Shell Answer Man

I have had this little Arrow T2025 manual staple gun for a few years. It hasn't had much use - the occasional project here and there. Today, we're re-upholstering some chairs and I'm using the staple gun with the square staples. I got through two seat cushions and now, just about every staple ends up twisted to the right (mangled!) after I squeeze the staple gun. I've re-seated the staples twice but it doesn't seem to make a difference. I've got quite a few more staples to put in.

I'm still exhausted from my family's recent Thanksgiving outing. Do I need to replace this thing? I'd rather not - it's shopping hell today.

Thanks.

Help! I am a non-custodial parent. My son is five and starting school (first grade) soon. I have visitation with him 2-3 weekends a month, during alternating weeks in the summer, and some time during spring and winter break. His mom and I are on pretty good terms. We live about 100 miles away from one another.

I remarried about a year and a half ago. My wife has three school age children, too, who are always in the home. My son enjoys spending time with us all, but is very stubborn to follow instructions given to him when I'm not around. So this morning, as a discipline for some real crappy behavior on his part, I assigned him the task of writing some standards 200x: "I will follow the instructions that my parents give me." My wife's taken care of the kids this summer, so I gave him the task this morning before leaving for work.

Unfortunately I got word (I'm not even home yet) that he basically blew the whole thing off and adamantly refused to follow through on MY instructions now. I really don't want to spank him but he's being a little (find your favorite word). It doesn't help that he's going back to his mom's tonight to get ready to start school. This is about as testy as he's ever been, and I'm not digging it at all.

I don't want him to get the idea that he can pull this kind of behavior with no consequence.

Ideas? Quick, now. I want to correct him in the right way. thanks.

I am considering calling his mom and asking her to let me box up his toys when I get there. The behavior's pretty extreme. I'll see him again soon, so maybe he'll straighten up.

I'm a senior programmer analyst with 16 years under my belt. I'm an overachiever, and for many years I worked in consulting to always keep things fresh. I've been in my current position now for 1.5 yr.

I have a dilemma now, it seems, where my peers at work (who've been around a while), and even some vendors are consistently coming up short in taking ownership of their work product. When this happens, I am always looked at to step in and in one way or another compensate for their shortcomings. The truth is that I work with an unmotivated bunch that needs LOTS of training, and some standards - - but our manager is not qualified to evaluate their needs -- his background isn't in what we do.

He talks a good game about standards, but caves in to politics constantly. My recommendations get the ol' ho-hum until there's a crisis, but it also sucks that I'm the only one with the experience to implement them without getting stuck. There has been talk.. both when i started, and even recently.. of outsourcing the team's functions because of the poor work product overall. I'm tired of wasting my breath to ward this off.

What to do?

I've been on a new job for about six weeks now. Things there have moved reallllllly slow, almost uncomfortably. I had a talk with my director, who shared with me that he also wonders about the slow progress within our group. So I figured it out - I have a manager in between the director and I who slows things down because he refuses to make any decisions; a nice guy, but it seems that he's there as a default, not because he was hired to lead others. Even for simple stuff, he defers almost all decision making to someone else outside our group, and they tend to take their time. No "judgment calls" - he just won't do it. When I shared this tidbit with the director, he asked me to "help out" the manager in moving forward on decision making.

I have no interest in pushing this guy to do his job, but we'll all continue to look bad if he doesn't. He may have a deep-seated fear of being "wrong" - - stronger than his fear of being "fired". What to do?

Argh! Here we go again.

Hey all,

I need a 'reality check', please. My daughter just turned 15. I've had primary custody of her now, by her choice, for three years. I guess I'm just frustrated.

Prior to my stint of custody, she lived with her mother and grandmother. There were (and may still be) boundary issues btwn her mom and grandma as to who the 'boss' in the house was. On top of that, her mom was real good at not keeping our child on the ball - for example, at one point my daughter told her mom she had no homework assignments from school over several weeks, and her mom just took the lie as the gospel truth, hook line and sinker.

I used to give her allowance, but she'd spend it on junk and THEN come back to me declaring she was short on real necessities. I gave her a lead for a job several months ago; and about two months ago I told her she'd HAVE to get a summer job. Still dragging her butt, and school's out next week. More below...

My credit scores are TU/669 EQ/656 EX/651. I have 8 open lines of credit; 2 derogatories over 2 years old. Debt to income is 4%. i have a bk that drops off end of next year. How to raise my score?

Derogs are paid off, all lines are current. Derogs are collections, and they won't delete their entries.

My credit scores are TU/669 EQ/656 EX/651. I have 8 open lines of credit; 2 derogatories over 2 years old. Debt to income is 4%. i have a bk that drops off end of next year. How to raise my score?

I've recently filed an Order to Show Cause re Contempt in a family law matter. The other party was in contempt because she violated an order to not interfere with certain telephonic contact for other involved parties.

