Yet more Sheffield City Council
A couple of weeks ago, Mrs Crackerjack had to take some important documents from her place of business to a company in Sheffield on her way home. As I had the TomTom that day, she was left to find it herself, toiling against the ridiculous one-way systems and closed roads due to traffic works.

She found the road, but could not actually find where the building was (it was incongruously placed between two coffee shops), and so, after parking dashed into the local council office to ask for directions.

In she ran, looking flustered, with a load of lever-arch files beneath her arms, and politely asked the ladies sat behind the reception desk if they knew where [x ltd] was. Their response was a rather brief 'no', before carrying on their no-doubt moronic conversation.

Still, it's nice to see that cuntitude is present in even the lowliest of council workers in Sheffield. It's probably some requirement.
( CaptainCrackerjack live trout, slow motion, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 12:26, Reply)

Poland
Living in the city of Katowice in southern Poland, I had to renew a work permit to stay in the country. To do this, I had to have an official address. Since I didn't own a flat, I was renting from a woman who was paying no tax on the rent and who therefore wouldn't let me give her address as mine. I told this to the council and they said: no address - no job.

So I made one up and gave them that. No problems. I found out later that I was officially living in a butcher's shop in the town centre.
(frankspencer, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 12:24, Reply)

Lovely Lytham St Annes
I live just outside of Blackpool in sunny St Annes and we have one of the most retarded councils in the world. What follows is a genuine story (printed everywhere but this txt is lifted from the Times):

"A pensioner who lives beside the seaside has been warned by his council that he faces a heavy fine for fly-tipping if he returns windblown sand in his garden back to the beach.

Arthur Bulmer, 79, has long complained of sand drifting on to his property on the fore-shore at Lytham St Anne’s, in Lancashire, but this year’s gales have exacerbated the problem.

When he asked Fylde Borough Council if it was permissible to return the sand where it came from, he was told it would constitute fly-tipping. He should treat it as litter and take it to the municipal refuse tip. The council told him that they happily clear sand deposited on the public highway but once it lands on private property it becomes the responsibility of the owners.

He pensioner says that he has no alternative but to pay a specialist waste disposal firm to collect his unwanted sand and take it away."

And I pay £900 a year Council tax (oh and business rates) to these fuckwits ?!
(Tammytastic, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 12:21, Reply)

Llywodraeth Cynulliad Cymru
This question reminds me of the time I was doing some temp work in the Welsh Assembly between college and uni.

To try to stop as many depression-related suicides as possible, we're each forced to decorate our departments at Christmas, and at the end of it all, our efforts are judged. In the week approching the big day, we all got treated to this open e-mail exchange:

Dear colleagues

I refer to my earlier e-mail, which relates to Ann's judging of and prize-giving for HSC's Christmas Decorations at Cathays Park. As I'm sure you've guessed, saying that she would be coming around tomorrow was of course a classic 'soft' deadline tactic. For information, the real date of the adjudication is now Monday 19 December.

Regards
Alun

Swiftly followed by:

Alun,

That will put us in an awkward position. As you are aware, our display involves a lot of fresh greenery which is unlikely to survive until Monday in the heat of this office. This team has put a lot of effort and personal time into competing and I, as the one who bullied them into this, will not be available to try and save the foliage as I will be in hospital that day. I am personally disappointed at this arrangement adjustment.

Regards
Bev

It should also be noted that both of these messages were send with 'high' importance. Says a lot about the governments priorities, if you ask me...
( owain2002, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 12:19, Reply)

Smile please! I can't. I have no teeth.
Sheffield City Council again I'm afraid folks.

In 1998 my wife and I were walking along the road, past The Howard pub. She caught her heel in a hole caused when a crash barrier had been knocked down.


She fell, and snapped her front two teeth off. Snapped. We tried to Sue, but sadly hadn't had the presence of mind to take photos at the time, what with the hospital taking up most of my thoughts.

We went down to get pictures a week later, but they had received our lawyer's letter and had filled the hole. We got nothing other than huge orthodontist bills.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Thu 26 Jul 2007, 12:15, Reply)

I thought libraries were supposed to be full of smart people
I changed address, and was going through the rigmarole of getting everything updated.

I dropped into the local library and was told that they couldn't change my address without something with my new address on it. Despite me gently* pointing out that as I had just changed address I didn't actually have anything with my new address on it just yet I was sent on my way.

I walked around the corner to the motor registry, got my license updated, with a nice little sticker on it with my new address, no proof needed, then straight back around the corner to the library to change my address with my updated ID.

You know you're in trouble when it takes longer to update your library account than your driver's license...

