Friendly warrning...

If the QOTW doesn't change soon I'm gonna start punning again!

(I've just been humiliated at a job interview and am in no mood to take prisoners!)
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Thu 31 Jan 2008, 15:34, 6 replies)

I’m at work now
and I just picked the best bogie.
It was sticky at one end, quite big / long, dry at the other and it had a scab and a hair on it. Beat that
(L E T S G O "Stop buying into and spreading this shit", Thu 31 Jan 2008, 15:26, 3 replies)

Looks like b3ta has a bastard collegue.
The git hasnt changed over the QOTW yet!
(Miggyman, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 14:27, 1 reply)

The tight fisted git
I work in IT helpdesk he works in IT finance. He buys 40Gig HD's over 80Gig ones becuase they're 7 p cheaper. He complains about the canteen lunch every day but doesn;t want to spend the petrol for the 5 minute drive into town for some decent food.
He's not happy unless he has something to complain about, including the canteen having too many round tables/ not enough square tables (yes he put that on a complaint form!)
( Crap Little Monkey Deathstar, so good they built it twice, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 14:19, Reply)

Since this qotw is being dragged out a bit...
Not strictly a colleague or a bastard.

I work in a family business and I sit in my office mostly on my own except for my grandad who sits with me.....most days.....since I started here 6 years ago.....aarrggghhhhhhhh.
He sits there because he doesn't like sitting at home. He reads his papers and nods off. Sometimes I watch him for hours with his head drop, drop, dropping until it wakes him up and he bolts upright again. I used to make loud noises on purpose just to watch him jump. Sometimes he coughs a lot, sometimes he snores, sometimes he just stares into space.

I used to get very annoyed about his presence but now I've got so used to it, i often forget he's there.

I wish I had an annoying colleague, anything would be better than this.


Then there's my dad, the boss, who comes into the office, farts and then goes out again.
( girlinthehole, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 13:40, 5 replies)

There is a guy at work who's nickname would give it away.
If you live in Reading you may know this guy.

This guy thinks that EVERYONE in the office likes him, though in my years of working I have never heard anyone receive the amount of caustic piss hatred that has been spouted about this guy after we have had a few sherries.

We use MSN Messenger for quick communications like a lot of big firms nowadays. Generally, it is just used to for banal requests; drudgery-filled automatons saying stuff like, 'Can you action this for me? Thx'. However, this guy consistently used it to perv on younger girls that have just joined the company. And I don't mean casual flirting. He would basically get down to the nasty right away. Asking what colour of pants they wore after three polite responses and whether or not they would like to come down to his place as his missus (the poor cow) was away with her mates for the weekend.


He did all this whilst toadying up to senior management like no fucker else I have ever seen. I am sure he would have thanked them by hand-written letter if they had dropped a bucket of shite on his head.

The other thing I hate about him is his total lack of personal space. Whenever he tells you something, he is right up against you like a limpet. Many people have tried to get away from his awful conversations to a more comfortable position but the fucker just sidles up ever-closer until there is no escape.

I hate the fucker. I really do.

Oh yeah, first post.

W00t!
(TemporarySign., Thu 31 Jan 2008, 13:35, 4 replies)

Assembled twunts
I'm currently sitting at the edge of hell surrounded by a plethora of complete twunts, and as the rage of having to work beside this army of half-witted, scruffy looking nerf-herders wells inside me I feel compelled to share the details of just a few of them.

Luke: I fucking hate Luke, he is a skinny, pale-faced little twat who seems to think that going to dance music events and popping low quality Ecstasy is the same as having a personality.

Last week myself and b3tan bongmaster were strolling back to our desks, having enjoyed some banter and a cup of tea. Luke decides to accost bongmaster. "Are you going to -insert name of generic dance music event- next month?" asks Luke. "No I'm going to a few d'n'b events" replies bongmaster. Luke responds with "You should come, I've got my outfit sorted, a dustsuit and a gas mask!"

I don't even know where to begin ridiculing this. Firstly, when was it a requisite of going clubbing that you have to wear an 'outfit'? And how is a dustsuit an 'outfit'? Surely that would be classed as a 'costume'. Is it a fancy-fucking-dress dance event you are attending Luke?

