Life in Liverchester

EVERYTHING WRITTEN BELOW IS FICTIONAL.

I'm living in Willington, Liverchester behind the Duel cafe. It's a student area, which is really annoying.

I'm 41 at the moment and I can't stand the conversations of these students. I'm too old for this area, it's hell to me. They are all optimistic, all young and happy, I'm the opposite, I'm an example of what not to do with your life actually, I fucked up at their age,now I'm reminded everyday that I fucked up.
I should have done things differently, I should have went to college for music, and probably university and so on, I should have learned to read music and I would be able to go everywhere in the world sight reading and session playing, instead I'm jacking off to porn until dawn with my trousers around my ankles, face pressed up flat against the keyboard. I'm 41.

I usually get a bus to work everyday, it's only a pound, but it's like a school bus, full of these teenagers and college and uni kids, I can't stand listening to their immature conversations, I can't even give you an example, I just hate the shit they come out with, none of it is important, or relevant to me. There is also a unversal accent for intelligent posh girls from England too that I'm fucking sick of too. It's the SAME ACCENT, that SAME ENGLISH accent that's from no particular region just SNOB-VILLE, POSH-VILLE bordering on GEEK-VILLE and I LAUGH-LOUDLY-VILLE at IMMATURE-THINGS-VILLE so everyone can hear me-ville because I like drawing attention to-myself-ville, because I was a lonely kid-at-school-ville.

Well I've got an interview tomorrow, hooray. Yes I hope I get this job, its nothing flash, I just want the hours, it's day shift, permanent days, this would be great because I can start to have my life back on the evenings. At the moment I work in a factory I absolutely hate it, don't get me too wrong, I appreciate having A JOB, if I didn't have this job wouldn't be here in Manchester that's for sure. But my boss is an arsehole of the highest order. He talks to me and everyone else in the place like a piece of shit, depending if he's been blown off the night before.

I cant stand going there because of him, not knowing what kind of mood he's in. He can snap at any minute, he will talk to you nice one minute, then talk to you like shit the next within MINUTES. Then if you do something wrong, naturally it gets worse. Then I get nervous around him because he's such a twat, he's the kind of guy who would grass on his own mother for the GOOD OF THE COMPANY, yes that's right he's one of them, one of those arsehole 'COMPANY MEN'. Sad bastards who think their shitty little pointless job, is IMPORTANT. Usual story, nothing good happening in their life otherwise, possible loss of control at home. little life at home, not very god at things at home......so they unleash pure hell at work,they think 'NOW HERE'S SOMETHING I'M GOOD AT! I CAN KICK ASS, TALK TO PEOPLE LIKE SHIT, GOOD, I CAN GET THINGS DONE BECAUSE I KNOW THIS JOB INSIDE OUT, THAT MAKES ME IMPORTANT IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS WORKPLACE!' Yes he's talks to everyone at work like shit, and I WANT OUT.
I have been working here for around a year now, and it's not a pleasure going to work there, I've nearly cried before I started a shift that's how much I hate it.
The thing is, as a line leader / team leader, I understand you may be working with idiots yourself, aresholes even, people may do stupid things or talk bad to you, well it's your job and responsibility to conduct yourself in a good manner, you have 100 ways of saying things, you can tell people to do things in a neutral way, a normal casual way, a matter of fact way, a stern way and so on, HE CHOOSES TO TALK TO PEOPLE LIKE SHIT, that's his choice, and it's because of that CHOICE that I hate him, yes i HATE HIM, and you know what.....that's MY CHOICE fucker!!! So once again, fingers crossed, I may even pray....let's hope it goes well.

EVERYTHING WRITTEN ABOVE IS FICTIONAL.

Dead Close

I am trying my best to remember as many memories as I can at this moment.
I don't remember too much about living in easthorpe close, I was too young and I am also not sure why we left there to move house literally around the corner into what would be our house for all of my life in Dead close. There were rumours over the years that my mam had fallen out with all of the neighbours, I think this is very possible after knowing what my mam is like now, but it's still a mystery and I certainly don't want to confirm it now with old neighbours, I would just get upset.

