survivor2021

@Batya33 That's true. I try not to make it have a negative impact especially on the team. It still has an impact on me, like the one time when I was quiet during a meeting because I simply had no input, and one of the coworkers pointed it out that I was quiet, and I got like super anxious for the rest of the day, thinking I should have said something. I then realized it's normal sometimes for the other team members to just, not have anything to say in some topics. I'm trying to balance things out and so far, my one year in this team has been good. I'm getting involved in different topics, have a good relationship with pretty much the whole team as well as the other teams that I interact with, come up with some improvements here and there to implement... Still I have a lot to learn, both technically and also in communication with this kind of people and how to handle conflicts. Also about friendships, so far from my experience, as well as my relatives and friends, It's extremely rare for friendship/family mixed up with work/studies to have a positive impact on relationships.. it's not impossible, just rare.

@Coily We are a team of 5 and in fact we are not that formal, which can have a negative impact like this and some decisions even get taken individually or through Slack messages. Totally agree. I'd rather absorb this rather than escalate it. It's no big deal, and that's why I wonder what is the best way to deal with such short tempered show offs. Best thing I did so far is to pair up with other people on other topics either way I was more interested in and they were much better, I worked with a very experienced senior and another engineer who gave proper criticism and helped me evolve a lot. But I can't evade this guy with our little number in the team. Never going to do it again. Lesson learned. All this stuff of work aside, not gonna have him in my place again after the rudeness he showed when he came over. Maybe that's how he acts with best friends or buddy buddies but that's not how we are and I don't even accept that behavior from my best friends. Also yes, I never see people from work as friends. I still want to have a good relationship with them though.

@catfeeder What defensiveness ? In what part I look mad or anxious because I received criticism ? Isn't there a professional way to do that, instead of doing what the coworker did ? You know what ? The coworker was right, and indeed data is missing... but why would he, instead of accepting my initial suggestion of sharing this with the team and look more into, or even counter it with another solution or suggestion, start screaming and already pointing fingers, saying this and that will take responsibility ? Like i said, topic is midway through implementation.. we still didn't back up everything either way. So it's not even a big deal in the first place. Today I mentioned it with the team, PE asked what other buckets we could have missed, we identified them, added them and that's it. I asked PE and a senior and said it's no big deal as we didn't fully complete our backups in all of our architecture and data yet. In fact I love criticism and I like when someone points flaws in my work so I can improve. I'm obsessed with best practices and making the better out of myself, both personally and professionally.

@catfeeder Well looks like I miscommunicated enough to look like I 'redirected' the issue to someone else's responsibility enough for you to escalate it to me trying to make things personal because someone pointed a mistake in our work. Well then let me rephrase it correctly for you: My very first response was that I actually am not aware of the missing data and don't have an idea about how it was chosen, as my knowledge of the topic is limited. I didn't redirect it to anyone, not the PE or the team. In the end I ended up asking the team myself the very next day if we could have missed any data. Let's not turn this into an "I" vs "We" please... When I was confronted with this issue, in a topic that we are working on and it's still midway ( meaning it's not fully reviewed and not fully implemented yet ), I didn't redirect anything and my response was : " Let's let the team know, maybe we ( as In I and the PE ) could have missed some data ".. Like I said, I was planning to let the PE know and investigate and again, I ended being the one telling the team that we might have missed some data. The guy knows that and in case I forgot to mention it, I did ! Yet he didn't take it as an answer. Also I'm not here to take lessons on how to communicate properly in normal situations and please don't try to make this look like I'm trying to make something 'personal' with someone, as I'm the most non-conflict person and a decent communicator, unlike the guy I'm talking about. I'm here to take some advice and opinion on how to handle someone who sometimes has a short temper, loud, likes to show off, and exactly is not the best person to work with. Maybe to give you other scenarios: One day, a developer asked about something that we, the operation team work on, and I ended up giving a detailed answer enough for him to understand and not reproduce that error in the future. The 'loud aggressive' coworker, who was next to me in the office, told me that I shouldn't bother with telling him all that and next time I must ignore him. There you have it. I don't want to list out all of the scenarios to make you believe that it's a fact that this guy is indeed not the best person to work with, but that's one of them.

