Chronic Car Buyers Anonymous (Archived)

tjc78

I’m so happy to work for a company that embraces WFH/Hybrid with no restrictions.

One of my team floats between Pittsburg and Florida… makes zero difference in her work.

jmonroe1

au1994 said:

sda said:

@au1994 We're on schedule to return to the office 3/14. It will be a hybrid model, 3 days in. My role is easily done remotely. I am not looking forward to all the additional expense as you mention as well as losing 3 hours a day to commute. It will be nice to see some of my colleagues but that's about it.

Completely agree. Its not decided if ours will be 2 or 3 days in, I’d prefer 1! I’ll lose a little over an hour a day commuting but they will actually lose more than that. On days I have to go in I won’t be hitting the computer at 6:15. I’ll have to wait my turn in the shower, dress and drive so they won’t get productivity out of me till about 8. Same on the back end. I may step away from the computer at 5 ish but I still check it from time to time till about 7 and respond as necessary. I don’t see me logging in at 5:30 when I get home.

Some jackwagon has suggested that Mondays and Fridays be the mandatory office days. He’s not real popular right now.

That’s not a jackwagon, that’s an
a-hole. There are some folks who deserve to wake up dead.

jmonroe

28firefighter

jmonroe1 said:

au1994 said:

sda said:

@au1994 We're on schedule to return to the office 3/14. It will be a hybrid model, 3 days in. My role is easily done remotely. I am not looking forward to all the additional expense as you mention as well as losing 3 hours a day to commute. It will be nice to see some of my colleagues but that's about it.

Completely agree. Its not decided if ours will be 2 or 3 days in, I’d prefer 1! I’ll lose a little over an hour a day commuting but they will actually lose more than that. On days I have to go in I won’t be hitting the computer at 6:15. I’ll have to wait my turn in the shower, dress and drive so they won’t get productivity out of me till about 8. Same on the back end. I may step away from the computer at 5 ish but I still check it from time to time till about 7 and respond as necessary. I don’t see me logging in at 5:30 when I get home.

Some jackwagon has suggested that Mondays and Fridays be the mandatory office days. He’s not real popular right now.

That’s not a jackwagon, that’s an
a-hole. There are some folks who deserve to wake up dead.

jmonroe

That escalated quickly.

Sandman6472

Nice color combo in that Volvo, works quite well. Betting a Volvo would be a pretty nice vehicle even as it ages. Have only driven a couple but did like the way it drove and the seats were pretty good for my compromised spinal issues.
Finally got to call back the Toyota sales guy in Delray Beach and gave him what I'm basically looking for. A 2022 Toyota Corolla Cross XLE in the Windchill Pearl color with the 2-tone interior, black & white. The two must haves are the JBL audio system plus a moon roof. He admitted that what I'm looking for is a "unicorn" right now but assured him that I'm in no hurry here as I want what I want and not going to settle for anything less. I've always settled on something in each vehicle I've had and them days are over. I want what I want even if it means paying a bit more. I would possibly consider the red color or even that new green color I was told they have. Not sure if I want blue this time around but will just have to wait & see what pops up. To be honest, wouldn't mind waiting till fall or even a bit later but will just sit back & wait.
Hoping the finance rates are decent when I do pull the trigger as I don't want to touch the portfolio at the moment as the markets are a bit on edge right now so would rather things just sit where they are. Starting to see more & more of the Cross out there and definitely like the size, more like a 3/4 Rav4. Haven't mentioned a word to the wife yet as why open that can of worms before I must. I don't want any negativity right now and it would just be a lot of noise to deal with. Doing this is purely a want for me as don't really need to swap vehicles but since the Golf has been behaving as of late, might be best to cut it from the herd before any warning lights come on. No way do I want to put any $ into it going forward if I don't have to...it's taken me a long time to get to this point as y'all surely know. But am finally ready and if all the stars align correctly, I'm ready to swap out my keys for some new ones!

