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

NickD said:

We also have a salesman with a Bolt that's on it's third battery pack before 3000 miles, a customer's truck that got towed in and had the engine lock up with under 200 miles on it, a truck with a 6.2L that rod-knocked itself to death for no apparent reason with 12,000 miles on it, and a C8 Corvette that the transmission has exploded on before it hit 4-digit miles. Yeah, I'll pass. I wouldn't buy a lightbulb from these jokers.

The salesman could probably get a job as an anti-EV celebrity influencer at this point...call himself Joe 3-pack or something and get weekly interviews with Matt Posky at TTAC

NickD said:

My coworker: "You work for GM. Why don't you buy GM vehicles?"

Also my coworker: "My truck just turned 800 miles and needs valve lifters already and they're backordered."

We also have a salesman with a Bolt that's on it's third battery pack before 3000 miles, a customer's truck that got towed in and had the engine lock up with under 200 miles on it, a truck with a 6.2L that rod-knocked itself to death for no apparent reason with 12,000 miles on it, and a C8 Corvette that the transmission has exploded on before it hit 4-digit miles. Yeah, I'll pass. I wouldn't buy a lightbulb from these jokers.

I guess the polite way to put it is that GM vehicles that need repair put all the food on your table. 

GameboyRMH said:

NickD said:

We also have a salesman with a Bolt that's on it's third battery pack before 3000 miles, a customer's truck that got towed in and had the engine lock up with under 200 miles on it, a truck with a 6.2L that rod-knocked itself to death for no apparent reason with 12,000 miles on it, and a C8 Corvette that the transmission has exploded on before it hit 4-digit miles. Yeah, I'll pass. I wouldn't buy a lightbulb from these jokers.

The salesman could probably get a job as an anti-EV celebrity influencer at this point...call himself Joe 3-pack or something and get weekly interviews with Matt Posky at TTAC

Three packs in under 3000 miles makes me think the problem may not be the battery pack, but something that interfaces with it.

In reply to eastsideTim :

So, I don't know if you talked much with Eric talking about his time with Tesla, and how they restructured their service teams to have n00bs doing the work and only one or two diagnosticians per area, and his jumping ship to Porsche as a result.

I learned at a training class that people at Tesla were replacing a lot of DC-DC converters because of a certain trouble code they were setting.  That was actually caused by a weak 12v battery.

In reply to NickD :

I'm surprised mechanics buy cars...of any kind. The BS you see happens in every shop in the country.

GameboyRMH said:

jimbob_racing said:

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

This place constantly finds new little changes to make to cause working here to suck a bit more than yesterday. 

We must work at the same place.

I had the same thought for a second. So damn close to quitting right now.

It seems to be a popular management style. Our latest change is to make time off difficult/impossible to take. 

eastsideTim said:

GameboyRMH said:

NickD said:

We also have a salesman with a Bolt that's on it's third battery pack before 3000 miles, a customer's truck that got towed in and had the engine lock up with under 200 miles on it, a truck with a 6.2L that rod-knocked itself to death for no apparent reason with 12,000 miles on it, and a C8 Corvette that the transmission has exploded on before it hit 4-digit miles. Yeah, I'll pass. I wouldn't buy a lightbulb from these jokers.

The salesman could probably get a job as an anti-EV celebrity influencer at this point...call himself Joe 3-pack or something and get weekly interviews with Matt Posky at TTAC

Three packs in under 3000 miles makes me think the problem may not be the battery pack, but something that interfaces with it.

First battery pack was the faulty ones that were catching fire. It sat on the lot for over year waiting for the new one. Got the updated battery pack, and it was fine if you use it in the charger that plugs into the wall outlet, but plugging it into the more powerful chargers would result in it throwing loss of isolation messages and kicking off the charger. Sometimes it even causes National Grid to call us about outages or fluctuations. GM TAC had our tech check all sorts of stuff, connections, grounds, battery charging module you name it. They sent an engineer out and he spent days running all sorts of tests, and he came to the conclusion it needed a battery. GM agreed but had him run more tests, and finally sent a battery out. New battery was installed, and it seemed okay for a few days, then threw an isolation fault again Tuesday. Meanwhile, the salesman has been crabbing about it being a problem child from day one and wondering if it's going to catch fire or strand him and wanting some sort of compensation and the GM rep's response was "Well, he's not a real customer, so we don't feel obligated to help him. If he has an issue, he can get a lawyer."

The troubling part: we had another Bolt that our sister dealer put the revised battery in that did the same thing while charging it before delivery. But the guy who bought it lives in town, doesn't drive far, and only uses the charger that plugs into a wall outlet.

An estranged family member is going through a significant health scare.  I was agonizing over whether to reach out to them.  Their hateful response to another family member helped make that decision for me.  I hope they get through it alright, but I'm not going to take any abuse trying to help.

Our city council members refuse to work together on a serious issue. Some have been trying to find a compromise while others just dig in deeper. I've been sending them children's books and videos about sharing, cooperation, and compromise. This morning they got "The Zax" by Dr. Suess. Yesterday was a "Super Why" video about compromise. If they want to act like school children, I'll use the same level resources I used to teach my young kids the same life lessons. I may bring a huge "getalong" shirt to the next council meeting.

slefain said:

Our city council members refuse to work together on a serious issue. Some have been trying to find a compromise while others just dig in deeper. I've been sending them children's books and videos about sharing, cooperation, and compromise. This morning they got "The Zax" by Dr. Suess. Yesterday was a "Super Why" video about compromise. If they want to act like school children, I'll use the same level resources I used to teach my young kids the same life lessons. I may bring a huge "getalong" shirt to the next council meeting.

