Life is riddled with a procession of minor impediments

[Darren Stephens]

....because I have a rare day off work today and have woken up with a stiff neck. I said neck.  I will now spend the rest of the day walking around looking like I'm searching for something on the floor.

Dredd fans contract sympathetic Chaos virus from unsanitary plastic Prog holsters.

Oh nooooo!  I've had that cold/cough...thing for a few weeks. Starting to get on me nips, truth be told.

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

Just recovering from my cold but now I have a vitamin tablet stuck in my throat (just like LAST Friday.)!!!

[locustsofdeath!]

I collect vintage horror movie posters. I had them all framed very nicely, and they'd been in the same frames for years.

In my move from the States the glass in several of the frames was broken. The movie company paid for me to get new ones, so I decided to reframe the lot of them (even the ones without broken glass).

Today I picked them up from the framers and had them all leaning against the walls as I decided how to arrange them. Took a quick lunch break - while I had my head in the fridge, I hear a bang and a smash and look up in time to see my two cats run past, tails poofed up.

Sure enough, while playing they ran behind my frames, knocking three over and smashing the glass.

Sigh.

And to think I went through all that trouble to bring the from England with me. Any of you want them?

[SmallBlueThing]

Broken glass, cats or posters?

If posters, yes please- our lounge currently has framed masque of the red death and land of the dead, but could do with more. What are they?

SBT

[locustsofdeath!]

Broken glass, cats or posters?

That'd be the cats  .

The posters that fell victim to the rascally little runts were my German 'Tombs of the Blind Dead', 'Return of the Blind Dead' and 'Ghost Galleon of the Blind Dead'. Posters were okay, though.

Other posters I have (all are original movie one-sheets): 'Zombie' (Zombie Flesh Eaters for you guys), 'Suspiria' (American Video Release Poster), 'The Beyond' (Grindhouse Rerelease), 'Night of the Seagulls' (4th Blind Dead Film), 'Horror of the Zombies' (Ghost Galleons American Video Title) 'Cannibal Holocaust', 'Return of the Living Dead', 'Meet the Feebles' and 'Re-Animator' (half-sheet).

[COMMANDO FORCES]

One of the shop stewards at work has been trying to get me to join the union for the last week (he eventually figured out I wasn't in it). After he couldn't answer any of my questions I told him 'there's your answer to why I won't be joining' and I just gave him a knowing smile 

[Dandontdare]

One of the shop stewards at work has been trying to get me to join the union for the last week (he eventually figured out I wasn't in it). After he couldn't answer any of my questions I told him 'there's your answer to why I won't be joining' and I just gave him a knowing smile 

Good for you, but don't expect any support (or legal counsel) if you ever find yourself top of the redundancy list, have your hours, wages or pension fucked about with, or get unjustly disciplined. Knowing eight ways to kill someone with  a biro is little use against corporate twattery. 

[COMMANDO FORCES]

But you see many years ago when something really bad happened, I represented myself in court and used my brain power to prove that I was innocent and the local council over there was guilty and I didn't do it for monetary gain. In the end all I wanted was my costs and the rest I gave to charity. If I had lost I would have lost everything  but I knew I was in the right and they were in the shite!

If people want to join a union, good for them (I have been a shop steward once, long story short. At my old place the shop steward was shite (in it for his own game) I joined the union because everyone wanted me to be the shop steward. I ousted him and from then on led the bosses of our depot on a merry dance as I got everyone off everything. I did that just to prove a point).

As far as I'm concerned if you have a brain in your head and you know you are in the right you have nothing to be scared of. I have been made redundant, didn't bother me as I walked straight into another job which is even better, while still on gardening leave. I don't intend to have my wages cut (due to everyone in this country needing to eat) and definately don't care about the amount of hours that I work, as I try to do basic hours every day. In fact I'm probably on the least amount of wages out of all our drivers due to hardly doing any overtime.

I can do all that and still easily pay my mortgage and spend my wages like money is going out of fashion and still live within my means. How do I do this, you may ask. I've stupidly followed all the rules and luckily for me managed to achieve my childhood ambition already, so don't have a craving to reach a goal that I've already done. Above all, so long as my family are okay then I'm happy.