(*) possibly not all that gently
( Udderbelly A tale of four titties, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 12:12, Reply)

Wow, this is weird.
Only this morning, I received *three* letters threatening to send the bailiffs around for non-payment of council tax. My poor sleepy eyes couldn't believe it. I am not the most organised person, but I try and pay stuff like this off in full as soon as I get it so I don’t have to think about it.

After a second, I realised that the letters were from Torridge District Council (yeah I know, where? It's in Devon apparently).

Which is splendid, apart from the fact that I've only ever driven through Devon to get to Cornwall.

I rang them and they wouldn’t tell me what moronic company thought that randomly selecting me for the demand would do. If any law types know if I can get this through freedom of information or similar gaz me.

I feel I need some petty revenge for upsetting me before my morning coffee.

Hmm. What would be an appropriate response?

I know!

HEY SPAMBOTS! COME AND GET IT!

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

Still. It's in a nice location on the north Devon coast. The demands totaled about £500. If I pay it, can I have the flat?
( cupboardy, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 12:11, Reply)

I agree with you all
I've been working in Local government for nearly five years now, and I can honestly say I've never had the displeasure of working with such a bunch of inept, feckless, moaning, useless old arsebiscuits in my life. Every single day I am subjected to the constant complaining of incompetent octogenarian administrators about the simplest, most trivial things.
I have tried, and tried, and tried to drag them all, kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, I’ve trained them, re-trained them and spent weeks of my time showing them how to do their incredibly basic jobs, but all to no avail. I’m no expert, and don’t even consider myself particularly intelligent, but I have more common sense and basic computer skills in my left shoe than 90% of the people in this entire building.

You see, the trouble is, they’re all stuck in their own little 1970’s work ethic, where everybody always has to take the long way round, uber-bureacracy is the only thing they know, and nothing I ever say or do will ever change that.

Someone give me a job, any job will do, anything at all, please? I’m begging, seriously, please?

...or it won’t be long before they find me on the roof, rifle in hand, screaming incoherently about how the whole Council are a bunch of total cockgizzards, picking them all off, one by gloriously satisfying one.
I kid ye not.
( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 12:03, Reply)

Newham Borough Cpuncil & The Poll Tax
It is 1990, and I am a student at what became the University Of East London in Stratford E15, though I was living in Plaistow. Still Newham though.

I decided to *pay* my Poll Tax - well, the 20% of it I had to pay as a student, which was about a hundred quid. Just to keep the sheet clear, make sure I didn't fuck up my student loan chances and so on.

So, I got the document from the council, filled it in as best I could, and trotted off with all the paperwork and a chequebook to hand. I queued, and handed it over.

"You've missed out next year's term dates"
"Yes, they're not out yet."
"Can't process this without next years term dates, you need those before you can pay"
"That's bloody ridiculous."

Stormed out, tore up the docs into little pieces and binned them, and swore Newham Council could suck my sweaty fucking ballbag, the jumped up incompetent too stupid to bend rules when someone's trying to pay them bunch of fuckwitted cunts.
( Fathter Puddytat Kill Kill dat widdle boid is mine on, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 12:02, Reply)

Heh.
For my sins I used to do 2nd/3rd line support for a shitload of councils - until they fired me for blogging and calling a server droid an incompetent fuckwit.

But, working there gave me a lot of interesting stories, a few of which I'll share with you. The first one is Bird Flu.

I'm sure you can all remember the scares about Bird Flu a year or so ago but I bet you've no idea how many mongs used to phone their local council about it. As the calls were recorded I got to listen to some of the more bizarre ones. This is one of my favourites.

Fuckwit: "I'd like to report a case of bird flu"

Op: "Yes sir - can you give me the details"

Fuckwit: "Well I was cleaning out my budgies cage and it sneezed. It's got bird flu. I've put it in the garden and I want someone to come round and take it away."

Op: "Sir - just because your budgie sneezed doesn't mean it's got Bird flu. It just means your budgie sneezed"

Fuckwit: "You don't understand. It's now fallen off it's perch and is lying upside down in it's cage"

OP: "Sir - it's minus five outside. I'm not surprised that it's fallen off it's perch"

And so on.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:55, Reply)

Southsea Cunt Council
I pay two lots of Council Tax. Most of it goes to Portsmouth Council where it goes towards libraries, bin collection, coppers and so on. Fair enough.
Then I pay a little extra each year to Southsea council. Apparently 80% of their budget goes towards paying the councillors and renting their nice, shiny offices. The rest went to repairing the bit of road right outside the head cunt's house. Pisstaking to the Nth degreee.
(Big D, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:54, Reply)

my council is probably worse than yours
their garbage collection is inadequate to say the least, the place seems to look worse and worse every day, and they have a policy of exterminating members of the wrong religious denomination.

