The grumpy thread

[bub2006]

I sold my punto to a bloke who travelled down from blackpool. He drove to derby at night bought car for full asking price. He said his son had his old car and wrote it off then had a car on finance and did same. He said the punto will teach him a lesson!

[Barry Cade]

Took an avensis and a caravan down to Accrington through the night, dropped off a half 3 am.. The guy saw me load said car and caravan, and gave me the address, and door number to drop the key through. Just hitch up after you've dropped and park them outside the house he says. They never do tell you they live in a cul-de-sac, where everyone owns 4 cars,cant park,nowhere to turn and there are posts,signs and bloody massive flowerpot things everywhere.Then, even at that time in the morning, someone needs past...

[richardmorris]

What a monumental fuck up today was. As if having an FTP in a 56-plate (that's 2006) Corsa and ending up getting home at 11pm yesterday for an early 6am start today wasn't enough...

From being picked up around 6:30am this morning I didn't get dropped off to my first car today until gone 11am (as we had to get to Stoke via Nottingham and Telford) car picked up and dropped off just before 2:30pm, this left me with a very tight schedule to get my next car, 22 miles away in Sandtoft before 5pm. Got to a very lonely Crowle station and called up, a few taxi companies, no one could help me get to the place before 5pm as they all had jobs in sCUNThorpe . However, thankfully the car place had an after-hours security guard who'd sort me out my vehicle so at least I had something to go home in, except.... the office had forgotten to give me a bloody release code.

But this was minor hiccup compared to happily arriving on to the A42 just off the M1 to be confronted with a line of traffic that wasn't moving. Yep, you probably guessed it, a lorry had cheerily jackknifed spreading most of its contents onto the carriageway. The Police/Traffic wombles(?) decided to shut the motorway for 2 hours, I could feel my sanity honestly slipping away as I began to lose my grip on reality, once is fine but twice on the trot? Yep, it's probably why I began talking to myself and shouting to the world as I had nothing more than a Vauxhall Insignia to keep me insulated from the horrible outside world (and I like Vauxhall Insignias) So once again, instead of getting home at 8:45pm, it was once again an 11:30pm stroll into the door.

Thankfully, it's not an early start tomorrow.

 

You're lucky the m4 has been shut all day at Maidenhead.

[M'coli]

Is there no work in that industry now? [sadly] I would have thought there was always a need.

  

Oh there's work, but it's all zero-hours minimum-wage, and you're treated like shit, as in so many such jobs.  I know, I've been there.  Nobody wants to do it because of that, so there's a constant shortage of staff, which means there's plenty of overtime (rarely at any enhanced rate) and way more stress than anyone needs.  The position isn't helped by the endemic British-business policy of understaffing.

What my granny used to call the "home help" has changed a bit in the last 30 years. If I see a car labelled up as being from some sort of care agency or the like at a give way trying to join the traffic, I now will always let it out in front of me if it's not going to cause chaos.

 

They're only trying to get to the next person that needs them.

[Timewaster]

Yeah it looks awful, but is it any worse than playing Timing belt roulette whilst polishing the paint on a Sunday?

 

It's all abuse that will inevitably lead to the scrap yard, just one is visible.

[chaseracer]

They're only trying to get to the next person that needs them.

 

And might not actually be getting paid for their travel time, despite the recent test case...

[Lord Sterling]

You're lucky the m4 has been shut all day at Maidenhead.

Oddly enough I was working around Maidenhead but thankfully had no call to drive on the M4 apart from out of (practically central but not quite congestion charge) London. However, today's road fuck up was caused on the M40 out of London due to a car fire. Today's home time: 9:30pm, the earliest I've been home all week so far.

 

Tomorrow I have a drop off in Kilmarnock then to Motherwell (via public transport which surely must be better)

[beko1987]

You were close to me then! Don't suppose your doing leeds-maidenhead/my way anytime soon are you? Got a hoover to get

[fatharris]

FATHARRIS DOESN'T LIKE THIS.

[Lord Sterling]

You were close to me then! Don't suppose your doing leeds-maidenhead/my way anytime soon are you? Got a hoover to get

At the moment no, I was in Leeds yesterday but only dropping off so it was a train out of there. Tomorrow is Motherwell to London via home so I won't be going by Leeds, however let me see what I've got next week

[M'coli]

And might not actually be getting paid for their travel time, despite the recent test case...

That's very true, but the sentiment still stands: every minute that someone like this can spend actually providing care is more valuable to the person receiving the care than the 1/60th of the hourly rate that the carer spends in traffic.

[M'coli]

You were close to me then! Don't suppose your doing leeds-maidenhead/my way anytime soon are you? Got a hoover to get

Furryboots in Leeds?  I'm on the Bristol-Leeds-Bristol corridor every weekend.

[RoadworkUK]

My recent jaunt up North and back illustrated once more that the Police are actually pretty good at trying to keep traffic flowing. Accident on southbound A1 was effectively swept up onto the hard shoulder and two lanes left open. The other week when a lorry tyre needed changing the Traffic Officers needed not only at least two lanes but also closed all the airspace over London and instructed local residents to lock their doors and don gasmasks.

