The grumpy thread

[DavieW]

Every year,  a couple of weeks before Christmas, my wife's cousin posts her usual "children don't need loads of presents to be happy and think about the unfortunate ones who won't have much" etc. And every year, she posts on Facebook a pic of the huge pile of gifts for her "darling grandchildren". Hypocritical as ever.

[EspenO]

1 hour ago, reb said:

Show us on the doll where the german efficiency touched you.

Right in the Schwalbenschwanz.

[Popsicle]

Our gas has gone off, thought it odd the heating wasn't working, then realised the gas hob wouldn't fire up, so tried the gas fire, no thats not working either. Went and had a play with the meter, it all seems ok, so called the gas board up who said someone would be round within 2 hours. 30 minutes later a nice fella turned up who checked everything out and told us the meters fucked, contact your supplier they will sort it for you.

So yes its a grump because we've no heating, hob or hot water, but I'm kinda relieved that the combi boilers not fucked and costing me a few grand, I'm not sure my flexible friend would like to do the lifting on that at the mo.

[New POD]

On 26/12/2024 at 11:28, Metal Guru said:

I’m sure they’d not skip stuff if they knew it was valuable. Nothing gets people interested more quickly than money.

I’m in the process of  clearing out my mother’s house. There’s no antiques. A few things that various people want but the vast majority is stuff my mother liked but no one else wants. Sad to do, but if it doesn’t get dumped, my son will just have twice as much stuff to get rid of when I die. You can only take so much to charity shops. 

During lockdown I watched 5 skips bring filled with the stuff 95 year old Fred had filled his house with by his Neice. 

Furniture he'd made. Collections of books, mid-century furniture he'd bought in the 60s.  Every fucking item. 

[beko1987]

16 hours ago, vulgalour said:

This was clean 60 miles ago.  I love Lincolnshire, I don't love the state of the roads in the winter.

My dad's cars are always utterly filthy and I know he jet washes them down when it gets really bad and they get a Romanian special fairly regularly but it lasts barely days. 

Half their problem is their modern cars. The aerodynamics make the muddy fen water that sits on the roads run in some very odd ways! The Xsara keeps itself fairly clean in comparison. 

Bar one time I followed a cement truck up the a16 for 10 miles. It had been raining and I was behind it and it just rained mud the entire way! Was quite impressive by the time I got to dad's and it all dried 😂 That's when he first showed me his new karcher which I find clunky as fuck to use vs my little nilfisk 

[fairkens]

14 hours ago, EspenO said:

That’s a pretty charitable view of their business practices, I think.
 

Anyway, the shop’s there for the customer, not the other way around. If you treat your customers like cattle, you’d better be way cheaper than the competition.

It's literally the business model

[EspenO]

28 minutes ago, fairkens said:

It's literally the business model

Being miserable to your customers for misery’s own sake, or leaving such a tiny profit margin that you live or die by having one less minimum wage employee on shift? Not convinced either way.

[andy18s]

20 hours ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

In some countries, the tills have a metal bar that can be moved across to divide the end into two, with the bar directing the shopping to one side or the other.

Most of the stores in Bulgaria have these,as the locals will not be rushed.

Older customers will just watch every item get scanned through, pay and then start packing their stuff.

Most stores require you to weigh any loose fruit and veg,which can be interesting when they have 4 or 5 types of tomato ect.

We have a couple of decent supermarkets in town, Absolute and T Market. We get our meat and some dairy from Absolute as the quality is good and consistent  but as 90% of the local Brits shop there prices are higher...

T Market for everything else as they are a locally owned store,with nice fruit and veg from local producers. Butchers are literally everywhere too if you need 40kg of pigs lung...ahem

A monthly visit to VT let's us pick up bacon and stuff from Lidl,collect our dogs frozen raw dog meat in bulk and meet friends for coffee and lunch.

There's a Costco type of store called Metro which can supply different stuff,or in bulk if you need anything.

There's a huge variety of everything else you can imagine too but a lot of the smaller shops seem to work on the basis of once they've sold enough product to cover the daily costs,they shut up shop and go home/bar ect.

 

 

[Metal Guru]

4 hours ago, New POD said:

During lockdown I watched 5 skips bring filled with the stuff 95 year old Fred had filled his house with by his Neice. 

Furniture he'd made. Collections of books, mid-century furniture he'd bought in the 60s.  Every fucking item. 

That’s a real shame and if it is worth anything it’s stupid just to dump it. But if no one wants it, what are you going to do with it? You reach a point where things have to go (usually when a house is sold).

[myglaren]

A second hand shop will often buy up a lot of furniture, books, appliances and clothes and remove them.

Not for much cash but better than them becoming landfill.

[reb]

3 hours ago, EspenO said:

Being miserable to your customers for misery’s own sake, or leaving such a tiny profit margin that you live or die by having one less minimum wage employee on shift? Not convinced either way.

Have you ever run a large business?

If ford can save hundreds of thousands by stopping printing a cigarette icon on the cigarette lighter, then Laldi can probably save a decent chunk by operating stores with fewer staff. Lots of small gains make up big gains.

