The grumpy thread

[somewhatfoolish]

This is why the UK is so great; there's nothing here that wants to eat or kill me, except possibly domestic cats.

[SunnySouth]

2 hours ago, myglaren said:

I have had a couple like that, it wasn't the fault of the sender but RM's cockup with identifying stamps as fraudulent (they weren't).

I did collect them as the sorting office is only a couple of miles away, but there was also an option to go online and make the payment and they would deliver as normal.

Yeah, I’ve got the pay online option but I don’t know then when they’ll deliver it and whether I’ll be here! Collecting in person is ideal for me, and you’d think they’d prefer not to have to faff about putting the thing back out for delivery. But the way the form is structured makes it quite clear that they really don’t want you going to collect stuff, it’s properly ‘last resort’ as far as they’re concerned.

[myglaren]

I have also had the option to collect from a local PO of my choice.  There is one 100 yds from me.

I am a bit spoiled as the couple who live across the street are our posties for most things.  Only gets awkward when they are on holiday.  I do have a secure place for most packages and they and the Evri man know and use it.

[chadders]

39 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

This is why the UK is so great; there's nothing here that wants to eat or kill me, except possibly domestic cats.

Adders /Vipers?

[jakebullet]

Ma busy having a meltdown, so of course it's my fault.

Idiot sister has arranged for one of her "bezzie mates" to come and dewax Ma's lug holes, rather than you know choose your own professional. Big surprise, no sign of the bint 90 minutes after time, so mood = on.

Ma then fires up pressure cooker, except she's blown up the fusible plug in it and it's just jetting steam everywhere. Well why can't I fix it right now? 'Cos I can't magic spare parts out of thin air! 

[somewhatfoolish]

38 minutes ago, chadders said:

Adders /Vipers?

If you can find an adder they mostly just want to be left alone, degradation of habitat means there aren't many to find. Wikipedia tells me the last fatality in the UK was in 1975, so it must have been the fault of Harold Wilson. 

[chadders]

I seem to remember that they were quite 'common' in the Lake District living in the bracken on the fells. At least that's what the farmer told us.

[comfortablynumb]

14 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

If you can find an adder they mostly just want to be left alone, degradation of habitat means there aren't many to find. Wikipedia tells me the last fatality in the UK was in 1975, so it must have been the fault of Harold Wilson. 

Last adder I saw, I ran over 

I thought it was a piece of rope left in the road, a country lane, didn't realise it was just sunning itself and sent right over it.

Felt bad about that, poor bastard 

[myglaren]

I was bitten by one in about 1970.  Was miles from anywhere looking after my boss' cottage.  A five mile walk to the nearest 'shop', a newsagent with a few basic odds and ends at the beach.

My leg swelled up and was painful but not much to be done.  All OK 24 hours later.  A mosquito bite a couple of years later was far worse.

[DavieW]

More pissed off than grumpy, but I left my part time job on Saturday and my section leader (who I know was working) never came near me to say thank you or cheerio. 

[Yoss]

4 hours ago, SunnySouth said:

Continuing the ‘all postal/delivery services R shite’ theme from slightly earlier in these pages, an Ebay seller has sent my item sans adequate postage, resulting in a card through the door from His Majesty’s finest to tease me into settling the debt. No problem, shit happens. It’s only a couple of quid, no qualm with the Ebayer who seemed decent enough. RM, however, are unhelpful bar stewards. WTF are these opening times?!

So you can collect your item, but only during the exact hours that the entire population are busy rushing about doing the morning school run, sitting in traffic and trying to get to work. Unless it’s thursday, when the opportunity is also generously offered to collect it while everyone’s doing exactly the same thing in the evening.

Who the f’ck is collecting parcels between 8 and 10 in the bastard morning?! The answer of course is no fucker, which no doubt will provide ample excuse to close it altogether most of the week, and only open the desk between 2 and 4am on the fifth sunday of every second month…

If ever an organisation was showing all the distress signals of being on the verge of collapse, it’s RM. They give the NHS a run for its money, only without the safety net of being saintly and untouchable. RM is f’cked!

As a postman, and quite local to you too I think, I think it is disgraceful. It wasn't that long ago we started opening the callers office on Sundays and late night Thursdays on top of the usual hours. Every office had its own opening times but as a big city office we had the longest hours. 

