People testing for Helicobacter
must have a shit time
(Biff..., Fri 28 May 2010, 14:18, 1 reply)

The professionally unemployed
This is probably going to be a bit of a rant. Before I start, I want to make it clear I'm not talking about unemployed people in general. Most of us at some point have left a job or been made redundant and had to spend time looking for work. Especially "In These Tough Economic Times" it's not uncommon. Unemployment is usually a stage between employments, where one hunts for employment. That's why the state-funded bolster is now called a "jobseeker's allowance".

What pisses me off are the people who objected to it having its name changed to that because it was previously called "unemployment benefit", because that's how they see it: if you're unemployed, then someone should be paying you. They hate that you now have to actually try and find a job in order to keep claiming your money - money that they think they have a right to be given because they don't want to work, that it's the State's responsibility to fund their laziness.

I know I'm only describing a minority of people, and I really don't want to come over all Daily Mail here (we'll get on to that later), but the attitude and sense of entitlement some of these people have is truly stupefying.

I've been a teacher; I've spent plenty of time working in GP surgeries; one of my best friends is a social worker, many of my friends are now doctors and one friend has the misfortune (or the courage) to work in a Jobcentre. I've seen, and heard of, countless cases:

- women who will have another baby to try and demonstrate their commitment to the latest feckless nomadic neanderthal who's grunted his way through the neighbourhood, with the added bonus that having another child means you get to move house (I didn't know that families are entitled to one bedroom per child in council house allocations either until J told me: spawn another, get a bigger house)

- families where the children wear their filthy school uniform at weekends because they have no other clothes but there's always money for the mum's Stella, fags and bingo and they've got a plasma screen TV and a clutch of games consoles,

- mums that are given the Argos catalogue by social workers and told to pick what their children need - ever wondered why you see chavs wandering around with several hundred pound baby buggies?

- kids that arrive at school unable to spell their own name, or name primary colours, with speech and behavioural problems because they've been sat in front of the brightly flashing TV from birth and no-one's ever conversed with them,

- patients with no illness who will book GP appointments because they've run out of ibuprofen, knowing that a pack will cost 50p in the supermarket but they get free prescriptions so they'll stock up that way,

- "unfit to work" patients, usually overweight men, who ham it up so badly and claim agonising pains and difficulty even using crutches to try and continue getting disability benefit but are then seen doing building work on the sly for cash,

- the "bad men", the "rude boys", the stupid pricks with the anger problems who suck their teeth and drive shabby blacked-out BMWs, deal crap drugs and think that condoms aren't for real men, who cajole and screw any woman they can, until she gets pregnant (usually after she gets a tattoo) to prove her devotion to them, who run off to the next poor gullible girl, leaving a trail of seriously messed up kids who'll inevitably grow up like their dads, thinking women are meant to breed, men are meant to be penis-driven wanderers at the whim of their animal wills and everyone is meant to be given money to do this.

Plenty of these people's neighbours work incredibly hard, sometimes two or three jobs, in order to afford the same things that the professionally unemployed get given. And I've heard several of our patients complain that there's no work out there, usually because "the immigrants are taking all the jobs" - OK, crikey, here goes the next rant - they're not TAKING the jobs, if you're too lazy to find a job or think that certain jobs are beneath you, the immigrants are DOING the jobs, because you won't. Who's cleaning toilets? Flipping burgers? Emptying waste bins? Mopping floors? Sweeping streets? Doing a hundred other menial jobs that you look down on and think you're too good for? Yes, often immigrants - people who have come over here to WORK, to earn money for themselves, by WORKING, who usually work incredibly hard because they appreciate the opportunity to earn a living wage from a crappy job and understand that to look after their family they need to EARN the money to support them.

The selfish arrogance behind the sense of entitlement riles me beyond measure. "But it's my right" is heard far too much from a tiny number of people. This isn't a party political thing. It's not a class thing. It's not a race thing. It's not a wealth thing. It's just that I wish there was some way to tell the whingeing scroungers who turn up at the surgery week after week griping about how they're not being given all they're "entitled" to, to SHUT UP, GROW UP AND GET A FUCKING JOB.
( sanityclause is waiting until, Fri 28 May 2010, 14:08, 75 replies)

Bee Keepers
I wish they'd all just buzz off.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 28 May 2010, 14:07, Reply)

Senior Academics
If I were, say, selecting the England cricket team and I asked you to play, the reponse, "I'd love to, but I refuse to bat, bowl or field or come on tour, but I'll take that England cap and share the glory of any subsequent victory..." would not be acceptable.

