» Karma

What goes around, comes around.
Not really sure if this is Karma, but since when has that stopped anyone from posting a good tale?

When I was about 10, one of the houses that back onto my folk’s place was owned by a local “hard nut” gangster-wannabe type, along with his wife and two kids. Really nasty piece of shit he was.

Every Sunday, he had the same routine, he would drive his prized BMW 5-Series to a pub a few miles away, have nine or ten pints with his “well’ard” cronies, probably glass some poor fucker who looked at his pint funny, then drive home. Once he got home, it would start “MY DINNER’S COLD YOU STUPID BITCH!” *SMACK* “HOW MANY” *SMACK* “TIMES” *SMACK* “HAVE I” *SMACK* “TOLD YOU” *SMACK* and so on. It would then move on to “AND YOU TWO CAN SHUT UP AS WELL!” *SMACK SMACK*.

You could hear this shit through two closed windows and a distance of about two hundred feet. And it would last for hours. His two kids went to my school, but kept having time off with things like “measles”, which they must have got a couple of times a year and “the flu” which caused mysterious swellings around their eyes.

So anyway, lovely guy.

One Sunday, he was down the pub as usual when he spotted a black kid walk past the afore mentioned Beemer. Did I mention he wasn’t exactly fond of the darker-skinned members of society? Well, he wasn’t. He comes flying out of the pub and accuses this kid (who was about 8) of first trying to steal his car, then of keying it. After hurling a bit of racist abuse about, he gives this kid a normally reserved for immediate family members slap and goes back to his drinking and general hardcuntness.

Ten minutes later little black kid arrives back in the pub, still crying, being dragged by his dad, points at knobhead neighbour and says “that’s him”. Guy goes up to big bully boy and says “what the fuck do you think you’re doing hitting my kid”. Bloke, safe in the knowledge that 1) He’s well’ard (in his mind at least) and 2) he’s with 10 of his “crew”, turns to the guy and says “Oh fuck off, you stupid n*****” (radio edit for racism).

Father of crying child sticks the head on the racist, bullying prick, slamming him straight down to the deck. One of the “crew” looks like he might intervene, but is stopped by a look from the now very angry father. This angry bloke then proceeds to paint the pub with the guy who hit his kid. He proper battered him. He actually beat him so badly that he lost an eye and walked with a limp for the rest of his life, since he was pretty much paralysed down one side. All while the guys “crew” stood and watched, shitting themselves in case they caught some of what he was getting.

Funnily enough, we never heard him hit his wife and kids after that, possibly because he couldn’t anymore. He moved out about 9 months later, since he could no longer afford the mortgage and, rumour has it, his wife took the kids and fucked off not long after, since she was no longer scared of him.

You lie down with dogs…
(Fri 22nd Feb 2008, 9:10, More)

» I Quit!

Quitting Karma
Was working for a games developer a few years back, it was a small company, only employing about 16 people. From the very start, I really didn’t get along with the then owner and managing director. Whenever anything went wrong, I was the first to be blamed whether it was my fault or not. After working there for about 12 months, the company got bought out, lock, stock and barrel by a larger, American company.

The MD stayed and our relationship deteriorated further, but I had just bought a house and was about to get married, so I pretty much had to stick it out. It even reached the point where he wouldn’t talk to me directly, and would only go through my boss, who constantly sucked up to him – I even used to make a point of giving him a cheery “GOOD MORNING!” every day, because I knew it annoyed him and made him look like a bit of an eejit when he would blank me in front of people.

Due to my boss refusing the defend me, I spent half my days being bawled at for not hitting the ever-shifting deadlines. I tried not to care, but averaged about 2 hours sleep a night from the stress.

Things really came to a head when I wanted three weeks and a day off to get married and have a very nice honeymoon. My contract said I could have three weeks with appropriate notice, or more with the permission of the MD. The MD said no way, laughing as he did so. I tried being reasonable for a while, before saying “fine, I’m taking three weeks and a day off, I’ll be back on x date, if you don’t like it, tough” and off I went. At my wedding reception, my boss wouldn’t speak to me (but ate the £50 a head dinner anyway) and was rather dismayed to discover an old mate of mine was fairly high up in the parent company, which I didn’t realise until he said “Why did you invite *my boss* from company Y?” and I told him I worked for that company, he just said “mate, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but find another job NOW. We’re gonna close that place in the next three months or so”. Shit. Still, at least I had the heads-up.

