Venting

[Sunflash]

Right. Would you folks be horribly offended if I took some time here to rant and rave about work, school, and life in general?

 

Or should I go find a Livejournal to gripe at instead?

[NKF]

One of my local toy forums has a 'trivial irritation' type thread in the general area where people come along and post about all sorts of silly things that annoy them. Like the mailman knocking and leaving immediately, or office colleagues letting all their dirty dishes and cups pile up in the common room sink, or young couples oblivious to everyone around them openly snogging in public and making loud sucking noises. It proves to be quite popular. Which means a lot of complaining. In its own way it is fun and quite therapeutic.

 

Then there's social media.

 

- NKF

[Sunflash]

Maybe I shouldn't continue then, part of this feels like a larger-than-life tragedy.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

Nope, I wanna hear what's burning inside your head!

[Space Voyager]

Vent away. It is therapeutic. It may be burdening for the rest of us, but we all have our part to play. And besides, if it gets too much, we'll join in.

[Sunflash]

I have a personal pet peeve: I /hate/ blatent stupidity when you have NO EXCUSE not to know better; and I hate -=/LYING\=-

 

What does this have to do with you, Sunny? Read on, you poor sucker that took the bait. Read on...

 

 

 

 

 

So I don't know if I mentioned this before or not(think not); but I moved when I got married. Wife already had a job at a hospital up here, so it made more sense for me to move than the other way around. Bounced around a few jobs here and there, not got any fancy papers that tell big-wigs I know what I actually know so I've just been doing temp-to-entry position stuff. Fine, no biggie.

 

 

 

 

 

After almost a year? Maybe more, dunno for sure offhand; but I managed to get a housekeeping position at the same hosptial my wife works at. /Awesome/, simplifies a lot of stuff right? Stupid git.

 

 

 

A quick background: This hosptial is an older one, and the town its in is a conservative kinda-should-be-dead kinda small town. A plant or two nearby that take advantage of the Interstate running just outside town, and a little bit of tourism from being near the grand lakes and river; but nothing really major. The important bit to glean from that is its one of those "CHANGE IS BAD ARGH GO AWAY NEW THINGS" kinda older town.

 

So about the time we got married, the Hosptial failed a surprised inspection of their Surgery department. Failed it bad enough the department had to be shut down while they completely gutted and remodeled the stupid thing. This is where things explode; but noone outside Admin was paying attention, and Admin certaintly wasn't going to mention it.

 

 

See, due to type of town the hospital is in, a good chunk of its income is minor surgery-required stuff(colonoscpies(spelling sucks this late at night) and the like) as well as various birthing related stuff. HOWEVER, with Surgery KO'd, all that had to freeze. You couldn't admit anyone who was expecting, because if they needed an emergancy c-section or some nonsense you'd have to ship them anyway. So a VERY LARGE CHUNK of the hosptial income came a grinding complete stop. Ontop of that was of course the cost of actually remodling the surgery department.

 

 

So in one blow(an avoidable one from what I've heard but no matter) the hosptial's income has taken a nosedive.

 

What does Admin do?

 

 

 

"We'll be fiiinnnneee. Nothing to worry about, business as usual!"

 

 

 

 

And so, because change is bad and even the APPERANCE of problems is tantamount to sin; our Admin had the hosptial continue to operate at usual levels for over a year while Surgery was being redone. They were STILL HIRING at this point even!! (This is, hilariously, actually when I get hired.) No ordering to tighten belts, limit hours to only what's needed, ask for volunterry time off instead of Paid-time-off or whatever; /NOTHING CHANGED/.

 

 

 

 

So about a month till Surgery is supposed to come online, what happens?

 

-=/LAYOFFS\=-

 

That's right. After over a year of still pushing expansion of services and departmental staff and all that crap, they suddenly turn around with zero warning and lay off 20-odd(guesstimate) people from all sorts of areas. I was lucky enough to be missed, but of course everyone is suddenly quite concerned. One monthly meeting beforehand, we're told everything is hunky-dory and no problems to report, eager to get Surgery up and going; then less than a month later we're bad off enough to need layoffs?

