Mini-rants go in like a lion...

The BBQ Pit
21

Where the fuck is the ‘end of year’ bonus we were all promised (at my beknighted place of employment)? Did I hear it wrong and it’s only coming next Christmas?

Yeah, yeah, chickens, hatched, etc. But I’m down nine grand for my mother’s funeral costs (no insurance), I’m paying hundreds of dollars per month to cover the mortgage payments until we sell her house and my 401(k) continues to evaporate like the morning dew, so I could really use a little bit extra. It’s been promised, it’s been budgeted, all some putz has to do is sign off on it, so get on the stick fer fuck’s sake.

22

Dear particular college student: don’t sign up for a 400-level class in subtopic X and then spend all your time in written responses to the readings complaining about how boring you found them and how you think the writers are totally over-analyzing X, and how you’d rather approach X without thinking too hard about it. Why the fuck did you sign up for this class? And please please don’t complain about how hard it is to read Roman numerals-- you don’t even realize that you are embarrassing yourself.
Then, oh THEN, you miss class and on the day you come back I give you the big written assignment with a big cover page of explicit, detailed instructions; you glance at it and ask slack-jawed and a bit snottily, “So what am I supposed to do?” Read the fucking instructions and follow the fucking directions that are in right there in front of your gob. Am I supposed to read it to you?
Ah, much better.

23

He’s in hospital again.

A different hospital.

This time they think there’s a bowel obstruction.

It may need surgery.

My baby’s in pain, sick and alone and I have to be at work because I’ve got no leave left, and if he don’t working and I don’t working, we have no money to pay our mortgage.

At least this hospital is a 10 minute walk away from work. So I work for 8 hours, then go and spend as much time as I can at the hospital before I go home to feed the cat and try to sleep. Then I get up at 0500 to get ready to go to work again.

The bowel obstruction is a symptom, not a cause. I know this. Fixing it will fix his immediate pain. It won’t make him not sick.

A 28-year-old male should not be being admitted to hospital over 6 times in a 12 month period. He especially should not be having that happen, for his doctors to turn around and go “Well, we don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you’re looking better than when you were admitted a week or so ago, so go home and hopefully it won’t come back”

What “it” is, they don’t know. The renal specialist says his kidneys have some problems, but again - symptom, not cause. They’re impaired because he’s sick, he’s not sick because they’re impared.

No ulcers last time. But an endoscopy showed inflammation in his gut. He was home for a week, tried to go to work yesterday. Had to be carried into the hospital by my grandparents at 10am.

He can’t even talk to me at the moment. He’s in excruciating pain. He’s got a tube down his nose. Because of a cleft palate as a baby, he’s got no soft palate. So the tube rests further forward than it would for most people, triggering his gag reflex. He’s being pumped full of painkillers, hasn’t slept properly, hasn’t eaten in a few days. But he’s still in pain. I want to call him, but he could barely hold a five minute conversation this morning.

There’s 3 hours until I can leave this place and go to see him again. I won’t be home until about 2030 tonight, by the time I’ve seen him, then gotten back to my mother’s place so she can give me a lift home. Our train line is not a great one to be on after dark. And she (rightly) figures I’m not in a good mental space. She asks me to catch a bus back to her place so we can talk and I can debrief a bit, keep my family up to date.

He won’t let me tell his family when he’s ill. He told his mum about his last trip to hospital (only 3 weeks ago, 2 weeks in hospital, 1 week at home. Now he’s back in again) after the fact. But didn’t tell her we’d moved house and have a new phone number. So she facebooked me. I gave her the details. But he won’t let me tell her he’s sick. She’s in England. I’m not sure why he won’t let me tell her or his dad.

Sorry it’s not really a mini rant. I didn’t want to make my own thread. I intended a line or two. It all came out. Well, not all of it. It’s like an iceberg. Most of it’s still lurking under the surface.

24

I’m never sure how many brackets to put around one of those message board hugs, Sierra Indigo, so just take it as read the I’m using the correct number.

25

{{Sierra Indigo}}

My (very) mini rant: I tried to register for classes this morning. All of the classes that apply to my major this quarter conflict with work, or with the one class that does apply to my major that I must take.

I tried for another couple of classes (I’m thinking of double-majoring so I thought I would have a look at an upper-level bio course) but neither of them are admitting non-majors for the next two weeks.

I totally understand why this is so, but it irks me anyway. I have to have a full-time course load for financial aid purposes, so I’m currently registered for one class and just waiting for space in whatever.

26

Stupid ass people that can’t read the sign outside the store, that says in giant, lit up numbers, exactly how much gas is, asking me how much gas costs. Read the sign, already. It’s not like it’s hard to see.

27

If your job opening is at 3 in the freakin’ morning, would it hurt to have that on the damn job advertisement?

I would love this job, but dammit, 3am? (On the other hand, I could sleep while Owls is at work…)

28

You know, yesterday wasn’t that great, I was thinking about hating everyone.

