[Rant] Minor Rant III: For a Few Hollers More

Gruebeard

Gruebeard

Cajungal said:
I should say not.
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Other people still talked to him. I mean, the way I found it, he and another friend were laughing about it.

Ugh.[DOUBLEPOST=1471284425,1471283989][/DOUBLEPOST]
Dave said:
Like, did he do it thinking the cat would dry faster? Or was he trying to kill his cat by cooking it from the inside out? Because that makes a difference.
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He put the cat in for a few seconds to see what would happen. He was torturing it for his amusement.

So Trump, not Clinton. Wait. Clinton's the evil one in this analogy. Ummm . . . I still say Trump. Stupid and evil.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
I don't go to Whataburger often. But every time I do, if I asked for a Diet Coke they give me a dr. Pepper. Every single time. I realize this is Texas and everything, but come on. Maybe that's part of why I don't go to Whataburger often. That and I don't particularly care for burgers that are absolutely drowned in mustard.
 
Squidleybits

Squidleybits

I stopped by Burger King ont he way home for poutine and a drink. While I was getting my meds sorted out, a certain kitten of mine knocked over my diet coke and started drinking it.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
GasBandit said:
I don't go to Whataburger often. But every time I do, if I asked for a Diet Coke they give me a dr. Pepper. Every single time. I realize this is Texas and everything, but come on. Maybe that's part of why I don't go to Whataburger often. That and I don't particularly care for burgers that are absolutely drowned in mustard.
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This is sacrilege. The Texas Grand Inquisitor has been noticed. Nobody expects the Texas Inquisition y'all.
 
Celt Z

Celt Z

GasBandit said:
I don't go to Whataburger often. But every time I do, if I asked for a Diet Coke they give me a dr. Pepper. Every single time. I realize this is Texas and everything, but come on. Maybe that's part of why I don't go to Whataburger often. That and I don't particularly care for burgers that are absolutely drowned in mustard.
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I have never seen or eaten at a Whataburger, but I will be sure to order the Diet Coke. :) (I don't drink a lot of soda, but I love Dr. Pepper.)
 
fade

fade

Staff member
He stands accused of blasphemy against Whataburger, the sin of failing to partake of the sacrament of Dr. Pepper, and of cursing mustard on a burger. If he weighs less than a duck call, he's a witch, and will be slow-cooked over mesquite coals until tender.
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
fade said:
He stands accused of blasphemy against Whataburger, the sin of failing to partake of the sacrament of Dr. Pepper, and of cursing mustard on a burger. If he weighs less than a duck call, he's a witch, and will be slow-cooked over mesquite coals until tender.
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Well, I drank the Dr. Pepper anyway, because it was a drive thru thing.

But yeah, I have a feeling the Inquisitor might exile me back to Colorado. Or at least New Mexico.
 
Cheesy1

Cheesy1

fade said:
He stands accused of blasphemy against Whataburger, the sin of failing to partake of the sacrament of Dr. Pepper, and of cursing mustard on a burger. If he weighs less than a duck call, he's a witch, and will be slow-cooked over mesquite coals until tender.
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"Or we could just execute him, we do that really well here."
 
sixpackshaker

sixpackshaker

fade said:
He stands accused of blasphemy against Whataburger, the sin of failing to partake of the sacrament of Dr. Pepper, and of cursing mustard on a burger. If he weighs less than a duck call, he's a witch, and will be slow-cooked over mesquite coals until tender.
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I'm well done. Flip me over. -St. Lawrence
 
bhamv3

bhamv3

bhamv3 said:
So I have this childhood friend. She also lived in the US back when I was there, and then she moved to Australia, and then she moved back to Taiwan after university. She entered the design industry, where she's been working ever since.

We lost contact after she moved away from the US, but thanks to the wonders of the Internet, we reconnected around the time she moved back to Taiwan. I also returned to Taiwan a few years later, where I studied English literature, translation, and interpretation.

Her job at her workplace involves working with English a lot. For example, she needs to coordinate with overseas suppliers and clients, and organize international exhibitions, stuff like that. Presumably she was given this role because she's lived abroad for many years, and so she had a native-level grasp of English.

Keyword is "had". Soon after I moved back to Taiwan, about 13 years ago, she messaged me to say she's not sure if she phrased a particularly delicate email correctly, so she asked if I could proofread it for her. So I looked at it, and made some edits, and sent it back to her. Then, every now and then (like once every week or two) she'd ask me to proofread emails that had to be written perfectly. I was happy to do it, because she's an old friend, and because they're just short emails and so didn't take me a lot of time, and because I like showing off my linguistic prowess.

However, over the course of the last 13 years, the volume of proofreading has increased gradually yet significantly. Where I used to only get a proofreading request every week or two, nowadays I get several a day. I pretty much proofread every outgoing email she writes. She now needs me to do this, because in the decade-plus of having me as a crutch, her English ability has deteriorated to unusable levels. Like nowadays I'll read the emails she writes, and have to ask her for several clarifications before I can understand what she's trying to express. The variety of documents I'm proofreading for her has also increased. I've been looking at product descriptions, and website translations, and tourist handbooks, and press releases... I've also bailed her out of quite a few tight spots over the years, like when an overseas supplier was angry about something, and I wrote an email that was so beautifully phrased it actually completely mollified the supplier.

But it wasn't until a few days ago, when she sent me an entire multi-paged contract and asked me to proofread it, that I finally realized how messed up this is. I've been providing proofreading and editing services for over a decade, all for free, and it's been gradually escalating to the point where I'm spending significant amounts of time to basically do a good chunk of her job for her.

