Deliverables Team: “Well here’s the deadline we set, so regardless of whatever happens, you need to have all of your work submitted by then.”
Design Team: “Yeah, we’ll get you our markups, but all in big clumps of work, most of it just says before the deadline, but a lot of it we aren’t even going to try to get to you until after that deadline.”
Me: “Okay well then you two need to discuss that because those two timelines are obviously incompatible.”
Them: “Yeah, no. We’re not going to work that out.”
Deadline arrives…
Deliverables Team: “OMG! Why isn’t this done?!”
Me: “Because I don’t even have the design yet!”
Deliverables: “OMG you’re going to make us miss the deadline! Why didn’t you say anything before?!”
Me: First off, this is just a random internal deadline you set. There’s zero real effect of not meeting it. Second, it’s not me making us miss it; I can’t model and draw what I haven’t received the design for. Third, I did say something before, several times in fact."
Deliverables: “Well you need to talk to your design team and make them hurry.”
Me: I can’t and won’t attempt to do that. But I’ll let them know you’re wound up over it.
Lets design team know that deliverables is bent out of shape over missing their made up deadline.
Half of Design Team: Yeah lol they’ll get over it, and if they don’t, they’re only freaking out on you, so we don’t care.
Other Half of Design Team: OMG you missed the deadline?! How could you?!
Me: Well it’s because you guys haven’t gotten me any designs yet.
Design Team: Yeah we’re still working on it and we don’t have a timeline on when we are going to get it to you…but when will you have it done?
Anywhere that I’ve learned a new skill in hopes of getting a promotion, the response has either been “why did you waste time learning that? That’s not your job.” or more commonly “great initiative! Now we can add that work to your workload without having to pay you a cent more! This is great management because we can have one employee do the job of 1.5, and we didn’t even have to pay to train them! Thanks for that and here’s your extra work! Deadlines and expectations remain the same on your old work of course.”
In a few cases, once that inevitably led to job change, they had the gall to try and shame me with a line like, “You know, that’s a skill you learned under this roof, to do work for this company. While we are professionals here, if we weren’t, this might feel like a betrayal…”
Since then, I went back to Bosch, which are consistently great, then two summers ago I had a windshield crack that led to replacement, and the replacement company (Safelite) also recommended new wipers (to avoid any glass reside embedded in the wiper scratching the new windshield) and I took them up on buying their own brand to replace…and they’ve been oddly good.
Not as good as Bosch to start, but better than PIAA, and then they’ve gone on to last almost two years at a pretty good performance level.
While I’ll probably go back to Bosch in the spring, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend these Safelite wipers to anyone.
(My luck: it’d turn out that Safelite uses PIAA for their wipers. 😝)
PIAA silicone windshield wipers (I think many silicone based wipers in general) are as BIFL as can be for windshield wipers. I think I have the same pair on my car from 2016.
I was very disappointed with PIAA wipers when I got a set.
Expensive, and while they did last slightly longer than the 1-1.5 years I usually expect from wipers, from day one, their performance was noticeably worse than all but the cheapest common brands. Basically they never, ever actually cleanly wiped away all the rain. Streaky and leaving trails of water from day one.
So yeah, they lasted longer, but it was at the level of half-worn-out blades anyway, so to me, it was basically a wash on price of one set of PIAA vs two sets of some other brand…and with the other brand, at least I’d get the two honeymoon phases where they were brand new and working fantastically.
I don’t think any of them really even think Trump will even actually help them, let alone any idea that he cares about them.
The only thing that matters to them is that Trump has normalized open expressions of hate, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and misogyny…and wrapped it up in a shrink wrap of jingoism, making it as simple as possible for anyone and everyone to get on board with it.
That’s bad enough, but he also bundles fascism as well as the graft that follows trump like a shadow with the package.
Basically he’s weaponized the fear of the unknown to built himself a cult. I would venture to guess that less than half of his supporters would have any clear, concrete, positive (that is, as opposed to the negative “he’d undo this” or “he won’t do that”) response when asked what, specifically, they think Trump will do that will help the country as a whole or them specifically.
And that’s because the thing they want from him they’ve already gotten, and they just want him to keep it up: telling them the most comforting message of all: it’s okay.
“It’s okay you don’t have a nice house or a good job or can’t afford healthcare or can’t put enough good food on the table. It’s okay your family is all fucked up. It’s okay that costs are going up, the rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer.
And it’s okay because it’s not your fault. You’re not responsible for this. It’s bigger than you can control or even affect. So you don’t even have to try. I’m not going to make it better (and in fact I’ll do my best to make it much worse), but that’s okay too because I’m not going to ask you to shoulder any of the blame for any of this!
No, not your fault and I’m not asking you to do anything. Whose fault is it? Why it’s the Democrats and the Mexicans and the Muslims and the women and the liberals and the immigrants and the colleges and the “urban populations” (hint: you can identify them by their skin tone!) and the “woke radical left” and China and Europe and pretty much anyone else that doesn’t look, act, and sound exactly like you. That’s whose fault it is.
And since it’s not your fault and you can’t do anything about it, I give you permission to hate them for it. And I’ll do and say all the horrible, vile, shit that I want you to think and say. And because I did it first, that means it’s okay to just go ahead and say what you’ve been thinking for years. If we all say it together, it’ll become normal.”
Basically he tells them they’re victims, and that he feels sorry for them, and that they should feel sorry for themselves too, and that because they’re the victims here, they’re allowed to do and say whatever they want and it’s okay.
I like to think they all just correctly frowned at the question itself and were too creeped out to reply, so the guy just stood there until the awkward silence was too much to bear, at which point he just thanked them for their time and got back on the boat and left.