Sandman6472

Am at the point where I'm working only part time since leaving the post office. Work Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday and it's a great schedule. Do work the occasional Sunday but it's not too often though I wish it were. Never realized how much I like Mondays off as it makes for a nice weekend if we want to go visit the kids in Orlando for a few days. But for now, my 3 days/week are just about perfect.
My pharmacist daughter just started a new job at a different hospital in the same company on January 3rd and has a dynamite schedule. Works Wednesday through Tuesday one week from 5 pm to 3:30 am and then has a week off. Sure, those 10 hour work days can be a bit long and having to change ones sleep pattern can be a challenge but having the next week off is a blessing. She now has a greater ability to schedule stuff as she knows exactly when she'll be off. Sure, there will be times where she might be asked to work an additional day, has already happened once, but she's a real team player and is very happy that she was able to transfer out of South Miami up to Boca Raton, which is the next town north of us. Having one child that close is a blessing and she likes coming home when she can. She's already mentioned about buying something within the year instead of paying such high rental rates. Might as well get a condo or small house and pay less in a mortgage. So, should be an interesting year for us all.

stickguy

should at least try and drive one now Sandy to know if you even like it, before you get any more invested!

stickguy

I was already permanent WFH before the pandemic so no change to me. Other than having other people in the house during the day so no privacy!

my wife went from FT office (with an occasional day home as needed) to all WFH overnight. Still has not gone back (other than 1-2 days for a meeting) and has zero desire to ever do it. Her company has discussed implementing an office policy but nothing came out of it yet. At this point, they took away all private desks/offices, so even if she is required to go in 2-3 days per week, it will be for a hoteling arrangement of some sort, and few of her teammates will ever be there. So basically driving 1/2 hour each way, to sit and do the same work and have conference calls, and see almost nobody.

She actually would prefer to just retire and not worry about it at all, but not biting on that one yet!

roadburner

I might finally try a case this month. An arson case where two ladies tried to make the fire look like a break-in. The security cameras put the lie to that, and a bottle of the same accelerant used to start the fire was found in one of the defendant’s cars. Should be fun.

tjc78

@stickguy said:
I was already permanent WFH before the pandemic so no change to me. Other than having other people in the house during the day so no privacy!

my wife went from FT office (with an occasional day home as needed) to all WFH overnight. Still has not gone back (other than 1-2 days for a meeting) and has zero desire to ever do it. Her company has discussed implementing an office policy but nothing came out of it yet. At this point, they took away all private desks/offices, so even if she is required to go in 2-3 days per week, it will be for a hoteling arrangement of some sort, and few of her teammates will ever be there. So basically driving 1/2 hour each way, to sit and do the same work and have conference calls, and see almost nobody.

She actually would prefer to just retire and not worry about it at all, but not biting on that one yet!

That’s the thing with return to office. My wife goes in occasionally and other than one in person meeting she basically sits on Teams all day like when she is home.

henryn

In March of 2020 when everyone at my old work place started working from home, they cut the pay of all contractors by 20% across the board. Company employees, no cut in pay. This was not a popular move, as you might imagine. Mostly they got away with it as it was nearly impossible to run around job hunting and interviewing. I was talking to two head hunters about a job change, but instead decided to just retire. No way was I going to work more than another year or two, and it didn't seem worth while to change jobs for that short a period of time.

stickguy

Sarah is a big, big fan. Well done review. Surprised at how well it done off-road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWu3GhTiGy4

stickguy

henryn said:

In March of 2020 when everyone at my old work place started working from home, they cut the pay of all contractors by 20% across the board. Company employees, no cut in pay. This was not a popular move, as you might imagine. Mostly they got away with it as it was nearly impossible to run around job hunting and interviewing. I was talking to two head hunters about a job change, but instead decided to just retire. No way was I going to work more than another year or two, and it didn't seem worth while to change jobs for that short a period of time.

kinda the same place I am in. Not quite ready to retire (well, mentally yes, practically no) but hopefully in another couple of years can actually do it. So ideally would just be able to stay where I am and not get bothered too much. Basically not looking for excitement or some big advancement opportunity. And definitely not looking at jumping to a new company for a "real" job that is likely to bring stress and more hours. So if something happened in the next couple of months and I ended up cut loose, not sure what I would do.

