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This is a question Inflated Self-Importance

Amorous Badger asks: Tell us tales of people who have a high opinion of themselves. Jumped-up officials, the mad old bloke who runs the Neighbourhood Watch like it's a military operation, Colonel Blimps, pompous bastards and people stuck up their own arse.

(, Thu 24 Jan 2013, 12:22)
Pages: Popular, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

This question is now closed.

Airport Security Mouthbreathing Drone.
Slightly bizzare incident recently;

The Oath family was returning home from a fantastic Xmas holiday a few weeks ago, hire car returned, luggage checked in and we were heading to the departure "lounge" to board our flight home.

My young daughter was proudly clutching a huge teddy bear that her grandma had given her for Xmas. Small Oathette doesn't see this particular Grandma very often, it was a very special, and a very big bear.

It had been a faithful companion to her for the past two weeks, used as a pillow at night, good for lolling on while watching tv, apparently waving vigorously at people out the car window. Now it was time to take it on the plane, and introduce it to the other stuffed animals back at home

We slowly shuffled along the queue, waiting our turn to walk through the metal detector, and have our bags x-rayed. The security drone shoving stuff into the x-ray machine was one of those deadshit looking blokes that you instantly know just loves their job, and the petty level of authority that goes with it. Older, plump, bikie goatee, faded crappy tats on forearm, long greasy lank hair in a pony tail. Loves having the faintest whiff of authority.

Anyway, Small Oathette reaches up to push the bear through the x-ray machine, it is so large that the security guy needs to shift himself from leaning on the machine, and give it an extra push to make it go through. As he does so, he dramatically rolls his eyes and loudly utters "Fucken Hell! Why didn't ya check it in as baggage!?"....directed fairly at Small Oathette.

Time. Stood. Still.

Small Oathette is shocked. She has that little kid respect for policemen, and anyone who looks vaguely policeman-ish, so it was very confronting a) to be sworn at, and b) to be sworn at by a security person. I am stunned. "What did you just fucking say?" I thought to myself.

A thousand thoughts raced through my head; this turd had the power to kick us out of the airport or get me arrested if I swore back at him, kicked up a fuss, or threatened him. Whatever. As I leaned forward, fixed my gaze upon his, and prepared to be kicked out of the airport for what was going to happen next, an elderly woman barged past, stood an inch away from this pig and in a rather plummy voice shouted "Foul Language! In Front Of Children! Such Foul Language! Get Your Superior Here, NOW!" A few seconds silence. A few muttered "Yeah" what she said" from the queue.

Mexican stand off.

By now the rest of the people in the queue were all staring at him in that "Yeah righto cunt, wotcha gonna do now?" sort of stance.

He stared for a few seconds at everyone, angry, piggy eyes glistening with hate. Finally he summed up the overall feeling of malice towards him, mumbled some more bogan expletives ("Farkin cunts the lotta youse") & wandered away to some back room, presumably to fetch the main security drone.

We didn't bother waiting for his return, just haughtily scanned our stuff in silence, assisted by the remaining very helpful, incredibly polite and somewhat apologetic security drones. We smiled nicely at the old biddy who was clearly relishing the opportunity to meet the security boss, she nodded firmly at us, as if to say "I'll take care of this, you go along" and then we ambled to the departure lounge to seek out a restorative tepid watery airport coffee and a stale pastry.

The large bear survived the x-ray and the flight home. He now has lots of new friends. My daughter now has a healthy disrespect for bogans masquerading as figures of authority, and secretly, one day I want to grow up to become some kind of feisty old moral guardian railing against surly airport security drones, or any self important quasi-authoritative drone who think's it's ok to belittle kids.
(, Thu 24 Jan 2013, 14:18, 31 replies)
Ian and the Fish
I had a Uni summer job working in the Sainsbury's in New Cross Gate (just weeks after they'd had an axe-wielding lunatic as it happens, but I was too disconnected from reality to notice at the time). Of the many middle managers with an inflated sense of self there, the worst was by far Ian.

Ian was a small man with a face like a crumpled antique leatherette handbag. He was also a particularly officious little Hitler, and woebetide anyone who dared disagree with him.

