Category: BullShit

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So I got some information from EDD

Yet another reason to get the fuck out of California!

I get info from the Employment Development Department. All they send me is a notice that I’m supposed to sign up for their Job Search site. This site 99% of the time is advertising for cleaning personnel or migrant farm workers.

The last time I was unemployed, I applied for jobs from their site and kept getting told that I was over-qualified…

There was absolutely NOTHING about IF I’m Eligible.

Nothing about what I’m supposed to do when/if  the Furlough ends.

No instructions other than that I have to prove my citizenship and eligibility to work.

THAT, I FIND FUNNY!

They let you sign up online BUT then they want to see proof of your eligibility to work I’m assuming IN PERSON. If that’s the case then I should have just driven my happy ass to the Employment office and filled out all the paperwork there with everything in hand and just started the process there and made it a simple one step process.

Meanwhile I haven’t been paid for a month and honestly it’s starting to be a bit of a worry.

You know if I wanted to be fucked I’d sell my ass on Santa Monica Boulevard. Or sign up to spread my cheeks in a porn.

It may come to that anyway at this rate.

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Yet Another Reason I HATE California

I got a registration notice yesterday.

This is typical of the way that California FUCKS it’s citizens.

The notice arrives yesterday, It’s dated as Due in 3 days…

SO the BASTARDS start clocking LATE fees BEFORE you have a chance to get the damn payment to them. Yeah there are other ways to pay ’em. You can use the internet or you can use AAA. But suppose you need to have a smog check?

I guess you’re supposed to fuck over whatever schedule you had, whether that is going to work, or taking a trip, or suppose you’re out of town for a week?

Depending on the amount of your WAY overpriced registration, the late fees can really add up.

For the period 10 days after the due date you incur an approximately 23.5% increase.
For the next 20 day period the increase is about 36%. For the period beyond it’s a 74% increase.

Last year I paid more for my registration than my normal car payment.

I wouldn’t have minded except that the California roads are falling apart. 
Potholes have cost me 4 wheels in the past 2 years if your rims cost 800.00 a piece you really don’t appreciate the shitty freeways, or crumbling surface streets.

You know MY MORTGAGE, and my Credit Cards give me 30 days. At least they provide me with some kind of services.

California is acting like a sleazy loan shark. I don’t like it, I think it’s wrong and I wonder if there’s any place better than this fucked up, third world shit hole.

Time to go….

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On with the business of living…

Hope everyone had a nice 3 day weekend.

(Note: when I started this post I was pissed off… By the time I got to the end I was chuckling because this is so often typical of my life.)

I’m now on furlough instead of actually being layed off.

Here is a snippet of an email exchange with one of my co-workers. In re-reading it, I note that I’m pretty pissed off and it comes through loud and clear. I’d actually tried to tone it down a bit. Sheesh if this is toned down I wish I’d saved the original draft! I’d have made my Marine friends proud with the colorful use of swearing!

Furlough instead of layoffs is almost as bad as just continuing along the layoff course that they had chosen. This is FAR more stressful since YET AGAIN the company has thrown everyone into a state of uncertainty. I’m actually FAR MORE PISSED about this than anything else. I mean I’m supposed to hang out waiting for the 20th? Ooooo there may be an immediate start date but no one has a clue when? We ALL know we cant run our lives like this… Why does the company think they can run a business like this?

I’m angry because it appears that the company may well be simply maneuvering so that that can screw people out of their severance pay. I never did buy that BS line that billing  no-work burned the employees severance.

I suspect that they may have found out they didn’t have a leg to stand on and all the sudden they’re looking at $$$ and have decided that they don’t want to cough up the bucks.

The real problem is the none of the retained employees will ever trust the management again. If those employees are smart they’ll go ahead and keep looking for something else. Either in another division or a completely different company. Most probably a competitor.

I don’t believe for a New York Minute that there is any project, or last minute save. I think that the 20th will come and go and then we’ll have the furloughs extended another 30 days then we’ll be out of work.

