The most irritating person I know

It would have to be this little bloke who comes into the gym. He's about five foot tall. He has big biceps, big shoulders and a massive belly. And a big fat head.

He does the same machines every time, and hogs them for ages. In fact, when the place is quiet, he tries to hog two machines at once. He does a set of shoulder presses and then goes over to the lat pulldown machine. But if someone has a go on either of these vacant machines, he sometimes stops and says 'Hey mate I'm still using that one.'

No you aren't, f**kwit you are on the other machine now. I always just say to him 'I'm just doing a set of ten' and then take my time.

But that's not even the annoying thing. The real annoying thing is that the whole time he is exercising HE TALKS REALLY LOUDLY INTO A STUPID BLUE TOOTH HEADSET BEHIND HIS EAR. He never stops. He talks self-important crap about various business dealings he is negotiating with some unnamed person. Maybe he is some sort of drug dealer, he certainly looks like one of our local thuggish organised criminals with his stupid gold chain and ugly tattoos.

His conversations go something like this:

'Yeah, tell Billy to bring it over...no look I told him that already, it was all arranged....what....yeah but sure that was all sorted out...what....yeah of course that was all sorted out already....yeah when we were in the house last night...yeah in the kitchen.....'

Blah blah blah. Really loudly.

I suppose the reason why he has the big belly is because he only works on his arms. I sometimes wonder why he never looks in the mirror and thinks 'Christ I look ridiculous.' Because he does.

After I finish in the gym I like to go and relax in the spa & steam room. My bluetooth friend doesn't usually frequent this area, but one night I was sitting in the steam room when he walked in.

Bizarrely, he was fully dressed in his gym gear complete with jewellery. He had a newspaper with him. Bear in mind that in the steam room it's very damp and with 90% humidity his paper soon started to fall apart.

But not before he had a chat to me about the contents. To my disgust, every time he finished a sentence he spat on the floor between his feet, like some weird nervous tic.

'Look at that' spit he said 'he earns a million dollars an hour' spit

'What?' I replied.

'Advertising' spit said Mr bulky dwarf. 'a million dollars an hour. spit. I'd like to be him' spit.

I was confused now. 'Who does.'

'Mr Google' spit he said. 'He gets a million dollars an hour from advertising.'spit

Hmmm. So he thinks that there's a person called Mr Google running the whole operation. Maybe he lives next door to Mr Yahoo and Mr Facebook.

Human? Dancer

Am I human?

Or am I dancer?

So I did quit my Job

I didn't weigh in last week. I'm just not interested enough any more. I rang in sick for three days and then stopped.

I told them I had a bladder infection.

I do not see the point of it any more. I barely earn enough to save any money; and the job is so mind-numbing I waste my money on dubious weekend entertainments.

Plus it is depressing to be treated like an errant child.

So I wrote a letter to my boss and cycled over tonight and left it on her desk with my headset and locker key and pass. I apologised for not working my notice. I don't suppose they'll care.

So I will walk around our lovely countryside for the meanwhile before I consider my next step. I have enough money to keep me going.

The song above could have been written about me, minus the WW1 bits.

Dietary Habits

This week, I've been eating my porridge uncooked, with milk and raisins. Try it before you decry it. It's minimilist muesli for the recessionary era. I got this recipe from Maurice Carlin.

Only problem is, the mixture 'cooks' inside you, creating merry bloody hell with your innards. I dropped my guts five times yesterday, the first four before I'd even got out of bed.

I also bought a one kilo tub of peanut butter. When the top layer was finished, I stirred in a 240g jar of ASDA ginger preserve. It's delicious in white bread sandwiches.

Speaking of such matters, I had a prawn open salad with my mum today. It was lovely.

Her dinner table patter:

"Good prawns these aren't they? From M & S. North Atlantic ones. Not like those Asian ones. Do you know, they fertilize their fields with human faeces, and it runs into the lagoons, and that's where they get the prawns from. Come to think of it, it can't be too healthy eating the vegetables, if they harvest them in faeces. The smell from the farms must be terrible.'

I pushed the salad away, and helped myself to a bread roll.

Work

I don't think I can do my call centre job any more.

I've been taking 100 calls a day every day for a while now as they cut staff.

I got hassled for my toilet breaks as I'm taking too many, but I'm on diuretics (piss tablets) for my blood pressure.

I went to the doctor to get her to write them a letter explaining this, but she (understandably) said it was ridiculous and the NHS shouldn't have to pay for such a letter. She said she would charge my employers £20.

I went back to my boss and asked her if my firm would pay the money. After consulting with her boss, she said no. She'll give me an extra minute or two per day.

Great. That'll barely get my arse out of the seat and to the top of the stairs.

In the meantime, I've been fighting for some extra holidays for a while now.

