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

Well you should just take your jacket with you everywhere; that's what I do.

To stop the big trucks stopping?

No; the sun and the rain. Of course, I live in Utah, and I'm long-accustomed to inconsistent weather.

Bah Utah, hi. I live in Ireland and we're feckin' famed for the four seasons in a day!

When I lived in Oregon, the motto was "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes..."

Rehashig old ground but since it's been over year since I posted, its not as repetative as it may be.

Men shaving their faces (I assume) and leaving all the little stubbles around the sink. This is only added to when said male then barges into the bathroom before I'm finished - ie putting something in the bin before returning - and complaining about the hair in the bath. Had he had the decency to wait for me to finish in there, he'd have seen that I do actually not only rinse but wash the bath when Im done.

Cleaning the toilet - As a female, I sit, do my business, wipe, flush, wash hands and leave (providing there is no mess left visible in the bowl) I do NOT urinate all over the seat/back of the bowl/front of the bowl etc or leave skiddies in the pan and yet it is always me who has to clean it. How does that work?

Not being told by my local council when they plan on doing things to my house. I woke up on tuesday morning, undrew my curtains to find a man on a ladder outside the window. He received a rather unpleasant tyraid before pulling out his work form for the day and showing me he was told to paint the house! A good job that he wasn't out the back as I open the door and shove it open on my way to the loo to let the dog out, had he been there, he'd soon have been face first on the floor having had his ladder swiped out from beneath him.

Hoovering the carpet only to have someone come in with crisps or a sandwich and drop crumbs all over the floor and complain about the mess..... The hoover works just as well for others in the house should they have a crack at plugging it in and pressing the big yellow button.

The idiots who park in my road. Most of my summer has been dominated by buses honking their horns immediately outside my house, sometimes for 30+ minutes when some muppet decided to park on the buss stop, making it impossible for the buses to get around the traffic island without wiping out the stupidly parked car, the island itself, or both. The whole road is then backed up with traffic because the bus is stuck and some smart so and so thinks that by trying to force their way through oncoming traffic that it will vanish and effectively blocking the opposite side of the road too.

'Entertainment News' in the middle of a film on ITV2/3/4. I do not care who is sleeping with whom, who has fallen out of a club, or who is drinking a different drink to the one they advertise. I don't know who these people are to start with and even if I did, I still wouldn't care.

Being asked a question only for the person asking it to leave the room as they finish and not wait for a response and then being all grumpy when you don't bother answering.

People who think Im a thug, and treating me as such, because I wear a hoodie (to keep my ears warm) and own a staffy.

People who are then surprised that my staffy lives happily with 2 cats and a variety of other animals and hasn't eaten them.

People who complain when you remind them of something and then complain even more when they forget something that, after an arguement, you didnt remind them of becausse they claim to not need the reminder.

Rubbish left on the side, less than a foot away from a bin.

Dog poo left in the street/park/anywhere where I'll step in it. Clean it up!

People disposing of old dogs, getting a puppy and repeating the process.

Washing up

Empty kettles, or anything empty that shouldn't be.

My neighbour, knocks on the door, almost sprints down the path because she's scared of dogs, then either not paying attention to when I open the door, or rambling back up the path slower than a pensioner with a puncture... I do have other things to do!



Ok, I'm done for now, I think.

Black Eyed Girl...

Go to my space....

Read Lady R.I.P.



off!!!!!

Think before you write!!!



GT

Oh, stop taking it personally.

If she's not read it, why do you think she meant you?

Sorry Mala!

Bad timling..

Missus and I were going through old photos tonight...........


GT

I've lost pets, too.

That's something different than just dumping them when you want rid of them, like some people do.

We have a little patch of garden where we are now....

Lady is buried there.......


SorrySorry


GT

WOW!

Let me clarify, I haven't looked at the personal spaces of ANYONE on here for at least 3 years. It does sound as if you've recently lost a much loved pet and I'm certainly not having a personal go at you.

