The grumpy thread

[Stanky]

Thanks Floatylight

The kids are on holiday now so plenty to keep me out of the house doing stuff with them which is going to be theraputic I hope, The GP put me onto a non-referral councilling website which I shall investigate tomorrow and see whats what with that. I just needed some breathing room which I now have, so I need to make the most of it to build myself back up and charge my batteries up too.

 

I've been poking about TU's a while back and never went anywhere with them, I've got time to play with now so will be looking into that too. As ever, should have got it sorted a while back!

[MarvinsMom]

wednesday was my 45th birthday.

i "celebrated" by going to work.

it has been slightly hotter than the surface of the sun.

32 celsius at the loading doors, 45 degrees at the top of A-row, next to the driers......... 

at least i was only there for 8 hours, not the 12 hours that the plebs on the presses have to endure!

[Lord Sterling]

8 hours ago, Stanky said:

I bit off more than I could chew, and have laboured to make things work largely singlehandedly....

I am actually doing this now. However, I can see an end to it before the year is out. I didn't get the payrise I asked for and I feel massively unappreciated at work. The wife still doesn't realise the amount of labouring I am doing to make things work. 

I am trying to make it work in my own way.  The last couple of months have been harsh financially, next couple of months may well be too.  However, there is finally a clear way for me to bring the wife here which I am working on now and therea few otger positive things on the pipeline.

Hope you pull through Stanky. Take is easy chap and take some time.

[GrumpiusMaximus]

On 7/13/2019 at 5:35 PM, sierraman said:

I apologise now if I’m going to upset any dog owners... We’ve been entrusted, unbeknownst to me, to look after the in laws dog. Who on earth signs up for this? It’s a PITA! The god forsaken thing is constantly under my feet, pestering the kids, pissing in the kitchen. It’s like having kids but with none of the benefits of them. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO YOURSELF!!!!!!!

I didn't realise there was ever an upside for kids.  Dogs, on the other hand...

[GrumpiusMaximus]

Best to you, Stanky.  It's not an easy place to be but you'll get through it.

[purplebargeken]

Quote

I didn't get the payrise I asked for

Mo, what the actual fuck?? You haven't but a colleague with less time in post has??

[BorniteIdentity]

10 hours ago, Stanky said:

Following a family bereavement, and couple of months of frankly intolerable stress at work, culminating in attacks of shakes, vomiting what I think might have been blood, and some extremely dark thoughts, today I cracked, left work early and went to an urgent appointment at my GP practice, where they signed me off for a month. Terms were used along the lines of 'nervous breakdown' which is pretty worrying in itself, and I've had to report this back to senior management at work, who were largely unaware this was going on.

I bit off more than I could chew, and have laboured to make things work largely singlehandedly, and now paid the price in my mental health.

I'm not quite sure where to go from here, I need the time to recover and feel a weight has been lifted from my shoulders, but am in limbo regarding pay for the time I will be off - strictly speaking it will only be SSP which doesn't even cover the rent let alone anything else. I'm putting this to one side for now, and have set myself a list of small jobs which I will tackle one per day to start to rebuild myself. While I've struggled with my mental health in the past it has categorically never been this bad.

I'm also trying not to consider how I go about returning to the office in 4 weeks time and having 'that meeting'. I will have to make my case that managing 3 teams, 50% of which are new staff who need training on top of trying to deliver 50+ projects is not tenable for the foreseeable future and that I need to have fewer areas of responsibility if we don't want this to happen again in 6 months.

For now, I am trying to focus on the positive. The GP was understanding, the triage team were efficient and I've now got breathing space. For anyone else feeling similar, don't let it get to this point.

Cap doffed for having the spuds to take action. It’s infinitely easier to stay in the rut, so congratulate yourself for doing something positive. 

You have done a lot for this site and our community and I’m sure I’d not be the only person happy to chip in if you end up on SSP. Just please let us give the fundraiser an amusing name ?.

In the meantime, be kind to yourself man x

[Kiltox]

Currys. Just spent £WTF on a new washing machine and dishwasher, top of the line Bosch stuff to replace the god awful shite that came with my house

They just called to confirm my delivery and then tell me all about their lovely care plan and how shit the manufacturer’s warranty support will be. 

How the fuck is this still legal? (Thin ice to be fair, wrapping up marketing into a service call - GDPR etc) 

[New POD]

My response would be to cancel.the order. 

