Look Rob, you're the fucking "Man" on this website
so we all hate you.
Just saying, like.
(woocfot friends with Sacha Distel, Thu 9 Aug 2012, 14:09, 1 reply)

Delurking to tell my one 'Hollywood' story
A few years ago I was homeless (abusive stepdad, left home, the usual), and at the time of this story I was living in an unheated bedsit, and as it was November I used to hang out in the library and a church youth centre quite a bit. One day I noticed signs saying they were holding an open call for movie extras that weekend. I toddled down and was duly cast to spend a week filming for a big British film by a famous Hollywood director. Exciting!

Less exciting at 5am when the coach supposed to pick us up didn't arrive. After about a dozen phone calls, we were told to take taxis and that they'd pay us when we got there. Even less exciting when we found there was no one to pay us back, and we'd be spending 12 hours wearing rags in driving snow and sleet, standing on top of narrow 12ft high walls.

As I got colder and hungrier (no food apart from a dry cheese bap for lunch), I got more and more pissed off, so when we finally wrapped and had to wait an hour to have our papers signed off by an assistant director, I was not in the best of moods to be told a) they were writing 6pm (when legal overtime kicked in) rather than the time we actually finished, and b) we were only getting £10 towards the cost of the taxis, not the whole thing. I kicked off and demanded the full cost from the assistant director, who eventually capitulated.

Result? Only when payment never arrived did I find out he'd lied that I'd never shown up, so not only did I not get paid for the two days (filming day plus costume fitting day) I'd worked, I was also left £20 out of pocket for the taxi.

**** ****** is getting punched in the fucking face if I ever see him again, best music video of all time or not.
(lisasimpson2011, Thu 9 Aug 2012, 13:13, 3 replies)

I was going to be FIRST on the next QOTW but The Man hasn't put the new one up yet and I have to go out.

( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Thu 9 Aug 2012, 13:05, Reply)

Maintenance company
I bought my flat a few years ago. Knocked down half price through reposession. I was aware there was Maintanence to pay for the flat as is the norm. no problem in that, infact - it should be a good thing.

My main gripe recently - is the cost for it. I live in a block of flats with over 30 other flats. No lift, no special gates or anything... only thing i can see we pay for is general upkeep of building, we have the lawn cut 6 times a year, not a huge grass area no bigger than say collectively two tennis courts in size, and the hallways hoovered (along with electricity)... yet its costing me over £1200 a year.

This raises a few issues
- puts off house buyers
- as the other residents are tenants, their landlords are actually in various place across the globe, meaning getting agreement to challenge the cost would be extremely difficult or impossible.
- They can keep upping the cost, if i dont pay - I can lose my property.
- as the rest of the residents dont pay the maintanence they treat the place like crap, leading to adhoc work, which i end up paying.


also

quite oddly - I pay as part of the maintanence, "terrorism insurance"

What the hell do i need that for? I live miles from any significant landmark or city.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Thu 9 Aug 2012, 12:58, 2 replies)

A wunch of bankers
Me, phoning UK from US: Hello Bank. I'm currently working abroad, and an emergency has arisen. I need to transfer some money urgently.

Banker on the other end of the phone: Certainly, just give me the following details for an international transfer...

Me: [various arcane and incomprehensible numbers and codes]

Banker: That's fine, now all I need you to do is come in and sign the documents, and we'll get right on that...
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Thu 9 Aug 2012, 12:19, Reply)

In which grandmasterfluffles is screwed over by a letting agent, but it's ok because he nearly electrocutes himself in the process
​There is no creature so foul as a London letting agent. This particular agency was run by the most vile bunch of evil cretins that ever lived. In fact, I shall now refer to them as "arsebadgers" for that is what they were.

​After we'd been in our three-storey house for a couple of months, the top floor bathroom started leaking. By the time the arsebadgers had been persuaded to send someone round to fix it, it was so bad that whenever it rained, it was raining just as heavily in the bathroom as it was outside. Few experiences are more soul-destroying than getting up for a piss at 3am in November and getting rained on in the process. Arsebadgers sent some cowboy builders round, after which the leak got considerably worse. We contacted them again, asking them to send round someone who would actually solve the problem. "But we sent someone to fix it," they said, "It's not our problem if it's still leaking."

​I failed to see the logic in this.

​Predictably, the leak continued to get worse. After a few months it had made its way to the 1st floor, where the ceiling was gently dripping and various interesting mould and fungi were growing in the walls. I was cultivating a row of unidentified mushrooms out of the wall next to my bed, and coming down with various respiratory complaints.

