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

[Beardy]

No, the Today programme sports reporter the entire country was not enthralled with the Football. Actually there's more than a few of us who couldn't give a flying banana about the outcome and who haven't been tied to the TV for the last month. In fact, there's more than a few of us who will be glad when the whole affair is over an done with.

[Beardy]

The mixed aroma of various foodstuff is currently pervading the office. Why can't people sit in the welfare area, or better still the staff canteen when they eat their lunch.

[thirdYorkshireman]
Staff canteen!?  Welfare (welfare!?) area?  Which employment utopia* do you inhabit?
[/thirdYorkshireman]



*No need to answer that; I've seen your posts elsewhere on the less than utopian** aspects of your current situation.
**Utopia looks wrong I want to spell it eutopia.

Did I mention the coffee lounge or the coffee shop? No? Well, there’s also a coffee lounge next to the staff restaurant, and a coffee shop at the other side of site. Oh and a barbers shop and a small WHS 😁 And of course there’s the MT workshop where they will service your car and do an MOT. I won’t mention the sports hall or the Tennis courts though.

We have an absolutely shite sandwich bar, where you have to wait until the women who run the place deign to come out of their office & take your money.     The days when we had a free staff car park & a subsidised restaurant where you could get a Full English breakfast & 3 course cooked lunch for not much money ended about the turn of the century.  I believe at one stage BT had it's own catering college.....   There is a gym run by the Sports & Social association.  Local motor transport place went long ago.  Can't even borrow power tools from Mechanical Aids these days....

It all started to go downhill when they introduced 'Investors in people'. that allowed them a target standard that was far below what was the status quo when I joined in 1978.
It's all to do with the move from a stakeholder economy to a shareholder economy.

[ian]

I thought the mere expedient of relocating to Hanoi would have excused me the constant soccer ball. Not so. I'm going to the Moon next time.

Take me with you, please?  Suit and oxygen preferred but I'd put in no more strongly than that under the circumstances.

The hotel manager came out to console me during breakfast. I had to pretend I really cared. I've spent the entire day pretending I care about the fate of the Engerlish football team to avoid upsetting people and being thrown out of a taxi in some random part of Hanoi. I have up in the end and flew to Bangkok. It was going well until I got into a taxi. He was very sorry about our football team. Then the receptionist in the hotel when I handed her my passport. And so on. I'm doomed to unneeded commiseration.

[ElyDave]

I was on an Indian crewed ship, at least we could talk about cricket

[Jurek]

BLOX
Why have I spent the evening listening to Any Questions on R4, when I could've been listening to Iggy Pop on R6Music. Gah!

[Jurek]

I thought the mere expedient of relocating to Hanoi would have excused me the constant soccer ball. Not so. I'm going to the Moon next time.

Take me with you, please?  Suit and oxygen preferred but I'd put in no more strongly than that under the circumstances.

The hotel manager came out to console me during breakfast. I had to pretend I really cared. I've spent the entire day pretending I care about the fate of the Engerlish football team to avoid upsetting people and being thrown out of a taxi in some random part of Hanoi. I have up in the end and flew to Bangkok. It was going well until I got into a taxi. He was very sorry about our football team. Then the receptionist in the hotel when I handed her my passport. And so on. I'm doomed to unneeded commiseration.

Soak it up.
Poo it out.
Feel better.
That's my advice.

[rafletcher]

BLOX
Why have I spent the evening listening to Any Questions on R4, when I could've been listening to Iggy Pop on R6Music. Gah!

That’s what iPlayer is for.

[Canardly]

I thought the mere expedient of relocating to Hanoi would have excused me the constant soccer ball. Not so. I'm going to the Moon next time.

Take me with you, please?  Suit and oxygen preferred but I'd put in no more strongly than that under the circumstances.

The hotel manager came out to console me during breakfast. I had to pretend I really cared. I've spent the entire day pretending I care about the fate of the Engerlish football team to avoid upsetting people and being thrown out of a taxi in some random part of Hanoi. I have up in the end and flew to Bangkok. It was going well until I got into a taxi. He was very sorry about our football team. Then the receptionist in the hotel when I handed her my passport. And so on. I'm doomed to unneeded commiseration.

I was once asked in all seriousness by an official at an airport in Tanzania If I was travelling back to UK to vote so as to ensure Margaret Thatcher stayed in power.

[ElyDave]

The election that ended up in the coalition, I was sat on an FPSO in the South China Sea, hoping that Dave et al didn't get in.  My American colleague was nonplussed

[ian]

I thought the mere expedient of relocating to Hanoi would have excused me the constant soccer ball. Not so. I'm going to the Moon next time.

Take me with you, please?  Suit and oxygen preferred but I'd put in no more strongly than that under the circumstances.

