The grumpy thread

[quicksilver]

My grump today is a solid gold shite spot that got away. I saw what I'm sure was an Alfa 90 drive past heading for the local tip, AFAIK there's only one way out of that place and I waited a good 40 mins but didn't see it come out so where it disappeared to is a mystery. I checked the nearby car parks but there wasn't even any other shite there to cheer me up

[chaseracer]

NC, as long as people act like sheep they will be treated like sheep. When they join together to work for the collective good and to DEMAND that their efforts are recognised as being as important to economic wellbeing as capital, they will begin to be treated with greater respect by employers who have historically been proved reluctant to do this without such pressure. This is what a union does - provide a strong collective voice to help people make things better for themselves.

 

And FYI, the government is currently borrowing £150+billion MORE than it said it would, to pay for such things as unemployment benefit and so on for all those scroungers who are avoiding paying tax by losing their jobs. So, that's going well...

[M'coli]

The reason why the private sector doesn't have pensions and such like is because the previous Tory administration in the 90s chose to allow private sector companies to sack them off if they so chose; many good private sector companies are now topping-up their pension schemes having at first taken advantage of this opportunity because they realise that pensions are important to attracting the right calibre of staff.

 

I worked in the private sector for 6 years in the 90s at a wage level that would have been increased when the minimum wage was introduced, and in an industry with shag-all job security and no union, and didn't have any pension rights attributed to the job either. Thus when I somehow managed to get into a role that gave me all of these things, and was in the public sector and gave me immense job satisfaction, it was great and I realised how fortunate I have was. I joined the union at the first opportunity, but it still didn't stop me voting against strike action over pay in 2004 for the only time I have been on strike. I realised that it was futile to go on strike to try to get a better pay offer as the pay offer we were after (over what we were offered) would be negated by going on strike - the management knew that we would all still meet our production targets, and the strike would allow them to meet the increase in pay the strike was about without having to increase the overall wage bill. I went on strike, but I was not happy to do so as I felt it would undermine any future action we may need to take that was PROPERLY important rather than just for one year's wage increase.

 

Sadly, this scenario has now come to pass, because the coalition are a bunch of cunts.

[Guest]

The real question is "Why are private sector pension schemes usually rubbish/non-existent?".

[dollywobbler]

A quick non-union grump. Bloody internet! My broadband speed has dropped to 0.125mB/s. The internet does not work very well at this speed. Also, colds. Thanks for striking my wife down with lurgy just in time for a rather fabulous sunny spell. Thanks also for inevitably infecting me as well. I'm really looking forward to waking up tomorrow feeling ill. I can feel my body trying to fight it off already. Pass the vitamin C!

[DSdriver]

I'm not going to comment on pensions as it is too stressful.

My grump again is why don't the fucking divler put their address on things. Every time I need to send them a fucking form there is no Swansea address on it and they don't put it on the website either. Because they use different postcodes for different departments I get paranoid that I am sending my form to the wrong office where it will be filed in the waste paper basket.

Anyone know off the top of their heads the correct address for a V62 to be sent to?

Cheers lads.

[Pete-M]

SA99 1BA

[DSdriver]

Ta.

[Wilko220]

  Hirst said:

The real question is "Why are private sector pension schemes usually rubbish/non-existent?".

 

[M'coli]

  Wilko220 said:

  Hirst said:

The real question is "Why are private sector pension schemes usually rubbish/non-existent?".

 

Not just him, the Tories were responsible for fucking it up too in the last 30 years. Wonderful. Here's a Guardian article from 2004:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2004/ju ... bsandmoney

[Wilko220]

Good article - thanks. Reading it confirms my thoughts though.

The Tories were indeed to blame for diminishing state pensions by breaking the link between it and earnings. But Brown, with his

  Quote

£5bn a year raid on pension funds

to quote the article, was the main man when it came to wrecking private sector employee pensions, and is the primary reason why there are pretty much no final salary pension schemes in existence any more.

[morris_ital_lover]

  Wilko220 said:

to quote the article, was the main man when it came to wrecking private sector employee pensions, and is the primary reason why there are pretty much no final salary pension schemes in existence any more.

 

Indeed, the conservatives are no angels in any way shape or form but I think as more and more of Browns incompetance comes to light we'll be killing him in order to piss on his grave very soon. The annoying thing is that nothing really seemed to come out of the various raids on peoples savings etc. The railways are a bit better but most other government run shite is well, still seemingly shite despite the amount that was spaffed on government spending.

 

As for my grump, why the fuck do they have to make university essays so long and tedious these days.....

