And Yet Still More Things That Make Us Feel Stabbity! II

They're about to restart the work repairing/replacing the drain lines for the roof gutters in my complex. So, yesterday they were going apartment to apartment in my section asking people to move their cars RIGHT AWAY from the section I park in. For work done on other sections they sent out notification ahead of time warning us when work would start, and when unmoved cars would be towed.

A little while ago, I took my garbage out to the dumpster and looked at the note left on the windshield of one of the three cars still in the section. It says work is going to start Monday! The vast majority of us who park in that section could have left our cars where they were until Sunday night or Monday morning before the work actually started. Instead, we now have to walk to wherever we were able to find a space in the other sections all weekend on top of whatever time work is actually going on.

The only "bright" side is that while we do have parking permits for our cars, we don't have assigned parking, so, once we find an empty space we can use it vs being shunted off to some designated temporary parking area.

I have found myself in yet another disorganized organization.  I've served on 4 org boards in the past, and I'm surprised to find that this is the worst I've ever encountered.  Word has gotten around to me that one of the members thinks I need to be schooled in how to talk to other members on a board.  I think someone's just self-conscious about someone at least half their age speaking to them with authority.  Oh, well.  I'll give it a couple more months before I decide what I want to do, in the long run.

We keep and pay for a telephone land line even though we have cellphones. I want the security of having a service that works even when a cell tower goes down--and a handset I can always find. I'm not ready to give that up yet.

I also still like the idea of being able to reach a household with a fixed geographic location. I don't necessarily always need to track down one specific party wherever he or she may be--and I don't want everyone I know to be able to demand my attention instantly no matter where I am. I keep my cellphone for family and emergencies. (And I have no interest in a smartphone.)

But the house phone (land line) rings at least a dozen times a day when there's just nobody there when I answer it. And several more times a day, it's a spam/bot call or some sort of unsolicited sales call or survey call. Phone abuse has just about destroyed the value of this service.

Irreversible, I suppose, but I still experience this as a big loss, and that makes me mad.

>3 Meredy: This comes close to a point of family disagreement. For some years now, Telkom have failed to include our landline number in the directory, which annoys Better Half. On the other hand, I note that for the same length of time we have had not a single spam call, and I consider this a state of grace.

We are on the "no call" list, and not in the directory (on purpose, we pay for the privilege of not being listed). I still get several calls a week. Charitable organizations and political candidates still have access to my number. :( This is why I also have caller ID, it weeds out most of it, then, if I don't recognize a number, I let the answering machine pick up first. I can always grab it if it is someone I know. Still an interruption to the peace of my home though.

>5 MrsLee: It seems wrong that you pay to be on the 'no call' list but that they can still give your number to charities and political candidates. I would no more want to be called by these people than by the people selling double glazing. This doesn't mean that I don't support charities, but I do so as and when I can afford to do so, having people phone to ask for my support doesn't unfortunately give me any more money in my purse at the end of the month to give them. I would think this would be a waste of the valuable resources they've been given! As for political candidates... not even going to go there!

>3 Meredy: >5 MrsLee: >6 Peace2:

Some of those operations just dial randomly until they hit existing numbers, so not being in directories and the like isn't foolproof.

Many also employ foreign call centers who have little care what the local laws of where they're calling say about unsollicited marketing and people who've explicitly opted out of such where the possibility supposedly exists.

Even your phone company probably doesn't care much, it's paid for providing the "service" of allowing those people to bother you, and some even make you pay extra for options like displaying caller's number (which can be spoofed anyway) or blocking anonymous calls or allowing you to establish a blacklist. Mine thankfully doesn't.

>6 Peace2: Sorry for the misdirection, the no-call list is free. I pay to not have my name and number in the phone directory.

It's 3:15 in the morning. In the last five minutes, two police cars have blasted past here with their sirens blaring. Seriously? On deserted streets at gone three in the morning? Wouldn't flashing blue lights have been enough?

I'm not really "stabbity" over this, but a local hangout lost my support. Everyone said, "Go! Once you go there you will be branded and stay there." So I went. It's a little hamburger joint in town. Supposed to be known for its wonderful milkshakes. They failed the exam.

All I ask for is a chocolate shake with more chocolate than you can ever imagine (I always tell them I'm happy to pay any extra costs) and malt. This place did not understand my chocolate needs and so failed the test. Is it so hard to make a very chocolate shake when the customer requests it? What is the difficulty of squirting that bottle a few more times? I know it can be done because other places (all far away) have managed to please me.

>10 MrsLee:  It's nearly 80F, outside, but I want some hot cocoa, now.  I'm waiting to get a call from a potential place of employment (I interviewed last week) but haven't heard anything, yet.  Not really a stabbity, but I'm definitely antsy.  Chocolate helps. ♥

>10 MrsLee: >11 justjukka: There's very little in the world that isn't improved by the addition of chocolate.

The valley is covered in smoke! D: http://t.co/1CAMKimgs5

>13 justjukka:: Paradox! Good pix of bad situation.

Happily, I managed to have TWO terrific chocolate milkshakes on my trip. One with malt, the other without, but with even more chocolate. Sadly (or perhaps mercifully), both locations which make these fantastic shakes are many driving hours away. Why no one in my own town can manage this, I do not understand.

>13 justjukka: Lovely! >14 Esta1923: Amen

It's clearing up, so I think we'll be getting back to our regularly scheduled smog alerts.

Kidney stone 2 weeks ago, don't know if the 4 mm monster has passed. Strange, but true.

I went into the emergency ward at 3:30 a.m. on a Thursday in extreme pain, and 2 doses of morphine later and pain at a minimum, I went home. That night had a serious bout of pain and, being somewhat delirious and out of it after Tylenol codeine AND oxycodone, didn't take the steps needed to insure that if the stone passed, I'd be aware of it.

So now I don't know if it is lurking and will double me over in pain sometime soon or it's passed. I'm carrying around a dose of oxycodone in case it makes its presence known (husband works at same company and can drive me home if necessary).

And I will NOT go to my doctor and pay lots of money to get an x-ray to see if it's still there as the hospital recommended.

Harumph.

>17 karenmarie: Well, that's no fun. I can't imagine what would make me crazier -- not knowing one way or the other or having to pay to get an x-ray, only to find that the wretched thing had passed. Really, big sympathies!!

Had a cold caller on my phone. Claimed to be offering a service to prevent cold calls ...

... and my hayfever has come on a month early ...

"Oh, yes, please! Let me go get my credit card number right away."

It's sad to realize that these services exist because some poor fools fall for them. Like paying for credit reports.

Sorry about your hayfever.

Thanks.

What amuses me is that they have really strong Indian sub-continent accents, but introduce themselves as 'Kevin' or 'Brian'. Could be true, I suppose.

I'm a CPA. I know the tax laws, I know how the IRS deals with people. They never call, always two identical letters mailed at the same time.

Five times this week, I've gotten spambot calls. "This is the IRS. There is an error on your recently filed tax return. Please call us to correct this error immediately, or charges will be filed."

Right. I'll get on that straight away. Idiots.

Wow. That is silly.

>22 greendragon9: we get those calls in Canada, too, except they change IRS to Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. Very irritating. And they're always recorded messages, so you can't even shout at the guy (or gal) on the other end.

