[Traum]

Sorry, I missed your point - thought you were saying we could do without CP.

I agree that their current model is unsustainable.
Of course Canada Post's current business model is unsustainable -- it's is a system modelled to primarily serve paper mail from business and personal correspondence, and their service mandate requires to to operate high cost deliveries along with low cost ones. With private delivery companies, they have the option to simply say no to someone that wants to mail stuff to frozen boonie town in Nunavut. With CP, that option to say no almost doesn't exist.

And now the only sector that is seeing growth in delivery service is parcels. Amazon pays pennies to their delivery drivers to deliver the goods 7 days a week, while CP pays a comfortable wage with benefits and pension and delivers 5 days a week.

IMO this is one of the times when unions are being unrealistic with their demands. If CP's business model doesn't change with the times, the whole ship is gonna sink. But the union's mandate / insistence on "protecting jobs" means they would rather see the whole ship sink than to salvage the parts that can be salvage, and eat the losses on the parts that can't.

If I were the almighty boss -- does that make me Turd? -- I would just entice as many CP staff as I can to take voluntary early retirement / resignation with some sort of fat chicken exit meal severance package. After that, you start laying off people while offering the legal minimum amount of severance pay. And then you go ahead with the business model reform to make CP competitive to the modern environment. The goal is to get things done -- kind of like how the US gov saved GM and Chrysler from total bankruptcy. Some of the staff are going to get fired / laid off.

But of course, we are never going to see that.

[underscore]

Conservatives aren't blind to the reality of the world, they just choose to ignore it.

Thinking Amazon taking over would do anything other than completely fuck over everyone involved sounds pretty blind to me. Nearly every idea proposed by Conservatives is equally delusional.

[donk.]

Scamazon is going to be the taco bell in Demolition Man movie

[BIC_BAWS]

The problem is that the union isn't drawing much public support and/or not impacting the Canadian economy, as with the CP/CN strike or the longshoremen.

It seems most people I know are in a similar position as Honda Racer. The Post being on strike hasn't impacted them in the slightest. It just goes to show how redundant their services have become.

Even on a small business level, the only direct effect we're seeing is not being able to collect on mailed in cheques - we pick them up now which is an increase in costs for the customer/us around $10-20. Which tbh all those senile old business owners in nowhere BC should really just pay CC..

Tho that said, on a macro lens - our logistics supply chain clearly cannot handle this. Every single major courier is now experiencing service interruptions. UPS started last week, Purolator started this morning, FedEx confirmed later in the afternoon. It always seems like everything is a delicate balance here, you mess with one thing in the cog and it has ripple effects throughout the industry.

Also, inflation. Cost of goods (freight in) has increased as a result of this strike. This only translates to higher prices and it's not like the surcharges are going to come back down. We have only started to recover from the floods pricing.

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

[noclue]

For Canadapost they also wanted to stop door to door residential delivery and roll out community posts which the union opposes cause it means less jobs.

[Hondaracer]

Thinking Amazon taking over would do anything other than completely fuck over everyone involved sounds pretty blind to me. Nearly every idea proposed by Conservatives is equally delusional.

Hehehe

[bobbinka]

If they just sold pinup posters/postcards/stamps of those Quebec ladies you guys love so much from a few pages back, RS could singlehandedly save CP.

[Mikoyan]

Tho that said, on a macro lens - our logistics supply chain clearly cannot handle this. Every single major courier is now experiencing service interruptions. UPS started last week, Purolator started this morning, FedEx confirmed later in the afternoon. It always seems like everything is a delicate balance here, you mess with one thing in the cog and it has ripple effects throughout the industry.


Well yeah, that'll happen in any industry. No one has a huge surplus of excess capacity sitting unused as that'd be inefficient and cost prohibitive to do so. You'll have some excess available to handle the fluctuations, or you'll increase for seasonal changes, but you're not going to be handle the sudden events like this for long.

As another capacity example, after the Rogers 2-3 day full network outage, the Feds mandated the carriers sign assistance pacts. It's fine for a small localized outage, but if a full network outage like that happened again, the other 2 big carriers are not going to be able to handle a full 50% increase in traffic. You'll have 1 dead, and 2 almost dead networks. As it was, the other networks were hammered by Rogers devices trying to connect and getting kicked off.

[HonestTea]

If you have a flight coming up within a week/two, they can email the passport to your local office for them to print.
FYI.

Can you claim it's lost and have them re-issue a new one?

Yeah, the only way would be to show them I have a flight in the upcoming weeks and they can print it out. Not going anywhere, so I guess I'm stuck waiting for my passport lol

[N.V.M.]

speaking of FedEx, my Corsair RAM sticks just did more travelling than i'll ever do in the next 10 years. i wonder where it will visit between here and Winnipeg?

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54186610171_2c51dac417_c.jpg

[keifun]

That's what Canada Post is trying to do with their new contract proposal. They want to get rid of all the old timers that are close to retiring. In addition to the lower than average pay increase over 4 yrs, they also want to reduce benefits to 50/50 from 80/20, changing the pension and create a lower tier of employees, mainly partimers with no benefits to do the weekend deliveries. Just saying.

[68style]

Of course Canada Post's current business model is unsustainable -- it's is a system modelled to primarily serve paper mail from business and personal correspondence, and their service mandate requires to to operate high cost deliveries along with low cost ones. With private delivery companies, they have the option to simply say no to someone that wants to mail stuff to frozen boonie town in Nunavut. With CP, that option to say no almost doesn't exist.

And now the only sector that is seeing growth in delivery service is parcels. Amazon pays pennies to their delivery drivers to deliver the goods 7 days a week, while CP pays a comfortable wage with benefits and pension and delivers 5 days a week.

IMO this is one of the times when unions are being unrealistic with their demands. If CP's business model doesn't change with the times, the whole ship is gonna sink. But the union's mandate / insistence on "protecting jobs" means they would rather see the whole ship sink than to salvage the parts that can be salvage, and eat the losses on the parts that can't.

If I were the almighty boss -- does that make me Turd? -- I would just entice as many CP staff as I can to take voluntary early retirement / resignation with some sort of fat chicken exit meal severance package. After that, you start laying off people while offering the legal minimum amount of severance pay. And then you go ahead with the business model reform to make CP competitive to the modern environment. The goal is to get things done -- kind of like how the US gov saved GM and Chrysler from total bankruptcy. Some of the staff are going to get fired / laid off.

But of course, we are never going to see that.

It's clear you just don't respect the job of delivering things, which is understandable as it doesn't really take any particularly special set of skills.

There are some important pieces of information about how they operate that are missing though and leading to inaccuracies.

I know several postal workers and it's essentially a private company, they receive no funding from the tax dollars and they didn't even get to vote on this strike. None of them want to be on strike. Their "union" is nothing ike what you think it is and they're being thrown to the wolves by their own management who are seeking higher compensation and bonuses and just saying that they're fighting against doing 7 day delivery when in fact a lot of postal workers wouldnt mind it because it would give opportunities for OT, create more jobs and allow flexibiliy for which days they could have off, say some weekdays instead of always weekends.

Generous wage? The absolute maximum they can make is $32.50 an hour. You think that's liveable in the lower mainland and Toronto or even Calgary for that matter? That's $63,000 a year before whatever deductions the garbage union takes.

Add in the fact that in smaller communities, ie; my friend did this when he moved back from HK to Salmon Arm, they make you use your own vehicle to deliver the mail with a pittance of a per/km claim that doesn't come anywhere near covering the costs of gas or a vehicle or the degradation of it driving all day in shit weather etc and having to buy your own business use insurance coverage

That's the real situation.

[whitev70r]

Yah, I know someone who works for CP as well and their stories reflect that. On casual for like over a year, no benefits, management somehow makes sure they don't pass certain thresholds, so an army of casuals = no full time benefits. It's a really terrible environment for many.

[68style]

It used to be a pretty sweet job, I had a gf back in the early 2000's and her uncle was a posty... he loved it, they had their route and their work shift was just finishing that route. He actually ran/jogged his entire route as a way of staying in shape looked like a milion bucks even in his 40's and he'd finish his route in like 4-5 hours and be home to have a beer and get his kids from school. I remember talking to him and wanting to sign up.

Nowadays it's a complete shit organization to work for, toxic management, toxic workplace, massive routes that don't even make logistical sense... I don't know why anyone would bother, better off gig driving.

[whitev70r]

Who's ready for 1st night of Swiftcouver ??!! Do you think people are over reacting to the people and crowds downtown? I mean in the summer, our city is infested with tourists, then you got marathons and road closures, etc. ... is it to the same level as the peak summer months or will it be worst?

[Hondaracer]

It's clear you just don't respect the job of delivering things, which is understandable as it doesn't really take any particularly special set of skills.

There are some important pieces of information about how they operate that are missing though and leading to inaccuracies.

I know several postal workers and it's essentially a private company, they receive no funding from the tax dollars and they didn't even get to vote on this strike. None of them want to be on strike. Their "union" is nothing ike what you think it is and they're being thrown to the wolves by their own management who are seeking higher compensation and bonuses and just saying that they're fighting against doing 7 day delivery when in fact a lot of postal workers wouldnt mind it because it would give opportunities for OT, create more jobs and allow flexibiliy for which days they could have off, say some weekdays instead of always weekends.

Generous wage? The absolute maximum they can make is $32.50 an hour. You think that's liveable in the lower mainland and Toronto or even Calgary for that matter? That's $63,000 a year before whatever deductions the garbage union takes.

Add in the fact that in smaller communities, ie; my friend did this when he moved back from HK to Salmon Arm, they make you use your own vehicle to deliver the mail with a pittance of a per/km claim that doesn't come anywhere near covering the costs of gas or a vehicle or the degradation of it driving all day in shit weather etc and having to buy your own business use insurance coverage

That's the real situation.

You’re doing literally the most mindless job possible. You sort mail and make sure an address is correct. Also the model you outlined is kind of why they are where they are lol.. after 3-4 years you memorize your route and get paid a full days wage for half a days work? Nah.. you should be picking up more work and expanding your route at that point.

At some point, a “living wage” isn’t applicable to a job that takes zero experience, education, or skill.

Unions for jobs like this just fuck over everyone involved. I think the time of unions in general is done, none of them do what unions were actually meant for other than maybe IBEW and Long shore.

I’ve been in a union now for 10 years and as a good, reliable, worker, the union has never done a thing for me other than steal my money in dues.

As you said here it’s union reps and middle management trying to hold the workers hostage for the sake of justifying their livelihood.

When you work in a public institution that is hemorrhaging money, you don’t have leverage to ask for higher wages imo. You’re already incredibly inefficient.

[68style]

They don't really have a way to operate profitably though... it's one of those services that no private company will ever provide, and yet it was essentially privatized.

It's fine in a city centre with density but even the smallest communities in Canada need mail delivery, so who provides that? CP has to, at great cost vs what's being renumerated back to them.

There's no simple solution or even fiscally responsible solution in a country as vast and sparsely populated as this one. The RCMP has a similar mandate of posting officers at massive expense in places where hardly anybody lives.

I agree tho, I was same as you in a union for 20 years and 1 time I asked them for help with a fuckin horrid manager harassing the shit out of me and the steward/reps were completing fucking useless.

[pastarocket]

Who's ready for 1st night of Swiftcouver ??!! Do you think people are over reacting to the people and crowds downtown? I mean in the summer, our city is infested with tourists, then you got marathons and road closures, etc. ... is it to the same level as the peak summer months or will it be worst?


I would say much worse in terms of the crowds of Swifties in downtown for Taylor's first concert tonight compared to other days.

Downtown will be LIT. Swift's concert, the Canucks game against Columbus, AND people going to the Cirque Du Soleil show tonight.

Add all the Swifties in terms of local fans, and American fans coming through our border will mean a very crowded downtown for three straight days.

There are also road closures around BC Place starting from noon to midnight for today, tomorrow, and Sunday because of the Swift concerts.

Vancouver Sun:

The following roads around the stadium will be closed from noon to midnight all three days:

-700- and 800-blocks of Beatty Street between Smithe and West Georgia streets.

-Pacific Boulevard from the Cambie Bridge off-ramp to Pat Quinn Way.

-Northbound Cambie Bridge off-ramp.

-block of Robson Street between Cambie and Beatty streets.

Although Translink is running extra Skytrains, the trains will feel like sardine cans tonight with so many people going downtown for either the concert, the Canucks game, or Cirque du Soleil.

Then you add the hundreds of VPD cops for extra security in downtown too.

[Hondaracer]

I think the answer has to be cutting the fat which almost certainly involves rural communities. Have once a week delivery to a mail box etc. or at the very least, costs must increase even further to justify the delivery to remote communities

Like.. even at current prices which seem high to most, I thought sending a box to Toronto for whatever it is, $25 and it gets there in 2-3 days is pretty good. For the few times I do that I’d probably pay double. But then the trickle down effect for small business etc. obviously hurts them. But then again, deliver parcels and delivery’s to hubs where the customer has to pick them up as opposed to door delivery.

I always found it interesting growing up in Fraser Heights that it was about half and half of my friends who got door delivery, and the other half had to go to those pedestal mail boxes for their mail. Make the whole neighborhood go to those boxes and your costs would have slashed instantly

Canada is too big for this model

[Great68]

Fuck this Taylor Swift concert. We're coming over to visit my parents and the WALK-ON reservations are already fully booked up until 9pm tonight...

[6793026]

speaking of FedEx, my Corsair RAM sticks just did more travelling than i'll ever do in the next 10 years. i wonder where it will visit between here and Winnipeg?

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54186610171_2c51dac417_c.jpg

Speaking from experience, you see these sticks improperly going to Winnepeg, What they do is one master code / label to clear customs and then it distributes different provinces.

Complaints are off the charts on "why is it going to MB ????" every single day but that's how C clears their customs as a whole.

