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Things that are more complicated than they need to be.

167 replies

ThreeApplesHigh · 21/05/2022 11:55

I nominate hotel showers. Every time I have to use one, I have the Crystal Maze theme playing in my head while I figure out which combination of knobs and buttons turns the shower on and not the bath taps.

Your nominations?

OP posts:
Solosunrise · 24/05/2022 07:36

Scorchedterf · 22/05/2022 09:27

The timer on my boiler. I really don’t need a setting to switch the central heating on in a fortnight. I’ve had to watch YouTube videos to use the timer. It’s up there with the printer as the twin banes of my life.

I hear you @Scorchedterf
The man who fitted my new boiler also set up the timer/thermostat and we've found it impossible to reset. Can only raise or lower the temperature 'in the moment'. Have searched Google to no avail. Have found it being discussed on forums and nobody else has worked it out either.
I asked the engineer who does the annual safety check to show me how it works and he had no idea either (or so he said)
So we continue to get up in the freezing cold all winter, with the heating going on for 3 hours after we've left the house!

Shannith · 24/05/2022 07:47

@Solosunrise

LividLaVidaLoca · 24/05/2022 07:48

Dunno if anyone’s still doing them, but those postal covid tests.

Half an hour of clicking to get one. Then trying to follow the world’s least simple instructions just to build a box WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE SHIT and can’t think.

Like the government deliberately wanted people to give up…

Badbadbunny · 24/05/2022 07:56

mjf981 · 24/05/2022 06:37

Oh, and passwords. Some need capital letters, some need uppercase, some allow or need other characters/some don't (like @) some need to be 8+ letters etc...so you end up for 20 different passwords. And can't remember them all. Infuriating!!

Even more annoying when you forget it and go through the "lost password" routine and they don't let you use a password you've used previously, so you just have to keep making up new ones which you just know you're going to forget and will have to reset again, next time you want to login. Especially for sites you don't use often, i.e. online shops you only use every year or so, or banks/investments you only check yearly for tax return information.

Greensocksday · 24/05/2022 07:58

GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat · 21/05/2022 12:03

Printing anything

Photocopiers, it’s knowing which buttons to press, fills me with dread, I work in IT, give me a printer any day 🤣

Gardeningfool · 24/05/2022 08:05

Parking apps. Not only is it now impossible to park in most carparks without downloading an app, but there are so many of them. I currently have four on my phone, and I'm fairly sure there are others out there.

Badbadbunny · 24/05/2022 08:13

fridaRose · 24/05/2022 06:45

A lot of these are so simple I genuinely don't understand how people can struggle.

Wonder if it's different generations?
Would be interesting to have a person's age next for their 'struggle fact'.

TV controllers...? Hotel Showers??

Not necessarily. It's often just bad design/poor systems.

My entire business is online, various systems for OCR of paper documents which automatically populate data into databases, VOIP phones and mailboxes, and at home we have Alexa, Ring doorbells, "smart" lighting etc. and I do most things via apps, etc. (ie banking, online shopping, NHS app etc), so I'd say I was pretty technologically literate. But to get there, I've had to trial A LOT of software packages and rejected most of them for not being user friendly, i.e. too restricting as to entering dates (i.e. insisting on xx/xx/xxxx when we don't need the xxxx for another 70 odd years and xx/xx/xx would do - ! or having to click and scroll dates instead of just being able to type it in - may not seem a big deal but if you're entering hundreds/thousands of dates, the time adds up ).

But our central heating control is a sodding nightmare. Completely not user-intuitive, instruction booklet useless, loads of people online asking how the hell you change anything. It's like some throwback from the 70s with software written by a lunatic, but boiler is only 3 years old. I hate the damn thing. It doesn't show the days, just numbers from 1 to 7 so you have to guess what day 1 is. There is no menu system on the screen, you have to press different buttons in different orders to get to the screen you want (unhelpfully not correct in the instruction leaflet), so it's basically just a matter of pressing random buttons in random orders to get to the screen where you actually set the times! Not only that, but the whole thing is tiny (apparently it's because it's to fit in the space of the manual rotary timer) so you literally need a magnifying glass to see the writing and signs on the screen (made worse because they're also tiny so most of the screen is actually blank!). We've found a heating engineer who will replace the timer with a "proper" box fitted to the wall next to it - he was on our wavelength and knew exactly what we were talking - said he's changed dozens of them to ones that are actually useable.

Same with a lot of online forms etc - they're simply badly designed, badly programmed, etc. Like the ones where there simply aren't enough characters if your name or address line is "too long", or where the form doesn't accept you don't have a middle name and makes you type in "none" rather than allowing you leave it blank, meaning you then get a contract or letter with your name John None Smith!

I'm sure, for some, it's an age thing, but for lots of the common issues, it's just down to not being designed and tested properly!

Daenerys77 · 24/05/2022 08:33

My Kindle. I don't need to know how many readers have highlighted a particular passage or have a dictionary definition flash up. I just want to turn the thing on and read.

