The grumpy thread

[trigger]

Remind me never to upset you Warren!

[eddyramrod]

Warren:

 

You are Robert McCall and I claim my five pounds!

[ayd]

just had a quote to have the timing belt done on the A4...

 

One day I must learn how to do timing belts

[RedSparrow]

Did you really do all that Warren!? If so massive respect for standing up to one of these dicks.

 

[warren t claim]

  RedSparrow said:

Did you really do all that Warren!? If so massive respect for standing up to one of these dicks.

 

 

Evil Warren did it all. I try to keep him under control though. I'm sick to the back teeth of agencies flouting their own contracts and treating people like shit.

 

In real life I'm really quite a nice person who just wants everyone to be happy but for various reasons I'm totally skint through no fault of my own and feel like I was backed into a corner. All the agency had to do was honour their obligations to their workers.

[Caffiend]

Repeat ad infinitum "I am bloody lucky to HAVE a job".

 

Even if the NHS can't be bothered to tell me where I'll be in 8 months time, although every single one of the new organisations created by Mr Lansley's brainwave will need what I do. Even though one of said "shadow" organisations is claiming my work as their own (funny that, I don't remember being invited to any of your communications events or receiving a letter telling me that you would keep my mortgage paid after 31 March 2013).

Even though I'm doing 2+ people's work because everyone who is moving onto bigger brighter things apparently doesn't have time to do the boring old stuff, so it gets dumped on our team of 6 which has 1 person out sick, 1 person on gardening leave (disciplinary/capability) and another on the verge of going into capability.

Even though every other phone call or e-mail I get is nagging me about something that I just have not had time to deal with.

Even though the stress is so intense that I actually broke down in tears at a meeting this morning - and I NEVER cry, especially not at work. The least little thing is just sending me over the edge at the moment.

 

There are so many people worse off than me. So many. But I am crumbling under the pressure of doing more and more and more and never apparently making a fucking difference. I'm on the verge of being one of those lazy public sector bastards who is signed off by their GP with stress, because I really don't know how much longer I can keep up with having more and more dumped on me.

[Negative Creep]

Oh sweet, my router has packed up. Now I'll have to go back to looking in hedges to try and find my "research"

[willswitchengage]

Facebook's stock price chart:

 

 

That's nearly $50bn wiped from its value in two months

 

Can't wait for the dotcom bubble burst part 2...

[vulgalour]

  Caffiend said:

NHS staff treated like crap

 

Yes, a million times yes. I've done a few stints in NHS admin on agency contracts, forever hoping to get it full time and it never materialising. Almost all the people I worked with doing secretarial roles were ridiculously overworked and whenever a Doctor or manager wombled in to ask for something, they would always manage to pull whatever was needed out of their already thinly stretched time to satisfy them. NHS admin people are not paid enough, not those at the bottom, to do the job that's demanded of them. There is enough money in the system for all the admin to be fairly paid and distributed, but the further up the chain you go, the less work and more money you seem to get.

 

You have my deepest and most sincere sympathies, Caffeind, because from what I've seen it doesn't get better until you do get granted gardening leave. For a thing that's supposed to help with keeping people healthy, the NHS has a very odd attitude towards the daily well being of the hardest working in the staff chain. I hope you get a resolution to it all, I really do.

[dollywobbler]

It's ok. The way the Tories are going, there won't be an NHS for much longer. Far better to shove everything out to third party companies, who'll make a fortune and just keep a few underpaid, over-worked people to run it all. If all the exploited folk who make the current system work just said "hold on a minute, this is bollocks!" the gov would be screwed. As it is, the wonderful people who keep going through all this grimness are just more and more exploited for their charity and kindness. The whole NHS thing really annoys me.

[willswitchengage]

  dollywobbler said:

The whole NHS thing really annoys me.

 

Can't wait for the 30year rule to take effect and the DoH's internal "risks of the NHS reforms" or whatever report it was they refused to publish is released.

 

[Caffiend]

I wish I was a secretary volks, because in our Trust they do absolutely FUCK ALL - even taking minutes of meetings is "too stressful" for way too many of them. No, I'm not joking. Frankly DW - when I look at some of my colleagues, I can't help sometimes thinking that Andrew Lansley had a fucking point. There are a lot of lazy arse freeloaders who would have been given their P45 a long time ago in the commercial sector (I'm not an NHS lifer, only 3 years in - worked in corporate and charity sectors up til then). There are a lot of good people too though and we only do it because there are people who need the NHS at the end of what we do (i.e. the patients, even if some of them are fucking ungrateful cunts who need to realise that we are people - and taxpayers as well actually - too).

