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» Pathological Liars
I swear on my mum's life that every word of this post is true... O_o
Many years ago, I worked for a small sales company, and we took on a chap by the name of Ron Frudd as a rep. (That's not his real name, I've changed it to protect the innocent, ie: me).
Ron was a good laugh, and a good rep, and lived near me so started coming to my local, got friendly with my mates and the (small) part of my family that came to the pub too.
He was so full of shit though, I mean did he believe what he was telling us, or did he just try and sell us anything to see if we'd swallow it? We all knew he was bullshitting but since he was a good laugh (and it was mostly* harmless) we let it slide...
Amongst his gems were:
"Yeah, I used to have a Ferrari, it was great but if you drove it hard the engine needed rebuilding every other week"
"Ron Frudd's not my real name, I put a drug dealer in jail and he swore that when he got out he'd kill me and my family"
(this after a long speech previously about how proud of his name he was and how glad he was that he had a son to carry on the family name).
"Well yeah, I can turn pain off at will"
"I'm quite envious of you getting a tattoo, I could never do it coz I couldn't stand the pain"
"I've got a tattoo - I'm not proud of it, I'll show you one day"
(Can you see how those last three link together quite nicely?)
He was also constantly referring to his time in "The Regiment" (for those of you who don't know, that's apparently how ex-SAS members refer to the SAS), and telling us how his wife spent the whole of the first Gulf War on the phone to John Major saying "No no NO Prime Minister, he's served his country and you CAN'T have him back!"
The biggest lie though, was when he denied that he'd shagged my Mum O_o
Length? I hope I never find out...
*I did say "mostly harmless"
(Tue 4th Dec 2007, 13:47, More)
I swear on my mum's life that every word of this post is true... O_o
Many years ago, I worked for a small sales company, and we took on a chap by the name of Ron Frudd as a rep. (That's not his real name, I've changed it to protect the innocent, ie: me).
Ron was a good laugh, and a good rep, and lived near me so started coming to my local, got friendly with my mates and the (small) part of my family that came to the pub too.
He was so full of shit though, I mean did he believe what he was telling us, or did he just try and sell us anything to see if we'd swallow it? We all knew he was bullshitting but since he was a good laugh (and it was mostly* harmless) we let it slide...
Amongst his gems were:
"Yeah, I used to have a Ferrari, it was great but if you drove it hard the engine needed rebuilding every other week"
"Ron Frudd's not my real name, I put a drug dealer in jail and he swore that when he got out he'd kill me and my family"
(this after a long speech previously about how proud of his name he was and how glad he was that he had a son to carry on the family name).
"Well yeah, I can turn pain off at will"
"I'm quite envious of you getting a tattoo, I could never do it coz I couldn't stand the pain"
"I've got a tattoo - I'm not proud of it, I'll show you one day"
(Can you see how those last three link together quite nicely?)
He was also constantly referring to his time in "The Regiment" (for those of you who don't know, that's apparently how ex-SAS members refer to the SAS), and telling us how his wife spent the whole of the first Gulf War on the phone to John Major saying "No no NO Prime Minister, he's served his country and you CAN'T have him back!"
The biggest lie though, was when he denied that he'd shagged my Mum O_o
Length? I hope I never find out...
*I did say "mostly harmless"
(Tue 4th Dec 2007, 13:47, More)
» The Dirty Secrets of Your Trade
It's probably not so much a "secret"...
...but I work for the NHS.
(I'm actually a /board regular, I've made this account in case someone spots this post and I get sacked...)
The new computer modernisation program that's under way is an utter shambles. It's over budget, behind schedule, and in the vast majority of cases, leaves hospitals with a new system that isn't as good as their old one.
Where I work we went live with a new Patient Admin system earlier this year. This system is supposed to keep track of where patients are, when their appointments are, stuff like that.
There's no audit trail, so if someone dies and the family sues us we've got no way of telling who recorded stuff or when - the stuff that we can find out is unreliable because the server changes the information when it runs scripts and backups, so one day it could look like a patient's appointment was booked on the 15th of May at 3 o'clock by Jane Smith, the next day it will say that it was booked on the 31st of August by "Administrative User".
The users hate it - one secretary spoke to me and said "It used to take me 4 clicks to get into this screen on the old system, now it takes 18"... 18 clicks, just to access one piece of information!
