How many of you have lived in the middle of nowhere?

[Xist]

Do charter schools still have districts? I just want to say "Company."

The organization has an app that allows you to log in and out through your phone as long as you are actually at the school. Hopefully I finally figured it out.

I had wondered how I could possibly need three days to get ready to see twenty-five students, but I spent all of it, and still did not finish.

Some of my coworkers found the guy saying terrible things about our boss and agencies. I asked for a source twice and told him that since he refused to provide a source I was unsubscribing.

Well, they tried to argue with him, he argued back, everybody looked stupid, and then an administrator locked the thread.

Someone posted that they were moving to Arizona, had a child with special needs, and asked where were the best areas for job opportunities and services for her kid. A coworker said that our agency is a great place to work and they can provide the services for her offspring.

Then the troll started trolling. They argued back and forth and my coworker started asking for the troll's personal information.

I kind of understand, who was this person, they did not seem to be using their real name, and what experience did they actually have? However, instead of saying "None of your business," the troll played the victim, and started asking my coworker to leave it alone. My coworker responded to everything the troll wrote (except "Leave me alone!") and the thread was locked before anyone made themself look even worse.

That lady is still looking for help: "I am trying this again. Please do not get my thread locked for arguing. I just want to know the best places in Arizona for employment opportunities and services for my son. Please do not start any fights."

Hopefully people finally start acting like adults.

I was supposed to see two clients this afternoon, but they canceled, and are going back on probation. It was weird to only work seven hours. I kept thinking of the paperwork that I need to do for my first job, my on-line class that just started, and the new Civic parts I have not had a chance to install.

I laid down and slept for five hours. Unfortunately, unless I stay up until bedtime Thursday night, I am not sure that I will ever establish a proper sleep pattern.

[Xist]

So far everything is going well with the second job, but it looks like I am having issues with the special-needs charter school where I saw clients last year. When I tried to schedule appointments I was called into the principal's office. Everything seemed fine. She said she was an SLP, just not doing therapy anymore, although she maintains her credentials.

She just asked me to message the families before trying to schedule, which seemed odd. I only heard back from one mom, but she said the principal asked them to not receive therapy at school anymore. When I did not hear back from the other family I reached out to the teacher, wondering what crazy story I would hear. She eventually responded with a full paragraph of "Mr. Xist, the principal and I feel that [client], who is nonverbal and infamously terribly-behaved, is doing so perfectly that she does not need speech."

It is not up to the teacher or the principal, the Individualized Education Program is a government contract mandating that the school provides specific services, including speech therapy, but they got rid of all of their therapists, and now they are preventing me from providing necessary services.

I am going to ask around to see if they can get away with that. I do not mind so much losing hours. I was able to reschedule one client for the evening, just instead of seeing her during the day, and one or two other clients in the evening, I have the one, and an extra hour of driving.

[Xist]

This was my first day seeing kids at the second job. I was on-time, but since I do not have a computer, I need to clock in through my phone, which uses GPS. I am able to park near where I work, but I need to go through the office, through the school, and around several portables.
It seems odd to walk five minutes when it would be a hundred feet or fewer if I could walk straight.

The "clock in" button did not look right, I walked to my office, around the school, through the school, and still could not log in.
I spent fifteen minutes walking around. I finally closed the app, reloaded, and it worked. My work area was not ready until today, so I made five or six trips carrying my supplies from one corner of the school to the opposite, got locked out, asked the custodian nicely to let me back in, and it was halfway through the second session when I was at all ready to see kids.
The rest went okay.
I still feel like I have more time than I need to see kids, do paperwork, and adjust our activities.
I wish that I could have bought my textbook cheaply used. I am not going to try to read it on my phone!

[Xist]

I came home, ate dinner, and fell asleep on the couch. I really need to catch up on paperwork for my main job! I woke up and have been catching up on messages before going to bed.

I still do not have any idea who is waging a one-person war against my owner. It seemed like they calmed down after getting two conversations locked, but they are no longer in one of my speech Facebook groups. I am sure the moderators kick out people who act unprofessional.

