The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[Mr Larrington]

Feels like a trap, that is a good way to explain it, when you experience the American customer service the first time. It is weird, you are really not sure what to do and say when a person is so keen on helping you, even without asking.

And greeters. Someone standing there in the entrance of the store with nothing better to do that deliver a smile that's probably 75% pharmaceutical and ask how your day is going and do you need any help? I'm always tempted to ask, sotto voce, if they can help me get the body out of the trunk and bury it.

They've got greeters in my local Homebase.  I expect them in Home Depot, purveyors of fine International Signal Orange anbaric plugs, but not from what used to be the Wallpaper Paste Division of Sainsbury's.

[Cudzoziemiec]

My sister's house is late Victorian and I suspect has the original letter box. Even a small card won't fit through. I guess more paper, more money, fewer servants.

Our Georgian letterbox is nailed up. We use the 1980's one, which is large, so large that you could get two cats fighting through it, or maybe a small cow. We get delivery notes scrawled on delivered boxes  saying "couldn't fit this in your wheelie bin, so tried the letterbox".

Your small cow is in the post.

It's arrived!!

And I was out, so just as well it fitted 

I do hope it hasn't got TB!

You might have to borrow Flatus's dog for when it shits on your kitchen floor. 

[nicknack]

We spent £2.7k on sorting the bathroom plumbing out last week. We've been here 18 months and are still discovering the bodges of the last 3 owners of the place.
Last night half the mains sockets in the house stopped working. Quite an achievement considering all of the sockets (and the cooker) are on the same circuit breaker - which wasn't affected.
This morning the main computer I use stopped working (I'm typing this on an old laptop).
The electrician we managed to persuade to come round today uncovered a multitude of dodgy wiring. When he returns next week it is likely that much of the floor will need to come up.
Happy fucking Christmas.

[Mrs Pingu]

Sounds like my brother's house, nicknack. He got the knackered boiler replaced last week and the resultant flushing uncovered all the leaks in the system.
The week before he found that all the circuit breakers in the fuse box were rated far higher than they should have been, and he reckons that the circuit that should be a ring main, isn't a ring main. Seems like it was a bit of bodgers are us as well.

[Bledlow]

Feels like a trap, that is a good way to explain it, when you experience the American customer service the first time. It is weird, you are really not sure what to do and say when a person is so keen on helping you, even without asking.

And greeters. Someone standing there in the entrance of the store with nothing better to do that deliver a smile that's probably 75% pharmaceutical and ask how your day is going and do you need any help? I'm always tempted to ask, sotto voce, if they can help me get the body out of the trunk and bury it.

Used to be common in posh shops & department stores here. Wandered around directing customers to the right places & keeping an eye on the shop assistants.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Is that what used to be known as a floorwalker? Or shopwalker, or some similar title?

[Guy]

I'm sure my knees will start working properly again if I put some beer in them. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wit 'til this evening to test this theory.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Is that what used to be known as a floorwalker? Or shopwalker, or some similar title?

I think that was what Captain Peacock used to do.

[nicknack]

We spent £2.7k on sorting the bathroom plumbing out last week. We've been here 18 months and are still discovering the bodges of the last 3 owners of the place.
Last night half the mains sockets in the house stopped working. Quite an achievement considering all of the sockets (and the cooker) are on the same circuit breaker - which wasn't affected.
This morning the main computer I use stopped working (I'm typing this on an old laptop).
The electrician we managed to persuade to come round today uncovered a multitude of dodgy wiring. When he returns next week it is likely that much of the floor will need to come up.
Happy fucking Christmas.

Today brought its own little bit of merriment.
Since we're having the floors up next week we thought we'd try to make a bit of room by putting some stuff in the expensive shed log cabin that we bought last january. Nice pool of water on the floor. Presumably delivered by the horizontal rain we had last night. So man coming round next week to try to improve the sealing.
A few pictures were ruined so the rest that were stored out there I've moved to the loft. All bar one which I dropped from the loft hatch, spraying broken glass all over the hall.
I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

[Bledlow]

Is that what used to be known as a floorwalker? Or shopwalker, or some similar title?

I think that was what Captain Peacock used to do.

Are you free? 

IIRC both terms were used.

[Templogin]

Ebay sellers of bikes.  You have a lovely bike that would suit my partner perfectly.  I am more than happy to pay your initial price, but I can't collect it as I am 800 miles away.  No, I can't arrange for someone to bring a box around to your place with bubble wrap to wrap it up, but I am happy to pay you to do it or have it done by a shop.  If I could it would be me and I would just take it apart and throw it into the car.

A few days later - Price goes down by £150.  You must really hate packing bikes.

A few days later - Auction ends.  No-one has bought the bike.

