Poorly designed things that make using them difficult?

[Whatisthisfuckery]

Spice jars, who in hell has designed the dimensions of spice jars? What measurement of spices does one usually find in a recipe? Teaspoons. What can you not quite fit in a spice jar? A fucking teaspoon. Whose bloody bright idea was it to design a jar that makes it hard to dispense the most common measurement of the ingredient contained within?

Ahh, that’s better, I needed that rant.

Go on, rant away. What poorly designed thing makes you angry inside?

/\ For @exiledfromcornwall

Placemarking as I wrote a long post and then it vanished! So mnhq are not immune from this thread

Will post my agreements and suggestions tomorrow but I have definitely found my people!

Another complaint about the soy sauce bottles with a hole each side. I keep my jars and bottles in a cupboard that really should be a pull out one but isn't, so they are stacked due to lack of space.

Many times something has fallen and the soy sauce bottle has been knocked over, resulting in soy sauce everywhere, and it pongs. How difficult would it be to make a top for it to stop it leaking if it falls over?

I tipped it into a vinegar bottle in the end, at least there is only one hole in the top of that. It did cause confusion at first, with those who can't read a label that clearly says 'soy sauce'.

People buy your spices in packets from the Asian shops and decant into jam jars or or a masala dabba and get a spice spoon.

My Kenwood stick blender. This is the lid of the mini food-processor attachment. It comes into direct contact with food. It gets splashed with food. If you open up the goblet to add ingredients, bits often get stuck inside the socket for the blade. Fair enough, so you wash it.

Only it's not washable. Not even by hand. This part of the food-processor, with all its little crevices and food-traps, cannot be immersed in water. Arggggggggggh

I 'wash' my blender by blending hot soapy water.

@Mamanyt

"Child-proof" medication bottles. I have arthritis in my hands, and always have my neighbor's 7-year-old son come open bottles for the first time. To be fair, you can reverse the lids to be non-child-proof, but I have to have a CHILD open them for me the first time!

You can ask the pharmacy to supply the medicine in non child resistant (not child proof as nothing is child proof!) packaging if it is causing you difficulty to open it.

@LoisWilkersonslastnerve

A couple of weeks ago I couldn't get the sticker off an apple after ten minutes of clawing at it! Ended up just eating the stubborn twat.

I HAVE DONE THAT, TOO! I'd rather chew the paper than struggle!

Not really packaging, but when bookshops put stickers on books which then don’t come off without leaving sticker residue all over your nice new book cover.

@Saoirse7

Bags of flour.

Why? They spill everywhere, even before it's open. Why not sell them in a similar container to baby formula??

I decant my flour into a couple of formula tins! Much easier to spoon it out and store.

@miserablecat

My washing machine has a timer. Except it totally makes up the time. It can go one hour, 20 mins, 40 mins, 25 mins, half an hour then suddenly down to 9 mins, back up to 15 and then down to 5. I was so annoyed I looked it up in the manual. It said that all times are estimates and can vary.

My car has estimated miles left and is stupidly annoying. Leaving the supermarket about 8 miles away it will tell me I've got 45 miles left, by the time I get home it will invariably say 15. Next time I go out, by the time I've backed off the drive theres apparently only 10 miles left. The drive is the length of my car btw!

And the plug in the basin in our downstairs toilet has about 2mm difference between being open and closed. My DC used to wash their hands in there after baking and it couldnt cope with any sort of crumbs or dirt. My DH had to take the whole thing apart!

My car does this. It is because of slope that stop the petrol reaching the sensor I think. On my sloping drive it often says I only have a few miles left but once I pull onto the flat road the left miles increases.

Teapots. They always dribble when you pour the tea. Every single teapot, every single time

@BaskingMad

Packs of Tesco finest ham - resealing flap always sticks to the tray with ham once pulled out. Pisses me of every time.

