The Vent and Rant Thread

[Rumpelteazer]

Update:

the cat seems to have gotten out of our yard by itself. After my father returned from his billiards night he went into the yard and the cat hid again. But not long after he left there was no more meowing.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Yes, you're right. I considered a "call me" sort of app/website thing. I even have it all ready. I just...urgh. I cannot tell you how peaceful, relatively, the past 19 months have been since we gave up zee phone!

I'll throw two things out for you.

1. If you don't want to do the phone work, don't.
"Sorry, we don't do that." 'But I insist." "I understand, thank you for considering us. I hope you find someone to accommodate you. If you you change your mind, please contact us again." No more replies, full stop.

2. If you don't want to encourage phone work, but might make an exception, then I agree about charging to make it worth while. Don't put it on the web site, don't get a 900 number, because that normalizes it. But, for the "I insist, and I don't want to do my own research" types with Hollywood money: "Yes, ma'am, I understand. We don't normally offer this, but for special clients like you, that'll be $4000.00, half in advance."
If they balk at that, see #1 above.

ApK

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by ApK

I'll throw two things out for you.

1. If you don't want to do the phone work, don't.
"Sorry, we don't do that." 'But I insist." "I understand, thank you for considering us. I hope you find someone to accommodate you. If you you change your mind, please contact us again." No more replies, full stop.

That's been our policy and my response, for the last year/year+1/2.

What slays me is, they seem to get offended when I point out that sure, there are numerous other businesses that do what we do, that will happily take phone calls from them--that charge 5-7x what we do for the privilege. [shrug]. WHAT-ever.

2. If you don't want to encourage phone work, but might make an exception, then I agree about charging to make it worth while. Don't put it on the web site, don't get a 900 number, because that normalizes it. But, for the "I insist, and I don't want to do my own research" types with Hollywood money: "Yes, ma'am, I understand. We don't normally offer this, but for special clients like you, that'll be $4000.00, half in advance."
If they balk at that, see #1 above.

ApK

Yeah. I shouldn't whinge about it. It's just...I have yet to have the ubiquitous "It'll only be 15 minutes (or 5)" call. According to all my time logs since 2010, it's always not less than 55 minutes, often 70m. And the questions are almost invariably answered in under 10.

And it's not that bloody simple (or cheap) to hire someone to replace me. Don't get me wrong, I don't have some ridiculously elevated opinion of myself. It's just that it's a specialized field of endeavor (both print layout/typography and eBook production) and a crapload of what we do is to answer PUBLISHER questions. Not questions about what we do, mind you--questions about what they're meant to do as publishers. After all, it's their entrepreneurial undertaking, not ours.

To me, it's analogous to someone who decides to be a restaurateur, who gets his veggie supplier on the phone and keeps him there for an hour, asking questions about how he should decorate the restaurant, or market his specials. It's not the veggie supplier's job, amirite? So why the hell is it mine?

I've been doing this for a dozen years now and I still don't understand the sheer denial of it all. They decide to become self-publishers because (by and large) they don't have the patience to find an agent and a trade publisher, or their requirement for instant gratification is too great--but they refuse to think of themselves as publishers.

It's always as writers or authors, not publishers. I can count on my fingers and toes the number of people (out of over 6,000+ produced books, mind you) who came to us having actually done their research, knowing what they needed to know to be a publisher. It would be a fascinating thing to study, to look at, to understand, if I weren't smack dab in the middle of it (and, frankly, burdened by it).

Hitch

[Hitch]

So...

Not that I'm naïve or anything, but, this has now happened more than a few times and it's irking me.

I recently checked out a new TV show on IMDB. The reviews seem pretty heavily slanted toward "no," so I thought I'd read them.

To my utter non-surprise, the reviews seemed to be two groups--1-2-3 stars and 8-9-10 stars. There are allegedly 315 total reviews, and 7K-something "ratings" for it, right?

