Rant VIII: The Reckoning

[ThatNickGuy]

Just had someone - a relative, in fact - message me privately with a long message to complain about my employer and that I should talk to management about their problem.

Folks, don't do that. I don't care if you're a friend, family, or the goddamn Pope. Do not - DO NOT - message an employee through their personal account for a problem you have with a company. Especially when it's their day off.

I flat out told them that if they have a problem or a complaint, take it up directly with the company. Don't bother me when I'm at home, not clocked in, and not even remotely representing the company on my day off. Fuck off with that shit.

Edit: This was a cousin I barely speak to. And it looks like they unfriended me on Facebook after I responded to them. No big loss, really.

 

[Bones]

Just had someone - a relative, in fact - message me privately with a long message to complain about my employer and that I should talk to management about their problem.

Folks, don't do that. I don't care if you're a friend, family, or the goddamn Pope. Do not - DO NOT - message an employee through their personal account for a problem you have with a company. Especially when it's their day off.

I flat out told them that if they have a problem or a complaint, take it up directly with the company. Don't bother me when I'm at home, not clocked in, and not even remotely representing the company on my day off. Fuck off with that shit.

Edit: This was a cousin I barely speak to. And it looks like they unfriended me on Facebook after I responded to them. No big loss, really.

me everyday with electrical things, I am not your slave, go consult with a licensed pro, barring my grandmother, aunts or mother. you are a grown adult, you have a brain and a smart device, go figure it out.

 

[chris]

I hate gendering at work. It's tedious and takes time away. I know it's important but also annoying.

 

[PatrThom]

I hate gendering at work. It's tedious and takes time away. I know it's important but also annoying.

What do you do? Sex chicks?

—Patrick

 

[chris]

What do you do? Sex chicks?

—Patrick

No, it's something any english speaking person never have to deal with and it's probably something only done in Germany.

For gender equality everything must contain both genders now if, for example, people of a profession are addressed.

For a group of doctors for example it is necessary to adress both female and male doctors.

English / German

Female doctors = Ärztinnen
Male doctors = Ärzte

Just doctors (Ärzte) is no longer enough.

 

[blotsfan]

It’s weird hearing about differences in other countries and cultures. Here in the US, we would never trust women to be doctors.

 

[Squidleybits]

I frustrated one of my French teachers with this.

In French, 99 female auditors can be hanging out and we are referred to by the female version of the noun. 1 dude walks in and we are all labeled as a room of dudes.

Drives me bananas. My teacher didn’t know what to say lol.

Edit: all emails that go out collectively refer to us as dudes.

 

[Bubble181]

No, it's something any english speaking person never have to deal with and it's probably something only done in Germany.

For gender equality everything must contain both genders now if, for example, people of a profession are addressed.

For a group of doctors for example it is necessary to adress both female and male doctors.

English / German

Female doctors = Ärztinnen
Male doctors = Ärzte

Just doctors (Ärzte) is no longer enough.

Dutch too.
And since we also have gender neutral words, like German (das instead of der or die), there are now people seriously asking to make neutral versions as well.
Not to replace the m/f versions (this has happened with some professions, and as long as the neutral word is somewhere decent I'm perfectly fine with it) but to add it to the other two for the enbies.
Now, let me be very clear: I absolutely believe people should be free to be enby, and of there's a neutraal general term, I'm usually in favor of using it (there are a few examples where the neutral term is just horribly clunky, but, you know, come up with something better and it'll be fine).
But trying to push for, say, "policemen, policewomen and policewyn" is just stupid in my mind. Like I said, feel free to advocate using "police officers" or something (to stick with the example). It's objectively better. Trying to force people to use all three all the time is... In a way also judgemental and small minded. Not every time you're ignored or not represented needs to be considered a personal slight or attack. There are specific cases where it might be sensible (if you're addressing a group where enbies will be a significant part of the audience), but in most cases... There's just no point except a desire to consider something an attack. The lobby for one handed people doesn't consider "give a big round of applause for our next contestant" an attack, and, I know this may be considered dismissive though I don't mean it that way - there are more people in the world that don't have the use of two hands, than there are (official) enbies.

