Let's mini-rant, shall we?

The BBQ Pit
1

Haven’t seen a mini thread up recently, and I’m just annoyed by a couple things today.

First, dear maternity store: yes, I know you have us pregnant chicks over a barrel, and I capitulate to your no-returns policy. But when I come in to spend $3 on bra extenders, I don’t want a freaking Top Secret Security Clearance level inquiry on my personal information! I’d rather not give my phone number. Or my last name. Or my first name. Fine, you can know my zip code. FWIW, sure, here’s my due date. No, I don’t want a “free” subscription to KidCrap Advertising Monthly Magazine. No, you can’t have my address. I did at least get some enjoyment out of this exchange:

Salesbot: You don’t want to get all the great coupons, like for formula?!
Me: Definitely not - I don’t give my children formula.
Salesbot (with a gleam in her eye): Well, what about diapers?
Me: I use cloth.
Salesbot (crestfallen): Oh.

Second, I’m just miffed at the sponsoring person I have to deal with to become a facilitator with this volunteer organization (which asks that we facilitators not ID ourselves online, sorry). Allegedly, she has some health issue which prevents her from using e-mail, but not from composing lengthy, printed letters. :confused: So communication is awkward, but fine. I also felt that she erected considerably more hurdles for me than other sponsors do, but OK, I’m more knowledgeable now, what the heck. But now I hear from her that I didn’t do what she said in her most recent letter, and I “must have lost it,” and completed my final certification task incorrectly. I’ve got the freakin letter right in front of me, and I did exactly what it said! Which one of us is insane?

I should add that she said, never mind, we’ll just treat it as you having completed the final task and get you certified in time for the big certification ceremony. So I do appreciate that she and the other officials are going above and beyond to get my stuff done in time. It’s just . . . just . . . I have the instructions here in black and white, and I did what they said! No point in arguing about it since they’re letting me in anyway, though.

2

mmmmmm…pregnant chicks over a barrel…mmmmmmmmmmm

3

My rant?

Some fuckhead working at McDonald’s has Hepatitis A, and I ate there so I had to go get a shot. Now my arm aches and I feel bitchy about it.

I feel sorry for the person who’s got the stuff but what I’m really pissed about is that I almost never eat there. I ate there in the last month cuz a fellow employee had a coupon and was driving, last time I ate there was when I first started working here… over a year ago.

So of course it happens on the rare time I do eat there.

4

Oh no, you di’int. You did not just “ewww” me.

Sugar, I get it, I’m not everyone’s type. But I’m also way the fuck beyond the type of guy that ever needs to hear the word “eww.” Save it for the retards and loser barflies you hang out with.

And we both know you were fucking hot for me two months ago, and I was just too damn busy. So now we’ve gone from your little text messages, and the unsolicited stories about what a bi freak you are, and the little tit touches, to “ewww”? And that shit was totally unprovoked. Fuck you, you’re dead to me. You’re off the list, and no one gets back on the list. I can set my watch by the time its gonna take for your new loser boyfriend to take a giant shit into your increasingly cougar life and you’ll come back around trying to get on the list. I’m gonna stare right through that ass, baby, and just say one word.

Ewww.

5

My headphones broke. This always happens. They develop a tear in the rubber coating and one side stops working. I’d fixed it before with electrical tape but I didn’t have any this time so I tried duct tape but it didn’t work. Poop. So I had to buy a new pair of earbuds for 11.99. Woe is me.

Also, my acting professor has been holding midterm conferences in lieu of class the past few days. This means that we haven’t done any group stretching since Wednesday. Apparently, I’ve gotten used to the stretching because now I am feeling achey and stuff in my muscles and it feels like a good stretch will fix the problem. But we haven’t stretched in class for a while! Wah! (Stretch on my own? Heresy.)

So, as you can see my life is nothing but a series of terrible misfortunes after another. (What? It’s mini-rants. I just have REALLY mini-rants.)

