#august was a bit of a clusterfuck for me for multiple reasons

[darqx]

Aren't you tired of being nice?

[prorevenge]

Made these kids work for 9 months for NOTHING!

Okay so a little background before I start my story.

My name is Patrick. I am 18 years old and I’m an Eagle Scout. To get Eagle in my troop you have lead a 50 mile hiking or canoeing trip which typically lasts a week or more. For my leadership I got a long three week trip to Alaska (which is pretty substantial since we live in a city that borders Mexico.) One week for hiking, one for canoeing, and one for touring. This requires we start planning at least 9 months in advance. I am one of two main leaders for this trip and there is one assistant leader to help us.

I’ve changed their names for privacy reasons.

Andy - The other main leader on the trip going for Eagle.

Robert - The assistant leader assigned to help us.

Mr. Sammy - My scoutmaster.

Let’s start from the beginning. Since the trip is in June - July we start planning in August - September. We start out pretty smooth. Andy and I get an idea of who’s going and how much the trip will cost per person while Robert manages payments and some paperwork. Things are good. Later on we start to lose track of our work and get lazy (since the trip is like 8 months away). So Mr. Sammy starts laying into us calling us a bad leadership team.

This is where my battle with Andy and Robert begins.

For some reason unbeknownst to me Andy and Robert decided it was my fault the leadership team had temporarily fallen apart. They team up and decide it’s Me vs Them (which is a really bad way to approach this trip). They don’t talk to me and hide things from me. When I do paperwork they decide not to take it and do it themselves. Whenever Mr. Sammy gets mad about ANYTHING they instantly look for a way to pin the blame on me.

I decide rather than fighting with them I try to reach out and communicate to maybe save the Alaska trip dream team. That didn’t really work. Every single time I talk to them Robert decides to lash back at me for minor things being as rude and condescending as possible. Andy (who hasn’t done anything for the trip) just stands behind him with his thumb up his ass. Keep in mind most of this occurs over text. After I’ve reached out as much as possible I decide “okay motherfuckers. You wanna fight? I’ll fight.” But not in the way you’d think.

Flash forward to maybe 4 months before the trip. Up to this point Robert has done most of the paperwork (since he was deliberately hiding it from me) and has managed all of the payments while Andy has been standing around with his thumb up his ass doing whatever Robert says. Mr. Sammy looks at me like I’m a bag of shit left on his front porch.

This is where the fun begins.

As soon as I get the chance I take all of the up to date paperwork from e-mail to Mr. Sammy from Robert and copy it to my computer. After that I see that the excel documents this kid has made are a TOTAL clusterfuck so I reformat them and update the information to look really uniform and pretty (even if your document is full of bullshit having it look pretty is half the battle). From this point on the paperwork is in my control. I send and e-mail to Mr. Sammy with the subject “UPDATED ALASKA PAPERWORK (insert date)”. From that point on the old man only excepts my copy which Robert and Andy don’t have. Even if they download it from my email I make sure to be the one who updates it and emails it first. I copy my two “partners” on every single email to Mr. Sammy just to say “look at me”.

From that point on I control all of the paperwork. Payments, IDs, the roster, the tip calendar, everyone’s contact info, etc. I have it all under lockdown and make sure Mr. Sammy knows it in every email I send him.

The problem is now that when anything goes wrong there’s even more of a reason for Robert and Andy to verbally assault me and put all the blame on me. But I have my battle plan. I just play it cool. Everything Robert says I just answer “okay, is that all?” And when he’s done I say “thanks for the feedback I’ll keep that in mind.” I’ll give you an example of one of these conversations.

Me: (to a group chat with Andy and Robert) okay guys I updated the roster and other stuff. Robert has anyone else made a payment recently?

Robert: Maybe.

Me: Maybe?

Robert: You’re missing a lot of info on the payment roster. This kind of carelessness is going to cost me my leadership and I won’t stand for it.

(at this point I think “that’s why I’m asking you this dip shit” but I keep cool)

Andy: I agree.

(“As always” I think)

Me: Thats too bad. Would you update me on those payments so I can get it updated?