I frustrated one of my French teachers with this.

In French, 99 female auditors can be hanging out and we are referred to by the female version of the noun. 1 dude walks in and we are all labeled as a room of dudes.

Drives me bananas. My teacher didn’t know what to say lol.

Edit: all emails that go out collectively refer to us as dudes.

While I always thought the "whole group is male of there's one male member" thing was a bit stupid, the problem with French is that it does not have ungendered words. "they" is either male or female. In English it can be either, in Dutch both versions exist and usually a third one (and the ungendered pronoun is the same as the female one, not the male one, oddly).
That the male is the "default" is sexist, but it's also something that's grown from history - we are derived from a patriarchal and chauvinist society, after all, and we're far from finished with it. Using the "wrong" version is to French language purists like using the wrong there/their for English language purists - one of the most Collin, and frustrating, errors made.
No doubt it will change - language is always evolving - but it'll take some time and pushing too hard just makes it (yet another) stupid symbol to battle over.

 

[PatrThom]

TIL “Enby/enbies.”

—Patrick

 

[bhamv3]

But trying to push for, say, "policemen, policewomen and policewyn" is just stupid in my mind.

This reminds me of the push to make the term "latinx" a thing. As far as I'm aware, the people that term is meant to refer to actually don't like it.

 

[Tress]

This reminds me of the push to make the term "latinx" a thing. As far as I'm aware, the people that term is meant to refer to actually don't like it.

Yes. For the most part it’s just white progressives who believe it’s their responsibility to lecture the Latino community about how they are allowed to refer to themselves.

 

[General Specific]

I frustrated one of my French teachers with this.

In French, 99 female auditors can be hanging out and we are referred to by the female version of the noun. 1 dude walks in and we are all labeled as a room of dudes.

Drives me bananas. My teacher didn’t know what to say lol.

Edit: all emails that go out collectively refer to us as dudes.

oh that’s messed up. I didn’t know about that, but I did know about how everything in French has a gender. I had a teacher that would mark a question wrong if you used the wrong articles when naming items.
I mean it would just be embarrassing to talk about a male table (le table) instead of the proper female table (la table). The rug it is sitting on is, of course, male (le rug) and to suggest otherwise is to take leave of one’s senses.
It was always little things like that. It made no sense and there was no way that I could find to tell which article to use. It was just completely random and you had to just memorize it. It’s one of the main reasons that I wound up hating French.

 

[blotsfan]

Yes. For the most part it’s just white progressives who believe it’s their responsibility to lecture the Latino community about how they are allowed to refer to themselves.

The term was invented by Hispanic people. It just didn’t catch on in the Hispanic community. They’re trying latinè as a new word to mean the same thing, but who knows how that’ll go.

 

[Celt Z]

I've seen "Latinx" sort of split in the Hispanic/Latin community. Some like it, some don't. I think prefered pronouns tend to cycle and evolve, and you just have to go with it. Bloom County gave us this comic back in the 80's, and it's STILL a changing issue.

I remember you didn't say "black" when I was younger, it was considered derogatory, but now there is a debate whether it's prefered to say "black" or "African-American", because some people who's families came from countries that are no directly attached to Africa do not consider themselves to be of African descent. And since none-of-the-above are part of my own background, if someone tells me, "I prefer to be referred to as _____.", then it's fine by me!

 

[HCGLNS]

I've seen "Latinx" sort of split in the Hispanic/Latin community. Some like it, some don't. I think prefered pronouns tend to cycle and evolve, and you just have to go with it. Bloom County gave us this comic back in the 80's, and it's STILL a changing issue.

