Computer update!

 I'm just stopping in to say that I have a working desktop PC again! I had my ex-brother-in-law look at the desktop PC I had been using since 2020, not just to fix it, but to upgrade it as well. He couldn't really do everything we both wanted with the chassis of the old computer, so he fixed up a computer that he had sitting around. I'm very happy with it, it's much faster, and no more freezing up after a couple of minutes of idling. Hopefully I'll get to do more blogging soon. I'd start up a whole new entry, but I had a busy morning, and just want to retreat to the sofa.

Last quarter, 2023

 I'm typing this from my ancient laptop at a coffee shop. I fucked up my desktop PC trying to fix it. Someone with a similar problem (freezing up after being idle for a few minutes) said that they fixed the problem just by taking the RAM stick out and blowing on it. I haven't opened up a computer since I left my job at a computer company in 2001, but I figured it was something I could probably do myself. I eventually got it back together. That fix didn't work. Then I noticed that the front of the chassis wasn't all the way on. I can't remember since I actually haven't looked at it since then, but I think I got it on, but then the computer wouldn't start. I might be able to fix it myself, but I haven't been in the mood to. I may just pay someone to look at it.

Others have said that the problem could be the CPU, some have fixed their computers by upgrading it. I figure mine could use an upgrade, along with doubling the RAM. I'm definitely going to have someone else do that for me, too.

I'm so glad the Peak season is over. It was rougher than last year, due to having two accounts to work for instead of just one, and not having a good bilingual helper this year. I had two Cuban women who barely speak or understand English, and I had another person who was actually trainable, but I was too busy to give her as much training as I would've liked. She was let go recently because she supposedly failed her background check. We had another girl for a couple of weeks who was a real piece of work. Security walked her out the very first day for being insubordinate, but she was brought back the next day. The woman complained about ev-er-y-thing, and loved talking more than listening, which I will not abide. If I had hiring/firing power, she would never have come back after that first day, or I would've fired her after just a couple of days. Oh, and my supervisor was moved to another building for November and December, he was not missed at all. He was back this past Tuesday, thankfully he didn't bother me too much. I was seriously thinking about gunning for his position, or just pestering the way-higher ups into making me a lead or something similar. While I'm good at the work, I'm terrible with people, and really have no desire to deal with staffing issues. I'm better at just finding shit that's wrong.

I may do more posts about movies and music soon, since I think a lot of my rants about them on Facebook are probably more suited to the blog. I thought about making a whole new blog just for that, because personal stuff has taken up so much of it in previous years, but I'm too lazy for that. One subject I want to do soon is my current take on the Loudness Wars. It hasn't been a pet hobby for me in a long time, but I do have some thoughts. 

A quick one... (September 2023 edition)

 It's been entirely too long since I've posted. Entries that are only about two or three paragraphs can take hours to write. On the rare occasions when I get on my home computer, I end up spending a lot of time watching Youtube videos, and find myself moving on to other stuff when it gets too late to do an entry. So I'm just going to try to make this quick.

Speaking of the home computer, I've been having issues with it freezing up if I leave it idle for just a few minutes since January. That's when Avast Antivirus pestered me about some drivers needing updating. I did the Microsoft Update to tell me what drivers needed updating. Some of these "new" drivers dated back to 2019. I bought this computer at the end of 2019 or beginning of 2020. I figured "What the hell", and updated the drivers. And that's when the freezing bullshit started. I did a Restore thing, but I think that only helped temporarily. Can't figure out what the exact problem is. So, I haven't been real enthused about using this computer. I'm probably better off taking my ancient laptop to coffee shops again, might probably help keep me from staying home if I have plans to go out.

Work is still ridiculous. The Peak season has started, and we're still ridiculously understaffed. My direct boss is still an idiot. I've been trying to work extra hours since June. For the first month or two, all I was really doing was making up for the fact that we weren't working Saturdays. I tried to get even more days in, in hopes of being able to pay all my bills and still have money for groceries, and maybe actually have disposable income, including going to a concert or two. I did go to one concert, where I was fucking miserable most of the time, but that's a story for another time. What I really wanted to do was see Duran Duran at the Bourbon & Beyond Festival, but I didn't make enough money for that. I'm really bummed about not getting to see them, especially since my brother and his husband got to see them in Austin. As much as I hate my job, I'd sure hate it a lot fucking less if it paid enough to afford me to go to concerts, or indulge in my music/movie collecting addiction. Like, in order to afford concerts, I'd have to have only one day off a week, and that place drains me too much to do that. Hell, I was so exhausted this past Sunday that it ruined me for the rest of the work week, and I spent a good portion of my first day off after that taking naps.

