The Room 101 thread - for things you hate or just having a bloody good moan

[Stormbringer]

Situations that make you look like a dick when, technically, you've done nothing wrong.

A colleague was on holiday yesterday, which coincided with a planned day of meetings from hell, so naturally my greeting this morning was a coy "How was your strategically-timed day off?", with full Monty Python nudge-wink accompaniments.

"I was at a funeral."


FFS.

A couple of years ago we had a contractor visit our department to install some equipment. I thought I'd introduce him to our own local engineer, since he'd be working with him throughout the day.

Our engineer was, at the time, in his personal workshop. The contractor, a very extroverted chap from London, put his arm around my colleague and said: "Hey, <name>! This is your workshop, eh? This is where you come to get away from your wife?!"

The engineer's wife had just died a month ago. Awkwardness ensued.

[Wrathbone]

These are the sort of situations which reinforce the part of me which thinks I should never say anything ever again.

[Raid]

The 0 in my phone's new default system font (that I don't seem able to change) looks too much like an O.

[Stormbringer]

These are the sort of situations which reinforce the part of me which thinks I should never say anything ever again.

Despite how verbose I am on this forum, in real life this is pretty much my policy. ¬_¬

[Strudel]

Situations that make you look like a dick when, technically, you've done nothing wrong.

A colleague was on holiday yesterday, which coincided with a planned day of meetings from hell, so naturally my greeting this morning was a coy "How was your strategically-timed day off?", with full Monty Python nudge-wink accompaniments.

"I was at a funeral."


FFS.

The correct response was, "What, you killed someone just to get out of those meetings? Too far, Jerry. You went too far."

If you're going to hit a brick wall, do it at enough speed to get through it at least.

[Wrathbone]

EDIT - As an antithesis of the Hermes praise in the other thread, here is my delivery company rundown from best to worst:

DPD - Only ever had one bad delivery. Many others have been fine, and the tracking system is handy.

Hermes - I've heard a few dodgy stories, but the few deliveries I've had from them have been fine. No tracking, though.

Amazon Logistics - Hit and miss. Most of the time they're generally fine these days, but when they go wrong they can really fuck things up. Their tracking system is often useless too - half the time it'll say you're the next delivery, then four hours later it'll change to "the driver has a few more deliveries to make before yours". I once held in a wee for over an hour because I was supposedly the next delivery.

Royal Mail / Parcelforce - The once reliable service is now a lottery as to whether they'll turn up on the day they're supposed to. Add to that the lack of any useful tracking system and it's now worse than both Amazon Logistics and Hermes.

Yodel - If I ever see a parcel has been dispatched via Yodel, I prepare for the worst. I'm lucky in that the worst they've ever done to me was dump my parcel in the dustbin (on bin day) without attempting to see if I was in first (I was), but horror stories abound. A friend had a Yodel delivery last year where they'd broken into the back garden, dumped the parcel in the middle of the lawn and left the gate swinging in the wind which allowed the dog to escape. The dog turned up with a neighbour a few days later.


Just to add, I've sympathy for most individual drivers working for these companies because their working conditions are sub-human (with the exception of the odd driver who seems determined to create a problem for no reason). Companies the size of Amazon have no excuse for that.

[Stormbringer]

The overabundance of emojis in professional communications.

There's this weird phenomenon today where, despite being invented about TWENTY YEARS AGO when the likes of MSN Messenger were popular in the pre-Facebook era -- when you'd expect to see a bit of over-use because it's new -- there's a new generation of workers today who seem to act like emojis are a new thing that's just been discovered. And now they're everywhere. Also, you don't need to have five faces in a row with streaming tears of laughter to express a response to something that merits no more than a modest chuckle.

[Strudel]

I'm always happy to be told I've got a parcel coming through DPD. They give you a delivery estimate window, they tell you what number you are on the driver's run sheet, and tell you what number they're currently on. Really transparent, and they're really good at hitting their estimates. Great stuff!

