Post your Gripe

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
When I started my job a few years ago, I mentioned to my boss that Saturday night overnight shift, 11pm-11am, actually counts for Sunday, which is only significant for the end of the pay week-- Saturday. I used to be a supervisor, and we used the same KRONOS timekeeping system. She assured me that if you clock in on Saturday night at 11pm, then it counts for Saturday. I was new back then and I didn't want to step on toes as a former ct supervisor (at another hospital).

So this week we have two people out...one with covid, and one with "covid symptoms", for the fourth time since the inception of covid last year, not to mention that she said she was "too sick" from the vaccine that it put her out for a week...the drama at my hospital is incredible LOL.

So I have a bunch of stuff to do around the house, so I picked up a lot of those shifts last week. I checked my paycheck and I got a lousy $200 extra, I happened to be working with my boss tonight, and I brought it to her attention...I am missing all of my overtime.

YES the Saturday 11pm shift counts for Sunday. She said that she was wrong about the day for which it counted for. So basically I was shorted 8 hours to begin with (because the schedule is made Sunday-Saturday)...she included Saturday 11pm shift for last week, so I was really only scheduled 32 hours. My first ot shift was really only making up hours, the other shift I picked up was only a partial shift (which I knew, because I left early because I needed to be back in super early in the morning). So I only got 5 hours over time in todays paycheck. I should have had 12+8+5 hours overtime. Instead it was just 5.

She's like well your 12 hours Saturday ot will be on next weeks paycheck then. No, it won't, because I took off on Monday (and I can't give it back or I would), so I will be getting 4 hours overtime. This is all because she only scheduled me 32 hours to begin with last week because of the Saturday shift that she was counting as last pay period on the schedule, instead of next pay.

I worked so much last week, only to find out that my hours were split between two pay periods and I am not getting paid squat for it.

It could be worse. If I didn't pick up those shifts last week then I would have been short 8 hours
 
One hyphenated word.. Fed-ex

I get shipping delays due to covid, but they pretty much know what they are, so dont have an expected delivery date of 4-9 for 4 days and then at 530 pm on 4-9, change the date to 4-15?? 6 extra days???? for what???

I am livid.
 
One hyphenated word.. Fed-ex

I get shipping delays due to covid, but they pretty much know what they are, so dont have an expected delivery date of 4-9 for 4 days and then at 530 pm on 4-9, change the date to 4-15?? 6 extra days???? for what???

I am livid.

Unless it says “out for delivery”...I ignore it.
 
I think it's pervasive back-log in the shipping industry. More business than they can handle. Parcels sit in hubs until they can get to them. I received a package today that sat in a hub in NV for the last 3-4 days. I don't worry about. No sense stressing about things over which I have no control. Whether I stress or not the outcome is the same. Sigh.
 
I think it's pervasive back-log in the shipping industry. More business than they can handle. Parcels sit in hubs until they can get to them. I received a package today that sat in a hub in NV for the last 3-4 days. I don't worry about. No sense stressing about things over which I have no control. Whether I stress or not the outcome is the same. Sigh.
I get delays, but I pay attention to expected dates throughout shipping. USPS, I will get an alert if something has slowed shipping like a storm, I even got one due to civil unrest. I can plan around delays if I know about them. I think a 6 day delay I dont know about until late in the day of delivery is poor service.
 
I think a 6 day delay I dont know about until late in the day of delivery is poor service.
I just consider it par for the course. I also think it is going to be the norm for a while until shippers get their act together or people stop buying everything they need online. Truly. The whole system is out of balance.
 
I am getting a lot of Amazon delays. I ordered something last week that was "free next day prime"...lt arrived yesterday...a full week. And it was delivered by Amazon.

Now that I think of it, I ordered two other things that were same day delivery that didn't arrive for a few days.

And these weren't odd things. Just common items.

