Does anyone else feel like life is increasingly buttoned down and hyper regulated?

[Hodofls]

It sometimes seems that there are rules about everything, rigid enforcement and cameras everywhere. If you get a new job you have to pass checks, have a trial six months, get inducted etc. If you get a car you can't park it most places, a lot of the time you can't drive it, or you have to pay, when you do park there's 5000 apps, one for each car park, all with their own finicky rules designed to have you break some tiny clause meaning a £120 charge. Using public transport doesn't help you, with approximately 1 million different train fares, and woe betide you get on the wrong London to Southampton train, even if you've got a ticket for London - Southampton. If you do manage to get out and about despite all this, you can't go anywhere unless you book in advance, and you never get a refund if the trip doesn't happen. Stopping at the shop on the way there to get some snacks? Download yet another app for loyalty prices or get ripped off. Meanwhile quality everywhere is dropping. Nobody seems to want to regulate that.

No, i don’t

sound like you’ve had a bad day!

Totally agree. As a law abiding, middle aged woman I feel a bit of a mug paying for all these things whilst hooded electric bike clad hoards ignore the lot.

YANBU. There's no scope for being spontaneous anymore. As you say, apps for everything. Lots of attractions require pre-booking often meaning a wasted trip if you just turn up without pre-planning, i.e. if you see an attraction as you pass it and call in, you're often told it's pre-booking only these days. Some places don't even have a "reception" to buy entry tickets as it's all online.

Driving round city centres is a nightmare trying to keep an eye for the bus lane restrictions (often signs printed too small to see as you pass at the speed limit), bus gates, "blue circle" signs instead of the red no entry signs, finding yourself "trapped" going through restrictions, all the while being bullied/intimidated by taxis/buses six inches from your bumper giving you no time to properly consider the signage etc.

A big yes to regulation - so many rules/regulations to comply with for even the simplest of things. Yet, the criminal elements seem to get away with fake documents or have their own "communities" where the laws/regulations are ignored. Whether it's fake passports, "sharing" driving licences, fake/cloned car registration plates, illegal working, the black economy of tax evasion and benefit fraud etc.

Yes to car parks too. So many different apps you have to download, and then you often struggle to get a good internet connection to actually pay online, and find there is no "machine" at the car park to pay in person.

No

Nail on the head. I think the same when I see shoplifters blatantly take stuff off the shelves in our village supermarket and blazenly walk out not even trying to hide it. Not "homeless" people either - mostly it's tradesmen, typically scaffolders and roofers in their works vans as they pass through the village. The shop manager says the police tell her they're on fake plates or unregistered so can't be traced despite the vans being logo'd with business name and phone numbers provided to the police via the shop's external CCTV.

And going for dinner, or even lunch, is so difficult if you don’t book. No chance for spontaneity any more.

100% with you it’s tiring. I wonder if it affects those of us with ADHD more as I personally struggle with rigidity and rules and like to be spontaneous- not to mention the need to be organised in order to comply.

Not quite the same thing but I hate how digital everything is becoming these days. We had a letter to post so went to put it in the postbox by our local Morrisons. The postbox had a QR code you had to scan to open the postbox 😐 I understand it's for parcels, but I just wanted to post a bloody letter!

I agree, especially online where things never work and it takes forever to sort things out. For example, DH was just trying to claim delay repay and the photo of the ticket wouldn't upload.

And forms that want a particular format but don't tell you which format until you've put it in "wrong" eg postcodes - do they want ABCD 1EF or ABCD1EF. Or phone numbers - do they want a space between the code and the number or not.

It's tedious.

However, I quite like the fact that you have to book to go to the tip now as it means no queues. And if I want to go swimming I can see how busy the lane is likely to be and if it's worth going.

I think life is just too fast moving now - we have to work faster and faster and our brains can't keep up.

@Badbadbunny yes roads are full of shit and clutter - so many signs, poles, different coloured bits of road, drive here, don't drive there, changing every five yards. But no clear markings at roundabouts, and the information boards have trees growing over them.

Even booking a bloody GP appointment, all that online fucking faff so a bot can read your symptoms.

Everyday interactions feel increasingly like being trapped in a gigantic phone menu. Press one to attend a virtual safeguarding training session, press two to select your burger topping, press three to walk up the correct set of stairs.

I also find the apps for everything tedious. Unless you have a very expensive top of the range phone, they just don't have enough storage to have an app for every retailer, hotel chain, travel company plus your other interests! The more you have on there, the more the performance of your phone will suffer. I stayed in a premier inn last weekend and wanted to check in online but you can't do it on their website, you have to download the app. Once I'd done it, I deleted it again.

The digitisation of everything is a massive pain in the arse. You buy one thing online and despite ticking boxes saying you don't want emails, they bombard you regardless. By 'they' I mean just about every single company.
And loyalty apps for supermarkets where you get cheaper items, this is literally a tax on those who don't wish to share their data. They all just need to fuck off basically.