The grumpy thread

[greengartside]

Slightly O/T but me and the fiancee have split up after 15 months of being together. I'm pretty devastated right now to put it mildly, and I feel like it's all my fault

[ashmicro]

Bad times, Sir. However, if you guys went as far as getting engaged, perhaps all is not lost?

 

Good luck buddy.

[Guest]

Dont know whats happened GG but hope it can be sorted or that you can move on cleanly if needs be

[DSdriver]

It's always tough on relationships when things are financially tight. I hope you can talk and get back together again. Life goes through shit patches, we've had ours but are still married after thirty six years. I never expected it to last more than a month. Perhaps that's the solution - don't expect too much and be happy when you can.

Of course, if she doesn't like old cars the relationship is doomed.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

GGS, sorry to hear that...I'd agree with DSD, try and see if a solution to the financial issues would help the situation as a whole.

 

Wat, seriously, why do you get so angry about it? Do you really think that a good grade makes any difference? Apart from the very best person on my course who managed to get herself a good (office) job in the NHS, everyone else who got decent jobs did it through their parents' networking or by returning to places where they used to do more basic stuff on their holidays etc. The rest of us got no jobs, shit jobs or stuff that's completely unrelated (e.g. working for the Old Bill). Ergo, grades made bugger all difference to people's career progress (well, at least at the early stages- I haven't been following everyone's news).

 

And that leads me nicely to today's grump: when you write a job description that's 3 pages long and advertise the vacancy stating "part-time position, salary pro-rated to 60% of full time earnings" without further details, I expect you to be either completely flexible about hours or, if not, need me to come for 3 days a week. Not "we want someone to come in most of the time as required by the business, maybe 11 to 5". In case you haven't noticed, that's more like 80% of full-time for 60% the FT salary!

[M'coli]

Wat, seriously, why do you get so angry about it? Do you really think that a good grade makes any difference? Apart from the very best person on my course who managed to get herself a good (office) job in the NHS, everyone else who got decent jobs did it through their parents' networking or by returning to places where they used to do more basic stuff on their holidays etc. The rest of us got no jobs, shit jobs or stuff that's completely unrelated (e.g. working for the Old Bill). Ergo, grades made bugger all difference to people's career progress (well, at least at the early stages- I haven't been following everyone's news).

It depends on the course that you're doing I suppose - it sounds as if you're quite bitter about the effort you put in compared to the outcome and the employment prospects that you are experiencing. I really find it quite odd that you seem to be "encouraging" Wat not to work hard - unless it's deliberate and you like winding him up.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I never told Wat or anyone else not to work hard/put effort in. What I did say was to not get paranoid about grades. I enjoyed most of the work I did for my first degree. Intrinsically, not because of a grade. I did get annoyed when, despite all the hard work, my degree got classified as a 2:2, but made up for it by getting a thoroughly unmerited Merit for the M.Sc. that followed (which I never really cared about or did high-quality work for).

 

As to whether I'm bitter about the employment prospects...It's a rather complicated thing, but what is undoubtedly true is that academic achievement is not that highly prized in this country. Most jobs seek someone with X years of experience doing Y and even a top degree in a relevant subject is a "desirable" criterion, in other words a tiebreaker between candidates who fulfil the experience requirement. Hence why you shouldn't be paranoid about grades.

[Guest]

I never told Wat or anyone else not to work hard/put effort in. What I did say was to not get paranoid about grades. .

 

I'm getting annoyed Luxo because our efforts are linked. If one person doesn't pull their weight, the whole ship is fucked up the arsehole. I fucking well deserve a good grade for this because I've done three times the work of the director and cameraman, plus met my own requirements. In the industry I'm trying to get into, you have to get the highest grade possible because so many people are coming out with media degrees. You need to be as multi faceted as possible - if nothing else this proves I can edit and reshoot quickly to a deadline.

 

Getting in requires a decent grade, for one thing. Plus having tons of unpaid experience, and relatives who fought toe to toe with King Edward at the Battle of Agincourt.

 

I'm not saying grades are the be all and end all, but by Christ, they're significant.

 

I've been through the wringer on my other modules too, so I need all the help I can get.

 

If I end up in another fucking office taking fucking calls in a fucking call centre I will fucking end myself. It's as simple as that.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Fair enough. I had a similar problem with teamwork, a member of my team being a Saudi royal who had no idea of (or interest in finding out) how to do anything. I did make a few remarks to the tutor, but I didn't let it overwhelm me.

