Minor Annoyances (Vol 2)

[tiger_rick]

43 minutes ago, Dai said:

Amazon own Ring which explains them trying to rinse you for even more money.

 

My annoyance is companies using "AI" to advertise things that really dont need it, as they think it makes the company sounds cool. It was the same years back when companies would put "i-" in front of stuff to make it sound great. There was an electric shaver which was called "i-Shave" or something as equally stupid a few years back, and it was by one of the big companies too.

In the last day I have seen a beer advertising stand in Sainsburys say something like "Made using AI", and also seen an advert for smart sunglasses which are "AI powered". Plenty of car adverts seem to do it too.

I watched a review of an air-fryer with built in AI and the AI element was pretty tosh. Slightly more advanced than the current buttons with a guess at what it was cooking but almost all something that could have been done 20 years ago if anyone really wanted a fancy touch screen on their kitchen equipment. Now if the AI was used to weigh your chicken and time it, take the temperature to see if meat was cooked, give your oven chips a shake halfway through, divert the heat to the bits that it missed or clean the thing for you, then we'd have something worth buying.

[DavidB6937]

People that manage to get confused and sit in the wrong seats in the cinema.

How? It's really not that difficult to read.

I assume they're just faking being idiots and decided to sit wherever they wanted, which still makes them idiots but still.

It's half fucking empty anyway!

Idiots.

[BomberPat]

I assume it is that, but it does baffle me - cinema, theatres, planes, wherever, when people either sit in the wrong place, or seem completely flustered and unable to find their seats. Staring at a row of seats labelled "D" and not being able to figure out from that where "F" might be. You wonder how they make it through daily life.

I was on a flight a while back where a couple sat in the wrong seats, and when it was pointed out to them, rather than apologise and move, or even try and check where their actual seats were, started to direct traffic and tell other people "those seats there are free, so if you sit there...", without considering that the plane wasn't boarded yet so chances are those seats were also booked by someone else. They had an air of genuinely feeling like they were being proactive and helpful about it, too, completely oblivious to the fact that they were ignoring the very simple solution, that they were in the wrong, and that they were behaving like absolute arseholes.

While I'm on airport complaints, there was a group on both flights I caught last week. On the way there, we were delayed once boarded, so ended up all sat on the plane on the runway while the pilot waited for clearance to leave. They kept getting up and wandering around the plane, for no discernible reason - they were all sat together, so they weren't going and talking to mates, nor did they seem to be talking to cabin crew. Had to be told several times that they needed to be sat down with their seatbelts on, because they might delay us being able to take off. Surprise, they weren't sat down when the pilot got clearance, and the couple of minutes while they were corralled into their seats turned the delay from ten minutes to half an hour.

On the flight back, I ended up behind them in the queue for security. The oldest bloke among them stopped to remove several cans of Fosters and half a bottle of brandy from his hand luggage, indignant that he couldn't take them with him. The other side of security, his (presumably) wife and kid were stopped, because they both had cans of drink in their bags, and the wife had a load of toiletries over the allowable volume. Then he was stopped, because he still had two cans of Coke in his bag, and seemed to have thought that the problem with the previous drinks he'd had taken off him was because they were alcoholic, not because they were liquids. Just an utter dipshit. I try to have some sympathy for people at security because maybe they haven't flown before and they don't know the rules - though even that requires me to excuse them having not read or listened to a single instruction the entire time they're at the airport - but this bloke definitely had, because he'd been on the previous fucking flight.

[davertfnewman]

I knew alcohol, drugs or stimulants were going to be part of that story when reading about their behaviour.

[Devon Malcolm]

The worst ones are the people who absolutely insist on sitting in their precise seats when the cinema is empty, even if it means sitting practically next to you when 95% of the rest of the seats are empty. It's not a Thursday evening preview of the latest Batman reboot, you bellend, it's a 10:15am screening of a Gerard Butler film. Sit somewhere else.

[King Coconut]

1 hour ago, Devon Malcolm said:

The worst ones are the people who absolutely insist on sitting in their precise seats when the cinema is empty, even if it means sitting practically next to you when 95% of the rest of the seats are empty. It's not a Thursday evening preview of the latest Batman reboot, you bellend, it's a 10:15am screening of a Gerard Butler film. Sit somewhere else.

If they don't care that you're close but you do, and the cinema is empty, why don't you change seats? I don't understand this being even a minor annoyance. Unless it boils down to you being there first. That, I can understand.

[Devon Malcolm]

1 hour ago, King Coconut said:

If they don't care that you're close but you do, and the cinema is empty, why don't you change seats? I don't understand this being even a minor annoyance. Unless it boils down to you being there first. That, I can understand.

