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Things You Probably Should Have Considered, But Didn't

You definitely pulled a Shitterton there, Scargy!

Am now toying with various ways of using Shitterton in a sentence. I feel 'I did a Shitterton' may be open to misinterpretation. 'Pulling a Shitterton' sounds classier...
A 'Shitterton' might be an occasion when you use up half a roll of loo paper.
 
Covers for our bike bottles. You have to swig from them so they need keeping clean.

Strappy bottle cover.jpgbottle cover 2.jpg
 
Confession time -

I was browsing and posting on'ere in t'banger at the tip gates.

Hadn't checked the opening hours, which have mysteriously changed, so when I arrived in good time for an 8am start I was thwarted. Sat outside like a dickhead for nearly 40 minutes.
What is it with council tips? My nemesis. Whenever I go , the tip seems to be closed for the day or not open yet. Ranting at the signs seems to make no difference. I now ask Ms Petes to decide the time and day for a visit, so I can shift the burden of blame. You currently have to make a prearranged appointment to tip your rubbish at my local one. Rowlocks to that.
 
What is it with council tips? My nemesis. Whenever I go , the tip seems to be closed for the day or not open yet. Ranting at the signs seems to make no difference. I now ask Ms Petes to decide the time and day for a visit, so I can shift the burden of blame. You currently have to make a prearranged appointment to tip your rubbish at my local one. Rowlocks to that.

We can still turn up in cars at ours but now and then there are restrictions. It goes alternately by odd/even numberplates. I think this will probably come in permanently at some point.
Vans and trailers are charged, as is rubble. We have a lot of fly-tipping, I wonder why?
 
Our local tip has a live video feed of the queue so you can check to see how busy it currently is. Good idea that one.
Only residential waste though, and you are only allowed to go in a car, no trailers or pick-ups or vans etc.
And no 'pedestrians' (which rules out parking outside when it's busy and just walking in with your one box of stuff)
Oh and don't bring more than a couple of the same of anything or you get reprimanded!
I had a box of old books in my garage which had got wet and ruined - while putting them in the 'paper' bin as instructed, a staffer came over and said that I shouldn't be bringing so much stuff, don't bring any more books, this is your limit, that it prevents everyone else being able to use the bin, and that maybe I should take it to a charity shop?
(The bin was one of those massive ones that rolls on and off the back of a truck, and charity shops are all shut currently, not that they would want water-damaged books anyway)
What councils should do is provide a service for everyone with everything (maybe a small charge for commercial waste) and actually recycle stuff to generate some income instead of just sending it to landfill.
My wonder is how much is now spent on clearing up fly-tipping and how that would compare to actually funding a decent usable service in the first place?????????
 
Does this have a name?

It's those things that happen that weren't inevitable, in fact they may even have been slightly unlikely, but were still foreseeable by someone in the right frame of mind.

Aren't we talking about Foresight - the ability to see what may happen from a set of circumstances? Previous experience of the actual "act" happening will make certain ideas more likely to pop into your mind but cognitively connecting things which "may" happen when you have no prior experience of that thing happening is an exhausting business.

My job is just that - exhausting - because all I do is try to coerce a certain course of action into being whilst thinking about what "may" happen from a set of circumstances. I have to plan for all of those eventualitites including the knock on effects of what those eventualities may be. A kind of Butterfly effect twice or thrice over.

I can do it for short periods of time but to live like that, constantly calculating and planning the likelihood of eventualities and foreseeing possible outcomes is enough to send you mad.
 
My wonder is how much is now spent on clearing up fly-tipping and how that would compare to actually funding a decent usable service in the first place?????????

Nail on the'ead there. Fly-tipping is done all over my town and the lanes for miles around.
 
Aren't we talking about Foresight - the ability to see what may happen from a set of circumstances? ...
Nailed it. :D Hindsight is 20/20. That's what I call it.

I would argue that neither of these is a sufficient answer to catseye's original query. Taking the above-quoted bits in reverse order ...

I would argue catseye's query cannot be adequately answered by reference to hindsight. Hindsight is the ability to recognize, evaluate and / or explain what happened after it's already happened.

I fully agree with Ringo that foresight is intrinsically involved. However, catseye was not fishing for a way to address foresight per se, but rather something to connote the relative scope and / or accuracy of foresight applied in a given situation or scenario.

Consider catseye's illustrative example. Stopping to let the combine pass involved basic foresight (avoiding getting run over; avoiding irritating the combine operator). The original query was highlighting the way that this simple exercise in foresight failed to avoid the corollary effect of the disturbed wasps.

