Problems we shouldn't have / Pet Peeve thread

We need to bring back @SixPapaCharlie 's Pet Peeve thread. I thought @Sac Arrow also had one, but I can't find it, so this'll do.

Web developers... WHY WHY WHY do you waste the money I spent on larger monitors? Screw you guys. Seriously...

Here's a screenshot of an HTML e-mail from Amazon Web Services... as seen in the GMail web UI...

Screen Shot 2018-05-29 at 22.30.24.png

And here's one of PoA...

Screen Shot 2018-05-29 at 22.31.04.png

And it's not just Amazon or PoA, it's EVERYWHERE... they're just examples.

Once you see it everywhere, it'll start to bug you. Enjoy! :)
 
Sac Arrow said:
Seriously? If you aren't going to WEAR YOUR DAMN SHIRT THEN WHY DON'T YOU LEAVE IT AT HOME?

It really ****es me off royally when the girl on the treadmill ahead of me DELIBERATELY ties her jacket around her waist just so I can't check out her ass.
Click to expand...

Wait... this is from Sac? Can’t be. The girl isn’t Asian!
 
Speakerphones, and the arrogant #**-wipes who use them All. The. Time.

Cell phone audio 'quality'. Call me on a landline, FFS, gawd, WHY is it ok to pay more $$$$ for Crap sound.

Business emails with no phone number.

Car alarms. The last time I saw anyone running towards a shrieking alarm was 1984....

Bah!
 
archerdriver said:
Cell phone audio 'quality'. Call me on a landline, FFS, gawd, WHY is it ok to pay more $$$$ for Crap sound.
Click to expand...

This one is pretty easily to avoid. Get a cell phone with “HD” quality LTE and call on network or to networks that play nicely with yours.

It’s way higher audio quality than any land line based call that isn’t done on a private network with SIP or H.323 (“VoIP”) calling that’s also set to a high quality mode.

If your cell phone sounds bad, you’re likely on a cell phone that’s at least a half a decade old or more, or on an incredibly cheap carrier. Or... out in the boonies on a fall back mode from LTE, such as the old “CDMA” network on Verizon/Sprint, or original GSM modes on AT&T or T-Mobile.

TMo was first to the HD audio game. Verizon rolled theirs out very quickly thereafter. I couldn’t tell you when AT&T or Sprint did it, but I assume they did.

Verizon and AT&T were the first (I think) to announce cross-network HD audio calling, but it’s also common between all of them now.

Any transition back to the land line PSTN usually can’t be carried end to end as HD and will drop back to the PSTN standard of 30-3000 Hz bandpass. Some exceptions exist now though. I believe Verizon is maintaining HD audio codecs form VZ mobile devices to VZ FIOS delivered land line POTS, but I’d have to double check on that.

Any company doing VoIP phones internally has probably been delivering internal calls as HD for something a little under a decade now, if they have the site to site bandwidth and a decent VoIP system. We do.

You tend to get used to it if you have multiple phones and systems you talk on regularly and then you really hear the audio quality drop when you have to be bumped back to standard PSTN bandwidths.

I can’t think of the last time I didn’t have an HD audio quality phone call with anywhere except a business or government call center. Everyone I call regularly is on a network that supports HD audio.

One downside. If a conference room has any echos or other acoustic problems, HD audio will actually make it sound worse, and lower intelligibility for most listeners, since more of the room acoustic problems will be heard at the far end.

Whoever came up with the idea that glass walls were a good idea for the asthetics of conference rooms, should be taken out and shot, from an acoustic engineering standpoint. Glass makes for an excellent sound reflector and echo chamber generator.
 
Having to DIG, on a company website to find their friggin' phone number!
Put it at the very TOP of your homepage.
Don't make me find your 2-font Contact Us link, which does not take me to any phone numbers until 2 pages later, and then the main number is still not at the top, it is hidden in the clutter well down the page.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Having to DIG, on a company website to find their friggin' phone number!
Put it at the very TOP of your homepage.
Don't make me find your 2-font Contact Us link, which does not take me to any phone numbers until 2 pages later, and then the main number is still not at the top, it is hidden in the clutter well down the page.
Click to expand...

The very last thing they want is for me (or you) to call and have an interaction with a live human. There is no other explanation.
 
Reading this thread I was thinking I really don’t have any pet peeves. Then I realized I am one of of those people that other people have pet peeves about.
 
PefO4.jpg

I used to have fun with this one because my daughter was a "Sandwich Artist" there for years.
 
flyingron said:
PefO4.jpg

I used to have fun with this one because my daughter was a "Sandwich Artist" there for years.
Click to expand...
And they eventually got sued over non-tessellated cheese. So then they did... (My son was a Sandwich Artist for a couple of years too.)
 
