Post your Gripe

[TheGecko]

My vent - Website and Branding.

So I found the perfect 'branding'...it just SCREAMS Mid-Century Soaps. I order Business Cards. I ordered a small quantity of product labels to test with my printer. My thought was to order a large quantity of 'generic' labels then print the soap name as needed. Once I was sure they would work, I then would order additional labels for my Lotion Bars and other 'sundries'.

Business cards arrive and they are perfect. Labels arrive and they are not; or rather, I received individual labels instead of sheet labels. Turns out they don't make that particular label in sheets, but I can apply the design to any number of labels and stickers. Nope. I found ONE out of four labels that are the right size. And even if I wanted to go ahead and use a larger label and trim it, I can't change any of the 'design' elements...just the test. So I contacted the actual designer...she did offer to modify the design for a single label for me and then I could trim it. I'm fine with printing sheets of soap names, but not with trimming a 1000+ labels. In the mean time, I have ordered some clear Return Address Labels that I can print soap names on and then put on my labels.

While this is going on, I'm trying to design a website. I bought the domain and host service last year, but didn't do anything other than park a 'Coming Soon' notice on it. While I have a Degree in Website Design and Development and built a kick-butt website for my old business...that was better than a decade ago. I pulled out all my old school books 'cuz it is NOT like riding a bike and was going to start working on it until I remembered I got a "C" in JavaScript and I would need that for a Shopping Cart. OMG...shopping cart means people gotta be able to pay me and crap...something more to deal with. Okay...let's find a 'shopping cart'. I looked into all that my Host recommended but didn't like the cost of them (you had to pair for the year up front) so after looking around for oh...five or ten minutes...I went with Shopify.

The 'free' templates suck. I tried several of them and didn't like any of them...almost ZERO customization. So okay...let's look at the 'paid' templates. I'm sorry, you want me to pay HOW MUCH for this crap?!? So I go searching for Shopify templates on the WWW. Found a company that sells them. Did the chat thing asking all kinds of questions for about an hour, found a template that I like, fully customizable...font, colors, delete stuff you don't want, can do the WYSIWYG or dive into the code. And for a very reasonable fee, they will upload it, connect my Shopify to my 3rd Part Host, set up all the shipping, taxes, currencies, contact/email. Works out to be less than what Shopify wanted to charge me for their lame crap.

Since the website is fully customizable, might as well customize my brand...let's go find a design service. Everything was going great and I was just getting out my credit card when the conversation stopped. I had mentioned that expected that ownership of my design INCLUDED font name and color numbers, that I didn't have to pay extra. From the silence I guess that wasn't a question they wanted to answer...at least not at my price range. So back to the drawing board.

Seriously...it shouldn't be THIS FREAKING HARD!

 

[Catscankim]

Its not like riding a bike. I used to use paint shop pro, kinda like photoshop. I WROTE tutorials for it. I cant use it no more. I feel like im relearning it all over. But i know stuff....So i bought psp again.

so i start setting up a website, again, i know some stuff. Shopify...my logo background is purple. Noooo. I just want white to match my logo background. Cant get easier than #111111. Finally i find the html code for the home page....no where in there does it have a code for the color. Im like ok...I am out of practice. I send the whole html code to my sister. Its really honestly not there lol.

 

[msunnerstood]

Bitter Creek Candle/supplies have lost their dang mind. I needed an FO I ordered from fb right before Delta shut them down and I figured, heck, they are 2 hours away from me maybe shipping would be quick..

yeah, i dont need it that bad. $20 was the cheepest shipping cost for a 1 ounce bottle of FO that could fit in a small padded envelope. for standard usps shipping in the same state. Thats 4-5 times what it actually costs.

 

[AliOop]

My vent - Website and Branding
Since the website is fully customizable, might as well customize my brand...let's go find a design service. Everything was going great and I was just getting out my credit card when the conversation stopped. I had mentioned that expected that ownership of my design INCLUDED font name and color numbers, that I didn't have to pay extra. From the silence I guess that wasn't a question they wanted to answer...at least not at my price range. So back to the drawing board.
Seriously...it shouldn't be THIS FREAKING HARD!

Oh, I feel your pain... I created an online course with great content that has sold well. But before it launched, my problem was that I know what I like, but I don't know how to translate that into a webpage.

