Category: Rants

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I hate Games in Business Transactions

I Hate playing games with vendors or suppliers of services.

All too often these days people seem to want to play games with your paycheck, they want to play games with your bills, games with your mail, your email, your online accounts. They want to play games with you returning things.

DirecTV after two and half weeks finally got around to sending me a “recovery kit”

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Do you know what’s in the recovery kit? Take a guess it’s not what you would think…

I was expecting a large box with a couple of return labels.  I was going to put both of the DirecTV receivers in the big box and then take the big box to the post office.

What I got was a package full of labels… No box, no packing material, nothing that I could put the DirecTV receivers in to make sure that they got back to DirecTV.

The first passing thought was slap the stickers directly on the receivers themselves and send that to DirecTV however I knew the post office wouldn’t take them that way.

So I found a couple boxes down in the garage.

The receivers are in the boxes covered in ghost poop, I’m not at all sure that they’ll survive the rough handling that I know the postal service will subject them to. At this point I don’t really care… much.  I do, the machines didn’t do anything wrong they’re in good working order and they shouldn’t be damaged because no-one cares.

I did pack them tightly and with what packaging materials I had available. I just wish that the idiots at DirecTV had sent me the proper boxes with appropriate packing.

Now it’s just a matter of figuring out how the post office wants the labels on the boxes.

Clearly DirecTV was trying to do nothing more than make it difficult for me to return their product

We came to an end of our relationship after eight years because of exactly this kind of game playing.

If I want to cancel my service I should be able to cancel my service, it should be no harm no foul.

I should be able to put the receivers in the box and I should be able to send the box back to DirecTV.

Instead I had to make three requests for the recovery kit

After the third request what I get is a package full of labels not shipping boxes.

I know what the game is about and how it’s played.

It’s all about them figuring “Maybe if we make it to hard for this person to get rid of the receivers,  if we make it so that he’s going to be charged a ton of money if he keeps the receivers for any length of time after the contract is up maybe he’ll sign up with us again, maybe we can continue to get the $120 or $130 a month.”

All I can say is they don’t know me very well.

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With me, the harder you make something, the more annoyed I get, the more likely I will go to the ends of the Earth to accomplish my goal.

In this case I’m going to make sure that I can put DirecTVs equipment straight up their collective ass.

So DirecTV not only did you lose a customer because I couldn’t make changes to my plan without having to go to some kind of unbelievable game with plan switches, and 2 year contracts all of which was designed to make absolutely sure that I ended up spending more money than I was originally, you’ve also lost a customer forever.

I cannot imagine myself doing any business at all with DirecTV from here on out I’m not going to say never.  But it is sure as hell going to require a lot of thought before I sign my name on any dotted line with these people.

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N.Y. mayor ‘shocked’ by soda law ruling

I saw the following headline this morning. This link should take you to the whole article.

N.Y. mayor ‘shocked’ by soda law ruling, takes shot at Mississippi law

I couldn’t help myself…

 

 

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Dear Mayor Bloomberg.

First… REALLY???

You really don’t understand why Mississippi has passed an anti Bloomberg law?

You really were shocked that  the Judge ruled against your soda law? Obviously you must have forgotten about a little thing called freedom.

You can’t be that clueless, therefore you have to be working at being purposefully obtuse.

Let me explain this to you in a way that perhaps your sycophant aides won’t.

Mississippi, isn’t legislating in favor of obesity they’re legislating against government interference in their lives, a phenomenon all too present these days.

I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand this concept, you’re so sure that you know whats best for everyone.

In your arrogant conceit you assume that no-one is capable of thinking for themselves or making their own choices. Further, you seek to remove any choice that could have deleterious effect.

Where Mr. Mayor would you stop?

Would Steak and all red meat be outlawed in the city of New York? Would you further legislate that only a vegan diet is acceptable? A healthier lifestyle requires less in medical costs doesn’t it?

Would you ban all alcoholic beverages from your city? That should put a stop to drunk driving. It would also reduce employee absenteeism thereby making your city more industrious and productive.

To protect society and New Yorkers Would you criminalize sex out of wedlock? Or Would you simply pass legislation to enforce reversible sterilization? This would prevent the poor from overly burdening themselves with children that could require assistance from the state, or who might become criminals.

How about requiring registration and licensing for use all cooking knives over 5” long?Those too can be used as deadly weapons.

Would you decide that fashion envy is a threat to the stability of your city and require uniforms to be worn by everyone?

Would you try to engage in eugenics, assigning men and women to each other for the purposes of reproduction. After all, in just a few generations you could erase or significantly blur the color lines in your city. Homogenous is good isn’t it?

Would you outlaw religion? Or will you simply define a State religion, thereby removing any potential conflict over beliefs?

When your ideas were rejected and the people engaged in protests and other forms of civil disobedience would you give the police a shoot to kill order? Would you bring in the national guard to enforce your will? I suppose you wouldn’t need the national guard, NYPD does seem to shoot and kill innocent people with frightening efficiency. 

