Ideas of hell (lighthearted)

[lilacao]

Lighthearted thread, prompted by trying to return a dress with no returns form. If there is no returns slip included, it tells you to contact customer care. This puts you on an email/text/whatsapp automated loop where you’re sent a standard response about how to return a dress, which you’ve already explained has stated you need to contact customer care if there wasn’t a return form, who then ask for all the details again, who then send a cut and paste, who then say will contact you as unexpected volumes of people contacting them, who then contact you etc etc. Driving me insane.

Some other things:
— lengthy hold times where you go through endless options, each leading to more hold times and no answers

•as above, but someone answers and gives you another number to call. Process above repeated. Extra points if direct you back to first number

•stuck in a traffic jam, especially if need the toilet

•kids homework / last minute dress up requests from school that involve procuring stuff online or trekking round shops at the last minute

• a loop of icebreaker exercises

•the fight for 8am call to doctors. Bring back some pre-bookables 🙏

•stuck with the person who takes ten hours to tell a five minute story.

What are some things that are your idea of hell?

Women talking about their skincare routines

Indoor public swimming pools

Hold messages that keep repeating the web address very slowly, including the ‘www dot’ which is redundant

Competitive parenting

Not quite along the same lines, but I don’t do camping, crowds or loud music. I’ve always thought Hell will be a kind of eternal Glastonbury.

Disneyland.
Thorpe Park.
Las Vegas

Genuinely my idea of hell.

Disneyland for me!!

Ice breakers
Workshops in general
Neworking events
Getting on a train and it’s full of football/ rugby men/there’s a stag do
Getting on a train and there’s a hen do
The tube
People playing music out loud in public

I think there’s a theme here 😄

Other people. Hell is in hello. Heaven is in goodbye and now it’s time for me to go.

‘Working in small groups….’ Arrgh!!!

Living with toddlers.

People eating on public transport. You would never get Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter biting into a burger, spilling the contents, licking her fingers and then stuffing the packaging in the gap between the seats 😡🤢

I went to an industry event at ExCel yesterday. That.

All of the above.
I will add voice recognition software used to get through to a human in customer services when the software asks for your postcode and then won’t let you progress because it can’t detect the difference between x and s so tells you your postcode does not match your account.
Also, parties. Any parties. Hate them.

🤮I hate hate hate this with a passion also ‘turn to the person sitting next to you and ask then 3 things about themselves then feed this back to the room.’

No.

People throwing balls in pools on holiday- if you don't want to swim, get out
People playing ball on the beach-why do they do that? It's only a matter of time before the ball hits someone
people who drink too much, early am at the airport, then nasty, rude, or argumentative with other passengers-why do they do that? if your holiday can only start after you drink yourself stupid at 6am, you need to rethink your life surely?

A famous philosopher once said " Hell is other people "

A fancy dress yoga party at a vegan spa retreat.

😂😂😂 I love how specific this is!

I can relate to quite a few of these. There needs to be a special place in hell for rubbish voice recognition software and people who play music/have calls on loudspeaker in public.

“Unexpected” in automated messages also does lots of heavy lifting.
”Unexpected demand for calls, but your call is important to us”. Really? Is that why you still haven’t put in sufficient resource to deal with these important-to-you calls?

”Unexpected levels of staff sickness” Maybe sometimes, but mostly is it really unexpected? Indirectly/directly making people come in when contagious/sick as though that’s magically going to improve rather than reduce overall productivity, not going to make others sick, not even opening a window or spending a few quid on a Hepa filter so viral load in work environment is lower. Is it unexpected or are you doing absolutely nothing to reduce what should be an expected amount of illness and then acting surprised? This messaging seems to have got even worse since covid arrived, because somehow having another prevalent virus around is going to make less illness?

Having a zillion people on a teams call for no apparent reason, which then ends up with another meeting involving only the people who should have been involved in the first one.

Loss of spontaneity - want to pop somewhere for an hour? Sure. Piss around on a rubbish app, book a slot, get there early so you can queue up with everyone else for that slot to have booking checked and scanned, piss around with another rubbish app beforehand to park. Wait for verified by visa to work and email/text another confirmation code for the free parking, which is no longer free as you need to pay bloody admin charge to parking app. I miss being able to turn up on off chance and just pay and go in.

i think my period is due! 😂

lengthy hold times where you go through endless options, each leading to more hold times and no answers
•as above, but someone answers and gives you another number to call. Process above repeated. Extra points if direct you back to first number
This totally, but with the added factor that you get cut off once someone finally answers after a long wait or after you have been transferred. There is nothing more frustrating which makes me boil over and be consumed with total rage.

Not quite along the same lines, but I don’t do camping, crowds or loud music. I’ve always thought Hell will be a kind of eternal Glastonbury.
OMG totally yes - utter utter hell

Loss of spontaneity - want to pop somewhere for an hour? Sure. Piss around on a rubbish app, book a slot, get there early so you can queue up with everyone else for that slot to have booking checked and scanned, piss around with another rubbish app beforehand to park. Wait for verified by visa to work and email/text another confirmation code for the free parking, which is no longer free as you need to pay bloody admin charge to parking app. I miss being able to turn up on off chance and just pay and go in. TOTALLY

Supermarkets - carnage
Queuing - frustrating
Technology when it doesn't work
Crowded, noisy pubs
Nightclubs
Airports
Most shop

I don't fit in in the modern world

Mud run/ tough mudder
doing any job that involves working outdoors in cold/ wet weather for ages, or anything that involves driving long distances

my sister in law and bil are getting an 8wk old Labrador puppy on the first day of the school summer holidays and will be working from home with a six and four year old and a 4m square garden of artificial grass and genuinely, you couldn’t pay me enough to endure that for 6 weeks

Country walks with no pub/restaurant in sight
Camden Market
Any type of parade (Pride, Royal events, marches) too many people in one area.
Cinemas that are full
Pantomimes

A too early start to go and wait.

We were up at 5 am in order to get to a thing for 7:30 am. The thing still hasn't happened. Waiting rooms are uncomfortable, too well lit, too crowded, toilets are too high, food and drink options are sad...

Your first bit about the return form reminds me of the great Astérix and the many Doors sketch from one of the old movies.. bet it’s on YouTube. Perfect depiction of Kafkaesque bureaucracy.

Flies indoors. That almost-but-not-quite-constant buzzing, that gets faster and slower, nearer and farther with no rhyme or reason. Sudden silences that allow you to rest for no more than 30 seconds. Drives me round the twist. I tried to shoo one out of the house today, but would it go through the wide open patio door? Of course not. After three minutes of fruitless flapping I ended up swatting it just to stop the noise.

Baby showers
musical festivals
Dubai

Centre parcs
Cruises
Disneyland
Self order machines in cafes / restaurants
Hotdesking
Yoga classes
Those fish tank things where they nibble the dead skin off your feet
Swimming in the sea
The middle seat on a plane with strangers either side
Team building events
Networking events
Communal changing rooms