Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

driver100

venture said:

Way too much spare time on their hands.

Highly skilled...and disciplined!

qbrozen

Speaking of scams, I got a call from a alleged collections company last night. She asked me to confirm the address she had on file, and she read the address of the house I grew up in. I told her I hadn’t lived there in 20 yrs. she said they are calling to collect a $94 debt I have to Dish. I have read about this very claim before on the interwebs. She tried to continue speaking but I just spoke over her saying she is full of BS since she obviously wasn’t smart enough to have my current address, and good luck in her future scamming. I hung up and blocked the number.

stickguy

They should be on America’s got talent (Germany’s got talent?)

snakeweasel

dino001 said:

driver100 said:

dino001 said:

imidazol97 said:

Scam?

I just received an email from a Sew-fro website with a statement for $312.07 that I had spent for something. Trouble is, I don't know that site and neither does my wife. I looked online and there's only a fake facebook page for that exact spelling.

But they conveniently provided a "view" and "download" attachment that shows on the right of the message. It also showed that was in a Word format--famous for running scripts to install bad things when clicked...
Hmmmm.

I checked to whom they sent the email and it's an antique address which has been superceded by newer addresses as the local provider changed owners. Address is 25 years old but still maintained as a viable domain so that the old email addresses come to the customers.

Click carefully. I deleted the email. I doubt they have any of my credit cards, but I'll check through them tonight for strange charges.

Absolute scam. Send you some kind of "invoice" so you click on the attachment/link. Then you get a real "bill", with computer being blocked, or worse, intercepted.

I was concerned about that. I thought that wasn't really there site....I think somebody scams from people trying to order from them. Maybe that is how the coupon originated.

Actually, much worse, most likely scenario is a malicious software Installation, either quiet spyware to monitor and steal your logins and passwords, or ransmoware, locking Up your drive and demanding payment.

I good friend of mine who owns a small business (himself, his wife and one employee) got hit with a ransomware. Locked up his computer nice and tight. Fortunately for him he is a meticulous record keeper and backed up his computer nightly. His IT guy just loaded his last clean backup onto a clean computer and they spent a few hours a night for a few nights entering the lost data from their records.

graphicguy

@qbrozen ....Hasn’t happened with as much frequency since the impending spoofing and robo caller crack down was announced. But, on occasion, I still get the IRS and Social Security scams (my SS account is going to be shut down for some reason.....who knew they would do that and not collect from my paycheck any more?).

I do the same....start talking while they’re talking....getting louder and louder....asking for their supervisor....asking them their employee number, etc. They tell me they’re sending the “cops” immediately. I tell them I’m patiently waiting and have recorded the phone call for the cops to hear. They either hang up on me, or the call me a bad name and then hang up on me.

I get some strange sort of satisfaction engaging them this way.

Of course, I block them. But, they’re working from a list of live numbers anyway, and now know mine is operational. Still, I have a little fun.

snakeweasel

graphicguy said:

@qbrozen ....Hasn’t happened with as much frequency since the impending spoofing and robo caller crack down was announced. But, on occasion, I still get the IRS and Social Security scams (my SS account is going to be shut down for some reason.....who knew they would do that and not collect from my paycheck any more?).

I do the same....start talking while they’re talking....getting louder and louder....asking for their supervisor....asking them their employee number, etc. They tell me they’re sending the “cops” immediately. I tell them I’m patiently waiting and have recorded the phone call for the cops to hear. They either hang up on me, or the call me a bad name and then hang up on me.

I get some strange sort of satisfaction engaging them this way.

Of course, I block them. But, they’re working from a list of live numbers anyway, and now know mine is operational. Still, I have a little fun.

I had one tell me they are going to send the cops, I told them I was the sheriff so should I arrest myself now or wait til I get home. They hung up.

ab348

driver100 said:

ab348 said:

Well, @driver100 , I did contact them through their customer service link on their website and Vanessa at their end provided me with the unhelpful response I mentioned. I am dealing with their .ca site so I don’t know if that redirects to the USA staff or someone in Canada, but either way their response was unsatisfactory.

