# It's a new year - time for fresh new mini-rants! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 4, 2010, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629 "2010-01-04T16:26:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/481 "2010-02-23T19:24:23Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I was thinking about something similar a while ago - my husband and I are in our forties now, and we’re kind of comfortable. I made a conscious decision not to feel bad or guilty about that - we’ve both put in our time at the soul-sucking, shit-eating jobs. We’re not at the same place as a young college-aged couple, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. Good luck with that. No matter how you got it, there will always be people who don’t think it’s fair that you have \> X \< and they don’t. And they will do their best to make you feel bad and guilty about daring to enjoy the fruits of your labors. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/482 "2010-02-23T19:38:25Z")
I’ll just think of my summer spent working the counter at Subway and smile. 🙂 Yeah, I’ve noticed that - I usually work part-time jobs, and there is _always_ someone who says, “Must be nice to go home early.” Look, dickface, I get paid for four hours since I _worked_ four hours - maybe I’ll come up to you when you get your cheque that’s twice the size of mine and say the same thing to you - “Must be nice to get paid so much.” All I ever do, though, is paste a big grin on and say,“Yup, it sure is.” ---
**Author:** ![crazyjoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@crazyjoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crazyjoe)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/483 "2010-02-23T19:59:08Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > I want to find all those people who rhapsodize about how it’s so wonderful to experience “four seasons”, or so terrible not to. I want to make them shovel the walkways around my house. After they do that, they can start on the fucking glacier in the alleyway behind my house, that the city allegedly plows. Well, I cleared my neighbor’s sidewalk and driveway, does that get me some consideration? I really enjoy having 4 seasons, and the kids enjoy sledding and making snowmen, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/484 "2010-02-23T20:07:07Z")
> [@crazyjoe](#): > > Well, I cleared my neighbor’s sidewalk and driveway, does that get me some consideration? Yes, but only because a lot of the snow has melted now, so I’m less grumpy. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/485 "2010-02-23T20:45:03Z")
Note to administrators where I work: I understand that you wanted your employees to take an “anonymous” online employee satisfaction survey to fix problems at work. However, a good number of them will have suspicions about how anonymous it really is. Therefore, if you expect the departments to follow up on these results by developing plans to fix the problems, you might consider another more in-depth anonymous online survey or something like that. Instead of oh, say, sending out breakdowns of responses to each manager/supervisor about how their own specific employees answered (as a group, not individual responses) so that some can call in their less-than-a-half-dozen people who report directly to them and cross-examine them directly in long meetings about what’s wrong and why they’re unhappy with work. Because that will really destroy any feeling of anonymity. ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/486 "2010-02-23T20:49:19Z")
Man, those anonymous surveys never work. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/487 "2010-02-23T22:09:36Z")
Any worker who believes an online survey, done from their work-given computer, is anonymous is an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2010, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/488 "2010-02-23T22:21:55Z")
For pity’s sake, how hard is it to [click the frickin’ quote button](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12151500&postcount=33)? ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/489 "2010-02-24T00:58:57Z")
> [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](#): > > Any worker who believes an online survey, done from their work-given computer, is anonymous is an idiot. See, I do research - and I didn’t take the survey, because I know about stuff like that. A couple weeks ago, my supervisor asks my coworker (the other research person) and I if we took the survey. We both honestly answered no. She kind of amusedly chided us for being research focused and skipping opportunities to participate. It didn’t save us from the two-hour meeting though, where we had to answer about important issues for us as if we had participated in the survey in the first place. And it’s not gonna save us from the follow-up small group meeting(s) where we develop a Plan, or the whole-department meeting after that. :smack: Their questions were really freaking flawed anyway, so that is going to be a big part of our response. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/490 "2010-02-24T01:26:05Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Good luck with that. No matter how you got it, there will always be people who don’t think it’s fair that you have \> X \< and they don’t. And they will do their best to make you feel bad and guilty about daring to enjoy the fruits of your labors. I got lectured about going on a cruise when I don’t have a job … including some nonsense about spending the money my husband works long hard hours for. Shut her up when I told her it was the last of the money my dad left me in his WILL as he died last summer … and that he had wanted mrAru and I to go on a cruise because we had never taken a vacation where we did absolutely nothing [Dad knew that all our vacations were actually doing something. like helping to clear out a garage, or work on a habitat for humanity project, stuff like that] ---
**Author:** ![otternell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecc23a/32.png) [@otternell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/otternell)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/491 "2010-02-24T14:42:14Z")
Seriously, someone out there thinks that [hotdogs need to be reshaped](http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/daily-bread/2010/02/23/hot-dogs-perfect-kids-choke)? What the fuck is wrong with people that can’t cut up the hotdog in small enough pieces for their kid? You know what, you want “reshaped” hotdogs, then feed your kid baloney sandwiches. Kids should come with a warning sticker applied immediately after birth “Warning, you are now a parent. It is your job to think for this bundle o’ joy. Pull your head out of your ass and quit expecting the world to redesign everything to suit you!” But oh no, now hotdogs, marshmallows and candies all need a fucking warning label. And some moron somewhere is saying that hotdogs should be reshaped. Fuck that! Fuck with my Nathan’s hotdogs and I will have to kill somebody. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/492 "2010-02-24T15:04:11Z")
