The "I'm Such a Fecking Div" Thread

[Si S]

When I was assigned to the mothership one of the first things I tried to do was set up my desk phone (which needs a PIN etc.) Asking around it turned out no one had a clue what that magic number might be. Never used it, they opined. Eventually, I had to find an old person.

Two months later neither have I, nor has it ever rung. It does now say my name on the screen though in case I forget where I sit.

I think I mentioned this elsewhere on the forum recently... I asked IT for the PIN for my phone and they were able to supply it without difficulty, which meant I was able to access my messages and thereby disable the annoying flashing orange light on the phone. Some of the messages were over a year old, ie dating from the time my predecessor's predecessor was here. I still haven't been able to update the phone to display my name because that requires access to the desktop app, but at least the recorded message now gives out my name rather than that of my predecessor's predecessor.

I have noticed that several of my colleagues have perpetually flashing orange lights on their phones, suggesting they don't know their PIN, though some of them have been here for many years.

One colleague has got round the problem by taping a piece of paper over the light. 

Whereas I've got round it by unplugging the phone.

[Torslanda]

^^^THIS^^^

[citoyen]

I'm tempted to do the same. In the five months I've been here, I've not received a single call that I couldn't have managed without.

[ian]

I now have to spend twenty minutes of my life doing a 'don't click a phishing link' online training course because fumblepaws me dropped a banana on his keyboard which pressed the link in the not-so-cunningly disguised test email that just happened to be sitting open.

It's currently taking through a very laboured explanation of what an URL is. Bastard banana.

[citoyen]

I now have to spend twenty minutes of my life doing a 'don't click a phishing link' online training course because fumblepaws me dropped a banana on his keyboard which pressed the link in the not-so-cunningly disguised test email that just happened to be sitting open.

I advise you never to use a hoover. You'll end up in A&E having to convince the nurses that your implausible story is really, definitely true, honest.

[ian]

Whatever I told A&E, it's true.

I failed the course because it was full of 'ah, but the URL is spelled with a 'rn' and not 'rl' so you should have caught it' which would have been easier if there had been any means to see the actual link in the pretend email because hovering didn't work. Eventual random clickage saw me through.

Anyway, I'm not responsible for my banana.

[hellymedic]

Anyway, I'm not responsible for my banana.

...said Donald Trump...

[Jasmine]

I now have to spend twenty minutes of my life doing a 'don't click a phishing link' online training course because ....blah blah

Think youself lucky it's only 20 minutes.  Our online safety course is at least 45 minutes. It's one of those where there's some text on a screen and a disembodied voice reads it out, which takes 4 times longer than just reading it. It won't let you click next until the voice has finished. It was rolled out as a manadatory annual training after several people not only clicked on a phishing link, but went on to enter all their passwords into the linked page.  It was not a test. 

[ian]

Fortunately, my banana (now deceased) can't type a password or I would have been in more trouble. There's was a longer more tedious course some time back, this was a refresher because I'd been 'caught out.' There was no option to record a banana (or other fruit)-based mishap.

[T42]

Got pissed off at MrsT the other day for bringing home green bananas because they were bio rather than the ripe ones which weren't, so I pointedly bought a bunch of ripe non-bio ones today.

Once home, realized that hers are all yellow now.

[Kim]

I think it was about 2 years ago that I discovered that green bananananas were a thing.  I knew they came in green-that-I-call-yellow and manky brown, according to ripeness, but as I despise bananas I'd somehow gone through life without learning that green-that-I also-call-yellow-but-other-people-call-green was a possibility when they weren't still attached to a tree in another hemisphere.

[ian]

Any fule know, red bananas are bestest.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Red bananas are okay but I prefer yellow ones.

[hellymedic]

Brown bananas are interesting.

Black bananas are good for teh lolz with sensitive weeds.

[PaulF]

Fortunately, my banana (now deceased) can't type a password or I would have been in more trouble. There's was a longer more tedious course some time back, this was a refresher because I'd been 'caught out.' There was no option to record a banana (or other fruit)-based mishap.

That’s a relief. When bananas gain sentience we should all be worried.

[arabella]

...
GSM codec throwing away half the audio, and this way I can at least force g.711 on my leg.  (Still stuffed if the other party is on a mobile, or a lowest-bidder VOIP connection to Elbonia, of course.) 
... streaming realtime bidirectional audio over The Devil's Radio, which is asking for trouble when you live somewhere where the WiFi band is so congested that it would give the Daily Mail cancer.