The owner of my agency told him to take down all negative references to him or he would sue. I do not have any idea where libel versus the First Amendment stand, but simply cursing in response seems like a poor idea. My owner may not be able to do anything, but I am confident his attorneys can make the other person's life miserable.

How do I know about this exchange? The person in question shared a screenshot in the Facebook group.

How is that a good idea?!

[Xist]

I literally have a speech corner, just a small portion of a decent-sized room off of a classroom. The teacher does not seem to like having me come through her class, even though I have only seen her work with one student, and she keeps closing the door, which is illegal. She also keeps locking me out of the room. Today I waited fifteen minutes for the custodian to let me in just so I could drop off my stuff and go home.
Today I met the dispatcher, who has driven one of the five twenty-year-old buses for a year. She was upset that I took up a small portion of her room. She was also upset that she could not get her job title on her badge.
I got a badge, too, so that is good.
That corner was empty and she liked it that way!
I have only seen her twice in two weeks and apparently that was two times too many! I mentioned driving a school bus years ago, but not having a CDL, and she said she was disappointed that we could not solve each other's problems.
To clarify, she meant her problems, but maybe if I got a CDL and also started driving twenty-year-old buses she would actually like me!
I do not have any idea when I will get the hang of two jobs!
I work two and a half days at one school, but was not scheduled to see any kids today, I just have that time to catch up on my notes, which take a couple of minutes per kid. However, since I spent a couple of hours setting up my room on Monday, I was unable to see those kids, and I rescheduled them for the morning. Then I drove half an hour down a back road to another school and saw ten kids.
It is amazing how some seem completely incapable of focusing for an entire second and others are so cute and wonderful I want to call their parents and say "Be sure to give them lots of hugs!"
"Sure, who the heck are you?!"
Two guys were installing a side door today, so I needed to see kids elsewhere, which was fine. They did not finish today, but when they do I am supposed to get a key. Hopefully it also opens the gate so that I do not need to walk five minutes through the school just to get to and from my car. Also, the teacher will be able to pretend that I do not exist. That seems to make women happy.
The dispatcher is stuck, though, and I discriminate in favor of young cute women.
We finally got some rain today, I saw my two clients, and I went straight to bed when I came home! I slept from 1820 to 0020!
I think that I only have three clients scheduled for today, although there is a chance that I can make up two clients that I have seen Tuesday night for several months.
I will just need to see two kids that I usually see at 1600 at 1730.
No excuse not to work on my Civic during the day?

[Xist]

As I mentioned in my Honda FSM thread, my Accord is currently out-of-service, I had Mom drop me off at work, but she was supposed to pick me up a few hours later so I could drive to the other school.

I did not want her to be stuck home all day and she kept mentioning that today is her wedding anniversary. She kept talking about visiting Dad.

I did not need to do much at school this morning, but I was not able to do any of it. I got a ride and rented another lunchbox from Enterprise, but there was not any way for me to make it to the second school on-time. My supervisor made arrangements for me to see those kids tomorrow, but if I cannot manage to fix my Accord, I will need to borrow Mom's car; I am not renting for a second day if I can avoid it.

I was unable to see any closer client, so I finally made it out to the client forty-five miles away. I think that I wanted to check the trip meter or something, but I saw that the overall MPG was allegedly 54.6 or something.

Wait, what?

I reset it as I drove several miles, going 40 in a 50. Then there were a couple of miles with the speed limit dropping to 25 before a traffic light. When I first had a readout it said 72.8 MPG, it slowly went down, and then I coasted for a while down a gradual hill towards the traffic light.

I almost hit 80 MPG!

I remember reading that on average built-in economy gauges were 5% optimistic.

Oh. Shame. Only 76 MPG.

However, ten miles at 40 MPH or less, coasting to a red light is meaningless, and skewed real data, which I never got.

Wow. The tank is only 9.2 gallons!

When I picked up the car it only had a quarter tank. All of us know how inaccurate fuel gauges are, but I absolutely take issue with the fuel gauge in the Mirage. It is digital. Is the fuel gauge [as] accurate [as possible] down to the pixel?