6

I pit the lame-o recycling program here in Carmel, Indiana.

We lived for 6 years in Seattle, where everything (well, nearly everything) was recycled: Junk mail? Into the recycling bin. Cardboard? Into the bin. Printer paper? Into the bin. Plastics of types 1-5? Into the bin. Glass? Cans? Magazines? Newspapers? Into the bin. Plastic bags? Stuff 'em into a single bag, tie it off and into the bin.

But now that we’re back in Indiana again, we’re only supposed to recycle cans, bottles, magazines and newspapers. No cardboard, no ‘other’ paper. Og only knows why we can’t put nice, clean laser printer paper into the recycling bin (and since we both work from home, there’s a lot of that), but it cheeses me off (and makes me feel guilty).

7

Everyone involved in my home-buying project can line up so that I can sodomize them one by one with a rabid syphillitic porcupine.
[ul]The lawyer. How nice that it takes you 6 weeks to produce a purchase and sale agreement, and even after that amount of time there are still mistakes in it. Well, I guess this is as close to accurate as you are capable of getting, so we’ll just send it to the bank as is.[/ul]
[ul]The punch list lady. Thank you for not returning my phone calls and e-mails for 5 weeks, and then finally having some other person call me (when it is almost to late to get a binding agreement with the developer to fix the shit that is wrong in this condo) and tell me that you can’t call me because I am represented by a broker.[/ul]
[ul]And fuck the seller’s agent for never ever being available and never returning phone calls, even though you are supposed to be the liaison between me and these other assholes.[/ul]

8

Medicine. Fucking medicine. I just bought some eye medicine, prescribed by the doctor, for fucking $58. I kid you not. It’s actually $145 but the insurance takes care of the rest of it. The next person that tells me there isn’t a health care issue in this county is going to get a pop right in the nose.

I am sooooooo tempted to call up the eye doctor and say “I can’t make it to the next appointment* because I don’t have the money to pay your copay.” I mean, i do, it’s only $25, but this’ll be my seventh visit this year and that’s 7 x 25 = $175 plus the medicine earlier this year for $17 plus the mileage to get there plus this medicine. And this is really really on the cheap side, and it’s for a current issue. I can’t imagine what people do when they need medicine long-term - just sit there and cry?

*I can’t make the next appointment anyway, for a different reason, but I just wanna protest in some small way. GAH! :mad:

9

I pit myself for losing my focus and getting behind in my classes. Especially my hard-as-hell linguistics classes, one of which has a major paper proposal due this weekend that I haven’t even thought about beyond a few article downloads.

I pit my panic attacks for making me lose my focus at this, the most intense time of a graduate student’s year. Thanks for making me freak out just in time to miss the deadline on getting my comprehensive exam started too. Now I get to do the comps/thesis double semester that I wanted to avoid.

10

Dear coworkers at the hotel where I clean rooms:

You know that sheet they post in the back room every week? The one with everyone’s names and the days of the week? If your name is marked on a certain day, you’re expected to COME IN TO WORK ON THAT DAY. If you can’t come in when you’re scheduled, then come talk to a supervisor, but don’t just fail to show up because you don’t particularly feel like working today. If you do, you will find yourself no longer employed, and those of us who can actually grasp the concept of COMING IN TO WORK WHEN YOU’RE SCHEDULED will have to work twice as hard to pick up the slack for you. Honestly, how old can you be and not grasp that concept?

11

You live in a dorm with eight other women on the floor. There is one shower. Why the fuck do you think it’s in any way acceptable to spend thirty fucking minutes in the shower during normal (ie, morning, pre-class) bathing hours? Whatever you’re doing in there, do it later, bitch.

