The pet peeve thread

[gehringer_2]

17 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

Say you have group tickets to an event on the weekend, or a tee time e.g., and you are recruiting early in the week. Text the person and they say "I will let you know soon," but they take so long that it is too late to find anybody else once they say no. Part peeve, part pondering... At what point do you recruit over them?

Not sure there is a good answer to the question. So better to avoid it. You have to immediately respond to that first response with "It will have to be by Wed because... (insert whatever reason sounds likely)" Now you are covered and they are forewarned to be timely if they are really interested.  You can give them more slack if you want, but it's your decision. And you have a re-recruitment date.

With practice it becomes second nature not to offer open ended choices to people except  those that mean enough to you that you don't mind if they upset your life.

Edited August 9, 2023 by gehringer_2

[djhutch]

16 hours ago, Edman85 said:

Say you have group tickets to an event on the weekend, or a tee time e.g., and you are recruiting early in the week. Text the person and they say "I will let you know soon," but they take so long that it is too late to find anybody else once they say no. Part peeve, part pondering... At what point do you recruit over them?

 

15 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Not sure there is a good answer to the question. So better to avoid it. You have to immediately respond to that first response with "It will have to be by Wed because... (insert whatever reason sounds likely)" Now you are covered and they are forewarned to be timely if they are really interested.  You can give them more slack if you want, but it's your decision. And you have a re-recruitment date.

With practice it becomes second nature not to offer open ended choices to people except  those that mean enough to you that you don't mind if they upset your life.

I think Gehringer's right, that you tell them when you need to hear by.  If they don't let you know, move on & let the chips fall where they may.

[chasfh]

On 7/26/2023 at 8:26 AM, chasfh said:

I’m sure this will rise to the level of pet peeve as it becomes truly prevalent, but the new practice of businesses to charge an extra fee for you to use a credit card—in the case of the car wash this morning, 3.99%.

Two reasons:

• It’s a way for a business to skim even more money from customers. VISA does not charge 3.99% in fees. They charge, at most, 2.4% of the bill + 10 cents a swipe, and probably most times less than that. So in the case of a $19.99 car wash, that’s 48 cents plus 10 cents equals 58 cents extra in fees, and they just charged me 80 cents. So, for no other reason then they can, they skimmed an extra 22 cents from me on the transaction. That might seem like nothing,  but (a) it’s ethically wrong on its face, and (b) it’s free money for them for doing literally nothing more, even if it doesn’t add up to enough for them to buy a mansion and a yacht.
• It’s part of the same problem the concept of tips and taxes yields: they all work as hidden fees that the merchant does not have to show in the upfront price they promote. So, the car wash gets to promote the car wash as being $19.99 cheap, but in reality they charge an extra 10.25% in taxes and, now, an extra 80 cents for use of credit card. So the final cost ends up being $22.84, not $19.99 as advertised. Add in a 20% tip, and you’re walking out some $27 lighter, not, again, the $19.99 they get to promote. 

We’re used to it in America, but most of the first world sees merchants required to add taxes into the final cost as a GST, and tips are not a thing in many places. So what we see there is, whatever the cost is advertised at, that’s the final cost. It’s just a level of deception that we take granted in America that benefits merchants at the expense of consumers.

Related to this:

Some 15% of restaurants in America already have these fees built, on the road to having 100% of them include them. And these fees are not supposed to supplement staff wages—they are meant to directly offset the business's costs, as though we are on the hook for those as opposed to them being the cost of doing business.

Why not just hike the prices on the menu to cover these costs? From the story:

Owners are opting to add fees because they’re worried they’ll drive away customers if they hike up menu prices, said Pat Doerr, managing director of the Hospitality Business Association of Chicago. Research shows people overwhelmingly choose where to go out to eat based on which place is least expensive, Doerr said.

“When people see a $20 burger, they’re like, ‘That’s outrageous,’ or they don’t even see it at all because they’re searching for the two dollar sign places,” Doerr said. Owners “are trying to avoid positioning their place at the high end of the market, and a surcharge is one way to do that.”

So, essentially, they are flat-out admitting they are deceiving the customer into believing the cost is less than they actually pay, which customers already accept in the case of taxes and tips, and are now supposed to accept in the case of the mere cost of doing business.

Outstanding.

I guess the only real solution here is, learn how to cook.

[CMRivdogs]

We've been using Banfield Vet service for several years now. For the most part they're sufficient. However, lately they've gotten a bit lax in their customer service. They are friendly enough and efficient, but I've gotten perturbed when our boarding/day car facility lets me know a required vaccination is just a few days away.

