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Rant Thread - What really grinds your gears?

It's not just you. A friend bought a new (not sure what kind) camper/trailer last spring. There was more wrong with it than right with it, and it wasn't even the same interior he picked!! I lost track of how many times he brought it back or they came to him to "fix" it. I think it's finally OK but man, he had so much trouble with it.
 
It's a lot of people. Forums are filled with new purchase issues. The Quality Control is non-existent and the accountability is tossed back and forth from dealership to manufacturer. These trailers cost as much as cars and are now where near as complex. Imagine if cars were this bad off the lot?
 
Man, I'm kind of glad I got mine used through an internet site... I got a ten year old model in decent shape at a really good price. No dealer involved.
 
This new crop of parents that either refuse to or don't understand the need to engage with your children actively. On a cruise ship with 1800 other people my wife and I observed ONE, UNO, (1) parent actively engaging his child. The other 400 or so kids ran wild 24/7 all over the ship. Sad really. People don't know what they are missing out on.
 
My parents are in their 70s & having health issues, their house is way too big & they're not able to keep it up anymore. They refuse to sell & live in a smaller place, or consider assisted living (which mom absolutely needs), but something needs to change because it's getting bad. It's harder trying to get through to them than it ever was dealing with my kids!
 
PattiCakeUS said:
My parents are in their 70s & having health issues, their house is way too big & they're not able to keep it up anymore. They refuse to sell & live in a smaller place, or consider assisted living (which mom absolutely needs), but something needs to change because it's getting bad. It's harder trying to get through to them than it ever was dealing with my kids!
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That does sound like a tough situation. At least with kids you can threaten some kind of punishment if they don't co-operate.
 
shalemail said:
This new crop of parents that either refuse to or don't understand the need to engage with your children actively. On a cruise ship with 1800 other people my wife and I observed ONE, UNO, (1) parent actively engaging his child. The other 400 or so kids ran wild 24/7 all over the ship. Sad really. People don't know what they are missing out on.
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This sounds like a complete opposite of "helicopter parents".
 
LV426 said:
That does sound like a tough situation. At least with kids you can threaten some kind of punishment if they don't co-operate.
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Have to be careful with punishment of minors these days, e.g. in the UK corporal punishment is very likely to get the offender a lengthy jail sentence.

I work with children all day, but I have a problem with misbehaving students, I let the Chinese staff get on with the punishments.
 
I was essentially raised by my grandparents. When their health began to fail I moved my family in with them and took care of them through their final days. Grandpa was in rough shape and taking care of him was the single hardest thing I have ever had to do, both physically and more so emotionally. He was a tough as nails mountain man and seeing him decay into frailty was very hard on me. He lived to 95 and I cared for him for his final 18 months or so. Grandma lasted about a year and a half after he died (she was 96) and she was collecting the recyclables all the way up to 2 weeks before she passed. They both spent up to their last 24 hours in their own home before going to the hospital and passing away later that same day. I couldn't imagine them having anything else. I know that's not possible for most of the people in this world, and believe me I know from stubborn parents :rolleyes: I don't envy your situation and I hope it turns out best as possible ..
 
mikedt said:
Have to be careful with punishment of minors these days, e.g. in the UK corporal punishment is very likely to get the offender a lengthy jail sentence.

I work with children all day, but I have a problem with misbehaving students, I let the Chinese staff get on with the punishments.
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Yeah, by 'punishment' I didn't mean slapping or anything like that. We never hit our kids.
Just the threat of early bedtime, or denial of TV rights will usually cow them into submission :)
 
shalemail said:
Must not be old enough yet to have cell phones to take away. :rolleyes:
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That problem never arises here. In elementary and middle school, students are not allowed phones, tablets, laptops, PSPs, etc. And if they're caught using a mobile phone while on campus, basically it's means expulsion. There's plenty of payphones which are very cheap to use, if they want to call family etc.

BTW anyone reading this who's not familiar with me, I'm in China. :thumbsupdroid:
 
mikedt said:
That problem never arises here. In elementary and middle school, students are not allowed phones, tablets, laptops, PSPs, etc. And if they're caught using a mobile phone while on campus, basically it's means expulsion. There's plenty of payphones which are very cheap to use, if they want to call family etc.

