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Out of context: Reply #74213
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- Nairn4
Because of a series of mundane personal failings, I had to go across London to drop off a package to my fancy BioTech startup client. I punch their postcode into the TFL (transport for London) site and beep bop boop it spits out the instructions, which I dutifully scrawl on to a bit of paper, because I exist mostly in the last century, and then run out the door with my 15kg awkwardly-sized package in hand, huffing and puffing all the way.
I get off at the last tube station to realise I don't have the all-important guiding scrap of paper, so I ask someone how to get to my destination and it turns out I can just walk it, rather than the extra bus journey I'd expected.
To do this however, I have to renege on a personal promise - I have to go through the [spit] Westfield shopping centre. Fuckit, I'm not intentionally visiting there to shop or idle, so I'm still sorta upholding one of my many utterly pointless points of principle.
At this point I'm back in the 21st century and using GMaps with GPS to guide me, but it's not quite making any sense. I swear under my breath and go to ask someone working in a stall where.. what? Hold On. "What the fuck are YOU doing here, X?" The person I go to ask is a friend - well, the partner of a friend and he's looking quite uncomfortable. "er.. this is one of my many jobs". Turns out he's working on a concession right in the middle of this awful fucking hell-hole. He's usually a highfalutin' Act-Orh who although I get on quite well with him, he can be a bit of a .. well he can be a bit. I have to bite my tongue quite a lot when I'm around him. We sustain an awkward conversation in which he's clearly not super happy about my being there, and so I tootle off to swear at technology for a dozen more minutes, before realising that the client's lab isn't anywhere near the fucking post code I'd input.
I'm very curious to see how he'll react next time we meet up. I have often wondered how he keeps himself going, as he doesn't seem to do THAT much acting, as best as I can tell. Personally I couldn't give a fuck what he does, but he clearly does.
Also, the TFL app sucks sometimes - I could've got off directly at White City and turned right, and avoided Westfield entirely, but then I'd not have had a random meet in a city of 9 million people.
With not entirely sincere apologies to face_melter.
- The moral of this story is: Google Maps is actually quite often more accurate with route planning than even the local transport's websites are.Continuity
- As dire a statement as that is to make, but it's certainly been my experience.Continuity
- Sadly the Postcode I was aiming for was completely wrong. I mean, it was right - it just didn't include my client's lab. A bit of an odd one.Nairn
- Well, there's also a second-moral to this story: courier the package to the client. That way, you can avoid huffing, puffing, shopping centres, and people whoContinuity
- ... identify as the next Ben Kingsley.Continuity
- Yeah, I usually do - see first eight words of pointless schpiel. I just really fucked up a few things this week. I mean, they're saved, but.. AT WHAT COST?Nairn
- I just had a look at this shopping centre's website.
It sounds like Hell on Earth.Continuity - It is. It's one of the many 'developments' that is turning London into some weird synthetic schlockhole.Nairn
- White shity. Sounds like another shit day in London. At least you didn't get knifed.shapesalad
- that westfield is a hellhole. i was there last night to go and see a film - now they've expanded it it's a never-ending surreal nightmare of corporate retail.hans_glib
- i can feel my life force being drained from me as i walk thru it. tho i hadn't been since the expansion and was too aghast at what i saw...hans_glib
- ...to notice my will to live ebbing away. and the film was very westfield - bland uninspired second rate drearinesshans_glib
- idk to long TLDR.milfhunter
- These rants are great. Highly requested them filmed Sir Digby Chicken Caesar style.garbage