I will admit that recruiters do prey on the stupid. But that's because they have quotas to meet and if they don't they lose their cushy recruiter job and get sent back to the regular army.
Random Rants #88: [incoherent screaming]
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I will admit that recruiters do prey on the stupid. But that's because they have quotas to meet and if they don't they lose their cushy recruiter job and get sent back to the regular army.
thecrazyscot
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I'm trying to decide whether I should spend an extra $150 to avoid $12 in shipping on some board games.
Financially, it doesn't make sense, but I'm so averse to "wasting" money on shipping as a result of Amazon Prime that I seriously consider doing things like this which objectively don't make sense.
Financially, it doesn't make sense, but I'm so averse to "wasting" money on shipping as a result of Amazon Prime that I seriously consider doing things like this which objectively don't make sense.
aimeeandbeatles
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Sadly my printer crapped itself and good luck understanding my handwriting.
I don't remember if it was Amazon or someplace else, but I remember adding paperclips to the order to get it just over the free shipping threshold.
Farm Boy
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Yeah, there's that old joke about who goes into the Army/Navy/Marines, and who goes into the Air Force. It has some prima facie.
Please tell me more about how public school teachers, police officers, park rangers, firefighters, social workers, the maintenance and janitorial staff at any government building, researchers at national labs, postal workers, and any number of other non-administrative, non-military government jobs are for incompetent, unemployable people
If it's administrators and bureaucrats you're complaining about, good news! There's plenty of jobs like that in the private sector, too, because layers of useless bureaucracy is a feature of any sufficiently large organization, not just the government.
JohannaK
Heroically Clueless
The government's problem is that they spend all the tax money in benefits for the military people instead of things that matter, like hiring more competent guards.
City bureaucracy...So this city inspector calls this morning about something that needed to be removed from the property last Spring. He says he's received multiple recent complaints from neighbors - I asked him, point blank, "recently?" and he said "yes" - and that if it's not done by tomorrow, he's taking the issue to court. I'm thinking, "WTH, I thought that was taken care of months ago" and I'm getting ready to throw the maintenance guy under the bus. The city inspector emailed me a copy of the complaint, and not only is the complaint dated [flipping] February, the eyesore in question is long gone. I double-checked with the maintenance guy, and I was right, he took care of it back in March (I'm glad I didn't get all up in his face about it). The guy from the city asked me to send him a photo to prove the work's been done, but now I'm thinking he can just get up off his lazy, confrontational [butt] and take a look for himself. Donkey.
Many years ago I went to City Hall to renew the license for our dog. As a neutered male, his license cost less than an un-neutered male. I had the previous year's receipt with me, but was that good enough? NooOOOooo. The airhead at the counter wanted vet records. I told her that we didn't have them because we'd adopted the dog from the previous owner and he had had the dog neutered.
She continued to argue even when I showed her the previous year's receipt showing the fee was for a neutered dog. So finally I said, "I can always bring him in, hoist him up on the counter, and you can look for yourself."
She shut up and gave me the license for the neutered rate.
I wonder... if you emailed the text to Synsensa, maybe he could print it and send it for you. Or if you know someone with good handwriting who would take dictation for you...
Consumer complaints sometimes work better than we hope. Or maybe it's just a coincidence that when I emailed the McCain company and told them how stupid and insulting one of their pizza commercials was (stereotypical western Canadian cowboy BS commercial made by easterners whose view of Alberta is oil, gas, and the Calgary Stampede; some of them really do think everyone is like that all year round here), the commercial was removed. And Pepsi Blue disappeared from the store shelves here after I informed the customer service agent that I hated it because it smelled and tasted like cough syrup, and my mother - who worked in a convenience store - said nobody was buying it and anyone who'd tried it said it was awful.
I did a similar thing when I was a dollar short of free shipping for a pre-pandemic Staples order (they don't have a shipping minimum now, so if you want anything there that's cheap, now's the time). But I added a package of pens, not paper clips.
It's insane how the UCP supporters here think the teachers are useless. Teachers and parents are frantic about our province's stupidity in throwing social distancing out the window for schools after they finally did the math and realized that what people had been saying for months is true: it is impossible to put 30 kids and one teacher into a normal classroom and keep everyone 2 metres apart.
The same happened to me last week.
Rant. Imprisonment ongoing, government which previously referred to itself as ‘government of scientists’ is now officially ruling by star chart. Not a joke, we're really seeing court astrologers re-emerge as a decision-making force in politics, live on ArgenTV.
