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

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm convinced that the ideal business model for modern companies would be to have no employees at all, just a program to print money for the owners. 

When I was at the family owned rubber shop we bought in bulk and fabricated hose assemblies, prepared conveyor belt for customers, welded metal hoses and components and we had 25 guys in the shop making stuff.

Family sells to private equity guys and they whittle it down to 10 guys and prefer to pick and pull parts off the shelf instead.  My most highest margin item was us welding custom metal hose assemblies.  Then it tanked as I had to outsource the product.  

Eventually my joke was....as a fabricator we love to buy product made by somebody else.  We prefer to not fabricate anything.

I am sad for society. 

I was going to start a whole thread about it, but I'm just tired of beating a dead horse, so I'll leave it here.

We need to chill the berkeley out. 

Three nights ago I went to Disney's Hollywood studios. It was date night and we wanted to go to ogas cantina. As our reservation wasn't until 8:30 we decided to a bit of shopping and get some of the new magic bands so we can play the bounty hunter game. 

The magic band store was very busy. The poor girl working that section looked to be run ragged. We needed her help to get one that was locked up. Waited patiently, she went to go get it out, apologizing the entire time. Eventually got to the point where she couldn't open the security thing. Swmbo elected to rip the package off the thing instead of making the lady continue to fumble with the key tag. We were fixing to use it immediately, so the package was of no consequences. 

On paying she asked if we had any discounts. Annual pass, dvc....and Christina pulls out her company id. Immediately you could see the girl relax. 

She says "I knew you were a cast member. You were being nice" 

That's berkeleyed up. 

That's also the THIRD time in as many weeks that has happened. Disneys been offering super special discounts on merch for cast, so we've been picking up some merch we've been looking at- we've been in the parks a lot. 

People, I implore you, be cool. I already don't like most humans. I like them even less when they decide they get to abuse a poor girl in college just trying to decide if Disney might be a company she wants to work for (college program is a big thing for Disney. Cps often go on to be interns, or statused into full time roles. ). I should NOT have to be the high mark of someone's day because I was acting like a human being. 

In reply to Mndsm :

I have noted for a while that people treat people in the "service industry" like E36 M3, even as simple as the language they use and a general lack of politeness.

Ask, don't demand.  Say words like "please", and "thank you".  It is not difficult.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

If I am elected president my first law in office is anyone in the service industry for more than a year gets to fight one customer a year, no consequences. Karen would watch her mouth a little more of she was fixing to get popped in it, I suspect. 

In reply to Mndsm :

"We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances.  Do not berkeley with us!"

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

There are way more ants than grasshoppers. The grasshoppers somehow convinced the ants they need the grasshoppers, not the other way round. Looked what happened during COVID. Everyone lost their E36 M3 when they couldn't Starbucks. 

Mndsm said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

If I am elected president my first law in office is anyone in the service industry for more than a year gets to fight one customer a year, no consequences. Karen would watch her mouth a little more of she was fixing to get popped in it, I suspect. 

That is exactly my theory why people were more polite in the past.

There were real consequences, painful ones too

In reply to Antihero :

Swmbo and I were discussing that earlier, and we agree. I'm not an advocate for violence, but someone needs to beat their kids. 

In reply to Mndsm :

I advocate violence.

After all other reasonable and decent avenues have collapsed, pain is the only recourse.

The powerful windstorm that blew through the region on Friday took out a whole lot of the power grid here, including power to part of our neighborhood (which includes us). Which means that our sump pump wasn't running and our basement (where our master bedroom & main closet are) flooded a bit before I was able to get the generator going in the morning and the pump to empty everything out. We've done what we can on our own, now it will be up to the water damage restoration company to decide what in the way of things like flooring, baseboards, etc. need to be replaced- but they won't come out until our power is restored because if it rains bad again overnight when we can't run the generator, it will flood again. And just now- after almost exactly 48 hours after we first lost power- the power company finally has an estimated time they'll have our power fixed: 11pm on Wednesday. 

Thankfully it doesn't look like it's supposed to rain until Thursday... so we have to keep our fingers crossed that both the forecast is correct and that the power company gets the power back on by when they've said (obviously we hope it will be way earlier...). The next 3 days won't be any fun without power. Thankfully though, we do have mostly gas appliances- so technically we can cook, and we should be able to shower since we have a gas hot water heater.

