Pretend suicide
Now this turned out harsher than I expected, but seemed a cracking idea at the time.

I was young, hacked off, and as young and hacked off people are prone to (especially those who find themselves working in call centres taking gas meter readings over the phone), I'd decided to quit my job in style.

We had a team meeting/daily pep-talk scheduled for that morning, and as our line manager was a chain smoker, these were sometimes held in the car park at the side of the building - as was the case the day I'd decided to quit.

Now the building itself was on a hill, looking out over the city, and right at the end of the car park was a low wall, over which, to a casual observer there would seem to be a sheer drop of about 100ft - although it was actually slightly terraced, with something like a 4-5ft drop immediately the other side.

The pep-talk started as usual with our boss attempting to motivate us for the day ahead. Following this, we'd usually take it in turns to discuss any issues from the day before.

When it was my turn, I merely uttered "Sorry, but I can't take it any more, I really can't, I quit", ran across the car park like a demented, suicidal monkey, and hurled myself across the wall.

There was about 30 seconds stunned silence, followed by screaming, and then more screaming, and then plenty of crying.

When I emerged, rather than being treated as a jolly prankster they overlooked my "resignation", sacked me immediately and escorted me from the premises.

So yeah. Don't pretend to kill yourself at work kids. Not good.
( rofl harris, Fri 23 May 2008, 14:28, 15 replies)

I have had more crap jobs than you can wave a shitty stick at
and one of the things I have learnt is that your oh so funny leaving stunt didn't stick it to the company or that manager you hated, it stuck it to your ex-work mates who hate the same job/manager that you do but don't have the luxury of fucking off to university, a better job, or the chance to mince around the world for 12 months.

The one thing all of my shitty jobs have had in common is that I have always got on with the people I worked with who did the same job. I have had managers and team leaders who I would have broken my feet on before I tired of kicking them in the genitals, but I have always managed to find some esprit de corps with my fellow wage slaves.

Which is why I am still amazed when people who I considered to be good friends have on their leaving day, fucked me good'n'proper with their "smash the establishment" actions. I'm sure they still boast about it down the pub, lets have a selection of some of my favourite ass-rapings by past colleagues:

Boast: "Ha ha, when I left the shop I worked in during the summer before uni, I stole loads of money and fags"

Reality: The police questioned me, the nice old owner didn’t make a profit that year and his insurance premiums went up. He went bankrupt 2 years later. Ha fucking ha.

Boast: "When I left my shitty lab job, I flushed away a load of samples"

Reality: I had to work 3 weekends on the trot to help some PhD students who were almost suicidal at the thought of 4 years of work literally flushed down the drain. Well done joker, we had a good laugh at that one (once Karen stopped crying).

Boast: "When I left my crap office job in the financial services, I deleted a hundred pending pension/mortgage/life assurance applications, I wish I could have seen my managers face..."

Reality: You cunting cunt. Who do you think had to log them back on the system? Who do you think had to explain and grovel to all the financial advisers and customers who wanted to know where their information and work had gone? "Yes" I would like to add you as a Facebook friend as I can now hunt you down and gut you like the backstabbing cunt you are.

Boast: "I spent a year as a trainee accountant, didn’t like it much as they kept sending me to college and I failed all my exams because I couldn’t be bothered. Before I walked out I sent a group email to all the clients saying that they were all being investigated by the Inland Revenue for massive tax evasion"

Reality: Actually not a problem. You are such an unemployable retard you cocked it up and it was bounced back to sender, we reported you to the ACCA and you will never work in anything but the hottest and noisiest of jobs. Of course, had you succeeded you would most probably have crippled a small practice that had bent over backwards to help you.

Moral of the story: So before you format the company server, please think of the people you like and are leaving behind.
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Thu 22 May 2008, 15:40, 13 replies)

The brain fart incident
I still get a warm feeling every time I remember this.

Back in the Harlequin’s misspent youth while at a higher learning institution he dallied with the idea of PR as a possible profession. It’s mostly filled with nubile blonde ladies, famous sorts and free stuff thought I. In order to truly live up to the middle class stereotype I skipped all that pesky interview nonsense and used nepotism to get some work experience. A friend’s mum is MD at a London agency and a quick chat and bit of charm got me in to learn the ropes. Trendy Soho sorts everywhere, the aforementioned females of blonde persuasion and some interesting stuff to work on, namely London Fashion Week.

I’ll say straight off that it was epic fun. Being one of five straight men in a three mile square radius with lots of stunning women running around drunk, stoned or high as a kite led to some rather enjoyable experiences to the extent that I went back to do three more seasons. The last one was the best as the harlequin had his job nailed – basically looking after the photographers and TV crews – and was a little older and wiser. Now fashion sorts are, with very few exceptions, a daft and bloody useless bunch and this extends to their own PRs. All of these seem to be twenty-something girls in leggings and acid yellow hot pants with clipboards and headset microphones. Buggered if I know who they were talking to on these, they were never on the event channels and their job seemed to be to run around and get in peoples way and annoy everyone.

So it was that on the last day of the week the Harlequin found himself arguing with one of these little darlings over why the show for the designer she was working for was running 45 minutes late. Lots of annoyed looking journos, celeb types and fashion people in the audience and Harlequin was getting an earful from the photographers as they had to be at another show at a different venue ASAP. So Harlequin tries to find out what the hold up is and is going backstage when he is waylaid by a slightly frazzled looking hot pant wearer.

“You can’t go back there” says she.

“Erm, I can actually” says I.

“No you can’t, it’s restricted access. Only fashion week staff are allowed I’m afraid” she sneers back, looking at Harlequin’s distinct lack of fashion sense.

“I know, I am staff and I need to know what’s taking so long as I’ve got forty increasingly annoyed photographers to calm down.” I fire back as I pull out the all access spiffy blue “god” pass that proved I was one of the anointed. “Now be a dear and run along and count the chairs or something” I snapped. It had been a long week, with a number of late nights involving booze and women in overly large quantities and so the fuse was pretty short.

I sauntered back stage to see a line of models ready to go and the stylists all looking nervously at a corner table where there appeared to be five people all talking a the top of their voices at the same time. One was the designer in question and he was looking increasingly agitated as I wondered over. Heads turned as I approached - the Harlequin is a tall chap – and a woman I then recognise turns in her seat. It’s a certain English supermodel with a reputation for throwing things at assistants and getting booted off airplanes. Shit the fucking bed. And now she’s glaring at me and barks in a somewhat testy tone “Well?”

“Sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering when the show is going to start”

“Who are you?”

“I work for Fashion Week, I’m a liaison for the photographers and television crews”

“That’s nice for you but we’ll start when I’m ready” she announces haughtily

“I’m sure that’s the case but I was hoping it would be soon as you’re running rather behind time and the guests and the media are getting quite restless.

“They’ll wait for me, they always do. It’s not my fault anyway. Those stupid women – she indicates the stylists – fucked up my make up so I’m doing it myself.”

“Er, I’m sorry things aren’t running smoothly. If you could just finish up as quickly as you can I’m sure everyone would appreciate it.”

She stands up at this point and looks me in the eye. Bloody hell, she’s my height in those heels. “I’ll be ready when I’m ready. I’ve been doing this a while and I don’t need some jumped up little fucking gopher telling me how to do my job,”

The Harlequin is not impressed by her tone. “There’s really no need for insults, I’m merely trying to make sure the guys I’m working with have enough time to get to the next show and know what’s holding them up.”

“I’ll decide if it’s time for insults! Those fuckers can wait for me, it’s their job”

And at this point the Harlequin’s brain / mouth filter failed.

“And it’s your job Miss Well-known-soup-brand to turn up on time and walk up and down a couple of times.”
…
…
Crap.
…
I just verbally bitch slapped a supermodel. Oh dear.

As what I said permeates her head a tactical withdrawal seemed like the proper move so the Harlequin about faces and marches out passed some rather awestruck make-up artists. I hear a fairly incoherent shout but don’t turn and then I’m back safe and sound front of house. Another 5 minutes and the show started with the snappers all commenting that a certain model had a face like a slapped arse on her. At the end of week party that night after a few glasses of bubbly I fessed up to the boss and made it clear that it was my last season. She agreed it was probably for the best and then got me good and drunk. Drunk enough that I had the balls to go and chat up an underwear model. But that’s another story…

No apologies for length, it was worth it.
(DarkHarlequin putting babies on spikes since, Fri 23 May 2008, 15:45, 5 replies)

The M&S underwear crotch bulge game!
I worked for M&S over Christmas, helping out during the rush and getting some much needed funds, it was only for a few months so hardly 'I quit' material but towards the end I was doing a lot of long late nights where you're basically just waiting for the next lorry full of xmas goods to arrive at bastard-o-clock in the morning to be hurriedly unloaded, categorised and delivered and such, and then more idling about alone doing shop tidying, waiting.

So, in the interim lengths of inactivity, you get bored, and I'm one of those guys who really doesn't do bored well. Regular b3tans will know this makes me do increasingly extreme expressions of my sick sense of humour to keep me entertained, this usually comes out pretty creatively on here, but in a large department store on my own...

