On the subject of water
I refuse to pay my water bill.

It's not that I can't afford it, because I can, but I flat out refuse to pay for something which comes from the ground and the sky, for free.

And yes, I know what you're going to say: "Then why don't you go and get it from a stream, or collect rainwater?"

Because all the streams around here have buildings on top of them, and the rainwater is full of noxious chemicals. That's why.




I also refuse to pay my TV license, because there's never anything good on. I know my rights, and if they come to my door then I tell them to go away.
(Half of Stephen Fry's right buttock pissed on your dog on, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:48, 64 replies)

Sherry
Davethebrewer worked out that Sherry was the cheapest way of getting drunk.
Those wise old tramps were right...
(markthebrewer doesn't know if he's coming or going or coming, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:48, 1 reply)

Never, ever, get a water meter
There is something psychologically damaging in the knowledge that whenever you turn a tap on, you are quite literally flushing money down the drain.

When my brother comes to stay, I have to be out of earshot when he's in the bathroom because he will quite happily stand in the shower for half an hour, and when he cleans his teeth he leaves the tap on FULL BLAST until he has finished. I have honestly been on the verge of kicking the door down to turn the tap off.

My bathroom upstairs has a modern water efficient toilet. However, my downstairs toilet is about 30 years old and has a giant cistern that when flushed rivals Niagara Falls for water usage. (I have explained this for a reason, and it's going to get a little weird, so those of you with a weak disposition should stop reading now). I tend to use the upstairs toilet more due to it's water efficiency, however, I don't mind using the downstairs bog when I need a poo as some of the brown monsters I produce require a large volume of water for a successful flush. Now here lies the problem; I haven't figured out how to inform visiting friends & family that the downstairs toilet is for the passing of solids only without sounding like a "League of Gentlemen" reject.

My madness doesn’t end there. The other week I was at work preparing a set of accounts and I noticed the client had an insurance payout due to a burst water pipe while away on holiday. However, the money wasn't for water damage but to cover the hundreds of pounds of water that pissed away! I had that feeling of "Oh fuck" that Hitchcock portrayed in Vertigo where the camera zooms in on the face and the background zooms out. I had to take an early lunch to stop myself from phoning an emergency plumber to check every pipe in my house.

So don’t do it. Don’t get a water meter. Just pay the fixed rate and revel in the knowledge that you can piss away as much as you like with no repercussions. (NB: None of this applies if you are a sane rational person)
( Colonel Dracula Two manky hookers and a racist dwarf, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:43, 17 replies)

special chocolates
My Gran was well renowned for being tight.

Despite my Grandad having left her close to a million when he died (he'd worked as a banker in the city in the sixties), she never spent any money on anyone (including herself), and without fail each Christmas would give us back our own Christmas presents from the previous year wrapped in the same wrapping paper - she'd never completely unwrap presents but merely tear open the side, have a look at what was inside, and store the presents for re-distribution the next year).

She was the worst when it came to chocolates, which she loved. She'd never buy her own and would always steal as many as she could from us kids - even going as far as to surreptitiously load up the pockets of her 30 year old jam encrusted cardigan with as many as she could pilther.

This just wasn't fair - I was 7, she was 75.

I'm still quite ashamed of the following. Every Christmas day we'd go for a drive in the car followed by a nice country walk. One year we were down in Pembrokeshire and had a walk along the cliff tops. It was muddy, and there were sheep everywhere. When we got back into the car to go back, my Gran got in beside me and noticed I'd brought in a load of sheep droppings on my boots, and these were now all over the seat.

"Oooh, chocolate raisins?"
"Yes".

She filled up her pockets, and crammed the rest into her mouth.

She was a senile old bat and never noticed.
( rofl harris, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:36, 1 reply)

Beer
Let's just say I had something of a reputation for tightness. (Completely undeserved I might add).

I once bought some beer from Netto as liquid accompaniment to a poker session round a mate's.

Being somewhat "careful" with money and good with numbers, I worked out that, in terms of the alcohol being consumed, it was better value to buy 16 cans of Norseman Lager (at a blistering 1.39% ABV and 65 for 4 cans) rather than Normal Beer.
(I kid you not about the 2nd decimal place. They were so keen to promote their beer that they felt justified in giving it that second decimal place).

