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Re: another joke.
Letter from an Aussie country kid to mum and dad
Dear Mum & Dad,
I am well. Hope you are. Tell big brothers Doug and Phil that the Army is better than working on the farm – tell them to get into the Army quick before the jobs are all gone.
I was a bit slow in settling down at first, because you don’t get outta bed until 6am. I like sleeping in now, but all you do before brekky is make ya bed and shine your boots and clean your uniform. No cows to milk, no calves to feed, no feed to stack-nothing. Men must shave, but Its not so bad, coz there’s hot water and a light to see what ya doing. Breakfast has cereal, fruit and eggs but there’s no kangaroo steaks or possum stew. You don’t get fed again until noon, and by that time all the city boys are shattered because we’ve been on a ‘route march’ – just like walking to the windmill in the back paddock.
This will kill Doug and Phil with laughter. I keep getting medals for shooting – dunno why. The bulls eye is as big as a bloody possum’s head and it doesn’t move and its not firing back at ya like the Johnsons did when our bull got their cow pregnant before the Ekka. Alls ya gotta do is make yourself comfortable and hit the target – piece of cake. You don’t even load your own cartridges – they comes in boxes and ya don’t have to steady yourself against the rollbar of the roo shooting truck when you reload.
Then ya gotta wrestle with the city boys and I gotta be real careful coz they break easy – its not like fighting with Doug and Phil and Jack and Boori and Steve all at once like we do.
Turns out I’m not a bad boxer either and it looks like I’m the best the platoon’s got, and I’ve only been beaten by this guy from 5RAR – he’s 6 foot 8 and 13 stone and I’m 5 foot six and seven stone, but I fought to the end. I can’t complain about the Army – tell the boys to get in quick before word gets around how good it is.
Your loving daughter,
Sharee
Re: Anglo Iberian
It seems AIS has lost Caple who are distributed through Maurice Lay of Avonmouth.
Has anyone who is a CDSL member noticed? Take a look in statistics and look at the bottom of the list of groups you do your repairs for. There it is, Caple, (spelt wrong though). That is how I found it, and it seems that it has been on there over a week, (I must be slipping)!
So if you are a CDSL agent, I presume you can expect some of their kit. If on the other hand you are an AIS agent, then expect less work, wasn’t loads of it though.
Range cooker is quite good unless the fan element goes, bit like the Candy, pig of a job. Dishwashers used to be Fagor.
Alex
Re: another joke.
A woman awakes during the night to find that her husband was not in their bed. She puts on her robe and goes downstairs to look for him.
She finds him sitting at the kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee.
He appears to be in deep thought, just staring at the wall.
She watches as he wipes a tear from his eye and takes a sip of his coffee.
“What’s the matter, dear?” she whispers as she steps into the room. Why are you down here at this time of night?”
The husband looks up from his coffee.
“Do you remember twenty years ago when we were dating, and you were only 18?” he asks solemnly.
“Yes, I do,” she replies.
The husband paused. The words were not coming easily. “Do you remember when your father caught us in the back seat of my car making love?”
“Yes, I remember” said the wife, lowering herself into a chair beside him.
The husband continued. “Do you remember when he shoved the shotgun in my face and said, ‘Either you marry my daughter, or I will send you to jail for twenty years?”
“I remember that, too” she replied softly.
He wiped another tear from his cheek and said “I would have been released today”.
Re: brandt
Wanna laugh. I found this earlier today, a copy of the letter I sent them when they dropped us all in Feb 2003.
5th February 03
Dear Mr. Aggarwal.
I am writing in response to the despicable letter I as an agent of Elco Brandt received last Friday; in effect giving us one working days notice of your intention to kick us all in the teeth. Unlike your letter please note that at least I have the courtesy to address this to you and take the trouble to insert the date. Being cynical I must assume the lack of date is to prevent us seeking redress regards your blatant lack of the required termination notice period. The first we knew of your intention was receipt of a package from Domestic & General the day before your letter.
I have been in touch with D&G as an existing agent; and expressed my dismay at the way you have treated your loyal agents. Regretfully being an agent of D&G means I am committed to carry on repairing your products. This I am going to find painful as I will not be able to endorse the quality of the product or indeed any back up the customer may anticipate from you as a company.
You may be aware that upon receipt of your letter we looked into our workload and identified every Brandt customer that was booked a visit. I phoned these customers, read them the content of your letter, duly cancelled our appointments with them and referred them back to you.
I would like to point out we are due credits for returns, which you received last October. I have asked regards status of this issue only to be advised someone will call me back, this never happens. If the relationship between Brandt and D&G ever ends, please don’t waste your time on asking us back into the fold. I feel personally insulted by your letter and the sooner I can get out of servicing your products, the better.