Robert: I guess. he then gives me all the payment info I need

Me: Thanks Robert! 😄

These conversations always made me want to rip my hair out, but by playing it cool and keeping calm and being nice I never really gave them any reason to go after me. Now they don’t have anything to give to Mr. Sammy to make me look bad. Just them being rude to me while I say things like “Thanks Robert! 😄”

This ended up making the two so mad that they spent most of their time trying to make me look bad and trying to make me mad that they didn’t spend any time working on the planning for the trip. This was fine by me even though I had to play attrition with these guys every night for months over text message. All I cared was that I was looking good, and I was. They weren’t which made them even more mad.

When it comes time to distribute the food we need for the trip I also take that over not letting the other two touch it so they can fuck it up and blame it on me. To be fair I could’ve done a way better job at this but I did get the job done and we had all the food we needed for 2 weeks away from civilization (almost).

After 9 months of ripping my greying hairs out for having to deal with these two annoying pestering balls of hate we are finally flying from our hometown up to Alaska to go on this trip. Andy and Robert decide to sit back and blend in with the crowd of scouts in khaki uniforms which is perfect for me. I step up making it obvious that I was in charge and leading the scouts through each airport. When we land I make sure to get everyone dressed into their hiking clothes in the airport and packed for the hiking trip. (It was past midnight in the airport so no one was around to watch us change.) after that we take a bus to the trailhead.

At this point I have stepped up as much as I can for Mr. Sammy and he noticed pretty well. He also notices Robert and Andy blending in with the crowd not doing anything. I speculate that they probably didn’t want to associate with me because they expected me to mess up and didn’t want to be a part of that mess up. Jokes on them. I’m looking pretty good at this point.

1st day of hiking. We run into a problem. Two of these stupid younger scouts have forgotten they’re dehydrated meat so now we have to divide up the other meat but first have to figure out who has it (I didn’t keep good track of who had what food item which I’m willing to admit is my fault entirely). I notice that after like 36 hours of idleness Robert and Andy have sprung into action to document what food item EVERYONE is carrying. You might think I’d try to stop them but I just thought “hey they’re finally doing something.” I offered them my help multiple times which they refused so I simply sat back and watched.

After they documented everything they called me over to talk. I knew I was about to get a meaningless lecture from a pasty Jewish kid and his Mexican buddy short enough to be speedy Gonzales. It went down exactly as I thought it would. They told me basically...

“This is all your fault and you need to acknowledge that. You didn’t even help us fix it and you really need to start stepping up because you’re making US look bad.” They continued to go on bus that summarizes what the said.

I simply asked “is that all” and then went to bed. I could practically feel the heat from their foreheads as they got angrier and angrier.

To make a long story short I did really really well leading the hiking trip according to scoutmaster Sammy. After we had finished he came up to me and told me I’d done a great job. As far as he was concerned I had earned my leadership requirement for eagle but Andy hadn’t and Robert wasn’t doing well either. He asked me to supervise they’re leadership for the week long canoeing trip and week long touring section.

At this point I had them right where I wanted them. I knew Andy and Robert didn’t have what it took to lead a trip this big, so I sat back and watched them struggle. It was great.

The canoeing portion went awful. Andy and Robert broke our propane stoves on the first day! The food was awful and they never planned ahead one bit. I offered to help but always got turned down. I knew they would do that.

After canoeing came the touring part of the trip which went even worse.

For a portion of our touring trip we stayed in a public park in a small town. Andy and Robert decided it would be a grand idea to leave their stuff outside of their tents at night where anyone could see them. Come morning time and their backpacks were GONE! Not only did they lose their scout uniforms but also their cellphones and wallets! I acted like I cared but on the inside I was laughing my ass off.

Later we stayed in an army barracks in anchorage. Mr Sammy told Andy and I to get the scouts to bed by 10:00 but we both totally forgot. Come 10:20 I was doing laundry for everyone while Andy and Robert were messing around in a community room. People were laughing and playing cards and even showering. Mr. Sammy has just returned from dinner with an old friend and he was FURIOUS to find people still awake. I could hear him chewing out Andy in the hallway. He came into the laundry room and yelled at my friend and I.