I was on the Lowes website, and I was looking to purchase a wheelbarrrel to pick up at the store. It said that it could be delivered next day for free. Well ok LOL. Save me a trip to the store. I dunno, I guess I assumed that it would be delivered from my local store that said that it was in stock.

It went from Pennsylvania, to Orlando FL, down to Miami, back up to West palm, then back up to me LOL I got it in a week. Well played Lowes, well played. It was SHIPPED the next day, just not delivered.

On a different note, I ordered a ton of soil, mulch, etc for me to pick up at Lowes two weeks ago. I got a message surprisingly quickly that it was ready for pick up. I head over there and there was only one guy in the pick up line ...making a rather complicated return in the PICKUP line. There was a lady standing idle in the return line. After standing behind this guy for a good 15 minutes, I finally ask the lady with nothing to do in the return line if she could help me with a pick up order. She said no, she is only doing returns. "So he can get help with a return in the pickup line, but you can't help me with a pickup in the return line? My order is sitting right there!" Finally a manager walks over and she helped me and got someone to load my truck. I mean, if she would have said that she didn't know how or something, I would have been good with it. But the manager directed her to help the next pickup customer because the line was now getting long waiting for this guy with his stupid return. So she obviously knew how, but had to be told to do so. I don't get people.

I mean, I was at work tonight and the ER has been packed all week long. I asked the charge nurse if there was anything that I could do to help. She said "can you start IVs?" YES! It's not my job to start IVs in the ER, but I did it. Now my patients were ready for their CT scans, because they were waiting for an iv, and the patients got their tests and got discharged quicker, which helped clear out the crowded emergency room.

"I'm in the return lane" stuff makes me mad LOL.
 
Yep - we have a Walmart about 30 minutes away in either direction, and a home depot one way with a lowes the other - and a tractor supply co. I've been looking for canning lids at all locations, in person every month and online every week, since we needed some this last November. I should have said that I need wide mouth lids, but I was too busy spitting... I will say that with the low population in a 30 mile radius of us, the stores will typically get seasonal stuff one time and that's it. So, up here, if you don't get your canning lids by the end of March - you don't get lids. This is why I'm madder than a hen. Avg price for brand name lids online is $8 per dozen. Extortion. Usually these are $3 to $3.25. I can still buy a dozen wide mouth jars with bands and lids for $11, btw, but I don't need more jars taking up more space. Since my market now has regular lids for their usual $2.99, the prices online are obviously sellers/retailers taking advantage and bilking people. I'll freeze my goods before I pay $8 per dozen for lids. Our little market now has regular lids, but no wide mouth. I'll pay you, or anyone else for that matter, to get me 3 packs of wide mouth lids for $3.50 per dozen or less. Oh well...at least I do have a good freezer and if I have to, I'll just switch over to regular mouth jars and figure out what to do with all my wide mouth jars.
Did you ever find the lids you needed?
My local Alaska Walmart just got in a bunch of canning supplies.
Canning is a way of life here and extremely common especially for our salmon and wild berry products.
Anyway I just bought two cases of Kerr wide mouth lids to supplement my supplies I'll need later this summer.
My cost was $3.66 usd +6% tax per 12 pack of lids. Or ~$3.88 per box of 12.
If your still in need I do have extras.
As I was putting them away at home I remembered this thread so thought I might be helpful.
Let me know.
 
Short staffed is an understatement.

We are a 24 hour operation... comprehensive stroke and level 1 trauma center, 450 bed hospital, run with 5 (FIVE!!) CT techs. When we became short staffed, they should have emergently gotten us travel tech help. Pre covid, we already were short with one full-time and a per diem opening already, which got put on the back burner. Then they opened that back up recenly. Since then we had two techs quit. We are now short three full time techs and a per diem.

So they offered us...$250 per shift to pick up the overtime. Ok that sucks (compared to what other departments in our hospital are getting). Nurses are getting $1200 per shift. Doesn't matter about the money at this point, seriously. I am on day 10 of 14 days straight and we are getting our ***** kicked.

