The cranky thread

[Netzilla]

Dear customer support representative,

If you send a trouble ticket to programming, and we send back to you asking a clarifying question, please answer the question.  If you have a theory about what might be going wrong, that's fine, so long as you provide us with an answer to our question.  If you don't even acknowledge the question at all, guess what, we'll send it back to you and ask the question again.  

When we ask you the question for a second time, don't start questioning why we're asking for clarifying information.  Especially don't do this while making claims about how the system operates that are factually wrong.  When you do that, we'll end up sending the TT back to you gain, explaining what you got wrong and why we need the information that we asked for.  Also, we'll ask the question again because you still haven't answered it.

Once we've asked you for this information for a third time, don't go off on some condescending rant about your theory and claim that we don't know what we're talking about and refuse to answer the question.  You especially shouldn't do that to the senior programmer in charge of the project who's been working on it 5 times longer than you've been employed at the company and has written probably 90% of its code.  At that point, we have to get your supervisor involved so we can finally get the information we need.  That will then allow us to determine what is actually going on and hey, maybe your theory was right and we now have confirmation of it.  Of course, in this case, your theory was wrong and, when we did get our question answered, we were able to quickly determine the real cause of the problem and handle it.

If you had simply answered the question when we first asked it, we could have arrived at this resolution last week, and the customer (and I) would be far less annoyed.

[Burrito Boy]

A $5 warranty fee? A f**king warranty fee!!!?!?! My phone just stopped working...it just WENT BAD!! I did nothing to it! Now I have to pay a fee to exercise the warranty that I ALREADY PAID FOR!!??!?! Go to hell, T-Mobile!! :angry:

Switched to Metro PCS recently and got a new phone with no problem when ours went weird.

[tkdguy]

Mom had a ministroke yesterday. She's doing better but is still in hospital.

[Old Man]

The hits just keep coming, don't they?  Hope she gets better tkdguy.  FIL mostly recovered from his ministroke earlier this year, though we did have to confiscate his car keys.

[Starlord]

I hope your relatives get better guys.

[Burrito Boy]

Prayers on the way, tkdguy and Old Man.

[tkdguy]

Thanks, guys.

[Hermit]

Sympathies and prayers

[FrankL]

Had a small surgery on my nose last week. Before it could be done, I had to stop taking one of my daily nutrient supplements and could not start back on it for a week after surgery. I have found over the last few days that taking this supplement drastically improves my mood. I can feel my temper shortening and want to say things that will cause fights with friends and family. This was the first morning I could take it again. Now, I'm trying to hold out until things get normal again.

 

And I have to go off it again next month before and after a colonoscopy!

[Nolgroth]

I feel short-tempered most of the time. If I had to significantly alter my body's chemistry for a week, there would probably be headlines. Good luck next month, with your mood swings. There is no luck with the other. There is only survival and a small whimpering sounds during and after.

 

Then again, my only experience with colonoscopies was as corrections guard escorting an inmate to his appointment. There may have been...other mitigating factors.

[Enforcer84]

On a more immediate less helpless note...well, I'm still helpless to do anything about it now....

but who in hell with any sense of Common Courtesy at all asks if they can crash at your house for a weekend to help someone move into the college, just the two of them...

and then asks if his girlfriend can come...

then without telling you, brings two more on top of that... and they're on the road, so it's not like you can tell them forget it. 

 

I swear, if I had enough money in the right here and now to swing a hotel room, I'd rent them one and then pull said guest aside with a warning to NEVER pull this #### again without more warning or they could camp out in card board boxes for all I care

Actually, you CAN tell them to forget it. 

[tkdguy]

Get well soon, FrankL. Old Man, I hope your father-in-law's recovery continues.

 

Mom is being discharged today.

[Old Man]

Dude.. spelling.

[tkdguy]

Dude.. spelling.

 

My bad!

[Burrito Boy]

Prayers on the way, Frank L. I remember how irritable I was before I was healed of diabetes and depression and not being able to control it. It's frustrating when you don't have any control over it.

[Burrito Boy]

I just discovered that the survivors of the last termite apocalypse burrowed their way into my laundry bag. I killed every one that I could find and I'm hoping I got them all.

