Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

Is there a minimum age to play on mid life crisis?

eastsideTim said:

wae said:

Clutch is starting to slip on the Mazda 5.  Apparently clutch kits are hard to come by for it.  Which surprises me because I thought it was mostly a Mazda 3 drivetrain....

I think the 5 weighs about 500-600 lbs more than a 3, so I bet they made some changes to the clutch/flywheel to compensate for that.

Yeah, it isn't quite the same. Mine went at 205,000 miles.

What started as changing brake pads turned into a caliper change as well. Because of the current financial situation, I only changed one, which really annoys me, because I'm sure the other one will need it soon. In any case, just once I would like to do the brakes on my car and not spend 83% of the time fighting with rust. Took me about an hour to get the parking brake cable off of the old caliper. Had to break out the propane torch, and I still used about a half a can of PB Blaster.

Slept horribly last night, then woke up 45 minutes before my alarm went off this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. Gonna be a great week. 

Ugh.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I woke up 5 or 6 times. It's going to be a long day.

chandler said:

eastsideTim said:

wae said:

Clutch is starting to slip on the Mazda 5.  Apparently clutch kits are hard to come by for it.  Which surprises me because I thought it was mostly a Mazda 3 drivetrain....

I think the 5 weighs about 500-600 lbs more than a 3, so I bet they made some changes to the clutch/flywheel to compensate for that.

Yeah, it isn't quite the same. Mine went at 205,000 miles.

Yep, the bearings are total parts-bin stuff, the friction disc is shared with the 6, and the pressure plate is unique to the 5 from 2012-2015.  But in the first gen models, it looks like the clutch kit does interchange between the 5 and the 3.  Likely because they're both the 2.3.  For whatever reason, though, the 5 and the 3 have completely different friction and pressure plates once they put the 2.5 in each of them.

What's kind of weird is that I can get the OEM Mazda components (minus the clutch alignment tool) for less than the Exidy kit if I order the parts from one of the dealers that does on-line sales.  I may try my local dealer to see if they'll match it, but I suspect they won't.

I told my wife that she was dragging the clutch too much.  But what the hell do I know?

Toyman! said:

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I woke up 5 or 6 times. It's going to be a long day.

Every night for 15 years. Berk you, diabetes.

In reply to Appleseed :

I was going to say something similar but it's only been 5 years and 9 months. I don't remember what it is like to sleep through a night.

City pool operation has been a complete joke so far this year. Pool hours seem to be completely random. Twice we've loaded up the kids only to find a locked gate during supposed "open" hours. We paid $$$ tax dollars a few years ago for an awesome pool complex that is now a roll of the dice on whether we can use it.

(edit)

I just realized that the city moved from an all-day entrance fee model to a block schedule. You used to pay one fee and get access to the pool all day. Now you pay and only get two hours at a time. Want another two hours? Pay again. The entrance fee is the same as it was before.

Sooooo.....where the hell is the money going? If you stay at the pool all day you have to pay 3x. Most people won't do that, but it does allow for more income in a day. Time for an open records request.

Rear-mounted auxiliary heater cores and evaporator cores with externally-routed aluminum lines in a climate that sees snow and road salt is a berkeleying terrible idea.

I feel torn about my decision to look for other work. I know it's still the right decision. I feel bad for my coworkers who have more faith in this company and ownership than I do for feeling like I'm leaving them or something.

Our GM says how she wants to give them time to have a chance to develop a plan to turn things around.

But at the end of the day, the owner is only coming in to work for major staff meetings and fun PR stuff (e.g. a local magazine interview). When you've got a plan on how to make this company profitable, let me know. If it works for me, I won't need to keep job hunting.

At the same time, the situation I've been put in to feel like I'm letting the staff down because, if I leave, there will be effectively no leadership in the building, is why I need to leave.

In reply to Beer Baron :

Not your problem, you're not the owner.  You didn't let them down, he did.

Beer Baron said:

At the same time, the situation I've been put in to feel like I'm letting the staff down because, if I leave, there will be effectively no leadership in the building, is why I need to leave.

Not your circus, not your monkeys.

I get your loyalty to your coworkers, and that's admirable, but you are not being paid (or even allowed) to manage the company.

Management is not listening to your concerns, for all the reasons you've outlined.  That is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.  Nor is it in your power to change it.

I repeat: Not your circus, not your monkeys.

In reply to Duke :

I know. And I'm going to keep telling myself that and occasionally venting and popping in for a sanity check when I feel like I'm kinda being gaslit.

The owner has brought in the third-founder to act as COO. They're saying how they're going to fix things and turn the company around. I'd love to see that happen.

But it isn't fixed yet. The company has *not* been turned around. My situation has not changed until the situation has actually changed.