I got one of those recorded "IRS" calls and listened to the end because I wanted to hear the scammer's spiel, and almost dropped the phone when it ended, "Have a good day, and God bless."

tardis, that's the most annoying part. I was itching to troll them. Lead them on, give them fake information, get them all excited and then drop them like a hot potato :)

Ever since we moved here and got assigned the local phone #, some outfit calls saying our payday loan has been approved and they hope this cash will help us with our financial goals. $1300. Oh yeah, I can retire to the Caribbean now!

I just wanted to threaten to report them to the police and the CCRA.

I keep getting calls on my cell phone for someone named Pansy. I've been getting them for years. Bill collectors, ex-boyfriends, some automated, some not. I have had this number for over 10 years now, and still Pansy haunts me.

Recycled cell numbers do make life interesting. I've had mine for many years as well, and I still get wrong number calls from people who speak a language I don't even recognize. It sounds like an Asian language but I couldn't say more than that. I block the numbers and then they call again with a different one. I get texts in Spanish sometimes too (I don't speak Spanish either, nor do any of my friends or family).

We also lived at our old address for about ten years, and we received mail addressed to the previous residents for the entire time we lived there. Mostly junk mail, but occasionally bills or things that looked like bills. It was still trickling in a couple of times a month when we moved out. We inherited their phone number too, and for several years received very demanding calls from bill collectors, who would not believe that Crystal M----- no longer lived there, that she was not related to us, and that we did not know how to find her. Those were the worst.

When my cellphone number was new, I received a bunch of dunning calls for someone named Kyle. Everybody seemed to be after him. I couldn't shut them off. 24-Hour Fitness was the most persistent.

Finally I got a call from someone who sounded like a real person asking for Kyle. I said, "Are you a friend of Kyle's?" and he said yes. So I said, "Well, if you ever catch up with him, tell him to pay his bills!" The caller laughed and said he sure would.

Amazingly, the calls petered out after that. Maybe he did.

>#10: All I ask for is a chocolate shake with more chocolate than you can ever imagine

I can imagine a lot of chocolate. I think the milkshake would collapse upon itself and form a black hole. Of chocolate.

Nothing would ever escape. Not even chocolate. Especially if i was in the back hole.

>#29: Pansy had automated boyfriends?

>32 MrAndrew: "I can imagine a lot of chocolate. I think the milkshake would collapse upon itself and form a black hole. Of chocolate." I've got as high as a 100% cocoa bar. Three different versions. Two were really very dry and bitter. The third was sublimely different. Still massively intense, but sweet and fruity too, without any sugar.

Spam/cold callers - don't be too rude to them. They're just low paid people trying to earn a living as best they can. It's the company/managers that deserve the ire. I tend to leave the phone by the radio when it's an automated call, to increase the call duration when it 'doesn't understand my response'.

>32 MrAndrew: Yes, that.

>33 reading_fox: I would love to try that 100% bar you liked. Sounds intriguing. I've had some 90% bars I liked, but my happy place is usually 80%. :)

Perhaps she did, at that!

Good idea on that, reading_fox! I sometimes listen to Irish-language radio, to increase my understanding of the language. I can only imagine what that would result in :)

>29 greendragon9:

We kept the phone number of the previous resident when we moved in years ago. The legitimate callers eventually caught on. The weird thing was the person who kept calling for Wanda -- which was definitely not the name of the previous resident.

Perhaps Pansy and Wanda are sisters.

What I love about the wrong number calls I get, (mainly on my landline), is that my answering machine message says "You have reached Xxxx" right at the beginning. None of the names messages get left for are anywhere near my name.

Is this Ernie Dinklefwat??

>40 suitable1: Nobody here but us penguins.

"Oh, I'm so glad you called! Do you know how to get blood stains out of carpet? I mean, a lot of blood..."

>33 reading_fox: I'm polite (if terse) with regular spam/cold callers, but if the tax fraud ones were ever a real person instead of a recording I'd probably get cranked at them because they're committing a crime. Which is no doubt why they're always recorded messages.

>42 greendragon9:, I'm going with that for the next political campaign call we get.

I tend to get cranky with the Microsoft Windows Support callers, because they also know what they're doing is a scam.

>45 Marissa_Doyle:

Why are you calling me? I don't have a computer.

And do the survey takers really think they're going to get a good response when they have likely interrupted something important by calling???

>46 suitable1: I've done variations on that--including explaining to the caller that I'd had (a) no computer (b) only Macs (c) a miniaturized hard drive installed in my forehead head and knew that I wasn't having problems with Windows. I've also done a variation on the bloodstains one by saying, "I'm so glad you contacted me! I was just about to call you to let you know there's a problem with your computer." They hung up fast.

LOL Marissa!

Love reading you all's reaction against scam call :-)

One time my daughter answered a scam call. I didn't know it and thought she was still on a phone with her friend Michelle after her cell was confiscated due to too much talking. While she was answering caller's questions, I took the phone and said to the caller, "Michelle dear, I told her it's dinner time and she cannot talk to you now. She will call you back in an hour." After I hanged up on it, my daughter told me that it was not from Michelle but a "Microsoft Windows Support personnel".

>50 Yamanekotei: :D Another resource for answering scam, "Does your mother know you are calling?!"

We get these calls at work a lot too. So annoying.

I'm trying to not let this bother me, but damn, I'm pissed. I was told in February that my job was being downsized due to budget cuts. At one campus, I'm being replaced by an aide; the other campus the art teacher is taking over. Neither have ANY library experience. I originally took the high road, and made a "Library Science 101 Reader's Digest Cheat Sheet" for them. Then today, the art teacher posts on FB "Just finished my last art class! Thankful for a year of productive, creative, & fun messes but looking forward to being a librarian next year!" And of course her friends are very encouraging. A part of me really really wants to post something snarky, like "Some of us actually went to Library School and got a degree in Library Science, and then passed a test to become a school librarian in order to call ourselves a Librarian." I won't, of course, because it's not like she actively kicked me out, and that would be childish and unprofessional. At least I won't be childish and unprofessional on FB. (I'll save that for you all.) However, I've given them all the information I'm going to. They'll have to figure it out.

I still don't have a job lined up. 3 interviews last week and one tomorrow. Send out positive thoughts for me tomorrow at 2:00. It pays nearly twice what I was making here. If I get it, I'll make sure the administrators know that information. Because I'm feeling that petty and pissed.

Positive vibes heading your way.

>52 theretiredlibrarian: I hope the interview goes well, and you get a job where the value of your work is appreciated.

Yep, what >54 SylviaC: said. I'm glad you can take the high road where it matters, and vent here to feel a little better.

Thanks, everyone. The school is going through a lot of changes, and a lot of teachers are angry and leaving, or are angry but afraid to say anything. One administrator spoke her mind at a board meeting was fired. Several parents are pulling their children out. I will not have particularly happy memories of this place. I swore I'd never work at a charter school again, but did put in an application last night for one.

>56 theretiredlibrarian: Good luck in finding a much healthier work environment and an employer who values your contribution.

>52 theretiredlibrarian: It's a sad reality that many people think being a librarian is an easy, stress-free job where you read books all day and do puppet story time with darling toddlers. My own sister-in-law, who had at that point known me for 20 years, asked me if a library would be a good place for her mentally-challenged cousin who needed a quiet, stress-free job. I said no :)

All the best in your job search!

>56 theretiredlibrarian: Keeping my fingers crossed for you and sending good vibes from one qualified professional librarian to another.

AAAAAH! Puppet story time! The horror, the horror.

One thing about living in a retirement community is that your neighbors, people who you come to know well, and love, are nearing the end of their lives. And when that happens you lose a friend. More often than if you lived in a multi-age community. Sad face.