During my time there, reluctantly scanning the dates of various rotting fruit and veg, I managed to get on good terms with the ladies working on the fish counter. You know the sort, advancing years but a sense of humour more crude than an oil rig worker's dungarees. Having been there since the dawn of time, they had a pretty good idea of what they were doing. All of which made not on iota's difference to Ian.

After a long shift he was wandering around telling people to jobs they already knew how to do when he found himself at the fish counter.

"Right ladies, I want you to hose this down it's looking disgusting!" chirped Ian, taking what he assumed to be an official and authoratative tone.
"We can't hose it down Ian, it'll..."
"Look love, don't tell me what you can and can't do, I'm a manager, now hose it down!"
"We can't do that or it'll..."
"LOOK! I. AM. YOUR. MANAGER. If I say hose it down, I want you to bloody well hose it down, it's not difficult, even for you. Get on with it!"

And so with that, the ladies did as they were told, got the hose out and washed down the fish counter, which is partially refridgerated, the motor and cooling mechanism being located... underneath the counter. The counter which is not designed to be hosed down, even when a manager tells you to. The counter with the electrics underneath it that are not, despite what the manager says, waterproof. The electrics which then begin to emit rather a lot of smoke and heat of the burning variety.

Ian no longer tells them what to do, or anyone else at that store, having been fired for being a clippy-tie wearing, beige shirted cockstapler of the highest order.
(, Thu 24 Jan 2013, 20:37, 7 replies)
Ah, now...
...after reading the bit in the question where it says "the mad old bloke who runs the Neighbourhood Watch like it's a military operation", I tried to think if I had a relevant answer, and then I remembered that my dad is the mad old bloke who runs the Neighbourhood Watch like its a military operation. Its not a particularly stressful job as far as I can tell. The NW team invited the local policeman to do a talk, and he asked what they would like from their local police force. "Fight crime!", they said, but the policeman replied despondently that there had been no real crime in that part of Surrey for years. Racking her brain, one lady complained that the local sixth formers drove ever so carelessly and fast, and suggested the policeman set a speed trap. This he did unannounced the following week, and caught one sixth former and the lady who had made the complaint, travelling a full 10 miles per hour over the limit.

Part of the job involves editing a Neighbourhood Watch magazine, featuring advice on home security, with a column dedicated to crimes reported locally; and there was a lot of excitement when a lady at the end of the road let it be known that a vagabond had crept into her garage in the dead of night, and stolen an apple pie from her outdoor reserve fridge. Real Enid Blyton stuff - but what the magazine didn't report was that she admitted she found the pie a few days later, slightly stale and where she had left it.

Anyway, the story is that my dad was mowing the lawn one sunny afternoon, and paused for a moment to snoop on the conversation taking place between the couple next door. "I've had three cold callers at the door this week", the old woman complained, "despite putting that sticker in the front window. So much for Neighbourhood watch". "Well", began her husband, "of course you can't expect them to be there all the time..", but he was interrupted with the sight of my father's head suddenly poking through the hedge, staring him in the eye, and saying calmly: "Neighbourhood Watch is watching you, Mr Evans".
(, Thu 24 Jan 2013, 22:25, 5 replies)
Tampons.
They're stuck up cunts!
(, Thu 31 Jan 2013, 15:11, 2 replies)
I once bought a blow up shed. I'd taken a bird in there for some kinky shed sex but unfortunately a tin of paint fell off one of the shelves, which I realised too late did not offer the rigid support of a wooden shelf, and landed heavily on my erect penis
Needless to say that after this trauma I was unable to continue as I was suffering from a terrible case of inflated shelf impotence.
(, Mon 28 Jan 2013, 22:22, 6 replies)
Well, it's kind of on topic...
A few years back I was using the local Freecycle a bit - getting rid of my junk and collecting other people's junk (I did get a brand new bed though).

One day, browsing through the ads, I read that one woman had "just got a new dog - he's quite small and cold. Does anyone have any dog jackets?"

Chuckling to myself, I made my own ad: "Just got a Korean cookbook - does anyone have any small dogs, preferably cold"

And the shit hit the fan - I have the screenshots somewhere, but it seems people around here just don't have a sense of humour.

