Tag: Annoyances

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The Job Search continues

As it has for almost 2 years now…

When I was notified that my Job was being outsourced, I started looking. Anyone with half a brain would have at that point. I was hoping to secure a position before the actual layoff, even though it meant that I’d be leaving money on the table.

“We’re going to lay you off, but if you leave before we lay you off you don’t get this bundle of money we’re going to pay you if you stay with us so we can enjoy making sure your’e really fucked.“

Corporate logic! How about you offer to pay a pro-rated amount up until the time you lay us off?

Ultimately it hasn’t mattered a bit. I’ve been looking and sending endless resumes and filling out online job applications until I’m honestly sick of it. I’m sick of being approached by strangers saying they’ve got the perfect job for me only to jump through all their hoops and then hear NOTHING!

I’m sick of calling to follow-up on positions I’ve applied for and not being able to reach the person, leaving a message, then never getting the simple courtesy of a return phone call or an email telling me what the status of the position is.

I’m sick of reaching out to recruiters that someone I know has dealt with, only to be ghosted.

There are those like my Mother who’d say, “Well it’s the COVID dear… “

No Mom, it’s not the COVID, this has been going on since well before the COVID gave everyone an excuse to be jerks.

Then there’s these websites like Glassdoor. “We’ve found a Job that we think lines up with you perfectly. Customer Service Representative for a Beauty Supply and Accessories company in Cupertino, Pay range 20,000 per year. Not Remote”

SAY WHAT?!!

You can’t live in Cupertino for 20K a year. Maybe if you lived in your car, and it was paid for and you had no bills, and didn’t need to eat.

If it was just a one off mistake fine, but this has become a constant. No where in my resume does it say that I have any idea about anything related to beauty supplies!

I’m a Software Quality Assurance / Software Test engineer. How do you get to Customer Service Representative from a 30 year resume that’s uploaded to your site, and then was redundantly filled in on your customized series of forms?

Glassdoor, you’re so out of here!

So I closed the account on that particular aggregator of jobs which hadn’t done me a lick of good anyway.

Then when I close the account which didn’t ask any questions about why I was closing the account, I get an email saying that a review of some job, [I hadn’t made any reviews in at least a year] suddenly violates their community standards.

The email rolled in within seconds of my closing the account, so it’s fairly obvious that they sent it by mistake instead of an email stating I’d closed the account. Hmmm. Perhaps Glassdoor could use my services? Just saying…

I’ve lost count of how many hours I’ve spent looking for a job. I no longer know how many different applications and forms I’ve filled out online. All for nothing!

I know, there are those who’d say, “Just keep trying, it’ll work out for you, you may fill out 1000 applications but you only need one to be successful.“

I used to be able to have two or three offers, in recent years that’s dwindled to offering to suck cock for just an interview.

I’m not into the Pollyanna shit anymore.

The thing that gets me is that while I’m working with all these online job applications, I’m finding bugs in them.

In some cases it’s typos throughout the forms, in other cases it’s forms that don’t work properly on Mac or Windows. I seriously think I should be paid to do nothing but test the forms companies put out on their public facing web sites. At least then their company HR pages wouldn’t be an embarrassment.

I’d consider just going back to printed resume and good old fashioned US mail in response to Job postings. The only problem with that is hiring companies rarely post an actual address or phone number so that you could even go “Old School”.

There’s another site that’s really funny. They’ll post positions that say, located in Ontario, CA. What they really mean is Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The problem is that even on the description of the job they’ll still say Ontario, CA and it isn’t until you get to entering your information and the application won’t accept a US zip code that you realize the mistake.

Give me a good old fashioned newspaper want ad section any day. I know, you’d think, “Hey there’s an idea,” You’d be wrong. a large number of newspaper want ads simply direct you to their online resources like careerbuilder.com. Which puts you right back into a nationwide database that probably hasn’t been purged of erroneous records for a decade.

