Useless Conversation

[Selby]

"Evidence says otherwise."

My favorite takeaway from that discussion personally. My 13 year old is always whining about data issues, I get to have this fun conversation every few weeks...

[Merusk]

My son will be 13 in December. Coincidence? I think not.

[HaemishM]

That's how they getcha. /Palin

I thought the same thing when I went to it first.

Now, on healthcare.gov I CAN get small business PPOs, but boyo that process. What a nightmare. I've never wanted to give someone so much money so easily and everyone seems hellbent on making it hard as fuuuuuck.

And make sure you sign up before the deadline or else you are shit out of luck until the enrollment period ends. Companies won't even sign you up unless it's in the enrollment period.

How the fuck does a business turn down a customer willing to hand them money for shitty service?

[Chimpy]

If you are on Verizon, their data usage meter has been fucked up for the last couple of months. There have been multiple stories about them billing people for more than their phone was possibly able to use in a given time frame. My boss had an hour and a half phone call with them on Monday about his recent and sudden overages with no change in usage (if not less usage).

[Sky]

My son will be 13 in December. Coincidence? I think not.

There is a high chance that kids raised by the enlightened gentry here will not continue to be that stupid into adulthood. The guy I'm referring to (and most of the dense people I deal with) was in his 60s.

[Khaldun]

I think we still technically have a PPO at work so they don't have to say they got rid of it, but it's priced almost as much as the crazy-expensive unrestrained Blue Cross plan. E.g., they don't want anyone to have it. I think there's one stubborn old coot who likes it who keeps choosing it and they don't want him to start screaming to everyone about how they took his plan away.

Fundamentally the insurers didn't like it because they didn't make the craziest profits ever on it. It was still profitable for them, but not as much as the HMO plan. I noticed a dramatic difference with my doctor in how she dealt with me before and after PPO: afterwards I barely got ten minutes even on a complicated health issue, before she'd be friendly and engaging and take her time even if I had a hangnail.

[Sky]

But the free market is good for us all! 

We've got a pretty platinum plan here, but it also used to be a BCBS PPO. It was sooo nice but it would be something like $1500/mo at this point for a single adult (or more, we bailed on it at least 5 years ago at $900/mo). Looking at the metal plan levels when the ACA kicked in, I feel so bad for people on anything below platinum. Don't get sick or you're going into bankruptcy. Also, back when we bailed from the first PPO deal (about 10 years ago, it probably costs more than I net at this point), the meeting was depressing. It was my fiancee and I, the city's union reps, and the insurance rep. They focused on plan price and small potato shit, we kept asking about major stuff (the stuff that will put you into bankruptcy, surgeries, extended stays, etc).

Plans are only crazy expensive until you get sick or injured. The stuff I went through with my toe last year ended up costing me around $1500 all in, it would've been over $25k with a bronze plan. My fiancee's much more serious experience cost her about $2500 but would've been well into six digits with a bronze plan. She'd literally be dead if we had the bronze plan. Because of profiteering shitbags in the insurance racket and selfish, cheap assholes who will cut every corner possible to save a buck.

'Merica.

[WayAbvPar]

My insurance ran out in September (my former company paid for 3 months of COBRA as part of my severance package), so we are on my wife's plan now. She works for a goddamned insurance broker, but since they are privately insured her plan is like $300 a month. Can we just get single payer already? Fuck insurance companies to death.

[Sky]

I wish mine was that cheap. I don't even look anymore. I think we're around $350 (with employer picking up half, so $700/mo) with a 26% increase next year.

And still worth it, due to the high cost of health care and the amount of co-pay we have rather than co-insurance. Whatever devious mind came up with co-insurance surely has a seat at Satan's left hand.

[01101010]

Christ, I have just me on the highest tier plan Pitt offers and I pay ~$130/mo with vision and dental. Of course I am stuck to using a single hospital system, but UPMC here owns pretty much everything so it's not like I'd go fishing for another hospital or doc.

[Chimpy]

Christ, I have just me on the highest tier plan Pitt offers and I pay ~$130/mo with vision and dental. Of course I am stuck to using a single hospital system, but UPMC here owns pretty much everything so it's not like I'd go fishing for another hospital or doc.

I pay $170 a month for pretty Cadillac insurance. But the state/employer pays like 80% of the total premium.

[Morat20]

I swear, my goddamn life has turned into a Jerry Springer episode. (Not directly, it's all relatives who went batshit crazy or decided life without the dramatics turned up to 11 wasn't worth living).

