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

i,d make sure my virus catcher and firwall was fully working, sending a email to info: anywhere .com is a invitation to another computer to your computer.To certain parts of many OS it all it needs!!!!!!!!!!

From today's "Social Studies" column in the Globe and Mail:

Ask a doctor

Britain's Pulse magazine has compiled some after-hours calls from patients that the country's doctors have reported:

"I'm on antibiotics. Can I wash my hair?"

"How many calories are there in prawns?"

"Can the dog be treated on the [National Health Service]?"

"I'm doing a crossword. How do you spell eczema?"

Source: The Independent on Sunday

<<"I'm doing a crossword. How do you spell eczema?">>
Ah, that word. I never know how to spell it...
But who'd be a doctor? (Actually, I wanted to but I can't do maths - but Jimmy is going to be one! A pathologist, so he won't have to cut up live people...)

From today's "Social Studies" column in the Globe and Mail:

News for bus drivers

Mike Newman, a Scottish bus driver and part-time paleontologist, has discovered the fossil of the world's earliest-known land-living and air-breathing animal. He donated it to a museum, which has named it Pneumodesmus newmani, after him. "Well, that's pretty cool," he said, noting that "it's not just any old creature; it's not like a shell or anything like that."

In Denmark, two Copenhagen bus drivers have been fired for driving under the influence of alcohol; one of them was caught by police while speeding downtown in his bus, sipping a beer. In Sydney, Australia, a bus driver was suspended over allegations he was drunk while driving a bus full of commuters in the morning rush-hour traffic. Officials ordered him to offload his passengers and drive back to the depot.

In New York, a passenger on an express bus to Brooklyn accidentally left behind an envelope with $1,700 (U.S.) cash when his ride was over. The driver handed in the cash but was too shy to accept recognition and said his deed was nothing unusual.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040212/FASS12//?query=social+studies

This is a pretty good site.

http://www.bullshitjob.com/

With a book

'Would you like a bag for those CDs?'
'Yes, if you have one'.



Number one, we're a shop. Of course we've got bloody bags.
Number two, if I didn't have a bag for your CDs, would I have offered you one?

Muppet.

"Do you need a bag?"

"Of course I need a bag!" (with a "What are you? Nuts?" tone of voice.)

It never occurs to some people that some people prefer not to have a bag for one item.

And, I always like the people who get mad at you for offering a bag.

Fact is, you just can't win.

And it's quite astonishing how much time amny customers need to answer that simple question. Come on - I didn't ask you if you're fully conversant with Eistein's theory of relativity, I asked if you wanted
something to carry something else in. Not a difficult question one would have thought

Apparently it is for many.

since I carry a large cotton carry bag for my shopping, I find being asked automatically, 'do you want a bag?' strange, I am often putting my purchase in my bag, when I am asked this........

I usually carry my backpack with me when I go out, and always when I go shopping. But I still get asked 'Paper or plastic?', even when it's quite obvious that I'm getting ready to put my groceries in there

I used to be a cashier in a grocery store, and one thing we would ask is if they wanted their gallons of milk in bags. Some people did because it's easier to carry, some didn't because the bags tend to rip, and some wanted them doublebagged, and of course they all acted offended that you even asked because it's obvious how you should pacakge the milk for each different customer.

And I especially liked the people who would rebag thins if they didn't think you did it right. Seriously people, I realize bread is delicate but it's not going to get squished if there's, say, a single packet of soup mix in the bag with it.

My only observation about bagging of bread, is that I prefer to have my bread standing upright in a bag, rather than placed flat in a bag on top oif other groceries.

I will ask to have my bread in a separate bag. However, I do so in a polite manner, unlike SOME people I have seen.

"Madam. If the I were a mind-reader, do you think I would be standing here bagging your groceries for minimum wage instead of making a mint in Vegas?"

OOOOO... I just remembered. I saw a cartoon the other day with the perfect "Do you work here?" response.

The world-wearied clerk in the loud "company uniform" says to the customer "No. I do NOT work here. This is my own personal Hallowe'en."

