They definitely do ice cold beer and glasses in Greece.
Steel yourself Jim, Xavier's lining up a bunga bunga party and you might be publicly molested by a prositute.
They definitely do ice cold beer and glasses in Greece.
Steel yourself Jim, Xavier's lining up a bunga bunga party and you might be publicly molested by a prositute.
Originally Posted by Manc
These lined up nicely. Jimmy’s tractor diaries are always a good read. Keep em coming.
Pub is under new management. It’s a hell of a lot better but I’ve also been given day shifts which are the absolute pits.
I’m fucked. Checked my taxable pay and even if I lob 100% of my salary into pension in March I’m still over the threshold. Did it anyway because I might as well shove it in pension rather than pay an effective 63% tax.
Better not forget to switch it back in March.
Looking forward to torture in September as I scramble to do a tax return.
Apparently I can tweak my pension any time (although the window on the website says I have two days) so I've bumped up to 9%. If the rumoured pay bump hits in the summer, I'll max it out.
Back to training next week and we're hiring new agency staff. No doubt I'll be training some of them as well.
I had a quick glance at the FAQs and I think I can change it each month.
If not, I’ve locked myself into 0% salary for the next 10 months, which would be brilliant.
I went to Babahoyo today and grafted about 10 hours there to come away with a $14,000 order.
I can guarantee that you haven't been to Babahoyo, no one you know has been to Babahoyo, and no one they know has been to Babahoyo. What a place.
The Wiki page is incredible.
It is a prototype of the activity and height of different orders of national life, and will continue to be so, because it has its own resources; it is the backbone of two regions: coast and mountains; being the most influential point in between the two, where the forces of many enterprising villages are bonded; because here the agricultural and commercial aspirations were founded.
Why I do I feel like there's a Geoguessr round related to this entire trip?
We are now entering the worst part of the year for me. Rent Review season. Always an annoying time, but this year the government have capped rent increases at 7%, which we have implemented, and people are not going to be happy.
The letters only went out Wednesday afternoon, and already the emails and call back requests are rolling in.
My first one is from a lady that lives in the same block as her sister and her sister is paying less rent than her. She NEEDS to know why. So now I get to phone her and explain that developments are made up of various tenancy types, from Social rents to affordable rents (that aren't particularly affordable) and they're set at a different percentage of the market average. It's basically luck of the draw which one you get, and no that isn't fair, and yes I understand why you're upset, I know, I hear you, it's terrible isn't it? When all I want to scream is UNIVERSAL CREDIT ARE PAYING YOUR FULL FUCKING RENT ANYWAY YOU FUCKING IDIOT.
At the other end of the scale I've just picked up a case for a bloke who was told to make a note of his desktop shortcuts and shared mailboxes so he doesn't lose them when we reset his profile to try and fix an issue and he's responded saying it's too "difficult and worrying."
Imagine your life being so easy this constitutes "worrying."
To top it all off it transpires he's a mental health first aider. Fat lot of use he's going to be if somebody comes to him with an actual crisis.
Leave him alone.
I'm a twit
More of an island/beach resort thing I'd say, but ye it's fairly common.
I always liked to imagine these people were just a figment of the Daily Mail's imagination but jesus christ almighty.
It's 2.10am in Guayaquil and I've just come back from Sr. Xavier's party. Absolutely no idea how I had the strength to come through it, at one point I thought it was never going to end and I'd actually physically accessed one of the circles of hell.
I'm not telling you the whole lot but if you want a flavour, his living room / party room / bar room (all one large salon) is dominated, decor-wise, by a fifteen foot high floor-to-ceiling painting of a tiger.
Alright People, it took a while, but we're finally going Scarface.
Did you partake in the yayo, Jim?
First you get the tractor parts then you get the women. So ... erm ... try to look like you're into it.
Longer version. We went to Sr Xavier's shop at the end of the working day. He whisked us into his car and off we went into what must be a rich suburb and pulled into his house. I only saw one room in his house, but what a room - like I said, the fifteen foot high tiger painting is what first catches the eye, but there's also a bar, an oil painting of Lionel Messi, a huge Ecuador flag, several replica World Cup trophies gleaming around the room. A long table was set and there was some help which I can only reasonably call a butler, since he was constantly on hand to top up your drinks, and dressed like he was about to take on Nigel Bond for a place in the UK Championship last 32.
First of all things seemed to be going ok: guests gradually arrived for what appeared to be a dinner party. Most of them were part of a vast, sprawling extended family (who also make up the employees of the family business) and I couldn't get all the names or who was married to who. His son, also Xavier, appeared with his novia Paulina of whom more later. His brother was there, then some old geezer who he said was also his brother but looked 20 years older. There were loads of interchangeable women, most of them dressed up whereas none of the men were. I was placed opposite a bloke called Edison who was nice but enjoyed the sound of his own voice. His wife was awful. All of them were very friendly. I would say, from the two countries I've been to so far, Latin Americans are more friendly than anyone that exists in Europe or North America.
Eventually some food was served - once you've had one meal in this region you've had them all (some meat, rice, and slimy vegetables). Full dinner party style conversation ensued. At times I was embarrassed because although I'm probably at the top of the tree for Spanish skills if you limit the field to people who have never lived in a Spanish speaking country, when 15 muchachos are talking at once it can be hard to keep the thread. I held my own pretty well and kept thinking, you know, I'm a lot better at Spanish than any of these fucks are at English, so I'm doing better than they would be in the reverse situation. This kind of logic is the only technique I really have to keep my confidence up, as I tend to lose it quickly otherwise, both as a foreigner and one of life's natural introverts.
