The grumpy thread

[LightBulbFun]

slightly* pissed off at UPS

I have a large box of fluorescent tubes im drop shipping for a friend in the US, that I finally got packaged up today so my friend paypals me the money to ship them over

so I go to UPS, go through all the details fill everything out yada yada, go to pay with paypal login it does its thing and goes back to the UPS site where upon UPS's website spits this at me 

but that the paypal thing had gone through, so I now have a pending paypal transaction of £161 which although only pending has been deducted from my paypal balance still 

with no cancel button in paypal for this transaction

im now im down £161 in paypal, and UPS customer support was useless the lady just kept asking for a tracking number (which I obviously did not have) and in the end just told me to contact paypal

but pay-pal says for this sort of transaction to cancel it I have to contact the recipient of the payment, (and It wont even let me open a dispute either)

now I dont think iv lost the £161, from googling the error code UPS: 81291 im not the only one this has happened to with UPS and that eventually paypal will just cancel the Authorisation after 30 days of it just pending

but unless I can somehow proactively cancel the pending transaction thats 30 days im going to be down £161 basically, and as such I cant try again as i dont have the money in my paypal to pay for it

so im not sure what to do now (but I have now made a user account with UPS so if this happens next time I try I will hopefully have a bit more of a record of it)

[richardmorris]

Doesn’t help you, but ups are the very worst for deliveries to work.

[Floatylight]

2 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

I'd like to know by what measurement that's £20 of food. An outrage.

They've been at it for years we just normally don't see what is served to the kids, say what you want about Jamie Oliver but he got turkey twizzlers banned amd a set of nutritional criteria brought in for schools.

(As a side note those criteria don't apply to academies whose heads apparently are able to decide what is best for the kids whereas a head in a maintained school apparently does not.)

In Staffordshire we had one of the best council run school meals services in the Country, @chaseracerand I led the campaign to try and keep it in house sadly unsuccessfully as parents and the public sat silently by.  It was then outsourced to Capita who set themselves up as the experts only to further outsource it to Chartwells (the shower behind these food parcels) as they were the experts.

If you can't tell - yes I'm still bitter (8 years on)

[chaseracer]

1 minute ago, Floatylight said:

yes I'm still bitter (8 years on)

As am I, Steve... 

...though making the deputy* leader shake with anger (because he knew he'd been caught in a deliberate lie) was something of a high point.

[Wack]

2 hours ago, omegod said:

It's actually meant to be £30 worth I believe

That'll be 30 tory pounds 

how much is a can of beans 

Must be at least eight pounds etc 

[Wack]

51 minutes ago, Floatylight said:

They've been at it for years we just normally don't see what is served to the kids, say what you want about Jamie Oliver but he got turkey twizzlers banned amd a set of nutritional criteria brought in for schools.

(As a side note those criteria don't apply to academies whose heads apparently are able to decide what is best for the kids whereas a head in a maintained school apparently does not.)

In Staffordshire we had one of the best council run school meals services in the Country, @chaseracerand I led the campaign to try and keep it in house sadly unsuccessfully as parents and the public sat silently by.  It was then outsourced to Capita who set themselves up as the experts only to further outsource it to Chartwells (the shower behind these food parcels) as they were the experts.

If you can't tell - yes I'm still bitter (8 years on)

I bet somebody important got rich 

[Floatylight]

1 hour ago, chaseracer said:

As am I, Steve... 

...though making the deputy* leader shake with anger (because he knew he'd been caught in a deliberate lie) was something of a high point.

Yes, the look on his face when I put a commissioned report into his hands which discredited their proposals and told him we'd be holding  a press conference in an hour was priceless..

Still waiting to see any of the billions in dividends they promised or the £40m academy they promised to fund...

[Lankytim]

3 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

slightly* pissed off at UPS

I have a large box of fluorescent tubes im drop shipping for a friend in the US, that I finally got packaged up today so my friend paypals me the money to ship them over

so I go to UPS, go through all the details fill everything out yada yada, go to pay with paypal login it does its thing and goes back to the UPS site where upon UPS's website spits this at me 

but that the paypal thing had gone through, so I now have a pending paypal transaction of £161 which although only pending has been deducted from my paypal balance still 

with no cancel button in paypal for this transaction

im now im down £161 in paypal, and UPS customer support was useless the lady just kept asking for a tracking number (which I obviously did not have) and in the end just told me to contact paypal

but pay-pal says for this sort of transaction to cancel it I have to contact the recipient of the payment, (and It wont even let me open a dispute either)

now I dont think iv lost the £161, from googling the error code UPS: 81291 im not the only one this has happened to with UPS and that eventually paypal will just cancel the Authorisation after 30 days of it just pending

but unless I can somehow proactively cancel the pending transaction thats 30 days im going to be down £161 basically, and as such I cant try again as i dont have the money in my paypal to pay for it

so im not sure what to do now (but I have now made a user account with UPS so if this happens next time I try I will hopefully have a bit more of a record of it)

This happened to me recently, the payment is only "pending" and should be cancelled after a few days when no parcel is forthcoming under that order. I use UPS and ended up having to use my bank balance as PayPal payments kept messing up and I had multiple "pending" payments driving me crazy. They all vanished after a while. Maybe worth using the UPS Facebook chat to double check for your own piece of mind though.

