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Mattyfez's Officespace post on here:
reminded me of this Mumsnet thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mumsnet_classics/3058228-household-objects-that-are-pricks
so I thought it might be fun to have our own version. Printers, inherently, are pricks. I'm convinced their raw user-hostile malevolence is by design.
What objects have you got round the house or otherwise in your life that can top printers?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKQzqwn-jIM
I should probably contribute something to my own thread.
I have an air fryer, a Tefal Actifry jobbie. In itself it's great, but when it finishes cooking it beeps. What do we suppose is a sensible number of beeps to signify your food is ready? One? Three?
Sixty. I counted them. Needy little attention-seeking prick.
Cheap hob heat settings:
1/ Baby's breath
2/ Spring breeze
3/ Is it on?
4/ Volcano
5/ Fusion reactor
6/ Hotter than the sun
That Mumsnet thread is hilarious. I admire the lack of swearing filter in that place.
Agree about the toaster. How can a couple of slices of bread generate 8 trays full of crumbs?!
Agree about the toaster. How can a couple of slices of bread generate 8 trays full of crumbs?!
And to quote Eddie Izzard I think from the same set as above, "it has a turny-dial that lies"
I think it was Graham Norton who said "If we really did put men on the moon why is my toaster so shit"
Even the best ones are just not terrible. It seems like a good, reliable, affordable toaster could be made if we tried. But - maybe we didn't land on the moon and all technology and engineering is a hoax
TVs - when I switch it on I want it to revert back to the channel I was last watching when I switched it off - full screen too, no menu shit to deal with
Why do most modern TVs start with twelvty million options and a small box with the picture in?
No need !!
The more I think about it, toasters need a (dis)honourable mention.
This is literally "you had one job" territory, how hard can it be? Even throwing money at the problem doesn't work, as you say expensive ones are at best "less shit." My last toaster served up toast with one side charcoal, the other warm bread, like The Force in Star Wars. The current one has adopted more of a 'gradient' approach so I've to rotate the toast halfway through toasting rather than flipping it.
Bonus points for no toaster on the planet which can accept a Warburton's "Toastie" loaf slice aside from those stupid double-length affairs which are supposed to take two slices in one slot because who the **** even knows why that's considered a desirable feature. All the fun of a regular shit toaster only taking up twice the counter space.
The best toasters are those in hotel buffets where the toast travels along a metal conveyor belt. Two settings. Bread comes out vaguely warmer than it went in. Bread comes out on fire.
those stupid double-length affairs which are supposed to take two slices in one slot because who the **** even knows why that’s considered a desirable feature
Because Mothers Pride plain outsiders are god-level toastie bread.
Only fit in a long slot toaster.
OK, new one. I'm at my sister's house at the moment. A strange beeping noise from the other room, I thought one of the kids might have left some sort of game on. That annoying beeping you get in really shit birthday cards.
Nope. It was the washing machine playing a self- congratulatory symphony for actually doing the one job it's designed for. Smug ****.
My 9kw Mira shower, dribble....dribble.....dribble....dribble, I can piss with greater pressure despite having to use intermittent catheters, and the fact it turns off after 20 mins and needs a 10 min tea break before it starts to work again.
Before anyone says you shouldn't need more than 5mins in the shower I have spms and showering/washing takes me at least 90mins as my muscles get exhausted, prob why I only have a shower every few weeks. But I'm not stinky, that's what anti-bacterial kitchen wipes are for 😉
My 9kw Mira shower, dribble….dribble…..dribble….dribble, I can piss with greater pressure despite having to use intermittent catheters
Top tip, a lot of modern showers come ready fitted with a water saving flow restrictor. A doddle to remove and jet washer like pressure restored.
The best toasters are those in hotel buffets where the toast travels along a metal conveyor belt. Two settings. Bread comes out vaguely warmer than it went in. Bread comes out on fire.
