The Vent and Rant Thread

[Cinisajoy]

Little tip on moms. Sometimes on doing things their way, if they won't know the difference just say yes mother and then do it your way.
My mother thinks a microwave is the only way to cook canned vegetables and heat water.
I prefer a stove and an electric percolator. (Then I have more than one cup of water.)

Oh another thought, since the back room gets no air, do you have the door closed?

[Blossom]

No. Back room is open or hubby would get cold or hot. It's his room. He stays in there except when sleeping. I stay in the bedroom on my bed. Cat has to be able to get to her litter box as well which is located in the utility room or cat room as we call it.

Keep in mind when you live on second floor you deal with residual heat from your neighbors down stairs. We have plenty drafts but that's a good thing in the winter. We use very little heat unless hubby gets cold and cranks the one in his room up. I seldom turn on the second one. This place stays warm year round.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Blossom

No. Back room is open or hubby would get cold or hot. It's his room. He stays in there except when sleeping. I stay in the bedroom on my bed. Cat has to be able to get to her litter box as well which is located in the utility room or cat room as we call it.

Keep in mind when you live on second floor you deal with residual heat from your neighbors down stairs. We have plenty drafts but that's a good thing in the winter. We use very little heat unless hubby gets cold and cranks the one in his room up. I seldom turn on the second one. This place stays warm year round.

Looking at your usage, I wonder what is using all that power. Something is wrong.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Yes we pay directly to Ameren. We live on the second floor of an apartment complex. It's a tiny apartment. Two rooms with one small bathroom and a utility room/closet. The only closet in the place. The kitchen and living room are separated by a half wall. We made the living room into the bedroom because the back room has no air.

Your bill is confusing, but, crap, Blossom, you are paying more than 4x what we're paying. Per KWH. No matter how you do the math. Even more. I just don't understand how the HELL they can charge that, for such a cozy apartment.

Mom is a puzzle. She is super bossy and very unreasonable. She lives in a world normal people do not and she loves to lay guilt trips on people. She loves materials things above all else. Something I'll never understand. She's very wasteful. Not good with money wouldn't know what a budget is.

Well...somebody allowed her to be that way in her life. Her parents, her husband (?), or, something. I mean, if you go through life not knowing how to budget, only a few possible scenarios, there. Either you have more than you need to accommodate cavalier spending, or you go bankrupt. Y'know?

Vis-a-vis guilt: something I had to learn the hard way, over the years--you know that old saying, that nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission? Ditto guilt. Guilting you only works if you give in to it. If you feel guilty, and then take actions that give her a positive reward, why would she stop? Sort of like training a pet. If bad behavior gets her what she wants, she'll keep doing it. (I know you already know this, but I lived this scenario, too. Not quite as whacky as your Mom sounds, but...the dead-handing thing was the final straw for me. I just finally told her--"fine. If that's how it's going to be, don't give me ANYTHING else. Now, or after you pass on. I don't want it if you're going to constantly tell me what to do with it, what I may do with it, what I can't, how I should use it, etc. That's not a gift. That's a contract with too many conditional clauses."

She designates anything she gives. She gets very upset if you go against her wishes. She even tries to tell us what to do with our own things and money. Hubby is fed up and when he gets fed up with her he takes it out on me. She has meltdowns, He has meltdowns. They are so similar when it comes to handling stress. They make mountains out of a molehills. Sometimes I feel I'm the only sane one in this mess. I'm counting the days I can leave this state and go far away from it all.

The really crap part is how it's taken out on YOU. This goes back to the guilt, appeasement, and so forth. Stop listening to both of them.

Seriously. Yes, I know. Spouse, mother, insanely hard. I did something similar, about another fam member. I simply refused to talk about it. If X and Y got into some pissing match, and somehow, someway, put me in the middle, I'd tell X, the SECOND that the Y topic came up, "I'm not discussing this any longer. If you and Y have issues, talk about it together, and leave me out of it. I'm not the family mediator, and I'm sick of being stuck in the middle because you two don't have the guts to work it out face-to-face."

If they persisted, I'd say "I'm hanging up now, I love you, but I told you, not talking about this." Then I'd hang up. (FWIW: I think the practice of hanging up on people in a fit of pique is the most childish thing, EVER. It's unconscionably rude. But desperate times, desperate measures, and I would ALWAYS say, upfront, "if you start talking about this, I'm getting off the phone right away." Basically--I set ground rules for conversation.

As soon as it remotely started to come up, no matter how obliquely, I'd tell them AGAIN, and then the third time, I'd hang up (with the "I love you but..." speech, then, click. However, pet training requires that you do those three warnings in INSTANT proximity to the offense, and keep doing it until they understand you mean it.

