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Hullabaloo At Work

I knew a Gary, he used to sing my second name, he sung lots of things "There was an old woman a woman called (insert my maiden name) herum herum', I wouldnt mind but i was at school and only 15, my maiden name was one of the lil things from the Herb Garden, it must have been from there he got the tune, not sure.
I definately know a Karen will grass you up for nothing and slag you off behind your back, yet i still helped her when she was ill with covid, she didnt have transport anyway, so i used my car and got her some stuff she needed, i put it outside her door and ran off, and she thanked me, you were ok when you were doing stuff for her.
 
Shady said:
I definately know a Karen will grass you up for nothing and slag you off behind your back, yet i still helped her when she was ill with covid, she didnt have transport anyway, so i used my car and got her some stuff she needed, i put it outside her door and ran off, and she thanked me, you were ok when you were doing stuff for her.
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I know what you mean.
We have someone at work like that, except the grassing/slagging isn't a problem so much as the low-key vandalism/damage to personal property. He does it when he's stressed. Pain in the arse.

He's quite short so his new jeans and trousers always need turning up. I keep him onside by doing his clothing alterations for nothing. ('Just get me a pint next time we're in the pub!')
If he upsets me he'll have to pay a shop to do it as nobody else would bother. ;)
 
escargot said:
I know what you mean.
We have someone at work like that, except the grassing/slagging isn't a problem so much as the low-key vandalism/damage to personal property. He does it when he's stressed. Pain in the arse.

He's quite short so his new jeans and trousers always need turning up. I keep him onside by doing his clothing alterations for nothing. ('Just get me a pint next time we're in the pub!')
If he upsets me he'll have to pay a shop to do it as nobody else would bother. ;)
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Ah yes the old stress thing. One of Ms P's former work colleagues was highly strung but very good at her job. Last week she was found guilty of murdering her young daughter who was found to have 40 rib fractures. The poor little girl. Makes me very sad. Sometimes you really don't know who you are working with,
 
PeteS said:
Ah yes the old stress thing. One of Ms P's former work colleagues was highly strung but very good at her job. Last week she was found guilty of murdering her young daughter who was found to have 40 rib fractures. The poor little girl. Makes me very sad. Sometimes you really don't know who you are working with,
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As I've mentioned before, in previous jobs I've had to look out for potential disasters caused by stressed-up clients.
Arson was a worrying habit. At least my colleague doesn't do that.
 
escargot said:
As I've mentioned before, in previous jobs I've had to look out for potential disasters caused by stressed-up clients.
Arson was a worrying habit. At least my colleague doesn't do that.
Click to expand...
Yet
I guess nobody knows what anybody is capable of at any time, we all get stressed and say we are ready to kill someone, but fortunately, so far, nobody on here has carried it out, unless you have something to tell us :p
 
Shady said:
I knew a Gary, he used to sing my second name, he sung lots of things "There was an old woman a woman called (insert my maiden name) herum herum', I wouldnt mind but i was at school and only 15, my maiden name was one of the lil things from the Herb Garden, it must have been from there he got the tune, not sure.
I definately know a Karen will grass you up for nothing and slag you off behind your back, yet i still helped her when she was ill with covid, she didnt have transport anyway, so i used my car and got her some stuff she needed, i put it outside her door and ran off, and she thanked me, you were ok when you were doing stuff for her.
Click to expand...
I worked with an Adrian who was cool this year and everyone called Adrian 'Aidy' so like your old Garry acquaintance, I used to sing the lyrics to some brain fart moment I remembered but replace the word Aidy with baby because there's thousands off songs using the word baby and because I was bored. If you've got an imagination, you can also thump The Terminator main theme menacing base beat out on a kitchen steel work surface and it sounds exactly the same as in the film so you can do "Hasta la vista .. AIDY." I explained this to Aidy so he knew I wasn't just taking the p**s. He's asked me to go back next year so I think I've got away with it.
 
In my early 20s I did a bit of work on building sites.

At this one company, an extension to a school was to be built that required the ground being piled with concrete piles - about 8''/150mm square.

What you are left with are the piles sticking out of the ground, some at ground level, some 12 feet high and anywhere in between.

As the building company was too tight to pay the piling company to just cut them off with a mechanical grabber, the job fell to me.

This concrete is like steel and there were loads of them.

Cut around the base using a stihl saw (using 4 or five blades for each pile).
Hit with sledge hammer (many, many times).
Cut internal 1'' thick rebar until pile falls to the ground.
Repeat.