Foresight in accommodating the combine's passage failed to reckon with or accommodate all the potential effects of that passage.

Catseye wasn't seeking terminology for 20/20 hindsight (once the facts are all in ... ), but rather 20/20 foresight (projecting the possible effects or outcomes).
 
The correct term is "Reasonably Forseeable", however I think Shitterton is better and look forward to rolling it out in next training session.

In one of my previous jobs I had three accident reports over 3 years involving teaspoons in coffee mugs. All the injured parties were surprised by the pain and damaged caused by something as simple as a teaspoon in the eye/up nose when they had been leaving it in the mug while drinking for years.
 
In one of my previous jobs I had three accident reports over 3 years involving teaspoons in coffee mugs. All the injured parties were surprised by the pain and damaged caused by something as simple as a teaspoon in the eye/up nose when they had been leaving it in the mug while drinking for years.

There's even a joke about that!

I told my doctor 'Every time I drink my coffee, my eye hurts.'

He asked how I took my coffee.

I said 'I pour hot water into the cup, add the coffee and sugar then the milk. Stirred a few times, then take a sip and my eye hurts.'

The doctor said 'I see the problem here. Try removing the teaspoon before drinking.'


This also reminds me of a paramedic story I heard, about a poor man who'd unfortunately had a car crash. The seatbelt worked well but he ended up in hospital with stationery-related facial injuries.

He'd had a load of pens and pencils in his shirt pocket which the impact had sent shooting up his nose. Had to have them surgically removed.
 
I would argue that neither of these is a sufficient answer to catseye's original query. Taking the above-quoted bits in reverse order ...

I would argue catseye's query cannot be adequately answered by reference to hindsight. Hindsight is the ability to recognize, evaluate and / or explain what happened after it's already happened.

I fully agree with Ringo that foresight is intrinsically involved. However, catseye was not fishing for a way to address foresight per se, but rather something to connote the relative scope and / or accuracy of foresight applied in a given situation or scenario.

Consider catseye's illustrative example. Stopping to let the combine pass involved basic foresight (avoiding getting run over; avoiding irritating the combine operator). The original query was highlighting the way that this simple exercise in foresight failed to avoid the corollary effect of the disturbed wasps.

Foresight in accommodating the combine's passage failed to reckon with or accommodate all the potential effects of that passage.

Catseye wasn't seeking terminology for 20/20 hindsight (once the facts are all in ... ), but rather 20/20 foresight (projecting the possible effects or outcomes).


So something like that pill in the movie Limitless.

Some day there will be a pill for everything, Catseye. ;)

P.S. I really hope you and your dog are feeling better.
 
Our local tip has a live video feed of the queue so you can check to see how busy it currently is. Good idea that one.
Only residential waste though, and you are only allowed to go in a car, no trailers or pick-ups or vans etc.
And no 'pedestrians' (which rules out parking outside when it's busy and just walking in with your one box of stuff)
Oh and don't bring more than a couple of the same of anything or you get reprimanded!
I had a box of old books in my garage which had got wet and ruined - while putting them in the 'paper' bin as instructed, a staffer came over and said that I shouldn't be bringing so much stuff, don't bring any more books, this is your limit, that it prevents everyone else being able to use the bin, and that maybe I should take it to a charity shop?
(The bin was one of those massive ones that rolls on and off the back of a truck, and charity shops are all shut currently, not that they would want water-damaged books anyway)
What councils should do is provide a service for everyone with everything (maybe a small charge for commercial waste) and actually recycle stuff to generate some income instead of just sending it to landfill.
My wonder is how much is now spent on clearing up fly-tipping and how that would compare to actually funding a decent usable service in the first place?????????
Having to book a slot is very inconvenient for me. Until now, I'd only had orange bags to put in my recycling and a mountain of cardboard has accumulated in the garage. Hurrah! Today I got a new wheelie bin for recycling, so I can cut down the boxes and get rid of them that way.
 
Our local tip has a live video feed of the queue so you can check to see how busy it currently is. Good idea that one.
Only residential waste though, and you are only allowed to go in a car, no trailers or pick-ups or vans etc.
And no 'pedestrians' (which rules out parking outside when it's busy and just walking in with your one box of stuff)
Oh and don't bring more than a couple of the same of anything or you get reprimanded!
I had a box of old books in my garage which had got wet and ruined - while putting them in the 'paper' bin as instructed, a staffer came over and said that I shouldn't be bringing so much stuff, don't bring any more books, this is your limit, that it prevents everyone else being able to use the bin, and that maybe I should take it to a charity shop?
(The bin was one of those massive ones that rolls on and off the back of a truck, and charity shops are all shut currently, not that they would want water-damaged books anyway)
What councils should do is provide a service for everyone with everything (maybe a small charge for commercial waste) and actually recycle stuff to generate some income instead of just sending it to landfill.
My wonder is how much is now spent on clearing up fly-tipping and how that would compare to actually funding a decent usable service in the first place?????????
The tip I use actually puts up info to confirm what percentage of refuse is recycled. About 75% usually which I don't think is too bad if you can believe the statistic. Another one locally has a shop on site which sells fairly cheaply goods which are of further use - again a good idea.
 
