Whew it's hot out here! Summer Mini-Rants

[Ferret Herder]

I'm pre-40 for a short time yet, and my gynecologist recommended a combination of a Mirena IUD and an endometrial ablation. The latter is a permanent destruction of your endometrial lining, and is done as an outpatient procedure, IIRC. No more bleeding! I'm very seriously considering it for later this year.

 

[niblet_head]

My sorority alumnae get together once a month for breakfast. Very informal, whoever wants to show up. Sometimes we have four people, sometimes we have 15. Yesterday there were about a dozen. Range in age from mid-20s to mid-80s.

After most of the people had cleared out, there were five of us left. One of them was a lady in her 80s. Dear, wonderful woman, widowed. Three master's degrees. Generous, known for her philanthropy and community involvement. My husband and I have been a little worried about her lately; she seems to be forgetting things. She's recently retired after a long career and doesn't have a secretary anymore. She uses a cell phone and only recently learned how to set it to vibrate, when I showed her how. Doesn't have any idea how to use a computer or e-mail.

She announced that she had seen an ad in the paper that the first 200 people to respond to the ad could get a very low-priced computer, so she had called. The rest of us looked at each other uneasily, and then at her in disbelief. I asked her if she had given her credit card number over the phone.

She couldn't remember. I asked if she still had the ad, or could remember when it was in the paper or the name of the company. She said she might still have the ad. I didn't want to alarm her, but I told her that it might not have been a good idea for her to have called the number, and that I would very much like to see the ad. She said she would try to find it. Another sister asked why she wanted a computer, but there was no response. (This lady has a history of ordering things from infomercials and QVC, but she has never been scammed that I know of; she just orders knickknacks and gives them away: She gave me a set of cake decorating tools once -- they weren't good quality, but at least she ordered them, received them, and nothing bad happened.)

But now? This terrifies me. I don't remember her former secretary's last name if I ever knew it, and her relatives live out of state and are as old as she is. I'm going to keep on her about this ad and where she saw it.

The woman sitting between us chirped: "I'm sure the paper has somebody checking those ads."

FAIL.

Do you have a way to call her and "chat"? Get her started talking/reminiscing about her secretary - what was her name again? what ever happened to her? - or ask her how she likes her doctor and can you get her name to call for your mom? Does she have other friends she mentions that you could track down?

 

[Bosstone]

When my son comes in my office YET AGAIN to talk about Bionicles for twenty uninterrupted minutes YET AGAIN, it's all I can do not to either start talking about Broadway musicals for twenty uninterrupted minutes or just look him in the eye and say, "Son, what in the world makes you think I will find this subject interesting? Have you NOT noticed me tuning you out and mumbling "mmm-hmmm" over and over again without so much as looking at you the last thirty times you've done this?"

I mean, REALLY. You're SIXTEEN. Start obsessing about GIRLS, for god's sake -- now THAT I'll talk about for as long as you want!

Man, my cousin is the same way. He's eighteen, or was last time I checked, but he might as well still be ten for all the crap he plays with. No academic or professional motivations, just dicks around with his video games. It's enough to disgust me, and I'm an unapologetic gamer myself.

 

[Projammer]

Someone in our department intentionally did something so mind-bogglingly stupid that he's not only going to be fired, but could end up sued from here to oblivion and blackballed from the industry.

They don't know who it is. But they most certainly will, within 2-3 days.

So what do they do? They pull us into a meeting, one team at a time, to demand that this person come forward and/or that if any of us know about it, come forward with the information.

Ok, fine, no problem there. Fully expected and understood.

But what does stupid motherfucker jerkface DICK of a Director do?

Say that his first thought on hearing about the issue was that he was going to fire our entire 60+ person department.

Thinking such a thing? Lame. Sign of a bad manager.
Saying it out loud to your people? Unprofessional beyond measure.

Dude, pack it up. You don't know how to manage people.

Any chance of getting details of whatever the epic screwup was? Sounds massively interesting.

 

[purplehorseshoe]

Hey Dung, what would happen if you just quietly stopped picking up the slack for the slacker? So he doesn't do his laundry. And if you don't do it .... ? He'd have to either do it himself, or Daddy would have to do it for him.

Would that work? (Or have you already tried that, and I missed the post?)

I truly sympathize. I got a coupla cousins who are hooked on smack, and the enabling from their parents is mind-boggling. ("If we don't give her money, she'll steal to get it! So we're giving her money! But waaah! She keeps buying drugs!") Tough position for any parent to me in, granted, but after a certain point ...

 

[Algher]

FYI to everyone. A nice D-Cell Maglite is a dangerous item according to TSA. It will be confiscated long after your checked luggage is on its way.

 

[Dr. Drake]

Have you ever actually done a mail merge in email? I can tell you for a fact that Lotus Notes does not have a native mail merge utility--at least not the version of it that my company uses. (And this is a global company with tens of thousands of employees.) So, yes, replying to each of the hundreds or thousands of applicants to tell them, "Thanks, but no thanks," could well require more time than they have available.

What I do is cut and paste the email addresses into a word processor, use the powerful search and replace function until they are one address per line, and then replace each hard return with semicolon plus space. That then goes into the BCC field. It doesn't take that long. But I like how people justify poor manners by claiming that good manners would take too much time or effort.

 

[niblet_head]

Could be worse. My boss over informs me regarding travel. He goes to the same places over and over. I have a list of the hotels where he stays. I messed up once and put him in the wrong hotel (once in years of doing this). Ever since he tells me "put me in the Holiday Inn Express". Dude, I KNOW.

