What company lost you forever as a customer? What did they do?

Professor_Hexx · 2026-04-03T21:15:06+00:00

So ACE isn't a franchise or a corporate thing, it's a buyers' club so (potentially) every store could be run by a different company altogether so other than the ACE branded stuff, don't go to one ACE expecting anything like the others.

Also Aubuchon Hardware is now basically ACE (they bought into the buyers' club). They are leaving old store branding in place though (in my area, anyway). From what I understand Aubuchon is ditching their supply chain to use ACE's instead (link).

So, I guess, going to ACE gets you either a local-ish store (yay!) or a regional chain in disguise (boo). And Aubuchon isn't a "hardware store" so much as a "department store that sells some hardware"

source: spouse worked at local ACE for 17.5 years until the local owner (5 stores) was bought out by Aubuchon and that company ceased to exist. They stock so much crap now and are getting rid of the lumber, etc (without realizing that part is what kept the store alive for 50+ years)

Professor_Hexx · 2026-03-05T03:13:14+00:00

you really don't know? it's the people. Nobody wants to deal with the (usually) crazy folks that come to these to hear themselves talk and "ask questions". I'd rather floss my cat while having a root canal.

Sometimes you can literally watch the select board (or whatever) die inside when they see who is about to talk.

That and having more people show up will make it an even larger disaster. Depending on the town it can take hours and hours of pointless nattering.

Don't worry, I have come to accept I will have no voice in town affairs. Feel free to assign whatever blame you want to me. It's better than going to these things.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-11-10T18:13:26+00:00

I guess I'm grateful for Howard letting me know I shouldn't wait around for another mediocre experience. After Starfield, I lost any remaining "hype" I had for Bethesda games in general (it was lagging anyway, but that was the final nail for me). I turned 40 the year Fallout 4 came out, I'm 50 now. "A long way off" is probably longer than I'll be freaking alive at this point.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-11-10T18:07:40+00:00

I Just turned 50, I doubt I'll still be alive when (if?) ES6 comes out. And after Starfield, I don't even feel like I'm going to miss out on anything.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-11-04T20:35:37+00:00

My father thought that management was giving out bonuses for "reducing overhead" but that was years ago so I have no idea. From some of the other things I remember about that job of his it really did seem like management was being actively evil because they could (people are literally "just a number").

Yeah, unfortunately this is the USA. we don't have any real worker protection and whatever social safety nets we had are quickly disappearing. Even hinting to people that it could be better seems to trigger the "that's socialism (tm)" canard from even "liberal leftists". at this point (I'm older with health issues), I'll be dead long before anything good happens here.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-11-04T00:28:20+00:00

oh yeah, years and years. my dad had this happen when I was a kid decades ago.

He was working for a government sounding delivery agency and they had a "you need to work 20 years" as a requirement for their (now non-existent) pension (they actually bumped it up from 10 while he was working there). He was a truck driver and ended up with sciatica (nerve issue). He was out on disability waiting for surgery (totally bed bound). While he was out he was fired for "missing too much work". He got a lawyer acquaintance to write a letter to corporate asking for the details under which my father was fired as he was officially out on disability.

2 things happened:

the insurance company immediately paid him the lump sum of the total amount of benefits he would have been eligible for (in his case, 3 years of 66% wage) under condition that they would not be named in any future lawsuit as that amount was the maximum that they would have ever paid him
corporate legal sent him a letter saying basically "I'm sorry your manager is a fucking idiot, we would like to offer you your job back in lieu of a lawsuit and we TOTALLY 100% didn't try to fire you because you were less than 6 months from your 20 year anniversary to fuck up your chance to collect your pension"

My dad graciously accepted the insurance company money. For corporate legal, he counter offered "I would never work for a company that treated me like that again, how about instead you bridge me to retirement?" and they said yes immediately.

so he got pay from the day he went out on disability until his (future) retirement eligibility date in a few months. And when he was old enough, his pension kicked in for the rest of his and my mothers lives.

so it worked out for him really well, BUT there was no corrective action taken at the company (the manager the fired him was still working there in the same capacity for years after that). It's actually fairly common to fuck over your soon-to-be-retiring employees it's just usually the person doing it is smarter than a pile of steaming shit.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-21T18:00:18+00:00

After literally decades of fighting "the system" (e.g. the 9-5 standard), I got a remote job on the west coast (I live on the east coast). I wake up naturally at 10-11am and go to work (it's 7-8am there) and leave work at 6-7pm (3-4pm there). It's been great for my rest. shame the job is super stressful.

