Doged a bullet . . . phew

[Casual Observer]

I usually stay at jobs too long, most of them being startups and since most startups fail for various reasons it's dangerous to do this. This time, I left my last job (selling security software) for a new one (selling clinical trial data management software) about six weeks ago. As luck would have it, about a month after the change the world came crashing down with this pandemic and suddenly we're stuck at home and most businesses are closed. I lucked out moving from selling to companies that are now mostly closed to selling to companies whose business prospects are only going up due to this.

I just heard today that my former job has now cut EVERYBODY's salary in half due to the crisis (except for the ceo i'm sure). Had I stayed there I would right now be royally fucked and unable to pay my rent, I'd be ruined (like so many other Americans right now of course). With simulus loans coming up that are forgivable if companies keep payroll, I can't believe those sons of bitches did that to their entire staff.

How is this crisis affecting you guys? Hopefully everyone's jobs are still doing ok.

[Flack]

My wife and I can both work from home, so that's what we're doing. Previously I was going into the office two days a week to touch physical machines and that has stopped. Part of my job involves testing drivers, BIOS updates, and builds against specific models, so that's been put on hold -- not great news with an impending Windows 10 cut off date rapidly approaching, but what are the options? Previously, my wife was only working from home 1-2 days a month, and is now doing it full time. She finds sitting at a small desk 10 hours a day on Zoom meetings without real human interaction soul crushing, but again, we have so little to complain about.

My son is a high school senior and his entire year has fizzled. No senior spring break trip, no senior prom, no graduation ceremony. Both of my kids miss their friends. My wife and I feel like jail wardens.

One of my best friends is a firefighter and EMT who is possibly being exposed multiple times a day. Another one of my friends works in a factory that has been deemed essential and where social distancing is impossible. My sister in law is a hospice nurse who deals with sick people everyday and is using a bandanna for a mask. Each time I get depressed about sitting at home all day every day, I remember how many of my friends wish they could be doing the same.

[Tdarcos]

I'm comiserating over a bunch of people who
1, Don't know enough to cut back on quoting a prior message to the essential points; and
2. Complain about my misspellings while nobody noticed, in the title of this post, that "Dodged a bullet" had its first word spelled incorrectly. (I'm the only one to correct the title of their reply.)

But otherwise, Like Flack, I have so little to complain about, other than having only one leg, sometimes being in pain, having to be catheterized to pee, wearing a diaper, being unable to move...

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I'm comiserating over a bunch of people who
1, Don't know enough to cut back on quoting a prior message to the essential points; and
2. Complain about my misspellings while nobody noticed, in the title of this post, that "Dodged a bullet" had its first word spelled incorrectly. (I'm the only one to correct the title of their reply.)

But otherwise, Like Flack, I have so little to complain about, other than having only one leg, sometimes being in pain, having to be catheterized to pee, wearing a diaper, being unable to move...

Nobody really cared about misspellings, we were just teasing you. Everyone's gotten teased about various things on this BBS lately. We're all locked inside!!

[Billy Mays]

I liked the original spelling better.

Instead of 1-3 day shipping on Amazon I have to wait 1-3 months to receive anything. Amazon claims they're prioritizing essential items but those things used to arrive in a day or so as well so how much more prioritizing than 1 day can you get? If you order some tylenol on Amazon now does it arrive within the hour? No. Amazon is clearly using this thing as an excuse to fuck people over on their shipping.

[Tdarcos]

I have seen stuff from Amazon as quick as a couple or three days. Food including snacks seems to be prioritized. If u read my message about buying a cable for $2 with optional 5 week shipping for $41, I noted Amazon is promising 21. Days.

This message posted from a mobile phone

[Billy Mays]

Amazon is promising 21. Days.

As this point it should be clear to everyone that Amazon is just ramming it down our throats. Who buys essentials on Amazon anyways? Their entire business model is based around people typing in whatever random autistic thing comes to mind and then clicking next day. And why do we have handicapped parking spaces but no such consideration for handicapped people who can't even drive? The disabled should take precedence if there was such a shipping crisis, which there isn't, maybe by a few days but not the fuck it we're all going 700 years back in time model of delivering packages.

