Author Topic: The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant. (Read 1624417 times)

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #15925 on:** 04 March, 2023, 09:37:43 pm »

Quote from: Mrs Pingu on 04 March, 2023, 02:18:38 pm

I'm going to France tomorrow for work. Due to travel home on Wednesday (which will take all day as there are no Air France flights to Furrybootoon anymore).
Except there are French strikes planned for Tuesday and Wednesday.
What could possibly go wrong? (Packs extra undies)

And now it seems there are no such thing as taxis from PUF on a Sunday. 2.5H walk to my hotel at 2300

Beardy · « **Reply #15926 on:** 05 March, 2023, 01:12:12 am »

Quote from: Mrs Pingu on 04 March, 2023, 09:37:43 pm

Quote from: Mrs Pingu on 04 March, 2023, 02:18:38 pm
I'm going to France tomorrow for work. Due to travel home on Wednesday (which will take all day as there are no Air France flights to Furrybootoon anymore).
Except there are French strikes planned for Tuesday and Wednesday.
What could possibly go wrong? (Packs extra undies)

And now it seems there are no such thing as taxis from PUF on a Sunday. 2.5H walk to my hotel at 2300

Is a hire car an option? No reasonable employer would refuse to pay for such if no other transport were available.

robgul · « **Reply #15927 on:** 05 March, 2023, 07:55:48 am »

Quote from: Beardy on 05 March, 2023, 01:12:12 am

Quote from: Mrs Pingu on 04 March, 2023, 09:37:43 pm
Quote from: Mrs Pingu on 04 March, 2023, 02:18:38 pm
I'm going to France tomorrow for work. Due to travel home on Wednesday (which will take all day as there are no Air France flights to Furrybootoon anymore).
Except there are French strikes planned for Tuesday and Wednesday.
What could possibly go wrong? (Packs extra undies)

And now it seems there are no such thing as taxis from PUF on a Sunday. 2.5H walk to my hotel at 2300
Is a hire car an option? No reasonable employer would refuse to pay for such if no other transport were available.

Doubtful at that hour on a Sunday

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #15928 on:** 05 March, 2023, 08:04:58 am »

There wouldn't be a problem on my employer's side but I really don't want to have to be trying to navigate in a strange car in a strange town in the dark on my own given my night vision is a bit crap.

orienteer · « **Reply #15929 on:** 05 March, 2023, 10:03:32 am »

Ask the hotel whether they could arrange a pick-up?

Pingu · « **Reply #15930 on:** 05 March, 2023, 10:36:35 am »

One of her colleagues in situ has managed to book a taxi

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #15931 on:** 05 March, 2023, 10:38:12 am »

Hurrah! Internets restored in the Wee Smalls

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #15932 on:** 05 March, 2023, 10:50:53 am »

[ungrumble]And I have an unexpected travel buddy so I won't be rocking up there on my tod

T42 · « **Reply #15933 on:** 05 March, 2023, 04:57:51 pm »

Why the hell do they put the frame number on the bottom bracket then put the cable guide over it so that you can't read it?

Beardy · « **Reply #15934 on:** 05 March, 2023, 07:31:10 pm »

Why doesn’t the YouTube app have an option to exclude ‘shorts’ from my subscriptions list. It’s getting silly when some providers are putting 5 or 6 shorts a day in their feed and only releasing a longer video weekly.

Ok, it’s a rhetorical question, and it could probably have as easily gone in first world problems, but it’s really beginning to tick me off.

Paul · « **Reply #15935 on:** 06 March, 2023, 12:13:57 am »

Quote from: T42 on 05 March, 2023, 04:57:51 pm

Why the hell do they put the frame number on the bottom bracket then put the cable guide over it so that you can't read it?

I know. I think it’s just so that we don’t get too relaxed about things.

robgul · « **Reply #15936 on:** 06 March, 2023, 07:42:44 am »

Quote from: Beardy on 05 March, 2023, 07:31:10 pm

Why doesn’t the YouTube app have an option to exclude ‘shorts’ from my subscriptions list. It’s getting silly when some providers are putting 5 or 6 shorts a day in their feed and only releasing a longer video weekly.

Ok, it’s a rhetorical question, and it could probably have as easily gone in first world problems, but it’s really beginning to tick me off.

+1 - I understand that YT has upped the payment alogorithm for "shorts" - hence the upswing in numbers to increase content providers' revenues. They're pretty much a waste of time - along with quite a lot of the mainstream dross on YT.

Edit: a quick Google suggests that you can suppress the shorts in the YT phone/tablet app - but as yet I've not found a way to do that with a PC browser (whic is how I watch YT)

Edit 2 - Firefox extension Hide YouTube-Shorts does the job . . no Shorts appear in my subscribed list of channels.

Pickled Onion · « **Reply #15937 on:** 11 March, 2023, 05:08:26 pm »

My BB renewal date is 5 April. So last year on 30 March I phoned and renewed the contract.

There's a clause in the contract that says "the price will increase by CPI. + x% in March each year". Silly me assuming it meant *during* the contract.

