Unwanted things about Xmas.

[Steamport Southport]

Erm. Aren`t Cadbury's Creme Eggs available all year round nowadays?

 

 

 

[62613]

3 hours ago, john new said:

You mean you had a road? You were lucky we had to machette through frozen grass 20ft high..... etc.

Luxury!

['CHARD]

Edited versions of classic songs, like Fairytale of New York, by The Pogues. 

Leave it alone, no-one's getting offended.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

Grass?

We had a primeval swamp with T-Rex and others to fend off, just to get the outside khasi (i.e. hole in the ground)

Primeval swamp? You were lucky; we lived back in the Hadean in a lake of acidic lava under meteorite bombardment and constant electrical storms.  We’d have given anything for a T-Rex to fight off on the way to the outside khasi. 

 

[John M Upton]

I had the misfortune to visit my local M&S Food Hall and Waitrose this morning.  The usual pack of dithering old people, blocking aisles and seemingly taking forever to decide what to buy, were even worse today with the Christmas Ditherers now prevalent, blocking out the entire cheese section in Waitrose whilst they tried to compile a mental list of who is visiting and when over the next week and what cheese they like.

 

Arrrrggghhh!!!!

 

Me, I have list, go in, buy and get out as fast as possible!!!

Edited December 18, 2022 by John M Upton

[F-UnitMad]

4 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

I had the misfortune to visit my local M&S Food Hall and Waitrose this morning. 

Sounds more like showing off to me, rather than 'misfortune'. 😝

Funny program just been on TV, about how Aldi xmas foods are better than Harrod's', in blind taste tests. 🥳

[RANGERS]

8 hours ago, AY Mod said:

People who assume you are working.

When they call you and say, “oh, I didn’t think you’d be working”, even when you are.

[62613]

23 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

I had the misfortune to visit my local M&S Food Hall and Waitrose this morning.  The usual pack of dithering old people, blocking aisles and seemingly taking forever to decide what to buy, were even worse today with the Christmas Ditherers now prevalent, blocking out the entire cheese section in Waitrose whilst they tried to compile a mental list of who is visiting and when over the next week and what cheese they like.

 

Arrrrggghhh!!!!

 

Me, I have list, go in, buy and get out as fast as possible!!!

Remember that old age comes to us all!

[Nearholmer]

I’m not sure what’s worse really, Christmas, or people moaning about Christmas.

[APOLLO]

It was Christmas Day in the harem,
The eunuchs they all were there,
Watching the dusky maidens,
Combing their hair,
When a voice from out of the chimney
Echoed round those marble halls.
It asked them what they all wanted,
And they all replied..."Some liquorice allsorts."

 

Brit15

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

More on that, please?? 🙀

Exactly what information do you want, Dave🤔

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, John M Upton said:

The usual pack of dithering old people

Sorry.

I'll go to Sainsbury's next time😆

[big jim]

10 hours ago, AY Mod said:

People who assume you are working.

people who assume I’ll be on strike whereas I’ll actually be working (assuming others strikes won’t effect me!) 

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

Exactly what information do you want, Dave🤔

I went back and re-read it, that will do. It was quite humorous.

[laurenceb]

12 hours ago, AY Mod said:

People who assume you are working.

People who assume you are not working!

 

[jjb1970]

I think Christmas is great and love brussels sprouts, mince pies, christmas pudding, turkey etc, love it!

[rockershovel]

I spent a number of Xmases (sp?) at sea over the years and on the whole, quite enjoyed them 

 

One which rather fell into the "unwanted" group was one of my last offshore jobs, a rig move in Danish waters. I'd taken this job on at short notice as a replacement, packed my wife off to my daughter's ... then found myself demobbed and re-mobbed over a span of 70 hours or so between Xmas Eve and 27th. 

 

This is always a risk in rig moves although it's not usual. Most commonly you are parked in a nearby hotel on a standby rate but on this occasion I made a chaotic, roundabout journey to a cold house (the client insisted I went to my "address of mobilisation") and lost a days pay in the process. 

 

Another low point was spending Xmas 2011 on a down-manned jack-up in a desolate Dutch port. The inevitable contractual game-playing meant that I had to be there as "Client Rep" ... it wasn't much fun although the Barge Master and one remaining member of the Stewards team did their best. 

 

[The Johnster]

Xmas eve, 1974, and The Johnster (for it was he) is 14.00 spare guard at Canton, and fully expecting there to be no work, since nobody else was booking on and everything was shutting down just after 20.00; I reckoned on being sent home early and up the pub not long after 19.00…

 

At half four the foreman rang the mess room.  There were only the 3 of us there, me, my driver, and our secondman, but be wanted me.  ‘Sorry about this, prof’ (my railway nickname), ‘but I’ve got a Tunstead -Margam empty tanks on the way, with a Margam driver and a Hereford guard who doesn’t sign downline from here’.  Oh, well, no beer for me, but he was a good foreman who’d do anything for you so it was only right to return the favour, not that I had much choice.  ‘He’ll be on the down relief in 15 minutes, but come and see me first’. 
 

