First World Problems thread

“Main Cabin Extra” is what Murrican* Airlines call their economy seats with more legroom.

*With that livery of theirs, I just can’t call them “American” anymore. Which is one reason why “trashy” is not an inappropriate description.
 
by the way if you fly right now and you have flexible travel plans (willing to fly trashy) you can make bank right now
 
I’ve had to change my coffee routine because I have neither fresh milk nor paper filters. Bialetti coffee is nice, of course, but the UHT milk I keep for these (major) incidents isn’t.

Still, caffeine is in body.
 
I really wish my 100th flight on an A320-200 had been a comfortable one. But at least my knees seem to have left an impression in the plastic on the back of the seat in front of mine.
 
I really wish my 100th flight on an A320-200 had been a comfortable one. But at least my knees seem to have left an impression in the plastic on the back of the seat in front of mine.
How flipping tall are you?
 
With Spotify I can basically listen to any music and I want something good to listen to while editing a video, trouble is I have no idea what to listen to. My 'Liked' playlist has 440 entries but I don't want to listen to those. 😐

I have a Simply Red cassette here, maybe I'll stick that on. Cassettes sound great through this Braun Atelier C1.
 
With Spotify I can basically listen to any music and I want something good to listen to while editing a video, trouble is I have no idea what to listen to. My 'Liked' playlist has 440 entries but I don't want to listen to those. 😐

I have a Simply Red cassette here, maybe I'll stick that on. Cassettes sound great through this Braun Atelier C1.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU0TAsEjUpg
 
was debating with myself whether to put this into things that annoy me or here... but I think this is very much a first world problem after all :)

currently trying to piece together my application for the state parental allowance, which in itself is quite a luxury first world thing - that's why I put this here basically.
how this works? if I go on parental leave, for up to 14 months, the state will compensate my resulting loss of income by some 65% or some such, up to a maximum of 1.800€/month. Nice!

The problem? the application and shit you have to hand in in order for them to properly assess whether you're eligible and how much money you're supposed to get! so, next to the 6 page application I have to hand in:
  • my income settlements for the 12 months before birth of the child (because that's the relevant average net income they look at - and they need every single one of them, even if e.g. 8 slips already put you above the 1.800€ limit - PROCEDURE, PEOPLE)
  • my tax assessment of the year before birth (in order to assess general eligibility - since you only get this up to 500k€/year per family)
  • confirmation of my employer that i will be going on parental leave for the corresponding timeframe.
so far so good - we're up to (in my case) some 27 pages of appendices now.
but wait! In my case, I'm going on full parental leave for two months and another two months of part time (same "loss of income logic" applies). this is already hard enough to put into the application as it is, because somehow they seem to think either you do only full PL or part time, not one after the other (but I think I made this work maybe???), in addition they now want even more:
  • confirmation of my employer about part time parental leave.
  • estimated (net) income during said part time parental leave, confirmed by my employer.
  • confirmation about any holiday I will be doing during said part time parental leave (probably so they can cut my compensation accordingly)
this isn't a lot of additional paper, but we're at a full 36 pages of A4 paper now, that I will of course have to send in via snail mail, because everything isn't safe and secure or whatever bullshit? Ugh... Yes they also offer an online tool - which at the end presents you with a PDF to print, sign and send in. german digitalization - wohoo. also it takes ages to get all those ridiculous confirmations. My employer, despite being part of a 1000+ people group, doesn't do official holiday confirmations at all, so I hope they'll just accept a printed e-mail (!!!) from my boss about this crap?

... so yeah, a ridiculous amount of paperwork to prop up a system which I feel is socially unfair anyway! it would be so much easier if they were to just ditch the whole "loss of income" part and made it e.g. a 1.500€/month flat allowance for anyone who goes on parental leave! that'd help low-income families more than the crazy shit that happens now, probably wouldn't hurt any higher income families either and would make the entire process so much easier (and cheaper - heck, make it 1.800€/month for everyone and in the end they'd probably still save money overall). have part time simply pay out half or whatever, i dunno. but that'd be way too easy and would probably put hundreds of clerks out of a job... so it has to stay complicated...
 
was debating with myself whether to put this into things that annoy me or here... but I think this is very much a first world problem after all :)

currently trying to piece together my application for the state parental allowance, which in itself is quite a luxury first world thing - that's why I put this here basically.
how this works? if I go on parental leave, for up to 14 months, the state will compensate my resulting loss of income by some 65% or some such, up to a maximum of 1.800€/month. Nice!

The problem? the application and shit you have to hand in in order for them to properly assess whether you're eligible and how much money you're supposed to get! so, next to the 6 page application I have to hand in:
  • my income settlements for the 12 months before birth of the child (because that's the relevant average net income they look at - and they need every single one of them, even if e.g. 8 slips already put you above the 1.800€ limit - PROCEDURE, PEOPLE)
  • my tax assessment of the year before birth (in order to assess general eligibility - since you only get this up to 500k€/year per family)
  • confirmation of my employer that i will be going on parental leave for the corresponding timeframe.
so far so good - we're up to (in my case) some 27 pages of appendices now.
but wait! In my case, I'm going on full parental leave for two months and another two months of part time (same "loss of income logic" applies). this is already hard enough to put into the application as it is, because somehow they seem to think either you do only full PL or part time, not one after the other (but I think I made this work maybe???), in addition they now want even more:
  • confirmation of my employer about part time parental leave.
  • estimated (net) income during said part time parental leave, confirmed by my employer.
  • confirmation about any holiday I will be doing during said part time parental leave (probably so they can cut my compensation accordingly)
this isn't a lot of additional paper, but we're at a full 36 pages of A4 paper now, that I will of course have to send in via snail mail, because everything isn't safe and secure or whatever bullshit? Ugh... Yes they also offer an online tool - which at the end presents you with a PDF to print, sign and send in. german digitalization - wohoo. also it takes ages to get all those ridiculous confirmations. My employer, despite being part of a 1000+ people group, doesn't do official holiday confirmations at all, so I hope they'll just accept a printed e-mail (!!!) from my boss about this crap?