Signed,
Nashat al-Sabri,
Baghdad.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:51, Reply)

Rubbish collection
Our rubbish is collected on Monday mornings. As Stockport council are too fucking cheap to give us wheelie bins, we have to stick our bin bags out on Monday morning.

We have recently got a nice letter from them saying that if anyone puts their bin bags out before 7am on a Monday, and the contents of the bags don't give any clues as to who they belonged to, then all the houses that back on to that alleyway will get a fine to cover the cost of any cleanup that may be needed. Considering there's about 40 houses that back on to the same alleyway as us, that gives quite a large chance of at least one household putting out their shite. There's also nothing stopping someone going over the road to dump their rubbish in another alleyway anyway.

Also, seeing as the bin men usually arrive at 8.30ish anyway, that gives people a window of approximately hour and a half to get their stuff out. Obviously they don't give a shit about anyone that's unable to put their bags out at that time.

We had a similar letter about 6 months ago and Mrs Fishcake phoned up to tell them that it was completely unfair of them to do this, only to be told that they were the rules, and that it was the only way to stop people from doing it.

Cunts.

Fucking fucking cunts.
( Mike Fishcake teamfishcake.co.uk - better than your mum's face, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:50, Reply)

I work in a pub, which is sadly the closest to the Council Building in town
This means we get a LOT of council cunts coming in and gettng served. It's funny, because they complain the most. They always drink the cheapest ale, and moan about when the Government raises the price by about two pence.

This one Council Crapstain (CC) drinks a smooth flow bitter. One time, I accidentally didn't let it settle, so the head of the pint was about 1cm over. In order to prevent him from arsing on about it, I asked him to take a small sip so I could top it up. CC takes an entire gulp, so I top it up. Ever since that faithful day, he believes he gets special treatment. Every time he gets a pint, he takes a gulp and demands it be topped up. As the rest of the barstaff can't stand up to anybody with the remotest bit of power, they always complied.

I decided to do something about it. Next time I poured him a pint, he asked me "do you want me to take a sip out of this then?"

I replied "If you want. You can have the whole pint if you want, considering you bought it"

He blew his top. Asked me to speak to the landlord. I explained as he was out, I was left in charge and had the right to refuse service to anyone.

It's fun to see Council Cunts being spoken to like that. They get all flustered, try and say something, spend two minutes or so in silence, then storm out.
( __, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:49, Reply)

Local council librarian facist - repost for QOTW
Being a nerdy 17 year old I wanted to join the library in the town where I worked as I couldn't get to mine other than Saturday mornings. Actually they did do vinyl rentals as well, this was over 20 years ago.

I had asked about joining and was told I'd need ID someone from work to countersign the application and a company stamp to stamp the application. I didn't live in the county so I accepted their rules.

I turn up with a colleague with a suitably impressive job title and the stamp we used in the drawing office on plans we'd send out and all of my ID. Bearing in mind I'm seventeen and live with my parents.

Snotty woman:

Fill in this form... DONE
You need someone to countersign... MY FRIEND STEPS FORWARD
Ah, you also need a company stamp... OUT IT CAME
And we need some ID... Gave her my local library card, provisional licence and a letter I had from my employers. Everything I had.

Ah, that's no good a provisional licence is not valid ID.

Being a soft git then I'm sure my bottom lip started to tremble, she'd won.., lot's of people looking and smirking.

Up steps my much older friend in a loud voice.

"YOU HAVE TO PASS YOUR TEST TO JOIN THE LIBRARY ??? DON'T BE SILLY".

There was no way she was going to let me join. Went back the next day with all the paperwork I had stamped the day before and spoke to someone else and explained the lack of "official" ID.

"No problem son, I'll make up your tickets. By the way your not the first, she is a pain in the arse"...

Just because they are in a position of power doesn't stop them being arseholes. I have since learnt that telling people what they are going to do in a calm firm voice works wonders, as in:

"These are not the droids you are looking for"
(Yellow Car is now red, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:47, Reply)

Councils? Bah!!!
I tried taking the GF up the council once.

She wasn't happy about it and ignored my repeated requests to arrange access.

So I ram raided the main office during the night.

Length? About 4 inches...wide!
(71 hour Ahmed wasn't working at, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:46, Reply)

Council tax
I was rather astonished to find the council tax on my 3 bed terraced house in a small devon town was £1200 per year.... SO I decided to appeal the tax banding.

They told me the tax is calculated on the value of the house in 1991. That's ok, it was only built in 2005 I told them.