Believe me it is not possible to drink quickly enough to get drunk. It was easier to just sit on the toilet drinking rather than have to get up constantly. Or even better, just throw it straight down the growler.
(Consider the Science: This muck is about 3 times weaker than Proper Beer. A good pace is 2 pints an hour, therefore you have to drink 6 pints of this stuff to acheive the same effects. Have you ever tried to drink 6 pints an hour, every hour, until the end of the night? Imagine the strain on the old bladder. Oooooo.).

The final impossibility is then to try and lose the title of "Weak Beer Man".
Bugger.
(markthebrewer doesn't know if he's coming or going or coming, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:32, 3 replies)

Baked Bean Wars
There was a short period in 1995 or 6 when Asda was selling baked beans - and I'm not sure that "selling" is the correct word here - for minus one penny a can.

I had a friend whose grandfather was banned from his local branch for collecting cans by the trolleyload, cashing in on the refund, and then dumping the beans and repeating the process.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:17, 7 replies)

False Economy
House Cold.

Pub Warm.

Can you see the logic that my frozen brain then followed?

Unfortunately the pub also serves beer.
(markthebrewer doesn't know if he's coming or going or coming, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:07, 3 replies)

Well money is tight at the momment.....
Have just read this on the BBC sports page and thought it deserved a mention in this weeks QOTW:

Manchester City's £92,000-a-week forward Robinho spent £700 on clothes in Harvey Nichols this weekend but then queued up for 25 minutes to sign up for a store card that gave him 50% off those buys.

Usually £350.00 off clothing is a decent idea, but this guy is earning so much I bet that £350.00 means sod all to him.
(mon bison powered by magnets, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:04, 2 replies)

Beans on Toast
Back in the Bean Wars days (anyone else remember those in the early 90's?) we worked out you could "survive" on a budget of around £2.50 per week. Tins of baked beans at 7p per tin (No-Frills Kwik Save) and bread (of a similar high quality) at 12p per loaf. I think we managed it for a couple of days before things got bad.

Meat paste or jam sandwiches for lunch.

Had to make sure we had enough money for beer.
At one stage most of my t-shirts were from drinks promotions...

A mate of mine (wazzer!) bought some cheap fish fingers once. They oozed orange. Even next door's cat woudn't touch them.
(markthebrewer doesn't know if he's coming or going or coming, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 10:03, 4 replies)

My Aunt
having boiled a kettle would then keep the remaining water she had not used in a Thermos flask to keep it warm & would then pour it back in to the kettle when she then needed to boil it again as this saved electricity.
( lkjshaglkasjdhglkhjz lkcvl; g;aodh;owih, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:53, 14 replies)

Duffel coat hell
Growing up poor isn't much fun, especially when you start to notice that you're poor - for example, upon starting at the local grammar school and realising that all the other children there have been conceived on a bed of money under a stocks and shares quilt.

My parents, keen to make sure I fitted in, went to great lengths to acquire the correct uniform for me. It wasn't enough for the school that they had a good academic and somewhat pretentious reputation, oh no. School regulations clearly described not only what one must wear but also from which shop one must purchase it.

And so, at the tender age of 14, at a school where I had been persistently bullied for three years, when my hormones were trampolining around my body and self-consciousness was my favourite past-time, my mother bought me a replacement school duffel coat. A bottle green, wool duffel coat. Floor length. And she bought it cheap - from my best friend's mother.

Yup, I had to go to school every day for two years in a floor length, bottle green woolen duffel coat that my (suddenly ex-)friend was only too pleased to announce to everyone had been hers. Hypothermia looked more and more attractive.

I'm not really accusing my mother of being a tightwad, merely that she might have wanted to rethink her strategy. I'll happily wear secondhand clothes - just not ones that have belonged to a bitchy, snobbish teenage girl whose family were so posh she had chocolate biscuits (chocolate biscuits!) in her packed lunch.

