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Please keep in mind the rule banning discussion (or satire) of current politics.
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So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.
- Thread starter GHT
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Trivial to be sure, but here's one of the reasons Sears is, and should be, going out of business. A week ago I ordered a pair of Wolverine work boots through Sears' website. These are boots I would not normally consider due to the price, and the only reason I ordered them from Sears was because they had managed to discount that price nearly 50%. When my order arrived two days later, the wrong boots were in the Wolverine box. Right box, wrong boots. Not a big deal, these things happen. But, apparently, none of the stores in this part of southern California sell these particular boots, so I can't just go to a local Sears to exchange them; they have to be returned by shipping them (with the proper documentation, of course) via UPS to Naperville, Illinois. Oh, and they won't issue my refund until they've received them, reviewed the documents, and approved the reason they were returned. 
Meanwhile, I had to re-order the boots. This is standard procedure for Sears, an entity which, after 127 years, still hasn't learned how to properly conduct business in a way that makes things easier for their customers. Now, when I ordered the boots the first time I "earned" some sort of bonus points which somehow converted to cold hard cash, and I was able to use those bonus points in my favor to bring the cost of the boots down ever farther when I re-ordered them. So now instead of paying just over 50% of the MSRP, I'm paying 30% of the manufacturer's suggested price for these ridiculously overpriced boots. Silver lining on a dark cloud.
I received the second pair of boots yesterday. Right box, right boots, wrong size. Seriously. So, back to the website, obtain the necessary paperwork to return these as well, and re-order. These boots will soon be taking a trip to Naperville as well, but at this point I'm out nearly $200 with nothing to show for it, and it'll be another week until I receive whichever wrong item Sears decides to send me this time.
Meanwhile, I had to re-order the boots. This is standard procedure for Sears, an entity which, after 127 years, still hasn't learned how to properly conduct business in a way that makes things easier for their customers. Now, when I ordered the boots the first time I "earned" some sort of bonus points which somehow converted to cold hard cash, and I was able to use those bonus points in my favor to bring the cost of the boots down ever farther when I re-ordered them. So now instead of paying just over 50% of the MSRP, I'm paying 30% of the manufacturer's suggested price for these ridiculously overpriced boots. Silver lining on a dark cloud.
I received the second pair of boots yesterday. Right box, right boots, wrong size.
Seriously. So, back to the website, obtain the necessary paperwork to return these as well, and re-order. These boots will soon be taking a trip to Naperville as well, but at this point I'm out nearly $200 with nothing to show for it, and it'll be another week until I receive whichever wrong item Sears decides to send me this time. 
Edward
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The answer is clearly snipers. Give me a gun, a rifle, and a licence to sit in a vantage point and pick off drivers woh run red lights, drive in bus lanes to force themselves a car-length further ahead, cyclists who run red lights, cyclists who ride on the footpath.... and all the rest. I'll not only hammer out the problem in short order, I'll also deal with the over-population problem in a week...
Edward
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Trivial to be sure, but here's one of the reasons Sears is, and should be, going out of business. A week ago I ordered a pair of Wolverine work boots through Sears' website. These are boots I would not normally consider due to the price, and the only reason I ordered them from Sears was because they had managed to discount that price nearly 50%. When my order arrived two days later, the wrong boots were in the Wolverine box. Right box, wrong boots. Not a big deal, these things happen. But, apparently, none of the stores in this part of southern California sell these particular boots, so I can't just go to a local Sears to exchange them; they have to be returned by shipping them (with the proper documentation, of course) via UPS to Naperville, Illinois. Oh, and they won't issue my refund until they've received them, reviewed the documents, and approved the reason they were returned.
Meanwhile, I had to re-order the boots. This is standard procedure for Sears, an entity which, after 127 years, still hasn't learned how to properly conduct business in a way that makes things easier for their customers. Now, when I ordered the boots the first time I "earned" some sort of bonus points which somehow converted to cold hard cash, and I was able to use those bonus points in my favor to bring the cost of the boots down ever farther when I re-ordered them. So now instead of paying just over 50% of the MSRP, I'm paying 30% of the manufacturer's suggested price for these ridiculously overpriced boots. Silver lining on a dark cloud.
I received the second pair of boots yesterday. Right box, right boots, wrong size.
On the plus side, if you can keep accumulating discount points, by the tiem they finally sort it out, they'll be paying you to take the boots!
GHT
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Point taken, but given Edward's draconian method of dealing with traffic violators and over population, can I nominate him for our next Prime Minister?
