I couldn’t get my head around that stat, thinking that on average it was the current pope and the next pope (who doesn’t know it yet) in the Vatican; or whether it counted the remains of popes gone by.
Then I saw the metric area of the Vatican and it made a bit more sense… but not by much.
I’m unlucky enough to be in junior management… and that sounds to me like the manager or supervisor has the breaking strength of a melted fucking KitKat.
Sure, they’ve made a problem go away, but they’ve emboldened the arsehole to pull this stunt in the future, and it has done untold damage to the self esteem and mental health of the poor airport spud who was doing their job just fine.
From a personal perspective: if I was a passenger on that plane and we were delayed because some arsepiece threw a hissy fit at the gate, I’d be fuming that the airline caved too.
It’s gash. Fuck that guy, but fuck that supervisor too. They literally had the grounds to fuck that guy right off and enjoy every second of it, but they buckled and became part of the problem.
I went to Tesco (a large (perhaps too large ((brackets)) grocery retailer in the UK) a while back with some raspberries that hadn’t even lasted until I got home before going mouldy.
Literally, all I wanted to do was show the customer service desk lass the issue, show them my receipt, get a replacement, and fuck off to make the interaction as easy as possible for them.
An honest appraisal of what the problem was; some witty banter; and a general understanding of the “don’t be a dickhead” principle to frontline staff meant that she kept hold of me for ten minutes, noted down details and times and whatnot, and it ended up with a £10 apology gift card in the post - which in turn purchased a rather nice bottle of wine.
Where I’m going with this: I cannot fathom how people cannot be polite about issues like this. I’ve never understood how being a wanker to someone whose job it is to sort issues out somehow nets you a better end result. Perhaps the best advice I’m going to give my kids is to spend six months or a year of their teenage starts to their careers in an inbound call centre in a field they’re interested in - yes the job can grind you down and yes the pay sucks, but the basic life skills and soft people skills it teaches you is fucking invaluable.
tl;dr: solid advice, ask nicely, don’t be a twat, and you’ll probably end up with a net result better than you started.
Life’s too short to get hung up on it, friend.
I know it’s easy for me to say, but each success; mistake; and blatantly oblivious sign that they’re DTF missed are all learning experiences.
It makes you who you are now, and that’s kinda awesome. You’re better than who you were before. Onwards and upwards!
I was just clueless as fuck. I’ve got the sum total of zero game when it comes to dating, not that it matters now I’ve settled down.
I did learn my lesson though. Met a girl who was absolutely stunning, like cover girl model looks, and she was lovely. Asked her out on a date expecting to be shot down, and she said yes. At that point I was like a dog that had chased a car and caught up with it, I didn’t know what the fuck to do.
Anyway, we went out a couple of times - nice restaurant, bowling, the cinema… had a great time with her but it wasn’t really moving forward and just kinda started to fizzle out, which was no big deal.
One evening she phones me, saying she was at a house party two or three towns over, and was getting bored - and asked me to take her home. No worries there, I wasn’t doing anything, so I drove over to get her and she hopped in, a bit worse for wear after a glass or twelve of wine but not absolutely munted.
Halfway down the road home, she’s like “actually, can we go back to yours? I don’t really want to get in and my parents see me like this”. Not a problemo, took her back to mine, got her a coffee and sat and chatted. She came through to my room when I was getting changed and crashed out on the bed beside me, faced me, and said “maybe I’ll sleep here tonight?”
I’d learned my lesson, I could see that she wanted all two inches of this rage and disappointment. So I said “sure, no problem… I’ll sleep on the sofa”.
I drove her home the following morning and she never said a word. I desperately wished I could have taken that opportunity, but the whole consent thing after her sesh at the party made it a little bit dicey. I never did get another opportunity. She was absolutely lovely though and I hope she found a guy that made her happy. 😊
I dated a girl once who came round. She asked “are you going to give me the tour?”
I was like “uh, okay sure” so showed her around the living room, kitchen and back yard, before heading upstairs. I showed her the guest rooms and my room, and she sat on the bed and was like “it seems comfy in here”.
Right then I did what any guy would do, stopped for a moment, and said “it sure is. Now let’s head back downstairs and see what there is to watch”.
It was a good couple of years later when I thought back about it and it hit me like a train, “you fucking idiot”
I wonder how screen readers would parse that.
Would it be “in blinking text: Welcome to Jeff K’s website!”
or…
WELCOME TO JEFF K’S WEBSITE no text WELCOME TO JEFF K’S WEBSITE no text WELCOME TO JEFF K’S WEBSITE no text WELCOME TO JEFF K’S WEBSITE no text
etc?
Oh that sucks. I bought a multi pack of bin bags (or trash liner or whatever they’re called across the pond). I’ve used the company for years because the bag material is fairly thick, and it doesn’t just perish away if any liquids sit at the bottom. Decent quality.
