What Annoyed You Today? (4 Viewers)

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It's mid-June and they just re-amplified the NO OVERTIME! policy at work. Housing construction is in the toilet this year thanks to inflation and high interest rates. So we are bumping along as orders trickle in. I've got work starting to back up because they took my helper and made him a truck driver. Now I just get people from other departments who have to be more closely supervised since they are unfamiliar with my equipment and products. On top of that, my wife quit her job to help her ailing mother, and now can't find a full-time job. Neither can my daughter, who is looking for a summer job, so she can afford her senior trip next spring, and her car insurance.
 
Hard times all round I believe. inflation is really rocketing prices across the board and our building industry is also in the dogs with so many of the big name construction companies going to the wall (no pun intended). On the bright side our job vacancy figures went up.
 
The reasons so many housing companies are going bust in Aus is complex but three major factors are:
  • raw materials (wood and steel) prices are skyrocketing, and
  • tradesmen are almost as rare as rocking horse droppings in many areas because of the massive flooding in 2022 and 2023 in Queensland and NSW. The tradies have all migrated to where there is almost unlimited insurance repair work because they get paid better that way and because they do not get ripped off. and
  • the Aus building industry has a record of large building contractors going bust at the end of a job and leaving the tradies out of pocket for all the work and materials they have supplies in the last 90 days (or longer)
The lack of tradies in non flooded areas has force prices up and caused major delays on many building projects and if the builder is on a fixed price contract they are forced to the wall.

One of our local builders now has a three year backlog but fortunately they have not done fixed price quotes since Covid hit.
 
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Move to Missouri. The new house market is thriving, and new subdivisions are springing up left and right.
 
Currently, explosion and fire in an old 16th century building in Paris that houses an american stylist school. Presently about 30 wounded including 4 critic ones.
Causes presently unknown.
When I lived in Paris I stayed close to there for a year, Rue Lacepede, Place Monge.
 
My neighbour who lived in Paris says it happens every year there. Old buildings & lax maintenance = trouble.

Thinking of the 5 guys in the sub near Titanic - might have located them to within 10 miles - Hope. Not a nice way to go.
 
I just got the old bait and switch for a PT job! I am looking for weekend work to augment my income, so applied for a weekend evening shift at a local Amazon warehouse. Filled out all the paperwork, drug test, background check. Today they sent me an email: Oh, that shift is full, you need to pick a different shift.
Uh, no, I don't. I need to find a job that doesn't conflict with my day job.
 
You probably didn't fit the demographic requirement.
 
Working with hillbillies ! They mumble & slur their words even when not drunk or on drugs. Certainly not the brightest people

Several had never even heard of a "steam-engine", had to explain "Thomas the Tank-engine" & "Hogwarts Express" to them - didn't even bother to explain how they worked
 
Our neighbor across the street lost his wife two months back. She passed in her sleep and he's been keeping busy. His family bought this beautiful pot full of flowers and he had it on his table in front of his house. He came out this morning and it was gone. Sometime after three, it was stolen. I say three because I laid down at 3:10. Whoever it was went to the neighbors next door and stole a hanging plant with the stand. This is a good neighborhood, but our demographics have been slowly changing. We had a meth dealer on probation six houses down who had his 90 pound shipment seized by the police and he's still on the run. The other night we came home and there was this out of place car parked across the street. This young girl was sitting in it on her cell phone. As soon as my daughter and I got out of our SUV, she started her car, and with the lights off (it was dark), she took off very fast and turned the corner. My wife said not to worry about it, but it pisses me off we have wankers running around stealing things. I see police all day (they are short staffed), but nary a one in the evenings. We ended up getting clubs for both of our vehicles. I never thought I would see the day. It's probably time to move out further from this part of town. But the way this city is, it probably doesn't matter.
 
With all due respect to the Mrs,, I guarantee you she'll start "worrying" about it when it's something of yours/hers that's stolen or destroyed. I live in a pretty safe city and neighborhood but I *never* leave home without my leetle friend and quite often have him quite visible on my hip while I'm in my yard. Like it or not, this is the shitshow world we now live in.
 
I totally agree with that.
 

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