» Driven to Madness

supermarket vultures
As a supermarket employee who has the dubious joy of reducing goods on the days date, you have to develop a skin thicker than that on a rhino's arse. For the biggest peril of the job are the hard core yellow label specialists a.k.a. vultures.

I know money is tight and people are on the lookout for a cut price meal where they can, but it is the greedy ones who are usually the most offensive and deserving of a good kicking.

Vultures are the customers who are only happy to buy something once it is as cheap as they can get it and have a tendency to fill a basket or trolley with reduced price goods. With some of them it's play spot the full price item.

It is common to refer to applying the final reductions as feeding time at the zoo, especially in the chilled food aisle, as this is their preferred area to pounce on unwary staff.

whilst they are helping us by taking otherwise unwanted stock, there are a few who have mastered the art of being a first class asshole.
Some will hold on to their chosen item and give it to you to reduce, with the most ignorant just thrusting it at you.
Others will pester until a specific product is reduced, with the most determined hanging around like a bad smell. You quickly learn to not carry out requests unless you love being harassed.

They always like to test the resolve of a newbie.

The true arseholes though will try and grab it out of your hand as soon as it has been reduced and you're about to put it in the reduced area. It's not much fun being caught between 2 people trying to grab the same item as you put it down.
They're also great at acting like kids - we've once had 2 vultures argue over access to a reduction area and ask a member of staff to resolve the dispute FFS.

In our attempt to keep our sanity, we start giving some of them nicknames such as Joseph Fritzl to a middle aged polish gent; cancer man and his pal to 2 guys who would shop together(one of them had cancer), and an old dear who looks like an extra from the original 'the hills have eyes', as we're not allowed to tell them to GTF, as 1)reductions are a company policy not a legal requirement
2) they are not our superiors and can't boss us about.

\rant
(Tue 9th Oct 2012, 20:58, More)

» Iffy crushes


Princess Beatrice [Andrew & Fergie's eldest] as I've a liking for red heads. If she follows her mother for antics, then a very fun & chaotic time would be had.
(Thu 6th Oct 2011, 21:05, More)

» Ouch!

Scrotal Probe
several years back I had a persistant dull ache in a testicle - something I didn't want to linger. Cue one trip to the doctor's, where the initial diagnosis involved have my nuts gently felt up by a female doctor.

As she felt it needed a more thorough examination I was sent to the Western General Hospital, where a male Urologist gave me a second assessment. I felt as if my nuts had been used as chinese stress balls. Still none the wiser they decided an emergency scrotal probe was required.

The probe requires a quick shave followed by a 1 inch incision below the base of the penis. post op relief was provided by a morphine drip with codeine based chasers for the next week. The fun part was trying to walk - the only comfortable way was to imitate a cowboy's shoot out stance.
(Thu 29th Jul 2010, 22:58, More)

» Rubbish Towns

Tenby
A tourist trap of a town whose centre is stuck in multiple timewarps - Late Norman, Tudor, Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian and everything else in between except modern, as all new builds in the centre are mock Georgian/Victorian. With everything facing the sea front painted in pastel hues.

The town itself possesses an abundance of hotels, B&B's, cafes, takeaways, 5 members clubs and 16 pubs (for a town of 6,000). There's bugger all in the way of high street chain stores for shopping [Smiths, Boots, New Look, Sainsburys, Tesco - that's it]. The nearest nightclubs are both 2 miles away from the town centre in opposite directions (great for the local Taxi's).

The only other recognisible form of entertainment, for those who are fed up of drinking, is the cinema with 1 screen and 1 showing per day outwith the summer holidays when it can be 2 showings per day, with the outside possibility of it being 2 different films. The exterior is brightly painted, the interior is however stuck in the 1970's with narrow brown velour seats, well worn 70's patterned red carpet throughout and a strong smell of damp in the auditorium. The only upside is that this usually means you have a near free pick of the seats for most blockbusters.

The sedate nature of the town makes it a magnet for retirees and those with young children. It is so quiet, that minor acts of vandalism, such as scratched cars and upturned benches, have been known to make it into the local paper, with the details of the PC assigned to the case given, so the cad can be apprehended.

Hence why most youths stay in education as long as possible to find an adequate means of escaping the town, with very few returning after uni.
(Fri 30th Oct 2009, 18:21, More)

» Darwin Awards

why child locks are a good thing
Many moons ago in the spring of 87, I was on a visit the long distance relatives family holiday. One evening when traveling from one house to another by taxi, with me in the passengers seat behind the driver. The next thing I remember is waking up next to a lit fireplace with a grazed ankle.

From my folks I found out that this bored sprog had decided to play with the door lock, and that thankfully, the car was going round a roundabout. It turns out that I flew out of the car and some how managed to survive with nothing more than a small graze.

Since then i'm less inclined to play with switches on dangerous things before having read the instruction book. It hasn't stopped me from having daft accidents, though none of them have yet to bring me as close to death.
(Fri 13th Feb 2009, 22:02, More)