Over the weekend I received a health statement from my insurance company, just updating the amounts that I had used and what I had left in terms of health benefits for the year. Everything seemed alright, except a line item saying I would owe the clinic I visited in April $1,375.32, with a footnote saying to pay the provider when billed. I was ... uh ... more than a bit perturbed by that, as I'd been assured that the services had been paid for in full already. Further, while I do have that kind of money set aside, a medical bill like that definitely is not in my budget; something like that would make me have to cancel attending MFM and seriously reconsider going to FC.
Since nobody actually works the phones at United HealthCare over the weekend, I just called in this morning while waiting on a trailer unload. After navigating their obnoxious voice menu, I got a hold of a representative who took a look at it. The very first thing she said about it? The statement is completely wrong. The second? That she has no idea why that amount would have shown up at all as that's greater than what the clinic billed the insurance company for in the first place. She assured me that the claim had been paid in full and that I would not owe anyone anything for the treatment I already received. Further, they're going to look into it to see why that showed up at all and post a new explanation of benefits and health statement on the website to clear that up.
So, in short, I don't owe anyone anything and someone at UHC is obviously on narcotics.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Silence is not golden; it's rusted
So I started playing a game with a couple of friends earlier today. Names will be deliberately omitted though if any of them are reading this, I'm sure they'll figure out what I'm referring to. In any case, one of them said something that struck me as very unusual. I asked about it, then he got extremely defensive and wouldn't tell me, then got quite irritated with me for being upset over his unwillingness to discuss. I have no reason to believe it would be particularly embarrassing and, regardless, I have the decency to keep my snout shut if someone tells me something they would prefer not to be public knowledge.
But, rather than just explaining what was going on after I pointed out why I was so upset, he just got angry with me and threatened to quit the game if I didn't cheer up immediately. Instead I just told him that I didn't appreciate the way he was handling the situation and that, rather than allowing the situation to progress even further, I was signing off before either of us said or did something that we both would end up regretting later. I'm still extremely upset over the situation but I know that it would have likely gone nuclear if I hadn't simply left when I did.
So, rather than getting to enjoy a day off down here, I'm instead swamped by drama and just want to go cry myself to sleep now.
Edit: While writing this post the person who precipitated this whole situation sent me an e-mail and a direct message on twitter asking me to sign back on. I'm still debating whether or not to do so. While I have my doubts it will make me feel significantly better it's not like I could feel a whole lot worse than I do right now.
But, rather than just explaining what was going on after I pointed out why I was so upset, he just got angry with me and threatened to quit the game if I didn't cheer up immediately. Instead I just told him that I didn't appreciate the way he was handling the situation and that, rather than allowing the situation to progress even further, I was signing off before either of us said or did something that we both would end up regretting later. I'm still extremely upset over the situation but I know that it would have likely gone nuclear if I hadn't simply left when I did.
So, rather than getting to enjoy a day off down here, I'm instead swamped by drama and just want to go cry myself to sleep now.
Edit: While writing this post the person who precipitated this whole situation sent me an e-mail and a direct message on twitter asking me to sign back on. I'm still debating whether or not to do so. While I have my doubts it will make me feel significantly better it's not like I could feel a whole lot worse than I do right now.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Moderating Madness
A few years back I created a Google Group for the local community because the Yahoo group we had at the time was kinda... well, not working out so well. Over time, the Google group became the de-facto official list and now has more than two dozen members, nearly half of whom are actually active. Given that it's just a local, community list, we didn't really have any explicit rules in effect; it was just generally understood that it was a clean list and that people should conduct themselves like adults.
Of course, given that the furry fandom is exactly 49.41% drama (and 102% of statistics are invented), it was only a matter of time before shit happened. Specifically, one person posted an old 4chan meme, prefaced with two or three sentences of written child pornography. While I realize that written stuff like that is in a legal grey area (as opposed to outright illegal) I also recognized that it's the kind of thing that could easily get someone in trouble because, though it might not be explicitly illegal, it could attract the unwanted attention of an employer's e-mail filter or - even worse - an overzealous parent.
I just posted by saying it was tasteless, inappropriate, and completely irrelevant to the list. Then several other people chimed in saying they thought it was funny (only one person posted with a "WTF" instead of registering approval). The first guy then said it was my problem since nobody else took issue with it, clearly failing to understand the potential ramifications of what he posted. I posted again, this time explaining why, exactly, it was inappropriate.
