Month / November 2020

by Winter Wallaby

Hanukah Cards (from Robin Bickel)

Hello CIDU friends. This is Robin, Bill’s wife. (I guess widow now).

Although I posted something a couple of months ago, I was afraid that some of us may have missed it, so with Winter Wallaby’s kind help, I am writing this.

First I want to say thank you. CIDU started because Bill thought it was funny but it grew into something much bigger – a place where people could come together and discuss issues in a safe space. My husband loved learning things and as a result, CIDU was close to his heart. He would often regale me with tales of that day’s thread drift and the discussions that had ensued. If he needed an answer to something, I would tell him post it and one of your peeps will know. I’m pretty sure one of you always did.

My sons and I would like to give back in a small way. My youngest is an extremely talented graphic designer. He designs our Hanukah cards every year and I would love to send you one if you’d like. For many of you, this is likely the only Hanukah card you’ll get, so double bonus! 

Don’t worry that this is some kind of burden for me, I am already sending out several hundred, more isn’t really an issue. And for those of you interested in supply chain economics, Zachary has found that the cheapest high quality printing is in South Korea! So I get a package from South Korea every year.

Email me at robinbickel at gmail. Put CIDU in the subject line so it will be easy for me to quickly find you. And if you’d like you can send me a card at 43 Peace Rd, Randolph NJ 07869 but you are under no obligation to do so. I like sending cards and it would make me happy to be able to send a very small thank you to all of you who have been such good friends over the years. (Please don’t delay only because I have to give Zachary a count of how many cards to print)

by Winter Wallaby

Sunday Funnies – LOLs, November 29th, 2020

First appearance of Crabgrass at CIDU.

Can’t remember, has this really not been used? It’s so good!

And a special late-for-Thanksgiving quasi-synchro section of Pilgrim-hat-buckle jokes!

Contributed by Andréa:

by Winter Wallaby

Saturday Morning Oys – November 28th, 2020

From Andréa.

Below from Anon:

Above from Andréa.

Mitch4 says: My turn to be stupid — I looked at this and thought “Okay, decent pun, taking pro-biotic as contrast to amateur-biotic. Hey, we could also imagine pro-biotic as trying to be opposite of anti-biotic, wouldn’t that be inventive? If only there were such a term … “

by Winter Wallaby

Your call is very important to us [OT]

When I’m on hold, if they play some bland, inoffensive music, I can put my headset on, and ignore it for hours, as I work, read e-mails, etc… A long wait can be a little annoying, but it’s not really a big deal.

If they interrupt the music to tell me “your call is very important to us” I can’t ignore the interruption. Having a person “talking” to me jolts me to attention, and disrupts me from whatever else I’m trying to do. It doesn’t make me feel like my call is important to them; it just makes me more aware of how long I’ve been on hold, and increases my annoyance. And if I’m on hold for 45 minutes, and the music is interrupted every 35 seconds to tell me that my call is very important to them, that shifts from annoying to maddening. (You may begin to guess that these numbers are not arbitrary, but based on a recent experience.)

Anyway, this is not (just) a rant, but a genuine question: What’s the point of interrupting the call like that? Is my reaction atypical? It seems “obvious” that this is annoying, and will not endear the company to me. But almost every company in the world does it (albeit not with 35 second intervals), and it would be easy enough not to, so my guess is that there’s some logic behind it that I’m not seeing.