[whitev70r]

Fuck this Taylor Swift concert. We're coming over to visit my parents and the WALK-ON reservations are already fully booked up until 9pm tonight...

Of all weekends, why would you choose this weekend to visit? Did it have to be this weekend? I've never heard of walk ons being fully booked!

Why the hell are Islanders coming to mainland for Swift ... surely, not all of them have tickets to the concert !!

[Mikoyan]

Canucks playing the Blue Jackets and Lightning this weekend too.

[westopher]

It's not going to just be people going to the concert. I'm sure some people are coming over just to be around the fuckshow that it's going to be.
OMG I WENT TO TAY TAY AFTER PARTY AT LIBRARY SWUARE SO CRAZY

[underscore]

Swifties are weird, they'll clog up everything vaguely near the concerts just to be near it if they didn't get a ticket. Whatever the capacity of the venue is there's probably going to be double that in the surrounding area.

[Mikoyan]

Swifties are weird, they'll clog up everything vaguely near the concerts just to be near it if they didn't get a ticket. Whatever the capacity of the venue is there's probably going to be double that in the surrounding area.

I'm not looking forward to fighting my way through that to get to the Blue Jackets game tonight. We bought tickets to the game a couple weeks ago to take the kids and didn't realize the concert was the same day.

[Badhobz]

all these fangirls/fanboys are weird. what kind of a retard idolizes another retard???

i don't even like jebus. fuck him and the cross he's hanging on.

[BIC_BAWS]

I think the answer has to be cutting the fat which almost certainly involves rural communities. Have once a week delivery to a mail box etc. or at the very least, costs must increase even further to justify the delivery to remote communities

Like.. even at current prices which seem high to most, I thought sending a box to Toronto for whatever it is, $25 and it gets there in 2-3 days is pretty good. For the few times I do that I’d probably pay double. But then the trickle down effect for small business etc. obviously hurts them. But then again, deliver parcels and delivery’s to hubs where the customer has to pick them up as opposed to door delivery.

I always found it interesting growing up in Fraser Heights that it was about half and half of my friends who got door delivery, and the other half had to go to those pedestal mail boxes for their mail. Make the whole neighborhood go to those boxes and your costs would have slashed instantly

Canada is too big for this model

Typically a 50x50x40cm 6KG box from Van to Toronto is around $40-50 actually, via CP. Puro rates are closer to $25-$35. The rates of shipping is stupid here regardless of which courier. In the US, USPS and all other couriers ship for so cheap.

I sent a box of brake pads and brake fluid to CT from WA and it cost me $16 CAD... if I sent it from Vancouver, it would have cost $60. Stupid af.

Also Richmond has a few neighborhoods like that - community mailbox.

[westopher]

all these fangirls/fanboys are weird. what kind of a retard idolizes another retard???

i don't even like jebus. fuck him and the cross he's hanging on.

There literally have been studies that show people that celebrity worship are less intelligent.
Don't get me wrong, I love live music and there are plenty of bands and musicians I'd be excited to meet, but your not gonna catch me sobbing and spending the last $300 in my bank account on a tour sweatshirt I waited 6 hours to buy.

[donk.]

There are people flying in from toronto, cali, miami, etc to see taylor, this is after spending 1000-3000$ on a ticket, and once the show is over they are flying home, many of which are staying at the airport hotels for a whopping 1200$/night

Taylor to them is like cars to us, 99% of the world cant comprehend it

[Traum]

Not sure why you think I don't respect the job postal workers have.

Salary for a job should always be commensurate to a variety of factors like the amount of skill required, market demand, the risk involved, ick factor / desirability, how demanding the job is, job location, etc. In that sense, I don't think most postal worker jobs should be considered to be extremely difficult to do, or require a huge amount of skills. It is physically demanding for mail carriers -- I recognize that. I also said that their wage is comfortable, not generous. Coming from a gov employee such as yourself, I'm sure you recognize the financial value that their defined pension carries, and as is always the case, that offsets the immediate salary a CP employee receives.

In your friend's case, if the job is awful and the renumeration isn't enough to cover mileage and the expenses incurred, nobody should have taken the job. When CP couldn't find anyone willing to do the work, they'd have to up the salary / renumeration package to make it more desirable. That is literally how the job market is supposed to work. Same thing applies to your claim that $32.50/hr wage is too low for Metro Vancouver or Toronto -- when it is indeed too low, people should quit the job and seek better opportunities. When the employer realizes that people are not willing to do the job bcos of the low wage, they have to up the salary (or make up some fake job requirements and hire TFW).

I know that is my conservative brain doing the talking. But this is work / employment / business operations, not charity.

On the other hand, I think I've also pretty clearly indicated that I understand the difficulty CP faces with all the remote areas they must service. That instantly puts them at an innate disadvantage on operating costs. IMO because of those ridiculously unprofitable service requirements, being a crown corp is not exactly the most appropriate way for CP to set itself up. If Canadians deem mail and parcel delivery should be a public service covering all habitable areas, then CP should be set up as such and receive gov funding, instead of operating as a crown corp.

I am neutral on the subject myself. But what I'm saying is, the crown corp model doesn't really work when its business model is financially unsustainable. And right now, the Canada Post business model is not financially sustainable (and hasn't been for some time).

Management seeking higher compensation and bonuses for themselves at the expense of workers is nothing new, and of course that doesn't make it right.
It's clear you just don't respect the job of delivering things, which is understandable as it doesn't really take any particularly special set of skills.

[westopher]

It's not really necessarily supposed to be financially sustainable though. It's a necessary piece of a functioning society. It's like roads and schools. They don't, at the end of the day create revenue that sustains them, however, the impacts of having them exist allows revenue to be created elsewhere.
The perfect example is the revenue lost by small business as the result of this strike. When the $80 of your taxes goes to a service that allows thousands of dollars to move in the local economy, per that $80, that's an investment into an essential service.

[Traum]

Swifties are weird, they'll clog up everything vaguely near the concerts just to be near it if they didn't get a ticket. Whatever the capacity of the venue is there's probably going to be double that in the surrounding area.
I am not a Swiftie myself, and I don't find her music all that engaging. But I am very happy to see Vancouver hosting celebrities and concerts like the Eras tour instead of BS World Cups / Olympics because these celebrity concerts don't receive public funding, and actually generate a ton of revenue for our cities instead of having questionable economic benefits.

Can we have Ed Sheeran next?

[Badhobz]

just don't invite those Korean BTS fags here... my friend's wife will cream her pants so much she'll crash her stupid LCI e90 again.

[BIC_BAWS]

There literally have been studies that show people that celebrity worship are less intelligent.
Don't get me wrong, I love live music and there are plenty of bands and musicians I'd be excited to meet, but your not gonna catch me sobbing and spending the last $300 in my bank account on a tour sweatshirt I waited 6 hours to buy.

I guess I'm a genius. For the life of me I cannot recognize any artists/celebs names or faces. Don't ask me what the song title is, artist name, or actor. Idk. I have no clue and I don't care. Usher showed up on my Spotify wrapped and I had to ask who is this black guy talking.

Tho this makes me socially retarded cause it's a huge point for everyone else.

[underscore]

I am not a Swiftie myself, and I don't find her music all that engaging. But I am very happy to see Vancouver hosting celebrities and concerts like the Eras tour instead of BS World Cups / Olympics because these celebrity concerts don't receive public funding, and actually generate a ton of revenue for our cities instead of having questionable economic benefits.

Can we have Ed Sheeran next?

I don't really care one way or the other if they want to have these concerts but when I've gotten multiple emails from companies offering ticket giveaways, social media full of Spotify wrapped screenshots of nothing but her meh music and being mentioned all over the place for months I'm kinda sick of this one.

[Mikoyan]

just don't invite those Korean BTS fags here... my friend's wife will cream her pants so much she'll crash her stupid LCI e90 again.

Spotted last month.
https://i.imgur.com/6CFjo2R.png

[mikemhg]

Jeez what's up with some of the poopooing on Canada Post? I support these guys, why do we want this race to the bottom?

I see so many posts on this forum complaining about TFWs and all the Indian immigrants, would you want these same guys working poverty wages to deliver all your mail? I don't want the likes of Amazon running our entire delivery infrastructure.

My local posty is an Asian dude, really nice guy, he always makes sure to buzz me specifically to come down and grab my packages when he comes through so I avoid the bloody post-note where I have to go grab it from the facility. We have a quick chat, and it's nice seeing the same face as opposed to the random Amazon delivery guy.

I want that guy to be paid fairly, and I think he deserves his job, some of us have become conditioned to be bloody boot lickers nowadays.

[Badhobz]

stop holding him up Mikey!!! fuck he's got an underpaid job to do, last thing he needs is to talk to you about working out and rap songs.

whats wrong with Manjeet throwing amazon packages at your house while talking loudly on his Bluetooth headset?

I'm like THANKS BUDDY GUY!!!

[tegra7]

It's not going to just be people going to the concert. I'm sure some people are coming over just to be around the fuckshow that it's going to be.
OMG I WENT TO TAY TAY AFTER PARTY AT LIBRARY SWUARE SO CRAZY

News 1130 interviewed some people who flew down here with no concert tickets that just want to be around while TS is in town. :heckno:

Edit:

https://i.ibb.co/9cd47kc/IMG-1361.jpg (https://ibb.co/jbjwSPb)

I hope the border isnt too congested. I have a package to pick up.

[bobbinka]

https://i.imgflip.com/9cwqpt.jpg

[Hondaracer]

I’ll always be in the pay more camp.

That doesn’t mean I’m some govt. knob who wants to keep paying more and more taxes on a bloated, pathetically managed system though.

Ie. I pay more taxes for city utilities and services and fast forward, they don’t even pickup my leaves or sweep my street. Fuck that.

[Traum]

I agree with the pay more, fewer TFW option too. That's how normal market forces should work. The TFW option that large corporations are using is really a loophole that should have been clamped down on by the federal gov. I dunno why they didn't do that -- perhaps more of those stupid lobby groups hired by the big firms helping to screw the average citizen over?

[Vancouver240sx]

On the Purolator website:

"Purolator's revenue for 2023 was $2.7 billion"

Also from their website:

"Purolator is a Canadian courier that is owned by Canada Post (91%), Rainmaker Investments Ltd. (7%) and others (2%)."

So when Canada post says:

"For 2023, the Corporation recorded a loss before tax of $748 million"

Perhaps there is some creative accounting going on and some media manipulation to influence the public that cheaper workers are warranted for CP.

Rich

[Eff-1]

Watch this video on Canada Post before debating. It clears up a few misconceptions about the strike.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwrxayQjq3o

[Hondaracer]

lol that video is literally EXACTLY what I’ve been saying for the last two pages.

This is akin to Ubers and Taxis, albeit Taxis aren’t a crown corp. but in the same breathe, unions can’t sit around waiting for a FOR PROFIT company to award them a wage increase that will in turn be the death of the workplace lol.. it’s not too hard to see when all those fiscal reports are laying there for everyone to see.

Tbh is sounds like, in typical fashion, the union is delusional to the reality of the situation.

[Great68]

Of all weekends, why would you choose this weekend to visit? Did it have to be this weekend? I've never heard of walk ons being fully booked!

Why the hell are Islanders coming to mainland for Swift ... surely, not all of them have tickets to the concert !!

Since my parents are on the mainland, and my wife's mom is here on the island we alternate Christmas every year. This year is an Island Christmas. But my mom still wanted to have a weekend with a family dinner/get together, and this was the weekend that she chose that worked for all of us. It was planned a month ago. Had no idea it was Taylor swift weekend at the time... None of us are up on the pop culture news, I don't pay attention to this shit I literally didn't know about this concert until like a week ago lol

[CivicBlues]

It's not even pop culture news, it's all over mainstream news. All the major networks have been reporting on this for weeks now, even months ago when she was in Toronto.

Look at dropping a few hundy on a Harbour Air flight would be my advice.

[Great68]

I guess I live under a rock. If it was on the news I care about Taylor Swift so little my brain tuned it out.

It's all good, we got a reso for the 9:00pm. Will hit the Stonehouse pub for dinner before hand.

[Traum]

The About That video is pretty much siding with my original suggestion that the union is being unrealistic with their demands. As far as I can see, since mail volume is down, while parcel volume is up, the natural course of action is to cutback staff / frequency of mail delivery, and shift those staff hours to work on parcel delivery instead. Because if you don't do this, the whole CP ship is going to sink -- CP is gonna run out of money to operate.

One major obstacle here seems to be the requirement to give overtime pay to full time staff for working on the weekend. IMO, the most sensible solution is to change that requirement into having an OT pay structure that is far more common -- exceed your 40 hour work week, and then you start paying overtime. If you combine that with a reduction in mail delivery frequency (during the week), existing CP staff can keep their FT jobs, and there is no need / a much smaller need to hire PT workers to cover the weekend (Saturday) shifts.

I am against CP going into Sunday deliveries.

Any business facing a changing business operating environment would have to adapt if they want to survive. In this case, I feel like the union is the one unwilling to adapt.

[68style]

In your friend's case, if the job is awful and the renumeration isn't enough to cover mileage and the expenses incurred, nobody should have taken the job. When CP couldn't find anyone willing to do the work, they'd have to up the salary / renumeration package to make it more desirable. That is literally how the job market is supposed to work. Same thing applies to your claim that $32.50/hr wage is too low for Metro Vancouver or Toronto -- when it is indeed too low, people should quit the job and seek better opportunities. When the employer realizes that people are not willing to do the job bcos of the low wage, they have to up the salary (or make up some fake job requirements and hire TFW).


My friend used it as temporary employment until his teaching credentials from HK could be transferred over and he's now a public school teacher.

I was simply highlighting to you that it's not the gravy train you purported it to be when you're outside of anywhere resembling a population centre (not that it is inside any either). And skill wise, nor should it be.

