Things that give you the sh1ts

[dedja]

In my experience it’s generally the same with all airlines, once you’ve had your flight cancelled within a few hours of departure, then the path of least resistance is generally to get your money back and book with someone else.

[Booney]

Virgin Australia, notifying me of a cancelled flight mere hours before it was scheduled to take off.
No explanation given, outside of the ambiguous phrase "for operational reasons".
Re-scheduling me on a return flight via another city on the next day, leaving me stranded with no accomodation.
Their helpline requiring me to spend 5 minutes punching numbers before I get to a human, who speaks with a semi-comprehensible accent and only knows how to book flights, not handle issues.
There being no listed way to directly contact a local virgin office, not even at the airport.

Things that don't give me the shits:
My adelaide-based travel team who had me rebooked on a Qantas flight in quick time.

Virgin: you get what you pay for. Serves me right for agreeing to fly with them.

So it goes...

"Hundreds of Coldplay and Robbie Williams fans have been left furious after several Virgin flights were cancelled overnight, throwing their concert plans into chaos. A Virgin Australia flight headed to Perth on Wednesday was abruptly cancelled after passengers began boarding the afternoon flight in Adelaide."

Mate, that's awful, hope you get to Perth in time.

[Jim05]

Virgin Australia, notifying me of a cancelled flight mere hours before it was scheduled to take off.
No explanation given, outside of the ambiguous phrase "for operational reasons".
Re-scheduling me on a return flight via another city on the next day, leaving me stranded with no accomodation.
Their helpline requiring me to spend 5 minutes punching numbers before I get to a human, who speaks with a semi-comprehensible accent and only knows how to book flights, not handle issues.
There being no listed way to directly contact a local virgin office, not even at the airport.

Things that don't give me the shits:
My adelaide-based travel team who had me rebooked on a Qantas flight in quick time.

Virgin: you get what you pay for. Serves me right for agreeing to fly with them.

So it goes...

"Hundreds of Coldplay and Robbie Williams fans have been left furious after several Virgin flights were cancelled overnight, throwing their concert plans into chaos. A Virgin Australia flight headed to Perth on Wednesday was abruptly cancelled after passengers began boarding the afternoon flight in Adelaide."

Virgin are having massive crew issues and staff are about to strike so I’d steer clear of them until it’s sorted. Some flights they are not getting enough rock up and flights that are fully boarded are being cancelled and passengers unloaded

[RB]

Yep, a relative had her Virgin flight from Canberra cancelled last week (this after getting a 5 a.m. text that it would be departing at 7 a.m. instead of 8 a.m.). Had to take 3 flights the next day to get here - CBR-SYD, SYD-MEL, MEL-ADL.

Then her flight back was cancelled due to "staffing issues". So she both departed and returned a day late, and it took 3 flights to get here, with little info provided.

Still, Qantas may have been worse.

[Lightning McQueen]

Virgin Australia, notifying me of a cancelled flight mere hours before it was scheduled to take off.
No explanation given, outside of the ambiguous phrase "for operational reasons".
Re-scheduling me on a return flight via another city on the next day, leaving me stranded with no accomodation.
Their helpline requiring me to spend 5 minutes punching numbers before I get to a human, who speaks with a semi-comprehensible accent and only knows how to book flights, not handle issues.
There being no listed way to directly contact a local virgin office, not even at the airport.

Things that don't give me the shits:
My adelaide-based travel team who had me rebooked on a Qantas flight in quick time.

Virgin: you get what you pay for. Serves me right for agreeing to fly with them.

So it goes...

"Hundreds of Coldplay and Robbie Williams fans have been left furious after several Virgin flights were cancelled overnight, throwing their concert plans into chaos. A Virgin Australia flight headed to Perth on Wednesday was abruptly cancelled after passengers began boarding the afternoon flight in Adelaide."

Hopefully it makes you a “better man”

[Pseudo]

The dearth of actual physical human tellers in bank branches.