Mr Mayor…

As insane as these ideas sound. To some extent throughout history been tried in various times and places, thankfully for the most part they’ve failed or at least been mercifully short lived.

Despots, and Dictators seem to start out by enacting laws “For the safety and Security of their people”. Historically, it doesn’t end well.

Thankfully you’re not in a position of national power. You pose little threat to the rest of us. 

The people of Mississippi and indeed other states are using you as a means to voice their opinion by saying no to the Nannyism which leads to a dark path, a path that is anathema to the core beliefs of America and her citizens.

That Mr Mayor is why you’ve become a laughing stock in so many places.

That’s why a Judge has ruled against your silly law. That is why other states are etching your name in the annals of their books of law as someone who is on the wrong side of common sense and freedom.

That’s why you’re becoming largely irrelevant.

Mr. Mayor, you do serve one purpose, You’re an example to our politicians about what can happen when you go too far.

I hope they get the message.

I look forward to the phrase “He’s a / Thats a Bloomberg” entering the national conversation as a euphemism for someone or something which is largely irrelevant.

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In the “Biting the Hand that Feeds” column…

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Hamid Karzai has accused the US of conspiring with the Taliban so that we can keep troops in his shit hole of a country.

All I can say is it’s a damn good thing I’m not the president of our country.

I’d have ordered our troops out of Afghanistan instantly. Like within 48 hours!

Enough is enough and Hamid fucking Karzai has certainly pushed my personal limits with his duplicity and hypocrisy. 

Secretary of Defense Hagel is visiting Afghanistan. I was pleased that he cancelled a joint press conference after Karzais statements. I’d have been happier if Hagel had also cancelled the state dinner. 

Karzai is not someone that we should trust, deal with, or support. 

Let’s bring our people home and let the Afghani people devour themselves. It’s time for us to cut our losses. 

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My Day…

Ahhh just vented my spleen on a manufacturers web site. I took some solace knowing I’m not the only person having problems with their product. 

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I feel sorry for the original poster on the product forum. They have 8 blinds, I only have 7.

I posted this bit of bitching in hopes that someone considering purchase of the product might be forewarned and not have to deal with the craziness I have.

Re: Worst product I have encountered
on March 8th, 2013, 3:26 pm

I wholeheartedly agree with the original poster.

I have 7 blinds equipped with the somfy motors I hate the product! I’m sick and tired of the blinds breaking and crashing to the bottom of the windows sill or the floor. After the blinds are restrung I get the “JOY” of fighting to reprogram them.

Who had the bright idea to put the reset plug on the end of the blind motor enclosure? This means that when a blind blows its programming, you have to fight to get the blind up.

Then you have to take the blind OFF the mounting brackets, put the blind on a table or the floor. Then you plug in the little button attachment, press and hold the little button until the light tells you the blind is cleared. Then you have to put the blind back up in the window and try to reprogram it again.

You get to repeat this process at least twice perhaps three times, if you’ve been very good and your Karma is clean you only have to reprogram the blind that had the problem.

More often than not, you get to reprogram ALL the blinds on a particular control because the reprogramming of the one blind screws up the programming of all the others.

Which means that you get to spend at least an hour, usually 2 to 4 hours taking blinds down, resetting them, putting blinds back up, attempting to reprogram them, then taking them down again, resetting them, reprogramming them and all the while you’re praying that the three blinds you’ve been successful in reprogramming aren’t screwed up when you’re trying to reprogram the last blind.

Inevitably, though you end up reprogramming all of the blinds on a four blind controller at least twice.

I suppose this has “Enhanced my lifestyle” in that I don’t have to go to the Gym on days when I get to play “Reprogram the blinds“

As often as the blinds need to be reprogrammed, they should have a reset button right on the front of the enclosure. Make it a big red button so that you can’t miss it.

Why was it decided not to give the reset button and cord to the customer with each and every purchase? I was quoted $25 for a wire with a tiny plug at one end and a button with a light at the other.

I didn’t actually have to pay for the device because I pitched a fit and pointed out that the blinds were still under warranty.

The vendor could either send me the button thing, OR they could drive 50 miles to my house every time one of these blinds needed reprogramming…

I got the button next day Federal Express. I should have taken that as a clue.

You absolutely MUST have this device in order to regain control over a blind once it’s decided to flush it’s programming, which happens too often to keep track of.

In addition to the programming issues with the product. These blinds eat the nice expensive lithium batteries like candy. The motors “sing” to themselves all the time. By this I mean sitting idle doing nothing, you can hear the motors making high pitched whining noises.

That kind of sound is really irritating, and sure doesn’t “Enhance my lifestyle“. Having to listen to these blinds “Sing” while you’re trying to go to sleep has forced me to wear earplugs in my bedroom. (Pulling the batteries over night flushes the programming)

These are without doubt the worst products EVER, with the possible exception of perhaps a Ford Pinto. At least the Pintos had the decency to burst into flames and self destruct.