You brought up me being in the feds, the pension argument is tiresome to be honest. You have to do 25 years for it to be worth anything man. 25 years. You think it's worth it to be a postal worker for 25 years to get a $30k a year pension (which is what you'd get at postal worker pay) that's kinda weird. Again, far from a gravy train.

[Tapioca]

My dad was a letter carrier for almost 30 years. It was a good job back in the 80s and 90s for someone like my dad with no hard skills and a high school education. It kept him in shape. It was a respected job in a different time.

He's living a dignified retirement with a defined benefit pension.

But, the business model has changed and mail service no longer serves our society in the way that it did a generation ago. It needs to exist to serve the 5-10% in Canada who need it, but the union has to be realistic and understand what the business is today.

[Hondaracer]

It’s sad that society has evolved to this point where professions like that are now viewed as inferior. Growing up I knew so many friends parents etc. that had more blue collar jobs like mechanics, letter carriers, carpenters etc. and never thought twice of it being inferior to a guy who puts a suit on and a briefcase.

Now the majority of society looks at a bus driver or a carpenter as some loser dirt ball, albeit most of those roles probably make as much if not more of the shitty low end “white collar” jobs

[Traum]

I'm familiar with the public sector pension. 2 years of work to become vetted -- I think that's the term. Then 2% per year of your salary added to the annual pension calculation, with "salary" being calculated as the top 5 earning years before retirement, with the maximum pension benefits being 70% of the calculated "salary". (First responders receive 3% per year.) And for someone with a spouse, the spouse is entitled to at least a 60% of the pension payments after the primary pensioner dies, unless the spouse explicitly opts out.

Whether it is a gravy train or not depends on the job, and how long you have been working in a position entitled to receive the pension. Naturally, it caters to someone who stays working in the public sector. For most people, I'd imagine it being something that ranges from their primary retired income to a useful supplement.

[Traum]

Why would I (or anyone sensible, for that matter) view blue collar / hands-on job as inferior? Salary differences don't make a job -- and definitely not the person -- inferior. It just requires different skill sets to do.
It’s sad that society has evolved to this point where professions like that are now viewed as inferior. Growing up I knew so many friends parents etc. that had more blue collar jobs like mechanics, letter carriers, carpenters etc. and never thought twice of it being inferior to a guy who puts a suit on and a briefcase.

Now the majority of society looks at a bus driver or a carpenter as some loser dirt ball, albeit most of those roles probably make as much if not more of the shitty low end “white collar” jobs

[Hondaracer]

You don’t think society does?

I was raised never thinking otherwise and even I find myself thinking that way sometimes.

I think even kids from “poor” families and young people with very little prospects in life see these as low end inferior employment that is below them

[westopher]

Literally the opposite has happened. People push kids into trades instead of accounting degrees, more co-op trades programs exist in high schools than ever before and 20 years ago when most of us were graduating we were told that if you don't go to university you will die from lack of success.
What is this bizarro world you are living in haha.

[Tapioca]

I don't think society views people who wear suits as superior these days. I wear sport jackets and button up shirts and it's not like people give me any more respect these days when I wear the corporate uniform.

It's a combination of blue collar people, contrarians and people who sound smart, like Joe Rogan, and Pantagonia wearing tech bros that have the power these days.

[Hondaracer]

Literally the opposite has happened. People push kids into trades instead of accounting degrees, more co-op trades programs exist in high schools than ever before and 20 years ago when most of us were graduating we were told that if you don't go to university you will die from lack of success.
What is this bizarro world you are living in haha.

I legit do not know a single person under 20 who wants to touch a trade outside of being forced into it unwillingly.

All of my wife’s cousins kids who are now 14-18 don’t want to work period and they all HATE their menial part time jobs. Even some of the older ones in mid-20’s etc. who are smart enough to be into finance and engineering are grasping onto dieing dreams of playing professional sports into their 30’s VS joining the workforce.

Even in the way younger kids say below 25 treat people in retail and restaurants, I’ve very rarely seen anyone treat people with respect lol

Look at the discussions we have here. It’s always somewhat tongue in cheek about sub 80k jobs you’re not going anywhere in life, but the younger generation can’t even dream about making 80k lol..

[MarkyMark]

With the way AI is going I'd be telling any kid to go get a trade as a career. Until they start building Terminator type robots that can climb over obstacles and repair things your job is as safe as it gets.

Whether the next generation actually wants to do this type of work is a different story.

[westopher]

The thing about younger kids is none of them want to work, and I'm not saying that in the boomer way like they are lazy, I'm saying that in the way that they are smart enough to know, if they aren't famous, or born rich, they are fucked in every career path regardless.
It's not apathy towards trades, it's apathy towards employed poverty.
Also, I'm not sure how "society" turned into the like 4 kids you'd know under 25 lol.
Those 18 year old kids and like "fuck trades I wanna work an office job" they are probably just like "fuck my life we're fucked"

[Hondaracer]

Well yea kinda one and the same no?

I’m more of a white collar myself these days but I go to a lot of construction sites and outside of the buddy guys, you almost never see kids there anymore. I remember when I first started working in construction there’d be 3-4 high school kids working part time or fresh out of school, can’t remember the last time I saw anyone under 30 on site

[Tapioca]

Being an influencer and content creator pays, while being on a construction site doesn't.

[westopher]

Well yea kinda one and the same no?

I’m more of a white collar myself these days but I go to a lot of construction sites and outside of the buddy guys, you almost never see kids there anymore. I remember when I first started working in construction there’d be 3-4 high school kids working part time or fresh out of school, can’t remember the last time I saw anyone under 30 on site

I mean, that's not the same as society looking down on trades though.
I think the most shit talk I've seen about trades workers on here has been you talking about buddy guy builders haha. But I totally get that's warranted and from a pride of work perspective.

[RabidRat]

You don’t think society does?

I was raised never thinking otherwise and even I find myself thinking that way sometimes.

I think even kids from “poor” families and young people with very little prospects in life see these as low end inferior employment that is below them

I can't claim to know what people think outside of my social and professional circles, but no, not in my experience.

I think I was too sheltered growing up to realize there was any particular dividing line between jobs.

I was taught that jobs are ranked entirely by pay, and the level of job you get simply depends on how hard you work at school. Then at the end, you get what you get. But if you were lazy, you're on the streets: all those homeless people? simply didn't study hard enough. That B on your report card? Eat shit, you're gonna die at the curb.

So I've been indoctrinated with two principles:
1) Your success is determined by how hard you worked to earn it.
2) The job title itself is meaningless. It's what it pays.

Having grown up since, I've only really just added to #2: it's how much a sense of meaning, purpose, and personal challenge you derive from it.

My friends and family tend pretty heavily towards #2. Honestly they don't give a shit how you got there, it's that you got there. Are you making enough (do you have enough to eat?), and are you enjoying it (how are your days going by, are you happy)? Why would anything else matter?

---

Couple of other anecdotes:

I've had lots of genuine conversations with my tech coworkers out in the SF Bay Area, about how contractors are making a killing doing renovations & repair work, and maybe we should be getting into it because it seems like enjoyable rewarding work: results you can see with your eyes, and by your hands. While also paying the bills.

A good friend's dad was a carpenter and the only thing I ever thought about that was that it seemed so godly that someone could be so good crafting shit with their hands they could actually make money from it. I guess I thought of their job in an artisanal capacity.

To be completely honest though, I think with where AI is headed, we're only 1-2 generations away from hand / creative work being the only worthwhile thing left for a human being to do (both in terms of pay and purpose). I can't see how the technical details of my work in electrical design wouldn't be better and more consistently executed by algorithms. The only residual value I bring, if at all, is in the storytelling: linking our technical options to stories of forecasted customer experience (which is often pretty rooted in emotion, which is maybe just a little too abstract for machines to grok, for now).

[supafamous]

Literally the opposite has happened. People push kids into trades instead of accounting degrees, more co-op trades programs exist in high schools than ever before and 20 years ago when most of us were graduating we were told that if you don't go to university you will die from lack of success.
What is this bizarro world you are living in haha.

It feels like there are more options than ever before for young people - when I went to SFU in the mid-late 90s it sure felt like you had to get into business school or you were gonna end up being nothing (I didn't get in). Computer Science was for the super nerds - those guys (and they were almost all guys) were social outcasts and you couldn't get rich writing code. A few folks stumbled into stuff like Kinesiology or Communications and found careers there.

Universities (and colleges) were stuck in a rigid model where trades weren't a real track of work (BCIT was looked down upon, Kwantlen was considered a place for people who couldn't cut it).

Now it feels like there are so many different tracks of work that lead to pretty solid careers if you want to do post secondary. The challenge is that if you don't go to post secondary the options are pretty terrible - the gap between the haves and have nots has never been bigger.

[noclue]

Office work has health problems sitting all day but trades is worse on your body. You need to either be a foreman or a business owner by 40 otherwise the physical toll on your body + all the fun industrial fumes you inhale wont lead to a long life

[GS8]

all these fangirls/fanboys are weird. what kind of a retard idolizes another retard???

i don't even like jebus. fuck him and the cross he's hanging on.

The conspiracy theorist in me think it's a psyop to corral the retards in society to a giant mental playpen which keeps them distracted for almost 2 years while social and economic rights wither away. But at least you're listening to the 27th song about choosing the wrong guy!

----------

Confirmed on the radio by the people being interviewed:

Reporter: Why did you come here all the way from South Dakota?

Mom: I don't know!.....but also to bring my daughter to this exciting atmosphere

Reporter: What do you love most about Taylor Swift

Mom: She's just like me


https://media.tenor.com/4mdfMI0daCEAAAAM/jen-ok.gif

[underscore]

I can't see how the technical details of my work in electrical design wouldn't be better and more consistently executed by algorithms.

It'll still need someone like you entering the variables correctly and verifying the output is correct. I don't know the specifics of your job but I've never met a PM or customer who would have much hope of doing something like that themselves.

[6793026]

I legit do not know a single person under 20 who wants to touch a trade outside of being forced into it unwillingly.

All of my wife’s cousins kids who are now 14-18 don’t want to work period and they all HATE their menial part time jobs. Even some of the older ones in mid-20’s etc. who are smart enough to be into finance and engineering are grasping onto dieing dreams of playing professional sports into their 30’s VS joining the workforce.

Even in the way younger kids say below 25 treat people in retail and restaurants, I’ve very rarely seen anyone treat people with respect lol

Look at the discussions we have here. It’s always somewhat tongue in cheek about sub 80k jobs you’re not going anywhere in life, but the younger generation can’t even dream about making 80k lol..

I'm bias.
I never wanted to be in trades cause I'm asian and was taught + told trades are shit.
Told I'm asian fail if i don't go to college.

Then I see these group of guys who were jocks and super good with tools and they all became mechanics. Cars, airplane, helicopters etc.

I'm NOT in that group cause I was never in touch with trades. Asian were never the type where - oh my dad was a construction site manager, my dad was a builder.

I feel I'm bias and I'm blinded by my own culture.

When I was 14-18... yes I never wanted to walk at ALDO and touch people's feet, but it paid hte bills... I never wanted to work retail but dang that 200 check working $8/hr was good. It's all part of mentality.

DO I agree yeah people are lazier now.. sure. DO I feel KOL make a lot of money.. sure... at generation had their own thing.

[Badhobz]

Enjoy your lives while you still can fellow geezers! i can't imagine how inept gen alpha/beta will be at wiping our ass when we are 80. Hopefully, the robo-nurses will be invented before then

[Dbone]

*Sexy Robo-nurse.

[BIC_BAWS]

So some people on social media are saying that CoV shipped out all of the homeless people cause of the Swift concert lol. Streets are clean, homeless people are scarce, they haven't seen the streets this nice since 2010 lol.. oh wait.

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

[Hondaracer]

Yea they couldn’t let buddy with no legs be wheeling around in the vicinity of a billionaire

[westopher]

I hear Victoria is nice this time of year

[68style]

I'm familiar with the public sector pension. 2 years of work to become vetted -- I think that's the term. Then 2% per year of your salary added to the annual pension calculation, with "salary" being calculated as the top 5 earning years before retirement, with the maximum pension benefits being 70% of the calculated "salary". (First responders receive 3% per year.) And for someone with a spouse, the spouse is entitled to at least a 60% of the pension payments after the primary pensioner dies, unless the spouse explicitly opts out.

Whether it is a gravy train or not depends on the job, and how long you have been working in a position entitled to receive the pension. Naturally, it caters to someone who stays working in the public sector. For most people, I'd imagine it being something that ranges from their primary retired income to a useful supplement.

You have some of the basic numbers right, but your assumption that it's a steady 2% a year climb is wrong, it's much more complicated than that.

To max out at 70% you need to do 30 years.

If you leave any earlier than that, there are harsh penalties. For example, for me, I never wanted to do 30 years so I made e decision that I'm only going to do 25... My amount drops down to approximately 50% due to penalties of not doing those last 5 years unless i forego the pension entirely until a later date. It's extremely complicated, but there are some calculators finally available online.

Long story short it's not as simple or great as you might think... 25-30 years of your life is a fuck tonne of time.

[Hondaracer]

Yea but then you have guaranteed income for life without ever having to think about it. A perk most people could not dream of (I also have a defined benefit pension but I’ll never reach full service)

[RevYouUp]

A lot of the new gen is fucked, my cousin graduated high school this year and he's not going to post secondary or working. All he does is play on his iPad, he also still has his iPad in front of him when he's at family dinners like a 5 year old. I guess bad parenting contributes to it, but he gives no fucks it's super messed up.

Although, I can also say that the new generation is smart as well, a rare few use technology and readily available information to their advantage.

[Traum]

Long story short it's not as simple or great as you might think... 25-30 years of your life is a fuck tonne of time.
You are absolutely correct that 20 - 30 years of someone's working life is a long time -- it could practically be someone's entire working career. But if we backtrack a bit to how the defined pension got mentioned in the context of the CP workers, it is that the pension is there to offset what some might deem to be a lower salary.