We carried our furniture around the corner into the next street and this was to be our home for all of our lives.

Looking through rose tinted spectacles at the moment but I have many fond memories of growing up there, at the time of writing, my mam still lives there, and I still visit, I can never quite let go of it but that's another story, more to do with my personality than anything else.

So we settled in, my dad had a job and my mother eventually worked for a company called Union Carbide. Once again, I was too young to remember details but my parents did do a lot of work and worked a lot of shifts, sometimes on opposite shifts from each other and rarely saw each other.

These were the days when people had to work, it was As simple as that. I think my dad still did a fair bit of drinking as my mam would later say. I remember they used to go out sometimes on a Saturday night and my sisters would baby sit me. We had a hi - fi from America that folded up into a suitcase, i think the make was a 'Mayfair'. We used to put it on and sing & dance to the 70's tunes like Suzie Quatro and the Osmond's. Sometimes we would record ourselves singing, I remember my sister Jane singing a song by the Osmond's called 'deep purple' and me singing 'we're the monkees' I loved the monkees. They weren't 70's but their T.V. show was always on in the 70's and 80's when I was growing up and i loved the music and the slap stick comedy.

We had a pet tortoise called Joey, I think I let him out by accident and he just kept walking. Poor joey, I mean, he really must have been left a long time before anyone noticed him gone, it's been over 30 years now, he might have just got 10 miles, maybe he will come back tomorrow.

GOD, everything written above is really boring.
Sorry about that.

A boss who talks to you like a piece of dirt

EVERYTHING BELOW IS FICTIONAL.

I had been working for a certain firm for a year now in Manclepool.
It's been a complete nightmare because of one man. One man has made my time at work a complete misery.
This guy is called Whitehead, I'm going to refer to him as shithead because he talks shit, he deals out the shit, we take his shit,we deal with his shit, and at the end of the shift he gives us more shit on how we performed and he might tell us, we did shit today.


This arsehole might have a napoleon complex or something, he really has a problem. He's one of those company people, my head drops when I meet those people. They are all the same, they'd sell their own mothers for the good of the company. How naive do you have to be to believe in any company that you don't own?
All companies will fold in the end, it's the nature of the manufacturing business. It WILL happen. So why invest so much of your interest in something that isn't yours to control? Why not just do enough? Do enough to keep your job. This shithad loves his team leader job, he gets paid an extra £100 for the pleasure of talking to the rest of us like children, he certainly has no respect for the people he's working with and I guess that's what really annoys me about him, and people like him.
In my experience, company people have no lives and probably no personalities. I've tried speaking to some of these fucks over the years and if you dig deep enough you'll find a pattern, a pattern of monotony in their miserable lives. Sometimes their home lives are so miserable that the only control and pleasure they get is telling you what to do, and telling you off, or getting you to do things again and again and again, just for kicks.


This is certainly the case with shithead, his life is basically babysitting at home and drinking and playing computer games, that's it, that's all. He might even be hen pecked too. All I know is that come Monday....I'm in a world of pain all week.

I've had a terrible year with him, it's really difficult knowing that every day you are going to be spoken to like a piece of shit, and I don't mean dirt, I mean shit, that's all I am to him. Every day WITHOUT FAIL, he will speak to me and others like shit.
Now, after a day you don't like it, multiply it by a week and you're really depressed, multiply it by a month and you're so down you're a nervous wreck, multiply it by a year and you're searching for ANY JOB you can find just to get away from the abuse and you're really thinking of ways to hurt him, you start fantasising of ways to injure him, just to get some kind of pleasure, just to make it fair in your mind. Because a year of shit from someone does that to you. When you feel like you're being told off before you've even done anything is really bad, then if you do make a mistake at work, how do you think shithead is going to take it?


