Fashion Retailers?
I was a programmer for a supplier of computerised stocks systems for a nameless High-street fashion retailer.

Fancy Pair of Jeans. £80? They Buy them for a fiver. Or less.

Fcuking bunch of robbing bastards.
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 14:09, Reply)

The Japanese
I teach english in Japan. They're really just Chinese and Koreans mixed together. But they'll never tell you that.
(meat_chris, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 14:08, Reply)

Lifeguard
When I was 18, I used to work as a lifeguard.... The job was immensely boring watching people do lengths all day...
Every couple of hours, I used to sneak off to my best hiding place and roll a fat one.
I was once that stoned I hadn't realised that I finished work an hour earlier!

Thankfully, no one ever drowned on me in the 3 years I worked there!

Don't go swimming in Manchester recreation pools... There were plenty of us doing it.
(PR Steve last checked his dick hadn't fallen off on, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 13:57, Reply)

K2k6
The fragile sticker is only put on so that if they break your stuff, they don't have to compensate you as it shows that you already knew your stuff was breakable. They don't treat it any differently.
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 13:55, Reply)

Local councillors
There are some very good, very skilled, and very conscientious local councillors out there in many different political groups.

From personal experience, I'd say that fewer than one in four have any idea what they're meant to be doing, and roughly one in ten should be in Rampton making wicker baskets instead of deciding how much you're going to pay in Council Tax.

Irrespective of political grouping, committee chairs and the like don't necessarily go to the person who's an expert - or indeed to a person who knows anything at all about the area they're in charge of.
(uncle whippity, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 13:55, Reply)

Fancy hairdressers
Not my trade but....

my mum used to go into Leeds to a fancy hairdressers and pay £70 for her hair cutting, take about an hour. about two years ago she became friends with one of the women working there and now gets her hair cut by said woman at her house, for £15 and it takes about quarter of an hour, all the faffing and crimping and washing of hair in goats blood or whatever is solely for show apparently. to justify the cost
( evilamnesiac says fuck you Prince, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 13:14, Reply)

OK Politics inside dope (number 4 in a series)
This is becoming a daily confessional. This time politics - some snippets not all really "trade confessions" more inside gossip.

My ex stayed in Gordon Brown's flat years ago before he even became Chancellor - her memories are of used condoms scattered in the bedroom, unwashed dishes (he was a 'bachelor' at the time) and pot noodle empties lying around.

A well known Scottish politician once gave me the worst blow job of my life which was little more than a lick for a few seconds. Her calvinist background didn't allow her to really enjoy such carnality. A different former Scottish minister of State was a much better shag but she did have a perchant for watching hard core porn while having sex (something she no doubt hid from her feminist colleagues at the time); I was not going to dissuade her.

For a short time (I was out of favour elsewhere) I had to work for the Liberals - OH MY FUCKING GOD - they really are mostly amateurs, they at one point appointed a former army catering officer to a very senior political post - a man who had never ran an election campaign. I have many many tales of their ineptitude but just trust me never never let them near the reins of power.

Dirty tricks - well firstly ALL political parties overspend the legal limits during elections especially during by-elections. It is all covered up by fake receipts and very creative accounting and because they all do it then no one rocks the boat because they all would get caught. That being said now and then some daft bastard goes to the police and complains (strictly speaking it is electoral fraud). That happened in one by-election (a stupid Liberal candidate again did it) I did some work for - and the police came to inverview me. I hadn't actually done anything wrong this time but they wanted to ask me about the prices that the Labour Party had declared for their print costs. The copper who interviewed me as a 'witness' clearly wanted to have nothing to do with what was a messy business so during the interview while he was asking me the likely costs of printing during a by-election he asked if he could go for a pee. As he went he very obviously turned his notebook around in front of me so I could read it and left me alone for 5 minutes - clearly revealing the "admitted" costs of printing for the campaign. When he came back into the room he asked: "so if someone was to do such printing, how much would it cost?" I was able to "guestimate" the costs pretty accurately - down to the last pound he was later to point out!

I've done fake posters and leaflets supposedly from the opposition too (bet they do it too) and plenty of other stuff too but this post is already challenging my cock for length in true B3TA tradition. so I'm off... vivisection lab secrets revealed tomorrow.
(beaverwastemanagement a real company. I want to work for them!, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 13:12, Reply)

Where are all the Armed Forces tales of misery & woe?
We all know about guns that don't fire, jungle boots issued for desert campaigns, flack jackets made of Styrofoam (ok, I made that one up) and communications devices so piss poor that soldiers end up using their mobile phones. How about some stuff we civvies don’t get to hear about.

You cant ALL be too busy fighting America’s un-resolvable conflicts to spill the beans.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 13:00, Reply)

Ahem!
I used to work part-time for the British Sailors Society ringing up people to take part in dropping donation envelopes off in their street.

