Feel free to vent.

[Darksider]

Just a random bitch and moan thread. No politics please.

I'll start by saying how much I dislike the service at the local cell phone carrier's physical store (Spectrum in my case). The sales rep lied about their return and service policies, ordered me the wrong phone and I couldn't return it to the store because he ordered it form their website like I could have done from the comfort of my home without taking a trip to the store. When I asked to lower the tier of my internet service to cut down my bill he signed me up for home phone service with a limited time promotional rate, the exact thing I told him not to do when changing my plan. I assume he did this for some kind of bonus pay. Spectrum also lowered the price of their regular monthly unlimited plan and I had to fight with one rep and a store manager before I could get someone on the phone to fix the issue and change my plan.

Considering I was buying a $1200 flagship phone from them rather than directly from Samsung it was the least they could do. I wasn't asking for anything special, just what people are currently paying for a single line (this isn't a promotional rate I was asking for). I had to call into their customer service call center and the people there were much nicer and pleasant to deal with, they said they fixed the plan rate issue and are sending me the correct phone (the new S23 Ultra, yay!). Now I have to wait until the phone is actually released on the 17th and my next bill to make sure they really fixed everything. I think the last time I had a hassle-free phone upgrade was the last flip phone I bought. I kept telling the phone center people they were so much nicer and easier to deal with (I spoke to like 4 or 5 over 2 days getting this fixed) and they all said they've heard that from multiple callers. That should be a huge fucking red flag, but I guess it somehow isn't cost effective to address the issue. I've learned my lesson and will never try buying anything from one of their stores again. Unfortunately, my apartment complex only allows internet service through them, or I would have changed ISP and phone services ASAP. Anyway, rant done.

[Iguazu]

. . .I've learned my lesson and will never try buying anything from one of their stores again. . .

A lot of companies nowadays, are trying to get customers to use their online-services and not use their in-store locations; my bank, there's an hour-wait for a teller; they've got like a dozen coves for tellers, and only two working, on a Friday.

[Second Chances]

The continual chronic exhaustion and week... 7 (?) of being sick is wearing thin on me. Making progress and things are getting closer to mentally healthy point, but it is a lot.

[Lysander]

My vent is just is when management makes the same dumb choices that haven't worked before and hoping for a different result. In this case let's cut our shift's staff in half as they think we got to many people, but slowly increase the workload like before and don't worry the previous shift will clean up before you arrive. This has never happened in my entire time there and after 8-9 hours of working most people just want to leave and head home and leave whatever is left for the next shift. Then watch management complain that they are paying out to much overtime and still the orders are not up to par and wonder what went wrong and go back to what we had before that was working better.

[Cauthon]

I am too tall for Japan.

Which, admittedly, I was very aware of that when I took this job, but it starts to wear when I get back aches just from sitting in the chairs at the teachers offices for the schools I work in.

Related, much as I love the cold, this is the first time I've lived in a place with long winters. Which I've found to be very detrimental to my overall health - between Raynaud's Syndrome, heavy snowdrifts keeping me from running except on a treadmill, and portions of my torso becoming dried out patches of pure iching, I'm very ready for winter to end.

Also, why is earth would you build carports with flat roofs in a place where the normal level of snowfall will crush them?! And it's not like they didn't think of sloped roofs - my neighbor has one!

[ArcaneArts]

I am too tall for Japan.

Which, admittedly, I was very aware of that when I took this job, but it starts to wear when I get back aches just from sitting in the chairs at the teachers offices for the schools I work in.

Related, much as I love the cold, this is the first time I've lived in a place with long winters. Which I've found to be very detrimental to my overall health - between Raynaud's Syndrome, heavy snowdrifts keeping me from running except on a treadmill, and portions of my torso becoming dried out patches of pure iching, I'm very ready for winter to end.

Also, why is earth would you build carports with flat roofs in a place where the normal level of snowfall will crush them?! And it's not like they didn't think of sloped roofs - my neighbor has one!

Good thing to keep in mind once I finish my TEFL certification.

[Cauthon]

Good thing to keep in mind once I finish my TEFL certification.

