TTT
People think it's difficult to snare a moron on a site like this but it's surprisingly easy. For example, noted spastic, retard and troll Dr. Shambolic falls for pretty much everything you might want to throw his way, though you have to watch out for his obnoxious compulsion to have the last word on everything. This can get tricky, because for example when we recently had a contre-temps regarding French releases of international toys, he was too stupid to understand why I specified the toy company's name with regard to a product they released that already contained another toy company's name. In order to get his point across, Dr. S needed to delete not one, but two lots of my replies, which just about made the whole exercise worthwhile.

TL:DR - Shambo's a stupid prick who's easily wound up.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Fri 9 May 2014, 15:24, 77 replies)

In a previous life I worked for the Environment Agency
I had high hopes of making a difference to the environment when I joined, but gradually realised it was mostly drudgery, only enlivened by occasional machinery- related mishaps. Round where I used to work the ground is low lying and needs a lot of drainage, so unlike the Somerset levels a regular dredging programme for all the ditches was in force - my job was to drive around the fields in a Shogun checking which ditches were blocked and needed dredging. Naturally if you happened to get the call of nature at any point, you could just go wherever you were, that is until one morning I let fly into a ditch and a frenzy of squeaking followed. Long story short I'd pissed in an otter's mouth.
(localboy purveyor of pisspoor puns, Fri 9 May 2014, 15:17, Reply)

When I worked in that Indian Restaurant
I didn't expect to make all that Tarka Masala.

It was like the Tikka Masala I was expecting ..... just a little bit 'otter!

I'll get my coat.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Fri 9 May 2014, 15:02, 3 replies)

Years ago...
...when I was at college in Hendon, it was all "pillar of the community" and "chicks'll dig the uniform".

Not once did they mention that I might get punched by a nonce.
(Joy Division Oven Gloves Death to false metal, Fri 9 May 2014, 14:19, 3 replies)

when i was a child
i expected to be ruling the world by this time, or at least be head of a global empire. instead, my shitty body let me down and i spend my time squinting at MASSIVE letters and avoiding walking into things.
still, gotta laugh, eh?
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 9 May 2014, 14:09, 15 replies)

Owning a Pizza Oven
Expectation: great-tasting homemade pizzas, whenever the hell I want!

Reality: sloppy, burnt abortions, more closely resembling the contents of a vet's biopsy tray, than anything you'd want to put near your mouth.
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Fri 9 May 2014, 13:57, 4 replies)

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 9 May 2014, 13:41, 3 replies)

It's exactly what I expected

... but that's because my expectations were set by watching Open University in the 1970s.

Wavy line your imagination back to that distant era. Only three TV channels, with kids programs only available for a very limited range of times. Which meant that we'd end up watching whatever the hell was on, and that meant, quite often, The Open University.

It's hard to imagine now: a couple of pre-teen kids watching a black-and-white lecture on mathematics, with special effects consisting of letraset letters on cardboard diagrams. But what I often noticed was the Computer Operator visible in the background. He had a beard and long hair! He had no dress sense (even compared to the wild-eyed social misfit delivering the lecture)! He sat down a lot, stared at a screen and did no heavy lifting! That, I thought, is the job for me: a hippy who gets paid for interacting with machines -- SO much easier than people, especially women.

And it's worked out perfectly. I have long hair and a beard, no dress sense, and thanks to a career in IT amongst all the other other misfits and weirdos, still haven't developed any discernable social skills.

Win!
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 9 May 2014, 13:41, 1 reply)

I use dis otter 2 make my house ot:

(eViLegion Chief Commissioner of the Scottish Lunacy Board, Fri 9 May 2014, 13:14, 1 reply)

Life as Albert Marshmallow's conscience.
[nothing to report]

Just as expected.
( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Fri 9 May 2014, 12:21, 2 replies)

it's been 8 years since i wrote this, i think that's fair enough for a repost
when we were about 14, my best friend and i were conned into giving up our precious saturdays to advertise a children's designer clothes shop in cheadle. 6 hours for £20 cash in hand. riches to us at that age. and the job sounded like FUN.

the idea was, one of us would dress up in a fluffy animal suit and give balloons to the children. the other would then take a photograph, which would be displayed in the shop. the fond mothers could then come into the shop and claim the free photograph, and the hope was that they would be seduced into buying baby gap g-strings and versace rompers.

