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Comedic "things you would ban": minor things that irritate you

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61653 HTAFC

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Can I please ban the idiot I encountered in Poundland earlier? Despite the queue clearly not moving, he decided to ram the feet of his wheelchair-bound companion into my shins repeatedly in a futile attempt to speed things up.
 

duncanp

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Can I please ban the idiot I encountered in Poundland earlier? Despite the queue clearly not moving, he decided to ram the feet of his wheelchair-bound companion into my shins repeatedly in a futile attempt to speed things up.

If someone did that to me I would have, in the words of Mrs Cratchit in A Christmas Carol, "..given him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he would have a good appetite for it.."

Did you say anything in response? (that you can repeat on this forum)
 

Strat-tastic

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Software updates coming in rearranging the furniture, changing how things work, and making ads more prominent, all in the name of improvements to my experience.

Oh and in the interests of keeping it light, the BBC buzzword bingo agenda :p ;)
 

61653 HTAFC

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If someone did that to me I would have, in the words of Mrs Cratchit in A Christmas Carol, "..given him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he would have a good appetite for it.."

Did you say anything in response? (that you can repeat on this forum)
I can't remember my exact words, but (impressively for me) I did manage to keep it clean. Once out of the store, I reflected on just how irritating and potentially dangerous it was- the person in the wheelchair was probably quite vulnerable in terms of Covid, being older. The bloke had already pushed the wheelchair too far forward, making it hard for me to reach the card reader without leaning over the wheelchair.

Sorry, this thread is supposed to be light-hearted... and I'm going to move on because just thinking about it is making me angry!
 

Cowley

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DIY when it’s my day off.
Especially DIY that involves trying to push two bits of tongue and groove together which then snap leading to you punching yourself in the face and giving yourself a black eye…
 

Busaholic

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I can't remember my exact words, but (impressively for me) I did manage to keep it clean. Once out of the store, I reflected on just how irritating and potentially dangerous it was- the person in the wheelchair was probably quite vulnerable in terms of Covid, being older. The bloke had already pushed the wheelchair too far forward, making it hard for me to reach the card reader without leaning over the wheelchair.

Sorry, this thread is supposed to be light-hearted... and I'm going to move on because just thinking about it is making me angry!
There are two people in wheelchairs around my way that I always try to avoid. One is, reputedly, a drug dealer, and doesn't have a motorised chair, but always seems to find younger 'helpers' to wheel him around (he's around fifty I'd say) and the other is a foulmouthed Scot, always with two others, cans of lager in hand. I'm considerably older than either and walk very slowly and crookedly with a stick, and most people are considerate. These two would have me knocked over in the street without a moment's thought if they considered themselves impeded for a moment by me, and one in fact did just that in our small Co-Op last week. I was fortunate that a shelf prevented me from falling to the floor. My point is that disabled people are no better citizens than any other and one who's grown up anti-social (perhaps not having been disabled at that stage) isn't suddenly going to become virtuous. I have to admit one of the reasons I resist getting a mobility scooter is the bad reputation some of their users have, and I don't wish to be tarnished with the same brush.
 

61653 HTAFC

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There are two people in wheelchairs around my way that I always try to avoid. One is, reputedly, a drug dealer, and doesn't have a motorised chair, but always seems to find younger 'helpers' to wheel him around (he's around fifty I'd say) and the other is a foulmouthed Scot, always with two others, cans of lager in hand. I'm considerably older than either and walk very slowly and crookedly with a stick, and most people are considerate. These two would have me knocked over in the street without a moment's thought if they considered themselves impeded for a moment by me, and one in fact did just that in our small Co-Op last week. I was fortunate that a shelf prevented me from falling to the floor. My point is that disabled people are no better citizens than any other and one who's grown up anti-social (perhaps not having been disabled at that stage) isn't suddenly going to become virtuous. I have to admit one of the reasons I resist getting a mobility scooter is the bad reputation some of their users have, and I don't wish to be tarnished with the same brush.
I agree that a disability doesn't automatically make someone innocent (and to suggest so rather robs people of agency) but I don't think the lady in question had any control over her helper's behaviour. My objection was entirely with him.

Another one for the list, young football supporters who didn't live through the dark days of the 1980s and have swallowed the Hollywood myth about hooliganism being "cool". I thought we'd left those days behind us but apparently not. Also the ones who are old enough to know better but still look back on those days wistfully. Some folk just haven't the sense they were born with.
 