We used to have competitions to see who could say semen the most times in one conversation.

Childish but fun.
( girlinthehole, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 13:00, Reply)

Ticket companies
Anyone work for The Ticket Company (part of the NEC Group) care to let on their secret for getting away with the following?

Tickets for show, £20 each, fine. Three tickets required equals a total bill of £70.50! How's it possible to justify charging £3 per ticket booking fee and a further £1.50 transaction fee? Oh silly me, it's no secret, they're simply greedy, robbing bastards!
( abefroman skating on the thin life of modern life on, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 12:56, Reply)

I work at Porton Down biological weapon research facility
and routinely bring my work home with me
(Chopper3, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 12:52, Reply)

I used to work for DYNOROD
No one ever asked for a lift home in my van.

I've got loads of amusing stories about it, but no-one will want to hear them, since they all without exception involve other peoples sweetcorn infested turds.
(Vic Flange, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 12:48, Reply)

Exam board...
Guess what... they are getting easier.
( Joe Scaramanga with a G-double-O-D vibration, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 12:29, Reply)

Harnez
Baggage handlers breaking fragile items isn't exactly a dirty secret, more like common knowledge. I've watched handlers throwing my fragile items onto the conveyor frequently.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 12:18, Reply)

Murky goings on
- From the "paper science" industry...bizarrely cigerettes are less densely packed in the centres. They're tighter packed at the tip (for that habitty (is that word?) tap tap) and at the filter end (for the stub out) but the fag companies save money by loosely packing the middles.

- The Spice Girl's first live gig was in Turkey purely because Pepsi wanted to 'break the Eastern market'

- Cocaine drops in purity nearer the weekend and gets cut more as more people want it.

- MDMA 'powder' should be what's in "pills" anyway, it's not a different drug. Unless you *really* know a source it's caveat emptor...If you can source the chemicals, testing kits can be made easily by adding 9 parts concentrated Sulphuric acid to one part formaldehyde. Pills can only be formulated at source and from then on are tamper free. Powders are a free for all *apparently*. All common narcs are white in their purest form. Food colouring hides a multitude of sins.
(Countryslicker, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 12:00, Reply)

Medical theatres
Signs in front of theatres that say about theatre attire must be worn beyond this sign are not applicable to anyone who is mildly educated as germs (MRSA, Clostridium difficle) don't stick to trainee and above surgeons, or anaesthetists.

When coming for your operation, we need you to have not eaten for 6 hours because you might inhale your own vomit. No food or drink means no mints, chewing gum, biscuits or milky tea. Nothing to do with us being hungry as well.

Hospital policy is always being broken, mindbending drugs should not be given to patients before they are consented, as they may get the wrong idea about the operation they're are about to have.

Threatening to leave as your operation is delayed isn't a very effective way of getting you bumped up the list. It'll just annoy people.
(Puddingbat, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 11:39, Reply)

baggage handlers
I used to work for a very well known 'no frills' airline. Just so you all know...there is no such section for fragile items in the cargo hold of the plane and fragile stickers are like a red rag to a bull.
(harnez, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 11:32, Reply)

Re:'creative' industry
As a photographer, I pretty much agree with this. A few tricks of my trade.
* A lot of our equipment isn't necessary, it's just for show, and to justify the mucho cash we screw from the client.
* We often don't have a clue what we're doing, and can't be bothered to do a decent job. Thank God for photoshop, you can fix anything with it.
* It's not glamourous, just hot and sweaty, if studio bound, so we always have plenty of deodarant and air freshner. Most models fucking stink, due to their diet of booze and cocaine.
* And yes, "flowers/chocolate for the model", really does mean booze and coke. If it's been a good shoot, I go for 2 grams; if not, an eighth.
If doing porn, the room stinks even more, and it's not erotic.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Mon 1 Oct 2007, 11:28, Reply)

Banks
I work in retail banking and work for an American
high street bank atm but used to work for Barclays.
The new barclaycard with oyster etc is a big scam.
Basically you auto top up your oyster card with your credit card instead of your debit card so you pay credit card interest on all of your travel.
Also you can buy items under a tenner just by swiping your card oyster style so more interest paid.
Who buys a sandwich n a packet of crips with their credit card?

Oh, and no matter how much i smile I hate you and will take the piss out of you my personal favourite atm is "dont tell me to have a nice day you prick, im gunna f****** kill you"
($wift, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 11:12, Reply)

big-girls-blouse
what sort of engineer is he?

he may be one of the rare ones who save all the rest.

I felt able to make the sweeping generalisation that I did because these people are so few and far between
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 11:12, Reply)

Victory for our IT department ....
...it has been heading towards a new direction for the last few months. This is something which the management have deemed as acceptable, but is quite literally a complete fuckup as far as fuckup ideas go.