I started making stuff out of all the debris lying around, people would find 'foam dollies' behind me, same process as making a corn doll but with packing foam, and there was a lot of Xmas debris around too so little random Xmas decorations starting popping up in various departments for the staff to wonder about come morning. Most of my creations disappeared into the bins from whence they came pretty quickly, but some of my better ones stuck around a while. These are just examples, and I got increasingly creative and obsessive as the boredom started to get to me just from trying to stay sane.

One day early on I noticed the mens underwear department had four of those plastic models that were just legs and a torso, but they had no crotch! What kind of idiot tries to sell underwear to your average already insecure male with models that appear to be neutered I thought, 'Buy our underwear, as modeled by Eunichs!' (hey, it's how my head works). So I went around and added rolled up balls of foam packing (the stuff like white polystyrene sheeting) to them.

In a few days the underwear got changed and the packing got removed, so I added some more padding back into them, but having noticed this now the day staff removed it immediately, and so a contest was born!

I would try and time how long I thought it would take for the day staff to stop watching the models, then pack them out again, and see how long the foam balls stayed in there, and to make it more interesting I would slowly increase the size of them night by night, to see how silly-big they could get before they were removed. I once went for one whole week this way and I took a mate in to show him, we were giggling like loons amongst Xmas shoppers as he took pictures with his phone of these bulging underwear displays. You had to be there.

In my last few weeks I started doing 'Realistic Bulges ©' by actually making a sort of false cock out of the foam and packing tape, I actually got so good at it that by the time I applied them you could tell the religion of each dummy thru the underwear! Then I got really silly and had themes, like trying to give them characters (drawing faces on them & such). Christmas was an obvious one, two baubles and a small balloon, two sparkly fir cones and a bit of wire tree branch, you get the idea. I found myself picking up stuff that fell on the floor during work duties 'cos they looked vaguely male-genitalia-like and saving them for quiet moments of crude cock crafting. I do recall a few times of sitting on the loo during break and idly making one from the contents of my pockets. I'm sure Freud would have a field day but if you know me well you'll know I just aren't in any way squeemish about such things and it amuses me that others are.

Finally I went to see my friend Carol who worked at a sex shop around the corner, whom I knew as a friend but also from working there now and then cash in hand, and she had some novelty items called 'Sticky Willies'. They were small flaccid cock and balls made of that odd rubber that you can throw at windows and it'll stick and crawl down it (there was a big craze once for octopodes). They were a little smaller than your average cock but flesh coloured and quite realistic, and she let me have some cheap, one for each underwear model (4), and on my last day, after a few days of doing nothing in the hope they would forget for a while, they were applied.

I went in expectantly the next working day and they'd removed the underwear display entirely.

I wonder if I broke anyone's mind...

Length? Blaarb!
( ..wil, Sat 24 May 2008, 12:01, 11 replies)

Quit from a non paying job
I was giving my 18 month old son his usual nighttime bath last night and decided to get in the bath with him (Believe me its like trying to handle a live fish when you try to do it at the side of the bath and I seem to get less water on me when I'm actually in the tub). After the initial wash, rinse and piss about with various kiddie toys floating in the tub I decided to wash my hair too by submerging my head underwater while sonny boy played with his water wheel attached to the bath.

One of the things I usually do when bathing my son is come up for air showing only my head and yell "Boo!" at him (this may sound stupid but he's 18 month old so its comedy gold for him). Last night was different. I pulled my head back above water ready to yell boo and looked up, mouth agape at the sight before me. My son was stood there evil smil across his chops and aiming his cock at my face......what followed can only be described as a mad rush to escape the bath and my own piss filled mouth yelling "ARGHWHATTHEHELLYOULITTLESOD!!!!!"

I told my missuis that I had quit the job as kid washer shortly after brushing my teeth so hard that my gums bled.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Fri 23 May 2008, 11:31, 8 replies)

Quitting Karma
Was working for a games developer a few years back, it was a small company, only employing about 16 people. From the very start, I really didn’t get along with the then owner and managing director. Whenever anything went wrong, I was the first to be blamed whether it was my fault or not. After working there for about 12 months, the company got bought out, lock, stock and barrel by a larger, American company.

The MD stayed and our relationship deteriorated further, but I had just bought a house and was about to get married, so I pretty much had to stick it out. It even reached the point where he wouldn’t talk to me directly, and would only go through my boss, who constantly sucked up to him – I even used to make a point of giving him a cheery “GOOD MORNING!” every day, because I knew it annoyed him and made him look like a bit of an eejit when he would blank me in front of people.

Due to my boss refusing the defend me, I spent half my days being bawled at for not hitting the ever-shifting deadlines. I tried not to care, but averaged about 2 hours sleep a night from the stress.

Things really came to a head when I wanted three weeks and a day off to get married and have a very nice honeymoon. My contract said I could have three weeks with appropriate notice, or more with the permission of the MD. The MD said no way, laughing as he did so. I tried being reasonable for a while, before saying “fine, I’m taking three weeks and a day off, I’ll be back on x date, if you don’t like it, tough” and off I went. At my wedding reception, my boss wouldn’t speak to me (but ate the £50 a head dinner anyway) and was rather dismayed to discover an old mate of mine was fairly high up in the parent company, which I didn’t realise until he said “Why did you invite *my boss* from company Y?” and I told him I worked for that company, he just said “mate, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but find another job NOW. We’re gonna close that place in the next three months or so”. Shit. Still, at least I had the heads-up.

When I got back off honeymoon, I was informed that my position was being made redundant, though they made the mistake of showing someone I used to work with around the office while I was there. A little bit of digging revealed that he was being brought in to replace me. You can’t make someone redundant and replace them with someone else straight away. So I got my solicitor involved. The solicitor wanted me to take the redundancy and then sue for unfair dismissal. I had a better plan: knowing that the company was about to go west, I threatened to sue but then got my solicitor to draw up a “fair deal” that involved me signing a contract saying I wouldn’t sue and then quitting, in exchange for a (very) large payout. Since I knew the company didn’t have the funds to cover the payout, I refused to take a cheque and demanded a banker’s draft, which came out of the MD’s personal account. When he handed it over, I said “Thanks. I quit. I’ll see you in the dole queue” he just looked puzzled.

Three weeks later, the American parent company closed to office down, royally screwing over the staff in the process - only giving them statutory redundancy pay, which is somewhere between fuck and all. The MD begged my mate (who oversaw the closing of the office) for a job at the parent company. After being nice about it for a while, he told him to fuck off, in those exact words. I lived large off the payoff for six months; the MD sold his house, not least because he, personally, was paying my mortgage instead of his.
(ScousersPet, Tue 27 May 2008, 10:49, 6 replies)

Bad Monkey.
An old girlfriend got fired from one of her first ever jobs for being late on an (admittedly) consistent basis. Of course being 18 at the time she swore at the manager, told him what she thought of him and stormed off only to realise she had left her gym kit and some stuff in her locker. That lunch time she returned to find the locker empty, asking around she discovered that the manager who had fired her had apparently cleared her locker and taken her belongings into his office.

Thinking he was out (and not caring if he was in) she burst into his office muttering 'where is my stuff' only to find him behind his desk with her shorts wrapped around his cock going at himself like a maniac. Hearing her screaming with laughter half the office ran in to find their manager standing up trying to stuff his boner back in his trousers whilst tangled in a pair of girls shorts.

A footnote - he was transferred to another location and she was offered her job back. She declined and took a pay off of a months salary and a new gym kit.
(Tugnut Ex of this parish, Wed 28 May 2008, 15:36, 5 replies)

A long, but satisfying revenge.
Revenge is best served cold.

About 6 months ago I met my manager from the call-centre job from hell I did about 5 years back. She made a point of never speaking to me directly, always telling my supervisor what to say to me despite being three feet away from me, as if making eye contact with me was beneath her station. She referred to me as 'the temp' and never bothered to hide her complete contempt for me.

I could have called her names or whatever, but I simply asked whether she was still in the same job as before.

She was.

I said what I now did for a living, as a company director earning nearly twice what she does.

She asked me for a job.

I said no.

And that, my friends, is a million percent more satisfying than all the rants, all the vandalism, all the theft in the world put together.
(Axeman Jim, Sat 24 May 2008, 0:12, 10 replies)

he quit!
my friend evie went on a first date on saturday night with a guy she really, really likes. she was very nervous, but it all went swimmingly well.

so well, in fact, that when they were walking romantically along waterloo bridge at the end of the night (most romantic views in london? arguably yes!), he tipped her chin up, put his mouth on hers, hands cupping her face and stroking her hair, and kissed her. she said it was magical, an amazing kiss, lights of london spread out before them, stars twinkling, his mouth warm and firm on hers, knees buckling...

then, as they finished kissing, he pulled slightly away and looked deep into her eyes.

and what did evie do in response? drawing in a ragged breath, heart pounding, she announced...