Everything they have done over the past 60 -90 days seems shadier and shadier with each change in direction.  I firmly believe that something else is going on and that the company is not playing above board or dare I say it? Ethically?

 I took the furlough because it extended my effective health care benefits. I figure the longer I can go without having to pay the outrageous COBRA rates the better…

I’ve just finished the process of filling out the unemployment forms online.

I anticipated that this process would be an extremely annoying process, something akin to having an old railroad tie shoved unceremoniously up my ass…  So I put it off until today.

I  didn’t want to go into the weekend in a sour mood because of the stupidity of dealing with bureaucratic crap.

Turns out… I made a good call!

The forms read like RAP. Did ya, ba dom ding, Diiid ya, ba dom ding ba dom ding Did ya, Did ya, Did ya. I pretty much HATE RAP!  This form did a pretty good job of sending me off the deep end. Of course this was AFTER me spending 2 weeks trying to actually call Employment Development to find out if I was even eligible due to the furlough. The Employment Development Department is apparently so busy that they can’t even answer their phones.

I figured what the hell? I’ll fill out their forms online and then we’ll have a negotiation when one of their people CALLS me.

During the filling out of the forms I found out that my company had fucked us all in Oh, so subtle ways.

The Employment Development department asks this…

Provide your employment history for the past 18 months, including your very last employer. If you worked for a temporary agency, a labor contractor, an agent for actors, or an employer where wages are reported under a corporate name, your wages may have been reported under that employer name. You may want to refer to your check stub(s) or W-2(s) to obtain the name of your employer.

Note: Failure to report all your employers, periods of employment and wages correctly may result in your benefits being delayed or denied.


Employer Name     Beginning             Ending                   Wages       How were you Paid?
                           (mm/dd/yyyy)     (mm/dd/yyyy)           Earned ($)

I read the question to mean, Put your employer name for the last 18 months. Well I’ve had the same employer since 2007 so the beginning date is 2007 and the ending date is 2011, pretty easy right???

But then the Wages question becomes inclusive of the whole beginning / ending period.

This leads me to try to come up with total YTD earnings for the past 5 year period. Which then leads me to discoveries about the lack of information and difficulty in obtaining it from my company.

First, they went “Green” so they have us all sign up for direct deposit. Then they tell us that the will not be sending paycheck statements any more and that we’ll have to look at our statements online.

Then they take the ability for us to look at our paycheck statements from our own computers at home away. Initially, we could print the statements in PDF format to a file so that we could keep offline copies for our records from our home computers. About a year ago the brilliant IT people did away with the PDF option, leaving only XPS.

Now the only way to see or get a copy of your paystub is by being connected directly to the company network and OH yeah it’s against the company policy for you to attach personal storage devices to your work computer so you have to store the image of the paystub as XPS, then email it to yourself, and it has to be zipped and encrypted.

The XPS format is great if you’re a windows user. But if you’re a Linux or Mac user… OH Well… you’re screwed because you’re different! You chose not to drink the Microsoft Kool Aid, your problem not ours. (I’ve since found viewers for Linux and Mac. and I know a couple of little tricks that have gotten me past this problem.)

The above is frustrating… But the kicker is when you finally work through all this other shit and  look at your paystubs.  The magic works, the page is viewable and you find that most don’t  have YTD information. In fact only one year in the past 5 actually has the YTD data.

Ya just want to throttle someone. GRRRRRRRR!

I ended up pulling what tax records I have (lost all the records in a fire in 2008) and having to call the accountant for other records. For the rest of the information, I had to open each and every paystub and manually add the information that I needed.

All of which just fed my frustration…

At one point, in my efforts to answer this single question (EDD wouldn’t let you move on if it was blank) I had 3 computers up and running and more total computing horsepower at my fingertips than was used to send men to the moon.

Don’t ask.. it just worked out that way.

If you ever had any doubt that I’m a QA person…

All you need to know is that this kind of thing happens to me all the time. The absolutely simplest thing turns into a raging furball.

It’s as if I just notice stuff others don’t.

Or else the Gremlins of our high technology world seem to really enjoy messing with me…

Maybe I need to make a Gremlin repellant and then retire to a tropical island.