 

[NinjaChick]

This is the first job I've had where I'm required to attend regular staff meetings.

...What a fucking waste of time.

 

[Shot From Guns]

I should have clarified: that conversation was in email. I did send her the past emails in the conversation. She sent me the very emails she was insisting said something they did not. That's a special kind of dumb right there.

Sounds like you might have to start taking the same route I do when I have to deal with associates in our Indian offices: use short, simple sentences and bold the most important words.

Well, my sun-protective clothing arrived, so I can finally go outside now.

Hoorah! Citizens demand pictures.

(So is this like a permanent sun allergy thing, like that one episode of House? Because that would totally blow.)

Instead of supporting her when she needed it most, you flipped out, got completely hysterical, crying and yelling, "Oh, God, I'm devastated! I just can't deal with it now."

Sorry your mom's a bitch.

 

[Cat Whisperer]

Dear media: the U.S. consists of other parts of the country besides the east coast. Really! Okay, you're aware that L.A. exists, but there is a lot of country in here in the middle.

It's hot this week on the east coast. Unusually hot. That doesn't have to dominate the headlines quite so thoroughly. There are a lot of us in the middle who are having our own weather events and don't want to keep hearing about yours.

Take out "east coast" and insert "Toronto" and you've got our national weather channel in Canada.

 

[melodyharmonius]

If you are an adult and have adult aged children, do don't this immature shit of ignoring someone who should be included in the meeting or making fun of him while he's on the phone. He's 19, your in your 50s - grow up!

I don't like him either, but zomg - y'all cut it out.

 

[Shot From Guns]

(who, of course, believed they were anything but judgmental, and were only fighting the good fight to point out the hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness of the stupid fools that ruined society for the rest of us)

Fuck no--of course I'm being judgmental. That's the beauty of the Pit. I get to sneer down my nose at you, and you get to sneer down your nose at me. It's one big happy sneer-party.

Though she would have put the period inside the quotation marks.

That's because she possesses infinitely more wisdom than you can ever possibly hope to attain.

 

[lazybratsche]

So today I'm working from home since I've got to put together a presentation for a conference I'm going to next week. Lots of research to do, and I can get more done if I use my home desktop (sans distractions) instead using my tiny netbook in a noisy lab.

Except that the kids next door are playing. Normally that's fine -- run around and scream your heads off all you want, I don't mind. But they've been playing "all the single ladies" for the last god damn hour. I'm not kidding. Every time it stops, they start it over. Or maybe they'll just start it over at the halfway point.

God damn. I don't mind the song that much, but played like this it's driving me fucking crazy. This is the kind of thing that prompts murderous thoughts. And now the song will be stuck in my head for fucking weeks, making me more stabby with every refrain.

 

[Chimera]

Dear Customers;

Look, just because we don't necessarily charge you for every support call you make to us doesn't mean we're stupid enough to compensate you for the time you spent working with us to resolve your issue. Next time this idiotic thought crosses your mind, try asking your Doctor or Dentist to compensate you for the time you spent in their waiting room or in their office, or ask your auto mechanic to compensate you for the drive to his shop and the time waiting for your car. Get The Fuck Over Yourself. If you don't want to spend any time fixing anything, then don't use any item of technology anywhere, because every damned thing you own, when it breaks, takes up some of your time to get fixed.

The finest clothes turn to rags.

 

[purplehorseshoe]

My office-job morning so far:

I get to the building door just after [co-worker], who has the unfortunate habit of marinating in her own perfume. So I get to walk in her scent trail the entire way up, three flights of stairs and a maze of hallways, watching her stupid little ankles wobbling like a newborn wet baby fawn at every step in her overdone stilettos. Girl, we do not have that fancy of a dress code here. I'm in heels, too, a good two inches thankyouverymuch, but you don't see my ankles wobbling, do ya? NO, because I'm not wearing hooker stilletos to an office job!

She has something in her hands, a plastic food container of some sort, but I'm too polite to do the "watcha go there?" routine, since I don't know if it's for sharing or hers alone for lunch. I don't like when people nose into my food; I try not to nose into other people's food. We get to the office, she practically throws the container down on our break room table, and says (and I quote!): "Here. It's some angle food cake. I don't know if it's any good or not."

 

[Shot From Guns]

See also:

Dude from maintenance who comes to fix the lights, stop fucking scanning your card at our readers. THEY ARE ON OUR SYSTEM, not the building's. Your card won't do shit. The main door to the suite is unlocked as it is always unlocked. The door into the office proper someone has to let you through, as they always do. I tell you this every time. I told you this FIVE SECONDS AGO. So WHY ARE YOU STILL SWIPING?!

 

[Not a Platypus]

Stop honking your fucking car horn! If, after 20 minutes of repeatedly honking your horn, the person you're waiting for hasn't come outside, GET YOUR LAZY ASS UP AND GO TO THE DOOR AND FIND THEM! Either they can't hear it, or don't give a shit. Obviously what you're doing isn't working, you lazy fuck.

 

[woodstockbirdybird]

Damn. I was going to give you points for self-awareness, but then you had to type that last sentence. Still, if you've got shiny objects on your tits, I guess I can let it pass.

 

[descamisado]

{Joins Cat Whisperer}

I hate the fucking pop-ups that either are darker than and obscure the page you're really trying to look at, and/or make the "close" button so light you can't find it or move it around to different corners.