Problem is, though, we're kinda stuck in this arrangement now. I don't want to stop proofreading for her, because her job requires her to have a good standard of English ability. That's why she's asked to liaison with overseas contacts. If I stop proofreading and editing for her, there's a very real possibility she'll lose her job. I don't want that, she's a good friend and a nice person. I suppose I could start charging her money, but I'm kinda reluctant to do that, because that turns our friendly relationship into a business relationship. Also, if I start charging money, then I'd have to maintain a certain standard of quality; the contracts I edit would need to be watertight, instead of the "hey I'm doing this as a favor" standard of quality that's provided now. And furthermore, this might sound a bit odd, but I kinda feel guilty about being a major cause of her deteriorating English. It's like, "if I hadn't been helping her so much, she wouldn't be in this situation, so I have to keep helping her now."

So, the lesson here is... don't give a mouse a cookie.
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Little followup. Recently, this particular friend of mine posted a short rant on Facebook about how people in Taiwan don't respect other people's professional expertise, instead all they care about is getting things for cheap or for free, and that this the biggest thing that's wrong with Taiwan right now.

She posted this without any apparent sense of the irony or hypocrisy.

It pissed me off enough that when she asked me to proofread an email today, I simply said no.
 
fade

fade

Staff member
Personally, I think you should just tell her what you told us. Give her your perspective. It's possible she doesn't realize what she's doing completely because it was a gradual build up.
 
Bubble181

Bubble181

To buy my house, I need a loan.
Right now, let's see...A valuer came by, to value my apartment, to use it as security for the loan for my house, so I sent the value report to the immo agency who sent it to the bank. Once the bank approves, they'll send the loan data to the immo, who will send it to me, so I can get it to my notary, so they can contact the seller's notary, so they can contact town hall to get some paperwork to give to my notary so they can contact the region who then contacts the real estate agent to take up contact with me so I can pass the info on to the bank who can then.....WHO THE FUCK THINKS THIS IS A GOOD WAY TO DO ALL THIS CRAP.

Bureaucracy and administration oh my. It's been a month since I signed to buy that house and it's going to be at least another month before we can close. FFS. And mind you, the loan's been approved, the notaries and the immo and the real estate agent are all on board and we're all just happily waiting around, it's just $#@!&=£%!.
 
Gared

Gared

Learned a very important lesson last night. Do not drink hard liquor with Tradjenta. Beer is ok in small doses, but hard liquor is right out. Dropped my blood sugar way, waaaaaaay below acceptable levels.
 
Denbrought

Denbrought

One of my 3 pending immigration cases (yeah...) isn't showing up on U.S. immigration's online case-checking tool, yet I've received 2 notices about it in the past 2 weeks that include an electronic case number.

So I call them, get put through automated menu hell, and then a nice lady informed me that "it may take up to 45 days for a case filing or update to be reflected on our online tool"... Meaning that, if one misses a mailed notice letting me know of an appointment (usually 2 weeks lead) or an intent-to-reject (usually 2 months to appeal iirc), I might only find out 6 weeks later.

What in the fuckitty fuck is the goddamn point of that tool, then?
 
strawman

strawman

My brother once worked IT for a pork barrel project. He informed me they had hundreds of data entry personnel who followed a very meticulous process:

They printed a record from one database onto paper.

They then entered that printed data into another database.

Bored one day, my brother wrote a script that automatically imported the week's batch of data from the one database into the other. Took 15 minutes to do the work that hundreds of people took a week to do.

His boss swore at him, and explained that his job wasn't to put those other people out of a job, and if he tried anything like that again he'd be fired.

He learned then what "pork barrel project" really meant, and found another job shortly after that.


So if you're wondering why the government is taking so long to do something, chances are good your forms are being entered and printed and re-entered and printed, etc as they pass through the "process".

Also, note that this was in the late 90's or early 2000's, I expect things have slowed down significantly since that time as more politicians bring "jobs" to their states.
 
A

Anonymous

Anonymous

Just one day, please, when this sticky black negativity tar doesn't blot out my hopefulness.
 
mikerc

mikerc

Hmm, think I'll download the Minecraft Windows 10 beta, it's free so why not? Crap I need to sign into the Microsoft App Store with my Microsoft account, do I have one of those? Ah, that's my old Windows Live *spit* account isn't it. What was my password again? *Checks password file* Must be my first time using that on this PC, it wants to email me a security code. And I need to type in my logon password for...some reason. What does it need that for?

*Goes to log on to PC next day* Wrong password, did I make a typo? Still wrong password what's going on? *Looks more closely at screen* Wait, is that asking for my Microsoft account password? Oh you bastards. That's what you wanted my logon password for yesterday - so you could change my password to my Microsoft account password. Well that's getting changed back right fucking now!

Or at least right after I borrowed a laptop to plug my backup drive into, so I could check my password file because I haven't memorised that fucking password!
 
Tinwhistler

Tinwhistler

mroosc1979 said:
Hmm, think I'll download the Minecraft Windows 10 beta, it's free so why not? Crap I need to sign into the Microsoft App Store with my Microsoft account, do I have one of those? Ah, that's my old Windows Live *spit* account isn't it. What was my password again? *Checks password file* Must be my first time using that on this PC, it wants to email me a security code. And I need to type in my logon password for...some reason. What does it need that for?

*Goes to log on to PC next day* Wrong password, did I make a typo? Still wrong password what's going on? *Looks more closely at screen* Wait, is that asking for my Microsoft account password? Oh you bastards. That's what you wanted my logon password for yesterday - so you could change my password to my Microsoft account password. Well that's getting changed back right fucking now!

Or at least right after I borrowed a laptop to plug my backup drive into, so I could check my password file because I haven't memorised that fucking password!
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Yeah, they did the same thing to me when I installed skype via the windows app store. heh.
 
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