The grumpy thread

[Captain Furious]

Grump for today, things that need to be banished from the workplace IMMEDIATELY

 

Conference Calls - If there was one thing I could go back in time and uninvent it would be the concept of having more than 2 participants in a phone conversation.  2 hours of staring into space while someone who has seemingly just learned the word "workflow" tries to jam it into every sentence as the new solution to everything.  Why are these now necessary before anything at all can proceed?

 

Webinars - Like conference calls, but with even less purpose, my boss seems to think its fun to 'invite' (require us to attend) webinars for whatever product he's been completely taken in by this week.  He's a salesmans wet dream, give him some standard patter about increasing productivity or improving service delivery and we must all attend a webinar about this revolutionary new product immediately.  Oh and the word webinar needs to be expunged from the English language too, its one of those words where whenever I hear someone using it I want to punch them right in the middle of the face.

 

Birthday Card collections, actually any collection of any kind, I don't care if it is Geoff from Finances birthday, Natalie in the contact centre is up the spout or John is walking 5 miles at a leisurely pace for charity.  I don't want to sign their cards and I definitely don't want to give them money.  If that makes me tight or uncharitable then good, because I am.  Its bad enough in the high street, never mind being accosted by chuggers and bucket shakers at my desk.

[Coprolalia]

I've just seconds ago read elsewhere that they're marley tiles with asbestos in them. For absolute fucks sake, I've just scraped 18sqm of them up with a shovel and then stamped them all to tiny pieces to get them into bags easier.

FFP3 masks are asbestos rated and cheapish from Screwfix.

Previous owner had a fire in one of our bedrooms that burnt through the ceiling. Solution: asbestos board the ceiling.

 

Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Grump for today, things that need to be banished from the workplace IMMEDIATELY

 

Conference Calls - If there was one thing I could go back in time and uninvent it would be the concept of having more than 2 participants in a phone conversation.  2 hours of staring into space while someone who has seemingly just learned the word "workflow" tries to jam it into every sentence as the new solution to everything.  Why are these now necessary before anything at all can proceed?

 

Webinars - Like conference calls, but with even less purpose, my boss seems to think its fun to 'invite' (require us to attend) webinars for whatever product he's been completely taken in by this week.  He's a salesmans wet dream, give him some standard patter about increasing productivity or improving service delivery and we must all attend a webinar about this revolutionary new product immediately.  Oh and the word webinar needs to be expunged from the English language too, its one of those words where whenever I hear someone using it I want to punch them right in the middle of the face.

 

Birthday Card collections, actually any collection of any kind, I don't care if it is Geoff from Finances birthday, Natalie in the contact centre is up the spout or John is walking 5 miles at a leisurely pace for charity.  I don't want to sign their cards and I definitely don't want to give them money.  If that makes me tight or uncharitable then good, because I am.  Its bad enough in the high street, never mind being accosted by chuggers and bucket shakers at my desk.

 

Do you work in my office? 'Bucket shaker' is a great term, sounds very insulting even if its not actually that bad. 'Oh no, this guy is a right bucket shaker' when your phone rings.

[HillmanImp]

WILL EVERYONE STOP SELLING ALL THESE FUCKING AMAZING CARS FOR SODDING PEANUTS! I HAVE RESPONSIBILITIES THESE DAYS FFS!

 

A Leon Cupra and 2 Alfa's all for under a monkey. Its not fair, sob.

[nebuchenezer]

Ahhh. Conference calls - the spawn of the devil they are.

 

Work grump this week is the use of the word challenge in every fucking statement issued from our wankstain clients representatives mouth. Just stop fella or I'll challenge your fizzog with my fist.

 

Car grump - none surprisingly

 

Body grump - I appear to have a mutant version of the 100 day virus thing that the "news" keeps telling me everyone has - in sympathy with SOC's guitar antics above I too have taken to sitting on a rubber ring - I cannot stop shitting, not the runs but my body insists I need to shit a good solid log every 4 hours regardless of what I am doing or where I am. It has been going on for a week now and it is playing merry hell with my piles - my arsehole must look like a squeezed blood orange.

 

On the plus side I do appear to have lost some shadow.

[Captain Furious]

My car grump currently is agonising over the fact someone has seen fit to put my dream car on the autotrader, at a price which is almost doable, but would mean spending all of the 'buffer-zone' I have built up over the last 12 months and going against the promise I made to myself that there would be no more superfluous car purchases

 

But it is so beautiful, the right colour, engine, spec, condition, I want it so badly....I hope it sells soon so I can just get on with regretting passing up the opportunity to own the one classic I've been lusting after for 5 years..

 

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201604203178089?make=ford&page=1&sort=default&onesearchad=used%2Cnearlynew%2Cnew&model=granada&search-target=usedcars&quicksearch=true&postcode=sw1a2aa&radius=1500&logcode=p

[trigger]

That is rather nice isn't it, just seems a lot of money though.

