Things I find a tad exasperating v.3

[jingle.boy]

Yeah, I wonder if there's something to be said about taking some rules away that lead to people driving better because they need to be more aware.  Also, I do believe the road itself is better maintained for such driving.  Also, I think there's less and less spots of no speed limits these days.  I've done the drive between Amsterdam and Frankfurt like 5 or so times now.

Along these lines, I remember someone / some article I heard/read years ago that said the safer cars get, the worse drivers become.  Don't believe me?  Put a 18" metal spike protruding from the middle of a steering wheel, and see how safe drivers become.

This also reminds me of something the ole football coach Joe Paterno used to say.  He thought if they wanted to make football safer, you should remove the helmets.  Which sounds counterintuitive, but if you didn't have the protection, you'd play much differently to protect yourself.  I don't know if it would have worked, kind of hard to support such an idea, but does make you think that some of the safety features we put in place end up changing the way the human acts.

He should have started with changing the behavior of his assistant coach,  Jerry Sandusky.

[Chino]

I look at a few 16' aluminum V-hull boats on FB market place, and now three weeks later my feed is full of yachts and old catamarans.

[vtgrad]

Yeah, I wonder if there's something to be said about taking some rules away that lead to people driving better because they need to be more aware.  Also, I do believe the road itself is better maintained for such driving.  Also, I think there's less and less spots of no speed limits these days.  I've done the drive between Amsterdam and Frankfurt like 5 or so times now.

Along these lines, I remember someone / some article I heard/read years ago that said the safer cars get, the worse drivers become.  Don't believe me?  Put a 18" metal spike protruding from the middle of a steering wheel, and see how safe drivers become.

This also reminds me of something the ole football coach Joe Paterno used to say.  He thought if they wanted to make football safer, you should remove the helmets.  Which sounds counterintuitive, but if you didn't have the protection, you'd play much differently to protect yourself.  I don't know if it would have worked, kind of hard to support such an idea, but does make you think that some of the safety features we put in place end up changing the way the human acts.

He should have started with changing the behavior of his assistant coach,  Jerry Sandusky.

  If the shoe fits... Coach Pat likely needed to tend his own garden before moving on to tending the garden of College Football.  However, I'd agree with removing Sandusky's "helmet" without any further debate or thought...

I look at a few 16' aluminum V-hull boats on FB market place, and now three weeks later my feed is full of yachts and old catamarans.

I'm kinda in the same boat as you (that belongs in the pun thread).  My wife and I booked an Airbnb at Prospect Harbor in Maine one night this week for our vacation, and before that night was over, Youtube had recognized my "shopping habits" and my suggested videos were full of New England destination vids.  I know that this is how we're monetized for these channels, but does it have to be so obvious?  I was in-private when the Abnb was booked and I'm on a VPN.

[Cool Chris]

I am glad I found kindred spirits here when it comes to spouses holding on to things, thinking others will want their crap, or that their junk has more value than it really does.

So let me ask this... when your spouse is planning a week long trip, does it make Eisenhower planning the Normandy invasion seem like he's getting together with a few friends for a picnic by comparison?

[jingle.boy]

So let me ask this... when your spouse is planning a week long trip, does it make Eisenhower planning the Normandy invasion seem like he's getting together with a few friends for a picnic by comparison?

when our kids were young, yeah.  mrs.jingle would break out the suitcases about 2 weeks ahead of time and start packing a little bit every day.  Lists upon lists of things we need, instructions on every little thing about our pets and the house for those that were house or pet-sitting for us.  None of that was difficult to deal with - it was the anxieties for weeks leading up to the vacation (worries about everything, 'what-ifs') that were a pain in the ass.  2-3 weeks of anxiety to have a 1-week vacation.

[Cool Chris]

Man, I wish I had that problem. My wife will stress about it for weeks ahead, but wait till the last day to even get the suitcases down. They are leaving at noon today and at 10p last night were still packing.

I always travel with the mindset of "As long as I have my phone and my wallet, if I forgot something I will buy a new one." Unfortunately some of our family trips are to places where that isn't always easy. And yes kids exacerbates the potential for problems, and "what ifs?" 

[pg1067]

Man, I wish I had that problem. My wife will stress about it for weeks ahead, but wait till the last day to even get the suitcases down. They are leaving at noon today and at 10p last night were still packing.

I always travel with the mindset of "As long as I have my phone and my wallet, if I forgot something I will buy a new one." Unfortunately some of our family trips are to places where that isn't always easy. And yes kids exacerbates the potential for problems, and "what ifs?"