12

:smiley:

13

I worked my third day at my new job yesterday, and it was nuts. I am expected to get the mail opened and sorted and processed and batched and stuff as soon as possible in the day - this is not normal mail. This is cheque processing mail for a massive, Canada-wide company - it is about the most complicated mail you can imagine. There was a lot of mail yesterday (my first day doing it on my own), and was told this morning that I took too long to do it. I told the lady instructing me flat out that it was my third day working there (which she already knows). She acknowledged that, and told me once again that the mail needs to get processed as quickly as possible (I think she’s hammered that point home every day so far). I GET IT!!! THE MAIL NEEDS TO BE DONE QUICKLY!!!There is no doubt in my mind that I WILL be doing it quickly, AS SOON AS I LEARN HOW AND GET SOME EXPERIENCE WITH IT!!! STOP BUGGING ME AND LET ME LEARN!!!111!!!

Oh, and I could have slapped her yesterday when I kept making mistakes doing a procedure that I HAD NEVER DONE OR SEEN DONE BEFORE, as she watched me keep making mistake after mistake and then laughed at my difficulties. As I tried to get it done so I could go for lunch at 2:00, stomach growling all the way.

And my Florida chocolate still isn’t here. It’s almost two and a half weeks. I want my chocolate.

14

To my father-in-law’s wife: Quit rolling your eyes and making snide comments every time that your husband mentions that he wants to buy a sports car! The poor guy has been driving boring, reliable, station wagons his whole life. Let the man get a cute, zippy little thing. He can afford it, and you don’t have to ride in it, you sour witch. Better he get a cute new car than a cute new wife, yes?*
*Better for her, that is. The rest of us would be quite happy if he traded her in for a sweeter, smarter model.

15

Dear Employer,

Yes, it’s healthcare renewal time! Fuck you very much for your oh, so generous allowance of a whopping $60 a year for routine pap smears. That’s the same as it was before so thanks for not increasing the allowance. (I dug out my bills from last year and after the doctor and lab fees, my total charge was $398.00. With a $60 allowance, that doesn’t exactly encourage me to get this done yearly, like we’re always nagged about doing.) We get the same generous allowance for mammograms. As one of the largest employers in this country, you couldn’t negotiate better benefits? It seems like the insurance company likely would have happily said, “Why, of course we can change that allowance without changing the contribution amount! Let us kiss your feet, too!” After all, I’m pretty sure this is a multi-million dollar account.

Oh, and that wonderful new medication called Chantix that helps people quit smoking? Thanks for the oh, so generous allowance of $18.00 towards a medication that costs over $100.

Why the fuck is it when I try to do what’s right (pap smears, mammograms, quit smoking), instead of facillitating the process, you’ve chosen to hinder it? Is the unspoken message here one that says it’s better to pay for horrible things like cervical cancer, breast cancer and lung cancer than pay for the yearly exams or meds? Yes, I am very thankful we have health insurance. It helped out a great deal last year when my husband ended up having unexpected and serious heart problems. There’s just a disconnect going on with wellness checks that I can’t get my head around.

And another thing. When the materials that you sent to all of us peons states, “We’ve made things easier than ever by answering all of your questions” or some such bullshit, do try to answer some of the more obvious ones. Like…what insurance company are we using? Or since you’re offering a new benefit through Aflac, do please include some documentation as to what exactly the benefit options are! “Level One” and “Level Three” doesn’t explain shit! When asking other employees about it (including management), no one could explain it and many said they had no idea what they were chosing or declining. I spent 30 minutes on the phone the other evening with a very nice lady from Aflac who explained it all in detail, since my employer couldn’t be bothered to provide us with that information. I’ve since helped a few other people in my department make educated decisions as to their own coverage.

I’m glad I only work part-time for your evil corporation but my poor husband already has 20+ years invested with your soul-sucking ways. Oh! And thanks for making the decision last year that it would take an act of God for an employee to get an “Exceeds Expectations” on their yearly performance review, thus ensuring the rate of salary increase will be kept to a minimum! Oh, and that wonderful new “salary cap” you implemented? The one that means that my husband won’t be getting a raise for years to come? Not even a cost of living raise? Nice way to reward a loyal and hard-working employee!

