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

[Biggsy]

District nurse phones to say she'll visit to give Dad his flu jab on Monday.

(click to show/hide)

Er, he's already had his jab a couple of weeks ago.  Just the latest in a very long list of NHS communication cockups Dad has suffered.  I wonder how many elderly forgetful people on their own will be getting one than one flu jab this year?

[clarion]

It does happen from time to time*, and is a predictable result of the marketification of the NHS.




* It's not harmful.

[tiermat]

Sodding body*, sodding mind**, grump...

*It's week 10
**It's week 10

[Polar Bear]

I wanted a non urgent GP appointment last week.   December 27th.   Yup, that's pretty well non-urgent.   

[Cudzoziemiec]

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrh! I finally have a free day, so I plan a little bike ride - up Hinton Hill, out to Tormarton and then I'd see how I was doing for time, maybe to Grittleton - but during the night the boiler packed up (only three months after it last broke down) so now I'm waiting in until the gasman cometh. Ggggggggggggaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhg!

[Basil]

Bugger.  They're closing our swimming pool.
 

[Cudzoziemiec]

More ggggggggggggggaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrh! Plumber will be here about 6 o'clock. Hmph. 

[barakta]

I feel like shit onna stick.  My 2pm stude didn't turn up.  I am hoping my 3pm stude also unreliable doesn't so up so I can fuck off at 3:30pm and call it quits.   Am not fit for owt.

[Kim]

Earlier this afternoon I discovered that the Carry Freedom trailer hitch has a hole about 1mm too narrow for the axle of the trike's rear hub motor.  This was after I'd faffed about removing the left side of the pannier rack, naturally (I see Radical bags in barakta's future).  I also discovered that I don't have a 12mm metal drill bit.  Had to do a big shop (cupboards being depleted due to weeks of lurgy) and recycling run under leg power alone, which has re-annoyed my knee.

[GothonaBrompton]

What is the polite notice to put up in the communal corridor/reception of an office to indicate that it is really bl**dy rude and annoying to sit on one of the lovely comfy leather sofas and conduct your personal business all day?

I sit at the back of a shared secretarial office, near the window, but it is driving my colleague batty as her part of the front wall of the office, facing the corridor, is glass with said sofa backing on to it, so she is very close to him (there is one particular chap that does this at least 4 times a day).  We could close the door but it looks a bit unfriendly and my boss in particular has lots of people coming and going.

The corridor area is also used by people conducting company business on mobiles but that can't find a meeting room.

TBH I'm not that fussed as most of my career I have worked in open plan offices and this private office, by dint of being the PA to the most senior boss, is a luxury (and has a nice cupboard I can lock my Brompton in)  but my colleague has been in a private office environment for at least 12 years and any noise in the corridor or the ladies on reception laughing (god forbid they should be happy) drives her mad.

Basically I share an office with a grumpy old cow but I occasionally nod and agree for some peace and quiet.

[Kim]

Sounds like you need to re-purpose the lovely comfy leather sofas...   

[Biggsy]

District Practice nurse phones to say she'll visit to give Dad his flu jab on Monday.

(click to show/hide)

Er, he's already had his jab a couple of weeks ago.  Just the latest in a very long list of NHS communication cockups Dad has suffered.  I wonder how many elderly forgetful people on their own will be getting one than one flu jab this year?

Correction: it was the GP practice nurse who phoned.  Of course it's no surprise that the practice and the district nurses don't talk to each other.  Nor does the hospital dealing with my dad's hernia talk to the hospital dealing with his legs.  (No energy for more detail on that).

[Kim]

An older person with the same name pattern as me has signed up for a daily feed of truly terrible jokes, minus their punch-lines (which you have to go to a website to read).  Because I really needed more #EveryDaySexism.

[clarion]

Would it be better if they sent the punchlines?

[Ham]

I think punching lines in the sender would be more apposite.

[Andrew Br]

I don't know why Eon put a card saying they'd come to read the meters through my door yesterday further telling me that they'd come back tomorrow between 08-00-12.00.
Guess what ? I can't arrange to be home at such short notice.
And the meters are outside anyway................

[Cudzoziemiec]

An older person with the same name pattern as me has signed up for a daily feed of truly terrible jokes, minus their punch-lines (which you have to go to a website to read).  Because I really needed more #EveryDaySexism.