There are the other aggregator sites that post positions as “NEW” but when you follow the link back to it’s source you find that the position is already 3 months old and has been filled. The position may be “NEW” to the aggregator, but it’s really so stale you could grow penicillin on it.

There must be a better way. This online bullshit ain’t cutting it.

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After two days of Snow clearing…

I can see the road in front of the house. It had about an inch of compressed ice on it.

The snow players, as anticipated made their appearance. Saturday wasn’t too bad, Sunday on the other hand was an absolute shit show.

They actually pulled up the stakes labeled “Reforestation” that marked where new trees had been planted. Obviously, the stakes were in the way of these people’s fun.

The police were up here at least 3 times running everyone out of the neighborhood, because they’d parked so that the roads were blocked. I do appreciate the police and they were ticketing and towing to beat the band.

One humorous incident came when a full sized expedition was backing into my driveway and about to hit the other half’s car. I stepped out onto the deck and yelled at them to stop. The vehicle was loaded with people, but the woman in the passenger seat told me they were locals trying to avoid the snow players.

When I pointed out that they must be new to the area because all the locals know there is no way to get to town except via Hwy 2 due to the bridge being under construction and the wash, she realized she’d been caught lying through her teeth. Then the driver of the expedition backed down the street. Where they went, I don’t know.

I can tell you that to a local it’s obvious you don’t live here. Your vehicle is too clean and if you look at other vehicles from around here, you’ll notice ice on the roof or muddy snow or splashed mud on the quarter panels and in the wheel wells.

My car is in the garage, and even it has evidence of having been driven in snowy conditions. During this time of year it’s pointless to wash your car except about once a month.

Then there was the neighbor next door who noticed an adult male trying all the doors on a house for sale across the street. When she asked him what he was doing he replied, “I’m here to fix the water heater.”

When she asked him where his truck and tools were, he disappeared behind the house and she called the police. We suspect that he was looking for a bathroom for his 3 children and wife who were playing all over the property.

Dude… This ain’t Disneyland and we don’t need to cater to your wishes or needs. Of course that means someone is going to find human poop in their yard come springtime.

Ugh! Those are just two of the incidents that stand out. The whole day was like that. So I spent most of the day shovel in hand chipping at the ice. It gave me a good excuse to keep an eye on the stupidity and generally keep folks off our street and out of our yards.

Today, has brought light showers and warmer weather it’s about 39° and thankfully the showers are more rain than sleet.

We’re expecting warmer temps and even sunshine later in the week. There was supposed to be another snow storm on Wednesday but it looks like that’s breaking up over the coast. That is a relief! All of the neighbors are tired and achy from the snow removal and none of us were looking forward to having to do it all again so soon.

We never had this kind of snow play problem before the county decided to widen the wash as part of an ill conceived flood control project. A project that over ten years has resulted in the county spending millions in overtime digging out the log flume they created, year round.

Finally a year or two ago, someone decided that replacing the bridge that had washed out was more cost effective.

Funny how the residents suggested that in the first place and also pointed out that the county solution would cost more in the long run and cause other unanticipated problems in the area.

The wash before the county messed with it, was a natural meandering space with trees and a lovely trail. The wash itself wasn’t a 50 foot deep straight gash in the landscape. It was obvious to everyone visiting the town that this was not a place to play in the snow.

After the county work, the wash looks very much like a ski run and tourists use it as such because they’re tired of sitting in line to get to the actual snow play areas or ski runs.

The first winter after the county work, everyone at this end of town knew we were screwed.

For 7 or 8 straight years we’ve watched the county dig out the wash year round, to keep the road open. Each spring the county shows up with saplings to plant in the devastation they created. Each winter, those saplings are trampled and destroyed by snow players looking for free winter fun, instead of using the appropriate and safe designated areas.

People fall and get hurt every single weekend playing in the wash because they have no idea there are rocks under the snow that they cannot see. Having to split the paramedics between both ends of town also means that skiers who are injured on the actual slopes have to wait for medical help or be airlifted out if their need is really great. Not to mention having to pay triple shifts to fire and police.

