What cheeses me off

[TheRealTMA]

What?? Australian journalists flogging a story to death! Never!!

Worst was the idiot Sky News reporter yesterday demanding that the Attorney General ignore the law and ruling from the high court and kept interrupting his answer. Then continued the rubbish in New Corp newspapers today, along with the completely unbiased Ms Credlin.

 

[SYD]

WCMO. Transferred 1k IHG pts to SYD+1 to keep some points alive (no status). Cost US$5. No biggy but the very next day receive the email from IHG telling me that Diamonds can now transfer for free!

 

[Flashback]

WCMO. Transferred 1k IHG pts to SYD+1 to keep some points alive (no status). Cost US$5. No biggy but the very next day receive the email from IHG telling me that Diamonds can now transfer for free!

There's a bit of a workaround too if you're not Diamond, sign up for IHG Business Rewards (https://www.ihg.com/onerewards/content/gb/en/business-rewards/home), wait 30 days and then do it that way.

 

[MARTINE]

Allowing smoking in public places, full stop.

And vaping - vile toxic addictions

 

[JohnK]

I stress and freak out everytime I have to deal with immigration website. Why they make it so complex is beyond me.

I paid $9000+ to get my wife a spouse visa. We've had that since 2019. She can permanently stay in Australia. For the first 5 years she can come and go overseas as she pleases. But after end of January 2024 she needs a resident return visa to travel outside Australia. I think cost is $405 for 5 years if I'm not mistaken. And I think we must apply before the 5 years are up.

So how about Citizenship? I've started applying for her. The list of questions is endless. I think we'll need another police report. Hope we don't need more medicals. All of these cost money. And if I'm not mistaken the cost to apply for citizenship is $540.

Why do they keep hammering people with these stupid fees?

 

[drron]

Businesses throwing spanners in the works less than a week before us going OS.
First Macquarie bank. Have had a CMA for many years as part of our SMS. Only ever transferred money to it. But now coming up to 2 years after retiring we will need some of the cash. Had absolutely no idea of our Macquarie ID or Password so rang up on Tuesday. A wonderful woman made it all very easy but she had to send off all the stuff to their credentialling unit to sign off on that. Amongst other things they had our old landline as the phone number and an ex email address.
Wednesday evening get an email saying every thing is now fine so Thursday moning able to log on and transfer money to out CBA account.
No major problems apart from having to get 4 security codes and then at the final step had to download the Macquarie Authenticator. Thought everything was ticketty boo.

Ah but Thursday afternoon in the middle of a long boozy pre christmas lunch with frieds I get a call with no caller ID. I did consider not answering that but did. It was Macquarie Bank wanting me to provide my details all over again. I said I made a transfer this morning but I am giving you no other details over the phone. So I was told i had to ring back. I did at ~ 5pm but after 20 minutes on hold gave up. Fortunately no major wait and I went through all the details. The fellow said that's all now but we had to make sure it wasn't a spam transaction as they have been very frequent with banks lately. And I said and they all start with a phone call with no caller ID, Second you obviously have little faith in your security features and third you should make a time for you to call back not have your clients waiting on hold.
That obviously didn't go well as this afternoon they rang Mrsdrron to go through all the same info again.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Oo! I have remembered what *really* cheeses me off!

Security who refuse to wear clean gloves if they decide to do a bag inspection! They rummage through your personal stuff and toothbrushes and the like with almost black gloves.

And those, on asked ‘what are you looking for’, refuse to answer. Or reply with ‘we don’t have to tell you’.

Well like, ‘yes’, I want to know if there’s something of concern so I don’t pack it again!

grrrr.

 

[JessicaTam]

Oo! I have remembered what *really* cheeses me off!

Security who refuse to wear clean gloves if they decide to do a bag inspection! They rummage through your personal stuff and toothbrushes and the like with almost black gloves.

And those, on asked ‘what are you looking for’, refuse to answer. Or reply with ‘we don’t have to tell you’.

Well like, ‘yes’, I want to know if there’s something of concern so I don’t pack it again!

grrrr.

I refused to be swabbed as part of a group (pre-covid). I would always tell the security person to swab everyone else first and then me last with a clean swab. Quite often had the supervisor come and berate me but I always held my ground.

I am glad those (cheesed off) days are past.

 

[RooFlyer]

Flying HBA-SYD to catch international (next day). Booked with VA, 12:35 departure.

A few weeks ago, stories of possible VA cabin crew strike started emerging, so me being me I booked a QF flight (fairly cheaply) with a 12:05 departure. Would decide the night before which I would take, and cancel the other.

Decided not to cancel until on way to airport, and I cancelled Qantas, as Flighty app showed me the VA plane on its way to HBA.

