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

Had a pretty crap day at work today. The boss is way smarter than me and moves at about 1.5x my speed. He drug me along for a site visit for which I was unprepared (because apparently I am good at playing shortstop, and can be relied upon to eat any random E36 M3 sandwich that gets dropped into my pocket). Nothing beats being force-fed 200 answers before I know what the questions are. Capped off the day with a speedwalk across the (full city block) parking lot, because the boss is lanky and high-energy. Great fit for an aging five-seven doughball who can barely muster the energy to draw his next breath.

Mrs Monohue let me know she couldn't get the spray nozzle off the garden hose. When I got home I popped it off, soaking myself in the process, because she didn't think to turn the damned faucet off when she was done. Instead she shut the water off at the nozzle - by cranking it hard left, not by using the plainly visible ON-OFF lever - and went inside for a busy day of who the hell knows what but it sure as E36 M3 wasn't dishes; she's doing that now. I can tell, because it sounds like a damn Civil War reenactment is taking place in the kitchen. 

And the beautiful part is that I'm now in trouble for being inconvenienced by something that she did.

I don't mind a nice crappy Monday from time to time. I don't mind being occasionally soaked to the skin through basic carelessness. But don't be mad at me for having had a crap day and becoming a victim of your thoughtless mistake.

Lord, I hope it rains at my funeral.

And we're washing down the aforementioned indignities with an indulgent spread of box-mix Spanish rice with sauteed cabbage and strangely overseasoned cream cheese style sludge topping. Which is the main and which is the side has yet to be determined. I can only hope that it is copiously poisoned.

Headed out of the parking lot for lunch yesterday. Pulled up to the exit, pressed clutch pedal, CLANK. Clutch? Still engaged. Clutch pedal? Dangling freely in the non existent breeze. OK, clutch cable broke. Whatevs, it's a 10 minute fix to replace the cable.

Call the parts house- "I need a clutch cable for a 1991 Dodge Ram 50 2wd"

Parts house- "Oh sure, we have one!"

Me- "Is it P/N XYZ789 or equivalent?"

Parts house- "No, it's P/N ABC123..."

Me- "That part won't work, the cable is 3" too long for my application"

Parts house- "Well that's what is listed for your vehicle, sir."

Me- "Ok, do you have P/N XYZ789 or equivalent?"

Parts house- "No, it's discontinued."

berkeley.

Rock Auto has one, I just have to wait for it. I know I shouldn't expect too much from parts counter people, but I remember when they knew WTH they were talking about.  

I am apparently old enough to start yelling at people to get off my lawn.

Hmmm. Tractor no run. Reset the high idle screw. Runs good, until it randomly dies in the yard. Reset the high idle screw again. Repeat until yard is finished. 

I'm truly beginning to despise carbs. Only fuel issue I've ever had with EFI is a dead pump, much easier to deal with. 

9:15 dog vomit cleanup means I have to reschedule my 10:00 appointment to 11:00, and that's gonna cut into my junkyard time.

Recon1342 said:

I know I shouldn't expect too much from parts counter people, but I remember when they knew WTH they were talking about.

Ah.  So you're old enough to remember when they were, by and large, car people and not "customer service associates".  You're old enough to remember fat racks of catalogs on the counter, full of data and dimensions to help them confirm that the part they were looking at was the part you wanted. 

Now they all seem to work off the same database that, in the interest of efficiency, has been infested with errors and omissions.  If something is listed incorrectly at one McParts, it'll be listed the same way at another.

A noble rant. My lawn goes out to you, sir.

In reply to DarkMonohue :

Indeed.

Counter person here.

Some of us are still 'car people'. Unfortunately, higher ups that make the decisions about cataloging don't seem to be, so any of our paper catalogues are either trashed beyond use or terribly outdated and the 'Amazing, Great, New & Improved' web based cataloging system is handled by an IT department that are also not car people and they often times remove useful information on parts (important dimensions recently) in order to 'save space', regardless of us saying its a terrible idea.

Also, most people applying are very green (young) with low to no car interest, retirees that want to work 1 - 2 days a month or as it was said 'Sales Representatives'

A lot of us are just as frustrated by it all as well.

-------------------------------------------------------

My rant:

I think if we could threaten the IT department with a kick to the nether regions every time their update broke the system or removed useful information we'd have much smoother running online cataloging...

In reply to DjGreggieP :

OK, how the heck is 'saving space' a problem for a web-based cataloging system? Having dimensions on a part listing is what, a few KB? If they include an image of the dimensioned part let's be generous and say 1MB (yes, that's likely 4x what it would be). True.... there are hundreds of thousands of parts- but even assuming a million parts and a 1MB image for each one you'd need a whopping 1TB more storage space. On a cloud system that likely has petabytes (or exabytes) of storage... 