“PATRICK! WHY ARE YOU TWO STILL AWAKE!”

“We are doing laundry for the scouts sir.”

“Oh... okay.”

AND HE WALKED OUT WITHOUT PAYING ME ANY ATTENTION! He then proceeded to chew out Andy harder and harder for letting people stay awake. He ended up getting all of the blame. Watching him get yelled at was like seeing fireworks in 1830. Beautiful.

Now, almost a year later, I am an Eagle Scout. In case you didn’t figure it out, Andy and Robert didn’t get credit for leadership on this trip. 9 MONTHS OF WORK DOWN THE DRAIN!!! Andy hasn’t even started writing up his eagle project (which is a ton of awful paperwork in my troop). He actually didn’t come to any meetings for like 2 months after the trip. Robert has been scrambling endlessly to make up for his lost leadership which is really fun to watch.

Now I just drive my brothers to the meetings on Tuesdays and get to watch the pair give me dirty looks. It honestly makes me feel ecstatic. 9 months of dealing with their bullshit every night and 3 weeks of taking it face to face in the woods and it was all worth it!

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Feel free to share this story anywhere.

(source) story by (/u/IF_RealTrap)

[peachymess]

This morning I feel like doing a little rant. I haven't really been letting you guys in on my personal journey for a while for multiple reasons, but for my rant to make sense, it's time to talk about something. So...

I can't remember how much I've actually told you all about this already, but for 8 months, I've been sort at war with the mental health care system. This isn't the first time they've screwed me over by far, but this is the first time I've actually started to believe those paranoid thoughts that tell me "the are actively trying to sabotage you". It's a very long story, so I'll give you the short(ish) version: it all started with a meeting I had between my long-time psychologist, my mentor at the welfare department (or whatever you call it), and myself. To this man, my psychologist showed herself in a new light. I used to think we were a good team, but she basically said that she was not trying to make me better; she didn't believe it was possible, so instead, she tried to keep me stable at the mental place I was in at the time. Well, not only was that weird because I was not stable at all, and kept having better/worse periods like always, but she'd never told me she'd given up on me like this either. I was taken aback. If staying at the "level" I was at these days, was the best I could get, that wasn't good enough for me. If this is as good as it gets, I'd rather die... So I finally decided to take her up on the offer she kept pushing on me, to be transferred to a bigger institution and a new psychologist. I had my qualms about that, but I had to have the basics; a psychologist who hadn't downright lost hope in helping me. So as per the official plan made between my psychologist and the welfare house, I was gonna be transferred and just continue treatment elsewhere... Well, I live closer to a different institution than the one I was registered to, so we agreed to send a request for me to be transferred from one to the other. If they couldn't take me, I'd just settle for the one a farther distance away. Or so I thought... Well, my psychologist takes forever to send the request for transfer, but eventually she does and eventually they ask me to meet to talk to them. Turns out she sent a request to the wrong department; she had sent me to the group therapy part, even though she knew how I felt about that. So I told the woman I had to talk with, that I had already gone to group therapy for two years straight and reaped all the benefits from it; what I needed was a private psychologist and that's what I was meant to apply for.

What followed was a month of back and forth between that woman and my psychologist, where I told her she had to send a new request to the correct part of the institution, her saying she didn't need to because she had contacts, the other woman saying it didn't matter. Back and forth, until my psychologist finally agreed to send a new request. Now that the formality is over and I just have to get the reply from the institution to start seeing them, my old psychologist says goodbye and stops her treatment of me. It was a little emotional; I've had her for many years now...

... But then I get my letter from the institution: "you don't have a right to mental health care", and like that, I suddenly had no one. My old psychologist cut me off, the new place won't let me transfer - but worse, they not only deny the transfer, they officially take away my right to mental health care so I can't even remain at the other institution that I'm registered to. Nobody warned me this could happen. If they had, there's no way I'd take the chance of dropping my old psychologist. Even she is better than no help at all.

