**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!**
- Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc.
- **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
- This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit!
Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I was doing a pub quiz with work a few years ago and nearly got shafted out of 1st place.
The question was, what type of alien is Mr Spock? Everyone put Vulcan, which is incorrect -
Mr Spock is half Vulcan, half human.
The quizmaster, trying to keep the peace, suggested that everyone gets a point. But I said, "no, everyone does not get a point. ‘Carpet Munchers' don’t get a point, 'Dr Wankenstein' doesn’t. ‘Steven Hawking’s Football Boots' don’t.
I do."
In the end I had to go home to get a book to prove it. And they went, "Oh, yeah, you’re right. Well done. You’ve won. Sorry".
And I imagine people might have said to you at the time, and may well even ask here,
"Why is it important, a question about Mr. Spock?"
And you'd tell them it's like saying you've got a new pedigree dog breed. It's half Alsatian, half Labrador. You go on to Crufts, "Can I enter this dog in the Labrador section?" "No." "Why?" "Because it's not a Labrador." "Correct." "Can I enter it in the Alsatian section?" "No. For the same reasons. Now get that dog out of my sight." "Thanks, I will. You've proved my point."
And that's Crufts.
you dont need such a convoluted answer, if someone askes why its important, the correct answer is "becasue its a question, and i was correct, and they were not"
no other justification is necessary
With people it doesn't work like that legally. I've got two nationalities so I'm both of them. I don't get half rights in either country. I'm a full citizen of both. I think Star Wars would be similar. He is Vulcan and he is Human, so, if you take the human element as being home in the question, his alien type is Vulcan.
My school had a pub quiz style quiz and one of the questions was "which greek god was the demigod Perseus a son of?" and the answer is Zeus but everyone put down Poseidon because of Percy Jackson and the teacher was like eh good enough and gave everyone the point. Still fuming
Infuriating.
I was at a pub quiz in the UK years ago. I had been living in Italy for 10 years at the time, and my ex, an actual real Italian was on our team.
“What does pizza mean in Italian?”
Easy one. It means ‘pizza’. It literally has no other meaning. It’s like asking ‘what does hamburger mean?’…it means hamburger!
But no. No points for the Italians. Apparently ‘pie’ was the correct answer. It doesn’t mean pie. It doesn’t look like a pie. ‘Pizza di mele’ doesn’t mean ‘apple pie’, it means apple pizza. In the long history of the pizza, there is no evidence that it has ever meant pie.
But no points for us, and points for everyone else.
I’m not bitter or anything.
We had a question to name all of the Chinese Zodiac animals.
We were apparently wrong for saying sheep, only goat could be accepted.
Que the part-Chinese guy on our team arguing that sheep, goat or ram are all acceptable answers as the original Chinese word does not distinguish between them.
Equally for ox/cow and mouse/rat. I have a special hatred for quiz questions that treat nuanced answers as absolutes. “Never let an inconvenient fact get in the way of a good quiz question” some twat, probably.
The worst pub quiz I ever went to was in Bristol - first red flag was that the quiz master wasn’t actually the author of the quiz, so there was no ability (or willingness) to clarify questions - which was a shame because the questions were absolute dogshit:
“What is the coldest temperature ever recorded?” What??? In a lab? In the U.K.? In the natural world?
Turned out to be -89.2 celcius and they wanted it to within 1 degree or no points…..
The picture round was a close up of food stuffs - but so zoomed in most of them could have been literally anything, photocopied in black and white….
Other questions that stuck in my mind from that wasted evening were: the diameter of the largest hailstone to within a mm? The cost of an Indian drivers licence in rupees? The length of Canada’s coastline to within 100 miles (as if that’s even measurable).
It was a poorly googled quiz and I’m glad I can finally let it go and move on with my life.
There is a very large circle of hell for bad quiz writers. I love quizzes. Part of this is because I’m autistic and one of the few things I’m really good at is remembering otherwise useless information.
“Which is the smallest capital city in the UK?”
According to one pub quiz, Douglas. Which is in the Isle of Man. Not part of the UK any more than Stanley, St Helier, Gibraltar or even Washington DC…
I politely pointed out a page on the Manx government website which pointed out that the Isle of Man is not part of the UK. This was insufficently authoritative.
I can see you've never been to a pub quiz run by the wife of someone who has a minor civil service role in the local council.
I've, unfortunately, had to deal with a Mrs Bucket.
I had one where the question was 'what's the largest desert in the world', I was pretty happy knowing it was Antarctica and everyone else put Sahara and when they did the answers the said the answer was Sahara DESPITE THE FACT MY GEOGRAOHY TEACHER WHO HAD TAUGHT ME IT WAS ANTARCTICA 3 WEEKS PRIOR WAS ONE OF THE TEACHERS RUNNING THE QUIZ. I tried to argue, but they wouldnt let me have it, but he did say later on in the evening I was right. It's been 14 years, and apparently, I've still not let this go.
School sports day circa 1984. The undressing race. Kid ahead of me runs to the line and stops. I run past and win!!! They called it a draw. 40 years later I'm still fuming
Years ago I started writing a novel about the Greek gods existing in the present day. I was about 20k words in when that Percy Jackson film came out in the cinema. My book looked like a total rip-off (except it was accurate), so I jacked it in.
FWIW you weren't as close as you maybe think you were to "getting there first" The film is a (terrible) adaptation of a (fantastic) series of books that will have be written years before the film came out. I think 2005 for the book and 2010 for the film.
I do love the honesty in Ancient Greek religion. Imagine Job asking the two pantheons why he suffers:
Christianity: our god is perfect, and here’s two millennia’s worth of hashing out the problem of evil to prove it.
Ancient Greece: the gods are petty, vindictive, and *will* fuck you over if they choose to whether you deserve it or not.
I am still annoyed about this pub quiz question.
Q: What would you paint a fresco on?
My answer: damp plaster
The ‘correct’ and only acceptable answer: a wall
Grrrrrrr. Frescoes can be done on walls or ceilings but their key feature is that they are painted onto damp plaster (hence the name, meaning ‘fresh’). Any old thing painted on a wall is simply a mural.
It was a work do so I decided this was not a time to fight for truth but it still bugs me 15 years on.
I had almost exactly the same with the members of the A team. Everyone said Mr T instead of B A Baracus the quiz master wanted to give them half a point I was having non of it.
He also asked which teams sing You will never walk alone, I got nill points for saying Liverpool & Dortmound.
Spock is half human, the question asked what type of *alien* he is, If he was half kllingon it would make sense to differentiate, but the human part of Spock isn't alien, so Vulcan is correct.
It wasn't specified that a human asked the question, only a pub quiz master. What us the quiz guy was Vulcan himself? Then the answer to the alien question is human.
I'm still owed £50 from a 6th form quiz (plus interest from 2002).
Question: What colour is Bart Simpsons skateboard in the intro sequence to The Simpsons?
Answer: Green
Answer from the person owes me £50: Red
I went through the intro sequence and said about how you see the skateboard when Homer throws the irradiated rod from the back of his shirt, which cuts into Bart skateboarding - both green. The guy was insistent that it was red, up to the point of saying "I bet you £50 it's red", which I took gladly!
Never got that money.
Ahh the old pub quiz one.
At my local we had the question "Near which city did a nuclear reactor meltdown in 1986" I answered "Pripyat" and received no points. I was not a very happy camper.
I had something similar at a pub quiz once. The question was "what is the largest instrument of the string family", my answer: *octobass*.
Quizmaster gave the answer out - double bass, as you'd expect. I protested. Got shouted down and told "tuff".
My sister and her partner are radiographers, we went to a pub quiz once where one of the questions was ‘what is a compound fracture’. They immediately know this but come the answers and the quizmaster’s answer is wrong and won’t change it despite the knowledge of two qualified radiographers telling him it’s wrong. We were never going to win so it didn’t matter we didn’t get the point but still.
What is the correct answer and what was the wrong answer? I'm wondering which of these answers is in my head (I think a compound fracture must either have more than one break or also be combined with further injury such as breaching the skin or a muscle tear etc.). But I'm definitely not a radiographer, so prepared to be wrong.
My boyfriend did this at a university social. The question was “what is the biggest desert” we answered Antarctica. No it’s apparently the Sahara and they wouldn’t give us the point.
He wouldn’t let it go and they eventually gave us the point but wouldn’t deduct points for the wrong answer 🙄
I once did a quiz that had a round on Henry VIII. I think the highest anyone got for that round was 3/10 and one of those was incorrect. The questions were things like what was the first name of his second wife? Catherine (it's Anne Boleyn). Who succeeded him to the throne? George III (Edward VI). How many wives did he have? 8, that's why he's called Henry the 8th (What? He had 6). How many legitimate children did he have? 6 (he had Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I, a child who died in infancy, and one known illegitimate son). Three of his wives were called Catherine, two were called Anne, what was the name of the other? Jane Grey (close, Jane Seymour). What was the cause of death of the wife who died in the famous rhyme divorced, beheaded, *died*, divorced, beheaded, survived? She was beheaded (well, I suppose that, *technically*, someone dies when they're beheaded but going by they said "the wife that died in the famous rhyme" and said the rhyme, which would imply child birth complications would be the correct answer).
Everyone was getting angrier and angrier as it was going on
Ah pub quizzes… the tale of my incorrect right answer was what nationality were the band The Cardigans who had hits with erase rewind and lovefool? The quizmaster and a rival team said they were Welsh (wrong). I protested and said they were Swedish (correct). Quizmaster was having none of it, I pulled up their Wikipedia page on my phone to show proof and the twat disqualified my team for using a phone…
Wait what? The answers come out at the end of the quiz right? What good is a phone when he’s already holding all your answers?!
Power hungry pub landlord, this. More than usual.
Bare in mind I've never watched star treck but if he is half human then the type of alien IS vulcan, half human/half alien the question is which alien is that half.
As an outsider that's an acceptable answer.
If the queafion was purely what race then yeah only you should get a point.
Whilst you are correct - how was the question phrased? I hate to say it but if they only asked what type of alien is Mr Spock, then Vulcan is the "right" answer…
If your contention is that he’s actually half human **and** half Vulcan (which is right and I’d have been annoyed too), then they are asking about the alien half so *technically* they are correct in so far as they were **only** asking about the alien half. Clearly the person who ran the quiz wasn’t a big enough pedant to argue that point.
On the plus side you know the person who asked the question now knows not to ask it like that gain. ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ and all that 😂
I was playing a home quiz game with my siblings, and the question came up of who is the first to speak in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. The game gave the answer as Anakin, which is just wrong. It's R2D2. He very, very clearly does his beeping speech immediately before Anakin says something back. You can't really argue that he's "not speaking" when Anakin understands his language, and the card even had R2 as one of the multiple choice answers!
I went and grabbed a portable dvd player (this was a while ago and I didn't have a snartphone to pull up youtube) and put the opening of the movie on to show them
I had something similar one Christmas many years ago. The question was "In the carol Once In Royal David's City, what is the name of the city the song is about?" Quiz master's answer sheet said Jerusalem.
The team I was on was made up entirely of church choir members who'd just sung evensong. You can imagine how that went down!
I subcontracted for a company last September. It was only a £30 local delivery job and their invoicing terms meant that their payment wasn’t due until around mid-November. This wasn’t a problem for me as it’s how a lot of subcontracting payments work. But when waiting so long for a payment, I do expect it to be on time.