Me, the Ocean, a nice hut, and no freakin technology…  Except the boat would sink with me on it, in sight of the island…

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Video Chat Etiquette… OR When did we become such touchy feely pussies?

I had an hour or so tonight. I’m a little pent up and figured “what the hell I’ll go rub one out.”

I’m just about to sign off the ‘net to go sign onto my personal pleasure time when an Old friend pops on one of the chat programs and says hi.

I start the video feed and since I’m sans shirt he makes some crack like you naked?? I pan the camera down and Why, yes… yes I am naked as the day I was born.

He smiles and his clothes disappear like the Enterprise Transporter got them.

We start doing what boys do. And we’re having a great time talking dirty and being nasty.

Then he has someone at his door. It’s an old friend of his and my friend has to go. Annoying yes… but shit happens and I was going to go play by myself anyway.

Then I think wait a minute I’m kinda wanting to be an exhibitionist so I sign onto ispq and almost immediately I’m getting quick messages.

I answer the dumbfuck wimpy “hi” messages.

I even answer the messages that have NO text in them.

I’m prowling, I want to play, I want to show, I’m not really up for “hi…”

Let me make this clear

IF A DUDE ANSWERS YOUR MESSAGE, COCK IN HAND HE’S NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR FEELINGS!

Don’t tell him you’re not ready,

Don’t pepper him with endless ONE line messages.

Just shut the FUCK up, grab your cock, and answer the video chat request. OR NOT.

And if it’s NOT then have the good graces to not keep sending chat messages.

If a guy asks you into a videochat say yes, say no but you really should understand he wants to video because HES GOT HIS HANDS FULL.

I was asked the following tonight.

“Hi” [ 5 times] — Uh can’t we be a little more literate?  How about “Hello,  I liked your profile are you here to chat or are you wanting to just get to stroking?”

“hi..you bi? curious” — Really? DOES IT FUCKING MATTER? I answered your message with cock in hand who cares if I’m bi, curious, straight, or gay. Cock in hand trumps stupid questions.

“you hairy chested? ” — Uhmmm you have a picture of me from tits to balls cock in hand. You really need to ask this?

“how big is cock?” — Does it matter? you’re not going to be deep throating it, or taking it up your ass over a video link.

“you´re hot, but I´m not horny enough for a cam fun” — this you say AFTER you’e joined and left a live videochat? FUCK YOU!

“do you have skype chat?” — the answer is YES what’s YOUR address?

“you look like my fuckbuddy… nice body…” — Thanks, stroke your dick with me and stop chatting!

“when you cum last” — Really? AGAIN… DOES IT FUCKING MATTER? I’m obviously wanting to cum TODAY…. NOW!

“Hi how are you?” — again, I’m fine and obviously looking to rub one out answered with cock in hand.

“what you up to?” — Ummmm stroking my cock see picture above!

“just signed on and looking around” — fine are you going to join me OR NOT?

“uncut?” — I guess I could see this one. There are things you can ask to see on an uncut cock that you can’t on a cut one.

<blank> Picture — whatever.

<blank> shirtless picture — Ok you’ve got my interest

“Show face” — Ok you lost me with that You’ll see my face and everything else if you let me get on with the videochat

When I’m allowed to stroke my dick and not being forced to answer stupid questions I actually put on a pretty good show. AND that show is FREE.

MEN if you’re going to jerk off … DO IT enjoy it and let everyone else enjoy themselves too. Stop acting like a bunch of huggy touchy feely spineless doormats.

What happened to us? I remember it being “normal” to haul my cock out of my pants IN a BAR and be stroked & sucked until I couldn’t take anymore touching.

Here’s The Single message  I sent to a guy later in the night when I logged back into ispq to just flat out block those other morons.

His opening message was a picture of him tits to balls and he said “Hello you up for some play?”

