Rant VIII: The Reckoning

General Specific

General Specific

Oh my god, I have so many stories from working in a call center. I did 8 years of tech support. I'm about to go home, so may try to type a few out later.

Just as a teaser and to jog my memory later, I will leave these here:
Broken Bubble
Shotgun English Lady
Tornado
Moo

I may have told some of those stories before, but if anyone wants to hear them again, I will more than happily tell them.
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

I took a whistle out to play today.

When I started playing it, I realized I have no idea who the maker is or where or when I got it. I have a few pictures of my "entire collection" (including one as recent as 4 months ago) and this whistle isn't in them. I haven't bought a whistle in the last 4 months. It's like the Annibelle of whistles. It just showed up. I'm scared ;)

Really, I feel like I'm having a total Alzheimer's moment. This is the first time in my life I've held a whistle in my hands that I ostensibly own, and couldn't tell you everything about it, including when I bought it, who I bought it from, what wood it's made out of, etc. It's bothering me a lot.
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

I figured it out.

I did some googling, looking at all of the makers I might have wanted to buy whistles from that I didn't already own.
It's a "Whorfin" whistle. This was corroborated by someone else on the instrument forums I'm on.

I bought it for myself as a Christmas present, like I do every year. I always buy myself a whistle to try out something new. I looked at used whistles from the Irish Flute Store, made a snap decision, and bought it without much thought. When it came in, I didn't want grief from my wife about buying another whistle, so I stuck it on the whistle wall with the thought that I'd fiddle with it later.

There it sat, until I forgot completely about it. Since I'd never actually played it, or looked at it for longer than 30 seconds, it was completely unfamiliar to me when I grabbed it at random today to play a whistle.

Mystery solved.
 
ThatNickGuy

ThatNickGuy

bhamv3 said:
This reminds me of when I look at my Steam games list and wonder when the hell I acquired certain games.
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Oh, that's because of me. I hacked your account and add random games on there at times for the lulz.

It's all part of my master plan to eventually get a notification that says "bhamv3 is playing Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015: Do You Still Shower With Your Dad."
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

ThatNickGuy said:
Oh, that's because of me. I hacked your account and add random games on there at times for the lulz.

It's all part of my master plan to eventually get a notification that says "bhamv3 is playing Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015: Do You Still Shower With Your Dad."
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Oh...

Well in that case, woo hoo, free games! Thanks for the Shower With Your Dad games!
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

So the big news in Taiwan over the last few days was a massive train derailing in the eastern part of the island. A guy at a nearby construction site fucked up and allowed a construction vehicle to roll onto the tracks, which led to the train hitting it just as it was about to enter a tunnel. The train derailed, scraping and slamming back and forth in the tunnel, causing significant deformations to many of the train cars and leading to many deaths and injuries. The situation was exacerbated by there being many standing passengers, due to the seats being sold out, cause it was the first day of a long weekend and there were many people heading home or traveling to tourist destinations on the east coast.

The train crash has caused approximately 50 deaths and 200 injuries. I say "approximately" because, uh, some of the deceased are in incomplete states, so putting people back together to determine exactly how many people died is taking some time. The death toll has fluctuated between 48 and 52 over the last few days, and we might not know the true death toll until all the DNA testing is complete.

Now, tragic as this incident is, I actually didn't feel much on a personal level. Sure, it was definitely bad, and seeing the gruesome scenes on the news was pretty saddening. But I didn't feel like it affected me or anyone I knew, so I felt detached from it. That is, until my wife got a message on the evening of the accident.

One of the youngest fatalities was a 6-year-old girl, who was traveling on the train with her father and her 9-year-old sister. The father got out with minor injuries, but the 9-year-old sister suffered severe head trauma and is now in a coma in the ICU. The 9-year-old is also a student at my wife's school. My wife has taught her for two years now.

That brought the accident much closer to home. My wife was asked to record a voice message for her student, to encourage her and hopefully bring her out of her coma. I helped her with the recordings. She's been worried and subdued for the last few days, but there's nothing else either of us can do.
 
