The “Daily” Rant – not moving anymore, well… maybe. The bureaucrats at SFU told me right after I graduated in April that my account would be good until May 24th. So – I started researching locations for the new home of the Daily Rant (anyone got any domain name ideas?). Then they never deleted the site. On November 20th I got an email that said it would be deleted on Dec 1st. Damn! I decided to try and find out what my options were for keeping this thing on the SFU servers…. even if it meant a little money. They told me – you shouldn’t have gotten that message – it should be good until May 24th – of NEXT year! Very nice of them to explain that the first time. So the Daily Rant isn’t moving anymore – well, not until May. Probably. If it inexplicably disappears one day – you know what happened.
Oh, and notice the name change. The Daily Rant is now The “Daily” Rant. So there.
A month ago or so I had a really craptacular incident at the Subaru dealer. They were to give me a tuneup, which was going to cost around 250 dollars. Expensive, but necessary. I phoned a couple of times to see how it was going, as I was walking around Richmond on foot in the rain. So when it was ready, at around 3 (I dropped it off at 8:30) – I walked back to the dealership. When I got to the dealer, and we ran through all the stuff they had done, and what it had cost, the total came to around 400!!!! Naturally, I pressed them for an explanation. What they had done was to go ahead and fix a bunch of stuff that they hadn’t asked me permission to do!!!! Those bastards! So it took me around 2 hours (no kidding) to brain wrangle with the service advisor and finally get her to admit that I should have been consulted before they went ahead with repairs to my car. THEN I talked to the manager and figured out a way to resolve it. They WANTED to take the new parts I hadn’t asked for out at MY EXPENSE!!!! &*%#$^&! I got a little (more) animated and angry at this point. I may have even raised my voice. Well, it worked out in the end, they kept the new parts in, and discounted the labour etc so that I had to pay only around 270 total. It pissed me off that they tried to get away with it! How many people don’t put up much of a fight and let them get away with it??
The excuse they used was actually quite logical and inventive. They were still ripping me off, but at least they had a creative reason for it. They said that it was their “policy” in circumstances when they take a part out to see if it is ok, that if it is broken, they automatically put in a new part. They said too many customers get mad when they put broken parts back in. Well, maybe. I asked them why they didn’t just leave the broken part out until they talked to me about replacing it? Well, they didn’t have a contingency planned for this line of questioning so I guess that was why she just retreated into the back room and came at me waving the broken part and threw it on the counter. I pointed out that I didn’t contest that the part was broken, just that they should have let ME make the decision as to whether I was prepared to pay another 100 or so to fix it. Frustration – and there are better ways to spend an afternoon!
OK – listen up. Ive wanted to address this for quite some time…. It is time that y’all learned that just because something bad happens to YOU – it isn’t because “MY” luck is rubbing off on you. Yes, I tend to have terrible luck with some things. Maybe not bad luck really, just things happen that people associate as something that would “only happen to you”…. Still, the dead battery in your rust infested flea trap of a car – the hemorrhaging hot water tank in your apartment building – the broken heater where you work – the spilt drinks during your trip to McDonalds, the candies that fall off the shelf in Wallmart – none of these things is MY fault merely because you tainted yourself with my presence!!!! So there.
In an event that was a mixed sort of blessing, I got laid off at JobLandTM. Not just me, but a whole whack of people, so it wasn’t like I was singled out. A seniority thing, or rather, my lack of it. Still, it is better than being canned due to your apparently lack of merit. When I was called to my supervisors office, people bugged me that I was going to get laid off. It was meant as a joke, and I took it that way. I was still kind of laughing about it when I saw the letter that started with “we regret to inform you….”. DAMN! The only thing worse than working at JobLandTM is not working anywhere. So when I walked out of the office, the same people asked what I went in for, and I told them I was laid off. They didn’t believe me. So….. when they got called into the office – well – it was a bad day.
Did I mention that I got laid off just 5 hours short of getting a raise?
So now I am frantically searching for a JobLand IITM, and I hope it pays more than approx. 1100 per month (Canadian) that JobLandTM paid. Yuck! I have a degree dammit!
So, for the uninitiated, let me tell you that getting laid off is definitely an experience. Sure, it may be significantly less fun than “getting laid”, or “getting off”, but it is an experience nonetheless. Its a crappy feeling, actually. Ive been told that, even if you tried to get fired, and are ultimately successful, it is still a crappy feeling when the moment of termination occurs. I think the answer is to just never get a job.
Earlier I mentioned something about having “different” luck than other people. Ive been told that strange things happen to me. I was always of the belief that these things happened to a lot of people, just that I was honest enough (perhaps just stupid) to share them, usually to get laughs. Ive explained this theory to many – and have had it explained that this simply isn’t the case. Either these things simply don’t happen to others, or they aren’t willing to admit it.
At any rate, an example of something that I would fit under this category is as follows:
I do laundry in the little room at the bottom of the stairs up to the floors above me (I live in the basement). So I was doing my laundry. Just after I put stuff into the dryer, workmen came and started tearing up the stairwell. Fine. This made a lot of noise, but I am used to it because the house is under serious renovations right now. I put ALL of my clothing, and I don’t have much of it, into the wash. So, unfortunately, I wasn’t wearing all that much. Then the workmen walked in. I was not happy about this, given my unclad position at the time. I pretty much lost it – and the guy looked genuinely sorry – he didn’t know there was a suite behind that door! When they left , they locked this door. The problem is, this was my laundry day – ALL my clothing pretty much was in the dryer behind a LOCKED door. The workmen were gone. I feared that the people upstairs, who could unlock the door, were gone for the weekend. So I sat there for a while – hoping that they would come home. While I was rescued eventually, had to sit there for quite some time. This sucked. Cmon- hasn’t this ever happened to you? I THOUGHT so!
We now return you to the year 2001, potentially in progress…..