So, instead of spending 10 minutes writing me a shouty email about how the small administrative task you have been asked to do for your course is taking up too much of your precious and important research time, spend that 10 minutes actually doing that task then maybe you won't send me to an early grave due to chronic hypertension.

You might also like to bear in mind that you have tenure. I don't. I'm constantly walking on a knife edge, whereas you could be caught sodomising your entire research group with a pipette anally raping your entire research group with a YAG laser (*) and it would still be difficult to fire you...

(*) edited for improved hyperbole
(Rakky (forgot her password) The muffin maverick, Fri 28 May 2010, 13:39, 7 replies)

Poncey photographers.
They're all cunts. All they fucking do is push a button on a machine that does it all for them.
"But we're so arty". Bollocks - cunts the lot of them.
(discopants, Fri 28 May 2010, 13:26, 18 replies)

HR
What the hell do they do all day, nobody seems to know, the departments always seem to be full of themselves and harp on about how important they are and are always bloated full of usless pricks who don't even seem to know what they do.

Plus thanks to HR the missus has been off work on and off for the last couple of years due to stress, mainly caused by HR being a bunch of lazy cnuts who don't know what they or anyone else do on a day to day basis.
(bluehamster, Fri 28 May 2010, 13:22, 2 replies)

BT and all who work within
I have not yet heard mention of the epic funtbags that are Shitish TeleCON and the brain dead, non-English speaking colostomy bags they employ to answer the phones.

When I moved into my new place, we called BT and asked them to activate the line. Despite the fact that there clearly was a phone line installed and that we were still getting the previous occupiers BT bills, they insisted there has never been a phone line at our address and we needed a line installed and that this would cost £200. We eventually accepted this as it seemed the only way. It was then suggested to us that we find the last occupiers number and see if that convinces them we have a line. It took at least three separate calls to three various call centre monkeys before someone actually looked up the phone number which we had illgally opened someone else's post to obtain, before they accepted our house had a phone line. We then had to cancel our original order and start a new one, but for several weeks we had two accounts on the go, because the dick heads in Bangalore kept reactivating the original account.

Once it was established several weeks later that we no longer had to pay an extortionate connection fee, I had to take a day off to wait for an enginner to come round to set us up for the phone and broadband. He did his thing and we were told 24 hours and the line would be ready to use and a couple of days and the internet would be ready. Would it fuck!


Over the next three weeks we had about 4 different broadband activation dates, each came and went without the internet being activated and every time we would have to phone some Outer Mongolian call centre just so some bloke who probably has a PhD in nuclear physics can appologise to us, because he has absoultly no idea what is going on.

Eventually we cancelled the internet order, but even telling the lady who did the customer satisfaction survey with us did not give me the little victory I had hoped for as her sigh let me know I was at least the 50th person she had spoken to that day who told her the company is a big pile of doggy do. We are still stuck with the phone line because it was over the 21 day cooling off period, but I vowed to never use BT for anything ever again and demanded they take at least 3 months line rental off our bill, which they graciously agreed to do.

Fast forward 3 months and our first BT bill arrives demanding over 200 pounds for 3 months line rental and a one off activation charge. 2 phone calls and over 2 hours on hold later my helpful assistant ***said in strong Bangladeshi accent*** "Joshua" confirms with me that these charges have been cancelled and that a new bill is being sent out and I have let him know in no uncertain terms that I have his full name and am recording the time of the call and if he fucks me over I will insist he is fired.

In short BT, its directors, its staff and its shareholders are all lying, incompetent, epic shits who have wasted around a 12 hours of my life in the last 6 months by making me wait on hold. I hope that tosser from 'My Family' and his new wife and kids die in a horrible boating accident on the Solent. Seriously who the fuck rings 118 for the number of a curry house and what directory enquires service recognises "The High Street" as a full address?

Arseholes.
(Bam Bam McPenis will change all this when he is fuhrer., Fri 28 May 2010, 13:20, 7 replies)

I don't like those scientists that do tests for diabetes.
They make my blood boil.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 28 May 2010, 13:18, 4 replies)

Personnel / 'human resources' types
Has anyone ever met one that does not have the biggest car crash of a personal life? Says much about their skills, doesn't it?
(Jack of Diamonds, Fri 28 May 2010, 13:17, Reply)

"Do you need any help"?
"So I just...like...look on the shelves and see if there is anything I want? Is that how shopping works? Because somehow, despite the fact I have dress myself, gotten myself into your shop, started looking at merchandise, started reading the descriptions on the back of the box and managed, throughout the whole process, to not shit myself with fear an confusion, I don't understand the idea of shopping and need a tit in a bad suit and twattular facial hair to explain it to me."