[castros_bro]

17 minutes ago, reb said:

Have you ever run a large business?

If ford can save hundreds of thousands by stopping printing a cigarette icon on the cigarette lighter, then Laldi can probably save a decent chunk by operating stores with fewer staff. Lots of small gains make up big gains.

Would you supply the source for this information?

[reb]

Just now, castros_bro said:

Would you supply the source for this information?

My dad - probably untrue, but the maths checks out. It's more of an example of how marginal savings on each unit can scale to big savings across an entire organisation than an actual specific example.

[castros_bro]

8 minutes ago, reb said:

My dad - probably untrue, but the maths checks out. It's more of an example of how marginal savings on each unit can scale to big savings across an entire organisation than an actual specific example.

Maths please based on the top being molded plastic so the symbol is part of the mold so that's just a different mold and not hand painted on by skilled craftspersons or some such twaddle

shttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006866430494.html?src=bing&aff_short_key=UneMJZVf&aff_platform=true&isdl=y&albch=shopping&acnt=135095331&isdl=y&albcp=554851195&albag=1306220947490970&slnk=&trgt=pla-4585238373891532&plac=&crea=81638863712723&netw=s&device=c&mtctp=e&utm_source=Bing&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=PA_Bing_UK_PLA_PC%2FM_SFFC_ALL_MaxValue_20240204&utm_content=All&utm_term=moulded car cigarette lighter&msclkid=6c39e6bf9c811521d5a481cf95f30843

[chadders]

5 hours ago, New POD said:

During lockdown I watched 5 skips bring filled with the stuff 95 year old Fred had filled his house with by his Neice. 

Furniture he'd made. Collections of books, mid-century furniture he'd bought in the 60s.  Every fucking item. 

I expect that my books, several thousand of them, all my rare VW parts, all the stuff of my memories etc.etc..will probably be binned or 'house cleared'. 

The lads have busy lives and won't have time to work out what is valuable and what isn't, especially with the aircraft books some of which cost hundreds, although I suspect EBay might have a few views.

I expect that my MGB, which I've had for nearly 50 years now, will be sold for a pittance as neither of them have ever shown any interest in it.

They're all only really valuable to me, I'll be dead and they'll be busy selling the house so need to get rid of the stuff ASAP.

[reb]

Just now, castros_bro said:

Maths please based on the top being molded plastic so the symbol is part of the mold so that's just a different mold and not hand painted on by skilled craftspersons or some such twaddle

shttps://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006866430494.html?src=bing&aff_short_key=UneMJZVf&aff_platform=true&isdl=y&albch=shopping&acnt=135095331&isdl=y&albcp=554851195&albag=1306220947490970&slnk=&trgt=pla-4585238373891532&plac=&crea=81638863712723&netw=s&device=c&mtctp=e&utm_source=Bing&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=PA_Bing_UK_PLA_PC%2FM_SFFC_ALL_MaxValue_20240204&utm_content=All&utm_term=moulded car cigarette lighter&msclkid=6c39e6bf9c811521d5a481cf95f30843

At the time they were silkscreened on, assuming a cost of £0.01 per item (there's lots of different ways you could assign a cost to it) that's a saving of £10k per million cars. The actual cost/saving would likely be higher, as fewer components being silkscreened means you need less machines running at once to process all of the components needed.

[DavieW]

VW has the same principle with oil. Every new car was short of 1/2 to a litre of oil and it was up to the dealer to top it up at the PDI. Half a litre multiplied by millions of cars leads to a huge cost saving. 

[chadders]

10 minutes ago, DavieW said:

VW has the same principle with oil. Every new car was short of 1/2 to a litre of oil and it was up to the dealer to top it up at the PDI. Half a litre multiplied by millions of cars leads to a huge cost saving. 

And yet they're still in serious financial trouble.

[Jazoli]

11 minutes ago, DavieW said:

VW has the same principle with oil. Every new car was short of 1/2 to a litre of oil and it was up to the dealer to top it up at the PDI. Half a litre multiplied by millions of cars leads to a huge cost saving. 

Lots of savings are made like this, both myself and my daughter have the same car, hers is six years newer than mine supposedly the ‘same’ spec, but they aren’t, some of the bits inside hers are measurably cheaper, the steering wheel and gearknob are plastic in hers, the trim around the touchscreen is cheaper, I have adaptive cruise where’s she doesn’t, there’s no heated seats or keyless entry, no footwell lighting and probably lots of other stuff that I’ve not noticed.

I also remember my wife’s old Astra J SRi being significantly better specced than the facelift SRi we replaced it with too.

[New POD]

1 hour ago, Metal Guru said:

That’s a real shame and if it is worth anything it’s stupid just to dump it. But if no one wants it, what are you going to do with it? You reach a point where things have to go (usually when a house is sold).