Those are standard issue in every Army mess, but jealously guarded with signs nearby telling people not to fiddle with them because, if they do, you'll get either charcoal or warm bread. Or both. At the same time.
Hand dryers.
Either the sort that's like a mouse breathing on you so that 10 mins later you just have slightly warmer wet hands or the type that deafens you whilst blowing the water from your hands to your trousers so it looks like you wet yourself.
The only type I'll use are the ones like big toasters, otherwise it's back to the cubicle for more loo roll.
Coffee tables. Positioned perfectly for maximum shin damage, collect random crap, never actually any clear space on them for your coffee.
Mandolines. Even if you manage to use it without losing the top of a finger, it will try to slice you when you wash it.
Top tip, a lot of modern showers come ready fitted with a water saving flow restrictor.
Hmm, will have to investigate, is it in shower head or in unit?
That Mumsnet thread is hilarious. I admire the lack of swearing filter in that place.
I don't think you are actually allowed on Mumsnet unless you can swear properly. It's effortless and fits so beautifully
Mobile phone. It keeps hiding itself from me. Prick.
Car keys... See above. 😭
Hmm, will have to investigate, is it in shower head or in unit.
In the unit. In mine it's in the bit where it connects to the hot and cold water inlets. It's a little plastic thimble shaped thingumy.
Bed legs, which stub my toe when stumbling half asleep in darkness when going for a nocturnal wazz.
The best toasters are those in hotel buffets where the toast travels along a metal conveyor belt. Two settings. Bread comes out vaguely warmer than it went in. Bread comes out on fire.
I did actually get flames once. First pass, basically still bread. One more run through, should be perfect thinks I. Oh no. I had to flap it out with a napkin.
Thankfully a thing of the past now, but SCART leads.
I nominate my glasses, why can I never find them despite the fact they are always in the place I last put them ?🤔🙄
In the unit. In mine it’s in the bit where it connects to the hot and cold water inlets. It’s a little plastic thimble shaped thingumy.
In that case ill leave it, couldn't get my hands to work well enough to take it apart, my shower is a Mira advance with only gravity fed cold water feed
Thankfully a thing of the past now, but SCART leads.
Christ, you just reminded me of SCSI. I bought my first scanner back in 1998, then I had to learn how to set up SCSI devices using jumper switches to set the address. That was bad enough to get working, but then I bought a CD-RW when they first came out and it was so temperamental that you just had to walk away and not touch the computer until it stopped burning a CD.
I don't think we'll beat the printer. Well, I've almost given mine a beating...
Epson all in one job - trying to scan a certificate on thick paper the other day so put it on the flatbed as I didn't think the auto feed would like it. Positioned it in the corner, lined up with the A4 mark, selected A4 portrait from the menu, got half of it, at a right angle to the intended, so turn it around, got nothing. Changed the orientation in settings, now half of it upside down. Tried the auto feed - jammed. Retrieved paper, back on the bed, and was eventually successful using the total opposite settings to what the instructions said.
Christ, you just reminded me of SCSI. I bought my first scanner back in 1998, then I had to learn how to set up SCSI devices using jumper switches to set the address. That was bad enough to get working, but then I bought a CD-RW when they first came out and it was so temperamental that you just had to walk away and not touch the computer until it stopped burning a CD.
CD writers weren't SCSI's fault though (SCSI was a far better interface than daisy chain parallel IDE). All CD writers were dicks. Even if you walked away, half the burns would fail. They didn't even stop being dicks, we just stopped using them.
Our stupid microwave. To set a cooking time, you must press the bell button first. And once it’s going, you can’t see in it because the door doesn’t have a window. It’s made by Hoover - avoid.
Edit: and when our washing machine gave up the ghost, my wife ordered a Hoover washing machine. Guess what! You can’t see in that either as it has a smoked window on the door. 😆
Cheese graters. . really , and I mean really. Is that the best thing you can come up with.
