Pet Peeves: Aka Things That Make You Go "Gah!"

[DeLurker]

16 hours ago, PRgal said:

The locker room at my yoga studio has three sinks and ONE SOAP DISPENSER!!  Maybe I'm just lazy, but I don't really think people want to walk a few steps away just to get soap to wash their hands.

I wouldn't love it, but I'd do it if I had to.

Travel Itineraries & Groups:  Where I used to work, my co-workers and I were all friends.  They took several trips to Europe together (I didn't go because of the kiddos and the fact that all disposable income was going to my divorce attorney (well worth it)).  Hearing the variations of the travel tales once they got back was hysterical! X is too uptight and anal about sticking to a schedule, Y is never ready on time nor meets up with you when scheduled, Z only wanted to go look at stuffy old museums and churches, ....The travel groups started to whittle down to those of more like minded travelers because even if their interpersonal relationship wasn't as close on a daily basis, they were much more compatible as travel companions.

[auntlada]

15 hours ago, Bastet said:

Ugh, no.  As long as they didn't get pissy when I opted to go off and do something different than the group sometimes, fine, but otherwise those aren't the kind of people I'd vacation with.

But if I were going to be wandering around town in a herd, I'd be like you - let's get at least some of this stuff planned in advance so we're not scrambling for reservations or wasting vacation time sitting around discussing the logistics.

Ideally, if I am able to do the planning if we ever go again, there will be things we do together, each family picking one. Then there would be some unscheduled time during which people could do what they want, even if what they want is to go in their room, shut the door and read a book.

I really like planning ahead when traveling with a group. The whole "let's talk about it for an hour and agree on things when we get there" thing drives me crazy. No one ever agrees on everything, so someone (I feel like it is usually me) has to give in. I like when everyone gets to pick one thing (or every family if the group is large and how your family picks is up to you), and everybody does it without complaining (out loud) because they are going to do your thing, too.

But separate time is really important to me if I am not going to bite someone's head off before the end of the week.

[DeLurker]

My family tend to vacation in highly unstructured ways - we might go somewhere, but once we get there we are pretty happy just to be there with lots of unplanned blocks of time - as a result we tend to rent beach houses or go visit other family who live in different parts of the country.  We're pretty happy just tagging along doing everyday chores or tackling major projects depending on who is in town (a couple of my cousins are amazing carpenters and all around handymen, my brothers end up working on cars or computers & electronics...), going out for long walks or drives,...  Nights are usually a family dinner, a couple of rounds of cards and/or board games, a family movie, drinking for the adults...  It isn't for everyone.

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, DeLurker said:

My family tend to vacation in highly unstructured ways - we might go somewhere, but once we get there we are pretty happy just to be there with lots of unplanned blocks of time - as a result we tend to rent beach houses or go visit other family who live in different parts of the country.  We're pretty happy just tagging along doing everyday chores or tackling major projects depending on who is in town (a couple of my cousins are amazing carpenters and all around handymen, my brothers end up working on cars or computers & electronics...), going out for long walks or drives,...  Nights are usually a family dinner, a couple of rounds of cards and/or board games, a family movie, drinking for the adults...  It isn't for everyone.

I think it depends on what you're doing. If you're renting a beach house, I don't think you need to plan very much. If you're going to a big city, you might want to agree on a few must-dos.  Then have some free time so you have flexibility. 

[SunnyBeBe]

My peeve is not only with habitual later comers, but, those who condone and enable them.  Why do you think that is? If someone is late, why not text or call them to say, you're late, I'm not waiting.  See ya, later, but, some people seem to feel that it's not appropriate to call them on it. So, the people on time, suffer and endure, while the late comers get special treatment.  I just don't get it.  As you may know, I call out later comers, after a reasonable amount of time to see if there's something legit, but, it hardly ever is.  

[BooksRule]

Two pet peeves re: travel-- People who plan out every second of a trip and those who plan nothing.  I tend to be in the middle, which is why I usually travel alone.  I like to make a plan for the sights/places that I absolutely can't miss, and fill in the spaces later once I get there and get a 'lay of the land'.  It helps that I don't like to fly, so I always have a car which makes planning a little more flexible.  

Gardening peeve:  Weeds.  And vines.  Specifically pepper vine (I think that's what it's called) and Virginia creeper.  It's almost impossible to get all of the root to a pepper vine, so it keeps coming back.  And if you don't catch it quickly, you find yourself pulling on big Tarzan-sized vines that are all through your crepe myrtles, which results in backwards walking across the yard pulling said vine until it either breaks (leaving a bunch of the vine in the tree to dry up and look ugly) or it comes loose and leaves the tree swaying just like something flung from a catapult.  Virginia Creeper lives up to its name.  I will pull up yards of the stuff and if I look away from that part of the yard for just a few days, it has crept back halfway across the yard.  I hate weeds, vines and briars!  

[Katy M]

11 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

My peeve is not only with habitual later comers, but, those who condone and enable them.  Why do you think that is? If someone is late, why not text or call them to say, you're late, I'm not waiting.  See ya, later, but, some people seem to feel that it's not appropriate to call them on it. So, the people on time, suffer and endure, while the late comers get special treatment.  I just don't get it.  As you may know, I call out later comers, after a reasonable amount of time to see if there's something legit, but, it hardly ever is.  

One time I was supposed to meet a friend for Saturday breakfast. She knew I had somewhere I had to be at 10.  She wanted to meet at 9:30, I wanted to meet at 9:00, we compromised at 9:15, but it was still going to be tight for me.  Anyway, I'm driving to the restaurant and my cell phone rings. I pull over to answer it and she says she's running late.  I said, OK, why don't we just forget about it and do it next week.  And, she flipped out on me.  So, that's why nobody calls people out. It's just not worth it.  This same person was 20 minutes late when we were meeting for lunch on a weekday.  I was working that day, she was not.  I started without her and was almost finished when she showed up. "I'm only a few minutes late."  "You're 20 minutes late."  "Well, yeah."  "I have a 30 minute lunch.  Do the math."  "20 minutes is not that late."  Um, yeah it is. 