Anyway, the self righteous board moderator (or whatever they are called), banned me, and warned another freecycler for daring to laugh at my ad.
(, Fri 25 Jan 2013, 12:00, 8 replies)
puffer fish

(, Sun 27 Jan 2013, 11:53, 5 replies)
This one
did it for me.

Making being charitable into a competition whilst getting all angry and indignant. I could visualise him pushing his sleeves up and everything.
(, Wed 30 Jan 2013, 21:44, 67 replies)
There was a security guard at a place I worked, Garry.
He wasn't a cunt, just a used to build up his part on occasions.

Whenever I saw him with a radio in his hand he'd be talking like a TV cop.

On closing the canteen door after lunch was finished, he's on the radio "AREA NOW SECURE!" It wasn't locked, he'd just shut a door.

One time a government minister was visiting and Garry was waiting by the main entrance radio in hand. There was obviously some plan that hinged on our Garry communicating the man's arrival. As the MP's hand touched the door Garry screams "GO GO GO" into his transmitter.

On responding to a call for medical help because a guy had briefly fainted, and was looking a bit green. Garry bursts into the room, visually asses the guy sitting in a chair looking peeky and shout into his radio "MAN DOWN MAN DOWN"

I miss Garry, the gaurds where I work now are all very sensible.
(, Tue 29 Jan 2013, 23:11, 7 replies)
Parking Inspector.
Yeah I know they're an easy target but...

This happened many years ago. At the time I was working with another bloke making hand-made candles. It was a business I had bought into after the other bloke (I'll call him Dick) had bought the business, its' clients (mostly stall-holders at all of the local markets) and the old Holden 1 tonner HQ off his brother-in-law.
But that's another story for another day.

Anyhoo - every Easter we supplied many of the local churches (including the big churches in the city) with the huge candles that they burn during the whole Easter week. There was no discrimination between faiths - to some we sold these candles at a huge profit (considering it was basically pouring a candle into a large poly pipe), to others we donated them as it was usually at the behest of a local charity.
These candles were usually 1500mm x 120 mm, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, sometimes with crosses for different denominations "coloured" into them. We used a slow burning wick as a normal candle can burn as much as an inch an hour. At that size they usually weighed a good 30-40kgs each & as you might imagine are fairly fragile - you're too rough and you end up with a couple of big chunks of wax, a wick in the middle and no candle. We tried 1 year getting a courier to deliver - after many of the churches received broken candles we decided we'd do it ourselves.

So. There we were the last week of March delivering these big candles in the back of our ute to the churches in the city.
We had parked in a "Loading Zone" almost directly in front of St. Georges Cathedral on St. Georges Tce. We wandered inside to find someone to sign for it and tell us where to put it. We found the archbishop. Lovely bloke - he actually baptised me & did my 1st communion.
We headed outside.
To find a parking inspector. Writing a ticket. For our ute.

I tried to head him off - "We're here delivering candles to the church for Easter."
"Once the ticket is written it's done." says he.
Fair call, but..
"This is a registered commercial vehicle that can carry over 1 tonne (so it can legally park in a Loading Zone) & we are on business." says I.
"Too bad, Ive already written out the ticket." says he.
The Anglican Archbishop of Perth then steps in - "These guys are delivering something that the church needs over the next week or so, they appear to have parked legally. I ask you to reconsider..."
"Sorry sir but as I said, I've written the ticket." The priest gets on the blower. And then talks quietly & hurriedly to someone for about 2 min.
"No worries" said my partner during this - we'd just invoice the city for it and write off the ticket.
Literally before the priest has gotten off his phone the Parking guys phone rings.

He answered, "Ahh-hummed" a few times then whipped the ticket out from under the wiper-blade and said to us "There is no problem with you parking here. I'm sorry to have taken you away from your task, my apologies."

tl;dr?
If you're a parking inspector, don't fuck with the church.
(, Sun 27 Jan 2013, 7:41, 8 replies)
A *surgical speciality's name here* Ward, circa 2006. The Consultant's ward round is happening.
Consultant: Morning sir, how are you doing today?

Patient: Well doctor, not too bad but I'm not getting very good care from the nurses here.

* Consultant beckons over the unit manager*

Sister : This sounds serious, could you tell us your concerns?

