Idiots trying to explain something they don't understand

Particularly when they think that they DO understand.

You have a query about something. You ask an idiot. Not deliberately. Let's say this idiot holds a position of authority. Maybe they work on a helpdesk. The idiot gives you the worst explanation you've ever heard in your life. It's garbled, ill-informed and contradictory. They look at you with pity and say something like: "I don't know how else to explain it. You're just not getting it, are you?"

Of course not. For one thing you've answered an entirely different question to the one I asked. One that you wanted or expected me to ask. You didn't bother listening to what I was actually saying. This was probably because you don't actually know what you're talking about and have just one set answer for any query directed your way. Please put your head in that drawer and repeatedly close it on your neck until the welt glows like a beacon.

Pop/rock stars telling us about how meaningless modern life is

We know. We know because we have to live that life. We know that people aren't meant to spend their time working in cubicles because we get 40 hours a week in which to think about it. We know that we're just slaving away to earn money. Of course we are. We have to get the money to buy your records somehow.

If you're going to muse about how miserable modern life is, at least have the decency to lead as miserable an existence as the rest of us. Otherwise it just comes off as boasting.

Skinny kids who are really tentative at eating

Who takes a bite out of a crisp? Eat the thing. It's not that big. Stupid scared-looking skinny bastards thinking about where to bite into a sandwich next; picking at it and staring at it intently. Eat it!

Some people look like they've never eaten before in their lives. You have to do it every day, you retards. You're biting into a burger. You're actually eating an animal's flesh. Put your fucking back into it. Show some gusto. Show some intent. You don't have to bite off so much that you choke. Just look like you're enjoying yourself. Just look like you're hungry, at least. You are, aren't you?

We should just rip food out of tentative people's hands, knock them to the floor and then devour whatever it was they were toying with, while pinning them down with a foot to their throat. That's how you eat. That's how you have to eat or you'll die out.

Bush isn't like that - I just couldn't find a suitable photo.

Everyone having loads of money

Is it just me or is everyone minted these days? Maybe it's because I have less money than I used to.

"Andrew and Jemima have a budget of £400,000".

Why? Where did they get it from? They're only thirty? What have they been doing with their lives?

"Unfortunately, Andrew and Jemima have gone £80,000 over budget".

How? What the fuck's a budget if you can go over it by that much? £80,000 is a staggering amount of money. You can't 'find' £80,000. The only way you can get £80,000 is by killing your wife or husband and duping Columbo, yet they're both standing there, so they can't have done that.

But everyone's like that these days. Everyone's swanning around going: 'Oh. It was only a hundred quid'. A hundred quid's loads. Did I miss something? When did a hundred quid become not much? The danger is that all these people for whom a hundred quid's nothing will start paying that much for a drink in the pub. Then where will we be? We'll be sat in the gutter smoking crack - that's where. Or we would be if we could afford crack. All the money-people will be dropping wads of cash for us crack addicts and it'll drive the price up. Bastards.

The problem is to do with percentages. Let's say I earn a pound a day and Mr Fin-Haircut earns a hundred pounds a day. This is an exaggeration, but you'll get my point. Now we both get a pay rise. Hurray. We each get a 10% pay rise. Now I earn £1.10 a day and Mr Fin-Haircut earns £110.

Let's say the same happens again. Now I earn £1.21 a day and Mr Fin-Haircut earns £121. And again. Me: £1.33. Mr Fin-Haircut: £133. In the course of a year, I've gone from earning £260 to £345.80. Not bad - an extra £85.80. Mr Fin-Haircut, however, now earns £8,580 more than he did before. More importantly, he used to earn £25,740 more than me and now he earns £34,234.20 more than me and the average wage has gone from about £13,000 to £17,000 and I've slipped further and further behind. It carries on like that until I die surrounded by rats and he dies surrounded by gold-digging hangers-on.

Basically everyone's earning more and more and more and I'm pissed off about it because I lost my job. Okay? Fine? I'll feel a bit better once I publish this, even if the previous two paragraphs are competely wank. The rich are getting richer. The end.

