Modern Vespa

Oh, certainly. Depression is debilitating. But I do think that happiness, for some, depends in part on whether they want to be happy, and whether they are willing to do the work to get there.

(I claim no expertise here, though -- as a professional, you are free to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about )

For me, when people ask how I am my response is "always good". Why? Because that's how I decide to be when I get up every day.
Works for me, YRMV.

Ha! I take the same approach. My watch phrase is, "Never been better."

It really was a positive decision. There was a time that when someone asked me, "How is it going?", I would always answer, "Lousy." Then as my circle of acquaintances grew smaller, I realized that nobody wants to hang with a downer.

And tell you the truth, you can always get a laugh by just changing intonation when saying you're Never Better….

Chris from CLE

I think this is a rather optimistic take on things.

I once had an officer over me so toxic we had *THREE* individuals decide to take their own lives as a result of his horrendous behavior. It got so bad some of our senior enlisted talked to us directly and asked if we were considering similar action as a result of his nature.

I looked the guy square in the eye and said I intended to not only live but retire as a Senior NCO just to spite him and everything he stood for.,..and that he would forever be my personal reminder of what kind of leader I should NEVER be. Oooooooh he got so mad.

I retire 1 October.....and I hope he dies mad.

I worked under a short, bullying and frankly unhinged Sales Manager for a few years who liked to pick on people.

His was allowed to continue in this fashion because the dealership was successful, even if 64 people had left as a direct result of his behaviour.

This was until a Salesman walked because of the bullying and then wrote a very well articulated letter to HR to share his experiences at which point the Manager was investigated for two whole days, which was very satisfying to watch.

True to form nothing happened but because he did the numbers he was given a Head of Business position at another dealership. But wait.

Within a year he had a nervous breakdown, lost a lot of personal money on the Stock Market , had treatment for Alcohol Addiction and had to take an absence of leave to resolve his many issues.

I think his wife left him also.

Eventually he returned to work for a short period but he was totally broken and left soon after.

Everyone, and I mean everyone who suffered under the hands of this guy openly celebrated when they heard the news.

Sometimes you just have to let these plough their own farrow.

Do you think he was always a bully or do you think it developed from years of people ridiculing him about his height?

Oh I'm pretty sure that it was an over compensation due to his lack of height.

He was also sent to Private School which is probably where it all started.

Such a horrid pernicious little man. Literally Little.

I have to ask a question though. We all know when we've acted in an unsavoury fashion and the effect that that has on other people so why do these characters continue to do so when we are the Control and they are the Anomaly ?

Because they can, or is it pure Narcissism ?

They have no choice. We have no free will. All of our actions are determined by the laws of the universe. Professor Sapolsky explains it all in his book: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/24/determined-life-without-free-will-by-robert-sapolsky-review-the-hard-science-of-decisions

Hate having plans for the day but my body says no, ya gotta lay down boy

City snow plow drivers.

We've had 25" of snow since Friday. But, it's Michigan. We know how this works.

I decided to drive the FIAT today because roads are generally cleared. Last night when I got home around 4:00 I cleared the end of the driveway where they had (again) plowed me in.

After I parked the truck on the side of the driveway opposite the FIAT, I cleaned out the snow from the area around where the truck had been parked.

We had no snow last night. Literally. This is where I cleared the snow in front of the garage around 6:00pm last night.



You can see the pavement through the dusting of snow that blew around overnight.

A city plow came through our street last night and dug up a good 8" of hard packed ice and snow and left it at the end of our driveway. THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO NEED TO PLOW OUR STREET AGAIN!

Just tidying up. 🙄

I can't really talk about the things that really piss me off. Everytime I think to post in this thread I realize that it would be a flagrant violation of MV guidelines.

I know exactly what you mean.

^^^^^^
Yeah, that!

It is indeed a tough situation to be in when your immediate boss is abusive. I am sure you are not talking about telling lazy people to get to work (there are a great measure of lazy people out there), but, actually being abusive on a personal level.

I was fortunate enough to work for a company that closely monitored morale through anonymous opinion surveys. Bad actors in supervisory positions were fired all the time. It encouraged the development of leaders with strong people skills that advanced by merit.

