Category Archives: Rant - Page 2

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Posted by on December 5, 2020 No comments

This is long.  This is a rant about my workplace.  While the story is specific to my employer, it’s actually more of a rant about rampant capitalism, of which my employer is highly adherent to.  It is sort of a difficult post for me to write.  I’ve been wrestling with myself for the last couple of days on the topic because I’ve felt I have no right to complain.  After all, I have a job, I’m paid quite well, the work is easy and in a field I enjoy.  There are people who do not have all, some, or even any of those.  Why should I complain?

Let’s just cut to the situation, then break it apart from there.  Friday morning we got an announcement that because of the pandemic and the resulting slowdown in business at the company, there were going to be some changes implemented.  So far, this sounds like every other company dealing with COVID fallout.  The changes include: pay cuts (15% for managers and up, 10% for everyone else), discontinuation of 401k matching, discontinuing anniversary bonuses, and discontinuation of PTO cashouts.  Earlier in the year, when COVID began, the company announced a wage freeze, so no more raises until things turn around.

How did this affect me personally?  I am considered maxed out on salary, so my raises have been trivial for the last few years.  A wage freeze doesn’t hurt me too bad.  However, a 10% pay cut, wiped out 6 years worth of raises for me.  You can also take out 4% of my salary from the loss of the 401k match.  The anniversary bonus is something nice to look forward to, and since my anniversary is in a couple of weeks, this stings a little more than usual.

I say again, why should I complain?  It’s just money and even with the changes, I’m still probably in the top 10 highest paid people in the company.  My finances are very stable.  But to not complain is to accept and encourage that mentality that is choking and killing America – I got mine. Fuck you.

This is a family-owned company, and a couple of the family members/owners "work" there.  Over the years, their involvement has dwindled as their age has also progressed.  They are all very, very wealthy and surely want to spend their lives and their money in other ways.

As spokespeople for the company, the owners have always stressed how the employees are like extended family.  However, when we have our annual layoffs, the remaining people are reassured that the company is financially strong.  I get it.  A company is not supposed to lose money; it wouldn’t survive like that.  However, when times are lean and there is a choice to reduce profit or reduce headcount, the same decision is always made.

I say again, I get it.  Money can come from a business in three ways: a salary, year-end profits, and the intrinsic value of the company itself.  I would be on board if the decision to preserve profit was because the owners only income was the corporate profit.  But it’s not.  The owners have the intrinsic value, they have the annual profit, and they also all pull a salary from the company.  They are triple-dipping and hoarding all the profits for themselves.  They sacrifice others for their own gain.

Now, here’s the straw that broke my back with this last announcement.  Two things actually.  First was the mention of layoffs.  The announcement rationalized that when volume was down, the company would lay people off.  And why not?  They’ve done it every year for at least four years.  While they didn’t explicitly say we should be happy they didn’t resort to layoffs, mentioning it at all means it was considered.

So why wasn’t that the decision?  Thanks to freedom-loving patriots out there (who I’m sure had to fight valiantly against the current administration), it is in public information that I was able to find out that our company received a PPP loan from the government in the amount of somewhere between 2 and 5 million dollars.  A provision of taking that loan is that you do not lay off any workers.  So layoffs weren’t an option, although it was still considered.  However, there’s no restriction against cutting salary or benefits (research shows that this not uncommon).

If you know the PPP loan program, you know it’s not a loan.  It’s forgivable as long as you abide by its rules.  So, it’s free government money (it’s not socialism when it’s capitalism, right!).  Our company got over 2 million dollars for free to pay for our salaries and our company instead cuts salaries.  That improves the company’s profit, which goes to… the owners, exclusively.  Hypothetically, lets say our business was down enough that we made no profit this year, we just broke even.  With the PPP loan, payroll expenses drop by $2M+, profit becomes $2M+.  And that is not enough for the owners.  Fuck you, I’m getting mine.

