The General Chat Thread (2016-2022)

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rascal said:
So I worked as a rep then started my own company. Those two friends that had everything never amounted to much.
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My Dad had a few bob, if we wanted anything big extra we had to work and pay for half of it. 58 yrs ago my brothers and I imported a Trocart from America in kit form like the pic below. We had to work for two summers to get the 50%. Unknown to us he opened a bank investment account for each of us and put these 50%'s in. He gave me mine on my 30 birthday. It was the final piece in the jigsaw of my understanding him.
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Burt Blank said:
My Dad had a few bob, if we wanted anything big extra we had to work and pay for half of it. 58 yrs ago my brothers and I imported a Trocart from America in kit form like the pic below. We had to work for two summers to get the 50%. Unknown to us he opened a bank investment account for each of us and put these 50%'s in. He gave me mine on my 30 birthday. It was the final piece in the jigsaw of my understanding him.View attachment 45015
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Funny you should put a go kart up, that friend of mine at 13 had his own one and a 1/4 acre section to drive it in. I was so jealous. I never knew anyone that had stuff like that.

Russ
 
TastyReuben said:
It rained a lot over a very short time this afternoon, then cooled considerably. It's not bad out right now.

However...yard really needs mowing, and I've got something electrical going on with the mower - solenoid clicks, but it won't crank. Now I've got to find someone to come out to the house and work on that and get someone to mow my grass.
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It finally started to rain hard. The the internet went down. It just came back about ten minutes ago -- I heard email beeps.

I guess whoever owned the patio umbrella came and got it. It's gone, now. It was pasted up against my steel driveway gate, so I'm not sure what kind of shape it is in. So, I only have to pick up my own patio furniture in the morning.

CD
 
What a roller-coaster day today.

First, I tried to call around to find a place that would come out to my house to work on my dead mower. I was having no luck, and was seriously wondering what my Plan B would be, when one of the places I called and left a message said they'd come out and collect the mower, take it to their shop, and work on it there. $50US collection fee, but I'm ok with that. 😅

Staying with the mowing theme, I was about to call a lawn service to mow my yard this week. They'd previously quoted me "around $75" to mow it last year, but then MrsTasty noticed the kid across the street was mowing, and she went over and asked him how much to mow ours.

"Aw, you're neighbors, I wouldn't charge you."

We have a two-acre yard!

So my wife told him no, that wasn't right, and how about $35 and a can of gas? So he's going to mow it tomorrow.

Did I mention he has a walk-behind mower, not a riding mower? It's a big cut, but he's still got to walk two acres behind a mower. For $35. Good kid.

Then I got a cake ordered for MrsTasty's birthday next week. That was ok.

Then I got called about my doc's appointment tomorrow. I asked if I needed to fast and she said no, which made me happy, since it's an 11AM, and I hate missing breakfast. 😊

Then she called back and said yes, I do need to fast after all. 😞

Then the biggie. Last-minute meeting at work, about "team restructuring" - all know that's code for layoffs. Sure enough, manager announced we were losing two people from his group of about 20.

The bad thing is, and he's kind of absent-minded this way, all while talking, he never made it clear whether the two people knew or not, so I sat there (like everyone else, probably) thinking, "Am I getting let go?"

Then the call ended, and as soon as it did, I got another call. From my manager. Uh-oh... 😧

"Hey, so you heard we're losing two people, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well...I just want to let you know...,um..., it's our SoCal guy, Bill."

😅 & 😢 at the same time, but way to get my panties in a knot, Boss! 😠
 
caseydog said:
Good thing or bad?

CD
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Very good thing. I don't ever want to go back.

Here's the thing: you may or may not have noticed, but I have a somewhat...peculiar way of looking at some things. Working from home isn't something I want to do strictly because it's better for me; it is better for me and our situation at home, but that's only part of it.

The bigger part is that it actually makes much more sense for me to work at home than to work in an office. There's literally zero benefit to my company in having me work in an office. I work in information. I have zero external customers. Our campus doesn't even allow external customers.

Years ago, they took our desk phones and we moved to VOIP for all calls and meetings. The day they did that, in-person meetings stopped. Dead stopped. I haven't sat in a conference room for any meeting since 2012. Our conference rooms are mainly storage rooms now. Every last meeting is over the computer, using any number of web meeting tools.

That was before the pandemic. Now, what little benefit you may think is gained by break room/water cooler chat, or some camaraderie around chatting at each other's desks, going to lunch...that's all gone. We do still have a few people working in a building, but it's all masks all day and daily temp checks and the break room is limited to X number of people, as well as the restrooms, and social distancing is enforced.