I think another reason I'm so angry is that not one administrator has expressed regret, sorrow, or empathy to the loss of a certified librarian, or the fact they've left me out in the cold. Not one has asked how the interviews are going. Only one has noticed an available job, and called to tell me about it. From a school that constantly stresses that "we're a family" and "we take care of our own". Four more days. Three if I can manage to take off a day, interview or not.

I was in the process of writing an LT post when a screen popped up and announced that I was upgrading to MS 10. I screamed and Monsieur shut the power off to the computer. It seems we were able to interrupt it. How rude can you be??? If I wanted it I would have probably upgraded with one of the daily annoying prompts that pop up, right? It's like if you were driving your car and it swerved itself into a dealership every day. How do they get away with this?

Best of luck with all your interviews. It truly is sad when a school loses a true librarian. I spent much of my childhood with the library as my after-school care, and still use the library constantly. Granted, it's mostly for ebooks and audiobooks, but I still use it!

Well, I just discovered that I have 6 unused personal days that are "use it or lose it". Guess who's checking out of school early? Hopefully, tomorrow will be my last day.

>63 mamzel:

I know how you feel. One of my friends had his computer left on overnight last week, and it happened. Next morning, he had to face the brand new W10. Now he is working with super slow PC (he describes it as 1980s dial up speed), and is seriously considering buying another laptop with old system.

Can't they just ask if we want to up date or not before doing anything?

>66 Yamanekotei: They do ask. Every time I start my computer. I guess people have xed out of that screen enough times that they felt they needed to step up their game to take over everyone's computers. I don't keep my computer on if I'm not using it but I know they will take advantage of your inattention. When Monsieur built my computer he had to really search hard for a legit copy of Windows 7 to put on it. The pop up doesn't come up on my work computer so I imagine the school district has a way to block them. As savvy as Monsieur is he hasn't been able to block them. They're as annoying as all of those survey calls we've been subject to lately.

>67 mamzel:

We were just laughing about the app game we come to find on the web regarding this W10 upgrade thingy. Someone made it a few days ago. The product description says :

Free upgrade period to win10 that lasted over a year came to near end. The time left is one minute now. But in order to upgrade more PC to W10, Microsoft sends waves of onslaught extortion. Will you be able to continue rejecting this request? Will you be able to avoid the upgrade? This is the game you just continue to refuse upgrading to win10 by clicking the "Close" button for 1 minute.

I think I should try it :)

Ugh, W10 is trying to take over our work computers, but General Motors has told us their programs are not ready to run it so don't upgrade. I'm pretty sure that about the time the free upgrade is over is when GM will get their act together, making it so we have to pay to upgrade each computer. Grrr.

Stab it! Stabbity stabbity! Kidney stones, reoccurring! Ouch. Ouch. Ouch!!

>68 Yamanekotei: LOL! Proves there's an app for anything!

>70 maggie1944: Monsieur had to be airlifted off his ship once with stones. Hope they pass quickly.

69: Pretty sure that's the direction my company is taking as well.

I sucked it up a while back and upgraded my pc. It's grown on me.

A friend of mine is applying for jobs wherever possible and beyond.  My husband and I have a bit of space, so I've given up the search for a while.  When we complain that there's nothing for us in this economy, there's always someone ready to say, "Your generation just wants handouts!"  No, we want a job!  We want to be able to support ourselves!  We'll take whatever we can find, but heaven forbid we want to feel good about what we're doing, at some point in our lives.

Bah!

Part of my lip and jaw are still numb from my bone graft surgery on Tuesday, plus something is tearing the hell out of the underside of my tongue (you have no idea how much your tongue moves inside your mouth until it really hurts). So I'm going to the surgeon so people can take a look. It shouldn't hurt my tongue or still be numb. Why can't my tongue be the numb part? Joy.

>74 Bookmarque: Hugs! Hope the surgeon can help. You've been through a real ordeal with this!

>74 Bookmarque:  Double ugh!  I hope that clears up quickly!  When I had some work done on my lower jaw, my lip was fine, but the area of work was numb for about a month.

Surgeon says I have to suffer my ulcerated tongue until the stitches dissolve. He can't shorten the stitches without jeopardizing the procedure and using dental wax would do the same thing. The numbness isn't a concern until it goes beyond two weeks.

Two.
Weeks.

With a numb face.

Is it too early to start drinking?

Is it too early to start drinking?

The sun is over the yardarm somewhere in the world!

It's five o' clock somewhere.

OUch, maggie! My husband's had a dozen of those. I feel your pain.

Drink, Bookmarque, because it's Ireland somewhere :P

Still dealing with Kidney Stone type pain. Should be getting a call from a urologists office, and offered an appointment. Today, I hope!

BTW, does The Green Dragon celebrate people's birthdays with a thread? I can't find it, and I want to trumpet my 9th year on LT! I plan to go to a book store and buy 9 books to celebrate, and then one more for another year! (Like I need more books for my TBR boxes, and piles, and stacks)

>82 maggie1944: Congratulations! We have sort of petered out on the birthday threads.

There is a Thingaversary thread somewhere, but way back. Start a new one! We would all love to congratulate and ooo and ahhh over our friend's Thingaversaries and the ways they celebrate them. :)

... when I find a couple of good-condition books by a favourite author on a market stall when I haven't got my reading glasses ... and get home to find that the small print says they're second and third in a trilogy.

It'll have to be AbeBooks, now, I suppose.

Back in November or December, my boss told me her boss had finally agreed to hire me away from the staffing agency and make my position full time. I stopped sending out resumes and turned down two interviews. It's now mid-March, and I'm still a part-time agency employee. *sigh*

Kindergarten teacher missed her library class today (not the first time). She comes in 2 hours later..."Why didn't you text me?"

Ummmm, no, I won't be texting you, or phoning you, or emailing you to remind you about your library time.

The first couple of weeks of school, I'll phone teachers to remind them. After that, nope. It should be on your lesson plans.

>86 theretiredlibrarian: Abso-frickin-lutely! That's her responsibility and I agree that she should have it noted in her lesson book. On the other hand, is it possible she just meant that she wishes you'd texted her some gentle version of the question of whether she'd realized the time. You'd still have lost instructional time with her class (which ought not to be dismissed because it is important and has an impact on the kids' learning) but it is possible that she meant no disrespect.

>86 theretiredlibrarian: She checks texts during class time?

>86 theretiredlibrarian: If she expects her phone to magically show messages reminding her to do her job, why doesn't she just use the phone to set herself up an automatic reminder? If she has a smartphone, her expectation is completely bizarre. If she doesn't, then it still seems pretty weird.

I like this thread title. Irresponsible people make me feel stabbity in general. :) And people who look for somebody else to blame when they make a mistake, instead of accepting responsibility and taking steps to avoid a recurrence, make me even more stabbity.

It is my humble opinion that if a business (or school district) expects me to read business related texts they should pay for my phone! Email using the business' server would be the best way to avoid important messages being lost in the dross.

In a similar vein, I volunteered for a large undertaking, and I would tell people to message me with instructions when they wanted something done.  Nevertheless, they would stand there, lobbing instructions at me, simultaneously redacting, and expect me to remember.  I did take notes, but no amount of questioning or clarification would get it right.  They were quick on the messaging at crunch time, wondering why everything wasn't taken care of.

