radius because the entire song and dance before and after I have found maybe I save an hour or two… and I am FAR LESS in a murdery mood.

Frankly over a 12 hour driving distance I still start looking at logistics.

I’ve picked up the gardening hobby and actually seem to be keeping up with it.

Nothing like a crisis where food is looking to be a concern to get ones ass in gear.

For a lot of us even before the election. Yup.

In 2020 I was moving into my house. Late night moving, 3am, I needed food. There’s a McDs across the street. A’ight. Gonna have to happen. Get the shitty little cheeseburgers that’s always been a dollar… no wait, they’re not on the dollar menu… actually there’s no dollar menu… fuck it… there’s the meal for them.

The two shitty cheeseburgers, small fries, small drink, over $8 plus tax.

I’ve never been back to one since.

I don’t think I’d ever leave the makerspace.

Well… fuck.

“I’m a dumbass who’s too embarrassed to say I vote Republican.”