If I'm busy looking at stuff I don't want shop assistants to bother me
(teebie jeebie, Fri 28 May 2010, 13:10, 20 replies)

Ticket inspectors
In Dublin there is a light rail system called Luas, its faster than the bus and fairly cheap so I use it often, so do lots of other people. Most people use it to go from A to B, some however use it as a mobile pub/toilet/drug den. At the ticket machines in the city center there are usually a few tracksuit garbed scumbags who spend all day drinking druids cider and asking for spare change. When enough of the tracksuits have gotten together and loaded up on booze they sometimes hop on the Luas for a bit.

This is were my hatred of the ticket inspectors comes from, are the scumbags ever asked for a ticket? never that I have seen, the inspectors simply walk past & let them party on. Now you might say that they dont want a fight and are not paid to take risks like that, do they call security? Nope they just get off at the next stop after checking tickets & issuing fines only to people who look like they wont argue.

The Luas has now developed a reputation as a means of ferrying shouty drunks & junkies around.

BTW Luas translated into english means speed, its not an acronym for lightrail usually awash in scum.
(cname, Fri 28 May 2010, 13:06, 1 reply)

Airline staff who get commission for charging you extra on the bag
They're scum, although not as much as the grinning bastard behind it all.

And yes, I'm talking about Crynair.com
( jeevesandfister, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:55, 27 replies)

TV News Reporters
Needy egomaniacs, the story is not about you, get out of shot then we can see what's going on without you stood in the way.

Who do I work with almost every day...... TV News Reporters,
What does my wife do for a living.......
My life is rubbish.
(Barnetboy, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:48, Reply)

Cockney Builders
Loud, aggressive, opinionated and arrogant, the lot of them, at least in my experience.
(Haywood Manley, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:46, 3 replies)

Those fancy new "sharkskin glove masseuses" you get.
They rub me up the wrong way.
(StapMyVitals wouldn't mind a bit of that, Fri 28 May 2010, 12:36, 1 reply)

Fluffers.
They have terrible breath.
(Tugnut I got them all..., Fri 28 May 2010, 12:19, 3 replies)

The best advice I ever received was
"If you don't do it, I will kill you."
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:57, Reply)

My dad's advice to me...
"Never Procrastinate son, because by the time you get around to doing something, it'll probably be too late."

I never did listen to him.
(Dante licked your nipple on, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:44, 2 replies)

Recruitment Consultants
I know someone's mentioned them already, but I feel they need a more detailed going over. With some manner of blunt instrument, preferably, but in lieu of that I'll settle for some rant.

You see, I'm not a recruitment consultant but I do work with them on occasion and I've never encountered a bigger bunch of witless, workshy, lying, self-absorbed, shiny-suited, cockatoo-coiffured, I-want-it-an-want-it-now-because-I'm-important-me bunch of tossbags in my life. To say nothing of the greasy, middleman-ish, profiting-from-others'-laziness loathability of the recruitment 'industry' itself.

So used to obfuscating the truth are they that it's virtually impossible to get a straight answer out of them on any topic ever, and literally impossible to get them to deliver any answer without a 'Can you believe how fucking great I am?' smirk on their face.

And the management-speak. Ohhh, these fuckers loooOOOooove their management speak, as it's a crucial tool in the aforementioned straight-answer-avoidance. Mostly though they use it to sound intelligent, which works on others of their ilk and those too stupid to know better, those being the vast majority of their clients. Not surprising really, seeing as the fact they've engaged a recruitment consultant to do a job they can't be arsed doing themselves means that they're obviously too dim or just too lazy to think for themselves in most situations.

As far as I've been able to determine, all you need to succeed in recruitment is a big mouth and the lack of general respect to have no problem with incessantly talking over other people. Of course, the shiny suit and ridiculous hairdo go without saying. And if you happen to be good-looking as well as brash and mouthy, then you're pretty much set for life.

I've worked with estate agents too. Trust me, recruitment consultants are worse. They've made me vow to never rely on one of them to find a job should I have the need - I can find my own way without one of those twats skimming something off of it for little more than sitting there spouting fragrant bullshit. Fuck them all.