Regards.
I felt better for sending that at the time, and I sent a copy to D&G. Never had a response from Sabu or whatever he’s bloody called. Obviously I was too polite, that’s what I get for holding back I suppose! As well as posting the letter, I faxed it so the whole office could read it.
Therese from D&G picked up the phone though and told me she had asked Manoj to call her to discuss the issue. Needless to say, nothing happened. I still hate the bastard, don’t suppose it shows?
Alex
Re: DNA
A tenuoius link here between DNA & perhaps interbreeding.
In case you don’t know this, the Darwin Awards are announced every year in America (Well what do you expect)? The theory I suspect is related to Selection of Species, therefore tying it to Charles Darwin.
Darwin Awards for 2005
1. When his 38-calibre revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. …This time it worked.
2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat-cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger.
The chef’s claim was approved.
3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.
4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn’t discovered for 3 days.
5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, he told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.
6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer? $15.
7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he’d just throw a cinderblock through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinderblock and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinderblock bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas and the whole event was caught on videotape.
8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, “Yes, officer, that’s her. That’s the lady I stole the purse from.”
9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King, Michigan, at 5am, flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn’t open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren’t available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.
A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER!
10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he’d ever had.Re: British Gas, might be looking to poach eangineers
Pat-UK wrote:Sorry if I upset anyone up by my posts, I was trying to inform all of what i’d heard and make my thoughts on the matter known.
😳Well you haven’t upset me I can assure you. You did manage to raise my sentiments though as I could see the despair in your statement.
It is a temptation to join them if the money is what we are supposed to believe, but the conditions may be not on par with the reward on offer. We have lost few in this trade in the last couple of years, and for the reasons you highlighted. One or two has pulled out of this business altogether, some have gone back to being employed by the likes of B. Gas or Comet.
In the last year alone 3 independents in my area have finished. I know of another 2 who are looking at their options. The ones that have gone never affected my business as they tended to have their own faithful customers, and products we never dealt with.
Alex
Re: British Gas, might be looking to poach eangineers
Following on from Pat-UK I can see he has summed up the whole state of affairs we are in the midst of right now.
He said he thinks it is something to do with them not being allowed to sell it as an insurance policy, and as it’s sold as a maintenance / service contract, he think they now have to be seen to be servicing non faulty appliances too.
Seems like they have a luxury we cannot possibly enter into. Point of sale & all that, but when our order books get a bit low we can diversify a little bit, perhaps catch up on some of the outstanding, but we have not got this fall-back facility that these people can use as and when necessary.
Anyhow, I did think for about 3 nano seconds about going for it, then i thought about how crap they have made the industry for the likes of us independents, My workload has dropped by upto 60{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} over the last 3 years as a result of BG and cheap new machines.
I’ve had to resort to selling my soul on ebay, along with a few pumps and bearings to make ends meet, I think things would have to get quite a bit worse before I give in and go down the employed by BG route.
Those two paragraphs sadden me a lot. This in my mind was the reason I joined UKW and why I get so passionate about OUR trade. Believe me it is a trade, but there are those out there who don’t look at it that way. Your line, selling your soul sums it all up. Imagine it from an employer’s point of view, I being an employer have to keep the workload up for all my engineers and support staff, if you are finding it difficult on your jacksie, how do you think us larger ones manage? The answer is with great difficulty. I use e-bay, but only as a means to hive off some of my dead non-moving stock.
But I wonder if they are going to be likely to contract out their over spill work, and if so, as independents, would WE be able to FORCE the rate at which we get paid ?? Maybe we’ll all be able to get a bite of the fat BG cookie …
Some of us have been there. B.G used us in the early days when they didn’t have their own network of engineers. As soon as they acquired the National Homecare infrastructure, we were thrown to the wolves. Too bad if we had tailored our businesses to work and adapt To Brit Gas, they chose to go their own way & we were the last to know.
As regards “Force” the rate at which we get paid, I wish. Saying that though, collectively we as a group has managed to raise our profile, but as long as there are Muppets out there that will do this for a pittance by cutting corners, things will be allowed to prevail. Ultimately all the number crunchers and accountants are looking at is money over cost.
This is what gets my juices flowing so to speak, the way the big boys are controlling this trade and creating a semi-state of apathy among the smaller traders who after all are doing their best to eek a living and keep hold of their customers and livelihoods.
Alex.
No engineers were injured or distressed in the making of the above comments.
Re: The connections game! (Which tier are you on?)