 

However, I do appreciate that the media arena is different from bog-standard business school stuff. You're fighting against the (numerical as well as networking) odds and need any help you can get, including grades.

 

Maybe you shouldn't bother with looking for an actual media job and should just apply for a graduate scheme geared towards making you a call-centre manager. REVENGE TIME!

[Guest]

 

Maybe you shouldn't bother with looking for an actual media job and should just apply for a graduate scheme geared towards making you a call-centre manager. REVENGE TIME!

 

I don't want to 'manage' anyone, especially not in a call centre. You still have to deal with call centre 'logic', call centre 'people' and various fadge faced 'colleagues' in varying degrees of disrepair / HR / iPhone / BMW 320d. None of that interests me.

 

And then you have to speak to irate customers on top of that.

 

Sorry, but I'd rather eat my own shit for £20K pa.

[eddyramrod]

I don't want to 'manage' anyone, especially not in a call centre. You still have to deal with call centre 'logic', call centre 'people' and various fadge faced 'colleagues' in varying degrees of disrepair / HR / iPhone / BMW 320d. None of that interests me.

 

And then you have to speak to irate customers on top of that.

 

Sorry, but I'd rather eat my own shit for £20K pa.

 

Damn right Jon. Being management is far more trouble than it'll ever be worth. I know I'll never do it again! Oh and if you're going to top yourself: might I suggest you do it after going to the Post Office? But not too soon after, because you'd be missed.

Glad you got your assignment finished, at last, I know it's been weighing on you.

[Guest]

I don't want to 'manage' anyone, especially not in a call centre. You still have to deal with call centre 'logic', call centre 'people' and various fadge faced 'colleagues' in varying degrees of disrepair / HR / iPhone / BMW 320d. None of that interests me.

 

And then you have to speak to irate customers on top of that.

 

Sorry, but I'd rather eat my own shit for £20K pa.

 

Damn right Jon. Being management is far more trouble than it'll ever be worth. I know I'll never do it again! Oh and if you're going to top yourself: might I suggest you do it after going to the Post Office? But not too soon after, because you'd be missed.

Glad you got your assignment finished, at last, I know it's been weighing on you.

 

HINT RECEIVED AND PROCESSED.

[warren t claim]

 

Maybe you shouldn't bother with looking for an actual media job and should just apply for a graduate scheme geared towards making you a call-centre manager. REVENGE TIME!

 

I don't want to 'manage' anyone, especially not in a call centre. You still have to deal with call centre 'logic', call centre 'people' and various fadge faced 'colleagues' in varying degrees of disrepair / HR / iPhone / BMW 320d. None of that interests me.

 

And then you have to speak to irate customers on top of that.

 

Sorry, but I'd rather eat my own shit for £20K pa.

 

Go on! You could even save up the deposit for an "Urban Jizz" apartment in a trendy part of town, maybe have a few quid left over for gym membership. You might even meet a nice ambitious girl who'll eventually be unfaithful to you and leave you in serious six figure debt, gently sobbing quietly to yourself contemplating suicide..... On second thoughts, just try and get good grades.

[eddyramrod]

Cheers Jon, that'll brighten up the New Year a bit. Seriously, even without that, I stand by my comments. I know what you've been going through, I've had to deal with similar situations. It's never pleasant. And you're right: keep away from call centres, keep away from management. Either will send you mad; both together doesn't bear thinking about.

[RoadworkUK]

GGS, shit, man, you must feel pretty damn low right now. You have my extreme sympathy. Me and the Nicola are just about to complete on our new houseshite purchase and mortgageness, I can only imagine what it would feel like if it was all pulled apart. Here's hoping a solution can be found.

 

Wat:- I felt exactly the same at the end of my degree. It was bad enough to BA level. But for that extra MDes year I got the constant feeling that to get the grades your face had to fit, I wondered how many of the tutors were getting noshed off during lunch breaks or whether there was a masonic handshake to be learnt. Inevitably I ended up with a degree grade two steps away from where I wanted to be, after four years constant graft. I felt like I'd been lied to at every stage; not one piece of their advice went unheeded.

