Shoot the Wall (A.K.A. The Rant Thread)

[Carol the Dabbler]

That may be what they're called on the package.  The guy selling them just says peanuts.

[Van Buren Supernova]

I read with fascination about how some birds turn into peanuts.

Anyway, I want to be marine biologist too, or environmental scientist, sounds veryyyyy fun. If only we had that choice back then.

Although I probably more interested in small stuffs like crustaceans instead of cetacean because seeing them really depends on luck and technology while small stuffs can rely of simply skills of knowing their habitats etc.

[Arcadia]

20 hours ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

I read with fascination about how some birds turn into peanuts.

Anyway, I want to be marine biologist too, or environmental scientist, sounds veryyyyy fun. If only we had that choice back then.

I know! I'm always running into people whose kids are going off to college to learn cool things like roller coaster design or the psychology of leaves, and I'm like "whoa, how come I didn't know about all these cool majors when I was a kid!" It's not fair!  

[Pseudonym]

I wanted to be a marine biologist since I was about ten. Then it swapped every couple of years with being a paleontologist. And then somehow I stupidly veered into 'I'll be an illustrator!' except it's hugely over-saturated and so there are no jobs in illustration. Stupid, stupid idea.  

[Pseudonym]

Do you ever get it when someone is so determined to help (out of kindness) that they make everything worse?

[Carol the Dabbler]

Oh, yeah!  But fortunately not very often.

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 8/24/2018 at 6:39 PM, Pseudonym said:

Do you ever get it when someone is so determined to help (out of kindness) that they make everything worse?

The worse is you can't give them an earful or smack their hands.

And since you can't really do that, they thought they are being helpful, and as result, they would try to help again next time. And the circle repeats. And one day they thought it's okay to ask for your help since they are always helpful. And before you know it, you pick them up from airport and squeeze their pimples and you might be betrothed to their son if they are old enough. 

So hear me and hear me well, tell them honestly. Use humor to make is sounds better. How? Beat me! In case I remember, I thought I was doing alright but everytime although they are not really angry (I think) they seem to remember it with vengeance. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

17 minutes ago, Van Buren Supernova said:

And one day they thought it's okay to ask for your help since they are always helpful. And before you know it, you pick them up....

I assumed for a moment that the next line was going to say "... and hurl them out the window."

After all, a person can take only so much!

[Van Buren Supernova]

Anyway, I came home for a visit and had a great long weekend with my brothers, their families and our parents. This time were not 'disturbed' by extended family because they arranged everything else around my schedule which was very nice of them. We had getaway for two nights in a beach hotel and whew.. where do I start.. As said we had great time in spite of this, but still I find it *interesting* to share.

In short, I had never had that many problems with a hotel before. It is an old hotel, probably have been existed for twenty plus years, but it used to be grand and best in the area. The footprint is huge, they have couple of pools and used to have good beach (now mediocre because of abrasion, the rooms, at least the ones we were in (which were apartment style consists of 3 and 2 bedrooms) are huge, completed with kitchen, balcony and living area. In short, I can imagine the much better times back then.

Upon entry, my sister in law saw a rat ran across the kitchen and hid. There were three lights not working (and they refused to get us early check-ins because the housekeeping and supervisor wanted to check to make sure everything was okay). One of the aircons was leaking and the wifi was dead. (it makes a lot of difference when there is a teenager in the group). The stove was not working as well and the kettle boiler was full of rusty element inside that we made them change it.