My husband says they should make hot dogs really big so the kids can’t fit ‘em in their mouths. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/493 "2010-02-24T15:04:30Z")
I read that, too. It was on the front page of the Money section of my paper, for some reason. In the story in our paper, it told the story of a mom and her dead four-year-old who died from choking on a hot dog. Big picture of her holding up a picture of her son. Look, lady, I’m sorry your kid is dead. But you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me. A) Chopping up food small enough so your kid doesn’t choke is your responsibility, b) learning the Heimlich maneuver as part of being prepared when you have a kid is your responsibility and c) really? We need a regulation to reshape hot dogs? They already come with a warning label apparently and good gawd that’s ridiculous to begin with. I read your link, **otternell,** and I think my favorite line is: > [@Slate](#): > > Of course, grapes and apples can’t be redesigned, so they need to be cut up into small pieces. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![otternell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecc23a/32.png) [@otternell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/otternell)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/494 "2010-02-24T15:09:08Z")
But of course, cutting it up in small pieces wouldn’t work for hotdogs. I liked that line too **niblet\_head**! Of course, now would be a great time for a plant geneticist to create a grape hybrid that is flat! Think of the money you could rake in with that hybrid! ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/495 "2010-02-24T15:18:19Z")
It needs to be flat and tiny, tiny, tiny. So flat and tiny, tiny, tiny that it becomes… juice. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/496 "2010-02-24T16:05:33Z")
> [@niblet\_head](#): > > It needs to be flat and tiny, tiny, tiny. So flat and tiny, tiny, tiny that it becomes… juice. No, all grapes to be given to children should be dehydrated first, so as to no longer be able to obstruct the breathing passages. If only I could think of a good name for dehydrated grapes… ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Carol\_the\_Impaler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_the_Impaler)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/497 "2010-02-24T16:08:16Z")
Prunes? No, that’s not it… ---
**Author:** ![otternell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecc23a/32.png) [@otternell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/otternell)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/498 "2010-02-24T16:31:39Z")
That’s a tough question . . . are they dates? ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/499 "2010-02-24T16:42:07Z")
Hey, scum-sucking\* YMCA pool coordinator: It is, once again, February. And you are, once again, attempting to make _your_ incompetence at your job the problem of your customers who use the pool. Last night, you (once again) tried to discourage a new swimmer from coming to the pool to swim laps the only time he has available. Because that time “is a popular time for lap swimmers”. When you only schedule _one lap lane_. Meanwhile, kiddie classes get two lanes, and the standing-in-shallow-waterobics class gets _half the pool_. (Despite there being an entire _other_ pool of shallow water, unusable by lap swimmers or kiddie classes.) As per usual in February, there were four people in the waterobics class, and eight lap swimmers in the _one_ lane you’d scheduled. Because the Y has been spamming advertisments encouraging people to come get in shape in the lap lane **S** you always have open. You have no control over how many lap swimmers show up. You _do_ control how many lanes you schedule for classes – _and_ you know from the past six years you’ve been trying to do this job what February is like, _and_ you have an explicit first-come-first-served, limited availability system for classes. Yet, you try to cast the blame on the new swimmers you’ve encouraged to join, for not knowing they shouldn’t try to swim at “a popular time”. And since you won’t publish the pool schedule, they can’t know that you’ve only scheduled one lane, anyway. But what really burns my boat, is that you are _once again_ relying on the new swimmers giving up, so you won’t have to deal with the problem properly. There were _eight_ lap swimmers in one lane last night. Unsafe (as I’ve pointed out, before). But the brutal truth is that the fast, experienced swimmers are going to muscle on and get their workout in. The slower, inexperienced swimmers – _the ones your damn ads encouraged to join_ – get flustered and upset, and just leave. They never come back, you sodden bastard. And you damn well know that, because I’ve pointed it out to you the past five years. So MY new year resolution is this: next time I see your out-of-shape fat ass plodding along swimming laps\*\*, I _will_ be in your lane and I _will_ be mowing you under with extreme prejudice. I’m the guy the newbies call “the barracuda”. You don’t have any empathy for the other uncoordinated swimmers you’re forcing into discomfort. But, by God, you damn well will. - I know he sucks scum, because I’ve seen him swimming in the Y pool. He’s not good at pool scheduling, and not good at pool maintenance either. \*\* Of course, whenever he wants to swim laps, he has the lifeguards add an extra lane and bumps whatever class is watercising down to two lanes. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2010, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629/500 "2010-02-24T18:14:06Z")
Here’s a hearty FUCK YOU to iomega. Your 1TB HD was reasonably cheap, and I could have it _right now_, so I bought it. Foolishly, I ignored the little voice in my head saying ‘click of death’ over and over. I thought “they’re still around, they must have fixed their quality issues.” :smack: Woe is me! After two weeks, the drive will no longer reliably wake from sleep. If I don’t notice its plight and reboot via a hard shutoff, the damn thing crashes miserably. A quick tour of the iomega site shows that others have noticed this too, and that maybe it’s caused by a wimpy power supply. Naturally, offical tech support has no comment on the issue. Now it is time to buy a _real_ hard drive and spend hours Xferring stuff again. It sucks to be me. I know I brought it on myself by not listening to what I knew about iomega’s rep from back in the 90’s, but geeze Louise… **iomega** , you are the **worst**! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-new-year-time-for-fresh-new-mini-rants/523629.md?page=26)