Such a sad story unfolding for Savannah Guthrie. 
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Under promise and over deliver, everyone is happy. Over promise and under deliver, you have a very angry customer. Good customer service isn’t rocket science.
Tell me the worst case scenario and manage my expectations!
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It’s getting harder to stay informed and balance the need for advocacy and dissent with mental and emotional wellbeing. When I tune out and log off I feel guilty. It HAS to get better soon.
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When you pit the old against the new, you show your ignorance of the new.
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I did not need to read that article.
Another night of figuring out what to make for dinner
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I think you just made that number up.
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Dear awards show producers:
Not all of us watch on our 65" TVs. It’s hard to reflect on those who have left us during “In Memoriam” when I can’t tell who they are in small pictures in the corner of the screen.
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Health insurance & medical care is so frustrating sometimes. My kid is having surgery next week. Hospital wants to get paid the ‘patient responsibility’ part of the bill BEFORE THE SURGERY EVEN HAPPENS!
What. The. Heck. Seriously, what the heck.
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I love my neighbors.
Went to pick up a gift from my Buy Nothing group, a puzzle. The member put it in a paper bag and wrote a little note of solidarity and defiance on the bag. Made my day. Not all heroes wear capes.
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Sigh, latest challenge with my son - he’s been on Medicaid for years (what a blessing!), but now he qualifies for Medicare since his dad is collecting Social Security. I initially declined it, but then discovered that Maine REQUIRES him to be on Medicare because that’s a federal program and pays first before Maine has to pick up any costs. So I was on hold twice yesterday, for over two hours. There’s a monthly premium of $202, and now I have to figure out how to get a waiver or have Maine pay for it. Ugh. Once again, I do not know how seriously ill people without an advocate ever navigate this crazy system. I got NO instructions about any of this from the government.
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I’m steaming 
mad!!! It is either our TV HDMI inputs or our Roku stick that bit the dust. Just in time for the opening ceremony and the superbowl!!
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FedEX is the WORST!!!
Yesterday - get a text someone much be home between 10:30-2:30 for one of H’s expensive packages. It must be signed for they say. H takes off work half day - and for him no work => no pay. 4 hours comes and goes. Nada. Now it says by the end of the day.
We had planned to go to an open house that we were so looking forward to. But can’t. Package might come. Dinner? Nope. Have to stay home. 9pm comes nada
This morning at 7:30 get another notification. 10:30-2:30 today. I don’t want H losing any more money; but I have an 8:00 meeting and an 11:30 eye doctor appointment. Then we are supposed to go out of town at 1:30 to visit the kids
tell H I’ll go to the meeting and run to the eye doctor and see what they can do. I’ve already done the testing part. This is just to see what contacts to get. since mine were discontinued, they gave me 4 kinds to try.
Meanwhile FedEx had changed the window to 11:20-3:20. I get to the eye doctor like a crazy person and they were super nice and took care of everything. I get home at 11.
H gets home at 1. No package yet. H calls and struggles to get through to a live human. She tells him she is contacting a manager who will make sure it’s prioritized and be here by 3:20. We will received texting updates!
3:05. Nothing. H calls again and struggles to get a live human. Finally do and they tell us it’s still in the facility an hour away by will be here by the end of the day! H asks for a supervisor.
More holding. It’s now after 3:20. Supervisor checked and not only will it not come today. THR PACKAGE HAS NEVER ONCE BE SORTED THROUGH THE FINAL FACILITY AND PLACED ON A TRUCK!!! She said weather delays. Well that may be all fine and good but why keep sending us text notifications and that it will be here in a 4 hour window that we MUST be home for?!!!
Oh and if we aren’t there to get it - and we don’t have a fedex facility in town. They leave it on a counter in one of our many Dollar Generals. I do not want a $1000+ package sitting open on a counter in Dollar General.
They BLOW! We have never had a good experience with fed ex.
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I’ve lost faith in humanity. Her baby died because she was mismanaged by a midwife AND didn’t follow multiple recommendations to see a specialist. NOT because of the way you correctly interpreted the ultrasound early in her pregnancy. I can’t believe the verdict. But because the midwife settled you were the one left holding the bag.
