The WTF Thread

[Arcadia]

On 1/26/2022 at 5:16 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

We got a notice from the IRS (the federal tax people) today, informing us that 1) they have not yet received our tax return that was due this past April, and 2) we have a credit with them.

Thing is, the amount of the credit is precisely the amount of the check that we mailed to them in April, in the same envelope with our return.

I am sorely tempted to write them a rather snide letter to that effect.  But I won't.  *sigh*  This snafu isn't the fault of the lackey in charge of reading letters, so I'll just send them a copy of the return, as requested.  With a cover letter that calmly points out the facts above.  

 

Normally I'm pretty quick to leap to the defense of federal employees, but THAT is pretty pathetic......

I'd be curious to hear their explanation. If you get one. Which I doubt....

[Carol the Dabbler]

1 hour ago, Arcadia said:

I'd be curious to hear their explanation. If you get one. Which I doubt....

Well, if they don't believe my explanation, we may hear from them eventually.  It's hard to imagine what they'd be demanding from us, though, considering that they've already admitted (in writing) to having the money, and we've now sent them (a copy of) the return that jibes precisely with the amount.

I assume it was a simple matter of somebody shredding the wrong papers, or our (original) return being accidentally knocked into a wastebasket.  Doubt very much that they'd be able to determine exactly what happened, at this point.  In an agency that large, it's actually kind of amazing that this sort of thing (whatever it was) doesn't happen more often.

 

[Arcadia]

6 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

Well, if they don't believe my explanation, we may hear from them eventually.  It's hard to imagine what they'd be demanding from us, though, considering that they've already admitted (in writing) to having the money, and we've now sent them (a copy of) the return that jibes precisely with the amount.

I assume it was a simple matter of somebody shredding the wrong papers, or our (original) return being accidentally knocked into a wastebasket.  Doubt very much that they'd be able to determine exactly what happened, at this point.  In an agency that large, it's actually kind of amazing that this sort of thing (whatever it was) doesn't happen more often.

 

I wonder if some sort of work-from-home snafu might be involved, too. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

10 hours ago, Arcadia said:

I wonder if some sort of work-from-home snafu might be involved

Good heavens, I hope not!  It's one matter to let employees take no-big-deal stuff home to work on, or to let a professional-level employee take a few significant documents home.  But tax returns are presumably handled by data-entry clerks, each of whom would presumably key in dozens of them (say a boxful) per day.  Doesn't seem particularly prudent to let that quantity of sensitive material leave the office.

 

[Arcadia]

On 2/5/2022 at 4:56 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

Good heavens, I hope not!  It's one matter to let employees take no-big-deal stuff home to work on, or to let a professional-level employee take a few significant documents home.  But tax returns are presumably handled by data-entry clerks, each of whom would presumably key in dozens of them (say a boxful) per day.  Doesn't seem particularly prudent to let that quantity of sensitive material leave the office.

 

So, any resolution? Inquiring minds etc.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

5 hours ago, Arcadia said:

So, any resolution?

After only a month?  You do realize that we're talking about the federal government?

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

I hate tax and all the administrative hassles that come with it.

But then again, I have more pressing matter. 

I love ice, and drink everything with ice. Apparently, it is a very dangerous substance, look at the common denominator in chart below. I am going to die!

[Arcadia]

On 2/28/2022 at 4:46 AM, Van Buren Supernova said:

I hate tax and all the administrative hassles that come with it.

Me too, but I love all the things that come with it. Free roads. Free libraries. Free parks. Free education. 

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 3/6/2022 at 8:44 PM, Arcadia said:

Me too, but I love all the things that come with it. Free roads. Free libraries. Free parks. Free education. 

Uhmm... I heard your healthcare sucks 

 

[Arcadia]

On 3/14/2022 at 6:47 AM, Van Buren Supernova said:

Uhmm... I heard your healthcare sucks 

 

Actually, the health care's pretty good, it's the price off it that sucks.   We need more taxes ....  

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 1/26/2022 at 5:16 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

We got a notice from the IRS (the federal tax people) today, informing us that 1) they have not yet received our tax return that was due this past April, and 2) we have a credit with them.