In Canada they go by the name Book Depot, you can try BookOutlet service@bookdepot.com
1-800-801-7193 x229
My sales rep there was Rick M, tell him Driver100 sent you. We always paid our bills upon receipt of the product - way before the due date, the S-I-L paid if they begged him to pay, usually about 90 days late.

Thanks, but overnight I received another response from them. This tine "Gwen" answered the stiff response I sent to "Vanessa" and credited me with the $10. So they finally made it right, just with more effort than should have been needed.

Now let's hope VW does the same thing for @breld and Subaru for @venture .

dino001

Anybody else read those Boeing emails? I read about 40 pages (out of 150+) and it's clear to me the culture there turned engineers into used car salesmen. The media is focusing on the salacious stuff, as they would (headlines with words "idiots", "monkeys" and "clowns" always sell), but the real issue there was the data was SCREAMING "change the course" and they chose to ignore it and bully anybody who would voice descent, both internally and externally. It was "sale first", "cost above all" at all stages of this process (the emails are mostly regarding FAA approval requirements and customer's specs). I really hope FBI will have enough expertise to bring some of those guys down. My only worry is these emails seem mostly around midlevel people and the execs, who are to blame for the cultural setup, found the way to legally shield themselves.

BTW, this rot clearly must have started before Muilenburg was at the helm. I think it was McNerney, previous CEO, who came from Jack Welch's GE, who steered the company from "building the trust" to "spending the trust" mode, in order to cash out and push the immediate metrics up.

I've believed that American industrial companies were tough, but generally honest players, focused on long-term brand building with just occasional cases shorttermism. GE, Boeing, Wells Fargo, some others, our collective experiences with customer (non)service recently shook that believe. Seems like all that matters is immediate "shareholder value", which basically means meet the quarter, rest be damned. Who is next?

snakeweasel

Well I just hit 140k on the Sebring on the way into work. On New Years day of 2018 I took a picture of my odometer just to see what I put on the car in a year. Well it read 124,638 then. So that means I am averaging just under 7,550 miles a year on the car now.

snakeweasel

dino001 said:

Anybody else read those Boeing emails? I read about 40 pages (out of 150+) and it's clear to me the culture there turned engineers into used car salesmen. The media is focusing on the salacious stuff, as they would (headlines with words "idiots", "monkeys" and "clowns" always sell), but the real issue there was the data was SCREAMING "change the course" and they chose to ignore it and bully anybody who would voice descent, both internally and externally. It was "sale first", "cost above all" at all stages of this process (the emails are mostly regarding FAA approval requirements and customer's specs). I really hope FBI will have enough expertise to bring some of those guys down. My only worry is these emails seem mostly around midlevel people and the execs, who are to blame for the cultural setup, found the way to legally shield themselves.

BTW, this rot clearly must have started before Muilenburg was at the helm. I think it was McNerney, previous CEO, who came from Jack Welch's GE, who steered the company from "building the trust" to "spending the trust" mode, in order to cash out and push the immediate metrics up.

I've believed that American industrial companies were tough, but generally honest players, focused on long-term brand building with just occasional cases shorttermism. GE, Boeing, Wells Fargo, some others, our collective experiences with customer (non)service recently shook that believe. Seems like all that matters is immediate "shareholder value", which basically means meet the quarter, rest be damned. Who is next?

See what happens when you move your headquarters to Chicago.

dino001

snakeweasel said:

I had one tell me they are going to send the cops, I told them I was the sheriff so should I arrest myself now or wait til I get home. They hung up.

Nice. I only got recordings, so I never had an opportunity. I hang up of course. They only time I'd stay on the line is when certain prerecorded marketing call go through (they should not), selling solar panel or similar cr.p, because those keep calling you after you hang up early, but they often give you an option to be removed after you press a button at the end. It often works, they stop calling. Those are not scammers per say, they are usually overly aggressive marketers, illegal, if you're "on the do not call" list, but who cares about that. One difference is they call from a set number rather than those spoofed ones.

But boy, did I receive some entertaining calls. Couple of times somebody wanted to help me with my unnamed addiction because "my close ones" worried about me. I received numerous calls in Mandarin, my Chinese coworker says those guys say they are "from Embassy" and there is a "package" for me waiting. All I'd need is to pay shipping from the "Embassy" and the "package" is mine.

cdnpinhead

". . . who steered the company from "building the trust" to "spending the trust" mode, in order to cash out and push the immediate metrics up."

