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Charging for lockers at your £45-a-month gym, and five other things that take the f**king piss

LIFE contains delightful wonders, all vastly outweighed by the number of pissy little irritations like these: 

Charging for lockers at your £45 a month gym

Demanding the thick end of fifty quid to queue up for a cross-stepper and be intimidated by the weights is cheeky. Adding a joining fee for the privilege of forking out monthly is extortion. Then asking for a pound for a locker is so brazen it’s put you off going altogether.

The second YouTube pre-roll ad

The first pre-roll ad makes you sigh with frustration, but it’s a fair trade-off for free videos. All you have to do is wait five seconds for the skip ad button. The second one can go f**k itself forever. It makes you so angry you’re almost tempted to consider joining YouTube Premium, but £11.99 a month is a piss take.

Online booking fees

The additional fee when booking a gig turns a reasonable transaction into the case against capitalism. When an additional ‘shipment fee’ is added for you to print your tickets at home? On your printer, which you should anyway be paid for nursing back to functionality? For emailing a PDF?

Parking at Alton Towers

You didn’t even want to go to Alton Towers. You wanted to stay at home and not spend three hours queuing for 42 seconds of adrenalin. Yet here you are, being asked for a further seven quid on top of the hundreds you’ve already stumped up. The sour taste lingers for the rest of the day.

Anything that requires precise change

It’s the future. Nothing should be coin operated anymore. Mainly because it involves withdrawing cash then buying a Wispa to get the right change, and good luck with that, because self-service tills only accept cards so you’ll have to inconvenience a member of staff who has more important things to do than be your bitch.

Two-step verification

Online security is important. Entering a code that’s been sent to your phone which is all the way in the other room is a pain in the arse. Can’t the online world be bit more blasé about the risks posed by hackers when trying to order Chinese from Deliveroo? It’s not like you’re entering nuclear launch codes.

Woman instigates performance review for family

A WOMAN has introduced an annual performance review for her husband and children, noting that in most areas they are ranked as requiring urgent action for improvement. 

Wife, mother and HR manager Emma Bradford brought the system in to foster long-term advances to her family structure, including a system of verbal warnings, written warnings and possible dismissal.

She said: “A new fiscal year is approaching, which is the ideal time for reflection, resolution and the rigorous application of a point-based performance assessment.

“I’m seeing Nathan and the kids in a series of one-on-one face-to-face meetings, with a printed review of their abilities and achievements across 20 core behaviours.

“Nathan is ‘needs development’, which is disappointing, but he can improve by following the simple points in his personalised Performance Improvement plan, beginning with the recycling.

“Teddy is six but definitely falling short. I use open questions to invite him to contribute, such as, ‘Do you think the bath towels live on the bathroom floor?’

“Nobody’s reached ‘exceeds expectations’. I’ve explained I want to help them reach their full potential by following the SMART goals that I’ve set for the upcoming six months.”

Husband Nathan said: “We’re considering a restructure. Emma will be invited to re-apply for her role, but it’s a rigorous process against outstanding candidates.”

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