Fun Size

Fun Size

My son, going into school for the second time of his eighth grade year: So, is the PSAT hard?
Me, out loud: No. Just answer what you can. It's not a big deal. It's just a practice test.
Me, internally: Maybe, but it's completely meaningless. You have to do three practice tests so people with money can pay tutors to teach their kids how to game tests like these, keeping many minorities and the disadvantaged out of the system, which honestly is probably what we will end up doing, not to keep others out but to give you whatever advantage we can as your parents. Of course, that's only for the people who don't have enough money to outright cheat. If it makes you feel better, most of college is a scam anyway, squeezing people for hundreds of thousands of dollars for what you could learn in a community college or just by going online and researching things for yourself, but without the magical "prestige" of a big university that is literally just based on how hard they make it to get into the school and not the actual quality of the education. It's all bullshit and has almost nothing to to with the rest of your life outside of the crippling debt from student loans that we'll try to protect you as best we can. Good luck!
 
Dei

Dei

My daughter is 2 years ahead in math already and has pretty much been acing the math parts of the PSAT with time to spare. I'm sure by the time she takes the SAT ory will be even more of a joke. I know for some people it's hard, but I just really don't see the value in it for college admissions whatsoever.
 
Shawn

Shawn

Saw a homeless guy patrolling the center divider at a busy intersection. I had an extra bottle of water with me so I gave it to him. He asked me if I had any weed and I told him no. He thanked me for the water and before the light even turned green for me he dumped the entire bottle out onto the ground and started scraping his shoes in it to clean the bottoms of them.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

What can you do when someone is obviously, seriously, mentally ill, but you have absolutely no responsibility towards that person? Having them permanently removed from your presence can give you peace at last, but what good does it do the other person if nothing is done about the underlying problem? Yeah, they're not bothering YOU anymore, but what good does it do them in the long run?
 
jwhouk

jwhouk

DarkAudit said:
What can you do when someone is obviously, seriously, mentally ill, but you have absolutely no responsibility towards that person? Having them permanently removed from your presence can give you peace at last, but what good does it do the other person if nothing is done about the underlying problem? Yeah, they're not bothering YOU anymore, but what good does it do them in the long run?
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I get it. More than you could possibly know.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

I'm back the hotel. For how long I don't know. The apartment isn't safe as long as that other guy is still there. He was already supposed to have been gone.
 
DarkAudit

DarkAudit

Somebody who wasn't me called the cops on him not long after I posted that. Apparently they responded and left him there. I drove past around lunchtime and saw nothing different, so I kept going. Monday is the earliest he can be out, I'm told. I may dash in to grab supplies in the AM, but that's it. Not sticking around while he's still there.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

ThatNickGuy said:
Dear Customer,

If you're having issues with your data, there is zero need to be condescending and insulting to me, the person trying to help you. Calling me useless or my company "trash" over and over is equally unhelpful.

Regards,

Stuck in a soulless call center job.
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I always love the customers who say we're not "real" IT and they want to talk to the team computer guys.
Erm, lady, I'm third line support; next step up is the developers of the software. I don't think they're going to know more about actual real life use cases, honestly.
 
Tiger Tsang

Tiger Tsang

Well that was 2 days of hell for no reason, go for my scoping yesterday, I feel fine but I'm running a fever too high 101.6 for for the doctor to run an elective procedure. I bought a thermometer on the way home. I'm still running hot at around 99-100.
FML
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

Bubble181 said:
I always love the customers who say we're not "real" IT and they want to talk to the team computer guys.
Erm, lady, I'm third line support; next step up is the developers of the software. I don't think they're going to know more about actual real life use cases, honestly.
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And we don't want to speak to live users, yuck :p
 
Tiger Tsang

Tiger Tsang

TLDR: It's been one helluva week.

Well, if I've had one shitty week this week, I've had some good news or did a good deed. I've convinced Chucklehead Chad *my roommate, nice guy but lazy and sharp as an 18 pound Ebonite Special* to got his appointment at Walgreen's done for his damn shots.
Between his smoking and his mom's age, about Damn time.

But let's see So far this week I've had to
1. Go through the *pun intended* shitshow of preparing for a colonoscopy.

2. get there on the fourth by 930 which means I had to get out of bed at 330ish to start the Colon liquid plumber.

3. get to the hospital, start prep, and find out I *while feeling just peachy* am running 101.6 degrees. So they won't do elective surgery when you're running that. They tell
me to monitor my temp for a few days and see if I'm maybe coming down with something.