So to give you some context, I moved abroad one year ago and have been working in this company with someone from the same country as me. The team is nice, this guys has also been helpful in giving advice and stuff about the country and city and where to shop etc.. one thing I don't like about him is that he can get loud and aggressive when discussing work. For example, today, he called me to ask about we have missed some data in some work, and I was involved in the topic, and the principal engineer is the one who wanted the task to be done. I told him that I have no idea about that data and I'm not the one who implemented but it's the principal engineer. I didn't get the chance to know about the rest of the data yet. He was talking loudly and making a big deal out of it when I literally suggested to post it to our team to ask maybe we have missed this stuff. He kept scrolling and showing 'Hey we miss this.. and this..' and I politely told him over and over to ask the team about it, maybe they know something. Then he mentioned something like "YOU will take responsibility with the principal engineer if that stuff is missing''.. Indeed I was involved in the topic but I'm not the one who chose the data and didn't even touch it, everything was setup by our principal engineer. We are the same age and both of us are the young ones in the team. He has been working in the team one year more than me. Anyway, I felt that the guy was trying to show off that he knows more, in front of other coworkers from the same country as us too. I know this about him as he is not someone modest or chill. He is the type to talk too much, forces his opinion and so on.. He is not really bad, but like any person, he has some bad in his personality. I remember my very first task, I had to pair up with him on something and I had a very fast and easy solution and respects best practices, but he kept beating around the bush with a complex approach, but I didn't want to argue with him that much because I thought I might be missing something since I am new.. but his approach led to nothing but more confusion for me. When I tried to explain to him, he keeps mentioning complex stuff and tries to eat the words to avoid the main point and keep his own approach as the solution.. the only way to convince him was to involve a senior that he looked up to and respected. I shared with him both solutions and he stated that mine is obviously much better and when I told him ' Mr Senior said that the solution I suggested is better ' that's only when he accepted it. Not from me but from the senior, you see... Also I had him over to my apartment to watch a game last week and he didn't show any guest etiquette. My questions are: Overall, how do you find such types of guys ? The type that How do you deal with them ? Should I argue with him in work when presented with different opinions or having a conflict like this one ?

To give you some context ( sorry it's going to be a bit long before I get to the point but it's necessary 😞 I'm a 26 years old man, who just moved to Germany for work, from a third world country. I grew up in a middle class family, with a bully middle brother, an over protective mother and a father who didn't want to take any part in resolving our conflicts. I had lots of arguments with my brother who is controlling and wants to dominate and we rarely get along. I also have a sister who does nothing but studying. When I'm being scolded by my parents, they don't protect me or show me compassion, they just mind their business and will snitch right away. One time, my brother read on my private messages that I'm swearing talking to a friend, and he got to my room and threatened to show it to my parents and didn't go out until I cried and begged him not to... We never went on vacations, despite the fact that we could. We have a car and the money to do small stuff, but we never do it. I missed out going to trips with friends who invited me because of my paranoid overprotective mother, who always feels that something will go wrong. Now, as you see, despite growing, I never got past this because these things still haunt me. Due to the fact that as a kid, I barely had experiences, always at home, and at school ( third world country, no clubs or interesting activities... ) busy getting good grades so my parents are satisfied... Now when I sit with my coworkers, I feel the difference... They visited all kinds of countries, they have tons of things to talk about... Me ? I even lag behind people from my own home country.. I don't even know much about the other cities. When my friends sometimes go on vacation, check out other places, spend some family time, we are at home.. I never held a grudge because of that, but now I see how bad it can be. My father turns out to be selfish, bragging about all the trips and how he visited the whole world with work, but he never tried to share that experience with us, because he wanted group and work travels where his company takes care of everything.. he went to visit a friend in Dubai, all by himself lately. Also due to the bullying and feeling inferior to everyone at an early age, I find myself preferring to stay calm and listen in most conversations. I got better at university when I joined clubs and started to live by myself. I worked part time despite not having to, I kept focusing on academics and also improve my social skills. It's on a different level now here that I moved abroad. The gap is huge. I feel stressed just sitting with the coworkers. I don't have anything to share about my own country, it's like I didn't really live for 26 years, most of that time was a blank. I might even add that I never really was in a relationship. I consider myself a looser in middle school and early high school. In university, I went on one date with a girl that I thought she liked me only for me to find out a week later that she has a boyfriend and was using me to pair up on tasks to get good grades. With all that being said, I'm proud of myself and what I have achieved so far. I'm proud of fighting against this, taking the extremely tough decision to move abroad, proud of at least knowing where things are wrong and trying to work on it.. however, I still feel that I'm 'behind' most of the people around me.