So they estimate what it was worth in 1991. I'm sure its wrong and I'm getting screwed on it but the appeal process is a dead end really.

Plus they've changed the bin collection schedule as follows:

Thursday of week one; Brown wheelie for food waste/organic waste only.

Tuesday of week two: Black box for recyclable materials except plastic of which my bin seems to pretty much only contain.

Thursday of week two: Black bin for non organic or recycled waste.

Then everytime there is a holiday screw it all up to make everyone miss out, thus making it another couple of weeks before anything is collected leaving stinky nappy bing bags in the sunshine for 3 weeks :-)

Also, the bin lorry drives over the pavement ripping up the tarmac, so the council wont adopt the road. So the developer repairs it and requests the council inspect and adopt the road, before they do the bin lorry does it again. Unless there is a car parked in the street then the bin lorry doesn't bother with our road at all leaving the rubbish to rot for another couple of weeks.

We pay for that service.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:42, Reply)

More SCC cuntitude:
More evidence of Sheffield City Council's cuntery lies in the number of listed buildings which have mysteriously burnt down when the council weren't granted permission to knock them down and build an eyesore on the site. Arson is bad enough when it's a private individual trying to cash in. When it's the democratically elected leaders of your local authority, it sticks in the craw somewhat.
( CaptainCrackerjack live trout, slow motion, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:42, Reply)

sheffield council
Invested millions in the Student Olympics. Yes - the Student Olympics, that world famous sporting event that draws TV crews from around the world. When they even actually took place, they were paying people to be spectators because no one gave a fuck. I think they had the Crippled Student Olympics after that - which was an even hotter ticket. During the athletics, there was more people on the track than in the stadium seats. As far as I know, the city is still in debt from that shit.

Then there was the £100,000 party they threw to celebrate Neil Kinnock's victory in the general election. What victory? Oh yes, he lost - and Sheffield's taxpayers got to pick up the bill.

When I was at school it cost 2p to travel by bus anywhere in the city (10p for adults). Then they privatized the buses and it cost about 2 quid and you'd have fifteen buses arriving at the same time.

Credit to 'em though, they've made the city look less like a nucelar apocalypse since the nineties.
(frankspencer, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:42, Reply)

Bethlehem council
Me and Mary were living away from home when the fucking council went and called us back for a census. So we got the fucking donkey and set off back home. Of course, all the fucking hotels were closed and we could only get a barn. Mary was up the stick and the sprog was due any minute. Long story short, she dropped him in the barn. Then three fucking kings turn up.

"Christ!" I said "Even fucking kings can't get a room in this town. Fucking council!!"
(Fothermucker, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:34, Reply)

Just finished paying off...
...a firm of bailiffs this month, who were put on my arse by Manchester council tax office earlier this year. As far as I can tell they did this because the witless workshy near-illiterate bunch of chavtastic bitches that pretend to work there couldn't take the blueberry muffins out of thier mouths for long enough to answer the fucking phone for two months previous to my finding the bailiff's note pushed under my door. Oh, that made my day alright.

Basicallly my DD got messed up and I needed advice, couldn't get through to them to get it so I waited until I could. They negated my need for advice by fucking my credit rating and setting bailiffs on me for the first time in my life - presumably attempting to contact me before doing this never occurred to them. They remain completely indifferent, or did on the one, fucking ONE occasion I've been able to contact them by telephone this year.

Bunch
Of
Cunty
Cunt's
Cunt-shaped
Cunts

Previously I'd always tried to be nice to them, despite thier obvious lack of any real intellect or work ethic - in a shit job that I wouldn't even look at etc. Not any more. Fuck 'em. If I could be arsed finding the cake-wrapper-and-OK-magazine-strewn pikey shithole where they pretend to do thier jobs, I'd raze it to the ground.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:33, Reply)

Corrupt shit eating local council cunts.
I live in a village, part of which is in a conservation area. However there is a way around this if you want to build cheap ugly shite houses in this area - simply 'donate' loads of money to the local Council officials.. Job done, they get to carry on having foreign trips, official 'functions' and mega piss-ups for fuck all and we get to suffer with shite looking buildings and road choking extra traffic. Cunts!

Oh yes, first post! Woo!
(iPodsack "not as funny as he used to be", Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:31, Reply)

I work for a local council
so up yours, cunts!
( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:24, Reply)

Council
No complaints yet. I'm sure they'll come. My old primary school headteacher is on the Council. Mr Higgins Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr all those times he told me off (Laughing too much in an assembaly and fighting with someone else in year 3, the otherperson started it)
(Wosabe Likes Cake Yeah!, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:21, Reply)

My lovely council
Once put a parking meter in front of my window.