 

 

Well Admin does as Admin will, and assured us that while the loss of Surgery had hurt us more than they first thought, the layoffs would balance the sheets sufficently to let us ride out till Surgery opened back up.

 

And it did! Kinda. Surgery did open up within a month(iirc), and for about two-three months everything seemed to be somewhat okay. Everyone was still super jumpy and EXTREMLY back-stabby(You thought high-school cheerleader backbiting was bad, that pales), but it was working.

 

 

-=/SURPRISE! MORE LAYOFFS!\=-

 

 

AGAIN. No warning. No "Guys we thing we're looking at having to let some more positions go" or "Things are looking pretty ugly here we might have to do something drastic" or something of that nature. NOPE, "let's lie to their faces AGAIN and then just do another round of layoffs!"

Because that's the polite thing to do??

 

 

Of course by this time noone was actually believing a word they said about "Oh no really this should do it now we're good no problem etc etc". Which was a good thing because it kinda braced us in some manner for part of what happened next; and at the same time we were STILL floored.

 

 

 

 

See, as a public-ish(the details are complicated) thing, the hosptial was required to partake of the state's offical retirement program. Apparently this is a really EXPENSIVE(for the Employer!) program. The hosptial Admin(including the board I guess) decieded at some point around three-odd months to stop paying their share of the retirement.

 

They kept taking /our/ share out of our paychecks, but didn't put their matching amount(or whatever the amount was) into the system. AND TOLD NOONE.

 

How did this info come out, you ask? I'M GLAD YOU DID BECAUSE MAN. Apparently things got SO BAD, they decided their only course of action was to

 

file Bankruptcy.

 

During the forum about the bankruptcy filing, it somehow came out about the retirment cheating. You want to talk a screaming-fest? Gods have mercy on my soul, I wanted someone to throw a punch just so I'd have an excuse. But alas.

 

 

 

 

And to top it all off and be the straw that broke my back; the hosptial's attempt to file under a special chapter of bankrupcty has been denied due to not qualifing. SOMETHING THE LAWYERS THEY HIRED(...or are they doing this without one?!) SHOUDL HAVE FREAKING BEEN ABLE TO TELL THEM.

 

 

And because I just recently got accepted to a local Votech, we're kinda stuck here hoping the hosptial doesn't collapse before I can finish this damn program(another rant for another time). My life's plan is currently depending on how well a BUNCH OF THICK-WITTED, SELF-SERVING, YELLOW-BELIED COWARDLY LIERS can handle a courtroom.

 

 

 

 

 

So I vanish without a trace in the next year or so, just assume I went postal and leave it at that. >.>

 

(Thanks for the rant)

[Space Voyager]

Man, this sucks. Like, Sucks.

 

The lying part is incredible, what did they think they can do with it? Except, naturally, not to have people worried and even check on their retirement payments... Incredibly, NOT paying for the pension system, which is mandatory, was made legal like ten years ago in Slovenia. Before, nobody could give workers their pay without paying for the pension system, so it was obvious when something was fishy. Then, suddenly, this was not the case any more. People were paid for years and nobody knew that the part of the pay, supporting pension system, was not being paid. In short; when the bubble was burst, people were several years of pensions short (which means they need to work longer to get a decent pension), businesses filing bankruptcy - and those same bastards allowed to start new businesses and same story.

 

Anyway, the most disturbing part for me is the backstabbing you wrote about. When people should stand together, they do the exact opposite. WTF? A lot more could be achieved if people would just cooperate. But, this is the ugly part of capitalism - make people rivals, scared for their jobs and preferably not even socialise.

 

Oh, BTW, the lawyers... are not the all-knowing experts on law one would take them for. If you're lucky, the lawyer you hire knows the part of the legislature you need him to know. These guys obviously didn't.

 

Make sure you DON'T go postal (had to look this expression up). Instead, dress like a ninja and kill them all from behind at night when nobody will see. KIDDING, KIDDING, but going postal would just complicate your life further.

[NoXTheRoXStaR]

Welcome to America motherfucker, you've been here before! What did you expect? Seriously, I wanna know what you expected from a backwoods town. I know what happened, you allowed your wife to talk you into it, didn't you?! And Surprise Surprise you're recoiling! I highly doubt inside your head you said, " Hey, this life is ok, things can be fixed, but otherwise, it's alright". What are you going to tell you're wife when you become a connoisseur of homemade bomb making?

