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edit : yipee! front page! ta! lol!
(Wed 24th Sep 2003, 9:53, More)

It's a bit windy out there

(Tue 22nd Apr 2003, 13:30, More)

» Out of my depth

Cocktails ... Mmmmmm
About 10 years ago I was working in the bar of a very posh 200 bedroom 5-Star hotel, where they did table service.

One evening, the hotel owner, his wife, their 2 kids and the MD all came in and sat down. They were all going to go out, so were dressed up in suits and dresses. Very smart. I went over and took their order, which was something like 2 banana dacquiris, 1 beer, 1 coke & 1 bloody mary. I went to the bar, got the order, and balanced all the drinks around the metal tray.

Now - anyone who's done this before will tell you that when removing the drinks from the tray while balancing it on your other hand - ALWAYS get the weight distribution EVEN (ie - first one side, then the other etc..).

Aaaanyway, I was new at this kind of thing. I removed the beer .. then the coke (which were next door to each other), and the tray did a kind of a flip out of my hand. All the remaining drinks fell, and hit the (rather low) table.

If we're talking nuclear fallout zones, you could say that everyone round the table was in 'Zone 1'. You've never seen anything like it. Everyone was coated in yellow dacquiri slime, and there was glass everywhere. The owner's wife burst into tears (understandable, as her dress was completely fucked), and the 2 kids started laughing. The others just looked blank. The whole bar had gone quiet. I looked around for help, just in time to see the bar manager duck and hide behind the bar.

I was alone. So very alone, and somewhat out of my depth.

Oh - and also, there's the time when I was a novice waiter, and I dropped a large flat of buttered new potatoes into the bride's lap. That didn't go down too well either.
(Mon 18th Oct 2004, 12:49, More)

» Fancy Dress

About 5 years
back, me and 3 friends went to a halloween party in Oxford as 4 car accident victims.

Someone we knew (Dan), who did makeup for the film industry, did the honours for us. It took bloody ages. The problem was, Dan loved his job too much. He went completely over the top, and it just looked too realistic.

I had half of my face missing, with the jawbone exposed. One of my friends had a compound fracture, with the bone sticking out of his forearm, another had a windscreen wiper stuck through his neck amongst other things ... and so on ..

To get to the party, we had to walk through the city centre. We made 2 children cry just by looking at them, and were promptly bollocked by their mother, who also looked like she wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

At the party, no-one talked to me all night, because they just couldn't handle looking at my bloodshot-eyed, glass-shard infested, half missing face.

Never again.
(Fri 13th Jan 2006, 12:35, More)

» Jobsworths

First Great Western
Bristol Temple Meads lost property.

Here dwells possibly the biggest arsehole jobsworth in the universe. He lives in a kind of glass monkey cage in the underpass.

I lost my wallet on a train a year ago, and I got a letter a couple of months later, asking me to go to the above station with the enclosed ref number to pick up my lost property. Down I went, with said number in hand, having parked semi-legally outside, because I thought it'd only be a flying visit. I gave the number to the man behind the counter. The man went into the back, and came back with a brown jacket.

I said 'Sorry - but I lost a wallet, and this jacket isn't mine'.

He checks the ref number against his book of pedantry. 'It says here 'brown jacket''.

Me 'Yes, that may be, but I've come here to pick up my lost wallet - maybe there's been some mix up'.

Him 'It says here you lost a brown jacket'.

Me 'Yes, I think we both understand that, but I have come to pick up my wallet. I have never owned a brown jacket'.

Now - repeat the last 2 section about 40 times. This went on for 15 minutes, until I eventually got so fucked off, I went to get the station manager. As I walked off, I heard a satisfied, sneering chuckle from behind me. I'm not normally an angry person, but I felt like strangling this c**t with his own intestines.

Anyway, when I eventually got hold of the station manager, he gave an 'oh God, not again' kind of resigned sigh, went down to the lost property, took a quick look at the book, apologised for the mix up, went into the back and retrieved my wallet, all in about 10 seconds flat.

And I got a parking ticket.
(Thu 12th May 2005, 10:27, More)

» Sacked

My sister in law
blagged her way into a temp job many years ago at a legal firm. Among other things, she said she could type 60 words a minute, when, in reality, she could probably do about 6.

On her first (and last) day, one of the solicitors gave her a pile of urgent work to edit and type up.

They came in 2 hours later, and asked how she was doing. 'Fine', she said, 'nearly finished'. They came in again another hour later, and again another hour later - and so on throughout the day. 4pm came and went, and they were gradually getting more and more agitated and suspicious.

In the end, the solicitor told her that if she didn't have in finished in 10 minutes, the shit would really hit the fan.

So, she did the only thing she could think of at the time. She shut her office door, picked up the typewriter, and threw it on the floor. When they came running in, she said 'I don't know what happened - one minute I was typing, the next it just fell off the desk'. She was told to go home and not come back.
(Fri 24th Feb 2006, 13:08, More)

» Have you ever paid for sex?

A few years back
me, my brother & a friend went to an 'exotic bar' in Soho (London), mainly because the pubs had closed and we wanted a drink, but also to see what one looked like.

We went in and sat down. Next thing, this rather dubious-looking woman came over and sat down next to us with a tray, and took our drinks order (3 beers). She went and got the drinks, chatted for about 5 minutes, and wandered off again. Suddenly, for some reason (call it instinct), I got a bit suspicious at this point, and asked to look at the bill. It was as follows;

3 beers - £30
Hostess charge - £90

Total - £120

"Fuck ME!" I exclaimed, "there's no way I'm paying THAT! You've got to be fucking joking!".

Then, right on cue, 2 extremely large men came and sat with us, and calmly explained what would happen to us if we didn't. So we paid very quickly and left. £120 for 3 beers and a 5-minute chat with a lady who looked like Keith Richards. Holy shit.

Sorry - only very slightly linked to the original question.

Oh - and the answer's no.
(Thu 19th Jan 2006, 16:10, More)