@BaskingMad I finally figured out that these packs are designed to be opened fully i.e. pull open the 'flap' with reseal sticker but also open the main section down each 'seam'. The wee cardboard tray doesn't slide out - it stays put. The side seams then kind of reseal and you close as normal.

@mommybunny

Re:spices - ones I use regularly are often cheaper in the bulk “ethnic” section of my local Sainsbury’s so I buy them there and decant into washed out jam jars.

I hate bacon packaging. I make bacon once-twice per week and never use up a whole pack in one go, but the packs don’t reseal and the bacon dries out and sticks together between uses.

I wrap the bacon pack in a freezer bag.

@SnugglySnerd
I think the slope does make a difference ...but sometimes it stays like that. I also think it depends if you're travelling at constant speed or stopping/starting. How old is your car? Mine is about 14 years old.im hoping to get a new(er) one this year and hoping that feature may be improved!

The auto-correct on Fire tablets. Designed by a twisted sadist. Those people with Fire tablets will know my pain.

The plastic lids to cardboard coffee cups that don't fit properly once the cup is full of hot liquid.

Can ring pulls that snap off as soon as you get hold of them.

Some posi drive screwdrivers that don't seem to fit any screw head ever created.

Bin liners that don't tear off properly, leaving a nice little hole in one corner of the bag.t

And on...and on....

All of you struggling with washing detergent containers, please may I recommend Tru Earth? Miraculous dissolvable strips that you put in the washing machine drawer and they work like magic. All of my bottles and plastic pots now gone, with one small cardboard box to last a year !

Bloody revelation (and the box was easy to open). Doesn't stop my maniacally efficient German washing machine beeping at me all the b,oddly time though.

And no, I'm not an MLM bot

@mellicauli

There has been a subtle change in dynamic with my new washing machine. With the old one, I felt that it was there to wash my clothes and generally do my bidding. If it had finish it would give me a friendly beep to remind me to take the clothes out. If I didn't, it might try again but then just give up.

But the new one, when it's done it beeps, not just once or twice but again and again, in a judgmental kind of way. So insistent that the whole family are involved in doing its bidding now. It is certainly the boss of us all and it knows it.

Is it an AEG/Electrolux? Mine is - in mine there is a way to switch it off although it's not obvious, it's buried in the instructions. It was either that or I'd have been disabling it manually with a hammer. "Look! Look! Mummy, look! I've done the washing! Mummyyyyyy! Looooook!" Oh god no.

@UhtredRagnarson

Vinegar bottles without the sprinkler top. What’s the point?

So that I can pour it into my posh Le Creuset vinegar bottle

Those stupid metal tea pots they have in cafes that piss tea and hot water everywhere.
If I was in charge for a day, that day they would all be recycled and a law passed banning them forever. Possibly in memory of my Dad who was infuriated by them. It would be known as Derek's law.

I have to say the single only useful thing I got from Tupperware party was a pair of shallow fridge boxes for an opened ham and bacon. They could be slightly larger but better than nothing. If only DH would use them.

Pepper pot refilling, just make a funnel/tunnel with one hand and pour them in.

@Inpeace

Tea Pots - or is the routine dripping an intended functionality

I’m a big tea drinker and like you was endlessly frustrated by the drip. And then I found the perfect pot. Game changer.

[quote miserablecat]@SnugglySnerd
I think the slope does make a difference ...but sometimes it stays like that. I also think it depends if you're travelling at constant speed or stopping/starting. How old is your car? Mine is about 14 years old.im hoping to get a new(er) one this year and hoping that feature may be improved![/quote]
Mine is about 4 years old. Yes the speed must make a difference though, it must mean "30 miles left if you keep going at 70 mph" and then change to 50 miles when you slow to 50 or whatever.

@cailleach
You need a different screwdriver. There’s Pozi & Phillips screwheads.

Microsoft Teams

ANY phone message that directs you towards their website.

If I wanted to go online I wouldn’t have rung up. Gives me the rage.

And don’t get me started on any voice recognition message that starts with ‘tell us in a few words.....’ AGGGHHHHH