Ever just want to tear your hair out, or someone else's? If you cannot restore a sense of balance, you will run away from home? Just want to say some things without the constraints of staying on topic? Well, this thread is for you! If you just need a short break to let it all hang out, be a brat, then come on, you can do it. No holding back! Go for it, you can do it.
Remember way back when, did your Mom hide Easter eggs for you to find?
Wonder how that advice would work if I had 6 boyfriends? Lol.
Could I still "get another one"?
My Daddy always said "Life is short, get another one"! That meant another boyfriend, another vacation or another slice of pizza. Then if you had 6 and were being a glutton.... You would get "Everything in moderation my dear"! Eat the Egg! Easter only comes but once a year!
Especially here on the brat thread.
Problem is........how am I going to hide my chocolate Easter egg from myself, once I buy it? And second, would it be a sin to eat hubs chocolate Easter egg, tell him I hid it and he must go find it?
(I stopped myself from mentioning this on the new thread, I figured those who read here might appreciated my brilliance more :P)
But I'm not speaking to John Lewis at the moment anyway, because they own Waitrose, and Waitrose have just sent me another stupid email about their "Waitrose Essentials" range - their idea of jumping on the bandwagon for offering rock-bottom prices on store cupboard staples. Which might have been sensible, except they were immediately and loudly mocked on social media for "Waitrose Essential Truffle Oil" - not satire, this was an actual product - and they're still bloody at it! Waitrose Essential Brioche Rolls, indeed. I ask you! Marie Antoinette is alive and well and working in your local supermarket...
Which already had steam coming out of my ears, and then my hapless MP sent a public consultation document asking for votes on which of seven routes we'd pick for the new bypass round the city. So I looked at the routes. And what is immediately obvious is that six years ago they built the industrial estate on the wrong bloody side of the city, didn't they? Clever.
It takes a public servant to be able to keep a straight face while (not) explaining how the new road will serve an industrial estate which it misses by some five miles.
I expect he is extremely highly paid. And I'm sure his political masters think he's worth every penny!
Guy Kelly
7 FEBRUARY 2018 • 1:41PM
This June, it will have been 50 years since sewing machinists at Ford’s Dagenham plant halted production, walked out and transformed the lives of working women forever.
Led by Rose Boland, Eileen Pullen, Vera Sime, Gwen Davis and Sheila Douglass, the 1968 strike began when the machinists – who predominantly made car seat covers – were informed their jobs were considered ‘less skilled’, while men at the plant were considered skilled workers. That inequality was reflected in pay: women were receiving 15% less than the rate given to men.
As anybody who has seen the film or musical Made In Dagenham will know, the actions of those women eventually led to Barbara Castle’s creation of the Equal Pay Act in 1970. It was a landmark moment for industry, but as is becoming clearer and clearer by the day in 2018, it didn’t get close to consigning salary sexism to history.
This morning, Tesco is the latest industry goliath shamed for mistreating its female workforce. Britain’s largest private sector employer is facing a potential equal pay claim of £4bn. On behalf of nearly 100 shop assistants who claim they are paid up to £3 an hour less than their male warehouse workers, law firm Leigh Day has lodged what would be Britain’s largest ever claim.
Leigh Day said the most common rate for women was £8 an hour whereas for men the hourly rate can be as high as £11 an hour. If successful, up to 200,000 staff could be paid up to £20,000 in back pay over six years.
From actors to sportspeople to BBC presenters, equal pay disputes have dominated the news over the past few weeks, and they won’t go away. By April, all UK companies with more than 250 employees are legally required to publish their gender pay gap data, making the matter a talking point in workplaces around the country.
What has happened so far?
Tesco is not the first major supermarket to find itself accused of rife salary sexism. Building over the last four years, Leigh Day has brought a claim against Asda on behalf of 17,000 former and current employees, arguing that work in stores is of equal value with jobs carried out by men in distribution centres, and should therefore be paid equally. The case has been dubbed “Made In Dagenham for the 21st Century”.