First I paid not one but TWO different web "designers." Their design capabilities were no better than my own (in other words, lousy and amateur-looking). Then I found a designer on Fiverr who created the logo, provided it in umpteen different e-formats, provided all the font names and color numbers, and made a mock-up of several possible web pages. The one thing she didn't do was actually create the pages on the website, but I found someone else to do that on the cheap since they didn't have to design anything - just implement it using the stuff she had designed.

I'd be happy to send along her info if you want to PM me. Her services were more than I wanted to pay, but about equal to the combined cost of the two failed "designers" whose work was beyond ridiculous.

 

[Catscankim]

I finally got called back to my other job, which is just per diem at another hospital. Its nice getting a paycheck on opposite weeks of my FT job.

I quickly remembered how much i freakin hate this place.

All of my computer access was deactivated because i hadnt’t been there since covid started. No biggie. Supervisor puts me on hold with the help desk. Hold, hold hold. I am super impatient. I have a friend in IT, so i text her. She gets me back online before the help desk picks up lol. Supervisor is annoyed that i didn't go through the help desk.

I basically became the other techs transporter for the day because she felt that i needed to relearn the emergency room layout. Kim grab bed 17. Kim when you come back can you grab this guy in the waiting room. I did not scan one single patient all day.

Then i didnt have access to something else on the computer so i had to call the help desk again, given specific instructions not to call my friend in IT. Grrrrr. WHY???

I pull orders off of the printer, girl says, “Kim, can you just, not”. I says...”sorry, just getting into the flow here. Anyway, im gonna go grab this guy.“ She tells me no, that the guy is too critical, and shes gonna get him herself. WHAT!!!???? Whatever...

Go for it you stupid prissy curse word curse word valley girl....(in my head) lol. I kept my cool. First day back and all lol.

Im a hardened, seasoned, thick-skinned CT tech who works in a TRAUMA hospital. 25 years! Minus 8 years that i was a supervisor at a non trauma hospital.

so she walks in with the old guy with a bloodied up head. I sat on the other side of the window and watched her struggle lol. She gets mad (expected). And yells at me to help her. This was the most oddly satisfying moment of my life. I was perfectly nice to her until this point. I walked in, put my gloves on and told her that i wasnt sure if i was qualified

Im not used to this crap lol. This hospital is in a more affluent part of florida, and the techs act just as snooty as their rich foundation members. Not sure that we are a good fit lol.

edit...and i forgot to add. At the end of my shift, my supervisor casually lets me know his wife has covid (also a ct tech at another hospital), but its ok, so far he's negative . Really??

 

[Catscankim]

@earlene ... is there any update on your MIL voting situation?

 

[norrysoaper]

I used a FO from WSP that I've used for hundreds of bars in the past with perfect results. The exact same recipe and the FO riced, and started accelerating. I check back at WSP's website, and noticed the last few months other people are complaining about the same thing. There description still says it behaves well, and does not rice or accelerate. I sent an email to their customer support a few weeks ago about changing their description to rice's, and accelerates. I purchase from them regularly may $1000 every few months, and now I'm having second thoughts about a company that dose not listen to their customers. I think I just may have to shop elsewhere.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Hmmm. That's odd. I recently had an excellent experience with their customer service. When others chimed in we were in agreement that WSP is doing much better lately. I noticed that your complaint is rather unusual and requires special attention so I would cut them a little slack. At the very least, before dumping them, give it another go. Try contacting the person who helped me.
Anna Severt
[email protected]

Good luck!

 

[Catscankim]

How annoying lol

Last month I brought out a bunch of soaps that I sold to friends. My one friend was in the hospital, and her husband bought three soaps from me as a gift for her. He said she loved homemade soap (which I knew)

Anyway, I saw her last night, had a discussion on how she was feeling, and handed her one of my tester salt bars. I had like 8 with me. Just little guest bar sized. She was disappointed looking and reluctantly took one. Then she got all crappy...”my husband bought three of these from you a few weeks ago and I HATE them.“ Dang, what do I say to that? And her husband (a real sweetheart) bought them for her as a gift since she was in the hospital.

But she continued on to tell me that the only reason that she will try the salt bar is because it is unscented. I explained that it WAS scented, you just cannot smell it anymore...nature of the salt etc. This was a weird side of her to me. We have been to each other's houses for dinner, been to bbqs together ,i moved a sofa for her when her husband had back surgery, etc. We have a great history.

I asked her what she didn't like about the soaps (i mean, is there someting wrong with the soap?). She starts rambling on about how they stink!! I told her that I would be happy to exchange them for some of my lavender EO bars (not even sure at this point if she had used hers yet). She just kept going on and on about how they stunk. “i will never use them." She was far from polite about it. I wasn't sure if I should offer her money back or what. I didn't FORCE him to buy them LOL. But I did offer the exchange, which she said she was going to regift them instead.

Ok, so deciding to just end it at that, she got even more unreasonable. She asked me what were in the salt bars. They arent labeled, they are just testers. I proudly ran off the short list of ingredients in them, and lye. OMG the look on her face like she had a lump of dog poop in her hand lol.

Before she got to say anything, i casually said that you cant make soap without lye. Its not there after the soapmaking process. She screeches out... theres lye in your soap?!! And handed it back to me, without even hearing anything i just said about the lye. It wasnt worth expaining it any further to her. All i told her was to google it, and maybe one weekend we could get together and make soap. That finally shut her up.

None of you know me IRL, this was the calmest mad i have ever been lol. Only cause it was her. It wasnt because she didnt like the scents, it was her condescending and embarrassing public reaction to them. How’s this...” im sure the are lovely, jose should have known i dont like scented stuff.” I would have left right then and there and picked up some unscented ones and GIVEN them to her.

I dunno, maybe when they sucked her kidney stone out they got part of her brain too.

I was super stoked when ppl heard that i had soap with me they started gathering around...then finding out it was free was a bonus lol. I purposely saved one for her. I just saw her last week and she never mentioned the soaps that her husband bought.

I bought her a glass of wine and told her to let me know if there were any EOs that she would like to see in my future soaps and she seemed ok after that lol.

I got home and was really perplexed about her reaction. Then I remembered that she took some sort of two week online class and is now an online certificate holder for being a “ master naturalist“ or something. I guess thats it lol. I dunno. It was all kind of out of character for her.

 

[AliOop]

@Catscankim you could bring her old-fashioned pretzels (or olives), and while she's chewing, casually mention that these are made with lye, but thankfully they taste sooo much better than soap.

 

[Catscankim]

@Catscankim you could bring her old-fashioned pretzels (or olives), and while she's chewing, casually mention that these are made with lye, but thankfully they taste sooo much better than soap.

I was gonna mention the pretzels...didnt know about the olives

 

[AliOop]

@Catscankim are we related? Same sarcasm gene for sure although I have learned not to actually blurt it out to people. Most of the time. Well, sometimes anyway

 

[Catscankim]

I have a habit of blurting it out. And you can add a lot of f bombs in there cause thats how i talk LOL.

13 years out of philly and i still sound like a scene out of goodfellas

 

[earlene]

@earlene ... is there any update on your MIL voting situation?

Yes, my husband was able to visit her face-to-face and get her signature on her request for mail-in ballot and he hand-delivered it to the Voter Registrar office. They said it would be mailed out to her that very day (or the next day - not sure of which). That was 3 days ago. I think it's cutting it too close myself, but he thinks he can still get her completed ballot back to the Voter Registration Office on or before Nov. 3rd. He asked the nursing home administrator to NOT forward it to him as that causes a delay, but to give it directly to her to complete herself. They have been forwarding all her mail to him since the pandemic started, and that's just adding to the delays of everything that she has to take action on. Either way, he plans to pick up the completed ballot from her so he can hand-deliver it himself so her vote gets counted. Neither of us trust the nursing home to do the appropriate follow up on this given what already happened, in spite of our addressing the issue with the administrator.

 

[starlightsteward]

After my very first 4 batches of CP soap went well -- had a soap night from Hell.

I had purchased some ivory shea butter from amazon, and only realized after melting it and adding it to my other base oils that there was so much lint and blue plastic specks.

I had to filter all my oils through a paper towel because my mesh sieve was not fine enough, and during that process somehow lost 400 g of base oils???

So I had to replace the oils proportionately, which took mental math and me screaming at Siri for calculations while covered in oils.

Did the math wrong, and ended up with 200 g more oils, so had to add some more lye/water to my cooling solution -- HOPING that the lye ratio and whatever my new true oil %'s were would still make soap.

The ivory shea didn't even make it much less yellow, because my blue mica made a pale green batter.

THEN - the winter festival fragrance I blind bought ended up being horrendous and gross to me (a sickly and way too greeny pine scent) - but ironically the soft green may have been a better fit anyway.

I ended up throwing out the overflow batter after filling my two loaves because I was DONE.

Now i have 12 oz extra of this fragrance I dont ever want to use again.