Her excuse for the breakfast was that she had to walk her dog. I want her dog to get walked, but it isn't as if she woke up in the morning and suddenly realized she had a dog.  And, the excuse for lunch was that her aunt stopped by her mom's and she had to visit.

[Bastet]

18 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

My peeve is not only with habitual later comers, but, those who condone and enable them.  Why do you think that is?

They may not care.  There are few circumstances when I care if someone is up to fifteen minutes late, and if they're half an hour or more late, the odds of me being ticked off about it go up substantially, but depending on the circumstances (why they're late, what they're late for, and what I'm doing while I wait) I still may not care.  But when it is inappropriate to be late, I say something so they know not to pull it on me again.

[Mindthinkr]

Don’t be friends with my brother. If you are over 10 minutes late (oh yes; he will time you) he will leave and then shun you for an amount of time. If you have an issue, you call him well before he needs to leave to meet you. As a result I’m a very punctual person. 

[auntlada]

2 hours ago, DeLurker said:

My family tend to vacation in highly unstructured ways - we might go somewhere, but once we get there we are pretty happy just to be there with lots of unplanned blocks of time - as a result we tend to rent beach houses or go visit other family who live in different parts of the country.  We're pretty happy just tagging along doing everyday chores or tackling major projects depending on who is in town (a couple of my cousins are amazing carpenters and all around handymen, my brothers end up working on cars or computers & electronics...), going out for long walks or drives,...  Nights are usually a family dinner, a couple of rounds of cards and/or board games, a family movie, drinking for the adults...  It isn't for everyone.

That sounds great to me. I picture vacations that are not in sightseeing-friendly areas as a time to relax and do nothing. (Sightseeing-friendly places are places in Europe or Washington, D.C., or similar places where I may never go again. They aren't places in the state or even adjoining states (unless it's the Alamo -- but that's only one place).

My sister-in-law, on the other hand, likes everyone to agree on everything and do things together. She says we don't, but she doesn't mean it, and my husband (her brother) and I both know she doesn't mean it.

51 minutes ago, Katy M said:

And, the excuse for lunch was that her aunt stopped by her mom's and she had to visit.

There is no excuse nowadays for being late like that and not letting the waiting person know. If you can't call, text. If you can't call or text, you better be in the hospital with your elbows in splints from slamming into the plastic in the back of the cab you were riding in when it had an accident, and you'd better have no phone.

[Katy M]

1 minute ago, auntlada said:

There is no excuse nowadays for being late like that and not letting the waiting person know. If you can't call, text. If you can't call or text, you better be in the hospital with your elbows in splints from slamming into the plastic in the back of the cab you were riding in when it had an accident, and you'd better have no phone.

To be fair, I might not have had my phone with me that day.  I'm not superstrict about carrying my cell phone with me everywhere and this was a few years ago.  Then again I might have had it.  I don't really remember.  Honestly, my issue was more with her attitude than the fact that she was late.  She was mad at me for not waiting for her even though she knew I was just on my lunch break.  Her ex-boyfriend was also meeting us and she was supposed to pay for him.  I didn't feel like buying his food, because I feel like he's a mooch.  But at least he was an on-time mooch, so I probably should have just gone ahead and bought his lunch.  The issue might have been I didn't have enough money for both of us.  Again, I can't remember.  I just remember it wound up with everybody mad at everybody else.

[SunnyBeBe]

I think that most people understand a real emergency that causes lateness, like car breaking down, flat tire, sick baby, sudden diarrhea, etc. ,but, most of the lateness that I see are the same people with the same BS, year after year.  lol  The real reason they are late is poor planning and not giving a fat rat's asp about other people's  time.  How they keep a job, I'll never know. 

[2727]

Here's another friendship-ending meet-up peeve.

I was living in Micronesia and decided to go to Hong Kong for a long weekend with a friend who lived on a neighboring island. She made the travel plans. I was taking a short hop plane ride over to her island and meeting her at a designated spot outside the airport. We'd then take the flight to Hong Kong. This was before cell phones.

Turned out my short hop flight was delayed by about 90 minutes and by the time I got to her island, I barely had time to run to the gate to catch the plane to HK. I ASSUMED that after waiting 60+ minutes, she would have checked the arrivals board and seen that my plane had been delayed. But no. She came storming up to the gate and reamed me out for not following our plan to meet her outside. I explained but she was determined to blame me.

It turned out that the flight was not in fact going directly to Hong Kong but was stopping first at my island, so there was no reason for me to have flown to her island first. She had also, without telling me, invited along a friend of hers from work whom I'd never met. She remained low key pissed at me the whole three days and basically hung out with her friend while I went off on my own. (Had a great time, too.) 

She called me, all chipper, after we got home because she owned me money for the hotel room and wanted to arrange how to send it. Okay, let's see. You made shitty airline reservations that wasted my time and money, brought a friend without asking, and treated me shabbily for something that was beyond my control? I told her I didn't want the money if it meant ever having to speak to her again. 

[ABay]

@DeLurker, will you adopt me? The vacations you describe sound lovely.

[Nordly Beaumont]

4 hours ago, BooksRule said:

Gardening peeve:  Weeds.  And vines.  Specifically pepper vine (I think that's what it's called) and Virginia creeper.  It's almost impossible to get all of the root to a pepper vine, so it keeps coming back.  And if you don't catch it quickly, you find yourself pulling on big Tarzan-sized vines that are all through your crepe myrtles, which results in backwards walking across the yard pulling said vine until it either breaks (leaving a bunch of the vine in the tree to dry up and look ugly) or it comes loose and leaves the tree swaying just like something flung from a catapult.  Virginia Creeper lives up to its name.  I will pull up yards of the stuff and if I look away from that part of the yard for just a few days, it has crept back halfway across the yard.  I hate weeds, vines and briars!  

