Normal MAGA hatters only have one thumb on each hand. Koalas have two. Who knows what crazy shit they could get up to?
In this episode of 'Things That Piss Me Off'.........
- Thread starter helel ben shachar
- Start date
Oo oooh! New complaint about prior homeowners’ decisions! There’s an awesome storage space on the 2nd floor. I‘ve stored all our Christmas decorations, all our luggage, and a bunch of boxes back there. There are two lights in the space. One hasn’t been turning on with the other one, so I figured it was out. Brought a new bulb up and started to unscrew the old one. Only the old one was halfway unscrewed. Screwed it back in and light turns on! Why did they do that? Oh well, go to leave, hit the light switch, and that light doesn’t turn off. The fuck? It’s NOT wired to that switch? Annoying, but the socket has a pull switch on it. I pull. It doesn’t move. There’s no way to turn off this light. Well, one way. I unscrew it halfway.
The storage area is behind the walls of the finished space, so I have complete access to the wiring. It’ll be a simple enough job to run a new wire to that switch. Which begs the question why no one has ever done it to begin with.
The storage area is behind the walls of the finished space, so I have complete access to the wiring. It’ll be a simple enough job to run a new wire to that switch. Which begs the question why no one has ever done it to begin with.
Bit of a backstory: The local telco incumbent Telstra (think AT&T but more competant) owned pretty much all of the networking infrastructure in Australia due to being spun off from the government back in 1993, and they abused the crap out of being a monopoly.
The Australian government wised up and mandated competition, forcing Telstra to wholesale to other competitors - not great, but massively bought down prices and there was actual competition. There was also a federal government authority that arbitrated between Telstra and the competitors, and while not perfect it had teeth and used them from time to time.
In 2011ish the political party in charge thought up the idea of a National Broadband Network (NBN) that would replace the copper wiring in the last kilometer with fibre optic for about 80 to 90% of the population of Australia (there were 22 million australians at the time), highly concentrated in cities. That government spent lots of money, started it, got thrown out, and the conservatives who got in then tried to gut the NBN but failed - they were many stories of conservative MPs being told that they could do what they wanted in other electorates, but if they stuffed with the NBN in their own that they'd lose votes.
This NBN infrastructure is owned by a wholy government owned corporation that then wholesales access to customers across the fibre (and still some inherited ADSL/ADSL2/cable) network - essentially a company registers as an "NBN provider", hooks up it's backbone to POPs, fills out the necessary paperwork and then appears as an option to anyone within the POP region. The end customer has an NBN connection, with the data going from their house to the NBN POP and then out onto the provider network, where it's then whisked to wherever it's supposed to go. There's about 160 providers, each servicing multiple POPs, and due to the competition a provider has to have significant scale to be able to survive. If you're interested there's a list of providers here for comparison - https://www.nbnco.com.au/residential/service-providers
Cut to about 7 years ago and my area was served by Telstra copper (still) while the NBN was being built. The Telstra exchange got knocked down for a hospital and they rebuilt a much smaller fibre optic exchange, deliberately not compatible with the NBN standards. Because the conservatives in power were okay with this, it meant that my area turned into an NBN no go area. Telstra then charged around twice or three times the price for a comparible given NBN speed, with a whole 4 providers (Telstra and three others) available - oh what choice! /s
At this point there is literally no other choice other than wireless, and given the prices and speeds for the time and the amount of data my unit used, the plan was okay.
Two years ago Telstra sold all of it's private networks (those places with no NBN coverage for whatever reason) to another telecommuncations holding company and nothing much changed until the debacle I've listed above. There are now more providers to choose from, and I chose the retail arm of the holding company that owns the physical infrastructure - their plans are !surprise! cheaper and faster than everyone else including Telstra, so it's in their best interests to provision me as quickly as possible because they'll get more of my money.
