Rant VIII: The Reckoning

I can't stand when people my age don't know the basic shit about computers. BY GOD, YOU WERE THE GENERATION THAT MADE THIS SHIT! Not only that, she has worked with computers for over 25 years.
The downside is that if you teach her enough, she will more than likely truly #### things up so bad you won't be able to Google a fix for it.
 
I know I'll eventually get behind and won't be able to keep up, but I hope it's not while I am still employed.


I have to do this for my folks all the time. I don't mind helping them. They didn't work with PCs every day for work. They're in there late 60s and early 70s. I am tempted to give my dad a chromebook, but he's convinced that Google is evil. My mom does a bunch of scrapbooking and uses photo apps so she needs a real os.
 
:facepalm:
When you respond to a noise complaint at 1am and the manager and another coworker are in that room (along with mixed company from multiple other rooms... don't get ideas)...
:facepalm:
 
A

Anonymous

Anonymous

I still have a job. For now. How long that lasts is a good guess. My department is the only one left with a staff. If only because it's the only one requiring 24/7 monitoring.
 
A

Anonymous

Anonymous

I lost my temper tonight. My daughter was throwing a giant fit and hitting my wife (not enough to seriously injure her, but enough to be malicious), and I snapped. On one hand, what I did is not abuse. I grabbed her by the shoulders from behind and pushed/lead her down the hall to her bedroom, and screamed at her to stay in her room. I'm 100% certain she wasn't hurt, but...

I feel sick. I was so furious, and in that moment I could have hit her. Maybe I wouldn't, but for a moment I was seeing red and it seemed like a fair reaction to her behavior. And I don't want to be that kind of parent, ever.

She just throws these hellacious fits sometimes, far too often, and I can feel my resolve and retraint being shredded over time.

I'm siting in a dark room in the back of the house. I feel ashamed, and I don't want to face my wife. I feel like she saw a little bit of my darkest, worst side... and I just feel like shit. I don't know what to do.
 
I have these feelings with my daughter on a near daily basis. It's how you act on those feelings that matter.
 
First, you didn't. You didn't do it. You didn't fail.

We all have our breaking points, we also have limits on what we are willing to do. Yelling at your daughter, while immediately disturbing to you, is the least that you could have done. If you were going to hit her, this would have been that moment.

Second, children push limits until they are brought up short. Some respond to just a look, others have to take a harder path. You are the parent, violence from your child (even if you say not enough to injure) to the parent is them thinking it is a way to get what they want. You had to do something, taking her away from the situation, being put into isolation was a reasonable reaction. Again, your first reaction was to take her away, not to hit her in retaliation.

I wish you the best of luck in this, but you know how your child will react to different situations from you the parents. Firmness might be what she needs. We were called "mean" and "strict" by other parents (even family) for the way we dealt with our daughter, but it is much easier to be firm to start and then able to ease up, than try to come down more firmly later when things are really serious. We were able to really take it easy through high school and dating because she knew what was acceptable to us.
 
I lost my temper tonight. ... I don't know what to do.
It's a scary thing to feel that anger.

I've found it helpful to, after calming down, have a talk with them and apologize, explaining that I shouldn't have behaved that way and that I'll try to do better. I explain what might have set me off with a goal of helping them understand that it was a failing of mine, and that while they may have provided a trigger they certainly didn't deserve the consequence they received. If I'm going to do something different to prevent my temper from expressing in the future I'll let them know.

Then we discuss what they did, why they behaved the way they did, and what we might be able to do in the future to help them control their own emotions or avoid the situation that caused their own outburst.

Throughout this I express my love for them emphasizing that they aren't bad in any way, we all have to deal with overwhelming feelings.

I think it's important to make sure my kids see me apologize when I recognize I've made a mistake, and set a pattern for them to follow when they make a mistake.

But more importantly I want to make certain they are keenly aware of my love for them, and that my outbursts aren't a signal of love withdrawal. If anything I want our relationship to be stronger after such an event than it was before.

You gotta forgive yourself, though. Don't let this become a stumbling block, but a building block. You've learned something new about yourself, and that is something you can build on and improve. Disappointment and shame are only useful inasmuch as they result in a better plan for the next time this happens.
 
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Anonymous

Anonymous

Why do people try to get fired in order to collect unemployment? When you get your ass canned for misconduct, you are entitled to NOTHING. You wind up out of a job, and any references you may have had going forward go out the window.

I don't care if it's the middle of the night. I don't care that there's barely a soul in the building. You do NOT post a sign on the event marquee in the lobby that will embarrass the property. Especially when you know full well that the owner has a tendency to drop in unannounced at any time. INCLUDING one in the morning. This was a fired on the spot offense.

"I was only kidding" is not a defense. It is an admission of guilt. It is an admission of intent. It is an admission that you had no regard for the consequences of your actions.
 
It's a scary thing to feel that anger.

I've found it helpful to, after calming down, have a talk with them and apologize, explaining that I shouldn't have behaved that way and that I'll try to do better. I explain what might have set me off with a goal of helping them understand that it was a failing of mine, and that while they may have provided a trigger they certainly didn't deserve the consequence they received. If I'm going to do something different to prevent my temper from expressing in the future I'll let them know.

Then we discuss what they did, why they behaved the way they did, and what we might be able to do in the future to help them control their own emotions or avoid the situation that caused their own outburst.

Throughout this I express my love for them emphasizing that they aren't bad in any way, we all have to deal with overwhelming feelings.

I think it's important to make sure my kids see me apologize when I recognize I've made a mistake, and set a pattern for them to follow when they make a mistake.

But more importantly I want to make certain they are keenly aware of my love for them, and that my outbursts aren't a signal of love withdrawal. If anything I want our relationship to be stronger after such an event than it was before.