Once things settle down from this I will definitely be getting a plumbing company to come out and install a sump pump system with a battery backup pump, and am seriously going to look into how practical a natural gas powered whole-home generator would be. I would love to go with solar and something like a PowerWall- but don't know if that's practical here.

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

First year in our house, the culdesac road flooded (curb inlets were clogged with leaves) Deep enough water that we couldn't leave. Spooked me enough to go out that night and buy a battery backup. What's $300 versus a destroyed basement?

The sunroof drains in the wifes mazda5 are clogged again. Theres no way to get to them with anything but air on a straw, and theyvare already leaking above the headliner. So i get to pull the headliner. Yay. 

How do i seal a sunroof permanently? Ill just disconnect the berkeleying switch after. 

Been feeling like crap since Friday evening-- slight fever, snot, super intense sinus pain. Al my joints hurt too-- neck back knees, even my hands.

Just ran the COVID test and I'm positive.  The body aches are new aspect for this time around.

Ford 302 timing cover's are a PITA, couldn't get it back in so just going to drop the oil pan. I wish i had the time to set up my new QuickJack but that didn't happen.

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

My brother installed a 17kw (I think) natural gas generator when he built about 10 years ago.  I was shocked at how cheap it seemed.  Under $10k, as I recall.  Seemed like a bargain when you are spending $400,000 on the house.

Streetwiseguy said:

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

My brother installed a 17kw (I think) natural gas generator when he built about 10 years ago.  I was shocked at how cheap it seemed.  Under $10k, as I recall.  Seemed like a bargain when you are spending $400,000 on the house.

We have one; also installed when we built, and it has come in soooo handy. It was far less than 10k.

In reply to chandler :

$cdn...

Karacticus said:

Been feeling like crap since Friday evening-- slight fever, snot, super intense sinus pain. Al my joints hurt too-- neck back knees, even my hands.

Just ran the COVID test and I'm positive.  The body aches are new aspect for this time around.

I feel for you, hopefully you recover quickly. 

I went through it 2 weeks ago and my youngest son had it this past week.

In reply to Appleseed :

Yeah, that's something we'll be getting regardless of cost. 

Antihero said:

Mndsm said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

If I am elected president my first law in office is anyone in the service industry for more than a year gets to fight one customer a year, no consequences. Karen would watch her mouth a little more of she was fixing to get popped in it, I suspect. 

That is exactly my theory why people were more polite in the past.

 

There were real consequences, painful ones too

As the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein said:  "An armed society is a polite society"...  

Streetwiseguy said:

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

My brother installed a 17kw (I think) natural gas generator when he built about 10 years ago.  I was shocked at how cheap it seemed.  Under $10k, as I recall.  Seemed like a bargain when you are spending $400,000 on the house.

My research so far says that it would be about $10k to get one and have it installed- with a good bit of variation depending on how complex the electrical modifications to the house's existing system would be. We don't yet know what this incident will end up costing, but we'll likely be $1k out of pocket due to our insurance deductible regardless. The difficulty is that we don't plan to be in this house permanently- once it's paid off in a few years the plan is to save to design and build a place that's good for us to live in for the rest of our lives. And unfortunately it's unlikely we'd get that much more in selling the house with the generator vs without. Solar may be a bit better return, but will also take a good bit of research and thinking. 

Third morning without power. Power company is still saying Wednesday evening before they get it back up, but they've said that for pretty much everyone in the area and have already been bringing some of those back online. Today will be interesting because it is the first day I'll have to try and work from home without line power- I'll be depending on the generator to power our internet modem & let me run my work laptop at full speed.

Debating pulling the generator back up the hill and stashing it behind the garage so it's at least not so obnoxiously loud in the house, or at least pulling it into the garage (which would be a challenge since the door would have to stay up a bit and Baby Bat is very keen to get into the garage and explore). I suppose as long as I'm not doing anything in the garage and open the windows I could just leave the door closed. 

Antihero said:

That is exactly my theory why people were more polite in the past.

There were real consequences, painful ones too

In reply to Mndsm :

I advocate violence.

 

After all other reasonable and decent avenues have collapsed, pain is the only recourse.

Quoted just because.

Appleseed said:

In reply to Mndsm :

I advocate violence.

 

After all other reasonable and decent avenues have collapsed, pain is the only recourse.

Problem is, the overly-entitled jerks will be the first to embrace violence, not the people who should.

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

A generator sits on a pad and connects to your utilities. No reason you can't have it disconnected and sell a house as "generator ready."