this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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At least a first name if family name is too much administrative hassle.

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[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Dad: "Say, Jim, now that you're in business for yourself I'd like to hire you to rebuild my deck."

Jim: "Sounds great, Dad! But call me Barry."

[–] koper 64 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Fun fact, you can use whatever names you want. All names are made up. Your "legal name" is just what the government calls you, but you can ask other people to call you something else entirely. The same goes with pronouns.

[–] dgriffith@aussie.zone 23 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

A guy I used to work with went by the nickname of "Womble", his name was actually Raymond.

One day I was poking through work orders in our system and discovered that it also officially knew him as "Womble <last name>" and there was no sign of Raymond in there.

[–] koper 21 points 6 days ago

That's the thing: if he went by Womble at work then that was his name. The fact that the government called him Raymond doesn't make that his only name, they are both valid.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Our IT intake asks "is there another name you prefer to be known by" - and I have gone by my middle name since I was 12, so I told them, and they cheerfully complied.... on half the things in their system, the other half use my first name - things like the name under my picture during Teams calls. But, my e-mail address uses the middle name, so that's nice.

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[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, police background checks for your job work better when you give them a fake name 🧐

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Background checks are big into "A.K.A." listings.

Joe, Joey, Joseph, Jar-Man...

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 days ago

Can confirm. I have a Rupert J Farnsworth III name, and no one calls me that.

My background check and extra check and mili check and squirrell check and all that? Steve Guppy aka Rupert J Farnsworth III is cool.

My bank readily accepts cheques addressed to my preferred name. Our IRS emulant has all that stuff. It was only 2 years ago my new employer mandated deadnames and it's been a constant struggle to bring their Plano/Delhi asses into line with anything modern. People say "Rupert! Bwahahaha" when it pops up.

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[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 55 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I need that report on my desk by 3pm, xX_pu$$y_de$tr0yer_Xx. Otherwise that promotion you've been working for might go to JoeMomma69.

[–] bss03@infosec.pub 9 points 6 days ago

We're at work, you can just call me "Big Tuna".

[–] radicallife@lemmy.world 36 points 6 days ago (2 children)
[–] Bread@sh.itjust.works 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think they covered pretty clearly why that was a bad idea.

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 6 points 6 days ago

It Kind of felt like deal with the devil. Sell a innocent version of yourself to hell and torture and profit over it.

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[–] SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 6 days ago

Sex workers: Am I joke to you?

[–] workerONE@lemmy.world 25 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] bss03@infosec.pub 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Work/life separation is propaganda from the Capital class that wants Workers to each be uniform machine parts.

Some compartmentalization is fine, but don't forget to also be holistically you sometimes, and never substitute your employer's (or anyone else's) judgement for your own.

[–] garbagebagel@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

I'm totally over having a "professional self". I don't go around swearing as much at work but other than that I'm pretty much just being me. People still respect me and I don't feel as exhausted by masking every single day.

I'm also over corporate lingo and just call people/things out when they're overloaded with BS jargon. Its an accessibility issue and people need to learn to communicate in plain language.

[–] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I go by a different name at work and I do think it helps with the separation at times. Idk why people in this post are thinking it's weird to do this??? Do you all believe ppl at work are your friends? So many people must love their jobs I guess. lol

[–] spicystraw@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

I am really sorry to hear that you haven't experienced an enjoyable workplace yet.

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[–] SunshineJogger@feddit.org 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Or even better, lets change society and work to something that just fits well together and where work is not slavery with extra steps.

[–] BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago
[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 4 points 5 days ago

Sounds a bit like Severance.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 14 points 6 days ago (5 children)

When I applied for a job at this company, my last interview was with "Joe". For everyone else I got the first and last name. And email addresses were also firstname.lastname@example.com. But not for Joe. Joe's was just joe@example.com.

Same company after I was hired. I got on at about the same time as Peter-Michael. Whom we all called Peter-Michael. Because he was introduced as Peter-Michael. A few months in he revealed that he's only Peter-Michael at work. Everyone else just calls him Peter. It just happened like that because he used his full name on his application and then went with it.

I know several people who go with their second name as their usual name when around friends. Either because they like it more or sometimes because the parents chose that order because secondname-firstname sounded weird.

[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I essentially do something similar.

My friends and family all call me "Ted". At work, people call me "Theodore".

One person at work asked me if I ever go by Ted and I had to tell them it's an easy way to know in which context someone knows me.

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[–] Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago

An internet friend also has such a double name. But it shortens to J-P so his nickname for us became JP (spoken in english JayPe)

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[–] iamericandre@lemmy.world 13 points 6 days ago (4 children)

If you go into porn that’s pretty much a prerequisite

[–] friend_of_satan@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago

Just imagine this in the James Bond world. "Jennifer? That's just my stage name. My real name is Pussy Galore."

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[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 week ago (5 children)

The idea reminds me of superheroes going by different names as superheroes than their personal names. Traditionally this is because of secret identities but in the MCU, most of the heroes don't have secret identities.

"Oh we're using our made up names. I'm Spiderman"

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 4 points 6 days ago

I'm reminded of someone at work who jokingly introduced himself as Nightwing. I genuinely cannot remember his real name.

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[–] Opinionhaver@feddit.uk 8 points 6 days ago (4 children)

I have 3 first names and I'm legally allowed to use any of them.

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[–] xoggy@programming.dev 1 points 4 days ago

Why involve legal. Just go by a nickname at work and put that on your business contact.

[–] TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 days ago

This is like Minecraft YouTubers who go by their usernames in their videos, which is their job.

You just approached the Sovereign Citizen mindset from first principles.

[–] BaroqueInMind@piefed.social 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Part of the reason cops and military use rank structure so they can simply address each other by rank instead of their gender or name and then go home and use their name and preferred gender pronouns there

[–] teft@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Uh, what? When i was in we called each other by our first names if we were friends or last names if we were acquaintances. Hardly anyone used ranks unless you were being yelled at or had to report. I was in a combat arms unit so maybe its different for other types of units but i doubt it.

[–] BaroqueInMind@piefed.social 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You never addressed your commissioned and warrants with rank? The hell kinda low discipline high morale unit were you in?

[–] teft@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

No I used, sir or mister or LT. Like I was supposed to.

[–] UltraMagnus0001@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

Maybe like the Severance tv show

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