GRIPES

[Jerry_Atrick]

Let's say, it got the desired result.. I didn't have to clean up 😉

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Dealing with the In-Laws is a minefield, Jerry! 
 

 

[facthunter]

Grog can bring things undone. If it $#1ts you, lay down some rules clearly and IF they don't like it TOO BAD, What have you lost?   Nev

[old man emu]

What is it with Indians? 

 

Today I had to phone a company in Australia to confirm that an order I had placed had been received. I wanted to find out if I had in fact sent the order because I placed it just before the Easter weekend but the transaction had not shown up on my banks statement. Those online sales transactions usually appear on your statement within hours. I thought that because of the weekend the order would not have been processed, but should have been on the day after. 

 

I had phoned the company before and I knew that the person I would speak to was Indian, but by his accent and familiarity with English, I guessed that he was a long time resident here, not a call centre worker. As soon had confirmed that they had received my order, he offered to arrange for an invoice to be sent within a few hours. I didn't need that. I am happy for the goods to be dispatched in the normal course of things. But try as I might to stop him talking to tell him that I didn't need extra service, I couldn't shut him up. While I appreciate his level of service, I was annoyed. I find this all the time with Indians. It's as though they believe that they must say everything they want to say before allowing the other person to reply.

 

And don't get me started on trying to get an Indian to stray from set procedures to solve a problem. It's by the book, first; last, and every other time.

 

It is said that the British introduced the Indians to the basics of bureaucracy, but the Indians took it to galactic extremes. 

[Bruce Tuncks]

I once read that the indians finished up with the worst of 2 worlds....   european bureaucracy and middle-eastern fatalism.

There was an Australian guy who wanted to be able to fly gliders while posted to India. After a year of correspondence on the matter, he gave up trying.

[spacesailor]

Inlaws!.

My grandaughter's mother,  passed away a couple of years ago, now her ' mother's ' partner has passed today . He had a bad ' motorcycle ' accident many many years ago , and never recovered his health .

The loss of his partner was the end of him , as he never left the house again .

PS : eldest grandson wife .

spacesailor

 

[willedoo]

My beef is Australia Post contractors. I don't think the standards are very high for awarding contracts going by the yahoos we get delivering the mail here. I can understand they make more money per time spent if they rush the job, but a lot of mail gets lost and damaged. If a letterbox (like mine and my next door neighbour's) has a curved open roof for putting large magazines in, they put letters in there instead of inside the letterbox slot. When trucks go past, the concussive wind blows the letters out. I once found a letter with my new licence laying in the deep, wet stormwater drain several feet away.

 

At other times, when they have a plastic wrapped magazine, they cram it in the letter slot with half of it sticking out. If it rains, it funnels the water into the letterbox and soaks any letters that were lucky enough to make it into the box. My neighbours have used duct tape to seal off the magazine space under the letterbox roof, so they have had the same problem as well.

 

The fix as I see it is: follow suit and block off the top section so the dills can't put anything in there. Enlarge the letter slot and drill drainage holes in the bottom of the letterbox. It still doesn't fix the problem of them leaving registered parcels on the ground or half jammed into the letterbox. The rules for a signature item are, if there's nobody around to sign for it and they can't leave it in a secure place, they are supposed to leave a card in the box and take the item back to the post office to be picked up in person. I have a P.O. box in town specifically for safe delivery of parcels, but some eBay sellers won't post to a P.O. box so I have to take a chance with the postie clowns for a street delivery.

[Jerry_Atrick]

If the letters are put in first, they will tend to lay flat, so drawing the water through the drain holes won't help too much.

 

The better way is for every upheld complaint, they have to pay AP slightly more than the cost of labour saved by doing a half-arsed job. AP has an incentive to be fair, and therefore they should not unfairly find there wasn't a problem. Of course, the costs to AP for the contract would go up to its fair value as a result, so maybe they would be unfair and find in favour of the contractor.

[nomadpete]

6 hours ago, willedoo said:

some eBay sellers won't post to a P.O. box

I work around that by adding the PO box number on the same line as the street. But I don't have a street letter box. And our LPO is nice.

 

123 Streetname Rd, Boxnnn,

Town Name

Postcode.

 

This format is accepted by sellers who insist on a street address.

 

I heartly agree about the knuckledragging local couriers.

[pmccarthy]

We don’t have a mail delivery. All mail is addressed to our street number but is held at the PO for collection. Works perfectly.