Even though I now live a life of sobriety I've still ingested more chemcials and seen more high quality DJs than Luke could dream of, and not once did I ever feel compelled to dress up like a fuckwit.

Weird Derek: Sits opposite me and whistles tunelessly all day. Will indulge any random stranger in conversation, and I have concluded he must be severely starved of attention.

Will also take any opportunity to try and start a conversation.
I yawn: "Are you tired Jasper?"
I sneeze "Would you like a tissue Jasper?"

Derek is also a major league bullshitter. He claims to have had trials for Liverpool FC Youth Team, even though he is about as athletic as a chimney. He also claimed to live in a large 4 bedroom house, until someone pointed out to him that his girlfriends myfacespacebebobook page states she lives in a two bedroom flat with her boyfriend (Weird) Derek.

Deeko: I can't begin to describe how badly I want to beat him. Every time I see his stupid gormless grin, with his blatantly rotting teeth I want to grab the back of his head with my left hand and repeatedly put my elbow into his face whilst screaming "BEING A TEAM MANAGER IN A MID LEVEL CALL CENTRE IS NOT AN ACHIEVEMENT, SO WHY ARE YOU SO PLEASED WITH YOURSELF?"

Penman: Drives a Smart Roadster and thinks this has somehow positioned him as the fountain of all knowledge pertaining to sports cars. Apparently "A Caterham is so light you can lift it over your head". So you are able to perform an overhead press with 430kg are you Penman?? I think not. Granted his Smart Roadster is a 2 seater with a turbo charged engine, but that engine has 3 cylinders and is less that 1000cc, the car does 0-62 in just over 10 seconds and has a top speed of.....wait for it.......109mph. Hardcore.

Big Red: So called because he weighs in at well over 25 stone, and always wears a huge red jumper.

He is a serious sex pest and has the strangest come-on techniques of any man in the world. For example: he once overheard one of his lust-targets commenting that she liked bombay mix. So Big Red brings in a fucking huge bag of bombay mix every single day, hoping that the object of his sweaty affection willl notice this and the ensuing conversation will result in him doing the no-pants dance with her in the disabled toilets.

Apologies for the rant, I realise this is not crafted to my usual levels of articulation, but these people should be tortured and sterilised.
(JasperSinister is offering two tickets to the gun show, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 13:04, 3 replies)

onetel
i used to work at onetel telecom company. yes I’m not afraid to say the name ONNNEEEETELLL.
if any of you are/were aware of it- you'll know they treated their customers like crap, this was due to the worst kind of business management - but that’s another story.
As i started there in customer service, i of course got all the crap from both sides of the fence. I was one of the good guys, i would fix the customers problem even if i didn’t get paid to do it. i was on on the side of truth and justice.

So one typical conversation was this customer asking why he found it hard to get through to a foreign number with our cheap service compared to BT's expensive service. I did the usual line fault tests and logged a fault with the relevant team and told the guy that's all i could do. now i had to tow the company line here, i couldn’t really tell him "look mate if you use a rusty old bike, you’re not going to get there as quickly or as comfortably as you would in a BMW, are you?" - "guess what, onetel's the rusty bike".

anyhoo i was chatting with my friend at break and just saying to him about how impossible that situation is to deal with. it was at this point i said out loud the words "what does he [customer] want me to say?- that onetel's shit!?". At this point a very Fat and very Ugly Bitch from H.R. comes over - all she'd heard is me saying the "onetel's shit" part of the conversation. she looks at me up and down and says, if i come in with trainers on again i will be sacked. - this sort of obnoxious abuse of power was tipical for H.R. and the threat didnt supprise me one bit. At this point my friend say's; "I'm wearing shoes miss!" classic. (btw my trainers were dark brown and very shoe-like, i was wearing smart trousers and shirt) anyway i got my own back years later when i raped and murdered her. (that part was a lie)

PS my friend (a guy) was a goth with long jet black hair and purple velvet top and black fingernail polish on at the time - and was of course not told off. on dress down friday he could often be seen wearing a skirt - hi Geoff! how you doing.
(L E T S G O "Stop buying into and spreading this shit", Thu 31 Jan 2008, 12:50, 6 replies)

Oh dear...
Every Wednesday night, without fail. A long line of drunken, noisy students, making their way home from the pub. It was a bar-stewed college.