The house was then bought by a builder who then had 3 skips over the course of 6 months. a kitchen, bathroom and heating system and all the doors and windows and I think there was all the fitted wardrobes too, and carpets and probably contents of the loft.   Then the new owner got another skip and filled it with all the mature planting from the tiny back garden. 

[Pieman]

1 hour ago, Metal Guru said:

That’s a real shame and if it is worth anything it’s stupid just to dump it. But if no one wants it, what are you going to do with it? You reach a point where things have to go (usually when a house is sold).

Given the chumps and deliberate wind-up twats attracted when selling ANYTHING these days, especially online, it's probably much easier just to throw everything away.

[New POD]

1 hour ago, reb said:

Have you ever run a large business?

If ford can save hundreds of thousands by stopping printing a cigarette icon on the cigarette lighter, then Laldi can probably save a decent chunk by operating stores with fewer staff. Lots of small gains make up big gains.

I started my Career at Lucas Industries in a corporate department Called Design for Manufacture.  In actual fact, our role was to help Design teams design products that were fit for purpose but cheaper. 

Often we ended up making them more reliable too.  Less components, less variation in components, combining functions.  I had a Lucas Industries guide to Value Engineering in my possession for a while, that was written in the 1960s, but these days you'd call what we did Design for Six Sigma or Design for Whole life cost. 

But things like printing on a switch.  That's an interesting one.  You might balance the idea of one moulding that works for multiple applications but you'd had to pad print an icon so lowish tooling costs verses having a dedicated logo in the mould tool and saving money on the printing.  IIRC the rover 75 column switches were moulded in opaque plastic, spray painted in black and then a laser removed paint to create a white logo, and the switch had an LED that lit up the switch at night......did the end user care ? Probably not....Did Rover stylists want it and think it worth paying for .... almost definately.  Did we ever use different higher paint for "Launch press vehicles" ? Only with Rover requesting it. 

[New POD]

56 minutes ago, chadders said:

I expect that my books, several thousand of them, all my rare VW parts, all the stuff of my memories etc.etc..will probably be binned or 'house cleared'. 

The lads have busy lives and won't have time to work out what is valuable and what isn't, especially with the aircraft books some of which cost hundreds, although I suspect EBay might have a few views.

I expect that my MGB, which I've had for nearly 50 years now, will be sold for a pittance as neither of them have ever shown any interest in it.

They're all only really valuable to me, I'll be dead and they'll be busy selling the house so need to get rid of the stuff ASAP.

My Dad is now at home under the Palitive care team, and I had a discussion with my 87 year old mum about what she's going to do when he's gone (don't have crystal ball but if he's alive by March it would be a miracle) 

She's adamant that a 4 bed dormer bungalow with a big garden in the countryside  with a haphazard bus service isn't ideal for her and what she'd like is a nice flat with a decent sized balcony walking distance from the town centre.

And sell the big car to buy a small one. 

I said. What are you going to do with all this stuff.  

Make 3 piles. 

1  Essential to take with her. 

2 Sell or charity shop or dump.

3 Store for 12 months in a storage unit, and if she don't miss it, revert to 2. 

 

She's ruthless. I remember moving house aged 10 and being shipped off to grandparents for a week. Got to the new house. Half my toys had gone. "Well you never played with them" 

[ETCHY]

Today marks one year since Mikey ( short for Michaelangelo as we thought originally she was a boy) our friendly little Robin disappeared.

We still miss you  you lovely little creature. Bloody daft an old couple still missing a bloody Robin !

[Pieman]

Usually, when I arrange to meet someone for something social (ie. that's not work) I arrange it and then the other person either cancels on me or I get radio silence.

Today I actually had two social engagements that were arranged by others and I had late Christmas presents to drop off for them....so naturally I come down with a flu bug and can't go.

[comfortablynumb]

Nothing daft about it @ETCHY, I've got a couple that lurk about when I'm cutting firewood (thought they were violently territorial?) and I'd miss them if they weren't about.

Dogs don't seem to scare them off either

[Zelandeth]

...Why is there water in the bottom of my utility room cupboard?

I thought we'd escaped from anything breaking this year!

[Sunny Jim]

3 hours ago, chadders said:

They're all only really valuable to me, I'll be dead and they'll be busy selling the house so need to get rid of the stuff ASAP.

If they're valuable to you they'll be valuable to someone else - don't let them be thrown away.

My Dad who's now in his eighties has a huge collection of steam railway emphemera - models, books, magazines, enamel signs etc. Neither myself or my siblings have any interest or knowledge in it but we have had the discussion with him about what he would want done with it when he's gone. He's catalogued everything and left instructions as part of his will.

It would be a terrible shame for your collection to end up as landfill - is there a society or museum you could leave it to? Don't leave it as a burden for your kids, leave them precise instructions.

[Spiny Norman]

Managed to shut the car door on my finger.
Ouch.

[richardmorris]

Just watched from Roger Moore with love on bbc iPlayer. Lovely documentary but what on earth was David Walliams doing in it? I know he gets everywhere with no sign of talent but still, Christopher walken or Joan Collins’ equal he isn’t.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0026d20