"eeeees niiiiiiice!"

in her best borat voice. why? why?? she has absolutely no idea. all she knows is that he folded her into the next orange-lighted taxi and hasn't texted or called her yet..............
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 27 May 2008, 10:43, 25 replies)

Gas Bag...
Oh Lord. Let me start by saying that one of my personality traits is I just don’t do confrontation. So quitting in a blaze of glory is not my style. Sneaking out the back while the object of my ire is distracted, I’m your girl. But telling a boss, a friend, a lover what I really think… ugh. No, better to keep it all in till it gives you an aneurysm, that’s my motto.
I’m also averse to starting things I can’t finish. I rarely engage myself in projects I think I might fail at or not enjoy, purely because the notion of having to admit to anyone, least of all myself that I couldn’t hack it is not something I can do.

With this in mind, I wonder how the hell I ever thought I was going to make a living as a door-to-door sales monkey. Back in the mists of time, when I had no money and was slowly beginning to realize that my embryonic alcohol problem was not going to pay for itself, I spent a summer back at my mum’s house, applying for every god forsaken job that your average sized sea side town has to offer. Firstly, I applied for a position as a bartender at a local “sports bar” (for “sports” read “full of televisions in lieu of an atmosphere”). I was prompt to the interview, polite and engaging, even when the bar manager, a slicked back 30 something called Dwayne stopped mid interview to ask me, at full volume, whether I thought the customer on the table next to us was wearing a wig. The fact that a pile of kittens would have made a more convincing head covering kind of gave it away, but to be polite to the gentleman I muttered something non committal, thus sealing my fate as unemployable in Dwayne’s eyes.

My search for an alternative seemed to be fruitless. I applied to a vaccine company to work as a chicken checker – the person who looks at embryos to see whether the current vaccine lot has caused the chicken to chirp its final cheep. I applied to the same company for a job packaging the anthrax vaccine. Apparently I was over qualified, with my A levels and half a degree.

Finally I resorted to the small ads in the paper. I found something tempting; “Earn stacks of cash doing fuck all” was what it seemed to say.

I duly went to the “open day” where I was brainwashed into believing that persuading elderly couples and young mothers to change their gas supplier for the small fee of 30 quid was indeed a philanthropic service.

Armed with a uniform and clipboard (to be paid for out of my first weeks sales) I set out in a nice suburb, not too far from my house. Initially I was sent out with an experienced sales rep to see how the patter went. The technique was basically charm your way into the home of someone vulnerable, scare the shit out them by convincing them that there was an outside chance they were paying thousands of times over the odds for gas, then browbeat them into signing on with you. I was discomfited by this approach. It seemed bordering on immoral; “Nonsense,” my co-worker told me, “no one’s forcing them to sign up.” I wasn’t too sure.

I was let loose on my own, to work my own patch. I lasted 10 minutes; it was the sight of yet another terrified granny hiding behind the net curtains, praying that this shiny jacketed foghorn would leave her in peace and stop bellowing “can I, CAN I INTEREST YOU IN SAVING 200 POUNDS A YEAR, MADAM? MADAM???”
But then, salvation came. I knocked on a door which was opened by the mother of a friend of mine. I poured out my trauma to her. She listened, nodded, called the people I was working for “a bunch of thieving scum” and took me inside. We spent a happy afternoon getting leathered on Chablis and smoking cigarettes.

At our allotted time to meet the rest of the “sales team”, I rolled into the pub, cross eyed with drink. A survey of the group showed they’d had mixed fortunes, some had got the knack of the job, others, like me, had hated each wretched second.

Finally, my team leader approached me. “And how did you get on, Rakky?” Swaying, I put on my best big-girl smile and said “I didn’t sell a fucking thing.” “That’s okay, Rakky, there’s always tomorrow.” “No there isn’t,” I beamed, “because you can shove your job up your arse.” My team leader laughed. “I trust you’re joking” he replied. “Nope,” I responded, swaying a bit more this time, “job, up, arse, shove. Would you like it written down? Maybe I could illustrate it through the medium of sock puppetry?” Leaving him aghast, I waltzed (staggered) to the door and flounced out…

…where my natural cowardice kicked in and I promptly did a sick all over my shoes and had to phone my mum to come and pick me up.

I spent the rest of the summer working for the Child Support Agency.

Apologies for lack of funny, but if you’d like to sign this form and give me your bank details, we can make sure that you get access to the best QOTW answers each week for a small fee. Hello? Hello? Oh…
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Mon 26 May 2008, 20:37, 11 replies)

For my sins....
...used to work at Carcraft. Shudder.

Anyway, one of the other delivery point staff fucked a car right up, roughly £500 worth of damage to a fairly new BMW 523i.

Anyway, through an unfortunate series of "wrong place at the wrong time" moves on my part, I got the blame. The little cunt who did it didn't stand up, like a real man and admit it. When i explained to my manager that it was he and not I, he proceeded to perfom an Oscar worthy verse about how it couldn;t possibly have been him.

I was not happy.

I was even less happy about the lack of help my 'co-workers' had displayed.

Anyway, they left for lunch and I stayed behind, furious about my written warning and being on my 'last strike'. It was at this point I thought 'fuck it, I don't need this crap job' So...

I removed all the tags from all the car keys in the cupboard, put them in my pocket and then left all the annonymous keys (roughly 300) on the desks in a heap. Then I left.

300 cars, 300keys, no tags, mostly Ford and Vauxhall so mostly looking the same.

Sort that lot out.....

God damn, i felt good after that!
( The Pollitt chooses to listen to Enya on, Thu 22 May 2008, 12:32, 1 reply)

Boy's Brigade
In the times when we lived on the festering wastes of a council estate of Sheffield, my mum and a group of my mate's parents had decided to push us all in the direction of the local Boy's Brigade based at the local church, this after a number of events resulting in us becoming what the community police officer could only describe as 'thieving little bastards'. Surely the BB could turn us into good Christian boys?

Now, for those of you who know the organisation, it's basically a blend of Scouts, Cadets and Sunday School - in other words, you make things, play football, march and read about the bible. With my mum's family being all god-fearing folk, me and our kid having cracking left foots and technical nous, well, we fitted in like hands into the proverbial glove.

Like all good stories, there's an antagonist, a fellow I can only name Steven (for that was his name). Now, whilst I was a geek but cool with it (yeah, right), Steven was a Grade 'A' Premium NERD. Nobody liked him, he hated football and his sister was a bit of a mong.

Anyway. After a couple of years I found myself in the Junior section, and I was doing really well. I could make a mean model of the crucifixion of Christ and to top it off in my world, scored one of the goals in the North Sheffield five-a-side competition final.

Despite all this, I was still not group leader. No, this was Steven. Why? Because mummy was verger (or something) at the church, and because my mum couldn't afford the proper uniform (or the barbers), I didn't look the part either, Steven with his clean pressed uniforms and 'smart' side-parting.

Still, I had all the badges Steven did, and was finally aiming for the Gold badge. I once again helped the football team to victory, got pretty damn good on a bugle and my model of the holy grail went down a storm at the Easter fair.

Surely leading the chosen team to glory in the Bible Studies Competition would seal my destiny???

My fate was to be sealed at a (frankly pompous and overblown) ceremony at the Sunday service at church the week after.

We were all lined up in front of the altar in our full uniform, shook hands with the local religious types and were given special certificates by the pastor in celebration of our efforts.

Now, the group commander took to the altar and I knew that this was the time I would finally take my spot as group leader by getting the gold badge the doddering feller had in his grasp, and had to hold myself back from jumping the gun and snatching the thing from him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to take this time to reward a young man who's contributions to this company have been exemplary, in terms of his spritual, community and active attitude throughout his time with us. So it with great pleasure that I award Steven with the Gold badge..."

WHAT?

Where was the justice? I had blazed a trail through the brigade (so much so that I was getting overtures of joining rival companies) and this snivelling, useless shit had got what was destined to be mine? Where was the justice?

My response was one that I would re-live and re-enact for years to come.

In tears, and with the whole congregation (including my dear mother, my aunt and a barely-able-to-contain-himself little brother) watching, I bawled "FUCK THIS FOR A LIVING, YOU CAN SHOVE THAT BADGE UP YOUR ARSE", kicked over some of the ornaments on the altar, and stormed out of the church with family hurriedly and ashamedly in tow.

I never went back to the Brigade, and the day after in school, I sought my cold-served revenge by giving the smug bastard Steven a pasting in the school canteen after he failed to hold his tongue after the previous day's events.

So, I'd sworn in church, embarrassed my folks and beaten a god-botherer up.

