Category Archives: Rants

Intelligent TV Forbidden

Warning: sputtering rant ahead.

Caitlin says:

According to [Bonnie Hammer, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Sci-Fi Channel], Farscape failed because it expected too much from the viewer.

Excuse me? Oh, heaven forbid that a creative team actually challenge the audience. Good gods, folks, this is how we push the envelope, evolve, mature – we challenge people!

Oh, wait. Sorry. I forgot. TV isn’t art, according to most channel execs. It’s money and ratings. Silly me. You’re not supposed to think when you switch on the tube; you’re supposed to leave the brain at the door and allow your eyes to glaze.

Whatever came over me?

(As an aside: Space gave me a birthday present by beginning the entire Farscape saga from episode one. I’ve seen three episodes, and I am of the opinion it’s one of, if not the, smartest thing(s) on TV. No wonder it was cancelled. But then, I’m one of those queer people in the minority that wants to use her brain while being entertained.)

Drawing The Line

Nothing, nothing infuriates me more than people who can’t time-manage their way out of a paper bag. Especially when a good portion of that time involves my work as well, in some fashion.

After thirty-odd years, you would think that people would know how good/bad they are at these sort of things, and allot time accordingly. But no; people appear to turn cheerful blind eyes to this particular fault, or maybe they just don’t care.

I, however, do care. A lot. And when I do work to hit a deadline of some sort, and everyone else lags behind, I get damned angry. Why? Why do I care, when my work is done? Partially because I usually end up looking bad as well; partially because I sometimes end up having to take more time out of my schedule to solve the problem thusly created, occasionally forcing me to cancel something that had been planned; but mostly because I get sick and tired of watching people make the same mistake over and over and not learning from it.

Time management. It’s tied up in procrastination and the inability to understand that other people are depending on you. And maybe the whole concept of time passing, or being able to quantify time, or whatever.

Whatever it is, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being yoked to other people in projects where people don’t understand that their work affects others. And I’m tired of snapping into being off-the-deep-end enraged about it after making an effort to be as understanding and as supportive as possible.

Breaking The Camel’s Back

Well, hasn’t this just been the worst twenty-four hours.

Migraines; vertigo as bad as I had it two summers ago; bad dreams where I cried so hard in anger and frustration that I woke up this morning with tears on my face; my right wrist swollen so badly that I can’t move it to write with a pen; the discovery that an e-mail of immense importance bounced back to me yesterday; and my computer has crashed not once, but twice this morning so far. I’m just waiting to see how the day gets even worse.

We won’t be going on the weekend group camping trip we’d been looking forward to, due to my current state of health as well as a variety of other reasons. On one hand, it’s probably a good thing; I can’t imagine the utter terror I’d feel if besieged by a migraine and severe vertigo in an unfamiliar environment. On the other hand, it was guilt-inducing because we’d promised lifts to a couple of people. Now that I’ve discovered that the e-mail of immense importance notifying people of this change in plans didn’t reach anyone yesterday, I am not only feeling incredibly angry (with no one or nothing to at which to direct my anger) but incredibly stressed because there’s nothing to do but get people down there, at least, although we can’t get them back.

I was looking forward to this, damn it. I was looking forward to seeing good friends there too.

I’ve been experiencing feelings of inadequacy in my work, as well. I can’t seem to do anything right, or anything write. I’ve re-read work and been turned off by most of it, especially the Great Canadian Novel. Ideas all seem like limp dead mice or tasteless dried-up apples. Nothing works.

I’m tired of pretending. I’m tired of convincing myself that I’m better, that I’m happy, that I can make something useful of myself. Now I’m just angry.

If I could only turn that into something else. Words. Thoughts. Something productive. But I’m sick of trying to change things into other things that they aren’t.

How can I be burning out again? What can I be burning out from? Or did I never pull myself out of the original crash-and-burn, just pretending to myself that I was better?

Grrr

Two. Two posts, one long and poetic, one the highlights of the poetic version. Gone. The first due to a power outage which rendered my work unrecoverable for some reason, the second due to Blogger screwing up.

It started out as such a lovely day, too.

muttermuttermutter

Is it too much to ask that people actually do a little bit of research before they post stuff on eBay?