I think they've just screwed up or hit a last minute major issue; the issue is that all of the new potential providers have been saying that I needed to transition during the transition period or I'd lose my internet; they didn't then tell me that the transition was completely off for whatever reason. I've got other stressors in my life now and I did not need this added issue - it's not the end of the world now that I know I'm staying as-is for the forseeable future, but they could at least send me an email or SMS or carrier pigeon to let me know I'm staying online until further notice.
Your state has just 4 million people less than the entirety of Australia. Due to the NBN there's little margin in residential service, and there's only two wireless carriers who have a very tight duopoly. There's more competition in the business and commercial area, but you can get commercial grade NBN for the lower tier stuff as well.
Power went out while I was having a middle of the night snack. Now my milk is stranded on the counter.
You have to guzzle it all so you don't waste it.
edit: In theory, the door was just opened, so you won't lose much cooling by opening the door to put the milk back. Also, the milk is an excellent heat sink and will help keep everything cool. I'd say it's a wash versus leaving the milk out at least.
Was supposed to get a cord of wood delivered today. Great timing, as it's supposed to snow this week. Except they just called to note that the owner didn't pick up the people who do the delivery work this morning, on the account of the possibility of snow today. Snow that did not materialize, but is supposed to still be coming tomorrow. So today definitely would have been the perfect day to get that firewood.
Our new house has tons of trees on the property, and I was thinking I need to have a company on speed dial in case there's ever a need for an emergency removal. So I suppose I can use this as a lesson in how reliable these guys are that they just up and cancel appointments due to the possibility of bad weather.
Our new house has tons of trees on the property, and I was thinking I need to have a company on speed dial in case there's ever a need for an emergency removal. So I suppose I can use this as a lesson in how reliable these guys are that they just up and cancel appointments due to the possibility of bad weather.
Also dealing with commercial work. I'm a site controls electrician, and neither I nor the site mechanic are going to do more than try a plunger, and maybe a urinal snake if it's not broken this week (Usually it is) if the drain doesn't flow. We'll change out flush valves and other clean side parts, since we work there too, and all that.
But if Janitorial won't clean the vomit out of the urinal, then I'm not going to try to clear that drain. I'm also not reaching inside drains or fixtures anymore. Too many instances of finding box cutters, forks, pregnancy tests, and other garbage in the toilets. They can call a plumber.
Are you sure this isn't a great excuse for a chainsaw of some form? Of course, you could also need the company to haul away the material. But still, Chainsaw!
Oh, we’re planning on getting a chainsaw for any “hey, there’s a limb across the driveway” or “that tree fell down and we should cut it into firewood”. This is more for the “oh shit, that tree might fall on our house!” moments, where I don’t want to be responsible for the direction the tree falls when it’s cut. We’ve got at least a dozen or more fir trees that are 50 feet or taller on our property. Any one of them could make for a very bad day.
Sure, but that day probably won't be today, and it probably won't be tomorrow, and it probably won't be the day after that.
You can see where this is going, can't you?
I want to start up a donations pool for anyone who's willing to write a Firefox plugin that seamlessly removes any content it finds referring to Elon Musk or Twitter. I'll chip in $100 to start, and will throw in an extra $50 if the plugin can also block Kanye West's bullshit too. Anyone wanna join?
I think it’s an interesting contrast in browsing habits and would potentially make a neat experiment. I won’t chip in, because I so rarely see stuff on Elon/Twitter/etc unless I go looking for it. I suspect because on Ars that nonsense is usually contained in the SB and the occasional FP article, and this is the only ‘social media’ I use.
Somewhere out there is someone who's already written that plugin, but they'll never see your request...
He said "Elon Musk or Twiter", not "Elon Musk and Twitter", so they may see it.
I once had a plugin that blocked any mention of the Kardashians. I think it worked so well that on a few occasions where I typed the names myself, it would block me from seeing it, and I would end up thinking that I had somehow deleted it. That, and I'd forget about it, then wonder what was wrong with the way some news sites were displaying their pages, what with all the blank space.
