Els236

Reddit and YouTube honestly. Without those 2 I would have gone absolutely insane while unemployed.

I've used AMD CPU+GPU for almost 20 years, and never once had an issue with any of it, which is why I personally stick to them.

Yeah, but I don't think OP was going for that kind of thing when they made this post. Admittedly, it might be the easiest way of making that £1000 though.

I didn't really consider that angle, as I wasn't considering buying those sorts of things second-hand for non-personal use. A dog isn't going to care about a second hand towel to the level a human would. See, I did say someone would come up with something x)

It's probably easier to list things that most people WOULDN'T buy second-hand: \- underwear and things like towels (unless packaged / guaranteed unused) \- cleaning equipment (why would you get a second-hand sponge or toilet brush?) \- food or other perishables (unless frozen and/or untouched, and in date) everything else is pretty much fair-game in my opinion, although someone will no doubt come up with something that I'm like "yeah no, not that either" lol.

Admittedly, I don't remember it being this hot in the UK when I was a kid, but it drove me up the wall when teachers would refuse when you asked if you could take off the school's itchy af polyester/nylon sweaters in summer. I get wanting the kids to look smart, but shirt tucked in, sweater/blazer on, etc in this kind of weather is mental. It's asking for trouble with kids getting heatstroke. Thankfully, I think most places would have the "summer policy" in place already now, so short-sleeve shirts, no tie , and definitely no blazer/sweater.

I'm a Brit, and I have travelled all over the world, but I have also lived in several European countries. Honestly speaking, the UK is the worst of the ones I lived in, although it's going to heavily depend on the area - make no mistake about that. I still regret moving back from the North of the Netherlands to the South-East of the UK. Don't get me wrong, the UK has its upsides with the NHS and beautiful countryside (if you live near it), but outside of that? For me personally, I can't think of much.

It depends. When I lived alone in an HMO and only worked part-time, my benefits brought me up to a point where it was almost the same salary some people on full-time were getting. So yes, there are ways to "cheat the system" with benefits. If you live with a working partner though, good damn luck getting anything out of the government. They will not consider you your own person and everything is calculated as a couple. I'm penniless now, after losing my job in May 2024 and they didn't gaf. Actually, the Gvt are part of the reason I'm in so much shit after they lumped me with £1700 more debt from unpaid taxes (I've never been self-employed) and a £1200 repayment for a UC payment I did get.

Unemployed and just... keeping myself busy at all hours of the day with zero schedule. I'll probably hit the hay soon, but still be awake until 6, because I struggle like hell to sleep if I'm not 100% mentally exhausted.

\- Political BS always happens (ex: Greece and Cyprus exchanging 12 points) \- The act we sent is not a good live-performer and did not have good vocals on the night. \- The act we sent is known for making whacky homebrew instruments, none of which he was allowed to have on stage. This led to crap staging and him not representing anything he's known for. \- The "dumb fun" songs either do amazingly well or get last. They tend to do well IF and only IF they gain traction on social media or something, ours didn't. The BBC didn't even play it on the radio afaik. A good example is Tommy Cash last year, who already had a fairly decent following on social media. \- As one of the "big five", we get auto-inclusion without going through voting, so the BBC or whoever pick an act they like, and that's that. If we did have to go through the process, I doubt we would have even gotten into the main event much in the last \~25 years (we did do well in the late 90s).

Pie, Mash, Parsley Sauce and Jellied Eels. Only place I've seen do Jellied Eels is F Cooke - there was one in my city (not London), but it shut-down and got turned into some event venue thing that I've never seen open.

Everyone saying vapes/cigarettes, but no one saying alcohol, which is in the exact same vein - quite interesting that. Anyway, the big one for me is 4x4 or SUV-type vehicles. If you live in a big city, you simply do not need a ginormous land-yacht.

I did have an MSN one at one point because of Messenger, but the big one I remember was a very stupidly-named Yahoo mail address, that I found super funny because I was like... idk 7 or 8 at the time. I used that for quite a while honestly, until I grew up a little bit, closed it down, and got myself a rocketmail address, which I've used since as my main inbox.

True that I don't remember much from that age, but then again it was very much an age where nothing much happened for me, outside of school. Then again, my Mother was very much a good parent and taught me most of this kind of stuff herself. I do remember having a £2 allowance from my Gran at around that age, which I had to budget for sweets and Pokemon cards, but again, that's family, not school.