I would say that for most people seeking / working in a public sector staff position where the job offers a defined benefit pension, career aspirations are probably secondary to job stability. For someone seeking job stability before career aspirations, spending the majority of his working career with the same company is not that far-fetch of an idea. And even if the person changes job, the pension is generally directly transferrable to other public sector positions, so you just carry on with the contribution (and the already contributed amount). That sort of limits someone from looking for private sector positions, but I would simply chalk that up to any number of tradeoffs that people would find themselves in with any job.

So all of my babbling really comes back to this -- the defined benefits pension is a very nice piece of financial asset -- one that every CP regular staff is entitled to. The longer someone has been working there (or at any other public sector position), the better it becomes. In this day and age, very few workers have something like that.

In your case, you're consciously making the decision that being able to retire earlier and begin collecting your pension despite the early collection deductions is worth more than having to work through the final 5 years to avoid the early retirement/collection deductions. You should be proud that you're in the position to be able to make a conscious choice like that!

[68style]

When did I say I'm not?

And I'm not in that position because my government salary was great... I spent most of my time underpaid but if I'm being honest I lack the education to get a tech industry job and I'm not a salesperson. I did what I could to survive and with dual incomes and condo life and no kids was able to do financially better than most people + due to timing/age I was able to buy my real estate during a time when it was less than half the cost of what it is now.

The only reason I can consider this option is because of some inheritence through death in the family. Nothing about my government job or the pension would have allowed me to make such a decision without that windfall. I'll still have to work too, the pension isn't enough to live on when I eventually do get it in 4.5 years, I'm just done with working for the friggin government and 5 more years trying to max that shit out on top of the 4.5 I have left (total of 9.5 years) at that place isn't worth my sanity.

I don't know why you keep saying every CP staff is entitled to it, they're not. That's not how it works. You have to put in a minimum of 20 years to get ANYTHING tangible back. And besides that, what good is pension if your salary at the job isn't enough to survive on to get there? It might as well not exist. That may be the case for CP to be honest, as we already established being a postal worker is not a particularly skilled job so maybe there shouldn't be. That's what it may come down to, it USED to be a big bonus of the job but now I don't even think it's something to consider because you can't survive long enough to get there, it's an unattainable goal. In my opinion, going forward a number of years, I think that part of the job will actually disappear for CP and their workforce will just be made up of TFW type people or replaced by automation of some sort. Same with things like bus drivers and a variety of other previously reasonable ways to live/build a family with.

[MG1]

37+ years at one job. 27 years in another (part time). Retired because of my wife's condition back then (she passed away 9 years ago). I loved the job. Wanted to be there forever. It was very rewarding and satisfying. Made a difference in many a people's lives. It was hard to leave.................... I can go back, but that means cutting down on RS time, (damn, that was hard to post without cracking up).

Oh yeah, got my full pension. Not ever going to be rich, but I'm richer in other ways almost as important. Stopped being greedy. I have great kids who'll look after me when needed. Stuff money can't buy. Nuff said.

[bobbinka]

Here's what i'd like to see them do:

Make residential parcel/package deliveries (not letter mail) default to Post Office locations and charge extra for door-to-door delivery. People who want to pay for the convenience will gladly do so and people who don't mind picking up at the Post Office will just make it part of their weekly routines. CP makes extra money from the prices and saves money/resources on bundling large quantities of package deliveries to Post Office locations. This would also shorten the time Letter Carriers take to finish their route (meaning more opportunities for overtime if they choose). CP would need to extend operating hours of Post Office locations and staff people into the evening to handle the increased volume or pick-ups, but they could also implement late fees for people that don't pick up their packages within X days.

CP would be happy from additional revenue and lower costs. Union would be happy because nobody's losing jobs and increased opportunities to do overtime. Residents would have mixed reactions, but I think overall will be neutral.

[68style]

CP doesn't own all the Shoppers Drug Mart locations nor are the people who work there CP employees. That could complicate things or simplify them depending on how it was rolled out I guess.

[Traum]

We really ought to get the CP arbitrator to come join us at RS and follow this thread.

[Badhobz]

https://globalnews.ca/news/10907828/vancouver-international-airport-jet-fuel-workers-strike-notice/

Vancouver International Airport jet fuel workers issue strike notice

of course, as they are a part of the ILWU, this isn't going to end well. Jesus Christ, plz add more disruptions to our already battered gateway.

Nobody needs to move goods through Vancouver, lets all fuck off to the States where soon it'll be cheaper to move shit than Trump tarrif-fucked Vancouver.

[whitev70r]

Nobody needs to move goods through Vancouver, lets all fuck off to the States where soon it'll be cheaper to move shit than Trump tarrif-fucked Vancouver.

Effin Trump still talking about Canada being the 51st State on a recent NBC interview ... our politicians couched it as 'joke/kidding' when Trudeau went to Mar-a-Lago. I don't think he was.

[supafamous]

You have some of the basic numbers right, but your assumption that it's a steady 2% a year climb is wrong, it's much more complicated than that.

To max out at 70% you need to do 30 years.

If you leave any earlier than that, there are harsh penalties. For example, for me, I never wanted to do 30 years so I made e decision that I'm only going to do 25... My amount drops down to approximately 50% due to penalties of not doing those last 5 years unless i forego the pension entirely until a later date. It's extremely complicated, but there are some calculators finally available online.


Didn't realise there's effectively a "bonus" (or reverse penalty) to get to 30 years - my wife was planning to peace out earlier (23-25 years) so it'd line up roughly with my retirement. I'll have to revisit our calculations for retirement if there's a sizeable upside for her. Thanks for pointing this out.

[pastarocket]

The downfall of the Assad regime in Syria.

The leader of Syria's Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. He's the rebel leader who brought down the dictator Assad.



https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/09/middleeast/timeline-syria-assad-regime-toppled-intl/index.html

I must say that these many of these Middle Eastern dictators have quite the car collection haha. I wonder who had better cars, Assad or Saddam Hussein's sons haha.

https://news.sky.com/story/rebels-storming-assads-palace-find-luxury-car-collection-including-rare-ferrari-worth-3m-13270382

The most interesting cars:

Three Ferrari's including an F50 and the F430 Spyder.
Aston Martin Rapide
Mercedes SLS AMG
Lamborghini Diablo

[Dbone]

Assad is probably just happy he didn't get the Gaddafi treatment, though he probably more than earned it.

[Traum]

Didn't realise there's effectively a "bonus" (or reverse penalty) to get to 30 years - my wife was planning to peace out earlier (23-25 years) so it'd line up roughly with my retirement. I'll have to revisit our calculations for retirement if there's a sizeable upside for her. Thanks for pointing this out.
People are eligible to retire and begin collecting their pension payments starting at 55, but your monthly pension payout is reduced -- basically bcos you start collecting money earlier. The later a person begins collecting pension, the amount of reduction you are hit with decreases each year. If someone begins to collect their pension at 60 or older, then there is no reduction in the pension payments.

It is very important to note that if someone starts collecting pension before 60, they are stuck with the reduced amount for life. ie. If a person would have received $1000/month of pension if he retires at 60, and he chooses to retire at 55, his monthly pension payout might be $700/month, and he will be collecting that $700/month for the rest of his life. It does not increase each year, and it does not go back to $1000/month when he reaches 60 years old.

(Also bear in mind that we are being scientific with the analysis here, so only a single variable -- the age when you start collecting pension -- is considered in the analysis. In a "normal" situation, if a person retires at 60 instead of 55, he would also have accrued an additional 5 years of service, and that adds an extra 10% of pension contribution to his pension, and that increases the pension payout as well.)

From looking at the numbers, it seems to me that the public sector defined benefits pension plan is really meant to entice people to retire at 60 because that is the age when you can "get the most pension bucks" out of the plan. For each year that you retire earlier (or later) than 60, the deduction or increase in monthly payment trails off. That is to say, retiring at 55 gets you a bigger deduction on the monthly payment. But retiring at 59 only gets you a fairly small deduction. Conversely, retiring at 61 nets you a certain amount of higher payment. But retiring at 62 nets you a smaller increase compared to retiring at 61.

Obviously each person's situation is different, and the "optimal" plan depends on how long the person will live. Unfortunately, we don't have a crystal ball to know when we'll die... :failed:

[Hondaracer]

All of that is under the assumption that you’ve put in the full years of service as well though.

We have a good calculator built into our payroll system that you can see exactly what you’d get if you retire at X age based on your current term of service. I plugged mine into it and under the assumption I’d make the same or similar I am now, the difference between 55 and 60 is huge for me because I’ve only been in this pension for 2 years.

I’ve always lived under the assumption I won’t be relying on a pension however so my investments largely Trump my pension at this point. So hopefully at 55 I can take the reduced pension and it will just be in addition to my own retirement plannning.

Honestly these days if you’re under 30 and relying on a pension for retirement, to be blunt, you’re probably a loser.

[SSM_DC5]

We're in the clear guys! 99.9% of us is over 30 so we ain't losers.

Trying to convince people to to work to 60 or 65 or even 70 seems like a bit of a scam. Get you to work so hard until you're so old, what are you going to do with that extra money when you're pretty much dead and stuck at home due to health issues. Retire earlier and go travel while you're mobile.

[whitev70r]

C'mon man, you're not dead and stuck at home in your 60's or 65 ... !!!

[donk.]

Working till 60 or 65 (or older) is probably normal in 70-80% of the world

First world countries, and especially tier A cities (vancouver) are extremely spoiled for retiring "early" and all the benefits we get at the cost of third world countries/people

[CivicBlues]

Most aren't but many are. Then again waiting to travel as a senior really isn't the same thing:

I mean:

https://www.contiki.com/media/51gaxzci/group-of-contiki-travelers-on-rooftop-dubrovnik-croatia-1819eurs2019b.jpg

vs.

https://busratesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/maxresdefault.jpg

[donk.]

Anyone else hope they are dead before they reach the bottom pic of CivicBlues, or is it just me lol

[CivicBlues]

So they arrested the alleged shooter of the Health Insurance CEO:

https://globalnews.ca/news/10908712/unitedhealthcare-ceo-killing-man-questioned/

Guy was like Agent 47 during the act but was caught at a McDonalds in Altoona,PA with a bunch of fake IDs like a n00b

The McDonalds is then flooded with 1-star reviews:
https://thehardtimes.net/music/altoona-mcdonalds-1-star-reviews-shift-from-complaints-about-food-to-complaints-about-employees-being-class-traitors/

:lol

[CivicBlues]

Anyone else hope they are dead before they reach the bottom pic of CivicBlues, or is it just me lol

Nah, The hope is your investment in experiences as a traveller in your younger years will spur you to become this guy instead:
https://cbx-prod.b-cdn.net/COLOURBOX64723153.jpg?width=800&height=800&quality=70

*your skin colour may vary.

[westopher]

So they arrested the alleged shooter of the Health Insurance CEO:

https://globalnews.ca/news/10908712/unitedhealthcare-ceo-killing-man-questioned/

Guy was like Agent 47 during the act but was caught at a McDonalds in Altoona,PA with a bunch of fake IDs like a n00b

The McDonalds is then flooded with 1-star reviews:
https://thehardtimes.net/music/altoona-mcdonalds-1-star-reviews-shift-from-complaints-about-food-to-complaints-about-employees-being-class-traitors/

:lol
Fuckin narc piece of shit at McDonald's.
This guy did more for the American people than all the politicians in the last 8 years combined.

[Hondaracer]

Got a free Big Mac for his heroics

[CivicBlues]

reward was like $50K, probably life changing for that McDicks employee.

[SkinnyPupp]

reward was like $50K, probably life changing for that McDicks employee.
They'll need it if they get sick for when their coverage is denied by insurance

Actually they'll need 3 or 4 times that, but it'll help a bit.

[westopher]

reward was like $50K, probably life changing for that McDicks employee.
Ha, I'm sure they won't be seeing that based on a technicality.

[CivicBlues]

That McDs employee better hope to hell he's not going to get doxxed. The internet's gonna destroy him.

[Manic!]

The reward is taxed.

Rewards for finding a criminal in the U.S. are generally taxable. The IRS considers such rewards as taxable income because they are payments received in exchange for services rendered, even if informally.

[GS8]

Luigi did it for Mario...

...who's insurance claim approval was in another castle...

[roastpuff]

Seems a little too convenient that he got caught with a silenced gun, a ton of cash, and a manifesto on his body.

[Qmx323]

Brian Thompson may simply have been move #1 in his ultimate plans, I can't imagine a single hit needing a 262 page manifesto.

This is an odd situation all around. Came from a super wealthy, well known, well connected family.

Ivy League kid, could've been a multimillionaire by his own accord due to his intelligence/connections/social circles, but also had a DESTROYED back from high school wrestling.

According to this NY Times article (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/nyregion/united-healthcare-ceo-shooting-luigi-mangione.html), dude had a vertebrae in his spine that was off alignment by nearly half an inch, and took NO medication.

But Mr. Mangione was suffering from painful back issues, he said. “His spine was kind of misaligned,” he said. “He said his lower vertebrae were almost like a half-inch off, and I think it pinched a nerve.”

Mr. Mangione did not make a habit of complaining, and did not seem to be on any type of painkilling medication, Mr. Martin said.

Still, Mr. Martin said, he and others in the community came to understand that the pain was no small matter to a young man yearning for a normal lifestyle. “He knew that dating and being physically intimate with his back condition wasn’t possible,” Mr. Martin said. “I remember him telling me that, and my heart just breaks.”

It's just weird, fucking weird all around, internalizing all his pain, both physical and mentally, until he snapped, I guess?

[Badhobz]

wait wait wait, hes shot a CEO dude cuz his back was hurting and he couldnt fuck a bitch?

these kids nowadays are baller as fuck.