I think I made my point, don't you?
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Wed 28 May 2008, 13:21, 12 replies)

Leaving Camp Spoilt Weasel.
Most likely no-one will remember my tale of Camp Spoilt Weasel in the US, but after having made it through the first summer there (I still have no idea how - seven days a week, 7 am - midnight, four days off in two months, blatant xenophobia and mild religious bashing, etc) I decided for some inexplicable reason to go back for another dose.
Well, I met a girl on the second day and we got on like a house on fire. by the next week, it was fairly clear to a lot of people that we liked each other, but, as she had a boyfriend back in Blighty, there was nothing happening.
Anyhoo, Conditions that year were pretty tought indeed. In addition to the heat (up to 45 degrees C for a couple of days) and the immensely long hours, the food was terrible. It had been palatable the year before, but this time it was foul. As such, we started losing staff - they were dropping like flies from exhaustion and malnutrition.
The camp realised something was happening, so they decided to send each one of them who passed out home, but told their company that sent them out that they had been sacked for misconduct, etc, anything to stop themselves being blamed.
Now, as much fun as I was having being paid to do archery and paintball, I started to get pretty worried about this girl. She was having trouble getting up in the mornings and would pass out in the evenings. As such, I took her to the on-site medical building and they but her in a bed for the night. The next morning, the camp owner had a word with her and told her if she didn't get herslf sorted, she'd be out. This wouldn't normally sound like a bad thing, but it meant that the company that sent you out there cancelled your flight home, visa and medical insurance.
A few of us took her out and tried to feed her up on stuff that wasn't cooked on the camp and she felt a bit better. The next day, she seemed ok, but they sacked her anyway.
Now, feelings for the girl aside, I really couldn't stand by and watch them dump her in the nearest dead-end town to make her way back to the airport on her own. So I marched up to the camp owner's office, told him where he could put the job and left with her. By this point, she really was no no state to try sort out a new flight home, or anything, really. As a parting shot, the camp told us they had informed the police and as such, we had seven days to leave the country before we would be arrested for visa violations.
We managed to limp into Philedelphia on a Greyhound bus (like playing sardines with unstable people) and holed up in a youth hoste while I tried to sort out a flight home for her. The company that sent her out (Camp America) tutted a lot at me, but eventually let her book one of their spare flights for £200. luckily, I'd organised my own flight and even luckier, I was on BA staff travel as Dad used to work in the cargo section at Heathrow. This meant I could get any BA flight whenever I liked. Just by chance, the flight home they booked her was on BA.
All so far, so good.
Things started to get better after that. We got to the airport and the checkin staff made a fuss of her as she still looked a bit peaky and as it was a very empty flight, we got to sit next to each other, too.
When we got home, she was picked by by her dad and I honestly thought that would be last I saw of her. I don't think I can say how sad that made me feel. I knew she had a boyfriend, so i wasn't really expecting anything, but it didn't make it easier.
As it turns out, we've now been married for nearly four years, have two kids and a house in Switzerland.
I don't think I've ever made as good a decision as to have quit that camp.
( Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Sat 24 May 2008, 14:02, 13 replies)

Aha!
Something I can relate to. I have had several jobs in my time, and have quit, so far, all of them.

My first ever decent, full time, actual hard work job was, as I think I might have mentioned before, a sugar boilerer (they told me that's how it's spelt) in a sweet factory near where I live. Although for the first little while it was interesting, after a bit it became incredibly dull, monotonous and really quite lonely. I was young, only 19, and had a lot of responsibility placed on my head.... something I didn't cope well with. The main problem was, however, that it was a family run business..... my immediate boss was the owners son.

For an overview, it is important that you get an idea of our physical comparisons, me and my old boss. I was 19, 5'7" and weighed at the time about seven and a half stones (I was very thin, but had been stressed out so much by work that I didn't eat much at the time). He was about 6', 30, and was into bodybuilding.... he was quite heavily muscled and I'd say about 15-16 stone. He was also, I'd imagine, damned handsome from a lady's perspective, but this was counterbalanced by hos foul breath.

The long and short of it was that my workload had increased massively over the year-and-a-half I had been there and so had my hours. I was expected to start early, stay late and had once been threatened with the sack for being 50 minutes early rather than the full hour. Basically, I was young, I was a worrier, and I just basically hated the job. I gave them a months notice and prepared to leave.

After that, I began to be treated like absolute shit by my boss. He ridiculed me every chance he got and tried to belittle me in front of everyone in the factory (I was pretty popular there, everyone seemed to want to mother me :P) I managed about a week and a half before I snapped.

You see, I might have been small, but I was not thick. I have a 145 IQ, and while I know this is hardly mensa, it was waaaay more than my boss. And the one thing, the ONLY thing guaranteed to snap my otherwise infallible patience is to make me feel stupid.

The first time was on a tuesday. I had about a week and a half left of my notice to work. I was left with a million things to do as usual, and one of them involved *his* forklift. Which of course, he now needed *IMMEDIATELY* "HURRY UP! HURRY UP! RUN! MOVE IT" he was following me around shouting *RIGHT* *IN* *MY* *FUCKING* *EAR*. "I need that forklift NOW" he wailed.

"WELL FUCKING TAKE IT! IT'S YOUR FUCKING FORKLIFT YOU FUCKING TAKE IT!"

He looked like I had just shot him. I had turned round and was facing him full on. He could not believe it. I felt like a GOD!

He started mumbling something about how dare I speak to him like that, but I was emboldened. "You won't be my boss for much longer, mate. Don't fucking speak to me like that. If you want the forklift, fucking take it and bring it back when you're finished." He turned and stormed off, as did I. It was then I noticed the ENTIRE FACTORY had fallen silent. I got a round of applause in the tea room that day for standing up to him, turned out they had all noticed how badly I was being treated. He caught me in the warehouse, where no-one could see, and tried to give me a decidedly calmer dressing down for being insolent, at which point I calmly pointed out that if he treated me with respect, he would get respect. He disagreed, saying (and I couldn't believe this) he was my boss and would treat me how he wanted. I just walked off.

The following week, everything was going wrong again. He was again on my back and was now blaming me for everyting that went wrong in the whole factory. I again snapped and shouted "Tell you what, Tom, it mus all be fucking MY fault then eh?" He must have been waiting for this, as he immediately shouted "OFFICE! NOW!" As he strode through the office door, he almost took it off it's hinges. At that point, I realised I may have been about to receive a stern beating. This only quickened my step.... I was at the end of my tether.

He launched into the "who do you think you are?" speech as soon as he got behind his desk..... had he remained my side of the desk, I might have been a little less bold. I cut him off by asking who he thought he was. "You think cos you pay me a pittance you can speak to me like shite? I've broke my fucking back for you, I've worked every overtime you've asked of me, I've never fucking compliained before now. I'm fucking sick of being treated like this you stupid, STUPID man. And I'll tell you what else for fucking nothing!"

I paused. He bit.

"Wh.... what?"

"I'm going fucking home."

He managed a "good!" and strode out of the office behind me. I went back into the factory, told my trainee replacement to take over, I was going home, bid a few people goodbye and walked out the fire exit.

The idiot was so thick he waited by the main exit for me, not realising that his "don't go out the fire exit" shite no longer applied to me. Apparently, according to the guy I was training to replace me, he ran all through the factory looking for me, and when he realised I was gone, his bottom lip was trembling.

It was this incident that confirmed my belief that brains are better than brawn.

I've only seen him once since. He was in a video rental shop when I walked in. He slammed the video he was looking at down and walked out.

Again. I felt like a GOD! :P

Oh heavens. Apologies for length, and it's not often I get to say that.
( baw__bag contains traces of nuts on, Thu 22 May 2008, 16:51, 10 replies)

So the subject is “I Quit”.
When I was in my second year of university, I worked in a KFC to make some bucks. I only worked twice a week, and I also got to have as much food as I could eat on my break.

All the food I could eat turned out to be usually 3 to 4 family buckets of chicken that found its way to the industrial fridge so that I could take it home and share it with my housemates. It was a pretty sweet deal and I was relatively happy.

Then a new manager was appointed, and was not all that cool. He leched on the 16 year old girls, stole money, didn’t authorise overtime when it was done (“oh must be a payroll error!”), chronically understaffed the entire place to lower costs (“I am just sweating my resources here pal.” He cut my hours without asking me so he could give them to the under 18s, and introduced the rule where you had to pay for your food on your break.

I complained and he said that if I didn’t like it, then I had to lump it. The weasel. This is a man that brought his own bottle of coke to drink on his shifts as he couldn’t stand to drink the pepsi from the KFC taps. What type of monster does that?

Anyway, I am a pretty happy-go-lucky bloke so I gritted my teeth, took the money, and accepted these changes.

Then he gave me 2 weeks notice because I hadn’t fucking scrubbed the floor properly. I was glad at the time because then I couldn’t be bothered to work in his fowl regime.

So I planned my final night. I won’t document the sleepless revenge filled nights that led up to it, only what happened.

Picture the scene.

10pm on a Saturday night in Exeter, two hours after my last shift starts.

£9.95 spent on an ad in the local paper that promised a free meal to the first 200 people that came through the door after 10pm.

Me switching off all the deep fat fryers (that take an hour and a half to get to temperature).

‘Killing in the name’ by Rage against the machine (last 2 minutes of the song) repeated and burnt onto a custom CD playing on the branch stereo (glued shut) at 95% volume.

Me, and 4 other Colonel Sanders refugees, vaulting the counter, past the baying drunken chicken hounds brandishing copies of the local rag, with our middle fingers up.

Finally, dickless clown losing it as the place gets mobbed.

Then I went for a maccy ds.

EPILOGUE.

Its probably cooler in my own mind than what actually happened but what the hell.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Thu 22 May 2008, 15:48, 7 replies)

Don't mess with the payroll expert ....
my cousin had worked for a small family run business since leaving college. Not our family, another family.

She'd started out as junior and worked her way up through the ranks, studying in her own time and ending up as the grandly titled "Finance Manager". She was basically a glorified accounts clerk, who kept the books balanced and, among other things, did the payroll.