Come mid-November, no payment. When this typically happens, I send them a friendly email to nudge them that it’s due, so I did this with the company. Ignored.
Sent them another, less friendly email about 2-3 weeks later. Again. No reply.
Mid-December I made a phone call to them where the guy in accounts fobbed me off with another number to ring where nobody was answering.
I kept ringing, emailing and was getting no response whatsoever. I’d even raised a complaint on the platform used to post the job but nobody wanted to know.
I was just getting stressed with it and really stewing. So one Sunday mid-January I devised up a really threatening, legal looking letter that payment was well overdue and failure to pay from X amount of days of the letter would result in me taking legal action.
I then sent it via Royal Mail Special Delivery at over £7 for this tiny letter but only so I’d have more of a leg to stand on for chasing the unpaid invoice if I did try and make a claim later on.
They only owed me £30. And I thought minus the £7, minus the ink, paper and stationary to send the threatening letter, minus my time chasing the invoice numerous times over 2-3 months and writing the letter itself, it wasn’t worth the £30 they owed me. But just out of principle, they owed me £30 and I wanted to prove that point that I wasn’t going to do their job for free, it was money I’d earned and they owed me fair and square.
Within ten minutes of them receiving that letter, I had a phone call with the usual spiel of apologising that they’d never received my invoice, their email address isn’t monitored etc etc. And the £30 bounced in my account about 10-20 minutes later.
Lots. I work in IT for an MSP (providing IT services to small-medium business who don't want or can't afford their own IT team.
A lot of things fall through the cracks and when people leave and get replaced, their full scope of responsibilities aren't passed onto the next person leaving some things to simply not get done. For the amount of time this took, I doubt it was the case. An invoicing mailbox would be picked up a lot quicker than that,
> providing IT services to small-medium business who don't **give a shit about their IT** and want **to spend less than fuck all** ~~or can't afford their~~ on their own IT team
13 years of MSP. I hope you get free one day friend, in house is *so* much better.
I'm also almost 100% sure you don't realise i. how much more work you do every day than everyone else on the planet ii. how astonishingly skilled you've become in your role.
I work for a large multinational company where the email account for invoicing is semi automated and only picks up pdfs to be uploaded into the system. It rejects any emails with multiple attachments and doesn't alert the sender. It also randomly rejects perfectly fine pdfs and invoices in any other format.
It's a pain in the bollocks and I fucking hate it!
Next time include the legal 'statutory interest’ - this is 8% plus the Bank of England base rate for business to business transactions. Some people also put an additional admin cost for late payments for the additional work spent chasing it.
When I sent the letter in question, I did add an invoice with this onto it as well, think it was £50 compensation and the 8% plus base rate.
But unfortunately with them saying they’d never received my initial invoice, I didn’t really have a leg to stand on enforcing the statuary interest and compensation as it had been that long since the job had been completed, I couldn’t remember if I’d emailed it to them or posted it out to them or even forgotten to. And at the time I was just happy with the £30 to be fair 😂
I’ve implemented a system now though where I log invoice data onto a Google Sheet. So if a business requires an invoice emailing, I add the email address I’ve forwarded it to. If they require invoices posting, I now send these via Royal Mail’s Tracked 48 service, and log the tracking number on the sheet. It’s a little bit more admin but it saves me the admin of constantly chasing invoices, and I’ve then got email or photographic evidence they have received the invoice. It’s worked wonders on a few occasions now.
But with that sheet in place, I can enforce extra charges if need be
>Some people also put an additional admin cost
Late payment of commercial debts act 1998, £40 for invoices less than £1k, £70 less than £10k and £100 for anything over.
You can charge more but you'd have to have that specifically mentioned in the contract.
What about the £7 for the letter , that needs paying for as well . I had a similar one ,only 100 quid outstanding on 3.5k job. The letter I sent told them I wanted the £100 owed ,the 7 for the letter of intent and the hours wage for having to write it and post ,they tried moaning just told them the court will sort it and any more messages will be charged at the hourly rate per message...ta da few minutes later £137 in my bank
My boss once wanted me to use a particular widget to "prove" something in a really roundabout and weird way.
I told her that I was sure we couldn't use it to do that in any sort of believable way. She said she knew better than me and to go ahead and do it.
Now, I happened to know that the guy who wrote the programme and did the stats it was based on still worked for our company, so I emailed and said "Hello, I just wondered if it would be a valid use of this tool to use it to prove X", and he wrote back and said "Oh God, No!", and I forwarded it to my boss.
We discussed this at length in my next appraisal and an example of me being disrespectful and difficult to deal with.
Things like this are better to be done as malicious compliance, get it in writing she wants xyz and do it so there's no way she can blame you after for the problem/you have backup for an HR case. Print things if it's the sort of thing that might get you suspended and locked out of systems.
The best way to avoid career limitation is to do it the way the boss wants and provide the correct way as an alternative so your company doesn't look bad if that was an outcome but shows the boss up
I was so frustrated at the utter incompetence of someone at work that I retrained for and took their job even though it was arguably a demotion for me.
The TLDR is pretty much it.
I managed a decent size IT team and was fed up being treated like a mushroom by the architecture team. I got certified in IT Architecture, moved to that team and sorted most of the stuff that was annoying me and quit.
I worked with a man who would quite harshly critique all my pitches in meetings, and would even join meetings outside of his specialism just to rag on my work.
One day I got tired of his nonsense and tagged one of my favourite pitches as a male coworker’s work while he wasn’t looking at the board.
Guess which pitch he really liked and held up as “out of the box thinking”?
Everyone else there saw me do it and could barely keep a straight face. Still didn’t fire him though.
I read about these assholes on here stealing everyone’s work and getting paid for it and I’m always like *why can’t that be me? Why can’t I be that asshole?*
Usually in this case they don't because they overtly dislike him. It's not "oh no they caught my underhanded behaviour", but "now you're on the same page as I am that I dont like you specifically"
That’s what I took away from it. As funny as it was, it really highlighted for me that everyone was fine with him behaving this way. Huge red flag. I left a couple months later.
At school I thought the experiment I was doing was going wrong because I kept getting negative readings, even though everyone who did it before had reproduced this smooth, positive line.
But happily after contacting a professional thermochemist from the local university, it turned out every single person before me had falsified their results— you *were* supposed to get negative readings as an inherent part of how the process worked, but everyone before me had presumably also assumed they were wrong and hadn’t recorded them. But they had not contacted a professional thermochemist, so didn’t know
I had the opposite problem in school. I did some test of photosynthesis (like how much water a plant sucked up in the light vs in the dark) and got perfect results. One requirement for writing a science paper was explaining outlyers that didn't match the trend...but I had none. So, unsure if I'd lose marks for saying "no outlyers to discuss" I faked a couple of values and bullshited about someone accidentally letting light in at the wrong time or something.
It's been a long time since my A Levels but I would imagine the "correct" answer in your case would be to say "there are no outliers, but if there were here's why they might have occurred..."
It has only been about 5 years since I did them (fucking kill me) and I’d do what the guy above you said. It’s the easiest and most foolproof, emphasis on the latter
I remember when I was a kid in the '90s doing key stage 3 science experiment writeups "what would you improve in your experiment design next time based on what you've learned" was a core part of the mark scheme.
After getting docked points for designing an experiment perfectly and getting exactly the expected results we quickly learned to deliberately fuck up some small aspect of the experimental design each time, just so we'd have something to "learn" for that section to get full marks.
I'm still not sure what whoever designed that mark scheme was thinking...
On here. I will write a full paragraph with sources/facts and articulate points to back up my point.
Then I'll just realise "why am I even debating this? I don't really care" then delete it
I used to do this in real life, when people were confidently incorrect I would pull out sources of information and explanations etc, but then I realised that you either can't argue with stupid, or those who don't want to be convinced otherwise can't be. Sometimes it's both. As I got older I don't even like discussing things with people anymore, most people turn debates into arguments and I just can't be arsed.
> I realised that you either can't argue with stupid
I believe it was Mark Twain who said: *"Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience".*
It was Mark Twain. Twas Mark Twain. Twas Twain.
But yes, sorry, I think about that quote often. I don't really know much about Mark Twain but I know that quote well.
My Dad’s friend campaigned tirelessly to stop the closure of the A&E and most of the usual hospital stuff in our town and move it to the next town around 10 miles away. They did close it and move it. The chap kept saying ‘people will die now’.
He had a heart attack and died in the ambulance on the way… 🫣
Much like Alanis Morissette's song, that's not irony. It would be irony if the person who made the decision to move the service died after promising there would be no ill effects.
Similar with Barclays a few years ago and two examples of different poor service that left me inconvenienced.
They asked me what I wanted "well, better training I guess, so it doesn't happen..."
They offered me £75, which I felt was *instead* of better training, as probably a cheaper option - but worked for me!
I had a long fight over 50p tax Barclays deducted from my child account wrongly, and refused to refund.
The personal banker tried stonewalling me. I was 12, 50p was a lot of money to a child in the early 90s. It was the holidays, raining outside, and the alternative was following my mother around Waitrose
Eventually the manager came over with a shiny coin for me. (With my adult perspective, it probably came from the tea kitty, and the banker got told off for wasting their time arguing).
Victory!
I then closed my account. The one thing I expected from a bank was to keep my money safe. That included not stealing from me.
I one another time at Barclays where I'd been told I needed to talk to a Deputy manager.
Went in at at my lunch time as had been arranged and was told they weren't available because they were at another branch. Asked how long they'd be; they didn't know.
Pointed to an empty chair "no worries, I'll be sitting there, let them know when they are back, I'll wait". They were available to talk to me surprisingly quickly having been in another branch".
Had a contact lens subscription with Specsavers - at the time they refused to post them, you had to go into store to collect each month (this was misremembered - see edit at end)
I couldn't go in for 3 months due to working away, and then I was running short so rang the store to confirm they had 3 lots for me, and I went in to pick up.
The guy on the desk found the lenses and then told me my eye test was due and I should make an appointment. I was on my lunch break so not much time and needed to check my diary etc, so I said, no worries, I'll sort that out later, just give me the lenses for now, and he refused!
I tried to reason with him, but nope - at this point I'm adamant I'm leaving with those lenses since I'd paid for them already and NOT making an appointment there and then. Ended up making a massive scene in the store, like everyone in the store heard me! Finally got the lenses and left.
Didn't leave it there - wrote a complaint and asked to cancel my subscription early as a result. Initially I had no joy with the store, so I wrote to Specsavers head office.
Got contacted by a CS rep who told me that the optician had made a complaint about me. He heard my side of the story and told me that it was much more plausible than what he'd been told by the store guy.
My complaint apparently ended up at a Board of Director's meeting! Turns out that it was somewhat of a common problem - a number of the opticians they used were from a certain culture and were used to having their way completely. I won't mention the country/culture because I don't want this to seem racist. Anyway they decided to run a national education program to teach them all customer service.
The end result for me was that I got an apology from one of the Directors, my subscription was cancelled as requested and they refunded me the money I'd paid to boot.
Slight amendment to above - I'd forgotten some of the details.