[Fumbler]

Was putting things into the loft, closed everything up and put the ladder key away when *BAM* the loft hatch swings down and hits me square in the temple. Got a cartoon-sized bump on the side of my head now... and my teeth hurt.

[Zelandeth]

19 hours ago, Floatylight said:

They've been at it for years we just normally don't see what is served to the kids, say what you want about Jamie Oliver but he got turkey twizzlers banned amd a set of nutritional criteria brought in for schools.

(As a side note those criteria don't apply to academies whose heads apparently are able to decide what is best for the kids whereas a head in a maintained school apparently does not.)

In Staffordshire we had one of the best council run school meals services in the Country, @chaseracerand I led the campaign to try and keep it in house sadly unsuccessfully as parents and the public sat silently by.  It was then outsourced to Capita who set themselves up as the experts only to further outsource it to Chartwells (the shower behind these food parcels) as they were the experts.

If you can't tell - yes I'm still bitter (8 years on)

I still miss the meals at Turriff Academy from when I asked there (97-02), meals were bloody brilliant.  Like proper restaurant quality stuff.  I never understood why anyone would walk down the road to the chippy...school canteen was so much better.

Due to our income situation I got the food free, but even the normal prices were something like £3 for a main course, drink and dessert.

-- -- --

Oh joy.  This fault has returned.

Time for a new alternator methinks.

[Supernaut]

1 hour ago, Zelandeth said:

I still miss the meals at Turriff Academy

I knew you were from Aberdeen, but fuck off!

I was at Turra Academy from 99-05.

[Wack]

Scumbag traveller has been back to my mother in law trying to scam her , she's 95 , he's knocked on telling her she owes him £60 for doing the trees 

This is at least the third time he's been over the last 2 years , all reported to the police , next door has got him on cctv so they've got a registration and pictures now 

They've agreed to let me link an old ring doorbell into their WiFi so hopefully if he comes back it'll either deter him or catch him trying to scam her 

 

[Split_Pin]

The heating in my parents house has packed up entirely but an engineer cannot come until Monday to fix it.

So until then, my parents, both over 70, have to sit in a freezing cold house with only a blow heater. I have ample room to accommodate them but because of restrictions on travel and going into others houses, they cannot visit and just have to continue to freeze.

Frustrated and worried.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

2 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

The heating in my parents house has packed up entirely but an engineer cannot come until Monday to fix it.

So until then, my parents, both over 70, have to sit in a freezing cold house with only a blow heater. I have ample room to accommodate them but because of restrictions on travel and going into others houses, they cannot visit and just have to continue to freeze.

Frustrated and worried.

Buy a couple of oil filled rads from b&q or argos. Get them around there pronto. 

[loserone]

A house without heating is uninhabitable.

 

Consider your mutual exposure, perhaps they can join your household.  Otherwise, buy electric heaters 

[Wack]

10 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

The heating in my parents house has packed up entirely but an engineer cannot come until Monday to fix it.

So until then, my parents, both over 70, have to sit in a freezing cold house with only a blow heater. I have ample room to accommodate them but because of restrictions on travel and going into others houses, they cannot visit and just have to continue to freeze.

Frustrated and worried.

As said already , if you can get a couple of oil filled rads , order them from amazon for delivery tomorrow if you can't get out 

If they're anything like my dad when he was alive they'll be turning the fan off because its expensive 

Not expensive at screwfix

[Split_Pin]

Cheers chap, there is a ToolStation just down the road from my folks with 9 of those in stock.

Just phoned my Dad again. He said their fire in the living room has a convection fan and he's currently really warm. He also said he has an oil filled radiator in the loft so I've asked him to get that down now and put it in their bedroom. If it's not warm enough then I've told him about the ones at ToolStation.

 

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, Supernaut said:

I knew you were from Aberdeen, but fuck off!

I was at Turra Academy from 99-05.

Small world!  Which house were you in then?  Delgaty 1 here.

Which meant we had registration in room D-bloody-5.  How many times I nearly killed myself trying to leg it up the stairs there when our bus got in late to avoid being scolded by Mrs Robertson for being tardy I don't know.