I think that a lot of signage used by councils in the UK employs a bit of chicanery and semantics.
I don't believe the statistic.
The 'percentage of refuse recycled' signs are actually a reference to the amount of stuff sent for recycling - it doesn't mean that it actually gets recycled. Most metals are actually recycled but most plastics are not (about 2%, mainly the PTE, gets recycled in the UK into fibres for textile use), and the stuff that doesn't actually get recycled here gets containerised and sent off around the world somewhere to be dumped in landfill (I think China - they want the emptied containers back and we don't export much in the way of goods so we send them compressed bales of plastics)
 
Actually, Catseye's question makes me think immediately of American management styles. (It's probably all around the world though.)
You start a job and the information you get to do the job is based on a superficial view of your actual tasks. If you ask questions about the purpose of what you do and how what you do connects to the things that other people do, you're told that's not your job. You don't understand the your own activity is actually affecting other people you work with. Absolute disconnect.
You're added like a machine part, then put in motion, and expected to just run along in a tidy way to keep the works humming without making a mistake. But there are so many situations which arise that require some judgement on an employee's part. The guidance isn't very clear because supervisors are too rushed to think of what you actually need to do to follow your instructions, and they're not available to clarify anything (because they're doing a job and a half--that's called being "productive"). You're left out on a limb to figure it out for yourself and hope that you don't get in trouble for whatever you come up with and . . . whoops! This is especially prevalent in customer service type jobs.
Not understanding how things are connected leads to the unforeseen foreseeable stupid mistake.

I also think that we've lost a lot of very practical information that used to be handed down by older people to younger generations. Because we all move around more, and because there are so many changes happening so quickly in many areas, it's hard to know a place with great depth of understanding. I imagine a grandmother or grandfather used to be able to say, "don't go following a combine along that part of the hedge row--that's where the wasps like to build their nests!"
 
I was working on a construction project at nine elms shortly after a helicopter from Battersea heliport struck another project a short way up the road. I was asked if I’d considered that same risk in the project risk assessment. I had considered it but it was so unlikely to reoccur that I hadn’t thought it necessary to include it.
 
Actually, Catseye's question makes me think immediately of American management styles. (It's probably all around the world though.)
You start a job and the information you get to do the job is based on a superficial view of your actual tasks. If you ask questions about the purpose of what you do and how what you do connects to the things that other people do, you're told that's not your job. You don't understand the your own activity is actually affecting other people you work with. Absolute disconnect.
You're added like a machine part, then put in motion, and expected to just run along in a tidy way to keep the works humming without making a mistake. But there are so many situations which arise that require some judgement on an employee's part. The guidance isn't very clear because supervisors are too rushed to think of what you actually need to do to follow your instructions, and they're not available to clarify anything (because they're doing a job and a half--that's called being "productive"). You're left out on a limb to figure it out for yourself and hope that you don't get in trouble for whatever you come up with and . . . whoops! This is especially prevalent in customer service type jobs.
Not understanding how things are connected leads to the unforeseen foreseeable stupid mistake.

I also think that we've lost a lot of very practical information that used to be handed down by older people to younger generations. Because we all move around more, and because there are so many changes happening so quickly in many areas, it's hard to know a place with great depth of understanding. I imagine a grandmother or grandfather used to be able to say, "don't go following a combine along that part of the hedge row--that's where the wasps like to build their nests!"
Agree entirely. I suspect that the main reason for this disconnect is the computer says yes or no type approach to jobs, particularly in the customer service type industry. This leads to employees in the main having little or no understanding of the job they are doing, and the consequences of what they are doing. As a result professions in particular get dumbed down and the sad fact is that this is now the norm. Way back when you could often talk to employees who had been in the job for decades and knew more or less everything there was to know about it. All that with a few exceptions seems to be a thing of the past.
 
Zombie batteries causing fires!

Apparently many consumers are still throwing old batteries out with the general rubbish, instead of separating them and taking to a recycling centre.

They often become crushed or punctured and can spontaneously combust.