These are all things that I personally mentioned in the town meetings opposing the county’s wash project. They were only concerned with the official environmental impact statement and basically told me to shut up. They were unconcerned with the impact this would have on the property owners.

They kept telling us it was for erosion control.

Now the county is having to pay property owners whose property fronts the wash for loss of property and fences that are washed away.

If you hike up to the national forest property that was left alone, you’ll find that nature knows best. Beyond where the county boondoggle stops, the original wash is largely unchanged. Erosion is minimal and the natural habitat has naturally occurring pools of clear fresh water for the animals of the forest. It’s beautiful and doesn’t look like the lunar surface.

I think it was Reagan who said the most terrifying words every heard were, “We’re from the government and here to help you.“

I’m going to go take the dog out for a walk. He’s been cooped up in the house all weekend. I’m thinking that we’ll start picking up the trash in the wash too. I can see from the back deck, there are hundreds of surgical masks littering the landscape. Those in addition to the food wrappers and broken plastic sleds give the wash and the one remaining trail the appearance of living in a land fill.

If the dog will be more or less calm, I’ll take some pictures and update this post with them.

Sigh…

Here’s a few pictures. The cleanup is ongoing.

We’ve got a call into the Board of Supervisors.

Apparently, their phones began ringing at 8:00 AM on Monday Morning. Folks are tired of being trapped in their homes by the chaos.

However, I know a lot of people up here don’t really expect politicians to actually do anything.

This last photo is of blood in the snow. Unfortunately, the red in the photo looks more brown. In daylight, the red was more vibrant. I think this wasn’t anything more severe than a nose bleed, caused by cold dry air.

It’s probably going to take a large patch of bloody snow to get the County’s attention. Unfortunately, that means someone is going to have to really get hurt.

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Because you have the right to know…

CookiesYou may have noticed that there is a cookie policy banner on your screen.

I personally hate having to make a deal out of it. But I’m using some plugins and extensions in the site which help me. Unfortunately, as part of my use of these tools, they set cookies.

It’s only fair that visitors to the site know about them.

That being said, I for my part don’t look at anything other than number of visitors to the site.

Since I’m not currently selling things or generating ad revenue from the site, many of the cookies the tools set are essentially no-ops (No Operations). 

There may come a time when I do start advertising on the site. When or If I do that, you’ll be informed about updates to the cookies and how they will impact you.

As things stand, when you click accept, it’ll be good for 180 days, I may change the time limit later. (Note: if you commonly clear cookies from your browser you’re going to be asked to accept earlier than the 180 day limit.)

Have a good Weekend.

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Scan the news or don’t scan the news…

gloomdoom.jpgOver the past few days I’ve been wondering if I’d be better off just not looking at any news at all. 

I’d noted that I’m far more focused and happier on light news days. It’s like there’s not quite so much static in my head and it’s easier to harness the team of wild horses in my brain to a series of tasks.

News has become a distraction from what I should be doing. Reading anything on social media is a rabbit hole of conflict. People make all kinds of wild assertions and my only way out of that miasma is to run their source material to ground.

Doing this,  I’ll lose a day researching articles to verify or disprove  someone’s wild ass claims. I’m a little OCD that way. (Okay, you caught me, I’m a lot OCD that way. I’d probably give Dracula a run for his money in OCD behaviors.)

watching-news-brings-feelings-of-gloom-doom-and-chaos.jpgI’m trying something different. I’m not reading or watching the news, and I’m not opening social media. At least not until I’ve got the stuff done I need or want to get done during the day. There are all kinds of things that I can and should get done without being dragged off in a completely unproductive direction.

I miss the days of real journalism. Sure, even then there was bias but it was a lot more subtle and the meat of any story was at least consistent across liberally and conservatively slanted newspapers. 

The added advantage was that newspapers could be used to line your birdcage when you were done with them.

DNG Clouds.jpeg

Looking back on the past 6 months, there’s a lot more around here that I could have gotten done were it not for my easy distractibility.

