The grumpy thread

[mattblack]

Christ! I'm glad I don't work in an office! Makes unblocking toilets and freeing off jammed macerators* sound like a bed of roses...*Machine for disposing of used incontenence pads...

[dollywobbler]

It's true that kids/mortgage do rather change things. Fair enough. Some of the posts do make me despair a little though!

[Cavcraft]

It's true that kids/mortgage do rather change things. Fair enough. Some of the posts do make me despair a little though!

Oh God aye, and to be honest some of the post make you re-evaluate your own job and realise maybe it's not quite as shit as you thought

 

Is it fair to assume a few that have complained are still quite young? I know Jon is early twenties but not sure about the others.

Only reason for mentioning it is that at an early age I reckon you can put these kinds of things down to a learning curve. Bet we've all done some shit jobs for appalling companies and if you learn from this it is possible to better yorself with every new job you take as the years roll by.

Yeah, that sounds like a right condescending/patronising smugfest but it's true.

You sort of get an eye (or ear) for the kind of compamy or jon that looks wank and the once bitten, twice shy adage kicks in as you progress so I find you're less likely to be treated like shit everytime you move on. Easy to say and talk is cheap but in your twenties you have fucking eons ahead of you to keep moving up to better jobs and the days of working for some right wankers should hopefully be numbered.

 

You will still get shit prettu much wherever you go but a) you learn to deal with it better and you'll be better paid and more experienced.

[dollywobbler]

It's certainly true that no job is without its hassles. Even a 'dream' job can wallop you with a healthy dose of reality every now and then. Didn't actually have a job I liked doing until I was 29, though I'm still very grateful as it could have been much longer! It's never too late though. One of my former colleagues had an entire career in the banking industry before getting into journalism pretty near retirement age.Reading some of the threads, you'd think that all jobs are really, really shitty and that all manages are absolute cocks but it just isn't the case. Unless you work in the civil service perhaps...

[Negative Creep]

Finding a full time job. Didn't even hear back from Burger King for fucks sake

[Hudsonpie]

