NickB
gay horses? That's a bit of niche porn I hadn't even considered. Until now, that is. That's my evening's entertainment sorted.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 22:20, Reply)

Don;t work in ICT
I've spent the last 4 years on and off working in PC repairs, and all we do is look through peoples files.

When you bring your PC in, give us fair warning there is porn on there, we won't laugh, but we will report you you if it's too dodgey. If you deny it and we find it, hooo, we will take this michael out of you, seriously, just own up right off, tell us where it is, and we;ll just fix the problem and not go looking for it.

Because we all know you have a porn folder or 6 somewhere.

Also, You will never be disturbed until you find gay horse porn on a 12 year old girls PC.
(NickB haberdasher to the stars, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 22:14, Reply)

I work in the nuclear industry
and you wouldn't believe how fucking mundane that can be.
( social hand grenade I was a lurker before you were a lurker, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 21:55, Reply)

Another post about the well, post
1. Santa messages are now sent to Northern Ireland to be processed. Makes for an interesting explanation for those children who parents of a Catholic and Protestant persuasion who live there..

2. Please, please, please keep using regular stamps on large letters as it makes my job so much easier: all I do with them is throw them into the surcharge tray and leave them for someone else to deal with them.

3. Please don't post your porn by more secure means than a tatty envelope as it brightens up our shift when they come out of their piss-poor packaging.

4. Why post your passport by a secure method like special delivery when a single first class stamp on the envelope containing it is so much more excitiing! Especially at Christmas when all the casual workers are there!

5. Toilet breaks are a great way to have a quick 10-15 min session on your PSP, DS etc.

6. There's a team of people called the 'clean up crew' who process all the work not finished when the machines stop in the afternoon. Do you:

A. Work extra hard to minimise their work

or

B. Take the chance to try and finish that tricky bit of the game when the manager leaves early on their break?

Take a guess which one I choose?
(Chuckman, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 21:27, Reply)

Grrrrr...
...ya know, some days the only thing that makes sense is to pull your elbows up through your sleeves so that only your forearms are sticking out, yell "Raptor attack!" and let out a shrill screech while making clawing motions in the air just before running out of the room.

Just sayin'.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 3 Oct 2007, 21:22, Reply)

AA Service Garage
A few years back, I worked briefly in a AA Service garage that was joined to a Halfords store.
I was only a customer adviser, and not a qualified mechanic, so was not permitted to do any work on cars, but this didnt stop them from showing me how to change tyres. It was easy, and working the wheel balance machine was a doddle. The only problem was french cars with french alloy wheels. They didnt have a hole in the middle and thus didnt fit on the spindle of the wheel balance machine - unless you dimantled it and fitted the accessory for french alloy wheels.
I was shown how to do this: Too much fucking effort! Just pick up the wheel after the new tyre is fitted, and hold up to the light, and wiggle it, then point randomly at 2 or 3 places on the rim and stick on a random sized weight.
( turb0t, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 19:31, Reply)

ooh, my posting cherry has been popped.
Alright, so when I was young and naive and short of money. I went to work for Satan, er, Starbucks, and made a pittance serving lattes to middle-aged ladies. I am now in a position to finally reveal the secret ingredient of their lattes, what special process makes a "grande" worth that second morgage.

Ready for it?

Sugar. Every cup is about six times the recommended daily limit for monosaccharides. If you leave a cup of Starbucks coffee out for too long, there is a semi-liquid lake of sugar sloshing about in the bottom. Your hard-earned money is going towards brown sugar water with caffeine in it.
And their pastries taste like shite.
(TheWonderfulWombat It came to me in a dream., Wed 3 Oct 2007, 17:49, Reply)

A rats nest of incompetence, blind stupidity and utter cluelessness verging on the criminal
is essentially what my sector of the telecommunications industry amounts to.

Incidentally we make most of the phones and mobile infrastructure in the world. We'll soon be foisting more shit overpriced technology on you in the next five years which does fuck all new or worthwhile and actually leaves you even more open to abuse in terms of finance and privacy.