So, so sorry...
( jim_bob can herd cats., Thu 31 Jan 2008, 12:50, Reply)

Miss Misery
We've a big haired colleague who is one of the most sullen people ever born. The staffroom in general is pretty easygoing and everyone makes an effort to be nice to one another, but conversations with the big haired one tend to fizzle out due to despair.

Typical examples:
Me: "Hey (Marge-Simpson-Lookalike), check out this website. It might come in handy as a teaching aid."
MSL: "Fucking websites. I hate computers."

My nice colleague: "Hello there (Marge-Simpson-Lookalike). Fancy coming to the pub after work?"
MSL: "I fucking hate pubs. They're always full of fucking people."

But the most bizarre one came today. I was sitting on a computer, typing away when she decided my ear was ripe for a bending. Apropos of nothing:

"I fucking hate friends. Fuckers. I went and visited my friend today and I was cold on the journey."

She's not malign, so it's a little harsh to call her a bastard colleague, but she does take a little zip and sparkle out of the joy of being a teacher.
(I grew it myself, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 11:40, 4 replies)

Phew!
Very relieved not to have recognised myself in anyone elsed post!

But then again, would I?
(misspiggy In danger of having to get a job, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 11:12, 1 reply)

shit stabber
I've just discovered I have a bastard colleague, nay, cunt colleague as the following has just happened.

Theres no easy way to say this so its going to have to be fairly blunt. Some one has smeared their shit around the inside rim of the toilet seat in trap 3. Its fairly innocuous though. I know this because I only noticed when i saw there is a thin line of shit across my dick. On further inspection I have sort of shit-oval running around my arse cheeks and thighs.

Motherfucker. Theres like 12 blokes in the office and its one of them. Seriously, youre a wrong motherfucker.
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 10:40, 13 replies)

I'm so sorry... (pun alert)
A few years ago I was in a band with some mates. We played and wrote our own brand of kiddy-friendly guitar rock. However, a couple of years later our lead singer got a bit disenchanted with what we were doing and decided to quit to form a new band…

He was an ex-Busted colleague…

/Coat
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Thu 31 Jan 2008, 10:11, 8 replies)

media people in general
- Are all deeply special and individual people who don't conform because they're free thinkers. Though in fact they all think the same - usually whatever it says in the Guardian.
- Listen to (and talk about) world music as if they actually enjoy it. The latest recording of the child Jenga Jenga tribe from Kenya? Download it! And have you heard the latest solo project from Thom Yorke? The one where he sings from inside a barrel of sardines? Classic!
- Wear cutting edge fashion. That t-shirt from Greenwich Village featuring an actual newspaper collage; those ethically produced jeans made from woven pubic hair by free-trade Downs syndrome peasants in Ecuador? I've got two pairs! Those fucking Converse All Stars which are just so cool even when your're 40...
- Read only Literature. A bit of Tolstoy before bed; the Koran at breakfast; the complete works of Shakespeare as a podcast - but only if you tell everyone about it loudly the next day so they know how clever you are.
- Scorn capitalism and all its minions. We live to Create. Never mind that we'd be homeless without the advertising, the subscriptions and the sponsorship deals that make our every word another act of whoredom.

Should have been a plumber.

EDIT: Mark Twain had the right idea: "I will never write' metropolis" when I can write 'city' - I get paid by the word."
(frankspencer, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 9:15, 26 replies)

bastard shitter
I used to work for a very big company with the full gamut of personality traits available to delight me every day. My personal favourite was the unknown guy who was so proud of his turds he’d put them on display.

He’d build a solid unflushable base of toilette paper in the bowl, lay his turd on top, then close the lid to add to the surprise for the next user. Because the paper base was so high, when you opened the lid, for a split second, you got the impression the turd was leaping out at you.