Went to a branch this morning to deposit ~ $150 of coins which had accumulated over the last few years. Last time I went to this particular branch there was a rack of tellers; not anymore. The job would have taken 2 minutes with a human in the loop. Not anymore. A human might have done all the coins in a single transaction; the ATM barfs once a certain number of coins is added, requiring multiple transactions. More disturbingly, a human could doublecheck when over $100 of coins, including a couple of bags of gold coins, is tallied as $35. Transaction cancelled, left the bank with a bag full of loose coins, no longer sorted into their respective denominations. Spent ten minutes to achieve nothing, tying up the time of the sole human "attendant", while a queue of punters grew ever longer and grumpier behind me.

This particular bank just posted a 7 billion dollar profit - would it really hurt the bottom line to spend some of that on a few menials to staff the branches?

Oh well. Tonight for giggles I might order a stack of pizzas and pay for them with 5 and 10 cent pieces...

[Booney]

The dearth of actual physical human tellers in bank branches.

Went to a branch this morning to deposit ~ $150 of coins which had accumulated over the last few years. Last time I went to this particular branch there was a rack of tellers; not anymore. The job would have taken 2 minutes with a human in the loop. Not anymore. A human might have done all the coins in a single transaction; the ATM barfs once a certain number of coins is added, requiring multiple transactions. More disturbingly, a human could doublecheck when over $100 of coins, including a couple of bags of gold coins, is tallied as $35. Transaction cancelled, left the bank with a bag full of loose coins, no longer sorted into their respective denominations. Spent ten minutes to achieve nothing, tying up the time of the sole human "attendant", while a queue of punters grew ever longer and grumpier behind me.

This particular bank just posted a 7 billion dollar profit - would it really hurt the bottom line to spend some of that on a few menials to staff the branches?

Oh well. Tonight for giggles I might order a stack of pizzas and pay for them with 5 and 10 cent pieces...

The drone that delivers them has a weight capacity < the weight of the coins. The pizzas will be returned to the manufacturer.

[dedja]

Keep the coins for parking meters … oh, hang on.

[am Bays]

The dearth of actual physical human tellers in bank branches.

Went to a branch this morning to deposit ~ $150 of coins which had accumulated over the last few years. Last time I went to this particular branch there was a rack of tellers; not anymore. The job would have taken 2 minutes with a human in the loop. Not anymore. A human might have done all the coins in a single transaction; the ATM barfs once a certain number of coins is added, requiring multiple transactions. More disturbingly, a human could doublecheck when over $100 of coins, including a couple of bags of gold coins, is tallied as $35. Transaction cancelled, left the bank with a bag full of loose coins, no longer sorted into their respective denominations. Spent ten minutes to achieve nothing, tying up the time of the sole human "attendant", while a queue of punters grew ever longer and grumpier behind me.

This particular bank just posted a 7 billion dollar profit - would it really hurt the bottom line to spend some of that on a few menials to staff the branches?

Oh well. Tonight for giggles I might order a stack of pizzas and pay for them with 5 and 10 cent pieces...

change may be coming....

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-17/uk-supermarket-chain-ditches-self-service-checkouts-australia/103114838

[MW]

The dearth of actual physical human tellers in bank branches.

Went to a branch this morning to deposit ~ $150 of coins which had accumulated over the last few years. Last time I went to this particular branch there was a rack of tellers; not anymore. The job would have taken 2 minutes with a human in the loop. Not anymore. A human might have done all the coins in a single transaction; the ATM barfs once a certain number of coins is added, requiring multiple transactions. More disturbingly, a human could doublecheck when over $100 of coins, including a couple of bags of gold coins, is tallied as $35. Transaction cancelled, left the bank with a bag full of loose coins, no longer sorted into their respective denominations. Spent ten minutes to achieve nothing, tying up the time of the sole human "attendant", while a queue of punters grew ever longer and grumpier behind me.

This particular bank just posted a 7 billion dollar profit - would it really hurt the bottom line to spend some of that on a few menials to staff the branches?

Oh well. Tonight for giggles I might order a stack of pizzas and pay for them with 5 and 10 cent pieces...

Interestingly I did the same thing this morning, Had about $60 worth of coins and it could not have been simpler. Went to an ATM at Glenelg, and deposits right into my account. Took less than a minute.

Then went to a teller at another bank to withdraw some cash to pay for a cashie trade job. Again, 2 minutes in out.

Banks working better than ever.

[dedja]

Did your business and avoided tax at the same time. Well done.