They did switch, but I'm unaware of any lawsuit over the cheese there. The lawsuit was over the fact that the footlongs were only 11 inches and even that had the settlement thrown out on appeal. Has one of the best judicial statements I've seen in a long time:

A class action that ‘seeks only worthless benefits for the class’ and ‘yields [only] fees for class counsel’ is ‘no better than a racket’ and ‘should be dismissed out of hand,
-- Judge Diane Sykes for the 7th Circuit.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Having to DIG, on a company website to find their friggin' phone number!
Put it at the very TOP of your homepage.
Don't make me find your 2-font Contact Us link, which does not take me to any phone numbers until 2 pages later, and then the main number is still not at the top, it is hidden in the clutter well down the page.
Click to expand...

I'm with you on this one. But their dirty little not-so-secret is that they don't want to talk with you! After spending $6.95 for a first-year-out programmer, they want you to do it online. To quote archerdriver above, "Bah!"

-Skip
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Having to DIG, on a company website to find their friggin' phone number!
Put it at the very TOP of your homepage.
Don't make me find your 2-font Contact Us link, which does not take me to any phone numbers until 2 pages later, and then the main number is still not at the top, it is hidden in the clutter well down the page.
Click to expand...
....and if you’re gonna share an email address on your website, respond to the damn emails I send you. (I avoid real human contact like phone conversations)
 
9 "button"-pushes (soft buttons) to set the altimeter on a certain glass panel. With no knob/ledge to hang onto in bumpy air.

(I prefer the ol' reach-and-twist method)
 
Bob Noel said:
People in cubicles that always use the speakerphone.
Click to expand...
Moving to a new building, the boss passes around the floor plan for the new office (in order of rank/seniority) to let us pick the cube we want.
I get the second pick and I pick the cube diagonally opposite from the boss. No window but as far as I can get from his speaker phone.
Next down the line was Mike. Mike looks at the floor plan and realizes that there is a cube with a window. Mike takes it. "I can't believe you didn't take the window seat!"
Well, first, the window cube was next to the boss and his speaker phone.
And, as it turns out, the view out the window was of a ginormous white liquid nitrogen tank and just about nothing else.
heh, heh, heh...
Sometimes even us old farts get it right.

Capture.PNG
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Moving to a new building, the boss passes around the floor plan for the new office (in order of rank/seniority) to let us pick the cube we want.
I get the second pick and I pick the cube diagonally opposite from the boss. No window but as far as I can get from his speaker phone.
Next down the line was Mike. Mike looks at the floor plan and realizes that there is a cube with a window. Mike takes it. "I can't believe you didn't take the window seat!"
Well, first, the window cube was next to the boss and his speaker phone.
And, as it turns out, the view out the window was of a ginormous white liquid nitrogen tank and just about nothing else.
heh, heh, heh...
Sometimes even us old farts get it right.

View attachment 63537
Click to expand...

My dad had a coffee mug that said "Old age and treachery will defeat youth and ability." He was also fond of saying "Dumb luck is as good as anything when it hits."
 
denverpilot said:
This one is pretty easily to avoid. Get a cell phone with “HD” quality LTE and call on network or to networks that play nicely with yours.
Click to expand...

Side note: Both side need to be on VoLTE to hear the difference. The first time I experienced VoLTE ("HD voice") I called a business land line (probably VOIP) from my VoLTE phone, the front desk said "xxx can be contacted on their cell at ###-####" and I thought nothing of it. Then I called xxx's cell which was on VoLTE and was wow'ed.

A couple calls like that and for sure @archerdriver will be complaining about landline voice quality.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
I'll start

Buttons have been around for years. Why is it that I buy something I consider expensive and end up with this?

I have a 30 year old calculator that has real buttons that will last longer than me. We have evolved from practical buttons to this system. I am sure it is nearly free for a company to probably print these "buttons" out but I want real buttons back.

999922851457.jpg
Click to expand...
Funny, I just threw out a 30 year old calculator that has real buttons because one of the buttons failed. It used membrane switches and one of the rubber domes had collapsed .
 
Subscription services that allow you to do everything online except cancel the service.
 
denverpilot said:
We need to bring back @SixPapaCharlie 's Pet Peeve thread. I thought @Sac Arrow also had one, but I can't find it, so this'll do.
Click to expand...

There was also one by @Captain, which still going six years later:

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/pet-peeves.50615/

Web developers... WHY WHY WHY do you waste the money I spent on larger monitors? Screw you guys. Seriously...