After nearly 2 years, and sadly, having to get lawyers involved, my husband has finally wrested power of attorney for his dad away from his sister. The initial audit shows that close to $900,000 is missing. That number is likely to go over $1 million. One. Million. Dollars. Stolen from a sick old man, who earned that money, and should have had no money worries. Oh, and BTW, she is now separated from her 4th husband, who we have no doubt was behind the fraud. Both their asses need to be in jail, along with the woman at the bank who helped them.

Oh, wow. That's awful, theexiledlibrarian. Is there any chance of restitution?

>92 theretiredlibrarian: I'm glad your husband has PoA now but how awful that his sister and her husband got away with so much in the meantime. I hope that justice can be done.

>92 theretiredlibrarian: Well, I'm glad you father-in-law is now protected, but how terrible for him (and you!). Hope karma takes care of your sister-in-law and her cohorts, if nothing else does. Although I'm voting with you that they belong in jail.

There is one more account that she has access to, about $17,000, which will be closing soon. Right now, if it gets closed, it will red flag her because her name is still on that account, so they are trying to box her out. When all the auditing is done, the lawyer plans to let her know that she will either make restitution (that money is long gone...), or it comes from her quarter share of the inheritance. Personally, I don't think she deserves anything.

Oh, and when we first got the lawyers involved, she sends a little note "What a way to waste Daddy's money. Shame on you!"

OMG I'm so sorry it had to get so bad for a resolution. We had some wrangling when my husband's father died, but luckily it wasn't prolonged and no one absconded with anything. Money turns people into monsters, even the most unlikely among us.

>92 theretiredlibrarian: this must be so hard, but I'm sure glad your father-in-law has your husband on his side. You hear stories of seniors losing everything who have no one to stand up for them.

I ordered a new guitar this afternoon. It's not sold with a case, so I also ordered the correct hard case for it.

This evening I had the despatch email ...

... two, separate packages ...

ETA - They're free delivery so I shouldn't moan, I suppose ...

I have book fair this week, and a student's grandmother is volunteering. She's been somewhat helpful, but OMG, she never shuts up! And she's told me her family's business...son is getting a divorce, DIL is already dating a married man; daughter does all the work with 3 autistic children, SIL doesn't work, son is on disability, and spent $1300 on comic books last week (heard that story 3 times), her DIL is a science teacher, but her son is failing science, so said DIL must not be a very good teacher. She is diabetic, she has 3rd degree burns on her feet, she's had 3 back surgeries...on and on and on. The lunchroom is too noisy, kids are stealing her granddaughter's lunch, DIL packs a terrible lunch anyway, that teacher is always yelling at kids (hello? he's the coach!), the cafeteria lunch looks terrible. I think my ears are gonna bleed. I started out being polite and engaging in conversation, moved on to the occasional grunt, hmmm, or oh really? Then to not responding to anything she said. I am now actively ignoring her by being on this computer (maybe she'll think I'm working??). She is even now talking to me.

Sadly, she is not the first. There is something about me that total strangers tell me their family business. I don't know why. I don't want to know your family business. Most of the time I don't even want to know my family business.

I'm so sorry. Verbal bondage people are the worst. My hubby has one at the office and they've all taken to calling or texting each other to allow for an escape.

Oh, dear. I had a hunch and peeked at your profile and, yep, you live in the south. I can't count the number of cashiers who have been ambushed with my life story by my mom, new acquaintances learn all about the family drama. I don't understand the 'no filter' lifestyle. Hopefully you get to enjoy the book fair anyway!

>101 theretiredlibrarian: It appears we all agree that you are justified in your stabbity tendency in this case... we won't tell anyone...

>102 Bookmarque: 'verbal bondage people' is a good one!

>102 Bookmarque: >105 Darth-Heather: Agreed. Great term. "Stop tying me up with your werds!!"

It is blessedly quiet right now. But I reopen in 20 minutes and she'll be back. She's offering to help shelve books, and I can only thank my lucky stars that the year is almost over. I foolishly accepted her offer to help twice a week before I knew about the annoyance factor. I will have to kindly accept her help for only one morning a week, as I have other volunteers helping. How's that for a polite refusal? And I agree: "verbal bondage people" is a great phrase!

One way to fix the problem: Introduce The Talker to another Talker who is equally eager to overshare personal information. Engage in a little dialog. Slowly back away. Problem solved.

>1018 aha - a creative solution! And far more diplomatic than my approach, which is to assign the miscreant to an undesirable chore in the hope that they will choose not to return.

A variant of the coworker talking issue. I've learned that when the men at work ask me chatty questions like, "What's for dinner, Lee?" or "How was your weekend, Lee?" They don't really want to know the answer, they want to talk about what THEY are having for dinner or what THEY did on the weekend.

Suits me, I don't usually talk much about my home life anyway.

Book Fair has ended. I've shut off the lights and escaped to my office. I told her I would be in my office because if students saw me (glass wall to the hallway), they would want to come into the book fair. So she can honestly tell students that the librarian is at lunch. But before that happened, I got to hear even more family drama, as well as the same couple of stories again.

OTOH, we sold over $5,000, and the library gets 30%, so yay! Planning to spend that money on MakerSpaces and Book Club for next year.

>111 theretiredlibrarian: Excellent news on the fund-raising! Congrats!

As annoying as VBP's may be, it usually masks a deep loneliness and a deeper need for attention and validation... Good on you for putting on a brave front and simply dealing with it in as non-confrontational a manner as possible.

my workplace is almost always a stabbity to some extent, but recently it's gone into high gear. Management appears to finally be doing something about some of the problems, while at the same time ignoring the fact that things have gotten so bad because they basically ignored some of the problems for so long.

I am at the state library conference since Tuesday and will here all week. Today I checked school email to find a message from the principal that the library will be used for intervention for 4th and 5th grade until after the state testing in May. The library is closed this week because there is no sub...by the time state testing is over, that's just about the time to close the library for end of the year. It's basically a Hail Mary to try to get these kids to pass the test...but couldn't they find a way that doesn't inconvenience the rest of the school???

End of rant.

>114 theretiredlibrarian: Our library is also used for testing, this year it's for three half days of AP testing. The library is where our students can print their assignments so they will just have to plan accordingly. Testing used to be much worse before they changed to testing on computers which they can do pretty much anywhere. I understand your frustration. I try to look on it as a chance for students who don't visit the library to rediscover how nice it is!

The library printer chose the week our tech person is out to go on the fritz. I thought I was quite proactive by going to the HP website, searching for the error number, following the directions to take the machine apart and check for a hidden jam, and getting the part number needed. In the meantime, I told students to share their Google docs with me and I could print them on the big copier. Then that machine decided to die. Conversation with Xerox support determined it needed a repairman visit. Told students to share documents with ladies in the front office. Unfortunately, I can't see who is at their desk, who is busy, etc. (no X-ray vision) so they were cranky. I guess they never realized that students did work before the first bell! Go figure. Tech Dept. won't order printer part until one of them comes to look at it. Naturally, we aren't a high priority for them. Teacher copy job requests are stacking up! And seniors are printing their senior projects! Thank goodness, Xerox guy is here and hopefully will be able to get the copier back in order. SOOOO happy it's Friday!

I've been thinking of ways to still have classes, and have decided to implement my Mobile Library Unit (last implemented in February during benchmark testing and Science Fair). I'll load a book truck, plug my scanner into my laptop, and find an alternative place to hold library. Debating whether to take my MakerSpaces with me. Librarians are nothing if not flexible.