I really don't understand why anyone can speak to people that way. This guy is meant to be in charge of us. I know it' easy to get angry if people make mistakes all the time, but shithead talks to us like this all the time. There's a thousand way for a manager to say one thing to his team, shithead chooses one way and it's the worst way possible, the team morale is zero.
The only time shithead tries to be nice is when he is in trouble with his superiors. There have been times when people have reported shithouse to his superiors, and he has shit himself, suddenly he starts asking how we are, how we are enjoying our time here, what are we doing at the weekend? What are our hobbies? He's not interested, he's just going through the motions, trying to fill in the gaps he can't do naturally, trying to be the team leader he was hired to be.
There was a time when his superiors were concerned with the morale of the team as a whole, and they sent an email to shithead asking if there were any problems, suddenly shithead turned from the computer screen in a panic and said 'Hey guys, how is the morale in this team?'. He looked really worried, I lied and said the morale was great, reason being, if I complained, he may have come down harder on us. It turned out he did anyway.


I had to put an act on throughout the year, that was my biggest performance, I was amazing. If I was totally myself I would have told shithead to fuck off and walked out, but I'm on my own now, I can't just walk out of jobs. I had to put a face on to deal with the shit that bastard was dishing out every day. IF you opposed him it only got worse for you, he would report everything to head office, if you spoke out of turn, disobeyed or questioned his authority he would send an email to the production manager. If you farted out of tune an email was sent. So I went the opposite way, I became a spineless twat just to get through it, I just said yes and no and sorry if I did something wrong, or said sorry if I did something he didn't like, and generally did everything he asked, that way I still got shit from him but it was minimised. However, I ended up hating myself for it, I couldn't be myself, every day I had to put an act on just to get 60% shit instead of 100%. No one should have to have to do that just to survive, it's a nightmare.


There was a time when a few of us got together and we decided something must be done to try and get this guy sacked, get him out of the company. There may have been three official complaints made against him.
Once he caught wind of this, he took all his team (me included) into a room and said 'Right, some people here have made official complaints against me. I've tried to be nice, I've tried telling you off the way I do, but if any of you make any mistakes or do anything out of line, I'm making an official complaint to the head office, end of!'
.....and I shit myself.
That meant if I even messed up (which was easy because I was a nervous wreck now) he would report me to the head office. Now it was personal between us all.
In the end, there was an internal investigation. Everyone in the company was questioned about shithead, everyone had the same issues with him, but it was decided that shithead would continue working for the company because he got his figures out, he produced the right amount of product as and when needed and he did it efficiently without question, and he knew everything about the product and the company (because he's a company man remember) so based on that, there's no reason to fire him, it doesn't matter if he treats his staff with contempt, as long as they performed like the pond life they are, he reaped the plaudits. He was and is the company man, the best of the best, who cares if people hate him, keep quitting and there's a large turnover of staff..........as long as the right amount of product comes out, on time, or ahead of schedule then shithead runs a tight efficient team.

I hate those company people like shithead, one day he's going to be without a job, the job WILL end, he will be left with a silver watch or a carriage clock (no more than £100 spent) as a show of appreciation for his unselfish efforts for the the good of the company. There will be a presentation in a local hall / conference centre / workmans club, all of the managers will be there (only for free drinks and a meal) they will all pretend it was worth it, they will pretend that shithead was worth it,..more to the point SHITHEAD will believe he was worth it, he will feel worthy, he will feel like a manager, like a director like an executive, he will feel important finally, he will feel like he belongs to the company, he's within touching distance of all the playboy managers with the yachts and the Monaco lifestyle, he will feel this, he will be proud to have this on his C.V. but it won't progress him any further, because he's good at what he does, he's good at one thing, and good at telling others about THAT ONE thing. He's like a child who knows how to play a computer game, but only tells others little bits about that game so they never quite fully understand the game

So, in short, shithead made my working life a total misery for a year, and for that....I hate him.

.....ALL OF THE ABOVE WAS arguably FICTIONAL.