My wife packs with "outfits" in mind, which makes zero sense to me, yet she still insists on running through her list with me.  That's where I just turn the brain off and nod every once in a while.

[Stadler]

My wife is funny about this;  she doesn't pack a ton of stuff. She's good about that.  But she puts it all in a suitcase that is like a rock and roll flight case.  I swear, we could put the kids in there too if we wanted to. 

[King Postwhore]

My wife packs for 3 days one a one day trip. You can imagine for a week.

[Cool Chris]

My wife packs with "outfits" in mind, which makes zero sense to me, yet she still insists on running through her list with me.  That's where I just turn the brain off and nod every once in a while.

Mine ziploc'ed each of my 3 year old's outfits in to their own bag, thereby facilitating getting her dressed each morning. I guess it would make things easier, but by how much? I don't exactly stress over if she has on the correct matching shirt/dress/skirt/pants.

[TAC]

My wife packs with "outfits" in mind, which makes zero sense to me, yet she still insists on running through her list with me.  That's where I just turn the brain off and nod every once in a while.

Mine ziploc'ed each of my 3 year old's outfits in to their own bag, thereby facilitating getting her dressed each morning. I guess it would make things easier, but by how much? I don't exactly stress over if she has on the correct matching shirt/dress/skirt/pants.

How many 3 year olds do you have?

[Cool Chris]

 

[Chino]

I took this photo coming home from vacation a few years ago. His/hers 

[pg1067]

My wife packs with "outfits" in mind, which makes zero sense to me, yet she still insists on running through her list with me.  That's where I just turn the brain off and nod every once in a while.

Mine ziploc'ed each of my 3 year old's outfits in to their own bag, thereby facilitating getting her dressed each morning. I guess it would make things easier, but by how much? I don't exactly stress over if she has on the correct matching shirt/dress/skirt/pants.

I guess it's because almost all of my clothes match (pretty much everything goes with blue jeans and black shorts), I just worry about bringing enough underwear.  It's been a long time since all four of us went on a trip together.  I think we may have divided and conquered with the kids at that time.  Now that my kids are 17 and 19, they're able to do it all themselves, and I don't miss it a bit!

[TAC]

....when you go to wipe your ass and the toilet paper slips off your hand and you don't realize it until you....realize it.

[King Postwhore]

Wut?

[cramx3]

 

[KevShmev]

Two work-related things:

1) people who do not put on their "out of office" for emails when they are off, or almost as bad, put it on and give no other contact to reach out to in their absence.
2) people who do not have their phone number or another way to reach them in their signatures (when emailing).  In a professional environment, it just strikes me as being unprofessional, but maybe that is just me.

[jingle.boy]

....when you go to wipe your ass and the toilet paper slips off your hand and you don't realize it until you....realize it.

Or when you accidentally fold the bum wad along the perforated line, and it tears as you wipe.   

Two work-related things:

1) people who do not put on their "out of office" for emails when they are off, or almost as bad, put it on and give no other contact to reach out to in their absence.

This is me.  I do put my OOO on, but often tell people to text me for anything that can't wait until my return.  I don't put my cell # on though.  In my business/job, if I don't interact with someone regularly enough that they don't know my number, it isn't urgent enough to disturb my vacation.  If it *is*, then the person will find a way to either get in touch with me, or find someone else in my company who can help.

My company existed for 30 years just fine before I came along, they'll do ok for a week without me. 

[Chino]

Two work-related things:

1) people who do not put on their "out of office" for emails when they are off, or almost as bad, put it on and give no other contact to reach out to in their absence.
2) people who do not have their phone number or another way to reach them in their signatures (when emailing).  In a professional environment, it just strikes me as being unprofessional, but maybe that is just me.

(Assuming internal - I get that this wouldn't work for a lot of industries)

No. No. No. No. No.

Pet peeve of mine, but I hate this so much. 99% of the phone numbers in signatures are the numbers tied to the employee's skype/teams/enterprise account. If I need to call you, I can just click your name and hit the call icon. I can't remember (maybe not ever) manually entering an employee's number to call them. The reason I hate the numbers in the signatures is because of how we track work items for projects. We have a number of different tools that spit out some kind of randomly generated numeric for tracking purposes. If I need to find something for a particular project in my email and search for an item by its number, I get a million false hits in my search because it's picking up like strings in the employees' phone numbers that are in their signatures. Drive me nuts, especially when I have someone from audit asking me for something like a provisional signoff for something from 30 months ago. It makes it really tough to find stuff.

