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

Burgers for breakfast?!

Yeah- try the fruit and veg stall- you may live a decade or two longer

Bacon rolls actually but I couldn't find a smiley for that!

What's so great about living longer anyway? Most old people have a lousy life.

Eloisa a friend of mine gave up drinking, smoking and women. He was healthy up to the day he killed himself.




(Thank ye, George Burns)

I don't think drinkers do have shorter lives, they just remember less about it.

I want, that's made of apples. It's a health drink.

A bit of what you enjoy, does you good, all in good measures

Absteining from tobbacco, alcohol and sex doesn't make you live longer.....it just seems longer.

That anti smoking ad where scientists in laborotries apparently don't know that cigarettes contain benzine. It's written on the frelling packet!

And one I picked up earlier...

... A packet of Mayfairs (really cheap and nasty fags) carries the legend SMOKING KILLS! in seriously big letters.

Meanwhile Benson and Hedges ("By Royal Appointment") has the milder legend, something about "Your health may be impaired if you continue smoking".

Leading the person who observed this to say "Flipping typical. One rule for them and another for the rest of us, hey - trust the bloody Royals to get the ones that don't kill you"

I gave up in the Christmas of 2005, btw, but still have an envy and sympathy for those who can still snmoke)

Not a petty hate but something a bit more serious:

What do you do when you have committed what is at best a very minor misdemeanour at work. You are given what is laughingly called a "one to one" by a senior manager who is hell-bent on making it sound as if the miscreant AgProv has commited sodomy with a goat in full view of several primary schools and a coach-party of nuns.

This senior manager is both thick and overbearing and just does not listen to you.

She is, in fact, supplying your side of the conversation from somewhere in her own head and there is no way of breaking through her barrier of protective smug-ness.

You realise during the interview that your will to live is fast joining your desire to carry on working for this company. You know you are by far and away the most intelligent and rational being in that room, but that the most intelligent thing you can do is not to draw attention to this fact, nor to the obvious other fact that there isn't very much competition.

You ask yourself why, as a university educated person of reasonable ability, you are doing a dull job for crap money and working at the whim of what Dilbert cartoons call "pointy-headed managers"

Your last attempt to better yourself saw you doing a practical computer test not on the sort of office PC you know best, but on a completely unfamiliar laptop with a different keyboard layout and integral mouse - the person giving you feedback from the interview tells you this should have made no difference, and that I should be capable of using a laptop every bit as well as a PC. So not surprisingly I could not complete two computer-based tests that would have taken ten minutes on a familiar PC, and in fact scored less than the other two candidates for the job. I've only used a *@$^^^ing laptop twice before in my life!

And is there anything that can be done about this?

(beats head on wall of cubicle, thinks of going forth and hitting pub)

I have always found that, in a situation like this, it is a good idea to submit your arguments/objections in writing. Set it out in a calm, reasonable and professional way with a CC to either a superior member of staff or HR (or both) Make it plain in the letter that you have forwarded copies and that you request that it be kept on record.

This has several advantages - it records your objections should the matter be brought up again and also lets them know that you are not one to be walked all over.

This is especially effective if you really don't care if you keep the job or not and lets them know that threats have no effect.

People who save the packaging to items....'Just in case i have to take it back'.

For heaven's sake The thing you bought you've thrown out years ago when steam power went out of fashion, the shop you bought it from was bombed in the Blitz, and the til reciept gives it's value in groats. Live a little, take a walk on the wild side........throw the box away

Polluter! Enemy of Humanity.

Stone him

I do that

Erm..not stone anyone

My current 'hate' is compulsive horders. They won't throw anything away. "It holds memories", "I might need it some time", "There's still some wear in it".

I have a good reason for this 'hate' at the moment. Mum-in-law died just before Christmas, leaving us her house and contents. Snag is, a lot of the 'contents' is junk. We've mentioned it to her in the past, but she complained that we (me in particular) were trying to throw away her memories. Just what memories she attached to some old plastic tubs, foil tins and cardboard boxes is beyond me. Then there's the number of articles she tore out of magazines, then tucked away in books, never to be read again. We've thrown out about 400 videos that she'd taped films and programmes on. Most of them won't have been watched more than once. And as for clothes! 'Dad' died two years ago and she still had all his old clothes. And she had wardrobes and drawers full of things that didn't fit her any more, but she wouldn't thrown any of it away.

Our local tip has bins for recycling textiles. I've filled two bin bags already and I'm working on a third. And I haven't even scratched the surface. This job is going to take weeks. My own mum, on the other hand, is trying to keep her possessions at a reasonable level, so that we *don't* have this hassle when she dies. I'm hoping that's not for some time yet.

