Get Your Grump on Thursdays - Was (What's chapping my @ss today?)

[Too Tall]

Epic. See you grumpy MoFos next week.

[nahtnoj]

I buy Sunbelt Granola bas 4 boxes at a time. I never buy sports bars anymore. I'll take a pic of the display when I hit the grocery store next. We can arrange a trade for delicious philly pretzels. Good ones, not the bready ones form WaWa.

-Joe

You've got a deal!

[robin3mj]

More freakin snow. And it's not going anywhere for a while. High of 0F (that's zero degrees Fahrenheit) next Mon/Tue.

I am researching rollers and mountain bikes...in between punching myself in the face.

[Noteddy]

More freakin snow. And it's not going anywhere for a while. High of 0F (that's zero degrees Fahrenheit) next Mon/Tue.

I am researching rollers and mountain bikes...in between punching myself in the face.

Same weather here. I own rollers. But, I'm test riding a fat bike tomorrow. I'm going crazy.

[nahtnoj]

Its Thursday, or very late on Wednesday. But tomorrow (Thursday) feels like Monday because today felt like Sunday. I have not really known what day it was for the last week and a half. So looking forward to next Monday so that I can get on schedule...

[ldamelio]

"Selfies. " WTF ! I can maybe see the rationale to use a cell phone to (rarely) capture oneself in a truly memorable setting when alone. However, the narcissistic need to incessantly chronicle every douchebag bro/BFF moment makes me want to puke. The only thing more annoying than the concept is the word itself. Use it around me and I'll claw out your liver. I know how. You've been warned.

[Saab2000]

Its Thursday, or very late on Wednesday. But tomorrow (Thursday) feels like Monday because today felt like Sunday. I have not really known what day it was for the last week and a half. So looking forward to next Monday so that I can get on schedule...

Don't worry, I haven't known what day of the week it is for almost 20 years.... Barely know what time of day it is.

My grump is being on day 6 of 6. I'm really worn out and I need a bike ride and it is supposed to rain. Hopefully it holds off until I get my miles in this afternoon.

Oh, and talking to the crew scheduling folks who are totally unhelpful and think only in terms of numbers and who don't realize (or don't care) that they're talking to human beings who have emotions and get tired and aren't just machines that fly airplanes with endless patience and energy. Really really ready to not see another airplane or passenger for a few days.

Yesterday we we over fueled by thousands of pounds, causing a big delay. As with kids, 'Nobody' knew who was responsible for the snafu.

[Saab2000]

Oh, and another thing...

No shit we have to get deiced. There's snow and frost all over everything. Why do they act surprised EVERY winter....

Mediocrity is not the new excellence, it's still the old mediocrity.

[EricKeller]

the transaxle blew up in my Prius after 90k miles. Dealer wants $5k, blue book is $5k. So looked into a used one, they go for $300-700, not that bad. Only problem is they will not ship to me, only a commercial address. And I really, really don't want to be under a car in this weather, but even the dealer isn't qualified for this job. So I'll probably be doing it.

[mainemike]

frozen pipes

[Dallas Tex]

90% of the cycling consumer community are immune to common sense.

[David Tollefson]

It's Thursday and I'm back at work. That by itself is enough of a grump.

[NYCfixie]

Idiot application programmers. Secure file transfer product for external business partners is being upgraded, runs on a Windows server. App support attempts to run transfer on upgraded server. It fails TLS handshake because they apparently support that on a different control port than the default. It's specified in the upgrade documentation which they didn't read - it took me 30 seconds to find the spec when he sent it to me.

What changed? The server in question, and it doesn't work so obviously the best people to get in touch with is mainframe operating systems support. Yeah, that's the ticket! Not the guys that support the file transfer product, why the hell would that be the thing to do?

Why am I sensitive to this? My number one project for next year has one part that involves dealing with about sixty of these people for this exact kind of work. 2014's gonna suck.

Don't you just love when sys admins are really good about documenting everything they do, when they do it, and give proper notice before they do it?

[roseyscot]

CEO butting his nose in on the details. Now I have twice as much pointless email, meetings, and follow up, all because he doesn't understand the product or the customer's needs, but since he is CEO, he must be smarter than the 6 people already assigned to the project for the last year, right?