Goatboy wrote:I wonder what conclusions will be drawn from this thread.
Simply that they have to make their money from somewhere, this is creative business management. We all do it one way or another. At the end of the day, the consumer pays whatever we pay plus our mark-up. Only goes wrong when, (as seems to be increasingly the case these days) the cost makes the job non-viable.
I have different trade accounts I supply to on different rates depending how they have their act together. If they are a good account, buy a fair bit of fast moving stuff, don’t abuse us & they work with us regards information and make the job easier, they get a bigger discount. The small users get 10 or 15{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} off. The bigger ones get 25{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}. if it is a part we are glad to see the back of, I’ll sell it for cost plus 5{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}.
What I’m trying to say is: they are in business and so are we, therefore we all try and run the accounts accordingly. I can see the rationale behind the school of thought here, and it would be nice to have a level playing field, but I bet prices would all level to the upper spectrum and nobody would win.
Alex
Re: British Gas, might be looking to poach eangineers
Deja-Vu I suspect. I doub’t if in reality it went away, nothing has changed and not likely to. Here it all is in it’s glory
http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/modules.p … c&start=15
Alex
Re: The connections game! (Which tier are you on?)
And mine is……
plm4702 – £1:10
hpt170225 – £11:28
mer074213 – £34:35
bsh096825 – £62.17Have we not done this exercise before? and got nowhere. To be honest it doesn’t affect me as I don’t buy Merloni or BSH bits in any case. My spend with them is about £3k per month at present.
Alex
Re: Live 8
eastlmark wrote:And you thought velvet revolver were bad, check this out: http://gprime.net/video.php/simplythebest
And tonight Matthew!! That was painful, and I have to agree regards Roger Waters on Money, but came out o.k. on comfortably Numb. Reason probably is Dave Gilmour has been doing all the vocals live since 1981 and has perfected the act. Roger has been out of the frame for some time.
Would like to see them regroup for a new studio album, and anticipate the influence of Roger Waters once again. Pigs might fly.
Alex
Re: Live 8
Penguin45 wrote:The Floyd have played – at last – I can die happy. Comfortably Numb – just stunning. Not bad for a bunch of pretentious prats who can only produce one stunner per album, and get away with it for 40 years 😀 .
Chris.What!!!!! Suppose you were hoping the Byrds were going to play, perhaps Seal or Fish from Marillion could have made a show.
Each album post & including 1972’s Meddle was a work of art. Comfortably Numb was a stunner, pity it didn’t have the guitar break as long as the one from the Pulse album.
Love a poster in the crowd.. “Pigs have flown”. Simple yet clever & the camerman tried to get a shot of Battersea power Station, but too dark.
Magical weekend, Wimbledon, Live 8, More Wimbledon to come & French G.P. All courtesy of the T.V. Wouldn’t like to have been at the back of the Live 8 crowd though.
Alex
Re: Cut Vinyl Graphics
I don’t think we need the number on each individual set of stickers either. Makes life a little more difficult, at least if they are the same they can be posted out on request once a few has been made.
I’m not a fan of too many labels on a van, makes it look like a well travelled suitcase. However these seem quite discreet yet have an impact & I do agree it may pull in a few more members in the trade. As for the public, I doubt if they would care too much. Just look at a builders van, or the van of the guy who attends your fire extinguishers, are you interested that much in what bodies & associations they may be part of? If you are in the trade, you may well notice, as in plumbers vans with CORGI notices.
In spite of my reservations, they look good, and worth a go. I just remember the DASA ones, the only vehicles I saw them on were Expert Appliance Care; and they had no makes of appliances they attended on their vans; therefore giving plenty of room for a label that meant nothing.
Alex
Re: another joke.
How the Internet Began.
In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot. And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she had been called Amazon Dot Com.
She said unto Abraham, her husband, Why doth thou travel far from town to town with thy goods when thou can trade without ever leaving thy tent?
And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, How, Dear?”
And Dot replied, I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale and they will reply telling you which hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah’s Pony Stable (UPS).
Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums. The drums rang out and were an immediate success. Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever moving from his tent.
But this success did arouse envy. A man named Maccabia did secret himself inside Abraham’s drum and was accused of insider trading. And the young men did take to Dot Com’s trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung. They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Siderites, or NERDS for short.
And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to the drum maker, one Brother William of Gates, who bought up every drum company in the land. And indeed did insist on making drums that would work only with Brother Gates’ drumheads and drumsticks.
Dot did say, Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others
And as Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or as it came to be known, eBay, he said, We need a name that reflects what we are, and Dot replied, Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators.
YAHOO, said Abraham.
And that is how it all began!!
