Agreed. I had more empathy for tipping workers at self-service / carryout settings during the height of the pandemic (which is not over BTW). Now... Given that management has programmed these registers I find myself grudgingly tipping since I have to wonder if management has started paying them even more inadequately in anticipation of tipping.
I have somewhat magically decided I tip 10% at these things as there is no real guidance anymore. 20% for table service. Delivery... 15-20%?
Of course someone will come along saying to tip 0% to hold the line and force fair wages. I have some understanding of that argument too.
So... I made another attempt at this once I got home from vacation. I turned off all anti-tracking plug-ins. I turned off VPN. I made sure I was connected to the T-Mobile router itself (I have several Internet services -- don't ask...).
Well... It's no longer sending 2FA to my email address to confirm I'm me. I guess that is progress. It still makes me enter my T-Mobile phone number after I enter my email address and password, then happily declares that I have an account! Then I can click on that link to repeat the endless cycle again and again...
So, I'll have to call them. Last time I called them they wanted to send a PIN code to my router for me to read back to them (which I could not -- out of town). Okay -- so I've logged into my router now, and unlike past T-Mobile routers, I see NO PLACE that I can receive text messages... So unless I'm missing something I CAN'T be sent a PIN code to my router....
This should be a fun phone call to tech support.
What they CAN do is continue to bill my expired(?) credit card for an extra $5/month -- even though they don't have the new 3-digit code from the back of the card or the new expiration date. I guess this is good? I have questions.
-- Zagone
This is definitely an after-COVID thing. Pick hours and stick to them. Case-in-point -- local Pho noodle place that advertises closing at 10pm, usually closes by 9pm, but they really want you to come by 8:30pm to pick-up your carryout.
If you are tired -- post new hours. If you found new meaning in life -- post new hours. If you are having trouble finding staff -- post new hours.
Instead, I have to play this guessing game of when they close. My wife gets home at 9:30pm, so I'd rather not be picking up at 8:30pm (or being called back to please rush over to grab the food fast).
This is but one example. It's getting to the point when -- anytime I need to log into an account on a major site -- I must disable VPN, disable Pihole and tracking blockers, and maybe make sure I'm on a home Internet service. If they actually cared about security, the 2FA and long passwords would be enough.
Got told "thank you for your service" AGAIN today. I think maybe Disney employees are under command of The Mouse to say it.
I have a "baseball cap" style hat that I bought about 8 years ago and have rarely worn since.
It is in the style of all the navy veteran military ship caps commonly in use today in the USA, and I believe it was even made by the same company that makes hats for crew and military veterans.
Here's the thing though -- this is a cap for the USS Constellation -- a FULL RIG SAILING SHIP in use from 1797-1853 (see https://historicships.org/explore/uss-constellation ). I bought it from a tourist display stand!
I am walking around Disney world this week and I keep getting "THANKED FOR MY SERVICE". Okay -- kind of amusing as I would have had to serve in the REVOLUTIONARY WAR -- but then I do nothing to purposefully pose as ex-military (which is very uncool). CAN PEOPLE NOT SEE THE SAILS ON THE BOAT?
My brother thinks I should make light of it ("yes, I served -- I climbed the rigging and packed the gun powder... you should have seen those Brits run! Avast ye mates! Walk the plank!")
I'm thinking of finding another cap to keep my bald head from sunburning... What do you think?
-- Zagone
Several items here:
#1: T-Mobile wants me to log into their website to re-enter my expired credit card. The card number remains the same -- only the 3-digit code on the back has changed and the expiration date has updated. They seem to know this -- they are perfectly happy to keep billing the "expired" card, but my $5 per month discount is removed until I update the card.
#2: Their website is a circus to log into. I'm unclear if it's because I'm on vacation out-of-state, using a VPN, or have/had Privacy Badger plug-ins to block the 13+ trackers on their site. In any case, by the time I have turned all that off (and after deleting browser cookies) they either are on alert that I must be an attacker or else their shit just malfunctions.
I begin an endless round of enter email address and password, get sent a 6-digit code by email, enter that code, have to enter my T-mobile phone number (which I never use since this is a 5G home Internet service), get told the "good news" that there is already an account associated with that phone number, then start this same cycle all over again (email, password, 6-digit code...).
#3 So I give up (hoping "attack" alerts will be expired by the next morning) -- nope -- same problem loop as in #2 above. So I call tech support. They want a PIN number I must never have gotten (I ALWAYS write these things down). "No problem" -- they can send a temporary PIN to my router -- if I'm at home to receive it.
#4: So I try online again -- this time with VPN enabled to look like I'm near home. The website starts entirely blocking my ability to access the site at all. Okay... So I turn VPN off. Now I can access the site again, and once again enter the login infinity loop as in #2 above.
Keep in mind all this bullshit is so I can save the $5 per month on an "expired credit card" that they know is not expired since they can keep billing it while I'm not able to login and update the expiration date and 3-digit code!!
HousePanther -- That is very nice of you. I'm game to give this a (slow) go given I'm working 50+ hours per week as a psychotherapist.
Already on my radar -- an rss feed to lemmy community posting robot (name is at home and can't find it right now -- it is on GitHub).
Anything that takes emails or rss feeds and converts them to Mastodon or Lemmy posts.
