Little Things That Irk You: The Hateful 08

[fishbowlhead]

Short stay drop off & pick up at Heathrow (terminal 3), the bit directly outside the terminal, do you have to pay for this now? Or is it pay only when you go inside the multistory through the barrier, i see new signs up this morning but was in a rush so didn’t read it.

[Hirst]

I'd be amazed if an airport as big as Heathrow has free drop-off and pick-up. Manchester charges £5 for 5 minutes (and £6 for 10).

Even poxy Leeds Bradford charges £5 for 10 minutes nowadays, but there is free 1-hour parking situated quite far away from the terminal as my elderly parents found out when they were going to Greece and I was doing their dropoff and pickup. I'm not paying £5.

[Anpanman]

Yep and go over ten and it's £25, plus you have to pay for a trolley - non refundable. If they could charge for oxygen they would.

[Colin]

Last night while driving home I pulled in to the fast lane at just over 70mph to overtake slower traffic, then out of nowhere I had one of those ridiculously big Bentley SUV's behind me giving it full beam. Now, I don't normally resort to this kind of stuff, but I decided to counter his aggression to slowing to bang on 70 while still consistently passing cars in the slow lane, much to Mr Bentleys frustration. After a few cars I indicated to pull over, but he then decides to whack his full beam on again and blasting the horn. Guess what? I decided to just continue passing traffic at 70 until my slip road came up. I'm sick to death of aggressive driving these days, and it seems to fall firmly in three groups -

Mega expensive SUV's.
Any Audi.
Any BMW.

It's a sweeping generalisation, but I now just assume anyone who owns any of the above is a cock.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Has anyone ever studied why it's BMWs and Audis?
I have my own idea, that it has to do with the price. They are expensive enough for people to feel superior, but cheap enough for most people to get one (second hand). That, plus the above average power and its a potent combination.

Price + Power + brand = Wanker

[eastyy]

Has anyone ever studied why it's BMWs and Audis?
I have my own idea, that it has to do with the price. They are expensive enough for people to feel superior, but cheap enough for most people to get one (second hand). That, plus the above average power and its a potent combination.

Price + Power + brand = Wanker

Plus if you get one second hand the indicator has never been used so not worn out

[Cassius_Smoke]

Plus if you get one second hand the indicator has never been used so not worn out

I thought they broke the indicator stick off when you buy the car?! Like a ceremony.

[Hirst]

I'm not sure if this is an irk or a grin or whatever yet, but at the moment it is just stressful so I'll go with "irk". I have worked at the same place since 2004, local authority job, always broadly been doing the same thing. Job title has changed now and then due to random management reshufflings but basically I'm some sort of finance officer and always have been. This entails looking after the system, bit of debt collection and tracing people who've vanished, some legal junk like CCJs. Nothing thrilling or interesting, but I'm good at it by now.

A few weeks back we got notice that there was to be a major restructure, we get called for a big meeting with one of the head chiefs. They assure us there is no intention of redundancies, it's just a "lift and drop" reshuffle type thing. Some people will move to another department, some areas will be merged, nobody should really lose out, that's basically that. Usual nonsense I've been through about 5 times in my career here which largely just means I have to spend a day changing all the letterheads and my job title gets amended to something else but basically - another day another dollar.

We then got a second meeting with a different manager and it seems the first one was either a liar or a coward (or both), because there are quite a lot of job posts being deleted... including several of the post I share with a few others. This did include some vacant posts, but it does mean that there would be (at least) one real job lost. Following various other informal discussions and weird bits of info, it seems that the position is one of these two.

1. I get made redundant, given a few grand and told to sod off to the dole queue. Not really ideal if a recession is just kicking in and at a time where all the other alternative places I could go to work will be shedding staff too. I would be potentially screwed, as my experience is largely specific to what I do in a local authority.
2. I am going to be promoted to a team leader position which has more-or-less been set up for me to be dropped into. I might have to undertake some kind of formal qualification as part of it, which I wouldn't really want to do, but I guess I'd just have to so I'm not lying in the gutter with a can of Karpackie 9% waiting for Kyle Reese to warp in and steal my trousers.

I don't know what's going to happen and I'm panicking like mad over it, I feel like my head might cave in.

[QualityChimp]

I liked your post, but partially in support and partially for the Kyle Reese reference, not for the redundancies part.

[Lebowski]

I'm not sure if this is an irk or a grin or whatever yet, but at the moment it is just stressful so I'll go with "irk". I have worked at the same place since 2004, local authority job, always broadly been doing the same thing. Job title has changed now and then due to random management reshufflings but basically I'm some sort of finance officer and always have been. This entails looking after the system, bit of debt collection and tracing people who've vanished, some legal junk like CCJs. Nothing thrilling or interesting, but I'm good at it by now.

A few weeks back we got notice that there was to be a major restructure, we get called for a big meeting with one of the head chiefs. They assure us there is no intention of redundancies, it's just a "lift and drop" reshuffle type thing. Some people will move to another department, some areas will be merged, nobody should really lose out, that's basically that. Usual nonsense I've been through about 5 times in my career here which largely just means I have to spend a day changing all the letterheads and my job title gets amended to something else but basically - another day another dollar.

