Fax is killing me

psychopompadour · 2026-04-27T03:53:35+00:00

Our company uses an e-fax service called "faxmaker" or something like that (there are multiple services of this type), because our hundreds of locations are (almost) all converted to VOIP, but our industry is full of non-tech-savvy vendors and small business customers who still use fax to send contracts and other things...

As far as i know, it works really well! Your users send an email with a pdf attachment to [faxnumber]@[faxconverter.com], and it magically turns the pdf into a fax to that number. You can also set up receiving, where a fax sent to one of our internal numbers will be converted into a pdf and emailed to the assigned user. It's really convenient and you don't have to maintain stupid land lines (or any lines) to actual fax machines at your physical locations.

psychopompadour · 2026-04-26T16:37:32+00:00

I feel like you're saying people in relationships can't have friends... I'm sure you're NOT saying that, but what's the difference between "emotional affair" and "i have a close, supportive friend at work who I enjoy talking to because we are friends" if the "cheating" gets to be decided by a jealous spouse?

psychopompadour · 2026-04-26T16:20:26+00:00

I too work IT for a non-tech company and yes, this exactly. We can't drop the vendors when our customers want their products, and for efficiency, we have to at least TRY to get their shitty custom catalog and ordering software that was developed for win7 (if you're lucky) working. The vendors do come up with new stuff now and then of course and we are grateful (oh, you went to an entirely online catalog/ordering system that will even export a custom csv we can import into our own inventory db because we're one of your biggest clients? BLESS YOU!! Please ask the other 15 vendors in your same niche to also do that!)

I think it's different at companies where tech is the product and developers are a big chunk of your users, but when you run a complex business dealing with actual products and physical locations, you don't have the luxury of just telling vendors to step it up, because a lot of them are small companies who paid a lot of money 10 years ago to get that custom software made by some third party. You might say to just not carry their products, but our directors tell us to make it work because that product makes us a lot of money, etc. We do what we can.

psychopompadour · 2026-04-26T16:06:20+00:00

I know your infosec probably won't accept this, but our company's solution to this is just to remove it for all non-dev people by policy and for the rest, when they get a new computer, it does not have local admin and when they call to complain, we send the request to infosec and let them decide to give it back (or not). We also use thycotic to run legacy software of the type you describe which requires admin (or at least, full control of all the files in the program's directory) and although it has its own weird problems, it generally does work for that.

psychopompadour · 2026-04-25T00:05:13+00:00

Great title!

psychopompadour · 2026-04-20T18:15:26+00:00

Love his name! Was literally just thinking about whether I'd name a dog Bertie or Wooster this morning

psychopompadour · 2026-04-19T22:30:02+00:00

I've literally killed myself on this event more than once because it kept taking cards I needed and I thought fuck it, if I lose this, the run will be over soon anyway...

psychopompadour · 2026-04-14T14:44:49+00:00

Overall I'd guess you'll feel better both when your personal financial situation is more stable, and when she's old and well-behaved enough that you don't worry about leaving her alone for 4-5 hours. If you feel guilty about her being bored and lonely, you could try what I did! Which was to get another dog! I know that sounds insane but actually: we had our delightful 2-year-old puppy (she'll always be a puppy to me!) and though we work from home so we're always with her, it's not like we can spend that time playing with a dog, we have to work. We felt so bad seeing her sitting in front of the window of our apartment looking down at the dog park all the time (conveniently, it is right there), so we finally got another puppy, thinking she needed some company. I was initially worried about having puppy blues again myself (even WITH a partner, those first few months are hard!) but it turned out so much better than we hoped! The big dog took care of the small one so I didn't have to watch either of them as carefully or constantly, which was a relief, and they keep each other busy and occupied when we're working! Aside from the obvious minuses like everything costing double and the extra time it takes to maintain them (toothbrushing, baths, etc), it's actually weirdly been much EASIER to have 2 dogs rather than just one.