As a safety professional, this sort of thing pisses me off. The lockout is the last step only if you can't get people to show up for training (and you should probably be replacing the manager if that's the case). Safety should be easy and should never make someone do something the hard and less safe way.
If only this applied to national safety. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, for example, regulates the importation of zebrafish on the basis of their potential to carry a virus (which they demonstrably don't), that can only infect fish that are invasive species to Canada that we're struggling to get rid of anyway. This importation ban costs Canadian researchers enormous amounts of time and money (ask me how I know) while keeping us safe from a problem that doesn't exist, and could only prevent us from solving a problem that does exist.
Consequently, people go around the rules and smuggle fish into the country or otherwise obfuscate what they're doing with creative labeling of samples as "complex mixtures of nucleic acids, proteins, lipids and carbohydrates".
Any decent chainsaw should have a sighting guide and the instruction booklet will tell you all about how to cut where and when. Dropping a tree in the general direction you want isn't that hard.
Record results for the lounge.
I grew up Sthil, but I probably wouldn't be disowned if I had some Husqvarna kit. Both are good brands and probably make everything that'd cover your needs. I'm intrigued by their electric offerings, quite possibly something worth looking into.
PS - Skip the detcord and winch. That's FL stupid. Here in WA we make stupid use of easy access reservation firework stands and cordless drills.
PPS - always call someone else if you've got a rotten or brittle "widowmaker" tree.
I have a couple of Milwaukee chainsaws (battery powered). We only have a couple of trees in the year near the house, but a veritable forest in the back 40 ft of the property. I got it to clean out the small trees/ underbrush. Works perfectly fine (even on hardwoods like oak) and I have compatibility with all my other batteries. not a Sthil or Husqvarna - but gets the light/moderate jobs done.
Ah, I see the confusion there. You're mistaking regulatory safety and healthy safety culture.
Also, I discovered that
:penguin: 
is a thing, and shows up while starting to type :eng101:I just thought that last bit needed sharing.
Yes, but often the manager that brings you into a position makes the job a pleasure to work at. And in this case, I believe SuperDave's boss has left to manage a dispensary.
There was no attempt to do hoisting and rigging training.
Part of the issue is that there is a mismatch in definitions, in that non-certified hoisting and rigging equipment and operators are forbidden, however no one is interested in certifying an engine hoist as H&R equipment. The vendors the site has access to don't have a process for that, while Corporate services planning can't figure out where the relevant cost center is to dispatch a vendor. I've gotten buy in from the site and regional level safety teams for various civil engineering dispatches to be charged to their cost center, however Corporate isn't having it, and the Maintenance services dispatch doesn't have an authorized engineering firms to dispatch, and the Corporate Engineering team doesn't see a need, as things like fall arrest tie-off point inspections only had the yearly review PM plans generated, and none of the 5 year engineering reviews or any of the mobile service equipment inspections were ever generated.
The other part of the issue is that the maintenance manager for the site was a competent mechanic, but was not given any real leadership training. He's assumed a conflict avoidance stance, but has been overwhelmed by a failure of delegation related to some chaos with staffing (we had most of a year with unreliable planners and purchasing admins, as well as several shifts being short staff) coupled with unreasonable requests from the operational side of the business and the rollout of prototype equipment for trials in our building.
So if he runs into an issue, the shortest path to compliance or mooting the issue is typically taken. And so, rather than juggling staffing to get people sent off for H&R training, or bringing in a trainer, well, the padlock takes 2 minutes and costs effectively nothing.
People keep grabbing other people's fall arrest gear and re-adjusting it or leaving it on the production floor? Better order new harnesses for every individual, instead of telling folks to a) use the harnesses in the cabinet that aren't adjusted first and b) use the same harness for the week, so that everyone is only adjusting sizes once a week.
