"Get back to work, you big-nosed bastard!!!"
I experienced the equivalent of seeing someone spit on my father's grave last night - I was called a capitalist, management lackey!!!
Pither! Pither The Red!! Nemesis of the Bosses!!! He whom destiny has charged with lighting the fire of revolution which will one day sweep through this land!!!!
Worse than that, this deepest of deep cuts was inflicted by none other than my big chum BGT (brain the size of a planet, capacity for alcohol to match).
To set the scene, and in fairness to my accuser, BGT had downed a few sherberts and was in the mood for an argument - if I'd said Hitler wasn't a particularly nice chap he would have protested vehemently, pointing out that he was good to his dog.
Anyway, we fell to talking about the Post Office dispute. The Farmer started it. During one of those lulls when you find yourself either staring into your pint or at the walls, he made the mistake of saying that he thought the postmen - sorry, postpeople - were not on the firmest of firm ground in their dispute with management. Why? Because they were being told that it was no longer acceptable to demand and be paid overtime for helping out with other work to take them up to the end of their shift if they had finished their round early. Understand?
"Fucking capitalist oppressors!!" belched BGT. "They just think they can run roughshod over the workers by suddenly changing their contracts and thinking no-one will or can object!!"
"It's not in their contracts that they can bugger off early or demand overtime if they finish their rounds before the end of their alloted shifts" The Farmer and I pointed out. "It's 'custom and practice', namely something which is just done because that's the way it has always been done.
That's when I made the mistake of going it alone. "I don't think it's unreasonable to expect someone to work until the end of the shift for which they are being paid," I said. "Everyone else has to do it and, after all, it is equitable - a fair shift's pay for a fair shift's work, and all that. Much as I sympathise with anyone whose working practices are changed after years of status quo, I don't think the management is out of order. They are NOT changing contracts, merely asking the posties to stick to their side of the existing work/remittance deal."
"Capitalist, management lackey!!!" BGT roared. "You!! Pither!!! Of all people!!!"
"Socialism isn't founded on the underlying principle that EVERYTHING management does is wrong and EVERYTHING your union says is right, is it?" I asked, not unreasonably I thought.
The BGT then stumbled off to the bar, muttering and mouthing obscenities as he went, all the while shaking his head in disbelief. Ten minutes later Brighton Dave came in, having also been at the bar where I suspect he had bumped into the BGT. He walked over to our table and enquired: "Is this Tory Corner?" Bloody Hell!!More than a tad unfair, I would say.
Don't get me wrong. There is a sinister side to the Post Office management's actions which have given rise to this dispute. Firstly, they brought in that oilbag bullyboy and well-known payroll porker Adam Crozier to cause trouble. That man is an utter arsehole and I shall waste no more words on him here. Secondly, anyone who reads between the lines can see that management is just trying to hack the Post Office down to Karen Carpenter-fatted pieces so that it can be flogged off to the private sector - the German private sector at that. Now that IS something which needs to be fought, and fought hard.
Anyway, with that insult mentioned at the beginning of this post still ringing in my ears, I shall stop this attempt at self-justification. Are The Farmer and I alone in our views? I know Betty is likely to be against us. How about everyone else?
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15 comments:
Fuck me, I have been asked to go to my office on monday between the hours of 9 and 5 on a normal, contracted working day,complete up 7.24 hrs (excluding breaks)and WORK cheeky management bastards.
The Farmer
Reminded me of this
To the tune of Going Underground by The Jam
Some people might like to get a train to work
Or drive in in a Beamer or a merc,
Some guys like to travel in by bus,
But I can't be bothered with the fuss today
I'm going to take my bike,
Coz once again the Tube's on strike.
The greedy bastards want extra pay
for sitting on their arse all day
even though they earn 30K .
So I'm standing here in the pouring rain,
Where the fuck's my fucking train?
London Underground
London Underground
They're all lazy fucking useless cunts
London Underground
London Underground
They're all greedy cunts I want to shoot them all with a rifle.