Then, trenches are dug about 3'/900mm deep in between each and every pile to take the rebar cages and the piles have to be cut down again, at trench floor level, except this time as you're in a trench, there is less room to manoeuvre and the dust bounces off the sides so you can hardly see anything.

One day I had had enough, put the saw down, took my goggles and (paper) mask off and straightened my back.

It just happened that the foreman of this sight was walking past at that moment.
Now, any decent foreman would have just said, ''That's it lad, have five and get your breath back'', thereby gaining the respect of his men.

Not this guy.
He came right up to me face to face (which wasn't pleasant, as for a start there was a resemblance to Hitler) and said ''I hate to see men standing''.

Lost my cool.
Shovels and hammer got thrown.
The other lads around the site were ducking down.

About an hour later one of the lads came up to me and said, ''You know, if you'd have knocked him out, none of us would have seen anything''.

I thought, imagine being that hated by your own workers.

No wonder no one would ever help him out when he was in the shit (which he often was) as we would have done/did for all the other foremen at this company.
 
Floyd said:
In my early 20s I did a bit of work on building sites.

At this one company, an extension to a school was to be built that required the ground being piled with concrete piles - about 8''/150mm square.

What you are left with are the piles sticking out of the ground, some at ground level, some 12 feet high and anywhere in between.

As the building company was too tight to pay the piling company to just cut them off with a mechanical grabber, the job fell to me.

This concrete is like steel and there were loads of them.

Cut around the base using a stihl saw (using 4 or five blades for each pile).
Hit with sledge hammer (many, many times).
Cut internal 1'' thick rebar until pile falls to the ground.
Repeat.

Then, trenches are dug about 3'/900mm deep in between each and every pile to take the rebar cages and the piles have to be cut down again, at trench floor level, except this time as you're in a trench, there is less room to manoeuvre and the dust bounces off the sides so you can hardly see anything.

One day I had had enough, put the saw down, took my goggles and (paper) mask off and straightened my back.

It just happened that the foreman of this sight was walking past at that moment.
Now, any decent foreman would have just said, ''That's it lad, have five and get your breath back'', thereby gaining the respect of his men.

Not this guy.
He came right up to me face to face (which wasn't pleasant, as for a start there was a resemblance to Hitler) and said ''I hate to see men standing''.

Lost my cool.
Shovels and hammer got thrown.
The other lads around the site were ducking down.

About an hour later one of the lads came up to me and said, ''You know, if you'd have knocked him out, none of us would have seen anything''.

I thought, imagine being that hated by your own workers.

No wonder no one would ever help him out when he was in the shit (which he often was) as we would have done/did for all the other foremen at this company.
Click to expand...
I had a similar experience Mr F with my new boss back in 1996.

First day in my new workplace on a Monday morning and feeling nervous and a little bit lost to be honest. I’d been given a desk right outside my new Bosses office and was told to sit at my desk and read the office manual for the morning. .

Around 11am the phone on my desk started to ring, I picked up the receiver and it was my brother on the other end, who had called me to wish me good luck on my first day. Unfortunately, my Bosses phone rang simultaneously then rang off, and he assumed that one of the staff members had picked up his line. He came steaming out of his office, saw me speaking on the phone and assumed it was me. “who is it..”? he barked. “Erm well… erm…it’s my brother” I said. “YOU CNUT” he screamed at me, then ran back into his office.

I was shocked. You there mate I heard my brother say. Yeah, I said but my new boss just called me a CNUT. Jolly good show then he joked and put the phone down lol.

To be fair though, my boss turned out to be a lovely man, heart of gold, It’s just that he was a stress head. Always red faced, always shouting, gritting his teeth, and always squeezing one of those stress balls - business had gotten the better of his natural judgement methinks.

I still see him from time to time and he’s a lot calmer than what he was then. He retires next year so I suppose the stress is off as he’s career is over.

He did get divorced because of his work-related anger issues though, and I now wonder, if he wonders was it all worth it.
 
I once worked for a guy who was a total pain in the bum. For some reason he seemed to tolerate me more than others, I think because I got him out of the crap once by writing him a briefing note (set of excuses) for some foul up he'd made.

He could never just tell you: "Thank you, nice work." It had to be "Tidy briefing note , that, thanks - none of your colleagues could have done that well."
I replied: "Thank you, but of course they could, you just didn't ask them." (Most of them could have - he just liked to try divide and rule tactics)
That elicited: "Your a difficult one to praise, that was good work."
I replied: "Well, you're entitled to your opinion."

This seemed to amuse him and I avoided the worst of his antics. He told me that in his previous job someone had nailed a dead chicken to his office door. I asked him what he'd done about it and he said he'd taken it home and cooked it.