Sometimes the turd would be a good solid British log, sometimes a more continental Mr Whippy affair, but the modus operandi remained constant for about six months. He then started to garnish his offerings. Perhaps a pencil stuck in the top like a little mast, a sprinkle of coloured paper clips and once a dandylion. It became so common place that on the occasion I'd come across one of his now rare plain turds I'd feel a little let down.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Thu 31 Jan 2008, 9:06, 2 replies)

Leaving cards etc. Part II


Further to my 'Hey, it's me' post below, and the additions from Poo Flake, Smash Monkey etc. I was giving this a bit of thought in the car last night and this morning and think there's some Thursday, end of QOTW mileage in it.

I love the idea of signing first with 'All the best, Che' and then using my left hand and another pen to add a mischievous message from, say, 'Bob'. How about for a bloke that's just had a baby: 'OK, your balls work, now try using your brain' (you can substitute 'balls' for 'womb' obviously) or; 'Nice going. One more mouth for the World to feed' - or is that a bit too far?

'Get lost, we need your desk' for a leaving card or perhaps 'I always loved you, S. xxxxxx'

'You're old and you know it' for a birthday card

Then I got a little more suble, bit like Smash Monkey and thought that obscure song lyrics or film quotes might be nice in a really anal, guilty pleasures type way. How about 'But I believe in this and it's been tested by research...JS' or 'You're a big cheese now in the workhouse, With these vulgar fractions of the treble clef...EC' [google will reveal all]. Or 'I've decided to be godfather to Connie's baby. MC'

Your entries please.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 9:01, 3 replies)

I don't work with this bloke
However I think Christian Dadswell of Newport, as seen on the BBC's site, probably deserves a mention in this QOTW.



I'm guessing here but what I imagine his colleagues probably mean is that they hope he's going to die soon.
( Lord Gnome, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 9:00, 4 replies)

just plain weird
pizza shop + dud orders = staff pizza's.
nice pizza's + hungry staff = tasty treat.
yucky ingredients + no interest from staff = cold, stale, gross pizza.


at the end of the night, cleaning up the shop, i put an old, gross, stale pizza into the garbage bin. "muddy" - as we nicknamed him - came back from a late delivery, fished a few slices and began munching on his free treat. that had been in the bin along with everything that i had swept up from the floor.

my boss and i noticed that he seemed to have magically found some pizza, and we couldn't work out where he got it. it finally dawned on us that he MUST have taken it from the bin.

the next day, the same circumstances. old gross pizza that no one else touched, muddy took a slice for a late delivery, as i was beginning the clean up. i strategically placed the leftover pizza underneath other various rubbish. muddy bait as i called it. sure enough, he walked back in, saw that clean up had started and dove into the bin, actually grinning when he found his glorious pizza. my boss and i took turns in placing sick-ass shit ontop of bin-pizza, atleast 10 times.

without fail, he would piss on the floor.

one time, while he was making himself a chicken satay pizza, he let me know that "satay sauce was better than sex, especially because i don't have to pay for it".

one time, he walked in, remained quiet for a few minutes, and then BURST out laughing. like, tears. i asked him what he was laughing at, and (this was at roughly 7pm saturday night) he replied "oh nothing..... well i just remembered something i heard on the radio wednesday morning."

sometimes, when the boss was up the front and he was in the back, i came in thru the front door and would catch him "dancing" to the radio while washing dishes. seeing a lanky guy, washing dishes, bobbing to cows with guns like it was funky town can make you turn around, go back outside, laugh and then come back inside wiping tears from your face.

he came back from a delivery with a bright red face and obvious dried up tears on his cheeks, dropped off his money and walked out. the next day, he brought a piece of paper entitled "untitled.txt" claiming that the "disgusting people at teased him, calling him "dougie" etc, and that if he ever was instructed to take a delivery back there, their pizza would have a mayonnaises type substance on it - and it wouldn't be mayonnaise. "

on his last day (he actually quit and wasn't fired) he said goodbye to everyone, and left. around half an hour later, he came back, sporting a joker/juggler style hat that you see jokers in a deck of cards wearing, a tuxedo like jacket (ontop of his work clothes) and a party horn whistle thing. for reasons unknown, he actually came back inside to say goodbye to everyone, again, with a special costume.

you can't make this up.

i'll talk to my boss and see if he remembers anymore shit that muddy did.


length? 9, 12 or 15 inches.
(BLuFFaLo, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 8:01, 5 replies)

The Vile Young Spastic
I once ran a call centre with 75 or so operators. Generally they were an excellent bunch and a good laugh, so I am certainly not criticising the customer service representative profession. However, after several months of operation I was approached with a perplexing staff problem...