Admittedly I'm a little older than 13, but from what I remember of maths at that age, it was more like the old meme of "Abigail has 6 oranges, Peter has 5 apples", that kind of stuff, rather than talking about money.

Not to be "that guy", but it is the new tenner and not the old one right? (just in case)

Maybe it was different "in your day", not that you can be that much older than me, but schools do not teach kids about money, taxes, or anything like that - at least I can't remember any of mine doing that. In which case, as this is your kid, why have you not, as the parent, taught them? Kids don't just know things out of thin air unless they're exposed to it.

The truth is, many of us are not finding jobs, even via agencies. This is especially true in the lower rungs of service jobs like retail. Companies aren't hiring externally a lot of the time, and the Indeed/LinkedIn posting will only be because they legally (I assume?) have to allow external competition, even though 9/10 times it'll go to an internal candidate. A lot of companies also advertise roles, then decide they're not needed, or have a hiring freeze. I've also noticed, especially in hospitality, that roles get advertised as entry-level or no-exp required offering min-wage, then they insta-reject you due to no experience. Many places laid-off staff, so do not have the manpower to train someone. They want experience, but for the money of no/low experience. People will immediately say "go through an Agency", but even that is not sure-fire now: \- Care-work is always available, but they will expect you to have a licence and be able to drive. \- Retail and Hospitality are so dead, even Agencies don't have free positions (I have been told as much this week) \- Anecdotal, but I've been told by several warehouses, they'd only take me if I had a forklift licence. \- Construction will want a CSCS card minimum. If you can afford one and can get one, this will open doors if you don't mind being a labourer. So, no, unfortunately I don't have any advice, outside of "keep applying and something will happen at some point".

Never even been invited to an interview for ALDI myself, yet they are constantly looking for people. I know someone who went to an interview, and he said that it was a group thing with like 30 people, most of whom were JobCentre referrals or disabled and either didn't want the job, or, unfortunately, couldn't do what they desired. Yet, here I am, spending an hour filling out their asinine application form, only to get rejected at the first hurdle.

ALDI is the same. If you apply for a role and don't get interviewed or accepted, they block you out for 6 months.

I have going on 5 years retail experience and a couple more of pure customer service (call centre and the like). I've been rejected or ghosted by every retail & hospitality place in my area. I called up some Agencies yesterday and one of them, who does handle retail/customer service, straight-up told me they had nothing available at all. It's quite funny, as my local B&M have had a "we're looking for staff" notice in the window for about a year now, and every time I've gone in there, handed over all my details and a CV (I think I'm at 8 times now), and just get ghosted. Last time, the guy I spoke to told me that they get a new manager every 6-8 weeks and so all the old applications just get thrown out and they start again. It is most certainly not limited to just CO-OP.

I'm not saying my anecdote is indicative, but my GP where I used to live was rated 1\* on Google, got told by the overseeing commission thing they were shit and needed to improve, so all they did was rebrand into another subsidiary (Virgin Healthcare owned), and they're still shit. My new one is miles, miles better. All I was saying is that some GPs defo. do not help the A&E issues, such as long wait-times.

Yep. I've had it a couple times in the past where I wanted to go GP for something routine and they told me to go A&E.

Agreed there. I've had better luck with 111 than through my GP for getting stuff sorted out.

I had a shard of metal go through my thumb, in one side, out the other. I had my manager at the factory help me pull it out slowly, bandage me up, and then I called the GP to arrange for a tetanus shot. The GP basically refused and told me to go A&E. I explained it was not serious, there wasn't any amount of blood, I could still use the thumb, wasn't getting pins and needles or anything - like, this metal went through the skin and that's it. They still said to go A&E and when I said I can't as I don't drive, they told me to get a taxi to get there. I had to hold my ground and tell them it was a waste of resources, as A&E would take one look at it (after multiple hours of waiting), tell me it wasn't a problem and send me back to the GP for a tetanus shot. I must have spent 30 minutes arguing with the receptionist until she finally gave up and I got my shot at the GP, which took all of 5 minutes.

Lyme is through ticks lol, so unless you live in an area full of ticks, it's highly doubtful (also, where is the tick that bit you?). If you don't have pets, then you can probably also exclude fleas. Also doesn't look like a mosquito bite, and it's not really the right time of year just yet. Looks more like you pricked yourself with something.

Usually, it's try to slice a piece off, butcher it because I press too hard on the knife, then end up ripping chunks off by hand, slapping some butter on it, then eating it. Or, just eat it "raw" after butchering it.