... so yeah, a ridiculous amount of paperwork to prop up a system which I feel is socially unfair anyway! it would be so much easier if they were to just ditch the whole "loss of income" part and made it e.g. a 1.500€/month flat allowance for anyone who goes on parental leave! that'd help low-income families more than the crazy shit that happens now, probably wouldn't hurt any higher income families either and would make the entire process so much easier (and cheaper - heck, make it 1.800€/month for everyone and in the end they'd probably still save money overall). have part time simply pay out half or whatever, i dunno. but that'd be way too easy and would probably put hundreds of clerks out of a job... so it has to stay complicated...

When I had my first daughter I took 5 weeks of parental leave if I remember correctly.

But you had to fill out the exact weeks you were going to take, and I think for some reasons I filled it before going on the actual leave.

In the end I took the leave one week later than what I had filled in the paperwork, but forgot to make a correction.

Fast forward 5 years later, I'm applying for a 5 weeks leave for the birth of my second daughter, my work place sends them all my employment info for the past 5 years, and they realised there was one week I was paid by both them and my employer. So they sent me a bill to get reimbursed.

I filled an appeal, arguing it was a simple mistake, and in the end there was another week barely a month later where I got no pay from either them or my employer, but to no avail.
 
In a bit less than a month's time, I will need to return the iPhone SE I'm currently using, which means I'll either have to go back to my old Huawei P20 or get a new phone.

But that's not the problem. The problem is that I can only transfer my message history from an iPhone to another iPhone or a Samsung Android phone, if WhatsApp's webpage is to be trusted. Since I won't be able to afford a new phone I'd fancy and that would last for a while in a month's time, I'll have to say goodbye to the message history.
 
In a bit less than a month's time, I will need to return the iPhone SE I'm currently using, which means I'll either have to go back to my old Huawei P20 or get a new phone.

But that's not the problem. The problem is that I can only transfer my message history from an iPhone to another iPhone or a Samsung Android phone, if WhatsApp's webpage is to be trusted. Since I won't be able to afford a new phone I'd fancy and that would last for a while in a month's time, I'll have to say goodbye to the message history.
You can export the chat history as an archive, it might not be right there in the app but it doesn't have to be lost. WhatsApp Web also allows you to select and forward multiple messages; maybe you could do that with important messages, using an intermediate account. If you really wanted to. Not perfect but maybe better than nothing.

No reasonably priced monthly iPhone deals where you are? Any refurbished iPhone Xs around? Still a great phone.
 
Actually, saving important messages by forwarding them to an intermediate account is actually a great idea! I do have some sort of spare/burner SIM card as well. Also, I'll look into how exactly archiving messages works.

Thanks to my telecom operator changing some rules about a year ago, I was able to keep my super-cheap monthly plan without having to sign any contract. I don't see paying less than €30 for both me and my brother per month, and getting 12GB of internet being a realistic option, as a new plan with similar internet plan would be at least some €20 for myself only, and it'd require signing a contract, in case I'm buying a new phone. I kinda like having a monthly plan without a contract, I feel more 'free' this way. But I'll see what can be done.
 
Today my employer told us everybody who doesn't have a company car would receive financial aid because of the recent explosion of fuel prices. Apparently we can receive either gas vouchers or at least part of the costs of tickets for public transport. :-? As far as they told us we would get a personalized gas card so we can't just take the vouchers and sell them at ebay classified.

I don't own a car anymore and I don't use public transport, but of course I still have costs to maintain the bicycles I use, those costs rose in the last year as well, and I'm not the only one who commutes by bike. Let's see what they'll do about that, maybe we can convince them to offer bicycle repair vouchers or something...
 
Nice move by your employer, @Eye-Q - but as you say, the assumption that everyone commutes by car or public transport (which hasn't seen such a price hike comparable to petrol prices - yet) is annoying.
They should give out food/supermarket vouchers. After all, the fuel that is consumed by your bicycle "engine" has gotten more expensive, too...
 
I don't own a car anymore and I don't use public transport, but of course I still have costs to maintain the bicycles I use, those costs rose in the last year as well, and I'm not the only one who commutes by bike.
as usual, the ones that actually already behave in the most outstanding and forward thinking way are being punished by just being forgotten about. had the foresight to do something about the situation of your own accord? sucks to be you!
I sure hope they do come up with a fair (!) solution for the bicycle folk, anything else would be quite a big asshole move...

another thing, and i know this may make me a communist leftie or whatever: but what the shit is it with subsidies for people who already have a bunch of money?
example, because we're (still in the process of...) buying a house: energy efficiency subsidies. if you get a new door, new windows, new heater, insulate, whatever helps the performance of the house, you can get subsidies. depending on how far you go, you get more subsidies (i.e. the better the result, the higher the subsidy). so far so good - and, to be honest, extremely good for us: since we bought a rather well performing house, the measures we still have to take to reach a very high subsidy are comparatively small.
however: this is all based on you actually owning property in the first place. rent? sucks to be you, you're out of luck! the owner of the place that is being rented to you may get those subsidies of course... but they'll still want to then increase your rent (while lowering heating cost i admit). so... whoever already owns something gets given even more. it's all a giant redistribution scheme to the top, i tell ya. and it's making me mad, despite the fact that i'll be profiting off of that myself in a massive way.
 
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