Busaholic

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I agree that a disability doesn't automatically make someone innocent (and to suggest so rather robs people of agency) but I don't think the lady in question had any control over her helper's behaviour. My objection was entirely with him.
I thought that was the case, and I was really just following on to my own point. I totally agree, the lady in question was being misused, and someone with less sense than yourself might have retaliated against her rather than her helper.
 

61653 HTAFC

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I thought that was the case, and I was really just following on to my own point. I totally agree, the lady in question was being misused, and someone with less sense than yourself might have retaliated against her rather than her helper.
To be fair, someone with less sense than myself would probably fall over trying to put their socks on... but I'll take that!
 

py_megapixel

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I would like to ban the Post Office from trying to upsell me when I very definitely say what I want.

Walked into a PO yesterday and said "Good morning, could I send this parcel 2nd class with signature please?". The response was "Would you like it guaranteed on Monday for £11.80?". Resisting the urge to give a sarcastic response to the effect that I always walked into businesses and immediately told them the name of a service I didn't want, I explained politely that I wanted second class.

She then proceeded to ask me if I wanted a signature. I said (in more polite terms) that yes, of course I do, that's what I asked for less than a minute ago!

There was another thread where people were complaining about the PO's self-service machines, but I'd rather deal with one of them than that particular member of staff.
 

Ianno87

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I would like to ban the Post Office from trying to upsell me when I very definitely say what I want.

Walked into a PO yesterday and said "Good morning, could I send this parcel 2nd class with signature please?". The response was "Would you like it guaranteed on Monday for £11.80?". Resisting the urge to give a sarcastic response to the effect that I always walked into businesses and told them the exact name of a service I didn't want, I explained politely that I wanted second class.

She then proceeded to ask me if I wanted a signature. I said (in more polite terms) that yes, of course I do, that's what I asked for less than a minute ago!

I'd ban the ridiculous upselling WHSmith seem to insist on ("Would you like one of our promotional items for only £2.50"?). Usually stuff you can buy in other shops for the same price without a promotion.

At least they've ended their irritating practice of forcibly handing you a rubbish voucher with every single transaction (seemingly insisted upon by management without any idea how irritating customers find it).
 

yorksrob

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I'd ban the ridiculous upselling WHSmith seem to insist on ("Would you like one of our promotional items for only £2.50"?). Usually stuff you can buy in other shops for the same price without a promotion.

At least they've ended their irritating practice of forcibly handing you a rubbish voucher with every single transaction (seemingly insisted upon by management without any idea how irritating customers find it).

I used to like the Macdonalds ones in my meat eating days.
 

gg1

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Facebook group mods who refuse, or even worse just ignore, requests to join their groups without bothering to tell you why.
 

61653 HTAFC

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The automated message when a post is merged on this site. Despite the process being automated (and adding quotes being difficult to do using the "edit" function when on a mobile device) the message seems to be very angry- it gives the impression that some poor mod has had to go outside in all weathers and wind some sort of heavy lever in order to merge the posts!
 

bearhugger

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I'd ban the ridiculous upselling WHSmith seem to insist on ("Would you like one of our promotional items for only £2.50"?). Usually stuff you can buy in other shops for the same price without a promotion.

At least they've ended their irritating practice of forcibly handing you a rubbish voucher with every single transaction (seemingly insisted upon by management without any idea how irritating customers find it).
I find the whole upselling at the till quite annoying and sometimes reply with "No thanks, I just wanna pay for this card (insert item of choice i happen to be buying"), and have occasionally left items at the till and walked out to another store if they carried on with the upselling. And I always left the vouchers on the till.
Also hate staff who pounce on you as soon as you walk through the door - "Need any help??" - Currys & Dixons staff were the worst!
 

duncanp

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Also hate staff who pounce on you as soon as you walk through the door - "Need any help??" - Currys & Dixons staff were the worst!

My experience with Currys and Dixons staff is that they do all they possibly can to avoid giving you any help.

Then when you do manage to attraction the attention of a staff member, they seem to know very little about the products in the store.
 

bearhugger

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My experience with Currys and Dixons staff is that they do all they possibly can to avoid giving you any help.