Then we had an edict from above enforcing these hours on every office in the country regardless of how busy they are. It's not our decision. I quite often see people peering through the closed callers office doors and then they see me in uniform and ask what's going on and I can't defend such a ridiculous decision, so I don't. 

Part of it is down to another new way of working where we now have to try all packets twice. If your not in one day, I have to take it out with me the next day too, which is great, just what I need. I mean, if you're at work on Monday you're probably going to be at work on Tuesday aren't you. But occasionally it works so that makes the callers office slightly less busy so the upper management think it's justifiable. There was a plan to close the callers offices completely and I think they'd love to this if they could. 

They are also leaning on us to try and leave packets without actually telling us in those exact words so I do always try to find somewhere to hide them if I can, but it is left to the postman's individual discretion and some posties are idiots. Probably no worse than anywhere else really but we have about 140 people at our office and if you take any group of 140 people a fair few of them are going to be idiots. 

It's not going to get any better either. 

[High Jetter]

Glad to see there's some degree of discretion. Our DO has similar hours, can work it in on Sat if needed.

[reb]

It is 4:36am.

I woke up with a jump half an hour ago because in my dream apparently I was jump starting an office chair with a jump pack (?) and evidently it went wrong or something. Can't get back to sleep.

Fuck it, I'll have a coffee and just get on with work. Honestly the annoying thing is mostly that I'll have to wait longer for my amazon delivery than I would have if I woke up at 8:30 like I planned.

[New POD]

9 hours ago, Yoss said:

As a postman, and quite local to you too I think, I think it is disgraceful. It wasn't that long ago we started opening the callers office on Sundays and late night Thursdays on top of the usual hours. Every office had its own opening times but as a big city office we had the longest hours. 

Then we had an edict from above enforcing these hours on every office in the country regardless of how busy they are. It's not our decision. I quite often see people peering through the closed callers office doors and then they see me in uniform and ask what's going on and I can't defend such a ridiculous decision, so I don't. 

Part of it is down to another new way of working where we now have to try all packets twice. If your not in one day, I have to take it out with me the next day too, which is great, just what I need. I mean, if you're at work on Monday you're probably going to be at work on Tuesday aren't you. But occasionally it works so that makes the callers office slightly less busy so the upper management think it's justifiable. There was a plan to close the callers offices completely and I think they'd love to this if they could. 

They are also leaning on us to try and leave packets without actually telling us in those exact words so I do always try to find somewhere to hide them if I can, but it is left to the postman's individual discretion and some posties are idiots. Probably no worse than anywhere else really but we have about 140 people at our office and if you take any group of 140 people a fair few of them are going to be idiots. 

It's not going to get any better either. 

If the average intelligence is what I have that makes half of the people more stupid than me. 

[SunnySouth]

On 14/10/2024 at 20:03, Yoss said:

As a postman, and quite local to you too I think, I think it is disgraceful. It wasn't that long ago we started opening the callers office on Sundays and late night Thursdays on top of the usual hours. Every office had its own opening times but as a big city office we had the longest hours. 

Then we had an edict from above enforcing these hours on every office in the country regardless of how busy they are. It's not our decision. I quite often see people peering through the closed callers office doors and then they see me in uniform and ask what's going on and I can't defend such a ridiculous decision, so I don't. 

Part of it is down to another new way of working where we now have to try all packets twice. If your not in one day, I have to take it out with me the next day too, which is great, just what I need. I mean, if you're at work on Monday you're probably going to be at work on Tuesday aren't you. But occasionally it works so that makes the callers office slightly less busy so the upper management think it's justifiable. There was a plan to close the callers offices completely and I think they'd love to this if they could. 

They are also leaning on us to try and leave packets without actually telling us in those exact words so I do always try to find somewhere to hide them if I can, but it is left to the postman's individual discretion and some posties are idiots. Probably no worse than anywhere else really but we have about 140 people at our office and if you take any group of 140 people a fair few of them are going to be idiots. 

It's not going to get any better either. 

Just to add balance, I did indeed venture out during the morning rush hour to collect said item, and the fella on the desk was very decent indeed, nice guy. As always, good people being led by crap management. Grrr.

