Hampster Squared...
did you answer yes to "I like working with animals"?? I did, and I got "butcher" o_0
( hanrar ,,,,, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 12:10, Reply)

My dad's bestest!
I live in an area of a large city that is predominately muslim. I was telling Dad how it can be quite intimidating, in the early evening, due to large groups of young lads and their rather suspect idea of how to talk to white females. Dad's solution? Carry bacon with me. Any trouble throw it at them and they'll run away. Yeah sure dad, that or it'll piss them right off and i'll get a good kicking!
(leeloodallasmultipass, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 12:05, Reply)

Me mam regularly tells me not to laff at spackers....
...useless, no way I can help that. Those goofy bastards are God's little clowns.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 12:02, Reply)

Cheer up, it might never happen!
What if it already has fuckface? What if your inane comment is exactly what I'm worried might happen?
( Sunburnt Tiger Herbie goes Piranhas!, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 11:50, Reply)

Table tennis anyone?
I once saw a table tennis table in a village hall. It had a list of care and maintenance instructions on a label affixed to the bottom.

Instruction 1 read "Do not expose this product to rain or moisture".

Fair enough. Can't remember number 2 but the third item on the list was, "To clean, wash using a damp cloth".

I wrote that little story in to the Feedback column of New Scientist and had it published - woo!

Length? About half a column inch.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 11:43, Reply)

Ignored advice
Not so much bad advice, more completely ignored advice.

I'm driving along with my friend Andy and two other friends, Andy driving, me navigating and giving directions. It doesn't help that Andy endlessly quotes things from sci-fi programmes (often ones no-one except him has ever seen) and he usually ignores all instructions and finds his way by 'zen navigation'.

So, with my mapreading confirming that the route ahead is straight on at a rapidly approaching junction (and our destination clearly signposted as straight on), I told him "Straight".

"You bet I am!" He replied, turning right into a cul-de-sac. No idea why. On asking him why he had done that, he said "Driving to Manchester ain't like dusting crops kid."

I know that sounds made up, but sometimes real life has perfect comic timing. On the same trip on making the return journey, three of us are wating in the car for the last of our mates who is footering about and generally taking ages to get in the car. After a suitable period of helpful hectoring and badgering, fourth mate finally gets in the car. "Finally, thank christ" we all say. Andy turns the ignition key which starts the radio which by sheer luck happens to be playing the Hallelujah chorus. "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!".
(Wascally Weasel now with 100% fewer jokes., Tue 24 Oct 2006, 11:22, Reply)

pearly wisdom
my old man once told me (as a nine year old)

"son, always take your hat off before you hit a woman"

nice. a few years later i remembered this pearl of wisdom and quizzed him on it.

"did i really say that!? sorry! i meant to say always take HER hat off before you hit her"

cheers pops. although he did say one piece of advice which has always rung true: never call anyone 'sir' unless they have truly earned your respect.

oh yeah, i once shouted 'cheer up love, your on holiday!' to a crying girl by a swimming pool on holiday. little did i know her dad had sliped over and split his skull open, having to be airlifted home. it felt heroic.
(Fake Spaniard, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 10:59, Reply)

Careers advice

my careers advisor told me i should be a
Fish Farmer

i'm terrified of fish

.
(i eat crayons, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 10:52, Reply)

We had a work meeting once,
where we met this new manager for the centre. She had the reputation back then as being a bit of an ice-maiden, and our manager advised us to be on best behavior.

We meet her, and are all formally introduced. She gives us a brief well-practised introduction about herself, then asks us each in turn for our name, what our hobbies are and any advice we could give her. She goes past myself and Gethin (the Welshiest man in Wales), and then she reaches Simon. Simon is quite bored with this and decides to go a bit more up-tempo.

"My name's Simon....and...errrr....if you want porn, I'm your man" and points at her.

Her gob hit the floor. Not the kind of advice she was after apparently.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 10:45, Reply)

Chefs Crab Ruse
Many moons ago I worked as a pot washer in a god awful restaurant.

