The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[L CC]

Golden shred. Only two bits of peel? Not good enough.

Expect post. Marmalade is not Low Carb. It's last year's but it doesn't go off.

[interzen]

Added to my list of things I can't find but I'm sure are in the house somewhere: my merino buff and spare crank bolts.

Probably the same place my glove liners have disappeared to 

And, as Sod's Law dictates, they've done a disappearing act right when I actually need them (snow forecast for tonight, and I don't like cold hands!)

[fuzzy]

Added to my list of things I can't find but I'm sure are in the house somewhere: my merino buff and spare crank bolts.

Probably the same place my glove liners have disappeared to 

And, as Sod's Law dictates, they've done a disappearing act right when I actually need them (snow forecast for tonight, and I don't like cold hands!)

The last time I lost inner gloves, I eventually found them inside my gloves

[Bledlow]

I have at least three pairs of glove liners. That way, when I mislay a pair, I can usually find one of the others.

BTW, last time I looked, Decathlon was still selling glove liners for a single British pound. And they're not bad: pretty warm.

[mcshroom]

IT Services - I have spent the last 4 years disorganising my steam driven babbage engine to the point that was acceptable. I have not enjoyed spending the morning finding and remapping network drives, resetting all the program preferences (and getting access restored to some) and finding all my old links because they "went missing" overnight.

God only knows how you lot think you will be able to migrate our disintigrating museum pieces computers over to Windows 7 in a few months time

[billplumtree]

Golden shred. Only two bits of peel? Not good enough.

Expect post.

Excellent idea!  Would you like me to send you my orange peelings an'all, LindaG?

[LindaG]

Golden shred. Only two bits of peel? Not good enough.

Expect post.

Excellent idea!  Would you like me to send you my orange peelings an'all, LindaG?

Nutters

[Feanor]

Now, this is a fairly poor grumble in as much as I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth and all,
but it's a grumble that's been going round our work recently.

Our USAsian BigCo hand out Long Service Awards.  These have taken various forms over the years.
I have just done a 25-yr stretch without parole.

The current program is a pre-loaded 'Declining Balance' credit card, which you can use for anything you like.
That's a great idea for me, as Golf Clubs are no use to me, I don't need an Ornamental Clock, and we already have a Fondue Set.
This card has 'Bike' ( or at least 'Frame' ) written all over it.

Thing is, it's denominated in $USD.
There's a currency conversion fee of 2% ( hmph, but OK ).
But here's the thing:  There's no way to tell the Currency Conversion rate which will be applied when your transaction is posted.
So you don't know the actual value of the card in £GBP, at the time you are handing the card over.
So you can't 'max it out': you have to 'guess' what will go through, and by some recursive process of declines eventually get it accepted, and then have some un-useable residue on the card.

The company in question can issue cards denominated in £GBP, but the decree from our BigCo is that all cards will be in $USD.

Bah.

[David Martin]

Get your friendly LBS to repeatedly bill you up a nice credit account till it stops working..

[Zipperhead]

The other week an e-mail was sent out to the three hundred-odd people using a particular software package in the BigCo.  A Several of menks used "Reply All" to provide the requested information to the originator thereof.  Even after someone had sent a "Reply All" message saying "please do not use 'Reply All' to provide the requested information", further menks did.

300? Myself and at least one other around here saw something sent to a mailing list of all London staff, where all London staff would have been around 5k people.

After about 15 people had hit reply all and said "please don't send this to me", the mail system melted. For some hours.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Now, this is a fairly poor grumble in as much as I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth and all,
but it's a grumble that's been going round our work recently.

Our USAsian BigCo hand out Long Service Awards.  These have taken various forms over the years.
I have just done a 25-yr stretch without parole.

The current program is a pre-loaded 'Declining Balance' credit card, which you can use for anything you like.
That's a great idea for me, as Golf Clubs are no use to me, I don't need an Ornamental Clock, and we already have a Fondue Set.
This card has 'Bike' ( or at least 'Frame' ) written all over it.

Thing is, it's denominated in $USD.
There's a currency conversion fee of 2% ( hmph, but OK ).
But here's the thing:  There's no way to tell the Currency Conversion rate which will be applied when your transaction is posted.
So you don't know the actual value of the card in £GBP, at the time you are handing the card over.
So you can't 'max it out': you have to 'guess' what will go through, and by some recursive process of declines eventually get it accepted, and then have some un-useable residue on the card.

The company in question can issue cards denominated in £GBP, but the decree from our BigCo is that all cards will be in $USD.

Bah.

Buy something special from the USA?

[interzen]

^^ That.

If you're having trouble thinking of things to buy from the USA, just give the card to me - I have no shortage of ideas

In the meantime: handyman with the BFO drill next door, kindly fuck off and come back later. Ideally after I've gone into the office.

Apropos of this: UPS: kindly hurry up and delivery my Raspberry Pi so I can actually go to the office in the first place.

[ian]

Now, this is a fairly poor grumble in as much as I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth and all,
but it's a grumble that's been going round our work recently.