I know business.  I know how it can be used to fuck people.  I saw it at my last job and I see it here.  In my last job, there was a "final con" to fuck the employees and enrich the owner on his way out.  While I’m not sure my previous employer actually got to execute his plan before I left, if my prediction for this company’s "final con" is correct, it’s already a done deal.

The owners are old and not involved in the business anymore.  They want out.  Business is down and has been down for quite some time.  That is bad for the owners.  When someone wants to buy a business, they want to see what return on investment they will get from it.  If the company isn’t turning good profits, its value (the sale price) decreases.  While anyone pitching the company is going to point out the glory years as what the company is capable of and will also hype the potential of the business when COVID ends, they still need to prove short-term viability and profit.

I’ve already told you the secret a few paragraphs ago.  Reduce expenses, profit goes up.  By cutting everyone’s salary and the 401k benefits and anniversary bonuses and the cash value of PTO, the company immediately looks better financially to a buyer.  The buyer has no obligation to restore any of those things.  For all they know, it’s always been that way.  Maybe they would see in a prior year financial statement that expenses were much higher, but why should they care?  The current and future financials say they’ll make good money.

Pause for a moment and absorb all that.  Now, because I have to explicitly say this, if the company looks like it will be more profitable to a buyer, the company can be sold for more money.  That money goes to… the owners, exclusively.  The salary and benefit cuts remain.

Now, in closing.  I do get it.  This is business.  Do not ever feel like your employer gives one single shit about you or your life.  Are there exceptions to this?  Sure.  But America is greed and selfishness personified.  It’s going to take generations to turn this around if it even can be turned around.  It’s not going to happen in my lifetime for sure.  I really do empathize with the younger generations and what they are facing.

Where It’s Going

Posted by on November 10, 2020 No comments

On: https://akcaggiano.com/2020/11/10/cruel-to-be-kind/

Usually, I use the Commentary category for news stories, but when I was writing a comment on this blog post, I decided I had more to say about the situation and making my own post might be more appropriate.

To summarize: After having been verbally, emotionally, and physically abused by the former president and his followers, we’re now asked to simply forgive and forget.  The answer to both of those requests is "no."  Anyone that didn’t see a problem with what has been done over the last years has a serious problem.  Anyone that says the alternative would have be worse, or says that the president-elect is going to make it worse has a serious problem.

If we are not actually living in the "end times", which I’m not going to completely dismiss, a lot of people act as if there is nothing left to lose.  For example, a see a lot of posts about gender or sexuality rights.  And because "liberals" are coming into power, we’re all going to be homosexual now.  Hyperbolic and hysterical, yes, but here’s the point.  For some people, this is so important, that they would vote the incumbent back in solely because of that.  There are other similar reasons people have for the same action.  I’ll admit, there may be a case I would do something like that, but for a different cause.

The difference with me, and I would assume other rational people, is there is a level of risk/reward assessment.  To get what you want, how much do you have to give up?  And for these irrational people, it seems they would give up everyone’s everything for their one thing.  And they would suffer for it as well, despite the win – a Pyrrhic victory.  There’s no consideration to postpone that fight for 4 years and try again in better circumstances.  It’s tunnel vision.  Anyone who voted JoJo or Kayne, this is the one time to not be supporting 3rd party.  This one is too important.  But thank you anyway for pulling those votes.

Now, the point I really wanted to make in response to the post is: we’re nowhere near out of the woods on this.

There is a book from which I read an excerpt, and now there’s so many similar books there’s no way for me to find out which it was so I can link it, that discussed how Germany became Nazi Germany.  I distilled the information from that into a single statement to commit to memory, "Hitler comes later."

The point of that warning is that in Germany, there was a pre-Nazi leader who sparked the nationalistic views of the people.  He didn’t get very far, but the future Nazi party took note of how dedicated and passionate those supporters were.  The party then turned it up to 11 and viola, Hitler.

So while there may currently seem to be a glimmer of hope that civility can return, this is the time to be even more vigilant (and god, I hate that word).  I am certain the fanaticism has not gone unnoticed and can and will be exploited. 