I mean the people that get a dog, having it for a few years, then replace it with a puppy at as early as 3 or 4 years old and repeat the process. The whole 'out with the old, in with he new' mentality and treating dogs like mobile phones, something to 'upgrade' to a newer model every few months.
Not the people that have a pet, love it until its final days and then get another dog later on and love that until its final days. Thats the way its meant to be.

Sweet dreams to Lady, clearly a much loved part of your family.

Apologies if I upset you, it wasn't intentional and certainly my 'hate' wasn't directed at you, or anyone else who treats their animals properly.
I lost my cat who grew up with me from the age of 6 months - 22 and its heartbreaking.

Companies who put their call centres in India, or some other foreign country, just to save money. I recently called the BT Broadband Helpline four times and the only British voices I heard were the ones doing the 'If you want... press 1' and 'Your call is moving up the queue'. I wouldn't mind so much but two of the people gave me duff information. I know BT announced in July that they were getting rid of at least 2000 Indian call centre staff, but it seems that the first (if not the only) point of contact for broadband customers is still in India.

I'm not racist, I just prefer to speak to somebody with the same first language. On a few occasions I had to repeat myself to the call centre operator and even then I wasn't sure they understood me. It's worse for hubby. He works in insurance and he's not convinced the Indian call centre staff he has to deal with understand the systems used by the companies they work for.

When the company I got made redundant from offshored to India, there was 'cultural' training given to the British based staff to try and get across the differences.

For example, if you ask them a Yes/No question like "Do you understand how to create that report?", they'll always answer "Yes" because of deferrence to superiors etc. So you need to ask them a question like "Can you briefly just explain how that report is created".

They also like/need precise work instructions (preferably with lots of screenshots) to be able to do a task well. They really struggle to 'think outside the box' or take initiative. Which is why companies offshore very simplistic tasks, but also why we get really hacked off when you phone them and they can't understand a problem that isn't listed in their handbook.

If anything though my belief about offshoring is how poorly it is enacted. When I first started work as a trainee, it took me 1-2 years to really get an understanding of what was happening, what I was supposed to do, and how to do it; and most importantly I had someone mentoring me and giving me regular instruction feedback. With offshoring/outsourcing (whether it is to India, Hungary or even another part of the British Isles) we get the people over to site; cram them full of info for a week or two; hand them a set of instructions and then expect them to be able to do it perfectly.

Unpetty hate post rant ends ...

Actually that has reminded me of one of my petty hates ... all the talk about the bank crisis has been about needless risktaking ... except that's the problem there was no real risktaking; it was everybody following everybody else. The real risk would have been doing something different.

Companies now outsource because their competitors do it; so they feel they have to. Real risktaking would be investing £10 million in researching a totally new product that may not turn out to be feasible.

I may have mentioned this a long time ago in this thread, but it really hacks me off when someone is smoking and throws the cigarette on the floor when they've finished. Firstly, it's littering, and secondly, if you don't put it out first (and they often don') it's still pumping poisonous gases into the air.

@Cheerful Dragon:

you have no idea how pissed off i get when i phone dell if my laptop has a problem... telling them my address [and the person at the other end of the line is usually indian accented] is damned PAINFUL, because they have no idea what the hell i'm saying nor, 2 times out of 10 how to solve whatever the problem is!

What makes the indian call centre thing worse, for me anyway is when they either cold call you or say; "hello, this is John Smith."
I live in a very, VERY asian area and I haven't met one asian/indian/other warm place person who was given a western name by their parents.


My petty hate of right now is the film Ghost. I promise myself I wont watch it, then it comes on and I can't help myself and then that music at the end and I always get something stuck in my throat and in my eye and it annoys the pants off of me.

My latest petty hate is magazine 'journalists' who stick the adjective 'super' in front of other adjectives, eg. super sexy, super cool.

Probably says a lot about my reading matter