I was suspended without pay for a week last year, but during part of that time I was off on holday. So I lost my holidays and my pay. I want one or the other back, preferably my holiday entitlement.

We don't book or holidays through human interaction. It's all done automatically by computer.

To my surprise, when I booked another holiday at the start of February, I accidentally booked six days off during a week rather than five and the software let me do it. We're entitled to 5 days & a 2 day weekend, so why the feck does their software let you book six days off? I bet I'm not the first to do that, and some people probably haven't noticed.

So I'd lost a day & I couldn't get it back outa the computer. I told my boss. I told HR. I just want my frigging holidays back.

I think I should hand in my notice.

Here are some letters I have written. It's not too much to ask is it?

Dear Sir/Madam,

1.) Last year I was suspended without pay from 30th September until Sunday 4th October, though in reality I did not receive any pay for that week (see attached photocopy). However, I was off on holiday on the 28th and 29th September and the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of October. I have had these days taken off my leave entitlement, despite not being paid for them. At the time my team leader,*******, told me that these holidays would be added back on to my entitlement. This has not been done to date. Please could you adjust my remaining leave accruement accordingly.

2.) My holiday entitlement for year 2008/9 still shows 11.92 hours. I was in passport grad bay when I started my role in ************** in March 2009 and was not allowed to take these holidays. Please add these hours to my leave entitlement for 2009/10.

3.) I worked two bank holidays in springtime of last year. One was May day and perhaps one was at Easter. I was told that I would get a day in lieu for each of these days. These could have already been added on, but since I have never received any communication to this effect I have no way of verifying this. Please could you verify whether my entitlement has been altered.

Yours faithfully,

me

And when that didn't work:

Dear Sir/Madam,

Since my last letter (enclosed) I have had twelve hours added on to my leave entitlement. However, I haven’t received any correspondence as why this has happened. I’m guessing that it may be the 11.97 hours still showing from my 2008/9 allowance. Please could you let me know what’s going on.

In addition to the unresolved issues from my last letter, I inadvertently booked six days off during the first week of February just past. As you are aware, I’m only supposed to work five days out of seven. As I’ve only been paid for five days, please could you give me back one day’s holiday allowance.


Yours faithfully,
me

Dear editors of national newspapers

And their acolytes:

A wise friend of mine has pointed out:

The reason why you shouldn't reveal Venables name and offence is because it will prejudice a jury.

Despite your childish attempts to divide the world into good and evil, we still have a presumption of innonence in this country.

Whatever his new offence might be, you will never find twelve impartial men and women if you continue your efforts to uncover him.

You might whip up an angry mob attacking Venables, or his family, or friends, or someone with a vaguely similar name.

So shut the fuck up for a few minutes, yeah?

Oh, I didn't expect to speak to a real person!

Oh, I didn't expect to speak to a real person!


So it's eight o'clock at night and you decide to ring the passport helpline. I can hear the thudding tones of the 'Eastenders' theme in the background. You're probably having a cup of tea and a Digestive and have decided to bother me with some inane queries about passports.

The real civil servants have gone home hours ago and only simple wage-slave lackies like me are still here on our 'fully-flexible' shift patterns to aid the clueless British public.

And you have to rub it in by saying

Oh, I didn't expect to speak to a real person!


If you didn't expect to speak to a real person it begs the question; why the fuck did you ring?

Because now you're going to bother me with a dozen questions, and you're barely going to listen to the answers and you're still going to fuck up the application form, because you sound a bit thick.

q.) How much is a passport these days? How long does it take to process? Do I still have to fill in my child's father's details on section 4 of the form even though it could be any one of a dozen weasel-faced blokes? Do I need a visa to travel to Malta? Will I get the passport back in time? Do I need to send the birth certificate only I've not got one?

a) £49 for a child, £77.50 for an adult is the cheapest; three weeks; just fill in what you can or if you leave it blank explain why in section 8; No, but contact the foreign office to make sure on 0845 850 2829 as my boss's would rather you rang two separate numbers to make more money for my company; yes, probably; yes and here's the number for the registrar general.

Now, I say again, if you have all those questions and you

didn't expect to speak to a real person!

then why the fuck did you ring?

Have you heard that the passport agency have developed their own version of Hal from 2001? Or have they employed a load of Haley Joel Osmonts from Steven Spielberg's magnum opus 'AI'?

Maybe you thought you could get the answers to your questions by bashing the keypad on the phone with your many thumb-like fingers:

'Press 5 on your keypad if you want to know whether you can get an appointment at the Newport passport office between 3pm and 4.15pm on a Tuesday, and whether you'll have to bring new photographs, and whether you can pick the passport up on the same day, and whether someone can go along on your behalf to do this.'

If you thought these things, help me out. I haven't fucking heard of it. I'm still sitting in this bastard office listening to your inane shite.



Thank you for calling.