Guy writes slurs in dust in a maintenance access only location and randomly modifies equipment in shortsighted ways that end up causing damage? Issue three final writtens in a row (OK, those two have been friends for years, and one was best man to the other).
Conveyor breaks that has a work-halt due to potentially lethal hazards for internal staff? Call up the dock equipment service company that has literally never worked on conveyor belts before, and have the electrician verbally walk them through the mechanical work.
Needless to say, that despite his potential to be an OK boss, and the fact that he's a nice guy, he's faced a lack of support from higher to become competent at his job, burned through all his credibility with his team, and is now stuck in a position he can't really recover from. I don't hate him, I just hate working for him, as his motivational attempts are trite and surface level, betraying an unwillingness to get into conflict or note failure, his ability to carry through on discipline or equipment support erratic, and his schedule management is impossibly poor (As in i've been short staffed a year, meanwhile some shifts have been overstrength as he was completely unwilling to push the issue of working shifts as assigned, and remains so, leaving a 2 hour per day gap in the electrical support for the building, which has already bitten us repeatedly and has left me unable to take a fair chunk of my PTO and floating holiday)
I could rant about it, and probably achieve a reasonable score. But honestly, I'm just tired of it all.
That much is true; on the day I interviewed I was still not convinced that I'd leave my current job even with an offer in-hand. It was the quality of the interview and the plain chemistry which happened from the start which swayed me, and not a day of the year which has gone by since has altered my thinking in the slightest. Moreso the reasons which drove my GM from the building - his chosen "last job" before he retired - that have me preparing for a fight. If you'd been through what he has in the last year, you'd take a pay cut to go sell weed for a living too.
Our problems originate at management levels outside the building, and leave me little faith in the quality of the human who might be chosen to replace the GM. We're down an ASM, whom the original boss has already hired to replace, thank goodness, but he won't be here before Christmas. We're down another keyholder, and I have little faith that we'll be able to promote the person we've groomed for the spot. Hell, this week we're also down a second keyholder who tested positive, and that might be affecting my current mental state somewhat as well. My direct report ASM has had his fill of the situation equally, and is ready to GTFO. That would be a loss. We've a loaner ASM from another store who is such an absolute douchenozzle (in a very brownnose way) that I become worried that he'll end up with the GM spot despite only being with the company since spring and having no friends in our building.
Without going into too much detail - those with enough retail experience will already have inferred who the real problem is - I've little confidence that there will be anything like a "team" in this building very soon because of that meddling. That said, I now bear some management responsibility for creating that team as well, and having already met and taken the measure of our new ASM (he's my age too, nothing left to prove either) feel there's cause for a sliver of optimism. Doesn't change my course, except to maybe have to lean a little more into the path of "topping from the bottom" that I'd thought I'd escaped from the last job. I won't quit without a fight.
Today on things that piss DDLs off: Scheduled medicine contracts.
For those lucky enough to be ignorant of these travesties: they are a contract you are forced to sign in order to be deigned the privilege of actually being prescribed the medicine warranted by one's diagnosis.
Some of the fun provisions: You must submit for a urine test any time the doctor wants to ask for one. And pay for it out of pocket. Not covered by insurance.
You cannot consult another doctor for a prescription. >>ANY<< prescription.
You cannot take any medicine not prescribed by that doctor. Even OTC.
No pot (though not only is it legal here, but there is a specific line-item in state code exempting it from consideration. Guess the doctors don't know Oregon pharma code well.) Alcohol and tobacco and gambling are fine, of course.
You cannot raise your voice or get upset in the doctor's office.
One of these things I've seen had over 2 dozen bullet points.
For those lucky enough to be ignorant of these travesties: they are a contract you are forced to sign in order to be deigned the privilege of actually being prescribed the medicine warranted by one's diagnosis.
Some of the fun provisions: You must submit for a urine test any time the doctor wants to ask for one. And pay for it out of pocket. Not covered by insurance.
You cannot consult another doctor for a prescription. >>ANY<< prescription.
