General Funny or frustrating work situations

[bruce]

My story about Kauaeranga Valley is scarier than that, luckily I was not there at the time.

One of my mates was living up there, so one summers day years ago, him his missus and a few mates are up at the swimming hole, anyway ex Greens leader Jeanette Fitzsimons and her husband arrive to have a swim, no big deal until they both completely strip off and go swimming in the bollocky, he said even that was ok as the could just ignore them as most of the time they were both under the water, but he said when the ol boy stood up in waist deep water and she swam towards him like Bruce out of Jaws looking to swallow any piece of meat floating near the surface they decided even that was too dodgy and swimming in the ocean with a real Great White was less disturbing.

Dodgy work story about her, they have a little farm up that way, in the middle of a total fire ban her and hubby decide to light a fire to clear scrub or rubbish or some fuckin thing. When the fire brigade turn up to put it out and then fine her she said they shouldn't as she knew how to control her burn off because she was an enviromentalist or some such bullshit. She also used to drive a shitty little smoke belching Datsun 120Y (still might) and claimed she didn't need a new car because of global warming etc. Stupid bitch my FPV Falcon used less fuel and was cleaner burning than that piece of shit.

Fuckin unshaven hippy.


NEW ZEALAND
Green leader burns as firemen fume
6 Jan, 2006 1:03am
3 minutes to read
By: Simon O'Rourke


Greens leader Jeanette Fitzsimons and her husband, Harry Parke, are in hot water with the Thames Fire Service for breaching a strict fire ban on New Year's Eve, but they have escaped prosecution.

Fire officers are furious that during days of high winds, which can fan fires, they had to attend a weekend callout in the Kauaeranga Valley, part of the Coromandel that has significant patches of dense native bush and pine forest.

Mr Parke told the Herald he had started the fire, which Ms Fitzsimons said was used to burn off gorse. "There was a very tiny gorse fire which was out by the time they [Fire Service] got there," she said. "I guess the neighbours further up the valley saw the smoke and didn't know what it was."

She admitted to knowing that a fire ban was on. The Fire Service had also warned her and Mr Parke about the ban while at the property.

"Oh, it's probably a bad thing because of the fire ban, even though it burned for maybe 10 minutes, and then was totally out and was nowhere near anything else that could possibly catch," Ms Fitzsimons said.

Open burning during a ban probably sent the wrong message to people, she said, although conditions were "dead still and it had rained over-night. We've never had anything get out of control because we understand the conditions."

Neighbour David Marsden said he thought his neighbours were "mad" lighting a fire while the winds were so high.

"It was pretty windy, mate. It was a windy westerly wind and we thought the whole peninsula could go up.

"It would have had to back-burn a little bit to get in to the main lot but it doesn't take much for a spark to fly in the air and land again.

"We were actually quite surprised to see it burning, because we look straight on to his place. We thought he's taking a risk and then five minutes later we saw a fire engine arrive."

A Thames Fire Service spokesman said it was "stupidity lighting a fire" a waste of the volunteers' time.

He said Ms Fitzsimons and Mr Parke should have known better, "especially for who they are".

Thames Coromandel District fire officer Allan Gamble said people could be taken to court for breaches of the fire ban.

The maximum sentence was imprisonment for up to six months, or a fine of up to $2000.

Mr Gamble said Mr Parke had claimed he was not aware of the ban, so was issued a stern warning only.

She was quite a looker back in the day actually, did your mate not sneak a peak, just a tiny bit?

 

[surfin]

She was quite a looker back in the day actually, did your mate not sneak a peak, just a tiny bit?

I don't think sneaking was a requirement, that's what turned their stomachs.

 

[bruce]

I don't think sneaking was a requirement, that's what turned their stomachs.

Sad story about the fire, very concerning. I don't know how long ago this was that your mate (you ) saw her, she must be close to 80 now. I remember when she was a lecturer at Auckland Uni, she was quite a looker, in a hippy sort of way. She is a very intelligent woman that is why that fire story is a worry.

 

[surfin]

I remember when she was a lecturer at Auckland Uni, she was quite a looker, in a hippy sort of way.

Sorry to hear your eye sight failed at such a young age.

 

[snake77]

We had a receptionist who when showing people to the toilets would direct everyone to the men's as she thought they were communal.

Like most other office building the toilets were in the stairwell. If she walked another 5 metres she would of been in the other stairwell with the ladies.

She had been working there for a quite a while so she either never went to the toilet or she happened to never go to the mens communal toilet at the same time as anyone else as surely someone would of been like WTF.