All was well for some time, then gradually she realised that the atmosphere had cooled somewhat. Her immediate boss, a female, was less and less friendly and was nit-picking everything to death. Minor mistakes suddenly prompted bollockings of epic, nay gargantuan, proportions.

All became clear when the boss' son arrived to work for the family firm. He'd just been kicked out of university after spectacularly failing his exams. He was placed in my cousin's office and she was told to train him on everything she did. He constantly contradicted her, made bitchy remarks and blamed her when he mucked up. It didn't take Mystic Meg to figure out she was being pushed door-ward, so she started looking for another job.

By the time she handed in her notice, things were so bad that she could be at work all day and no-one would speak to her. The failed-student son, meanwhile, was operating a kind of backwards Midas touch - everything he touched turned to shit. His mother spent half her time correcting his mistakes and covering up for him. The one thing they didn't worry much about was the payroll, thanks to the all-singing, all-dancing software my cousin had suggested they buy.

So, on her last day, she input one tiny, minor change. To one person's record. The idiot son's. She changed the first number of his tax code from a 5 to a 3. Not the sharpest tool in the box, she reckoned he wouldn't even notice. He certainly would notice that he was suddenly paying more tax (£440 per year at the time). She was willing to bet, however, that he'd be too dumb to phone up the Revenue to check he had the right tax code.

She didn't touch anyone else's record, she didn't steal anything, she didn't muck anything up that couldn't be sorted in a couple of minutes. She merely ensured that a badly-educated, over-priviledged know-it-all would be a little short on beer tokens.
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Thu 22 May 2008, 18:22, 6 replies)

An open letter to Reality
Dear Reality

I know we have had some good times in the past, however I am afraid I am going to have to quit residing in you and I am going to go live with the Pixies in the magical forest.

It has been a tough decision, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, but it's just not going to work out.

You see, Reality, you have forced me to become cynical and bitter about a lot of issues. The fact the government say we should let democracy rule in the middle east, yet refuses to listen to the majority and hold and election when leadership changed. The fact that I work full time, but still struggle a bit towards the end of the month and live off cheese sandwiches when murderers and rapists are enjoying free meals three times a day. The fact we seem to be evolving to be ruder, and complaining more that people are rude. The fact that people are so passionate to help foreign countries, yet write off our own as going to the dogs.

There was a time when I could have maybe forgiven you for the above, but then you sold your soul to the devil and started making TV shows.

Yours,
TGB
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Wed 28 May 2008, 9:32, 7 replies)

Bring Out Your Dead
I bought 2 bags of frozen prawns and 1 box of Birds Eye Fish Fingers but not for my tea.

As worked on night shifts I installed 1 prawn in each computer cd tray so it would drop into the casing itself and installed 1 fish finger in every managers pc. Unfortunately they were too big for the RAM slots.

As there were about 200 pc's in an open plan office, no aircon and it was the height of British summer (Remember 2006?) it took no time at all for the foul, stenching smell of a Grimsby based fishery to waft through the office.

I estimated that is would start wiffing after I had left but a couple of days into my last week the smell was that bad that I considered reversing my action but stayed strong and remembered how badly they had treated me and my colleagues. As the site managers scratched their heads whilst wearing pegs on their noses the lovely, sweet, old tea lady came around with her trolley of sweets and cakes. She was a doddery, old thing and carried on with her rounds and stoically didn't mention the stench. To our suprise about 15 minutes into her rounds she started ringing a bell wailing "Bring Out Your Dead, Bring Out Your Dead" and the whole office erupted into giggles. On my last day the managers declared the office closed for two weeks for 'cleaning' thus giving my colleagues paid leave and albeit a collective laugh at work which was a first.

BTW After 3 weeks of removing the suspended ceiling, checking plumbing, carpets, looking for dead pigeons, testing for legionnaires et al the problem only came to light when fur started growing out of a managers cd tray....And yes I got away with it.
(Cheesy Peas, Wed 28 May 2008, 9:09, 6 replies)

I Quit.
.
I'm a professional computer contractor. A consultant. I go from firm to firm either augmenting their existing skills, or more usually, doing bleeding edge project work that the company doesn't have the in-house skills to do themselves. And I pride myself on my professionalism. I've never left a contract early because I got a better offer elsewhere - and I've had a hell of lot of offers.

So there I was, at beginning of the decade, called in to a nameless telecoms company in the North East of England. This company had managed to snag a small part (messaging) of a massive government contract and this where where I was needed. We had to analyse the existing messaging structure, then design and implement a new, shiny one built around M$ Exchange. Normally, no big deal. But this was the Government we were dealing with....

A bit more background. As I said, the company I was working for had only a small part of the contract - the major contractor was a massive multi-national company based in Texas. Anyone who's even remotely familiar with Government IT Projects will know who they are. I don't think they've ever, not even once, brought a project in on time and under budget. Indeed, they're renowned, they're legends in the industry, for bring in projects that don't work and are massively, ball-bouncingly, over budget. How the fuck they ever win tenders is beyond me. I can see the tender process now:

GOV: "So why should we give you the job? Last time, a £100 million contract ended up costing us £300 million and it didn't work."

TEX: "Well we've learnt from that and we're here to promise that it won't happen again"

GOV: "Honest?"

TEX: "Honest. Cross my heart and hope to die"

GOV: "Oh all right then. Jobs yours"

And this happens EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

But I'm wandering again.

So there we were, responsible for the messaging system. (Actually, it's just e-mail and calenders but messaging sounds better in management-speak.) This wasn't quite as straight-forward as it should have been as, back in the dark-ages, some civil-servant idiot had procured a custom-built email system that didn't adhere to any recognisable standard. Initially, it had been designed as an in-house private email system with no links to the outside world so they didn't *have* to interface with anyone else so they felt no need to stick to standards. Then, with the advent of Internet E-Mail, rather than scrap the system then and go with a standards-based system, they'd decided to cobble together a jerry-built interface to translate internet mail to their system and vica versa. In short, it was a bastardised abortion of a system. Probably why the Texans had palmed it off onto us.

So. Pretty near the start of this project I was in a meeting with my mate Herb, my boss, The Texans and a whole shedload of senior civil servants. The Texans were explaining to the Gov why we had to scrap their email system and start from scratch. No CONTACTS, no SAVED MESSAGES, no nothing. We'd just wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. They explained that their current system was totally incompatible with Exchange that no other route was possible.

Me and Herb exchanged glances. This was news to us. We'd started our design on the premise that we'd somehow *have* to import the old data. We couldn't believe that anyone would just accept that none of the old info could be saved. So Herb coughed and said:

"Well that's not strictly true...."

He was about to go when the boss kicked him under the table and then interrupted..

"I think Herb is thinking of something else. Please go on"

So me and Herb stayed quiet. After the meeting the boss pulled the two of us. He knew what we were working on.

"So do you think you can do it?" he asked.

"Shouldn't be a massive problem" I said. "We've already figured out exactly how the system stores the data. Just a matter of extracting it, reformatting it and then squirting it into Exchange."

Herb nodded: "There's a bit more to it than that, but Legless is right. I can cobble together a VB program that'll extract the data, convert it to a PST file then it's just a matter of firing it into the right Exchange profile."

"How long do you need" asked the boss

"Err - a week?" said Herb

"You've got two. Don't let me down"

So off we went. It took Herb about three days to write the program. It took me about a week to write the import/export routines and the final week was spent testing it and making it play "The Girl From Ipanema" when it was running...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWncdiAt5M4

So we went to the boss, announced success and demonstrated the system on our test-bed. He was over the moon.

The next couple of days the boss was running around in various meetings and then told us that he'd sold the system to The Texans for £35k. Fair enough we thought. Me and Herb were on a grand each a week plus expenses so it had cost the company about £5k for us to develop it and we didn't mind them making a fair profit. We were happy. Then came the fateful meeting.

Again, it was a meeting between us, the Texans, the Civil Service and, this time, the minister in charge of the department. All was going well when the chief Texan, an oily little twat, stood up:

"We do have one little surprise for you Minister" he oozed. "If you recall, we'd gone ahead with the new messaging system in the belief that we couldn't save any of your old data and we'd have to start from scratch"

The Minister nodded.

"Well, to be honest, that's what we believed when we accepted the contract. But, we've had a team of very bright programmers working back in Texas on just this very problem. We didn't mention it before because, well, to be honest, we didn't think it would come to anything. But you know what we Texans are like. We just hate to be beaten" Smarmy grin.

"And I'm delighted to be able to tell you that our boys have cracked the problem and have produced a system that *can* save all of your old data! And we're happy to offer it to you just for the cost it took us to develop it!"

"How much" asked the Minister sceptically, expecting to be whacked with something in the tens of millions.

"1.2 million pounds" said the Texan.

I choked on my water. I was expecting the Texans to add a mark-up. I was expecting maybe a 100K but a over a million quid?

The boss put his hand on my arm and squeezed warningly. I looked at Herb. He'd gone white.

I don't remember much about the rest of that meeting. I was too busy trying to control the Fist Of Death. It was taking every ounce of my self control not to leap across the table, grab the oily little Texan by the throat and slam his face repeatedly into the wall.