Now our transporter has been out on leave because apparently a 250lb woman can be knocked over by the wind while taking a patient outside to the diagnostic center outside. True story...she's been out for going on 3 weeks now. For getting knocked down by the wind.

I picked up an 8 hour shift on saturday and one on sunday...Both turned out to be two 16 hour shifts because a tech got "sick" and another pulled his back out. I live an hour away....7am-11pm, back in at 7 till 11pm again. The manager says...I don't think I can get transport help for you. So I says I won't do it then. It hurt my soul to even say that. She then promised me at least a transporter and an MRI tech as a back up. I got none of that, because the transporter was a lie...and the MRI asked to get the $250 bonus and they said no (I DON'T BLAME HIM!!!!). One tech doing ct in the entire hospital for the entire weekend.

Trauma nurses were helping me with transport...my manager should be embarrassed

I see my manager today. I tell her that I fully expect to get (2) $250 bonuses for the extra shifts that I did this weekend (because both times I signed up for 8-hour shifts that turned in 16s). And she said no!!

This week was supposed to be some sort of normal with my regular 3-11 shift M-F. Tonight I didn't get out of there until 1:30am, yesterday was late as well.

I left work tonight at 1:30 and asked my partner to follow me to the gas station to get beer LOL. So here we were standing in a gas station in the ghetto getting beer on the way home...and who knew they wouldn't have Mic Ultra in the ghetto lol. I did manage to cop a six pack of bud light though LOL.

Homeless looking guy in there thanked us for our service though... didn't exactly make it all worth it, but it helped.
 
Last edited:
My gripe:
The molds I bought on Etsy aren't here. The original estimated delivery date was 14 Apr. The USPS updated the tracking on that date to "later than anticipated but still en route". Nothing since then. So I contacted USPS yesterday and filed a claim on it. They closed it with no action taken today saying "lulz COVID delays! Not our fault, might show up. If you want to make an insurance claim, you COULD do that. maybe."

I alerted the seller yesterday to my claim. Apparently they had ALSO contacted USPS last week so, supposedly, they had planned to ship out replacements today. We'll see what happens.

This is the second time this month that the USPS has had substantial delays. I blame the current post master general and the idiotic attempt to defund it from last year. Because I had NO problems with them all of 2020 but now...
 
My gripe is dopey people that make soap. I am on a Facebook group of all male soapmakers (I know, seems sexist) This yutz is asking why his soap is crumbly and neglects to say that he completely forgot to put his olive oil in because he was slightly buzzed when he made the soap. I have done some stupid things while drinking but soapmaking is not the kind of thing you do while high or inebriated. I explained that his soap is most definitely lye heavy and he should seriously consider scrapping it. His response was..."Don't worry, I don't sell anyway" I wasted my time explaining that was not the point that the soap was probably not safe to use. You should have to pass a basic intelligence test to be able to make soap. From my experience on this particular Facebook group there are a lot of morons out there making soap. Downright scary to be honest.
 
One thing that really bugs me, is when people put apostrophes in possessive pronouns. Like nobody paid attention in school. Gah.
Gah indeed! Even worse than the greengrocer's apostrophe, imho.

I'm increasingly ticked off at how hard it is to get SLSA, now that I finally convinced myself I want some.

After weeks of searching I found one place that had it stock and placed an order. A couple of weeks go by, it doesn't turn up. I send them a message through the contact form on their website (the only way to reach them). No response. Finally I open a PayPal dispute, expecting a long process of wrangling and negotiations - nope, it was instantaneously refunded! In other words their business is in such bad shape PayPal has apparently written them off entirely.

Which leaves me at square 1, with no source of SLSA and a Europe-wide shortage, apparently.
 
