Minor things that bother you

[roadman]

Chevy's "Real people, not actors" host

Aren't actors real people?

I just notice the other day, the commercial was captioned "real Chevrolet employees, not actors".  Oh, like that's any better??

I suspect Lizard People or Androids given the lack of human behavior demonstrated in the commercials.  Either way I'd be more likely to listen of the caption said "real Lizard People"  or "real Androids."

Or real Small Furry People from Alpha Centuari.

[kphoger]

I told the guy we don't sign contracts and he said it wasn't a contract it was an agreement. Okay whatever.

One of my best friends recently had an argument with a Cox sales call rep.  He told the rep he didn't want a sales call.  The rep said it's not a sales call, but that he just wanted to make sure my friend's service level was meeting his current needs and if he might want to change his level of service to better suit his needs.  "So it is a sales call, then."  "No, it's not a sales call."  They went back and forth for a while.  I don't remember if the rep ever admitted to it being a sales call or not.

[Max Rockatansky]

Chevy's "Real people, not actors" host

Aren't actors real people?

I just notice the other day, the commercial was captioned "real Chevrolet employees, not actors".  Oh, like that's any better??

I suspect Lizard People or Androids given the lack of human behavior demonstrated in the commercials.  Either way I'd be more likely to listen of the caption said "real Lizard People"  or "real Androids."

Or real Small Furry People from Alpha Centuari.

Now that would be impressive if GM had a stake in the domestic market share of the Small Furry Kingdom of Alpha Centuari.  I suspect that least there small sedans would still be appreciated over the swath of vanilla CUVs being pushed on Earth in the U.S. Market.

[texaskdog]

RBF or it's lesser component Resting B*tch Voice RBV. 

[SSOWorld]

I told the guy we don't sign contracts and he said it wasn't a contract it was an agreement. Okay whatever.

One of my best friends recently had an argument with a Cox sales call rep.  He told the rep he didn't want a sales call.  The rep said it's not a sales call, but that he just wanted to make sure my friend's service level was meeting his current needs and if he might want to change his level of service to better suit his needs.  "So it is a sales call, then."  "No, it's not a sales call."  They went back and forth for a while.  I don't remember if the rep ever admitted to it being a sales call or not.

[1995hoo]

Whenever we do finally buy a house, I'm still going to tell them we rent.

When I was growing up, we lived in a parsonage (my dad was a pastor).  Those were fun sales call conversations:

–  Hello, do you own your home?
–  No.
–  Oh, so you rent, then.
–  No.
–  Ummm................ Uhhhh.........

When I was in college, we got a call (I answered) asking to speak to "the man of the house." I figured it was a sales call, so I said, "Which one? There are four of us." As I expected, the caller didn't realize it was a college apartment and assumed we were homosexuals (we were not)–there was a LONG silence and then the caller hung up. I should have answered in a high-pitched voice just to play to stereotypes.

[Brian556]

Utensils with flat handles. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are this way, and I cannot stand it. They are very uncomfortable to use. They forks are the worst because they dig into your hand when you use them to cut meat. The ones with rounded handles are so much better

[Scott5114]

Okay here's one, those annoying people who work for Spectrum who bother you in Walmart.  I pretty much tell them to f*ck off now.

Yeah, with me it's DirecTV in Sam's Club.  I always tell them if they can beat "free"  then they can have my business

I told the guy we don't sign contracts and he said it wasn't a contract it was an agreement. Okay whatever.

Tell them that you agree to disagree.

[texaskdog]

Okay here's one, those annoying people who work for Spectrum who bother you in Walmart.  I pretty much tell them to f*ck off now.

Yeah, with me it’s DirecTV in Sam’s Club.  I always tell them if they can beat “free” then they can have my business

I told the guy we don't sign contracts and he said it wasn't a contract it was an agreement. Okay whatever.

Tell them that you agree to disagree.

I was with my wife at that point she wanted me to keep walking

[GaryV]

A while back there were a lot of phone sales calls to change your phone service.  My sister in law told one caller, "I'm sorry, we don't have a phone."  Reply: "Sorry for bothering you."  Hang up.

[crt08]

Flippers that buy houses fairly cheap, do nothing more than paint and put down some new carpet (and sometimes less) and then put back on market for ridiculous amounts more than they paid. Um, I know how to find out what you paid and I can paint myself for a lot cheaper, thanks.

Even worse is when they buy a house that was already pretty nice but actually make it worse when they go to "renovate" it.