[KevShmev]

Hmmm, okay, that makes sense.  I was hoping for a different perspective so I can maybe view in a different light, and that is helpful. 

For me, who works in logistics and transportation, it can be frustrating to be put in contact with a shipper who I need a bunch of info from, and for whom I was only given their email address (and google brings up no working phone number for their company), and they do not give me a number to where I can call them and get all of the info I need in two minutes, rather than having one of those damn email exchanges for an hour because I need eight pieces of information and they are apparently only capable of giving one of them at at time, so I have to keep asking for the same info.  It is more of an industry aggravation on my end for sure.  Most days I can laugh it off, as the little things at work generally do not bug and stay with me, but there were a few of these cases yesterday, so they were still on the brain a bit.  

And, to be clear, I do not put my cell number in my sig at work. The last thing I need is every customer whose account I manage knowing my cell, because then they think they can call or text you anytime, and even though I am salary and technically "expected" to deal with after hours issues that come up*, being on-call 24/7 is not ideal.  End of rant...

*which they rarely do, to be honest, but I do take care of them when they do; my employer has been really good to me, so I do it with no internal annoyance about it 99% of the time.

[Stadler]

Two work-related things:

1) people who do not put on their "out of office" for emails when they are off, or almost as bad, put it on and give no other contact to reach out to in their absence.
2) people who do not have their phone number or another way to reach them in their signatures (when emailing).  In a professional environment, it just strikes me as being unprofessional, but maybe that is just me.

Actually, I run across #2 a lot and it IS exasperating.  Especially in these times of COVID, where people's contacts are sometimes in flux.

[Stadler]

....when you go to wipe your ass and the toilet paper slips off your hand and you don't realize it until you....realize it.

Or when you accidentally fold the bum wad along the perforated line, and it tears as you wipe.   

Two work-related things:

1) people who do not put on their "out of office" for emails when they are off, or almost as bad, put it on and give no other contact to reach out to in their absence.

This is me.  I do put my OOO on, but often tell people to text me for anything that can't wait until my return.  I don't put my cell # on though.  In my business/job, if I don't interact with someone regularly enough that they don't know my number, it isn't urgent enough to disturb my vacation.  If it *is*, then the person will find a way to either get in touch with me, or find someone else in my company who can help.

My company existed for 30 years just fine before I came along, they'll do ok for a week without me. 

I haven't put my "Out Of Office" up for over a decade.  I have a cellphone that gets all my emails, and it's no skin off my nose to scan through them if need be, either when I'm waiting for the fam to catch up, or when I'm in the can hoping the paper doesn't fail me.  :0   A quick note back "hey, out until Monday; can I get back then?" and if no, then I bang it out after the fam goes to sleep or before they wake up.    Sure, my company will live on without me and I have no delusions about that, but while I'm here, I want my presence felt.  I get more stress and anxiety by wondering if something got left behind than I do taking the ten minutes to address those things that can't wait.

And this is me; no judgment for those that have a different take on things.

[jingle.boy]

No judgment taken, and none is being given.  For me, I work to live, not the other way around.  When I'm on leave, I leave my work responsibilities with work.  I turn off my notifications and try to completely decompress.

[Stadler]

No judgment taken, and none is being given.  For me, I work to live, not the other way around.  When I'm on leave, I leave my work responsibilities with work.  I turn off my notifications and try to completely decompress.

I thought about using that phrase.  I tend to think of myself as "work to live" as well, but just like life doesn't always comply with a 5 pm to 9 am schedule and weekends, so with my work (I work for a French company).  That five minutes or so during the vaca sometimes - not always, but sometimes - means hours later that I can reserve for "life". 

[Evermind]

I do put my out of office notification e-mail thing during my vacations. I do not leave my cell phone number though. Some people from work know it and they'll call if there's an emergency and I will answer my phone if I'm in town and not too busy. However I tend to travel often during vacations (although that's still limited due to Covid, I think I'll just see some cities in Russia this autumn), so if I'm in another town; or hanging out with my friends or my parents, yeah, I'm going to just ignore the phone. Text me the issue and I'll get back to you when I'm not occupied, which might be in a few hours or a few days. 99% chance it's not an emergency anyway.

I used to be totally on Chad's side (no work contact during vacations) but with the promotion came the responsibility, and a couple of times when I filled in for my boss I had to call him because I had no idea how to proceed with the problems that arose. I'm a little bit more lenient towards people who call me during my vacation now I guess.

