The grumpy thread

[chaseracer]

Unions being as fucking useless as they've always appeared from the outside.

 

I spoke to them about a pay issue I've got & asked if they could help were I to join. I was assured that they could so I joined & the first contact I get is 'oh we might not be able to help as it started before you joined'. FFS!

 

Try that with your car insurance.

[cobblers]

I had to listen to the normal radio today because I'd run out of internet data. All I could get was Radio 2.

 

Kylie Minogue and Rick Astley doing a badly recorded, echoey piss poor "I should be so lucky/Never gonna give you up" mashup that seemed to never end. Horrible. and not long after that, it seems someone has pumped enough electricity up Cher's arse for her to do a Robot themed cover of Gimme Gimme Gimme.

Then - Jeremy Vine came on.

How the fuck do people listen to this day in day out? Fuck me. I refuse to believe that a broad section of the population are satisfied by this.

[dozeydustman]

That version of Gimme Gimme Gimme is absolutely appalling. Cher should have stopped singing ages ago.

[fairkens]

That version of Gimme Gimme Gimme is absolutely appalling. Cher should have stopped autotuning ages ago.

FTFY

[cobblers]

Fucking hell I've just realised I've become a hipster. I drove all the way to Hebden Bridge to buy some ethically sourced hand crafted trousers off a man with a massive beard who rides a weird pushbike. You won't have heard of the brand.

[dozeydustman]

 

 

That version of Gimme Gimme Gimme is absolutely appalling. Cher should have stopped autotuning ages ago.

 

 

FTFY

 

Nah, singing. Don't like her voice even when it's not been through the vocoder.

[Coprolalia]

It'll be worth it for the collection thread. Diesel Lancia Thema from Italy?

There's one in Cardiff I popped in the lazy spotters thread if you fancy somewhere closer.

[BorniteIdentity]

Fucking hell I've just realised I've become a hipster. I drove all the way to Hebden Bridge to buy some ethically sourced hand crafted trousers off a man with a massive beard who rides a weird pushbike. You won't have heard of the brand.

Please never ever change Cobblers.

 

Change trousers by all means...

[cort1977]

Fucking hell I've just realised I've become a hipster. I drove all the way to Hebden Bridge to buy some ethically sourced hand crafted trousers off a man with a massive beard who rides a weird pushbike. You won't have heard of the brand.

 

Is from the Hebden Bridge hipster trouser company? https://hebtro.co/

 

Sadly, i have heard of the brand and even thought 'I could do with a pair of those' which presumably makes me a hipster too dammit.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Unions being as fucking useless as they've always appeared from the outside.

 

I spoke to them about a pay issue I've got & asked if they could help were I to join. I was assured that they could so I joined & the first contact I get is 'oh we might not be able to help as it started before you joined'. FFS!

 

 

Are you amazed at what you are? Do you say what you think if the company stinks though? 

[fairkens]

Is from the Hebden Bridge hipster trouser company? https://hebtro.co/

 

Sadly, i have heard of the brand and even thought 'I could do with a pair of those' which presumably makes me a hipster too dammit.

I have more than one pair of those, and a beard, and a craft beer obsession...

[Guest Hooli]

Try that with your car insurance.

 

 

Hello Hastings? Yes if someone nicks something out of my car everyday am I covered once my policy starts?

I am? oh good.

 

 

Are you amazed at what you are? Do you say what you think if the company stinks though? 

 

I part of a four man team who all do the same work to the same level, yet the other three are a pay band higher. So yes I think the management in my department stink for taking the piss when in every other department this would be sorted out within months, it's been almost four years now.

I've been to HR myself & demanded a grievance is raised, as is my legal right. Yet they've ignored me & forced it down informal channels everytime. Then nothing happens as my boss always defaults to option 3 when the choices are -

 

1) sort it

2) bodge it/tell the staff to piss off they aint getting it etc

3) do nothing

 

Even getting told it won't happen would be better than being lied to for years about how they'll look at it soon etc etc

[Richard]

Hello Hastings? Yes if someone nicks something out of my car everyday am I covered once my policy starts?

I am? oh good.

 

 

 

No insurance company would cover you for that.

[cobblers]

Is from the Hebden Bridge hipster trouser company? https://hebtro.co/

 

Sadly, i have heard of the brand and even thought 'I could do with a pair of those' which presumably makes me a hipster too dammit.

 

Nope, if you've heard of it and fairkens has a couple of pairs, we're OK, not hipsters.

[djim]

Fucking hell I've just realised I've become a hipster. I drove all the way to Hebden Bridge to buy some ethically sourced hand crafted trousers off a man with a massive beard who rides a weird pushbike. You won't have heard of the brand.

 

 

 

I have more than one pair of those, and a beard, and a craft beer obsession...

 

Oooh, I've had my eye on a pair of those fine trousers, I guess that makes me worse, a wannabe hipster. 

[chaseracer]

Hello Hastings? Yes if someone nicks something out of my car everyday am I covered once my policy starts?

I am? oh good.

 

For what happened before you joined, no.

 

Anyway, you're missing the point.  Being a member of a trade union or a professional organisation is (or should be) so much more than just 'insurance' when the shit hits the fan; mutual support and strength in numbers helps ensure the shit doesn't get thrown in the first place.

[fairkens]

Nope, if you've heard of it and fairkens has a couple of pairs, we're OK, not hipsters.

Trufax, im wearing socks and everything

[Guest Hooli]

For what happened before you joined, no.

 

Anyway, you're missing the point.  Being a member of a trade union or a professional organisation is (or should be) so much more than just 'insurance' when the shit hits the fan; mutual support and strength in numbers helps ensure the shit doesn't get thrown in the first place.