If my back was hurting and i couldnt fuck a bitch id just jerk off and go to bed.

[westopher]

wait wait wait, hes shot a CEO dude cuz his back was hurting and he couldnt fuck a bitch?

these kids nowadays are baller as fuck.

If my back was hurting and i couldnt fuck a bitch id just jerk off and go to bed.

That's why Luigi is king.
There has never been a more justifiable string of copycats I hope come up.

[pastarocket]

This Luigi guy must have had access to really good healthcare given his family's wealth and connections to professionals and other people of status.

He could not find a chiropractor to treat the mis-alignment of his vertebrae?
:suspicious:

-shoots a healthcare CEO in order to cope with the pain in his back??
Luigi thought that the CEO was Bowser?

[Badhobz]

2024:

You murder somebody, everyone's like FUCK YAH!!!! AWESOME! hes a hero

if i was jebus id fucking peace out of this timeline already and try my hand at another one.

[Traum]

I've worked with people with badly fxxked up backs / vertaebrae in the past, and they all tell me life is generally pretty miserable on most days. It is rare that you are not in at least some degree of pain at any given time. If you're perked up on Percocet to dull the pain, the world feels kind of woozy to you, so it still doesn't feel good. But if you're not on meds, you're in pain, and there would be days when the pain is so bad that nothing helps, and you are just completely debilitated. One guy told me the only time when he is not in pain is when he is receiving some sort of zero gravity treatment. Otherwise, he was always in some sort of pain.

I dunno how much pain this Luigi fellow is dealing with, but generally when we are young, our pain threshold / tolerence is higher.

[Badhobz]

yah but if youre in pain everyday you want to blow yourself away, not some rando CEO.

How does shooting CEO guy in the back, fix your back? seems like pointless misdirected rage. I mean its kinda cool he blew away big insurance, but also just creates anarchy in a society thats already completely fucked.

SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!

[Hondaracer]

The CEO sets the policies in terms of rejecting insurance claims etc. while you can say he is just the figurehead etc. he guides how a company like his sets their internal policies for claims

So if you do have any beef in terms of being rejected etc. he is a pretty good target.

[mikemhg]

There's something poetic about this guy being turned in by someone working at McDonald's, the literal bottom of the socio-economic scale.

Slaves eating the slaves.

[quasi]

I've worked with people with badly fxxked up backs / vertaebrae in the past, and they all tell me life is generally pretty miserable on most days. It is rare that you are not in at least some degree of pain at any given time. If you're perked up on Percocet to dull the pain, the world feels kind of woozy to you, so it still doesn't feel good. But if you're not on meds, you're in pain, and there would be days when the pain is so bad that nothing helps, and you are just completely debilitated. One guy told me the only time when he is not in pain is when he is receiving some sort of zero gravity treatment. Otherwise, he was always in some sort of pain.

I dunno how much pain this Luigi fellow is dealing with, but generally when we are young, our pain threshold / tolerence is higher.

When I had bad sciatic pain for 2 years well waiting for knee surgery I was totally fucked. I couldn't cook anymore without severe pain because I couldn't stand longer than a few minutes without severe pain, I couldn't stand at my sons sporting events I'd have to bring a chair, couldn't help coach it really fucked me. The only relief I'd get was from laying down and I tried everything, Physio, Chiro, Massage Therapy twice a week, acupuncture, acupressure, had varying degrees of relief during therapy but nothing was a long term solution.

I feel bad for people with severe back issues.

[westopher]

yah but if youre in pain everyday you want to blow yourself away, not some rando CEO.

How does shooting CEO guy in the back, fix your back? seems like pointless misdirected rage. I mean its kinda cool he blew away big insurance, but also just creates anarchy in a society thats already completely fucked.

SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!
This guy didn't do it to fix his problem. He did it to hold someone accountable on a macro scale because America won't.
This CEO fuckface is directly accountable for kids dying of cancer when they didn't need to be, people becoming addicted to painkillers when they didn't need to be, people going bankrupt to stay alive when they didn't need to.
Yes he deserved to die and I hope he burns in hell * Sam Jackson voice.
People profiting off of withholding health care from people who need it are guilty of torture and mass murder. Fuck them all.

[Hondaracer]

Companies like that are where your mom pays her premiums for 3 decades and then gets cancer and the second the claim goes in it’s rejected on a loophole and you die because you can’t afford treatment

[pastarocket]

This guy didn't do it to fix his problem. He did it to hold someone accountable on a macro scale because America won't.
This CEO fuckface is directly accountable for kids dying of cancer when they didn't need to be, people becoming addicted to painkillers when they didn't need to be, people going bankrupt to stay alive when they didn't need to.
Yes he deserved to die and I hope he burns in hell * Sam Jackson voice.
People profiting off of withholding health care from people who need it are guilty of torture and mass murder. Fuck them all.

100 percent. This Luigi guy took matters into his own hands and administered vigilante justice on that healthcare CEO.

Committing first degree murder against that CEO is Luigi's version of
"Eat the Rich." :gun:

[MG1]

Companies like that are where your mom pays her premiums for 3 decades and then gets cancer and the second the claim goes in it’s rejected on a loophole and you die because you can’t afford treatment

Speaking from experience, wife having had cancer, living here is pretty much the best thing. The amount of specialists and the care one gets here in BC is amazing. The support one gets and the places you can turn to for help and information. Second to none. Spent oodles of time taking the wife to all these places and speaking with others there who've lived in other places, we're in really good shape. Other areas in the health care system, not so much, but we're lucky to be here. Hopefully, it hasn't changed over the years.................

[underscore]

They'll need it if they get sick for when their coverage is denied by insurance

Actually they'll need 3 or 4 times that, but it'll help a bit.

Talking to people in the US that gets you about a day and a half of non-surgical hospital care.

[supafamous]

https://x.com/boneysoups/status/1866329787591249988

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GebgXcLXIAAvzyl?format=jpg&name=medium

[Hondaracer]

Speaking from experience, wife having had cancer, living here is pretty much the best thing. The amount of specialists and the care one gets here in BC is amazing. The support one gets and the places you can turn to for help and information. Second to none. Spent oodles of time taking the wife to all these places and speaking with others there who've lived in other places, we're in really good shape. Other areas in the health care system, not so much, but we're lucky to be here. Hopefully, it hasn't changed over the years.................

I’ve got nothing but good things to say about BC cancer agency in my own experience as well. Every single person that worked there was fantastic and do the best they can always. Seems to be a common theme with anyone who has dealt with them.

I think the problem we have here is with diagnosis and the timelines between diagnosis and treatment. Especially if you don’t have an advocate in a family doctor etc.

[quasi]

Speaking from experience, wife having had cancer, living here is pretty much the best thing. The amount of specialists and the care one gets here in BC is amazing. The support one gets and the places you can turn to for help and information. Second to none. Spent oodles of time taking the wife to all these places and speaking with others there who've lived in other places, we're in really good shape. Other areas in the health care system, not so much, but we're lucky to be here. Hopefully, it hasn't changed over the years.................

This is what I say to my American friends who ask me about our healthcare. I tell them if you have a life threatening emergency, heart attack or cancer the care is actually top tier good and yes mostly free sans medication if you don't have coverage.

Everything else though is pretty fucked, the knee example I gave above. In the US if you have insurance and tear your ACL you will have it scanned, see a surgeon and be in for surgery in less than two weeks. In Canada, you'll be lucky if you can get a doctor to send you for an MRI, once you finally do you'll be waiting 6-8 months for said MRI, they'll confirm tear and then get you an appointment to see a specialist. 9-12 months later you'll see said specialist, they'll confirm you need surgery and book a surgery 12 months later. It took me a year to convince my doctor to send me for an MRI, total time between shredding my ACL and meniscus until it was finally repaired 3.5 years.

Our system is good for some things and complete shit for other things.

[mikemhg]

The hospitals here in Texas a fucking nightmare.

You know how many patients have returned back to my gf's hospital (Methodist), due to infections as a result of surgery mistakes and lack of cleanliness protocols by nurses and doctors? Such issues are generally unheard of at VGH.

Combined with the fact that one guy owns half the hospitals here in San Antonio, and he's a cheap old bastard that cuts costs every avenue he can. Sinks in the halls for staff to wash hands? Naw. Proper supplies, hand sanitizers, etc., no out of stock. This can all happen because nothing is regulated.

In Canada the provincial health authority carries oversight and enacts minimums standards and best practices that the hospitals have to adhere by. We are lucky to have such a system in place, and as a result our standards a much higher, and are uniform.

Never let some stupid conservative minded Canadian try to convince you that adopting the American system would be beneficial or better.

[noclue]

The hospitals here in Texas a fucking nightmare.

You know how many patients have returned back to my gf's hospital (Methodist), due to infections as a result of surgery mistakes and lack of cleanliness protocols by nurses and doctors? Such issues are generally unheard of at VGH.

Combined with the fact that one guy owns half the hospitals here in San Antonio, and he's a cheap old bastard that cuts costs every avenue he can. Sinks in the halls for staff to wash hands? Naw. Proper supplies, hand sanitizers, etc., no out of stock. This can all happen because nothing is regulated.

In Canada the provincial health authority carries oversight and enacts minimums standards and best practices that the hospitals have to adhere by. We are lucky to have such a system in place, and as a result our standards a much higher, and are uniform.

Never let some stupid conservative minded Canadian try to convince you that adopting the American system would be beneficial or better.

Hmmm but to be fair, Your GF would have a different experience in a blue state hospital. Or the famous ones like johns hopkins/cleveland clinic/MD anderson/mayo clinic etc.

[Hondaracer]

Liberal AF health advocates from Sweden and Spain were on the radio as I said before and explained in depth how a mixed private/Public system thrives in both those countries.

Unions stop us from progressing forward on that front to the detriment of everyone.

[bcrdukes]

America :fuckyea:

[mikemhg]

Hmmm but to be fair, Your GF would have a different experience in a blue state hospital. Or the famous ones like johns hopkins/cleveland clinic/MD anderson/mayo clinic etc.

Sure you have some highly expensive fantastic hospitals that exist in America (few and far between, primary in places like MA).

But guess what, here's the kicker no one seems to understand in Canada when comparing to the American system, you can't just choose to go to a fancy hospital like Mayo Clinic.

Insurers decide which network of hospitals you can go to, and hospitals only accept certain insurers as providers, primarily due to denied claim issues. This means that just because you have insurance, doesn't mean you can just go to a "good" hospital.

The result? Most people have to visit a shitty hospital under the umbrella of "preferred" providers to receive care.

It's a fundamentally broken system.

[CivicBlues]

Boss of the guy who was shot doubles down:

https://qz.com/unitedhealth-group-ceo-andrew-witty-video-1851716738

Isn't worried cause he lives in the UK and they don't have as many guns there :speechless:

[supafamous]

https://carsandbids.com/auctions/9AyY7Gxe/2003-bmw-540i-touring

E39 540i wagon with a M5 engine swap.

[AstulzerRZD]

Sure you have some highly expensive fantastic hospitals that exist in America (few and far between, primary in places like MA).

But guess what, here's the kicker no one seems to understand in Canada when comparing to the American system, you can't just choose to go to a fancy hospital like Mayo Clinic.

Insurers decide which network of hospitals you can go to, and hospitals only accept certain insurers as providers, primarily due to denied claim issues. This means that just because you have insurance, doesn't mean you can just go to a "good" hospital.


Hospitals tend to be ok (Mount Sinai, UW Med, Mayo, etc all in network for me).
I'm out of network for my physical therapists, mental health practitioners, specialized eye doctors, etc that have smaller practices. In network ones succkckkkkkk

Your GF would have a different experience in a blue state hospital

Yeah imo care in big city and blue state is generally better.
Ppl don't talk enough about hidden cost/expense/decrease in quality of life from moving to Florida and Texas.
Insurances, property taxes, utilities, etc all up the wazoo

[BIC_BAWS]

Back to shipping updates...

My tires from Quattro (Quebec) are still stuck at the FedEx facility and is not currently in transit. The delivery date was yesterday, now anticipated to be next Friday at best LOL.

I can no longer schedule Purolator on any website - no notice whatsoever.

FedEx won't pick up anymore - drop off only.

UPS is not available on Freightcom/ClickShip.

This is like a similar level of fuckery during the floods. Extreme surcharges from all couriers...

Edit: So apparently you can still schedule Purolator and all the other couriers - directly. The couriers stopped taking shipments when booked through an intermediary. Apparently all the regular CP customers went to ShipTime, ClickShip, Freightcom, ChitChats, ShipNerd, etc. This sucks for work cause we've been using intermediaries since 2020...

[BIC_BAWS]

Ha, I'm sure they won't be seeing that based on a technicality.

YEP. Not getting the reward because "McSnitch (https://tribune.com.pk/story/2515321/luigi-mangiones-alleged-snitch-nancy-parker-faces-backlash)" called 9-1-1 instead of the tip reward line lmfao

That McDs employee better hope to hell he's not going to get doxxed. The internet's gonna destroy him.

She got doxxed. She had to leave her job AND she didn't get the 50K. Also that McDs franchise has a 1-star review now LUL

[westopher]

I kinda feel bad for the person, because they were just poor and too dumb to realize that the system will do everything to make sure it stays that way. But snitches do get stitches on the other hand.

[pastarocket]

That former McD's employee should have called Crimestoppers in order to report that suspect Luigi.

If I remember correctly, Crimestoppers does protect a person's identity when they report a suspect in a criminal case in the US and Canada:

Crimestoppers website:

All tips are completely anonymous. No personal information, phone numbers, e-mail, IP address or location is ever requested, saved, traced, tracked or monitored. All tips are handled by a third party service provider. You will never have physical contact with any law enforcement agency.

That former McD's employee could have collected the $50,000 reward AND have Crimestoppers protect her identity.

[CivicBlues]

What's the source that the Mcd's employee was doxxed?