My pet peeve is my neighbor's vining weeds! Bindweed - ugh! I know it's impossible to get rid of and I totally, totally get that they have five really sweet young kids. Priorities - I get it! But c'mon! I bought a nice white vinyl picket fence right before they moved in and I kick myself over and over for not getting a solid privacy fence. From one end to the other, the bindweed is always twisting around the pickets of the fence. They have a huge lilac bush that you can't even see, it's so covered in bindweed. I wish they would take a few hours in the spring to clear the dead growth and then just lay down some plastic along the fence. It wouldn't stop the problem but it would sure help. They comment on how hard I work on my yard and how bad theirs looks, so they know. I guess I'll just have to wait until the kids are in college before they do anything about it.

[Guest]

On ‎9‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 6:06 PM, BookWoman56 said:

I will give my closest drive-thru props for a good idea, though: They have two lanes for drive-thru, and in peak times, they send an employee out to the second line with a portable card reader and cash to take payments to speed things up. They also send someone out with the drinks so at least that part of the order is already done. 

I have a local drive through that does this.  But when you get to that point, its not enough.  I went to grab breakfast the other day.  I looked at the drive thru lane and made an immediate decision to park out side the restaurant and go grab take out from inside.  As I walk through the lot, I hear this through the walkie talkie "we've got em two deep wrapped around the building and out the parking lot".  That isn't an exaggeration, this place redesigned their parking lot recently so they are capable of having a two lane drive thru wrap around the building and getting four deep before exiting the lot.

I am a logical person.  If no one can get in the parking lot and no one is parking outside the lot (where there is parking for other stores) then that means no line inside.

So I'm in and out in under five minutes and as I'm leaving I hear this on the walkie talkie "you've got to stop serving breakfast until we know what we have left."  and then from a car emerged a voice cursing at length with great creativity.

On ‎9‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 3:00 PM, Bastet said:

That's not how I travel, but making an itinerary isn't a peeve per se.  But, boy howdy, what would quickly become an "I'm gonna go do my thing, you stick to your precious list, and I will see you back at the hotel tonight" situation would be getting to our destination and having my travel partner flip out about deviations from the itinerary.  Traveling is when I'm in my most loosey goosey state; I make more last-minute decisions on a one-week trip than I do in the average month.  Of course, this is one of the many reasons I prefer to travel alone.

I have a precisely  situation travel peeve.  My brother (used to be the poster child grown adult for travelling alone without an itinerary.  My mother is a worrier.  I was stuck in the middle.  My brother took a couple trips that were planned as far as my mom was concerned as... The train is dropping me in the wilderness.  I'll be back in two weeks.  I'm might get eaten by bears.  And if I don't get eaten by bears then if I don't get off the plane you won't know which country you should start looking in because I might have been killed by some person doing a copycat murder of the movie hostel as I wander the continent.

He always left me his itinerary which kind of boiled down to here's all my ID numbers and credit card numbers in case you have to find a cop or something to trace my whereabouts.  And I spent his vacation soothing nerves.

51 minutes ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

My pet peeve is my neighbor's vining weeds! Bindweed - ugh! I know it's impossible to get rid of and I totally, totally get that they have five really sweet young kids. Priorities - I get it! But c'mon! I bought a nice white vinyl picket fence right before they moved in and I kick myself over and over for not getting a solid privacy fence. From one end to the other, the bindweed is always twisting around the pickets of the fence. They have a huge lilac bush that you can't even see, it's so covered in bindweed. I wish they would take a few hours in the spring to clear the dead growth and then just lay down some plastic along the fence. It wouldn't stop the problem but it would sure help. They comment on how hard I work on my yard and how bad theirs looks, so they know. I guess I'll just have to wait until the kids are in college before they do anything about it.

 You must live next to my neighbors.  We're so busy.  Its so expensive to trim the trees. I have never heard of this thing called a pressure washer.  Hopeful questions that the yard work I'm doing is putting up a fence that they want but won't do themselves.  They do just barely enough to keep the HOA off them (because the HOA only cares about what is visible from the street).  In the mean time their side  and back are a complete eye sore.  I refuse to put up a fence just to not look at it because they want that fence and I won't reward bad behavior that far.  As it is I spend a crap ton of money trying to fix the stuff from their yard that encroaches on mine.

And like you , its a situation where they know.  They ask about the landscaping I do and I explain the root cause which is usually in their yard.

Insane making.  If you don't have time or money to keep up your house enough not to impact your neighbor, then don't buy one.

[Bastet]

2 minutes ago, ParadoxLost said:

I have a precisely  situation travel peeve.  My brother (used to be the poster child grown adult for travelling alone without an itinerary.  My mother is a worrier. 

So is mine, so when I'm wandering around on a long trip, I'll usually email her each time I arrive in a new city or country and call her once a week for a brief chat.  I don't know what having an itinerary would really change, though; the same things could happen to me.  I could plan to the hour where I'd be each day, and still wind up dead in a ditch or whatever it is mothers think is going to happen.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Bastet said:

So is mine, so when I'm wandering around on a long trip, I'll usually email her each time I arrive in a new city or country and call her once a week for a brief chat.  I don't know what having an itinerary would really change, though; the same things could happen to me.  I could plan to the hour where I'd be each day, and still wind up dead in a ditch or whatever it is mothers think is going to happen.

My brother would go to the ends of the earth where there was no civilization or cell reception.  Literally dropped in the middle of the wilderness and a train came through once a week.  My mom was thrilled when he got married and had a wife he had to check in with.

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, forumfish said:

In one corner of my back yard, the guy behind me lets the English ivy go unchecked. It comes into my yard under, through, and over his privacy fence, grabbing on and ultimately destroying the wood with it's little feeler thingies. I told him one year that his fence is in danger of falling over, but he didn't care. We have a chainlink fence, so I used to stick my arms through the fence as far as I could reach, to pull out the ivy. I was so bruised I looked like a drug addict from one of those 70s cop shows.

Along the middle of the back fence, the guys behind me installed a privacy fence when they moved in, but left about a 6-inch gap between it and our fence. So volunteer trash trees (hackberry, from the parent tree in their yard) come up between the fences. All I can do is trim them to fence height, a little shorter if I can get my clippers wedged in there.

