Petty Vents

[Dawgluver]

I'm ripping my hair out. Got up this morning, tried to log on to various iDevices, nothing. Nada. Played around with them, even taking them outside. My LTE didn't work. My WiFi didn't work. My 3G on my phone didn't work. I finally did get some sporadic service, but it is soooo slooowww, like dialup only worse. I could neither make nor take calls. I finally called Verizon on the landline, thinking there must have been an outage. No outage, the best they could offer is that I'm eligible for an upgrade. Then I was put on hold to wait for a technician forever. I finally hung up.

I am not happy.

 

[taxlady]

I'm ripping my hair out. Got up this morning, tried to log on to various iDevices, nothing. Nada. Played around with them, even taking them outside. My LTE didn't work. My WiFi didn't work. My 3G on my phone didn't work. I finally did get some sporadic service, but it is soooo slooowww, like dialup only worse. I could neither make nor take calls. I finally called Verizon on the landline, thinking there must have been an outage. No outage, the best they could offer is that I'm eligible for an upgrade. Then I was put on hold to wait for a technician forever. I finally hung up.

I am not happy.

Well phooey on that. Is Verizon the only company you can use? What would an upgrade do?

 

[Dawgluver]

Well phooey on that. Is Verizon the only company you can use? What would an upgrade do?

Yes, Verizon is about it out here in the sticks. It's also the only system that will work with my particular iPad. A phone upgrade would apparently allow me to make and receive phone calls. I'll try tech support again after I'm done being PO'ed about being put on hold for so long.

 

[Addie]

Well phooey on that. Is Verizon the only company you can use? What would an upgrade do?

I know the frustration. I have been three days without my comcast conection. And it is comcast that is my provider. So I call them through Skype. The technician asked me to shut off my computer. If I did that, I would lose my connection to her. So I just told her my son was a computer geek and I will have his take care of it tonight. There better be a reduction in my computer bill.

I took two Vicodin this morning before I went to physical therapy. At least that was a success. Instead of the five minutes, I went on to ten and didn't even realize it. I also found the position that gives my legs the most workout. I could feel it in my thighs. Then I too a short nap when I got home. Woke up and those Vicodin really kicked in. Most folks get sleepy when they take a seditive. I get ambitious. So I started to clean! And clean! And clean some more. Then when those two wore off, I could feel the pain. So I took two more. Back to cleaning. Washed floors, cleaned the oven, all the counters, everything in the kitchen. Then I came out into the big room. Now that room is spotless. The only thing I forgot to clean was the coffee maker. Boy will I feel it tomorrow.

My order came today. I have been meaning to get me a garlic keeper for years. But everytime I placed an order anywhere that was kitchen stuff, I always forgot about it. So I finally ordered one. It came today and lo and behold, the lid was smashed into smithereens. I called the company right away and they are going to send one out for me immediately. They told me I could do what I wanted with the broken one. But the one item I am really happy about is my SS butter dish that has a lid and holds two sticks of butter. I also got a new kitchen scale. I looked at the digital ones, but then I would have to keep a supply of batteries on hand. And I guess the eyes are really getting old, because I always have a difficult time reading a digital readout. This one is a spring one and a knob for adjustment. The numbers are really big and very easy to read. But the best thing is it has a bowl on top and when I grind meat, it will go right into the bowl. No fuss, no mess. It is spring scale operated.

But I am really ticked off about the lid to the garlic keeper. After all these years of forgetting to order one.

But this month there will be no on line buying. I need to really stock up the pantry and freezer. Food stamps will help with the food, but it is the cleaning supplies that will kill me. I am out of everything.

 

[Dawgluver]

Yes, Verizon is about it out here in the sticks. It's also the only system that will work with my particular iPad. A phone upgrade would apparently allow me to make and receive phone calls. I'll try tech support again after I'm done being PO'ed about being put on hold for so long.

Now this is just bizarre. My systems seem to be restored, and the phone is working now. Devices are no longer on "extension" services. WiFi and LTE have been restored! After not working all day! I still think a local tower had an outage, or something got screwed up.

 

[Addie]

Now this is just bizarre. My systems seem to be restored, and the phone is working now. Devices are no longer on "extension" services. WiFi and LTE have been restored! After not working all day! I still think a local tower had an outage, or something got screwed up.

