McDonald's
I believe the most expensive part of the McDonald's 5.4p drink is the ice, which begs the question - why do the serving wenches/chappies put so much ice in and leave no room for the fizzy sweet stuff?

(which no doubt has had a rat piss in it or something)
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 10:53, Reply)

Burger chain
In the good old days, when I was at Sixth Form, I, along with a staggeringly vast number of my fellow students were working at McDonalds. Because we all pretty much knew each other, the average shift went by quite enjoyably. Particularly the same group of us that worked the Fri and Sat night shift.

Occasionally, a manager would write a list of stock to be brought down from the stockroom upstairs. 2 packs of medium cups, 6 boxes of fries, ketchup etc etc. On one occasion, they sent me up with a list written on the back of a sheet that listed the cost to them of the menu items. I kept that list as a reminder of what sort of markup they were making. For example (and bear in mind these are 1991 prices)

Hamburger: 59p........ 16p
Cheesburger: 69p...... 20p
Big-Mac: £1.39........ 37p
Regular Fries: 45p......7p
Large Drink: 68p...... 5.4p

Also, waste was kept low by careful management and not by selling 2hr old burgers and the place was kept meticulously clean. I've been in one recently and the place was a tip, the floor was grubby and the service is piss-poor and slow. Have they never heard of the six-steps???

Also, a mate once admitted to having a wank in the walk-in freezer.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 10:51, Reply)

Apple
the computer company, not the record label. They make Macs, which I like. They also make iPods. I like my iPod. Except for the fact that I read recently that it has a design lifetime of only four years.

Four measly years, and then they expect (on average) it will have broken down beyond economic repair and I'll have to buy a new one! But I don't really want to watch Lost/surf the web/make phone calls/get directions to the nearest pizza joint on my iPod. I just want to have my CD collection on it and listen to it in my car or on headphones.

And I'd like to be able to do it for more than four years before having to buy a new one, thank you very much.

I suppose it's the way of things in the hi-tech world, but I'm not happy with it. Maybe it's just because I'm grumpy.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 10:50, Reply)

I've just remembered another one!
I spent another summer when I was a student working for an engineering company. They were subcontracted to make little motorized boxes which pulled your curtains open and closed for you at the touch of a button (because of course pulling the cord is, like, such a chore...).

Anyway, these devices contained a motor, a gearbox and a circuit board. Each gearbox had three metal cogs in it. I once spent several days pulling the middle cog out of all the gearboxes and replacing it with a plastic one, in order that the thing would wear out quicker.

Shoddy. Very shoddy.
( Olembe Refuses to write in this space, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 10:38, Reply)

if
the food industry is as full of spit, cum, sneeze, floor pie, bacteria and other shit as people on here say - and i have no doubt that they are all telling the truth! - and we're all still here after eating it, it blatantly isn't doing any harm, is it?

hmm, says the most squeamish girl in the world, who can't even eat her mayonnaise if someone else double dips in it. just goes to show: what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve after - and the stomach really doesn't give a fuck either way...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 10:35, Reply)

will keep it short.
Used to work in a rather large sweet factory, and if you eat any supermarket branded sweet it'll no doubt have been in contact with a dirty floor (the brushes used to clean the trays we put the sweets in were also used on the floor!)

umm..The entire finacial services (well investing) industry is a fraud. They do not beat the market and will, at best, give you a 0% rate of return (has been this way for at least the past 10 years. You are farrrr better off on your own!

The end of line cloths discount stores like 'TK Max' sell cost them about 50p each, they sell for £10.
(Lexachu A buh? no, not a buh, a bomb!, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 9:59, Reply)

more NHS fun
Also, so i hear, if you piss nurses off, your injection may have the needle put through your skin just a wee bit slower than normal. And if you are being assisted to be dressed you may get an extra long squirt of deoderant. Allegedly.
(kitescreech still here, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 9:45, Reply)

EasyJet pricing.
There is surely some scam going on here.
A few days ago I booked two tickets to Madrid with EasyJet. On the last screen before accepting the booking the EasyJet web page said something to the effect of "Somebody else has booked in the meantime and the price has gone up by £10". Rather than accepting I decided to retry the booking from the start with the new prices - but the website quoted me the exact same price as it did before! How come? I'd just been told the price had gone up by £10. So, I book one ticket and the same bloody thing happens with the second ticket!