[texaskdog]

Flippers that buy houses fairly cheap, do nothing more than paint and put down some new carpet (and sometimes less) and then put back on market for ridiculous amounts more than they paid. Um, I know how to find out what you paid and I can paint myself for a lot cheaper, thanks.

Even worse is when they buy a house that was already pretty nice but actually make it worse when they go to "renovate" it.

All those people too who talk about house flipping like it's so easy to do.

[Max Rockatansky]

Flippers that buy houses fairly cheap, do nothing more than paint and put down some new carpet (and sometimes less) and then put back on market for ridiculous amounts more than they paid. Um, I know how to find out what you paid and I can paint myself for a lot cheaper, thanks.

Even worse is when they buy a house that was already pretty nice but actually make it worse when they go to "renovate" it.

My brother actually made 1.3 million doing that during the housing boom before the market fell out from underneath of him and he got caught holding eight properties.  Considering how steep Capital Gains tax was he would try to hold the properties for two years but that's one of the larger reasons he got burned holding so many deeds on homes.  I should note that my brother would spend about 15-30k on improvements on homes and he did a large percentage of the work himself.  Some of the profits could be very substantial, I know he made a 120k profit on one house he remodeled and flipped within a two year window.  Either way house flipping being a profitable enterprise usually isn't a good sign for affordable housing in particular market.  It's one of the biggest reasons I left Phoenix back in 2013.  Either way he was exploiting a market bubble but was smart enough to recognize it was beginning and caught the wave early.  Too bad he didn't see it ending because he lost everything that he made in the housing crash. 

Now the real driver of that housing boom was predatory adjustable rate mortgage loans that were so popular in the early 2000s.  Double that up with a City like Phoenix which was exploding in population growth and there was some real opportunities to make money off the house flipping business.  Even after the housing boom home prices in Phoenix still remained way above what they were at the turn of the century and have only risen since...its kind of getting to Los Angeles/Bay Areas levels in places. 

[J N Winkler]

My brother actually made 1.3 million doing that during the housing boom before the market fell out from underneath of him and he got caught holding eight properties.  Considering how steep Capital Gains tax was he would try to hold the properties for two years but that's one of the larger reasons he got burned holding so many deeds on homes.  I should note that my brother would spend about 15-30k on improvements on homes and he did a large percentage of the work himself.  Some of the profits could be very substantial, I know he made a 120k profit on one house he remodeled and flipped within a two year window.  Either way house flipping being a profitable enterprise usually isn't a good sign for affordable housing in particular market.  It's one of the biggest reasons I left Phoenix back in 2013.  Either way he was exploiting a market bubble but was smart enough to recognize it was beginning and caught the wave early.  Too bad he didn't see it ending because he lost everything that he made in the housing crash.

In the parallel thread dealing with companies (etc.) we want to see go out of business, I did mention house flippers.  I concede that, to the extent they reflect a natural development of specialization to improve economic efficiency (not everyone has the ability or interest to act as his or her own general contractor/construction manager for updating fixer-uppers), and do not scrim-shank on the improvements they carry out, they can be a benign factor in a local housing market.  However, flipping is inevitably a speculative activity to some degree, and that has a tendency to exacerbate problems with housing affordability.

Intending long-term owners who buy from a flipper lose out when they effectively have to pay twice for the same updates (as a result of, e.g., the flipper putting in bottom-tier fixed appliances or failing to observe reasonable standards of workmanship when redecorating).

In my local area, we have observed that flippers tend to be tied to sources of fallow capital, such as doctors or small groups of well-heeled real-estate investors.  A few years ago, we received a cash-for-property offer from a LLC.  When I looked it up with the Secretary of State (which in Kansas handles business registrations), I found two names in connection with it.  One was a farmer's son from western Kansas, and the other was a medical doctor.  Both have gone on my personal blacklist.  We have received other cash-for-property postcards from different business entities (mostly partnerships) at essentially the same mailing address, in a high-dollar office park on the east side of town (traditionally the millionaires' quarter).

[texaskdog]

I hate those house flipping shows.  They make it seem dire like they are going to lose money and in the end they ALWAYS make money.  That one show with the flippers EVERY TIME and supposedly they never once lost money.  Flip or Flop. 