Retail isn't much different. I've been shouted at for daring to lean up against a wall, while chairs were only for "those with a verified medical need", because of something-something to do with company values of "looking smart" or some bullshit. Of course the ones doing the shouting were managers who were sat on their arses in an office all day with aircon, coffee machine and whatever else, while I had been on my feet for close to 12 hours.

except £7 a pint is now more than half an hour at minimum wage.

It's getting stupidly difficult for most people to get work in the UK, especially if you're looking at retail, customer service, or hospitality. I'm 31 and a full British Citizen and I've been unable to find anything in months. Only interview I've had in the last month was for Greggs, but they only told me last-minute it was a 10-hour a week position for barely more than minimum wage. I'm sure being an international student on a visa will not help matters there (sorry, but true).

Idk, I've seen a lot of jobs going lately, which was like "OMG FINALLY", only to then check them out and see that most of them are 10-20 hours a week. Full-time is borderline non-existent in my area at the moment, it's a killer.

I used to work in a cafe, and it got explained to me that putting "eat in" would basically allocate a certain amount of napkins, cloths, and would also factor in to the backend calculating when we'd need to order cleaning products and a whole host of other stuff, including certain VAT and tax calculations. Didn't stop many people saying they'd eat in, then walking off, or the opposite though.

\- Massive cost-cutting measures and hiring freezes, because companies want more profit for less cost, while the NI increase fucked-over smaller businesses. \- They only want teenagers who they can pay less, or people who already worked there for 10+ years and don't need any training, because there aren't the staff available to actually train people. \- Many people who would never go for these jobs, are now going for these jobs due to redundancies and other reasons. \- Wage stagnation. Team leader/supervisor positions are now getting advertised at like 20p/hr more than base salary, which itself is only min-wage +10-20p/hr. Why would you want all that extra responsibility for an extra £20 a week? \- More and more people in the UK, but less and less jobs. \- More people working later in life. \- Less people going Uni because of costs / more people wanting to get straight into work. So, you've got more and more people applying for less and less available jobs. Of course companies are going to go with either someone they can pay £8/hr instead of \~£12, or they're going to go for 40 year old John with 20 years retail experience, who's only ever worked in 1 place, over 24 year old Tim who has no experience.

Costa and Starbucks don't make coffee in my opinion. They're there for the Instagram Chai-Gingerbread-Matcha-Cold-Brew-Cream-Deluxe or w/e the new flavour of the month is. Basically, a teaspoon of actual coffee (if you're lucky), then half a cup of syrup and some ice and milk. That'll be £5.80 please and thank-you. The ones that do do coffee are Nero (only some blends are drinkable though imo) and Pret, but both of those, even in my area (not London), you're looking at £4.20-£4.80 for a latte or flat-white now. Personally though, I either get pre-ground coffee in bags from Tesco (£3-4 or so for their own-brand stuff), or buy big bags of beans on Amazon and grind them myself. Works out to probably less than 20p per cup and tastes better than Costa/Starbucks.

When I left the UK in 2006, we had only just started learning foreign languages. What I learned in a few months of French class was "comment t'appelles-tu?". Needless to say when I moved to France shortly thereafter and my new classmates would be like "t'appelles comment?", I was lost and got picked on. Considering that they had been learning English for almost half their lives at that point, it was shocking to see how far behind the UK was. In France I not only ended up learning French (obviously), I also did German and Spanish, both of which have been godsends while on holiday, and also helped me pick up some Dutch when I lived in NL as an adult. I know kids in the UK learn languages earlier now compared to back then, but most kids I've interacted with can barely remember "ou est la bibliotheque?", which is more for meme reasons than anything else. A lot will also say "well everyone speaks English" or say "Google translate exists". But, are they wrong? Everyone has a smartphone now and you CAN use Google translate or an AI. Heck, I've used it in Japan and China. It's not at all the same as not being the stereotypical "British tourist", but unless the curriculum is massively improved, what they are learning is borderline pointless; They learn younger, but it still appears to be just as shit as when I was a kid. Doesn't really surprise me that no one outside of literary majors are taking a language. Even for said majors, it still doesn't guarantee a job, unless they move to a country where it's far more beneficial.

Question it through official channels and ask what is prompting the increase and ask for proof of costs. If they cannot provide reasonable proof that the charge needs to increase, you can fight it. I would however say that a yearly increase does seem somewhat normal, but 18% could be anything, depending on how much you're actually paying. We had a similar situation with our housing association and they couldn't provide proof, so we've contacted the housing ombudsman.

