I moved my website, as I’ve already told you (weren’t you listening?) It’s completely incompatible with most browsers’ security settings, and has one of the slowest loading times and worst page designs of any site I regularly visit. Imagine my surprise, then, when I log into my stats area and find that in the ten days since I put it up, my site has received 1464 hits.

This scares me – Who wants to see the same content as me? Surely there aren’t that many people out there who want to reference Fame Academy news, The LBSC and American TV News amongst other stuff? It scares me, because I thought my interests were a fairly unique combination – but the stats clearly show not only a scary number of hits, but also that the majority of visitors return. But I have made a special logo to celebrate, and even in my current, slightly inebriated, state I know it looks crap. But then, at least it makes a change.

Another thing that surprised me – Lloyds TSB online banking is ‘closed’ between midnight and 4am every day. Surely that defeats the object – No-one wants 20hr internet banking, what’s wrong with 24hr? What do they do for those four hours? If it wasn’t a regular thing, I’d think it was a system update, but obviously not…

The summer holidays are here, which means that annoying numbers of small individuals are flooding the streets. This annoys me. I’m beginning to seriously consider painting large boils all over my body before going out of the house, since I would assume that people would not then walk right into you – Christmas and Summer are the only times of year when being a leper might have strong advantages. I’m beginning to truly understand why people would actually want to go to Tesco at 3am.

Am I the only person in the country who thinks it’s wrong to says that it’s “good” that Saddam Hussein’s sons are dead? Surely it can never be a good thing that someone has been killed. Their father may have had some, well, warped ideas, but why is it right to celebrate the death of two fellow human beings? Surely that just lowers our moral standards to the same level as those we are apparently trying to destroy.

And another thing – if anyone has contacts at the ITV News, please tell the script writers to actually write in full sentences. It annoys me immensely the way they talk like newspaper headlines when doing the headlines package at the beginning of their programmes – would it really take much longer to speak in full sentences? They manage on every other news programme. I don’t actually watch the ITV News, so perhaps I have no real right to comment, but when it’s on in the background it annoys me.

This amused me greatly, as does pretty much anything about Norway. This seemed funny too, just because the thought of an elephant down a well makes me laugh. This may be something to do with it being 3.19am right now, which suggests that I may not be of completely sound mind.

Anyway, I think I should probably stop typing now before I give some deeply psychological revelation about my inner psyche, or basically make more of an idiot of myself as I probably have already – I’ll leave it till the morning, which is technically later today, to decide, so this post might disappear then.

Big Sloppy Kisses,

tillyoshea

Originally posted on The LBSC

At about half eleven this morning, we had a power cut. Many house alarms went off. One is still going off , and I am beginning to have violent tendencies – or at least get a little angry.

Why do alarm manufacturers not include some kind of timer mechanism? I mean, is burglar Boris really going to hang around for three hours after the alarm has gone off? Is burglar Boris going to hang around for three hours even if there isn’t an alarm?

(Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything wrong with people named Boris per sé, I just wanted the alliteration and burglar Bob, burglar Ben and burglar Barney all sound…well…wrong).

There was nothing that particularly annoyed me at work yesterday. Amazing, though I put it down to the fact that I really didn’t care about anything yesterday. Though the thought of Sir Fat Tony running amock with a chainsaw festered somewhat . We’re still chronically short staffed (‘…we have no-one on DIY, Power Tools, Plumbing or Building today so if you could look after those as well as the wallpaper I’d be grateful…’) but I’m used to that. I still have little or no idea about anything I’m selling :

‘…I’m looking for an oogaboogawhatsit’
‘Follow me!’
‘Why are we going to the electrical section, I’d have though it was in plumbing’
‘Sorry?’
‘Oogaboogawhatsits – won’t they be in plumbing’
‘Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you asked for a light switch! Silly Me!…Now…Can you see one?’
‘Yes, they’re right here’
‘Oh, I didn’t see them there. I must be blind, they’re right in front of me!’
‘Do you think this’ll fit my oogaboogerer?’
‘I couldn’t be sure, really. Does it look about right’
‘Yes’
‘Take it then, you can always bring it back if it’s wrong’

I even had a customer ask me if I knew what the thing he was asking for was…
I said ‘Yes, it’s that erm…you know…you err…’ whilst gesticulating wildly.
‘It’s sticky plastic’ came the response.
‘That’s right, you can put it into words so much better than I can’

We even had a letter of complaint from someone who’d bought a sun lounger and couldn’t use it because it hadn’t been sunny. And someone came in to complain about not having all the bits for a gazebo he’d bought. Turned out that he had only taken one box, despite the clear ‘BOX 2 OF 2’ labelling.

But the point is, there was nothing which especially aggravated me. I wasn’t asked to do anything inherently pointless, and no customers had a go at me for things outside of my control . In fact, no customers had a go at me at all.

So, all in all, my hellish day at Hombase was more…purgatorial than hellish this week.

But that damn alarm is more than making up for things.

Originally posted on The LBSC

I really do not have much to say at the moment. Erm…my driving licence arrived. Whoopteedoo. I bought a TV card for my PC, more to annoy my brother than because I actually wanted one (He keeps saying he wants one, so I bought one…for me!). It’s fairly handy I suppose for recording things without having to set a video or anything – just right click the program in Digiguide and select Record One Off or Record Series. Maybe it’ll help me to watch things that I mean to watch and then forget, if it automatically records them.

That’s pretty much all I have to say right now.

Love and Kisses,

The Huggable Tillyoshea.

Originally posted on The LBSC

I’ve finally updated my website and moved it to a new domain. Unfortunately, I lost most of the content in the process (oops).

So go here and marvel at the fantastic coding behind the standardised menu system and syndication of this site to the home page. Just ignore the lack of content.