An Ignorant Fop

I quote from wikipedia on a FOP............ "A modern-day fop may also be a reference to a foolish person who is overly concerned about his clothing and incapable of engaging in intellectual conversations, activities or thoughts."..................................And that about sums up the guy have been working with for the most part of a year.

I'm not going to mention the year, it will probably be different form the date of this post.
This has frustrated me for a year. There is 70% of him which is genuinely a nice chap, friendly,concerned,helpful, and kind, and it's a shame I don't write about that part of hi,m, but it's boring, it's not interesting to his final 30% which is mysterious,vague,annoying,manic,pathetic,ignorant,bigoted,foolish,immature and soul destroying.

Let me describe him, he comes from the countryside, he appears to be a very very camp man, as camp as Christmas, a metrosexual look about him, which is perfectly fine, I'm not saying that's wrong, I'm just describing my thoughts on his appearance.
He's 46 years old but wears clothes that teenagers would wear, childish baseball hats cocked to the side.
Designer shirts £130 for a plain blue shirt and so on. He eats nothing to keep himself trim, likes to stay slim by starving himself, never eats in front of people. He is balding very badly on top but is desperate to cling on to the last strands. To do this he has got his hair cut as sort as possible at the sides, then used gel to place the strands on top of his head in place, there's so much gel that this is not a good look, you can clearly see through his gelled strands onto his shiny scalp, the way you can see skin through the hairs on a hairy belly, know what I mean? pointless in other words!! But he's so vain, he's clinging on to everything he can to stay looking young. He's orange from the sunbed, orange that's turning to leather brown 70's luggage / car seat / leather jacket kind of skin. He uses moisturiser, that's no crime I understand, but you're guessing he's not the type to work as a hod carrier on a building site. He gets his eyebrows plucked / threaded at a beauty salon. Again....not a crime, but not a man you'd imagine working as a mechanic. He also gets his nails manicured....not a crime at all, I know you can do ALL these things and still be straight, but surely there's moment after the sunbed, after the hair gel, after the moisturiser, the manicure and eyebrow threading when you sit there and think......'SHIT....MAYBE I'M GAY!!!!'

There's also a part of his personality that's violent without real obvious reasons. He is so random sometimes in his outbursts, that leaves me wondering who he is, what's ticking inside his head. For example one time I was just mentioning the police, how they sometimes stop you to do random checks on your car and so on. The fop (I will refer to him as THE FOP..SEE WIKI REFERENCE ABOVE) the fop said to me 'I fucking hate the police!! Every fucking one of them should be dead, every one of them. Fucking hate them, fucking burn their houses down, hope they fucking all die, no time for the fucking police at all, die you fucking bastards!'.......In which I replied to the fop.....'My god, that was slightly aggressive, why do you hate the police so much?' and the fop replied (in his VAGUE MANNER in which he will do from time to time).....'I just DO! I just hate the bastards, fucking hang the lot of them!' I will never ever know why the fop was so angry towards the police. I could only guess it was because the fop was a bit of a boy racer, probably been racing round the streets in his shitty golf or astra or corsa all those years up until now, probably had a few tickets and speeding fines. In fact I think he did have some fines and went on a speed awareness course. SO maybe that's why he didn't like the police. This got me worried, because it actually proved that the fop was in fact a complete idiot of the road. Someone who had been stopped for speeding (potentially harming himself and others including children) so I am GLAD THE POLICE CAUGHT HIM. I have nothing against the police really, I get nervous and paranoid in their presence like everyone else but I dont mind them. They have a nightmare job, and a mountain of legislation and paperwork so cannot get on with the job as much as they would like, you get the occassional areshole on a power trip of course but I have no problem with them. BUT THE FOP, well it seemed he was an idiot. I'd overhear him talking about slow drivers who were in front of him when he's driving, he says 'I just overtake, put my foot down and go round them!' I said 'What?? on a single laned road? Like a high street?' the fop says 'YEAH!! FUCK THEM, if they want to slow me down, fuck em, ill go round them!!' I thought to myself 'this guy is an aresehole of the highest order, a wanker. He's one of those wankers we ALL hate, the one who revvs the car and overtakes us....POTENTIALLY CAUSING AN ACCIDENT OF DEATH!! Yes, that's the thing, he could overtake and hit someone walking through parked cars, maybe a child. What an arsehole!!