One of the pastry chefs had a rather attractive girlfriend who the head chef had taken a shine to.
The head chef was a nasty piece of work and as a result told the pastry chef that what girls really liked was a man with shaved balls as it was what all the porn stars did and it made the old chap look a good inch longer.
When the trusting fool did this (Giving his scrote a nasty nick in the process) the head chef promptly told his missus that he had shaved his knackers because he had caught crabs from a prozy leaving him on the couch for a month.
I think he may have regretted taking that pearl of wisdom on board.
(monquixote, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 10:32, Reply)

Something a chum told me
Good advice to live by.

Never worry,
Never Hurry,
Never fill your hat with Curry.
( DukeEuphoria Comes highly reccomended, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 10:28, Reply)

GNVQs
I was advised at school to go to university and get a good job working in an office!

I am now eating cereal from a communal mug with milk stolen from the fridge, my arms twisted with RSI and my eyes burnt out shells from staring at this kind of bollocks all day long.

The other day I needed a plumber as I don't know how to work my flat. He said it would cost me £400 to do what was needed, and it would take him a couple of hours, only it would have to wait because he was in Barbados for the next 3 months.

If my sperm hasn't all died from poor living conditions, I will recommend to my pikey children that they join the "dim kids" in the queue for a proper actual job.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 10:23, Reply)

Used to have this guy working as a senior member of Technical Staff here.....
And if we were stuck on fixing a customer's PC, we'd ask a group of seniors for help. His answer to any situation was "Have you checked your system resources?".

"Got a guy on the phone, stuck on browsing..."
"Have you checked your system resources?"

"Having probs with this guys username and password on the database here."
"Have you checked your system resources?"

"Why the fuck are you a senior?"
"Have you checked your system resources?"

Thank fuck he left.

Also, we have this manager here called TJ who most of us avoid like the plague, as she knows next to fuck-all. Any advice we get from her has practically nothing to do with the job, and even the other managers quietly share our humour of avoiding her at all costs.
One day I had some customer freak on me for some unknown reason (most probs couldn't view porn) and for some unknown reason or other he decided to blame me personally. So I go to grab a manager for the fuckwit and after some serious begging the other managers laff and tell me to get hold of TJ (the bastards). So I explain it to TJ, and she gets her headset and plugs it into my phone.

"Hello sir? I've got one of my managers on the line now, so I'll just pass you over to her." I hit mute, then TJ starts off.
"Hi you're through to TJ, how can I help?"
The customer sounds puzzled, then replies "TJ? That isn't even a name!".
TJ broke down crying right beside me, while I struggled not to piss myself laughing. I can't remember if she helped him or not, as she was fucking useless.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 10:15, Reply)

Horoscopes
Next time you're reading your horoscope, give a thought to the person who wrote them. I write them for six different magazines each month and I fabricate them all. Not a grain of astrology in any of 'em.
(frankspencer, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 9:53, Reply)

Domestic Goddess
My friend Sarah Sweeney was complaining to her mother about the stale bread in the house, her mother responded with some interesting advice:

Mrs Sweeney: "Just pop it in the microwave for a few seconds"

Sarah: "It's microwave mother not a bloody time machine!"
(Rachel B, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 9:44, Reply)

Where's my file?
I had a programmer working for me named Dan. I needed to run a program he had written and send the resulting files out. The program took about six hours to run. Something like five hours into the run, Dan happens to pick up that program and modify it into something else, but he doesn't change the file name. My run finishes, but I find one of the files has been munged. After a few minutes of scratching my butt I ask Dan if just maybe he had something to do with it. Of course he admits what he did, but of course it's not his fault that I ran a program with the same file name as what he was doing. I tell him this was an important file that I need to send out. Dan says:

"You can always run it again."
(Barticus, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 7:18, Reply)

DVDs
The DVDs at the neighbourhood store all have those square security stickers with a coil-like circuit made of tinfoil underneath. They were originally made for video cassettes and are designed to set off the detector at the door to the shop. Written on the sticker

"PLEASE
BE KIND
REWIND"

How does one rewind a DVD?
(DeepBlue, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 7:02, Reply)

Careers Guidance Counsellors
There seems to be a lot of shit going down about these people so I thought I'd share this even though it's not strictly relevant...

