h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The savoury ones i tried didn't taste 'right' to me. Think they have to be sweet!

...and i did try a few, in the interests of research you understand

dammit- top of the page

speaking of your ideah,my brother used to work
in a pet shop and got his own t shirt made emblazoned with

R.U.A.T.W

translation "are you a time-waster"

I think I'll get one made that says N.N.T.A.A.T.

'Not now, the adults are talking'

Many years ago (circa 1990), I made a button that said "Techno-Peasant at Work". When I started working at Chapters and was running the Internet Cafe and looking after the computer books and Cds, I started wearing the pin. The term Techno-Peasant was one I made up (I have since seen it in computer dictionaries which surprised me) basically means someone who sort of lives and works on the fringes of computer technology. Customers who "got it" thought it was a terrific motto. Customers who didn't "get it" would ask what it meant and usually thought it was interesting.

The manager didn't "get it", didn't think it was "appropriate" because it implied that I was "a wage slave". I tried to explain that it had nothing to do with that and that none of the customers took it that way. However, he ordered me to remove it beacuse it made it look like I was protesting the work I had to do.

I was interested that the term Techno-Peasant was a recognised term and would like to think that I was the first person to come up with it. I have always wondered if it pre-dated my use of it or what.

Bosses are always taking things the wrong way.

We have a clock in system at work, one of the functions of which is fire safety. In a fire, they can tell instantly if you are in or out of the building. Very clever.

Except they also tell you to clock out for lunch and back in again. Even if you are staying in the building cafeteria. It makes sense, sort of, as you get 1 hour for lunch, but can have 30 mins + 30 mins overtime.

I asked: At lunch, if there is a fire, how do you know if I am "out" at lunch in the cafeteria or out at lunch in McDonalds down the road?

He said he'd check and get back to me. I'm still waiting for the answer.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen him for a while. Maybe he's hiding.

Don't get me started on timeclocks....

Our timeclock was always wrong. We used to have a "5 minute meeting" before the store opened and we couldn't be late for it. I tried to get a straight answer on whether the time for the "5 minute meeting" was according to the manager's watch (whichever one of the 10 managers we had), whether it was according to the time on the phones, or whether according to the timeclock (which made the most sense IF the timeclock was right... which it NEVER was).

Everyone would say "according to the time clock". So I set my watch to the timeclock. Now, when I got up in the morning, I would check and my watch was still on time and correct to how I had set it the day before. I would arrive in and the meeting would already have started. I would check my watch and either it would be the same as the timeclock or the timeclock was off. Then the manager would give me sh!t for having been late...

"But, my watch says...."

"The meeting is set to my watch."

"But it is supposed to be by the timeclock."

"My watch is set to the timeclock."

"Well, so is mine and my watch says the meeting shouldn't have started." Unless the timeclock was, again losing or gaining time. In which case... Well, the timeclock is off. I set my watch to it yesterday."

"Your watch is wrong...."

God forbid you would come in after your two days off because you were, I suppose, supposed to know by ESP what the timeclock or the manager's watch was set at.

There was one manager, Patsy.... The Anti-Christ of all managers who really hated my guts... well, she hated everyones guts, but she hated mine the most. She would give me a dressing-down in front of the staff and sometimes in front of customers for "being late" when I felt I had been on time. I would check with my co-workers and they would agree that the time was off.

I'm sorry, but you either have a big clock in the middle of the store that everyone goes by, or you go by a standard such as the Official Clock. You set all the clocks in the store to that, including the managers' and that is that.

The one day that really ticked me off was the day when I was stuck in the little lobby between the elevator and the door into the store. Because Starbuck's was open well before and well after we were, customers could access the washrooms at any time. However, the door into the store would only be opened in time to let the staff in.

On day, the manager, Katie, on duty forgot to unlock the door and the elevator would not come up to the floor where I had gotten off anticipating walking right into the store. Luckily, I had a quarter to make a phonecall from the payphone beside the elevator. Unfortuinately, Katie decided to let the phone ring and ring and ring. Finally, after about the 8th call, and between banging hard on the door and yelling at the top of my lungs, Katie answered the phone.

"Hi, it's Me... I am stuck in the lobby by the elevator."

"Your late, you are supposed to be here for the 5 minute meeting!"

"I know, but I HAVE BEEN STUCK IN THE LOBBY FOR 15 MINUTES! Can you let me out?"

"But you're late! You really have to get here on time."

"Yes, but I wouldn't have been late, if you had unlocked the door from the elevator lobby..."

"But you're late." Her voice was getting more and more agitated.

"For the Love of God! Can you just come up and let me out????"

"Yes, but you're late!"