[dollywobbler]

Still got internet woes. It's bloody infuriating. I've still not seen the delightful Fiat 238 and 128 that have wowed everyone else on here so far as the pics took so long to load up that I gave up. Can't watch the F1 highlights, can't watch any online videos at all in fact. Didn't realise I watched so many things until they all stopped working! Bits of news, YouTube stuff - including tutorials for musical instruments. Can't download telly programmes either. I'm very bored and am running out of novels!

 

Plusnet's response has been for me to see how it is after three days. Thanks for that.

[HillmanImp]

Sorry, I do try and keep out of the arguments about pensions but I get bloody angry when I read all the boooolocks in the press about the public sector pensions.

 

The biggest problem here is that Final Salary pension schemes are flawed and always have been. The only reason they were not sacked off years ago is that they benefit the people at the top, directors etc. Here is an example of how they work:

 

Example A. Joe Blogs, starts in his job at a salary of £5000. He stays in the same job throughout his time at the company and gets salary increases at 1% a year for the next 5 years. His salary at leaving is £5,203pa which is the salary that will be used to buy his pension. He will have paid in contributions at 5% pa. His pension is calculated as:

 

Year one salary - £5000 with a contribution of £250. Pension earned at leaving 1/60th of £5,203 = £86.72

Year two salary - £5050 with a contribution of £252.50. Pension earned at leaving 1/60th of £5,203 = £86.72

Year three salary - £5101 with a contribution of £255.03. Pension earned at leaving 1/60th of £5,203 = £86.72

Year four salary - £5151 with a contribution of £257.57. Pension earned at leaving 1/60th of £5203 = £86.72

Year five salary - £5203 with a contribution of £260.15. Pension earned at leaving 1/60th of £5203 = £86.72

 

So he leaves with a total pension of £433.60

 

Example B. Tarquin Barrington-Smythe starts as a trainee manager also at a salary of £5000. For 4 years he is on the trainee program and his salary also increases at 1% but in the 5th year he becomes a fully fledges manager and his salary rockets to £15000. He will still have paid a contribution of 5% and his pension will be calculated as follows:

 

Year one salary - £5000 with a contribution of £250. Pension earned at leaving 1/60th of £1500 = £250

Year two salary - £5050 with a contribution of £252.50. Pension earned at leaving 1/60th of £5,203 = £250

Year three salary - £5101 with a contribution of £255.03. Pension earned at leaving 1/60th of £5,203 = £250

Year four salary - £5151 with a contribution of £257.57. Pension earned at leaving 1/60th of £5203 = £250

Year five salary - £15000 with a contribution of £750. Pension earned at leaving 1/60th of £5203 = £250

 

Tarquin leaves with a total pension of £1250.

 

So even though Tarquin paid the same amount of contributions as Joe for the first 4 years of service Tarquin got an extra £816.40 per annum of pension when he left.

 

When the scheme actuary works out the level of contributions that everyone pays on the scheme, he works out how much Joe must pay in order to ensure that there are enough funds in the scheme to pay for Tarquins pension too. So low pay Joe pays for Tarquins pension.

 

If you think for a minute that the unions are fighting this for the little people, think again.

 

The scheme that has been proposed (the average salary scheme) is what all of the defined benefit schemes should have been in the first place. They are fair as everyone gets what they pay for. If the scheme above would have been Average Salary, Joe would have got a pension of £425.08 and Tarquin a pension of £595.94. Okay, Joe's is lower too but he may well have benefited from lower contribution rates as he would not have needed to pay as much to shore up Tarquins pension.

 

However, despite Average Salary being a viable proposition in the 70's Final Salary became the norm, probably due to greed. Average salary schemes had a slight resurgence a few years ago as companies tried to combat the deficits their schemes had and they seems a good option but unfortunately the writing was already on the wall (not helped by Browns tax raids on them). The deficits already incurred by old Final Salary schemes meant that most employers were to scared by a potential liability that could be incurred by an Average Salary scheme and laid the investment risk at the foot of the individual in the form of Defined Contribution pensions.

 

The point that the unions etc are missing is the changes to S67 when they laid the Pensions Act 2004 before parliament. S67 of the Pensions Act 1993 made it impossible for pension schemes to amend benefits that had been promised to a member retrospectively. The scheme Actuary had to sign off any changes to the scheme to say that they were not detrimental to members benefits. The problem is that this was changed in the pensions act 2004. It was now possible to change members benefits retrospectively thus breaking your promise that you made when they started paying contributions into the scheme. This is how it has been possible for many schemes to start increasing peoples pensions by CPI rather than RPI (this does flow through automatically for some schemes as they just refer to government orders). I for one will not be happy about paying 10% of my salary each year for lets say a Porsche 911at retirement only to be told I cant have it 20 years later, here you can have this pedal car instead. I have not been following the legal case but I think they are simply arguing about the RPI/CPI issue but should be arguing about the S67 issue as it has much wider ramifications than just RPI/CPI.