@Lambert They don't say it directly to me. They talk about it casually when we are all together. About the manipulation, my father wanted me to work for the family business too as he likes to please my uncle, the owner of the business, but I avoided it because of the toxic environment and didn't want to rely on nepotism to boost my career. He was against me moving to Japan and work in a different company because my uncle will get mad or something... My brother doesn't want me in the company because he believes the company is trash and he keeps having arguments and fights every now and then ( not a healthy working environment either ), but was helping a bit when I asked him to send me names of companies and stuff.

@Wiseman2 I'd be happy to welcome them if the point is to have fun and enjoy vacations. In fact, I want my mother, who never traveled, to come visit me. Of course any family members are welcome. I don't plan or want to gloat or show off, but I want to stay away from people who do. With all that being said, I'd exclude my brother. We don't get along much, and in fact he played the "I live in Japan and you never traveled" card sometimes when I was in university to have the upper hand on some arguments. In fact, he is the type to gloat, but he doesn't do it directly to me unless we are having an argument. It's just toxic and unhealthy as you see. What matters is that we are both happy with our lives where we live. My father loves these comparisons though. He tells my brother that Japan is the best place to make him feel satisfied, and in fact he told me after I decided to move to Germany, that Germany is the best country, and is slightly better than Japan.. That sounds pretty immature and he looks down on people who move to 'less fancy' countries, like Spain or Portugal or Italy..

Fun fact is that my father lived for nearly one year in Germany when he was young doing an internship and he won't stop gloating about it, like how he understands all Germans, and Germans this and Germans that, and he talks about them like a 'superior' race. This game of having them visit me will be playing into the game of gloating, and I don't think they will be that impressed after they visited places like Switzerland, UAE's Dubai and Tokyo.

@Lambert They are not manipulative. I personally don't think this 'better city' should be brought up in the first place. But we have this complex of superiority in my family. It's like sitting with my friends and telling them, my university is the best one, when they study in others.. I don't know, it feels childish. Still it gets to me. They are not doing it on purpose, but I hate it.

@Kwothe28 True. I'm aware of the cons of living not only in Japan but in the advanced Asian countries, as I always was targeting a 'similar' city to Tokyo, like Seoul or Singapore, you know, mega advanced big cities. Europe's big cities, as far as I know, can't be compared to those of Asia and are not as safe. But the problem is that the working culture generally is bad, also far from my home country, language barrier can be more tough, less vacation days compared to Europe. Europe has the advantage of the Schengen countries, so I can travel by train and in 2 hours I can be a different country... I understand. That's why I slowly started to give up on Japan and Asian countries and ended up in Germany. In fact, I'm afraid the opposite will happen. I'm afraid visiting Japan will make my obsession grow even and I will get spoiled by the differences such as the colored lights you see in the city center with all the ads and music that makes it feel it's like a party, while here in Munich, the city is very dark and it's sleepy and shops close early.. also customer service there is far better, city is much livelier. I believe they can be on par with cleanliness and safety but I don't know. Anyway, I'd be lying to you and myself if I say the opposite but that's what I'm afraid of.. visiting the city and get spoiled and start to see it as indeed a 'better' place and an upgrade, as my father and brother called it.

Hello, I started to develop an urge to move to a big Asian city, especially Japan's Tokyo after graduating as an IT engineer. I have a brother living there who joined the family business. I wanted to get a job there on my own and I refused to join the toxic family business, that has lots of problems that end up ruining the relationships in work and in family too. I had no luck and also I kept doing research and found out that actually Tokyo, along with most Asian countries are difficult for entry level, don't pay much and have a bad working culture in general. I ended up moving to Germany's Munich. It's been nearly one year, and I actually like it a lot. Also being away from my father and brother discussions about the family business and forgetting the feeling of being left out and living in the third world country was good for me. I also started to forget my obsession with moving to Tokyo, because I'm happy here in Germany. Well, I kind of reverted to my old feelings a couple of days ago because I was on a video call with my mother and my father and brother in the background were talking about how Japan is the 'best country' and moving to any other country will just be a downgrade, since getting used to life in Tokyo will spoil you. I felt inferior and jealous and I just reverted to my old self, opening Youtube, watching virtual walks in the city, with all the fancy ads and skycrapers and comparing it to the big village I live in. And yes I know that comparison kills happiness and all that, but that's just how I feel. I would be lying to myself if I tell the opposite. A week ago, I was fine, very happy actually since I moved to a very nice apartment. I never ruled out a move to Japan and I was actually thinking about spending some vacations there, but I was actually glad that it was not an obsession anymore.

