Rant VIII: The Reckoning

Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

So far, this Houston trip is going swimmingly.

Took 2 hops with a layover to get here. On both flights, I had an asian person next to me with no concept of personal space. So I spent all flight with them all crossed over the armrest/DMZ and touching me in the ribs or resting their knees on my knees. warrrgarble

Rental car place didn't have any compacts available when I got to the car lot. Me and about 6 other people stood around for nearly an hour before they finally decided to upgrade us all to midsize SUVs.

Lost my drivers license (though I did find it later).

Wifi at this hotel sucks. You have to pay $4.95/day if you want 'premium' wifi that will get you faster service. I haven't used this laptop in so long, I don't have an updated 1Password database on it. It'll take 2 hours to update. So I'm having to type passwords in by hand by looking them up on my phone. Hah. Contrary to what was advertised, there is no wired ethernet that I can find.

My room faces I-10, and is close enough I could conceivably spit on passing cars (ok..that's only a slight exaggeration). Houston. Traffic. Never. Stops.

My toilet has a plunger leak, so occasionally refills itself randomly.

Every outlet is already full of lamps and shit. I've had plunge half of the room into darkness to charge the laptop, my phone, and my e-cig batteries.

I expect things to improve considerably tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll end up having a great time...and I'm sure these minor annoyances wouldn't bother me so much if I didn't hate being in close proximity to strangers (which is a necessity when flying..sigh).
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Palliative sedation was started today for my aunt. I was going to pass by tomorrow to say goodbye, though I already did last time I saw her...
Her godchild came back from vacation and saw her yesterday, so I suppose she was waiting to say goodbye to her.
#fuckcancer
 
Gared

Gared

I really hate living in rural SW Oregon sometimes. Rumor has it - and at this point it's only a rumor, because only one person is tweeting about it and there's only one post on the town's Facebook group page - rumor has it that there's been yet another mass shooting and/or bombing with hostages, this time at Faith Baptist Church in Bandon, OR... 15 miles from me. But RadioReference is useless because the county's radios are either of such poor quality that we only get Charlie Brown mouth noises, or they're being scrambled.
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

Gared said:
I really hate living in rural SW Oregon sometimes. Rumor has it - and at this point it's only a rumor, because only one person is tweeting about it and there's only one post on the town's Facebook group page - rumor has it that there's been yet another mass shooting and/or bombing with hostages, this time at Faith Baptist Church in Bandon, OR... 15 miles from me. But RadioReference is useless because the county's radios are either of such poor quality that we only get Charlie Brown mouth noises, or they're being scrambled.
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Well, you could always call them: (541) 347-3589
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

Bubble181 said:
Palliative sedation was started today for my aunt. I was going to pass by tomorrow to say goodbye, though I already did last time I saw her...
Her godchild came back from vacation and saw her yesterday, so I suppose she was waiting to say goodbye to her.
#fuckcancer
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And she's gone. Without pain and the way she chose, so I guess that's nice.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

I don't want to throw people under the bus tonight. I wanna throw then under the freaking Port Authority Bus Terminal.



Do I need to check my competency privilege? Are some of these people intentionally trying to fuck up? Even if you're not on the clock, "sucks to be you" is the WRONG answer! Especially when the problem is covered by YOUR department.
 
IronBrig4

IronBrig4

One of my oldest friends passed away on Thursday night. He was my age. I'm not sure what the exact details are but it was a drug-related. Long story short, he used to work in pharmaceuticals and was surrounded by prescription painkillers all day, every day. He started self-medicating and was fired not once, but twice. His wife divorced him because he was too much of a liability around their kids.

He had been in and out of rehab for the past two years. He'd get checked in and would start to go clean. He'd even get his 30-day or 60-day chip and would start to rebuild his life before falling off the wagon again. Drugs cost him his career, his marriage, and eventually his life. I realize drug addiction is a disease and not a moral failing. It still sucks when it happens to someone in your life.
 
Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

I'm not a cynical boss. If you tell me your kid needs you, I just want to know when you'll be back - later today? Tomorrow? A few days off? Just let me know. I believe you.

But if you do want to tell me the problem, I will listen. I, however, do not under any circumstances want a photo of your daughter's severed thumb. Jesus. I already said it was fine to take care of your daughter! I ALREADY SAID YES.

I'm not a squeamish person, but come on.
 
Dei

Dei

Chad Sexington said:
I'm not a cynical boss. If you tell me your kid needs you, I just want to know when you'll be back - later today? Tomorrow? A few days off? Just let me know. I believe you.

But if you do want to tell me the problem, I will listen. I, however, do not under any circumstances want a photo of your daughter's severed thumb. Jesus. I already said it was fine to take care of your daughter! I ALREADY SAID YES.

I'm not a squeamish person, but come on.
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To be fair, some bosses are that big of an asshole.

Also to be fair, some people like sharing. D:
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

I never tell my boss what my symptoms are. If I get in that habit, I will either have to lie if I don't just feel like working. Or I will have to tell another man one day that I crapped my pants.
 
Dei

Dei

My husband's company got rid of vacation time and just said you can take a vacation whenever you want as long as there isn't priority work to do. What this means in reality is that since no one ever uses their vacation time because they are always too busy, the company doesn't have to cash out unused vacation hours anymore. :|
 
Chad Sexington

Chad Sexington

Dei said:
To be fair, some bosses are that big of an asshole.

Also to be fair, some people like sharing. D:
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This is definitely the latter case.

The previous manager didn't care to the point of never tracking anyone's sick time or vacation time, so people were just never around or available.

My hard-ass approach is: I will say yes as long as you tell me, and I will actually record how much time off you take on our payroll software.

Of course, maybe since the previous guy was so lax, they see me as an asshole?
 
Gared

Gared

Dave said:
I HAAAAATE that. In most cases they use it as an excuse to limit both.
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Yep, and last year, because there may be state and/or federal laws that regulate sick leave but there are none that regulate "Paid Time Off, or PTO," @Aislynn's company was able to completely do away with paid leave for all salaried employees.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
They did that to my wife who had a lot of time accrued. But since they were throwing them together they just added a new max and dropped everyone down. So if she had more than the max sick time accrued (she did) then the max was her new "personal" time total. Oh, she lost vacation way? Too bad. Oh, and now she only gets X days per pay period instead of a mass accrual at the beginning of the year? Too bad. Oh, and the president of the company got a huge bonus? Wonder where all that extra money came from....?
 
Gared

Gared

Dave said:
They did that to my wife who had a lot of time accrued. But since they were throwing them together they just added a new max and dropped everyone down. So if she had more than the max sick time accrued (she did) then the max was her new "personal" time total. Oh, she lost vacation way? Too bad. Oh, and now she only gets X days per pay period instead of a mass accrual at the beginning of the year? Too bad. Oh, and the president of the company got a huge bonus? Wonder where all that extra money came from....?
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This one was a straight, across the board removal of all PTO for salaried employees throughout the company. They gave people a chance to use some of it, but a lot of people lost their accrued time. Ais didn't give them a choice, she just took the time off and told her boss to screw off about it being month-end. Now salaried employees can negotiate with their bosses to get time away, but it's not time off, and has to be made up - or it goes unpaid. Oh - you're sitting at work with nothing to do for 7 of your 8 hours? Ok. You want to go to the doctor? Sure thing, but make sure you come in on the weekend to make up the time the company lost. Luckily so far her boss hasn't been a bitch about it; but yeah - massive bonuses for the TLA crowd, dividends for stockholders, and layoffs and PTO removal for employees? Stock price is up, your issue is?
 
Gared

Gared

Dave said:
And this is why unions exist.
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I may frequent the white collar world, but I'll be a hardcore blue-collar union supporter til the day I die.

Caveat - when they're doing their jobs and not just being in bed with the management.
 
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