It's that vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ice cream in one tub right?

( Pig Bodine., Wed 15 Oct 2014, 16:32, 5 replies)

when i was a letting agent, there was a competitor agency in the village where the father had set up a thriving business and was in due course to pass it on to his children
unfortunately, whilst the father was shrewd and bright, the daughter was a famously coke-addled fuckwit. one of their letting agents came to work for us, and told us a story.

father agent was rather a harsh man to work for, and unforgiving at best. he would fire people for really very small misdemeanours. but daughter agent, when she joined after leaving university because nobody else would have hired her, made fuck-up after fuck-up.

finally, she excelled herself. they had one house that wouldn't shift, even though it was in a very desirable part of town, because it needed work doing to it and the famously stingy landlord wouldn't do anything about it. daughter agent announced that the staff were - sniff - hopeless and she would get it - sniff - let, and marched off on a viewing.

she came back, having not let it, which she pronounced in a sniffy rage because it was a total shithole. and promptly spent £15,000 doing it up. new kitchen, new bathroom, the lot.

when the landlord got his quarterly statement and saw that he owed £15,000, he came straight down to the office to demand a meeting with father agent. he was the colour of a boiled tomato. they took him into the back office, but the staff could hear the shouting through the door.

turned out daughter agent had gotten the house confused with one that father agent owned on the same street, hence having it refurbed without permission and without any agreement from the owner to pay for the works...........

and she still didn't get sacked. sniff.
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 10 Oct 2014, 15:00, 26 replies)

Look up the word "wasta" on Google.
This word is highly applicable in the Arab world. I get to witness it on a regular basis.

-Guys (usually in a Lexus) often drive around 200kph (124mph), and the radar cameras get them. Because of their families, the tickets vanish. Wasta.

-Cars get parked in the travel lane of car parks while the owner goes shopping or some such. Tickets get issued, and vanish. Wasta.

-The plum jobs that pay the most go to people of certain families, regardless of credentials, training or even basic competence. Wasta.

The fun part of this for me, though, is watching the resulting incompetence of people who are utterly dependent on others for the most basic things, because they've never had to lift a finger in their lives. My favorite examples:

-watching one of these guys order a steak at a restaurant, then making the waiter cut it up into bite sized chunks for him.

-watching another guy trying to figure out the intricacies of using a fork to eat spaghetti, then resorting to his fingers.

-a ten year old boy, learning to tie his shoelaces for the first time, tying his shoe to his chair- and being unable to escape, because it never occurred to him to slip his foot out of the shoe.

Wasta.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Sun 12 Oct 2014, 11:11, 15 replies)

My old man's a steel man.
During the school holidays my dad employed me and my older brother - voluntarily - at his steel processing works. Pre-health and safety, pre- European directives about workplace hours. We wanted to earn some dorrar? We worked same as the regular workforce.

Operating heavy equipment? Steel banding gear? Gas-powered fork-lifts? Lift-and-winch gear for 10-tonne (metric) coils of steel sheet? You betcha. Getting close to the precision equipment like the slitters/decoilers/Millgravs? No way. You're menial.

Grumble Grumble 'Gaffer's son can do what 'e loikes', grumble grumble from the workforce. But that was at the beginning. Once they realised we had no special treatment, no privelidge, no perks, and we weren't there to spy on them, there became a bit of grudging respect. It also thickened my Black Country accent a bunch, working with those Stourbridge sods. Plus after a particularly tiring 60-hour week I bought my first bass guitar with the proceeds of my pay packet- despite the emergency tax rate nicking almost half of my gross income.

So. Dad taught us the meaning of hard work. Work got done. Me and my bro got valuable life experience. Didn't nobody die. I also jury-rigged a phone to trigger a strobe light in a noisy work environment (where the sound of a ring was swamped amid industrial noise) which meant folks at the coal face knew when guys up in the office were changing the work schedule, so I like to think I gave a little back.

Nepotism, yes. But done right?
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Mon 13 Oct 2014, 9:50, 2 replies)

Cricket
Apologies for the length in advance, been waiting for an opportunity to get this out there.

Cricket: There is no sport in England where nepotism causes a bigger problem.

In my more athletic days (yes - Athletic and Cricket in the same sentence) I was a good leg spin bowler. Having watched Shane Warne destroy England, I saw what a job a "leggy" could do and became pretty good at it.

Now, my local village team had a season of joy. We played 32 times in total, and won 29 matches. We won the league (albeit the 9th of 10 divisions) and made it to the local cup final. And this was with Pete in our team. Pete, the son of the teams captain, club chairman and the person who had paid for the new clubhouse.

Pete was fucking woeful. He thought he could bowl, but in the first 10 matches he set a seasons record for runs conceded, wides bowled and didn't take a wicket. He couldn't catch, but his dad, the team captain, put him in at slip. As a bowler, I counted 13 chances he'd dropped from my bowling. He wanted to bat No.3. He got to double figures once. He averaged 7 for the season in question; shows how well the rest of us were playing.

