Willy Wonka's Vodka Factory

Went out after work on Saturday night. Was only supposed to "have a few". I think things went horribly wrong, when, after being at work for only 30 minutes, I accidentally poured one triple Smirnoff too many, and was therefore forced to drink it myself. At that point it was too late to go back, and three hours and many, many, many more vodkas later I was more than a little tipsey! So, anyway, off to Studio One I went to meet my friends, but by about half one I was quite wasted, and in a bad mood (probably due to the vodka) so decided to leave. As i was about to get to my front door I got texted by a mate and ended up at their house watching "Charly and the Chocolate Factory" and drinking strange Polich Vodka until 6am, what fun! Still, at least i got an extra hour in bed and my Mum & Dad were under the imprseeion that i'd come in at about 2am so no arguments there.

A Weekend well spent...?

So I survived the parental visit at the weekend without having to knaw my own arm off, quite impressive I think!
It's not that I don't like seeing my parents, it's just that after 8 years of living on my own, they tend to stress me out a little, for reasons which i shall explain. For example, my mother is semi-neurotic, and a minor obsessive-compulsive. Whenever she visits she feels the need to clean my kitchen to a ridiculous level. I have a dishwasher, yet she still felt the need to wash up three times over the weekend. After that she rooted around in the cupboards and fridge, hunting for stuff that might be out of date. Now being the sort of person who isn't really into eating rotting food, I do tend to throw said items out, I don't just leave them there until my mother visits, although saying that I might do that from now on just to keep her busy!

With my parents being up, I had Cameron all weekend, and so we decided to take a trip to Whitby on Saturday. Now, if you've never been to Whitby, imagine the most backward small-town ever, then stick it next to the sea and fill it with inbreds. (Aplogies Al, I know you're one of the few without webbed toes.) But interestingly enough (if you didn't know) the town was featured in Bram Stoker's book, Dracula, largely due to the Gothic Abbey which over-looks the town from the cliff tops above. Every year, just before Halloween, the town is transformed as Goth Weekend is celebrated. As much as Goths usually annoy me, (not all of them by the way, I do have some close friends who have gothic tendancies) I found it rather cool to see hundreds of people wandering about the old market dressed in full Victorian Ball-garb, but I still wonder why they ALL wear those ridiculous boots with 6 inch soles (and about three tons worth of buckles and straps), surely not very practical for walking on cobbled streets?

Why Does Our Bar Attract Mutants?

Right, time to introduce you to the double-edged sword that is my working life. I have two jobs. Yes i work with the mortgage stuff during the day, but by night I am also an intrepid bar tender. Now there are some advantages to this, the main one being that I receive some extra money every week. The trouble is that as i've already made clear to you, I hate customers. Now this hatred is not limited to my mortgage customers, oh no, I will not be discriminatory in my dislike of the general public. In fact I usually meet a higher proportion of imbeciles behind the bar.

Let me give you a few examples of the scum, low-lifes and wastes of biological material that haunt our establishment:

Example # 1: The Guy who came in last night...

And guess what the first words were that tumbled from his smack-riddled mind?
"Bend over for me"
Fair enough, so he may have been attracted to my boss, but I don't think Sam took this very well (Sam is a man by the way), so he warned the lad to calm down and drink his drink. After harrassing several customers we decided to chuck him out, but as we were escorting him to the door he cried, "Aw, don't chuck me out, go on, i'll shag you!"
Oh well if that's the case, i'm sorry we ever considered throwing you out, just give me a tick to lube up....
Frankly i'm surprised Sam managed to keep his temper.

Example # 2: Identification

I love I.D-ing potential customers. Yep, it gives me great satisfaction to watch a group of Under-age oiks spend ten minutes deciding who looks oldest, only to have their hopes dashed on the rocks. But this has led to some very funny moments.
Once we had a lass who looked about 12, we asked for I.D and she promptly handed over her sisters passport. Unfortunately for her the girl I was working with (who also asked for the i.d) was good friends with said older sister..... DRINK DENIED!

