Insignificant/ Significant things that BYP or just wind you up a little

[gremlin]

[

The only part of that I agree with is that some people use it to 'hide' (camera off, doing something else) but then, as before, these are probably the ones who normally contribute very little anyway

This goes waaaay beyond Covid and shit. When I was in my twenties I had the dappiest, lazy-arsed cow of a 'supervisor', through grace of being there donkey's years. One morning she pulled out her fucking curtains from a carrier bag and proceeded to unpick the hem, take them up a few inches and tack it with pins from a needle-work box. I sat looking incredulous at her and, fair play for her ballsiness, she just looked at me and said, 'Let me know if you need a hand with anything' and carried on.

[Count Steer]

There's a chap that works for the FT that relocated to Paris and didn't tell them.

I think he just got the train over on occasion, pitched up to a meeting or two then went home. Kind of gave the game away when he wrote an article about it though.

I made countless requests to be allowed to work for the odd day or week from my gaff in France - always got turned down flat.

So I just went ahead and did it anyway. No-one knew and I just kept schtum.

Now I've retired I think I might spill the beans...

Once I got out of the project side of things and went to work for a properly networked company it was a bit of a culture shock. 'Here's your laptop and mobile phone, there's a desk but you won't be seeing it very often. Sure you can put your preferred browser on the laptop, put what you like on it'. It did seem like you were always 'on' for a while. Classic was waiting for a phone call from a builder about a job...phone goes...'Hi Count, can you be in Cardiff tomorrow for 8.30am?' 'Err, not really, I'm currently on my holibobs and negotiating a tricky pitch on a mountain a few hundred miles away, but I can be there on Monday'.

They sent me into one some utility companies and it was like going back in time. PCs galore....all with the floppy disks removed and all ports disabled...basically dumb terminals with Office on. Or others, 'Oh no, you can't use Gmail on the browsers here, but Yahoo is OK'

Once you were 'disconnected' again on a customer site it felt really strange.

[DefTrap]

This goes waaaay beyond Covid and shit. When I was in my twenties I had the dappiest, lazy-arsed cow of a 'supervisor', through grace of being there donkey's years. One morning she pulled out her fucking curtains from a carrier bag and proceeded to unpick the hem, take them up a few inches and tack it with pins from a needle-work box. I sat looking incredulous at her and, fair play for her ballsiness, she just looked at me and said, 'Let me know if you need a hand with anything' and carried on.

The guy on the opposite desk from me used to go to sleep during the day, head on the desk. Open plan office with business going on around him

Another used to use the office phone to place bets all day. Then make further calls to his gambling buddy to shout at him about how he owed him money for bets placed in kind.

They were both sacked, eventually, but being at HQ didn't seem to stop them.

[mangocrazy]

This goes waaaay beyond Covid and shit. When I was in my twenties I had the dappiest, lazy-arsed cow of a 'supervisor', through grace of being there donkey's years. One morning she pulled out her fucking curtains from a carrier bag and proceeded to unpick the hem, take them up a few inches and tack it with pins from a needle-work box. I sat looking incredulous at her and, fair play for her ballsiness, she just looked at me and said, 'Let me know if you need a hand with anything' and carried on.

The guy on the opposite desk from me used to go to sleep during the day, head on the desk. Open plan office with business going on around him

Another used to use the office phone to place bets all day. Then make further calls to his gambling buddy to shout at him about how he owed him money for bets placed in kind.

They were both sacked, eventually, but being at HQ didn't seem to stop them.

At my last job, one of the guys regularly used to go to sleep after lunch in full view of the rest of the office. He'd perfected the art of sleeping while still upright in his chair. This was in the mainframe IT department of a major UK bank.

Bck in the 80s I worked in the same dept as a Chinese guy who was a gambling addict. He'd regularly head back from the bookies late after lunch in a foul mood after a losing streak. He was also spectacularly inept at his job and the final straw for me was when I learned he was being paid £5k a year more than me. In the 80s this was a big deal. Not long after that I went contracting, unsurprisingly.