Of course, my first worry was how I was going to get back from Margam, but he sorted that when I saw him; gave me the telephone and account numbers of the taxi firm they dealtvwith and told me to ring that, quote the a/c, and a car would come and get me whatever time it was.  Just as well as it turned out.  
 

Plain sailing to Margam Moors where I coupled the 47 off, pinned some brakes down and left the consist in the label clip on the leading tank, and secondmanned the loco on to Margam shed.  It was getting on for 19.00 now and there were no more up trains from Port Talbot.  At this point, the Margam driver offered me a lift in his car up to the main road where I call my taxi, but on the suggested going for a pint, which I thought was a pretty good idea!  ‘My brother’s in the steelworks’ he said ‘we’ll go to their staff club, he’ll sign us in’. 
 

And so he did.  It was a good night to be in the SCOW club, as they had chicken’n’chips inna basket laid on, and entertainment; Max Boyce, and a couple of strippers.  One had a python. Moreover, neither the driver nor his brother, nor the other lads we were drinking with, would countenance me putting my hand in my pocket for a round, and there were more of them than me and four of them were big ruffytuffy steelworkers, so I didn’t think it was wise to make an issue of it…  

 

The upshot was a cracking evening, cost zero, food, entertainment (Max doing his blue stuff), good company, plenty beer, and picked up by the taxi at 2 on xmas morning; slept most of the way home.  Oh, and the Canton foreman booked me 12 hours at triple time and a half xmas overtime rate, worth about the same as a week’s pay!

 

Xmas isn’t always all bad!

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

7 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Many years ago at work we took turns at being on emergency standby over the season. Before I had kids I often traded New Years Eve for being on call Xmas day. I once spent the whole of Xmas day in a chemical works in Widnes, and another in a tunnel shaft under the Manchester Ship canal - both times supervising gas emergency works. Not all bad though, one Xmas week night we attended a big job outside the management HQ of ICI at Runcorn, I remember the butler (or whatever his job was) coming out to us with a nip of Brandy and a mince pie each on a large silver tray !! So spare a thought and raise a glass on Xmas day for all those who serve us and work on Christmas day, in a multitude of occupations.

 

Aaah, the good old days, when single I did the holidays, double/triple time, day off in lieu and a call out payment each time, and the most grateful customers you'll ever meet!

I always remember the Ascot water heater I went out to 5 times one Xmas day, luxury!

 

Mike.

[rockershovel]

I was never paid extra for working Xmas and New Year, rig work (especially offshore) doesn't work that way; but I definitely found over time that having a reputation for availability paid off on various ways. 

 

My earliest years of rig work (for NCB contractors) paid differently, with plus rates for weekend working and very little Xmas or New Year work. 

['CHARD]

6 hours ago, rockershovel said:

on a down-manned jack-up in a desolate Dutch port

 

Award of the year for the best unpublished FALL lyric goes to....

[Hroth]

10 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

Sounds more like showing off to me, rather than 'misfortune'. 😝

Funny program just been on TV, about how Aldi xmas foods are better than Harrod's', in blind taste tests. 🥳

 

It was Aldi evening, there was also an hour long infotainment programme about how they got this year's "must-have" Christmas goodies from manufacturers to the store. And how people loved Kevin the Carrot...

 

Didn't watch the taste tests. Who won?  🤪

 

[Bernard Lamb]

10 hours ago, 62613 said:

Remember that old age comes to us all!

I am almost 80 and yesterday the woman on the check out at Aldi tried to beat me.

She held the last four items in one hand to push towards me as one lot, at the same time asking me if it was cash or card and when I said card, swinging the reader round towards me with her other hand.

I was ready. I pushed the items into my open bag with my right hand while removing my card, that had already been removed from my wallett, with my left hand from my jacket pocket and held it over the reader.

Still up for a challenge.

Bernard

[Hroth]

15 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

I am almost 80 and yesterday the woman on the check out at Aldi tried to beat me.

She held the last four items in one hand to push towards me as one lot, at the same time asking me if it was cash or card and when I said card, swinging the reader round towards me with her other hand.

I was ready. I pushed the items into my open bag with my right hand while removing my card, that had already been removed from my wallett, with my left hand from my jacket pocket and held it over the reader.

Still up for a challenge.

Bernard

 

Unlike others, much younger than you, who put everything carefully in their bags as they pass through the till, then get their purse out of their handbag and rummage through it, either for a card (which they slowly INSERT into the reader and slowly key the PIN in) or for the exact amount, including the slummy.

 

Now imagine that there are a couple of such snails ahead of you in the queue....

 

😬

 

 

[APOLLO]

30 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Unlike others, much younger than you, who put everything carefully in their bags as they pass through the till, then get their purse out of their handbag and rummage through it, either for a card (which they slowly INSERT into the reader and slowly key the PIN in) or for the exact amount, including the slummy.

 

Now imagine that there are a couple of such snails ahead of you in the queue....

 

😬

 

I'm a snail and ain't rushing for anyone at any checkout - I'm the paying customer don't forget !!!!

 

One of my pet hates, over quick, pushy checkout staff.

 

Brit15