BTW anyone reading this who's not familiar with me, I'm in China. :thumbsupdroid:
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That's the way it should be. No one under the age of 16 (or legal driving age anyway) NEEDS a cell phone. That really grinds my gears - 8 year olds on a cell phone.
 
shalemail said:
That's the way it should be. No one under the age of 16 (or legal driving age anyway) NEEDS a cell phone. That really grinds my gears - 8 year olds on a cell phone.
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My 8 YO has a cell phone. No sim or service though, he uses it to control his BB8. :p

My kids get phones when they go to High School, simply because pay phones are a thing of the past and phones are the only way they can coordinate schedules with us.
 
Unforgiven said:
My 8 YO has a cell phone. No sim or service though, he uses it to control his BB8. :p

My kids get phones when they go to High School, simply because pay phones are a thing of the past and phones are the only way they can coordinate schedules with us.
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Not in the school campuses. Students can talk to anyone they like...
payphone.jpg


Cellphones and other personal electronics are banned at school, and bullying via social networks just doesn't happen AFAIK.

On the public street however, payphones are definitely a thing of the past.
 
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PattiCakeUS said:
My parents are in their 70s & having health issues, their house is way too big & they're not able to keep it up anymore. They refuse to sell & live in a smaller place, or consider assisted living (which mom absolutely needs), but something needs to change because it's getting bad. It's harder trying to get through to them than it ever was dealing with my kids!
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I hear you... my dad refused to get his affairs in order in his old age... for years, my sister and I tried to get him to do something as basic as write a will. He'd try to turn it around on us and ask us if we had wills (of course, we both did). He promised me his brother would go down and help him get his stuff done... the brother was down there for two months and nothing got done. By the time I got wind of this, my dad had already been in hospital for a month and a half.

I told him that I would be down there in a week (by this time I was in California and he in Florida). [insert your favorite expletive here] died the next day. So the whole family converged on the scene and had to elect someone (my sister... I was due for deployment soon and might not be in the country) to straighten everything out.

Took my sister two years to settle the estate (mind you, it wasn't big... mom got the house and the rest of us got about two grand apiece).

My mom is just as bad-- she lives in the middle of nowhere with deer and skunk for neighbors; we keep trying to g ether to move in with my sister and her husband, but she keeps making excuses.
 
PattiCakeUS said:
My parents are in their 70s & having health issues, their house is way too big & they're not able to keep it up anymore. They refuse to sell & live in a smaller place, or consider assisted living (which mom absolutely needs), but something needs to change because it's getting bad. It's harder trying to get through to them than it ever was dealing with my kids!
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You are living in some difficult times @PattiCakeUS and I'm sorry. I wish I had some sage advice to pass along from my past experience but I don't. You just have to muddle through and hope for the best.
It is usually a game changing event that prompts a more conducive living environment or professional care. :( But, you can't blame them for not wanting to leave their home. It's just a bad deal and I hope it all works out for the best.
 
Gmash said:
Well, it's not an either/or proposition. Making kids think that they are the center of the universe (or even the center of their parent's universe) is not good for them. It doesn't prepare them for the world and makes them little narcissists.
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Well you've got to strike the right balance. I don't agree with fawning over kids and giving them everything. That's not what I understood a helicopter parent to be anyway. But you have to take into account the child's age, personality amongst other things. In many ways being a parent is a difficult job.
 
psionandy said:
Went to buy something in the local Vodafone shop the other day, for £25.. so I hand over £30 in cash.

This confuses the girl behind the counter, as Nobody has any kind of change in any of the tills! apparently everyone uses cards there! (took them 10 minutes as apparently they sent someone out to an ATM machine with a corporate card to get some real money)
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And the ATM only dispenses £10/£20..maybe £50 notes so they had to go get a paracetamol fto cure that headache.
The thing that worries me is when say going to pub. Pint is say £3.10, get a round of say 4, and you give them £20.40 and they stand there scratching their heads, what would they do without that magical till looking after our money :eek: even more confusing / slightly annoying is when they then give you the £8 but a pound of it is still in 10/20ps etc :D
 
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