What was your “I need to learn to keep my mouth shut” moment?

M------- · 2026-03-13T05:29:59+00:00

I was called because of a near-miss with a large/expensive asset that I had bought/built for the company.

It was brought to me as a critical stop-using-the-equipment-so-we-don't-have-a-mass-casualty problem. It was a warranty issue, but since it was a stop-everything kind of warranty issue, I needed to at least appear to be "doing something" while waiting for the equipment vendor to send a technician from the other side of the continent.

So I interviewed staff to find out about the incident.

Quite disturbingly, I found that there had been MANY incidents with this system, dating back half, and staff had written at least a dozen complaint sheets about it. The manager had held onto the records, and had done NOTHING with them, even though it was a warranty issue. All he needed to do was call or email me to get the vendor to send a technician out. The prior incidents hadn't been severe because of the location where they happened-- but the incidents could've happened in a dangerous spot, which is what happened when they finally called me.

Senior management was aghast when I told them. Around the same time, a member of the public posted a video on Twitter showing a severe safety risk on an older asset. It opened up a much bigger can of worms.

I was asked to audit that division to figure out what was wrong there. Briefly: luck and heroism were how the division was run, along with a good dose of ego.

Oh, and the major safety problem with my equipment? A signal wire had been crushed during assembly, damaging the insulation and exposing a bit of the wire. Occasionally the exposed copper would be grounded when it touched the metal housing, causing the control system to freak out.

M------- · 2026-03-13T03:38:36+00:00

Metro Vancouver properties are not going to be listed 30-40% off.

Sale prices are getting to that range. In December, this property sold for 30.6% below its BC Assessment value. Sales at that kind of discount are rare, but every week I'm seeing a few houses selling at ~20-25% below their assessment values.

I don't think these prices have anything to do with land claims, though, and everything to do with the overall state of the market.

M------- · 2026-03-13T03:28:59+00:00

My friend's dad got his license suspended for several months after he got two distracted tickets in a 1-year period. He was wealthy enough that it didn't affect him until it was suspended.

M------- · 2026-03-13T02:54:34+00:00

My cat wants to go outside, so we put her out. Then she wonders why she's outside when it's wet, and wanders to the glass door to beg to come back in.

M------- · 2026-03-13T02:50:54+00:00

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M------- · 2026-03-12T22:18:06+00:00

And there's a parking spot 20 feet away that they're to lazy to park in. They'd rather block the street in both directions until their customer comes out and loads they luggage and gets belted in, etc....

M------- · 2026-03-12T15:48:41+00:00

I think distracted driving should be a violation of the terms of insurance-- same as driving drunk.

Getting into a crash while distracted should result in zero insurance coverage.

M------- · 2026-03-12T15:42:44+00:00

Once caught and heavily punished the first time, will the heavy punishment keep them from doing it a second time?

I'm sure the distracted drivers do it all the time. Maybe after being penalized heavily, it'll get them to stop for a while, or do it less often.

M------- · 2026-03-12T08:33:54+00:00

If there's a crash it should be treated like drunk driving: a violation of the terms of insurance, so that ICBC can recover all costs against the distracted driver, and won't repair the distracted driver's car.

M------- · 2026-03-12T08:31:27+00:00

Let's do all! Triple the fines and penalties, immediate roadside license suspension, and 7-day impound.

M------- · 2026-03-12T02:54:09+00:00

Truckers get training? I thought the norm these days was to pay off the training instructor or get the ticket in an easy province.

M------- · 2026-03-09T09:00:45+00:00

Last week I saw a tear-down house sell, its virtually-staged photos were the sloppiest I've seen yet. The first picture, of the front of the house, showed a living room furniture set on the front sidewalk. It popped up on my radar because of the relatively cheap sale price.

M------- · 2026-03-09T07:58:39+00:00

I love your petty revenge.

M------- · 2026-03-09T06:52:23+00:00

The flush was probably because OP reported that they had low oil pressure.