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

9:15 dog vomit cleanup means I have to reschedule my 10:00 appointment to 11:00, and that's gonna cut into my junkyard time.

I thought dogs were self-cleaning in that department.

DjGreggieP said:

Counter person here.

Some of us are still 'car people'. 

<SNIP>

A lot of us are just as frustrated by it all as well.

Previous counter person here, mostly in a dealership environment, though that often includes heavy engagement with FLAPS. Fifteen or twenty years ago, there were predominately car people at the counter at our local NAPA and Carquest, and at a few wholesale and specialty shops.

Tertiary rant: It's really gone downhill since then. Carquest became Advance, and the old guard left, replaced by kids with little interest in the subject matter. Then Covid hit and everything got worse. That likely hastened the closure of a big family owned shop right down the road, followed by a local chain that had been open for 75 years. Advance finally went belly up - no surprise, as they were terrible to deal with. We're left with NAPA and the big two McParts chains and a hell of a lot of vacant buildings.

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

There most recent *update* removed all dimensions on filters, and the only explanation we were told was 'space saving'. So if you are new and someone says they need an inline fuel filter for 5/16 line you have no way of looking that up because even searching '5/16 inline fuel filter' brings up everything that is inline and has anything with any combination of the words and numbers mentioned.

A lot of what the berk is uttered when using the search function. 

We constantly have catalogue lag and loading issues, so they probably figure smaller pages equals faster loading? I have no idea. 

In reply to DjGreggieP :

You don't have a 5/16" fuel filter part number memorized?

iansane said:

In reply to DjGreggieP :

You don't have a 5/16 fuel filter part number memorized?

I do. 3002 in plastic, 3032 in metal. 

New kid (20 year old) does not have much memorized

Now they all seem to work off the same database that, in the interest of efficiency, has been infested with errors and omissions.  If something is listed incorrectly at one McParts, it'll be listed the same way IN ALL OF THEM.

I fixed that for you.

*Sigh*. Today was "schedule one's cataract surgery" day. At least an, erm, brighter future should be mine in a few months. 

Election up here in North America's hat yesterday and our riding who 64.9% voted in a very certain way didn't do it strategically enough that the 34.2% that did vote a certain other way end up winning the riding. Unfortunately that means our MP who was excellent is now on his way out, replaced by someone with 0 experience, doesn't live here and couldn't give enough of a E36 M3 to show up to the only debate. 358 votes was the difference with 59,074 total voting.

It's like taking that employee that has gone above and beyond everyday for you and your company exceeding expectations working tirelessly for the betterment of everyone, firing them and replacing them with someone who will actively work against the interests of the majority.

Sad and had me pretty grumpy waking up this morning.

" I'd like to buy your cymbal but feel that the cost is too high for shipping"

Reverb figures it out, I just tell them the size and weight.

" But if I make the box smaller and lighter, it's cheaper. Why can't you just charge me that?"

Because the box isn't exactly that size or weight you berkeleying idiot.

I hate selling gear at times, and it's a cool enough cymbal. I also have a migraine and changed tires in the rain, my patience is in the minus category right now 

In reply to Antihero :

Selling seems to be even more of a pain in the posterior than it was a few years ago.

Maybe offer to fold the cymbal in half to make it fit a smaller and thus cheaper box?

In reply to BoxheadTim :

They don't fold easily, but they can be quartered.

Welp, looks like it's that time of year again where I write an angry email to the YMCA about how stupid their policy of closing indoor swimming pools for half an hour after lightning has been spotted nearby is. 

If you get struck by lightning in an INDOOR pool the universe has REALLY got it in for you...

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

My mom told me to never take a shower during a lightning storm in case the lightning forked through the metal plumbing.

Maybe urban legend, maybe it can happen, but also maybe they are thinking the same thing?

It's been less than 2 years since I was doing any new car shopping, but today, I noticed something different.  I know it is part of the overall strategy to keep you in the showroom for as long as possible, so you feel more committed to buying, since you've spent all that time already.  It used to be they still wanted to get you in the car and test drive as quickly as possible.  However, at two dealerships, with different brands, and different owner groups, the process of photocopying driver's licenses and getting keys took insanely long.  And neither dealer was crowded, either.  It ended up meaning some of the test drives were taken in heavy enough rain that we didn't want to get out in any amount of traffic and on the highway, and of course one of those was in the car that is the favorite, so we need to go back again and test drive the damned thing again.

If you want us to buy so bad, get us behind the wheel more quickly.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Dana was just talking about that when the storms rolled through today. I never heard it before, and also wonder how, when the water main is grounded, it would be a problem, especially with my plastic pipes in the loop.

In reply to RevRico :

No plastic pipes in a house built in 1899.  Anyway she told me this in around 1980.