By now I was ready to scream at her... She finally, she came and let me out, but continuted to agitatedly ramble about my having been late and what a problem it was that I was late.

Later that day, the manager gave me hell for having been late....

I said "But I wasn't late... I was locked in the elevator lobby for 15 minutes. Katie didn't unlock the door. I'd have been in plenty of time if I had been able to get into the store!!!"

"Well, you are going to have to get here in time in the furture...."

I wanted to scream "BUT I WAS ON TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

It's a good job you can't carry firearms to work...

I've just looked up a t-shirt site, and they've DELETED the one I was going to suggest to Gosho...anyway, here it is, it says "No, I haven't got a f***ing loyalty card!"

But you might like to go and have a look anyway, some are quite amusing. It's here: http://www.teemarto.com. Check all the categories.

I love that t-shirt... Perhaps it comes in a button.

Here is a T for you Gosho....
http://www.sparratease.com/images/music/dury.gif

an old credit card

I have them beat now. I bought a fairly cheap watch with a radio control built in.

It keeps perfect GMT time! It even corrects for DST! (I am a self confessed gadget freak.)

If someone says I'm late, I check my watch and say "No, look I'm two minutes early. It's a radio syncronised watch."

"Yes, but not by the office clock."

"But the office clock is wrong."

"Yes, but that's the time we go by."

"The wrong time?"

"Yes. No. It's the office time."

"Look you can't just declare idependance and create your own time zone."

"Well, why don't you set your watch to the office clock?"

"Because it's radio syncronised. It will correct itself automatically. Why don't you set the office clock to the RIGHT time?"

"Because it's a slow clock."

"Well you should have bought a radio syncronised one. They're exactly the same price as a normal good quality clock these day. Here's the mail order catalogue."

My mother works in an operating theatre suite (OR for the USians.) The suite has vary areas through which a patient progresses;
Forward waiting - where you wait for your turn
Anaesthetic room - where you get put to sleep
Operating theatre - where you get carved up
Recovery - where you get woken up

As a matter of course the journey of every patient through these rooms is carefully documented with times.

The clocks are not synchronised.

At their worst you can leave recovery a couple of hours before you arrived in forward waiting. At the best I've seen them, your four hour long operation took 3 hours 5 minutes.

For an entire summer once, the operating theatre for general surgery and forward waiting were on British summer time but recovery was on Greanwich mean time and the clock had broken in the anaesthetic room.

You could, of course, remove the need for this entire conversation by saying these three short words: Get. A. Life.

893 posts would suggest that some of us are quite happy thanks!

Chacun a son gout - as they say.

Those T shirts are very good One day I must get myself one of those BSOD shirts I've seen people wearing

We have similar time problems at the store. There's a clock on the wall that says one time - that's the time we open and close by. The clock face on the punch clock is a couple of minutes fast by the wall clock, but the actual time pucnhed on the card is a good 10 minutes slower that that

Oh, and none of those clocks are in sync with the little portable alarm clock which I carry in my bag. It's set by three different sources, all of which are within seconds of each other - the PC clock (which I can set to an atomic clock here in the US), the clock on the cable set-top box, and the clocks on the buses here in Austin, which I'm guessing are all radio controlled from one central clock.

And my boss still refuses to use that as store-time

I feel totally underqualified to post in this, one of my favourite threads for lurking, but I'll try. Here now is my small contribution...


The way to deal with over-enthusiastic sales assistants asking you if all is well is to:
1) make eye contact
2) smile slightly
3) blink once or twice
4) say, "I'm sorry I don't speak English."

I tell you it works *every* time

When you explain that you should 'say "I'm sorry, I don't speak English"', am I to presume that you should speak those words in a perfect English-speaking accent, rather than with a French/German/Italian/Japanese/whatever inflection?

Of course, that wouldn't work in Texas since no-one here speaks English anyway. They may claim that they do, but they don't. Trust me

Oh, Mudhooks, you have my sympathy! Suits at Head Office seem to the bane of many peoples' existence.
I just went to commend a young woman at a chain near here, Whitcoulls, which used to be a bookstore but now sells everything from newspapers to DVDs!
I went in for the Silmarillion. They don't have it in stock! (Can you believe that in NZ after all the LOTR kerfuffle, they don't have the Silmarillion in stock?
The young woman helped me through the process of ordering it, (from the UK), recommended various editions based on price and time they'd take to arrive, and all this on a busy post-Christmas Saturday - she was *brilliant*! All honour to her, but I don't remember her name...It might have been Emma.

Mudhooks, because I cannot follow the link from where I am having to go these days, could you explain what a Beavertail is, please?