Patient: Well, all your nurses keep saying I have to walk to the day room to eat my meals with all the other patients, they make me wash myself and tell me I have to walk to the shop for a paper rather than getting me one. This just isn't on, I'm a private patient, I should be getting the best possible care.

*A glance is exchanged between the Sister and Consultant*
*Sister makes as if to speak but is silenced by the Consultant making an airy 'It's alright, I'll take this one' gesture*

Consultant : Could you read that sign above the door for me please sir?

Patient : It says '*surgical speciality's names here* Rehabilitation Unit

Consultant : Thank you sir. Remind your team that they're doing an excellent job Sister
*starts to walk off accompanied by the Sister*

Patient : Hang on, you haven't done anything here, you're praising her up for not doing her job! They aren't bringing me my meals, I am a private patient and this is simply not good enough.

Consultant : No sir, they're not. That's because you are here to rehabilitate. That means the best best possible care you could be getting is for Sister and her team to make sure you doing as many normal things as possible rather than being waited on at mealtimes. Is there anything else you wished to ask?
(, Tue 29 Jan 2013, 14:21, 18 replies)

My dad used to own a big luton van for his various business interests. For some reason that I forget, most likely to hide it from bailiffs knowing him, he parked said van away from home. The location was somewhere quiet and residential but parked legally and lawfully. Anyway, he goes to pick it up a day later and some woman comes out of her house and starts giving him shit about parking there and how she was going to call the police if it was not moved, its an eyesore and all that. So pointing out it was parked legally and not an issue my dad was told "My husband is a magistrate". His reply was "Really? I've never told a magistrates wife to fuck off before".
(, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 8:27, 1 reply)
Small man's disease
1995. We lived on Ponsonby Rd. in Auckland, New Zealand: a bit like living in inner city London parking-wise. Inconsiderate assholes parking across our clearly marked driveway were a weekly occurrence. One Saturday morning I need to get my car out but there is a brand new cream Mercedes SEL two door across the driveway. By this stage I had "If you park here again I will flatten all of your fucking tires, OK?" flyers all printed up and ready to go.

I was putting one under his wiper when the expensively dressed shortass prick of an owner comes back, with his exotic and expensive looking girlfriend in tow. I'd seen them several times before, they were lunchtime regulars at a posh restaurant across the road.
He launches into a "Don't you know who I am you bastard, I'll park wherever I fucking like," tirade, and then starts threatening me while carrying on a steady stream of expletive filled invective. He didn't actually do anything about it though, as I was quite a bit bigger than him.
His unimpressed girlfriend had meanwhile got in the car, so I decided on a different strategy. Ignoring him I walked round to her side of the car and motioned for her to wind the window down, which she did.

"See how this pompous little prick is treating me, even when he knows he's in the wrong? Six months from now, this is exactly how he'll be treating you," I told her. He shut up in mid-sentence, suddenly not sure what to do next.

"Stay here as long as you like. I'm just going inside to get a baseball bat," I told him, and walked off. He was gone a minute later when I came back with the bat.
I saw him several times after that, but I never saw him with the exotic girlfriend ever again, and I never found out who he was.
(, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 7:25, 10 replies)
Drivers of hybrid vehicles.
Self-righteous sanctimonious wankers to a man. "I'm doing my part to save the environment!"

Fuck off. For starters, my 1990 Mazda gets about the same mileage as your brand-new save-the-penguins wagon. A used car means that much less steel being worked and that much less plastic being injection molded into a new vehicle.

And it doesn't require a load of batteries either. Do you know what's inside all of those batteries? Well, why don't I wait right here while you crack one open and eat a spoonful of its innards. Nasty shit, isn't it? Not exactly full of sunshine and candy and fluffy bunnies. Well, when you have to swap out the battery pack in a few years, where do you think all of that's going to go? Are you certain that it's going to be recycled? Even if most of it is, there's going to be some that doesn't make it. But as long as it's not in your back yard, who cares, right? They'll just ship it over to Somalia and let someone else deal with it.