The other corner has a bit of Japanese honeysuckle that comes from the next-door neighbors. Despite it being invasive, I like it (it reminds me of my childhood) so I'm letting it run along the fence, keeping it well groomed.

My other neighbor once called me to tell me a tree  of their had fallen down and I should be careful about sleeping in that part of my house in case another came down.  That part was ok.

I didn't appreciate their snotty (only word to describe it) comment about the "bush tree thing" in the same area but in my yard.  That was snark on the "thing" not on the likelihood it was going to fall down.  I proceeded to inform them that this was a result of the mess of trees in their backyard (now falling over) and that I'd paid to clear it multiple time to no avail.  Their failure to trim trees meant it would always come back.

Now that I think about it, I'm surrounded on all sides by people who don't take care of their trees.  Am I strange for doing it.?

[HoboClayton]

Put your damn shopping cart back where it belongs!! I guess the fact that over half the population live completely in their own assholes, this shouldn't keep surprising me. Just spent however long, walking around the store, but putting your cart away is just too damn much. Bonus points for those douchebags that will grab their bags after checkout and then proceed to leave the cart there. Or the extra wastes of skin that unload their groceries right in front of the exit doors, and then leave it there. I have never understood this. And the one asshole who decided they will put their cart away, but for some reason sliding it into the other cart is too much, so it ends up in a zig zag cluster of mess. Entitled people are the bane of my existence. We can never have nice things, because we are a selfish society that refuses to quit smelling their own farts for two seconds, to do the right thing.  This post is for abled body people, who are able to do so. Put your cart away, if you don't want something that's in your cart, PUT IT BACK where it belongs, don't be a piece of shit. This will never change. I hate people. Most of them anyway. 

[Nordly Beaumont]

3 hours ago, HoboClayton said:

Bonus points for those douchebags that will grab their bags after checkout and then proceed to leave the cart there. Or the extra wastes of skin that unload their groceries right in front of the exit doors, and then leave it there.

Also bonus points to those who leave it sitting in a parking place outside, making it impossible to park your car there!

[SaySay24]

A couple of years ago, I had a 10 month old and was 9 months pregnant in the beginning of August in Texas. I brought the baby with me to the grocery store. It was packed, and I had to park in a spot that was lanes over from where one could return a cart. However, I ended up bringing the cart back up to the entrance where all the carts are for people entering the store. As I was walking back, this woman stopped me and said how refreshing it was that I put my cart back, in the face of being clearly tired, hot, and several other carts half parked on the median by our row of cars. 

 

That meant a lot to me to hear at that moment! 

Ive had people offer to take my cart before in the lot, and that is definitely appreciated and always unexpected. I don’t expect special treatment because I have children. Although, I do also like basic respect when I’m at an family friendly place, ie grocery store, and my children act up or have a spit up session, and I’m trying my best to remedy the situation!

[theredhead77]

When I travel it's usually for very short periods of time and I like to have a general idea of what we're doing to maximize time. If we want to eat at X let's make sure we have a reservation or a hard time to eat at X. If we want to see Y, what date are we doing to do that? Otherwise I'm pretty go with the flow, lets see where it takes us. When I was in Boston my friend really wanted to eat at a particular restaurant so we made plans to eat there on a specific day for a specific meal. Get up , it's a 2 hour wait (which we expected) so we wandered around, found ourselves in a street fair right out of a TV show and it was the best wait ever.

Years ago Carnival was having a killer sale on 3 day cruises - $25 a night for an inside cabin type of deal. It was too good to pass up so I hit up a friend to see if she wanted to go (yes!) and then she told me she invited two more friends to make the room "even cheaper". Uh, no. The deal was $25 a night per person, adding more people doesn't make the room cheaper and 2) I invited you, not you + two of your friends. We ended up not going due to timing but seriously, what if I wanted to invite someone else too?

Another friend of mine used to invite all sorts of other people to hang out. I am not a people person and it drove me batty. He didn't get why it was such a big deal since he is an extrovert and I was over in the corner being anti social because on top of being at a bar, I'm at a bar with people who I either don't know or are super loud. Had a big fight about it but he eventually stopped inviting others without asking and I started suggesting people that I could handle in that situation.

Edited September 6, 2018 by theredhead77

[BookWoman56]

5 hours ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

Also bonus points to those who leave it sitting in a parking place outside, making it impossible to park your car there!

This x 1000. I can deal with the badly parked carts in the cart corral, although there are times when they will trigger my OCD tendencies, and I will end up spending several minutes straightening up the carts. But FFS, have the courtesy to at least put the cart into the cart corral. The parking places are for vehicles, not carts. And leaving the cart so it's situated at the dividing line between each part of a 2-car diagonal parking space does not count as putting up your cart. My local grocery store has several cart corrals scattered throughout the parking lot, so it's never going to be a long walk to one of them. Yet people still leave the carts in parking spaces, etc., to the point that the store has staff designated to go out on a regular basis and both round up the carts in the cart corrals and  gather the loners abandoned in parking spaces and so forth.

[MargeGunderson]

15 hours ago, ParadoxLost said:

And like you , its a situation where they know.  They ask about the landscaping I do and I explain the root cause which is usually in their yard.

Insane making.  If you don't have time or money to keep up your house enough not to impact your neighbor, then don't buy one.

This explains why my front and back yard is a sea of crabgrass, despite a landscaping company putting down seed this year. The weeds run amok on either side of me. Next year, a fence! 

@BookWoman56, the other day I saw a person trying to leave a cart in a handicap parking space. I gave her epic side eye and she kept going (not to the actual cart corral, but that was probably too much to ask).  On a related note, my husband cannot find the cart corral in a parking lot. He never looks behind him, which is generally where it is. I remind him that like an airplane exit, the corral might be behind him (but eventually he always puts the cart away). 

Edited September 6, 2018 by MargeGunderson

[DeLurker]

I learned from my Mom (who always had a least one child with her while shopping) you park near the cart corral so you can load your kids, load your groceries & return your cart without getting more than a few feet away from them. 