Several staff members had come to me on various occassions complaining about the state of the toilets. This was subsequently backed up when the cleaners threatened to stop cleaning them. Upon personal inspection I found the most god-awful mess in one of the cubicles. Seriously, it looked like an explosion in....well a shit factory. There was faecal matter everywhere..down the khazi, down the sides, on the floor, on the remaining toilet paper (with finger marks - eewww!). The skid stains on the inside of the bowl were so thick, the perpetrator must have had one leg right down the S-bend and been drawing on the pan with their turtle's head like a pritt stick.

To make matters truly worse for me (as a male), this was the ladies toilet....I had to concoct a particularly tactful email trying to flush out the vile young spastic responsible. Alas, to no avail..the problem continued for months and had not stopped when I left.

I find it seriously discomforting that a woman was responsible for this. I would tell you about my amusing "call centre dunce hat" motivational technique if I had time...but seems I have gone on long enough already.
(Mandrill, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 2:49, 5 replies)

Demotivational efforts - biscuit denial - a 101 for aspiring managers
I work for a reasonably sized IT consultancy, which turns over millions of dollars a year.

The latest motivational inspirational move by a female manager who seems to specialise in ill thought out decisions that appear to be solely done to annoy staff?

Cutting the biscuit supply, because they "don't have enough petty cash to buy biscuits".

It just astounds me that people can still be that dimwitted, even after years of people taking the piss out of that kind of petty behaviour. Doesn't anybody read Dilbert any more? Hygiene factors, innit?

(PS: Blatant plug for new site to rant about such things in me sig - go on, have a whinge)
(incrediblemonkeydoctor www.rantatsomeone.com - go on, have a rant, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 2:22, Reply)

People person my arse
Steve Bateman - what a cunt!
(goatse gazer, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 1:04, Reply)

Possibly me
I worked for my dad's company for a while, and did almost no work.
to my credit, the work that I did do in the 20 minutes of actual searching and scouring of the internet (my job was to find Nurse Practitioners in different states), was apparently enough to keep my superiours happy and busy, as I had not been trained in, nor knew the first thing about, actually calling these people and asking them to leave their jobs to work for us. In the month or so that I had worked there, I may have done about a day of actual work, which apparently was enough to keep the problem of finding people away for...well a year really.
But I was still the bastard colleague, I was the only one in the office not wearing a suit (I wore my standard T-shirt and cargo pants with books in the pockets), I drank coffee like a fish (it was boring as hell), and never once made a new pot, and occupied the corner office of my dad, as he was almost always away to meeting and such.
I always believed that no one yelled at me because I was the boss's son, hated that, I would rather be useless than useless and protected.
At one point I told my dad that I'd finished all my work, and that I felt bad taking his money for spending all my time on B3ta
this resulted in him telling my superiors to "find more work for me"
they didn't, just told me to see if I could find more, and I couldn't, so that was that
I figured the best way I could get on with all was to keep quiet and beat that flash portal game for the 56th time.

Came back recently to help them set up the new office, they seem glad to see the end of me there, putting up pictures was a lot more interesting than finding jobs anyway.

Leangth?
2 months and too long
( Arsonade is saving up for a new box of hummus, Thu 31 Jan 2008, 0:37, Reply)

having made the great escape
from uxbridge i am now back in london.

i really like my new work room mate. he is clever and funny and nice looking and helpful and doesn't smell or shout on the phone or talk to my tits or loudly dictate every last word of every email or letter.

but oh my GOD IF HE DOESN'T STOP THAT BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD COUGHING I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY ACTIONS. it's like that bjork song in here... "it's oh so quiet, sssh, ssssh... and then... you cough that lung up, bang bang" ...

it's loud. it's sudden. it's long. it makes me jump. it's every bloody five minutes of every half an hour of every bloody hour of the livelong day. i'm usually pretty easygoing, but *this*, this is what has got to go.

