What's bugging you? (2013)

[JimH5]

Basically, if they aren't paying you minimum wage for the hours you work (this includes overtime -- more than 40 hrs a week) then you should be due back wages.

 

 

thanks Baldkin and Invader. today i made $5/hr. last Tuesday was probably my worst day, working 13 hours and earning $55. i'm about the only one paying attention to wages, so things will be fun next week Friday. as it is, every single person is an inch away from quitting. but of course, that gives up unemployment, which is why nobody will do anything. plus the round ends probably Friday before we're back to making about $11/hr.

 

i'll be asking for a photocopy of my manager-signed timesheet on the one-never-knows chance i get canned and can then go to court.

 

but what it comes down to is go to court and get my meager amount of back wages, but lose accrued time on the job for unemployment. ultimately i'm thinking i'm better off just sucking it up. i plan on moving come November/December, so unemployment wages will mean a lot to me.

 

I don't think you can measure it on a day-to-day basis. Are you making minimum wage or higher each pay period? If not, then you have a gripe.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Back in February, a good friend got separated from his wife, and needed a place to stay "for a little while". I was thinking......a few weeks, maybe a couple months, tops.

 

Now it's the end of July, and here we are. There's a laundry list of things, but for sake of brevity........I won't go into it.

 

The absolute kicker came a few weeks ago when he brought his 9 year old daughter over to our house, and my wife was cooking, and burned her thumb on a hot pan, and used a curse word that rhymes with duck.

 

"Um........yeah. Don't use language like that in front of my daughter".

 

Not "could you please not swear in front of her" or "I don't want to expose her to that yet" or something a little more along those lines. Just "Don't use language like that in front of my daughter"

 

Wait a sec? Who's house is this..........anyways?

 

Boy that's getting sticky. I applaud you for being a good friend, but at some point he has to figure it out. Is there tension in the house or is pretty chill?

 

The first few months were more or less ok, but since then it's been.......eh.

 

I'm trying really hard to be diplomatic, but I think my wife may end up losing it soon. When he gets home from work, more often than not, he jokes "CATHY!!!! Why isn't dinner on the table!!!!!!!?!?!?!?"

 

You know, it really wasn't even funny the first time. After 30+ iterations of the joke, it's completely lost its steam. I get the sense that he's somewhat bitter because of his divorce right now, and it's starting to show in his interactions with my wife, and I'm not going to allow that to escalate too much further, honestly.

[pitchleague]

Wouldn't the proper way for you to handle that be:

 

"Um........yeah. Don't use language like that in front of my wife."

[NeedMoreFans]

It's been a while, but another family issue is bugging me.

 

My daughter's 2nd birthday was in May. We really don't do birthday parties yet, but we do invite family over. This year, we split up the family time between my family and my wife's. We visited my parents near Milwaukee, and invited my sister who lives in Eau Claire. She didn't come because it was too far. No biggie, she'll mail the present that she bought like she did last year, right? Nope. One week passes. No word from her and nothing in the mail. Two weeks, three weeks, nothing. She finally texts me, saying she knows she didn't mail it, but was hoping to give it to her in person. That was the first week of June. I have yet to hear from her since. In that time, she was tagged in a Facebook post by a friend of hers with a thank you message for the birthday present her friend received in the mail from her. So you can mail your friend's, but you can't for your niece?

 

I know it is just a birthday present, but if I pulled this with her son, I wouldn't hear the end of it.

[pitchleague]

I just flipped my Brewers calendar to August. (yeah, yeah, I know it took me all day.)

 

This month's Brewer hero is George Kottaras.

 

Now, I understand that the calendars are produced in August or so of every year so they can already get them in stores in September/October. So they are off the hook for Kottaras in that respect, since he was traded in August last year.

 

I've just got a problem with the fact that, of all the players on the 2012 Brewers team, they elected to put the team's back-up catcher on the team calendar???? REALLY?!?!?!? Who was the brainiac that made that call?

[JimH5]

I believe George was considered to be attractive by some lady fans of the Brewers.

[DatHoser]

NMF, regarding the birthday present. I'm playing devil's advocate here, but could the present be too big or bulky to mail conveniently? Just something to keep in mind.

[NeedMoreFans]

NMF, regarding the birthday present. I'm playing devil's advocate here, but could the present be too big or bulky to mail conveniently? Just something to keep in mind.

 

With the ideas I gave her, I highly doubt it. Her last correspondence with me was, "Since I don't know when we are getting to Madison I'm going to finally put her birthday present in the mail. I haven't forgotten, just would have liked to give it to her in person, that's all." That was 2 months ago. My mom said that she is waiting until we see them to give her the present, but there has been no effort from her to arrange a time to meet. I know I could reach out to her, but I don't know if I should be the one to have to if it means so much to my sister to give it to her in person.

 

I may just text her asking if she ever mailed it like she said she would.

[Hammer]

I was informed today that I need to stop smoking. Huh...that's funny, I don't smoke! I JUST SMELL LIKE IT!! The filthy people in this apartment have officially really pissed me off!

[JimH5]

It's been a while, but another family issue is bugging me.

