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[oilman]

So if someone rude and obnoxious comes in to your house you are always inviting?

Lisa, I was not having a go at you. Lots of people read these posts, and it was meant to be a more general reply. Of course I wouldn't invite one of these in, but there's a difference between that level and disliking someone. It also depends what is disliked about them. I may dislike someone, but I know the job will be first class.

I doubt you have come across many rude tradesmen, just as tradesmen come across few rude customers, (as a proportion of all their customers before we get the horror stories).

...... if someone is rude I will not tolerate it.

A luxury I feel I don't have if I get a rude customer.

It doesn't hurt workmen to be polite,.......

True, but perceptions of exactly what's ok vary. Lets say, tradesman is late. He could have phoned, but my mobile, for example, won't get a signal in some areas I work in, so that may be difficult. By now customer is miffed, could be late in the day so tradesman is tired, day has not gone well, and tradesman is greeted with a frosty grunt. Tradesman interprets this as unwelcoming.
"Sorry I'm late"......
"You could have phoned".......
"Couldn't get a signal"......
"Well my phone works ok".....

Now I know this may not be the way it happened, but a cup of tea or coffee here could make a huge difference. Most customers do their best with a not very wanted situation where they need someone to fix it. Most tradesmen do their best too, it just interaction in todays soap-opera guided society sometimes goes the wrong way.

Sometime it is very difficult as a woman to be in the house with someone she is uncomfortable with..........

This applies to men as well, we're not immune from human reactions.

 

[securespark]

...... if someone is rude I will not tolerate it.

A luxury I feel I don't have if I get a rude customer.

Having spent a large part of my working life in retail, I can sympathise with this.

Some customers know they can treat you abominably, and you can't answer back. Dreadful I know, but I have been on the receiving end many times, and have also witnessed this happening to others.

I know opinion is split on this, and I too have been in a quandary (My customer is a rude whatever a*sehole but he is paying me 100's of pounds for this work....), but generally I will have no trouble at all telling someone they are being, rude, obnoxious, or unreasonable. And if they are, I don't want to work for them. There are plenty of pleasant fish in the sea....

In fact, I know a customer of mine who fits the bill perfectly. His brother runs a bar-cafe and rubs noses with celebs. He is loud, arrogant and down-right racist (except when he wants a curry). I do not llike him one bit, but fulfilled my obligations by completing the work he asked me to do, but I won't do any more, and if he asks, I will not hesitate to tell him why.

There. My second controversial post in General Chat tonight!!

 

[AdamW]

it just interaction in todays soap-opera guided society sometimes goes the wrong way.

Glad to see someone else has noticed this! Far too often real life seems to mimic what happened last week on soap operas, as if it is subliminally influencing those who watch it. I don't watch any now, it makes it far more exciting when I see it in real life a couple of weeks later!

I only drink water

Vegetarian water-drinker? Oh, you're no fun anymore Nah seriously, I don't drink much else apart from water. I get through about 4 litres a day I reckon. Meant to be healthy but if you drink far too much it is also bad: reduces electrolyte concentration in the blood.

Finally: yes, the public can be rude. I have worked in shops and rubbish dumps in the past and found 10% of the public are obviously friendly, 87% might be but are too quiet to tell (we all have days when we don't fancy talking much) but then there are 3% who come across as right g*ts. I found this worst of all when I was the Saturday boy in a plumbers' merchants-turned-independent-DIY shop. I had people trying to bargain prices with me (durr, it's a shop and I'm just a shopboy), a plumber angry with me for not knowing what a flanged flim-flam spigot was and some idiot who asked for a particular colour on the Dulux colour mixing machine, then decided (before even trying it on the wall) that it needed more red in it and nearly wet herself when she knocked into me and got it all over my (new) jeans, trainers and shop floor.

But it is all the salt and pepper that seasons life. It means I can now go to work knowing that I won't have some smelly moron asking me "Don't you know who I am?! Put it on my account!". A noteworthy point: if someone asks "Don't you know who I am?!", it really winds them up if you reply "No, who are you?". It winds them up even more at the end of the month if you pretended you did know who they were and had been filing all their invoices under "Bu**er Lugs"

 

[AdamW]

His brother runs a bar-cafe and rubs noses with celebs.

It is good to see that an Eskimo (or Innuit) can do so well in 21st century England.

The definition of "celebrity" seems to have slipped in the last couple of years too. That new "celebrity flat" TV programme seems to have dropped below the Z-list celebrities and it is only a matter of time before it stars "that bloke down the pub who reckons he once played drums for The Who" and "the person who works in the kebab shop who I am never sure if they are a man or woman".

If you type my name in on the internet, there are several references to me and things I have done. Does that make me a celebrity?

 

[breezer]

If you type my name in on the internet, there are several references to me and things I have done. Does that make me a celebrity?

well i always thought you played batman (origonal series)

 

[AdamW]

well i always thought you played batman (origonal series)

Damn, my cover has been blown.

Quick Robin, to the batmobile, before The Breezer takes over Gotham City with his deadly wind machine!

 

[breezer]

 

[securespark]

One of the more inane things I learned in Chemistry at school was that the average cow releases (farts out!) 3000cm3 of methane every day....

NOT that I'm likening Breezer to a cow, you udderstand...

 

[AdamW]

How does that compare with other types of vegetarian, SS?