But wait...and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but duplicate reviews. Not just a few, mind you. I became intrigued by them and reported, as duplicates, over 80--80!--reviews. Now, given that the reviews were running roughly half-half, with positive and negative, is it me, or does that mean that 25% of the positive reviews were utter bollicks BS? I mean, 80 dupes means 160-ish 8-9-10 reviews, of which half were nonsense/dupes.

Out of 315.

I've seen this before and the first time I reported such heavy-duty dupe activity, I stupidly thought it was a glitch. The second time, I suspected paid reviews. But now? And--interestingly--the review that *I* wrote, mentioning all the duplicate positive reviews, was declined by the site. (Twice now).

Oddly enough (cough cough) not ONE negative review had been duplicated, so it's not a technical glitch. Only 8-9-10s.

Come on, Amazon. We all know you have the Hellbots. You can sniff out personal relationships with 5 degrees of separation. Are you REALLY telling me that you can't sniff out word-for-word duplicated (positive) reviews, on IMDB?

Gimme a break.

Hitch

[Rumpelteazer]

I hate glitter and agree with the statement that glitter is the herpes of the crafting world; once you use it you can never get rid of it. When crafting I try to avoid using glitter at all cost.

But it isn't only the crafting world where you come across glitter. In just over three weeks I'm going on vacation and our cottage has a bath. I plan to get a couple of bath bombs, from Lush, to enjoy the bath (we don't have one at home). I spend a long time on their website yesterday figuring out which bath bombs has glitter and which doesn't. Because personally I don't find it relaxing if, after taking a nice bath, I have to get in the shower to rinse off the glitter (at least Lush uses environmentally friendly glitter), scrub my private parts (the glitter always sticks to those body parts) and having to deep clean the bathroom to prevent glitter from spreading and you the towel you used can't be used again until after it has been washed.

I just wish Lush, and other such companies, would label their products clearly when it contains glitter. Not everybody wants to go about life leaving glitter everywhere.

For laughs: Ross Noble's story about Lush bath bombs

[Hemmi]

Oh yeah, I'm with you on the glitter thing. Evil stuff!

[timebug]

A good friend of mine, was in a bad mood recently; the cause of his displeasure?
He had just been shopping and found that at the checkout, there were no staff to pass his purchases through, but a 'self scan' system. I was amazed that he had avoided this for so long. The supermarkets I use, have had this system in place for over five years now,easily! I just use them and more or less take them for granted now, but to him, this was a whole new world...and one he did not care for!

[tempest@de]

Originally Posted by timebug

A good friend of mine, was in a bad mood recently; the cause of his displeasure?
He had just been shopping and found that at the checkout, there were no staff to pass his purchases through, but a 'self scan' system. I was amazed that he had avoided this for so long. The supermarkets I use, have had this system in place for over five years now,easily! I just use them and more or less take them for granted now, but to him, this was a whole new world...and one he did not care for!

for me it's the other way around, I would be displeasured if there is no self-checkout available, it is so much faster, I can be in and out of the store in under 5 minutes, that is usually the time I had to wait in line to pay, best invention ever!

[John F]

I like the self serve lines, and almost always use them. The exception being when I have a couple of items that need to looked up on checkout, and even then if the full checkout has a longish line, I'll still use the self checkout. Also, the self checkout seldom has a line, whereas full checkout usually has a line.

A little rant on my grocery stores checkout: you need to place the items in the bagging area, and be careful about what you place/remove from there, otherwise an employee needs to come in and enter their ID (they don't actually check anything, just enter their ID).

Which leads to a New Jersey rant. The last time I drove through, they had a law where you can't pump your own gas/no self serve pumps. I believe this was done to save jobs. It was so inefficient. Wait for an attendant, they start the pump and go serve another customer. Wait for the gas to finish, and then wait for the attendant to come. Give him your credit card, then have to wait again for them to return. And the waits for each step were not short. I can understand that some people like full service stations, but where I am, "the market" has decided full service stations (or even a mix) are a no go; there are none.

