The grumpy thread

[shite_meister]

Thanks SM, she's ok but just aggrieved that someone would do that. Small mercy but at least she's not hurt or worse. We're going to give her some money in her birthday card and get her a cake to cheer her up.Can't get away from images of causing extreme pain to the bastards that did it but alas we'll probably never find out who it was.Know what you mean about bad manners and it's a constant source of annoyance to me.It's nice when you're not in a rush or desperate to sell things as I find ignoring the rude ones completely and waiting for the first person with some manners to come along works a treat.I also honestly believe that the bad mannered/semi agressive toned ones will probably be complete timewasters anyhow.I swear to God I deal with these people on a daily basis and no matter how carefully I word things etc I ALWAYS get one dickhead who's completely ignored what I said and offered something I said I didn't want as a deal or used 'text talk'.Got offered out the other night via the internet, obtained his phone number from someone else and asked what his address was.'Soz M8 fort u was sum1 else' was the text message I got after he wouldn't answer his phone

Ah all old dears are a fan of the cake so that'll cheer her up, still not fair though.Going back to messages with no manners, I know what you mean about people not taking any notice of what you've read, I listed an instrument cluster last week on a model-specific forum, three of the four lines in the paragraph described how the fuel guage might not be working only to have some berk who had no intention of buying it post the next message of "It looks like fuel guage isn't working in the pics" luckily someone else saw this and took the piss Then I had a message that read just: "what do you want price?" no hello or cheers and this is despite putting the asking price in the ad, why ask me what I want for it when if you read the sodding advert you will see??? ARRRGGGG!!!!!!!

[Lankytim]

I'd like to moan about the credit crunch. I was made redundant as an HGV driver during the summer, a week or so after finding out the wife was expecting our first child. In this siuation a job is very important.I was lucky and managed to bag a "temporary" job delivering cars on trade plates. This involves hitchhiking in the rain and getting stranded, im self employed and paid per job and as such the hourly wage works out at approx 4 quid an hour.Ive been trying to get back on the trucks for a while, but thanks to the crunch the market is awash with redundant HGV drivers, plus everyone else is spending their redundancy on training to be an HGV driver- as a result, the rate has gone through the floor and finding employment is next to impossible. What is available is agency work. You know the type, 1 or 2 days a week if you're lucky.. Ususally theres nothing though. All the EU drivers over in Crewe seem to find employment though their local agency, when I sign up I get fuck all, dispite them being "very busy".That brings me onto another point, agencies being full of shit. Since when does "were desperate for class 1 drivers" equate to me sat at home? Seems they were all desperate yesterday, but not today. Or tomorrow. I think they just want a full compliment of drivers on their books just incase a monsoon of work inexplicably appears. Anyway, im not working today as theres no cars to deliver. So im ringing around and following rumours of places maybe needing a driver. Not getting anywhere though. Come February there will be a little one to look after and Mrs Lankytim will be on her maternity. Hopefully ill have found something by then...Oh yeah, I sent our mortgage provider a letter asking for a 9 month payment holiday, seeing as were going to be pretty badly fucked for money. Their answer? No. Wrote to them again asking for 6 months. Still no. Bread and water for the new year then, just aslong as the banks get their bonuses. Fucking arseholes.I know many people are in the same situation as me, many are far worse off. But its fucking soul destroying to have every avenue of opportunity closed off one by one, until all you have is a web browser with autoshite on it and a Lidl own brand kit-kat for comfort.

[Guest]

One part of the recession I particularly hate is all the people who go aloof and submissive in response to any complaint about working conditions, because somehow the remaining workers deserve nothing.Quite hard to explain neatly, but it's like the following - I understand the need for some cuts and changes, but I feel some employers are using the recession as an excuse to do things that they wouldn't normally get away with doing, justifying it by saying "it's the credit crunch". Meanwhile you've got all these smug people going "Well, we should all feel lucky to have a job" and playing directly into the hands of management - don't they realise they're making it worse for everyone? If you have an attitude like that, we'll all be working 60 hours a week on half-pay long after any recession has passed, because the management will be able to do what they like with no consequence. They're digging their own grave and taking everyone else with them and it stinks.Best of luck with the job search Mr Lanky, agencies aren't particularly popular on here I have to say.

[Cheggers]

Good luck with the job hunt LT. Not sure if it helps, but I've been told by my mortgage provider that they wouldn't let me have a payment holiday because of redundancy/ general hardship, but they would if I were taking time out to study.Flower arranging course p'raps

[Cavcraft]

Have you got an ADR by any chance Tim?If so pm please and I'll ask the drivers I know if there's owt going.