Well, that's certainly what happened at Honeywell. I'm on the sidelines now watching the game and am fully divested from their stock and 401(K) plan.

qbrozen

yeah, what the heck is with the calls in Mandarin? What are they thinking? What percentage of US numbers are being answered by folks who understand Mandarin? Certainly catering to the vast minority with that method.

dino001

cdnpinhead said:

". . . who steered the company from "building the trust" to "spending the trust" mode, in order to cash out and push the immediate metrics up."

Well, that's certainly what happened at Honeywell. I'm on the sidelines now watching the game and am fully divested from their stock and 401(K) plan.

I remember you mentioned that in the past. I have a large position in HON and keep wondering if I should start selling. Not really panic selling, but keep reducing the position to something that would not have a big impact on the portfolio. The issue is of course it may never really happen same way, as perhaps Honeywell is not as bad as those two, or it can take 10+ years of watching the stock going endlessly up before things finally surface, meanwhile feeling like an idiot for selling too early. Honeywell is currently seeing as "best of breed" among large industrials, but so was Wells Fargo, or Boeing for that matter. Funny thing, those two are not actually suffering as much, as one would think they should, if you read the headlines. Wells Fargo is flat over 5 years, which is bad in comparison with the market, but Boeing is still 2.5x in 5 years. The only one really collapsing is GE and it also took years of underperformance and bad management, before it did.

dino001

Also, why do you think Honeywell's stock had been doing so well for so long if things are as bad as you described them? When in your estimation, things started turning worse? Was it couple of years ago (new CEO, Adamczyk), five, ten? Was it Cote (another GE man) who changed it? He had been CEO from 2002 to 2017, which is very long time for a large corp. CEO and the stock was performing really well for long time, not just last few years. Adamczyk spun off two non-aviation divisions and they are doing terribly (dropped by half), so it seems it was a good move if you sold right away and bought original HON stock (I did that), but it seems there was some underhanded tactic. These spinoff companies are suing Honewell for asbestos compensation, which I remember was one of the reasons I decided to bail out of them, when reading their materials (they had something like 20 years of payments to Honeywell). Anyway, what's happened there in your view and when did it all transpire internally?

driver100

ab348 said:

driver100 said:

ab348 said:

Well, @driver100 , I did contact them through their customer service link on their website and Vanessa at their end provided me with the unhelpful response I mentioned. I am dealing with their .ca site so I don’t know if that redirects to the USA staff or someone in Canada, but either way their response was unsatisfactory.

In Canada they go by the name Book Depot, you can try BookOutlet service@bookdepot.com
1-800-801-7193 x229
My sales rep there was Rick M, tell him Driver100 sent you. We always paid our bills upon receipt of the product - way before the due date, the S-I-L paid if they begged him to pay, usually about 90 days late.

Thanks, but overnight I received another response from them. This tine "Gwen" answered the stiff response I sent to "Vanessa" and credited me with the $10. So they finally made it right, just with more effort than should have been needed.

Now let's hope VW does the same thing for @breld and Subaru for @venture .

Glad you got it sorted out. I once had an excellent manager who told me we all make mistakes, if you can correct the mistake then it doesn't count against you. It was an honest mistake, and they did their best to make it right, though if it was me I'd give you another $10 coupon for your trouble.

Michaell

IRS scams - I may have mentioned this before, but a HS friend of mine recently retired as an Assistant Director of the FBI a couple of years ago. What he does when he receives these types of calls is hilarious - and, he posts the gist of the conversations on his FB page.

28firefighter

I have nomorobo installed on my phone. I pay annually for it but it blocks most everything without any action from me. Clearly my number was received as a data breach because I had a flood of calls that made it through, but nomorobo had them in their database within an hour.

carnaught

Not too impressed with my nomorobo - too many calls get through.

graphicguy

BOEING....been working with them for well over a decade. None of the recent news about their travails surprises me in the least. Everything they’ve done with my company has always been geared towards doing things for the least cost possible. And, that’s a company who has many DoD contracts, who overspend on just about everything.

We do specific work with flight training sims. When I heard they were foregoing some of that training because of cost, as has been recently reported, I knew it was just a matter of time before something really bad happened.