Thing is, the amount of the credit is precisely the amount of the check that we mailed to them in April, in the same envelope with our return.

 

On 2/27/2022 at 8:26 AM, Arcadia said:

So, any resolution?

No explanation of what happened to our original return, but we've had a response, at least.  Using (presumably) the photocopy we sent them, they redid our calculations on the return and decided that we had overpaid, so they sent us a refund.  And because they'd had our extra money for quite a while, they even paid us interest on it.

Of course that $4.02 interest is taxable income, which (they point out) must be reported on our 2022 return.  

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

When people hereabouts (and quite possibly elsewhere as well) no longer want a still-usable object, they'll put it out at the curb on trash day, but instead of putting it in the trash can, they set it next to or in front of the can -- effectively saying, "If you want this, please take it before the garbage truck gets here."  So if I see something I can use, or that someone I know can use, I'll take it.

Today there was a kitchen-type chair sitting by the curb with a pumpkin-shaped bowl sitting on it.  I wouldn't mind having a spare chair, and the bowl looked kinda cute, so I walked over and went to pick up the bowl for a closer look.  But I couldn't lift it.

Apparently the bowl had broken, so someone decided to glue it back together, using the chair for a work table.  And ended up super-gluing the bowl to the chair. 

I left them there.

 

[Arcadia]

On 4/16/2022 at 6:43 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

 

No explanation of what happened to our original return, but we've had a response, at least.  Using (presumably) the photocopy we sent them, they redid our calculations on the return and decided that we had overpaid, so they sent us a refund.  And because they'd had our extra money for quite a while, they even paid us interest on it.

Of course that $4.02 interest is taxable income, which (they point out) must be reported on our 2022 return.  

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I saw a truck go by today, a smallish one with an enclosed cargo area, such as plumbers and other repair people tend to drive.  The name of the company was painted on the side:

Alien's

Took me a moment to realize it was actually Allen's, but the gasoline-fill cap was near the top of the second L.  I kinda like it better the first way.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 1/26/2022 at 5:16 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

We got a notice from the IRS (the federal tax people) today, informing us that 1) they have not yet received our tax return that was due this past April, and 2) we have a credit with them.

Thing is, the amount of the credit is precisely the amount of the check that we mailed to them in April, in the same envelope with our return.

A week or so ago we got another letter from them, saying (once we translated it into normal English) that on the form we submitted this year, we had overlooked a fairly sizable tax credit that we're eligible for.  Then they said we had to reply to their letter within 20 days -- counting from the date it was written, not when it was mailed nor when we received it.  Nor is it really clear whether they mean that we need to literally send our reply within that time, or that they need to receive it by then.

We had never heard of the additional form they wanted us to fill out, and it took us a little while to figure out what it meant, but we got together everything they had asked for, took it to the post office, and sent it via Priority Mail (supposed to arrive in two days), with tracking and with a signature required at the other end.  That was Wednesday the 5th, and they said it should arrive on Friday.  Whew, all taken care of!

But Friday night I checked the tracking website, and saw that although our letter had gotten to the big postal facility near the IRS center on Thursday afternoon, it showed nothing after that.  Now, four days later, it still doesn't show any indication of delivery or any signature of recipient.  Did the post office lose the letter?  Was it shredded in their machinery?  Did they deliver it but fail to update the tracking info?

So we made new copies of everything that was in the first envelope and wrote a cover letter explaining that these are duplicates, so please ignore if they already got the originals.  We'll take all that to the post office again tomorrow.  Hopefully they have a more reliable way of tracking letters, and they'll say it got there fine last Friday (but the website isn't updating properly).  Otherwise we'll have to hope that the Postal Service gets it delivered this time.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 10/11/2022 at 11:50 PM, Carol the Dabbler said:

A week or so ago we got another letter from them, saying (once we translated it into normal English) that on the form we submitted this year, we had overlooked a fairly sizable tax credit that we're eligible for.  Then they said we had to reply to their letter within 20 days -- counting from the date it was written, not when it was mailed nor when we received it.  Nor is it really clear whether they mean that we need to literally send our reply within that time, or that they need to receive it by then.