Here's a screenshot of an HTML e-mail from Amazon Web Services... as seen in the GMail web UI...

View attachment 63516

And here's one of PoA...

View attachment 63517

And it's not just Amazon or PoA, it's EVERYWHERE... they're just examples.

Once you see it everywhere, it'll start to bug you. Enjoy! :)
Click to expand...
That's one of my pet peeves too. I attribute it to focusing exclusively on the needs of smart phone users. Maybe they bought into the assumption that mobile devices being dominant meant that the desktop computer was "dead." :rolleyes1:
 
flyingron said:
As we took over more and more of the building, my office as the VP of Engineering moved further and further away from the CEO/President's offices (by design).
Click to expand...

As CTO, I get the temptation, but I intentionally moved my staff further away from the executive row and I stayed close. I want to know what I need to nip in the bud.:D:mad::eek:
 
In 1973, when I first started at IBM, I was in the old Field Engineering Division.
The customer was supposed to provide us with office space, and at internal IBM accounts it was usually the worst space in the building.
We were being told, for the 5th time that year, that we had to pack up and move to yet another hell hole of an office. They promised it was the last time we would ever have to move.
The plans for the changes were taped up on the walls where the work was to be done, and in BIG letters: "These plans are final and there will be NO modifications of any kind."
So I made a couple of minor, totally undetectable changes to the plans, and went off for the forced 5 day Labor Day shutdown.
Basically, on aisle "H", I had them remove a door and seal the wall. Opposite the aisle "H" space, on aisle "I" I had them add a door on the interior wall. We now had double the office size.
I also had a door on aisle "M" replaced with a wall. It was the door to a terminal room. There were now 20, 3277 terminals and 4 high speed 3288 printers sealed into a room with no doors.
Being in Field Engineering, I had to come in on day 4 of the shutdown in case there were any problems with equipment. My partner in crime and I used the time to bolt a parts cabinet to the door in our aisle "I" office. The door is now invisible.
We then went down to the staging area, where the executive's fancy leather furniture was being stored during the renovations. We liberated a leather couch and 2 leather chairs and put them in our aisle "H" space. We also installed a fridge/freezer and a bar. We now had a totally fabulous space to entertain selected female employees, and generally party whenever we felt so inclined.

OH, yeah. The "land locked" 3277's. That was strictly a diversion/distraction. As soon as the renovations were finished, we tore down the altered plans. Now there is no evidence. It took 4 days for anyone to notice the machines were missing. The uproar over the "missing" machines distracted everyone for THREE WEEKS. By the time I "discovered" what had happened, and "found" the missing machines, no one was inclined to look at anything else, they were too busy patting each other on the back for successfully resolving the mystery, or laying low to avoid being blamed for anything else. If anyone noticed a missing door, they were keeping their mouths shut.
They actually kept their promise. The CE office was never moved again. There was no worse space in the building to put us. Little did they know.
That account was the "Jewel" in the division and guys vied mightily to be assigned there. When the building was closed in 1998, the office was still intact.
 
Just how sick IS a dog? I feel like crap and wish to rate myself on a sickly dog scale if there is one.
 
Shepherd said:
In 1973, when I first started at IBM, I was in the old Field Engineering Division.
The customer was supposed to provide us with office space, and at internal IBM accounts it was usually the worst space in the building.
We were being told, for the 5th time that year, that we had to pack up and move to yet another hell hole of an office. They promised it was the last time we would ever have to move.
The plans for the changes were taped up on the walls where the work was to be done, and in BIG letters: "These plans are final and there will be NO modifications of any kind."
So I made a couple of minor, totally undetectable changes to the plans, and went off for the forced 5 day Labor Day shutdown.
Basically, on aisle "H", I had them remove a door and seal the wall. Opposite the aisle "H" space, on aisle "I" I had them add a door on the interior wall. We now had double the office size.
I also had a door on aisle "M" replaced with a wall. It was the door to a terminal room. There were now 20, 3277 terminals and 4 high speed 3288 printers sealed into a room with no doors.
Being in Field Engineering, I had to come in on day 4 of the shutdown in case there were any problems with equipment. My partner in crime and I used the time to bolt a parts cabinet to the door in our aisle "I" office. The door is now invisible.
We then went down to the staging area, where the executive's fancy leather furniture was being stored during the renovations. We liberated a leather couch and 2 leather chairs and put them in our aisle "H" space. We also installed a fridge/freezer and a bar. We now had a totally fabulous space to entertain selected female employees, and generally party whenever we felt so inclined.

