u/thcandbourbon

I’ve travelled quite extensively, and I know that the sizing of cabin baggage is often a major topic of controversy at the gate.

It’s unbelievable how every airline has a different set of rules. Most of them fly the same models of planes… so surely “This Bag Must Fit Under the Seat” would translate to standard dimensions across the board???

It’s almost as if they WANT your bag to be over-sized so they can charge you extra for it! Even though all that does is hold up boarding.

So I think I’ve found the ideal solution…

Flair should sell a zip-up duffel bag that is sized EXACTLY at 15cm x 33cm x 43cm. Sell it for $39.99 plus tax, put lots of “Flair Airlines” branding on it for free advertising, and give passengers a clear, no-nonsense option to buy a bag that is **explicitly guaranteed** to be within the allowed dimensions.

They MUST be aware of all the problems that these silly size rules always cause. After all, there’s a post about it nearly every day on this subreddit.

So I don’t see any disadvantage to doing this. They’ll make money by selling these approved personal item bags. They won’t have any arguments at the gate. Passengers will be happier, and they’ll fly with them more often so it’s just common-sense good business.

Sounds like a win-win, no?

Hi All: Got a bit of a unique situation for you that I'd like any possible input on.

For context... the prospect of pursuing an MBA is a fairly new thing for me. It kind of came out of nowhere as a career pivot/upgrade opportunity at a specific school. i.e., I haven't been looking at programs for years like many people in this subreddit seem to have been, and to tell you the truth I didn't even know what the GMAT was until fairly recently.

I just recently wrote the GMAT for the first time and got a high-500s score after about one month of preparation. This is enough to be admitted to the target school's MBA program that isn't especially prestigious, though this specific institution works quite well for me for a variety of practical personal reasons.

The "Pro" of going this path is that it will be relatively easy and low-burden, though the "Con" is that other programs could potentially be higher-yield in the long term in the sense of networking opportunities and career prospects.

Here's the thing about my GMAT score. I scored fairly high (think 90-something percentile) on both reading comprehension and data insights, though embarrassingly low (think bottom 10 of percentiles) on quantitative analysis.

This has me thinking... if I decide to wait until 2027 or later to start a program, I could potentially buy myself another year to prepare for the GMAT more thoroughly. Even boosting my quant score into the 50s of percentiles would get me to a mid-600s GMAT score which I understand would qualify me for some much higher-tier schools.

The "Pro" of going this path is that I would have much more ample opportunities as far as schools, corresponding career prospects, and scholarships. The "Con" of going this path is that I would need to push my plans back by at least a year, with no actual guarantees of improvement.

It's hard to isolate what I'm asking into a single question, but I think it could be narrowed down to this... Based on the two options I've outlined and information I've provided, which looks like the better path?

While there are very strong merits for taking the "sure thing" of starting this year and not wasting any time, I think there could be equally strong merits for improving my GMAT score and leveraging that to potentially pursue what might be stronger opportunities elsewhere.

Or is it possible that I'm ascribing too much value to the 90-something percentile scores in those two categories?

Any insights greatly appreciated.

It can't be just me who notices this. It seems like every place in Toronto these days is GROSSLY understaffed... and that appears to be one of the core contributing factors to the broader "Enshittification" of this city, with some related side effects such as those below.

For clarity, I can understand why places would be trying to keep their costs down. Every employee at minimum wage costs the business at least $150 per day between $17.60 per hour times eight hours ($140.80 in base pre-tax wages) plus CPP contributions. So if you normally have four people on staff but can get away with three people on Mon/Tue/Wed which are slower days, that seemingly small cut is a savings of about $25,000 annually. From a pure business perspective, I can absolutely see the incentive.

But at the same time, it feels like there's this race to the bottom in terms of "How much can we squeeze a few employees to do the work of several employees so we can condition customers to a lower standard and just pocket the cashflow that could have been used to hire more staff?".

Like, it's starting to feel like the ownership/management of these places is openly mocking their customers and their staff at the same time. With the customers it's "You'll be giving us your money regardless so we don't care how long you wait", and with the employees it's "This workload is normal, what are you talking about? Consider yourself lucky to have this job, we'll just replace you if you can't handle it!". But in the moment, we're somehow expected to believe and act as if this is normal.

Besides generally lousy service in terms of the overall quality of the experience one gets at a given place, I'm finding this has a few side effects as well including...

People Just Walking Out: A great example of this is at post offices when I've been trying to mail something. It will often be the case that only one person is working, and the person being served is doing a complicated shipment/transaction which is taking several minutes, and someone in line with something extremely simple (buying a stamp, dropping an Amazon return, etc.) has to stand there and wait... and because they were expecting to be in and out in a few minutes, they haven't got time to wait in line indefinitely. So they simply walk out... and the employee doesn't even bat an eye. Back when I worked in customer-facing jobs, we would have been yelled at if a customer grew impatient and walked out with no attempt to offer to prioritize them if they're in a rush. But it seems that's just the norm now. Customers will wait as long as they need to since their time costs $0.00 per hour and that's cheaper than hiring more staff, right?