Truthfully, it’s going to get much worse for them moving forward before it gets better.

May as well take the tangent even further and sticking with management malfeasance, I’m listening to the PODCAST regarding the Theranos I demise, as well as their CEO, Elizabeth Holmes and her co-hurt, Sunny Balwani. Lots of big names got tangled into that web....Henry Kissinger, James Mattis, as well as many others.

Fascinating and tragic at the same time....

The podcast is called THE DROPOUT. Worth a listen!

qbrozen

28firefighter said:

I have nomorobo installed on my phone. I pay annually for it but it blocks most everything without any action from me. Clearly my number was received as a data breach because I had a flood of calls that made it through, but nomorobo had them in their database within an hour.

I have Call Protect on mine, but doesn't seem to work all that well.

fintail

I just don't answer unknown numbers, easy solution. If it is important and legit, they will leave a message. Few scammers do (IRS ones seem to be the best at that).

My grandma, who is sharper than many 30 years her junior, gets these calls, and strings them along a little before ghosting them. She seems to be on the list for the "grandchild needs bail money" scams, which she humors briefly. Many otherwise with-it people can fall for this stuff though. In a prior job I worked in fraud, and when investigating a phishing scheme that involved my employer's network, found that at least one higher exec took the bait.

Linking to streaming TV content, several Youtubers have found success scamming the scammers, so to speak. The ones who play along with the scammers who take over a victim's computer by taking over the scammer's computer are pretty amusing. Some I like are Kitboga, Hoax Hotel, and Jim Browning. the latter also does some interesting investigative work.

28firefighter

qbrozen said:

28firefighter said:

I have nomorobo installed on my phone. I pay annually for it but it blocks most everything without any action from me. Clearly my number was received as a data breach because I had a flood of calls that made it through, but nomorobo had them in their database within an hour.

I have Call Protect on mine, but doesn't seem to work all that well.

I have AT&T Call Protect on my work phone. It does not seem to block a darn thing.

ab348

I don't think I posted this here previously, apologies if I forgot and this is duplicated.

Just before Christmas, after being without a cat in the household for the last 10 months after good old Rusty passed on, I took the plunge and adopted a new kitty from a shelter. The story on her history was somewhat spotty but apparently she is about 4 years old, had a bit of a hard life, was abandoned in a town about 50 miles from here, and was eventually shipped to the shelter I support financially.

They were surprised when I visited and was able to get her to come out of her cage and let me pet her, as she was pretty standoffish to most. In fact they originally thought she was feral because of how impossible she was to deal with. They cropped the tip off one of her ears while they had her under anesthesia to spay her, which is apparently a marker of a feral cat, at least locally. Anyway she was nice to me and I felt sorry for her, so I chose her. She's very pretty and really small, though she is a bit like a bowling ball, a tank-like cat.

The first week she was here she was invisible, only coming out at night to eat and use the facilties. The next week she would let me play with her but was still really skittish and would not let me touch her. Finally a few days ago a switch was thrown in her head and she became very affectionate. She's a purr machine when she gets going. Still some ways to go with her becoming like the other cats were, but she'll get there. Meet Lucy:

omarman

Beautiful cat. And she picked you to be her friend!

I started watching Harry and Tonto last night while waiting for a friend to stop by. Art Carney as Harry Combs is the reason why I started singing to our cat when my wife adopted a stray.

fintail

Harry and Tonto, great movie, Art Carney is often overlooked in discussions of period actors. I believe the car in the background is the 62 Caddy convertible driven by Harry's son (Larry Hagman). Some interesting cars in that movie. Back in the day, my brother had an orange cat almost identical to Tonto.

ab348, you are a man after my brother, who also has to have a cat around the house. Last year, his cat of ~18 years passed, my brother was heartbroken, and wasn't sure he'd get a replacement. However, 2 days later, he was at the shelter "just looking", and came home with a kitten. This one is the most personable cat yet, I visited a couple days after he picked her up, and was greeted by the cat jumping from a table to my leg. The cat loves to sit on laps, receive attention, and enjoys cloth bags and nesting on laptops. He picked a good one. As my brother is of a certain age, he named her "WileyKit", after a character in the 1980s animated TV series 'ThunderCats'.

driver100

Ab, Best wishes to you and Lucy, sounds like a promising match....a win/win!

suydam

Aww, pretty kitty! Worth the wait.

cdnpinhead

"Also, why do you think Honeywell's stock had been doing so well for so long if things are as bad as you described them? When in your estimation, things started turning worse? Was it couple of years ago (new CEO, Adamczyk), five, ten? Was it Cote (another GE man) who changed it?"