I'm going to write one of those "Miserable Irish Childhood" books about my suffering and make myself a fortune.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 9:00, 73 replies)

leatherback
The old bird living opposite my nan is a right old tight cow. She's on a water meter, whilst her next door neighbour isn't. She goes round his house with a bucket which she fills from his outside tap every morning so she can use it to flush her loo (which only gets flushed once a day after her morning poo). Talk about old ladies houses smelling of piss.

Her grandaughter came to stay for the week - the old cow lives at the sea-side. Her grandaughter had been given some spending money for the amusements, days out etc, the family knowing how tight she was and therefore unlikely to splash out on the kid herself. Her grandmother took this off her at the start of the holiday as 'keep'. Poor kid never left the house most of the week until my nan heard about it (saw the kid in her jimmy jams literally crying with boredom and frustration) and played hell. That kid never wanted for anything the last couple of days thanks to my nan taking her out and when her dad (old cow's son) found out he went apeshit.

The icing on the cake for my nan was when the old cow went on holiday for 8 weeks after christmas to Benidorm on the old wrinkly winter escape paid for by the winter fuel allowance and the benefits for the imaginary disabilities she had. She left my nan a key to her house so she could water plants etc. Anyway, it was freezing cold, proper Northern England, North Sea fucking cold and she'd not left any heating on. My nan, scared of the pipes freezing and bursting put it on that winter setting, you know, the one with the snowflake that just keeps it above brass monkey level - we're certainly not talking tropical here. Anyway, old cow phones up mid stay and has a proper Mary at this and demands her heating be turned off

"I'm not over here to be wasting money on heating over there, are you going to pay for it, are you, ARE YOU?"

My nan marches over there, turns it off and didn't notice anything awry until probably two full days after the pipes had burst (remember the water meter)as the water was leaking from the back of the house. Apparently, her back garden looked like a skating rink and her carpets went from sodden to crunchy depending on the time of day.

My nan literally, like Tena Lady literally, pissed herself laughing when she came back off her holidays and was confronted with the aftermath.
( no longer a user, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 7:15, 4 replies)

In the agency work I used to do,
food was handled by the staff every day.

In some places, the staff would sit down to two regular meals as part of their working day, and not be charged for any of it. Spare food was given freely to staff. I once took home about 20 surplus cooked best-quality burgers and sausages for my dogs.

In others, staff were not allowed to eat the food they served and people were disciplined for 'stealing' a sandwich or bowl of jelly.

Guess which establishments had the better labour relations? Yup, the ones with the fat workers.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 5:53, Reply)

The bar that I go to
has $1.50 beers on Sundays. One of our friends will only get a round in on Sunday.
It got to the point that (with full co-operation of the bartender) when any of the rest of us bought a round on a regular night, he got slightly less than a half pint.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 5:43, Reply)

Just another little one
My current boss (I work at a Mexican resturant) is a tight arse. He's been moaning for the last few months about the price of limes and even said a few months ago that we're gonna have to stop putting limes in the beers, and instead put a dash of lime juice in the bottle. Can you imagine being the customer? It never happened because I told him I wouldn't be doing that. His moanings about prices are never ending. All the while he'll give free drinks to anybody who knows his name on a saturday night. His girlfriend works with us now and she gets away with murder. Throughout her shifts she instists on drinking margaritas with an extra tequilla shot. She kicked off the other week because I was giving the kitchen staff some juice that wasn't no frills (it was stuff like guava and pink grapefruit) because those special juices were too expensive to give away to the staff($3 a litre?) The manageress was behind her (they don't get along) and suggested I give the staff double shot margaritas instead. Shout of the week.
(Visionaryofthe1980s www.myspace.com/visionariesofthe1980s, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 3:29, Reply)

