Oh, it's finally over, thank goodness. And you know what? That's the last time I will ever have to do this, and I could not be happier about it.
u/codenameZora asked:
What's your "thank god that's over with and I never have to do it again" thing in your life?
Here were some of the answers.
Never Again
GiphyWorking in a restaurant. I spent ten years of my life in that business both serving and managing. Fives years and 40k in debt later, I finally just started my new career. No offense to anyone that works in the industry or truly loves it, but I came to despise the hospitality business. I could feel it sucking the energy from my soul..
For everyone asking, my 40k in debt is from tuition costs after earning my engineering degree, not from working in restaurants. It's the best money I have ever spent.
What A Mess
I used to work in this absolute sh*t medical job. It was the absolute worst because there wasn't a single good thing about it. The people I worked with were sh*t, the people I interacted with were sh*t. You could go into that place at 5am happy as can be and leave the place after 6 failed bathroom noose'ings just to try again the next day.
When I put in my 2 weeks those feelings amped up to 11. It was like everyone who was sh*t the entire time I was there decided it wasn't enough and leaned into it. Like you got a heaven pass to leave hell and all the demons were pissed that you're getting out and they have to stay behind so they claw at you the whole way out in hopes that you die before you leave.
F*ck hospitals, man.
Keep Going
When I got in my accident I just wanted to be independent again. Had to move back home with my mom and stay in the main floor cause of my wheelchair. They said I'd never walk again. Lots of hard work later, I walk unaided most days. Five years later I'm fully independent and living in my own place with the love of my life!
Just for more info, I broke both my legs and dislocated both knees. Also had heart failure and was resuscitated at the hospital. Unfortunately the army didn't help much, but I had an excellent lawyer to help with the auto insurance company.
There's lots to be thankful for in this life, sometimes you just have to look harder, but you'll find many reasons to keep going.
Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring Ring
GiphyI worked for two weeks in a call center and the entire time I spent staring at my desk. I did this for ten hours a day because the company president was out of the office and they refused to get me setup with a password or let me browse the web etc etc.
After two weeks, I came back the following Monday, started my day and then with nothing changing, I just walked out of the building and went home. My car was broken down at the time, so it took several hours to get home.
Glad that is over and done with. No way I'll ever work in another call center.
Exams Are The Worst
As of yesterday morning, I passed the most extensive and difficult of my three professional licensure exams, and I had this exact thought as I sat in my car outside of the testing center shedding tears of relief. I've been studying for my licensure exams in every free moment since January of this year, now all I have to do is submit the extensive documentation needed and wait for board approval! THANK GOD that's over with and I never have to do it again!
I'm in mental health counseling. I've now passed the NCE (National Counseling Exam) and the NCMHCE (National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination), and am set to become an LPC-MHSP (licensed professional counselor with a mental health service provider designation).
What Goes Around
Child custody court.
F*ck and run mother wanted a child and a check and didn't want me to see our kid.
Fortunately, the judge saw otherwise but the process took 2 years and lots of manipulation by the mother.
Now that he's grown, he wants nothing to do with his mother.
Pushing Through
Running a marathon. Mentally it messed with me and beat me down. I am a VERY slow runner and they had opened the roads back up and the course was no longer marked (they kept finish line up). I was heartbroken and embarrassed that I was literally last. I also didn't know the official course so I ended up running 27miles. I was determined to finish but I will never do that again. Checked off the bucket list!
Family Ties
Caring for an elderly then dying parent. My mom was relatively young when she developed liver cancer (58) and I would take my kids to school and then go to her house and care for her, buy her groceries and meds, take her to chemo and do housework. I'd go pick up my kids and depending on what shift my husband was working I'd either go back until her boyfriend got home or come back the next day. Eventually wound up changing her diapers and sponge bathing her. Read to her when she couldn't talk anymore. About 6 months after she died, my father in law went into the hospital and when he came out, moved into our house. He was a really difficult person to live with and an even more stubborn patient. He lived with us for almost 7 years (he passed at 90) getting more and more ornery and crazy.
I took care of him medically and emotionally, cleaned his room and fed him until he had a heart attack and didn't tell anyone about it for a couple of days. Came out of the hospital in hospice and the last couple of weeks I walked him around the house until he couldn't walk anymore, pushed him in his chair until he couldn't sit anymore, and then rolled him over every couple of hours. Changed his catheter bag, gave him his meds and took care of all the family and friends (and their kids) who came to visit him. I'm all out of parents/inlaws/grandparents and the one good thing is I don't have to do that again. Don't know if I could. It's so darn hard.
I think the thought that made kept me going the most was how I was going to feel about myself when they were gone, did I act in a way that I could live with and not feel guilty. I have absolutely zero regrets in how I treated my parents and that's probably the most freeing thing about their passing. Another coping mechanism was swearing, loudly and creatively where nobody could hear me, and an overly dramatic double middle finger flip off to a closed door. Thank you again for all the nice thoughts and I hope everyone who has to care for compromised loved ones makes it through relatively unscathed. <3
I Did NOT Peak
GiphyMiddle school, and to some extent, high school. Rarely, there are days when I fantasize in becoming a kid again, but then I quickly remember the amount of BS and pain I had to go through during middle school and high school and I immediately tell myself, "You know what, adulthood isn't so bad after all."