Of course I'd be there first. Otherwise I'd be the minor annoyance.

[Rossman]

I had it once, where I reversed into a car parking space at Aldi. Someone else came along and parked next to me, front facing. They parked so close to me, there was no way, me or them could now get out of the car. I looked at them bemused, but they then decided to turn away and have a chat with the person in the passenger seat. With no way of getting out and communicating not an option. I moved the car a couple of spaces down. Soon as I did that, they got out and went to the shop. Even weirder, down the first few aisles, we were side by side going round the shop....in silence. Such an odd experience.

[Slapnut]

I recently booked a hotel and parking at Heathrow Airport for November and went with one of those mystery hotels where they tell you the hotel after you’ve booked it, with the promise of a guaranteed saving.

At the time of booking, this was £145 and a few pence. There was also another hotel available at the exact same price, but I assumed it wouldn’t be that hotel because there’s no saving.

Lo and behold, after booking the mystery hotel, the hotel I was allocated was the other one at the exact same price, so I’ve not made a guaranteed saving as promised. Just to rub salt in the wound, if I’d booked the hotel itself I would have got free cancellation, but this doesn’t apply if you book the mystery hotel.

I’ve finally had a response to the complaint I raised today and they’ve supposedly looked back at the date I booked and confirmed the hotel would have been more expensive if I hadn’t booked the mystery hotel, and asked me to send along any screenshots as proof that both options were the same price. Obviously I don’t have this, so I asked for some sort of evidence that their systems are showing it was the same price on that day, to which they responded with the most basic Excel sheet that could have been knocked up in seconds.

I’m bloody fed up of companies making these sort of mistakes and not owning up to it.

 

[Your Fight Site]

23 hours ago, BomberPat said:

I was on a flight a while back where a couple sat in the wrong seats, and when it was pointed out to them, rather than apologise and move, or even try and check where their actual seats were, started to direct traffic and tell other people "those seats there are free, so if you sit there...",

I had a similar event, but on a train, a couple of months ago.

I’d booked a table seat like I always do. Got on the carriage to find a bunch of middle-aged women sat in all four seats. Told them I had one of the seats and the women in it went, “That’s fine, we have the ones behind you can have.” Thanks, but no, thanks. Told her I’d booked the table seat as I had worked to do, so she get up with a face like her arse whilst I took my seat and got my laptop out.

I didn’t have any work to do, but she ticked me off so I just doubled down on principle given, y’know, it was actually my seat. If her and her mates all wanted to sit together, they should have booked enough seats together.

[BomberPat]

the closest I've got to getting in a fight on a train was on an absurdly busy train from Manchester to London, when someone had their massive camping rucksack on the seat I'd booked, and they refused to give it up because there was nowhere else free to put their bag. Asking, "did your bag buy a ticket?" didn't go down well.

[Statto]

That's just unlocked a memory of bearing witness to a very similar altercation between my high school drama teacher and an American tourist who refused to move their bag to let one of our cohort get a seat as we were on the way back from a residential trip.

Whilst generally a very mild mannered guy, my teacher had grown up and taught in some of the rougher areas of Liverpool. Scouse Hugh definitely came out that day.

[TheBurningRed]

Getting the train back from Cardiff to Reading, we had booked two table seats as there were 8 of us. We had people seating in our section of four seats and asked them to move. They refuse with the excuse of “we’re getting off at Bristol, can’t you sit somewhere else until then”. Despite explaining we had paid good money, the still refused until we got the train guard. They seemed happy to move then and apologised. Few minutes later, the main mouthy woman came back with a bag of rubbish and tipped all over table and our game of travel monopoly and insulted us in Welsh.

Stopped myself from launching the empty Lucozade bottle back at her as I know it would’ve gone tit for tit of throwing rubbish at each other. 

Edited August 27, 2025 by TheBurningRed

[WyattSheepMask]

Watching the race to get the table seats is my favourite part of a train journey.

Im the total opposite, I’d rather be in the small space (next to the window preferably, but not essential)

[davertfnewman]

Not a seats story, but I took the train to a nearby town the other night and two girls got on who were pissed out of their heads, one more than the other. They were loud and obnoxious on the platform, then could be heard down the train as it was going. The drunker one wouldn't sit down, despite plenty of available seats, and instead held on to the bar above and kept on swaying here and there for "comic" effect, making lots of noise. I said out loud that it would be such a shame if she fell out of the train on one of the next stops and didn't get back on.

Getting off, I was stood by a nurse who was heading off to start her shift. I told her she might be seeing those girls later on in the evening with a cardboard bowl in front of them.