Appreciation post: I thought my 80 hour weeks were normal until my kid asked why I was always mad

I was grinding on a website project for a brewery in Portland, pulling all-nighters for what felt like the hundredth time. My daughter, who's seven, came into my office last Tuesday and just looked at me. She said, 'Daddy, your face is mad. Are you mad at me?' That hit me like a ton of bricks. I wasn't mad at her, I was just so fried from staring at code and answering client emails at 2 AM that my default expression was a scowl. I realized I was teaching her that work means being stressed and unhappy. I've started shutting my laptop at 6 PM sharp, no matter what. The work is still there in the morning, but I'm not. Has anyone else had a moment like that, where someone else's view made you see your burnout clearly?

Bought a 'rare' variegated Monstera cutting online for $75, it was just painted.

The seller had great photos, but the white streaks washed off with the first watering. I should have known a price that low was a red flag. Has anyone else been tricked by a fake plant listing?

Hot take: The new guy on my crew in Phoenix decided to 'speed things up' by mixing the entire mortar bag at once.

We were on a backyard wall job last Tuesday, and he dumped a full 80-pound bag into the mixer without asking. It was over 90 degrees, and by the time we got halfway through laying the first course, the mix was already starting to set up like concrete. I had to stop everything, scrape out the mixer, and we lost about an hour and a half of good morning light. Anyone else had to deal with a rookie mistake that cost you a big chunk of a day?

I finally got my quarterly taxes done after a week of spreadsheet hell

I thought I had all my income and expenses tracked, but I forgot about a $250 payment from a client who sent it through a weird app. I spent seven days digging through old emails and bank statements just to find that one missing piece. What's the strangest place you've ever found a forgotten payment hiding?

My neighbor's 'distressed' oak table went from looking like it survived a war to a museum piece in about 3 weeks.

I lost a full day's pay because I didn't double-check the voltage on an old dryer outlet before starting.

The house was built in the 70s and I just assumed it was a standard 240v, but it turned out to be a weird 3-phase 208v setup that fried the new dryer's board, costing me $300 in parts and a whole Saturday to fix my mistake.

Vent: My dad told me to skip the primer on my kitchen cabinets and I regret it

He swore that a good sanding and two coats of semi-gloss paint would be fine on the old wood. I listened, and after about eight months, the paint is already chipping around the handles and on the edges. It's a real mess. I'm looking at redoing all 24 cabinet doors this fall, and I know the primer step will add a full weekend to the job. Has anyone else had paint fail because they skipped this step, or was my dad's advice actually solid for a different type of surface?