The Venting Thread

[paultuttle]

Sometimes I wonder whether am sure that the rich people (the 1%) who make our laws control our government simply don't care when we more normally walleted people are inconvenienced by their constant tweaking of tax laws to (further) benefit themselves and their families/heirs.

:rolls eyes:

____

My own vent: The (stone, rather than brick) retaining wall (which, by the way, matches nothing else on this property) at the side of our driveway is now "finished" (or at least it appears so) after no fewer than three full weeks of work, minus days off for rain and attempts not to inconvenience me during truly important Zoom presentations/webinars to large audiences . . . but the BLEEP-ing mini-bulldozer ("Bobcat") is still here, and the driveway and parking area is still not available. I'm getting tired of the daily noise, excessive dirt (= red mud), piles of different sizes of gravel, and general inconvenience.

Maybe I should have posted this on the "First World Problems" thread . . . . <grin>

[Anon1787]

Sometimes I wonder whether am sure that the rich people (the 1%) who make our laws control our government simply don't care when we more normally walleted people are inconvenienced by their constant tweaking of tax laws to (further) benefit themselves and their families/heirs.

:rolls eyes:

____

It's more the members of the upper-middle class (like tenured college professors) who benefit from the complexities of the federal income tax code that gives favorable tax treatment (and are among the largest "tax expenditures") to: mortgage interest, health insurance, retirement accounts, charitable donations, state and local taxes, etc.

[Harlow2]

We turned all our materials in by the 3/15 due date and had not heard anything, so my husband called on Friday and was told that our accountant is filing an extension.  We have never had an extension filed, either, and I am not sure why that had to happen.  But, at least I don't have to be ready to download the returns on Monday and check and sign them super fast.  Ugh.  Harlow2, sounds like you are in a similar boat.  I hope you at least get an update soon.

I did get the update that an extension was filed 4 hours after the principal in the firm apologized twice and assured me  the forms would be completed today.  Annoying as I had to spend mental energy worrying whether they had lost things and it's still unclear when they will get to it.

[apl68]

The handicapped door by which I routinely park is often out of order, too.  I've repeated this to our maintenance crew more times than I can count since I started working here in 2004.  I've been particularly snotty about it over the past few years since I've been using a cane/walker myself. It's not that I can't juggle things and get the (surprisingly heavy) door open to get in to work, but rather just the idea that nobody should have to wear themselves out just to get in the damned building.

Of course, also since I've worked here, the elevator in the library doesn't work when it rains. (I am not joking.) Also, in the early years, you'd just walk in and punch the button for the 2d floor of the building, which is the 1st floor/circulation/reference area in the library. Now, you have to call upstairs to get "keyed up" and be escorted by a librarian.  (I call discrimination:  if I could walk, I'd be able to enter and leave with abandon--maybe we handicapped folk are born thieves?)  I used to always take my Comp I & II classes over for work days and database training several times every semester, but since I can't do stairs anymore, we don't go during class time, since I can't rely on being able to join my students upstairs. (And we're not talking about a modest staircase--this one is steep and vertigo-inducing even for young, healthy, fit students.)

The research library where I used to work had two floors that required keyed elevator access of that sort.  But that's because they were staff-only areas.  Everything else, except for one odd corner of the stacks, was elevator-accessible by the public.  However, the building had such an odd layout due to many years of expansions and re-modelings that certain elevators (and stairways) only went to certain floors.  It could take a while to learn your way around.  I worked there as first a student and later a staff member for 14 years, and never saw some parts of the place!

[apl68]

My own vent: The (stone, rather than brick) retaining wall (which, by the way, matches nothing else on this property) at the side of our driveway is now "finished" (or at least it appears so) after no fewer than three full weeks of work, minus days off for rain and attempts not to inconvenience me during truly important Zoom presentations/webinars to large audiences . . . but the BLEEP-ing mini-bulldozer ("Bobcat") is still here, and the driveway and parking area is still not available. I'm getting tired of the daily noise, excessive dirt (= red mud), piles of different sizes of gravel, and general inconvenience.

Maybe I should have posted this on the "First World Problems" thread . . . . <grin>

Brick and stone walls--especially stone--can absorb an incredible amount of labor.  When you've got to work around the weather and other considerations it's that much tougher.  I grew up doing masonry work with my dad in the summers.  We'd try not to inconvenience people too much if the site was very close to a place where others were trying to go about their business, but we just had to kind of accept that we were going to make a bunch of mess and some noise.

[downer]

I'm not sure where to place the blame, but I'm always surprised by the number of students who, when they register for an online course, don't know if it is synchronous or asynchronous. Then they email me to ask.

[paultuttle]

My own vent: The (stone, rather than brick) retaining wall (which, by the way, matches nothing else on this property) at the side of our driveway is now "finished" (or at least it appears so) after no fewer than three full weeks of work, minus days off for rain and attempts not to inconvenience me during truly important Zoom presentations/webinars to large audiences . . . but the BLEEP-ing mini-bulldozer ("Bobcat") is still here, and the driveway and parking area is still not available. I'm getting tired of the daily noise, excessive dirt (= red mud), piles of different sizes of gravel, and general inconvenience.