Sleep tight.
(mymilkshakebringsallthemongstotheyard poison hearts, poison minds - joining hate, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 17:39, Reply)

Car Auctions: Read the signs and small print. Or don't, I'm not fussed
Not too sure about the finer details here…but it went something like this:

Many years ago, a mate of mine used to work at a car auctions, processing the cars before they were put under the hammer. The policy of the auction house was that all car stereos be removed before sale, however, this was poorly signposted and my mate would tell the customers that they stood a better chance of selling their car if they left the stereo in, thus making it more attractive to the buyers. If any seller noticed the policy signage, he said he would ‘turn a blind eye’.

After the sellers did this, my mate would remove the stereo(s) as per policy, and the car would be flogged for whatever price (so owner would never see them again and didn’t find out what happened to the stereo).

So as far as the sellers were concerned, my mate was doing them a favour, as far as the buyers and the auction house was concerned, he was just doing his job, and as far as my mate was concerned, he got a nice little earner from consequently flogging the stereos on later, after bribing the security guards a few quid to let him pass.

Everybody wins.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Wed 3 Oct 2007, 17:16, Reply)

Which Prize draws....
Not really a dirty secret but actually refreshingly honest...I used to work in the place that sorted the NO's for Which/Readers Digest type prize draws...Lots of people would think that the no envelopes would be binned--But they aren't.... every other draw is actually taken from the huge NO pile..(you are more likely to win the lottery but still it is honest!!)
(archstanton The gold is next to me....leave me be, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 16:55, Reply)

Remembered another science one
Anybody see that article on the news a few months back about how the LHC (Large Hadron Collider, a huge new particle accelerator in Switzerland) is going to be switched on soon and that it could possibly produce black holes which would suck in all the matter round about them, which of course is the earth, the solar system and so forth?

Well, the bit about producing black holes is actually quite true (according to an article I read recently).

The rest is hype though. There is a theoretical possibility of black hole-type entities being produced by the LHC but they'd immediately evaporate and do no harm whatsoever.

Not that it would really matter if it did produce a real big dangerous one anyway. We'd all cease to exist in a fraction of a nanosecond, so wouldn't really have time to consider a plan of action, nor indeed be around to lay the blame on anyone.

_{I also once saw a humorous mis-spelling of "hadron", which reversed the middle two letters. How I laughed.}
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 16:41, Reply)

I'm a engineer me
which means i drink alot of tea all day and thats about it.

its not a secret but there ya go...
(Tiny T have you ever seen cannibalistic squirrels?, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 16:31, Reply)

Charidee
Now some charities are run well by committed and efficient staff but most are run by total muppets who'd never survive in a real job. It's always worth checking the annual accounts of any charity that you feel like giving money to so that you can check whether they are actually spending money on what they say they are.

I'm not saying that it is outright corruption but I have been in the sector for a number of years and have seen some shocking examples of feathering one's own nest at the expense of the donors and the beneficiaries. It's a bit like the council - they're not really accountable for the money they produce and they keep a lot of dead wood in their organisations rather than sacking them cos they're worried about getting sued or that they are 'nice people' and don't do that sort of thing.

For example, I am aware of a kids' charity that spent next to nothing of its multi-million pound income on the cause but rather a lot on it's CEO's trips to the US. Another has over £150million in real assets but declares that they were a fraction of this on their balance sheet. This is because they were properties on the accounts at purchase price rather than curent market value. Given that most of the properties were purchased in the 1930s there's a fair disparity. And they were spending absolutely fuck all on their supposed beneficiaries but still raising oodles of cash.

Don't believe any charity that says it spends nothing on it's administration. That is a total lie and down to creative accounting. For example, they may use a single large domnation to pay for the admin costs and then not declare it in their accounts. As there is no industry standard for declaring costs it means that all sorts of creative accounting is performed to make their income vs admin expenditure look better.

And organisations that work in the third world waste your money by buying lovely air-conditioned offices, driving round in brand new 4x4s and delivering sod all to the people out there. For example they tend to employ sub contractors to drill for water and pay them whether they find it or not. So, the sub contractor goes off, drills a hole too shallow to find water and then presents their bill. Nice work if you can get it.

So, don't give your money to people in the pub flogging roses (they keep all the money anyway). If you want to help others, do your research, choose the right organisation and give a regualr donation tax effectively.

