Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

 I had Seuss books as a kid, my kids had them, my grandson has them, and I've never heard of the six titles they closed down.  I searched out Mulberry Street online to see whether it was actually a problem in my eyes, and there is one illustration that is pretty cringe worthy in todays eye.  (I was offended by the stereotype of the Irish cop.)  

Don't really blame them for pulling that one, but I wonder why it made the headlines?  Could have been virtue signaling.  Or, it could be that some smart guy in marketing knew that perpetually offended types would buy a bunch of books to support this woke company, and hard core "everything was better before" types would buy books to rebel against the cancel culture after not reading past the click bait headline.  Whether it was planned or not, it worked awfully well.  No downside for Seuss &Co.

Moral of the story- Read past the headline.

In reply to mtn (Forum Supporter) :

These weren't the first Seuss books pulled because of changing times.

Streetwiseguy said:

Don't really blame them for pulling that one, but I wonder why it made the headlines?

Because because being able to shout "I'm offended" apparently gives a lot of people orgasms of righteous indignation.

Some people are first-order offended type who are offended by things, and some people are second-order types who are offended by the first-order people being offended.

BOTH kinds are insufferable when they go out of their way looking for their thrills.

So it is okay for other folks in a local group to be shiny happy people, but when I start getting snippy back suddenly it is "out of character" and I should take it down a notch. Sorry, but calling people out on their bullE36 M3 is my new favorite past time.

In reply to Duke :

Somebody at the company had to make it known.  I can't find a new copy of Stroker Ace, because its out of print.  I don't recall headlines.  Books go out of print every day.

In reply to Duke :

The amusing thing is, nobody was screaming "I'm offended!", the family opted to pull some books.  That's it.

People are getting offended by THAT. 

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to Duke :

The amusing thing is, nobody was screaming "I'm offended!", the family opted to pull some books.  That's it.

People are getting offended by THAT. 

Of course.  They're second-order offended types, and they are just assuming that there must be relevant first-order types somewhere making this happen.

Anything in pursuit of that self-righteous high...

See also:  Mr / Ms / Potatohead or "Just Potatohead" or whatever they're opting to call them now.

In reply to Streetwiseguy :

You can borrow mine

Streetwiseguy said:

 I had Seuss books as a kid, my kids had them, my grandson has them, and I've never heard of the six titles they closed down.  I searched out Mulberry Street online to see whether it was actually a problem in my eyes, and there is one illustration that is pretty cringe worthy in todays eye.  (I was offended by the stereotype of the Irish cop.)  

 

Don't really blame them for pulling that one, but I wonder why it made the headlines?  Could have been virtue signaling.  Or, it could be that some smart guy in marketing knew that perpetually offended types would buy a bunch of books to support this woke company, and hard core "everything was better before" types would buy books to rebel against the cancel culture after not reading past the click bait headline.  Whether it was planned or not, it worked awfully well.  No downside for Seuss &Co.

Moral of the story- Read past the headline.

I don't get why people say they havent' seen those books.  I had a copy of Mulberry street, the Zoo, and remember reading McElligot's Pool in grade school.  They weren't that rare.

It seems like some people are getting offended that other people might do something to not offend some other people.  It's like an ouroboros of offense.

eastsideTim said:

It seems like some people are getting offended that other people might do something to not offend some other people.  It's like an ouroboros of offense.

Would they be offended if I said hello to them without calling them an shiny happy person?  The offended by non-offensive behavior paradox.

Streetwiseguy said:

In reply to Duke :

Somebody at the company had to make it known.  I can't find a new copy of Stroker Ace, because its out of print.  I don't recall headlines.  Books go out of print every day.

If all books were still in print I'd be able to pick up a copy of Pete Bower's Fortress in the Sky for less than $200, and a copy of Brian Shul's Sled Driver for less than $400. 

E36 M3 happens people. If a book becoming out of print is the worst thing that happens to you today, you are doing pretty good. Someday you might recognize that. 