 

And after graduating, of course, I never became a car designer. But then hardly any of us did. Here I am, age 30, freshly mortgaged up and earning piss-all money, knowing that I'm unlikely to ever earn serious coin in design, and just as improbable to do so in journalism. But the truth is I've never been happier than I am now.

 

Maybe I've lowered my expectations in life? Well, it's great actually, I still get to draw and write but now it's as a hobby. Sometimes people even see my work and tell me how great I am (either sincerely or not), and it feels good. It's probably much better than having some arsehole commisioning editor or head of design threatening me with impossible deadlines and moulding my ideas into something I don't want to do.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Come on you lot, I didn't know that sarcasm tags were required here on AS.

Call centres are hateful places to work in, no matter whether you are on the lines yourself, work as a manager or doing some support service...and there isn't even much of an actual need for them from a customer point of view- more often than not, they can tell you nothing more than what's on the website.

 

Having said that, I do think that, as it's so hard to get a job in the 'creative industries' (e.g. journalism, fashion design) without a lot of friends in the right places, you should have a sort of alternative career plan in the back of your mind just in case...

[Cavcraft]

 

You need to be as multi faced as possible.

 

 

Slight EFA there to show you how it works where I am!

[messerschmitt owner]

Jon

I work in the media (publishing) and it's a bugger to get into - set your sights for The Caravan Channel, or start a porn channel, cos it is a nightmare to break into the industry. It requires a great deal of brown nosing, luck and being in the right place at the right time. And £20k eating shit - I bet you could get more than that!!!

 

I get paid to write stuff for magazines, have written nine books, and spend my time at work (on here) commissioning authors to write stuff. It's only in the past five years that I have seen my salary approach respectable levels.

[Angrydicky]

I echo what Trigger said about banger racing. Personally I've always been a bit 'meh' about it, despite being a big BMC fan. I've always given the 'sport' the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure the vast majority of cars raced are way past restoration and the majority of racers buy their cars perfectly legally.

 

I browse Oval Chat occasionally as there are often Austin Cambridges and parts for sale on there, and roadworthy cars in the for sale section. Anyway I was looking on there this morning and I saw something that made me absolutely livid.

 

http://www.ovalbangerchat.co.uk/topic/1 ... nster-a90/

 

This A90 Westminster was raced at the 'Westy' meeting last year. This is what the seller has to say:

 

it a good strong car [when i race her she had 10months mot and 6 months tax]

 

I mean what braindead fucking moron would smash up a rare, solid car with nearly a year's MOT??

 

By angrydicky at 2012-01-12

 

By angrydicky at 2012-01-12

 

I know it's (probably) been bought and paid for legally, and as such really isn't any of my business, tell my to keep my nose out if you like, but as an enthusiast of these cars I feel sick looking at those pictures. I would love a pre-farina Westminster to go in my collection, but they are getting so rare now and racers are paying such ridiculous sums for them that I can't afford one. Even projects are over a grand.

[dollywobbler]

Pics don't show Dicky, but I hope it wasn't my old A90 Westy! It's idiocy like that which really makes my piss boil. It just undermines so much of what banger racers try and argue that they don't do. If you stuck with the original idea of banger racing, which was a last lap of glory for stuff that's scrap anyway, no-one would get angry about it. When you buy stuff specifically to race, that's road legal and has plenty of life left in it, they you deserve to have your bollocks chemically removed.

[ChinaTom]

Saw a metallic burgundy red Fiat Argenta in Bangkok today, but driver wouldn't slow down for me to snap it. Krujoe, if you are there, it was on Thanon Ratchaprarop road parked outside an office southbound. It looked as good as new.

[Angrydicky]

Thankfully Dolly, your lovely A90 is showing as currently insured and has just been taxed for another year. I just wish I had been in a position to buy it when you had it up for sale

 

Edit - pics should be showing now, but you have to log into Ovalchat to read the post.

[RedSparrow]

Smashing up Farinas has gone way past 'oh we only race the rotten crappy ones'. There are not enough of them left now so it's not even funny anymore.

 

In other news, selling on ebay now works like this:

1. I pay to list item

2. Moron buys item

3. Moron pays for item with paypal

4. Moron decides they now don't want the item and is somehow able to issue themselves with a refund with paypal without my knowledge or consent

5. I am unable to leave negative feedback

6. I am unable to report a non paying buyer as then they will neg me and ruin my 100% feedback

7. Go to step 1

[richardthestag]

Smashing up Farinas has gone way past 'oh we only race the rotten crappy ones'. There are not enough of them left now so it's not even funny anymore.

