Real Estate Bastards

I try not to hate people. That’s not a way to be happy. Even though I hold certain views myself, I always enjoy talking to people with different views. Not in order to feel superior by beating them over the head with logic to prove I am “right” (as done by quite a few people I could mention), but because I might gain a new viewpoint, a new way to see the world. And that’s what life is all about, right?

But there’s one group of people that I unreservedly despise. A group that should, with all due haste, be removed from the surface of the planet; scraped from Terra’s boots like yesterday’s dried dog-shit. And these are real estate agents.

To save you reading the rest of this rant, I’ll summarise here: I fucking despise real estate agents. Like nothing else in this world. I hate them, for example, more than fascists. At least many fascists have some belief that they are doing some kind of greater good, as misplaced as it might be. Real estate agents are simply selfish, greedy scum.

Twice have I had dealings with these despicable twigs of humanity. Twice have they tried, in some way, to cheat me. And one time was when the bastard was actually working for me, selling my apartment and getting paid handsomely for his few hours of sweaty-fingered work. He tried to cheat me anyway.

I mean, what do they do exactly? They sell things that there is a huge demand for. And how do they do this? By lying, cheating, and pressing up prices. Are they experts in anything? No. Do they have a special skill that can’t be found elsewhere? No. Are they in any way necessary to the smooth running of the world? No they fucking aren’t.

They go to school too, and fuck knows what they learn there, except to take misleading photos, write deceptive texts and suck money from people. In fact, they seem to exist for two reasons – to push up property prices in any way they can in order to increase their own cut, and to keep prices in general high. Property bubbles are entirely their fault. Okay, them and the banks, but mostly them, the spineless, gutless, soulless, suit-wearing sons of bitches. Useless slabs of flesh, every last one, without exception.

Nobody put these sentiments better than Stewart Lee in his awesome sketch. And who wouldn’t like to batter estate agents repeatedly with a heavy bat? Sounds fucking delightful if you ask me.

(And for fuck’s sake, buy the man’s DVD.)

So join me in making the world a better place. Let’s all spit at a real estate agent today. A big sticky globular one, with shades of green in it. You know you want to.

/ paddy

Big Bad Burger Bar

I am watching at this very moment (yes, this VERY MOMENT) a Swedish documentary about working conditions in McDonalds.

They show the usual horror stories, in the usual horror-story fashion. How for example “old” food is kept longer than it should, how employees are paid less than they work, and how worker’s rights are regularly stamped upon. An hour is spent, talking to lots of people, with scary music in the background. All to make us angry or upset or something.

Now, any regular readers of mine will suspect where this is going next. Let’s see now, he describes the situation, he builds it up, he piles on the irony… and oh yes, then he starts swearing. So let’s do it!

Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild. With a faery, hand in hand. For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Excuse me, you complete dicks, what exactly do you expect here? You go to a place that offers really cheap bad-quality food, and you complain that they are cheating you? You pay fuck-all for your carbohydrate stodge but you still expect the staff to be buzzing about behind the counter, on gold-plated Segways, wearing goofy smiles from all the free high-quality coke they disperse for free in the staff bathroom?

McDonalds is cheap. It’s their thing. Do people think that this can be accomplished without exploiting somebody along the way? The workers, the suppliers, the growers? Yes, McDonalds simply desires to serve us with cheap, high-quality food while making the world a happy place, and to hell with the profit margins. Sure they do.

Now go bite the other one, it’s got bells on.

These moaners are like the people who complain about glass in their chicken, or meat-glue in their sausages, while at the same time expecting the slop they buy in their supermarkets to be as cheap as possible. You want cheap food, you got it. Tasty, isn’t it?

Seriously, get a fucking grip people. You pay shit, you get shit. What part of this is so difficult to follow? If you want good food and good workers conditions, then don’t go to Mc fucking Donalds just to moan about it. Go to a real restaurant, or make it your fucking self.

Clever, snappy and ironic summing-up line of some sort. You know the drill.

/ paddy

Phone-selling Fuckwits

People with a pointlessly good memory may recall me complaining about my mobile phone a while back.

Here’s what happened. I decided, since my mobile bill was usually in the range of 700 Swedish crowns per month, to get a fixed price account. I was convinced by the minion in the shop that I should settle for paying 650:- per month, 150 of that going to pay off the amazing sexy slidy phone I was presented with. This 650 would cover everything, I was assured.

But I shortly encountered problem one – the phone proved to be a lump of shit. It had to be sold for a fistful of magic beans and I had to keep paying it off for the remainder of the 18 months. I bought another phone, a Nokia, but could not forget the wayward son who had to be supported in his new life in some thug’s pocket.

Problem two followed soon after. 650, it turned out, was not in any way a “maximum”. Not included were sending texts abroad, calling abroad and internet access. With these things added, my super max price account was costing me about 850:- per month, including the charge for the phone I had already sold.

Every month my mobile operator would call me and ask me if things were going okay. I would angrily explain that, no, they weren’t, and tell them the whole story. They would listen, tell me they couldn’t do a damned thing to help, and go away. And the next month, they would call back and ask the same question again.

The problem was that the account I had was completely unsuited to how I use a mobile. I had 3000 free minutes to talk for in a month. How many did I use? 50. In a month. I did, on the other hand, send about 200 text messages, many of them abroad. Well done Tele2 for actually checking how I used my mobile before locking me into an account.

And at last–at last!–the 18 months of purgatory were up and I fixed a really cheap and efficient account with unlimited SMS and internet access and low call rates. How low, you may ask? Well here are my last 4 bills:

2010-04-05   184,00
2010-03-08   717,00
2010-02-05   1059,00
2010-01-05   759,00

You see it, don’t you? So I have paid, over 18 months, about 18*600 = about 10000 Swedish crowns too much for mobile phone services. So thanks a fucking lot Phone House, you useless cheating cunts.

And another big “fuck you”, as always, to Tele2 Comviq, the undisputed heavyweight bastards of mobile providers. I hope they spent my 10,000 crowns on something nice. Like heroin.

/ paddy