Come the local cup final, a rumour spreads around the village that Pete was injured. He was; he'd pulled a muscle in his back. But his dad still puts him in the team. So the rest of the team have a plan; put him at Deep Fine Leg (yes - I know, non-cricketers; these words mean nothing to you) and hope no one hits it there.

Now we bat first, Pete gets 3 and out, but we manages to get to 229. A decent 40 over total. We begin to bowl, and after 32 overs, we are owning them. They needed 14 an over to win. Then Father puts Pete on.

1st over, he goes for 25. I bowl from the other end, and go for 2 runs. Next over, Pete goes for 22; next, I go for a maiden. He bowls 2 more overs and brings the opposition back into the game. Bowlers are swapped around and it comes to over 40 with the other team needing 31 runs.

I have one over of my allotted 8 left, as does our best fast bowler, Andy. He's an ex-Nottinghamshire player who, although 48, still bowls tight. He gives me the nod to say "mine" and walks to the middle to bowl his last over, and we all think "That's it, we've won". More than 30 from an over; 5 sixes and more, fuck off...

"Andy, take a rest, Pete can bowl this" shouts the captain.

Utter cuntfuckwankbastard.

His final over went 6, 3 (no ball), 2, 4, 4, 6, 3 (no ball), 6. Fucking 34. 30 fucking 4.

The opposition had their last batsmen in and he gave away 34 runs. Their captain came and asked "what the fuck happened there- if he'd put the ball on the track you would have won."

Pete came in the dressing room afterwards, and just said, "you could have given me more runs to play with..."
(The Kitchen Sink, Sun 12 Oct 2014, 21:10, 3 replies)

I got a job as a graphic designer at a little printing company
The first thing I was told by the other graphic designer was that out of the eight people in the company, four were the family - mum, dad, daughter and her fiancé - and the other four - me, him and the two lads who worked in the print room were basically treated as second-class employees. On the whole it wasn't too bad as I recall - because the parents both smoked I had an ashtray on my desk, we received our pay in cash in brown paper envelopes every week and they didn't mind that the non-family employees spent every Friday lunchtime in the local.

What finished it for me in the end though, was when the daughter came upstairs to the little room where I worked and said that she'd decided that we were to wear uniforms. Now I wasn't averse to this and I had a collection of name-tags and branded polo shirts from working in all manner of retail positions and the like, but when she handed my my "uniform" I initially thought she was joking. She'd found a bunch of old sweatshirts printed with the company's logo in a cupboard that looked like they'd been there since the mid-eighties and she proudly presented me with mine. It was originally yellow but filthy, with stained tide marks around the neck and cuffs - which were so tight they nearly cut off my circulation and finished just below my elbow in any case - and it was too short in the body, presumably because the previous occupant had a magnificent rack as the indentations of two breasts were still clearly embedded into the fabric.

I tried it on and I looked ridiculous. I said I wasn't wearing that. She said I had to wear a uniform, so I said I'd wear anything that fit and didn't already have someone else's tits moulded into it. She went to her father, who told me I had to wear the shirt if I still wanted a job. I told him I didn't want the job that much and quit.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 13 Oct 2014, 10:50, 13 replies)

This guy works in the oil rig I'm on.
He works in the painting team, which means preparing rusty bits of the rig for painting (setting up scaffolding around the area, then needle-gunning and buffering the rusty sections etc). He doesn't have the first clue about the work and is always fucking it up. He only got the job because his uncle is the manager of the rig, he doesn't have the first fucking interest in painting, or working offshore or anything. His colleagues in the painter team are always on at him because he's shit at the job and isn't getting any better; if his uncle wasn't the big boss, he'd have been fired ages ago. He used to be in some smart-arse job abroad, but couldn't find work back home so the poor bastard is only doing this so his wife (he met her when working abroad) can get a visa - you have to be in the same job for six months or something. He obviously can't stand it being offshore, but he's only sticking it out so he get get his wife and daughter over.




This guy is me.
(McChinaman banned, Sat 11 Oct 2014, 12:48, 6 replies)

my father had his own business. he did not employ me. I am that much of a cunt

( d.r._and_quinch when will you be famous?, Fri 10 Oct 2014, 21:29, 4 replies)

My Dad
will be answering this one for me.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 10 Oct 2014, 16:21, Reply)

My company has a kind of nepotism.
The two guys who own it have brought cousins, brothers, nephews, in-laws and any other relationship there is to work here. Of about 40 people in the office I work in, there are at least 20 members of their family.

Every one of them gets treated like shit. It's obvious the owners have been pressured into giving the family jobs, but that's all they do.

I get plenty of perks, from a cheap mortgage to lunch delivered every day. The family get fuck all.

Anyway, to answer the question properly, I once paid my cousin to decorate my flat, and he got paint on the carpet.
(username failed moderation, Mon 13 Oct 2014, 9:07, Reply)

Pea roast - cause it went down like a pro before:
Long ago, some mates, my ex and I were scamming the council to pay our rent. There were four of us living in a two bed house (we converted the lounge to be an extra bedroom, and the ex and I were in one room together). We were all unemployed, and claiming the 20 quid a week minimum that the DSS used to give out to people who didn't have enough NI contributions - none of these people had ever managed to get a job for any length of time.