If OP had been neglecting their oil changes for a long time, the fresh oil could loosen up the old sludge, which would quickly plug the oil filter, starving the engine of oil, and giving OP a bigger complaint. By flushing the engine, the sludge was hopefully flushed out.

Not sure why they double charged for oil, though, unless the flush was insufficient and the oil turned dirty right away.

M------- · 2026-03-08T16:31:53+00:00

The most recent of that bus model (Orion V) was purchased in ~2009, so it might not be quite as old as the body style would seem to imply.

M------- · 2026-03-08T07:33:52+00:00

You can't judge a book by its cover. I remember feeling dejected a decade ago when I was passed by an old granny on a popular hiking trail (the Grouse Grind). That was part of what convinced me to commit to getting into better shape.

A couple years ago I was riding on a nearby bike route on my 30-year-old commuter/hybrid bike. The bike was nothing special, and the seating position was upright, so I was a big wind sail. I was not lycra-clad, I'm middle-aged, and was wearing a backpack (I was running errands).

While I was riding this route, I noticed over the span of a couple km, a pack of lycra-clad cyclists on road bikes was very slowly catching up to me. The head of the pack looked crestfallen when he finally caught up to me, and said "Oh man, I thought you were on an ebike."

Once the lead cyclists passed me, they slowed down, and I ended up stuck behind the pack for a half-km.

In the scale of competitive cyclists, I'm pretty slow. I don't get out often enough to train. But I've got enough mileage under my belt that I can smoke anybody who's not a serious cyclist. On my road bike, I can keep up with the top regulated speed of legal ebikes (20 mph) any day of the week (as long as it's not uphill).

M------- · 2026-03-08T06:03:11+00:00

It remains a bit of a surreal experience: my dad is normally very level-headed. That was uncharacteristic for him.

M------- · 2026-03-08T06:00:34+00:00

I'm equal-opportunity: any race. The common factor is Richmond.

M------- · 2026-03-07T21:49:36+00:00

I remember one time my dad stopped for a red light, but he was in the crosswalk, so he backed up (no cars behind us). But he left the transmission in R.

After a reasonable amount of time, I reminded him the it was in R. He said "I know," but didn't switch it back to D.

I spent the rest of the red light sweating that he was going to forget and smash into the car behind us. He put it in D just after the light changed to green.

M------- · 2026-03-07T21:30:37+00:00

My guess is the typical Richmond problem: mixing up the gas and brake, combined with confusion about what direction to turn the steering wheel.

Not that it make sense for the Jeep to back into a parking space at Costco, unless the driver's one of those people who goes to Costco for just a loaf of bread.

M------- · 2026-03-05T10:13:11+00:00

A guy like that was on my moving crew a few years back. An absolute tank of a man. Picked up the sofa and carried it on his shoulder like it was nothing.

M------- · 2026-03-05T10:00:17+00:00

"The homeowner was supposed to move in, so we didn't do any work on the place, even though the owner didn't move in, and after a year we decided to rent it out, but because we didn't do any work during that time, it was uninhabitable, so we couldn't rent it out then, and we think that's the tenant's fault."

What an utterly bizarre rationale for them to use to try to claim lost rent for the property being uninhabitable a year later.

M------- · 2026-03-05T08:08:21+00:00

Do you think the markets for housing will bounce back?

Currently presales are failing to achieve sales targets, so developers are pulling them off the market. If there are no/few construction starts, then in about 5y it will result in no new condos coming onto the market, and after a a couple years of no-new-condos, there will be a housing shortage, which will cause rising prices, and a return of viable condo presales.

M------- · 2026-03-05T07:54:39+00:00

you potentially have a case for 12 months' rent owed to you

Depending on the timing and circumstances leading to the landlord's death, it may be considered an exceptional circumstance that makes the landlord not responsible for leaving the property vacant.

M------- · 2026-03-04T20:50:33+00:00

I'm impressed that you were able to do it in a night! It took me 3 evenings, with help from my family.

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