I no longer have small children to worry about, but I still see the logic in finding a spot near the corral even if it is not the closest to the store.

[Mountainair]

27 minutes ago, DeLurker said:

I learned from my Mom (who always had a least one child with her while shopping) you park near the cart corral so you can load your kids, load your groceries & return your cart without getting more than a few feet away from them. 

I no longer have small children to worry about, but I still see the logic in finding a spot near the corral even if it is not the closest to the store.

That's the way I do it. I have three kids. Firstly, I try to avoid shopping with them period. Secondly, if I have to take them shopping I always park in the back near a corral and thankfully, my oldest is old enough to put the cart away for me so that's a perk :) 

I never go to the store with my husband but one time it was just the two of us after going out to eat and we needed to stop at the store for a few items. We picked up our few items, loaded the groceries and he returned the cart. My husband got in the car, buckled up and noticed a lady put her cart away in front of our car, not in a corral, and left it there. He unbuckled, got out and made a point of returning the cart in front of this lady but she was oblivious. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

I always take the cart back to either the corral, or back to under the awning where all the carts are. There are a couple of places that have put up steel bars or whatever, that don’t allow enough space for you to push the cart to where you’re parked. So if I have four bags, I have to eyeball my cart as I go to my car and pull up next to it.

Another store, Safeway, near the metro ? station, have installed locks in their carts. This is HIGHLY AGGRAVATING, because it will only let you push it five steps after exiting and the wheels will lock. I had to get a manager to get someone to unlock it because the fucking wheels locked while I was attempting to exit the store! And it was the day I thought my car was towed and so I was waiting for a Lyft and they needed to know I was there.

In another note, I hate when doctors who don’t know each other, defend the one I’m complaining about as if I have no right to a second opinion. Look, I like my new eye doctor, but when I mentioned I was having my primary take over the management of my insulin because I think the endocrinologist I went to was being overly aggressive making me take four insulin shots a day, plus Metofornin (500mg) twice a day and still wouldn’t adjust the dosage now that my sugar is under control, eye doctor said she wasn’t being overly aggressive. My sugar is under 100 now, right? That means it’s under 100 Because of the multiple injections and pills. Really? Why is it that out of EVERYONE that I know who has type II diabetes, who could lose a few pounds, only take oral, or an injection a day, while I’m treated like I’m 200 pounds and can’t control what I put in my mouth? ????

So I have to starve forever now? And bloodlet my poor fingers?

[bilgistic]

48 minutes ago, BookWoman56 said:

This x 1000. I can deal with the badly parked carts in the cart corral, although there are times when they will trigger my OCD tendencies, and I will end up spending several minutes straightening up the carts. But FFS, have the courtesy to at least put the cart into the cart corral. The parking places are for vehicles, not carts. And leaving the cart so it's situated at the dividing line between each part of a 2-car diagonal parking space does not count as putting up your cart. My local grocery store has several cart corrals scattered throughout the parking lot, so it's never going to be a long walk to one of them. Yet people still leave the carts in parking spaces, etc., to the point that the store has staff designated to go out on a regular basis and both round up the carts in the cart corrals and  gather the loners abandoned in parking spaces and so forth.

I also straighten the carts in the corral.

There are assholes who live by the thinking that they are keeping those employees employed because they have to traipse all over the parking lot to retrieve carts. No. Be a responsible citizen and shopper and put your cart in the corral or walk it back to the store. Leaving a cart randomly placed means it's likely to roll across the lot, causing an accident at worst or scratching up a car at best.

[HoboClayton]

7 hours ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

Also bonus points to those who leave it sitting in a parking place outside, making it impossible to park your car there!

Right. You see it all the time. It just amazes me. Me me me me! How can you do that?! Someone mentioned about asking for someone's cart if they are done putting their groceries away and you are walking into the store. That's usually what I do. If I'm walking by and see someone is about done, I'll be like hey, can I get your cart? This is one of my biggest peeves ever. I don't ever park near the big area where people will randomly put their carts, carts flying around in the wind smashing into cars. I open my mouth and say something. This woman the other day literally stopped right in front of the automatic doors to leave, grabbed the few bags out of her cart, and left it RIGHT THERE. I said "really?? REALLY??? Just gonna leave this right here??" Her man said "fuck you bitch"... Hahaha. It's always the same with these simpletons. Put your cart back, or you should be fined 10 thousand dollars. Haha.. Not really.. But, ugh... Such a small simple thing, that says so much about our society. 

[ALenore]

2 hours ago, DeLurker said:

 

I learned from my Mom (who always had a least one child with her while shopping) you park near the cart corral so you can load your kids, load your groceries & return your cart without getting more than a few feet away from them. 

I no longer have small children to worry about, but I still see the logic in finding a spot near the corral even if it is not the closest to the store.

 

When I was a kid, there were no cart corrals.  You had to take the carts all the way back to the sidewalk in front of the store.   My mom would make us kids take the carts back, and she would get really mad at people who would leave the carts in parking spaces.  She also got mad at people who would just stand there while the cashier bagged the groceries (there were no separate baggers).  We learned how to bag the groceries ourselves and put the bags in the cart while she paid for the groceries.  I hate it when perfectly capable children just sit around watching while the cashier does everything.   

[StatisticalOutlier]

19 hours ago, Bastet said:

So is mine, so when I'm wandering around on a long trip, I'll usually email her each time I arrive in a new city or country and call her once a week for a brief chat. 

I actually think it's kind of charming that when I wandered around Europe at one point, I would send my parents a telegram once a week.  Other than that they had no clue whatsoever where I was, but did have a starting point in case I went missing, which was enough.

 

39 minutes ago, ALenore said:

When I was a kid, there were no cart corrals. 

When I was a kid, there were baggers at every checkstand AND they took the groceries to your car and loaded them for you. 

Actually, that continued into when I was well into adulthood.  You'd walk along with the kid following you, open the trunk, and say, "Put them in there." 

