Airing of Grievances, 2020 Edition

Plenny in 2020.

Minor/ major rants, C-word related or otherwise, let 'er rip here.

In memory of George Costanza

Where do we even start with this?

 

Everyone says it was a awful year and some people really did have a crap year. I just don't see it that way. It was a weird year, but it really wasn't all that bad. There were some definite perks to it 

The traffic situation was wonderful. This impacted my life more than anything else. I hope it stays this way.

Staying home was a socially acceptable decision. It's my preferred place to be. 

Stress levels were mostly down. 

Income was mostly up.

No meetings!!

All in, I've had much worse years. 

Did not get laid off it bonus promotion and 15% of my salary were taken away.  Effectively demoted due to consolidation of leadership and my alignment being on the losing side.  
 

baaically the joy went out of my work. I think I'm going to execute a career change this year and just push for my joy in 2021.  

Well, since you asked....

Following along a similar theme as Toyman, I am really over hearing all this "berkeley <insert current year here>" talk that happens every single year.  As the fourth quarter rolls around there's always a cacophony of whining about how bad the year was and every time a celebrity dies between the months of October and December it seems like there's always someone there to say "<insert current year here> strikes again, can this just be over already". 

Come on world, you're better than that!  Cancer, wars, respiratory infections, old age, and natural disasters don't know how to read calendars!  Covid isn't going to say "gee, it's January 1st, time to go back to my cave in Wuhan now!".  If you truly believe that just because our arbitrary calendar has decided it's time for year++; that all the Bad Stuff is over with, you are just setting yourself up for major disappointment.  Bad crap happens no matter what our calendar says.

Okay.  I'm better now.  I'll go take my pills.

My biggest complaint about 2020 was much too much complaining.

Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:

Everyone says it was a awful year and some people really did have a crap year. I just don't see it that way. It was a weird year, but it really wasn't all that bad. There were some definite perks to it 

The traffic situation was wonderful. This impacted my life more than anything else. I hope it stays this way.

Staying home was a socially acceptable decision. It's my preferred place to be. 

Stress levels were mostly down. 

Income was mostly up.

No meetings!!

All in, I've had much worse years. 

 

I'd have to second that.  

Given my work, I'm fine with WFH, saving me an hour of driving every day.  

Sure, we missed some trips, including a celebration trip to Finland this year.  On the other hand, it forced us to find alternatives, and now we are RV owners looking forward to new things to see.  Being forced to stay home made us appreciate what we have here- like many, we got to know the wildlife around us.

I do empathize with those with losses- life, work, support.  This has had to be a very, very tough year for a lot of people.  So we are very fortunate to have had a pretty darned good personal year.

Every year on New Year's Day, regardless of the weather, I used to go for a motorcycle ride. After a long night of revelry, it seemed like a good way to blast away the hangover, clear my head and start fresh. 

This year, there was no party, no headache and when I went out to the barn, there were no motorcycles left. 

Even tho I'm not WFH, my commute went from 50-60 minutes down to 10-15. 

What does it mean when there’s a pandemic and your social life didn’t change that much? 

No feeling sorry here, we’ve been really lucky.  I will be grateful when my daughter isn’t as nervous going to the high school she works at, my son is back closer to home and my parents (both in their 80’s) have gotten vaccinated.  We miss date nights but that will hopefully be back sooner than later too.  We had a surprisingly decent year at work and grateful for that as well  

Edit: My wife is pretty observant.  She saw me loling over a tee shirt someone on here posted a while back; “I like bourbon, my smoker and maybe 3 people”.   I have one now from Santa. 

WFH for me has been a blessing. Cut 1.5-2hrs commute time out of my schedule every day.  We've started sitting down and eating dinner as a family every day and I get to see my kids for more than 15 minutes before the youngest goes to bed.

Hardest part has been just trying to maintain some sanity and looking for some rest. Our kids are 2 and 4... And we're running out of ideas on how to keep them occupied and engaged at home. We really miss going to out science museum (used to go every weekend) or the aquarium, or even a public playground.

Hoping that we round the corner this year.

In reply to 11GTCS :

Shirt for the day.

I'm incredibly thankful.  Sabbatical, home improvement, self-improvement, friends who love me... I thought it was a great year.

There were only 2 things that sucked for me this year; I didn't get to my summer home in Canada for obvious reasons, and millions of my fellow humans died from a E36 M3ty virus.

Otherwise, thanks 2020 for an awesome year.

It was going to be such a good year. The housing market was set to implode, I was finally in a position to profit from it. Then the foreclosure and eviction bans took hold.

I've deleted the rest of my grievances and any explanation of that top sentence because it would severely flounder this thread, which is a grievance in itself.

I guess one thing good thing about 2020 is that with my salary reductions I'm in line for a big tax refund because i overshot what my expected earnings will be. 
 

last year my son will be in pay for it kibdergarten so I get a $1000 a month gift back to myself in august when he goes to public school. 
 

thats all I got for good stuff. 

Not going there with Covid/Government/lockdown/masks/etc. I want to air an age old grievance.

I hate my new neighbors. By new, I mean they moved in in May. I was just back from surgery, and the husband destroyed my pain pill fueled bliss by being utterly unable to get the Hertz truck where he wanted it. I went out to give him another set of eyes. Still unable to get the truck the way he wanted it. He gave up.