Along the day the housekeeper came with electric stove and he was mildly electrocuted twice (he's alive!) in front of me while trying to show me how to use it, and therefore brought it back. The wifi techinican came to repair three times with no result and then ran temporary connection that last only few hours. On the other apartment one of the taps was not working, and aircon in one room was broken. Upon using, or even before using the toilet, I could see every single one of them with very thick black colored dirt or mold or whatever ecosystem on the inner rim, something that should be very easy to brush off, if they know the basic skill of toilet cleaning, which they frigging should. The edge of the shower curtains were yellowish and slimy and the fixtures were nothing near I would describe as clean. Thankfully the bed linen felt clean but I really minimized my contact with the toilet. On third morning my brother found the tap water turned brown when he had just finish brushing his teeth. Despite multiple visits from technician, the aircon of one room was still broken. To add to the madness, the bed gave way. They also reported screeching scratching sound from the wardrobe at night but I didn't ask about the details because I don't want to know.

My younger brother, niece and nephew were swimming in the pools that despite quite full, looked sparkling clean but I had doubts because I saw debris and eventually those who swam found they had genital pain (I wish I'm joking) that we assumed came from strong chlorine they used to keep the pool nice. The exterior of the hotel facade was so run down and dirty that some panel fell apart. Some areas really don't look like functioning hotel. There was an aquarium filled with murky water and no fish (subsequent day we saw fish and conclude that those were fish for dinner as their number were never constant and they are 'food' fish. Some corridors are completely dark, the hotel has many buildings, outdoor spaces, balconies, and labyrinth of accesses that are not maintained well. One corridor has hundreds of framed pictured of events done in the place and good god, it was nightmare for me; these frames are almost similar in size, but some are tilted to different angles and orientations, there is no method to the spacing, and it's not even random!!

All these, and plethora of time spent on waiting on repairs, and when we probably had met every single representative from all departments, I remained passive on the background because my brother was the one arranging the trip and basically almost everyone else had reported some malfunctions, and as long as the staff tried to help, there was nothing much left to complain right. Well, no.

After dinner on the last night, we came back to find that we were locked out from one unit, the other unit was still having ongoing aircon repair. So our this unit has three doors to the coridor, one is kitchen, one is main door with card key system and the side door is old fashion lock that can only be locked by latching on the inside, which we did, and we also latched the kitchen door because it was a very flimsy lock that could be easily picked and we didn't hold any keys except main card keys.

So both card keys didn't work and we went down to the lobby and they 'fixed' it. A staff went up with us to test. Didn't work. He went down again, came up and tried again. Nope. He called a technician, who came to just nod his head and suggested the first guy to use the master key. Another guy came with the master key, didn't work. Three other technicians came and deduced that the problem could be from the battery of the locking system. Another came and deduced it wasn't, anyway, to change the battery, they needed to open the door first.

All this while, I got more and more irritated, every single process took time and now there were five of six guys standing in front of the door and we were stranded outside in mosquito infested area. Mind you, the price of this hotel is not cheap, and yet all we seemed to be doing was calling and waiting for something to be repaired. And now half of the hotel staff were here and we were nowhere close to solving the problem. One man was holding the key to the side door but it's useless because we latched it from inside (otherwise it couldn't be secured) while the others were in discussion and robotically kept trying with the malfunction card keys. I asked them what was the plan and they couldn't answer me. I started checking the hinges of the window and said that I would take the window down with  no consequences IF there was nothing done, and pointed out the fact that all we did was waiting for repairs since everything was broken. I had taken down windows and doors that way before and pretty sure I could do this one. Anyway all the while I never participated in complains and this time I wanted to give my families who did so a break, since they also seemed to have give up and all these stupidity and charades had maxed my patience.

I asked them to bring screw driver but at that moment, by magic, one of the staffs managed to open the door. All of us quickly went in before it locked out again because it did. So again, they were there, trying, on off, off off off off on off on. And they declared the problem had been solved. Yah right, solved my a**. I asked them what if it happened again, they said, it shouldn't. You see, I don't believe system and people and this is precisely one of the reason why. I demand the physical old style side door key but they refused, because that is the one and only key they have  and it's not for guest's use. Now I'm pissed and said I'm not going to waste anymore time waiting for repair with the plethora of problems you have, which is basically what we had been doing for two days. You have to give me the key because I don't trust that it wouldn't happen again. They asked me to try to main card and well, it worked only 40% the amount I tried so I just stared at them and demanded the key, regardless the heirloom ancestor sacred story attached to it. Finally the one who seemed like the supervisor gave up and gave me the key. 