@SooSad33 The thing is, in my last conversation with them, they indeed gave up and backed me up on this, as my brother did also some messed up stuff to them also. The thing is, they are desperate for good things to happen because.. same thing happened with them. This thing appears to be genetical and inherited.. my father family especially is not getting along too well.. my uncles and aunts are ghosting one another and barely interact.. and lately some started lawsuits because of inheritance stuff and building processes. My parents tell me that they wish to not see us becoming like them.. I told them : I'm doing my part, and that he has to do his own but I don't see it happening.. Sometimes I wonder maybe I am at fault too and being too dramatic and maybe stuff like that is normal and I should get over each argument we have.. but the fact that he is toxic with other people too makes me confirm that I'm not at fault : Had serious arguments with my mother and ended up shouting at her and throwing dinner once because she didn't serve him first... Had problems with his team in work, with his team, later his manager, later the company's owner and things escalated and he almost got fired if it wasn't for 'nepotism' and because he is the nephew of the company's owner.. who is my uncle who gets along with my father.

@Wiseman2 No. We live in different countries. But in vacations, we reunite as family to check on our parents and spend some time together with them. I just moved abroad ( 1 year ago ) so this is new for me, when he has been abroad for 7 years or so. So we only live in the same household on vacations basically

I(25M) have a brother (31M). When we were kids, I feel like we didn't have the best relationship. He basically was a bully to me. When we hang out with the other kids, or even alone, he rarely misses the opportunity to scold me on first occasion on 'pathetic' matters. To give you an examples : Once I was talking with a kid about how my dad's car and his own dad's car are junk compared to cars like Ferrari and Lamborghini we play on NFS games.. and he suddenly started to threat to tell on me and snitch to my parents because I made fun of their daily effort and all kids were laughing at me. Other example is when I got a bit older, he got to peep on my Facebook screen where I was 'swearing' in the private messages with a friend, using strong words like s*** and f***, he came at my room late at night and told that he has seen the messages and will snitch on me and got me crying, threatening to tell my parents again. Being a kid, I thought it was actually very bad thing and got so scared.. he tormented me that night emotionally and only left after I cried tons and apologized. Last one, my parents convinced him to take me out with some of his friends.. first out went well.. second one.. well.. third one, his friends were buying sandwiches and one of them offered me a bite. I respectfully said no at first, saying I'm not hungry, but the dude insisted I at least try it, so I did. One day later, he scolds me and tells me to never do that again because they think I'm greedy or something.. when I told him it's just a bite out of a sandwich that he offered, he raged and told me that I don't want to listen to advice.. I could go on forever. Worst part for me is that we never talk about it later and of course he never apologizes. I rarely remember him doing a brotherly thing for me, like helping me in an argument with my parents or choose to cover up for me instead of threatening of snitching. He just comes after a couple of days and pretends nothing happens when I'm disturbed and angry ( I was a kid so I couldn't help it ). Nothing physical really, but we had serious arguments and we are not that close. Growing up, his behavior didn't change. He is still controlling and self righteous and his ego and pride only got bigger. We both live abroad now in different countries and we take vacations to visit our parents and we spend a month, or more together, and 4 out of 5 times, we end up in an argument.. and now I'm not a kid anymore and I want to stand up and protect myself. I don't want me being passive about it to become a habit and having him go farther. Parents at first told me to 'ignore' him since I'm the better person.. but easier said than done.. I can't really control my frustration sometimes and it gets worse when I shut in my feelings and pretend like nothing happens when he does something disrespectful. With all that being sad, I love him for the 10 percent good moments. I love him for the fact that he is my biological brother and I wish we can do more stuff together, go out, plan vacations together... but with his controlling behavior, I can't. We recently had our last argument and now my parents tell me that they don't want us to drift apart even more.. I really want to make this right.. but I know I can't change his behavior just so suddenly. He won't listen to advice, especially coming from me, his little brother, and I can see that this is how he thinks when he always plays the ' I am the older brother, you should respect me ' card when we get into fights. Funny thing is that the only reason we are not fighting THAT often right now is because we are simply distant. Everyone is suffering from his behavior.. his friends, my parents, his coworkers, and also me. I just wish I could put my parents mind at ease and have our relationship get better.. I wish I could forget all the bullying and all the bad things he did to me and pretend we are best buds.. and when he does more messed up stuff, I just ignore him and let him yell, clown me, treat me like a kid when now I'm a man, force his opinion on me, order me what to do.. if that will make things better but I can't. Any advice ? Anything ? Please help and thank you

