Maybe the streaker was a Green Beret....

IIRC wimbledon is a perk of sorts, but, you have to use your own leave and sort out own accomodation if you are from units outside sufficient travelling time!!

so would you call it a perk???? i suppose if you 'LOVE' tennis then yes! but i would hazard a guess ('cause i never watch it!) that you would use a fair amount of leave up being there!!

regards

J6T

Never could understand the attraction of stewarding the general public around, seems a bit servile to me.

The guys get paid an allowance (about £60 per day) to work there. But they have to take leave and it only really works out in your favour if you can find somewhere cheap to stay locally.

like i say.... you would have to LOVE:p tennis:zzz: to do it!

A few years back, i stepped off the Tristar, into the relatively fresh, clean air of home, thinking wow i can't believe i'm back and back safely with nothing more than sunburn. I duly changed into some clean civvies, splash of Brut, and made my way for an onward connecting flight at Stansted. Only those who have been there know how comforting and almost surreal the feeling of being 'Back Home' is, nothing could get me down, including the heaving airport and half mile queue to check in.

I smiled at the pretty girl at the check in desk, (A sight for sore eyes, i can tell you ;) ), who promptly told me that my baggage was 4 kilos too heavy and i had to pay at, "the other desk over there"...."What, the one with the huge queue?"...."Yeah, thassit". Nice one, slapped back to reality...Firmly, Welcome home, (Maybe the Brut was a bad idea).

Conversely, i travelled to the US recently, got 50% off a swanky Miami hotel room, 10% and 20% off at various sport shops and even got up the Empire State Building for free.

I'm proud to be British, but God bless America!! ;)

sorry to hear of your 'mistreatment' by a member of the british public!! it all sort of echoes what's been posted in the last few pages!

it's basically laughable that...EVEN wearing brut, you are still treated so poorly on return to 'blighty'.. do you think that a 'clean pressed uniform' would of made any difference though? i used to work at a major uk airport and know for a fact that (in those days anyway!) the check in staff got a slice of any excess baggage they 'did' someone for, so unless you came across some young filly that was a real 'man in uniform' freak, i still would of thought you would be a few quid lighter....


you mention our american friends, and i totally agree that they really know how to look after not only their own, but us too!


i went to LA from Las Vegas once and we got treated to '2 flights for the price of one!' now ok i realise that it was maybe still more expensive than some of our own 'budget airlines' but this was well before their conception..


we even used to get ' anything for a dollar in mcdonalds'.... plate fulls i tell you!!!!


oh well, as someone else has said, the guys and girls in uniform these days have absolutely no chance from anything even remotely like what they would get from our US friends...

regards

J6T

Wondered who the one person was that's proud to be British . . . . ..

I think our country sucks. And yes, I am leaving it too. There just seems to be no pride left. Everyone out to stiff each other, customer service that sucks beyond belief and taxed through the nose.

Plus pikeys with England flags and no air con :p . . .. . . .

Treated poorly, mistreated? Maybe the Girl was just doing her job. Was she rude to you in anyway bigmac? All UK/US airlines have an excess baggage charge.

there is my friend!! i think the people with pride are currently in the 'sandier' places (or justback/waiting to go!) of the world.....
the people with the flags, are at BEST simply very misguided in what they understand the word patriotic means....
i would hazard a guess that you wont be treated 'fantastically' well wherever you emigrate to... the world as a whole is as you so well put it;
Everyone out to stiff each other, customer service that sucks beyond belief
you do sound very bitter in the way you seem to have been treated, and i hope you find your dream world....
regards
J6T

yes maybe she was 'just' doing her job? i myself have travelled with excess baggage and when explained why it was 'excess' it was happily waived through....:ok:
like i say i worked on the ramp at a uk airport, and the staff there were only interested in one thing..... bumping their wages up better than the next person... some of them were down right shameless in their admission on how ruthless they were....:eek:
my point is that yeah she maybe was only doing her job, but it could be argued that our friend bigmac had been doing his bit to allow her the freedoms that she is used to, and was probably only expecting to be cut a bit of slack on his return.... christ, the guy says it was only 4KG......:ugh:

I doubt somehow she would get a bonus for sending some to pay for excess baggage. You intimated that he was somehow poorly mistreated. How did you come to this conclusion.
So what was your excuse to get away with paying excess baggage?

my 'EXCUSE' was that i had been away somewhere not very nice for a fair amount of time, and in my opinion the excess was military kit.... the person i spoke to was fine with that and off i went....
and at manchester in the late nineties the handling agents/airlines were paying to the check in staff a percentage of any excess bag charges....
basically i think the general idea of this tread is the way OUR boys and girls who have served abroad on operation ???????, basically seem to get little or no recognition from the british public

Not looking for a dream world jono, it's just that most places are better than Britain.

It's been said many times on here before, but most do this job not for their country anymore but for those around them that they work with.

The British public do give our troops recognition. Its the Government who dont give a stuff

Movadink
His other excuse was that he probably weighed 20kg less than the large lardy civvy bloke that was stood next to him at checkin.

hello again tigs......
cheers for the back up.... i cant believe how difficult it is to convince people that OUR armed forces deserve a bit of respect here and there
J6T

"Cheers for the back up tigs........"hahahahhaha. Its like being in the playground. I am sure she did respect him as a paying customer. Perhaps he could have asked for a Military discount for the excess. Many American organisations give military discounts if you ask.

I agree on the Govt bit, but don't necessarily agree on the public. Maybe the US is seen as OTT by some, but I've had random members of the public come up to me in a hotel lobby whilst in uniform saying " Just wanted to thank you for your service and let you know we are thinking of you"

I would say that's happened half a dozen or so times, which given the number of times I've been to the States over the last few years is a high hit rate of public affection.

Care to take a guess of the times that happens in the UK ? Square root of springs to mind.

Maybe someone else will post with positive experiences in this country.

Many will say "But we don't do that in the UK. It simply isn't British"

Fine. So how do we support our troops then ? If we don't speak to them and thank them in public, and we don't as a nation give them a financial "thank you" at retailers, if we don't give those serving abroad more minutes to call home than THOSE IN PRISON get, and we don't let our boys walk through UK airports in uniform then what do we do ?

The military is something that is forgotten about till needed, forgotten about when the job is done and forgotten about when things don't quite go as planned. And that's fine. We do the job we get paid for and we get on with it.
And we get embarressed when we see how other nations look after their boys.

Oh dear ffp. Are you feeling a little down because the public will not say thankyou for your efforts? Many retailers in the UK offer the armed forces discounts.
The telephone issue has nothing to do with the general public, its the government again.
Why would you want to walk about an airport in uniform after spending the last few months wearing it.
Do you walk upto Policemen, firefighters and Nurses and thank them for what they do? Somehow I doubt it.

So in short no, I don't get a little down because the public will not say thank you. Just pointing out your thrown away line about the public caring is arse.

As to discounts, are you referring to the ones that are in the discount brochure ? The ones that, certainly for people like BA, are more expensive than if you went on their website as Joe Public ?

The last time in was in hospital I did make a point of thanking the nurses. Last time I saw firefighters they were picketing the station from which my boys were trying to do their job.

But regardless, they do deserve thanking. Thought this thread was about the military though .. . .

Or shall we talk about the lack of support for the cheesemakers while we are at it ?