And of course, the main card key never worked and we would have been stranded again if not for that key. What a super duper crappy hotel. Above all those though, the one that I can't get rid from my mind is the black toilet rim. Ugh!!!

Good god, someone should stop me when I start to blabber!

[Van Buren Supernova]

9 minutes ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

I assumed for a moment that the next line was going to say "... and hurl them out the window."

After all, a person can take only so much!

oh that works too

[Carol the Dabbler]

I'm amazed that y'all actually stayed for the entire time.  I think I would have been out of there by the first morning at the very latest.

Well, at least you'll have stories.  Somebody will say Remember that awful hotel where the door wouldn't open?  And one of the kids will say Yeah, and the Wi-Fi didn't work.  And it'll all be funny from a safe distance.

[Van Buren Supernova]

14 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

I'm amazed that y'all actually stayed for the entire time.  I think I would have been out of there by the first morning at the very latest.

Well, at least you'll have stories.  Somebody will say Remember that awful hotel where the door wouldn't open?  And one of the kids will say Yeah, and the Wi-Fi didn't work.  And it'll all be funny from a safe distance.

We booked for 3d2n. Ditching wouldn't be easy because it's already paid in advance, which was a very significant amount of money, there were eleven of us and it was peak weekend, it would be quite impossible to find accomodation replacement (even the crappy hotel was fully booked).

It is also our first together trip of my parents, me and two brothers since.. a decade? This is probably the closest of complete family we could get since my youngest brother never able to make it. My big brother had the initiative and eventhough they had complains to the hotel, we didn't actually complain to each other. Also, the initial problems seemed solvable and we always got fast response from the hotel (albeit crappy in quality). The hygiene problem is normally a deal breaker for me, if I have ways to ditch the hotel, which I did before when I had getaway with mom. But then, we have similar preference, and we had way out back then. But eleven people with eleven preferences, we have to be team player in there. The moms also packed up some homemade light food so trying to find alternative or ended up stranded would be much more frustrating I imagine.

But then as said, we actually had great time, with combination of bad wifi, big space (that is the plus of the hotel), and the need to hang around the hotel actually made us spent quality time.

My big brother's failed two trips before this (so he comes back annually for two months to his house occupied by my parents and younger brother, and sometimes travel around domestically for couple of days. This time he did three light travels including this one, the last of the three) consisted of teenager's wratch and mismatch of activities among age group, so he had quite a gloomy mood at the start of this trip. But by the end, everyone was laughing happily and playing games, we had good times even his grumpy teenager, somehow it worked out very well (maybe it's because of me !). If only I could kill the toilet with fire or burn the row of picture frames that triggered my self proclaimed ocd it would be perfect.

So maybe we'll remember it like you said, but secondary after the good times.

 

[Pseudonym]

I'm so stressed right now. And my brother is being an arsehole by paying me later than usual even though I said I need to be paid asap. I have no one to complain and de-stress to because when I say to my parents they just offer to lend me money. I know, I know, I'm grateful for the offer but I don't want to borrow money, I just want to get things off my chest. Ditto with complaining about my brother, I can do it to an extent but then without warning my mother will get narky because obviously he's her child too. 

[Arcadia]

Ouch. Been there. Trying to think what I did that helped … gardening, mostly, I think. Getting all sweaty and dirty and so exhausted that I fell asleep early and woke up late. But that's when I had time off. All the usual things … eat well, sleep well, exercise … really do help. But I agree there's really no replacement for venting, which is hard when you have no one to vent to. Do you belong to something like an art group or hiking club or something? Y'know, people with a shared interest, even if you're not exactly friends. They're usually willing to put up with a bit of venting, as long as it's not all the time. (I remember one lady almost drove us crazy talking non-stop about all her aches and pains … we ended up avoiding her, poor thing. What she really needed was a therapist, imo.)