What angered me the most, was their bullshit reasoning for why I didn't need help. In their explanation, they said "you still have struggles connected to a personality disorder" and that right there should be enough to discredit the rest of their excuse to drop me because "you still suffer due to mental illness" sounds a whole lot like a reason why I'd need help from a health care Institution built to help people who <i>struggle with mental illness</i>... But they continued by explaining that I'd stopped abusing alcohol - which was a newer problem that I never even got treatment for and honestly hadn't even stopped doing at the time, I simply told my psychologist not to worry about it and that's it - so obviously I was fine. And also that I'd told my psychologist I felt better, so case closed right? Only, what I had actually told my psychologist was: I feel a lot better now that I've decided to commit suicide once my favorite show ends in a few years; it's a huge weight off my chest not to have to worry about the future - can't wait to die...

Getting the rejection letter was a hard blow. In the letter, it said I could have my psychologist send a new request, or I could send a complaint myself and hope they changed their minds. I texted my old psychologist but all she said was "I sent two requests already, can't you ask your family doctor?". The answer to that is complicated, but that doctor doesn't know me and later he also quit so not even he is a resource for me now. Anyways, after a long time of having anxiety over this, I finally managed to sit down and write a complaint letter. I pretty much obliterated their reasoning - but in a polite and professional way, of course. Anyways, I finally sent it. The thing is, that took a lot out of me. If I hadn't mustered to fight for myself, nobody else would have at this point, and the health care system would have been indifferent to whatever happened to me. It's not at all easy being I'll. You have to fight to claim the help you need, and it makes me nauseous to think of all the people who end up in a similar situation but simply don't have the strength to keep demanding to be taken seriously. I asked myself how many had fallen off the grid like this, and never recovered.

... Anyways, I waited and waited for their reply. A month later, there was no word from them that they'd even received the letter. So I called them. It took forever for them to even find it, because it hadn't even been registered as a complaint. It has been filed under something else, not scanned like other complaints, and eventually located to be in a pile in the office of the woman who had initially refused me. I tried in vain to get the woman on the phone to give me an estimate of how long it generally takes for complaints to be answered. I told her no rush, I just wanted an estimate so I had a way of knowing what to expect. But no answer. Eventually she said she'd leave the woman a note that I'd called.

Disregard the fact that the woman who made the educated call to say I was fine, was the one who was gonna decide if she had been wrong or not... Another month goes by and eventually I call again. They supposed the letter was still there, but the woman was on Holliday now, so yikes. The woman on the phone said she'd talk to the present highest rank once they got out of a meeting at 11am, and have them call me back. I waited all that day for a call that never came... The next day I called again to ask about the call, and the lady on the phone said she had no record of that being promised to me and that she had no idea who had been supposed to call me. I explained to her the deal about the letter in the other woman's office and she suggested to leave her a note for wen she returned in another two weeks. That's when I broke down in frustration. I told her they'd alreasy done that. We were just going I'm circles. I didn't want to be just another sticky note in a pile of paperwork; that didn't work, who were they kidding. I told her in despair that it was really hard to stand up for yourself when you had to work against the system that was there to help you half of the time.

... I guess she heard my plea, bless, because later that day I got a text inviting me to come "discuss my complaint" a month later. At that date, the welfare house had wanted to set up a meeting with my new psychologist whom they last January had believed would be well acquainted with me by August. But alas... Anyway, I met them two weeks ago. They didn't flay out agree to take me in, but said they talk to me a couple if times to see if there's anything they can help me with. And I have hope, because any professional psychologist will arrive at th conclusion that yes I need help and yes they are the place that can provide that. It was still a bit scary though because after the meeting, the receptionist almost aggressively refused to take my payment and that made me worry. Why didn't I have to pay? Is this off the books?