My little brother once got into trouble at school for telling the careers guidance counsellor he wanted to be a lumberjack.

kiwanotree, you are not alone - I was in Year 11 in 1999 and they were pushing all these vocational courses to the extent that I wondered if they were on some sort of commission based on how many kids went on to do them. They were telling perfectly intelligent students that they were too dim to cope with three A levels and should instead consider a GNVQ in "Leisure and Tourism" or something. They really, really, really didn't like A levels and were constantly banging on about how you could get into university without them... Cocks. I'm never sending my kids to a state comprehensive.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 7:01, Reply)

Not quite useless advice....
but very notable.
A sticker seen on the door of a bus.
We also have signs saying "Assaulting a bus driver is a crime." Very depressing to find others need to be told these things.

I haven't heard "Smile, it'll never happen", but I've been told, on occaison, "Do you wanna talk about it? Well, whatever it is, it's sure to get better?" Which really didn't help very much. Because a friend's death just undoes itself.

I once heard one dunce tell her friend. "It's okay, you can't get pregnant the first time right?" "Right, you don't need to worry." Yes, because the ovaries are just going to NOT do their job.
(The If has remembered this site., Tue 24 Oct 2006, 4:31, Reply)

More Careers Tripe
A friend of mine and I spent most of our careers class making the rudest hand gestures we could across the classroom. I was once caught trying to tell him with some wild actions that I would double fist the teacher.

Anyway, the results of my test come back and number 2 is "Professional Golfer".

I don't fucking well play golf.
(mattressking, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 3:51, Reply)

My mum told me not to trust people with ginger body hair
I've not found that to be true though.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 3:29, Reply)

'TOM!
...How would you like to forget Year 4, and move straight on to year 5 after summer? You've proved yourself to be more than capable.'

At the time, I was 8.

8.

Was I going to say no?

Fuck off was I.

And how exactly could I have proved myself after spending one year in that school?

Wind round to just over 3 years ago, and my secondary school teachers, who are clearly sick to high buggery of my refusal to complete work of a satisfactory standard, telling me with hands in front of faces 'nicely' that I will (thats WILL, not should) re-take year 11 after acheiving 3 A-C grade GCSEs.

Which would have been enough to get me into the college I spent the last 2 years at anyway.

So I don't know who I'm more annoyed at; the twunts who decided to ask an 8-year old for his view on a potentially life-changing decision, or the wazzocks in a grammar school who refused to take their opportunity to get rid of me.

Still, I'm at Aberystwyth uni now, wiping my ex-headteachers face in it. No I'm not stupid... You just can't teach me. Because you're wankers. Yes.

Meh, rant ceases here...
(I R Tomsk pyromaniacs will only inflame the situation, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 2:06, Reply)

Oil go fwoosh!
" Don't use the microwave for popcorn when Dad's in the room, he has a pacemaker and it'll kill him!'

1.) My dad does NOT have a pacemaker. Oddly enough. And if he did he'd be living in a secluded cottage in India avoiding all major machinery that might 'set it off crooked'.
2.) The giver of this advice then promptly burned off their eyelashes and sent a pillar of flame up to our recently repainted and replastered ceiling, trying to make stovetop popcorn. We have a mark there now.
She lives alone. Poor thing.
(Cyndia has shuriken in her pompoms, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 1:24, Reply)

Aunts/Grandmas/Grandpas etc etc
always advised me not to swallow orange pips because then a tree would grow in my stomach...

...I actually lived in fear until quite recently.
(whatktdid, Tue 24 Oct 2006, 1:01, Reply)

Dad *sigh*
My old man comes out with all sorts of quasi-military pish all the time. It doesn't help that he thinks I am some sort of homocidal maniac with anger management issues like him [which I am not].