I remember you didn't say "black" when I was younger, it was considered derogatory, but now there is a debate whether it's prefered to say "black" or "African-American", because some people who's families came from countries that are no directly attached to Africa do not consider themselves to be of African descent. And since none-of-the-above are part of my own background, if someone tells me, "I prefer to be referred to as _____.", then it's fine by me!

 

[Chad Sexington]

oh that’s messed up. I didn’t know about that, but I did know about how everything in French has a gender. I had a teacher that would mark a question wrong if you used the wrong articles when naming items.
I mean it would just be embarrassing to talk about a male table (le table) instead of the proper female table (la table). The rug it is sitting on is, of course, male (le rug) and to suggest otherwise is to take leave of one’s senses.
It was always little things like that. It made no sense and there was no way that I could find to tell which article to use. It was just completely random and you had to just memorize it. It’s one of the main reasons that I wound up hating French.

I think something important to think of it as categories and not like... human gender. In fact the word in French is 'genre' which of course makes it way over to English as a word for category. The rug isn't male or table female, they're in the categories masculine and feminine and they don't really have to do with human gender at all. They have to do with how the word is connected to other words in a sentence, how to conjugate a verb or use the correct ending for adjectives. It doesn't make it seem less random, but it does feel less arbitrary when you view as part of a grammatical structure, which is what it is. I understand this is harder to see in the case of nouns that refer to people, like occupations, but grammatical masculine and feminine just mean 'how to attach this word to other words properly'.

But learning languages is hard. I'm currently teaching myself Greek, which has three genders and the nouns additionally fit into different 'declensions' which most languages I've studied don't have. I REALLY feel like the declensions are just random right now.

 

[Squidleybits]

oh that’s messed up. I didn’t know about that, but I did know about how everything in French has a gender. I had a teacher that would mark a question wrong if you used the wrong articles when naming items.
I mean it would just be embarrassing to talk about a male table (le table) instead of the proper female table (la table). The rug it is sitting on is, of course, male (le rug) and to suggest otherwise is to take leave of one’s senses.
It was always little things like that. It made no sense and there was no way that I could find to tell which article to use. It was just completely random and you had to just memorize it. It’s one of the main reasons that I wound up hating French.

I speak French often for work and I am sure that I use the wrong article often (ie: calling a table a dude). Grammatically correct? No. However, the people I am speaking to know exactly what I mean which is my goal. I check my writing very carefully however.

 

[Chad Sexington]

I speak French often for work and I am sure that I use the wrong article often (ie: calling a table a dude). Grammatically correct? No. However, the people I am speaking to know exactly what I mean which is my goal. I check my writing very carefully however.

Yeah I mean spoken language is a different beast, too. Le/la can sound similar enough, or you can slip up very clearly but people are charitable and know what you mean. But writing, I mean, it's obviously good to edit when it's professional, and it can tough to read anything with lots of grammatical mistakes even when the meaning is clear, even when it's informal.

I've been really fortunate that 99% of my French experience has been with people super cool when I make speaking mistakes.

 

[PatrThom]

View attachment 41203

And the one just before it was the same thing, but about the Band-Aid.

I'm currently teaching myself Greek, which has three genders and the nouns additionally fit into different 'declensions' which most languages I've studied don't have.

That and the Greek alphabet—there‘s a reason why “It’s Greek to me!” became an idiom.

—Patrick

 

[mikerc]

there is a debate whether it's prefered to say "black" or "African-American", because some people who's families came from countries that are no directly attached to Africa do not consider themselves to be of African descent.

I have a vague memory of watching an interview between an American reporter & a British athlete (I want to say Linford Christie - British of Caribbean descent) where the interviewer asked Christie what his success meant to him as an African-American & being utterly confused by his insistence that he wasn't African-American.

 

[Vrii]

But learning languages is hard. I'm currently teaching myself Greek, which has three genders and the nouns additionally fit into different 'declensions' which most languages I've studied don't have. I REALLY feel like the declensions are just random right now.