[Silly Car]

Having to go to London for two days training next week…

Being expected to commute both days… I live in Sunderland and the training is near St Paul’s

Only getting approval for overnight stay on corporate rate only on the basis it is cheaper than the 2nd day return train trip…

Realising they have booked room only so I’m expected to fund breakfast, lunch and dinner* and then assuming I have receipts for each meal, claim expenses within the limits applied…

Having to pay for hotel myself and claim it back rather than company pay for it…

Being punted into cattle class on the train because my journey is less than 4 hours (the new threshold which risen for 3 hours, my rail journey is 3.5 hours each way, not including getting to and from the mainline stations from home and tube journeys in London)…

Not working for a business which makes allowances for antisocial hours in their travel policy, I’m leaving at 5.15am and not arriving home until 9.30pm the next day, but no I have to manage with a British Rail pork pie and lukewarm coffee**…

Knowing that the difference in room only plus expensing all meals for two days plus 2 x anytime singles would probably be negligible compared to first class plus DBB


* a colleague and I are hoping to fleece the London regional director for dinner to mitigate that cost
** I know BR isn’t a thing and the majority of the food is good but it isn’t as good as sitting in first class swigging free gin

[Cousin Jack]

If there weren't tax implications to working abroad before Brexit, I bet a pound to a pinch of dried squirrel shit there is now.

My HR dept. can barely fucking work out how PAYE works, let alone forrin lands coming into it. They'd shit a diverse and inclusive rainbow flag turd the size of a fucking house at the mere thought....

Just don't tell them. My daughter WFH most of the time, 'home' is nominally Oxford, but has included Cornwall, Slovenia, a Greek island and other places I forget. A conference call or Zoom meeting really doesn't care where the bandwidth terminates.

[Yorick]

I know a barrister who visits here several times a year. A few months ago, he did a court sitting from his hotel

[Silly Car]

If there weren't tax implications to working abroad before Brexit, I bet a pound to a pinch of dried squirrel shit there is now.

My HR dept. can barely fucking work out how PAYE works, let alone forrin lands coming into it. They'd shit a diverse and inclusive rainbow flag turd the size of a fucking house at the mere thought....

Just don't tell them. My daughter WFH most of the time, 'home' is nominally Oxford, but has included Cornwall, Slovenia, a Greek island and other places I forget. A conference call or Zoom meeting really doesn't care where the bandwidth terminates.

If gremlin is subject to the same regulative restrictions as I am, he won’t be permitted to work from another country without a metric fuck ton of regulatory bullshit for his employer, hence not permitting it*

* it is probably 10 imperial fuck tons now because of brexit

[Cousin Jack]

If there weren't tax implications to working abroad before Brexit, I bet a pound to a pinch of dried squirrel shit there is now.

My HR dept. can barely fucking work out how PAYE works, let alone forrin lands coming into it. They'd shit a diverse and inclusive rainbow flag turd the size of a fucking house at the mere thought....

Just don't tell them. My daughter WFH most of the time, 'home' is nominally Oxford, but has included Cornwall, Slovenia, a Greek island and other places I forget. A conference call or Zoom meeting really doesn't care where the bandwidth terminates.

If gremlin is subject to the same regulative restrictions as I am, he won’t be permitted to work from another country without a metric fuck ton of regulatory bullshit for his employer, hence not permitting it*

* it is probably 10 imperial fuck tons now because of brexit

I don't suppose her employer actually gave a flying fcuk, but the point was she didn't ask if she could, and they didn't know. She was on the phone, answered the emails and was on the zoom calls. She booked a flight and an air bnb, and a week or two later a flight back.

[gremlin]

Still not being to smell red wine, nor indeed taste it much, other than the tannin.

I fucking love wine, I do.

[Cousin Jack]

I fucking love wine, I do.

Not any more you don't! All tastes of tea.

[gremlin]

If there weren't tax implications to working abroad before Brexit, I bet a pound to a pinch of dried squirrel shit there is now.

My HR dept. can barely fucking work out how PAYE works, let alone forrin lands coming into it. They'd shit a diverse and inclusive rainbow flag turd the size of a fucking house at the mere thought....

Just don't tell them. My daughter WFH most of the time, 'home' is nominally Oxford, but has included Cornwall, Slovenia, a Greek island and other places I forget. A conference call or Zoom meeting really doesn't care where the bandwidth terminates.