/rant
(Tue 2nd Oct 2007, 13:40, More)
It's probably not so much a "secret"...
...but I work for the NHS.
(I'm actually a /board regular, I've made this account in case someone spots this post and I get sacked...)
The new computer modernisation program that's under way is an utter shambles. It's over budget, behind schedule, and in the vast majority of cases, leaves hospitals with a new system that isn't as good as their old one.
Where I work we went live with a new Patient Admin system earlier this year. This system is supposed to keep track of where patients are, when their appointments are, stuff like that.
There's no audit trail, so if someone dies and the family sues us we've got no way of telling who recorded stuff or when - the stuff that we can find out is unreliable because the server changes the information when it runs scripts and backups, so one day it could look like a patient's appointment was booked on the 15th of May at 3 o'clock by Jane Smith, the next day it will say that it was booked on the 31st of August by "Administrative User".
The users hate it - one secretary spoke to me and said "It used to take me 4 clicks to get into this screen on the old system, now it takes 18"... 18 clicks, just to access one piece of information!
/rant
(Tue 2nd Oct 2007, 13:40, More)
» The Dirty Secrets of Your Trade
Final one for now.
Being promoted to a new project in the NHS:
"We want you to run this amazing new flagship project for us. It'll be a real feather in your cap, and it will be great on your CV."
"Oh, except that you need a team of 12 people and we can only give you 8, so you'll have to make do..."
"But that's okay, because we've only got room for 7 desks."
"And 6 PCs"
"Also, they're not quite up to minimum spec for this new system, but they're pretty good so it should be okay."
"Oh, and there's no-one to take over your old position so could you keep an eye on that too?"
Ace.
(Tue 2nd Oct 2007, 13:44, More)
Final one for now.
Being promoted to a new project in the NHS:
"We want you to run this amazing new flagship project for us. It'll be a real feather in your cap, and it will be great on your CV."
"Oh, except that you need a team of 12 people and we can only give you 8, so you'll have to make do..."
"But that's okay, because we've only got room for 7 desks."
"And 6 PCs"
"Also, they're not quite up to minimum spec for this new system, but they're pretty good so it should be okay."
"Oh, and there's no-one to take over your old position so could you keep an eye on that too?"
Ace.
(Tue 2nd Oct 2007, 13:44, More)
» The Dirty Secrets of Your Trade
Ok, just one more.
Within my job (in the NHS), I come across people quite often who have no idea what they're doing - these are different from the people I mentioned below who appear to do nothing.
These people have clearly defined roles, they just never seem to actually do them.
Projects grind to a halt with "Oh, we're just waiting for so-and-so to get those figures" or "We asked such-and-such to find out how much it would cost and he hasn't got back to us yet", etc.
Why aren't these people sacked?
(Tue 2nd Oct 2007, 13:47, More)
Ok, just one more.
Within my job (in the NHS), I come across people quite often who have no idea what they're doing - these are different from the people I mentioned below who appear to do nothing.
These people have clearly defined roles, they just never seem to actually do them.
Projects grind to a halt with "Oh, we're just waiting for so-and-so to get those figures" or "We asked such-and-such to find out how much it would cost and he hasn't got back to us yet", etc.
Why aren't these people sacked?
(Tue 2nd Oct 2007, 13:47, More)
» The Dirty Secrets of Your Trade
Another NHS one...
The NHS (at least where I work) seems to be at least 40% staffed by people who appear to have no discernible purpose whatsoever. You see them all the time; they never appear to be doing anything, they wander around all over the hospital, sometimes looking purposeful and sometimes just wandering... sometimes they send out emails reminding us to do stuff that they clearly don't understand, and that's it.
The really galling thing is that they earn far more money than me for doing this.
(Tue 2nd Oct 2007, 13:42, More)
Another NHS one...
The NHS (at least where I work) seems to be at least 40% staffed by people who appear to have no discernible purpose whatsoever. You see them all the time; they never appear to be doing anything, they wander around all over the hospital, sometimes looking purposeful and sometimes just wandering... sometimes they send out emails reminding us to do stuff that they clearly don't understand, and that's it.
The really galling thing is that they earn far more money than me for doing this.
(Tue 2nd Oct 2007, 13:42, More)