Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[dietcokeofevil]

Each stall in our work bathroom has a holder that holds two rolls of toilet paper.  The cleaning people have started to replace the roll when it has about half the roll remaining.  They then leave the half full roll on the top of the holder that is not quite big enough to hold it and its constantly getting knocked onto the floor.  They cleaning people clean the bathrooms twice a day, so there's no need to replace the roll at the half way point.

[EmmaJ.]

Each stall in our work bathroom has a holder that holds two rolls of toilet paper.  The cleaning people have started to replace the roll when it has about half the roll remaining.  They then leave the half full roll on the top of the holder that is not quite big enough to hold it and its constantly getting knocked onto the floor.  They cleaning people clean the bathrooms twice a day, so there's no need to replace the roll at the half way point.

Yes!  They do it here too.     And I am NOT willing to use paper that spent any time on the bathroom floor. 

[LadyJaneinMD]

Each stall in our work bathroom has a holder that holds two rolls of toilet paper.  The cleaning people have started to replace the roll when it has about half the roll remaining.  They then leave the half full roll on the top of the holder that is not quite big enough to hold it and its constantly getting knocked onto the floor.  They cleaning people clean the bathrooms twice a day, so there's no need to replace the roll at the half way point.

Yes!  They do it here too.     And I am NOT willing to use paper that spent any time on the bathroom floor.

The cleaning people at my place just throw the half-used rolls away.  Apparently it's easier to waste money than to listen to women gripe about running out of paper (even though there's another whole roll there!).
Your tax dollars at work, folks. 

[ladyknight1]

Our building has been overrun with college students. Students who like to shred paper everywhere. The building management had to hire another daytime cleaner just to keep stocking the bathrooms. I can't believe the state people will leave a stall in.

[kherbert05]

This just happened and I need advice.


I got an e-mail from a teacher that was asked to resign last year. She is in a new district. She wants me to send the "active expression" number. After scratching my head a few times I figured out she wants the number for my district's licence  to our Promethean Boards ActivInspire software. We were given it, because we are allowed to put the software on our home computers to make flipbooks for work. (She doesn't have a Promethean or she would have the software)


Obviously, I'm not going to give her the number. I forwarded the e-mail to our Campus Instruction Technology Specialists (CITS), to give her a heads ups if someone asks her for the number with the idea of passing it along. (A bunch of people think she was greatly wronged by the school. I'm not sure.)


I'm inclined to blackhole the e-mail, or should I reply that no I won't be helping her pirate the software.

[jedikaiti]

"I'm sorry, you'll have to contact your new district's IT department for their number."

[Adelaide]

There's a girl who is apparently sick in my law school, and she periodically blows her nose in the middle of class-which means that three classes a day, we have to listen to four or five blasts on the nose trumpet. These blasts were loud enough to make my Civil Procedure professor lose his train of thought, and he had to stare into the book and say "Um, uh....like I was saying....uh...."

Every time she does it all 80 of us whip our heads in her direction and stare at her because it's so distracting. I don't know why she hasn't gotten the hint yet. In some countries I think it's socially acceptable to loudly blow your nose in public, but she's not foreign. Besides all that, I don't think it's ever acceptable to loudly blow your nose in the middle of lecture. I'm just wondering how she made it this long without being called out on it. For that matter, how she managed to survive under the crushing weight of 80 glares all day.

I'd just like to say that Epic Noseblower blew her nose about three times during our the midterm today. I could hear her through my big fat earplugs-her sinuses were the only things that penetrated the noise barrier. After the last time she blew her nose, the proctor walked over to her (I took the plugs out for this out of curiosity) and started telling her the procedure for being excused to go outside and go to the bathroom. Luckily, Noseblower took the hint. As soon as she'd got out of her chair I made eye contact with the guy she'd been sitting beside and he silently gave me two thumbs up.

[Ceallach]

I just had a conversation with a coworker telling them about some of the applications I've received, and succeeded in hurting both our brains.

The simplified version is this:   I am recruiting for a person to take over recruitment.   So I'm getting applications from people with recruitment backgrounds.   Despite this, heaps of them haven't bothered to submit a covering letter with their application.   Even though this is clearly stated in the advertisement - submit a CV and covering letter.   Now, as a recruiter themselves surely they would know what the pet peeves of recruiters are and try to avoid those when applying for a job themselves, so either they're not as experienced as they're pretending to be (and therefore aren't suited to the role) or they're experienced but have really poor attention to detail (and therefore aren't suited to the role) or they just don't care.   I think I have this clear now, but at the time of the conversation with my coworker it was very brain hurty as I kept trying to work out a way in which these applicants could still be suitable.... but they really can't!     If it were 1-2 it could be a mistake attaching the file or something, but we're talking about a good 50% of the applicants, and there are a lot of applicants.   So I'm ruefully discarding some really good looking CVs, because I can't think of any non brain-hurty and good reason why they would ignore such a basic aspect of the criteria.  (It doesn't need to be an extensive letter, they're not sending anything, just a CV!)   It's very confusing.  I always thought I had a leg up in the job search process because I've been on the other side of it so frequently, but clearly that doesn't work for everybody.    Oh well, at least it makes the culling process fast.

[Jocelyn]

Today's exchange:
I was told to enter midterm grades by 9 pm today. I asked a colleague about how to enter them, and was informed that to enter them, I needed to have access to a particular program- which I was not given access to, as the program is being discontinued after this school year, so no new faculty were given access to it.

