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PaperclipPerfector  23hr ago (text post)   1122 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 16, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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make $50k/yr with no benefits.

What do you do?

Marketing contractor for a fortune 500 company. Did sales for 7 years and got extremely burnt out / fucked over at my last job. Was gonna get out of sales and marketing but I tried the trades and it was fucked. A buddy offered me this job and I took it because I had no clue what else to fucking do lol.

I wrote a bit about this here https://shapesinthefog.substack.com/p/from-laptop-to-shovel-and-back-again.

I’ve also done the sales roller coaster and got burned out. Old enough to have been through a few boom and bust cycles and I’ve been wiped out more than once.

What do you do now?

I’m in the ops/management side of my field now. I was a mortgage loan officer back in the good old days (pre-and post-‘08).

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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