Hola dude. you missed me by about an hour. I was raring to go and wanted to stroke with a guy.
After 5 guys that kept chatting when I wanted to stroke cock not type.
I logged off and did my thing alone.
I wont do that to you. Friend me and next time I’m available lets rub one out together.
I logged back on to block one of these guys cause he was just annoying as hell
Would have loved to videoed with you though.

After he got my message. This man even had the courtesy to say “thanks man” he went on to find someone who was up for it. That’s STYLE and I’ll look for him specifically the next time I’m in a mood.

I have often thought about setting up an Xtube account. Maybe this is why that service is so popular. 

At least then I could charge for my exhibitionism.

When folks at paying by them minute they tend to be a lot less annoyingly verbose.

Everybody needs multiple income streams don’t they?

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The Car saga continues

This entry is in general about the car but there are broader implications in what I’m about to say.

To recap, the car started acting up then I got a check engine indication.

After a  day or so the dealership said the problem originated from both turbo waste gates malfunctioning.

Aside from the strange coincidence that both units malfunctioned at the same time and that I’ve been chasing some kind of gremlin around the car since 2009. I’m more or less happy that finally some hard indication of a problem existing in the car has been documented.

I’m MORE than annoyed that when I started reporting issues I was WELL within the factory warranty and now that someone actually saw a problem I’m close to the end of the extended warranty. But that is simply the way things are and there’s nothing to be done about it.

90% of the issue in this case is the reliance of the dealerships on their diagnostic and onboard computers, then doing ONLY the minimum required NOT actually engaging in diagnosis.

Diagnosis being the logical testing and elimination of potential problems until the actual problem was found and corrected.

In many if not all of todays vehicles the “Technician” (Give me a good old fashioned MECHANIC any day.) interrogates the onboard systems and if they say nothing is wrong… Well then NOTHING is wrong!

I swear, The car could have come in on a tow truck with the engine not even turning over and if the computer said everything was fine, then some of these “Technicians” would return the car still not running with “No problem found”.

There is however an overarching problem in our society.

In my opinion this problem will continue to undermine us until we put a stop to it, or until the United States we know is just another 3rd world cesspool.

The problem is the minimalist approach.

Let me give you an extreme example.

You go in for surgery. Your doctor and surgeon have determined that you have a cancerous tumor in your gut. So they prep you and slice you open. While they’re inside you they see another tumor of a slightly different kind. They note in your records and remove ONLY the original tumor as required by the insurance company and per the legal documents you signed when you were admitted. 

Then they schedule you for another surgery next month to remove the OTHER tumor. Of course the doctors get to hit you with double the costs and drive up the insurance payout. So literally everyone in the situation WINS….

Except of course the poor bastard that’s being sliced and diced.

This makes no fucking sense, we all know it defies logic. Yet we have examples of this kind of thinking all over the place.

There was a place I worked where we tested software. I’m a black box, start to finish, end to end, front to back, kind of Quality Assurance Engineer.

I’m proud of that and I take pride in my ability to find problems in software. (Except when I’m finding issues with software I’m not being paid to test… Windows? Anyone?)

This company was all about process, procedures, and documentation. Problem was they only tested to prove the requirement was met. It didn’t matter that the software under test didn’t actually fucking work!

The focus was so narrowly on meeting the individual requirement that they’d lost sight of the overall system. Requirements are, in general the MINIMUM thing necessary.

That’s the problem. Accountability means meeting the minimum. In a homogeneous work environment where the person that excels is never rewarded for their excellence, you build in mediocrity. You really cement in that “It’s not my job” mentality.

Another aspect of this is that costs are driven up and MORE busy work is being created, customer satisfaction drops into the shitter, customer loyalty becomes a thing of the past, OH AND you increase waste and consumerism.

Why? Because usually in these situations the customer spends an inordinate amount of time dicking with getting their problem SOLVED!

More often than not the customer in frustration SOLVES the problem by tossing the offending “Whatever” in the trash Then they buy another similar item from another vendor.

 In this age of being green, hugging Mother Earth, carbon credits, and political posturing for environmental responsibility, you’d think the first thing to work on is fucking quality!

Here’s another example.

This is an actual email thread I had with the guy at the dealership today.