Well, I just came on here to bemoan the loss of shelf space in bookshops for SF&F books these days. My favourite local (Singapore) bookshop just expanded significantly. Imagine how my anticipation turned to dismay when I went for an exploratory visit only to find that the number of fantasy shelves seem to have halved! It's a bit hard to tell as it's a different configuration, but there's a definite reduction :0(

And when I visited my go-to science fiction and fantasy bookshop when I was in Sydney on holiday last year (and by 'go-to' I mean a two hour trek into the CBD from my parents' place in the suburbs), I discovered they've changed their floor layout and there are fewer shelves dedicated to sci-fi and fantasy.

Something definitely rotten with the state of Denmark.

I am the "facilitator" for our gifted and talented students. This whole year has been a fiasco...changing the schedule, changing the curriculum, no one really in charge. This is my first year teaching G/T, so I really haven't a clue. So in February, it's finally settled that students will come to me once a week, pretty much for the whole day, to work on their mandatory G/T project. The project is due TOMORROW.

Because of state testing, the library has been closed for the last 2 weeks for "intervention" for students not likely to pass the test. (Basically a science boot camp; a Hail Mary Pass to get them to pass the test). So I emailed the G/T teachers that because the library is closed, students will need to complete the project in the classroom.

Yesterday, a 4th grade teacher brought in 2 boys, who for reasons I can't figure out, have not come to the library EVER to work on their project. Remember, it's mandatory??? So she and I find a project that they can work on and have done in 3 days.

This morning, one of the moms emails the school counselor wondering what's going on (as well she should). Is it for a grade? Was he supposed to be working on this at home? Etc. The counselor forwards it to me. I talk to her and the vice principals. We have to make this work, and give the students time to complete the work. And I need to respond to the mom to let her know that he would be given time at school to finish it. Which IMO, should be the job of the teacher who failed to send him to me in the first place. She's sent me 3 emails wanting more details on how it happened that he only now found out about it. I'm really trying not throw the teacher under the bus, and have been as vague as possible in my responses.

But dang, this makes me STABBITY.

>118 theretiredlibrarian: Nothing like bad communication to create stabbity feelings. It sounds like they gave you a name without any power to go with it, and like whatever that program is, it needs much better organizing and planning. Hope you can untangle this one for the student's sake.

I've been puzzling over something - one of those familiar things that I've never previously given any thought to, but now I have it doesn't make any sense to me at all. So here goes ...

What the hell does 'Thank you kindly' mean? I mean, who or what is being 'kindly'? And what about 'Kind regards' or 'Kindest regards' - are they boasting about being kind? The more I think about them the less sense they make to me and the more they irritate me ...

>120 alaudacorax: My only guess is that they were originated in the days before emoji, when people wanted to indicate that they were sincerely kindly thankful and not sarcastically so. I would rather be thanked kindly than bitchily.

>120 alaudacorax: A former co-worker and I used to jokingly send each other “evil regards” in our e-mails, just because we thought the “kind regards” thing was a bit bizarre. It's also pretty meaningless if one includes it as a signature on every e-mail. I doubt people who have it in their signature are actually pausing to mentally have kind regards for each person on their e-mail before they click "send".

I feel the same way about people including “Thanks” in their e-mail signatures. First of all, sometimes it doesn’t make sense to say “thanks” in a particular e-mail, so then it just looks stupid or sarcastic. Second, maybe I’m getting old and crotchety, but I only take a “thanks” seriously if it looks like the person actually typed it and didn’t just auto-thank me the same way they do everybody else. Third, some people actually do type their own “thanks” when they sincerely mean it, in addition to their signature, and then you have the manual thanks and the auto-thanks and that just gets ridiculous. :)

This tirade has been brought to you by somebody who just spent 13+ hours running around like a crazy person in a hot warehouse and trying to debug and modify programs in rooms with people yelling at the tops of their lungs. So I might be slightly crazy (and a lot stabbity!) at the moment… pay me no mind. ;)

I was/am so frustrated at work. Yesterday a situation arose, which I had in hand, due to compromise and smooth talking. The wife of the owner stepped in and blew it up. Now there is a good customer who will probably never be back. There must be a .gif for how I feel at the moment. Sigh.

I think it's the poopy one with googly eyes.

>124 MrAndrew: That certainly describes part of it, especially if it was a sudden, unexpected urge. :P

>121 MrsLee: - I would rather be thanked kindly than bitchily.

Oops! Now you've put evil thoughts and a world of possibilities in my mind ... 'Thank you bitchily' ... 'Thank you sarcastically' ... 'Thank you insincerely' - or I could really baffle them with 'Thank you dubiously' or 'Thank you unctiously' ...

>126 alaudacorax: LOL!

...the initial tag line in a LibraryThing review which states"...in exchange for an honest review." One has to wonder, does anyone ever admit to writing a dishonest review? Or are we to assume if the reviewer doesn't make this claim at the beginning of each of his/her reviews that the review is an outrageous lie or....what? :-) ...actually, this doesn't make me feel stabbity but in those off moments it does make me wonder.

I just spent 2 weeks in another state visiting my parents, and to give my mom some respite from caregiving my dad. Part of the point of staying 2 weeks was to clean the basement in preparation for a much-needed yard sale. (the basement is much like an episode of "Hoarders". Anyway, we actually only worked in the basement 2 days, as it was next to impossible to motivate Mom to get it done...we did bring up boxes of fabric, washed them, measured and rolled them up to sell for $.50/yard. I counted nearly 500 yards of fabric. Also notions, lace, trim, etc.
So there was some progress.

However...this is what made me stabbity: Found a picture frame with a photo of a 1800s couple, possibly ancestors. Her: Get rid of it.

A peanut butter jar: Keep it!

Sigh.

I pulled the photo out of the frame (a Walmart frame with the sticker still on it); it was a photocopy. I gave it to my sister the genealogist to see if she could identify it.

I am home now, and my sisters now have the job of continuing to encourage Mom to clean the basement. The goal is to have the sale in early fall.

>129 theretiredlibrarian:

Your mum sounds like me - I've got a terrible habit of hanging on to things because 'they might come in useful'. They might, of course, but in most cases the odds of that particular set of circumstances turning up are probably akin to being struck by lightning or winning the lottery ... got to clear this place out ...

>129 theretiredlibrarian: I can identify. We put the problem off by removing mom to my house. We've gone back a couple of times, but we really need to go without her so some real cleaning out can be done. She doesn't trust her children, who are all in their 60s to know what is of value and what can be tossed. Like you say, it's the stuff like peanut butter jars which she sees value in. We did manage to have quite a bit of success when all her grandchildren were there speaking up for items they wanted. It made her happy they were not getting thrown away, so sometimes it's all in how you phrase things. Soldier on!

I understand how overwhelming this is to my mom. Every time I have visited for the last 5 years, she mentions she needs to clean the basement. "Just sitting here, Mom...let's go do it", I would respond. "No, I don't feel like it right now." was always her answer. Last March, I was kind of pushy and said it was time to get rid of stuff. Yard sale, give away, Goodwill, don't care, just get rid of it. She has gotten to the point of giving some things to family members. But Dad is in very poor health, and the reality is that it needs to be done because at some point they will need to move off the farm to a smaller place. My sisters and I are trying to be proactive.

Oh, and she told me I was "bossy". I just told her I come from a long line of bossy women. lol

>132 theretiredlibrarian: I went through this with two grandmothers and my elderly in-laws. In all three cases, I didn't get much accomplished until they weren't living there anymore. It was just too upsetting for them. Emotionally they were not prepared for that much change.