One of my mates
And the only one of my mates that didn't go to uni, he had a full time job. This lad was pretty tight. We all worked part time and pulled in about £100 a week tops where he'd always make a point that he gets about £300-400 a week. If he went to a cash machine, he'd call you over to show you how much money he's got saved up (usually close to a grand). He lived with his parents (still does, as do his older siblings and one's nearly 40) and didn't pay rent. He'd come for a night out at our little uni town every Wednesday (our uni was in Ormskirk, we all lived there but are from Liverpool, about 30 minutes away). I'd have to pick him up every week or he wouldn't come down because the train was too expensive. Basically, he had money to burn where we were struggling a bit. The worst I've ever seen him for tight-arsed-ness was when a mate asked to borrow a tenner from him. He said fine and off they went to the atm. He got the tenner out and put it straight into his pocket. When questioned by our mate why he can't have the tenner he said he'd lend him, my tight mate answered, "oh, this is for both of us". Another time, I was on the receiving end. After a night out, we decided to head to China Town for an early morning feed. I'd just been issued with a new bank card that became valid after midnight. In my drunken state, I'd forgotten my new card and only had my old card which became invalid after midnight. I had the money in my account, but no way to access it. I ask my mate if he can shout me £20 and I'd pay him back tomorrow morning. He said he couldn't because he'd go into his over draft. Even after I explained to him how an over draft works, he flat out refused. Tight arsed prick. Good lad though
(Visionaryofthe1980s www.myspace.com/visionariesofthe1980s, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 2:58, 7 replies)

cheap petrol
my mate's dad will only buy his petrol from the station with the absolute cheapest price.
fair enough, you might say, but he also works out, with a calculator, the cheapest tank of petrol including how much petrol he will use to get to the petrol station he chooses.
( urbane legend i have known the inexorable sadness of pencils, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 1:45, 2 replies)

One I heard of...
It's probably been heard and reiterated by someone else already. Ah well.

The story of a studenty man whose tightwaddy nature was such that he only ever ate porridge (probably cold). Consequently, he got ill, and the doctor reported it as the first case of scurvy in these lands for many a year.

Urban myth? Probably, but I'm not forking out a story of my own, unless I can profit from it.
(Impuritan, Mon 27 Oct 2008, 1:17, 4 replies)

Mother Dearest
Made me wear shorts until the age of 11, because they were cheaper. Including the winter.

Having your exposed little legs attracting the attention of every snowball in the playground is funny for maybe everyone else.

Having to walk like a robot because your legs are so cold you can't bend your knees, whilst crying because of the chillblains, less so.

Snow is meant to be fun :(
(quibble, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 23:03, 5 replies)

I know its the point of the QOTW
But I cant believe all these big companies just destroy products!

I work for a well known department store.
Sweets and chocolate nearly out of date? Staff gets them :)
Food going to waste from the restaurant? Staff again
Clothes that haven't sold? Go to local charities.
Clothes off my department that are faulty/haven't sold? Go to Africa

Other items that have not sold? Looked to see where the majority of the items have been sold then shipped there OR to stores that haven't stocked them before.

I dont actualy know if its protocol to give things to staff but I think its a better than just getting rid of it.

Sorry for lack of Scrooge.
(i should have joined myspace, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 22:05, 6 replies)

just remembered..
from reading all the posts about stores throwing away good stock.

I used to work for a company that sold electronic goods. Rhymes with Murry's and is the name of Indian cuisine.

They used to throw away all sorts of stock. I was a warehouse worker and we had to destroy it all.

I'm not even kidding whilst working there I smashed up laptops, hundreds of TV's (not just CRT but LCD's and Plasmas), PC's, surround sound kits, kettles, toasters, blenders, fridges, cookers, tumble dryers, washing machines.. I even used to offer to buy the products at a discount price and managers would refuse.

I actually remember one manager (who was known for refusing staff to buy these products) with a pair of PC speakers in his hand. He finds them and says "oh, i'll have these, I need some PC speakers" I say to him "thought you can't keep this stock" whilst looking at them he ignores what i say and goes "ah they won't fit my PC anyway they have a different plug" I say "they will fit mine" he then looks at me and smashes them on the floor and says "if I can't have them no one is having them" and walks off.

The delivery drivers used to come and raid the skips. One driver left with about 6 Dyson cleaners in his van. I just used to leave them to it, fair play to them.