Printers, it's all very Douglas Adam's shoe event horizon
Consumer WiFi routers
Mudguards - okay, I wouldn't be without mudguards in winter, but they're still infuriating. Tap them even slightly or go over a pothole and they're against a tyre. Toe overlap really becomes a problem. Break constantly.
Apple TV remote
Any kind of weirdo screw head. You're stopping anyone from undoing it, you're just making us buy another stupid screwdriver bit.
I have a Siemens oven, it has a Shabat setting. I think that its taking the piss ever so slightly, but I can't honestly be sure..?
I have a kettle, one of those really cheap Tesco jobbies, it's lid is operated by a button realise from the handle. The button is pointless now after years of operation, it never ever opens the lid when you want to fill it from the tap, so you end up filling it from the spout...yadda yadda, about half way through boiling any amount of water, the lid will pop up, and the kettle, of course, won't actually at that point boil. So now I have to stand guard until it does the lid thing, push it down, then I can go about my day.
Prick.
Hand dryers.
Everything and anything in a public convenience that can only be operated by waving your hand in front of it like a Jedi and leaves you wondering whether it just doesn't work or just wants to watch you do jazz hands again.
Did find myself waving my hands fruitlessly about under a featureless, buttonless hand drier for a few moments - before realising it was actually an old school paper towel dispenser 🙂 So they are pricks too just for looking a bit like a hand drier. As are the many and various ways of providing toilet paper but making it difficult to actually obtain.
So my idea for a toaster with a photo electric cell wasn't such a bad idea.
You simply press the colour of toast vrequired from the pictogram on the side and voilà. The moisture content of the bread is made irrelevant as the magic eye dictates the time frame. So fresh or stale bread can be toasted to the same level
CD writers weren’t SCSI’s fault though
The first one I had was SCSI. It cost a fortune, so did the disks back then. I think I replaced it with a USB 2 drive which probably cost about 1/5 the price and worked 90% of the time compared with about 50% for the SCSI drive. Also, you could just plug it in and it worked instead of having to set device addresses using jumper switches.
The 'security' door for the hallway of my block of flats.
Going through it once? Never fully closes so you have to pull it closed.
Doing multiple trips in and out? Clicks shut EVERY. DAMN. TIME.
Everything and anything in a public convenience that can only be operated by waving your hand in front of it like a Jedi and leaves you wondering whether it just doesn’t work or just wants to watch you do jazz hands again.
At my old workplace the loo had sensors for the lights, one by the sink and urinal and one in the trap. The trap one only ever worked once in a 10 minute period so you would always be left in pitch darkness after a minute when it switched off.
I must be the lucky one as my printer, toaster and kettle behave perfectly and have done for years. Both my washing machine and air fryer make a simple sound when finished too, the washer beeps eight times and the air fryer just dings once!
WiFi routers. See Welsh farmer's thread.
Truly made from spiderwebs and magic.
Vending machines, work faultlessly for hundreds of customers then all of a sudden jam for you. Either nobody around to fix it or by the time you get someone there, your product has fallen and been nicked.
My microwave, it bleeps five times to let you know it’s finished. FIVE times to let you know something that you started 90 seconds ago is ready. I hate it so much.
I then bought a fancy Bosch kettle that has temperature settings, it bleeps not just when it’s ready, it bleeps to let you know you’ve pushed a button. A button that you’ve actually pushed with your own finger.
The Dyson combined tap and hand dryer on the last public toilet I was in. Stupid y-shaped thing, no controls visible, no idea what came out of where, terrible design. Waved my hand under it for water and got warm air first. Slow clap (with unwashed hands)
The Dyson air blade dryers don't get sworn at but probably deserve a mention for the primordial soup they produce and have no way to deal with. There's one at work with a line of green stuff along the lower seam below the air vents, it's certainly living matter and growing nicely in the warm environment.
Charging Leads. Why so many different sizes to charge phones/lights/watches. I've got a drawer full of different sodding leads.
