» Jobsworths

Council Refuse Site Attendant
I had a load of garden rubbish to dispose of, so I decided to load up my car and take it to my local council tip. On arrival I found it was quite busy, and there was a VERY long queue of people waiting to unload their rubbish into a single garden waste skip.

There were, however, a long line of empty skips, all with 'garden waste' painted on them. I asked an attendant why they couldn't open up another skip to ease the congestion.

"Can't mate... it's more then me job's worth" (seriously). "wait till that one's full and then we'll use the next one".

I was in a bit of a hurry to be honest, so I thought 'bollocks to this', and started emptying my car into the next empty skip.

He ran over to me, spitting with rage. "You can't do that. It's against the rules!!".

"What are you going to do about it then?" I asked.

"I'll... I'll... cone your car off!". And indeed he did. He started placing traffic cones around my car, as though they somehow made a difference to my ability to unload my car or drive away. I carried on unloading my car.

When he'd finished, he just stood there and gave me a triumphant look. I finished unloading my car, went around to the front, picked up the cones, lobbed them into the skip and drove off, leaving the jobsworth attendant slack-jawed and speechless.
(Thu 12th May 2005, 10:12, More)

» Impulse buys

Bargain kitchen
Way back in the mists of 2003, a younger rubberduck bought a house. It needed a bit of work doing to it, but was decently sized and in otherwise good nick. Now, also being a budget-conscious sort, I was on the lookout for any bargain purchases that would make the work on my house as cheap as possible.

One fateful evening, I arrived home having spent the previous hours imbibing the finest liquids that my local alehouse had to offer, and unusually I was still feeling somewhat awake. It was then that I had a lightbulb moment. Maybe I could find some bits for my new kitchen on everybody's favourite online tat bazaar, eBay. Surely, being the early hours of the morning it was a perfect time for snapping up a bargain.

After browsing several pages of the usual overpriced tat, my eyes kept being drawn to one listing in particular. A very well known high-quality kitchen manufacturer had decided to sell a job lot of some of its old stock on eBay - according to the listing there were in excess of 5,000 cupboard dorrs, as well as numerous units etc. In my hazy, alcohol-saturated state, I reasoned that I could buy these kitchen bits, use the pieces that I wanted and make an absolute fortune selling off the bits that I didn't need individually.

I couldn't understand why it was so cheap. I won the auction for the grand price of £1.34,

What I hadn't reckoned in my drunken state was

A) How to get them from the other side of the country to where I lived

and

B)Where to store it all once I'd got it back.

I ended up having to hire a 26-tonne lorry to go and get them all, and stored these doors around my house and shed for *3 years* while I gradually sold them all. I was forced to get used to them being a way of life - making impromptu mini tables, seats and mega-size fly swatters of them. I couldn't even get into one of my bedrooms for a while.

Even to this day I develop something of a nervous tic around wood veneer surfaces. I'm not sure I can cope with the idea of yet another birch-effect wooden ironing board...
(Fri 22nd May 2009, 7:41, More)

» The Dirty Secrets of Your Trade

Emissions trickery
I work in engine and gearbox development for a nameless car manufacturer.

We were fairly convinced that we wouldn't be able to make one of our engines pass the latest round of stringent emissions tests. That is, until one of my colleagues demonstrated a fairly crafty trick...

In essence, what we've done is to divert some of the air directly from the air intake into the exhaust tract, bypassing its route through the engine completely and 'diluting' the exhaust gas. Daft as it sounds, it worked, and that's how that engine's been made for at least a couple of years. It now passes the test, despite not actually producing any fewer pollutants than it did before.
(Thu 27th Sep 2007, 11:15, More)

» I was drunk when I bought this

Bargain.
I once bought a job lot of 4,000 new Sharps and Moben wardrobe and kitchen doors on eBay whilst under the influence of many pints of Strongbow (yes, I was a student at the time).

Seemed a bargain at the time at £1.34, and was the ideal get rich quick scheme, as I reckoned I could make a tidy profit by selling them individually.

What I hadn't reckoned in my drunken state was
A) How to get them from the other side of the country to where I lived
and
B)Where to store it all once I'd got it back.

I ended up having to hire a lorry to go and get them all, and stored these doors around my house and shed for 12 months while I gradually sold them all. I just got used to them being a way of life - making impromptu mini tables, seats and mega-size fly swatters of them. I couldn't even get into one of my bedrooms for a while...

Made a nice profit in the end though, and bought a new car with the proceeds. Never again though - I'm not sure I could cope with yet another birch-veneer ironing board...
(Thu 9th Jun 2005, 13:20, More)

» When animals attack...

Loft infestation
A couple of years ago I started hearing scraping noises at night in my loft. Decided to ignore it to see if it would go away. Fast forward a fortnight, and there’s an almighty bang from the loft, and the upstairs lights go out. I ventured into the loft, to be confronted with a barbecued squirrel, with its teeth sunk into one of the electrical wires for the upstairs lights. That taught the little shit…

It was at this point I noticed the huuuuge pile of shredded up loft insulation in the corner of the loft, and a pair of beady squirrelly eyes peering at me from under the pile, growling softly, obviously seriously pissed at its partner’s electrocution. I decided to make myself scarce at this point, and disappeared down to Wilko to get some squirrel repellent.

Armed with the newly-acquired squirrel repellent and an ultrasonic animal scarer, I sprayed the repellent liberally over the nest, and mounted the ultrasonic thingy in the loft, hoping it would make it go away. I went back down into my bedroom, and it sounds like all hell is breaking loose in the loft. The squirrel is obviously going apeshit about the stuff I’ve put over its nest, making all sorts of screeching and growling noises. Stupidly, I poke my head through the loft hatch, only to have an enraged rodent sink its teeth into the bridge of my nose (I still have the scar now).

Dripping blood and very pissed off, I declared war on the squirrel, and climbed up the outside of my house and cut a hole in the eaves of the roof, and returned to the loft with a large broom. With said broom, I proceeded to sweep the squirrel out of the hole in the roof, and watched it fall into the garden below. Feeling somewhat triumphant, I suddenly became aware of some squeaking noises from the pile of loft insulation. I pulled the insulation up, only to encounter four more of the fuckers, in miniature form this time. I decided that swift action was needed on this occasion, and clubbed them to death with a handy piece of timber that I found.

Looking back on it, I feel a little bit guilty killing those baby squirrels… They were the evil grey ones though, rather than the proper red ones.
(Thu 2nd Jun 2005, 10:49, More)