Rants and Raves

I have noticed lately when certain threads are posted that complain about a service or a product

I call it therapy.

p.s. about the prices, there are items that are subsidized, and it may be tied into a number of other items for trade.

As far as your 2¢, you over paid and I owe you 0.5¢

"While rants and raves are not apropos on an engineering forum..."

Why not? Last I checked, engineers are Human, too.

Don't get me started on the useless, self centered, petty children we have in Congress.

I vote for you, Lyn, as the number 1 ranter and raver in this forum.

It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.

"Don't get me started on the useless, self centered, petty children we have in Congress."

But who put them there? And who lets them stay? Are they The Problem, or merely a symptom of a far larger Problem?

You and I didn't put any of them anywhere.

It's the precinct, county, state and national political machine that gets them there.

These are fairly new (OK, Watergate), and the tactics are reprehensible.

But mostly, it's money.

I have no answers, but I know what I'd do if I were "King of the World".

I feel the same way about it . A GA for that.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.And when I have been wronged, I can squeak loudly.I have nearly always received a satisfactory redress of a problem, whether it be a large chain or a small local company.Knowing how to word the problem and the desired remedy is the key.I always try nice first,but on occasion, I have had to escalate the heat a bit,always with good effect.A simple promise to notify everyone on your mailing list with details of the facts usually gets results.But be careful not to slander with falsehoods,or you could be on the receiving end of a lawsuit.The perfect defense against slander is the truth,so make sure you can document what you claim.

Works for me.

I wish I could say that, for the most part, I went on with a less vocal ^{(I would bring issues up directly and then with management, with a solution)} and at times and indirect resolve, to always do what's best for the overall best outcome, no matter if it did effect me negatively. i.e. it was for the overall best of the organization and the people there.

There was one time though where incompetence was so blatant and also so great, I could not hold back. and was very vocal and direct. Because doing nothing or even reacting slowly would affected my integrity as well as the good of the company.

I had posted it here.

At Least Have Some Experience

This cost me dearly fiscally, but since then I was able to overcome it. almost....... but it still pisses me off dealing with people like this. And I have no tolerance for.

Oh Yeah! The world is full of sheepskinheads.They are educated far beyond their intelligence and they-- like Mr. McGoo, leave a trail of havoc behind, staying just ahead of the tsunami of destruction.They seem to lead a charmed life,and breeze from one job to another with no accounting for their past.

Of course, it reminds me of the story of man that had a horse for sale.He was constantly bragging about the horse.He was very gentle,didn't eat much,had 6 gaits,loved children, didn't kick, bite or have any bad habits.

Finally a man bought the horse, and came back a week later to the seller.

"That is the meanest,ill natured,gluttonous animal I have ever seen.He kicks, he bites,he bucks, you can''t even get a saddle on him, and my kids are afraid to go near him."

"SHHHH!" "If you talk about him like that you will never sell him"

So I figure these guys must get a glowing reference just so they will leave.

More is the pity for the companies that inherit such losers.

Happy New Year

HTRN

As the world gets smaller the population is thrown closer togeather ranting and raving is becoming more, It was in the past Items from Japan, then Brazil, then China, then Mexico. Now even the complaints are farmed out to countries who has schools to handle them. Cheap labor produces cheap fast throw away products for a world that is moving and will not need tommorrow what it bought today. A changing world for sure, but the old adage, 'let the buyer beware' is in.

'If we can band together, we can bring about change'...This is a thought of many people who are tired of the status quo. How? Having worked across most of north america and talking to intelligent people for the last 50 years, I came to the the conclusion WE are being manipulated. Why? I found a couple of sites that seem to make sense. Follow the money. Check out 'thrivemovement.com', get together locally, communicate globally. The thrive movement has changed their home page so it's more obvious you don't need to pay. Spend some time viewing and then researching what Foster Gambel is pointing out. CYA! Be more informed! Another interesting read is Chapter 15 from PJ Kelly's PDF file, it concerns our banking system also but from an Englishmans point of view. Also a free download and very informative. You don't have to spend but a couple of hours and you may have more insite into what's been going on the last 20 years. CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox are all contributing to our manipulation, news organizations around the world don't have all the facts. We must keep ALL governments out of controlling the internet, it is the worlds path to freedom and cooperation.

ronseto, more people than you would think enjoy (??) threads of this type. The practical problem, though, (aside from the potential of things getting out of hand) is, that, complaining on CR4 will do little to nothing to bring about a change.