ME:

It occurred to me that there is a lot of oil going through the turbos.

If I remember general turbo construction the turbos depend on oil for a part of their cooling and they may even use oil bearings dependent on design.

This begs a question.


The next service interval was about 7000 miles in the future. It doesn’t make any sense to me that you’d put new turbos on the car and then subject them to OLD oil. Does this turbo replacement INCLUDE the OIL CHANGE and whatever other service is indicated?

It makes sense for the health of the car and frankly my convenience to just do the next service early. Is there any way we can take care of this now?

THEM:

The issue was not with the Turbo it self but the waste gate. The waste gate is attached to the Turbo

ME:

OK,

Are the waste gates external to the turbochargers? I know that’s a possible arrangement.

From the expense of the repair I assumed that both the turbochargers were being replaced as units which contained the turbos and gates

If it’s a whole unit replacement then it still makes sense to drop the oil and do the other service. Just so the turbos have a clean start.

If the waste gates are external, then i wouldn’t have expected them to be quite as expensive since there’s nothing particularly exotic about them.

In any case. The point is that I’m planning to take the car on a couple of trips over the next 6 weeks because of those plans I want to make sure it’s fully up to par before I leave.

Another question, I just want to confirm this is an N54 engine correct?

THEM:

Yes, It is an N54 engine. We can change the oil is you would like. I have a coupon for $99.00

ME:

OK

Do the oil change.

Change the Air intake filter.

Change the micro-filter.

I realize that those items are not included and will cost additional money. If it’s not over 200.00 then do it

Otherwise let me know what the estimate is.

Also and this is vitally important. Make sure that I haven’t missed ANYTHING that would be included in the service that is DUE in 7000 miles.

I’m looking at the “Service and Warranty guide.” And didn’t see anything that jumped out at me. If I did miss anything let me know.

IF there is nothing else that should be done for the upcoming service,

Then reset the service interval (CBS) system.

I’m attaching the oil service coupon.

To Recap

I currently Owe you for the Air conditioning service

I will Owe you for the oil change

I will Owe you for the air filter

I will Owe you for the micro filter

THEM:

Ok

THEM 2nd Email:

It’s about 364.45 for the oil & filter, air filter and micro filter

ME:

Do it

THEM:

Ok


IS IT ME???

There are several places in this email exchange where this guy is JUST not answering the questions.

I’m not naming anybody here but for FUCKS Sake! Why did I have to go digging up information,
Why was this apparently some kind of issue? Frankly this guys approach seems to me to be EVASIVE as hell and being a QA person this is like putting blood in the water in a school of great whites.

Again this is indicative of the minimalist approach.

This service guy SHOULD have suggested that we do the interval service NOW.

As I pointed out it makes ME the customer happier so I don’t have the car BACK in for service in a month or two.

Yet because the FUCKING computer didn’t tell him to THINK! He was just going to let it go.

I STILL don’t know if the DAMN turbos are being replaced in their entirety or if the waste gates are EXTERNAL to the turbos.

What I DO know is that you can’t ever hurt a car by changing it’s oil. I know that you can’t hurt a car by changing it’s air filter, and I KNOW that I drive in a dusty environment so it’s likely that the air intake and cabin intake filters are dirty. Yeah, maybe not dirty enough to require changing, but for FUCKS sake it isn’t going to hurt and in fact may help the new hardware get off to a healthy start.

At least mention the option… I can take it or leave it but DON’T make me feel like I’m having to fight you for it.

Again meeting requirements but not going beyond what the computerized program SAYS to do…


If all we are doing is reading scripts from our computer screens, in no time the computer will be reading the script and the humans will be living under an overpass like every other 3rd world cesspool..

I just can’t wrap my head around this kind of thinking, It’s so wasteful and irritating and then you see news articles speaking of low customer satisfaction and the writers are at a loss as to why.

All anyone has to do is try to have their car repaired, or call customer service for their computers, cellphones, game consoles, or televisions, or telephones.

Don’t we all cringe when we hear

“Yes Sir, I understand your concern…”