Welcome to this Researcher's Journal. If you'd like to comment on anything they have written here, just click the relevant 'Discuss this Entry' button.

I think I'm going to call it 'Keyser'...
Jun 5, 2008

Black as sin. A boot big enough to stow a body, alloy rims and very VERY low profile tyres.

That's my new car, right there.

(12 replies, Latest reply: Jun 6, 2008)

Warning - Endless rant..
Dec 13, 2007

So, we had the 4th annual Christmas brunch thing at work yesterday, where the people who work on the Nordic desk over Christmas are supposed to have something to cheer them up a bit about considering they'll most likely spend Christmas in Scotland instead of at home with their families in their respective countries.

We started the tradition about 4 years ago, when I and a few others decided to try to create a nordic Christmas Smorgasbord for the day before Christmas Eve as it would be the last working day before the start of the Holidays. Mainly this was decided because the lines are usually not that busy, so people don't have to be too stressed out about getting a snack every now and then.

Anywho, since I am scheduled to have Christmas off this year, I told my team leaders that someone else should handle the organising of the X-mas lunch, and they agreed that they'd find someone to take care of it.
Of corse, the first thing they did was to totally not get the whole point of having it on the last day before Christmas, and promptly decided that they'd change it to a week anda half before the originally considered date 'so that more people could be involved, even the guys that leaves for their christmas holidays'.
again, the whole point was to get the guys who are staying behind over Christmas something to look forward to, but okay. Fair enough.

The tradition has also always been that home made food is usually better than store bought food, so anyone that can cook something for the Christmas lunch, should try to do so and to bring it in. The people who feel that they can't cook, should pitch in with some money so that the people who does make the effort to cook, can be reimbursed a bit for the cost of the stuff needed for cooking the food.

This year, since I had handed the reins over to the Team Leaders, they decided to make a change in the handling of this as well. They started collecting money from the people who decided they didn't want to/couldn't bring anything in themselves, and that created a kitty that would later be used to reimburse the people who brought stuff in.
The people who decided to bring stuff in, wrote down on a list what they'd bring, so we didn't end up with 10 eople all bringing ina mountain of meatballs, and nothing else was brought in.
Most people wrote that they'd bring some christmassy bread, some chese, some savoury fruit salad and other good stuff.
I decided I'dbring in some stuff (since I'd still be here) that I know most people like, but don't feel like cooking, because it taks a bit of effort to make. Like beetroot salad, the traditional Chritmas ham and a very Christmassy Swedish dish called Janson's Frestelse.

To make this, I needed to go shopping, and my shopping trip ended up costing me about £30, with the ham taing up about £12 by itself. I figured that if I could get back about £20 or so of that from the collected kitty, I'd be happy about that.
In the end, the collected kitty ended up at about £60 and I later heard that our manager had added another £40 to the kitty as well, from the department fund, which meant that altogether, we had about £100.
Now, that's a pretty good sum of money to spend on foodstuff for a Christmas Lunch.

ANyways, when things got sorted yesterday, one of our team leaders had apparently been to ASDA and bought some sliced ham, sausages, pate and salami and stuff to have on some bread, along with ASDA's own brand Cola and some other stuff that he'd brought in, including a toaster for toasting some of the bread he'd also bought. Looked like it was waaaay too much, however, and at the end of the day, we had a whole lot of those stuff left over.

ANyways, what I was going to say, and the whole point of the rant wa, today, when I came in and asked my team leader for some money back, as I was out of pocket from buying all the stuff I needed, and I was then told that there was no money left in the kitty as it had all been used on buying the stuff my team leader brought in.
Apparently, the team leades and my manager had decided that the list that told them what everyone would bring in didn't show anything that would cost more than the £5 that people gave to the kitty if they didn't bring anything in, so instead of paying those £5 to the kitty, they'd just bring in the food instead.

Now, let's remember that the total of my purchases that was needed to cook what I brought in, was about £30. The kitty is gone. The stuff my team leader brought in was pretty much untouched and I'd say that about 75%-80% of what he brought in, he had to bring back home with him.

So, what we then have is me, £30 out of pocket, and no way to get reimbursed because it's not an officially sanctioned event and the kitty is gone, and we also have my team leader's fridge, jam packed with all sorts of stuff that he brought in, but wasn't used. So in effect, the whole team chipped in so that my team leader could have a well stocked fridge over Christmas.

