Rant Thread

I really dislike inane radio chatter in general, but it caught my atention this morning as someone called in to a radio station and appeared to have called in and requested Bring Your Daughter To the Slaughter, which is pretty unconventional for local radio. So the DJ went on to thank him for his call and ended it with "Enjoy your song!". Then put on some sort of awful 80s dance track.
 
I don't like people who talk on their cell phones in public restrooms. I grunt and flush loudly when I hear such nonsense. I've also written a series of haiku's about bathroom manners from my office building. One of my hits is called "Look for Feet Before Jiggle Handle".
 
Learn something new every day, don't you. Today I learned that FedEx are a bunch of completely fucking useless wankers. Was supposed to receive a parcel Friday, I was off work and knew it was coming so I kept a close eye/ear out for it. It didn't turn up, and in the event I somehow missed the courier, they didn't leave a note telling me they had been. To be fair, they had said that an extra two working days might be required for delivery as it's a busy time of year, so I left it until Tuesday before I chased them up. Then they told me that they had tried to deliver it Friday but no one was home. I was home, I was home all day, so I'm calling bollocks on that. They then told me that they would send it out for delivery on Thursday, today. I told them no one is going to be home Thursday, but was it possible have the delivery address changed to my work office? Sure, no problem, they said. Thought I was done with it, checked the tracking number around 2pm today, only to read that the delivery had failed because nobody was in my fucking house which is what I fucking told them and why I asked to have the fucking delivery address changed.
 
Black Wizard said:
Have you been asked to review?
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I wish it was that simple.
Paper submitted last September, accepted this April, supposed to be published this month, wasn't. No contact beforehand, no explanation. Never happened to me before.
Feel guilty towards my co-author; on top of it, Mrs. M who briefly appeared home between business trips (came late Friday, left early today) had to spend the Saturday with a cursing, moaning and groaning husband.
 
^Thank you.
One thing that really pisses me off is when people on whom you depend in one way or another neglect to do what is supposed to be their responsibility.
 
The one lead author paper I have so far was published months late because the editor somehow managed to lose it. Shortly after the revised paper had been accepted the journal was transferred to a different publisher. After a few weeks I hadn't heard anything about the publication status of the paper so asked the journal and wasn't told anything useful. The editor also doesn't respond to emails and people in his own institution were knocking on his door to ask what happened to his paper. I enquired with the publisher again and they had no record of the paper as the information from the previous publisher hadn't been transferred over. I was eventually put through to a more important member of staff at the publisher and forwarded the email from the editor saying the paper had been accepted (the editor wasn't replying to the publisher either) which the publisher took as sufficient evidence. My paper was eventually published months late in a very unsatisfactory manner. It was also meant to be part of a special issue which now no longer exists because of the confusion when the publisher changed.

I wonder if other people realise why this journal's impact factor is dropping every year and nobody in the field really cares about it anymore.
 
Black Wizard said:
The one lead author paper I have so far was published months late because the editor somehow managed to lose it. Shortly after the revised paper had been accepted the journal was transferred to a different publisher. After a few weeks I hadn't heard anything about the publication status of the paper so asked the journal and wasn't told anything useful. The editor also doesn't respond to emails and people in his own institution were knocking on his door to ask what happened to his paper. I enquired with the publisher again and they had no record of the paper as the information from the previous publisher hadn't been transferred over. I was eventually put through to a more important member of staff at the publisher and forwarded the email from the editor saying the paper had been accepted (the editor wasn't replying to the publisher either) which the publisher took as sufficient evidence. My paper was eventually published months late in a very unsatisfactory manner. It was also meant to be part of a special issue which now no longer exists because of the confusion when the publisher changed.

I wonder if other people realise why this journal's impact factor is dropping every year and nobody in the field really cares about it anymore.
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Jesus.
Once I had a paper published online as "accepted manuscript" in an Elsevier journal with the entire first page missing, they told me "ah don't worry we'll fix it at the corrected proof stage". Stayed like that online for months, and for the corrected proof they managed to make exactly the mistakes I had explicitly warned them against. My fault actually, they'd never think of them themselves.
Had a paper in a Central European journal where someone with even less command of English than myself decided to correct my text, failing to grasp the meaning entirely; never bothered to send me a proof of course. You can imagine the result.
Once the managing editor of a French journal (IF too) had tried to contact the first author of a joint paper (I think it was four or five of us co-authors) for weeks and after failing to do so, contacted the rest of us with the plea to go through a rather large text just several hours before sending the thing to the press. I don't know, I used to be a managing editor myself for nine years or so and I know that sometimes time and circumstances press you but this is ridiculous.
 
^Same Elsevier journal somehow managed to put a friend's paper into the wrong special issue and then reprinted it in the correct one under the title "Reprint of: ", original title following :facepalm:
 
^ I regret to admit that the last twelve days have been totally dominated by this.
Been writing emails with responses evolving from making no sense at all, through making some partial sense but unconvincing and carefully evading the questions I asked, to no response whatsoever.
What I didn't mention in the previous post is that instead of the paper in question, the journal published one by me as a single author which a) was submitted later; b) is very obviously of less importance; c) quotes the first one so obviously shouldn't be published before it; d) I didn't even know it was accepted - on the contrary, they asked for some revisions which I submitted in July; the version published is the original one; e) I wasn't even sent a proof to check - by negligence or because that would have alerted me on the status of the first one, I don't know.
So instead of proudly celebrating a - really good, even if I say so myself - paper together with my co-author, I'm contributing to the rant thread, feeling that I let my co-author down. Other work, Aussie Rules and Touch performance have suffered as well. Rant over. Thank you.
 
I'm sorry to hear of your troubles :( assholes.

I'm currently dealing with a doctor.

Doctor: I keep calling your support team and asking if I can upgrade the OS on my server. They keep telling me I need to pay.
Me: Yes, that's right, we have to install a new version of the database when you update and that requires a reinstall.
Doctor: So I can upgrade, right?
Me: No, your server does not have a TPM (encryption) chip. It's required on newer versions.
Doctor: So you'll update me next week, right?
Me: No, your server doesn't meet spec and there's a 6 week lead time right now.
 
Thank you, LC.
I know it's a First World problem, and maybe not even that, but when you've invested quite some time, energy, and inspiration into something, and the result isn't there for reasons inexplicable, and you are also responsible for the whole thing, it's not a pleasant feeling.
I understood some of the words in your message above by the way. Verbs, mostly.
 
Magnus said:
^ I regret to admit that the last twelve days have been totally dominated by this.
Been writing emails with responses evolving from making no sense at all, through making some partial sense but unconvincing and carefully evading the questions I asked, to no response whatsoever.
What I didn't mention in the previous post is that instead of the paper in question, the journal published one by me as a single author which a) was submitted later; b) is very obviously of less importance; c) quotes the first one so obviously shouldn't be published before it; d) I didn't even know it was accepted - on the contrary, they asked for some revisions which I submitted in July; the version published is the original one; e) I wasn't even sent a proof to check - by negligence or because that would have alerted me on the status of the first one, I don't know.
So instead of proudly celebrating a - really good, even if I say so myself - paper together with my co-author, I'm contributing to the rant thread, feeling that I let my co-author down. Other work, Aussie Rules and Touch performance have suffered as well. Rant over. Thank you.
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Bloody hell.
 
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