The only time I made any headway was by asking for something in particular that I knew was in the storage - "oh, is it in the cellar? Let's go look! Hey why don't we take some of these other things out while we are down here?" Memere could give stuff away, but not throw stuff away.

>132 theretiredlibrarian: The "bossy" accusation has been levied at me as well. It is a way to push back. I try to keep gently reminding mom of where she lives now, and how little but adequate space she has, and how nice it is that there is more than a narrow path for her to walk around in. :)

SIL drama continues. A few months ago, FIL was in the hospital and the prognosis was not good. They suggested hospice. SIL came to the hospital throwing her weight around and announcing to the staff she had medical POA, and that she would be moving him back home. She's an RN, and evidently thinks she knows better than the doctors. My husband had to tell her (again) that he now has POA (and has had for some time), and produced the document for her. Anyway, he rallied, got better and went home. In the meantime, he wants everyone to come to dinner. So it's planned and last week we have a potluck with him; everyone's on their best behavior. Earlier that day, my husband met with the lawyers and bankers, and discovered that she had written a check for nearly $300 to her soon-to-be ex-husband for "lawn care" (which he does not actually do). My husband put a stop payment on it immediately, but said nothing about it during the evening, because we're having a family meal for their father. He planned to do so the next day. A few days later, he receives a really nasty email from her, calling him a "coward" and other ugly things. She really can't get thru her head that she no longer has access to her father's money.

>135 theretiredlibrarian: So sorry for what you're going through, both with the SIL and your mother. My grandmother is the same way, except she thinks all her stuff can be resold for a profit. What kind of fabric did you find?

You name it, we found it. Mostly cottons, but some beautiful satins. Also some shantung silk she bought in Japan in 1968!

:O I would hold on to that silk!

For the rest, research your parents' area to see if they have a decent quilting population, and contact any guild you find within about an hour's drive. You could probably have a yard sale just with the fabric and notions!

I am trying to get my on-line "mini-credentials" classes done for the beginning of the school year. More than half of the items on them are dead links, which means I can't do the quizzes or upload worksheets. About half of the videos are also dead links, but those are usually on You Tube and I can usually find them. And then a whole bunch of them tell me "Facilitator Pending". I know they weren't this much trouble last year, because I pretty much did them all in one evening. After reporting the problem to the "Support" button for the umpteenth time, I added a rather snippy question about why all the dead links?? I spent pretty much all day yesterday and all this afternoon on the things. Which most of them don't even address what I teach. Rant done. Taking a brain break from it all.

>128 alco261: It's obviously been a while since I last visited here.
Your complaint is legit but I want to say that I am annoyed by book blurbs that say "x# five stars on Good Reads". I get the impression that those readers give five stars so when they see the blurb they can feel they contributed, not that they actually loved the book that much. I always check a book's rating here since I feel it is honest and not artificially inflated.

>140 mamzel: Those "5 stars on Goodreads" blurbs immediately turn me off reading a book, as does an over-abundance of 5 star reviews on Amazon. No book, no matter how well written, is so universally adored that everyone gives it 5 stars, so I always suspect that there's been some gaming of the system.

>140 mamzel: >141 SylviaC: I subscribe to the Book Gorilla daily deals e-mail. If a book on the list looks even remotely interesting, the first thing I do is filter the Amazon reviews to 1-star and by All Reviewers. If the results don't completely talk me out of downloading, then I might filter up to 2 and 3 stars. Five star reviews pretty much go ignored because, as you say, they are essentially useless, (most of the time).

I am also very stingy with 5 star ratings. Even my favorite authors often only get 3 or 3.5 from me.

>142 ScoLgo: I use exactly the same technique of screening the books that are in my sale emails!

Gah. I am admin for a FB group on gardening, and just had a guy offer some worms, which is fine, except he included his phone # (not good practice on a group with over 2500 members) and segued into some random weirdness like suggesting that city administration should be dismantled and some other stuff that's not appropriate in the group, so I deleted the post, and explained why. He posted again, without the other crap but offering to sell the worms (not allowed per our group description) and again I called him on it so he edited the post changing it to offering to trade worms for "kisses or dates" with pretty women or men could trade for returnable bottles/cans. Explained that was also unacceptable. He went a bit ballistic and claimed I was against him because he was a cis-gendered guy. And added that he smoked weed every day so he didn't give a f***. And before I could deal with that, another member posted that his post creeped her out, which he responded to by attacking her in extremely unpleasant terms. So I banned him, but I'm left feeling seriously creeped out myself, not to mention sorry I gave him a second chance after the first post.

>144 tardis: There is a saying I live by, "Give them enough rope to hang themself."

I would say you did the right thing.

>144 tardis: Too weird to be real. Likely just someone trolling your group trying to stir up a flamewar. Good thing you showed him the virtual door.

BTW - I had to search 'cis-gendered' as I had not heard that term before. Hard to believe that is a real thing. It seems we are a society of labels - and not to our betterment, IMHO...

>146 ScoLgo: It was his use of the term, not mine, although I do know what it means. I just don't get why he thinks anyone on a gardening forum cares. Well, I do get it - he's bonkers. Ah, well. I just hope I don't have to deal with that level of nasty/crazy again any time soon.

I now feel sorry for the innocent worms... they don't deserve crazy human foolishness...

Won't somebody please think of the worms!

Not a huge stabbity, more like a minor pinchy. Remember how I was let go from a previous school and replaced with the art teacher? A teacher from that school is asking my advice (on Facebook) for early readers and good read alouds. I liked her a lot, so I've sent her a list. But a snarky part of me wants to ask her, "Why don't you ask the 'librarian' at your school?" Since the art teacher is also on FB, I made no mention of that fact. But damn, I sure want to.

How many times do I have to tell myself NEVER to read YouTube comments on any clip whatsoever! I KNOW it's just going to make me grumpy and convinced that the Enlightenment was in vain and civilisation is coming to an end, so why do it? Idiot ...

>151 alaudacorax: The comments almost anywhere online make me doubt humanity's worth.

Serendipity! I was going to hunt this thread down to make a post, and it wound up showing in my "my posts" list!

We have inventory in my store tomorrow morning. Our last one was bad, so you'd think they'd be doing everything they could for this one to get our numbers back in the "acceptable" range. NOPE! Rather than go thru the stock boats of backstock and record the numbers on the inventory sheets, they went thru them yesterday and SUPER jammed some stuff on to the shelves before doing the sheets. They went as far as putting stuff in empty spaces and hidden hither and yon.

Based on what we saw as we were packing out last night, we can't see how the inventory crew is going to get good and accurate counts on a lot of stuff. We're ready to laugh in managements faces when we hear the numbers and they come up bad. We're thinking of then walking them thru each aisle and pointing everything out to them.

A stabbity that's coming to annoy me more and more, not least because I can't find anywhere to vent about it—online searches seem to throw up nothing.

The steaming plonkers at websites who think it's a good idea to automatically email you every time you log in. Instagram and Twitter do it to me every time, for example. Every time I clean out my email accounts I have to delete a shipload of them.

"We noticed a login from a device you don't usually use." What they really mean is that my browser is not allowing them to pinpoint which device I'm using—and why the hell should they be allowed to know such stuff anyway? And they must know by now that plenty of people are blocking it and that constantly sending emails to them is being the boy who cried wolf—no security value whatsoever.

Of course, the truth is that I need to get over the niggling and probably quite irrational suspicion that I might miss something important if I block their emails. It's not as if I really care much about Twitter or Instagram in the first place. I'll go and do that now.

Yes ... well ... I'm glad we had this talk. I feel better for it.