I should have painted the trim of the house and done a myriad of other household tasks, I should have been studying language (an interest), writing (an interest),  music (another interest), and improving my web design skills (also an interest). 

After all, I had the time on my hands. But I’ve had the feeling, “What’s the point?“

The problem is, I allowed the constant feed of COVID, Fear, President Bad, Rioting, Protesting, Political Aggrandizement, Meteors falling from the sky, and all the other chaos into my home and into my head.

This morning for example, I haven’t looked at news or social media. I’m in a much lighter mood. I’m not expecting Armageddon at any moment and without that background static I’m getting things done that I want to get done. I’m far less frustrated, far more productive, far less pissed off, and far more clear headed.

I know as soon as I’m confronted with driving and interacting with people, I’ll be irritated I always am diving these days. (I need to hit the hardware store and do a couple of quick errands.) The good news is there’s a much wider range between where I’m at right now and the rage monster inside me waking up. For the moment I’ll just let him sleep and not poke that particular bear.

Later this week, I’ll be installing the replacement hard drive in the other half’s computer. I know that will either go well or become a pain in the ass of epic proportions. Strangely, this morning I’m not looking at that task with dread. It will go as it goes, in the end I’ll succeed and that will be another task off my list.

This morning I need to make some phone calls, and get busy moving my life forward. After that I’m going to try to make some more little repairs around the house. Nature is letting me know Winter is coming, and I’ll use the moderate daytime temperatures to get set up for that.  There’s that old saying, “Make hay while the sun shines.” Doing those things will give me a sense of accomplishment as a reward.

Depending on how those chores go, I’m feeling like sitting down and working on one of the several stories I’ve been writing sporadically over the past year. It might be nice to finish one and submit it for publishing. I seem to be able to write only when I have enough clarity of thought and zero static in my head.

If you’ve been feeling anxious and uneasy or unproductive, try ignoring the news, and social media.

The “likes” will still be there when you get around to your social media account again. The news will still be what it is. Think of the news like the old daytime soap operas, you could miss a month of “Days of our Lives” and not miss anything at all.

I’m off to live my life today. Hope you’re doing the same.

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Have I mentioned that I hate doing Plumbing?

We replaced the kitchen faucet about a month ago. We went the whole route, had a plumber come in and do the job and everything.

Yesterday, I washed my hands at that faucet and turned the water off normally. No problem… A few minutes later, the other half turned on the same faucet and got only a trickle of water from both the hot and cold setting.

It looked like the water had been turned off. But the other faucets in the house were still working fine. Hmmm.

A bit more diagnostic work, a phone call or two, and it looked like the new faucet had something wrong with the cartridge. Cartridge? What cartridge? What is this, a printer?

A replacement cartridge was going to take an indeterminate length of time to obtain as this particular faucet wasn’t normally stocked at Lowes. We’d ordered the unit from Lowes but it had taken 5 weeks to get here. Doing the math, if they couldn’t get us an entire faucet in a timely fashion, who knows how long it would take them to get a part to us. Meaning that without the piece, we wouldn’t have a functioning kitchen sink for as long as it took them to get the part to us. This was clearly not gonna fly.

Okay… I make a run to Lowes and purchased a new 3x more expensive faucet from local stock. Now the problem was installation. I get home and open the box. reading through the instructions it doesn’t look too hard. Ahem!

I go get the tools, pull out the crap out from under the sink… (Don’t judge, you all have crap under your sinks.) then thread myself through the maze of dishwasher, garbage disposal, reverse osmosis, drain pipes, and hose connections for the existing faucet.

The goal I’m seeking is in the form of two small valves hidden in the far recesses of this labyrinth. The first of the valves I encounter is the Hot water inlet. I turn the valve easily to the off position. Further on in my journey, I find the Cold water inlet. It’s almost unreachable and is firmly locked in the “On” position and there isn’t enough room to get a tool into the space to turn it off. Attempting to turn it by hand does nothing but tear up my knuckles.

