I’m going with her because she wants me to be there. I’ve already met all the families that “matters” as they visit where we live.

I don’t mind going so much, it’s not a place I want to visit but it’ll be nice to see her dad again, we get on okay. We have had to postpone going away just us which both me and my partner were bummed out about but priorities for her are seeing her family, it’s mainly due to cost, shelling out to visit her Dad wasn’t exactly the way I planned on spending my holiday fund this year so the planning for our holiday has had to be pushed back until early/mid next year.

She also booked the flights differently than we originally agreed, taking up my entire holiday allowance for the year and extra, which means I have to take a day unpaid and I have to be back at work <10 hours after landing back.

My partner sat me down and asked why I wasn’t as excited as her about the trip. I explained that visiting her family isn’t particularly exciting to me and I’d much rather go on holiday together somewhere together than spend that money and holiday time to see her family (which is the point I feel I may have sounded like an ah).

But that it was important to her for me to go so it’s important to me and so I’ll go. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be hopping like an excited kid but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to go (I don’t but we’re not telling her that).

She then found out that I’d been to the US before and this seemed to deflate her a little? I asked if she thought that’s why I’d be excited and she said no but it was fairly clear that she thought I was excited to go to the US and was disappointed I’d been there before.

She got upset, argumentative and spiralled a little from there… tbh I kinda felt like she hadn’t listened to my side of the story and just got upset but she thinks that I’m an outright bad person for not being excited about going to see her family.. but am I wrong?

I feel like I’ve done my best to accommodate what she wants even though it’s not what I want. She thinks I’m an Asian mountain tortoise that has never travelled before.

Every time I come home it is the same conversation Me “Hi!!” Them “Hi, welcome home, how was work/your day?” Me “Fine, how was yours?” Them “good” They tell me sometimes what they did but not always and we carry on.

Dad is 68, mom is almost 60, and every conversation we ever have about my job, always ends up the same way, either them gaslighting me, shoving the fact that they have over 80 years combined experience in an office environment blah blah blah… One was/is a lawyer, the other was in HR Both retired. Every conversation is always meet with Above and beyond Anti quiet quitting Boomer generation/boomer advice

None of them has done the jobs I have done Door to door salesman Stagehand/labourer, Outgoing Call centre operator and Facilities Assistant (4 years ongoing/current) I don’t work with clients, I don’t have long hours, I don’t have a long commute, I don’t have helicopter monitoring, I don’t wear a suit and tie ever, I don’t have a briefcase, and when I’m not working I am either doom scrolling Twitter, watching tv shows/movies or wasting time.

I have tasks to do throughout the day, but I make sure they are done on time, are done well, properly, efficiently, and to the best of my ability, then I wait a few hours and then do them again, like a security guard, I waste time, do my scheduled shift, then go back to the guard tower.

If anything they give me advice to jobs, I will never have, they know what I do, and they know what my job is, but the advice is always wrong and never current/relevant to what I do.

I can only have conversations with people who have done my kind of jobs.

However, because of bad planning on my part, I couldn’t finish my work in time before the trip and tell her that I need to go home early each day but she was free to explore the city without me as she has been here before and can speak English just fine.

The day has come and Rita arrives first and I go to all the places according to her plan.

On the first day we got back quite late and I didn’t have time to finish as much work as I wanted to. So I told her that I won’t join her the next day. She didn’t complain at first but later that day mentioned that it’s so lonely to travel alone and eat alone during the day (I come out to have dinner with her, when she promptly asks whether my work is finished as if it’s a 1000 words essay.

I’ve been depressed and under a lot of stress right now but I never show it when I’m with her as it is not productive or fun for anyone and she commented on it that I don’t look stressed out at all. I don’t know how to respond to this.

Then my GF came and took over the job of ushering her around town. But on the third day of my GF’s visit, my GF got sick and stay in bed for a day. I stay back with her as I’m not planning got join the morning plan anyway. Now Rita is pouting that we are not joining her and that she has to have lunch alone again or possibly the whole afternoon alone.

I mostly travel alone and eating alone is normal for me, so I never know what it’s like to be lonely on a trip. A company is nice but not needed. I am not sure what that feels like so I’m not sure if I’m being a bad friend here. It’s actually quite eye-opening to me since we are in our thirties and I didn’t expect this to happen.

The reason I’m looking for a new job: Looking for a pure graphic design role. Currently, I get paid $2,000 which is pretty low for my job scope and I would like to get paid biweekly, they pay me once a month.

I don’t get paid overtime even though I have worked overtime hours. I have no benefits.

Recently they have been planning to go on a business trip for a week with the Daughter (friend), Mother and a Manager. But at the same time, I have been looking and applying for jobs casually.

Fortunately, I have found a job, however, the starting date is three days before they come back. And there is only one other person to work for those three days alone in the front office.

I brought up that I will be resigning which they are okay with. But they keep telling me, I should’ve let them know ahead of time if I was looking for a new job as it was disrespectful. Especially, when I knew they were going on a trip and the other coworker would be alone.

However, I didn’t expect I would get a job. Also, in my opinion, I don’t think it would be a good idea to let your employer know that you’re looking for a new job. Because it’s not guaranteed I would get one.

I forgot to mention, they would also like me to come back (after I get my new job) to train their new hires, because they don’t know how to run the websites and other things. Because we are ‘family’ and we should help each other.