The Venting Thread

[ab_grp]

Sorry, Parasaurolophus.  It's so annoying that everything requires scanning a QR code these days.  It took me forever to figure out how to do that! Now it's easier for me, but guess what! I don't always want to make financial transactions using my phone! Can one be scanned by computer? I have no idea.  This can be a real problem for seniors (thinking about my mother and all the issues she has had trying to get anything done).  Similar tech issues have even come up for medical appointments, and it makes people avoid the process (and the appointments), which is not a good thing.

[apl68]

The proliferation of QR codes is concerning me as well.  They assume that everybody has a 21st-century smart phone now.  I merely have a 23rd-century Star Trek phone.  So I guess in a sense I'm ahead of my time instead of behind it?

[Aster]

Why do so many car drivers in the U.S. now leave 20-40 foot gaps between them and the car ahead of them when they are at traffic stops?

Move the $%^* up.

[FishProf]

Why do so many car drivers in the U.S. now leave 20-40 foot gaps between them and the car ahead of them when they are at traffic stops?

Move the $%^* up.

They fail to recognize that the distance you should keep varies with speed.

[mythbuster]

At traffic stops they pick up their phone and so are not paying attention to the cars in front of them. My car is new enough that it will beep at the driver when the person in front moves to get your attention!

[apl68]

I assume that's one reason why traffic flow is said to move better through roundabouts than through four-way intersections with lights--you don't have to wait when the light turns for whoever was at the front of the line to notice that the light has changed and finish the latest text.

[clean]

At traffic stops they pick up their phone and so are not paying attention to the cars in front of them. My car is new enough that it will beep at the driver when the person in front moves to get your attention!

My car (and its driver) is old enough that the car beeps when the car ahead of it Doesnt move when the car 2 ahead moves (and the light is favorable). 

[AmLitHist]

Today is midterm, and grades are due by Monday at 5:30. Spring break officially starts tomorrow. I'm teaching 6 writing classes, with another beginning the Monday after break; one ends today, so I have to submit final grades for it.

So of course, TPTB decided--10 days ago--to schedule an all-day, mandatory on-campus meeting, to indoctrinate introduce us to the newest end-all be-all scheme for student success. All faculty from all 4 campuses are required to attend the event (on our campus, which has two new buildings going up and our parking areas are diminished by about 40%, and where most locations fall into the "you can't get there from here without a long schlep" category), and it's pouring rain today, just because.

The real vent?  Not that they're having the event, which is simply more BS that we've all suffered through (and seen fail, as predicted) in at least 3 other iterations over the past 15 years, but rather, that I'm burning a personal day to not go--and on that personal day, I'm sitting at home grading. I'd be grading on my own time either way, but it's also costing me 8 hours of leave to actually do it.

This is really just a minor blip on the radar in terms of other f-ed up things faculty are dealing with right now, so I should probably let it go. Still.

[I won't even start venting about spring break, which is already booked up with ferrying ALHS to various appts., rather than giving me a chance to catch my breath or, god forbid, get my own health problems under control. I won't even have one free morning or afternoon to myself next week. Having one of our daughters do the running isn't an option: he wasn't much of a dad to either of them, so they have far less tolerance for his BS, and I'd only end up mediating screaming matches if they'd step in. And they don't need the headaches, either.]

SIGH. Back to grading.

TL; DR:  I'm surrounded by shitheads whose main goal is to make my life miserable in ways large and small.

[fishbrains]

Quick joke for AmLitHist: How does an ailing man change a lightbulb?





















He just holds the lightbulb, and the whole world revolves around his problems! [rim shot!]


Hang tough.

[AmLitHist]

Thanks, fishbrains!  You made me laugh! I'm a bit less grumpy today.

[apl68]

I was home visiting my parents over the weekend when Dad, who has been sick lately, took a turn for the worse.  Their refrigerator, which they only bought last December, also packed up on them.  I spent Sunday morning trying to salvage the food they had in it.  We ended up missing church and listening to a streaming service from my home church.  Which gave Dad a chance to hear a message he didn't have to prepare himself for a change--he still pastors a church at the age of 80.

I missed work yesterday to stay an additional day (I live over two hours from them) and help them.  I ended up not being able to accomplish much.  They're pursuing a warranty claim now, and Dad felt better yesterday.  I'm concerned that Mom and Dad are getting less able to take care of their affairs.  I'll probably be spending a lot more time running home in the months to come.

[paultuttle]

I was home visiting my parents over the weekend when Dad, who has been sick lately, took a turn for the worse.  Their refrigerator, which they only bought last December, also packed up on them.  I spent Sunday morning trying to salvage the food they had in it.  We ended up missing church and listening to a streaming service from my home church.  Which gave Dad a chance to hear a message he didn't have to prepare himself for a change--he still pastors a church at the age of 80.