Next day - bike is re-listed £300 below original price.  That's the price of the flight.  If it goes down by another £100 that will cover the hotel and incidental expenses, but the airline, who fly silly planes with propellors, may say that the box is too big.  I will have paid the original price of the bike in reality, but got a two-day trip to the south of England.  At least the poor man will not have had to pack the bike or ask anyone else to do it for him.  If the airline reject it I will have to ride it up to Aberdeen in winter, then get a 12 hour ferry back to Shetland

[hellymedic]

Where in the South of England is this bike?
There might be a helpful yacfer nearby...
After that, there's the Shore Porters...

[Cudzoziemiec]

Is that what used to be known as a floorwalker? Or shopwalker, or some similar title?

I think that was what Captain Peacock used to do.

Probably what I was thinking of.

[matthew]

Silly me, I missed the email that warned of a deep clean of the drying room on Friday. Therefore I didn't take my towels home and then this morning when I got in I had to go to the bags of stuff.

Only my towels were not there.  shower without towels...

I don't think I took them home on Friday and left them behind this morning but I will have to check.

[fuzzy]

Ebay sellers of bikes.  You have a lovely bike that would suit my partner perfectly.  I am more than happy to pay your initial price, but I can't collect it as I am 800 miles away.  No, I can't arrange for someone to bring a box around to your place with bubble wrap to wrap it up, but I am happy to pay you to do it or have it done by a shop.  If I could it would be me and I would just take it apart and throw it into the car.

A few days later - Price goes down by £150.  You must really hate packing bikes.

A few days later - Auction ends.  No-one has bought the bike.

Next day - bike is re-listed £300 below original price.  That's the price of the flight.  If it goes down by another £100 that will cover the hotel and incidental expenses, but the airline, who fly silly planes with propellors, may say that the box is too big.  I will have paid the original price of the bike in reality, but got a two-day trip to the south of England.  At least the poor man will not have had to pack the bike or ask anyone else to do it for him.  If the airline reject it I will have to ride it up to Aberdeen in winter, then get a 12 hour ferry back to Shetland

What Helly said........

[mrcharly-YHT]

Ebay sellers of bikes.  You have a lovely bike that would suit my partner perfectly.  I am more than happy to pay your initial price, but I can't collect it as I am 800 miles away.  No, I can't arrange for someone to bring a box around to your place with bubble wrap to wrap it up, but I am happy to pay you to do it or have it done by a shop.  If I could it would be me and I would just take it apart and throw it into the car.

I was in a similar situation some years ago. I rang a bike shop local to the seller. they said they'd happily package up the bike and courier it to me - their fee was something like a fiver more than courier cost and for that they'd take the pedals off, move bars, wrap in bubble wrap and pack in a bike box. All the seller had to to was walk into the shop with the bike.

[jsabine]

I asked about such shenanigans for the last bike I saw on t'bay that was collection only. No, he wasn't able to package it for me to arrange a courier collection. No, he didn't have a bike shop anywhere remotely close that he was able to take the bike to.

I gave up, and watched it sell for c50% of his original BIN price, which was in turn about 50% of what I'd have been prepared to pay for it to turn up on my doorstep. Ho hum.

(And yeah, what Helly said. If it's the right bit of the south of England (ie close enough to That London to make an interesting outing), I might be amenable to folding it into a box.)

[Mr Larrington]

If I'd intended to ring my landlord and got an answering machine message saying "Hello this is your not-landlord", then rung back and got the same message again, I think I'd notice that I that I'd rung my not-landlord again and hung up.

Rather than, say, leave a detailed message about a blown lightbulb.

Now I have your address though, dear lady, I may come round Equipped to Burgle, or Dispense Clue.

[Kim]

You could really confuse them, and change the lightbulb...

[Mr Larrington]

You could really confuse them, and change the lightbulb...

For a red one

[mcshroom]

People really ring their Landlord to change a lightbulb?!

[Kim]

People really ring their Landlord to change a lightbulb?!

If it's perilously high above a communal stairwell, or something...

[mcshroom]

Mum, the book you asked me to get you for Christmas isn't just hard to find - it doesn't actually exist!

(This was a genuine request not a wind up)

[Ruthie]

Mum, the book you asked me to get you for Christmas isn't just hard to find - it doesn't actually exist!

(This was a genuine request not a wind up)

Oh, dear. 

*schnorfle*

[jsabine]

People really ring their Landlord to change a lightbulb?!

If it's perilously high above a communal stairwell, or something...

... or something, like, um, being a lightbulb.

The landlord - or agent - will most probably then put the job in the hands of their favoured local handyman service. Surprising how many owner-occupiers will do the same, or who feel that installing a wireless doorbell requires a professional's touch.