Now, with the new and improved version, I’m starting to hate the SDMB.

Thanks,** Ed.**

29

Ah ah ah…don’t complain here…

30

I’m a contract worker. I asked my team lead at work under which code I should bill the time if they don’t have anything for me to do, and she basically said “You’d better find SOMETHING to do, because if you’re not doing anything billable, we can’t pay you.”

o_O

Um, NO. The flip side of THAT myopic little cost-saving gem of an idea is that if you’re not going to PAY me, you can’t expect me to STAY here. Which means when some screamer of a project DOES come along, you can do it yourself.

The team lead has also started doing one other charmingly exasperating thing: She’ll ask me how long it will take me to do some job (often one I’ve been doing every month since last summer), I’ll give her an estimate, and she’ll say something like “Let’s shoot for half that much time.” Look, lady, you asked me how long it’s going to take and I told you. I didn’t pad the estimate so you can cut it down, although I’m starting to think I should have. I mean, REALLY - do you think I just pulled that number out of my ASS? Because if I had, it would smell a lot worse and I’d be washing my hands in the men’s room instead of sitting in front of my computer with my jaw agape.

My favorite part of this little game is that if I were to make a herculean effort and actually manage to DO it in half the time, my reward would be that they would expect me to do it that fast FOREVER, along with the unspoken insinuation that I lied about how long it would take in the first place. Again, NO. I’m not playing that game.

31

Here’s what’s pissing me off right now.

We have a new program, right? So there’s a learning curve. So fucking get on the system and start learning.

Don’t complain to me it doesn’t do this, or doesn’t do that, if you haven’t even tried it.
Don’t whine “I have no time”. I know. None of us do. And yet two of us (half the office) are learning it just fine, through trial and error. Yet the other two keep bitching.
Admit you are deathly afraid of change.

GAH!

32

Looks like it’s in your interest to play SOME sort of game.

I’d suggest starting to pad your estimates.

33

Why can’t I find ANY statistics for crime in areas accessible by public transportation? I mean someone must have done studies on it at some point, right? I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find anything.

There’s stuff about crime ON public transit, but that doesn’t help me. I want to know if, on average, crime increases or stays the same (or decreases, though I’m not really sure how that would work) in an area once it becomes accessible by bus.

I’m fairly certain it doesn’t increase because that just doesn’t make that much sense… but I’m not a criminal mastermind and have no idea if there might be some reason drug dealers and gangs might like to take the bus out to the suburbs and commit crimes there. I want to address it in a paper but I can’t find any resources about it either way.

34

Dumb fucks who stand at the crosswalks in L.A. (and damn near everyone I see in my poor-ass neighborhood does it) and jam the crosswalk button over and over like they have a horribly debilitating compulsion to do so. And a lot of them aren’t just pressing with it their thumb, oh no, that would be way too pussy. They pound the shit out of the damn thing, using their full fist. Over and over and over and over. It drives me nuts.

I figure one of two things is going on: either they think it will actually make the light change faster, in which case they are dumb, dumb, dumbfucks or they’ve experienced a broken crosswalk button before (because some of them actually are), and think that they need to press it 10,000 times just to make sure it works.

Here’s a tip: if it’s broken, it’s not gonna work whether you press it one time, or 1,000,000,000 times. And if it’s working, it only takes once.

35

I do this. :o

It’s human nature, I think – observe people in elevators repeatedly pressing the “Close Door” button. We, as humans, like to think we’re “in control” and therefore, molesting our machinery helps us perpetuate that fantasy.

36

Please stop quoting a 2000 word post, just to add your ten words in response!

Argh!!!

37

As if there isn’t enough to be irritated about what with the new Pit Lite rules, the immediate back lash of people editing comments ala … “he sure is a piece of [excrement] and he can just go [expletive] himself” … I swear to Buddha is going to make me lose my [motherfucking shit].

38

Sorry, I’m not gonna touch this one.

Wat?

Actually, I agree. WTF is the point, other than post-padding?

And a mini-rant…

McDonalds, do you have a glut of sausage? No? Then why the FUCK do you CONSTANTLY try to give me Sausage McMuffins, when I specifically ask for “regular Egg McMuffins.” Mother fuckers! I literally have to check the sandwiches, and like 20% of the time, they’re sausage! Admittedly, you usually get my non-breakfast orders right. But that doesn’t help me at 7 AM. And then, AND THEN, you only ever put Sausage McMuffins on sale, never regular ones. So I have to pay $2.79? Fuck dat. I’m gonna start eating at home, bitch.

Joe

39

Well, you’re NOT lost, because of the diagrams. So what’s the problem? I’d also be lost without the little diagrams, but, hey, there they are! I can heat up my ramen after all!

Joe

40

Fuckers. I’d literally be better off if I had taken my 401K contributions and put it under my fucking mattress.

Joe