For the lost mobile phone issue.. Garmin watches have "find my phone" on them and the tile app lets you hook inexpensive Bluetooth finders on all the stuff you use regularly (keys wallet etc) so they're piss easy to find. Genuinely improved my life
CD writers weren’t SCSI’s fault though
The first one I had was SCSI. It cost a fortune, so did the disks back then.
I remember Philips LMSI, Panasonic, Matsushita (which was the Panasonic standard with the connector the other way around, how we laughed) and finally IDE. But I don't recall ever seeing a SCSI optical drive. Maybe really early on when discs came in cartridges and WORM discs were a thing?
combined tap and hand dryer on the last public toilet I was in
Truly hateful design, soap water and air dispensed at seemingly arbitrary intervals.
So they are pricks too just for looking a bit like a hand drier. As are the many and various ways of providing toilet paper but making it difficult to actually obtain.
I love those transparent bog roll holders where the loose end dangles through a trap door affair at the bottom. Try to pull it to rotate the roll and obtain sufficient paper for the task in hand and a combination of too much friction and cheap paper with the tensile strength of fresh air, leaves you with just a single square of paper. So now you have to skin your knuckles trying to squeeze your hand through the trapdoor to grab the flappy end of the bastard paper which is invariably 180 degrees opposite the optimum point.
So you resort to rotating the roll, 3mm at a time with the tips of your now bleeding fingers, until said flappy end deigns to reappear, 15 minutes later. You pull it really gently, but it snaps again leaving you with another single square whilst you swear hysterically and **** the bastard contraption repeatedly. Leading to the startled old gentleman in the next cubicle calling security who escort you off the premises whilst still suffering sub-optimal cleft cleanliness.
Just me?
So now you have to skin your knuckles trying to squeeze your hand through the trapdoor to grab the flappy end of the bastard paper which is invariably 180 degrees opposite the optimum point.
Think of it as training to be a vet.
Alarm clocks.
Too bright.
To jarring and loud.
No easy way to silence.
Arseholes.
My toaster is actualy brilliant.
Number 3 on the dial for bread, 4 for crumpets.
My microwave, on the other hand, whilst perfectly good, has the need to announce that it's finished its task to the entire street via a series of unessesarily long and loud beeps. ... It sounds like there's one of those massive caterpillar quarry trucks reversing in my kitchen... Why?
Just me?
I blame students. McD's kept most of Preston Uni in bogroll for the couple of years I was there.
Think of it as training to be a vet.
Think of it as training for your sex life.
Door handles. They're everywhere, and they're usually so helpful but they're always watching... waiting... For the perfect moment to strike, and hook themselves onto a loose bit of clothes or a pocket or a bag handle and snag you. They never do it when you're in a good mood, or even when it'd be funny, it only ever happens when you're absolutely at breaking point and they know that one little inconvenience will drive you over the edge- and that the smaller the inconvenience that makes you snap, the worse it'll feel. And of course you can get free easily, but you won't, you'll lose your temper and yank at it or get half free and then get snagged again and you'll drop whatever you were carrying and sometimes, just occasionally, when they know you're at your lowest ebb they'll make the door slam into your face.
Bastards.
Oh, and my smart tv, despite having a quad core processor, isn't smart enough to automatically switch to an active input in the absence of any other active inputs.
Door handles. They’re everywhere, and they’re usually so helpful but they’re always watching… waiting… For the perfect moment to strike, and hook themselves onto a loose bit of clothes or a pocket or a bag handle and snag you.
+1. A couple of years ago, finally did for my Aiwa headphones that I'd had since college. Bastard thing.
Upright vacuum cleaners. If ever you use the hose attachment they just go all pathetic and fall over! The number of times I've beaten one half to death with it's own hose for just being a falling down pathetic prick I can't tell you.
At least the wired one can suck the dust out of a carpet though. The battery powered Vax thing just switches itself off as soon as it touches anything slightly long piled. Useless arse. JUST SUCK UP THE DUST!