Merry frigging Christmas to everyone.
That's the last damn time I try to help out to make things a bit more bearable here at work.

(4 replies, Latest reply: Dec 16, 2007)

Frivolous law suit.
Jul 20, 2006

So, on this other message board, someone posted a link to a story that's just too unbeliavable that it could only happen in the USA.

This guy is suing Michael Jordan and Nike for a combined $832 million because the guy thinks he looks like Michael Jordan and people come up to him and ask for his autograph. Well, he's fed up with that and has to find someone to blame for his unwanted celebritydom (?) so he's suing Jordan for looking like him, and he's suing Nike for promoting Jordan, thus making him a house hold name around the globe.

So far, I've found two links to the story..

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/5766288

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006...19/opinion/garver/main1817811.shtml

Maybe I should sue the World and European Triple Jump Champion for using the same name as me. After all, I'm 5 years older then him, so I had my name first, and when I introduce myself to people, they often go "Oh, right, like the triple jumper!", and it's causing me emotional distress as I don't look like him at all.

(1 reply, Latest reply: Jul 20, 2006)

B (o) S
Nov 3, 2005

Why does everything always have to be so bloody difficult in this country?

So I ordered some football gear from a company in the Netherlands, and they sent me their bank details for payment. It was a British bank account and I needed to pay in advance to get the stuff. That's fine by me. I've had pals order stuff to them before, and had no problems.

Problem then arised when I decided to go to my local B(o)S branch to send the money. I work between 8AM-4PM and it usually takes me about 35 minutes to get home from work. Yesterday, I didn't get away from work until about 10 past 4, and therefor didn't get to the bank until just before 4:50PM. Since they close at 5, that still gave me a good ten minutes to get my payment stuff filled in and still be out of there before closing time.
Now, having acclimated myself somewhat to the British mentality, I found a sign saying "Please queue here", so I did and waited until the next person at the counter was available, and asked them about the transfer. The reply came back that "No, I can't do that. You have to speak to one of the other tellers."
Okay, fair enough so I wait again for a while for the next person to be available that could help me with transfer.
When the person from the counter I was at first asked the second person if she could help me sort the transfer out, there was again a negative response saying that I'd have to do it before 2:30PM for the transfer to go through on the day, so I should come back the following day during the day, to sort the transfer. When I told them I couldn't come back first thing in the morning because I started work at 8 o'clock and would be at work during the day. I then asked if I could please just fill in the forms anyway so it'd be sorted first thing in the morning, they first gave me a look like I was asking something they'd never heard before.
Time is still ticking and by now it's closer to 4:55 and the more they stall, the later it gets.
The woman who was supposed to be able to help me then looks at her watch, sorts her papers out a bit, then turns back and with a straight face tells me that "No, I'm going home now."

Eh, say what?

You can't help me because you're closing in 5 minutes and you want to leave dead on at 5 o'clock? Well, excuse me, but in the real world, that doesn't work. If you're open until 5 o'clock, you bloody help people until 5 o'clock!
So anyways, they weren't going to help me any more, so I left. No payment done and no transfer sorted. And I was severely ticked off.

(1 reply, Latest reply: Nov 3, 2005)

Change of scenery?
Oct 10, 2005

So, last week, one of my mates sent a mail saying that he was looking for new staff at the call centre he's working at. Well he's not as much working at the call centre as being the Service Manager for the call centre.

Anywho, he sent this mail saying that he'd have an opening for a team leader position in the near future, and he wanted to know if I (and his old girl friend, who's now my neighbour) knew of anyone that could be interested in the job.

The thing is, though, that the call centre is nowhere near here. IN fact, it's nowhere near anything at all. It's located on the island of Madeira, in the middle of the Atlantic (well, almost anyways) and that would mean that if I applied and got the job I'd need to move out of my flat here, probably just subletting it, and pack up and leave my life here in Scotland behind, much as I left my life in Sweden behind when I moved to Scotland. Only difference is that here I've settled in and I like it here, something I can't say I did when I lived in Sweden.

I'd have to leave (American) football behind, I'd have to leave all the mates I've got because of football, and I'd definitely miss the SRG and all their meet-ups/p*ss-ups.

On the other hand, it'd be a great opportunity to get that change of scenery that I've been looking for, and it looks as if there'll be some pretty good benefits that come with that job as well.

I sent him a mail back saying I'd be interested, and we'll see what he comes back with.

(14 replies, Latest reply: Oct 11, 2005)