[outlaw118]

After months of shouting at my PC and being denied access both at home, and at my previous employer, I've got on.

But, whilst I have a few bits to update, I'm sorry to say a long time member (more recently lurker) and my oldest mate @Autoplas passed away last Monday, after battling cancer. He was given 3 months about 4 years ago, and he fought, but it got him in the end.  He was 54, and we'd been mates since we were at school at 11. 

Still can't believe it. RIP Sean.

[Wibble]

9 minutes ago, outlaw118 said:

After months of shouting at my PC and being denied access both at home, and at my previous employer, I've got on.

But, whilst I have a few bits to update, I'm sorry to say a long time member (more recently lurker) and my oldest mate @Autoplas passed away last Monday, after battling cancer. He was given 3 months about 4 years ago, and he fought, but it got him in the end.  He was 54, and we'd been mates since we were at school at 11. 

Still can't believe it. RIP Sean.

So sorry to hear this, condolences to you and his family.

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, outlaw118 said:

After months of shouting at my PC and being denied access both at home, and at my previous employer, I've got on.

But, whilst I have a few bits to update, I'm sorry to say a long time member (more recently lurker) and my oldest mate @Autoplas passed away last Monday, after battling cancer. He was given 3 months about 4 years ago, and he fought, but it got him in the end.  He was 54, and we'd been mates since we were at school at 11. 

Still can't believe it. RIP Sean.

That's no age, tragic. Autoplas...aftermarket plastic car parts, wipers, rear screen louvres etc - any connection?

[Spiny Norman]

That's shit. Even more so when it's a contemporary of a similar age, I've lost a few mates recently who were all within a few years of me.

[Westbay]

Condolances ...

[New POD]

On 16/02/2020 at 11:35, Tetleysmooth said:

Understood, but my grump is why should it take so long to get a form in the post?

Did you get it yet ? 

[Zelandeth]

Bloody profiteering hotels...

Kind of as expected I didn't make it through the lottery for residential places at a convention I'll be going to in May.  This isn't really a surprise as there are only a handful of single rooms and they're oversubscribed in terms of room demand overall by four or five times. 

Stayed at the Novotel at Birmingham Airport last year, was £582 for Thursday through Tuesday including breakfast.  I like that hotel so it would have been my first choice this year - except for them having hiked the price to nearly £900.  How about no.  The nearest hotel to the event is the Moxy, though that's always bloody expensive.  Yeah, they're after £1205 plus breakfast...I don't think so.  That's £20 short of double they're asking for the same room 7 days before. 

Fine, I'll go and bash my head against the various hotel comparison sites this evening when I've got enough time and am sitting at a proper computer. 

Surge pricing really has to be one of the most annoying concepts in existence.  If I ran a hotel the price on the door per room per night would be the price per room, per night irrespective of if we had one booking or 100 bookings. 

Yes, it would be per bloody room not per person per room as well.  That hacks me off royally as well, the cost difference to them to service the room is virtually nothing irrespective of whether I'm on my own or with my husband, so why should I need to pay damned near double the cost at a lot of hotels for the same bloody room if we're both there?!?  Oh, yeah...because they can get away with it and it makes them more money.  Right, of course.  Vast majority of the times I'm in a hotel these days it's because I've gone off gallivanting on my own anyway so it's not a huge issue, but I still run into it often enough that it hacks me off sufficiently that it sticks in my memory.

[sheffcortinacentre]

& all hotels look the same once your asleep.

[richardmorris]

22 hours ago, outlaw118 said:

After months of shouting at my PC and being denied access both at home, and at my previous employer, I've got on.

But, whilst I have a few bits to update, I'm sorry to say a long time member (more recently lurker) and my oldest mate @Autoplas passed away last Monday, after battling cancer. He was given 3 months about 4 years ago, and he fought, but it got him in the end.  He was 54, and we'd been mates since we were at school at 11. 

Still can't believe it. RIP Sean.

That’s awful news, I’m sorry for your loss. I’m in contact with a couple of friends from primary school still - like you this was early 1970s - it seems no time at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Saabnut]

3 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Bloody profiteering hotels...

When we do the NEC we stay in the IBIS Coventry Centre and get the train to the NEC for less than a fiver return

[outlaw118]

21 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Autoplas...aftermarket plastic car parts, wipers, rear screen louvres etc - any connection?

