The grumpy thread

[rml2345]

I had a newish hire car and it was shit, but that had nothing to do with it being new and everything to do with it being abysmal.

Is that too objective?

[Albert Ross]

  willswitchengage said:

All new cars are shit - discuss

 

That's bollocks. Only new Vauxhalls are shit!

[Lacquer Peel]

You can prove anything with facts.

[trigger]

New Astra's are shit, I still have nightmares of this hire one i got after my pile up 2 years ago.

 

2010 Vauxhall Astra 1.4 Club by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

[whitevanman]

People on AS have differing opinions, SHOCKER.... personally I blame people for the fuck up, if there was less off them then we would have less problems

[Cavcraft]

  Albert Ross said:

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

 

And Yorkshire, they started a war with Lancashire. It may have been the other way round but that doesn't matter.

[Albert Ross]

Fuck you.... it's still Yorkshire day on this side of the Pennines so bollocks!

[RedSparrow]

Well I hate all of you and I think Stalin was pretty cool.

[Pete-M]

[dollywobbler]

I wish to register a complaint. The last page of posts on this so-called grumpy thread have made me laugh a lot. Action must be taken or I'll report this thread to the Trade Descriptions Police.

[rml2345]

Have a whinge in the grin thread to restore the grumpy/grin balance before the Higgs Boson comes round and nicks everyone's hubcaps...

[willswitchengage]

  trigger said:

New Astra's are shit, I still have nightmares of this hire one i got after my pile up 2 years ago.

 

2010 Vauxhall Astra 1.4 Club by Trigger's Retro Road Tests!, on Flickr

 

My Dad has the 1.7CDTi of this, an 07 - the engine's okay, quite smokey already at 80k, noisy (for a diesel) and rough. Sadly that, the Polish made bit of the car, is probably the best part. They've used bargain-bin plastics everywhere on the interior, everything feels like it's about to fall off and you don't have to poke around for long to realise how lazily it's been designed. Do Opel get all the reject German engineering graduates? On the plus side the ride is good for a modern car on low profiles, it's very spacious/practical inside and it's been 100% reliable.

[Cavcraft]

  Albert Ross said:

Fuck you.... it's still Yorkshire day on this side of the Pennines so bollocks!

 

I know, I'm still deep behind enemy lines near F*l*y but luckily we managed to avoid a few odd blokes sticking flat caps up their trouser legs and waving whippets in the air.

[cort16]

Just consumed some super glue after trying to get the lid off with my teeth. Doesn't taste as bad as expected although still not great.

[STUNO]

  cort16 said:

Just consumed some super glue after trying to get the lid off with my teeth. Doesn't taste as bad as expected although still not great.

 

This will become suitable for the grumpy thread AFTER the glue sets. As things stand it is a big grin

[warren t claim]

I suppose it's strange getting a text from my ex signed off with her new surname. Well weird from my perspective though.

[DSdriver]

The impossibleness of light fittings: energy saving bulbs weigh a lot more than the good old British ones and the one I want, a full spectrum bulb suitable for a dimmer switch is only available in screw thread fixings. So I have to add the weight of an adapter as well because no one in the UK seems to sell cord grip pendants with a screw fixing.

I am not happy about having this mish mash all hanging from the ceiling in our lounge, apart from the problem that it is going to look bloody ugly, it'll probably pull the whole ceiling down what with it being the best part of three hundred years old.

[cheguava]

  DSdriver said:

So I have to add the weight of an adapter as well because no one in the UK seems to sell cord grip pendants with a screw fixing.

 

Sorry if you've already checked, but don't either IKEA or Clas Ohlson (or however they spell it) sell them with a screw fitting? Most of the bulbs for their lights were a screw fit last time I looked.

[chaseracer]

[John F]

  chaseracer said:

  eddyramrod said:

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

Really? Well, since this particular "workshy cunt" sent you some money in your recent time of need, feel free to send it right the fuck back.

 

Easy, fella. Pete's comment was a sweeping generalisation, but one that rings true for a lot of people. There are always going to be exceptions, glad to hear you're one of them.

[dollywobbler]

Aye. As John F says, Pete isn't saying that EVERYONE who works in the public sector is work-shy but bloody hell there are a lot of them. Not like the private sector isn't similarly affected (especially as it gets ever harder to sack useless people) but in my experience (yes, actual experience, not just what I read in a paper) there are an awful lot of pension-cruisers in public institutions.

 

But as said earlier, there are also people who work bloody hard, who then get exploited by managers, politicians and the work-shy.

[chaseracer]

  John F said:

Easy, fella. Pete's comment was a sweeping generalisation, but one that rings true for a lot of people. There are always going to be exceptions, glad to hear you're one of them.

Well, that's just the point, isn't it? I'm NOT an exception. The great majority of the people I work with - and yes, REPRESENT, as their elected union officer - flog their guts out daily for very little in the way of pay or, it would seem, respect.

[Pete-M]

I deal with a lot of councils every month, trying to get the exact same end result from all of them. I always have all the relevant information they request and more that may possibly be needed in order to get what I need doing done. What I need doing takes around 25 minutes and costs around £170 with most councils. I arrive with all paperwork filled in correctly on all the relevant forms and for the council droid it's simply a case of five minutes of photocopying, a couple of minutes of data entry and a few items printing. Simple, or so you'd think. Most councils deal with it easily and with no hassle. Appointments aren't needed in a lot of places because it's simple to do and a good money earner for the council. Some councils are brilliant. Torfaen in Wales are superb. Hartlepool are good, Liverpool are excellent, Bradford aren't wonderful but it's easy enough to make it painless.

