Annoyed Snoskred

Not Quite Over

8 Comments Posted on December 3, 2019December 3, 2019 by Snoskred

I thought I had finished my Black Friday rant but turns out I am still ranty about it. I received the above in an email on Sunday. Friday cannot be on a Sunday, Kmart. That is not how days work!

According to my shopping emails, Black Friday began here on Friday the 22nd of November and it continued to Sunday the 1st of December. Black Friday involved a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the actual Black Friday, second Saturday, and a second Sunday. What an amazing day to last 10 days. And then it was Cyber Monday, sure, fine, whatever, but now I wake up this morning to this email?

You are going to make cyber week out of cyber Monday? NO I MUST DECLINE THIS.

Bad enough that in the space of Cyber Monday, the retailers that I gave my email address sent me 59 emails. On a good day I get 12-14 and I don’t mind it, I like to keep in the loop of what is happening though I very rarely buy anything now. But no, just because you have my email address does not entitle you to send me multiple emails in one day. I expect one per day. Anything more, and we’re breaking up. So I have a few retailers to unsubscribe from now.

To add insult to this injury, in Australia Black Friday has a very different meaning – it refers to a terrible bushfire event in 1939 where 71 people died in the fires.

I’d accept this retail insanity IF we had the Thanksgiving to go with it as they do in the US. But we do not. So it is just an excuse for the shops to try and get us to spend $$, and we have more than enough of those already.

Annoyed Snoskred, shopping

Dropping It Off

2 Comments Posted on September 6, 2019September 5, 2019 by Snoskred

Have you seen this Pakman letterbox out and about in your travels? Probably not because unlike me, you are probably not walking the local streets doing a letterbox drop. It is quite a marvel – allows your postie or couriers to drop in a parcel and only you can retrieve it. But it is an Up Money marvel selling for around $499.

You know it has been years since I did this kind of thing, 28 years to be approximate. I was a Christmas Postie for 2 years when I was 16/17 and only quit after a dog bite. I would have kept doing it because I enjoyed it, but I developed quite a fear of dogs after two attacks.

One was the dog of a friend when I visited which was much more a mauling than a bite. I ended up in hospital after that one and was on crutches for a week. I still have nerve damage and the scars from that attack. The second was while working as a postie and that was the last day I did that job. After that I did have a fear of dogs for a long time. Eventually I mostly got over it thanks to some wonderful dogs I made friends with.

I don’t enjoy letterbox dropping. The thing I really don’t comprehend is how can anyone put a No Junk Mail sticker on their letterbox.

First up I am never lucky enough to get junk mail – we never seem to have someone who delivers it here. Secondly, just how cut off from your local community do you want to be? How do you find out about new things happening if you won’t let any of the folks who take the time to make a flyer and bring it directly to your own house communicate with you? It is your loss.

There should be perhaps another sticker – no commercial catalogues, local flyers accepted. You can always make your own sticker!

We are making our own down money version of the Pakman. I am here most of the time to receive packages but when I have a day off I would like to be able to go out without worrying about possible package deliveries and things being stolen.

Speaking of receiving packages..

Looks like the package deities might be about to smile upon me. I mean some of those things now in Sydney have ONLY been stuck in Melbourne (AKA The Package Black Hole) for an entire week. And those things now in Melbourne will likely arrive around this time next week.

Annoyed Snoskred, work

Woolworths : The Fail Whale People.

4 Comments Posted on September 12, 2016August 27, 2016 by Snoskred

You may recall that I broke up with Woolworths in August 2015. Since then, I have been pretty consistent with my desire to not shop there. When I changed purses recently, I did not bother putting their rewards card in there.

It turns out there is only one thing we actually NEED to buy at Woolworths which we cannot get elsewhere. Don pepperoni. We tried the Aldi version and it was ok, but it was not awesome like the Don pepperoni. Coles do not sell pepperoni in sticks here, you can only get it in packets which does not work for us. So once in a blue moon, we trek to Woolworths and stock up on Don pepperoni.

Over the past year they opened a new Woolworths at Vincentia Marketplace. We visited the marketplace when it first opened and took a look at Woolworths. That store was new and therefore was laid out in the new style. Nothing we saw inspired us to reconsider our decision to break up.

Since I saw the dietitian and changed our eating habits to involve less processed foods and more fresh foods, 99% of our shop comes from Aldi now. We visit Coles for any brand name foods we cannot get at Aldi. Each shop, that list gets smaller and smaller. I do not like eggs from Aldi, so we pick up the Manning Valley eggs from Coles, and we usually get some Don ham there. Some weeks that is all we buy from Coles.