(No kidding--think of it as training the puppy. Same exact thing. And yes: it works.)

If they do it face-to-face, in your home, leave the room. Yes, with spouses, it's hard, but I'll just leave the room, run a tub, and go soak in it. (I don't really love soaking in tubs, but...back to that desperate thing..). If they do it in public, leave. Get in your car and drive home. If you're trapped, agreed, that's not a wonderful solution, but...

You GOTTA put your foot down. And with bipolars, it's crucial. They'll push you and push you and push you, like children, until they find your limit. You need to make that limit line early-before you get upset. I happen to have two bipolars that have married into my family and my husband's BIL's family (so, one married to my side, one to his...), so we see an awful lot of that.

I strongly recommend the loving-but-firm approach. It's worked for me and I hope it will work for you. I see you here, with this sort of emotional duress, often enough to know that this must be very debilitating for you. Try the Puppy Approach. (That's our code for it, in the fam).

Good luck. Oh, and yeah--you need to call your State's Corporation Commission, (or the utilities commission, whoever oversees power and electric) and find out if you are being hosed. Those rates are CRAZY.

Hitch

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Looking at your usage, I wonder what is using all that power. Something is wrong.

I'd see about getting the wiring checked.

Decades back, I lived in a basement apartment that had belonged to the super when the building had a resident super. Things like building common lines were on the same circuit. I told the landlord when I moved in they would need to break it out.

I didn't get an electric bill for moths and months because they didn't. (And IIRC, it took action by the utility to force them to bring the electric service up to code before they did. I suddenly got a large bill, but shrugged and paid it.)

I've seen cases before where wiring was done wrong, or someone was deliberately leeching power to have their usage appear on someone else's bill.

This might be a case where the utility can be told "Look. This is what I have. This is what I actually use. I can't understand why my bill is this high. Can you please have someone check the wiring to make sure I'm not paying for someone else's power as well as mine?"

If they check and discover that's what's occurring, it might be possible to recover some money from them because it was improperly charged. (And if they balk, the state utilities commission might be gotten involved.)
______
Dennis

[Hitch]

{SIGH}. Sorry, I suddenly feel like a thread hog. Don't mean to...dunno.

You gents and ladies probably recall that I had reached some new heights of frustration, with this particular client, a man whom I thought might be elderly (elderlier than WE are, DM!). And perhaps, maybe, even a bit demented. I'm not saying that to be mean, I'm truly not. it just seemed that his answers to my questions had no relationship to the question asked, and one of my Crew and I (both having had demented/alzheimer's parents or grandparents) thought he might be sundowning, at one point. He simply could. not. follow. instructions, no matter how clearly laid out, no matter with screenshots, nothing.

However, after wasting spending a few hours working up a video or two for him, etc., he was finally able to view his ePUB in ADE. Hooray! Right? Right, wouldn't YOU think that? He wasn't able to get KP to work--somehow, he'd associated .mobi files with Windows Media Player (???). Fine. He sends us a proof form, and we make the edits.

Round Two.

I send him the eBooks for V2, and (yes, I know you see this coming), he can't open them. Again.

Meanwhile, my assistant-cum-customer-service-queen, leaves for a new job. (We're happy for her, really. It pays AMAZINGLY well, and she would have been dim to stay here.) No replacement has yet been beamed down to the planet Booknook, so...

I'm pretty beside myself with frustration and endless hours in the office and almost no sleep. I decide to bite the bullet, and TeamViewer him. I explain everything to him. (Yeah, that was probably my first mistake.)

I ask him to install TV (holding my breath...) but somehow, THAT actually goes fine. I ask him for his phone number, in Athens, so that I can speak to him while I'm working, so that he doesn't freak out, seeing his computer "do stuff," right?

The time arrives and I dial his #. No answer. This happens 3x. (Later on in the convo, I figure out that he gave me his CITY CODE as part of the number. Not sep, so I was dialing "Greece-->Athens-->Athens+phone number." I finally figure it out, and get through.

After several unsuccessful attempts, I get through on TV, where, of course, he had given me the wrong passcode. Houston, we have liftoff.

Round Three

He's BLASTING Beethoven, and it's so loud (this is through TeamViewer, mind you) that I can hardly hear myself think. Then he tells me that he's having trouble HEARING ME, there must be something wrong with my phone. (grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.... )

But wait, the best is yet to come. Remember how I said, I explained everything to him???? How I needed to do x and y and all that? (Keep waiting..)

I do find that the files that "wouldn't download" are in his DOWNLOADS folder, each dl'ed 38+ times. (Literally, no exaggeration).