Then he and one other person both told me to chill out, continued to insist it wasn't a problem, and so on. Given that I'd already given him previous warnings off-list for spam and being rude, I'd had quite enough with his attitude. I posted telling him to knock it off immediately, laid down rules explicitly detailing the things that are common sense even to most furries, and told him that if he did something again I was going to moderate his posting until further notice. This led to him e-mailing me and mocking me off list, quite literally daring me to ban him; rather than giving him what he wanted, I simply set his posts to be automatically rejected and told him to never, ever e-mail me again.
I would have hoped that would have been the end of it, but no sooner do I forward the off-list stuff to one of the only other sane furs in town do I get a phone call where he attempts to verbally take my head off over the way I handled the situation. He insisted that, just because we hadn't explicitly stated that posting porn to the list was unacceptable, there was no excuse for me even threatening to take an administrative action against the guy who posted the content in question. After repeating my opinion several times and him becoming increasingly agitated due to my unwillingness to immediately apologize for "not doing things like an admin" and simply do things exactly as he wanted, I asked one simple question: "Did you expect anything positive to come from this phone call or did you simply want to vent in my ear until I hang up?" That seemed to get him to cool down considerably and, even though I didn't change what I was saying in any significant way, he went from insisting that I was the only person even remotely in the wrong to acknowledging that, while the situation could have been handled more tastefully, I at least was acting in a logically consistent fashion and not out of any sort of off-handed malice or similarly unfounded insanity.
End result? Aside from having a slightly longer block list for my Gmail and AIM accounts, we now have drafted a full-blown set of rules to try prevent this kind of bullshit from happening again. I'm willing to bet that it's only a matter of time before the guy who started this mess does something stupid and that his "apology" was simply because the person I spoke with on the phone told him to make one, but I'll deal with that when it happens. End result of all this is that I spent almost three extra hours awake than I originally wanted and lost any sex drive I had for the night. So now instead of getting eight good hours of sleep after pawing off, I'll get barely five hours and will be even more frustratingly pent up in the morning.
Someone, please, remind me why I'm in the fandom again?
Of course, given that the furry fandom is exactly 49.41% drama (and 102% of statistics are invented), it was only a matter of time before shit happened. Specifically, one person posted an old 4chan meme, prefaced with two or three sentences of written child pornography. While I realize that written stuff like that is in a legal grey area (as opposed to outright illegal) I also recognized that it's the kind of thing that could easily get someone in trouble because, though it might not be explicitly illegal, it could attract the unwanted attention of an employer's e-mail filter or - even worse - an overzealous parent.
I just posted by saying it was tasteless, inappropriate, and completely irrelevant to the list. Then several other people chimed in saying they thought it was funny (only one person posted with a "WTF" instead of registering approval). The first guy then said it was my problem since nobody else took issue with it, clearly failing to understand the potential ramifications of what he posted. I posted again, this time explaining why, exactly, it was inappropriate.
Then he and one other person both told me to chill out, continued to insist it wasn't a problem, and so on. Given that I'd already given him previous warnings off-list for spam and being rude, I'd had quite enough with his attitude. I posted telling him to knock it off immediately, laid down rules explicitly detailing the things that are common sense even to most furries, and told him that if he did something again I was going to moderate his posting until further notice. This led to him e-mailing me and mocking me off list, quite literally daring me to ban him; rather than giving him what he wanted, I simply set his posts to be automatically rejected and told him to never, ever e-mail me again.
I would have hoped that would have been the end of it, but no sooner do I forward the off-list stuff to one of the only other sane furs in town do I get a phone call where he attempts to verbally take my head off over the way I handled the situation. He insisted that, just because we hadn't explicitly stated that posting porn to the list was unacceptable, there was no excuse for me even threatening to take an administrative action against the guy who posted the content in question. After repeating my opinion several times and him becoming increasingly agitated due to my unwillingness to immediately apologize for "not doing things like an admin" and simply do things exactly as he wanted, I asked one simple question: "Did you expect anything positive to come from this phone call or did you simply want to vent in my ear until I hang up?" That seemed to get him to cool down considerably and, even though I didn't change what I was saying in any significant way, he went from insisting that I was the only person even remotely in the wrong to acknowledging that, while the situation could have been handled more tastefully, I at least was acting in a logically consistent fashion and not out of any sort of off-handed malice or similarly unfounded insanity.
