London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

I hate reprographics.
What a tedious, thankless, mindless job it really is. I swore I'd never do twenty years in the trade, and here I am, twenty years later. Same grey box of a room, different mac, different software, same shit.
My boss uses my soul as a wank rag, mopping out his jizzy navel with my hopes and dreams.
My workmates are mindless buffoons, drooling on the page 3 of the paper while shovelling bacon into their toothless maws.
Next to me is a kid with bright ginger hair.
The funny bit? When he gets stressed, his hair falls out in clumps!
He gets stressed a lot.
He's in reprographics.
I've got to get out.
If I'm still her next year I'm going to go postal.

more shit to follow....

My soulless boss has just taken it on himself to cheer up my colleague (not the ginger stressed one who's hair falls out - the other one.). His father died on Friday, and as a 26 year old who's mother disowned him when the marriage to his dad broke down, this young chap had the grim task of organizing his dad's funeral.
Soulless boss (who has slicked back hair, BTW) chose topical news stories to cheer him up:

"What about that puff off Little Britain, eh? His husband has gone and topped himself, I see.."

"Did you read about those two young lasses who flung themselves off that bridge? What a fucking waste. Did anyone see a picure of them? Were they fit?"

Soulless Boss then asked about how my colleagues dad passed away:

"Fluid on the lungs? Nasty. Massive dose of morphine? They do that, when it's terminal. It's good shit, that morphine. It sent me off my rocker when they gave me it. There's loads of types you know. Powerful as fuck. They gave it to Dave when he got cancer. It's what killed him, really."
Then he asked my colleague to stay on and work extra hours.

Unbelievable.

Please could you tell me exactly what it is? Wikipedia didn't help much.

For reprographics description, think IT and design combined, only without the skill, camaraderie, artistic flare, creativity, laughter, song, joy, popularity, sexiness, hope, funkiness, cool-factor or future.

Surely some of those skills are transferrable? What about magazine/newspaper layout?

Soulless boss has just asked grieving colleague if he watched Jamie Oliver last night:

Colleague - "I started watching it, but I can't really remember what happened. My mind kind of wandered..."

Soulless Boss - "Yeah, that happens when bad stuff happens. It was like that for me when they told me I had diabetes."

Everything in his life is equatable to his fucking diabetes.

Whoa! Them two planes just flew into that building!
I know how they feel. I've got diabetes.

Poor baby P!
He's got it lucky. I've got diabetes.

See the footy last night?
No. I've got diabetes.

Jesus.

I'm in the North, Sparky.
Not too many jobs at the mo.
Wife and two kids to feed, mortgage etc...
For the time being, I'm trapped!

Resign, simple.

I understand - it's not that much better in the south. I've been laid off once in the last few months. Also feeling lucky to have a job at the moment.

No one should have to work extra hours for anybody. Pulling your weight? Committed? Just want to get the job done? Fuck off! Manage better, Manager.

Not this Manager.

Soulless Boss loves to come into work on Saturdays AND Sundays.

He says it "breaks up the weekend"

He calls it 'having a little drive through' to see that everything is going ok.

Even when he's the only one there...

Don't resign - The expectation levels are fantastically low and you don't have to worry about any of that shit + it’s money. You also have to love the people those jobs attract.

I used to manage a tape ops chap who had a drink problem, ran a Satan worshiping website and spent half his day writing letters to the telegraph. He had daily ideas to take over the company (all fantastically bad but serious!)
I’d get into work and he’d be there 7am eating microwave chicken korma spitting bile at a piece in the days paper written by a vicar. Pure magic!

Cheers Greasy! I'm glad that I'm not the only one witnessing this insanity.

This shit is bad, but the guy who keeps wanking off in the toilets while I'm trying to take a crap is really getting on my nerves. He can't even be discreet about it, for fuck's sake...

wanking off at work? lord have mercy...

The wanking's bad, but I sort of wonder what gets him so fizzed up at work that he feels he really has to crack one off right that second, even with a bloke tutting loudly in disgust about three feet away from him - but then I wonder if the bloke tutting loudly about three feet away is the reason he is so fizzed up...
Have I become bog wank material?

I think so, yep.

you should wait out side the toilet for him to to appear, then cheer and clap loudly.

Do you know who the bloke is?
(the dude rubbing one out)

*Checks*

Do not work in reprographics, *phew*

You're not the only one suffering, if this is any consolation: my line-manager is currently filing her toenails* disturbingly close to my desk having just removed the nail varnish, more will be applied shortly, I'm developing a phobia to the accompanying sights and smells.


*Yeah, that's right TOENAILS, fingernails is a daily job, thankfully only weekly for the toenails.

barbarians.

and get a few of your colleages in on it.

Or get a few of us to come along, so to speak...

i know the sort of "come along" you'll wanna do :)

what kind of organisation is it you work for? could you take this higher up?