I moved abroad months ago. I found myself that the only one from my family I call regularly is my mother. Because she is the only one who showed emotional support, since this is my very first move abroad, and my first time traveling actually. I never was close to my father and my elder brother and I keep growing distance as I grow older. My elder brother is controlling and always looked down on me. Never liked being around him. Even now, as I'm 25, he brings 10 years old jokes about stupid things I did when I was a kid repetitively for years. He kept me away from the family business and pressured me not to join my uncle's company. Regardless of what he did, I stayed away from him and the toxic environment of the family business, where work is not the biggest factor of your position in the company... As I decided to rely on myself, I got a job in a company that I love so far and in Munich, Germany. I'm happy so far. But since I kept myself away from my father who sucks up to my uncle and my controlling brother, I am slowly starting to have feelings I don't want myself to have towards them... they are still family, and what I'm mad about is that I was not helped as much as my spoiled brother, who messed up continuously, but had his position kept, who joined because he is the nephew of the boss, who acts superior despite the fact that nepotism is 80 percent of why he is there in the first place. My father does not call me either. We are distant, and because I am not getting help and emotional support. I remember once that I told him once that I want to go to Japan, where my brother works, but not in my uncle's company, and I wanted him, like a father, to at least ask me questions about why I chose this country, or encourage me or something: but no, he tried to play me and convince me not to and when I told him that what he says does not make sense, he said the truth: he does not want me to go there because my uncle might get mad that I didn't join his company... yes, my uncle is above me for him when it comes to priority. The rich business man is above the young man. I posted about this before and this has been a topic I couldn't come to terms with, even now after my move away from the family, and I feel like things are getting worse... the fact that I'm starting to feel this way towards them. They don't see how much I struggle, how far I came, how much I am trying, with my own damn efforts, not because I am someone's relative. Being respected and treated like a true brother and a true son is something I missed from both of them. I wish I could get over it. If it wasn't for my mother, I would be calling them once a month or something. And I don't want to feel that way about them..

It's true that we already are on that level, not as intimate as we used to. But I'm mad to the point that I want to ghost the guy... or go even lower in the level of friendship.

I am moving abroad in a few weeks, for the first time in my life. As I am going through the stress and the preparations, I found myself very angry at my best friend. Basically I knew him for 15 years but he started to grow distant in the last year, hanging out less with us, responding very late to our messages, turning down our offers to go out together... When he was in a pinch and had any kind of problem, I was always there for him. When studies got rough, I always supported him. When he had crushes and faced emotional problems because of a girl turning him down, I was always the one checking up on him and raising his spirit. When he went to Turkey and caught COVID and ended up staying there alone, sick and stressed, I called him once per day or two to check up on him to make sure he is not lonely. I was the main reason why he is with his first and current girlfriend ( long story ). Now, as I am making this big move in my life, he is not here... I know some of you will say to me: '' Don't go hard on him, talk to him, make sure he knows about your feelings ''. I can't do that. A true friend and a real friend should know about that. I know he doesn't have bad intent or something, I'm just angry at the fact that he is not aware of what I'm going through, or at least, not making the effort of contacting me and talk to me as we won't be seeing each other that often anymore. I'm afraid of isolating myself even more after I travel, and I will need friends' calls here and there. I have some good friends who checked on me on other occasions. Maybe that's just me being emotional and angry as I'm going through this much thinking. Anyway, any advice please ? I'm really considering turning him into a regular friend and not a best friend anymore.