Although, for the record, I'd like to state the following --- I absolutely understand leaving your spouse. I understand leaving without prior notice. I don't fucking understand taking one of your children (but not the other, poor bastard) and I really don't fucking understand where you skip the part where you phone/text/email/whatever from a hundred miles away or something and TELL your spouse "I've left and taken my clearly favorite child, so you'll need a therapist for the other one."

FYI, what happens when you and your baby disappear leaving behind an empty car in a parking lot, with the only information being a text saying where the car is, is the cops get called. Because missing baby.

(For the record, the spouse and child are still missing, with no-one knowing where or why or what. No note, no calls, no texts. I expect that to change today, but...jesus. We're all like 95% sure it was just "bailing on this relationship, taking random child because that's how I think custody works" but there's that 5% "history of bipolar disorder" that's wondering if she chose a more thorough exit strategy).

[TheWalrus]

Fuckin whee.

My mother showed up at my school when I was in the fifth grade and took me from Washington to Georgia on the basis of a defunct court order. (I didn't read legalese when I was 10.)
My brother jokes that if my folks had been more on the ball, we'd have WalrusAlerts instead of AmberAlerts. Kinda funny now.

[01101010]

Man I'm sorry to hear that Morat. Bipolar is a fucking nightmare. I dated a girl in college then on and off after college. Most of the time she was great, little on the wild side, but nothing out of bounds. But when that pendulum swung, you couldn't move her when she was depressed and couldn't control her when she was manic. Got to the point where I couldn't be around her for my own sanity sake because I never knew what I'd get day to day.

She ended up committing suicide 3 years ago and I hadn't seen her in 6 years prior to that, but it still fucks with me to think about it since we had a pretty extensive and unique past that we shared.

[Nebu]

I was married to a bipolar woman for 7 years that had a bipolar parent, bipolar sibling, and a bipolar son.  I understand completely.  It's one of the reasons that I've opted for a very low key, low stress life now that I'm free from it all.

Take care Morat.  Hang in there.

[Morat20]

It's just a CF.

'm pointing the left-behind spouse to a local lawyer with a good reputation, mostly to see if they can get an emergency injuction to make sure the OTHER kid doesn't disappear from school and start the "Oh  no, custody doesn't mean you get first pick of kids" process.

On the bright side, going car shopping with my Dad. I think I've converted another person to the unsexy reliability that is the Prius.

[Yegolev]

Can't compete.  You win again.  Of course, I cheated by completely ignoring my immediate and extended family.  Fortunately, they don't like me very much, either.

I will say that I need to go Negan on my stress (I WILL SHUT THAT SHIT DOWN).  This will involve both new and old self-prescribed remedies.  The stress is completely self-inflicted, which does give me some assurance that I can manage it successfully.  A lot of it comes from being in an organization that moves fast enough that I can't count on a bureaucracy to throttle my workflow, and so I must manage my work/life load more proactively.

[Paelos]

I was at peak stress 11 months ago. Started a beta blocker to get shit settled, then started doing tai chi and meditation. Went to a therapist. Went to the doctors. Came out the other end much better this year. I have a girlfriend now, I like my job, and I've got some niggling health stuff but I don't feel as overwhelmed.

I recommend that.

[Morat20]

I was at peak stress 11 months ago. Started a beta blocker to get shit settled, then started doing tai chi and meditation. Went to a therapist. Went to the doctors. Came out the other end much better this year. I have a girlfriend now, I like my job, and I've got some niggling health stuff but I don't feel as overwhelmed.

I recommend that.

Good for you. Stress is killer, and lots of people just...ignore it. Or vent it in unhealthy ways.

[Yegolev]

I agree, did that sort of thing some time ago and need to use what I learned to get back into line.  Plus throttle my workload properly.

[rattran]

I walked away from my relatives years ago, I only get an occasional email now. Much less stressful. And I don't put up with any shit from my wife's relatives, so that's okay.

[Nebu]

I was at peak stress 11 months ago. Started a beta blocker to get shit settled, then started doing tai chi and meditation. Went to a therapist. Went to the doctors. Came out the other end much better this year. I have a girlfriend now, I like my job, and I've got some niggling health stuff but I don't feel as overwhelmed.

I recommend that.

Well done.  Many could learn from your example.

[Selby]

I recommend that.

Yup.  Total better living through chemistry here. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, but it sure as hell is better than the good ol' bad days...

And my mom cut off her family 20 years ago and hasn't even seen her step mom since then. Occasional emails but that's it. I keep getting told that I need to have it out with them over the way I was raised, but I'm just not going to be creating drama. I prefer to keep everyone at arms length.