[gewing]

The raise at work was GREAT.  Unfortunately I am no forced to update information with the health care exchange.  This would not be so bad, except they are now offering me health insurance that  supposedly meets the minimum standards.  It looks like it costs more than the silver plan I have from the marketplace, even WITHOUT subsidy.  And it is not up to the standards of a Bronze level ACA plan.  It is ALMOST an HSA compatible plan, so NO copays, everything except preventive care is out of pocket until you reach the $ 5000 Deductible,...  Oh, but it has NO mental health coverage.   The premium cost may be JUST under the level that would allow me to keep my subsidy, it is based on only the cost of ensuring MYSELF, totally ignoring my wife and son...

 

I can't even get onto the website to verify my notes (called during my commute, hard to take good notes) because it says my password is bad...   but though it says it emailed me reset instructions, I have not received them...   well, back to my notes.  

 

I suspect the provider list is caca, but...   

 

I really fear the goal of the health insurance industry is to make sure that everyone who is not upper middle class or below the poverty line either dies or goes bankrupt and ends up a true wage slave. 

[tkdguy]

I accidentally deleted the My Pictures folder. I had the backup files, so I didn't lose anything. But it keeps going to the Public Pictures folder, and my computer won't let me create another folder separate from the Public Pictures folder. I've tried everything I can think of to fix it, but this effing thing won't let me do it.

[Burrito Boy]

As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. I tried booking a ticket for my mom to go see a friend of hers in Houston who's in the hospital with pancreatic cancer. (Prayers are appreciated.) When we were going to pay it ourselves, it was going to charge us a five dollar service fee. When the boyfriend of my mom's friend told us he would pay for the ticket, I entered his credit card information instead. Whereupon Greyhound decided to charge us an eighteen dollar "Gift Ticket" fee. I did NOT book the ticket.

 

Edit: Just got the news that she passed.

[Nolgroth]

So should we call them "Grubhound" from here forward?

[Old Man]

Two hurricanes this time.  Man this is getting old.

[Cancer]

Brace for shortfall.

[gewing]

another "no good deed goes unpunished"  I tried updating my income with the state health care exchange.  Between the two of us idiots, we  misunderstood each other.  I specified that I wanted to update MY income.   He asked me "Have YOU received unemployment this month?"  It was not until it was submitted and My family was now eligible for medicaid that I realized we were not communicating clearly.   "I"  did not get any unemployment, but my wife still did.   

Now I need to see if I can salvage our current plans before they are supposed to end after tomorrow.  

As I suspected, though I intend to appeal, the utterly crappy health insurance offered by my employer will cost us our subsidy.  The cost just to insure ME would not be too high, but when I add in the $300 a month I would be paying for my prescriptions, and my wife's coverage would cost me more than twice what mine does...).   My son will still be on Medicaid, so yay us I guess...   

I cannot get out of work to make the calls I need to make, so I guess I will try to cram them into breaks and lunches.   

 

Oh, and I am supposed to be getting a colonoscopy on Friday.   

 

I said from the beginning of the ACA that they did not go far enough, that we should be able to learn from all the versions of single payer around the world to get one that actually WORKS.  

I did want to hear discussions about what to do about the decimated insurance industry, (before I even worked in it) but...

 

I have come to the conclusion that many lawers and MBAs sell their souls at some point during their education.   And nearly all lobbyists.

[Old Man]

another "no good deed goes unpunished"  I tried updating my income with the state health care exchange.  Between the two of us idiots, we  misunderstood each other.  I specified that I wanted to update MY income.   He asked me "Have YOU received unemployment this month?"  It was not until it was submitted and My family was now eligible for medicaid that I realized we were not communicating clearly.   "I"  did not get any unemployment, but my wife still did.   

Now I need to see if I can salvage our current plans before they are supposed to end after tomorrow.  

As I suspected, though I intend to appeal, the utterly crappy health insurance offered by my employer will cost us our subsidy.  The cost just to insure ME would not be too high, but when I add in the $300 a month I would be paying for my prescriptions, and my wife's coverage would cost me more than twice what mine does...).   My son will still be on Medicaid, so yay us I guess...   

I cannot get out of work to make the calls I need to make, so I guess I will try to cram them into breaks and lunches.   

 

Oh, and I am supposed to be getting a colonoscopy on Friday.

Sounds to me like you're getting a colonoscopy already. Sympathies.  

 

I said from the beginning of the ACA that they did not go far enough, that we should be able to learn from all the versions of single payer around the world to get one that actually WORKS.  

I did want to hear discussions about what to do about the decimated insurance industry, (before I even worked in it) but...

It's just unbelievable to me that health insurance is even a thing in the U.S.

[tkdguy]

Sorry to hear that, Greg. Best of luck.