Man.......fucking glad I don't work in an office.....I never have and probably never will..... I'm looking for work at the moment as my missus has just quit hers. Which is a shame, as on the surface it was a good job.Good holidays, and some other perks. Money was'nt too bad either, she quit due to a combination of the things Wat and Hirst have described.She was a civil servant working for the DVLA, and the things she has told me about them and thier internal politics.....christ I would last about five minutes......So now Ive got to look for work, and I'll be honest I've been off for over a year. I'm fucking shitting myself.....dont get me wrong I'm not afraid of graft....it's just the shit you have to wade through......stupid questions.....forms.....all the crappy job centre speak...."must be a commited self motivated individual".....blah blah blah for just enough to live on....Although in the job I usually do I can pretty much do as I please, as I know my job like the back of my hand, and employers who know me know it. If something pisses me off I just park up and start heading for home.....they soon change thier tune.But you still get times when they try and push it, and although slightly different to some of the shit you guys have to put up with, here is a "moment" I had with a "manager" of a quarry a couple of years ago......ME....That ramp is getting dangerous and there WILL be a serious accident.MANAGER.....Ok mate we'll discuss it back at the office and come up with a solution.......hours tick by situation gets worse....ME....to an underling.....I'm stopping ...Its too dangerous, get knobhead down to look at it, and Im stopping all the other drivers as well. This is bad.UNDERLING....You cant stop we've got production to make up, cant you keep going and slow down....ME....What.....? I drive to the conditions and the conditions are fucking dangerous....fuck me two loads of stone and ten minutes on the dozer will see it sorted and if I slow down any more I'll be stopped....it's just too dangerous.half an hour goes by, I am stopped...but some of the mongs keep going. One truck gets too close to the edge and makes my heart stop.....Manager.....Right whats going on why are you stopped....?ME.....I've already told you it's too dangerous, that ramp is on the piss, youve got fifty tons of loaded truck trying to get down and turn on a fucking postage stamp as you never give us enough room.....it would'nt hurt for the dozer to come down every hour or so and tidy up instead of dossing up on the tip.....MANAGER....I cant quite see what you mean, I'll jump in with one of the chargehands and go up and take a look....ME.....ok mate it just needs a couple of loads of stone and a bit of shaping, and a good bund as its right near the edge of the quarry, and it's a good hundred feet down....Ive been shitting it and decided to stop....another half hour while they fanny about....MANAGER....it's not that bad can you carry on for a bit and we'll sort it out later...ME....fuck you mate, this is serious...and I'm simply not risking my life for a few extra tons of clay, put me on another job and let those idiots use that ramp....I'm not doing it.MANAGER....(getting a bit stroppy) we cant keep pulling the dozer off jobs just for you guys, we know the roads are bad theres not alot we can do about it....Kev will sort it out later when he comes across to push up for the swinger.....ME.....when he wakes up more like, mate two loads of stone, ten minutes....job done....MANAGER....I'll send the swinger over...ME....not being funny mate but its a job for the dozer, two passes will see the ramp level, a couple of loads of stone will see it shored up and more stable, and if you tell those fucking dickheads to drive so they stagger thier ruts and use thier retarders the road will last longer.I get sent off to get loaded for stone....no loader appears...they are still using the ramp and I watch as another truck nearly goes over.....wait a bit longer....nothing.....what the fuck are they doing....Fuck this I'm off.....start walking to the carpark with me flask....Land Rover appears...UNDERLING....Where are you going....?ME....home....I aint taking this shit....UNDERLING....jump in mate.. and well go down the office and sort it out.Office....MANAGER....you cant just bugger off, well be a truck short whats the problem...?ME....are you taking the piss...? Im not risking my life for you lot. That ramp is dangerous, Ive told you what needs to be done and youve just ignored me. You are heading for a serious accident.MANAGER....we take safety seriously you know that....ME... so why are you letting those trucks carry on after I've said it's too dangerous........silence....Im starting to get a bit mad now....ME....listen....you're being dangerous end of, I am not risking my life....simple. Get it sorted and I'll trundle on happy, if not I'm gone.And besides if I get injured because you cunts want to cut corners I will come back and kick youre fucking arse into next week, in fact I'm finding hard not to reach across your desk and smash your fucking face in, Ive got two kids at home it would be nice to make it home alive to see them after work.....MANAGER....gets on walky talkie.....Kev can you come over to the red benches and sort the ramp down to the wash.....ME....fucking hell at last....MANAGER....theres no need to be so agressive, I've got procedures to follow.....I have already left,.....next shift a truck goes over, and matey hits his head quite badly......WANKERS........Sorry to drone on....but this sort of thing really pisses me off

[Pillock]

My job has changed drastically. Where once I was a repair engineer - turn up, fix things, whatever doesn't get fixed is there to greet you the next morning - I'm now on "projects" and "acceptance testing" and stuff.Which on one hand is great...... I've been with the firm 10 years and it's about time I rose just slightly above the rest. I get a different title on my jobcard, and I'm entitled to a different coloured high-visibility vest. I get to run my own schedule, decide what I'm doing, I get to tell people what I need them to do. I've never had that luxury before, and I'd like to think I'm handling the power well by not being an arsehole with it. "Could you" and "do you have time to" beats "you need to" and "do this".But I start to realise that I've now started again on the bottom rung.... I was one of the top 5 engineers, now I'm one of the bottom 5 trainer-project-thing-people. I wonder if I should have been happy being the best of my bunch, or whether that's boring and not pushing myself. Do I need pushing? It's inevitable I get used as a scapegoat now, I find names in the heirarchy on documents disappearing on each revision until only mine is left, often just before things go tits up. I get phone calls from people I've never heard of, who are apparently very important, asking about how things are going. I'm bricking it. I'm waiting for my phone to ring on a friday night, down the pub, and the director of repairs and recoveries for europe get drunken ramblings.But I'm loving it. I look at the people who didn't take the opportunity and think.... I'm 30, and for the first time in my life I'm not working alongside people who came from an agency doing the same job as me, with my lah-de-dah degree.Basically, if you're in a job and you enjoy it without question - you're a very lucky person indeed.