[Thorondor]

Yep, Sunflash. That will do. That will do indeed.

 

Stomach-churning incompetence and complete disregard for other people's lives. Just the right kind to get in charge of a hospital!

 

Such episodes resonate here as well. You can always count on management to 'embelish', embezzle, give themselves raises, bonuses and flashy company cars. One day you show up to work and the gates are closed, assets and equipment are seized or already sneaked away somewhere else during the night. All of a sudden - who would have known - you are a creditor. But, good luck son, you're at the tail end of the line to get your due and if ever, for some insane stroke of luck, you do eventually get your due, don't count on it this decade...

 

We all know what should be. You know too what reality actually is like.

 

I probably need not tell you either at this point, you and the wife having the same employer is a really, really bad idea for evident reasons.

 

You gotta move on.

 

Most importantly - don't let this crap consume you. Start working on that right now.

 

Talking about it does help some. Playing Brutal Doom might help too.

 

Get it out of your system somehow, but move forward. Have something else as your aim. Otherwise, it's really your health they're going to be taking away form you as well.

 

Draw the line, Sunflash. Don't look back, look ahead.

 

When all is said and done the truth still is - they're history, and you are the future.

[silencer_pl]

Well that wasn't too bad - the rant I mean. The story on the other hand. I had something similar. I was working at Intel campus in my town. I was on probation. After few months I've got a positive review, and the next month it was "OMG YOU ARE SO FUCKING FIRED! Yadda yadda stuff". I could sue them for that, but I have better things to do than that.

[NKF]

Rather than start a new thread, I'm hijacking and re-purposing this thread as a general purpose vent thread. Here's mine:

 

Blooming region coding! Argh!

 

That is all. Thank you.

 

- NKF

[Space Voyager]

Come on, we need more! What can you not see?

[NKF]

My lament was in relation to game consoles. Purchasing a console and realising that one of the main games you purchased it for is for a different region, or is NTSC encoded for a PAL console. Short of buying a console to cover each region or munting the operating system with custom firmware, it does make it tricky to purchase some titles.

 

- NKF

[silencer_pl]

#pcmasterrace

[NKF]

To be fair, PCs are no different. Though, getting better, mind you, with the move away from optical drives and going straight up digital content. Then they have their own issues, mainly with peripheral compatibility.

 

Unless it's a 3rd-person shooter mouselook or pixel hunter game, a great game's a great game regardless of whether you're using a mouse/keyboard, joystick, waving your arms at your tv, using a touchscreen or using pen/paper and your imagination.

 

- NKF

[Sunflash]

so i am apparently an idiot savant. on the one hand ive probably dug myself an impossible to escape hole; and on the other im making it look like a two inch ditch.

 

see, i decided to enroll at the local votech(vocaitnal/techicnal school) in order to semi-quickly grab some it related offical certifications so an it department would actually look at me. i say semi-quickly because it was supposed to take a full schoolyear, but still faster than a college degree.

 

and incase you didnt catch it, i said supposed to because that was the intent. turns out, i accidently signed up in such a way tjat im supposed to be done by christmas.

 

okay cool, exceot ive been keeping pace with the full year students, and the end of the first nine weeks is this week. so now i get to try to cram three nine weeks of work into ONE. im not sure i can do this.

 

 

 

on the flipside, i just took a little brain bench test for part of this, and have managed to ace both parts. while feeling like i had no idea what i was doing.

so yeah. idiot savant.

[silencer_pl]

But we still love you.

[Thorondor]

 

::

 

Well, looks like you've put yourself in a bit of a sink or swim situation.

 

Still, not lacking in ability, at least give it a try, Sunflash - even if you don't make it you shall have definitely gained in preparation.

[Sunflash]

further update: i aced two brainbench certification tests yesterday, while feeling like i had no idea what in the blue blazes i was doing.

 

 

apparently i am allowed to awesome as long as im confusing at the same time.

[Space Voyager]

Just... don't... stop! And tell all about it.