[Pseudo]

The dearth of actual physical human tellers in bank branches.

Went to a branch this morning to deposit ~ $150 of coins which had accumulated over the last few years. Last time I went to this particular branch there was a rack of tellers; not anymore. The job would have taken 2 minutes with a human in the loop. Not anymore. A human might have done all the coins in a single transaction; the ATM barfs once a certain number of coins is added, requiring multiple transactions. More disturbingly, a human could doublecheck when over $100 of coins, including a couple of bags of gold coins, is tallied as $35. Transaction cancelled, left the bank with a bag full of loose coins, no longer sorted into their respective denominations. Spent ten minutes to achieve nothing, tying up the time of the sole human "attendant", while a queue of punters grew ever longer and grumpier behind me.

This particular bank just posted a 7 billion dollar profit - would it really hurt the bottom line to spend some of that on a few menials to staff the branches?

Oh well. Tonight for giggles I might order a stack of pizzas and pay for them with 5 and 10 cent pieces...

Epilogue: On returning home and re-sorting the loose coins back into their denominations, the total is about $9 short.

As a matter of interest, do pokie machines still accept coins? I reckon I'd have more luck feeding a pokie the coins one by one then cashing out. At least I could have a beer while I did it.

[gadj1976]

On the bank thing...

My daughter had a piggy bank full of notes/coins. We went to the local ANZ branch and put the money in. It jammed. We knew exactly what the amount was (now, I can't recall but it was in the range of 630 bucks). The bank asked what the amount was. We told them. The machine jammed at the amount minus 40 bucks. The bank (to their credit) said we'll credit you the amount it jammed at (590) and then do a reconciliation and come back to you. And said they'd be in contact. Two weeks later, we contact the bank and they said 'we haven't reconciled the machine'. Two weeks later, my wife and daughter walk in and they said 'what was the amount that you were out?'. My wife says '$40'. They credit the amount on the spot, no questions asked. We should've said the entire amount and got away with it!

[whufc]

Going to be interesting to see what role technology plays moving forward.

We have seen it a bit in the health and fitness industry with 'virtual fitness' and 'online group fitness' entering the market. At first the gym industry took a massive hit especially just after Covid but we have seen a shift back and finding for all the great things online/virtual fitness can provide what it cant provide is human connection. Obviously the fitness industry is one in which human connection is important will always have a role so i think we might be somewhat safe when compared to other industries.

In saying that i think no matter how great technology gets humans will always crave interactions with one another, just depends whether we need it from our banks/ petrol stations etc.

Nothing is more certain than the world will be a different place when my miss 15, 12 and 5 start having their own children if they choose to do so.

[dedja]

Nothing new, I’ve been having virtual roots for years.

[Wedgie]

When instructions say "Don't fully tighten yet" at the end of a paragraph.
FFS out that at the front of the paragraph!!!
I've already tightened the shit out of them by the time I reach the end of the paragraph!

[MW]

When instructions say "Don't fully tighten yet" at the end of a paragraph.
FFS out that at the front of the paragraph!!!
I've already tightened the shit out of them by the time I reach the end of the paragraph!

Shouldn't you read the full paragraph before you start the process anyway?

[Wedgie]

When instructions say "Don't fully tighten yet" at the end of a paragraph.
FFS out that at the front of the paragraph!!!
I've already tightened the shit out of them by the time I reach the end of the paragraph!

Shouldn't you read the full paragraph before you start the process anyway?

You should but I'm male.
It's being femine enough just reading them at all!
Anyway I got the bastard together, lucky the BBQ itself was easy enough compared to the stand!
Then it starts raining so I come inside, don't even get to admire it.

[mighty_tiger_79]

When instructions say "Don't fully tighten yet" at the end of a paragraph.
FFS out that at the front of the paragraph!!!
I've already tightened the shit out of them by the time I reach the end of the paragraph!

Shouldn't you read the full paragraph before you start the process anyway?

You should but I'm male.
It's being femine enough just reading them at all!
Anyway I got the bastard together, lucky the BBQ itself was easy enough compared to the stand!
Then it starts raining so I come inside, don't even get to admire it.

You don't have a window to look at it through

[RustyCage]

Managing to injure myself twice in the space of a few hours at the Adelaide 500 yesterday