[apocrypha]

I'm in a similar situation. At my wedding a couple of years ago I had a bit of an epiphany regarding my family. The fact that not a single one of them turned up with a wedding gift or even a card, that they'd made no effort to dress up smartly for the occasion, etc etc, was a bit of an eye opener for me and I realised just how toxic and selfish a family they are. I've cut myself off from my brother completely, after a long and difficult attempt to explain how I felt to him and to try and patch up the relationship. He basically rejected that attempt, despite saying repeatedly that he wanted to fix things and that he was sorry and he loved us etc etc, but not actually giving enough of a shit to actually do anything or change his behaviour one jot. Not spoken to him for over a year now, only contact was a passive aggressive Xmas card from him about how much he was "thinking about us".

My mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few months before the wedding. She's since been diagnosed with depression. Given that I've suffered from depression my entire adult life and had no attempt at understanding from her I've found it extremely difficult to be sympathetic towards her now. I've also, as have everyone else I know with similar problems, worked very, very hard to deal with my depression and inflict it on others as little as possible. This is the total opposite of my mother's approach, who makes zero effort to improve her situation, resists all therapy and spreads the misery as far and wide as possible. Not spoken to her for 6 months now and try to avoid her on Facebook as much as possible. My father went off with another family 35 years ago and despite pretending he cares about his biological sons all the evidence suggests otherwise. Not spoken to him for nearly 2 years now.

There's no reason we should be close to our families. The family is an artificial construct who's roots lie in the appropriation of property and exemption of the state from social care. My mental well being has improved immensely since distancing myself from the family life sentence and anyone who feels they have to do the same should experience no guilt whatsoever for it.

[ghost]

There's no reason to hold on to poisonous family.  If they don't support you with what you do, there's not a lot of reason to keep in contact.  I don't buy the concept of being loyal to family no matter how they behave. 

However, I think it's important to learn from a shitty situation and be good to your own family.  My situation sucked, so I want my kids to have a great, supportive family.  I do think family is important, I just never had a great one until I made my own. 

[schild]

I wouldn't be surprised if 100% or some disproportionate number of people on f13 came from broken homes or have fucked up family, given the age we all joined and the fact we have a largely universal hatred for Facebook.

[Merusk]

It's definitely less than 100% but you guys do represent the majority here.  It's what makes it nigh impossible to relate to you at times. Certainly explains yalls lack of empathy for others though.

[Pennilenko]

It's definitely less than 100% but you guys do represent the majority here.  It's what makes it nigh impossible to relate to you at times. Certainly explains yalls lack of empathy for others though.

Strange. This is just about the only place that has people I've been able to relate to.

[ghost]

yalls

I thought you were a yankee...

 

[TheWalrus]

He's in flyover. The faux southern travels through Redstatia like the plague.

[Strazos]

It's not going to be 100%, but possibly high. I haven't spoken to my father in...I don't even know, let's call it 18 years? Zero loss there. Nor have I spoken to anyone on that side of the family, but I didn't interact with them much growing up anyway, so that's not much of a change.

Several folks on Mom's side have gone a bit crazy with their politics and guns over the last few years. Considering where they came from, it's pretty hard to explain, except by attributing it to racism. Thankfully, they're easy enough to write off, and with my job I can get out of any and all family gatherings. Though moving back to DC may make that a bit more difficult due to proximity.

[Morat20]

Goddammit Visa Fraud services. This is not the first time you've randomly placed a hold on my card (which is my debit card and ALSO my ATM card, and the hold is total. No funds out of that account, period, until it's lifted). And always on a Saturday, and tell me "You have to speak to your Credit Union to get it lifted".

The CLOSED credit union. That opens on Monday. That has no 24/7 support.

Locks down my entire checking and savings account because I spent money. Using a fucking PIN. I ran it as debit, even. At stores. I wasn't maxing out my ATM withdrawal, I had spent less than 300 dollars today.

[Chimpy]

You should probably think about another option than using that one card for everything.

[MahrinSkel]

You should probably think about another option than using that one card for everything.

I have a credit card with a $500 limit that I keep just for that kind of event (seems like it happens about every 4-5th time I order from China). I buy a game on Steam or a book on Kindle every 6 months or so just to keep the account open.

--Dave

[Selby]

I went to San Francisco this summer and got my account locked. Almost having to sleep on the street because everything was locked was quite shitty. Sitting on hold in the hotel lobby for 2 hours to only fail the security questions... shitty. Getting attitude and being hung up on really set me off.