If I had to hazard a guess, it will be Jr.  He’s young, charismatic, and carries the family name.  He’s got a partner from the media that has been successfully grooming him for presentation.  So far I haven’t heard of him speaking his own ideas, only parroting his father’s, but watch out if the tone changes and he starts instigating things himself.

We have 4 years to prepare for this.  Do not forgive and do not forget.

Bastards and Liars

Posted by on April 14, 2020 No comments

Guess who stopped at my house again?  Spectrum.  This is the third time they have done this.  And boy did I let them hear it.

But the guy didn’t back down.  He stood his ground and as a good salesperson should do, he tried to get me to say something positive, because when you say positive things, your mood becomes more positive.  And additionally, the more you can keep the person talking to you, even if they’re bitching at you, it’s still engagement and there’s still a chance to turn it around.  Smart guy.

But he’s a fucking liar.  I told him the first reason I wasn’t going to switch, as I’ve said here before.  I’m with a company that has caused me no problems and he wants me to switch to a company that I’ve never dealt with.  Then I gave him #2, which is that Spectrum doesn’t offer the speeds that FIOS does.  That’s when he shut me up.

You see, while Spectrum doesn’t offer synchronous upload/download speeds, they do offer speeds that exceed what I currently have.  The one he pitched me was the 400/200 plan.  He said there was another plan, the gigabit option that was, I think 1gig up/500 down.  Well, that’s curious, I’d never heard of those plans before.  But to get that much upload speed must be super expensive, judging by how much the normal lopsided plans were.

He said he would be quick and just give me the numbers and be gone, which I appreciated.  He sidetracked a bit on a cable package, which I wasn’t interested in, but he didn’t care.  So it was about $55/mo for the 400/200 package and $88 for that, plus the cable package.  Huh…

As he was finishing up, I asked him if it was possible to put my house on a do-not-visit list.  He said maybe.  He would put a note in the system, which I doubt has had any effect the previous two times.  He also gave me their customer service number that might be able to do it.  And he left.

After cooling down a little bit, I took his card with the illegible writing on the back and went in search of these internet plans I’d never heard of.  Guess what?  They don’t exist.  The 400/200 plan he was telling me?  It’s 400/20, and it’s priced at $70/mo on their website.  The gigabit plan?  It’s 940/35 and costs $110/mo.  You fucking liar.

Can you imagine if I wasn’t adamant about telling Spectrum to get the fuck off my property?  That he could have convinced me to switch to a 400/200 plan that would be over twice as fast as what I had now?  How, after discovering this lie, what kind of bullshit I’d have to go through to reinstate Frontier?  You fucking bastard.

Banks Still Gonna Bank

Posted by on February 8, 2020 No comments

I’m personally sitting pretty well when it comes to my financial house.  I’ve mentioned changes I’ve made here and there and for quite some time, I’ve been satisfied with what I’ve got.  In summary, where I’m at right now is: Ally handles all my savings accounts needs.  They pay 1.6% interest (right now.  It’s been slowly dropping again.)  T-Mobile (through Customers Bank) handles my checking.  They pay 4% interest on up to $3k in my account and 1% on the rest.  That’s a pretty nice deal, especially as rates keep dropping elsewhere.  Looking at the interest rate history, we’re back where we were two years ago, after peaking in December, 2018.

So, it’s always good to be vigilant and keep an eye open for what may be better for you in your current situation.  Although this hasn’t affected me, it’s still an irrational issue for me that I don’t have a presence at a physical bank.  To repeat, I haven’t needed the services of a physical bank in many, many, years, but I still feel like I should have an account at one.  So every once in a while, I give it consideration.

An offer came in the mail from TD Bank, which opened a branch nearby me recently.  Recently – in bank years – is like in the last decade.  I’ve always been intrigued by them, and I do have a IRA account with TD Ameritrade (although I’m not sure they’re actually related), so when I saw the offer, I figured I’d investigate.  After all, they’re offering a signing bonus of $150 or $300, and who doesn’t want free money?