[onetrack]

Well my huge gripe today, is about travelling from Perth to the Gold Coast for an 8 day break - only to catch COVID from some scumbag! - and then spend 6 days of our break, crook as dogs!!

 

We virtually wasted $2500 on a trip where we essentially went nowhere - and where we weren't capable of doing much, anyway! To add to the gripe, we had a travel insurance policy that paid us up to $2500 in "extra incurred costs" caused by contracting COVID - but we didn't incur any extra costs - we simply lost any chance of having an enjoyable break!

 

Then - on top of that - on the 5 hr flight home, sitting in Economy X, at the front, with lots of legroom (right behind Business Class), there were two huge fat turkeys in front of us (one bloke about 50 and another bloke about 70) - and one of them, FARTED like a corn-fed horse! - ALL THE WAY HOME!!

 

This bloke STANK like nothing I've ever smelt - and I've worked in muddy dams with dead flyblown sheep everywhere - and that smell was like a rose bed, compared to this guys ar*e!!

To top it all - I decided, after I'd eaten some of my dinner (brought my own, but couldn't eat it all, thanks to smelly-ar*e), I'd decided I'd recline my seat, and try and get some shuteye for the next 3.5hrs.

No sooner had I reclined my seat back, than I get a tap on the shoulder from the bloke next to the woman behind me - "Could you please put your seat full upright? - she's having a panic attack, from your seat going right back!"

WTF??? I have to put up with a full upright seat back/ all the way home? - simply because some dopey woman can't cope with flying??? And she had an ECONOMY X seat as well, with a ton of room, between her seat and mine!! Gimme a break!!

 

Geez, no wonder people hate flying so much today!! What little pleasure there ever was in long distance flying, has now evaporated completely - what with planes running way behind schedule all the time - ancient aircraft - getting treated like a commodity instead of a paying client - having to book yourself in, and print and attach your own bag tags - getting Sweet Bugger-all food, unless you PAY all the way (like $12 for a miserable-looking toastie??) - passengers with huge problems that make their problems, YOUR problems - the constant threat of viruses from sick, coughing passengers and infected planes - and constantly STINKING passengers - all while we're all jammed in like sardines!!

 

I don't think I'll be going on any long distance flight for ages to come, if I have to put up with all this crap again! Plus the Gold Coast has turned into the biggest rat race I've ever seen, with massive overdevelopment, huge 25 and 35 storey apartments by the dozen on every street, within walking distance of the beach - probably 3000-4000 people in every one of these huge buildings - and massive traffic congestion that never eases!

 

I can understand now, why there's been a big upsurge recently, in people buying 'vans and campers, and heading to bush spots to get away from crowds, viruses, and congestion.

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by onetrack

[Jerry_Atrick]

Your story of the farting passengers reminded be of a train ride from Melbourne to Traralgon; next to an old woman who fared all the way.. Everyone else seemed to be blaming me until I got up and stood in the doorway...

[Jerry_Atrick]

Gripe of the day.. too many dogs, not enough barking. I am going to have to have words to a contractor we have got.... Hate that.,..

 

But at least I have something to look forwad to:

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Jerry_Atrick

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

I am going to have to have words to a contractor we have got.

I was going to ask how your reno was getting along. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Not that sort of contractor.. One at work..

 

Getting builders here since Brexit is worse that trying to win the lottery..

 

[facthunter]

Farts have to carry germs and virus's. Dunnies on Planes just cannot be safe whatever they kid you..Plenty of flu coming too most likely.   Nev

[spacesailor]

You could make that holiday ' extra ' special! .

By hiring a four seat light plane & have a pilot +wife fly you there Slowly . 

spacesailor

[old man emu]

My First World gripe for today: Tubular coffee sachets that say "Tear Here" so that you can open them, but there's a seam in the middle of the tube that prevents your tearing right across the tube.

[spacesailor]

I keep a pair of scissors handy just to open those sachets!  ,

Vanilla , Caramel,  or Crapachino . LoL .

Do you think , They are keeping my weight UP . Full of milk powder .

spacesailor

[old man emu]

This is a real gripe!

My mail gets picked up  from the mailbox by my sister who gives it to me in the evening when I go down to her place fo a shower. (See my reno thread) She wasn't home on Friday nor Saturday to tell me there was some. Tonight 23 April) she was and gave it to me. What I got was a letter from the vehicle licensing mob telling me that my driver's licence was suspended form 24 April for allegedly failing to submit my Fitness to Drive medical on time. So as of midnight tonight, I can't drive my car or bike on public roads. 