I could add so much more about this damned place but this is supposed to be mini-rants.

16

I actually kind of hate it when I see questions in GQ on my area of study, because I just can’t answer them - answering them, especially after a few people have responded, would involve research, specific references and long explanations. Because I can’t just shoot off some partial answer, I’m so used to, you know, writing research essays. And, of course, I have no time or patience to do that.

And that’s just sad.

17

Adventures in The UPS Store:

I am a Notary Public. I am not a lawyer. Were I a lawyer, I would not be working for $8.30 an hour and wearing a dirty nametag. Therefore, please refrain from asking me for legal advice.

I know we charge a lot of money to use the fax machine. We do it so you’ll go somewhere else and stop bothering us with a time-consuming chore that makes us very little money.

We don’t ship firearms. I don’t care about your story. We don’t do it, and I won’t do it. The sign is clearly posted, and I explained it to you nicely. Now go away.

When I ask for Monday off, and tell you I’ll be unreachable from Saturday until Monday, and you tell me I can have Monday off, and then you change your mind, and then you try to reach me Sunday night at 9:00pm, and I don’t answer my cellphone because Bruce fucking Springsteen and the E Street fucking Band just kicked into “Badlands,” and I’m 8 hours of driving away anyway, and I don’t show up to work on Monday, that’s not my fault. (Run-on sentences are fun.)

When an item is out of stock, that means we don’t have anymore. We’re not holding out on you. We’re just out.

I hate this conversation that I have almost everyday:
CUSTOMER: I need to ship this the quickest, cheapest option.
ME: Well, the quickest option is the most expensive option, and the cheapest option is the slowest option. [I give the options]
CUSTOMER: Well what’s the quickest, cheapest option?
ME: Umm…

Also, this conversation:
ME: Ground will arrive Monday for $8.50, Next Day Air will arrive by 10:30am Saturday for $61.00
CUSTOMER: Hmm. My daughter’s birthday is Sunday, You think she’ll mind if her present’s a day late?
(How the fuck should I know? I gave you the goddamned options, now pick one. Luckily I have a stock response available.)
ME: Well, I don’t know, but life is about the choices we make.

Self-service copies are cheaper than full-service copies. But when you screw up, you have to pay for the ones you screw up. That’s how it works. If you don’t want to pay for the fact that you can’t read the diagram that says “Original Face Up” then let me do it. I’m a trained professional. Also, I’m not an idiot.

To the people who have personal mail boxes with us: INCLUDE YOUR BOX NUMBERS WHEN GIVING OUT YOUR ADDRESS. When I get a letter to “Jim” at our address, I don’t know which of our multiple Jims it’s intended for. And so I throw it away and you’ll never see it.

When you give me the wrong address to ship to, and your package is delivered to that address, you don’t get any insurance value from that. That’s why I have you check the address and sign a little paper that says you agree the address is correct. Fucking idiots.

18

This is pretty mild, but I have to get this off my chest.

I adore you Katie, you’re a great person - very thoughtful and generous. But fer crying out loud, babe, being thoughtful and generous is not an Olympic sport - no one else is competing with you for the title. Ease up a little, eh?

The latest - You called our (incredibly busy & work-stressed) mutual friend in SoCal repeatedly over the last few days to make sure she was safe from the fires. Thoughtful, yes… but it would be even moreso if she actually lived or worked remotely near one of the fires, you know. No, no one but you would feel like a jerk for assuming that everything was okay in the absence of any threat.

But the thing that really can rub people the wrong way is your overly generous gifts as thank yous, for bdays, etc. Not everyone in the group is capable of matching the amount of money you spend, and sometimes a favor should just be a favor that could be returned sometime.

19

Facebook, delete my account you fuckers. I don’t want to ‘deactivate’ my account, leaving my personal details on your servers. I want it deleted and gone, dammit!

20

The the lady at work who doesn’t do all her jobs, takes an hour to do her paper work and moves slower than molasses in January: I am tired of cleaning up after you.