The real slide started a bit over four years ago when a guy called Mike Madsen was put in charge of our supply chain, which was very extensive. Almost immediately he eliminated production support (which was what I spent most of my time doing) and set about staffing his group (I refuse to call it an organization) with yes-people who were generally incompetent, but willing to sign up for near-term goals that the Almighty would have had trouble achieving. Chaos ensued, and the past-dues skyrocketed, with the accompanying reduction in customer satisfaction.

Prior to that, there had been a serious effort to "offshore" much of what was previously done in Phoenix. Huge new manufacturing operations in Chihuahua, Mexico, and the Czech Republic -- lots of hidden factory that didn't transfer and lots of need for production support. At least in those days we could provide it. Then there's the 8000 person operation in Bangalore and a small, but significant, one in Puerto Rico. Lots of middle-of-the-night phone calls, combined with cultural and language difficulties. What could possibly go wrong?

Within a year of when Madsen got his supply chain position, dozens of very experienced design and production support people quit voluntarily initially, but then the layoffs began. Vacation became "unlimited" which basically meant that it didn't have to be carried on the books, and one was at the mercy of one's supervision. Work-from-home was eliminated, even for people who didn't have a site to report to for years, so many more people quit or were let go. The 401(K) match, which had always been paid with each paycheck, became something that was paid once a year, effective for those employed on 15 December. If you left for any reason during the year, you lost it.

So, as a result, the payroll is much lighter, since it's significantly cheaper (in the short run) to have new grads or people in India, as opposed to 30-year plus people with six-figure salaries. From inside, it became apparent that the goal was to get rid of North American employees, especially experienced ones, and do everything possible to prop up near-term metrics, especially the stock price. There's talk that Boeing's software issues on the Max resulted from much of the work being done in India -- who knows,, but it certainly sounds plausible to me, given what I saw in HON. Maybe it'll work, but if it doesn't, I'll be neither surprised nor involved.

Oh, and best of all, when the President of Aerospace retired several months ago he was replaced by Mike Madsen. You couldn't make it up.

Sorry for the long-winded post.

snakeweasel

28firefighter said:

qbrozen said:

28firefighter said:

I have nomorobo installed on my phone. I pay annually for it but it blocks most everything without any action from me. Clearly my number was received as a data breach because I had a flood of calls that made it through, but nomorobo had them in their database within an hour.

I have Call Protect on mine, but doesn't seem to work all that well.

I have AT&T Call Protect on my work phone. It does not seem to block a darn thing.

My phone has a do not disturb function that can be set up to only ring if the caller is in my contact list.

suydam

That’s what I do as well.

fintail

People like that are why torches/pitchforks/guillotines were invented. Too bad TEM Syndrome will prevent it.

And let me guess, some operations were moved to Zug in order to evade taxes.

cdnpinhead said:

Oh, and best of all, when the President of Aerospace retired several months ago he was replaced by Mike Madsen. You couldn't make it up.

Sorry for the long-winded post.

jmonroe

graphicguy said:

@qbrozen ....Hasn’t happened with as much frequency since the impending spoofing and robo caller crack down was announced. But, on occasion, I still get the IRS and Social Security scams (my SS account is going to be shut down for some reason.....who knew they would do that and not collect from my paycheck any more?).

I do the same....start talking while they’re talking....getting louder and louder....asking for their supervisor....asking them their employee number, etc. They tell me they’re sending the “cops” immediately. I tell them I’m patiently waiting and have recorded the phone call for the cops to hear. They either hang up on me, or the call me a bad name and then hang up on me.

I get some strange sort of satisfaction engaging them this way.

Of course, I block them. But, they’re working from a list of live numbers anyway, and now know mine is operational. Still, I have a little fun.