His boss, call him John, was a decent guy but used to like playing games. I went at short notice to a meeting about a new building we were moving into along with other departments. The layout was still being discussed but part of our area was absolutely unusable. I was told to try and get better space but not to give that area up or we'd be forever told we had turned down space and therefore didn't need what we'd asked for.

We went through all the horse trading and in the end John asked me: "Well what are you going to use it for?" All I could think of was some sort of retail display area for prints, books and pamphlets that we produced or had copyright for ( Local history stuff mainly) and sold. Well John went through the whole; Libraries selling things? Thought that wasn't what you were about, whoever heard of such a thing, etc. until he got everyone else in the room agreeing with him, with me still trying to stick to my guns as there was really no other use for this crappy little strip of space isolated from just about anything else.

When everyone else had agreed with him, amid much laughter and whatever next comments, John quietened everyone down and said "Well it's the best idea I've heard and at least it might generate some money." A roomfull of dropped jaws. He told me later that he agreed the space was rubbish and he'd go back to the architects.

B*stard! But I had to laugh.
 
Tunn11 said:
I once worked for a guy who was a total pain in the bum. For some reason he seemed to tolerate me more than others, I think because I got him out of the crap once by writing him a briefing note (set of excuses) for some foul up he'd made.

He could never just tell you: "Thank you, nice work." It had to be "Tidy briefing note , that, thanks - none of your colleagues could have done that well."
I replied: "Thank you, but of course they could, you just didn't ask them." (Most of them could have - he just liked to try divide and rule tactics)
That elicited: "Your a difficult one to praise, that was good work."
I replied: "Well, you're entitled to your opinion."

This seemed to amuse him and I avoided the worst of his antics. He told me that in his previous job someone had nailed a dead chicken to his office door. I asked him what he'd done about it and he said he'd taken it home and cooked it.

His boss, call him John, was a decent guy but used to like playing games. I went at short notice to a meeting about a new building we were moving into along with other departments. The layout was still being discussed but part of our area was absolutely unusable. I was told to try and get better space but not to give that area up or we'd be forever told we had turned down space and therefore didn't need what we'd asked for.

We went through all the horse trading and in the end John asked me: "Well what are you going to use it for?" All I could think of was some sort of retail display area for prints, books and pamphlets that we produced or had copyright for ( Local history stuff mainly) and sold. Well John went through the whole; Libraries selling things? Thought that wasn't what you were about, whoever heard of such a thing, etc. until he got everyone else in the room agreeing with him, with me still trying to stick to my guns as there was really no other use for this crappy little strip of space isolated from just about anything else.

When everyone else had agreed with him, amid much laughter and whatever next comments, John quietened everyone down and said "Well it's the best idea I've heard and at least it might generate some money." A roomfull of dropped jaws. He told me later that he agreed the space was rubbish and he'd go back to the architects.

B*stard! But I had to laugh.
Click to expand...

I love this post. The more times I read it the less I understand it but i still love it!
 
I once pissed in my boss's hat. Twice actually.

I'd been transferred over to his department, I walked over towards him before that to be polite and introduce myself and he ordered me with the word "Run!" .. that was when I knew I'd made a bad choice although I didn't run.

The first time he talked to me, he grinned and said "You're going to hate me .. management asked me why I've got an 83% staff turnover. I told them it's because they were all shit."

I lasted just over a year with him which apparently was a record. He had a hard on for doing disciplinary procedures so he'd stop you working, take you into an office, threaten you with losing your job in official paper work procedure for the tiniest infraction, you'd go back to your job then if you hadn't caught up with your work, he'd to the same thing the next day even though it was his fault.

He was so nasty, even his boss's were trying to stick up for me. The problem was, this bloke was excellent at his job so they struggled to bollock him for anything. One time, he had me in an office, was pointing his finger at me so I told him "Get your finger out of my face". He did which I was glad about because I was about to grab it and break it. A shout out went out on the P.A. for a first aider, I was one so I was allowed to walk out to attend: "There's other first aiders!" .. "Company policy is two first aiders need to attend." .. I did that shout and that paperwork and took the opportunity to collect a new 'counselling' (punishment) form just to be cheeky so he could re write it. I was taught never to sign anything with my own signature but just to do a swirly squiggle instead.

Other highlights of working for this sadist included but weren't limited to:

Him asking me "Was your Dad in prison?" .. I replied with "No .. he was a successful business man." but I wish I'd replied with "No. Have you ever met yours?"

Him marching me outside, pointing to the company sign and saying "Read that. Does that say Swifty?".