[Lankytim]

PM'd Cavette...Hirst you are absolutley right about employers using the recession to take the piss a bit. Longer hours, less money... "lucky to have a job at all" .

[retrogeezer]

Hope you get something sorted lankytim.....

employers using the recession to take the piss a bit. Longer hours, less money... "lucky to have a job at all" .

I found those problems at companies where I worked before the recession!

[ashmicro]

I know what you mean about bad manners!Yesterday morning, my contact in a large Belfast law firm phoned me in a category 5 panic - network issues. At this point I should tell you all that I usually dress informally, as grubbing around under desks and in PP cabs is a dirty business.So, I bowled up, toolcase in one hand, laptop in the other. Feckin moody cow on the desk just said "Yes?" - No "Hello", "Can I help you" or "kiss my arse""I'm here to se XX" quoth I."Do you have an appointment?""No, XX asked me to come in"At this point XX, the senior partner walked into the foyer, called me by my first name, shook my hand and told moody cow to get me whatever I wanted.I have to say, the temptation to say "Three Latvian Hookers and a bottle of Scotch" was damn near irresistible.Good manners would've cost that woman nothing. I didn't shop her, though.

[Volksy]

I decided a few months ago to resign from my position, been with them for two and a bit years, responsible for sole running of a divison of the business, 50% to be exact. It might seem like madness at this stage of the 'credit crunch' to do something like that. But after they cut my staffing budget to almost nil over a period of 6 months, meaning that I had to be on call 24/7, i'd had enough.So started looking for a job, everyone was saying 'you must be mad, there is no work out there' & 'We advertised a job last week and got eleventy thousand applications for it'.... Yes there is a LOT of people looking for work, but 95% of applicants have no experience and are just chancing their luck/applying for anything. I registered with loads of job websites, Totaljobs Jobstoday and Monster seem like the best ones. The main problem was that a huge amount of companies have despensed with their HR depts, so all recruitment is farmed out to agencies, which is toss. You generally have to get past a spotty 21 year old oik, who knows sweet FA about the position offered, or what skills are relevant to it before your CV even crosses the desk of someone who knows what they want i.e. the employer.In the end I have been offered three positions, of which, I took one and then quit after a couple of weeks because what was promised wasn't delivered in any shape or form, another took the employer THREE interviews, two 'spac'titude tests and THREE AND A HALF months to make a decision. (What must they be like to work for if it took this long!). And the third, which I have accepted followed the normal procedure (Two interviews and an offer). All three were positions that I dealt directly with the employer rather than an agency. With a bit of investigative work its easy to cut out the agency, by blagging them to tell you who the employer is and contacting direct. Employers generally pay the agency a finders fee, which can be 20% of the annual salary for the position. So a lot of employers are happy to not have to pay this. It is shite at the moment, as employers know its their market so tend to be dragging their heels in recruiting, I guess waiting for the dream candidate to appear, but be persistant and I'm sure something will come up.. Good Luck!

[shite_meister]

One part of the recession I particularly hate is all the people who go aloof and submissive in response to any complaint about working conditions, because somehow the remaining workers deserve nothing.Quite hard to explain neatly, but it's like the following - I understand the need for some cuts and changes, but I feel some employers are using the recession as an excuse to do things that they wouldn't normally get away with doing, justifying it by saying "it's the credit crunch". Meanwhile you've got all these smug people going "Well, we should all feel lucky to have a job" and playing directly into the hands of management - don't they realise they're making it worse for everyone? If you have an attitude like that, we'll all be working 60 hours a week on half-pay long after any recession has passed, because the management will be able to do what they like with no consequence. They're digging their own grave and taking everyone else with them and it stinks.

We had to pay for our own Christmas party this year because of the 'economic downturn'

I know what you mean about bad manners!Yesterday morning, my contact in a large Belfast law firm phoned me in a category 5 panic - network issues. At this point I should tell you all that I usually dress informally, as grubbing around under desks and in PP cabs is a dirty business.So, I bowled up, toolcase in one hand, laptop in the other. Feckin moody cow on the desk just said "Yes?" - No "Hello", "Can I help you" or "kiss my arse""I'm here to se XX" quoth I."Do you have an appointment?""No, XX asked me to come in"At this point XX, the senior partner walked into the foyer, called me by my first name, shook my hand and told moody cow to get me whatever I wanted.I have to say, the temptation to say "Three Latvian Hookers and a bottle of Scotch" was damn near irresistible.Good manners would've cost that woman nothing. I didn't shop her, though.