Early Christmas displays

It's August the eighth. Apparently Harrod's have brought out a Christmas display in order to steal a march on Selfridges whose display will appear the day after tomorrow.

Christmas, people, is one day in the year. You can't look that far ahead. It doesn't warrant that level of attention.

It's. One. Fucking. Day.

Obviously there's a degree of preparation required, but is Christmas Day really so much more important than the 150 days that precede it? Is it? Why is it so much more important that you're happy on that one day than any other? And will you be?

Surely nobody's happy about this. If we set fire to every Christmas display from now until December, then the marketing men will learn. It's a midwinter festival. That's what all the lights are about. Whether it's Christian, Pagan or whatever in origin, it's a winter thing. You can't start it in summer.

E-mail three

I decided that I should start asking direct questions in the hope of a response.

ME:

I had two interviews in the middle of last week. As I currently work through an agency I am not entitled to time off work for interviews, so I had to take a day's holiday. This is fair enough, albeit a tad galling. However, I do hold the company responsible for taking up some of my time prior to the interviews.

Firstly, I had to have a shave. This is not something I would ordinarily do.

Secondly, due to the 'bolt from the blue' nature of my redundancy, I was not adequately prepared. I have recently moved house and my suit was at the back of a room that was floor to ceiling with furniture etc. It took me a full hour to recover it.

Can I invoice you for one hour's unexpected suit retrieval?


HE:

Unfortunately not.


ME:

How crushingly disappointing. It's just one thing after another with you.

How about you could pay me unofficially. Like you could turn a blind eye while I steal one-hour's-work's-worth of cardboard boxes or something. Maybe some batteries. No, not batteries. I don't want those. I don't know. You think of something.


HE:

Perhaps we should have a chat.

How does 09:30 sound tomorrow?


ME:

I thought it was only a legal requirement for members of staff to have the weekly 'chat' prior to redundancy? Ie, not agency staff.


HE:

Doesn't preclude us from having a chat.


[At this point I politely declined on the grounds that we had nothing to sort out.]

E-mail two - the day after

ME:

My mate suggested I come in this morning and say to you: "Actually, I'm going to make YOU redundant. How do you like them apples?"

Unfortunately, this is flawed on two counts.

1: I have never wielded sufficient power to decide on the fate of a worker. There was one time when I pointed out to a superior that a co-worker was 'maybe a bit racist', but this merely confirmed said employee's fate. The decision had effectively already been taken.

2: Even if we did follow some idealised, non-hierarchical, egalitarian business model, you still got in first. I was too slow off the mark.

The first point's the clincher, really.


HE:

Interesting comments. Is there something you would like to discuss?


ME:

I'm merely concerned that the aforementioned employee who was 'a bit racist' has a head start on me in the job market.

In a fairer world I'd be dicing swedes (lower-case 's' - I've nothing against Scandinavians) at Morrison's already and he'd be training his replacements.

I don't know why I described him as 'a bit racist' - he was advocating genocide one day.


HE:

[No response]

E-mail one - the day it happened

This was the first e-mail. You read from the top downwards. These will all be real by the way.

HE:

All,

Please find attached a Company announcement.


ME:

Lower-case 'c' for 'company'.

Any jobs for proofreaders going?

...No?

HE:

[No response]

The redundancy e-mails

I've been made redundant. I didn't like my job, but it's still not very pleasant. The worst part is that they rob you of the opportunity to say:

"Yeah, well you can take your job and stuff it right up your arse."

I worked for the company for five years, but never had any kind of contract (not through lack of trying). The upshot is that I don't get any form of pay-off. The axe-wielder is also hoping that I will be professional enough to do my job for the next four weeks and also train the company to whom my job is being 'outsourced'. Hilarious. Unlikely.

So what do you do? Well if you're me and you're petty-minded and also not that bothered about being branded 'immature', you write weird e-mails to the person who made you redundant and publish them on the internet.

E-mail one
E-mail two
E-mail three