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

[barakta]

I remember uni social work friends who didn't drive having issues with placements in inaccessible places.  The stupid thing is they COULD take it into account, it's sheer laziness and sloppiness that they don't.  The only reason most placement places will consider travel is if the student is disabled - which seems unfair unless they have more inaccessible placements than accessible ones - which does leave one wondering what the feck the client group do.

Oh, drive, of course.  Everyone owns a car of course.

And even "well connected" hospitals seem to be an arse to get to by public transport compared to driving where they STING you for parking.  My home-hospital is 35 mins from my parents' house by car in non rush hour traffic or getting in before 8am.  It's about 2.5-3 hours by public transport one way *SCOWL* and I know this from painful experience.  It was easier to ask a family friend to drive me than public transport it which sucks.

[Mrs Pingu]

My front derailleur keeps eating the cables, bah.

[Jacomus]

Bah.

If you were designing a men's bathroom, in a nice modern office block, what are the kind of things that would run through your mind when speccing it?

- Wash basin
- Urinals
- Stalls
- Mirror
- Hand dryer

Yep, that's pretty much covered the hardware requirements. Now, how might a man use a mirror in a bathroom? Well, he could check the state of his apparel, so thanks for the full length mirror, it's a nice touch. What else might he do? Oh yes, he might want to have a shave. Having a shave, requires two key ingredients - water and a mirror. The eminently sensible thing to do with a mirror is put it above the bloody basin, right where a chap having a shave would want to use it.

Having to cross the bathroom from basin to mirror and back is rather irritating. Every morning / mid afternoon spots of shaving foam appear on the floor by the mirror where they have fallen off the head of a razor.

It's a design fail.

[hellymedic]

It's too 'girly' to have a mirror over a wash basin. Men never get bits they want to remove from eyes, face or teeth, oh no!
IMHO men need supplies of tissues too...

[andrewc]

FFS BT!   I don't want you censoring what I read on my mobile! And "Girls With Slingshots" is hardly "adult content"!

[Bledlow]

What pisses me off is that the uni don't assume car ownership. They ask on the form if you have a car.

Then MrsCharly still gets posts in inaccessible places.

What they assume is that you can temporarily relocate to another town for 2-3months at a stretch. Not really ok if you have family.

It's not just universities. It's everyone. They put it on the form because those drawing up the forms know about diversity, equal opportunities, etc., but those deciding on postings are oblivious.

Many years ago, when I had neither car nor driving licence, I was invited to an interview at an establishment which was inaccessible except by car. Out in the country, no regular bus service, nowhere to stay in the nearest village. The post for which they were interviewing was based at that establishment. The firm that did this knew I had no car or licence: it was one of the questions on the form they'd given me at the job fair where I'd encountered them.

Even if the form notionally doesn't assume car ownership, an awful lot of people don't look at the box you ticked to say "No car", or "No licence",  because to them car use is so deeply ingrained it doesn't occur to them to check.

[andrewc]

FFS BT!   I don't want you censoring what I read on my mobile! And "Girls With Slingshots" is hardly "adult content"!

Well that was painless, 1 phone call to BT, a transfer to the right department and the restriction was removed straight away

[Jacomus]

FFS BT!   I don't want you censoring what I read on my mobile! And "Girls With Slingshots" is hardly "adult content"!

Well that was painless, 1 phone call to BT, a transfer to the right department and the restriction was removed straight away

I've had this before, similarly swiftly sorted out by O2. It still irked me though - I have a contract. Paid for by direct debit. Exactly what part of that arrangement would lead to the impression that I am <18 years old?!

[Kim]

Even if the form notionally doesn't assume car ownership, an awful lot of people don't look at the box you ticked to say "No car", or "No licence",  because to them car use is so deeply ingrained it doesn't occur to them to check.

The converse of that being HR departments adding "driving licence" to job specs out of habit, and filing CVs of people without one in the bin, when there's no actual need for driving in the job.

[GrahamG]

Local news reports high numbers of mosquitos in Somerset - I got bitten to shreds in my sleep last night. Bloody countryside.

[hellymedic]

Local journalist tweets today is Flying Ant day.
We've seen many rising from our lawn.
At least they don't bite!

[Basil]

The pavement outside my house is thick with them.

[SteveC]

I washed my cycling kit last night.
It wasn't quite dry when I needed to put it on this morning.
Clammy.

[Bledlow]

Local journalist tweets today is Flying Ant day.

We had 'em a couple of weeks ago.

[LindaG]

My arm and my neck really hurt and I need a cuddle but Crusty's gone to work 

[Emily]

Train driver/station staff: could you not have mentioned that the underground station was closed *before* I got off the train and went down into the tube?  I could have stayed on that train, instead of waiting and then cramming onto this grotty old train ten minutes later.

[tiermat]

My arm and my neck really hurt and I need a cuddle but Crusty's gone to work 

The sod! Does he not realise he made you miss out on a lovely evening ride (even if we failed to find food) AND is not there to give you cuddles?

Have STERN words with him when he gets home

[CrinklyLion]

"My" cats stink.

Now which inappropriate place have the little buggers pissed in when the neighbours were looking after them while we were on jollydays....

[Kim]

Checked the Ortliebs?  (At least they're wipe-clean.)


Ob-grumble:  My beastie-bitten hand, while not quite as alarmingly red and infected-looking as after the bastard horsefly attack of 2010, is now significantly larger and stiffer than the other one.  It hurts to bear weight with it, which makes cycling interesting.

There's a similar welt on the back of my leg, but that's less of a problem.

[mcshroom]

Head torch is not a sensible thing to remove from your bag in the way of audax weight saving. Not putting a spoke key is also stupid.

Well I think I've just proven I'm not going to be riding LEL next year. I think I'll stick to 100s and 200s for a while.

Now off to find the LEL volunteer form.

[mcshroom]

Another grumble.

Just went in to place an offer for a house and found out that they accepted another offer on Thursday

[Andrij]

Dear programmers for fruit-named handheld devices: if I type "togo" what am i more likely meant to have typed, "Togo" or "to go"?

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

What I like best about coming to headquarters to use the touch-down desks is the ten to fifteen minutes I get to spend switching numerous computers on to a) see if they're working and b) find a working one which has the programs I need.

Next time my employer thinks it needs to rebrand itself and get a new strapline, I'm going to suggest "X Employer - not quite getting the point."

[Jacomus]

*dramatic sigh*

Money? What on earth is that? Ah yes, that would be the stuff that has been running out of my bank account like water out of a sieve.

Oh well, there is always next month

[CAMRAMan]

Hack presenter on my course today: You did that on auto pilot and it showed. Poorly titled slides and it wasn't very motivational, was it? Oh, and having info that is six years out of date on one slide showed how much care you put into your work, didn't it? I wonder how much you got paid for that effort?