villa4europe Posted January 17, 2020 Share Posted January 17, 2020 (edited) The bosses do I don't, in theory if the boss buys me a beer on the company credit card then another deduction kicks in My last place was good for it, claim everything, absolute free for all as long as you kept the receipt, I did some work down London for 2 days and put a weeks shopping through Edited January 17, 2020 by villa4europe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 17, 2020 Share Posted January 17, 2020 14 minutes ago, Genie said: I know you’ve said a few times you live in Wales but for some strange reason I didn’t think you were Welsh. Do I need to start reading you posts in a Welsh accent in my head? Full on haaaarsh kaaaardiff would be the easiest laziest description. But I’ll sound like you 10 minutes into a conversation cos I do this weird mimic thing which annoys me. Local footy with mates tomorrow evening will be excitable Barry boy and attempts at pidgin welsh. I won’t be able to understand myself by the time I get home. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post limpid Posted January 18, 2020 Administrator Popular Post Share Posted January 18, 2020 11 hours ago, villa4europe said: On working abroad, I had to pay the hotel bill this morning and claim it back, rotten that is, takes me about 2 months to get expenses paid (I haven't been paid for a trip I did it September yet) Charge them interest. Does your contract require you to lend them money? I suspect that it wouldn't be enforceable if it does, but if it does it should clearly state the repayment terms. And if they are in material breach then you won't have to give notice when you find a job at a better employer. Join a union. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 6 minutes ago, limpid said: Charge them interest. Does your contract require you to lend them money? I suspect that it wouldn't be enforceable if it does, but if it does it should clearly state the repayment terms. And if they are in material breach then you won't have to give notice when you find a job at a better employer. Join a union. Beat me to it. It appears to be a highly unethical practice and one that could be challenged legally. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 Germany... Its not the union its a works council Will be having a chat on Monday 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 Playing cards with the kids, the masked singer is on in the background. One of the singers just said that they were singing in an accent. What’s the **** point if they are in a full costume and singing in a put on voice? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mjmooney Posted January 18, 2020 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted January 18, 2020 6 minutes ago, Genie said: the masked singer is on What’s the **** point? FTFY 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted January 18, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted January 18, 2020 On 17/01/2020 at 18:01, villa4europe said: spent the last 4 days working in madrid there was a laugh and a joke this morning with 2 germans, 1 Portuguese, 1 Argentinian and 9 Spanish guys about how thanks to my brummie accent my English was the worst in the room On 17/01/2020 at 19:09, chrisp65 said: A good few years ago I had a meeting with some Germans, Maltese and a Libyan. Meeting was in english, I was the only one that had to keep repeating myself to be understood. Where I work we have sites in Italy and France so regularly have meetings with people from those sites. Obviously they all speak English because Europeans are brilliant, and barely anyone in the UK office speaks any other language. but I take a weird pleasure and amusement when I’m in a meeting of 7 or 8 people and everyone is speaking English just because of me. Especially if it’s a meeting I’m barely contributing to 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 18, 2020 Share Posted January 18, 2020 6 minutes ago, Stevo985 said: Where I work we have sites in Italy and France so regularly have meetings with people from those sites. Obviously they all speak English because Europeans are brilliant, and barely anyone in the UK office speaks any other language. but I take a weird pleasure and amusement when I’m in a meeting of 7 or 8 people and everyone is speaking English just because of me. Especially if it’s a meeting I’m barely contributing to I’ve tried to hold a work meeting in Welsh. We established what all our names were, I spoke a little about the weather. I asked people if they would like a coffee, and took the order. Then we all agreed that if we were going to make any further progress before we all retired I could now switch to english! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted January 19, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted January 19, 2020 11 hours ago, Stevo985 said: I take a weird pleasure and amusement when I’m in a meeting of 7 or 8 people and everyone is speaking English just because of me. I would find that mortifying. English people's inability with languages is a disgrace (I very much include myself in that). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted January 19, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted January 19, 2020 26 minutes ago, mjmooney said: I would find that mortifying. English people's inability with languages is a disgrace (I very much include myself in that). Nah it’s funny. In a self deprecating kind of way. It’s kind of the accepted etiquette in the company that meetings are held in English if there’s multiple nationalities. If the French and the Italians are having a meeting it’ll often be in English because they both speak it (although a lot of Italians speak French too). But you are right, their language skills put us to shame. Although I do think that’s also a result of English being so widely spoken in the world. The Italians will tell you they all speak English because nobody else in the world speaks Italian so nobody understands them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 1 hour ago, mjmooney said: English people's inability with languages is a disgrace (I very much include myself in that). British people surely ? But i agree in general with the sentiment .... My school days we were taught French and I couldn’t wait to drop the subject.. hindsight being a wonderful thing now I wish I had learnt a couple of languages ... that said part of the fun with my travels has been those conversations where neither party speaks the others language , sure it would have made swapping buses in the middle of a desert at 2 am after we missed our stop (ironically because we didn’t speak the language) aheck of a lot easier but acting it out like a game of charades was equally fun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 English is the defacto business language of the World. Global companies even if they are headquartered overseas use English as their preferred language at work. It means that for overseas people, to be successful at work, you need English skills. Its a necessity. Unfortunately it means for us Brits, learning other languages is largely down to a personal hobby or specific reason. I'd like to learn French properly (i can just about get by) and Spanish but i'm just too lazy and there is no burning reason to do so. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 It’s also down to the soft power of culture. All those US and UK films, all that pop music, The World Service. I can’t help feeling that if all the best films and music were all in Portuguese for 70 years and a couple of super powers conversed in Portuguese, we would be much better at Portuguese. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Davkaus Posted January 19, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted January 19, 2020 I'll stay out of the UFC topic as going in to a specific topic and saying "I think this is shit" is a bit of a dick move. I'll admit it's just not my thing in general, I don't get it, and I may well be in the minority, but I saw a video of the McGregor fight and the whole thing is just disgusting. It's basically just blokes beating each other half to death in front of a baying mob because it's their best chance of earning a decent living. It's a pretty vile sport IMO. Same for boxing. 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted January 19, 2020 VT Supporter Share Posted January 19, 2020 58 minutes ago, tonyh29 said: British people surely ? But i agree in general with the sentiment .... My school days we were taught French and I couldn’t wait to drop the subject.. hindsight being a wonderful thing now I wish I had learnt a couple of languages ... that said part of the fun with my travels has been those conversations where neither party speaks the others language , sure it would have made swapping buses in the middle of a desert at 2 am after we missed our stop (ironically because we didn’t speak the language) aheck of a lot easier but acting it out like a game of charades was equally fun Yeah, same. I can get by in French, having done it at school. And I've managed a bit of pidgin Spanish, Italian and Greek when visiting those countries. I'd love to be as fluent as so many Europeans are with English, but it's never going to happen. I once helped a Dutch family (spoke English but no French) ask for directions from a French person (spoke only French, natch). And had conversations in French with a Bulgarian who had no English. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVFC_Hitz Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 14 minutes ago, Davkaus said: I'll stay out of the UFC topic as going in to a specific topic and saying "I think this is shit" is a bit of a dick move. I'll admit it's just not my thing in general, I don't get it, and I may well be in the minority, but I saw a video of the McGregor fight and the whole thing is just disgusting. It's basically just blokes beating each other half to death in front of a baying mob because it's their best chance of earning a decent living. It's a pretty vile sport IMO. Same for boxing. Absolutely. I don't really think its disgusting though, it's just a bit shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 3 minutes ago, mjmooney said: I once helped a Dutch family (spoke English but no French) ask for directions from a French person (spoke only French, natch). And had conversations in French with a Bulgarian who had no English. Talking of directions that reminds me when I was living in Hungary i’d kinda gone a bit native with a grade 1 haircut ( top tip kids learn short back and sides in Hungarian before going to get your hair cut ) and lost my English whiteness with a 3 months of summer tan ...this English family were a bit lost and randomly asked me for directions which I gave them ... as they walked off I heard one say “that Hungarian spoke bloody good English “ 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 6 hours ago, mjmooney said: I would find that mortifying. English people's inability with languages is a disgrace (I very much include myself in that). What I've found is that most people actually don't expect us to speak another language and are perfectly OK with it, would say that we have a far far better ear for pigeon English and much more patience with it than ze Germans do for bad German, even my wife hates talking bad German with me Did have a chat with the Spanish head honcho in a bar about it, he said "the problem with the English is they have the easiest grammar in the world so it's harder for them to learn another language than it is for most Europeans" and I think he's right, if she started from scratch tomorrow my wife would be fluent in Spanish quicker than I will be fluent in German and I'm already at a2, it's just not in us, and that's before you look at the arrogance of English travelling All my contracts are in English, if I wasn't at the meetings this week then the germans, Spanish, Argentinian and Portuguese would have still had them in English 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharkyvilla Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 38 minutes ago, villa4europe said: What I've found is that most people actually don't expect us to speak another language and are perfectly OK with it, would say that we have a far far better ear for pigeon English and much more patience with it than ze Germans do for bad German, even my wife hates talking bad German with me Did have a chat with the Spanish head honcho in a bar about it, he said "the problem with the English is they have the easiest grammar in the world so it's harder for them to learn another language than it is for most Europeans" and I think he's right, if she started from scratch tomorrow my wife would be fluent in Spanish quicker than I will be fluent in German and I'm already at a2, it's just not in us, and that's before you look at the arrogance of English travelling All my contracts are in English, if I wasn't at the meetings this week then the germans, Spanish, Argentinian and Portuguese would have still had them in English The whole nouns having gender thing I find baffling. I don't see the point and am surprised the languages haven't evolved to the point where they got rid of it altogether. For us Portuguese would probably be the easiest to learn as their sentence structure is very similar but it's not really used on a wide scale across the globe. I do try and learn a bit of local language before going abroad somewhere and then give up by the second day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts