» Gyms

How I was violated in the sauna
Once upon a time I was a wannabe fitness fanatic. Incidentally this was prior to my love affair of lounging in bed, eating KFC, reading QOTW whilst simultaneously undoing the button of my size 16 trousers. During this time I joined one of those hideously expensive chain gyms which we shall call Total Madness for the purpose of this story.

I immediately allowed the lunacy of the cavernous air conditioned spaceship to permeate my very being. I desperately wanted to be one of them. Those lycra clad expertly made up women swishing away on the cross trainer for 2 hours without breaking a sweat. I even bought new gym gear: powder blue ladies Reebok jogging bottoms and sporty vest.

Every morning I set my alarm clock for 5.30, struggled out of the bed. Donned my new expensive designer sweat sacks and staggered barely awake to my car. I drove the 2 miles to the shiny glass and steel fitness warehouse. I joined the surprisingly large number of BMW driving, Johnsons dry cleaning suit bag carrying, spikey haired overpaid sales executives and middle managers, and trudged, trying to look like I belonged (as much as a dumpy blonde secretary can) to the changing rooms.

I would then emerge from the bowels of the changing rooms, up the spiral staircase to the upper realms of the dance music booming posing paradise. I would follow my program, masterfully devised by my trainer of 10 minutes on the cross trainer, 10 minutes on the bike, 10 minutes on the treadmill. This was going to turn me into a supermodel. It would allow me to be one of them. One of those orange, perfectly preened, large bicepped femme fatales I aspired to be.

One particularly grey and drizzly morning I arrived in the car park and realised I could not face my daily torment of low level exercise. I decided, in my wisdom, to use the other leisure facilities. Namely the sauna. The soothing heat would melt away my winter blues leaving me invigorated and raring to go work.

Donning my swimming costume and taking my towel I sauntered through the pool bound door of the changing rooms and made my way down the corridor of neutral coloured wonderment to the sauna. I opened the door, the soothing heat causing my tense shoulders to relax. I picked a seat on the upper level, where it would be hottest to flush out the most toxins. After a few minutes I feel the beginings of sleep start to wash over me. A nice warm nap in the sauna begins to appeal so i lie down fully on top of my towel.

Through the warm sleep fuggy haze I am vaguely aware that someone else has entered the sauna. I realise my mouth is open so keeping my eyes closed I try to appear as if I wasn't asleep. Slowly consciousness returns and I open my eyes slightly and roll onto my side. Imagine my surprise to see a wiry old lady with long curly pubes crotch flossing with her towel in front of me.

I sit bolt upright: my mind flounders what to do.

"Oooh it's nice to get warm in here" she says whilst whizzing the towel at high speeds through her hairy spam purse. "Mmm" I reply non commitally trying to avert my eyes from the ever increasing in speed towel masturbation session unfolding in front of me. I become increasingly aware of her lack of effort in drying any other region of her body.

I decide that it's time to make a move. "Right," I say in what I hope sounds like a mature and assertive way "I better get to work". I step down from my second tier sauna perch and move towards the door. The pervy old lesbian makes no effort to move out of my way. "Excuse me," I say smiling pathetically "may I get past?".

The old lady now has a far away and glazed look in her eyes, like a dog in a leg humping session, and continues oblivious to my discomfort to saw away at her rancid mary hinge with the towel. I'm now starting to get worried so attempt to place my hand on her arm to move her to enable me to get out of the door. The crazy old bint turns as I put my hand forward so it lands on her droopy old pancake boob. I leapt, with now a sense of positive urgency, to the glass tinted door and wrench it open. Only to see two of the designer cozzie clad babes staring at me in open mouthed horror.

It dawns on me that to them all they have witnessed, due to the tinted glass, is me pawing a crazing mastubating old lesbo on the tit. I am sweaty and flustered due to the excessive amount of time in the sauna. It looks as if I'm a lesbian geriophile.

I start to stutter an explanation but I'm left like a fish out of water, I realise any explanation would sound even less believable. I instead opt of half running back to the changing rooms, donning my work gear and leaving the place at breakneck speeds.

I never did go back. Instead I choose eating KFC and reading QOTW.
(Fri 10th Jul 2009, 23:14, More)

» IT Support

Against the elements
Once upon a time there was an IT Team, this IT Team was comprised of 'Technical' and 'Developers'. There was also a building, a horrible blue and concrete building.

One day the IT Team were working in their office. Anyone with any managerial responsibility was either in a meeting off site, on leave or unaccounted for as happens fairly frequently. Attention was drawn, as it invariably is, out of the window. Comments were passed, as invariably is the case for office workers, about the weather and its gloominess. The sky had turned a deathly grey. The same colour as Norman's face and he'd been smoking 80+ fags a day for years.