My minor win for today is reading this post. You berkeleying rule, sir!

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

GameboyRMH said:

jimbob_racing said:

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

This place constantly finds new little changes to make to cause working here to suck a bit more than yesterday. 

We must work at the same place.

I had the same thought for a second. So damn close to quitting right now.

It seems to be a popular management style. Our latest change is to make time off difficult/impossible to take. 

This is why I left Stanley. Change for the sake of change. Making processes more complicated for no reason other than they could. Their seemingly constant need for the employer/employee relationship to be adversarial, and their amazing ability to piss off just about every customer I worked hard to attract. Work sucks bad enough without all that added drama and hate. 

I figured I could berkeley it up all by myself without any help from corporate management. I was right. 

I mopped my entire section. Because I'm not one to sit on my ass, I mopped your entire section because you were a one man show, and I figured you didn't deserve to have to clean up alone.

"Can you take out my racks for me?"

I'm watching you sitting down, BSing with your buddies, while I hustle out my garbage.  AND yours.

No. No, motherberkeleyer, I can't.

Mandatory training with videos you *have* to watch in order to advance.
If they let me read this versus listening to it, I'd be done in 25% of the time.

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

Mandatory training with videos you *have* to watch in order to advance.
If they let me read this versus listening to it, I'd be done in 25% of the time.

Yeah, this is a thing with me. I'm a very fast reader, and I can remember pretty much everything I read. Videos or auditory learning, I just don't really  absorb the info. 

Our international engineering company had their expert legal staff from corporate negotiate a contract with an international oil company. 

 They didn't let any of the people who deal with that company in the market we are familiar with review the contract.  

My company basically accepted all project risk, which is not the way this part of the industry works because we are talking $100million plus in risk, had no incentives built it to offset the risk, signed the agreement, then turned it over to project management with a "here you go".   

If this stands we are basically betting our division against no chance of any more than the usual profit on man-hours.   

10 years ago I was at a similar company who did a similar thing - they went bankrupt and no longer exist.  

Somehow age and experience loses out over youth and enthusiasm.   Rinse and repeat.

Customer brought in a vehicle today for an oil change, tire rotation and multipoint inspection. Tires were bald, rear toe links had about a quarter inch of play, brakes were down to 2mm. Customer declined it all with the ol' "You're just trying to rip me off. Stop trying to upsell me stuff I don't need." Then I go to pull it out of the shop and notice that they have Joel Osteen Radio on. Oh, the irony. 

In reply to Toyman! :

Our place thrives on everyone having an adversarial relationship but this one goes above and beyond. In addition to change for the sake of change personal lives and using personal leave time for silly activities are frowned upon.  I've never seen so many people look at walking away from a pension before. 

Forgot to install the pulley before installing the radiator. Hopefully will be able to remove the fans instead of the radiator.

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

Mandatory training with videos you *have* to watch in order to advance.
If they let me read this versus listening to it, I'd be done in 25% of the time.

Life hack.  If it is an online video, sometimes you have the option to speed up the playback speed.

Don't tell anyone I know this.

In reply to NickD :

The good news is that person might be prepared to meet the Lord when this car blows up.

Then again some groups are concerned about Joel Osteen. 

2 Timothy 4:3-4

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Toyman! :

Our place thrives on everyone having an adversarial relationship but this one goes above and beyond. In addition to change for the sake of change personal lives and using personal leave time for silly activities are frowned upon.  I've never seen so many people look at walking away from a pension before. 

Hope you can tough it out.  We're not quite that bad yet, but i worry we're only a few steps behind you on the path.  They switched our vacation accrual from "you get it all Jan 1st" to "you earn 1/24 of your allotment every payday".  I'm guessing that was done to save a few pennies on turnover.  Seems like treating the symptom, not the cause.  
 

If we both make it to our pensions I will buy you, duke, and any other grmer's that can make it to NJ/DE all the beers you can drink one night!

Kid #2 woke up crying because her feet hurt, probably because she insisted on wearing her "pretty flower shoes" to run around in all day yesterday. 
 

Now she's sleeping but I'm still awake because my brain won't turn off :/

Wally (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Toyman! :

Our place thrives on everyone having an adversarial relationship but this one goes above and beyond. In addition to change for the sake of change personal lives and using personal leave time for silly activities are frowned upon.  I've never seen so many people look at walking away from a pension before. 

I wonder if that's their plan. Make the place so toxic to work in that people leave instead of sticking it out to collect retirement.

In reply to Toyman! :

Most departments aren't like this, this is all his rather interesting management style.  Most offices run like our previous boss where if we work hard to make function we can get treated like people as often possible. 

Toyman! said:

I wonder if that's their plan. Make the place so toxic to work in that people leave instead of sticking it out to collect retirement.

I've been wondering if the new owners of my company have this in mind. My job pays New York City wages for a bunch of newly hired people (including me) from around the country who work remote. Lately we've been bombarded with meaningless busy work and pointlessly updated software that is a step backward in efficiency. We are so far behind in our work that veiled threats have been thrown out about to encourage us to work 1 to 2 hours of overtime a day. Nobody on the team is happy and the stress level is off the charts. I'm sure that I am not the only one that has dusted off my resume.