>154 alaudacorax: On a similar note I'm going to complain about websites that pop up on my Google news feed that are 95% clickbait with the story broken into fragments, sometimes requiring you to click on multiple pages to read the story in it's entirety.

>155 clamairy:

Fortunately, I've managed to escape that. I've been making great strides in 'de-googling' myself; but it's astonishingly hard.

>155 clamairy: That irritates me too and to make matters even worse half the time you get to the end of the story and find that there isn't an end or solution or whatever and you don't know any more than you did at the beginning and that they repeat themselves across multiple pages as if my attention span or memory recall is not going to last through the loading of subsequent webpages. I keep trying to remind myself not to even bother starting to follow the links.

>157 Peace2: Yeah, the online version of our local newspaper is riddled with click-bait links...

Doctors don't want you to know about this one amazing trick to get rid of click bait!

>161 MrAndrew: There's nothing to click on :0(

>154 alaudacorax: I filter out those messages; permanently delete, don't even send it to the trash/recycle bin. Actually, I've got about 2 dozen filters to weed out nuisance emails, sort my bills, move any correspondences from specific authors I've done work for to separate folders.
I've found that with enough patience, I can write a filter do handle almost anything.

>163 WholeHouseLibrary:

Baffled at the moment. I added Instagram's sending address to my filter, AND THE DAMNED THINGS ARE STILL GETTING THROUGH!

This one is a bit long, and relates to the numerous bits of stabbity-ness that travel generates (between Covid and the activities of Mr Putin and his gang).

I mentioned on my own thread that Mrs H and I were planning to go to Australia at the end of this month. So far I've had to cancel and re-make the flight bookings once because the original ones got changed out of recognition. I have to deal with all the crap that goes with Covid (vaccination certificates and quarantine requirements and whatever). We have a 3-stage journey each way: London to Helsinki and Helsinki to Singapore on Finnair, then Singapore to Sydney on BA. Same coming back in reverse. Due to Mr Putin's gangster antics, the flight between HEL and SIN now goes around the western end of Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, around the western end of the Black Sea, then down across Sinai, the Persian Gulf and India instead of straight across Central Asia. Two hours added to the flight time, and many more kilos of jet fuel burned, plus our connections start to get uncomfortably tight.

Then I get an email from BA telling me that I need to join the Singapore vaccinated traveller system. It apparently assumed that our SYD-SIN flight is the end of our journey and we intend to enter Singapore. We do not--as far as I'm concerned we are transit passengers, and the Singapore government website says expressly that there are no special requirements for transit passengers as long as your luggage is checked through. Normally I would just assume this and it wouldn't matter much anyway, because collecting and re-checking it in Singapore wouldn't be a big deal. Assuming you had enough time, that is. But under current circumstances, who knows? So I want to get an authoritative answer to the question, will our bags be checked to Sydney in London and to London in Sydney?

The really annoying bit is that all the airline numbers are giving long delays or outright refusing to take calls (as the BA Executive Club number has just done). Even the chat functions have long delays and they tend to be pretty useless anyway. But seriously, the airlines have surely had long enough by now to figure out that the Covid situation has produced an unusually large volume of inquiries and to train more operators and add some call centre facilities? Also, didn't the BA robot that looked at our booking notice that we had an onward journey, even though it was on a different airline? Bugsy Putin and his adventures and the resulting flight delays add an extra layer of confusion on top of that, sure, I suppose.

Look here, BA and Finnair. This was a simple question which could have been answered yes or no in 30 seconds if I could have talked to someone. Now you've got to deal with an email, and made a customer angry. Anyway, I feel slightly better having had this little rant.

OH, and just to top it all off: my stepdaughter's partner, and his kids, have Covid. They are all young and fit, but had better be over it before my wife gets to Port Macquarie on 3 April.

>165 haydninvienna: Anyone would think TPTB don't want us to travel any more. It was bad enough pre-COVID - having to allow several hours before flights. When we went to Crete a few years back, himself was not impressed by the hurry up and wait we had to engage in for the flights each way - and that was flying EasyJet from Luton and opting for taxi transfers so no fiddling around with car hire or parking our own car.

At least we're only going to the next county next week - a relatively easy drive (assuming petrol prices aren't still eye-watering).

>166 Maddz: Some of TPTB would probably prefer that we didn't travel. Others really, really want us to. I swear that the amount of advertising mail for travel I get has doubled over the past year, and the line about "book now, cancel later" is all over it. TBF I think that the airlines are having even more trouble with the variety of requirements and the speed of change than we are. As the BA desk agent who checked me in when i went to Doha said with a sigh, everyone has different requirements.

>167 haydninvienna: I think our next 'long' distance trip will be Glasgow in 2024! Last time we flew up, the time before we drove but I had a relief driver. We might drive again - while I still can - and perhaps go on to the Highlands. A bit like the way we did Dublin - spend some time being tourists around WorldCon; but if we 'do' the Highlands then flying might be the best option and hire a car in Scotland.

Theoretically, I retire next year so won't need to worry about booking time off (unless I get asked to stay on). Paul has a few years to go yet.

>168 Maddz:
The Highlands are well worth visiting.

ETA: I might even follow your example. A tour of Scotland would be great.

>169 pgmcc: I've been twice to the Highlands - once in childhood when my parents were still together, and once as a teenager with Mum and 'lil sis. Both times we travelled from Poole; I seem to recall the first trip we broke the journey at my great-aunt's in N Wales, the second time in Yorkshire. Both trips we did one leg by motor rail, once from Newton Abbott, once from Bristol. Apart from the 2 WorldCons, it must have been a good 40-50 years since I've been north of the border.

The first WorldCon when we drove, we drove to and from Cambridge up the A1. On the way up, we cut across to the M8 along Hadrian's Wall and stopped for lunch near Vindolanda. Coming back, we went via Rosslyn and went round the chapel. We also did a bit round Glasgow itself - the Willow Tearooms, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum (the latter while my co-driver was sleeping off the dead dog party). 2 weeks later I went to Lesbos with Mum; she was annoyed about what poor company I was for the first week - every time I hit horizontal, I fell asleep.

The other alternative would be driving, and coming back via Northumbria. Doing the Borders might be fun; apart from Hadrian's Wall, we've never really done the Borders.

>165 haydninvienna: Obviously I don't know about prices, availability etc etc but I assume you looked at Qantas or Singapore Air? If you do have to join the Singapore vaccinated traveller system, have a look at the Trace Together app; it's what we all have to use here to check in and out of shopping malls, schools and so on. It also stores your vaccinated status (though I don't know how easy that would be to enter on the app if you're outside the country). That might be all you'd have to do.

>170 Maddz: Argh! I had no intention of doing WorldCon, but you're making it sound sooooo tempting. I haven't been to Scotland in thirty years.

>172 Marissa_Doyle: GRIN!

>171 humouress: Qantas was the source of the original problem! The first booking was on Lufthansa as far as Bangkok (London-Munich, Munich-Bangkok) and then Qantas on to Sydney (all on the same booking, made through Lufthansa's website). Qantas then cancelled both the outward and return legs between Bangkok and Sydney and substituted new flights each a day later. The booking robot rebooked us on the later flights without noticing that the rebooked flights would have had us arriving in Bangkok on the way back after the onward flight to Munich had already left. I still find this staggering, but when I mentioned it to a Lufthansa call centre agent they acknowledged that it didn't check.