 

However I don't think S67 applies to public sector schemes anyhow but its worth noting for all other schemes.

 

Hopefully this will be helpful to anyone affected by the changes to the pensions and also reassure everyone that the unions are talking out of their arses for a change. If anyone does have any questions please feel free to PM me.

 

Oh and if anyone wants to correct me on my maths, can I just point out that I am quite drunk.

[HillmanImp]

Fuck, I got a bit involved in that and forgot that the reason I had come on this thread in the first place was to grump about this:

 

 

Went round the corner too fast with the tool kit in the back. Doh!

[TimothyClaypole]

I was supposed to have taken the job I have now as I could go with a mate down the street and give him £20.00 towards the diesel.

 

His Shitron Picasso has been in bits the past 3 months ffs, while some bloke from round the corner fits a new flywheel and other bits.

 

I'll not mention the other week when it wasn't "fixed" so thid bloke took it all to bits again knackering a locking wheel nut to waste a few more days...

 

So I've had to use my LWB/Hi Roof Transit to get to work which isn't an eco cruiser, while he sits on his fat arse taking it easy - I don't think he's touched a spanner to help either.

 

 

£100 a week in diesel is crippling.

 

It would have been cheaper to give him the money for the stealers to fix it the first week it was knackered - no doubt by his obession with knocking the cruise control on and off, we'll not go into having the heater blowing at your face while your feet turn blue.

[MrDuke]

  dollywobbler said:

Still got internet woes. It's bloody infuriating. I've still not seen the delightful Fiat 238 and 128 that have wowed everyone else on here so far as the pics took so long to load up that I gave up. Can't watch the F1 highlights, can't watch any online videos at all in fact. Didn't realise I watched so many things until they all stopped working! Bits of news, YouTube stuff - including tutorials for musical instruments. Can't download telly programmes either. I'm very bored and am running out of novels!

 

Plusnet's response has been for me to see how it is after three days. Thanks for that.

 

 

Glad to know it's not just me, then - it's actually like having dial-up at the moment I don't watch that much TV etc but pics are taking about 8 hours to load which is f**king infuriating. I've still not quite got the hang of reading text which keeps jumping down every 3 seconds as another sig pic appears. Still, at least you can phone Plusnet and swear at someone who understands you...

[Pete-M]

  HillmanImp said:

Sorry, I do try and keep out of the arguments about pensions but I get bloody angry when I read all the boooolocks in the press about the public sector pensions.

 

 

Hopefully this will be helpful to anyone affected by the changes to the pensions and also reassure everyone that the unions are talking out of their arses for a change.

 

Be careful. Truth confuses the Labour party faithful. You'll be accused of being some sort of "I'm alright Jack" Daily Mail reading cunt by Autoshite's Union Rep soon.

 

(Which is another grump altogether)

[Danblez]

Fuggin fuel shortage, before the tanker drivers have even started strike action. Is this because of people panic buying already?

 

I passed 5 petrol stations on the way to work, 3 completely empty, 1 with only unleaded and one with unleaded and V-power diesel.

 

Supposed to be going away at the weekend, feeling a bit nervous about fuel already. May need to see if I can get some cherry from somewhere!

[dollywobbler]

Hmmm. That's a bit worrying seeing as I'm in North Wales tomorrow and South Wales on Saturday. 2CV tomorrow - that small fuel tank can be a disadvantage at times like this! I think I should have enough juice in it for the trip. Similar story with the Maverick. I shall have to be easy on the hoof!

 

Continuing the internet grump, Plusnet have finally decided that there might be an issue. After two days. They've now passed my problem to another team so they can ignore it.

[Danblez]

  dollywobbler said:

Hmmm. That's a bit worrying seeing as I'm in North Wales tomorrow and South Wales on Saturday. 2CV tomorrow - that small fuel tank can be a disadvantage at times like this! I think I should have enough juice in it for the trip. Similar story with the Maverick. I shall have to be easy on the hoof!

 

Continuing the internet grump, Plusnet have finally decided that there might be an issue. After two days. They've now passed my problem to another team so they can ignore it.

 

I was with Plusnet for a few years and only ever had one issue which was good but I was not impressed with the way they sorted it. It took a week even though I had seen BT digging outside my bloody house hours before I lost all contact with the outside world.

 

3/10 must try harder.

[cort16]

The internet companies need to stop pissing about making people with already fast broadbands, broadband faster and concentrate on getting people with shit broadband speeds up to an acceptable level.