I only saw 1/4 tank, 1/8th tank, and blinking 1/8th tank. I had not worried about it because if I got anywhere near what the MPG gauge estimated, I would have an easy time making it back to town, and I did, but still, why only show eighths? Is this the least accurate fuel gauge ever?

I do not know who adjusted the seat, but I am 6'2", with disproportionately-long arms, and I probably should have tilted the seat forwards a notch, but I seemed to have as much legroom as in any other car.

There is not an armrest!

I found an OEM one on eBay for $110 shipped. That sounds like money well spent.

There were a couple of times when I needed to pull into traffic; I saw an opening that was smaller than was ideal, I thought "I got this!," stomped on the accelerator, immediately gave up my foolish endeavor, and did I embarrass myself in front of everyone?

Every who? Who do you think was watching me try to pull into traffic. Anyway, no, had anyone been there, they would not have seen anything, because I did not go anywhere!

When I rented the first lunchbox I said my Civic had a 36% better power-to-weight ratio, but my HX could do 0 - 60 in 9.4 seconds--you know, when she moved at all.

The 2018 lunchbox can do it. See!


The two complaints that I remembered from my previous rental is that I did not have cruise control or a seek button on the radio, which were aggravating during a five-hour drive.

This rental has both. So, what are my complaints? That I need an Ultragauge to accurately track my fuel? It is slow? Did I actually complain about that? The thing is, from what I understand, the manual has about a twelve-second 0-60. It is still slow, but it is much better!

An armrest would cost $110.

When I got home I averaged 60.7 MPG over at least 40 miles, but at 50 MPH or less. The regular manual is rated 33/41 and the G4 is 33/40.

That is close to my HX rating.

The G4 CVT is rated 35/41 and the base CVT is 36/43, but drivers usually see better fuel economy with a manual.

[MetroMPG]

Why are you shopping arm rests for a rental car?


The takeaway from your co-workers (co-workplace-attendees?) in the previous couple of posts: people love change!


I can't comment on the accuracy of the Mirage's digital fuel gauge, but I'm sure if you really want to know, there's a thread or 2 about it on the Mirage forum.


Also: the manual Mirage is a very different driving experience vs. the CVT. I once suggested to a PR rep at Mitsubishi that they should only loan 5-speed Mirages to auto journalists - it would reduce the amount of bashing the car gets from traditional gearhead types. He thought I was joking.

[Xist]

I was trying to be unbiased.

I am sure the CVT is fine. Everybody wants acceleration, but when do they ever use it? I am confident this would keep up with everyday driving.

I would like to try the five-speed, but what if I like it?!

I looked up Mirage owners in the garage and 3rdPlane claims 68.74 MPG, Daox gets 60.65, FifteenWindow reports 53.13, MosesVP logged 49.28, and ForeRunner says he averages 46.49. All of them have 2014s except for MosesVP.

I want to know what kind of driving averages 55.66 MPG, that is 7.7% less than I got driving slower than I could ever sustain.

[Xist]

I check every day for full-time openings and periodically look at everything because sometimes they use the wrong job title. I limit searches to "SLPA" because if I use other terms I see more false positives, but I may miss posts like for my current school job, which calls me a "Speech Path Aide."

I am not an Aide, I am an Assistant. My license says so!

Anyway, I ran across an opening that just might be in the middle of nowhere:

Travel is by jet from Anchorage, and then by small plane, snowmobile or boat from Bethel to the village sites.

They say they have 4,000 students in an area about the size of West Virginia. WV has 280,000 schoolkids, so that is a bit less.

I am not a teacher, though, and I would not consider moving to civilization (Phoenix) for a better job, the void of Alaska is right out, despite:

$52,999.00 to $77,245.00/year

and

$7000 Signing Bonus

Why am I linking this? I don't know! I just feel compelled to provide a source, I don't invent data for the sake of argument: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?cmp=L...2f68dceb&vjs=3

[freebeard]

Not getting any argument from me!