I expect there are as many situations were jerks can survive in leadership. Small buisnesses, the military, and certain sales organizations with run away results. It is not my bosses job to make me happy, I work for money. It is a joy to work for inspiring leaders - they get the most bang for the companies buck.

Bob Copeland

Oh, the "Engagement Surveys". We had them regularly at my job in a small outpost of a global corporation. Every time I got one I became less engaged in the company. The job was never a problem, nor were the users I supported.

It pisses me off that people think it's ok to police what others choose to wear.

If an overweight person wants to wear tight/revealing clothing, let them. If it makes them happy, why let it bother you?

If you think it's not "attractive" or "appropriate," that's on you, not them. They are not responsible for your feelings, you are. You're more than welcome to think what you want, just don't try to make others to conform to your perception of what's right.

And just because you don't want to see someone dressed like that, it doesn't mean that there aren't people out there who DO want to see someone dressed like that.

People will always judge you by their own standards.

Sorry about that.

I understand that. I know that I do it, too (judging others), but I try not to act on those thoughts.

I tuck in my shirt at work. I think it looks better tucked in. Most of my coworkers do not tuck their shirts in. I think they look sloppy. Do I say anything to them about it? No. It's none of my business how they wear their shirts (and being untucked is not against the dress code, I just checked). Plus I know that the work they produce is top-notch. If they are comfortable dressing they way they do, and are able to get the results that are needed, then let 'em dress the way they want.

This is what's pissing me off today. It takes a special kind of person to so seamlessly mix arrogance, ignorance, and paranoia into a single post of epically stupid proportions.

My continued willingness to absorb abuse from no-nothings like this is decidedly thin.

eh. some people think the earth is flat, the moon landing was faked, and politicians are honest. /shrug

It's easy to shrug when it's not directed at you. I'm all for letting idiots continue to be idiots in the privacy of their own homes, but when they start leveling allegations against me for some imagined slight, my tolerance dissipates rapidly.

I think yours would too.

Certain as he was that a "nasty response" would follow, you explained it to him pretty patiently. Not sure I coulda kept it that cool if I'd been tasked with walking him through that.

I actually shrug pretty easily when it's directed at me too, for several reasons.

1. I'm not player one in that person's life.
2. I've reached an age where if people want to be wrong, cool. I don't have the energy or desire to waste my life arguing with them.
3. If they're forming an opinion about me without knowing me, that's not on me so it's not up to me to change it.
4. Maybe they're just venting in a generic way and aren't actually calling me out personally.

But I guess we're all sensitive to different things. Sorry you felt called out by that person. Glad you were able to set the record straight for him though.

No, it was definitely directed at me. This person has a long history of that here (though many of their choicest posts have been removed).

Fair. I definitely don't have all that info (been here less than a year) so most of that tends to go over my head. I try to steer clear of people like that who need to create tension/drama for a fix lol.

At least he wasn't using photobucket as a host?

Oh, FB might very well be worse.

I've been a bit scarce on MV of late...

Sunny, my 2013 GTS has been keeping me busy.
An intermittent but lingering "I don't feel like starting today" problem had me scratching my head.
In order to avoid great expense, I've been asking friends of friends about used parts. I have now eliminated two possible causes - ECU failure and Antenna ring failure.
Now the only identifiable cause is an intermittent break in the wiring harness...

Have you seen what those things cost as an OEM replacement part?

A month's pension and almost half the value of the scoot!
I am going to have to check wire by wire for continuity...

At least it's just your scooter. I have that problem except it's me that doesn't feel like starting.

Paying my mom's bills now that I'm running her show for the time being. Got the last utility bill since putting it in my name....for 53 cents. Damn stamps are more than that. (My stuff is set up as autopay, so moving forward, we're good..but of course I can't pay hers from mine, nor can I pay without registering an account

Anyway, the related issue is that I'm trying to log on to the utility account in my name to pay her current bill, but the password doesn't pop up, (as it turns out it's the wrong browser), I decide the fastest is to just update, however they want to email me a link, and now I'm having trouble logging in to my email. Decide the easiest thing is to just write the damned check and get it over with.....

No worries, after trying to get everything sorted, I've somehow misplaced the bill I was going to pay.

You ever feel funny about giving someone a "thumbs up" for a post on this thread? As if you're saying, "Hey, things are all fouled up for you! Right on!"