The car doesn't have a check engine light on. It's not making a funny noise intermittently. It's broken. I need a running car. Don't tell me how great the car will be when you get it fixed. Fix it. Get it running. Because I need a running car.

I need to work for a company that is financially healthy enough to give valuable employees raises and where management is present, leads, and provides the support employees need to do their jobs. They say they're going to do that, but haven't yet.

I also need to decide what I would need to see to make up for the ways I feel kinda personally wronged and generally disrespected by the owner. I am a founder, thought not the owner. With the owner gone, I'm the one who everyone turns to with E36 M3 problems that are too big to fix on their own. I've been shouldering the emotional burden that should be on the owner. In return... he doesn't even say 'hello' or 'goodbye' or anything on the rare occasions he's in the building. He just comes in to watch soccer, and I realize he's there when I go up to grab some water while I'm busy working.

In reply to Beer Baron :

Why would he bother to work?  You're there doing his job for him.  Consciously or not, he's counting on your senses of duty and guilt to keep you there.

Look at it another way:

From this side of the internet, it seems an awful lot like you're the co-dependent enabler who allows your boss to keep failing to sober up and take responsibility.  Or grow up and be an adult.  Or however you want to phrase it.  There are whole programs devoted to getting out of that role, because it is unhealthy and unsustainable, even if you're not the one with the actual problem.

I can appreciate your commitment to the company you helped start.  I can appreciate your sense of loss for what that company could have been.

But it isn't what it could have been.  You need to get out as soon as you can find something stable that suits your needs, even if it's only for a year or two.  Then work on finding your new dream job.  Don't stay trapped there by the sunk cost fallacy.

 I went out with friends Friday night.   One of the guys texted me this morning.  He tested positive for Covid. 

Then he sent another text, the other guy out with us has covid.    They both must have had it before I had contact with them.

My test is scheduled tomorrow.  So far no symptoms and its almost 72 hours.

In reply to jharry3 :

Good luck, hope you stay negative.  My mom is finally starting to feel better after almost 4 weeks.

Karacticus said:

Between how low the Supra is and how limited my shoulder mobility is, I kerbed one front (satin black) wheel at the Kansas Turnpike toll plaza while picking up the ticket and dinged paint off of the driver's door edge while paying at the exit.

Damage in both cases is just superficial (and repairable), but it's the first visible damage to the car with not even 3,000 miles on it yet.

 

Like 2 weeks after The Dancer got her new Colorado we were out picking up donations for the non-profit's yard sale, and one of the older children of the family we were picking up from insisted on carrying and loading a fairly heavy mostly-concrete monkey yard ornament over both mine and The Dancer's objections- and sure enough while trying to get it into the truck she whacked just behind the back passenger door with it and dented it. The Dancer was pissed that her new truck that had less than 200 miles on it already had a dent. 

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

IIRC, LD's are the same size as LP's- and they make a good number of mailers for records. I still have a handful sitting in my closet from when The Dancer and I would have fun looking through the books & LPs at the local Goodwills to find things we could resell for a profit (before they started doing that themselves).

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

oohhh - that one hurts.  It has this kinda of feel to it. 

In reply to Duke :

(Probably) have a meeting tomorrow that's basically going to be me saying, "This is what I need out of a job. The company isn't providing it. I am actively looking for a company that will."

I have an interview with a local competitor on Thursday.

Talked to someone who works with another cool local company in a different industry who pretty much let me know they're hiring like crazy, and my background would make me a shoe-in for multiple open positions.

This company isn't berkeleyed because I'm leaving. I'm leaving because this company is berkeleyed.
 

Never say a word to your current employer that you're looking.   You can hint that you're upset......??

Datsun310Guy said:

Never say a word to your current employer that you're looking.   You can hint that you're upset......??

LOL. What's he going to do, fire me?

In seriousness, the three of us founded this company together. We're friends. I still care about them. I would love to see the company turn around, and this might light a fire under their asses to actually do so.

I don't expect it to actually change anything. But I know I am being more fair than they probably deserve, and knowing how they react will allow me to be more confident in my decision.

In reply to Beer Baron :

So, you have an owner, a manager, and a brewmaster (you) that founded the company? The owner put up the funds but does little work?

Is there any way you can convince the owner to be a silent owner and let you and the other guy make all the decisions?

I know you said the owner needed to finance the next step, is there any way the business can borrow the funds to make that step and leave the owner's money out of it?

Is the business profitable or does it need an influx of cash on a regular basis to keep the bills paid? 

Is there any way you and the other guy could buy out the owner?

NickD said:

Rear-mounted auxiliary heater cores and evaporator cores with externally-routed aluminum lines in a climate that sees snow and road salt is a berkeleying terrible idea.

And now the mental giants in our parts departmenet got me a rear heater core, instead of the rear evaporator core that I needed. So I get to wait another day to get this done.