unfortunately, the owner was a big, fat, sleazy robbie coltrane double who was tighter than a nun's chuff. he bought four of the ropiest cartoon suits you've ever seen, with holes in them, threadbare fur and less than a passing resemblance to the actual cartoon character - mine was the lesser known "pinkish grey balding panther with a hole where the tail should be and staring weird yellow eyes". cue the horrid boss pressing the detached tail against my 14 year old utterly non-existent tits and arse, murmuring, "we could pin it here. or here. or heeeere." what kind of scaryass panther has a tail coming out of its breasts?? anyway.

we had to dance around cheadle in these suits. it was cold. it was windy. it was raining. people threw things at us. including lit cigarettes. and my friend vicky's "rotting snoopy carcass" head kept falling down so she couldn't see and walked into things. at one point she walked smack into a waist high metal post and nearly sterilised herself. every single child within a 5 mile radius burst into tears when they saw the freaky suits. this was the only thing that made it bearable (no pun intended).

eventually we were sacked when not one single solitary mother had been in to retrieve a photo in 6 weeks and the shop was flooded with them. well, who would want a picture of their darling son/daughter and heir, dripping wet and crying hysterically as their worst nightmare capered around in front of them?

moral of the story children - never mock people in those suits. it's worse on the inside.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 9 May 2014, 12:10, 5 replies)

Life as a Landlord
Expectation: make a few phone calls, reply to a few emails, sign a couple of forms, work my own hours, work comfortably from anywhere in the world, pay small amounts to various Eastern Europeans to deal with any manual labour that may crop up, watch the money roll in.

Reality: as above.
( Albert Marshmallow is a completely irredeemable cunt, Fri 9 May 2014, 11:45, 40 replies)

PC repair
Someone else's expectations rather than mine, but I'm going to shoehorn it in anyway.

This morning an IT repairman came round to find out why my PC kept making a high-pitched whine and switching off unexpectedly, probably with the expectation that his customers are clueless numpties without a gadget to their name. We opened up the tower and he attentively watched it boot, going into the BIOS and scanning the various parameters thoughtfully.

"Damn", he said after a moment. "There's no information on the temperature of the components. Oh well, we'll have to do it another way."

It came to my attention at that point that I had a LASER TEMPERATURE GUN in my possession. Moments later I had pressed the Honda Temperature Gun of Justice into his hands and beheld him cooing in amazement. "Wow", he said as he pointed the laser at the graphics card, the motherboard and the power supply, "This is much better than an application."

Turned out to be the power supply that was fecked.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Fri 9 May 2014, 11:08, 6 replies)

Got a job as a designer. - most of you know this one.
Was hired as they liked my work. I'll get to design stuff at this company I thought - Every job ever -
Every middle management cunt tells me how to design.

They come over and start with "I'm not a designer but....." then hand over a list of things to change. Then they change that. Then they say they didn't like what I've done. Then they go back to what I made first and say they liked what they've done.

I no longer care. A lot of this stuff I would find embarrassing to put on my CV. I guess that's what they pay me for.

the most recent company is odd - the boss (and his boss) leave me alone and don't change anything. The things they ask for have been well thought-out reasons for the change that I agree with.
I can't cope with this freedom and it's hard to break of of the shell I put up with for the past 15 years. FML.
(waxdart hello., Fri 9 May 2014, 11:07, 3 replies)

my friend's husband is an engineer and he works for mars
when he was looking at the position, he was told that they get a tiny percentage of their salary in products every month. so basically a big box of free chocolate bars. his wife was thrilled.

they put him in the pedigree chum factory.

they don't have a pet.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 9 May 2014, 11:05, 10 replies)

I edited a travel magazine for two years.
It was a business-focused magazine, aimed pretty squarely at those who could put stuff on the company plastic as opposed to their own.

We covered the major cities on all the continents, and had details of the restaurants to wine and dine clients, the hotels to stay at, the entertainment available, cultural and historical highlights, and where to go if you had the time.

"How glamorous!" said people, "How jetset! How travel!"

No.

It meant I got to sit in an air-con-free office in South London, and commission journalists in their respective cities by email, who's copy I would then edit.

Woo.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 9 May 2014, 11:04, 6 replies)

I work for a trading company. We buy and sell food
in quantities of up to about 75,000 tons at a time.