[kirksnosehair]

....when you go to wipe your ass and the toilet paper slips off your hand and you don't realize it until you....realize it.

Or when you accidentally fold the bum wad along the perforated line, and it tears as you wipe.   

Two work-related things:

1) people who do not put on their "out of office" for emails when they are off, or almost as bad, put it on and give no other contact to reach out to in their absence.

This is me.  I do put my OOO on, but often tell people to text me for anything that can't wait until my return.  I don't put my cell # on though.  In my business/job, if I don't interact with someone regularly enough that they don't know my number, it isn't urgent enough to disturb my vacation.  If it *is*, then the person will find a way to either get in touch with me, or find someone else in my company who can help.

My company existed for 30 years just fine before I came along, they'll do ok for a week without me. 

I haven't put my "Out Of Office" up for over a decade.  I have a cellphone that gets all my emails, and it's no skin off my nose to scan through them if need be, either when I'm waiting for the fam to catch up, or when I'm in the can hoping the paper doesn't fail me.  :0   A quick note back "hey, out until Monday; can I get back then?" and if no, then I bang it out after the fam goes to sleep or before they wake up.    Sure, my company will live on without me and I have no delusions about that, but while I'm here, I want my presence felt.  I get more stress and anxiety by wondering if something got left behind than I do taking the ten minutes to address those things that can't wait.

And this is me; no judgment for those that have a different take on things.

I envy people who get a small enough number of emails to be able to "scan through them if need be" at any given moment, even when they're on free time.  Those days have long been in the rear view mirror for me.  The volume of email I get just makes it impossible. 

[cramx3]

I'm lucky enough that my job doesn't require me to be available when I'm on PTO.  I definitely don't check that stuff.  But that's an aspect of my job I really like where I'm not salaried and not expected to respond when I'm not on the clock.  Having said that, I usually will respond in our chat if someone is reaching out to me because I'll get the IM alert on my phone and often times it's really not a big deal to answer (if I have the answer) or just defer to my coworkers with the reason that I'm on PTO. 

Honestly, the PTO deal at my job is really good.  Something like 25 days, management approval is not required, and it's highly encouraged to use it.  In fact, in my skip level meeting a couple weeks ago, my boss' boss only negative thing he said to me was that I need to start burning PTO because I only used 1 day so far this year.

[XJDenton]

My University's spam filter fortunately sends about 95% of outside email straight to spam, so that cut downs on the number of emails I have to read substantially.

[KevShmev]

It varies too on if you can take a day off and no one needs to do your job.  I am in an industry where when I take a day off, someone has to do my job that whole day (and I do the same for my backup when he is off), so that is why, to me, the out of office thing is key.  The last time I took half a day off (the afternoon), I checked out my emails that evening and I had like 200.    The good news is that by the time I filtered through them and moved what I didn't need to work on or reply to, it was down to like 9.   It's just time-consuming to sort through it all, and I do not want to miss anything.

[cramx3]

My University's spam filter fortunately sends about 95% of outside email straight to spam, so that cut downs on the number of emails I have to read substantially.

I don't really get spam, but we have a lot of systems set up to send out auto generated emails regarding lots of alerts from our network or servers, or our providers/vendors.  Like 99.99% of these are not relevant to my daily job so I have about 40 inbox rules set up in outlook to filter them to different folders in case I need to find them. I have well over a million unread emails and monthly I need to delete hundreds of thousands of them so my mailbox doesn't fill up. It's absolutely ridiculous.  But because of those filters, my inbox sees maybe 50-100 emails a day of which those may actually be relevant.  I'm glad I don't deal with clients because finding the important emails through the weeds is not an easy task if you don't set up the filters.

[jingle.boy]

On an executive panel once, our CIO informed the company that 95% of all email the company receives is spam, and filtered before it even reaches anyone's inbox.   

[King Postwhore]

On an executive panel once, our CIO informed the company that 95% of all email the company receives is spam, and filtered before it even reaches anyone's inbox.   

Our companies emails were hacked 2 years ago so they have this new system and everything we do has codes that i have to approve on my cell phone for my computer.  It's Fort Knox now to log on.

[cramx3]

Yeah, none of this is surprising.  Email filtering is pretty important from the server side before it even hits you these days.  Wayyy too many people still fall for phishing somehow.

[Stadler]

I've never really counted; I guess I get between 20 and 40 emails a day, depending on the circumstances?