Him telling a new female co worker out loud in front of all of us "I've had women staff before and they're always shit" . She quit a couple of days later.

I can't remember all of the traps he used to set for me nowadays but his bosses hated him so much, they found a loophole to get him sacked from his regional trainer position.

When I first met him, he told me "You'll be alright so long as you don't piss up my back!" which I took to mean not to take the piss out of him so I didn't. He proceeded to do that to me big time anyway because he obviously got off on doing that to people hence me waiting until it was his days off when he'd left his hat on the hook, taking into a different room then pissing in it so I'd have the satisfaction of knowing my piss was streaming down his face. After I'd left, a co worker told him what I'd done and his response was "He wouldn't dare do that.". I did. Twice.

They tried to talk me into working with him again when I returned during lockdown but I refused. Thanks to him, my paperwork's shit hot now though so to be fair, he did teach me something.
 
Last edited:
Unde
Floyd said:
In my early 20s I did a bit of work on building sites.

At this one company, an extension to a school was to be built that required the ground being piled with concrete piles - about 8''/150mm square.

What you are left with are the piles sticking out of the ground, some at ground level, some 12 feet high and anywhere in between.

As the building company was too tight to pay the piling company to just cut them off with a mechanical grabber, the job fell to me.

This concrete is like steel and there were loads of them.

Cut around the base using a stihl saw (using 4 or five blades for each pile).
Hit with sledge hammer (many, many times).
Cut internal 1'' thick rebar until pile falls to the ground.
Repeat.

Then, trenches are dug about 3'/900mm deep in between each and every pile to take the rebar cages and the piles have to be cut down again, at trench floor level, except this time as you're in a trench, there is less room to manoeuvre and the dust bounces off the sides so you can hardly see anything.

One day I had had enough, put the saw down, took my goggles and (paper) mask off and straightened my back.

It just happened that the foreman of this sight was walking past at that moment.
Now, any decent foreman would have just said, ''That's it lad, have five and get your breath back'', thereby gaining the respect of his men.

Not this guy.
He came right up to me face to face (which wasn't pleasant, as for a start there was a resemblance to Hitler) and said ''I hate to see men standing''.

Lost my cool.
Shovels and hammer got thrown.
The other lads around the site were ducking down.

About an hour later one of the lads came up to me and said, ''You know, if you'd have knocked him out, none of us would have seen anything''.

I thought, imagine being that hated by your own workers.

No wonder no one would ever help him out when he was in the shit (which he often was) as we would have done/did for all the other foremen at this company.
Click to expand...
Under CDM breaking pile caps is considered one of the “Red” high risk activities. You shouldn’t be expected to do what you were asked to do in this day and age. See third bullet point on the attachment.

Mind you our piles are close to a couple of metres across, but they have to support a 30+ storey tower and adjoining 20+ storey tower.
IMG_1261.png
 
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Tempest63 said:
Unde

Under CDM breaking pile caps is considered one of the “Red” high risk activities. You shouldn’t be expected to do what you were asked to do in this day and age. See third bullet point on the attachment.

Mind you our piles are close to a couple of metres across, but they have to support a 30+ storey tower and adjoining 20+ storey tower.View attachment 76822
Click to expand...

No more hand scabbling for me, then. (Unless it involves pile cropping.)

maximus otter
 
Tempest63 said:
Unde

Under CDM breaking pile caps is considered one of the “Red” high risk activities. You shouldn’t be expected to do what you were asked to do in this day and age. See third bullet point on the attachment.

Mind you our piles are close to a couple of metres across, but they have to support a 30+ storey tower and adjoining 20+ storey tower.View attachment 76822
Click to expand...
Blimey.
The company I mentioned wouldn't last 5 minutes today.
 
Tempest63 said:
Unde

Under CDM breaking pile caps is considered one of the “Red” high risk activities. You shouldn’t be expected to do what you were asked to do in this day and age. See third bullet point on the attachment.

Mind you our piles are close to a couple of metres across, but they have to support a 30+ storey tower and adjoining 20+ storey tower.View attachment 76822
Click to expand...
I have just remembered something else at this company- a few of us were also drivers who picked the guys up from their houses and took them to whichever site they were working on.

The vans had two rows of seats, longways in the back (no seatbelts) and you sometimes could have 6-8 men in there.

One of the drivers had trouble in winter getting up the hill when he left his house in the morning, so he carried a full size concrete kerb
lay on the floor.

If that van had ever rolled over in an accident, you'd have very likely had 40 kilos of kerb landing on you. As well as a large gas bottle that he also used to always carry for some reason.
 
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