My gripe is dopey people that make soap. I am on a Facebook group of all male soapmakers (I know, seems sexist) This yutz is asking why his soap is crumbly and neglects to say that he completely forgot to put his olive oil in because he was slightly buzzed when he made the soap. I have done some stupid things while drinking but soapmaking is not the kind of thing you do while high or inebriated. I explained that his soap is most definitely lye heavy and he should seriously consider scrapping it. His response was..."Don't worry, I don't sell anyway" I wasted my time explaining that was not the point that the soap was probably not safe to use. You should have to pass a basic intelligence test to be able to make soap. From my experience on this particular Facebook group there are a lot of morons out there making soap. Downright scary to be honest.

I lamented some months ago that I could never film a "ImpKit gets high and makes soap" video like my partner has done with some of his kitchen creations (chiefly involving blended drinks and wayyyyyy too much sugar but so tasty!).

... and then I remembered the melt and pour and the dragon molds he got me off Etsy. Lol. So we did that one night. Carefully.

But yes, I don't get the idea of people knowingly working with a pH 14 caustic substance that can cause 2nd and 3rd degree chemical burns when they are intoxicated! I forget things while sober (case in point: sodium lactate last time... I'm not a patient man so that omission huuuuurt).

To that end, I empathize with this gripe.

(Unrelated but I wish I knew some local soap making guys. I think it could be fun to talk with local guys into the hobby.)
 
My gripe:
The molds I bought on Etsy aren't here. The original estimated delivery date was 14 Apr. The USPS updated the tracking on that date to "later than anticipated but still en route". Nothing since then. So I contacted USPS yesterday and filed a claim on it. They closed it with no action taken today saying "lulz COVID delays! Not our fault, might show up. If you want to make an insurance claim, you COULD do that. maybe."

I alerted the seller yesterday to my claim. Apparently they had ALSO contacted USPS last week so, supposedly, they had planned to ship out replacements today. We'll see what happens.

This is the second time this month that the USPS has had substantial delays. I blame the current post master general and the idiotic attempt to defund it from last year. Because I had NO problems with them all of 2020 but now...
This past week I had to wear a Holter monitor. After 7 days I had to take it off and put it in its box to send it to the company that extracts the data for my doctor. The prepaid postage on the box is USPS, so I have no choice but to sit here and hope and pray that they don't lose it. I don't want to have to wear another one for another week. If they had let me take it wherever I wanted I would probably have taken it to UPS. I just don't trust the postal service anymore.
 
This past week I had to wear a Holter monitor. After 7 days I had to take it off and put it in its box to send it to the company that extracts the data for my doctor. The prepaid postage on the box is USPS, so I have no choice but to sit here and hope and pray that they don't lose it. I don't want to have to wear another one for another week. If they had let me take it wherever I wanted I would probably have taken it to UPS. I just don't trust the postal service anymore.

I'll keep fingers crossed for you. I'm very glad when I got my at home sleep test done that I could pick up and drop off the equipment from my local clinic.
 
This past week I had to wear a Holter monitor. After 7 days I had to take it off and put it in its box to send it to the company that extracts the data for my doctor. The prepaid postage on the box is USPS, so I have no choice but to sit here and hope and pray that they don't lose it. I don't want to have to wear another one for another week. If they had let me take it wherever I wanted I would probably have taken it to UPS. I just don't trust the postal service anymore.

Getting educated everyday! I didn't know about "Holter Monitor" until now- had to look it up!
Best wishes to you!
 
Getting educated everyday! I didn't know about "Holter Monitor" until now- had to look it up!
Best wishes to you!
Thank you!
I guess my gripe really should have been that I had to have a Holter monitor at all, regardless of the Postal Service!
 
I'll keep fingers crossed for you. I'm very glad when I got my at home sleep test done that I could pick up and drop off the equipment from my local clinic.
Unfortunately, the equipment to read the data on a Holter monitor isn't something doctors typically have in their office, there is always a third party that manufactures and operates the things and sends the data to the doctor. And they are always out of state, too. This isn't the first one I've had, and the previous one was the same way (about 6 years ago).
 
Back
Top