 

What I do (several of the things I do actually) is/are fairly specialist. I actually quite like most of the work - there's just too sodding much of it. If I was out for more than a week or two I'm sure they'd somehow muddle through without me. If my boss (awesome - we keep each other marginally sane because she's under even more pressure than I am - at least she gets paid to take it ) was out - and it terrifies me that she might be, she's just as close to meltdown as I am - then we'd probably just about cope: I don't have the authority, but sufficient knowledge to advise someone who can make decisions (said advice in some instances might be 'OK, we will have to get outside legal support'). If my boss AND I were out at the same time they would be totally and utterly fucked.

 

I'd do as much paid overtime as they like if it would help me catch up a bit - at least the point would be being made that the resource allowed is insufficient to the scale of the workload. I refuse to work more than 4-5 hours (unpaid) overtime every week - that way lies madness and more work being dumped on me (been there, done that in other jobs, I would definitely end up being sectioned if I went down that road in this NHS role).

[Caffiend]

  willswitchengage said:

Can't wait for the 30year rule to take effect and the DoH's internal "risks of the NHS reforms" or whatever report it was they refused to publish is released.

 

No need to wait that long.

 

Share and enjoy.

[Pete-M]

The NHS thing annoys me as well.

 

What also annoys me is people saying "It's all the fault of the Tories" when Labour spent all the money in the kitty, everything in reserve and tons more on top. It's as if people think that if Labour had somehow been voted back in this time that we'd all be living in some magical fairyland where money grows on trees and there'll be more cash for all of us every year forever.

 

The NHS needs protecting, but it also needs to get shut of quite probably half of the middle management pen pushers. Councils need to get rid of those who're pulling a long term "stress" sicky and basically this country does need a bloody good shake up. Thing is, nobody can do anything without being slagged off by Unions and other lefty 'rights' organisations.

 

A girl I know works in a hospital as a cleaner. She is NEVER in work, always on the sick, always got a sick note for something or other when there's pretty much never anything wrong with her. First few weeks of the year she "had flu", so she was off for about three weeks, paid. Then she sprained her wrist moving something (this was actually an injury sustained playing Michael Jackson's Dance on the Wii when she 'had the flu'), another couple of weeks off, paid. Then she was off for a week on holiday. Paid. Then back to work for a couple of weeks, 'tripped' and chipped a bone in her foot in work (pissed walk home from the pub incident in reality), two months off work, paid. She went back to work a couple of weeks ago and the first day back she booked a fortnights holiday. The health authority had her in a couple of times for 'reviews' and sent a few threatening letters regarding her time off, all she had to do was call the Union, go to her local GP and get another sick note and show that at the review and she was all in the clear again. It's a joke. It's August now and I doubt she's done more than months work this year, but she's taken home a pretty decent wage every week.

 

To me, it's pretty fucking obvious that she's taking the piss on a massive scale, but if her employers send her a letter or say anything at all about her time off she calls the Union rep in and it gets swept under the rug (by another cleaner, obviously).

 

I know she's not in any way representative of proper health care workers, a relative of mine has just had a hip replacement and the hospital staff were absolutely brilliant, but NHS office staff appear to be workshy lazy cunts when offered any sort of excuse to bugger off on the sick for six months. Not just NHS staff either, council workers are at least as bad.

 

How do you fix it though? Sack those who're taking the piss? The Unions won't allow that. There's no government money left after the great Labour splurge so we've got to pay all these malingering twats or change how the country is managed. Vote Labour back in and they'll just pump huge amounts of borrowed money into 'development groups' and give the Unions whatever they want "Because the option would harm the state". Let the Tories manage it and there'll be loads of strikes because the Unions don't pay for or like the Tories. Vote Lib Dem and they will fuck it up from every angle trying to keep everyone happy.

 

My work involves dealing with a lot of councils. Two years ago the staff didn't give a fuck about their work. Now the ones who're still there know they have to do something or they'll be for the chop. Lots of the dead wood staff is getting cut, and personally, I think it's a good thing. I go to work and work bloody hard, I take pride in doing my job as well as I can. Go and try to deal with staff in Wolverhampton Council and you'll see a perfect example of why these cuts are actually needed in some areas. They're workshy, work to rule, dotting i's and crossing t's, clock-watching "More than my jobsworth" twats on the whole. If they were in the private sector the majority of 'em would be fucked right off for being shit at their jobs. Why should government 'workers' be exempt from having to actually do a bit, AND getting gold plated bloody pensions on top?

 

It's simple, Labour used government jobs as a way of artificially lowering the dole queues. They hired hundreds of thousands of lazy workshy cunts to work in councils and paid them with money the country never actually had. Unfortunately, these same workshy cunts all joined unions and now go on strike if there's the slightest chance of a few weeks doing bugger all instead of doing their jobs. If the Coalition sack 'em all the Unions will try and stop the country and Labour will point at the unemployment figures and say "We had low unemployment figures"... which seems to be all some people can see.