 

[snake77]

Our team was the only one in the office that used to do shifts well besides one week in the month where the other teams would work into the evenings. That week we'd have a guy in overnight.

Our team also pretty much used to listen to music all day, a perfect job for a bunch of 20 year olds.

One of my nigh shifts I paused the music to listen to something else. It was summer so I opened the door to the balcony nice and safe seeing as I'm up on the second floor.

Later after all of the bars have closed I decide the videos and websites I had on was boring I'd put my music back on. I had it up quite loud to keep me awake but this time the door is wide open so the sound could travel.

The next night I come in and I catch my workmate writing a message on the whiteboard in case he misses me. Basically keep the music down as the neighbours across from the car park called noise control. So building road, bars, car park, neighbours so a fair distance.

The night before noise control are downstairs trying to get my attention over but can't get into the building. All they can see is a shadow moving back and forth. To this day I've always said hey that proves I was working.

That would be nearly 20 years ago. A few weeks ago my wife and I are walking back to the car and run into one of my old workmates who works for a different company but in the same building. We get a few pleasantries out of the way before we starts chuckling and recounts the story above emphasising to my wife how far away the people were that complained.

 

[Miket12]

One of my clients, George, is an older guy who I’ve worked with for over 20 years. English is a second language to him and he still gets a number of words wrong when he tries to pronounce them. Mostly, I’ve helped him with and a porch is no longer a Porsche.

The best one, however, he’s never got right, and in these days of health and safety, and leaky buildings, it always cracks me up when he calls a wrought iron balustrade/handrail, “rotten iron”.

 

[bruce]

Sorry to hear your eye sight failed at such a young age.

She was good enough for you to perve over brother

 

[gREVUS]

Many moons ago when I was a student, I got a job working at the radio station in Auckland, I think it was called Hauraki. A rock station. My job was to transfer all the music from CD onto hard drive. This was a manual process where I had to fade the music in and out with a slider.

For the next 4-5 years listening to the radio station I would hear when the music cut off early and I had screwed up. The best part was no one ever fixed it. Not sure the station is still there. But I know they shared music files between the stations because there was one song I really cut off and I no matter what station I was listening to, if it was that song I would hear an abrupt end to it.

 

[Sup42]

Many moons ago when I was a student, I got a job working at the radio station in Auckland, I think it was called Hauraki. A rock station. My job was to transfer all the music from CD onto hard drive. This was a manual process where I had to fade the music in and out with a slider.

For the next 4-5 years listening to the radio station I would hear when the music cut off early and I had screwed up. The best part was no one ever fixed it. Not sure the station is still there. But I know they shared music files between the stations because there was one song I really cut off and I no matter what station I was listening to, if it was that song I would hear an abrupt end to it.

You're a legend !

Hauraki is still going bro.

What was the song, do you remember?

Hope it wasn't a track that ended with a massive guitar solo . . .

 

[gREVUS]

I wish i could tell you what it was, I honestly dont remember, but if i heard it. I'd know in a heart beat.

 

[Miket12]

Can someone closer to the club than me please invite SK on to here to share some of his humour.... thanks in advance.

 

[Beastmode]

Can someone closer to the club than me please invite SK on to here to share some of his humour.... thanks in advance.

Don’t need to. Just watch his press conference every week.

Always a good laugh followed by swearing.

 

[snake77]

Can someone closer to the club than me please invite SK on to here to share some of his humour.... thanks in advance.

Like an open mike night at a comedy club?

 

[Miket12]

Currently working on a pool house which is under the flight path to the Auckland Airport and near Ardmore Airport. Because of the zoning for the property, we needed to apply for a Resource Consent including showing how the new pool house is below the maximum height allowed to not interfere with the aircraft approaches. The last part I just wrote an explanation for and did a really brief calculation showing it complied.

The town planning officer wasn’t happy with what I’d done and wanted more proof. So, knowing that they have to read everything that’s submitted with an application, I went online and found six different ways to calculate the approach heights and took up over twenty pages of some of the most boring rubbish you could read.

I then used the longest calculation to prove what I’d supplied the first time was correct.

Funny thing is that a 15 storey building on the site would still have complied with the approach vectors.... while the pool house is less than 3m tall. She didn’t appreciate it when I pointed out that the pool house was at the bottom of a gully surrounded by quite high hills so if a plane were to hit it, the pilot would have a lot more to worry about than the height of this structure.

 

[surfin]

Currently working on a pool house which is under the flight path to the Auckland Airport and near Ardmore Airport. Because of the zoning for the property, we needed to apply for a Resource Consent including showing how the new pool house is below the maximum height allowed to not interfere with the aircraft approaches. The last part I just wrote an explanation for and did a really brief calculation showing it complied.