Ash you are nothing if not a true gentleman

[Cavcraft]

Pm sent Tim.

[ChinaTom]

Same as you Volksy - as the recession kicked in demands made for the forthcoming period was just totally unrealistic so I flung in the flannel too. Admittedly, I was a mere contractor, not an employee; but more and more responsibility was being given to me yet they didn't give me a formal contract extension of any sort - thereby giving them the right to call me one evening and tell me not to turn up in the morning. They were constantly late paying my invoices, and yet would moan at me if one of the "deliverables" was not bang on time etc. Add this to the fact that I was literally in the middle of nowhere, minus 25 degrees was the daily maximum temperature, the food was shite but they still issued a directive stating the contractors were not allowed to leave site in the evenings to find alternative food arrangements (admittedly, the choices were limited) just in case we should claim any expenses. Worst of all was that my initial 3 month contract requested a 10 hour day, 20 days on and 5 days off (it took 1.5 days to get home, and 1.5 days to get back again), and I found that fairly acceptable; but after the 3 months was up I was told to just keep working and submit invoices. They refused to provide transport for me to get the 5 hours to the nearest airport so I was stuck on site. Between March 2008 and March 2009 I spent exactly 22 days away from site therefore pissing the missus off no end. Each day bar very few I had to hold project meetings at 05:30 and 22:30 daily and obviously a shit load of stuff in between - long bloody days.After a few months of this I planned to call it a day after a brief chat with the CFO of the Group, I was assured I'd be paid for every hour I worked and so I took him at his word. Ultimately, they did cough up, but never on time and patience ran out when they promised to pay extra to work Xmas, but then didn't. I could see the project running out of cash as the banks went into meltdown - their whole financial plan relied on £100m worth of loans from USA and HK banks. It was obvious to me that there would not be any money left to pay my invoices so I completed the build and commissioning phase of one project, then booked a taxi from 400 miles away (quite pricey!!) and headed home indefinitely 3 days before the projects officially stopped.People said I was mad to quit altogether as there is bugger all else out there at the moment, but I'm due a few months off in my opinion. Work here in UK is scarce - that is true; recruitment companies do not have much available at the moment despite their claims. Time therefore to think about what else there is to do outside what you think you can do, or you are used to doing. When something comes along and you see something that you know is wrong, or could be done better - suggest it to the guvernor - you never know, it might lead to a little more work.Really feel for everyone out of work at the moment - nothing to do with Xmas - it is NEVER a good time to be out of work, and feel like there is nothing to do.I'm picking up a little more stuff lately - it's my job to review strategies for companies and if I hear of anything exciting anywhere, I'll find a way to broadcast it here somehow.Autoshite recruiting? There's a thought...Anyway, chin up if you can - the worst is probably over and even if not, the rate of descent seems to have slowed.

[Mr H Sceptre]

AUTOSHITE HR ANNOUNCEMENT:Vacancy: Non-specific classic car analystSalary: £0.00paPension: n/aLocation: Home basedDuties: Well, fairly unspecific really. A Good knowledge of rusty old tat circa 1965-1990 would be very useful, as would a dashed good knowledge of the internet. Just a generally decent knowledge of shitty old cars and fannying about with them would be coolApplication: To the 'management' pleaseSorted.

[ChinaTom]

Will there be any tests? I'm not good at tests.

[Cavcraft]

Dear Mr A. Shite esq,I am writing to apply for the vacancy of 'non-specified car analyst'.I'm 45 years old and have had a lifetime of owning fucking appalling cars and actually enjoying it.I once fell off my C90 on a housing estate when banking it round a corner and the footpeg dug into the road and I was flung off.I can tell a pre-face (faeces?) lift? Cavalier Mk3 from a post-facelift one, have umpteen hours available to spend on the internet and once mended a Fiesta Mk1 bonnet with lollipop sticks, newspaper, mud, chicken wire and a jot of filler.I once owned 15 cars in one go, 13 of which were parked outside the house just to piss the neighbours off, and all of which were bloody terrible.I H8 TXT TLKRS AN PPL WOT WRYTE LIK DAT, have an extremely short fuse and could probably piss enough people off to deter them from ever posting messages again should it be required.I currently work for a bunch of twats who hate me almost as much as I utterly despise them and their very existance.I would expect the pay to be around the square root of eff all as long as you expect my input to be the same.Your's arse-lickingly,A Vaux-Lover. DSO, PSV, HGV. Twice removed, once from the pub.Ps I heart cats and can start 2 years ago.