Someone is just playing with your mind. Where is Rod Sterling when you need him?

do do do do
do do do do
do do do do

 

[Dawgluver]

Someone is just playing with your mind. Where is Rod Sterling when you need him?

do do do do
do do do do
do do do do

Yep, it was the Verizon gremlins!

 

[GotGarlic]

My order came today. I have been meaning to get me a garlic keeper for years. But everytime I placed an order anywhere that was kitchen stuff, I always forgot about it. So I finally ordered one. It came today and lo and behold, the lid was smashed into smithereens. I called the company right away and they are going to send one out for me immediately. They told me I could do what I wanted with the broken one. But the one item I am really happy about is my SS butter dish that has a lid and holds two sticks of butter. I also got a new kitchen scale. I looked at the digital ones, but then I would have to keep a supply of batteries on hand. And I guess the eyes are really getting old, because I always have a difficult time reading a digital readout. This one is a spring one and a knob for adjustment. The numbers are really big and very easy to read. But the best thing is it has a bowl on top and when I grind meat, it will go right into the bowl. No fuss, no mess. It is spring scale operated.

But I am really ticked off about the lid to the garlic keeper. After all these years of forgetting to order one.

But this month there will be no on line buying. I need to really stock up the pantry and freezer. Food stamps will help with the food, but it is the cleaning supplies that will kill me. I am out of everything.

My garlic keeper is a Mexican bowl I bought at the Mexican market in San Antonio.

 

[Addie]

My garlic keeper is a Mexican bowl I bought at the Mexican market in San Antonio.

My garlic presently sits in a basket on a small kitchen cart. That's fine as long as the bulb is big. The basket has large openings. So when I have broken off too much, I can't put them in the basket. They have to go in a zippy bag of some sort.

 

[bakechef]

Now this is just bizarre. My systems seem to be restored, and the phone is working now. Devices are no longer on "extension" services. WiFi and LTE have been restored! After not working all day! I still think a local tower had an outage, or something got screwed up.

That's likely what happened. The whole upgrade thing was ridiculous, why do they put people on phones that have ZERO idea what they are talking about.

We had an all day event with Rob's gaming group. The local tower must have been on the fritz, because all day nobody on Verizon could get data to work well at all. Either it would be painfully slow or not work at all. Around 5 that evening, everything started working again. Enough people must have called and had them reset the tower. This is the first time that I'd had this happen. As expensive and slimy as Verizon is, I have to hand it to them for coverage and pretty good reliability.

 

[Dawgluver]

That's likely what happened. The whole upgrade thing was ridiculous, why do they put people on phones that have ZERO idea what they are talking about.



We had an all day event with Rob's gaming group. The local tower must have been on the fritz, because all day nobody on Verizon could get data to work well at all. Either it would be painfully slow or not work at all. Around 5 that evening, everything started working again. Enough people must have called and had them reset the tower. This is the first time that I'd had this happen. As expensive and slimy as Verizon is, I have to hand it to them for coverage and pretty good reliability.

AhHA! Mine started working again about the same time. And yes, I agree with the expensive and slimy Verizon descriptor.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

"Expensive and slimy" pretty much sums up why we left! Fortunately, we had other options. I must say after being at our daughter's in the sticks and Himself using 3/4G just as often as he uses the WiFi at home (to listen to his precious NPR ), our latest cell phone bill wasn't anywhere near what I thought it would be - and about 1/3 our old monthly Verizon bill.


I am annoyed all over again because of the Family Feud going on with my (and Addie's) favorite grocery store chain. Long pent-up anger and jealousy have crippled the 71-store chain, is wreaking havoc with 25,000 employees, is inconveniencing who knows how many shoppers (has to be well over a million), and is financially crippling all the farms who were promised their product would be sold in the chain's stores. Hopefully, the farmers all had contracts with the store so that they still see some monies even though the store isn't accepting deliveries. It's like War of the Roses, except one of the Arties is looking more like a stinkweed.

If you are at all interested in a story that Hollywood would reject because it was too outlandish, this is about the best article I've seen so far that describes much of what has led up to this stalemate without being too confusing: The Last Stand for the Middle Class Is Taking Place in a Parking Lot in Massachusetts - Esquire

 

[CharlieD]

it has been barely a year since the announcement came that our company got sold/bought. After, oh, about 370 employees got canned during this year, today we had e-mail seating in our e-mail boxes that this new (for us) company just got sold/bought.
What now? Who are they going to get rid of now? How more people are going to loose their jobs? Their lovely hood for the sake of a president who is going to walk out with millions? I am very much pro capitalism, but it is not capitalism any more. I do not know what it is.