The town planning officer wasn’t happy with what I’d done and wanted more proof. So, knowing that they have to read everything that’s submitted with an application, I went online and found six different ways to calculate the approach heights and took up over twenty pages of some of the most boring rubbish you could read.

I then used the longest calculation to prove what I’d supplied the first time was correct.

Funny thing is that a 15 storey building on the site would still have complied with the approach vectors.... while the pool house is less than 3m tall. She didn’t appreciate it when I pointed out that the pool house was at the bottom of a gully surrounded by quite high hills so if a plane were to hit it, the pilot would have a lot more to worry about than the height of this structure.

I hope you also pointed out that if the plane missed the pool house and landed in the pool that there was a risk of drowning for the passengers.

I think I mentioned early elsewhere a builder ringing me and asking if we were supplying WD40 or some similar stupid acronym colorsteel for the roof. I'd never heard of it so I rang Steel and Tube, who had also never heard of it, so they rang NZ Steel and asked them what it was, they had never heard of it either, this idiot in council had invented the product. It's always such a joy to ring these idiots and ask them WTF are you even talking about and having them try to explain where the fuck they got their info. But shit I waste some time dealing with them.

 

[Miket12]

Speaking to another designer over the weekend and he's been threatened with a lawsuit from a builder because the new owner of a spec house has seen the drawings submitted to council and the cars shown in the drawings was not "included" with the house he brought.

A bit of a back story. Sometimes we need to show on drawings how cars/vehicles can manoeuvre onsite like reversing out of a garage. The council not only want us to show the potential tracking of the wheels but also the starting and stopping position of the vehicle. So now this millennial is taking the builder to court because there are a number of issues with the house and has included in his lawsuit that he has not received the cars shown on the plans. After all, the new owner knows that the Building Act says that buildings have to be provided/built exactly as shown on the plans.

Because there's issues between the builder and the designer, the builder has included in his lawsuit he's taken out against the designer that he shouldn't have included cars which the builder had no intention of providing.

I can get a bit spiteful sometimes and my solution would be to go to a car wreckers and get two old wrecks and drop them on the driveway. After all, the plans never showed what model, year or condition the cars had to be in.

 

[Miket12]

Just had a phone call from a client who has managed to stuff up some wall bracing in a huge way.

When designing wall bracing, I usually start with trying to use stand gib board or braceline gib board only but sometimes, when that’s not enough, you have to use plywood on the outside of the framing and braceline on the inside.

Anyway, the client just gave me a call in an absolute panic because the builder didn’t put the plywood on and the cladding has already been fixed, painting completed and scaffolding removed. Only two options are available: remove the cladding, put in the plywood and put the cladding back on or get the structural engineer to design some steel work to provide the required strength.

 

[surfin]

Speaking to another designer over the weekend and he's been threatened with a lawsuit from a builder because the new owner of a spec house has seen the drawings submitted to council and the cars shown in the drawings was not "included" with the house he brought.

A bit of a back story. Sometimes we need to show on drawings how cars/vehicles can manoeuvre onsite like reversing out of a garage. The council not only want us to show the potential tracking of the wheels but also the starting and stopping position of the vehicle. So now this millennial is taking the builder to court because there are a number of issues with the house and has included in his lawsuit that he has not received the cars shown on the plans. After all, the new owner knows that the Building Act says that buildings have to be provided/built exactly as shown on the plans.

Because there's issues between the builder and the designer, the builder has included in his lawsuit he's taken out against the designer that he shouldn't have included cars which the builder had no intention of providing.

I can get a bit spiteful sometimes and my solution would be to go to a car wreckers and get two old wrecks and drop them on the driveway. After all, the plans never showed what model, year or condition the cars had to be in.

Did the designer include any people in his concept plan as I've noticed generally if there is vehicles there are also people, maybe they could also supply a couple of homeless people as flatmates as well.

 

[surfin]

Just had a phone call from a client who has managed to stuff up some wall bracing in a huge way.

When designing wall bracing, I usually start with trying to use stand gib board or braceline gib board only but sometimes, when that’s not enough, you have to use plywood on the outside of the framing and braceline on the inside.

Anyway, the client just gave me a call in an absolute panic because the builder didn’t put the plywood on and the cladding has already been fixed, painting completed and scaffolding removed. Only two options are available: remove the cladding, put in the plywood and put the cladding back on or get the structural engineer to design some steel work to provide the required strength.

Would you be able to add ply to the internal side of the walls, then braceline over that, I've never seen it said one had to be internal and one external, you're only after B/Us.