When people talk about 'obsessive compulsive disorder', the thing that springs to mind is somebody washing their hands till they're raw. Obsessive hording is another form, and 'Mum' had it in spades.

Sounds like my mother in law. She used to insist on keeping new clothes for special occasions and packing them away in cupboards. When my father in law died, we discovered dozens of brand new shirts still in their packaging that he never had a chance to wear.

She's also compulsive about buying shoes, a real Imelda Marcos. A few years ago she showed them all to Mrs SWL, laying them all out in the bedroom, the hall and the spare bedroom. All brand new and unworn.

"One day, these will all be yours", she said.

"That's fine mum", replied Mrs SWL, "but it might be an idea to start buying them in my size"

My grandmother was the same - thing is though that she had, in her lifetime, had to leave everything she owned on three occasions (among other things she was a refugee during the war) and I can understand her hoarding.

When she died we had to clean out masses of empty jars, balls of sting, even bits of wood and old clothes - but, all things considered it was understandable

>You realise during the interview that your will to live is fast joining your desire to carry on working for this company. You know you are by far and away the most intelligent and rational being in that room, but that the most intelligent thing you can do is not to draw attention to this fact, nor to the obvious other fact that there isn't very much competition.


I had a somewhat similar experience, where one of the directors came down from head-office to give me a grilling about something that made no sense to me. A few months later I was made redundant, and at that point, it all made sense....they had probably been trying to get me to leave, so that they could save the redundancy money. Thinking back to his 'grilling', I could tell that he himself didn't really believe what he was saying, and that he was probably acting on behalf of someone higher up in the company, since when he'd finished, and failed to get me to react angrily, he had a look on his face which said "oh well, I tried".

So I would say to you, well done for not reacting to her.

And start looking for another job.

As far as there not being very much competition in the room, if I understand you correctly, don't be so sure that helps. I had been called up for jury service a few months previously, but they had told the courts that I was indispensable to the company, so I couldn't go. Yet that didn't stop them laying me off.

<>

Both mothers lived through the war, Mum-in-law in Birmingham, Mum in Hamburg. Both were affected by the "enemy's" bombing. They've reacted in opposite ways. Mum-in-law used it as a reason not to throw anything away - she'd seen too much stuff destroyed. Looters stealing some of her beloved books probably didn't help. Mum, on the other hand, saw the destruction of 'best' china, linen, crystal, etc., all of which had hardly been used. It gave her the attitude that there's no point in keeping stuff for 'best'. Do that and you get no pleasure out of using it. Now she doesn't buy clothes she'll never wear, or items she won't use. Nothing remains in it's packaging and all packaging is thrown away. She doesn't even want us to buy her Christmas or birthday presents, 'cos she doesn't want any more clutter. On those occasions, we take her a big bunch of flowers and a bottle of wine. (Mum and I sit and drink the wine in the evening. )

Obsessive hording isn't uncommon and there are a variety of things that can kick it off. Reaction to the war seems to be a common one. But it *is* a mental problem, although not one that people think sufferers should seek help with. Mum-in-law had a variety of other mental problems, but there's no way she would ever have sought therapy for any of them.

Thanks for the replies to the work-related rant - they made sense and I shall incorporate them into my thinking, as this company has sapped my desire to work for it. It's currently "restructuring" and I'm pretty sure I won't be a part of it in three months' time, so I am looking for a get-out - hopefully I can use the exit process for some pretty candid comments about why I'm going!

To be honest, I tend towards thinking people who are obsessively into "decluttering" are every bit as neurotic and mentally unbalanced as compulsive hoarders.

I'm sure like most of the human race, we live in that comfortable in-between state which has "HOARDER" at one end of the spectrum and "DECLUTTERER" at the other. We don't have a difficulty with getting rid of things which are past their natural lifespan and the house certainly isn't over-cluttered. Yet we have a close relative of the decluttering persuasion who continually shrieks at us that we're hoarding and why don't we let her declutter us? To which the only sane response is "no, sod RIGHT off, we like it this way" or "Yes, those are bookshelves. They have books on them. That's what shelves are FOR. Where's the flaming problem? If they were meant to be bare and empty there'd have been no point putting them up in the first flaming place" et c.

Or:-

"Forget it, that record collection took thirty years to build up and NONE of it is going. Yes, I know we have CD copies of a lot of these vinyl albums. And your point is exactly?"

I mean, the bloody woman is bloody well demented... if I wanted to live in an empty showhouse I'd declutter and buy no stuff, but a house is for LIVING in, damn and drat it...