So...there's absolutely no reason for me to work in an office. It doesn't benefit me, and it doesn't benefit my employer. Before all of this, I was technically working from home three days a week, though I usually stretched it to four, and sometimes the whole week, and if the pandemic has proven anything, it's that people who were equipped to work from home before the pandemic are certainly still able to do their jobs while working from home.

Therefore, when at some point they do say, "You've got to go back to the office a couple of times a week," I'm going to ask exactly for what purpose? You can't even make the argument that you have better control over me at work. Why? Because both my manager and my manager's manager already work from home full time, and have for years. My manager's manager isn't even local. He's several states away.

So if they told me I had to come back, I'd be pee'd off about the inconvenience of it all, but what would really get up my nose would be how illogical the whole thing would be. That's what would eat at me.
 
TastyReuben said:
Very good thing. I don't ever want to go back.

Here's the thing: you may or may not have noticed, but I have a somewhat...peculiar way of looking at some things. Working from home isn't something I want to do strictly because it's better for me; it is better for me and our situation at home, but that's only part of it.

The bigger part is that it actually makes much more sense for me to work at home than to work in an office. There's literally zero benefit to my company in having me work in an office. I work in information. I have zero external customers. Our campus doesn't even allow external customers.

Years ago, they took our desk phones and we moved to VOIP for all calls and meetings. The day they did that, in-person meetings stopped. Dead stopped. I haven't sat in a conference room for any meeting since 2012. Our conference rooms are mainly storage rooms now. Every last meeting is over the computer, using any number of web meeting tools.

That was before the pandemic. Now, what little benefit you may think is gained by break room/water cooler chat, or some camaraderie around chatting at each other's desks, going to lunch...that's all gone. We do still have a few people working in a building, but it's all masks all day and daily temp checks and the break room is limited to X number of people, as well as the restrooms, and social distancing is enforced.

So...there's absolutely no reason for me to work in an office. It doesn't benefit me, and it doesn't benefit my employer. Before all of this, I was technically working from home three days a week, though I usually stretched it to four, and sometimes the whole week, and if the pandemic has proven anything, it's that people who were equipped to work from home before the pandemic are certainly still able to do their jobs while working from home.

Therefore, when at some point they do say, "You've got to go back to the office a couple of times a week," I'm going to ask exactly for what purpose? You can't even make the argument that you have better control over me at work. Why? Because both my manager and my manager's manager already work from home full time, and have for years. My manager's manager isn't even local. He's several states away.

So if they told me I had to come back, I'd be pee'd off about the inconvenience of it all, but what would really get up my nose would be how illogical the whole thing would be. That's what would eat at me.
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Some people can handle working from home, others can't. I'm fine working from home, the problem now is I'm home, but not working.

I've had friends who were allowed to work from home, but only lasted a month or two. The problem is, they were used to working from this time to that time, and eating time chatting with co-workers or going to meetings that were completely unnecessary. That, or they would pass time with busy-work.

I tried to explain to them, that when you work at home, you do the work that NEEDS to be done, and then you do stuff around the house, or just take a nap. You go out to lunch with fiends. You hang with the kids when they get home from school. You can even use that time to think of ways to do your job better. You basically get everything done that NEEDS to get done, and don't sweat the down time.

When my work was mostly as an art director, I worked to deadlines. So, putting in 8-hours a day was not important. I just needed to produce high=quality work, on time. So, some days I did stuff around the house, and other days I worked from 8PM until 2AM. Mainly because creativity happens when it happens. If I got an Idea lying in bed at night, I went upstairs to my office and worked on that idea.

A lot of people can't do that. People are trained to work 8-plus hour days, and 40-plus hour weeks. A lot of that time may be completely unproductive, but it feels right.

CD
 
caseydog said:
A lot of that time may be completely unproductive, but it feels right.
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Yep, that's what I like about working from home. I can do the laundry, make a real supper, etc.

My round-trip commute time, on average, was close to three hours a day. That's a big chunk out of my day, and meant I had to push some tasks, like mowing, to the weekend, because I'd get home too late, have to jump on cooking, and lose any time for mowing during the week.


caseydog said:
You go out to lunch with fiends.
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You mean like serial killers? As long as it's not some Jeffrey Dahmer type..."Another, um, finger sandwich?" :)
 
TastyReuben said:
Yep, that's what I like about working from home. I can do the laundry, make a real supper, etc.

My round-trip commute time, on average, was close to three hours a day. That's a big chunk out of my day, and meant I had to push some tasks, like mowing, to the weekend, because I'd get home too late, have to jump on cooking, and lose any time for mowing during the week.



You mean like serial killers? As long as it's not some Jeffrey Dahmer type..."Another, um, finger sandwich?" :)
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I meant friends, but some of my friends are a bit sketchy.

CD
 
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