The one good thing I can say about work this past Summer is that I got to have Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day off.

In other news, I popped my Covid cherry in August. Yup, I somehow managed to go three and a half years without getting it. As far as congestion issues go, it wasn't bad at all. That (Covid-less) sinus infection I had in late November/early December last year was way worse in that regard. No, what really did me in was the brain fog that can come with Covid. I can deal with congestion, but the brain fog made me feel dumber, and that's what really concerned me enough to get tested.

(TMI Alert) Also in August was the tenth anniversary of the last time I got laid. Or about as laid as I can get, but that's another story that I may not even tell here. Sex is pretty overrated, despite how fun movies and tv shows make it look*, but I miss intimacy. I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that, aside from hugs, I may never touch another woman ever again.

*Florence Pugh in (or maybe I should say ON) Oppenheimer comes to mind.

May 2023

 To follow up on my most recent post, "Community Standards", it took about three weeks or so, but Facebook finally quit giving me 24-hour restrictions from Liking posts and comments. I guess that's something I'll have to deal with every once in a while.

My main helper at work moved to Nebraska. Her husband got a job there. It must pay well to move all the way over there for.

Speaking of work, they keep coming up with more ways to annoy me. One was closing down the first building (we had five warehouses in the area up until a month or so ago), and bringing those people and accounts to my building. They moved a bunch of bulk storage lanes for our main account over to what had been dock staging lanes, and a lot of outgoing stuff that used to be staged in those lanes are now staged in lanes on the opposite end of the building. So, instead of just doing dock audits in a corner of the building, I have to go back and forth from one side of the building to the other. But at least that account is away from the conveyors! The other account new to this building occupies a quarter of the Picking area, where another account that moved to a new warehouse previously occupied. We have enough issues with the main account on our conveyors, we really didn't need another account adding more bullshit. And QA is understaffed and overworked as it is, this adds a lot more to our workload. I talked our manager (not my supervisor, but his boss) into talking to the bean counters or powers-that-be about adding another QA or two. He came back, and said something like, "I talked to them, and they're like 'Well, volume is leveling off, and (blah blah blah).'"

Just this past week, they started a new break schedule. Keep in mind, we work 6:00am to 6:30pm. Our old break schedule was first break at 9:00am, lunch from 12:00 to 12:30pm, and last break was at 3:00pm. The first and last breaks were fifteen minutes. Now, we have three ten-minute breaks. The schedule now is first break at 8:30am, lunch from 11:00 to 11:30am, second break at 1:30pm, and last break at 4:00pm. This new schedule fucking SUCKS! From what I've heard, someone went and complained to HR about the break schedule violating labor laws. I'm about as pro-Labor as you can get, but having three 10-minute breaks throughout a 12-hour shift is some bullshit. That's barely enough time to eat a candy bar, not to mention that's when I have to make calls or deal with HR, and 15-minutes wasn't even enough for those! They should've just given us two 20-minute breaks instead.

Another reason we need more QAs is because the other two that I currently have cannot be depended on to show up on Sundays. I think I can count on one hand the number of times both of them have come in on a Sunday. I now expect one of them to be out any on given Sunday, but even expecting it doesn't make me any less pissed off when it does happen.

One good thing from work: my boss is in Memphis for three months, doing some kind of career-furthering training or something. It started at the beginning of April, should end at the end of June. What I should do is find another god damn job before he comes back, so I don't have to deal directly with his ass ever again.

Since I always talk about holidays, I am happy to say that we have Memorial Day off. But I still have to work that Sunday.

"Community Standards"

Or, "Mark Zuckerberg, I'm getting really tired of your shit!"

I kind of like Facebook. But at the same time, I fucking hate it. It's the easiest way to keep up with a large number of friends without actually having to message each one of them. Louisville Mojo is dead, MySpace is totally different, I don't really like Instagram, and I hated Twitter long before Elon Musk got his hands on it. I know of no viable competitor to Facebook, so I'm forced to put up with it.

But Facebook has really been testing my patience these past two weeks.

So, what have they done that's been pissing me off so bad? They've been giving me 24-hour restrictions from Liking posts and comments, due to not following some vague "Community Standards".