What else?

Oh yes there's the bigotry in him. One day I'm at work with him, and in the room there is ME, a guy from Zimbabwe now residing in Britain as a British citizen and another guy from Iraq who is now a British citizen...and THE FOP.We start talking about the death of Drummer Lee Rigby who was knocked down by a car and hacked to death on the streets of London in broad daylight.
Obviously this is a dreadful crime that shocked the country.
The fop says to everyone 'fucking terrible that murder!' we agree of course, then the fop goes into a rant 'Fucking hacking our soldiers in the streets Tom, fucking bastards should send them ALL back to their country!' (FOR YOUR INFORMATION..Michael Adebolajo & Michael Adebowale were two black British born citizens)


Here's how the conversation or RANT went.
Fop - 'No they're not from here Tom.'
Tom - 'They were born here'
Fop - 'Well they should go back where they're from'
Tom - 'What? London? Hackney?'
fop - 'No!! Where they're from!!'
Tom - 'England?'
fop - 'you KNOW what I mean! Send em on a boat and send the fuckers back! Coming over HERE killing our soldiers Tom!'
Tom - 'They never came over here, they were born here.'
fop - 'fucking killing our soldiers Tom, coming over here.'
Tom - 'They were born here, they have the same rights, they're British men, who killed a British soldier.'
fop - 'fuck off, they're not British.'
Tom - 'None of us are really British, you DO know that everyone is really from Ireland? (JOKING) Everyone can trace their heritage back to the emerald isle!!'
Fop - 'coming over here, killing our soldiers Tom! They're not from here, they should go back to where their ancestors came from!'
Tom - 'I see, all of them?'
fop - 'the fucking lot of them! coming over here killing our fucking soldiers!'

The fop has a habit of repeating himself over and over by the way, really annoying.

fop - 'Tom, they're not British, they haven't even got ENGLISH NAMES!'

(AT THIS MOMENT, THE TWO MEN WE ARE WORKING WITH FROM ZIMBABWE AND IRAQ TURN AROUND)
...and I'm thinking to myself 'God you ignorant bastard, how can you not see the guys BEHIND YOU, are from other countries and don't have English names either, you stupid arsehole, you're offending them, and everyone else in this room.'
I couldnt' believe my ears, I have seen clips of the EDL on television and youtube and knew they were thick ignorant uneducated twats, and here I was face to face with something very similar indeed. I was terrified of what might happen.

Anengoni (ZIMBABWE) - 'Hey, come on now, stop this'
tom - 'come on now you're offending Anengoni!'
fop - 'I'm not on about anengoni, I'm on about them lot down London, send the fuckers back home!'
Tom - 'send them back to England yes?'
fop - 'send the fuckers back Tom, have'nt even got English names!'
Tom - 'Neither has Anengoni and Mourad but they're both British citizens!!'
fop - 'I'm not on about Mourad and Anengoni!! I'm on about them lot down London, haven't even got English names, send the fuckers back! coming over here, killing our soldiers!!'

I was getting nowhere with this guy. He wasn't listening to anyone, he saw red, a mist came down over his eyes, there was no way you could rationalise with him. There was no way you could debate with him about the war, and the morality of it all, his brain couldn't make that kind of open minded leap, he had a closed view on the world. For example, there must be accounts in Iraq and Afghanistan where innocent families have died as a result of accidental shootings / bombings etc and regarded as collateral damage, for those families, they would immediately see the British & Americans as enemies surely. But no one talks about them in the news. To many in Afghanistan and Iraq, it would indeed be the British who came to their country killing people, if you know what I mean? It's a grey area, and there's no way I could have that debate with the fop..