All they say is "Please mind the doors",
and they learned that on the two day course,
This job could be done by a four year old.
They just leave us freezing in the cold.
What you smell is what you get
Burger King and piss and sweat
You roast to death in the boiling heat,
With tourists treading on your feet
and chewing gum on every seat,
so don't tell me to "Mind the gap"
I want my fucking money back.
Repeat chorus
LaLaLaLa
LaLaLaLa
The floors are sticky and the seats are damp,
Every platform has a fucking tramp,
But the drivers get the day off when we're all late for work again,
London Underground
London Underground
WaWa Wankers , They're all Wankers ,
London Underground
London Underground
Take your Oystercard, and shove it up your arsehole.
Adam Crozier......¿antiespañol?
I have some sympathy with them as in the long run they are probably going to be shafted. But I am with you on this particular dispute. The rest of us don't get overtime unless we have actually worked overtime. If they were paid on performance our lot would be in serious trouble. I think they distribute our post at random. So actually I don't have any sympathy with them come to think of it.
Anyway more important things to think about. Enjoy the game!
The Farmer,
Nip down to the shops and get me 20 Rothmans - What now!!!!??!
Anon,
A classic! Their Northern Birds to the tune of More Than Words by Extreme is another winner as well.
BW,
Yes, I think that's about it. They WILL get shafted, you're right, and I too feel sorry for them for that but they don't exactly help their cause.
Hope the party goes well and then pray for an Agincourt tonight.
It's good to see men huddled round oil can braziers.
It's just like ye olden dayes.
Where's my Beefheart CD! idle bastards.
The old quote about turkeys not voting for Christmas springs to mind.
The management decided to screw an already screwed workforce a bit tighter so they can then lay people off, flog the whole shebang for a song to Snailpace Couriers plc ("We want your business, unless you're a private individual we can't make a fortune out of, in which case, fuck off") and award themselves the usual gigantic fat cat bonuses.
The workforce thought this sounded about as desirable as being butt-fucked by a Sumo wrestler wearing a grade 00 emery cloth condom lubricated with grinding paste and decided that sticking together might at least minimise the losses that they were being expected to cheerfully accept in order to subsidise the aforementioned bonuses. After a ballot, out they went. I don't blame them.
Sober now, but still socialist.
BGT
BGT,
I still don't think you've got it, have you? How were "they" "screwing" the workforce before by allowing us, the taxpayers, to pay for people to sit on their arses while they did nothing or making us pay them double if they condescended to work until the end of the shift for which they were already being paid by us, the taxpayers? How are they "screwing" the workforce now by asking them to do what they are paid to do?
Who has suggested staff are going to be laid off? I don't recall that being part of the dispute - it's about working practices, not redundancies. You are just spouting meaningless, ill-informed, rhetoric. Your bollocks is what gives the capitalists ammunition to say unions are stupid, meaningless and thick. I am a union man. That means I despise the "I'm all right Jack" phiolosophy of the GMB because I want unions to retain credibility and so strength.
Your "Socialism" is as warped and corrupt sober as it was when you're three sheets to the wind
Sorry Reg, we're going to have to agree to differ on this one. Your comments about a leaner Post Office being flogged off were partly what prompted me to mention the very real possibility of job losses. We've all seen this one before.
I still give the workers credit for having good reasons for taking this action. There's a lot of them and getting a majority in a ballot suggests to me that they have what they feel are genuine reasons for feeling aggrieved by their treatment. Maybe I'm just a romantic old fool.
BGT
Aquilo, Auster, Volturnus, Favonius. . .
?
My Dear Pither
Three things marked you down as a Tory prior to you embarking upon your muddle-headed rant gainst the posties. Number one, your ignorance of and disdain for "pop" music. Number, two your phobia of Mrs. T who was too radical for proper Conservatives. Number three, you like rugby and might even understand it.