Let’s start with their top-tier account and see if I can get in.  No minimum deposit to open an account (I don’t even know what that means – how do you open an account with no funds?).  Monthly maintenance fee: $25.  in the old days,  that actually meant something, but now it just means you need to see if you can meet the criteria to get it waived.  It’s almost a pointless charge.  If you don’t meet the waiver criteria, you don’t get that account.  Duh.

So, to waive the fee, I need either: $5k in direct deposits a month.  Oh.  Well, that’s quite a number.  What else you got?  Keep a $2,500 daily balance.  Well, you know I had that at my last bank and it is doable, but are you going to pay me 4% interest on it like T-Mobile is?  Not likely.  Finally, I can have $25k in accounts with TD.  They didn’t mention TD Ameritrade, only loans and deposit accounts, so that could be my ticket in, if that’s the case.

I visited their "Contact" section and their immediate response options were limited to social media or calling.  I wasn’t going to call for a 5 second question, so I sucked it up and used Facebook Messenger to ping them for an answer.

While I wait, let’s see what benefits I get for my account.  No ATM fees, free money orders, cashiers checks, blah, blah.  It looks like I could have a free account…  And now "Marie" has messaged me back, with essentially a copy/paste of the text I already read.  So I have to be more specific in my question.  Is a brokerage account with TD Ameritrade considered a "deposit account"?  And the answer is: no.  TD Bank and TD Ameritrade are separate and their accounts don’t count towards each other.  So TD Bank is not for me.  And it didn’t offer anything compelling anyway.

But, let me jump back just a little bit.  When the TD Bank first opened in my area, I remember being impressed with their choice to have banking independent from investment.  I thought it was the proper thing to do, unlike what, say, Wells Fargo does (as if WF does anything properly).  I still do think that.  But, after looking into their service offerings, I’m just not their target audience.  There are better deals from online banks and the benefits of being physical just aren’t there.  And maybe, maybe… I could be convinced that having my banking under the same umbrella as my retirement investment account is a good thing, then maybe things would be different.  But right now, I think keeping things apart is best, especially in the growing swell of deregulation and financial insanity.

Class Action Pennies

Posted by on February 5, 2020 No comments

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a class action lawsuit in which I was a participant.  The end result of that was me dropping out because I had to provide proof of my involvement, which I could have, but it was more effort than I wanted to expend for my "up to $900", but realistically more like $5 award.

And now today, I get an email about the Yahoo security breach class action lawsuit.  Oh boy, this should be expensive.  Scanning the email quickly for numbers, I find that the settlement is for $117 million.  Nice.  Now, how many potential claimants?  Oh… 3 billion.

Quick, what’s the math on this?  About four cents per claimant.  Well, I guess that’s something.  And what, perchance, are the lawyers fees for the case?  $30 million, plus an extra $2.5 million for expenses (postage for 3 billion $.04 cent checks=$900 million, FYI).  Oh, and the expenses.  Some people endured a greater hardship to prove the culpability of Yahoo, and those people will get awards of $2,500, $5,000, or $7.500.  I did not see in a quick scan of the online documents how many people this award pertains to, but there are six plaintiffs.  When talking in millions of dollars, 4-figure awards are a rounding error.

So, let’s round down to the nearest million for the post-lawyer-payday settlement pool, which is now $84 million.  And now, each claimant is due at least 2.8 cents.  I would round that up to 3 cents, but that’s $6 million of rounding that we just don’t have the funds for.  Sorry about that.

Well, well, well.

Posted by on December 31, 2019 No comments

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A big fuck you to Pizza Hut’s web developers.  I’ve watched the PizzaHut website change on what seems like a weekly basis.  I  applaud their efforts, despite those efforts being in PHP and somewhat overbearing on the JQuery effects.

However, I get a little peeved when the Opera browser is intentionally excluded.  I mean, it’s not like you’re doing anything different to code for Opera, you just do it right and it works.  Code to the standards and things just work.

