The Venting Thread

[mamselle]

Upshot of union rep meeting: Looks like the people being screwed on parental leave are all men. Also looks like the shorter your leave, the less of your salary you take home (with a full year netting you nearly 30% more pay than your salary...).

Sigh.

Can you max it out by taking a (don't call it this) sabbatical year out of the whole thing?

It sounds like that's what they expect you to do....

;--]

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

Heh, I wish. There's no such thing as a sabbatical here.

[apl68]

Some months ago I had some memorial seedlings planted in memory of the deceased husband of somebody that I know.  She thought it was a nice gesture.  I was careful to do this through a legitimate forestry organization.  They nonetheless have apparently sold my information to every conservation and environmental activist organization under the sun!  I'm now getting multiple mailings a week from assorted groups.  Besides being annoyed, I can't help thinking about the cognitive dissonance of all these environmental organizations wasting such piles of paper products on all these spec mailings.

[ciao_yall]

We moved into a brand-new condo building 7 years ago. It was so new our street address wasn't up yet in the USPS databases, which made for some adventures. The unit numbers took another few months to catch up.

The result is that we often get we are getting our neighbors' catalogs. Someone on some mailing list put in random unit numbers and probably because we were the first to close, it was the first one that took.

We used to bother with dropping the catalogs off at the correct door, or leave them on the front desk in the lobby.

[clean]

Checkbook balancing day!  Somehow I got way behind and had not balanced in 4 months!  I have spent the last hour trying to figure out the issues and looking for One Penny! 
(A deposit was misrecorded as one penny lower than it was!)
Otherwise I found one math error and then there was the check to my niece for her high school graduation that has not been cashed!

What is it with not cashing checks?  I dont remember letting grass grow on any check sent to me!!


When did YOU last balance your checkbook?

[downer]

1989

[Juvenal]

Checkbook balancing day!  Somehow I got way behind and had not balanced in 4 months!  I have spent the last hour trying to figure out the issues and looking for One Penny! 
(A deposit was misrecorded as one penny lower than it was!)
Otherwise I found one math error and then there was the check to my niece for her high school graduation that has not been cashed!

What is it with not cashing checks?  I dont remember letting grass grow on any check sent to me!!


When did YOU last balance your checkbook?

As long as there are six figures in the checking account, I don't bother.

[marshwiggle]

What is it with not cashing checks?  I dont remember letting grass grow on any check sent to me!!

Gen Z's only handle money electronically; the idea of a physical piece of paper that you literally take to the bricks-and-mortar bank seems to them like churning butter by hand.

[cathwen]

What is it with not cashing checks?  I dont remember letting grass grow on any check sent to me!!

Gen Z's only handle money electronically; the idea of a physical piece of paper that you literally take to the bricks-and-mortar bank seems to them like churning butter by hand.

But you don't have to go to the bank!  All you have to do is open your bank app and deposit the check electronically by taking a photo of it.  It's laughingly easy.  Even a GenZer could do it!

[marshwiggle]

What is it with not cashing checks?  I dont remember letting grass grow on any check sent to me!!

Gen Z's only handle money electronically; the idea of a physical piece of paper that you literally take to the bricks-and-mortar bank seems to them like churning butter by hand.

But you don't have to go to the bank!  All you have to do is open your bank app and deposit the check electronically by taking a photo of it.  It's laughingly easy.  Even a GenZer could do it!

Sure that's how they do it. But watch when there's one of those occasions where they have to write a check. (Exceedingly rare, admittedly.)
The idea of the paper intermediary in the process boggles their minds.

[lightning]

Checkbook balancing day!  Somehow I got way behind and had not balanced in 4 months!  I have spent the last hour trying to figure out the issues and looking for One Penny! 
(A deposit was misrecorded as one penny lower than it was!)
Otherwise I found one math error and then there was the check to my niece for her high school graduation that has not been cashed!

What is it with not cashing checks?  I dont remember letting grass grow on any check sent to me!!

When did YOU last balance your checkbook?

I stopped balancing my checkbook 10–15 years ago.

Thanks for this post. Sending checks as gifts to today's younger relatives might be seen by them as more of an annoyance than a gift.

I get annoyed with gift cards (especially the physical gift cards to places where I don't frequent), but younger relatives might appreciate them more, if the sender of the gift card knows that the relative has an account with that vendor and uses that vendor regularly via the vendor's app (and the vendor's app makes it easy to credit the account from the gift card). iTunes, Amazon, and Steam come to mind.

These are a lot of "ifs." It sure would be easier if they just cash the damn check. 

[the_geneticist]

What is it with not cashing checks?  I dont remember letting grass grow on any check sent to me!!

Gen Z's only handle money electronically; the idea of a physical piece of paper that you literally take to the bricks-and-mortar bank seems to them like churning butter by hand.

Hey, making butter by hand is fun!  And so much tastier than what you get from the store.

[mamselle]

My god-sister has a collection of 20 different 19th c. hand-cranked tabletop butter churns.

M.

[clean]

But you don't have to go to the bank!  All you have to do is open your bank app and deposit the check electronically by taking a photo of it.  It's laughingly easy.  Even a GenZer could do it!

This leads to another vent!!

I own an Iphone 6 Plus.  It seems that Apple no longer wants to provide the newest/greatest IOS for it.  I have the current version of 12.5.5 (I think).  However, my banking aps, and a few other aps have been noting something like  "your ap is out of date. please update to the newest version".  Then when I try to update, it stops. It tells me that I need IOS 14 or something!  I can not GET IOS 14!

So now even I am forced to go to the ACTUAL bank to cash my checks.  Worse, my primary banking relation is with an online only bank!  So I have to make my way to my local credit union, fight the crowds, deposit the few actual checks I collect each month and then transfer the money back out.

Sending checks as gifts to today's younger relatives might be seen by them as more of an annoyance than a gift.

Well, that is the relationship I have with my niece (now a college freshman).  I taught her to bake and we have made pudding .  NO shortcuts!  We Butter the baking pan with Butter!  (No spray pam).  We (she) "Stirs Constantly" when we make pudding - no instant and no microwave! 
So IF she has to go to the bank, that is fine with me.  However, I know that IF anyone is going to go to the bank, it will be her mom!

[mamselle]

My phone's setup to take pictures of the checks I deposit doesn't work.

My bank accepts mailed-in deposits as long as one countersigns them on the back and includes a note clarifying whether they're to go into checking or savings.

I've been doing this since March, 2020, with no problems.

The mails here are decent, so it's usually received and deposited within the week.

M.