Long hard rain splashings began to pound the windows, the sky became darker. Someone put on a cardigan. I decided to turn the lights on despite the mutterings from the rest of the photosensitive team. A bright flash of light illuminated the gloomy skies. I counted the seconds, "1...2....BOOM RUMBLE RUMBLE", went the thunder. "Mutter mutter," went the team. The rain began to belt the fuck out of the windows and stray water rivulets began to trickle down the inside of the window frames. A few more coats and jackets were put on, it was beginning to get a bit parky. We stood up and shuffled to the window to have a look at the ferocity of the rain. Another bright flash, enough to cause those of us at the window to squint and those who weren't to pity our poor retinas. The thunder clap followed almost instantly and we took a step back from the windows. Another two bright flashes, the latter one causing sparks to 'jump' from our building and a loud bang.

"Fuck..." said I.

"That just hit our building..." said someone else.

My attention was drawn to the phone on a nearby desk: the display was blank. A quick scan of the office revealed half the computers had rebooted and were showing the Windows XP splashscreen. We exchanged glances. Someone mumbled something about the disaster recovery plan. "SERVER ROOM!" we all shouted simultaneously and in a stunning show of athleticism rarely seen by those who work in IT we walked, rather quickly, to the server room. The developers stayed sat in their chairs mumbling about hardware issues not being their area of responsibility.

The phone switch's LEDs were flashing red-green-red-green as it does after a reboot. We were all stood in the doorway not venturing in, in case one of the servers was somehow going to explode. Suddenly there was another flash of light and a bang.

"CLICK," went the fuse box.

"WOMMMMMMM" went the UPSs (It was a very peculiar noise, and very loud. I can only describe it as the noise that you hear when Sonic the Hedgehog gets a shield).

Our eyes were lifted to the fuse box in the corner, and the three switches that were tripped. Noone moved. Suddenly Dangerous Dave leapt forward asserting himself as the only who hadn't shat his pants. "Need something.... something... rubber" I said helpfully. A plastic cover was unclipped from one of the rack mounted servers. "Close enough," said Dave, and deftly pushed the plastic fuse box covering open. Standing on tip-toes he edged the plastic server cover towards the switches. The rest of us edged closer to the the exit.

Dave pushed the three tripped switches on, we closed our eyes. There was no loud bang and Dave was still alive. The charge lights began to move upwards on the UPSs. Suddenly the Director of IT, realising that all the danger was over, appeared in the doorway of the server room. "What's happened?" the IT Director asked accusingly. My colleagues all exchange a look of WTF and Dave sensibly replies "Lightening hit the building, tripped the electricity and knocked the phone switch off". I volunteer myself to check on the status of the phones.

I sidle out of the server room and wander from department to department unplugging and replugging the cables in the IP phones. I tell people not to panic, which was quite laughable as I clearly looked petrified. Satisfied that the phones are coming back on I make a quick escape back to our room to check on the rest of the infrastructure. As I sit down at my desk and quiveringly open the page to our network monitoring tool my phone starts to ring. 'It's still working then,' I think.

"Hello IT Fireyfox speaking?...."

It's my manager. "Hi Fireyfox, I was just watching the thunder and lightening with my son when I realised those last few lightening strikes were very close to the building. Now I hope that everything is okay..."

"Well.. the electricity trip..."

My manager cuts me off before I can finish "Look, the reason I'm phoning is that I was told I couldn't have the day off so if questions start being asked about my whereabouts say I've gone home sick, thanks" and puts the phone down. Hanging up the receiver with exasperation I look at the screen and thankfully all systems are fully operational. My phone starts ringing again, without looking at the display I pick up the receiver and quite tersely say "Yes?". It's Dangerous Dave.

"Er... I think you need to come to the server room" he says, his voice full of concern. I spring from my seat and this time run (yes run) to the server room. I realise that we're in trouble when I can hear water. Dave is stood in the doorway looking concerned. As I look into the server room I can see water, and not an insubstantial amount, pouring out of the air conditioning unit into a puddle on the middle of the floor. Fortunately it is not hitting anything electrical at that moment. Instinctively I grab a plastic bin and place it under the air con.

"Better go and get the IT Director..." says Dave. I nod. Dave bounds off in the direction of his office. I get out my mobile and dial my manager's phone number. He answers. "Bit of a problem, water pouring out of the air con in the server room" "Shit," comes the reply. I pause. My manager says "I'm on my way back in, if anyone asks where I am... you don't know... I'll think of something...." As he's still bleating excuses I hear the voice of the IT Director approaching, he enters the server room looking extremely angry. I thrust my mobile phone into his hand and say "It's.... It's.... [insert name of my manager here]".

IT Director takes mobile from me and booms into the phone "Where the fuck are you when the end of the world is coming, and which one of these fucking monkeys have you left in charge?" I couldn't make out what was being said at the other end, only that it sounded pathetic and wheedling. The IT Director dismissed me with a flick of his hand. Dave and I shuffled back to our desks white faced and sweating with fear. Someone phoned the air con repair people.