Any of that help? Stress is a tough one, I feel for you.

[Pseudonym]

I got paid yesterday, so that helped a bit. Then my boiler decided to start tripping out all my house power sockets and stopped working, so that's probably all my cash gone again on paying an electrician. God it's one thing after another at the moment. I haven't even attempted to try to get my dodgy car fixed, I just have to keep disconnecting and reconnecting the battery for the foreseeable future. 

I am a member of some walking groups but I'd never vent properly to someone I don't know well, no one wants to be friends with a moaner. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Maybe you could start a Meet-Up group for venting?  Of course then you'd have to listen to *their* venting.

I used to have a friend that I really enjoyed spending time with when our husbands were also there.  But if it was just her and me, she'd spend the entire time talking about all her problems (which I will admit were problems) with her husband and her kids and her job.  One day I felt like I needed someone to talk with about a problem I was having, and I thought well, I've listened to her problems, so I won't feel bad about telling her about mine.  So I phoned her, and three hours later said goodbye after listening to her latest problems.  Never did get a chance to mention mine.  So I stopped phoning her.  I mean, what's the point?

[Pseudonym]

One of my friends is like that, incredibly self-centred. I've spent hours talking about her issues, as soon as I mention mine she replies maybe once and then stops answering. 

[T.o.b.y]

Sounds familiar... I have had a few very one-sided "friendships" too where I felt more like an unpaid counselor. I didn't really mind because I know whom to go to if I want a real conversation or some support, but over time, I have lost contact with all the people who never really bothered to get to know me. They moved on once their issues were resolved and / or they found a romantic partner and I can't say I miss them very much. 

[J.P.]

Sigh, what a day. It started with me calling a customer to tell him I beeped up his flyer. My boss will have something to pick on me when he's back from vacation.

Then it turned out the deadline we thought is next week Thursday, is actually today. Thank you, boss on vacation who gave us wrong date.

Then I spent three beeping hours trying to write a PDF from a file that worked perfectly yesterday, while the print shop was waiting for the data. I was nearly crying from frustration and to make it worse, the people in the room were unable to keep quiet for a single second, even if I asked for it more than once. I wanted to shoot - and not the walls - yelling Sherlocks "shut up everybody" line. Sometimes it's hard being me.

[Pseudonym]

That does sound like a shitty day. And that is exactly what I meant ages ago when I said Sherlock acts like everyone wishes they could at times. (I only remember saying it because someone made out I was a horrific person for saying such a thing.) But yes, this would be brilliant. 

Were there any likely candidates to replace Anderson that you could tell to turn around?

[J.P.]

Nobody has to turn around. They just should shut the hell up.

We can seat a half a day without saying a word, but when you need silence, everybody has something to say. And noise is my kryptonite.

[Pseudonym]

Yup. I wrote my entire dissertation with ear plugs in. 

[Pseudonym]

Oh thank god, I finally figured out how to block The Sun from my news feed. They write everything like THIS, at least one word has to be in CAPITALS, and of course if you do click the entire article is RUBBISH, and actually completely different to what the headline IMPLIED. It drives me nuts, I don't want such trashy drivel on my phone. I don't know why the hell it was on there as standard, it gives me BBC, The Guardian, Sky, The Independent... and then The Sun? WTF?! I've now replaced it with Nat Geo. 🙂

[Carol the Dabbler]

No Daily Mail? 

(They do tend to have good photos, just as long as you don't mind that the article itself was written by someone who clearly WAS NOT THERE.)

[Pseudonym]

Ha, nope, The DAILY Mail is just as AWFUL as The SUN. They might even be worse considering how much they seem to relish stories that contain child abuse or animal cruelty.

Actually... if they are shouting those words in caps... do you think the headlines are written by Moriarty? Considering his penchant for yelling words mid-sentence? 😱