The kinds of things we tend to get our dander up about aren't engineering issues, per se.

The internet has helped, but also hindered. The tendency for "many" to "create" their own little space in a "movement" or "cause," via a personal web page, dilutes what could be a more powerful force by consolidation. But, it produces a "feel good," emotion for the person creating it. After all, they did something instead of nothing.

Ranting and raving in almost any forum, no matter the flavor, does not pose much of a real challenge to those who would be unjust or blatantly abuse power. We grumble about bad products, but buy them anyway, in a lot of cases, because choices of quality are relatively limited. Planned obsolescence has contributed to this.

I have wondered, every time I see something like the Arab "Spring," why crowds in other countries seem to be paid more attention to, by "those in power," than crowds in America. South and Latin American crowds seem more effective, too. Our public gatherings are, now, even more controlled and subdued. Occupy Wall Street fizzled as far as I'm concerned. WE, of all countries, should be the leader in this regard. Most of us wish the banking industry and officers had been held more accountable for their role in the financial meltdown which has hurt so many people. I'm still waiting. We have been conditioned to think that polls can take the place of such public outrage. Surely, Congress will become more effective if they know they have a 19% approval rating, right? Ha!, they say.

I agree that collective action can change things. It just has to be thought out and based on a strategy that has some chance of affecting a change. AND, I think, coordinated by as few as necessary. Not so easily done in most cases. Then there's the hurdle that so many laws have been enacted to favor those in positions of power. Corporate lawsuits, for instance, can be dragged out for years, until the plaintiff has run dry of funds. It really isn't a level playing field. Never has been, really. And we largely fight our battles within our judicial system.

Collective action has always been a force in history -- sometimes stronger, most times not. And look where we are. The table is still tilted in favor of those who have the money (power) to have it tilted. So playing by the rules already isn't a fair fight. This frustration can then spill over into more vigorous, sometimes violent, collective action; then called riots. Not the norm, by any means, though.

Sorry for sounding so pessimistic. To me it's just a harsh reality. The whole system needs overhauling -- simplifying for starters. So much easier said than done. We all could rant for pages (and have) about so many things. It depends on a leader to arise -- for any cause -- who is willing to, literally, sacrifice their life for the cause. A Gandhi, for instance. He literally did give his life and still couldn't prevent the discord between Hindus and Muslims. (The root of all the problems, ultimately, resides inside man; his behavior. That change can't be accomplished except at an individual level.) Most issues we want to fix don't rise to that level, and so, many smaller battles get lost because of "creeping" deterioration. We are more likely to rally around a "Hero" AND an idea, than we are around just an idea.

I'm with your sentiment, all the way, though.

I have felt that way also and posted. Having been on diaster movements, I have seen all the outpouring of concern and offer to do something. What I have experience is when the shock of a tradegy is over, so is the concern. It was not well received.

But there is one thread that comes to my mind and I posted on it what I have experienced in other such events.

And this thread was the earthqueske in Haiti. After I made my negative posts, I watch. and the group hung together more and longer then I expected. I like to think it did good though.

Maybe I should have staged a hunger strike in the American Standard corporate parking lot.

You guys are getting way too deep.

I think the reason most of us rant on here, is because we know that someone is listening, rather than talking to a blank wall.

Companies that sell garbage, deserve to be exposed, too; although I don't think a boycott list would fly........................At some point, someone would make the list that is also listed on GlobaLSpec. Probably not cool.

It's nice to have people to commisurate with, and know that I am not the only one that gets screwed. It's the time that it takes out of my life, even more than the money lost. I end up with broken crap, and after looking at it, realize that for a couple of pennies more in production, it didn't have to be like that.

You read the whole thing????????

if you guys are gonna stage a protest I'd avoid Kent State

I'll plead guilty (partially, at least) to the "way too deep." But I think ronseto's post could be seen to invite a more general analysis. His last post certainly implies corporate power and it's abuses, not just bad products. Or I should say, bad products can be abusive, for the very reasons you state - especially lost time. I just don't recall success stories getting much news coverage. Companies that supply the advertising dollars to the TV medium, wouldn't want much coverage of consumer success in that regard. It brings to light problems that do exist. In lieu of public demonstrations, mass media is the main megaphone an individual has for a widespread hearing. I would still maintain it doesn't do much good, given our attention span for such reports. My experience mirrors yours, though, about contacting administrative sources when you have a problem. And suppose one would try to get their success on a local news cast (time was when there were "consumer advocate" reporters on local broadcasts to help achieve that success). You might run the risk of being treated by some like a corporate whistle-blower. Retailers might recognize you and discourage you being a customer for fear you might also put them in the news. )

We got a lemon TV replaced that way a little after the year's warranty had run out and Walmart didn't want to be bothered. Philips Electronics actually had a presidential "liaison" specifically to handle cases that came to the president's office. She (the liaison) didn't argue that our complaint wasn't valid. (We had found a number of similar complaints on the Internet.) I think the fact that a "liaison" position exists is a testament to the number of such complaints that show up there.

