Breaking the Programming.

There are lots of offers for take-away - but in a sit-down Pizza Hut on a Friday evening the are no offers applicable - it would have been close to £100.

It's that that caused us to stand up in front of the whole restaurant and just walk out.  They use the powerful social pressure of not making a scene to have the guts to charge so much for what is effectively cheese on toast with tomato sauce.

Even Dominos have cranked up the prices - it used to be BOGOF so 2 large pizzas were £17 but now it's £20 for 2 mediums.  

Hi DC,

Yes... the South London social milieu that I grew up in has long gone.  It makes me feel rootless now.  Each time I go back up there, I recognise it less and less.  Most of the working-class boozers that my dad used to frequent are now bistros and gastro-pubs.  Hipsters are everywhere!

I like to defy convention or expectation, too.  Back in those hunt-sabbing days, we used to go on regular demos at local village meets or at other hunt-related activities like dinner-dances.  My fellow sabs invariably wore camos and para boots, etc.  I usually, though, wore a suit and tie.  The hunts-people didn't expect that!  They liked to categorise us all as dirty, smelly, long-haired layabouts. 

I well-remember a hunt follower referring to me one day as 'scum'.  "Scum, my friend," I replied, "is something that rises to the surface and leaves a mark!"  Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

See, here you can get a medium size pizza for only £5,
Or 2 large pizzas + 2 sides + drink for £24.99

I'm not advertising for them, but just thought it is useful information incase sometime in the future you or your daughter would like to try. It's not as expensive as your calculations go. Though I'm glad that you were able to find a nice Italian restaurant witha discounted rate.

Yep, that's true. Pizza Hut is quite confusing actually, it has loads of confusing discounts, such as 50% off, or a combo of multiple pizzas + snacks + drinks of £30, or buy 1 get 1 free, those kind of deals, and when applied optimally, you might end up spending less than half of the advertised price. When ordering online, there's an automatic program that can help you calculate the cheapest deal. I think you can also ask the waiters there to help you calculate the best deal when dining in. So I highly doubt you would spend near £100 for some pizza. But I agree it's really confusing, and it has tricked many people before. A couple years ago, a friend ordered for a group of friends including me and he didn't know about the discount, so we all ended up paying like £7 for just two slices of pizza. 

If someone makes insincere small talk with me I turn it into a bit of a joke.

Them: Hi. How are you?

Me: Well, I'm alright. How are you?

Them: I'm good.

Me: So how are you doing overall?

...Greetings. Me, just to add a bit of chaos/rebellion/perspective in this Thread...I Myself always am going against the "programming" of My local area - South London - ...by ALWAYS wearing a Tie or some kind of neckwear, even though I am not a Lawyer, Estate Agent, or SchoolChild. I do not wear clothes (jeans, t-shirt) which are so tight that they may as well be painted on. And neither do I wear at least two children, or fawn over children belonging to other people, nor do I dye my hair, or use the F-Word, or stand around twiddling my thumbs over a small screen while preventing other persons from passing by... Pick at least two out of all those and that is what surrounding Persons appear to do, here.

...Living in London, with regards to Food, the outskirts tend to charge reasonable prices, yet there is a thing known as "Tourist Prices" here, where, closer to the City Centre, for the same thing costing around £3, it can be more than £10 (and yes this is the same Brand inside the the same Shop). Seriously.

My worst crime of all, however, it would seem, is to have no Mobile Phone / properly working EMail address. Anyone reading this, keep it a secret, Hmmmm...?  (!)

With you on most of that.  The last time I wore a tie was around my waist, to hold my trousers up!

I've deleted or deactivated all of my social media accounts.  Just this one going now.

I feel this too. The programming is insidious.

And I do as you said - if someone asks how I am, I tell them.

Funnily enough, yesterday I went to Pizza Hut for the first time in years and my wife and I both commented on the prices. We had already moved restaurant once though so stayed put. It was blasted half term though & I wish I had taken my ear plugs with me!

Things I've done:

• I no longer send Christmas cards (!)
• I was brave enough to follow that up by texting my mother telling her I'm no longer sending cards & gifts for anything on the calendar, apart from gifts only for birthdays and Xmas.
• I wear earplugs in public
• I often answer "How are you?" with "Good thanks!" and leave it at that, if I don't care how the other person is (e.g. if I don't know them).
• I haven't worn a shirt & tie, or that kind of shirt, since 2017.
• If it's cold in the office, I sit at my desk with my coat on.
• I'm comfortable walking into and out of the office with earplugs in, and saying neither good morning nor goodbye (I sometimes do though, when *I* feel like it).
• I say no when colleagues ask if I want lunch with them, especially if we've just been in a meeting together
• When my mother texts, I leave it an hour or a day before texting back & no longer feel pressured into replying instantly
• I've deleted my LinkedIn account!!!!
• I'm sure there's more!

Hmm...  There's the uncomfortable thought that i've been so deeply programmed I'm poor at distinguishing the programming from my actual self (if there really is one of those, that is).   

I'm more honest about how i am recently though.  As in, "How are you?"  "Suffering a bit because of this, this and this, actually!"  Or begging to differ in a discussion, instead of assuming that the other person must somehow know more than me so i should defer to them.       

Hey :) 

Just as a heads up, most of those restaurants (Pizza Hut, Bella Italia etc) have discounts on (25-50% off), so you can end up paying less for the same food :) 

Much love <3

Yes I'll follow rules if I know why or it makes sense. Quite often though you'll ask why and the response will be "we've always done it this way" which is not a reason :p I'll do it my way, the correct / safer way. I don't like rules for rules sake. Regarding the pizza hut thing, I won't go into chain restaurants / coffee shops etc pretty much for this reason. They are only profit making machines. Local companies are much better. 

I'd certainly be with you on that.  I'd never pay that amount for a pizza.  It's like going to places where they have a captive audience, and they charge exorbitant rates.  Last week, I went on a trip with some clients at work - and the on-site restaurant at the venue wanted nearly £7 for a jacket potato and salad.  Filling for the potato was 85p extra.  When it came, the salad was a chopped lettuce leaf and two slices of cucumber!  So basically, it was nearly £8 for a jacket potato with a dollop of cheese on top. At least I wasn't paying for it, but all the same...

At work on Thursday, I reported a faulty electrical cable on one of the beds we use for clients.  In three places, the sheathing was worn through to the wires, and in one of those places a copper wire was actually exposed.  A couple of maintenance men came and looked at it - and said it was perfectly safe!  One of them even put his tongue on one of the worn places (a wasted stunt as the bed was unplugged).  So... I'm going to report it.  I've started to be a lot more assertive now, and speak up for myself.  I've had enough of being treated like a rube or a soft touch.

I've broken some written rules, too.  I trespassed many times when I used to go out sabbing fox hunts years ago.  Even got charged once.  But it was worth it.

One thing my condition has helped to make me is a rebel and nonconformist. 

For me rules have to make sense. If the rule makes sense then it would cause me huge anxiety to even thing about breaking it. If the rule didn't make sense then I would have less issue although it would be dependent on the consequence of breaking said rule. I hate being embarrassed for example so if breaking the rule was going to make me centre of attention, I wouldn't do it.

Having said all this. I'm not sure I'm fully aware of all the unwritten rules. I think I'm happily oblivious to some of them.

I can't think of any recent examples of breaking the rules or my programming.