I think the 20mb type speeds are only available to very few and most of us are scrabbling around trying to get 1 or 2 mb. On a good day I'll be lucky to see download speeds of 50k per second, which will barely drive internet radio and you can pretty much forget about i-player or youtube. I recon 2mb (200k per second) is a basic requirement for usable interweb.

[dollywobbler]

To be fair t'Plusnet, last time we had an issue, they were pretty prompt at getting BT out, with the usual "you'll have to pay if they find no problem." The wire from pole to our house was changed (might even have been just the last bit thinking about it) and our broadband ended up twice as fast. Pretty chuffed about that as we were topping 3mB at times. They've been very poor this time though, just delaying tactics and not doing a thing about the problem.

[MrDuke]

Not sure whether to put this in the Grump or Grin thread, but overall I'm a bit grumpy, so...

 

Grins

Mrs_duke has finally agreed to consider the possibility that I may be allowed to entertain the idea of selling the Ashtray and buying something old, or at least shite. This is a frankly incredible development. After some arguing about the Triumph 1500 on the blue forum, she agreed on a minty Mk4 Escort on t'Bay, which had me very slightly damp.

 

 

Grumps

I was highest bidder on said car until 5 seconds to go, when it jumped £20. I was poised in readiness, and got in another bid - except my internetz decided it was going much too quickly and slowed to dial-up speeds once again, losing me the car. Although this was probably just as well, as it's only worth about 60% of what I would've paid.

Never mind, think I, there'll be loads more chod about to tempt me... but after spending 2 hours on eBay and various forums, I've seen nowt worth seriously considering. Plenty of crusty projects, plenty of minty things just out of price range, but nothing that quite fits.

I'd normally be happy to wait, but the Ashtray is due for tax & insurance renewal at the end of the month, so if I don't find something suitable I'll be stuck with it for another 12 months, unless someone does a policy allowing me to insure it as a car, which I very much doubt.

 

In spite of all this, it's a bit hard to stay miserable when the sun's been out constantly for 4 whole days

[trigger]

My old Mk4 Escort 1.6 GL that i sold last year was a fantastic car, It's one of those cars i regret selling now as i don't know how it's being treated.

[Danblez]

  MrDuke said:

Not sure whether to put this in the Grump or Grin thread, but overall I'm a bit grumpy, so...

 

Grumps

I was highest bidder on said car until 5 seconds to go, when it jumped £20. I was poised in readiness, and got in another bid - except my internetz decided it was going much too quickly and slowed to dial-up speeds once again, losing me the car. Although this was probably just as well, as it's only worth about 60% of what I would've paid.

Never mind, think I, there'll be loads more chod about to tempt me... but after spending 2 hours on eBay and various forums, I've seen nowt worth seriously considering. Plenty of crusty projects, plenty of minty things just out of price range, but nothing that quite fits.

I'd normally be happy to wait, but the Ashtray is due for tax & insurance renewal at the end of the month, so if I don't find something suitable I'll be stuck with it for another 12 months, unless someone does a policy allowing me to insure it as a car, which I very much doubt.

 

In spite of all this, it's a bit hard to stay miserable when the sun's been out constantly for 4 whole days

 

MrDuke do you not use AuctionSniper? Manual bidding is for LOZERZ!

[Rover414]

Local petrol station is out of fuel, so had to go to the more expensive (as if that were possible in this climate) petrol station around the corner. The only plus side of this was that £10 in the tank meant it was half full after spluttering down for fuel.

[myglaren]

  Rover414 said:

Local petrol station is out of fuel, so had to go to the more expensive (as if that were possible in this climate) petrol station around the corner. The only plus side of this was that £10 in the tank meant it was half full after spluttering down for fuel.

Not good news as my "Go and buy fuel" lamp lit this afternoon and the BP station I passed moments later is charging £1.49L.

The reserve should last a couple of days

 

Spent a couple of hours farting around trying to get the tailgate glass to open, been getting around to it for eighteen months now. Fixed a couple of breaks in the wiring only to find the microswitch is cabbaged.

 

In the coldest of weather last winter it would randomly open on its own, otherwise nothing.

Should have put it off for a bit longer, the car might just catch fire and would have saved me the bother.

[Negative Creep]

We won't run out of fuel. Or at least we wouldn't if idiots weren't rushing to the pump thanks to sensationalist Mail/Express headlines. Only another 203 days of juice left in mine, passed one station that was 141.9 on the way home........

[Guest]

I haven't seen or heard anything about a fuel shortage outside of the Internet. In fact, I went to the garage on the way home and I was the only car there (which was slightly odd).