Another comedy moment arose when I asked another lass for I.d. She replied that she didn't have any. To this I said that I couldn't serve her (there's no way i'm going to suffer a £2000 fine just so some little tosser can get pissed on a bottle of Smirnoff Ice before throwing up in a hedge / sleep with some spotty, Burberry bedecked twat called 'Gav', or some other Chav-name), to which she replied "Well I ain't got no I.D but i've got a Tattoo!"
Oh, really? Well that's alright then, how about a quadruple Jack Daniels?
Moron.

Why Do.....?

...Old people feel the need to count out each individual coin whenpaying for goods at a shop? This is even more annoying as:

a) They're always, always, clearly holding a note of some kind which could be used to pay and therefore speed up the transaction.
b)I always get stuck behind one of these decrepit fools when i am in a rush to get somewhere.

I mean, come on, just because your time on this mortal coil is short, doesn't mean you have to waste everyone else's life.

...Bus drivers now seem to operate like taxi drivers?

Went to catch the bus to work the other day. Stood at the bus stop for about ten minutes waiting for the bus to arrive. Now I was under the impression that buses stop automatically at major bus stops on their route, or at least they will when some people are clearly waiting there. No, apparently not any more! As I stood at the Kerb, looking expectantly at the approaching bus, he just decided to keep driving! I had to chase him down the road because he seemed to think that I was supposed to flag him down! Maybe this practise is limited to the town I live in, or maybe i've inadvertantly offended the local bus-drivers union, who knows. But I would be interested to learn if anyone else has shared this situation.

...Birds suddenly appear, everytime, that you are near....

...Customers lie, so much, & so badly!

O.k. so I was late for work this morning because my usual lift decided to drive off to work without me (thanks for that) & the very first thing I have to deal with is a customer complaining because "I was supposed to call her yesterday to complete her application".

Well, no actually I wasn't, you F**king moron, what I said to the lady in question (when I spoke to her on Wednesday morning) was that as she had not receieved a quote, I could not do the application, & therefore she was TO RING ME when she had received it. Easy enough to understand, you would have thought? Especially seeing as I do not have psychic powers (I know, i'm sorry, I guess I just couldn't be bothered to learn) & therefore cannot possibly tell when she receives her post.....Idiots, all of them....

More soon....

The Joys of Fatherhood

Being a Dad certainly has it's rewards. Sometimes. Well, no, i'll be fair, it is a fantastic thing trying to get your son to say Dad before he says Mum, in the vain hope that you win the Arms Race that is Baby's first words. So far Cameron (my son, if you hadn't guessed) can say "Da-da-da-da-da-da-da", but i'm getting a little concerned because he seems to be saying "Mu-mu-mu-mu-mu-mu-mu" too. (Incidentally this is not pronounced "moo" but more like saying "Mum, but without the last 'M'.)
Now I was under the impression that children always said Dad first because it was linguistically simpler, this I no longer believe as if he keeps up the "Mu-mu-mu" business it will not be long until he can say "Mum".

Another joy of Fatherhood is my childs sadistic sense of when is the right time to want to play. 6pm - Fine. 4am, not so good. So this morning i found myself rooting around my bedroom floor for Elmo so I could keep the wee fella occupied long enough to send him back to sleep, and when that failed I ahd to resort to singing "Grand Old Duke of York". Three hundred renditions of this later, he slept. I was too tired to dance a victory jig at this point, so i just looked forward to my remaining 1 hour of sleep.

Another Tuesday Morning...

So, the first caller of today seemed to be missing a few sandwiches form his picnic hamper. He didn't even know which lender he was with, and he was also moronic enough to not know his account number. You'll be surprised how often this happens. My instinct tries to get me to commit their address to memory so that i can hunt them down for sport at later date. The only trouble is that the current government (and general social morals) frown upon this sort of action. Shame really.

By the way i've been here for over an hour, given that idiot his balance (he called my colleague less than 5 mins later to ask the same question...!) and then spent the rest of the time writing this. Ha!