We had never heard of the additional form they wanted us to fill out, and it took us a little while to figure out what it meant, but we got together everything they had asked for, took it to the post office, and sent it via Priority Mail (supposed to arrive in two days), with tracking and with a signature required at the other end.  That was Wednesday the 5th, and they said it should arrive on Friday.  Whew, all taken care of!

But Friday night I checked the tracking website, and saw that although our letter had gotten to the big postal facility near the IRS center on Thursday afternoon, it showed nothing after that.  Now, four days later, it still doesn't show any indication of delivery or any signature of recipient.  Did the post office lose the letter?  Was it shredded in their machinery?  Did they deliver it but fail to update the tracking info?

So we made new copies of everything that was in the first envelope and wrote a cover letter explaining that these are duplicates, so please ignore if they already got the originals.  We'll take all that to the post office again tomorrow.  Hopefully they have a more reliable way of tracking letters, and they'll say it got there fine last Friday (but the website isn't updating properly).  Otherwise we'll have to hope that the Postal Service gets it delivered this time.

 

OK, so we took our duplicate to the PO, and the gal checked her internal official tracking system, and told us the original was still moving, but within a large facility, so the website wasn't being updated.  We figured we'd hold off a while, lest we confuse them with the duplicate.  That was a week ago.

Our packet finally left the large facility, and we started getting updates again, but they weren't very specific till last night it said it had arrived at the local post office.  And today it was delivered.  Fortunately today may have been our deadline (depending on interpretation), so we definitely got it there on time, just barely.

But daggone it, when we mailed the thing, we paid extra for two-day delivery, and it ended up taking exactly two weeks!

 

[Caya]

Are you getting a refund, at least? If they claim something like "it's preferred handling but not guaranteed to be delivered in that time frame" that would be adding insult to injury, imo.

[Carol the Dabbler]

2 hours ago, Caya said:

Are you getting a refund

A refund of the special-handling charge, you mean?  I seriously doubt that's possible -- so I don't think we'll even try.  If you read the fine print, they don't actually guarantee delivery in a certain amount of time, they just say it's "typical" or something of that sort, and we were aware of that, regardless of what the postal clerk told us -- but they really do get it there extra-quick most of the time.

When we went to the PO the second time, to check, the gal said the big facility out there was probably having to handle a lot of mail that would otherwise have gone via facilities in areas recently damaged by Hurricane Ian, which of course seems plausible.  But you'd think the postal HQ would have notified their people all over the country that massive slowdowns were probable at certain facilities -- in which case the guy that took our missive in the first place would presumably NOT have said (as he actually did), "It'll be delivered Friday."  That would have been very helpful, in the sense that we could have opted to FAX it instead.

But, on the bright side, it did arrive in time.  Barely!  And the PO website provided us with a Proof of Delivery.

 

[Van Buren Supernova]

They say I'm not empathetic , but I will totally do this.

[Van Buren Supernova]

What is it with activists gluing themselves to the roads or throwing soup at artworks?

Do they not have enough actual life problems?

And what about little research in knowing what to target and what can be done on the 'cause' they are 'fighting for' instead?

Is it naive to assume that more than half of them actually don't know what they are doing?

 

[J.P.]

This was my first thought too. But I changed my mind after listening to what some of them have to say.

They are desperate. They want to drive attention. ALL protests do that. FFF were ignored. There is no sign of change.

Re: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/10/death-of-cyclist-in-berlin-provokes-debate-over-road-protests
Look, there are jams in Berlin all the time. And people are to dumb to build an emergency lane - every beeping day. (Few days after that, the medics had to run 3 km to get to the accident!!). And no one gave a f… until they could blame the activists, even if there was no direct causal connection.

What else can they do? Burn themselves in front of the government buildings? Blow up planes? They haven't destroyed anything so far, and even if - no painting has as much worth as the liveable planet - in few years they will be worthless anyway, when we start to fight over water, food and other resources.