I should note that I'm 6-foot-2 / 188cm tall. If you're 3 inches or more shorter than that, Asia in general isn't too bad. Also the fact that I'm in a dying town in rural Hokkaido means stuff like standing desks really aren't a thing.

[ArcaneArts]

I should note that I'm 6-foot-2 / 188cm tall. If you're 3 inches or more shorter than that, Asia in general isn't too bad. Also the fact that I'm in a dying town in rural Hokkaido means stuff like standing desks really aren't a thing.

I'm a 6'3" girl. Didn't really have any trouble in Tokyo, but then again job searching in Japan is not the same as working in Japan, in terms of regular physical positions.

[Cauthon]

I'm a 6'3" girl. Didn't really have any trouble in Tokyo, but then again job searching in Japan is not the same as working in Japan, in terms of regular physical positions.

My advice is to get used to ducking. While I won't say the teacher housing I currently reside in is universal, the fact that I have to keep my head at an angle to avoid hitting the frame when going between rooms speaks volumes.

Also, cars are cramped

[Acopiltaczet]

I feel sorry for Rowling,because I feel like I understand her. I dont agree with her of course,but I understand. Rowling grow up dirtu poor,i grow up almost as dirty poor.
after analyzing her tweets and the wiki page on her Rowling's political views,I feel like she sees that trans folks are "hogging" all the welfare ,Rowling feels that trans people are getting all the help they need and the people who are dirty poor and are suffering in poverty are not getting help by virtue of being cis. That's her problem with trans people,it's not that they are teans is that in Rowling view everyone is so focused in helping trans people they are forgetting the victims of poverty and abuse like Rowling herself was. She's not right,of course,but it hard to blame her,she's been hurt a great deal before she lucked out by writing a few books people liked

[Nicolas Milioni]

I feel sorry for Rowling,because I feel like I understand her. I dont agree with her of course,but I understand. Rowling grow up dirtu poor,i grow up almost as dirty poor.
after analyzing her tweets and the wiki page on her Rowling's political views,I feel like she sees that trans folks are "hogging" all the welfare ,Rowling feels that trans people are getting all the help they need and the people who are dirty poor and are suffering in poverty are not getting help by virtue of being cis. That's her problem with trans people,it's not that they are teans is that in Rowling view everyone is so focused in helping trans people they are forgetting the victims of poverty and abuse like Rowling herself was. She's not right,of course,but it hard to blame her,she's been hurt a great deal before she lucked out by writing a few books people liked

I'm sorry,I really am.
but "she has suffered abuse" simply isn't a exculpatory condition

[ArcaneArts]

I feel sorry for Rowling,because I feel like I understand her. I dont agree with her of course,but I understand. Rowling grow up dirtu poor,i grow up almost as dirty poor.
after analyzing her tweets and the wiki page on her Rowling's political views,I feel like she sees that trans folks are "hogging" all the welfare ,Rowling feels that trans people are getting all the help they need and the people who are dirty poor and are suffering in poverty are not getting help by virtue of being cis. That's her problem with trans people,it's not that they are teans is that in Rowling view everyone is so focused in helping trans people they are forgetting the victims of poverty and abuse like Rowling herself was. She's not right,of course,but it hard to blame her,she's been hurt a great deal before she lucked out by writing a few books people liked

Hate to burst your bubble, but she did not grow up dirt poor. She came from a middle class family and was a university educated professor receving childcare benefits. The cafe she mentions having written early Harry Potter at was owned by her family, and they were supportive of her during that time. Her own family has sheepishly admitted over the years that dearest JK embellished a lot of what she was going through during her early rise to wealth and fame.

It was a rough time for her, to be sure, since a lot of it came out when she was between jobs and was having trouble getting into other positions-but she was hardly in poverty. It was rough for a middle class citizen, but her experience was almost a good day for the actually impoverished.

