I haven't been posting many WtFs as my source is usually what I see when I'm out and about. So much for that :/ Of course, parts of my family always do something weird at some point... For the past few months my wife's had to print out all the bank statements for the business she's running with her mother, just so the mother can drive a 2 hour round trip to come and pick them up. I ask why they don't just print them out at their house, rather than driving all that way for the sake of maybe 3 sheets of A4. Up until recently the excuse was they don't know how to work their printer. Now it transpires the printer is actually broken but the mother didn't want to admit this and tell the father. The most recent drama was the mother had trouble working the Facebook app on her phone. Turned out it was a known problem, but at the time we suggested reinstalling the app. "Oh, no. I can't do that! I can't uninstall it!" declared the mother. At first the reason was she thought she'd delete their business page by doing so. After we assured her this would not happen the excuse changed to, "I can't because Samsung had a special deal with Facebook so it can't be uninstalled!". I really hope that was not a selling point when she got the god-damn phone: "If you buy today we'll give you this free app, absolutely free!! The savings here are literally incalculable - it's what we in the business call a 'divide by zero deal'. You can't get better than that!". What this actually translates to is that she doesn't know how to reinstall it. They've always been like that - if they can't do something it's never because they don't know how; it's because it's impossible and cannot be done! Even with simple things like when they used a PS2 as a dvd player: if they hit one of the buttons and skipped forward by accident they didn't know how to reverse it (just push the L buttons), so declared it could not be done and would have to restart the dvd and keep skipping forwards until they came to where they left off. Suggest otherwise and they just get angry.
The last part remind me some baby psychology. If a baby loose a shoe and never come back to get it it's because she/he consider space like time: backward is not an option until the mind integrates the concept.
I used to work in the RMA cashier in an electronics store for a few too many years and I recognise that behaviour. My store was niched towards gamers so it wasn't all too common for me to deal with it, it was more common that people came back after having tried stuff that shouldn't work and of course didn't work, but every so often I'd have the spouse, parents or grandparents come in with issues that's just plain old "fear of technology" if you will. Same with my current job (IT department, 2nd line) I'll come across people who are simply afraid of testing things because they're afraid they'll break stuff or violate protocol or something. Usually if someone they think is an authority on the subject shows them, they'll get over it eventually. Hopefully that "authority" knows what they're doing... either way, creates job security for people like me...
Decades back, it was amusing when we got my mom her first DVD player. We showed her the basics and she did fine. Then one day when I came over, the tv was one and it was in reverse. I asked what she was doing, she said rewinding the tape since we'd never explained that it wasn't needed.
I know a local electronics-hobby store used to sell "DVD re-winders", because there was a market for it.
The massive reduction in flights has done a number on our postal service, couriers like UPS/FedEx/DHL use cargo flights which aren't affected but regular mail comes in via the passenger planes. The BA flight from the UK has gone from 3 a week to once a fortnight, we got out Xmas cards from family, posted in November, 2 weeks ago. The US and Canada mail is even more goosed at the moment. It used to come in on the 3-6 American Airlines flights a day, but the last AA flight was in March when we closed our borders. Cayman Airways took over but that's at most 3 flights a week now. I just got an anniversary card that was posted from Ontario in early September! On the plus side the nice large, brand new check in hall at the airport is currently only using at most 2 of the 10+ check in desks, so the Health Authority have turned it into a vaccine clinic, especially as there were already plenty of queue barriers available, and by all reports it's working wonderfully.
Parcel mail into the USA stopped using passenger flights post 9/11 by executive order, it was mandated that ONLY cargo flights could handle parcel shipping by air - which meant DHL, UPS/FedEx did all of the USA's incoming air freight for 18 or so years, with regular letters being handled in spare hold space on passenger flights. This was done purely to limit the damage any parcel bomb could do with regards to collateral civilian casualties (the loss of a cargo aircraft and crew had better optics than a blown up passenger aircraft). The volumes they were dealing with, the big three could handle, even the surges during end of year holidays. With the coming of covid, and the closing of international borders, and the reduction in the number of passenger flights this entailed, the big three became the only way to ship all mail by air EVERYWHERE in the world for a while (not just into the USA). And it was Christmas period volumes of mail/parcels EVERY DAY for much of 2020. So yeah, air mail deliveries suffered and still are.
I always can do overtime at work on weekends, so i use that to avoid unwanted family gatherings. Bouns points for extra hobby funds.
Found out today that a manager at my old job just gave two years notice to train a replacement, which I thought was kinda odd but given how much work that man does it'll take that long to bring someone up to speed. But the reason he's leaving is even better; he and the wife have decided that with the daughter off and almost done with college they're going to buy some land (in one of the Carolinas i believe) grow crops and live in a refurbished bus, honestly sounds way less stressful than what he's doing now. I also found out that instead of trying to tackle their time management/scheduling problem they've decided to add a second shift; glad they kicked me out of that circus.
So, the UK released their green list of countries that can visit without quarantining, fantastic I think, maybe I will be able to travel and see my parents soon. But will we make the list? Let's consider the evidence in our favour: - Zero community transmission in over 8 months - All reported cases since July have been incoming travellers that were all detected and kept in quarantine until negative. - Mask mandates and social distancing lifted in August, zero outbreaks since. - Decent vaccine takeup with over 50% of the population having received both shots of Pfizer - British Overseas Territory with a UK FCO appointed Governor - Direct British Airways flight already in service, though reduced from twice per week to twice per month during the Pandemic. - Decent amount of our economy is based on tourism, what with us being a literal tropical island in the Caribbean. So, did we make the list? Did we bollocks! They put chuffing Portugal and the Falklands on there though, what sort of incompetent buffoons are in charge over there? Oh, right, that lot. I guess it makes sense now.
Grand Cayman, Western Caribbean. Were actually bloody lucky here as we've been living normally since August and the only people that passed due to COVID were visitors that brought it in with them. But being cooped up on a 75 square mile rock and not having seen my parents for nearly 2 years is taking it's toll.
I hear you, mate. That Pandemic is taking its toll on all of us and it makes politicians favor strange and sometimes illogical choices. Hopefully we'll have control of it by the end of the year. The way I see it, it was a price we had to pay for our rampant globalisation. Maybe the world will learn something from it, although I doubt the ones responsible are going to be willing to change.
If your politicians can be classified as something better than mobile toxic waste imitating some functions of living beings, they're still better than ours.
We have / had a crazy old lady here, insisting to ride an electric scooter in the city buses. Claiming it is an electric wheelchair. Spoiler Now our buses are capable of handling a wheelchair (electric or not), but the access ramp isn't rated for a freakin' electric scooter. And the safety belts inside aren't long enough to secure one in place. However, should the driver refuse to take her onboard, she'd block the bus by parking her scooter in front of it. For hours. No, cops somehow weren't able to deal with her, and when the city council decreed that she shall not be allowed onboard in her scooter, a higher authority voided the regulation. Finally, she rammed some guy with her scooter, and soon after I stopped hearing about her. She even blocaded a governemntal limousine a few years ago. Here's a TV material on her (in Polish)