OH, yeah. The "land locked" 3277's. That was strictly a diversion/distraction. As soon as the renovations were finished, we tore down the altered plans. Now there is no evidence. It took 4 days for anyone to notice the machines were missing. The uproar over the "missing" machines distracted everyone for THREE WEEKS. By the time I "discovered" what had happened, and "found" the missing machines, no one was inclined to look at anything else, they were too busy patting each other on the back for successfully resolving the mystery, or laying low to avoid being blamed for anything else. If anyone noticed a missing door, they were keeping their mouths shut.
They actually kept their promise. The CE office was never moved again. There was no worse space in the building to put us. Little did they know.
That account was the "Jewel" in the division and guys vied mightily to be assigned there. When the building was closed in 1998, the office was still intact.
Click to expand...
Well played sir! Well played!
 
Speaking of office/cube adventures (although mine didn't last nearly as long)...

One of the startups I worked at in Silicon Valley had three rounds of layoffs, and we knew more were coming. The company was headed down the tubes and it was only a matter of time before they got rid of all of us.

So one weekend, three of us came in, abandoned our cubes, and moved all our stuff into the three nicest offices that had been freed up by the most recent layoffs. These were nice offices, too - nice furniture, leather executive chairs, big desks, beautiful views...

The ringleader of this mutiny convinced us other two with the simple phrase, "What are they gonna do - fire us?" Sounds good to me - game on.

We did get a talking to by one of the execs, but it was half-hearted and even he knew the place was going to be dead in a few weeks, so might as well let us enjoy it while it lasted. The best was the dirty looks from the leftover Sales guys who didn't like three of us lowly software developers having some of the nicest offices in the building. Too bad, suckers - you should have sold more product!

At least I got to enjoy my own office for once in my IT career, even though it did only last about three months.
 
When I was in junior high school, we had a class tour of a state of the art IBM computer center complete with massive consoles with CRT screens, punch card readers, and 8 inch floppy drives. It occupied roughly half of a high rise floor. And it couldn't touch the computing power of the phone I hold in my hand today.
 
Shepherd said:
The uproar over the "missing" machines distracted everyone for THREE WEEKS.
Click to expand...

Laughing so hard it hurts here. Hahahahaha. Mostly because I’ve worked for places that easily could have happened.

LoneAspen said:
So one weekend, three of us came in, abandoned our cubes, and moved all our stuff into the three nicest offices that had been freed up by the most recent layoffs. These were nice offices, too - nice furniture, leather executive chairs, big desks, beautiful views...

The ringleader of this mutiny convinced us other two with the simple phrase, "What are they gonna do - fire us?" Sounds good to me - game on.

We did get a talking to by one of the execs, but it was half-hearted and even he knew the place was going to be dead in a few weeks, so might as well let us enjoy it while it lasted. The best was the dirty looks from the leftover Sales guys who didn't like three of us lowly software developers having some of the nicest offices in the building. Too bad, suckers - you should have sold more product!

At least I got to enjoy my own office for once in my IT career, even though it did only last about three months.
Click to expand...

Oh man. We did that too. LOL. I’m usually the ringleader of that crap, too. Same sentence, “What are they going to do, fire us?” Nobody really thinks about it until you point it out. If you’re going to stick around for the death march, your butt might as well be in a comfy chair until layoff day. :)

And if our shared office that three of us use continues to be 85F this summer like last, I’m either installing a thermometer at my desk and showing up in shorts every day until it’s fixed (trust me, nobody enjoys seeing me in shorts except maybe Karen, and she’s remembering younger legs anyway... Hahahaha...) or I’m picking up my crap and moving to a cubical in the new office space we built out a few months back. I can’t think at an 85F desk staring at a monitor. It’s just stupid.

If the the shorts version, the thermometer is to point at before whoever wants to have a chat about attire even starts. Finger points at thermometer and I ask them if they’d like a printout of the graph with hourly measurements. I don’t play fair. If they force the issue I have other ways to make them miserable, including the passwords for the thermostats in the building.

I only shoot when I see the whites of their eyes. Keep your powder dry...

Sac Arrow said:
When I was in junior high school, we had a class tour of a state of the art IBM computer center complete with massive consoles with CRT screens, punch card readers, and 8 inch floppy drives. It occupied roughly half of a high rise floor. And it couldn't touch the computing power of the phone I hold in my hand today.
Click to expand...

With great power comes great responsibility. Many people shouldn’t have that much computing power nor wireless connectivity at their disposal in a pocket. Hahaha. You however, do seem to handle it well. LOL.
 
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