Are you telling me that they are not the best most reliable products on the planet, and that they won't last 22 years without any maintenance? Well you've miss sold them. 

 

[Lord Sterling]

2 hours ago, purplebargeken said:

Mo, what the actual fuck?? You haven't but a colleague with less time in post has??

Technically, no. My colleague has had a payrise, she has been there a few months more than I have and she is a lot faster and efficient than I am. The new 21-year old girl who has just started has no experience of working on this industry has just been taken on will be earning a lot more than me as she is replacing the business manager who is leaving, this leaves me to be the lowest paid in my department. 

[purplebargeken]

^^ That's just crap, utter crap. What a bunch of knobs.

[taxi paul]

All the way to the arse end of Birmingham for a cv joint for the jap bus and it's the wrong one. Fucks sake . Messaged him and waiting for him to get back to me. So another weeks car hire cos garage can't get it off their supplier till next week. Or another ride to Birmingham to get the right one. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

31 degrees in the non-airconditioned office (hotter than Kingston, Jamaica), the single electric fan is notched up to "full" and I'm melting. Not only that, but a colleague has booked in a client to see me mid-afternoon, at when the heat is expected to be at its height. Thanks for nothing.

Hopefully this client will stay away because of the heat.....

4 hours ago, Lord Sterling said:

..... The last couple of months have been harsh financially, next couple of months may well be too.  However, there is finally a clear way for me to bring the wife here ....

Wonder if the rejected payrise request is partly down to "management"(sic) not really appreciating you?

Are you having to meet the £18,600 p.a. financial requirement? One of my clients fell agonisingly short on this a couple of years ago, being a self-employed sole trader and having income that went up and down like the proverbial yo-yo. It went to the immigration tribunal and there was an argument over whether the minimum income / gross annual income requirement should be based on his turnover (which met the standard) or after his expenses had been deducted before tax (which was a bit less than the standard). No prizes for guessing which one the immigration judge preferred.....

[clayts450]

@Stanky Good on you for taking action. I was in a similar boat in 2006 and the relief when I was signed off sick was palpable. Whilst I almost certainly did not have the same financial concerns (Civil Service FTW) it did allow me to pause life for some considerable time, and even when (after a year) I was on Incapacity Benefit, I learned to adjust my standard of living accordingly. It was some four years later when, after resigning from the Civil Service, I finally went back to work to a job I did, until fairly recently at least, love a lot.

I think of that four year hiatus as a mid-life reboot - it did me the power of good, and I came back a stronger person, more carefree and, most critically, a lot lot lot less harder on myself when shit went wrong at work when it clearly was not my fault, just piss poor management.

Having no/low income certainly changes your expectations and desire for 'material shite' which, let's face it, most of us don't really need to survive. 

Deffo take out some counselling - hopefully, you'll quickly come to realise 'it's not me, it's them'  

[taxi paul]

Yes good man stanky.  We are all meant to be big brave bastards. But that doesn't help. Nothing wrong with seeking help. Hopefully you will come through this and have better coping strategies for future events. 

[New POD]

Self employeed? 

If there's an income requirement it should surely be based on the figure that the HMRC would tax you on. That is after legitimate business expences. 

Obviously by minimising the expences you could up your taxable income and pay more tax but if it got you above the income limit and a permanent fix, you could perhaps put those costs through in the next financial year and pay less less??? 

I don't think I'm suggesting anything that morally i have a problem with. 

Or you could get a friend who is self employed to employ you at £19k a year, 3 monthly pay slips should  be enough? Then get visa and resign. 

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

On 7/23/2019 at 3:59 PM, kirton said:

I got quite excited on this as it is half the price, or less, than the ones I have found, but unfortunately it may fit an e30 but probably noy many e28s which have 23.81mm bore cylinders (15/16ths to those like me brought up using proper measurements which ATE must have been using). 

I have been looking for a european source which would avoid high shipping costs, VAT and customs duty, but only second hand so far.

You might say - rebuild it, but kits aren't available for the later e28 master cylinders and I've seen a post that says they not rebuildable due to the way they are put together, and right hand drive and left hand drive are different. 

So it's nearly £250 and a repetition from Mrs K - "I've  told you many times that you should have sold it"

You tried Walloth?

https://www.wallothnesch.com/en/bremse/bmw-518-m535i-m5-e28.html

[sierraman]

Bloody Jeremy Vine. Today’s topic is ‘should you be sent home from work in this weather?’