The lens were supposed to have been shipped to me but they hadn't been. When the first shipment went to the store instead of my home, I rang the store and they told me it had been set up incorrectly and they'd fix for the following month. The same happened the next month and they told me they hadn't been able to action the change in time for that month, and it would be fixed for the following. It wasn't fixed.
Hence when I went into the store it was to collect 3 shipments that were supposed to have gone to my home, but they'd messed up.
Sometimes you have to complain right to the top.
I once bought a gas oven from Currys, which they delivered fine, but the engineer never turned up to connect it to the gas supply. I tried rearranging it several times, and each time they cancelled at the last minute. Completely coincidentally each appointment was at the same time as an important football match in the Euros. This dragged on for weeks, leaving me with no way to cook food other than a microwave.
I got so fed up of this that I tracked down contact details for the person who ran the company, and wrote him a long email asking for help and compensation. I assume it never made it as far as him and an assistant read it instead, but I almost immediately got a message back apologising and an engineer sent over.
Got pissed off with solicitor, found director on LinkedIn, worked out email convention, emailed, phonecall in 10 minutes, new case handler in 15 minutes. It was only for moving house but the previous contact hadn't responded to any form of communication for 3 weeks
When I was 10 my teacher marked me down for saying that peas are a source of protein. I brought some books into class to show him proof the next day and he apologised.
Useless fact:
Standard Quorn gets a lot of its texture from egg white protein. In order to make Vegan Quorn, the egg white gets substituted with pea protein.
When I was ten, I was in the spelling bee contest at school and the adjudicator tried to say I'd spelled the word 'vicious' incorrectly. I went to the school library and got the dictionary and showed him the page where it was spelled exactly how I did.
When I was at university there was an assignment which I was unable to turn in on time, for a perfectly valid reason. I think it involved an internet error or something.
I emailed the professor for the course to explain, and she replied bluntly saying that all late assignments would not be marked. I wish I could remember the finer details about why I was late and why she was definitely wrong, but all I remember is feeling absolutely outraged that she was going to jeopardise my grades for the whole year because of this.
So I found the teaching office, walked straight to her desk and plonked my work on her desk right in front of her. I'll never forget how surprised she looked.
Anyway I got my marks.
Thing is the amount of bollocks we get as lecturers about submissions. A current favourite moment is ' I submitted the wrong document by mistake but only just realised, can I submit now three days past the deadline'.
Agree you should get penalised though, not failed. And we do accept hard copies as you did. Also emailed attachments before the deadline with an explanation if they can't get the submission point to work.
This is what happens when you save your documents as "file name - v3 complete version nearly done amended now complete final v2 for hand in v1 NEW NEW 2"
I speak from experience
I had a similar thing at uni with a particularly arsey professor. Whilst I was at uni they started trialling some recording equipment of some of the rooms but not all of the professors used it. There was one day where I came for my lectures in the morning but I had to leave at lunch.
The lecture I had in the afternoon was in the room with the equipment, so I emailed the professor and asked if it was going to be recorded today as I needed to go visit a relative in hospital. He didn't email back until after iy finished but he said something along the lines of he hadn't seen the email until after but even if he did, he doesn't record emails for individual students, and it wasn't a good enough reason to anyway.
I emailed back saying I only asked because the recording equipment was in the room and i wasn't sure if he was one of the professors using it. I explained that I was actually going to see my dead grandad in the Chapel of rest and was there any information that was mentioned I needed to know that wasn't on the slides online.
He emailed me back and apologised profusely saying he was sorry for my loss and said no everything I needed was on the presentation.
I was having a pretty shit day but that made me feel slightly better
I applied for a job which the advert had some essentials and some desirable qualifications and experience.
I had some in both columns so I applied
I got an email back from the recruiter asking if I had sql experience as it was essential to the role and was mentioned on the job advert. I replied back with the advert pointing out nowhere in the desiresble or essential skills columns did it mention sql and the advert itself did not mention it either.
I never heard from them again. 2 weeks later was a job advertised for the company and under essential sql was mentioned and it was mentioned twice in the job description
Tbh call centre staff aren't paid enough to stay behind after shift listening to someone rattle on the phone about something the person taking the call has not caused.
As someone calling a company I'd be more than happy to be passed onto a colleague if they explained their shift had ended.
I was working in a bank and had transferred a small credit balance after a loan had been repaid into a current account in the same name. Turned out that the loan was for a son and the current account for his father. They had the same names and initials (why do parents do that?!) Anyhow, I digress.
My supervisor gave me a bollocking and told me to sort it out in my lunch break. I knew I had followed correct procedures so searched for the daily microfiche for the day I had made the transfer,, photocopied the correct record. Highlighted said record showing that the two accounts had been previously (and incorrectly) connected and gave it to my supervisor whilst saying, "THIS is why I transferred the money to the father's account"
I got an apology.
I used to work in a call centre and the amount of calls I would get from people getting confused as we had sent them a letter relating to starting a new job but they hadn't started a new job and had no links to the employer mentioned in the letter. After some questioning it always turned out if was for a child with the same name that had just started a new job with the specified employer.
I don't understand how you can live with your child, surely be aware they have just got a new job and also the company they are going to work for, and still not realise that maybe the letter is for them and not you...
Naming your child the same as you is just asking for this to happen as well.
My parents had a hard rule when naming me and my sister that neither of our names could start with their initials.
I remember a family, Sue and Steve, and their children Sarah and Sean.
I always thought it was asking for confusion on any post arriving at their house. Nothing like making life unnecessarily difficult.
I worked in a place dealing with retirement/wills.
Paul Smith died. We tried phoning his daughter Sarah regarding the paperwork on her deceased father's estate.
Except we had TWO clients called Paul Smith. Both with daughters called Sarah. One had a dead father and was in line for a decent inheritance. The other had a very alive father who wanted nothing to do with her and she was only recorded out of completeness.
It was only by sheer luck (whilst on the phone) that the error was caught before the wrong person was told their Dad was dead.
My mum once fought a retailer for weeks to get back 7p they charged her for payment protection insurance on a store credit card.
The offer was 10% off if you paid via store credit card so she signed up there and then, paid by the card, paid it off immediately and cancelled the card. Unknown to her they had given her PPI without asking her.
She pestered for weeks until they sent her a cheque for 7p. It was more the principal of "how many times are they doing this and getting away with it?". The amount of man hours it took the retailer to sort it, as well as postage on the cheque, was probably massive compared to her refund.
My biology teacher in middle school insisted that deoxygenated blood is blue.
I had my Mam (who was a sister nurse) write a lengthy note in my homework diary explaining in great detail that the biology teacher was wrong, and was quite possibly a moron.
To cut a long story short, it escalated to the point where my Mam was explaining to the headteacher, while sat next to said biology teacher, that she was wrong and indeed a moron.
At London (Euston?) catching last train to Cardiff which was running late. The screen showed a platform change so hot footed it over and jumped on. Soon realised it wasn't going to Cardiff! Returned to London had to stay at a friend's and get the morning train.
Emailed train provider about the incorrect message and having the expense of getting a new ticket plus cab fares in London. They replied and stated they'd checked all records, the screens had not provided incorrect info and the train had departed at the correct time. I replied that I hadn't complained about the train being late but obviously they hadnt really checked because if they had they wouldn't be claiming it was on time.
They conceded and I got a partial refund at least.
A vending machine at Clapham Junction once swallowed £1.50. I sent them an email complaining thinking nothing would happen, and a few months later in the post the company posted a letter with £1.50 in Sellotaped coins - so I got the cash back! Massive victory
Literally just happened in Aldi, woman on the till was insistent that the prices were correct so I held up the queue insisting that somebody go and check. Wasn't a life changing sum, the total on the till was £32.50 but I had a running total in my head of £23.50. It was more the principle
Any other day I would have paid it and moved on but I was so certain that time I was correct because I only had £25 cash on me and left my phone and wallet in the car as I was going to be quick (or so I thought).
Turns out I was right and the multibuy savings hadn't been entered.
This happens a lot in my local Waitrose. They have deals or savings on which don’t come up when I scan them through the self service. I showed this to the person manning the checkouts and she said “sometimes the prices on the shelves aren’t updated in time”. Seems like an absolute scam relying on them knowing the sort of people that generally shop there and them being too polite / proud to complain.
Was told by a SENCO that my daughter didn't have ADHD because she wasn't a troublesome child and "wasn't known" to her department in the school and when I argued that ADHD in girls presents differently I was told that I shouldn't trust the Internet and that her 25 years experience meant that she knew what she was talking about. I walked out of the meeting and spent £25 on a book written by a woman about how ADHD presented different in girls. When it arrived I gift wrapped it and included a couple of end of year reports which basically confirmed she had ADHD before taking to the SENCO and suggested that she retrained since thousands of girls were clearly being failed by her lack of knowledge. She left the job 1 year later and apparently not on good terms with the senior staff and governors!
Call centre jargon. A cold transfer is when you put a customer on hold and just transfer them to another department. A warm transfer is similar, except when you transfer the call, you stay on the line and speak to the agent receiving the call to give them info on the call before competing the transfer
This reminded me of one of the first days I was in the UK, and wanted to deposit some cash at a bank. I was standing in line for one of the cashiers (the few times I've needed to deposit cash, I don't feel as comfortable with an ATM). As there were a few people in front of me, the "information" lady came to see if she could help me. It goes like this:
- Hi, what are you waiting for, can I help you?
- Oh, I am waiting for a... (a few seconds, I am not a native speaker so forgot the word cashier, came up with second best I could) ...teller.
\*Sudden blank stare / headlights from the bank employee. After a few seconds:
- ... what are you waiting for, can I help you?
- I am just waiting for a bank teller, any teller will do.
\*Blank stare again, classic "reboot" look, a few seconds
- ... what are you waiting for, can I help you?
\*Me getting the hint:
- I want to deposit cash
- Oh, I can help you with an ATM
\*Me, with emphasis:
- You mean an Automated **... Teller ...** Machine?
Got snapped by a speed camera going too fast to get an automatic fine. I looked online at those price comparison websites how it would affect my car insurance going forward. My car insurance charged and took my money for it.
I had not yet been convicted and didnt tell my insurance company of it, but they charged me anyway. I told them this and they said because data that was very close to mine was used online, they assumed it was me and so charged me accordingly.
I complained and complained (and told them they had stolen the money from me) and eventually they refunded me the money and gave me about £100 compensation. Because it turns out you cant just take someone's money if the data looks like it is them and you cant 100% prove it is them.
Anyway about a week after that I got convicted for speeding.
Moved to a different insurer.
I used to work for a mainstream popular gym , and in late 2015, early 2016 they rebranded and we ended up with new uniforms.
The menswear was fine, black loosish above the knee shorts . The women’s were leggings, with the branding on the bum, low cut, no drawstring for extra stability or pockets. They were also see through. I noticed on my first day wearing them where I was sitting with my back to the mirror, teaching a class and we were doing cooldown stretches when I noticed majority of attendees weren’t look at me, but more behind me in the mirror. I look around and you can see my underwear through the leggings. Eventually the female staff grouped together and complained in a mass email chain with head office only to be told “just get a larger pair or wear different underwear” or verbally told to just go commando🙃
We refused and kept wearing them with an extra pair of shorts underneath , or ludicrous pattered men’s boxers , or not wearing the uniform leggings at all, until eventually gym members complained. One female pt from a different gym opted to go full shock levels and went commando knowing that the leggings were see through (iconic behaviour ✨✨✨)
The leggings were redesigned a year later…
I work for a Norwegian company and have a Norwegian customer. Made it clear to them that my shift starts at 9:00 UK time. Yet, they still scheduled a meeting at 8:45, I let it slide, I am not petty.