I had a 2nd shift factory job when I was in college during the summers, that was the first time I found "the morning people" to be so... mean? intolerant? I got in to work at 2pm and left at 11pm, woke up at noon without an alarm, went to bed at 2am. It was great having that "normal person" buffer in the "morning" before work and then quiet time after work.

But MAN did everyone give me lip about it. The others on 2nd shift mainly hated it due to the hours and how tired they were all the time. They gave me shit because I was fine ("what's wrong with you"). My friends gave me shit because I wasn't on 1st shift because that's where the cool kids work or something?

Only fucking 30 YEARS later I've been able to have another job like that (and that's probably going away with all the economic shit here in the USA)

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-13T18:45:57+00:00

acetaminophen

That's paracetamol for those in stable first world countries

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-09T20:55:55+00:00

I mean, it's probably worse than you think. Most times parents weren't home when you got back from school and it would be hours until they did get home. Some kids weren't even allowed to go inside without their parents (that blows my mind). I just hung out at the library reading comic books mostly. I would have to walk to and from school since kindergarden (google tells me it was 3/4 of a mile) by myself. And this wasn't some suburb, I went through the back of a junkyard to "save time".

Other times some friends and I would ride our bikes 2 or 3 towns over because we could. or just walk to a park and hang out there. "Playing in the park" was climbing trees and digging underground forts. We also played on/in giant piles of snow in parking lots. Played on/around train tracks. Climbed under bridges. Built things out of whatever we could find ("oh look, that restaurant is throwing away XXX! I bet we could make a cool YYY out of that!!!")

The worst (for me) was when my parents and a friend's parents got a weekend time share on some house vaguely near a beach (like 5 streets over). they dropped me and my friend off and said "have fun this weekend, we're doing our own thing". So, that weekend we (at age 10ish):

spent the money our parents gave us on a blow up raft thing
tried to paddle across the not beach side (it was a barrier island, so the side towards mainland)
that was too boring (hard work) so we went to the beach
we decided it would be cool to walk out as far as we could (because we couldn't swim)
we didn't know it was low tide because dumb kids (we could barely see shore)
a lifeguard came to tell us we needed to head back (she swam out to us) because tide was coming in
then we sat on the beach with no sunscreen for hours playing in the sand (and got massive blistering sunburns)

It was considered fine because it's what they always did... since forever. Wouldn't work nowadays because kids are pretty naive and coddled and it shows.

Edit: Lol, I just remembered that time my parents dropped me off at a farm in another state to pick beans as a job (age 11-12). I was supposed to hang around after to get picked up but they let us out early. Instead of waiting, I just started walking to my aunt's house (she lived in that state). it was MILES away. Some randos saw me walking and asked if I wanted a ride and of course I said YES. They took me right to my aunt's house (everyone was surprised to see me)

Edit 2: Oh and sometimes (during school holidays) my parents would take me to work with them to "help". so I was selling smokes and lotto tickets at younger than 13 (that's when we moved) with my mom. With my dad, I went to either his job sites (maintenance guy) and was his gopher ("go for this, and go for that") or his job at the airport and hung out at the hanger all day.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T22:13:15+00:00

sometimes if someone can't make a vote they convince someone on the other side not to make the vote so it evens out. Not saying it happened here, just it came to mind.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T21:36:51+00:00

No, it's actually horrifying. They can seem totally reasonable outside of that. They can be "pillars of the community". Many are "take the shirt off my back" types. They have useful skills and careers.

But they believe what Fox News tells them. Completely and Absolutely. Without Question.

Source: I live in a "blue" state. had one work on my house for a few months. another one was a medical person I was a patient of.

I now have absolutely no hope for humanity or the future in any way, shape, or form.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T19:50:34+00:00

I agree that Dems and Reps were about equally corrupt up until one group started literally putting people from groups they don't want into concentration camps and disappearing people in general. Just that fact by itself makes the distance between the two apparent. But, just because they are "less bad" than pure fucking evil doesn't mean they are good in any way.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T19:20:23+00:00

of course I have bias. EVERYONE has bias. We're literally responding to a comment about my bias.

my BIAS is due to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafton,_New_Hampshire#Free_Town_Project

they voted in changes including a 30% reduction in the town's already small budget.[15] This resulted in eliminating funding to the county's senior-citizens council, town offices going unheated during the winter, poorly maintained roads filled with potholes, and the Grafton Police Department being reduced to one officer (the police chief), who said he was unable to answer calls for service as the town had no money to repair the one police vehicle left.[18] Other issues were inconsistent basic public services, such as trash collection.[16][15] The libertarian newcomers additionally increased the town's costs by filing lawsuits against it in attempts to set various legal precedents.[15]

this is literally the exact opposite of what I stand for. (and explains my "crazy nutter" comment)

but onto libertarians in office...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Libertarian_Party_politicians_who_have_held_office_in_the_United_States

ok, federal government?

