» My computer gave away my secrets

Ebay gum
T'was a couple of years ago now that yours truly worked for a regional marketing organisation who, as one of their profitable sidelines, sold event tickets for gigs, theatres, sport events, fitbae games and the like.

After working there for a while and becoming familiar with the ins and outs of ticketing I learnt a colleague had been purchasing staff advance tickets for high profile events and ebaying them on the snide.

Coining the phrase monkey see, monkey do, I invested in a pair of front row Kylie tickets at 75 dinars a pair before they officially went on sale. During the long slow shift t'next day, I uploaded my ebay ad and waited.

Five days later I had made £225. I was hooked like a mo'fo' crackhead.

Over the following six months I and a few colleagues sold approximately 120 tickets. Our customers ranged from WWF fans who would pay anything to get ringside with The Cobbler of Death or Shawn 'Midget Masher' Jones, to Elton John fans (Particularly desperate. Wankers.)

I made a pretty packet which admittedly went on skunk, partying and yes...more tickets.

One day at work I had a problem with the new £200K software package we were all using so I took a screen shot and emailed it to my boss...uh fucking oh my toolbar had btinternet, yahoo, chat sites and ebay open on it. At this point I should explain that the organisations HR policies and overall management was akin to a Libyan army regime. My boss picked up on the toolbar thing - I protested complete innocence 'They are all pop ups' I cried. 'Dost thou trust me not?' I heard no more...

Maybe a few months down the line, the HR rep and one of our bosses comes over to the team and asks us all to have a ten minute break away from our desks. Sucked in, we think its great, our employers are finally loosening up. It was at this point I get a phone call from a colleague (part of the Al-Ebay network) in another office who tells me she has just been suspended for gross misconduct.

Shit. Fan. Hit. I took a sneaky look over at my pc and the two bosses were standing around it looking at the Ebay page on the screen and pointing.

Minutes later I was being escorted off the premises.

'We'll be in contact with a date for your disciplinary'

At the hearing they presented me with shedloads of internet history of my activities (i was meticulous about deleting history obviously some shithead in IT was cleverer) and printouts from the ticketing software. They had been watching me for a while.

Miss Conduct of the Gross variety apparently.
(Fri 10th Feb 2006, 13:33, More)

» Missing body parts

Skool daze
I had three teachers at school who were missing body parts:

Mr Atkinson, Geography
Owner of one metal leg

Mr Riley, Woodwork
One stylish eye patch

Mrs Bell, English
One plastic hand

Dont know if it was school policy to hire ex-circus staff but if you happened to be in a corridor when all three walk past simultaeneously, you could pretend you were on the Jolly Roger or in Vietnam.

Gawd bless 'em...
(Fri 2nd Jun 2006, 13:38, More)

» Restaurants, Kitchens and Bars... Oh my!

Revenge of the Barman: Part IV
Some moons ago I was working in an estate pub, a spit and sawdust affair with plenty of local characters.

Although officially a barman, I also heated up bar snacks such as chicken burgers, beef burgers and hot dogs in a funky little halogen oven type thing (I hadnt been promoted to Saturday cheese and onion baguette chef yet).

One regular customer was a real source of irritation for me. He would be the person that knew everthing, had to be centre of attention and spitefully picked on some of the older blokes trying to enjoy a quiet pint. This loudmouth had some kind of ongoing liver disease, and had carried on drinking despite warnings to the contrary.

He and I sparred quite few times until turning to confrontations, they hit a hiatus one day and he royally pissed me off.

A couple of days later he came in and ordered a cheeseburger and a pint of Carling. The burgers usually needed defrosting before being put in the halogen oven. I didnt bother this time, so when it seemed hot enough I added ketchup, along with some optic cleaner, greasy unidentifiable black scrapings from the bottom of the halogen oven, some cigarette ash and a slice of Lidl's finest processed cheese to finish.

I brought the burger to the bar, and proceeded to pour a pint into the glass i had kept under the bar especially for him as it had a small dash of optic cleaner in it. One of the chemicals in the cleaner had laxative effects if ingested so the more the better. He drank, ate and left early.

I didnt see him for three long weeks during which I had some terrible thoughts about liver disease/chemical reactions. He was normally in the pub come rain or shine - at one point I convinced myself that I'd killed him.

But the bastard returned with a vengeance, complaining to the landlord that a dodgy burger had given him viral gastroenteritis. He recounted how he had been shitting blood at one point and had been taken to hospital in an ambulance. Despite being forty something, he still lived with his mum and the whole episode had given her a chronic fear that he was dying of liver failure. Which he did in the end.

Not guilty your honour.
(Fri 21st Jul 2006, 15:27, More)

» Apparently I'm a sex offender

Confessions of a 13 year old cleaner
I guess the following is an inverse answer to this QOTW, however I could really do with the therapy. Long story, bear with me...

When I was 13, I was a bit of a tearaway; naughty and mischievious but always quite naive. After school had broken up for summer that year, I pestered my parents for money to go out with. Bored and annoyed, my parents tried to set me up with a paper round which I refused to do. Couple of weeks into the holidays, bored and broke, I gave in to my mums brainwave of putting a card in the window of the local newsagents, advertising my services as a gardener/cleaner probably with the good intentions of having some rich old widow take me on to carry her shopping.

Eventually an old man called Stan rang and asked if I could come and do some jobs around his flat. Reluctantly, I met him a few days later and we caught a bus to his tower block. He seemed very friendly and chatted a lot and when we got into his flat, I was surprised to see it was very clean and tidy.

For the next hour or so he got me doing completely unneccessary jobs like sweeping the 0.0003 dirt particles that were on the floor and dusting the already sparkling furniture. I was feeling mildly uneasy at the time but being naive didnt really understand why. Stan made me a ham sandwich and glass of pop and whilst I was tucking in out of the blue, I felt his hands on me, rubbing my shoulders from behind.

"Do you like being massaged?" Stan asked.

Oh fuck.

I replied "no, not really" in a little scared rabbit voice, and leant forward in the chair out of his reach. He didnt say anything but put his hands back on my neck and shoulders. At this point, I shot up out of the chair and stammered some excuse about 'having to go'. He gave me a tenner and saw me off at the door without saying anything else.

I was a bit worked up for the rest of the day and didnt bother telling my parents because I thought I would be lectured for not finishing the job (ahem). Then I just forgot about it.

Maybe about six years later I saw him and memories of the whole episode flooded back. I realised how close I had been to getting bummed by a dirty old man for ten pounds and a Vimto. He was in a bus queue and looked at me with slight recognition. I was a bit shocked and just blurted out "What the fuck are you looking at?" which frightened him a bit.

So there you go. I often thought about the possibility that he was a serial sex offender and about reporting him to the police, but my experience seemed nothing in comparison to sensationally tragic stories which seem to be continually plastered all over the media.

Apologies for length, but as a shrivelled old raisin of a man, he probably didnt have any.
(Fri 18th Aug 2006, 13:01, More)

» The Worst Journey in the World

Flying from Birmingham to Tunisia
Plane takes off, we were in the air for about twenty minutes, when the captains voice came over the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have to announce that there is a problem with the plane"

Cue increase in heart rates, worried glances and whispers throughout the passengers. I put my arm around my girlfriend, frantically preparing my last words - all the things I had wanted to tell her before we plummeted to our death.

"There is no hot water in the galley and therefore tea and coffee will not be available on this flight."
(Fri 8th Sep 2006, 14:38, More)