Thanks
Yeah, he worked in Halfrauds while we were at sixth form, and was regularly told to shift more tacky stick on shite from aforementioned company!

[lesapandre]

"£1205 plus breakfast..."

Time to buy a camper van cheap in the dead of winter?

or AirBnB?

Or just bunk up with one of your colleagues without the hotel knowing?

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, Saabnut said:

When we do the NEC we stay in the IBIS Coventry Centre and get the train to the NEC for less than a fiver return

Sadly given that events on the Friday/Saturday quite often don't finish until 1-2am, I don't think messing about with the train sounds like fun.  We seem to have attracted a small but persistent bunch of youths who have been harassing folks walking between hotels during the event, so taxis site to site tend to be the order of the day.  I mostly used Uber last year shuttling between the Novotel and Hilton (where we're actually based) and it was usually £5-10 and there in less than five minutes.

Kind of why I liked the Novotel.  Being an airport hotel means that basically everything is available 24/7 - which when you've dragged yourself in through the door barely still awake at 2am, having never had time to get a proper dinner is an absolute godsend, being able to with absolutely no nonsense have decent food available either in the bar or at your room in minutes.  Food there also while pricey, is actually really decent.  24/7 services, comfy bed, AC which lets me chill the room to a couple of degrees above absolute zero and never being more than 5 minutes away from a taxi is really a handy combination.  During the day it's a ~15 minute walk too, taxis only come into play later on after dark.

Plus having stayed there several times for work, it's familiar, and for someone with an anxiety disorder and sleep problems that's worth a lot.  It's not worth £800 though!

Holiday Inn Express over on the north side of the NEC complex is looking like the front runner at the moment at £415.  Has parking, has AC, is only a few minutes walk away from the Hilton and is far more reasonably priced.

1 hour ago, lesapandre said:

"£1205 plus breakfast..."

Time to buy a camper van cheap in the dead of winter?

or AirBnB?

Or just bunk up with one of your colleagues without the hotel knowing?

 

This is something the event are very strict on, and if found out to be harbouring non-paying guests overnight, you and whoever's staying with you will be banned for life on the spot.  Not least because pissing off the venue is very high on the list of Things We Don't Want To Do (TM).  Yes some folks are always going to do it, but that's never going to be me.

Plus doing something breaking rules like that would probably make my stupid autistic brain explode.

Camping in the hotel car park wouldn't go down well I reckon!

I did have to answer some questions and demonstrate to the hotel that when I'd taken my camper to a different convention back in 2019 (as it was by far the easiest option for carrying four peoples luggage plus the equipment to run two events in one vehicle) that there wasn't anyone staying in it...and that was at our old hotel who were pretty easy going.  Okay, that's actually an understatement - we had a fantastic relationship with the Livingston Mercure, and we really miss them.  However we'd massively outgrown the hotel so had no real choice but to move - and have now outgrown the Glasgow Crowne Plaza!  Which is a problem as there's really nowhere bigger to move to.

 

Could be worse though.  There's a similar convention going on over in the US in the not too distant future where one of the overflow hotels there have jacked the price for accommodation during the event to around $2500.  Price for the same room for the same amount of time a week either side of MFF?  About $130.  There's no way they can possibly justify that, other than because they know they can get away with it.

I'll get this sorted out, just seeing blatant profiteering like this irks me and makes me grumpy.  As does how stressful I find sorting stuff like this out these days.  I know I'll enjoy it once I'm there, but actually planning things out stresses me the hell out.

My target for next year though is to make it there under my own power rather than breaking down at the side of the road ten miles out and then proceeding to manage to make it take 10 hours to get from Milton Keynes to Birmingham by train after I was recovered home.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, outlaw118 said:

Thanks
Yeah, he worked in Halfrauds while we were at sixth form, and was regularly told to shift more tacky stick on shite from aforementioned company!

I remember their products from my days at Longlife. 

[EyesWeldedShut]

8 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

...

If you are really, really, really stuck* there's a Days Inn at Corley Services (south side of the M6) which usually has free rooms when all else is booked - bit of a trek (15 miles-ish) from the NEC after a hard day though.

*I say really stuck as the food is in the Services - but it's a bed with a hot shower and tends to have space when others don't