Time passed.

More time passed.

The bollocking we were waiting for never arrived. Neither did our manager.

He's been on "long term leave" ever since. Funny that.

Apologies for length and any real lack of funnehs. But it's all true that. FACT.
(Mon 28th Sep 2009, 18:33, More)

» IT Support

Total utter fuckwittery
In a previous employ I worked for a firm of chartered accountants as IT Support. They had two offices based in two quite major northern cities. I worked in one and the majority of the partners (bar two) worked in the other along with my boss, who was on leave. One morning I'd arrived around 8.20am with the intention of making a leisurely brew, having a chat to the friendlier accountants, eating a few rounds of toasts before firing up my laptop and awaiting the day's usual exciting IT Support calls including such favourites as "I've forgotten my password" and "My printer is broken".

However I had no such luck. My phone starting ringing while I was making a brew and before I'd even had time to have a whistle wetting sip the jarring ear drum shattering tones of the Managing Partner torturously warbled down the earpiece. "MY LAPTOP IS TOTALLY BROKEN!! I HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT PRESENTATION TO GO TO AT LUNCHTIME WHICH I NEED TO WORK ON AND I CAN'T!!!!!!!!!!!". "Okay, I'm sorry, in what way is it broken?" "IT'S TYPING GIBBERISH!!" "How long has it been doing this for?" "FOR THE PAST FIVE MINUTES!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!! YOU MUST COME HERE AND FIX IT!!!"

The prospect of travelling to the other office in another county via public transport was not appealing, and would take at least an hour and a half so I gently tried some more troubleshooting. "Could you try plugging an external keyboard into the laptop to see if the problem lies with the laptop or the keyboard?" "NOOOOOOOO YOU'LL HAVE TO COME HEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I stifled a sigh. Despite how annoying this was sighing audibly to the Managing Partner would have been employment suicide. "I'm on my way now".

~~~~~Wavey lines forward an hour and forty minutes later~~~~~~~

I arrive at the other office and atmosphere was quite chilled. I thought this was strange as usually if the Managing Partner was on a rampage then the rest of the accountants were trotting around wild eyed like frightened horses. I donned my best professional smile and approached the office of the Manager Partner. I knocked on the door. "COME IN!" was shouted. I entered. She looked at me like I was a trifling inconvenience and I realised she couldn't place who I was. "I've come to fix your laptop?" I said apologetically. "Oh yes. Well, it's taken you so long to get here that's Mike's (another partner) fixed it.

Inside I begin to die.

"What was wrong with it?". "Well," she says snootily and in the tone of voice that somehow I am to blame "the number lock key had been pressed, so unbeknowst to me I was typing numbers".

OH.MY.GOD.

I resist the temptation to bang my head against the door frame until I am rendered unconscious and will no longer have to live faced with this awful truth.

"Oh well I'm glad it's fixed," say I.
(Mon 28th Sep 2009, 19:07, More)

» Cheap Tat

Cassette tapes
During my misspent youth one of my most enjoyable passtimes was to record my favourite songs from the radio.

I pilfered all the cassette tapes in my Mum's house to record such musically wondrous songs as Peter Andre - Mysterious Girl and Mark Morrison - Trippin'.

After around six months this new hobby of mine had seen me record crappy pop songs on to all of the cassette tapes in the house making horrific compilation tapes of the most appalling songs of the late nineties. I came to the conclusion I was going to have to fork out some of my pocket money (most of which I saved for strong white cider and cigarettes - me, chav? No!)

The following Saturday afternoon I was shopping with other 15 year old chavs in the town centre. We were perusing the wares of Poundstretcher when I spotted a packet of 10 (yes 10!) blank cassette tapes for what seemed the very reasonable price of £1.00. "Bargainorama" I thought and swiftly purchased said cassettes.

Returning home from our shopping extravaganza I promptly put my on my favored radio station, popped a cassette in and waited for a cool song.

Upon hearing the opening bars of Another Level - Bomb Diggity I pressed record, sang along to the song happy in the knowledge I could listen to it again straight afterwards.

Nearing the end of the song I waited next to my midi hifi system, finger poised ready to press stop so I didn't record the DJ chatting.

Song ends. I press STOP. I rewind the tape and press play, I'm so excited about the next compilation tape when... this dreadful gurgly distorted version of the song plays out.

I was so disappointed I took the cassettes downstairs to my Mum to tell her they didn't work. She asked me how much I paid for them and when I told her she smiled sagely and said they were "cheap tat".

I couldn't believe I'd wasted a precious pound of my pocket money!

Ahh. Them were the days.

Length? About 200 feet when yanked out of the cassette.
(Tue 8th Jan 2008, 18:14, More)

» IT Support

Just for fun
Take a screenshot of the desktop background. Then set the screenshot as the desktop background. Then hide all the icons.

Old ones are the best.
(Mon 28th Sep 2009, 19:27, More)