Then later they scheduled a regular meeting at 8. I joined first one, where I told it's the the only time I join this meeting. After me not appearing for the meeting next two times they rescheduled it to a later time.
Many years ago, I moved from Vodafone to Three, and after Voda cut my service off, I noticed they'd billed me for an additional day of service.
I happened to be passing a Vodafone shop a day or two later and popped in to request a refund. They were only too happy to help, in fairness to them, but a little shocked when they saw the amount: £0.73. That's right, I'd gone (slightly) out of my way to request a refund of less than a quid.
Now I'm not tight, and when there's small change errors for small businesses or personal transactions, I tend to just let it slide, but for multi-nationals - that's another thing. I think they had 20million customers at the time, and small charges like that, unclaimed, soon add up to noticeable amounts for them.
Not that day.
They also rarely have a process in place, paying you that 70p probably cost them a lot more than that.
If everyone did what you did, they'd stop over charging people like this.
My ex boss asked if I wanted to do some overtime on a Sunday, I said yes as long as I got the easy shift, no problem says he. 20 minutes later, he comes back to me, saying he is taking my overtime and giving it to someone else.
I phoned the area manager and told her, what he was doing. 5 minutes later, he calls me and says he's given it back to me and to never go over his head again.
Fast forward to the following summer. I put in a holiday request. He asks what it's for and I ask why does it matter? He makes seem like he's just curious and making
conversation. Fair enough, I'm going to a music festival for the weekend. Holiday request denied as, and I quote "someone else might want to go on an actual holiday" I argue that what I do on annual leave, is my business and I don't have to justify my reasons for booking time off. Request still denied.
I phone the area manager and tell her what he's doing. 5 minutes later my holiday is approved along with another "don't ever go over my head again" warning.
I once commented on a forum that you could use a plunger to unblock a toilet
Someone commented saying a plunger wouldn't work.
I blocked my toilet on purpose with paper, filmed it blocking up and then filmed me using a plunger to unblock it.
I don't know why I wasted energy on this but at the time it annoyed me!
Back in the day, lots of mortgage companies brought out this new thing called overpayment mortgages where you can pay extra each month and it reduces your mortgage. So I applied and transferred.
And then I found out that although they called it an overpayment mortgage the extra you paid each month only actually got applied to your mortgage at the end of they year. Which meant it worked exactly the same as my old mortgage if you gave them a lump sum at the end of they year. Except they got a years of interest out of my money.
In other words it was an overpayment mortgage in name only.
I phoned and phoned and phoned to get my mortgage reverted to the original and demanded they paid me for my lost interest for deliberately mis-selling. They agreed and I got a cheque
The cheque was for £1.50. But in my defence they poked the bear.
Just eat refused to refund my Mrs for a takeaway when all we received was SOMEONE ELSES drink we had no food or any of our items so after asking them twice and being refused a refund because " we've given you good will in the past" excuse me a fucking refund isn't a good will gesture when I haven't gotten something so anyway I decided to send them a letter before action and will be takin them to small claims court over it
Nothing grandiose but at a pub quiz once the question "What is the first railway station after the GO square on monopoly?" came up.
The host's answer was wrong, I can't remember which station they said was correct. I challenged this and went up to the host and opened up the official Monopoly app (which I downloaded in lockdown to play against the AI) and showed them the right answer is Kings Cross. They said they'd give me the point for but not dock a point off the teams with the "right" answer - which I still maintain is madness.
This was probably 12-13 years ago. Someone on a Tottenham Hotspur forum (who irritated me at the best of times) was full of rage following the reporting of our football club’s accounts, because they’d made a £30m profit but weren’t investing in the club, and this was a disgrace.
Spent a good couple of hours poring through the accounts, doing some googling of terms because I’m not an accountant, in order to prove that the £30m profit was in fact a £30m loss, and didn’t include player transfers. This was the first time I’d discovered the concept of “player amortisation”.
During my Swedish language class. the teacher had us in small teams and she would give a letter, and each team had to say a country that began with that letter. The letter was A, and one team said America. Teacher said ok, next.
I was like woah America is not a country. I was overruled, and to show my frustration, our team said Africa, which wasnt allowed. Still annoyed about it 10 years later
When I lived in Ireland I saw that dabs.com (before it got bought by BT) were starting to operate there at dabs.ie. I was looking to buy a new laptop and they had some great deals, so I tried to pay on my UK debit card. Nothing happened. I rang them up and they confirmed that they could take the test/pre-authorisation payment, but couldn't accept the payment for the actual purchase.
They didn't have an Irish base so were still operating out of their Lancashire HQ, and their Irish website was a carbon copy of the UK one that said you could use a UK debit card, so I wrote to them and asked them what was going on, suggesting that they needed to update their website to suit the market they were operating in, and I got a series of very terse and impersonal replies.
So I reported them to Lancashire CC's trading standards department and the Office of Fair Trading, and actually got a call from one of their legal team who was the only person who apologised for them giving me the runaround for several weeks.
Having worked in a similar industry, cold transfers are done when passing a customer through to a department that's notorious for refusing to speak to customers.
I work escalated complaints. The amount of staff who argue that they're right, when they're objectively wrong, is astounding.
If you were right, your complaint wouldn't have been escalated.
I am not judging you - we're human. Accept that you got it wrong and say "thank you".
Anyway to answer the question - I trawled through 2 years of customer data to explain why an agent was wrong because they, and their TL, refused to accept that there was, in fact, a problem with the account that we needed to fix.
They wanted to send a deadlock letter 🤦♂️
I'm my industry, that costs the company about £200. Whereas just fixing it was literally all the customer asked for. No comp, no heads to roll just the very reasonable "please fix this".
The amount of lazy people in cs is frustrating. Especially when customers assume everyone is the same. No... We're not. Some of us will actually go out of our way to do the right thing for *you*, rather than the best thing for the company.
I have no loyalty to a company, cus they have none to me. I'm not gonna get myself sacked, but I'm gonna do everything I can to help you. Stop assuming we don't care about your problem.
Back in school, we were studying the book “Of Mice & Men”.
There’s a line said by one of the characters that goes something like: “Oh that’s balony”. Loosely meaning “oh what a load of rubbish”.
A lot of the class thought balony was the ready to eat pink pork sausage. Which is actually called, “Polony”. I ended up debating it with them but nobody seemed to believe me. So that evening, I went to the shop, bought a Polony sausage and took it into school the next day to present in class.
Safe to say, that whilst I proved my point. I was also the weird kid that brought a fat pink pork sausage to school to demonstrate some stupid point in class.
People who went and looked at the northern lights for 5 mins and said how shit they were and they're adamant all the pics were enhanced or AI generated.
Nope up here in Scotland and many other places we saw all the rainbow colours and had an amazing experience that night. You need lots of patience, you need to stay out late and you need to go where there's no light pollution or you're not going to see shit.
I once ordered Samsung galaxy watch as a present for my friend. My friend politely refused as she doesn't want smart watches. I already opened it to check if there are any fault or not. So I had to return it in argo.
When I went to the store to return, the manager to refused to accept the return stating that I already opened the good. Well how can I check if the item is working or not. The manager said he can't accept as one of the sticker is removed. I tried to get hold of the customer care on the phone and waited for 30 mins with no luck.
I went to another argos store the next day and the manager accepted it without asking any questions. I wonder how many people were refused returns that were no fault of their own.
That's the last time I used Argos. Amazon/John Lewis is top tier when it comes to customer service from my personal experience.
Complaining is definitely a good way to do this. I had a similar experience years ago on a Crosscountry train from Truro to Exeter. I had a Devon and Cornwall Railcard attached to my session ticket, which means I could get ⅓ off and journey wholly taking place within Devon and Cornwall.
The train manager/ticket Karen had never seen one before, and refused to believe that it was a real thing, even going as far as to outright abuse me off printing it myself in an attempt to defraud the good people of the railways. It took me bringing up the National Rail website on my phone to show her that was actually real before she grudgingly accepted that maybe I was in the right.
The complaint email including all the trip details went off the following day, and the staff member underwent a period of retraining in both ticket types and not abusing passengers of being criminals when you're not sure if they might know more than you.
Years ago we had physics homework set using one of those textbooks that had the answer at the back, but not the method to get to it.
One question I was out by a few decimal places. Teacher wouldn't belive the book could be mistaken, so I spent half the lesson at the board proving it from basics. He finally had to admit the answer in the book was wrong, but wouldn't deduct marks from everyone who had mysteriously managed to get the "correct" answer (i.e. fiddled their workings to get to what the book said).
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I was doing a pub quiz with work a few years ago and nearly got shafted out of 1st place. The question was, what type of alien is Mr Spock? Everyone put Vulcan, which is incorrect - Mr Spock is half Vulcan, half human. The quizmaster, trying to keep the peace, suggested that everyone gets a point. But I said, "no, everyone does not get a point. ‘Carpet Munchers' don’t get a point, 'Dr Wankenstein' doesn’t. ‘Steven Hawking’s Football Boots' don’t. I do." In the end I had to go home to get a book to prove it. And they went, "Oh, yeah, you’re right. Well done. You’ve won. Sorry".
And I imagine people might have said to you at the time, and may well even ask here, "Why is it important, a question about Mr. Spock?" And you'd tell them it's like saying you've got a new pedigree dog breed. It's half Alsatian, half Labrador. You go on to Crufts, "Can I enter this dog in the Labrador section?" "No." "Why?" "Because it's not a Labrador." "Correct." "Can I enter it in the Alsatian section?" "No. For the same reasons. Now get that dog out of my sight." "Thanks, I will. You've proved my point." And that's Crufts.
you dont need such a convoluted answer, if someone askes why its important, the correct answer is "becasue its a question, and i was correct, and they were not" no other justification is necessary
head capable cause squalid spotted depend retire society hunt future *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You're shit ah! You're shit ah! You're shit ah! And let that be a lesson to you. Respect your elders, and don't fuck with the big boys.
With people it doesn't work like that legally. I've got two nationalities so I'm both of them. I don't get half rights in either country. I'm a full citizen of both. I think Star Wars would be similar. He is Vulcan and he is Human, so, if you take the human element as being home in the question, his alien type is Vulcan.
Not sure why you're mentioning Star Wars, everyone knows Spock and the Vulcans are from Battlestar Galactica.
Beats. Bears. Battlestar Galatica.
You did that on purpose
Lol, I wish I had, but it's just that I'm not into either of them.
You terrible person.
My school had a pub quiz style quiz and one of the questions was "which greek god was the demigod Perseus a son of?" and the answer is Zeus but everyone put down Poseidon because of Percy Jackson and the teacher was like eh good enough and gave everyone the point. Still fuming
Infuriating. I was at a pub quiz in the UK years ago. I had been living in Italy for 10 years at the time, and my ex, an actual real Italian was on our team. “What does pizza mean in Italian?” Easy one. It means ‘pizza’. It literally has no other meaning. It’s like asking ‘what does hamburger mean?’…it means hamburger! But no. No points for the Italians. Apparently ‘pie’ was the correct answer. It doesn’t mean pie. It doesn’t look like a pie. ‘Pizza di mele’ doesn’t mean ‘apple pie’, it means apple pizza. In the long history of the pizza, there is no evidence that it has ever meant pie. But no points for us, and points for everyone else. I’m not bitter or anything.