If you’re selling costumes, listing something as RENAISSANCE / VICTORIAN / HIPPY (sic) when it’s a brand new sundress means that either you don’t know what you’re talking about, or you’re implying that your product evokes one or all of these keywords. The only thing that all three would have in common that I can think of is that they have full skirts.

No, wait, there’s a third option — you just don’t care. Or you assume that your potential clients are stupid.

I’m cranky. I was awoken rather rudely at 4.34 AM when a piece of heavy construction equipment trundled down our street, setting off car alarms as it passed. Then the cats woke up. Then my husband woke up and watched the morning news, which I heard very clearly through the pillow over my head.

I gave in, and got up.

The good thing is that it’s sunny outside again, which means my mood ought to correspond shortly.

rant rant rant

Okay, I’ve been really good and I haven’t said a single thing about the whole Air Canada situation.

I can hold my peace no longer. Allow me just this minor outburst:

Robert Milton says that Air Canada is going to lose about a billion dollars this year. He blames SARS.

Oh, sure; this has nothing to do with the accumulation of particularly horrible management of fleet and crew over the past ten years, or your lousy service, or your action of filing for bankrupty protection in the last fiscal quarter. It’s all the fault of SARS.

Even if Toronto hadn’t recently been the victim of world paranoia, you’d still be losing a billion dollars this year, Uncle Milty, because you’re badly administrated.

I really hate it when people project blame, ignore facts, and refuse to take responsibility for their own actions.

All right. I’m done.

I will now proceed to think happy thoughts.

Service Industry People Who Help And Hinder

It had to happen. I should have known.

Today is the day that my husband’s health benefits plan kicks in. Three months of employment (and paying into the plan of course) and congratulations, you now only have to pay a 20% deductible for prescription drugs and other fun stuff.

I’ve been holding on to a recent prescription slip for a week or so, waiting for this day. So after three hours of work at the computer this morning (aren’t I good?) I put on my coat and off I went to the pharmacy, to fill my first month of prescription, hurrah!

I handed in the slip, along with my shiny new benefits card, and hung around waiting for my name to be called. Now, if the truth must be told, I was a bit nervous. I’ve had problems with benefit cards before. What if they didn’t flip the switch or unflag the account or whatever it is that they do at the health insurance office? What if there’s some kind of problem? No, no, I said to myself; stop creating things to worry about. You checked online yesterday, and everything was fine. Plus your husband verified with Human Resources at work to make sure everything would be operational as of April 8.

Well, the pharmacist called me over and said, “Your claim has been refused.”

Heart plummets into stomach. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.

“Why?”

“They say you’re not listed under this policy.”

Sigh.

“We checked this yesterday. I’m on the plan.”

She must have seen me gritting my teeth, because she said, “Well, we’ll try again.” She called the insurance people and talked to them for about five minutes before they discovered together that I’m the second person listed on the plan (duh – my husband is the first), so they had to type in a 02 somewhere instead of a 01. (I’d like to take this moment to point out that the 02 is plainly printed on my card. I know, because I looked when she gave it back to me.)

At this point I stopped listening as relief washed over me. Everything was going to be fine. I’d get my prescription and go home.

Except it wasn’t fine. The pharmacist came back to me and said, “The insurance people tried to run the claim through while I was on the phone, but the network went down, so we can’t do it right now. Can you come back later?”

Heck, why not. I’m having so much fun here that I can’t wait to come back for more.

“I’ll call you when their system is back up and we’ve completed the claim,” she said. “I’ll let you know the moment it’s ready.”

“Why not,” I said, “I’m in the neighbourhood tonight anyway.”

Then I took the bus to another pharmacy to pick up a parcel, and got flak from a supercilious postal worker because my slip said I could pick up my parcel after one o’clock, and it was twelve forty-five. (How was I supposed to know what time it was? I don’t wear a watch, and there wasn’t a clock anywhere around. All I knew was that I had left home a long time ago and spent much too long in a pharmacy in west NDG before trekking into Westmount for this damned parcel.)

He’d look much more attractive as a rock. Or a hatstand. He had that kind of personality.

It seems to be that kind of day. I can take great comfort in the three hours of work I did this morning, though. Yep. Something to be proud of.