Unless you are a plasterer or a brick layer then no I’m afraid. It’s hot but it’s far from unbearable. About the only time I’ve felt it unbearable was in Turkey about 15 years back when it was 48c. 

[Crispian_J_Hotson]

They're so precious over there, I used to listen to it a lot then realised Jeremy is on a wind up but the callers are serious ?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

27 minutes ago, New POD said:

....could get a friend who is self employed to employ you at £19k a year, 3 monthly pay slips should  be enough? Then get visa and resign. 

Where the British spouse is employed, they'd be wanting to see not just the payslips but also P60s plus an employment contract. And not just at entry clearance stage, but also when the visa is up for renewal at the 30-month stage. And again when eligible for settlement after a second period of 30 months.

[Lord Sterling]

2 hours ago, purplebargeken said:

^^ That's just crap, utter crap. What a bunch of knobs.

Absolutely. This job is now a means to an end rather than a career that I thought when I started.

2 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Wonder if the rejected payrise request is partly down to "management"(sic) not really appreciating you?

Are you having to meet the £18,600 p.a. financial requirement?

Nail. Hit. Head.

Small things like stock requests, eBay and Amazon account management etc... go through my colleague rather than me. I used to manage to the Amazon accounts but we lost them due to poor delivery thanks to our poor delivery service GLS. The Amazon account management has been taken off me and given to my colleague. I am always given menial tasks such as price checking which is time consuming and very long winded, yet I am expected to finish them bu the end of the day unless I am massively busy with customers which I often am. My colleague is treated more like an important figure than myself. It has been made known to me that she is more efficient than me and that I am nowhere near her level. My colleague though, to give her her dues does try and cover for me if certain tasks are not completed.  We both agree that this is a massively shit company to work for and she finds it stressful, she doesn't hold back on her frustrations being French herself.

Our business manager is leaving because of the way he has been treated. He has been treated like shit even though he is excellent at his job, his French is second to none, his knowledge of the products is also second to  none and his bringing in of new business and getting involved in the work is unquestionable.

I am meeting the financial requirements, just for the visa. I visited a solicitor who confirmed this so now I just need to get on with collecting the evidence and submitting the visa hopefully. 

I am in that job now as a means to an end rather than carry on trying to make a career out of it which will never happen.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

11 minutes ago, Lord Sterling said:

.....I am meeting the financial requirements, just for the visa. I visited a solicitor who confirmed this so now I just need to get on with collecting the evidence and submitting the visa hopefully.....

The bit that made my client quite bitter was that, by contrast, if you were an EU national pursuing your Treaty Rights here, there'd be no need for the financial requirement. And the application for an EU/EEA Family Permit would itself be free of charge....

[New POD]

35 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Where the British spouse is employed, they'd be wanting to see not just the payslips but also P60s plus an employment contract. And not just at entry clearance stage, but also when the visa is up for renewal at the 30-month stage. And again when eligible for settlement after a second period of 30 months.

Less easy to manipulate then. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

5 minutes ago, New POD said:

Less easy to manipulate then. 

Exactly. Doesn't stop people trying to be too clever by half, though.

[inconsistant]

It's too hot.

 

[xtriple]

I don't know, you disappear for a month or two (or five!) and when you come back, everything has changed! Put it back as it was, I can't deal with change and this place is my one consistent!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Just now, xtriple said:

I don't know, you disappear for a month or two (or five!) and when you come back, everything has changed! Put it back as it was, I can't deal with change and this place is my one consistent!

....but the more it changes, the more it stays the same....

[danthecapriman]

20 minutes ago, xtriple said:

I don't know, you disappear for a month or two (or five!) and when you come back, everything has changed! Put it back as it was, I can't deal with change and this place is my one consistent!

Change or not, your back and that’s what matters! Good to see (hear?) from you again! 

[LightBulbFun]

44 minutes ago, xtriple said:

I don't know, you disappear for a month or two (or five!) and when you come back, everything has changed! Put it back as it was, I can't deal with change and this place is my one consistent!

welcome back at least  

happy to see you have returned

[primeradoner]

59 minutes ago, xtriple said:

I don't know, you disappear for a month or two (or five!) and when you come back, everything has changed! Put it back as it was, I can't deal with change and this place is my one consistent!

The  Mods definitely need to move this post. The return of xtriple shouldn't be in the grumpy thread