Since then, it has been a constant party. Bouncy houses, a revolving door of screaming kids, dogs, and adults. They slam every door, and come and go very frequently. They think the street is their yard, and the adults smoke standing in the middle of the road, throwing their butts wherever they please, and the children (4ish and 7ish) play unsupervised out in the road. Pregnant women smoking (I can't help but judge). Multiple times each day, they let their yapping poodle out, and it immediately bolts, eliciting screams, more occupation of the road, and general noisiness. Every guest turns around in my driveway, as if it is theirs.

I live in fear of hitting one of the kids with my car, so I crawl through with heightened awareness. The other day, a guest screamed as I inched by. I guess this was for the dog, but I nearly jumped out of my skin in fear it was a child. The timing and aggression of the yell were obviously somewhat directed at me.

They are just people, but everything they do is LOUD, and 15 house-guests a day every day in these times makes me uncomfortable. There is nothing to do but try to be nice, and hopefully airing my grievances will help with that. Happy New Year Everybody!

In reply to wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) (Forum Supporter) :

I met the new neighbor lady once when she was looking for her dog.  No "hi we just moved in" or anything after we made some effort to meet them.  The old guy had a landscaping crew come weekly and kept his stuff perfect.  New people knocked down the grass 3 times this year with a tractor.  There's an endless stream of vehicles, she gets uber eats or doordash every night, half the time they come here.  Some douche in a gti races up and down their driveway and looks at me like he's jealous i have actual performance vehicles.  They have a UTV and all summer it was annoying teenage girls racing it up the driveway all day every day singing E36 M3ty pop songs and yelling obscenities at each other.  
 

otherwise i used the whole situation to make myself better mentally and physically, make my relationship better with my wife and kids, and took steps to make our home what we need it to be

Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:

Everyone says it was a awful year and some people really did have a crap year. I just don't see it that way. It was a weird year, but it really wasn't all that bad. There were some definite perks to it 

The traffic situation was wonderful. This impacted my life more than anything else. I hope it stays this way.

Staying home was a socially acceptable decision. It's my preferred place to be. 

Stress levels were mostly down. 

Income was mostly up.

No meetings!!

All in, I've had much worse years. 

I have to agree with Toyman, except the traffic part. It was good for 3 weeks but then it went back to the same old down here. Now with all the snowbirds its even worse. But that's a small thing compared to the hand other people were dealt with. 

It was a weird year for me. Thats it. 

Only grievance :

everyone got free $ from uncle sam. I got nada 

Seriously the airing of the grievances is scheduled for the 23rd of December. You guys are great and I met in person, through zoom a bunch of GRM people this year which made things better. 

Cannot complain to much about this year. Nobody in the family got sick even with hospital stays in the middle of the pandemic including a heart attack with my mom. My research on the virus got used to help with the development of a drug to fight it. I got promoted and a big office. I built a car from start to completion with my spare time, got the house almost 100% in order including my yard. Still have zero debt and built up a nice nest egg from not traveling.   Learned some new coding skills with my spare time. 

The bad is the gym is closed and have not been able to lift I have lost a solid 10lb's of muscle mass but somehow lost fat as well with the extra housework. Will bounce back when they open up or I get the vaccine in say May or so based on current estimates. 

Overall, the year has been a mixed bag for me.  On one hand, yes COVID has completely sucked the life out of the year.  On the other, I'm basically a home-body, so I've been comfortable spending less time "out".  I also had more time off during the lockdown than I have since I was 13 years old (the last time I really had a "summer vacation")  I still have a job, so I feel unqualified to really complain about anything "lockdown/restriction related".

My Festivus grievance is this:  I'm sick of being manipulated.  Whatever the topic, it's now political and needs to be "spun" one way or another.  Both "sides" do it, so don't start this into a "X" is worse than "Y" discussion.  They all do it.  Media on both sides think they are so much smarter than their consumers that their most important job isn't telling you what happened, it's telling you what you should think, feel and do about it.  I'm sick of it.

Now on to "Feats of Strength"

2020 was certainly a weird one.   Personally experienced a lot of not so nice things.  Maybe it's a heightened awareness, not sure.  Just glad it's over.  Hopefully 2021 is better than last, and not as good as next.

Oh dear where to begin...

Violence in Baltimore hit home, meeting a young man who's at a turning point in his life through unfortunate circumstances and seeing that life terminated prior to a 15th birthday is something that I'll never come to grips with. 

Finding out that there are millions of people out there who seem friendly, kind and normal but are clearly more about the me than the we, is deeply problematic to me. 

Having to have laid off employees who are like family to me, made me feel that I have failed in managing the business. 

I was incredibly lucky and fortunate though. For years I've wondered why I'm still alive. I'm not religious, though I respect those with faith. I feel that being part of the clinical at NIH and their amazing and brilliant team of scientist and doctors being able to work to get things moving in the right direction made everything, not just 2020 worthwhile. 

mr2s2000elise said:

Only grievance :

everyone got free $ from uncle sam. I got nada 

Me too but I hit exactly 95% of my "Good" as in "Good-Better-Best" retirement number at the close of trading on December 31st.  By exactly, I mean I cleared the mark with $66.73 to spare so we're talking spot - berking - on.

I'm 56.5 y/o and, assuming the markets follow their long term averages, I'll hit 100% just before my 57th birthday which puts me three years ahead of the schedule I created when my first wife and I separated 26.5 years ago.

I get what you're saying though...if you make $149,999.99, you get the full amount...make one penny more and, as you say, you get nada.

Bottom line, easier said than done but I try not to get upset about things I can't control and on the whole, plenty of blessing to count...nobody in my circle got sick, my job is fine, etc..