When I got back off honeymoon, I was informed that my position was being made redundant, though they made the mistake of showing someone I used to work with around the office while I was there. A little bit of digging revealed that he was being brought in to replace me. You can’t make someone redundant and replace them with someone else straight away. So I got my solicitor involved. The solicitor wanted me to take the redundancy and then sue for unfair dismissal. I had a better plan: knowing that the company was about to go west, I threatened to sue but then got my solicitor to draw up a “fair deal” that involved me signing a contract saying I wouldn’t sue and then quitting, in exchange for a (very) large payout. Since I knew the company didn’t have the funds to cover the payout, I refused to take a cheque and demanded a banker’s draft, which came out of the MD’s personal account. When he handed it over, I said “Thanks. I quit. I’ll see you in the dole queue” he just looked puzzled.

Three weeks later, the American parent company closed to office down, royally screwing over the staff in the process - only giving them statutory redundancy pay, which is somewhere between fuck and all. The MD begged my mate (who oversaw the closing of the office) for a job at the parent company. After being nice about it for a while, he told him to fuck off, in those exact words. I lived large off the payoff for six months; the MD sold his house, not least because he, personally, was paying my mortgage instead of his.
(Tue 27th May 2008, 10:49, More)

» Bastard Colleagues

On The Buses
Not me, but my uncle:

My uncle Rae lived and worked in a small, rural town on the south coast as abus driver. This is the kind of town with an hourly bus service, not one the runs every couple of miutes.

Rae used to work the early shift, so had the "pleasure" of having his boss get on his bus every morning to get to work.

Guy was a complete twat and would keep a close eye on what time the bus arrived and left certain stops, berating my uncle if the timings weren't spot on. As a result, Rae has to be one of the few people in the country who has a conviction for speeding in a bus.

One morning, my uncle was summoned to his bosses office and was screamed at for a good half hour by his boss, who demanded to know why he had stopped 100 yards short of a stop to pick up one of the regulars - a little old dear who volunteered at the local hospital, who was clearly running late that day and hadn't quite made it to the stop.

This was against company policy and resulted in Rae getting his final warning (he had previously got into trouble for being caught speeding in a company bus).

Next day, who should Rae spot 100 yards from his stop and waiving his arm like crazy? His boss. Did my uncle stop to pick him up? Did he fuck. Did my uncle have a job by the end of that did? Did he fuck. Did he care? Did he fuck.

Length? 12m with a bend in the middle, evidently.
(Mon 28th Jan 2008, 10:31, More)

» I Quit!

Checkout time
I think I might have mentioned this one before:
went to a supermarket a few years ago (I think it was Sainsburies), when I reached the till, the tillwoman greeted me with "they've just sacked me" and only scanned one in every three items I'd picked up. I think my bigshop came in at about £15.
(Thu 22nd May 2008, 13:12, More)

» Family Holidays

Lucky escape
20 years ago, my dad decided to take us for a trip to France in March. Other than the fact that I got really car and seasick on the way there, the whole two weeks were fairly unremarkable, if a little damp.

Due to a promotion in a scummy, unpopular in Liverpool tabloid, we were getting the ferry back from Belgium, rather than France. This meant we had a much longer drive back.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, I used to get carsick (not helped by my mum chainsmoking). Despite leaving with plenty of time to spare, the frequent stops to allow my to throw up on some very scenic grass verges, we rolled into Zeebrugge just in time to see the ferry leave. Cue my dad screaming at me about how it was all my fault and how it'd cost a fortune to get back now.

His rant was curtailed by me pointing at the ferry we had just missed as it first rolled heavily one way, then the other, before taking a sudden turn and sinking.

We had missed being on the Herald Of Free Enterprise when it sank by about five minutes
(Mon 6th Aug 2007, 11:51, More)