How does that work then? If your name is Kim Commonname and your email is k.commonname@gmail.com, and Kevin or Karen Commonname, when asked for their email while visiting Jokes R Us, goes "Oh, I don't remember... Oh yes, it's gmail, it's k.commonname@gmail.com. Yes, I'd love to get your weekly digest of assorted crap and retail opportunities thinly disguised as humorous news items of interest only to advertising execs." ? So it's the online equivalent of me clipping out a coupon from the Radio Times* and having the Cudzolicious Collection of Cudzosity **inadvertently shipped to Kim Towers, Kimsville, Kimshire?

If it's not that, how? If it is that, how do people manage to do such things??!??!??

*Does this still exist?
**Yours for only £9.99 cash, cheque or postal order and £9.99 a week thereafter until you die or cancel the order, whichever is the later.

[Bledlow]

I don't know why Eon put a card saying they'd come to read the meters through my door yesterday further telling me that they'd come back tomorrow between 08-00-12.00.
Guess what ? I can't arrange to be home at such short notice.
And the meters are outside anyway................

For the same reason as NTL once put a card through my door re the fault I'd reported, saying they'd called to fix it but I was out?

I'd reported that their green box half-way down the road had been run into by a car mounting the pavement & the door was smashed & hanging open. 

[Kim]

An older person with the same name pattern as me has signed up for a daily feed of truly terrible jokes, minus their punch-lines (which you have to go to a website to read).  Because I really needed more #EveryDaySexism.

How does that work then? If your name is Kim Commonname and your email is k.commonname@gmail.com, and Kevin or Karen Commonname, when asked for their email while visiting Jokes R Us, goes "Oh, I don't remember... Oh yes, it's gmail, it's k.commonname@gmail.com. Yes, I'd love to get your weekly digest of assorted crap and retail opportunities thinly disguised as humorous news items of interest only to advertising execs." ?

Yes, exactly.  It's worse than that, my gmail address is kim.commonname@gmail.com, so they are actually Kims (of assorted genders and nationalities, but none seem to show obvious signs of being younger than me).  I expect they fed their name in to gmail, it said the obvious address was taken and offered them kim.commonname37@ or similar instead.  I expect some automagically configured mail clients mask the address with their full name so they never get reminded that there's a 37.

So I get their spam, gun receipts, electricity bills, royalties statements, photos of grandchildren and confidential union meeting minutes and so on.  If it's a credible organisation who are likely to have alternative contact details I'll generally reply and say their customer doesn't know their own email address.  Random top-posting iPhone-using image-attaching endless-CCers just get ignored.  They're unlikely to understand the problem.

On one occasion I got a message with some quoted material containing my doppelganger's actual address (of the numerical suffix variety), and was able to email them and explain the problem.  This got me added to their address book, so I was able to see the message they sent to everyone they knew (without the aid of BCC) explaining the importance of spelling "Kim.commonname" with a capital 'K' because otherwise it would go to me.  Case sensitivity is possible but strongly disrecommended in the local part of email addresses; gmail isn't case-sensitive, and indeed ignores the presence of dots ("kimcommonname" and "kim.c.om.mon.name" are aliases).

There's an old sysadmin saying: "You can lead a luser to clue, but you can't beat them to death with it."   

[Cudzoziemiec]

What a bum deal - you get the bills and the receipts but not the power or the shooters! Still, at least you don't have to get presents for the grandchildren.

More importantly - why haven't you replied to my email? 

[Cudzoziemiec]

P.S. I like XKCD's pisstake of the Wikipedia "please donate" banner.

[perpetual dan]

This lurgy does rather hang about. I was off work today and had a day in bed a bit over a week ago. Definitely no energy for ranting.

[mcshroom]

If there's a set of tablets your customers might be desperate for and therefore should always be held in stock - I think Immodium would count as one of them. I am not impressed with the big empty hole in my co-op's drug counter where they should have been. Thankfully I was able to make it the extra 2 miles to the SPAR in the next village and back home without incident. Stupid winter bugs

[Mrs Pingu]

It's very dark outside already.

[hellymedic]

It's very dark outside already.

It's the earliest sunset of the year in most places on 12 or 13 December.
Things can only get better!