It was a night of soap hell and expletives, and I am pretty sure my neighbors are making mental notes never to say hi to whoever emerges from our apartment.

 

[lenarenee]

How annoying lol

Last month I brought out a bunch of soaps that I sold to friends. My one friend was in the hospital, and her husband bought three soaps from me as a gift for her. He said she loved homemade soap (which I knew)

Anyway, I saw her last night, had a discussion on how she was feeling, and handed her one of my tester salt bars. I had like 8 with me. Just little guest bar sized. She was disappointed looking and reluctantly took one. Then she got all crappy...”my husband bought three of these from you a few weeks ago and I HATE them.“ Dang, what do I say to that? And her husband (a real sweetheart) bought them for her as a gift since she was in the hospital.

But she continued on to tell me that the only reason that she will try the salt bar is because it is unscented. I explained that it WAS scented, you just cannot smell it anymore...nature of the salt etc. This was a weird side of her to me. We have been to each other's houses for dinner, been to bbqs together ,i moved a sofa for her when her husband had back surgery, etc. We have a great history.

I asked her what she didn't like about the soaps (i mean, is there someting wrong with the soap?). She starts rambling on about how they stink!! I told her that I would be happy to exchange them for some of my lavender EO bars (not even sure at this point if she had used hers yet). She just kept going on and on about how they stunk. “i will never use them." She was far from polite about it. I wasn't sure if I should offer her money back or what. I didn't FORCE him to buy them LOL. But I did offer the exchange, which she said she was going to regift them instead.

Ok, so deciding to just end it at that, she got even more unreasonable. She asked me what were in the salt bars. They arent labeled, they are just testers. I proudly ran off the short list of ingredients in them, and lye. OMG the look on her face like she had a lump of dog poop in her hand lol.

Before she got to say anything, i casually said that you cant make soap without lye. Its not there after the soapmaking process. She screeches out... theres lye in your soap?!! And handed it back to me, without even hearing anything i just said about the lye. It wasnt worth expaining it any further to her. All i told her was to google it, and maybe one weekend we could get together and make soap. That finally shut her up.

None of you know me IRL, this was the calmest mad i have ever been lol. Only cause it was her. It wasnt because she didnt like the scents, it was her condescending and embarrassing public reaction to them. How’s this...” im sure the are lovely, jose should have known i dont like scented stuff.” I would have left right then and there and picked up some unscented ones and GIVEN them to her.

I dunno, maybe when they sucked her kidney stone out they got part of her brain too.

I was super stoked when ppl heard that i had soap with me they started gathering around...then finding out it was free was a bonus lol. I purposely saved one for her. I just saw her last week and she never mentioned the soaps that her husband bought.

I bought her a glass of wine and told her to let me know if there were any EOs that she would like to see in my future soaps and she seemed ok after that lol.

I got home and was really perplexed about her reaction. Then I remembered that she took some sort of two week online class and is now an online certificate holder for being a “ master naturalist“ or something. I guess thats it lol. I dunno. It was all kind of out of character for her.

Wonder if her medical concerns really got to her. IDK. But I love, love, love how you offered to invite her over to make soap together! That takes the discussion to another level I think because you not only defended the use of lye, told her to google it herself - and because you're so confident a reasonable person will see the "the light" - was willing to soap with her.

But yeah - why not just say - "I prefer unscented". And...wouldn't her husband have known she doesn't want scent?

 

[earlene]

MIL's vote has been turned into the Country Voting Registar office, so her vote will count.

Gripe: Someone in our neighborhood, I suspect a next-door neighbor, left this on our doorstep sometime this evening or after dark:

An empty bent beer can, an empty package for face masks and a note saying, "Please pick up your trash!" with a stupid smiley face in red ink.

Not only do we not drink beer, we also have not purchased a cardboard package of face masks, and neither one of us has drank any alcoholic beverage for over 20 years each. It's insulting and passive aggressive and has nothing to do with us. It simply makes me angry that a neighbor would be so (I can't even come up with the word for this!)

Of our next door neighbors, we have shared the cost of cutting down a tree between our two properties on the West side and with the neighbor on to the East shared cutting up another tree that was felled by a storm and gave them all the fire-wood because we don't use our fireplace and they do use theirs. That either of these two neighbors would do something so blatantly rude infuriates me.

Trash pick up day was Thursday; maybe the garbage truck spilled the stuff after emptying one of our other neighbors' trash cans. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened.

