Category: Rants

In which I go off on the stupidity of politics, politicians, world affairs, religion, and whatever else I deem to be screwed up.

Personal Cellphones in the Workplace, Not!

Posted on by chappyshi

Someone wrote to the Washington Post Jobs section asking “Who Do You Call When Your Boss Bans Cellphones?”  Apparently the boss had not only outlawed personal cellphone usage at all times including getting alerts silently and during break times but also forbade using company landlines for personal use.  That is a bit excessive in my estimation.  I believe that an organization has a responsibility to make it’s employees available to their friends and families in emergencies.

I do believe in banning cell phone usage, not during break time though, and allowing use of company landlines for personal use in emergency situations.  I can’t think of any reason that phone usage should be verboten in personal/family emergencies.  Were cellphones used only in emergencies, I wouldn’t ban them either.  We all know however that cellphone use in the workplace is rampant and flagrant.  I bet most organizations could realize a 5  to 10 percent increase in productivity were cell phone usage to be banned.

Growing up as a child (oxymoron or impossibility???), I cannot remember a time that my mother called my dad at work or that my dad called home from work.  I am sure it happened  but those occurrences could in no way mirror the frequent instances of frivolous cell phone usage that I have seen in the work place.  On top of cell phone usage, corporate email is also blatantly abused for personal use.  At least, for the employee, that is not as visible to management and coworkers.

Fortunately, company landlines and corporate email can be monitored, abuse documented, and disciplinary action taken when warranted.  I know from personal experience in the workplace that too much time is wasted on personal business using cellphones, landlines, and email.  In an effort to trim telecom costs at a previous company, I found company cellphone users who were nighttime supervisors who racked up three times  the amount of minutes per month the site VP racked up.  Please reconcile for me why a night supervisor should need to spend an average of 100 minutes per shift on the telephone. Really, you don’t need to.  I know from  viewing the call records that those minutes were not used for business…

Disclaimer, I am in no way commenting on policies of any company I ever worked for.  Also, I am single, have no exes, and no children, so my experiences having to keep in touch with people are extremely limited compared to many others.  Nonetheless, we have done without the current modes of  instantaneous and constant communications for thousands of years.  What makes us sure that we have to have them now?

I Must Be a Loser

Posted on by chappyshi

I must be a real loser because I don’t have a a cell phone permanently attached to my ear nor do I use a Bluetooth headset for my cell phone.  I do have only a cell phone…no landline…so maybe I  not such a loser but…

I really don’t get it.  I am having a busy day if I talk on my personal phone once a day.  Yet all around me people are walking in and out of their houses talking on cell phones, they are getting in and out of their cars talking on cell phones, they are pulling into and out of parking spaces talking on cell phones, and they are walking and crossing streets…talking on their cell phones.

I watched a young girl walk across a major intersection today talking on her cell phone totally oblivious to her surroundings.  Yesterday, I saw a woman in her late fifties/early sixties run into a hip-high flower pot on a strip mall promenade while talking on the phone.  She thought no one saw her but I gave her a little nod to let her know that her mishap had not gone undetected.  Not too long ago when I was walking on a neighborhood trail, I frightened a young woman who was on her cell phone walking her dog.  I was not 10 feet from her before the dog called attention to me.  I am not sure that she would have ever seen me…

I don’t really understand why people  have to be so connected.  It is amazing that people even have time to take a crap without getting a call or a text message.   For all I know, they don’t!  I should create a web site called “Shitter,” based on Twitter, from which you can alert all your friends to the fact that you are on the crapper.

I Watched “Dances with Wolves”

Posted on by chappyshi

I thought “Dances with Wolves” was an excellent movie.  Who can find fault in the scenery, the cultural assimilation, the poignant love story, and the painful killing fields?  I feel bad for the Indians and their homeland and lifestyle.  It is a travesty what the white man did.  Unfortunately we keep doing it, at least to the homeland…

Weather News…Is It Only for the Future…or Not?