Yes. Constantly.

I've kind of come to the conclusion that most people understand that the thumbs-up in this context is for support.

Here's yours, btw:

I don't know if this will help, but here's what I do.

I don't have payments for any of my bills set up with the bill payee. I have all of my bill payees set up through my bank. From my bank website I initiate the bill TO the payee. None of my payees ever have my bank information and I initiate all of the payments, not them.

Even for one offs, you can enter your payee information and the bank will either do an electronic payment or send out a paper check from the bank. No stamp, no hassle. And you can delete them as a payee if you are done with them.

Hope that helps a little.

(tl;dr at end)

The US healthcare system & health insurance are pissing me off.

Back in March 2023 I had to visit the ER due to being prescribed a higher dosage of a medication earlier than recommended, which caused me to essentially not eat for a week (I lost 15 pounds in 5 days), and becoming severely dehydrated. I checked my insurance before going, and from what I remember, I had a $500 copay for ER visits.

They gave me IV saline, an anti-nausea injection, and did blood work. When I checked out an hour later, I asked how much I owed, and they said, "nothing."

My employer-provided health insurance period is September 1 through August 31. I switched insurance providers for this year, due to plan costs & coverages. My primary care physician and the hospital/ER I went to are both affiliated with the insurance provider I had last year, which means that all communication from all of them are through an app on my phone.

In October, I recieved a bill in the mail from the ER doctor (although it doesn't clearly state that on it). It stated that the ER visit cost $1126.00, and insurance had paid $825.88 of it, leaving $300.12 for me to pay. I went ahead and paid it, because I figured that was the copay amount.

Yesterday I noticed I had a message on the healthcare app about a balance owed. I logged in and saw that I have an invoice from the hospital. They billed $5375.96 for the visit, of which insurance covered $4066.11, leaving a balance of $1309.85. I looked at the breakdown, and saw that they charged $4406.24 for the Emergency Room visit, $889.50 for the lab work, and $80.22 for pharmacy ($5.52 for the anti-nausia med, $60 for 2 liters of saline, and $14.70 for the syringe).

In both cases, the insurance payment was received by the provider within three weeks of the date of service.

They then waited six months to send me a bill. And the invoices have a bolded statement on them of "The amounts are currently due. Please remit payment as soon as possible." Sure, they can sit on it for 6 months, but then when it comes to wanting the funds from me, they demand it quickly.

The associate I spoke with last night was very combatative, and not very understanding. He pretty much ended every answer with, "you need to pay this, we can set up a payment plan if you like," even if I wasn't asking about that.

This morning I looked into it on their website, and got more information, and I spoke with two different associates, one in billing and one in coverage. Both were very pleasant, and between the two of them I got all my questions answered.

Regarding the 6-month delay in sending me a bill, they explained that they have to wait for an EOB from the provider before sending the bill to me. The thing is, the provider and the insurance are the same company. There was no payment made, it was a simple transfer of funds on the accounting side. It's even stated on the bill as an "Adjustment." It seems to me that the provider side could generate the EOB and submit it to the billing side fairly quickly. It's not like they are two separate companies, based in two separate cities/states.

tl;dr: The US healthcare system is broken, and really needs to be fixed.

On another forum I belong to, they have multiple "post vote" buttons (circled in red):



We can select which buttons we want to allow on our posts (globally). I have all of them active on mine, because I don't care one way or the other how people "vote" on them.

Last week I flew to Boston to go rescue my sister from a toxic situation in NH. I did a car iron butt and drove her back to Indiana in 19.5 hours about 1050 miles. First thing I did when I got back was to order her an EZpass transponder on my account. She has never driven very long distances and there are few toll roads in northern NH.

I talked to customer service and they said they would send one last Monday and it would be to me by Wednesday which would have been just in time as she left today to head to VA to see an old friend. I called yestereday and they said it hadn't been shipped yet but guess what is in my mail today. Yep. Sister is already 500 miles down the road. I just texted her and told her to get one in VA.

On another forum I belong to, we had a rating system for posts based on tacos.

One of the best metrics I've seen so far.

Agreed.

I read through the threads.

I just want to say...thank you, for all you and the other moderators do for all of us on here.