jobsworths

Woohoo a dummy spit!

Fight! fight! fight!

:exit:
 
Ok, how about this scenario. Same situation - empty car park etc. We park, buy tickets and sit in our cars talking, but we take up more than one space each. Should the parking attendant threaten to give us a parking ticket if we don't move into a proper parking space or not?
 
Yup, he should. Car park attendants locally do issue tickets to people who are too lazy or unskilled at parking to park their vehicles inside the allotted space.

You are lucky he didn't give you a ticket, as there is no other word to describe a car that is stopped in a car park, without a driver sat inside, than "parked".
 
fatmarley said:
I want to play World Of Tanks and you don't get fined for parking without a ticket in that game, but you do get abused for camping.
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I'm not surprised, tents are horrible . :naughty:
 
I once went into a hotel. The lobby was empty, so I just went straight up to a room.
Then the manager told me I'd either have to pay for the room or get out.

Bloody jobsworth! It's not like anyone else was going to stay in it.
 
joescrivens said:
don't you just hate them.

We went to an indoor play centre the other day and at lunch went to order some food and was told we could only choose from half the menu as there was only 1 chef in. What this meant was that all the all day breakfast items were a no go because according to the young jobsworth at the till - they take too long to make.

On observing the menu it appeared that i could therefor get an oatcake with bacon but I couldn't have a bacon sandwich. The conversation went something like this:

Me: So I can have a bacon and cheese oatcake, but I can't have a bacon sandwhich

Jobsworth: No, because, it takes longer too cook a bacon sandwich

Me: How's that?

Jobsworth: It just takes a longer time

Me: how does it take longer to butter two slices of bread and put bacon inside it than to put that same bacon into an oatcake, add grated cheese and grill the oatcake?

Jobsworth: well, the breakfast items take longer

Me: So I can have an oatcake with cheese, bacon, sausage, beans, tomatoes and salad but I can't have a bacon sandwhich because it takes longer than all of that? Are you baking the bread yourself or something

Jobsworth: Do you want a bacon sandwhich?

Me: Yes.

:bonk::bonk::bonk::bonk::bonk:
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I feel it's only right to tell you that I just laughed so hard reading this I woke up the girlfriend and she's not happy :/ :lol: I actually visualised the whole thing and it was hilarious hahaaaa!
 
CarlEvans said:
I feel it's only right to tell you that I just laughed so hard reading this I woke up the girlfriend and she's not happy :/ :lol: I actually visualised the whole thing and it was hilarious hahaaaa!
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make her a bacon sandwich - she'll be fine! :lol:
 
neil_g said:
I think we're missing the important issue in this thread.. Did joe pay for parking?

:thinking:
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Who's Joe?

Just out of curiosity, you wouldn't answer post #44 for me please? Just need to see if my brain really is wired up wrong.
 
The person who started the thread, it was supposed to be funny :shrug:

I'll have a look at the post in a bit when i get to work and have a coffee, don't get post numbers on the tp app.
 
david357 said:
Yup, he should. Car park attendants locally do issue tickets to people who are too lazy or unskilled at parking to park their vehicles inside the allotted space.

You are lucky he didn't give you a ticket, as there is no other word to describe a car that is stopped in a car park, without a driver sat inside, than "parked".
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It was a long time ago (about 20 years) but IIRC the driver door was still open or something. Whatever the situation, the parking attendant must have known we were together because she didn't atempt to put a ticket on my car.

Thanks for the input though. It's very interesting to see other peoples views on the subject.
 
In the place I used to work in the person in charge of the typing pool was also in charge of the stationery cupboard and she relished the power she had over the whole organisation. There was to be a very prestigious event at my workplace, with a lot of very important people coming to it.

The event was to take place at a weekend and on Wednesday morning the organisers had been made aware of some last minute changes the delegates had to be informed about. As this was before the days of e-mail an urgent letter had to be sent out.