and breathe. without coughing.

ok fine so it's not technically on topic, but at least it's made me feel better and it's a punfree zone!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 30 Jan 2008, 23:56, 4 replies)

Does bastard bandmates count?
I was in a band many many years ago, and at one rehearsal I played a riff I'd come up with, and the other guitarist dismissed it with the immortal line:

"Nah, too thrashy. Now, what Metallica songs are we going to cover?"
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Wed 30 Jan 2008, 22:55, 1 reply)

...and another one
Back when I worked in London, one of the bosses of the company I worked for was a raving alcoholic. We nicknamed him "Geedub", which was short for GW, the initials of "Gold Watch" which apparently is rhyming slang for Scotch, his tipple of choice.

Amongst his party tricks were:

Turning up at 11 every day, sitting at his desk for 2 minutes, then getting up, saying he was going over to the sandwich shop and did anyone want anything, then disappearing for an hour, and coming back smelling of booze, clutching a ham sandwich as if that would fool us.

Telling us stuff in the afternoons while pissed, then forgetting the next day that he'd done so and then bollocking us for doing/not doing whatever it was he'd told us to do.

Towards the end, his drinking was totally out of control, and he would be totally plastered by the end of the day.

One day, I overheard a phone conversation he was having and pointed out to my mate porky that it didn't sound like there was anyone on the other end of the phone.

A quick check of the phones showed us that there were in fact 2 lines in operation, although only Geedub was on the phone.

Further surveillance revealed that he would phone the office number, put the call on hold and then answer it himself, then have a fake conversation with no-one, the end result of which would be he'd have to go to site to examine a job, whereupon he'd nip to accounts to get some petty cash, hail a taxi and disappear, before rolling back in dead on 5 o'clock as pissed as a fart and slurring telling us all about the job he'd just looked at.

When he was particularly pissed we'd spot him getting ready to make one of these calls, and answer the phone before he had a chance to get it himself, which would result in him recognising our voices, and then explaining how if 2 people answered the phone at exactly the same time, it connected them to each other and cut the incoming call off.

Another time, he was having a long, in-depth conversation with much arguing and debating "with a customer", when that customer appeared on the trade counter =)

This one's my personal favourite:

While out with the other 2 owners of the company entertaining some customers, Geedub got chatting to one of them about another customer who wasn't there that night. Apparently the conversation went like this:

Geedub: "Yeah, he's a great bloke, I can't think of his name though"
Customer: "..."
Geedub: "D'oh, it's on the tip of my tongue..." *much head scratching and exaggerated "trying to remember actions* before:
Geedub: *slaps hand on table* "I've got it! It's Terry Smith!"
Customer: "Er, no Geedub. That's me"
Geedub: (angrily) "I know that!"

It wasn't all funny though; in the end we found that as well as going out drinking he was visiting knocking shops and getting his end away with a variety of slappers - not so nice for his wife (who also worked with us) O_o

In the end he was persuaded to leave, I don't know the details - but it wasn't a moment too soon: the company was doing really well but the amount of money he was spending very very nearly brought us down, to the extent that we were almost in our last weeks before he went.

/length? About 4 years too long...
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Wed 30 Jan 2008, 22:53, 1 reply)

And another one about The Hammer...
Just remembered this:

(Names have been changed to protect the innocent)

I got this story from my colleague Jane, who I would trust with my life:

One night, The Hammer and Jane were working late.

"Do you want to play a little game?" asked the Hammer. "We'll go through all the men on this floor and decide which ones we would and wouldn't sleep with"
Jane was quite perturbed by this point
"We'll ignore Kenny and Tim (the other male trainer), because we're only talking about proper men...
"And you can only play if you're not a virgin, so Genevieve can't play"

Genevieve worked in a different department down the corridor, was 40 something, quite quiet but friendly and a really nice person. I mean, what the fuck was The Hammer thinking?
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Wed 30 Jan 2008, 22:37, Reply)

Ooh, where to start?
Right - first one, from the job I've just left.

Bit of background: I'm an IT Trainer for the NHS, I train all kinds of staff on all kinds of systems - mostly clinical , but occasionally Word, Excel, that kind of thing.