Let there be light....

And so, Mort looked down on his world, and he saw that it was good.

For those of you that don't know me, (almost definately all of you!) I am technoically incomptant when it comes to Computers, so you'll have to excuse all the typos and the dull layout.
So why, being a techno-cretin have you created a blog, I hear you cry? Well, I got quite bored at work, so the purpose of this blog is to reassure the world (well, alright, about 3/4 of the U.K population) that their money is safe in the hands of banks & building societies. What i mean by this (as you may discover) is that for the last 3 months I have done pretty much Chuff-all at work. Yup, nothing, nadah, zip. Well, apart from arrange the odd mortgage anyway (stop me if the excitment gets too much) so hopefully this blog will inform what exactly the fine people in financial institutions across the globe get up to, on your money!

Day 1

Hmmm, got up far too late again. Did my usual trick of S**ting myself as I realise that i've turned both alarms off, and the 5 min, post sleep-nap turned into 3/4 of an hour.
Never underestimate the power of weetabix......
with bananna on top they kick ass. I defy you all to find a better breakfast treat (o.k. i'll admit my baby son's cereal is quite tasty but then i'm not supposed to admit to eating that stuff).
So then, with my morning ritual of breakfast, cuppa tea, fag (all whilst staring at the news on t.v.) over I left the house with some trepidation as to what work has in store for me.

Amusing things customers say...

My God, sometimes I am amazed at the things our potential / existing customers say. The following is a reasonably accurate transcript of a conversation I had about ten minutes ago....

ME: "Can I take your name please so that I can then transfer you through to the correct advisor?"
Customer: "Michael"

Well o.k, fair enough, that was a bit of an ambiguous question, but we do usually deal with surnames here. (You may think i'm being harsh here, but wait, the idiocy continues in fine form.)

Colleague (after answering investment queery): "Can I take your name so that i can send this information out to you?"
Customer: "Michael" (At this point I think we're seeing a pattern..)
Colleague: "So i'll be adressing this to Mr Michael then?"
Customer: "No, my name is Mr Lo**ll" (Name change to protect identity)
Colleague: "Right, so shall i address this to Mr Lo**ll, then?"
Customer: "RG16 2AY"

Why he thought it necessary to talk like this I have no idea, needless to say it took my friend about three days to get the required address out of him....
*Loads shotgun and makes note of said address*

Things I have done today...

Activity:
Played with Bull-clip.

Time Spent:
Virtually all day!

Activity:
Attempted to avoid bosses vision whilst toying on internet.

Time Spent:
All Day!

Activity:
Anything completely unrelated to work.

This I have managed to do ALL day!


I hope some of you are reading this at work and thinking, "Lucky Bastard" well, yeah! Ha ha!

The Staff Canteen

One of my more common whinges will be based around the service / choice offered by my staff canteen. Get used to this because it's going to feature regularly.

Look, I know it's October, and Halloween is not far away, but do we really have to have Pumpkin with every fricking meal? I think not. Now many of you may think that i'm being particularly unfair about this vegetable, well bo**cks to you all. I hate it. It's evil.
There is a reason why this veg only appears for about 2 weeks every year you know!

Aside from this, today i decided to have the pasty. This was probably a bad idea as i've had it before but it was nasty. (Well it was either the pasty or frickin Pumpkin.) And today it was nasty. Now i usually eat immense amounts of food, but today i didn't even eat half of it. How poor is that?

Apologies to the lad I almost killed

During another infamous work football match last night I inadvertantly mullered one of my colleagues. I thought it was a fair challange (I got the ball didn't I?). I don't think his various injuries reflected this however. He didn't get up for ten minutes. We still lost. Typical


UPDATE

I have just found out that I broke the lads wrist, or at least when he fell he broke his wrist. Muchos guilt coming my way. Will have to get a get-well-soon card methinks!

N.B I am not a violent player by the way, although I will forgive you all for thinking this.