EDIT: Yes, waistcoats. I've met a handful of RC's who favour 3-piece suits and they've all been masons. Don't know what that says, but it can't be good.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:34, 12 replies)

CEOs
In my experience the only use they have is in uniting the staff by giving them one thing to focus their anger on. The worst I have ever encountered was very intelligent and capable, sadly he was also selfish and egotistical, instead of trying to make the company a success his main task was to line his pockets whatever the cost to other people. If he was getting rich while being good at his job then ok, but this guy was useless.

His aversion to work was such that he hired a consultant to do his job (in one year alone this cost over 80k), while people were being made redundant he refused to take taxis instead of chauffeurs. He had a belief that he was entitled to all this because he was running a company (into the ground)

After a few years of abject failure on his part he approached the board with an idea to restructure the company (that means get a new CEO I'm off), he was bought out of his contract, his payoff was more than I earned in the last ten years. The fact that he walked straight into another role as CEO honestly baffles me.
(cname, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:20, 2 replies)

'Nightclub DJs'
You know who you are, you work at the big chain venues, you think the sun shines out of your arse, and because you work in a big name venue, seems to give you the God given right to act like you're the bollocks.

The reality is the complete opposite.

You got the job because you know the manager, you've joined an agency because you're incapable of getting work yourself, or your mate already works there. Your venue is busy because the company you work for spends thousands on advertising, people are not there to see you, you are simply employed to keep the customers in.

'Taking the piss' out of your customers over the mic while your boss is watching is not 'witty' - it's offensive, unless you know that person, personally. Doing the same to other guest DJ's just makes you look unprofessional, and you sound like an arse.

Stop playing the same playlist, just because your laptop/kaleidovision has last weeks still left on it and you can't be bothered to look up the weeks charts, or even try something new.

If someone asks for a track to be played, then if it fits, fucking play it, if it doesn't, then don't, but at least have the decency to tell the person why, that's part of your job, and part of the skill involved of being able to fit the tracks together in the first place.

People spend lots of time and money to produce records in multi-million pound studios, so the next time you're 'headlining' - remember, you're getting the credit for playing other people's work, it's not yours, don't act like it is so. That's like my 5 year old daughter claiming to be an artist because she uses the same paintbrush as Andy Warhol.

No-one gives a flying one about who's sung the track, they probably already know, save it for important stuff, like greeting your regulars, making people feeling welcome, or actual useful stuff. If it's not worth saying, don't say it.

Do NOT MC - or get your mate to do it, you sound terrible..

If you get another DJ who's booked to play on your night, don't tell them 'how you'd do it' - that other DJ's probably been booked to play, because your boss wants to hear something different from your usual repeated bollocks, and take it as a hint that you're on your way out. Change the record (*chuckle*) or leave graciously.

Do not bad mouth said DJ when you eventually get binned, as it's probably your own fault you got sacked in the first place.

Yours truly,
That other DJ.

*Edit: Oh, and if you're a radio DJ, and you're good at it, stay in your studio, as the majority of you are terrible when you're live..
(danniekavanagh did nothing constructive on, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:15, 4 replies)

Goatherds.
Scum. Subhuman scum.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:11, 10 replies)

Bouncers
Not all of them, I have encountered many bouncers in the past who have been very nice and polite. However, the ones who think they are the chooser of who comes and goes really annoy me.

A few years ago I went to a club with a bunch of friends, one of which decided he was hungry. It was about 1am and there was a pizza shop a couple of doors down so we got our hands stamped and left in search of food. we sat on a bench outside the pizza place and ate, and my friend started to throw chips at me (because they weren't nice, really). I retaliated, and we ended up giggling about how silly we were and decided to go do some more drinking and dancing. When we got back to the club, the bouncers wouldn't let us back in because we'd apparently been fighting. I told them we'd just been for something to eat but then was informed that they had watched us fighting on the bench and they couldn't let us in.

Wankers!
(justgirl, Fri 28 May 2010, 10:42, 12 replies)

Am I late for this?
Radio Djs

As is the rule, there are exceptions. But I think most radio DJs are plainly annoying, especially those on in the morning hours. Who really wants to wake up to some stupid git straining so hard to be funny, happy and rousing, it would take an entire country singing Kumbayah together to match? Fortunately nobody really knows or cares what radio DJs look like, or they would be smacked in the head constantly while doing their grocery shopping. Now these people are ‘celebrities’ who really deserve to have stalkers, a constant threat and nuisance like they are to the rest of the world.