You've probably heard of the troubles the NHS is having with its computer modernisation; anyway, as part of that program we implemented a new system, which we called PAS.

This involved training a couple of thousand staff prior to going live with the system, then supporting them through go-live, followed by training of the ones we didn't get before going live.

As well as this, there were other systems which also needed to be trained, as staff would have to use them too.

There were 5 trainers, and one, who I'll call "The Hammer" (for that was her nickname amongst us) was not only a sneaky 2-faced bitch, but also stupid and incompetent, as well as set in her ways and a control freak.

She was (for some insane reason) temporarily made up to a higher band than the 4 other trainers and called "Training Project Lead", which theoretically meant she was in charge of us.

She never did any actual leading, anything that required a decision was referred down to the 4 of us, and if our actual manager told her to get one of us to do something, she always told us through a third person. We eventually realised that this was so she always had a get out ("why didn't Kenny do those spreadsheets?" "Well, I told Miranda to tell him they had to be done", etc).

She constantly ignored what our manager told her, for instance in the run up to go-live we were all told by the head of IT that although PAS was important, it wasn't the only system we were training and not to forget the other systems. On leaving the meeting, she turned round to us all and proclaimed "I don't care what he says, PAS is all we're doing".

At that same meeting the head of IT said that prior to being officially trained on PAS we could all have a practise on it with the laptop that had been supplied with it loaded on, so that we had a bit of a headstart. We didn't even know this laptop existed, as she'd hidden it in her desk and not told us - that way she could be the only one who knew anything about it and could make us all look lazy and/or stupid.

She couldn't be trusted, she was always talking about people behind their backs, including when one trainer got pregnant telling her off for having such bad timing and then constantly telling people that although she was pregnant, she shouldn't be showing a bump yet and was in fact just very fat - she herself being as rounded and wobbly as a round wobbly thing.

She was also incompetent at most things computer related - I had to freeze and unfreeze panes for her on Excel, every time she needed this doing - no matter how many times I showed her the two mouse-clicks it took to do this she forgot again - oh, and once I overheard her telling a trainee that the reason the copy/paste operation she'd just carried out hadn't worked properly was because she'd not clicked "Paste" hard enough (nothing to do with the fact that she'd selected the wrong block of text then?).

I could go on all night, but this is long enough. The worst of it is that the 4 of us were a really good training team, and now that I've left, The Hammer is the only one left. I actually changed jobs because I moved to Derby, but the other 3 left because she drove them away.

/penis
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Wed 30 Jan 2008, 22:33, Reply)

Disgusting fecker
A guy on my team is the most annoying shitbag ever. This guy manages to snore whilst awake, so you can imagine what it sounds like when he eats. Uuuurgh. Sometimes he does fall asleep and drool over the computer keyboard. Other times he just likes to pick his ears and then use various items of other people's stationery to clean under his nails. Oh and then there's all the scratching and skin flaking all over the place that he does. It's grim.

Then there's the lazy bitch who does the very bare minimum of work. She claims to come in early every day but in fact spends the first hour drinking coffee and sitting on her fat ass in front of the internet. She won't stay a minute past the end of the day, even if she hasn't finished something that cannot be left overnight. Which she usually hasn't, because she lazes about all day and spends more time huffing and puffing about the HUGE amount of work she has to do (which is probably about 1/10 what everyone else manages to do in a day). She'll leave it for someone else to finish off, but will never help anyone else. But you can't say anything to her, cos she'll go straight to the management and claim we all victimise her, cry a bit and then we'll get a lecture about being mindful of her feelings. Never mind the fact that the screamed at me in the workroom a while ago. That's allowed. But asking her to do her fair share? Big no no.

Then there's the arrogant cock who thankfully works in a different team, who had a go at me this morning for using the instrument in my team's lab, that I had booked out to use, because he hadn't looked at his data from a week ago. I did check with his boss that it was ok to use before I switched the method to my team's project. But apparently that wasn't right. All he kept saying was that I should've checked before using it. I did check, I kept telling him so, and he kept saying that his boss didn't know to tell me not to use it. And that's my fault how...??