Length? About 1000 words I think
(give it six weeks and it might clear up would like to butter your muffin, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 16:31, Reply)

Post Office again
Not a dirty secret, by a secret anyway.

When I was a student working for the Post Office at Christmas, any mail addressed to Santa was sorted to Newcastle.

WTF?
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Wed 3 Oct 2007, 16:23, Reply)

RE: pooflake
....not all of the cunts get away with it.

www.b3ta.com/questions/debtpron/post66808/

This one was made to work it all back then kicked out; he's now running a computer shop in Llanelli. If you do decide to buy something from any "station" of "game" in that area be vary wary.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 16:16, Reply)

Post Office
OK, it's Wednesday....

A little old lady is hard up just before Christmas, so she writes a letter to Santa Claus explaining how she's needing money to pay for food etc over Christmas, and that if he could send £100 she would appreciate it greatly.

So off it goes in the mail, and the workers in the sorting office find the letter addressed to Santa and open it. Moved by the story, they have a whip round in the office, and gather together a total of £95. They put it in an envelope, and send it off to the woman, pleased to have done a good deed.

The next day a letter addressed to Santa comes back.

"Dear Santa, Thank you so much for sending the money to me. It means the world to me and I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for giving me a happy Christmas.

PS I asked for £100 and you sent me £95, but don't worry, I know it's just these thieving bastards at the Post Office helping themselves".
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 16:00, Reply)

Postmen
Ours was great. He smoked a pipe, had a moustache (a sure sign of stability and maturity) wore his smart PO uniform and always pushed letters all the way through the letterbox and gave parcels to our favourite neighbours leaving a note.

Then he retired

The primate we have now dresses like he's a sack of shit tied in the middle. He wears headphones all the time, walks across my flowerbeds, leaves letters half hanging out of the letterbox, and always leaves parcels at the neighbours we dont get along with, and leaves no note. The other day he tried to get a package the size of a phone book through my letterbox and succeeded in shredding half of it.

The worst of it is it's not just me, he's like this to everyone.
(Vic Flange, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 15:58, Reply)

Xmas tips
No bloody good if your postman keeps changing.
( girlinthehole, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 15:42, Reply)

Royal Mail
1. Your postman is not your friend. They probably don't know your name.
2. They aren't happy to stand and rifle through six bags of mail to find your phone bill when you bump into them. This does not save them time.
3. If you find amongst your letters one for a house you do not live in, do not come outside and give it to them. This is not helping. They posted it through your door having missed the correct house previously, and thought that you weren't in or were too senile to reach the letters before they made their swift escape. Go and put in back in a post box, this is what they will do.
4. Chasing your postman down the road whilst shouting at them will not endear you to them.
5. If they can't hear you because they're listening to music, appreciate that their job is dull rather than advising them to stop this at once so that you can stop them at will to ask if you have a parcel.
6. If they haven't delivered a parcel/letter to you, even if you are expecting it, it hasn't yet come. They haven't got it.
7. They don't know where your parcel/letter is.
8. They didn't ring the bell to give you your parcel, no matter what they say. They left it on the door step. In a puddle.
9. Don't bother complaining to the delivery office. The manager won't listen or take notice, most of their morning is taken up with listening to customer complaints.
10. Leaving a hefty Christmas tip is the ultimate remedy to any of these problems, and your postmen will suddenly become your best friend for as little as £10 a year.
(Simanenyee (killed to bits), Wed 3 Oct 2007, 15:25, Reply)

Badly kept dirty secret finally gets rumbled, with cummupence and justice for all!
I would like to make an attempt at raising a bit of hope for mankind with this post.

There is warehouse near me that stores car parts for Japanese & French cars. Erm, I won’t name them but if you ‘Shift_’ your memory you could tell me Jean’s surname out of the movie ‘Leon’.

Now, as a company, they do things like a lot of others on these pages seem to i.e. when an alloy wheel or car stereo gets a slight scratch, they would rather throw it away than sell it on the cheap or even offer it as an employee bonus. The reason for this is that they get paid for recycling the stuff and get full insurance on the damages they claim. They win, we lose, tough shite.