laurasdada

I was on vacation the week of March 9, 2020. Returned home, and never left... I've not been back in the office since. And, shan't be going back.
My company has been excellent in communication and concern for employee well being (at least as concerned as a major international co. can be!). My local office, which is the US HQ, is opening April 1. However, returning to office is optional (unless the job description requires in-office attendance). As the leadership of the company is describing it, they want to make our offices magnets, not mandates.
Nice.

henryn

I put in 30 years with Chevron (well, Gulf for 13 years and then 17 years with Chevron after the buyout). Chevron is pretty good to employees. Not so much to contractors. I walked out the door after 30 years with 2 years severance pay, and after they pay you that much to leave, they are not going to put you back on the payroll.

After being retired for several years, I went back to work for Chevron, contract, and put in another 10 nearly 11 years. They were paying me good money to play with computers, which I like to do anyway, so why not? But the job I was doing slowly morphed into meetings and paperwork, less and less playing with computers. Chevron is going all in on the cloud, which means Microsoft (really Microsoft contractors in India) are now doing the actual computer work. And they’re doing a really miserable job of it, which just made my life more stressful. Combine that with a 20% pay cut, and it was time.

laurasdada

Well done, Henry.
I haven't figured out the retirement thing yet. Two folks i work with, both a few years younger, are retiring. Gotta find out how they did it!

corvette

@henryn - our shared folders are now in the cloud in addition to being mirrored locally on a server in case the internet goes out. It takes forever to open a folder or file or save anything because it waits until it can sync everything to the cloud. Then if you are opening a file, you get a warning that you're opening a potentially dangerous file "from the internet" that may not be secure, even though it's already in our company's cloud and on our local server.

It's enough to make me miss the good old days when storage was expensive, bandwidth was nonexistent, and nobody backed up anything. If your hard drive went kaput, your life was just going to suck for a while.

roadburner

laurasdada said:

Well done, Henry.
I haven't figured out the retirement thing yet. Two folks i work with, both a few years younger, are retiring. Gotta find out how they did it!

I started out in private practice; anything that came through the door- I absolutely hated it.

I ran for judge in 1985- three years after passing the Bar. I lost by around 100 votes. I ran for a newly created division a year later and won- by about 100 votes. I retired in 2008 but still worked as a special judge for 600 days in order to retire at 100% of my base pay. I finished up in 2014.

18 months later I was hired at BMW as a product specialist/salesman. In 2018 I resigned at BMW and was hired as city attorney for my hometown (while simultaneously running for Commonwealth's Attorney). I had a ball campaigning, since unlike my judicial elections if I lost I wasn't losing my job. My opponent outspent me 2 to 1 and I beat her 53% to 47%.

I like the prosecutor gig a LOT more than being judge, but this is definitely my last hurrah- at my election night party an attorney friend asked my wife if she thought I would run for a second term and my wife replied, "If he does, will you handle my divorce for free?"

corvette

@roadburner you did it backwards. We were taught in law school that nearly all judges were former prosecutors.

roadburner

corvette said:

@roadburner you did it backwards. We were taught in law school that nearly all judges were former prosecutors.

Funny that you mention that; there are two other Commonwealth's Attorneys who had previously served as judges; one was a district judge like me, while the other had actually served on the KY Court of Appeals.

stickguy

keeping100% of your salary is definitely going to make easing into retirement smoother!

and on a side note, I still don't understand why judges are elected positions. Just seems highly strange, considering the importance of the position and the supposed knowledge requirements. Unlike most other elected positions that have none.

living in the Philadelphia TV market will really make you question things like this.

corvette

@stickguy - coroners, too... would people really vote for Dr. Henry Lee (the forensic scientist) because they think he'd make a really good coroner, or do they vote for JimBob with no medical training because they went to the same high school?

28firefighter

What is this “retirement” you all speak of?

Michaell

28firefighter said:

What is this “retirement” you all speak of?

It's when you get new treads put on your old tires.

