New Testingstan

Oxymoron wrote:

RogueIce wrote:

Oxymoron wrote:Well, shit. My bike just got stolen. Had bought it less than three weeks ago. €350 just went poof. Not as if I had monetary issues anyway, but this is going to throw my budget a bit.

Oh well. I was going to see the police tomorrow anyway. I'll just report it to them.

Okay, I'm curious. Why were you going to see the police "anyway" in the first place?

Because we have received what is very obviously a scam letter, and as is my duty as a citizen, I was going to report it to the authorities so that they are aware of this particular scheme, in order to prosecute those responsible for it.

Ah, okay. I was hoping maybe you were going to just go down there to say hello just for the sake of it.

Even cops get lonely, you know.

Zod wrote:

RogueIce wrote: Kinda like any idiot with a screwdriver and whatever they used to unhinge the door can steal my car in a few minutes. As I discovered...

Luckily the police found it.

But I found out the hard way that apparently my car is one of the easiest vehicles to steal. As relayed to me by the police, my insurance company, the body shop guy...

I don't think that's nearly on the same level of obvious.

True, but this is a 'venting' thread so I was venting.

Zod wrote: Do yourself a favor. Next time you get a bike pick up one of those u-bar locks, like the kryptonite series. Any idiot with a pair of wire cutters can take care of a cable lock in ten seconds.

Less than. I had a bike stolen while I was working at Target--security camera sees the guy squat down, do something to the lock, then stand up with my bike and pedal away in about 5 seconds.

Unfortunately, the security cameras were less than useless, because you couldn't see anything about the guy that was helpful to the police. And since I'd had the bike for three weeks, I didn't have it registered yet. Never got it back.


I felt bad for a while, and then was informed (by the police) that Irvine was the bike theft capital of the united states. So hooray for that.

Rogue : Trust me, I've been able to see during the hour I was there, they are really busy and don't need civilians running into their legs.

Plus, the Gendarmes are military and live in "barracks", so I don't know where even I could see them outside of their work hours.

ugh I hate how email is blocked by so many (lower level at least) hosting providers

email is kinda important to a lot of businesses, including ones who don't want to fork over the big bucks right now...

i got some temp work today so i am currently sitting behind bulletproof glass and the section of the wall underneath the window is reinforced with kevlar and other shit

there's also a panic button but i'm told i won't need that unless someone takes out the officer in front

Got a teaching job ?

Sounds like you're pretty safe then.

Oxy: I was the secretary at a courthouse while the actual staff went to a Chrstmas party.

And yeah I felt pretty secure back there while I got my ass kicked by a sudoku puzzle for 2 hours.

Cool. How is / was the pay ?

$10.366 per hour. Slightly less than the last place I worked at for a little over a year.

Roughly around minimum wages, right ?

America's minimum wage is pretty sad.... it would be ~$10/hour if we kept up with inflation since the 60's.... but we didn't.

The federal minimum wage is a mere $7.25 / hour, and there's weird exemption rules for people like restaurant staff! Some states have higher ones, with the top being about $9 / hour in Washington, but about half the states do only the federal minimum.

It's totally fucked up to be the working poor in the US, this is just one turd in that pile of shit.

adr wrote:The federal minimum wage is a mere $7.25 / hour, and there's weird exemption rules for people like restaurant staff!

The exemption makes some sense when you factor in tips (and by law if a waiter doesn't make at least minimum wage after tips, their employer is required to make up the difference).

It's still screwed up, though, both in minimum wage not keeping up with inflation and rising cost of living, and in tipping being a thing. It's basically working on commission, which I dislike because it promotes some of the most obnoxious behavior, except the size of the commission is entirely determined by the customer.

Oxymoron wrote:Plus, the Gendarmes are military and live in "barracks", so I don't know where even I could see them outside of their work hours.

LE FLICK

Losonti Tokash wrote:$10.366 per hour. Slightly less than the last place I worked at for a little over a year.

Weren't you working as an EMT or something?

http://www.payscale.com/research/AU/Job ... ourly_Rate

If that site has accurate sourcing, it's pretty handy.

Zod wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote:$10.366 per hour. Slightly less than the last place I worked at for a little over a year.

Weren't you working as an EMT or something?

I was, and it paid $9/hour.

Losonti Tokash wrote:

Zod wrote:Weren't you working as an EMT or something?

I was, and it paid $9/hour.

I made more than that as the lowest-rung grunt in basic industrial work. Is this really the average compensation for the peeps on the front line of Not Letting People Die?

Djinnkitty83 wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote:

Zod wrote:Weren't you working as an EMT or something?

I was, and it paid $9/hour.

I made more than that as the lowest-rung grunt in basic industrial work. Is this really the average compensation for the peeps on the front line of Not Letting People Die?

Have you seen the average state of wages in the psychiatry field? You need a master's degree to be able to score a job that pays a mere $10 an hour. The pay rates for medicine in general tend to be horribly fucked up.

I know I should be inured to this sort of thing by now, but damn that's ridiculous even by my low expectations for US wages.

good luck with the temp work, los. red and i both got some fairly useful work experience from temping. i was able to parlay my boring-as-shit bank temp job into the boring-as-shit (but much better paying) job i'm working now.

of course you get some dreadful shit too. red had a real clusterfuck of a job answering panicked old people's phone calls about their dependents' health insurance possibly being canceled. i was pretty lucky to just be bored.

In the US, many pilots have to work a second job to make ends meet, and often they don't get enough sleep

Djinnkitty83 wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote:

Zod wrote:Weren't you working as an EMT or something?

I was, and it paid $9/hour.

I made more than that as the lowest-rung grunt in basic industrial work. Is this really the average compensation for the peeps on the front line of Not Letting People Die?

There are multiple levels of EMT, so it would depend on what his cert level was. EMT Basic wouldn't be paid the same as EMT Paramedic.

He's said a few times now that the company he worked for was crooked and flat out refused to pay him.

Aaron wrote:He's said a few times now that the company he worked for was crooked and flat out refused to pay him.

Well there's that. But you could find that just about anywhere, in all fairness.

I was just addressing that people would be shocked EMTs could be "paid so low" when there's quite a bit of difference in what exactly an EMT could be in terms of training and qualifications. It's a bit more complicated than a knee-jerk response of "but they save lives" is what I was aiming for.