My 3 cents.

[Van Buren Supernova]

@J.P. I understand your point, it's frustrating how real issues fall on deaf ears. It takes too long to do something, or half-assed efforts.

However, it's really hard for me to see the point of these protests, especially because I think most of them don't really know what they are protesting about. Some are there because of peer pressure, some for attention, and some join 'whatever is IN'. 

Yes, it catches attention, but how do they make a point by doing something like that? It's difficult to look past the ridiculousness of it, to be honest.

Then this:

For those who don't know, this is an activist throwing a plastic container of the glue he had just used to glue himself to the manhole.

 

 

And this

This is the rubbish left behind by climate activist 'Just Stop Oil' discovered by a farmer.

Just Stop Oil apologises over protest site rubbish

 

 

What about activist who glued themselves to the train 

(Activists glue themselves to London train on third day of climate protests) and disrupted public transport system and forced many to take cars that day?

 

In this time of social media, many people are clueless about what they support, and that is disturbing. I don't think blocking commoners from using the road or destroying/attempting to destroy provides any good point.

A long time ago, to be exact, 18 years ago, in 2004, I learned about an organization called Sea Shepherd directly from the members. It was still a relatively small organization then, and subsequently, from reading about it.
(Please correct me if I'm wrong, as it has been years since I don't keep up with what they do, and they are not free of controversies too.)

This is probably something more in line with what you are trying to point out. 

So they are using the hard way because the regular way of peace and trying to make people listen doesn't work. They try to fight against illegal whaling activities, and their approaches are controversial, like ramming and sinking whaling ships. Countries that support whaling, of course, try to get them arrested.

Their operations are extremely dangerous, they are fighting against odds, and they funded themselves, at least initially, but they have high transparency and accountability. They have expanded their field, like anti-poaching, finning practices, illegal nets, and oil spilling.

They call it direct action, and IMO, this is the kind of direct action that matters and draws attention as intended. It goes straight to the source and understands what it is doing.

Of course, it would be illogical to expect anyone to actually have the power and resources to do something that matters and be involved in actual direct actions. But at the very least, knowledge of what you are doing is important.

Don't target the wrong thing, don't create more problems that you are trying to protest against, and make people listen not by just being loud but by being right.

 

 

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 12/7/2022 at 3:37 AM, Van Buren Supernova said:

Yes, it catches attention, but how do they make a point by doing something like that?

Maybe these days the whole point of a demonstration is to be noticed.  That could explain the brick throwers and other violent demonstrators as well as the road gluers and other passive-aggressive ones.

If it's basically a form of "virtue signaling," then maybe it doesn't matter to them if their net result is to p*ss off a lot of the people who might otherwise have been sympathetic to their cause.

 

[J.P.]

It was always the point of demonstrations.

Fridays for Future were largely ignored. Governments are failing one goal after another in stopping the CO2 emissions. Nor there are any attempts to prepare for the coming changes.

Actually, I think we all should be sitting glued to the streets too, until something changes.

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 12/11/2022 at 12:07 AM, Carol the Dabbler said:

Maybe these days the whole point of a demonstration is to be noticed.  That could explain the brick throwers and other violent demonstrators as well as the road gluers and other passive-aggressive ones.

If it's basically a form of "virtue signaling," then maybe it doesn't matter to them if their net result is to p*ss off a lot of the people who might otherwise have been sympathetic to their cause.

 

Not limited to these days. It has been around forever.

I was, almost, involved in one.

These were the brief chronology:

1. I was in the uni, and my uni was 'the voice of the people' back then. It started with meetings between our student committee with influential people (poets, public figures with the same idealism, who were influential for collaboration), we finally wanted to make ourselves heard. The issues were corruption, social gaps, capitalism, and oppression (they are timeless, right?). I was merely in my third year. I barely cared about all these, I was not into politics or anything social at all. But it intrigued me, it was practically the first time anyone ever challenged the authority. I attended the meeting that started it all (it was open, and any student could attend) and was inspired, although again, I was not those who would be in the front liner.