Posted on by chappyshi

One thing I really hate about weather reports and websites is that I can’t find any meaningful information about what happened weather-wise yesterday.  Case in point, we have been hurting for rain in Centreville, VA, for months after a very wet spring.  Yesterday we finally had some significant rain but from one person I heard we got a record 2.71 inches at Dulles Airport and from “The Weather Channel” website I saw that we got 1.5 inches.   That is a fairly large discrepancy.

I certainly am not complaining about the rain.  It is just a shame that it is so hard to find “historical” weather information from even the previous day.  Whatever the weather gurus say, I know we got a lot of water last night because my kayak, which was sitting on top of my car, was the only thing visible this morning.  But I jest.  Actually, it had about about three inches of water in it.

I had to have Ed help me take  the kayak off my car this afternoon.  I don’t advise driving around with a kayak full of water on the top of your car.  Which is not to say I was driving around on the top of my car.  Sentencing can be so convoluted.

Bottom line, how much freaking rain have we been getting and is it soaking in or just washing fertilizer, animal shit, and road dirt into the waterways?

Blair Witch Project? Not a Horror Movie by Any Stretch of the Imagination.

Posted on by chappyshi

I just watched The Blair Witch Project which, according to Wikipedia, is based on the story of “three young student filmmakers (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams) who hike into the Black Hills of Burkittsville, Maryland to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch, and subsequently go missing.”

The cinematography was interesting/good.  The story, including the filmed interviews with locals was terribly weak.  The plot line about being lost was totally unrealistic.  The “Black Hills” referenced in the Wikipedia article do not even exist in the area.

I used to live about 20 miles  from Burkittsville and now live about 50 miles away.  I have driven,  ridden my motorcycle, and hiked in the area for years.  The Appalachian trail runs north/south not two miles west of Burkittsville.  There are major roads two or three miles east and west of and running parallel to the Appalachian Trail.  Six miles south of Burkittsville is the town of Weverton and the Potomac River.  Nine miles north is Route 40.

Unless you are totally bewitched, it is nearly impossible to get lost in that area for more than a day!

VDOT Traffic Engineers Appear to Be Stupid

Posted on by chappyshi

In the nearly five years I have been living and/or commuting in Virginia, I have written about the horrors of Route 28 which transits north/south from Route 7 in Sterling to Route 17 near Bealton.  The drivers seem to be insane; changing lanes at the last minute to exit, changing lanes for no reason at all, driving slowly in the fast lane, etc.

Over the years, VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation for those of you aren’t from the area) has done much to alleviate the congestion on this road most of which has involved overpasses and a fairly ingenious stoplight/traffic pattern at Braddock Road near Route 66.  I will not speak for the nightmare of 28 South of Centreville because I don’t have to use it daily.  If I did,  I’d have killed myself and not written this rant.

Today, while having a beer at the aforementioned Applebees, which I never need to go to again, I heard that one of the three last major overpasses on Route 28 had been completed.  One of them was finished up a few weeks ago.  It was the last light prior to reaching Route 7 heading north…at Nokes Boulevard, which provides access to the Dulles Town Center Mall.  There were two lights prior to that, one of which, Severn Way,  provided access to my last employer.  That light is now gone and the road is blocked.  Now those who wish access to entities on Severn Way have to go round robin to get to the plant from Route 28.

The other light in that area seem superfluous but provides access/egress to a parking lot on the Washington and Old Dominion trail.  We’ll see how long that light lasts…

The ugliness truly still exists at rush hour traveling south on Route 28 to Route 66 which is a major east/west artery in the western D.C. suburbs.  Route 28 was already backing up from the Route 66 ramps to where the new overpass was just completed at Willard Road.  Now, without the stoplight, all traffic is free to cruise under the overpass and back things up even further from Route 66, probably to Route 50  and points north.

This was all predicted by yours truly and others familiar with the commute.  If you take out a bunch of stoplights that, albeit annoying, meter the  traffic on the route, it is all going to get jammed up even worse at the next choke point(s).  In this case, the choke points are: a worthless traffic light giving access to a recreational field (Ellanor C. Lawrence Park)  for northbound traffic and a required light giving access to Braddock Road for northbound traffic.

