» Clients Are Stupid

Old people in France
Being the young person that I am I keep being asked by the older generation of expat Brits to sort out their various technical problems, being younger than them they assume I know how to work all these newfangled picture boxes and such.

One problem I encountered from an elderly couple who were having problems watching a video on their TV, the picture was always black and white, now France decided years ago they were going to broadcast TV pictures using a SECAM signal whereas other countries use PAL or NTSC, as the TV was bought over here (SECAM) and the video was from the UK(PAL) I presumed it was just a compatability problem.

Turns out when I went to check on it the TV works with both systems (the French are finally converting to PAL), the offending, colourless video however was Schindler's list.

I made them buy a new video anyway as their old one couldn't recieve digital signals from Sky.
(Tue 30th Dec 2003, 13:43, More)

» Shit Stories

My mums fault for re-marrying
Three stories for you now, one from my mum's previous marriage and two from her current one.

I'll put them in seperate posts though to make them a bit shorter

First one: She was married to a guy from Bradford who was thick, stubborn but a very proud Yorkshire lad. We were driving back from Spain one summer all up through France to Calais. The day before we left he had eaten something which gave him the shits, not long after we entered France he decided to pull in to the first available services. As soon as we parked he left the car and ran faster than anyone his size should be able to towards the toilets only to stop in the middle of the car park, turn around and waddle his way back to the car. He opened the boot (trunk if you're American) and started rumaging around at which point my brother asks.

"What's the matter, you shit yourself?" which was met with.

"No! I bloody 'aven't!" As he squelched off towards the toilets with clean underwear in his hands.
(Fri 7th May 2004, 11:51, More)

» Shit Stories

Number 2 *snigger*
Mum's current husband went on holiday with his nephew to Tenerife. After sampling some of the possibly out of date shell fish, they both developed the urge to evacuate at irregular intervals. They were caught by surprise at one point and made a dash for McDonalds, they burst into the stalls at which point a lot of noise was heard by my step dad followed by the nephew saying.

"Hey Vern, some dirty bastards shit up the wall."

Last one from my Aunt:

She was in some foriegn country either in Asia or Africa, I forget which, and she developed banji belly (apologies for spelling). In her hotel room she suddenly got the urge to splurge, so went to the toilet. As she bent down to remove her knickers she suddenly let rip and, as she described it, pebble dashed the wall and toilet. The worst part is instead of trying to clean it up herself, she phoned down to reception for them to send a cleaner up.
(Fri 7th May 2004, 12:05, More)

» Best Comebacks

A couple from my days at Woolworths
I had a woman come up to me whilst I was busying myself on the shop floor, conversation went thus:

Woman: Where would I find make up bags?
Me: Probably Boots.

She then left without another word.

There was also a woman working there who had servere Hypochondria, everyday whoever was unlucky enough to be on lunch at the same time as her was subjected to upto an hour of complaints about her health. Anyway, one day I was running late (not for the first time) and as I burst through the door of the downstairs office to sign in I was met by the manager and this woman, before the manager could say anything she made a comment about me being late again to which I replied "Well I would stop to ask how you are but I haven't got time."

I could still here the manager laughing as I went up the stairs, and from what I've heard he couldn't work for a few minutes after cos he kept cracking up.
(Fri 30th Apr 2004, 20:25, More)

» Clients Are Stupid

The wonder of Woolies
I thought I ought to post some memorable events from my stint at Woolworths so here goes.

The first one that comes to mind happened after closing on a Sunday night, the store has 8 doors (or 4 sets of double doors) leading to a car park at the back.

After closing I had to pull the security gates almost closed leaving just enough room for us to get out at the end of the shift, these gates had a bar that folded out and fixed into the ground to let the overly rusted piece of crap grind to a close.

About five minutes after I had done this I was clearing up the various rubbish at the back of the store and putting stock back from where customers had left them to where they picked them up from, when a car came charging round the car park and screeched to a halt outside the gates, a woman bailed out, ran towards the doors without even noticing the gates were nearly closed, tripped over the bar on the floor and made a delightful thud followed by the sound of skin squeaking down the glass of the locked door, then she got up, tried pushing all the doors then tapped on the the door in front of her to shout "are you closed?" to the nearest visible member of staff she could see in the dimly lit store, that being me.

I nearly told her she had to pull the doors but I thought that would be cruel as they didn't have handles because they open both ways.
I had to explain the make up stains to the window cleaner the following morning as well.

More to come soon, I haven't started on the work experience kids and new recruits yet
(Fri 2nd Jan 2004, 22:53, More)