Have you got nothing better to do?

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So my nap was cancelled by it absolutely pissing down on the way home, so I ducked into the Electronics building to ILE for a bit.

After a few minutes the security/receptionist/doordude comes into the room and points to the third full bottle of tapwater I have on my desk (from the exam this moring) and says "You're not allowed drinks in here. There's signs up. If it falls over and spills the whole thing WILL BLOW UP." So I put it to one side behind the computer (if I'd had my bag with me I'd have put it away), slightly shocked that he's actually bothered about it.

20 seconds later he come back and says "Did you here what I said. You'll have to put it outside or [puts serious thought into contingency plans]". I tell him OK and move it further back.

5 minutes later, the bottle untouched, he comes and says, "I warned you. Now switch off and leave and you can;t use it again for 24 hours" (there are a bazillion other computer rooms on campus and his is amongst the crappest). "But it's got a lid on?". "Come on, out". "You are a cunt", I told him (probably the first time I've said it out loud to someone) as I, erm, did exactly what he said.

(obviously the only right thing to do would be to poor water over the desk and watch the computer NOT blow up (they're inside security cases). I may creep back in and do this)

― Graham, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

if the same rule was applied at my company, they'd have to SACK EVERYONE. The guy's an arse.

― MarkH, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The library security guard has just done his rounds so I will now proceed to eat my Spira. Wish me luck.

― Graham, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Successful.

― Graham, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

eating a Spira? Oh no! What if little fragments of chocolate fall in between the keys of the keyboard and bung them up???!

― MarkH, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm sure there are health and safety guidelines which say you have to allow water in libraries, computer rooms etc even if you don't allow any other food or drink. We certainly have that rule where I work. Research it and throw the book at him!

― Archel, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Not literally. Although...

― Archel, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

.....a volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica would do nicely!

― MarkH, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

you're playing with fire graham eating that spira

btw..........................................what's a spira?

― erik, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"2 twists of DAIRY MILK Milk Chocolate". v.nice, I think I'll have another.

― Graham, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Don't you dare get your grubby, chocolatey hands on the keyboard!

― Jonnie, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know. I think you are all being unduly harsh on minions. He probably didn't make up the rules and while he didn't have to be quite so twattish in enforcing them, maybe he has got into trouble in the past for not doing so? To be fair & not having a go out of meanness, the guy did ask you twice not to do it and you carried on regardless. OK so you knew the computer wasn't going to blow up but still as I say the guy's job is to enforce the rules & that's all he was doing. I'm sure he doesn't particularly enjoy it.

― Emma, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Carried on what? Having an object about my person? Maybe he didn't *enjoy*, but he was still just taking his boredom out on me.

― Graham, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well maybe I misunderstood the telling but from what I understood, he said 'put the bottle of water outside the room' and you left it on the table / whatever surface it was but moved it slightly.

Sadly the world of work seems to entirely revolve around taking your own boredom & put-uponness out on other often undeserving people. I am not just talking about myself but everyone I have worked with ever. And no it isn't fair but as my mum always says to me, no one (SEE NICK) ever said life was fair.

― Emma, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

hmm, maybe you should have just put it under your chair. he was being an arse though!

― katie, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

All the same, I don't think it's on to call some bloke who is just doing his job - even in an irritating way - a cunt. Why should he have to put up with abuse like that? Mick McCarthy wouldn't! Did you also tell him to stick it up his bollocks?

― Emma, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Jobsworths need beating.

― DG, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the way SOME OF the people beating up on this poor bloke don't actually have jobs themselves and don't have to spend all day being abused & sneered at for things that are beyond their control.

― Emma, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm backing Emma. He was probably being a bit thick but I think calling him a cunt is a bit off. Anthony has obviously set you a bad example with his 'you usurious cunt' bank teller comment.

I called a Londis owner 'mad' quite recently and thought that was quite strong.

― N., Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Does this mean I might win this thread?

― Emma, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Quite possibly, Emma. I agree with you too, FWIW.

― RickyT, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

on the matter of keyboard safety, i have spilled water and milk into a keyboard in our office and said keyboard has not yet exploded or electrocuted anyone. it doesn't even smell of stinking milk as i suspected it might when said accident occurred.

a lesson.

nick. do not comment on this in the office. if you do i will hit you with milky keyboard.

― nickie, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I only really mumbled cunt at him, I'm not sur ehe heard me. I think hi job is to set at the front desk or whatever and he's just been told to keep an eye on the open access computer room (which is next door), and he's taking it too far. The professional uniformed guard here in the proper library hasn't said anythng.

― Graham, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

For all you know some kind of high powered meeting took place involving heads of security and for some reason they decided to clamp down on liquids in the computer room. This was then passed down the line to some poor minion who is being made to enforce this rule, say he couldn't be arsed a few times, got caught out, got a bollocking off his manager - and there you go.

― Emma, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I had peppermint tea oozing from my keyboard for a whole day once.

As someone who works in a resource centre with lots of technical equipment n that, I do on occasion have to Lay Down The Law and would certainly be shocked if anyone called me a cunt. It is certainly a hard life for us frontline workers. But on the other hand there is Law and there is Power Trip...