Eventually the meeting ended and we buggered off back to our office. The boss came in while I was spitting nails and apologised. Like us, he'd expected the Texans to charge maybe 100K for the program. But, to me, that wasn't really the point. All right - it was part of the point. The obscene gouging of the price has really fucked me off, but the thing that had me ready to kill wasn't just the price. It was the pack-or-fucking lies that the shit had spouted about:

"a team of programmers in Texas" and

"you know what we Texans are like. We just hate to be beaten"

That had really, really gotten under my skin. The work that me and Herb had put into that program (Herb more than me 'cos he was the coding king). It was our idea, we figured out how to do it and then to see it all credited to a bunch of fucking mythical cowboys made my blood boil.

The boss could see how upset I was. Probably because I was kicking things around the room and ranting. Herb just sat there and looked stony.So he told us to go home, take the next day off with pay (the Friday) then come back after the weekend. So we went home (Herb lived in the same village as me) and got righteously pissed.

We went into work the next week but it just wasn't the same. I was still burning at the fucking injustice of it all. The joy had gone out of the job for me. So I talked it over with Herb and then went to see the boss. And quit.

The first and only time I've ever left a contract early.


Cheers

P.S. Fuck me - that was an epic. Sorry for lack of funnies.
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Mon 26 May 2008, 12:37, 8 replies)

Don't employ anybody, ever...
...was the advice my accountant gave me some years ago. I was just starting my second business, and I had some need of some admin. work. Nothing exciting but it was a small company rapidly going places (had moved into profitability inside of 6 weeks - same accountant told me later he'd never seen such a profitable organisation).
So I decided to use a local agency, who sent me along a nice Asian lad (and yes, sadly his race is a relevant issue - so read on).
He was impressed at the house I had, the car I drove - he was working in my study.

After a couple of days, I explained I had a deadline coming up - work had backed up, not his fault, did he fancy making some overtime ? Entirely optional, but it would help me out ? Interested ?

"Oh yes", he said, I'm happy to work this weekend". I told him I was very grateful, and also explained that my (relative) success was due to me, on occasion, working mad hours, doing without sleep - nothing anyone should do long-term, but occasionally needs must. Well, he agreed entirely; he wanted what I had and seemed prepared to make the same sacrifices. Good on him, I thought - maybe this guy could be doing something better for me if he carried on like this. I'll give anyone a chance, training, encouragement - I've been "lucky" (mostly due to initiative and hard work) and I'm happy to share that luck.

So I made him a deal. I would loan him a computer to do the work on over the weekend, so he could work from home. I would pay him the same rate I paid the agency for him - thus boosting his pay by 40%. I dropped him off at his house on the Friday evening, told him to make sure he took *some* of the weekend off, and thought I'd get maybe 12 hours out of him that weekend.

Picked him up on Monday morning. "I haven't done much" he said. He was right. If he'd worked for 2 hours that weekend I'd have been amazed. He claimed for 4 hours. It still didn't justify all of my time fetching and carrying him, when I could have used the same time to have achieved more than him. Oh well.

I didn't ask him why he hadn't done the work. He volunteered though that he had been "at the temple" at the weekend; the same weekend he of course was going to be working for me, as promised.

No golden opportunity for him then. And I was mightily pissed off that he had in effect played the race card. Frankly, I didn't care why he hadn't done it, more the fact that he wanted to come across as someone who wanted a break, then got one and screwed it up. And used a piss-poor excuse, overcharged me and lied - had he spent all weekend at the temple ? Had he arse ? Could he have done the work - oh yes, it wasn't beyond him, it wouldn't have been beyond a bright 10 year old. He just Could Not Be Bothered.

And in 11 years now of running a company, I've sadly found that the only motivated people are those who are doing quite well already - the two things may be linked. Like my two friends who attended a meeting with me in London this Saturday. For that, and promise of future work, they got £1K each, plus shares, plus 10% each of any profits I made. As they said, too generous. Just ask Mr Pooflake about the help I gave him recently to try and get a complete stranger a job. I'll help anyone, me.

Because I'm not a bastard who wants it all for himself. I'm happy to share with others and to be understanding. Sadly though, with the exception of people who are already doing well for themselves, EVERYBODY I have ever tried to help through employment has f*cked me over. Every Single One. Friends, family, strangers, it hasn't mattered.

Which is why I'll never employ anyone. Sure, I'll give short-term contract work, payment by results - but employment ? Forget it. Which makes me really sad.

You see, it's all too easy to blame other people, not yourselves. It doesn't take much brains to do well in this world - look in your Tesco car park at people driving the new 4x4 - do they look particularly bright ? Most of them, not at all.

It just takes initiative, work, some sacrifice, and some willingness to learn new things. It certainly doesn't take over my life - I'm pulling in over £10K / month at the moment, and I have spare time to live in, rather than just work work work. I love having fun, and to me that's not work. But fun costs, so sometimes work's necessary...

What it doesn't take is blaming others. Maybe when you quit the shit job and fuck up those you leave behind, maybe you should ask yourself why you are in said shit job in the first place. If you've got the ability to type coherent English into a web site, believe me, you have skills many people don't have.

This QoTW has really depressed me. I'm no way a Tory, far fucking from it, but there seem to be too many people on here completely failing to take any personal responsibility for their circumstances. When you read things like "I was stuck in a dead end job for 2 years" it makes me weep. That's 2 years of your life you won't have again ? Did you look elsewhere ? Consider getting training either on- or off the job to move up ? Work out why you were where you were and look at who was to "blame" ?

That's right, it was YOU. Yes, shit bosses exist out there, but there are also a load of shit workers. I'm not perfect, far far far from it, but if I fuck about I know who to blame. I have pity for the genuine few who are stuck out there without options, but I think it's a small percentage compared to those who just don't want to break into a sweat or see beyond the next piss up into their future.

Sorry for all of this - but I hate the constant blame culture.
( I_Was_Mordred, Sun 25 May 2008, 11:37, 5 replies)

Of jobs and quitting....
I once found myself stuck in the mother of all shitty helpdesk jobs.

A very small firm, no regulation of software releases - dealing with the retail industry, and forcing it's staff to work 14 hours (7am to 9pm) on a Saturday, one weekend in 3. The developers had a fantastic habit of releasing untested software updates to the various retail chains that used the companies hardware / software, and the support (me and 2 others) had to try and pick up the pieces the next day when 400 + stores would call up, telling us to sort it or else.

The managers ground down your soul until you were convinced that this was it, you couldn't do any better and you were going to spend all eternity there, at their whim.

Life was shit.

One Friday, after a particularly crappy incident, when displaying proof of others ineptitude to the managers, I was told to "Sit the fuck down and be grateful that you've still got a job." I wrote my notice by hand, there and then, and handed it to my boss.

I didn't have a job to go to. But fuck it, the dole was better than working in that shit hole. I had never before considered being on benefits, but even the vast quantity of marijuana that I was partaking in at the time wasn't enough to block the pain that place brought upon me.

So, the days moved forwards towards my impending departure. It dawned upon me that I had been slowly destroyed as a human being over 18 months, and my blood began to boil.

As it turned out, I had managed to get my last day as a Saturday, and would leave the place at 9pm on that day.

Preparations were made.

I stopped going to the toilet on Wednesday. I managed to avoid crimping a length off for 3 days, and I increased my food intake until I was barely able to walk, such was the strain placed upon my balloon knot.

Arriving at the office on Saturday, walking like John Wayne, and with a thin sheen of sweat on my forehead, I calmly took my appointed place at my desk and worked. 13.5 hours later, it was time.

They only had 2 single toilets in the building, each one a self contained cubicle with bog and sink. The ground floor was my first target.

As I sat on the throne and gritted my teeth, I wondered if I had made a mistake. My vision went slightly blurry as I strained to unleash the beast within. Thankfully, I was the only person in the building, so no one else could hear my howling as I began giving birth to a U-blocker of epic proportions.

I started to wonder if I was going to need to call the hospital after I was done on that toilet, but, slowly, the pain passed, and I found myself in a position to crimp off a log early, splitting the winnings if you will, and tactically move up to the second toilet located on the first floor.

Thankfully, the second pan-cracker passed more peacefully than his brother, although it too had the desired effect. Soon, both chod bins were loaded with what could only be described as a scale model of the andes mountain range.

I walked slowly back downstairs and finished the last part of my shift. I had shed about 40% of my mass in those 2 toilets, and when the end of the day came, I left, without flushing, and leaving the doors wide open, never to return to that hell hole.

I heard that when the staff for the next shift turned up, not only did the entire building smell like Satan's ringpiece, but the attempt to flush was met with complete failure of the 80's plumbing.

Apologies for length, but it was a 3 day accumulation....
(Ryushin, Thu 22 May 2008, 14:22, 3 replies)

Why I Quit the UK.
Some of you may remember my post on the Kids QOTW about how I got with a girl, who then found out she was pregnant from her ex. I stuck around and was there for the babies birth which ended up being quite a hurrendous experience due to complications. ( www.b3ta.com/questions/kids/post146569 )

So, A year later, me Kelly and baby Tom have been living with each other now for about 9 months.
Both of us working. My family were pretty much accepting the baby as their own and her family loved me to bits. Money was good, nice car on the drive. I had just started a new job as an IT Manager and all was good. I guess you couldnt ask for a more stable happy family life.

