The Positivity Thread aka "Today was a great day because....."

[Eye-Q]

I've had a cargobike for almost 4 1/2 years now, this is just the replacement since my employer now offers a bike leasing scheme and they subsidize it with 55 Euros per month as well. Car and cargobike are not mutually exclusive.

 

[93Flareside]

This was more for Yesterday...

I felt really good yesterday as it was my first week entirely alone doing service work for my profession. First half was at some insurance firm in Dusseldorf and the second half was at a pharmaceutical place in Cologne. Monday I'm back at a sort of popular potato chip factory. It's only taken a year and 2 months to finally get "settled." I'm feeling a little better about all of this, the culture shock and overall how to operate life change was substantial.

 

[RdKetchup]

Today was my first official day in my new position of Subject Matter Expert, in the group I've been working in for 5 years.

It's weird to see yourself as an expert after only 5 years, but the turnover in our group is so great I was the second most experienced employee if we don't count the other SMEs.

A year ago the relationship with my boss was so stranded I was actively looking for a job elsewhere in the company (and considering looking outside). Since then he has given me one out of sequence salary increase (and almost made an apology), I got another pretty big increase 6 months later at the regular review time, and now this position with another small increase that I wasn't expecting.

 

[Eye-Q]

Man, a bubble bath is nice after yesterday's 185 and today's 104 km bicycle ride...

With those rides I'm back on track for 12k km cycling this year...

 

[kalf]

I needed to paint some wood tot replace part of the garage door (after throwing a water bottle at it out of frustration and so creating a big hole and dent).
Forgot to clean out the plastic tray to use with the paint roller last time and all the paint just peeled out in two big pieces, oh that was so satisfying!

 

[DanRoM]

(after throwing a water bottle at it out of frustration and so creating a big hole and dent)

Are you an olympic athlete?

 

[kalf]

Are you an olympic athlete?

Part of the garage door is made out of 20+ years old PVC which is very britle apparently . So it wil now get replaced with wood. It's only a decorative layer, so it never bothered me that it was weak.

 

[NooDle]

Unteresting discussion about electricity prices because I've had a similar experience a while back.
Electricity company upped my "predicted" monthly downpayment from 180 to 330€ because of "reasons". I was of course sceptical of these reasons, thinking they may be "lets just ask for more money and if it's too much, we'll pay it back at the end", because it works like that here (free loan yeah). As I did not use any more electricity than normal AND my tariff had gone DOWN, I smelled a rat...
FWIW I use about 900- 1000 kWh a month, of which 600ish goes to the car...

After talking to several people I found out that, even though I, like a nerd, fill out my online thingy every month, they ignore those and only go by the 1 "official" measurement which is taken once a year.
This was taken at a time when my car was kaputt, and hence it was a month with MUCH less use than normal, hence lower price.
I have no idea why they would do it like this, as all my data I've entered into their system is correct?

End of the year time, and my electricity company have refunded me what I overpaid (as they should), and have given me (yet again) a new proposal for monthly installments : 54€/month. Which seems devastatingly low, especially if you see what they proposed me in the last few months :

100€
150€
180€
330€
300€
560€
0€ (I think this was a glitch)
52€

For reference, here's my consumption (off their website, they also know this)

Aside from dec 22-march 23 where I was EV less because reasons, it's been pretty consistent if you ask me.
Thus I will conclude my electricity company have no idea what they're doing, and are idiots/trying to con me out of money.
I shall set my own monthly installments because I'm obviously better at it than they are. Good thing I can do that, dunno if every provider allows this.

At their current "prediction" they will owe me about 1000€ at the end of 2024, because I've set it much higher/more realistic than the 52€ they propose.
IDIOTS

Thank you for coming to my tedtalk

 

[eizbaer]

I shall set my own monthly installments because I'm obviously better at it than they are. Good thing I can do that, dunno if every provider allows this.

There may be Regulation TM forcing them to accept this… however, I assume many providers set the (lower) limit of what you’re allowed to put in at quite a high amount BECAUSE REASONS (free loans?????).