Sandman6472

I was "fired" back in the end of 2010 by the postal service after having been on limited duty since my accident in mid 2005. Retired officially on 1/1/12 after using up all my annual & sick leave plus the 5 months of disability I received. Crazy as that may seem, our class action suit is still winding it's way through the courts after like 13 years. Funny how life works out though, as while others were asked to come back to their previous positions, I was not one of them. I had always said I want ed to retire when I became 64, but that never happened. I was 56 when they "let me go" and was almost 58 when I took full retirement.
Spent a little over 2 years at home retired while dealing with some very painful spinal issues but in January 2013, found a part time gig in the rental car business. And the rest is history as I'm still doing the rental thing, but now with Enterprise. Am as happy there as I've ever been and even though the pay/hour isn't the greatest, works for me. Look forward to working my 3 days and am always up for the occasional Sunday.

Sandman6472

Stick, you are perfectly correct that a test drive is something I should do, even bring one home for the "garage test" and I will. But I'm content with going into a Corolla to be honest. Those extra couple of inches in height that the Cross has should be fine as I had that in the 2013 Tucson and it made ingress/egress so much easier. I do struggle sometimes getting into and out of the Golf so any CUV or small SUV will be good. Also need to seriously consider the Hyundai Kona & possibly the Denim Edition Venue. Like the Kia Seltos but not thrilled with having to get AWD & not sure it'll fit as it is bigger in person then it is in pictures.
Being in no specific hurray is probably why I haven't gone into the dealer to test one yet. And finding my exact combination of options might be an issue according to the sales guy at the Delray Toyota store I'm dealing with. But like I said, I'm in no hurry to make a move yet, the later in the year...the better.And if it turns out that I have to get a 2023 model, so be it...don't really care. Might forgo the moon roof though I'd rather have one to be honest but the JBL audio option is non-negotiable like I told the guy today, won't even consider a unit without it. He did mention that it would probably have to be the top of the line XLE model which is fine with me. Just know I'm finally ready to purchase.

au1994

tjc78 said:

I’m so happy to work for a company that embraces WFH/Hybrid with no restrictions.

One of my team floats between Pittsburg and Florida… makes zero difference in her work.

I’m with a good company and as I said, the culture is great so I hope they will take the pulse of the company and the market and do the right thing. IE no crazy mandates. As per typical much of the Sr Leadership team is from the Old School.

qbrozen

Ran some numbers and we could lease a new S60 for what amounts to $16k over 3 yrs. I guess that’s not horrible to make the wife happy. About $1800 more than the Wrangler. She seems excited, although I have major reservations about her being happy long-term in a sedan. Granted, yes, she’ll have the Sprinter, too. This will take more pondering. Maybe I can convince her to wait it out a little.

ab348

corvette said:

@henryn - our shared folders are now in the cloud in addition to being mirrored locally on a server in case the internet goes out. It takes forever to open a folder or file or save anything because it waits until it can sync everything to the cloud. Then if you are opening a file, you get a warning that you're opening a potentially dangerous file "from the internet" that may not be secure, even though it's already in our company's cloud and on our local server.

It's enough to make me miss the good old days when storage was expensive, bandwidth was nonexistent, and nobody backed up anything. If your hard drive went kaput, your life was just going to suck for a while.

In 2011 (if memory serves) the place I worked at made the decision to try to centralize all files and records using MS Sharepoint. It made sense in theory because we had over 100 locations and those folks needed access to lots of stuff. But what a disaster it was. Very few people could tolerate it because the interface was so clunky and slow, and the software itself was user-unfriendly and very hard to get your head around, especially if you didn't have much IT experience already. I don't know what MS was thinking when they released that turkey. The guy who pushed for it and spent millions trying to convince people it was both useful and usable ended up getting fired the next year. After that it quickly seemed to lose whatever momentum it had. I know I never used it myself unless I had to. That hadn't changed much by the time I retired in 2014 but I gather it is still there and they are still trying to get people to use it. Just a terrible product.

oldfarmer50

tjc78 said:

It’s funny about professional titles, sometimes you really have no idea what a person does. When I say my title people look a little cross eyed… then I just say I make retail stores look pretty or “I run the remodel department”

I tell people I’m a transportation specialist.

kyfdx

qbrozen said:

Ran some numbers and we could lease a new S60 for what amounts to $16k over 3 yrs. I guess that’s not horrible to make the wife happy. About $1800 more than the Wrangler. She seems excited, although I have major reservations about her being happy long-term in a sedan. Granted, yes, she’ll have the Sprinter, too. This will take more pondering. Maybe I can convince her to wait it out a little.