This batch though must have been produced when the machine that seals the bottom and perforates it 5mm below the seal, must have been needing a service. The perforations looked like faint dents in the plasticy material, which meant that when you tried to rip a bag off the roll, it just stretched the plastic rather than tear off cleanly along the dotted line of perforations. It meant that rather than just fucking one bag up, it often pulled across the seam of the next one, making two bags useless.
The whole multipack was fucked and it was infuriating. I can only imagine the machine’s perforating teeth were blunt as fuck.
Little things.
Well jeez, I didn’t expect to find an Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters reference here, especially this late to the party.
Here’s another good source if you’re interested.
The stage one music is a banger too.
There are no answers here, only more questions - and it is glorious.
Funnily enough, I got an email from MS plugging their Copilot shit.
I don’t give a fuck about what I’m subscribed to, I give a fuck about the link to unsubscribe from it.
Probably the best thing my brain has coded in years, to be fair.
My Python looks like it’s been written by Stevie Wonder with a hatred of anything beyond the floppy disk era.
I’m a “two on top, one on the sides” dude. I’m the same, the second my hair starts coming over my ears then I’m away to the barber. Two months is decent, though if I’m not able to get there through work or being away from home, I’ll stretch it to three months but I feel a bit like Noel Gallagher when my hair starts coming down to my lugholes.
That said, I treat it as a bit of a relaxation sesh. I’ll ask the barber for a “full service” and close my eyes for half hour or 45 mins and let the barber do his thing with the clippers and the hot shave and the massage and all that jazz. A guilty pleasure every other month or so.
Sounds like a Gen 7 Pokémon.
There’s two (or more) sides to every story and the truth is often in the middle. I’m only reading your view on a situation here and I’m wary that I don’t have the full picture while writing this comment.
Your parents remind me of the meme “you’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole”.
There’s ways to frame feedback - if you’re not achieving a standard set by a teammate who already isn’t qualifying for upper levels of competition, then it’s not a reason to knock the dream on the head, but a part of a training roadmap. If you’re banging in 29min 5ks or 5000m events (I’m making the assumption that’s the distance in mind here), then the plan would be to adjust training and diet to tag each of the minute barriers until you can clear 22min and top your team’s timesheets.
After that, you can look at what generally gets you a qualifying time for state or national competitions, and train for that. Once you’ve achieved that then you’re probably beyond what your parents or coach can help with and you’ll probably need elite or semi-pro level of coaching after that.
Negativity from your parents isn’t helpful though, and no not everyone does it. I don’t know whether it comes from a place of personal failure in your mother’s youth or whether she’s scared that you’re running into the unknown, but it isn’t helpful.
As for your dad though, I thought that it was kinda cool that he wanted to let your HS coach about how you’re getting on now. Everyone’s first crack at a distance event is awful, that’s how you develop - so it’s cool to be able to say to your old coach “hey that first 5k wasn’t spectacular, but check these times out now!”.
Either way, you’re running for yourself. If you train well, your times will come down, and you will start turning heads - whether your parents are supportive or not. One of the most important lessons I learned (and I’m nowhere near club level running let alone elite level) is to run your own race. It’s good for the mind, good for the soul, and helps you sleep at night.
Good luck, well done on what you’ve achieved so far, and hopefully the stopwatch will start giving you much better feedback than your parents.
I lived under the Heathrow-Noo Yoik flight path, and every evening within a couple of minutes, there’d be a dull thud sound on the roof.
By that point, the plane has reached a supersonic speed and the sonic boom was striking the ground in a reduced fashion. It just sounded like someone had dropped a bag of sand on the house.
This was of course back before the days of ADSB tracking.
Dogs make me laugh. Playing fetch is a prime example:
Dog: “throw the fucking ball”
Me: “okay I’ll throw the ball”
Dog: “amazing! Here’s the ball back, now throw the fucking ball”
Me: “okay I’ll throw the ball”
Dog: “fuck that was awesome! I’ve brought you it back, now throw the fucking ball again”
Me: “okay I’ll throw the ball”
Dog: “why the fuck did you throw the ball away? I’m not getting that mate”
Me “okay”
Is there a soundbite that sounds like “masturbate, then re-evaluate”?
Like “urinate then negotiate” or “pissing before purchasing”
I don’t know, I’m shit at these
In fairness, nobody specifically told me not to kill other folk or set people’s houses on fire or sexually harass folk. What I did have drilled in to me was an idea of mutual respect; personal boundaries; how not to be a complete dickhead (some may say I’ve not learned much at all about that bit); and how to coexist with others to make everyone’s day that little bit easier, regardless of their gender identity.
I can only assume those basic life lessons are either not being driven home as strongly as they should be in modern life; or there’s outside influences drowning out those voices.
I’m sorry to hear that you had some arsehole giving you such poor life “advice” though. I hope it hasn’t defined or shaped your values of intimacy. It’s yet another erosion of (what I’m assuming) are women’s rights from an early age, and it’s bang out of order.