I would officially like to cancel that mini-rant, as out of the clear blue sky, I just got a job offer. In a lovely twist of fate, it’s from a local subsidiary of my old company, so I will be getting insurance through all of the same assholes that screwed me out of coverage in the original rant. Not rid of me after all, ya rotten basterds! (shakes fist)
Stay tuned for future installments of assholery, of course.
I’ll add my health care rant. Every year the insurance company drops our old policy and offers us a new “equivalent coverage” policy for more money. They give us an option to choose a cheaper policy with less coverage. We usually choose the cheaper option with much complaining but we can’t afford more (we pay half our insurance). Our coverage is pretty crappy now and most of us can’t even use it because we can’t afford the co-pays or the percentage of certain things we have to pay for. But we want to keep it just in case.
Every year, the notice they are going to change our policy comes in mid-October and we have to decide before December 1st. We didn’t get one this year in October so I thought we were clear. But no, not even two weeks ago our insurance agent informs us of the policy change. The insurance company didn’t even notify us directly! Now one person wants to drop it completely, and another us considering it. Since we are such a small company if even one person drops we won’t be able to get coverage as a group. Quotes from other companies are even higher because of pre-existing conditions.
This is why we need health care reform. The insurance companies need some regulation, they get away with murder.
Yep.
My premium (well, my portion of my premium) for employee-only coverage is going up a hundred bucks, to over $300 a month.
No one would even look at us besides our current provider. No one. If we want health insurance at all, we will take what they give us and like it.
My friend’s company (similar size and demographics) is able to get in a co-op (we aren’t) and their EE premium is $75 with $20 co-pays. My co-pays this year were $50. If you are in a small company, you are screwed.
Dear Mr. $@%!
I know that your cubicle neighbors must love the fact that you don’t take person calls from your family at your cubicle. However, I would request that you don’t take them right next to mine. Especially the ones where you yell and cuss at your kids. I’m sorry, but it makes me uncomfortable when I am talking to a vendor on the phone and you are shouting four letter words less than 10 feet away. In this case you *should *quit your day job, and go back to being a sailor.
Forgot my second rant. I was at the playground with my 2 year-old and stood up too fast and hit my head, giving me a huge headache. That was 8 weeks ago. I still have the headache. I have now had two trips to the hospital, three different doctors, four different prescription pain killers that didn’t work, two MRIs and a CT scan. They said everything is fine, take their drugs (the ones that don’t work) and it will go away in a few days to a week. To hell with that. Will it help my headache if I relieve stress by hitting someone?
The part that pisses me off the most is that I heard all this when I was diagnosed with epilepsy. “All the tests are normal. Take these drugs to control the seizures. You’re only a teenager so you will probably grow out of it and they will go away.” Really. So why am I still taking these pills 13 years later?
Anyone got anything stronger than Vicodin that I can have?
::channeling my inner Bulldog::
This is total bs! It’s December 1st and I have a sinus headache!
Something close to that happened to me. I was working for Major Asshole Insurance Company (whose initials are UH) for my last job when I was laid off. (After they swore they wouldn’t be doing that…) Four months later, Mr Coat was also laid off and when he got a new job, what was the insurance they offered? You got it - MAIC! Costs a lot AND they have trouble paying claims. Had to sic insurance commissioners from TWO states on them.
It’s December 1st and I have sinusitis. Had to take half a day off work because the dizziness just wouldn’t quit.
Here’s hoping that Christmas won’t be followed by Fun Child-Induced Sicknesses like Thanksgiving was. raises mug of tea
I had a cold last week and now my eustachian tube is plugged. I’ve tried antihistamines, cold medicines, nasal sprays, hell, I’ve even tried neti potting it out from within. I’m about to try plunging a needle through my own eardrum, but I’m going to go see my doctor this afternoon first. I can’t believe how annoying it is.
this is not in lieu of medical advice
Hold your nose and gently blow aganst it so you hear you ears pop (gently!) do this several times a day and gradually you will feel relief. I broke an eardrum many years ago from the pressure of plugged tubes and the doctor told me to do this (gently!) as when you hear that pop it is your tubes opening slightly which allows them to drain.