A couple of weeks ago, Woolworths put an ad on my Facebook. They told me that Fairy Platinum dishwasher tablets would be 50% off. Ever since Pinchme sent a sample of those, we have been faithful Fairy customers. At 50% off, the tablets are a mere .35 cents each. Usually even on special the best price I will find is .50 cents each.

So off we went to Woolworths, only to find NO Fairy Platinum dishwasher tablets on special. I was so annoyed! Clearly I was not the only one, because the next time Facebook showed me the ad, it had the dates that this would be on special.

Our next grocery shopping trip fell within those dates, so we went to Woolworths, only to find that particular store did not stock Fairy Platinum at all. FAIL WHALE.

By now, I was determined I was going to buy those darn dishwasher tablets. Having failed twice, we went to the largest Woolworths in our area and picked up 4 packets. They also had salami on special, and we had just run out. So this will be our last visit to Woolworths until we next run out of salami, which I am hoping will be in early 2017. That stuff lasts a fair while, we only use 12 slices a week on our pizzas.

I don’t care what you advertise to me on the Facebook in future, Woolworths.

I am NOT picking you.

Annoyed Snoskred, bitches, shopping

Woolworths, We’re Breaking Up.

18 Comments Posted on August 28, 2015August 30, 2015 by Snoskred

Its not me, Woolworths, it’s you. It has been you for a while now. It began with stock I wanted to buy not being on the shelves even though there was a space and a price ticket for those items. It continued with mouldy fresh food – from the “fresh food people” that is especially disturbing.

Then, you never had enough staff on the checkouts, and after waiting more than 20 minutes to check out on several occasions even though I had less than 12 items each time, I was deeply annoyed.

You kept sending me offers which clearly your marketing boffins are behind which were nowhere near as good as the offers that Coles were sending me – I was offered $50 credit at Coles in return for spending $70 a week for 4 weeks.. which = $280 -50 = $230 @Coles VS $300 -30 = $270 for 3 weeks @ Woolworths. A big splooshy raspberry to that!

At this point I was more than ready to break up with you. The one reason I went back – Coles only stock small Twisties packets and I wanted the larger packet.

But then, the final two straws.

Did you know your catalog now sucks?

Each fortnight, when I shop, I look at the catalog for Coles, then the catalog for Woolworths. I do the main shop at Aldi and then visit Coles and Woolworths for items on special which cannot be purchased from Aldi. Woolworths decided to change the catalog.

With this new catalog, to view *all* of each page, you have to use the scroll bar on the side.

This is extremely annoying, especially when so often the bit you scroll down to see is boring advertising junk that has NOTHING to do with shopping! And then, they fill double page spreads with this junk!

Well, Woolworths, I DECLINE THIS CONCEPT. Even so, I thought I would still give you a chance to earn some of my $$, by using the *paper* catalog which arrives in my letterbox. But no.

You don’t want me reading your catalogs, online, or paper. You had to send me the clearest possible message.

Message received. Content noted. We’re broken up, for good. KTHXBAI.

Annoyed Snoskred, bitches, country life

Blogger, Don’t You Lose My Comment!

22 Comments Posted on July 24, 2015July 19, 2015 by Snoskred

I think I have finally learned my lesson in regards to commenting on Blogger / Blogspot / Google blogs – always, *always* copy the comment I have written before clicking on Publish! That way, if Blogger loses my comment, I can at least paste it back in again.

In the course of learning this lesson, I think I have unearthed a couple of clues that might tell you when you will lose your comment for certain. And here they are.

1. Missing Notify Me Box

If you are leaving a comment on a blog you are familiar with and you have used the notify me tickbox before.. when you find the notify me box is missing, that is a sign that Blogger does not know who you are, and therefore does not know where it should email any future comments.

If the notify me box is missing, this is a sign that when you hit publish, your comment will disappear into the ether never to be seen again.

Another way to double check if the notify me box is present is to make sure when you tick the box, the correct email address appears, as you see above.

2. Missing Account Name

If your Google account name is missing from the Comment as: area, this is another sign that blogger does not know who you are, and therefore cannot leave a comment for you, unless you pick one of the other options. It should look like this –

If it doesn’t look like this, you may not be signed in properly. If you hit publish, your comment will probably disappear into the ether never to be seen again.

However, it is important to note, you can be signed in properly but Blogger can still not know who you and lose your comment. Which leads me back to my number one tip –

3. Regardless, COPY!

Google/Blogger/Blogspot can lose your comment but if you have copied it, you can paste it back in! Always do this, but especially if you have spent significant time writing your comment. This is your number one way of giving a huge middle finger to Google! You can lose my comments Google, but you cannot take my SANITY! :) or, my ability to hit right click, copy.