[Max Rockatansky]

My brother actually made 1.3 million doing that during the housing boom before the market fell out from underneath of him and he got caught holding eight properties.  Considering how steep Capital Gains tax was he would try to hold the properties for two years but that's one of the larger reasons he got burned holding so many deeds on homes.  I should note that my brother would spend about 15-30k on improvements on homes and he did a large percentage of the work himself.  Some of the profits could be very substantial, I know he made a 120k profit on one house he remodeled and flipped within a two year window.  Either way house flipping being a profitable enterprise usually isn't a good sign for affordable housing in particular market.  It's one of the biggest reasons I left Phoenix back in 2013.  Either way he was exploiting a market bubble but was smart enough to recognize it was beginning and caught the wave early.  Too bad he didn't see it ending because he lost everything that he made in the housing crash.

In the parallel thread dealing with companies (etc.) we want to see go out of business, I did mention house flippers.  I concede that, to the extent they reflect a natural development of specialization to improve economic efficiency (not everyone has the ability or interest to act as his or her own general contractor/construction manager for updating fixer-uppers), and do not scrim-shank on the improvements they carry out, they can be a benign factor in a local housing market.  However, flipping is inevitably a speculative activity to some degree, and that has a tendency to exacerbate problems with housing affordability.

Intending long-term owners who buy from a flipper lose out when they effectively have to pay twice for the same updates (as a result of, e.g., the flipper putting in bottom-tier fixed appliances or failing to observe reasonable standards of workmanship when redecorating).

In my local area, we have observed that flippers tend to be tied to sources of fallow capital, such as doctors or small groups of well-heeled real-estate investors.  A few years ago, we received a cash-for-property offer from a LLC.  When I looked it up with the Secretary of State (which in Kansas handles business registrations), I found two names in connection with it.  One was a farmer's son from western Kansas, and the other was a medical doctor.  Both have gone on my personal blacklist.  We have received other cash-for-property postcards from different business entities (mostly partnerships) at essentially the same mailing address, in a high-dollar office park on the east side of town (traditionally the millionaires' quarter).

Unfortunately in the case of the Phoenix market all the house flipping coupled with the housing bubble were really what expedited gentrification and sprawl.  The unfortunate result was taking a Metro Area that was very affordable circa 2000 and making just another upper middle class suburban hell scape by 2020.  Some of the long commutes resulted from new development racing outwards to whatever affordable parcels of land were left over.  As much as I liked Arizona I didn't want to be part of kind of turn in the real estate market again.  Fortunately I had the ability to leave through my career and ultimately did. 

[jemacedo9]

A while back there were a lot of phone sales calls to change your phone service.  My sister in law told one caller, "I'm sorry, we don't have a phone."  Reply: "Sorry for bothering you."  Hang up.

Nicely done!

[kphoger]

My brother actually made 1.3 million doing that during the housing boom before the market fell out from underneath of him and he got caught holding eight properties. 

A co-worker of mine had the same situation.  That's a way to get into the rental market without ever intending to!

A while back there were a lot of phone sales calls to change your phone service.  My sister in law told one caller, "I'm sorry, we don't have a phone."  Reply: "Sorry for bothering you."  Hang up.

Nicely done!

I remember my father telling one the same thing back in the 90s.  Except it wasn't a polite "sorry for bothering you" but instead a confused moment of silence on the other end.

[hbelkins]

Here's something that bothers me. You can sign up for things online, change service plans online, but you have to call to cancel the service. You can't do that online.

Or when you have had no luck with phone calls to get something done and you write a letter, and they respond that you need to call them.

[texaskdog]

On FB a woman just referred to her husband as "hubs"

[Rothman]

Here's something that bothers me. You can sign up for things online, change service plans online, but you have to call to cancel the service. You can't do that online.

Or when you have had no luck with phone calls to get something done and you write a letter, and they respond that you need to call them.

Those are good ones.

[DaBigE]

Email list unsubscribe buttons that take you to an unrelated webpage, with no way to contact anyone else (not even to tell them their link is broken).

[texaskdog]

Gas pumps where I just want gas:

Insert card
Punch in your zip code (okay I know I need to do that)
Do you want additive?
Do you want to join our 5 cent off club?
Do you want a receipt?
Do you want a car wash?

Then I have to watch your video while I pump

[SSOWorld]

Today is January 4.  Winter started two weeks ago.  They're late as usual.

[OracleUsr]

Gas pumps where I just want gas:

Insert card
Punch in your zip code (okay I know I need to do that)
Do you want additive?
Do you want to join our 5 cent off club?
Do you want a receipt?
Do you want a car wash?

Then I have to watch your video while I pump

I had one near my house that used to ask:

Debit Card (Y/N)  NO
Debit Card (Y/N)  NO
Debit Card (Y/N)  NO

Authorizing