Oh, don't get me wrong, my initial comment of laziness and such still stands, just COVID definitely did play a factor in it for that group of kids. 3-4 year olds now didn't experience COVID, so it depends on the age-group.

Parents still had to work, just from home. Except instead of the kids being in Nursery or at School, they too were at home. So, either you needed to have a super chill boss that didn't mind you having your kid with you all day, or needing to go check on them every 20 minutes, or you needed to keep the kid occupied all day while you worked, meaning shove them in front of a screen all day (toys would require oversight).

4 days is criminal, and I'm not even joking. Stores should take that extremely seriously. In any shop I've worked in, it was a requirement to do date-checking on perishables at least once, if not twice a day, although granted I worked in very small shops. Big shops would have systems to tell them what needs to be rotated out on a given date. If you still have the receipt and packaging that would be an easy complaint to the store.

I was a kid in the early 00s and back then, we all played outside on bicycles and went to our mates houses. we were already gaming and what-not, but it's not like everyone had consoles and such, and they weren't online games either, we did have to travel around. mobile phones were for adults only (except some outliers), and things like YouTube either did not exist, or were only just becoming a thing. we had to have life skills, because otherwise we would have/could have gotten seriously hurt. then, things started to shift, especially as online media took off. kids didn't go outside as much, either because of "predators", or because it wasn't seen as "safe". communities of Mums keeping an eye on all the kids also seemingly phased out and it became more a "everyone for themself" mentality too. online games started becoming a thing, then smartphones became a thing, and it's all just snow-balled from there. then there's economic and other factors, such as the cost of living crisis meaning many are working 2 jobs to provide for families and they don't have the energy left to actually parent. laziness is also a massive problem. either way, many kids get slapped in front of a tablet from age 1 or 2, and are somehow expected to learn things by themselves, or learn from YouTube without any input. you also have a lot of parents (obvs not all) that think that school is the only place kids should learn, and therefore expect teachers to tell kids how to get dressed, feed themselves and general life skills. I mean, I remember a news article from last year where a school was demanding parents come in to change their kid's nappies, because they were fed up of doing it, and this was a primary school (so think 4-6 year olds). This is it: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74x23yw71yo](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74x23yw71yo) Pretty crazy read, especially some of the responses from parents.

Having worked in a call centre and in customer service: 1) the pay is usually minimum wage, meaning most people working there are doing it out of desperation or as their first job. you definitely aren't paid enough for the effort or care people expect, and it's a thankless job a lot of the time. 2) you get absolutely horrendous people screaming, swearing and being racist and everything else, and you have to put up with it (telling them to f-off back will result in gross misconduct) 3) corporate only care about call throughput, not about actual "call quality" in most cases. they'd rather you quickly fob-off 100 people than actually take the time to help 20. 4) Introduction of AI // everything being outsourced to foreign countries (this can also lead back into point 2 quite easily) 5) companies have crap training nowadays and not just in call centres, but everywhere. you come across a scenario you don't actually know about? well, better figure it out there and then, or fob it off. as with most things, it's about having the bare minimum viable product, with the least amount of cost to the company.

Funnily enough, I've preferred working with Pakistani people (and other cultures), given they like a bit of banter and aren't the "run to HR to complain" types like a lot of people are nowadays. But yeah, when you're the only non-Pakistani on shift and they're all talking in Urdu, it can indeed be quite demoralising, even if they aren't doing it to be mean (it's easier and more natural for them).

I honestly can understand why, even if to a lot of people this seems over-reaching. I've personally worked at several places where I was one of, if not the only guy who didn't speak what a lot of other people I worked with were speaking. Personally, I couldn't give a crap what people speak during break times, and I knew if any of my co-workers from these backgrounds had an issue with me, they'd say so to my face. However, it was harder to integrate into these places when I'm the only guy who's not speaking what they're speaking. If you're in the break room and you're sat by yourself with no one to talk to, it can be a bit demoralising. There's also the fact that, especially in certain jobs, you get a level of tribalism between the cultures. Understandable of course, but can very easily devolve into a toxic working environment.

