Tell us what's happened to you recently (that's interesting)

Very cool! Loved that game when I was a kid and forced my little sister to play with me.

Yeah I donate used things to Goodwill fairly infrequently, but new toys, most the Christmas drives require new while the used toys only refuse I think anything older than 90s, maybe, or some do due to lead.

I often have to do them during the week, just because my weekends tend to be VERY overscheduled, but try to get one in on the weekend every couple few months, esp since a handful of the folks are teachers :-)

So I called my electric company today, and got a story which both made sense and was also obvious bull.

Apparently, the meter had stopped responding to them remotely, and so they weren’t able to query it. So they started doing this estimation. They are going to replace the meter.

A few things which are weak about this:

  1. Apparently they wouldn’t have noticed this unless I called? Because they didn’t notice for 2 months (now approaching the end of the 3rd month)
  2. Their estimation was still total bullshit. I asked them how they made their estimation, and they said, “It’s based on your previous year’s usage for that month, usually plus a little bit.” But when I pointed out how their estimates were over twice my previous year’s usage, they just said “We don’t usually go that high.” But there wasn’t much point in arguing, since the girl I was talking to didn’t control it and she was nice enough.

Anyway, they suspended billing on the account, and are going to replace the meter. Then they’ll true things up with the real values, and I’ll end up with some fairly large credit. And then I guess things will go back to normal.

The company I used to work for had a legend the customer service grognards tell, wherein they started adding a Y2K preparedness fee to all customer accounts in 1999. Guys like my dad, a system programmer there, got the ancient backend systems up to speed and prevented any notable issues and Jan 1, 2000 passed without notice for their customer base.

Except they didn’t officially remove the Y2K preparedness fee. New accounts getting rolled in didn’t have it, and accounts that underwent certain kinds of changes would have it removed as part of an automated process, but for a very large percentage of customers, it just kept billing.

Now, if someone called and complained about it, CS was instructed to get a manager to remove it without fighting. However, they were also specifically told not to mention the fee to any customer they noticed still had it, because, well, it was free money for the company until they asked to have it taken off.

Supposedly at some point years later, a billing system update finally cleared the stragglers out, but some of my friends working there (I wound up joining the company years after dad had left) swore they still saw them getting plinked in the mid-to-late 00s.


TL;DR: They were just gonna charge you 2x what you owed indefinitely until you noticed, bro. And if you never noticed? Free money!

Well, they did a stupid job then, because I noticed it immediately. I just figured it was some temportary thing that would get fixed the next month. As soon as the second bill had it, then it was obvious there was a problem.

If they didn’t want me to notice, they should have made the error less than 100%.

I am happy to report that it looks like the community might have heard the Salvation Army’s call about being considerably short this year for the children they’re trying to server. When I arrived at one of the bins this morning, it was overflowing and many toys were already on the floor.

The van pick-up crew should be quite busy.

Yeah, a 10-15% margin probably slips by, if not unnoticed, then I commented upon. Perhaps even as high as 30%, if there was weather abberations. But doubling is pure greed, and not the sneaky smart kind either.

So my GF still had some toys to donate, but in a move she doesn’t normally do, gave them to a coworker who has three kids under the age of 4. I’m glad to hear they are sorting things out there. I don’t know what the update is here. It appears to be a very high year of giving though.

I gave one of my toys to a former co-worker to give to the family my old company is supporting this year. I support my current employers families via check, but since I am a virtual employee, I feel I should try to assist locally too.

I was just more… punctual when all I had to do was stick them in a bin at work. Without cable, a local employer or local news I just lose track of the local due dates too easily!

I hate to be a curmudgeonly buzzkill, esp. over the topic of getting awesome toys to kids in need, but where possible, you should really try to support charities other than the Salvation Army, as they’re not quite all sunshine and rainbows underneath the surface:

I understand your position Armando. I’ve questioned my support of the Salvation Army in the past. I have actually volunteered there, given out thanksgiving dinners as well as the christmas toys in addition to supporting them.

I live in a Red County, very red. There is not another local charity that does the food and the gift giving better. I missed Toys for Tots, and of course the military has issues in this area too.

When it comes down to it. I have toys that children who know nothing about politics can enjoy on Christmas morning. I want them to know that joy, and I am going to use the organization that has the best chance of giving them that joy.

I think you know me well enough that I not unaware of the faults of probably most of these charities.

Yeah, to be clear, @Nesrie, I hardly lump you in with the sort of mindset that is onboard with SA’s positions, and wish I’d done a better job of applying qualifiers to my statement, since like you pointed out, more often than not, SA is the only game in town, and kids really do deserve a happy Christmas.

Well I donate considerably more to the families my employer supports, this is just my somewhat attempt to spread the joy at my local level. That article you posted would be a lot more effective if it actually posted other charities to use.

You know the other places around here that do a lot of work around a Christian based holiday, the churches. Many of those would be just as problematic in this area. It’s one of the reasons I don’t go to them.

I say yay for Nesrie giving stuff to poor kids.

At my work, we put together a pool of money, and then work with a local charity that puts us in touch with a local family who’s having a hard time, and then we get a bunch of stuff for their kids.

deleted due to subject matter already covered above :)

I got two Star Wars toys this year, and the bigger one was delayed. I really wanted to gift that while it was in theater and in front of kids.

Was so awesome getting together with @ArmandoPenblade and @Clay as well as many of his non-Qt3 friends. Had some great conversations and Clay and I waxed poetic about Spelunky’s place as one of the best games ever! Hope to make more of these in the future, thanks for setting them up and inviting me!

Agreed! It was fun and we should do it more.

@ArmandoPenblade regarding local charities… Interact has a toy drive each year. We gave them several hundred dollars of new toys this year. It’s a good organization.

http://www.interactofwake.org/home-page/about-us/

Thanks for the info, @Clay, and I’m glad you and @BigWeather alike enjoyed :)


As a followup to things I posted a couple of months ago, I finally got my ER bill from UNC REX hospital this week and managed to suck it up enough to read it today.

Those are not. . . small numbers.

Noted on the things folks said above. Insurance looks like it’s covered about what it should have, between remaining deductible and then their proper coinsurance rate. I’m sadly out of the ballpark for this hospital chain’s outright Charity Care program, but am hoping to speak to their finance counselors about not needing to pay about $400 more than I literally have to my name right now all in one go four days before Christmas. . .

. . . so of course their hotline is full and the voicemail for it is also full and there’s no hold system -.-