[scaryoldcortina]

Overall I think it's good that people can and do customise their cars, but this particular example of originality is a poor copy of an E28 5 series that was built a few years ago. Shit taste in wheels as well

Good memory! It was TEN years ago that we all said exactly the same things about "that" E28.

[beko1987]

Furryboots in Leeds?  I'm on the Bristol-Leeds-Bristol corridor every weekend.

I have no idea, could find out though. It's a DC04, could be dropped off at my mums in Marlow to save coming to mine in thame, can lob some beer money your way. Would save me paying postage and it getting smashed up on the way!

[toejam]

If that was a rusty Escort rs2000  , there'd be a queue to buy it for 10k

[wuvvum]

Roadworks.  They are currently building a completely pointless northern bypass around Norwich.  The work at the moment seems to basically consist in ripping up the countryside so there's been relatively little disruption on the roads, apart from a mile and a half or so of 30mph limit and part-time traffic lights to allow construction vehicles to cross the road.  For the last three days, though, they've blocked one side of the road off for about 300 yards and put in temporary traffic lights - as this is a busy A road which is the main route into Norwich for pretty much the whole of NE Norfolk, things get a bit jammed up in the mornings.  Which wouldn't be so bad if they were actually digging up the road.  However all the work they are doing is in the adjacent field, and as far as I can tell, the sole purpose of blocking off half the road is so that they have somewhere convenient to park their works vans.

[Cavcraft]

Decided I would use the 'anonymous' incident report at work and described one of the bosses as a tosspot due to the way he walked out in front of me when I was driving a minibus.

[bub2006]

regarding care work i loved the job and the people. A lot were lonely and wanted company but especially in domicillary care it was straight in and straight out. I was told off many a time by the head office for staying over my allotted time for a chat. One chap was house bound,no family and needed help going to bed and getting up. Meals were delivered to him during the day so all he had was someone helping him up at 7am and to help him to bed at 9.30 bar a flying visit from meals on wheels. I used to pop back if i was in the area on my breaks.

[mercrocker]

My recent jaunt up North and back illustrated once more that the Police are actually pretty good at trying to keep traffic flowing. Accident on southbound A1 was effectively swept up onto the hard shoulder and two lanes left open. 

 

Traffic cops left to their own devices are excellent.    Lorry blow out on the A34 last month, tyre shredding and carcass everywhere.   Cop BMW steamed up the outside lane on full blue 3 miles beforehand, straddled middle lane and slowed both lanes to the exact speed the clear up team needed.  No delay, no stoppage, no closure - top marks.

[Bobthebeard]

Took my laptop to work yesterday, but forgot the charger. No problem, borrowed a charger, Plugged it in and the laptop screen flashed then died. Turns out that the charger was 48 volts instead of 19 volts.Laptop now buggered. Great.

[cros]

Roadworks. They are currently building a completely pointless northern bypass around Norwich.

I couldn't understand the point of this either; some lovely places nearby will probably get ruined because of it.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Both Roadwork and Mercrocker' s posts just reinforce what I've been convinced of for some time.

Highways Agency "traffic officers" are jumped up little twats with an inferiority complex, probably bed wetters, who's only little bit of power is the ability to shut motorways. Coppers can exercise their power over people by Tasering, shooting people etc, therefore don't need the little thrill of fucking up everybody's day by shutting a road.

Seems Shoguns aren't quite posh enough for these wannabes anymore, even though a Transit Connect would be more than adequate for their role, on the lower reaches of the M1 they're swanning around in a brand new Touareg- the real coppers of course drive tatty Octavias.

[beko1987]

I dunno, the highway wobbles were good when my wheel fell off on the m25, they were cool, joked with me and picked my bits of tyre up from l1.

[sporty-shite]

Decided I would use the 'anonymous' incident report at work and described one of the bosses as a tosspot due to the way he walked out in front of me when I was driving a minibus.

Wouldn't have been quite so anonymous if you had run the cunt over.

 

0.5/10 Must try harder

[Mr A Lawrence]

Took an avensis and a caravan down to Accrington through the night, dropped off a half 3 am.. The guy saw me load said car and caravan, and gave me the address, and door number to drop the key through. Just hitch up after you've dropped and park them outside the house he says. They never do tell you they live in a cul-de-sac, where everyone owns 4 cars,cant park,nowhere to turn and there are posts,signs and bloody massive flowerpot things everywhere.Then, even at that time in the morning, someone needs past...

I once took a car and caravan to abersoc in north wales on my Renault midlum truck.

 

I remarked that it was tight on some of the corners, especially as the caravan was a 20 footer,

 

The guy said the bin wagon doesn't have any trouble getting up here.

 

I passed the bin truck on the way back.

 

Mitsubishi canter!!

[cort1977]

In Thailand with work and the King has just passed away.   He is a venerated father figure for Thais, there were grown men getting a bit teary at the office today.  

 

Although I sympathise, my grump is that all that all the bars are shut and getting drunk would be very disrespectful.  

[drum]

Gumtree advert for rover 45. He's selling because no work is coming in and needs the cash, then goes on to say how it needs a good clean inside.

 

I'm sure he could find half an hour to muck it out.

[beko1987]

Buggar, Amys just opened a NIP for me for 35 in a 30. I remember seeing the camera too and slowing a bit, obviously not enough!

[Craig the Princess]

Ched "fucking" Evans