What is your longest held petty grudge?

[Sebastian Cobb]

That's quality piss-taking.

[JesusAndYourBush]

My Sinclair Spectrum was always breaking down but because it was still under guarantee I could take it back into Boots and they'd swap it for another one there and then.  On the 7th time I did this they changed my rubber key Spectrum for the plastic key Spectrum, the guy explaining that it'd recently gone down in price for what I'd paid originally.

[Avril Lavigne]

My GCSE Geography teacher was the kind of guy who would always be making the class laugh with stupid puns and Dad-jokes. In one exercise we had based around making posters exploring different types of human rights for some reason, I decided to fill mine with puns because he and everyone else seemed to dig that kind of thing.
When my turn came to show off and describe the poster I'd made, the reaction was naught but stony silence and the teacher, with a face suddenly drained of any humanity, bluntly said "That's not funny." Then he asked the class "Does anyone think any of that's funny?" and everyone responded "No". I sat down and never attempted any jokes in class ever again. I hope he's dead.

[drummersaredeaf]

My GCSE Geography teacher was the kind of guy who would always be making the class laugh with stupid puns and Dad-jokes. In one exercise we had based around making posters exploring different types of human rights for some reason, I decided to fill mine with puns because he and everyone else seemed to dig that kind of thing.
When my turn came to show off and describe the poster I'd made, the reaction was naught but stony silence and the teacher, with a face suddenly drained of any humanity, bluntly said "That's not funny." Then he asked the class "Does anyone think any of that's funny?" and everyone responded "No". I sat down and never attempted any jokes in class ever again. I hope he's dead.

You are from Stoke, right? Seem to recall seeing you say something to suggest as much and that we're reasonably close in age. Don't suppose you went to a Catholic school in the area? I had a Geography teacher (who I'm hoping is the same cunt - Welsh, bit tubby, curly/shaved depending what stage in the balding process) who was all laughs some weeks, but his mood could turn 180 degrees at a moment's notice. Once sent the entire class out because my mate didn't laugh at his joke, and sent me out as a 13 year old for not putting my hand up high enough.

[Avril Lavigne]

You are from Stoke, right? Seem to recall seeing you say something to suggest as much and that we're reasonably close in age. Don't suppose you went to a Catholic school in the area? I had a Geography teacher (who I'm hoping is the same cunt - Welsh, bit tubby, curly/shaved depending what stage in the balding process) who was all laughs some weeks, but his mood could turn 180 degrees at a moment's notice. Once sent the entire class out because my mate didn't laugh at his joke, and sent me out as a 13 year old for not putting my hand up high enough.

For sure, I didn't go to a Catholic school but this was in Stoke and he was indeed a stout Welshman so maybe he changed schools at some point.

[Sebastian Cobb]

We had one standout prick of a teacher who thought he was funny but seemingly prided himself on also being a strict cantankerous arsehole. One time he told the class he was holding everyone back and they'd need to be silent for 10 minutes then went round haranguing people by asking people questions about the class in a quite authoritative tone until they answered then reset the clock, he'd get quite in peoples faces and aggressive if they were wise to it. Even then I thought it was sadistic prick behaviour.

Even if he wasn't literally divorced, he was definitely figuratively divorced.

[JaDanketies]

I can think of two teachers in primary school - one was especially egregious - who were sadistic bullies and who had absolutely no business being around children or being in any position of authority. It's bewildering now as an adult that they got away with it. It's not like it was a secret. All the other staff members, the PTA, the governors etc would've all known that this teacher was a horror.

[imitationleather]

I'm not usually one to hold grudges but there was a particular South African rugby teacher at school and if I was to find out he was dead I'd dance a jig.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I'm not usually one to hold grudges but there was a particular South African rugby teacher at school and if I was to find out he was dead I'd dance a jig.

One thing that really pissed me off in primary was I got dobbed in for doing a swear and the teacher told me off and said she wouldn't tell my parents 'this time', then when my dad came to collect me, she was stood out the fire exit of the classroom that we had to walk past and said "goodbye Cobb, hope to hear better language tomorrow!". I dunno, it just felt so unnecessarily duplicitous, much worse than straight grassing me up. A valuable life lesson about not trusting adults though I guess.

[flotemysost]

I stopped talking to my mum (only for a week or so) because we had an argument about Ariana Grande.

For context - we were talking on the phone not long after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, and I mentioned how awful it was etc. and she said something along the lines of "Yes, I'd never heard of the singer, but I read something about her lyrics recently and, well, I was quite shocked, they weren't very nice, but maybe that's what young women sing about these days."