End result? Aside from having a slightly longer block list for my Gmail and AIM accounts, we now have drafted a full-blown set of rules to try prevent this kind of bullshit from happening again. I'm willing to bet that it's only a matter of time before the guy who started this mess does something stupid and that his "apology" was simply because the person I spoke with on the phone told him to make one, but I'll deal with that when it happens. End result of all this is that I spent almost three extra hours awake than I originally wanted and lost any sex drive I had for the night. So now instead of getting eight good hours of sleep after pawing off, I'll get barely five hours and will be even more frustratingly pent up in the morning.
Someone, please, remind me why I'm in the fandom again?
Monday, June 8, 2009
Why do I bother at all?
After about six days at home, I have to go back to work this morning, soon as I can get everything together. Since I'm writing a blog post instead of actually packing things up and heading back to the truck, that's probably indication enough that I really would rather not be going back to work today. My time at home here has been little more than a waste of time. I needed the break from work, but this was about as much a break as it was solitary confinement for most of the week, leaving me even more depressed and emotionally screwed up than I was before getting here. When I got home I was actually looking forward to having the week off due to various plans that had been made, people I wanted to see, and things I wanted to do. Having had most of those plans scrapped, most people ignore me, and most things left undone, I want my week back, or at least another couple of days.
The beach party - the one signature event this weekend - was okay. Not great, as I'm sure everyone else would say, but okay. Stephie was a lovely host, so this is certainly nothing against her. I just, once again, found myself surrounded by so-called friends and getting ignored by most of them. On at least one occasion, I found that everyone else had clustered into two or three for conversation and nobody would even respond when I tried adding something, no matter what I said or who I said it to. The person I'd given a ride to - after two days of trying to convince him to come over earlier - was one of the worst culprits; I could barely get a response out of him at all on Saturday and he was even less polite about ignoring me Sunday, as he seemed quite irritated any time I tried getting his attention. Needless to say, I won't even waste my breath giving him the time of day in the future.
Outside of that big event, there really was very little to mention. I managed to make a trip to the eye doctor on Tuesday or Wednesday, but that was the only thing I actually accomplished all week. I didn't tend to any other medical or mental needs. I didn't even get out of the house just to go and do something out there for sake of being more active. No exercise, no wandering the mall, no going to a casino, not a damn thing. I had tried to get someone - anyone - to come over to watch TV and hang out, but not a single person responded in the affirmative. On Friday I spent an hour talking with someone on the phone and brought up the possibility, ending the conversation with the understanding we'd be in touch in an hour. When I called when a little over an hour had passed, he ignored his phone twice. Nobody else had even given me that much, though. A couple people didn't even respond to an instant message when I tried to get hold of them, while others gave various reasons they couldn't or didn't want to, some more plausible than others. One all but said he wanted to get into my pants and then got offended when I suggested I'd have a similar interest.
As a result of all this, plus more things that I would prefer not to write about here, I went from being in a pretty decent mood when I got home a week ago to feeling like complete and utter shit right now. I don't want to go back to work. I really don't want to even breathe any longer because I'm little more than a waste of this planet's precious resources. It's become painfully obvious that I'm not wanted around here, but due to my circumstances, I don't have anywhere else to go. I've an ever decreasing number of reasons not to simply drive off a bridge somewhere and disappear from this planet.
The beach party - the one signature event this weekend - was okay. Not great, as I'm sure everyone else would say, but okay. Stephie was a lovely host, so this is certainly nothing against her. I just, once again, found myself surrounded by so-called friends and getting ignored by most of them. On at least one occasion, I found that everyone else had clustered into two or three for conversation and nobody would even respond when I tried adding something, no matter what I said or who I said it to. The person I'd given a ride to - after two days of trying to convince him to come over earlier - was one of the worst culprits; I could barely get a response out of him at all on Saturday and he was even less polite about ignoring me Sunday, as he seemed quite irritated any time I tried getting his attention. Needless to say, I won't even waste my breath giving him the time of day in the future.
Outside of that big event, there really was very little to mention. I managed to make a trip to the eye doctor on Tuesday or Wednesday, but that was the only thing I actually accomplished all week. I didn't tend to any other medical or mental needs. I didn't even get out of the house just to go and do something out there for sake of being more active. No exercise, no wandering the mall, no going to a casino, not a damn thing. I had tried to get someone - anyone - to come over to watch TV and hang out, but not a single person responded in the affirmative. On Friday I spent an hour talking with someone on the phone and brought up the possibility, ending the conversation with the understanding we'd be in touch in an hour. When I called when a little over an hour had passed, he ignored his phone twice. Nobody else had even given me that much, though. A couple people didn't even respond to an instant message when I tried to get hold of them, while others gave various reasons they couldn't or didn't want to, some more plausible than others. One all but said he wanted to get into my pants and then got offended when I suggested I'd have a similar interest.