EasyJet. You scamming scamming lying b@stards! There is always some catch with you c***s isn't there.
(JuanTheMan "hair-color:#FF6600", Tue 2 Oct 2007, 9:00, Reply)

B3ta Thank You for this question of the week.
Now I know never to eat out. Buy any pre packaged food from a supermarket. Never drink UGT Milk.. or Fresh Milk. Never buy any clothes, never take my car anywhere to be fixed or even cleaned. Infact I now feel very scared to even breathe the oxygen this planet has to offer. As no doubt someone has contaminated it!
(Miggyman, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 8:48, Reply)

Computer Shops
Fresh out of school still waiting for GCSE results and I get the biggest eye opener working in a local computer shop as a saturday lad.
We used to build PCs for people, and although a good price for the time. You could be rest assured that the copy of Windows on it wasnt legit. Neither was monster truck madness that was pulled off the shelf, installed, and put back on the shelf again and sold as new.
We had people complaining that there were saved games on the disk when games were sold as new.
Best one, built a computer for someone. Then 4 weeks later someone brings a computer in for sale. Flogs it back to us for peanuts. As im testing it i realised it was this guys PC. My boss (the owner) quickly gave the dude his money and off he went. Few days later, original guy comes in saying hes had his house broken into and has anyone been in to try and sell a computer. My boss instantly jumps in. nope, sorry! Then proceeds to change the system board, military format the hard drive. Reinstall the OS and resell his old (and stolen) computer for new to someone else. Original guy comes back in and buys another one.

They were all cloned PCs so no serial numbers to trace.

When i got to work one day the door was locked, the police had seazed the shop. And more CID officers were at the boss's house getting him up out of bed. Seems a batch of Playstation games he had bought off a guy on the markets were counterfeit.

I soon found myself another job! :)
(Miggyman, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 8:45, Reply)

Certain large Car Supermarkets
I have a website detailing all the problems I had with a Car i bought from a certain large Used Car Supermarket. I wont name and shame but their name amusingly rhymes with Shaft. Oh sod it. Carcraft.

Anyway i had an email from an ex employee there. Speaks for itself really:

hi been looking through your site..... god how i laughed you dont even know the half of it mate.. i worked there for 5 years at one of the sites were shall i start... one man bought a citreon xantia, driving home front whell comes off hits the central reservation smashes it up on the bypass .. we collect the car on a truck give him a two year old astra and rip up his finance package to keep him quiet... once a car had a electrical fire behind the dash in valet, was going out on an instant told to leave windows sown and spray lot of air freshner in it once out of the gates its up to the warenty company...
oh and lots of car with jig marks underneath them sold for top cash... the list goes on... like i say i worked behind the scenes i seen alot of shit go on and would rather go to a scrappers to get a car...

Sadly this wasnt the only message. Another one read something like this:

The people who work at Carcraft are making do with a bad lot - everything is run on commission terms so they are having to sell their own grandmothers to make a reasonable salary. This includes the admin staff as well.

Basically they pay lip service to customer service - there is no real commitment. Customers are potential sources of revenue to be exploited to the max.

Don't know of anyone else who might help you - most people I know who are ex-carcraft are so glad to be out of the place that they don't want any reminders of their time there!

I can tell you that they have such a bad reputation locally in Rochdale that they don't put the company name on job adverts any more as they found that they weren't getting any responses, although this may have changed recently.
They have a huge staff-turnover problem.
(Miggyman, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 8:39, Reply)

Retail woes
I used to work in a designer goods store. I was nice to all customers, unless:

1) they left their snivelling brats in the kids section. People, we aren't glorified babysitters.

2) they spoke down to me just because I work in a shop. Some of us have to staff the places you twunts

3) they were being very difficult

if that were the case, I'd be lazy lazy lazy. If such a customer wanted me to see if we had anything in their size in the stock room, I'd go into the stock room, run around for a bit, then walk out and say "sorry, not got it".
(ToysForBigBoys would spread her legs for Nick Clegg., Tue 2 Oct 2007, 8:24, Reply)

Another school story
Working in a ‘ladies’ College – not aware of any rampant sexual misadventures of the teaching staff as spoken of by coopsweb below - alcohol does play a part (previous non teaching staff member used to bring her vodka to work in a jam jar, and quite often would come to work absolutely maggotted and would be sent home – by taxi of course), and I’m quite sure there’s a couple of staff members who would have a few drawers at home full of pens, post it notes, letterhead wallpaper etc….. but the darkest dirty secret would have to be the teaching staff helping the Year 12 students in their end of year results. As they are assessed against all the other Yr 12 students in the state/country – higher the result – more kudos to us - higher the enrolments next year. (being private school, this is important). I must admit the kids are on their own for the exams, but everything prior to that (including yr 11 work) is practically done by the teachers. No wonder they’re so tired at the end of the year………..
(Monkee girl not a monkee, not a girl, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 6:38, Reply)

Telephone engineers
can and do tap into interesting conversations whilst working in telephone exchanges (listen out for the 'click'),
If you're nice to us we can and will relocate the fault location so you don't get charged by your service provider,if you're an arse we'll make sure the fault is chargable.
It takes 10minutes to put broadband onto your line.
If the engineer thinks you're good looking he/she is more likely to save you £100 by making your extention sockets work (if you haven't been an arse)
We know how to put a latent high resistance fault onto your line which won't cause your line to crackle until it rains.
If you're attractive/nice to them, most engineers will put in the extra effort to get your phone/broadband working.
(clusp, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 5:16, Reply)

Customer Service
I too am polite to customers. I smile, ask how their day is, and say thankyou, have a nice day when they leave. I help them with queries using my knowledge of the store or the aide of the store computer.