Why didn't the vet remind me last month when I was there for another vaccine? Or why can't we coordinate with them about setting up appoints on a regular basis instead of waiting for the last minute. Especially when they tell me the vaccine expires in two days but they don't have availability for more than two weeks. Then shrug when I call them on it.

[chasfh]

On 6/24/2023 at 8:38 AM, chasfh said:

Every grocery store has eight or ten or twelve available checkout lanes, and at any given time you go, exactly one of them is open as you get into a long line waiting to check out. 

This happened again this past Saturday morning, one of the busiest times of the week. There were maybe a dozen shopping carts waiting to get processed by the single solitary checkout person who, certainly by design, also did not have a bagger working with her. So, if the shopper did not pitch in to bag their own groceries, the clerk had to stop halfway through a customer to bag what she'd rung up so far.

So maybe half of us peeled off to go toward the four self-checkouts, which were originally supposed to be for people with limited numbers of items in their baskets. We were doing our full shopping so we had some 35 items, as did everyone else around us. So, every ten items we'd rung up, the light up top would start blinking and the message "Help is on the way" would pop up. Then the employee working that area would have to come over, scan her key credentials, and override the system so we could continue. She had to come do that for us four times. And she had to do the same for every other customer who brought their full week's shopping into the self checkout as well. She was very unhappy. As we were all.

This is how little Kroger et al cares about their customers, but I also wonder whether it's part of a larger movement afoot to get rid of all checkout clerks and literally force customers to always check out their own groceries so the clerks can all get fired. It happened with gas station pumpers four or so decades ago.

Is it all going to stop with grocery store checkout? I don't know, you tell me ... 😏

[CMRivdogs]

I can't see why these places don't go the Sam's Club route, scan and go makes the dreaded run at least less appalling. Everything is on your phone, in fact you can even pay that way. Pick up bags or boxes on your way out the door. Have a designated entrance and exit with two people spot checking your order as you leave.

Give a discount to those who use the scan and go method, maybe a smaller one for the self checkout. Charge a premium for checks. Full price if you use the regular check out line. The public will go crazy, but most of them are there already.

[gehringer_2]

Yup. Grocery stores have been slow to upgrade their self checkout lanes to handle full order volumes even though corporates have clearly decided that is what they want people to use. $$$$ 

[CMRivdogs]

And they blame their lack of "acceptable" profits and price increases on "theft". They are practically daring people to steal.

[chasfh]

20 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

And they blame their lack of "acceptable" profits and price increases on "theft". They are practically daring people to steal.

It would be so easy to do so. They’re not eagle-eyeing me the whole time.

[Tigeraholic1]

21 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

I can't see why these places don't go the Sam's Club route, scan and go makes the dreaded run at least less appalling. Everything is on your phone, in fact you can even pay that way. Pick up bags or boxes on your way out the door. Have a designated entrance and exit with two people spot checking your order as you leave.

Give a discount to those who use the scan and go method, maybe a smaller one for the self checkout. Charge a premium for checks. Full price if you use the regular check out line. The public will go crazy, but most of them are there already.

Meijer does this. We bring our own fabric bags. Scan everything as you shop and bag. Stop by self checkout area. Employee scans three items and we are out the door.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Tigeraholic1

[oblong]

I'm not so sure it's a case of wanting to get rid of them as it is they can't find them to begin with or don't want to pay them what it takes to lure from elsewhere.

My local fruit market has a lot of young people, HS and college aged, working their registers, no self check out.  Of course at this place it's rare to have a cart full of stuff as they don't have that many items to begin with.

We get our perishable items Kroger or Meijer pickup and our fresh fruits and meats from the local market or an Aldi.  Takes two trips but it's fine.  We can be in and out of Westborn or Aldi in 15 minutes.

 

 

[djhutch]

Staff meetings with no agenda.  I've been in my current position for just over 5 years.  In that time, I can count on 1 hand the number of times we entered a weekly meeting with an agenda of issues to cover and check in on. 

More times than not, our GM comes in a little late and spends the entire meeting talking about himself.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, oblong said:

I'm not so sure it's a case of wanting to get rid of them as it is they can't find them to begin with or don't want to pay them what it takes to lure from elsewhere.

My local fruit market has a lot of young people, HS and college aged, working their registers, no self check out.  Of course at this place it's rare to have a cart full of stuff as they don't have that many items to begin with.