So the person organising the event went to She Who Must Be Obeyed and asked for 300 envelopes.

“This is Wednesday.” Was the reply.

“I know and these letters have to be posted urgently.”

“This is Wednesday.” She replied with a cat-who-got-the-cream smirk.

“I know that! We’ve got to get these letters out today so I need 300 envelopes now!”

“This is Wednesday. Tuesday is stationery day. Come back next week and you can have them.”

No amount of pleading would shift her. Even the boss demanded the envelopes, making it clear to her who important the event was. No chance – it was Wednesday so NOBODY was getting any envelopes.

The organisers had to go out and buy them.

The following Tuesday they got a memo sent saying their envelopes were available for collection and their department would be invoiced for them.
:bang:
 
gm43uk said:
In the place I used to work in the person in charge of the typing pool was also in charge of the stationery cupboard and she relished the power she had over the whole organisation. There was to be a very prestigious event at my workplace, with a lot of very important people coming to it.

The event was to take place at a weekend and on Wednesday morning the organisers had been made aware of some last minute changes the delegates had to be informed about. As this was before the days of e-mail an urgent letter had to be sent out.

So the person organising the event went to She Who Must Be Obeyed and asked for 300 envelopes.

“This is Wednesday.” Was the reply.

“I know and these letters have to be posted urgently.”

“This is Wednesday.” She replied with a cat-who-got-the-cream smirk.

“I know that! We’ve got to get these letters out today so I need 300 envelopes now!”

“This is Wednesday. Tuesday is stationery day. Come back next week and you can have them.”

No amount of pleading would shift her. Even the boss demanded the envelopes, making it clear to her who important the event was. No chance – it was Wednesday so NOBODY was getting any envelopes.

The organisers had to go out and buy them.

The following Tuesday they got a memo sent saying their envelopes were available for collection and their department would be invoiced for them.
:bang:
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youd get a kicking for that here..
 
we had very similar at a council I used to work at - the net result was that everyone used to requisition massive stocks on 'stationary day' and keep them in desk drawers etc against a time when they might need them

eventually the boss changed, and the new boss got rid of the stationary jobs worth and went to a trust vystem of leaving the stationary cupboard unlocked and people signing for what they took
 
neil_g said:
well not in a literal sense but more of a verbal/written warning etc, gross misconduct has been threatened in a similar case here where information wasnt sent to customers but was downgraded because of legal implications..
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Any kind of action against her because of her attitude would result in her going off sick with "stress" and threatening to sue the place. She eventually went off somewhere else where she was "loved and respected" (her own words) by everyone.
 
gm43uk said:
Any kind of action against her because of her attitude would result in her going off sick with "stress" and threatening to sue the place. She eventually went off somewhere else where she was "loved and respected" (her own words) by everyone.
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Prison? :lol:
 
Ahhhhh the old stationery dragon !!! :lol:

We had one of those at a company I worked for years ago.
She was obsessed with the thought that we were all hoarding and stealing stationery for our own personal use.

If you wanted a new biro (and I'm literally talking about a bog standard Bic biro) from the stationery cupboard she'd insist that you took your old one back to "prove" that it had run out.
No exageration - she actually had a blank pad at the side of the cupboard that she'd make you scribble on while she watched to show that you really did need a new pen.
Lost your old biro? She'd make a note of your name in a little black book to make sure that you weren't a serial stationery abuser.

And a roll of sellotape?
Forget it between November 30th and January 1st. You might be stealing it to wrap Christmas presents.
No sellotape was going out during December without a note (this was in the days before EMail) from a senior manager to state that it was for a legitimate business need :cuckoo:
 
SarahLee said:
And a roll of sellotape?
Forget it between November 30th and January 1st. You might be stealing it to wrap Christmas presents.
No sellotape was going out during December without a note (this was in the days before EMail) from a senior manager to state that it was for a legitimate business need :cuckoo:
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In a company of six people like the one I work for, anyone asking for sellotape is going to get a funny look as only the person that packages up our orders needs it, and she's also the one that orders in the stationary.