In Asda’s owner, Walmart, the women involved in the case are taking on the world’s largest company, one with unlimited legal funds, and it isn’t proving easy. Walmart’s prestigious team of lawyers (which has included Lord Falconer QC) is appealing every single win by an Asda employee, delaying an overall result by months.
An appeal hearing is due for the Asda women in October. Should they win, female workers at Sainsbury’s will feel better about their own case. Originally lodged in 2015 by three Sainsbury’s workers, nearly 1000 employees have now joined the action – also lodged by Leigh Day – that demands the same thing: for shopfloor jobs (mainly held by women) to be judged as of equal value to distribution centre jobs (mainly held by men).
Away from the retail sector, in 2013 Birmingham City Council settled an equal pay claim from women employed as cleaners, cooks and carers, who were paid far below men working as bin collectors and road workers. The council, which is the largest local authority in England, is liable for over £1 billion. As a result it was forced to sell the National Exhibition Centre and make dramatic cuts across the authority.
Further north, last month that Glasgow City Council confirmed it would negotiate and settle around 6,000 equal pay claims from female workers, potentially concluding more a decade of legal battles. Female carers, cleaners, catering staff, classroom assistants and clerical workers were among the employees who said they were paid £3 per hour less than their male colleagues.
Councils across Scotland were ordered in 1999 to “harmonise pay for employees and address historic inequalities,” though all but one of the 32 authorities missed the imposed 2004 deadline. In 2017, 13 years on, The Accounts Commission said around £750m had been spent settling claims, but more than 27,000 remained active. Edinburgh sold off land and spent £20 million of reserves to meet its bill, while South and North Lanarkshire both settled claims worth more than £70 million respectively.
In Berkshire, it was reported last month that Reading Borough Council has spent more than £3 million on payouts for women – mainly care workers, admin staff and cooks – working in their authority, after claims dating back to 2003. More are expected.
And, in the most high-profile case so far, the BBC has reportedly received around 230 individual pay claims in recent months, though it is not known how many grievances were related to sexism. An independent audit of on-air talent published earlier this month revealed a 6.3% pay gap but “no evidence of gender bias.” Off-air, a report in October found the gap was 9.3%.
In January, BBC journalist Carrie Gracie resigned from her role as China editor after discovering she was earning 50% less than two male counterparts. She told a parliamentary select committee that bosses justified the discrepancy by telling her she was “in development”, belittling the work of one of the corporation’s longest-serving reporters.
Highly successful actors are extremely rare individuals. The salaries they command have no relationship to any real-world scale, they're arrived at purely according to the brass neck of the agents negotiating them. Why are we looking on such people as examples of anything anyway?
But CW the maintenance man vs HCA comparison is more interesting. Birmingham City Council had a class action going on similar to this, with dinner ladies arguing that they should be compared with refuse collectors, I think it was, and were owed zillions in back pay, pensions and benefits. I'm not sure if they ever settled it, I'll have a look...
Did you know, that if you are having a hard time sleeping, it helps to change your clothes, brush your teeth, turn off the lights, get into the bed, under the covers.
Falling asleep on top of the covers, in your clothing, just dozing off can leave one kinda shaky and not well rested.
When last I visited the brat thread, all that very funny stuff about the maintenance man was not there. How much does he earn, vs. caregivers? hmmnnn?
Are you stuck again ?
To wit !
I may never look that guy in the eye again for fear of bursting out in laughter with an image of a wonder mop in hand
Of course, that would keep him out of the reach of the Viking's pinch
Hopefully mom actually needed a catheter and they didn't just pick her at random
Mother was Livid when I came in that morning~
When she left we laughed and laughed about it and from then on when Mom needed powder,I'd say"You want powder DOWN THERE?" and we'd laugh again.It was so funny to us,just the way she said it.
Why exactly do we have to stand on our tippy toes? What does that have to do with a mammogram?
That happened to me too.
And, when my foot was x-rayed I had to climb up high on a very tall stool, putting my foot on a tall
piece of equioment. Who needs a foot x-ray if one can perform those dangerous feats???? Like mountain climbing.
Tonight the maintenance guy was helping put folks to bed