Due to the nature of the restriction, I'm guessing that I must have Liked what they perceive to be too many posts in a certain amount of time. I guess Facebook thinks I love my friends and cat pictures too much. But I've looked through the "Community Standards", and there's nothing explicitly stating that you can only Like a certain amount of posts/comments in a certain amount of time. This is the closest I can find to mentioning anything like that, under "Spam", which is under "Integrity and Authenticity":

I cannot find anyone at Facebook to complain to about this particular problem. You can appeal a decision about something you posted that got taken down, but I don't think the Review Teams or Oversight Board handle things like Liking posts/comments. But I've got this here blog, so I can complain about it here!

Between March 11th and March 17th, I had multiple 24-hour restrictions from Liking posts and comments. On March 18th, I started refraining from Liking news articles on the News tab, which cut down my Likes by a lot. I didn't get another 24-hour restriction until just an hour or two ago today, March 23rd.

I figure it must be some dumbass AI who thinks I'm a bot.

To Facebook: I've been on Facebook for almost 15 years. I've been the same person on that profile for that entire 15 years. I assure you that I'm not a bot, and my profile hasn't even been hacked by some foreign scammer. Why restrict people from interacting on posts when there's no stated limit to it?

Facebook, please... FIX YOUR SHIT!!!😡

Like squeezing blood from a stone

 Work has been extra annoying this past month. Since Peak is over, our client isn't as willing to throw money at us, meaning they're being stingy. They've even gone so far as to downsize my already understaffed department. My shift only had three people, when four is the bare minimum we need to run adequately. I'm really glad that my main helper told me at the end of that week that they were going to pull this shit, because my supervisor said absolutely nothing to me about it. He might possibly have been afraid of me going ballistic, which I would have, but it's better for me to go ballistic early, rather than come in at the start of the week and go ballistic then because I'm just learning about this shit that morning. I was happy to see my helper that morning, but it turns out she would be in Picking, leaving me as the only QA on A-Shift. A couple of weeks later, they moved one girl from B-Shift, and one girl who worked Monday through Friday, to A-Shift. I don't think either of these girls speak or understand much English. The other woman we had working Monday through Friday is now on B-Shift, so we now have no extra help on Mondays and Tuesdays.

They picked a really fucking bad time to downsize QA, because we've been busy as fuck for the most part! Or at least too busy to just have three QAs. Hell, I've found some fucked up shit that the girl who was originally on B-Shift should've reported, but didn't. It turns out, even if B-Shift finds errors, they don't technically report them like they're supposed to. There are days that B-Shift supposedly has no errors, which is a crock of shit, because I find a lot of crap that B-Shift did wrong.

I mentioned in my previous entry that I was going to ditch my therapist. I kind of wish I had just canceled my last appointment with him, because he annoyed me bad enough that I was like, "Yup, I'm done."

I've loved singing karaoke since 2004. I got to do it a lot during the "good ol' days" of Louisville Mojo, but I haven't gotten to do it much after 2008 or 2009. There is one place I've been going to since November that does really, really fun karaoke, but they only do it once a month. I always have such a good time there! But then I get depressed the day or so after that, because I can't have that much fun every night, and I can't channel the confidence I have on stage to the rest of my life off the stage. The guy who KJ's (karaoke jockey) there has a weekly gig elsewhere on Tuesday nights, but with Tuesdays being my Friday, I'm so wore out that I'm dead to the world by 8:00 or 9:00. I really need to hang out with friends more between those Wednesdays, but trying to make plans with others is a pain in the ass, especially if they're homebodies like I am.

Peak 2022

 Eh, I guess I can talk about the past few months.

I mentioned back in September that the QA I worked with since February would be relocating. I believe it was early October when she did. The week after she quit, we got one of our people back who had worked for a couple of months earlier in the year, and who was pretty good. She was so out of practice though that I had to retrain her a little bit to get her back into the groove.

The week of my birthday was alright, but would've been better had I not been on Qelbree that week. Qelbree is a non-stimulant ADHD medicine. It was definitely effective, but it also made me not want to eat anything.