As a result of all this, plus more things that I would prefer not to write about here, I went from being in a pretty decent mood when I got home a week ago to feeling like complete and utter shit right now. I don't want to go back to work. I really don't want to even breathe any longer because I'm little more than a waste of this planet's precious resources. It's become painfully obvious that I'm not wanted around here, but due to my circumstances, I don't have anywhere else to go. I've an ever decreasing number of reasons not to simply drive off a bridge somewhere and disappear from this planet.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Asian Pirates and the Border Patrol
This has to be the most bizarre dream I've heard anyone writing about, though it's uncommon enough for me to remember anything I'm dreaming about in the first place. Since I'm typing in a hurry to try remember details this is probably going to make even less sense than it did.
I ended up on the beach as planned this weekend, but we somehow ended up finding a border patrol station. I was chatting with the other furs when they left, but I stuck around at the station for some reason. I heard something from inside, peered in, and three people had come in a door on the other side of the building - facing the beach - that looked like they didn't belong. I heard a struggle and then snuck out to call 911, slowly making my way around the side of the building to try escape detection. It didn't entirely work; one of the three came out onto the beach again and found me, though as he tried to grab me I grabbed his neck and choked him into submission. When the police arrived they recovered ID on the criminals and I was paid a bounty for the one they captured.
And then I woke up, wondering what the heck I possibly could have had or done yesterday to induce such a messed up dream.
I ended up on the beach as planned this weekend, but we somehow ended up finding a border patrol station. I was chatting with the other furs when they left, but I stuck around at the station for some reason. I heard something from inside, peered in, and three people had come in a door on the other side of the building - facing the beach - that looked like they didn't belong. I heard a struggle and then snuck out to call 911, slowly making my way around the side of the building to try escape detection. It didn't entirely work; one of the three came out onto the beach again and found me, though as he tried to grab me I grabbed his neck and choked him into submission. When the police arrived they recovered ID on the criminals and I was paid a bounty for the one they captured.
And then I woke up, wondering what the heck I possibly could have had or done yesterday to induce such a messed up dream.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
A day of unproductivity
Originally I'd planned to get going to the truck around 10 AM, get some shopping done at Wal-Mart, and be back at the room here in time for a slightly late lunch. Instead, I didn't even get out of bed until 10, didn't leave until 2:30, and didn't make it back until about twenty minutes ago. Things at the truck went reasonably well; despite the fact my phone lost the list I'd written up, I remembered all the things I wanted to grab: the fruit, some extra clothing, and an extra bottle of conditioner. That's about where the good day ended.
I should have known things would be rather chaotic at Wal-Mart, given that the parking lot was almost completely full and I had at least one near-miss accident just trying to get into the place. I went in there for just three things: markers, running shoes, and sandals. The markers took a few minutes to find, but the shoes... didn't happen. I tried a size eight and found them to be uncomfortably tight against the ball of my foot. Someone had suggested I might need a wide, since my work shoes (also normal width) have caused quite a bit of damage along the outside of the ball and big toe. Since Wal-Mart's selection of wide shoes was pretty much nonexistent, I gave up on trying to find anything decent there and decided to try my luck with Shoe Carnival.
For a full-blown shoe store, though, I found the selection of athletic shoes to be very lacking. First, most of the styles they had weren't available in anything except normal width. Second, the ones they did have in wides were usually extra wide (4E). Third, they had almost nothing below a size nine and I have to have an eight; 7 1/2 is too small and 8 1/2 is too big. I'd found two styles I liked but couldn't even try on; one was a pair of Nikes that was cut so low that my foot was too thick to fit in the shoe and the other was a pair of Reeboks that had a huge security tag that made it impossible to try on at all. After wasting about half an hour and failing to even see anything that really caught my eye, I just gave up and decided to start heading back to the room.
