Tag: complaint

Totally unacceptable workplace environment

I had a bit of a scary moment this morning – I walked into the office, and suddenly the unmistakable smell of cat urine hit me like a ton of bricks.  At first I thought maybe it was me.  I mean, I do have an occasionally salty cat who quite possibly might decide to urinate on some of my clothes.  Although she’s never done it.  She usually likes to express her displeasure by just barely missing the litter box.

But no, it’s not me.  It’s the office.  My office smells like cat urine.

How this happens is beyond me.  I don’t work in a place that should ever contain a cat.  I don’t think a cat could pass the security clearance.

Not sure what this is supposed to accomplish

FCC OK’s cross-ownership of papers, TV – Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

The Federal Communications Commission voted Tuesday to let one owner control a newspaper and a television station in Denver and other large markets, a change long sought by The Denver Post’s principal owner, William Dean Singleton.

So, now, if you are not one of the top four television stations in the market, you can own a local newspaper.  Let us count the things wrong with this.

First, what if I’m number five, I buy a newspaper, and then I pass number four?  Do I have to sell the newspaper?  Do I get grandfathered in?  I can’t imagine a scenario that isn’t either ridiculous, or defeats the purpose of the rule.

Second:

The cross-ownership ban was adopted in 1975 with “the twin goals of diversity of viewpoints and economic competition,” the FCC said at the time.

In the age of blogs and the internet and instant access to all sorts of viewpoints, the issue of “diversity of viewpoints” is a little misleading.  An increasingly smaller number of people get their news only from newspapers and television.  I know the older generation still does to a large extent, but most people my age don’t read newspapers because they’re outdated by the time they get to your door.  And then you have to recycle them, and it’s just a huge hassle.

Third:

“You take the high cost of news gathering and spread it across multiple platforms and you get multiple revenue streams,” Singleton [publisher of The Denver Post and head of MediaNews Group] said in a 2006 interview.

THIS is what competition is about.  Innovating, saving money, providing a better product at a cheaper rate.  When you stick these stupid restrictions on who can own what, you make it relatively more expensive to provide news.  Who does this help?  Certainly not a new company with a great idea about how to get news to people.

When the barriers to enter a market are low, diversity is nearly guaranteed.  If I see the market and say, ‘Hey, that one company is the only one providing the service, and they aren’t reaching half the customers”, then I have a great opportunity in that market.

It’s things like this where I tend to clash with the Democratic party.  I want the government to stop sticking its fingers in where it isn’t needed, based on what the world was like in 1975.

Anyway, this new law is a step in the right direction, but it’s not far enough, and I doubt it will change anything.

How could you do this, Brian Roberts?

So the Mitchell Report is out, as I’m sure you all know.  The only current Oriole on there, I think, is Brian Roberts.  I’ve always liked Brain Roberts.  He’s a little tiny second baseman who gets on base a lot.

I suppose we should have seen this coming – his yearly OPS numbers are .625, .605, .704, .720, .902, .757, .809.  Does one of those numbers look, perhaps, way higher than the rest of them?

The year his bat exploded, 2005, is also the year he started wearing the Nike MaxSight contact lenses, which could explain it.  The Mitchell Report simply states that former Oriole Larry Bigbie said that Roberts told him that he took steroids “once or twice” in 2003.

It figures:  after I call for releasing all the Orioles on the list, one of my favorite players is the only guy who would get released.  At least it wasn’t Bedard.

Preparing for the Mitchell Report

I’m kind of terrified of this thing.  I love baseball, and this is going to hurt.  It’s a necessary hurt, like tearing off the old bandage, but it’s still going to suck.  There are already leaks that Roger Clemens is on the naughty list, and the promise of other big names.

I hate Clemens, but he’s the best pitcher of my generation, and I don’t want to see his name tainted like that.  Maybe it will knock him down a peg and remind him that he’s not actually bigger than baseball and teams will stop letting him get away with this “I’ll pitch when I’m good and ready and we’re playing at home” garbage.

And I’m afraid that other big names are really going to hurt.  I hope the Orioles release everyone on the list.  Immediate, unconditional release for anyone breaking the rules.  I would rather watch the Orioles have the worst season in the modern era, or promote our entire AA team, than watch them employ cheaters.

My great hope for all of this is that maybe now the Steroid Era can end.  No more.  I want it to be over so we can go back to thinking about baseball, not asterisks.

You suck, Citicards

So, I have good credit.  I don’t carry a credit card balance.  I pay my bills on time.  I have a Citi World Dividend Mastercard or whatever the heck it is that I’ve had for maybe four years.  Actually, it was a different card up until a month or so ago, but they changed it, not me, so it’s been one continuous account as far as I’m concerned.  Anyway, I’ve NEVER missed a payment on it.

So I forgot to pay my November bill.  Just forgot to go to their website and schedule a payment.  Those jerks charged me interest, a $39 late fee, and raised my APR.  For ONE missed payment in four years.  They didn’t even contact me to say I was late.  My Discover card emails me and tells me if I haven’t scheduled a payment and my due date is approaching.  But Citi didn’t do that.

The first level CSR didn’t even think they should.  “Oh, we have so many cardholders, I don’t know how we could call them.  It would have to be on the computer.”  Well, of course, moron, I don’t want you to call me.  Why do you think I do as much business with you as I can on your website, and long ago stopped getting paper statements?  I don’t want to talk to you on the phone, or get any regular mail from you.

Anyway, the second level CSR that I got when I asked to cancel waived the fees, gave me some extra cash back bonus temporarily, and dropped my APR to 1.9% for 9 months, then it goes back to the rate I had before I missed the payment.

I’m planning to cancel the card anyway, but they don’t have to know that.

