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The grumpy thread


outlaw118

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Had a lovely day playing with Vauxhalls. That's not the grump. No, the grump is the state of the M1. It was jammed solid southbound, which was part of my test route, so that scuppered the final drive. Did that, headed home - M1 Northbound. That turned into an UTTER PILE OF ARSE after a few miles. Waze took me off and through Milton Keynes, I think just for a laugh. I made the mistake of letting it take me back to the M1, which was even worse than before. Turns out there was a lorry fire further north. Turns out, there is no way off the motorway for BLOODY MILES after Milton Keynes. Sat Nav thought I could get off at Newport Pagnell services. It was wrong. Then Elly the 2CV conked out as I tried to rejoin, having finally had enough of covering about 5 miles in an hour.

D3EvzvCWwAA8gF3.jpg

 

I stomped off for refreshments and left her to sulk. Eventually, she fired up and away we went for a further 30 minutes of hot queue action. It was hot too. Sun was very warm. Eventually made it to Telford, where I managed to leave my backpack in the restaurant. Great!

 

Arrived back here about an hour ago. Seven hours to cover 200 miles. Pitiful!

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Had a lovely day playing with Vauxhalls. That's not the grump. No, the grump is the state of the M1. It was jammed solid southbound, which was part of my test route, so that scuppered the final drive. Did that, headed home - M1 Northbound. That turned into an UTTER PILE OF ARSE after a few miles. Waze took me off and through Milton Keynes, I think just for a laugh. I made the mistake of letting it take me back to the M1, which was even worse than before. Turns out there was a lorry fire further north. Turns out, there is no way off the motorway for BLOODY MILES after Milton Keynes. Sat Nav thought I could get off at Newport Pagnell services. It was wrong. Then Elly the 2CV conked out as I tried to rejoin, having finally had enough of covering about 5 miles in an hour.

D3EvzvCWwAA8gF3.jpg

 

I stomped off for refreshments and left her to sulk. Eventually, she fired up and away we went for a further 30 minutes of hot queue action. It was hot too. Sun was very warm. Eventually made it to Telford, where I managed to leave my backpack in the restaurant. Great!

 

Arrived back here about an hour ago. Seven hours to cover 200 miles. Pitiful!

Whenever I'm coming back from down that way, I chop across to the A5 from just S of MK, then take the A422 just north of Stony Stratford through Buckingham and Brackley to the M40 at Banbury. It's a half-decent drive, too!

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Had a lovely day playing with Vauxhalls. That's not the grump. No, the grump is the state of the M1. It was jammed solid southbound, which was part of my test route, so that scuppered the final drive. Did that, headed home - M1 Northbound. That turned into an UTTER PILE OF ARSE after a few miles. Waze took me off and through Milton Keynes, I think just for a laugh. I made the mistake of letting it take me back to the M1, which was even worse than before. Turns out there was a lorry fire further north. Turns out, there is no way off the motorway for BLOODY MILES after Milton Keynes. Sat Nav thought I could get off at Newport Pagnell services. It was wrong. Then Elly the 2CV conked out as I tried to rejoin, having finally had enough of covering about 5 miles in an hour.

D3EvzvCWwAA8gF3.jpg

 

I stomped off for refreshments and left her to sulk. Eventually, she fired up and away we went for a further 30 minutes of hot queue action. It was hot too. Sun was very warm. Eventually made it to Telford, where I managed to leave my backpack in the restaurant. Great!

 

Arrived back here about an hour ago. Seven hours to cover 200 miles. Pitiful!

Sounds like a coil issue?

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Had a lovely day playing with Vauxhalls. That's not the grump. No, the grump is the state of the M1. It was jammed solid southbound, which was part of my test route, so that scuppered the final drive. Did that, headed home - M1 Northbound. That turned into an UTTER PILE OF ARSE after a few miles. Waze took me off and through Milton Keynes, I think just for a laugh. I made the mistake of letting it take me back to the M1, which was even worse than before. Turns out there was a lorry fire further north. Turns out, there is no way off the motorway for BLOODY MILES after Milton Keynes. Sat Nav thought I could get off at Newport Pagnell services. It was wrong. Then Elly the 2CV conked out as I tried to rejoin, having finally had enough of covering about 5 miles in an hour.

D3EvzvCWwAA8gF3.jpg

 

I stomped off for refreshments and left her to sulk. Eventually, she fired up and away we went for a further 30 minutes of hot queue action. It was hot too. Sun was very warm. Eventually made it to Telford, where I managed to leave my backpack in the restaurant. Great!