Our long term plans were to have another child at some point. To complete the circle. If that was to happen, and if I was to marry her then I would adopt Tom and be his legal father.

This was, until I started growing suspisious of Kellys MSN activities. Like when I looked up she would close her MSN chat window on the PC like she really didn't want me to look at what she was doing.
Something wasn't quite right and I couldnt put my finger on it.

I was very much in favour of Kelly having her own life outside the house and outside of her part time job. She kept in touch with some friends from a previous job. One guy in particular, Joe used to come round every now and again. He was a cool dude, into Anime, Red Dwarf etc. So we had stuff to talk about. He was at Tom's Christening and at our house warming BBQ. Yeah it was good. But something was a miss...

I did something that some would say is controversial, and an invasion of privacy but I ended up having to do it. But I installed an MSN Chat sniffer on my server, and so Kellys MSN activity was being logged and she had no idea I was able to read her conversations.

I soon found out that Kelly and Joe were messing about on MSN. Talking about sexual fantasies. It then got to the point where they were sat on webcams doing stuff to tease each other and turn each other on. This would go on whilst I was at work, or sleeping. One night she actually sneaked into our bedroom to get her vibrator and took it downstairs. Thinking I was asleep. Nope I wasnt. And infact i soon pulled out my PDA and was reading what she was up to downstairs in real time.

She was really stupid thinking she would get away with this seeing as she was living with an IT Expert using my computer on my network.

From what I could gather, what they were doing was strictly confined to the internet. And I watched their little relationsjhip blossom over a couple of months to see if it actually got physical.

I felt extremely hurt by what was going on, and started planning my exit from the whole situation. I had completely lost trust in Kelly. But was fighting myself beacuse she hadnt actually done anything in real life with him. Plus of course the baby hadnt done anything wrong and I loved him to bits. I didnt want to leave him. I was pretty much his dad.

I was bored at work one day and happened to stumble across a forum for British Expats living in Spain, and suddenly got very interested in the idea. A couple of months before, I had just taken Kelly on a short break to Torremolinos on the Costa Del Sol, and I had been to that area before. Ive always wanted to move to the U.S but since 9/11 getting Visas is just next to impossible. I soon found out that all I had to do to stay in Spain was register at a police station and find a job. No visas as its part of europe. So its incredibly easy to move there. I soon got very interested in this idea! I was seriously considering persueing it if things were to go wrong with Kelly.

One fatefull day came where one of the MSN logs indicated that they were going to do stuff with each other the next time they meet. Kelly had asked me to look after Tom one night whilst she went out. I knew where she was going. She was going to meet up with Joe. She said she was, but obviously just as friends. I planned that the day after they would of course talk abotu what they had done. If that happened, I was going to put my notice in at work, spend some time at my mates and then eventually drive down to Spain and never see them again.

Then perhaps the worse thing happened. They never met up! Joe wasn't feeling very well so cancelled on her. Which just prolonged the agony for me. At this point I had been watching them at it online for a couple of months and I really couldnt take it anymore. So despite this I had it out with Kelly anyway. She had nothing to say to me. Other than "Oh shit yes you caught me" and then she started feeling really really bad about it. I never told her how I found out. But I did quote some of her and his MSN comments. So she must have known I had seen her logs. She just started crying and said I love you I really do.

As a few days passed, she was nothing but sorry for the whole thing. But I suddenly felt bad. Even if I did forgive and forget. I had pretty much planned a new life in Spain. So I told her that I was going to do this. And she said that she would come too. A new fresh start would solve the problem she said. If she is willing to give up her life in the UK for me to move out to Spain away from people she knows. That would prove her real commitment to me.

Well its an idea. Except I had no idea whether a life in Spain would work for me let alone her. Its not like I had a job there or knew anyone or knew the area particularly well. So I said I would go ahead first for a couple of months and if all works out then she and the baby can follow. With working tax credits she could afford to keep the house going by herself.

So thats what happened. I flew out to Spain and within a week I got a job as an IT Technician and soon found a great circle of friends. A month later, Kelly came out and we chose an apartment together. She went home to make the preperations to move out with the baby permanently.

What she didnt realise was that I was still keeping tabs of her MSN conversations. And what was she up to? The same stuff again, with the same guy. Until one conversation made out that she had sexually pleasured him. I simply received an email "Dont bother coming to Spain. You know why."

She did nothing but deny it. She realised what a mistake she had made, and the life she was about to loose. I told her we were finished
Her response to that was to have sex with someone else. She admitted that one herself.
So that was it, we was completely and utterly finished.

So, I'm still out in Spain and she's still home in the U.K. I let her keep all my furniture and stuff in the house for the babys sake. We are still friends and her and the baby have come out for holidays. She no longer talks to Joe. I even saved her ass from getting evicted the other month, due to a financial muddle she had got herself in. Once again, I only did that for Tom. But I'd never have her. I'll always be there for the baby. I am still his godfather.

Hopefully I'll meet another girl and have our own baby sometime. Miss Right will be out there somewhere!
(Miggyman, Mon 26 May 2008, 15:07, 8 replies)

Notice Periods.
I used to work for a company where they insisted a 2 month notice period for our job. Gee we were just techies not some kinda senior management. (They had 3 months!)

My collegue put his notice in, and to illustrate that 2 months was a long time. He refused to shave during his entire notice period. By the end of the two months he looked something like this:




Length? Far too long.
(Miggyman, Sun 25 May 2008, 21:28, 1 reply)

Checkout time
I think I might have mentioned this one before:
went to a supermarket a few years ago (I think it was Sainsburies), when I reached the till, the tillwoman greeted me with "they've just sacked me" and only scanned one in every three items I'd picked up. I think my bigshop came in at about £15.
(ScousersPet, Thu 22 May 2008, 13:12, 2 replies)

Man vs. Beast
I’d been doing my paper round from the age of thirteen. Three long years had passed since the first day that I strapped on the orange carry bag of my youthful entrepreneurial dreams. I had, in my mind, built empires from which my princely £10 a week would be constructed, and looked in to the future convinced that this would be the start of great, great things.

However, I had a nemesis. A thorn in my side, if you will. A Yorkshire Terrier.

Every day for three years I trudged around my route – down long lanes, up big hills, in rain, in snow, in ice, in wind – and every day this little bleeder made my morning a misery. Every single morning, without fail, as I slipped the paper through the letterbox the terrier would run down the hall, grab the paper from the other side, and tear it out of my hand.

This would invariably get me in trouble with Mrs. Patel, for delivering a torn paper. No matter how much I insisted the dog was to blame, the cost of each copy of The Sun ruined was always deducted from my wage.

So now I was down to (at most) £9.80 a week.

Over the years the dog would vary its attacks – sometimes biting my ankles, or leaping out of rose bushes, or just plain chasing me (at that point, I really didn’t like dogs); but it would always return to its favourite annoyance of biting the paper out of my hand, and losing me another 20p in to the bargain.

It came, eventually, to the time where being a paperboy wasn’t seemly. It wasn’t a good line to use to chat up girls in bars with – indeed, I couldn’t afford to go to bars because the fucking dog was doing me out of up to 10% of my wages every week. Over the coming week I hatched my plan.

As I approached the house, I quietly placed my bike on the floor. On my tiptoes, I crept up to the house, making sure I looked down the side to see the rear door closed. Approaching the front door like the SAS approached the Iranian Embassy (only with less explosives and guns), I glanced through the mottled glass window in the door, and saw the shape of the dog at the end of the hall, waiting for me.

I crouched down. Slowly, oh so very slowly, I opened the letterbox. Looking through, I saw the dog was still there. I poked the very tip of the paper through the slot. I watched as the dog leapt to its feet and grinned as it tore down the hallway.

And then, at the critical moment, I withdrew.

There was a light thud, and a small whimper. Flicking the letterbox up, I saw the dog running in the opposite direction, back to its basket.

Claiming victory, I returned to the newsagents. I quit there and then, realising that while I had won the battle, the dog had most certainly won the war.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Thu 22 May 2008, 12:44, Reply)

The Secret Diary of Devil in Tights, aged 14.
We all remember work experience, right? Most people just go off to do filing in a back room somewhere, or maybe go and work for their Mum for a couple of weeks. Looking back on things, that’s just what I should have done.

But oh, no. Not me. I had to go and be different, didn’t I?

Aged 14, I’d grown out of wanting to be a train driver. I wanted to be a fighter pilot, just like Maverick in ‘Top Gun’. But that dream was shot down when, at an ATC ‘Careers Night’ the RAF recruiter laughed when I asked him if I could be a fast-jet pilot – because I wear glasses.

So, I wanted glitz and glamour, and a bit of danger. I had recently discovered the joys of the swimsuit edition of ‘Sports Illustrated’ (and some covertly purchased copies of The Sun/Star (or even Sport!) from my paper round); and I had thus decided what I Wanted To Do With My Life.

I wanted to be a photographer. Specifically, my raging hormones informed me by way of several steamy fantasies that I wanted to take pictures of women in bikinis (or not, as the case may be) draped over fast cars. Or on beaches. Or in showers. Whatever.