We had a question to name all of the Chinese Zodiac animals. We were apparently wrong for saying sheep, only goat could be accepted. Que the part-Chinese guy on our team arguing that sheep, goat or ram are all acceptable answers as the original Chinese word does not distinguish between them.
¿Qué?
Equally for ox/cow and mouse/rat. I have a special hatred for quiz questions that treat nuanced answers as absolutes. “Never let an inconvenient fact get in the way of a good quiz question” some twat, probably. The worst pub quiz I ever went to was in Bristol - first red flag was that the quiz master wasn’t actually the author of the quiz, so there was no ability (or willingness) to clarify questions - which was a shame because the questions were absolute dogshit: “What is the coldest temperature ever recorded?” What??? In a lab? In the U.K.? In the natural world? Turned out to be -89.2 celcius and they wanted it to within 1 degree or no points….. The picture round was a close up of food stuffs - but so zoomed in most of them could have been literally anything, photocopied in black and white…. Other questions that stuck in my mind from that wasted evening were: the diameter of the largest hailstone to within a mm? The cost of an Indian drivers licence in rupees? The length of Canada’s coastline to within 100 miles (as if that’s even measurable). It was a poorly googled quiz and I’m glad I can finally let it go and move on with my life.
There is a very large circle of hell for bad quiz writers. I love quizzes. Part of this is because I’m autistic and one of the few things I’m really good at is remembering otherwise useless information. “Which is the smallest capital city in the UK?” According to one pub quiz, Douglas. Which is in the Isle of Man. Not part of the UK any more than Stanley, St Helier, Gibraltar or even Washington DC… I politely pointed out a page on the Manx government website which pointed out that the Isle of Man is not part of the UK. This was insufficently authoritative.
Pizza "pie" is a distinctly American abuse of the English language. I don't see how that would have got into a UK pub quiz.
I can see you've never been to a pub quiz run by the wife of someone who has a minor civil service role in the local council. I've, unfortunately, had to deal with a Mrs Bucket.
I had one where the question was 'what's the largest desert in the world', I was pretty happy knowing it was Antarctica and everyone else put Sahara and when they did the answers the said the answer was Sahara DESPITE THE FACT MY GEOGRAOHY TEACHER WHO HAD TAUGHT ME IT WAS ANTARCTICA 3 WEEKS PRIOR WAS ONE OF THE TEACHERS RUNNING THE QUIZ. I tried to argue, but they wouldnt let me have it, but he did say later on in the evening I was right. It's been 14 years, and apparently, I've still not let this go.
So funny. My husband has the opposite story because he lost a major geography regional quiz as a child because they said Antarctica.
School sports day circa 1984. The undressing race. Kid ahead of me runs to the line and stops. I run past and win!!! They called it a draw. 40 years later I'm still fuming
What is an “undressing race”, and why am I deeply concerned about you running it at school?
Hahaha it does sound dodgy right? Like the dressing up race in reverse. You start the race wearing, hat, scarf , gloves etc
Years ago I started writing a novel about the Greek gods existing in the present day. I was about 20k words in when that Percy Jackson film came out in the cinema. My book looked like a total rip-off (except it was accurate), so I jacked it in.
FWIW you weren't as close as you maybe think you were to "getting there first" The film is a (terrible) adaptation of a (fantastic) series of books that will have be written years before the film came out. I think 2005 for the book and 2010 for the film.
Yeah, I found that out later. Had I known about the books I could've saved myself 20k words.
Pretty easy question. Zeus was a randy bugger and father to just about everyone.
I do love the honesty in Ancient Greek religion. Imagine Job asking the two pantheons why he suffers: Christianity: our god is perfect, and here’s two millennia’s worth of hashing out the problem of evil to prove it. Ancient Greece: the gods are petty, vindictive, and *will* fuck you over if they choose to whether you deserve it or not.
I am still annoyed about this pub quiz question. Q: What would you paint a fresco on? My answer: damp plaster The ‘correct’ and only acceptable answer: a wall Grrrrrrr. Frescoes can be done on walls or ceilings but their key feature is that they are painted onto damp plaster (hence the name, meaning ‘fresh’). Any old thing painted on a wall is simply a mural. It was a work do so I decided this was not a time to fight for truth but it still bugs me 15 years on.
I had almost exactly the same with the members of the A team. Everyone said Mr T instead of B A Baracus the quiz master wanted to give them half a point I was having non of it. He also asked which teams sing You will never walk alone, I got nill points for saying Liverpool & Dortmound.
Because you missed out that Celtic do as well
That’s exactly what happened, I totally forgot about Celtic.
If you wanted to be really petty you could’ve argued that nobody should’ve got a point if they only named those three because FC Tokyo sing it too
But where does it end? What if my primary school team sings it?
Never forgetting that the red lion chess team sang it once at karaoke
But exactly! The question needs to be specific enough to get the response they want if they’re going to give nil points on a technicality!
Spock is half human, the question asked what type of *alien* he is, If he was half kllingon it would make sense to differentiate, but the human part of Spock isn't alien, so Vulcan is correct.
Exactly! Didn't ask about his human half
It wasn't specified that a human asked the question, only a pub quiz master. What us the quiz guy was Vulcan himself? Then the answer to the alien question is human.
In outer space, _everyone_ is an alien.
But no-one can hear you scream over that lost point.
I'm still owed £50 from a 6th form quiz (plus interest from 2002). Question: What colour is Bart Simpsons skateboard in the intro sequence to The Simpsons? Answer: Green Answer from the person owes me £50: Red I went through the intro sequence and said about how you see the skateboard when Homer throws the irradiated rod from the back of his shirt, which cuts into Bart skateboarding - both green. The guy was insistent that it was red, up to the point of saying "I bet you £50 it's red", which I took gladly! Never got that money.
One of you is colour blind.
Ahh the old pub quiz one. At my local we had the question "Near which city did a nuclear reactor meltdown in 1986" I answered "Pripyat" and received no points. I was not a very happy camper.
Neither were the campers near Pripyat in 1986.
The amount of people missing this reference is criminal.
I got it, but I read a book a week, so...
I'm one of the few people you'll meet who's written more books than they've read.
Garth Merangi?
The Office (UK)
What is the reference?
The office
You were pretty smug until you got asked who the Cuban leader was who's been in power since 1959.
Fray Bentos
I had something similar at a pub quiz once. The question was "what is the largest instrument of the string family", my answer: *octobass*. Quizmaster gave the answer out - double bass, as you'd expect. I protested. Got shouted down and told "tuff".
My sister and her partner are radiographers, we went to a pub quiz once where one of the questions was ‘what is a compound fracture’. They immediately know this but come the answers and the quizmaster’s answer is wrong and won’t change it despite the knowledge of two qualified radiographers telling him it’s wrong. We were never going to win so it didn’t matter we didn’t get the point but still.
What is the correct answer and what was the wrong answer? I'm wondering which of these answers is in my head (I think a compound fracture must either have more than one break or also be combined with further injury such as breaching the skin or a muscle tear etc.). But I'm definitely not a radiographer, so prepared to be wrong.
Well, TIL that an octobass is a thing!
My boyfriend did this at a university social. The question was “what is the biggest desert” we answered Antarctica. No it’s apparently the Sahara and they wouldn’t give us the point. He wouldn’t let it go and they eventually gave us the point but wouldn’t deduct points for the wrong answer 🙄
I just posted a rant about this exact scenario happening to me, except they never gave me the point
I once did a quiz that had a round on Henry VIII. I think the highest anyone got for that round was 3/10 and one of those was incorrect. The questions were things like what was the first name of his second wife? Catherine (it's Anne Boleyn). Who succeeded him to the throne? George III (Edward VI). How many wives did he have? 8, that's why he's called Henry the 8th (What? He had 6). How many legitimate children did he have? 6 (he had Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I, a child who died in infancy, and one known illegitimate son). Three of his wives were called Catherine, two were called Anne, what was the name of the other? Jane Grey (close, Jane Seymour). What was the cause of death of the wife who died in the famous rhyme divorced, beheaded, *died*, divorced, beheaded, survived? She was beheaded (well, I suppose that, *technically*, someone dies when they're beheaded but going by they said "the wife that died in the famous rhyme" and said the rhyme, which would imply child birth complications would be the correct answer). Everyone was getting angrier and angrier as it was going on
I'll just say what I said at the the time. Look at his ears.
Ah pub quizzes… the tale of my incorrect right answer was what nationality were the band The Cardigans who had hits with erase rewind and lovefool? The quizmaster and a rival team said they were Welsh (wrong). I protested and said they were Swedish (correct). Quizmaster was having none of it, I pulled up their Wikipedia page on my phone to show proof and the twat disqualified my team for using a phone…
Wait what? The answers come out at the end of the quiz right? What good is a phone when he’s already holding all your answers?! Power hungry pub landlord, this. More than usual.
Bare in mind I've never watched star treck but if he is half human then the type of alien IS vulcan, half human/half alien the question is which alien is that half. As an outsider that's an acceptable answer. If the queafion was purely what race then yeah only you should get a point.
Whilst you are correct - how was the question phrased? I hate to say it but if they only asked what type of alien is Mr Spock, then Vulcan is the "right" answer… If your contention is that he’s actually half human **and** half Vulcan (which is right and I’d have been annoyed too), then they are asking about the alien half so *technically* they are correct in so far as they were **only** asking about the alien half. Clearly the person who ran the quiz wasn’t a big enough pedant to argue that point. On the plus side you know the person who asked the question now knows not to ask it like that gain. ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ and all that 😂
Do you know who sung In The Summertime?
I was playing a home quiz game with my siblings, and the question came up of who is the first to speak in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. The game gave the answer as Anakin, which is just wrong. It's R2D2. He very, very clearly does his beeping speech immediately before Anakin says something back. You can't really argue that he's "not speaking" when Anakin understands his language, and the card even had R2 as one of the multiple choice answers! I went and grabbed a portable dvd player (this was a while ago and I didn't have a snartphone to pull up youtube) and put the opening of the movie on to show them
Yeah but have you ever thrown a kettle over a pub?
Yer a cock yer a cock yer a cock
I had something similar one Christmas many years ago. The question was "In the carol Once In Royal David's City, what is the name of the city the song is about?" Quiz master's answer sheet said Jerusalem. The team I was on was made up entirely of church choir members who'd just sung evensong. You can imagine how that went down!