Wife woke me up because the sump pump alarm was going off early this morning.

By the time I figured out that... 1. I was not going to be able to fix this immediately, and 2. this was not an emergency that needed to be fixed immediately... it was late enough to not be able to get back to sleep but not early enough to get a full night's sleep.

...and you could at least say 'thank you' for getting up and fixing it before we usually wake up on a weekend.

While we're ranting about things going out of print, I'm really annoyed that Blipshift doesn't let you order whatever. I understand it. I just don't like it.

Beer Baron said:

Wife woke me up because the sump pump alarm was going off early this morning.

By the time I figured out that... 1. I was not going to be able to fix this immediately, and 2. this was not an emergency that needed to be fixed immediately... it was late enough to not be able to get back to sleep but not early enough to get a full night's sleep.

...and you could at least say 'thank you' for getting up and fixing it before we usually wake up on a weekend.

My wife let's me know about stuff that needs to be fixed around the house right before bed. I finally told her to stop because my mechanical mind will absolutely not sleep until I have puzzled out a solution in my head. It doesn't give me a jump start on tomorrow, it makes me stay up through the night disassembling things in my head.

I am 100% for implementing systems to prevent credit card fraud.  But Rock Auto, we've gotta talk.  9 times out of 10 when I order, I get the "going through the steps" screen and then *bam*, my order is placed.  Great.

Every once in a while, though, you stop that process and give me some sort of Mastercard authentication thing.  I get a choice of verification methods from my bank.  No matter which one I choose, instead of waiting for me to put in a code or something - and I never get a code, btw - you just jump right to a failure message telling me that my bank didn't verify me.  But if I switch to another device or browser (on the same network, mind you) and place the order there everything is fine, no special Mastercard verification required.

The fact that my organization relies on Microsoft OneNote as an online collaboration tool should tell you all you need to know how well things work around here.

Tonight, I'm filling in for a sick coworker by working my old position. I haven't logged into this machine in probably 9 months. All of the OneNote databases are stored on a network share. This network is slow at best. I logged in and made a few entries in OneNote but they have not synched yet. Its been 1.5 hours. I cleared the cache (all 5GBs worth!) and reopened it. Its still trying to sync. At least its not freezing every 30 seconds now. I hate this application with the fire of 1000 suns.

The next big idea(tm) is to get away from using OneNote and go to an online application. It will be web-based and has been promised that it will be more reliable and faster. We have part of the info in OneNote moved over to basically a web-based database. Can you guess what has been broken for 2 days now? Yep. The dev (yes, its ONE guy) doesn't work outside of normal business hours so it will get fixed sometime on Monday.

This is a $977,000,000 contract

TLDR: Amazon is bad. They set up a system without training their workers, creating risk to the workers. They treat their employees poorly. They've insulated themselves from everything except money. 

My garage came with all of the hardware to set up Amazon Key delivery. Amazon Key delivers your packages inside - inside your front door (suspended due to covid) inside your car, or inside your garage. Your garage door opener connects to the cloud, and the delivery driver opens and closes the door as part of the more traditional scan process.

I had trouble finding a particular food I've been eating while on my weight loss plan. After some searching around, I found it at Amazon Fresh. I set it up for delivery in my garage.

At the designated time, I get a call from a Seattle number.

The driver can't get into my garage. "It's a Key delivery - I thought you could open the garage." "I can't, it's locked."

While on the phone, I flip over to the door app and open the garage door. From the house, I see the door open. I tell him it's open. No dice, he can't see it.

I go out the back, through the yard. I think hear the other side of my conversation irl as I walk out. I go through the garage, into the alley. There's nobody out there.

Still on the phone, I tell him I'm standing in the alley and don't see anyone.

"Oh, I need to drive to the alley?" 