Solosunrise · 24/05/2022 08:41

Shannith · 24/05/2022 07:47

@Solosunrise

We've got it down to a tee in hand, but I can't for the life of me arrange my limbs in the correct order to get it right when I'm on board Blush

Nocaloriesinchocolate · 24/05/2022 08:50

Online marking (used to be sent paper exam scripts). Last summer it all got on top of me and I flipped, in the middle of marking. Cracked it with the autumn marking, thank goodness and I feel ready to go in a few weeks time. Though I bet they’ve changed the system somehow. And how hard can it be to log into their wretched intranet anyway?

HalfWomanHalfHobnob · 24/05/2022 08:54

Leisure centre websites!

Just show me the swimming timetable. No, not the squash court booking system for the branch on the other side of the country, the bloody public swimming timetable. Just put a screenshot of it on the site if you have to!

I genuinely visit a swimming pool that's further from my house because their website is ten times clearer than my local pool's nightmarish labyrinth.

whenwillthemadnessend · 24/05/2022 08:59

Getting medicine in a cat

SlowHorses · 24/05/2022 09:11

Wireless anything.

LIES. still have a gazillion wires in my house to charge up the fuckers plus extra wires for the wireless router.

LadyEloise1 · 24/05/2022 09:12

I agree re hotel showers. I'll either be scalded or frozen.

Babdoc · 24/05/2022 09:18

Virtually any modern gadget. My new dishwasher, washing machine and oven all look like something from the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, and it would take the brain of Mr Spock to operate their infinite number of pointless extra functions!
Ditto the timer on the heating boiler. Even the service engineer can’t work it - I have to reset it for him, while consulting the eight pages of finely printed instructions, if he’s had to turn it off while working.
And don’t get me started on setting up a replacement mobile phone, or installing Netflix - I had to video call my engineering graduate son in law to sort those!

Theala · 24/05/2022 09:31

Microwaves.
I want a microwave to do two things:

  • Make food hot.
  • Make food not frozen.
    Why do they all give fifty million options and then beep at you constantly? Stop beeping and just heat the fucking food, you prick!
RosesAndHellebores · 24/05/2022 09:49

I agree with Babdoc.

Washing machine - I use 30° synthetic; 40° whites; 60° bedding and towels. Once a fortnight 95° for cleaning cloths with bio detergent to keep the machine free from smells and gunk.

Dishwasher - one programme.

Microwave - defrost and reheat

Oven - usually fan at 180

I'd love to know who uses much more than the above.

I don't even use the smart TV I leave that to DD and DS.

mscynical · 24/05/2022 10:49

Why does paying for a 50p paperback in a charity shop take 15 taps on the till and often results in the manager having to be called over because one of the 15 taps was wrong? Very infuriating, especially if I am holding the 50p in my hand. If there's a queue I don't even bother!

Chewbecca · 24/05/2022 11:07

Oooh, microwaves are an excellent candidate.

Mine has a button which turns it on for 30seconds. This is the only button I use, everything is cooked in multiples of 30 seconds. No other buttons have ever been pressed.

CounsellorTroi · 24/05/2022 11:21

Checking into a hotel when you’ve already booked online. Why does it take so long?

Fizbosshoes · 24/05/2022 11:22

I cook 80% of things on 180 but I do deviate and use 140 (not fan assisted) for meringues and pulled pork, or slow cooked lamb!
I use about 3 or 4 programmes on the washing machine
I don't understand 50% of the functions on the washing machine.
Got a new dishwasher at Xmas. Have only ever used 1 programme

Do you think it would be any cheaper to manufacture devices with only 3 or 4 settings?

kitchenceilingwaterleak · 24/05/2022 12:03

Trying to put a duvet cover on a 15 tog winter thickness superking duvet. It's a team effort between DH and I. Even then you need arms like he-man to be able to pick the thing up.

Trying to find a pair of shoes that a) my bright red orthotic insoles fit in and b) you can't see the fuckers. I did ask if I could have black next time but I was told it was red or........ red. I live in walking trainers most of the year.

Central heating controls. No, I don't want to set different heats for different times of the day, no I dont want a weekend function, no I dont want 200000000000 different settings. All I use is the on/off and increase/decrease heat in 0.5 degree increments. I run it on the thermostat during the winter because I can't be bothered to play about, get everything wrong and find out that I've been heating the house to subtropical temperatures during the middle of the night.

MardyOldGoth · 24/05/2022 14:06

Clothing sizes. A 12 in one shop is a 14 in another and a 10 somewhere else. Perhaps even an 8 or a 16 in some places. Sometimes they're different sizes in the same shop! Ordered jeans I'd had before in the same size as the old ones. Extra 2 inches in the waistband when put on top of the old pair. Stop it!

A580Hojas · 24/05/2022 14:08

Visiting a website you've been on hundreds of times before and having to accept cookies every freaking time.

Comvit · 24/05/2022 14:16

Drills: Can we just have one drill bit for all types of surfaces, please?