 

My daughter's 2nd birthday was in May. We really don't do birthday parties yet, but we do invite family over. This year, we split up the family time between my family and my wife's. We visited my parents near Milwaukee, and invited my sister who lives in Eau Claire. She didn't come because it was too far. No biggie, she'll mail the present that she bought like she did last year, right? Nope. One week passes. No word from her and nothing in the mail. Two weeks, three weeks, nothing. She finally texts me, saying she knows she didn't mail it, but was hoping to give it to her in person. That was the first week of June. I have yet to hear from her since. In that time, she was tagged in a Facebook post by a friend of hers with a thank you message for the birthday present her friend received in the mail from her. So you can mail your friend's, but you can't for your niece?

 

I know it is just a birthday present, but if I pulled this with her son, I wouldn't hear the end of it.

 

 

It's your family, not mine, so you know better than me. . .but from the outside, it looks like the only thing that's at issue is your sister's behavior as it compares to your expectation of how she would react if you had the same behavior. It's not about the present.

 

The fact is, your 2-year old doesn't care if the gift is late. She doesn't even really know that the gift is late. She's 2, and at 2, she's got plenty of other stuff to play with, and when she does get the gift from her aunt, then she'll have something new.

 

Are you willing to hold a grudge against your sister over this? It's probably not a big deal to your daughter. Not sure why you would make it one.

[NeedMoreFans]

I honestly don't care if she gives my daughter a gift or not. As I told my wife (and as you pointed out), my daughter has no idea that her aunt didn't send something. But, if she does continue to give for birthdays in the future, there will come a time when she will know she is missing something. I have admitted to my wife that it shouldn't bother me and I shouldn't let it bother me, but I can't let go for some reason. I think you nailed it on the head, Jim, when you said it's about how she would react if it was me who was 3 months late.

 

Anyways, I have a feeling she's expecting to see us in 2 weeks for her son's birthday, but we will be on vacation, so won't make it. Oh well.

[JimH5]

I think you nailed it on the head, Jim, when you said it's about how she would react if it was me who was 3 months late.

 

While I'd love to take credit for being all insightful, all I really did was paraphrase part of what you wrote in your opening post.

 

I'm a father of a daughter who used to be 2 (she's now 9). She's an only child, and probably gets more helicopter parenting than she needs. I recognize that and remind myself to step back a little.

 

Anyway, she has cousins, and I don't always remember birthdays for them. Sometimes I'm a good uncle, and other times I'm not. It's not intentional, but it's part of my charm, I guess. Most importantly, I know not to expect my own siblings to make a big deal out of my own kid's birthday, Christmas, etc.

 

It's all good. My daughter doesn't keep a scoresheet, and often doesn't really remember who gave her what. And really, after the holiday, I don't remember who gave her what, or if someone forgot, etc. She's got enough stuff.

[pretendastronaut]

I'm getting beyond tired of these constant PR battles with Time Warner Cable and the various broadcasters. Hey Time Warner Cable, you know what the common denominator is in all of these battles? YOU!

 

Mix in that TWC raised the ridiculous "rental" fee they charge for a modem, the 5 DVRs I've rented from them that have failed and I have to take back to them to get a new one.... Ugh.

[1992casey]

Yeah, I have had this happen to me on a few occasions, usually involving pedestrians and not bikes, but usually involving a group of younger people (4,5, or more). It's pretty much evident that they are doing it purposely. They cross slowly, deliberately, and will even stop in the middle of the street and talk or shout back at someone on the sidewalk as you sit there waiting with a green light. They know that you as a single drive are not going to honk or ask for any type of trouble or risk any type of confrontation against their entire group. Very, very frustrating.

As a parallel, I frequently think that businesses and marketing departments are continually making an effort to purposely annoy their customers by selling lousy products, putting the lousy products in packaging that's impossible to open, sticking stuff on the products that's impossible to remove, rearranging stores, etc. After thinking all those accusatory thoughts, I ultimately chalk this stuff up to people simply being stupid. Chances are that these pedestrians are simply stupid or oblivious too.

 

Re the gifts, maybe the thing to do is agree not to give them to nieces and nephews. I think my mom did that with her siblings. The only gifts I recall my parents giving to cousins were to the ones that were their godchildren. I never received gifts from my aunts and uncles, and I don't recall them being around for birthdays. I was just happy to see them when I saw them.

 

Re Time Warner, what I hate is calling them, getting the message that the cable box needs resetting and offering to do it if I press a key on the phone, and wondering which cable box they want to reset.

 

And re George Kottaras, I don't recall what he looks like, and I had kind of forgotten that he was still on last year's team.

[RightFieldCoder]

putting the lousy products in packaging that's impossible to open, sticking stuff on the products that's impossible to remove,

A lot of times the hard to open packaging is done to prevent theft. If you do steal it, you will need to steal it with the packaging. This makes it quite obvious that you are shoplifting and didn't bring one with you to the store.

 

 

Re Time Warner, what I hate is calling them, getting the message that the cable box needs resetting and offering to do it if I press a key on the phone, and wondering which cable box they want to reset.