Well, that's where I am today. That's was the backdrop. I was supposed to meet them again today, and this is my rant: this morning, thru texted me and said I couldn't come today after all. And that my meeting had been pushed to Monday 29th of August. But next Monday is 28th. So which is it, Monday or the 29th? With everything that's been happening, this is making me paranoid. Are they trying to make this as inconvenient as possible on purpose? Hope that I show up on the wrong day? Hoping I wasn't going to call them and ask? Well I did call. And do you wanna know something? The woman on the phone said there were no records of today's or the new date for our meeting. She said she'd look into it and send me the correct date, but I'm getting really worried about how much I have to push and push and continue to push these people to keep the wheels turning.

... I guess my rant is just that I'm scared and tired and angry. I know others have worse experiences. It just suked to wake up to find that this clusterfuck wasn't over after all.

[thinkpurpledrank]

Drank’s Postseason Rotation Preference

Pictured is Alex Wood, clearly confused about what his postseason role will be.

---------------

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Drank can hear you laughing, from wherever you are.

“PLAYOFFS?!?” you scream, in the most Jim Mora-way possible. “WE’RE TALKING ABOUT PLAYOFFS?!?”

Case in point:

LITERALLY PLAYOFFS. LITERALLY GUMBY.

The playoffs are literally two weeks away, and while the Dodgers have been doing whatever they can to sabotage their playoff aspirations, all media sources inform Drank that the Dodgers have already clinched a playoff spot, and are merely a single win or an Arizona loss away from bypassing the play-in game, to the actual tournament of pain. One more win, and the Dodgers’ odds of winning a World Series skyrockets to 12.5%, which is about where it would have been had the Dodgers won 116 games anyway.

I guess we do actually have to talk about playoffs! And now that the Dodgers are pretty much in this tournament of pain, they might as well try to actually figure out the best method to getting wins, preferably at the rate they were getting wins in June and July, and not the last 4 weeks.

To begin, let’s focus on the starting rotation. The rotation had 94 qualified candidates before the year, and then injuries dwindled that number down to roughly 8. Let’s start with the obvious.

GAME 1: CLAYTON KERSHAW

Literally Clayton Kershaw. Need I say more?

Okay, literally Clayton Kershaw not hanging sliders up in the zone to Aaron Altherr. That Kershaw is a bad Kershaw, that really needs to avoid showing up in the postseason, or I might ban the internet and its hot takes from my house forever.

The good news is that, relatively speaking, Kershaw is pretty much the best pitcher in baseball again. And he won’t be pitching on 3-days rest. That’s a start.

GAME 2: YU DARVISH

Darvish has been maddeningly inconsistent since being acquired on August 1st, which at least is better than being Mattingly consistent. His fastball touches 97, his breaking pitches have wicked movement that at least will play as unhittable, and he will lose control of all of his pitches at random times.

Basically, since becoming a Dodger, Darvish has showcased why he has both A) the highest K/9 rate in baseball history, and B) why the Marlins could tag him for 9 runs in a 3-inning span.

The good news is that these regular season results don’t really mean anything. The other good news is that Darvish has the ability to put up a damn fine box line score even if he has no semblance of control with all of his pitches (see his last start in San Francisco). The bad news is that I really, really want good Yu Darvish to show up in October, and I have no idea if that is how it will actually play out.

Be good, Yu.

GAME 3: RICH HILL

Rich Hill is like the left-handed Yu Darvish, in that when his stuff is on point, he has the ability to take a no-hitter into the 9th inning... and sometimes even the 10th inning, before the season then spirals out of control. But unlike Darvish, Hill pretty much relies on 2 pitches in 2 parts of the zone. When it is working, it is an absolute thing of beauty.

In 2017, Hill has had lapses where he loses control, where he might walk 2 or 3 batters in an inning or give up consecutive home runs. When he is on, though, he is arguably the best #3 starter in a field full of really good #3 starters. Going to need that deception to play well, and going to need Hill to play well with the majority of his playoff starts likely to be on the road.

GAME 4: HYUN-JIN RYU

Just like we thought, another dominant left-handed... wait a minute, this guy didn’t make the All-Star team!

You might be wondering why the actual 4th best starter isn’t listed as the 4th best starter. I’ll get to that reasoning in a second. For now, note that Ryu has been perfectly fine as a starting pitcher, who has a .310 OBP against the first two times through the order. Expect 4 or 5 innings out of Ryu, then move onto the next piece.