That's where it gets farsical...

The first time it happens, i leave the toilet with a shocked and disgusted expression on my face.
Co-worker, Jock, asks what's up.
'There's some dirty bastard knocking one out in there!'
'No!'
'Yes.'
'No!'
'Yes.'
etc...
I told him that I'd seen his shoes under the door, for future reference, to ID the cunt.
I wander off, and Jock gets on with his job, keeping half an eye on the toilet.
And clocks the bloke who walks out.

2 days later, over the tannoy:
'Will General Lucifer please go to meeting room 1'

I arrive to find a manager with a very upset worker, ModelWorker. Never throws a sicky, works through lunch etc.
'Ah, Mr Lucifer! I'll get straight to the point. People have been accusing Mr ModelWorker of committing an oscene act on himself in the toilets, and they say the person who wittnessed it is YOU!"
I check ModelWorker's shoes in a sneaky way.
Wrong shoes.
ModelWorker throws a screaming hissy fit, tears and everything, I say it's not him, he's the wrong guy.
'How do you know?' asks manager.
'I looked under the toilet door, and saw bog wankers shoes. ModelWorker has different shoes.'
'What were you doing looking under toilet doors, Mr Lucifer?'
Oh.

ModelWorker had nipped in for a piss when Jock had his back turned, and only saw him leaving.
Bog wanker made good his escape afterwards.

I had to endure sniggers for being masturbatory obsessive bog peeper for a few weeks.

I now realise that if I accuse the real bog wanker, or even approach him on the subject, he can just say I'm lying, and declare me a pervert.
You see, now I've got 'previous'. I've already wrongly accused one person of bog wanking - it will look like I've got some disorder that makes me look under bog doors hoping to catch somebody wanking.
All I can do now is tut loudly in the hope he shoots his load quickly, and leaves me in peace to have a shit.

Richie seems keen

This could easily be an episode of Seinfeld or Curb

Massive LOL at 'bog wanker'

there was a young indian chap at my first place of work who use to take a leather folder into the toilets. the girls i sat with got it out his drawer one day and it contained jazz mags.. worst bit is he used to use the toilet right next to where we sat!

You need to plant some wellys and a mask like in this great story

You need a plan... sounds grim.
push soul less boss down stairs or meddle with his sugar intake. If hes got type 2 diabetes hes probably a fat fuck anyway.... maybe just tape him up and force jelly babies up his nose before pushing him down the stairs?
THe bog wanker story had me in hysterics. Glad its not me in your shoes (or his - what a sad sad life). You could sell that story - write a book??

Funniest ever for me was when I was working in an architect's office in Liverpool and we had this Indian kid in doing work experience. Neil, who was project architect on the same scheme that I was working on, went over to check on him one day and he was apparently looking at GAY PORN and couldn't close his bloody browser quick enough not to get caught. Unbelievable. The poor kid was mortified and didn't come in again the next day or at all. Fancy looking at porn at work though, in an unfamiliar, open-plan workplace... tut tut.

This is hilarious by the way GL, I really hope this thread goes on and on with regular entries.*

*ooh-err

I used to work with a plate maker called Weasel.
He was really strange.
He lived in Leeds but had a fetish for York, for some reason. He used to have the York papers saved for him at WH Smiths in Leeds station, and he'd go collect them on a Friday.
When York City were in financial trouble he gave them £3000. He's on ordinary Yorshire wages, but gave his team £3000.
After that, they let him go to away games on the team bus.
I'm not lying.
Anyway, I'd decided to go for a day trip to York on the coming weekend, so I mentioned it to Weasel.
'I'm up your neck of the woods on saturday, Weasel!"
"Are you?"
Yes, me and my girlfriend are off to York!"
"Do you like sausages?"
"?"
"I said, do you like sausages?"
"Err.... I suppose so, yes."
"Right! I'll tell you where there's a great butcher in York. His sausages are ace."
"Well.. we're not really going shopping for meat..."
"Whatever. Do you know Smith Street?"
Not really Weasel. I don't know York."
"Ok. Well, you know opposite Wellington Lane? The Black Swan on Wellington Lane?"
"Erm, no, I don't really..."
"ok, ok. Wel, you know the shambles?
"Kind of..."
"Good! Opposite there is Peach Street, well you go along there, take te third left next to the Undertakers, keep going to the end..."
'I'm not really sure..'
"AT THE END you take a right, past The Victoria pub, the one that's just re-opened, and just down there, next to grocers, you'll find the butchers. Best Sausages in York."
"Well, thanks Weasel. Thanks."
"Are you going to get some sausages then?"
"Yeah, I guess..."

We had a top time in York, saw all the good stuff, went to the Jorvik museum, had a pub lunch, loads of beers, saw the Minster, went down the Shambles, the lot.
Really good time.