The message here is, when your credit card company does something stupid, call them and complain.  They’ll probably help you out.

Snow? Really?

So, I drive to work less than once a month.  I take the Metro almost all the time, but our corporate office is out in Manassas, and so on the infrequent days I have to go out there, I drive.  Today is the first time since I started at this position in March that I drove to the office where I actually work because I’m going to Manassas a little later today.

Coincidentally, today is the first day of the winter that we’re getting snow.  Now, it’s just flurries, and shouldn’t affect anything, but seriously.  The ONE DAY I drive to work, we get snow.  That’s just absurd.  That, I think, is the most convincing evidence of a supreme being that I’ve ever heard – there must be a god because he/she/it has a sense of humor.

Well, Supreme Being, if it’s not too much trouble, can I get some rain on Saturday so our flag football game gets cancelled?  We’re really short on players this week (including myself), and it’s the first week of playoffs, and I’d really like a rescheduling.

No more being nice

So, I’m a nice guy.  Ask anyone.  Today, I went down to get a key copied at a mall kiosk.  This may have been a bad idea, but whatever.  The woman there spent 10 minutes looking through key blanks before she told me they didn’t have the right on.  Five of those minutes were spent comparing my key to a blank that was plainly wrong.  She showed it to me.  I told her it was the wrong blank.  She showed it to the guy at the kiosk next door.  He told her it was the wrong blank.  She compared them again.  Somehow, they were still totally different keys.

Did I get angry with her?  No.  I was polite.  I left.  I am positive that other customers are not so pleasant.

So, I get back to my building.  I went through the doors to the elevators on the bottom floor.  The elevators only go up from there, and there is nowhere else to go, so anyone going through those doors is going up in the elevator.

Anyway, exiting the door as I was entering was a guy on crutches.  I stopped to hold the door for him, because that seemed like the right thing to do.  Some guy was already in the elevator lobby waiting to go up.  As I was holding the door, he got in an elevator and left.  After I held the door, I saw him through the closing elevator doors.  I didn’t have a chance to make eye contact.

Is that a total jerk move?  Would you have held the elevator for fifteen seconds so I could get in, too?  Or am I being ridiculous?  I’m inclined to think I’m not.

My Country Tis of Corn

So, the large, scary government agency that indirectly pays my salary is celebrating America Recycles Day today. That’s a good thing. Raising recycling awareness is nearly always a positive thing. It’s probably always positive, but I’m just being cautious here.

Anyway, to celebrate this, they “will be handing out biobased corn products and informational brochures”.

I won’t discuss the grammar of the sentence beyond being glad that I don’t work for the public school system. Wait, I will. Do you think the informational brochures are biobased? I think they are. But do you think they are also corn products? The sentence construction leaves it open to interpretation. I love interpretation! It lets me berate you for disagreeing with me even if we’re both right.

What I will discuss, however, is the use of corn. We eat corn. We eat corn in almost everything. Next time you’re at the grocery store. Check the ingredients on everything you’ve purchased. You will likely be shocked at how many of the items contain corn in some form or another. A disturbingly high percentage will contain high fructose corn syrup. Most loaves of bread do (Not the good bread at Whole Foods and, to a lesser extent, Harris Teeter. And probably other stores, too, but those are the ones I usually go to. Anyway.).

We should just replace the stars on the flag with corn kernels. We could replace the stripes with ears. The ‘Ol Corn and Corn, we could say. The Yellow, Yellow, and Yellow. It would be great.

In fact, let’s replace everything with corn. Stop raising cattle and chickens! They just eat all our corn! We can grind corn into a pulp, add artificial flavors and colors, and voila! We have steak! Stop buying imported products! We can make everything we need out of corn! It’s BIOBASED! That must be good because it has “bio” in the name!

Letters are easier, anyway

Due process too much hassle for DC dept. of motor vehicles – Boing Boing

Washington DC’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will no longer allow citizens to protest parking tickets in person, reports Thenewspaper.com. Instead, they’ll offer mail-in and e-mail adjudication.

What kind of crazy person would go to the DMV to protest a ticket in person, anyway?  As many of you have found via Google, I have a bit of experience protesting tickets via the mail.  It actually works.  They really do look at your letter, and they really do respond.  It sometimes takes a letter to your councilmember to get it all worked out, but the statement in the article to which Boing Boing has linked:

Under the DMV’s plan, motorists will only be able to object to a ticket by email or letter where city employees can ignore or reject letters in bulk without affected motorists having any realistic recourse.

Just isn’t true.  Does DC give out too many ridiculous parking tickets?  Probably.  Is the city too financially dependent on this revenue source?  I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me.  Should it be easier to contest an erroneous ticket?  Sure, but we have to weigh the cost/benefit analysis here.  The reason you can’t contest a ticket in person anymore is probably NOT so the DMV can deny you due process (Does the DMV even owe you due process?  I’m not sure.  Maybe some lawyer can answer.).  It is probably to save the DMV some money.  If they don’t have to employ someone to sit and listen to how you know it said no parking, but you only had to run in for a minute, and it’s not your fault that your manicurist had a line and you had to wait and the kids were running around and it’s really not fair and you normally park in a regular spot and take the other car that you can usually park but this time you had the big car and gosh don’t you have kids then you understand, right?  Then maybe they could put some of that saved money to use for education or increased police patrols or any of the million other things the city could be spending its money on.

Anyway, I know I only link to BoingBoing when they piss me off, so I want to state here that I read and enjoy the site every day.  And I really don’t just read it waiting for them to say something that bugs me.  I really recommend the site.  They usually have smart, interesting things to say.  Sometimes they say ridiculous things, but don’t we all?