It makes me sick to think about how much money they were just throwing away. At the same time I did enjoy smashing up TV's worth more than my car.
(Cannibal Clown, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 21:49, 8 replies)

A friend of mine..
The tightest bloke I know. I've never met anyone quite like it. Here are a few examples of his tightness:

Left his cigarettes on a bench in a hostel in Australia. He came back to the dorm, after about half an hour he realized his mistake and goes to fech them, comes back into the room "someones stolen my fucking fags" starts throwing stuff all over the room, punching the walls and kicking things over. I said what's the problem ? calm down, It's just a pack of fags, you got them cheap in Singapore anyway don't worry about it. Wrong thing to say.. His reply was along the lines of "Just a pack of fags? JUST A PACK OF FUCKING FAGS? That's going to cost me about $5". He then storms off to reception and asks the guy behind the desk if he can check CCTV to see who took the fags. The poor bloke was clearly trying to stop himself bursting into a fit of laughter and politely tells my mate he doubts he can do it for a pack of fags, but he will try his best. My mate has another tantrum and then calms down.

Bought me a beer in a club one night. Night ends, everyone goes home, every works for the week and then it's friday again. Me and him decide to meet at the pub for a few pints before we meet everyone else. We're walking to the pub and he turns to me and says "it's your round by the way" I said "okay, that's cool, but why is my round ?" he replies "Yeah, I bought you a beer last friday, you owe me one".

We're out one night (in a little area just outside the town centre). We've had a few beers and the money has run low. Time to visit the hole in the wall. It's mid december, no jackets and we're freezing our tits off. After 5 minutes of wondering we finally find a cash point. So I withdraw my cash, mate goes to withdraw his money. "F**K THAT!" he shouts "What?! You have no money?" I reply "No, this cash point charges £1.25. I'm not using it, we'll have to find another one". I tell him not to be such a tight git and just withdraw from the cash point, he has a tantrum and say's he's not paying to withdraw his own money, asks me to come with him to find another, I decline, eventualy I offer to withdraw him some money from my account, he declines because he doesn't want to have to owe money. What does it take to get him to withdraw from the cash point? I end giving him £1.25 from my wallet and persuading him to withdraw from his account just so we can get back into the warm pub. The tight arse is more than happy to accept, pulls his card out and withdraws his cash and off we go. Could not believe it..

A group of us our for a meal, the food was good, the drinks were good, conversation was good, everyone is in a good mood and everything was fine. We're all ready to move on, so we ask for the bill. Get a bill for around £200. Everyone agrees to split it evenly and chuck in £20 and whoever want's to tip just bung in some change. This is fine with everyone, except of course tight arse! "My meal didn't come to £20, i'm not paying for someone elses food, let me see the bill" Everyones eyes start rolling, everyone puts their jackets back on their laps and slumps into their chairs.. "Here we go" says another mate. He sits there, jots down everything he ate, everything he drank and then gets his phone out and starts calculating. "Oh" he says. Everyone can see the frustration in his face, he starts recalculating, "This can't be right", again he adds up his total. Eventually someone asks what is going on and will he just hurry up. He says "Okay, yeah I agree just £20 each and a small tip" Strange we all think. He dives into his wallet and produces a £20 note and seems quite happy with it. "How much did it come to?" someone asks "Errr, around £20" he replies. A mate of mine grabs the bill and takes a look. Tight arse is looking a little ashamed with himself and rightly so, after a few seconds we hear "You tight f**ker!" of course now EVERYONE want's to know his total. Turns out his total was around £35. We made him pay £40 just for being a tight arse, surprisingly he didn't even put up a fight.

I call him up from work just seeing what he is up to, says he is in town. I ask if he fancies coming back to my place for a bit of xbox and some beers. He says yeah sure. Even offers to come pick up after work. So 5.30 comes, I meet him outside and off we go. Get to my place and he says "i'm not being funny, and i don't mean to sound rude, but can you give me £3 for that lift? just that petrol prices are high and it was a little out of my way" Thought he was having a laugh and just laughed at him. Go to get out the car and he says "I'm serious, is that okay?" I said if he really wants the money he can have it. We go up to my place, he sits down and helps himself to a can of beer, I turn to him and say "that's 2 quid mate" and he laughs and cracks it open "I said no, that's 2 quid mate, those things don't just grown on trees" (i wasn't serious) he replies "oh, okay, well you can just give me one quid for the petrol" and he was dead serious.