[Hemmi]

I hate self checkouts. Here, they always have a line. Even if there's an open checkout within sight, people still stand and wait for a self checkout. I'd rather go to a person.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by John F

I like the self serve lines, and almost always use them. The exception being when I have a couple of items that need to looked up on checkout, and even then if the full checkout has a longish line, I'll still use the self checkout. Also, the self checkout seldom has a line, whereas full checkout usually has a line.

A little rant on my grocery stores checkout: you need to place the items in the bagging area, and be careful about what you place/remove from there, otherwise an employee needs to come in and enter their ID (they don't actually check anything, just enter their ID).

Which leads to a New Jersey rant. The last time I drove through, they had a law where you can't pump your own gas/no self serve pumps. I believe this was done to save jobs. It was so inefficient. Wait for an attendant, they start the pump and go serve another customer. Wait for the gas to finish, and then wait for the attendant to come. Give him your credit card, then have to wait again for them to return. And the waits for each step were not short. I can understand that some people like full service stations, but where I am, "the market" has decided full service stations (or even a mix) are a no go; there are none.

My late sister resided in Jersey and yes, that's the situation there. Drove me nuts. I was with her one time and unthinkingly jumped out to pump my own gas and honest to crap, she acted like I'd pulled out a gun and was going to rob the place. Absurd situation. There will always be entry-level, student-type jobs. Gas stations, convenience stores, fast-food places. But oh, yeah, OMG, we gotta make sure that the guy who pumps the gas at the station keeps his job, so that the buyer can pay more for their gas and the person who owns the station can net less. (sigh). Instead of, of course, trying to find said guy a better job--one with an actual future. Yeah, no, let's focus on gas-pumping.

I'm ambivalent about self-checkout. Because we live in zee boonies, I'm very very rarely running in for 3-5 items; my carts usually look as though I'm feeding the entirety of the Chinese Army. But even when I am doing a quick trip, it seems as though there's always something that an "attendant" has to fix or look at or swipe or something. For those that like them, though, hey, party on.

I have crows or ravens stomping around on my roof as I type this. Those suckers sound like Santa and his 8 not-so-tiny reindeer are up there. Man, those are some clunky birds.

Hitch

[Gardenman]

Originally Posted by Hemmi

I hate self checkouts. Here, they always have a line. Even if there's an open checkout within sight, people still stand and wait for a self checkout. I'd rather go to a person.

Me too.

[DNSB]

I make my decision on whether to go the self-checkout or a regular checkout based on which one is going to take me less time. For the most part, if I have 20 items or less and nothing that needs special attention, self-checkout is faster, a full shopping cart or items that need special attention, the regular checkout is faster. When I'm at Costco, I'll up the maximum items for self-checkout but the same rules apply.

For noisy birds, wait till you have a flicker decide your roof vents are the perfect places to peck to attract a mate. John Bonham they're not.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I make my decision on whether to go the self-checkout or a regular checkout based on which one is going to take me less time. For the most part, if I have 20 items or less and nothing that needs special attention, self-checkout is faster, a full shopping cart or items that need special attention, the regular checkout is faster. When I'm at Costco, I'll up the maximum items for self-checkout but the same rules apply.

For noisy birds, wait till you have a flicker decide your roof vents are the perfect places to peck to attract a mate. John Bonham they're not.

Oh, we have woodpeckers. It's like living with built-in jackhammers. They are particularly fond of the metal portions of the fireplace flues. Don't ask me why, as I doubt they'll get bugs from that!

Hitch

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Oh, we have woodpeckers. It's like living with built-in jackhammers. They are particularly fond of the metal portions of the fireplace flues. Don't ask me why, as I doubt they'll get bugs from that!

Flickers will drum on metal or word to attract mates and establish their territory, evidently the louder the better. Oddly, despite being members of the woodpecker family, they are mostly ground feeders.