I was thinking right, you just have to get through this meal and you can get back to the hotel and everything will be fine. No. After we finish up, three blokes and about five women file into the room carrying a large speaker, some jungle drums, and a tin bucket which turns out also to be a percussion instrument. One of the blokes is in a sort of beige tracksuit with a shabby cap, and he's the lead singer. Another, with a hawaiian shirt, plays the drums; the third hits the bucket with a stick. The Ecuadorean classics start rolling, to the sound of a really naff backing track. After a few songs, people start dancing. Now, there is nothing in the world I hate more than dancing. I am bad at it and it makes me deeply unhappy, so in normal circumstances I just don't do it, following the principle that if things really make you feel uncomfortable then why do them. In order to try and validate the host's hospitality and look like I'm enjoying myself, I got up and shuffled through a couple of songs, much to their good-natured amusement.
I sat down again and in the endless, endless period of time that followed they dragged me up maybe a couple more times. However, in a way, sitting down watching was almost worse, because it meant I had to bear witness to what my elderly colleague was getting up to. Now, this guy is 79 years old, so in a sense it's quite impressive that he's up on the dancefloor at all. However, I started feeling quite uncomfortable in the way he was constantly inviting the youngest three women to dance with him - not in a lovable grandad dances with the girls way, but in a really squeezy breasty dirty old man way. Many more men then you want to admit are basically creeps, and he is one of them (I didn't get the same vibes from any of the Ecuadoreans).
Towards the end of this hellscape, probably the best looking of the women there (if I am any judge) decided to adopt me as her useless Latin dancing partner so that saw out the last few songs and finally it was time to fuck off. I watched the cringe on the face of Xavier's daughter in law as my elderly compadre slobbered all over her. Even though I'd contributed very little to the evening in terms of conversation or bailando, they were all really nice to me at the end and told me how wonderful it was I was visiting their country, etc. I came away thinking well, you know what, I did as well as I could here. Now I just have to spend another 11 days travelling with this man I know to be a dirty old perve. Profesionalismo.
That sounds absolutely brilliant. What a night!
Stunning.
How did the old guy get on with the conversation at dinner?
There's a sitcom in this.
He's lived in Mexico for 40 years, so no problem, even though he speaks it in a Yorkshire accent.
No wonder laddo isn't keen to finish up and retire to the land of Yewtree.
I definitely got the sense that he has a last dance feeling on this trip. When he wasn't groping women 50+ years his junior he was sitting moaning that the music was too loud and why couldn't they play God Save the King instead.
Ah, I thought he didn't speak Spanish like the guy you were travelling with in France.
This is Jim's warm up to a life where he takes over and has to go to Xavier Sr's parties every three months.
You should collect evidence of his letchery and use it to userp his position Jim.
Old Father Time should do my work for me on that one.
As if anyone would care.
He's not old enough to ascend the ladder.
Indeed. If anything, egg him on and hide/swap out his heart medication.
Isn't this whole trip kinda your audition to take on one of these roles from the ancient fuckers?
In all probability yeah, but these guys just don't retire so he'll have to be punted from above.
The 82 year old guy at the company had his retirement announced for him last week but then claimed he wasn't going anywhere. Fun times.
It’s absolutely crazy you’re still even working there. Glutton for punishment?
I assume the money's alright. Plus the backhanders.
If he’s not getting paid for every second he’s travelling or the salary isn’t massive then he’s just nuts.
He spent years with the South Koreans as well so he probably does like the grind.
My basic salary has doubled in the last 8 years (across two companies) without me ever kicking up much of a fuss about anything, and now I'm weeks from going onto a salary + commission I believe. Quiet extreme competence is the strategy that suits me.
The one time I lolled them off was when they wanted me to go and work off site in Hampshire using my personal laptop. I said I wouldn't go unless they gave me a company laptop. The MD had a massive cry and said the company didn't have the resources to just give people laptops willy nilly. I said well you've just been bought out for £12 million so you should have the resources. About twenty minutes after that I had a laptop.
And got to go visit a dog in the process.
I'm a twit
It’s always just a pet hate of mine.
Probably more than a pet one.
While I respect that, if you're in sales, you should probably be blowing your own trumpet a bit more.
If that ever becomes mission critical then I'll probably have to stop, as I'm just not that guy. In a way it's an advantage as customers don't care as long as product and price are good, while internally I'm always confounding their expectations and flipping the bigger egos, or should I say the louder egos - I am aware of my own strengths as well as weaknesses, as one must be in any job.
Same here. I'm not interesting in climbing the ladder. I could land a senior admin or team leader job but I detest the idea of taking extra time (unpaid) just to get today's work done.
There’s not climbing the ladder and there’s not being a doormat.
I mean, I literally am climbing the ladder. It just doesn't suit me to whinge all the time. They have 12 sales guys or something who travel weekends and aren't paid for it, why would they change it for me.
They don’t have to change anything, but you’d get that paid in 95% of proper companies that you’re well qualified for. Keeping an employee meek is a long known tactic.
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