For the first time in my entire life, I, 25 years old man, am going to get on an airplane and move abroad to Germany, Munich. Months ago, before getting the job in my company, I was dreaming of such a move. I grew up caged in my city and country. I never got the chance to travel. Solo traveling is not common in my environment and didn't seem like a good plan to me. My friends aren't interesting in traveling and neither was my own family. At first I didn't really care that much back when I was in high school and even college. But in the last 3 years, I started to grow a desire to move to a place with high quality of life after: I saw how incapable my country was when going against COVID, compared to others Knowing that the situation is getting darker in my country ( may go bankrupt in a few more years ) No activities or things to do. Same old city, same old places, routine and stress started to accumulate. At least for some other people, they tend to plan a vacation abroad twice a year and with the routine and the stress of life, they, at least, have something to look forward to. Fights and arguments became very frequent in my life, between my old parents, and I didn't specifically stand some of my father behavior ( I'm living with them ). I used to be the glue of the family when I was a kid, organizing small parties in our little house... but they don't do anything, they don't go on vacations, they don't travel, they rarely go out. Even though I suggested that... It's a complicated matter but the point is, unlike some of my friends, who I hear watch movies with their parents, are close to their sisters and brothers, I am neither to close to my brother and sister, the bullies who always look down on me and till today, I am getting disrespected and treated like a kid by them, neither had convinced my parents to go on a trip or something. With that, I started to develop the urge to live by myself and in a good place. I was targeting Tokyo first, but I nailed a job in Munich and accepted it. The company looks wonderful and I started to work remotely with them. It's a multicultural one and my team has people from all around the world and a nice German guy. It's definitely a good step in my career. There is no doubt that I've chosen a good company and a better position ( IT Engineer ) where I can learn more and improve myself and my skills... Still I have these doubts that I believe are normal for such a big move and anyone will have them. When I got accepted, a part of me wished that I don't get the job... a part of me wished that I don't get the VISA... it's funny how a human brain can function because I wanted this myself and then I was like 'Oh crap, is this really happening ?' Kind of like a date, when you ask your crush out and she says and then you get stressed and you wish this never happened because you are inexperienced and rarely went on dates. I'm guessing this is the comfort zone taking over me maybe ? Anyway, my move is one month away, and I'm writing this as I'm actually tearing up. This is so hard 😢 This is like when I moved out to go to college in a different city when I was 18. Same exact feelings, except that back then, I always went back home for vacations and weekends. Germany is 2 hours away from my home country and I plan to go back and visit at least 3 times a year. Still, I really don't know if I made the right choice or if I am going for the right reasons or If I was really prepared as I thought I was. Part of me is concerned about my parents, especially my mother. I grew up attached to her as the little son and the only caring one and gentle one to her. My sister and brother love her too but have absolute trash behavior towards her sometimes and never even apologize. I don't know what she will do without me when she gets into fights with my father, or if she feels lonely. She is very weak and sensible emotionally. I plan to have a daily call with her everyday to check on her and my father as well to feel less lonely and make her feel better about me being away. I wake up one morning and I feel excited about the move, imagining myself in my new life in such a wonderful city, in such a great company. A few hours later, I get stressed and start to feel paranoia and dive deep into doubts and imagining the worst case scenarios, feeling lonely and so on... To make myself better, I start to say out loud the reasons why I am making this move and I personally think it was no rushed decision but something that came up after several events, observations, thinking and circumstances. Still, I wish things were different. I wish I had a better passport ( getting a touristic visa is hard ), and friends to travel with, or relatives to visit in other cities or in another country to actually get to see the world. I wish I had something that made me want to stay here, and I actually looked for reasons to make life better here in my country, I tried dating to have a life partner to make me forget about all of this stuff and just enjoy the present, someone to talk with, someone to hang out with in case I face these issues that made me want to move abroad, but no luck. I wish my country was showing at least signs of improvement or development, but everything is headed towards the worse. I wish I could just chill here and plan vacations with my parents, brother or/and sister. It's not like we are poor. No we have the money to do so, only we happen to hate the hassle... I slowly realized that all of this will never happen or will happen when I'm 30 and by then it would be late and I will probably start considering settling in, maybe building a house, finding a wife. But I think now is the time for the adventure, while I'm still young. Thank you for reading. Please share with me your thoughts.