Anyhoo, this is not why I’m posting here…

The previous Head of Operations was a good man. Unfortunately, he got cancer and while he lay dying, the second in command busied himself shagging the poor bastard’s wife. When the H.O. finally ‘threw a seven’, this scroteswallower of a ‘number 2’ took over. He was one of the dodgiest, gingerest tee-wats you’d ever know. Millions of pounds worth of contracts were given to slack-jawed incompetent idiots, totally against quotes and references, because of the size of the backhanders he got.

His (extremely large) house was furnished, maintained and decorated thanks to the kickbacks from dodgy suppliers / contractor deals and the like. In fact, he had a whole building constructed at the bottom of his garden that was the size of your average house, just for his games room / bar etc. All paid for with dirty money.

He sorted his daughter out with a temp job in between uni terms (regardless of requirement and on twice a temp’s wage) and kept her on when all the other temps were hoofed out. Jobs were given to useless twunts, providing they were women and would ‘put out’ for him. At one xmas do, he fired into this ropey old bird and stuck his thumb up her clackervalve in the middle of the dancefloor. She was later sorted out with a cushy job. Nobody said a word. He ruled with fear.

There were no depths to which this guy wouldn’t stoop to grease his own greedy palm. All at the expense of the budgets that would ultimately affect the employee’s pay rises. His dodgy deals and criminal activities became the stuff of legend, while he was swanning about on free golf days, trips abroad and his season ticket to Man United.

Thing is, he got cocky. Or sloppy. Or both. He has recently been rumbled, escorted off the premises and ordered to hand his FOUR company cars back in disgrace. Good. It just goes to show that the twat-nappies don’t always get away with it.

However, the company should really have pressed charges against him, don’t you agree? But they won’t, because that would mean the company name gets dragged through the mud and questions will be asked as to why he got away with it for so long, not to mention shitting their respective trollies about what else they'd uncover and the legalities of it all. So he got the old ‘Mutual decision to part company’ bollocks and keeps his pension. In fact, he’ll probably land a plumb job for one of the dodgy contractors with whom he’s been ‘happy scamming’ all these years.

So come to think of it, please forget all the stuff I said earlier about justice and cummupence. The bloke’s a cunt

...allegedly
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Wed 3 Oct 2007, 14:56, Reply)

National lottery
That reminds me of a letter I once saw in a Sunday newspaper complaining that the few seconds of stirring by these paddle thingies wasn't enough to get the balls properly mixed.

Which is of course absolute bollocks, as otherwise the same numbers would come out each time. I worry about the intelligence of the populace sometimes.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 14:40, Reply)

not exactly a secret, more of a list of guidelines to follow...
I work for a prominent health insurance company in the US; part of my job is to *sigh of dispair* answer phones. I basically provide benefit quotes to Doctor's offices and assist them with any problems they have about the way their claims processed. It's a lot more difficult to hold your tongue and not tell these people to fuck off and die than you would think. So, I came up with a set of common courtesies that I think they should follow (even though NONE of them do):

1) you are all idiots who think you are better than me..........................you're not.
2) billing specialists are the worst. Don't get mad at me b/c you can't bill a fucking medical claim correctly. that's what you took that 2 hr seminar for.
3) don't chew/eat/suck on hard candy/food/gum in my ear. it is rude and makes you sound like the fat cow you are.
4) please do not ask me to repeat myself or speak louder b/c you can't hear me; I am talking loud enough. You need to move to a quieter room or ask those behind you that are laughing about the size of their boyfriend's cock to shut the hell up.
5) do not talk on your cell phone while I am trying to tell you how your sorry ass screwed up the billing on the claim. Listening to you tell your daughter to borrow a tampon from one of her friends is NOT what I get paid to do, and frankly, its not something I want to know about.
6) please don't ask for benefits by saying, "the patient is coming in for a specialist office visit because they have explosive diarreha." simply asking for the benefits for a specialist office visit is all I NEED to know and all I WANT to know.
7) please do not spell your name unless I ask you to. I am more than capable of spelling Cindy, Beth, Amy, and yes, even Susan, on my own....