Oh, I’ve done that. I even did it while my sinuses were full of saline, in order to flush them. Still plugged. Or it could be that they’re swollen and the tissue is rubbing so it feels and sounds like liquid. I don’t know, and I don’t care anymore. If I could find the drain point in my sinus cavity I’d stick a #2 pencil up there and ream it around.
Snow. Every fucking year, it snows. Why the hell can’t the UK deal with it by now? I can’t get into work (which I’m not gutted about, admittedly…) I can’t get up to the supermarket, because they haven’t gritted any of the roads or cleared any of the snow, so it’s now frozen again and turned into ice. They’ve closed the airports, so my husband probably won’t be able to get home tomorrow.
Incompetent fucking train companies are unable to deal with this, despite making vast, vast profits and assuring us that they’d sorted it all out, this time. So people end up stranded on trains, sleeping in the middle of nowhere, or abandoned on platforms with no one around to ask for information.
I hate it. If the woman on the telly talks about the “Dunkirk spirit” again in referring to the poor people stuck in freezing airports, I may have to hit something.
It’s still snowing. I want my husband to come home. Why don’t I live in a country that can actually function properly?
Me three. Except it started Monday, I took the night off because I was so dizzy. Been dealing with the sinus headache, stuffiness and sneezing since then. Pretty sure it’s not a cold, a fellow sinus sufferer at work was having the same problem. Weather changes always bring on my sinus issues.
To the small town thief running the bullshit speed trap the day after Thanksgiving, take a big whiff of my exhaust you damn petty criminal. You ought to be ashamed of the set up y’all have concocted. No residences, nothing past the last abandoned building for a mile out into the boonies but you keep it 45? I’ve nothing but contempt for you, your court, your dead, dusty, useless little town. You’re ticketing safe, prudent drivers because you’ve no other way to make money and putting them back on the road pissed of at the injustice. That’s frikkin’ irresponsible as hell, you moronic cretins.
Whoa. That is some rapely cost-shifting.
Thanks for making me grateful for living in a region that gets snow and ice regularly enough that we’re equipped to deal with it, instead of having no infrastructure and being shocked every time it happens.
My husband and I used to drive through Oklahoma several times a year, and we used to stop at a particular town that was midway between the drive, to buy gas, lunch, snacks, and to walk around. Until we got ticketed in that town for going 5 miles over the speed limit. OK, we paid, I believe, a little more than $100 for the ticket. However, we never, ever stopped in that town to buy anything again. We always made very sure to gas up before hitting that town, even though it was a bit inconvenient…we’d have to gas up twice on a trip, instead of once, but that town never saw another dime of our money.
Where I would have admitted that it was my fault for going over the speed limit and would have continued shopping there and living my life like normal. From my perspective you just fucked yourselves over twice.
For 5 miles over? Come on, js. That’s ridiculous.
What would be ridiculous to me is going out of my way and inconveniencing myself in order to… um… yeah, this is where the problems start. What exactly did they gain from this?
I wouldn’t be happy about being pulled over. I’d probably be frustrated, the same way I was frustrated a few months ago when I goofed and thought the speed limit had gone back up a couple of blocks before it really did and I got pulled over in a very small town in Pennsylvania. Know what I said? “Ack! BUSTED!”
I live in a village. You don’t speed in a town or village. Many of them will bust you if you exceed the speed limit.
I just don’t have much sympathy. I’ve gotten a ticket in my own village and I paid it and I still shop and live and buy gas here. Why? Because the ticket was my fault. I wasn’t being persecuted and hounded to my grave. I slowed down and went on with my life instead of acting like it was someone else’s fault that I was speeding.
Yeah, I really don’t get why people get so pissed about speeding tickets. You got caught speeding, who cares if it’s ‘only’ 5 miles over (which is relative too - was it a 30 mph zone or 60 mph zone? Was it a school zone? Construction zone?), you got busted, pay the ticket and get over it. You probably speed every day, so getting caught once in however many years is a pretty good deal.