This is a good habit to get into wherever you are commenting, because sometimes things go wrong and your comment may vanish. With that said, Blogger loses my comments way more often than any other blogging platform.

Do you have a blogger blog, but you do not have a notify me box? Check out this post – How To – Add Tickbox For Blogger Comment Emails.

Over to you –

Do your comments get lost very often? What steps do you take to prevent this? :) Do you have any hints or tips for fellow blog commentators? Leave them in the comments! ;)

Annoyed Snoskred, Blogger, how to guides

Depression Notes

12 Comments Posted on May 29, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

I get quite angry at people who say “You don’t need drugs, you just need to cheer up” to someone with depression.. :) This is why some people refuse to take any anti-depressants at all, instead choosing to pretend nothing is wrong and falling deeper and deeper into that dark depression hole.

Would they say to a diabetic “You don’t need insulin. Just tell your pancreas to harden up and behave properly.”

Would they say to someone who received an organ transplant “You don’t need to take those anti-rejection drugs. Just tell your body that you accept the organ and everything will be just fine.”

Would they say to someone with high blood pressure “Just do some yoga, remove yourself from stressful situations, eat less salt. You don’t need to take drugs for this.”

Do they refuse to take paracetamol when they have a headache, too? Are they living a totally drug free life? When I ask these know-it-alls these questions, the answer to *all* of these questions above is NO.

With depression, sometimes the chemicals in your brain are out of whack, and no amount of pushing, hoping, thinking positive, praying to deities, cheering up, or pulling ones socks up and hardening up is going to fix that.

It is important for people with depression to know that it is ok to take the drugs their doctor prescribes. If their doctor feels those drugs are required, then THEY ARE REQUIRED. All busybodies and armchair doctors, step off, and drink a nice big cup of shut up. It is not your place to say anything.

Needing to take antidepressants is not a sign of weakness!

It is a fact of chemistry.

We are really lucky in Australia that people can see their doctor and ask to be put on a mental health plan, which allows them up to 10 sessions with a psychologist bulk billed on medicare.

I left most of this as a comment on this post recently – How to help the depressed person – but I felt it was important to post it here on my blog as well.

I’ve been seeing more and more bloggers speaking up about depression lately which is a wonderful thing because it is so important that people who are suffering from depression know that they are not alone in feeling that way. One that stood out in my mind is this one from Leslie Beslie – I’m functioning so I must not be depressed.

I have a friend who has a son with a kidney transplant. She’s talked to me about how terrified she is that at some point during his teenage years, her son will want to “rebel” and stop taking the drugs that are keeping him alive. She grew up as a diabetic, and she did go through a phase where she felt like that about her insulin injections.

She’s done everything she can to teach her son those drugs are not an optional extra, that the anti-rejection drugs are essential to his very survival here on this earth.

The sooner people can think the same of antidepressants – that they are not an optional extra for many depressed people. That taking those drugs when prescribed by a doctor is essential for their survival here on the planet – the better for everyone.

That’s my opinion, anyway. :)

Angry Snoskred, Annoyed Snoskred, depression, life lessons

Three More Scam Jobs

3 Comments Posted on March 18, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

Here are three more job scams – please note my reason for posting them is purely so that anyone searching for the company names can get this page in the search results and know right away the job is a scam. On average, over 100 people arrive at my website daily, having searched for names, text, email addresses, or phone numbers which are listed here..

Often times, this is the only site which contains these names *and* the fact that their job is a scam. Update – A lot of people are arriving here searching for Cekicy – cekicy pty ltd – Cekicy Group Pty Ltd which has posted yet another scam listing today.

I hope my regular readers do not mind these posts when they are posted – if they do, please remember that these posts are stopping people from being scammed by criminals. :)

First Scam Job –

Entry-Level Office Administrator Wanted – Earning $1000.00-$2500.00 per week.
Cekicy Group Pty Ltd
About the Role:

We have several openings available in this area earning $1000.00-$2500.00 per week.

We are seeking a candidate to fill join our team as an Office Administrator. You will be looking after inbound and outbound telephone calls, data entry and organising files both electronically and manually. You must be well spoken a you will be taking and looking after bookings. If you’re highly organised, we want you!

