Testing Times

Posted: Wed 19 March, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, People, Stupidity, Work-related | Leave a comment »

When I’m writing websites and the like, I set up a number of test users so I can test various areas of functionality.

I used to give them names like Drew Peacock, Tess Tickle or Mike Oxlong – but stopped due to them being read out loud and discussed in meetings with board members and the like. (Which is very amusing, but can lead to certain levels of embarassment when the person demonstrating hasn’t actually made the connection until they’ve said the names out loud)  So now I use names like “Testy McTestTest” instead, which should stand out as, you know, a made-up name.

Today though, no, that wasn’t the case. Having done some test signups for a particular piece of site functionality (on the live site, as it was final testing) yesterday, I was copied in on an email today where a colleague decided that the site had been ‘hacked’ because there were four or five Testy McTestTests with different settings on each one. (and all using the email address test@test.com) No other damage, nothing – but obviously “we’d been hacked”

It’s taken every ounce of tact I have (which admittedly isn’t a great deal) to not call the person in question a fuckwit.

Mind you, everyone else on the mailing list (including Board members, Managers, and my line manager) appears to have clearly seen the sarcasm in the response “Apologies for the confusion caused – I will work to ensure that any further test signups are flagged as test signups in a clearer fashion“.

Apoocalypse

Posted: Tue 18 March, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Charm School, Cynicism, Domestic, Work-related | Leave a comment »

You can always tell when a day is going to be interesting..

Walking in to the toilets at work this morning I was greeted by the sight/sound of a man going in to one of the cubicles, squealing, shouting “Oh god, that’s fucking disgusting” and walking back out.

I have no idea what was in there, or what’d happened.  But you know it’s never going to be a good sign…

Wunch

Posted: Fri 28 February, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, Writing | Leave a comment »

I’ve been made aware today of the perfect/correct terminology for a collection of bank people.

It’s a Wunch.

Meaning you can describe a crowd of bank people as a Wunch of Bankers.

You’re welcome.

Wheeled Danger

Posted: Thu 6 February, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, London, People, Stupidity, Sweary, Work-related | 2 Comments »

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been commuting into one of London’s busiest main-line stations, Euston.  It has a huge throughput of people, and it’s always an absolute pig to navigate.

It’s not just the sheer quantity of people – although that doesn’t help – it’s also the crap they lug about with them. One of the banes of my life at this point is one I’ve written about before – fucking bastard wheeled suitcases. I swear I don’t get the need for them a lot of the time. Sure, if you’re travelling onwards or whatever, I suppose they’re useful. (Although I’ve never had – or wanted – one myself) And yes, I know, I can’t tell who’s travelling onwards, and who’s just an inveterate ballbag.

But in my opinion/experience, dear God, the fucking things should be banned outright. They’re not a danger in and of themselves, but they certainly are when they’re under the ‘control’ (and I use that word in its loosest possible context) of fuckwit owners. In a similar way to umbrellas, the owners thereof seem to be utterly unconscious of their extra dimensions – increased width with umbrellas, increased length with fucking wheelie bags – and assume that everyone else will get out of their way. (If they’ve even thought about it at all)

For myself, I got whacked by fucking wheelie suitcases on a regular basis, and I’m currently now nursing a twisted/twatted ankle as a result of one of those collisions, where the person had walked in front of me (with space to spare) and not realised their cunty fucking wheelie shitty suit-bastard-case was trailing behind. So I got caught up in the piece of shit, and it ripped into my ankle. Which, frankly, fucking hurts.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers, but sometimes (OK, most of the time) people really piss me off.

 

The Writing On The Wall

Posted: Tue 21 January, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Charm School, People, Travel, Weirdness | 2 Comments »

Every so often I have to use a public toilet – and every time, my mind boggles at people.

Primarily, I really can’t understand the entire thing of writing numbers on the walls of the cubicles. I know the history of it, and the reasons, but times have changed – so does anyone ever actually call those numbers or make contact that way? I find it pretty unbelievable, to be honest. And even less so when it comes to those ones that say “Meet me here at 7pm on a Tuesday” – really? I just don’t believe it.

The other thing that boggles me is the state some people leave the bogs themselves in. I don’t know if they leave every shitter in the same way, or just leave public ones like it because there’s someone else who’ll clean it all up. But either way, it’s vile when you walk in to be greeted by piss on the walls/floor/seat, and even worse when the bowl is covered in a haze of shitty lumps. And of course there’s also the fuckers who leave a turd in the bowl unflushed , as if to say “Look on my mighty works, mortals, and despair!”

Finally, there’s the ones who cover the cubicle in bog-roll, although that is somewhat less offensive. (At least assuming it’s not used bog-roll, of course) Mind you, even then you can also end up with the dickweeds having also blocked the entire thing with bog-roll too, which just leads to overflowage and sharing the vileness.

It’s not everyone, of course. But there do seem to be a percentage of people who feel that all of this stuff is acceptable, because every time I go to a public toilet, there’s some remnant from some other dirty bugger.

I despair of people, I really do.

New Year’s Eve

Posted: Tue 31 December, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Change, Charm School, Cynicism, Festering Season, New Year, People, Resolutions, Thoughts | Leave a comment »

ScroogeUnsurprisingly, I don’t really do New Year’s Eve.  Partly it’s that whole “Everyone else does it, so I don’t” thing I’ve written about before on here, but primarily I just don’t quite get the whole concept. OK, we go from [old year] to [new year]. Big whoop.  I get it – or at least more so – with birthdays, the anniversal thing of being another year older. (Or, more pessimistically, the celebration of having got through another shit year)  But celebrating a new year leaves me cold – let alone the whole ‘resolutions’ thing.

I suppose it makes sense in a “The new one will be better than the old one” spirit of hope and optimism over [x] years of experience, although one assumes that leaves most people really quite disappointed.

I’ve never been a fan of it though – I did too many New Year’s Eves working in pubs, dealing with pissed idiots singing “Auld Lang Syne” and being all ‘love thy fellow man’ at midnight, and kicking the shit out of each other by quarter-past. New Year’s loses its happy glow when you’re sat (for the third year running) waiting for an ambulance by half-past.

I know, I’m a grouchy old sod. I accept that about myself, and try to stop it from affecting others, and their decisions.

All the same, I’ll be quite contented tonight to be at home, just doing my own thing.

Have a good one, wherever you are, and whatever you choose to do.

Marketing/Branding Bollocks

Posted: Fri 13 December, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: 1BEM, Advertising, Charm School, Creativity, Cynicism, Design, Marketing, Sweary, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »

According to this article, Pantone (they’re ‘the colour people, don’t’cha know?) have decreed that this purple is “the colour of 2014”. (And fuck off, Americans, it’s ‘colour’, not bloody ‘color’)

pantone_18-3224_Radiant_OrchidNow, I like purple as much as the next person – I’d go so far as to say it’s probably my favourite colour. But

  1. This is not proper purple. It’s a kind of wanky lilac, at best. Hell, they’ve not even called it Purple – it’s “Radiant Orchid”, which might as well be a name made up by Dulux.
  2. You know, there are people who get paid for coming up with this kind of shit
  3. And there are people whose job it is to come up with names for paints. I truly hope they feel fulfilled and happy in their work. I’d want to be killing people.
  4. How the blue, blazing, fiddly fuck do you have a “colour of the year”, for shit’s sake?

All told it’s just marketing bollocks of the highest order.

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