We have a party at my girlfriends house. Everyone brings booze, even tight arse, and good times are had. Eventually most people leave and few crash over. In the morning we get up, slightly hungover, a round of coffees are made and then the rest of the party leave. A clean up operation is put in a place and me and my girlfriend get the place looking spotless. At the end we notice we have a fridge full of alcohol from all the left overs. Later that day we cook a dinner and I happen to grab one of the beers that tight arse bought round. A few weeks later he comes round, asks me "is my can of beer still here?" I laugh and say "that's long gone dude, but theres plenty of others if you want to help yourself" "you drank my beer?" he replies "well, not YOURS on purpose, just that happened to be the one I picked up" "well can you pay me back?" not believing what i'm hearing I accept just to shut him up and I ask him how much it was, he sits there and works it out and says "about 47p, don't worry about it actually" I say "no, no don't want you losing out" search through my wallet and flip him over a 50p coin. I'm expecting him to lob it back in the direction of my head realizing i'm taking the piss. He only goes and put's it in his pocket!!

A few weeks later, another session is had at my girlfriends. Same kind of thing, everyone leaves. We head off to bed, have a few more drinks and I get a phone call from my mate "Hi, I just remembered I left 3 beers in your fridge. Can you not drink them this time?" "errr, okay, i'll make sure I don't" "Cheers mate" I hang up and me and my girlfriend have a laugh. Wake up in the morning, about half an hour after waking up I get a text, it's tight arse. Just texting to remind you not to drink my beer, just you might have been a bit pissed last night and not remembered. Cheers!. Unbelievable. and yes, of course I drank them!

Another time we're at a park and ride and hop on the bus. Just as we're walking to the bus my mate turns to me and says "Can you pay for this one?" I say "yeah sure, you don't have any cash" He says "No, I do, just you owe me £4" "I do? what for?" I ask "don't you remember? about 3 weeks ago we ordered a pizza and I put in £4 more than anyone else" is his reply.

Once refused to go out for a friends 21st birthday because it was in London and that is over priced.

Once asked me to pay him back for a £1 pizza he bought me from Asda.

When backpacking in Oz he was furious when we got an apartment for the night. It wasn't the price, he was over the moon with the price. After sleeping in a tent for the last few weeks we had a huge place with tv, oven, sofas, 2 rooms, a fridge and air con. I scope the big bed and shout "SHOTGUN THE BIG BED" and throw my gear on it. He looks in the next room and see's a bunk bed in a room not much wider than the bed itself. He hits the roof! "You can't have that bed, that is not fair". I said "Well what's fair? Neither of us have it? I called it, that is fair, that is how we always do things" He has a tantrum and comes back with "Well you pay 15 dollars more, i'm not paying half when you have the bigger bed" I politely tell him to do one. We end up paying half each and I got the big bed.

There are plently more and if they come to me I will post them. This guy is the tighest git I know. He is a nice enough guy apart from that though. You would think he is earning nothing from the way he acts, but he does earn a fair bit. Also, I noticed a lot of the stories included drinking. We're not alcoholic's.. honest :0)
(Cannibal Clown, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 21:36, 17 replies)

All this talk of food has reminded me...
I went to stay with my friend at newcastle who had a pretty odd flatmate. Every morning he'd be up at about 6ish and all through the day he'd be cooking really good food, whole turkeys, pies, he'd have cakes and one night 'free' wine. On the last day I was there he was even cooking prawns for breakfast. How on earth did this scummy student dine like a king?

He used to get up at 5 in the morning and go and rummage in the bins of a certain food stockist.. Sparks and Mencer (subtle). He never bought a SINGLE meal for the entire year.. apparantly.


In other news, another friend of mine (yes, another) lives across the road from a Greggs. A van comes to pick up the food that wasn't sold during the day at 1.30 in the morning. Her and her flatmates stake it out and when it arrives get their pick of sandwiches, pasties, cakes, scones, out of date drinks and so on and so forth.

Tight? cheap? Or money saving genius?
(i should have joined myspace, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 21:22, 3 replies)

Not just food that shops waste
There are several stories already about shops ditching food rather than give it to the needy....its not just food they waste.
I used to work for Halfords while at Uni, and a while afterwards.
I remember very soon after starting there, I was shown half a dozen mountain bikes in the stock room and was told to cut the frames up with a hacksaw, use a hammer to smash the gears, wheels etc and render them completely useless.
Why? I asked.... they were to be binned for whatever reasons, customer returns, repaired bikes that had never been collected etc etc (we couldnt sell 2nd hand stuff)
Why not give them to a charity shop? I asked.
EH? give them away? are you mad? they have to be destroyed.
"urm..ok."