There are more but I can feel my blood pressure rising right now. Need to calm down....
( El Lazarus is calm now, Ish,, Wed 30 Jan 2008, 21:16, Reply)

Close your F***in mouth you gargantuan beast!
In my last full time job there was a woman (debatable) who was everything that could constitute a bastard colleague, all rolled into one hideous incarnation.

She was the ultimate target for abuse.

This girl was ugly, not "cute ugly" in the way some dogs are, or even "interesting-looking". She had the kind of face that could strip paint.
In addition to this she was fucking huge, with a physique like "Nanny" from the cartoon Duckula (yes I am a product of the 80's)
www.jedisparadise.co.uk/index.htm?childrenstv/Duckula/Duckula.htm&1
She was a virgin until the age of 23, definitely not through choice.. well not hers anyway.

She also lived with her parents, now, essentially there is nothing wrong with this however it is slightly disturbing when a woman in her mid twenties recieves such items as a "Cabbage Patch Doll" for christmas...

She was a brown nosing twunt, and in true playground style would tell tales on anyone to earn a gold star and detract from how fucking useless she actually was at her job.

She was the only person I have met in my life who went on the weightwatchers diet for an indeterminate number of years and actually ended up fatter than when she started..

But quite possibly the singlemost infuriating thing about her was the manner with which she ate. She slurped, she chomped, she smacked her huge blubbery lips together and gnarled at her food like a lion chewing a particularly gristly carcass.
This girl had the ability to clear the staff room just by reaching into her bag and producing an apple, I swear at least half of the workplace became smokers.

Oh.. and her breath always smelt of fish
(Peek_a_Boo forgot how fun B3ta was until, Wed 30 Jan 2008, 20:13, 4 replies)

rather odd fellow
Currently studying a postgrad qualification, so I'm counting a fellow student as a 'work colleague'. It's a 9-5 / Mon-Fri course with a job at the end, none of the 3-hour weeks and going out on Tuesday nights typically associated with being a student, so I reckon it should count.

Anyway, I live in on-campus accommodation with this gentleman who shall remain nameless - the upshot of which is that I have to put with the twunt in lectures all day and then in my spare time during the evenings.

What's wrong with him, you may wonder? It's hard to sum it up in a single sentence - there's no single thing that stands out, but after a while his endless capacity for social faux-pas and unwittingly obnoxious behaviour becomes quite wearing.

Firstly, despite living in the same building where our classes and lectures take place, he somehow manages to arrive up to 20 minutes late every day for the first lesson. To get from our accommodation area to the classrooms involves a two minute (or less) walk down a few flights of stairs, yet somehow the guy manages to get beaten in the promptness stakes every morning by people who commute in from an hour away.

His best excuse, after a week of consistent lateness, was that he underestimated how long the lift journey would take. Another time, when asked why he was running stupidly late, he said: "I'm sorry, but I've only just got out of bed." Then said nothing else, as though somehow that were a satisfactory explanation.

He gets away with stuff like this all the time, because his excuses are so pathetic that staff have given up trying to get him to turn up on time. Yet whenever anyone quite reasonably and politely asks him to try and make more of an effort he runs off to the college counsellor, or anyone who will listen, and whinges about how he is being bullied and victimised by everyone else on the course.

Despite failing to arrive on time more or less every morning, however, this didn't stop him complaining to the higher-ups that he felt he wasn't getting enough tuition from lecturers.

When it was pointed out that he missed over an hour a week by his lateness, he got indignant and spent an evening chewing everyone else's ears off about how the college was victimising him and failing to support him adequately.

The same gentleman takes appalling care of himself outside of the course - I've never once seen him wash, and in his room there's barely any carpet visible for all the used laundry scattered over the floor. Normally I wouldn't object to how people conduct themselves in their personal lives, except that this little hygienic lapse means our entire corridor smells like dead cats and unwashed feet.

This is just the tip of the iceberg - I haven't got time to go into detail about the late-night suicide threats, his seemingly exclusive diet of plain rice and Red Bull, and his ability to ramble on about entirely irrelevant subjects (railway service providers in the North-East being a particular favourite) until you genuinely want to kill yourself.

Apologies for length etc. etc. etc.
(A Nonny Mouse, Wed 30 Jan 2008, 18:19, Reply)