I'd asked him half a dozen times what email "program" he used, to which he CONSTANTLY replied, "att.net." What to our wondering eyes did appear? He's running att.net through YAHOO mail.

Vis the rest of the discussion--no matter what I did, no matter what I saw, on the screen, if I asked him something, like "do you see the Table of Contents, there on the left-hand side of Adobe Digital Editions," he'd say no--he couldn't see what I was talking about. I mean...I'm seeing what's happening, after he sees it. The delay, if any, isn't in the other direction.

I finally get the files downloading, yadda, and I put the email program down on the taskbar (which instantly elicited near-hysteria). I decide to head over to the file browser/explorer, and find the Downloads folder, 'cuz, even though we have numerous handouts and FAQs and all that, saying "if you don't know where your downloads are, go to the DOWNLOADS folder on your computer" I know damned well that this guy didn't pay attention. Yes?

The Knockout Round...

So, I put the email browser away, get ready to browse the files and.....

Spoiler:

THE entire goddamned (*&^%$#@! COMPUTER IS IN GREEK.

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Marvin. The person f/k/a Hitch

[CRussel]

You can hog this thread any time, Marvin, f/k/a Hitch.

I _do_ feel your frustration. OTOH, you _did_ choose a career choice that put you where you'd be working with (l)users! I carefully skipped any direct contact with users and simply hired people to do it for me. Bad enough dealing with other admins. But dealing with _AUTHORS_??? You must be joking. I know, I'm an author. Authors are lying, devious, hiding scum. Just ask any editor. (Editors, OTOH, are Evil. Just ask any Author.)


[carefully removes tongue from cheek]

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by CRussel

You can hog this thread any time, Marvin, f/k/a Hitch.

I _do_ feel your frustration. OTOH, you _did_ choose a career choice that put you where you'd be working with (l)users! I carefully skipped any direct contact with users and simply hired people to do it for me. Bad enough dealing with other admins. But dealing with _AUTHORS_??? You must be joking. I know, I'm an author. Authors are lying, devious, hiding scum. Just ask any editor. (Editors, OTOH, are Evil. Just ask any Author.)


[carefully removes tongue from cheek]

He's a grad of an Ivy League school. The book's in English, more or less. (He's...an interesting writer, let's say, in terms of his ideas). I mean...WHY on earth would I think that the frakking computer would be in GREEK????

Worse, I got desperate, and tried Google Translate, for simple words/phrases, trying to find stuff on this guy's computer. I asked him, "is this <greek word here> the word for Downloads?" He said NO. I asked him, "do you see any folder that says that?" He said NO. As I started to think that there was no daylight, I decided to try a hail mary, and typed "Downloads" in at the Windows menu (I think that was Vista). What pops up? Yeah, verily, DOWNLOADS in the menu, but then, when I clicked it, what did the goddamned folder say? YES! It said <Greek Word>. Yes, the same Greek Word that Google had given me, 20 minutes earlier. The same Greek word that he said a) wasn't Downloads and b) wasn't on his computer.

It was really bad. He couldn't see what I saw, he just...couldn't do it. I asked him if he had a friend that could help him because I just don't see how the hell he's going to make it through the KDP to put his book on sale.


Honestly, some days...


Still marvin.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

It was really bad. He couldn't see what I saw, he just...couldn't do it. I asked him if he had a friend that could help him because I just don't see how the hell he's going to make it through the KDP to put his book on sale.

Honestly, some days...

Hitch, I'm sorry, but one reason no one minds you taking over the thread on occasion is that your vents are classic.

They're the sort of thing I call "funny like a a pratfall" - hilarious if it isn't happening to you.

I've done (l)user support, but mine was in a corporate context, and employees as far gone as your client would have been eased out the door long since.

He would be my prime candidate for a "This relationship isn't working out, and I've taken you as far as I can. You need to find another service to take you to the next step." letter.
______
Dennis

[Katsunami]

:X

Dating a woman that doesn't do hints is *hard*. Never thought I'd ever say that.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Hitch, I'm sorry, but one reason no one minds you taking over the thread on occasion is that your vents are classic.

They're the sort of thing I call "funny like a a pratfall" - hilarious if it isn't happening to you.

I've done (l)user support, but mine was in a corporate context, and employees as far gone as your client would have been eased out the door long since.

He would be my prime candidate for a "This relationship isn't working out, and I've taken you as far as I can. You need to find another service to take you to the next step." letter.
______
Dennis

Dennis,

Normally, I'd say, you are probably right. But the truth is, we're pretty much DONE. The book job was fairly large, for a single book; it paid well. (Well...in the normal scope of things, it would have. Not so much now, of course.)