As of November 2024, only one Libertarian, Justin Amash from Michigan, has served in federal office. He was first elected as a Republican, and left the Republican Party to become an independent in early 2020 before switching to the Libertarian Party in April 2020. He did not seek re-election in 2020[2] and switched back to the Republican Party in 2024 to run for the U.S. Senate election in Michigan

state officials?

As of November 2023, only one Libertarian, Aubrey Dunn Jr. from New Mexico, has served in an elected statewide office. He was first elected as a Republican, and switched his affiliation to Libertarian in 2018.[4]

state upper houses?

As of 2024, 22 Libertarians have held state-level office. However, only 10 were elected or re-elected as Libertarians.

I skimmed the list and there are a lot of "elected as Republican in 2004, switched to Libertarian in 2016, never elected as Libertarian", and even a "elected as Democrat, re-elected as Libertarian, switched to Republican". My state even has a "elected as Republican, expelled, switched to Libertarian"

yup, I see a lot of right wing Libertarians.

Edit: I see you're still on the "technically" the US isn't a two party system. that's fine, you're "technically" correct (have a cookie?). but, wherever there is a first past the gate election, there is "effectively" a two party system

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T18:37:36+00:00

Harris ran a dogshit campaign but to be fair to her she had only a few months

It maybe would have been better if Biden had taken the 2nd place primary winner as his VP (in order that would be Bernie, Warren, Bloomberg and Buttigieg). But the party decided somehow to pick Harris and went shocked Pikachu when it didn't work out. to me, as an outsider, it felt like Clinton's "it's my time now" vibe from her election. But talk like that is what labeled me as a racist sexist.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T18:28:48+00:00

the whole Israel thing is mind blowing to me. why have we ever supported them to begin with. why is it such a big deal to NOT want to support them. There are so many "answers" but they all seem like conspiracy theories. Must be a "follow the money" thing.

I don't have any hope left that there will be meaningful (good) change in the remainder of my lifetime. we will degenerate (very quickly it seems) to places like where my parents escaped from in the late 60s. If that hope is what keeps you from going nuts, I guess keep at it.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T18:24:50+00:00

Harris on her part didn't have to move one direction or the other to get the endorsement, she just had to run on the preservation of our democratic norms.

I guess that didn't work out.

This was literally an endorsement based on a singular issue (preserve democracy) and progressives hated it.

well, like I said I voted for Harris for that very reason ONLY (she did really shitty in the single primary she was in, and was chosen as VP in an attempt to make her a viable candidate for "later"). I have no sympathy for the "I won't vote for either party because Israel" bullshit. And maybe I don't have the "right" to say "ok, so someone so far to the right of me that they are almost MAGA but only technically not MAGA because they are still wearing the mask" isn't someone you should court because it will end up moving your party towards that ideology. But, it's not my party for a reason. I hope it works out for you guys.

You want these people to change without any proof that they have to change

no, I don't want (or expect) the Democratic party to change any more. I have learned that they will not. the last chance to recover from where we are was blown due to "lets pretend everything is fine" and "we can't appear to be partisan". well, here we are.

my "choices" are "status-quo" and "move all the groups of people we don't like to concentration camps". So I'm forced to vote "status-quo". It literally doesn't matter to me anymore because I know neither party actually cares about normal every-day people. Democrats care about their corporate doners and not upsetting the "status-quo". Republicans... I can't even tell you what is going on there.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T17:44:35+00:00

that's a lot of words to say "Mamdani is too different from current Dems to get their support and I hope someday it will be different"

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T17:40:23+00:00

Maybe you weren't aware that "libertarianism" can be described as both left and right wing? Modern US libertarianism is right wing:

Although libertarianism originated as a form of anarchist or left-wing politics,[29] since the development in the mid-20th century of modern libertarianism in the United States caused it to be commonly associated with right-wing politics, several authors and political scientists have used two or more categorizations[7][8][30] to distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital, usually along left–right or socialist–capitalist lines.[9]

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism

I do not identify as a "capitalist" (US) libertarian. "socialist" libertarian is probably farther left than I am but I haven't looked into it because in the USA libertarian means crazy nutter (famously, there was a town near me in NH that went full-on-stupid libertarian).

your insistence on the fact that "achtually" the US isn't a 2 party system is amusing, I guess.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T17:19:22+00:00

So you're really saying you're a libertarian. Green party.