Oh, and the new plug-in cars that don't burn petroleum at all? Aside from the battery question- just where do you think all that electricity is coming from? Somewhere there is a coal fired or nuclear plant that is working just a bit harder and putting out more pollutants because you plugged your car in. It's not that your car doesn't produce any emissions, it's that the exhaust pipe is miles away attached to a power plant. We won't even go into the efficiency losses of transmitting that power from there to you, running it through transformers which turn it into heat as they step down the voltage to something your car can use... no, you just go right ahead, smugly driving your environmental conscience around and telling the rest of us how superior your choice of transportation is.

But hey, why let reality get in your way?

Cunts.
(, Tue 29 Jan 2013, 13:21, 32 replies)
"Check your privilege".
A simple phrase, only heard on some parts of the internet. And yet whenever it's posted I feel a strong desire to reply with "check your self-importance, prick".

The idea behind it is that you're expressing a narrow-minded viewpoint and that you should open your mind to other people's viewpoints.

I can understand the reasoning behind the message, but the way it's delivered is so deliberately confrontational and obnoxious it makes you (or me, at any rate) take the other side of the argument by default, because it sounds like the rallying cry of a moral crusade.

Needless to say, I had the last laugh if you use it as a battle cry it'll really help you make friends and influence folk.

See also: "cisprivilege". I can understand the idea behind it, but the word itself is so clumsy and stupid I can't resist laughing whenever I see it.

One good thing about living in a cultural no-man's land is that you never hear phrases like this spoken in real life. I don't know for sure what the penalties are for laughing at a real-life preacher of this value system, but I suspect they involve heavy doses of condescension, finger-wagging and being branded with such damning terms as "reactionary", "uneducated" or "right-wing".
(, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 0:55, 9 replies)
Last night
I saw a girl - all hair and make up - barging people out of the way on the central London rush-hour tube platform. She was kissing her teeth, and shouted "You's all fuckin' standin' on the platform an' I gotta gets my train, man!", before the tube had actually arrived. As it did arrive, she fell off her heels, and was unable to get up and on the train because the crowd of commuters by that point was too thick and too fast.
(, Wed 30 Jan 2013, 9:33, 19 replies)
Vegans and militant vegetarians.
We don't want to know, we don't want to hear. You don't know better, you don't have secret knowledge, you won't live longer...in fact the only thing you'll win at is at being smug without justification.

Just fuck the fuck off with your witless fucking agenda you fucking fucks, for fuck's sake.
(, Tue 29 Jan 2013, 0:38, 39 replies)
Hey DJ!
I took my 7 year old to a birthday party this weekend the dad of the birthday boy was providing music for the little uns to throw some shapes to.

did he put on a CD? nope he was mixing tunes like he was at an Goa beach party....the twat
(, Mon 28 Jan 2013, 16:13, 9 replies)
I have inflated self-importance
But especially when it comes to dealing with tourists in London. I glare at them when they pause on the pavement to take photographs of each other, and curse them for walking side by side so I have to break pace to get past them when I'm jogging along embankment like a big sweaty teacake.

Last week I was on the tube and a little group of French girls were glancing at me and giggling. I thought, well they can't be blamed for fancying me. With my black glasses, padded jacket and oversized headphones they probably think I'm a Hoxton new media man from 1997 off to pitch his web currency idea. But they didn't fancy me, they were laughing because I was listening full volume to 'Crockett's Theme' by Jan Hammer and the headphones had come out.
(, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 21:58, 6 replies)
Dans le parking...
(d'you see what I did there? Pretentious, moi?)
Brake to a stop just a little ahead of a space, snick into reverse and swing the van round neatly in between two cars in the not-even-quarter-full Tesco car park.

Much hooting and beeping from astern, though, and it seems as though the chap in the black X5 is taking exception to my choice of space. Oh well. I got out, and X5-guy rolls down his window.
"Oi, you! That was my space! I was parking there!"
"Oh really, I don't see your name on it, or any other sort of identification. How about parking somewhere else in the acre-and-a-half of tarmac?"
"You need to move, that's my space"
"Well, I've parked it now, so uh, no."
At which tiny small-man-syndrome Weegie X5-jumps out, draws himself up to his full height (still some 4" shorter than me) and says the immortal words:
"Do you know who I am?"
"Nope, but you shop in Tesco so you can't be *that* great."
I glanced pointedly up at the CCTV camera on a pole nearby, plipped the central locking, and strode off across to the store, listening to his irate shouting getting further and further away...
(, Fri 25 Jan 2013, 19:21, 13 replies)
An Official
Now i wouldn't call the lady that runs the cafe in the Ethiopian Airport at Dire Dawa an official. But she had a uniform.

