What is your pet peeve of the day?

[GalaxyBoy]

Wondering why people keep shouting Senator William Roth’s name when posting about Roth IRAs?

 

[Sojourner]

PPOTD: Our local Kroger is completely out of toilet paper because of the herd mentality and panic buying/hoarding due to COVID-19. Apparently people aren't too interested in stockpiling anything else (well, except hand sanitizer), cause toilet paper was the only thing completely sold out.

 

[ERD50]

Wondering why people keep shouting Senator William Roth’s name when posting about Roth IRAs?

Funny, and I'm probably guilty. It is a name, not an acronym. In my defense, I just keep that CAPS key down between the "R" and the "IRA". The "OTH comes along for the ride.

Now maybe I'll be more aware of it.

-ERD50

 

[John Galt III]

OK, this is not a huge world problem, but it IS a peeve. Why do all (99%) of the ads in magazines, for restaurants insist on showing a plate of food, with 3 or 4 different food items ** piled one on top of the other.** Big blob of mashed potatoes. On top of the mashed potatoes is a hamburger. On top of the hamburger is a few green beans. Are we supposed to be wowed by the originality and creativity involved? Especially when there is zero originality since every other ad looks the same? Different food items, but still piled on top of one another. Blechhhh! .... Rant over, on to solving bigger problems, lol.

Update: The latest issue of the free local retail shops blurb magazine arrived in the mail, and some editor apparently read my peeve here, and now the photos of food are back to normal! No more weirdly piled oh-so-creative artistic nonsense! I'm happily surprised how influential the pet peeve thread is, ha ha.

 

[Nemo2]

Hordes: Lots of.

Hoards: Accumulates.

 

[Markola]

PPOTD: Our local Kroger is completely out of toilet paper because of the herd mentality and panic buying/hoarding due to COVID-19. Apparently people aren't too interested in stockpiling anything else (well, except hand sanitizer), cause toilet paper was the only thing completely sold out.

There’s a NYT article today about Amazon and Ebay resellers aggressively traveling around with trailers and buying up all the hand sanitizers and wipes (probably toilet paper too) and selling them online for huge markups. So that’s my pet peeve: selfish, greedy people. My gold star goes to Amazon and Ebay for cracking down on the Covid 19 profiteers.

 

[The Rodent]

Airline customer (no) service

Specifically Qantas Airlines. My April trip to Australia was cancelled this week. I could re-book later with a $500 incentive or get full cash refund, GREAT! Kudos to Tauck for putting customer safety first and offering full refunds.

However, cancelling my Qantas air reservations is a BIG problem. Qantas will only offer a credit voucher for future travel. No cash refund option available even with a cost penalty. Here's where it gets nasty. The voucher is only good for travel 12 months from the original ticket purchase date. In my case, purchased ticket in June 2019 for April 2020 travel. So my credit voucher is only good for travel commencing before June 2020. Completely unreasonable and impossible situation.


To make matters even worse, I can't contact them by phone. I've read online accounts (via Twitter) of customers waiting on hold for over 4 hours before being disconnected. I've waited on hold for 2 hours and gave up. Qantas Twitter online support is only responding to cases with travel issues within the next day or 2.


I am willing to re-book the full trip for next year (April 2021), but my airline credit voucher will be no good.

 

[Time2]

My wife and I have a scheduled flight to Canada for a wedding in the middle of June, I'm wondering what's going to happen.

 

[thatguy]

Our 2 newspapers can be delivered reliably for many months. When we stop the paper for a vacation, they have a real hard time starting up delivery again. They will start it. We''' get some papers sometimes but delivery will be sporadic for weeks and take multiple calls to report missed deliveries. They won't give us contact info for the actual delivery person.
It happens every time we go away for a while.

 

[ls99]

Drove 30 miles to the skating rink, big sign on door, closed for the season. Original close date was April 9. Well, time to drag the kayak outside and get ready for paddling.

 

[skipro33]

Specifically Qantas Airlines. My April trip to Australia was cancelled this week. I could re-book later with a $500 incentive or get full cash refund, GREAT! Kudos to Tauck for putting customer safety first and offering full refunds.

However, cancelling my Qantas air reservations is a BIG problem. Qantas will only offer a credit voucher for future travel. No cash refund option available even with a cost penalty. Here's where it gets nasty. The voucher is only good for travel 12 months from the original ticket purchase date. In my case, purchased ticket in June 2019 for April 2020 travel. So my credit voucher is only good for travel commencing before June 2020. Completely unreasonable and impossible situation.


To make matters even worse, I can't contact them by phone. I've read online accounts (via Twitter) of customers waiting on hold for over 4 hours before being disconnected. I've waited on hold for 2 hours and gave up. Qantas Twitter online support is only responding to cases with travel issues within the next day or 2.


I am willing to re-book the full trip for next year (April 2021), but my airline credit voucher will be no good.

My DIL had trouble along these lines with United. I recommended she drive to the airport and speak to the counter persons. This was much better than waiting hours on hold. It was a 30 minute drive to the airport and the ticket agent took care of the refund on the spot. Only took minutes. If you are near the airport, I'd recommend going this route.

 

[USGrant1962]

Wondering why people keep shouting Senator William Roth’s name when posting about Roth IRAs?

And Fed is the abbreviation for the Federal Reserve System. FED is an acronym for something, but I don't know what.

 

[target2019]

And Fed is the abbreviation for the Federal Reserve System. FED is an acronym for something, but I don't know what.

Take your pick.
https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/FED

 

[The Rodent]

My DIL had trouble along these lines with United. I recommended she drive to the airport and speak to the counter persons. This was much better than waiting hours on hold. It was a 30 minute drive to the airport and the ticket agent took care of the refund on the spot. Only took minutes. If you are near the airport, I'd recommend going this route.