[sporty-shite]

My car grump currently is agonising over the fact someone has seen fit to put my dream car on the autotrader, at a price which is almost doable, but would mean spending all of the 'buffer-zone' I have built up over the last 12 months and going against the promise I made to myself that there would be no more superfluous car purchases

 

But it is so beautiful, the right colour, engine, spec, condition, I want it so badly....I hope it sells soon so I can just get on with regretting passing up the opportunity to own the one classic I've been lusting after for 5 years..

 

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201604203178089?make=ford&page=1&sort=default&onesearchad=used%2Cnearlynew%2Cnew&model=granada&search-target=usedcars&quicksearch=true&postcode=sw1a2aa&radius=1500&logcode=p

 

I'm not a big MkII Granada fan, but that is FIT.

 

Are these sort of things not the whole point of "buffer-zones" savings?

[Captain Furious]

_{Are these sort of things not the whole point of "buffer-zones" savings?}

 

 

That's exactly the argument I am having with myself right now, what else am I going to spend it on?...

 

Its not even like I can sell my current WIP to lessen the cost, because

 

A) The thought of selling cars fills me with absolute DREAD

I would probably want to break it for its engine and wiring loom and drop it into the Mk2

 

As for price, I don't know, valuing these seems to be mostly a 'finger in the air' exercise, I have seen them ranging from £2500 to £8k for decent looking on the road examples.  If it is as original and rust-free as it seems then £4k probably isn't unreasonable.

[Lacquer Peel]

My grump: Ringing kits on ebay. Do they actually give a shit?

 

I've reported this one - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111976150878?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT but the listings still up.

 

Obviously someone *might* want a V5 and chassis plate for a Range Rover as a souvenir but we all know what it's for.

 

 

Here's a 1975 registered Discovery I spotted the other day for the LOLs.

[cort16]

Being crap with money I've actually used cars as a way to keep me from frittering it away. Even if I lose a couple of hundred quid when I sell them on at least I've had the pleasure of using and tinkering with them and I've not bought 4 big bags of magic beans.

 

I tend to buy a bit lower with the hope of improving them. That granada is top money. If you might need the money for something you need to consider if you'd get your money or close to that money back quickly if you had to sell..

[trigger]

That's what i do, invest my money in cars, do overtime to pay for the improvements on them then i get it all back with a bit of interest when i sell them back on. My problem now is find that bargain car is getting harder and harder as everything thinks they are a car dealer.

 

Someone on the FB Mk2 Granada page was selling one a few days back with a set of Merc AMG alloys for £6995 and that had rotten valances and arches.

[Dave_Q]

My grump: Ringing kits on ebay. Do they actually give a shit? 

I've reported this one - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111976150878?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT but the listings still up.

 

Obviously someone *might* want a V5 and chassis plate for a Range Rover as a souvenir but we all know what it's for.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a 1975 registered Discovery I spotted the other day for the LOLs.

Just checked the disco, though it would be down as a series Landy but it's actually registered as a 75 Disco!

 

You can see why people do it, that's far more blatant than a tax exempt Landy on coils yet I doubt the owner will ever get into bother for it.

[Captain Furious]

I think the problem is that I tend to buy with my heart more than my head.  I look at it and think £4250 isn't a bad price, because I really want it and in my head everyone else in the world will really want it too.

 

When I bought my Cosworth (Granada, not a real one) it was on ebay at £1500 starting bid, I thought it was cheap and expected an intense bidding war at the end of the auction,  as it turned out no-one else bid and I got it for its start price.  I thought I'd got a deal, but on reflection, it was actually probably a bit much for an intergalactic mileage Mk3 Granada

 

There will definitely be a lot of umming and arring going on this bank holiday...

[cort16]

That one does look nice. +1000 points for no chrome arches,

[Stanky]

 

Here's a 1975 registered Discovery I spotted the other day for the LOLs.

 

Are you sure its not owned by a man who runs a record shop selling over-stock not-quite-album-length records?

 

Mr Excess (XES) EP - Manningtree's premier discount music superstore - "when a single is too short, and a full album is too long, come along to Mr Excess EP and we have exactly what you need at prices you won't believe"

[Captain Furious]

Just how I like'em

 

Although an injection model would be a better starting point if I wanted to put the 24V BOA in, I'm not sure I'd bring myself to defile it with modifications.

[bub2006]

Why is it so hard to find a cheap pushbike. All the ones I've seen are silly money for buckled wheels and rusty chains! Even seen in eBay a couple of barn finds!

[Stanky]

Why is it so hard to find a cheap pushbike. All the ones I've seen are silly money for buckled wheels and rusty chains! Even seen in eBay a couple of barn finds!