However, I DO mutter "FuckofffuckofffuckofffuckOFF" under my breath when they approach.

It's nothing personal. It's just that they've arrived right in the middle of me doing something VERY IMPORTANT... like refilling chewing gum at the front counter.

Man. Retail sucks.
(TheChicken Five hundred thousand points from Gryffindor, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 4:33, Reply)

Reading this QOTW makes me wonder...
Is there actually anyone out there who isn't lazy, deceitful, incompetent, bitter, greedy or even outright malicious working in any job in the world today? Apparantly not. I mean, even Bin Laden made his subordinates put up with plastic cutlery. And Father Christmas probably whips his elves and his reindeer are probably infected with BSE.

I am, of course, none of the above, but then I'm a student.
(Cuthbert Annihilator, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 1:47, Reply)

Mechanics,
I did my trade as a mechanic (and left the field for good as soon as I completed it).

One trick a mechanic I knew used to do was to quite often skip most the replacement parts required in a "Tune up" and he would then bend the accelerator pedal upwards by about 10mm.

It is amazing how much more responsive a car feels to the unsuspecting old lady/man afterwards.
( Sir Pigeon Nipples Did you sit in some sugar?, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 1:39, Reply)

Schools...
Having worked in some of London's more interesting educational establishments - I can safely say that it's no wonder that half of today's inner-city chav-spawn are illiterate, moronic McJob rejects...

For starters, schools are mired in pointless form filling and endless meetings to determine things like 'managing improvement policy' and 'changing curriculum focus'. Staff are worked to the point of exhaustion focusing on said admin rather than actually teaching.

Kids are for the most part, the evolutionary equivalent to pond life, whose parent's nuturing skills are proportional to the amount of stella Mummy & Daddy drink on a nightly basis, hence the current trend of pupils feeling the need to stab/shoot each other at playtime.

But the real b3ta stories happen after 3:30, when the kids go home;

- Teachers shagging in classrooms.
- Female teachers getting pregnant by Forth years.
- Drunken street brawls between members of staff.
- Rampant alcoholism, with most booze stashed either in classrooms, offices or more than likely, under the caretaker's desk.
- Theft. If it's not nailed down, chances are it'll be nicked by a teacher, before the kids get a chance to lift it themselves.
- Extra-martial affairs. If you've not played away while working in a school, people wonder what's the matter.
- Certain teachers shagging their way through the entire staff, parents and male population of the Sixth Form.
- Teachers doing a bunk with £1,500 of ski trip money, never to been seen again.
- Teachers living with one of the biggest coke dealers in East London, and consequently being off her tits for most of the day.

I could go on, but I'd fill most of the page... so now you know why your kids teachers have that smirk on their faces at Parent's Evening.
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 1:10, Reply)

ps to biscuit socks
Ohh I'm in a right goth mood tonight...

Biscuitsocks-if you worked in the cosmetics industry, is it or isn't it true about executed Chinese prisoners bodies being used for extracts in the "beauty" industry....
( curvylittlegoth heard the voices in your head on, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 0:40, Reply)

Isn't everywhere the same?
I'm one of those freaks that actually expects everyone to have some kind of decency, then gets RUDELY awakened to the reality of life at work, and how peeps get away with it,and then, in the end, you get so pi$$ed off with the idiots you have to deal with that you ENCOURAGE naughty behaviour! but only sometimes...sometimes you get really sickened.
I just recently finished working for one of the big nasty pseudo tabloid papers (the one that always wrings its hands over the plight of middle class britain, yeah, cheers...)
I moved departments, had the misfortune of sitting near the so called 'picture desk' - and loud mouthed, minger of a witch who cried out in excitement every time her phone rang with news of another fatal crash, some poor woman's son murdered, an OAP beaten...so on and so on. She really did. They all did, well, they all do.
gaaahhhh....
( curvylittlegoth heard the voices in your head on, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 0:33, Reply)

Sales assistanting...
I used to work in a particularly posh department store before I came up to uni. Our shop floors were very clean and tidy. Our stock rooms weren't and one was so bad it had a rodent problem.

I worked in kitchenware. All I can say is clean plates you buy very thoroughly before you eat off them.
(ladyintheradiator, Tue 2 Oct 2007, 0:10, Reply)

Ticker Tape Parades in NYC
You've probably seen a picture or video footage from them...the "Canyon of Heroes" on Broadway, down by the Financial District in NYC. Trillions of pieces of paper, fluttering down, like an upstate New York blizzard...