They know what number called them and can probably figure out which to reset. I would sometimes call from a different phone number before I dumped their lousy product. The first thing it did was figure out which customer I was (enter my account number or address). It would skip this step when I called with my home phone that they had on file.

[1992casey]

Yeah, I understand that some of this inconvenience amounts to theft-prevention. I'd rather pay more for companies to risk theft and offer packages that can be opened. I don't do this often, but I've been known to make store employees open packages for me before I walk out.

 

I've actually returned products because removing the stickers ruined them. Recently, I returned some coffee mugs because removing the stickers was too much work. The stupidest place I've seen stickers was on the front side of pieces of poster board.

 

Time Warner knows which box they want to reset, but I don't know that. The box could be running adequately and in use by someone else in the house. Or maybe it's recording something. If I knew which box they wanted to reset, I'd know whether I wanted to take them up on their suggestion immediately or do it later at my convenience.

[bball123h]

Not quite as convenient, but Amazon has a lot of stuff with easy-open packaging:

 

http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=5521637011

[Patrick425]

Yeah, I have had this happen to me on a few occasions, usually involving pedestrians and not bikes, but usually involving a group of younger people (4,5, or more). It's pretty much evident that they are doing it purposely. They cross slowly, deliberately, and will even stop in the middle of the street and talk or shout back at someone on the sidewalk as you sit there waiting with a green light. They know that you as a single drive are not going to honk or ask for any type of trouble or risk any type of confrontation against their entire group. Very, very frustrating.

As a parallel, I frequently think that businesses and marketing departments are continually making an effort to purposely annoy their customers by selling lousy products, putting the lousy products in packaging that's impossible to open, sticking stuff on the products that's impossible to remove, rearranging stores, etc. After thinking all those accusatory thoughts, I ultimately chalk this stuff up to people simply being stupid. Chances are that these pedestrians are simply stupid or oblivious too.

 

Oh..the pedestrians are stupid and oblivious alright...but at the same time, if you were to honk your horn or express your frustration with them in anyways, you would have trouble on your hands. This is why when people say "I'll raise my kids how I want to raise them and it's nobody's else's business"...well, it is, because the rest of us have to live with the kids you raise when they grow up.

[bani1717]

but at the same time, if you were to honk your horn or express your frustration with them in anyways, you would have trouble on your hands.

 

Is this in a bad part of town or something? I'm just wondering why that would cause "trouble." I generally make a special effort to honk at pedestrians when they're jaywalking.

[RockCoCougars]

I'm getting beyond tired of these constant PR battles with Time Warner Cable and the various broadcasters. Hey Time Warner Cable, you know what the common denominator is in all of these battles? YOU!

 

Mix in that TWC raised the ridiculous "rental" fee they charge for a modem, the 5 DVRs I've rented from them that have failed and I have to take back to them to get a new one.... Ugh.

 

I'm on the other side of this. I'm getting tired of the TMJ propaganda team led by Wexler, getting radio time on TMJ in an attempt to sway people to their position. The first few times I heard him peddling his snake oil, it was fairly amusing, but now it's annoying. They want the cable companies to pay more for something that frankly I think they should be paying for.... with any additional costs getting passed on to the customers. Also, it's pretty pathetic that the best thing that they have to 'sell' consumers on is a meaningless preseason NFL game or two. Says a lot of the lack of quality programming on their channel.

[pretendastronaut]

Don't get me wrong, I don't care about either TWC or the broadcasters enough to take a side, and my real frustration is with both sides' PR spin of blaming the other guy. Maybe if they all spent a few million dollars less in PR campaigns, they'd have a nice chunk of the money they're squabbling over.

 

However, TWC has a harder time making their case when they're currently blacking out NBC locally, CBS in major markets, Showtime, TMC (and I think a couple of others) and that they seem have these public fights fairly regularly these days.

[TURBO]

If I am paying for CBS and NBC and I am not able to view them, this angers me. I don't care about the politics of the situation, I am paying for a service I am no longer getting.

[RockCoCougars]

The problem from the TW point of view is if they cave to TMJ for a 'few extra cents', everyone they negotiate packaging deals with is gong to come at them the next negotiations with increased demands. If that happens, guess who pays more? Don't get me wrong, there is greed on both sides, but I can see TW's position on this better. Bottom line, this is two dinosaurs in their death throes battling it out, as I think we are not far from the end of cable/satellite/network television as we know it. The future of TV is streaming.

[mothershipconnection]

I'd rather pay more for companies to risk theft and offer packages that can be opened. I don't do this often, but I've been known to make store employees open packages for me before I walk out.

 

I also hate theft-resistant packaging. Can't they just seal it with some sort of pin that needs to be released at the register like they do with pants or video games? Also, I've bought some $2-3 things that came in ridiculous packaging, and that makes no sense.

 

The garden hose I recently bought was wrapped in 3 or 4 very tight, very heavy-duty plastic ties. In order to cut it, I had to use a pretty serious knife that just barely had room to slide in there. I felt like a surgeon, as one tiny slip and the brand new hose would be punctured. I'm guessing the package was chosen in order to save $.04 vs heavy twist ties.

[Funketown]

Time Warner Cable makes it really easy to not be tempted to subscribe to cable TV.