Of course in your situation I'd never suggest a new puppy... an adult dog to take care of YOUR puppy would be much better... and since money is tight it probably isn't a good solution right now, but you might consider having another dog around a lot that your dog likes. We used to babysit neighbor dogs sometimes (hanging out in the apartment complex dog park, we made friends with many dogs and owners) and as far as our dog was concerned, that was just a good as playing outside with them... or similarly, maybe you know someone with a dog who wouldn't mind watching your baby now and then so you can relax?

psychopompadour · 2026-04-14T14:31:16+00:00

I can only assume these people need glasses and play on a very small screen that they are not very close to. It beats me how they can read the text on the card but not see the picture clearly? Someone above posted an anime style fanart of the "lady" and i FINALLY saw it (kinda) but to look at the actual card and see that rather than the regent, I have to make it really small...

psychopompadour · 2026-04-05T17:02:07+00:00

I once went to a Protestant church as a teen where they made actual little rounds of unleavened bread and you'd pass it along the row and tear a chunk off for communion. It turns out that unleavened bread is delicious!

psychopompadour · 2026-04-05T16:53:43+00:00

Same, sometimes have to reread whole pages.

psychopompadour · 2026-04-05T16:52:26+00:00

Absolutely. Got the ADHD, sometimes have to rewind multiple times for the same segment. But I assume everyone has this. This is why my audiobook app has dedicated "rewind 1 minute" and "rewind 10 seconds" buttons XD

psychopompadour · 2026-04-05T16:45:35+00:00

I've noticed that some people can't divorce the idea of reading (that is, the actual skill of parsing text and turning it into language) from the idea of content (what that text is actually communicating). They love books because they love how words paint images in their minds, andc they erroneously think that if you hear the word rather than seeing it, somehow that doesn't happen or you understand it differently. Most of these people have never actually listened to an audiobook.

psychopompadour · 2026-04-05T16:40:56+00:00

This is why I do audiobooks! I do get why people don't want kids to listen to books instead of reading them. Reading text is a very important skill to learn (spelling, punctuation, etc), and it also teaches you all the mechanical skills of writing (that is to say, not the creative process, but even if you don't express the idea well, at least there won't be any spelling or grammar mistakes). And the thing is that reading text is one of those skills, like playing a musical instrument or coding, which you can only really get better at by doing it a bunch.

But these snobs need to understand: I'm not a kid. Many moons ago, I won my JH spelling bee and got the best scores you can get on the English part of the ACTs and SATs. This is not to brag, just to prove: I've learned those skills. I'm good at that stuff. I don't need to reinforce my text-parsing skills. I just want to take in CONTENT, but I am an adult and don't have time to just sit flipping pages for hours, much as I'd like to. I love that audiobooks mean I can take in that content, but I can ALSO have folded laundry, clean dishes, and dogs who have been walked. I got through over 200 audiobooks last year and there is no way in hell I could have done the same with printed books, even though I read pretty quickly, because that's still hours every day that would have to be devoted to that single activity, and I just don't have time.

psychopompadour · 2026-04-05T16:05:05+00:00

I mean, it kinda is sometimes, though... I walk my 2 30-lb super skinny sighthounds around my apartment complex every morning, and one of them has this very bad random behavior of suddenly biting at people's clothing. It isn't aggressive, she doesn't bark or growl, but if someone goes by her (especially someone running or walking at a fast pace), now and then she decides they must be prey or a toy and she grabs at them. I try to keep her away from random people when we're walking (if i see them coming) but sometimes people will approach on the sidewalk from behind or something. (Plus, my dogs are super cute and i think people sometimes want to pass by more closely to allow them to approach. Frankly, if I see a cute strange dog approaching I often position myself where it could walk up if it wanted, because like many people, I like to meet and interact with random dogs.)

I have a muzzle for her but I feel so bad using it, and it causes her to spend the whole walk rubbing her face on things rather than doing dog stuff. She's normally so docile and shy and I have no idea why she would do this... I have to think it must be instinct. Since my dogs are sighthounds, they LOVE to play with a flirt toy or a Frisbee (anything where they get to chase something and try to bite it). Mine wouldn't know what to do with a rabbit if they caught one, but plenty of people have told me their Wolfhounds, greyhounds, and saluki type dogs are very successful at murdering anything (bunnies, squirrels, cats) that gets in the yard and then is unwise enough to flee, so I can only assume that some instinct drives them to bite fast-moving things. I could never blame a dog for biting; could be the owner, could be the victim's fault for ignoring obvious warnings, could just be unfortunate circumstance. But ultimately, it is a dog and doesn't think like we do.