• At work that Sunday, I ended up vomiting after lunch because I ate and drank too much, except it wasn't really any more than normal.
• That Tuesday after work, I went to see Napalm Death and Brujeria. I got a 20 piece Chicken McNuggets from McDonald's on my way to the venue, and ate them when I arrived there. It was really ten pieces too many, but I managed to keep it down. The show was a lot of fun. I wish I could've seen them at one of their Texas dates, because MDC opened on the Texas dates.
• That Thursday, I had a therapist appointment in the morning, and went to see The English Beat that night. I went to Taco Bell for lunch and just got a Chicken Quesadilla, and could barely finish it. Went to the Best Buy up in St. Matthews to look for movies, and found out they don't carry movies anymore, so I went elsewhere to go movie shopping. I ended up having a massive headache the rest of the day. Went to Smashburger before the English Beat show and got three chicken tenders, and could barely finish them. Got to the show, talked to a few friends. I really only know four English Beat/General Public songs (Mirror In The Bathroom, Save It For Later, Tenderness, and GP's cover of I'll Take You There). I was ready to leave early due to my headache, so I looked up their setlists from previous shows, and discovered that they actually do my three favorite songs early in the set, and did my least favorite towards the end of the show, so I decided to stick around for my three favorite songs, then left.
• I went to see Black Panther: Wakanda Forever that Friday, and did some shopping. I ended up vomiting when I went to the bathroom just before going to bed that night. I decided that night that I was going to quit taking Qelbree.
• That Saturday was one where I was scheduled to work, but I ended up calling in, partially due to being sick from the Qelbree, but also because the drastic change in weather had me fucked up. It was unseasonably warm that week, which I didn't mind at all. But we went from being in the mid-60s Friday afternoon, to fucking snowing on Saturday morning, and I couldn't deal with it.

This year was the first year that I had both Thanksgiving and Black Friday off since 2008. Thanksgiving was weird, mostly because my parents are weird. My dad is an asshole, and my mom's memory has been going to shit, which in turn greatly annoys my dad. My mom's memory problems supposedly stem from her meds, and not any dementia or Alzheimer's. As for Black Friday, I've been determined that if I ever had a Black Friday off, I'd spend it being a lazy motherfucker and just watch movies, or maybe just one long ass movie. I finally got around to watching the director's cut of Wim Wenders' Until The End Of The World, which is almost five hours long, but probably took a lot longer than that to get through, due to having to take an occasional nap or break from the movie.

We actually got Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas off, and I used my Floating Holiday for the 27th, so I had that whole week off. I was glad we had that time off, since a shitty snow/ice event that weekend made driving hazardous. I went nowhere between the Thursday afternoon before Christmas, and the Tuesday morning after Christmas, and ended up doing Christmas with the parents that Tuesday.

New Year's weekend was fucking stupid. Christmas Eve fell on a Saturday that my shift would've normally had to work. You'd think they would've made us work the following Saturday, which was the 31st, but thankfully they kept that as B-Shift's Saturday, so we got New Year's Eve off. Here's where it gets stupid. I've had every New Year's Day off since I started at this place. Since New Year's Day this year fell on a Sunday, it was decided that NYD would be observed that Monday, the 2nd, so the Monday-Friday people would have Monday off. I would've had no problem taking NYD off and coming in that Monday. What they did instead was have Outbound come in on Sunday, and they gave us Monday off. The only reason I can think of for this is that this year, they've decided to give us time and a half if we end up working on an observed holiday, instead of giving us a Floating Holiday like they had been, and I guess they didn't want to pay us extra to come in on Monday. Since Sunday wasn't observed, we wouldn't be getting holiday pay or time and a half for working on Sunday, so they made us come in on actual New Year's Day. It's hard enough to get people to come in on a regular Sunday morning, having them come in on a New Year's Day that falls on a Sunday is downright moronic. Meanwhile, Inbound had New Year's Day off. I don't know if they had to come in that Monday, and at this point I'm beyond caring. But anyway, we worked less than half the day because we didn't have that much work. They should've just bit the bullet and had us work half the day Monday. Oh, and I was doubly miserable coming in on New Year's Day because I didn't get enough sleep, if at all, though not for lack of trying. I wasn't even up late or anything, I just couldn't sleep.

I've never had MLK Day off. I was prepared to work on MLK Day this year, even though my employer has made it a paid holiday. The Monday before MLK Day, my supervisor told us that we had MLK Day off, so I was looking forward to having it off. The next morning, he told us that they got an e-mail from our client telling them that they wanted my shift to work on MLK Day, so only the Monday-Friday people would be off. This really pissed me off. I assumed that all the Monday-Friday departments would be off, but they all ended up coming in. The only people who didn't come in were my supervisor and our two Monday-Friday QAs, so it was a normal day aside from those three people not being there. It would've been fine if my boss hadn't gotten my hopes up the week before.