I'm not even much of a fan of Grande's music but I was just speechless that my mum's reaction to a horrific event in which lots of young people (including young women) died - at the hands of individuals whose ideology was most likely not exactly supportive of women's sexual freedom - was to essentially slut shame a musician and their fans. It was especially disappointing seeing as she's usually a lefty feminist type; and also massively hypocritical, seeing as she listens to loads of music made by men who actually were dirty old bollockses in real life, so I said "I can't believe you just said that" and hung up on her.  She did apologise when I later explained why I was so annoyed.

I realise this sounds like a parody of petty poncey middle-class angst and lots of people's family members come out with horrendously bigoted shit on a daily basis, which may or may not be aimed directly at their own flesh and blood, but her uncharacteristically snobby prudishness really pissed me off.

I remember buying a tent from Argos to use at a festival and then returning it for a refund no problem when I was back the following week.

Amazing days.

Love it. I'd rather reuse someone's pre-loved tent and give it a quick shake/wipe down before use, than contribute to the sea of plastic that gets left behind when every fucker just leaves their camping stuff there after the great Monday morning skedaddle.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

I'd watched Japan performing The Quiet Life on TOTP earlier that evening and mentioned to a mate that I really liked it. He said they were a bunch of "nancy boys" and if I liked stuff like that I must be a bit "nance" too. I said I'd rather be a proud nance than admit to liking the egregious Hello This Is Joannie (The Telephone Answering Machine Song) by *checks Google* Paul Evans, as he had previously. We haven't spoken since. 1981 that was.

[Ferris]

A cafe/brunch place near our old apartment. We tried to go 4 times but never made it past the front door - 3 times it was closed in the middle of the day (reason not given), and once we made it when they were actually open but "sorry, no tables" except I can see in your place and it's basically empty mate.

Looked on its arse for several years after that and I refused to go in. Even went hungry because it was the only place open on a public holiday and I flatly refused to give them a penny. Fuck them, we'll go home and eat toast.

Just googled them and see they are PERMANENTLY CLOSED- they've pivoted to selling artisan hummus online so that'll fold shortly and my victory will be complete. Everyone is very down on this covid business but it's not all bad news.

[Bently Sheds]

A cafe/brunch place near our old apartment. We tried to go 4 times but never made it past the front door - 3 times it was closed in the middle of the day (reason not given), and once we made it when they were actually open but "sorry, no tables" except I can see in your place and it's basically empty mate.

Looked on its arse for several years after that and I refused to go in. Even went hungry because it was the only place open on a public holiday and I flatly refused to give them a penny. Fuck them, we'll go home and eat toast.

Just googled them and see they are PERMANENTLY CLOSED- they've pivoted to selling artisan hummus online so that'll fold shortly and my victory will be complete. Everyone is very down on this covid business but it's not all bad news.

Money laundering operation?

[Ferris]

Money laundering operation?

Don't think so, it was a big and fairly swish place in a very expensive bit of town. I seem to remember it getting rave reviews and I'd go past it twice a day to work and it always looked packed for the first few months at least. They must have seen us coming and turned all the lights off or something.

(I don't know why I'm being coy - it was The Poet on king east in Toronto.)

[Misspent Boners]

Smerky let plekry

[ASFTSN]

Applied for an internship thing at a fibreglass moulding studio, worked out how best to arrange which shifts would work best around my night shift work at the time, got the job, then received a phone haranguing from the coked up prick who ran the place that by me telling him when I could work I 'wasn't taking it seriously' and I had to 'shift my priorities'. I got off the phone, decided his vibes were sketchy and I didn't fancy working with him, called back and politely declined, and he called me a 'pussy little wankstain'. Thankfully he was kicked out of his studio a few years later but I still hope unutterably shit things happen to him.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've got a bit of a grudge with IBM been b because I applied for a student placement there and did all the psychometric test bollocks and had to go to a test day where about 20 of us had to role-play only for them to pick 2 and tell us all to piss off.

I always wondered if the the 18 of us that didn't make the cut were just shit or they  had a quota of 2 as a whittling exercise, this was before a proper interview stage.

Jokes on them me because once I graduated I joined a shitty big tech company of similar size and got to witness all the sychophancy, shit rolling downhill, internal recruitment and 'bench management' procedures that skirted round constructive dismissal anyway.

[Ferris]

Jokes on them me because once I graduated I joined a shitty big tech company of similar size and got to witness all the sychophancy, shit rolling downhill, internal recruitment and 'bench management' procedures that skirted round constructive dismissal anyway.