It's not the first time some random empty beer can has ended up somewhere on the street that I have chosen to pick up and put into a trash can because it was unsightly. Our neighbors across the street used to have parties where the guests would leave an empty on the street when they got into their trucks to drive away. It was annoying when they parked on our side of the street and left an empty in front of our house, but I never so much as considered such a childish passive aggressive move as to leave a note and the empty beer can on the neighbor's door-step.

Geeze Louise!

Since we don't have a camera watching our front door, I guess I'll never know unless I actually see something like this happen again. It makes me want to put a porch cam on my front door.

I had already been thinking of getting some solar garden lights for around the front and side yard; maybe if we had those, someone passing by the lights would get my attention if they tried to sneak up and leave strange crap on my front step.

 

[Catscankim]

MIL's vote has been turned into the Country Voting Registar office, so her vote will count.

Gripe: Someone in our neighborhood, I suspect a next-door neighbor, left this on our doorstep sometime this evening or after dark:

An empty bent beer can, an empty package for face masks and a note saying, "Please pick up your trash!" with a stupid smiley face in red ink.

Not only do we not drink beer, we also have not purchased a cardboard package of face masks, and neither one of us has drank any alcoholic beverage for over 20 years each. It's insulting and passive aggressive and has nothing to do with us. It simply makes me angry that a neighbor would be so (I can't even come up with the word for this!)

Of our next door neighbors, we have shared the cost of cutting down a tree between our two properties on the West side and with the neighbor on to the East shared cutting up another tree that was felled by a storm and gave them all the fire-wood because we don't use our fireplace and they do use theirs. That either of these two neighbors would do something so blatantly rude infuriates me.

Trash pick up day was Thursday; maybe the garbage truck spilled the stuff after emptying one of our other neighbors' trash cans. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing has happened.

It's not the first time some random empty beer can has ended up somewhere on the street that I have chosen to pick up and put into a trash can because it was unsightly. Our neighbors across the street used to have parties where the guests would leave an empty on the street when they got into their trucks to drive away. It was annoying when they parked on our side of the street and left an empty in front of our house, but I never so much as considered such a childish passive aggressive move as to leave a note and the empty beer can on the neighbor's door-step.

Geeze Louise!

Since we don't have a camera watching our front door, I guess I'll never know unless I actually see something like this happen again. It makes me want to put a porch cam on my front door.

I had already been thinking of getting some solar garden lights for around the front and side yard; maybe if we had those, someone passing by the lights would get my attention if they tried to sneak up and leave strange crap on my front step.

Well thats annoying. It could only be one of those two neighbors? Our trashguys spill stuff all the time, and its windy a lot. If something is in my yard, i just pick it up figuring it was the trash service.

Just yesterday the trash guys left my can sideways and opened on the ground with some of my own trash laying in front of it (evidence is the mic ultra beer cans lol). I was in a hurry for work, so decided to get it when i got home. One of my neighbors put the trashcan upright and put the cans in it...

I love my doorbell cam lol.

I am so happy that your MIL got her vote in. I still cant fathom why they thought the had the power to take away the rights of a US citizen. What did it matter to them?? And COVID has nothing to do with it. There are plenty of ways to vote these days.

 

[earlene]

Yeah, I'm thinking it was probably the trash guys + the wind, OR, the wind + some other person who tossed the can + the wind. But I don't know where the mask cardboard packaging came from; I sort of doubt it came from the same kid as tossed the beer can, IF it was a kid. More likely it was a spilled trash can and the wind. Still, to make an assumption like that and put a note on my porch just makes no sense to me at all. Maybe it was on the outer perimeter of our yard, which is the only thing that makes sense as to why it would be placed on our doorstep. That's why I figured one of our neighbors on the left or right of us. I mean if was out in the street, I think Hubby would have noticed it when he came home today & drove up into the driveway.

The voting thing is really bizarre and makes me wonder still, and I am now unable to ever trust them in the same way ever again, I suspect. This is the first time we have heard anything like this happening in this nursing home, and because there is a recent change of ownership, I suspect it is related to the corporation. I don't think it was being done previously, but I cannot be sure of it. I Kind of think a nursing home wouldn't want to make that kind of thing public knowledge, because it really makes them look bad.

 

[Megan]

Well, the mice that inhabit my basement have finally made an appearance upstairs now as well. Hopefully they haven’t gotten to the soap room, and there are no signs there so far, but they did manage to do this to a bunch of personal soaps I have stored in my bathroom.

Edited to add: I’m not too happy with this freeloader... however adorable she may be