I agree completely with the "nice to have people to commiserate with," which is why non-engineering threads on CR4 shouldn't be discouraged. (No need to revisit that topic, much, though. Moderators seem to apply well-tempered discrimination.)

I always appreciate your humor, too.

... now about that list...

vote with your wallet, you can forget whining as a vehicle of change

Well. I'm still a painting contractor.

The only change I've made, is that I don't attempt to figure the materials in my bids. It's labor only, and the paint costs what it costs.

I'll go buy it, and give the customer the receipts. The time spent getting it, (on my part,) is free.

I would never consider ripping off a customer.

There are times that I screw up a bid and end up making $10 an hour. It's $10 an hour that I wouldn't have had otherwise. Sometimes it's $5 an hour.

My clients are my sales force.......................and I don't pay them a dime. I just exceed what they expected.

Too many companies have lost that focus on the customer.................I will fly into full on revolt if I am expected to pay taxes to bail any more of them out. That's a GD promise.

I'll go buy it, and give the customer the receipts. The time spent getting it, (on my part,) is free. I would never consider ripping off a customer.

You can do that if you are the only worker. And I know allot of small contractors that do this. But if you have employees that rightfully expect to get paid for an hours pay for and hours work, that goes out the window. Unless those costs are tied into or hidden in your overhead costs that you do charge for. But indirectly actually do get paid for it

Yeah. I'm a one man show. Having employees wasn't worth the hassle.

When I had them, it was customer first, then employees, with myself last. When work got slow, I found busy work for my one or two employees, and paid them out of pocket so they could get their regular week's pay.

Having been through it, I'm amazed that US employers are able to still eek out a profit, after all of the rules, regulations, taxes, and insurance requirements.

I'm always ready to rant about our government and their onerous BS. I think they play a definite role in the junk we are being served up. Profit has to come from somewhere.

Been there, yes when work is light, employees do not know the sacrifices one has to go through.

I think that it will come full circle. Companies will start popping up that make quality goods. Hell, they will be using old outdated specs......................and people will spend the extra money for the things that work. I'm ready right now. I'm tired of spending time and money on crap.

I'd like to see that but I highly doubt it. the economics and legal aspects of today just wont allow for that. I hate to say i but I think the Chinese will do exactly what the Japanese did after the 60s. Improve their quality and hold the market share they won with cheap!

That's fine with me.

If the Chinese put out quality goods, I will buy them.

What am I talking about? I already buy them...................I don't have a choice.

Actually the Chinese do produce quality goods. My cell phone is a high quality phone.

I believe the Chinese will keep their quality exactly where it needs to be, to dominate the global market.....................as well as their currency.

Ain't nobody gonna make em do it any different. Complaining isn't working.

Let's nuke 'em!!!! Till they glow!!!!

Quiet down.

If they find out what we're up to, they won't sell us the components to make it happen.

An individual cannot affect change, but collectively, it can be done. The big hurdle is how to organize people into a common cause. I takes a lot of dedication, time and finances to mount any kind of an effective battle front. That's why well known people from the entertainment field have been spearheads for various causes; famine in Africa, victims of earthquakes and other disasters, plight of the American farmer to name just a few. These people have the stage and can reach out to millions. I wonder if you can find an entertainer who would be willing to take on Walmart or Sears.

I think it's a matter of priorities we can't focus on so many issues .

I think it's important to simplify stop trying to run the whole world and focus on our own issues and pair those down to what is realistic .

We have become obsessed with controlling everything ,a good example was prohibition it was impossible to enforce and gave rise to crime.Drug interdiction has become the same failure .

If we reevaluated and condensed our goals they might be attainable but we have spun out of control ,trying to be in control.

Had we not gone to war for the last 10 years we could have used the 200 billion a year to rebuild our infrastructure and have a thriving economy ,instead we squandered resources and lives on a uncertain action .