Not A Proper Bakery
Working in a bakery at a grocery store. I was basically doing 3 people's worth of work and going back and forth between the -20°f freezer that I could end up being inside of for up to an hour if circumstances decided to screw me and our two 400-600°f ovens that were 7ft tall and caused a fairly sizable gust of air that was so hot I couldn't look into the oven while it was open because it felt like the liquids in my eyes would boil.
Do you ever wonder what it must've been like to experience major events throughout world history when reading about them in text books?
But if you take pause and actually think about it, we're living through many newsworthy current events that succeeding generations will be talking about long after we're gone.
Reading about them online or in newspapers is one thing. But seeing them happen unfold before our eyes is another.
Curious to hear from those who'll have anecdotes to tell in the future, Redditor "What is the most historically significant event you witnessed IN PERSON?"
People recall the natural disaster events they've witnessed.
Tremors
"1964 Good Friday Earthquake 9.2 Richter. Was a boy in Cordova, Alaska at the time."
– KitchenLab2536
"My father was skipper of the USCG cutter stationed there. He was inport, and when the quake struck shortly before 5:30pm, he and my mom gathered me and my three siblings on the front porch. At first, it felt like the house was crumbling at the foundation, but on the porch we could plainly see our whole world was shaking. I remember watching telephone poles swaying, and the wires snapping and crackling in the street. The quake lasted about five minutes initially. My dad got his ship underway to avoid the tidal wave which was sure to come. We had several aftershocks in the coming weeks, some of which were quite strong, though nowhere near as strong or as long as the quake itself. I was seven at the time."
– KitchenLab2536
Collapsing Freeway
"October 17th, 1989. I watched the 880 Nimitz freeway collapse during the San Francisco earthquake. The Honda in front of me had the upper deck crush her front-end engine compartment. The mother and her daughter were shaken up but completely fine."
"I was driving a convertible Triumph Spitfire, which was scratched up slightly from debris. However, I walked away unscathed. Aside from the fact I pissed my pants, which I didn't notice until much later."
– CatDaddyWhisper
Thar She Blows
"I sat on the roof of our house and watched Mt. St. Helens erupt less than 100 miles away."
– stinkykitty71
"This must have been fascinating and terryfing in equal measure. What a thing to witness."
– runrossyrun
"It was amazing! The ash that covered everything like snow was interesting to kid me, but less so to my parents."
– stinkykitty71
People recall seeing major catastrophes as a result of malfunctions or judgement errors.
Bomber Crash
"The b-52 crash that led to changing what large military aircraft are allowed to do for airshows."
"I didn't see the plane, but immediately saw the fireball. It was just a perfect, bright red turning to black mushroom cloud."
"Fairchild is a nuclear air base and there were a few minutes there where I was sure the world was about to end."
"A few years before a KC-135 doing the same thing crashed near the school while we were in class."
– goffstock
Tragic Takeoff
"I was standing on my front porch watching the launch of the Challenger."
– StarChaser_Tyger
"Was riding in my parents car to a basketball game in the next town over in north texas when we saw a shooting star and thought that was neat."
"It was the Columbia..."
– Misdirected_Colors
Demolition Gone Wrong
"The failed implosion of the Zip feed mill in Sioux Falls, SD in 2005."
"They hyped it up, sold tickets to it, had a big 'BOOM' marketing thing, and broadcast it live on TV."
"The explosives took out the main supports on the first floor, and the rest of the building above it just plopped down 10ft or so and came to a rest. It was a massive failure, and was a funny little blurb on news stations around the world that day. Definitely not major news, just the rest of the world taking 20 seconds to laugh at us."
"The building sat like that (the leaning tower of SuFu) for quite a while until they figured out how to safely demolish it."
"Here's a clip of the failed demolition."
– KitchenBandicoots
These well-known historical events were seen by very few who are alive today.
Historical Remnant
"The tumbling of the Wall in Germany… along with people selling bits and pieces of it on tables in lobby in front of commissary and px in the following weeks and months. I had picked up a chunk about the size of an oreo and kept it… has blue spray paint on the flat side. Wonder if anyone is buying them now?"
– SingedPenguin13
Major Upheaval
"I would have to say the LA riots. I lived about two blocks from where it started. I was on my way home from school and saw someone throw a brick through a window. I didn’t even wait. I just started running the whole way home."
– Scarlaymama0721
Day Of Infamy
"9/11, I could SMELL the collapse of the towers."
– go4tli
"A friend of mine was there. One day in the warehouse we worked in together there was an odd electrical burning smell. He stopped in his tracks and went 'this is what 9/11 smelled like.'"
– mantistoboggan287
I didn't physically witness the fall of the World Trade Center but I was living in New York City at the time.
However, I did see the smoke.
I was living up north in Washington Heights at the time and knowing what happened, uncertain of what was to come, and seeing the plumes of smoke from the attack site was the most ominous sight I've ever seen in my life to date.
Have you ever lived through a historic moment or witnessed something sure to be noted in history books? Let us know in the comments below.