And so it came to pass that we had to apply for work experience. I applied to every photo studio in a 50 mile radius, hoping against all hope that somehow Beverley Goodway would find out about me and bring me in for 2 weeks looking at topless girlies.

However, my dreams were instead taken in the gnarled claw of fate, and dashed against the rocks of despair. All the decent photographic jobs were taken. I was left with one route open to me.

The NHS.

Using my high level contacts (Mum), I managed to get a job in Medical Photography. In my mind, I thought ‘OK, it’s not boobs – but taking photos of operations? That’s pretty cool!’, and so off I toddled.

Being 14, I was not allowed in to the operating theatres to take pictures. Being 14, I was not allowed to go in to outpatients to take pictures. I was, for the first few days, restricted to filing massive amounts of slides (with some extremely unsettling pictures on them) which just hadn’t been bothered with for a couple of years.

Then the fateful day came. My boss decided to sneak me up on to the wards, to take a couple of snaps. As we walked through, I spied a very attractive girl in a bed at the other end, and hoped against all hope that she was having an operation to cure a hopeless sexual craving for 14-year-old geeks, and they needed photos to prove it.

I was, however, lead to the bedside of a very, very old lady who had been hospitalised for some time. She was so strung out on pain killers that she couldn’t even say her own name. And she had pressure sores. Lots and lots of pressure sores. Her leg was lifted, and I took a picture of the sore on the back of her ankle while trying not to vomit at the smell the sore gave off, despite the dressing and the various creams that were on it. We then moved on to her other ankle and then her elbows. The Nurses then propped the lady on her side, and parted her gown. On the lady’s buttocks I saw what (to date, at least) was the biggest, weeping wound I could possibly imagine. I can remember thinking (while desperately trying to hold down bile) what awful, awful pain the woman must have been in.

I quickly took the snaps, and turned on my heels and ran the hell away.

Returning to the office – now pale of face and empty of stomach – I approached the head of Photography.

“Just what the hell,” I uttered “do you think you’re playing at?”

She laughed. She actually laughed. “I thought it’d be fun for you.”

Fun? Fun? No, this is not my idea of fun. Cutting my teeth out with a breadknife would be vastly preferable to this. I decided at that moment I wasn’t going to go back, I’d rather have gone worked in the school library than do this any longer.

Summoning up all my courage while the boss and her assistant went to lunch, I took a pen and a pack of Post-It notes. On each and every one I wrote “I Quit!” or a rude word, and stuck them to every available surface. There must have been well over 200 – I stuck them on computer screens, to the underside of cameras, on chairs, on desks in the developing room, on backdrops – you name it, I stuck it there.

As I was walking away, we passed each other in the corridor. I smiled a broad, shit-eating smile at her, and walked out of the hospital with my head held high.

Until I got home, that is, when my Mother tore a strip off me. But that’s another story.
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 23 May 2008, 10:08, 6 replies)

Repost from the Captain
But I think it warrants one.......



Brian fucking Quin, Angus, and the cowering Swede
No apologies for the title. Brian Quin is a cunt of the first water and, if I was a religious man, I would pray for him to get a seriously agonising disfiguring and lingering disease with no hope of cure or any effective pain relief. It cheers me to picture him writhing in unrelenting agony whilst begging to die.
He was the manager of the Birmingham office of a Swedish office furniture company (not Ikea)who interviewed me and offered me what I thought was a great job. How wrong I was.
Brian had no social life. Really, none at all. He would ring my home at 3 a:m to discuss projects. If I didn't reply he would send a sarky email to me and the boss. He would fuck about with my diary and book me to see customers at night, weekends, whilst I was on a booked holiday and would take personal affront if I told him I couldn't see the client. He even tracked me down when I was on holiday in Singapore asking when that week I could see a client to amend a floor layout. When I told him that I was on the other side of the world he then tried to take me through disciplinary when I got back. It all collapsed in farce when I pointed out that:
1/ HE had signed my holiday form.
2/ HE had recommended the hotel I was staying in and had arranged accommodation for me via his contacts.
3/ He had been wrist slapped for precisely this same disregard for other peoples' time on several occasions before.
He hated me after that but I didn't care because he was a cunt.
Angus.
WHAT A CUNT.
Angus was one of the senior salesmen in the organisation and he decided to "take me under his wing" as Brian the cunt didn't want to talk to me anymore.
"Fair enoughski" I thought.
Wrong again. Angus was the scruffiest, smelliest, least organised backstabbing waste of blood and organs that God ever put breath into. He tried to get me fired for pointing out that he'd not only got the wrong DAY for a meeting, he'd got the wrong WEEK. He was always late for meetings with clients and had the worst bad breath I have ever smelt. Only once did I share a car with him and I could smell it on my clothes the rest of the day. Worse than that, he was short-sighted and slightly deaf so he stood TOO FUCKING CLOSE.
It came to pass that we were in Newport in Wales one day and, whilst driving out I'd had my car forced off a roundabout by a truck full of rebar. I remonstrated with the driver in my gruff Coventrian way advising him that, if I ever saw him again I would "tear off his head and shit down the hole". Angus was so traumatised by this exchange (in which he was not involved)that he had three weeks off with stress! Twat. He then tried to take me through disciplinary always quoting "you have to realise I've sold over £2 million in furniture so I know what I'm talking about".
It didn't go far.
The cowering Swede was the last straw. I had won a large furnishing contract for a midlands firm and was expecting a seriously large bonus.
When it didn't materialise I asked why?
It appeared that one of the Swedish members of staff once had heard of someone who might have walked past a van which had delivered to the site once, so it was HIS contract!
I was less than pleased with this so I took matters into my own hands. I followed him into the head office toilets for a full and frank exchange of views. My reputation preceded me and he started cowering and whimpering before I'd even said a word or got within six feet of him. I'd had enough of the snidey ways of the company by now and had another job lined up so, with nothing to lose I hauled up the now snivelling turdbag, marched him into the MD's office and proceeded to vent my spleen about the piss-awful state of the company and the utter utter cunts who worked there, then offerd the same treatment as the lorry driver to the MD, the cowering Swede and anyone else who came close. They wanted the sales manager to eject me from the building but he was having none of it.
I swanned round the office, picking up whatever I fancied and taking it with me. No-one challenged me.
I didn't even give them the car back for 8 weeks and they didn't ask for it.
Rant over



Apologies for length but I have an enormous cock.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Thu 22 May 2008, 20:28, 3 replies)

Sorry for the length in advance
So alot of you know I used to work in the Wall Street Salt Mines. My first big firm was headquartered in Hackensack, NJ (should have been a tip-off).

They originally had me working the 5th Avenue Office and it was great, then they moved me to the Long Island office which was in Huntington, NY. The commute out was fine, but the commute BACk to the city was a nightmare. Anyway, I was toiling away, making ALOT of money. So I was relatively happy/complacent/whatever.

UNTIL one day I realized that the branch I was working in (and had been promoted to managing a team in) was financed, overseen and secured by the Bonanno Crime Family. (no bull$hit)

For those of you unfamiliar, think: "Boiler Room" meets "Wall Street" meets "Goodfellas". They even had a 'security guy' who looked JUSt like Ray Liotta after about 5 years of steroids! HUGE guy...name was Defalco.

I had been a Marine, where honor and duty were the catch words...and ended up squarley in with the nastiest, vilest creatures on the planet.

So I decided to leave. I was on my way into the office to get my paycheck (we got paid once a month) and then resign and obsessing over what the hell I was going to do. I mean, one broker who left ended up in a mysterious car accident and another ended up getting beaten up at his new firm...literally RIGHT in front of the whole office.

So a commercial came over the radio for $199 flights to London. I booked it before I even parked my car at the office...to leave the next day...from Baltimore, Maryland.

SO I go in, get my check, go to the bank and CASH it, then head back to resign. I waited until all but one of the big bosses were gone and went up to him and resigned.

I rush back to the city, collect my dog and other necessary items to head to Maryland to leave for the UK to let it all blow over a bit before coming back to start with the new firm I had accepted a position with...

I get home to Maryland, drop the dog at the folks and have my Dad drop me off at the airport for my flight. I am waiting in line and my cell phone rings...I pick up the call and I hear Defalco SCREAMING: "I am going to find you, rip your fucking head off and shit down your mother fucking neck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I dont think in my entire life that I had ever 'blanched'...turned white with fear...my knees were as weak as a sapling in a hurricane...I could literally feel the blood rushing away from my face. I just KNEW he already knew where I was and where I was going...

Then, I heard the strangest sound: laughter. He was taking the piss! He was calling me because he wanted to make sure wherever I ended up, that we could still be FRIENDS! I have NEVER been so terrified in all my life...and the bastard was just messing with me.

To THIS day, I am STILL friends with that guy...partly because I am afraid if I ever tell him I dont want to be his friend...well, that he might revisit his threat that day on the phone.
( Citadel Because the world needs less morons, Thu 22 May 2008, 17:36, 6 replies)

iQuit
/Steve Jobs resignation letter
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Thu 22 May 2008, 13:30, Reply)

Job
I applied for a job once but didnt like it so I quit.
(kitescreech still here, Tue 27 May 2008, 12:30, 6 replies)