​A few months later, it had continued to the ground floor. Damp and mould spread in a predictable pattern until one fateful day during a particularly heavy storm when water started pouring through the light fitting in the living room. Fortunately it wasn't switched on at the time. We sent yet another email to the arsebadgers informing them of the latest development and received no reply.

​A couple of months later we were coming to the end of our contract, and the arsebadgers had decided that rather than fix the place up, they were immediately going to try to let it to a bunch of hapless students. Various teenagers trooped in and out, while the arsebadgers smoothly lied that of course the place would be fixed by the time they moved in. One day a teenage girl came round with her mother. I should say at this point that we had a big sign next to the light switch on the living room wall reminding us not to use it. The teenage girl, her mother, the arsebadger and my housemate were all standing in the living room, and the following altercation took place:

​The mother: What's this all about?
​Arsebadger: Oh, that's nothing
​The mother: "DO NOT USE THIS LIGHT OR YOU WILL ELECTROCUTE YOURSELF AND BURN THE HOUSE DOWN, KTHXBAI"
​Arsebadger: There's nothing wrong with it
​The mother: It doesn't look like nothing to me...
​Arsebadger: It's lies, the current tenants want to stay, they just put that sign there to put you off
​My housemate: That's slander - we could sue you for that
​Arsebadger : They're all liars, they just want to stay in the house
​The mother: In that case, you won't mind switching on the light

​Arsebadger: .............I don't want to........

​Housemate: If we're all liars and there's nothing wrong with that light fitting, why don't you want to switch it on?
​The mother: Yes, I think you should switch it on
​The housemate: Switch the light on, or admit that you're a slanderous, incompetent, irresponsible liar

​He was enough of a stupid fuckwit to do so, predictably causing massive blue flashes to light up the house like some sort of potentially lethal Christmas tree.

​Arsebadger.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Thu 9 Aug 2012, 11:51, 4 replies)

Kinda screwing myself really
I've just installed Quicktime for the codec so I can edit some .mov files. It's like I've opened up my computer for the mouldering corpse of Steve Jobs to take a massive shit all over the insides, except that would probably be easier to clean up afterwards :(
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Thu 9 Aug 2012, 10:41, 1 reply)

I was stiffed by the man
When they wouldn't let me enter the hammer event of this years Olympics despite gaining recognition for my skill in the past.
Love
Peter Sutcliffe
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Thu 9 Aug 2012, 10:30, 3 replies)

Been made redundant three times in the space of four years
So the man can line his pockets with more money.
( jakedamusss I understand, and dont care., Thu 9 Aug 2012, 6:16, Reply)

Being Verballed By The Filth
Young Ronnie was thought to have been a bit naughty, back in the dim and distant.

Actually it was self defence, and luckily the court agreed.

Still, being presented with a sworn statement from a copper just before the case kicked off to the effect that I'd said "Yes, it was me, I did it" was a bit of an eye-opener.

Especially as I'd taken full advantage of the old (and now departed) right to silence during the interview.

Cunts.
(Ronnie Spleen MMMMNEURRGH I AM A GAY SPAZ AND I LOVE IT UP MY BU, Thu 9 Aug 2012, 0:16, 18 replies)

Visual artists
I did several hours of free legal work for a guy I worked with who was being screwed over by a guy he had made several websites for. I researched the law and drafted several letters that he could send to the guy. He was elated! He said he would pay me $2,000 for my work.

I like to use my powers for good, so I told him I would be satisfied if he made a cool logo for my band. Win-win, right?

Time went by, he kept bringing up that he was "half way through" several designs and would have me take a look at his prototypes. This went on for 4 months. In the end, my contract ended with that company and I went on with life. He moved to California (with an aching in his heart) and made all sorts of money.

I still am logo less.
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Wed 8 Aug 2012, 22:06, 10 replies)

Not my story but
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/08/olympics-spectator-parkinsons-arrest-smiling

Bloke is arrested for not smiling during the race.

"Worsfold, whose experience was first reported by Private Eye, claims police questioned him about his demeanour and why he had not been seen to be visibly enjoying the event. Worsfold, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2010, suffers from muscle rigidity that affects his face."
( The Light in Chains don't touch the Pope's boner, Wed 8 Aug 2012, 16:24, 11 replies)

I bought this telly once...
...that started spewing out lizards.

Repair man said it was nothing to do with him and I should sort it out myself.