― Archel, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

And there is 'I don't want to get my ass kicked because someone repeatedly refuses to do what I ask them'. And there is Power Trip too but for god's sake, if this bloke's life is so shitty that a power trip for him is chucking first year students out of computer rooms I am more sorry for him than anything else.

― Emma, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Funny how if someone says "You can't have an opinion on music cos you're not a musician" they get caned, whereas "You can't have a valid opinion on Jobsworths because you're unemployed" is perfectly acceptable. I was a barman for a while, I've been on both sides of the divide, thank you very much.

― DG, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, sorry Emma, if he was just doing his job than that would be fine, but it was the way he did it - what was I meant to do with it (outside = the foyer and thoroughfare)? And compared to some of the other stuff that goes on round here I don't think there are suits up top worrying about sealed water bottles.

― Graham, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Graham, you would be surprised at the petty things suits get het up about. DG, I was just making the point that if you spend 9-5 every day getting shat on from all directions, it's not surprising that at some point you are going to take it out on someone else, and maybe if you are in this position you are more likely to be sympathetic to others in it. Or something.

― Emma, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think there are suits up top worrying about sealed water bottles.

It might have been a bomb.

― N., Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A student spilt hot coffee all over my last keyboard at which point it did indeed stop working properly. So, um, I think there is a point to this.

Main reason I don't allow students to consume drinks or food in the offices is nothing to do with the damage it might do to the computers, more that they never take the stuff with them and the mess is ridiculous. There is a place for eating and drinking and I do not think it is unreasonable to have that outside of classrooms, lecture theatres and computer rooms.

If the rule was no food and drink in a computer room, and I had reminded someone of this rule and they had ignored me Icompunction in disciplining them. Doubly if they called me a cunt for doing me job.

― Pete, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

AIS regulation 2.3 Food and Drink:

"Statement: Food and drink are not to be consumed in AIS facilities. To avoid confusion food and drink should be kept in bags. Water bottles with sports tops are permitted if used responsibly

"Action: Users consuming food and drink will be asked to leave. Users displaying food and drink will be asked to place it in their bag."

The problem here is that I didn't have a bag with me, of which AIS regulations make no provision.

― Graham, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Graham, the only correct course of action is to SUE SUE SUE!!!

― Typical Bloody Amercian, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Lack of bag does not cause confusion. The bag clause is a concession which shows said food will not be consumed. No bag, no consumables. Placing it on the floor or in a bin may have given across the right idea.

― Pete, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mind you this guy is probably having a good larff with his security mates on I Love Rules - "And then he called me a cunt but he didnt even dare say it properly" etc. I'm with Emma on this one.

― Tom, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I wish I'd taken that nap now.

― Graham, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Or better still - a knapsack, then all this trouble could have been averted.

― N., Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Emma is completely OTM on this thread, Graham. Security person says put drink outside, you say "OK" and then don't and ... er, what was your point again?

― Jeff W, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My point is that the guy was being twattish and petty and irrational and cruel about enforcing the rule, and his suggestion of "outside" was silly (you kind of have to see the building to get this).

― Graham, Thursday, 30 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What was "cruel" about it?

― J Blount, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It felt like he'd just seen an oppurtunity to have a go at someone and taken it.

I think you just had to be there.

― Graham, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Should have stepped in on this earlier -- I'm *very* much with Pete on this one. Working as I do in a library setting, food, drink and trash is a big problem, especially as I oversee a Reserves section and computer lab which forbids food and drink and a study center section which allows it. That latter part was essentially us making a necessity out of the fact people would bring stuff in anyway -- and they still leave a mess, you don't want to know what it's like during finals -- and every day I tell at least five to ten people in the Reserves and lab section themselves to pack stuff away. I am not sympathetic at all to those who don't, and I don't care how much they sigh and complain (and some do, quite vociferously -- it's bemusing to consider how they don't know how to read the signs and yet are there reading books or e-mail).

Yeah, Graham, his original comment was ridiculous, and I never tell anyone something like that initially -- I just note that it is policy and please ask them to put it away. But I would have been annoyed with you if you DIDN'T ACTUALLY PUT THE DAMN THING AWAY. I speak from the heart here.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I never tell anyone something like that initially

Well, or later as well. ;-) I do point out that we have had problems with food and drink damaging books and computers, which we have.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

And rereading the situation a bit more -- okay, you had no bag, but please, just don't bring the water in in the first place!

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It was tap water after all, you could have binned it without too much financial loss.

― Pete, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

or poured it directly into the keyboard and wun away!!

― mark s, Friday, 31 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Go rebels. Fight the power. board. Graham you appearing here as a slightly unthinking and compliant person, which makes you a target for this kind of bullying- you aquiesced in the library- (did you or did you not say cunt to the man? ) and under the pressure of the tirade from this thread, (I observed some unnecessary henpecking which you countered with a 'roll over scratch my tummy') I dont agree with either abuse of power. *huf*

Security guards are very often peabrained cro magnons, everyone knows this dont they! Your responsibility in being further up the evolutionary ladder includes beating your chest in the shower to confront your own latent power as an alpha male. Its complicated at the top.

― devilsalphacat, Saturday, 1 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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