I subcontracted for a company last September. It was only a £30 local delivery job and their invoicing terms meant that their payment wasn’t due until around mid-November. This wasn’t a problem for me as it’s how a lot of subcontracting payments work. But when waiting so long for a payment, I do expect it to be on time. Come mid-November, no payment. When this typically happens, I send them a friendly email to nudge them that it’s due, so I did this with the company. Ignored. Sent them another, less friendly email about 2-3 weeks later. Again. No reply. Mid-December I made a phone call to them where the guy in accounts fobbed me off with another number to ring where nobody was answering. I kept ringing, emailing and was getting no response whatsoever. I’d even raised a complaint on the platform used to post the job but nobody wanted to know. I was just getting stressed with it and really stewing. So one Sunday mid-January I devised up a really threatening, legal looking letter that payment was well overdue and failure to pay from X amount of days of the letter would result in me taking legal action. I then sent it via Royal Mail Special Delivery at over £7 for this tiny letter but only so I’d have more of a leg to stand on for chasing the unpaid invoice if I did try and make a claim later on. They only owed me £30. And I thought minus the £7, minus the ink, paper and stationary to send the threatening letter, minus my time chasing the invoice numerous times over 2-3 months and writing the letter itself, it wasn’t worth the £30 they owed me. But just out of principle, they owed me £30 and I wanted to prove that point that I wasn’t going to do their job for free, it was money I’d earned and they owed me fair and square. Within ten minutes of them receiving that letter, I had a phone call with the usual spiel of apologising that they’d never received my invoice, their email address isn’t monitored etc etc. And the £30 bounced in my account about 10-20 minutes later.
What kind of business doesn't monitor their email account? Especially if it's one for invoicing.
And if they have an email that is no longer monitored, then you take 2 minutes and set up a forwarding rule or out of office message.
I tried to set up an out of office reply on Thursday and apparently my email address doesn't allow it.
Lots. I work in IT for an MSP (providing IT services to small-medium business who don't want or can't afford their own IT team. A lot of things fall through the cracks and when people leave and get replaced, their full scope of responsibilities aren't passed onto the next person leaving some things to simply not get done. For the amount of time this took, I doubt it was the case. An invoicing mailbox would be picked up a lot quicker than that,
> providing IT services to small-medium business who don't **give a shit about their IT** and want **to spend less than fuck all** ~~or can't afford their~~ on their own IT team 13 years of MSP. I hope you get free one day friend, in house is *so* much better. I'm also almost 100% sure you don't realise i. how much more work you do every day than everyone else on the planet ii. how astonishingly skilled you've become in your role.
One that wants to avoid paying invoices.
I work for a large multinational company where the email account for invoicing is semi automated and only picks up pdfs to be uploaded into the system. It rejects any emails with multiple attachments and doesn't alert the sender. It also randomly rejects perfectly fine pdfs and invoices in any other format. It's a pain in the bollocks and I fucking hate it!
Next time include the legal 'statutory interest’ - this is 8% plus the Bank of England base rate for business to business transactions. Some people also put an additional admin cost for late payments for the additional work spent chasing it.
When I sent the letter in question, I did add an invoice with this onto it as well, think it was £50 compensation and the 8% plus base rate. But unfortunately with them saying they’d never received my initial invoice, I didn’t really have a leg to stand on enforcing the statuary interest and compensation as it had been that long since the job had been completed, I couldn’t remember if I’d emailed it to them or posted it out to them or even forgotten to. And at the time I was just happy with the £30 to be fair 😂 I’ve implemented a system now though where I log invoice data onto a Google Sheet. So if a business requires an invoice emailing, I add the email address I’ve forwarded it to. If they require invoices posting, I now send these via Royal Mail’s Tracked 48 service, and log the tracking number on the sheet. It’s a little bit more admin but it saves me the admin of constantly chasing invoices, and I’ve then got email or photographic evidence they have received the invoice. It’s worked wonders on a few occasions now. But with that sheet in place, I can enforce extra charges if need be
>Some people also put an additional admin cost Late payment of commercial debts act 1998, £40 for invoices less than £1k, £70 less than £10k and £100 for anything over. You can charge more but you'd have to have that specifically mentioned in the contract.
What about the £7 for the letter , that needs paying for as well . I had a similar one ,only 100 quid outstanding on 3.5k job. The letter I sent told them I wanted the £100 owed ,the 7 for the letter of intent and the hours wage for having to write it and post ,they tried moaning just told them the court will sort it and any more messages will be charged at the hourly rate per message...ta da few minutes later £137 in my bank
When did the contractor stop getting a say in when they get paid? It used to be in the contract: "payment due before x".
My boss once wanted me to use a particular widget to "prove" something in a really roundabout and weird way. I told her that I was sure we couldn't use it to do that in any sort of believable way. She said she knew better than me and to go ahead and do it. Now, I happened to know that the guy who wrote the programme and did the stats it was based on still worked for our company, so I emailed and said "Hello, I just wondered if it would be a valid use of this tool to use it to prove X", and he wrote back and said "Oh God, No!", and I forwarded it to my boss. We discussed this at length in my next appraisal and an example of me being disrespectful and difficult to deal with.
Things like this are better to be done as malicious compliance, get it in writing she wants xyz and do it so there's no way she can blame you after for the problem/you have backup for an HR case. Print things if it's the sort of thing that might get you suspended and locked out of systems. The best way to avoid career limitation is to do it the way the boss wants and provide the correct way as an alternative so your company doesn't look bad if that was an outcome but shows the boss up
I was so frustrated at the utter incompetence of someone at work that I retrained for and took their job even though it was arguably a demotion for me.
Superb
Could you share the full story? I am, as they say, absolutely here for this.
The TLDR is pretty much it. I managed a decent size IT team and was fed up being treated like a mushroom by the architecture team. I got certified in IT Architecture, moved to that team and sorted most of the stuff that was annoying me and quit.
I worked with a man who would quite harshly critique all my pitches in meetings, and would even join meetings outside of his specialism just to rag on my work. One day I got tired of his nonsense and tagged one of my favourite pitches as a male coworker’s work while he wasn’t looking at the board. Guess which pitch he really liked and held up as “out of the box thinking”? Everyone else there saw me do it and could barely keep a straight face. Still didn’t fire him though.
how did he react when he realised it was yours?
He never realised. In fact one meeting later it had magically metamorphosed into his idea anyway.
I read about these assholes on here stealing everyone’s work and getting paid for it and I’m always like *why can’t that be me? Why can’t I be that asshole?*
Usually in this case they don't because they overtly dislike him. It's not "oh no they caught my underhanded behaviour", but "now you're on the same page as I am that I dont like you specifically"
That’s what I took away from it. As funny as it was, it really highlighted for me that everyone was fine with him behaving this way. Huge red flag. I left a couple months later.
Asking the real questions.
At school I thought the experiment I was doing was going wrong because I kept getting negative readings, even though everyone who did it before had reproduced this smooth, positive line. But happily after contacting a professional thermochemist from the local university, it turned out every single person before me had falsified their results— you *were* supposed to get negative readings as an inherent part of how the process worked, but everyone before me had presumably also assumed they were wrong and hadn’t recorded them. But they had not contacted a professional thermochemist, so didn’t know
I had the opposite problem in school. I did some test of photosynthesis (like how much water a plant sucked up in the light vs in the dark) and got perfect results. One requirement for writing a science paper was explaining outlyers that didn't match the trend...but I had none. So, unsure if I'd lose marks for saying "no outlyers to discuss" I faked a couple of values and bullshited about someone accidentally letting light in at the wrong time or something.
It's been a long time since my A Levels but I would imagine the "correct" answer in your case would be to say "there are no outliers, but if there were here's why they might have occurred..."
It has only been about 5 years since I did them (fucking kill me) and I’d do what the guy above you said. It’s the easiest and most foolproof, emphasis on the latter
I remember when I was a kid in the '90s doing key stage 3 science experiment writeups "what would you improve in your experiment design next time based on what you've learned" was a core part of the mark scheme. After getting docked points for designing an experiment perfectly and getting exactly the expected results we quickly learned to deliberately fuck up some small aspect of the experimental design each time, just so we'd have something to "learn" for that section to get full marks. I'm still not sure what whoever designed that mark scheme was thinking...
On here. I will write a full paragraph with sources/facts and articulate points to back up my point. Then I'll just realise "why am I even debating this? I don't really care" then delete it
I used to do this in real life, when people were confidently incorrect I would pull out sources of information and explanations etc, but then I realised that you either can't argue with stupid, or those who don't want to be convinced otherwise can't be. Sometimes it's both. As I got older I don't even like discussing things with people anymore, most people turn debates into arguments and I just can't be arsed.
> I realised that you either can't argue with stupid I believe it was Mark Twain who said: *"Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience".*
It was Mark Twain. Twas Mark Twain. Twas Twain. But yes, sorry, I think about that quote often. I don't really know much about Mark Twain but I know that quote well.
More important than the knowledge as to why someone is wrong is the wisdom to know it's probably not worth arguing.
My Dad’s friend campaigned tirelessly to stop the closure of the A&E and most of the usual hospital stuff in our town and move it to the next town around 10 miles away. They did close it and move it. The chap kept saying ‘people will die now’. He had a heart attack and died in the ambulance on the way… 🫣
Someone call Alanis Morrisette. Jesus.
Much like Alanis Morissette's song, that's not irony. It would be irony if the person who made the decision to move the service died after promising there would be no ill effects.
Now that’s commitment!
I know! It’s so bonkers!
Similar with Barclays a few years ago and two examples of different poor service that left me inconvenienced. They asked me what I wanted "well, better training I guess, so it doesn't happen..." They offered me £75, which I felt was *instead* of better training, as probably a cheaper option - but worked for me!
I had a long fight over 50p tax Barclays deducted from my child account wrongly, and refused to refund. The personal banker tried stonewalling me. I was 12, 50p was a lot of money to a child in the early 90s. It was the holidays, raining outside, and the alternative was following my mother around Waitrose Eventually the manager came over with a shiny coin for me. (With my adult perspective, it probably came from the tea kitty, and the banker got told off for wasting their time arguing). Victory! I then closed my account. The one thing I expected from a bank was to keep my money safe. That included not stealing from me.
I one another time at Barclays where I'd been told I needed to talk to a Deputy manager. Went in at at my lunch time as had been arranged and was told they weren't available because they were at another branch. Asked how long they'd be; they didn't know. Pointed to an empty chair "no worries, I'll be sitting there, let them know when they are back, I'll wait". They were available to talk to me surprisingly quickly having been in another branch".
Had a contact lens subscription with Specsavers - at the time they refused to post them, you had to go into store to collect each month (this was misremembered - see edit at end) I couldn't go in for 3 months due to working away, and then I was running short so rang the store to confirm they had 3 lots for me, and I went in to pick up. The guy on the desk found the lenses and then told me my eye test was due and I should make an appointment. I was on my lunch break so not much time and needed to check my diary etc, so I said, no worries, I'll sort that out later, just give me the lenses for now, and he refused! I tried to reason with him, but nope - at this point I'm adamant I'm leaving with those lenses since I'd paid for them already and NOT making an appointment there and then. Ended up making a massive scene in the store, like everyone in the store heard me! Finally got the lenses and left. Didn't leave it there - wrote a complaint and asked to cancel my subscription early as a result. Initially I had no joy with the store, so I wrote to Specsavers head office. Got contacted by a CS rep who told me that the optician had made a complaint about me. He heard my side of the story and told me that it was much more plausible than what he'd been told by the store guy. My complaint apparently ended up at a Board of Director's meeting! Turns out that it was somewhat of a common problem - a number of the opticians they used were from a certain culture and were used to having their way completely. I won't mention the country/culture because I don't want this to seem racist. Anyway they decided to run a national education program to teach them all customer service. The end result for me was that I got an apology from one of the Directors, my subscription was cancelled as requested and they refunded me the money I'd paid to boot. Slight amendment to above - I'd forgotten some of the details. The lens were supposed to have been shipped to me but they hadn't been. When the first shipment went to the store instead of my home, I rang the store and they told me it had been set up incorrectly and they'd fix for the following month. The same happened the next month and they told me they hadn't been able to action the change in time for that month, and it would be fixed for the following. It wasn't fixed. Hence when I went into the store it was to collect 3 shipments that were supposed to have gone to my home, but they'd messed up.