 

I've never needed to consider joining one before. I know why people do but I've never thought it was worth it these days with modern laws to protect employees.

 

My point is I asked the rep if they'd be able to help if I joined and explained how the issue had been ongoing for years. He said they definitely could and would. Then as soon as I join someone else in the union office is saying they won't be able to help. One of them is wrong/lying & that's what's annoying me.

[chaseracer]

I've never needed to consider joining one before. I know why people do but I've never thought it was worth it these days with modern laws to protect employees.

 

Where do you think those 'modern laws' came from?  And who do you think fights to maintain and improve them?

[Tamworthbay]

Where do you think those 'modern laws' came from?  And who do you think fights to maintain and improve them?

And as we know they are more under threat than they have been in the last 50 years, the event that shall not be named is already been used as a reason to deregulate how workers are treated and it will on,y get worse in the next few years. Those workplaces where people stick together have a much better chance of resisting this.

[anonymous user]

I agree with what a trade union should be; however after being a member of one for many years I was very disappointed when my local branch agreed to a hugely detrimental change to my job, without even informing, let alone discussing it with me. The change contravened the employer's stated policy. I ended up using both the employer's grievance procedure (with no support from the local or district branch) and complaining to the national branch, using their stated complaints procedure, which they ignored, to the point that when challenged, put in writing that they would not communicate further with me. Unfortunately this made me quite ill, knowing what I know now I should have gone to an employment solicitor, instead I sucked it up and lived with the substantial salary cut and a deep distrust of certain people. I do admit to a certain schadenfreude when the local branch treasurer did some jail time for embezzlement of branch funds (about £100k )

[HH-R]

NHBC (new home warranty company) started spamming me over and over about filling in a questionnaire about my house over email, ignored them because I had too much other stuff to do at the time.

 

So then they started sending them through the post.

 

Then they started texting me.

 

Fuck off! If I wanted to fill it in, I would have the first time.

[Guest Hooli]

The only place I'd worked before that had much union activity was driving buses & they wanted all us new drivers to join & strike to get back stuff they'd lost years before I started. Took me a while for them to see my point that the job hasn't changed from what I accepted when I started so I had no complain. Those that had been there years did have a reason, but to my mind accepting a job & then striking for things I'd never had would have been taking the piss.

[Tamworthbay]

A Union IS its members, no members, no union. The number of people at our place who complain about what is and isn’t done is massive, the number that turn up and actually try to make a difference is nearly zero. I think because people pay to be a member they assume it’s like a subscription to a gym where someone else does all the work. The money goes to paying for professionals to advise, help lines, legal fees for challenges etc etc but it’s the average Joe shop steward who often makes the biggest difference and there aren’t usually many volunteers for that unpaid job.

[anonymous user]

I will be the first to admit that I had a bad experience with my union, the local branch was a bit too cosy with the employer, my disappointment was that at regional and national level they chose to close ranks rather than investigate and perhaps admit that there was a problem.

I was not the only employee that was treated unfairly, I have quite a few examples where support was not forthcoming. It was always strange that the branch executive seemed to enjoy different terms and conditions of employment to the rest of the staff.

Just to put it in perspective I did believe in trade unionism and had previously acted as a representative, I became disillusioned by the local level (in)activity. When I changed jobs I changed unions and have a life membership of that one now that I am retired.

[New POD]

I was the ONLY member of a union at a company that attempted to "manage me out" through ruthless setting of impossible targets, and weekly and daily progress review meetings. 

 

When I was eventually invited to a disciplinary interview, I Finally contacted my regional office, who realised they had nobody onsite to represent me, so sent their regional negotiator, who in the morning had been arguing with the Management of Jacobs biscuits about the fate of 100's of workers. 

 

An hour and a half after she arrived on site, she had pretty much shown the HR manager 10 reasons why if they attempted to sack me, why I'd be getting a fucking big payout.  The only mistake she made, was not actually getting me that payout to walk away, because I then had to stay in a job I hated with a boss I hated, until about 4 months later when  I was amazingly one of 45 picked for redundancy, in the 2009 cull. (Which was the best thing that ever happened in my career. 

I believe my manager had a formal warning about the management process he'd adopted for dealing with me.  

 

I'm not in a union now. Because self employed. 

[Ghosty]

How much of a miserable so and so do you have to be to make a formal complaint about a passing comment made by takeaway delivery driver, when you're so ostensibly not sober that you can barely speak and basically fall over while I'm trying to talk to you? I think I have a right to be a little frustrated.

[cort1977]

While I am an engineering management type and a scumbag contractor to boot and hence have never been a member of a union I am a firm believer in the union movement and would always support them in principle.

 

Have seen people get treated like dog shit in supermarkets and other places where a quiet word from the union rep sometimes helped get things sorted.

 

There will be examples when the union is corrupt or useless (mine involve the Maritime Union of Australia - mixed up with Bikies and organized crime allegedly) but the data is pretty clear that non-unionized workers have worse pay and conditions.

[Guest Hooli]

How much of a miserable so and so do you have to be to make a formal complaint about a passing comment made by takeaway delivery driver, when you're so ostensibly not sober that you can barely speak and basically fall over while I'm trying to talk to you? I think I have a right to be a little frustrated.

 

Sounds like a wanker Ghosty, if only you knew his address for Argos catalogues.

[dollywobbler]

How come that Florence & The Machine girl has got such a fantastic voice, yet her songs are absolute dog shit on toast? What’s that about?

 

Haven't felt the need to buy any of her stuff since the first album. I still like that. Drumming Song still a highlight.