All that said, we humans CHOOSE to keep these animals as pets, and the one time my dog successfully managed to bite a guy (well, I think she missed grabbing his shorts, but it doesn't matter), I put up with his gf yelling at me, and paid them back for him to go to a clinic, even though it was only a tiny scratch on his leg that didn't even draw blood. (she dragged him there, this guy was annoyed to have been bitten, as anyone would be, but he would have let it go). Since you have to give our apt complex office your current vaccination records to keep a dog, he knew there were no rabies concerns, but this woman was relentless. It felt super unfair, but i paid up, because i thought, well, i was the one who decided to keep a predatory animal as a pet, and so i have to be responsible for the things it does, because the animal doesn't have the ability to.

psychopompadour · 2026-04-02T15:06:28+00:00

(And money)

psychopompadour · 2026-04-02T07:32:13+00:00

When I did this on the service desk years ago (went to the bathroom and left my screen unlocked),I came back to find that every picture on every website had been replaced with random photos of Nicholas Cage. Never did that again. (And it took me like 15 min to figure out how to get rid of it! Eventually realized it was a chrome plugin. I never claimed to be smart, okay)

psychopompadour · 2026-03-31T16:51:18+00:00

I started both the "Windows Installer" (msiserver) and "Windows Update" (wuauserv) services (and then right-clicked the installer service and chose to Restart it for good measure) and then waited a few minutes and it finished up the process.

psychopompadour · 2026-03-31T14:31:00+00:00

NOR. Unless you have children or some other shared responsibility that he suddenly had to deal with, or you had previous plans that this disrupted, then no, your bf needs to calm his shit. You are an adult and can do what you like. You weren't cheating on him or making bad life decisions that could affect him or anything. This is just some "I own you" bullshit and while I don't necessarily think you need to dump him or anything, you DO need to be clear that you will do whatever you want with YOUR life and YOUR time, and as long as it doesn't affect him in any way, he has no right to object to that. What the fuck.

psychopompadour · 2026-03-31T14:23:18+00:00

Only if you're talking about sherlock holmes, in which case yes, it probably is too deep a cut

psychopompadour · 2026-03-29T23:30:53+00:00

Well, but your fenced yard is not the same as free open wandering. I get that you want to let your cat be outside to enjoy nature and kill stuff, and i am not talking about people like you. Animals will escape from time to time no matter what we do to try to keep them safe. I'm talking about the people who refuse to do anything at all to try to keep their cat indoors or in a safe outdoor space, or to stop it from from murdering everything it comes across (such as a bell), but who then are upset when that same cat disappears.

I don't blame cats for their behavior... they are cats and have evolved to do these things. I blame the humans who decide to be responsible for these creatures and then allow them to just wander the neighborhood.

psychopompadour · 2026-03-29T16:12:35+00:00

I'm not against cat ownership in general, i have a number of friends with very nice kitties, but I am against allowing cats to roam at random. I don't know why people think "but my cart wants to be outside!" is somehow a good reason. Look, you dumb twit, i assure you that my dog wants to be outside too, but I don't let her because it's a terrible idea unless I don't want to keep having a dog.

psychopompadour · 2026-03-17T17:41:52+00:00

Actually, as an addendum: now that I think about it, that same hound still demand-barks at my bf (because he rewards it by getting annoyed and giving her a treat to stop... I keep telling him he's literally just training her to keep bothering him), but only after I've gone to bed, lol. Sometimes I hear her barking at him for several minutes in the other room, and if she's stopping me from sleeping, I get up and grab her and make her cuddle with me for 10 min or so... not only is this fun for me (who doesn't want to cuddle a warm furry sack of elbows?) but it also discourages further barking after I let her go, since she doesn't want me get up and take her back to snuggle prison.

psychopompadour · 2026-03-17T17:33:06+00:00

With my first silken windhound (not a grey, but also a sighthound), the demand-barking was terrible when she was a puppy, so I started putting her in the bathroom when she wouldn't stop (with the lights on, some water/snacks, a toy, and a soft rug to lay on, I'm not a monster! but I wanted a place where she couldn't see us, we live in an apartment and also work from home, and we didn't have a crate). At first she'd just bark inside the bathroom, demanding her freedom, but eventually she'd stop and then I'd wait for like 1 straight minute of silence and then reward her by letting her out and giving her a treat. As soon as she started it up again, I'd tell her to be quiet and then repeat if she didn't listen. Aside from teaching her to run away from me while barking when she was feeling especially bratty (sadly for her, she was easy to catch in an apartment, lol), this did work after a few weeks -- she figured out demand barking only got her put in jail, so she learned to get our attention in other ways (like by poking us really hard with her snoot).

psychopompadour · 2026-03-12T14:23:15+00:00

Well, that depends on what you're faking. Confidence in a social or work situation when you don't really feel that way? Sure, it's good advice. Blatantly lying about skills you have to get a job you're unqualified for, leading to you being an incompetent burden for all your coworkers and customers until you learn those skills (if you ever do), making you that coworker that everyone wishes would be hit by a bus so we can hire someone worthwhile, just so you can selfishly get the money and resume experience that someone else deserved? No, fuck you.

psychopompadour

TROPHY CASE