Cunt.
(DefinitelyNOTAmorousBadgerOhNo, Wed 8 Aug 2012, 16:23, 9 replies)

Gordon Brown.
Screwed over an entire country.
(ParaSitius is an Optimistic Pessimist, Wed 8 Aug 2012, 13:52, 24 replies)

Local Council has done us. Official! (bad grammer on porpoise)
Where we live all the roads, (must have cost millions to re-tarmac), were resurfaced. Many of them, including ours really didn't need doing (do you know most councils have a 90 year road surface replacement strategy!)

I dont know how they got the contract, but locally, all our roads have been dug up by lovely Irish gentlemen to lay new gas lines.

As a tax payer, and a road user I couldn't possibly comment on who arranged this.

But I can comment on the stupid roadworkers hammering away the one morning I can take to have a lay in!

Screwed over by the council, they must know major gas works are going to be going ahead, its not a little leak, its several streets. So noise, and a lovely new road marred with shoddy fill in patches.
(feedingtimeatthezoo day 1 of his bikini diet started, Wed 8 Aug 2012, 12:14, 7 replies)

After years of trying
I finally managed to get 1st on a QOTW... I know some of you hate this sort of thing.. to be honest - so do I.

However logging into the QOTW I found myself in a unique position, it was a new QOTW and no one had posted yet. In a heart beat I had already posted a full stop to go back and edit.. and quickly found myself proudly exclaiming FIRST.

Then i checked out the topic.. 'sheds'... I thought to myself that b3ta was getting a bit silly with its questions... and surely the answers started to 'fly' in.... when i say fly in - there was 5-6 answers in the space of 90 mins, mostly ribbing b3ta of its pathetic QOTW attempt...

2 hrs later, it had ended, and gone with it any evidence that i had actually grabbed first...

Screw you B3TA!
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Wed 8 Aug 2012, 11:38, 14 replies)

I spent two weeks being followed around by a fly-on-the-wall documentary crew
while making a short horror film which you can view here. They were making a series on people trying to break into showbiz for Sky 1 and we bent over backwards to accommodate them - auditioning and casting the series' other subjects to give them some continuity, re-arranging our schedules and setting up fake scenarios and "drama" for them to film as they asked us to.

Then someone at Sky 1 had the bright idea of casting Louis Spence as the host of this series and our section was dropped like a stone for not being camp enough :(
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Wed 8 Aug 2012, 9:10, 12 replies)

anyone fancy a spot of dogging?
Years ago, me and my girlfriend were adventurous sorts, we were both wild, young and happy to "try new things"

Anyway, we found out there's a dogging spot near our home, so after some deliberation, we decided to see what all the fuss was about... well, after reading about the rules and etiquette of dogging, we set off for some of this canine-sounding activity! We pulled into the carpark, sat there looking at a bunch of cars each flicking their lights on and off in a sort of luminescent Morse code. Eventually we saw one car signalling that the occupant just wanted to watch rather than participate, and once the initial nerves set in, we both headed over to find a young chap sitting there alone.

Anyway, long story short, me and the mrs went and screwed over by the man
(Anne Frank started to build a loft conversion on, Wed 8 Aug 2012, 6:34, Reply)

My experience with jobs
is that the shittier the pay the worse they treat you. Something about your accepting their miserable wage entitles them to whisper with hot breath on the back of your ear these words of endearment, "Now just relax."
(the other guy not the one that gave you coochie warts, Wed 8 Aug 2012, 4:16, 2 replies)

They stiffed me on QOTW
This one time at SHED camp.

Shedshedshesshedlols
(Set your faces to Stunned Bigly, Wed 8 Aug 2012, 2:22, 4 replies)

I worked for a company for 7 years...
...in sales. Smashed every target ever put in front of me. Was top 3 out of 100 people on the floor. One day my boss decided to get rid of me.....illegally get rid of me. Apparently I was a bad influence on the floor, too much of an individual (actual words used by him) and a rebel.

Strangely 4 months earlier my mum bought me a £10 spy pen with a video camera in it and I'd had a feeling something was going to happen in work so I'd been testing it out in meetings, learning how to hold it, how the mike performed, the distance I needed to be from the sibject to get a clear picture and the amount of time I had available to record. When they dragged me in an openly admitted what they did was illegal I filmed every moment and used it in my negociations to eventually get 30k out of them.

How did they screw me? They knew I had an open and shut case and couldn't afford to go to court. In court I'd of got 66K plus loss of earnings.