 

Quote

She also got mad at people who would just stand there while the cashier bagged the groceries (there were no separate baggers).  

It kind of irks me these days when people do that.  I know it's not expected of them, but when there's a line, things would go a lot faster for everyone if they'd lift a finger and help with the bagging, but they just stand there and watch. 

I've noticed that Walmart has a carousel with like five bags on it, and the cashier just drops the shit in there.  It's efficient, but it's a problem when the customer is someone like me who always uses her own bags and prefers to bag it herself because there's not enough space for the cashier to set the stuff--just the center of the carousel.  Fortunately I'm fast, and I put the stuff on the conveyor belt in the order it's going to be bagged, but it's still an awkward maneuver.  But to be fair, pretty much nobody at Walmart brings their own bags, never mind would actually lift a finger to do some self-bagging.  So I'm a total anomaly there.

Fortunately, I don't have to go there often.  Just for motor oil, Sudafed, big spicy breakfast sausage patties, and Mr. Outlier's unfrosted blueberry and brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts.  The first two because they're cheap, and the others because they're unavailable anywhere else, for reasons I will never understand.  I wouldn't expect Walmart shoppers to eschew the frosting on Pop Tarts, but that's the only place that carries any unfrosted flavor other than strawberry.  Go figure.

Back to carts--I always shop by myself, and figured out a couple of years ago to park right by the cart corral, even if I'm not going to be using a cart.  I can return my cart more easily, but even if I don't have a cart, I figure people are less likely to leave free-range carts that will roll into my car if it's close to the corral.  Of course, since it's people we're dealing with, that's not a given.  I've seen carts left one space over from a corral.  But free-range carts are less concentrated here than in the rest of the parking lot.

[auntlada]

23 minutes ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I've noticed that Walmart has a carousel with like five bags on it, and the cashier just drops the shit in there.  It's efficient, but it's a problem when the customer is someone like me who always uses her own bags and prefers to bag it herself because there's not enough space for the cashier to set the stuff--just the center of the carousel.  Fortunately I'm fast, and I put the stuff on the conveyor belt in the order it's going to be bagged, but it's still an awkward maneuver.  But to be fair, pretty much nobody at Walmart brings their own bags, never mind would actually lift a finger to do some self-bagging.  So I'm a total anomaly there.

Does your Walmart have a self-check area? It might be easier for you.

[StatisticalOutlier]

20 minutes ago, forumfish said:

@StatisticalOutlier, does the mister put butter on the unfrosted brown sugar cinnamon ones? When they are warm out of the toaster? Yum!

Oh my.  I mentioned this to him and he scrunched up his nose, but he doesn't even heat them.  However, I'm thinking it might make them palatable to me.  Like I need a reason to eat Pop Tarts.  I don't eat breakfast but he's one of those who insists on eating something in the morning, so the Tarts are a good solution.

But I flove butter, and the unfrosted BSC is one of the few flavors I can tolerate, so I'm intrigued.

 

11 minutes ago, auntlada said:

Does your Walmart have a self-check area? It might be easier for you.

Some do, some don't.  (I travel around all the time.)  My bags don't stand up on their own, or hang from the little prongs, so when I do the self-check I stack everything on the little platforms for the plastic bags, and then throw it in my own bags once the computer has given me clearance to take the bags.  Fortunately, I don't buy much there so I don't generally run out of space.

But you're right--there's a lot more room at the self-checkout than the regular checkstands to put stuff.

And for the record, I'm still getting 5 cents taken off my bill at Target when I bring my own bag, if I go through a manned checkstand.  It's 5 cents per bag of your own, even though my big bags are the equivalent of like 4 regular plastic bags.  But thanks, Target.

[theredhead77]

I bring my own bags and bag my own groceries. I'm so tired of people putting ALL the heavy stuff in one bag. I had 2 bags out and 2 bags worth of stuff and the guy was packing it into a single bag. I used to be a courtesy clerk (bagger) and would just rather to it myself so it's done how I can carry them. But I get really irritated (internally) when the cashier doesn't even make an effort to start bagging when 1) I haven't moved to a position or say I'll help out and bag or 2) is done ringing me up and I am still bagging when I should be paying.

[Nordly Beaumont]

3 hours ago, StatisticalOutlier said:

I've noticed that Walmart has a carousel with like five bags on it, and the cashier just drops the shit in there.  It's efficient, but it's a problem when the customer is someone like me who always uses her own bags and prefers to bag it herself because there's not enough space for the cashier to set the stuff--just the center of the carousel.  Fortunately I'm fast, and I put the stuff on the conveyor belt in the order it's going to be bagged, but it's still an awkward maneuver.  But to be fair, pretty much nobody at Walmart brings their own bags, never mind would actually lift a finger to do some self-bagging.  So I'm a total anomaly there.

My bagging pet peeve - Anytime I've told the Walmart cashier "I have my own bags, I'll bag it" they hear "I have my own bags, please slowly hand each item to me individually, looking as confused as possible." I tell them they can put it on the center of the carousel, but I guess they've got a groove going and they just can't seem to stop themselves. Fortunately I don't shop at Walmart much.

[ginger90]

I have neglected to take a bag from one of those carousels. I realized it and went back. There were a bunch of them behind the customer service desk.

[bilgistic]

I need to discuss something uncomfortable and I don't know what forum to put it in. This is maybe as good as any, I guess. I'm not looking for sympathy. I just need to get it out.

Trigger warning for predatory behavior by a man.

My stupid cable has been acting up for months upon months. After I switched out both components (tuning adapter and cable card) and that still didn't fix the problem, I scheduled a service call in June. The tech (we'll call him Dave; he looks like [spoilered if you don't want an actor "cast" as "Dave” in your mind] 

Spoiler

Ken Marino

) came out and did something (who ever knows what they do?) and replaced the wiring at the wall outlet, supposedly. Dave was friendly...a little too friendly. He got the channels working (the issue is they drop in and out, so yeah, they'll work, but then two hours later, they won't), and said something to the effect of how we should watch Westworld now (we had been talking about the show earlier--*that* part was innocent). I laughed it off and said something like the cats and I would be watching.