While I was driving back to the room, I decided to try at least get something done; I called Sprint to try get my HTC Mogul exchanged for a Touch Pro. I know three other people who had theirs exchanged at a Sprint store without issue and all three have asked why I'm still tolerating the piece of crap device that I'm currently using. The first person I talked to just kept repeating the script with minor variations while completely ignoring anything I had to say. The second went off script to pretty much call me a liar; he claimed I couldn't possibly know the details of how three other people got their phones upgraded for free and that I was mistaken in saying how that happened. Both were told that I was exceptionally unhappy with my service, my phone, and their customer service and that I have no intention of renewing my contract when it's up at Thanksgiving; neither actually responded to any of my complaints in any substantive way.
So now I'm back at the room and I'm moderately hungry, despite having eaten lunch only four hours ago. I might just have a light dinner and go to bed early (read: before 2 AM) because there's really nothing else productive I can get done today. I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone who wants to get together, save for one person who is a 90 minute drive away; I may drive for a living, but that doesn't mean I want to spend my time at home doing even more driving. The less time I spend behind the wheel the better.
There's still the beach party on Saturday, which I'm hoping will go well. Apparently we're expecting fourteen people so far, though I'm pretty sure one isn't going to be able to get a ride and would be surprised if the others all showed up. Even so, ten would still be the largest turnout we've had for a furry gathering in Pensacola. The plan has morphed a few times, but I just plan on going over there for lunch and dinner Saturday, even though there are things being considered late into the night and on Sunday; I may consider staying (or driving back) for that if Saturday proves to be a pleasant experience.
I just hope that someone actually comes over and hangs out while I'm here in town. I don't want to be stuck more or less alone up here until I head back to work Monday morning.
I should have known things would be rather chaotic at Wal-Mart, given that the parking lot was almost completely full and I had at least one near-miss accident just trying to get into the place. I went in there for just three things: markers, running shoes, and sandals. The markers took a few minutes to find, but the shoes... didn't happen. I tried a size eight and found them to be uncomfortably tight against the ball of my foot. Someone had suggested I might need a wide, since my work shoes (also normal width) have caused quite a bit of damage along the outside of the ball and big toe. Since Wal-Mart's selection of wide shoes was pretty much nonexistent, I gave up on trying to find anything decent there and decided to try my luck with Shoe Carnival.
For a full-blown shoe store, though, I found the selection of athletic shoes to be very lacking. First, most of the styles they had weren't available in anything except normal width. Second, the ones they did have in wides were usually extra wide (4E). Third, they had almost nothing below a size nine and I have to have an eight; 7 1/2 is too small and 8 1/2 is too big. I'd found two styles I liked but couldn't even try on; one was a pair of Nikes that was cut so low that my foot was too thick to fit in the shoe and the other was a pair of Reeboks that had a huge security tag that made it impossible to try on at all. After wasting about half an hour and failing to even see anything that really caught my eye, I just gave up and decided to start heading back to the room.
While I was driving back to the room, I decided to try at least get something done; I called Sprint to try get my HTC Mogul exchanged for a Touch Pro. I know three other people who had theirs exchanged at a Sprint store without issue and all three have asked why I'm still tolerating the piece of crap device that I'm currently using. The first person I talked to just kept repeating the script with minor variations while completely ignoring anything I had to say. The second went off script to pretty much call me a liar; he claimed I couldn't possibly know the details of how three other people got their phones upgraded for free and that I was mistaken in saying how that happened. Both were told that I was exceptionally unhappy with my service, my phone, and their customer service and that I have no intention of renewing my contract when it's up at Thanksgiving; neither actually responded to any of my complaints in any substantive way.
So now I'm back at the room and I'm moderately hungry, despite having eaten lunch only four hours ago. I might just have a light dinner and go to bed early (read: before 2 AM) because there's really nothing else productive I can get done today. I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone who wants to get together, save for one person who is a 90 minute drive away; I may drive for a living, but that doesn't mean I want to spend my time at home doing even more driving. The less time I spend behind the wheel the better.
There's still the beach party on Saturday, which I'm hoping will go well. Apparently we're expecting fourteen people so far, though I'm pretty sure one isn't going to be able to get a ride and would be surprised if the others all showed up. Even so, ten would still be the largest turnout we've had for a furry gathering in Pensacola. The plan has morphed a few times, but I just plan on going over there for lunch and dinner Saturday, even though there are things being considered late into the night and on Sunday; I may consider staying (or driving back) for that if Saturday proves to be a pleasant experience.
I just hope that someone actually comes over and hangs out while I'm here in town. I don't want to be stuck more or less alone up here until I head back to work Monday morning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)