Plus, I lost a job I was really good at. Cunts.
( The only Dave is pushing things forward, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 22:28, 15 replies)

I once shipped all my stuff to Brazil
About 13 tea chests worth. The shipping company took their fee and gave me an address in the port of Santos where I could pick it up in 3 months time.
Three months later me and the pregnant missus were choofing down the mountains in our pissy little renault into the port of Santos with all our documents to pick things up. What follows is an exercise in beauracracy of the highest order. If you're bored by this kind of anecdote, I advise you to look away now.
I'll use a list to aid my memory:
1. We queue at the shipping company office for an hour, and are given a chit to pay an addtional fee.
2. We queue at the fee window, and are told we must clear the goods through customs ourselves.
3. We go to some government office where the woman says she can't do anything unless we have the minister for the exterior tax paid.
4. We go the minister of exterior office, wait 3 hours, and are then told that we need to have paid the state tax before they will see us.
5. Still deludely hopeful we can do this before the day is out, we go next door to the state ministry office. It is closing but my wife begs the doorman for them to see us, and he relents. We stop a man who was packing his briefcase, and he allows us to pay the fee.
6. We rush back to the ministry of the exterior. It is still within office hours but the officer who can help us has inexplicably gone home.
End of Day 1
7. We arrive first thing at the ministry for the exterior. We wait 4 hours. When we see the officer he tells us that they don't recognize the official copies we have, and they won't take the originals.
8. We search through town to find a registered office that can redo our documents, basically photocopying them and stamping them. the fourth address we go to has someone who does this for us, for a fee
9. We return to the ministry of the exterior and wait another 2 hours. this time he accepts the documents but says they are not enough. We had to prove my wife was overseas for the last year to avoid paying 100% import duty. I had about seven utilities bills, with a good spread. he says he needs a bill for every month, as if we were ducking back to Brazil between bills. I should add that he has copies of every page of our passports. We're fucked, but luckily my wife begs again, and it's hard to refuse a 7 month pregnant woman on a minor technicality. Howevere he says before we can pay the fee we need a signiture from the ministry of agriculture. there is no time
End of Day 2
10. We arrive at the ministry of agriculture, and get a signature certifying that we are not bringing in any agricultural produce and return to the ministry of the exterior. We are beginning to think we are in some sort of video game
11. After a pleasant 3 hour wait and reading brochures on why you shouldn't try to smuggle in motorcyle parts, we are allowed to pay the fee.
12. We return to the anonymous government office, staffed by three fat old women who eye us suspiciously. One looks particularly hostile, and my heart sinks when our number is called and it's her. She gets into an argument with my wife that my portuguese isn't fast enough to follow. There is some form that is missing, but my wife insists we don't need it. To my suprise, the woman eventually backs down, accepts our papers, and gives us the shipping company cargo terminal address.
13. We drive through the port along muddy roads amongst the lorries. Our shipping company has a queue of about 30 lorries waiting. We try and cut the queue but are refused. There is no more time
End of day 3. game saved
14. We arrive the next day early. there are less lorries. After 2 hours we get to the front gate. There is a problem. As a foreigner, my name is not on the car. Under the rules I am not allowed to drive the car into the cargo area if i am not the owner of the vehicle. my wife is seven month pregnant and can hardly sit behind the wheel. I offer to hire a car, but they say this is against the rules. I ask if they can deliver our goods to the gate and i can load it from there, but this is against the rules. We ask for the manager. Eventually he sees reason and relents. One of their staff will drive our car in.
15. We go into the shipping office. there is fee for them holding our stuff for the week that no-one told us about. it is twice as much everything else we've paid until now. We have no choice. we pay the fee.
16. There is a final inspection by the federal police. I wait for another 2 hours in a room full of shipping agents who spend there time cracking jokes. When my turn comes I walk with the policemen through huge warehouses, and there is my stuff, sitting on a pallet. I am nervous, there are some dodgy items including a turkish sheesha pipe that I never could get the bong-water smell completely out of. He makes me open one box: clothes on the top. He says that's all and leaves. I could have taken 200 ks of heroin into the country. How am i going to get the stuff on the car?
17. Some warehouse workers take pity on us, another benefit of having a pregnant wife. one loads the pallet with 8 boxes on my cheap roofrack with the forklift, then expertly ties it with rope he gifts us. I get the other 5 boxs crammed into the car. It is sitting low in the waterline, but still drivable.
18 We make it to the exit gate after getting lost in a maze of sea containers and almost crushed by a lorry. The official there asks for our papers. There is a problem, you cannot leave. I can see the open road and I scream on the inside. Maybe I should just drive off, who'd stop me? The problem turns out to be that I can't be the one driving the car to exit the place, as my name is not on the papers. Fuck it. My pregnant wife slides into the drivers seat, drives 5 meters through the gate and stops. We swap again and are free.
Game Complete. You have rescued the princess. Would you like to play again?
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 21:26, 7 replies)