Routine Tasks Going Neglected: Ever notice how in Toronto garbage bins are often overflowing, dispensers of things (soap, sanitizers, napkins, paper towel, etc.) are frequently empty, and washrooms are "Out of Order" because they're supposed to be cleaned/refreshed, but just aren't? It used to be that these types of things were taken care of proactively as a matter of course. But under this "Bare-Bones Staffing" approach to things, it appears that everything is instead done reactively or on a basis of "Only if Absolutely and Immediately Necessary". I cannot help but think that this is a direct side effect of pervasive under-staffing.

Phones Going Unanswered: There are SO many places in Toronto that I have tried to reach by phone in recent years to ask just a simple question... and either no one will answer, or someone will answer and say "Please Hold" then never pick back up, or I'll leave a voicemail and nobody returns it. Now, call me a jerk for this... but once I finally reach them I'll ask straight-out... "I've called six times and left three voicemails, why is it taking me a seventh call to reach a live person during business hours?", and the answer I'll get is usually some version of "We're shorthanded right now". But if it's the same thing over and over, doesn't that mean it's more like "Intentionally Understaffed" and not "Circumstantially Shorthanded"?

By comparison, outside of Toronto I haven't noticed things are like this. Sort of like "Everything Functions as Normal", but as soon as you get into Toronto you're noticing long lines, unanswered phones, overflowing trash cans, and can't get anybody's attention in any store or anything to help you.

Am I the only one who's noticing this?

I made a comment yesterday in this subreddit mentioning how Toronto started going downhill significantly since 2015… and I got a lot of replies from other “Real” Torontonians (i.e., spent the majority of our lives in Toronto) who felt the exact same way… that was the year, 2015.

I say we need to talk about it. Let’s share some thoughts, musings, observations, and perhaps even some theories as to how this happened and what made 2015 “the year” when everything began to go south.

… and also, what do we do about it?! Can pre-2015 Toronto ever be restored? Or is it gone forever?

Here’s my contribution…

Pre-2015 Toronto was a vibe that I think could be likened to an afternoon backyard party in the summer at somebody’s house. People knew each other, got along just fine, and everything was fun and pleasant.

Then from 2016 to 2020 it became kind of like the vibe of an airport departure area bar. A bit of a vibe… but it’s really just a bunch of strangers sitting around doing their own thing with minimal camaraderie or shared culture.

Then from 2020 onward it became more like a hospital waiting room. Everything is somber, sterile, bare-bones, and anytime anybody goes there they can’t wait to leave and go home once they’re done. The whole idea of “Just chilling with other Torontonians” has just about completely disappeared.

Context: I undertook an application for an MBA program somewhat unexpectedly when an opportunity arose... and while my application is fairly strong based on work experience and grades, my fate will likely hang on my GMAT score, which needs to be at least 550 for the program. Unfortunately I only had about a month to prepare, which has me somewhat scrambling at this point.

Some Additional Key Details...

- Test date is approximately two weeks from today

- Already approved for a 50% extra time accommodation based on ADHD/Autism

- I've been studying using Magoosh on their one-month study plan, which has a great overall format and explanation style

- Three mock tests taken so far, scoring 565 for each. Breakdown for each category is below...

>Quant 78 (57% correct) — strong in percents/ratios (100%) and word problems decent (67%); biggest drags: Algebra (20%), Statistics (33%), Powers/Roots (50%), and a miss in Arithmetic/Fractions.

>Verbal 81 (65% correct) — reading is a strength: Long Passages 88%, Medium 83%. Argument tasks are the gap: Strengthen/Weaken/Paradox/Flawed 0–50%.

>Data Insights 75 (55% correct) — solid in Table Analysis (100%) and Percents (100%); weaker in MSR (33%), Graphics (50%), Two‑Part (50%), and Probability (0%).

The Actual Question: I feel like I'm either not good enough or just doing something wrong here. I've been putting in approximately two hours every day of study on Magoosh and I feel like I'm starting to better understand the material in concept (especially coming from an unconventional education background where I haven't done a lot of advanced math). But I'm starting to worry about the fact that my mock test scores aren't improving at all.

Based on the situation and information as outlined above, does anyone have any recommendations or guidance for how to improve my performance? I suspect that I'm "in range" considering that I'm consistently scoring just over my target score. But there are clearly some weaknesses and deficits and I feel as though I'm missing something when it comes to making meaningful improvements.