Not adjacent too...in front of..it was about 3cm away from the glass and obscured the window. I also had the joy of people looking into my lounge whilst sticking a pound in the meter.
To top it all i then had to buy a permit to park in my own street. I eventually got it moved after a lot of complaining and a few council brainiacs coming round, scratching their chins and saying 'i cant see what the problem is.' I convinced them by asking if any of the councillors had parking meters in a similar position outside their house which funnily enough they didn't.

My council also pulled a lovely stunt by closing down one car park and forcing all the office workers to use an alternative, more expensive car park further away. This was to make way for a new building development. When the builders moved in to start work, the council blocked off a whole street so they could park their cars (not the machinery..the workers cars). This was of course at no charge to them
The explanation was that 'they needed to get to the work site'. They didnt listen to the voices of the hundreds of office workers who had worked there and will continue to work there for many years.

Apologies for length..I didnt mean to choke you with it.
( BadBadman saw an incorrect comma placement on, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:12, Reply)

Closure
My local council decided to close a road near the local school in an effort to encourage people to walk the school run, reducing their carbon footprint as well as making life easier for us unfortunate bastards who live near the school and have to put up with the endless stream of 4x4s (don't get me started on them) clogging up our quiet suburban avenue.
I had visions of them closing the entire stretch of road, about 300m long, freeing up space for residents only.
Instead they closed a portion of road about 2 houses long. The immediate approach to the school.
Talk about a token gesture.
And all it did was make more people park in our road as they couldn't park right outside the school.
Wankers, the lot of 'em!
(pacman_40 Pocket Kleenex: for the wanker on the go, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:09, Reply)

My local council are fucking cunt-holes.
The bunch of cunts who 'run' Sheffield City Council decided not to send me my voting card until a week after the election. At the time, the council was majority Labour, whereas where I live was a Liberal stronghold. Coincidence? I think not.

I still managed to vote, mind. The people in the polling station said that lots of people had stayed at home instead of coming and exercising their democratic rights. I'm not surprised; I didn't realise that you couldn't vote without a polling card either.

Another thing that made my blood boil this week was a letter from the police, explaining that it's illegal to put up a sign on our road which says 'Residents' Parking Only', as it's not a private road per se, merely a non-adopted road which the council don't have to pay to have maintained. So, we've got a road that we have to repair ourselves if we want to use it as a road rather than a dirt track, but they can allow any cunt to park on it - even though spaces are difficult to get for the people who live there? CUNTY CUNTY CUNTS.

Grrr.
( CaptainCrackerjack live trout, slow motion, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:03, Reply)

Fire! Rats! Filth! Terror!
There were seven of us living in a large house in Sheffield. We were all men in our early twenties, lazy to a fault, and our lives revolved around takeaways, drugs, dancing and playstation. We were not the tidyest of groups. This untidyness was exacerbated by the fact we were a party house - the after party was usually held at ours and on more than one occasion I came home at about 9 or 10 in the morning to find a party going on in my living room, and me not recognising anyone.

Periodically we would have a mass clean up, and shovel everything into bin bags. However, as there was too much for a bin to handle, we just lobbed it into the garden. This carried on for months, and eventually there were in the region of 60 black bags, full of rubbish; old food, cans and so on.

Our landlord persistently asked us to remove this steaming pile of crap before the rats came. We agreed to, but just never got round to it. Then the council were involved, sending over environmental health inspectors and giving us 28 days to remove the rubbish, or they would do it and give us a hefty bill.

We agreed to do it. However, a couple of days before the agreed mass clean-up was to happen my folly solved the problem. I left a newspaper on top of the oven. The last person to use the hob had left it on, but switched it off at the wall. My mate put some food in the oven, turned it back on and when I went in to check progress the kitchen was ablaze. Panicking, we scooped the burning matter into a tray. That caught fire, owing to the fat and grot still on it. We opened the back door and lobed the tray out, straight onto 60 bags of highly combustible litter.

We didn't have to clean up the litter, or deal with the rodents that were indeed living there. However we did have a lot of explaining to do to the Fire Service, Police and above all the council, who were determined to believe it was deliberate.
( disasterprone "Pyjamas caused the Holocaust", Thu 26 Jul 2007, 11:02, Reply)

Tax
I was once given a tax reimbursement for being first to post, but that was a while back.
Second doesn't come with the same Kudos sadly.
(ManekiNeko loves horses, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 10:59, Reply)

i got fined
for crapping on the pavement, even though i cleaned it up myself.

bloody jobsworths.
(nappy rash, Thu 26 Jul 2007, 10:59, Reply)