My TV setup is in my bedroom, which pre-makes the situation a little weird. I like having the TV in my bedroom and I'm not going to change it, but it's a little creepy having random techs come to my bedroom when my cable doesn't work, which is apparently always.

Anyway, as I walked him to the door, Dave said, "A hug for the road?" and hugged me. So, so wrong. I was like, uhhhhhh, okaaaaay...kind of dancing him to the door and trying to get him out.

It stuck with me for days. I couldn't think about anything else. I didn't tell anyone about it. I felt gross, but it was "just a hug".

I eventually kind of forgot about it. My stupid cable kept not working, so I set up another service call. The tech (not Dave) futzed around and didn't do anything significant, including not fixing the problem, proclaiming it a problem with The Lines (which I'd told the call center, but whatever). He was perfectly professional.

I set up a third service call for Tuesday afternoon to have the lines looked at because of the theory that the signal isn't strong enough, hence the dropped channels. Tuesday afternoon, I opened the door to the tech and my stomach dropped. It was Dave. The feelings from the experience in June came rushing back to me.

Dave went back to the bedroom and worked on whatever he worked on. I sat in the living room. He went outside for a while to test the lines. He came back in to look at the TV reception (I went to the bedroom), which was working fine because of course it does while the tech is here, and as I said, works intermittently. (The problem still isn't fixed.)

I could tell he was kind of stalling to keep from leaving. I had told him that I wasn't feeling well, which was true because of my bad reaction to the antibiotic. I was honestly hoping that would be enough to keep him from getting near me again. He asked to give me his phone number "in case I still had a problem." I kind of brushed that off and told him, "OK, well, hopefully that fixed it. Let me walk you out," and I walked from the bedroom to the living room. He followed and asked again, "Do you want my phone number if you still have a problem?" I said, "No, I'll call the call center." And I finally managed to get him out the door.

I decided I had to report him. I called Spectrum and of course there's no option for "the tech is probably a predator", so I just had to keep yelling "CUSTOMER SERVICE!" into the phone until I got a human. I'm sure I talked to just a standard rep, not necessarily one equipped to deal with the situation. However, she was very kind, apologetic and thorough in taking stock of the situation. She said that the techs can give their phone number via their business card for customers to get in touch with them while they're still in the area. I told her this wasn't a "Here's my card; you can reach me if you still have problems in the next hour" situation. There was never a card. She and I discussed that him repeatedly offering his number on top of the previous hug situation made it feel even more inappropriate. Like, I might normally shrug off the phone number thing but not after the hug. She asked if I wanted to have Dave's supervisor call me, and I said yes.

As of the time of this post, the supervisor hasn't called. It's been longer than two days.

Here's the thing: I can guarantee you that I'm not the only woman to whom Dave is doing this. I didn't report him three months ago when I should've after the hug. He's been creeping around southeast Charlotte for who knows how long.

Not that the behavior is ever predicated on a woman's appearance, but it is not like am not sitting around my place looking cute. I'm in a huge t-shirt and shorts with greasy hair and no makeup.

But I'm alone and that looks like easy pickings.

I hate Dave for doing this. I hate myself for not reporting him sooner. I hate his supervisor for not calling me back immediately. But...I'm also proud of myself for reporting him. It's the first time I've ever reported anything remotely like this despite having been through much, much worse.

Edited September 7, 2018 by bilgistic

[theredhead77]

Don't beat yourself up for not calling sooner. You called and if you don't get a call back by EoB Friday call Monday morning. Supervisor could be off, could be doing an investigation. Someone should call you ASAP because of the nature of the call and when you call back ask for a supervisor off the bat, tell the rep you already called about an inappropriate encounter with a tech and no one has called you. If they still don't call go to the media. Or social media.

[Moose135]

Wow, that is creepy, @bilgistic!  A hug for the road?  That's just wrong!  Glad you ended up reporting him, as you said, how many other women has he done this to who haven't reported him?  I agree with @theredhead77 - if you don't hear back from his supervisor by Friday afternoon, call them back Monday morning and start raising a stink.

[riley702]

On 9/3/2018 at 10:40 PM, bilgistic said:

TMI/gross body function talk warning...

Not to be dramatic or anything, but I'm fairly convinced I'm going to die because of that antibiotic. It's been 36 hours since my last dose and I'm still suffering the consequences. I've had diarrhea (sorry) thrice today, which was as much as yesterday (or maybe that was four times?). I'm nauseous in waves but my anti-nausea med (ondansetron) that I have for my regular IBS issues is doing nothing to help. Immodium is also doing nothing. Gas-X is also a bust.

I've tried to drink plenty of water since I'm losing so much fluid. My urine is very diluted. I'm having some chamomile/mint/"nighttime" tea now, hoping it'll calm my stomach some. I've been able to eat today a couple times.

I might have to go to the ER or urgent care if I still feel this bad tomorrow. I don't feel light-headed or weak, but the nausea and persistent diarrhea (four days) concern me. I thought I'd feel better by now.

Am I being silly? Will this resolve at some point?

I hate nausea. I would rather feel pain than nausea.

Was going through through horrible bouts of this and the doc gave me a small dose of Potassium Chloride (20 mEq, twice daily) and it helped. Then, some really rough antibiotics ripped my stomach back up to shreds, so I started taking a half dose of the Potassium and BINGO! All better. I had unknowingly  been dehydrating myself and making it worse. The doc was impressed I figured out and not taken too much,

[bilgistic]

I took the last antibiotic Sunday morning. I talked to the on-call doctor later that day and he told me to stop taking it. I'd had six doses/72 hours of it. My guts didn't get back to sort of normal until Wednesday (stopped the horrible, loud churning and the nausea), but I'm not my regular (heh heh) self yet. I'm never taking Augmentin again!

[film noire]

On 9/6/2018 at 9:06 PM, bilgistic said:

Trigger warning for predatory behavior by a man.