The trial date is about seven weeks away. What legal means can I use to get the opposing party to produce her own phone records, or to get the phone company to produce them for trial? The opposing party is unrepresented, so anything's fair game. While the evidence I have now is already pretty good, phone records will likely nail this.

According to the judge who will be seeing this case, the opposing party will be given opportunity, after the hearing, to secure counsel. What happens next?

Thanks.

I need some new ideas, folks.

I divorced recently. My problem with the marriage was having an immature wife who didn't seem to get it that her lack of effort or planning could have adverse effects on me, the breadwinner. Well, that's done.

I've been on a new job 8 months now. I have the same gripe. It's a large business, but lacks a whole lot of structure. I'm an application system designer, and I attempt to do my due dilegence to think things through when I get new requirements from our internal customers. But quite often, I get put on the spot to produce or revise work-in-progress because I get info late in the game, like:

"Oh, by the way, that's due tomorrow. We forgot to c.c. you."

"Oh, by the way, we forgot to tell you that the system should do THIS, and THIS, and THIS too"

I try to take it in stride, but it really drives me NUTS. I don't desire to be seen as the weak point in the system when in truth, it's poor practices by management.

What to do?

Tomorrow I'll have been separated from my wacky wife for six months, and the next day, I'll be divorced. On and off since my separation, I've been seeing a former coworker who i also spent some time with before getting married three years ago. She's recently divorced too - a real short marriage. She's 37, I'm 35.

She lives about 30 mi away, but sometimes we talk for hours now. I enjoy it, and we get together and do dinner, chat, movies. We're great friends, but haven't been intimate.

She tells me she hasn't really seen our interaction as "dating". We're hanging out sometime today, and I'd like to slowwwwwwwwwwly move out of the "friend" zone - so I think I need to "shake the tree" a bit!

I live in the 'burbs, so I need some "THIS IS DATING" ideas other than the proverbial dinner and movie, and it's pretty boring here.

Help!

Hi,

My soon-to-be ex-wife has a court order to have my son available for phone calls at a certain time in the evening. She has just a cell phone. She left in July last year, but until Dec 20, her cell phone was on a family plan on my account. I told her just prior that she'd need to establish her own service, which she did, keeping the same phone number.

Well, yesterday, I called for my son, and got the message "The person you're trying to reach is not accepting phone calls." I got the same message from a different phone as well. I got the same message tonight, too.

This is the kind of stuff that made me decide I couldn't deal with her as a spouse - just not caring about "real life" stuff.

How do i PROVE this? I could use a third party witness but I really don't wanna get friends and family involved.

Thanks in advance.

I have a 14 y.o. daughter of whom I gained primary custody about three years ago.

She's beautiful, intelligent, and a pleasure to be with... except... when nobody is looking, she sneaks and manipulates to get her way.

I had an extra $80 charge on the cell phone bill in September because she decided that text messaging was the groovy thing to do. After a stern warning, I explained to her quite clearly that using any services other than plain ol' voice would rack up a bill, and were thus off limits. She seemed to understand.

The next month's bill was an extra $400.00!! -- but instead of text messaging, there were 2400 instant messages (at 15 cents a pop, and several during classroom time). I spoke with her mom (we are not together), who shared with me that she'd caught my daughter using the IM features and inquired as to if my daughter was s'posed to be doing that... and was told it wouldn't be a problem.

(more below...)

I need some direction on navigating a course of dealing with what I'm just seeing as my very, very needy family. My brain hurts. Need some help.

1) My grandma just had cancer surgery and needs live-in or daily help. She lives a day trip away from me. She is still mentally competent, but won't do a nursing home or a home-health situation. Her home is usually trashed due to neglect.

2) My very young cousin, 24, nearest to her is finishing college. She's helpful to Grandma, only to get around for groceries.

3) The next nearest cousin is a bit more experienced but can hardly hold a job. He's got a family now - responsibilities. He's 32.

4) My wife moved out after I made it clear that I wasn't going to put up with her irresponsibility. She's 33. Her father enables her behavior. The court put our 2-y.o. son with her.

5) My daughter (diff relationship) is on a guilt trip bc her mom has to work two jobs to pay child support to me.

6) Oh yeah, and I have to KEEP a job, right?

WTF!?

I've had three incidents where I think my wife's inability to say no to her father has damaged our situation..whatcha think?

1) at the time "Dad" was living about 60 mi away and decided to come get my stepdaughter for the week. His other grandchild, who lived far from us, was also visiting. at the end of the visit "Dad" dumps my stepdaughter at the home of the other grandchild and calls to tell us we need to pick her up over there cause he doesn't wanna drive. My wife's pretty quiet, but got PHYSICAL with me when i called this man to tell him what he did was WRONG.

2) after a tiring household move, i told my wife we couldn't go to an out of town wedding without further $ and emotional drain. frustrated, she calls "Dad". he gives her $400 and tells her to go by herself.