This explanation about her relationship to transness also sort of ignores the fact she has explained her position on it-she has openly stated that her actual issues relate to both a fundamental view of sex dictating gender and her fears of the potential for sexual predacity on the part of the trans community-and both the direct factors that lead her to this position (JK has been the subject of sexual assault at the hands of men, and she considers herself proudly a second-wave feminist which directly preaches sex as a prison one can never escape) and the indirect factors that lead into it (she's something of a British-oriented United Kingdom Nationalist, with her having been very vocal against Socttish independence, and it's notable that it's Scotland's transgender equality acts that caused her most vocal outing of herself as a TERF, and as a general rule has been classist and bigotted against other peoples in a dismissive, stereotyping way, and the trans community tend to fall under those categorizations for too many socio-economic reasons to get into).

Jk Rowling bought everything that came to her plate in the recent years. The only actually sad thing about her story is that, for all it's flaws, her greatest work to date was an anthem to many people for the power of love and community amongst diverse persons, and the importance of standing up together against forces that would diminish and punish others for arbitrary and superficial reasons, and yet when people who were inspired by her works invited her to grow from her mistakes and do the same as she exhorted them to do, she instead said "Nah."

[TempleBuilder]

Jk Rowling bought everything that came to her plate in the recent years. The only actually sad thing about her story is that, for all it's flaws, her greatest work to date was an anthem to many people for the power of love and community amongst diverse persons, and the importance of standing up together against forces that would diminish and punish others for arbitrary and superficial reasons, and yet when people who were inspired by her works invited her to grow from her mistakes and do the same as she exhorted them to do, she instead said "Nah."

Is that not the saddest thing of all? To be so deep into an ideology that one can no longer see or care how much it harms others, even betraying one's original principles? To reject those who would forgive you even after you harmed them? I wonder, does she see the contradiction between her written words, and her actions? Does her pain blind her, or did she ever believe in those words? I wonder, will she have reconsidered her stance by the time she passes on? Will she regret her choices? Or will she go into the grave certain of the correctness of her life? I don't know. I suppose I can never know. I just hope that everyone can learn from her, to better themselves where she could not, to have empathy where she could not.

[ArcaneArts]

Is that not the saddest thing of all? To be so deep into an ideology that one can no longer see or care how much it harms others, even betraying one's original principles? To reject those who would forgive you even after you harmed them? I wonder, does she see the contradiction between her written words, and her actions? Does her pain blind her, or did she ever believe in those words? I wonder, will she have reconsidered her stance by the time she passes on? Will she regret her choices? Or will she go into the grave certain of the correctness of her life? I don't know. I suppose I can never know. I just hope that everyone can learn from her, to better themselves where she could not, to have empathy where she could not.

Hold what was good, drop what was not, and move forward.

and back They Came From Witchford Academy! when it goes to Kickstarter.

[Knightingale]

Is that not the saddest thing of all? To be so deep into an ideology that one can no longer see or care how much it harms others, even betraying one's original principles? To reject those who would forgive you even after you harmed them? I wonder, does she see the contradiction between her written words, and her actions? Does her pain blind her, or did she ever believe in those words? I wonder, will she have reconsidered her stance by the time she passes on? Will she regret her choices? Or will she go into the grave certain of the correctness of her life? I don't know. I suppose I can never know. I just hope that everyone can learn from her, to better themselves where she could not, to have empathy where she could not.

I think it has impacted her creative output as well at this point. She has this crime novel series that she writes under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith and the last two novels are... certainly something. "Troubled Blood" was all about a male serial killer dressing up as a woman to lure in victims. Meanwhile, here latest "Ink Black Heart" was about a creator of a series who was being harrassed online (for being anitsemitic, racist, ableist etc.) - and then killed (and JK Rowling claims this character is not a stand-in for herself, of course... but I mean, come on...). Here where things get really weird, though, because, despite this novel just being a bogstandard whodunnit, it has 1024 pages. And the reason for that is the novel being really obsessed with Twitter. There are entire chapters just being this stylized depictions of arguments on Twitter, people making Twitter threads and then when that isn't happening people are discussing what's said in these Twitter posts. And to make matters more annoying: No character is using their real name for their Twitter account and a central element of the mystery is about who's in control of what Twitter account at what time and who is responsible for posting something. It's boring but it's also weirdly obsessive when it comes to Twitter.