Next Monday, I'm walking through the platemaking department.
"Hey, Lucifer!"
"Hi Weasel. How you doing?"
"Never mind. Did you get to York on Saturday?"
"Yes! It was great! We went to the Jorvik museum, saw the shambles, had a great pub lunch..."
"Yeah, yeah yeah. Did you get any sausages?"
"Well, no... I.."
"Fuck you, FUCK YOU!! For fuck's sake, just FUCK OFF, LUCIFER!! I don't know why I fucking bother, you fucker..."
"Ok. Bye then."

I know this might be hard to believe, but these stories are actually making me jealous. You work with some real characters. They sound like by far the best part of the job. Learn to enjoy them and you can enjoy this job forever more...

Hehehe, buggers a bay leaf!

general lucifer these little stories are great!

GL, your storytelling is vivid. I love it!

Not sure if i believe it though

:-/

I...Love...this thread.

When i worked in the council there was always people wanking in the toilets. Didn't bother me really, as long as they clean up. Any job where there are papers to read in the cubicles is worth keeping!

I can100% guarantee these stories are true - but that doesn't mean anything really, I suppose.
When you work for twenty years in the same job, you find out about people, and you realise that everybody is really odd.
And I mean everybody.
There are some laughs in the day, but there's loads of shit too. Same for everybody. I really do love some of the characters I've worked with over the years, but I've known some horrible, horrible bastards too.
Some people are really at home in a factory. Even after all this time, I find it depressing.
Anyway...

There's a guy on the factory floor called Scorcher. He's a machine operator.
He's also a compulsive liar. He really can't help it.
He reckoned that one day he was sat in his back garden chilling out in a deckchair, when he heard a shout.
"Excuse me! Hello!"
Scorcher looked up, and saw plane circling over head, with the pilot leaning out of the window.
"How do, mate!" says Scorcher. "What's the problem?"
"I'm trying to find Leeds Bradford Airport," says the pilot. "Which way is it."
Scorcher points in a general North Westerly direction. "Over yonder, pal, about 8 mile."
"Thanks mate!" cries the pilot, and points the plane towards the airport...

Next day is as sunny as the last, and scorcher decides to catch a few rays again.
He's dozing in the deckchair when he hears a plane pass by over head. Then he hears something land on the grass beside him.
He opens his eyes and looks down.
There, on the grass was a box of chocolates.

Standard

bog standard

I was thinking the same thing, classic Curb material.

Keep it up GL you have some great stories.

Ok.
Weasel never left the UK. He went on holiday either to Torquay or The isle of White.
Nowhere else.
He didn't drive, never saw the need, and went everywhere by coach.
When he travelled he always wore a smart shirt and his blazer bearing the crest of his beloved York city. The man was devoted.
On the way down to Torquay one year the coach suffered a blow out on the motorway ans was forced to pull onto the hard shoulder.
"I'm afraid we've got to wait for a replacement coach," says the driver, "but nobody is allowed to stay on the coach. Health and safety, and all that."
Off they all get and stand on behind the crash barrier on the grass verge.
Weasel relaxes with a cig, but then a little old lady comes up to him.
She squints at his blazer and badge. "Excuse me driver, but can I get onto the coach for a moment? I need to go to the toilet."
He lets her think he's the driver for some weird reason.
"Sorry love, nobody allowed on the coach when we're on the hard shoulder. Health and safety."
The old dear looks frantic.
"I really need to go! What can I do? If I don't go soon I'll have an accident!"
"Why don't you go down there?"
Weasel points don the embankment to some scrubland.
"I can't get down there! I'm seventy six!"
"Don't worry madam," says Weasel chivalrously. "Take my arm. I'll lead you down."
Everso carefully, Weasel guides the cloud-head own the embankment to the bottom.
"Just nip behind those bushes," he advices in his strange self adopted official capacity. "I'll wait here for you."
She looks understandably nervous.
"I can't go when I know your here. It's a little embarrassing!"
"Don't worry madam!" says Weasel, "I'll stand up at the top of the embankment. You give me a shout when your all done."
And with that, Weasel climbs up and respectfully turns his back to the field below.
He starts another cigarette, but then the replacement coach arrives.
"All aboard!"
Weasel stubs out his fag, climbs aboard with the other passengers and off they go...

Ten miles and several frantic head counts later, Weasel suddenly remembers.
Next exit, about turn, a further thirteen miles to the next exit...
They found her where he had left her, absolutely distraught.
Weasel couldn't see how he was in any way to blame.

+1

heroic

I am waiting for us Aussies to be blamed for this sad tale.

This needs to be a blog. Seriously. Look at the attention they're getting. You've got a handful of posts already. Pop over to Wordpress.com and you can start one up easily, for free.

You could call it Graphic Anecdotes