2. We went for peaceful demonstrations, everyone was sincere and knew exactly what we were doing and the purpose. It was respectful.

3. The movement grew, and other uni joined. The students were peacefully demonstrating outside and in government buildings, occupying streets. It started to become an 'IN' event. Everyone was into it, and it was suddenly free to speak, to criticize. We were heard, and we got the attention. Every news was on it. I have to note I barely took part in the demonstration, but I planned to join the big event after I was back from my weekend home.

4. It became big, very big. Things started to detour, students started to have too much fun. They occupied the roofs and yards of gov buildings (security was not like now), it was a social gathering for some. Even street vendors appeared. The agenda and implementation were blurred. The core student movement planned to stir the focus back on an important day (a significant historical date), the date being after events 5 and 6.

5. It is debatable until now about who started it, but we strongly suspected powerful opportunists. Long story short, the movement was not peaceful anymore. Public facilities were damaged, authorities took actions, media bounces on it. There were conflicts that ended with shootings, fights, and arrests. Some students were killed. One of them was someone I know from my faculty. Not my friend, but it was the darkest day in my uni life.

6. Following 5, things escalated even more. As mentioned, opportunists and provocateurs were everywhere, using this as a way to create chaos, division, and mistrust. They whispered and planted seeds of hate and actions. It's never hard to move a motivated crowd. Balls grow and brains sink by number. As a result, there was a big-scale riot, hundreds were killed, and there were lootings, rapes, robberies, and property damages. The poor wanted to take 'revenge' on the middle class (forget about the upper class, they were 'protected'), blaming skin color, economic status, religion, and whatever shit they could throw in.

I would say that was the day I realized that we were different. We had different skin colors, religions, cultures, accents, languages, and backgrounds. I used to go to remote areas and got help from everyone (we were poor students trying to do nature activities and social works. Most time we slept outdoors, in bus terminals, places of worship, in measly tents, or in villager's hall or homes), my categories were 'okay' and 'not okay' people. You would mock me that there is no such thing as racial blindness, and I assume you are right, but it felt very close to that. Of course, that changed. Until now, I am very aware when I don't belong, mainly physically, when I look different. Unfortunately, I don't belong in places with people who look like me but I don't look like people in my home. It's shitty.

After 6, forget about our big event, nothing was relevant anymore. Everything was blurred and in chaos. The economy crumbled, and whoever could go out, was out. My family home and business were destroyed. One of my dogs was chopped (she survived) and the other two were missing. But I am grateful, we, the humans, miraculously, were all safe. I was in my uni, watching TV with fellow students when things went crazy. We, especially, me, who was in the targeted demographic back then, were stuck for a while, I was worried sick of my family. We didn't have phones and queued for hours for the payphone to check with loved ones. We lived in fear for many years. I would say it will never recover to what it was.

Now that I typed all these, I don't really remember why I need to. It's different scale of issue. Sorry for the long rant. I think the points I'm trying to make are:

- there are almost always provocateurs, and opportunists, behind movements. At some points, if you lose your ground, you will become puppets.

- there are always participants who only join the movement for the sake of joining. They are usually the worst/significant offenders.

- there is greater collateral damage or whatever shit, domino effect. If you don't focus on the target, there will be unintended victims and damages.

- it's a distraction from what the real issue is. I think this is critical and easily used against the actual movement. Unreasonable approaches would make people turn around instead of supporting the cause. If there is a vote: should we just put cones around the activists and leave them there instead of allocating valuable resources, or should we fine them for public property damage and public disruption? My answer is YES.

 

On 12/11/2022 at 12:30 AM, J.P. said:

Actually, I think we all should be sitting glued to the streets too, until something changes.

Count me out.

And I still need my hand.

A member of Letzte Generation, the German version of Just Stop Oil, reportedly glued his hand to the road with super glue mixed with sand, meaning authorities were unable to dissolve the glue.

They had to pull out power tools to cut the area around her hand, while video of the event also shows several failed attempts to dissolve and file away the glue.

After the asphalt block was cut, the man was able to stand up and walk with the piece of road still attached to his hand.