Voicemail ... Caller ID
Asterisk ... CID n
...
_{[1] When not nobbled in the firmware, because mobiles tend to be sold wholesale to telecoms companies.}

Victory!  I understood all of the above    (trimmed on the basis that you will have read the original.)
Now, where did I put that VN/VRF stuff I was trying to get to grips with.

As regards divvery, I misjudged the speed with which a bus was charging up the hill and nearly got myself run over.  Makes a change from other people nearly getting me run over, which happened at the other end of the same commute.  sigh.  "Sorry, didn't see you"

[Ham]

Oh look, I appear to have wandered in here again.

Well, for those readers curious to know what happens when you are defrosting a piece of plastic-bagged frozen rolled brisket, using the OVEN defrost setting, and at some indeterminate point before completion of said activity turn the oven to cook (160 fan) by  mistake and leave it there  for ...ooooo a good while.....I can tell you that you can recover from it by cooking a further many hours and you can hardly taste the plastic.

[ElyDave]

reminds me of the time my sister cooked a roast chicken but didn't spot the elastic string holding it in a nice neat package.  You could just about eat round the rubbery taste

[T42]

Whilst a young lady in my papa's circle when he was a youth failed a domestic science exam when the supervisor informed her that the floorcloth she was using to mop up something she'd spilt was actually the tripe she was supposed to cook.

[PeteB99]

I needed the large supermarket carrier bag this morning. Looking in it I found the pack of frozen beefburgers* I'd forgotten to unpack last Saturday.

* I only bought them to replace the pack I'd bought the previous week that turned out to contain an ingredient I'm allergic to

At lest the local feral cats are getting free meals.

[andytheflyer]

Not sure I qualify, yet, but time will tell.

After some deliberation (well, about an hour) I've taken delivery of a non-running, Canadian re-imported, Triumph 750.  Fortunately with the management's support.

It turns over, has good compression and clearly has done nothing since the engine was re-bulit.  But why did they seem to use any fastener they had to hand when they put the engine back together and couldn't find the bolt they'd taken out?  If that was their mentality, are there any gremlins inside the engine that I can't see?  But there are a number of small parts with it that I'll need, and clearly the original owner had intended to get it running again.  But why did he stop?  Too big a job, a major fault?  Or a simply few years ahead of me on the slippery slope.

But, it has new tyres, the chrome is good, wheels are good, and it's almost all there.

I just hope this isn't going to qualify me as the Div of all time.....  I just hope.......

Phew.  I think I've avoided divishness - but there's one hurdle left.

The Tiger now runs quite nicely. It doesn't clatter any more than you'd expect for a 45 year old agricultural design of typical British motorcycle.  It doesn't seem to drip any more oil then my good old, much-missed 1968 Daytona (sob, sob) used to do.  It doesn't billow blue smoke out of the exhausts.

There's one remaining opportunity for divvishness:  getting an age-related UK registration number, so it's VED and MOT exempt.  I should be entitled to that black and white J plate. Let's see.....  I could still be the biggest div of all time.

Phew, I've avoided a huge bout of divvishness.  DVLA have given me a 1971 reg no and classed my Tiger 750 as an historic vehicle, VED and MOT Exempt. Could not have asked for more.  I feel very relieved.  Classic black and silver number plate ordered, a few minor tweaks to complete and the bike will be ready to go.  Not sure if I am though.

[Si S]

Typo's involving the words 'such kits' can cause all sorts of trouble when you miss out the 'h', get the space in the wrong place and insert an extra 't'   

[citoyen]

Typo's involving the words 'such kits' can cause all sorts of trouble when you miss out the 'h', get the space in the wrong place and insert an extra 't'   

That sounds more like a freudian slip than a typo.

[Si S]

Typo's involving the words 'such kits' can cause all sorts of trouble when you miss out the 'h', get the space in the wrong place and insert an extra 't'   

That sounds more like a freudian slip than a typo.

That was pointed out to me 

[Si S]

It could be worse, at least the reviewer was male, unlike the time I sent a windows messenger thing to a rather buxom colleague asking 'Are you busy?', you may have noticed the 't' is next to the 'y'.

Fortunately she saw the funny side.