Another thing he does is, ask endless questions. He is bored at work, totally bored, and you know what? So am I !!
So in order for his day to pass quickly, he asks everyone questions, in fact he is very nosey and will sometimes ask personal questions, and we are all so stupid, we tell him everything. He will keep asking and asking relentless questions. Sometimes I can;t stand this, because I dont think he's interested really, he is only doing this to pass the time. Well if he asks the questions and I'm doing the thinking and answering.......that makes my day drag and drag, just to entertain him. It annoys the hell out of me.
The thing is, I know NOTHING about him. If you ask him about his home life, he will reveal only a little information, and it may not be the truth. He is very vague about his life, and in fact he will say to you 'It's personal' which makes me angry because he has been asking everyone around him very personal questions.
He would get phone calls at work three times a day, he would have to stop what he was doing and take the phone calls. They were always from the same woman, Claire, and if you stood near him when he was on the phone you couldn't hear one word he said, you could just make out a mumbled yes or no, nothing else, he just listened on the phone. I always imagined the woman caller Claire....screaming down the phone at him all the time, and the fop just nodding his head mumbling 'yes' or 'no' . Now all of that is fine, that's his right to privacy, I have no right to try and listen in, the part that angers me is that had I taken a phone call at work....the fop would be in my face with a million relentless questions, 'you alright Tom? Everything alright Tom? Sure Tom? who was that Tom? wanna talk Tom? Sure you're ok Tom? You alright mate? alright Tom? Everything ok Tom? you alright Tom?' and on and on he would go, that's what annoys me about this idiot. I don't want to know his business, because it's NONE of my business, I just want to know why he wants to know mine so much.
I always think generally as humans, we are social animals and conversations usually involve a sharing of information, an exchange of information. With the fop, the conversation was always one way, he asks the questions not you, you answer, he knows everything about you, you know nothing about him.

I hate that, and I don't trust people like that.

At this time of writing I'm going to start a new job in a few weeks time, and I cannot wait to get away from the fop. He is one of the many reasons I'm leaving my current job, he makes my day there a torturous experience., along with my boss who talks to me like a piece of shit.

New job, under pressure

I left my old job, the one making electronic fags. I was sick of the hours and my horrible boss.
Now I'm in my new job, it's ok in some respects. I'm so pleased to have a nice team leader, it's so nice to be spoken to with respect. I never ad that in my previous job. I like the environment too, it's very chilled out and everyone so far is nice. I'm keeping myself to myself. In my last job I got hassled everyday off this guy, he just wanted to talk just to pass the time, just to make his day go quicker but it dragged for me, even on my breaks he would see me reading and interrupt just because he was bored. I'm so pleased to be away from him. It's so nice in my new job to be able to read my book in peace.
Everything is good apart from one thing.......the actual job.

I'm soldering minute wires under a microsope. It's so hard. I can't even solder, I tried so many times over the years and now I've been thrown in he deep end. I have three weeks to get it right, otherwise they will get rid of me, that's the part I don't like. Talk about pressure. There are other jobs there that I could do. There is a computer design program, where we design the product in 3D, then it will be printed in plastic (I make hearing aids) there is a 20 year old stonehead learning that job, sitting there bored with his arms crossed. I could do that job, come on.
But I have the hardest naturally. I hope I learn this skill, I hope I keep this job, otherwise I will have to start looking for another job quick.
It's not nice being responsible for yourself sometimes, I have no one to rely on here really, except myself and there are times when I feel like everything is falling apart.
At the time of writing, I'. -900 withdrawn in my account, I'm waiting on gig money from my band to be paid in just so I can eat, if anything goes wrong with my car I'm done for financially,and with the threat of being layed off in three weeks, I really worry about the future.
I'm sick of worrying.


Well it's been five weeks now (at the time of writing this sentence and I'm no further forward with this job.
Sick of listening to these young guys around me having a good laug, god I must be old, that's the sure sign I guess. There is nothing interesting about them. They even noticed that today. They know that I only engage in conversation if I find it interesting, which I think is the idea of conversation.