[pastarocket]

What's the source that the Mcd's employee was doxxed?

A surprising source. The Express Tribune. An internationally affiliated Pakistani newspaper???? Hmmm. They are affiliated with the International New York Times.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2515321/luigi-mangiones-alleged-snitch-nancy-parker-faces-backlash

[donk.]

Also that McDs franchise has a 1-star review now LUL

Rotten ronnies will have that 1 star rating removed within a few weeks or months

That recent car dealership in richmond that went to 1 star for shaming, also had all their 1 star reviews removed by google, like it never even happened

[SkinnyPupp]

Review bombs aren't real reviews, so of course they get deleted

[CivicBlues]

A surprising source. The Express Tribune. An internationally affiliated Pakistani newspaper???? Hmmm. They are affiliated with the International New York Times.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2515321/luigi-mangiones-alleged-snitch-nancy-parker-faces-backlash

lol so much English-language slop journalism coming out of India/Pakistan these days.

But seems like Reddit is running with it. so *shrugs*

[GLOW]

you'd think they'd still pay them out instead of weaseling out.
sends a message we're going to try everything in our power to not pay a reward.

may deter people from helping out in the future.

seems very short sighted.

[bcrdukes]

I can no longer schedule Purolator on any website - no notice whatsoever.

I have a package from Calgary via Purolator and is supposed to deliver tomorrow. I checked the latest status and it's still showing "Departed Calgary" with no sign of anywhere being in or around the GTA. :ahwow:

[68style]

Unbelievable, I ordered a small headphone amp from Aliexpess like 1.5 months ago and I just assumed it was stuck with CP... but all the sudden I get an email from some courier company called UniUni that a package is at my door with photos... so I open the door right away and there's a small box.

Then I notice the tape where it's sealed is sliced... okay... open it, well the amp box is there with bubble wrap around it at least... then I slip open the amp box and someone actually stole the amp AND opened the other small box to steal the power cord and put it all back together and inside the bubble wrap and everything. I don't know if it was the courier company or the driver who took it, such a fuckin pissoff.

On top of it, I send pictures to Aliexpress saying what happened for a refund and they denied my claim and said I need to contact the courier for more proof ie: get the weight of he package from the courier to compare with the shipped weight??? The fuck am I going to be able to do that. Assholes. Looks like I'm going to be out $75. Never ordering from that site ever again.

[red kryptonite]

dude that sucks! i have a few xmas presents that hasnt shown up either.

[Badhobz]

Ha ha ! China revenge white man !!! I told you to stop porking our women. Now it’s payback time !!!

(Pretty sure cow town is dangerous, this would have never happened in super safe Richmond)

[SkinnyPupp]

Don't ask for a refund, apply for one through AliExpress. I tried asking for one and they said no, so I just did the automated method and it went through.

Failing that, do a credit card chargeback

[spoon.ek9]

I'm waiting for my coilovers to arrive.... hoping I don't get screwed over somehow

[underscore]

very short sighted.

That's the American way!

[Eff-1]

From my FB friend:

Because of what I do for a living (employer-side labour negotiator), some friends have asked how long I think the Canada Post strike will go on. Here’s my little take on this:

1. It’s quite common for work stoppages to end around the 30-day mark. Why? Because most people can’t afford to miss two paycheques (Canada works on a bi-weekly pay system for the most part) and still make rent/mortgage/car payments. AND, losing an entire month of revenue becomes painful for businesses. The problem we have here is “scorched earth policy”:

Possible Workers Perspective - It’s expensive to live and we aren’t making ends meet anyways, so we may as well strike on.

Canada Post Business outlook - We are losing revenue anyways, so we may as well go further into the hole to try and come out with a sustainable future….although there seems no clear plan to actually achieve that.

2. Not everyone knows this, but you can’t apply for EI benefits while on strike. So you really are stuck making hard decisions, and most people in Canada live paycheque to paycheque no matter where they are on the earning scale. Strike pay is not sustainable in most circumstances (rumours are around $40.00 a day in this particular circumstance, but it is usually shrouded from employers/public for tactical reasons).

3. What I do know is that the longer this goes, the more the doors open for small carriers to permanently take the business from Canada Post, and that is not good news for either Canada Post or its workers.

4. People are motivated more by fear than anything else. If I’m a business that does online work, I’d avoid Canada Post at all costs for a future business partner after this is done. With this having happened, we should see more competition in the private space driving shipping prices down. Canada Post will have no option but to raise prices to combat increased costs of both the strike and whatever they commit to in wages/benefits. So, my prediction is that the days of Canada Post being the cheapest provider are probably going to come to an end pretty quickly here.

In the long run, this is probably good for consumers…but definitely not for Canada Post or its workers.

[GLOW]

Don't ask for a refund, apply for one through AliExpress. I tried asking for one and they said no, so I just did the automated method and it went through.

Failing that, do a credit card chargeback

https://media.licdn.com/dms/image/v2/C4D12AQHvJgHbowA_gA/article-cover_image-shrink_600_2000/article-cover_image-shrink_600_2000/0/1617033655627?e=2147483647&v=beta&t=0f0Z2gL3rPpaoJz9Ezy-2goAKkjzWxTn7-QlmuNn6nU

[HonestTea]

Unbelievable, I ordered a small headphone amp from Aliexpess like 1.5 months ago and I just assumed it was stuck with CP... but all the sudden I get an email from some courier company called UniUni that a package is at my door with photos... so I open the door right away and there's a small box.

Then I notice the tape where it's sealed is sliced... okay... open it, well the amp box is there with bubble wrap around it at least... then I slip open the amp box and someone actually stole the amp AND opened the other small box to steal the power cord and put it all back together and inside the bubble wrap and everything. I don't know if it was the courier company or the driver who took it, such a fuckin pissoff.

On top of it, I send pictures to Aliexpress saying what happened for a refund and they denied my claim and said I need to contact the courier for more proof ie: get the weight of he package from the courier to compare with the shipped weight??? The fuck am I going to be able to do that. Assholes. Looks like I'm going to be out $75. Never ordering from that site ever again.

Chargeback season

[BIC_BAWS]

From my FB friend:

4. If I’m a business that does online work, I’d avoid Canada Post at all costs for a future business partner after this is done. With this having happened, we should see more competition in the private space driving shipping prices down. Canada Post will have no option but to raise prices to combat increased costs of both the strike and whatever they commit to in wages/benefits. So, my prediction is that the days of Canada Post being the cheapest provider are probably going to come to an end pretty quickly here.

Canada Post is not the cheapest provider... 99% of the time we ship with Purolator, except for when shipping to rural areas / Northwest Territories/Yukon. We already avoid Canada Post at all costs.

Cheapest is Canpar/Loomis. There's also GLS now but I haven't personally used them. In terms of reliability, Purolator has always been good.

When shipping to the US, UPS is the cheapest. Unless you absolutely have to, I would say try to always ship state side (so from Blaine). If you were shipping from Canada to the US via Purolator, they do it via UPS. So UPS takes the customs entry bill and marks it up. Then they bill Puro who marks it up. Then you get the bill and it's a whole wtf.

[MG1]

Wow, watching SG1 reruns. Came across the episode with Harlan <sp?>. He does this thing with his hands. Both hands together in a praying position. Both middle fingers intersecting each other, perpendicular to the praying hands. Brilliant!

Now I have the perfect "god bless" gesture. A combination of thank you and a fuck you!

Those of you who know, know what god bless from MG1 really means.


god bless and MG1 out!

[Badhobz]

there is no god old man, if he was here, i wouldn't be alive.

Fat Buddha on the other hand... this seems right up his alley. Sitting around all day, letting shit go to hell.

[bcrdukes]

I have a package from Calgary via Purolator and is supposed to deliver tomorrow. I checked the latest status and it's still showing "Departed Calgary" with no sign of anywhere being in or around the GTA. :ahwow:

Update: I got a notification that there is a weather delay - service will resume weather permitting. :suspicious:

[68style]

From my FB friend:

Your friend's analysis kinda falls apart on the point that CP workers don't get to decide to strike or not. 100% the union/mgmt decision, workers don't get a say.

[Hondaracer]

Your friend's analysis kinda falls apart on the point that CP workers don't get to decide to strike or not. 100% the union/mgmt decision, workers don't get a say.

Don’t you vote on job action?

[68style]

Not according to the 2 posties I know... they don't want to be on strike at all / can't afford it and there was no vote for job action, lovely union just made the decision on their behalf.

[donk.]

Blows my mind that you are in a "union" and yet you have no say in what goes on.

You figure there would be an email / poll sent out, "do you wish to strike for pay raise (yes/no)" and based by the response that would trigger an action

Same can be said for government actions, once every 4 years you vote for a party, and thats it. Should be changed to a poll system.

Then again i know nothing about politics / unions, the above would probably just cause more chaos than needed

[Hondaracer]

At Telus we even had fucking “fake” strike votes prior to the shit union forcing everyone to accept the deal.

[bcedhk]

This might be a good place to ask, as I'm sure there are many OG RSers who are Hong Kong-born Canadians now have kids.

My daughter and partner are planning to travel to China to visit in-laws. Since my daughter only has a Canadian passport, we applied for a travel visa at the China Visa Office last week. To our surprise, her application was rejected due to an issue with her birth certificate.

The problem is that her birth certificate lists my partner’s birthplace as Beijing, China, while mine is listed as Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Apparently, this is a common issue for families where one partner is from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Macau, and the other is from mainland China.

I went to the BC Vital Statistics Office to request an update to my birthplace from "Hong Kong, Hong Kong" to "Hong Kong, China," but they denied the request, stating that my passport only lists "Hong Kong."

I’m guessing this is a common issue, so I’m hoping someone can shed some light on how to resolve it. We’re eager to travel soon, as her grandparents are getting older.

[Traum]

I am guessing the problem with the China Visa Office is -- they are being dicks and insist that your birth place says "Hong Kong, China" on your daughter's birth certificate?

I had a quick look at the BC Vital Statistic birth certificate ordering website, and I don't see anything that would prevent me from ordering a new birth certificate (for my kid). So a wild guess attempt is -- perhaps you can try to order a new birth certificate for your daughter, with you entering "Hong Kong, China" as your place of birth this time. At $27, it seems to be the cheapest option.

If BC Vital Stats is giving you grief about your passport only saying "Hong Kong", potentially it seems like you might need to apply for a new passport (instead of renewing your existing one). And then you can write in your passport application that your place / country of birth is "Hong Kong, China". And then go back to BC Vital Stats to have them change your birth place on your daughter's birth certificate.

But this seems roundabout to me, and applying for a new passport would be a lot more expensive than just getting a new birth certificate too.

[noclue]

An option is to use the 144hr transit visa. It’s free and you just need an outbound ticket to a third country like japan/korea. They also accept HK/Macau as a third country.

So to give an example it will be vancouver-china (layover) - Hongkong (destination). Then back to vancouver from HK

[Gumby]

Weird, my sister in law’s family just went through the exact same scenario (and are currently in HK). The BC Vital Statistics Robson office processed the BC birth certificate change for the kids to Hong Kong, China despite the father’s passport stating his birthplace is only Hong Kong…

Edit: Only the child's birth certificate can be updated. The adult’s citizen card or landing papers cannot be altered.

[CivicBlues]

Wonder what Taiwanese born go through. For ex does it say Taipei, Taiwan or Taipei, Republic of China on their Passport?

[68style]

They got rid of the country code for HK, Macau and Taiwan...

So it just says "Taipei" and not "Taipei TWN" on Canadian passports now

[Badhobz]

Oooooo youz all chinar now!!! Kakakakkaka.

Ni hao ma Xiong di ?

[RabidRat]

"Xiong di" in canto is "hing dai" for anyone like me who had to look that up.

[donk.]

"hing dai" in white is "brothers" for the rest of you looking confused lol

[Badhobz]

Better brush up on your yarrr yarrr yarrrr mandarin arrr. Dem commies don’t take it lightly you no speak china-ney

[bcrdukes]

This might be a good place to ask, as I'm sure there are many OG RSers who are Hong Kong-born Canadians now have kids.

My daughter and partner are planning to travel to China to visit in-laws. Since my daughter only has a Canadian passport, we applied for a travel visa at the China Visa Office last week. To our surprise, her application was rejected due to an issue with her birth certificate.

The problem is that her birth certificate lists my partner’s birthplace as Beijing, China, while mine is listed as Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Apparently, this is a common issue for families where one partner is from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Macau, and the other is from mainland China.

I went to the BC Vital Statistics Office to request an update to my birthplace from "Hong Kong, Hong Kong" to "Hong Kong, China," but they denied the request, stating that my passport only lists "Hong Kong."

I’m guessing this is a common issue, so I’m hoping someone can shed some light on how to resolve it. We’re eager to travel soon, as her grandparents are getting older.

Original Macanese chiming in here.

While not exactly the same, I had trouble getting a tourist visa to China when I went to the Chinese consulate a number of years ago. My passport (then) only showed Macau SAR. They ridiculed me, called me a traitor to the people, and told me to come back when my passport shows Macau, China. As you can imagine, I was pretty choked.

My workaround was going through a travel agency I think on Renfrew, near the plaza on East 1st Ave. The guy there took care of it for me in 48 hours. What changed? Absolutely nothing. By the way, don't go there. The consulate won't work with him anymore. :inout:

Going to China itself was a nightmare where they gave me the same spiel when I did a layover in Shanghai Pudong and when I went to Fuzhuo Changle. Going to Macau itself was also a royal pain in the ass, and that is another story in itself. Exiting China was equally a pain in the ass. I never want to go back to China ever again.

Any way, I had to renew my passport in 2022 and it shows Macao (not Macau) China. I have no intentions to go back to China, so I'm afraid I will never know what the process is like. Good luck!