3) we've separated. i asked about thanksgiving dinner. initially she was iffy about spending it with "dad", but dragged it out on telling me no, and later says, "What my dad said we're gonna do is..."

she's 33

My 14 y.o. daughter has lived with me for two years - previous to that, I had visitation 3 weekends a month.

Visitation was problematic in that it was often hard to set limits (and assign age appropriate chores) due to the fact that by Sunday afternoon, anything I asked her to do was negated by the fact that she was leaving soon... so it got ignored

Now she's with me and it's bad to the point where i want to physically hurt this damned child sometimes. Example - we had an extra $80 on the phone bill in august from text messaging and a download. After that, i explained that ANYTHING other than talking on the phone would cost $$$. Afterward, at school in class, or at her mom (against mom's advice) she decided to I.M. instead... $400+ on the next phone bill. I destroyed the phone, and cancelled allowance til mid 2008.

The worst part is that even with the evidence (the bill) this child lies to me - - "oh, well I thought u said u made it so they wouldn't charge you"...

Help.

I've been married for three years. My wife and I separated in July and I am trying to get some new ideas for coping with some things that continue to bother me - for example

I discovered after getting married that my wife is used to having her family act as a "safety net" when she gets in financial hot water...so i'd routinely "find" unpaid bills or nsf notices, etc

My 14 year old (from another relationship) moved in with me after I got married... she doesn't care how her actions affect others in the household, UNTIL she's in trouble (like running my cell phone bill up over $500, or getting caught stealing)

My wife has problems setting and maintaining boundaries with her daughter - sometimes toeing the line with neglect.

I've not been able to keep my cool with some of the things they do. Counseling hasn't helped. I'd like for my family to be a source of pride for me, but they alway seem to be wrecking my peace of mind, and I wonder if they give a sh--.

Am I expecting too much?

my wife left in july, as i was pressuring her to take more responsibility as a mother and wife, and she couldn't deal with it. (there was a good amount of negligence). She took our son and her daughter and i didn't hear from her for three weeks until she received the divorce papers i filed.

i decided to have the divorce action dismissed,but she felt she needed time to get herself a job and get herself together, so she moved to her father's, 60 miles from our home. then she started getting really s--tty whenever i'd try to arrange time with my son (she acted as if she OWNED him), so i filed a custody/visitation action and the next time i got him, she didn't see him again until after the hearing, about a month. (he's two)

Surprising she's acting like she's got some sense now, and we have even discussed reconciling. I moved out of our old place two mos ago, 30 miles further. She has our son...

I'm a professional black male, 34. About ten yrs back I had an oppty to have a nice lunch with an older black female coworker (very attractive), who did the same type of work I still do now. I was single, she asked me what I was looking for in a woman. Self confident, head on straight, intelligent, attractive, goals, charming, truth seeking, yada yada yada. She sez, "Oh, you're gonna hafta marry a white woman!"

Just so happens I was just getting out of a relationship with another black woman who was rather insecure and overindulged. But ten years later, I'm here again with another black woman and it's looking like the same thing, except this time I married her, a 33 year old brat whose parents denied her the experience of growing up and dealing with the world, and she expects to do the same now that I'm in this marriage with her. We have a two year old son, but we've already split up - we'd be 3 yrs married in December.

So was my older co-worker right?

Hi all. My wife and I split up in July. We were married 2.5 years and have one child together. She moved to her father's, and he lives 90 miles from where I do. dunno where she/i are going but i've worked hard to do the best thing for my son. I've been sending money to her each week.

The problem has been phone calls and visitation. she has a cell phone that i pay for. when i try to reach her during the week to discuss visitation or just talk to my son, i rarely get an answer. it'll go three, four days at a time. this has happened at least over the course of 3 separate weeks. finally i end up driving the 90 miles to just go get him. she has said she couldn't call back (over several days?), or the phone wasn't charged. one time she left the phone somewhere and didnt go back for it for about 4 days. Her dad doesn't want her using his phone.

I filed custody papers, and this happened again the same week. I got my son the next wkend. should i just keep him til the court date?

My wife, who's 33, left me in July, tired of me getting on her case about being !@%^# immature. We have a 2 year old son and I guess she figured she didn't have to do much after he was born, except for taking care of him. I'd 'find' unpaid bills addressed to her. She let a bank account go south $600 before I found out. Let her auto registration go late two months - but I make great money. Wouldn't keep house either.

She took my son to her dad's with her, which is 90 miles away. Many times I've had to just truck on up there to spend any time with my son. I get lame excuses like my son hid her cell phone, she couldn't answer or call back, phone not charged. She cancelled a custody agreement we were working out in court. Finally I filed for custody (trial's in 3 wks), then went and got my son. She showed up the next day unexpectedly demanding him, and I had the cops send her home. She called tonight, wants to see him this weekend. I wanna avoid more drama, dang, what to do?