It is the goal of all free-born Englishmen (save for the self-employed and the feeble minded) to get paid as much as possible for doing as little work as possible. The posties are trying to cling on to the last few things that make being a postie worthwhile. They have to get up and go to work at an hour when most sane people are still getting drunk, and they don't get paid much. Their meagre pensions and right to knock off early on Saturdays to go to football matches are their only perks, so stop kicking them when they're down.
LOL, Eric the Red.
I was raised by an American-democrat-die-hard-union-backer, who taught me the management did nothing that didn't have some shafting motives behind them, to which I agree, and it still sounds like you have a very valid point.
Just because the managemnt are asses that are planning to screw them, doesn't mean the postal employees are in the right.
Eric,
1. They DO get paid a decent wage, bearing in mind the skills required for the job, which are a) the ability to read addresses, b)the ability to walk about out a bit c) the ability to push things through a letter box. THIS IS NOT FUCKING ROCKET FUCKING SCIENCE!!!! I WAS GOING TO BE SENSIBLE AND REASONED IN THIS BUT WHEN I GET FUCKING WANKY COMMENTS LIKE THIS FROM THE BRAIN-DEAD I WANT TO KILL LOTS OF PEOPLE.
2. If they don't want to get up so fucking early then why don't they all get jobs as night-train guards.
3. Anyone who likes popular music is too thick to become a postman.
4. Anyone who thinks association football is better than rugby needs the small particle of brain which is bothering them removed during on of their trips to Iceland.
Dear Reg
Let's face it, you don't need three A Levels to cart away someone's rubbish once a week (or once a fortnight). These people are called "bin men and women". You don't need to be a brain surgeon to place a bed pan under someone's bottom. These people are called "nursing auxilliaries". You don't need to be very bright to write short stories in your mother tongue informing the community about which kittens have been rescued from which trees. These people are called "journalists". All these people, like the posties deserve decent pay and conditions. Apart from the journalists, obviously.
The Royal Mail performs essential functions, and the cost to society of preserving the pensions of hard working men and women works out at about a fifth of what the government has given away in tax credits to people who didn't actually qualify for them. Not to mention the money that has been spent on making GPs millionaires.
But that's OK isn't it Reg? Because doctors aren't thick, like postmen.
Sub-post offices keep viable some of the country's most isolated communities. We will lose these economies of scale when the profitable business has been cherry picked. If my boss suddenly told me that my shifts would become unpredictable, and that I would be having to turn in and work longer on Saturdays, I'd be incensed.
The withdrawal of its labour is one right that the working class has retained. Just. Are the posties this decade's miners?
Yours Eric
Do me a favour, Eric??? (go on, admit who you fucking are). You NEVER get your facts right. They are NOT unpredictable shifts - just the full ones they are already paid for. They will have to work longer on Saturdays - because they'll be expected to work the hours they're fucking paid for!! Oh God, oppression of the masses!!!
Who said postmen and women were thick? I didn't. Why would I assume that? You, however, assume that postmen are thick. If that ain't the reaction of a middle class snob I don't know what is.
Go fuck yourself, you cunt!! You're a fucking teacher hence have never done a day's work in your fucking pathetic life yet, like all fucking teachers, you think you know it all and are never wrong. Guess what. YOU'RE FUCKING WRONG, CUNT!! Don't slag off journalists either - you ain't fit to lace the drinks of even a fucking Sun reporter. You obviously wanted to be a journo and weren't talented enough - get over it!! You ain't got the brains to slag off any fucking job, you fucking slimeball, bone idle, thick twat. You don't know what the fuck you are on about but, like all teachers, can't take being corrected and shown up for the piece of piss you are. Wanker.
I lost my fucking job today, cunt, so don't fucking sit there in your smug, middle class fucking grief hole and spout on about Socialism and fucking workers fucking rights to me. Been there, done that and am sporting T-shirt.
Do me one last favour? Die!!!
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