My plane had quite a bit going on with crew, with delay in push back, then say on the apron for 15 mins; then rolled slowly to a side apron (that looked bad). "Minor technical problem". After 20 mins announced returning to terminal; engineer summoned.

We eventually left 2 hrs late.

WCMO is that QF was delayed 30 mins but departed OK.

On the other hand, I got a 100% flight credit from Qantas, when I was expecting nothing, being a sale fare, cancelled on the day.

 

[serfty]

On the other hand, I got a 100% flight credit from Qantas, when I was expecting nothing, being a sale fare, cancelled on the day

If you cancel an ex Oz booking (domestic or international) made online at Qantas.com within 24 hours of making it you can get a full refund.

 

[cove]

A flat car battery can do it. Lucky I have two cars. RACWA came quickly so all resolved now.

 

[Flashback]

WCMO .. having to work, been doing full time work again for nearly 2 months and I think I prefer not! Should really think about retirement...

 

[JohnK]

WCMO .. having to work, been doing full time work again for nearly 2 months and I think I prefer not! Should really think about retirement...

We've got work all wrong. Way too many gadgets and distractions that keep you working until you're 70 years old or above.

If I had my time over again I'd ensure I'm retired at 45 years old and not wasting precious time working and making someone else rich.

 

[mel-world]

We've got work all wrong. Way too many gadgets and distractions that keep you working until you're 70 years old or above.

If I had my time over again I'd ensure I'm retired at 45 years old and not wasting precious time working and making someone else rich.

Retiring at 45 sounds like a great objective. You might be bored by the time you are 50 and still have 30-40 years to live. Time to start another business or work for a charity to give your life some purpose. Good luck to you.

 

[MARTINE]

WCMO
Startrack delivery ‘experience’ no 5.
So in last month deliveries never progressed in the app beyond ‘we’re coming today.. keep tigers/hippos and dogs on lead’. So I routinely go to my local PO where they know me and there they are.
Experience No5 today - only inkling of a parcel is in the letterbox saying it was left 5/12/23 (never happened as cleared x2 per day) and only appeared today saying collect today or will be returned to sender. So back to local PO - they find it but there is no tracking in their system. They could not figure out how the card arrived in the box today to say it was there. When we found the parcel there were about ten dates on it from 21/11 about ‘failed deliveries’… as if

 

[p--and--t]

Standing at the bus stop with four others and the bus sails past without stopping. Then stops 200m down the road.

We all make our way towards the bus, the 4 younger than me able to fun faster. They board the bus. As i arrive at the door a few seconds after the others, the bus driver closes the door in my face and drives off.

No more buses for an hour so I walk up hill 3km home in 30c heat with no hat to protect my largely bare scalp.

 

[VPS]

Standing at the bus stop with four others and the bus sails past without stopping. Then stops 200m down the road.

We all make our way towards the bus, the 4 younger than me able to fun faster. They board the bus. As i arrive at the door a few seconds after the others, the bus driver closes the door in my face and drives off.

No more buses for an hour so I walk up hill 3km home in 30c heat with no hat to protect my largely bare scalp.

I feel a complaint coming on - that would really p!ss me off

 

[Guvner]

I feel a complaint coming on - that would really p!ss me off

Same. Unacceptable. I wonder if one of the other 4 pax asked the driver to wait and he just ignored them.

 

[Lynda2475]

Same. Unacceptable. I wonder if one of the other 4 pax asked the driver to wait and he just ignored them.

Seems to be a trend this week. Met a retired friend for lunch yesterday, she had to change busses to meet me.

She alighted bus #1, crossed at lights just as bus #2 pulled up to the stop. She reached the door just as the passenger ahead stepped on board, driver closed the door just as she went to step on (no the bus was not full). She knocked, he refused to open door even though other passengers were signaling for him to do so then drove off. 30 minutes til the next one, so she had to walk 4 blocks for an alternative.

She was drafting a complaint once onboard the other bus.

Service is worse since the bus routes were sold off.

 

[Guvner]

WCMO
We have a perfectly good Bureau of Meteorology in this country, which, along with UK's Met Office, USA's NWS and Japan's JMA, supply, combine, share and distribute weather data and outputs from predictive models all over the world.
The ABC news website consumes weather data from NZ's commercial arm (MetraWeather) of their public Met service.
Those large data sets are sourced from the BoM anyway, and then curated and modelled for specific clients (Mining, shipping, construction etc). Those clients pay for the service. The BoM provides the same service anyway. I assume Metraweather just widens the scope with NZ/Pacific Island data where required (mind you, the JMA can supply that as well).
The data on the ABC's website is just bog standard localised weather data. There's nothing unique about it.
Why the hell do we pay a commercial company to provide standard data sets that are freely available from the BoM via an open API?
I must be missing something.