 

Yet some councils, Wolverhampton for example, to do the exact same thing takes a minimum of three days, costs £350 and involves three two hundred mile round trips for me because they make me take the relevant paperwork to them on one day to book an appointment (they won't accept email copies or fax of the documents they need, even though I bring them to the appointment and they photocopy them then..), come back on the second day for the appointment and then return again on a third day to collect the paperwork I need from them. They will not under any circumstances do things an easier way. If I arrive 10 minutes early they make me wait (and invariably start the meeting 15 minutes late), but if I'm 2 minutes late the whole process has to start again from scratch with new appointments as "The appointment was meant to start at 2pm, you arrived at 2:02pm so the meeting has been cancelled. We can't wait around all day".. The whole process to do what needs doing at Wolves is the same as everywhere else, but they string it out as much as possible. I've seen them make people redo forms because they've entered information ever so slightly outside their little boxes for info. It's manually entered into the computer system, but if you don't put the info exactly in the little boxes they make you do it again. If refilling the form takes too long they send you away to fill it in and make you book another appointment. If you make too many mistakes redoing the form they tell you they'll have to send you the form in the post (despite there being stacks of the form needed behind the counter). Insanity. If you even jokingly mention that they're taking the piss a bit they call out their supervisor and cancel the meeting "for unreasonable behaviour". This, of course, results in another appointment and starting again from scratch. This would simply not happen in a private sector business as nobody would use them, but because it's the council they get away with it. This is what needs sorting in the public sector. Wolves have around 10 staff doing a job that Birmingham council do with four staff, Liverpool with three, Cardiff with two and some other big cities only one. Despite having 10 people to do a one person job they still manage to fuck it up royally every single time.

 

IF Wolves council staff were efficient, friendly and as good as the majority of the rest of the councils around the country, they'd get respect. As it is, they're utter wankers who should all be fired. From a cannon.

 

Anyway.....

[Albert Ross]

I live on a street where there is a Council Maintenance yard for the building/plumbing/gardening teams. EVERY Friday, without fail, we have a queue of Council vans from around 2pm, sitting by the Park entrance, and they sit there until about 4:02. Then there's a steady departure, much like the Lombard Rally. On other days, they sit there from about 15:30.... It's a sign that they don't want to help sweep the yard, or do overtime. They all park their private cars on the Street, sometimes obstructing the Council yard gates, to a point that they have trouble getting in and out. On one memorable occasion, a van reversed out of the gates in heavy snow, without paying attention to traffic (ME!) I used the horn, he kept coming. I stopped and used the horn. He kept coming. I was now blocking the area he was reversing into. I had to scream out of the window at him. I got his attention, and asked him why he had no Banksman. Silence. Nothing. He drove back into the yard. I left my Land Rover in the street, and went to find him and his supervisor. (He had run into the office...... supervisor was on his way) I explained that it was a busy street with many cars using it, those of people who lived there... the weather was poor, and visibility limited due to the cars belonging to the van drivers.... "Where was the Banksman?" Erm.... " You seem to know a lot about our business".. He said.... and told me it wouldn't happen again. They're also more than workshy. Where they sit and wait for the hooter to blow, there's an old lady in Council accomodation, and her hedge mostly overhangs the pavement, sometimes into the roadway... they are gardeners., Do they trim it back? Do they fuck.

[Vanny]

  Albert Ross said:

Where they sit and wait for the hooter to blow.

 

Make the fuckers do performance related job work, that is, there assigned a job to be done in x hours but only paid if its done correctly and well. I guarantee that if the time and rate is set correctly, efficiency will go through the roof, costs will go down, and the Council will suddenly find everything becomes easy.

 

 

Hopefully there will be enough time left for councils to set about banning ass hole wanna be boy racers towing two wheel twat boxes (caravans) from using the public highway (for which they pay no extra for the hassle, danger and carnage they cause). Tossers.

[Negative Creep]

agree with most of that, but surely she could sort her garden herself?

[vulgalour]

Today's grump is: scrubbing dog poo out of a tyre tread. I wouldn't have done it, but it was the tyre that needed to go in the boot and while the interior might be the same colour, I didn't particularly fancy driving around surrounded by a miasma of poop. Hmm... Miasma of Poop sounds like a comedy thrash metal band.

[Ross_K]

Shower of council cunts. Pissing away money which came out of MY FUCKING POCKET.

 

Efficiency? Value for money? What the fuck are those concepts? Don't ask a council worker, he wouldn't have a scooby.

 

I could go on a rant for the evening but I can feel my blood pressure rising...

[Albert Ross]

  Negative Creep said:

agree with most of that, but surely she could sort her garden herself?

 

 

NO, she's an old lady, this privet hedge just goes fucking mental.... It's the hedge that was there when she moved in..... There's a row of pensioner Cottages.

[whitevanman]

can I just say as a council worker, I work damn hard, take lots of grief from an uncaring, ignorant, badly behaved, disrespectful shower of people called " the rest of society" I work about 2 hours a day free to enable me to cover for the employees that are actually work shy...so if you think I am robbing you, then maybe you should try my job....oh and I have mostly worked in the private sector so I do know what I am on about.....