[quasi]

What I don't understand about Canada post is they are hemorrhaging money and have been for a long time. The business model is obviously not sustainable and is shrinking so either find new business or move to weekly deliveries? We aren't delivering milk to peoples homes anymore either, times change.

Who actually checks their mail more than once a week anyway? The majority of it is flyers. Switch to once a week deliveries, axe 70%+ of your work force and try and find a way to operate not in a deficit. Now you might even have the money to give the 30% that didn't get sacked that raise they were looking for, win win?

[Hondaracer]

Well that’s exactly what I said before and I’m sure more people here who aren’t waiting on a passport are coming around to feel the same.

It’s been a month without mail delivery, have you missed it? Outside of the seniors mentioned previously the strike is kind of underlining how their demands are out to lunch for a dieing industry

[68style]

They have an extremely bloated management, too few employees = less rationale for bloated management... so they have zero motivation to cut staff at the top levels.

Someone needs to come in from outside, spend a year learning their operations inside and out and then restructure the organization without prejudice.

Well that’s exactly what I said before and I’m sure more people here who aren’t waiting on a passport are coming around to feel the same.


This one is a bit of a nothingburger.... my personal trainer is going to Philippines Dec 23 and needs his passport, if you put in even a TINY but of effort you can get it without issue. He just had to call in and tell them he had a booked ticket and for what date and then he had to go to the passport office in Calgary to show them the proof of ticket purchase and then they pulled his passport out of the cauldron and switched it over to Purolator. He had it within a few days.

[CivicBlues]

Has anyone renewed their Driver's License/Care Card since the CP strike? Does ICBC allow pickup in person?

I need to get mine done next month, can I just pick it up instead or should wait it out to the last minute in hopes the strike ends?

[Hondaracer]

They have an extremely bloated management, too few employees = less rationale for bloated management... so they have zero motivation to cut staff at the top levels.

Someone needs to come in from outside, spend a year learning their operations inside and out and then restructure the organization without prejudice.



This one is a bit of a nothingburger.... my personal trainer is going to Philippines Dec 23 and needs his passport, if you put in even a TINY but of effort you can get it without issue. He just had to call in and tell them he had a booked ticket and for what date and then he had to go to the passport office in Calgary to show them the proof of ticket purchase and then they pulled his passport out of the cauldron and switched it over to Purolator. He had it within a few days.

So even without CP if you restructured the passport program that would be one less thing.

[underscore]

That only works for people within driving distance of a passport office. Anyone else it's a pain in the ass or not possible.

The business model is obviously not sustainable and is shrinking so either find new business or move to weekly deliveries?

Wouldn't that require a lot more storage at the depots and much larger delivery trucks?

[Hondaracer]

Or a CP office. Don’t need to have it delivered to your home

[quasi]

That only works for people within driving distance of a passport office. Anyone else it's a pain in the ass or not possible.



Wouldn't that require a lot more storage at the depots and much larger delivery trucks?

Maybe but labour is their largest expense, my guess is that extra cost would be a small piece of what it costs to send all your carriers out every day Monday-Friday.

They could try and compete with the couriers and get some of that business to bring in additional revenue but the reality is they can't compete because they pay their carriers way more than the competition.

[Eff-1]

Canada Post is not the cheapest provider

I'm no expert in shipping but from what I have read, for the average small business who is sellng stuff online, Canada Post is by far the cheapest to ship parcels.

Also Hondaracer keeps forgetting that many, many people who live outside of major cities need Canada Post.

If I ship a 7in x7in x7in 5lb box from a random address in Winnipeg to a random address in Comox, the pricing came out to:

Canada Post: $29 (with small business discount)
Canpar: $70
Purolator: $108

[Hondaracer]

I'm no expert in shipping but from what I have read, for the average small business who is sellng stuff online, Canada Post is by far the cheapest to ship parcels.

Also Hondaracer keeps forgetting that many, many people who live outside of major cities need Canada Post.

If I ship a 7in x7in x7in 5lb box from a random address in Winnipeg to a random address in Comox, the pricing came out to:

Canada Post: $29 (with small business discount)
Canpar: $70
Purolator: $108

Send those people to a central office.

This is kind of like the argument for people who live in remote AF communities that are only accessed by air or ice roads. Oh a package of toilet paper costs $100? Yea no shit because it has no fly on a plane for 2 hours to get there lol

[Eff-1]

They have an extremely bloated management, too few employees = less rationale for bloated management... so they have zero motivation to cut staff at the top levels.

Someone needs to come in from outside, spend a year learning their operations inside and out and then restructure the organization without prejudice.


I agree. The business model is old and antiquated. It's no surprise they are losing money like crazy.

That said, I also see the mail system is a public service and it's not meant to be profit driven. It's like transit or schools. Gov't is supposed to subsidize this stuff as a public good. There are many people (not Hondaracer) who rely on it.

It's not easy when you are stuck with a large labour union that is fighting hard to keep those jobs and you are tied to collective agreements.

I'm not anti-union, I appreciate that unions fight for worker pay. Otherwise it's just one big race to the bottom and we're all fucked.

But I can't stand unions that are against progress and innovation.

To hold back the company from offering things like weekend service UNLESS the union is able to do that work on OT rates is absurd, and if the whole thing collapses, it's because of things like that.

[supafamous]

What I don't understand about Canada post is they are hemorrhaging money and have been for a long time. The business model is obviously not sustainable and is shrinking so either find new business or move to weekly deliveries? We aren't delivering milk to peoples homes anymore either, times change.

Besides major restructuring finding new business lines seems like something they have to consider - I wonder how much being a Crown corp restricts them. I've heard many times that CP is a big deal in small towns and CP is primed to be a bank for these people - I think it's even happening in some places. Seems like becoming a bank may be a path to profitability while solving a real problem. What other business lines could they get into - Canadian Tire and Home Hardware have managed to reinvent themselves to survive against Amazon and Home Depot, why can't CP reinvent themselves to compete with FedEx/UPS/Amazon?

Who actually checks their mail more than once a week anyway? The majority of it is flyers. Switch to once a week deliveries, axe 70%+ of your work force and try and find a way to operate not in a deficit. Now you might even have the money to give the 30% that didn't get sacked that raise they were looking for, win win?

In 2023, Canada Post still delivered around 2.2b letters which works out to about 145 letters per household. That's not nothing (I'm surprised it's this high TBH) but it's down from 5.5b in 2006. This doesn't include parcels either which brings the total up to 6.5b in 2023 which is 433 items per household - that seems like a lot to me (roughly 2 items per day on average) and it doesn't include flyers and junk mail.

When volume drops in half it doesn't mean they need half the people but it surely means the costs of delivering those items goes up a lot per item AND they could do it with less staff.

Source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/a-look-at-how-much-mail-canada-post-delivers-amid-a-strike-notice-1.7109066 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Post#Profitability

[AstulzerRZD]

I agree. The business model is old and antiquated. It's no surprise they are losing money like crazy.

That said, I also see the mail system is a public service and it's not meant to be profit driven. It's like transit or schools. Gov't is supposed to subsidize this stuff as a public good. There are many people (not Hondaracer) who rely on it.

It's not easy when you are stuck with a large labour union that is fighting hard to keep those jobs and you are tied to collective agreements.

I'm not anti-union, I appreciate that unions fight for worker pay. Otherwise it's just one big race to the bottom and we're all fucked.

But I can't stand unions that are against progress and innovation.

To hold back the company from offering things like weekend service UNLESS the union is able to do that work on OT rates is absurd, and if the whole thing collapses, it's because of things like that.

Wasn't a big part of their unprofitability their need to fund pensions ahead of time? or am I confusing them with the USPS

[HonestTea]

Just chatted with a rep from TD and they mentioned CP was supposed to go back to work on Monday lol

[supafamous]

Wasn't a big part of their unprofitability their need to fund pensions ahead of time? or am I confusing them with the USPS

That's USPS which is also a basket case but one largely caused by Congress (Republicans).

[BIC_BAWS]

I'm no expert in shipping but from what I have read, for the average small business who is sellng stuff online, Canada Post is by far the cheapest to ship parcels.

Also Hondaracer keeps forgetting that many, many people who live outside of major cities need Canada Post.

If I ship a 7in x7in x7in 5lb box from a random address in Winnipeg to a random address in Comox, the pricing came out to:

Canada Post: $29 (with small business discount)
Canpar: $70
Purolator: $108

I would consider myself an expert in shipping. If these people are small business owners who regularly have online shipping (aka the average person who regularly uses any service would try to find a way to make it cheaper), they should be using 3rd party applications like Freightcom or ShipTime (smt I reference quite often). Our sales have been down in the last few years, so I wouldn't say we ship A LOT to have preferred rates.

To eliminate variance, I'll use actual locations where it's still kind of small town but not middle of nowhere. Winnipeg - Osborne Village, Comox - Comox Valley Marina, same weights/dims, signature required.

CanadaPost(6 days) - $35.20 with Small Business discount (and pickup charge, everyone else's is free)

FreightCom:
Canpar (4 days) - $15.33
Puro Ground (4 days) - $17.46
Puro Express (2 Days) - $27.81
FedEx Express Saver (4 Days) - $28.56
FedEx Ground (3 Days, next day pickup) - $31.51

ShipTime:
Canpar (5 days) - $23.08
UPS Standard (3 days) - $31.97
FedEx Ground (3 days, next day pickup) - $33.43
Loomis Ground (4 days) - $34.56

Out of all of these choices, CP would not be a top choice. I'd go with Puro Ground for $17.46 for 4 days. Instead of CP $35.20 for 6 days.

Edit: Also CP is usually available on ShipTime, but you only save a few dollars, not nearly enough worth it to choose CP over the other options I listed.

Send those people to a central office.

This is kind of like the argument for people who live in remote AF communities that are only accessed by air or ice roads. Oh a package of toilet paper costs $100? Yea no shit because it has no fly on a plane for 2 hours to get there lol

This. Someone cancelled an order because it cost $80.54 to ship a $324 order. Well.. you live in Sept-Iles, QC.. what the fuck do you expect.

[bcrdukes]

Has anyone renewed their Driver's License/Care Card since the CP strike? Does ICBC allow pickup in person?

I need to get mine done next month, can I just pick it up instead or should wait it out to the last minute in hopes the strike ends?

I'm in a similar boat. Just received my notice to renew. I have 60 days. I'll head over to Service Ontario in a few days and let you know how it goes. I know that they'll give me a temporary license but I won't get my new one until the Canada Post strike is over. :badpokerface:

[Gumby]

My elementary school kid will be receiving his report card soon, and this is what the teacher also sent us:

https://i.ibb.co/7CB5gP6/learning-journey.jpg

Can't wait to hear badhobz comments on how kids nowadays are complete snowflakes!

Edit: Students in Grades 9 and below don't get letter grades anymore, instead they get Emerging, Developing, Proficient, or Extending.

[radeonboy]

How my mom would interpret that:

https://i.ibb.co/9gRP6C5/Beating.png

[Hondaracer]

My elementary school kid will be receiving his report card soon, and this is what the teacher also sent us:

https://i.ibb.co/7CB5gP6/learning-journey.jpg

Can't wait to hear badhobz comments on how kids nowadays are complete snowflakes!

Edit: Students in Grades 9 and below don't get letter grades anymore, instead they get Emerging, Developing, Proficient, or Extending.

wtf this is at public school?

Honestly like whether it’s social media or fucking lead in the water growing up there were literally like 15-20 kids in the entire school that in hindsight seemed “autistic”

Nowadays it seems like every 3rd kid has some sort of learning disability? and of course I can accept that better diagnosis and assessment is done today, etc.

I guess at the end of the day it’s the same system, whether you get into post secondary or even a trade is largely dependent on your own habits and ability. But everything I’ve heard from friends who are teachers and the general social media vibe is like, people have just accepted they cannot function in normal society and essentially pass their problems onto the class etc.

I know this is going to sound so typical Hondaracer but in grade 5 I wrote a paper where I said I thought to get into public schools in Canada you should have to learn English prior to being accepted because we had a pair of Korean twins who literally could not speak a word of English and it was on this grade 4 teacher to guide them through a grade 4 curriculum. The “assistant teacher” or teacher in training like scolded me on it clown boi 90’s hipster :lol even though a disproportionate amount of time was spent on 2 people.

Stories I hear from teachers now it’s like kids are disruptive and disrespectful -non stop- and on top of that you’re autistic and have accepted this isn’t the way you’re going to learn?

A great recipe for success for the future lol.. although the top 5% of kids do seem exceptional compared to my generation perhaps

[tegra7]

Traffic was a nightmare this evening trying to get to hwy91 from downtown.

[Manic!]

Maybe I should start a new thread on weight loss drugs but there is a new drug by eli lilly called Retatrutide. It works on 3 receptors. Ozempic works only on 1 and Mounjaro works on 2. It's right now on phase 3 of clinical trails. So not for sale yet. Companies China is already making and selling it. Buying weight loss drugs from china in powder form is way cheaper.

[bcrdukes]

Can't wait to hear badhobz comments on how kids nowadays are complete snowflakes!

Funny how my Google feed popped up with this for the perfect setup for Badhobz.

Canadians concerned country’s children are too soft, with no coping skills: survey (https://globalnews.ca/news/10915205/canadians-children-too-soft-no-coping-skills-survey/)

[Great68]

I don't really have a problem with the new system? I actually conveys how your kid is doing far more clearly.

People are just up in arms because it's different and it's change, and they're stubborn idiots.

[Badhobz]

It’s too late to abort them.

Waddyagonna do… I guess I’ll employ them begrudgingly later on. But they better not have any fucking issues with my racism / sexism / trolling that I’m famous for. Otherwise you can go fight gurdeep for a mcdicks job (good luck gurdeep was/is a doctor! And you’re just “emerging” ya stupid retard)

[MG1]

Bottom line is, the cream always rises to the top....................