Ugh! The only option is to turn off the water to the entire house. Fine! I unthread myself and return to the real world of light and being able to stand up without having my back bent 90° the wrong direction. (The latter, took some time reminding me that I’m not as young as I used to be.) I tromp down stairs into the far reaches of the basement and turn off the main valve.

I tromp back upstairs to rethread myself under the sink. Part one of the replacement procedure is to unscrew the lines from the existing faucet from the inlets. Part one goes okay, dripping water everywhere of course. Part two is to reach up into the narrow space between the sink bowls to get a screwdriver into two small screws so that I can remove the bracket that will allow removal of the faucet assembly. RIGHT! To get the longest screwdriver and my hand into the space so that I can twist the screwdriver is a near Sisyphean task. Eventually, after much counting to 10 rather than letting my true thoughts on the matter be known to the entire neighborhood I’m successful.

Next comes the interminable unscrewing of the bracket down the mounting pipe. Job done and I’m ready to remove the weight and the retractable sprayer assembly that’s a simple two screw affair. The problem comes when I need to remove the hose loop. so that I can pull the whole assembly up through the top of the sink.

Yeah, the mounting hole in the top of the sink is too small to pull a looped hose and the feeder lines up through it. The looped hose has a disconnect on it that is completely non functional without some kind of special widget. I’m seriously thinking about just cutting the hose. I don’t want to do that because this is a one month old faucet and I’m returning the sucker.

I note that the hose is compressible and reason that if I can get one of the feed lines through the hole then I should be able to get the rest through. After some gentle persuasion, (Alright, you caught me. Brute Force!) The whole assembly pulls out and I dang near tossed it through the ceiling.

YEA! I take the new unit and drop its hoses and pipes through the hole and consult the installation guide. The gasket is still sitting in the box. Okay I should have consulted the manual a tad sooner, but better to have figured this out before I bolted everything into the sink.

I pull the hoses back out of the hole, put the gasket in place and thread it all down the hole again.

Now comes the hard part. Threading myself back through the labyrinth of pipes and crap to put the mounting plate and bolt onto the pipe that mounts the new faucet to the sink. The manufacturer does provide a nice tool for tightening the bolt in tight spaces. Mounting complete I’m patting myself on the back and thinking, “That was easy,” then happen to notice two things.

One, the fittings on the new faucet are female. So are the fittings on the hoses attached to the water inlets. Hmmm. This is a problem.

Two and more significant is that the fittings on the inlets are 1/2 inch and the fittings on the hoses to the new faucet are 3/8 inch. OH SHIT! This is why I hate plumbing. There are no standards. Why the hell are there no standards?

Time to head to the local hardware store to see if there is an adaptor to address this kind of issue. Grrrrr! The local guy at the hardware store is helpful and laughs with me, not at me, saying that this is why he hates plumbing too. He casually reaches to a hangar on the display next to him and pulls out a package that contains exactly the two parts I need. He smiles and says, “Happens all the time.”

$7 later I’m heading back home to complete this damn installation.

Old connections removed, new adapters installed. Sprayer hose threaded, weight attached, and I’m ready to turn the water back on. With fingers crossed I turn on the main and run back upstairs from the basement praying that there’s not water spraying all over the place.

God must’ve smiled on me. Everything was dry. New faucet installed! Whoo Hooo!

While I was at the local hardware store, UPS delivered part of the other half’s birthday present. A brand new iPhone SE 2. This gift is early, I decide to unbox it anyway because We’ve only got 14 days to decide if we’re going to keep it.

I’m not going to worry about setting this up tonight. I’ll save that “Fun” for tomorrow, A nice quiet Saturday morning.

The other half is seriously resistant to change. I’ll get up early tomorrow and set up a workspace with my Goal Zero battery pack on the dining room table. With it, I can provide power to the old iPhone and the new iPhone without having to be tied to a wall socket.

Then I’ll walk the other half through the setup process in a calm logical way where we can work without scrambling over each other to see screens.

Hopefully this will not result in a fight.

Pray for me…