Nope.

It went up on 31 March, before the contract started

Polar Bear · « **Reply #15938 on:** 14 March, 2023, 01:51:49 am »

Been sitting waiting with an oldie for an out of hours district nurse. What little humour might have been there at the outset is long gone. 🙁

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #15939 on:** 14 March, 2023, 09:49:52 am »

Is that noise a bunch of rufty-tufty hairy-arsed builders with a gennie or compressor or similar?

Why, no! No, it is not. It is a rufty-tufty hairy-arsed lorry driver who has parked his reefer wagon directly opposite Larrington Towers in order to make a very slow delivery somewhere. I hope your vehicle catches fire and the insewerants won’t pay up

I'd just finished typing that when he buggered off.

MattH · « **Reply #15940 on:** 15 March, 2023, 11:12:33 am »

"your call is important to us" hold music. Apart from being annoying, I've been listening to one for about 15 minutes now on speakerphone. But where it loops, it stops suddenly mid-tune - to make you think it's been answered - then starts again just as you reach for the phone. Would a gentle fade out before starting again be too much to ask for.

woollypigs · « **Reply #15941 on:** 15 March, 2023, 02:08:02 pm »

It truly amazing in all the years of hanging on the telephone and enduring the "hold" music. I've only once heard a quality that didn't make my ears bleed.

A couple of times there had been good tunes, but the digitalization had butchered any quality there was and made it impossible to enjoy.

That one company, sadly forgotten, I had to make a comment where I thanked the powers that be.

One should think in this day and age, the sound quality on a digital phone system, one would be able to listen too with fear of permanent damage.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #15942 on:** 15 March, 2023, 02:20:37 pm »

I've never encountered Blondie as hold music, which is odd,
https://youtu.be/uWhkbDMISl8

woollypigs · « **Reply #15943 on:** 15 March, 2023, 02:25:13 pm »

I've heard her "One way or another" but never the above linked

barakta · « **Reply #15944 on:** 15 March, 2023, 02:37:14 pm »

Tom Scott did a video on why hold music has got even worse

Beardy · « **Reply #15945 on:** 15 March, 2023, 03:00:26 pm »

The simple fact is that businesses want you to use their websites and not call them at all. It is far far cheaper to do customer handling via websites than over the phone , so anything that can be done to drive you to the website is fair game.

Polar Bear · « **Reply #15946 on:** 15 March, 2023, 03:08:54 pm »

Quote from: Polar Bear on 14 March, 2023, 01:51:49 am

Been sitting waiting with an oldie for an out of hours district nurse. What little humour might have been there at the outset is long gone. 🙁

It got worse.

At 6:00a.m. I called 111 for the third time. They said that they had referred to call to the out of hours district nurse. I pressed the issue and spent over 90 minutes with various call handlers and a clinician.

At 745:am they admitted defeat and suggested that I call the daytime service district nurse at 8:am, 12 hours after the call for out of hours service.

He was sorted by 10:30, but...

During my interaction with the daytime district nursing team ( discovered that the out of hours district nurse does not deal with catheters stomas, etc. but there is a dedicated rapid response team with a dedicated telephone number which does. I am amazed that 111 did not know this and neither did the clinician with whom I discussed the problems at length.

The NHS is a crumbling wreck, unfortunately. Thank you tories.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #15947 on:** 15 March, 2023, 03:11:50 pm »

Quote from: barakta on 15 March, 2023, 02:37:14 pm

Tom Scott did a video on why hold music has got even worse

It's not really the sound quality that's the objectionable thing about hold music, it's (frequently) the limited choice of music (yes of course I love Vivaldi, but not the same six bars repeated for the nth time), and (always) the fact that you really just want to talk to a person. And of course, you wouldn't be phoning them at all unless something hadn't already gone wrong, so even if the phone is answered instantly by a knowledgeable human, it's still a shit experience.

TheLurker · « **Reply #15948 on:** 15 March, 2023, 04:36:54 pm »

The thing that pisses me off is the, "Use the website, it's quicker" message on the company IT support line. Yes, well. I wouldn't be bloody well calling the help line if I could access the sodding web site, now would I?

barakta · « **Reply #15949 on:** 15 March, 2023, 05:17:17 pm »

Polar Bear, sadly a common issue. A friend of mine was discharged from hospital with a catheter which blocked and he couldn't unblock it. His usual district nurses were closed and it was only cos a mutual friend knows about national out of hours services that they were able to find the right number. It was a medical emergency cos of bladder bursting risk and friend didn't want to be 999ed back to hospital (if that could even have been done within the 2 hour emergency window).

Oh and you can BSL call 111 via video-relay setup but there is no way for them to call people back in BSL....

111 is a waste of fucking time. They don't know anything when they should know and their data recording about reported issues is useless (lets suggest medX to someone who is allergic to medX and when medX is not a treatment for KnownDiagnosedIssueTM). I flat out won't use 111 now and I will tell other parts of the NHS exactly why.

If they want me to use a service, it needs to not be obnoxiously shit.