I'm just now trying to get him over the finish line. If he can get it up on Amazon, my job is done. And done some more, and some more after that...

I agree, they would be hilarious--ClientsfromHell.net-worthy--if they were happening to someone else. I just do NOT understand why he never though to ask me "Hey, do you read Greek?" Hell, if the book had BEEN in Greek, it would have crossed my mind. If he wasn't an expat, ditto. Just...never saw that one coming.

I've now added that to my list of Things to Ask. "Is your Computer talking to you in English, or Martian?"

<sigh>

Marvin.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

:X

Dating a woman that doesn't do hints is *hard*. Never thought I'd ever say that.

It reminds me of the apocryphal story about the guy who stood on a street corner saying "Wanna screw?" to attractive women he encountered. It had the virtue of being direct, honest, and unambiguous about what was desired. It had failing of not being the way things are done in our society.

(A comment I saw by a gay man elsewhere indicated it was done in his society, and if he met a hot guy, he could bluntly say "I think you're hot and I want to make it with you. Want to go back to my place?" He thought he had a better deal than heterosexual couple where that Wasn't Done, and I think he had a point.)

It sounds like you need to determine the point at which you decide "We've progressed far enough that perhaps we can lay our cards on the table. I can be forthright about stating what I want out of it, and she can be forthright about what she wants!"

A late friend of mine years back was thinking in terms of written contracts explicitly stating what was expected from each party, and signing the contract was explicit agreement to provide what the other wanted.

In his case, the main want was lots of sex, and I wound up telling him he appeared to have questions about his masculinity, and needed to obsessively check that his equipment was still present and in working order. He had concluded that women simply fell into my arms (which was news to me), and was taking a survey of women we both knew to try to find out the secret.

I told him we differed in approach. I was looking to make a new friend. If that friendship expressed itself sexually in a bed somewhere, that was dandy. If it didn't, I wasn't upset, because that hadn't been the point of the exercise. He got drunk and chased tail, the sort of woman he wanted would be offended by that, and those who wouldn't he really didn't want to be involved with. Perhaps he should reconsider his approach?

Technically, we deal with what the animal behaviorists call an action chain. It's started by a stimulus, and proceeds through a series of steps till an end result is reached. The key is that all steps must be performed, in the specified order, or the end result does not occur. Nest building is an action chain. So is mating behavior. We have action chains in human behavior, too, and they can differ between cultures or within a culture.

A woman I know elsewhere is a sometimes counselor about this sort of thing, and talks about unconscious scripts. If both parties are following the same script, all is well. If they are following different scripts, things deteriorate quickly, because each party will do something required by their script expecting the response their script calls for and not get it. The train comes off the rails in short order, but neither side understands why. There's a reason it's called a mating dance, but both parties must be performing the same dance with the same steps. If you're doing the Charleston, and she's doing the Lindy Hop, things just won't work out.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Hitch

I've now added that to my list of Things to Ask. "Is your Computer talking to you in English, or Martian?"

Along with "What color is the sky on your planet?"
______
Dennis

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

:X

Dating a woman that doesn't do hints is *hard*. Never thought I'd ever say that.

I did--for about 10 seconds--consider warning you, when that arose (wasn't that about...2 years back? The "kind of woman I want" discussion?), that you might learn that that's not what you wanted. You wanted what you imagined that would be like. But...not what it's actually like.

If you can't read someone, and they don't do hints...you're left flailing around, trying to figure out what that person might like/want/think. It's a bit of a black hole, really. Trying to hit a bullseye on a target without any rings, and so forth.

I think it's harder for you (no offense) because you're male. The data shows that men are sorta, well, handicapped at reading the myriad levels of non-verbal communication that women read routinely. The "no hints" thing would likely be easier for you if you were gay, just because (in the case of either gender, I mean), you're more likely to be able to guess what a man is thinking, than a woman, right? And vice-versa.

(My husband occasionally complains about this. He asks me what I want for [birthday, Xmas, etc.], and I'll say "nothing." But the thing is, when people ask me, and that's what I say, that's what I mean. For one thing, other than work stuff, I'm not acquisitive. Secondly, usually, if I want something and I can afford it, I'll get it. If I can't--it's too expensive for someone else to give as a gift. Perhaps she's the same way????)

I think you're stuck asking, to be plebian about it. If you can't read her non-verbals (and perhaps she isn't giving off any!!), then...I think you gotta just bite the bullet and ask.

(And Dennis is dead on with his comments. As usual, cheeky smart bugger.)


(Doubt that helps, but...)

Hitch

[covingtoncat73]

Lemon on paper cut! Lemon on paper cut! Oh, God! Call a Dr., STAT! *writhes in agony*