So when he is on the phone and I am telling him of a hard day at the office and the debate around controlable costs, sales targets and wage flex, he starts going on about "keeping your powder dry" [I think this means getting my facts right before saying something]
"just march on" [its not worth the hassle, perhaps?]
"keep your mouth shut and your hands to your self" [eh? either he thinks I am especially handy when provoked or I am a serial sexual deviant]

There are so many more but what really gets me is when I ignore what he is saying and he says "Oi Cunto! I said..[choose pointless piece of advice from previous selections]"
( Fire & Forget it's the only way to be sure, Mon 23 Oct 2006, 23:59, Reply)

American advert for an SUV
with sharks swimming around a car being driven underwater. Warning at the bottom of the screen:

The blahde blah 4x4 is not designed for sub aquatic driving.

Draw a venn diagram. Americans in one circle, SUV drivers in the other. Where they cross is who that advert was aimed at. This says a lot I think.
(Pete_G, Mon 23 Oct 2006, 22:33, Reply)

careers advice
our careers advisor was known as leatherchin as he had a beard the same colour as brown leather jackets.

Anyway, come work experience time I was asked what I wanted to do. 'Animation / 3d sculpture animation I replied.

He had the perfect thing for me, he said.

Excited, I awaited the letter telling me of the place where I'd get the foot in the door, show them how shit hot I was, and begin my quest for world animation dominance.

A few days later it arrived. I opened it.
'It's Ideal' I squeeled, handing the letter to my Dad.

'Aye, Ideal' said he handing it back 'Ideal fucking standard'. And so it came to pass...

I ended up in a cold room on my own making fucking toilets and accessories (actually making fucking toilets would have been great but these were shitting and pissing ones)

The day started at 6am with me binding the 4 casts I had, then by 6:15 I was pouring the clay in. From 6.40 onwards I had nowt to do for the rest of the day until 4.30pm when I went home.

Every so often some old caretaker bloke popped his head in and said, without fail, 'patience is a virtue my lad'. Obviously he was still after that promotion he had been promised.

This was everyday for a fortnight. Me, cold and bored senseless for most of the day and Albert dispensing his advice whenever there was enough shit to dust down near the room where I was 'working'. The only exception was the first day when some of the younger lads (about 7 years older) took me to the canteen and showed off their array of innuendo as the only woman that worked there sat with them.

Unsuprisingly, and in keeping with the bathroom theme she was a right fucking boiler as well.

So the bad advice? never ask for work ex in a small northern town where animation equates to making shithouses. Also, patience is not a virtue. I could have spent them hours waiting for the clay to set getting pissed and smoking.

Now that would be virtuous in comparison to being so sexually frustrated that you'd chat up any old boiler second to sticking yer nob in where the U-bend should go.
(spike starski, Mon 23 Oct 2006, 22:31, Reply)

KUDOS
KUDOS advised one of my friends to become a soft fruit grower... it was probebly the ambiguity as to what would have to be soft that ammused me most, the fruit he grew or him to take the advice. Stupid compooters.
(ComplexStuff Was confused by life on, Mon 23 Oct 2006, 22:26, Reply)

My granddad
often reminds me of the important fact that:
"Many a mickle makes a muckle."

It has to apply to something.
(the_n00b, Mon 23 Oct 2006, 22:22, Reply)

This wasn't recent advice
Back in 1985 I was advised to go for a new type of course that had just come out. A B/TEC National Diploma! Equivalent to five A-Levels! A vocational focus but with an academic basis!

I signed up, and after finishing my O Levels I ended up doing a B/TEC National Diploma in Computing for two years.

I would meet in the refrectory and chat with my old school friends. Many of them were doing three A levels, and spent a long time complaining about the workload. I checked - most were doing 17.5 hours a week. I was doing 35 hours a week. It was like a bloody job!

At the end of it, several of us applied to universities, only to get the basic response of "What's a B/TEC?". Two of us got into Thames Polytechnic. Most of the the rest of us were able to get computing jobs right out the gate, myself included, so it wasn't a total disaster.

It was still useless advice. I regret never having been to university (wait, that was last week).
(kiwanotree Meh, Mon 23 Oct 2006, 22:16, Reply)