Still kick myself for not staying on for sixth year, daftest decision I ever made.  Was trying to the the heck away from some particular individuals who were making my life a living hell - but of course they all left at the same time didn't they, so I'd not have had to put up with them if I'd gone back for the last year.

 

Instead I walked straight into them at college instead.

I do regret I've not been able to stay in touch with anyone really...I've precisely zero interest in ever seeing trace of any of my peers again, but I'd liked to have been able to keep in touch with quite a few of my teachers. 

My first day I still remember being quite a revelation...Not least because I arrived there having just left a school with 16 pupils...as the sole one in P7, so was the only one from my school to have moved up to TA...So there was absolutely *nobody* there I knew.  The term "thrown in at the deep end" definitely fit.  Also nearly got myself stranded at the end of the day when we went to get back on the buses.  It never occurred to me that there would be more than one school bus, did it!  Thankfully for me I recognised the actual vehicle in question - and it was the same one I'd arrived on.  Cue making a mental note to not make that mistake twice.

[myglaren]

On 11/01/2021 at 20:32, Wack said:

I wouldn't want to be on the bottom of the London property ladder in 2021 

While this is certainly true, my kids have all bought their own houses - all five of them.  The youngest twice as although she paid for her first house, her then boyfriend weaseled it out of her and she had to start from scratch.

Eldest lad is on his third now - in London, neighbours with JK, Jack White, Jeff Beck and others.

Looking to sell and buy the other half of his girlfriends house in south London.

They are not, any of them, on mega salaries.

 

[Supernaut]

3 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Small world!  Which house were you in then?  Delgaty 1 here.

Which meant we had registration in room D-bloody-5.  How many times I nearly killed myself trying to leg it up the stairs there when our bus got in late to avoid being scolded by Mrs Robertson for being tardy I don't know.

Still kick myself for not staying on for sixth year, daftest decision I ever made.  Was trying to the the heck away from some particular individuals who were making my life a living hell - but of course they all left at the same time didn't they, so I'd not have had to put up with them if I'd gone back for the last year.

 

Instead I walked straight into them at college instead.

I do regret I've not been able to stay in touch with anyone really...I've precisely zero interest in ever seeing trace of any of my peers again, but I'd liked to have been able to keep in touch with quite a few of my teachers. 

My first day I still remember being quite a revelation...Not least because I arrived there having just left a school with 16 pupils...as the sole one in P7, so was the only one from my school to have moved up to TA...So there was absolutely *nobody* there I knew.  The term "thrown in at the deep end" definitely fit.  Also nearly got myself stranded at the end of the day when we went to get back on the buses.  It never occurred to me that there would be more than one school bus, did it!  Thankfully for me I recognised the actual vehicle in question - and it was the same one I'd arrived on.  Cue making a mental note to not make that mistake twice.

Forglen 2, here.

I hated every cunt there, too. Don't keep in touch with any of them. Don't blame you. I seem to lead a fairly transient existence when it comes to friend groups. Not really kept in touch with anybody from old jobs (bar one person) and nobody even from university.

[Mrcento]

I was similar at School. A couple of folk there that were ok, but the majority were just cunts.

I left as soon as i could, went to college. A year doing mechanics.... again, cunts. (and i feel i'm the problem at that stage). The truth is, the folk at my school were just cunts and the course i was doing was just filled with the same sort of cunts from other schools in the city that no doubt other folk left to avoid too, so it was just like walking from one shithole to another.

After a year, i went and did computer animation and it totally changed my outlook on the social side. Made several friends, both students and lecturers, all still in contact to this day. Have been on other courses, various workplaces and found i get on great with the vast majority of people at them too, the only people i don't get on with are the cunts, everywhere has them, some just have them to a larger extent than others.

[Zelandeth]

Oh look...our change of broadband provider has turned into a complete and utter shitshow.  Colour me unsurprised.

Looks like we're going to be for all intents and purposes, without broadband for the best part of a month as a result.  While everyone is working from home. 

What fun.

Edit: Now just ticking up to 4 hours on the phone to them over the last two days.

[eddyramrod]

On 1/14/2021 at 5:54 AM, Mrcento said:

I was similar at School. A couple of folk there that were ok, but the majority were just cunts.

I left as soon as i could, went to college. A year doing mechanics.... again, cunts. (and i feel i'm the problem at that stage). The truth is, the folk at my school were just cunts and the course i was doing was just filled with the same sort of cunts from other schools in the city that no doubt other folk left to avoid too, so it was just like walking from one shithole to another.

After a year, i went and did computer animation and it totally changed my outlook on the social side. Made several friends, both students and lecturers, all still in contact to this day. Have been on other courses, various workplaces and found i get on great with the vast majority of people at them too, the only people i don't get on with are the cunts, everywhere has them, some just have them to a larger extent than others.

