Pet Hates........or FFS

[stairpost]

A new pet hate of mine is cheap shit audio cables, and piss poor ebay support.

I bought a jack to jack cable from eBay to connect my Echo dot to an external speaker. I plugged it in and all was well, I then wanted to move the echo so I unplugged the cable only to find the end of the jack plug was still wedged into the output socket of the echo, and I could not get the bugger out for the life of me. To make matters worse the little bit stuck in the socket was enough to disable the built in speaker, rendering the unit mute. I emailed the seller and he refunded me the cost of the cable straight away, I said what about the knackered echo, he replied "send it to me and I'll have a look". But with a combination of it being next saturday before I could get to the post office, and being extremely reluctant to send it off to someone that can't put a cable together properly I declined. I asked again about the unusable echo and he basically said tough shit, contact eBay. I did and they said all he had to do was refunded the cable cost, he was under no obligation to resolve my issue. They did say I could leave suitable feedback though, to which I replied that I had already left positive feedback as it worked when I plugged it in, and when I asked if I could redo the feedback with something that reflected my experience as a buyer, they said no. So they didn't offer any useful advice whatsoever. I was trying to total up how much I had spent on eBay over the years and gave up after getting to about £5k in 4 purchases, as it was making the lack of resolution worse to think I could probably get to a total that neared £20k.

I know it's bordering on a 'do you know how much I spend here' hissy tantrum to feel disinclined to use eBay again anytime soon, after what is basically one bad experience that would cost about £30 to rectify, but bollocks to them!

[meBob]

Supermarket checkouts.

For want of a better phrase: "I've dumped my load" at many many of them and walked off.

Life's too short, "Management to tills" and there begins an unbearable 10 minute haitus (in your already unbearable existence), where if I was living in the States and was an AK47 toting type who'd forgotten to take his medication, you'd be seeing pictures of my mug on global news. With people who knew me making comments like: "Such a quiet lad, I'm shocked!".

[Macca]

Supermarket checkouts.

.

The number of times this comes up on this thread its got to be number one pet hate. I am now in the habit of calming myself down even before entering the supermarket. It's the only way to prevent a kill-crazy rampage. It's not just the checkouts, it's the whole supermarket experience. Is it designed to be as unpleasant as possible? Naïve question, I know.

[tapid]

The number of times this comes up on this thread its got to be number one pet hate. I am now in the habit of calming myself down even before entering the supermarket. It's the only way to prevent a kill-crazy rampage. It's not just the checkouts, it's the whole supermarket experience. Is it designed to be as unpleasant as possible? Naïve question, I know.

Nah, just sit down and breath, supermarkets are fine. Lost worse things going on in the world. Like cyclists who don't stop on a red, and I ride a bike regular.

[meBob]

Macca,

"Is it designed to be as unpleasant as possible? Naïve question, I know. "

The system/employees they use is designed to take us right to the edge of what we'll tolerate, thereby maximising their profits and not our comfort!

[Ian7633]

This might be rather controversial so I'm ready for the backlash. It really irks me when grinning celebrities tell me how wonderful first class on British Airways is, quaffing champagne and scoffing fine food when three months ago they were all over the telly asking us to donate money to charities desperately in need, full of pathos and concern. I realise everyone has to earn a living but surely any credibility they had went out the window when they sat there grinning from their world class comfy seats.

[Marco]

Hi Bob,

The system/employees they use is designed to take us right to the edge of what we'll tolerate, thereby maximising their profits and not our comfort!

I'm not saying that you're wrong, but could you explain how you think such a policy works? Basically, I'm struggling with the concept of how pissing folk off, and exasperating them with a poor in-store experience, maximises profits...?

Marco.

[meBob]

Tapid,

That sounds like a wonderfully civilised world you live in down there.

We've got groups (10 - 20 a time) of hoody trial bikers in parts of this city will go out deliberately looking for a police pursuit, wheelies through red lights and across main junctions and onto in-coming traffic.

Sit back and relax mate, there's always somewhere worse.

[Macca]

Hi Bob,



I'm not saying that you're wrong, but could you explain how you think such a policy works? Basically, I'm struggling with the concept of how pissing folk off, and exasperating them with a poor in-store experience, maximises profits...?

Marco.

Get you in and out as fast as possible. They're subliminally training us to make our shop as quick and efficient as possible by making it such a dismal experience,

[meBob]

Marco,

How often do you switch your supermarket?

Just like they place toys where they're most visible to our brats, they do their research into just how much you're prepared to suffer before moving your loyalty off somewhere else.

My local super size Tesco when it first opened had the tills full with assistants and packers, it was fast. Now your waiting around, things have settled down, the tills are mostly empty and so there is a call " assistants to tills", a few will come but there's still a wait.

They're not putting us first, there's an optimisation being done some are shelf stacking etc, there's only so many staff in any store and if they all come running to the tills other tasks would be interupted harming profits.

The profit optimisations have been done! If they start losing customers they'll put more staff on, but they won't because they know precisely how many minutes the average Joe will wait and have the staff just to cope with that.