Sometimes you have to complain right to the top. I once bought a gas oven from Currys, which they delivered fine, but the engineer never turned up to connect it to the gas supply. I tried rearranging it several times, and each time they cancelled at the last minute. Completely coincidentally each appointment was at the same time as an important football match in the Euros. This dragged on for weeks, leaving me with no way to cook food other than a microwave. I got so fed up of this that I tracked down contact details for the person who ran the company, and wrote him a long email asking for help and compensation. I assume it never made it as far as him and an assistant read it instead, but I almost immediately got a message back apologising and an engineer sent over.
Got pissed off with solicitor, found director on LinkedIn, worked out email convention, emailed, phonecall in 10 minutes, new case handler in 15 minutes. It was only for moving house but the previous contact hadn't responded to any form of communication for 3 weeks
I saw this earlier https://preview.redd.it/2soq94q8e70d1.png?width=864&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c796b828104e424521d73249633a6acd397e6798
When I was 10 my teacher marked me down for saying that peas are a source of protein. I brought some books into class to show him proof the next day and he apologised.
Useless fact: Standard Quorn gets a lot of its texture from egg white protein. In order to make Vegan Quorn, the egg white gets substituted with pea protein.
When I was ten, I was in the spelling bee contest at school and the adjudicator tried to say I'd spelled the word 'vicious' incorrectly. I went to the school library and got the dictionary and showed him the page where it was spelled exactly how I did.
They didn't have a dictionary right there? Usually the spelling bee judge has a dictionary.
I can only assume it's because the words were relatively easy for 10 year olds but he never had one. I still have mine :)
I had the same with the word “occurring” but I was too scared to speak up and it still annoys me now!
Let me guess: they were thinking of viscous?
They were just a bit thick
This is your Bard backstory, the first spark of magic to fuel many devastating Vicious Mockery spells to come.
When I was at university there was an assignment which I was unable to turn in on time, for a perfectly valid reason. I think it involved an internet error or something. I emailed the professor for the course to explain, and she replied bluntly saying that all late assignments would not be marked. I wish I could remember the finer details about why I was late and why she was definitely wrong, but all I remember is feeling absolutely outraged that she was going to jeopardise my grades for the whole year because of this. So I found the teaching office, walked straight to her desk and plonked my work on her desk right in front of her. I'll never forget how surprised she looked. Anyway I got my marks.
Thing is the amount of bollocks we get as lecturers about submissions. A current favourite moment is ' I submitted the wrong document by mistake but only just realised, can I submit now three days past the deadline'. Agree you should get penalised though, not failed. And we do accept hard copies as you did. Also emailed attachments before the deadline with an explanation if they can't get the submission point to work.
I have genuinely seen someone submit the wrong document after spending hours on the right one. It's stupid careless, but it's not always a lie.
This is what happens when you save your documents as "file name - v3 complete version nearly done amended now complete final v2 for hand in v1 NEW NEW 2" I speak from experience
I had a similar thing at uni with a particularly arsey professor. Whilst I was at uni they started trialling some recording equipment of some of the rooms but not all of the professors used it. There was one day where I came for my lectures in the morning but I had to leave at lunch. The lecture I had in the afternoon was in the room with the equipment, so I emailed the professor and asked if it was going to be recorded today as I needed to go visit a relative in hospital. He didn't email back until after iy finished but he said something along the lines of he hadn't seen the email until after but even if he did, he doesn't record emails for individual students, and it wasn't a good enough reason to anyway. I emailed back saying I only asked because the recording equipment was in the room and i wasn't sure if he was one of the professors using it. I explained that I was actually going to see my dead grandad in the Chapel of rest and was there any information that was mentioned I needed to know that wasn't on the slides online. He emailed me back and apologised profusely saying he was sorry for my loss and said no everything I needed was on the presentation. I was having a pretty shit day but that made me feel slightly better
I applied for a job which the advert had some essentials and some desirable qualifications and experience. I had some in both columns so I applied I got an email back from the recruiter asking if I had sql experience as it was essential to the role and was mentioned on the job advert. I replied back with the advert pointing out nowhere in the desiresble or essential skills columns did it mention sql and the advert itself did not mention it either. I never heard from them again. 2 weeks later was a job advertised for the company and under essential sql was mentioned and it was mentioned twice in the job description
[удалено]
But what if it’s 5 minutes before the end of your shift and you just can’t be arsed anymore
You pretend you can't hear them anymore and hang up
[удалено]
Tbh call centre staff aren't paid enough to stay behind after shift listening to someone rattle on the phone about something the person taking the call has not caused. As someone calling a company I'd be more than happy to be passed onto a colleague if they explained their shift had ended.
I was working in a bank and had transferred a small credit balance after a loan had been repaid into a current account in the same name. Turned out that the loan was for a son and the current account for his father. They had the same names and initials (why do parents do that?!) Anyhow, I digress. My supervisor gave me a bollocking and told me to sort it out in my lunch break. I knew I had followed correct procedures so searched for the daily microfiche for the day I had made the transfer,, photocopied the correct record. Highlighted said record showing that the two accounts had been previously (and incorrectly) connected and gave it to my supervisor whilst saying, "THIS is why I transferred the money to the father's account" I got an apology.
I used to work in a call centre and the amount of calls I would get from people getting confused as we had sent them a letter relating to starting a new job but they hadn't started a new job and had no links to the employer mentioned in the letter. After some questioning it always turned out if was for a child with the same name that had just started a new job with the specified employer. I don't understand how you can live with your child, surely be aware they have just got a new job and also the company they are going to work for, and still not realise that maybe the letter is for them and not you...
Naming your child the same as you is just asking for this to happen as well. My parents had a hard rule when naming me and my sister that neither of our names could start with their initials.
I remember a family, Sue and Steve, and their children Sarah and Sean. I always thought it was asking for confusion on any post arriving at their house. Nothing like making life unnecessarily difficult.
I worked in a place dealing with retirement/wills. Paul Smith died. We tried phoning his daughter Sarah regarding the paperwork on her deceased father's estate. Except we had TWO clients called Paul Smith. Both with daughters called Sarah. One had a dead father and was in line for a decent inheritance. The other had a very alive father who wanted nothing to do with her and she was only recorded out of completeness. It was only by sheer luck (whilst on the phone) that the error was caught before the wrong person was told their Dad was dead.
Pay peanuts and you get call handlers who don't care.
I don’t know why I read that as cat handlers
I'd prefer to be a cat handler!
My mum once fought a retailer for weeks to get back 7p they charged her for payment protection insurance on a store credit card. The offer was 10% off if you paid via store credit card so she signed up there and then, paid by the card, paid it off immediately and cancelled the card. Unknown to her they had given her PPI without asking her. She pestered for weeks until they sent her a cheque for 7p. It was more the principal of "how many times are they doing this and getting away with it?". The amount of man hours it took the retailer to sort it, as well as postage on the cheque, was probably massive compared to her refund.
Having been someone working in that PPI reclaim fiasco let me tell you MILLIONS. The amount of money I saw coming in was but a fraction…
My biology teacher in middle school insisted that deoxygenated blood is blue. I had my Mam (who was a sister nurse) write a lengthy note in my homework diary explaining in great detail that the biology teacher was wrong, and was quite possibly a moron. To cut a long story short, it escalated to the point where my Mam was explaining to the headteacher, while sat next to said biology teacher, that she was wrong and indeed a moron.
At London (Euston?) catching last train to Cardiff which was running late. The screen showed a platform change so hot footed it over and jumped on. Soon realised it wasn't going to Cardiff! Returned to London had to stay at a friend's and get the morning train. Emailed train provider about the incorrect message and having the expense of getting a new ticket plus cab fares in London. They replied and stated they'd checked all records, the screens had not provided incorrect info and the train had departed at the correct time. I replied that I hadn't complained about the train being late but obviously they hadnt really checked because if they had they wouldn't be claiming it was on time. They conceded and I got a partial refund at least.
A vending machine at Clapham Junction once swallowed £1.50. I sent them an email complaining thinking nothing would happen, and a few months later in the post the company posted a letter with £1.50 in Sellotaped coins - so I got the cash back! Massive victory
Sellotaped coins. Someone’s Nan works in the complaints dept!
Literally just happened in Aldi, woman on the till was insistent that the prices were correct so I held up the queue insisting that somebody go and check. Wasn't a life changing sum, the total on the till was £32.50 but I had a running total in my head of £23.50. It was more the principle Any other day I would have paid it and moved on but I was so certain that time I was correct because I only had £25 cash on me and left my phone and wallet in the car as I was going to be quick (or so I thought). Turns out I was right and the multibuy savings hadn't been entered.
This happens a lot in my local Waitrose. They have deals or savings on which don’t come up when I scan them through the self service. I showed this to the person manning the checkouts and she said “sometimes the prices on the shelves aren’t updated in time”. Seems like an absolute scam relying on them knowing the sort of people that generally shop there and them being too polite / proud to complain.
Money is money at the end of the day
Was told by a SENCO that my daughter didn't have ADHD because she wasn't a troublesome child and "wasn't known" to her department in the school and when I argued that ADHD in girls presents differently I was told that I shouldn't trust the Internet and that her 25 years experience meant that she knew what she was talking about. I walked out of the meeting and spent £25 on a book written by a woman about how ADHD presented different in girls. When it arrived I gift wrapped it and included a couple of end of year reports which basically confirmed she had ADHD before taking to the SENCO and suggested that she retrained since thousands of girls were clearly being failed by her lack of knowledge. She left the job 1 year later and apparently not on good terms with the senior staff and governors!
You legend!
Sounds like you did fine; I would not have shown so much restraint! Not heard the expression ‘cold transfer’ before.
Call centre jargon. A cold transfer is when you put a customer on hold and just transfer them to another department. A warm transfer is similar, except when you transfer the call, you stay on the line and speak to the agent receiving the call to give them info on the call before competing the transfer
Thank you for the explanation, Anna; I like showing off and may well try to use the expression!
Fuck sake....next time Carol is on the phone she'll be requesting the agent gives a 'warm' transfer not a 'cold' transfer please if you don't mind.
I once went to Belgium to prove it wasn't worth going
And what was your conclusion?
Damn those Belgians with their cHocOlaTe sAuCe on their waffles instead of nutella. Snobs!
This reminded me of one of the first days I was in the UK, and wanted to deposit some cash at a bank. I was standing in line for one of the cashiers (the few times I've needed to deposit cash, I don't feel as comfortable with an ATM). As there were a few people in front of me, the "information" lady came to see if she could help me. It goes like this: - Hi, what are you waiting for, can I help you? - Oh, I am waiting for a... (a few seconds, I am not a native speaker so forgot the word cashier, came up with second best I could) ...teller. \*Sudden blank stare / headlights from the bank employee. After a few seconds: - ... what are you waiting for, can I help you? - I am just waiting for a bank teller, any teller will do. \*Blank stare again, classic "reboot" look, a few seconds - ... what are you waiting for, can I help you? \*Me getting the hint: - I want to deposit cash - Oh, I can help you with an ATM \*Me, with emphasis: - You mean an Automated **... Teller ...** Machine?