[pompei]

Hirst, you're wasted in local government. You should be writing screenplays for alienated anti heroes played by Jack Nicholson or Michael Douglas.

[Guest]

I suspect Hirst's problem is being a civil servent. The other problems are caused by companies wishing they were in the civil service....ie- Top heavy with idle incompetent fucktard managment, and a second layer of wannabe idle incompetent fucktards, followed by yet another layer off.......etc, etc

The difficulty is that everything comes from "the top" and there can be no questioning what comes from there. People over a certain age have an intense fear and respect of anything from above, much like peasants within a dictatorship. The big boss is actually called The Leader. We get newsletters from The Leader; capital T, capital L. I laughed like a drain the first time I found out, nobody could understand why, even after I explained.Though truth be told, The Leader seems to be more of a figurehead than anything else - the decisions appear to be made at a senior corporate level slightly below them, which is understandable as they're likely to have a better overall understanding of their area. The only problem is that they never seem to be there longer than a couple of years. Every so often you'll get an announcement saying that the old one is leaving, we're getting a new one. Shortly after that, the department names will change and there'll be a pointless restructure. The big department I work for has changed names about 4 times since I started in 2004. As our section is pretty obscure, all it tends to mean at our level is that the expensive letterhead paper goes in the bin and we have to order in new stuff as the department name is now wrong.Next down from that you've got a layer of middle-management, who can be sympathetic to any cause but don't want to rock the boat. You can see why - if you were on £50K+ why would you want to risk your job just to keep some plebs happy who could be replaced within the week? As a result everything is referred back to it happening from "the top", no matter how ridiculous. I remember some announcement years ago where the benevolent General Finance decided that all persons would answer phone calls with full authority name, overall section, sub-section and full name. "City of Pyongyang Benevolent Regional Council, Ministry of Truth, Paperwork Shuffling Section, Reginald Horsfall speaking". It just happened - I ignored it, other people started doing it, gradually it was eroded to the level where people didn't really bother anymore so it was just another directive which didn't go anywhere. Never mind the fact that in my role I don't give out my full name as it'd mean people could easily hunt me down.Now, under the latest gaffer, we're told never to refer to the authority in its full name unless there's a legal need to do so, because our latest rebranding exercise is that we're lovable, cuddly and informal. What this entails is billboards with grinning binmen, leaflets with cheerful old dears in care homes and an exciting new slogan to be printed out on all new correspondence, including the letterheaded paper. I sent someone a letter the other day - at the top it said "FINAL DEMAND" and detailed the outcome of what we'd be able to do with judgement awarded at court, seizure of goods, etc. Looked somewhat at odds with the casually handwritten "Working for you" slogan at the bottom of the page. No doubt I'll get a load of flak on the phone about it, as if I was the design rebranding company who were paid quite literally millions to come up with this.My advice for office workers - be a temp and remain one.

[whitevanman]

Aye....I work for Historic Scotland, while the job is great, the old Civil Service mentality still exists in the top to middle management, and now I've gone and got a part time job with the council as well......I suspect I am a masochist or something

[Cavcraft]

Seeing my bunny go to a new home :(Don't get me wrong, probably couldn't find a better new keeper (someone from the Autoshite parish too) but it's never nice to see a pet leave especially one that's given a huge amount of pleasure and company.

[dollywobbler]

Minis. Gah!! Thanks Issigonis for coming up with a car that's an absolute pig to work on. I wish ours had a quick release grille rather than loads of piddly little screws, at least one of which I lose every time I remove said grille.And then, when you drop stuff, the engine bay seems specially designed to offer loads of nooks and crannies for bolts and clips and the like to go hiding in.Then there's the back ache. And the headache when you inevitably forget about the bonnet catch (at least it isn't a Riley/Wolseley I s'pose! Or a commercial - how are you meant to cope when you CAN'T remove the grille without an angle grinder?!)Overall, I don't like it. But as my wife has taken to using my 2CV until the Mini works again, I'd better get it fixed.