Introducing an internal scheme which monitors how well we fix jobs, and picking two random ones from our roughly 800 jobs a month which we manage to do. They analyse it, and then tell us if we are good or crap. A few goods give you a bonus and a few craps get you the boot. The first problem with this system is that it's now ridiculously easy to fail - miss 1 detail and you're out. Take too long and you're out. Not using the person's name alot gets you out. And so on and so on.

Right, now to the other main point to this rating system is that if you fix the customer's issue and they are over the moon, that equates to about 10% of our actual rating. The customer might want my fucking babies and thinks the world of our company, but this rating system still thinks I'm a cunt if I didn't sound too great at one point.

Ground-breakingly, this system has led to most techs in our office to take the piss with customers, all so they get good scores and the extra money while our product goes down the shitter.

It's taken them a good year to realise this isn't a good system and have finally decided to look at whether we've made the customer happy at the end of it instead, which is essentially why our department are here, are we not?

Never sign up with this company for your internet if you can help it. And if you're wondering who they are.....look at the first letter of each paragraph.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 11:09, Reply)

Engineers
I lecture to them on occasion - therefore they have no chance of knowing what they're supposed to be doing...
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 11:05, Reply)

Vipros
My dad is an engineer and owns the company and the amount of times he's got customers out of the shit isn't worth knowing about.

Not only do they know what they are doing - they can do it better than everyone else.

SO THERE!
( girlinthehole, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 11:05, Reply)

big-girls-blouse
if you aren't an engineer then they probably appear to know what they are doing

I can almost guarantee that they don't
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 11:00, Reply)

Erm... sorry...
I work for a broadcasting organisation, let's call then the BCB. I'm on air at the moment. Does that count? I can't say more than that or the Director General will eat me. I've just said too much.
(rockers74 killed a man in Reno just to watch him die., Mon 1 Oct 2007, 10:58, Reply)

to k2k6
The SR-71 leaked fuel all the time. It wasn't until it took off and got warm that it expanded to fill the cracks.

Not that I'm comparing something so awesome as the Blackbird to anything we've ever had. In fact, I got kicked out of Duxford just for touching it.
( M3rx likes the Asian ladies, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 10:57, Reply)

Vipros
I beg to differ - our engineers know exactly what their doing. It may be smaller work than bridge building but important non the less.

By the way, I got to yell at a customer last week. Loved every minute of it - he's a right prick. I even hung up on him a couple of times.
( girlinthehole, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 10:57, Reply)

My uncle
used to be in the RAF, and my family used to go and visit from time to time. This was the mid 1980s, and this particular RAF base was flying Lightnings. (If you're at all interested in this subject, you can probably work out where it was).

Anyway, my uncle took me round the base for a look, and while going through the hangars, I noticed that under almost all of the aircraft was a large metal tray with liquid in it.

Drip trays to catch leaking fuel, as it happens. I enquired of my uncle why this was the case.

He replied that they all leaked, but by the time you got them up in the air, it evaporated quickly enough so as not to cause any problems. Fair comment, but I wouldn't like to be flying something which is basically a big fuel tank, two huge jet engines, and two little stubby wings, which had a fuel leak. At Mach 2.

He said that if a Tornado had a leak, it would be fixed, but on something like a Lightning, the conversation between the ground crew would be something like:

A - "That one's leaking fuel".

B - "Is it leaking badly?"

A - "No".

B - "OK, that's fine. Stick a drip tray under it".

To be fair, it wasn't long before the Lightnings were retired, but they were dropping out of the sky at a fair rate at that point, funnily enough.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 10:39, Reply)

Female Ejaculation
In gentlemans art films, the scenes lauded as female ejaculation are actually just the girls urinating.

Normally we serve them up several pints of water an hour before the shoot, and this gives them plenty of loin-liquid to give the illusion of a proper 18 carat gusher on demand.

Scat, you'll be re-assured to know, is real poo, so you can all sleep safe at night knowing that.
(Vic Flange, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 10:38, Reply)

I catergorise each person I speak to in IT into 4 groups
1. Knows what they are doing and willing to listen - best for us obviously.

2. Knows what they are doing and NOT willing to listen - why the fuck did you bother to contact me then?

3. Doesnt know what they are doing but is willing to listen - as long as they do this then these people are quite easy to resolve.

4 - Doesnt know what they are doing and NOT willing to listen - complete no-hopers who should stick to typewriters with adult supervision.

There is however a 5th secret catergory however with is "Asian Glaswegian", but it's very rare that you can do anything with these as you quite literally don't a have a fecking clue what they are going on about. All I get is noise when they speak to me, I really do.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 10:37, Reply)