You haven't had fun until you played along with a scammer that is trying to get money from you because your grandson is in jail on a drunk driving charge. This happened about 2 months ago and I went along with them by getting the address of where I had to make a wire transfer. I told them to call me back when they got it so I could talk to my grandson and knew where I could get him when he was released. I can't believe they called me back twice saying they hadn't gotten the money yet. What's more unbeliveable is that they must have sold our number to other scammers that do this type of calling. I guess there is nothing wrong with scammers scamming fellow scammers. The last call we got like this is when Mrs. j found out our 12 year old granddaughter was in the slammer because she was also caught driving drunk. If this keeps up I'll probably get coupons from distilleries and brew houses. Now those I won't turn down.

jmonroe

28firefighter

snakeweasel said:

28firefighter said:

qbrozen said:

28firefighter said:

I have nomorobo installed on my phone. I pay annually for it but it blocks most everything without any action from me. Clearly my number was received as a data breach because I had a flood of calls that made it through, but nomorobo had them in their database within an hour.

I have Call Protect on mine, but doesn't seem to work all that well.

I have AT&T Call Protect on my work phone. It does not seem to block a darn thing.

My phone has a do not disturb function that can be set up to only ring if the caller is in my contact list.

I can't do that on either phone. For my personal phone, my parent have home and mobile phone numbers that are blocked. For my work phone, I have all manner of folks calling me and I don't always know their numbers when they do call. Would be nice though.

suydam

It goes to voice mail, so if it’s a real call you can return it.

ab348

suydam said:

It goes to voice mail, so if it’s a real call you can return it.

Yeah, that’s what I do if I don’t recognize the number. Unfortunately my landline is still useful for keeping my cell number private and is essentially free with my cable/internet package. But that leads to situations when a scam call woke me up at 6:18 AM.

oldfarmer50

snakeweasel said:

Well I just hit 140k on the Sebring on the way into work. On New Years day of 2018 I took a picture of my odometer just to see what I put on the car in a year. Well it read 124,638 then. So that means I am averaging just under 7,550 miles a year on the car now.

I still say you should find a way to fix that top. A convertible that doesn’t convert is a shame. I forget, is that a cloth top or a hardtop convertible?

oldfarmer50

qbrozen said:

yeah, what the heck is with the calls in Mandarin? What are they thinking? What percentage of US numbers are being answered by folks who understand Mandarin? Certainly catering to the vast minority with that method.

I read an article that said that scam targets illegal Chinese immigrants who fear their all powerful home government and are likely to comply with official sounding requests.

driver100

snakeweasel said:

28firefighter said:

qbrozen said:

28firefighter said:

I have nomorobo installed on my phone. I pay annually for it but it blocks most everything without any action from me. Clearly my number was received as a data breach because I had a flood of calls that made it through, but nomorobo had them in their database within an hour.

I have Call Protect on mine, but doesn't seem to work all that well.

I have AT&T Call Protect on my work phone. It does not seem to block a darn thing.

My phone has a do not disturb function that can be set up to only ring if the caller is in my contact list.

What if Publishers Clearance calls and wants to bring you $1 million?

driver100

oldfarmer50 said:

snakeweasel said:

Well I just hit 140k on the Sebring on the way into work. On New Years day of 2018 I took a picture of my odometer just to see what I put on the car in a year. Well it read 124,638 then. So that means I am averaging just under 7,550 miles a year on the car now.

I still say you should find a way to fix that top. A convertible that doesn’t convert is a shame. I forget, is that a cloth top or a hardtop convertible?

...and I forget...is it stuck up or down?
If down, it could be cold these days.

imidazol97

@oldfarmer50
Here's an idea for dressing up one of your buildings there at the farm.

This was put up on the Haldeman museum near me. Haldeman was connected to designing the Mustang or something.

https://haldermanmustang.com/

explorerx4

Looks like he was at least involved in designing some Lincoln models, 1990 Continental and also Mark VIII.

omarman

driver100 said:

snakeweasel said:

28firefighter said:

qbrozen said:

28firefighter said:

I have nomorobo installed on my phone. I pay annually for it but it blocks most everything without any action from me. Clearly my number was received as a data breach because I had a flood of calls that made it through, but nomorobo had them in their database within an hour.