LizzieMaine
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Here's what really frustrates me at the moment. People who think they are experts on any number of esoteric subjects -- let's say theatre acoustics and motion-picture audio processing -- simply because they are very very rich in the worst kind of bourgie-parvenu sort of way, and have the ear of your Board of Directors. I now have to waste a great deal of time explaining where this fellow is absolutely wrong without ever actually having the pleasure of telling him so to his face. After all, America is a society where having money -- no matter how you got it -- means you are Listened To, even when you have absolutely nothing of any worth to say.
Fortunately, I am a trained actress. I have to be.
Fortunately, I am a trained actress. I have to be.
GHT
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Don't you just love them? Last summer at a vintage event, a young fellow who had studied history at university and was now a graduate, was pontificating about some battle or other in WW2. He was an expert, he opined. Some expert, he didn't know that Russia was involved in the war, let alone suffer twenty million dead. The re-enactors made him look even more stupid, asking him about Operation Barbarossa. I left him jabbing his phone, presumably looking up the Russian involvement in WW2.
Harp
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LizzieMaine
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My favorite story of that type was one where some Army veteran came to a college history class to talk about the Italian campaign, and his experiences at Anzio. A student spoke up and pointed out several factual errors in his stories relating to dates, types of equipment used, and similar trivialities. Sgt. O'Grizzled just smiled and said "Kid, I didn't major in World War II, I just fought in it."
The belief, especially among Americans, that the Soviet Union was of little consequence in World War II is pretty high on my list of all time pet peeves. That postwar propaganda campaign sure did its work. I'm tempted to fly the Victory Banner on V-E Day just to tick them off.
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I suppose this applies to Hollywood celebs with money and an audience that pontificate on all manner of current affairs and are listen to and promoted by the media as if they possessed the necessary bona fides?
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This is a minor controversy in Canada that has been addressed with studies on the most efficient movement of traffic. There are studies that demonstrate that the 'zipper' if applied by all is the most efficient way for traffic to merge. The drivers that change lanes early apparently impede the flow.
LizzieMaine
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As I said in that other thread -- as long as you can hire a press agent to put your ineffable utterings before the people, it matters not how stupid you actually are. Money doesn't equal intelligence, or even awareness of much of anything except how to make money, but we of the lower orders are compelled to pretend otherwise. That's the American Way.
GHT
I'll Lock Up
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You might think that Enemy at the Gates, a 2001 war film written and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and based on William Craig's 1973 non-fiction book "Enemy at the Gates:" The Battle for Stalingrad, which describes the events surrounding the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942 and 1943, might change minds. The film's main character is a fictionalised version of sniper Vasily Zaytsev, a hero of the Red Army during World War 2. You would think that such a film would at least give food for thought.
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I'm currently being driven insane by people's behavior in parking lots.
Pulling into a lot slowly, then stopping halfway across the threshold. People who believe they have enough time to turn in after them are left trapped in new oncoming traffic as they're forced to sit there for another 30-40 seconds while these nincompoops scout for a spot from the edge of the lot.
PULL INTO THE LOT.
People who INSIST on backing in to parking spaces. Their skills never match their insistant ambition, and they end up going back and forth, back and forth, trying to adjust. And it's always some jackass in a big pickup, or an old fart in a Buick. Meanwhile, we have to sit and wait. And wait.
JUST PARK THE CAR.
Pulling into a lot slowly, then stopping halfway across the threshold. People who believe they have enough time to turn in after them are left trapped in new oncoming traffic as they're forced to sit there for another 30-40 seconds while these nincompoops scout for a spot from the edge of the lot.
PULL INTO THE LOT.
People who INSIST on backing in to parking spaces. Their skills never match their insistant ambition, and they end up going back and forth, back and forth, trying to adjust. And it's always some jackass in a big pickup, or an old fart in a Buick. Meanwhile, we have to sit and wait. And wait.
JUST PARK THE CAR.
GHT
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I’ve heard the same. But I don’t accept that those who move over early are impeding the flow. They aren’t preventing others from using the other lane (the one closing up ahead) and “zippering in.”
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It is epidemic up here and I wonder if that is what they are teaching in driving schools these days. I see it mostly within the immigrant population.
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What clearly impedes the flow of traffic are drivers who enter intersections they can’t get all the way through. So they’re stopped in the intersection when the light turns red in their direction and green for the drivers in the perpendicular direction who can’t proceed because of the rudenik blocking the path. This is what causes gridlock. The worst of it is that it prevents emergency equipment from getting through.
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I think where it gets problematic is the 'nervous' driver who actually stops and waits 200 metres from the end of the line and waits for someone to let them in. Whereas if they proceed to the end of the line then they just flow into the one lane seamlessly. When it works that way it works very well. We are preternaturally polite up here and have no issues, generally, with the courtesy of merging.
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