[Pete-M]

I tried working in offices, working for big multinational corporations and I can't do it. I end up telling someone to fuck off within a week. It's simple, I do my job and I do it as well as I can. If someone else isn't doing theirs and there's bugger all I can do about it, I'm not going to take the shit for them. Never have, never will. I'll keep the customer happy, but then I go find whoever has fucked up and I suggest that fucking up isn't a good idea, and that I'm not going to cover their shit up again. This makes me unpopular with some people, but they tend to be the people who aren't doing their job properly.This normally leads me to rapid promotion or being shown the door. If I'm 'asked to leave' then fair enough. If I'm put in a position to sort the shit out, I will, but anyone who's tried to land me in shit won't be there for long unless they do their job as well as it can be done.Working in a council office (or similar) sounds like total hell to me. I couldn't do it. No way. I'd end up twatting someone.

[Slaighty]

I don't have to endure office politics - because I work in a small office on my own. Occasionally I'll get a visit from a colleague but mainly it's 9 to 5 all on my Jack. Imagine how boring that is. Got moved there from a big office last month after many years, on balance I' d rather have the politics thanks

[dollywobbler]

Gawd. Reminds me of my IT support days! Sometimes you'd only have servers for company. Believe me, actual humans are preferable. Used to spend ages sitting around waiting for issues to deal with. I was the only person in the building happy when things went wrong, because it gave me something to actually do!

[Hudsonpie]

Quote: I'm now too old/stupid to retrain at anything that might pay me a living wage and no longer have any confidence in my abilities to even try.I feel like that and I'm only thirty eight.......

[Cavcraft]

Have to confess I seem to be happier working on my own. When I was on driver/sales/service the actual work was brilliant and I didn't have to put up with people I didn't like. The driving and meeting customers and their employees was fantastic.If someone did piss me off I could just jump back in my cab and drive away, simple as that, and either didn't have to face them again or at least only a handful of times a year. The mithering over sales, along with the hours, finally got to me and I jumped ship to something far better.

[Rusty Pelican]

SirTainly , Felt depressed just reading your last post , Tis a shame when people get like this , I was very depressed in a job about 6 years ago , after 9 years of it I just walked out , No explanation was given , just went to the boss and said " I quit " gave him my notice and walked out , had nothing to go to , no money , depts mounting but i felt a whole lot better for it , Perhaps SirTainly you should try and find something else , Difficult I know , Current job is crap , has crap pay and theres a few who never speak to me but theres very little stress , Asked my only real mate there how he was one Monday morning , he replyed " Lost the will to live Lord , lost the will to live ( every body and every thing is Lord ) , Now if anything at all goes wrong the pair of us just start singing this , Wierd but it makes us feel better as if its all a joke

[Ratdat]

I spend all day, pretty much every day on my own. I wouldn't want it any other way TBH. I once took a job in an office, at the DSS doing pensions. It didn't last long before I walked. It's got to be the wankiest environment to work in. I'd rather get down and dirty with some old fashioned engineering as it's at least interesting and you have an end result to be proud of.

[155V6]

Quite like my job(Parcelforce driver)now that the Christmas madness has ended & the snow has gone.The money's OK,& I can do my work pretty much how I want.Before that,I delivered for MFI,it was OK to start with,but the depot relocated & I was doing 50 miles there & back instead of 10.Plus,the amount of unhappy customers blaming us for missing & damaged items increased quite a lot,so I was kind of glad when they went down the pan

[MrDuke]