I wonder what kind of person I am in real life. Just to give you some background, I(M) am someone who did not have a normal childhood. I had a paranoid overprotective mother, a busy father, a bully middle brother and an unsociable older sister. I never got along with my sister and especially my brother. My parents convinced me that most relatives are like that and it's normal. I didn't have any experiences worth mentioning when I was a teenager due to my paranoid overprotective mother and I have stories that are very embarrassing about how she loses her mind and almost calls the cops just because I was late by half an hour when returning from school. Normally, in those situations, your brother/sister help you out and stand by your side. On the contrary, they kiss up to her and they are always against me, no matter what. They fight a lot also with each other and with my mother. My father is non-existent in those conflicts because he returns from work late and is already tired. In high school, I always felt like I lagged behind when it comes to growth. Oh yeah, I was also raised to be a ***... there was a time when a bully, smaller than me in size, tried to look down on me and I made up the courage and beat him up. I was proud and went home and made the mistake of telling that to my mother and brother... They were furious at me as they feared that this bully will bring his friends next time and he will continue to annoy me everyday. My brother and sister mock me for the way I speak and they kind of make fun of the slightest quotes that aren't even funny ( my accent specifically is funny to my brother) and growing up like that, I found myself very self cautious and scared of talking or participating in class or in a group discussion because my classmates might make fun of me. We never went to places or hotels for vacations. We rarely leaved the city to go visit a relative or a friend. Even when friends invited me, my parents refused. My friendly and funny attitude made me have good relationships and good friends in high school but I truly felt that I wasn't up to my friends level of maturity and social experience. Of course I wasn't rock bottom too... The best decision in my life is moving out after finishing high school and starting my engineering studies. It was very hard to me because I have never lived by myself and kind of grew up attached to my comfort zone and almost grew up with the same personality as my mother, afraid of change, of experiences, paranoid and so on... Now I'm 25 and moving abroad in one month. I'm working with a team of people from all around the world... again, this gap is showing up even more this time. However, I understand that there is nothing that I could have done better back when I was a kid, because I had no control and I was clueless and in an environment where they wouldn't allow me grow up. Sometimes, I remember all this stuff and I believe this is the syndrome imposter. Where I look down on myself and don't acknowledge myself. But in other times, I look back and I feel really proud that I resisted all of this and changed myself by myself. My spoiled middle brother works in my uncle's company and despite so many arguments and fights because of his short temper and messed up attitude ( also because of the toxic environment ), he almost got himself fired. Still he remained there in the company because of the good relationship between my father and uncle. He was never a responsible person and blamed every problem in work on my parents for suggesting to him to join my uncle's company, and before that, blamed them for registering him in a private university so he can study engineering ( because he couldn't get into a public university or study engineering with his grades ). My sister is married, but is a social failure. All what she did in her life is study, then work. She has no friends. She talks horribly to my mother and to me. She has a daughter that I feel sorry about sometimes because of her immature parenting. She couldn't live in the dorm and chose to still live with my parents when she was studying. I, growing up watching these two freaks, decided to be the opposite. I moved to another city, and lived by myself ( something my brother and sister couldn't do when they were students ) and succeeded and got a high rank to join the second best computer science university in the country. Joined clubs, took on positions, worked as a part time board game graphic designer and studied engineering at the same time. Got my internships and worked in three different companies by myself, got them through my own researches and through LinkedIn. My father was trying to convince me to join my uncle's company but to his butt kissing attitude and my spoiled brother being there, I refused ( still have mixed feelings about it ). Now I got a job in a big company in Germany and I hope that I will keep doing good. This isn't how I used to think 4 or 5 years ago. I used to say that I'm stupid and unreliable. And I still say that to myself from time to time. However, remembering my small achievements until now, I feel at ease a little bit and take it easy on myself. I wish I had someone observing this and give me his thought and tell me how I'm doing. We can't see everything and sometimes we need a person, standing from another perspective, who can tell us how we are walking, how much we are progressing, how much our backs are carrying... So there it is 🙂 what do you guys think ?

Lol that sounds ironically comforting. Thank you 🙂

We are 2 hours away by airplane and this is one of the reasons I chose Europe over Canada or countries in Asia. I plan to visit them once per 2 months or something as I imagine it will be difficult.