When I worked for a larger company (1,000 or so) that had a stationary counter it was massively abused, and yes, sellotape at Christmas was one of the main things - when 50 rolls go out in a day :eek: , it's fairly obvious that something's up! This was before I went to university (circa 1987) and while I was there a requisition system was introduced to stop the abuse, so things had to be signed off by a department manager.
 
onomatopoeia said:
In a company of six people like the one I work for, anyone asking for sellotape is going to get a funny look as only the person that packages up our orders needs it, and she's also the one that orders in the stationary.

When I worked for a larger company (1,000 or so) that had a stationary counter it was massively abused, and yes, sellotape at Christmas was one of the main things - when 50 rolls go out in a day :eek: , it's fairly obvious that something's up! This was before I went to university (circa 1987) and while I was there a requisition system was introduced to stop the abuse, so things had to be signed off by a department manager.
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I can understand with smaller companies, but this was a HUGE company. An American merchant bank with 10s if not 100s of thousands of employees and sellotape was a vital resource.
This was in the days before EMail so all the deal confirmations from the trading floors used to come in by either fax or be printed out on a Telex machine and had to be tied back at the end of the day . . . quite frequently they got filed with bits of sellotape holding them together after the machine had mangled them.

It was a very generous company to work for too. Free subsidised meals, free massage & reflexology sessions available at breaktimes, free dry cleaning picked up and delivered back to work . . . the list goes on - absolutely no need for anyone to stoop to stealing a roll of tape or a biro.
 
joescrivens said:
Not really.

In my case someone was trying to tell me that it took longer to make a sandwich that an oatcake. It doesn't take a genius to work out what she was saying was wrong.
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Of course not, but I suspect the person may have been saying that because they've been put in a difficult position by their manager.


If she said they just weren't making bacon sarnies and those were the rules then what you wrote would have been correct.
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Not necessarily, making a comment like that in my job would have me in the boss' office quicker than I could hang up the receiver.

It's really not as black and white as you might think when dealing with paranoid managers who are putting pressures on you. I know because all the time I have to say stupid things and even in some cases avoid imparting knowledge "because it would look bad".
 
This thread is so funny. Was the bacon sarnie worth the hassle Jo?

I remember once we stopped off at a small hotel after a long car journey for a sandwich. On the menu was a cheese sandwich, ham sandwich, tuna sandwich.

My husband asked for a cheese and ham sandwich to be told, "sorry it's not on the menu". He questioned the menu and said well you obviously have ham and cheese in your kitchen can you not put them in two slices of bread etc. she said I'm sorry I can't as cheese and ham as one sandwich is not on the menu"!

To this day we still laugh about it and we always stop off at this same hotel on our journey, to be served by the same waitress and we still can't get a C&H sarnie! To be fair she isn't a jobs worth just stuck in 1970!
 
jeniveeev said:
This thread is so funny. Was the bacon sarnie worth the hassle Jo?

I remember once we stopped off at a small hotel after a long car journey for a sandwich. On the menu was a cheese sandwich, ham sandwich, tuna sandwich.

My husband asked for a cheese and ham sandwich to be told, "sorry it's not on the menu". He questioned the menu and said well you obviously have ham and cheese in your kitchen can you not put them in two slices of bread etc. she said I'm sorry I can't as cheese and ham as one sandwich is not on the menu"!

To this day we still laugh about it and we always stop off at this same hotel on our journey, to be served by the same waitress and we still can't get a C&H sarnie! To be fair she isn't a jobs worth just stuck in 1970!
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You could always have ordered one of each and then put the ham onto the cheese sandwich ;).
 
Dave - I think we probably did but the point was how un-flexible she was. We were'nt angry, she was dead-pan serious and we found it hysterical!

Jo - I would agree, especially crispy bacon.
 