You gotta forgive yourself, though. Don't let this become a stumbling block, but a building block. You've learned something new about yourself, and that is something you can build on and improve. Disappointment and shame are only useful inasmuch as they result in a better plan for the next time this happens.
You're just the best, and I hope you know that.
 
Embarrassing the boss or corporate tends not to end well for most folks.

Of course, you could always work as a city Alderman, and be fucking Teflon-coated...
 
Finances are finally getting good enough that I could afford the "cut" in pay. Sooo...
Set up an HSA this year. Sat down, figured out what a year's worth of prescriptions would be, threw in a couple eye exams and glasses, dental cleanings, physicals, and all the other stuff we thought we'd need over the course of the year.
Total came to just over $1200. Set it up for $1300 just to account for any overage.
Last week I discovered that, as of May 15th, all $1300 has been used up.
WE HAVEN'T EVEN DONE THE EYE EXAMS/PHYSICALS/DENTAL YET THIS YEAR.

WHAT.

--Patrick
 
Finances are finally getting good enough that I could afford the "cut" in pay. Sooo...
Set up an HSA this year. Sat down, figured out what a year's worth of prescriptions would be, threw in a couple eye exams and glasses, dental cleanings, physicals, and all the other stuff we thought we'd need over the course of the year.
Total came to just over $1200. Set it up for $1300 just to account for any overage.
Last week I discovered that, as of May 15th, all $1300 has been used up.
WE HAVEN'T EVEN DONE THE EYE EXAMS/PHYSICALS/DENTAL YET THIS YEAR.

WHAT.

--Patrick
Stop going to the proctologist for a "tune up".

But, seriously, health care costs are bullshit.
 

Dave

Staff member
Cox cable put a data cap on our internet. 1 TB. Not really a big deal as historically as a household we've only ever hit the 700 GB limit once. But now Zach is home and the boy does love him some XBox. We're 12 days in to our 30 day limit and we've just hit 80% of our cap. I let him and Nick - my daughter's fiancee and other big data guy - know that our cable bill is $170 a month (includes TV [which I had to put back on against my wishes for the wife], phone [why do we have a land line? Who fucking knows? Another wife thing.], and internet). Anything above that will be cut in half and you'll pay it. Right now at this rate we're looking at about $160 in overages if the trend continues. That's $80 each. If you don't like it I will set limits on bandwidth usage through the router.

Have a nice day.
 
Stop going to the proctologist for a "tune up".
But, seriously, health care costs are bullshit.
Pfft. Like I have the money to spend on such frivolities.
...and yes, they are. That the total didn't even last 5 full months is ridiculous, and I'm still getting lagging bills for stuff that was done in March and April.
I will set limits on bandwidth usage through the router.
Have a nice day.
Some napkin calculations show that in order to GUARANTEE you don't go over 1TB/mo, all you have to do is set the router to a max speed of 384kb/s, because that's what it would take to hit 1TB in 30 days of solid downloading.

Ask them how much they would enjoy a max speed of 384kb/s.

--Patrick
 
Pfft. Like I have the money to spend on such frivolities.
...and yes, they are. That the total didn't even last 5 full months is ridiculous, and I'm still getting lagging bills for stuff that was done in March and April.

Some napkin calculations show that in order to GUARANTEE you don't go over 1TB/mo, all you have to do is set the router to a max speed of 384kb/s, because that's what it would take to hit 1TB in 30 days of solid downloading.

Ask them how much they would enjoy a max speed of 384kb/s.

--Patrick
kb/s must mean bytes, because my calculation shows a 3 megabit/s connection would be about 1TB per month. That's enough for close to HD streaming and many games, as long as only one person is consuming at a time...[DOUBLEPOST=1496339461,1496339411][/DOUBLEPOST]And no, I didn't double check your math, I was wondering if I could even reach 1TB per month with my measly 3mbit/s DSL connection before you made your post...
 
We also have a a 1TB a month cap, with 4 people. 3 gamers, 2 kids obsessed with YouTube, me watching Twitch on the Chromecast all day, and we only hit 3/4 of our limit in May. So wtf. You have a strong Wi-Fi password right? You might want to change it to be on the safe side.
 

Dave

Staff member
We also have a a 1TB a month cap, with 4 people. 3 gamers, 2 kids obsessed with YouTube, me watching Twitch on the Chromecast all day, and we only hit 3/4 of our limit in May. So wtf. You have strong Wi-Fi password right?
My wifi password is 16 characters long and is gibberish - not a single word. So yeah, it's strong.

I can tell you now that it's a combination of XBox/PS4 gaming & PLEX streaming. The XBox and PS4 are constantly using data in the background. We checked yesterday and Zach had used 40 GB in about 8 hours of single player gaming. I changed the Plex password because I know that too many people had it. So I'm trying to regain control, but I won't restrict their gaming unless they are not willing to pony up. They are adults living here rent free and bill free. I don't think it's too much to ask.[DOUBLEPOST=1496340049,1496339910][/DOUBLEPOST]This will give you an idea.

data Use.png
 
Why torrent it when you can watch it for free online? Rookie.
Ask the one somehow using 300gb of data in a day, not me.[DOUBLEPOST=1496340776,1496340468][/DOUBLEPOST]In all seriousness though, it would take me a lot of effort to use that much data in one day just gaming. Most online games don't really use that much data.
 

Dave

Staff member
Ask the one somehow using 300gb of data in a day, not me.[DOUBLEPOST=1496340776,1496340468][/DOUBLEPOST]In all seriousness though, it would take me a lot of effort to use that much data in one day just gaming. Most online games don't really use that much data.
IKR?!? What the hell? Almost 1/3 of our data in a single day!!
 
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