 

Well, a month ago, I went to Sydney and completed the medical exam. The next day, I went to the nearest Services NSW branch and handed over the hardcopy of the report,  plus registering my car, plus renewing my licence. Now they claim that I didn't submit the medical. I suppose I should add that originally the medical was due on 18 March, but they gave me an extension to 8 April as that is the expiry date of my licence.

 

I do have the option of appealing the decision within 28 days, but until the appeal is dealt with, I can't drive. I can't even go into Dubbo where the Local Court is open to receive applications because 150 kms round trip is too fat to walk and I don't have a pushbike. So I sent them an email suggesting that they had lost the report, and included another copy. I offered them the same amount of time - 7 days - to remedy the situation.

 

What gripes me is that the letter was sent on the 17th  to advise that suspension would start on the 24th. Basically, they allowed five business days for the letter to pass through the Auspost system and for me to respond. 

 

I've told them that if the matter is not resolved by close of business in five days' time I would lodge an appeal and seek the award of costs against them.

 

The rub is, what would have happened if I had decided to skip a shower tonight, not picked up my mail and went driving into town tomorrow, not knowing that my licence was suspended and been stopped and reported for the offence? As a HWP cop, I've heard that line, "I didn't get the letter" heaps of times, so I wouldn't argue the toss when stopped. Poor Constable wouldn't be able to do anything, but his duty. 

 

So now I am in Limbo awaiting a reply from some functionary somewhere who wouldn't give a ....t

 

 

[spacesailor]

Welcome 

To

Bureaucracy . 

It gets me every time , you would think they had nothing better to due with their time .

Other than harries people .

they could be a lot more serving ( helpful ) than they are .

spacesailor

[onetrack]

OME - Time to get on the blower in the morning and go straight to the manager of the relevant Dept. I presume you have a receipt for when you handed over the medical? If not, that becomes a real curly one, of simply, "he said, she said". With important documents, I want records for every move they make.

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

True.. But one thing in OME's favour is the distances involved and the like, would lean to the fact he did not forget. Also, you would think if he handed in over the counter, the clerk would have asked for the documents if they weren't there! 

 

Ity irks me that we have had the technology literally for years to allow submission of online docs, but government departments and a darned lot of businesses stick with the old ways; it's like they are going out of their way to make things difficult for absolutely no gain. 

[old man emu]

Well, I sent a strongly worded email to the relevant department last night. How long it takes to be opened is anyone's guess. And this is a four-day week. I also had to contact the mob which issues bus driver authorities to let them know  what was going on because they are likely the cancel that authority and I need it to apply for a casual job at the High School. 

 

When I want to the Services NSW branch, I renewed my car registration and my licence and handed over the medical report which was scanned and handed back. I think it was scanned. That day I was intent on getting the car registered as it had not passed inspection before the expiry date and I had to come to Sydney to get the required replacement parts AND find a mechanic to do the job. (Simple change of shock absorbers). As soon as I completed business at Services NSW I drove back home from Sydney.

 

My problem is that I am marooned 10 kms from town. I have a meeting at Tooraweenah, 50 kms away, about the event next Wednesday and I have to be able to get into Dubbo to do some things. As well I have a lot to do early next month at the aerodrome.

 

What really gets my goat is that they prepared the notice on the 17th, advising that the suspensions started on the 24th. Who ever heard of mail passing though the Auspost system  between country towns in five working days.  Or three or four since the letter is not likely to have been dispatched until end of business on the 17th and was delivered on the 21st. 

 

4 hours ago, Jerry_Atrick said:

we have had the technology literally for years to allow submission of online docs

I have been doing that quite happily with these documents for years. It was just that this year I also had registration and licence renewal to do. The licence renewal required a new photograph. And I had to pass by the branch on my trip home.

 

Last night attached the medical report to the email, so hopefully by the end of the week I should have he suspension lifted. (yeah, good one!) How long it takes them to advise me is another question. A five day wait for the mail?

 

How do you deal with the distress this action has caused, as well as the damned inconvenience?

[red750]

We may have a bit to complain about in Vic (Chairman Dan), but these things are not among them.

No medical required, not even over 75.

No RWC to renew rego.

Simply pay online with bPay.