 

Arrived back here about an hour ago. Seven hours to cover 200 miles. Pitiful!

 

you where in MK?

 

unplanned video of TPA to come? :)

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Sounds like a coil issue?

 

It was very much that feel, but it's a resin-type fairly-new coil, so I'd hope not. I just left her parked on the hard shoulder to cool down and she eventually caught when I got back. Not ruling out choked up plugs mind you, but I didn't have any tools with me. I mean, why would anyone covering 400 miles using a classic as a modern bother carrying any tools?

 

Also still a bit miffed that she has an oil drinking habit. Getting on for one litre for those 400 miles.

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Whenever I'm coming back from down that way, I chop across to the A5 from just S of MK, then take the A422 just north of Stony Stratford through Buckingham and Brackley to the M40 at Banbury. It's a half-decent drive, too!

 

Yeah, I should have done that. Stupid me just wanted to get home by the quickest route possible. 

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Sodding tree and sodding birds.

 

attachicon.gifIMG_20190401_174143.jpg

 

Just the state you want a car you'd ideally like to sell wind up looking after a couple of weeks.

 

That happened to my Focus at the end of last year - was staying at a country hotel somewhere in Leicestershite and parked a bit too close to the trees, next morning it was COMPLETELY coated in huge black bird-turds.  It's rare I wash my car but I had to on that occasion to avoid paint damage - brushes wouldn't get the turds off without some serious elbow grease, they practically had to be chipped off the car with a trowel!  Fuck knows what kinds of birds were living in those trees!

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Desks at work.

 

At my current place of work, one does not have an assigned desk. You get a laptop and the desks have docking stations.

We recently got new laptops, and the docking stations for them don't have enough display outputs, so the third monitor is handled by a usb to dvi adapter. It's utter dogshit.

My laptop works fine on some desks, on others the third monitor doesn't work at all, and on others it flickers. A colleague can plug their identical laptop into a desk that mine works on, and the third monitor doesn't work. It's utterly insanity-inducing how random these things are.

 

This all means I end up spending a good quarter of an hour every morning when I come in trying to find a desk that works. Then I have to find a chair! It means I'm guaranteed to be pissed right off before I even start work.

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Desks at work.

 

At my current place of work, one does not have an assigned desk. You get a laptop and the desks have docking stations.

We recently got new laptops, and the docking stations for them don't have enough display outputs, so the third monitor is handled by a usb to dvi adapter. It's utter dogshit.

My laptop works fine on some desks, on others the third monitor doesn't work at all, and on others it flickers. A colleague can plug their identical laptop into a desk that mine works on, and the third monitor doesn't work. It's utterly insanity-inducing how random these things are.

 

This all means I end up spending a good quarter of an hour every morning when I come in trying to find a desk that works. Then I have to find a chair! It means I'm guaranteed to be pissed right off before I even start work.

 

Liked in geek camaraderie...……. right there with you bro!

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This is a grump about being priced out of older mercs. In the mid 2000’s in the paper version of autotrader was the under 1,000 section. There would always be a choice of (admittedly a bit ropey) cheap w124s. Times have moved on and I’m left looking at corroded w210/ w202 specimens which is all my shiter (sub £400 ) budget will buy for a running motd example.

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Desks at work.

 

Ah, that's a right old ball-ache... I feel for you.

 

When I worked for AXA Sun Life on the outskirts of Bristol, they had a hot-desking policy for the call floors.

 

The chances of getting a location with a working monitor, keyboard, mouse and phone headset were vanishingly small. After scurrying round four or five desks, and finding that a different key component was fucked on each, I'd then get a bollocking from my team leader for not being logged in and ready to go at the start time.

 

I ended up buying a cheap USB keyboard, mouse and headset and carrying them around in my bag. At least if I could find a desk with at least one working monitor and phone, I could handle the rest.

 

Then I got taken aside for using 'non-authorised equipment'. I countered that I couldn't do my job with the broken equipment provided, and surely it was the office manager's job to make sure headsets didn't have the wires pulled out or mice weren't missing their tracking balls.

 

He didn't like that, and rather than going and fixing the problems, the bollockings increased.

 

So I left. Maybe not a smart move, but it was a temp role anyway.