Yes, I understand what Dave Roberts said. HEAR ME OUT, DAVE.

SUPER HYBRID RELIEVER LEFTY PERSON THAT HAS BECOME VERY VALUABLE FOR POSTSEASON TEAMS: ALEX WOOD

There it is!! Alex Wood--who led baseball in ERA for much of the season, who had elite strikeout rates for most of 2017 compared to the other elites in the game, who even got the anti-NERD crowd excited with his 15-3 record--should come out of the bullpen.

But not in any bad way at all. This is actually quite a prestigious role, if you have only paid attention to how postseason baseball has played out the last few years.

Let us start with the role Andrew Miller played in the 2016 MLB playoffs, when it became cool to be a reliever who could come in during the 5th or 6th inning instead of the 9th. The ability to put out potential fires and massive threats in games where every out and every run is absolutely crucial, is absolutely crucial. Terry Francona and Andrew Miller proved exactly why the save stat is the dumbest fucking stat of all time, because Miller really earned the save (and really, the win on several occasions) by coming in for 2 innings during the middle of a baseball game and shutting down the opposing team’s best hitters, at a moment where the game was pretty much on the line.

That role proved to be so effective, that the Dodgers elected to spend $80 million on a relief pitcher, which I would have never guessed would have ever happened with this front office. That role even proved to be so effective, that the Dodgers were rumored to be dangling some valuable pieces of the farm to bring in another potential dominant lefty reliever in Zach Britton--who was not even good enough to pitch in the 2016 AL wild card game!!

And the carry-over is obvious, as teams are already focusing on implementing that strategy for October. The Yankees, for instance, have like 7 different elite relievers that they can use at any time, and not just have to rely on Chapman metaphorically lodging bullets into garage walls in the 9th inning. The Red Sox have discussed using once-dominant-but-now-injured-a-lot lefty David Price in this role as well. Andrew Miller also figures to be Andrew Miller again come October.

So, if you are the Dodgers, why not Alex Wood?

Mind you, this is not for a loogy position--not when Tony Watson and Tony Cingrani have pitched as well as they have since being acquired. I am talking about using Alex Wood for 1-2 innings in 3 or 4 games of each series.

When Wood first moved to the bullpen to start the year, his fastball velocity touched 93. To pair that with his improved backdoor slider, opposing hitters had no chance. Then, as Alex Wood moved back into the rotation and kept his dominant form, his innings piled up again. Then, as his innings piled up, well...

You can clearly see from this handy chart and screengrab that as time has gone on, Alex Wood’s pitches have gotten less fast. That is a problem, coinciding with a few lackluster starts recently, which has contributed a little bit to the team’s terrifying downfall.

The point is, maybe it would not be the worst idea to put Alex Wood in the bullpen, where maybe you can find that uptick in velocity once again. If you assume Wood pitches 1-2 innings in relief in 3 games of the NLDS, then what you are really banking on is that Wood pitches 4-6 innings with the 93mph fastball, as opposed to 5-6 innings with the 91mph fastball. You are spreading out Wood’s value across the middle innings for multiple games, as opposed to pitting all of Wood’s value into 1 game, as unconventional as that sounds.

Oh, and in case you have not been paying attention to the last 4 weeks, middle relief has been sort of a clusterfuck tire fire. Maybe, in those games, relying on Wood to pitch the 6th and 7th innings before handing the ball to Morrow and Jansen is not the worst idea.

Of course, this does not mean anything if Wood can’t get his fastball velocity back up. But, in Drank’s opinion, it is the best, most wisest solution. Particularly also made by the fact that Ryu and Kenta Maeda have been perfectly acceptable rotation figures this season, despite their recent struggles as well.

Also, like Andrew Miller, Alex Wood is left-handed. Their first names both start with the letter A. They are pretty much clones of each other.

So, maybe, consider that.

Two weeks until Game 1 of the PLAYOFFS!??!? I am so terrifed.