 

[taxlady]

"Expensive and slimy" pretty much sums up why we left! Fortunately, we had other options. I must say after being at our daughter's in the sticks and Himself using 3/4G just as often as he uses the WiFi at home (to listen to his precious NPR ), our latest cell phone bill wasn't anywhere near what I thought it would be - and about 1/3 our old monthly Verizon bill.


I am annoyed all over again because of the Family Feud going on with my (and Addie's) favorite grocery store chain. Long pent-up anger and jealousy have crippled the 71-store chain, is wreaking havoc with 25,000 employees, is inconveniencing who knows how many shoppers (has to be well over a million), and is financially crippling all the farms who were promised their product would be sold in the chain's stores. Hopefully, the farmers all had contracts with the store so that they still see some monies even though the store isn't accepting deliveries. It's like War of the Roses, except one of the Arties is looking more like a stinkweed.

If you are at all interested in a story that Hollywood would reject because it was too outlandish, this is about the best article I've seen so far that describes much of what has led up to this stalemate without being too confusing: The Last Stand for the Middle Class Is Taking Place in a Parking Lot in Massachusetts - Esquire

Wow. Corporate greed and that mind set has gotten so entrenched that they don't even see that paying the workers well, at least in this case, has been giving really good profit.

 

[CarolPa]

Well, now I'm not getting any DC notifications at all. Not in mail, not in Spam, not in my DC folder.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Wow. Corporate greed and that mind set has gotten so entrenched that they don't even see that paying the workers well, at least in this case, has been giving really good profit.

The corporate revolution (that's what I call this) has been going on for longer than I've been alive. That's why unions were started a century back. The business owners, and boards of directors were getting more and more wealthy, while the working class became closer to slave labor, with minimum pay. When things got bad enough, the workers rose up, united, and formed unions.

Then the unions became a problem, allowing poor work ethic to become normal, with workers getting too much for too little. And now, the pendulum is swinging back to the owner's side, rather than the worker's side.

It's a sure bet that corporations will give the workers the minimum that they can get away with to maximize profits, which puts money in their own pockets.

This pendulum swing has been going on for a long time. It's time again for workers to rebel against overbearing corporate executives, and for consumers to start demanding fair prices for goods. Do I see it happening in the near future, probably not.

We've created a society, and government that just doesn't function well. The breakdown of nuclear families, and strong moral ethics has made money and personal wealth more important than values that support strong communities, more important that integrity, more important than doing the right thing, simply because it's the right thing. Personally, to me, the right thing is that which lifts oneself, one's family, and one's community to a more ethical, and better life.

Ok, 'nuff said. That's where I stand.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[Cooking Goddess]

Wow. Corporate greed and that mind set has gotten so entrenched that they don't even see that paying the workers well, at least in this case, has been giving really good profit.

Decades ago, that grocery chain was split between two cousins with differing opinions of what made a business successful. The stores ran very well under the CEO cousin who felt you had a successful chain by offering value to shoppers and rewarding your employees who made the stores successful. The other cousin managed to get the advantage on the board a year ago and replace his cousin with two CEOs with a record of killing companies off. It seems that the swing vote holder is tired of being in the family business and just wants to take her chips, cash out, and go do whatever rich people do. It's sad that ONE pouty, self-entitled rich witch can mess with the lives and livelihoods of 25,000 employees plus all the suppliers.

 

[Andy M.]

...It's sad that ONE pouty, self-entitled rich witch can mess with the lives and livelihoods of 25,000 employees plus all the suppliers.

I think this is an unfair characterization.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

You're right Andy, that was too harsh. It's stubbornness on both sides wanting what they want and not willing to compromise that is really messing with workers and shoppers alike.

I especially feel bad for those workers and suppliers who need this to be resolved quickly for the sake of their financial stability. It would be interesting to see what the board would do IF everyone was able to call off work on Monday. What would they do if the only people reporting to work were the store managers, there only to unlock the doors? WooWee would that be fun!

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

There are just some days that I'd rather be a mattress tester, or fishing lure tester, than a telecommunication technician, especially when I have to deal with AT&T!

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North