I dunno if anyone here used to watch "Seaquest DSV" on TV. It was a bit like Star Trek, but set on a submarine in the future. Cattle farming had been outlawed because of the effects of methane on the atmosphere.

I thought that 3000cm3 of methane sounded a bit too little, that is only 3 litres! So, I looked it up and the figures I have found range up to around 600 litres per day. And you know me, I can't resist crunching those numbers . So here goes:

Now, a typical family car produces around 170 grams of CO2 per kilometre, up to 250g for a big sporty saloon. Let's take 176 as a figure (to make the following maths easier )

The Relative Molecular Mass of CO2 is 44, which means that one "mole" of the gas weighs 44 grams. So, our car is producing 176/44=4 moles of CO2 every kilometre. So 4 moles. Now, a mole occupies a volume of 24 litres at room temperature and pressure. So for every kilometre you drive this hypothetical car, you are producing 24 litres x 4 moles = 96 litres of CO2 gas.

Which means that in your short 4 mile drive you are producing as much CO2 as a cow produces methane (CH4) in a day.

However, methane traps 21 times more heat per molecule than CO2. Therefore a cow is equivalent to a car driving about 80 miles per day.

A bizarre comparison, but one that I am sure could do the rounds of "did you know" conversations. There you have it. Driving a car 80 miles does as much damage to the atmosphere as a cow does in one day.

Note I haven't taken into account any other gases, let's pretend that catalytic converters are perfect

 

[mildmanneredjanitor]

I have worked in shops and rubbish dumps in the past

So, do we call you 'Stig', 'Batman' or Einstein???

 

[securespark]

Are you saying that moles fart more than cows, or are there just more moles per sq.m than cows?

Methane

Methane is very bad for the ozone layer. It actually breaks down the ozone layer 20 times faster than CO2. However, it does still have its uses. One of these is to generate electricity. Here in Australia we produce a large amount of methane. One of the primary producers of this methane are cattle and other livestock. When these cattle break wind, or fart, they release a large amount of methane into the atmosphere.

Some groups have started coming up with solutions to this problem. One such group are some dairy farmers. Many diary farmers keep their cows in sheds. These cows stand there day in day out farting away, producing heaps of methane and all of this is captured by the roof of the shed. Some dairy farmers have put extractors on the side of their shed to pull this methane out of the air and put it into canisters. This methane can then be sold or used to generate electricity. Some dairy farmers are actually powering their farms using cow farts.

We decided to develop a cow nappy. This airtight nappy collects all the cows' farts and the methane can be sold or used to generate electricity. By collecting this methanewe are preventing this methane escaping into the atmosphere and damaging the ozone layer!

How to do it: Get a stuffed cow and stick a poly tube inside it - one end at the mouth, the other at the cow's bottom. Attach a balloon to the bootom opening. Add a splash of vinegar for the "stomach acid" then a Tsp of bi-carb for the "food". Clamp your hand over the cows mouth to prevent it burping and watch that nappy grow!

Find out more about Farts at:
http://www.thefart.com

From here:

http://smartmoves.questacon.edu.au/teachers/topics/sustainability.html

 

[oilman]

Methane is very bad for the ozone layer.

In that case, how is it we have had an ozone layer intact until the advent of cfcs?

......breaks down the ozone layer 20 times faster than CO2

So CO2 breaks down the ozone layer?

.....heaps of methane and all of this is captured by the roof of the shed.

er, ....but meathane is heavier than air.

Could this be a matter of talking out of one's methane producer?

 

[AdamW]

er, ....but meathane is heavier than air.

RMM of Methane, CH4, is 12 + (4x1) = 16.

RMM of Nitrogen (N2) is 2 x 14 = 28

RMM of Oxygen (O2) is 2 x 16 = 32

RMM of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is 12 + (2 x 16) = 44.

As you can see, methane is the lightest of these. The molecular density of a gas is pretty much the same, thus methane is the least dense of these gases (which make up about 99.5% of the atmosphere) by far. So it would tend to float upwards. However, due to diffusion you wouldn't get a great deal of it. But with 600 litres a day coming out of each pair of rump steaks even 50% of this is plenty!

Does CO2 break down the ozone layer? I don't think it does. It traps heat, hence it is a greenhouse gas. The reason methane breaks down ozone is that in the conditions of the upper atmosphere (low pressure, plus UV) it reacts with ozone, forming water and CO2. CO2 does not react with ozone.

However, methane does offer a benefit to the atmosphere. It reacts with chlorine. Chlorine gas is terrible for ozone (hence CFCs are bad, mmkay).

 

[securespark]

But with 600 litres a day coming out of each pair of rump steaks even 50% of this is plenty!

Hey, Adam!

That's no way to talk about my delicate derriere..... (Little Britain Quote) "I'm a lady, you know!"

Talking about Veggie.

Yes, I think I fart as least as much as the next cow, if not more. Specially today. I had a w*nky old sandwich from T*sco, and have not stopped trumping since...

 

[AdamW]

My ex-gf is a veggie. She did seem to break wind more frequently than the omnivores in my life, however the smell wasn't so bad.

A lot of people find that certain things bring it on. Sometimes innocuous things too (not just onions and peppers). I am most affected by drinking a litre of orange juice and a jug of coffee. For some reason, whenever I have both in large quantities my stomach gets a little aerated.