Seeing as I'm in the private sector I expect to have my pensions robbed, hang on, they have already by Gordon. So when I'm knackered I've told Carolyn to leave me outside Kent County Council with a note saying 'He's all yours now!'

I suppose leaving the forces would be classed as being made redundant as well, so make that twice and I didn't care that time either as I signed on for 9 as that was all I wanted to do!

P.S. I was never taught how to kill with a biro, it was a Papermate 

P.P.S. I won't be able to reply now, as I'm off to work my unsociable hours 

[Dandontdare]

P.S. I was never taught how to kill with a biro, it was a Papermate 

Ooooh, officer class!

Fair do's - unions are an excellent idea in principal, but often flawed. I will NEVER cross a picket line, it just goes against my core beliefs; I'll instictively side with the union over the bosses in any dispute, but even I think that Bob Crow & the tube drivers are starting to take the piss.

[Spikes]

unions are an excellent idea in principal, but often flawed.

Well, thats the problem right there. Always been in the union with all my jobs except the one im presently in. My last job, when the place was shutting down, and we was genuinely being fucked about by the company, the top union guy had a rush of blood to the head and took our plight as his crusade and launched an almost personal vendetta against the man at the top. All this achieved was we came within a whisker of losing a good chunk of our redundancy package. Whether this would really have happened i dont know, but legally they could have done it.

[staticgirl]

Whereas my union is fantastic, democratic and acts on members's views. The leader of it talks to ordinary members about pretty much anything instead of being surrounded by a barrier of PR and policy wonks (he happily talked about footie to my mate's little kid when we were on a march recently.) The local reps are very active whilst I've heard of other branches and unions where they can be a bit wet. They've got a good relationship with our management too, sometimes their suggestions save the bosses a bit of money or help make processes more efficient whilst remaining humane.

When my dad died in an accident at work his union helped us take his employers to court to take them to task over the H&S rules that had been breached and we got a settlement that helped me and my brother finish school, go to college/uni and graduate which we would have struggled to do otherwise.

But there you go, I was already brainwashed to be a union girl by my grandad from an early age. The union helped him learn to read and write better when he came to Britain. They especially do a lot for people who have got nothing and no schooling (thanks to learning reps) and now some of them have set up credit unions so that people can save and get low cost loans.

My family has done all right out of unions but I respect people who have the nous and courage to go it alone. They must always have that choice.

[The Legendary Shark]

Whilst unions are a great idea and undoubtedly do a lot of good, there is a danger that they can become Controlled Dissent. That is, it's easier for companies/corporations and governments to deal with a single representative than 10,000 members. So long as your union leader isn't being somehow controlled (by bribery, threats etc.) then all can go well.

I will just point out here that Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the T.U.C., has been on the Court of Directors of the Bank of England since June 2003. I wonder how much of that time he's spent trying to persuade his fellow directors to bail out the workers rather than the banks?

[A.Cow]

Whereas my union is fantastic, democratic and acts on members's views.

It's very cheering to hear your experiences -- too often all people hear about is political power-plays at the expense of workers' pockets and customers' needs.

Unions should be all about fairness & reason: they're there to keep management from behaving unfairly & unreasonably; it's also vital that the union itself behaves fairly & reasonably.  There are a lot of good unions out there but sadly it only takes a few militants to bring the whole thing into disrepute.

I found the whole British Airways thing incredible.  Here's a company where the majority of their staff have such low morale they're prepared to lose their own money to protest the unfairness of management policies, yet the bosses waste eveybody's time issuing legal challenges instead of talking constructively with unions to fix a ticking time-bomb.  No wonder the economy is in such a mess.

[Darren Stephens]

.......because I forgot to email Denise at 2000AD Subs until today. When my prog failed to arrive. 

[vzzbux]

Really suffering from my cold at the moment. A full on dizzy spell last night. Still working through it though, I must be fucking stupid. If I don't get any better I don't think the missus will let me go into work come Tuesday.

On a positive not I got my union membership number throught yesterday. My company had better watch their backs. If they carry on treating us like shit there is enough of us now in the union to make waves.



V