Compared to their private sector counterparts? You bet they are the absolute bottom of the barrel of their chosen profession. And the reason their private sector counterparts are better is because a large multinational corporation is pretty much going through life with the infinite money cheat code on and can afford to snatch up the best talent, while governments with their limited budgets are forced to settle for the bargain bin employees.
Even when it comes to military stuff, the private sector does it better. Mercenaries are all usually ex-special forces or some other type of highly-trained elite operative while the average government soldier is just some poor slob that gets pulled off the street. Again, that's because the private sector pays better. So once that poor slob is turned into an elite operative by the government, they get out of the military and take their services to the private sector. Hell, I bet if you started letting corporations have air forces and navies, those would probably eventually be superior to their government counterparts as well.
aimeeandbeatles
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yes, that is why the Canadian military had to intervene at a bunch of privately-owned LTCs in Ontario earlier this year. Cockroach infestations and residents left in their own feces for hours.
Private sector cares about one thing: increasing profits.
If you actually want all the games and would buy them over time, then spend the $150 now and get them. But if you are just being like my wife and buying all that crap to save $12, yes, you are being ridiculous. Now, if spending $12 at this time is a hardship, don't buy anything.
aimeeandbeatles
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Rant: I had a cool scene for my fanfic in my head. But when I tried to turn it into words, it came out weird.
Synobun
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It sounds fine, you goober.
I can almost feel half a century of repressed ‘don't be ridiculous, dear’ coming out of this post.If you actually want all the games and would buy them over time, then spend the $150 now and get them. But if you are just being like my wife and buying all that crap to save $12, yes, you are being ridiculous. Now, if spending $12 at this time is a hardship, don't buy anything.
Have you tried recording yourself instead of writing it?
That's a common thing. Do you include music and effects when you see your story in your head? It can be very hard to translate that to prose and get the same nuance.
This is why I keep paper and pens around me at all times. When I get a good line of dialogue or idea for a scene, I need to write it down immediately.
aimeeandbeatles
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Are those people who go "Don't worry about COVID-19, most people who die had underlying conditions anyways!" supposed to be reassuring? Because a lot of people have "underlying conditions"....
Synobun
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It's also a fundamental misunderstanding of how death reports are filled out.
First, some of the jobs I mentioned don't even really have a private-sector counterpart. I don't think there's any private-sector firefighters out there.
Second, with stuff like maintenance and janitorial staff or any other low-level, "low skill" job, I guarantee you they're getting paid <excrement> regardless of whether they're working for the private or public sector, and for that matter, in both cases, there's a decent chance they're actually working for a sub-contractor who just pays them terribly with no benefits and crap scheduling
Third, comparing a large multinational corporation to a local government is like comparing the New York Yankees to some random minor league team in a town with around 2000 people- not really remotely the same scale of operation there, and if it's a national government position, they probably actually can pay pretty competitively because they almost literally do have the infinite money cheat code on
Fourth, a lot of the public-sector jobs tend to have lower pay but better benefits and job security, so even some of the more talented workers just end up gravitating towards that because they don't want to end up switching private companies they work for every 3 years because that's the only way they can get raises and promotions, or because random layoffs happen sometimes, or the tech startup you worked for is going under, or maybe they just like the work environment better or think that their job is more meaningful and helpful to the public at large than a comparable private sector job would be, and they wanna feel like they're doing some sort of good with their job
Fifth, if it's a job like a researcher at a public university or a national lab, they're pretty much all highly talented people, they're getting paid pretty well, definitely comparable to what they could get at any sort of comparable private-sector job
Sixth, "better" in what sense? Private sector corporations can do some things better, but the public sector provides lots of services that no private corporation ever would because there's no way to make a profit off it- USPS will deliver anything anywhere fairly cheaply, UPS or FedEx would absolutely not send your mail to BFE middle-of-nowhere, Alaska, for anywhere near as low of a price as USPS would. More generally, public services have to serve everyone everywhere in the country and do so equitably, private services are under no such obligation, and a public service doesn't have to run profits for owners or shareholders, because they're investments in the community, not ways of making rich dudes some more money
Seventh, like I said, large multinational corporations also have layers upon layers of middle managers and other assorted administrative positions that really don't do anything useful and aren't usually exactly the most talented of workers themselves, as dictated by the Dilbert principle
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