I never get mad if offered a bag, I just smile and indicate my back-pack. What does make me cross, is being in the grocery shop, and buying three items, and *not* being offered one - presumably on the assumption that I am going out to a car... Sometimes I'll ask for one, pointing out that I *don't* have a car, especially if what I am buying is heavy or unwieldy and can't or won't fit in my backpack, or if I just have my purse with me.

I'm confused, do you have folk packing your groceries for you as well as scanning them through the checkout?

Yes

Sometimes there is a person whose job it is to pack groceries and/or help you carry them to the car, most often though it's the person on the checkout who does it. Tends to make the wait at the checkout a lot longer than it need be when the same person who rings up the purchases then has to spend another couple of minutes bagging them up

And some of them can be very territorial about it - if you start putting them into plastic bags on your own they insist that you wait

Blimey What a complete waste of time. Get one person to do two people's jobs and thus take twice the time to finish it.

Sainsburys here did briefly introduce the idea a few months back, but dropped it sharpish when folk started complaining about the delays at the checkouts.

<>
It depends on the supermarket. The poncy ones have two people, the scuzzy one near home has one over-burdened person who, in practice, usually dumps the shopping and a couple of bags in a spare trolley, though she's supposed to pack them (I don't blame them - there aren't enough staff for the peak times, and they're *very* poorly paid.)

Well, you know what Americans are like - bag your own groceries? Perish the thought

Hell, when I'm on the register at work I frequently get people asking me to dispose of their empty coffe cup/soda container/whatever. I tell them firmly that there's a trash can right outside the front door where they can do it for themselves I get people asking me to take the wrapping off their CD for them. I first take a look at their hands - a long enough look to make it clear I'm seeing if they have an infirmity, but not long enough to make them ask why I'm looking. Then I walk them through it as I'm doing it. Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Show him how to fish and he can eat for a lifetime.

And then there are the people who walk in the door and without doing any searching of the fixtures ask me if there's any way I can look up a title for them.
'No, you have to go and look for it (perish the thought'.

One more thought: Have any of you had the same reaction I sometimes get from people if I don't say 'sign here please' when I present them with the credit card slip for their signature - namely the 'deer caught in headlights' look? Like - 'What's this? What am I supposed to do with it? What's it for? Am I meant to do something with this?'

Some places have a cashier and a bag-person. Others have the bag-person only at busy times just to move things along. Other stores, you bag your own with free bags. Still others, or even at certain cashes, you either provide your own bags or pay for bags provided by the store, and bag your own.

Unlike the stores in the UK, stores here do not give their cashiers chairs. It makes it bloody uncomfortable at times, standing for hours on end, as most cashiers have to do. I always envied the UK cashiers having a chair.

I shudder to think of the days back when I worked at Towers. We had huge lines of customers on busy weekends, not to mention Christmas, and othermajor shopping periods. Eight hours on your feet with 15 minute breaks morning and afternoon, and a 1/2 hour lunch (unpaid) dealing with hundreds of customers, usually surly and/or irate at having to wait in long lines (It's the last Saturday before Christmas, you moron, did you expect to be in and out of a nearly empty store in 3 1/2 minutes flat?).

Those were the days before computerized cashes, too. You had to put all the taxable items through first, add the tax on yourself, and then put the nontaxable in. Invariably, the customer had at least one item with no price-tag ("If all of the others had price-tags, why did you bring me this one knowing it didn't, you moron?") and you would have to call someone to check the price. And you would always have at least one person in a line-up who had a cart-full that they "held back" because they had to see if the had enough money.

If there was a sale, you generally had to have the item number and price memorized from the flyer because they often didn't have time to price them before putting them out on the floor (No scanners).

The worst days were the days the Welfare, Baby Bonus, Pension, and UIC cheques came out because you would have to take all their information and then call for authorization. "You bring your cheque in here every month. So why are you surprised and offended that I have to ask for ID?...." They would get all shirty with me because I had to ask for ID and they had to purchase a minimum of the total of their cheque in order for us to cash it.... Meanwhile, they are spoending the Baby Bonus on cigarettes and candy. Their kids would be wearing rags and they were spending the kids' money on candy.