The hotel manager came out to console me during breakfast. I had to pretend I really cared. I've spent the entire day pretending I care about the fate of the Engerlish football team to avoid upsetting people and being thrown out of a taxi in some random part of Hanoi. I have up in the end and flew to Bangkok. It was going well until I got into a taxi. He was very sorry about our football team. Then the receptionist in the hotel when I handed her my passport. And so on. I'm doomed to unneeded commiseration.

Soak it up.
Poo it out.
Feel better.
That's my advice.

Given a good week of random local food (usually spicy and once, memorably, involving the words 'stinky bean'), I did precisely that. Three times. Did I mention the spicy? Which I appreciate is too much information.

Tidy-Haired Thought Leaders™ pack an adequate supply of loperamide.

[rafletcher]

Where we live in leafy Bucks is very pleasant, as well as being very well connected to road, rail and air. But that does mean that on beautiful clear mornings like today, the noise from the Luton air traffic can be intrusive. We’re under the current flight path and this morning it’s the outbound traffic. But we like the convenience of being able to get there in 40 minutes when we want to fly. Can’t have everything.

[T42]

Folk next door - home of Porschey Pig, he who revveth loud & generous - are having a WC-final party with their giant TV set up, thuddy music and yakkety yakkety yak blattering the neighbourhood.

Much as I want France to win, to spite that bunch I could almost wish they won't.

[matthew]

I work in a professional engineering team, this means we all use lots of computers. Currently my clients office has a failed aircon system and we are on the top floor of the building, up in the eaves. The thermometer is currently reading 30 ^oC and I am melting into a puddle.

[Kim]

At some point the computers will melt and you all get to go home?

[Beardy]

I work in a professional engineering team, this means we all use lots of computers. Currently my clients office has a failed aircon system and we are on the top floor of the building, up in the eaves. The thermometer is currently reading 30 ^oC and I am melting into a puddle.

In olden times when computer halls were still hallowed environments, big telephone exchanges still ran mainly on electromagnets and valves. The rate of installation in the late 70s far outstripped the volume of the buildings and with the IRA an active threat most exchanges exacerbated the poor heat loss qualities of the buildings by fitting secondary double glazing made from 1/2" polycarbonate sheeting bolted into hardwood frames. I remember an dispute being raised about the high temperatures and investigations being carried out. However the upshot was that the shops and factories act defined what was too cold, with different temperatures dependent on the workers level of sedentaryness, but no upper temperatures were defined so we just had to suck it up.

[ElyDave]

I once worked in an office heated off the factory condensate supply. OK in winter, but intolerable in summer. 

The previous denizens informed me when I joined that the radiator valve was stuck.  A pair of stilsons on the isolator sorted that out.  Simple binary heating - deisolate for winter, isolate for summer

[T42]

Idiot bank. I do a credit transfer on line & tick the box to receive an email copy, which arrives immediately. Half an hour later the bank sends me an email to tell me they've put a copy of the email they already sent me into my inbox on the bank's website.

[Kim]

The battery on my Aldi multi-purpose cutting tool (AKA "the magic tool that drills square holes") appears to be shagged.  This is unsurprising, it's had a good innings.  Will think about whether it's worth bodging some new cells into it, or investing in a proper one that uses Makita batteries is the way forward, but for now I've got holes to cut...

[Jakob W]

Blooming insects. The last couple of years I don't recall having been too afflicted, but this hot summer has clearly brought out all the beasties - I've got one or two bites that aren't that itchy, but have resulted in lumps the size of an egg. Please to be FOADing.

[SoreTween]

Unable to make a payment from Lloyds to Natwest. 
Speak to Lloyds (through to human in 3 minutes): "Yeah, we can't make fast payments to HSBC, BOS & Natworst at the moment, the problem isn't our end but we are checking our systems thoroughly anyway."
Speak to Natworst (through in 13 minutes having been told repeatedly they are experiencing higher than usual call volumes): "Dime bar?"  followed by, having spoken to supervisor "No problems known our end".

So, who to believe?
[thinks for 2 femtoseconds]
Natworst you are USELESS.

[andrewc]

Rounded up all the copper small change & dumped it in a poly bag.    Walked up the hill to the supermarket with the change machine, only to find it out of order.  Bah.

[Kim]

Rounded up all the copper small change & dumped it in a poly bag.    Walked up the hill to the supermarket with the change machine, only to find it out of order.  Bah.

That's what the self-checkout is for.

[T42]

Did that with our bank once, only it turned out that their machine was broken too. Bloke grinned and counted it by hand anyway, like a machine-gun. I reckon he was pleased to be able to show off.

[Jurek]

Rounded up all the copper small change & dumped it in a poly bag.    Walked up the hill to the supermarket with the change machine, only to find it out of order.  Bah.

That's what the self-checkout is for.

Genius!

[phantasmagoriana]

Rounded up all the copper small change & dumped it in a poly bag.    Walked up the hill to the supermarket with the change machine, only to find it out of order.  Bah.

That's what the self-checkout is for.

That's what I do, too. Doesn't charge a fee, either!