[Wilko220]

Agree with pretty much all of that. A bit depressing really...

[eddyramrod]

We need a "standing ovation" emoticon; well said Pete.

[Caffiend]

  Pete-M said:

... but some NHS office staff appear to be workshy lazy cunts when offered any sort of excuse to bugger off on the sick for six months and the rest appear to be workshy lazy cunts when they go off sick from insane stress after having to pick up the work of the actual workshy lazy cunts.

 

FTFY.

 

Signed

 

A workshy lazy cunt who wonders how politicians and the media (who particularly hate us) think that they are going to get reporting on over 600 targets and full compliance with records management, data protection and Freedom of Information without a few workshy lazy cunts to number crunch and paper push a bit. Better me (not clinically trained) than a doctor (Excel? What?), surely ...

[willswitchengage]

Why would David Cameron need to spend millions of pounds on political advertising in 2015 when he can get people ranting on the Internet instead?

 

Edit: Political rhetoric is boring. "The Tories are privatising the NHS" "Labour employed everybody to reduce the dole queues". Makes a nice column in one of the red-tops but has about as much substance as Nick Clegg. See what I did there? Satire... boom.

[Pete-M]

It's insanity. I know that the lazy workshy cunts massively increase the load on those who're actually capable of turning up and doing a bit, but you know as well as I do what would happen if the powers that be sacked the workshy ones and the Unions got involved.

 

Some of the workshy ones would turn up every morning and stand outside with placards, some other lazy workshy sods who're in the same union will come out 'in sympathy', the likes of the Daily Mirror will splash "TORIES DESTROY NHS" on the front page every day for a month and the workshy sods will be reinstated. Only to go on the sick a week later with "stress related to the strike".

[Lankytim]

Talking of dead wood, my career at an electronics firm seemed to be going OK, got pretty good position with a little responsibility and a promise of further training. After my mum died things got a little on top of me so I asked to step down from that position for a while and do some of the more "bread and butter" stuff while I got my head sorted out (that included few pills from the docs). I'm feeling quite a bit better now- still on the pills but things are deffo on the up, mind-wise, except my previous position has now been given away for good (to the directors son) so im stuck doing the lower end shite. Got called in to the office today over performance issues (i'm not sleeping well and find it hard to concentrate on anything, hence the work I do is total shit atm, so the boss has a point) and told the next step is a disciplinary, and that any kind of training/future I had been promised is now cancelled.

 

Time for a new job.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

There is no reason to be partisan about the NHS. The facts are simple. The NHS does do some good work, but it's very expensive for what it is compared to what's going on in France and elsewhere. There are plenty of reasons for that. Instead of trying to understand said reasons, Labour want to throw more money at it (i.e. make it even more expensive in the hope that they can get some marginal improvements) in order to have influence on their union friends, while the Tories want to sack people (which could be a good idea as long as you do it AFTER you've decided on exactly what it is that you need), in order to get rid of Labour's union friends. The Lib Dems don't matter anymore, so the conclusion of all this is that we're royally fucked. Sod's law says that we'll end up with an even more expensive system delivering even less, as a lot of the better people will have been paid to leave.

[eddyramrod]

  Lankytim said:

my previous position has now been given away for good (to the directors son) ... any kind of training/future I had been promised is now cancelled.

 

Time for a new job.

 

Damn right it is! Best of luck Tim.

[Cavcraft]

Oh great another political debate to raise the tone and improve the general mood on AS. What a crock of fucking bollocks, let's all blame Tories/labour/unions/whoever, it always makes fucking great reading on here

[trigger]

Aye, It's a CAR FORUM.

[Wilko220]

  Cavette said:

Oh great another political debate to raise the tone and improve the general mood on AS. What a crock of fucking bollocks, let's all blame Tories/labour/unions/whoever, it always makes fucking great reading on here

 

To be fair, Cav, it's kind of what this thread is for. There's still the rest of AS to enjoy...

[DSdriver]

Didn't we go through all this before with a gentleman in the USA?

[willswitchengage]

NHS too bloated? If we want to be like the apparently "better" systems in France and that, then maybe we should spend more:

 

World health spending per capita

 

Of course, it would have to be spent more efficiently too And to all those who hate the unions, just think how boring your next AGM would be without their representatives

[Cavcraft]

  Wilko220 said:

  Cavette said:

Oh great another political debate to raise the tone and improve the general mood on AS. What a crock of fucking bollocks, let's all blame Tories/labour/unions/whoever, it always makes fucking great reading on here

 

To be fair, Cav, it's kind of what this thread is for. There's still the rest of AS to enjoy...

 

Absolutely but it's always politics that starts the real arguments on here.

[Albert Ross]

Is it FUCK! It's religion that starts wars. Oh, and Hitler.

[willswitchengage]

All new cars are shit - discuss