"Can i have some chips"
"Can't have chips, not on the menu"
"Whats that?" I point to some lady eating chips
"Egg sandwich"
"I'll have an Egg Sandwich please"
"It is not on the menu either"
"But i can make it"
"Yes please, two Egg Sandwiches, they come with chips?"
"Yes"
"Thankyou"


But to be honest this is nothing. In Ethiopia it is still 2005, as they have 13 months and time starts at 6am... So 7am is 1am. If you are in a village night time doesn't have a time. It is just 'Nightime'
(, Fri 25 Jan 2013, 16:58, 9 replies)
A few years back when I was staying at my girlfriend's flat in Chalk Farm
Together we'd planted hanging baskets and window boxes outside her building with a mixture of flowers, ivy hanging down and all that. On this particular day I was leaving for work and I needed to water the flowers on my way out so I picked up a couple of empty cans from the night before, filled them with water and walked out into the sunshine.

Whereupon I was stopped by two PCSOs. They looked at me and then at the open cans I was holding, one in each hand. One of them said:

"Do you realise it is illegal to drink alcohol on the streets in this Borough, as it's a controlled drinking zone?"

"Um, yeah, but I'm not..."

"And it's illegal to carry an open container of alcohol?"

"Well yes, but these are full of-"

"And as a Community Support Officer I can fine you for drinking alcohol on the streets?"

By this point I'd lost patience so I turned around and poured the offending cans into the windowboxes, as had been my intention all along. The PCSOs strutted off, presumably proud that they'd prevented an alkie enjoying his 8:30am lagers.
(, Fri 25 Jan 2013, 12:37, 11 replies)
Inflated self-importance, you say?
Cyclists that jump red lights.
(, Fri 25 Jan 2013, 9:06, 20 replies)
George Galloway
This is the man who hailed his West Bradford by-election victory as the 'Bradford Spring'. Thereby comparing his success in a free and fair election in a democratic country to the tribulations of those struggling to break free from authoritarian regimes.

Oh god oh god oh god I hate this man.

See also Piers Morgan, just for being Piers Morgan.
(, Thu 24 Jan 2013, 17:17, 3 replies)
This lot
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable
(, Thu 24 Jan 2013, 13:54, 16 replies)
Julian Assange

I've never had much time for Assange even before he was famous. He always struck me as a narcissistic drama-queen. The final straw was when ended a press conference with:

"I have two wars to stop!"

Floppy-haired cunt.

Cheers

But, as much as I despise the guy, even I think the rape charges are a load of bollocks.
(, Thu 24 Jan 2013, 13:37, 15 replies)
My husband always had a high opinion of himself,
but one time he decided he'd teach me a lesson after I had a night out and came home a bit late. What an utter bastard.
(, Wed 30 Jan 2013, 14:54, 12 replies)
Public School Head Teachers
You know, the ones who are whining on and on and on that universities discriminate against them. "Admission should be based on ability" they wail, "and not one where you come from".

Well, know what, sunshines? That's precisely what universities are trying to do. Private schools have spent decades saying "Give us little Tarquin for six years and we'll get him slightly better grades than he would have got in the comp down the road" Their entire marketing policy has been based on playing a system which has been, disgracefully, based on which school you went to and not your natural ability. Now the universities are putting things right and the bastards are squealing.

Fuck 'em. Fuck the lot of them. University education is a wonderful, enriching, glorious thing and it should be available to those who are best suited to it, not to those whose mummy and daddy paid thirty grand a year to a private school for six years.

Fuck 'em.
(, Tue 29 Jan 2013, 22:38, 17 replies)
Richard Dawkins.

(, Tue 29 Jan 2013, 8:46, 35 replies)
I'm feeling some inflated self-importance now.
Remember how I went off in a huff a few months ago, saying that the QotW will probably die if the trolls keep going?
(, Tue 29 Jan 2013, 5:28, 19 replies)

This question is now closed.

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