What Irked You Today?

[Dragline]

22 degrees here in Mass this AM. Got to work and the sun appeared. Starting to warm but it was brisk when I walked out the door.

[Ace-Garageguy]

22 degrees here in Mass this AM. Got to work and the sun appeared. Starting to warm but it was brisk when I walked out the door.

That's chilly. Still lacking central heat, if it gets that cold here, I'll have to set fire to my house to stay warm.

[Rob Hall]

19 here this morning...dogs didn't want to stay out long when I went out for walks at 7am... great sunrise, though, and sunny all day.

[blunc]

still in the 90's here  

but it cools down real nice come evening time. 

 

[GRiN]

This didn't erk me but it made me  realize that summer or even fall is over. I work overnights at a big box home improvement store. Last night at 10:00 I was unloading drywall in a snow storm. Gary

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

RATS II.  Had a stench in the kitchen I couldn't find a source for. Eventually tracked it to a trap I'd set behind the stove a couple of years back and forgot. It didn't catch anything, apparently, until about a week and a half ago. This makes 14 so far just during the fall season.

Last time I had an upturn in furry invaders, an old building down the street had been torn down to make way for a new gas-station. The displaced critters moved up the street a block to MY wooded property, and then into the house when the weather turned cool.

I have no idea what's driving this high a population this season, but the good news is that I heard a great horned owl outside last night.

Here's hoping he'll stick around long enough to eat a few.

[blunc]

RATS II.  Had a stench in the kitchen I couldn't find a source for. Eventually tracked it to a trap I'd set behind the stove a couple of years back and forgot. It didn't catch anything, apparently, until about a week and a half ago. This makes 14 so far just during the fall season.

Last time I had an upturn in furry invaders, an old building down the street had been torn down to make way for a new gas-station. The displaced critters moved up the street a block to MY wooded property, and then into the house when the weather turned cool.

I have no idea what's driving this high a population this season, but the good news is that I heard a great horned owl outside last night.

Here's hoping he'll stick around long enough to eat a few.

lack of predators that keep the rat population down?

[Ace-Garageguy]

lack of predators that keep the rat population down?

At least 2 feral cats live on my property, and I feed them just enough to keep them around. Several species of hawks frequent the neighborhood. I occasionally see a small one zipping through the branches in pursuit of a songbird, and sometimes I'll see one of the big ones sitting in a tree, studying something on the ground. I've seen one take a rabbit. There's at least one large owl that makes the rounds at night (a great horned owl judging by its call). There are also several tame neighborhood cats. One of the feral cats looks VERY pregnant, so maybe in a year or so, there will be enough predators.

And...there's SOME kind of animal that's not above scavenging. Any dead rats I put outside in the cat-bowl at night are invariably gone in the AM...as many as 4 at a time. I can't imagine the cats eating that much rat in one night. I know there's at least one possum and probably at least one raccoon...but they're not exactly predators, though they will eat dead things.

What with the crows that always seem to clean up dead squirrels and other road-kill, plus the aforementioned wildlife, I don't want to use poison on the rats. Those ultrasonic repellents seem to be useless too. I guess it's just keep setting the traps.

And maybe it's time to put some cameras around to see just exactly who is eating what.  

Edited November 12, 2017 by Ace-Garageguy

[Tom Geiger]

22 degrees here in Mass this AM. Got to work and the sun appeared. Starting to warm but it was brisk when I walked out the door.

In the mid 20s here, west of Philadelphia. Brisk enough to make you want to stay inside, but I had to blow off the yard, leaves were getting to be two feet deep.  Then I escaped indoors where I replaced flush valves on three toilets.    Have the fireplace cranking right now.

It appears this is temporary, forecast is high 40s to low 50s for the upcoming week.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Can you say dun-ning  kru-ger  eff-ect  boys and girls?

Today and every day. DunningKruger DunnungKruger DunningKruger ad infinitum.

[Deano]

Can you say dun-ning  kru-ger  eff-ect  boys and girls?