We get our perishable items Kroger or Meijer pickup and our fresh fruits and meats from the local market or an Aldi.  Takes two trips but it's fine.  We can be in and out of Westborn or Aldi in 15 minutes.

 

 

Seems to be a thing: fruit at our Krogers in A2 is pretty also consistently disappointing, and the fish is inedible. So always additional trips to Busch's or the other small operators in town. 

[smr-nj]

3 hours ago, djhutch said:

Staff meetings with no agenda.  I've been in my current position for just over 5 years.  In that time, I can count on 1 hand the number of times we entered a weekly meeting with an agenda of issues to cover and check in on. 

More times than not, our GM comes in a little late and spends the entire meeting talking about himself.

Oh, man.  Grounds for a beat-down. 😂

[LaceyLou]

That awkward moment when I realized that if I had a yard, I'd be yelling at people to 'get off of my lawn!' 

[chasfh]

On 8/30/2023 at 11:45 AM, oblong said:

I'm not so sure it's a case of wanting to get rid of them as it is they can't find them to begin with or don't want to pay them what it takes to lure from elsewhere.

Yet another reason we need more immigrants.

On 8/30/2023 at 11:45 AM, oblong said:

We get our perishable items Kroger or Meijer pickup and our fresh fruits and meats from the local market or an Aldi.  Takes two trips but it's fine.  We can be in and out of Westborn or Aldi in 15 minutes.

Do you trust them to pick out your produce for you? I wouldn’t, but then, maybe they pay better attention to it when picking it for customers. Although taking into account the people I’ve seen working there, I’d have my doubts.

[oblong]

41 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Yet another reason we need more immigrants.

Do you trust them to pick out your produce for you? I wouldn’t, but then, maybe they pay better attention to it when picking it for customers. Although taking into account the people I’ve seen working there, I’d have my doubts.

We don't do pickup at the non chain stores, those we get ourselves for that very reason.  we want to pick out our fresh food.  The soups and pastas or packaged food like yogurt or shredded cheeses etc can be picked out for us.

 

 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

Yet another reason we need more immigrants.

Do you trust them to pick out your produce for you? I wouldn’t, but then, maybe they pay better attention to it when picking it for customers. Although taking into account the people I’ve seen working there, I’d have my doubts.

People assume this is going to be a problem, but in our experience it has not. The stores know they are in instant trouble if they pick bad stuff for the order ahead customers and that grocery store loyalty isn't very strong,  so that have plenty of motivation to have the staff put good stuff in the bags.

[chasfh]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

People assume this is going to be a problem, but in our experience it has not. The stores know they are in instant trouble if they pick bad stuff for the order ahead customers and that grocery store loyalty isn't very strong,  so that have plenty of motivation to have the staff put good stuff in the bags.

I wonder whether this is universal? I can't imagine the local Krogerano's caring so much about customer satisfaction.

[Deleterious]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

People assume this is going to be a problem, but in our experience it has not. The stores know they are in instant trouble if they pick bad stuff for the order ahead customers and that grocery store loyalty isn't very strong,  so that have plenty of motivation to have the staff put good stuff in the bags.

It was a concern of ours. But we have had no issues at all and we pickup our groceries every week. I couldn't tell you the last time we were in a grocery store for a full weeks worth of shopping.

[chasfh]

My wife and I actually like the routine of going to the grocery store every Saturday morning. We do know some of the people there, like Pat the produce manager, Hugo in meats, Nancy the assistant manager. It's nice to just get out and be around people.

However, with the ongoing SKU reduction all chains are engaging in, we are getting more of our processed and preserved goods, housecleaning items, etc., through Amazon. I don't love the idea, but it's 2023, so what're we gonna do?

[Hongbit]

There is only one Stanley Cup! It has a single reference point that everyone in the world knows and has acknowledged for over 100 years.

 

This is not the Stanley Cup!  It’s absolute insanity that when you now Google, this is what comes up, first. 

[chasfh]

I have a 40-ounce Stanley Cup! I like it better than the hockey version!

🦆🦆🦆

[oblong]

google has become increasily irrelevant to me it seems over the last few months.  Basic searches return ads and links to videos.  I hate watching videos.  I want text.  

Don't trust ChatGPT yet.

[CMRivdogs]

Auto dealership service departments. I never had an issue with our dealership in Michigan, but here in Virginia it seems you need to schedule basic necessary service several months in advance. Simple things like oil change, tire rotation, even state inspections (required by law) are booked two months out.

Heaven forbid you have a serious issue or an idiot light coming on for whatever reason.