She's driving the Escape, right?

When the Jeep shows up, stash it someplace else, and tell her as soon as it shows up, you'll do something about getting her a car... Then, see how long you can make that last.

oldfarmer50

qbrozen said:

This struck me as very funny, so wanted to share. I wonder if the driver was aware before being struck.

What’s funny to me is that a dealer would be selling a car in that condition. Who is the customer base, body shops?

oldfarmer50

roadburner said:

I might finally try a case this month. An arson case where two ladies tried to make the fire look like a break-in. The security cameras put the lie to that, and a bottle of the same accelerant used to start the fire was found in one of the defendant’s cars. Should be fun.

Not exactly master criminals, are they?

oldfarmer50

stickguy said:

henryn said:

In March of 2020 when everyone at my old work place started working from home, they cut the pay of all contractors by 20% across the board. Company employees, no cut in pay. This was not a popular move, as you might imagine. Mostly they got away with it as it was nearly impossible to run around job hunting and interviewing. I was talking to two head hunters about a job change, but instead decided to just retire. No way was I going to work more than another year or two, and it didn't seem worth while to change jobs for that short a period of time.

kinda the same place I am in. Not quite ready to retire (well, mentally yes, practically no) but hopefully in another couple of years can actually do it. So ideally would just be able to stay where I am and not get bothered too much. Basically not looking for excitement or some big advancement opportunity. And definitely not looking at jumping to a new company for a "real" job that is likely to bring stress and more hours. So if something happened in the next couple of months and I ended up cut loose, not sure what I would do.

You sound like Enterprise material. Let me see if you qualify….are you old? Do you like hanging out with other old people and laughing all day? Are you able to sleep in the back of a minivan while getting paid?

If yes to the above you’re a good fit.

stickguy

Once I move and am ready to cut back I’ll let you know!

roadburner

@stickguy said:

and on a side note, I still don't understand why judges are elected positions. Just seems highly strange, considering the importance of the position and the supposed knowledge requirements. Unlike most other elected positions that have none.

living in the Philadelphia TV market will really make you question things like this.

I am reminded of this quote attributed to Winston Churchill:

“democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”

One thing to note; in Kentucky you have to be an attorney for at least two years to be a judge in District Court, and eight years for the three higher courts, and four years to be a Commonwealth’s Attorney. Contrast that with the US District, Circuit, and Supreme Courts, where a law degree is not required. Ditto for the US Attorney General.

I was initially appointed to the bench- prior to the election where I won. I also sought to be appointed as Commonwealth’s Attorney to serve out the year remaining in the term(the prior CWA had retired one year early). In both cases the appointment process was totally political.

In the case of the judicial appointment I was a lock; a friend’s mother was the contact person for the Governor. There was a “nomination process” but there was no doubt who would get selected.
In the CWA appointment process I was given misleading information and just generally jerked around(which is one of the reasons I decided to run).

I am absolutely certain that any appointment process would be just as riddled with political machinations as an election- the only difference is that in an election at least, those machinations are in plain view.

au1994

Picked a bad time to buy my 3rd tank of gas for the year. $3.79 for reg.

corvette

laughs in 38 gallon fuel tank

andres3

corvette said:

@roadburner you did it backwards. We were taught in law school that nearly all judges were former prosecutors.

In Traffic Court they sure act like it! Might as well face a Prosecutor; it'd be just the same. At least then you might get a right to a fair jury trial.