Maybe I should have posted this on the "First World Problems" thread . . . . <grin>

Brick and stone walls--especially stone--can absorb an incredible amount of labor.  When you've got to work around the weather and other considerations it's that much tougher.  I grew up doing masonry work with my dad in the summers.  We'd try not to inconvenience people too much if the site was very close to a place where others were trying to go about their business, but we just had to kind of accept that we were going to make a bunch of mess and some noise.

What I didn't mention, but should've, is that (1) it was my landlady's decision when to put in the new wall and (2) the landscapers promised to be finished in two weeks, but Good Friday was the end of the third week, so I've been dealing with this 50% longer than expected.

But you're right, apl68--I need to practice patience and forbearance. After all, the landscaping team couldn't control the weather!

[the_geneticist]

I'm not sure where to place the blame, but I'm always surprised by the number of students who, when they register for an online course, don't know if it is synchronous or asynchronous. Then they email me to ask.

It's a valid question.  If it's not in the course catalog then they should ask.  If it's in the course catalog, then copy and paste "Dear student, see the description in [course listing]".

[downer]

I'm not sure where to place the blame, but I'm always surprised by the number of students who, when they register for an online course, don't know if it is synchronous or asynchronous. Then they email me to ask.

It's a valid question.  If it's not in the course catalog then they should ask.  If it's in the course catalog, then copy and paste "Dear student, see the description in [course listing]".

If it were a synchonous class then there would be a day and time assigned to it. Since there is no day and time assigned, students can conclude it is asynchronous. But they don't know that, and it seems that no one tells them.

One answer is to send out an announcement to the enrolled students telling them. But then some drop, and others enroll, and ask the same question.

[EdnaMode]

I asked a technician on Monday if he could [repair very necessary thing] by Wednesday, even put in a work order that he accepted with the "need by" dates filled in. Wednesday he told me it would be done by Friday morning, and that he was "way behind on his work." This morning (Friday), it still wasn't done. When I stopped by his office, he was making sports bets on his work PC, not fixing my equipment. I used my polite but firm voice and said I needed it fixed by the time I was finished with lab this afternoon, he looked offended and again said he was very busy and behind in his work. I need the equipment repaired (it's a simple repair and the parts are in his office) to finish work over the weekend to be ready for class next Monday. I can't do the repair myself because of union rules - have gotten fussed at before for fixing things myself.

I looked at his computer screen with his betting website on it, gave him the eyebrow of doom look I give students, and walked out. If it's not done this afternoon, and I can't work over the weekend, and my students can't do the work they need to do next week, I will report him to his union boss for not fulfilling accepted work orders. He's a nice guy, but he's lazy. Do your freakin job, dude, so I can do mine!

[sinenomine]

My school uses a self evaluation form for faculty that is 7 pages long. I just opened one that had ballooned to 90 pages thanks to the faculty member's obsessive pasting in of EVERYTHING he's done over the last year. To echo another poster in another thread, this is why I drink, folks!

Wandering into the kitchen to mix a drink before an end of the day mandatory PD webinar...

[Juvenal]

My school uses a self evaluation form for faculty that is 7 pages long. I just opened one that had ballooned to 90 pages thanks to the faculty member's obsessive pasting in of EVERYTHING he's done over the last year. To echo another poster in another thread, this is why I drink, folks!

Wandering into the kitchen to mix a drink before an end of the day mandatory PD webinar...

Sorry!  The dog ate it.  Labradors can handle dozens of pages.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Some people in the !@#$%^&*I&^$%#@! office didn't do their jobs and now I have to WAIT until they do.

[Langue_doc]

Had a long chat with Verizon wireless. I've had this account for almost 20 years; I called to see why my online bill which gets sent around the 20th of the month was missing this month. The poor tech person couldn't resolve this because whenever I log into my wireless account, I get automatically directed to the Verizon Fios account!

I finally got him to tell me what my bill was. Phew! Now I have to go to a physical store to see if they can sort this out.

Took me hours to get a live person, and that was a Fios representative who then transferred me to his counterpart in the wireless division. I had to beg to be transferred to a live person, and not a phone number.

Turns out that everything is done through the new app; phone calls, emails, or logging into your account appear to be passée.

[mamselle]

It's maddening, I agree.

I've given up trying to get a data account transferred over from a previous support setup (when I was doing part time EA work for a N/P they were covering my data, and when the Exec. Dir. retired last year, I paid them to cover it for the next year so I didn't have to disentangle that along with everything else.

But after three calls, they hung up on me as I was about to give them the code they'd requested and I realized I'd had enough.

I'm not out enough to need it; my phone works from my home wifi when at home and that's all I really need, so they basically lost a customer in their quest to be super-efficient from their side.

I'm always struck how the phrase "for greater efficiency" is included in the apologetic wording for these changes--but it's not really the customer's efficiency they're aiming for....

M.