I don't mind what assessment and evaluation system/process they use, as long as the basics are not forgotten. I remember this one teacher who believed that spelling and grammar isn't as important as creativity. Sure, but if nobody can understand what the kid is trying to convey...............what's the point? Even funnier was that the teacher herself couldn't spell worth shit. Principal had to proof all her report card comments before being handed out.

Yet another problem with the education system nowadays. The quality of educators in the field. It starts with the type of candidates who enter the programme. Plus, universities not producing quality graduates. Teachers who are the result of generations of poor teaching. I remember my elementary teachers. Rarely do you find ones who are as dedicated and qualified as those from yesteryear.

[SkinnyPupp]

I knew that would set off hondaracer LUL

[supafamous]

I don't really have a problem with the new system? I actually conveys how your kid is doing far more clearly.

People are just up in arms because it's different and it's change, and they're stubborn idiots.

Same, I don't see the problem with this. How is this grading system any different than how performance reviews are done in the real world? Every company I've worked at has had some 4-5 point system that goes: Exceeds, Meets, Needs Improvement, Corrective Action/Not meeting.

This looks pretty much just like and is clearer than the letter grade system.

[Mikoyan]

The only people this sets off are the ones that don't have the cognitive ability to reframe the evaluation into a simplistic frame of context they understand.

D = Emerging
C = Developing
B = Proficient
A = Extending

Done. I did this to neuter the rant my parents went on about the grading system after they "heard" about it on the radio. They were parroting the call in commentors they heard. Even though it's the same 10 people who call in all the time.

Once I pulled out one of the kid's report cards and explained it this way it was fine. Yes, it's overly simple, but it gets the point across.

[Hondaracer]

It’s the same system, it’s just designed so not hurt feelings or blatantly tell you you’re dumb lol

[MarkyMark]

It's a bit of a sugarcoat, I'm assuming this is for the kids to read and the teacher would explain to the parents in private that your kid is failing the class and needs extra help.

[whitev70r]

Nowadays, there are so many behaviour and learning challenges and problems with adolescents ... are there more this gen or back when we were going to public school, they just didn't have a name for it and/or kids just had to figure it out. My teacher friends say that classroom management is a nightmare every single day.

[yray]

it's the fucking parents that freak out

keep it vague = less trouble for the teachers

this is your own doing hahaha

[Great68]

The only people this sets off are the ones that don't have the cognitive ability to reframe the evaluation into a simplistic frame of context they understand.

D = Emerging
C = Developing
B = Proficient
A = Extending
.

That's not really quite it though. It makes more sense if think relative to the grade curriculum, where 100% means your kid is tracking the curriculum, that's "Proficient". "Extending" would be >100%, ie your kid is demonstrating beyond the curriculum.

For example my kid got an "Extending" in reading because he's already reading at grade 3 level at mid-grade 2.

I don't know how this is hard to understand. Nor how it "sugarcoats" anything

The letter grade system is more ambiguous. He'd get an "A" but what does that mean exactly? It doesn't convey that he's doing better than curriculum taught.

[westopher]

Nowadays, there are so many behaviour and learning challenges and problems with adolescents ... are there more this gen or back when we were going to public school, they just didn't have a name for it and/or kids just had to figure it out. My teacher friends say that classroom management is a nightmare every single day.
That's also a school issue. Overcrowded classrooms and shortage of special needs assistants.

[Mikoyan]

That's also a school issue. Overcrowded classrooms and shortage of special needs assistants.

Parent/resource issue too. There's a significant portion of kids who don't get diagnosed officially. Schools don't have the budget to get all the testing needed. Private testing is $$. And even if the school has the funding, it's like a 2 year wait to get accessed. Schools can't get extra funding for assistants unless it's official.

[whitev70r]

^ which goes back to my original question ... I wonder if there are more and more cases of learning disabilities, challenges, autism, etc.

[supafamous]

^ which goes back to my original question ... I wonder if there are more and more cases of learning disabilities, challenges, autism, etc.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-real-reasons-autism-rates-are-up-in-the-u-s/

The latest estimate of autism prevalence—1 in 68—is up 30 percent from the 1 in 88 rate reported in 2008, and more than double the 1 in 150 rate in 2000. In fact, the trend has been steeply upward since the early 1990s, not only in the U.S. but globally, says Maureen Durkin, who heads the network site in Wisconsin.

It's rising but it's unclear why - some of it is definitely just better diagnoses.

I think stuff like dyslexia are just more widely acknowledged now - in the older days they'd just think you're stupid and treat you like that.

I also suspect that children with learning challenges or other disabilities are more commonly accepted in normal schools either because they are being forced into the regular school system (due to resources), encouraged to so they can get more opportunities, or they are just more accepted today than before.

At my kids school there is a blind 5 year old that's part of the class and she gets a helper for seemingly everything. I'm not sure how I feel about that - are they a drag on the class, is the cost of the helper worth it, does the kid benefit from being with others who are sighted, do other kids learn to accept and help this kid?

[snowball]

Nowadays, there are so many behaviour and learning challenges and problems with adolescents ... are there more this gen or back when we were going to public school, they just didn't have a name for it and/or kids just had to figure it out. My teacher friends say that classroom management is a nightmare every single day.

Kids also have the inability to listen to instructions these days, even when they are trying, everything is messed up.

[Traum]

It's rising but it's unclear why - some of it is definitely just better diagnoses.

Another reason is -- nowadays parents are having children at much older ages than before -- esp the moms -- and the risks of having a child with autism is known to be higher the older the mother is.

I used to have a better idea of when the risks start rising. Now I only vaguely seem to recall that the risks start going up when the mother is roughly ~30, and really spikes the closer the mother approaches 40. The progression also isn't linear, with the risks rising more significantly the older the mother is.

Older dads introduce greater risks for the child too, but nowhere nearly as much as the age of the mom.

[Mikoyan]

That's not really quite it though. It makes more sense if think relative to the grade curriculum, where 100% means your kid is tracking the curriculum, that's "Proficient". "Extending" would be >100%, ie your kid is demonstrating beyond the curriculum.

For example my kid got an "Extending" in reading because he's already reading at grade 3 level at mid-grade 2.

I don't know how this is hard to understand. Nor how it "sugarcoats" anything

The letter grade system is more ambiguous. He'd get an "A" but what does that mean exactly? It doesn't convey that he's doing better than curriculum taught.

100%, but it got my parents off of that subject and onto something else like, how the DTES should be rounded up and dumped in the wilderness to fight their way back to civilization.

This week was, "Hey, did you know about the J-20 fighter that kicks the US stealth fighter's asses?"

:rukidding:

[underscore]

It's rising but it's unclear why - some of it is definitely just better diagnoses.

I think stuff like dyslexia are just more widely acknowledged now - in the older days they'd just think you're stupid and treat you like that.

Diagnostics are definitely a lot better. Back in the day they only focused on the "hyperactive" part of ADHD. If you had other issues too bad, you just failed stuff.

Quite a few people our age are just now getting diagnosed with this stuff as adults. They're also learning some of this stuff can be hereditary which will hopefully at least speed up the process for their kids.

[Badhobz]

Im bored, so i decided to paint my old house on canvas. I like the pallet brush sky and the textured wall

https://i.postimg.cc/4Nhw1Zpm/IMG-6330.jpg (https://postimg.cc/jLtzspgb)

https://i.postimg.cc/MZLdRXMC/IMG-6331.jpg (https://postimg.cc/bdQxfyRg)

Was gonna paint my little dead dog in it, but its too depressing. This house is also gone and that's already depressing enough.

[bcrdukes]

You need to paint a jet ski with you on it looking miserable.

[MarkyMark]

I don't know how this is hard to understand. Nor how it "sugarcoats" anything

The letter grade system is more ambiguous. He'd get an "A" but what does that mean exactly? It doesn't convey that he's doing better than curriculum taught.

It's obviously sugarcoating things on the lower end, come on. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, no one likes feeling like shit getting a failing grade but when the worst 'grade' lists only positive things then yeah, feelings are being spared. I'm not against this, for young kids I think it's a good system, but it's softer than it used to be, it's ok to admit that.

[whitev70r]

Im bored, so i decided to paint my old house on canvas. I like the pallet brush sky and the textured wall


You continue to surprise the masses here. Can you sing as well?

[Badhobz]

only N word songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDIk7i54UlE

[BIC_BAWS]

Damn our favorite karaoke song is leaked

Sent from my SM-G781W using Tapatalk

[whitev70r]

So what happened to the Stanley Park Christmas Train ... they shut it down temporarily because of an operational hazard.

[Badhobz]

tiny train conductors probably went on strike to ask for tiny benefits. :troll:

[68style]

Too much Bailey's in their coffee/hot chocolate, you can only tolerate being a conductor of a train full of screaming kids if you're halfway blitzed, went a little overboard and got sleepy, nodded off and fell off the driver seat and then got molested by raccoons.

[supafamous]

So what happened to the Stanley Park Christmas Train ... they shut it down temporarily because of an operational hazard.

Sounds like someone got hurt due to lack of safety of some kind.

https://vancouver.citynews.ca/2024/12/14/vancouver-stanley-park-train-suspends-service/

Service has been suspended until further notice due to a “worker safety incident,” the Vancouver Park Board says.

“The safety incident involved one of the Park Board’s train operators,” the board said.

“The incident has been reported to the City’s Occupational Health and Safety team, who will be following all required protocols to investigate. While this is underway, train operations need to be suspended to ensure the safety of our staff.”

[Badhobz]

Argh I should have never tried to tie spy balloon to the tracks.

[GS8]

Too much Bailey's in their coffee/hot chocolate, you can only tolerate being a conductor of a train full of screaming kids if you're halfway blitzed, went a little overboard and got sleepy, nodded off and fell off the driver seat and then got molested by raccoons.

The last thing they see before the violation:


https://i.imgur.com/DvTPOnT.jpeg

[whitev70r]

Was Badhobz not volunteering to drive the tiny train just for the festive spirits?

[68style]

Hobz only volunteers to run a train on big booty blondes

[BIC_BAWS]

I bought a Cat 8 ethernet cable from AliExpress - $1.79 for 0.5m lol. I was curious what the wifi speed difference would be by just changing cables. The Telus supplied yellow cable is a Cat 5e. The difference is shockingly significant, the results below:

Cat 5e - 87.2mbps download / 316mbps upload 8ms latency
Cat 8 - 344 mbps download / 460mbps upload 11ms latency

[whitev70r]

I thought most household, Cat 6 is more than sufficient?

Let us know how Cat 8 goes.

[BIC_BAWS]

Realistically, there's not much of a difference on a day to day basis, but when gaming I no longer get ping spikes (there's usually the latency warning that pops up often).

[underscore]

I imagine AliExpress cat 8 is cat 6 lol. Either way worth a shot at that price.

[Manic!]

Do you see what I see.

https://i.ibb.co/VL3LGrj/trk.jpg

and yes it's real.

[supafamous]

https://youtu.be/-vlgzNBVq0E?si=NFA33XfkmimUliVh

This is a great tour of Peter Cunningham's private collection of Hondas - he has 3 mint ITRs, a NSX-R, a 1G Civic RS, the original truck, the first white FK8 CTR etc.

Not all race car drivers can make a lot of money racing but Peter sure seems like he made some decent coin.

[MG1]

Do you see what I see.

A star, a star, dancing in the night.................... with a tail as big as a kite

[BIC_BAWS]

I imagine AliExpress cat 8 is cat 6 lol. Either way worth a shot at that price.

Yeah I can't imagine it being real cat8, but I'm getting 853.7 mbps download / 903.7 upload when directly plugged in which is much much better.

[Manic!]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L58kk0-Df00


Also cat 8 is not an official standard.

[whitev70r]

Deprived Asians in Bellevue ... my goodness, wait a week. Something like this happened at Lansdowne and it gradually died down.

[Badhobz]

time to chuck durians at each other, HERE CATCH AH MO!!!!

ahhhhh why so pricky

[Qmx323]

American's are gonna fucking love the egg tarts

[Manic!]

Can't believe this is real. Order coke and other drugs online. Ship from BC.

https://delics.se/

[westopher]

Delete this narc

[punkwax]

Delete this, narc

Fixed

[GLOW]

lol anyone remember this game as a kid growing up

https://www.arcade-museum.com/images-game/30/narc-30596.jpg

[SkinnyPupp]

I played a ton of that on NES, not so much the arcade

I remember the blue cop was also a character on The Power Team

https://i.imgur.com/3UrNPRD.png

[spoon.ek9]

I remember when Mortal Kombat just came out and I was mesmerized watching others play it :ahwow:

I was in grade 3 at the time! Grew up with NES which was stolen and then replaced with a SNES lol.

[Gumby]

lol anyone remember this game as a kid growing up

https://www.arcade-museum.com/images-game/30/narc-30596.jpg
Yup! Enemies would shoot needles at you, which is how you took damage. :lol

[GLOW]

i forgot about that, i just remember you shoot 'em and they drop racks of cash or bags of coke and you can walk up to them and arrest them "BUSTED" :lol

[MG1]

Post offices will start to open up Tuesday. No commercial parcels for 48 hours. They need this extra time to “ramp up,” operations.

I went to the distribution centre on Douglas Road and Still Creek to deliver some cookies and treats. The union member who was in charge hinted they wouldn’t be complying to the back to work order. I’m like, okay, that’s being stupid. You’ll even lose my support if that happens. Typical union hack, though. I’m pretty sure most of the union members want to get this over with. It’ll be interesting if Canada Post acts in good faith.

Just to clarify, I'm not pro-union. Far from it, but that never stopped me from being nice to others. I've been on the picket lines myself, and it's awful. Being told to fuck off, having shit thrown my way, you name it. I think most people have been civil about it, but online is another story. I miss my letter carrier. He's like the nicest person you'll ever meet. Same with the post office lady at the local Shoppers. Although she's a Shoppers Drug Mart employee, she used to work for Canada Post.