[Slartibartfast]

Previous background on SIL1 here - she's in her mid-forties and acts like an irresponsible teenager most of the time.  She finally got a divorce from The Convict (the last time he got out of prison, he moved in with his new girlfriend, which was the last straw SIL needed to actually file the paperwork), started dating a 20-year-old meth addict, dumped said meth addict, then moved into a new house.  (Still one of the IL's rental properties, but a smaller one.)  She's been theoretically supposed to pay rent this whole time, but never manages to pay more than $50 if anything, and even that is rare.  MIL told her this time, though, that the house was for her and her alone.  She had her sign a rental agreement and everything, saying that taking on other tenants without landlord approval (i.e. my ILs) was grounds for eviction.

Meth addict boyfriend calls up MIL to let her know that The Convict was skulking around SIL's new place.  MIL asks SIL, who denies it.  MIL says if she catches The Convict living there, SIL is getting evicted for real this time and she's on her own.  SIL swears up and down The Convict hasn't moved back in with her.  It doesn't occur to SIL that since her new place is half a duplex, her upstairs neighbor also knows MIL and might call her if SIL turns out to be lying 

Not unexpectedly, SIL moved The Convict in with her.  MIL finds out through the upstairs neighbor and tells SIL she has to get out or she'll be formally evicted.  Here's the brain-hurty part:

1) SIL and The Convict are in love again. For real this time!

2) They found a new place together.  SIL has a decent job (not great, but decent), so theoretically she has money, but she spends it all on stupid things.  She could barely scrape together $25-$50 a month for rent (instead of the $350/month she owed).  Their new place is in one of those extended-stay hotels for $220 a week.  How on earth are they going to afford $900/month when they couldn't afford $50?

3) Oh, but it's different now!  SIL sold her car because the new place is nearer her work so she can walk.  And there are all sorts of fast food places nearby, so The Convict can get a job at one of those!

4) (The Convict has not actually held a real job - with the exception of selling weed - since she married him four years ago.  He'll get hired and then quit a week later because someone was mean to him, or they didn't like him not showing up for work, or showing up for work high.  I highly doubt he'll actually condescend to do any real work.)

5) SIL wants MIL to pay for her and The Convict to have another wedding.  Because this time it's going to work for sure!

I'm hearing all this second-hand from MIL because DH and I are trying to stay far, far away from this mess (and make ourselves as small a financial mooching target as we can).  I'm kind of morbidly curious to see how long their "Livin' on a Prayer" phase is going to last this time!

[ladyknight1]

^ Oy, vey. I do not envy your DH his family.

I have a few to share with all of you, to make your brains hurt.

• A few months ago, my parents had their land line phone disconnected, since it costs as much per month as both of their cell phones. They were happy. Yesterday, mom and I are talking about her updating her résumé since she is job hunting, and I mentioned she might want to remove her home phone number, since it is disconnected. No, they had to have it reconnected, because it is required for their security system. They never thought to check and had to pay more than two hundred in fees. 
• Certain other relatives by marriage went out and bought a large flat panel television to replace their existing set. However, the existing furniture could not accommodate the size of the new tv, and they needed help to move everything. Did they call in advance? No. They called during the game they wanted to watch on the new tv, and DH was too nice to bean dip them when they called. Holy unexpected two hour visit, Batman!

[Lady Snowdon]

I had one of my customers make my brain hurt today.  I got a voicemail from him in the morning, just asking for a call back, no hint of anything urgent, and returned it in the afternoon.  He is very upset with me for not answering the call because he had conference called me with three other people on the line.  I should have answered that call!  Didn't I care that he now looks very foolish for conferencing in these other people when I didn't answer?

Except, I had no idea he'd be calling in today, let alone trying to call in with a conference of other people!  How I was supposed to divine that this call, of all calls, was monumentally important, I'm not sure.  My head hurts.   


A couple of days ago, I had someone tell me in all seriousness that, because I was in Central time and she was in Eastern time, this meant that I was an hour ahead of her and it was really 4:30 pm where I was, since it was 3:30 pm where she was.  I explained it was actually 2:30 pm where I was and that she was actually an hour ahead of me.  She snorted into the phone and said, "You're wrong!" very definitively.  Yes, undoubtedly my cell phone, landline, computer and clock are all incorrect.   

[dawnfire]

back when I was in uni back in the early 90's doing science, for our maths component we needed to get a specific graphic calculator (it was an early Texas TX and it wasn't cheap, about $180) due to needing specific functions which this calculator had. now the calculator programable to some extent. We use it the whole year and now it's exam time but there's a slight problem, no programmable calculators allowed in the exam room.

[jpcher]

back when I was in uni back in the early 90's doing science, for our maths component we needed to get a specific graphic calculator (it was an early Texas TX and it wasn't cheap, about $180) due to needing specific functions which this calculator had. now the calculator programable to some extent. We use it the whole year and now it's exam time but there's a slight problem, no programmable calculators allowed in the exam room.

LOL! But would a slide rule be acceptable?

[Midnight Kitty]

... now it's exam time but there's a slight problem, no programmable calculators allowed in the exam room.

I assisted in proctoring my first operator certification exam in August.  The proctor, who is very experienced, brought about 30 non-programable calculators which are allowed by the examination agency.  That way, if anyone taking the exam pulls out a calculator, the proctor can take their calculator and provide them with an approved calculator.  I thought that was very considerate of him.  I plan to continue that tradition.