(snip only for space)

Oh my god, how creepy, Bilgistic -  sorry you experienced that -- so so wrong -- good for you for reporting him.

Quote

It's the first time I've ever reported anything remotely like this despite having been through much, much worse.

 Brava! (And take your win in reporting him, don't let anything mitigate that.)

Edited September 8, 2018 by film noire

[auntlada]

Go through your house/apartment and make sure all the windows are locked and double check all the doors to make sure they all lock/latch properly, @bilgistic. I'm probably super-paranoid, but I'd also check for cameras in the bedroom since he was there alone. (OK, yeah, there probably aren't any, and I'm sorry to put it in your head, but it's what I'd be worrying about. I may have watched too many episodes of "Criminal Minds.")

[Hanahope]

My complaint for grocery stores is people who go through the self-service/check-out area with a cart-full, or even half a cart full.  IMO, the self check out area is for people who are either using the quick scanner, and just have to scan the scan-gun at the screen, pay and go, or those who just have a few items, say 10 or less.  If you have a good number in your cart, go to a dedicated single cashier. It is inevitable that people who have a cart full to scan, will have some issue with at least one item and then they have to flag down the one cashier who's supervising 6-10 stations to fix the problem.  a dedicated cashier can usually resolve a scanning issue much quicker.   It is especially annoying when the self-service area has developed a long line and/or one or more self serve stations are down.  

[JTMacc99]

My grocery store has two types of self check lines.  Some are about 12 items or fewer, and some have full conveyor belts and are set up to check out a whole cart if you want. Although, in my opinion, it's way faster to have a cashier check you out if you've got a whole cart.  Sometimes I do use those anyway, just because I'm pretty efficient and the regular lines are long.

But man, do I get annoyed when I see somebody with a cart full of stuff at one of the tiny little 12 items stations.  Just no. That backs up everybody and everything. Not only is the cart in the way, but there isn't enough room for the bags, so they have to remove bags and put them in the cart as they go along, and that requires a "An item was removed from the bagging area" stoppage time, and again, just no.

[ALenore]

I do self scanning at my supermarket, so all I have to do is scan the gun and I'm good to go. There is usually either no line or a short one, but recently for some reason all the lines were quite crowded.   I was annoyed when the person in front of me, who was a store employee, was paying for her lunch with all small change.  She could see there was a long line behind her, but rather than pulling out a five dollar bill and putting it into the slot, she slowly put in quarters, dimes and nickels  until she got to $4.85.   Maybe she was trying to get rid of some change, or maybe that's all the money she had, but I was quite irritated.   

[DeLurker]

It is not uncommon in my area for people who do various services - lawns, trees, windows, roofs...to stop by when they are doing a job in the neighborhood to try to get more work lined up.

The other day some tree guys came by and I told them to give me a quote since I need some work done anyway.  The guy doing the talking gives me a quote, but I say I need a written one which includes the scope of the work (number of trees, etc...) because I already have a referral coming by later in the week to give me a quote too.  Plus I need to go to the city to get permission for a tree removal (you need permission to sneeze here).

He hands me a billing pad and asks me to put down my contact info (makes sense) so I do and scratch out invoice and write in QUOTE.  He keeps trying to get me to say which day is best for his crew to show up and to put down a credit card number.  I refuse both since 1) I need to get my other bid; 2) I need to talk to the City about the tree removal and 3) I'm not giving you a credit card for an effin' "quote".

[Bastet]

There is no self checkout at my local market, but I occasionally shop at Ralphs as well, and the one near me was recently remodeled, including replacing some of the traditional checkstands with additional self-check lanes (and implementing the hand-held scanner thingies).  I don't use self checkout, so I'm irritated, but I also shop at off-peak times, so - thus far - having fewer regular lanes hasn't slowed me down.

My peeve is that they moved the whole damn inventory around as well, and I can't see a single benefit of that, just the irritation of requiring me to learn where things are now.  There's nothing obvious, like the butcher section is larger now, the produce department is more efficiently organized, or they added an aisle and thus now have more items available.  It just seems different for the sake of being different.  I go in there rarely enough that if I ever needed something from the center aisles, I already had to stop and remember where it was.  Now I'm wandering around muttering, "I just want some dry pasta.  And where the hell did the club soda go?!"

[BookWoman56]

@forumfish, the only halfway logical reason I can come up with for HEB (and presumably other grocery chains) arranging things differently in various stores is that not all of the stores are the same size or configured the same way in terms of where certain departments have to be, such as deli, dairy, and so forth. My guess would be that they want to have certain families of products on the same general aisle, but may have to shift some things around. For example, if the products that would normally go on an aisle for canned vegetables won't all fit on one aisle in a specific store, they may move all the canned beans to another aisle. I know here in SA, there are some HEBs that were built by HEB, while there are also a few locations that used to be another grocery chain, with very different building layouts, and so the way their products are arranged can be quite different. And there can be major differences depending on the customer demographics. When I used to live close to the Medical Center, the closest HEB had a huge selection of "international" foods, to be expected because many of the local healthcare people were from other countries. In other areas, though, you're lucky if you get more than five or six linear feet of international foods. So maybe after determining where certain major groups of food/products have to go, figuring out where the remaining food families must go is based not on the nature of the product but on how much aisle space it needs. However, I do feel that all the stores in a chain should have a similar high-level scheme in terms of organizing things.

And as for what @Bastet described, where a store seems to do a re-org for no apparent reason, what's the point of that? It just confuses the customers. The closest HEB to me just did a remodel/re-org, but throughout the process they had signs posted explaining what they were doing and why. They roughly doubled the section where they have "meal kits" (a package with raw meat/poultry/fish plus some fresh veggies, generally pre-seasoned, with servings suitable for 1-2 people) because there seems to be more of a demand for that these days. With something like that, it was easy to see why they were doing it, even if you didn't think it was needed. 

With the seemingly random re-orgs of products, it couldn't be just that the store wants to fuck with customers' heads, could it? (Just kidding, mostly.)

Edited September 7, 2018 by BookWoman56