Maybe I just hate them so much, because I grew up with a very different approach to morning radio. The radio would spring on, and there would be this tired guy, who seemed like he had just drank through most of the night and still had a massive hangover, smoking one fag after the other and blowing the smoke on the microphone. Even though maybe you didn’t want to get up just yet, you always knew you were better off than this poor sod, who had to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning to try and make the best out of what really is a shit job.

Length? Einstein once said, wire telegraphing is like a really long cat. You pull its tail on one side, and it meows on the other. Radio transmission is just like that, only that there is no cat.
( BringYourOwnParachute Meet me here on, Fri 28 May 2010, 10:42, 9 replies)

chuggers
Just because they are stopping you on behalf of a charity does not mean they are representing them. They are on commission or are paid hourly they really don’t give a fuck whether it’s for Barnardos, Guide dogs for the blind or the Red Cross beyond a veneer of caring and a hastily learnt pitch.
The companies are on commission to sell and the charities still have to pay them to do it so a large % goes to them and not the charity.

It is lucrative for charities and they get around 3 times back on their investment as people sign up long term by direct debt and there is a guilt trip about cancelling along with apathy.
I used to work just off Carnaby st which is a magnet to chuggers, as usual I walked past with a cheery no thanks and eye contact, a sarcastic remark was directed at me intended to make me feel guilty about not stopping or giving. This is a habitual tactic designed to engage you so they can start a conversation but completely counterproductive.

Its moments like that you choose whether to turn around and enlighten the fuckwit as to how much you have given personally over the years or raised due to your fundraising within the company which if they chugged for another 10 years could not possibly hope to match.
Telling them that would not make any difference, but I do say I choose the charities I give to carefully and support them directly and thank them for their interest, I did sometimes counter pitch as I have talked to charity and corporate responsibility committees in the past on behalf of a charity and know my way around sales, but then realise your just wasting your time and theirs as they have no real interest in charity work, if they did they would have a different career choice.

They are legally obliged to tell you they are being paid to talk to you and are taking money for their service on behalf of the charity, they use the same high pressure selling techniques used in other sales business. As they are under pressure to sell and have targets to hit (including the hourly paid) they can be deceitful and aggressive. If you are interested in helping a charity, go direct and give and make sure you tick give gift aid as you give 28% more through tax relief on your donation.

Fundraisers within charities are of course paid but they on the most part passionately believe in the aims of the charity involved which is a gulf away from chugging.
(nimrodihnio making gravy for one., Fri 28 May 2010, 10:37, 7 replies)

Radio DJs
Here’s a mad idea: How about you just play some fucking music instead of boring us all to death with your inane drivel for the duration of your slot. I really don’t give a shit about the ‘crazy’ weekend you’ve just had, I couldn’t give a toss about your opinions on what’s going on in the world today and I certainly don’t want to have to endure the false banter set up between you and your co-host(s) in a pathetic attempt to make you sound funny and likeable.

Less talk, more music.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Fri 28 May 2010, 10:35, 6 replies)

Personal trainers who stalk gyms, trying to pressure you into taking a contract.
I'm looking for a trainer, a good one. The one I was weak enough to accept a free session with last year told me in great detail how unfit and lazy women of my age are and how hard he'd have to make me work.

His eyes pointed in two different directions and one earlobe, I was fascinated to notice, looked as if it had healed unevenly after having an earring ripped clean out, possibly by a disgruntled customer.

Most of the exercises he wanted me to do involved lying face-down on the filthy gym mats, which I'd specifically told him I would not do. He also offered an expensive diet and nutrition plan and told me that his current special offer on price couldn't last.

So: stupid, ugly, with poor interpersonal and customer skills? Oh yes, I'm certainly going to follow YOUR advice.

I'm still in the market for a trainer, anyone out there?
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Fri 28 May 2010, 10:29, 2 replies)

Carpet Shampooers
And any tradesperson you pay to carry out work at your house and then they use your water/electricity etc. to do the job.
(jvz, Fri 28 May 2010, 10:29, 12 replies)

Life Coaches
What can a life coach offer that you cant get from just speaking to a good friend who takes time to sit down with you and give you a honest opinion / advice ?
(Cov Boy, Fri 28 May 2010, 10:27, 4 replies)