Security Through Absurdity

Posted by on December 31, 2019 No comments

HSBC has always seemed to be the weirdest when it comes to logging in to their banking site.  To log in, you have a username, a password, and a security key – essentially, two passwords.  I’ve had an HSBC account for some time, and their little Java applet where you would enter your security key using the mouse was lame as hell.  If someone is watching over your shoulder, you can type your password pretty quickly and people probably won’t get it.  But if you’re clicking the mouse letter-to-letter, that’s as obvious as hunting and pecking your password with a single finger.

I have to assume it’s to prevent password capture from keyloggers, which is noble in its intent, just lame in its execution.  So HSBC changed up their login to something even more ridiculous. You still have your security key, but now, you enter random characters from it.

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Can this be any more insane?  The first time, I couldn’t even log in.  I was stepping through my key letter by letter, counting the boxes and to be honest, I was using the wrong letters anyway.  I wouldn’t have made that mistake on the old login, because it was a keyboard pattern I was familiar with.

I think I understand the reasoning.  They want to inject some humanized processing of the security word.  What will be their next version of the login?  “Enter your security key… backwards.”  “Enter your security key… replacing all the letter A’s with underscores.” “Enter your security key… using capitals for lowercase and vice versa.”

Upgrade Your Misery Today!

Posted by on December 31, 2019 No comments

Here’s the banner for an email I recently got:

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Quicken and WillMaker.  Two products that go so well together.  One makes you want to die and the other helps you be prepared for that moment.  It all works together: Customer Service (I want to kill myself), “put your life on hold”, 2012, Quicken.

You couldn’t ask for a more cohesive piece of marketing.

And this is pretty good as well.  The point of the email is “Improved Customer Service is Now FREE2”, with the footnote “Valid for 2012 Quicken customers only and available for a limited time; subject to change without notice.”  So, what I gather from this is: Quicken used to charge for good customer service, but now they are doing what they should always have been doing. They won’t do it forever, though.  They won’t tell you when they’re going to go back to the same old crappy customer service (it’ll just kinda start happening), and you still have to pay for it by buying the 2012 version.  In other words, business has dropped off and no one is calling our support lines because they either have left us or have learned to deal with the existing bugs in Quicken.  That means our support staff can help you better until enough people buy the 2012 version and swamp us with new bug reports.

And they are still pretty much the only game in town.

One More Reason To Hate People

Posted by on December 25, 2019 No comments

This is a problem I’ve been reading about with increased frequency.  A person will buy some thing, then fill the box with something else and return it, getting a refund and keeping the original thing.  In the cases I’ve been reading about, it’s hard drives.  A person will buy an external hard drive, open the case, switch out the large hard drive with a small hard drive (working or even not working) and return it to the store.

What happens is the store looks inside the box (maybe), sees everything is there and puts it back on the shelf for someone else to buy it and discover they got a tiny hard drive instead of what they thought they were getting.  That customer brings it back to the store and the cycle repeats.

This is very lucrative for some people, for people that lack morals, anyway.  But this happened to me on a less lucrative item, although no less infuriating.  I purchased an outdoor LED security light.  It wasn’t super cheap, in the $30 range.  I got it home and when I opened the box, inside was your typical two-light incandescent light mount, probably under $15.

Now, I am faced with a bunch of bullshit.  First is the wasted time and travel to return and replace this item.  Second is the thought that the store doesn’t really know that I wasn’t the one that made the switch and am trying to pull the scam off myself.  Third is the thought that the store may not actually take any action on this and put it back on the floor to repeat the cycle.  Clearly, something must be done here.

It’s easy to put the blame on the store, and I’m mostly in agreement.  I can understand the customer service part of no-hassle returns and wanting to make the customer happy, but they still need to verify the item being returned is the same as what was purchased.  And I think anything returned should be flagged with a label indicating it is not "new stock".

And while this sounds great, reality says there’s actually very little stopping thieves from doing whatever they want to do.  How about the stories of people using self checkout to buy expensive things and ringing them up as bananas?  How about the rule that "loss prevention" is actually not allowed to engage with a suspected shoplifter?  Just keep on walking, they can’t stop you.  They literally can’t stop you.  And when shitty people learn this stuff, they just do it.