 

Do you have a local household waste recycling facility (dump)? My local one do push bikes for a fiver, usually in working condition.

[cort1977]

As far as I can tell, eBay seem almost inexplicably less likely to remove items where there are bids already........I "wonder" why.

 

We are terrible at this stuff - DVLA can send you a fine for their failure to receive  a bit of paper, yet they have stuff on their database that doesn't exist and for which they have no idea of the keeper.  We should move to the US system - we could reopen all the local licensing offices and that would provide employment and it reduce the number of "unknowns" in the system. 

Can't quite agree with this the DVLA, for all it's many faults, is not that bad in comparison to the clusterf*ck that is the US non-system.   Some states are better than others, Florida is absolute chaos, California is fairly ludicrous as well, they are smog Nazis but it seems possible to drive around an unregistered car for months.

One good thing about the US system is that the registration 'the title' is also proof of legal ownership of the car so if you have a clean title it is at least yours with no arguments.

[HillmanImp]

 

Here's a 1975 registered Discovery I spotted the other day for the LOLs.

 

How can you alter the vehicle type? Whats the point of making a car a 1975 car, is the tax cut off not 1974?

 

Is this not more likely to be an import incorrectly registered as having been first put on the road in 75 instead of 95 and getting accidentally comical age related plates?

[trigger]

Something is a bit odd there, it's showing as having done 350000 miles too, it's been a busy Disco for a 3.5 V8.

 

 

[bub2006]

Do you have a local household waste recycling facility (dump)? My local one do push bikes for a fiver, usually in working condition.

Apparently they are no longer allowed to sell bikes or other items. My mate used to buy little kids bikes there but not anymore

[Lacquer Peel]

Something is a bit odd there, it's showing as having done 350000 miles too, it's been a busy Disco for a 3.5 V8. Screenshot_2016-04-29-16-13-15.png

 

It's fitted with a 3456cc diesel apparently, which is the same cc as a Nissan FD engine fitted to some small trucks not sold here. Very odd combination of engine, plates and vehicle. I wish I'd had time to hang around and speak to the owner.

 

Isn't the road tax exemption rolling again?

[Richard]

Yes it is, at 40 years I believe.

[anonymous user]

Grump for today, things that need to be banished from the workplace IMMEDIATELY

 

Conference Calls - If there was one thing I could go back in time and uninvent it would be the concept of having more than 2 participants in a phone conversation.  2 hours of staring into space while someone who has seemingly just learned the word "workflow" tries to jam it into every sentence as the new solution to everything.  Why are these now necessary before anything at all can proceed?

 

I actually preferred conference calls to meetings, I could do other things while someone else was pontificating, I didn't have to put a suit and tie on and most importantly I didn't have to spend several hours on the road, driving to a government office in Mid-Wales (as did everyone else at the meeting) for a meeting that might last an hour, and then drive all the way back.

[cort16]

I just about got wiped out by some twat coming down a slip road who could not wait 20 seconds to get past the slower moving car in front of him. He pulled out right in front of me in while I was doing about 80. I locked the wheels, squealing tyres. I must have been about a foot from hitting him. The car's okay but my underpants are a cat B write off.

[Inspector Morose]

Why is it so hard to find a cheap pushbike. All the ones I've seen are silly money for buckled wheels and rusty chains! Even seen in eBay a couple of barn finds!

http://www.lifecycleuk.org.uk/derby

[cort1977]

How can you be unregistered if you have title? Is this people who move States and keep their old reg?  Apologies for my ignorant championing this - I thought it worked better

You get a title associated with the VIN when you buy new (I think), then you apply to the county for plates which is what we call registering in the UK I suppose.  

 

Steve Jobs famously never put a license plates on his car, just got a new one when the California six month limit to register ran out.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/steve-jobs-car-apple-ceo-license-plates/story?id=14834608

 

To register a vehicle in your name you have to go down to a county office between 9 and 3 and stand in line which can easily take an hour.   After that it's easy.   Similarly, to get a US license after doing the test I had to wait 5 hours in a county office.   After that I grudgingly admitted that the DVLA are not so bad after all.

[vulgalour]

Oh, the spoiler is broken on the Rover.  You do that by shutting the boot with or pushing the car against the spoiler so I'm pretty sure the garage did that when pushing the car across the yard.  The outer shell needs to be glued back on to the inner shell again.  I'll make lemonade out of these lemons by using it as an opportunity to repaint the outer shell again since the previous attempt did not last for some reason.

 

I shan't bother kicking a fuss up about it, I won't get any sort of recompense and it's easy enough for me to resolve the issue.  Grates a bit, is all.  They probably don't even know they've done it, I didn't notice it when I picked the car up, only when I shut the boot and saw the outer shell of the spoiler bounce freely.