This is frustrating behaviour for me to deal with because on one hand, I believe in being charitable about normal human quirks, and what they're doing is not that bad. On the other, my own working principle is, "Whining doesn't fix anything; it just alienates people."

I've found that putting someone in charge of whatever they complain about markedly reduces the number of complaints I receive.

Listen - I've spent my ENTIRE life watching a small inheritance getting bounced back and forth through the family. First it was my grandparents who had enough to pay off my uncle/aunts/parent's mortgages early. The fact that there was enough money there to do that was strung along for the first 25 years of my life.…