Our USAsian BigCo hand out Long Service Awards.  These have taken various forms over the years.
I have just done a 25-yr stretch without parole.

The current program is a pre-loaded 'Declining Balance' credit card, which you can use for anything you like.
That's a great idea for me, as Golf Clubs are no use to me, I don't need an Ornamental Clock, and we already have a Fondue Set.
This card has 'Bike' ( or at least 'Frame' ) written all over it.

Thing is, it's denominated in $USD.
There's a currency conversion fee of 2% ( hmph, but OK ).
But here's the thing:  There's no way to tell the Currency Conversion rate which will be applied when your transaction is posted.
So you don't know the actual value of the card in £GBP, at the time you are handing the card over.
So you can't 'max it out': you have to 'guess' what will go through, and by some recursive process of declines eventually get it accepted, and then have some un-useable residue on the card.

The company in question can issue cards denominated in £GBP, but the decree from our BigCo is that all cards will be in $USD.

Bah.

If it's an AMEX card you're about to find out it doesn't even work outside the USA. Leastways they one they gave me doesn't. As a 'valued customer' they promised to send me a cheque in good old pounds sterling. That was last November. I'm thinking we have differing definitions of 'valued'.

I'd just use the damn thing in the US but I inadvertently fed the card to shredding machine, now it's half a card (with the number intact).

[Bledlow]

The company in question can issue cards denominated in £GBP, but the decree from our BigCo is that all cards will be in $USD.

Bah.

Why? Don't the management realise how inconvenient this is for staff in many other countries, & how much it therefore annoys them?

[Woofage]

Birth Announcements on company email.

I'm sure it's very exciting for the people involved.  However this is a company with 1400 employees, most of whom I will never meet or even know about. FFS, you do not need to tell us all that someone in your team has popped out a sprog, it's quite a common occurrence you know.

That reminds me: job creation schemes.

A former colleague (who was later disciplined because he was a waste of space, but that's another story) advertised something on via the co. e-mail system. The CEO got the hump and instead of asking IT to implement a sensible policy he instead banned all distribution lists. Twat.

What we ended up with was a system whereby we had to ask a designated member of staff to send the e-mail on our behalf if it was to a list of people. In other words, another inefficient job creation scheme, a total waste of time and complete lack of trust in your staff. Good riddance to the CEO who was bumped out some time later.

[Chris S]

Oh FFS!

"The middle of the week is likely to see winds from the east or NE, bringing
colder-than-average temperatures to many areas. Coastal areas in the east
will be at risk of sleet or snow showers and a few convective showers may
form further inland."

This winter is never going to end, is it? 

[Andrij]

Oh FFS!

"The middle of the week is likely to see winds from the east or NE, bringing
colder-than-average temperatures to many areas. Coastal areas in the east
will be at risk of sleet or snow showers and a few convective showers may
form further inland."

This winter is never going to end, is it? 

The Daily Mash knows when winter will end. 

[Guy]

A couple of years ago someone had the bright idea of clearing out our files by saving 'em to disc. They even labelled the discs so we'd kno what's on 'em.

Unfortunately "5-01" doesn't tell me much, so now I've got to go in and open all the folders and sub-folders to see what's there, and at an average of 7 minutes to open a single folder this is going to be a looooooong job 

[clarion]

The Daily Mash knows when winter will end. 

That's genius!

[interzen]

Oh FFS!

"The middle of the week is likely to see winds from the east or NE, bringing
colder-than-average temperatures to many areas. Coastal areas in the east
will be at risk of sleet or snow showers and a few convective showers may
form further inland."

This winter is never going to end, is it? 

I'm surprised the Met Office aren't predicting a 'barbeque summer' already 

Long(er)-range forecasts are dicey at best, but I trust the Met Office about as far as I could spit Poland. The long-term forecast from yr.no is predicting that it'll be sunny, but cold.

I don't mind winter, but it'd be nice to have some proper, fat-bike worthy, snow rather than the half-arsed unpleasantness we've been subjected to recently (Wednesday night, in particular)

[Arch]

Oh FFS!

"The middle of the week is likely to see winds from the east or NE, bringing
colder-than-average temperatures to many areas. Coastal areas in the east
will be at risk of sleet or snow showers and a few convective showers may
form further inland."

This winter is never going to end, is it? 

Um, it is only mid February. By no stretch of the imagination is it not still justifiably winter.  Come back and grumble if it's still doing it in April.

[Mrs Pingu]

Twatted my hand off a tap, got an instant bruise and a lump.
Also, gin stocks are perilously low.

[perpetual dan]

We need a new thermostat, as a prior owner of our house had the bright idea of putting it in the kitchen. Something wireless with a base replacing the old one seems plausible - the kitchen is on the middle floor and not doing wiring will speed the job up. As luck would have it a new screwfix has opened around the corner. I've had a look at their offerings. Someone can't do units - one unit has a 30mm range, another has a 100mm range. That's not very impressive is it.

[Kim]

Someone can't do units - one unit has a 30mm range, another has a 100mm range. That's not very impressive is it.

About average for a cycle computer

[CrinklyLion]

Buggrit.  Completely fucked over left ankle again.