4. I had ordered a $60 mystery bundle from Static-X *3 random shirts, sticker, pick & a little draw string bag*. Living in an Apartment building, we have those stacked things with little boxes on top and package boxes on the bottom. On the 6th, Chucklehead Carrier threw the package box key in somebody else's letter box. And they promptly stole it, instead of dropping it at my door.

5. After 3, I stopped at Kroger's on the way home bought a thermometer, and have been monitoring my temp all week, and sure enough, I feel fine but still running at 101 give or take. I did start the process of getting all that checked out tho. I'm just waiting on a call back from my Doc about which branch I need to go to to start getting this checked out.

As an aside, another nice thing that did happen today, I did happen to go outside when the mail truck was nearby. I had to wait a few minutes for the Carrier to come back from her route, and I was able to ask her is she got the note I left on my PO Box. She said she did, apologized and said this was her first day back and didn't run the route yesterday. She asked if she'd like to get her manager to call me.
She's also stupidly cute, friendly, tall and blonde. She'd be bhamv3 approved.
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

General Specific said:
I had a colonoscopy a while back and the worst part was drinking that crap. Having to do that and then NOT getting the procedure? yeesh, man
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Last time I had one, I hadda drink this stuff the day before. Like every half-hour, 8 ounces of stuff, followed by intense shitting 5 minutes later. And I hadda drink a gallon of it. So like for 4 hours.

They said it was relatively tasteless, but you could add flavoring. So I added peach tea crystal light.

After about 90 minutes, the whole time I was crapping my brains out, I was telling my wife "I'm not drinking another drink of that shit" and she would just go "ok, whatever you think's best." But then I'd end up drinking it anyway when the time came.

And it took me years before I could stomach the smell of peach tea again.
 
Dave

Dave

Staff member
Follow this set of instructions, for your own sanity. Trust me, this is FAR better than drinking that shit the doctor gives you. Last time I threw up the stuff because it was like drinking warm, thick lemon flavored gruel with the consistency of clotting milk. Then the nurse told me about this and it not only tastes good but it does the trick. Takes a bit more time and you have to watch yourself, but it's far preferable in my opinion.

my.clevelandclinic.org

Colonoscopy Bowel Preparation Using MiraLAX & Gatorade

Bowel cleansing before a colonoscopy can be done using MiraLAX and Gatorade on a two-part schedule. You need to drink clear liquids only and not eat at all.
my.clevelandclinic.org my.clevelandclinic.org
 
Tiger Tsang

Tiger Tsang

And as a follow up on the temperature thing, while back up in the 101 range this morning, for a couple or so hours last night I was in the normal range.

Also the stuff the VA gives comes in a big ass jug with powder on the bottom, fill to the line at 10 am, add lemonade mix or such if you want, mix well, drink half at 6pm day before, drink other half 6ish hours before procedure. It didn't taste so bad with out flavoring, but if/when next time, I'll definitely add something.
 
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Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

So, my wife's aunt died. Her girlfriend's grandfather also died. Both on our anniversary. Which happens to fall on mothers day.

She flew down this weekend to go to the aunt's funeral. Instead, she ended up throwing up blood last night and had to call 911.

Bleeding ulcer. They stapled it shut (or clipped it, or whatever) and plan on releasing her sometime tomorrow if the bleeding has stopped. So she misses the funeral. Basically spent a couple thousand dollars to fly 1500 miles away to sit in the hospital and be miserable.

It's been a hell of a week.
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

So, I wasn't that concerned about her outcome...bleeding ulcer has about a 90% recovery rate. I mean 10% mortality isn't anything to sneeze at, but it seemed like she got to it fast enough, and the docs didn't beat around the bush on getting it closed up. She was freaked out, of course, but I felt things would go well.

My biggest reason for putting this in the rant section is now there's a whole gravitas of negative things happening right around our anniversary and mother's day (since they're both on the same day this year).
 
Cheesy1

Cheesy1

Almost two months ago I ordered a new PC through Origin. In that time I've had to change my CPU because they said it wasn't correct for the drives I ordered, even though they blocked me from picking other ones based on the same issue but not on the one I ordered so I thought I was good. And THAT took a while because they moved to different servers twice and couldn't answer me or see my answer while they were. And NOW the RTX 3080 they said they had when I bought it they no longer have and may take weeks to get again (if at all), delaying my PC even further. I'm fucking ready to just ask for a full refund and say "Fuck all this!" :mad:
 
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