We then got a second meeting with a different manager and it seems the first one was either a liar or a coward (or both), because there are quite a lot of job posts being deleted... including several of the post I share with a few others. This did include some vacant posts, but it does mean that there would be (at least) one real job lost. Following various other informal discussions and weird bits of info, it seems that the position is one of these two.

1. I get made redundant, given a few grand and told to sod off to the dole queue. Not really ideal if a recession is just kicking in and at a time where all the other alternative places I could go to work will be shedding staff too. I would be potentially screwed, as my experience is largely specific to what I do in a local authority.
2. I am going to be promoted to a team leader position which has more-or-less been set up for me to be dropped into. I might have to undertake some kind of formal qualification as part of it, which I wouldn't really want to do, but I guess I'd just have to so I'm not lying in the gutter with a can of Karpackie 9% waiting for Kyle Reese to warp in and steal my trousers.

I don't know what's going to happen and I'm panicking like mad over it, I feel like my head might cave in.

I've been there and at the time it felt like the worst but you have to think theirs loads of support to get you into new jobs and we still have very high employment, we also have a real skill shortage in the UK thanks to Brexit, the company i work at has really struggled to fill positions with reliable staff due to it being an employees market still.

I was made redundant in the last recession it sucked i got nothing as id only been their just under a year so i was cheap to get rid of, they took 10 of us into a meeting and while we where in their they took the rest of the office into another meeting. our redundancy was effective immediately this was one month before Christmas and they told us they wanted to do it now and not in January so we didn't get into debt over Christmas, like they where doing us a favor., We had 10 minutes to clear out our desk before being escorted off the premises, No good bye to any of the people we'd worked with just a packup and get out. It was one of the worst company's id ever worked for and i didn't realise how toxic it was until i got out too and i'm much happier now and also paid a lot better too.

[Asura]

No good-buys to any of the people we'd worked with just a packup and get out.

I had a row with the last employer who laid me off, as on my final day, they took my security pass (fine, nothing weird about that) but then asked that I used the rear fire door to leave (which went straight into the car park).

Now, I don't think it was malicious; it was just because that door didn't require a pass to be opened from the inside, and it didn't require me to go past any offices; it was directly outside of the office in which I was placed to work out my redundancy.

Still, I thought it was crass and I had an argument with the HR/security person as I told them, point-blank, that I'd worked there for years and if I was going to leave, it was going to be out the front ****ing door, and I wasn't asking. As it happens I did leave out of the front door, though they had a security person walk me there.

This really does sour your feelings about a place.

[Hirst]

My main worry is that my most useful skills are pretty specific to local authority (council) work and there won't be a single council in the country that isn't having to severely tighten their belt now. However, I've been talking and it seems a bit more promising now, certainly more leaning towards promotion than dole at the moment. Would have to interview for it though and there's every chance they do something stupid like require a qualification I don't have or give it to some other chump from another department. Fingers crossed.

In a weird way, it makes me more stressed that the options are between promotion and redundancy than it would if it was just the threat of losing my job. It feels like I'm a gambler doing "double or nothing". If I do get made redundant and end up in some lousy job, it's going to really hurt that I briefly had the prospect of an almost decent wage dangled in front of me. Sounds as though I'll find out within October.

[Brad]

Best of luck Hirst. That sucks mate. Fingers crossed for you.

Asura’s dismissal post reminded me…

Not a redundancy but 2 jobs back, when I left they wanted me to sign a document waiving my rights to all sorts of things lol. I told legal they should have asked me to sign that when I joined. They made the mistake of sending their legal guy down to my desk to discuss it, so the rest of the office heard. I told him there was nothing in that document that benefitted me, only them. We went through each problem and at the end he said “so, if I get all these changes made..” and I said “oh I still won’t sign it”.

[Blobcat]

Yeah when the pension rules changed when all employers had to offer some sort of pension the ****ing abysmal nursing home I worked in was quick to hold a meeting to explain and (illegally I should add) put us off signing up for it.

Not to be mean to my fellow colleagues but there was a sizable percent who did not understand much about pensions and such but understood "your money being split into 5 other companies will be hard to trace" is bad. I know jack **** about pensions personally but I knew having a pension was better than non and having one where the company paid in when you paid in sounded good to me. I confirmed that they paid in when I did at the meeting loudly and said "Oh well sign me up then!" I was not earning enough for the pension money to make much of an impact for me , but if it was costing my company money even if I never saw it, I was going to sign up for it.

I had 6 months of them dragging their feet to start it and I had supposedly the owner email me to ask why I wanted it/ put me off. When I questioned what the problem was and should I seek a lawyer/ solicitor to look over it, they shut up and I saw the changes in my pay cheque.

I was only there for another few months before I could finally leave and I think I was one of 3 in 50+ staff that took the pension on. I didn't care overall about the pension as it was pittance but if it meant me signing up for it would cause annoyance and money for that ****ty place I took it.

[speedlolita]

One of my PS2 died. A GS reflow may help but I'll just mark it a spares console for now.