I have Call Protect on mine, but doesn't seem to work all that well.

I have AT&T Call Protect on my work phone. It does not seem to block a darn thing.

My phone has a do not disturb function that can be set up to only ring if the caller is in my contact list.

What if Publishers Clearance calls and wants to bring you $1 million?

I'd wake up and wonder why the pillows aren't flying around the room.

dino001

cdnpinhead said:

Oh, and best of all, when the President of Aerospace retired several months ago he was replaced by Mike Madsen. You couldn't make it up.

Sorry for the long-winded post.

Thanks, I appreciate it. The way I see those moves, part, like 401k match change and certain offshoring moves, are something that’s now everywhere, so it doesn’t make Honeywell any worse than others. These are global companies with global markets, so while not pleasant for those affected, it would be like getting angry at gravity. Eliminating production support and pushing out most experienced employees for sake of cost cutting at expense of quality, is not. Not all experienced people are equally valuable, I’ve seen plenty of “20+ years in business” engineers in my industry that do not earn their salary, at least in relative terms (I call it four times of five year experience), but it’s up to good management to discern between those two. Bottom line, 20 or 30 years in business does not automatically entitle one to a job, but if somebody widely recognized as a great asset leaves, then another, then another, it is certainly an indicator of a real problem.

fintail

If employers I have worked with pulled those 401K shenanigans and other similar cutting for the sake of cutting moves (some proceeds going to unjustifiable exec compensation, no doubt), I suspect there'd be an exodus, and maybe some leadership types would be afraid to go out in public alone. As they should - some in society without self-awareness cry about "class warfare", such moves are real class warfare in action, we can see who declared war, and who is winning (or who has won).

cdnpinhead

There's no doubt that there are a lot of "experienced" people in corporate America who couldn't pour p*ss out of a boot with the directions on the heel. Those weren't the types of people who were pulling the pin at HON. Back when I thought I wanted to be a manager, my goal was to steer my department and leave the people who knew how to do their jobs alone. If I was gone for a week or a month, it shouldn't matter -- for a year or through the "5-year plan" period, not so much. It's called strategic thinking, and I didn't see much of it over the past number of years.

I think that's a lot of what I'm waiting to see. There's a lot of positive momentum in a company that's been around for 75 years or so, and it takes quite a bit of effort to destroy it. There's certainly no lack of trying, but one never knows.

cdnpinhead

. . . or we could talk about dishwashers.

suydam

driver100 said:

snakeweasel said:

28firefighter said:

qbrozen said:

28firefighter said:

I have nomorobo installed on my phone. I pay annually for it but it blocks most everything without any action from me. Clearly my number was received as a data breach because I had a flood of calls that made it through, but nomorobo had them in their database within an hour.

I have Call Protect on mine, but doesn't seem to work all that well.

I have AT&T Call Protect on my work phone. It does not seem to block a darn thing.

My phone has a do not disturb function that can be set up to only ring if the caller is in my contact list.

What if Publishers Clearance calls and wants to bring you $1 million?

I’ll take that chance.

driver100

That barn is pretty good, but this would really impress all of us:

oldfarmer50

imidazol97 said:

@oldfarmer50
Here's an idea for dressing up one of your buildings there at the farm.

This was put up on the Haldeman museum near me. Haldeman was connected to designing the Mustang or something.

https://haldermanmustang.com/

LOL, I like that but my barn needs a coat of paint before I could honor it with a Mustang.

Speaking of cars, I saw an ad from a dealer here in New York State with a good price on a used car. Then I read the disclaimer:

“*The Internet Price is reflective after $1995 down. Price subject to change. Subject to primary lenders approval. All prices exclude tax, title, $695 dealer fees, tags, license & DMV. Must finance through dealer when applicable & take same day delivery. Sorry but we cannot extend special Internet pricing without a printed copy of the on-line pricing, and your in-store price may exceed our special on-line pricing. “

Other than the $2k hidden down payment this dealer is trying to charge a $695 dealer fee in a state that sets a legal limit of $75. I wonder how he thinks he’s going to get past the law. Other conditions like same day delivery seem sleazy as well unless you carry a bank check with you.

I’m guessing you’d need a shower after dealing with that place.