RESULT: a word you will soon tire of reading
I will leave it to your collective higher judgement to decide whether I am a criminal, lucky, obsessive or just a scav-meister cock-itch who is as tight as a gnat’s chuff.

The thing is…I may be any or all of the above, but because of this, freebies just seem to rain down on me.

When I was a kid, my mate’s mum was a director at Mars (the confectioners, not the planet) . That meant just a visit to his house would mean a constant stream of free chocolate bars and a carrier-bag full of twix and maltesers to take home with me. I’m still mates with the guy though and would be even if his mum didn’t have that job… that was just a lucky bonus.

Result

When at school I won first and second prize in a ‘non-fixed’ competition without even entering. The compo was a prize draw: the first prize being concert tickets (to see a band I’m too embarrassed to name but I worshipped them at the time), and the second prize was a signed 12 inch EP of the band. 2 of my mates won the prizes. First prize mate asked me to go with him to the gig, second prize mate already had a signed EP and gave the one he won to me.

Result.

When I was about 15 I got a crappy part time job at a local supermarket in the ‘low-tech’ early days of barcode scanning. All my friends / family would come to my till (despite how busy it was - funny that). It might have something to do with the fact that I would whoosh the items past the scanner beam, only actually scanning 2 or 3 out of 20-odd. I was also great at dishing out free alcohol to my fellow under age school-chummies. I ended up very popular…and we all did alright for groceries

Result

My First Proper Job – I worked in the distribution dept for a free newspaper and had a tip-top scam going. www.b3ta.com/questions/whyishouldbefired/post86689

Even so, as the paper ploughed more and more into becoming an ad pamphlet, I ended up being the ONLY article writer. It was a piss-pot fortnightly publication, so I picked which jobs I wanted to cover (i.e corporates and celeb-filled ones etc), and copied other people’s articles from ones I couldn’t be arsed to go to. Blag a nice company car, blend in with the gits from the bigger papers and… ta-dah! Shitloads of free food, champagne, gift bags and the promise (and subsequent delivery) of unbelievable gusset-busting pleasures in return for positive articles…for years

Result

I’m now an IT manager with control over …well let’s just say a rather fucking large purchasing budget.

Now IT Suppliers (a cut-throat industry if ever there was one) are willing to walk over their own grannies’ twitching corpses to bung me free stuff, generally software, hardware & all-expenses paid trips to casinos, race-nights, football matches etc. I also get phone calls like this: ‘Please do this quick questionnaire and get a cheque for £25?’ they plead. I agree, give them my home address for the cheque and then answer ‘yes’ or ‘5 out of 10’ to every question as fast as possible even though I’m being paid by the company for my time in the first place.

Even when I’m not genuinely filling my pockets with free stuff at seminars etc., I invent fictional seminars and tell my bosses I need to attend, thusly I can have the day off work and claim on mileage that I haven’t done.

I was also my (now fired) manager’s gadget monkey. It was a simple arrangement. I made sure he had the latest PCs and gadgets available to show off to his friends and colleagues (all at the company’s expense). I would also teach him how to use each item so he looked like an expert, instead of the 'thick-as-a-whale's-cock' arse-potato that he really was. To acheive this of course, I needed 1 of each item for myself. Before he got hoofed out, I gained about 6 grand’s worth of the latest kit in 6 months. All bought on the sly by my boss. Ironically, it wasn’t for this that he got the sack. He got the sack because he was a pleb who was crap at his job.

He's gone mental now, he rings the company and says nothing down the line...despite the fact that we have caller ID on the phones. He also rings me at home and asks me to do jobs when I go into work. I tell him to fuck off (on my expensive pre-paid pda)

Anyway…Reeeeeesult

I get free money – well credit anyway. I’m one of those dweebs who gets the 0% credit cards and changes cards 1 day before the offer runs out to another one that has 0% on balance transfers and doesn’t charge you for the transfer. It’s not even remotely difficult to do and I’ve been doing it for years – I even bought my car like that. I can’t quite understand why everybody doesn’t do it to be honest.

B.O.G.O.F offers? Gimme gimme. Over Christmas, A local supermarket did B.O.G.O.F Cider. I bought a pallet load, and now have a belly the size of Lithuania and happy liver sclerosis (probably) to show for it.

Virgin Fucking Media – After my unending stream of rants against the cuntquaffers that are Virgin Media, people often ask me why I stay with them. Well kids, here’s why. Since they changed their TV packages to M, L & XL 'sizes', they have made the M package free. Cue me buying one of those decoder boxes for next-to-nothing off Ebay and… Free multi-room XL package with all sports, movies, pay-per-view and…well you get the picture. I certainly do.

Re-fucking-sult. (I still think I’m entitled to rant at them for their shite products and service though – after all, they don’t know I’m spluffing free TV off them).

Despite all this, I am still a moaning spongemong cos it gets me freebies – I’m the annoying scrotesack you see in the shops wagging his finger at some spotty oik shop assistant bellowing ‘I’m not paying £300 for a fucking Xbox and unless you want me to go to the shop next door and buy it for a better discount than this then you’ll throw in some stuff’, before leaving with extra controllers, games and the whole thing costing less than the asking price. Leaving all bystanders feeling like proper cunts because they just paid up the full whack and didn’t say a word.

Result…for me anyway

I AM the scum who downloads music, movies, software and games. I don’t sell it at market stalls or anything (too much effort), but, my local Chinese Takeaway does deliver my whole food order for free in return for copies of the latest CDs and Movies

Result = My ever expanding belly getting even larger

I have a friend who works for a transport company which happens to have its own petrol pumps on site. Yep, you guessed it….

Result

Finally, in my spare time I am the lead singer and guitarist in a band (and also a DJ).

I therefore get free beer & free nosh aplenty – in both respects. To quote Dire Straits – ‘Money for nothing and your chicks for free’. Also, due to ‘packing up the gear’ I am usually last to leave whatever place I play at. Cue late night lock-ins and walking away with the remainder of the buffet (if it’s worth it) and surplus wine. When I was in my youth and in my ‘proper’ band (i.e playing original material with a record deal) we used to love supporting more established acts so we could help ourselves to their tour riders…which would always be crates of Carling…’Original’ eh?

Good times…oh, and a result.

Length? You got off lightly – I was holding back…
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 9 Nov 2007, 17:59, 5 replies)

Thee
You sir, are a complete bastard.

But you're a *competent* bastard, which is far worse :) Well done to you and your vast amounts of free stuff!
(calamarain just invented dehydrated water, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 18:23, closed)

I sympathise with your plight
I too work in IT after years of blagging stuff at school and Uni. I know plenty of people in bands, so gigs are usually free and come with similar perks to the ones you describe above. The people I work with are chancers, spivs and geezers so I learn new tricks every day. The people I support earn so much money they have no problem splashing out for another bottle of plonk when they see me in the same bar.

Why pay for stuff when it's actually pretty easy to get most things for free? A little effort goes a long way :-)
( chart cat has an itch, Fri 9 Nov 2007, 20:53, closed)

"a band I’m too embarrassed to name but I worshipped them at the time"
Ah, but you have to tell us who they are now. We're all friends here...
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Sat 10 Nov 2007, 2:50, closed)

oh go on then...
the band was 'Simple Minds'. In my defence they were pretty good at the time...
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Sat 10 Nov 2007, 14:19, closed)

That post
is comprised solely of win.

*salutes*
(SurferRosa causing the lamentation of the womenfolk since, Mon 12 Nov 2007, 20:47, closed)