I know it's not as easy as it used to be to visit your local council dump, but many supermarkets now have battery recycling points, so no excuses for consumers to act so inconsiderately.

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-causing-hundreds-of-waste-fires-experts-warn
 
Take yours to a private centre.

The council recycling just do it to look good; (65%) the private ones have to squeeze every bit of profit they can out of the stuff (85%)

My father prefers not to create so much waste in the beggining, but a lot of the foodstuff I like you cannot get out of fancy packaging (which proplongs the life of the product)
 
This may even be *gasp* a gender thing.

Can remember saying, many times, to various men - 'Didn't you even THINK that might happen?' after some avoidable disaster.

Not saying I'm perfect - who else do y'all know who's set fire to both their own hands at once? - but a little forethought goes a long way.
Of course both genders thought about contraception .. then decided against it because the council will then give her a house for free.
 
Story time....

When I did professional landscaping, there were times when there wasn't any grunt-work to be done, so the boss would send me over to his mom's place with the riding mower.

Now, his mom was the quintessential grandmother of the neighborhood, always invited me in for lemonade and cookies, house hadn't changed from the '50's, you get the idea. I really enjoyed those days and didn't mind going back through and weed-whacking around her prize garden (couldn't get too close with the mower).

In the back of her place, she had these immense pine trees whose boughs hung over the lawn by a bit. I decided that, rather than come back with the weed-whacker, I could just duck around or let the boughs hit me in the chest. No big deal. The needles were a good deal softer than the evergreen bushes I was accustom to planting....

I should stop and explain here that we planted a hell of a lot of "techny arborvitae" (evergreen bushes). The ones we used were babies and because of their dimensions, you basically had to "hug" them in order to drop them into the ground. This resulted in welts all over our arms because those particular needles were razor-sharp. I naturally expected the pine trees wouldn't be nearly as bad. I mention this as it explains my extremely delayed reaction time to what would happen next....It also explains my hatred for "techny's".

As I let a bough hit me in the chest, I thought, "Wow, these pine needles hurt a lot more than I thought they would." Then I noticed the cloud of hornets flying about me, stinging me every chance they had.

Thankfully, the riding mower had a dead-man's switch where (I estimate that the developers of that product envisioned this very scenario) if you were surrounding by a cloud of angry, flying, stinging things and you leaped off the seat, the drive motor would instantly disengage. This was good because at that moment I didn't really care if it stayed the course and crashed right through her garage.

I ran yelling and cussing a blue streak until I got 'round to the front of the house and the damned things stopped following me. My boss's mom was already waiting out front as she had heard the commotion. To her credit (bless her), she didn't bat an eye. Once she realized what had happened, she went straight into the house for rubbing alcohol (I would have preferred straight whiskey) and cotton balls to treat my stings. I'm honestly surprised that her ears didn't turn red and fall off from the unique combinations of words I had used up until that moment.

In the end, 27 stings and one very pissed off me. Her grandson, J., several years my senior, grabbed a can of Raid and was about to go after the little buggers, but I grabbed it from him and told him, "It's personal". I'd like to say that I left them alone, after all, I was invading their space, but I was angry. I hosed 'em down. They'll never bother anyone ever again.

HINDSIGHT: Yes, I should have checked the boughs. I should have looked for nests and such. But I didn't. And I learned my lesson. And because of the "techny's" role, I'll never plant those damnable things again. :D
 
I have to say, things like this happen to me when I know better than to take a short cut, but decide that "oh, it'll only take a second" to do something quickly rather than take the two extra seconds to do it the way I know is the best way.:chain:

Being older, now, sometimes I'm able to stop the silly idea and do the task the way it should be done. But I still have times I don't heed my own advice and end up telling myself "well that was stupid."
 
I'm so bad about treating my laundry stains before I throw it in the basket to be washed. I usually do it as I take the item off, but sometimes I am just too tired or lazy and then forget that it didn't get treated and it ends up as garbage.

But hey, at least it's clean garbage.
 
I have to say, things like this happen to me when I know better than to take a short cut, but decide that "oh, it'll only take a second" to do something quickly rather than take the two extra seconds to do it the way I know is the best way.:chain:

Being older, now, sometimes I'm able to stop the silly idea and do the task the way it should be done. But I still have times I don't heed my own advice and end up telling myself "well that was stupid."
I'm the same , but very occasionally, I still do something which I know is the wrong way - never ends well.
 
Story time....

When I did professional landscaping, there were times when there wasn't any grunt-work to be done, so the boss would send me over to his mom's place with the riding mower.