Originally posted on The LBSC

It’s hot. And I’m not happy.

Some…person…from the house opposite (well, not quite opposite, but never mind) is insisting on playing the worst dance music imaginable at ridiculous volumes, thus disturbing my sweaty peace (as opposed to my sweaty piece, which is probably disturbing in itself).

Now, as the kindly neighbour I am, I chose not to complain. Yes, I let him (I assume he’s male) continue to deafen me, until his parents arrive home for lunch, and the “music” is stopped. Happy is me.

Then, predictably, the music starts up again, louder, in the afternoon. I become somewhat less calm and kindly, preferring instead to retaliate. So I find a copy of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, and play it as loudly as I can. So he turns his music up. So I give up. I hope you weren’t expecting some exciting triumphant finalé to that anecdote, because you’re not going to get one. If anyone has any suggestions for when the battle inevitably resumes tomorrow, please comment.

With reference to Homebase fans …I personally reduced most of the bigger ones to £14.99 on Saturday, which is quite impressive considering they started at £39.99. So that means they’re only really £11.99 with Staff Discount – that’s £28 off! I’ll finish this post before I turn into www.qvcuk.com.

Just to let you know, I have spell checked this post. For once. And I do know that there is some kind of tense mish-mash at the beginning. I’m choosing to ignore it rather than correct it. Do you speak English?

It’s just occurred to me that I never use the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button on Google. Is this a sign of deep psychological scarring of some sort?

I’ll end with the suitably cheery quote that got Michael Savage fired last week: “You should only get AIDS and die, you pig”. Have a nice hot day.

PS – This is about the fiftieth time I’ve reposted this now (no exaggeration, only hyperbole), mainly because of Fat Tony’s general inefficiency and presumptuousness. It’s not even hot any more.

Originally posted on The LBSC

Homebase, Saturday. Lunch hour. Managers discussing how to arrange cashiers to avoid long queues. I’m thinking, “Why not hire more cashiers?” (but that’s far too logical) when I’m awoken from my mental berating of all around by this gem…

“…Uh, what about that one on the end, I’ll have to have a word with her”
“Well, she’s very good when the customer arrives”
“Yes, but she stands there and looks so moody when customers are approaching”
“True, that’s because she’s shy. But she’s very good with them when they arrive”
“Well, I’ll have a word with her and we’ll keep her out the way on the end. Who do we have on who’s good?”
“That lad with the glasses, he’s the best”
“Who, Tom?”
“No, the one with the glasses and the dark hair. Ooh, you know…”
“Err…Oh, I know the one you mean”
“John! That’s it! John!”
“Yeah, he’s so polite! He’s definitely the best cashier we have”
“Well if we put him on checkout 4….”

Now, I feel that there are two distinct ways of looking at this:

A) The way Sir Fat Tony will inevitably take it

B) The fact that he does more work, and is nicer than everyone else despite being paid the same amount of money. Plus, if they think he’s very good there’s the possibility of him being put on customer services, especially since two staff have just left from there. This, at first, seems a very attractively amusing possibility until I come to the frightening realisation that if this happens he will inevitably call me any time anything needs doing, just out of pure spite for me mocking him now. So, in conclusion, I would like to offer this:

WELL DONE!

Moving on, in another piece of remarkable manager-ness, a certain manager (who, it has just occurred to me, I have never named – let’s just refer to him as Pointy Haired Boss , or PHB for convenience) has decided to go around the store removing price labels by stealth from shelf edges. He then proceeds to inform the manager of the given department that a price label is missing. The departmental manager then has to search the entire department, normally taking about half a day, to find the missing label.

This may seem to have a degree of sense behind it – after all, it means that the departmental manager must check all price labels. However, all sense is removed when you realise that:
a) We are chronically understaffed, and can’t afford to spend half a day looking for labels
b) He does this maybe three times a week per department – overkill?
c) He has now started removing labels immediately after they have been placed, so the departmental manager thinks “Hmm…I know there’s a price there because I’ve just put it there” and doesn’t check
d) He flatly denies doing it, even though he has been seen – he claims that the labels “fall off”. In which case it would take him about two minutes, literally, to print a new one off and replace it.

Also, I work on wallpaper. Of a nine hour day , I spent (I counted) thirty minutes in the wallpaper department last Saturday. Knowing full well that the previous week I had been told that sales were down year-on-year by almost 50% and I should be trying to sell more.

Anyway, PHB is rumoured to be leaving soon to become a store manager, instead of his currently position (just below store manager). This scares me a lot, because his replacement (let’s call him PHB2B ) actually has some intelligence and nouse, which should in all logic remove the possibility of him assuming a high managerial position anywhere…and yet it looks likely to happen.

A sensible manager…whatever next?

Originally posted on The LBSC

I hereby announce that I passed my test.

Which was lucky, really, as I would otherwise have had a lifetime of ridicule from John.

Thank you please.

Originally posted on The LBSC

Ever wondered what happens if you reply to one?

Originally posted on The LBSC

One: People who constantly say “D’ya know what I mean?” OK, it’s a handy phrase on occasion, but incessant repetition makes me want to kill.

Two: Management, of anything. I have yet to have a positive experience of it. Hospital management: Somebody totally unqualified medically speaking makes decisions on medical policies. Homebase management: Mystery shopped, scored 75%ish for employee presentation, and only 25%ish for Staff Availability. Solution – a sign is put up in the staff room: “Anybody who ‘forgets’ their name badge will be sent home without pay to get it”.

One: There used to be a weather presenter on News 24 who signed off with “That’s the weather…for now”. On his last broadcast before he left, he said “That’s the weather…FOREVER”, and ran off the screen with an evil laugh.

That’s all for now.

Originally posted on The LBSC