Today and every day. DunningKruger DunnungKruger DunningKruger ad infinitum.

Anything in particular or just life in general?

 

[Ace-Garageguy]

Anything in particular or just life in general?

 

Well, since you ask...one of the shops I work with has been in business for 50 years, all the personnel are very competent, and looking at the other guys' work is a pleasure because, even on the quick in-and-out collision repairs, everything is done right. They don't cut corners or make excuses, they never have comebacks (work done poorly, bad paint matches, etc.), and they make money. They're also winding the business down because there just aren't enough competent techs coming in to replace the geezers that made the place.

The other shop I work with is full of classic and muscle cars, some of it pretty fine stuff indeed. BUT...there's really only one guy there who I would trust to fix a lawnmower. The owner / manager knows next to nothing about how cars work, and the old guy who thinks he's a "watchmaker" wizard and gods-gift-to-cars is a shortcutting hacker. One of the others worked at an independent Porsche shop for 10 years, but can NOT fix anything on his own. The comeback rate is staggering. One little Pontiac Tempest came back on the hook THREE times for the same thing...a very simple brake job. The unsettling part is that they're all nice guys, I like them, but they can't fix cars (at least not at the level they're charging for)...so what the hell are they DOING? The guy who's actually well on his way to being a capable and competent fabricator as well as mechanic can't take the rampant incompetence, and is phasing himself into his own shop, slowly. And it's all I can do to go in there to finish up a couple of jobs I promised I'd complete. 

Then there's most of the guys at the parts stores...but that's another story.

I don't mind a man who doesn't know what he's doing if he realizes it, admits it, and is willing to listen and learn. But I just can't stand a man who thinks he's good at what he does and just flat isn't.

 

[dieseldawg142]

............

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by dieseldawg142

[Ace-Garageguy]

 

...and the neighbors were complaining about the noise shot-gunning them...

  Yeah, that can be a problem.

[iamsuperdan]

Ugh. So glad I've never had a rodent problem. 

[dieseldawg142]

..........

Edited May 9, 2018 by dieseldawg142

[dieseldawg142]

........

Edited May 9, 2018 by dieseldawg142

[Dodge Driver]

 

The owner / manager knows next to nothing about how cars work, and the old guy who thinks he's a "watchmaker" wizard and gods-gift-to-cars is a shortcutting hacker. One of the others worked at an independent Porsche shop for 10 years, but can NOT fix anything on his own.    

The guy who's actually well on his way to being a capable and competent fabricator as well as mechanic can't take the rampant incompetence, and is phasing himself into his own shop, slowly. And it's all I can do to go in there to finish up a couple of jobs I promised I'd complete.

 

 

 

 I routinely observe the way in which DKs negatively affect the performance and morale of the competent and capable. I can only imagine the drag they have on productivity and profitability. The kicker is that the guy who writes the company checks doesn't seem to care.

[Dragline]

Sorry to hear about the parts guys there Bill. I think that is the main reason my NAPA does so well. Between me and the two other guys we have 100 years experience. All of us are ASE certified and I am Bosch certified to "99" to boot.. Prime example is yesterday. MS Classic Cars mech Wayne comes in with a convertible top switch out of a 61 Buick. A momentary rotary switch. NO, we didn't have one or could get one. But I fixed there at the counter for him.

THAT was fun...

[Mark]

 

 

 I routinely observe the way in which DKs negatively affect the performance and morale of the competent and capable. I can only imagine the drag they have on productivity and profitability. The kicker is that the guy who writes the company checks doesn't seem to care.

 

That's about right...whether it's an office or a garage, if there are ten people employed in it and the work of ten people is getting done, boss don't care that it's one person doing the work and the other nine doing nothing...

[Ace-Garageguy]

... I routinely observe the way in which DKs negatively affect the performance and morale of the competent and capable. I can only imagine the drag they have on productivity and profitability. The kicker is that the guy who writes the company checks doesn't seem to care...