Here's an actual secret:
When a caller is bitching me out and telling me that I HAVE to take a case and fix the claim, even though I have explained that it was her billing error, and there is no way in hell that I can fix this claim without her refiling it, I take the case. But then the next day I wright a letter to the doctor's office stating the exact same thing I told them on the phone, and close my case. It takes them two weeks to get the letter. Which pisses them off even more, but makes me feel a little better about my shitty job.
(ninja_kiki_isabella oh snap!, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 14:37, Reply)

The National Lottery
"Good luck, everyone!" as overpaid 'Z' list nomark pushes the button.

Guess what? It isn't connected to anything. They used to try to cover this up, but now they don't bother keeping the Drawmaster out of shot as he pushes the 'real' button on the side of the machine.

Sometimes they don't tell the celeb this and (especially on the midweek draws) the look on the face of the z-lister is a picture when the floor manager walks across after the prog has finished and calmly picks up the podium and walks off. I'm sure she does it on purpose!
(Dionysian Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 14:30, Reply)

If you've ever
been to one of the larger dance festivals, take pleasure in the fact that if your drugs are confiscated by a security guard (quite likely if you manage to get the past the police) then they'll be given to a dealer who sells them on inside the venue for profit and a free ticket

This is usually organised by someone within the company who organises the festival.
(Himjim died a little more inside on, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 13:52, Reply)

bluetuba or other cabbies
Can you confirm that when after patiently waiting 30 minutes for a cab that never turns up. The booking operator is actually lying when she says:
a)its been once and you weren't there
b)its just around the corner
c)it'll be with u in just a second
just as well i give all my fake tenners to taxi drivers otherwise I'd be right miffed.
(bugboybeast, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 13:51, Reply)

More secrets of the paperclip salesman
1. Sales conferences are an open invitation by the company, not only for you to drink your own weight in Stella every hour, but to behave like a primate with Asbergers. Make sure you have plenty of photographs of yourself taken with your arms wide open (one must be holding a pint of stella), your tongue stuck out as far as it will go and your eyes out on stalks.
Any female delegates are considered 'fair game' and will not mind you swearing profusely, and talking graphically about past conquests.

2. Your mobile phone is a status symbol. Even though you only ever arrange your social life on it, it is what puts you above shop assistants and must be used to full effect.
Make sure you talk loudly on it, especially when in close proximity to members of the public, because they will regard you as a deity and someone to be revered because of your stature and grasp of the world of commerce. Never on any account switch your phone off, not even for your own mother's funeral. Theres no telling when that next paperclip deal will come up.

3. Talk loudly in the pub after work about how much wedge you made this week. It doesnt matter that you really pull in 12k per annum basic and about 8k in commission every year, it's what other people think you make that matters, and this can be acheived by bellowing it into the ear of your conversation partner, especially effective in an empty pub.
(Vic Flange, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 13:47, Reply)

Financial Advisers
Let us suppose you want to put some money away for the future. Let us suppose it is £1,000. Your adviser will be paid ten times as much if he/she gets you to do it as 12 X £80 than as a one-off investment of a grand.
(Captain Spod, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 13:37, Reply)

Main Supermarkets
Not really an inside story, more common sense (although my missus works at George at spazda, so I think I qualify to post here).

Don't buy fruit & veg from the likes of large supermarkets. You are getting royally ripped off. Go to a high-street greengrocer, it's cheaper by far. And the stuff is usually fresher.

For example, my local greengrocer sells a punnet of English strawberries for 89p, which are usually slightly smaller than a Rolo and are a perfect shape like they used to be years ago.

Asda sell a punnet of freakishly large mis-shapen strawberries from Slovenia or some such place for about three times the price, and you are guaranteed to find one that's already got a grey fur coat on withing 24 hours of purchase.

Comparing looseand prepacked brocolli in Asda. I did a calculation and it works out you're paying 48p for some clingfilm and a sticker.

You could argue that the pre-packed one is cleaner than the other which has had people breathing on it. You wash the stuff when you get home anyway, plus they've both been in a field for christ's sake, with things crawling all over them, dormice pissing on them, chemicals sprayed on them. The illegal immigrants that are bussed in to harvest them. Do you think they walk all the way out of the field to go for a piss? Of course not.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 3 Oct 2007, 13:31, Reply)