I think its funny, someone is only considered a jobsworth because they are doing what they are paid to do and you as a customer can't get your own way and expect them to break company policy and risk losing their job (something that is gold dust nowadays) just so you can get what you want because regardless of wether its right or wrong, your self worth tells you that you are entitled to it. They won't cave in, you call them a jobsworth, then you go to work obide by your rules and company policy and then, someone calls you one too.

After all i doubt anyone in management would appreciate being called a jobsworth if you told off an employee for using facebook on the company workstation, just as you wouldn't do the same if you were the employee saying it to a manager
 
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archamedes said:
I think its funny, someone is only considered a jobsworth because they are doing what they are paid to do and you as a customer can't get your own way and expect them to break company policy and risk losing their job (something that is gold dust nowadays) just so you can get what you want because regardless of wether its right or wrong, your self worth tells you that you are entitled to it. They won't cave in, you call them a jobsworth, then you go to work obide by your rules and company policy and then, someone calls you one too.

After all i doubt anyone in management would appreciate being called a jobsworth if you told off an employee for using facebook on the company workstation, just as you wouldn't do the same if you were the employee saying it to a manager
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Difference is these people are jobsworths for blindly folowing a stupid rule , often of their own making

its not jobsworthism to abide by company policy per se (see the earlier discussion about carparks) , but "you can have a cheese sandwich or a ham sandwich but not a ham and cheese sandwich" is just plain daft, and as a manager I would be more concerned about the lack of customer service such inflexibility displayed.

ditto with the stationary dragon - "stationary is only issued on a wednesday" was her policy - it wasnt company policy , and in fact if you read the thread you'll see that she was inflexible even in the face of management - again as a manager I wouldnt be commending her for sticking to a stupid rule, but rather kicking her arse for not being a team player.
 
I wasn't basing any of that on what was mentioned in this forum, but people in general.

In the heat of the moment customers get very annoyed quite quickly when things aren't going their way. I was in a queue at the airport a few years ago and a customer was ranting and raving calling all the staff jobsworths because they wouldn't tell the plane to turn around and pick them up because they missed their deptarture. Yet these same people would probably witness someone else do the same thing in a different situation and say "That customer is being quite unreasonable and cannot see that they are just doing their job."

With what you said moose, I understand what you are saying, and I have a situation that matches the silly excuses made was at the tesco restaurant. We were told they can't make toast after 12 noon because of health and safety. I simply asked "since when does health and safety have a bloody time limit?" Because there was no logical health and safety explanation that could tell us why at noon they couldn't use the toaster.

The 2nd time (again at tesco restaurant) we were told we couldn't have mushroom swith our all day breakfast because they ran out. "but the produce section is just down there, this is tesco after all, just pop down and get some more."
 
archamedes said:
I think its funny, someone is only considered a jobsworth because they are doing what they are paid to do and you as a customer can't get your own way and expect them to break company policy and risk losing their job
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Incorrect. A jobs worth isn't someone who just does their job within the parameters. It is someone who sticks rigidly to something without having the intelligence to realise that there is a more sensible option. A customer facing organisation puts the customer first. The person facing the customer needs to have the intelligence to adapt. During this incident the manager overheard the conversation and you could see the realisation of what I was saying hit her and the look of disappointment when she could hear the jobs worth stick to her story. In the end she came over and resolved the situation.

archamedes said:
then you go to work obide by your rules and company policy and then, someone calls you one too.
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Wrong again. I use my intelligence in my job to do it to the best of my ability, which includes adapting based on what happens on a day to day basis. I may seek approval from my management, but I won't blindly follow some rule that was blatantly stupid.

The jobs worth in question in my story when presented with what I said should have realised she was being thick as 2 planks, walked into the kitchen and asked. If the answer came back no, then it would have been the chef/manager being the jobs worth. The manager however, had enough intelligence to adapt.

It sounds like you would also be a jobs worth from your post.
 
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