Which leads me to one of my other favorite soapboxes...there's a wide spread belief in business "expert" circles today that a good manager can manage any type of business without actually knowing anything technical about the business.

And it's 100% bull. The marginal shop I described above is a case in point. The owner-manager knows so little technically about the product his company is supposed to deliver that he can't identify competence, and accepts the rampant excuse-making the sub-par performers make to justify their sloppy work and appalling number of comebacks.

Since I've been working with the company, the quality of cars coming in has fallen off markedly, but management doesn't seem to notice, and if they DO, I'm sure they blame it on "market trends" or "fickle customers" or "the uncertain economy", rather than placing the blame squarely where it belongs: incompetent people doing half-assed work. Word gets around...quick.

It's been my own experience over the past almost 50 years that, if you consistently provide high-quality in ANYTHING you offer in business, with no excuses, you will have a following of loyal customers or clients who appreciate and understand just what they're getting, and how it's rare. It's easy to find a shop that can't, or the world wouldn't be full of people complaining that "every time I get my car worked on I get ripped off and it still doesn't work right". It's a lot harder to find a shop that can, and the quality-minded end of the market will remember that.

People may whine and complain about high prices for competent workmanship, or the fact that it usually takes longer to do something right than to fake it, but inevitably, you will keep and grow the only customer base worth having if you do GOOD work every time.

But in order for any endeavor to consistently produce quality product, all the personnel need to be capable of and motivated to produce it. If management has so little technical knowledge of the product that they can't tell the difference between competence and hack-jobs, the enterprise is doomed.

 

[Evil Appetite]

Ill tell you what irrked me today. And almost every other day I come to this site. People who post their WIP images, or nice, close up shots of scratch built detail, then later on, sometimes not so later on, move the pictures from their hosting site. I have at least 20 builds I had bookmarked for reference, I went to take a look through one of them just now and all the pictures are gone. I decided to check my other bookmarks..all of the images are gone from those as well. Is it so hard to leave those pics where they are? Everything I've ever uploaded to photobucket is still in the same spot as the day i uploaded them. Whats the point of posting the damned things if you're just going to move them. Leave them alone...it's not that difficult.

[blunc]

Ill tell you what irrked me today. And almost every other day I come to this site. People who post their WIP images, or nice, close up shots of scratch built detail, then later on, sometimes not so later on, move the pictures from their hosting site. I have at least 20 builds I had bookmarked for reference, I went to take a look through one of them just now and all the pictures are gone. I decided to check my other bookmarks..all of the images are gone from those as well. Is it so hard to leave those pics where they are? Everything I've ever uploaded to photobucket is still in the same spot as the day i uploaded them. Whats the point of posting the damned things if you're just going to move them. Leave them alone...it's not that difficult.

blame it on the short-sighted people at botopucket...

or the people that abused botopucket's "free" accounts...

[Ace-Garageguy]

Ill tell you what irrked me today. And almost every other day I come to this site. People who post their WIP images, or nice, close up shots of scratch built detail, then later on, sometimes not so later on, move the pictures from their hosting site. I have at least 20 builds I had bookmarked for reference, I went to take a look through one of them just now and all the pictures are gone. I decided to check my other bookmarks..all of the images are gone from those as well. Is it so hard to leave those pics where they are? Everything I've ever uploaded to photobucket is still in the same spot as the day i uploaded them. Whats the point of posting the damned things if you're just going to move them. Leave them alone...it's not that difficult.

I guess you didn't get the memo.

Photobucket suspended access to photos on all the free accounts some months back unless the account holders coughed up $400 per year.

The low-cost paid accounts will soon follow.

[Evil Appetite]

I've been away from the hobby for quite some time, i had no idea they tried to pull that BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH. Thats insane. Even so, the missing pictures thing was happening way before that. But now that I understand PB are run by worshipers of the Money God. To hell with them.

Did people turn to an alternative? Is there even an alternative?