Despite having a good job ( IT ) in a small company where I'm well treated, but with no long term career promises, I got a job abroad in an even better company with a much higher salary. I wanted to share my personal reasons for why I decided to move abroad and please tell me what you think, just so I can make sure I'm doing this for the right reasons. Social circle: I have had a group of friends with whom I was hanging out with since high school. But the thing is as we are growing old, the group is slowly changing. One of us will get married very soon and is no longer available like he used to. The other one moved to a different city and we see him once in a month or so. Third one will be graduating soon and will slowly fade away once he gets absorbed with work.Also, we don't do much of activities. I'm the only one who is well paid enough to think of traveling and going to hotels or something. Not also they are not available, but we are stick into sitting in coffee shops and that's it. Same thing every weekend. It's not really because of them but we don't have access to any sort of activities like clubs or sports ( poor city, trash country where youngsters are busy working to go abroad ). That also resulted in me being stuck with this group of friends for forever now and I've made the effort of making new ones when I moved to another city but no chance...Small detail is the dating life too. No social circle resulted in no girls. I've never had a girlfriend due to those limitations and I'm 25 already. Tried Online apps, Facebook, but it never works out. Family: Mixed reasons in this one. 5 years ago, I was entirely convinced that I will work in my home country for years before even considering moving abroad because despite the above reason, I had my parents. When I went to college and moved to another city, I missed them so much and every weekend I go back home, I spend all the time with them and cherish it and help them. They were open to go out. hang out with me, have discussions...But every changed when the fire nation attacked... I mean, when family issues started to take a toll on them and also my father's behavior changing dramatically. My father tries to act like the mediator of his own ***ed up bunch of brothers and sisters and instead, he brings all the stress of those fights to our home, which annoyed me and my mother. He is retired and is supposed to relax and enjoy his life. Instead, he is involving himself in fights that don't even involve him and I know it's a good thing he is doing that for his family, but he is TOO much into it to the point that he ends up absorbing all that stress. Also a lot of sucking up to my uncle who offered my brother his dream job in Japan. He never listens to anyone except to him. I try to talk some sense into him but he never listens. To forget this and enjoy life a little bit, I proposed to him and my mother to go on a trip or to a hotel and I will be paying for all expenses, but my father said to me to take my mom and that he must stay to feed the dogs or some ***... He is already giving the same excuse when I tell him to come visit me where I will be living and working when I move abroad, when in fact he went running like an excited kid when my uncle invited him to Dubai, by himself. I may add that I don't really have a great relationship with my spoiled brother in Japan and my married sister because I'm so much younger than them and they still treat me as an inferior. They never were socially the best people ( Brother had an argument with the entire company and almost got himself fired, he also struggles with making and even keeping his friends. Sister doesn't have any friends at all ).I wish I had a good relationship with one of them at least so we can plan a trip together or travel together. Or maybe visit my brother in Japan... Quality of life: This has also started to bother. One good rainy day and all transportation means are doomed. Rude people on the road, honking everywhere. Unless you have a car, you can't move around easily in the capital where I work, or even go to different cities. Safety is a major concern too.

@Blue_Skirt We never thought that the VISA process will drag for this long. We thought that I will make it after 3 months but I did not. The company has a multicultural environment and in fact and German is not required at all because I've been told that all colleagues talk english. Of course I have to learn German since I will be living there. I hear from engineers working there that the company is very flexible when it comes to remote work, even for those who are living there. They have to go to the office on specific days only. So my impression from the interviews and the feedbacks of the employees I've contacted for opinion is that the company is flexible and not conservative.

I(25M) accepted an IT job offer in Germany a while ago, but because of some embassy problems, I did not get my VISA appointment before my agreed starting date. I thought that I will start after 3 months back then but there was still no news from the embassy so my new employer told me that it was ok and that they will wait for me until something comes up from the embassy. 2 more months went on and still nothing, so the company came up with the suggestion to start working remotely ( something they should have offered from the start in case I did not make it ) and I accepted. I thought that it's better this way since I will have more time to learn the language, get familiar with the tasks I will be doing, and meet my new team, all while staying in my country. It will be less stressful this way since this is the first time I will travel and live abroad. So I bought some German language books and moved back to my parent's home. Ironically, after agreeing to my new temporary remote contract, the embassy contacted me finally yesterday and gave me an appointment 3 weeks from now. Now I'm very hesitant about what I should do. Should I tell my company that the embassy contacted me and that I will be getting my VISA soon but prefer to start working remotely for 2 or 3 months before moving to Germany since we already went down that path? Or would that come out as unprofessional?