It was beyond rediculous. In all the years I worked there, I saw dozens and dozens of bikes, car stereos, tools, clothes, toys etc all smashed up and binned. All of them perfectly useable.
I remember one year the shop was involved in one of those local radio schemes to provide toys for disadvantaged kids for christmas. The store stumped up money for a few wee teddies and stuff. Meanwhile, I was out the back, smashing up 19 pairs of brand new rollerblades with a hammer because they were discontinued stock that the warehouse didnt want back. Farce.
(dave likes cheese, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 20:39, 7 replies)

Myself, though not much of a story
Doing my pre-work shop, I picked up a nice milkshake, noticing that the sticker said 98p. Scanning it through the self checkouts (and I probably wouldn't have noticed had I picked human interaction and got a till monkey to scan my stuff for me) I noticed the price scanned showed up at £1.02.

Yes, I'm ashamed to say that I held up a queue of people for five minutes until I got my 4p discounted after quoting the sale of goods act at the poor lass who really looked like she didn't want to be there.
(jamesthegill opens new tabs with his scroll wheel, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 20:28, 7 replies)

tight as a nuns chuff
I went to a mates house and as it was lunchtime he said he would make sandwiches. cool.
Out came the bread, butter, ham, cheese, salad cream etc....all looking very promising.He proceeded to butter the bread in a microscopically thin layer, a single quare of ham (the supermarket stuff thats loads of squares all scrunched up in a box), a slice of cheese that was practically transparent, and a single drop of salad cream.
WTF?
I went to put more ingredients on and he had a moan about this stuff not being cheap, so I left it, just to avoid an argument. The sandwich was like eating dry bread that smelt slightly of ham.
Moaning about this may seem petty, but I had invited him round to mine countless times peviously, where I would often cook him meals, snacks etc, plus he earned significantly more than I did at the time.
(dave likes cheese, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 20:28, Reply)

sandwich run
less stingy, more theiving.
a friend of mine who works as a maintainance engineer was telling me about one of his ex-co-workers.
this guy took it upon himself one day to take sandwich orders (and money) from everyone and go to the butty shop down the road with the order.
nice chap hes doing everyone a favour out of the goodness of his heart.

only one day someone was late in, missed the sandwich order and so had to go to the shop himself. orders his sandwich and hands over his £3 and is then astonished to receive change as this is the price he's been paying for the last 8 years when the guy set up the order.
he asks for a full price list from the shop and asks round to check its not just him being screwed over. but it turned out that for the last 10 years this guy has been screwing his coleagues out of an extra 20-30p a day.
granted this doesnt sound like a lot but 30p x 15 people = £4.50 a day/£22 a week/£1170 a year! and he'd been doing it for 10 years!
i'm sure it would have been fine if he was open about his little fee and nobody would have kicked up a fuss but to have the cheek to take 20-30p off your 'friends'(and boss too) without telling them for so long.

he was suspended and advised to resign after that.
(suboftheday, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 18:58, 7 replies)

Me?
It has taken 4 days to find a unsecured Wifi connection to make this post from ...
(Biff..., Sun 26 Oct 2008, 18:52, 4 replies)

Pred
is tight. He's so fucking tight that if he were a minge, even a guy with a dick like a pencil would have trouble.

I worked in Japan with him and Doug, and for Christmas 1999 we repaired to Doug's family home in Detroit. The three of us took the opportunity to do some clothes shopping and Pred spent about an hour (I kid you not) trying to decide whether to buy a $30 pair of jeans. He left them (too expensive) but after whining about it for another two hours, he went back and bought them; he proceeded to discuss his discomfort at such a large expenditure for the rest of the day.

Two days back in rural Japan, with its barely noticeable crime rate, he washed them and hung them on the line and they were promptly stolen.
( thealternativefact, Sun 26 Oct 2008, 18:37, 1 reply)