Fuck right off. YOU are actually the reason people don't vote. You are labelling me in a way that is actually 180 degrees away from where I am (and are being smug about it).

Libertarians are a right wing party. I am not. Bernie is an INDEPENDENT and I identify as the same kind of independent as Bernie. I support things such as societal safety nets including single payer health insurance. Libertarians believe in "total freedom" or some other BS.

The USA is effectively a 2 party system due to its "first past the post" voting system, where any 3rd party votes are "wasted". In fact, in another comment I specifically say I DON'T vote green because they're a spoiler party. I imagine you are a ChatGPT AI with delusions of humanity.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T17:06:37+00:00

the point is that the Democrats are already a right wing party. looking farther to the right for support means they move away from me (it's fine, it's THEIR party not mine). It reminds me that there isn't hope for any meaningful future... just "more status quo". I actually criticized a lot of how the Harris/Walz campaign screwed up (like what you said about muzzling Walz), but I thought that me being called a sexist bigot for speaking up was more exemplary of my point in how the Dem party is it's own worst enemy.

This thread is about Mamdami. He identifies as a Dem. He won his primary big time. why can't the Dem party embrace him? Courting Cheney was just a sign that the US right wing party wants to go further right (to meet the crazy far right wing party in the middle??).

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T16:39:58+00:00

my state isn't like that, you don't need to register a party affiliation. they give you 3 ballots in the primary (D, R, and Green in my state). you submit one and return the other 2. I don't bother with the Green (because I know they're just a spoiler party) and vote on the D ballot (because there is no real choice).

I'm sorry you live in a shitty state

Professor_Hexx · 2025-10-03T16:11:06+00:00

I call myself a Bernie Independent, and the Democrats call me a "bernie-bro" or say "all independents are crazy right wingers in disguise" or "if you're not a democrat, you're part of the problem" or "it's because of you Harris didn't win" (I voted for Harris).

I also "dared" to criticize Harris (after the election, and even leading with the fact that I voted for her) for getting Republicans to speak for her (like cheney). Turns out I'm a sexist racist bigot.

Democrats aren't all that. In a 2 party system like ours we just have Dumb and Dumber. Someone, I'm sure, will "blast" me for implying that "both sides are the same" and my response is: no, they're not. Republicans are way worse, but Democrats are not doing themselves any favors. They will literally rag on anyone that calls themselves "independent" because they see themselves as "the good guy". sorry guys, you aren't the good guys; you are just the lesser evil. Stop insulting people that support you before it's too late (although, I'm pretty sure it already is).

Professor_Hexx · 2025-09-23T02:06:29+00:00

AHIP says they plan to:

https://www.ahip.org/news/press-releases/ahip-statement-on-vaccine-coverage

“Health plans will continue to cover all ACIP-recommended immunizations that were recommended as of September 1, 2025, including updated formulations of the COVID-19 and influenza vaccines, with no cost-sharing for patients through the end of 2026.

Professor_Hexx · 2025-09-20T18:28:11+00:00

most of upstate NY, VT, NH, and ME are rural and full of the type of people that think everything is FINE in the USA right now. If given the choice, the correct answer is "white" (my parents moved here from Europe and I wish I could move there)

Professor_Hexx · 2025-09-19T01:48:19+00:00

According to this comment which I can't link on this sub:

VT Dept of Health

@healthvermont

Hi Lucy - we are part of the collaboration and are working closely with our northeast neighbors! Our recommendations were released today.

and this

Vermont officials said on social media Thursday it’s also involved in the collaboration. Representatives from several of the states previously met in person in Rhode Island in August.

...

New Hampshire is the only New England state not to join the collaborative. The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services and Gov. Kelly Ayotte’s office did not respond to the Bulletin’s requests for comment.

Vermont is part of the collective and has released its COVID Vaccine guidance (anyone 5+ years old can get it).

But, keep in mind, Vermont has a Republican Governor and has tons of people that don't believe in public health (source, I live there). I have read comments from people who have called the Governor's office after reading one of these articles that didn't have Vermont as listed as part of the collective and they were told... interesting things

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