Modern or Ancient? My degree is in Classics, and my experience learning Ancient Greek was that it was all very confusing and arbitrary until it wasn't and it started making sense. That said, declensions - just like gender, tbh - are a matter of learning them as part of the vocabulary, rather than trying to figure out a coherent system that will let you reason it out without a dictionary. "Why is this a second declension noun?" isn't going to lead to coherent answers any more than "why is a boat feminine?".

 

[Chad Sexington]

Modern or Ancient? My degree is in Classics, and my experience learning Ancient Greek was that it was all very confusing and arbitrary until it wasn't and it started making sense. That said, declensions - just like gender, tbh - are a matter of learning them as part of the vocabulary, rather than trying to figure out a coherent system that will let you reason it out without a dictionary. "Why is this a second declension noun?" isn't going to lead to coherent answers any more than "why is a boat feminine?".

Ancient, well... Erasmian, anyway. Long term plan is to read the New Testament in the original.

 

[Vrii]

Ancient, well... Erasmian, anyway. Long term plan is to read the New Testament in the original.

Nice. I'm assuming there are a ton of commentaries that can help with that as well - though, in the little bit of interaction I had with Biblical translation, the Greek was pretty straightforward as well. A decent understanding of the Grammar and a good dictionary should get you a long way.

 

[Chad Sexington]

Nice. I'm assuming there are a ton of commentaries that can help with that as well - though, in the little bit of interaction I had with Biblical translation, the Greek was pretty straightforward as well. A decent understanding of the Grammar and a good dictionary should get you a long way.

It's only been a few weeks - got a Biblical dictionary and regular one, a workbook, and texts on grammar and translation. My goal is to be fluent enough in 1 year to read through the NT.

 

[Tinwhistler]

Wanted to get into Tunisian crochet, which is very much like a combination of knitting and crochet. Bought a bunch of stuff, including a beginner book, back in January, but I've kept myself busy with projects until today. Open the book to find that a good inch is cut off the side from a production error, making it useless, but the order was too long ago to get a return on it.

 

[Sparhawk]

Wanted to get into Tunisian crochet, which is very much like a combination of knitting and crochet. Bought a bunch of stuff, including a beginner book, back in January, but I've kept myself busy with projects until today. Open the book to find that a good inch is cut off the side from a production error, making it useless, but the order was too long ago to get a return on it.

View attachment 41262

That sucks.

 

[Tinwhistler]

I hate idiotic job requirements. Just got an email for some company that wants 20 years experience with mobile development. IoS released 2007 and Android 2008. Math much?

Reminds me of a recruiter email I got in 2005 that wanted 10 years experience with Windows 2000. I replied back to that one with "10 years? What year is it again?" Needless to say, I didn't get that job

 

[PatrThom]

I hate idiotic job requirements. Just got an email for some company that wants 20 years experience with mobile development. IoS released 2007 and Android 2008. Math much?

Where's that tweet from the guy showing a job listing with a requirement of blah years of experience in some language, and he was ranting that the language wasn't even out blah years ago, and he knew this because he was one of the people responsible for creating it?

--Patrick

 

[General Specific]

Where's that tweet from the guy showing a job listing with a requirement of blah years of experience in some language, and he was ranting that the language wasn't even out blah years ago, and he knew this because he was one of the people responsible for creating it?

--Patrick

I was remembering something like that as well, but thought it was a specific program and he had applied for the job and gotten rejected because he didn't have enough experience with the program that he wrote.

 

[GasBandit]

It was this:

 

[Cog]

I need to learn how to drive. My dad is sick and there's almost nothing I can do for him without having a car.

 

[AshburnerX]

I need to learn how to drive. My dad is sick and there's almost nothing I can do for him without having a car.

This is an on-going problem for me as well... not the learning bit necessarily, as I can drive just fine, but the "get a license" bit has always been tricky because having a cop about a foot and half away from me fucks with my anxiety disorder and makes me miss small things. I'm literally at the point where I'm thinking of getting a motorcycle license (which is a harder test with several hours of mandatory in-class time) just because I won't have to deal with that. Just buy a fucking scooter and trailer afterwards.