Then when you do manage to attraction the attention of a staff member, they seem to know very little about the products in the store.
I've found recently that I tend to know a damn sight more than the staff about the products I was looking at. In fact the last time In Currys, i was after a new fridge/freezer and a laptop. the guy kept trying to upsell on the laptop even after i had made it very clear that i had looked at all the specs and knew exactly what i needed - he was told if he tried to upsell one more time I would walk out of the shop and order from Amazon on the way home home on the bus if he would like to lose out on the sale and his commission. Was at the till a minute later!
 

Gloster

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Today the resident helpful Harry in W.H.Smiths asked me if I wanted anything. “Yes, I want to leave. (And you are standing in the gangway.)”
 

Ediswan

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My experience with Currys and Dixons staff is that they do all they possibly can to avoid giving you any help.
The electrical/electronics sheds can be terrible.

One insisted I needed to give name and address for TV licencing when buying a computer monitor, despite the facts that this legislation never applied to monitors (no tuner) and had been repealed some months previously. Their justification was a sign on the counter. I walked out leaving the monitor at the check out. If I had been in a bad mood, I would have complained about the comments they made as I was leaving.

Another insisted that if I wanted the ability to re-install Windows 10 on a laptop, I would need to pay them extra for recovery media. I doubted that, but was unable to check at the time. In the end I bought the same laptop from the same company, but online. I don't now for sure whether the member of staff was on commission, but if they were, the attempted up-selling lost it.
 

BanburyBlue

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My experience with Currys and Dixons staff is that they do all they possibly can to avoid giving you any help.

Then when you do manage to attraction the attention of a staff member, they seem to know very little about the products in the store.

I tend to find that shops generally, pounce on you as you walk in the door before you've had time to look at anything, and then are almost impossible to find once you do have a genuine query.
 

xotGD

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I would like to ban department stores where after you have spent a bit of time browsing you have no idea how to get out again.

Of course, this is less of a problem these days.
 

Techniquest

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The automated message when a post is merged on this site. Despite the process being automated (and adding quotes being difficult to do using the "edit" function when on a mobile device) the message seems to be very angry- it gives the impression that some poor mod has had to go outside in all weathers and wind some sort of heavy lever in order to merge the posts!

I know what you mean there, it makes it sound like you're an evil so and so for daring to post on your own thread about something or whatever. I have certainly been put off posting about something (no idea what now) in the past because of the angry message!
 

nlogax

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I know what you mean there, it makes it sound like you're an evil so and so for daring to post on your own thread about something or whatever. I have certainly been put off posting about something (no idea what now) in the past because of the angry message!
It's a little pass-agg as auto messages go but it's fine. However I wish I could ban my brain for forgetting that the message occurs automatically :D The second I hit 'post' I see the new alert icon and think that someone's responded to something completely unrelated
 

43096

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Someone I used to work with did exactly that once. We were prepared though, the fact the number plate on his own car was BO55 followed by his initials gave everyone prior notice he was a bit of prat.
I once worked with someone who was known as (at his insistence) “Baas”, which he said was pronounced “Boss”. Well, there was no way the Project Director was calling him that, so he started calling him “Buzz” - much to his annoyance - and of course that lead to him being known universally as “Buzz Lightyear”. His real name was Ian.
 

61653 HTAFC

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I know what you mean there, it makes it sound like you're an evil so and so for daring to post on your own thread about something or whatever. I have certainly been put off posting about something (no idea what now) in the past because of the angry message!

It's a little pass-agg as auto messages go but it's fine. However I wish I could ban my brain for forgetting that the message occurs automatically :D The second I hit 'post' I see the new alert icon and think that someone's responded to something completely unrelated
The annoying part is that prior to the big update in October 2017 (which I appreciate was probably needed for reasons beyond my understanding!), double posts were automatically merged- with
"=======double-post prevention system======"
between the two posts.

As someone who admittedly knows very little about how the internet actually works, it seems odd that newer (so presumably more sophisticated) software could not be programmed to work as smoothly for the end user.

On the other hand, it doesn't actually matter. It's just an automated notification. It's a bit annoying but so are lots of things- hence the popularity of this thread, and why this discussion is in said thread! :lol:
 

yorksrob

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Ban Britbox.

ITV, Channel 4, BBC should be told they can have terrestrial channels or paid for streaming, not both.
 

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