[Tayne]

,

[Mr H Sceptre]

Dear Mr A. Shite esq,I am writing to apply for the vacancy of 'non-specified car analyst'.I'm 45 years old and have had a lifetime of owning fucking appalling cars and actually enjoying it.I once fell off my C90 on a housing estate when banking it round a corner and the footpeg dug into the road and I was flung off.I can tell a pre-face (faeces?) lift? Cavalier Mk3 from a post-facelift one, have umpteen hours available to spend on the internet and once mended a Fiesta Mk1 bonnet with lollipop sticks, newspaper, mud, chicken wire and a jot of filler.I once owned 15 cars in one go, 13 of which were parked outside the house just to piss the neighbours off, and all of which were bloody terrible.I H8 TXT TLKRS AN PPL WOT WRYTE LIK DAT, have an extremely short fuse and could probably piss enough people off to deter them from ever posting messages again should it be required.I currently work for a bunch of twats who hate me almost as much as I utterly despise them and their very existance.I would expect the pay to be around the square root of eff all as long as you expect my input to be the same.Your's arse-lickingly,A Vaux-Lover. DSO, PSV, HGV. Twice removed, once from the pub.Ps I heart cats and can start 2 years ago.

You appear to be the very person we were looking for.Welcome on board!

[barrett]

I currently work for a bunch of twats who hate me almost as much as I utterly despise them and their very existance.

Yep, just going back to what people are saying about shitty work situations, my bosses are currently fucking me right over in terms of my contract, despite agreeing to increase my hours they have now reneged on it, as they 'can't afford it'...thats right, despite being the world's second largest employer and with a yearly profit of mulitple hundreds of millions, they can't afford to give me an extra £60 a week. nice. I'm pretty sure a verbal contract (which i have, they agreed several times to my new rota, just didn't put it in the system yet) is legally just as binding as a written one, which i plan to point out tonight when they 'sort it out for me'. I would go and get another job, but i'm supposed to be going for an extended 3-6 month trip to America next year (hence why i need the money)and i don't want to start somewhere just to leave again straight away.... but at least i have a job, no matter how shitty, and i feel sorry for those folks that don't, so shouldn't moan....but thats what this thread is for no?

[Pillock]

Budge up a bit, there's not enough room in this boat for us all.I'm taking a 6k pay cut, travelling further, for more responsibility and less breaks and weekend working Why? Because my employer knew full well the best time to rush through a site move was in the middle of a recession just before christmas, and tell everyone "You're lucky to still have a job".Oh, and then fiddle with the job roles so we all have to re-interview, and sign new contracts stating that we're happy with the 24/7/363 rota and the pay scheme.

[Cavcraft]

Usually the bigger the company the more shite they are in my experience, though it's not always the case as I once worked for a company that had five employees: the boss, his son, his daughter, his son in law and myself. Only his son-in-law (who knew what an utter arsehole the boss was) was ok, the rest were tossers.To be fair to my current employers I suppose they're not too bad in the general scheme of things, it's just some of the decisions they make, and their readiness to throw incredibly large sums of money at things they don't need, is mind boggling at times.

[Mr Lobster]

Meh, employers. I'm on holiday this week but that hasn't stopped my boss ringing / texting / generally mithering each and every day so far over stupid trivial shit. I started with the company because I was fed up of travelling, they knew this when I started but still felt it ok to tell me I was being moved to a bigger branch which meant close to 850 miles per week just getting to work and back after I had been with then 12 months. No extra money of course, in fact a small pay cut. But if I didn't do it then 'you have to write to HR saying why you won't do it and then we'll go down a disciplinary route as it's in your contract' Cunts.And then people wonder my my motivation has vanished into the ether and I couldn't give a toss anymore about the job.Still, I suppose one day I'll look back on it and laugh.

[ashmicro]

Usually the bigger the company the more shite they are in my experience

How right you are! When I was in the NICS (Northern Ireland Civil Service) they mucked me about nothing ordinary, so I did likewise. We were required to work a month's notice. The day I resigned, my workmates took me out and got me drunk, and I never went back. What were they going to do? Sack me?Cnuts.

[Cavcraft]

I got so pissed off with my last job I put my motorbike in the back of the van and planned to leave van at my furthest away job, lock van up, chuck keys into the sea and ride my bike home.Didn't see it through in the end but still wish I had.