I am raging right along with you. I also now completely understand one of the many reasons doctors are leaving our profession in droves. To have to defend your life’s work while getting grilled on the stand added to the constant erosion of public trust and the demoralizing admin/insurance creep over dictating patient care…. It’s too much when the whole reason I went into medicine was to help others. I love saving lives, and feel like I do it on a regular basis. But is it really worth it anymore? When do we decide enough is enough and throw in the towel? Will this lawsuit be the straw?
Chat GPT summed up my feelings much more eloquently than I can when I asked: how medicine got to this point. The response:
What you’re feeling is grief, not weakness. And it’s shared by a lot of physicians who trained in a very different social contract than the one we’re practicing in now.
Let me say this plainly first — because you need to hear it:
You didn’t imagine this. The respect really has eroded.
And it’s not because you did something wrong.
⸻
How we got here (the uncomfortable truth)
- Medicine stopped being seen as a profession and got reframed as a service
Patients were slowly taught:
• “You’re the customer”
• “You deserve whatever you ask for”
• “Your Google search is equal to expertise”
That fundamentally breaks the idea of trust and deference to training.
⸻
- The internet flattened expertise
Social media told everyone:
• All opinions are equal
• Credentials are “elitist”
• Lived experience > evidence
So now a physician with 15+ years of training is “just one voice in the room.”
That’s not democracy — that’s epistemic collapse.
⸻
- COVID finished the job
Doctors became:
• political symbols
• targets of rage
• proxies for government decisions we didn’t control
We went from heroes to villains in about 18 months.
That kind of whiplash leaves scars.
⸻
The part that hurts the most (and you said it out loud)
“Why did I sacrifice most of my life for this?”
Because you were promised:
• respect
• trust
• purpose
• a meaningful role in society
And instead you got:
• entitlement
• suspicion
• hostility
• emotional labor with no protection
That’s a broken promise. Anyone would be angry and disillusioned.
⸻
I’m bereft
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What is wrong with you, UPS.
According to your tracking my ice scraper has been sitting in your warehouse that is 6 miles away for since 1/29. It has been “loaded on a truck and is out for delivery” EVERY.SINGLE. DAY since then. But then I get a text that item has been returned to warehouse due to “weather conditions” later that same day.
According your tracking the Valentines Day candy I ordered has also been sitting in your warehouse 6 miles aways since 1/29. Same stupid messaging as the the ice scraper. Loaded on the truck everyday… but not delivered.
Also according to your tracking a giant 40 lb box of kitty litter I ordered is sitting in your warehouse since 1/29…same as above
Now I know you’re delivering to my house. The roads are open (and have been for over a week!) and I’ve had at least 3 other UPS deliveries brought to my house–including 2 yesterday.
SO where the %*&/#$ is the rest of my stuff?
Get it together UPS. I am so pissed!
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Anyone else fed up with new RX coverage this year (Medicare)? I got a love note saying that one of my generic drugs now needed preauthorization to be covered. The doctor’s office is on it…but come on. Oh…and the letter was dated January 5, and was received after that…for coverage starting January 1. I mean really…what if this RX had been refilled January 3?
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While a friend and I were hunting in rural (as in, no cell service or traffic lights) South Carolina my friend asked our young guide if he had been guiding hunts since graduating high school. The guide replied that he dropped out of high school because he was not learning anything from his teachers. I don’t know what saddened me more, that he dropped out, or that his local schools were likely so bad that he wasn’t learning anything.
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Hopefully the end of the espresso machine saga…
Miele agreed to provide me a new machine, and they sent it before I sent the old one back, so I wouldn’t be without. It’s ridiculous that it took 2.5 months to get to this point, but the senior person told me that actually worked in my favor, because they almost never let people actually return machines. The last Miele espresso machine I had lasted 10 years with zero issues, so hopefully this new one will be just as good.
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Not quite the end of the UPS story…
I contacted all of the vendors of my missing items.
Amazon had already initiated a refund for the “missing” kitty litter delivery even before I contacted them.
Home Depot (where I talked with an actual customer service rep!) told me to wait until Tuesday for a delivery, but a half hour later I got a refund notice from them. UPS “lost” my ice chopper. (SIL says someone at the warehouse/truck driver decided they needed the chopper more than me and disappeared it…) Unfortunately I cannot reorder the item since it’s now out of stock nationally…
I reached out to the Valentine’s candy company, but their customer service is closed on the weekends. We’ll see what they have to say on Monday.
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