Where does all that paper come from? you might ask:

Brokerage firms. Customer account forms, complete with client name, social security number, mothers maiden name...just about everything you need to steal someone's identity...except a photo ID...which, with this information you can acquire.

So the next time you see a ticker tape parade in NY (which were originally named for the shredded stock market ticker tapes) know that within days, people around the world will be having their identities stolen...

I had a friend who used it as a lead source when the Yankees won the world series one year. He opened 29 accounts based on those 2 year old customer account forms.

Cheers!
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 23:42, Reply)

Airline
I've not flown domestically for a while now, but I know for a fact that goofing off is something that Cabin Crew(1) do, such as:

Giving you champagne, in the morning, and leaving the bottle
Giving you as may bottles of wine as you can carry
Letting you touch them up(2)
Give those that they like, preferential treatment(3)
Getting a bit of a snog on the plane(4)

These are, of course, made up stories as I wouldn't want to get anyone in trouble....


(1)Well, some of them
(2)Ok, only one
(3)So very true - Ask, er, you know who
(4)Only the extra special passengers. That's me, in case you're wondering
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 23:36, Reply)

Cheese
Mmm cheese. Hard cheese is fine, after all it's made from bacteria, right? SO doesn't really matter if it's a bit dirty or mouldy.

But processed cheese - the white squidgy stuff that comes in little foil triangles or big tubs? That's a bunch of chemicals added to a bit of some milk extract. Don't eat it.
(Smale is stuffed, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 22:17, Reply)

I'm at work right now
I work as a shift manager for a major UK catalogue company.

It's Ramadan - we're desperately short of staff.

I've just spent two hours chucking laptops, phones, monitors, microwaves - anything you can physically pick up - from a raised platform onto a conveyor belt fifteen feet away.

A bad throw deposits your goods 30 feet down on a concrete floor but if they don't go out tonight I have to answer to MY gaffer tomorrow.

The Eastern European nightshift have just arrived, most of them "fresh" from a ten hour shift at the bakery down the road. Their aim is no better than mine.

I booked on at 09.51 this morning. I'd like to be at home but I'm here until midnight. I'd like not to be here at all but I need the money.

Can you guess how much care I'll be taking of your electricals in the next hour or so?
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 22:16, Reply)

retail
I have have had the displeasure to work in retail and discovered the following amazing truths:

1) People who work in shops are not pleased to see you. They hate you and you make their job much more difficult. They'd prefer it if you stayed away.
2) This feeling is doubled if they have to wear a uniform.
3) Whatever it is they sell is overpriced and low quality. Knowing this is the only thing that gives them pleasure.
4) People who work in retail are losers. They know this, and hate you even more because of it.
5. The rudest shop assistants are the ones who dream of getting fired but who lack the spine to leave of their own volition. I speak from experience.
(frankspencer, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 21:50, Reply)

I don't have any dirty secrets
I work in the repro dept of a printworks, and by the looks of this QOTW it confirms my thoughts that i work in the shittyist, most boring place on earth. Oh, sometimes i take printer paper home, does that count?

Anyway, back on subject, my daughter works in a large '2 for 1' pub - where you choose your meal and pay for it first, then get it delivered to your table.
If you then want, say a coffee, after your meal, you can sometimes attract the attention of a server, give them the money, and get it brought to you. However, if you give them the exact money or tell them to keep the change, all they will do is pour a coffee for themselves in the back (they get them free), bring it to you and keep the cash for themselves. Allegedly.
(turtles head is touching cloth poked a dwarf on the forehead at, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 21:18, Reply)

would you like another glass of wine?
Worked a nice country club in the states for many years as a bartender. Our wine list was around 50 bottles, by the end of the night we had 2 bottles, red and white. No matter what you ordered whatever bottle that happened to be nearest to you and more importantly already opened now became your next glass of wine.
(guiltyspark, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 20:58, Reply)

Cheating Breadmerchents
I worked for a while in Allied Bakeries, who make a pretty decent proportion of the bread in this country. I won't bore you going on about all the flies in the packing area, buzzing around the unpacked bread on open conveyor belts, because reading many of the answers to this QOTW I reckon you all expect that as par for the course for a food company.

(In fairness to AB, when a pigeon landed in a mixing container, they did chuck the entire batch of about 50,000 loaves, rather than send it out, thankfully.)



Anyway, everyone likes the nice fresh baked-in-store supermarket bread yes? Except it isn't. It comes into the distribution centre slightly smaller and less crusty, and all the supermarket has to do is finish it off, rising the last little bit and going a bit crispy on the outside. For this you will pay considerably more. Hooray.
(Bearded Whumpus In chav Britain, schoolgirl offers sweets to YOU!, Mon 1 Oct 2007, 20:37, Reply)