It was my first job
Typical overworked and underpaid deal. One friday I was in the company transit doing some late deliveries and the boss phoned and said to take it easy and don't rush back to work and he would see me on monday. Scored! all weekend on the company fuel! Went to pick up the girlfriend for a night out and she went mental over having to be seen in the company vehicle and started kicking it..... in a mood over by the van
(resistanceisfutile, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 20:25, 1 reply)

I got a week's ban from a comedy forum for posting some jokes.

(DefinitelyNOTAmorousBadgerOhNo, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 20:12, 8 replies)

Permanent Record
Back in 1998 I was the 'webmaster' (does anyone still have that as a job title?) for a publishing company. My email address was on the website and I was the company's first recipient of a serious quantity of spam missives offering me sensual delights, physical enhancements and small pills designed to aleviate the teedium of my humdrum existence.

The MD called me into his office and demanded that I stop whatever it was that I was doing that was causing these emails to arrive. "The company takes a dim view of these sorts of things" was his senatorial statement designed to strike fear into my very soul.

I explained that I was unable to stop the spam. I didn't send it and I didn't ever respond to it. He listened and then said 'well, we clearly cannot prove anything, so we will say no more about it and it will remain on your permanent record.'

C word.

The worst of it was, he only called me in because the IT manager had told him I was receiving lots of spam emails. THE IT MANAGER for fucks sake.
(seedybee68 not involved in any rioting since 31 March 1990, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 19:07, 1 reply)

When I was younger I was offered a choice of two Christmas presents - either some unprocessed oil or a Japanese marble-shooting toy.
A weird choice for a seven year-old, but in the end I chose crude over B-Daman.

Is it Thursday yet?
( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 18:28, 2 replies)

Something about being gang raped by a Welsh prog rock band.
Or the population of a town in Logan County, West Virginia.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 16:22, 1 reply)

It was my final day in hospital
I had already spent 2-3 weeks hooked up a machine before having an operation. Leaving me pretty much bedridden the entire time. Each day the nurses would come round and give everyone an needle injection into their/our bellies to prevent DVT. I hated this part. It hurt, not alot, I had put up with far worse, but it pinched enough to be fairly annoying. It was an inevitable part of the daily routine. I had numerous red blemishes on my belly.

It was a treatment no different to the silly socks I had to wear aswell.

I was waiting on my bed for my dad to arrive to pick me up. All my discharge forms had been signed, I was out of my pjamas and for the first time in what seemed ages, was sitting in the quite unfamiliar feeling of Jeans and t-shirt. My dad was running late. He was meant to have arrived 30 mins ago.

The nurse arrived at my bed, realising my predicement I informed her that i wouldnt be needing my shot or any medicine, as I was already discharged. I was effectively a visitor.

Apparantly as long as Im sitting in a bed, I still require the shot. No arguing would sway her. My name was still on the form from that morning, regardless that my bed had no sheets on it.

Dammit, it still riles me today, in a funny way. I laugh at it everytime i think about it. She was like Nurse Rachet.
(Dan dan dan They tik urh jerbs!!!, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 15:26, 7 replies)

Holidays
I went to the seaside down south once. It was shit. The next year I decided to get away to a little island retreat and enjoyed it so much that I bought a holiday home there. The island sits off the west coast and is famous for a breed of tail-free cat.

Work the rest out for yourselves.
(Darth Foxtrot A one-man army dedicated to making fetch happen, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 14:11, 13 replies)

what do you mean it was really popular?
Back in 1991 I was asked if I wanted to help out on some artwork and animation for a DOS based space adventure game. Happy to help I spent a few weeks of my spare time coming up with monster designs and simple animations in lovely old DPaint and the even lovelier DAnimate.
I handed the artwork over and pretty much forgot about it (college and running a video shop took my mind off it I guess). Fast forward maybe 15 years and I happen to discover that not only did the game get made, it was fairly successful and quite highly regarded, to the point that it had a decent budget sequel made a couple of years ago.

Not only did the man not pay me, he didn't even put my name down on the credits for the artwork :(
( HappyToast Groat froth, Tue 7 Aug 2012, 13:27, 16 replies)