 

In other news, selling on ebay now works like this:

1. I pay to list item

2. Moron buys item

3. Moron pays for item with paypal

4. Moron decides they now don't want the item and is somehow able to issue themselves with a refund with paypal without my knowledge or consent

5. I am unable to leave negative feedback

6. I am unable to report a non paying buyer as then they will neg me and ruin my 100% feedback

7. Go to step 1

 

don't get hung up on 100% ebay id, it is all so false now anyway one vendor offered me £5 into my paypal if I gave permission to remove the neutral I left him 5 months earlier. like wtf yeah give me the fiver!

 

If he does neg you you can add comments underneath explaining what a dick splash he actually is. or......

 

1. you have his ebayid, bid on everything he has from a second account and neg his arse out of town.

2. you have his post address so post him bits of stone / cat turds but fail to afix the required postage, he will pay the postage. and have to amuse himself with useless crap.

 

repeat weekly / monthly / any period that makes you grin insanely.

[Lankytim]

The all Westy meet was a bit of an exception. Apparently people were paying up to 3K for one!

[morris_ital_lover]

The all Westy meet was a bit of an exception. Apparently people were paying up to 3K for one!

 

Imagine justifying that to the Mrs.

[Lufthansa-Terminal]

The all Westy meet was a bit of an exception. Apparently people were paying up to 3K for one!

 

Imagine justifying that to the Mrs.

 

 

They do by punching the crap out of her if she dont agree before 6 pints of wife beater and shagging the staffie bull terrier.

[Des]

It's not worth getting into an 'All bnger rcers r ghey' debate, it's an argument that stretches between both ends of the food chain and can only end in despair and frustration. The trend, already mentioned, of racers seeking good stuff to wreck rather than intercepting chod on its way to the crusher is puzzling, but it's merely one of a myriad of irritants that modern life throws at us, enrages us, becoming evermore difficult to ignore. Instead, should we look at what has gone wrong with stuff, the world, society and that.

My theory of why so many of the great unwashed seem increasingly aggravating, is the failing of the modern education system. It hasn't kept up with the need to provide the basics that were once taken for granted as learned pre-school, many kids don't receive attention from their parents anymore, (to pay for a decent family home has required 2 full time incomes for some time now) then there's benefit culture, housing estate squalor, Trisha, etc. what chance have the kids got?

We're all monkeys, and we are all born with a set of instincts to enable our survival, only thing is the code was written a long time ago, if deprived of any learning beyond our basic operating system then the pack mentality thing will kick in yo.

We benefit from the experience and learning of those who went before us. We don't have to go about our business covered in sores and stinking of shit because 100+ years ago water and sewerage were laid on, we have food to eat other than turnips because someone went around the world gathering such exotic produce as potatoes, no need to to wear squirrels because someone invented thread, and we can make cars thanks to that first clever neanderthal to fashion a bone and two rocks into a hammer and socket. It's this inherited wisdom that separates us from chimps, not evolution, take away the learning and there's only obsolete monkey modus operandi left, and the primary goal of this limp mode status is to become alpha male, sadly this is no longer determined by the monkey who's waving around the biggest cock, (cos I wud b kng ov d swingrs) so substitutes get played, and the backward twats engage in ever increasing levels of monkey mongishness, ridiculous haircuts, tossers with their arse hanging out their pants, really, really, really white trainers, barrys in their pathetic failures at being different, scene twats, emo kids, X5 owners and of course racers going to extremes of smashing desirable stuff rather than just having fun with an old car before it gets fragged.

Don't give them any form of attention, it's what they thrive on.

[Wilko220]

I lost my enthusiasm for AROnline a bit when it replaced its very interesting and useful forum with some kind of web comments function, largely populated by infuriating individuals. Nevertheless, this is still rather a shame:

 

http://www.aronline.co.uk/blogs/2012/01/11/news-aronline-and-honest-john-go-into-partnership/

[Station]

^Haven't looked on there for ages, but noticed it's turned into a ('British') car news aggregate site, much like Pistonheads, Evo, and every other car magazine site on the planet, what a shame. Also been bought out by 'Honest John'???

 

Photo of Brookland's racing test circuit, soon to be a Tesco's (hurray!).