Anything that lets me run my own telehealth 2-way video server. I'll have to sign a HIPAA BAA (medical privacy) agreement with vendors and server farms. Or run it at home.
Well sure, Teft -- you are not wrong. But let's say I'm working 10 hours per day to live in this capitalist system (I am), and need to outsource shopping. There are only so many mom and pop shops I can get delivery from, and only so much time I want to spend going to the store myself.
I'm mostly not lazy -- I'm stressed in other ways.
Free is lovely. Yet I'm sometimes willing to pay to get extra service or just to keep a favorite vendor going.
I'm mildly infuriated when there is no upgrade in service from free tier to paid tier. Makes me feel retroactively stupid.
Like when Doxy.me (medical televideo site with too many trackers) offered no service improvement to paid customers at the beginning of the pandemic.
Like when I decide to upgrade from free Zapier.com to get more "tasks" per month -- then my Zaps immediately proceeded to not run for 2 days.
Like when I move up from free tier with IFTTT to get more than two applets, and they still take hours to run.
Yeah -- I'm working on learning to implement free code from GitHub but come on guys -- I'm not a programmer and at least ought to be able to buy this stuff while I learn!
If you take a contract out on yourself, then I disagree -- the shooter should be pre-tipped.
Infyrin -- I get this. In fact, this tipping supply drivers thing is new for the USA. They are not Uber Eats.
I just have low expectations that Sam's Club will give two shits if their drivers start quitting. At least for a few years.
In the meantime, I'm partially infuriated by Sam's Club setting it up this way so I have to guess if their drivers are paid.
In Maryland -- a few decades ago -- yes, full service pumps did come with the expectation of tipping the gas station attendant.
On certain items, Sam's Club requires a $8-$12 delivery fee. This is problematic enough given some items are free delivery.
At the end of the order process, I'm then asked to tip the driver. It seems to me that Sam's Club could put together a big enough delivery route to be able to pay a driver well and maintain the delivery van at that delivery fee per each stop.
I feel over-charged paying tip on top of that. However, I never dick over delivery drivers. Is Sam's Club paying them? How much? What is that delivery fee going towards?
So I end up tipping.
More frequently, I just avoid ordering items with a delivery fee. (Not a good option for people stuck at home for good reasons like age, disability, lack of transportation, etc.)
Oddly, customers are not asked to tip on the free delivery items.
Extremely infuriating: When the crappy built-in Android screen capture software will only capture gifs as movies, the built-in editing software saves the newly one-frame file in a different directory without comment, then Jerboa throws an error code when you try to upload and edit the original post. Then -- after emailing the edited gif to your laptop and attempting to fix the original post from web browser, Lemmy throws an error of "{"data":{"msg":"Unsupported image format","files":null},"state":"success"}". Yes -- the "unsupported" image is a one frame no-longer-a-movie gif.
The file will be staying a movie. I'm out of time to deal with it. It's only one second long anyway.
Looks exactly like an X in the upper right corner of a pop-up window I need to close. Instead, pressing the X launches Twitter.
EDIT: Yes, I know Twitter has rebranded to X, but now I have to relearn 40 years of habit. Why put the logo in that position?
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-charged
I often match maroon ink to maroon pen. Otherwise, I do it less often than I used to as I'm mainly using permanent inks now (not as many available colors).
They should put some chess whiz and almond milk in there too.
I do wonder how many people would go to Rite Aid for milk?
Alright, I have not tracked Elon's career and didn't feel like Googling.
So executives at PayPal are on vacation, and the world is making fun of Elon for buying it twice.
Thanks -- it does become funny for me as more time passes. Not so funny was the year Comcast signal was too weak to operate for 10 days over the Christmas holiday.
I have a long and special history with Comcast. My city has given them the sole monopoly cable contact. So -- I believe -- they are obligated to provide me service. The distance from pole to house is too long. No less than 3 service people have come out and said they have to put in a thicker cable like those used on the telephone poles. Nope -- the work order always disappears. Of course, they have to pretend they will eventually do something, because -- city monopoly.
Used a signal booster for a long time and that helped (I had to buy it) except at holidays when everyone was home. Then more people in the area got service -- dropping the signal.
After some years, T-Mobile 5G moved in and I happily dumped Comcast (monopoly only applies to cable).
There is more, but you get the idea.
Never give Comcast a monopoly on service. Even had me considering satellite Internet in the middle of the city at one point!
My wife has a 14-yr-old cat that she refers to as "my old man baby". The cat's mannerisms and age fit the name. That said, the phrase weirdly straddles a few categories in this discussion.
While piped.video is truly useful, eventually the bot repetition will yuck my yum.
Exactly. There are 3 to 10 solutions to every problem -- all of which worked for someone, 0 to 4 of which will work for you. Spend two hours, then role the dice and see if you got lucky.
If it did NOT work, was it stupid user error, wrong or incomplete directions, malfunctional software, or randomness in your particular unique machine configuration?
Or -- if you use Oracle's free VPS -- was it an undocumented incompatibility between the code and the unusual chipset they sometimes offer?
My operating assumption here is that Reddit can collect more data to sell if people are logged in and use their app.
Does not matter if you destroy 75% of the usefulness of the system if the remaining 25% can be more effectively monetized.