I have the exact opposite experience with DPD. Despite all their tracking etc. their delivery drivers in Southwark are completely useless and always claim that no one was in. I've given up with them completely and actively avoid ordering from companies that use them unless they allow me to select a different delivery company. It's utterly ridiculous.

[Strudel]

The overabundance of emojis in professional communications.

There's this weird phenomenon today where, despite being invented about TWENTY YEARS AGO when the likes of MSN Messenger were popular in the pre-Facebook era -- when you'd expect to see a bit of over-use because it's new -- there's a new generation of workers today who seem to act like emojis are a new thing that's just been discovered. And now they're everywhere. Also, you don't need to have five faces in a row with streaming tears of laughter to express a response to something that merits no more than a modest chuckle.

I think you've solved your own puzzle there; the teenagers who used MSN Messenger are the workforce of today.

[Stormbringer]

Yes, but I used MSN messenger back in 2000/2001 (I was 18/19 at the time), and I understood that emoticons were fine for chatting with friends informally, and sometimes the faces were useful to add a bit of emotional context to a sentiment, but in a professional email you'd only use ":)" on the very rarest of occasions. Nowadays, I have people emailing me a flower, a balloon, five grins and a lump of poo just as a standard response.

[Strudel]

You work with some weird people.

[Stormbringer]

It's the 20+ generation who are doing this, I should say. I've been the youngest employee in the department for the best part of two decades. By a long way. Now, finally, people are starting to work here who seem to be younger than me and they're the ones behind this overabundance of emojis. They weren't teenagers back when MSN Messenger was popular, they were babies.

While I'm on the subject, you know what else they're doing? Saying all these weird things like: "Shout-out", "Hey" "Am I right?" and such. Nobody in Scotland said anything like that until yesterday, but now it seems to be the new norm.

Once again, I guess I'm just getting old.

[Sly Boots]

It's the 20+ generation who are doing this, I should say. I've been the youngest employee in the department for the best part of two decades. By a long way. Now, finally, people are starting to work here who seem to be younger than me and they're the ones behind this overabundance of emojis. They weren't teenagers back when MSN Messenger was popular, they were babies.

While I'm on the subject, you know what else they're doing? Saying all these weird things like: "Shout-out", "Hey" "Am I right?" and such. Nobody in Scotland said anything like that until yesterday, but now it seems to be the new norm.

Once again, I guess I'm just getting old.

Social media. It has a lot to answer for.

[Stormbringer]

Yodel - If I ever see a parcel has been dispatched via Yodel, I prepare for the worst. I'm lucky in that the worst they've ever done to me was dump my parcel in the dustbin (on bin day) without attempting to see if I was in first (I was), but horror stories abound. A friend had a Yodel delivery last year where they'd broken into the back garden, dumped the parcel in the middle of the lawn and left the gate swinging in the wind which allowed the dog to escape. The dog turned up with a neighbour a few days later.

I second this. Yodel are awful.

For the record, my praise of Hermes was as a courier service through which to deliver my packages that I'm sending out (via eBay sales), rather than delivering things to me that I've ordered. For my own attempts to deliver things to others, Hermes' whole setup from their website to their drop-off points, or pick-up from your house service, has been second-to-none.

Once I tried Yodel for the same purpose and I requested a Yodel driver arrive at my house to pick up the package. He never showed.

[Mantis]

Situations that make you look like a dick when, technically, you've done nothing wrong.

A colleague was on holiday yesterday, which coincided with a planned day of meetings from hell, so naturally my greeting this morning was a coy "How was your strategically-timed day off?", with full Monty Python nudge-wink accompaniments.

"I was at a funeral."


FFS.

The correct response was, "What, you killed someone just to get out of those meetings? Too far, Jerry. You went too far."

If you're going to hit a brick wall, do it at enough speed to get through it at least.

Was going to say a similar thing. If you put your foot in it sometimes the best way out is to just double down on it.