Wow, I was under the impression that my life was easily the most depressing here, thanks for cheering me up guys!! As dull, monotonous office jobs go, mine's one of the (slightly) better ones, although I can guarantee there'll be at least 2 occasions each week where I'll be on the point of hurling my chair through the window out of sheer frustration with the bureaucratic twunts who run the organisation. 'Organisation' being in this case a one-word oxymoron, if such a thing exists.Plus points: 1. It's possibly the safest job in the country (local health board), and as one of the few on a permanent contract, if my job ceases then they're obligated to find me another and protect my pay for 4 years. 2. Around 35 days of paid leave (at last count) plus provision for paid carer's leave, and at least a year's sick leave on full pay. 3. After 6 years in the same hospital, I know almost everyone else who works there, and get on OK with the vast majority (not that I actually like them) so there's no real danger of finding knives in my back.Bad bits: 1. Although I keep my distance from the politics, I have to constantly listen to the endless stream of shit that flies around amongst the rest of the staff, in fact some days I could cut myself a slice of the atmosphere with a blunt knife, and I can do without 8 hours of that on top of the utter tedium I always face. 2. I get to know far more than I'd really like to about the inner workings of the NHS, on every level. Quite frankly, I'm amazed that our population is still increasing at all, despite the omgimmigrantzzz. 3. I have very, very little chance of making any real progression upwards, and I'm not sure I really want to work with the wankers in middle management on a daily basis in any case. Like I said, not a week goes by when I'm driven to speechless fury by the latest policy decision or restructuring proposal.I've worked for FAR FAR worse people before (like the coke-snorting, slightly schizo branch manager of a recruitment agency, who liked to reduce a member of staff to tears at least once a day), although if the economy wasn't so utterly fooked I'd be jumping between jobs like a very bouncy thing until I found something that gave me some degree of satisfaction, if not happiness.

[Pillock]

Three things making me grumpy today:Liars.Females.Lying females.

[Lankytim]

Seeing my bunny go to a new home

Don't get me wrong, probably couldn't find a better new keeper (someone from the Autoshite parish too) but it's never nice to see a pet leave especially one that's given a huge amount of pleasure and company.

Dont worry Billy, shes having a great time!

 

 

You can visit any time you like.

[seth]

I spend all day, pretty much every day on my own. I wouldn't want it any other way TBH. I'd rather get down and dirty with some old fashioned engineering as it's at least interesting and you have an end result to be proud of.

Ditto. Redundancy and a fruitless six month search for new "normal" employment was the best thing that ever happened to me career wise.

[Cavcraft]

Seeing my bunny go to a new home

Don't get me wrong, probably couldn't find a better new keeper (someone from the Autoshite parish too) but it's never nice to see a pet leave especially one that's given a huge amount of pleasure and company.

Dont worry Billy, shes having a great time!

 

 

You can visit any time you like.

Bloody hell Tim, nice one! That really has made my evening and my daughter said to say thanks. As you will hopefully have realised she's a very placid little thing (bunny, not daughter) and a great companion.

Many thanks for rehoming her and for the lift today.

[Lankytim]

She really is a sweet little thing -its rare to see a rabbit so tame. Like you said she runs up to you and make a grunting/warbling sound to say she wants to be picked up! It was very difficult to get that pic as she wouldnt stay in shot, she just kept running up to me.

[Cavcraft]

*Wrong section

[outlaw118]

^^^^^^^^All my bunnies have been utter BASTARDS!!Back to moar rantzI may be in the minority here, but some may agree...the BBC commenced their F1 programme at 11.10 this am, race don't start till 12.00.So, we've got various steering-wheel attendants, both current and past flapping their jaws about this and that for 50 minutes, all the interesting stuff could be editied down to a cosy 30 minutes.Obviously I don't want them to cut out Martin Brundle bothering people in the pit lane, and qualifying highlights are fine, but i don't think I'd feel short-changed if the show started at 11.30, giving 30 minutes to fit everything in.Oh well, at least James Allen is no longer on it.....

[retrogeezer]

I used to fast forward a lot of the pre race stuff when it was on ITV but I often find the BBC pre race stuff very interesting, sometimes better than the race!

[dollywobbler]

I thought it was a half eleven start, so I missed the Fleetwood Mac bit. Crap. I feel cheated now and incomplete.Going to be interesting to see how the leaders cope with so many mobile chicanes this year (crap teams).