Interestingly (or not) I got contacted by a consulting firm via uni - the recruiter started talking about "yeah, you can target your billable hours around..." and I stopped him there and said actually I'm alright cheers. The shiver down my spine was involuntary and significant. I don't think I can physically manage a large firm ever again. They are shit.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Interestingly (or not) I got contacted by a consulting firm via uni - the recruiter started talking about "yeah, you can target your billable hours around..." and I stopped him there and said actually I'm alright cheers. The shiver down my spine was involuntary and significant. I don't think I can physically manage a large firm ever again. They are shit.

Ha yes, for my first few years I was just on one billable contract caretaking an old system, while a team in India built its replacement which was great because nobody really cared or paid attention to the old one.

After that I got put on a team that did pretty much the same thing but for multiple customers so everything had to be accounted for and I had to log time in multiple systems converting between hours and fractions of a day. I figured out very quickly nobody seemed to care about outright fibs so long as everything was consistent.

The worst part about those places are the bullshit appraisals and objectives. Even though they make you go through them everyone knows the best way to advance is to do your boss' job for them. I had bosses try and dump shit in my lap before under it being 'good experience' I just told them I aspire to be better technically and absolutely do not want to be a project manager. You could see the contempt in their eyes.

[checkoutgirl]

My mother took a big box of my Lego to do some experiments in her class at school, including some figures. When she brought it back, one of the visors from an astronaut was missing.

It was one of the cool, luminous orange Ice Planet ones.

Never let her live it down.

This was over 20 years ago.

Never loan anyone anything you aren't prepared to lose forever. A mate I lived in a small flat with about 20 years ago loaned my Smell of Reeves and Mortimer series 2 double VHS tapes to a manager in the restaurant he worked in.

I reluctantly stopped asking him to get it back after a couple of months. It still hurts.

His sister borrowed a special limited edition booklet full of art that came with FSOL's Dead Cities album from me around that time and I never saw it again. That was doubly stupid because it was limited edition and I rarely hung around with her.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I leant nearly all my UK garage vinyl to a chef at the place I worked at when I was 17 then they got sacked and I never saw them again, my rationale was me and my mates were into dnb now and it was the future.

Guess who in retrospect thinks garage might be more fun and better than dnb?

[Malcy]

B&Q.

Shower of bastards. Applied for a job a couple of years ago and went along to a group interview which consisted of just me and one other person. They ended up just giving us individual interviews. Had a really good chat about my previous experience as a joiners mate and my work on building sites and thought I displayed my knowledge well etc.

Got a call back the following week to say that the manager would like to meet me as he had taken the day of the interviews off. Agreed and spent my last £5 to my name on the train fare to go meet this manager as I had been told he was "very interested in hiring me".

I got there, got a tour of the shop and had a really in depth conversation of products, experience all that shite. Then received a voicemail a few days later to say that i "didn't seem interested enough in the job" and they had decided not to hire me. I can only assume the other candidate got it, especially if she had wore the same outfit she had to the interview.

I rang back immediately and asked in what way I didn't seem interested enough in the job. I didn't ask enough questions apparently which is complete bollocks. Spent the last of my money to go to a second interview that the twat fucking manager should have been there for in the first place and asked more questions about the job etc than I knew I had in me.

Fuck B&Q and that fat sweaty manager bastard. I growl any time I pass one now or see them mentioned anywhere. I went without to go back unnecessarily to prove i was capable and interested.

[Bobby Treetops]

Oh god, that whalloper. I know exactly the one you mean, he was infuriating every time. A walking cliche of a record shop snob. I bought a Stevie Wonder 'best of' for my mum's birthday in there once and he gave me a look like I'd asked him if they had anything by Gary Glitter then said something like "You're honestly buying a best of?". It's in your shop, mate. If it's shite your shop's shite and you work in a shite shop, you shite shop shiter.

I know the one, short fella with a sneery approach to his customers, judging everyone on their purchases. I once brought Melody De Nelson from there back in the early 2000s and was meet with 'You're only just buying this now?', er...sorry mate, what a prick. I thought these sorts of bellends had moved on to craft beer pubs and hipster bike shops but I heard the following exchange in a local record shop recently.

Woman - Have you got the new .... album? (I didn't catch what she asked for)
Moody Record Shop Bloke - Yeah.
Woman - Have you got it on CD?
Moody Record Shop Bloke - No...just on vinyl
Woman - Are you getting it in on CD?
Moody Record Shop Bloke - No
Moody Record Shop Bloke then just goes back to pricing up records ignoring the woman
Woman - Er.....bye then

[Ferris]

WANTED: man to work in record shop. Must be parody of the industry; one-note sitcom character-tier preferred. Competitive remuneration.

Apply within.