My provider, erm.. who is also my employer, have a bit of a strange plausibility check on customer-provided meter readings (smart meters in Germany? Hahaha). Last year 2022 (ffs), when we renovated the house, we ditched one of the two electricity meters (former 2 apts) and thus didn’t have any consumption on it for a long time. When I put this into the online meter reading portal it didn’t just ask me „are you sure“ (which would be fine) but told me I had to provide a reason for the discrepancy to their assumption. If I’d have been a bloody pedant, I’d have put „BECAUSE THE METER SAYS SO“… honestly what idiots design those systems?

 

[Eye-Q]

I received a call from my health insurance that they will approve a transition of my Diabetes treatment from the insulin pump Omnipod (old version) and glucose sensor Freestyle Libre 3 to Omnipod (current version) and glucose sensor Dexcom G6. Those two new components can communicate directly with each other so the pump will stop administering insulin by itself if the glucose levels are on the verge of being too low and vice versa pump more insulin if the glucose levels are on the verge of being too high. I will still have to tell the pump that I will take in x amount of carbohydrates or that I want to exercise for x hours, but with the new components I don't periodically have to check if the basal rate I currently have to program myself still matches.

I really like the german healthcare system. Everybody pays a certain percentage of their monthly salary, in return I only have to pay around 10 Euros per month on top for the Insulin. If I had to pay everything I need by myself I'd have to pay around 500 Euros per month (330 Euros for the insulin pump, 70 Euros for the Insulin, 100 Euros for the glucose sensors)...

 

[DanRoM]

For non-complete values of "everybody".

 

[NooDle]

There may be Regulation TM forcing them to accept this… however, I assume many providers set the (lower) limit of what you’re allowed to put in at quite a high amount BECAUSE REASONS (free loans?????).

I doubt it, the scale seems to move around, centering on whatever they consider to be a "fair price" at any given time.
I can however set my own installment ridiculously low (knowing full well that I will need to pay a big sum at the end of the year) or ridiculously high (knowing full well I'll get a bunch of money back at 0% interest)

at the moment my slider starts at 26€ a month and ends at 312€ a month. This is based on nothing as far as I can tell?
When they proposed me 500+€ a month, the minimum was 300ish€, which I used.....despite many warnings that I will need to pay one BILLION euro's at the end of the contract.

In the end, i got a few hundred € back, because they're idiots

 

[kalf]

Went to a car show with my 3 sons (6, 9 and 11), their first one I think, the eldest used to go to Land Rover/4x4 events and trunksales with me but never a real car show with shiny and special cars. Loved seeing the enthusiasm and joy on their faces and thankfully not only at ridiculous cars .

 

[Redliner]

Saturday night, I board the train to go home.
I am alone and there are maybe 5-6 people in that car with me.
Suddenly, the train leaves the tunnel and I see the city lights from above, and it isn't even a pretty part of town (I live in the "Ukranian ghetto"), but I feel a sudden joy of being alive and the feeling that everything is gonna be fine.
It felt very weird to have a sudden good feeling instead of the usual sudden bad feeling.

 

[DanRoM]

Today I've sailed the farthest I've done so far in one day, and in the strongest wind and wave conditions I've had so far (no rain though). Granted, I'm not the skipper, but I've helmed the boat for about half the journey.
It was thoroughly fun and a great experience.

 

[calvinhobbes]

I’ve just used a charging point for my rented Polestar 2. After four hours of use, I would have been charged an extra €0,05 per minute. I disconnected at 98% after…

*drumrolls*

 

[NooDle]

^ Yes! Shell recharge app does this for some reason, I've had it too. I guess it's when you unplug when the final minute has not "completed"?

 

[calvinhobbes]

I guess it's when you unplug when the final minute has not "completed"?

It’s got to be either that or they want to tell you that no, your X hours and sixty minutes really, really, really don’t count as four hours so you don’t have to expect extra charges where those would apply.

 

[narf]

Most likely 3h 59m >=30s and <60s, and someone rounded the minute in weird self-made duration formatting instead of using existing libraries

 

[eizbaer]

I have tomorrow off.
And next Wednesday.
And the one after that…

I reduced my work hours by about 15% so that now I have one day a week off forever. I’m not quite mentally there yet, but damn! Yissssss.
Now to make sure I don’t waste all that lonely free time… no, wait, that’s wrong. Make sure I waste it in a good way!