I had the thought that night that if I had used self-checkout, the mismatched product would probably have been caught because it would have a different weight.  The register would have said something like incorrect item in bagging area.  That’s great, but you know what really would have happened?  The clerk would have just overridden the register and I’d be on my way with the wrong item anyway.  Again, it comes back to the store, but they’re just doing whatever it takes to make the customer happy, because self-checkout problems are a sure-fire way to piss people off.  If you’re making the customer do the work, you had better make it easy for them.

But let’s just make it clear, customer service is a poor term when the customer is not even a customer, but only a thief.

FML

Posted by on December 13, 2019 No comments

Fuck MyLife.

If you’ve ever taken a moment to search for your name on the Internet, then you know what I’m talking about.  There are plenty of websites that collect public data about people and aggregate it all together, then conveniently make it available to anyone that wants to search for your name.  MyLife is one of them.

A couple of days ago, I figured I would try and take control of my public information in 2020.  The first step I figured would be locking down these public profiles of me.  Should be easy, right?  Create an account, verify your identity, then set the account to private.  That’s how I thought it should work, anyway.

So the first site I went to was MyLife.  I searched myself, and on my profile page, I click the link that said something like “this is me”.  It brought me to the fake “searching for data” page, which I cancelled out of.  On a form that was displayed next, I provided my email address (as is my policy, a unique email address just for them) and clicked “Show background report”, which is a strange way of saying “create account”.

Immediately, at my “dashboard” (please note I never verified any of my info.  you can seemingly create an account for any name you want), I was shown a popup to enable or disable sections of my profile, with a button to “save changes”.  After clicking the button, I was taken to a screen showing different subscription options.  Yeah, no thanks, a free account is all I need.  But no, a free account is not what you need at all.  The “save changes” button does nothing.  Nothing unless you have a paid account, that is.  Fucking seriously?  So fine, these motherfuckers won’t let you lock down your account unless you pay them.  Fine.  You’re assholes, goddamn assholes.  But you are not getting my money.

But, ohhhhh, they have my email address now.  And now the emails have started.  Day 1: the welcome email, which reminds me if I upgrade to Premium, I can lock sections of my profile.  And in big type it says “Keep Your Info Private”.  Assholes.  Day 2: an email trying to warn me about how bad people are and how I need to be able to find out everything I can on everyone otherwise I or my family might get hurt.  Assholes.  Day 3: an email warning me that my online reputation affects my life.  Everyone is going to see my information online (after encouraging me to find everyone I know in the previous email).  ASSHOLES!  (post-publish update: 2 more emails came in on Day 3, one an ad for Experian Boost and another reminding me that there are other sites exposing my info.  I can’t stop them, but I can see who they are – for $$, of course.)

I have enough experience in web site development to have conversed with people who would create a website like MyLife.  They are scum.  There is absolutely nothing positive about the “service” they are offering.  It’s simple blackmail.  Just like those websites that supposedly list “cheaters” and make you pay to have your name taken off. 

Now, fortunately, my “reputation” on MyLife is just fine, but I know how they work.  If you have any entries on a municipalities Clerk Of Court website, you get whacked.  And it’s all the same.  Traffic ticket? Same as a DUI.  Do you want to know the difference?  Well, you’ll have to pay MyLife to see the details.  Unless you’re smart and go to the county Clerk of Court website and do the search yourself, then it’s free.

So MyLife ruins lives by making minor infractions seems like major red flags, then they won’t explain whether it’s a real problem unless you pay them.  And I guess that alone wasn’t scaring people enough, so what they started doing was listing your relatives in your profile and putting warnings if any of them had issues.  And I guess that wasn’t enough either, so they started listing neighbors in there and flagging them, too.

And while I’m definitely of the mindset that you will be known by the company you keep, this is completely ridiculous.  And it’s all in the goal of getting you into a subscription so you can hide that damaging information.  Fucking ASSHOLES.