In the rare case, I have to admit it sure did feel good and satisfying when a judge did care about justice, and served justice by granting my Motion to COMPEL Discovery on the DA and Santee Sheriffs Department. I was salivating on the trial date to ask the Judge to sanction those entities for disobeying and ignoring his HONORABLE orders. Of course, I already knew no one was going to show up to allow me the chance to grand stand, and the case was dismissed for lack of prosecution or witnesses.

Like Tom Hanks says in the movie Philadelphia, it really is something when justice is served.

sda

corvette said:

laughs in 38 gallon fuel tank

You forced me to do math, how rude. $3.50 RUG yesterday when I topped off. $4.10 PUG

ab348

$5.20 USD for a US gallon up here.

qbrozen

Driver just surprised me. Showed up unannounced and took the TRX away. Signature updated.

tifighter

The car man giveth and taketh away.

au1994

qbrozen said:

Driver just surprised me. Showed up unannounced and took the TRX away. Signature updated.

Anyone driven the Fiat lately? We don’t hear much about that member of the herd.

tjc78

@qbrozen said:
Ran some numbers and we could lease a new S60 for what amounts to $16k over 3 yrs. I guess that’s not horrible to make the wife happy. About $1800 more than the Wrangler. She seems excited, although I have major reservations about her being happy long-term in a sedan. Granted, yes, she’ll have the Sprinter, too. This will take more pondering. Maybe I can convince her to wait it out a little.

What spec?

qbrozen

tjc78 said:

What spec?

Never mind. Spoke with 2 brokers and any discounts they had in Feb are gone. Now, even with the $2k bonus cash and $500 Penfed, payments are $100/mo more. Go figure.

qbrozen

au1994 said:

Anyone driven the Fiat lately? We don’t hear much about that member of the herd.

Nope. I have new tires for it. Just haven't had the time to put them on.

tjc78

@qbrozen said:
Ran some numbers and we could lease a new S60 for what amounts to $16k over 3 yrs. I guess that’s not horrible to make the wife happy. About $1800 more than the Wrangler. She seems excited, although I have major reservations about her being happy long-term in a sedan. Granted, yes, she’ll have the Sprinter, too. This will take more pondering. Maybe I can convince her to wait it out a little.

What spec?

@qbrozen said:
Never mind. Spoke with 2 brokers and any discounts they had in Feb are gone. Now, even with the $2k bonus cash and $500 Penfed, payments are $100/mo more. Go figure.

I had a feeling things were going south from what I read. I was wondering how you got a sub $500 payment!

jmonroe1

qbrozen said:

au1994 said:

Anyone driven the Fiat lately? We don’t hear much about that member of the herd.

Nope. I have new tires for it. Just haven't had the time to put them on.

With your luck of waiting it’s a good thing those tire prices didn’t go up just sitting in your garage.

jmonroe

jpp75

@tifighter as @breld mentioned I did cancel my Rivian reservation Tuesday evening. I was already on the fence about having a full EV for my primary car, as was discussed a few pages back the charging infrastructure just doesn't support the driving I like to do.

I had also grown very frustrated with Rivian's complete and utter failure at communication. Last October there were pre-order holders who had been told earlier in the summer they would be receiving their trucks in October. They went the whole month and heard nothing and comically even in the first few days of November they would reach out to Rivian and be told "everything is still on track for your delivery" I don't mind the delays themselves but they have had the worst communication and the way they handled the price increase was the final straw.

Now as you and @breld mentioned they've rolled all that back, I'll likely reinstate my order. Not because I want the car but as @breld said it's instant equity so might as well get something for giving them an interest free loan for 3+ years.

stickguy

well, if I had known you could get this from Ford, I would have saved a lot of money on the Maverick. Just needs a manual trans and a tach!

gotta say, it looks very cleanly down. And incredible how much room there is in the engine bay to get at everything.

https://classics.autotrader.com/classic-cars/1980/ford/pinto/101646311

and this is actually a neat idea. Never saw this conversion before. and who doesn't love a cruising wagon?

https://classics.autotrader.com/classic-cars/1977/ford/pinto/101693780