I’ve gotten so tired of dealing with these blinds I’ve decided that the next time they break down they’re going in the recycle bin. Enhanced my lifestyle???? Are you kidding?

I’m ready to just mount a roll-up shade in place of these horrible things. Heck, tacking a bedsheet across the windows would almost be preferable

I’d actually be happy if I could put them in “STUPID” mode and make them go up and down for as long as I held the button on the control. Especially if that would silence the motor noises.

The blinds are a pain in the behind because they’re “Smart”. The major issue with programming the dang things is that the motor has a concept of Top and Bottom. If I could… I’d lobotomize the darn things.

NEVER again!

I won’t ever purchase another motorized blind.

Simple is best. Save yourself the expense and aggravation stick with a good old fashioned pull cord to operate your window coverings. Better yet go with tab curtains and avoid all that mucking about with pulleys, gears, and strings.

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Yet again I ask WHERES MY OBAMA CARE?

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Oh yeah, I’m the wrong color for that…

I’m a little pissed off.

I’m at the end of COBRA coverage which I maintained because I was once again trying to do the right thing.

That belief cost me $10, 872 and forced me to keep using a pharmacy provider called Express Scripts which is without doubt one of the worst organizations I’ve ever had the misfortune to deal with.

I’m an average person,  I pay my bills, don’t expect to be taken care of, pay my own way, try to stay off the government radar, and try like hell to live my life my way without having someone else’s hand in my fucking pocket or up my ass.

I’m still laboring under the illusion that doing the right thing is important… at least to me.

Because of that philosophy, I’d applied for a personal healthcare policy to the same fucking insurance company that currently has kept me insured under a group policy for the past 6 years. Not only couldn’t they simply look at the information they already have about me…

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After due consideration… they declined to cover me on a personal policy.

Let me get this straight… You’ve been covering me, You’ve made almost 11K off me over the past 2 years, and now I’m too big a risk? Jesus, Mary, & Joseph!

It makes me believe even more strongly that all health insurance companies should be ruled illegal and their executives and most of their staff should be taken and whipped naked through the streets.

This places me in a situation that I’d anticipated anyway.

I can apparently qualify for HIPAA coverage which is obscenely expensive. I’ve been told it costs something like almost double what I’ve been paying under COBRA.

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Sorry, I can’t afford that kind of money, seeing as I’m unemployed and all. 

This is one of the reasons that I was not a supporter of Obamacare and the obscene price tag that will cost.

If you look at the price of the HIPAA program you can’t come to any conclusion other than a national healthcare program will be horrifically expensive.

I suspect this is what the politicians concluded as well, hence the provision to make  anyone not paying for health insurance a criminal…

The Tea Party and Republicans are wrong about the Death panels… It’s much simpler than that.

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All Obamacare has to do is price people on fixed income or who have no income out of the market. No boards or panels needed…

I was hoping for something better in healthcare reform. But Obamacare was shoved down our throats.

I thought a plan that forced the insurance companies to provide coverage for the people who had previously been covered by their employers, would be more efficient. A plan like that wouldn’t require implementation of yet another bureaucracy.

If you had a group policy with your employer and you got laid off you were still automatically covered… And that coverage would continue no matter what. The payments could have been based on a sliding scale.

If you couldn’t pay because your unemployment ran out or you took a part time job at substantially lower pay… It wouldn’t have mattered you were still covered.

There are people who’ll say yes but what about the poor? What about the young just coming into the workforce?

Simple… the poor pay like they always have (or not… depending on the culture they come from). The young, are automatically and without question covered on their parents policies until they get a job that provides insurance.

Using a plan like this, everyone is covered, the insurance companies aren’t able to weasel out of providing coverage that all of us have paid for many times over.

As an added benefit,  the Medical insurance / establishment has a real incentive to keep costs low and increase the efficiency of the system.

Why does it cost $25 for a fucking aspirin in a hospital? Because of all the bullshit it takes to get you that aspirin. Even though you could go to the hospital gift shop and buy a whole bottle yourself for $8.

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Then when you think about the people who retire because they were in their 50s or 60s and got laid off.

Through no fault of their own, they get fucked again and again by a system that they’d been told all their lives was supposed to reward them for their years of contribution.

Instead they’re on unemployment, paying obscene amounts for COBRA, hitting their 401Ks and having to pay endless penalties. But then, to add insult to injury their COBRA runs out and they’re uninsured when they need coverage the most.

Poof, in just a matter of months their dreams of retirement are destroyed.

This kind of stuff is exactly why there are so very many angry disenfranchised people in this country. 

Honestly, it’s a wonder that there aren’t more people losing it. 

This is how people end up eating cat food. Or homeless pushing shopping carts down the sidewalks. 

It’s not just the medical establishment… it’s the entire system that’s broken in an unbelievable number of ways. Throwing trillions of dollars at it isn’t going to make it any better.

The solution is to fix the problem.