Minimum Qualifications:
High School diploma or GED.
1 year of clerical/data entry experience in a fast-paced environment.
Demonstrate attention to detail with excellent data entry, communication (interpersonal, telephone) and organization skills.
Ability to prioritize projects within a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment using tact and discretion.
Basic database usage.
Team player with good communication, data entry, organization and follow-through skills.
Ability to write and type grammatically correct database entries in English.
Intermediate Microsoft Word and Excel skills.
Experience using a corporate email system.
Basic Microsoft PowerPoint.
Candidate will be paid $50-$70 Per hour commensurate with experience and education.

So what points to this being a scam?

A quick rundown –

1. Entry level anything does not earn $1000 a week in Australia and certainly would never earn $2500.

2. You must be well spoken a you <-- a you? 3. High School diploma or GED <-- neither of these things are what you get in Australia. GED is from the US.

4. Candidate will be paid $50-$70 Per hour <-- the only time I have earned $50 an hour was triple time on a Sunday or public holiday pay. There simply is no job in Australia which is entry level that pays this kind of money.

Second scam job –

Data Entry Clerks Positions Available
Healthfirst
Preparing all sorts of source documents, identification and interpretation of data to be entered. Compiling, sorting and verifying data accuracy
. Minimum Qualifications:
High School diploma or GED.
1 year of clerical/data entry experience in a fast-paced environment.
Demonstrate attention to detail with excellent data entry, communication (interpersonal, telephone) and organization skills.
Ability to prioritize projects within a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment using tact and discretion.
Basic database usage.
Team player with good communication, data entry, organization and follow-through skills.
Ability to write and type grammatically correct database entries in English.
Intermediate Microsoft Word and Excel skills.
Experience using a corporate email system.
Basic Microsoft PowerPoint.
Candidate will be paid $50-$70 Per hour commensurate with experience and education.

This job ad minimum qualifications section is almost identical to the first one, just with a different job role, and a different company name.

And the third and final scam job –

Full Time Data Entry – Earn $50/Per Hour +
Real Online Jobs
We have several openings available in this area earning $1000.00-$2500.00 per week. We are seeking only honest, self-motivated people with a desire to work in the typing and data entry field.

This job requires you to have the ability to operate a keyboard or other data entry device to enter data into computer. Inputs alphabetic and numeric information from credit card applications onto an automated credit processing system, other clerical duties as required.

We are seeking only honest, self-motivated people with a desire to work in the typing and data entry field. Preferred applicants should be at least 18 years old with Internet access. Little experience is needed.

The ideal applicant will be well presented, highly organised and friendly, with excellent communication skills.

Daily duties will include but not be limited to: § Account management § Data entry § General admin duties Applicants must also have: § Accurate data entry skills § Proficiency in MS Office programs

This position is high paying and you will be paid WEEKLY via direct deposit, cheque, paypal or company provided debit card.

Jobseeker The Website –

Jobseeker has a serious problem here, and I just want to give them a heads up and some hopefully useful feedback – job sites need to be a very proactive in order to stamp out these scammers. :(

I’ve been reporting these fake jobs when I see them. It takes quite some time to get a reply – usually more than 4 days. In general these job postings remain open for too long. In order to frustrate the scammers, scam job postings need to be removed within 12 hours. In order to stop the scammers, these job postings should not be posted at all.

I’m not confident that Jobseeker understand that people WILL get scammed out of money thanks to their site posting these scam jobs. I would love to be reassured on this point.

Seek.com.au has been here and done this before, and they have an excellent warning on their site which you can read here – SEEK safely. It costs significant $$ to post an ad on Seek. And it *should* cost money to post a job ad anywhere. Legit employers will pay the $$. Fake employers will vanish.

Even when Jobseeker kill off a scam job posting so that nobody can apply for it, all the text still appears and they DO NOT put up a scam warning up for people. Here is an example.

I would strongly recommend to Jobseeker that they leave the company name and job title and replace the rest of the text with a scam warning. If they are not sure how to word this, they can ask me for help and I will draft something up for them.

By the time these scam job listings are removed, people will have applied – and I hope Jobseeker contacts those people who have applied with an email scam warning as well! This is hugely important and needs to be done.

I am also concerned that Jobseeker do not appear to have a scam warning anywhere on their website. I certainly cannot find one. If one is there, enlighten me as to where it is. It should be easy for everyone to see.

Please fix these things, and then I will sing your praises, Jobseeker.

Update – The team at Jobseeker have been in contact and have advised they will be making this issue a high priority. For anyone at other sites who might be reading this, it is important to know the following fact –

Once you put some hurdles in their way, scammers will stop using your site as a place to advertise their scams. Other sites have been there and done this. However if you do not act quickly and decisively, these scammers will spread the word to their scammer friends and you’ll be inundated.