I missed work yesterday to stay an additional day (I live over two hours from them) and help them.  I ended up not being able to accomplish much.  They're pursuing a warranty claim now, and Dad felt better yesterday.  I'm concerned that Mom and Dad are getting less able to take care of their affairs.  I'll probably be spending a lot more time running home in the months to come.

My sympathies, apl68! I'm there as well, running "home" (to my father's house and/or my mother's assisted-living facility) as often as possible, worrying about my parents' mental and physical health, and so forth.

Wishing you all the best, and letting you know here that I can be a listening ear IRL, if you want. Just PM me.

[apl68]

Thank you very much.

[apl68]

A somewhat less serious vent, but still kind of a hassle.  We receive used book donations, with which we stock our Friends of the Library book sale room and the little free library at the local grade school.  It's a feast-or-famine business.  Sometimes we go for months without receiving much, then we get multiple big donations close together.  We had gone quite some time without receiving any donations to speak of, so we figured it was about time for things to come unjammed.

Well, they did.  Since last week we've received three substantial donations.  One was very substantial--somebody brought in enough plastic trash bags full of books to fill the bottom of a trailer.  Unfortunately, two of the donations were entirely unusable.  They consisted entirely of ancient reference sets and textbooks. 

The biggest batch consisted mostly of popular fiction--very little of it less than 50 years old, most a good deal older.  Also some nonfiction, much of it also very old.  We found very little usable material there.  To get to that, I had to dig through dozens of bags full of old stuff.  And it consisted mostly of some of the dustiest, nastiest material I've ever seen.  Many of the books still had their original jackets and looked okay at first glance, but they raised literal clouds of dust as we tried to handle them. 

With a few exceptions, nearly all of this junk has gone into the dumpster.  I hope the bottom doesn't drop out when they come to empty it.  I realize that people don't like to throw away books, but come on!  People ought to be embarrassed at trying to foist stuff like this off on anybody.  We've long maintained a policy of welcoming anything and everything donated in order to get the wheat that's mixed in with the chaff.  But after this past week, I'm just about ready to reconsider that.  I didn't know there were so many old, nasty books in the whole town.

[smallcleanrat]

Context:
My parents are very anti-psychiatry (and anti-Western medicine in general) and have always been resistant to the idea of me taking medications to manage my mental health.

When I had to move back in with them after a severe bipolar episode, they made me go off all my meds cold turkey and refused to let me try therapy. This drastically set back my recovery. I was in my 20s, but hadn't yet learned to establish boundaries with them and assert my right to make my own decisions without their approval. It didn't help that they threatened to throw me out on the street if I didn't comply.

Once I moved out, I kept my folks on a need-to-know basis when it came to my healthcare (and I decided they didn't need to know much). This infuriated them, and they demanded access to all my medical records. It turned into a huge fight when I refused, but I stood my ground and eventually they had to accept that they couldn't control my medical decisions anymore.


Recently, my SO informed me that my Dad went behind my back to talk to him, asking SO questions about my health and what kinds of meds I was on. Dad's opinion is that I can't be trusted to make my own decisions because the medication must be affecting my judgment, and that, as my husband, SO needs to "take charge", "be the man", and "ask the tough questions." Essentially saying SO needs to get me to stop taking my meds.

This makes me so angry. Dad came just short of saying I was incompetent to be in charge of my own medical decisions because I'm just a hysterical woman. I'm angry he went behind my back to try to get information about me. I'm angry he's still banging on about how meds are evil, when they saved my life.

I don't really care if his intentions are to do what he thinks is best for me. This behavior is still insulting and intrusive.

I'm so disgusted with both my parents right now. I'm sick of them pestering me, "Tell us what you're taking! Tell us! Tell us! We have a right to know!" I can't stand how suffocatingly overbearing they are.

I told them no, so many times. They still think they have the right to make my decisions for me. They still think they know better than I do what's best for my health, never mind how ignorant they are.

They still want me to go off my medication, damn the consequences. They don't care what that would do to me, and that makes me so angry.

My dad tried to get me to tell them what I'm taking by saying, "You know, you are literally killing your mother. Not knowing is killing her. She can't sleep at night."

It's such a disgustingly manipulative thing to say. I don't care if it keeps her up at night. That's her problem to deal with. I'm not going to throw away my mental stability just so she can feel better that I'm not putting 'evil chemicals' in my body. She needs to learn how to deal.

I was visiting them recently, and she got so angry with me she smacked me. She has no right at all to hit me. No right. I'm so angry she thinks she still gets to do that. I am not a child, and she is not in authority over me.

I don't want to go completely no-contact with them, but the way they're still trying to control and manipulate me makes me so furious. I don't understand all their complaining, "Why don't you visit? Why don't you call?"

Why do you think?!?