Now, his mom was the quintessential grandmother of the neighborhood, always invited me in for lemonade and cookies, house hadn't changed from the '50's, you get the idea. I really enjoyed those days and didn't mind going back through and weed-whacking around her prize garden (couldn't get too close with the mower).

In the back of her place, she had these immense pine trees whose boughs hung over the lawn by a bit. I decided that, rather than come back with the weed-whacker, I could just duck around or let the boughs hit me in the chest. No big deal. The needles were a good deal softer than the evergreen bushes I was accustom to planting....

I should stop and explain here that we planted a hell of a lot of "techny arborvitae" (evergreen bushes). The ones we used were babies and because of their dimensions, you basically had to "hug" them in order to drop them into the ground. This resulted in welts all over our arms because those particular needles were razor-sharp. I naturally expected the pine trees wouldn't be nearly as bad. I mention this as it explains my extremely delayed reaction time to what would happen next....It also explains my hatred for "techny's".

As I let a bough hit me in the chest, I thought, "Wow, these pine needles hurt a lot more than I thought they would." Then I noticed the cloud of hornets flying about me, stinging me every chance they had.

Thankfully, the riding mower had a dead-man's switch where (I estimate that the developers of that product envisioned this very scenario) if you were surrounding by a cloud of angry, flying, stinging things and you leaped off the seat, the drive motor would instantly disengage. This was good because at that moment I didn't really care if it stayed the course and crashed right through her garage.

I ran yelling and cussing a blue streak until I got 'round to the front of the house and the damned things stopped following me. My boss's mom was already waiting out front as she had heard the commotion. To her credit (bless her), she didn't bat an eye. Once she realized what had happened, she went straight into the house for rubbing alcohol (I would have preferred straight whiskey) and cotton balls to treat my stings. I'm honestly surprised that her ears didn't turn red and fall off from the unique combinations of words I had used up until that moment.

In the end, 27 stings and one very pissed off me. Her grandson, J., several years my senior, grabbed a can of Raid and was about to go after the little buggers, but I grabbed it from him and told him, "It's personal". I'd like to say that I left them alone, after all, I was invading their space, but I was angry. I hosed 'em down. They'll never bother anyone ever again.

HINDSIGHT: Yes, I should have checked the boughs. I should have looked for nests and such. But I didn't. And I learned my lesson. And because of the "techny's" role, I'll never plant those damnable things again. :D

The best lessons always hurt! :wink2:
 
Covers for our bike bottles. You have to swig from them so they need keeping clean.

Strappy bottle cover.jpgbottle cover 2.jpg

As a 14 or 15 year old I had a 10-speed Raleigh Magnum bicycle to get around on. I recall one day, planning to go on a ride, and filling a plastic water bottle (an 1980s equivalent to this one) with Orange Quosh (for those of you old enough to remember that stuff) and setting off on my journey.

I'd gone some way and stopped for a breather. I removed the bottle of juice from its clip on the bike, uncapped it, had a swig, returned it to the bike and continued on my journey.

A short while later, whilst still cycling, I reached down for the bottle and had another drink. I thought; "that's odd, there's something solid in it!". Then the "something solid" stung me, twice, just on the inside of my lower lip. I'd neglected to recap the bottle earlier, and presumably a wasp, attracted by the sweetness had squeezed inside while I was stationary.

Something that I really could/should have anticipated on a hot Summers day, but which only became obvious to me in the seconds and minutes after the event. A complete failure of foresight on my part. :doh:
 
As a 14 or 15 year old I had a 10-speed Raleigh Magnum bicycle to get around on. I recall one day, planning to go on a ride, and filling a plastic water bottle (an 1980s equivalent to this one) with Orange Quosh (for those of you old enough to remember that stuff) and setting off on my journey.

I'd gone some way and stopped for a breather. I removed the bottle of juice from its clip on the bike, uncapped it, had a swig, returned it to the bike and continued on my journey.

A short while later, whilst still cycling, I reached down for the bottle and had another drink. I thought; "that's odd, there's something solid in it!". Then the "something solid" stung me, twice, just on the inside of my lower lip. I'd neglected to recap the bottle earlier, and presumably a wasp, attracted by the sweetness had squeezed inside while I was stationary.

Something that I really could/should have anticipated on a hot Summers day, but which only became obvious to me in the seconds and minutes after the event. A complete failure of foresight on my part. :doh:

Something that I really could/should have anticipated on a hot Summers day, but which only became obvious to me in the seconds and minutes after the event. A complete failure of foresight on my part. :doh:

Nah, that's a chance in, what, thousands? I certainly wouldn't have expected a wasp to move into my bottle!


Now you've told me about it though it WILL happen. :(
 
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