It would also make job searching easier... I keep getting invitations to apply for places that aren't doing remote work or aren't along a bus line and all I can do is go "Hey, thanks for the interest. I'd love to apply but I have absolutely no way of getting to you."

EDIT: I forget if I posted this... our entire house has COVID right now and I'm basically the only one well enough to function.

 

[Tinwhistler]

So, on Friday, the 22nd, I put down several thousand dollars in escrow for the new house via a check.
Tuesday, the bank says "Hai Guise! Ur in teh negative!"
I'm puzzled, since I have enough cash in the bank for both escrow and closing. Then I realize: I wrote the check on my old pre-divorce account, that I haven't closed yet. I log in, and sure enough, there it is, wrong bank, sitting several thousand in the red now.

No sweat. It's on me, and I made the mistake. I call the bank, let them know what I did, and set up a transfer to get the money in to cover it. I'll pay an NSF fee, but that's better than defaulting on this purchase agreement. Today: Transfer goes through--but the check is nowhere to be seen in my transactions. So I call the bank. The rep who takes my call tells me they returned the check for NSF. I mean, sure, they had the right to do it, but based on my conversation yesterday, everything seemed to be good for how I was handling it.

So now I'm scrambling. Title company won't take a check now, so I have to wire them the funds--which no bank makes easy these days because of scams. Finally get the funds wired over. I'm using the account I originally intended to use, and plan on letting things settle for a couple of days before I pull that money back from the one I mistakenly used. Title company gets the wire. All is good. I lean back to relax...

And get a ping from my phone. The bank I wrote the check on noticed that, yes, I do in fact have enough money to cover that check, and instead of returning it for NSF (as they claimed) they went ahead and ran it through. So now I've paid the Title company twice. So, I call them to explain and we share a sardonic laugh together.

Luckily, that extra money is money I'm holding until closing so I can cover closing costs--so I told the title company to hold onto it, and if nothing else fucks up between now and Monday, I'll come get the overage then.

Of course, now I'm going to have to write a letter to underwriting explaining why all these thousands of dollars popped in and out of my account over the course of a week.

 

[CrimsonSoul]

So my step-mom died on Saturday (We're thinking alcohol+narcotics I'm not sure I wasn't close to her) but waiting on the autopsy results, she's getting buried on Friday and it brought out a lot of hate from my uncle and holy shit is he ever a piece of shit. He told my dad he didn't want his wife buried in at the family plot in the local cemetery so my dad went out and bought two plots in a different town for him and her, and apparently, he texted my dad never to talk to him again. He has a lot of hate in his heart especially after my dad was given/bought my grandpa's old house that's on a bunch of land. Anyway in the past when I was only a few years old his ex-wife killed herself, and shortly before that, her husband was killed. Well, my mom is telling me and my wife that his wife was shot in the right temple but was left-handed (or vis versa) and her husband at the time was walking down a sidewalk and a truck came onto the sidewalk and hit and killed him and drove away. and this same Uncle has a hit list and when he gets too old/too sick to live he's going to go out and start killing people on this list and holy shit what the fuck. This is the guy that plays Santa for the local MAJOR parade in a MAJOR city near me and goes as Santa in a MAJOR children's hospital. What the hell man.

 

[General Specific]

and this same Uncle has a hit list and when he gets too old/too sick to live he's going to go out and start killing people on this list and holy shit what the fuck. This is the guy that plays Santa for the local MAJOR parade in a MAJOR city near me and goes as Santa in a MAJOR children's hospital. What the hell man.

That may be something you want to bring up to local police if you haven't already. You can call in anonymous tips to most places.

Might also want to leave anonymous tips with the parade & children's hospital about him if possible. They probably wouldn't want to be associated with him if he did go on a spree.