Anyone else miss just turning up?

[sunhasgotthis]

These days it feels like you've got to download an app to book in a fart! I really miss just turning up somewhere, paying, without everything shoehorned into tight slots.

You have to book a slot to pick strawberries at our local farm now and they even charge you for the slot and no, you don’t get the booking fee off the price of what you pick, madness! Went today, as they have an excellent butcher’s shop and there were plenty there picking strawsbs!

I get this, but until maybe 10 years ago I don't remember massive queues or failing to get in. You just went along, maybe stood in a short queue, paid and went in. Our first experience of massive queues was in Rome in about 2015. The queues for major attractions were so long that we rescheduled some of our visits to early morning.

You STILL have to book a bloody slot at our local Tip/Recycling centre. It looks like that's the case for all of Kent

Same here (not Kent). The site doesn't save your details either, so each time you have to enter your car reg, your address, your preferred recycling site, etc. Arrgh!

Went to the apple shop to buy a protective cover for my new iPad and was told to buy it online. I told them that if everyone did that they would be out of a job, so could I order it? No!

I was really against the tip booking at first but now I think it's much better as there are always same day slots available and no queues. Ours doesn't save details either but my device does so it is very easy. A fixed time incentivises me to look round for as much stuff as possible to take whereas before I'd just think "oh, I'll go later" or I'd turn up and find it was closed or a massive queue.

Yes, population growth. Museums etc havn't grown so everything is obviously going to be busier. Just like how roads are busier etc.

Look at the increase in steepness of the population graph from 2000 onwards

Much of that increase is due to the ageing population, and so attractions that appeal to that demographic are potentially busier.

Actually I quite like having time slots for events and appointments (eg the local tip) as it does reduce the likelihood of queues on the day.
However, one thing I really do wish I could book online is a GP appointment and it's just not possible at my surgery 😒

It's great that people can book timeslots for things if that suits them, but it won't suit everyone.

I am beginning to think neurotypical is used far too vaguely. It makes sense to differentiate from a specific neurodiverse condition, but it seems to be used as though 90% of people experience life the same way, whereas many people find bits of "normal" life hard.

@Tooting33

It's great that people can book timeslots for things if that suits them, but it won't suit everyone.

So whose "rights" trump others, then? Some people like it, some people don't. Unless you're going to set up dual systems to allow both to happen (which kind of negates the whole point), one group of people are going to be unhappy.

Yeesss 🙌

Unfortunately my ND means that I now struggle so much. I find it almost impossible to think about more than a couple of days in advance. I can barely decide what I want to do on the present day, let alone book weeks ahead.

I think it's also affluence, cheaper flights, and the normalisation of taking multiple holidays. I was chatting to the woman on the supermarket checkout recently, she was going on her 5th holiday abroad this year. When I started secondary school (years ago now!) many of my schoolfriends had never been abroad. I had, but I didn't get on a plane till I was in my late teens.

Too true. It's impossible now to go away and just find somewhere to stay and eat. I'm not j talking about peak periods. This covers low season as well!
Restaurant walk ins, forget it, or join an epic queue.
Everywhere is so busy now. I'm old BTW. I read Versailles has 15 million visitors a year.
Aagh!😂

It's local too. My sister got up at 5.30 and stood outside in a queue at 6am at a leisure centre, to put her kids name for swimming lessons which started registration at 9am. I kid you not. I'm in a different city and no way would I do that, unheard of. But then I have to book restaurants always and beauty stuff well in advance. School places are really tricky here. By contrast my friend in a more rural small town still has a lot of spontaneous options.

I would have thought having a mixture of methods to buy tickets would have been extremely practical. Society should be set up to work for as many as possible.

Mine still do this! It is so irritating. A 10 minute slot. I just don’t plan my life that well to meet a 10 minute tip slot. It’s ridiculous.

I don't do mobile so at this rate all the dog and me will ever get to do is go for walks. To have to book everything in advance takes all sponteneity away from life.

I went to visit my son in hospital the other day only to find that I should have made an appointment to visit and that all visitors had to phone the ward from the corridor outside to ask them to let me in through the two locked doors.

My DH is a booking refusenik and we are usually turned away when we try to go out for a Sunday lunch anywhere at all.

I live in a tourist area, everywhere is still, at almost the end of the season, and has been throughout, advertising for staff. Shortage of staff is a problem in leisure & hospitality at the moment.

I think people think there's an endless supply of others willing to serve the masses and be grateful for it, take the abuse and crap that comes with it and be grateful for the opportunity to do it for low wages and zero benefits (and hours contracts). There's not - less and less people want to work in that environment.

You've got to manage customer numbers to account for low staff numbers to meet the expectations (or try to, seems impossible at the moment tbh) of those customers. Booking, withdrawal of booking and restricting numbers by managing is the only way to not put the staff you do have under ridiculous amounts of pressure and getting shouted at by customers for their efforts. They'll just leave. I've seen it so many times over the last couple of years.

The industry is having to change to keep staff, those that are offering more money, that are recognising their staff don't just exist to serve the masses and nothing else and who are actively protecting staff from abuse, aggressive behaviour etc are the ones that will keep their staff - customers don't like it.

And as much as there's no business without the customers, there's no business without the staff either.

We don't have booking for swimming (other than specialist stuff like junior jetskis) or the tip. I'm glad because I don't always plan these things ahead.

I loathe those portals, I have to deal with three of them and they honestly don't do any more for me than an ordinary messaging system such as email. The most ridiculous one simply takes a message sent on it and forwards it to the email to which it could have been directed in the first place. My accountants had one for a while but gave up on it when people complained that essential messages were being wiped too quickly.

Most solicitors that I deal with now simply keep hitting reply on the received email so that I can have the whole discussion on one email. I actually would not use a solicitor that used a silly portal now. If I need to sign a document I simply scan it and sent it back electronically, with the original following by post. (Though the post is another story, my last attempt to use "Signed For" took a week and several things have been accepted into the system and then vanished, never to be seen again. There is no method of contacting a real human and no email address to chase them up).
Sorry, rant over.