A couple of years ago, I interviewed at John Lewis. Generic sales rep/retail kind of job for not much more than min wage, working in their home and appliances section. I know my tech products and even know a decent amount about home appliances, and had even done pretty much the same role before I even applied to this one, so thought I had a good shot. I had to prepare a 10 minute speech/presentation on a product they sold; basically "sell me this pen" type of shit, and that was after their ludicrously long online application nonsense that companies love nowadays. Got into the interview room, which was a tiny little closed-off square and they basically said "go" and sat there in complete silence while I tried to sell a product to what was essentially a set of concrete pillars. After 3 minutes or so, I had gone through the product's complete spec. sheet, given a ton of pros for it, compared it to similar products and explained why this one was better, and finished. The woman interviewing was the most robotic "I don't want to be here" type I have ever had the displeasure of meeting, and she just went "OK, it was meant to be 10 minutes?". At that point, I knew I was screwed so said "yes, but no interaction with a customer is ever going to be like that? It's back and forth, asking leading questions, knowing what the customer is after". I swear she just rolled her eyes and tutted. Her male colleague was a bit more sympathetic and had a little giggle with me, while this woman just sat there stone-faced and just... like an android. I honestly should have got up and left at that point, but in the end I was there for 30-40 minutes listening and responding to this monotone emotionless woman, who was asking the most mundane questions about my CV. Didn't get the job and wasted about 3 hours of my time on the whole application and interviewing process.

When I was a kid back in the early 00s, it was almost unheard of for a kid to talk back or, especially, physically assault a teacher. Even though back then was the advent of "smacking = abuse", we would have had our arses handed to us by our parents. The most was a bit of bullying, which, back then, equated to some name-calling, or being pushed or something. Actual fighting between kids was also exceptionally rare. Even simply swearing was a rarity and I remember going to a mate's house and his Mum not being mad about him saying "shit" really surprised me. Nowadays though, kids, especially with how connected they are in regards to devices/internet, know they can pretty much do whatever they want, because realistically, what can a parent do? Now, I'm not saying disciplining kids is impossible, but it's harder. However, another hypothesis could be that because my generation were brought up with smackings and such, that they're now being extremely low discipline with their own kids? Yet another hypothesis is that because of how much a struggle just leading an adult life is nowadays, parents simply don't have the energy to do parenting on top of their day job, so the kids just end up feral. We do see a lot of parents give their kid a tablet from day 1 and just leave them to it. Google/YouTube or whatever other things (much worse things) raise kids, not the parent. Looking at the news, I've also seen multiple articles recently of the amount of SEND pupils sky-rocketing. I think it was in Scotland somewhere that like 40% of pupils were SEND, due to autism and/or ADHD. I do not personally believe for one second that so many kids could have ADHD or Autism. Kids that act out, probably due to lax parenting, just get slapped with "they have X" and then of course, the behaviour just ends up as a feedback loop. I honestly don't blame teachers undertaking the mass exodus they currently are, or moving abroad to teach. But, with even less teachers and less resources, schools can only exclude as a means of keeping the other, better behaved students safe and in a "decent" learning environment.

B: Bounty R: Milky Bar O: Cadbury Duo T: KitKat

I used to live in a house-share. I had 1 shelf in a shared fridge, and therefore had to go shopping every 1-2 days for food. Even right now in my own apartment, my fridge is tiny and only holds a few bits, so I still need to go shopping every few days. There are also plenty of people who want stuff as fresh as possible too; I've defo. been caught out in the past with meat going off before it's best before, and Christmas is not the time to risk it. Then, as you would well know, there are plenty of people working across Christmas and the 24th is basically the last real day they can go out for a shop. So, there are plenty of reasons. However being an ass to retail workers or claiming they "ruined Christmas" is just fucking stupid.

Honestly, no, as I don't drive. I can hop on the bus for £3 and go on trips to Europe with Ryanair, for cheaper than it would cost me to go pretty much anywhere in the UK via a train. It costs me more than a flight to Eindhoven, just to get a super-duper off-peak day travel card into London for a day. Don't get me wrong, there are places I could fly to in the UK fairly cheaply, like Newquay, or Dublin, but that's about the extent of it. I have been to Edinburgh, and it was lovely, but that's the extent of it.

OK, fair enough, I didn't consider that angle. I drink everything from British Tea (Yorkshire and such), all the way to Chinese oolong, so I just look at tea, as tea.

Although many are saying tea, Japan has such amazing tea (especially green), if you don't mind loose-leaf using a strainer, instead of typical tea bags. Marmite, malt vinegar, brown sauce - very British things are what come to mind, as those were definitely not available out there when I went (unless in very niche, expensive stores, not that I saw any).