» Workplace Boredom

Late Night Exploring
You think you've got the ultimate workplace dossing-around solutions? You don't know the half of it!

Working, as I do, for a large media company (name? come on, I'm not *that* stupid) gives opportunities the average office-monkey can only dream of. I'm in the prefect position of working shifts, which means I'm around in the middle of the night. The security are mostly arthritic and over 40, so we've pretty much got the run of the place.

You can sneak around the sets of a well-known soap opera, trying to slip small items into visible positions and then see them on TV (sadly, it's more difficult than you think... they take polaroids of everything to make sure!).

You can take some of your colleagues down to wardrobe and see what fits you (the time we found a sodding great box of school uniforms was great - who can beat an evening of St. Trinians style transvestism?)

Using sound studios for wind-up calls is good too. These range in subtlety from using the odd sound effect CD to make your housemate think the living room has been invaded by sheep, right through to using voice-changing gizmos to ring your mother and pretend to be a Dalek. (In case any anoraks are wondering, the secret is to use a ring modulator at 20hz, and then shout down it).

Then there's the brilliance that is the annual Christmas Tape. For those that don't know, these are a broadcasting tradition that go back years. They're the forerunner of programmes like "It'll be Alright on the Night" and "Auntie's Bloomers", a nice collection of the year's cock ups edited together with plenty of spoofs and thoroughly non-PC humour. If you want a good feel for how fantastic some of these can be (featuring stuff they'd never, in a million years, allow on air) do a You Tube search for "Good King Memorex" or "White Powder Christmas".

There's many more, some I *really* can't speak of (in order to protect the guilty) and some which I would type-up if I wasn't too tired at the moment (like the fun we used to have in the good old days of tin-pot local radio, and the magnificence that is "Car Park Challenge")

Click 'I Like This' if you think I should bother.

Edit - OK, OK... you win... new post on the way!
(Fri 9th Jan 2009, 0:55, More)

» Workplace Boredom

Car Park Challenge...
OK then, you asked for it.

This one was dreamed up by a couple of colleagues and myself in the days when I (occasionally) worked in Liverpool. The rules go like this:

1) Drive into a large (the taller the better) multi-storey car park.

2) Park on the very top level, and go off and do your shopping/work/whatever else people do in Liverpool.

3) Return to your car and drive to the very top of the first ramp.

4) Take your car out of gear.

The object of the game is to see if you can make it all the way back to the bottom without using the engine.

Sounds simple, I know... but you have to make sure you get enough momentum going from one ramp to take you to the start of the next one. The feeling you get when the car is just slowing to a halt as you reach the next ramp and then starts moving again is unbeatable!

There are different 'grades' of car park too. Ones with a big spiral ramp would be a '0', because they're piss-easy. The further apart the ramps are the higher the grade. This game even used to have it's own theme tune. It was some cheesy 60's library music I found on an old CD, can't for the life of me remember what it was called though.

On a serious note, some people have been known to turn their engine off. This is NOT a good idea as, depending on your car, you may lose your power steering and brake servo.

Now, you might be sitting there thinking "What a load of childish bollocks", and you'd be right. However, I bet you £20 and a packet of Jaffa Cakes the next time you're in a big car park, you *are* going to try it!
(Fri 9th Jan 2009, 12:25, More)

» Call Centres

TV Licensing....
Automated Phone Woman: Please say the full postcode of your old address

Me: blah blah blah

Automated Phone Woman: Thank you. Please say the name or number of the building.

Me: 5

Automated Phone Woman: Sorry, I didn't get that. Please say the name or number of the building.

Me: 5

Automated Phone Woman: Sorry, I didn't get that either. Please blah blah blah....

Me: FIVE!

Automated Phone Woman: Sorry....

Me: (getting annoyed by this point) FUCK YOU!

Automated Phone Woman: Thank you. I am now transferring you to an operator

Operator: Hello TV Licensing...

Me: *Uncontrollable Laughter*


Apparently (so people in the know have told me) some of these systems are programmed to recognise swear-words in order to detect pissed-off callers and send them to a real person. This knowledge has dramatically changed how I use a telephone...
(Thu 3rd Sep 2009, 12:53, More)

» Shit Stories: Part Number Two

How To Get a Very Strange Look from a Famous Newsreader
(It's sort of taken as read, that you have a job with a large TV station, the name of which I dare not breathe, just in case...)

1) Eat a large sticky chocolate muffin, found lurking in the office.

2) Head for the lavs, in order to wash the sticky brown marks from your digits.

3) Decide to 'kill two birds' and have a quick Jimmy-Riddle beforehand.

4) Flush, emerge from stall, and stand at washbasin (complete with brown sticky fingers) next to said newsreader.

Click 'I Like This' if you think I should smile and lick my fingers next time...
(Sun 30th Mar 2008, 18:57, More)

» Cheap Tat

Honest, I'm Not a Thief...
Not me, but a friend of a friend, and the offending item was one of those steering wheel locks, as purchased from a scouser on a market.

It was used a couple of times on his vintage motor with no problems. A week later he heard the worrying 'snap' of the key in the lock, leaving the car immobilised in the supermarket car park with no easy way of getting home.

Fortunately, this being a cheap piece of automotive rubbish, the long metal bar (that normally stops you driving the car by hitting the windscreen) could easily be bent back with a few whacks from the hammer in his boot... problem solved.

Convincing the police office he met on the way home, that it *was* his car and he *wasn't* some scally car thief, was another matter entirely....
(Sun 6th Jan 2008, 22:27, More)