You've just about described my school life too!    I am in touch with only one person I knew back then ( late 60s/early 70s) and that's because she's my kid sister.  I'm in touch with almost nobody from previous jobs too.

You read about people having lifelong friends, and childhood sweethearts, and good luck to them, but I completely fail to understand how they do that.  People who were really good friends years ago have just fallen away.  It probably doesn't help that I emigrated in 2009 and when we returned, came to a town a hundred miles from where we used to live.

It has crossed my mind that maybe I should be making more effort to stay in touch, and with a couple of them I do, but of the rest, several know where I am and none are putting in any effort.

 

In other news, the wall under the dining room window is clearly damp.  MrsR tells me now that when we had the new carpets fitted, the fitter spotted that the floor was wet.  Oh great, now she tells me!  This is going to require a good builder, significant disruption and a vast amount of money that I don't have.  Fucking marvellous.  As if the combination of SAD, lockdown and depression wasn't enough!

I'm probably going to ignore it for as long as possible.

[wuvvum]

Anyone else keep getting a "Pardon our interruption..." message when browsing eBay?  I've been getting it since last night.

[Talbot]

22 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Looks like we're going to be for all intents and purposes, without broadband for the best part of a month as a result.  While everyone is working from home. 

What fun.

As an emergency alternative, if you need to stay online:  Smarty mobile.  Runs on the 3 network.  £20/month for completely and utterly unlimited data on 3G and 4G.  No limit on data tethering either.  No contract.  Shove one of their SIMs in an old phone and set it to mobile hotspot and you have instant mobile broadband at home.

and it really is unlimited too.  I've pulled down over 700GB in a month, no restrictions and no throttling.

...plus unlimited free texts and calls.  But that's nothing new these days.

I still have an introductory additional SIM that they sent me, which gives both the recipient and me a free month.  If anyone wants it.

[New POD]

On 13/01/2021 at 20:13, Split_Pin said:

The heating in my parents house has packed up entirely but an engineer cannot come until Monday to fix it.

So until then, my parents, both over 70, have to sit in a freezing cold house with only a blow heater. I have ample room to accommodate them but because of restrictions on travel and going into others houses, they cannot visit and just have to continue to freeze.

Frustrated and worried.

I think that travel is perfectly legal due to emergency the situation. 

Invest 50 quid in 5 electric heaters from Argos or screw fix, click and collect. Maybe. 

[New POD]

Also, I bet everyone of thier neighbours has a fan heater, and who wouldn't lend one out for 3 days to the nice retired couple in the street ? 

[Zelandeth]

42 minutes ago, Talbot said:

As an emergency alternative, if you need to stay online:  Smarty mobile.  Runs on the 3 network.  £20/month for completely and utterly unlimited data on 3G and 4G.  No limit on data tethering either.  No contract.  Shove one of their SIMs in an old phone and set it to mobile hotspot and you have instant mobile broadband at home.

and it really is unlimited too.  I've pulled down over 700GB in a month, no restrictions and no throttling.

...plus unlimited free texts and calls.  But that's nothing new these days.

I still have an introductory additional SIM that they sent me, which gives both the recipient and me a free month.  If anyone wants it.

Sadly coverage on 3 here is rubbish.  One of our friends is on 3 and has to sign onto our WiFi to do anything beyond checking his email.

Vodafone have sent us a mobile router...but the 2Mb/s it's managing isn't going to cut it!

[wuvvum]

I've been managing on around 2MB/s for years now.  The joys of living in the sticks.

Doesn't seem that long ago when 56K was the best you could get - and if you were getting a true download speed of over 35K you were doing well.

[LightBulbFun]

58 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

I've been managing on around 2MB/s for years now.  The joys of living in the sticks.

2MB/s or 2Mb/s ?

as 2MB/s is roughly 20Mb/s

so about 10x more then what poor Zel is getting!

 (MB/s is Megabytes a second and Mb/s is megabits a second for those wondering and there are 8 bits to a byte)

On 14/01/2021 at 15:48, Zelandeth said:

Oh look...our change of broadband provider has turned into a complete and utter shitshow.  Colour me unsurprised.

Looks like we're going to be for all intents and purposes, without broadband for the best part of a month as a result.  While everyone is working from home. 

What fun.

if you dont mind me what asking, whats gone tits up do you know? (just wondering whats gone so badly wrong that you might be without broadband for a month!)

and who where you with/are going to? we used to be on BT but moved to Virgin around 2014 or so? as BTs fibre optic option was not available in my area at the time, its been pretty smooth sailing for the most part, although the Virgin Superhub 3 Router/cable modem is a POS with a buggy intel chipset who's CPU has a unpatchable hardware bug LOL