Scam Resources –

Is this email a scam? Ask the Scam-O-Matic
Scamwarners
Scam Victims United
Fraud Aid
SCAMwatch – Work from home scams

Reach Out –

You can contact me via email – or comment on this post. I especially encourage you to do this if you have any questions.

If you arrived here searching for companies or text in these scam job postings, it is important to know – you are not the only one who arrived here this way and you are not alone.

Annoyed Snoskred, fake checks, job scams, scam victims are not stupid, scams

Isn’t It Ironic…

3 Comments Posted on March 13, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

…that a website called news.com.au should contain so little actual news. Seriously? Your headline article is about a shopping fail? On a day when an Australian young person exploded themselves, killing 10 people in Iraq?

That news – and if you want to read about it, click here – does not even rate being in the top 4 stories listed on the site, instead, something about private detectives paid to have sex in order to bust illegal brothels, something about a pair of pants, and Maureen McCormick is evicted from a teevee show?

Well, the last one I am a little bit sad about because I did get sucked into watching the show and I loved watching Maureen on it, however this is the last week of the show so it isn’t that big a deal. It certainly is not headline news!

But it gets even worse. Check this out.

Picture: web grab. Source – Snoskred – Life In The Country.

Web grab? Credit News Corp Australia? What the heck is up with that? So, we all can now go to any web site we like and grab a screenshot and then give credit to ourselves for taking it? I bet if I did that to a news.com.au photographer image, there would be threats of a lawsuit or something..

If the person who took the image happens upon this post, contact me with your name and I’ll give you *proper* credit.

I have long been thinking that news.com.au has jumped the shark and that it contained little news, but this is the day when I finally am giving up. I’m stating to you, out loud, that I intend to stop going there, foreverz.

Pretty please to hold me accountable on this statement. If I ever post here about news.com.au again, or link to a story on their site, I want you to slap me down hard in the comments section. SRSLY!

I don’t know how many more dress stories I can take, what with that blue or white dress last week, and now this. The only time I want to see clothes as a headline on a NEWS website would be if someone was killed by their outfit. A fashion site is a different story, of course.

So where can you get actual news now? Which sites do you go to?

Probably the only site I can think of is abc.net.au but if you have a decent news source, let me know. :)

Annoyed Snoskred, Aussie Culture, Fail Whale, In The News, Media

Believe Them.

6 Comments Posted on February 2, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

I have always been someone who says “three strikes and you’re out” – as in, if people cause a major issue or cross boundaries I have set, I have allowed them two more chances before I write them off forever – that means I “defriend” them and have nothing more to do with them..

Looking back across my 39 years, any time I have given someone a first chance, they have taken that second and third chance and if I have given them the opportunity, a fourth and fifth chance! Then I have had to remove them from my life, sometimes having to make difficult changes in my life in order to do this.

Sometimes the time between the first and third occasions can be a matter of years, which makes the “defriend” -ing difficult.

So, why on earth am I giving people a second and third chance? It has been my experience that the first chance tells me everything I need to know about what their future behaviour will be. Why put myself through the turmoil?

I now believe I have to rethink my three strikes policy, going forward. I think I have to change it to a “when people show you who they are, believe them” policy.

Does that mean in future I should stop at one chance?

I think what it really means is – one strike and I am very wary, two strikes, we’re done.

I’m just thinking about this in preparation for going back to school because I will meet new people there and I want to give them a decent opportunity to show me who they are. When they do, I intend to believe them the first time.

About Snoskred, Annoyed Snoskred, life lessons, Who Is Snoskred, Worried Snoskred

Testing Was A Fail

3 Comments Posted on January 4, 2015June 1, 2015 by Snoskred

A screenshot, for posterity.. :)

To those who were having issues – some could not see the password box, and some could see that and get the post but then the comments did not appear.. Twas not you, twas the theme.

Cue, working on a new theme. The site will go into maintenance mode for a little bit. The other half and I will work like crazed.. well, I’m not sure what but I know it will involve THE CRAZY here.

I am quite terrified given how horrendous it was to create the first theme. Then again, we know so much more about html and themes etc than we did back then. Plus, I really am not difficult to please. I want to take some of my favourite elements here, ad put them into a new design.

I’ll give you a headsup once we’re back online and fingers crossed, with a spiffy looking new theme. :)

If nobody hears from us for 24 hours, send help. And donuts. :)

Annoyed Snoskred, blog design, blog housekeeping, moving forward, Worried Snoskred

Snoskred – Life in the Country