And so to get to the point, I wasn’t even on Route 28 and I was afflicted.  Coming out of the shopping area I was in, I tried to take a left onto Westfields Boulevard which crosses route 28 between the newly opened overpass  and the Route 66.  Traffic was backed up on my side for people trying to merge on to 28 south.  Traffic was backed up across from me for people trying to merge on to Westfields Boulevard east to get to 28 south.  Traffic was backed up on Westfields Boulevard heading SW for people trying to get to Route 29 South on a shortcut to bypass the backup on 28 south to Routes 28 and 66.  Can you say goat rope?

More On Unscrupulous Restaurant Employees

Posted on by chappyshi

I ordered a beer at a local Applebees.  When I was ready to pay for it, I asked what the damage was.  The barmaid said it was $3.15 with tax.  I put a fiver on the bar and the woman had the balls to ask me if I wanted change!  I said yes of course.  As if I was going to tip the wench 62% on a three dollar tab.  As it was, I tipped her 28%.  She’s dead to me now however.  I’ll never go in there again.

Pissed, But Not in a British Way

Posted on by chappyshi

I was in a rant mode, pissed as it were, on my way home from doing nothing.  (Brits commonly refer to being drunk as being “pissed.”)  Before I could even start on why I was pissed, I got doubly pissed because the music service I signed onto yesterday is not working on my Squeeze Box as it should.  Take that however you wish…

It is a web-based music service, as I guess they all are less, Sirius, called Radioio.  I am getting “404 – page not found” errors.  I have been using a music service, Rhapsody, for more than six years and that error is a new one to me…as far as the music service goes.  It is obviously a common error message encountered when browsing the web.

No matter, I am pissed!

Sidewalk or Bikewalk?

Posted on by chappyshi

I am getting a little pissed off at bicyclists riding on the sidewalk when there is a perfectly good road to ride on.  Mostly they are teens who are too inconsiderate to signal when they are coming up on you and/or to slow down when they are passing you.  I know from plenty of experience that bikes can come up on you with no warning at all and scare the piss out of you when you notice they are right behind or right next to you.

On all the dual-use trails  in the area there are signs explicitly restricting bicycle speed limits and requiring that you use a bell or horn to alert those who you are approaching from the rear.  There are no laws in Virginia that say one cannot ride a bicycle on a sidewalk  but they do require that you “give an audible signal before passing.”  Unfortunately there are no signs posted on the sidewalks that make people aware of the regulation.  Perhaps the state thinks that riders will be considerate enough…right!

I Can Pick My Nose. Why Can’t I Pick My Cable Company?

Posted on by chappyshi

Prior to October 31, 2007, if you lived in an apartment complex, you had no choice on who your cable TV service provider was.  On that date, the “FCC voted to retroactively prohibit exclusive agreements between apartment firms and video service (cable) providers,” as noted in this release from the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC).  The NMHC cites all sorts of reasons which the decision was bad for the consumer.  The primary reason is that the apartment complex management companies could purportedly negotiate lower fees for their residents.

I have lived in an “Equity Residential” apartment for four years now.  When I got here, Cox was the cable provider and it still is.  I had, and still have, no other options for cable TV.  I can recall nothing as relates to my agreement with Equity Residential that gives me any benefit or deal with Cox because of that agreement.  All transactions that I have made with Cox have been exclusively through myself, not through Equity Residential.

According to the previously cited release, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as recently as May 26, 2009, upheld the FCC’s decision.  Yet, a year and half after the initial decision, I still have no options  available to me other than Cox cable in my Equity Residential managed apartment.  Most  galling is the fact that multi housing managerial concerns believe that negotiating an exclusivity agreement for telecom services is best for their renters.  I certainly agree that that might be the case when it comes to utilities, gas and electric, and services such as trash removal, recycling, and landscaping, but for something as personal as TV, the resident has to be able to make the final decision.