My other customer can't make any decisions without 15 emails, 5 different people getting involved, and a whole bunch of dragging feet. Customer, if you want things to improve, then let me make the improvements. Stop looking for excuses and asking the same questions over and over again, it is just stalling my progress.

[Zandr Martin]

Healthcare in America bros.

In early October my wife had a gall bladder attack. We went to the ER. X-rays and cat scans and MRIs and every other thing and we're told she has gall stones and needs to have her gall bladder removed. Ok, sucks but not a huge deal in the grand scheme. The next week she has a consult with a surgeon who schedules her for the procedure. She's told she has to pay up-front for this. (Yes, for real. What the fuck.) Insurance will cover 70% so we have to fork over the 30% which is around $500. Interestingly we have to do this two weeks before the surgery or it will be cancelled. The surgery was scheduled for four days after her consult. Whatever. We pay. This is October 11th.

October 15th she has the surgery. Goes fine, no worries. Thankfully that's not part of this grump.

The bills start rolling in. The hospital bills us for this, the anesthesiologist for that, and this other dude for some other thing. You all know how it goes. AFTER insurance we're on the hook for about $3,500. AFTER insurance.

Mid-December, after I've put together the world's most complex spreadsheet to keep track of all this shit, I notice that the $500 we paid pre-surgery has never shown up anywhere, and further digging reveals the surgeon hasn't billed our insurance for the surgery yet. This is TWO MONTHS after the surgery happens. So I call the office. "Oh, his notes haven't been transcribed yet so we can't bill your insurance." I basically have to berate them into billing us. A few days later my wife gets a voicemail from the office saying they've billed insurance. Great. About time.

A few days after that I get the EOB from my insurance company. We've hit our deductible for the year thanks to the other surgery bills, so the $500 we had to pay the surgeon up front was actually covered by insurance. Even better, the surgeon mis-calculated our insurance discount, so the $500 we paid SHOULD have been less. But either way, the surgeon now owes us $500. In other words, they've been sitting on $500 of our money for 2.5 months for no reason at all. They have $500 we had to pay them that we have never, at any time, owed to them.

I called this morning to ask about getting a refund, and was transferred to a voicemail box that said: "This mailbox is not monitored. Do not leave a message." They're getting one more phone call later today, after which I am disputing the charge with my credit card company and this fucking surgeon's office can go straight to hell.

[Matthew Strongin]

I know there are folks with worse pain and harder recoveries, but I'm in week four of adjusting to my clavicle's new position and shit just hurts. I'm comfortable sitting on a bike or sitting on the couch. Walking, standing, driving, really anything where my weight isn't mostly on my ass with light support for my arm goes from uncomfortable to shooting pain very quickly. I'm over it.

[jonathanb]

Winter. Not LA or Miami winter, but winter here in NJ. The air is so dry my ass is starting to chap.

[roseyscot]

I know there are folks with worse pain and harder recoveries, but I'm in week four of adjusting to my clavicle's new position and shit just hurts. I'm comfortable sitting on a bike or sitting on the couch. Walking, standing, driving, really anything where my weight isn't mostly on my ass with light support for my arm goes from uncomfortable to shooting pain very quickly. I'm over it.

my grump is that even with a shifted or broken clavicle, you've racked up more miles and saddle time since your accident than I will get from January through February.

also, Zandrrr, working on the other side of the health insurance fence, it is a total shit show there too. i would happily accept unemployment if it meant the whole broken system could be simplified and fixed.

[Tom]

Grumped a couple of weeks ago about the power company moving a pole, putting wires into a tree, me telling them that was not going to work, tree obligingly catching on fire, finally getting a work order opened to move the wires away from the tree like I told them they should back in November.

A week ago I called about the state of that work order. Closed, no action taken. I got a new one opened.

Today I call them to tell them the sleeve is just about off the tree and when the wind kicks up tonight it'll be all the way off and burning again. "We'll have the crew out there tomorrow to move it back." This was the first CSR that didn't seem to get it. I had to explain, no, when it moves it'll burn and I'm trying to allow you to avoid a problem until the permanent fix is in... and I think the CSR didn't appreciate me doing that. This is probably the most cheerful and calm I've been with this situation so far, too. It''s becoming more amusing than anything. Maybe that threw them off.

[Chad]

That new cologne/perfume that smells like patchouli and rotting road kill. For the love of God stop wearing that shit.