If gremlin is subject to the same regulative restrictions as I am, he won’t be permitted to work from another country without a metric fuck ton of regulatory bullshit for his employer, hence not permitting it*

* it is probably 10 imperial fuck tons now because of brexit

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53524486

For once it ain't just us poor bankers being victimised.

Working from (abroad) home could put you in a sticky tax situation, notwithstanding anything that's in your contact of employment specifically to protect the employer from being held liable for your dodgy tax dealings by association. A week or two here and there ain't gonna set alarm bells ringing, but wintering in the Bahamas every year whilst paying UK tax only might get you ripped a new arsehole from which to extract non-resident tax.

[Yambo]

Working from (abroad) home could put you in a sticky tax situation, notwithstanding anything that's in your contact of employment specifically to protect the employer from being held liable for your dodgy tax dealings by association. A week or two here and there ain't gonna set alarm bells ringing, but wintering in the Bahamas every year whilst paying UK tax only might get you ripped a new arsehole from which to extract non-resident tax.

I'm good friends with a person who lives here in Turkey for 6 months a year and works (as a contractor) about 12 - 14 hrs a week I think for a UK company.

I don't know about other countries rules but as I understand it, there are reciprocal arrangements with some countries and you're only required pay income tax in one country so if it is paid in UK then my friend does not have to declare the income earned while here, to the Turkish authorities. It could well be different for an employee of course.

I had a chat with HMRC before I came here to live and discussed my tax status. I could have elected to pay tax in Turkey but elected to continue to pay tax in the UK.

[Jody]

Washing machines !!

load it up, add tablet and coins, push the buttons.

A timer appears on the display 40 Minutes

I come back after 50 because I've been caught out before

25 bloody minutes left!!

I really do not care how long it takes but for the love of god don't tell me a time then take more than 50 % longer !

[Jody]

If I don't know about a problem I can't fix it !!!

I just checked some guests out, a family of four who were with us for a week. All good, they had a great holiday and loved the cabin

"ohh by the way" she says as they are leaving, "we've been showering in the shower blocks because the shower in the cabin leaks into the bedroom"

Thanks for telling me, but could you maybe have told me when it happened so I can arrange repairs?

[Mussels]

Because I have on old and obsolete smart meter that doesn't do any smart functions I can't have a working smart meter installed.

Just love government quotas, they want so many % of houses fitted with smart meters but don't care if they work.

[Taipan]

That netting they put in shirts and trunks boils my piss and chafes my legs and arse. New trunks were attacked with the scissors to remove it!

[slowsider]

That netting they put in shirts and trunks boils my piss and chafes my legs and arse. New trunks were attacked with the scissors to remove it!

You'll regret that when your tackle overheats and you get BSTL.

[Taipan]

I don’t think I want to know what that is!

[Alan PBTD]

Piggin Curry's.

Wanted a new tablet for the missus and there's a Superstore around the corner from where I'm working so sorted via internet search - say's got stock so call in to check and collect one. Haven't got time to change so its work clothes...First mistake ? Takes ages to get someone to help - despite 3 bods chatting and playing on their phones. Went down hill from there..
Bod say's display model doesn't work
Is it a good buy ? ''Well everythings short so no deals'' and it's equlivant to others in the price range. He know's cock all and just reads what's on the Currys web site via his tablet..Least that works..
OK - the web site say's you've got some available from stock ? - No we don't....Well- we have one - and that's the display model ( which does't work ) Ok who else has then ? much pressing of buttons and it turns out it's Bristol...
Ok.... if I order one ? Well its £5 delivery or more ( a lot ) if u want it sooner and then only to home address...and a timed delivery..
But there's no one at home ( Like this twat) so can I have it delivered to here and collect it ? NO.
Are u sure - well after finding the ''supervisor'' it's yes - but only if you pay for it on a credit plan...
Really ? I have business account ? No - doesn't count.
So shall I order it off the internet ?

At this point I'm giving up the will to live...so knock it on the head.

Went in to local Argos the following morning..bought it by 9.05am and back home by 9.15am.

And they wonder why people get pisssed off...

And I'm desperatly looking for the ''How did we do'' E mail and the twats didn't send me one !