[Ratdat]

Moan of the day. People who haven't got a clue or are too lazy to repair rust properly, especial when supposedly restoring a car. Some points worth noting for the would be restorer...

1) Welding new metal over the top of rust does not fix it.

2) Putting seam sealer over rust does not fix it.

3) Painting hammerite over rust does not fix it.

4) Putting undeal over rust does not fix it.FFS people just chop the rot out and weld a new bit in

[Cavcraft]

'Homes Under The Hammer'.Yeah, thanks for letting me know you have 17 properties and have just bought a 'bargain' house for £227,000 in cash, you Mockney twats.Cheers me up no end to see how well you've done when I'm sitting here bored with no bastard money to my name In fact television in general is shite: daytime telly watching smug bastards, airheads, oxygen thieving gobshites and wideboys gets right on my bleeding tits.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

^^^^ All those property programmes suck, I absolutely despise them, the people in them and those who watch them. I think they represent a concentration of whatever it is that has left the UK with a devalued currency and a colossal national debt that will take years to pay off. Everyone is quick to jump on 'bankers' as being responsible for the fuggin credit crunch and taking on unsustainable debts that the public now have to pay off, but these programmes show where your average Joe has made a contruibution to the mess. Fuelled by these awful programmes, housing is no longer a matter of buying somewhere to live and a nest-egg for yours or your kids future, but a short-term 'investment', and homebuyers now make their decisions on how much profit they acn expect to make on it rather than whether its a decent home that meets their needs. These programmes flog the idea that you should be able to make a shedload of money by simply being the owner of a house, never mind actually creating any value doing it up or actually doing anything physical at all. 'Yeah I'll buy a house for £100k, in 3 years it should be worth at least £150k' etc etc Everyone (particularly the Daily mail) loves to see property prices going up, its like 'free money' but where does it come from? Well only now do we see where its been coming from for the last few years, the fuggin future taxpayers pocket. 'You dont get something for nothing', these programmes seem to lose sight of that age-old maxim.BASTARDS

[Mr H Sceptre]

^^^^ All those property programmes suck, I absolutely despise them, the people in them and those who watch them. I think they represent a concentration of whatever it is that has left the UK with a devalued currency and a colossal national debt that will take years to pay off. Everyone is quick to jump on 'bankers' as being responsible for the fuggin credit crunch and taking on unsustainable debts that the public now have to pay off, but these programmes show where your average Joe has made a contruibution to the mess. Fuelled by these awful programmes, housing is no longer a matter of buying somewhere to live and a nest-egg for yours or your kids future, but a short-term 'investment', and homebuyers now make their decisions on how much profit they acn expect to make on it rather than whether its a decent home that meets their needs. These programmes flog the idea that you should be able to make a shedload of money by simply being the owner of a house, never mind actually creating any value doing it up or actually doing anything physical at all. 'Yeah I'll buy a house for £100k, in 3 years it should be worth at least £150k' etc etc Everyone (particularly the Daily mail) loves to see property prices going up, its like 'free money' but where does it come from? Well only now do we see where its been coming from for the last few years, the fuggin future taxpayers pocket. 'You dont get something for nothing', these programmes seem to lose sight of that age-old maxim.BASTARDS

Grrrrr, dont even get me started on the horrible fascist bitch Kirstie Allsopp. She's one step away from Goerbels.

[Guest]

4) Putting undeal over rust does not fix it.

Yeah it does, my 323 Estate had loads of underseal on the rear quarter bottoms and they're solid as a rock!

 

 

Balls.

[Roc 24v]

Grrrrr, dont even get me started on the horrible fascist bitch Kirstie Allsopp. She's one step away from Goerbels.

I would though

[garethj]

Grrrrr, dont even get me started on the horrible fascist bitch Kirstie Allsopp. She's one step away from Goerbels.

I have the hots for her, so she's allowed to be Goerbels apprentice My slot for watching TV is from about 8:30-9:30 most evenings so with only 5 channels I get a fair hammering from these property shows. I thought that for good TV you had to empathise with the people on it, and while Kirstie is hawt I just can't feel anything but frustration at people with £200k to spend on a city flat while they spend the big money on a place in the country.Call it envy if you like, I can't deny it. But really don't shove it in my face every other night on TV, please. The only redeeming feature (have I mentioned Ms Allsopp?) is that even with a million quid to spend, the punters still can't buy what they really afford! "Oh I'd love the features of the first house, but in the location of the third one""Well come up with another £750,000 and we'll find one for you