Talking to him, I figure out that this guy thought he was supposed to park in front of my house, walk through the front yard, alongside my house to the backyard gate, through that, through my backyard, open the standard door to the garage and put my groceries in there.

I had heard him because he was in the darkness on the other side of my fence when I walked out to meet him in the alley.

I told him to just stack everything on my front porch and I'd take it from there. I close everything up, go out front to gather my bags. I wave at the guy in his car. He waves back.

Now look, I'm not ranting because I'm mad that my stuff was placed at the wrong end of my property. I'm not ranting because the guy was thrown off. I'm ranting because Amazon.

They have this guy out in his Altima driving all over Chicago. He's probably a gig worker, so it's all tips and ratings. If I frowny-face the delivery, Amazon is not going to notice anything. They'll demerit the driver, increase my shiny happy person score, high five themselves, and move on. He probably already spent too much time at my house as it is.

Amazon effed this up. They managed to not train this person on Key delivery. They know where my door is. They built a system for delivering behind it. They brought this guy on, and they didn't train him on it. And now, he's a strange man, on a strange block, in a strange neighborhood, standing in the dark, between two houses, holding my groceries, and struggling to open a locked gate. If he were my loved one, I would not like that. It doesn't take too much imagination to think of a scenario where this could turn bad.

I started researching how and whether to talk to Amazon about this by going to reddit. I ended up spending a while reading rants by warehouse workers. They're dealing with being dinged because they're having to pick 90 items an hour, and they're getting dinged because they have 2.5 minutes to stow and unstow their freezer gear and equipment on each side of their designated breaks.

I gave up on reading more about Amazon, and just moved on the the news. Apparently the new Amazon Prime Eddie Murphy movie used a mansion belonging to Rick Ross as a set. They built a gigantic dining table for a scene and just left it for Ross as a gift.

Why are we feeding Amazon?

In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :

Because they do a better job than anyone else. According to Indeed, the average income for a driver is $66k a year.

Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:

In reply to Mike (Forum Supporter) :

Because they do a better job than anyone else. According to Indeed, the average income for a driver is $66k a year.

My elder daughter worked for Amazon for a year after college.  She was a full-time in-warehouse fulfillment runner about 6 years ago.

She didn't hate the job.  It was physically tiring and not intellectually stimulating (which is ultimately why she left it) but she didn't complain much about the conditions or benefits.  She is the type to be vocal about exploitation of any kind.  I don't know if it is still the case, but at the time Amazon would pay for technical training in specific career fields that would ultimately end in you leaving Amazon:  I remember nursing care, welding, and a few other career options.  You could work at Amazon and they would pay you to learn a trade that Amazon didn't need but would be a good foundation for a lifelong career for you.

In reply to RevRico :

I still can't post/comment from Safari on my main computer- I have to have a separate FireFox window open for it (and Netflix, which for some reason also won't work in Safari...). "Improvements" indeed...

Somebody just now scheduled a meeting at 12:00 to review something.

This is the first time I've heard about this thing.

I'm guessing there is going to be an element of panic in every interaction regarding this thing moving forward.

 

In reply to Brett_Murphy (Ex-Patrón) :

DW  works in the corporate world.  She has had supervisors decide to schedule / announce 8:00a Monday morning meetings - at 11:00p the Sunday night before.

Pray tell how you expect people to know about meetings like that in time to get there?

In reply to Duke :

I have missed more than my fair share of meetings that were scheduled in that manner.  I've got my phone configured so that it only sounds alerts for email between 0745 and 1800 M-F so I definitely won't see those first-thing Monday things until the last minute. 

The balance is still in my favor, though.  Because coronavirus, there are no afternoon busses at the grade school and they kick all the kids out of the high school at 1530 instead of the usual 1700, so from about 1415-1530 every day I'm running around playing bus driver and nobody gives me any crap for that.  So I'll forgive the occasional last-minute meeting notice.

In reply to Duke :

Sounds like our place. The logic is they gave us a phone so we're available 24/7.