The combined rents of these individual "bedsits" came to a bit more than the rent for the property - the housing benefit didn't cover the whole rent, but it was close enough for us to scrape by.
The ex was the official tennant, and we all rented off her.

Anyway - the council inspector turned up out of the blue one day, and wanted to see the place.
He quickly spotted that the ex and I were cohabiting - so my rent was going to my other half.
We both got called in for a hearing - housing benefit has to be stopped, and the overpayment must be payed back.

The ex pointed out that if we'd claimed as a couple, for the whole rent of the property, then the council would have had to pay out more.

Our interviewer stops, and looks at his notes. Then he says "Aren't you {NAME}'s daughter? I know {NAME}, he's in my lodge."

We were dismissed, and carried on as usual for another six months or so (till I got a job and rented legitimately).

{NAME} is now on his City Council. My ex went on to be a fairly successful madam.
( Invisible Wizard - 10th Level Nerf-herder, Sat 11 Oct 2014, 15:29, Reply)

I did work experience for my old man in secondary school.
he was in trading standards. first I went to a pub, and tested alcohol levels, then to a petrol station where I measured the amount coming out of the pumps, then I had to watch a box set of the sopranos that was seized to check the videos werent porn. Then my dad decided I had managed not to fuck anything up yet and he should probably quit while he was ahead, so one of his colleagues took me water skiing for the rest of the week. happy days
( Glovington, Sat 11 Oct 2014, 8:51, 5 replies)

A long time ago I worked on the roads.
The boss gave his son a job. First day, someone asked him to check whether that barrel of tar was hot enough, so he dipped his finger in it.

Never saw him again.
( fred zeppelin II: Electric Boogaloo, Fri 10 Oct 2014, 19:17, 11 replies)

Not an anecdote, but an observation on nepotism.
In my work, I deal quite frequently with factories and mills. These typically will be set up by someone a few years back, prospered for many years and are by and large solid businesses.

They are (or will be ) invariably destroyed by a kind of nepotism.

What happens is grandfather is very smart, builds a successful business, then brings in his 4 sons and daughters. They aren't necessarily capable of running things, but Grandfather is around to watch them.

They all inherit 25% of the business.

Then they have kids. You've now got 4 2nd generation owners, and a dozen kids. Grandfather retires / dies, the business is split 16 ways, and the bickering starts. 6 of them don't want to work there, but they want their dividend each year. The rest all want big salaries too.

Then they breed. Now you've got a boardroom with 40 chairs in it, all occupied by people with 2.5% of the business. It never works, they end up driving it into the ground, because none of them have a clue how to run a business, or selling it to a mega corp.
(username failed moderation, Mon 13 Oct 2014, 16:48, 25 replies)

worked in a family owned pub...
Owner was an ex copper and had the judge dredd complex
Son thought he was hard and could get away with talking to people (namely me) like shite because daddy owned the pub.
I had sex with owners daughter and told manager as i handed in my immediate leave.

I even had to pay for my own sunday lunch on 9 hour sunday shift on apprentice wages (£95 at the time dinner cost £10)
(Pennisons Revenge All this trouble over squealing meat, Mon 13 Oct 2014, 13:11, 14 replies)

It even happens in the NHS
No funnies, can't even be bothered going into too much detail.

Worked in a hospital a few years ago. Did my best to climb the ladder, did all the management courses and all that bollocks, ended up as department deputy manager. Manager takes on lad as a temp as favour to his mum, who was a director at said hospital. Lad routinely fails to turn up to work and frequently turns up drunk. Manager gets another job. Lad gets mysteriously managers job, despite not being qualified and not having the first clue how to do it. Lad expects me to do manager's job to cover for him.

I leave.

Lad is, evidently, still unable to do said job, but is still getting £40K a year of taxpayers' money to fail to do so.

Like the Murphys...
(ScousersPet, Mon 13 Oct 2014, 12:50, 1 reply)

i.imgur.com/CaMxPoR.gif
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Sat 11 Oct 2014, 18:12, 6 replies)

the inverse relationship
Was how employees at one middle-eastern-based firm I worked for referred to the quality of management

The principle was that the closer their blood relationship to the CEO of the group, the less could be expected of them in regards to competence or integrity. Funny how that often worked out.

I can't quote specifics due to it being sub-judice at the moment (One member of senior staff facing jail for running all his father-in-laws holidays through the product development expense account with the full knowledge and permission of the group holding company, another appealing against sentence already passed.)

But its alarmingly common, the auditors knew all about it, and were paid off to do nothing..

Blood's thicker than water, and family place-men are thicker than shit.
(Carpe Cyprinidae, Fri 10 Oct 2014, 18:45, 3 replies)

i hired my sister
to paint my bathroom. stupid cunt got stoned and tried to paint with a scouring pad because she was too monged to remember where she'd left the paintbrush.

tl;dr
tosser, go away
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 10 Oct 2014, 14:58, Reply)