The big heaters above doors in shops. What’s the point? The doors are ajar most of the time and if they are closed you’d melt under one in 10seconds
At the risk of thread drift into at least three others,
Automatic revolving doors. Just like regular doors only it takes you three days to get through them and they slam to a halt if anyone touches them which everyone does because a) they're slow as molasses and b) they're doors with big handles, what do you expect people to do?
Pricks looking to solve a problem which doesn't exist. We've got on just fine with doors since we moved out of the caves.
The number of times I’ve beaten one half to death with it’s own hose for just being a falling down pathetic prick I can’t tell you.
The video is far too accurate to be funny!
The big heaters above doors in shops. What’s the point?
They're called door air curtain heaters, they minimize the cold air outside mixing with the warm air inside. If sized and installed correctly then they do work. They are not designed to heat the room they're in.
Automatic revolving doors.
These are really annoying but not quite as annoying as a manual revolving door, those things weighed a ton to turn and could be sped up to a dangerous speed for other users (we were bad kids). They do serve a similar purpose to the over door curtain heaters by keeping the warm air in.
The one's I was thinking of have already been mentioned above, except maybe wine glasses. They're a stupidly fragile and not very stable, yet they are meant to hold a liquid that will very definitely stain your carpet and sofa.
Anything with Apple written on it. I don't know why, they give me the rage every time.
Our new microwave. Nearly caused divorce and still might. You have to press a button called microwave just to wake it up. You then have to dial in the time in 30 second blocks . And it beeps 5 times to say done, then an0ther 30 seconds later just in case and, in another 30 seconds the last. Why does it need 11 power settings? It's a sodding microwave. It only need Nuke and stop.
Any kind of weirdo screw head. You’re stopping anyone from undoing it, you’re just making us buy another stupid screwdriver bit.
On that note, Phillips or Pozi screw heads. They're pants. Torx or Assy for me.
Flat heads get a pass as they can look nice if set correctly.
Have a hate/hate relationship with vacuum cleaners. I'm convinced they are just trying to piss me off or injure me, normally by waiting until I'm not looking then sliding off the wall where they've been propped and landing on my foot. For some reason my wife thinks calling a hoover a bastard is slightly unhinged.
EDIT: I see I have a kindred spirit in @desperatebicycle
I then bought a fancy Bosch kettle that has temperature settings, it bleeps not just when it’s ready, it bleeps to let you know you’ve pushed a button. A button that you’ve actually pushed with your own finger.
Very useful if you are blind
thols2
Are you suggesting that the British plug is bad design? No, no, no:
Micro usb though! That is so bad that I do not believe it can have been done unintentionally. Someone, somewhere is still laughing about the pain and frustration they have caused for millions.
I have to go with printers too. Honourable mention for modern TVs - I've accepted that I've zero chance of setting one up correctly but that's more to do with me than the TV. Also Lezyne bicycle pumps, which I think unscrew the valve core for everybody.
Also Lezyne bicycle pumps, which I think unscrew the valve core for everybody.
Reminds me. Presta valve stems which are made of cheese and bend just by looking at them.
Power tools. Invariably pack up when I'm absolutely filthy and half way through a job it would have been really nice to do in one go. So far on the extension the big angle grinder when cutting bricks (repairable), power drill (tried replacing the bushes but it still sparked so it was the winding that had shorted, dead), the other power drill (replaced cable), the small angle grinder ( switch jammed with dust, just needed a thorough clean), the workshop vacuum cleaner (an electrical domino to replace the switch), the big vacuum cleaner (motor bearing dead - I'll forgive that one, it was an Aquavac that we'd used and abused for 29 years).
Nah, Lezyne hand pumps are great.
I have Nam level flashbacks thinking of SCSI! Had cd writer that needed the pc to have 2 SCSI cards one attached to the data serving hard drive and the other to the writer. Was a nightmare to keep working
This is becoming one of my favourite threads.