You cannot take any medicine not prescribed by that doctor. Even OTC.
No pot (though not only is it legal here, but there is a specific line-item in state code exempting it from consideration. Guess the doctors don't know Oregon pharma code well.) Alcohol and tobacco and gambling are fine, of course.
You cannot raise your voice or get upset in the doctor's office.
One of these things I've seen had over 2 dozen bullet points.
I'm on one of those, but it doesn't have some of those asinine provisions. I find mine to be entirely reasonable to be honest. Your's seems a bit idiotic.
Haven't had one of those myself, but I've avoided any meds that'd require one.. For now.
The new year brings new insurance, and I'm looking at one that'll make finally seeing the specialists I need affordable. Sucky part is lab coverage for pretty much all the insurance plans that are an option are absolute trash.
£500 gas/electric bill for the month of Nov alone. Nov was record-breakingly warm this year in UK and we used the heating as little as we could get away with.
Decided to try some white noise for sleeping. I don't know why but I looked on Amazon Music to see if there was a channel or something. Yes there is, so I put a speaker in the bedroom and fired up "8 Hours of A Fan Running". At the start of the sound there was a little message like "Welcome to the white noise fan sound podcast blah blah". So I slid over to the end of the "podcast" to see if there was an end announcement. No. Good! Resumed playing from the beginning, turned the volume up to about what a fan would be, and good night.
Quality of sleep notwithstanding, eight hours later "WELCOME TO THE WHITE NOISE RAINSTORM PODCAST" so that pissed me off.
Hey guess what there's no way in Amazon Music to turn off automatically playing the next podcast. That pisses me off.
I could have just found a 12 hour fan sound on PocketCasts like I did in ten seconds this morning, so I'm pissed at myself.
Quality of sleep notwithstanding, eight hours later "WELCOME TO THE WHITE NOISE RAINSTORM PODCAST" so that pissed me off.
Hey guess what there's no way in Amazon Music to turn off automatically playing the next podcast. That pisses me off.
I could have just found a 12 hour fan sound on PocketCasts like I did in ten seconds this morning, so I'm pissed at myself.
Having spent about a decade in retail myself, I see the problem clearly and wish you the best of luck in your fight. Hopefully the folks in control of hiring management pull their head out of their ass long enough to get some fresh air and make good decisions.That much is true; on the day I interviewed I was still not convinced that I'd leave my current job even with an offer in-hand. It was the quality of the interview and the plain chemistry which happened from the start which swayed me, and not a day of the year which has gone by since has altered my thinking in the slightest. Moreso the reasons which drove my GM from the building - his chosen "last job" before he retired - that have me preparing for a fight. If you'd been through what he has in the last year, you'd take a pay cut to go sell weed for a living too.
Our problems originate at management levels outside the building, and leave me little faith in the quality of the human who might be chosen to replace the GM. We're down an ASM, whom the original boss has already hired to replace, thank goodness, but he won't be here before Christmas. We're down another keyholder, and I have little faith that we'll be able to promote the person we've groomed for the spot. Hell, this week we're also down a second keyholder who tested positive, and that might be affecting my current mental state somewhat as well. My direct report ASM has had his fill of the situation equally, and is ready to GTFO. That would be a loss. We've a loaner ASM from another store who is such an absolute douchenozzle (in a very brownnose way) that I become worried that he'll end up with the GM spot despite only being with the company since spring and having no friends in our building.
Without going into too much detail - those with enough retail experience will already have inferred who the real problem is - I've little confidence that there will be anything like a "team" in this building very soon because of that meddling. That said, I now bear some management responsibility for creating that team as well, and having already met and taken the measure of our new ASM (he's my age too, nothing left to prove either) feel there's cause for a sliver of optimism. Doesn't change my course, except to maybe have to lean a little more into the path of "topping from the bottom" that I'd thought I'd escaped from the last job. I won't quit without a fight.