"ooh, really? I bet you're never short of sugar, rice etc, etc"

I think the last time I actually physically touched any of the goods we trade was 7 years ago.
(username failed moderation, Fri 9 May 2014, 9:58, 3 replies)

Somebody in the office offered me a vegan cupcake yesterday.
"What makes it a vegan cupcake?" I asked.
"Well, it's made with hazelnut milk and there are no eggs in it". She explained. "Also, the glaze hasn't quite set how I expected, so it's a bit sticky".

Despite having no interest in eating this animal product-free piece of crap, my innate sense of politeness took over and I accepted a cake.

It was brown and it was too sticky. I almost held my breath as I took my first bite, expecting the inevitable wholemealy taste of brown flour and grain, like when someone tries to make a bacon and fried egg sandwich with brown bread or eating a dry Ryvita.

I was already planning my anti-vegan rant: "We have evolved as omnivores that require animal fats and meat protein to produce energy", "Our stomachs have adapted to handle cow's milk perfectly well, actually" and "Vegan's are always ill - at least they look it".

But it tasted nice.
( Fork Has lost his bash virginity!, Fri 9 May 2014, 9:57, 12 replies)

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 9 May 2014, 9:11, 6 replies)

( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Fri 9 May 2014, 8:37, 2 replies)

Summer computer-camp counselor for genius-level kids
I thought we'd have collegial, highly-intellectual discussions every single day. Instead, it was one humiliation after another, as they ruthlessly exposed my profound ignorance about computers.
(Perv With A Dog had his eyes pecked out by scrub jays on, Fri 9 May 2014, 7:29, 4 replies)

Do you reckon sombody's going to interpret this as "QOTW contributor"?
That would be hilarious.
( Zuowan, Fri 9 May 2014, 3:47, 3 replies)

I had no preconceptions about low-level management jobs, except that I would get more money.

( Zuowan, Fri 9 May 2014, 3:30, Reply)

I really hoped this week's QOTW would full of stories about lovely otters going by the web address.
:(
( Amorous Badger NAKED BEA ARTHUR PHOTOS 4U, Fri 9 May 2014, 0:53, 16 replies)

'Blunce
Joined the UK Ambulance Service (mumble) years ago, expecting a whole bunch of stuff, some of it obvious, like helping people & racing around like a loon under blue lights, some of it less so.
Most of it is fairly mundane (to us, not the patients) & yes we do help people (I'd better not admit to the loon bit), but I really didn't expect to be treated so badly by Government, or the drunken fuktards who assault us on a fairly regular basis.
Truth is, I probably expected the uniform to act as more of a fanny magnet, but it turns out, that if you're ugly with a small dick it somehow doesn't seem to help much...
length: see above
(stygof, Thu 8 May 2014, 23:57, 3 replies)

From the day I started my last job I was told "Don't expect to be doing this in 4 years' time, The job's being phased out, you'll be gone before then."
Every year for the next 23 years it was the same refrain.
Until this year when I fucking FINALLY got my golden handshake.
:D
( stuj (^(^;;^)^) GO TEAM SPIDERS!(^(^;;^)^), Thu 8 May 2014, 22:51, 6 replies)

4th
but was promised 1st.
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Thu 8 May 2014, 22:45, Reply)

NATO
Worked as a software developer for NATO or three years. The computer system was mainly concerned with planning and execution of aircraft missions. Think Top Gun meets War Games, all very glamorous, secretive and action packed.

Reality? Worked in a small office building. Hessian on the walls, maps dating back to the cold war, office furniture from the same era. Did at no point see an actual aircraft. Most of the time spent working on implementing flawed communication protocols facing other NATO systems since funding depended upon showing progress in that field. Remaining time spent hoping that the military personnel would have the good sense to pick up the phone and bypass our system if a situation would ever arise where communication was critical.

Embarassingly well paid.
(spinoza, Thu 8 May 2014, 22:45, 3 replies)

QOTW moderator
"Girls," they said. "Girls, beer and all the cake you can eat."

Still waiting for the cake.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 8 May 2014, 22:31, 7 replies)

go fuck yourselves

( The Doveston haunted by the memory of his own amnesia, Thu 8 May 2014, 22:30, 5 replies)