I started all this weeks ago. Since I have a huge stack of frequent flier points on BA, I wanted to use them, but the BA call centre frankly admitted that there was simply nothing between London and Sydney available to use them for. When the Australian government started easing the restrictions, the pent-up demand simply exploded.

After I cancelled the first booking I just looked at suitable flights on Kayak and then booked them direct. Finnair was available and I've flown with them before, but never long-haul. Finnair doesn't fly to Australia so the leg between Singapore and Sydney each was was on Finnair's codeshare partner British Airways.

Under the new post-Putin arrangements, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up on another flight anyway, having missed the first connection.

>174 haydninvienna: whew, what a tangle! I hope your visit there is a nice long one, after all those plane changes to get there you will need time to brace yourself before the return! Safe travels.

>174 haydninvienna: You have every reason to feel stabbity. Geez Louise.

>175 Darth-Heather: >176 jillmwo: Thanks. At least having a little rant about it all was therapeutic.

>177 haydninvienna: You have my sympathies for your struggles. I thought we were having difficulties with our upcoming trip and it's only got one flight each way! We're supposed to be coming to the mainland UK in a few weeks and even that is proving a struggle. We had to postpone a trip last October and so three of the six of us lost our return flights (it was going to be a little more than twice the price of what we'd paid for the tickets to change/delay the flights and that was before we had to pay any difference in seat booking for the chosen flight!) because they were with a different airline than the outgoing. We haven't attempted to rebook anything yet, because there is still a reasonable chance of another postponement.

Added to this we've just had notification that the outbound flight taking us to Luton has changed time - moving back four hours - so instead of leaving here at 4 in the afternoon, we'll be leaving at 8 in the evening - arrival time will now be a little after 9pm, travelling with children we will now probably not be able to hire a car easily and drive to destination but will instead have to overnight near the airport. To exacerbate the issue, the return flight (for the three of us with tickets) has been brought forward by 5 hours - necessitating in being at the airport before 8 in the morning... so I guess that means we will need to travel down to the airport a day early as it's about a two and a half hour journey to get there (we're also the kind of people who normally plan to arrive early for flights etc, in case of difficulties en route or at check-in so the two and a half will be more like 4 - 4 and 1/2 hours to account for the family members who really worry as opposed to the mildly cautious ones who would aim for 3/4 to 1/2 hour early). This means our three day family visit (allowing us to travel the day before/after) becomes 1 and 2 half days (the afternoon of the day we'll arrive and the morning of the day before we fly back).

If I hadn't not left the island since February 2020, I'd give up on the idea all together!

>178 Peace2: My sympathy to you also. We aren't travelling with children, but Mrs H has some mobility issues that make travelling a bit of a challenge.

I got an email from BA asking me for my views on travel. It was just the usual nonsense about where, and how many, and how often. Nowhere did it ask the question that really matters: "What do you think of the whole idea of travelling?" Answer: that it's a gigantic PITA.

>179 haydninvienna: I hope your trip goes as smoothly as possible..My wife hates to fly. She always says that she dislikes traveling but loves being at the destination. I can't disagree with her on that.

>180 ScoLgo: She's spot on there. I'm usually okay once I'm on the plane. It's all the BS leading up to it I hate. Also getting off the plane, finding bags and getting to the destination can be an ordeal.

>179 haydninvienna: & >178 Peace2: Best of luck!

>180 ScoLgo:, >181 clamairy: I'm with you there. Travel in general I find tedious - give me a Star Trek transporter and I'd be happy! It's why I hate flying anywhere for less than 10 days because of all the mucking around at each end - you end up loosing a day of holiday. In some ways I prefer driving - at least I feel as though I'm in control and I'm not at the mercy of the airlines.

Ah well, off to the beach for 4 nights tomorrow - but it's only a 90 minute drive from here.

>181 clamairy: >182 Maddz: She's the opposite... doesn't really mind all the lead-up. It's the actual flying that scares the be-jeebers out of her. If there is even a little turbulence, I can expect to have a withered claw for a hand for the next 30 minutes or so as circulation slowly returns to that extremity... :-)

Mrs H is a reasonably calm traveller during the actual flying, but she has a short fuse if things don’t go according to plan.

And the story is not over yet! Got an email from Finnair first thing this morning about the Singapore requirements, warning that if we did not have the correct papers we would not be allowed to board our flight. However, it did note (as the BA one didn't) that if we were only transiting we didn't need to comply.

So in the interests of not having to cope with a load of crap at check-in, I sat in Finnair's call queue for 2 solid hours this morning and finally spoke to a helpful lady who seemed puzzled that we had even got the email, but assured me that our baggage would be checked right through to Sydney. No need to deal with Singapore's entry requirements. Message for the airlines: I know times are difficult, but this sort of thing is making it worse.

ETA: As to travel psychology, I'm a fairly experienced air* and rail** traveller and am generally fairly laid-back and low maintenance. I cherish the memory of a time when I had flown from Doha to Helsinki via Dubai and Heathrow (don't ask me why). My luggage got left in Dubai, and I ended up sitting in a hotel room in Helsinki waiting for my luggage, and on the phone to the baggage desk at Helsinki Airport. I was on the phone for something like half an hour. When I finally hung up, Mrs H looked at me in mild wonderment and said "You know, all that time you didn't raise your voice once.". The bag was at the hotel next morning. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

* 1.1 million miles over 10 years, on about 30 different airlines.

** Rail travel in Australia, Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland (at least).

>185 haydninvienna:
Your calmness and self-control are admirable.

My wife taught me a lesson early in our marriage. A curtain retailer had failed to deliver flick-sticks with our certains having made a strong argument that we should buy them. We went to the shop, as one did in the 1980s (in those days, “on line” meant the washing was out to dry), and I immediately launched into, “You didn’t deliver the flick-sticks that you insisted we buy!”

We got our flick-sticks but it was a very uncomfortable conversation for all concerned.

On leaving the shop my wife said, “It might have been better had you started by asking, ‘I wonder if you can help me. Nobody refuses a request for help.’”

I have used that approach ever since and found it much more effective and pleasant.

>185 haydninvienna: "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar"

Perhaps, but do you really want to catch more flies? And what do you do with them after you catch them?

Let's not even get into the option of carrion as an alternative bait, even though it seems like a more apt aphorism. I don't want to be accused of promoting the homicide of customer service reps, no matter how tempting.

>186 pgmcc: >187 MrAndrew: I wouldn’t condone the homicide of customer service reps. Most of the ones I’ve encountered recently have been helpful, friendly and efficient, which must take some doing in these times. Homicide of call centre managers’ managers, now, that might be a different story. I recall asking one call centre agent who wanted to put me on hold briefly whether I meant that I would get their “music on hold” back, because it was so awful. If there were one piece of advice I would give to every call centre manager everywhere, it would be “call your call centre and wait in the call queue until somebody answers”. Then figure out whether that’s the impression you want your customers to get, and whether you care. If the answer to the second question is that you don’t, you had better know why.

I think the problem is that staffing is universally seen as a cost. Wages and salaries are a cost, of course, but you get something in exchange, and that can be very valuable indeed.

Up in #167 I said “I swear that the amount of advertising mail for travel I get has doubled over the past year, and the line about "book now, cancel later" is all over it.” Case in point: just now I got an email from the Qantas frequent flier scheme (I’m in at least 7 of them, and presently have significant credit in 2) which contains this sentence:

With the recent announcement that from 18 April 2022 pre-departure COVID-19 tests will no longer be required for fully vaccinated travellers entering Australia, it's even easier to travel.

Seriously?