 

As an aside, a few months later I believe the entire HQ in Filton closed due to their parlous financial situation. Which I'd kinda picked up on because of the number of red notices coming through on investments, funds closing, and panicky calls from IFAs on behalf of high-worth investors. It was an interesting introduction to the world of finance, and how massively clueless some of these self-appointed 'masters of the universe' are on a number of levels. 

 

They might have had a subsidised gym, bar and Starbucks for their staff but by golly, there were some fucking stupid decisions made in that place.

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Today, not only am I dying of lurgy I also seemed to have ruptured my ACL in the night. My right knee is killing when I bend it.

Jesus, I'm 38 going on 94.

 

Although, it has just rained and I have a GT86 on the drive..hmm skids ahoy.

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So I left. Maybe not a smart move, but it was a temp role anyway.

 

 

 

There is nothing more satisfying than telling someone to shove their job up their arse, even if you phrase it more diplomatically than that. It's the only thing I miss about actual employment. Certainly is true that people don't leave jobs, they leave managers.

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Decided to use the works hot pressure washer this morning(3am) after getting back to  the yard. Had a filthy Bx subframe I've sold and wanted to get it squeaky clean to check for cracks and rust. Positioned the car with main beam on pointing at the hot wash, chucked subframe on floor and steamed cleaned the hell out of it. Checked it over with a torch and it's spotless. Tidied up, put lance away neatly, walked back towards car, headlights on remember, and promptly fell over the bloody subframe. One pair of now designer ripped trouser, 3 inch gash to leg, buggered my back even more, and cut my palm where I landed. I'm beginning to think it wasn't all worth the pain for 40 quid :shock:  :shock:  

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They might have had a subsidised gym, bar and Starbucks for their staff but by golly, there were some fucking stupid decisions made in that place.

 

This place has none of that. We get some fruit delivered to the kitchen every Monday and Wednesday, and we have a free coffee machine...

 

I've only been here since January and the amount of stupid decisions and departments flat-out failing at doing there jobs is already staggering. I'm actively looking at other roles as I hate being 100% desk-based.

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At the moment I'd be glad of any job (probably get fed up with it fairly quickly) today was my third go at applying for the same job. It's something I'm easily qualified and experienced to do, being a full time role of what was a small part of my last job. The online only application should be easy, but was not compatible with being done on my phone. Tried again using a notebook, not all the drop down things worked but did as best as I could and sent covering email, also pointing out that the form downloaded from the advert said it was for internal applications. Got sent a similar, but slightly different form, the drop downs still don't work properly, but I have sent it anyway. The cynic in me thinks that the job will go internally and that the external applications go in the recycle bin.

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There is nothing more satisfying than telling someone to shove their job up their arse, even if you phrase it more diplomatically than that. It's the only thing I miss about actual employment. Certainly is true that people don't leave jobs, they leave managers.

 

 

I had a career that, due to senior management, just became a job. Took retirement as soon as I could afford to.

 

Plus pointlessly moving dozens and dozens of people, and all their documents and equipment, around in an office that is closing in about 15 months.

 

Plus this forced hotdesking. 45 staff on my team. 22 desks. So people started "working from home". Like having a paid holiday in my eyes, as I am sure the majority that were working from home did fuck all on those days.

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And my new motorbike won't be delivered today (same as yesterday) because the shop can't get it registered, as the registration office has been shut for the last two days ( last day of the month/first day of the month). And today they have a backlog of applications to do.

 

Makes me appreciate the way the DVLA work (the majority of the time).

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This is a grump about being priced out of older mercs. In the mid 2000’s in the paper version of autotrader was the under 1,000 section. There would always be a choice of (admittedly a bit ropey) cheap w124s. Times have moved on and I’m left looking at corroded w210/ w202 specimens which is all my shiter (sub £400 ) budget will buy for a running motd example.

I always thought Mercs seem to take an age to reach good money. W124s were at give away prices for years, ditto stuff like those 1970's SLC models that either rotted away or were incredibly cheap.

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I've been using a couple of job "apps" to find a new job. Pop on once a week or so and it's pretty much - Here's a job for minimum wage - no. Here's a job you're not qualified for - no. Here's a job you'll have to wake up at 4am to do - no. Here's a job you'll have to shave and stop swearing for - no.

 

Still I suppose clicking no on the 4 jobs that appear every week is better than filling in all your private information and getting fucking 800 emails or text messages every day.

 

Although, now they've got the moronic idea of a 4 on 4 off shift pattern out of their heads maybe I won't have to run to the hills. Me, work more than 3 days a week? Pfft. All my best work is done at home.

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