[pinback]

I have ordered several things off Amazon since this has begun, and the estimates are padded well into the future, but the packages arrived very quickly, almost faster than usual!

Thanks, Amazon! <3

[Flack]

I ordered 200' of speaker wire off of Amazon and was given a delivery estimate of 33 days. After placing the order, I decided I needed it faster than that, so I purchased 200' of speaker wire on Home Depot's website for local pickup. I then went back to Amazon, attempted to cancel the order, and was told that it might be too late as the order was already being pulled. This was over a span of about five minutes.

The Home Depot pickup wasn't ready until the next day, and the order from Amazon arrived the day after that (31 days earlier than their estimate). I guess they are just just giving "worst case scenario" on their estimates, but in reality I'm only seeing shipping delays of 1-2 days.

The real point of this post is that if anyone wants to buy 200' of speaker wire please let me know.

[Billy Mays]

This is week three out of in all likelihood every last week on Earth waiting for my salmiakki drops. The part that is so infuriating is ammonium chloride is an expectorant so even though they are listed as a confectionery, many people in the netherlands also use them as a cough drop but the people at Amazon don't read runes so they don't know that my product would be categorized as essential.

[pinback]

Nothing called "salmiakki drops" is essential to anyone.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Haven't read all the new posts yet as I found out today I need 201' of speaker wire.

[Flack]

Great! Let me send the new guy down to the basement to get the cable stretcher.

(Which is only slightly less funny than the time my friend sent a new employee down to the basement to make McDonald's cookies.)

[Billy Mays]

I plan on getting some good n plenty, a candy I know I don't like, to hold me over until my salmiakki drops, a candy I probably won't like, arrive.

[RetroRomper]

Nothing called "salmiakki drops" is essential to anyone.

The other bodies in the house have ordered the following:
1. Two kinds of Unicorn wash (one is a body wash and the other is for... Yarn).
2. A wooden, folding desk.
3. Half of Tom Clancy's written novels ("hey, would you like me to load his ebooks onto your Kindle Fire HD?" "No." "Okay..." ::She proceeds to borrow the books digitally from the local library while waiting for them to be delivered::)
4. Hyper Volumetric Probiotic Energy & Wellness Pills.
5. A book from a quack that emphasizes how to completely empty your bowels for "gut health."
6. Sega Pico video games (this one is on me).
7. On and on and on and on....

I'd have no complaints nor cares about all the useless, consumer driven crud they bought to mainly fill the time (except the fact Amazon is grinding through bodies faster than Tdarcos used to munch down on slop), except until I drew a line, there was endless refrains wondering where their items were and they both would press their faces to the glass whenever they heard a truck ramble into the cul-de-sac.

Fun times being a white fam... Group of people being forced to live together.

[The Happiness Engine]

We've pretty much stopped ordering things. Yuppie-grocery services are dead and I don't really feel the need for anything else. We've gotten breakfast a couple times to try and keep our local open but otherwise that's it.

[Flack]

My family made a conscious decision to reduce our footprint and order less things online to help ease the shipping system... until today around 5pm, when people on CNN began saying we might be social distancing until 2021 or 2022! Like, I was going to wait a few more weeks before ordering a broon online but I can't wait a fucking year. Sorry, Amazon driver.

[Jizaboz]

Oh fuck CNN and FOX news! I'm still getting my vibe on when things are getting back to normal from NHK news.

[RetroRomper]

I've just been watching 60 year old Japanese quasi-documentaries. My only hardship right now is that I filled up the additional 10TB of storage on my NAS and don't know what to delete...

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I've just been watching 60 year old Japanese quasi-documentaries. My only hardship right now is that I filled up the additional 10TB of storage on my NAS and don't know what to delete...

How about starting with the 60 year old Japanese quasi-documentaries?