Since my original post, I was able to contact Qantas via Twitter and arrange for a cash refund minus a modest cancellation fee. I'm happy to be out of that mess since the credit voucher was useless to me. Driving to Los Angeles International Airport for resolution would make a root canal a pleasant experience!



As a side note, I have used Twitter several times to resolve business issues with companies. it's much faster than more traditional modes of communication.

 

[euro]

Our 2 newspapers can be delivered reliably for many months. When we stop the paper for a vacation, they have a real hard time starting up delivery again. They will start it. We''' get some papers sometimes but delivery will be sporadic for weeks and take multiple calls to report missed deliveries. They won't give us contact info for the actual delivery person.
It happens every time we go away for a while.

Reminds me of my own Pet Peeve about newspaper delivery. A couple of weeks ago, apparently, the local delivery person decided it was no longer worth their while to make deliveries on Saturdays, so we now only get papers Sun-Fri. Of course, neither of my two daily papers (NYT, WSJ) has a Sun-Fri subscription option, so now, just get my Saturday papers delivered on Sunday, together with the Sunday paper. Who wants to ready yesterday's news
Its a clear sign that the days of newspaper delivery are numbered. Just the next step toward the extinction of news print. I HATE reading newspapers online!

 

[braumeister]

I HATE reading newspapers online!

I'd encourage you to give it a try. It was a bit rough at first, but DW and I switched to digital subscriptions for our local paper (and also the WSJ for me) and have been reading them on our iPads for eight years now. We love it and can't imagine going back to paper. No delivery issues (we had plenty of 'em), much cheaper subscriptions, and we can both read the same paper at the same time if we want to in the morning. When we travel, there's nothing to think about, since as long as we have internet we still get our daily paper.

 

[RunningBum]

Reading newspapers online is better for the environment too. No paper or ink, and no vehicle delivery. Worth getting used to, IMO.

 

[euro]

Reading newspapers online is better for the environment too. No paper or ink, and no vehicle delivery. Worth getting used to, IMO.

Understood. And it is a real and valid concern. Still: no!

 

[skipro33]

Understood. And it is a real and valid concern. Still: no!

I agree. I love to read my newspaper sitting on the front porch rocking chair with my coffee and my cat on my lap. My screen is glared out from too much ambient light. Everything about handling real newspaper appeals to me over a screen. A screen feels like I'm looking through binoculars and that I'm missing stuff. I know for a fact I don't miss anything or mislead with click bait with printed newspaper. I can easily toss the ads and glance at headlines. Photos make more sense on the glance than screen too.
I know the days are numbered, but I'll keep getting the newspaper delivered long as I can.
Oh, have a subscription for my dad who has Alzheimers. He can't work a screen device. I gave him an iPad and next thing I know, he's got it so hosed up, takes me time to figure out what he did. Very frustrating for him.

 

[rk911]

PPOTD: Our local Kroger is completely out of toilet paper because of the herd mentality and panic buying/hoarding due to COVID-19. Apparently people aren't too interested in stockpiling anything else (well, except hand sanitizer), cause toilet paper was the only thing completely sold out.

here (Mesa AZ) it's all personal paper products (kleenex, TP, p-towels..100%) as well as hand sanitizer (100%) but also soup 99.5% (plenty of mushroom soup), canned vegetables-95%, milk-100% and meat-98% at least at the closet Wally to us.

 

[rk911]

Reading newspapers online is better for the environment too. No paper or ink, and no vehicle delivery. Worth getting used to, IMO.

the planet is doing just fine. been reading a newspaper since the mid-60's. i like holding and reading my daily newspaper with my breakfast.

 

[ckelly78z]

I like reading a full sized newspaper, not trying squint to see 10 words at a time on a 3" phone screen. I used to operate the big printing press for my local paper, so I am biased.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Irritated with YouTube

I spend a lot of time watching YouTube these days. We have the Premium package which eliminates advertising...sort of.

I watch technical and historical videos on YouTube. I do not watch current events or political videos or those about living persons there. Yet, there are always several “Suggested for you” videos that are clearly political on the sidebar, presumably ‘selected’ for me by the algorithms based on my viewing history and God knows what they have gleaned from my emails. They do not reflect my interests or political views (which are pretty meh...no, really!).

I think someone is paying to push their agendas to me and I do not like it.

Does anyone else have this experience?

 

[Gumby]

I spend a lot of time watching YouTube these days. We have the Premium package which eliminates advertising...sort of.

I watch technical and historical videos on YouTube. I do not watch current events or political videos or those about living persons there. Yet, there are always several “Suggested for you” videos that are clearly political on the sidebar, presumably ‘selected’ for me by the algorithms based on my viewing history and God knows what they have gleaned from my emails. They do not reflect my interests or political views (which are pretty meh...no, really!).

I think someone is paying to push their agendas to me and I do not like it.

Does anyone else have this experience?

Can't you just ignore them? That's what I do. If I go to youtube, I have something specific in mind and I search for it. I ignore everything that automatically pops up.

 

[JoeWras]

Yet, there are always several “Suggested for you” videos that are clearly political on the sidebar, presumably ‘selected’ for me by the algorithms based on my viewing history and God knows what they have gleaned from my emails. They do not reflect my interests or political views (which are pretty meh...no, really!).

Can't you just ignore them? That's what I do. If I go to youtube, I have something specific in mind and I search for it. I ignore everything that automatically pops up.

Ed can also make most of them go away. Here are some instructions from Google.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6342839?co=GENIE.Platform=Desktop&hl=en&oco=0

I'd normally suggest watching Youtube in incognito/private mode, but since Ed has to sign on for premium, that won't work.