Nice People Thread Number 11 - A Treasury of Nice People

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

Sounds good.

PN would you be up for bath too?

Anyone else? We can move this to email to find a date etc.

I think I might be .... pencil me in. I'll see how things pan out by that date. I've never been.

Google maps makes it look easy ... but I've travelled that route before and I know it's a high concentration, slow, winding road route .... not many physical miles though.... 140 return or so.

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

...100% fail ....

Oh dear....

I've been sitting and wondering if I NEED to go out today, or just should/will wish I had. I've no milk and no marg ..... and 4 slices of bread that I can therefore only use for cheese toasties. Don't need to ... but will probably regret not going if I don't.

PasturesNew

Generali wrote: »

You don't seem to eat any fruit or veggies at all.

No... that's just how it happens.... it's a complex set of reasons, but once I've got the house and saucepans and a fridge/freezer I will be. One of the reasons is the smell veggies make when you cook them (and it's in this room) .... and then, for fresh ones, it can be the sheer volume of them - e.g. having to eat a whole cauliflower.... so with the smell and locking myself into eating the same smelly thing for X days .... it just slides off the radar.

I eat a lot of baked beans, tinned tomatoes ... some tinned peas ... that'll have to do

I do eat mostly bread, eggs, cheese, beans, tomatoes. Then Weetabix/milk. By the time one's bought bread and milk, for example, it then locks you into eating those every day to get through them before they go off... limiting other choices. So veggies would mean an entire change of most things I eat most of the time to fit them in.

I did buy 500g of cherry tomatoes yesterday .... I just didn't mention it as that's not exciting I'll eat those in cheese toasties, in cheese sandwiches and egg/salad cream/tomato sandwiches; I might roast a few if they get to the stage where they're getting manky.

A typical day now might go: scrambled eggs and tinned tomatoes on toast at breakfast time; a cheese toastie at lunchtime; a cheese/potato pie with beans for tea; toast a bit later on. Sometimes I buy muffins instead of bread, just for something different. If there's too much bread I'll just eat bread all day to use it up.... sometimes with scrambled eggs, sometimes as toasties, sometimes with beans.... depending on which "meal" I am eating. Right now I have spuds to use up as I bought them 10 days ago and only had cheesy mash once ... so it'll be cheesy mash and beans a few times this week.

PasturesNew

... actually, one thing I'm looking forward to knocking up once I've got a kitchen/saucepans (hob's even got an extractor! Never had one of those before) .... is a nice fat stew and fluffy dumplings. I make awesomely light, fluffy dumplings..... not made any for about 5 years. They need a good sized saucepan so I can get a good number in there

.... er .... with a fresh vegetable stew of course.... although, years ago, I did used to just make up an Oxo cube/water in a saucepan and just make dumplings for supper

vivatifosi

Went shopping at Mr T's today. I don't like going to Mr T's at the best of times, preferring Mr S, but it's a bit further and a faff to get to at weekends due to traffic.

Anyhooo..

The queues in Mr Ts have been longer than I find acceptable for a few weeks now with lots of empty checkouts. At first I thought that it must be students taking time to do their exams. Having spoken to someone today I find that they've stopped paying overtime to staff to come in at weekends so they are no longer willing to do it.

I am sure that Mr T is trying to keep its shareholders happy by retaining profits, but surely anyone can see that if you make your customers queue too long and they go elsewhere, then that is far more detrimental.

Fools. Surely it is plain to see that rather than taking on Aldi and Lidl at their own game they should be saying what Aldi and Lidl can't do: offering a wide selection of everything as a one stop shop. Nobody is going to be willing to pay a premium for a reduced service and the size of Tesco's larger stores mean that they simply cannot operate in the Aldi/Lidl reduced category segment as their stores are too large.

PasturesNew

vivatifosi wrote: »

Having spoken to someone today I find that they've stopped paying overtime to staff to come in at weekends so they are no longer willing to do it.

But surely the answer is to employ more people ..... there's plenty out there that'd want it. Although things are done differently now. In the olden days adverts would go up for "Saturday staff" .... now they want "flexible person for varied shifts".

I remember when Somerfield stopped paying double on Sundays, which was in about 2006.

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

But surely the answer is to employ more people ..... there's plenty out there that'd want it. Although things are done differently now. In the olden days adverts would go up for "Saturday staff" .... now they want "flexible person for varied shifts".

I remember when Somerfield stopped paying double on Sundays, which was in about 2006.

I think it's a flexibility thing... that they need to pay people overtime (rather than offer TOIL) to work weekends where they don't have enough staff (due to sickness/holidays/exams, etc). You could also address via zero hours contracts, but then you wouldn't get the continuity and they would still need to be paid.

People don't want to come in at a weekend when they aren't due to work without being paid overtime, problem is, that's when most people do their weekly shop.

Spirit_2

vivatifosi wrote: »

People don't want to come in at a weekend when they aren't due to work without being paid overtime, problem is, that's when most people do their weekly shop.

It is a premium thing.

The supply of workforce is different at weekends.. schools operate Monday to Friday, childcare operates Monday to Friday. Weekends are premium time for families and people want a lot of "compensation" for the opportunity cost of weekend time.

More worrying than the length of the queue to pay for toilet roles on a Saturday, is that there is evidence that Hospitals are less safe at weekends due to fewer availability/Supply of Senior Medical staff.http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_11-6-2010-12-5-7

vivatifosi

Spirit wrote: »

It is a premium thing.

Absolutely, most people get that. You'd think that Tesco would too... who would willingly swap and work a Sunday when it's during the week you have all those safety net things in place?

Spirit wrote: »

More worrying than the length of the queue to pay for toilet roles on a Saturday, is that there is evidence that Hospitals are less safe at weekends due to fewer availability/Supply of Senior Medical staff.http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_11-6-2010-12-5-7

The story about weekends being less safe times to be in hospital broke again last year, just as DH was going in for an operation on a Friday and I knew he would be in for the weekend. Then he had respiratory failure in the op and things got altogether more serious. I spent a lot of time worrying about hospitals at weekends. Thankfully he was in a teaching hospital and they were very hot on such things. His care was excellent actually, and you know I'm someone who often gives two barrels to the (local) NHS. He's fighting fit now thank goodness.

michaels

Does any one else find it annoying not being able to find things - today after a week of looking we found the blind clips for the room we had decorated and until now been unable to put the blinds back up. then I decided I would put the new housing I had ordered on DWs rather battered mobile and of course I can't find the correct (highly specialised - Torx T7) screwdriver