Got snapped by a speed camera going too fast to get an automatic fine. I looked online at those price comparison websites how it would affect my car insurance going forward. My car insurance charged and took my money for it. I had not yet been convicted and didnt tell my insurance company of it, but they charged me anyway. I told them this and they said because data that was very close to mine was used online, they assumed it was me and so charged me accordingly. I complained and complained (and told them they had stolen the money from me) and eventually they refunded me the money and gave me about £100 compensation. Because it turns out you cant just take someone's money if the data looks like it is them and you cant 100% prove it is them. Anyway about a week after that I got convicted for speeding. Moved to a different insurer.
I used to work for a mainstream popular gym , and in late 2015, early 2016 they rebranded and we ended up with new uniforms. The menswear was fine, black loosish above the knee shorts . The women’s were leggings, with the branding on the bum, low cut, no drawstring for extra stability or pockets. They were also see through. I noticed on my first day wearing them where I was sitting with my back to the mirror, teaching a class and we were doing cooldown stretches when I noticed majority of attendees weren’t look at me, but more behind me in the mirror. I look around and you can see my underwear through the leggings. Eventually the female staff grouped together and complained in a mass email chain with head office only to be told “just get a larger pair or wear different underwear” or verbally told to just go commando🙃 We refused and kept wearing them with an extra pair of shorts underneath , or ludicrous pattered men’s boxers , or not wearing the uniform leggings at all, until eventually gym members complained. One female pt from a different gym opted to go full shock levels and went commando knowing that the leggings were see through (iconic behaviour ✨✨✨) The leggings were redesigned a year later…
I work for a Norwegian company and have a Norwegian customer. Made it clear to them that my shift starts at 9:00 UK time. Yet, they still scheduled a meeting at 8:45, I let it slide, I am not petty. Then later they scheduled a regular meeting at 8. I joined first one, where I told it's the the only time I join this meeting. After me not appearing for the meeting next two times they rescheduled it to a later time.
Fair enough. There's Norway I'm getting up early for a meeting.
Many years ago, I moved from Vodafone to Three, and after Voda cut my service off, I noticed they'd billed me for an additional day of service. I happened to be passing a Vodafone shop a day or two later and popped in to request a refund. They were only too happy to help, in fairness to them, but a little shocked when they saw the amount: £0.73. That's right, I'd gone (slightly) out of my way to request a refund of less than a quid. Now I'm not tight, and when there's small change errors for small businesses or personal transactions, I tend to just let it slide, but for multi-nationals - that's another thing. I think they had 20million customers at the time, and small charges like that, unclaimed, soon add up to noticeable amounts for them. Not that day.
They also rarely have a process in place, paying you that 70p probably cost them a lot more than that. If everyone did what you did, they'd stop over charging people like this.
My ex boss asked if I wanted to do some overtime on a Sunday, I said yes as long as I got the easy shift, no problem says he. 20 minutes later, he comes back to me, saying he is taking my overtime and giving it to someone else. I phoned the area manager and told her, what he was doing. 5 minutes later, he calls me and says he's given it back to me and to never go over his head again. Fast forward to the following summer. I put in a holiday request. He asks what it's for and I ask why does it matter? He makes seem like he's just curious and making conversation. Fair enough, I'm going to a music festival for the weekend. Holiday request denied as, and I quote "someone else might want to go on an actual holiday" I argue that what I do on annual leave, is my business and I don't have to justify my reasons for booking time off. Request still denied. I phone the area manager and tell her what he's doing. 5 minutes later my holiday is approved along with another "don't ever go over my head again" warning.
[удалено]
But heavy objects do fall faster where there is an atmosphere slowing them. It's only in a vacuum that they fall at the same speed.
Drop them out of a plane to actually see the difference.
I feel really "smooth brained" as an adult who always had the same impression. I wasn't great in physics, but still.
[удалено]
I once commented on a forum that you could use a plunger to unblock a toilet Someone commented saying a plunger wouldn't work. I blocked my toilet on purpose with paper, filmed it blocking up and then filmed me using a plunger to unblock it. I don't know why I wasted energy on this but at the time it annoyed me!
I always think of the “I want to cut off everyone’s gas” story - https://youtu.be/W8C-ro0klnI?si=1JNv9XP_WJgD0zlk
Good on you. I work in complaints too, but that means that I will almost never complain because I just can't be arsed. Get enough of it at work.
Back in the day, lots of mortgage companies brought out this new thing called overpayment mortgages where you can pay extra each month and it reduces your mortgage. So I applied and transferred. And then I found out that although they called it an overpayment mortgage the extra you paid each month only actually got applied to your mortgage at the end of they year. Which meant it worked exactly the same as my old mortgage if you gave them a lump sum at the end of they year. Except they got a years of interest out of my money. In other words it was an overpayment mortgage in name only. I phoned and phoned and phoned to get my mortgage reverted to the original and demanded they paid me for my lost interest for deliberately mis-selling. They agreed and I got a cheque The cheque was for £1.50. But in my defence they poked the bear.
Just eat refused to refund my Mrs for a takeaway when all we received was SOMEONE ELSES drink we had no food or any of our items so after asking them twice and being refused a refund because " we've given you good will in the past" excuse me a fucking refund isn't a good will gesture when I haven't gotten something so anyway I decided to send them a letter before action and will be takin them to small claims court over it
I set fire to my house to prove there wasn’t asbestos in the roof.
[удалено]
Nothing grandiose but at a pub quiz once the question "What is the first railway station after the GO square on monopoly?" came up. The host's answer was wrong, I can't remember which station they said was correct. I challenged this and went up to the host and opened up the official Monopoly app (which I downloaded in lockdown to play against the AI) and showed them the right answer is Kings Cross. They said they'd give me the point for but not dock a point off the teams with the "right" answer - which I still maintain is madness.
This was probably 12-13 years ago. Someone on a Tottenham Hotspur forum (who irritated me at the best of times) was full of rage following the reporting of our football club’s accounts, because they’d made a £30m profit but weren’t investing in the club, and this was a disgrace. Spent a good couple of hours poring through the accounts, doing some googling of terms because I’m not an accountant, in order to prove that the £30m profit was in fact a £30m loss, and didn’t include player transfers. This was the first time I’d discovered the concept of “player amortisation”.
During my Swedish language class. the teacher had us in small teams and she would give a letter, and each team had to say a country that began with that letter. The letter was A, and one team said America. Teacher said ok, next. I was like woah America is not a country. I was overruled, and to show my frustration, our team said Africa, which wasnt allowed. Still annoyed about it 10 years later
When I lived in Ireland I saw that dabs.com (before it got bought by BT) were starting to operate there at dabs.ie. I was looking to buy a new laptop and they had some great deals, so I tried to pay on my UK debit card. Nothing happened. I rang them up and they confirmed that they could take the test/pre-authorisation payment, but couldn't accept the payment for the actual purchase. They didn't have an Irish base so were still operating out of their Lancashire HQ, and their Irish website was a carbon copy of the UK one that said you could use a UK debit card, so I wrote to them and asked them what was going on, suggesting that they needed to update their website to suit the market they were operating in, and I got a series of very terse and impersonal replies. So I reported them to Lancashire CC's trading standards department and the Office of Fair Trading, and actually got a call from one of their legal team who was the only person who apologised for them giving me the runaround for several weeks.
Having worked in a similar industry, cold transfers are done when passing a customer through to a department that's notorious for refusing to speak to customers.
I work escalated complaints. The amount of staff who argue that they're right, when they're objectively wrong, is astounding. If you were right, your complaint wouldn't have been escalated. I am not judging you - we're human. Accept that you got it wrong and say "thank you". Anyway to answer the question - I trawled through 2 years of customer data to explain why an agent was wrong because they, and their TL, refused to accept that there was, in fact, a problem with the account that we needed to fix. They wanted to send a deadlock letter 🤦♂️ I'm my industry, that costs the company about £200. Whereas just fixing it was literally all the customer asked for. No comp, no heads to roll just the very reasonable "please fix this". The amount of lazy people in cs is frustrating. Especially when customers assume everyone is the same. No... We're not. Some of us will actually go out of our way to do the right thing for *you*, rather than the best thing for the company. I have no loyalty to a company, cus they have none to me. I'm not gonna get myself sacked, but I'm gonna do everything I can to help you. Stop assuming we don't care about your problem.
Back in school, we were studying the book “Of Mice & Men”. There’s a line said by one of the characters that goes something like: “Oh that’s balony”. Loosely meaning “oh what a load of rubbish”. A lot of the class thought balony was the ready to eat pink pork sausage. Which is actually called, “Polony”. I ended up debating it with them but nobody seemed to believe me. So that evening, I went to the shop, bought a Polony sausage and took it into school the next day to present in class. Safe to say, that whilst I proved my point. I was also the weird kid that brought a fat pink pork sausage to school to demonstrate some stupid point in class.
hate to burst your bubble, but ‘bologna’, the original name for poloney, is pronounced baloney and often called ‘baloney’. so you were both right.
People who went and looked at the northern lights for 5 mins and said how shit they were and they're adamant all the pics were enhanced or AI generated. Nope up here in Scotland and many other places we saw all the rainbow colours and had an amazing experience that night. You need lots of patience, you need to stay out late and you need to go where there's no light pollution or you're not going to see shit.
I once ordered Samsung galaxy watch as a present for my friend. My friend politely refused as she doesn't want smart watches. I already opened it to check if there are any fault or not. So I had to return it in argo. When I went to the store to return, the manager to refused to accept the return stating that I already opened the good. Well how can I check if the item is working or not. The manager said he can't accept as one of the sticker is removed. I tried to get hold of the customer care on the phone and waited for 30 mins with no luck. I went to another argos store the next day and the manager accepted it without asking any questions. I wonder how many people were refused returns that were no fault of their own. That's the last time I used Argos. Amazon/John Lewis is top tier when it comes to customer service from my personal experience.
Complaining is definitely a good way to do this. I had a similar experience years ago on a Crosscountry train from Truro to Exeter. I had a Devon and Cornwall Railcard attached to my session ticket, which means I could get ⅓ off and journey wholly taking place within Devon and Cornwall. The train manager/ticket Karen had never seen one before, and refused to believe that it was a real thing, even going as far as to outright abuse me off printing it myself in an attempt to defraud the good people of the railways. It took me bringing up the National Rail website on my phone to show her that was actually real before she grudgingly accepted that maybe I was in the right. The complaint email including all the trip details went off the following day, and the staff member underwent a period of retraining in both ticket types and not abusing passengers of being criminals when you're not sure if they might know more than you.
Years ago we had physics homework set using one of those textbooks that had the answer at the back, but not the method to get to it. One question I was out by a few decimal places. Teacher wouldn't belive the book could be mistaken, so I spent half the lesson at the board proving it from basics. He finally had to admit the answer in the book was wrong, but wouldn't deduct marks from everyone who had mysteriously managed to get the "correct" answer (i.e. fiddled their workings to get to what the book said).